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 caused him great distress.

Eliashab the priest had provided a large room inside the Temple for Tobiah, one of his relatives (13:4). This room was supposed to be used as a storeroom for worship equipment and for tithes and supplies for the Levites and priests (13:5), but all those things had been removed so that Tobiah – who had been quite a troublemaker along the way (2:10; 4:3; 4:7) – could have a private residence there. Nehemiah was very angry about this, and “threw all the household furniture of Tobiah out of the room” (13:8).

Nehemiah was also upset because in his absence the allotments for the Levites had not been provided for them; as a result, they had left their duties in the temple and gone home to their farms, in order to be able to provide for their families (13:10). Nehemiah regathered the Levites and singers, and urged the people to bring in their tithes of grain, wine, and oil, so that the Levites could devote themselves to the worship of the Lord (13:11-12).

Nehemiah also 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?” (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, and thereby to “keep the Sabbath day holy”(13:19-22). Yet while these guards were making sure that no carrying of burdens or selling took place, it meant that the guards themselves had a specific job to do on the Sabbath day. This compromise may have been necessary, in order to help establish the community as a whole in the discipline of Sabbath-keeping; and yet we must notice the irony inherent in assigning the guards to do this work on the Sabbath, to protect others from their inclination to do work on the Sabbath.

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Ah Lord! We are not so good at doing what is right when we think nobody will notice or complain. We suppose no one will really know or care if we give our kin 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.

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