But the fish gate did the sons of Hassenaah build, who also laid the beams thereof, and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof, and the bars thereof.
After him Baruch the son of Zabbai earnestly repaired the other piece, from the turning of the wall unto the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest.
Nehemiah 3:3, 20
OK, if you have ever heard of Baruch, the son of Zabbai, or the sons of Hassenaah, raise your hand. Any takers? I’m sure I have read the names before, but they never stuck out to me. As far as I know, this is the only time in the Bible they are mentioned. So what is so special about them?
I always find it interesting to see the lists of seemingly random people in the Bible. The truth is, I picked these two verses at random out of this chapter. Nehemiah chapter 3 gives us a fairly detailed list of people and groups of people who worked on different parts of the wall and different gates in the effort to rebuild Jerusalem.
In verse 3, we have the “sons of Hassenaah” building the fish gate, with its beams, doors, locks and bars. I don’t know exactly what the fish gate was all about, but I do know that these sons of Hassenaah were the ones to rebuild it.
In verse 20, we see a man named Baruch, the son of Zabbai, “earnestly repairing” part of the wall by the armoury. I don’t know anything about this Baruch other than the fact that he was one of the builders of the wall.
The point of this post is simply this: these men were not famous. They were not kings. They were not mighty prophets or thundering preachers of righteousness (that we know of). But they did something so important that God put their names in His Holy Word for us to read thousands of years later. They built the wall. Now, they didn’t build the whole wall. They each worked on their part of the wall. But they worked. The work they did was probably hard work. They probably didn’t get much credit at the time. They probably weren’t hailed as heroes. In fact, we know that men taunted them and mocked them while they worked. At the time, they were probably just another body working on the wall. We may not be great and famous pastors or teachers. But every single one of us can go to work “building the wall” that God has given us. And that is something great.
Justified Freely 
Posted by Debbie Feller on August 27, 2010 at 11:53 am
Did I tell you that I love Nehemiah? ha! Well, this is part of why I do, the everyone working together part! Thank you for doing your part, Ben, with your posts! deb
Posted by justifiedfreely on August 28, 2010 at 7:10 am
Everyone working together for the glory of the Lord is a great thing. It is encouraging to think that everyone has to do his or her little part- we don’t have to “build the whole wall” by ourselves, we just have to do our part!