NEHEMIAH 6: DEALING WITH ENEMIES -- PART 2

When the Jews' enemies realize that an actual attack on the city will meet with armed resistance, they begin to make plans against Nehemiah himself. But now they must vary their tactics and be a little more subtle in their approach. So they invite Nehemiah for a meeting of the minds in one of the small villages away from Jerusalem. Nehemiah is rightly suspicious of their motives, and so he begs off because he says he has important work to do that can't be neglected. This exchange is actually repeated numerous times without any change of response.

I have been in the position a number of times at work when I was called to attend meetings away from my laboratory setting. Most were rather non-eventful, except for two notable exceptions. One such meeting happened during a company-wide annual research review meeting held at another research location. I had developed a method for screening chemicals useful for removing additional oil from underground reserves and was presenting my work officially at this review meeting in front of the whole company's management team. The lab manager from the “rival” lab whose job it was to carry out this sort of work was present also, and I happened to know that he had told his engineers to make sure my idea failed when tried in larger scale tests. But surprisingly, he kept completely quiet during my presentation.

However, after the meeting was dismissed and we all went back to our motel rooms, I was working on the lock on my room when I was unexpectedly summoned by the vice president of research who was standing in the parking lot pouring over a piece of paper. The lab manager from the other location had apparently waited until the meeting was over and I wasn't there to defend myself, to hand a copy of a patent to the vice president along with the comment that I had basically stolen the idea and they knew about this prior patent all along. None of this was true, of course, but I was handed the patent and had about one minute to rapidly digest it and explain to our vice president the superiority of my method. I managed to barely salvage my career at that point, but none of it would have happened if the meeting had been held at our location where I would have had the home team advantage.

The next attempt to oust Nehemiah or get rid of him entirely is described in verses 5-9. It has some definite similarities to the situation in my own case described above. It involved a libelous report concerning Nehemiah that Sanballat said had been reported to the king. However, in this case it is doubtful that any such report had ever been made at all. It was just another ruse to scare Nehemiah into meeting with the plotters. The insidious thing about this particular attempt is that the written message to Nehemiah was sent by way of an open letter that anyone could read and spread the rumor that Nehemiah was a traitor to the king.

Again, I remember another occasion in my life that had parallels to these verses. In a previous post on Nehemiah's advice to employees, I mentioned that my research group was being sold to another chemical company. During the interim time before the sale became final, we were all invited to the purchaser's laboratory to attend several all-day dog-and-pony shows designed to convince us to come on board. At last, during the final one of these meetings they got around to bringing us in one at a time to present their offers of employment to us. I was the first to be invited in, and after hearing their pathetic offer, I told them that I was not at all interested and would be returning to their guest quarters to wait for a plane to take me back home. Several other chemists in my group decided independently to go also go home rather than waiting for the rest of the presentations.

When I got back to my lab the next morning I was greeted by a very angry supervisor, laboratory head, and HR manager. They basically refused to talk to me and instead set me up for a conference call with the VP of research. At last, I found out that hours after I had announced my intention to turn down the employment offer and was flying on my way home, the research VP from the purchasing company had called my company's lawyers. He told them that I had unilaterally broken off all negotiations with them and led off half of my group in protest in order to sabotage the deal. The only defense I had was to tell the simple truth of what had actually happened, and fortunately our VP believed me. Note that this is actually what Nehemiah did. He simply denied the charges. I found out much later from a chemist in my group who had elected to stay for the rest of the meeting that he had actually overheard the phone conversation between their VP and our lawyers. That VP hung up the phone at the end and began laughing. He remarked to those around him, “ That will get them to lower the sale price.”

Back to Nehemiah.  The next attack on him came from a somewhat unexpected quarter, one of his fellow Jews in Jerusalem who had actually helped to build the wall. His name was Delaiah, and apparently he was under house arrest for some offense against the community. His strange message was that people were coming to kill Nehemiah, and therefore he should hide inside the temple where he could be safe. This was, of course, a lie that Delaiah was paid to tell Nehemiah so that he would act in a rash manner. The problem with Nehemiah doing as Delaiah counseled was two-fold: (1) it would show up Nehemiah as an utter coward and demoralize the people and (2) since Nehemiah as the king's cup-bearer was probably a eunuch, he would be compounding his sin by rendering the temple unclean with his presence.

This story illustrates that, as Jesus said in another context, “Your enemies will be those of your own household.” In my own work career, I have been very blessed only to have experienced this once. I had a supervisor reporting to me, call him Mr. A, who was rather ambitious and had already replaced a far better supervisor at that position because our business center somehow got the word that the previous supervisor was not the best for the goals of their business. Rather than trying to do a good job at his new position, Mr. A decided to set his sights on his next promotion while getting himself in good with our business center VP. But he would first have to get rid of both me and one of his fellow supervisors who was excellent at his job. His ploy was to do something so outrageous that it would infuriate both me and his fellow supervisor. I knew that this other supervisor had a temper even worse than mine, and so I tried my best to calm him down before he did something rash since that was exactly what Mr. A was counting on.

While I managed to temporarily placate this irate supervisor, I would have been well advised to have taken my advice to him more personally. In a closed door meeting with Mr. A where I confronted him with his destructive behavior, he simply sat there looking totally unconcerned with anything I said. This naturally infuriated me even more until I lost my temper and addressed him in words that could be overheard by anyone in the hallway. Nehemiah did a much better job in simply ignoring Delaiah's attempts to get him to act in an overly emotional manner.

Just to finish my story, Mr. A promptly went to two of my direct reports and spread the word that I was probably having problems at home that were making me act in an irrational manner and I should seek psychological counseling. Fortunately, he miscalculated badly in those he chose to confide in since they were long-time friends of mine who promptly reported to me what Mr. A was saying. I went to my direct boss who called the business center VP that Mr. A thought was totally supportive of him. Fortunately, that executive chewed out Mr. A, who realized that his scheming had backfired and turned in his resignation before we could fire him.

I was very fortunate to have both a supportive superior to go to bat for me and friends I could rely on. This points out the importance of treating everyone in the organization well. Not only is it the moral thing to do, but you may be placed in a position where you need all the friends you can get. The final enemy of Nehemiah who appears in the last verses of chapter 6 is Tobiah. It turns out that he is very well connected with many of the nobles in Judah who are indebted to him. They all correspond with one another on a regular basis and report Nehemiah's actions and words to Tobiah, who in turn continues to try to intimidate him. I think that one of the reasons Nehemiah was not afraid of this hostile network was that he knew that not only the Persian king would support him if necessary, but God was behind the situation as well.

If you think that back-biting and lying colleagues are only found in business organizations, you would be mistaken. In my four years in graduate school, I witnessed a group of professors ganging up against another professor in order to secure the best office and laboratory space, a fellow graduate student who took every opportunity to humiliate his fellow chemists in front of the whole department, and a foreign post-doctoral student left in charge while his professor was on sabbatical leave poisoning the mind of the professor with lies regarding the activities of the graduate students in the group. And I hate to say it, but it no doubt occurs within church organizations as well.