The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the fortress,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and [certain] men of Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, who were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.
A man serving in a Persian palace receives visitors from Judah, and his first question is about the survivors and about Jerusalem. What he asked shows where his heart already was, long before the news reached him.
The book opens by showing the man before the work. His job was secular and his surroundings were comfortable.
The opening chapter describes the secret exercises by which God prepares the vessel for the special work in hand. Ezra, the instrument of a former revival, was not only a priest but a scribe — a student well versed in the word of God. Nehemiah was more a practical man of affairs. He held a responsible secular position as the cup-bearer to the king in the palace of Shushan. But the easy life of the palace, the well-paid position he held, and the king's favour did not lessen his interest in the people of God and the city of Jerusalem.
One writer spells out the case Nehemiah could have made for minding his own business.
Personally, he was surrounded by every kind of comfort. As far as that went, it was a sorry exchange to leave the court of the great king and to go into all the desolations of the land and of Jerusalem. He might well have reasoned to himself: "Why should I trouble myself about Judea? It was because of our sins that we were driven out, and it is obvious that the people who are there are utterly unworthy. They are behaving without a thought or care for the glory of God. Why should I trouble myself about it? … It is no good to think of the people of God. It is only a question of the soul individually. All I have to do is to serve the Lord where I am."
Nehemiah's question has two halves. Each half names a different group.
His question shows that his heart took in all the people of the land. He asked about "the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile" — that is, about those left behind when so many went into captivity in Babylon. He also asked "concerning Jerusalem," meaning the remnant that had gone up, with the permission of Cyrus, to build the Lord's house. So he was in fellowship with the heart of God, taken up as he was with His people and His interests. … They never dreamed of isolating themselves from the whole nation, nor of seeking the welfare of a single tribe only.
The visit came at a datable moment, to a man born in exile.
Nehemiah was a young man, born in captivity. It was in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year (445 B.C.), that Hanani his brother visited him with certain men out of Judah. The question he asked them shows at once the deep interest he had in God's people. Though he had never seen Jerusalem, the city of his fathers, he loved it and felt like all godly captives. One of the Psalms puts that feeling well — "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!" (Psalm 137:5-6). Though he lived in prosperity, his heart was with his people.
Nehemiah's address was Shushan. His heart lived somewhere else.
In his circumstances, Nehemiah was not on divine territory. He was in Shushan, Persian territory. But he was there under the governmental ordering of God, and his heart was not there. … Here we see a man whom providence placed in Shushan, the palace. Faith took him out of it, and brought him, in exercise of heart under the hand of God, back to divine territory.
Hanani does not disappear after this verse. He has a part in what follows.
Hanani, whom Nehemiah calls "my brother," is mentioned again once the wall is finished. He was the one who brought the first news of the sad state of the city and of the Jews, as told in Nehemiah 1:2. He is linked here with Hananiah, a ruler in the city — "a more faithful and God-fearing man than many." … To have such men identify themselves with him in his service must have been an encouragement, granted to him by God.
- Place. Nehemiah held a comfortable, well-paid post in a Persian palace. None of it lessened his interest in God's people or His city.
- Question. His question showed where his heart already lived. He asked about those left behind and about the remnant that had returned.
- Fellowship. He cared about the whole people, not one favoured corner of it. That is fellowship with the heart of God.
- Faith. Providence placed him in Shushan; faith took him out of it. His heart was never there.
- Preparation. God prepares the man before He gives him the work. Even the messenger who brought the bad news became a fellow worker.
And they said to me, Those who remain, that are left of the captivity there in the province, are in great affliction and reproach; and the wall of Jerusalem is in ruins, and its gates are burned with fire.
Word reaches Nehemiah in the Persian palace about the Jews who went back to Judah, and the news is bleak. Commentators see more than a news bulletin here: the report describes a moral condition as well as a ruined city.
The single word "province" carries the humiliation.
Israel was no longer a nation settled in their own land, as they had been under Joshua and the Judges. They were no longer a kingdom with one of their own sons on the throne — the kind of throne that the glory could accompany, as under David and David's sons. The people were now subjects of the Gentile. They depended on the Gentile's permission to live in the land of their fathers, and to keep the laws and do the service of their God.
Being looked down on is not always a bad sign. Commentators separate reproach earned for God's name from reproach earned by inconsistent living.
They were in great affliction. It came out of their own moral condition, and out of the activity and hatred of the enemies who surrounded them. They were also in reproach. It is a blessing when God's people suffer reproach because they are His people, or because of the name of their God (compare 1 Peter 4:14). But nothing is sadder than when the world reproaches the Lord's people, or when they become a reproach to the world, through their inconsistent walk and ways. It would seem, from the end of the book of Ezra, that the reproach in this case was of the second kind. They claimed to be what they really were — God's people — but they denied it by their alliances with the nations around them and by forgetting the claims of their God.
The damage was real history — Nebuchadnezzar's army had done it. But commentators also read the ruins as a picture of what had collapsed inside the community.
That was the plain fact, and Nebuchadnezzar had been the instrument, through his army, that did it. But there is another meaning as well. The wall is the symbol of separation, and, as we have seen, the wall of separation between Israel and the nations around them had been broken down. The gate was the place of judgment, and so the emblem of it. This teaches us that no one was giving justice and fair judgment any more.
Commentators describe the gate a little differently. One reads it as the place of justice, another as the place where God's people watch who comes in.
The wall stands for keeping separate from evil. The gate stands for godly care in receiving people and in discipline. In any age, careless associations and slack discipline among the people of God are sure signs of a low moral condition.
Set this verse beside the book that follows Nehemiah, and the contrast is startling.
The next book, Esther, tells us what happened to the much larger number of Jews who did not care about God's interests in His temple, but chose to stay in the land of their captivity... The people who, despite their faults, had cared for God's interests and rebuilt His temple are marked by affliction and reproach. Meanwhile those who did not care, and stayed in their comfort, have "feasting", "gladness", and "a good day".
Nehemiah had every excuse to write them off. His attachment did not depend on how the remnant was doing.
Nehemiah loved the people of God at the very time when they had lost their rightful claim — when God was disciplining them for their serious faults and sins against Him — at a time when giving them up seemed the most reasonable thing to do. Had not God given them up? Why, then, should Nehemiah feel so much about them?... He knew that only the remnant of that people was left on earth — deeply guilty, and punished with full justice — but still the people of God, the people with whom God's plans of blessing and grace for the earth are bound up.
The news did not move Nehemiah to comment. It moved him to mourning and prayer.
If Nehemiah was so moved by the earthly state of Jerusalem and the affliction of the remnant, how much more should believers mourn and weep over the spiritual state of God's people. Yet how little of this sorrowing spirit do we see today! We need it if we are to humble ourselves and pray effectively.
- Province — Judah was a district of a foreign empire. It served its own God only by a Gentile king's permission.
- Reproach — To be despised for God's name is a blessing. To be despised for inconsistent living is a sorrow.
- Wall — Broken walls picture separation from evil given up. Burned gates picture justice and godly care no longer at work.
- Comfort — Those who cared for God's interests suffered. Those who ignored them feasted. Ease is no measure of God's approval.
- Tears — Nehemiah's love held when the people had lost every claim. The news moved him to mourning and prayer.
And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat and wept, and mourned for days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of the heavens,
News of the ruined state of God's people reached Nehemiah in the Persian court, and he could not put it down. What follows is not a plan or a protest but a man sitting down to weep — and the commentators treat that as the point where God begins His work.
A report can be heard and set aside. One writer shows what this one did to Nehemiah, and where he turned with it.
He made the sorrowful state of the people his own. He felt it according to God. In their affliction he was afflicted. But he knew to whom to turn. He wept, mourned, fasted, and prayed. "Is anyone among you suffering?" says James. "Let him pray." And the sorrow and affliction of Nehemiah, expressed in his tears, mourning, and fasting, found an outlet in his prayer. This was a true mark of a mighty action of the Spirit of God upon his soul.
The verse piles up four actions, and each carries its own weight. One writer reads them one by one, and notes where God chose to start.
The time had come when God was about to grant a revival, and the way God does it is worth noting. God begins a great work through one man — and that man a broken-hearted man on his knees... His tears were the outward sign of a broken heart. His mourning showed how truly he entered into the affliction of God's people. His fasting proved that the sorrow had cut so deep into his soul that he forgot and gave up the comforts of life.
His grief ran on for days beside his ordinary duties. One commentator notes that, then weighs the exact title Nehemiah prays to.
His daily work likely interrupted this weeping and prayer, but it was certainly the most important matter on his mind. Notice his mention of "praying before the God of heaven." He does not say "the God of heaven and earth" (v. 4). Israel's earthly possession had been left in ruins, and little clear evidence remained that God was caring for His people. Yet God was still in heaven. His power could be trusted to bring some blessing to Israel, despite the low spiritual state that had caused their distress.
Grief over other people can stop there. One writer turns the question back on the people doing the grieving.
It is blessed, dear friends, when the Spirit raises this question in our hearts: "Is there among us anything that suits the heart of God?" It is even better when that heart-searching sends us to our knees, hating what we find in ourselves before God... If the condition of the remnant in Israel was to be raised, individual self-judgment was the way. And if we as a whole are to be revived, we must begin at home.
The sitting down was not the end of the story. One writer shows what those days of prayer and fasting prepared him for.
By prayer and fasting, Nehemiah learned the will of the Lord for His people. So when the opportunity came, in front of king Artaxerxes, he seized it. It is possible to know a great deal about evil and still not know the will of the Lord — and so still be "unwise."
Weeping fit that hour, and only that hour. One writer sets this moment beside what came later.
In chapter 1 it was right for him to sit and weep, but now it is a time to "arise."
- Burden received. Nehemiah made the ruined state of his people his own. He felt it according to God: in their affliction he was afflicted.
- Burden expressed. The tears showed a broken heart. The mourning showed he had entered their affliction. The fasting showed he had given up the comforts of life.
- Burden carried upward. All of it found its outlet in prayer to the God of heaven. Israel's land lay in ruins, but God was still in heaven, and His power could still bring them blessing.
- Burden turned inward. Revival began with self-judgment, not with blame: if the whole is to be raised, we must begin at home.
- Burden turned into action. Through prayer and fasting he learned God's will, so that when the moment came before the king he was ready. There is a time to sit and weep, and then a time to arise.
and said, I beseech thee, Jehovah, God of the heavens, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and keep his commandments.
Bad news about Jerusalem has reached Nehemiah, and he prays. Before he asks for anything, he spends a whole verse on who God is. The titles he picks show where Israel stood in history.
This title is not a general name for God. It belongs to one stretch of history.
God gave up Judah, which had turned away from Him, to the Gentiles, as He had given up Israel before. He passed the sentence of Lo-ammi — "not My people." He stopped acting as God of the earth, the Jehovah of His people. As "God of the heavens" He gave world empire for a time to four Gentile powers, one after another.
The same phrase runs through the books written during and after the exile. It replaced an older one.
When the ark took its place in the Jordan to lead Israel into the land, they heard the words: "Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you" (Joshua 3:11). Now, in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and the last chapter of Chronicles, God has left the throne of His kingdom in Israel. In the mouths of His people He has become someone far off — "the God of heaven."
The Hebrew behind this verse stacks three names for God together. Each one does its own work.
In verse 5 Nehemiah uses three names of God, and they are of special importance. In Hebrew they are these. "Jehovah" is His covenant name with Israel. "Elohim" is His supremacy in the universe. "El" speaks of the might that God has ready to carry out every detail of His will. It is the "Mighty God".
Nehemiah did not invent fresh language. His opening sentence draws on books he knew well.
He reveals in the opening words of his prayer familiarity with the Word of God: "I beg you, O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God (Deuteronomy 7:21; 10:17; Daniel 9:4) who keeps covenant and mercy with those who love Him and keep His commandments (Deuteronomy 7:9; 1 Kings 8:23)." These are the words of Scripture. They show his confidence in the power and faithfulness of God. After them, Nehemiah confessed his sin and the sins of his people.
The order of the prayer matters. Verse 5 declares God faithful; only then does verse 6 admit the failure.
First, Nehemiah defends the character and ways of God. Jehovah is the "God of heaven, the great and awesome God." He is also the faithful God who "keeps covenant and mercy for those who love Him and observe His commandments" (5). Second, he confesses the sins of the children of Israel. In doing so he identifies himself with them — "We have sinned against You: both I and my father's house have sinned."
The covenant Nehemiah names comes with terms. Israel had not met them. (Where the ESV reads "steadfast love," older translations read "mercy.")
In prayer Nehemiah appealed to the God of heaven as "the great and awesome God," and as the One who keeps His covenant and mercy — though Israel had broken that covenant badly. He adds the words "and mercy," for Israel was in desperate need of mercy. Those who do not love Him and observe His commandments have forfeited all claim to His covenant, and can hardly expect His mercy. Nehemiah does not go so far as to say "keep His commandments," but "observe." He had no doubt learned that keeping all God's commandments is too hard for man, but that man must still respect and honour them.
The condition in the verse, and the way Nehemiah addresses God, point in the same direction.
"He keeps covenant and mercy for those who love Him and observe His commandments." This, together with the way he addresses God, brings out in a marked way the contrast between law and grace. Nehemiah was devoted and God-fearing, yet you cannot help sensing distance in the terms he uses — "O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God." The age he lived under made that distance necessary. How different from the place the Lord gave His disciples after His resurrection, in His words: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
- Distance. "God of heaven" marks the age when God had left His throne in Jerusalem and given world rule to the Gentiles. His people spoke of Him as far off.
- Names. Nehemiah packs three names into one sentence: His covenant name, His supremacy over the universe, and His might to carry out every detail of His will.
- Scripture. Nehemiah drew his opening words from Deuteronomy, Kings and Daniel. He prayed the Scriptures back to God.
- Order. He clears God's character first, then confesses sin, and includes himself in it: "we have sinned."
- Mercy. The covenant carries a condition Israel had broken, so Nehemiah adds "mercy." It is the only ground left, and his whole appeal rests on it.
Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, confessing the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee both I and my father's house have sinned.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
We have acted very perversely against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances that thou commandedst thy servant Moses.
Nehemiah has just heard that Jerusalem lies in ruins and its survivors are in trouble. He does not blame the wreck on other people. He calls the sin his own — and that raises a hard question. How does a good man confess a failure he did not commit, and what can he ask for once obedience is gone?
Nehemiah folds himself and his family into the guilt of the whole nation. One writer ties that "we" to Nehemiah's constant prayer, and calls it a rare privilege.
Day and night he was praying for them, and that is how he had the power to confess their sins. No higher privilege could be given to a servant than the one granted to Nehemiah. That privilege was the power to identify himself with Israel so fully that he could take up and confess their sins as his own. "I," he says, "and my father's house have sinned." This is a true sign of spiritual power. Many can lament the condition of God's people; but there are few who can identify themselves with it. It is only such people who can truly intercede for them in the presence of God.
The confession is not vague regret. Nehemiah names what the people did, and one writer finds that surprising in a man like him.
In verse 6 we read, "We have sinned against You," but Nehemiah adds, "Both I and my father's house have sinned." "We have acted very corruptly against You." We might have thought it was the other way round with a man like Nehemiah. But that is what he says to God. "And have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that You commanded Your servant Moses." They had been downright disobedient to the things of God. That is where trouble always begins.
Nehemiah measures the nation by the law God gave through Moses. One writer points to this verse to show what place that law still held for the people who came back from exile.
These books describe the effort of the Jewish leaders to restore the temple and the worship as they had been before the captivity, and the law of Moses is the standard by which everything was to be done. Ezra (7:21) speaks of "the law of the God of heaven." Nehemiah (1:7) confesses the breaking of "the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that God commanded Moses."
God's mercy was for those who love Him and keep His commandments. Nehemiah admits Israel had done the opposite. That leaves them no claim on God at all.
He confesses the sins of the children of Israel, and in doing so he identifies himself with them — "We have sinned against You: both I and my father's house have sinned." They should have loved Jehovah and kept His commandments. Instead, he says, "We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that You commanded Your servant Moses." So they had forfeited all claim to the mercy of God on the ground of obedience. … The first plea is God's faithfulness to His own word. He has just owned that they have not kept the commandments God gave through Moses. But there was something else God gave through Moses. Besides the rules of the law there were the promises of the law.
Taking up another person's sin as your own is not natural. One writer says only those in communion with God can do it, and points to One who did it perfectly.
It is easy enough to feel for God's people when their sinful conduct dishonours them in the eyes of the world. But some are in communion with the mind of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. They share His affections for His own, and so, first and foremost, they are filled with zeal to guard His glory. Only they can measure the sin as it touches the holy Name they bear. Only they can go down, take up the sin, make it their own, and tell it all out before God. Moses, Nehemiah, and Daniel are examples of this in their various measures, and so is Ezra. But all of them are only faint shadows of Him who so identified Himself with His people that in confessing their sins He said, "O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you."
- Pray. Nehemiah prayed for his people day and night, and that prayer gave him the power to confess their sins.
- Own. He said "we," not "they," and made the nation's sin his own. Few can do that, and only they can truly intercede.
- Name. He names the sin instead of softening it. Israel did not keep the commandments, statutes and rules given through Moses, and that disobedience is where trouble begins.
- Forfeit. By that confession he gives up every claim on God based on obedience — nothing is left to bargain with.
- Plead. Empty-handed, he turns to the promises God also gave through Moses. His way of bearing another's sin is only a faint shadow of Christ.
Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the peoples;
Nehemiah has just admitted that his people broke the commandments God gave through Moses. Now he asks God to remember another word Moses received. Why would a man with no claim left reach for a text that starts with a threat?
Nehemiah can no longer point to Israel's obedience. He needs other ground for his prayer.
God is always faithful to those who love Him and keep His commandments. But sadly, they had not kept His commandments, His statutes, or His judgments. Nehemiah confesses all of this. Now he turns to a promise. On that promise he can base his prayer, and count on God stepping in for him.
The word Nehemiah asks God to remember came through Moses. So did the commandments he has just admitted breaking. One writer shows what faith found there.
He has just admitted that they have not kept the commandments God gave through Moses. But there was something else God gave through Moses. Besides the precepts of the law there were the promises of the law. Nehemiah asks God to remember this word of promise, given through Moses. In it God had said that if the people acted unfaithfully He would scatter them. But if they repented He would gather them, and bring them to the place He had chosen to set His name.
The same writer counts this as the first of four pleas: God's word, God's people, God's work of redemption, and God's mercy.
Nehemiah does not name a chapter. Commentators trace his words to Leviticus 26:
But in one way he went further. He pleaded the word of the Lord written in Leviticus 26. God had warned Israel that disobedience to the law would scatter them. But even then, if they turned to God and obeyed His word, He would gather them from distant lands. He would restore them to the place of His name. On this written word he based his plea.
Nehemiah was pleading something already written down, not a private impression.
The threat half of the sentence was not theory when Nehemiah prayed it. Israel's condition proved that God does what He says. One writer describes it while commenting on Leviticus 26:
But Israel failed completely. Verses 14-33 of this chapter set a solemn and terrible picture before their eyes. Even so, they abandoned the Lord and served other gods. So they brought on themselves the severe judgments threatened here. Under the heavy weight of these judgments they are suffering at this very hour. Scattered and stripped, wasted and cast out, they are the monuments of the Lord's unbending truth and justice.
That is the strange strength of the plea. God had proved exact about the scattering, so Nehemiah could trust Him to be exact about the gathering.
The promise comes with conditions attached. One writer argues that Nehemiah's faith reached past them.
There is no doubt this refers to Leviticus 26, and it looks forward to the final restoration of Israel. Here lay Nehemiah's spiritual understanding, as led by the Spirit. Turn to that chapter and you will see that this restoration will be a work of pure grace. It rests on God's absolute and unconditional covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So while Nehemiah confessed the sins of his people, he threw himself on the mercy and unconditional promises of God. He rose in this way above law, and reached, in his faith, the source of all blessing — the heart of God Himself.
Not everyone reads the prayer that highly. Another writer holds that Nehemiah stayed inside what Moses had already foretold:
But he does not rise in his own prayer beyond Moses in his predictions; he does not plead the promises to the fathers.
- Remember — the empty hand. Nehemiah confesses that Israel kept nothing. So he stops arguing from their record and turns to a promise.
- Remember — the other word of Moses. The law had promises as well as commands. Moses carried both: the commands, and the pledge to gather a repentant people back.
- Remember — the threat already kept. Israel scattered was visible proof of God's unbending truth and justice. That is why Nehemiah could trust the promise attached to it.
- Remember — written, not felt. The plea rested on a written word. Commentators point to Leviticus 26: Nehemiah quoted Scripture back to God.
- Remember — the heart behind the covenant. Commentators differ on how far Nehemiah reached. One sees him rising above law to God's unconditional covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Another sees him staying inside what Moses foretold.
but if ye return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.
Nehemiah is far from Jerusalem, serving in a foreign palace. News of the ruined city has driven him to his knees. In verse 9 he reminds God of God's own words. The promise he quotes back turns on one small word — but.
Nehemiah has already admitted that Israel failed to keep what Moses commanded. He then reaches for something else that came through Moses.
The first plea is God's faithfulness to His own word. He has just owned that they have not kept the commandments given by God through Moses, but there was something else given by God through Moses. The law had promises in it as well as commands. Nehemiah asks God to remember this word of promise, given through Moses. God had said that if the people were unfaithful He would scatter them; but if they repented He would gather them.
This is only the first of four pleas Smith counts in the prayer. The others are God's people, God's work of redemption, and God's mercy.
The verse sounds conditional — return, keep, do. Yet Edward Dennett sees Nehemiah's faith reaching past the terms of the law to what lies behind them.
This reference is undoubtedly to Leviticus 26, and looks on to the final restoration of Israel. This restoration will be a work of pure grace, founded on God's absolute and unconditional covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So while Nehemiah confessed the sins of his people, he threw himself on the mercy and unconditional promises of God. He rose in this way above law, and reached, in his faith, the source of all blessing — the heart of God Himself.
Commentators differ on where the promise Nehemiah cites was first recorded. Dennett traces it to Leviticus 26. Leslie Grant points to Moses' words in Deuteronomy, and reads the gathering as partial.
Nehemiah then asked God to remember the words He had spoken to Moses. If Israel was unfaithful, He would scatter them among the nations. But if they returned to Him and kept His commandments, God would still gather them back — at least some of them — and bring them to the place where He had set His name. God spoke all this to Moses in Deuteronomy 4:25-31.
Both agree on the method. Nehemiah did not invent his plea; he found it already written down.
God had warned Israel that disobeying the law would bring scattering on them. But even then, if they turned to God in obedience to His word, He would gather them from distant lands. He would restore them to the place of His name. Nehemiah based his plea on this written word.
The phrase about the farthest horizon is not decoration. It sets the limit of the promise — and then removes it.
"If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven" — as far as they could go — "from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers."
Nehemiah is not the first to pray this way. Solomon had asked God for the same things long before, and God answered him.
In his appeal to God in verse 6, his desire is, "Let Your ear now be attentive, and Your eyes open". In verse 9 he reminds God of His promise "to set My name there". He mentions God's ear, God's eyes and God's Name. In 2 Chronicles 7:15 we have God's answer to Solomon's prayer: "Now My eyes shall be open, and My ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and set apart this house, so that My name may be there for ever. My eyes and My heart will always be there." Nehemiah comes to God and reminds Him of this wonderful promise. He asks God to keep it in his own day.
God did not only promise to bring the scattered home. He named the destination Himself.
God would allow only His own choice as a place of worship for Israel. Later history shows that Jerusalem was that centre. Its name means "the foundation of peace." In the New Testament the centre for the Church of God is not a physical place. Christ in resurrection is the Centre. He Himself declares, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."
- Word. Nehemiah's plea was not his own idea. He found the promise already written, and built on it.
- Grace. Behind the "if" stood an unconditional covenant. Nehemiah's faith reached through the one to the other.
- Reach. The promise names the farthest distance only to cancel it. From there God gathers.
- Name. God, not the returning people, chose the destination. He set His name there, and Nehemiah reminds Him of it.
- Answer. Solomon once asked for God's open eyes and attentive ears in that place, and God granted it. Nehemiah asks Him to honour that promise again.
And they are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
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 the king's cupbearer.
Nehemiah ends a long confession with one request for one day: favour with the king. Then he names his job — he served the wine to the most powerful man on earth.
Before he asks for anything, Nehemiah confesses the people's sin and rests his plea on what God had written:
He too identified himself with the sin of the people, saying, "we have sinned." But in one way he went further. He pleaded the word of the Lord written in Leviticus 26. God had warned Israel that disobedience to the law would scatter them. Yet even then, if they turned to God in obedience to His word, He would gather them from distant lands and restore them to the place of His name. On this written word he based his plea.
Nehemiah asks God to hear "the prayer of your servant" — and then "the prayer of your servants." He is not praying alone:
Notice that Nehemiah associated others with him in his prayer. It was continually so with the apostle Paul too. The fact is this. When the Spirit of God leads us, we cannot help joining to ourselves all in whose hearts He is also working — whether in service, in thanksgiving, or in prayer. The people of God are so much one that isolation in spirit is impossible. So Nehemiah bows before God, grieving over the state of Israel and longing for their deliverance and blessing. He is sure that every godly Israelite stands with him in what he asks.
One writer notes the name for God used here, and the delight in the phrase itself:
Nehemiah uses a fourth name in verse 11, "Adonai." It means "the Lord in blessing." It is beautiful to see how he leaves that name until verse 11. First he owns God's rights. Then he owns God's power to uphold those rights. Last he appeals to God as the source of all blessing for His people. In that verse he can speak of those "who delight to fear Your name." It is one thing to call on God to help us. It is far more blessed to be open with God and tell Him we delight in the way we know Him. Nehemiah does both.
Artaxerxes ruled an empire. In this prayer he shrinks to a man:
Nehemiah intended to act. He would not only pray and leave it there. He did not pray that God would send someone to Jerusalem to help the suffering remnant. Since he knew and felt the sorrow of their condition, he considered that he was the man to go. He did ask for the approval and help of others, but he simply asked God to give him favour "in the sight of this man" (v. 11). Though Artaxerxes was king, Nehemiah regarded him simply as a man in whose heart God could work as easily as in any man.
That low view of the king had a source:
He laid hold first of all on the greatness of God and the power of God. As a result, he had only a small view of the power that is in the hands of men.
The last line of the verse explains his problem:
Then Nehemiah adds the explanation — "Now I was cupbearer to the king" — to show that, in human terms, he was entirely under the king's authority and dependent on him. Nehemiah has poured out his heart before the Lord and made his request known. Now he must wait, and wait many days, for the answer to his cries. A prayer may be entirely according to the will of God, and the fruit of communion with His mind, and yet God may not answer it at once. We need to understand this, or the soul may sink into distress and unbelief for no reason.
The answer came through the very thing that looked dangerous — the grief on his face:
God answered his prayer (Neh. 1:11) after he had "mourned for days" — about four months. Fasting and sorrow had left their mark on his face; and no one could appear before the king with a sad face. But God used this very thing to put words into the king's mouth that would give Nehemiah an opening for his request. Such miracles, in answer to our prayers, are so much a part of the daily circumstances of our Christian life that we hardly notice them.
- Ground it. Nehemiah's confidence rests on what God had written, not on the people's record. Anyone can plead that.
- Widen it. He prays as one of many servants. Every godly Israelite is asking the same thing, because among God's people isolation in spirit is impossible.
- Delight in it. He waits until the end to call God "Lord in blessing." He describes himself and the others not as needy only, but as delighting to fear His name.
- Shrink it. He took hold of God's greatness first, so the emperor is only "this man." And he goes himself instead of asking God to send someone else.
- Wait for it. Four months passed, and the answer came through his own sad face. A prayer fully in God's will may still wait for God's moment.