Nehemiah 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Nehemiah, a Jew serving in the Persian royal court at Susa, hears from his brother Hanani that the survivors back in Judah are in trouble and that Jerusalem's wall is broken down and its gates burned. He weeps, mourns, fasts, and prays. In his prayer he confesses that Israel, including his own family, has sinned, and he reminds God of the promise given to Moses that scattered people who return to God will be gathered back. He ends by asking God to give him success and favor with the king, and notes that he was the king's cupbearer.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • These are the words of Nehemiah.
   • Nehemiah was the son of Hachaliah.
   • The events took place in the month of Chislev.
   • The events took place in the twentieth year.
   • Nehemiah was in Shushan the fortified citadel at that time.
2. 1:2
   • Hanani came to Nehemiah.
   • Hanani was one of Nehemiah's brothers.
   • Certain men from Judah came with Hanani.
   • Nehemiah questioned them about the Jews who had escaped and were left over from the captivity.
   • Nehemiah questioned them about Jerusalem.
3. 1:3
   • They answered Nehemiah.
   • They said the remnant left over from the captivity is there in the province.
   • They said the remnant is in great trouble and affliction.
   • They said the remnant is in disgrace.
   • They said the wall of Jerusalem is broken down.
   • They said the gates of Jerusalem have been burned with fire.
4. 1:4
   • When Nehemiah heard these words, he sat down.
   • Nehemiah wept.
   • Nehemiah mourned for days.
   • Nehemiah fasted.
   • Nehemiah prayed before the God of heaven.
5. 1:5
   • Nehemiah said his prayer aloud.
   • Nehemiah entreated the LORD, the God of heaven.
   • Nehemiah called God great and awe-inspiring.
   • Nehemiah said God keeps the covenant for those who love him and keep his commandments.
   • Nehemiah said God keeps steadfast love for those who love him and keep his commandments.
6. 1:6
   • Nehemiah asked that God's ear be attentive.
   • Nehemiah asked that God's eyes be open.
   • Nehemiah asked that God hear the prayer of his servant.
   • Nehemiah said he was praying before God at that time.
   • Nehemiah said he prayed day and night.
   • Nehemiah said he prayed on behalf of the children of Israel, God's servants.
   • Nehemiah said he was confessing the sins of the children of Israel.
   • Nehemiah said the children of Israel had sinned against God.
   • Nehemiah said that he and his father's house had sinned.
7. 1:7
   • Nehemiah said they had acted utterly corruptly against God.
   • Nehemiah said they had not kept the commandments.
   • Nehemiah said they had not kept the statutes.
   • Nehemiah said they had not kept the judgments.
   • Nehemiah said God commanded these to Moses, God's servant.
8. 1:8
   • Nehemiah asked God to remember the word God commanded to Moses, God's servant.
   • The word said that if they acted unfaithfully, God would scatter them among the peoples.
9. 1:9
   • The word said that if they returned to God, and kept his commandments, and did them, then God would act.
   • The word said that even if their banished ones were at the farthest end of the heavens, God would gather them from there.
   • The word said God would bring them to the place God chose to make his name dwell there.
10. 1:10
    • Nehemiah said they are God's servants.
    • Nehemiah said they are God's people.
    • Nehemiah said God redeemed them by his great power.
    • Nehemiah said God redeemed them by his strong hand.
11. 1:11
    • Nehemiah entreated the Lord.
    • Nehemiah asked that God's ear be attentive to the prayer of his servant.
    • Nehemiah asked that God's ear be attentive to the prayer of God's servants.
    • Nehemiah said those servants delight to fear God's name.
    • Nehemiah asked God to give his servant success that day.
    • Nehemiah asked God to grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
    • Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

Chisleu (Kislev) was the ninth month of the Hebrew calendar, falling in November–December. "The twentieth year" counts the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes I, named later in the book (about 445 BC); the writer assumes the reader knows whose reign is meant. Shushan (Susa), in what is now south-western Iran, was one of the Persian kings' capitals, used mainly in winter; the word behind "fortress city" refers to the fortified citadel within it, not the whole town.

1:2

"One of my brethren" can mean a blood brother or, more loosely, a fellow Judean; Nehemiah 7:2 calls Hanani "my brother" again. "The captivity" (the exile) refers to the deportations of Judeans to Babylon roughly 140 years earlier, after Jerusalem fell in 586 BC. Persia had since allowed groups to return, so Nehemiah is asking about the returned survivors, not about prisoners still held abroad.

1:3

"The province" is Judah as an administrative district of the Persian empire, governed from a distance, no longer an independent kingdom. A city without walls or gates had no defense against raiders and no standing in the ancient world; the state of the wall is therefore a report about the community's safety and public standing, which is what "affliction and reproach" (trouble and disgrace) refer to.

1:4

Going without food, weeping and mourning for a set period were recognized public actions in this culture, roughly the way a funeral or a day of national mourning is recognized now, the outward form that grief and formal petition took.

1:5

Where the King James prints LORD in capitals, the Hebrew has the personal name of Israel's God, traditionally not spoken aloud and read instead as "the Lord." "Terrible" in 1611 English meant awe-inspiring or fearsome, not bad in quality. "Covenant" is a binding, formally sworn agreement between two parties, like a treaty; the word joined with it here ("mercy," Hebrew *hesed*) means steady, loyal commitment of the kind owed inside such an agreement, rather than pity.

1:6

"My father's house" is the ancestral household: a person's extended family across several generations, treated as a single unit that shared honor and guilt together. Nehemiah confesses the nation's sins as his own because in this culture responsibility ran along family and national lines, not only individual ones.

1:7

"Commandments, statutes, and judgments" are three standard Hebrew terms for different kinds of material in the law of Moses, direct commands, fixed decrees, and legal rulings or case decisions. Listing all three is a way of saying "the whole law," not naming three separate codes.

1:8

Nehemiah is quoting from memory, not word for word, from the warnings and promises attached to the law in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 4 and 30: disobedience would scatter the people among foreign nations, and returning would bring them home.

1:9

"The place I have chosen to set my name there" is the standard phrase in Deuteronomy for the single sanctuary site, understood as Jerusalem and its temple. Putting a name on a place marked ownership and presence, as a king's name on a city did.

1:10

"Redeemed" translates a word for buying a person out of slavery or debt, or a relative paying to free one of his own. "Great power and strong hand" is fixed language for God's rescue of Israel from Egypt, so the sentence recalls that event as the basis of the request.

1:11

"This man" is the Persian king, referred to obliquely. A cupbearer tasted and served the king's wine, guarding against poison; it was a high position of trust, giving daily private access to the ruler, which is why Nehemiah mentions it here, as it is what makes his request possible.