And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before you: for they have provoked you to anger before the builders.
All Commentaries on Nehemiah 4:5 Go To Nehemiah 4
Bede
AD 735
Obviously this is the anger of heretics, these the words of those who in vain call themselves “samaritans” (that is, the “guardians of God’s law”) despite the fact that they are greatly opposed to God and his laws inasmuch as, having been long separated from the House of David (that is, from the unity of Christ and the church) by heresies or schisms or wicked works, they are afraid to see the walls of the faith being built lest their own irreverence might be attacked and excluded; this is the ridicule of all who claim that “they know God, but in their deeds they deny him,” for indeed the Samaritans used to serve the Lord but without repudiating their own ancient gods. Typologically, they are imitated today by Christians but in such a way that they also consider their stomach a god and pursue greed (which the apostle clearly calls “slavery to idols”) and, being slaves to the remaining allurements of the world, serve “created things” more “than the Creator, who is praised forever.” And so, just like heretics, such people do not want the walls of the church to be restored in case they are forced by the growing state of piety to retreat from their own impiety; such ones are apt to call the Jews (that is, confessors of the faith) “feeble” and say that they will be easily overthrown by the Gentiles, since in the daily battle of souls they love sins more than obtaining the victory palm of virtue.
