Text -- Nehemiah 1:11 (NET)

1:11 Please, O Lord, listen attentively to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who take pleasure in showing respect to your name. Grant your servant success today and show compassion to me in the presence of this man.” Now I was cupbearer for the king.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Neh 1:11

Those who truly desire to fear his name, shall be graciously accepted of God.

Wesley: Neh 1:11

The king: who is but a man and therefore his heart is wholly at thy disposal. Favour with men is then comfortable, when we see it springing from the mercy of God.

Wesley: Neh 1:11

bearer - Whereby I had opportunity to speak to him, and some favour with him.

JFB: Neh 1:11

This officer, in the ancient Oriental courts, was always a person of rank and importance; and, from the confidential nature of his duties and his frequent access to the royal presence, he possessed great influence.

Clarke: Neh 1:11

Mercy in the sight of this man - Favour before the king, Ahasuerus. He seems then to have been giving him the cup

Clarke: Neh 1:11

For I was the king’ s cup-bearer - The king’ s butler, (the Persians call him saky ), which gave him the opportunity of being frequently with the king; and to be in such a place of trust, he must be in the king’ s confidence. No Eastern potentate would have a cup-bearer with whom he could not trust his life, poison being frequently administered in this way. This verse seems to have been a mental prayer, which Nehemiah now put up as he was delivering the cup into the king’ s hand.

TSK: Neh 1:11

Let now : Neh 1:6; Psa 86:6, Psa 130:2

who desire : Pro 1:29; Isa 26:8, Isa 26:9; Heb 13:18

grant : Neh 2:8; Gen 32:11, Gen 32:28, Gen 43:14; Ezr 1:1, Ezr 7:6, Ezr 7:27, Ezr 7:28; Pro 21:1

For I was : The office of cup-bearer was one of great trust, honour, and emolument, in the Persian court. To be in such a place of trust he must have been in the king’ s confidence; for no eastern potentate would have a cup-bearer to whom he could not trust his life, poison being often administered in that way. It was an office much desired, because it gave access to the king in those seasons of hilarity when men are most disposed to grant favours. Neh 2:1; Gen 40:2, Gen 40:9-13, Gen 40:21, Gen 40:23, Gen 41:9

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Neh 1:11

A Persian king had numerous cup-bearers, each of whom probably discharged the office in his turn.

Poole: Neh 1:11

In the sight of this man the king; who though a god by office, is but a man by nature, and therefore his heart is wholly at thy disposal.

I was the king’ s cup-bearer whereby I had opportunity to speak to him, and some favour and freedom with him; which encouraged me to make this prayer, and to hope for some success.

Haydock: Neh 1:11

Man; ( virum ) the great king, (Haydock) Artaxerxes. (Calmet) ---

Cup-bearer; Athersatha, 1 Esdras ii. 63., and 2 Esdras vii. 65.

Gill: Neh 1:11

O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant,.... To the prayer of Nehemiah, put up at this time:

and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name; the prayer of the Jews in Judea, whose desire was to worship the Lord in his temple, according to his will:

and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day; meaning himself, who was to wait on the king of Persia that day, and, if he had opportunity, intended to lay the case of the Jews before him, and therefore entreats he might meet with success:

and grant him mercy in the sight of this man; King Artaxerxes, who was but a man, and whose heart was in the hands of God, and he could easily move him to pity and compassion towards his poor people the Jews:

for I was the king's cupbearer; in the execution of which office he was often in the king's presence, and hoped to have an opportunity of speaking to him in the behalf of the Jews; this with the Persians was reckoned a very honourable office ^g. A son of Prexaspes, a very honourable man, was made cupbearer to Cambyses; and so it was with the Greeks and Romans ^h; and the poets not only make Ganymedes to be Jupiter's cupbearer ⁱ, but even Vulcan himself is put into this office ^k.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Neh 1:11

¹ tn The interjection אָנָּא (’anna’) is an emphatic term of entreaty: “please!” (BDB 58 s.v.; HALOT 69-70 s.v.). This term is normally reserved for pleas for mercy from God in life-and-death situations (2 Kgs 20:3 = Isa 38:3; Pss 116:4; 118:25; Jonah 1:14; 4:2) and for forgiveness of heinous sins that would result or have resulted in severe judgment from God (Exod 32:31; Dan 9:4; Neh 1:5, 11).

² tn Heb “let your ear be attentive.”

³ tn Heb “fear.”

⁴ tn Heb “grant compassion.” The words “to me” are supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and style in English.

⁵ tn The vav (ו) on וַאֲנִי (va’ani, “Now, I”) introduces a disjunctive parenthetical clause that provides background information to the reader.

Geneva Bible: Neh 1:11

O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to ^{( d )} fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of ^{( e )} this man. For I was the king's cupbearer.

^{( d )} That is, to worship you.

^{( e )} That is, the king Artaxerxes.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Neh 1:1-11

1 Nehemiah, understanding by Hanani the misery of Jerusalem, mourns, fasts, and prays.

5 His prayer.

Maclaren: Neh 1:11

A Reformer's Schooling

The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, 2. That Hanani, one of my brethren. came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity. and concerning Jerusalem. 3. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. 4. And it came to pass, when I heard these words. that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven, 5. And said, I beseech Thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments: 6. Let Thine ear now be attentive, and Thine eyes open. that Thou mayest hear the prayer of Thy servant, which I pray before Thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel Thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against Thee: both I and my father's house have sinned. 7. We have dealt very corruptly against Thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which Thou commandedst Thy servant Moses. 8. Remember, I beseech Thee, the word that Thou commandedst Thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress. I will scatter you abroad among the nations: 9. But if ye turn unto Me, and keep My commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set My name there. 10. Now these are Thy servants and Thy people, whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy great power, and by Thy strong hand. 11. O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants, who desire to fear Thy name: and prosper, I pray Thee, Thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king's cupbearer.'--Neh. 1:11.

THE date of the completion of the Temple is 516 B.C.; that of Nehemiah's arrival 145 B.C. The colony of returned exiles seems to have made little progress during that long period. Its members settled down, and much of their enthusiasm cooled, as we see from the reforms which Ezra had to inaugurate fourteen years before Nehemiah. The majority of men, even if touched by spiritual fervour, find it hard to keep on the high levels for long. Breathing is easier lower down. As is often the case, a brighter flame of zeal burned in the bosoms of sympathisers at a distance than in those of the actual workers, whose contact with hard realities and petty details disenchanted them. Thus the impulse to nobler action came, not from one of the colony, but from a Jew in the court of the Persian king.

This passage tells us how God prepared a man for a great work, and how the man prepared himself.

I. Sad Tidings And Their Effect On A Devout Servant Of God (Neh. 1:1-4).

The time and place are precisely given. The month Chisleu' corresponds to the end of November and beginning of December. The twentieth year' is that of Artaxerxes (Neh. 2:1). Shushan,' or Susa, was the royal winter residence, and the palace' was a distinct quarter of the city, occupying an artificial eminence.' Note the absence of the name of the king. Nehemiah is so familiar with his greatness that he takes for granted that every reader can fill the gaps. But, though the omission shows how large a space the court occupied in his thoughts, a true Jewish heart beat below the courtier's robe. That flexibility which enabled them to stand as trusted servants of the kings of many lands, and yet that inflexible adherence to, and undying love of, Israel, has always been a national characteristic. We can think of this youthful cupbearer as yearning for one glimpse of the' mountains round about Jerusalem' while he filled his post in Shushan.

His longings were kindled into resolve by intercourse with a little party of Jews from Judaea, among whom was his own brother. They had been to see how things went there, and the fact that one of them was a member of Nehemiah's family seems to imply that the same sentiments belonged to the whole household. Eager questions brought out sorrowful answers. The condition of the remnant' was one of great affliction and reproach,' and the ground of the reproach was probably (Neh. 2:17; 4:2-4) the still ruined fortifications.

It has been supposed that the breaking down of the walls and burning of the gates, mentioned in Neh. 1:3, were recent, and subsequent to the events recorded in Ezra; but it is more probable that the project for rebuilding the defences, which had been stopped by superior orders (Ezra 4:12-16), had not been resumed, and that the melancholy ruins were those which had met the eyes of Zerubbabel nearly a hundred years before. Communication between Shushan and Jerusalem cannot have been so infrequent that the facts now borne in on Nehemiah might not have been known before. But the impression made by facts depends largely on their narrator, and not a little on the mood of the hearer. It was one thing to hear general statements, and another to sit with one's brother, and see through his eyes the dismal failure of the remnant' to carry out the purpose of their return. So the story, whether fresh or repeated with fresh force, made a deep dint in the young cupbearer's heart, and changed his life's outlook. God prepares His servants for their work by laying on their souls a sorrowful realisation of the miseries which other men regard, and they themselves have often regarded, very lightly. The men who have been raised up to do great work for God and men, have always to begin by greatly and sadly feeling the weight of the sins and sorrows which they are destined to remove. No man will do worthy work at rebuilding the walls who has not wept over the ruins.

So Nehemiah prepared himself for his work by brooding over the tidings with tears, by fasting and by prayer. There is no other way of preparation. Without the sad sense of men's sorrows, there will be no earnestness in alleviating them, nor self-sacrificing devotion; and without much prayer there will be little consciousness of weakness or dependence on divine help.

Note the grand and apparently immediate resolution to throw up brilliant prospects and face a life of danger and suffering and toil. Nehemiah was evidently a favourite with the king, and had the ball at his foot. But the ruins on Zion were more attractive to him than the splendours of Shushan, and he willingly flung away his chances of a great career to take his share of affliction and reproach.' He has never had justice done him in popular estimation. He is not one of the well-known biblical examples of heroic self-abandonment; but he did just what Moses did, and the eulogium of the Epistle to the Hebrews fits him as well as the lawgiver; for he too chose' rather to suffer with the people of God than to enjoy pleasures for a season.' So must we all, in our several ways, do, if we would have a share in building the walls of the city of God.

II. The Prayer (Neh. 1:5-11). The Course Of Thought In This Prayer Is Very Instructive.

It begins with solemnly laying before God His own great name, as the mightiest plea with Him, and the strongest encouragement to the suppliant. That commencement is no mere proper invocation, conventionally regarded as the right way of beginning, but it expresses the petitioner's effort to lay hold on God's character as the ground of his hope of answer. The terms employed remarkably blend what Nehemiah had learned from Persian religion and what from a better source. He calls upon Jehovah, the great name which was the special possession of Israel. He also uses the characteristic Persian designation of' the God of heaven,' and identifies the bearer of that name, not with the god to whom it was originally applied, but with Israel's Jehovah. He takes the crow,, from the head of the false deity, and lays it at the feet of the God of his fathers. Whatsoever names for the Supreme Excellence any tongues have coined, they all belong to our God, in so far as they are true and noble. The modern science of comparative religion' yields many treasures which should be laid up in Jehovah's Temple.

But the rest of the designations are taken from the Old Testament, as was fitting. The prayer throughout is full of allusions and quotations, and shows how this cupbearer of Artaxerxes had fed his young soul on God's word, and drawn thence the true nourishment of high and holy thoughts and strenuous resolutions and self-sacrificing deeds. Prayers which are cast in the mould of God's own revelation of Himself will not fail of answer. True prayer catches up the promises that flutter down to us, and flings them up again like arrows.

The prayer here is all built, then, on that name of Jehovah, and on what the name involves, chiefly on the thought of God as keeping covenant and mercy. He has bound Himself in solemn, irrefragable compact, to a certain line of action. Men know where to have Him,' if we may venture on the familiar expression. He has given us a chart of His course, and He will adhere to it. Therefore we can go to Him with our prayers, so long as we keep these within the ample space of His covenant, and ourselves within its terms, by loving obedience.

The petition that God's ears might be sharpened and His eyes open to the prayer is cast in a familiar mould. It boldly transfers to Him not only the semblance of man's form, but also the likeness of His processes of action. Hearing the cry for help precedes active intervention in the case of men's help, and the strong imagery of the prayer conceives of similar sequence in God. But the figure is transparent, and the anthropomorphism' so plain that no mistakes can arise in its interpretation.

Note, too, the light touch with which the supplant's relation to God (Thy servant') and his long-continued cry (day and night') are but just brought in for a moment as pleas for a gracious hearing. The prayer is for Thy servants the children of Israel' in which designation, as the next clauses show, the relation established by God, and not the conduct of men, is pleaded as a reason for an answer.

The mention of that relation brings at once to Nehemiah's mind the terrible unfaithfulness to it which had marked, and still continued to mark, the whole nation. So lowly confession follows (Neh. 1:6-7). Unprofitable servants they had indeed been. The more loftily we think of our privileges, the more clearly should we discern our sins. Nothing leads a true heart to such self-ashamed penitence as reflection on God's mercy. If a man thinks that God has taken him for a servant, the thought should bow him with conscious unworthiness, not lift him in self-satisfaction. Nehemiah's confession not only sprung from the thought of Israel's vocation, so poorly fulfilled, but it also laid the groundwork for his further petitions. It is useless to ask God to help us to repair the wastes if we do not cast out the sins which have made them. The beginning of all true healing of sorrow is confession of sins. Many promising schemes for the alleviation of national and other distresses have come to nothing because, unlike Nehemiah's, they did not begin with prayer, or prayed for help without acknowledging sin.

And the man who is to do work for God and to get God to bless his work must not be content with acknowledging other people's sins, but must always say, We have sinned,' and not seldom say, I have sinned.' That penitent consciousness of evil is indispensable to all who would make their fellows happier. God works with bruised reeds. The sense of individual transgression gives wonderful tenderness, patience amid gainsaying, submission in failure, dependence on God in difficulty, and lowliness in success. Without it we shall do little for ourselves or for anybody else.

The prayer next reminds God of His own words (Neh. 1:8-9), freely quoted and combined from several passages (Lev. 26:33-45; Deut 4:25-31, etc.). The application of these passages to the then condition of things is at first sight somewhat loose, since part of the people were already restored; and the purport of the prayer is not the restoration of the remainder, but the deliverance of those already in the land from their distresses. Still, the promise gives encouragement to the prayer and is powerful with God, inasmuch as it could not be said to have been fulfilled by so incomplete a restoration as that at present realised. What God does must be perfectly done; and His great word is not exhausted so long as any fuller accomplishment of it can be imagined.

The reminder of the promise is clinched (Neh. 5:10) by the same appeal as formerly to the relation to Himself into which God had been pleased to bring the nation, with an added reference to former deeds, such as the Exodus, in which His strong hand had delivered them. We are always sure of an answer if we ask God not to contradict Himself. Since He has begun He will make an end. It will never be said of Him that He began to build and was not able to finish.' His past is a mirror in which we can read His future. The return from Babylon is implied in the Exodus.

A reiteration of earlier words follows, with the addition that Nehemiah now binds, as it were, his single prayer in a bundle with those of the like-minded in Israel. He gathers single ears into a sheaf, which he brings as a wave-offering.' And then, in one humble little sentence at the end, he puts his only personal request. The modesty of the man is lovely. His prayer has been all for the people. Remarkably enough, there is no definite petition in it. He never once says right out what he so earnestly desires, and the absence of specific requests might be laid hold of by sceptical critics as an argument against the genuineness of the prayer. But it is rather a subtle trait, on which no forger would have been likely to hit. Sometimes silence is the very result of entire occupation of mind with a thought. He says nothing about the particular nature of his request, just because he is so full of it. But he does ask for favour in the eyes of this man,' and that he may be prospered this day.'

So this was his morning prayer on that eventful day. which was to settle his life's work. The certain days of solitary meditation on his nation's griefs had led to a resolution. He says nothing about his long brooding, his slow decision, his conflicts with lower projects of personal ambition. He burns his own smoke,' as we all should learn to do. But he asks that the capricious and potent will of the king may be inclined to grant his request. If our morning supplication is Prosper Thy servant this day,' and our purposes are for God's glory, we need not fear facing anybody. However powerful Artaxerxes was, he was but this man,' not God. The phrase does not indicate contempt or undervaluing of the solid reality of his absolute power over Nehemiah, but simply expresses the conviction that the king, too, was a subject of God's, and that his heart was in the hand of Jehovah, to mould as He would. The consciousness of dependence on God and the habit of communion with Him give a man a clear sight of the limitations of earthly dignities, and a modest boldness which is equally remote from rudeness and servility.

Thus prepared for whatever might be the issue of that eventful day, the young cupbearer rose from his knees, drew a long breath, and went to his work. Well for us if we go to ours, whether it be a day of crisis or of commonplace, in like fashion! Then we shall have like defence and like calmness of heart.

The Church And Social Evils

It came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven.'--Neh. 1:4.

NINETY years had passed since the returning exiles had arrived at Jerusalem. They had encountered many difficulties which had marred their progress and cooled their enthusiasm. The Temple, indeed, was rebuilt, but Jerusalem lay in ruins, and its walls remained as they had been left, by Nebuchadnezzar's siege, some century and a half before. A little party of pious pilgrims had gone from Persia to the city, and had come back to Shushan with a sad story of weakness and despondency, affliction and hostility. One of the travellers had a brother, a youth named Nehemiah, who was a cup-bearer in the court of the Persian king. Living in a palace, and surrounded with luxury, his heart was with his brethren; and the ruins of Jerusalem were dearer to him than the pomp of Shushan.

My text tells how the young cupbearer was affected by the tidings, and how he wept and prayed before God. The accurate dates given in this book show that this period of brooding contemplation of the miseries of his brethren lasted for four months. Then he took a great resolution, flung up brilliant prospects, identified himself with true afflicted colony, and asked for leave to go and share, and, if it might be, to redress, the sorrows which had made so deep a dint upon his heart.

Now, I think that this vivid description, drawn by himself, of the emotions excited in Nehemiah by his countrymen's sorrows, which influenced his whole future, contains some very plain lessons for Christian people, the observance of which is every day becoming more imperative by reason of the drift of public opinion, and the new prominence which is being given to so-called social questions.' I wish to gather up one or two of these lessons for you now.

I. First, Then, Note The Plain Christian Duty Of Sympathetic Contemplation Of Surrounding Sorrows.

Nehemiah might have made a great many very good excuses for treating lightly the tidings that his brother had brought him. He might have said: Jerusalem is along way off. I have my own work to do; it is no part of my business to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. I am the King's cupbearer. They went with their eyes open, and experience has shown that the people who knew when they were well off, and stayed where they were, were a great deal wiser.' These were not his excuses. He let the tidings fill his heart, and burn there.

Now, the first condition of sympathy is knowledge; and the second is attending to what we do know. Nehemiah had probably known in a kind of vague way, for many a day how things were going in Palestine. Communications between it and Persia were not so difficult but that there would come plenty of Government despatches; and a man at headquarters who had the ear of the monarch, was not likely to be ignorant of what was going on in that part of his dominions. But there is all the difference between hearing vague general reports, and sitting and hearing your own brother tell you what he had seen with his own eyes. So the impression which had existed before was all inoperative until it was kindled by attention to the facts which all the time had been, in some degree, known.

Now, how many of us are there that know, and don't know, what is going on round about us in the slums and back courts of this city? How many of us are there who are habitually ignorant of what we actually know, because we never, as we say, give heed' to it. I did not think of that,' is a very poor excuse about matters concerning which there is knowledge, whether there is thought or not. And so I want to press upon all you Christian people the plain duty of knowing what you do know, and of giving an ample place in your thoughts to the stark staring facts around us.

Why! loads of people at present seem to think that the miseries, and hideous vices, and sodden immorality, and utter heathenism, which are found down amongst the foundations of every civic community are as indispensable to progress as the noise of the wheels of a train is to its advancement, or as the bilge-water in a wooden ship is to keep its seams tight. So we prate about civilisation,' which means turning men into cities. If agglomerating people into these great communities, which makes so awful a feature of modern life, be necessarily attended by such abominations as we live amongst and never think about, then, better that there had never been civilisation in such a sense at all. Every consideration of communion with and conformity to Jesus Christ, of loyalty to His words, of a true sense of brotherhood and of lower things, such as self-interest, every consideration demands that Christian people shall take to their hearts, in a fashion that the churches have never done yet, the condition of England question,' and shall ask, Lord! what wouldst Thou have me to do?'

I do not care to enter upon controversy raised by recent utterances, the motive of which may be worthy of admiration, though the expression cannot be acquitted of the charge of exaggeration, to the effect that the Christian churches as a whole have been careless of the condition of the people. It is not true in its absolute sense. I suppose that, taking the country over, the majority of the members of, at all events the Nonconformist churches and congregations, are in receipt of weekly wages or belong to the upper ranks of the working-classes, and that the lever which has lifted them to these upper ranks has been God's Gospel. I suppose it will be admitted that the past indifference with which we are charged belonged to the whole community, and that the new sense of responsibility which has marked, and blessedly marked, recent years, is largely owing to political and other causes which have lately come into operation. I suppose it will not be denied that, to a very large extent, any efforts which have been made in the past for the social, intellectual, and moral, and religious elevation of the people have had their impulse, and to a large extent their support, both pecuniary and active, from Christian churches and individuals. All that is perfectly true and, I believe, undeniable. But it is also true that there remains an enormous, shameful, dead mass of inertness in our churches, and that, unless we can break up that, the omens are bad, bad for society, worse for the church. If cholera is raging in the slums, the suburbs will not escape. If the hovels are infected, the mansions will have to pay their tribute to the disease. If we do not recognise the brotherhood of the suffering and the sinful, in any other fashion, Then,' as a great teacher told us a generation ago now, and nobody paid any attention to him, then they will begin and show you that they are your brethren by killing some of you.' And so self-preservation conjoins with loftier motives to make this sympathetic observation of the surrounding sorrows the plainest of Christian duties.

II. Secondly, Such A Realisation Of The Dark Facts Is Indispensable To All True Work For Alleviating Them.

There is no way of helping men but by bearing what they bear. No man will ever lighten a sorrow of which he has not himself felt the pressure. Jesus Christ's Cross, to which we are ever appealing as the ground of our redemption and the anchor of our hope, is these, thank God! But it is more than these. It is the pattern for our lives, and it lays down, with stringent accuracy and completeness, the enduring conditions of helping the sinful and the sorrowful. The saviours of society' have still, in lower fashion, to be crucified. Jesus Christ would never have been the Lamb of God that bore away the sins of the world' unless He Himself had' taken our infirmities and borne our sicknesses.' No work of any real use will be done except by those whose hearts have bled with the feeling of the miseries which they set themselves to cure.

Oh! we all want a far fuller realisation of that sympathetic spirit of the pitying Christ, if we are ever to be of any use in the world, or to help the miseries of any of our brethren. Such a sorrowful and participating contemplation of men's sorrows springing from men's sins will give tenderness to our words, will give patience, will soften our whole bearing. Help that is flung to people, as you might fling a bone to a dog, hurts those whom it tries to he]p, and patronising help is help that does little good, and lecturing help does little more. You must take blind beggars by the hand if you are going to make them see; and you must not be afraid to lay your white, clean fingers upon the feculent masses of corruption in the leper's glistening whiteness if you are going to make him whole. Go down in order to lift, and remember that without sympathy there is no sufficient help, and without communion with Christ there is no sufficient sympathy.

III. Thirdly, Such Realisation Of Surrounding Sorrows Should Drive To Communion With God.

Nehemiah wept and mourned, and that was well. But between his weeping and mourning and his practical work there had to be still another link of connection. He wept and mourned,' and because he was sad he turned to God, and I fasted and prayed certain days.' There he got at once comfort for his sorrows, his sympathies, and deepening of his sympathies, and thence he drew inspiration that made him a hero and a martyr. So all true service for the world must begin with close communion with God.

There was a book published several years since which made a great noise in its little day, and called itself The Service of Man, which service it proposed to substitute for the effete conception of worship as the service of God. The service of man is, then, best done when it is the service of God. I suppose nowadays it is old-fashioned' and narrow,' which is the sin of sins at present, but I for my part have very little faith in the persistence and wide operation of any philanthropic motives except the highest, namely, compassion caught from Jesus Christ. I do not believe that you will get men, year in and year out, to devote themselves in any considerable numbers to the service of man unless you appeal to this highest of motives. You may enlist a little corps, and God forbid that I should deny such a plain fact, of selecter spirits to do purely secular alleviative work, with an entire ignoring of Christian motives, but you will never get the army of workers that is needed to grapple with the facts of our present condition, unless you touch the very deepest springs of conduct, and these are to be found in communion with God. All the rest is surface drainage. Get down to the love of God, and the love of men therefrom, and you have got an Artesian well which will bubble up unfailingly.

And I have not much faith in remedies which ignore religion, and are brought, without communion with God, as sufficient for the disease. I do not want to say one word that might seem to depreciate what are good and valid and noble efforts in their several spheres. There is no need for antagonism, rather, Christian men are bound by every consideration to help to the utmost of their power, even in the incomplete attempts that are made to grapple with social problems. There is room enough for us all. But sure! am that until grapes and waterbeds cure smallpox, and a spoonful of cold water puts out Vesuvius, you will not cure the evils of the body politic by any lesser means than the application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We hear a great deal to-day about a social gospel,' and I am glad of the conception, and of the favour which it receives. Only let us remember that the Gospel is social second, and individual first. And that if you get the love of God and obedience to Jesus Christ into a man's heart it will be like putting gas into a balloon, it will go up, and the man will get out of the slums fast enough; and he will not be a slave to the vices of the world much longer, and you will have done more for him and for the wide circle that he may influence than by any other means. I do not want to depreciate any helpers, but I say it is the work of the Christian church to carry to the world the only thing that will make men deeply and abidingly happy, because it will make them good.

IV. And So, Lastly, Such Sympathy Should Be The Parent Of A Noble, Self-Sacrificing Life.

Look at the man in our text. He had the ball at his feet. He had the entree of a court, and the ear of a king. Brilliant prospects were opening before him, but his brethren's sufferings drew him, and with a noble resolution of self-sacrifice, he shut himself out from the former and went into the wilderness. He is one of the Scripture characters that never have had due honour, a hero, a saint, a martyr, a reformer. He did, though in a smaller sphere, the very same thing that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews magnified with his splendid eloquence, in reference to the great Lawgiver, And chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,' and to turn his back upon the dazzlements of a court, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,' whilst his brethren were suffering.

Now, dear friends! the letter of the example may be put aside; the spirit of it must be observed. If Christians are to do the work that they can do, and that Christ has put them into this world that they may do, there must be self-sacrifice with it. There is no shirking that obligation, and there is no discharging our duty without it. You and I, in our several ways, are as much under the sway of that absolute law, that if a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it brings forth fruit,' as ever was Jesus Christ or His Apostles. I have nothing to say about the manner of the sacrifice. It is no part of my business to prescribe to you details of duty. It is my business to insist on the principles which must regulate these, and of these principles in application to Christian service there is none more stringent than, I will not offer unto my God burnt-offering of that which doth cost me nothing.'

I am sure that, under God, the great remedy for social evils lies mainly here, that the bulk of professing Christians shall recognise and discharge their responsibilities. It is not ministers, city missionaries, Bible-women, or any other paid people that can do the work. It is by Christian men and by Christian women, and, if I might use a very vulgar distinction which has a meaning in the present connection, very specially by Christian ladies, taking their part in the work amongst the degraded and the outcasts, that our sorest difficulties and problems will be solved. If a church does not face these, well, all I can say is, its light will go out; and the sooner the better. If thou forbear to deliver them that are appointed to death, and say, Behold! I knew it not, shall not He that weigheth the hearts consider it, and shall He not render to every man according to his work?' And, on the other hand, there are no blessings more rich, select, sweet, and abiding, than are to be found in sharing the sorrow of the Man of Sorrows, and carrying the message of His pity and His redemption to an outcast world. If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the affected soul, the Lord shall satisfy thy soul; and thou shalt be as a watered garden, and as a spring of water whose waters fail not.'

MHCC: Neh 1:1-11

Nehemiah was the Persian king's cup-bearer. When God has work to do, he will never want instruments to do it with. Nehemiah lived at ease, and in honour, but does not forget that he is an Israelite, and that his brethren are in distress. He was ready to do them all the good offices he could; and that he might know how best to do them a kindness, he makes inquiries about them. We should inquire especially concerning the state of the church and religion. Every Jerusalem on this side the heavenly one will have some defect, which will require the help and services of its friends. Nehemiah's first application was to God, that he might have the fuller confidence in his application to the king. Our best pleas in prayer are taken from the promise of God, the word on which he has caused us to hope. Other means must be used, but the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails most. Communion with God will best prepare us for our dealings with men. When we have intrusted our concerns to God, the mind is set at liberty; it feels satisfaction and composure, and difficulties vanish. We know that if the affair be hurtful, he can easily hinder it; and if it be good for us, he can as easily forward it.

Matthew Henry: Neh 1:5-11

We have here Nehemiah's prayer, a prayer that has reference to all the prayers which he had for some time before been putting up to God day and night, while he continued his sorrows for the desolations of Jerusalem, and withal to the petition he was now intending to present to the king his master for his favour to Jerusalem. We may observe in this prayer,

I. His humble and reverent address to God, in which he prostrates himself before him, and gives unto him the glory due unto his name, Neh 1:5. It is much the same with that of Daniel, Dan 9:4. It teaches us to draw near to God, 1. With a holy awe of his majesty and glory, remembering that he is the God of heaven, infinitely above us, and sovereign Lord over us, and that he is the great and terrible God, infinitely excelling all the principalities and powers both of the upper and of the lower world, angels and kings; and he is a God to be worshipped with fear by all his people, and whose powerful wrath all his enemies have reason to be afraid of. Even the terrors of the Lord are improvable for the comfort and encouragement of those that trust in him. 2. With a holy confidence in his grace and truth, for he keepeth covenant and mercy for those that love him, not only the mercy that is promised, but even more than he promised: nothing shall be thought too much to be done for those that love him and keep his commandments.

II. His general request for the audience and acceptance of all the prayers and confessions he now made to God (Neh 1:6): " Let thy ear be attentive to the prayer, not which I say (barely saying prayer will not serve), but which I pray before thee (then we are likely to speed in praying when we pray in praying), and let they eyes be open upon the heart from which the prayer comes, and the case which is in prayer laid before thee."God formed the eye and planted the ear; and therefore shall he not see clearly? shall not he hear attentively?

III. His penitent confession of sin; not only Israel has sinned (it was no great mortification to him to own that), but I and my father's house have sinned, Neh 1:6. Thus does he humble himself, and take shame to himself, in this confession. We have (I and my family among the rest) dealt very corruptly against thee, Neh 1:7. In the confession of sin, let these two things be owned as the malignity of it - that it is a corruption of ourselves and an affront to God; it is dealing corruptly against God, setting up the corruptions of our own hearts in opposition to the commands of God.

IV. The pleas he urges for mercy for his people Israel.

1. He pleads what God had of old said to them, the rule he had settled of his proceedings towards them, which might be the rule of their expectations from him, Neh 1:8, Neh 1:9. He had said indeed that, if they broke covenant with him, he would scatter them among the nations, and that threatening was fulfilled in their captivity: never was people so widely dispersed as Israel was at this time, though at first so closely incorporated; but he had said withal that if they turned to him (as now they began to do, having renounced idolatry and kept to the temple service) he would gather them again. This he quotes from Deu 30:1-5, and begs leave to put God in mind of it (though the Eternal Mind needs no remembrancer) as that which he guided his desires by, and grounded his faith and hope upon, in praying this prayer: Remember, I beseech thee, that word; for thou hast said, Put me in remembrance. He had owned (Neh 1:7), We have not kept the judgments which thou commandedst thy servant Moses; yet he begs (Neh 1:8), Lord, remember the word which thou commandedst thy servant Moses; for the covenant is often said to be commanded. If God were not more mindful of his promises than we are of his precepts we should be undone. Our best pleas therefore in prayer are those that are taken from the promise of God, the word on which he has caused us to hope, Psa 119:49.

2. He pleads the relation wherein of old they stood to God: "These are thy servants and thy people (Neh 1:10), whom thou hast set apart for thyself, and taken into covenant with thee. Wilt thou suffer thy sworn enemies to trample upon and oppress thy sworn servants? If thou wilt not appear for thy people, whom wilt thou appear for?"See Isa 63:19. As an evidence of their being God's servants he gives them this character (Neh 1:11): " They desire to fear thy name; they are not only called by thy name, but really have a reverence for thy name; they now worship thee, and thee only, according to thy will, and have an awe of all the discoveries thou art pleased to make of thyself; this they have a desire to do,"which denotes, (1.) Their good will to it. "It is their constant care and endeavour to be found in the way of their duty, and they aim at it, though in many instances they come short."(2.) Their complacency in it. "They take pleasure to fear thy name (so it may be read), not only do their duty, but do it with delight."Those shall graciously be accepted of God that truly desire to fear his name; for such a desire is his own work.

3. He pleads the great things God had formerly done for them (Neh 1:10): " Whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, in the days of old. Thy power is still the same; wilt thou not therefore still redeem them and perfect their redemption? Let not those be overpowered by the enemy that have a God of infinite power on their side."

Lastly, He concludes with a particular petition, that God would prosper him in his undertaking, and give him favour with the king: this man he calls him, for the greatest of men are but men before God; they must know themselves to be so (Psa 9:20), and others must know them to be so. Who art thou that thou shouldst be afraid of a man? Mercy in the sight of this man is what he prays for, meaning not the king's mercy, but mercy from God in his address to the king. Favour with men is then comfortable when we can see it springing from the mercy of God.

Keil-Delitzsch: Neh 1:5-11

Nehemiah's prayer , as given in these verses, comprises the prayers whichhe prayed day and night, during the period of his mourning and fasting (Neh 1:4 comp. Neh 1:6), to his faithful and covenant God, to obtain mercy for hispeople, and the divine blessing upon his project for their assistance.

Neh 1:5

The invocation of Jahve as: Thou God of heaven, alludes to God'salmighty government of the world, and the further predicates of God, toHis covenant faithfulness. "Thou great and terrible God"recalls Deu 7:21,and "who keepest covenant and mercy,"etc., Deu 7:9 and Exo 20:5-6.

Neh 1:6

"Let Thine ear be attentive, and Thine eyes open,"like 2Ch 6:40; 2Ch 7:15 - לשׁמע , that Thou mayest hearken to the prayer ofThy servant, which I pray, and how I confess concerning ... מתדּה stilldepends upon אשׁר in the sense of: and what I confess concerningthe sins. היּום does not here mean to-day, but now, at this time,as the addition "day and night"compared with ימים in Neh 1:4shows. To strengthen the communicative form לך חטאנוּ , and to acknowledge before God how deeply penetrated he was bythe feeling of his own sin and guilt, he adds: and I and my father's househave sinned.

Neh 1:7

We have dealt very corruptly against Thee. חבל is the inf. constr . instead of the infin. abs ., which, before the finite verb, and byreason of its close connection therewith, becomes the infin. constr ., like אהיה היות , Psa 50:21; comp. Ewald, §240, c . The dealing corruptlyagainst God consists in not having kept the commandments, statutes, andjudgments of the law.

Neh 1:8-10

With his confession of grievous transgression, Nehemiahcombines the petition that the Lord would be mindful of His worddeclared by Moses, that if His people, whom He had scattered among theheathen for their sins, should turn to Him and keep His commandments,He would gather them from all places where He had scattered them, andbring them back to the place which He had chosen to place His name there. This word ( הדּבר ) he designates, as that which God hadcommanded to His servant Moses, inasmuch as it formed a part of thatcovenant law which was prescribed to the Israelites as their rule of life. The matter of this word is introduced by לאמר : ye transgress, I will scatter; i.e., if ye transgress by revolting from me, I will scatter youamong the nations, - and ye turn to me and keep my commandments (i.e., ifye turn to me and ... ), if there were of you cast out to the end of heaven(i.e., to the most distant regions where the end of heaven touches theearth), thence will I gather you, etc. נדּח , pat. Niphal , with acollective meaning, cast-out ones, like Deu 30:4. These words are no verbal quotation, but a free summary, in whichNehemiah had Deu 30:1-5 chiefly in view, of what God had proclaimed inthe law of Moses concerning the dispersion of His people among theheathen if they sinned against Him, and of their return to the land of theirfathers if they repented and turned to Him. The clause: if the cast-out oneswere at the end of heaven, etc., stands verbally in Neh 1:4. The last words, Neh 1:9, "(I will bring them) to the place which I have chosen, that my name maydwell there,"are a special application of the general promise of the law tothe present case. Jerusalem is meant, where the Lord caused His name todwell in the temple; comp. Deu 12:11. The entreaty to remember thisword and to fulfil it, seems ill adapted to existing circumstances, for aportion of the people were already brought back to Jerusalem; andNehemiah's immediate purpose was to pray, not for the return of thosestill sojourning among the heathen, but for the removal of the affliction andreproach resting on those who were now at Jerusalem. Still lessappropriate seems the citation of the words: If ye transgress, I will scatteryou among the nations. It must, however, be remembered that Nehemiah is not so much invokingthe divine compassion as the righteousness and faithfulness of a covenantGod, the great and terrible God that keepeth covenant and mercy (Neh 1:5). Now this, God had shown Himself to be, by fulfilling the threats of Hislaw that He would scatter His faithless and transgressing people amongthe nations. Thus His fulfilment of this one side of the covenantstrengthened the hope that God would also keep His other covenant wordto His people who turned to Him, viz., that He would bring them again tothe land of their fathers, to the place of His gracious presence. Hence thereference to the dispersion of the nation among the heathen, forms theactual substructure for the request that so much of the promise as yetremained unfulfilled might come to pass. Nehemiah, moreover, views thispromise in the full depth of its import, as securing to Israel not merely anexternal return to their native land, but their restoration as a community, inthe midst of whom the Lord had His dwelling, and manifested Himself asthe defence and refuge of His people. To the re-establishment of this covenant relation very much was stillwanting. Those who had returned from captivity had indeed settled in theland of their fathers; and the temple in which they might worship Godwith sacrifices, according to the law, was rebuilt at Jerusalem. Butnotwithstanding all this, Jerusalem, with its ruined walls and burned gates,was still like a city lying waste, and exposed to attacks of all kinds; whilethe inhabitants of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were loaded withshame and contempt by their heathen neighbours. In this sense, Jerusalemwas not yet restored, and the community dwelling therein not yet broughtto the place where the name of the Lord dwelt. In this respect, the promisethat Jahve would again manifest Himself to His repentant people as theGod of the covenant was still unfulfilled, and the petition that He wouldgather His people to the place which He had chosen to put His namethere, i.e., to manifest Himself according to His nature, as testified in Hiscovenant (Exo 34:6-7), quite justifiable. In Neh 1:10 Nehemiah supports hispetition by the words: And these (now dwelling in Judah and Jerusalem)are Thy servants and Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed, etc. Hisservants who worship Him in His temple, His people whom He hasredeemed from Egypt by His great power and by His strong arm, Godcannot leave in affliction and reproach. The words: "redeemed with greatpower"... are reminiscences from Deu 7:8; Deu 9:26, Deu 9:29, and other passages inthe Pentateuch, and refer to the deliverance from Egypt.

Neh 1:11

The prayer closes with the reiterated entreaty that God wouldhearken to the prayer of His servant (i.e., Nehemiah), and to the prayer ofHis servants who delight to fear His name ( יראה , infin . like Deu 4:10 and elsewhere), i.e., of all Israelites who, like Nehemiah, prayed toGod to redeem Israel from all his troubles. For himself in particular,Nehemiah also request: "Prosper Thy servant to-day ( היּום likeNeh 1:6; לעבדּך may be either the accusative of the person, like 2Ch 26:5, or the dative: Prosper his design unto Thy servant, like Neh 2:20),and give him to mercy (i.e., cause him to find mercy; comp. 1Ki 8:50;Psa 106:46) before the face of this man."What man he means is explainedby the following supplementary remark, "And I was cup-bearer to theking,"without whose favour and permission Nehemiah could not havecarried his project into execution (as related in Neh 2).

Constable: Neh 1:1--7:73

I. THE FORTIFICATION OF JERUSALEM chs. 1--7

"The first seven chapters of Nehemiah as well as 12:31-13:31 are written in the first person. This, as well as all or part of Neh 11 and the rest of Neh 12, constitutes what is called the Nehemiah Memoirs. As such it offers an extensive look into the life and heart of an outstanding servant of God that is unique to the Old Testament."⁴

Constable: Neh 1:1--2:20

A. The Return under Nehemiah chs. 1-2

The focus of restoration activities in Nehemiah is on the walls of Jerusalem. In Ezra it was the altar of burnt offerings and especially the temple in Jerusalem.

"The orientation of Nehemiah is more civil and secular than that of Ezra, but it is also written from the priestly point of view."⁵

The walls of the city had lain in ruins since 586 B.C. Then Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had breached them, entered Jerusalem, burned the temple, carried most of the remaining Jews off to Babylon, and knocked the walls down. Consequently the few Jews who remained could not defend themselves (2 Kings 25:1-11). The returned exiles had attempted to rebuild the walls in or shortly after 458 B.C., but that project failed because of local opposition (Ezra 4:12, 23).

The returned exiles had received permission to return to their land and to reestablish their unique national institutions. Therefore they needed to rebuild the city walls to defend themselves against anyone who might want to interfere with and to interrupt their way of life.

Constable: Neh 1:4-11

2. The response of Nehemiah 1:4-11

Nehemiah's reaction to this bad news was admirable. He made it a subject of serious prolonged prayer (vv. 4, 11; 2:1). Daniel had been another high-ranking Jewish official in the Persian government, and he too was a man of prayer.

"Of the 406 verses in the book, the prayers fill 46 verses (11%), and the history accounts for 146 (36%). The various lists . . . add up to 214 verses or 53% of the total."⁷

Nehemiah began his prayer with praise for God's greatness and His loyal love for His people (v. 5). As Ezra had done, he acknowledged that the Jews had been guilty of sinning against God (cf. Ezra 9:6-7). They had disobeyed the Mosaic Law (v. 7). Nehemiah reminded God of His promise to restore His people to their land if they repented (vv. 8-9; cf. Deut. 30:1-5). He also noted that these were the people Yahweh had redeemed from Egyptian slavery for a special purpose (v. 10; cf. Deut. 9:29). He concluded with a petition that his planned appeal to the king would be effective (v. 11a).

"With the expression this man at the end of the prayer Nehemiah shows the big difference between his reverence for his God and his conception of his master, the Persian king. In the eyes of the world Artaxerxes was an important person, a man with influence, who could decide on life or death. In the eyes of Nehemiah, with his religious approach, Artaxerxes was just a man like any other man. The Lord of history makes the decisions, not Artaxerxes."⁸

"Although he is a layperson, he stands with the great prophets in interceding for his people and in calling them to be faithful to the Sinai covenant."⁹

Extrabiblical references that mention the office of cupbearer in the Persian court have revealed that this was a position second only in authority to the king (v. 11b).¹⁰ Nehemiah was not only the chief treasurer and keeper of the king's signet ring, but he also tasted the king's food to make sure no one had poisoned it (Tobit 1:22).¹¹

"From varied sources it may be assumed that Nehemiah as a royal cupbearer would probably have had the following traits: 1. He would have been well trained in court etiquette (cf. Dan. 1:4-5). 2. He was probably a handsome individual (cf. Dan. 1:4, 13, 15). 3. He would certainly know how to select the wines to set before the king. . . . 4. He would have to be a convivial companion to the king with a willingness to lend an ear at all times. . . . 5. He would be a man of great influence as one with the closest access to the king, and one who could well determine who could see the king. 6. Above all, Nehemiah had to be an individual who enjoyed the unreserved confidence of the king."¹²

Some commentators have concluded that Nehemiah as cupbearer must have been a eunuch.¹³ This opinion rests on the translation of the Greek word eunouchos ("eunuch") instead of oinochoos ("cupbearer") in one version of the Septuagint. However this rendering appears to have been an error in translation since the Hebrew word means cupbearer.¹⁴

"Like many since his time, Nehemiah's greatness came from asking great things of a great God and attempting great things in reliance on him."¹⁵

Guzik: Neh 1:1-11

Nehemiah 1 - Nehemiah's Prayer

A. Nehemiah hears of Jerusalem's crisis condition.

1. Some 1,000 years after the time of Moses and some 400 years before the birth of Jesus, the nation of Israel and the Jewish people were in a desperate state.

a. Their nations were destroyed, First the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel and then the southern Jewish kingdom of Judah. The city of Jerusalem was completely conquered by the Babylonians and the once-glorious temple of Solomon was destroyed.

b. When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, they deported almost everyone from the city and the region - for some 70 years, Jerusalem was a ghost town, with the potential to end up like many ancient cities - completely forgotten except to history.

c. When the Jews were deported to Babylon, they began to make homes for themselves there. They settled down, and many still followed the God of their Fathers, but they did it from Babylon, with no desire to return to the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

i. Some of these faithful Jews were raised up to places of prominence in the governments they were deported to. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego became leaders in Babylon; Esther was made queen in the courts of a Persian king.

d. But after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, they were given the opportunity to return to their homeland, the Promised Land. Out of the some two or three million Jews deported from the land, only 50,000 decided to return to the Promised Land. That's only something like 2%! But they did return, and in the days of Ezra, they rebuilt the temple and laid a spiritual foundation for Israel once again.

e. The Book of Nehemiah begins 15 years after the Book of Ezra ends; almost 100 years after the first captives came back to the Promised Land; and some 150 years after the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. After this long time, the walls of the city of Jerusalem were still in rubble.

i. Before this, citizens of Jerusalem had tried to rebuild the walls but had failed. In Ezra 4:6-23, we see that some 75 years before they tried to rebuild the walls, but were stopped by their enemies. No one thought this obstacle could be overcome, so the walls lay in ruin and the people stayed in trouble.

2. (1-3) Nehemiah hears of Jerusalem's condition.

The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, "The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire."

a. In Shushan the citadel: Nehemiah lived in Shushan, the capital city of the Persians, and he lived in the citadel - that is, the fortified palace of the Persians. Right away, we know Nehemiah is someone important, living in the palace of the king of Persia.

b. I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem: Nehemiah's body was in Persia but his heart and his interest were in Jerusalem - 800 miles away. He wanted to know from those returning how the people and the city were doing.

i. We might think that an important man like Nehemiah had more important things to think about than a distant city he had never been to, and a people he had mostly never met. Yet, because his heart was for the things of God, his heart was not on himself, but on others.

ii. Nehemiah had the heart of Psalm 137:5-6: If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth; if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. If Jerusalem was special to God, then it was also special to Nehemiah.

c. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire: The news he received was not encouraging. The people were called survivors; this was not a hopeful title. They were in great distress and reproach, and the walls of the city itself were broken down and the city gates are burned with fire.

i. The bad state of the people and the bad state of the city walls were intimately connected. In the ancient world, a city without walls was a city completely open and vulnerable to its enemies. They had no defense, no protection at all.

ii. An unwalled city was always a backwater town, with nothing valuable in it. If there were anything of value in an unwalled city, it could be stolen away easily because there was no defense to stop it.

iii. Those living in an unwalled city lived in constant stress and tension; they never knew when they might be attacked and brutalized. Every man lived in constant fear for his wife and children. The temple could be rebuilt, but never made beautiful, because anything valuable would be taken easily.

iv. No wonder the people lived in constant distress, in constant disgrace (reproach), living only as survivors. God has more for us than to be mere survivors. God not only wants us to be conquerors, but more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37).

3. (4) Nehemiah's reaction to the news about Jerusalem and its people.

So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

a. I sat down and wept: Nehemiah's immediate reaction was extreme. He didn't just feel bad for Jerusalem and its people; right away, there was no strength in his legs (I sat down), and he began to weep and to mourn.

b. Mourned for many days: God was going to use Nehemiah to do something about this situation. But first, God did something in Nehemiah. Any great work of God begins with God doing a great work in somebody.

i. God prepared this long ago, with Nehemiah's important position in Persia, with a heart curious about the welfare of Jerusalem and its people. Now we see that he had a heart that broke over their needy state.

ii. God saw the need in heaven, but little would be done until the right man also felt the need. God would do something great to meet that need through Nehemiah.

iii. But there is no way Nehemiah could do this alone. He had to be a leader - one who influences other people - to get this job done. Nehemiah is a book all about leadership - something we obviously need today. Since leadership is influence, leadership applies to everyone. Everyone has an area of leadership. In some way, each one is a leader; the question is if they are a good leader or a bad leader.

iv. Leaders must prepare themselves for difficult work because it won't be easy. "There is no winning without warfare; there is no opportunity without opposition; there is no victory without vigilance. For when ever the people of God say, 'Let us arise and build,' Satan says, 'Let me arise and oppose.'" (Redpath)

v. Leaders must have a big vision, and Nehemiah had one. "Through me, God is going to correct a problem that's been around a hundred and fifty years. Through me, God is going to do something that completely failed down before." We must have a vision, a goal, that is big enough.

c. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven: Nehemiah's reaction went beyond an immediate emotion. Many times a concern will come over us in a flush, and then quickly pass. But if it is from the Lord it will abide and grow and the burden will remain until the problem that prompted the burden is solved.

i. We should note as well what Nehemiah did not do: he did not complain, whine, or "see who could fix this problem." He immediately did what he knew he could do - pray, and intensely seek God in this situation.

d. The God of heaven: Nehemiah also had a clear understanding of Whom he fasted and prayed to. There are many "gods" people trust in but only the God of heaven can really meet our needs.

B. Nehemiah's prayer.

1. Prayer is essential to leadership. If your vision is so big that only God can accomplish it, then you obviously must pray. If prayer isn't absolutely necessary to accomplish your vision, your goal isn't big enough.

a. It appears that Nehemiah prayed for four months before he did anything. Later, when the work of rebuilding the walls actually begins, it only takes 52 days to finish the job. But that 52-day project had a four-month foundation of prayer.

b. Nehemiah took his pain and stress to God in prayer - and seemingly, was able to leave it there. Prayer will relieve your stress. You may be trying to relieve stress through entertainment, but all that does is divert your attention. Entertainment doesn't give any solutions to stress. Prayer will give you strength; when you wait on the Lord in prayer, He will renew your strength (Isaiah 40:31).

2. (5-7) Nehemiah comes to God in humility.

And I said: "I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses."

a. I pray, LORD God of heaven: Humility begins by simply understanding there is a God enthroned in the heavens, and I am not Him! Nehemiah recognizes exactly who God is: LORD God of heaven . . . great and awesome God . . . who keep Your covenant . . . and mercy . . . with those You love.

b. Please let Your ear be attentive: Humility also understands my complete dependence on God. When Nehemiah desperately asked God to hear the prayer of Your servant (let Your ear be attentive . . . Your eyes open), it reflected his complete dependence on the LORD. Only God could help, and if God would only hear, Nehemiah knew He would help.

i. God will allow you to be fruitless to expose your need for total dependence.

c. Confess the sins . . . which we have sinned against You. Both my father's house and I have sinned: Humility will also confess sin openly. Nehemiah plainly and simply confessed sin, without any attempt at excusing the sin.

i. We must always avoid excusing ourselves in the confession of our sin. May we never say, "Lord, if I sinned" or "Lord, I'm sorry, but You know how hard it was" or other such nonsense. We can find great freedom in open, honest confession, without any attempt at excuse or wondering "if" I sinned or not.

d. Both my father's house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You: Humility identifies with the needy. Obviously, Nehemiah was a godly man; but he openly and passionately put himself with his father's house, and prayed by using "we" instead of "they."

i. "You never lighten the load unless first you have felt the pressure in your own soul. You are never used of God to bring blessing until God has opened your eyes and made you see things as they are." (Redpath).

3. (8-10) Nehemiah comes to God looking to God's promises.

"Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.' Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand."

a. Remember: This is a powerful way to come to God, asking Him to remember His promises. Nehemiah said, "LORD, You made a promise to Moses and this nation, I ask you now to make good on it." Nehemiah quoted from both Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 30.

i. This, no doubt, is the secret to great power in prayer: to plead the promises of God. We may be a bit annoyed when one of our children comes to us saying "Daddy, you promised"; but our Father in heaven delights in it - and often demands it before prayer becomes effective.

ii. In Psalm 81:10 God says to His people, Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. God will not open His storehouse until we open our mouths in asking Him to perform His promises.

b. If you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them: Nehemiah quoted a conditional promise. The condition was returning to God, and keeping His commandments. He really couldn't know if the nation was keeping the commandments, but he knew that he was keeping them, and because he had identified himself with the nation in their sin the nation could also identify itself with Nehemiah in his godly fulfillment of these conditions.

4. (11) Nehemiah prays with a heart ready to do something.

"O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." For I was the king's cupbearer.

a. Grant him mercy in the sight of this man: Nehemiah concluded by asking God to bless him when he would soon speak to the king of Persia about the matter. Nehemiah was going to do something about the sorry state of Jerusalem's walls and people, and he knows without God's intervention, he can do nothing.

b. Let Your servant prosper this day: This is a prayer of a man of action, not a sideline critic. Nehemiah does not pray "God, make it all better" or "God, get someone else moving on this problem." Instead, his prayer is "God, use me to make it better."

i. "Recognition of need must be followed by earnest, persistent waiting upon God until the overwhelming sense of world need becomes a specific burden in my soul for one particular piece of work which God would have me do." (Redpath)

ii. "Laying the matter to heart, he did not begin to speak with other people about what they would do, nor did he draw up a wonderful scheme about what might be done if so many thousand people joined in the enterprise; but it occurred to him that he would do something himself." (Spurgeon)

© 2006 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

NEHEMIAH appears to have been the author of this book, from his usually writing in his own name, and indeed, except in those parts which are unmistakably later editions or borrowed from public documents, he usually employs the first person. The major portion of the book is occupied with a history of Nehemiah's twelve years' administration in Jerusalem, after which he returned to his duties in Shushan. At a later period he returned with new powers and commenced new and vigorous measures of reform, which are detailed in the later chapters of the book.

JFB: Nehemiah (Outline)

• NEHEMIAH, UNDERSTANDING BY HANANI THE AFFLICTED STATE OF JERUSALEM, MOURNS, FASTS, AND PRAYS. (Neh 1:1-3)
• HIS PRAYER. (Neh 1:4-11)
• ARTAXERXES, UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSE OF NEHEMIAH'S SADNESS, SENDS HIM WITH LETTERS AND A COMMISSION TO BUILD AGAIN THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM. (Neh. 2:1-20)
• THE NAMES AND ORDER OF THEM THAT BUILDED THE WALL OF JERUSALEM. (Neh. 3:1-32)
• WHILE THE ENEMIES SCOFF, NEHEMIAH PRAYS TO GOD, AND CONTINUES THE WORK. (Neh 4:1-6)
• THE PEOPLE COMPLAIN OF THEIR DEBT, MORTGAGE, AND BONDAGE. (Neh 5:1-5)
• THE USURERS REBUKED. (Neh 5:6-19)
• SANBALLAT PRACTISES AGAINST NEHEMIAH BY INSIDIOUS ATTEMPTS. (Neh. 6:1-19)
• NEHEMIAH COMMITS THE CHARGE OF JERUSALEM TO HANANI AND HANANIAH. (Neh 7:1-4)
• GENEALOGY OF THOSE WHO CAME AT THE FIRST OUT OF BABYLON. (Neh. 7:5-38)
• OF THE PRIESTS. (Neh. 7:39-73)
• RELIGIOUS MANNER OF READING AND HEARING THE LAW. (Neh 8:1-8)
• THE PEOPLE COMFORTED. (Neh 8:9-15)
• THEY KEEP THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. (Neh 8:16-18)
• A SOLEMN FAST AND REPENTANCE OF THE PEOPLE. (Neh 9:1-3)
• THE LEVITES CONFESS GOD'S MANIFOLD GOODNESS, AND THEIR OWN WICKEDNESS. (Neh. 9:4-38)
• THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO SEALED THE COVENANT. (Neh. 10:1-27)
• POINTS OF THE COVENANT. (Neh 10:29-39)
• THE RULERS, VOLUNTARY MEN, AND EVERY TENTH MAN CHOSEN BY LOT, DWELL AT JERUSALEM. (Neh 11:1-2)
• THEIR NAMES. (Neh. 11:3-36)
• PRIESTS AND LEVITES WHO CAME UP WITH ZERUBBABEL. (Neh 12:1-9)
• SUCCESSION OF THE HIGH PRIESTS. (Neh. 12:10-47)
• UPON THE READING OF THE LAW SEPARATION IS MADE FROM THE MIXED MULTITUDE. (Neh 13:1-9)
• NEHEMIAH REFORMS THE OFFICERS IN THE HOUSE OF GOD. (Neh 13:10-14)
• THE VIOLATION OF THE SABBATH. (Neh. 13:15-31)

TSK: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

Of Nehemiah, the author and principal actor in the events recorded in this book, the Jews speak as one of the greatest men of their nation. His concern for his country entitles him to the character of the first patriot that ever lived. Descended, according to some, of the family of Aaron, or according to others, of the tribe of Judah and allied to the royal family of David, in the course of Divine Providence, he was a captive in Babylon, but there his excellences were so apparent, that he was chosen by the Persian king to fill an office the most respectable and the most confidential in the whole court. Here he lived in ease and affluence. he lacked no good thing; and here he might have continued to live, in the same affluence, and in the same confidence; but he could enjoy neither, so long as he knew his people distressed, the sepulchres of his fathers trodden under foot, the altars of his God overturned, and his worship either totally neglected or corrupted. He sought the peace of Jerusalem; prayed for it; and was willing to sacrifice wealth, ease, safety, and even life itself, if he might be the instrument of restoring the desolations of Israel. And God, who saw the desire of his heart, and knew the excellences with which he had endowed him, granted his request, and gave him the high honour of restoring the desolated city of his ancestors, and the pure worship of their God. The opposition of Sanballat and the Samaritans, and the firmness and zeal with which he repelled their insults and ineffectual efforts cannot be read without the liveliest emotions; and will afford to the latest times, a noble and animating example of distinguished patriotism, united with the sincerest devotion to the interests of religion. The virtue and piety of this great and good man, appear with equal lustre in the numerous and important reformations he effected. He relieved the people from their hardships and oppressions, by abolishing the harsh and usurious practices of the nobles and rulers; gave up his own revenue, as governor of the province, for the benefit of the people; and, as a further means of conciliating their affections, exhibited an example of the most princely hospitality. As the best security for good morals, and the better observance of the laws of God, he re-established the offices of public worship, and prevented the profanation of the sabbath, which had arrived at a shameful excess; he furnished the returned captives with authentic registers, and enabled them, in the best manner possible, after so long and calamitous an interval, to trace the genealogies, and claim the inheritance of their respective families; and further, he accomplished the separation of the Jewish people from the mixed multitude, with which they had been incorporated, and annulled the numerous marriages which they had made with heathens and idolaters of every description. For disinterestedness, philanthropy, patriotism, prudence, courage, zeal, humanity, and every virtue that constitutes a great mind, and proves a soul in deep communion with God, Nehemiah will ever stand conspicuous among the greatest men of the Jewish nation; and an exemplar worthy of being copied by the first patriots in every nation under heaven.

TSK: Nehemiah 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Neh 1:1, Nehemiah, understanding by Hanani the misery of Jerusalem, mourns, fasts, and prays; Neh 1:5, His prayer.

Poole: Nehemiah 1 (Chapter Introduction)

BOOK OF NEHEMIAH

THIS book seems not to have been written by Ezra, because it is written in a quite differing and more plain and easy style, and without that mixture of Chaldee or Syriac words which is in the book of Ezra; but by Nehemiah, Neh 1:1 who wrote an account of his own transactions, as Ezra did of his. But whether this be the same Nehemiah who came up with Zerubbabel, Ezr 2:2 Neh 7:7 , may be questioned, the same name being oft given to divers persons. And for the name of Tirshatha , which is used both Ezr 2:63 Neh 7:65,70 , that seems to be the title of his office, and so belongs to any governor, whether it was Zerubbabel, or Nehemiah, or any other.

NEHEMIAH CHAPTER 1

Nehemiah, understanding by Hanani the affliction of the Jews, and the misery of Jerusalem, Neh 1:1-3 , mourneth, fasteth, and prayeth, Neh 1:4 . His prayer for them, Neh 1:5-10 ; and for success in his petition to the king, Neh 1:11 .

The words of Nehemiah or rather, the acts, or deeds, as the word oft signifies; of which he here treats.

In the month Chisleu which is the ninth month, containing part of November and part of December.

In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, Neh 2:1 .

In Shushan the chief and royal city of Persia, Est 3:15 .

MHCC: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

The Old Testament history closes with the book of Nehemiah, wherein is recorded the workings of his heart, in the management of public affairs; with many devout reflections.

MHCC: Nehemiah 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Nehemiah's distress for the misery of Jerusalem, His prayer.

Matthew Henry: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of Nehemiah

This book continues the history of the children of the captivity, the poor Jews, that had lately returned out of Babylon to their own land. At this time not only the Persian monarchy flourished in great pomp and power, but Greece and Rome began to be very great and to make a figure. Of the affairs of those high and mighty states we have authentic accounts extant; but the sacred and inspired history takes cognizance only of the state of the Jews, and makes no mention of other nations but as the Israel of God had dealings with them: for the Lord's portion is his people; they are his peculiar treasure, and, in comparison with them, the rest of the world is but as lumber. In my esteem, Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the tirshatha, though neither of them ever wore a crown, commanded an army, conquered any country, or was famed for philosophy or oratory, yet both of them, being pious praying men, and very serviceable in their day to the church of God and the interests of religion, were really greater men and more honourable, not only than any of the Roman consuls or dictators, but than Xenophon, or Demosthenes, or Plato himself, who lived at the same time, the bright ornaments of Greece. Nehemiah's agency for the advancing of the settlement of Israel we have a full account of in this book of his own commentaries or memoirs, wherein he records not only the works of his hands, but the workings of his heart, in the management of public affairs, inserting in the story many devout reflections and ejaculations, which discover in his mind a very deep tincture of serious piety and are peculiar to his writing. Twelve years, from his twentieth year (Neh 1:1) to his thirty-second year (Neh 13:6), he was governor of Judea, under Artaxerxes king of Persia, whom Dr. Lightfoot supposes to be the same Artaxerxes as Ezra has his commission from. This book relates, I. Nehemiah's concern for Jerusalem and the commission he obtained from the king to go thither, Neh 1:1-11, 2. II. His building the wall of Jerusalem notwithstanding the opposition he met with, ch. 3, 4. III. His redressing the grievances of the people, ch. 5. IV. His finishing the wall, ch. 6. V. The account he took of the people, ch. 7. VI. The religions solemnities of reading the law, fasting, and praying, and renewing their covenants, to which he called the people (ch. 8-10). VII. The care he took for the replenishing of the holy city and the settling of the holy tribe, ch. 11, 12. VIII. His zeal in reforming various abuses, ch. 13. Some call this the second book of Ezra, not because he was the penman of it, but because it is a continuation of the history of the foregoing book, with which it is connected (Neh 1:1). This was the last historical book that was written, as Malachi was the last prophetical book, of the Old Testament.

Matthew Henry: Nehemiah 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Here we first meet with Nehemiah at the Persian court, where we find him, I. Inquisitive concerning the state of the Jews and Jerusalem (Neh 1:1, Neh 1:2). II. Informed of their deplorable condition (Neh 1:3). III. Fasting and praying thereupon (Neh 1:4), with a particular account of his prayer (Neh 1:5-11). Such is the rise of this great man, by piety, not by policy.

Constable: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

This book, like so many others in the Old Testament, received its title from its principle character. The Septuagint (Greek) translation also had the same title, as does the Hebrew Bible.

As I mentioned in my notes on Ezra, the Jews kept Ezra and Nehemiah together for many years. The reason was the historical continuity that flows from Ezra through Nehemiah.

Writer and Date

The use of the first person identifies the author as Nehemiah, the governor of the Persian province of Judah (1:1-2:20; 13:4-31). His name means "Yahweh has comforted."

The mention of Darius the Persian in 12:22 probably refers to Darius II, the successor of Artaxerxes I (Longimanus).¹ Darius ruled from 423-404 B.C. The text refers to an event that took place in Darius' reign (12:22). Therefore Nehemiah must have written the book sometime after that reign began. Since there are no references to Nehemiah's age in the text, it is hard to estimate how long he may have lived. When the book opens, he was second in command under King Artaxerxes (cf. Daniel). If he was 40 years old then and 41 when he reached Jerusalem in 444 B.C., he would have been 62 years old in 423 B.C. when Darius replaced Artaxerxes. Consequently he probably wrote the book not long after 423 B.C., most likely before 400 B.C.²

Scope

The years of history the book covers are 445-431 B.C. or perhaps a few years after that.

In 445 B.C. (the twentieth year of Artaxerxes' reign, 1:1) Nehemiah learned of the conditions in Jerusalem that led him to request permission to return to Judah (2:5). He arrived in Jerusalem in 444 B.C. and within 52 days had completed the rebuilding of the city walls (6:15).

In 432 B.C. Nehemiah returned to Artaxerxes (13:6). He came back to Jerusalem after that, probably in a year or so. The record of his reforms following that return is in the last chapter of this book. Apparently Nehemiah completed all of them in just a few weeks or months.

Even though the book spans about 15 years, most of the activity Nehemiah recorded took place in 445-444 B.C. (chs. 1-12) and in 432-431 B.C. (ch. 13).

Chronology of the Book of Nehemiah
445	Nehemiah learned of conditions in Jerusalem and requested a leave of absence from Artaxerxes.
444	He led the Jews to Jerusalem. Repairs on the wall of Jerusalem began. The Jews completed rebuilding the walls. Nehemiah promoted spiritual renewal among the returnees.
443
442
441
440
439
438
437
436
435
434
433
432	Nehemiah returned to Artaxerxes ending his 12 years as governor of Judah. Malachi may have prophesied in Jerusalem.
431	Nehemiah may have returned to Jerusalem and began his second term as governor. More religious reforms apparently began.
430
429
428
427
426
425
424
423	Darius II began to reign.

Message³

For many years, believers regarded Ezra and Nehemiah as twin books. They called them 1 and 2 Ezra (or Esdras, the Greek transliteration of Ezra). Jerome, who lived in the fourth century A.D., gave 2 Ezra the name Nehemiah. This fact illustrates the close relationship that exists between these two books. A single story begins in Ezra and ends in Nehemiah. The history they record covers about 110 years (538-430 B.C.).

Let us notice three things about the returned exiles in this period, the restoration period, that God revealed in this Book of Nehemiah.

The people in view are the approximately 97,000 Israelites who returned from captivity, the remnant. They had no conscious national influence that arose from their purpose as a nation. They did not have much messianic hope either. There is no reference to this hope in Ezra, Nehemiah, or Esther.

The purpose of God was that His people should return to His Law. The civil reformation was secondary to the reading of the Law that took place in Jerusalem. The reading of the Law (ch. 8) led to the praying of the Levites (ch. 9), and that resulted in the making of a covenant (ch. 10). God's purpose was to put Israel back under the Law until Christ would come.

The Potter at work in this book continues the task of reshaping that He began in Ezra. His primary instrument at this time was Nehemiah. Nehemiah was not a king, a priest, or a prophet, but an ordinary citizen. He held a cabinet-level position under Artaxerxes, the Persian monarch. He became the governor of Judah later. Generally the kings of Israel had failed, the people had ignored the prophets, and the priests were corrupt. Therefore God chose a common man who built a wall around Jerusalem in a little over seven weeks so the people could give concentrated attention to the reading and exposition of God's Word. Nehemiah was a man like others God used before him, a man who lived and walked by faith. Joshua was such a person and was also neither king, prophet, nor priest. Nehemiah did for Israel in his day what Joshua had done in his.

Notice next three things about Nehemiah.

Nehemiah had an attitude of faith. He had remarkable confidence in God. This never wavered. He wanted to see God's purposes fulfilled (1:1-4). He expressed his concern in his inquiry and sorrow. His prayer and sorrow show his confidence in God's power (1:5-2:4; 4:9). Furthermore he purposed to cooperate with God so God's will would happen. He expressed this commitment in his activity.

Nehemiah also acted in faith. We can see his faith in three activities.

1. He acted cautiously (5:7). He examined the wall secretly and silently. Then he divided the work so every man built near his own house. This guaranteed the personal interest and diligence of the workers.

2. He acted courageously (13:11, 17). He started by himself, single-handedly. Then he stuck with the work determinedly until he finished it.

3. He acted without compromise.

He did not compromise with the enemies outside the wall. They tried to get him to compromise by using contempt (4:3), then conspiracy (4:8), and then cunning (6:2).

He did not compromise with the Jews inside the wall either. He did not allow the nobles to continue charging their poorer brothers interest (5:5). He did not allow a priest to give lodging to the enemy (13:4-5). Furthermore he did not permit mixed marriages with non-Jews (13:23).

Finally, Nehemiah achieved by faith. The workers built the walls in only 52 days. Nehemiah settled the people in the city and its suburbs. He expounded and enforced the Law of God. He also provided a place where the people could wait for God's salvation.

Combining Nehemiah's times with his character we get the message of this book. Nehemiah proves that seemingly impossible things are possible through prayer and hard work when people determine to trust and obey God, and when they put His interests first.

Like Nehemiah we live in dark times (cf. Isa. 50:10). We too have to deal with indifferent multitudes. As in his day, there is widespread disloyalty to God's truth today. As then, there is lack of enthusiasm for God's plans and purposes now. Not many Christians want to devote their every waking moment to the task God has commanded us to do.

Like Nehemiah we need to walk by faith in these dark times (cf. Hab. 2:4). We need to be as sure of God as he was. We need to act with God and for God even though it means strenuous effort. We also need to decline all compromise with those outside and inside the church. We need to trust God, to do our day's work faithfully, and leave the future to Him. May we all follow this great man's example of faith. May we live one day at a time (Matt. 6:11).

Constable: Nehemiah (Outline)

Outline

I. The fortification of Jerusalem chs. 1-7

A. The return under Nehemiah chs. 1-2

1. The news concerning Jerusalem 1:1-3

2. The response of Nehemiah 1:4-11

3. The request of Nehemiah 2:1-8

4. The return to Jerusalem 2:9-20

B. The rebuilding of the walls 3:1-7:4

1. The workers and their work ch. 3

2. The opposition to the workers ch. 4

3. The strife among the workers ch. 5

4. The attacks against Nehemiah 6:1-14

5. The completion of the work 6:15-7:4

C. The record of those who returned 7:5-72

II. The restoration of the Jews chs. 8-13

A. The renewal of the Mosaic Covenant chs. 8-10

1. The gathering of the people ch. 8

2. The prayer of the people ch. 9

3. The renewed commitment of the people ch. 10

B. The residents of the land 11:1-12:26

1. The residents of Jerusalem 11:1-24

2. The residents of the outlying towns 11:25-36

3. The priests and Levites 12:1-26

C. The dedication of the wall 12:27-47

1. Preparations for the dedication 12:27-30

2. The dedication ceremonies 12:31-47

D. The reforms instituted by Nehemiah ch. 13

1. The exclusion of foreigners 13:1-3

2. The expulsion of Tobiah 13:4-9

3. The revival of tithing 13:10-14

4. The observance of the Sabbath 13:15-22

5. The rebuke of mixed marriages 13:23-29

6. The summary of Nehemiah's reforms 13:30-31

Constable: Nehemiah

Nehemiah

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Ivry, Alfred L. "Nehemiah 6, 10: Politics and the Temple." Journal for the Study of Judaism 3 (1972):35-45.

Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by William Whiston. Antiquities of the Jews. London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1866.

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Kenyon, Kathleen M. Jerusalem: Excavating 3000 Years of History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.

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_____. "Nehemiah's Mission and Its Background." Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 37:2 (March 1955):528-61.

_____. "Sanaballat and the Samaritan Temple." Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 38:1 (September 1955):166-98.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAS;

commonly called THE SECOND BOOK OF ESDRAS.

INTRODUCTION.

This Book takes its name from the writer, who was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes, (surnamed Longimanus ) king of Persia, and was sent by him with a commission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It is also called the Second Book of Esdras, because it is a continuation of the history begun by Esdras, of the state of the people of God after their return from captivity. (Challoner) --- Genebrard believes that the latter wrote the work. But how long must he thus have lived? and how come the lists to vary so much? (Calmet) --- We may allow that these variations are owing to the mistakes of transcribers, (1 Esdras ii. 1.) for the writer of both works was certainly inspired. Esdras lived a long time along with Nehemias; (chap. xii. 35.) and he may have left memorials, as well as the latter, from which the present work seems to be compiled. (Haydock) --- Some additions have been made since the days of Nehemias, articularly chap. xii. to ver. 26, or at least (Calmet) the five last of these verses. (Capel.) (Chronicles) --- The passage cited from the commentaries of Nehemias, (2 Machabees ii. 13.) is not to be found here; which shews that we have not his entire work, but only an abridgment, in which the author has adopted his words, with some few alterations. The fifth chapter seems to be out of its place, and also the dedication of the walls, chap. xii. 27. Nehemias was a person in great favour at the court of Persia; and of high birth, probably of the royal family, (Eusebius; Isidore; Genebrard in Chron.) as most of the ancients believe that all who governed, till the time of the Asmoneans, were of the tribe of Juda. Hence he styles Hanani his brother, (chap. i. 2.) and declines entering into the temple, chap. vi. 11. His name never occurs among the priests; and though we read [in] 2 Machabees i. 18, 21, jussit sacerdos Nehemias, (Tirinus) the Greek has, "Nehemias order the priests;" Greek: iereis: (Calmet; Huet; Du Hamel) and the title of priest sometimes is given to laymen at the head of affairs. (Haydock) --- In this character Nehemias appeared, by order of Artaxerxes: and notwithstanding the obstructions of the enemies of Juda, rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and returned after twelve years to court, making a second visit to his own country, a little before the death of the king, whom he probably survived only one year, dying the year of the world 3580, about thirty years after he had been appointed governor. (Calmet) --- In the two first chapters, we behold his solicitude for the welfare of his country, in the ten following his success, and in the last what abuses he corrected. (Worthington) --- He renewed the covenant with God, (chap. ix., and x.) sent for the sacred fire, and established a library at Jerusalem, 2 Machabees i. 19, 34., and ii. 13. (Haydock)

Gill: Nehemiah (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO NEHEMIAH

This book is, by the authors of the Vulgate Latin and Arabic versions, called the "Second" Book of Ezra, it being a continuation of the same history, and was by the Jews reckoned as one book with Ezra; Kimchi on Isa 9:7, calls it Ezra, so the Talmud ^a; and it has been quoted by Christian writers under his name; see the argument of the book of Ezra; but not as if it was written by him; for it is a clear case it was written by Nehemiah, whose name it bears, as appears from Neh 1:1 and throughout Nehemiah speaks of himself under the first person; and the style also is very different from that of Ezra, being plainer and easier than his. It has always had a place in the canon of Scriptures, both with Jews and Christians; and is of use to show the fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah, and especially of Daniel concerning the building of the wall of Jerusalem in troublesome times; to carry on the history of the Jews, and describe the state of the church in those times, what opposition was made to it, and what enemies it had, and what must be expected when any work of God is set about; it is the last of the historical books that was written, as is thought, and contains an history of the space of about twelve years, from the twentieth of Artaxerxes to the thirty second of his reign, see Neh 1:1.

Gill: Nehemiah 1 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO NEHEMIAH 1

This chapter relates how that Nehemiah, being at Shushan in Persia, and meeting with some Jews, inquired of the state of Jerusalem, of which having a melancholy account, he betook to mourning, fasting, and prayer, Neh 1:1, and his prayer is recorded, Neh 1:5.