Nehemiah 6:3

3 I sent messengers to tell them, "I'm working on an important project and can't get away. Why should the work stop while I leave to meet with you?"

Nehemiah 6:3 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 6:3

And I sent messengers unto them
He did not show any open contempt of them, nor did he even return answer by the messenger that came from them, but sent some of his own people to them:

saying, I am doing a great work;
was about an affair of great importance, very busy, and not at leisure to give them a meeting:

so that I cannot come down;
Jerusalem being built on an eminence, and the place proposed to meet at in a plain, going thither is expressed by coming down:

why should the work cease, while I leave it, and come down to you?
signifying that it would cease if he left it; and it being of greater consequence than anything they could have to converse about, he argues it would be wrong to relinquish it on such an account; this was the reason he thought fit to give, but was not the only, nor the principal reason, which is suggested in the preceding verse.

Nehemiah 6:3 In-Context

1 Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that no gaps had been left in it (although at that time I had not yet hung the doors in the city gates).

2 Then Sanballat and Geshem sent this message to me: "Let's meet in Hakkephirim on the plain of Ono." They were planning to harm me.

3 I sent messengers to tell them, "I'm working on an important project and can't get away. Why should the work stop while I leave to meet with you?"

4 They sent the same message to me four times, and I answered them the same way.

5 When Sanballat sent me the same message a fifth time, his servant held in his hand an unsealed letter.