Nehemiah 4:8

8 So they all made plans to come to Jerusalem and fight and stir up trouble.

Nehemiah 4:8 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 4:8

And conspired all of them together
All the above men and people entered into a confederacy and combination:

to come and to fight against Jerusalem;
to bring an army with them, and by force cause the Jews to desist; the Jews ^F5 pretend they came to war, and brought with them an army of 180,000 men, which is not probable:

and to hinder it;
the building of the walls of it; or "to make a wandering for him" ^F6; for Nehemiah, or the people, or both, to, cause them to stray from their work, to frighten them from it, that they might become like men at their wits end, not knowing what to do, where to turn themselves, or what course to steer, but to wander about as persons out of their senses; so Aben Ezra. De Dieu joins this clause to the next verse, to cause everyone of them to wander, we prayed

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FOOTNOTES:

F5 Pirke Eliezer, c. 38.
F6 (hewt wl twvel) "ad faciendum ei errorem", Montanus; "ei aberrationem", Genevenses; "vagationem et palationem", alii apud De Dieu.

Nehemiah 4:8 In-Context

6 So we rebuilt the wall to half its height, because the people were willing to work.

7 But Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the people from Ashdod were very angry when they heard that the repairs to Jerusalem's walls were continuing and that the holes in the wall were being closed.

8 So they all made plans to come to Jerusalem and fight and stir up trouble.

9 But we prayed to our God and appointed guards to watch for them day and night.

10 The people of Judah said, "The workers are getting tired. There is so much trash we cannot rebuild the wall."