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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Nehemiah 2:5
Comments
‘If it please the king.’ You are the king – if it's good in your sight, subject to your needs, your bidding, your will – that is key. Again Nehemiah is very polite. Secondly, ‘If thy servant have found favour in thy sight.’ If my work for you has commended itself so that you are ready to trust me. If Nehemiah had been an aggravating servant of the king, a forgetful servant of the king, an incompetent servant, he would have had no testimony, no favour, no influence. Nehemiah is conscious of those two things. The king is the king, and he has to be respected, and also he has to earn favours from the king. Then he comes to the point: ‘that thou would send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it.’ He wants to carry the king’s official seal in this mission; he wants to go under the protection of the king's authority. He would like the king’s direction, and he would like the king’s help.
Application
Do we find favour with people we work for, people we work with? Our testimony depends on finding favour. You cannot upset people or irritate people or let people down one minute, and testified to them the next. But Nehemiah with a clear conscience could say, ‘If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou would send me unto Judah.’ And he was sent to Judah as governor of Judah, where he remained for twelve years, and where we get the richest possible lessons for reviving a work, and the conditions, and the problems, and the hostility, and the setbacks and the enemies, and how there to be dealt with.
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