Working Together Series

Nehemiah 3

Please turn in your Bibles to Nehemiah 3. Nehemiah chapter 3 and verse 1. Nehemiah 3 and beginning in verse 1.

This week Drew forwarded me a video whose headline said, “This is how I pronounce Bible names” and then it was a video of a baby going (make baby noises). If any of you feel that you would like to read Nehemiah 3 out loud for us, now is your opportunity. Since there are no takers, if any of you don’t like the way I pronounce some of these Old Testament names, just shut up, because I don’t want to hear about it. I’m sure Hashabneiah, listed in verse 10, mother called him Hash anyway.

- Read Nehemiah 3

- Pray

If we were to briefly recap the first 2 chapters of Nehemiah, you would remember Nehemiah was a cup bearer for king Artaxerxes, the king of Babylon. Many of the Israelites were still in Babylon, where they or their parents/grandparents had been taken as captives more than 70 years earlier after Israel had been disobedient to the Lord. God had them invaded because of their disobedience.

Earlier, the king had allowed some of these exiles to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, but the city had not been rebuilt. Nehemiah’s brother and some traveling companions had come to visit and he had asked about Jerusalem. They had told him that, “The remnant in the province, who survived the exile, are in great trouble and disgrace. Jerusalem’s wall has been broken down, and its gates have been burned.” (Nehemiah 1:3)

I can almost picture him standing there like Charlton Heston did at the end of the movie Planet of the Apes, when he saw the statue of liberty lying down, nearly covered with sand. He was gut-punched. He was overwhelmed.

So, the Bible tells us in chapter 1, that he prayed and fasted, probably for 4 months before he went in to see the king.

Those are the beginning keys to any great undertaking. A heart for the situation, and prayer asking the Lord’s direction, blessing and wisdom in the situation.

In chapter 2 the king gave him permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild its walls and gates.

Several items we draw from Nehemiah 3. First, this rebuilding was a huge task.

I. HUGE TASK

  The Jerusalem that King David conquered from the Jebusites covered only about 12 acres and was defined on three sides by high ridges and deep valleys. The Jebusites had built a massive wall on the vulnerable north side of the city. King David’s son, Solomon, enlarged the city northward to include the area of the Temple Mount. Jerusalem then covered about 32 acres which was still defined on its eastern side by the Kidron Valley. King Hezekiah later expanded the city westward to accommodate its growing population. The entire city then consisted of about 135 acres. When the Assyrians threatened to attack in 701 B.C., Hezekiah built a wall and repaired sections of the original, Jebusite, wall on the eastern side of the city that had been constructed between the top of the ridge and the bottom of the valley (the mid-slope wall). Hezekiah’s wall was very strong, being five meters (16.4 ft.) wide entirely around the city. Archaeologists have uncovered large portions of it that have survived to this day (Benjamin Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord, 1975, pp. 176, 177; Yigal Shiloh, Excavations At The City Of David I, Qedem 19, 1984, p. 29). It was this wall with its gates that Nehemiah repaired after his return from Babylon. King Cyrus captured Babylon in 539 B.C. and by 536 B.C., exactly 70 years after they were taken captive, the Jews were allowed to return to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. In 458 B.C. Ezra brought another group of captives to Jerusalem and in 445 B.C. the final expedition of Jews came to Jerusalem under the leadership of Nehemiah. Artaxerxes agreed to send Nehemiah to Jerusalem, appointed him as Civil Governor for 12 years, and authorized him to complete the rebuilding of the wall (and gates) of the city (Nehemiah 2:8).

So this would be a huge task. The city walls and gates would be 2 1/2 miles long, encompassing roughly 200 acres. And we’re not talking about rolls of wire and and fence posts, we’re talking about walls that were nearly 16 1/2’ thick and over 20’ high.

That wasn’t all that had to be done. The trash from the previous wall would have to be cleared away. The towers had to be rebuilt, the gates had to be rebuilt. But, a city isn’t just walls, towers and gates, it is businesses, homes, people. There was a huge task set before the people.

And Nehemiah didn’t quit or faint when he thought of the task set before him. A lesser man might throw in the towel and say it couldn’t be done. A lesser man might paint flowery pictures and present pipe dreams, but Nehemiah had gone out and surveyed the walls. He had collected a realistic picture of what needed to be done.