Nehemiahchapter 1
11 verses · BSBNehemiah book hub →
Speaks with:Daniel 9×8Nehemiah 2×3Deuteronomy 4×2Zechariah 7×1Nehemiah 10×1Esther 1×1
Summary
Chapter summary
In Chislev, in Shushan the palace, Hanani comes from Judah with the report that breaks the book open: 'The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.' Nehemiah sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven: confessing the sins of Israel and of his own father's house, then pleading the word given to Moses: scattering for trespass, gathering for return, even from the uttermost part of the heavens. 'Prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day.' The last line sets it all up: 'Now I was cupbearer to the king.'
Context
History · Nehemiah — Nehemiah overview
- A. 1–3 The wall broken down and the gates burned with fire
- B. 4–11 Nehemiah weeps, fasts, and pleads the promise made to Moses
The outline
A.The wall broken down and the gates burned with firevv. 1 to 3
Read vv. 1 to 3 →B.Nehemiah weeps, fasts, and pleads the promise made to Mosesvv. 4 to 11
Read vv. 4 to 11 →
The world behind this chapter
Nehemiah 1The history
Susa was one of several royal residences. Persian kings moved with the seasons — Susa in the cooler months, Ecbatana in the summer heat, Persepolis for ceremony, Babylon for administration. Nehemiah is in Susa in December, which is exactly where the court would be.
The news that arrives is not about the old destruction. Jerusalem's walls had been down since 586, more than a century; nobody weeps for four months over hundred-year-old news. Ezra 4 records a later attempt at rebuilding that officials stopped "by force and power," and the report here — the wall broken down and the gates burned with fire — reads as a fresh setback.
What Nehemiah does with the report is fast, and then slow. He sits down and weeps, then mourns and fasts and prays for days, and does nothing about it for four months until the season is right.
What it meant to them
His prayer is built out of Scripture. He quotes God's warning to Moses about scattering and His promise about gathering, and holds God to His own words — "remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses."
And, like Ezra and Daniel before him, he puts himself inside the guilt: "both I and my father's house have sinned." Then the last line of the chapter turns practical, asking for mercy "in the sight of this man" — and only then does the reader learn that this man is the king, and Nehemiah is his cupbearer.
Sources cited
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- Herodotus, Histories (public domain)
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Nehemiah 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.