Nehemiah 4:2

Biblia Hebrica Stuttgartensia (1967/77)

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the army: Ezra 4:9, Ezra 4:10

feeble: 1 Samuel 14:11, 1 Samuel 14:12, 1 Samuel 17:43, 1 Samuel 17:44, Zechariah 12:8, 1 Corinthians 1:27

fortify themselves: Heb. leave to themselves

sacrifice: Nehemiah 12:27, Nehemiah 12:43

revive: Nehemiah 4:10, Ezekiel 37:3-13, Habakkuk 3:2

Reciprocal: 1 Samuel 17:42 - disdained 2 Kings 18:23 - I will deliver 1 Chronicles 11:8 - repaired Nehemiah 6:15 - fifty Psalms 14:6 - Ye Psalms 102:14 - General Psalms 123:3 - for we are Psalms 137:3 - wasted us Proverbs 11:12 - that Ecclesiastes 9:10 - thy hand Isaiah 36:8 - and I Jeremiah 9:11 - Jerusalem Jeremiah 26:18 - Jerusalem Jeremiah 33:24 - thus Lamentations 3:14 - General Zechariah 4:10 - despised John 4:9 - for John 18:35 - Amos I

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And he spake before his brethren,.... Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, and perhaps some other governors of the king of Persia in those parts:

and before the army of Samaria: which, and the inhabitants of it, were implacable enemies of the Jews:

and said, what do these feeble Jews? what do they pretend to do, or what can they do?

will they fortify themselves? by building a wall about their city; can they think they shall ever be able to do this, or that it will be allowed?

will they sacrifice? meaning not their daily sacrifice, as Jarchi, that they had done a long time, but for the dedication of their building, as Aben Ezra:

will they make an end in a day? they seem to be in as great a hurry and haste as if they meant it; and indeed, unless they can do it very quickly, they never will: they will soon be stopped:

will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burnt? where will they find materials? do they imagine that they can make burnt stones firm and strong again, or harden the dust and rubbish into stones, or make that, which is as if dead, alive? to do this is the same as to revive a dead man, and they may as well think of doing the one as the other; burnt stones being reckoned as dead, as Eben Ezra observes.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Nehemiah 4:2. The army of Samaria — As he was governor, he had the command of the army, and he wished to excite the soldiers to second his views against Nehemiah and his men.

What do these feeble Jews? — We may remark here, in general, that the enemies of God's work endeavour by all means to discredit and destroy it, and those who are employed in it.

1. They despise the workmen: What do these feeble Jews?

2. They endeavour to turn all into ridicule: Will they fortify themselves?

3. They have recourse to lying: If a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.

4. They sometimes use fair but deceitful speeches; see Nehemiah 6:2, &c.