Nehemiah 1

Nehemiah writes after the Babylonians had conquered Judah and taken many Jews captive to Babylon. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians, including the Temple. God had warned Israel and Judah for decades that they would be overthrown because of their continued worship of idols, yet the people of Israel and Judah had not listened. At the time they were conquered, Israel and Judah were two separate kingdoms. Ten tribes made up the northern kingdom of Israel, and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin made up the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC, and Judah was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BC. God had told the exiles beforehand that the exile would last 70 years. The Expositor's Bible Commentary states that attempts had been made at rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem for nearly a century and a half, but without success as of the time of Nehemiah's writing of this book.

Since the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian empire had been conquered by an alliance of Medes and Persians, who lived in present-day Iran. Nehemiah states that he was in Susa as he wrote this book. Susa was the capital of the Medo-Persian empire. The Expositor's Bible Commentary states that the month of Kislev would be November or December. The Jewish calendar follows a lunar calendar, measuring the months by the amount of time it take the moon to orbit the earth, rather than a 365 day solar calendar.

Upon meeting with some men from Judah, Nehemiah's concern was for the condition of the people who had survived their captivity and those who had escaped. He was also concerned about the condition of Jerusalem. They reported that those who survived the 70-year captivity were in great distress and reproach. They were having a lot of problems meeting basic needs, including shelter, food and water. It should be noted that water was a scarce and precious commodity in the Middle East. The men from Judah reported that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down and burned with fire. The destruction and burning of the walls would have occurred when the city was destroyed by the Babylonians nearly 150 years earlier. The Expositor's Bible Commentary points out that this would have made the people essentially defenseless against numerous enemies.

The most natural response of the people would be to worry and wonder what their enemies were planning. Surely their enemies were aware of the vulnerability of Jerusalem. Nehemiah writes that he mourned and wept for days when he heard the report. Fasting and prayer were also part of his response. In the midst of this dire situation, he didn't lose sight of the fact that he needed to take the situation to God.

He begins his prayer by praising God, recalling his loving kindness and the fact that God has kept his covenant with Israel. God's covenant with Israel was always unconditional in and of itself, but whether Israel would benefit from it was always conditional on their obedience. So even despite the devastation of Jerusalem, God still had not abandoned his covenant with Israel. Nehemiah then asks for God's attention to his request, pointing out that he is agonizing over this issue day and night. His request is not for himself, but for the people of Israel, to whom he refers as "your servants." He confesses not only his own sin, but also those of his family and of the entire Israelite nation. Confessing the sins of our families and our nation is not a point of doctrine that we hear about very much, but there are a number of places throughout Scripture where we find believers doing exactly that. Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel were just a few of the prophets that took sins of the people as a whole to God and sought his forgiveness for them. There is no reason to believe this was a practice only for Old Testament times. Such confession definitely can and should be practiced by believers today.

Nehemiah points out how God had said that he would scatter the Israelite nation, which he carried out with the destruction of Jerusalem. But he also reminds God of his promise that if the people return to him and keep his commandments, then he will gather them from the most remote parts of the earth and restore them to the place where he has chosen for his name to dwell. In this case, he was referring to Israel. Nehemiah points out that God had redeemed them by his great power, which was a major distinction from the surrounding nations who were threatening Israel. He closes his prayer by again asking for God to be attentive to his request and to the requests of those who delight to revere God's name.

He then asks for God to make him successful. Nehemiah points out that he was a cupbearer before the king. The Expositor's Bible Commentary states that this meant he would have close access to the king and had the unreserved confidence of the king. One of his responsibilities was to sample the wine and the food that was to be served to the king, to ensure that it wasn't poisoned. This would have required an enormous amount of trust by the king. If there was a need for him to request something of the king, that would also put him in a tremendous position to present his request and certainly increase the likelihood that it would be granted.