Dedication, Decline and Deliverance (Nehemiah 12:44–13:31)

It was a very important day in the history of Jerusalem when the people held their dedication service regarding the wall that Nehemiah had rebuilt. Yet it would be appropriate to ask if there were any consequences of that meeting. Nehemiah informs us in the passage we are considering that there were both good and bad outcomes. The good outcomes occurred immediately, on the same day, but the bad ones took a while, even a few years, to show themselves. Yet there were connections between them because some of the bad outcomes appeared in the areas of life improved by the good outcomes.

The Good Outcomes

The first good outcome is detailed in 12:44-47. Supervisors of storerooms were appointed to look after the donations or tithes that the people of Judah gladly gave for the upkeep of the priests and Levites (the Levites did various tasks, such as being gatekeepers of the temple or singers in the temple as well as reading God’s Word to the people). Those contributions by the people were made at different times in the year. It was evidence of the commitment of the people to God that they took seriously what was offered to him and what was done with it. Their generosity to God’s cause was connected to their gladness in God’s mercy (v. 44). There was an order regarding how this was done, as is stated in verse 47: ‘And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah gave the daily portions for the singers and the gatekeepers; and they set apart that which was for the Levites; and the Levites set apart that which was for the sons of Aaron.’

The second good outcome is described in 13:1-3. It happened because the Levites had been reading the Scriptures to the people and the selected passage was one which said that no Ammonite or Moabite could participate in the worship of God (Deut. 23:1-3). This exclusion was a divine judgement – they had sowed what they had reaped. The Moabite ruler Balak hired the false prophet Balaam to curse Israel, but instead God had cursed them because of their attempt to cause his people to sin. Upon discovering this divine requirement concerning those enemies of Israel, the people of Judah immediately put it into practice. It did not mean that a repentant Moabite or Ammonite could not join with Israel – Ruth the Moabitess is an example of one from their history who did. But until such people repented of their idolatry and other sins, they could not participate in the worship of God in Jerusalem.

There is a period of twelve years between what happened in verses 1-3 and verse 4. Nehemiah went to Babylon to report to the emperor there about what had taken place in Jerusalem during the time he had been the governor (13:6). He went in the thirty-second year of the emperor Artaxerxes, which was twelve years after Nehemiah had first come to Jerusalem to help in its recovery with the permission of the emperor (Neh. 2:1). All the details of improvements connected to the building of the wall took only a few months to happen during his first year there, which means that nothing is said about the next eleven years in Jerusalem. Presumably, nothing of note took place and probably Nehemiah had no fears about the situation in the city when he went away. We are not told how long he was away, but four changes took place during that time which caused him great distress when he returned. He describes for us what those four changes were and what he did about them.

The ‘Now before this’ at the beginning of verse 4 does not refer to something that was done before the events connected to the day when the wall was dedicated, although we could read the phrase in that way. Rather the ‘before this’ is concerned about what happened when Nehemiah came back to the city after being away in Babylon visiting the emperor.

The bad outcomes

The first problem that Nehemiah mentions concerns the activity of Eliashib, the high priest, of whom nothing much has been said since Chapter 3 when he was involved in the building of the wall. As high priest he had overall authority of the temple buildings, including the storehouses in which the various tithes from the people were kept (13:4-9). Maybe he was out of the limelight in the previous chapters because Nehemiah did not trust him fully (and if that was the case, we can see why in his actions recorded here). Whatever the reason, he came to the fore when Nehemiah had left the city, but his contributions were not good.

Eliashib was related to Tobiah, the Jew who had been appointed as governor of the area where the Ammonites lived by the Persian emperor. For some reason, Eliashib decided that a large room in the courts of the temple, that was designed for storing the contributions from the people, could be given to Tobiah, perhaps for an office connected to his work as a Persian governor. From one viewpoint, since Tobiah was a Jew, what was wrong with giving him a room? Nehemiah did not accept that was a valid argument because Tobiah was not interested in the success of the restored city. He had opposed the building of the wall and he had allied himself previously with other opponents of what Nehemiah was doing.

As we can see from verse 8, Nehemiah ‘was very angry, and … threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the chamber.’ In addition, he had the temple cleansed of this defilement and he restored the room as a place for keeping temple utensils and storing items used in the temple offerings. Nehemiah regarded the tolerant attitude of Eliashib as sacrilege. The enemy had been allowed into a place where he should not have been.

The second problem that Nehemiah discovered concerned ill-treatment of the Levites by the temple officials (vv. 10-13). They had not been provided with the food items due to them through tithing, so they had gone back to work on their fields in order to have food for themselves and their families. The outcome was that there were no workers in the city to serve in the temple. Nehemiah quickly restored the Levites to their roles, resumed the system of tithing of grain, wine and oil, and appointed reliable men to be in charge of the process. As with the first defect, he sorted out the problems immediately.

Both those problems were connected to the temple and its worship, and we can see from verse 14 that Nehemiah made the function of the temple a specific matter for earnest prayer: ‘Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.’ We are not to assume that his prayer request was a one-off petition that he did not repeat. His experience had taught him that unless prayer is constant, spiritual decline can happen very quickly.

Nehemiah also discovered that there were two other sinful practices taking place, including Sabbath-breaking (13:11-22). There was a failure of the Jews to keep the Sabbath, both in the countryside and in Jerusalem, with regard to crops and other produce. Their Sabbath-breaking was combined with fish-selling on the Sabbath by merchants from Tyre who were now living in the city (an unexpected development given that Nehemiah had been very careful about who could live in the city).

Evidently, the breaking of the Sabbath had been encouraged by the rulers and Nehemiah confronted them about what they were permitting to take place. He reminded those nobles that God had punished their ancestors for similar sins and that their behaviour would bring renewed divine wrath on God’s people. Therefore Nehemiah had to take practical steps to prevent such action by the Sabbath-breakers continuing. He even extended the roles of the Levitical gatekeepers at the temple and gave them the additional task of manning the gates of the city to prevent any trading taking place on the Sabbath.

As was his response to the desecration of the temple by Eliashib and the mistreatment of the Levites, Nehemiah prayed about the Sabbath breaking. His prayer in verse 22 indicates that his assessment was that he had to be present in order for the Sabbath to be maintained, which means that he could not trust other leaders to have the same outlook: ‘Remember this also in my favour, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love.’

The fourth evidence of decline that Nehemiah observed was that some Jews had married women from the surrounding pagan communities of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab (13:23-29). The consequence was that their children did not speak the language of Judah, with more of them speaking the language of Ashdod than the language of either Ammon or Moab. This description is a reminder of the influence that mothers have on their children.

Nehemiah’s response was very forceful and compelled the Jews not to continue such practices. It is possible that the beating he administered was a form of punishment and the removal of hair was designed to cause shame. Those men should have known better because they were aware of what had happened to Solomon after he had married women who did not worship God. They had led him into the sin of idolatry, which is an act of treachery against the Lord and a great evil. The same would happen to those in Judah who were guilt of imitating his practice.

An example of such a person was a grandson of the high priest, Eliashib. This grandson, who was also a priest, had married a daughter of Sanballat, the ruler of Samaria. Nehemiah would have nothing to do with this man and forced him to go away from his presence. Regarding those guilty of this departure from the ways of God, he committed them into the hands of God for him to deal with such: ‘Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites’ (v. 29).

By making those responses, Nehemiah brought about a spiritual recovery in Jerusalem and Judah. He arranged for the temple to be cleansed from what defiled it, he ensured that the priests and the Levites fulfilled their responsibilities as religious leaders, he made sure that enough wood was available to keep the altar burning, and he provided a suitable place for storing the tithes given by the people (vv. 30-31).

How long did these changes last? How long was Nehemiah available to ensure they were kept? No one can say. But we know that he did what was required of him by the Lord.

Lessons

No doubt, there are several lessons that can be taken from this need of restoration by Nehemiah. The obvious one is that spiritual decline can happen very quickly. There are numerous examples of this sad reality in the Bible, and one book that deals with it is the Book of Judges which describes an ongoing cycle of spiritual prosperity followed by spiritual decline, with both lasting for decades. Another set of examples would be some of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3. This can be said of denominations and of congregations, and there are probably thousands of examples available from church history. But we don’t need to investigate them. Rather we should take note of the fact that spiritual decline can happen quickly.

A second lesson from Nehemiah’s experience is that sometimes a leader has to act alone. We can see that was the case in New Testament times when Paul sent Timothy to Ephesus and Titus to Crete. In God’s providence, there does not seem to have been anyone to help Nehemiah when he returned for a second time to the city. There may be many such people in the world today and we should pray about them that the Lord would give them strength and wisdom.

A third lesson from the response of Nehemiah is the necessity of righteous anger. Several commentators on the Book of Nehemiah have observed how out of sync with our contemporary culture is this feature of the reaction of Nehemiah. It is a fact that sinful practices by those who should have known better made Nehemiah angry in a righteous way. This response is mentioned several times in his book, and he never apologises for it. Sin is dreadful, especially when it concerns the things of God, whether it is his worship, his day, or the holiness of his people. He was right to be angry.

A fourth lesson from Nehemiah is his use of prayer. This is how his book began and it is how his book closes. Several times in this passage he mentions how he prayed and what he prayed for. We can ask God to teach us to make prayer our constant comment to him on all that we do.

A fifth lesson is the great privilege of serving God. Nehemiah served two emperors, but he knew which One was sovereign. He says very little about what he did for the Persian emperor, but he does explain what he did for God. No one speaks today about Nehemiah the official of the Persian empire, but they do speak about Nehemiah the servant of God. And one day, we will hear his God say to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’

The final lesson is that we can ask ourselves, ‘How committed are we when our leaders go away?’ It is obvious that many who served well when Nehemiah was there did not do so well when he was not there. That was not his fault. The others had a good example to follow, but when the moment came, they were nowhere to be found. Nehemiah left a witness fragrant with loyalty to his God. But what can be said of those who went missing when the cause needed them to stand?