of the popular militia and his words to them were, as has been seen in Comment above, couched in such a way that the people would be filled with confidence: “our God will fight for us” was known from past experience to be no empty saying. By thus imposing a familiar interpretative framework on his people’s sense of confusion, Nehemiah succeeded in using their very fear itself as a ground for renewed faith. And here we should further note that, as has been seen several times already in Nehemiah’s
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