Theopedia

Nehemiah

So we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

— Nehemiah 4:6

Overview

The book of Nehemiah continues the history of the Jewish restoration after the Babylonian exile, opening with the report that Jerusalem’s walls lay broken and its gates burned nearly a century after the first exiles had returned under Cyrus.1 It narrates the rebuilding of the city’s walls under Nehemiah’s leadership, the public reading of the Law and the covenant renewal that followed, and the reforms Nehemiah carried out to secure that renewal against relapse.2 In the Hebrew canon the book was long transmitted as a continuation of Ezra rather than a separate work, and much of it is written in the first person as Nehemiah’s own record of his governorship.2

Author and Date

The book “as its title testifies, was written by Nehemiah,” not earlier than his return from the Persian court and likely later still, though how much later cannot be known.2 Nehemiah held the office of royal cupbearer to Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, before receiving the king’s commission in the twentieth year of his reign, usually dated to 446 BC, to travel to Jerusalem as Tirshatha, or civil governor, and rebuild its walls (Neh. 1:11-2:8).2 The chapters recounting the public reading of the Law and the covenant’s renewal (Neh. 8-10) differ enough in style and diction, and lack Nehemiah’s own characteristic turns of phrase, that some interpreters have judged Ezra, the chief actor in that transaction, to be their original author, with Nehemiah incorporating the account into his own memoir.2 Barrows found no serious objection to that possibility, while cautioning that arguments from style alone carry limited weight on such scanty evidence.2 A genealogical notice listing the high priests down to Jaddua (Neh. 12:10-11), a figure Josephus places in the generation that met Alexander the Great, is widely judged a later addition made after Nehemiah’s own lifetime.3

Historical and Literary Context

Nehemiah’s position as cupbearer placed him close to the Persian king’s person, a post of real influence that explains both his access to Artaxerxes and the king’s willingness to grant him leave, safe-conduct, and timber for the work (Neh. 2:1-8).2 His commission followed roughly ninety years after the first return under Zerubbabel and Ezra’s own arrival in Jerusalem, by which point the city’s walls still stood in ruins despite earlier, thwarted attempts at their repair.4

Once in Jerusalem, Nehemiah met sustained opposition from Sanballat, Tobiah, and their allies, who mocked the rebuilding effort, threatened armed attack, and pressed intrigues against Nehemiah personally throughout the project (Neh. 2:19; 4:1-23; 6:1-14).2 Sanballat’s letter accusing Nehemiah of plotting rebellion against Persia in order to make himself king (Neh. 6:6-7) was cited by Thomas Ridgley as an example of a slanderous charge “grounded on such slender evidence” that even the enemy who raised it could hardly have believed it himself.5 Alongside external opposition, Nehemiah confronted internal abuses among his own people, including usury practiced by wealthier Jews against their poorer countrymen, which he halted by his own example and by public rebuke (Neh. 5:1-13).2

Structure

The book falls into three divisions:2

  • The wall rebuilt amid opposition (chs. 1-7): Nehemiah’s grief on hearing of Jerusalem’s ruined walls, his prayer and commission from Artaxerxes, the rebuilding itself carried out under threat of attack, and his measures against usury; the work was completed in fifty-two days (Neh. 6:15). A genealogical list of the earlier returnees closes the section (Neh. 7:5-73).
  • The Law read and the covenant renewed (chs. 8-10): Ezra’s public reading of the Law of Moses before the assembled people at the Feast of Tabernacles, the people’s confession in Nehemiah 9, and the sealing of a covenant of obedience by the princes, Levites, and priests on behalf of the nation.2
  • Settlement and further reforms (chs. 11-13): measures to increase Jerusalem’s population, the dedication of the completed wall, and the correction of abuses, including some that had crept back in during Nehemiah’s absence at the Persian court.2

Major Themes

Prayer as the ground of Nehemiah’s leadership

Nehemiah’s first response to news of Jerusalem’s ruin was not action but prayer: “I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Neh. 1:3-4).6 Donald Whitney observed that only after this season of fasting did Nehemiah “set about doing something tangible and public to strengthen the work of God in Jerusalem,” a pattern of seeking God before acting that recurs throughout the book, including Nehemiah’s brief, silent prayer offered in the king’s presence before he ever spoke his request aloud (Neh. 2:4-5).6

Opposition overcome through God’s help

The surrounding peoples’ opposition to the wall’s rebuilding was violent and persistent, met at various points by ridicule, conspiracy, and the threat of armed attack (Neh. 4:1-23; 6:1-14).2 Nehemiah’s own account attributes the project’s survival not to the builders’ strength but to God: when the conspirators’ plan was exposed, “God had frustrated their plan” (Neh. 4:15). Loraine Boettner cited this same verse among his examples of God’s providential rule over the free acts of men, standing alongside similar testimony from Ezra’s own record of deliverance from ambush on the road to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:31).7

The Word publicly read and obeyed as the ground of covenant renewal

The center of the book’s second division is Ezra’s reading of the Law before the assembled people, followed by the congregation’s confession and their sealing of a covenant to keep it (Neh. 8-10).2 Micah McCormick argued that this covenant renewal deliberately mirrors Israel’s covenant reception at Sinai: the people’s pledge to obey (Neh. 10:28-39) echoes their earlier declaration, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Ex. 19:8), so that Nehemiah’s own generation re-enacts, on a smaller scale, the nation’s founding response to God’s Word.8

Related Doctrines

References

References

  1. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 260. ↩

  2. Barrows, 262: “The book of Nehemiah continues the history of the Jewish people after the restoration, beginning with the commission which Nehemiah received from Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, in the twentieth year of his reign (B.C. 446), to go to Jerusalem in the capacity of Tirshatha, or civil governor, for the purpose of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and setting in order the affairs of the commonwealth… The book, as its title testifies, was written by Nehemiah, not earlier than his return from the court of Persia (ch. 13:6; 5:14); how much later cannot be known. From the general character of style and diction which belongs to the second division (chaps. 8-10), as well as from the absence of Nehemiah’s peculiar forms of speech, some have thought that Ezra, as the chief actor in the reading of the law and renewal of the national covenant, wrote the account of the transaction, and that Nehemiah incorporated it into his work. To this supposition there is no serious objection.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14

  3. Barrows, 263: “The genealogical notice in ch. 12:10, 11, which gives the lineage of the high priests from Joshua to Jaddua, who is apparently the high priest described by Josephus as having met Alexander the Great on his march to Jerusalem, is thought by many to be an addition made after Nehemiah’s death as a matter of public interest.” ↩

  4. Barrows, 261. ↩

  5. Thomas Ridgley, A Body of Divinity, vol. 4, ed. James P. Wilson (Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1814), 49: “Thus Sanballat, in his letter to Nehemiah, tells him, that ‘he and the Jews thought to rebel; and built the wall of Jerusalem, that he might be their king,’ Neh. vi. 6. which, it can hardly be supposed, that the enemy himself gave any credit to.” ↩

  6. Donald S. Whitney, “Chapter 9: Fasting … for the Purpose of Godliness,” in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, anniversary ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2024): “As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. (NEHEMIAH 1:3-4) After his fast, Nehemiah then set about doing something tangible and public to strengthen the work of God in Jerusalem.” ↩ ↩2

  7. Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932), 29: “And the hand of our God was upon us, and He delivered us (the returning exiles) from the hand of the enemy and the lier-in-wait by the way,’ Ezra 8:31. ‘And God brought their counsel to naught,’ Nehemiah 4:15.” ↩

  8. Micah John McCormick, “Humanity’s Obedience for Eternal Life After the Fall,” in “The Active Obedience of Jesus Christ” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010), 151: “The covenant renewal under Nehemiah mirrors the covenant reception at Sinai. The people profess their allegiance and promise to obey (10:28-39), just as at Sinai they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do’ (Ex 19:8).” ↩