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Nehemiah 1 - Sutcliffe - Bible Commentary vs Calvin John vs Coke Thomas

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Nehemiah 1

Neh 1:1 . The words of Nehemiah. Poole, in his Synopsis of the Critics, having examined very accurately what antiquity has said concerning the author of this book, I cannot do better than translate the whole of his enquiry.

“Question 1. Who was the author of this book? Answer 1. Ezra. So Athanasius in his Synopsis, and Chrysostom, and Bede; and they infer it, because in the Hebrew the books of Ezra and Nehemiah follow each other. Answer 2. Nehemiah was the author, as the first words demonstrate. ‘The words of Nehemiah.’ Both Ezra and Nehemiah wrote out their own affairs in separate books. Besides, the diversity of the style indicates the diversity of the authors: for the language of Nehemiah is much more easy and plain than that of Ezra, who recites many occurrences in Chaldea.

Question 2. Who was Nehemiah; was he not the same with Ezra? Answer. He was of the tribe of Levi, as appears from 2Ma 12:13 . “[See 2Ma 1:18 ; 2Ma 1:21 .]” He was also the same Nehemiah of whom Ezra speaks, chap. 2.; because in both books he is called Athersata, that is, Tirshatha, or governor, and the same action is attributed to the same Nehemiah. Ezr 2:63 . Neh 7:65 .

Question 3. What was this Nehemiah? Answer. It is said that he came to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and Joshua: chap. Neh 7:7 . It is also said, chap. Neh 8:9 , that he with Ezra interpreted the law; he was therefore the companion of Ezra, though younger than he.

Objection 1. Then Nehemiah was one hundred and sixteen years of age, because from the first year of Cyrus to the thirty second of Artaxerxes, to which he attained, Neh 13:6 , was ninety six years. Answer. It is true that Nehemiah was preserved by the Lord to a very old age for the good of the people.

Objection 2. The scriptures speak of Nehemiah as the companion of Ezra in the third person, as appears from Neh 7:65 ; Neh 8:9 . Answer. Nehemiah is the author of this book, and therefore speaks of himself in the first person, but sometimes in the third, as Neh 7:7 ; Neh 8:9 . But Wolpius contends that this Nehemiah is another, from the Nehemiah of Ezra: chap. Neh 2:2 . The book of Nehemiah not being separate in the Hebrew from the book of Ezra, both the books form one continued history. The journey of Nehemiah took place seventy two years after that of Ezra. Hence he saw Ezra and outlived him. He was one of the chief men of the captivity, and a member of that convention called the Great Synagogue.”

In the above extract Poole assigns no proof that Ezra’s journey was seventy two years before Nehemiah; but the history of those times is very obscure. Herodotus and Xenophon glaringly contradict each other. Besides, Ezra returned to Babylon after having accompanied Zerubbabel.

The son of Hachaliah. Who this eminent man was is not known; history is silent; but the Jews conclude, from the high office of cup-bearer to the king, which his son Nehemiah held, that Hachaliah was a man of princely rank.

In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes. In the year of the world 355:8 , and before Christ about 44:6 years.

I was in Shushan the palace. The name of this city is equivalent to a lily, distinguished for its beauty. He was cup-bearer to the king, Neh 1:11 ; a place of very great honour in the Persian court, as appears from Xenophon’s Cyropediæ, cap. 1.

Neh 1:4 . Mourned certain days. Four months; viz. from the month Chisleu to the month Nisan, as appears from chap. Neh 2:1 . See the table of Hebrew time, Exodus 1:2 .

Neh 1:5 . Oh Lord God of heaven, alluding to the prayer of Solomon, whom the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain. The grandeur of the divine nature affords supreme consolation to a devout mind, crying to heaven in the depth of affliction.

REFLECTIONS.

This book opens with a most inviting prospect of the providence and grace of God towards his people. The good Zerubbabel had been dead some years; of the pious Ezra we read no more, except in reference to former deeds. But the Lord, whose eyes are over the righteous, was preparing a servant not inferior to either, and qualifying him for his work by a long residence in the Persian court. Could we but trust that unseen hand, it would manage all our affairs far superior to our fond wishes, and our weak conceptions.

Good men who have been eminently owned of God have not run before providence, but waited in the Lord’s way till wanted for his work. Nehemiah’s kinsman Hanani, coming no doubt to seek redress against the cruelties of the Samaritans, related all the calamities which had befallen the Israelites. At this sad tale Nehemiah felt all the soul of a prophet and a patriot revive in his breast. God that moment inspired him with his inward call; and seeking redress from Him, before applying to the king, he wept and prayed, and fasted certain days. It is a sure mark of a chaste and holy zeal when we begin to serve God and his people by the deepest exercises of devotion and piety.

His prayer has a most fervent and enlightened character. He addresses JEHOVAH as the great and terrible God of heaven and earth, and appeals to his covenant as the ground of all his pleas. He solicited audience with the deepest humility, and associates himself with the number of his sinful fathers; for there is no succeeding with the Just and Holy One without deep repentance, and a full confession of sin. He glorifies God for the equity and leniency of the punishments inflicted on his people; but he pleads the stronger on that account, the promises of mercy, and even in a strange land. Deu 31:5 . If the Father of mercies be faithful to his threatenings, he cannot be less faithful to his promises. He prays that God would open the heart of the king to favour his people, as God had opened the heart of Cyrus. This prayer is in substance the same as Daniel’s: chap. 9. And it is not improbable that he had seen that venerable prophet, for they both resided much in Shushan.

We learn farther, that Nehemiah’s love to God and to his people, was more than the attachment he felt to his honours and interests in this great pagan court. Jerusalem was so afflicted that he could have little hope in its welfare. His zeal therefore was pure, and his hope rested solely on the promises of God to Israel. It is a great satisfaction when a man can lay his hand upon his heart and say, Lord thou knowest all things—thou knowest that I do this for thy glory, and solely for thy glory.




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Nehemiah 1


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Nehemiah 1

Neh 1:1. Nehemiah- It may be well questioned, whether this Nehemiah be the same with him mentioned in Ezr 2:1 and chap. Neh 7:7 of this book, as one who returned from the Babylonish captivity under Zerubbabel; since, from the first year of Cyrus to the twentieth of Artaxerxes Longimanus, there are no less than ninety-two years intervening; so that Nehemiah must at this time have been a very old man; upon the lowest computation above a hundred, and consequently incapable of being the king's cup-bearer, of taking a journey from Shushan to Jerusalem, and of behaving there with all that courage and activity which is recorded of him. Upon this presumption, therefore, we may conclude, that this was a different person, though of the same name. That Tirshatha denotes the title of his office, and, both in the Persian and Chaldean tongues, was the general name given to all the king's deputies and governors, see on Ezr 2:63. The text calls him barely the son of Hachaliah, without informing us of what tribe he was. Some, therefore, from 2Ma 1:18; 2Ma 1:21 where he is said to have offered sacrifices, and from his being reckoned at the head of the priests who signed the new covenant with God (ch. Neh 10:1.), have affirmed him to have been of the family of Aaron; but as there is nothing conclusive in all this, and it seems expressly contradicted by his saying, in another place, that he was not a fit person to shelter himself in the temple, chap. Neh 6:2 the far greater part suppose him to have been of the royal family of Judah. And this is so much the more probable, because we find none but such promoted to those high stations about the king's person; and we never read of a priest that was so till a long time after, and upon a quite different account. The month Chisleu answers to part of our November and December, and the twentieth year is the twentieth of the reign of Artaxerxes. See Le Clerc and Houbigant.

Neh 1:3. The wall-also is broken down, &c.- The commissions which had hitherto been granted to the Jews were supposed to extend no further than to the rebuilding of the temple, and their own private houses; and therefore the walls and gates of the city lay in the same ruinous condition in which the Chaldeans left them after that devastation.

REFLECTIONS.-Nehemiah, though nobly advanced at court, and honoured with a mansion in the palace of Shushan, still bore in his heart the welfare of Zion, and still preferred Jerusalem's prosperity before his chief joy. Note; God has sometimes his friends even in the palace; and, though a court is usually a soil too unfavourable to religious concerns, he had monuments of grace even in Nero's houshold.

1. Nehemiah, on the visit of some of his brethren to Babylon, probably to solicit some favour in behalf of the Jews, earnestly inquires after Jerusalem, and the returned captives who dwelt in it; but receives an afflicting narrative of their wretched situation: the city lying in its desolations, and the people under distress, insulted, oppressed, and reproached by their more powerful neighbours. Note; (1.) We must not, in our advancement, forget ourselves, and grow strange to our brethren because they may be poor or afflicted. (2.) The persecution of God's people, which discourages the unfaithful, awakens the greater zeal and concern of such as are true-hearted.

2. The melancholy account affected the good Nehemiah: the tears ran down his cheeks; and, in affliction, four days he fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, that he would remember their misery, and return to them in mercy. Note; (1.) In seasons of public or private calamities, fasting and weeping should accompany our prayers. (2.) It is a relief to the oppression of our own spirit, when with tears we can pour our complaints into the bosom of a compassionate God. (3.) While we have a God in heaven to go to, our deeper distresses are not desperate.

Neh 1:11. And grant him mercy-For I, &c.- Houbigant supposes, that Nehemiah repeated this prayer (which he had often before repeated) now again in silence, while he administered the cup to the king in his office; and therefore he renders the last clause, but I then administered the cup to the king; and this alone, he thinks, can account for the mode of expression, this man. The office of cup-bearer was a place of great honour and advantage in the Persian court, because of the privilege which it gave him who bare it, of being daily in the king's presence; and the opportunity which he thereby had of gaining his favour for the procuring of any petition that he should make to him. That it was a place of great pecuniary advantage, seems evident by Nehemiah's gaining those immense riches which enabled him for so many years, (ch. Neh 5:14; Neh 5:19.) out of his own privy purse only, to live in his government with great splendour and expence, without burdening the people at all.

REFLECTIONS.-Nehemiah's prayer speaks the gracious temper of his soul.

1. He draws near to God with reverence and godly fear, yet mixed with filial confidence, as to the great God, terrible in judgments, yet faithful to his promises, and never failing those who trust him. Note; (1.) There is a reverential fear of God, which is perfectly consistent with the most enlarged love towards him. (2.) They, who experience the love of God in their souls, may comfortably conclude that he is their faithful friend.

2. He humbly prays that God would graciously hear the prayer which zeal for his glory dictated, and grant the desires of his heart which his grace excited. Note; When God pours out upon us the spirit of grace and supplication, we may assuredly conclude that he will hear and answer us.

3. He penitently confesses their sins, which justly had brought down these afflictions upon them; taking shame to himself, among the rest, for having added to the provocation.

4. He pleads for mercy and pardon; urging, as the ground of his hope, the divine promise that God had given by Moses, that whenever they returned to him, wherever dispersed, or however distressed, he would return to them: and such was now their earnest desire and prayer. Note; (1.) As we see the fulfilment of God's threatenings, we may conclude the fulfilment of his promises. (2.) The most reviving pleas in prayer are drawn from God's faithful word, wherein he has caused us to put our trust. (3.) Though we are not worthy to be called God's people; yet, when we return with penitential prayer, he will not disclaim the relation. (4.) The greater kings are but dying men, and worms of earth; and their hearts are in God's hand, to turn them according to the good pleasure of his own will.


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