When I heard all this, I sat down and wept. For several days I mourned and did not eat. I prayed to God…
I never experience this depth of emotion. Is there something that isn’t quite right with me, Father?
The emperor asked, “What is it that you want?”
What those in authority have to ask all day long. Perhaps it better to remain in obscurity.
So far I had not said anything to any of the other Jews—the priests, the leaders, the officials, or anyone else who would be taking part in the work. But now I said to them, “See what trouble we are in because Jerusalem is in ruins and its gates are destroyed! Let’s rebuild…”
Nehemiah going to the Jewish leaders makes me think of Moses doing the same (Exodus 12:21). The reality back then, though, is that the communication was almost exclusively with Pharaoh.
I answered, “The God of Heaven will give us success. We are his servants, and we are going to start building. But you have no right to any property in Jerusalem, and you have no share in its traditions.”
The same mentality in Ezra 4:3.
They dedicated the wall as far as the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel.
Why would one dedicate a wall? What does it even mean to dedicate something? How is it done?
Tobiah was standing there beside him, and he added, “What kind of wall could they ever build? Even a fox could knock it down!”
I prayed, “Hear how they make fun of us, O God! Let their ridicule fall on their own heads. Let them be robbed of everything they have, and let them be taken as prisoners to a foreign land. Don’t forgive the evil they do and don’t forget their sins, for they have insulted us who are building.”
Reminiscent of Ezekiel’s prayer but there, the offense cited is against God (2 Kings 19:14-19). There will always be opposition. We have to expect it.