A nation under God: Rebuilding in Nehemiah

By Stephen Hair 

Maranatha Bible Church

 
Aug 19, 2026 Updated 

Anyone who is concerned about the proper effects of Christianity upon a nation knows the name of William Wilberforce, the power behind the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in the year 1807. Wilberforce was elected to Parliament from the county of Hull in 1780 at the age of 21. He was converted to Christ in 1785 through the witness of his old schoolmaster from Hull, Isaac Milner. Shortly after that, partly through the influence of the converted former slave trader John Newton and partly through others, Wilberforce began his long campaign against slavery.

Wilberforce’s first parliamentary bill was to “discuss” abolition. It was introduced in the House of Commons by his friend, Prime Minister William Pitt, in 1788, and it passed. But when the bill came up for discussion at the next session of Parliament in 1789, it was hotly opposed by the commercial lobby that backed slavery, and the move to limit the abuse was defeated.

In 1791 Wilberforce, now backed by a coalition of like-minded men known as the Clapham Sect, tried again, but again he was defeated. It was the same in 1792. There were times when public opinion ran in Wilberforce’s favor. At other times, as in the eyes of the French Revolution, opinion was against any change at all. After the fall of Robespierre in France in 1796, the mood of the country turned toward abolition, but when the abolition bill reached the House of Commons in that year, it was again defeated.

So also in 1798, 1799, 1800, and 1801.

It was not until February 4, 1807, that the abolition document finally passed the House of Lords, and not until February 22, 1807, that it passed the Commons. Nineteen years had gone by. Men had grown old in the cause. Some had died. Yet when news of the abolition of the slave trade reached Wilberforce late on the evening of February 22, the reformer looked into the face of his old friend and fellow abolitionist, Henry Thorton, and said, “Well, Henry, what shall we abolish next?”

The situation may have been similar for Nehemiah, governor of Jerusalem, after he had succeeded in rebuilding Jerusalem’s great wall. Nehemiah had come to Jerusalem to do that, and so intent had he been on achieving that single great objective that those looking on might have imagined that rebuilding the wall was all he had in mind. How wrong they would have been!


Nehemiah had indeed come to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall, and he had been successful in doing it. But we discover now that the rebuilding was far from all he had in mind. Nehemiah wanted to rebuild the wall, but beyond that objective he had the far more significant objective of rebuilding the nation.


In one sense, Nehemiah’s shift from the single-minded effort to rebuild the wall to his concern for the nation comes as a surprise to the reader. He has not mentioned anything beyond the walls up to this point. Still, we have been prepared by the list of those then living in the land. Nehemiah 7 serves two purposes. It is a consolidation of the first half of the book, listing those who were available to live in the now protected city. But it is also preparation for the spiritual renewal of the nation that lay ahead. It alerts us to the fact that Nehemiah had already begun to shift to this objective.


We see this shift in another way as well, although it is not so easy to know what this change means. Up to this point, Nehemiah has been writing in the first person. With the start of chapter 8, this changes. Here the narrative shifts to the third person, and the first-person narration does not resume until the start of the account of the dedication of the walls in Nehemiah 12:27.


It seems that Nehemiah was aware that the second stage of the work, though envisioned by him, was not his concern alone. He cared about the nation’s spiritual renewal, but this was a matter to be pursued by Ezra, the spiritual head of the people, more than by himself. So the leadership in the movement for renewal passed to the hands of Ezra, though Nehemiah was still very much involved.


In our study of this book, we have been dealing with a number of leadership dynamics apparent in Nehemiah. At this point we see a sixth dynamic, which is the leader and the nation. This is important because it is a way of saying that however isolated our particular task or challenge may be, it is nevertheless always part of a greater whole, since we are citizens of a nation and what we do affects the larger body. We need to care for it as well.

Maranatha! (mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)

Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org.

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