Nehemiah 1
Butler1:1 THE words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah.
Now it came to pass in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan 2 the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men out of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, 3 and concerning Jerusalem. 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 4 is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days; and I fasted and
5 prayed before the God of heaven, and said, I beseech thee, O LORD, the God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments: let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, while I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: yea, I and my father’s house have sinned. We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgements, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses. Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye trespass, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples: but if ye return unto me, and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in 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 cause my name to dwell there. Now these are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand. 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 delight to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. (Now I was cupbearer to the king.)
2:1 And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. And the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid. And I said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire? Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it. And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may let me pass through till I come unto Judah; and a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the castle which appertaineth to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. Then I came to the governors beyond the river, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen. And when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, for that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.
Chaps. 1, 2:1-8. Circumstances under which Nehemiah obtained his commission to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Living at the Persian court, far from the land which he looked on as his true country, Nehemiah seems to have known but little of its condition and circumstances. Some event called his brother Hanani to Jerusalem; and on his return to Susa this brother gave him a description of the dismantled state of the holy city, and the “affliction and reproach” of the inhabitants consequent thereupon, which threw him into a paroxysm of grief. In his own words, he “sat down and wept, and mourned for days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven” (chap. 1:4). It was the month Nisan, which followed the vernal equinox, the first of the Jewish year, when Artaxerxes, observing the sadness of his attendant, inquired its cause. Nehemiah revealed it, and the king further inquired, “For what dost thou make request?” This was the origin of Nehemiah’s commission. He asked and obtained permission to quit the court for a definite time (verse 6), and to go to Jerusalem with authority to “build” the city. This was understood to include the repair of the governor’s house, of the fortress which commanded the Temple area, and of the city wall (verse 8). It necessarily involved Nehemiah’s appointment as governor, and the notification of this appointment to the existing satraps and pashas. Leave was also given him to cut such timber as was needed for the work in the “king’s forest” or “park” a royal domain situated in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. Nehemiah, having obtained this firman, left Susa early in the spring of n.c. 444, accompanied by an escort of Persian troops (verse 9), and reached Jerusalem in safety, having on his way communicated his appointment to the officials of the Syrian province. P. C.
1: 1-11. We may notice here four things: The state of the Jews that had escaped who were left of the Captivity. The position and character of Nehemiah. The prayer which was mingled with the lamentation. The practical aim and purpose which followed the prayer. All are based upon the one foundation of the special gracious relation of God to His covenant people. P. C.
1. The words of Nehemiah.** Whether you translate by “words,” by “history,” or by “acts,” in any case this is a title, attributing authorship to Nehemiah; either the authorship of the book or that of the narrative in the first person with which the book begins. Nehemiah was at this time a “cupbearer to the king” (verse 11). From the statements made in chap. 5—for example, verses 16-18—it appears that he had large inherited wealth. We must think of him as a young man, well-bred, a favorite, highly gifted, with a position at court, opportunity to make his way, and such examples of possible success before him as Daniel and Mordecai and Esther. W. J. B.
3. They inform him that, the walls being still in many instances broken down and the gates in the same demolished state as when burned by the Chaldeans, those children of the Captivity who dwelt there lay open not only to the incursions and insults of their enemies, but also to the reproach and contempt of their neighbors as a weak and despicable people, and that on both these accounts they were in great affliction and grief of heart. Prideaux.
4. 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. A. M.—He had no power to aid or help; no resources in his hand, no armies to command, no friends to combine with him. One path was open to him, and that was the path to the throne of grace: and he availed himself against hope of the last resource of the faithful. He mourned, and wept, and fasted, and prayed. This shows the habitual piety of his disposition. Though he lived in the corrupt atmosphere of a court, and in a far and foreign land, he had neither forgotten his religion nor sacrificed it at the shrine of worldly ambition. Anon.—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 favorite with the king, and had the ball at his foot. But the ruins on Zion were more attractive to him than the splendors 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.
5-11. The prayer. 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 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 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 (verses 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. 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 their Nehemiahs did not begin with prayer, or prayed for help without acknowledging sin.
The prayer next reminds God of His own words of promise (verses 8, 9), freely quoted and combined from several passages (Lev. 26: 33-45; De. 4: 25-31, etc.). The reminder of the promise is clinched (verse 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. The return from Babylon is implied in the Exodus. Nehemiah now binds (verse 11) 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. But now 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. A. M.
The facts as to the scriptural phraseology of this prayer are important, both from the practical religious point of view and from that of criticism. It is as true now as it was in Nehemiah’s time, that familiarity with Scripture language is a great help to praying well. And as to critical matters, this is one of many passages which show that the post-exilian Jews recognized as sacred a large proportion of our present Old Testament books without drawing any sharp line of distinction between the five books of the Pentateuch and the others.
- The thing he prayed for. “Grant him compassion in the sight of this man.” The meaning of these words may be gathered from the account in chap. 2. His request was perfectly specific. There was nothing vague or uncertain about it. He did not ask that somehow, from some quarter, God would bring help to the Palestine Jews. He proposed himself to make an effort, and he asked God to bless that. The “compassion” he sought from the king was not that the king would interfere in behalf of Jerusalem, or send somebody to interfere; it was not that the king would permit him to give half his fortune to hire help for his people; it was, in effect, that he might be permitted to surrender his brilliant position and prospects and sacrifice himself for his people. His prayer is throughout the prayer of one who is consciously unworthy, in behalf of the unworthy, looking to the unmerited grace of God. W. J. B.
Now I was cupbearer to the king. The cupbearer’s was an office, not only of trust, but also of dignity, in all Eastern courts, as it is to this day with the Shah of Persia. It was an office of trust; for the king’s life might be said to be often in his keeping, poisoning his wine being a common mode of removing an Oriental monarch, and everything which he drank had first to be tasted by the cupbearer. It was an office of dignity. Tristram.—Nehemiah was cupbearer to the Persian king, which was a place of great honor and of no less profit. He was highly in the favor of that prince, and as to this world had all that he could hope and wish. It was scarcely to be expected that one in his situation would bestow a thought upon his remote and poor and desolate country; and not one of ten thousand in his circumstances would have concerned himself about it. If at that distance he had sent a generous relief to his brethren in Judea, and performed such kind offices toward them as he conveniently could, even this would have been a friendly and liberal behavior; but he proposed to himself to do much more than this. Jortin.
Chap. 2:1-8. Prayer answered. Three or four months had passed since Nehemiah first heard of the distressed condition of his brethren at Jerusalem, and began to pray for them and that he might be permitted to visit and relieve them. So long the answer to his prayer was delayed. But he doubtless continued to pray, and at length the answer came. Meanwhile, he would be able to ripen his plans and prepare himself for his enterprise. P. C.
4. Then the king said unto me, “For what dost thou make request?” An opening was thus given him to present his suit. And, agitated as he was, it would have been natural for him to have at once stammered forth his application. But mark his irrepressible spirit of devotion! Though not always in the act, he was always in the attitude of supplication. He was not, therefore, thrown off his guard; he paused; he was silent; and so, says he, “I prayed to the God of heaven.” Then, having first made known his request to Him in whose hand are the hearts of kings, he next presented his petition to his earthly sovereign. Is it possible to conceive of a more expressive evidence of the constancy with which this great man waited upon God than the evidence furnished in this simple incident? H. Stovell.—Nehemiah dares not open his mouth to the king till his heart hath opened itself by a sudden ejaculation to his God. No business can be so hasty but our prayer may fly up to heaven and solicit God, and bring down an answer before ever our words need to come forth of our lips. In vain shall we hope that any design of ours can prosper if we have not first sent this messenger on our errand. Bp. H.
This is one of the most striking instances recorded in the Bible of what is commonly termed ejaculatory prayer—an example of the way in which good men, in the intercourse and business of daily life, especially when brought into circumstances of unexpected difficulty, even when there is no motion of the lips, scarcely more, indeed, than an “upward glancing of the eye,” may yet send up such a quick and compacted supplication to God as shall bring down all heaven to their aid. “When we are time-bound,” says Thomas Fuller in his “Good Thoughts,” “place-bound, or person-bound, so that we cannot compose ourselves to make a large, solemn prayer, this is the right instant for ejaculations, whether orally uttered or only poured forth inwardly in the heart. Ejaculations take not up any room in the soul. They give liberty of callings, so that, at the same time, one may follow his proper vocation.” Oh, what a blessed resource to the Christian merchant amid the fretting annoyances and the thousand perplexities of business! And what a benefit to all thus to fill up the intervals between their more prolonged devotions by brief ejaculatory prayers which go to make the whole life devout! A. Thompson.
Sitting down at your desk and taking up your pen, if that be your work, how much better you may do it for just covering your eyes with your hands for a minute and asking God’s blessing in prayer. Or, dealing with your fellow-men, some of them impracticable and wrong-headed enough, some of them sharp-set and low-principled enough, some of them provoking and stupid enough—how much better you will keep your temper amid the provocations of business; with how much clearer head and kinder heart you will treat with your fellow-sinners, for a word of silent prayer! If you desire to influence any for good, remember how wisely it has been said that the shortest road to any human heart is found by God; and explain to your Heavenly Father all you wish to do. Every little pain will be better borne and every little joy enhanced by a moment’s silent mention of them to God. You can alone with Him speak of a host of little things which really make a great part in your thoughts and in your life, yet which are less suitable for speaking of in united prayer with other people. Anon.
8. Success ascribed to God. “And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.” Nehemiah, like Ezra before him (Ezra 7:6), ascribes the success of his application to the king to the “good hand of God;” which had, indeed, been conspicuous. The circumstances which had paved the way for the presentation of his petition, the readiness of the king’s consent to his requests, the largeness of the facilities granted him—all indicated that his God, whose aid he had sought, had ordered events and influenced the monarch’s heart. P. C.—God endorsed the patriotic prayers of Nehemiah, and sent him back with money and much timber to rebuild the city. If we think that all things secular are too common for God’s care, we dishonor both ourselves and Him. God helps nothing wrong, and omits to help nothing right. All right employments are callings into which He puts His servants for their good; and what will He more surely do than help them to find their good? Bushnell.
Here is the beginning and end of the whole matter. God has an eye to see us, an ear to hear us, a face to shine on us, and a hand to succor us. The man who can claim God for his own, as Nehemiah could, is sure to prosper. Any one will admit that if the favor of the God of heaven can be secured, there is no doubt about the success; but the “if” seems a great one. How is the favor of the God of heaven to be secured? As Nehemiah secured it. Remember the long prayers of the closet and the short, swift ejaculation in the court. We have God’s will to do and a dangerous world to walk through. Praying in our secret places, we may pray also in crowded streets, in the midst of work, on encountering sudden temptation, to our Father who seeth in secret; and He will reward us openly. But Nehemiah had much sore labor before the open reward came; so shall we have if the reward is to be true and lasting. A. Symington.
Common history deals mainly with material forces; inspired history lifts the veil, and shows us those more subtle and spiritual forces in operation which do so much to shape the destiny alike of individuals and of communities. As this one Hebrew, for example, retired to some quiet chamber in the palace of Shushan, or to the deep shade of some tree in the gardens around the palace, to “pray his prayer day and night,” what an influence was he thereby putting forth upon the counsels of Artaxerxes, upon the distant Jerusalem, and upon the future history of the kingdom of God—touching the first link in the chain on which all others depended, moving the hand that was moving the universe! A. Thompson.
9-11. Nehemiah’s journey to Jerusalem. On his way to Jerusalem, Nehemiah would pass through the provinces of various Persian satraps and governors. To those beyond the Euphrates he carried letters, which he took care to deliver, though by doing so he aroused the hostility of Sanballat. Being accompanied by an escort of Persian soldiers, he experienced neither difficulty nor danger by the way, but effected his journey in about three months. The Samaritans seemingly heard of his advance, and were “grieved exceedingly;” but no attempt was made to obstruct his journey or even to delay his arrival at his destination. The knot of desperate men collected in the old Israelite capital, and animated with a bitter hatred of the neighboring Jewish community, which had rejected their offers of friendship (Ezra 4:3) and declined to allow them to help in the rebuilding of the Temple, saw with sullen disappointment the coming of a man who was likely to advance the welfare of their detested neighbors, but did not venture on making any open display of hostility. Probably they feared to come into collision with the Persian escort, an attack on which would have been a flagrant act of rebellion, and have drawn down upon them the vengeance of the great king. Nehemiah therefore entered Jerusalem without encountering any opposition. G. R.
NIGHT EXAMINATION. CONFERENCE. DETERMINATION TO BUILD. NAMES OF BUILDERS AND DETAIL OF POINTS. CONFRONTING ADVERSARIES.