NEHEMIAH 1-5 OBSERVATIONS

NEHEMIAH

CHAPTER 1

· Nehemiah means “Jehovah comforts”

· He was a cupbearer to king Artaxerxes

· Artaxerxes reigned from 464-423 BC

· The command to “rebuild the wall”, given by the king to Nehemiah, is pivotal in all recorded history, and affects our place in history to this day.

· The command was given in the month of Nisan in the year 445BC.

· Background: God had warned Israel that if they didn’t turn back to him he would bring judgment on them. He did:

o In 722 BC the Assyrians deported the northern 10 tribes and scattered them over the then known world.

o Starting in 605 BC God used Babylon to sack, destroy and nearly depopulate Jerusalem because of Judah’s unfaithfulness to God.

o This deportation occurred over 19 years in three waves from 605-586 BC.

o The returns, likewise, occurred in three waves

§ 1^st wave: Zerubbabel & Joshua (Ezra 1-6): 539 BC (by Darius king of Persia)

§ 2^nd wave: Ezra (Ezra 7-10): 458 BC

§ 3^rd wave: Nehemiah: 445 BC

o Jeremiah had predicted this (Jer 25:11) and predicted it would last for 70 years.

§ Jeremiah 25:8 - 11 (NASB) ⁸“Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, ⁹behold,

§ I will send and take all the families of the north,’ declares the LORD, ‘and

§ I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant,

§ and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and

§ I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. ¹⁰‘Moreover,

§ I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. ¹¹‘This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

· During the 70 year captivity, the world empires would change hands from the Babylonians to the Persians (about 539 BC).

· Nehemiah 1:1 - 11 (NASB) ¹The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month Chislev,

o [November-December]

· in the twentieth year

o [Artaxerxes reigned from 464-423 BC—so this would be 446BC. This is 4 months before the month of Nisan—March/April when Nehemiah came before the king to receive the command to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall]

· while I was in Susa

o [Susa (Biblical Hebrew: שושן‎ (Shushan); also Greek: Σουσα, transliterated as Sousa ; Latin Susa) was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 250 km (150 miles) east of the Tigris River. The modern town of Shush is located at the site of ancient Susa.]

· the ^£capitol, ²that Hanani, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and had survived the captivity, and about Jerusalem. ³They said to me, “The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire.” ⁴When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. ⁵I said, “I beseech You, O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, ⁶let Your ear now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷“We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. ⁸“Remember the word which You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the peoples; ⁹but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.’

o Deuteronomy 4:22 - 31 (NASB) ²³“So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the LORD your God has commanded you. ²⁴“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. ²⁵“When you become the father of children and children’s children and have remained long in the land, and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God so as to provoke Him to anger, ²⁶I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. ²⁷“The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. ²⁸“There you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. ²⁹“But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. ³⁰“When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. ³¹“For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

· ¹⁰“They are Your servants and Your people whom You redeemed by Your great power and by Your strong hand. ¹¹“O Lord, I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to revere Your name, and make Your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man.”

· Now I was the cupbearer to the king.

CHAPTER 2

Nehemiah Sent to Judah

· Nehemiah 2:1 - 10 (NASB) ¹And it came about in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes,

o Nisan = March / April

o 20^th year = 445 BC

· that wine was before him, and I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. ²So the king said to me,

· Q“Why is your face sad though you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.”

· A. Then I was very much afraid. ³I said to the king, “Let the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?”

· Q ⁴Then the king said to me, “What would you request?”

· A. So I prayed to the God of heaven. ⁵I said to the king, “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.”

· Q. ⁶Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him, “How long will your journey be, and when will you return?”

· A. So it pleased the king to send me, and I gave him a definite time. ⁷And I said to the king, “If it please the king, let letters be given me for the governors of the provinces beyond the River, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah, ⁸and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the ^£temple, for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go.”

· And the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me. ⁹Then I came to the governors of the provinces beyond the River and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen. ¹⁰When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.

Nehemiah Views the Wall of Jerusalem

· Nehemiah 2:11 - 20 (NASB) ¹¹So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. ¹²And I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. I did not tell anyone what my God was putting into my mind to do for Jerusalem and there was no animal with me except the animal on which I was riding. ¹³So I went out at night by the Valley Gate in the direction of the Dragon’s Well and on to the Refuse Gate, inspecting the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were consumed by fire. ¹⁴Then I passed on to the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was no place for my mount to pass. ¹⁵So I went up at night by the ravine and inspected the wall. Then I entered the Valley Gate again and returned. ¹⁶The officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done; nor had I as yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials or the rest who did the work.

o He was clarifying the vision.

· ¹⁷Then I said to them,

o “You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned by fire.

o Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem

o [why?] so that we will no longer be a reproach.”

· ¹⁸I told them how the hand of my God had been favorable to me and also about the king’s words which he had spoken to me. Then they said, “Let us arise and build.” So they put their hands to the good work.

· [Trouble] ¹⁹But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard it, they mocked us and despised us and said, “What is this thing you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” ²⁰So I answered them and said to them, “The God of heaven will give us success; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no portion, right or memorial in Jerusalem.”

o NOTE: His confidence was in God

CHAPTER 3

Rebuilding the Wall

· He describes where each leader is working.

· But some were slacking off: Nehemiah 3:5 (NASB) ⁵Moreover, next to him the Tekoites made repairs, but their nobles did not support the work of their masters.

· Even the girls were working:

o Nehemiah 3:12 (NASB) ¹²Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, the official of half the district of Jerusalem, made repairs, he and his daughters.

CHAPTER 4

The Wall Defended Against Enemies

The Work is Ridiculed

· Nehemiah 4:1 - 8 (NASB) ¹Now it came about that when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews.

o Look for resistance when ever you start doing real work that God has designed.

· ²He spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said,

o Q“What are these feeble Jews doing?

o QAre they going to restore it for themselves?

o Q. Can they offer sacrifices?

o Q. Can they finish in a day?

o Q. Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble even the burned ones?”

· ³Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him and he said,

o C. “Even what they are building—if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!”

Nehemiahs Response:

· ⁴Hear, O our God, how we are despised!

· Return their reproach on their own heads and

· give them up for plunder in a land of captivity.

· ⁵Do not forgive their iniquity and

· let not their sin be blotted out before You,

· [why?] for they have demoralized the builders.

· ⁶So we built the wall and the whole wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

Sanballat’s response:

· ⁷Now when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on, and that the breaches began to be closed, they were very angry. ⁸All of them conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it.

CHAPTER 5

Nehemiah Deals with Oppression

· Some of the leaders began to exact high interest from their own people to the point it was becoming a real burden and problem.

o Nehemiah 5:6 - 12 (NASB) ⁶Then I was very angry when I had heard their outcry and these words. ⁷I consulted with myself and contended with the nobles and the rulers and said to them, “You are exacting usury, each from his brother!” Therefore, I held a great assembly against them. ⁸I said to them, “We according to our ability have redeemed our Jewish brothers who were sold to the nations; now would you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us?” Then they were silent and could not find a word to say. ⁹Again I said, “The thing which you are doing is not good; should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies? ¹⁰“And likewise I, my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Please, let us leave off this usury. ¹¹“Please, give back to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money and of the grain, the new wine and the oil that you are exacting from them.” ¹²Then they said, “We will give it back and will require nothing from them; we will do exactly as you say.” So I called the priests and took an oath from them that they would do according to this promise.

Nehemiah Sets a Right Example:

· Nehemiah 5:14 - 19 (NASB) ¹⁴Moreover, from the day that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes, for twelve years, neither I nor my kinsmen have eaten the governor’s food allowance. ¹⁵But the former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people and took from them bread and wine besides forty shekels of silver; even their servants domineered the people. But I did not do so because of the fear of God. ¹⁶I also ^£applied myself to the work on this wall; we did not buy any land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. ¹⁷Moreover, there were at my table one hundred and fifty Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. ¹⁸Now that which was prepared for each day was one ox and six choice sheep, also birds were prepared for me; and once in ten days all sorts of wine were furnished in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the governor’s food allowance, because the servitude was heavy on this people. ¹⁹Remember me, O my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.