Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Nehemiah 4:8

And conspired all of them together to come [and] to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.

8. and conspired all of them ] R.V. and they conspired all of them. R.V. makes a stronger pause at the close of Neh 4:7, substituting a semicolon for the comma. ‘Conspired.’ The word here used is the usual term for secret treachery.

to come and to fight ] R.V. to come and fight. Literally ‘to come fight’ without the copula. This idiom, which occurs again in Neh 9:15; Neh 9:23 (cf. 1Ch 12:31; 2Ch 20:11), combines the thought of the two infinitives, the latter being epexegetic of the former. It is equivalent ‘to come for the purpose of fighting.’

and to hinder it ] R.V. and to cause confusion therein. More literally ‘and to cause confusion to him.’ The masc. pronoun is here used, referring to the dwellers in Jerusalem. ‘to cause or make confusion’, the word rendered ‘confusion’ occurs only here and in Isa 32:6, ‘to utter error against the Lord.’ The rareness of the word occasioned difficulty to the versions. Hence LXX. , Vulg. molirentur insidias.

The sudden arrival of hostile forces outside Jerusalem would be calculated ‘to cause confusion.’ It would encourage those who were already disaffected, and would terrify the timid. It would impede the work; for the patriot Jews would have to abandon the building for the sake of defending their walls, while the unwilling workers would gladly avail themselves of the pretext.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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 e 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” f; 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, c.

e Pirke Eliezer, c. 38. f “ad faciendum ei errorem”, Montanus “ei aberrationem”, Genevenses; “vagationem et palationem”, alii apud De Dieu.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(8) And conspired.Not fearing the Persian authority, they resolved to attack the city; but it will be seen that they soon abandoned that project.

To hinder it.Rather, to do it hurt.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

8. To come to fight to hinder None of these purposes, however, seem to have been carried out by the conspiring parties. The Hebrew here for hinder, is, literally to do to it a disturbance.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments