An Inside Job

It’s tough enough to beat your opponent when you know who they are. They’re wearing a jersey of a different color. They’re flying a different flag. They’re coming from the opposite direction. They may be the bad guys but least you know who the bad guys are. That’s what makes an inside job so difficult. The enemy has a mole inside your team. They feed intel to the opposition. They suggest strategies that lead to failure. Here in chapter 6, Nehemiah discovers people on the inside are actually working for folks on the outside. A dude named Shemaiah profits through false prophecy. He tries to scare the governor into running into hiding. But Nehemiah’s not buying what profitable prophet is selling.

For the past few weeks, Sanballat and the rest of Jerusalem’s enemies have tried every trick in the book to sabotage the rebuilding of the city’s walls. Trash talk (Neh 2:19; 4:1-3). Threat of terrorist attack (Neh 4:7-8). Rumors of rebellion (Neh 2:19; 6:6-7). Baiting Nehemiah into an ambush (Neh 6:2). With the project nearing completion (Neh 6:1), they decide to use their ace in the hole or, should I say, their prophet on the inside. We pick up the action with Nehemiah swinging by “the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his home” (v10). Does the name Shemaiah sound familiar? Well it should. It’s a VERY common name in the book of Nehemiah. It’s terribly easy to confuse him with several other dudes with the same name. There are several different priests (Neh 10:8; 12:6, 18, 34, 42) as well as a Levite (Neh 11:15) named Shemaiah in and around the city at the same time. Since Nehemiah doesn’t connect this particular rascal with any of the other Shemaiahs he names in the book, he’s almost certainly a different guy. We’ll soon see that he gives Shemaiah a bad name.

We read that Shemaiah is “confined to his home” (v10). The translation of this particular Hebrew phrase is kinda sticky. It literally reads “he is restrained” (v10 YLT) or “who was shut up” (v10 BBE). The main verb here is ‘atsar. It means to restrain, close up, withhold, or shut up. Was Shemaiah confined to his home for some reason? Was he sick? An invalid? In other words, was he a shut in? But there’s another way of reading this phrase. It’s quite possible that Shemaiah is concealing the fact that he was working for Sanballat and Tobiah. Is that the info that he’s shutting up and holding back. While most translators seem to think it’s the former,  John MacArthur believes that’s exactly what’s going down. We’ll see that idea of an inside job is backed up by Shemaiah’s shenanigans. 

The son of Delaiah strongly suggests to Nehemiah that they need to hightail it to the temple immediately. “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple. Let us close the doors of the temple for they are coming to kill you. They are coming to kill you by night” (v10). If he was confined to his home, Shemaiah certainly wouldn’t offer to go with Nehemiah to the temple. It sure seems to confirm the fact that Shemaiah is a mole working on the sly for Sanballat and his henchmen. He’s not the only double agent working on the inside. Nehemiah will uncover others before it’s all said and done (Neh 13:4, 18). The enemy’s tentacles reach deeply. What’s even worse is that Shemaiah tells the governor that this wasn’t his idea but God’s. This is a prophetic word from the LORD. 

So what exactly is Shemaiah up to? Why would tipping off the governor to this assassination attempt be a bad thing? First of all, there was probably not an actual threat. But simply the threat of the threat could cause big problems for the project. This would take Nehemiah off the job at a critical time. Instead of working and leading the Hebrew crew on the job site, he would be hiding inside the temple. For Nehemiah to take cover while everyone else kept working would make him look like a coward. It would undermine his integrity and leadership. He’s been right there with the rest of the laborers every single day. Previously, Sanballat and his toadies tried to get the governor away from the city five different times but he wasn’t falling for it. “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down” (Neh 6:3). Maybe if they couldn’t tempt him to leave town they could threaten him to go into hiding. 

Nehemiah smells a rat. Or should I say a mole. He tells Shemaiah that he’s not going anywhere. “Should a man as I run away? And what man such as I could go into the temple and live? I will not go in” (v11). Just as he wouldn’t fall for the phony invitation for a conference with Sanballat the boys over on the plain of Ono, he’s not buying what Shemaiah’s selling. At this point, Nehemiah knows without a doubt that hiding out in the temple wasn’t a message from God but the result of a payoff. “And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him” (v12). Shemaiah is a hired gun. A mercenary medium. A seer for sale. A prophet looking to make a profit.

Shemaiah’s not the first so-called man of God who was up looking to line his pockets. Take Balaam. Back when Moses is leading God’s chosen people into the Promised Land, the king of Moab put the prophet Balaam on the payroll so that he would curse the Israelites (Num 22-24). The Moabite king greases his palm with “fees for divination in their hand” (Num 22:7). There’s just one little problem. God won’t stand for it. Yahweh lets Balaam know in no uncertain terms, “You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed” (Num 22:12). Before Balaam knows what hit him, his donkey goes all Mr. Ed and gives him the what for (Num 22:28-30). Just because Balaam and Shemaiah aren’t around anymore doesn’t mean profitable prophets are a thing of the past. Jesus’ little brother Jude did everything he could to warn folks about false teachers who have “abandoned themselves for the sake of Balaam’s error” (Jude 11). Are you only worried about making money and piling up cash in your bank account? The warning lights don’t simply flash for folks trying to make a fast buck off teaching God’s Word. As Jesus said, you’re either serving God or you’re serving money (Lk 16:13). Make your choice. Clearly, Shemaiah chose the Benjamins.

Nehemiah realizes that the whole reason Sanballat and Tobiah put Shamaiah on the take was to terrify him and distract him from his mission of rebuilding the walls. “For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me” (v13). Remember, lack of faith isn’t the opposite of faith. It’s fear. To be afraid is fail to believe that God is bigger and badder than anything that can ever get in your face. That’s what makes fear a sin. Nehemiah knows that you can’t be afraid when you have the fear of God (Neh 5:9, 15). He knows without a shadow of a doubt that God has a firm grip on him and the entire project (Neh 2:8, 18, 20; 4:14, 20). What are you afraid of? What freezes you and keeps you from moving forward? What sends you running into hiding? Stop right where you are and remember the the most powerful Being in the universe has your back. 

And that’s exactly who Nehemiah turns to at this point. He drops to his knees and prays to the LORD. “Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to the things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid” (v14). If you’ve been following the events in the book, it comes as no shock that the cupbearer-to-the-king-turned-governor takes his request to God. Everett McGill may be a man of constant sorrow. Our man Nehemiah is a man of constant prayer (Neh 1:4-11; 2:4; 4:4-5, 9, 14; 5:19; 6:9). It seems that every time your turn around, he’s talking to God. Is there any doubt that this man is such an amazing servant leader during such a critical time? He asks God to handle Tobiah, Sanballat, as well as some prophetess named Noadiah and the rest of the crooked prophets. Let the Righteous Judge make the call on these folks. He’ll know exactly what to do with them.