The main theme in the story of Nehemiah is of course, rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. We’ve talked about this for several weeks now so I’m not going to rehash all that. But this morning our story takes a short pause and it goes down a little rabbit trail. Now I’ll admit, that quite often we go down these little rabbit trails primarily because my mind has all these random thoughts that don’t always have anything to do with the main point – but our rabbit trail today isn’t even my fault. This one is written right into the pages of Scripture.
For the past several weeks, we’ve been talking about some of the challenges that Nehemiah has had to face as he rallies the people of Israel to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. I mean, it was a challenge for Nehemiah just to get permission from King Artaxerxes to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. The job itself was a huge challenge with about 4 km of massive walls to repair and rebuild. It was a challenge to keep the people motivated and excited about the project when – especially when their enemies were making fun of them and mocking their efforts. It was an even greater challenge to keep the people safe as their enemies ramped up their opposition and resorted to physical threats and violence.
But today, we’re going to read about another challenge that Nehemiah faced. And this one came from within the walls – right from the Israelites themselves. And I say it’s a rabbit trail because it’s not directly related to the rebuilding of the wall – it’s almost like a little sidenote – but it certain has the potential to derail the whole project.
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