The Book of Nehemiah: Expository Commentary from Sermons by Dr Peter Masters

Bible Commentary on The Book of Nehemiah

by Dr Peter Masters, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (adapted from sermons)

The Book of Nehemiah is traditionally regarded as having been authored by Ezra and he, if he was the author, would have worked from Nehemiah’s records, his memoirs. Ezra the scribe and priest had unique access, because of his position, to Persian records and of course he would have written under the direction of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The book is written – and this is one of the reasons why it is thought to be taken from Nehemiah’s own memoirs – as from Nehemiah, and it records his work in the reformation of affairs in Jerusalem and Judah.

This book starts in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes. It is around 445, 446 BC and Nehemiah becomes aware of the state of affairs in Jerusalem and in Judah. Nehemiah, though he was a Jew, was a principal officer of state in the Persian government of King Artaxerxes. It seems that a number of the fairly high-level visitors in the court of Artaxerxes had been to visit those provinces and had visited Jerusalem and the neighbouring lands, all under the Persian Empire. The report that they bring back fills Nehemiah with consternation at the state of God’s people and of Jerusalem, and he determines to ask king Artaxerxes for permission to go to Jerusalem to implement reforms and to organise the rebuilding of the walls of the city. He had been proceeded in a forthcoming visit to Jerusalem by Ezra, and through Ezra’s instrumentality the temple in Jerusalem was reconstructed. But of course it was a minimal reconstruction; it was altogether inferior to the temple that had been destroyed years previously.

The first twelve chapters cover Nehemiah’s governorship of Jerusalem and that region of Judah, appointed by the emperor, the king of Persia, and all that he was able to do. Then there is something of a gap between chapter 12 and chapter 13, while Nehemiah went back to Artaxerxes at the agreed time, and to his duties at the royal palace, before returning and finding that all the good order that had been established in Jerusalem had broken down, and things had to be set right all over again.

During the interval, while Nehemiah was miles away back at the palace of Susa; Malachi prophesied, warning the people and the priests concerning their sin, and then Nehemiah returns. So strictly you could take off the last chapter of the book of Nehemiah if you wanted a chronological Bible, and you could transport it down to after Malachi, because the last chapter of Nehemiah, or most of it, would have been written after Malachi's prophecy. So chapter 13 of Nehemiah would be the last part of inspired Scripture in the Old Testament. But the first twelve chapters cover Nehemiah’s twelve years as governor, then he has the long absence, and he returns, and that's the close of the Old Testament, the last portion of his work.

If there is any book in the Bible, which is about recovery from decline, it is this book of Nehemiah, and the book of Ezra which proceeds it. These are the specialist topics of these two books. Originally in the Hebrew Bible, they were really one book, although quite separate obviously. Ezra describes the rebuilding of the temple, and then Nehemiah tells us of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Ezra enacted various reforms, some of which had broken down in just a very few years before Nehemiah came. Nehemiah too affected reforms, and he went away for just for a short while, and by the time he returned his reforms or many of them had already broken down. So decline is very difficult to recover from, because people become set in decadent ways and often there is a wave of reformation, an improvement, and then back it slips, almost immediately, and you see this kind of cycling affect here in these two books. There are great principles here, which teach us what has to be in mind if recovery is ever to be affected.

We are going to see the remedies to correct a bad state of affairs in a community of faith, in a church. We are going to see through this book the necessity of ministry in the church. We going to see the countermeasures of Satan. As Nehemiah under God carries out certain reforms, the methods that Satan uses to slow them down, or stop them, or reverse them. We going to see the kind of faith and dependence upon God, which is vital to the reformer, to his servant throughout this book.

Nehemiah – what a remarkable servant of God he was, yet he is not mentioned anywhere else. Only here, and he is not quoted in the New Testament, so his work was not of a prophetic nature that would be enshrined and go on; his work was very practical on the spot in Jerusalem, and yet he was a deeply spiritual man.

Nehemiah obviously was a man of prayer, so he could be promoted and promoted and promoted, and used of God. He was given an advanced position to help the cause. Surely when Nehemiah wanted promotion, he didn't want it for himself. He wanted it and he took it, because it would help the cause, and give him scope to represent his countrymen. He remained humble in his own eyes – and there are several indications of that in this book. He totally identified with the prosperity of the work of God with Zion, with Jerusalem. Oh that we could do that and be much more concerned about our Saviour and his work and the gospel and lost souls and young lives, than ever we are about feathering our nests, or getting possessions.

Then also, he was ready to be used himself. As he prays, he is ready to go. When you pray for a person, are you willing to be the one who will be instrumental in helping them to understand the things of God, if the opportunity comes? Or are you only praying for people on the basis that you won't be the one who has to present the gospel or give an act of witness, or help them through? Nehemiah saw sin in the problems facing Israel. That was the reason for the failure of the work of God. He knew the Scriptures. He could quote the promises of God, almost verbatim. He believed the promises; he used emergency prayer. He had a good record in his conduct, and everything he did in his secular work, you may say, and his prayer was answered, and he was used.