B.C. 445. The dedication of sun had set, the darkness which rendered the stars visible compelled them to desist. And when night fell, there was a guard kept by some, whilst those who had been at work all day took off their clothes and slept. Only of Nehemiah, with his slaves and the escort which had followed him from Persia, it is proudly recorded that not one took off even the least article of his dress.' So he emphatically repeats, as if the remembrance of those long unresting vigils had been engraven on his memory, down to the slightest particular. Such was the nobler side of that gallant undertaking, in which were fulfilled the passionate longings of the exiles, throughout their whole stay in Babylon, that the walls of 'Jerusalem should be built.' 2 Even when the walls were completed the danger was not the walls. entirely over: the empty spaces of the town had3 still to be filled from the nearest villages; the gates were still to be closed till the sun was fully risen; guards were still to be kept. But Jerusalem was now once more a strong fortress. When the great military historian and archæologist of the Jewish nation looked at the defences of the city in his own time, he could truly say that though Nehemiah lived to a good old 'age, and performed many other noble acts, yet the eternal ' monument of himself which he left behind him was the cir'cuit of the walls of Jerusalem.' The day on which this was accomplished was celebrated by a dedication, as if of a sanctuary, in which two vast processions passed round the walls, halting at one or other of those venerable landmarks which signalised the various stages of their labour; whose shadows had been their daily and nightly companions for such weary months of watching and working. The Levites came up 1 With the exception indicated in the last words of iv. 23. (See Ewald, v. 156.) 2 See Lecture XLI. 3 Neh. vii. 4; xi. 1, 2. Neh. vii. 3. 6 Jos. Ant. xi. 5, 8. Neh. vi. 15. The length of time which the rebuilding occupied is somewhat doubtful. See Ewald, v. 157. Neh. xii. 27-43. from their country districts, with their full array of the musical instruments which still bore the name1 of their royal inventor; the minstrels, too, were2 summoned from their retreats on the hills of Judah and in the deep valley of the Jordan. They all met in the Temple Court. The blast of the priestly trumpets sounded on one side, the songs of the minstrels were loud in proportion on the other. It is specially mentioned that even the women and children joined in the general acclamation, and the joy of Jerusalem 'was heard even afar off.' Perhaps the circumstance that leaves even yet a deeper impression than this tumultuous triumph is the meeting which on this day, and this day alone, Nehemiah records in his own person, of the two men who in spirit were so closely united-he himself as heading one procession, and 'Ezra the scribe' as heading the other.3 4 Ezra, it would seem, had taken no part in the fortification of the walls. But there is one tradition that, connects him with the internal arrangements of the city. He was believed for the first time to have carried out the rule, afterwards so rigidly observed, of extramural interment. All the bones already buried within the city he cleared out, leaving only two exceptions, the tomb of the Kings and the tomb of the Prophetess Huldah.5 6 Once before, however, if we may trust the Chronicler of this period, Ezra and Nehemiah had been brought together -on the occasion of the Festival of the Tabernacles, so dear to the Jewish nation, interwoven with the recollections of the dedication alike of the first and of the second Temple. Then as before when the startling conflict between their present condition and the regulations of the ancient law B.C. 445. Taber nacles. was brought before them, they broke out into passionate tears. But this was not to be allowed. The darker side of religion Festival of had not yet settled down upon the nation. The joyous tone of David, and of Isaiah, which Haggai and Zechariah had continued, was not to be abandoned even in the austere days of the two severe Reformers.2 Nehemiah the Tirshatha, and Ezra the Scribe-the Ruler first, and the Pastor afterwards-joined in checking this unseasonable burst of penitence. With those stern and stout hearts, a flood3 of tears was the sign, not of reviving strength, but of misplaced weakness. Feasting, not fasting, was the mark of the manly, exuberant energy which the national crisis required. This 'day is holy. Mourn not, nor weep. Go your way; eat the 'fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for 'whom nothing is prepared . . . neither be ye sorry, for the 'joy of the Eternal is your strength.' 'Hold your peace;' none of these fruitless lamentations: for the day is holy: 'neither be ye grieved.' Such was the Revival of Jerusalem; and even in details it was found to be borne out by the ancient law. That great festival of the Vintage which had been intended to commemorate the halt in the Exodus made within the borders of Egypt-the Dionysia, the Saturnalia, the Christmas, if we may so say, of the Jewish Church-had during centuries fallen into almost entire neglect. They had to go back even to the days of Joshua to find a time when it had been rightly observed. From the gardens of Mount Olivet, they cut down branches from the olives, the palms, and pines, and myrtles that then clothed its sides, and on the flat roofs, and open grounds, and Temple courts, and squares before the city gates wove green arbours, with the 6 1 Neh. viii. 9-12. See this admirably described by Ewald, v. 146. 2 Neh. viii. 9. A like expression has been pointed out to me in the Homeric con trast between the Greeks and Trojans in this respect, Iliad, vii. 303. 4 See Lecture XLVIII. Neh. viii. 17. childlike festivity which probably from that day to this has never ceased out of the Jewish world in that autumnal season. One there was who partook five centuries later in this feast, and whose heart's desire was that the joyous feelings represented by it might be perpetuated in systems which have too often repelled or ignored them.' Nehemiah. From this point the two great restorers of Jerusalem who hitherto had moved in spheres apart-the aged scribe, absorbed in the study of the ancient law; the young layman, half warrior, half statesman, absorbed in the fortification of the city—were drawn closer and closer together, and henceforth, whether in legend or history, they became indistinguishably blended. The narrative of Nehemiah himself Reforms of does not again mention Ezra; but it is devoted to deeds which, whether for good or evil, might almost equally belong to both. It is not the last time that the architect or the engineer has been the best colleague of the reformer or theologian. Vauban saw more truly, felt more keenly the true needs of France than Fénelon or Bossuet.2 So Nehemiah rebuked the nobles for their oppressions and usurious exactions; 3 he summoned the Levites and the singers to their appointed duties; he closed the gates against the merchants who came with their laden asses on the Sabbath day. He was the originator of the treaty or compact by which the whole nation bound itself over to these observances. It was on a day of solemn abstinence (which, instead of preceding, as in later, and, perhaps, in earlier, times, followed the Feast of Tabernacles) that this close and concentration of all their efforts was accomplished. Two at least of the pledges were fulfilled-the Levitical ritual was firmly established; the Sabbatical rest, both of the day and of the year, struck deep root. 1 John vii. 2, 37. 6 2 Memoirs of St. Simon, c. xviii. Neh. v. 1-16. Neh. xiii. 10-12. Neh. xiii. 15–22. 8 6 Neh. x. 29-34. 7 Neh. ix. 1. 3 81 Macc. vi. 49, 53; Jos. Ant. xi. 8, 5; xiii. 8, 1; xiv. 10, 6; xv. 1, 2. K ? B.C. 445. And two lesser institutions also sprang from this time. One was the contribution of wood to the Temple. So vast was the consumption of timber for the furnaces in which the sacrificial flesh was roasted, or burnt, and so laborious was the process of hewing down the distant forest trees and bringing them into Jerusalem, that it was made a special article1 of the national covenant, and the 14th of the month Ab (August) was observed as the Festival of the WoodCarriers. It was the security that the sacred fire—which, according to the later legend, Nehemiah had lighted by preternatural means—should always have a supply of fuel to preserve it from the slightest chance of extinction. Another was the rate levied on every Jew for the support of the Temple in the form of the third of a shekel, represented in the Greek coinage by two drachmas, and afterwards remaining as the sign of Jewish citizenship. Nehemiah's collision with the surrounding tribes still continued. They had contested inch by inch his great enterprise of making Jerusalem a fortified capital. There were three more obstructive than the rest, probably the three native princes established by the Persian satrap over the three surrounding districts of of Transjordanic, Southern, and Northern Palestine. Tobiah was the resident at Ammon, and it would seem that, like the Hospodars in the Danubian Principalities, he had reached that post by having been a slave in the Imperial court, and this antecedent Nehemiah does not allow us to forget. The slave, the Ammonite,' is the sarcastic expression by which Nehemiah more than once insists on designating him. Tobiah prided himself on his knowledge of the internal state of Jerusalem. Neh. x. 34; xiii. 31; Jos. B. J. ii. 17, 6; Ewald, v. 166. 22 Macc. i. 18. Neh. x. 32; Jos. Ant. xviii. 9, 1; Matt. xvii. 24-27. Kuenen (iii. 7) 6 conjectures that the text of Ex. xxx. 11-16 was altered to half a shekel when it was found necessary to increase the payment. 4 Neh. ii. 10-19. See Ewald, v. 153. |