PART I.
INTRODUCTORY SECTION. Nehemiah 1:1-11; Nehemiah 2:1-11.
EXPOSITION
CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH NEHEMIAH OBTAINED HIS COMMISSION TO REBUILD THE WALL OF JERUSALEM (Nehemiah 1:1-11; Nehemiah 2:1-8). Living at the Persian court, far from the land which he looked on as his true country, though perhaps he had never seen it, Nehemiah seems to have known but little of its condition and circumstances; and it is quite possible that he might have remained in his ignorance during the term of his natural life but for an accident. Some event—we do not know what—called his brother Hanani to Jerusalem; and on his return to Susa this brother gave him a description of the dismantled state of the holy city, and the "affliction and reproach" of the inhabitants consequent thereupon, which threw him into a paroxysm of grief. With the openness and passion of an Oriental, he abandoned himself to his feelings; or, in his own words, "sat down and wept, and mourned for days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven" (Nehemiah 1:4). Whether he was in regular attendance at this time upon the king does not appear. Perhaps the court was absent, wintering—as it sometimes did—at Babylon, and he had not accompanied it; perhaps it was at Susa, but the office of cupbearer was being discharged by others. At any rate, more than three months had elapsed from the time when he heard of the affliction of Jerusalem before his changed appearance was noted by the king. It was the month Nisan, that which followed the vernal equinox, the first of the Jewish year, when Artaxerxes, observing the sadness of his attendant, inquired its cause. Nehemiah revealed it, and the king further inquired, "For what dost thou make request?' This was the origin of Nehemiah's commission. He asked and obtained permission to quit the court for a definite time (Nehemiah 2:6), and to go to Jerusalem with authority to "build" the city. This was understood to include the repair of the governor's house, of the fortress which commanded the temple area, and of the city wall (ibid. verse 8). It necessarily involved Nehemiah's appointment as governor, and the notification of this appointment to the existing satraps and pashas. Leave was also given him to cut such timber as was needed for the work in the "king's forest" or "park," a royal domain situated in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Nehemiah, having obtained this firman, left Susa early in the spring of b.c. 444, accompanied by an escort of Persian troops (verse 9), and reached Jerusalem in safety, having on his way communicated his appoint. merit to the officials of the Syrian province.