LET THEM SAY.
These words are well worth our remembering. It is not pleasant to be talked about, especially if the words spoken about us are untrue, but it will be a wonderful thing if any of us escape the gossip's tongue.
They say, and they always will say, to the end of time; people will talk, and their talk will chiefly be of their neighbours.
What do they say? Do you answer like the Psalmist, 'They lay to my charge things I knew not?' They speak unkindly, untruly, unfairly. Never mind, Let them say. You cannot stop their mouths, but you can hinder yourself from taking notice of their words. Let them say, for they will have their say out, but they will end it all the sooner if you take no notice of it.
Let us try for the future to be thick-skinned, and when Gashmu's tongue is whispering, and whenever some busybody like Sanballat repeats Gashmu's words to us, let us act as Nehemiah did. Let us take no notice of the repeated tittle-tattle.
Yet, although we may practically ignore the gossiping tongue, if we are naturally sensitive and highly strung we cannot help feeling some sting from the unkind or untrue speech. Poor Nehemiah, unmoved though he was by the gossip, yet feels it necessary to remember the meaning of his name, and to turn from Sanballat's letter to 'the Lord my Comforter.'
'O God, strengthen my hands.'
So he cries from the depths of his soul, and so he was comforted.
Sanballat now feels that he is attempting an impossibility. It is of no use trying himself to move Nehemiah, for Nehemiah is thoroughly on his guard against him. If he reaches him at all, he must do so through others, whom Nehemiah does not suspect. So, by means of his gold, Sanballat tempts some of the Jerusalem Jews over to his side.
There is a woman living in Jerusalem named Noadiah, and she (to her shame be it spoken) is bribed by Sanballat to give herself out as a prophetess, and to be the bearer of messages to Nehemiah, pretending that those messages were sent to him by God. Nor is Noadiah the only one who is bribed by the Samaritan governor to pretend the gift of prophecy.