Very naturally, the merchants and the salespeople did not like this.  They did a good stroke of business on the Sabbath day, and would not lose their large profits without a struggle.  Accordingly, what do we find them doing?  They were refused admittance into the city, so they set up their stalls outside the walls.  If the Jerusalem people could not buy of them, because of that strait-laced, narrow-minded Nehemiah, still the country people who came in to attend the temple services could purchase at their stalls on their way home.  They might thus maintain a certain amount of their Sabbath business, and secure at least a portion of their Sabbath gains.  Not only so, but surely many Jews from the city itself, as they strolled through the gates on the day of rest, might pass by their stalls, and, in the conveniently loose folds of their robes, many, even of these inhabitants of Jerusalem, might conceal a pomegranate, or a melon, a piece of fish, or a bunch of grapes, a handful of figs, or a freshly-cut cucumber, and might easily escape detection by Nehemiah’s servants, standing at the gate.

Nehemiah, seeing this state of things, feels that once again strong measures are required.  He must make a clean sweep of these traders at once.  So, going out to them, he gives them warning that they will be arrested and imprisoned the very next time that they come within sight of the city on the Sabbath day.

’So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice.  Then I testified unto them:  Why lodge ye about the wall?  If ye do so again I will lay hands on you.’

That put a stop to it.

‘From that time forth came they no more on the Sabbath.’

Then, from that day, Nehemiah held the Levites responsible for the strict observance of this rule.  His own servants had guarded the gates in the first emergency, now he bids the Levites to take their place, and to do all in their power to enforce and to maintain the sanctity of the holy day.

Surely we need a Nehemiah now-a-days, we need some of his strong measures to stop the growing disregard of the Sabbath, which is creeping slowly but surely like a dark shadow over this country of ours.  We need a man who will not be afraid of being called strait-laced, or narrow-minded, or peculiar, or Jewish, or Puritanical, but who will speak his mind clearly and decidedly on such an all-important point, and who will not hesitate to use strong measures to put down the Sabbath-breaking and the utter disregard of God’s law, which is threatening the ruin of our beloved country.

Let each of us ask himself or herself, What am I doing in this matter?  How do I keep the Sabbath myself?  God asks for the whole day; do I give it to Him, or do I spend the best of its hours in bed?  Am I careful not to please myself on the Lord’s Day, or do I think it no shame to amuse myself on that day as I choose, by travelling, by light reading, or by any other means that I have within my disposal?  Am I anxious to dedicate the day wholly and entirely to God, setting it apart entirely for His service, and looking upon it as a foretaste of the great and eternal Sabbath that is coming?