1:3 the walls had been ruined by Samaritan opposition- cp. Ezra 4:12. This isn't a reference to what the Babylonians did.

1:6 eyes open- an allusion to 1 Kings 8:29, where the understanding was that God's eyes would be open to the temple. But Nehemiah understands now that God's eyes are open

directly to his prayer. He was brought and led to the understanding that direct personal contact with God is possible without the trappings of religion- even the religion which He has

instituted. We're all brought to the same. Notice Nehemiah's loneliness and being alone with God in 2:12-16.

1:7,8- see on Ex. 34:27

1:9 If ye turn... This is grace; Judah in captivity didn't keep the commandments, but the regathering was done anyway, such was God's yearning for His people.s

1:11 grant him mercy in the sight- these 3 Hebrew words are taken from 1 Kings 8:50: " And forgive thy people that have sinned
against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee, and give them compassion before
them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them: ". Nehemiah knew those words, and had thought and
prayed himself into the situation; so it was appropriate to quote them. Prepared prayer should involve such relevant
Bible quotations.

1:11 attentive- s.w. 2 Chron. 6:40; 7:15, where we read of God being "attentive" to prayers offered in the temple. But Nehemiah
is praying in Babylon, not in the temple. The desperation of the situation made him learn a lesson- that God wasn't only
accessible in the temple. This may sound obvious to us, but it wasn't for those used to the temple cult. The lesson is that God
uses punishments for sin, hard situations, to break our paradigms and lead us to a greater spirituality- if we will follow. S.w.
also Neh. 9:34- Israel weren't "attentive" to God's word, but in their time of need they hoped He would be "attentive" to their
word of prayer. And He was. His grace isn't 'measure for measure'; He treats us out of proportion to our attentiveness to Him.
We must show the same grace.

2:2 sad- s.w. 1:3 affliction. Nehemiah was so identified with his people that their situation was his, to the point of it subconsciously

affecting his body language. Likewise the Lord Jesus bore our sins and human condition in His own body on the cross; His identification

with us is to be reflected in our identification with others, to the point that their condition affects our body language.

2:4-6 . Neh. 2:4,5 have many similarities with Esther 4:8; 5:14; 8:5; as 2:2 fearful of being sad before the King = Esther 4:2 not allowed to come before the King in sackcloth. Neh. 2:6 the queen = Esther? Clearly her example inspired Nehemiah.

Making request before the King for his people (Neh. 2:4)	Making request before the King for her people (Es. 4:8)
after fasting (Neh. 1:4)	after fasting (Es. 4:16)
If it please the King and if I have found favour in his eyes (Neh. 2:5)	If it please the King and if I have found favour in his eyes (Es. 8:5)

3:4 The Hebrew words for “next” and “repaired” are the same two words translated ‘hand’ and ‘to strengthen’ in the common statement in Ezra and Nehemiah that God’s hand strengthened the hands of His people (Ezra 6:22; 7:28 etc.). The idea may be that they not only worked next to each other physically, but they encouraged each other, strengthening the hands of their brethren as God had strengthened their hands.

Neh. 4:5 "Let not their sin be blotted out from before Thee"- both good and bad works are written in the book of life.

"The heavenly host bows down before you" (Neh. 9:6) - a reference to the court of Heaven.

The elohim "found" Abraham's heart to be faithful (Neh. 9:8). This was by a process of research and drawing of conclusions, just as they did with the case of Sodom in Gen. 18. And our Angels are in the process of doing the same with us this very day.

9:19-24 see on Hag. 2:4

9:20- see on 1 Sam. 10:9

It may be fair comment on the character of Samson that he was a man who never quite made it, and therefore didn't achieve the potential deliverance which would have been possible. However, this must dovetail with the fact that Israel's deliverance at the hands of the judges was related to their crying to Yahweh in faith and repentance (Neh. 9:27,28). It seems that they did precious little of this during the time of Samson, from what we know of them from the record. Therefore Samson didn't deliver them as far as he potentially could have done. And yet in God's perfect planning, this worked together with the fact that Samson himself limited the deliverance he could achieve by his moral weakness.

Neh. 9:28,31 use the same Hebrew word for forsake / abandon in two senses. “You abandoned them to the hand of their enemies...but in your great mercy you did not abandon them” (N.I.V.). God forsook Israel, but heard them when they cried and came back to them; but in the ultimate sense He did not forsake them because of His grace and mercy. Thus Zion feels forsaken by God, but ultimately realizes this was never the case (Is. 49:14). It will then seem as just for a small moment that God forsook her (Is. 54:6,7). So when we read in Neh. 9:28 that “You abandoned them”, it may be that this is God talking through the perceptions of His people- they thought He had abandoned them, He appeared to have abandoned them, when He ultimately hadn’t. And this was one of Israel’s experiences which God’s Son suffered on the cross.

In Nehemiah’s time, the people “separated themselves from the peoples of the lands unto the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters…they clave to their brethren” (Neh. 10:28,29). Close fellowship with one’s brethren arises from having gone out from the surrounding world, unto the things of God’s word. That, at least, was the theory. In reality, those exiles who returned found this separation very difficult. In fact, the account of Judah’s separation from the surrounding peoples reads similar to that of the purges from idolatory during the reign of the kings.

11:1 The holy city- The first time Jerusalem is called this. The reference is surely to Joel 3:17, where Joel prophesied that upon Israel's repentance, Jerusalem would be "holy" because of Yahweh's presence there- the situation envisaged at the end of Ezekiel 48, where the restored city was to be renamed because of Yahweh's presence there. Yet the restoration prophecies were only partially fulfilled, despite Nehemiah's efforts to bring about their fulfillment. Paradoxically, the Jews had to be as it were forced to live in Jerusalem, where Yahweh's special presence was intended to be seen after the restoration. And Ps. 122:6,9 had predicted that those who loved Zion would prosper; but the returned exiles preferred to have their own land outside of Jerusalem in the belief that this would lead to more personal prosperity for them. Haggai's critique of them makes the same point- that they preferred to build their own homesteads on their own land, rather than build the Lord's house.

Nehemiah was inspired by Samson (Jud. 16:28 = Neh. 13:22,31)