Expositor's Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther Part 18

[241] Neh. x. 29.

It is clear that the obligation of the covenant extended to the whole law. This is called "G.o.d's law, which was given by Moses the servant of G.o.d."[242] Nothing can be clearer than that in the eyes of the chronicler, at all events, it was the Mosaic law. We have seen many indications of this view in the chroniclers narrative. Can we resist the conclusion that it was held by the contemporaries of Ezra and Nehemiah? We are repeatedly warned against the mistake of supposing that the Pentateuch was accepted as a brand-new doc.u.ment. On the contrary, it was certainly received on the authority of the Mosaic origin of its contents, and because of the Divine authority that accompanied this origin. By the Jews it was viewed as the law of Moses, just as in Roman jurisprudence every law was considered to be derived from the "Twelve Tables." No doubt Ezra also considered it to be a true interpretation of the genius of Mosaism adapted to modern requirements. If we keep this clearly before our minds, the Pentateuchal controversy will lose its sharpest points of conflict.

The truth here noted once more is so often disregarded that it needs to be repeatedly insisted on at the risk of tautology.

[242] _Ibid._

After the general acceptance of the whole law, the covenant specifies certain important details. First comes the separation from the heathen--the burning question of the day. Next we have Sabbath observance--also made especially important, because it was distinctive of Judaism as well as needful for the relief of poor and oppressed labourers. But the princ.i.p.al part of the schedule is occupied with pledges for the provision of the temple services. Immense supplies of fuel would be required for the numerous sacrifices, and therefore considerable prominence was given to the collecting of wood; subsequently a festival was established to celebrate this action.

According to a later tradition, Nehemiah kindled the flames on the great altar of the burnt-offerings with supernatural fire.[243] Like the Vestal virgins at Rome, the temple officials were to tend the sacred fire as a high duty, and never let it go out. "Fire shall be kept burning upon the altar continually,"[244] was the Levitical rule.

Thus the very greatest honour was given to the rite of sacrifice. As the restoration of the religion of Israel began with the erection of the altar before the temple was built, so the preservation of that religion was centred in the altar fire--and so, we may add, its completion was attained in the supreme sacrifice of Christ.

[243] 2 Macc. i. 19-22.

[244] Lev. vi. 13.

Finally, special care was taken for what we may call "Church finance"

in the collection of the t.i.thes. This comes last; yet it has its place. Not only is it necessary for the sake of the work that is to be carried on; it is also important in regard to the religious obligation of the worshipper. The cry for a cheap religion is irreligious, because real religion demands sacrifices, and, indeed, necessarily promotes the liberal spirit from which those sacrifices flow. But if the contributions are to come within the range of religious duties, they must be voluntary. Clearly this was the case with the Jewish t.i.thes, as we may see for two reasons. First, they were included in the covenant; and adhesion to this was entirely voluntary. Secondly, Malachi rebuked the Jews for withholding the payment of t.i.thes as a sin against G.o.d,[245] showing that the payment only rested on a sense of moral obligation on the part of the people. It would have been difficult to go further while a foreign government was in power, even if the religious leaders had desired to do so. Moreover, G.o.d can only accept the offerings that are given freely with heart and will, for all He cares for is the spirit of the gift.

[245] Mal. iii. 8-12.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

_THE HOLY CITY._

NEHEMIAH vii. 1-4; xi.

We have seen that though the two pa.s.sages that deal with the sparsity of the population of Jerusalem are separated in our Bibles by the insertion of the section on the reading of The Law and the formation of the covenant, they are, in fact, so closely related that, if we skip the intermediate section, the one runs on into the other quite smoothly, as by a continuous narrative;[246] that is to say, we may pa.s.s from Nehemiah vii. 4 to Nehemiah xi. 1 without the slightest sign of a junction of separate paragraphs. So naive and crude is the chronicler's style, that he has left the raw edges of the narrative jagged and untrimmed, and thereby he has helped us to see distinctly how he has constructed his work. The foreign matter which he has inserted in the great gash is quite different in style and contents from that which precedes and follows it. This is marked with the Ezra stamp, which indicates that in all probability it is founded on notes left by the scribe; but the broken narrative in the midst of which it appears is derived from Nehemiah, the first part consisting of memoirs written by the statesman himself, and the second part being an abbreviation of the continuation of Nehemiah's writing. The beginning of this second part directly links it on to the first part, for the word "and" has no sort of connection with the immediately preceding Ezra section, while it exactly fits into the broken end of the previous Nehemiah section; only with his characteristic indifference to secular affairs, in comparison with matters touching The Law and the temple worship, the chronicler abbreviates the conclusion of Nehemiah's story. It is easy to see how he constructs his book in this place. He has before him two doc.u.ments--one written by Nehemiah, the other written either by Ezra or by one of his close a.s.sociates. At first he follows Nehemiah, but suddenly he discovers that he has reached the date when the Ezra record should come in.

Therefore, without any concern for the irregularity of style that he is perpetrating, he suddenly breaks off Nehemiah's narrative to insert the Ezra material, at the end of which he simply goes back to the Nehemiah doc.u.ment, and resumes it exactly where he has left it, except that now, after introducing it in the language of the original writer, he compresses the fragment, so that the composition pa.s.ses over into the third person. It is not to be supposed that this is done arbitrarily or for no good reason. The chronicler here intends to tell his story in chronological order. He shows that the course of events referred to at the opening of the seventh chapter really was broken by the occurrences the record of which then follows. The interruptions in the narrative just correspond to the real interruptions in the historical facts. History is not a smooth-flowing river; its course is repeatedly broken by rocks and shoals, and sometimes entirely deflected by impa.s.sable cliffs. In the earlier part of the narrative we read of Nehemiah's anxiety on account of the sparsity of the population of Jerusalem; but before he was able to carry out any plans for the increase of the number of inhabitants the time of the great autumn festivals was upon him, and the people were eager to take advantage of the public holidays that then fell due in order to induce Ezra to read to them the wonderful book he had brought up from Babylon years before, and of which he had not yet divulged the contents. This was not waste time as regards Nehemiah's project. Though the civil governor stood in the background during the course of the great religious movement, he heartily seconded the clerical leaders of it in their efforts to enlighten and encourage the people, and he was the first to seal the covenant which was its fruit. Then the people who had been instructed in the principles of their faith and consecrated to its lofty requirements were fitted to take their places as citizens of the Holy City.

[246] Pages 271-273.

The "population question" which troubled Nehemiah at this time is so exactly opposite to that which gives concern to students of social problems in our own day, that we need to look into the circ.u.mstances in which it emerged in order to understand its bearings. The powerful suction of great towns, depleting the rural districts and gorging the urban, is a source of the greatest anxiety to all who seriously contemplate the state of modern society; and consequently one of the most pressing questions of the day is how to scatter the people over the land. Even in new countries the same serious condition is experienced--in Australia, for instance, where the crowding of the people into Melbourne is rapidly piling up the very difficulties sanguine men hoped the colonies would escape. If we only had these modern facts to draw upon, we might conclude that a centripetal movement of population was inevitable. That it is not altogether a novelty we may learn from the venerable story of the Tower of Babel, from which we may also gather that it is G.o.d's will that men should spread abroad and replenish the earth.

It is one of the advantages of the study of history that it lifts us out of our narrow grooves and reveals to us an immense variety of modes of life, and this is not the least of the many elements of profit that come to us from the historical embodiment of revelation as we have it in the Bible. The width of vision that we may thus attain to will have a double effect. It will save us from being wedded to a fixed policy under all circ.u.mstances; and it will deliver us from the despair into which we should settle down, if we did not see that what looks to us like a hopeless and interminable drift in the wrong direction is not the permanent course of human development. It is necessary to consider that if the dangers of a growing population are serious, those of a dwindling population are much more grave.

Nehemiah was in a position to see the positive advantages of city life, and he regarded it as his business to make the most of them for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen. We have seen that each of the three great expeditions from Babylon up to Jerusalem had its separate and distinctive purpose. The aim of the first, under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, was the rebuilding of the temple; the object of the second, under Ezra, was the establishment of The Law; and the end of the third, under Nehemiah, was the fortification and strengthening of the city. This end was before the patriotic statesman's mind from the very first moment when he was startled and grieved at hearing the report of the ruinous condition of the walls of Jerusalem which his brother brought to him in the palace at Susa. We may be sure that with so practical a man it was more than a sentimental reverence for venerated sites that led Nehemiah to undertake the great work of fortifying the city of his fathers' sepulchres. He had something else in view than to construct a huge mausoleum. His aim had too much to do with the living present to resemble that of Rizpah guarding the corpses of her sons from the hovering vultures. Nehemiah believed in the future of Jerusalem, and therefore he would not permit her to remain a city of ruins, unguarded, and a prey to every chance comer. He saw that she had a great destiny yet to fulfil, and that she must be made strong if ever she was to accomplish it. It is to the credit of his keen discernment that he perceived this essential condition of the firm establishment of Israel as a distinctive people in the land of Palestine. Ezra was too literary, too abstract, too much of an idealist to see it, and therefore he struggled on with his teaching and exhorting till he was simply silenced by the unlooked-for logic of facts. Nehemiah perfectly comprehended this logic, and knew how to turn it to the advantage of his own cause.

The fierce antagonism of the Samaritans is an indirect confirmation of the wisdom of Nehemiah's plans. Sanballat and his a.s.sociates saw clearly enough that, if Jerusalem were to become strong again, the metropolitan pre-eminence--which had shifted from this city to Samaria after the Babylonian conquest--would revert to its old seat among the hills of Judah and Benjamin. Now this pre-eminence was of vital importance to the destinies of Israel. It was not possible for the people in those early days to remain separate and compact, and to work out their own peculiar mission, without a strong and safe centre. We have seen Judaism blossoming again as a distinctive phenomenon in the later history of the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. But this most wonderful fact in ethnology is indirectly due to the work of Ezra and Nehemiah. The readiness to intermarry with foreigners shown by the contemporaries of the two great reformers proves conclusively that, unless the most stringent measures had been taken for the preservation of its distinctive life, Israel would have melted away into the general ma.s.s of amalgamated races that made up the Chaldaean and Persian empires. The military protection of Jerusalem enabled her citizens to maintain an independent position in defiance of the hostile criticism of her neighbours, and the civil importance of the city helped to give moral weight to her example in the eyes of the scattered Jewish population outside her walls. Then the worship at the temple was a vital element in the newly modelled religious organisation, and it was absolutely essential that this should be placed beyond the danger of being tampered with by foreign influences, and at the same time that it should be adequately supported by a sufficient number of resident Jews. Something like the motive that induces the Pope to desire the restoration of the temporal power of the Papacy--perfectly wise and reasonable from his point of view--would urge the leaders of Judaism to secure as far as possible the political independence of the centre of their religion.

It is to be observed that Nehemiah desired an increase of the population for the immediate purpose of strengthening the garrison of Jerusalem. The city had been little better than "a lodge in a garden of cuc.u.mbers" till her new governor had put forth stupendous efforts which resulted in converting her into a fortress. Now the fortress required to be manned. Everything indicates anxiety about the means of defence. Nehemiah placed two men at the head of this vital function--his own brother Hanani, whose concern about the city had been evinced in his report of its condition to Nehemiah at Susa, and Hananiah the commandant of the citadel. This Hananiah was known to be "faithful"--a great point while traitors in the highest places were intriguing with the enemy. He was also exceptionally G.o.d-fearing, described as one who "feared G.o.d above many"--another point recognised by Nehemiah as of supreme importance in a military officer. Here we have an antic.i.p.ation of the Puritan spirit which required the Cromwellian soldiers to be men of sterling religious character.

Nehemiah would have had no hesitation if he had been placed in the dilemma of the Athenians when they were called to choose between Aristides the good and Themistocles the clever. With him--much as brains were needed, and he showed this in his own sleepless astuteness--integrity and religion were the first requisites for an office of responsibility.

The danger of the times is further indicated by the new rule with regard to the opening of the gates. Oriental custom would have permitted this at dawn. Nehemiah would not allow it before the full daytime, "until the sun be hot." Levites were to mount guard by day--an indication of the partially ecclesiastical character of the civil government. The city was a sort of extended temple, and its citizens const.i.tuted a Church watched over by the clergy. At night the citizens themselves were to guard the walls, as more watchers would be needed during the hours of darkness to protect the city against an a.s.sault by surprise. Now these facts point to serious danger and arduous toil. Naturally many men would shrink from the yoke of citizenship under such circ.u.mstances. It was so much pleasanter, so much easier, so much quieter for people to live in the outlying towns and villages, near to their own farms and vineyards. Therefore it was necessary to take a tenth of the rural population in order to increase that of the town. The chronicler expressly notes that "the rulers of the people" were already dwelling in Jerusalem. These men realised their responsibility. The officers were to the fore; the men who needed to be urged to their duty were the privates. No doubt there was more to attract the upper cla.s.ses to the capital, while their agricultural occupations would naturally draw many of the poorer people into the country, and we must not altogether condemn the latter as less patriotic than the former. We cannot judge the relative merits of people who act differently till we know their several circ.u.mstances. Still it remains true that it is often the man with the one talent who buries his charge, because with him the sense of personal insignificance becomes a temptation to the neglect of duty.

Hence arises one of the most serious dangers to a democracy. When this danger is not mastered, the management of public affairs falls into the hands of self-seeking politicians, who are ready to wreck the state for their private advantage. It is most essential, therefore, that a public conscience should be aroused and that people should realise their duty to their community--to the town in which they live, the country to which they belong.

Nehemiah's simple expedient succeeded, and praise was earned by those Jews who yielded to the sacred decision of the lot and abandoned their pleasant rustic retreats to take up the more trying posts of sentinels in a garrison. According to his custom, the chronicler proceeds to show us how the people were organised. His many names have long ceased to convey the living interest that must have cl.u.s.tered round them when the families they represented were still able to recognise their ancestors in the roll of honour. But incidentally he imports into his register a note about the Great King's concern for the temple worship, from which we learn that Artaxerxes made special provision for the support of the choristers, and that he entertained a Jewish representative in his court to keep him informed on the condition of the distant city. Thus we have another indication of the royal patronage which was behind the whole movement for the restoration of the Jews. Nevertheless the piteous plaint of the Jews on their great fast day shows us that their servitude galled them sorely. Men who could utter that cry would not be bribed into a state of cheerful satisfaction by the kindness of their master in subscribing to their choir fund, although doubtless the contribution was made in a spirit of well-meaning generosity. The ideal City of G.o.d had not yet appeared, and the hint of the dependence of Jerusalem on royal patronage is a significant reminder of the sad fact. It never did appear, even in the brightest days of the earthly Jerusalem. But G.o.d was teaching His people through the history of that unhappy city how high the true ideal must be, and so preparing them for the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem.

Now we may take the high ideal that was slowly emerging throughout the ages, and see how G.o.d intends to have it realised in the City of G.o.d which, from the days of Saint Augustine, we have learnt to look for in the Church of Christ. The two leading thoughts connected with the Holy City in the phase of her history that is now pa.s.sing under our notice are singularly applicable to the Christian community.

First, _the characteristic life of the city_. Enclosed within walls the city gained a peculiar character and performed a distinctive mission of her own. Our Lord was not satisfied to rescue stray sheep on the mountains only to brand them with His mark and then turn them out again to graze in solitude. He drew them as a flock after Himself, and His disciples gathered them into the fold of Church fellowship.

This is of as vital importance to the cause of Christianity as the civic organisation of Jerusalem was to that of Judaism. The Christian City of G.o.d stands out before the world on her lofty foundation, the Rock of Ages--a beacon of separation from sin, a testimony to the grace of G.o.d, a centre for the confession of faith, a home for social worship, a rallying point for the forces of holy warfare, a sanctuary for the helpless and oppressed.

Second, _the public duty of a citizenship_. The reluctance of Christians to accept the responsibilities of Church membership may be compared to the backwardness of the Jews to dwell in their metropolis.

Like Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah, the City of G.o.d to-day is an outpost in the battle-field, a fortress surrounded by the enemy's territory. It is traitorous to retire to the calm cultivation of one's private garden-plot in the hour of stress and strain when the citadel is threatened on all sides. It is the plain duty of the people of G.o.d to mount guard and take their turn as watchmen on the walls of the Holy City.

May we carry the a.n.a.logy one step further? The king of Persia, though his realm stretched from the Tigris to the aegean, could not give much effectual help to the true City of G.o.d. But the Divine King of kings sends her constant supplies, and she too, like Jerusalem, has her Representative at court, One who ever lives to make intercession for her.

CHAPTER XXIX.

_BEGINNINGS._

NEHEMIAH xii. 27-47.

A curious feature of the history of the restoration of Israel already met with several times is postponement. Thus in the days of Cyrus Zerubbabel leads up an expedition for the express purpose of building the temple at Jerusalem; but the work is not executed until the reign of Darius. Again, Ezra brings the book of The Law with him when he comes to the city; yet he does not find an opportunity for publishing it till some years later. Once more, Nehemiah sets to work on the fortifications with the prompt.i.tude of a practical man and executes his task with astonishing celerity; still, even in his case the usual breach of sequence occurs; here, too, we have interruption and the intrusion of alien matters, so that the crowning act of the dedication of the walls is delayed.

In this final instance we do not know how long a postponement there was. Towards the end of his work the chronicler is exceptionally abrupt and disconnected. In the section xii. 27-43 he gives us an extract from Nehemiah's memoirs, but without any note of time. The preservation of another bit of the patriot's original writing is interesting, not only because of its a.s.sured historicity, but further because exceptional importance is given to the records that have been judged worthy of being extracted and made portions of permanent scripture, although other sources are only used by the chronicler as materials out of which to construct his own narrative in the third person. While we cannot a.s.sign its exact date to the subject of this important fragment, one thing is clear from its position in the story of the days of Nehemiah. The reading of The Law, the great fast, the sealing of the covenant, the census, and the regulations for peopling Jerusalem, all came between the completion of the fortifications and the dedication of them. The interruption and the consequent delay were not without meaning and object. After what had occurred in the interval, the people were better prepared to enter into the ceremony of dedication with intelligence and earnestness of purpose. This act, although it was immediately directed to the wall, was, as a matter of fact, the re-consecration of the city; because the walls were built in order to preserve the distinct individuality, unique integrity of what they included. Now the Jews needed to know The Law in order to understand the destiny of Jerusalem; they needed to devote themselves personally to the service of G.o.d, so that they might carry out that destiny; and they needed to recruit the forces of the Holy City, for the purpose of giving strength and volume to its future. Thus the postponement of the dedication made that event, when it came about, a much more real thing than it would have been if it had followed immediately on the building of the walls. May we not say that in every similar case the personal consecration must precede the material? The city is what its citizens make it. They, and not its site or its buildings, give it its true character. Jerusalem and Babylon, Athens and Rome, are not to be distinguished in their topography and architecture in anything approaching the degree in which they are individualised by the manners and deeds of their respective peoples.

Most a.s.suredly the New Jerusalem will just reflect the characters of her citizens. This City of G.o.d will be fair and spotless only when they who tread her streets are clad in the beauty of holiness. In smaller details, too, and in personal matters, we can only dedicate aright that which we are handling in a spirit of earnest devotion. The miserable superst.i.tion that clouds our ideas of this subject rises out of the totally erroneous notion that it is possible to have holy things without holy persons, that a mystical sanct.i.ty can attach itself to any objects apart from an intelligent perception of some sacred purpose for which they are to be used. This materialistic notion degrades religion into magic; it is next door to fetichism.

It is important, then, that we should understand what we mean by dedication. Unfortunately in our English Bible the word "dedicate" is made to stand for two totally distinct Hebrew terms, one[247] of which means to "consecrate," to make holy, or set apart for G.o.d; while the other[248] means to "initiate," to mark the beginning of a thing. The first is used of functions of ritual, priestly and sacrificial; but the second has a much wider application, one that is not always directly connected with religion. Thus we meet with this second word in the regulations of Deuteronomy which lay down the conditions on which certain persons are to be excused from military service. The man who has built a new house but who has not "dedicated" it is placed side by side with one who has planted a vineyard and with a third who is on the eve of his marriage.[249] Now the first word--that describing real consecration--is used of the priests' action in regard to their portion of the wall, and in this place our translators have rendered it "sanctified."[250] But in the narrative of the general dedication of the walls the second and more secular word is used. The same word is used, however, we must notice, in the account of the dedication of the temple.[251] In both these cases, and in all other cases of the employment of the word, the chief meaning conveyed by it is just initiation.[252] It signalises a commencement. Therefore the ceremony at the new walls was designed in the first instance to direct attention to the very fact of their newness, and to call up those thoughts and feelings that are suitable in the consideration of a time of commencement. We must all acknowledge that such a time is one for very earnest thought. All our beginnings in life--the birth of a child, a young man's start in the world, the wedding that founds the home, the occupation of a new house, the entrance on a fresh line of business--all such beginnings come to rouse us from the indifference of routine, to speak to us with the voice of Providence, to bid us look forward and prepare ourselves for the future. We have rounded a corner, and a new vista has opened up to our view. As we gaze down the long aisle we must be heedless indeed if we can contemplate the vision without a thrill of emotion, without a thought of antic.i.p.ation. The new departure in external affairs is an opportunity for a new turn in our inner life, and it calls for a reconsideration of our resources and methods.

[247] ??? Piel of ???

[248] ??????

[249] Deut. xx. 5-7.

[250] Neh, iii. 1.

[251] Ezra vi. 16.

[252] Still in the earlier scene, the dedication of the temple, the sacred use of the building makes the act of initiation to be equivalent to consecration. There the connection gives the special a.s.sociation.

One of the charms of the Bible is that, like nature, it is full of fresh starts. Inasmuch as a perennial breath of new life plays among the pages of these ancient scriptures, we have only to drink it in to feel what inspiration there is here for every momentous beginning.

Just as the fading, dank autumn gives way to the desolation of winter in order that in due time the sleeping seeds and buds may burst out in the birth of spring with the freshness of Eden, G.o.d has ordained that the decaying old things of human life shall fall away and be forgotten, while He calls us into the heritage of the new--giving a new covenant, creating a new heart, promising a new heaven and a new earth. The mistake of our torpor and timidity is that we will cling to the rags of the past and only patch them with shreds of the later age, instead of boldly flinging them on to clothe ourselves in the new garment of praise which is to take the place of the old spirit of heaviness.

The method in which a new beginning was celebrated by the Jews in relation to their restored walls is ill.u.s.trative of the spirit in which such an event should always be contemplated.

In the first place, as a preparation for the whole of the subsequent ceremonies, the priests and Levites carried out a great work of purification. They began with themselves, because the men who are first in any dealings with religion must be first in purity. Judged by the highest standard, the only real difference of rank in the Church is determined by varying degrees of holiness; merely official distinctions and those that arise from the unequal distribution of gifts cannot affect anybody's position of honour in the sight of G.o.d.

The functions of the recognised ministry, in particular, demand purity of character for their right discharge. They that bear the vessels of the Lord must be clean. And not only so in general; especially in the matter of purification is it necessary that those who carry out the work should first be pure themselves. What here applied to priests and Levites ceremonially applies in prosaic earnest to all who feel called to purge society in the interest of true morality. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? The leaders of moral reforms must be themselves morally clean. Only regenerate men and women can regenerate society. If the salt has lost its savour it will not arrest corruption in the sacrifice that is salted with it. But the purification does not cease with the leaders. In ceremonial symbolism all the people and even the very walls are also cleansed. This is done in view of the new departure, the fresh beginning. Such an occasion calls for much heart-searching and spiritual cleansing--a truth which must have been suggested to the minds of thoughtful people by the Levitical ceremonies. It is a shame to bring the old stains into the new scenes.

The fresh, clean start calls for a new and better life.