4. The family (vv. 23-28). The final abuse was an old one, going back to the people’s early days in the land: intermarriage with the nations roundabout, the very thing they had promised to avoid in chapter 10. Half of the children of these marriages did not even know how to speak the Jews’ language, according to Nehemiah, and the problem had extended upward into the families even of the leaders of the city. As Nehemiah explains in verse 28, a son of Eliashib the high priest had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. In this case, Nehemiah did not act as radically as Ezra had done when he required the Jewish men to divorce their foreign wives earlier (Ezra 9-10). Nevertheless, he gave them a thorough dressing down and publicly humiliated some of them, extracting renewed promises that the people would abstain from damaging marriages with foreign peoples (v. 25). As for the son of Eliashib, Nehemiah simply drove him from the city.
Thus ended the last of these reforms.
Nehemiah closes with two more prayers: first, against those who corrupted the priesthood (“Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites,” v. 29) and, second, for himself (“Remember me with favor, O my God,” v. 31).
I am sure, Nehemiah’s prayer to the contrary, that God did not need to be urged to remember this great leader. He had obeyed God nobly, and for many centuries now has been enjoying his reward. It is rather ourselves who need to be urged to remember him. We need to remember his faith and his great leadership characteristics. Of the many we have seen, I have been most impressed with the following:
1. Nehemiah’s submission to God. Nehemiah had no other plans for his life than to do what God had for him. He could have said with Jesus, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
2. Nehemiah’s ability to focus on the right goals. Nehemiah saw the ultimate goals and the objectives leading to them clearly. He never deviated from any of them, even for a moment.
3. Nehemiah’s wisdom in handling complex situations. The problems Nehemiah faced were all different, and the solution to one was not the solution to another. Nehemiah did not have rote answers. He handled each problem wisely with a wisdom that came from God.
4. Nehemiah’s courage to act decisively. Because he was serving God and not man, and because he knew that the purposes of God will always ultimately triumph, Nehemiah was not afraid to act boldly. His boldness left his enemies stammering, confounded and in awe. That is perseverance. It is a quality of all great leaders. Is it true of us? We should cultivate it until we can say with the apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:7-8).
“Remember me with favor, O my God.”
