Neh 4.1-23 tells us about the enemies of the Jewish people who try to stop the rebuilding of the walls. This chapter will deal with enemies “outside the camp.” In Chapter 5 we will find out about the problems inside the walls. Sanballat (“eminent moon god” or “Sin has begotten” ) held some authority in Samaria when Nehemiah came., and he begins to mock the Jews building the wall. He uses psychological warfare to discourage the people and stop the work of God. This has been a common tactic since the beginning. Even today, the enemies of the United States don’t like the building of a wall on our southern borders, either, and they will use psychological warfare against anyone supporting it. But, there are many things that will not change in this world, and two of them are the need for a wheel and the need for walls.
So, let’s look at some concepts on psychological warfare because we have either fought a psychological battle, are currently fighting one, or will fight one. The essence of psychological warfare is to confuse the meaning of words and infiltrate the mind with conflicting concepts. Before a battle even begins in our life, the enemy will work on us in this area.
We must learn to “speak loudly when we carry a small stick.” What does that mean? Gideon made his 300 soldiers look more numerous than they really were when they blew the trumpets and smashed the pitchers down in Judges 7.16-22. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War Israel used this same concept in what was called “Operation Gideon.” They sent some people out with many radios and knew that the enemy was going to pick up on their transmissions. Using that knowledge to their advantage, Israel made it sound like there was a larger force out there because of all the chatter.
We must realize when we are under a psychological attack during a physical attack. A psychological attack makes your enemy work all the time, and time is on our side. We must never carry “Arks” into a battle to “assure victory” like good luck charms, crosses, statues, a Star of David or use magic formulas. Israel carried the Ark into battle thinking this would assure them of victory at Aphek, and it didn’t. The Israelite army was routed and the Ark was captured by the Philistines (2 Sam 4.1-22).
We should show our strength even more than it is and make it obvious, and accentuate the positives. We should stay psychologically strong in Yehovah. Hezekiah listened to Isaiah and not to the representatives of the pagan king Sennacherib. A soldier for the Confederate army after the battle of Chickamauga during the Civil War said, “You Yanks got into our innards.” We must be prepared to go out on a limb and get hurt. That’s what the people did during the Maccabean War against the Greeks.
Psychological war always keeps the enemy at war within themselves, and this is done to weaken them. That is how we can recognize it, or use it against our enemies. This is what Sanballat is trying to do, and the Romans did it against the Jews inside Jerusalem in the First Jewish Revolt. We must be able to know when the enemy is disintegrating within, and then keep them in confusion. Spiritual battles don’t have to be centered in logic, and our enemies will be illogical. Biblical battles will be successful because God told them to go, and he told them what to do. That is a major lesson in our spiritual warfare. Make sure God told you to go and fight a battle, and then listen to what he is telling you to do. Anything less than that is presumption and it will be doomed to fail for the most part.
Isa 36 and 37 are two great chapters on psychological warfare. The Assyrians are coming against Hezekiah and Jerusalem. The whole nation has fallen to the Assyrians who are so powerful they can have numerous sieges going on at the same time, thus cutting all reinforcements off from coming to the besieged cities. The Assyrians only have Jerusalem to defeat so they try to get the Jews inside the city to doubt their ability to stand against them. In our warfare, we should never let the enemy discourage us or those around us.
We should take the example of Hezekiah and not talk to the enemy (Isa 36.21). We should not hate our enemies because we don’t need it to defeat them. The representative of Sennacherib said that the Jews in the city would “drink their own urine” because the city did not have enough water. But how would he know? What the Assyrians didn’t know was Hezekiah had built a water tunnel bringing water into the city, and you can still see it today. Hezekiah didn’t say, “Oh yeah! That’s what you think. We have water because I built a water tunnel!” Hezekiah didn’t say anything because he did not want to interrupt his enemy when they were making a mistake. Never talk to the enemy or let them know what you are thinking in a battle.
We should come before the Lord in humility to pray for help (Isa 37.1). God directs the battles, not the believers (Isa 37.4). No “name it claim it” believers here because they knew it was the Lord who directs the battle (Amos 3.6). Our enemies will lift up problems we have (or they think we have) and will try to speak to others who they think don’t know what to do. They will play mind games with you and others, and promise false things, but in the end we will be slaves if we listen, so don’t listen.
Sanballat had help in Tobiah the Ammonite, who also mocked the Jewish effort to rebuild the walls. They did not answer these people, but Nehemiah prayed about it and asked that their reproaches would return upon their own heads, and that their iniquity would not be forgiven, nor let their sin be blotted out, for they have demoralized the builders (v 4-5). So they continued to build the wall because they had a spirit to work because it was based on the knowledge that God was behind them and it was by his direction.
When we are angry and have a real enemy, Nehemiah’s prayer shows that we can go at them in prayer and leave it up to Yehovah to deal with them. This is not in the sense of “praying evil” upon them, but he turned them over to a just God because he knows what is best. The Jewish enemies were very angry when they heard the gates were closing, and the wall was only half as high as it should be, but it was continuously being worked on now. So, they conspired together again to use violence this time, but they never attacked. They just talked about it. Satan uses the same strategy to instill fear in us and paralyze us from the work God has given us, which is to rebuild the torn down walls and gates of the faith, which is a Torah-based faith in Yeshua as Messiah. The people prayed to Yehovah and they set up a guard against them twenty-four hours a day. Notice they put action to their prayers, which is an important concept to remember (v 9).
They were fighting a two-front war. There was discouragement on the inside (v 10) and the enemies on the outside were threatening surprise attacks (v 11). Our adversary (Satan means adversary) knows when we are discouraged and attacks against us can be planned. Attacks are often successful because they come as a surprise to us. That’s why we should never let our shield (guard) down, and we should always be ready for an attack.
The builders were warned “ten times” about attacks and this was driven by fear (v 12). Ten is the number of judgment, and it was coming alright, against God’s enemies, and even though the people panicked, Nehemiah didn’t. He gets a defense ready and did not stand there in panic, or whine about it all. He trusted God and acted wisely.
He told them to arm themselves and get ready for a fight. He reminded them that God was with them, and he wanted the walls built, and they were fighting for each other, their families and households (v 14). But in all this they kept working, holding a weapon and wearing armor (v 17-18). Trumpets were used to communicate and they were blown if there was trouble. They were ready at all times. They worked past dark, even sleeping at their job sites to guard against an attack, and they slept in their clothes ( v 21-23).
We need to have the same attitude in our battles. We need to keep up the work God gave us to do, be ready to fight at a minutes notice (like spiritual “minutemen”), and put on the armor of God and be ready for that trumpet twenty-four hours a day.
In Neh 5.1-19 we learn about the enemy within due to financial issues. This chapter depicts their plight and poverty, and their outcry. They had an enemy on the outside and on the inside. They were not walking in the Torah and Nehemiah will need to confront the ones he loves.
The poor had a complaint against the rich. The poor had larger families to support and they had to borrow money by mortgaging their fields and houses to get grain because there was a famine. This may have been caused by the enemy outside intercepting provisions that might have been brought in (5.3). They had to sell their children into servitude because of poverty to pay their debts (Exo 21.7).
This caused an indignation towards the rich, and Nehemiah was angry also because he considered the tears of the oppressed (Ecc 4.1). He rebukes the nobles and the rulers who were taking advantage of the poor and charging interest on loans (Exo 22.25; Neh 5.7). He tells the rich that they were once slaves and had sold themselves to Babylon. They could not leave when Cyrus said they could go because of that. Many Jews had been bought (redeemed) out of that servitude and were able to leave. Now, Jews are being sold again to other Jews because they could not pay off the high interest (v 8). Nehemiah said this was not right.
Things had to be set right again, and what they had taken as collateral had to be given back (v 11). The rich said that they would restore everything back, and if they didn’t, God would require it from them. They would be “shaken out” of their worldly goods and emptied (v 13). They praised the Lord and did according to what they had promised. Nehemiah set the good example by putting God’s work above his personal needs. He did not tax the people for his support like some others had done (Zerubbabel, Methulam, Hananiah). Paul also did this in 1 Cor 9.1-15).
Evidently, Nehemiah went back to Persia to give an accounting, and then was sent back as governor (v 14-15). This was done after the wall was done in 52 days. Others had taken provisions before him but Nehemiah did not exert that right for himself. He had a healthy fear of God and he knew that others were suffering lack and he would have to answer to the Lord. He did not care what others did before him, and gave away the king’s provisions for him (v 18), and he applied himself to the work on the wall.
Nehemiah was living in the way he told the rich to live. He also prayed to Yehovah that he would remember the good he was doing (v 19). He did not ask his reward from men, but from Yehovah (Heb 6.10). This was right and proper to do. We can ask the Lord to remember us for good. Nehemiah was leading by example and could tell others what to do because he was walking in the Torah and the correct ways of the Lord.
We will pick up in Neh 6.1-19 in Part 5.
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