Context No. 2621 of 4322 · Nehemiah

Nehemiah 6:1-7: in context

1Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arabian, and to the rest of our enemies that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it (though even to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come! Let’s meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to harm me. 3I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, so that I can’t come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you?” 4They sent to me four times like this; and I answered them the same way. 5Then Sanballat sent his servant to me the same way the fifth time with an open letter in his hand, 6in which was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel. Because of that, you are building the wall. You would be their king, according to these words. 7You have also appointed prophets to proclaim of you at Jerusalem, saying, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now it will be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let’s take counsel together.”

With the wall of Jerusalem nearly finished, Nehemiah's enemies change tactics. Sanballat and Geshem invite him to meet in a village on the plain, but Nehemiah knows they mean to harm him. His answer is a model of focused refusal: I am doing a great work, so I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to come to you? Four times they send the same invitation, and four times he gives the same reply.

I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. Nehemiah recognizes the invitation for what it is, a distraction dressed as diplomacy, an attempt to pull him off the task God had given him. And he refuses to be pulled, not with drama, but with a steady, repeated no. There is real wisdom in it. Much that pulls us off the important work does not announce itself as an enemy; it comes as a reasonable request, a provocation that demands a response, a meeting we feel we ought to take. The discipline is to know the great work and to keep saying, about the things that would pull us from it, I cannot come down.

What invitations to come down, distractions, provocations, and manipulations, am I letting pull me off the great work God has given me?

Sources

Nehemiah 6:3: I sent messengers to them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I can't come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and come down to you?
Nehemiah 6:2: Come! Let's meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono. But they intended to harm me.
Nehemiah 6:4: They sent to me four times like this; and I answered them the same way.