Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 260 · September 17
I Cannot Come Down
“And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?”
The wall around Jerusalem had been built, though the doors were not yet hung in the gates, when his enemies sent a reasonable-sounding request: "Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono." Nehemiah gives the real reason in the same verse: "But they thought to do me mischief."
His answer is today's verse: "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?" They sent the same message four times, and each time he gave the same answer. The fifth time it came as an open letter, so anyone could read its charge of rebellion. Then a man hired by his enemies urged him to hide in the temple, because killers were coming in the night. Nehemiah answered, "Should such a man as I flee?" The wall was finished "in fifty and two days."
Two kinds of reader need opposite things from this story. One of you is being pulled away from a good work by reasonable requests, and you have been apologising for saying no. This sentence belongs to you. The other one uses the sentence to keep people away, and chapter five was written for you. While the wall was going up, "there was a great cry of the people" from Nehemiah's own countrymen. They had mortgaged their fields to buy food, and some were having to sell their sons and daughters into service. Nehemiah did not plead that he was busy. He writes, "I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words." He called a great assembly, stood up to the nobles, and made them give the land back.
So two kinds of call came to Nehemiah while he built. One was sent to get him down off the wall, and the other was a cry from people standing at the foot of it. He answered them differently. Before you say no this week, ask plainly which of the two is in front of you. The God who strengthened Nehemiah's hands to finish the work will also give you the wisdom to tell them apart.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 260 is Angels Charged Over You (Psalm 91:11).