Nehemiah 3:28

Neh 3:28 From above the horse gate repaired the priests, every one over against his house.

Ver. 28. From above the horse gate] So called, say some, because there they were wont to dismount, leaving their horses. When the king himself came, he must alight, and go afoot into the Temple. The Great Turk at this day, when he entereth into his mosque for devotion sake, alights and lays aside all his state, and goes in alone.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Neh_3:28

From above the horse gate repaired the priests, every one over against his house.

How to sweeten the life of great cities

I take these words mainly as suggesting some thoughts applicable to the duties of Christian people in view of the spiritual wants of our great cities. Consider--

I. The ruins that need repair. If I dwell rather upon the dark side than on the bright side of city life, I shall not be understood as forgetting that the very causes which intensify the evil of a great city quicken the good--the friction of multitudes, and the impetus given thereby to all kinds of mental activity. Most of us have got so familiarised with the evils that stare us in the face every time we go out upon the pavement, that we have come to think of them as inseparable from our modern life, like the noise of a carriage wheel from its rotation. And is it so, then? Must it be that the shining structure of our modern society, like an old Mexican temple, must be built upon a layer of living men flung in for a foundation? If it be so, then I venture to say that to a very large extent progress is a delusion, and that the simple life of agricultural communities is better than this unwholesome aggregation of men. The beginning of Nehemiahs work of repair was that sad midnight ride round the ruined walls. So there is a solemn obligation laid upon Christian people to acquaint themselves with the awful facts, and then to meditate upon them, till Christlike compassion, pressing against the flood-gates of the heart, flings them open, and lets out a stream of helpful pity and saving deeds (Pro_24:11-12).

II. The ruin is to be repaired mainly by the old gospel of Jesus Christ. Far be it from me to put remedies against each other. The causes are complicated, and the cure must be as complicated as the causes. Intemperance has to be fought by the distinct preaching of abstinence, and by the invoking of legislative restrictions upon the traffic. Wretched homes have to be dealt with by sanitary reform. Art and music, pictures and window gardening, etc., will lend their aid to soften and refine. I say, God speed to all these, but I believe that I shall best serve my generation by trying to get men to love and fear Jesus Christ the Saviour. This will produce new tastes and new inclinations, which will reform, sweeten, and purify faster than anything else does.

III. This remedy is to be applied by the individual action of Christian men and women on the people nearest them. If you want to do people good you must pay the price for it. That price is personal sacrifice and effort. A loving heart and a sympathetic word, the exhibition of Christian life and conduct, the fact of going down into the midst of evil, are the old-fashioned and only magnets by which men are drawn to purer and higher life. That is Gods way of saving the world--by the action of single souls on single souls. The priests repaired every one over against his own house. Possession involves responsibility. We get the grace for ourselves that we may pass it on. God hath shined into our hearts, that we may give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There is nothing so mighty as the confession of personal experience. If, like Andrew, you have found the Messias, you can say so. All can preach who can say, We have found the Christ. The existence of a Church in which the workers are as numerous as the Christians ought to be something more than an Utopian dream. There are people in your houses, people that sit by you in your countinghouse, on your college benches, who work by your side in mill or factory or warehouse, who cross your path in a hundred ways, and God has given them to you that you may bring them to Him. Oh! if you lived nearer Christ, you would catch the sacred fire from Him, and like a bit of cold iron lying beside a magnet, touching Him, you would yourselves become magnetic, and draw men out of their evil and up to God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Personal revival sought

Once upon a time many Christians gathered to pray for a revival in the great city in which they lived. For a week they prayed, O Lord, revive the city! but the heavens were as brass. For some weeks they continued to pray almost as broadly and indefinitely, until one friend, who felt the need of individual quickening, exclaimed, O Lord, revive Thy work in my heart! O Lord, revive me! There was a general breaking at the conclusion of this prayer. Personal revival was sought and vouchsafed, and the work soon became widespread and deep. A Baptist Church in New York once sought for the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, but there was no consciousness of response or blessing till a coloured brother, devout and earnest, respected and beloved by all, got down upon his knees, and, with choked utterance, prayed in the language of the 51st Psalm.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Neh 3:28-29. From above the horse-gate — Not that belonging to the king’s palace, (2Ch 23:15,) but one of the gates of the city, so called, probably, because the horses commonly went out that way to their watering-place. Shechaniah the keeper of the east gate — To wit, of the city or of the temple, which, being the chief gate, was committed to his particular care and custody.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The wall of Ophel and the eastern side of the temple area. - Neh 3:28 Above the horse-gate repaired the priests, each opposite his own house. The site of the horse-gate appears, from Ch2 23:15 compared with Kg2 11:6, to have been not far distant from the temple and the royal palace; while according to the present verse, compared with Neh 3:27, it stood in the neighbourhood of the wall of Ophel, and might well be regarded as even belonging to it. Hence we have, with Thenius, to seek it in the wall running over the Tyropoean valley, and uniting the eastern edge of Zion with the western edge of Ophel in the position of the present dung-gate (Bab el Mogharibeh). This accords with Jer 31:40, where it is also mentioned; and from which passage Bertheau infers that it stood at the western side of the valley of Kidron, below the east corner of the temple area. The particular מעל, "from over," that is, above, is not to be understood of a point northwards of the horse-gate, but denotes the place where the wall, passing up from Zion to Ophel, ascended the side of Ophel east of the horse-gate. If, then, the priests here repaired each opposite his house, it is evident that a row of priests' dwellings were built on the western side of Ophel, south of the south-western extremity of the temple area.

Neh 3:29

Zadok ben Immer (Ezr 2:37) was probably the head of the priestly order of Immer. Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the east gate, can hardly be the same as the Shemaiah of the sons of Shecaniah entered among the descendants of David in Ch1 3:22. He might rather be regarded as a descendant of the Shemaiah of Ch1 26:6., if the latter had not been enumerated among the sons of Obed-Edom, whose duty was to guard the south side of the temple. The east gate is undoubtedly the east gate of the temple, and not to be identified, as by Bertheau, with the water-gate towards the east (Neh 3:26). The place where Shemaiah repaired is not more precisely defined; nor can we infer, with Bertheau, from the circumstance of his being the keeper of the east gate, that he, together with his subordinate keepers, laboured at the fortification of this gate and its adjoining section of wall. Such a view is opposed to the order of the description, which passes on to a portion of the wall of Ophel; see rem. on Neh 3:31.

Neh 3:30

אחרי here and in Neh 3:31 gives no appropriate sense, and is certainly only an error of transcription arising from the scriptio defect. אחרו. Hananiah the son of Shelemiah, and Hanun the sixth son of Zalaph, are not further known. The name of Meshullam the son of Berechiah occurs previously in Neh 3:4; but the same individual can hardly be intended in the two verses, the one mentioned in Neh 3:4 being distinguished from others of the same name by the addition ben Meshezabeel. שׁני for שׁנית (Neh 3:27, Neh 3:24, and elsewhere) is grammatically incorrect, if not a mere error of transcription. נשׁכּתו נגד, before his dwelling. נשׁכּה occurs only here and Neh 13:7, and in the plural הנּשׁכות, Neh 12:44; it seems, judging from the latter passage, only another form for לשׁכּה, chamber; while in Neh 13:7, on the contrary, נשׁכּה is distinguished from לשׁכּה, Neh 13:4-5. Its etymology is obscure. In Neh 13:7 it seems to signify dwelling.

Neh 3:31

הצּרפי is not a proper name, but an appellative, son of the goldsmith, or perhaps better, member of the goldsmiths' guild, according to which הצּרפי does not stand for hatsoreep, but designates those belonging to the goldsmiths. The statements, (he repaired) unto the house of the Nethinim, and of the merchants opposite the gate המּפקד, and to the upper chamber of the corner, are obscure. This rendering is according to the Masoretic punctuation; while the lxx, on the contrary, translate according to a different division of the words: Malchiah repaired as far as the house of the Nethinim, and the spice-merchants (repaired) opposite the gate Miphkad, and as far as the ascent of the corner. This translation is preferred by Bertheau, but upon questionable grounds. For the objection made by him, that if the other be adopted, either the same termination would be stated twice in different forms, or that two different terminations are intended, in which case it does not appear why one only should first be mentioned, and then the other also, is not of much importance. In Neh 3:24 also two terminations are mentioned, while in Neh 3:16 we have even three together. And why should not this occur here also? Of more weight is the consideration, that to follow the Masoretic punctuation is to make the house of the Nethinim and of the merchants but one building. Since, however, we know nothing further concerning the edifice in question, the subject is not one for discussion. The rendering of the lxx, on the other hand, is opposed by the weighty objection that there is a total absence of analogy for supplying החזיקוּ ואחריו; for throughout this long enumeration of forty-two sections of wall, the verb החזיק or החזיקוּ, or some corresponding verb, always stands either before or after every name of the builders, and even the אחריו is omitted only once (Neh 3:25). To the statement, "as far as the house of the Nethinim and the merchants," is appended the further definition: before (opposite) the gate המּפקד. This word is reproduced in the lxx as a proper name (τοῦ Μαφεκάδ), as is also הנּתינים בּית, ἕως Βετηὰν Νατηινίμ); in the Vulgate it is rendered appellatively: contra portam judicialem; and hence by Luther, Rathsthor. Thenius translates (Stadt, p. 9): the muster or punishment gate. מפקד does not, however, signify punishment, although the view may be correct that the gate took the name המּפקד from the הבּית מפקד mentioned Eze 43:21, where the bullock of the sin-offering was to be burnt without the sanctuary; and it may be inferred from this passage that near the temple of Solomon also there was an appointed place for burning the flesh of the sin-offering without the sanctuary. In Ezekiel's temple vision, this הבּית מפקד is probably to be sought in the space behind the sanctuary, i.e., at the western end of the great square of five hundred cubits, set apart for the temple, and designated the Gizra, or separate place. In the temples of Solomon and Zerubbabel, however, the place in question could not have been situate at the west side of the temple, between the temple and the city, which lay opposite, but only on the south side of the temple area, outside the court, upon Ophel, where Thenius has delineated it in his plan of Jerusalem before the captivity. Whether it lay, however, at the south-western corner of the temple space (Thenius), or in the middle, or near the east end of the southern side of the external wall of the temple or temple court, can be determined neither from the present passage nor from Ezekiel's vision. Not from Eze 43:21, because the temple vision of this prophet is of an ideal character, differing in many points from the actual temple; not from the present passage, because the position of the house of the Nethinim and the merchants is unknown, and the definition נגד, (before) opposite the gate Miphkad, admits of several explanations. Thus much only is certain concerning this Miphkad gate, - on the one hand, from the circumstance that the wall was built before (נגד) or opposite this gate, on the other, from its omission in Neh 12:39, where the prison-gate is mentioned as being in this neighbourhood in its stead, - that it was not a gate of the city, but a gate through which the מפקד was reached. Again, it is evident that the עליּה of the corner which is mentioned as the length of wall next following, must be sought for at the south-eastern corner of the temple area. Hence the house of the temple servants and the merchants must have been situate south of this, on the eastern side of Ophel, where it descends into the valley of Kidron. הפּנּה עליּת, the upper chamber of the corner, was perhaps a ὑπερῷον of a corner tower, not at the north-eastern corner of the external circumvallation of the temple area (Bertheau), but at the south-eastern corner, which was formed by the junction at this point of the wall of Ophel with the eastern wall of the temple area. If these views are correct, all the sections mentioned from Neh 3:28 to Neh 3:31 belong to the wall surrounding Ophel. This must have been of considerable length, for Ophel extended almost to the pool of Siloam, and was walled round on its western, southern, and eastern sides.

Neh 3:32

The last section, between the upper chamber of the corner and the sheep-gate, was repaired by the goldsmiths and the merchants. This is the whole length of the east wall of the temple as far as the sheep-gate, at which this description began (Neh 3:1). The eastern wall of the temple area might have suffered less than the rest of the wall at the demolition of the city by the Chaldeans, or perhaps have been partly repaired at the time the temple was rebuilt, so that less restoration was now needed.

A survey of the whole enumeration of the gates and lengths of wall now restored and fortified, commencing and terminating as it does at the sheep-gate, and connecting almost always the several portions either built or repaired by the words (ידם) ידו על or אחריו, gives good grounds for inferring that in the forty-two sections, including the gates, particularized vv. 1-32, we have a description of the entire fortified wall surrounding the city, without a single gap. In Neh 3:7, indeed, as we learn by comparing it with Neh 12:29, the mention of the gate of Ephraim is omitted, and in Neh 3:30 or Neh 3:31, to judge by Neh 12:39, the prison-gate; while the wall lying between the dung-gate and the fountain-gate is not mentioned between Neh 3:14 and Neh 3:15. The non-mention, however, of these gates and this portion of wall may be explained by the circumstance, that these parts of the fortification, having remained unharmed, were in need of no restoration. We read, it is true, in Kg2 25:10 and Kg2 25:11, that Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard of Nebuchadnezzar, burnt the king's house and all the great houses of the city, and that the army of the Chaldees broke down or destroyed (נתץ) the walls of Jerusalem round about; but these words must not be so pressed as to make them express a total levelling of the surrounding wall. The wall was only so far demolished as to be incapable of any longer serving as a defence to the city. And this end was fully accomplished when it was partially demolished in several places, because the portions of wall, and even the towers and gates, still perhaps left standing, could then no longer afford any protection to the city. The danger that the Jews might easily refortify the city unless the fortifications were entirely demolished, was sufficiently obviated by the carrying away into captivity of the great part of the population. This explains the fact that nothing is said in this description of the restoration of the towers of Hananeel and Hammeah (Neh 3:11), and that certain building parties repaired very long lengths of wall, as e.g., the 1000 cubits between the fountain-gate and the dung-gate, while others had very short portions appointed them. The latter was especially the case with those who built on the east side of Zion, because this being the part at which King Zedekiah fled from the city, the wall may here have been levelled to the ground.

From the consideration of the course of the wall, so far as the description in the present chapter enables us to determine it with tolerable certainty, and a comparison with the procession of the two bands of singers round the restored wall in Neh 12:31-40, which agrees in the chief points with this description, it appears that the wall on the northern side of the city, before the captivity, coincided in the main with the northern wall of modern Jerusalem, being only somewhat shorter at the north-eastern and north-western corners; and that it ran from the valley (or Jaffa) gate by the tower of furnaces, the gate of Ephraim, the old gate, and the fish-gate to the sheep-gate, maintaining, on the whole, the same direction as the second wall described by Josephus (bell. Jud. v. 4. 2). In many places remains of this wall, which bear testimony to their existence at a period long prior to Josephus, have recently been discovered. In an angle of the present wall near the Latin monastery are found "remains of a wall built of mortice-edged stones, near which lie blocks so large that we are first took them for portions of the natural rock, but found them on closer inspection to be morticed stones removed from their place. A comparatively large number of stones, both in the present wall between the north-west corner of the tower and the Damascus gate, and in the adjoining buildings, are morticed and hewn out of ancient material, and we can scarcely resist the impression that this must have been about the direction of an older wall." So Wolcott and Tipping in Robinson's New Biblical Researches. Still nearer to the gate, about three hundred feet west of it, Dr. Wilson remarks (Lands of the Bible, i. p. 421), "that the wall, to some considerable height above its foundation, bears evidence, by the size and peculiarity of its stones, to its high antiquity," and attributes this portion to the old second wall (see Robinson). "Eastward, too, near the Damascus gate, and even near the eastern tower, are found very remarkable remains of Jewish antiquity. The similarity of these remains of wall to those surrounding the site of the temple is most surprising" (Tobler, Dritte Wand. p. 339). From these remains, and the intimations of Josephus concerning the second wall, Robinson justly infers that the ancient wall must have run from the Damascus gate to a place in the neighbourhood of the Latin monastery, and that its course thence must have been nearly along the road leading northwards from the citadel to the Latin monastery, while between the monastery and the Damascus gate it nearly coincided with the present wall. Of the length from the Damascus gate to the sheep-gate no certain indications have as yet been found. According to Robinson's ideas, it probably went from the Damascus gate, at first eastwards in the direction of the present wall, and onwards to the highest point of Bezetha; but then bent, as Bertheau supposes, in a south-easterly direction, and ran to a point in the present wall lying north-east of the Church of St. Anne, and thence directly south towards the north-east corner of the temple area. On the south side, on the contrary, the whole of the hill of Zion belonged to the ancient city; and the wall did not, like the modern, pass across the middle of Zion, thus excluding the southern half of this hill from the city, but went on the west, south, and south-east, round the edge of Zion, so that the city of Zion was as large again as that portion of modern Jerusalem lying on the hill of Zion, and included the sepulchres of David and of the kings of Judah, which are now outside the city wall. Tobler (Dritte Wand. p. 336) believes that a trace of the course of the ancient wall has been discovered in the cutting in the rock recently uncovered outside the city, where, at the building of the Anglican Episcopal school, which lies two hundred paces westward under En-Nebi-Dad, and the levelling of the garden and cemetery, were found edged stones lying scattered about, and "remarkable artificial walls of rock," whose direction shows that they must have supported the oldest or first wall of the city; for they are just so far distant from the level of the valley, that the wall could, or rather must, have stood there. "And," continues Tobler, "not only so, but the course of the wall of rock is also to a certain extent parallel with that of the valley, as must be supposed to be the case with a rocky foundation to a city wall." Finally, the city was bounded on its western and eastern sides by the valleys of Gihon and Jehoshaphat respectively.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Nehemiah

‘OVER AGAINST HIS HOUSE’

Neh 3:28.

The condition of our great cities has lately been forced upon public attention, and all kinds of men have been offering their panaceas. I am not about to enter upon that discussion, but I am glad to seize the opportunity of saying one or two things which I think very much need to be said to individual Christian people about their duty in the matter. ‘Every man over against his house’ is the principle I desire to commend to you as going a long way to solve the problem of how to sweeten the foul life of our modern cities.

The story from which my text is taken does not need to detain us long. Nehemiah and his little band of exiles have come back to a ruined Jerusalem. Their first care is to provide for their safety, and the first step is to know the exact extent of their defencelessness. So we have the account of Nehemiah’s midnight ride amongst the ruins of the broken walls. And then we read of the co-operation of all classes in the work of reconstruction. ‘Many hands made light work.’ Men and women, priests and nobles, goldsmiths, apothecaries, merchants, all seized trowel or spade, and wheeled and piled. One man puts up a long length of wall, another can only manage a little bit; another undertakes the locks, bolts, and bars for the gates. Roughly and hastily the work is done. The result, of course, is very unlike the stately structures of Solomon’s or of Herod’s time, but it is enough for shelter. We can imagine the sigh of relief with which the workers looked upon the completed circle of their rude fortifications.

The principle of division of labour in our text is repeated several times in this list of the builders. It was a natural one; a man would work all the better when he saw his own roof mutely appealing to be defended, and thought of the dear ones that were there. But I take these words mainly as suggesting some thoughts applicable to the duties of Christian people in view of the spiritual wants of our great cities.

I. I need not do more than say a word or two about the ruins which need repair. If I dwell rather upon the dark side than on the bright side of city life I shall not be understood, as forgetting that the very causes which intensify the evil of a great city quicken the good-the friction of multitudes and the impetus thereby given to all kinds of mental activity. Here amongst us there is much that is admirable and noble-much public spirit, much wise and benevolent expenditure of thought and toil for the general good, much conjoint action by men of different parties, earnest antagonism and earnest co-operation, and a free, bracing intellectual atmosphere, which stimulates activity. All that is true, though, on the other hand, it is not good to live always within hearing of the clatter of machinery and the strife of tongues; and the wisdom that is born of solitary meditation and quiet thought is less frequently met with in cities than is the cleverness that is born of intercourse with men, and newspaper reading.

But there is a tragic other side to all that, which mostly we make up our minds to say little about and to forget. The indifference which has made that ignorance possible, and has in its turn been fed by the ignorance, is in some respects a more shocking phenomenon than the vicious life which it has allowed to rot and to reek unheeded.

Most of us have got so familiarised with the evils that stare us in the face every time we go out upon the pavements, that we have come to think of them as being inseparable from our modern life, like the noise of a carriage wheel from its rotation. And is it so then? Is it indeed inevitable that within a stone’s throw of our churches and chapels there should be thousands of men and women that have never been inside a place of worship since they were christened; and have no more religion than a horse? Must it be that the shining structure of our modern society, like an old Mexican temple, must be built upon a layer of living men, flung in for a foundation? Can it not be helped that there should be streets in our cities into which it is unfit for a decent woman to go by day alone, and unsafe for a brave man to venture after nightfall? Must men and women huddle together in dens where decency is as impossible as it is for swine in a sty? Is it an indispensable part of our material progress and wonderful civilisation that vice and crime and utter irreligion and hopeless squalor should go with it? Can all that bilge water really not be pumped out of the ship? If it be so, then I venture to say that, to a very large extent, progress is a delusion, and that the simple life of agricultural communities is better than this unwholesome aggregation of men.

The beginning of Nehemiah’s work of repair was that sad midnight ride round the ruined walls. So there is a solemn obligation laid on Christian people to acquaint themselves with the awful facts, and then to meditate on them, till sacred, Christ-like compassion, pressing against the flood-gates of the heart, flings them open, and lets out a stream of helpful pity and saving deeds.

II. So much for my first point. My second is-the ruin is to be repaired mainly by the old Gospel of Jesus Christ. Far be it from me to pit remedies against each other. The causes are complicated, and the cure must be as manifold as the causes. For my own part I believe that, in regard to the condition of the lowest of our outcast population, drink and lust have done it almost all, and that for all but an infinitesimal portion of it, intemperance is directly or indirectly the cause. That has to be fought by the distinct preaching of abstinence, and by the invoking of legislative restrictions upon the traffic. Wretched homes have to be dealt with by sanitary reform, which may require municipal and parliamentary action. Domestic discomfort has to be dealt with by teaching wives the principles of domestic economy. The gracious influence of art and music, pictures and window-gardening, and the like, will lend their aid to soften and refine. Coffee taverns, baths and wash-houses, workmen’s clubs, and many other agencies are doing real and good work. I for one say, ‘God speed to them all,’ and willingly help them so far as I can.

But, as a Christian man, I believe that I know a thing that if lodged in a man’s heart will do pretty nearly all which they aspire to do; and whilst I rejoice in the multiplied agencies for social elevation, I believe that I shall best serve my generation, and I believe that ninety-nine out of a hundred of you will do so too, by trying to get men to love and fear Jesus Christ the Saviour. If you can get His love into a man’s heart, that will produce new tastes and new inclinations, which will reform, and sweeten, and purify faster than anything else does.

They tell us that Nonconformist ministers are never seen in the slums; well, that is a libel! But I should like to ask why it is that the Roman Catholic priest is seen there more than the Nonconformist minister? Because the one man’s congregation is there, and the other man’s is not-which, being translated into other words, is this: the religion of Jesus Christ mostly keeps people out of the slums, and certainly it will take a man out of them if once it gets into his heart, more certainly and quickly than anything else will.

So, dear friends! if we have in our hearts and in our hands this great message of God’s love, we have in our possession the germ out of which all things that are lovely and of good report will grow. It will purify, elevate, and sweeten society, because it will make individuals pure and strong, and homes holy and happy. We do not need to draw comparisons between this and other means of reparation, and still less to feel any antagonism to them or the benevolent men who work them; but we should fix it in our minds that the principles of Christ’s Gospel adhered to by individuals, and therefore by communities, would have rendered such a condition of things impossible, and that the true repair of the ruin wrought by evil and ignorance, in the single soul, in the family, the city, the nation, the world, is to be found in building anew on the One Foundation which God has laid, even Jesus Christ, the Living Stone, whose pure life passes into all that are grounded and founded on Him.

III. Lastly, this remedy is to be applied by the individual action of Christian men and women on the people nearest them.

‘The priests repaired every one over against his house.’ We are always tempted, in the face of large disasters, to look for heroic and large remedies, and to invoke corporate action of some sort, which is a great deal easier for most of us than the personal effort that is required. When a great scandal and danger like this of the condition of the lower layers of our civic population is presented before men, for one man that says, ‘What can I do?’ there are twenty who say, ‘Somebody should do something. Government should do something. The Corporation should do something. This, that, or the other aggregate of men should do something.’ And the individual calmly and comfortably slips his neck out of the collar and leaves it on the shoulders of these abstractions.

As I have said, there are plenty of things that need to be done by these somebodies. But what they do {they will be a long time in doing it}, when they do get to work will only touch the fringe of the question, and the substance and the centre of it you can set to work upon this very day if you like, and not wait for anybody either to set you the example or to show you the way.

If you want to do people good you can; but you must pay the price for it. That price is personal sacrifice and effort. The example of Jesus Christ is the all-instructive one in the case. People talk about Him being their Pattern, but they often forget that whatever more there was in Christ’s Cross and Passion there was this in it:-the exemplification for all time of the one law by which any reformation can be wrought on men-that a sympathising man shall give himself to do it, and that by personal influence alone men will be drawn and won from out of the darkness and filth. A loving heart and a sympathetic word, the exhibition of a Christian life and conduct, the fact of going down into the midst of evil and trying to lift men out of it, are the old-fashioned and only magnets by which men are drawn to purer and higher life. That is God’s way of saving the world-by the action of single souls on single souls. Masses of men can neither save nor be saved. Not in groups, but one by one, particle by particle, soul by soul, Christ draws men to Himself, and He does His work in the world through single souls on fire with His love, and tender with pity learned of Him.

So, dear friends! do not think that any organisation, any corporate activity, any substitution of vicarious service, will solve the problem. It will not. There is only one way of doing it, the old way that we must tread if we are going to do anything for God and our fellows: ‘The priests repaired every one over against his house.’

Let me briefly point out some very plain and obvious things which bear upon this matter of individual action. Let me remind you that if you are a Christian man you have in your possession the thing which will cure the world’s woe, and possession involves responsibility. What would you think of a man that had a specific for some pestilence that was raging in a city, and was contented to keep it for his own use, or at most for his family’s use, when his brethren were dying by the thousand, and their corpses polluting the air? And what shall we say of men and women who call themselves Christians, who have some faith in that great Lord and His mighty sacrifice; who know that the men they meet with every day of their lives are dying for want of it, and who yet themselves do absolutely nothing to spread His name, and to heal men’s hurts? What shall we say? God forbid that we should say they are not Christians! but God forbid that anybody should flatter them with the notion that they are anything but most inconsistent Christians!

Still further, need I remind you that if we have found anything in Jesus Christ which has been peace and rest for ourselves, Christ has thereby called us to this work? He has found and saved us, not only for our own personal good. That, of course, is the prime purpose of our salvation, but not its exclusive purpose. He has saved us, too, in order that the Word may be spread through us to those beyond. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened,’ and every little bit of the dough, as it received into itself the leaven, and was transformed, became a medium for transmitting the transformation to the next particle beyond it and so the whole was at last permeated by the power. We get the grace for ourselves that we may pass it on; and as the Apostle says: ‘God hath shined into our hearts that we might give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’

And you can do it, you Christian men and women, every one of you, and preach Him to somebody. The possession of His love gives the commission; ay! and it gives the power. There is nothing so mighty as the confession of personal experience. Do not you think that when that first of Christian converts, and first of Christian preachers went to his brother, all full of what he had discovered, his simple saying, ‘We have found the Messias,’ was a better sermon than a far more elaborate proclamation would have been? My brother! if you have found Him, you can say so; and if you can say so, and your character and your life confirm the words of your lips, you will have done more to spread His name than much eloquence and many an orator. All can preach who can say, ‘We have found the Christ.’

The last word I have to say is this: there is no other body that can do it but you. They say:-’What an awful thing it is that there are no churches or chapels in these outcast districts!’ If there were they would be what the churches and chapels are now-half empty. Bricks and mortar built up into ecclesiastical forms are not the way to evangelise this or any other country. It is a very easy thing to build churches and chapels. It is not such an easy thing-I believe it is an impossible thing {and that the sooner the Christian church gives up the attempt the better}-to get the godless classes into any church or chapel. Conducted on the principles upon which churches and chapels must needs at present be conducted, they are for another class altogether; and we had better recognise it, because then we shall feel that no multiplication of buildings like this in which we now are, for instance, is any direct contribution to the evangelisation of the waste spots of the country, except in so far as from a centre like this there ought to go out much influence which will originate direct missionary action in places and fashions adapted to the outlying community.

Professional work is not what we want. Any man, be he minister, clergyman, Bible-reader, city missionary, who goes among our godless population with the suspicion of pay about him is the weaker for that. What is needed besides is that ladies and gentlemen that are a little higher up in the social scale than these poor creatures, should go to them themselves; and excavate and work. Preach, if you like, in the technical sense; have meetings, I suppose, necessarily; but the personal contact is the thing, the familiar talk, the simple exhibition of a loving Christian heart, and the unconventional proclamation in free conversation of the broad message of the love of God in Jesus Christ. Why, if all the people in this chapel who can do that would do it, and keep on doing it, who can tell what an influence would come from some hundreds of new workers for Christ? And why should the existence of a church in which the workers are as numerous as the Christians be an Utopian dream? It is simply the dream that perhaps a church might be conceived to exist, all the members of which had found out their plainest, most imperative duty, and were really trying to do it.

No carelessness, no indolence, no plea of timidity or business shift the obligation from your shoulders if you are a Christian. It is your business, and no paid agents can represent you. You cannot buy yourselves substitutes in Christ’s army, as they used to do in the militia, by a guinea subscription. We are thankful for the money, because there are kinds of work to be done that unpaid effort will not do. But men ask for your money; Jesus Christ asks for yourself, for your work, and will not let you off as having done your duty because you have paid your subscription. No doubt there are some of you who, from various circumstances, cannot yourselves do work amongst the masses of the outcast population. Well, but you have got people by your side whom you can help. The question which I wish to ask of my Christian brethren and sisters now is this: Is there a man, woman, or child living to whom you ever spoke a word about Jesus Christ? Is there? If not, do not you think it is time that you began?

There are people in your houses, people that sit by you in your counting-house, on your college benches, who work by your side in mill or factory or warehouse, who cross your path in a hundred ways, and God has given them to you that you may bring them to Him. Do you set yourself, dear brother, to work and try to bring them. Oh! if you lived nearer Jesus Christ you would catch the sacred fire from Him; and like a bit of cold iron lying beside a magnet, touching Him, you would yourselves become magnetic and draw men out of their evil and up to God.

Let me commend to you the old pattern: ‘The priests repaired every one over against his house’; and beseech you to take the trowel and spade, or anything that comes handiest, and build, in the bit nearest you, some living stones on the true Foundation.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:28-32 This final group of workers connected the repairs to the Sheep Gate, where the work had started (3:1). • Horse Gate: See also 2 Chr 23:15; Jer 31:40. • East Gate: See also 1 Chr 26:14, 17; 2 Chr 31:14; Ezek 10:19; 40:21-22.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 28. The horse gate] The place through which the horses passed in order to be watered; It was near the temple. Some rabbins suppose that in order to go to the temple, a person might go on horseback to the place here referred to, but then was obliged to alight, as a horse could pass no farther. Horses were never very plentiful in Jerusalem.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(28) From above the horse gate.—This gate was between the Temple and the palace, and the space from the wall of Ophel seems not to have needed repair.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

28. From above] R.V. Above. The word implies that the dwellingplaces of the priests stood on higher ground.

the horse gate] This gate is mentioned 2Ki_11:16; 2Ch_23:15; Jer_31:40, where it seems to be described as the easternmost portion of Jerusalem overlooking the valley of Kedron. It must have led to the S.E. corner of the Temple courts. It has been suggested that its name is derived from the horses dedicated to the sun by idolatrous kings of Judah (2Ki_23:11). It was probably a little south of the modern ‘golden gate.’

over against his house] R.V. over against his own house, as in Neh_3:29.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

After him repaired Hananiah the son of Shelemiah, and Hanun the sixth son of Zalaph, another piece,.... This last man had six sons; but only his youngest son wrought at this work, which is observed to his great commendation:

after him repaired Shelemiah the son of Berechiah, over against his chamber; the same as in Neh 3:4 who having finished what he engaged in there, took his part where his chamber was, and repaired over against that.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Horse-gate, by which the king’s horses were led to water, at the torrent Cedron. It was near the temple and palace, 4 Kings xi. 16. (Calmet) --- Some Rabbins assert that people were obliged to alight here, and to go on foot to the temple. (Lyranus)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The horse gate; not that belonging to the king’s palace, 2Ch 23:15, but one of the gates of the city so called; either because nigh unto that were many stables for horses, or because the horses commonly went out that way to their watering-place.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

28. The horse gate — So called, probably, from being the entrance to the royal stables. Compare marginal references. Its exact location can now be only a matter of conjecture.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

From above the horse gate. This was a gate in the eastern wall (Jer_31:40) through which horses could enter the city. It probably adjoined the old palace, being at or near the "turning of the wall" mentioned in vers. 24, 25. Nehemiah seems here to return to the point quitted in ver. 26, and to proceed thence northwards in order to complete the entire circuit.

Doing good near home.

"Every one over against his house." The priests and others (vers. 10, 23, 29, 30), whose houses were near the wall, repaired that part of the wall which was opposite each of their dwellings. This suggests an important rule for Christian workers.

I THE ORDER TO BE OBSERVED IN SEEKING THE GOOD OF OTHERS. Let every one do the work which lies nearest to him. Let him begin with his own family. No amount of good work elsewhere will compensate for neglect there. Christian parents can do most good to the community by training well their children. Then, as ability and opportunity permit, let each seek the good of his dependents, friends, neighbours, the congregation with which he worships, the city or town, the country, the Church at large, the world.

II REASONS FOR ADOPTING THIS ORDER.

1. That which is nearest is usually best known. Its needs can be best perceived, and how to meet them.

2. It appeals most powerfully to our hearts. Partly because best known. The eye affects the heart. (Lam_3:51) Partly because of the natural affections which belong to the closer relationships. Now the emotions of the heart are both a call to duty and a qualification for its efficient performance. Words spoken, gifts bestowed, with feeling, are most powerful for good.

3. It has the first claim upon us. God has placed men in close relationships and proximity in order that they may be mutually helpful as occasion arises. We violate the Divine order when we care for the distant to the neglect of the near.

4. We can most easily reach it.

5. We may hope for more success in dealing with it. Because our work will be with more knowledge and more heart, and less waste of resources; and will carry with it the weight of known character, of personal sympathy, and the thousand influences which spring from family life, friendship, neighbourhood, etc. A man can nowhere work with so much effect as "over against his house.

6. In caring for it we may be most effectually protecting our houses. As those priests and others who built up the piece of wall nearest them. There are perils to us and our families which may be averted by doing our duty to those nearest to us; perils from the sullen enmity which indifference and neglect may generate in them; perils from their ignorance, grossness, or vice; perils from their diseases, etc.

7. When each does the work nearest to him, the whole work will be most surely and rapidly done. Christians have yet thoroughly to follow this order. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there is much to be done which cannot thus be reached. There were many parts of the wall at Jerusalem which were opposite the house of no one, or of none able to repair them; and there were many able and willing to assist in the work whose dwellings were not in Jerusalem, or, if in the city, not near the wall. And so they had to labour at a distance from their houses. In like manner, there is much Christian work to be done where no Christians exist, or none capable of doing it; and so there is ample room for those organisations which enable the benevolent to do good at a distance, and even in far-off lands.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

priests repaired ... repaired the section ... east gate, repaired ... repaired another section ... repaired opposite

These phrases refer to repairing the wall. AT: "priests repaired the wall ... repaired the section of the wall ... east gate, repaired the wall ... repaired another section of the wall ... repaired the wall opposite" (See: Ellipsis)

above the Horse Gate

The word "above" is used here because the priests' houses were likely located at a higher elevation than the Horse Gate.

opposite his own house

"in front of his own house"

After them ... After him

"Next to them ... Next to him"

Zadok ... Immer ... Shemaiah ... Shecaniah ... Hananiah ... Shelemiah ... Hanun ... Zalaph ... Meshullam ... Berechiah

These are the names of men. (See: How to Translate Names)

Shemaiah son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the east gate

Shemaiah was the keeper of the east gate, not Shecaniah.

the keeper of the east gate

"the person who looked after the east gate" or "the person who opened and closed the east gate"

the sixth son

"son 6" or "son number 6" (See: Ordinal Numbers)

opposite his living chambers

"in front of the rooms where he stayed." The word "his" refers to Meshullam.

translationWords

priest

horse

gate

house

Zadok

son

life

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

each one opposite his house Each one was building opposite his house.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.