Prosperity and adversity.
It is a fact of no small significance that the Hebrew author of this book was in the palace at Susa. "I was in Shushan (in) the palace" (verse 1). The Jewish captives in Persia were by no means all in a forlorn or destitute condition. We find them filling honorable offices—Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king—and even attaining to the highest posts in the state, as in the case of Daniel. We are reminded that—
I. WE MAY FIND SOME MITIGATION IN OUR EVIL CONDITION. We have evidences enough, both in the Bible and in secular history, of the evils of absolutism, of intrusting the power of life and death, of prosperity and adversity, to one man; but we have proof that in Persia men of humble station could rise to exalted position. Here was "a career open to ability." Seldom an evil estate without one mitigating feature; seldom a cloudy day without an interval of blue sky; few lives without some sources of happiness. Obscurity, with all its dulness, has freedom from the glare and hatred of public life. Hard work knows, as luxury and indolence cannot, the enjoyment of repose.
"Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring;
No endless night, nor yet eternal day.
The saddest bird a season finds to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus, with succeeding years, God tempers all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall."
II. WE SHALL REAP SATISFACTION IF WE SOW PIETY AND VIRTUE. Wherever the Jew has gone, whether forcibly deported or whether he has voluntarily migrated, he has carried with him the virtues of his race. Beyond question the law of Moses trained a people to the practice of a severe morality. Purity, temperance, industry, and frugality have been the characteristics of the race in every land and age. And these have placed them everywhere in positions of honour and of trust. Thus Nehemiah comes from the king's presence to see his countrymen from Jerusalem. Under the righteous government of God we shall find that the same virtues will conduct us to sufficiency, contentment, honour, prosperity.
III. WE HAVE ONE UNFAILING RESOURCE IN TIME OF TROUBLE (verses 2, 3). Evil tidings come to Nehemiah in his prosperity and cloud his life (verses 2, 3). Certain of his countrymen bring tidings from Jerusalem which are most distressing to him. The city of God is "in great affliction and reproach" (verse 3); its "wall is broken down;" its "gates are burned with fire" (verse 3). There are those who would hardly allow their day's enjoyment to be disturbed if they heard of the most terrible calamities. In nothing is our spirit more clearly shown than in the way in which we receive tidings of the welfare or misfortune of others. Nehemiah was a large-hearted, sympathetic man. He entirely forgot his own comfortable prosperity in the adversity of his race; to him the sufferings of his people were his own misfortunes. Under these circumstances Nehemiah had recourse to
(a) gave himself up to formal lamentation—he "sat down and wept, and mourned certain days" (verse 4); and
(b) he fasted (verse 4). These expressions of grief were national, Oriental; to him they were therefore natural and helpful. We may weep, we may abstain from food because appetite is killed by sorrow; but it is not natural, and therefore not right, for us to affect the tokens of grief which belong to other times or other peoples. But Nehemiah had also recourse to