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February 2007

Nehemiah and the Wall

by Justin Gerard

The story of Nehemiah’s determination to rebuild the Jerusalem wall is brought to life in this wide format piece by Justin Gerard. The reconstruction program that the Jews undertook was intense. Their enemies hated the fact that they were restoring the crumbled fortificatons of their city and Nehemiah and his men had to not only focus on their construction duties, but also keep guard against invaders. Each man was a builder and a soldier at all times.

¹⁶From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, ¹⁷who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. ¹⁸And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me. ¹⁹And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. ²⁰In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.” ²¹So we labored at the work, and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn until the stars came out.

Nehemiah 4:16-21 (ESV)

In the Artist’s Words…

I have always loved Caspar David Friedrich’s work. Of all the painters from the Romantic era, his work has been the most influential on me. While other geniuses like Thomas Moran and Turner have inspired and impressed me to no end, I always find myself referencing Friedrich’s work — This piece is no exception.

In this piece I wanted to do something with a low horizon and a massive sky. More than that, I knew that I wanted to emphasize the ruins of Jerusalem. Most of the books on the subject tend to agree that at this point, all of the more wealthy houses and buildings would have been destroyed or reduced to ruins, while the hovels and lower class housing might have remained moderately unscathed. With that in mind I wanted to capitalize on imagery of ruined walls, shattered structures and pillars of once great buildings. There is something so awesome about ruins at twilight. In 2002 I wandered around the middle of England with my friends Scott and Leonnie and got to see dozens of ruined abbeys, castles and cathedrals. One night I even slept on the grass in the chapel of one called Llanthony Priory. There was no ceiling or floor to the old church anymore. I sat there staring up at the moon and watched bats flying out from the arches above until morning. I have always loved ruins.

Along with the ruins, I wanted the piece to have ominous lighting. Of the natural wonders that South Carolina does possess, perhaps our cloudscapes are the greatest. I think it has something to do with the humidity. Whatever it is, I have always been struck by the amazing cloudscapes here. They make me feel so small. I have loved powerful skies and in this piece I felt I had a good chance to work with one. This was at a dark time in Israel’s history, the golden age had passed, and now they were in a long captivity. So it seemed fitting for the sky to be ominous like the setting. The workers labored with their weapons at the ready. Half patrolled the walls for enemies, while the other half worked furiously from dawn ‘til dusk to get the walls and gates back up.

Desktop Wallpaper

A desktop inspired by Nehemiah and the Wall is available as a free download. This image makes a powerful statement without overpowering your workspace. It’s available in many common display sizes including the high resolution 2560 x 1600! Download the size that matches your computer’s display resolution for best results.

• 2560 x 1600
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• 1920 x 1200
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• 1680 x 1050
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• 1600 x 1200
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• 1440 x 900
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• 1280 x 1024
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• 1280 x 800
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• 1152 x 864
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• 1024 x 768