NEHEMIAH xiii.
There is no finality in history. The chapter that seems to be rounded on with a perfect conclusion always leaves room for an appendix, which in its turn may serve as an introduction to another chapter. Ezra's and Nehemiah's work seemed to have reached its climax in the happy scene of the dedication of the walls. All difficulties had vanished; the new order had been greeted with widespread enthusiasm; the future promised to be smooth and prosperous. If the chronicler had laid down his pen at this point, as any dramatist before Ibsen who was not bound by the exigencies of prosaic facts would have done, his work might have presented a much more artistic appearance than it now wears. And yet it would have been artificial, and therefore false to the highest art of history. In adding a further extract from Nehemiah's memoirs that discloses a revival of the old troubles, and so shows that the evils against which the reformers contended had not been stamped out, the writer mars the literary effect of his record of their triumph; but, at the same time, he satisfies us that he is in contact with real life, its imperfections and its disappointments.
It is not easy to settle the time of the incident mentioned in chapter xiii. 1-3. The phrase "on that day" with which the passage opens seems to point back to the previous chapter. If so it cannot be taken literally, because what it describes must be assigned to a later period than the contents of the paragraph that follows it. It forms an introduction to the extract from Nehemiah's memoirs, and its chronological position is even later than the date of the first part of the extract, because that begins with the words "And before this,"[254] _i.e._, before the incident that opens the chapter. Now it is clear that Nehemiah's narrative here refers to a time considerably after the transactions of the previous chapter, inasmuch as he states that when the first of the occurrences he now records happened he was away in the court of Artaxerxes.[255] Still later, then, must that event be placed _before_ which this new incident occurred. We might perhaps suppose that the phrase "at that day" is carried over directly from the chronicler's original source and belongs to its antecedents in that document; but so clumsy a piece of joinery is scarcely admissible. It is better to take the phrase quite generally. Whatever it meant when first penned, it is clear that the events it introduces belong only indefinitely to the times previously mentioned. We are really landed by them in a new state of affairs. Here we must notice that the introductory passage is immediately connected with the Nehemiah record. It tells how the law from Deuteronomy requiring the exclusion of the Ammonite and the Moabite was read and acted on. This is to be remembered when we are studying the subsequent events.
[254] Neh. xiii. 4.
[255] Neh. xiii. 6.
When Nehemiah's extended leave of absence had come to an end, or when perhaps he had been expressly summoned back by Artaxerxes, his return to Babylon was followed by a melancholy relapse in the reformed city of Jerusalem. This is not by any means astonishing. Nothing so hinders and distresses the missionary as the repeated outbreak of their old heathen vices among his converts. The drunkard cannot be reckoned safe directly he has signed the pledge. Old habits may be damped down without being extinguished, and when this is the case they will flame up again as soon as the repressive influence is removed. In the present instance there was a distinct party in the city, consisting of some of the most prominent and influential citizens, which disapproved of the separatist, puritanical policy of the reformers and advocated a more liberal course. Some of its members may have been conscientious men, who honestly deplored what they would regard as the disastrous state of isolation brought about by the action of Ezra and Nehemiah. After having been silenced for a time by the powerful presence of the great reformers, these people would come out and declare themselves when the restraining influences were removed. Meanwhile we hear no more of Ezra. Like Zerubbabel in the earlier period, he drops out of the history without a hint as to his end. He may have returned to Babylon, thinking his work complete; possibly he had been recalled by the king.