But the Samaritans annoyed the Jews and spoilt this beautiful old custom, by lighting false fires on other mountains, on wrong days, and at wrong hours, and thus confusing those who were watching by the beacon-fires. After a time, so many mistakes were made by means of these false signals, that the Jews were compelled to give up the system of beacon-fires altogether, and to depend on the slower course of sending messengers.
We have now come to the end of Nehemiah's story, and we have, at the very same time, come to the end of the history of the Old Testament. For if all the historical books were arranged chronologically, Nehemiah's book would come the very last in the series. Nothing more is told us in the Book of God of this world's history, until St. Matthew takes up the pen and writes an account of the birth of the expected Messiah. Yet between the Book of Nehemiah and the Gospel of St. Matthew there is an interval of 400 years, years which were full of interest in Jewish history, but of which we are told nothing in the Bible story.
There was one prophet who lived in the time of Nehemiah, and whose book is a commentary on the book of Nehemiah. The prophet Malachi was living in Jerusalem at this very time, and if we look at his book we shall see that mention is made of many things of which we are told in the Book of Nehemiah. For instance, if we turn to Mai. iii. 8, 9, 10, we shall find the very words which the prophet spoke to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, at the time when the temple store-house was empty, and when the people had ceased to bring their tithes and offerings, and to give God the due proportion of their possessions.
'Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house.'
Thus, if we read the Book of Malachi carefully, we shall find much that throws light on Nehemiah's history; and we can easily imagine how much the prophet's sympathy and help must have cheered and strengthened the great reformer in his trying and difficult work.
What became of Nehemiah, the great cup-bearer, the faithful governor of Jerusalem, we do not know. Whether he returned to Persia and took up his old work in the palace, standing behind the king's chair in his office of Rab-shakeh, or whether he remained in Jerusalem, guarding his beloved city from enemies without and from false friends within, we are not told. Whether he died in the prime of life, or whether he lived to a good old age, neither the Bible nor profane history informs us.
But although we know nothing of Nehemiah's death, we know much of his life. We have watched him carefully and closely, and there is one thing which we cannot fail to have noticed, and that is that Nehemiah was emphatically a man of prayer. In every trouble, in each anxiety, in all times of danger, he turned to God. Standing behind the king's chair, Nehemiah prayed; in his private room in the Shushan palace, he pleaded for Jerusalem; and all through his rough anxious life as a reformer and a governor, we find him constantly lifting up his heart to God in short earnest prayers. When Tobiah mocked his work, when the Samaritans threatened to attack the city, when the people were inclined to be angry with him for his reforms, when he discovered that there were traitors and hired agents of Sanballat inside the very walls of Jerusalem, when he brought upon himself enmity and hatred because of his faithful dealing in the matter of the temple store-house, when he had to encounter difficulty and opposition in his determination with regard to the observance of the Sabbath, and when he still further incensed the half-hearted Jews by his prompt punishment of those who had taken heathen wives, and by his summary dismissal of Manasseh; in all these times of danger, difficulty, and trial, we find Nehemiah turning to the Lord in prayer.
There was one prayer of which he seems to have been especially fond, three times over does Nehemiah ask God to remember him.
'Think upon me, my God, for good,' v. 19.
'Remember me, O my God,' xiii. 14.