Eliashib and the Nobles of Judah - David Canfield

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Eliashib and the Nobles of Judah

Part Two

David Canfield • Chicago, Illinois

21st May 2009

In Part One we considered the situation among the children of Israel at the time of Nehemiah, when the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt, and saw that some of the leaders of Israel actually became a source of frustration to God’s building work. They did this by allying themselves with the enemies of God. Now we want to go on to consider the question of how these ones could have been brought into such an alliance, so that we may learn the lessons from this very negative case and be warned ourselves.

Concerning Tobiah and the other enemies of God, Nehemiah tells us:

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard

about [my coming to Jerusalem], it was very displeasing to them that

someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.

—Nehemiah 2:10

—

And as the work on the wall was progressing he writes:

All of them conspired together to come and fight

against Jerusalem and cause confusion in it.

—Nehemiah 4:8.

In fact, all during the time the wall was being rebuilt we see these two conflicting themes: the building work under Nehemiah and the work of frustration carried out by these enemies of God and of God’s people (2:19; 4:1-12, 6:1-19). The Concise Bible Dictionary, in its entry on Sanballat, has a very telling comment about this: His case is an illustration of the way in which, whenever God has a work in progress, Satan finds an agent to oppose it (p. 690).

Nehemiah himself was very clear regarding these enemies, telling them after they had mocked the work he was doing:

You have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem.

—Nehemiah 2:20b

This was the very work on the earth that God desired to carry out at that time, and they gave themselves to oppose and mock it; they had nothing to do with Jerusalem. How terrible, how serious, was their situation! We must ask, then, how could so many of the leading ones among the Jews have allowed themselves to become related to ones such as these, who had “no portion, nor right, nor memorial” in the city of God’s dwelling place?

We may gain some insight, initially, from the names of the two leading opponents, Tobiah and Sanballat. Although they were closely allied with each other, the meanings of their names contrast quite strongly. “Tobiah” means “Jehovah is Good”1 or “Goodness of Jehovah.”2 We may think it quite strange that one who was such an enemy of God would have such a name. However, this actually illustrates an important principle in knowing the enemy’s work: the outward appearance of that work is often very different from its inward reality. In this case, that inward reality is conveyed in the meaning of the second name, that is, “Sanballat,” which means “Hatred in Secret.”3

In the case of both Eliashib and of the nobles, it states that their direct relationship was almost entirely with Tobiah (13:4-5, 6:18), who was an official in the land (2:10, NASB), rather than with Sanballat; Nehemiah even speaks of the nobles as being “sworn to [Tobiah’s] cause” (6:18). Evidently, the nobles of Judah were deceived by a good appearance on the part of Tobiah. They may have believed that whatever benefits he conferred on them for their allegiance to him were the “goodness of Jehovah” to them — without realizing that in giving their allegiance to him they had also become connected with one who was filled with “hatred in secret” against God and His purpose. Such are the subtle ways of the enemy.

There is a real lesson for us today in this. Even in the church life the enemy, Satan, may tempt us in a very similar way, using our ambition to subtly turn us away from the Lord. Some ones may come to us, saying that if we become loyal to them we can gain some kind of benefit for ourselves; perhaps we will share the platform, or take some leadership role in the work, or be appreciated among the saints. This reward may have a good appearance, and it may even seem that we are being used by the Lord. Thus, we feel it is the “goodness of Jehovah” to us. Actually, however, all such alliances are an abomination to the Lord; they are fully of the flesh and are condemned by Him. God knows far more clearly than we do that while the flesh may have a good appearance, it is always, even “secretly,” at enmity with Him.

Moreover, we should not feel that the enemy’s efforts to tempt us in this way will be so overt that we will easily be able to avoid the snare. From Nehemiah’s history it may seem that the hostility of Tobiah and Sanballat towards the work in Jerusalem was quite obvious and open, but that is only because Nehemiah himself was very clear, and he made the situation very clear for us to see as well.

Eliashib and the nobles of Judah, in contrast, seem to have been completely oblivious to the real situation. After speaking several times of Tobiah’s plots against the building work, Nehemiah records (6:19) that these nobles even spoke of Tobiah’s “good deeds” before him! And, as previously noted, Eliashib the high priest went so far as to prepare a room for Tobiah in the temple (13:4-5). Clearly, they felt that Tobiah was their friend; his hatred and that of his allies towards God truly was kept a secret from them.

Now we must consider another, related question: Why were the nobles of Judah susceptible to the wiles of these enemies, whereas Nehemiah was not? We can be helped in this matter by considering briefly the very positive example of Nehemiah. What we see in him is a picture of what it means to serve the Lord with a healthy ambition, and without self-interest, very much along the lines of the Lord’s words in the New
Testament:

Whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soullife

for My sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he gains the

whole world, but forfeits his soul-life? Or what shall a man give in exchange

for his soul-life? For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of His Father

with His angels, and then He will repay each man according to his doings.

—Matthew 16:25-27

Yet, the picture given to us in the person of Nehemiah may not be at all according to our concept; rather, as we read the book of Nehemiah we might feel that Nehemiah was proud or was promoting himself. To begin with, whereas almost all of the other books of history in the Old Testament are written in the third person, and do not identify the author, Nehemiah wrote his book mostly in the first person, letting us know from the beginning that this book is his own record of his faithful service to the Lord; how proud is that!

Moreover, when we first read the book of Nehemiah we may be struck by how often he speaks of himself and of his standing for the Lord’s purpose, and how often he asks the Lord to remember his good deeds (5:19; 13:14, 22, 31b), even closing his book with such a request based on his service:

Remember me, O my God, for good.
—Nehemiah 13:31b

However, all of this does not mean that Nehemiah was actually proud or self-interested. Rather, like the apostle Paul in the New Testament, Nehemiah was ambitious to please His Lord (2 Cor. 5:9). He was one who was deeply concerned for God’s interest and for His people (Neh. 1:1-11), to the point of sacrificing his own rights and privileges to carry out God’s purpose. Although Nehemiah was governor over the province of Judah at this time (and also, while in Susa, had a prominent position in the court of Artaxerxes king of Persia as his cupbearer; 1:11b), he never refers to himself as being of the nobility. Rather, he served as a slave, foregoing the benefits of his position for the sake of God’s purpose and of the Jews who had returned, preferring instead the reward of the Lord Himself (5:14-19).

He was a real servant of God! He could write as he did, objectively recording the facts of his service, just because he was not for his own interest. Rather, he was clear concerning what the Lord had committed him with and was very bold and determined to carry out that commission. As such a one, he also cared very much for the Lord’s reward and sought it, rather than any earthly benefit, above all else. It was because he had such a lack of self-interest on the one hand, and such a healthy and proper ambition on the other, that Nehemiah could be used by the Lord to the extent that he was.

In contrast, there is no indication that the nobles of Judah had such a godly attitude or such self-renunciation. Rather, at one point Nehemiah even had to rebuke the nobles and rulers for taking advantage of their fellow Israelites (5:1-13, esp. v. 7). And of course, even the fact that they were classed as the “nobles” indicates that they considered themselves to be above their brothers; there was absolutely no such God-ordained office among the Israelites.

While it is proper for the saints to appreciate and respect the ones who have served them, any thought we have that we are of the “nobility” in the church life in this way, i.e., considering ourselves to have some position above the saints in general, is already a great corruption and degradation, and will leave us very much open to the kind of temptation represented by Tobiah and Sanballat. It will terminate our actual service to the Lord, to the point that we, like the nobles of Judah, may even become a frustration to the Lord’s building work—even if we, as they did, continue to have some outward standing among the saints and in the Lord’s move. It is in fact the seed of a clergy-laity system, which is something truly hated by God (cf. Rev. 2:6; 15; the Greek word “Nicolaitan” means literally, “to conquer the laity.”)

In God’s thought, the genuine nobility among His people is not an office, but a description of those who dig the wells so that His people may drink the living water:

From there they continued to Beer, that is the well where Jehovah

said to Moses, “Assemble the people, that I may give them water.”

Then Israel sang this song:

“Spring up, O well! Sing to it!”

“The well, which the leaders sank,

Which the nobles of the people dug,

With the scepter and with their staffs.”

—Numbers 21:16-18

—

It is also true that if we live in God’s presence, this will surely confer on us a kind of nobility in our person. This is seen in the case of the elders who went up the mountain with Moses; when they saw God and ate and drank with Him, they are referred to not as elders but, in a very positive way, as “the nobles of the children of Israel” (Exo. 24:9-11).

The book of Nehemiah shows us three very distinct cases in relation to God and His purpose. First, in Tobiah, Sanballat, and the others with them we see ones who were truly evil, who directly opposed what God was doing. Next, in Eliashib and the Nobles of Judah we see those who were not evil in themselves, but who nonetheless became a frustration to God’s work because of the evil things within them, namely, their ambition and self-interest, that were not fully dealt with. Finally, we see Nehemiah, who was used by the Lord in a very substantial way because he set aside his own interest and gave himself fully for what was on God’s heart.

We are not in any position to condemn others, but we need to be warned by the negative example of Eliashib and the nobles of Judah, and encouraged to follow the positive example of Nehemiah. May these lessons be deeply impressed upon us, causing us to cast ourselves more fully on the Lord as we seek to serve Him and carry out of His purpose.

1 Cyrus Potts, Dictionary of Bible Proper Names, reprinted by Bible Truth Publishers, Addison, Illinois.
2 J.B. Jackson, A Dictionary of Scripture Proper Names, Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, New Jersey, 1909,
3rd edition 1957.
3 Ibid.