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Nehemiah
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Nehemiah’s Vocation (Neh 1:1–11)
Bibliography
Ararat, N. “Nehemiah’s Only Arrival in the Twenty-Fifth Year of Ezra’s Arrival (433 B.C.E.)” (Heb.). BMik 65 (1976) 293–95. Bickerman, E. J. “En marge de l’Écriture. I.—Le comput des années de règne des Achéménides (Néh., i, 2; ii, 1 et Thuc., viii, 58.” RB 88 (1981) 19–23. Deliceto, G. de. “Epoca della partenza di Hanani per Gerusalemme e anno della petizione di Neemia ad Artaserse. Neem. 1, 1 e Neem. 2, 1.” Laurentianum 4 (1963) 431–68. Kellermann, U. Nehemia, 8–11, 84–86, 154–59. Mowinckel, S. Studien II, 14–20. Rowley, H. H. “Nehemiah’s Mission and Its Background.” Men of God, 211–45. ———. “Sanballat and the Samaritan Temple.” Men of God, 246–76. Saley, R. J. “The Date of Nehemiah Reconsidered.” Biblical and Near Eastern Studies. Essays in Honor of William Sanford LaSor, ed. G. A. Tuttle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978, 151–65. Tuland, C. G. “Hanani—Hananiah,” JBL 77 (1968) 157–61. Vogt, H. C. M. Studie, 43–46. Yamauchi, E. M. “Was Nehemiah the Cupbearer a Eunuch?” ZAW 92 (1980) 132–42.
Translation
1The words of Nehemiah, son of Hecaliah:
In the month Kislev of the twentieth year, while I was in the fortress of Susa, 2Hanani, one of my brothers came with some other men from Judah. I asked them about the Jews—those who, having escaped, were left of the captivity—and about Jerusalem. 3They told me, “The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been broken down and its gates burned with fire.” 4When I heard this news I sat down and wept; for days I was in mourning; I fasted and prayed to the God of heaven.
5I said, “O Lord God of heaven, you great and awe-inspiring God, who keeps covenant and faitha with those who love him and observe his commandments, 6let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear your servant’s prayer which I nowa pray before you night and day on behalf of your servants the sons of Israel. I confess the sins of the sons of Israel which we have committed against you; even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7We have acted verya corruptly towards you: we have not observed the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. 8Remember the command which you gave to your servant Moses when you said, ‘If youa are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9but if you return to me and observe my commandments by keeping them, then, even if those of your number who have been banished are at the farthest horizon,a yet I will gather them from thence and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’ 10They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great power and your mighty hand. 11O Lord, let your ear be attentive to your servant’s prayer and to the prayer of your servants who delight to reverence your name and grant success to your servant today by giving him favor in this man’s presence.” Now I was the king’s cupbearer.
Notes
It is almost universally agreed that most of, if not all, the first-person material in the book of Nehemiah is taken directly from the Nehemiah Memoir, a work whose general form requires separate discussion (cf. Introduction, “The Nehemiah Memoir). Three items in the present chapter, however, require individual attention.
The first of these is the heading. It is most unlikely that the opening of the original Memoir coincided exactly with v 1. Most telling is the unqualified date, “the twentieth year.” While this raises problems of its own (see below), there must once have been a reference to the king’s reign (cf. 2:1). Since there is no textual evidence to suggest that this has subsequently dropped out (contra Rudolph), we must conclude that this points to the hand of the editor of the Ezra-Nehemiah material. When he combined the accounts of their activities, he assumed that, following Ezra 7:1, 7, etc, there was no need here to specify the reign again.
What precisely was included in the original heading is thus unknown to us. Many suppose that the information about Nehemiah’s status, now preserved in v 11b, must have stood at the start. In particular, Mowinckel, Studien II, 15, argues in favor of this conclusion on the basis of Ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions with which he compares the NM. While this view is certainly possible, it must not be concluded that v 11b itself can be removed; it provides a necessary and effective literary link between Nehemiah’s prayer and the subsequent narrative in chap. 2.
Since the opening words of the chapter include information about Nehemiah’s father not otherwise known to us, they too must have been part of the material inherited by the later editor. It is impossible now to tell, however, whether they were part of the memoir itself or a clerical note attached to it at an early time. Either way, however, influence from prophetic books, as suggested by Ackroyd, is unlikely at so early a stage in the composition.
We conclude, therefore, that with only a minimum of interference, the editor of the Ezra-Nehemiah material made clear the transition from one account to the other before following his new source very closely.
The second item of concern is Nehemiah’s prayer, vv 5–11a. A number of scholars, such as Hölscher, Mowinckel (
Studien II), Noth (
Studien), and
Schneider, have argued that this must be a later insertion into the NM; it is generally supposed to be the work of the Chronicler. Kellermann,
Nehemia, 9, has conveniently gathered and summarized their reasons: (i) The prayer deals generally with the question of exile and return rather than with the specific situation of this chapter; (ii) the use of
, “today,” in v 11 contradicts the long period mentioned in v 4 and already presupposes the account of chap. 2; (iii) the heavily Deuteronomic style betrays the hand of the Chronicler; (iv) the close comparison with Ezra 9 and Dan 9 rules out authorship by Nehemiah; (v) the divine name
(v 5) and the expression
“the sons of Israel” (v 6) are uncharacteristic of Nehemiah; (vi) the reference to “this man” in v 11 is inappropriate in such a memoir; (vii) the prayer is long by comparison with Nehemiah’s otherwise rather clipped style; (viii) some lexical items are thought to be typical of the Chronicler; and (ix) Mowinckel,
Studien II, 18, finds the retranslation of a brief prayer in Josephus’ account more suitable to the present context.
Many of these points are to be explained by the use of liturgical language in the prayer. (Others are dealt with in Comment below.) There is no adequate reason to doubt that at least as early as the time when he wrote the memoir—and perhaps even in the historical situation itself—Nehemiah could have used such stereotyped phraseology...
