Deeper Commentary

 

Nehemiah 1:1 The words- Better, the story or history. It is Nehemiah's personal testimony to God's grace and activity. As with the book of Ezra, this is autobiography, the memoir of a man looking back on his life. His ministry ultimately failed, and his attitude to breaking up other mens' marriages was not the most spiritual path. But he definitely had a heart for God and His people, and he recognizes that. Eleven times in 13 chapters he records that he prayed; prayer was a leading feature of his life. But to have been the king's cupbearer, perhaps the second most powerful person in the greatest empire on earth at the time, surely reflects poorly on his spirituality. Like Mordecai and Esther, he sought for greatness in this world- and he got it. For no man gets to the top like he did unless he drives and strives for it. Quite possibly he had been willingly castrated in order to achieve it. His simple comment "I was the king's cupbearer" can be read as a confession of failure. For such a post surely required oaths of absolute allegiance to the pagan king and empire, and involvement with idolatry. His name, 'Yah's comfort', places him as a potential fulfilment of the Comforter passages in Is. 40. But no Messiah came after him, nor did he bring Judah to their Messiah. Indeed he upheld the already broken old covenant rather than urging the people to accept the new covenant, as Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel had urged. Nor did he seek to fulfil the clear requirements that Judah break free of the Persian yoke. Instead he was Persia's lacky and colonialist for a time whilst he was the Persian governor of Jerusalem, offering to build a fortress for them in Jerusalem to consolidate their colonial power and a mansion house for the Persian governor- as well as rebuilding the city walls. There are countless sermons about Nehemiah as a man of faith, setting us a wonderful pattern. But they fail to engage with the fact that this is Nehemiah's memoir; and no spiritual man looks back on his life and presents himself as always having acted wonderfully. We look back at our lives and muse over our motives, seeing the bad as well as the good, and all the stuff somewhere in between the dark and the light, the darkness on the edge of town.

Of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah- To distinguish him from the Nehemiah who had come to Judah with Zerubbabel many years before (Ezra 2:2). "Hacaliah" can mean 'God is hidden', reflective of how the exiles felt.

Now it happened in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace- Neh. 2:1 speaks of Nehemiah subsequently coming to the king in the first month (Nisan) of the king's 20th year. But we read here about the ninth month, Chislev, in the twentieth year. Perhaps the year of his reign is being read inclusively in one place and exclusively in the other. Or perhaps the twentieth year here in Neh. 1:1 is not the twentieth of the king's reign, for that is not actually specified here. The more appropriate explanation is that we are reading of Jewish months, but the years of the reign of the king; and here in Neh. 1:1 we are reading the background for what happened in Neh. 2:1. Nehemiah came to the king in Nisan, whereas four month previously, in Chislev, he had been visited by Hanani. But both those dates were within the 20th year of the king.

Shushan was the Winter palace of the Persian kings, and this fits with being the ninth month of the Jewish year, Chislev, which is in Winter (December).

Nehemiah 1:2 that Hanani one of my brothers came, he and certain men out of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem- Although the Apocryphal book of Baruch isn’t inspired, it gives a significant window into the mindset of the exiles in Babylon. Baruch 1:10 mentions how the attitude was that the majority wanted to send funds to support the ‘good work’ going on in Judah- but didn’t want to return there themselves. Like the book of Esther, this indicates that the exiles had soon quit languishing by the rivers of Babylon, and had quickly acquired wealth and some degree of prosperity. Inspired prophecies had warned them of the fall of Babylon, and their need to flee out of it and return to Judah. And yet Baruch 1:12 records the exiles praying “that we may live long under the protective shadow of [the] king of Babylon”. This is in sad contrast to Daniel’s prophecies that the sheltering tree of Babylon was to be cut down! There ought to have been an urgency about the need to flee from Babylon. Zech. 2:10 speaks of the need to "flee" and "escape"- the language of crisis. And the call "Ho!" means quite literally "Hey!!". The urgency to flee was spiritual rather than physical- for there's no evidence that when Babylon fell to the Persians, the Jews were punished. Indeed they appear [from Esther] to have prospered even more. Hence the urgent appeal was to flee from the spiritual crisis which they faced in Babylon. And yet they didn't perceive the danger, just as so many today don't. For the call to leave Babylon is applied in New Testament passages like 2 Cor. 6 to our call to leave the world in which we live. The urgency of 'fleeing' from Babylon was understood by Nehemiah, when he referred to those who had returned to the land as those who has "escaped" from Babylon (Neh. 1:2)- even though they had returned with every blessing from the authorities. He perceived as few did the vital danger of remaining in the soft life of Babylon. Ezra likewise had referred to the Jews in Babylon as those "in bondage... bondmen" (Ezra 9:9)- when historical records, as well as the book of Esther and the fact Nehemiah the Jew was the king's cupbearer, show that the Jews were very far from being servants in Babylonian society. Yet Ezra perceived the spiritual poverty and servanthood of remaining in that affluent society.

Another approach is to read this as Nehemiah's concern for the Jews who had escaped going into captivity- that's how the Hebrew reads. We discussed on Ezra 9,10 how Ezra had sought to redefine "Israel" as those who returned from captivity, and sought to disfellowship the Jews who had remained in the land and had intermarried with Gentiles. I discussed there how intermarriage was only wrong if it led to worshipping idols. And there were so many examples of uncondemned intermarriage, not least Moses, Ruth, Rahab etc. Nehemiah was rightly heartbroken at the situation and at the miserable state of that community. As a eunuch, being the king's cupbearer, he was excluded from the community himself, according to Is. 56:3,4. Hence his empathy with this group. But he ends his ministry doing exactly what Ezra did- breaking up marriages within that community, and upholding the wrong position that any interracial marriage involving Jews was sinful. He even gets physically aggressive about it, pulling out men's hair and beards. Nehemiah ends up doing just the same as Ezra. This explains why the account of Nehemiah's dealing with intermarriage reads so similarly to that of Ezra's dealings with the issue. The point is that Nehemiah, like many men, ended up doing that which he earlier hated. Just as the young reformers in a church end up in later years acting just like the brethren whose behaviour they once realized was so wrong. And as people who start on the far left of politics in their youth end up on the far right, and vice versa. This is a human trait. In spiritual contexts, it reflects a lack of attention to and respect of God's word as the sole guiding light and source of principle.   

Nehemiah 1:3 They said to me, The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach-

We note that Judea was still a "province" of Persia and was not independent. The restoration prophecies of her radical independence had not been fulfilled, because the fulfilment had been precluded by the lack of repentance and spirituality amongst the exiles. And they were in "great affliction" rather than enjoying the Kingdom blessings promised in the restoration prophets.

There could be the implication in the Hebrew of Neh. 1:3 that the majority of those who initially returned to Judah then returned back to Babylon- for Nehemiah speaks of "The remnant that are left of the captives there in the province" [of Judah]". We shouldn’t underestimate the seriousness of the famine conditions in Judah as described in Neh. 5. The sheer lack of food led the Jews to sell their children and land to their richer brethren just to get something to eat. Mal. 3:5-15 says that this was directly a result of their lack of zeal to rebuild and care for God’s house. What a far cry from the prophecies of plenty and huge harvests which had been made. So much potential was wasted. Neh. 5:8 records Nehemiah’s comment that the wealthy Jews were victimizing the poorer Jews just as Babylon once had, and now Nehemiah needed to redeem them from slavery just as God had redeemed His people from servitude in Babylon. God’s deliverance of His people simply hadn’t been responded to. Tragically, it would appear from Neh. 5:15 that Zerubbabel, the potential Messiah of Israel, had acted in this oppressive way too.

 

The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire- The walls had been ruined by Samaritan oppositioni- cp. Ezra 4:12. This isn't a reference to what the Babylonians dd. The army of the Samaritans (Neh. 4:2) suggests they were an organized force. The existence of this army is perhaps the explanation as to how the wall and gates of Jerusalem were broken down, and the news of this catastrophe reached Nehemiah. Although we note that under Zerubbabel, only the temple had been rebuilt. Not the city, walls and gates, even though provision had been made for that by the Persians. Quite likely the building materials had been stolen by the Jews and used for their own houses as criticized by Malachi. This is Nehemiah's memoir... quite possibly he is looking back and wondering whether his focus on rebuilding the wall was right. Rebuilding the temple according to Ezekiel's specifications would surely have been a far better thing to do, rather than focusing on the wall. Yahweh was to have been a wall of fire around an independent Jerusalem, had they been obedient... 

Nehemiah appears shocked. The state of the walls and gates surely doesn't refer to what the Babylonians did around 200 years previously. He was aware of that. His surprise and subsequent grief at the news therefore suggests that there had been some more recent attack on Jerusalem. And yet the language of the burnt gates and broken down walls is that of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem as recorded in Jer. 52 and Lamentations. But Nehemiah appears shocked at the descriptions, and is thereby provoked to confess the sins of His people and beg for forgiveness. I suggest that the restoration at the time of Zerubbabel had not happened as it could and should have done, and so God had returned Jerusalem almost to its baseline at the time of the Babylonian destruction of it. Again the city had been attacked and destroyed, and much of the apparent progress made by Zerubbabel had been eradicated. Sitting down and weeping is exactly what we read of the first exiles doing when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, they sat down and wept by the rivers of Babylon (Ps. 137:1). And now Nehemiah does the same, perceiving that God had given up with the idea of restoration and returned Jerusalem to how it was at the time of the Babylonian invasion. It seems to me that God still was eager to make a restoration work out; Nehemiah, comfort of Yah, could have been the messenger of Is. 40 who brought comfort to Zion.

Nehemiah 1:4 It happened, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days. I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven- The weeping was not simply because of the material calamity there. It was surely also, as noted on :3, because the huge prophetic potential depicted in the restoration prophets had not come about. His fasting and praying is in the spirit of Daniel, who did this in order to beg God to allow those potentials to be realized and the Kingdom of God to be reestablished in the land. This sense of wasted potential totally overpowered Nehemiah. But it was only someone who had a true heart for God's glory who would be so overpowered as he was.

Sitting down and weeping is elsewhere used of those who feel there is no way out of their situation, that the loss and damage are permanent and irreversible. Facing death by dehydration in the desert, Hagar sat down and wept (Gen. 21:16). A female captive had to sit and weep for the loss of her family in war (Dt. 21:13). And we think of Job weeping for his lost children and possessions. Other examples in Jud. 21:2; 2 Kings 22:19; 2 Chron. 34:27; Ps. 137:1; Is. 30:19; Ez. 8:14. Nehemiah is therefore to be commended for perceiving that the apparently irreversible can be reversed by God's transforming grace. We too should sit and weep for our sins, for the wages of sin is death. But this too can be ultimately and gloriously reversed, by faith through grace. We note Nehemiah says he did this "Before God", as if he felt Yahweh's presence there in Susa, Persia.

Nehemiah 1:5 and said, I beg you, Yahweh the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, Who keeps covenant and grace with those who love Him and keep His commandments-

Nehemiah's prayer is very similar to those earlier prayers of Ezra (Ezra 9:5-15) and Daniel (Dan. 9:4-19). Indeed this verse 5 is a repeat of Dan. 9:4. We see how Godly men are influenced by the prayers of others- Daniel's prayer influenced Ezra, whose prayer influenced Nehemiah, or at least pointed Nehemiah back to Daniel's prayer. The more you spend time with prayerful people, the more you will likewise influened to prayerfulness. And that is the idea of association with other Christians. The examples of Ezra and Daniel in speaking of "our" sins clearly influenced Nehemiah. Just as we are to likewise feel identity with sinners because of how the Lord identified with us.

The phrase "great and awesome" is frequently connected with God's power at the exodus in bringing the people out from Egypt, and giving them the promised land (Ex. 14:31; Dt. 1:19; 7:21; 10:17,21; 2 Kings 17:36). Nehemiah sensed that they could likewise be brought out of Babylon and overcome all obstacles in order to enter His Kingdom. We note that the keeping of the covenant was by grace. God keeps His side of the covenant by grace; it is not a measured response to our good deeds of obedience.

Nehemiah 1:6 Let Your ear now be attentive, and Your eyes open, that You may listen to the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants; while I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against You- "Your servant" is significant; for as king's cupbearer, he was the servant of the King and the empire of Persia. But he looks back now in his memoir, and recognizes that indeed he had always seen himself, deep in his heart, as Yahweh's servant. This example of tears and praying "day and night" surely influenced Paul, who in Acts 20:31 appealed likewise to his brethren "night and day with tears". We too are to be influenced by these great examples of hearts that bled for their weaker brethren.

"The prayer of Your servant [Nehemiah] for... the children of Israel Your servants" suggests that he saw his prayer as being the prayer of all Israel. Hence in :10 we have the otherwise strange statement: "Now these are Your servants". He is surely asking God to see him as all God's people. He was their representative. He prayed "for" them not simply in the sense of praying 'about' them, but for them, in their place, as their representative. In this sense the Lord died "for" us. There is no evidence anyone else prayed at the time, but he says in :11 "let Your ear be attentive now to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants". He saw his prayer as theirs. And this is just how the Lord prays to God for us. Not simply translating our prayers into God's ears. But praying on His own agenda for us, with Him and His prayers counted as us. National repentance was required, but Nehemiah hoped his prayer and repentance could count for their prayer.

God's eyes are opened to listen in that the situations He sees are effectively the cry to Him for help. He doesn't wait for us to say magic words, nor to ask specifically. He has as it were eyes to hear. Just as any sensitive person sees that the need is the call for help. This is comfort to those who feel they cannot verbalize well in their prayers. Nehemiah had "heard" about the situation in Jerusalem (:4), and now he asks God to hear his prayer. He reflects the natural human assumption that because something has come to our notice, we must bring it to God's notice. The truth of course is that He saw it all before we did, and saw it coming, seeing all things, even every human thought, from afar off.

Nehemiah perceived that the broken down state of Jerusalem was because of Israel's sins. Zerubbabel had led a return a generation ago, and Ezra had led a return 13 years earlier. Ezra seems not to have taught the people God's law despite being qualified and apparently zealous to do so, because later in Nehemiah we find the people were ignorant of the feast of tabernacles. All he did was break up the marriages of 112 men who had married "the people of the land", quite possibly just Jews who had remained in the land after the exile. The "sins" in view may well have been the apostasy and hypocrisy of the exiles, including idol worship, mentioned in Isaiah, Zechariah and elsewhere. As well as the failures recorded by Haggai and Malachi.

"Eyes open" is an allusion to 1 Kings 8:29, where the understanding was that God's eyes would be open to the temple. But Nehemiah understands now that God's eyes are open directly to his prayer. He was brought and led to the understanding that direct personal contact with God is possible without the trappings of religion- even the religion which He has instituted. We're all brought to the same. He likewise came to understand that he was "before You" even in Babylon. Notice Nehemiah's loneliness and being alone with God in Neh. 2:12-16.

Yes, I and my father’s house have sinned- Nehemiah quite often references his own sins, and the book concludes with his personal begging for mercy. We wonder if there was some specific sin he felt guilty about; or whether this personal confession of sin was because he, like the Lord Jesus, so absorbed into himself the sin of his people and immediate family.

Nehemiah 1:7 We have dealt very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses-  Moses likewise felt identity with the sins of his people: "pardon our iniquity and our sin" (Ex. 34:9). See on Ex. 34:27. There are multiple allusions here to the curses for breaking the covenant in Deuteronomy. According to Jewish tradition, Ezra edited and produced the Pentateuch in its present form in Babylon. Carl Kraeling, The Synagogue (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956) pp. 232-235 reproduces plates from the synagogue wall at Dura-Europas showing Ezra doing this in Babylon. This would account for the record of Jacob in exile being so verbally similar to the allusions made to it in the restoration-from-Babylon prophecies in Isaiah. There was certainly great scribal activity in Babylon- 2 Macc. 2:13 speaks of Nehemiah founding a library of the Jewish scriptures there. This gives another perspective on the way Nehemiah’s prayer in Neh. 1 is so full of references to Deuteronomy- if the latter had just been re-written and presented to the Jews in Babylon.

Nehemiah 1:8 Remember, I beg You, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses saying, ‘If you trespass, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples- Nehemiah isn't quoting from any specific passage, although Dt. 30:1-5 is closest. Rather it seems he has in mind various passages in addition to this (Lev. 26:33; Dt. 4:27; 28:64). The Bible writers often use the idea of 'quotation' in this kind of vague, summary way- rather than specific citation.

Nehemiah 1:9 but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause My name to dwell there’- Their regathering was to be "if" you return to Me and keep My commandments. Therefore their regathering had been by pure grace; for Judah in captivity didn't keep the commandments, but the regathering was done anyway, such was God's yearning for His people.  Ez. 34:13 prophesied that this regathering would be in order to enter the new covenant: "And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land". But Nehemiah didn't teach the new covenant, instead he tried to make the people obedient to the old covenant.

The Hebrew verb ‘cause to dwell’ is that from which came the late Hebrew word ‘Shekinah’, applied to the visible glory of Yahweh's presence. The only problem for Nehemiah's reasoning is that the Shekinah wasn't in the Jerusalem temple as intended according to Ezekiel 40-48. He would've done far better to go with Isaiah's message that God had given up on the idea of a temple, and wanted to dwell in the hearts of humble people.

Nehemiah 1:10 Now these are Your servants and Your people whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand- As explained on :9, that great power and hand was revealed in the pure grace of the restoration, which was supposed to have occurred only if they returned to God. When Nehemiah speaks of them having been redeemed by Yahweh’s “strong hand”, he is using the language of Is. 40:10, regarding how Yahweh would come and save Israel from Babylon and restore them to the land “with strong hand”. Nehemiah saw the prophecy could have been fulfilled then. The way Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:2; Neh. 7:5-7), Ezra (Ezra 7:8; 8:32) and Nehemiah (Neh. 2:11; 13:7) are described as ‘coming to Jerusalem’ may hint that they could have fulfilled this coming of Yahweh to Zion; they could have been Messianic figures (Neh. 2:11; 13:7). Nehemiah means 'Comfort of Yah' and so he is admitting here, by recounting his prayer, that he was aware that he could have been the Comforter figure who brought comfort to Zion and the re-establishment of God's Kingdom. But that didn't work out.

Nehemiah 1:11 Lord, I beg You, let Your ear be attentive now to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants, who delight to fear Your name- "Attentive" is s.w. 2 Chron. 6:40; 7:15, where we read of God being "attentive" to prayers offered in the temple. But Nehemiah is praying in Babylon, not in the temple. The desperation of the situation made him learn a lesson- that God wasn't only accessible in the temple. This may sound obvious to us, but it wasn't for those used to the temple cult. The lesson is that God uses punishments for sin, hard situations, to break our paradigms and lead us to a greater spirituality- if we will follow. S.w. also Neh. 9:34- Israel weren't "attentive" to God's word, but in their time of need they hoped He would be "attentive" to their word of prayer. And He was. His grace isn't 'measure for measure'; He treats us out of proportion to our attentiveness to Him. We must show the same grace.

And please prosper Your servant this day- We put God to endless pain and labour in order to fulfill His wish to save men, if we don’t fulfill what in prospect we could fulfill. In the context of the restoration, Yahweh truly said that “...so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Is. 55:11 AV). His word will have fulfilment in the end, but it can have its fulfilment in us, here and now. Nehemiah twice stated that Yahweh was prospering him in his work of restoring Zion [Neh. 1:11; 2:20 s.w.]; but generally, the word of prophecy was deferred in its fulfilment. Let’s not be satisficers as Israel were, minimalists happy so long as we have our bit of land to live on, our cieled roof to dwell under... and neglect His house.

"This day... this man" suggests that Nehemiah prayed this prayer and resolved the same day to go in to the King and ask him for permission to go and rebuild Jerusalem. But he didn't. It was only some four months later that the king noticed he was sad, and asked what the problem was. Nehemiah didn't ask "this day". He lost his nerve, as Esther did before him. But still God worked through him, remembering his core desire to ask the king, and then suddenly, months later, making it happen. The answer to prayer came out of left field, for we are left with the impression in Neh. 2 that Nehemiah didn't intend to look sad. That's why he was so scared when the king suddenly complained that he was looking sad.

And grant him mercy in the sight of this man- Commendably, Nehemiah considers the great king, the most powerful man on the planet, as merely a man. When he was likely seen as divine or at least, superhuman. "Grant him mercy in the sight"- these three Hebrew words are taken from 1 Kings 8:50: "And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them". Nehemiah knew those words, and had thought and prayed himself into the situation; so it was appropriate to quote them. Prepared prayer should involve such relevant Bible quotations.

Now I was cup-bearer to the king- This involved him drinking the wine which had been offered to idols. This in sharp contrast to Daniel's attitude. And yet Nehemiah, although apparently weaker than Daniel, is none the less presented as a man of great spirituality and devotion to God; even though his conscience was clearly different and even inferior to Daniel's. We must be careful not to judge others as being unbelievers because their consciences or spiritual weakness leads them to do something which is apparently wrong. For Nehemiah's conscience on this matter was weak, and yet he was clearly counted as a spiritual person and legitimate believer. As someone so close to the king, he would have chosen this career path; and that again would appear spiritually unwise or inappropriate for a Jew under the old covenant. For he would hardly have been as it were pressganged into that senior position. It likely involved him in being castrated, for the close courtiers were eunuchs. But for all this, his weakness was used by God just as Esther's was. And that weakness in one aspect of character didn't mean that he was not a legitimate believer. This is not to be used to justify our own weaknesses; but rather to inspire tolerance in us towards the weakness of others. See on Neh. 2:8. We note that at the time of the restoration, the religious fanatics [possibly including Ezra] considered that eunuchs were excluded from the community (Is. 56:4,5). This would explain Nehemiah's sympathy with the Jews left in the land at the Babylonian invasion, who were likewise being excluded from the community by the likes of Ezra, as discussed on :2. We naturally are empathetic for those who have had or are having our own experiences. And this is the basis for the Lord's empathy with us.