ove 150 men to dinner daily, yet for
all this Nehemiah took not a penny from his province, so touched was he
to the heart by the poverty of the people. Not only so, but all the time
the walls were being built he toiled away, and allowed all his household
servants to work both night and day, and yet looked for no payment or
compensation, ver. 16. Then besides all this, Nehemiah had been most
generous in the time of the famine; he had supplied the poor people with
money and with corn, and yet he had firmly refused to allow them to
pledge or mortgage their lands, much less their children, ver. 10.

And Nehemiah tells us the secret of his consistent conduct; he tells us
why he differed so much from the governors who went before him. A strong
power held him back from sin.

'So did not I, because of the fear of God.'

Thus Nehemiah had a right to speak, for he practised what he preached.
But in spite of this, his private appeal to the nobles appears to have
been in vain. They seem to have given no answer, to have taken no
notice of his appeal, and to have given him no reason to think that
they intended to change their conduct.

So he set a great assembly against them. He called a monster meeting of
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, rich and poor, for he felt that if
their conduct was publicly exposed and condemned, they might possibly be
ashamed to continue it.

Nehemiah's speech at the meeting was very much to the point. He first
tried to shame the nobles by reminding them that whilst he, ever since
his return, had been spending his money in buying back those Jews who
had been sold into slavery to the heathen round, they on the other hand
had actually been doing the very opposite, bringing their fellow
citizens into slavery to themselves. Was this right, or fair, or just?
The argument told, no one could answer it, there was dead silence, ver.
8.

Now, says Nehemiah, consider: 'Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our
God?' Ought ye not to be careful in your conduct, kind, and just, and
generous in your dealing? And why?

'Because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies.'

Because you Jews are God's people, and all these heathen round will
judge your God by what you are. You make a profession of religion, you
claim to have high motives; but if they see you grasping, greedy, hard,
like themselves, what will they think of your religion? Surely they will
say, 'These Jews are no better than ourselves, their religion ca