Nehemiah 1:8 Commentary and Bible Study

We haven't heeded the warning of God through Moses, says Nehemiah in his prayer, and he quotes Deuteronomy 28:64: ‘If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations.’ He knows that has happened, and this is how he accounts for God’s covenant people being taken into captivity in Babylon. God has not failed to protect them; he has punished them for their transgressions. But it is the second part of God's word here that Nehemiah is interested in: ‘But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments’ – you are serious when you turn unto me, and strive to keep my commandments – ‘though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.’ Even here in God's promise, there are the conditions. If you sin, I will withdraw my blessing from you, as a church, as a community in their case. But if you repent and you mean it, I will come back to you. But only if you are going to represent me, and live for me, to seek my glory and serve me. If you're going to come back to me just in order to have happy homes, and happy families, and a happy life – those are all good things, but if that's all you want, God seems to say – don't count on me forgiving you and blessing you. You have got to have a purpose. ‘If you repent, I’ll gather them from thence, and bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.’ So Nehemiah understands this is all about bringing honour and glory to God.