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Nehemiah 2

Chapter 2 in 30 seconds

The king notices Nehemiah's sad face and asks what is wrong. Nehemiah shoots up a quick prayer and asks to go rebuild. The king says yes and even pays for the lumber. Nehemiah rides around the broken walls at night, then tells the leaders, Let us build. The neighbors laugh.

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In this chapterThe Big QuestionSeventy Weeks and 445 BC · after verse 8 Field Notes · ArchaeologyThe Elephantine Papyri · after verse 16 MapJerusalem's Walls Rebuilt · after verse 20

Nehemiah Sent to Jerusalem

¹Now in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence, ²so the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, though you are not ill? This could only be sadness of the heart.”

NEH 2:1[NOTE]THE TWENTIETH YEAR. The month of Nisan in Artaxerxes' twentieth year was spring 445 BC. Many count Daniel's seventy weeks from this order. See the Big Question Seventy Weeks and 445 BC.
NEH 2:1[FIELD NOTES]See the Artaxerxes Field Notes page in Ezra.

I was overwhelmed with fear ³and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”

⁴“What is your request?” replied the king.

So I prayed to the God of heaven ⁵and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city where my fathers are buried, so that I may rebuild it.”

NEH 2:4[NOTABLE]The king asked a question, and Nehemiah shot up a prayer before he answered. You can pray in the middle of a conversation.

⁶Then the king, with the queen seated beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I set a time.

⁷I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may letters be given to me for the governors west of the Euphrates, so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah. ⁸And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house I will occupy.”

And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.

NEH 2:8[NOTE]THE PERSIANS PAID. The king's forest gave the beams for the gates, the wall and Nehemiah's house. That is what this book's subtitle is about. The people still did the work themselves.

The Big Question

Seventy Weeks and 445 BC

The Count

Nehemiah 2:1 to 8 · Daniel 9:24 to 27

THE PROPHECY: The angel Gabriel told Daniel that seventy weeks, seventy sevens, were set for Jerusalem. From the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an Anointed One, a ruler, would be seven weeks and sixty two weeks. After that the Anointed One would be cut off, Daniel 9:24 to 26.
WEEKS OF YEARS: Most read each week as seven years. Sixty nine weeks is 483 years.
WHICH WORD?: Four orders could be the start: Cyrus sends the Jews home, 538 BC, Ezra 1. Darius backs the temple, 520 BC, Ezra 6. Artaxerxes sends Ezra, 458 or 457 BC, Ezra 7. Artaxerxes sends Nehemiah to rebuild the city and its walls, 445 or 444 BC, Nehemiah 2.
WHY NEHEMIAH 2?: Those who start here say it is the only order about rebuilding the city itself, not just the temple. Others point to Isaiah 44:28, where God says Cyrus will order Jerusalem rebuilt. Nehemiah's order came in the month of Nisan, the spring of 445 BC.

Seventy Weeks and 445 BC · Every View

Luke 3:1 · 3:23 · 19:41 to 44 · Matthew 24:15

VIEW 1: 457 BC TO JESUS' BAPTISM: Many Protestant teachers start with Ezra's order, 457 BC. 483 years later is about AD 27, when Jesus was baptized and began to preach, Luke 3:1 and 3:23. They see Jesus cut off three and a half years later, in the middle of the last week.
VIEW 2: 445 BC TO PALM SUNDAY: Sir Robert Anderson, in 1881, started with Nehemiah 2 and counted years of 360 days, the length used in Revelation 11 and 12. He landed on the week Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Harold Hoehner later counted from 444 BC to AD 33. Many who hold this view say the last week is still to come.
VIEW 3: THE TIME OF THE MACCABEES: Many scholars start with Jeremiah's word or Cyrus and do not take the numbers as exact. They see the Anointed One cut off as Onias, a high priest killed in 171 BC, and the end in the days of Antiochus, 167 to 164 BC.
VIEW 4: JEWISH READINGS: Many Jewish teachers count from the first temple's fall to the second temple's fall in AD 70. They do not see Jesus in it.
JESUS AND THE TIMING: On Palm Sunday Jesus wept over Jerusalem because it did not know the time of its visitation, Luke 19:41 to 44. He also quoted Daniel about the abomination that causes desolation, Matthew 24:15.
WHAT ALL SIDES AGREE ON: Daniel tied God's timetable to a word to rebuild Jerusalem. The sides differ on which word, and on how to count the years.

⁹Then I went to the governors west of the Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.

¹⁰But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were deeply disturbed that someone had come to seek the well-being of the Israelites.

NEH 2:10[ARCHAEOLOGY]Elephantine Papyri
NEH 2:10[NOTE]SANBALLAT AND TOBIAH. Sanballat was governor of Samaria. Tobiah was an official from Ammon, east of the Jordan. See Who Were the Samaritans? in 2 Kings.

Nehemiah Inspects the Walls

¹¹After I had arrived in Jerusalem and had been there three days, ¹²I set out at night with a few men. I did not tell anyone what my God had laid on my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal with me was the one on which I was riding.

NEH 2:12[HEART]Nehemiah told no one what his God had put in his heart to do for Jerusalem.

¹³So I went out at night through the Valley Gate toward the Well of the Serpent and the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and the gates that had been destroyed by fire.

NEH 2:13[NOTE]THE NIGHT RIDE. Nehemiah rode out the Valley Gate on the west side and around the south end of the city. In places there was so much rubble his animal could not get through, 2:14.

¹⁴Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal under me to get through; ¹⁵so I went up the valley by night and inspected the wall. Then I headed back and reentered through the Valley Gate.

¹⁶The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews or priests or nobles or officials or any other workers. ¹⁷Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned down. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.”

Field Notes · Archaeology

The Elephantine Papyri

Nehemiah 2:10 · 2:19 · 4:1 to 2 · 12:22 · 13:28

The front of the letter to Bagohi, governor of Judah, written in Aramaic in 407 BC. Johanan and the sons of Sanballat are named on the back of the papyrus. Printed by Eduard Sachau in 1907. Public domain.

WHAT IT IS: Letters and contracts written in Aramaic on papyrus by a colony of Jewish soldiers and their families. They lived on Elephantine, an island in the Nile in southern Egypt, and guarded the border for the king of Persia. The page shows their most famous letter.
HOW OLD IT IS: The letter is dated to year 17 of King Darius, late in 407 BC. That is Darius II. Most think he is the Darius the Persian named in 12:22. It was written about 38 years after Nehemiah came to Jerusalem.
WHERE AND WHEN FOUND: German diggers found it on Elephantine in 1907, and Eduard Sachau printed it the same year. It is in a museum in Berlin.
WHAT THE LETTER SAYS: Egyptian priests had torn down the Jews' temple to Yahu, their name for Yahweh, in 410 BC. The Jewish leader Jedaniah and the priests begged Bagohi, the Persian governor of Judah, to let them rebuild it.
SANBALLAT'S SONS: The letter says they also wrote to Delaiah and Shelemiah, the sons of Sanballat, governor of Samaria. That is Nehemiah's enemy, 2:10. By 407 BC his sons were doing his work, which fits an old man who had been in power in 445 BC.
JOHANAN THE HIGH PRIEST: They had written earlier to Johanan the high priest in Jerusalem and his fellow priests, and got no answer. Johanan is in the list of high priests in 12:22, right after Joiada son of Eliashib. Most think he was Eliashib's grandson; 12:23 calls him his son, meaning descendant.
THE ANSWER: A short note records the reply from Bagohi and Delaiah: rebuild the house of the altar and offer grain offerings and incense there. Animal sacrifices are not mentioned. Some think Jerusalem's priests wanted those kept for the temple in Jerusalem. Others think it kept peace with the Egyptian priests of Khnum, a ram god.
WHAT IT DOES NOT PROVE: The letters never name Nehemiah. They show that Sanballat of Samaria and Johanan the high priest were real men, in the right places, at the right time.

CONFIDENCE: HIGH

¹⁸I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me, and what the king had said to me.

“Let us start rebuilding,” they replied, and they set their hands to this good work.

¹⁹But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked us and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

NEH 2:19[ARCHAEOLOGY]A silver bowl from Tell el Maskhuta in Egypt names Qaynu son of Geshem, king of Qedar, see The Geshem Bowl Field Notes page

²⁰So I answered them and said, “The God of heaven is the One who will grant us success. We, His servants, will start rebuilding, but you have no portion, right, or claim in Jerusalem.”

Nehemiah 2

Nehemiah Sent to Jerusalem

Nehemiah Inspects the Walls

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