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.