This post is Day 27 in a series of studies about “Nehemiah”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

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Nehemiah – Day 27

How did Nehemiah know? Was it just intuition? Nehemiah must have been sad to find people from his own camp in the pay of the enemy, but recognising immediately the problem he refused the fear. He had not come so far to not see this job through to its end.

Nehemiah 6:10-12

One day I went to the house of Shemaiah, who was shut in at home. He said “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”
But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.

The Thought

The suggestion to meet at the Temple tells us that Shemaiah was a priest, because only priests were allowed to enter that Holy area, but no suggestion of hiding or doing things in secret interested Nehemiah, he was determined to finish what he had started.

This poor Israelite priest was pretending to be afraid for Nehemiah, but that was not the truth, as our leader recognised.

How did Nehemiah know? Was it a word from The Lord? Was it just intuition? Maybe there was something in Shemaiah’s voice, that suggested he was not speaking the truth. Maybe it was what he said.

Nehemiah must have been sad to find people from his own camp in the pay of the enemy, but recognising immediately the problem he refused the fear. He had not come so far to not see this job through to its end.

Action

Why do you think Shemaiah the priest was not afraid of God? Did he not know that Jehovah is also called El Roi, The God who sees?

Ask yourself today how trustworthy your sources of information are.

Pray for the truth to be told in our world, for the spirit of lies to be overcome by Jesus who is The Truth (John 14:6).