Nehemiahchapter 2
20 verses · KJVNehemiah book hub →
Nehemiah Views the Ruins of Jerusalem's Walls, Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Key verse
And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.
It stands in A sad face before the king, and a prayer between two sentences, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Four months later, in Nisan, Nehemiah carries his grief into the throne room, and the king asks why his countenance is sad: 'Then I was very sore afraid.' He answers plainly: the city of his fathers' sepulchres lies waste. Asked what he requests, he prays mid-conversation ('So I prayed to the God of heaven'), then asks for letters of passage and timber from the king's forest, granted 'according to the good hand of my God upon me.' Sanballat and Tobiah are grieved. In Jerusalem he rides out alone by night to survey the ruined gates, telling no man, then calls the city: 'Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.'
Context
History · Nehemiah · Nehemiah overview
Where the chapter sits
Nehemiah 2 falls in Rebuilding the walls (chapters 1–7). Nehemiah's prayer; his commission from Artaxerxes; Jerusalem's walls in ruin; the wall built in fifty-two days amid external threats (Sanballat) and internal pressures (debt crisis); the dedication.
After it: Covenant renewal under Ezra's teaching, chapters 8–10.
The whole shape of Nehemiah→The world behind this chapter
Nehemiah 2The history
A cupbearer was not a waiter. He tasted the king's wine against poison, which meant the king trusted him with his life and saw him daily, a position of real access held by trusted courtiers. Persian court protocol also required a serene face before the king; showing grief in the royal presence was a serious breach, which is why Nehemiah says he was very sore afraid.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
What he asks for is a package: leave, safe-conduct letters to the governors of Beyond the River, and timber from the keeper of the king's forest, named as Asaph. Royal estates and managed woodland were a normal part of Persian provincial holdings. He is also given army officers and horsemen, the escort Ezra had been ashamed to request.
The opponents appear immediately and by name: Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and later Geshem the Arabian. All three are more than literary figures. A Jewish letter from the garrison at Elephantine in Egypt refers to the sons of Sanballat, governor of Samaria, and an inscribed silver bowl from Egypt names a king of Qedar called Geshem.
What it meant to them
Nehemiah's first act in Jerusalem is to tell nobody. He rides out at night with a few men, inspects the broken walls and burned gates, and in places the rubble is too deep for the animal to pass. Then he speaks.
His pitch is short and includes himself: "Ye see the distress that we are in… come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach." The reproach was the point. A city without walls was a city anyone could enter and nobody respected.
Sources cited
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- Herodotus, Histories (public domain)
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
The structure of this chapter
Threads running through this chapter
- The hand of our God upon usPattern, vv. 8 to 18
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. A sad face before the king, and a prayer between two sentences
1. (vv. 1-2)
Nehemiah 2:1
“Nisan was the name given by the Persian Jews to the month previously called “Abib,” the first month of the Jewish year, or that which followed the vernal equinox. It fell four months after Chisleu Neh 1:1. The twentieth year - As Artaxerxes ascended the throne in 465 B.C., his 20th year would correspond to 445-444 B.C.”
Nehemiah 2:1, 1 more voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Nehemiah 2:1
“The reasons for so long a delay cannot be ascertained. I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king--XENOPHON has particularly remarked about the polished and graceful manner in which the cupbearers of the Median, and consequently the Persian, monarchs performed their duty of presenting the wine to their royal master.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Nehemiah 2:2
“Then I was very sore afraid - Probably the king spoke as if he had some suspicion that Nehemiah harboured some bad design, and that his face indicated some conceived treachery or remorse.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:2, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:2
“Sad - His fasting joined with inward grief had made a sensible change in his countenance. Afraid - It was an unusual and ungrateful thing to come into the king of Persia's presence with any token of sorrow. And he feared a disappointment, because his request was great and invidious, and odious to most of the Persian courtiers.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a.the twentieth year of Artaxerxes: Four months pass between Nehemiah's grief at the news in Chisleu (1:1) and the cup he lifts to the king in Nisan, and for all that time his face had shown nothing. The king reads the change at once: not sickness, but sorrow of heart, and Nehemiah is very sore afraid, since an unhappy face before a Persian king was itself a kind of danger. The text never explains why he waited four months to let his face speak. It simply records that he did.
2. (v. 3)
Nehemiah 2:3
“The city ... of my fathers’ sepulchres - We may conclude from this that Nehemiah was of the tribe of Judah, as Eusebius and Jerome say that he was.”
a.the place of my fathers’ sepulchres: Nehemiah answers with a courtier's blessing and a mourner's honesty together: Let the king live for ever, then the true cause, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire. Ancient peoples treated tombs as sacred ground, so naming the sepulchres reached the king where an appeal to politics alone could not. Grief for a ruined city, not personal want, is the reason Nehemiah gives, the same grief that drove the prayer of chapter one.
3. (v. 4)
Nehemiah 2:4
“So I prayed to the God of heaven - Before he dared to prefer his request to the king, he made his prayer to God, that his suit might be acceptable: and this he does by mental prayer. To the spirit of prayer every place is a praying place.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:4, 2 more voices
Nehemiah 2:4
“Nehemiah had made inquiry as to the state of the city of Jerusalem and the tidings he heard caused him bitter grief. "Why should not my countenance be sad," he said, "when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchers, lies waste and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?" He could not endure that it should be a mere ruinous heap—that city which was once beautiful and the joy of the whole earth!”
Nehemiah 2:4
“Let, &c. - My sadness comes not from any disaffection to the king, for whom my hearty prayers are that he may live forever; but from another cause. Sepulchres - Which by all nations are esteemed sacred and inviolable.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a.I prayed to the God of heaven: Between the king's question and Nehemiah's answer falls the shortest prayer in Scripture: So I prayed to the God of heaven. No verse separates the asking from the praying. Spurgeon preached this text as an example of prayer that needs no closet and no pause, fired while the king still waits for the answer. The title itself, the God of heaven, was the Persian court's own name for God, and twelve of its twenty-three occurrences in the whole Bible fall in Ezra and Nehemiah.
4. (vv. 5-6)
Nehemiah 2:5
“The city of my fathers’ sepulchres - The tombs of the dead were sacred among the ancients, and nothing could appear to them more detestable than disturbing the ashes or remains of the dead. Nehemiah knew that in mentioning this circumstance he should strongly interest the feelings of the Persian king.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:5, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:5
“He asked for a commission to go as governor to Judah, to build the wall of Jerusalem, and to stay there for a certain time, so many months, we may suppose; and then either he had his commission renewed or went back and was sent again, so that he presided there twelve years at least, ch.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 2:6
“The queen also sitting by him - Who probably forwarded his suit. This was not Esther, as Dean Prideaux supposes, nor perhaps the same Artaxerxes who had taken her to be queen; nor does שגל shegal signify queen, but rather harlot or concubine, she who was chief favourite. The Septuagint translate it παλλακη, harlot; and properly too. See the introduction.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:6, 2 more voices
Nehemiah 2:6
“I set him a time--Considering the great despatch made in raising the walls, it is probable that this leave of absence was limited at first to a year or six months, after which he returned to his duties in Shushan.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Nehemiah 2:6
“The queen - Which is here noted, as an unusual thing; for commonly the kings of Persia dined alone, and perhaps because the queen expressed some kindness to him, and promoted his request. How long - This question shewed the king's affection to him, and that he was not willing to want his attendance longer than was necessary.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a.found favour in thy sight: Nehemiah asks two things at once, that the king send him and that he be allowed to build, framing the whole request as a matter of the king's favor rather than a right. The king's answer comes in an unexpected form: a return date requested, a length of time set, so that what is granted is not open leave but a governorship with a term attached. The queen sits by him as the request is made, and Matthew Henry weighs whether her presence helped or hindered without settling it, since the text itself gives no verdict either way. The good hand of Nehemiah's God is already at work in this exchange, though the phrase itself is not spoken until two verses later.
5. (vv. 7-8)
Nehemiah 2:7
“Moreover, I said unto the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river,.... The river of Euphrates, on that side of it towards the land of Judea: that they may convey me over till I come into Judah; furnish him with provisions, and a guard to protect him.”
Nehemiah 2:8
“Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest - הפרדס hapardes of the paradise of the king. This I believe is originally a Persian word; it frequently occurs in Arabic, ferdoos, and in Greek, παραδεισος, and in both signifies a pleasant garden, vineyard, pleasure garden, and what we call a paradise.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:8, 2 more voices
Nehemiah 2:8
“King's forest - Of the forest of Lebanon, famous for choice trees. Palace - Of the king's palace, which was adjoining to the house of God. Enter - That I shall build to dwell in while I am there.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:8
“Here was an immediate answer to his prayer; for the seed of Jacob never sought the God of Jacob in vain. In the account he gives of the success of his petition he takes notice, 1.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 2:7-9
a.let letters be given me: Nehemiah asks for two kinds of paper: safe-conduct letters to the governors beyond the river, and a grant from Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, for timber to build the gates and the wall. The king grants it all, and Nehemiah names the reason in the refrain this book uses seven times and nowhere else in Scripture, the good hand of my God upon me (2:8). He travels under guard, with captains and horsemen the king sends with him. Ezra later refuses that kind of escort on the strength of the same claim (Ezra 8:22), so the refrain covers a man who accepts protection here and a man who declines it there.
B. Riding the ruins by night and telling no one
1. (v. 9)
Nehemiah 2:9
“Then I came to the governors beyond the river,.... Who these governors were, whether the same who were in the second year of this king's reign eighteen years ago, Tatnai and Shetharboznai, is not certain: now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me; both to do him honour, and for his safety; and coming thus attended, must serve to recommend him to the governor, who received him from them at the river Euphrates, and conducted him to Judah.”
2. (v. 10)
Nehemiah 2:10
“When Sanballat the Horonite,.... Who either presided at Horonaim, or sprung from thence, a city of Moab, Isa 15:5 and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite; who was formerly a slave, but now raised, from a low mean estate, to be governor in the land of Ammon, though still a vassal of the king of Persia: heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there came a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel; to which the Moabites and Ammonites were always averse, and ever bore an hatred to Israel, and envied everything that tended to their happiness.”
Nehemiah 2:10, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:10
“Sanballat the Horonite - Probably a native of Horonaim, a Moabite by birth, and at this time governor of the Samaritans under the king of Persia. Tobiah the servant - He was an Ammonite; and here, under the Persian king, joint governor with Sanballat. Some suppose that the Sanballat here mentioned was the same who persuaded Alexander to build a temple on Mount Gerizim in favor of the Samaritans. Pelagius thinks there were two governors of this name.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a.it grieved them exceedingly: Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite enter the story here, grieved exceedingly that a man has come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. Both men held real standing under Persia, Sanballat likely governing Samaria and Tobiah a freed slave risen to office in Ammon, so the opposition to come starts from seated power next door rather than from the fringe. Their grief at Israel's welfare, stated plainly by the text, sets the emotional key the rest of the chapter's conflict plays in.
3. (vv. 11-12)
Nehemiah 2:11
“So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days. Before he entered on any business, resting himself from the fatigue of the journey, and receiving the visits of his friends, as Ezra before him did, Ezr 8:32.”
Nehemiah 2:12
“NEHEMIAH, it seems, prepared himself for action by taking a survey of the necessities of the case. Although he lived before our Savior's day, he certainly acted upon one of our Savior's maxims about counting the cost, lest, after having begun to build, we should not be able to finish.”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3364: “Surveying the Field” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Nehemiah 2:12, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:12
“Wise men, and those who are worthy of double honour, yet covet not to come with observation, to make a show, or make a noise, no, not when they come with the greatest blessings. Those that shortly are to have the dominion in the morning the world now knows not, but they lie hid, 1 John iii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a.was there three days: Nehemiah rests three days before he moves, the same pause Ezra took on arrival at Jerusalem (Ezra 8:32), letting the fatigue of the trip pass before any business begins. Then he rises at night with only a few men and tells no one what God has put in his heart to do. Spurgeon preached this verse as an act of surveying the field before any building began, Nehemiah counting the cost the way the Lord would later teach, done here centuries before that teaching was spoken.
4. (vv. 13-16)
Nehemiah 2:13
“The gate of the valley - A gate opening on the valley of Hinnom, which skirted Jerusalem to the west and south. The exact position is uncertain; as is also that of “the dragon well.” The dung port - The gate by which offal and excrements were conveyed out of the city, and placed eastward of the valley-gate.”
Nehemiah 2:13, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:13
“I went out by night by the gate of the valley--that is, the Jaffa gate, near the tower of Hippicus. even before the dragon well--that is, fountain on the opposite side of the valley. and to the dung port--the gate on the east of the city, through which there ran a common sewer to the brook Kedron and the valley of Hinnom.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Nehemiah 2:14
“Then I went on to the pool of the fountain, and to the king's pool..... That led to the fountain Siloah or Gihon, so called; it was the way to the potter's field, to Bethlehem, Hebron, Gaza, and Egypt.”
Nehemiah 2:14, 2 more voices
Nehemiah 2:14
“The gate of the fountain - Of Siloah. The king’s pool - Probably the aqueduct made by Hezekiah, to bring the waters of Gihon to the city of David. See 2Ch 32:30.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:14
“I went on to the gate of the fountain--that is, Siloah, from which turning round the fount of Ophel. to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass--that is, by the sides of this pool (Solomon's) there being water in the pool, and too much rubbish about it to permit the passage of the beast.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Nehemiah 2:15
“Then went I up in the night by the brook,.... The brook Kidron: and viewed the wall; that was on that side: and turned back; did not go quite round the wall, the way perhaps being obstructed with rubbish, and was unpassable or he had not time to do it: and entered by the gate of the valley, and so returned; into the city, the same way he went out of it, Neh 2:13.”
Nehemiah 2:15, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:15
“The brook - The Kidron watercourse, which skirted the city on the east. Turned back - i. e. he turned westward, and having made the circuit of the city, re-entered by the valley-gate.”
Nehemiah 2:16
“The rulers knew not whither I went - He made no person privy to his design, that he might hide every thing as much as possible from their enemies till he had all things in readiness; lest they should take measures to defeat the work.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a.even before the dragon well: The night ride runs the city's edge by name: the valley gate, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, then on to the fountain gate and the king's pool, where rubble blocks even the animal Nehemiah rides. He goes up by the brook and views the wall, then turns back and enters again by the valley gate he left by, the same circuit Nehemiah 3 will later name gate by gate when the city rebuilds it. He returns having told the rulers, the priests, the nobles and the rest who will do the work nothing of what he saw or planned. The survey is finished in complete secrecy before a single public word is spoken.
C. Let us rise and build: the God of heaven will prosper us
1. (vv. 17-18)
Nehemiah 2:17
“Then said I unto them,.... The priests and princes of the Jews: you see the distress that we are in; lie open to our enemies, and exposed to their insults: how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire, Neh 1:3, come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem that we be no more a reproach; to their neighbours about them, who scoffed at them as a defenceless people and frequently came in upon them, and spoiled and plundered them of their goods and substance.”
Nehemiah 2:18
“Rise up - Let us do it with vigour, and diligence, and resolution, as those that are determined to go through with it. Their hands - Their own and one anothers.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a.let us build up the wall: Nehemiah finally speaks what three days of silence and one night's ride had prepared: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach, naming the shared distress before naming the plan. He gives the reason last rather than first, the hand of my God which was good upon me and the king's own words granting leave, evidence stacked before the ask is made. The people answer in kind, let us rise up and build, and the text records the plainest possible outcome, they strengthened their hands for this good work. Matthew Henry notes that a good plan often needs only someone willing to move it first, since the city had lain in the same waste through every year that no one had spoken.
2. (vv. 19-20)
Nehemiah 2:19
“Geshem the Arabian - The discovery that Sargon populated Samaria in part with an Arab colony explains why Arabs should have opposed the fortification of Jerusalem.”
Nehemiah 2:19, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:19
“They represented the undertaking also as a wicked thing, no better than treason: Will you rebel against the king? Because this was the old invidious charge, though now they had a commission from the king and were taken under his protection, yet still they must be called rebels. [2.] See also with what good reason the Jews slighted these discouragements.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 2:20
“Ye have no portion, nor right - To be a citizen of Jerusalem was a high honor; and they would not permit those who did not belong to the tribes of Israel to dwell there. Zerubbabel gave the same answer to the Samaritans, Ezr 4:3.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 2:20, 1 more voice
Nehemiah 2:20
“No portion - You have no authority over us, nor interest in our church and state, but are aliens from the common-wealth of Israel. Memorial - No testimony, or monument, either of your relation to us by birth or religion, or of your kindness to us, or to this place.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a.laughed us to scorn: A third adversary joins the first two: Geshem the Arabian stands with Sanballat and Tobiah, and together they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, framing the whole rebuilding as rebellion against the king who had just granted it in writing. Nehemiah answers by drawing the line the chapter has been building toward, The God of heaven, he will prosper us, therefore we his servants will arise and build, but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem. The refusal echoes the one Zerubbabel gave the Samaritans a century earlier in Ezra 4:3, the returned community guarding a charter these three men, whatever their office under Persia, do not share. Wesley reads memorial as no claim by birth, by religion, or by kindness done, a threefold answer to a threefold mockery.
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Nehemiah 2. 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 10 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); C. F. Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; Charles Spurgeon; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley; Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther and Matthew Henry.
Keep studying
On this page
Studies3
On this verse
On this chapter
On this book
Places1