Nehemiah 1:3

And they said unto me, the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province,.... In Judea, now reduced to a province of the Persian empire: are in great affliction and reproach; harassed

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.

In the province, i.e. in Judea, which was now made a province under the Persian monarchs: See Poole "". In great affliction and reproach; despised and distressed by the neighbouring nations. The wall is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned, i.e. the walls and gates continue in the same woeful plight in which Nebuchadnezzar left them; the Jews not being yet in a condition to rebuild them, nor having commission from the kings of Persia to do so, but only to build the temple and their own private houses. And this made their enemies scorn them; who also would have ruined them, but for fear of offending the Persian king.

Nehemiah 1:3 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.Ver. 3. Are in great affliction and reproach] The Church is heir of the cross, saith Luther, Ecclesia est haeres crucis, and it was ever the portion of God’ s people to be reproached, as David was by Doeg with devouring words, Psalms 52:1. Their breath as fire shall devour you, Isaiah 33:11. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down] So that thieves and murderers came in, in the night, saith Comestor here, and slew many of them. And the gates thereof are burnt with fire] They were burnt by the Chaldeans, and never yet repaired. And to keep a continual great watch was too great a charge and trouble.

(3) And they said.—Nehemiah’s question and his friends answer refer first to the people and then to the city. As to the former the terms used have a deep pathos. Those who had returned to their country—now only the province—are, in the question, the Jews that had escaped; in the answer they are the Remnant that are left: both being from the captivity.In great affliction and reproach.—In distress because of the contempt of the people around. All these expressions are familiar in the prophets; but they are united here in a peculiar and affecting combination. As to the city, the report is that the walls were still “broken down”: lying prostrate, with partial exceptions, as Nebuchadnezzar left them a hundred and forty-two years before (2 Kings 25:10), and, moreover, what had not been recorded, “the gates thereof burned with fire.” Though the Temple had been rebuilt, there is no valid reason for supposing that. the walls of the city had been in part restored and again demolished.

Verse 3. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down] This must refer to the walls, which had been rebuilt after the people returned from their captivity: for it could not refer to the walls which were broken down and levelled with the dust by Nebuchadnezzar; for to hear of this could be no news to Nehemiah.

Nehemiah 1:1 to Nehemiah 7:73 a. Extract from the memoirs of Nehemiah1. The Superscription. ‘In many MSS. and editions the beginning of this book is closely united with the last verse of Ezra, and in some it appears without line or interval between as part of Ezra’ (Davidson’s Hebrew Text). The words] R.V. marg. the history. (a) The rendering ‘words’ merely calls attention to the fact that we here have a portion of the writings of Nehemiah himself. (b) The rendering ‘history’ is more formal, and is capable of being understood in two different ways, (1) as a reference to a well-known work of history from the pen of Nehemiah, as in ‘the histories (marg. Heb. words) of Shemaiah, the prophet, and Iddo, the seer’ (2 Chronicles 12:15) and ‘the history (marg. Heb. words) of Jehu, the son of Hanani’ (2 Chronicles 20:34); (2) as a descriptive heading of the present book, ‘the history of Nehemiah’ being equivalent to ‘the acts of Nehemiah’; the common expression ‘the acts of,’ e.g. Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), is literally ‘the words of.’ In order to choose between these renderings, we must remember that the clause is probably an editorial heading, inserted by the Chronicler in the compilation of his work. Perhaps the preference should be given to (a) ‘the words of,’ on the ground that when Ezra and Nehemiah formed one continuous work it was not likely that a heading (whether giving the title of a work that is quoted, or describing the remainder of the Chronicler’s book) would be inserted in the middle of the text. But the insertion of a note, to explain the transition from the 1st person, used in the extracts from Ezra’s memoirs, to the 1st person used in the memoirs of Nehemiah, is only what we might expect. For superscriptions introduced by editorial hands, compare Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1; Hosea 1:1; Amos 1:1; Micah 1:1. This, however, is the only superscription of the kind in an historical book. Hachaliah] R.V. Hacaliah, cf. Nehemiah 10:1. The father’s name enables us to distinguish Nehemiah from the men of the same name mentioned in Ezra 2:2; Nehemiah 3:16. The name Hacaliah does not occur elsewhere in the O.T. We are not told what tribe Nehemiah belonged to. Some have supposed the tribe of Levi; and in favour of this suggestion should be observed (a) the mention of his ‘brother’ Hanani’s appointment (Nehemiah 7:2) along with the appointment of the porters, singers, and Levites; (b) the prominent consideration paid by Nehemiah to the interests of the priests and Levites. Others have suggested the tribe of Judah, and in support of their view refer to the mention of his ‘house’ (Nehemiah 1:6). Nehemiah 1:1 to Nehemiah 2:11. Nehemiah’s Commission1–4. The Evil Tidings from Jerusalem1b. And] R.V. Now. See note on Ezra 1:1. The copula implies that something has preceded. The Memoirs of Nehemiah did not open with these words. The Chronicler only gives us extracts (Nehemiah 1:1 b–7:73a, Nehemiah 12:27-43, Nehemiah 13:4-31).

The attempt to rebuild the wall in the time of the Pseudo-Smerdis Ezra 4:12-24 had been stopped. It still remained in ruins. The Assyrian sculptures show that it was the usual practice to burn the gates.

3. There in the province — The province of Judea. Comp. Ezra 5:8.