Helping Everyone to Feel a Part of The Objective

Nehemiah 3:15–32
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Workers on the Southeast wall (3:15-27): Shallun repaired the fountain gate on the east wall, north of the dung gate. This was near the king’s garden. The stairs referred to are thought to have lead to the tombs where the kings who were descendants of David were buried (v. 15). The Levites were involved in the repair works closer to the temple. Thee were private homes over some of the area where the repair work took place. Reference is made to the house of Eliaship, the high priest (vv 20, 21). Benjamin, Hasshub and Azariah’s houses are also mentioned (vv 22-27). Then we find the priests’ houses (v. 28), Zodok’s house (v. 29), Meshullam’s house (v. 30) and the house of the temple servants and merchants (v. 31). The priests repaired the area near the house gate. This was located on the east wall and may have been where horses entered the palace area. From here we move to the inspection gate located on the northwest corner of the wall (v. 32).

We can understand the construction of the wall better by considering the different gates. There were six main gates which included the sheep gate (vv 1-2); the fish gate (v. 3); the old gate (v. 6); the valley gate (v. 13); the dung gate (v. 14); and the fountain gate (v. 15). The other gates were referred to as the inner gates which included the water gate (v. 26); the horse gate (v. 28); the east gate (v. 29); and the mephkad gate (v. 31). In total, there were ten gates in the repairing of the wall.

Application

Nehemiah tried to assign people to work on a section of the wall they would be most interested in. The objective was to make everyone feel the wall project was his own. When I am working on large projects I need to help everyone see the importance and meaning of the job that he or she is doing.