This is a fictitious story imagined from the book of Nehemiah in the Bible… just because I have an active imagination… yea, even at my old age!
© AMKCH May 5, 2025
Back in the days when Nehemiah, the Prophet of Adonai, was working to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, a young man named Eliakim found himself caught in the tension of the city. He had grown up there, and his family had lived in Jerusalem for generations, although they had never been among the wealthy or powerful. They knew how to work, how to make do, and what it was like to lose almost everything and start again.
The old stories had always been part of Eliakim’s childhood. His father would talk about Jerusalem before the exile, before the destruction, before the city became a place people spoke about with a sigh. Eliakim had heard enough stories to know that the walls had once been impressive, but he had also seen enough of the ruins to know that stories could not rebuild them.
Then Nehemiah came.
Almost overnight, it seemed as though the city had a different sound. Hammers rang against stone. Men shouted to one another across the streets. Carts rolled through the rubble. Dust hung in the air from morning until evening. And people were working.
That was the part Eliakim could not stop watching. He had spent years walking past those broken walls. He knew which stones had fallen into the streets and which sections were little more than piles of rubble. He had climbed over some of them as a boy. Now men were picking up those same stones and putting them back where they belonged.
Nehemiah had a plan. That alone was something. Eliakim did not know Nehemiah well enough to understand where the man got his confidence, but he had watched him speak to people who had almost forgotten what hope looked like. Somehow, Nehemiah could look at a wall that was broken in a dozen places and talk as though rebuilding it was the most sensible thing in the world. Eliakim liked that.
He just wasn’t sure where he fit into it. He was young and had no great position in Jerusalem, and nobody was waiting for his opinion. If he picked up a stone, there were ten men who could carry two, and if someone needed to give an order, there were older men who had been working beside Nehemiah from the beginning. So Eliakim watched and waited, and looked for a place where he might be useful. It was not long before he found something else to watch.
Sanballat.
The first time Eliakim heard the man’s name, it was spoken quietly by two workers who were carrying stone.
“Samaria,” one of them muttered.
The other glanced toward the gate. “Sanballat.” Neither man said anything else, so Eliakim looked at them. “What about him?” The older man gave him a look that said the boy had just asked a question with an obvious answer.
“He doesn’t like what we’re doing.”
Eliakim looked at the wall. “I noticed.”
The man snorted. “You haven’t noticed half of it.” He walked away, leaving Eliakim with that. It didn’t take long to notice the rest. Sanballat had power and influence, men who listened when he spoke, and no intention of watching Jerusalem become strong again. Tobiah was no better. The two men seemed to have decided that the easiest way to stop Nehemiah was to make sure everybody laughed at him first. They mocked the work and the people, questioned Nehemiah’s motives, and spread rumors that he intended to make himself king.
Eliakim heard the rumors in the marketplace, near the gates, and from men who repeated them as though they had been standing beside Nehemiah when he supposedly announced his plans.
Then one afternoon, Eliakim heard something that got under his skin. He had been passing through the marketplace when he heard laughter near the gate. Sanballat was there with Tobiah, looking toward the wall.
Sanballat pointed at a section where several men were working. “Look at that,” he said. “They actually think they’re going to finish it.”
Tobiah laughed.
Sanballat shook his head. “Even a fox could knock it down.”
That got another laugh. Eliakim stood still. A fox. He looked at the wall, then at Sanballat, and then back at the wall. A very small smile appeared on his face, the sort of smile that meant somebody had just given him an idea. He turned around and walked away before anyone noticed.
That evening, Eliakim found three of the younger workers who had been helping near the eastern section. “I have a question.”
One of them looked up. “What?”
“Do you know where I can get an empty cart?”
The young man stared at him. “For what?”
Eliakim looked around to make sure nobody was listening. “Because I have an idea.”
Within minutes, they were all grinning.
The idea was not complicated, which was probably why Eliakim liked it. They would make Sanballat and Tobiah believe that a gift had been sent to Nehemiah from Samaria. Nothing suspicious. Nothing threatening. Just enough mystery to make two proud men curious. The cart would be left where they could find it, and then they would see what happened.
The next morning, Jerusalem had a new rumor. A messenger had arrived. A gift was coming. From Samaria. The story traveled faster than the cart. Men working on the wall kept looking toward the gate, women stopped to ask what was happening, and even some of the older workers seemed interested.
Eliakim kept his face straight.
One of the men beside him whispered, “You did this?”
Eliakim continued working. “Did what?”
The man nearly laughed. By midmorning, the empty cart had been left where Sanballat’s men could easily find it. There was a note attached.
Sanballat and Tobiah came expecting something very different. They approached the cart, stopped, looked at it, and then looked around. Tobiah pulled back the covering. Nothing. The cart was empty. He stared into it.
Sanballat’s face hardened. “What is this?”
Tobiah reached down and found the note. He read it, and his expression changed. Sanballat snatched it from his hand.
The note said: “To the men who think themselves kings of the city, may this gift show you the folly of your arrogance.”
Sanballat read it again. Tobiah leaned over his shoulder. Then he saw the second line.
“Even the foxes you mock could do better than you.”
For several seconds neither man spoke. Then Tobiah looked at Sanballat, and Sanballat looked at Tobiah. Somewhere behind them, somebody laughed.
That was the end of the silence. The laughter spread through the marketplace, and Sanballat crumpled the note in his fist.
Eliakim was nowhere to be seen, and that was the part that bothered Sanballat most. He could not find the person who had made him look foolish, and Eliakim had no intention of helping him.
For several days afterward, the empty cart became the favorite subject of conversation in Jerusalem. Every time Eliakim heard somebody tell the story, he kept his face innocent. He was beginning to learn that sometimes the best place to stand was just outside the circle of suspicion.
Sanballat did not find the joke nearly as amusing. Neither did Tobiah. They changed tactics. If they could not stop Nehemiah by mocking him, they would try to get the king to stop him. Letters began making their way toward Persia. The accusations were serious. Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls because he intended to rebel. He was trying to establish himself as king. Jerusalem was becoming a threat.
Eliakim heard about the letters and went looking for Nehemiah. He found him in the middle of the work.
“Nehemiah.”
Nehemiah looked up. “What is it?”
“The letters.”
Nehemiah wiped dust from his hands. “I know.”
“You’re not worried?”
Nehemiah gave him a strange look. “Would worrying make the walls stand faster?”
Eliakim almost smiled. “No.”
“Then get back to work.”
Eliakim hesitated, and Nehemiah looked at him again. “You think the king is going to believe them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.” That answer surprised him.
Nehemiah picked up another stone. “But I know who sent me here.” That was enough.
The work continued, and then the answer came. Artaxerxes did not stop Nehemiah. The accusations had failed, and Sanballat and Tobiah had lost another round.
This time, Eliakim noticed something important. People had stopped whispering when those men passed. They still feared them, but not quite as much. That mattered.
The wall rose higher. Day after day, the broken places disappeared. The people were tired, their hands were blistered, and their clothes were covered in dust, but something had changed in Jerusalem. They had begun to believe they could actually finish.
Eliakim had changed too. He no longer stood at the edge of the work wondering where he belonged. People came looking for him.
“Eliakim, this group needs more stone.”
“Eliakim, the men at the southern gate haven’t eaten.”
“Eliakim, Baruch wants you.”
He had become the person who knew where things were, and that was useful. Very useful.
Then one afternoon, Baruch found him near the gate. The older man’s face was grim.
“Eliakim.”
Eliakim turned. “What happened?”
Baruch lowered his voice. “Sanballat is gathering men.”
Eliakim’s expression changed. “How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“Outside the city. More are coming.”
Eliakim looked toward the unfinished wall. “How long?”
Baruch shook his head. “Not long.”
That was all Eliakim needed.
He went straight to Nehemiah and found him near the northern gate, watching the work.
“Nehemiah.”
The older man turned.
Eliakim told him what Baruch had heard. Nehemiah listened without interrupting, then looked toward the wall.
“We knew this day would come.”
Eliakim nodded. “What do we do?”
“Prepare.”
That answer was simple enough. The difficult part was everything that came after it. Nehemiah ordered the workers to arm themselves. Men who had spent the morning carrying stone were now told to keep weapons nearby, while others were assigned to watch the gates. Families were moved farther inside the city. Those who could fight prepared to defend, while those who could build kept building. Nobody was going to waste the daylight.
Eliakim moved from one section of the wall to another. At the southern gate, he found men trying to work and keep watch at the same time.
“Keep your weapons close,” he told them.
One man held up a hammer. “I’ve got this.”
Eliakim looked at it. “That’s a hammer.”
“I know.”
“Good. I wanted to make sure.”
The man grinned, and Eliakim handed him a spear. “Now you’ve got both.”
The laughter helped. They needed it.
At the eastern wall, Eliakim found another group.
“Keep working.”
One of the men stared at him. “With an army coming?”
“With an army coming.”
The man looked at the unfinished section. “What if they attack before we’re done?”
Eliakim looked toward the horizon. “Then we defend what we’ve finished.”
The man nodded.
There was no use pretending the danger wasn’t real. That was one thing Eliakim had learned from Nehemiah. Faith did not require pretending. It required standing.
By late afternoon, the city was organized. Women and children were moved into safer areas, the men took positions, and workers carried stones with one hand and weapons with the other. The rhythm of the city changed. Hammer. Stone. Footsteps. Orders. Silence. Then another hammer.
Eliakim kept moving. At one point he found a group of women trying to gather their children. One little boy was carrying a stick almost as long as he was tall.
Eliakim looked at it. “What are you planning to do with that?”
The boy held it tighter. “Fight.”
Eliakim crouched down. “Well, then you’d better stay behind your mother until the right time.”
The boy frowned. “When is the right time?”
“When you’re old enough that your mother stops telling you what to do.”
The boy looked at his mother.
She laughed despite herself. “Then it’ll never happen,” she said. Eliakim smiled. For a moment, the fear lifted, and then he stood and went back to work.
As evening approached, Nehemiah called the workers together. There were hundreds of tired faces, and dust covered nearly every one of them. Nehemiah did not give them a long speech. He did not need to.
“Remember Adonai,” he said. “Remember your families. Remember why you are here.”
The men nodded, then returned to their positions. The sun went down. The city did not sleep. Eliakim stood on the wall and stared into the darkness beyond Jerusalem. Nothing moved, at least nothing that he could see. He listened. A dog barked somewhere below. A child cried inside the city. Someone coughed. A man shifted his feet beside him. Then silence again.
Eliakim looked at the stars.
“Adonai,” he whispered, “please let us see morning.”
He did not expect an answer. He only needed to say it.
Then he heard something.
At first he thought it was his imagination. He held up his hand, and the man beside him stopped moving.
“What?”
“Listen.”
They listened.
There it was again, a dull sound far away, and then another. Hooves. Eliakim’s stomach tightened. The sound grew louder. Men on the wall began turning toward the darkness. Someone shouted from the northern watch.
“Movement!”
Another voice answered, “How many?” Nobody knew.
Then a third shout came. “Torches!”
The darkness beyond Jerusalem began to flicker. One, then another, then dozens. Eliakim stared. Sanballat had come. He looked down at the men below.
“Wake everyone.” Nobody needed to ask why.
The city came alive. Doors opened. Feet pounded across stone. Men grabbed weapons. Women pulled children farther inside. The unfinished wall suddenly seemed much smaller.
Eliakim ran toward the northern gate. Nehemiah was already there.
“How close?”
“Close enough.”
Nehemiah looked over the wall, and Eliakim joined him.
Below them, the enemy forces were spreading across the ground. They had expected fear. They had expected confusion. They had expected a broken city with half a wall.
Instead, they found Jerusalem awake. The gates were shut. Torches burned along the walls. Men stood in formation. The builders were holding weapons. The men who had spent weeks lifting stone now stood with swords in their hands.
Sanballat’s army slowed. Eliakim watched them. Nobody attacked. That was strange. He expected shouting, arrows, somebody to make the first move. Instead, the enemy stood in the darkness, waiting. Eliakim glanced at Nehemiah. Nehemiah did not move, and neither did the men around him. The longer the silence lasted, the stranger it became.
Then somebody behind Eliakim whispered, “Why aren’t they coming?” He shrugged because he didn’t know.
And that was when Eliakim noticed something. The enemy had expected the city to look helpless. It didn’t. The wall was unfinished, but it was high enough. The gates were secured. The defenders were visible, and there were more of them than Sanballat had expected.
Eliakim looked down at the men beside him. Some were frightened. He was frightened too, but nobody was running.
He raised his voice. “Hold your positions.” The words traveled down the wall.
“Hold your positions!” Men repeated them, and the sound moved through the city.
“Hold your positions!” Sanballat’s men heard it.
Eliakim watched the torches below. They began to move. At first, he thought they were advancing. Then he realized they were pulling back. One group moved, then another, and the whole force began withdrawing. Eliakim stared.
“They’re leaving.”
Nehemiah watched them go. “Let them.”
Nobody cheered at first. They were too surprised.
Then someone laughed. Another man shouted. Suddenly the wall erupted, and the noise rolled through Jerusalem. They had not fought. They had not needed to. Sanballat had looked at the city and decided that attacking it was not going to be as easy as he had imagined. Eliakim leaned against the stone. His legs suddenly felt weak.
The man beside him slapped his shoulder. “We scared them.”
Eliakim laughed. “Apparently.”
“Think they’ll come back?” Eliakim looked toward the darkness where the army had disappeared.
“Yes.” The man stopped laughing.
Eliakim grinned. “But next time, we’ll have a little more wall.” That brought the laughter back.
The next morning, Jerusalem was exhausted, but nobody stopped. If anything, they worked harder. The final sections of the wall rose quickly, stone after stone, gate after gate. The city that had looked broken for so many generations was becoming whole again. Eliakim worked until his hands hurt. He ate standing up and slept when he could. Somewhere during those days, he stopped thinking of himself as a young man trying to find a place. He had found it, not because somebody had given him a title, but because when the moment came, he had stood.
When the final stones were set, the city gathered to look at what they had done.
Eliakim stood a little apart from the crowd and touched one of the stones. It was rough beneath his hand. Nothing magical. Just stone. But he remembered what had been there before: rubble, dust, broken walls. And now this. Nehemiah came up beside him.
“You’re quiet.”
Eliakim shrugged. “I’m tired.”
Nehemiah laughed. “That too.”
They stood there for a while, and then Nehemiah said, “You did well.”
Eliakim looked at him. “We all did.”
“I wasn’t talking about everyone.” Eliakim smiled.
“You know, when you first came to me, you looked like you were trying to figure out whether you belonged here.”
“I was.”
“And now?”
Eliakim looked across Jerusalem. People were moving through the streets. Children were running. Workers were carrying tools. Women were calling to one another. The gates were standing. The wall was standing. “I don’t think about it anymore.”
Nehemiah nodded. “That may be because you’ve been too busy.”
Eliakim laughed. “That too.”
They were quiet again. Then Eliakim said, “I was afraid.”
Nehemiah looked at him. “So was I.”
That surprised him. “You?”
“Of course.”
Eliakim looked at the older man. “You never acted like it.”
Nehemiah smiled. “Being afraid and obeying Adonai are not opposites.”
Eliakim looked back toward the wall. “I suppose that’s what I learned.”
Nehemiah waited.
Eliakim shook his head. “Actually, I learned a lot of things.”
“Such as?”
Eliakim thought about it. “That empty cart was a very good idea.”
Nehemiah laughed. “So that is what you’re taking away from all of this?”
“No.” Eliakim smiled. “But it was a very good idea.”
Nehemiah shook his head. “You’re going to be trouble.”
“Probably.” They both laughed. Then Nehemiah’s expression became serious. “You know what mattered about that day?”
Eliakim knew he was talking about the cart. “The note?”
“No.”
“The cart?”
“No.”
“The fox?” Nehemiah gave him a look.
Eliakim grinned. “All right. What?”
“You stopped being afraid of men who wanted you to be afraid of them.”
Eliakim looked at him. That one stayed with him. He looked again at the wall. “I think you’re right.”
“I know.”
Eliakim laughed. “Now you’re becoming arrogant.”
“Careful.” They stood together until the laughter faded.
Below them, Jerusalem continued moving. There would be more problems. There would be more enemies. A finished wall did not mean a finished story, and Eliakim knew that now.
But he also knew something he had not known when he first stood among the ruins. He did not have to know everything before taking the next step. Sometimes the next step became clear only after you took the one before it.
He had seen it with the wall. He had seen it with Sanballat. He had seen it in the dark when the army came and everybody waited to see what would happen, and he had seen it in himself. He had not started out looking for a position. He had simply wanted to help. One stone became another. One decision led to another. One night of standing became another. Somewhere along the way, the boy who had wondered where he belonged had become one of the men others looked for when things went wrong.
That was enough for Eliakim. He did not need his name carved into the wall, and he did not need anyone to praise him.
The wall was standing. Jerusalem was standing. And when the next trouble came, as he knew it would, Eliakim would be there. Not because he thought himself a hero or because he believed he had all the answers, but because he had learned where to stand. And he intended to stay there.
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© AMKCH 2025
image done by imagefree.net at my direction.
If any of these people looks like you or someone you know, that is purely coincidental. They are not.
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