Nehemiah: Building Walls & Gates part 3

The Favor Of The King

How would God answer Nehemiah's prayer and petition? God's answer to a problem is usually a person. Is it any surprise that God would use Nehemiah to answer his own prayer?  God gave the burden to Nehemiah. That burden became a calling in his life.

Nehemiah continues his narrative in chapter 2.
Nehemiah 2:1a  Early the following spring, in the month of Nisan, during the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign...
Four months passed from the events in chapter 1 verse 1 to this 1st verse in chapter 2. It was four months from the time Nehemiah was impacted by the news of the conditions in Jerusalem until God moved him to act. What did Nehemiah do in those four months? We know from chapter 1 that after he heard the news, he wept, fasted, and prayed. Scripture does not tell us exactly what transpired in those four months, but we have to conclude he waited on God. He waited to hear from God, for an answer to his prayer, but most of all he waited until God prompted him to act. 

It is not natural for us to wait on God. Our human nature wants us to act impulsively and immediately. You can be sure Nehemiah had to subdue his human nature and wait to hear from God. It takes time for us to be in the right place. Sometimes God needs to work on us and our circumstances, before he wants us to act. Like Nehemiah, we have to learn to wait for God's perfect timing.

Nehemiah 2:1b- 2  I was serving the king his wine. I had never before appeared sad in his presence. So the king asked me, “Why are you looking so sad? You don’t look sick to me. You must be deeply troubled. Then I was terrified

Why would Nehemiah be terrified? What is so dangerous about the king seeing him sad and troubled that would cause fear? He actually had good reason to be afraid. This was in the Persian Empire of nearly 2500 years ago. It was a common belief of that day that a spirit that was on one person could be transferred to another person. For anyone to bring an evil or unpleasant presence around the king, could be seen as a threat to the kingdom, and be punishable by death. So for Nehemiah to be openly sad and troubled in the front of King Artaxerxes could have been a very bad thing. 

Nehemiah's mission was greater than the fear of his own life.  He did not try to lie or deny his sadness. Instead, he explained it.
Nehemiah 2:3 but I replied, “Long live the king! How can I not be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and the gates have been destroyed by fire.”

Now came the moment that Nehemiah had prayed about. Now is when he needed favor in the king's heart.
Nehemiah 2:4-5 Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting? With a prayer to the God of heaven, I replied, “If it please the king, and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.”

Things could have taken a bad turn for Nehemiah at this point. But God was with him and answering his prayer.
Nehemiah 2:6 The king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked, “How long will you be gone? When will you return?” After I told him how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request.


If the conversation with the king ended right there, Nehemiah's prayer would have been answered. He had permission from the king to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the city walls. But our God is a God of abundance, and when He truly puts a calling on a person, He equips them to fulfill that calling. So there is much more. READ ON!
Nehemiah 2:7-8 I also said to the king, “If it please the king, let me have letters addressed to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates River, instructing them to let me travel safely through their territories on my way to Judah. And please give me a letter addressed to Asaph, the manager of the king’s forest, instructing him to give me timber. I will need it to make beams for the gates of the Temple fortress, for the city walls, and for a house for myself.” And the king granted these requests, because the gracious hand of God was on me.

Nehemiah was not just being allowed to go, he was being commissioned to go. He was being given authority by the king and being equipped for the task. It was God who was using King Artaxerxes to equip Nehemiah for the task. An application we can take from this section of scripture- when God calls you, He will equip you. He will supply everything you need for your ministry.

Another good lesson to learn is to be prepared. Notice that Nehemiah was ready. He knew how long to tell the king he would be gone. He already considered what letters and documents he was going to need for his task. He planned for success.

In the next part of this study, Nehemiah arrives in Jerusalem. How does he prepare for the task of rebuilding the walls? How would he rally the people of the city to join him?  The answers are coming in part 4. 

Nehemiah: Building Walls & Gates. part 2

A Burden and a Prayer

Nehemiah had received bad news about the Jews that returned from exile to the homeland of Judah. The walls of Jerusalem had been torn down. The gates were burned. The Jews were vulnerable to attack and living in fear, frustration, and sorrow. How would Nehemiah react? What would he do?

Nehemiah 1:4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. 
Nehemiah had a burden- a burden given to him by God for the people and city of Jerusalem. When God gives a person a burden, it's not just to make them feel bad or compassionate. God places a burden when He wants to use someone to act and carry out His will. So naturally, Nehemiah was sad. He mourned and cried. But then he did exactly what a person with a burden should do. He sought to hear from God. He fasted and prayed. 

Fasting is an act of repentance. It is something anyone can do when they are frustrated and not sure what else to do. Fasting helped Nehemiah to focus on the problem, and on God. When you have fasted, you can pray more effectively.

Chapter 1 verses 5-11 records the prayer of Nehemiah. It is one of the great prayers recorded in the Bible- a model of how to intercede in prayer for a city, people, or a cause. This prayer can be studied by breaking it into elements, or different parts, which work together for effective intercessory prayer.

1- DIRECT THE PRAYER. 
1:5 O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands.
In the first part of the prayer, Nehemiah directs the prayer with a powerful phrase that implies warfare. He then reminds God of His covenant with His people. God did not need to be reminded of His covenant. Nehemiah was stating that he knew God's covenant promises. But then he says that God’s people must obey His commands to be entitled to those covenant promises.

2- INTENSIFY THE PRAYER. 
1:6a ...hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel.
Nehemiah was ready to pray intensively until he received an answer from God. He was not going to stop, and he was letting God know it.

3-IDENTIFICATION OF THE PRAYER
1:6b  I confess that we have sinned against you. Yes, even my own family and I have sinned!
Nehemiah let God know he was bearing the blame, along with the children of Israel, for the sin that led to what was happening.

4- CONFESSION IN THE PRAYER
1:7 We have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations...
In confessing sin, Nehemiah was asking God to forgive Israel for breaking the covenant. By asking for forgiveness, he was asking for restoration to a covenant relationship with God.

5- INSISTENCE OF THE PRAYER
1:9 'Remember what you told your servant Moses...if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have chosen for my name to be honored.’
Nehemiah was calling on God to remember the covenant promise spoken to Moses. He was in effect saying, "Here are your people God. You redeemed us with your hand. Remember us now." He was claiming the covenant promise of God now, in this time of need.

6- INTENTION OF THE PRAYER
1:11a  O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you.
In some Bible versions, the word "fear" is used in place of "honoring" in the above verse. The word is derived from the Hebrew word Yare'. It means reverencing God for His awesome power. Nehemiah wanted the name of God to be vindicated in the land of Judah. Remember that the Jews there were being shamed because their God was not taking care of them. The intention of Nehemiah's prayer was to have God's name honored, respected, and revered.

7- THE PETITION OF THE PRAYER
1:11b Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.”
Nehemiah was petitioning God to grant him success, to prosper him, with the intention of reverencing and honoring God's name. He wanted Israel and the rest of the world to be awed by God's presence in His people. After Nehemiah had mourned, fasted, and prayed, he was prepared to act on the burden he had. His plan of action obviously involved the King of Persia, because he asked for God's intervention to have the king's favor and kindness.

After the end of his prayer, in the last part of the last verse in chapter 1, Nehemiah adds a very important piece of information.
1:11c In those days, I was the cupbearer to the king.
This explains why Nehemiah was in the palace in Susa. He was the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes. The cupbearer is a trusted loyal servant to the king. Besides serving drinks, the cupbearer was responsible for making sure the drinks were safe. Poisoning was a common means of assassination. The cupbearer would taste the drinks before they were served. 

Nehemiah was a Jew in a unique position. He had daily access to the king of Persia. He was a trusted, respected, and loyal servant. He was in a time and place to seek the king's favor for the Jewish people. This was not the first time a Jew was uniquely positioned to influence the king of Persia. It happened forty years earlier, in the same city and in the same palace.  The Jewish queen Esther was placed in that time and place to seek favor from the Persian ruler, King Ahasuerus, to save the Jews of her time. Forty years after those events recorded in the Book of Esther, the cupbearer Nehemiah would seek favor from King Artaxerxes, the son of the king in Esther's time.

What kind of favor was Nehemiah seeking from the king? How would he approach the king to seek that favor? What could Nehemiah do to help the Jewish people and bring reverence to God? These questions and more will be covered in part 3 of this study. 

Nehemiah: Building Walls & Gates. part 1

Introduction and Background

This is a detailed study of the first 6 chapters of the Book of Nehemiah, which tells the account of Nehemiah going to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and gates of the city. This study also discusses the relationship between the name and function of the gates of Jerusalem to ministries in the church today. I originally wrote this Bible Study about 8 years ago, so this is a rewrite and revision of the original. Because it is lengthy and detailed, I am breaking it into multiple parts. I will write and publish a part every 2 or 3 weeks until it is completed.

If the books of the Bible were arranged in historical order, from longest ago to most recent, the Book of Nehemiah would be the last book in the Old Testament. It contains the last events recorded before the birth of Christ in the New Testament. The events in the Book of Nehemiah occurred from 444 B.C. to 432 B.C. This was over 400 years before the birth of Christ, and a thousand years after the time of Moses. To get a fuller and more complete understanding of Nehemiah, you need to know what events shaped the middle eastern world and particularly the Jewish people of that time. 

About 150 years before the time of Nehemiah, the Babylonian empire, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, invaded and conquered the land of Judah. When the Babylonians conquered a land, they plundered it's wealth, stealing everything of value, and destroyed public buildings.  They leave the conquered territory wasted and useless. This is what they did to the city of Jerusalem. They destroyed the city and tore down the once glorious Temple of Solomon. In addition, they carried away most of the population into captivity to Babylon, to be servants and slaves. 

In about 550 B.C., Cyrus, the king of Persia, overthrew Nebuchadnezzar's empire and became ruler over the middle eastern world. The Persians kings implemented a policy of rebuilding conquered lands and then collecting taxes from them. They encouraged the captive Jews to return to their homeland. 

The capital city of the Persian Empire was Susa. In the world today, Susa would be in western Iran, about 31 miles from the border with Iraq. The journey from Susa to Jerusalem was a thousand-mile trip going through areas now in Iraq, Syria, and then Israel. It took about 4 months to complete the journey.

The first large group of 50,000 exiles returned with political and religious leader Zerubabbel, in 536 B.C.  Many years later, in 457 B.C., a 2nd large group returned with Ezra the Scribe. By 444 B.C., only 2 or 3 % of the Jews in the land of Persia had migrated back to Judah. Conditions in the Jewish homeland were too dangerous and hostile for most of them to consider going back. It was at this point that God raised up Nehemiah, and the historical account in the Book of Nehemiah begins. 

THE OPENING

Nehemiah 1:1-3  These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was at the fortress of Susa. Hanani, one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in Jerusalem. They said to me, “Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates have been destroyed by fire."

Nehemiah identifies himself as the writer, and that he lived in the palace of the Persian King Artaxerxes, in the capital city of Susa (we will find out why he lives there at the end of chapter 1). He meets with a brother and other men that just returned from Jerusalem, and asks about the conditions there. Nehemiah is told that the people of Jerusalem are in trouble and disgrace and that the walls and gates of the city are torn down and destroyed.

The Hebrew word translated in the 3rd verse as "great trouble" is ra'. It is a complex word with multiple definitions attached to it. First, it means adversity. The conditions in Jerusalem were hostile. The Jews were being subjected to all kinds of bad things. They were being raided and robbed. Women were being raped and molested. They had no protection. The second meaning is hurting. They were suffering because of the condition they lived in.  The third meaning is sorrow. They were filled with frustration and great sorrow.

The Hebrew word used for "disgrace" in verse 3, is Cherpah. The word can be defined as disgraceful. But the word has a connotation or picture image associated with it needed to understand its full meaning. That picture image is of a wagging finger of shame in your face. They were being taunted as if saying "Look how your god is taking care of you now."

Nehemiah was told that the walls of the city had been torn down. The city and its people had no protection from the outside. Enemies from the outside raided the city and plundered the people at will. The city's inhabitants lived in fear, insecurity, and frustration.  The news was very bad. The reaction from Nehemiah, and what he plans to do about it will be covered in part 2 of this study. 

END

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Much of the source material for this study comes from the following:

"Studies in Nehemiah"  book by Dr. Ronald E. Cottle. 1997
Syllabus and Study Guide for the course "Studies in Nehemiah," by Dr. Ronald E. Cottle