Nehemiah 1:11 Commentary and Bible Study

It is Nehemiah’s prayer and it is the prayer of ‘thy servants, who desire to fear thy name.’ That is a little clue that Nehemiah was not alone. There are those who want to see better things and who are joining in prayer with Nehemiah. He had shared his concerns with others, it would appear. There was quite a prayer group involved, perhaps in Shushan the palace but elsewhere also. Or perhaps Hanani had told him there were people praying in Jerusalem for a turn of events, because he asks for God to answer his prayer and the prayer of others also. These are people who ‘desire to fear thy name:’, to restore reverence, ‘and prosper.’ Actually, that is an extraordinary term in the Hebrew, which is translated ‘prosper’. Not to criticise the translation here, but in the Hebrew the word means something like ‘go through’, or ‘reach the goal’. The praying band were people who desired to fear thy name and go through, reach the goal. The goal is the restoration of Jerusalem, which is in turn, the restoration of the name and the fame of God in the world. To restore reverence for God, first of all among the Jews, and then projected further afield, and he wished to reach that goal. ‘I pray thee, prosper thy servant this day.’ We are coming to the great point of the prayer. You discover that the endpoint is going to be Nehemiah offering himself. That is what he says. Then he tells us, ‘for I was the king's cupbearer’ – a most significant position, a trusted high official, a man in whom the king placed enormous trust. This is Nehemiah’s humble and diffident, but necessary reference to his elevated status in the empire. What would the king's response be? He was capable of being extremely angry. He was a despot. He was capable of the being furious at the idea that a trusted official should leave his side and want to go off and serve his conquered people far away. It was a tremendous risk to ask for a seal of office – because this is really what Nehemiah did – and go and be the governor of Jerusalem for a period of years, twelve years. It will be uppermost in the king’s mind: ‘How long? What are you talking about? How long?’ But Nehemiah is ready to risk himself and to do this work for the Lord, and you see this beautiful construction in the prayer. How Nehemiah understands prayer and we learn from him. He prays to a great God. He realises there are conditions to be honoured. He prays so as to show that he is in earnest, and he really feels and means this. He prays with a goal, with a view to the glory of God, and it gives himself. This first chapter of the Book of Nehemiah sets the scene. It is the call, you might say, of a servant of God, the call of a reformer, the call of a preacher, the call of a Sunday school teacher or of any witnessing Christian. Later we will come to the astonishing things that Nehemiah was confronted with, and had to deal with, and the blessing and power of God as he did so.