Nehemiah 1
Nehemiah’s Prayer (1:1–11)
1 Nehemiah was a trusted official3 in the service of Artaxerxes king of Persia. As the book opens, Nehemiah is with the king at Susa,4 a city in southwest Persia (Iran) that served as the winter residence of the Persian royal family.
2–3 While Nehemiah was in Susa, his brother and some other men came from Judah, and Nehemiah asked them about theJewish remnant5living there and about the city of Jerusalem. They told Nehemiah that the Jews living in the province (the province of Judah) were in great trouble and disgrace, and that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down6 (verse 3).
4 The news upset Nehemiah greatly; he mourned and fasted and prayed (see Ezra 8:23). What upset Nehemiah wasn’t the fact that Nebuchadnezzar had broken down Jerusalem’s walls 140 years earlier (2 Kings 25:10); Nehemiah had long known about that. What upset Nehemiah was the failure of a recent attempt to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls that had taken place early in the reign of Artaxerxes. The king’s own officials had written to the king asking him to order that the rebuilding be stopped, and the king did so (see Ezra 4:8–23). This had been a great setback for the Jews and had left them in great trouble (verse 3).
Nehemiah lived in comfort in the palace of the king of Persia. He could have said that Jerusalem and the Jews living there were no concern of his. But Nehemiah was not that kind of man. His heart went out to his countrymen and to the city of his God. And after mourning and fasting, he turned to his God in prayer.
5–7 Like Ezra, Nehemiah was a great man of prayer. Here in verse 5, he starts his prayer by praising God (see Matthew 6:9); in particular, he praises God for His faithfulness in keeping His COVENANT of love that He had made with His people ISRAEL. But Nehemiah adds a significant condition: God keeps His covenant only with those who abide by their side of the covenant—that is, with those who love [God] and obey his commands7 (verse 5). Then, just as Ezra had done (Ezra 9:67), Nehemiah confesses the sins that Israel has committed against God, including in his confession the sins that he and his family have committed as well (verses 6–7).
8–9 In these verses, Nehemiah recalls the warning God gave through MOSES that He would scatter the ISRAELITES among the nations if they persisted in breaking His covenant (Leviticus 26:33,36–39). But Nehemiah also recalls God’s promise to gather those of His people who repent and to restore them to their land8 (Leviticus 26:40–42; Deuteronomy 30:1–5)—to the place He had chosen as a dwelling for [His] Name (see Deuteronomy 12:5; 1 Kings 8:48).
10–11 At the conclusion of his prayer, Nehemiah “reminded” God—who needs no reminding—that the Jews were His own people whom He had redeemed9 from bondage in Egypt by His mighty hand (Deuteronomy 4:34; 9:29). Let Him, therefore, hear Nehemiah’s prayer. In particular, Nehemiah asked God to give him success by granting him favor in the presence of this man—that is, the king. It seems that Nehemiah was already planning to ask the king for permission to go to Jerusalem and rebuild its walls. Since Artaxerxes himself had ordered that the work on the walls be stopped, it took great courage on Nehemiah’s part to ask the king for permission to rebuild them!
In his prayer, Nehemiah was motivated by love for his neighbors—the Jews in Jerusalem—and by his love for God (Mark 12:30–31). He was distressed that his own people should be in trouble and disgrace (verse 3). But more than that, he was distressed by the disrepair of the very city where God had chosen to put His Name (verse 9). This was the city where, in a special way, God Himself had chosen to dwell. And Nehemiah believed that God would be dishonored if the city’s walls were left unrepaired.
When our prayers, like Nehemiah’s, are motivated by a concern for our neighbor and a concern for God’s glory, we can be sure that God will be pleased to hear us (1 John 5:14)—though He may not answer exactly as we expect. Nehemiah started his most important life work with prayer; and that is where we too must start if we wish to accomplish a useful work for God.
