Ver. 1. But it came to pass] The devil and his imps have ever been utter enemies to reformation. So do savage beasts bristle up themselves, and make the most fierce assaults, when they are in danger of losing the prey which they had once seized on. Jabeshgilead would send in none to help the Lord against the mighty, Judges 21:9. No more would Meroz, Judges 5:23. Josiah met with much opposition; so did St Paul wherever he came, to set up evangelical and spiritual worship; which is called a reformation, Hebrews 9:10. All the world was against Athanasius in his generation, and Luther in his; rejecting what they attempted, with scorn and slander. Here it is quarrel enough to Nehemiah and his Jews, that they would be no longer miserable. They were not more busy in building than the enemies active in deriding, conspiring, practising to hinder and overthrow them. A double derision is here recorded; and both as full of mischief as profane wit or rancoured malice could make them. He was wroth] Heb. He was enkindled, and all on a light fire; he was as hot as Nebuchadnezzar’s oven, very hot, he took great indignation, and was so unreasonably enraged, as if he would have fallen forthwith into a frenzy or apoplexy; as that Roman emperor did, by raging at his servant. He was grieved before, Nehemiah 2:1, but now he was maddened. And mocked the Jews] By word and gesture, fleering and jeering, flouting and scoffing at them, as the Pharisees also did at our Saviour, Luke 16:14; David’s enemies at him, upon their ale bench; Sir Thomas More and other learned Papists, at the new gospellers. See Nehemiah 2:19. This might have dismayed these poor Jews, and put them out of countenance: for our nature is most impatient with reproaches; there being none so mean but thinks himself worthy of some regard: and a reproachful scorn (such as these here) shows an utter disrespect, which issueth from the very superfluity of malice. If God had not strengthened them, saith one, it would have made them leave their work, and run away.
Ver. 2. And he spake before his brethren] i.e., before his companions and acomplices, who would second him and say the same, his Aiones and Negones, as one calleth such. And the army of Samaria] The garrison soldiers; or those that lay there billeted, to observe the people. What do these feeble Jews?] These beggarly shiftless fellows, these Asinarii (as Molon and Appion of Alexandria disgracefully called the Jews); like as Tertullian tells us that the Pagans painted the God of the Christians with an ass’s head and a book in his hand; to note that they were silly and despicable people. Bishop Jewell, in a sermon of his, citeth this out of Tertullian, and addeth, Do not our adversaries the like at this day against all that profess the gospel? Will they fortify themselves?] Heb. Will they leave to themselves, sc. anything to trust unto? Junius renders An sinerent eos? should they (sc. the officers and soldiers) suffer them thus to do? Will they sacrifice?] sc. at the dedication of their new walls? Will they do this all at once? and think they, without more ado, to have the liberty of their sanctuary? Will they make an end in a day?] It should seem so by their Cito, Cito, quick despatch of their parts and task, &c. Praecipita tempus; mors atra impendet agenti (Sil. Ital.). Will they revive the stones, &c.] Stones they lack for their new wall: where will they have them? will they glue together the old stones, and revive them out of the rubbish? will they do this? or, what will they do?
Ver. 3. Now Tobiah the Ammonite] This was one of Sanballat’s good brethren, Nehemiah 4:2. A bird of the same feather, a loaf of the same leaven, his fellow scoffer, and so homine peior, saith Chrysostom, worse than a man; as the scoffed that beareth it well, is Angelis par, saith he, an angel’s peer. Even that which they build, if a fox go up, &c.] It was some such bitter jeer that Remus uttered in contempt of Romulus’s new wall, and was knocked on the head for it. Hae sannae leniter volant, non leniter violant.
Ver. 4. Hear, O our God] These mocks and menaces lay so heavy upon Nehemiah’s spirit, that he could not ease himself but by breathing heavenward; and turning them over to God to take an order with them. His prayer is not long, but full. A child may not chat in his father’s presence: his words must be humble, earnest, direct to the point, avoiding vain babblings and tedious drawn out affairs. For we are despised] Heb. We are contempt in the abstract. Not vilified we are only, b ut nullified, as a company of ουτιδανοι, no bodies. So Paul (the most precious man upon earth) and his companions (the glory of Christ, and a royal diadem in the hand of Jehovah, Isaiah 62:3) were looked upon as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things, 1 Corinthians 4:13. What matter is it, then, what becometh of us? We have a God to turn us to, and Demetrius hath testimony of the truth; that is enough, let Diotrephes prate what he pleaseth, 3 John 9. And turn their reproach upon their own heads] Surely God scorneth these scorners, saith Solomon, Proverbs 3:34; that is, saith Rabbi Levi upon that text, he casts them into some calamity, and so makes them a laughing stock to those whom they have laughed at. God loves to retaliate, to pay men home in their own coin. Thus he dealt by Appion of Alexandria; who, scoffing at religion (and especially at circumcision), had an ulcer the same time and in the same place (Josephus). The like ill end befell Julian the apostate, whose daily practice was to scoff at Christ and his people. Dioclesian the emperor (as Volaterran writes) had a jester called Genesius, who used to make him merry at meals, and, among their devices, would scoff and squib at Christians; but God plagued him, for example to others. And the like he did to Morgan, that mocking bishop of St David’s; to John Apowel, who derided William Mauldon for his devotion; and lastly, to one Lever, of Brightwell, in Berkshire, who said that he saw that ill-favoured knave Latimer when he was burned at Oxford, and that he had teeth like a horse. But the Lord suffered not this scorn and contempt of his servant to pass unpunished; for that very day, and about the same hour, that Lever spake these words, his son wickedly hanged himself, saith mine author. Lege, cave. Read and take note! And give them for a prey, &c.] A heavy curse, and, as not causeless (against implacable enemies to God and goodness), so nor fruitless. Woe be to such as against whom the saints, moved with a zeal of God, shall imprecate vengeance. God usually inflicts what they denounce against his and their irreconcilable adversaries. Fire proceeds out of their mouths, &c., Revelation 11:5.