Verses 1–3
Nehemiah - Chapter 1
Disturbing News. Verses 1-3
The opening words of the Book of Nehemiah claim it to be his words, an indication that he is its author, or that someone else copied his account to compile the book. He identifies himself only as the son of Hachaliah, who is otherwise not mentioned in the Bible. He must have been well known in that time. Again the reader should be impressed with the fact that who one is less important than what one is (Romans 12:3).
Chisleu was the Persian name of the ninth ecclesiastical month of the Jewish year. It corresponded to their third civil month, and is approximately the same as December in the modern calendar. The twentieth year refers to the twentieth of Artaxerxes, who reigned a total of forty years. It would have been about 444 B. C.
Nehemiah was ministering in his official capacity in Shushan, the Persian palace, when he received disturbing news from the Jewish homeland. Sushan is located about a hundred fifty miles north of the Persian Gulf in the old land of Ela It was the winter palace of the Persian kings. The Hebrew name means "lilies," so called, it is said, because it was surrounded by fields of lilies. The Greek name was Susa, the country Susiana. When uncovered by archaeologists in the nineteenth century the ancient code of Hammurabi was discovered there.
The news of Jerusalem’s desolation was brought to Nehemiah by Hanani, whom he calls, "one of my brethren," and "certain men of Judah." While the reference to "brethren" might simply be used of a fellow Jew, the added reference to "certain" other "men of Judah" at least suggests that Hanani was of the same parentage as Nehemiah. Some have thought these men had been sent from Jerusalem by Ezra seeking aid, but there is nothing in the text to imply this.
The news was to the effect that the city and its inhabitants were in a deplorable condition. They were afflicted and reproached by the pagan inhabitants living around them. The city walls were broken down and the gates had been burned. The question arises whether this was a condition still remaining from the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s razing of the city, or whether the remnant had repaired the wall only to have it destroyed again by enemies so prevalent around them. It should be remembered that it had now been some ninety years since the original remnant had left Babylon in the days of Cyrus. There had been, of course, ample time to have restored the walls and to have had them demolished again.
The student may also recall the general poverty of the returned Jews, implying their probable inability to raise the necessary materials for so formidable a task. Furthermore the likely paucity of news passing back and forth between the widely separated places may have kept Nehemiah from knowing before this of the condition of the city. When he later arrived in Jerusalem and made his survey of the walls the condition he found suggests a desolation of such magnitude as that brought on the city by Nebuchadnezzar, rather than by some local raid as might have occurred at a more recent time (see Nehemiah 2:12-16).