"Alas!" cried Ezra, "that I should have lived to see the law of the Lord openly broken with the countenance of the high priest, who should be its most zealous guardian!"
"The law of the Lord!" retorted Eliashib. "Ay, as the light that comes through yonder yellow curtain is the light of heaven; for so is the law of the Lord stained by the interpretation of Ezra the Scribe. Did not Moses marry the daughter of the priest of Midian, and Boaz marry the Moabitish Ruth? Is Jehovah become a god of cruelty to drive out the helpless women and children, because their blood is not like thine?"
Then fire seemed to flash from the figure of Nehemiah. He boldly advanced, and, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the priest, glared into his face as he said:
"The time for debate is past. Know you what I have done this very day? On my way hither I came upon a band of these renegade Jews who have married themselves to the women of Ashdod, Ammon, and of Moab, whose children cannot even speak straight the language of our nation; and I cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God they would put away this spiritual harlotry. And mark you, Eliashib, so will I chase from the gates the apostate Manasseh, though he be of the blood of one who has debauched the high priest's office."
Eliashib was furious, and hissed through his clenched teeth: "Not until you have first become priest and sacrificed the high priest upon the altar of your bigotry and madness. Pure blood! Nicaso's is as pure as Nehemiah's, which has been tainted by the Persian's wine, as you were so long cup-bearer to the crowned heathen. Go back to Susa and lord it over the pages, but you shall not lord it over me. Stand guard, if you will, at the harem curtains of Artaxerxes, but you shall not stand before the curtains of Eliashib's household."
The audacity of the high priest checked for a moment the headlong rush of the governor's passion. Or perhaps it was the training of the diplomat that led Nehemiah to reply with more deliberation:
"My decision cannot be revoked. As the Lord lives! I will purge Jerusalem; or, failing that, I return to Susa, and give back into the hands of the Great King the commission as Tirshatha. Then what? O blinded priest! Let Jerusalem perish again rather than become a harlot city!"
"The Lord prevent!" cried Ezra, rising. The high priest dropped upon a seat and sat a long time in silent musing. At length he rose, and spoke, more to himself than to the listeners:
"Alas! that the keeping of Israel is in the hands of such men as we. Our words are but wind, the hot wind of the desert, without the guidance of the spirit of the Lord. I would think and pray. Leave me, friends, before we further sin in our ignorant wrath"—and, gathering his robes about him, Eliashib left the apartment.