Nehemiah 4:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Nehemiah 4:4

Comments

In the face of such taunts and mockery Nehemiah immediately responds with prayer. How else can we deal with our greatest needs. Whatever resources and wherewithal we might think that we have, we recognise that true help comes only from the Lord. There are three parts to verse 4. ‘Hear, O our God’, so it is a prayer to the God who is with us. We see the possessive element here – ‘our God’. May the God who is our hear us, the God who has commanded us to build, the God who has saved us and given us this commission, the God who is near to us and with us. The Lords commission gives us confidence to ask him for help; he has not commissioned us in vain. He is aware of every difficulty we will face, and he expects us to look for him to complete the task. That is the first part: praying consciously to such a God. ‘For we are despised.’ The case is stated. We are utterly despised. Can the world’s despising us cause us real harm, harm that frustrates the purposes of God? No. God may discipline us if we go about his work in the wrong way, but the enemies of God are allowed to do only so much to setback the cause. Their hatred and mockery teach us that we can never form any alliance with them. When they scorn the cause of God, they show their true colours. They are against the work and they will be true to their ungodly instincts. They will not change because of any sweetness or cooperation from us. We have to face this battle and there is no way of avoiding it. And then the prayer: ‘Turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity.’ Deal out to them what they would deal out to us. That is so often how the Lord judges men. He does to them what they would do to others. That principle of justice is embedded deep in his word: ‘If the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; ¹⁹ Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you’ (Deuteronomy 19:18-19).

Application

It is an expression of faith. If we pray that people who lead, orchestrate, and design hostile measures against the church of Christ – the people who want to criminalise us because we hold that human society consists of men and women, and we are as we are born, and relationships are as God has revealed in the Scripture – if they want to criminalise us, shut our mouths, ultimately send us to prison, then our prayer is that the Lord will not to forsake us. We pray that he will frustrate them, and he will deal with them, so that our adherence to his truth is honoured. That has happened historically. Persecution may last for a season, but all too soon, within each generation, it is brought to a halt. The truth of the situation is opened up. People are dealt with; different things happen in society. The people who criminalise Christian profession are, within our lifetimes, seen to fall and know shame and loss. We long for people to repent, and to be forgiven, and to be converted, but while they are maintaining these antagonistic actions and positions, we can trust God to defend us and to demonstrate their error, and their wrong, and their evil, and we shall see it.

Questions

Does this sound vindictive? Is it an unreasonable thing for the people of Judah to pray for? Over many years, they have established beyond any doubt that the Sanballats and the Tobiahs, and these leading Samaritans are obdurate, implacable, vicious and intent on their destruction. They might well have prayed for the ordinary people, but it is the people who are convening the meetings who are against them, that is what is in mind here. ‘Cover, not their iniquity.’ The prayer does not mean, don't ever forgive them. It means this: don't deal with them in such a way that they get away with this, or appear to be excused, or so that it appears that our God is not interested in defending us. That is the context, and that is the concern. ‘Cover not their iniquity.’

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Introduction

Nehemiah 4:4 Commentary and Bible Study