Nehemiah 4

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Mockery and prayer

¹ Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he mocked the Jews. ² And he spoke before his brothers and the army of Samaria and said, "What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish in a day? Will they bring the stones back to life out of the heaps of rubble, burned as they are?" ³ Now Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, "Even what they are building, if a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall!"

⁴ Hear, O our Elohim, for we are despised; turn back their taunt on their own heads, and give them up to be plundered in a land of captivity. ⁵ Do not cover their iniquity, and do not let their sin be blotted out from before You, for they have provoked You to anger before the builders. ⁶ So we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a heart to work.

Building with a weapon in hand

⁷ But when Sanballat and Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward, and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. ⁸ And they all conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to throw it into confusion. ⁹ But we prayed to our Elohim, and set a guard against them day and night because of them.

¹⁰ And Judah said, "The strength of the burden bearers is failing, and there is much rubble; we are not able to build the wall." ¹¹ And our adversaries said, "They will not know or see until we come into their midst and kill them and stop the work." ¹² And when the Jews who lived near them came, they said to us ten times, "From every place where you turn, they will come up against us." ¹³ So I stationed the people in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in the open places; I stationed them by families, with their swords, their spears and their bows. ¹⁴ And I looked, and rose up and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, "Do not be afraid of them. Remember Adonai, great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses."

¹⁵ And when our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that Elohim had frustrated their counsel, we all returned to the wall, each one to his work. ¹⁶ From that day on, half of my servants did the work, and the other half held the spears, the shields, the bows and the coats of mail; and the leaders stood behind all the house of Judah. ¹⁷ Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loading themselves, each with one of his hands did the work, and with the other held a weapon. ¹⁸ And the builders each had his sword girded at his side, and so they built. And the one who sounded the shofar was beside me.

¹⁹ And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, "The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. ²⁰ In the place where you hear the sound of the shofar, gather to us there. Our Elohim will fight for us." ²¹ So we did the work, and half of them held the spears from the rising of the dawn until the stars came out. ²² At that time I also said to the people, "Let each man with his servant spend the night inside Jerusalem, so that they may be a guard for us by night and may work by day." ²³ So neither I nor my brothers nor my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes; each kept his weapon, even when going to the water.

Notes

• 4:1 In Hebrew Bibles verses 1-6 of this chapter are numbered 3:33-38, and verses 7-23 are numbered 4:1-17. The opposition grows step by step through these chapters: mockery (verses 1-3), a plot to attack (verses 7-8, 11), and then schemes against Nehemiah himself (chapter 6).
• 4:5 Nehemiah answers the mockery not with a reply to Sanballat but with prayer. He asks Elohim to judge, and leaves the vengeance with Him, as the Torah says, "Vengeance is Mine" (Deuteronomy 32:35). His words are close to Jeremiah's prayer against those who plotted against him (Jeremiah 18:23).
• 4:7 "The repair … was going forward" is literally "healing went up" (alta arukhah): arukhah is the new flesh that grows over a wound (Jeremiah 8:22; 30:17), a picture of the broken walls healing. The enemies now surround Judah on every side: Samaria to the north (Sanballat), Ammon to the east (Tobiah), the Arabs to the south, and Ashdod to the west.
• 4:14 Nehemiah uses the words of Moses: "You shall not be terrified of them, for Yahweh your Elohim is in your midst, a great and awesome El" (Deuteronomy 7:21). The title here is Adonai, "my Lord," used only of Elohim. Remembering who He is comes before the call to fight.
• 4:21 "From the rising of the dawn until the stars came out" is the whole span of daylight, from first light until night fell. The appearing of the stars marks the end of the day; later Jewish tradition counts the new day from the time three stars can be seen, in keeping with the biblical day that begins in the evening (Genesis 1:5; Leviticus 23:32).
• 4:23 The last words are very brief in Hebrew, literally "each his weapon, the water," and their sense is uncertain. Many read them as "each kept his weapon even when he went for water"; others, changing one word slightly, read "each with his weapon in his right hand." "Weapon" here and in verse 17 is shelach, a word for a weapon that may have been a javelin or dart.

Nehemiah 3 · Nehemiah 5

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