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Corning up from the Valley of the Kidron, Palestine, toward St. Stephen’s Gate. Wall of Moriah and the Golden Gate (walled up for over 700 years) on skyline.
By Bartlett L. Hess, Ph.D.*
Because Nehemiah handed the cup of wine to the king each day, he had the king’s ear. Had the king not liked Nehe miah, he would not have placed Nehe miah by his side. All Nehemiah had to do was to take a few sips each day to make sure the wine had not been poisoned. Of course many precautions were taken before the cup reached Nehemiah. Nehemiah asked travellers from Jeru salem two things: “ concerning the Jews . . . and concerning Jerusalem” (Nehe miah 1 :2). They replied by telling him two things about the people and two things about Jerusalem. They called the people “the remnant.” When you women hear of a remnant sale, you know the store is selling off the cloth at the end of the bolt for reduced rates. The people at Jerusalem were “ the remnant”—those that were left. Their personal position was one of great affliction and suffering. Others regarded them with reproach, scorn. They scoffed at them. Jerusalem’s walls were broken down, gates burned with fire. Now Nehemiah could have said, “ That’s too bad. I wish I could do something, but I am needed here as the king’s cupbearer.” Floating in life’s good things, Nehemiah could have forgotten his fellows far away in Jerusalem. But Nehemiah faced the need of Jeru salem as his own responsibility. Many ask, “ Am I my brother’s keeper?” and shrug it off. Jerusalem was the work of God then. God’s work is all over the earth. Our local church is God’s work. People with out Christ is our own communities chal lenge us as God’s work. When we build Page Thirteen
end of the Middle Ages that walled castles and villages lost out. Nehemiah was a man whose great work was building a wall. He stands at the end of the Old Testament period. In 586 B.C. Jerusalem fell; the Babylonians destroyed its walls, temple and houses. After Babylon had in turn fallen to the Persians, Cyrus, King of Persia, let Zerubbabel and Ezra go back to Jeru salem to rebuild the temple. In 445 B.C. Nehemiah obtained a leave of absence from being Artaxerxes’ cupbearer to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. The city, revived by the building of the temple, lapsed back into utter weakness without a wall to protect it from its enemies all around. God laid upon the heart of Nehemiah that building the walls was his life work. He accomplished it with the co-operation of his people. Let us see how he did it. Face the Need The first thing Nehemiah did was to face the need of the work. At the end of November, 445 B.C., Hanani, a brother of Nehemiah, came back with other Jews from Jerusalem to Shushan or Susa in Persia. Shushan lay near the Persian Gulf. The Persian king used it as his winter palace. Nehemiah lived there in the palace for he was the king’s cup bearer. Nehemiah sat on a soft cushion in life. He was one of the high court officials of a great empire that reached from India to Egypt and Greece. He enjoyed a large salary, richly-furnished living quarters, the choicest of foods, the finest of clothes. He had arrived, though he belonged to a subject race.
“So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half there of ; for the people had a mind to work” (Neh. 4 : 6 ). I WAS riding through the streets of Arab Jerusalem that lie outside the Old City. My driver, and the owner of the car, was a brilliant woman who had done much for her fellow-Arab refu gees—Miss Asia Hallaby. It was night. On either side of the street stone walls frowned down on us. Walls surrounded the houses, courtyards, and the churches. I asked, “ Why are there so many walls? Walls divide.” “ Oh, yes,” said she, “ but walls pro tect.” There was the difference between the attitude of the East and the West toward walls. To the westerner walls separate people. We walk up and down our streets, look at our houses, lawns and flowers. We live together and do not fear each other. In the East walls keep out robbers, plunderers, unwelcome guests, keep in the family and friends. In villages where each house does not have its protecting walls, iron bars each window. At night as the murderer with his knife and gun stalks abroad, the rob ber would climb through the window or dig through and steal as the Lord Jesus said. Throughout all but the last seven hundred or so years of history, more than six thousand years, walls have been standard defences. It was only with the rise of the western nation-state at the * Pastor of the Warren Park Presby terian Church, Cicero, Illinois. M A R C H , 1 9 5 3
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