Nehemiah 4:5

5 Don't cover their guilt, don't let their sin be wiped out from before you; because they have insulted the builders to their face.

Nehemiah 4:5 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 4:5

And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted
out from before thee
Let it not go unpunished, and even let it not be pardoned; which is spoken, not from a private spirit of revenge, but from a public spirit for the glory of God, and his justice; and not as a mere imprecation, but as a prophecy of what would be the case, in like manner as many of David's petitions in the Psalms; and for this there was a good foundation, since God had threatened the Moabites and Ammonites with utter destruction:

for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders;
by despising his people, and mocking at the work the Lord had called them to; and this they did publicly, and on purpose to discourage the workmen.

Nehemiah 4:5 In-Context

3 Toviyah the 'Amoni was with him, and he said, "Whatever they're building, why, if even a fox went up it, he'd knock their stone wall down!"

4 Our God, listen! We are being treated with contempt. Turn back their jeers on their own heads; give them over to be plundered in a land of exile.

5 Don't cover their guilt, don't let their sin be wiped out from before you; because they have insulted the builders to their face.

6 So we kept building the wall, which was soon joined together and completed to half its height all the way around; because the people worked with a will.

7 But when Sanvalat, Toviyah, the Arabs, the 'Amonim and the Ashdodim heard that the repairs on the walls of Yerushalayim were going forward, and the breaks were being filled in, they became very angry.