The first proposal had danger written on the face of it, and the persistence with which so lame a device was repeated does not do much credit to the ingenuity of the conspirators. Their very malignity seems to have blinded them to the fact that they were not deceiving Nehemiah. Perhaps they thought that he would yield to sheer importunity. Their suggestion was that he should come out of Jerusalem and confer with Sanballat and his friends some miles away in the plain of Sharon.[203] The Jews were known to be hard-pressed, weary, and famine-stricken, and any overtures that promised an amicable settlement, or even a temporary truce, might be viewed acceptably by the anxious governor on whose sole care the social troubles of the citizens as well as the military protection of the city depended. Very likely information gleaned from spies within Jerusalem guided the conspirators in choosing the opportunities for their successive overtures. These would seem most timely when the social troubles of the Jews were most serious. In another way the invitation to a parley might be thought attractive to Nehemiah. It would appeal to his nobler feelings. A generous man is unwilling to suspect the dishonesty of his neighbours.
[203] At Ono. This place has not yet been found. It cannot well be _Beit Unia_, north-west of Jerusalem, near _Beitin_ (Bethel). Its association with Lod (Lydda) in 1 Chron. viii. 12 and Neh. xi. 35, points to the neighbourhood of the latter place.
But Nehemiah was not caught by the "confidence trick." He knew the conspirators intended to do him mischief. Yet as this intention was not actually proved against them, he put no accusation into his reply. The inference from it was clear enough. But the message itself could not be construed into any indication of discourtesy. Nehemiah was doing a great work. Therefore he could not come down. This was a perfectly genuine answer. For the governor to have left Jerusalem at the present crisis would have been disastrous to the city. The conspirators then tried another plan for getting Nehemiah to meet them outside Jerusalem. They pretended that it was reported that his work in fortifying the city was carried on with the object of rebelling against the Persian government, and that this report had gone so far as to convey the impression that he had induced prophets to preach his kingship. Some such suspicion had been hinted at before, at the time of Nehemiah's coming up to Jerusalem,[204] but then its own absurdity had prevented it from taking root. Now the actual appearance of the walls round the once ruinous city, and the rising reputation of Nehemiah as a man of resource and energy, might give some colour to the calumny. The point of the conspirators' device, however, is not to be found in the actual spreading of the dangerous rumour, but in the alarm to be suggested to Nehemiah by the thought that it was being spread. Nehemiah would know very well how much mischief is wrought by idle and quite groundless talk. The libel may be totally false, and yet it may be impossible for its victim to follow it up and clear his character in every nook and cranny to which it penetrates. A lie, like a weed, if it is not nipped in the bud, sheds seeds which every wind of gossip will spread far and wide, so that it soon becomes impossible to stamp it out.
[204] Neh. ii. 19.
In their effort to frighten Nehemiah the conspirators suggested that the rumour would reach the king. They as much as hinted that they would undertake the business of reporting it themselves if he would not come to terms with them. This was an attempt at extracting blackmail. Having failed in their appeal to his generous instincts, the conspirators tried to work on his fears. For any one of less heroic mind than Nehemiah their diabolical threat would have been overwhelmingly powerful. Even he could not but feel the force of it. It calls to mind the last word of the Jews that determined Pilate to surrender Jesus to the death he knew was not merited: "If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." The suspicion that always haunts the mind of an autocratic sovereign gives undue weight to any charges of treason. Artaxerxes was not a Tiberius. But the good-natured monarch was liable to persuasion. Nehemiah must have had occasion to witness many instances of the fatal consequences of royal displeasure. Could he rely on the continuance of his master's favour now he was far from the court, while lying tongues were trying to poison the ears of the king? Before first speaking of his project for helping his people, he had trembled at the risk he was about to incur; how then could he now learn with equanimity that a cruelly mendacious representation of it was being made to Artaxerxes? His sense of the gravity of the situation is seen in the way in which he met it. Nehemiah indignantly repudiated the charge. He boldly asserted that it had been invented by the conspirators. To them he showed an unwavering front. But we are able to look behind the scenes. It is one advantage of this autobiographical sketch of Nehemiah's that in it the writer repeatedly lifts the veil and reveals to us the secret of his thoughts. Heroic in the world, before men, he still knew his real human weakness. But he knew too that his strength was in God. Such heroism as his is not like the stolidity of the lifeless rock. It resembles the strength of the living oak, which grows more massive just in proportion as it is supplied with fresh sap. According to his custom in every critical moment of his life, Nehemiah resorted to prayer, and thus again we come upon one of those brief ejaculations uttered in the midst of the stress and strain of a busy life that light up the pages of his narrative from time to time. The point of his prayer is simple and definite. It is just that _his hands may be strengthened_. This would have a twofold bearing. In the first place, it would certainly seek a revival of inward energy. Nehemiah waits on the Lord that He may renew his strength. He knows that God helps him through his own exercise of energy, so that if he is to be protected he must be made strong. But the prayer means more than this. For the hands to be strengthened is for their work to prosper. Nehemiah craves the aid of God that all may go right in spite of the terrible danger from lying calumnies with which he is confronted; and his prayer was answered. The second device was frustrated.