NEHEMIAH
Lesson 2, Chapter 1
We began our study of Nehemiah last week by means of a brief introduction to the book and
reading Chapter 1. The introduction focused on explaining the regional political realities at the
time of Nehemiah because only with this information and context can we understand why the
Persian King was so accommodating of Nehemiah in order for him to journey 1000 miles from
the Persian capital of Shushan to rebuild the broken down walls of Jerusalem.
In summary we can say that when King Artaxerxes agreed to send his cupbearer Nehemiah to
Jerusalem with his blessing, it was because it was to his and his empire’s benefit. The Persian
Empire was now so vast that some of the larger nations that made up the empire had become
very difficult to control. Egypt, for instance, had a heritage of being a superpower in its own
right and had always held dreams of creating its own empire. Being subjugated to a Persian
King whose capital was a thousand miles away, and whose culture was so vastly different from
Egypt’s, was intolerable. So Egypt was in a nearly constant state of rebellion and they
possessed the means and ambition to be quite a problem for Artaxerxes.
But in addition to Egypt other nations in and around Judah (especially immediately across the
Jordan River to the east) took Egypt’s cue and were in a rebellious mood and they too
constantly challenged Persian authority. However the Jews of Judah were generally friendly
towards the Persians, and King Artaxerxes badly needed to maintain and even strengthen the
loyalty they showed towards him. After all, the Jews had been rescued and released from their
captivity in Babylon by the Persians. The Persian monarchs tended to be more enlightened
and tolerant of their subjects than the Babylonians, and so generally gave most of the
kingdoms and nations in their empire enough latitude to continue speaking their own language,
continue worshipping their own gods, and as long as Persian law was obeyed they could even
institute their own cultural traditions and customs. A few years earlier Artaxerxes had sent Ezra
to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple and re-establish the Levitical Priesthood (mostly funded by
the Persian treasury), and so this show of generosity and kindness to the Jews created good
relations.
As has been the case for more than 3 Millennia, the fortress city of Jerusalem was established
in a strategically valuable location, and that is why it has always suffered attacks and been at
the center of the ambitions of foreign potentates. From Jerusalem a strong military presence
could deal with Egypt, the nations of the Trans-Jordan, Arabia, and even the territories of the
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former northern tribal regions of Israel. At the same time, an enemy that gained control of the
city of Jerusalem could create major problems and routing them out would be difficult and
costly in terms of lives and resources.
Even today, although on the one hand the battle over Jerusalem is about religion, on the other
hand its strategic location remains politically important because even though the names of the
nations surrounding it have changed since the Bible times, the dynamics of desire for power
and regional dominance by those nations has remained the same. Due to the advancement of
military mobility and rapid deployment using modern technology, Jerusalem can control a huge
area from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jezreel Valley, to the east beyond the Sea of Galilee,
and to the south to North Africa and Egypt. So the importance of who controls Jerusalem is at
least as significant now as it was in Nehemiah’s day.
These thoughts had to have already been in Artaxerxes’ mind well before Nehemiah’s
request to go to Judah; its only that Nehemiah (a trusted and capable member of the king’s
inner circle) desiring to go to Jerusalem to direct the rebuilding of the defensive walls suddenly
presented Artaxerxes with the opening he was looking for. Wisely, he leapt at the chance and
offered Nehemiah every means of support.
Chapter 1 is short, so let’s re-read it.
RE-READ NEHEMIAH CHAPTER 1 all
The name Nehemiah (Nechemyah in Hebrew) means “the Lord comforts”. It was not an
uncommon name and we’ll find a number of Nehemiah’s in the Bible including two more in
the Ezra-Nehemiah Scriptures. The only way to sort them out is by family ties (if stated) and by
the era in which they lived. The opening words of this chapter make it clear that the primary
writer of this book is Nehemiah himself, even though it is indisputable that at least one editor
has been involved in creating this book in the final form that we have it today that probably was
not completed until around the time of Alexander the Great (about 330 B.C.)
The year our story begins is 446 or 447 B.C, and it is the 20
th
year of King Artaxerxes’ reign
over the Persian Empire. Once we reach the 13
th
and final chapter of Nehemiah the time could
be as late as around 410 B.C. Thus as we discussed last time, in Protestant Bibles since the
early 19
th
century Nehemiah represents the end of the Old Testament timeline and there is a
glaring gap of information on the progress of the Jews and the happenings in the Holy Lands
from then until the opening of the New Testament. As I explained in our first lesson on
Nehemiah, this 4 century gap or so-called Silent Period was artificially created when the British
and American Bible Society leadership decided to remove the 15 books of the Apocrypha
(which dealt with the time between Nehemiah and the birth of Christ) from Protestant Bibles.
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I want to make it clear however that I can find no evidence that at anytime in history has any
group, Judaism or Christianity, regarded the Apocrypha as Holy Scripture nor as highly
inspired as the canon that we find in our Protestant Bibles today (and I enthusiastically agree
with that assessment). That said, Jews and Christians did regard it as somewhat inspired
(something more than mere literature), as truthful and accurate, and supremely relevant to the
progress of the Jewish people and to the history of the Holy Land. It is the relevance to the
Jewish people and the insufficient relevance to the gentile Church, as well as the position of
the Catholics that the Apocrypha continued to hold a firm place in the Catholic Bible, which
seems to have led to its demise in the Protestant branch of the Church. But make no mistake:
it’s not only the Catholics who have retained it. Most of the many Eastern Orthodox branches
of the Church have kept some or all of the books of the Apocrypha in their Bibles. Although
originally the books of the Apocrypha were scattered about in the Bible, later the solution was
usually to gather those 15 books together and make it a separate section of the Bible so that it
is understand that it is not on the same spiritual level as the Old and New Testaments.
My position is that the Apocrypha is important, relevant and ought to be read by Believers in
Christ. It goes a long way towards explaining the rise of Hellenism and the enormous Greek
cultural influence over the Holy Land in Messiah’s era. It explains how Judaism came to adopt
many paganized traditions, and from that we can deduce how some of those traditions
eventually found their way into Christendom. This Greek cultural influence has also invaded
the Western Church and greatly colors the way we read the Bible. So we need to be aware of
it. That said there are some Jewish superstitions included in the Apocrypha, and some twists
on earlier Biblical history that has to be taken with a grain of salt. But never should it be taken
as infallible or as Holy. I recommend the English translation of all 15 books of the Apocrypha
written by Edgar J. Goodspeed as an accurate and readable text.
We immediately run into a challenge in the 1
st
verse of Nehemiah as we are told it was in the
month of Kislev in the 20
th
year of Artaxerxes’ reign that Nehemiah learned of the distress of
the Jews in Jerusalem. And the issue is that in the 1
st
verse of the next chapter, we are told
that AFTER Nehemiah heard the bad news from his brother Hanani, he went to the king but
that this occurred in the month of Nisan in that same 20
th
year. For those who know the Biblical
Jewish calendar, Nisan is the 1
st
month and Kislev is the 9
th
month. So we have Nehemiah
going to the king in the 1
st
month of the year knowing about the distress of the Jews and asking
to be sent to Jerusalem, which is 8 months BEFORE his brother told him about it in the 9
th
month of the same year. Needless to say, some of the Higher Critical Bible scholars have used
this to say that the book of Nehemiah is flawed or unreliable.
It seems we need some instruction in the use of calendars if we’re to understand this. And
while this gets a bit complicated I hope you’ll pay attention because understanding the
calendar as used at different points in the Bible is so critical to understanding the sequence
and timing of events. The Hebrews have several different calendar years, each used for
different purposes. There is the Religious event calendar year, the Civil calendar year, the
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Tithing calendar year, and a couple of others. Don’t let this throw you; we have the same thing
with modern calendars. We have the Civil Calendar year (January through December), we
have the school calendar year (which varies depending on where you live), we have the Fiscal
calendar year (that is generally used only for business accounting and can start in any month a
business chooses as long as it remains consistent year to year), the agricultural calendar year
and a few others. In the Bible we also have years based on the reigns of kings, and there are
at least 5 different ways that the kings’ regnal years are counted. So what we are dealing with
in the opening two chapters of Nehemiah is two things: King Artaxerxes regnal calendar
(indicating how many years he’s been ruling as king), and also the Hebrew calendar that tells
us what month of the year we are dealing with.
As time went on, thankfully, the ways kings counted their time in office generally reduced to
what is called the Tishri calendar. And that is because the Tishri calendar year method was
created by the Babylonians and not the Hebrews. The Babylonians controlled a vast empire
(eventually taken over by the Persians), but the Hebrews only controlled little Israel and then
only Judah, and so the Tishri Calendar became much more widely adopted than the Hebrew
calendar. The Tishri Calendar simply means that the month of Tishri was designated as the
first month of the year (while on the Hebrew calendar Tishri was originally designated in the
Bible as the 7
th
month of the year). In time the Jews acknowledged the near universal use of
this Babylonian Tishri calendar by creating the manmade traditional Jewish holiday of Rosh
Hashanah (aka Jewish New Year). Rosh Hashanah is the 1
st
day of Tishri. But Biblically
speaking the 1
st
day of Tishri already had a God-ordained appointed time (one of the 7 Biblical
Feasts) assigned to it: Yom Teruah, the Day of Trumpets. So now we have the confusion that
on the 1
st
day of the month of Tishri, it is Rosh Hashanah (the start of a new year), yet the 1
st
day of Tishri is also the Feast of Trumpets, which is supposed to take place on the 1
st
day of
the 7
th
month of the year.
Thus when Passover rolls around in the month of Nisan, and the Bible says that Nisan is
supposed to be the 1
st
month of the year and Passover is to occur on the 14
th
, on the Tishri
calendar Nisan becomes the 7
th
month of the year. So the Hebrews are said to have a
Religious calendar year that begins with the month of Nisan as the 1
st
month of the year, and
also a separate Civil calendar year that begins with Tishri as the 1
st
month of the year. But it
gets even worse because according to the Bible, the year advances by one (say from 2014 to
2015) on the 1
st
day of Nisan, but the Jewish Civil Calendar year changes years on the 1
st
day
of Tishri. And most Hebrew calendars that are sold today show the Hebrew year changing on
the 1
st
day of Tishri. Thus while in the Bible Passover is described in the Torah as the FIRST
feast of a new year and Sukkot is the final feast of the year, with the new Jewish Civil Calendar
Yom Teruah is the 1
st
feast of the year and Shavuot (Pentecost) is the final Biblical feast of the
year. Awful, isn’t it, when we mess with God’s timing? It makes discerning years and
sequence of events in the Bible all the more difficult.
Bottom line as concerns the matter of timing in Nehemiah: obviously the calendar being
referred to is a Tishri calendar year. Therefore in chapter one verse one since Tishri is the 1
st
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month of the year, then Kislev is the 3
rd
month of the 20
th
year of Artaxerxes’ reign; and in
chapter two verse one that makes Nisan the 7
th
month of the 20
th
year of Artaxerxes’ reign.
That solves our dilemma, and it tells us that it was about 4 months from the time that
Nehemiah’s brother told him of Jerusalem’s dilapidated state until Nehemiah brought wine to
the king and informed him of his desire to go to Jerusalem and repair the city’s walls (we could
probably all use a glass of wine about now!)
We are told in Nehemiah 1:3 that the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins and the gates were
burned up. And then in verse 4 that this news brought Nehemiah to tears and he mourned for
several days. One of the issues that scholars point out (and have various opinions about) is
whether the walls of Jerusalem were newly destroyed, or whether this is referring to the
damage that Nebuchadnezzar had inflicted 150 years earlier and had never been repaired. I’ll
not deal with all the arguments on both sides except to say this: the book of Ezra confirms that
while Ezra tried to rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, he essentially only
succeeded in rebuilding the Temple. The main argument put forth that the damage that
Nehemiah heard about was new, and that Ezra DID rebuild some or all the walls but they were
again in ruin is that Nehemiah reacted so strongly to the news that it HAD to have been new
damage. That’s it. There is no Biblical or historical record of the walls of Jerusalem being
rebuilt before the time of Nehemiah, and there is no Biblical or historical record of the walls
being rebuilt and then brought to ruin yet again after the Babylonian exile. It is purely the
conjecture of modern Bible scholars. Therefore there is no reason to doubt that since the King
of Babylon destroyed the walls of Jerusalem circa 600 B.C. that they had NOT been rebuilt (or
at least anything but partially); but Nehemiah was about to make it happen. The lack of
protective walls also explains the poor economy of what should have been a prosperous city,
and it also explains why so few people lived in Jerusalem that Nehemiah had to nearly compel
some country folk to move there.
Verse 5 begins a prayer of supplication and confession by Nehemiah and we see that this
powerful man in the Persian government who had been born and assimilated into the Persian
culture (or he would not have remained living in Persia but rather would have migrated to
Judah), was not only religious, but the prayer shows that he was quite familiar with the Torah. I
suspect this was probably due to Ezra’s teaching and influence; after all, Ezra was also in
some type of service to King Artaxerxes and Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries. Even
more, we see Nehemiah speak of the Lord in both Hebrew terms and in Persian terms. Where
in our CJB the first words of verse 5 are translated as: “I said, Please Adonai, God of
Heaven”, what it actually says is, “Please YHWH, Elohe ha-Shamayim”. That is, Nehemiah
first calls God by His formal Hebrew name (Yehoveh) but then continues with the standard
Persian term for the highest god of their pantheon of gods, God of Heaven. Nothing wrong with
this; it only indicates that Nehemiah was as much Persian as Hebrew in his ways and
thoughts.
It is interesting that Nehemiah’s appeal to God was based on the promises of God’s
covenants to the Hebrew people. And also it was based on the inherent grace contained in
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those covenants that is extended to all those who love the Lord AND obey His
commandments. Which commandments? The Law of Moses, of course, as there existed no
other divine commandments for the Hebrews. It is fascinating to me that essentially Nehemiah
is appealing to God on the basis of his Hebrew roots, and He is defining who God is based on
God’s attributes and actions, which are based on God’s covenants with the Hebrews.
Nehemiah was born in the Persian Empire well after the Jews had been freed from the
Babylonians. He lived far away from the Temple, far away from the Priesthood, and therefore
away from Torah teachers, and instead he lived in a gentile world where the Diaspora Jews
(such as himself) embraced a form of early Judaism that had replaced certain elements of
Biblical worship and observances with new traditions that served to pacify the Persians while
appealing to the Jews as “good enough” if not downright pious. And yet as this sudden
awaking to the plight of God’s holy city of Jerusalem and its Jewish residents swept over him
like a Tsunami of living water, he immediately knew to turn to God. And he also realized that
turning to God meant coming to Him on His terms, and within the context of God’s
commandments and instructions.
I hope this last statement pricked your ears, for so much of the modern Church has become
deaf to God’s Word and instead has assimilated into a type of Christianity that is based on
traditions, syncretism with pagan observances, and wed to tired old manmade doctrines. We
have been oh so comfortable and satisfied with these strange ways for a long time; but
suddenly a whole crop of new Nehemiah’s are popping up all around the world, awakened by
a concern for Israel, for God’s Jewish people, and a burning desire to recover His holy Word in
our lives. Just as Nehemiah turned to the Torah and to his Hebrew roots in preparation to
serve the Lord in an exciting new way, so must Believers in the modern era. Just as did
Nehemiah we must let go of the weak and questionable definitions and attributes of God
ascribed to Him by human religious leaders, and discover Him anew within the pages of the
Hebrew Bible and especially the Torah. Our concern must be turned toward what He says is
most important to Him at this time in history: the restoration of the people and nation of Israel.
And then from this our understanding of the NT will change and grow, our faith will be
deepened and made purer, and our relationship with Christ will mature and ripen, making us
useful in service to Him now and ready to be harvested at the last trump.
Note that in verse 6 Nehemiah (similar to Ezra) completely identifies himself with his people,
and with their sin. He confesses first that the source of the troubles for Israel is with the people
being disobedient to God’s commandments; Nehemiah’s prayer is intensely personal as he
admits that both he and his direct ancestors bear blame. And leaving no doubt that what he
and the Jews are violating aren’t Judaistic customs and traditions, he refers directly to the
laws and rulings given by Moses. Then in verses 8 and 9, after confessing the sins of he and
his people and that doing so was to break the covenant they had made with God, Nehemiah
draws attention to the consequences. It is that even though they remain redeemed, Israel was
scattered throughout the nations and left to wallow in the curses that come from breaking
God’s commandments. However this sad reality is balanced with the other side of the divine
coin: forgiveness. IF after being exiled for breaking faith the chosen people will return to God
and begin to recover and observe His laws and commandments, THEN the Lord will go and
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gather His people from wherever they have been flung on this planet and bring them home. Or
as the verse says, “I will collect them from there and bring them to the place where I have
chosen for bearing my name”. And that place is Jerusalem. There is so much to examine here.
First, it is that the people who transgressed against God and refused to obey His laws and
commandments weren’t pagans, they were His redeemed people. They knew who God was,
and they believed in Him. And God knew them because He was their redeemer. But that
redemption didn’t amount to a Get-out-of-jail-free card or immunity from prosecution. That is,
the Hebrew people didn’t obey their way to redemption any more than do folks today who
count on Yeshua for redemption. Yet, when the redeemed disobey God’s commandments to a
great enough degree the discipline from the Lord can be extremely severe. With Israel and
Judah the severity amounted to expulsion from their land inheritance into subjugation and
oppression by gentile nations who didn’t fear the Lord. Paul issues a similar warning to those
redeemed by Christ’s blood:
Romans 11:22 CJB
22
So take a good look at God's kindness and his severity: on the
one hand, severity toward those who fell off; but, on the other hand, God's kindness
toward you- provided you maintain yourself in that kindness! Otherwise, you too will be
cut off!
Second we find that Nehemiah understood that a covenant has two sides to it: blessings and
curses. If one violated the stipulations of the agreement, then the curses kicked in to operation.
If one kept the terms of the agreement, then shalom would be the result. For God’s
redeemed, the curse was usually not complete or permanent rejection by the Lord or loss of
redemption; rather it was to have one’s status with God severely reduced and for blessing to
be curtailed. Christ put that dynamic in another way in a most familiar passage to Seed of
Abraham and Torah Class followers:
Matthew 5:17-19 CJB
17
"Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to
abolish but to complete.

18
Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or
a stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has happened.

19
So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be
called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will
be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
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So the formula (OT and NT) is that those who have been redeemed are obligated to follow the
Torah commandments. For those who obey those commandments and teach others to obey
the commandments, their status in God’s Kingdom will be elevated. For those who disobey
those commandments and teach others to disregard them, their status in God’s Kingdom will
be severely reduced to the lowest level. The exiles of Judah didn’t lose their redeemed status
as members of God’s Kingdom for disobedience; and as Believers we don’t typically lose our
redeemed status as members of God’s Kingdom for disobedience. In fact, if either group
disobeys but comes to their senses, acknowledges that the trouble is disobedience to God’s
commandments (not to some religious doctrines or personal sense of right and wrong), and
changes their ways, and turns back to obedience to the Lord then He will return them to their
normal status in relationship with Him. Nevertheless there are both earthly and eternal
consequences for disobedience, especially when coupled with teaching others that God’s
commandments are irrelevant.
Thus Nehemiah understood that the only hope for himself and for his fellow Jews was a return
to obedience to God’s Torah; nothing else would substitute. It is obvious that almost all of
what Nehemiah claimed in his prayer were paraphrases (and some were close to verbatim) of
passages from the book of Deuteronomy.
Listen to Deuteronomy 30:1 – 4.
READ DEUTERONOMY 30:1 – 4
CJB
Deuteronomy 30:1 "When the time arrives that all these things have come upon you,
both the blessing and the curse which I have presented to you; and you are there
among the nations to which ADONAI your God has driven you; then, at last, you will
start thinking about what has happened to you;

2
and you will return to ADONAI your God and pay attention to what he has said, which
will be exactly what I am ordering you to do today- you and your children, with all your
heart and all your being.

3
At that point, ADONAI your God will reverse your exile and show you mercy; he will
return and gather you from all the peoples to which ADONAI your God scattered you.

4
If one of yours was scattered to the far end of the sky, ADONAI your God will gather
you even from there; he will go there and get you.
Third, only after acknowledging his and his people’s sin, and the covenant relationship that is
the basis of their personal relationship with God, and that God keeps His promises whether
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those promises are negative or positive, Nehemiah then petitions Yehoveh for his own success
as he prepares for an audience with King Artaxerxes.
Verse 11 says, “…..Now please be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of
your servants who take joy in fearing your name…” So the implication is that Nehemiah had
some prayer partners. He didn’t go at this alone. My only comment on this passage is this: it
honestly shocks me sometimes that the prayer request list may at times have only a few
requests on it. I don’t know why that is; pride, fear of embarrassment, being a very private
person perhaps. Could it be that most folks have nothing of importance in their lives to bring
before the Lord? That hardly seems likely. I know of the troubles that some who are listening to
me are having, and of the troubles of some of your children or grandchildren, even parents and
friends. I know that you pray to the Lord for His intervention and help. So why are you going it
alone? Why aren’t you asking for the hundreds of prayer partners available to you to join with
you? Are the prayers of many more effective than the prayer of one? Yes! Over and over we
see that principle in the Bible and here in Nehemiah it is also brought to light. Enough said.
This chapter ends with the comment that “I was the king’s personal attendant.” It was quite a
personal achievement for Nehemiah to have reached such a lofty position. And it shows (as
with Daniel, Esther, Mordecai and others) that the Jews of the Babylonian exile were not
usually treated with prejudice, rather it is that several Jews had been elevated to surprisingly
influential positions in the empire’s government, with some belonging to the King’s royal court.
So it brings us right back to the question I asked last week: what would ever possess a man of
Nehemiah’s education, wealth and status to throw in his lot with his fellow Jews in a remote
place where he’d never visited? The narrative seems to indicate that it was an “accident” that
Nehemiah heard about the decrepit condition of Jerusalem and the distress this caused for the
Jews of that area. But quite illogically the news so overwhelms Nehemiah that he can’t bear it.
He determines that something must be done and that it can only be the God of the Jews who
has caused this improbable set of circumstances to come about such that he must be the one
to step forward.
He is fully aware that this is going to mean great changes in his life. He is going to leave the
luxurious, prestigious, and secure confines of the King’s palace for a place far away that he
knows little about, except that the people living there can barely make it due to the ghetto-like
conditions and precariously unprotected population that is currently Jerusalem. But he
recognizes that this is God calling him into service; service that he had never imagined for
himself but that he had been, unsuspectingly, prepared for it over the last many years. Now
Nehemiah had a simple choice to make in response to the Lord calling him to a radically new
vocation and lifestyle. The choice was either yes or no. And that is the choice that every
Believer already has been, or eventually will be, faced with. What is your answer?
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