And during all that [time] I was not at Jerusalem; for in the two-and-thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I came to the king; and after some time I obtained leave of the king.
This verse explains a scandal. Eliashib the priest had given Tobiah the Ammonite a room inside the temple courts, and Nehemiah was away at the Persian court when it happened. Why was he away, and why did the work fall apart so fast once he left?
Nehemiah first came to Jerusalem in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes. This verse falls in the thirty-second. One writer lays out the two visits and what slipped in between:
It appears that Nehemiah paid two visits to Jerusalem, and that during his absence there was this departure from first principles. "In the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king, and after some time I asked leave of the king" — that is, a second leave besides the first. The first was in the twentieth year, and this was a dozen years later... Why, there was nothing so serious even when Nehemiah came the first time!
The dates can be fixed fairly closely:
The first journey took place in the 20th year of Artaxerxes I, king of Persia, and lasted until the king's 32nd year (Neh. 2:1; 5:14; 13:6). After this Nehemiah undertook a second journey to Jerusalem (Neh. 13:6-7). King Artaxerxes reigned from 464 to 424 BC. So Nehemiah's first stay lasted from 445 to 433 BC, and the second stay probably followed soon after.
Nehemiah did not abandon his post. His leave from the king had simply run out:
Nehemiah had to come back to put an end to this sacrilegious abuse. While these things were going on, he was with the king at Shushan, because his leave of absence had expired (v. 6; cf. Neh. 2:6). But when he returned, a situation like this could not escape him. Although everyone else tolerated it, Nehemiah could not.
The evil did not start with the crowd. It started at the top. Eliashib had charge of the very rooms he handed over to Tobiah:
Eliashib was the grandson of Jeshua, who had returned with Zerubbabel. He held the office of priest and had "the oversight of the chambers of the house of our God." Yet he had allied himself with Tobiah the Ammonite, in defiance of the word of God... This was corruption in the man who was head and representative of the people before God. With such an example, no wonder the people followed in his guilty steps. Familiarity with sacred things hardens the heart when that heart is not upright before God. This is a terrible instance of it.
Then comes an odd reversal — a man with no priestly office correcting the high priest:
Here was a man who was no priest, having to rebuke and reverse the action of the man who was "the high priest"! This tragedy has, sad to say, often been repeated in the history of the church. There is no guarantee of purity and of obedience to the will of God in officialism. Again and again God has raised up men in low office, or with no office at all, to bring back obedience to His revealed will.
The room Tobiah occupied was the storeroom. Remove it, and a whole chain of service collapses:
Look what the sin of Eliashib, one prominent man, brought on everything connected with the sanctuary! The tithes had been neglected, since there was no more place to store them. The Levites and the singers therefore lacked what they needed to live, and each one had fled to his own field. With the Levites gone, the service of the house of God suffered... and this single sin had brought consequences beyond counting to the very centre of the people's religious life.
Nehemiah's first reaction was sorrow, not strategy. The words quoted below come from an older translation; the ESV reads "And I was very angry."
He had paid a visit to the king (v. 6). On his return they told him of the evil Eliashib had committed in connection with Tobiah, and he says, "it grieved me sore" (v. 8). It was a grief according to God, for it sprang from a sense of the dishonour done to the Lord's name... Nor was it grief only that Nehemiah felt, but grief that led him to purge this chamber of the temple from its pollutions.
Nehemiah found real corruption in God's house. Note what he never considered doing:
What did Nehemiah do? Did he stay away from the house of God? Did he not go up to worship there? It never occurred to him to do such a thing as stay away, nor should it occur to us. Evil in another person is no reason for staying away from the table of the Lord — none whatever. If that were reason enough, it would be a reason for everyone who is righteous. And if all who are righteous stayed away, where would the Lord's table be? ... What is true is this: if there is evil there, look to God that you may meet the evil in a good way.
- Absence — His leave had run out, so twelve years in, Nehemiah went back to the king. That absence is the hinge the whole chapter turns on.
- Decay — What he left in order went wrong while he was gone. It went wrong at the top: the high priest allied himself with Tobiah the Ammonite.
- Spread — One man's sin emptied the storerooms. The Levites lost their living and scattered to their fields, and the damage reached the centre of the nation's worship.
- Return — Back in Jerusalem, Nehemiah grieved over the dishonour done to God's name. That grief became action at once: he cleared the room and restored it.
- Stay — Finding evil in God's house never made him keep his distance. Face corruption before God; do not withdraw from His table.
And I came to Jerusalem, and observed the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobijah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.
Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem after years at the Persian court. He finds that a room in God's house now belongs to Tobiah, one of the men who fought hardest against the rebuilding of the city wall. How did this happen inside the temple courts? And what does a faithful man do when he finds it?
Nehemiah was not in Jerusalem the whole time. The dates behind this verse show why that matters.
It appears that Nehemiah paid two visits to Jerusalem, and that during his absence there was this departure from first principles. In the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes he went to the king and obtained leave — that is, a second leave besides the first. The first was in the twentieth year, and this was a dozen years later. Then he came to Jerusalem and discovered "the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah." Why, there was nothing so serious even when Nehemiah came the first time!
The offender was not an outsider but the priest with official charge of those very rooms. His constant handling of holy things had not kept his heart right.
The first thing mentioned is the sin of Eliashib... He filled the office of priest and had "the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God." Yet, in defiance of the word of God, he had allied himself with Tobiah the Ammonite... Here was corruption in the head and representative of the people before God. With such an example, what wonder if the people followed in his guilty steps? It is a terrible instance of the hardening effect of familiarity with sacred things when the heart is not upright before God. Eliashib worked constantly in the holy places. Yet he had become blunted and indifferent to the character of the God before whom he appeared, and to the holiness of His house. His office in his eyes was an office, and nothing more; and so he used it for his own purposes and to help his friends.
The warning signs came earlier. Something was missing from the record of Eliashib's work on the wall.
There is a reason why the locks and bars are missing from Eliashib's gate, and the story soon discloses it for our profit. We will learn that Eliashib the priest has allied himself with Tobiah the Ammonite and Sanballat the Horonite... he had prepared a great chamber for Tobiah in the house of the Lord. Little wonder then that he put no locks or bars on his gate. Clearly, if he provides a chamber inside for the enemy outside, he must also leave the way open for that enemy to reach it.
The offence lies in the place: the courts of the house of God. Tobiah's nationality alone barred him from God's gathered people.
The law forbade the Ammonite and the Moabite ever to come into the congregation of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:3-4). Yet Eliashib the high priest had allied himself with Tobiah the Ammonite, and had prepared a chamber in the temple for this man. So the enemy of God had been received inside. Nehemiah turned out all the household goods of Tobiah, cleansed the chamber, and restored it to its former use.
Giving the enemy a place cost something. The room was not empty before Tobiah moved in.
In that chamber they had once stored the wealth of God's house: the meal offerings, the frankincense, the vessels, and the tithes of corn, new wine and oil. These supplies kept up the energy and life for God in His house. They went to the Levites, the singers and the gatekeepers, and they were the offerings for the priests. But they were all cast out when Tobiah entered the chamber and his household goods filled the place instead.
Nehemiah found the house of God defiled. His answer was not distance.
What did Nehemiah do? Did he stay away from the house of God? It never occurred to him to do such a thing as stay away: nor should it to us. Evil in another person is no reason for staying away from the table of the Lord — none whatever. If that were a good enough reason, it would be a reason for everyone who is righteous. And if all the righteous stayed away, where would the Lord's table be?... What is true is this: if there is evil there, look to God that you may meet the evil in a good way.
- Absence. This evil belongs to the years when Nehemiah was away, not to the years he was in Jerusalem.
- Alliance. The root was Eliashib's tie to Tobiah. A priest trusted with the chambers used his office for his friend, and the people copied their leader.
- Access. He built his gate without locks or bars. That fits the chamber he later furnished: make room inside for the enemy, and the road in must stay open.
- Exchange. Tobiah's furniture went in only because the offerings and vessels went out. Those supplies kept God's servants.
- Answer. Nehemiah neither tolerated the evil nor withdrew. He came to the house, cleared it, cleansed it, and put it back to its proper use.