Nehemiah 2:1-20
1 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.
2 Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid,
3 And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?
4 Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.
5 And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.
6 And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.
7 Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah;
8 And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.
9 Then I came to the governors beyond the river, and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me.
10 When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.
11 So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.
12 And I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem: neither was there any beast with me, save the beast that I rode upon.
13 And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire.
14 Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass.
15 Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall, and turned back, and entered by the gate of the valley, and so returned.
16 And the rulers knew not whither I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest that did the work.
17 Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.
18 Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.
19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?
20 Then answered I them, and said unto them, 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.
Nehemiah 2:1. Nisan. See the chronology, Exodus 12. Artaxerxes was well disposed towards the Jews. He had sent Ezra to Jerusalem in the seventh year of his reign; he now sends Nehemiah in the twentieth year, and with a larger commission.
Nehemiah 2:6. The queen also sitting by. Menochius supposes this queen to be Esther, whose interest contributed towards the grant of Nehemiah's commission: and as he made very great haste in raising the walls of the city, it is highly probable that he returned to Shushan according to the set time, and procured a permanent commission to govern the Jews. We find him appointed to this government in the same year, and he continued in it twelve years: Nehemiah 5:14. He then returned to the king, and shortly afterwards went again to Jerusalem: Nehemiah 13:6.
Nehemiah 2:7. Let letters be given me, without which he could not pass the fortified places; nor receive assistance from the Persian garrisons.
Nehemiah 2:8. The king's forest, his hunting seat, connected with a palace and parks of pleasure. Xenophon names the kings of Babylon as hunting the boars in their forests.
Nehemiah 2:9. The river, the Euphrates.
Nehemiah 2:13. The gate of the valley of Jehoshaphat, through which the brook Kedron flows, and receives the foul waters of the Gihon, after washing the streets of the city.
Nehemiah 2:14. The gate of the fountain, of Siloam.
Nehemiah 2:15. By the brook, Kedron. Thus he went all round the city, and entered at the gate of the valley through which he went out: Nehemiah 2:13.
REFLECTIONS.
Nehemiah having gained the favour of heaven, awaited opportunity till his daily prayer, and frequent fasting, should attract the attention of the king. God in regard to providential blessings may seem slow to help his people, but his help is happily timed. Nehemiah was a man of great prudence and modesty. Not willing to obtrude himself precipitately on the royal notice, his dejected appearance, a natural consequence of his grief, spoke for him, even before a fit opportunity, as he thought, presented to urge his supplication. This was most evidently an answer to prayer. And when the king enquired the cause of his dejection, he said it was because his fathers' sepulchres and the walls of the city lay in ruins, reciting at the same time the particulars of those calamities which had originated in the revocation of the edict of Cyrus, obtained by the malice and falsehoods of Sanballat and others. Grace harmonizes with prudence, but is opposed to obstinacy and folly.
Having before seen that the zeal of Nehemiah was disinterested, we here see that it was free from ostentation. He came to Jerusalem as a private person, though accustomed to the pomp of so great a court. He spent three days in acquainting himself with the situation of his people, and surveyed the fortifications by night to avoid the notice of the enemies' spies. Having now availed himself of perfect information, and arranged his plans, he assembled the elders and priests, and told them of the good hand of God, in the renewal of Cyrus's grant. This was a burst of glad tidings to the afflicted. Overpowered with joy, their hearts kindled with a hallowed patriotic flame, and they said with one voice, “Let us rise up and build.” Little till now did this poor and despised city think what a friend the Lord had sent from the east. While they slept, little did they dream who was perambulating their demolished walls, and fired gates; and little did they imagine the strong defence he was about to throw round the Zion of God. Just so Christ comes more especially in seasons of affliction to his church. He surveys at a hopeless time the low and dejected state of Zion, and opens the rich designs of grace that he may revive his people with joy, and prompt every soul to energy and zeal in his work. Oh how valuable are the spiritual and the temporal shepherds of the Lord's flock. They built the wall, without acquainting the wicked with it. Zion shall flourish, while Samaria shall grieve.
Sanballat in Samaria, and other governors, who had wished to keep Zion in servitude, heard of the great works by actions rather than words; and they laughed at the efforts of the people, for they intended to demolish the works as before. But while they laughed, and hoped, they secretly grieved, and were haunted with despair. Hence their first efforts were to throw discouragements on the work by accusations of revolt against the king. The sight of Israel's prosperity was insupportable to their pride. In the artifice, malice, and persecution of those wicked men, we have a general portrait of the enemies of the church. And as God frustrated all their foul designs, so he will be the help and defence of his people in every age of the world. Their hope is to ruin the work of the Lord, when it does not accord with their interest; but the ruin shall recoil on their own heads, and in blots of shame which cannot be wiped away. The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; they shall gnash with their teeth; the desire of the wicked shall fail.