Nehemiah — Chapter 6

Percutiamus foedus pariter in

Let us meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono. — So also the Septuagint and Vatablus. Pagninus retains the Hebrew name as a proper noun and translates \"in Kephirim.\" Both are correct, since Kephirim was the name of a place so called from the abundance of farmsteads and hamlets there. \"IN THE PLAIN OF ONO\" — This plain was near the Jordan in the tribe of Benjamin, commonly called \"the Valley of Craftsmen.\" So Adrichomius, and this is clear from chapter 11, verses 31 and 33. \"THAT THEY MIGHT DO ME HARM\" — that they might capture or kill me.

Et levare te velis

And that you wish to set yourself king over them — that is, that you, O Nehemias, wish to exalt yourself over them and set yourself up as king. This was their accusation and slander.

Et prophetas posueris qui

And you have set up prophets to preach of you in Jerusalem, saying: There is a king in Judah. — Take \"prophets\" in the proper sense. For they accuse Nehemias of wanting to make himself king, and therefore of suborning prophets to prophesy to the people that God wills this, so that Judah, which had lacked kings for so many years, should have its own king restored. Thus Sanchez. Others, however, understand \"prophets\" as heralds who proclaim Nehemias king through the streets.

Et ingressus sum domum

And I went secretly to the house of Semaia son of Dalaiah son of Metabeel. — Semaia was a priest of the district of Dalaiah, which was the twenty-third in order (1 Chronicles 24:18), and remained at home as if devoted to study and prayer. Hence Sanaballat corrupted him with money, so that, as if a religious man and indeed a prophet (verse 12), he might summon Nehemias to himself, inspire him with fear of enemies as if prophesying, and persuade him to flee — with the purpose of bringing upon Nehemias the reproach of timidity and making him contemptible to the people; and so that with Nehemias fearing and fleeing, the people would similarly fear and flee. This is clear from what follows.

Et dixi num quisquam

And I said: Should a man like me flee? — That is: Such cowardly flight is unworthy of my magnanimity and dignity. For with the leader fleeing, all the people will flee. \"AND WHO IS THERE SUCH AS I WHO WOULD GO INTO THE TEMPLE AND LIVE?\" — Vatablus: \"that he may live\" — Not even for the sake of preserving my life does it become me to flee to the temple; for it is better to die nobly than to flee shamefully and bring disgrace on one's glory, as Judas Maccabaeus used to say. Or: \"and live\" — that is: If I flee to the temple, I shall not live but shall be killed by the people as a timid fugitive who rashly threw them into danger, and as if conscious of some crime. Thus Sanchez.

Et intellexi quod Deus

And I perceived that God had not sent him. — Either by God's revelation, or by my own alertness and acuity of mind from Semaia's words and gestures, I discerned that he was passing himself off as a prophet and as such prophesying the enemies' threats, when in truth he was a false prophet suborned for pay by Sanaballat, to terrify me and make me cheap and odious to the people.

Ut territus facerem et

That, being terrified (by the feigned oracle of imminent danger), I might do (what he advised — namely flee into the temple as a coward; or flee to the temple as if to a sanctuary, as if conscious of some crime) and sin — against God by diffidence, against myself by pusillanimous flight, and against the people by terrifying and routing them by my example.

Memento mei Domine pro

Remember, O my God, Tobias and Sanaballat according to their works — so that you free me from them and punish them, that either they themselves or others by their example and punishment may grow wise and learn not to harass upright men nor lay snares for them. \"BUT ALSO NOADIAH THE PROPHETESS\" — Hebrew: prophetess (for she was a woman) — that is, a false prophetess corrupted with pay by Sanaballat, who threatened similar fears and terrors upon me. Nehemias said this out of just indignation and zeal, not for private vengeance but for public justice.

Completus est autem murus

And the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul (the sixth month, corresponding partly to our August, partly to September), in fifty-two days. — Some begin these 52 days not from the start of construction but from the threats and ambushes plotted by Sanaballat; hence Josephus asserts the wall construction was completed in two years and three months, in the 28th year of Xerxes (i.e., Artaxerxes). Josephus is followed by the Scholastic Historians, Cajetan, Vatablus, and Mariana. More correctly, these 52 days are counted from the beginning of construction, as Lyranus, Dionysius, Vilalpandus, and Sanchez hold. For if the construction had lasted two years, Sanaballat would have gathered the neighboring peoples and raised an army to impede it. Nehemias therefore pressed on and urged the work to be completed immediately. This could be done in 52 days: all worked vigorously and ardently; the work was distributed in orderly fashion to each individual without exception; the foundations which the Chaldeans could not destroy remained, and in many places the walls were intact (for the Chaldeans had only demolished them at intervals, as is clear from 4 Kings 25:4,10); the gates were not demolished but only their leaves burned (Esdras 1:3), so only the leaves needed to be restored; and they built from rough unpolished stone, indeed from stones found in the ruins of the old walls. Finally God seconded them, so that they completed the walls in 52 days. So Alexander the Great erected the walls of his new Alexandria on the Tanais, sixty stadia long, in 17 days (Curtius) or twenty (Arrian).

Ut timerent universae gentes

And all the nations that were about us feared — us and our construction, which they saw completed so swiftly that they themselves confessed this was the work of God rather than of men.

Multae optimatum Judaeorum epistolae

In those days also many letters went from the nobles of Judah to Tobias. — These were traitors to their country who had conspired with enemies against Nehemias and wrote to them his deeds and plans, so that they might disrupt them. The reason is given below.

Multi enim erant in

For many in Judah were bound by oath to him — that is: Many Jews had sworn to Tobias and by oath pledged their loyalty to him — that is, to be his friends and faithful — and thus had conspired with him against me and their own country. \"Because (Tobias) WAS SON-IN-LAW OF SECHENIAS\" — The reason why many Jews favored Tobias, an enemy of the Jews, was that they had contracted an alliance with him and his confederates through mutual marriages.

Sed et laudabant eum

But they also praised him (Tobias) before me. — The Hebrew says they proclaimed his \"goodness\" (or good deeds, benefactions) before me, alluding to the name Tobias which in Hebrew means \"goodness of God,\" as if to say: He truly is Tobias according to his name, who is good and beneficent to all. So Vatablus. This was the height of Jewish iniquity and the greatest injury and affliction for Nehemias — the betrayal of his own citizens — which nonetheless he overcame by patience, counsel, and constancy, while dissimulating it.