It showed them that they were not forgotten, and it helped them to join in the prayer and the praise of those who were in their father-land.
But the Samaritans annoyed the Jews and spoilt this beautiful old custom, by lighting false fires on other mountains, on wrong days, and at wrong hours, and thus confusing those who were watching by the beacon-fires.

After a time, so many mistakes were made by means of these false signals, that the Jews were compelled to give up the system of beacon-fires altogether, and to depend on the slower course of sending messengers.
We have now come to the end of Nehemiah's story, and we have, at the very same time, come to the end of the history of the Old Testament.

For if all the historical books were arranged chronologically, Nehemiah's book would come the very last in the series.

Nothing more is told us in the Book of God of this world's history, until St.Matthew takes up the pen and writes an account of the birth of the expected Messiah.

Yet between the Book of Nehemiah and the Gospel of St.Matthew there is an interval of 400 years, years which were full of interest in Jewish history, but of which we are told nothing in the Bible story.
There was one prophet who lived in the time of Nehemiah, and whose book is a commentary on the book of Nehemiah.