Introduction
Nehemiah 3 is the number one chapter in the entire Bible for two things. The first is that it is the most useful chapter in all of Scripture for the topography of Jerusalem. It contains the Bible’s most detailed description of natural and manmade features in and around the city of God. This is very helpful for understanding earlier and later historical events that took place at or about Jerusalem.
The second thing for which Nehemiah 3 is the number one chapter in the entire Bible—the subject of this and subsequent articles, DV—is that it teaches, rightly understood, “every-man ministry.” Nowhere else in all of God’s Word do we have as many as 38 or so named persons leading 30-something work teams involving hundreds of God’s people on some 41 sections of one grand project.
The current old city walls of Jerusalem are roughly 4 kilometres or 2.5 miles. Apparently, Nehemiah’s walls were not half of that. So the maximum for Nehemiah’s walls is 2 kilometres or about 1.25 miles.
Nehemiah 3 names 10 gates on Jerusalem’s perimeter walls. Although Nehemiah 12:39 mentions two more gates, and four towers occur in our chapter, there may have been more since Nehemiah 3 is not an exhaustive listing of all the things that were built.
Let us consider the connection between these work teams and the offices or roles in the Old Testament church. In dealing with every-man ministry and every-woman ministry, so to speak, Nehemiah 3 provides important lessons for us today as the body of Christ, as we serve the glory of our crucified and risen Saviour, and the church’s members edify one another in love.
Offices
There were certain special offices that centred upon the Old Testament temple. Nehemiah 3 mentions the work of priests in building the walls—verses 1 and 22, for example. Verse 17 tells us that the Levites, who helped the priests at the temple, chipped in. So both the main groups that officiated at the temple, the priests and the Levites, also laboured at building the walls of Jerusalem. Verse 26 tells us that the Nethinims worked too. The Nethinims were the helpers of the Levites, who served the priests. Priests, Levites and Nethinims all got their hands dirty with stones and boulders, bricks and mortar, as they built the city wall!
Not only did the special temple office-bearers labour on the city walls but the office of believer was also involved, since most of the builders were rank-and-file people of God in Old Testament Israel. Regarding the workers on the walls of Jerusalem, we note, therefore, that it was not only those in the office of believer who were sweating and grunting on this task. The temple workers did not reckon themselves too good for that work, crying off with the exclamation, “We’re working in the holy temple; you ordinary people can get on with building the city walls!” The priests, Levites and Nethinims laboured too.
Also the reverse was not the case. It was not that the temple workers alone built the wall, all the while looking down on those in the office of believer and sneering, “You hardly even have the Holy Spirit. You’re not up to anything. You are not fit to work on the wall!” This passage makes it very clear that both the temple functionaries and the non-temple functionaries were working—and they were working together. This is wonderful!
It is significant who gets the ball rolling in Nehemiah 3. It is the very highest temple office-bearer and the other leading office-bearers. Chapter 3, verse 1 states, “Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they builded.” The application of this Word of God leaps off the page. We do not want lazy or arrogant church office-bearers—ministers, elders or deacons—with the attitude: “We don’t do anything. In fact, we see to it that we get you members to do everything. We just like giving orders. All the laborious work is to be done by you!”
We do not want either, of course, indolent or indifferent church members, who think that all the work in the church is the duty of the office-bearers and who justify it with the thought: “Why else did we vote them in? We elected them so that they would do everything and we would do nothing. We are appalled if the church leaders ask us to do anything. That’s their job!”
The right way is that both the office-bearers and the church members serve the Lord by doing the obvious, basic things that are the calling of all the saints: prayer and fellowship, the ministry of encouragement, Christian giving, visiting one another, helping out as and when and how one can—besides, of course, the ministers, elders and deacons doing the specific things that only they are called and allowed to do.
Nehemiah 3 provides us with a good example of office-bearers who lead the way: Eliashib the high priest and the priests. Of course, in the church, as anywhere else, the general rule is that leaders should not ask other people to do things that they are not prepared to do themselves. There are exceptions, of course. If your minister is 75 years old and asks someone to do physical work around the church, while he does not do it because he is old and frail—well, you understand.
Trades
You will also notice that tradesmen and members of guilds worked on the wall. There were the goldsmiths. Verse 8 begins, “Next unto him repaired Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, of the goldsmiths.” Uzziel was of the guild of the goldsmiths and he led the other goldsmiths. Verse 31: “After him repaired Malchiah the goldsmith’s son, unto the place of the Nethinims.” Verse 32: “Between the going up of the corner unto the sheep gate repaired the goldsmiths.”
There were also the apothecaries or the perfumers that made beautiful fragrances: “Next unto him also repaired Hananiah, the son of one of the apothecaries” (v. 8). You see that “one of” is in italics in our Authorised Version. Literally, it reads, “Hananiah, the son of the apothecaries.” That is, he is a member of that guild. Verse 8 continues, “They fortified Jerusalem unto the broad wall.” So among the builders of Jerusalem’s perimeter wall, we have both goldsmiths, whose day job involved working with precious metal, and perfumers, who prepared spices and scents.
The traders chipped in. The last sentence of the chapter tells us that “the merchants” were involved in building the last section of the wall (v. 32).
The jewellers did not say, “Hold on a minute, I’m not cut out for this. If I’m going to continue as a goldsmith involved in precision work, I need my precious fingers. But I could damage them in the rough labour of wall building and then I’d not able to do my normal job.” Actually, that would be a powerful argument. We might be inclined to grant the goldsmith his point!
An apothecary could have said, “I work with perfume and all this sweaty, grunt work is not for me. I ask to be excused.” A trader could have objected, “I’m a merchant. I’ve got lots of money. I’m used to spending my cash to get other people to do the heavy jobs that I don’t want to do, so please leave me out of the work teams.”
These work teams, consisting of people of various guilds and crafts and trades, included people labouring together who knew each other and worked together in their ordinary, day-to-day jobs. Over there were perfumers and over there a group of goldsmiths and over there some merchants. In fact, the last verse of the chapter says that it was not just merchants doing a section, goldsmiths a section and traders a section, but that “up to the sheep gate repaired the goldsmiths and the merchants” (v. 32). People of these two guilds or trades or types of employment worked together on the same stretch of wall. There was a good atmosphere. They got along together and laboured together. There are so many lessons in all this for our own church life!
