Nehemiah 6:3

3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, I [am] doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to 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 Now it came to pass, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had built the wall, and [that] there was no breach left in it, (though at that time I had not set up the doors upon the gates;)

2 That Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together in [some one of] the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me mischief.

3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, I [am] doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?

4 Yet they sent to me four times after this sort; and I answered them after the same manner.

5 Then Sanballat sent his servant to me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand;