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The Rebuilding of Jerusalem. In the 20th year of Artaxerxes I (445 or 444 BC), [7] Nehemiah was cup-bearer to the king. [8] Learning that the remnant of Jews in Judah were in distress and that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, he asked the king for permission to return and rebuild the city, [9] around 13 years after Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem in ca. 458 BC. [10]
The original text of this chapter is in Hebrew language. This chapter is divided into 18 verses. Daniel Smith-Christopher argues that "the presence of Ezra and the virtual absence of Nehemiah support the argument that chapter 8 is among [several] displaced chapters from the Ezra material", and suggests that "the original place for [this chapter] would logically have been between Ezra 8 and 9".
Nehemiah was passionate for the glory of God, so even while driven by empathy, before he formulated any plan, his first response was to pray to God. [16] Eight times in his prayer, Nehemiah uses the term servant to refer himself, the Jewish people or Moses, also to begin and to close his prayer, showing his 'reverential submission' to God. [17]
Nehemiah heard the Jewish people's complaints and got angry at the profiteering of the Jewish nobles and officials, especially those serving in the holy temple who were exempt from the heavy Persian taxes. Nehemiah assembled a public hearing and urged the nobles to restore confiscated fields and houses and forgive loans.
Sanballat hoped that Nehemiah would follow the logical action against the rumors of threats, the way he and his allies would do, that is, 'given to ambition, opportunistic maneuvering, and dedicated to self-preservation', but Nehemiah 'refused to become distracted by the ploy of politics' and kept his devotion to God. [13]
The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, largely takes the form of a first-person memoir by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws .
Nehemiah was considered to have been a member of the Great Assembly. [18] Since Nehemiah himself was a member, Samuel b. Marta, a pupil of Rav, quoted a phrase used by Nehemiah in his prayer (1:7) as originating with his colleagues. [19] Ezra was, of course, one of the members, and, according to Nehemiah 8, he was even regarded as the leader.
Now in the twenty and fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. [11]The month was Tishrei.The feast of tabernacles began on the fourteenth day of the month, and ended on the twenty-second, "all which time mourning had been forbidden, as contrary to the nature of the feast, which was to be kept with joy".