Nehemiah 1:2 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Nehemiah 1:2

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‘Hananai, one of my brethren’ came to him with disturbing news. This could be one of his literal brothers, or it could be a general expression: just one of his kinsman – ‘came, he and certain men of Judah.’ This person had just been to visit Judah, but Nehemiah asked him the state of affairs there. Now they would not normally have been introduced to the royal palace, so where and how it was that Nehemiah got to interrogate them, he does not say. But he was so concerned about Jerusalem, about Judah, and about his people. He asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped. Escaped? What had they escaped from? Many people think there must have been some kind of local invasion and captivity in order to be speaking like this, but nothing of the kind is mentioned in the Bible, and it may well be that this is his expression for the Jews that returned from captivity in Babylon, that remnant, that minority of Jews that took advantage of the edict of Cyrus. Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, had decreed that that the Jews should be allowed to return to their homeland, and probably this is who Nehemiah refers to. He says, they have escaped. Well what have they escaped from? The shame of captivity! Because while now the Jews were not in captivity, wherever they had been dispersed during the Babylonian captivity, they were now able to live in those regions freely, not as captives. What a shame it had been for the children of God to have been punished and dispersed, and not to be in Judah, not to be in the cities of Judah and in Jerusalem. So one can only imagine that this is an indication of Nehemiah's attitude that this whole captivity is a shameful incident. The Jews have been disobedient and put under judgement, and the fact that there are those going home is like an escape from the shame of being away from the place that God had promised to them, where they were to be a witness to the world, an ensign and a banner for the things of God. It's just one word, but it's interesting. Well, he asked concerning the Jews that had escaped which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. That was Nehemiah's great interest; he identified with the Jews. People ask, Why hadn't he returned? If he was so spiritually minded and so concerned? Wouldn't we have expected Nehemiah to have been one of the returnees to Jerusalem? One can only answer – and it's speculation – that his promotion in the Persian court was so unexpected and so rapid that he could not avoid it. In the position that he held he was able to do so much for the kingdom of Israel, for the Jews, that he and those who advised him had said, ‘You've got to stay; you must stay in the palace of the Persian Empire.’ That would be logical because he's one who identifies so closely with Jerusalem, yet he hasn't gone home as the more ardent and zealous of the Jews had done.

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Nehemiah 1:2 Commentary and Bible Study