Nehemiah 1 Study Notes

1:5-11 Nehemiah’s prayer, while shorter than Ezra’s (see note at Ezr 9:6-15), is also written in late biblical Hebrew style found in other penitential prayers of that era (Neh 9:5-37; Dn 9:4-19). Like them it reflects the language of Deuteronomy, acknowledging that Israel’s adversities had resulted from the nation’s covenant unfaithfulness and that their present survival was due solely to God’s abundant mercy.

1:5-7 Addressing God as Lord, the God of the heavens is not common in the OT, but it does occur several other times (Gn 24:7; 2Ch 36:23; Jnh 1:9). This description of God is similar to the opening verse of Daniel’s prayer: “the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commands” (Dn 9:4). Like Ezra (Ezr 9:6), Nehemiah also identified with the sin of his people, confessing that both I and my father’s family have sinned.

1:8-9 Nehemiah alluded to Moses’s warning (Dt 4:27; 28:64) that God would scatter Israel among the peoples if they were unfaithful to the covenant, and then he summarized God’s promise through Moses (Dt 30:1-5) that repentance would bring restoration (Neh 1:9). Repentance is described as return to me, using the primary OT term (Hb shuv) for repentance that depicts a turning from sin toward God.

1:10 Just as Moses had interceded for his sinful people, reminding God that Israel was his people whom he had brought out of Egypt (Ex 32:11), so too Nehemiah reminded God that they were his servants and his people whom he had redeemed.

1:11 The reference to this man has led some scholars to suggest impropriety on Nehemiah’s part for referring to King Artaxerxes in such a way. But the context here is a private prayer addressed to God who knew very well who “this man” was and that Nehemiah would need divine help in dealing with him. The Persian rulers were famous for the irrevocability of their laws, as Daniel discovered when the “law of the Medes and Persians” (Dn 6:8,12,15) was brought against him. Nehemiah faced the daunting task of asking Artaxerxes to reverse his previous proclamation (Ezr 4:23) stopping all construction in Jerusalem. Only at the end of the prayer does it become clear why a Jewish man like Nehemiah thought he would ever get to address the Persian king: I was the king’s cupbearer. The cupbearer was not only responsible for choosing appropriate wines for the king, but he tasted them himself to ensure they were not poisoned.