Bible Commentaries
Nehemiah 13

Verses 1-31

XXIV

THE READING OF THE LAW AND RESETTLEMENT OF THE CITIES

Nehemiah 8-13

In Nehemiah 8 we have Ezra coming on the scene again. The date of this appearance is 444 B.C., and we have not heard from him since 456 B.C. He had dropped out of this history for about twelve years. He must have been called away just after his work in 456 B.C. and after a space of about twelve years returned to Jerusalem. The occasion that called him forth then was the reading of the Law.

We come now to look at the work of Ezra, with Nehemiah sustaining him in his work of reform. The great task of Ezra was the bringing of the law of Moses to Jerusalem and the adoption of that as the law of the land for the people. By this law of Moses is doubtless meant the Pentateuch. Ezra had not produced this book of the law thus far. The time had not been ripe for the reading of the Law and its explanation to the people. But the city was now fortified and organization perfected. Then Ezra went forth and produced this book of the Law. We are told in Nehemiah 8 that the people asked him to bring forth the book of the Law and read it.

Now we have a remarkable scene. It is unprecedented in history. One of the greatest revivals in the world now opened. He proceeded to organize the people. He had Levites and other officers to help him. A great assembly of all the people was convened. A pulpit had been built and Ezra took his place before all the people. He opened the book which was simply a roll. It was the law of Moses, that is, the laws of the Pentateuch. The great meeting went on. The Law was read by Ezra, and it was explained by the Levites.

The effect of the reading upon the people was that they began to weep. Why should they weep? Perhaps the reading was the setting forth of those awful chapters in Deuteronomy where the awful curses upon those who violated this Law were set forth. With their remembrance of what God had already done to them because they had violated this Law, and their remembrance of the sins they had committed, was enough to bring tears. Now Ezra tells them that they are not to weep; that this is a holy day, holy unto the Lord; so they should rejoice and not weep; that it was the joy of fellowship with God that was their strength.

Then follows the story of how they built booths and kept the feast. This was according to the law of Moses that had been read. They lived in these booths during the time of the feast, which was called the Feast of Tabernacles.

As soon as the feast was over the people again assembled. Six hours were spent in this meeting. Three hours in the reading of the Law, and three hours in the confessions of their sins and praying. This is a wonderful revival of religion. Nehemiah 9 deals with confession and prayer. It is the recounting of a series of acts in the drama of redemption. There are three scenes in every act: God’s goodness in caring for his people, the people sinning and turning away from God, and God’s forgiveness and offer of restoration. The people at last read the lessons of their history and learn them well. Nehemiah 9:37 speaks about their present condition: "It yields much increase to the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins; they have power over our bodies and over our cattle, and we are in great distress." As an effect of this repentance (Nehemiah 9:8) they made a covenant and wrote it, and the princes, the Levites and the priests set seal unto it.

Nehemiah 10:1-27 give a list of those that sealed the covenant. These were the leading men of the nation. The rest of Nehemiah 10 tells how they attempted to keep that covenant, how they gave the payment of the tithe regularly, and observed the sabbath. All this was in perfect keeping with the law of Moses. Thus Moses’ law was established in Jerusalem, and Judaism starts off on its great career.

They followed this with two ordinances: (1) They set aside one-third of a shekel for the Temple tax, and provided for the wood to be used in the sacrifice; (2) they instituted measures to increase the population. They wanted more men in the city. Many came to live in Jerusalem. In that way they increased the population considerably. The priests lived there, but not many of the people. We have this statement: "In Jerusalem dwelt certain of the children of Judah and Benjamin." Of the priests, some of them lived in the city; the majority of them lived in the country villages outside of the city. A large majority of the common people also lived in the cities around Jerusalem.

Now the problem we have to deal with regarding the cities is not how to increase the population, but how to decrease it. People are rushing to the cities and crowding them. The measure that did most to bring the people to Jerusalem was the draft of one out of each ten who volunteered, and these were compelled to come and live in Jerusalem.

Then followed the account of the dedication of the walls. Now the manner of procedure was about this: They gathered together all the Levites, and brought them to Jerusalem. They came together at a certain signal, and the people, all of them that would come, were divided into two companies, Nehemiah at the head of one of the companies himself, and Ezra at the head of the other company. They marched upon the walls. The walls of the city were broad, and there was plenty of room for them to march upon them. They marched thus about the walls, one company one way and the other company the other way. They went on around until they met. This was a joyous occasion, a glorious day. Jerusalem had now been inaugurated as a fortified city, the city of Jehovah, the holy city of Jerusalem.

With that great dedication the first great work of Nehemiah was completed, but he attended to a few other matters, such as the appointment of Temple officers, treasurers, singers, chief singers as in the time of David, the separation of the foreign element, Ammonites and Moabites, from the congregation, and then he returned to Persia by authority of Artaxerxes and remained about one year, after which he returned to Jerusalem and found certain things in bad condition. The people had backslidden. He found that Eliashib the priest had prepared for Tobiah a great chamber in the Temple, where the treasures were kept. Nehemiah finds that he is allied with Tobiah, and casts him out with all the stuff of Tobiah, and cleanses the Temple.

Next, he orders that their portion be given to the Levites. They had failed to bring in all the tithes and the Levites were actually suffering. Nehemiah contends with the rulers saying, "Why is the house of God forsaken?"

Then he enforces the sabbath laws. People were working on the sabbath day. They were bringing in their produce on that day to have it ready for the market the next morning. Nehemiah prohibits that. They came up to the outside of the city walls on the sabbath day and waited there to enter bright and early on the morrow. Nehemiah found this out and put a stop to this also. Next he compels the Jews to put away their foreign wives. Ezra had dealt with that thing before. He went about weeping and bewailing the sins of the people in this matter. Now when Nehemiah came he did not cover himself with his mantle and weep. He cursed them and plucked off their hair and beard, and made them swear that they would not do this thing. He had back of him the authority of the great king. He also chased away the son-in-law of Sanballat. Here was a priest who had married the daughter of his enemy. When Nehemiah found that out he chased him away. We do not know how fast he ran, but he lost no time in escaping. The last item of Nehemiah’s reform is the cleansing of the priesthood, and thus he closes his book: "Remember me, O my God, for good." He offered what he had done to the Lord and petitioned his kindly regard.

The book of Malachi has its setting right in these last verses of Nehemiah, and reflects the conditions herein set forth in a most emphatic condemnation of these evils.

QUESTIONS

1. How may we account for Ezra not appearing in the history before Nehemiah 8, and what occasion brought him forth before the people here?

2. Where did the people assemble on this occasion?

3. Who constituted this marvelous assembly?

4. How long did this continue and what was the method?

5. How did the people show their reverence for the Word of God?

6, What was the effect upon the people of the hearing of the Law, why did Ezra suppress their emotions and what did he recommend?

7. What great feast was here reset and how was it celebrated?

8. Describe the fast kept by the Jews, and the prayer which followed.

9. Recite the history from the creation to Abraham as recorded here.

10. Recite their history from Egypt to the establishment in the land as given here.

11. What was their history in the period of the judges according to Nehemiah?

12. What acknowledgment do they make here relative to Jehovah’s dealings with them?

13. Describe the covenant which followed.

14. What the ordinances made here also?

15. What methods did they adopt in populating Jerusalem and the cities round about?

16. Describe the dedication of the walls of Jerusalem.

17. What officers were appointed on this day of the dedication of the wall?

18. What law was discovered concerning the Ammonite and Moabite and what was the result?

19. What was the proof of Nehemiah’s leave of absence from Jerusalem and how long was he away?

20. Upon his return what evils did he find and how did he correct them?

21. What prophet comes in this period and what was his special message?

Verse 2

VIII

BALAAM: HIS IMPORTANT PROPHECIES, HIS CHARACTER, AND HIS BIBLE HISTORY

Numbers 22-24; Numbers 31:8; Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Nehemiah 13:2; Judges 1:2; 2 Peter 2:15; Revelation 2:14

These scriptures give you a clue to both Balaam’s history and character: Numbers 22-24; Numbers 31:8, and especially Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; Joshua 24:9-10; Micah 6:5; Nehemiah 13:2; Judges 1:2; 2 Peter 2:15; and, most important of all, Revelation 2:14. Anybody who attempts to discuss Balaam ought to be familiar with every one of these scriptures.

Who was Balaam? He was a descendant of Abraham, as much as the Israelites were. He was a Midianite and his home was near where the kinsmen of Abraham, Nahor and Laban, lived. They possessed from the days of Abraham a very considerable knowledge of the true God. He was not only a descendant of Abraham and possessed the knowledge of the true God through traditions handed down, as in the case of Job and Melchizedek, but he was a prophet of Jehovah. That is confirmed over and over again. Unfortunately he was also a soothsayer and a diviner, adding that himself to his prophetic office for the purpose of making money. People always approach soothsayers with fees.

His knowledge of the movements of the children of Israel could easily have been obtained and the book of Exodus expressly tells that that knowledge was diffused over the whole country. Such a poem as Jacob’s dying blessing on his children would circulate all over the Semitic tribes, and such an administration as that of Joseph would become known over all the whole world, such displays of power as the miracles in Egypt, the deliverance at the Red Sea and the giving of the law right contiguous to the territory of Balaam’s nation make it possible for him to learn all these mighty particulars. It is a great mistake to say that God held communication only with the descendants of Abraham. We see how he influenced people in Job’s time and how he influenced Melchizedek, and there is one remarkable declaration made in one of the prophets that I have not time to discuss, though I expect to preach a sermon on it some day, in which God claims that he not only brought Israel out of Egypt but the Philistines out of Caphtor and all peoples from the places they occupied (Amos 9:7). We are apt to get a very narrow view of God’s government of the human race when we attempt to confine it to the Jews only.

Next, we want to consider the sin of Balaam. First, it was from start to finish a sin against knowledge. He had great knowledge of Jehovah. It was a sin against revelation and a very vile sin in that it proceeded from his greed for money, loving the wages of unrighteousness. His sin reached its climax after he had failed to move Jehovah by divinations, and it was clear that Jehovah was determined to bless these people, when for a price paid in his hand be vilely suggested a means by which the people could be turned from God and brought to punishment. That was about as iniquitous a thing as the purchase of the ballots in the late prohibition election in Waco, for the wages of unrighteousness. His counsel was (Numbers 31:16) to seduce the people of Israel by bringing the Moabitish and Midianite evil women to tempt and get them through their lusts to attend idolatrous feasts.

In getting at the character of this man, we have fortunately some exceedingly valuable sermon literature. The greatest preachers of modern times have preached on Balaam, and in the cross lights of their sermons every young preacher ought to inform himself thoroughly on Balaam. The most famous one for quite a while was Bishop Butler’s sermon. When I was a boy, everybody read that sermon, and, as I recall it, the object was to show the self-deception which persuaded Balaam in every case that the sin he committed could be brought within the rules of conscience and revelation, so that he could say something at every point to show that he stood right, while all the time he was going wrong.

Then the great sermon by Cardinal Newman: "The dark shadow cast over a noble course by standing always on the ladder of advancement and by the suspense of a worldly ambition never satisfied." He saw in Balaam one of the most remarkable men of the world, high up on the ladder and the way to the top perfectly open but shaded by the dark shadow of his sin. Then Dr. Arnold’s sermon on Balaam, as I recall, the substance being the strange combination of the purest form of religious belief with action immeasurably below it. Next the great sermon by Spurgeon with seven texts. He takes the words in the Bible, "I have sinned," and Balaam is one of the seven men he discusses. Spurgeon preached Balaam as a double-minded man. He could see the right and yet his lower nature turned him constantly away from it, a struggle between the lower and higher nature. These four men were the greatest preachers in the world since Paul. I may modestly call attention to my own sermon on Balaam; that Balaam was not a double-minded man; that from the beginning this man had but one real mind, and that was greed and power, and he simply used the religious light as a stalking horse. No rebuff could stop him long. God might say, "You shall not go," and he would say, "Lord, hear me again and let me go." He might start and an angel would meet him and he might hear the rebuke of the dumb brute but he would still seek a way to bring about evil. I never saw a man with a mind more single than Balaam.

I want you to read about him in Keble’s "Christian Year." Keble conceives of Balaam as standing on the top of a mountain that looked over all those countries he is going to prophesy about and used this language:

O for a sculptor’s hand,

That thou might’st take thy stand

Thy wild hair floating in the eastern breeze,

Thy tranc’d yet open gaze

Fix’d on the desert haze,

As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant aeea.

In outline dim and vast

Their fearful shadows cast

The giant forms of empires on their way

To ruin: one by one

They tower and they are gone,

Yet in the Prophet’s soul the dreams of avarice stay.

That is a grand conception. If he just had the marble image of a man of that kind, before whose eyes, from his lofty mountain pedestal were sweeping the pageants of mighty empires and yet in whose eyes always stayed the dreams of avarice. The following has been sculptured on a rock:

No sun or star so bright

In all the world of light

That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye:

He hears th’ Almighty’s word,

He sees the Angel’s sword,

Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.

That comes nearer giving a true picture of Balaam. That shows you a man so earth bound in his heart’s desire, looking at low things and grovelling that no sun or star could lift his eye toward heaven. Not even God Almighty’s word could make him look up, without coercion of the human will.

Now, you are to understand that the first two prophecies of Balaam came to him when he was trying to work divinations on God. In those two he obeys as mechanically as a hypnotized person obeys the will of the hypnotist. He simply speaks under the coercive power of God. In these first two prophecies God tells him what to say, as if a mightier hand than his had dipped the pen in ink and moved his hand to write those lines.

At the end of the second one when he saw no divination could possibly avail against those people, the other prophecies came from the fact that the Spirit of the Lord comes on him just like the Spirit came on Saul, the king of Israel, and he prophesied as a really inspired man. In the first prophecy he shows, first, a people that God has blessed and will not curse; second, he is made to say, "Let me die the death of the righteous and let my, last end – at death and judgment – be like his." That shows God’s revelation to that people. The second prophecy shows why that is so: "God is not a man that he should repent." "It is not worth while to work any divination. He has marked out the future of this nation." Second, why is it that he will not regard iniquity in Jacob? For the purpose he has in view he will not impute their trespasses to them. The prophecy stops with this thought, that when you look at what this people have done and will do, you are not to say, "What Moses did, nor Joshua did, nor David," but you are to say, "What God hath wrought!"

The first time I ever heard Dr. Burleson address young preachers, and I was not even a Christian myself, he took that for his text. He commenced by saying, "That is a great theme for a preacher. Evidently these Jews had not accomplished all those things. They were continually rebelling and wanting to go back, and yet you see them come out of Egypt, cross the Sea, come to Sinai, organized, fed, clothed, the sun kept off by day and darkness by night, marvellous victories accomplished and you are to say, ’What God hath wrought!’ "

When the spiritual power comes on him he begins to look beyond anything he has ever done yet, to messianic days. There are few prophecies in the Bible more far-reaching than this last prophecy of Balaam. When he says of the Messiah, "I shall see him but not now," it is a long way off. "My case is gone, but verily a star" – the symbol of the star and sceptre carried out the thought of the power of the Messiah. So much did that prophecy impress the world that those Wise Men who came right from Balaam’s country when Jesus was born, remember this prophecy: "We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him."

He then looks all around and there are the nations before him from that mountain top, and he prophesies about Moab and Amalek and passes on beyond, approaching even to look to nations yet unborn. He looks to the Grecian Empire arising far away in the future, further than anybody but Daniel. He sees the ships of the Grecians coming and the destruction of Asshur and the destruction of Eber, his own people. Then we come to the antitypical references later.

If you want a comparison of this man, take Simon Magus who wanted to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit so as to make money. That is even better than Judas, though Judas comes in. Judas had knowledge, was inspired, worked miracles, and yet Judas never saw the true kingdom of God in the spirit of holiness, and because he could not bring about the kingdom of which he would be treasurer for fifteen dollars he sold the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the principal thoughts I wanted to add.

QUESTIONS

1. Who was Balaam?

2. How did he obtain his knowledge of God?

3. What was the sin of Balaam?

4. What was the climax of his sin?

5. What five sermons on Balaam are referred to? Give the line of thought in each.

6. Give Keble’s conception of Balaam.

7. What was the testimony sculptured on a rock?

8. Now give your own estimate of the character of Balaam.

9. How do you account for the first two prophecies?

10. How do you account for the other two?

11. In the first prophecy what does he show, what is he made to say and what does that show?

12. Give a brief analysis of the second prophecy.

13. Of what does the third prophecy consist?

14. Give the items of the fourth prophecy.

15. How did his messianic prophecy impress the world?

16. When was this prophecy concerning Amalek fulfilled? Ana. In the days of Saul. (I Sam. 15).

17. Who was Asshur and what was his relation to the Kenites?

18. What reference here to the Grecians?

19. Who was Eber?

20. With what two New Testament characters may we compare?