Nehemiah had gone back from Jerusalem to the royal court of Artaxerxes, but after some time there he returned to Jerusalem once again (Nehemiah 13:6-7). The situation he found did not please him.

Eliashab the priest had provided a large room inside the Temple for Tobiah. This was a room that was supposed to be used as a storeroom for worship equipment and for tithes and supplies for the Levites and priests, but all those things had been removed so that Tobiah could have a private residence there: even though Tobiah had been a serious aggravation along the way (2:10; 4:3; 4:7). So Nehemiah “threw all the furniture of Tobiah out of the room” (13:8).

Nehemiah also made sure that the Levites received their proper allotments, so that they could do their service at the Temple rather than going home to their farms to be able to eat (13:10-12). And he rebuked people for working on the Sabbath, treading the grapes in the winepress or bringing in grain and fruit and fish to sell on the Sabbath (13:15-22). “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day! Did not your ancestors act in this way, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring more wrath on Israel by profaning the sabbath” (13:17-18).

The situation was so bad that Nehemiah stationed guards at the gates to make sure that no one could bring in merchandise to sell on the Sabbath, “so that the Sabbath day might be kept holy”(13:19, 22). Yet this meant, of course, that these guards had a specific job to do on the Sabbath day: there is a certain irony in the guards having to do this work on the Sabbath, to make sure that others did not work.

* * * * *

Ah Lord! We are not so good at doing what is right when we think nobody will notice or complain. Who will even know, we ask ourselves, if we give our friends preferential treatment, skimp on our tithes, or break the Sabbath? Teach us, O God, to do your will just because it is your will, whether anyone else is watching or not.