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God of heaven, he referred to the mighty king Artaxerxes as "this man", yet not with any
disrespect for he used the noblest Hebrew word he could, namely Ish.
Four months intervened between the report of Hanani and the request before the king.
Four months of waiting, of grieving, of praying. Whether Nehemiah had any plan which
he was waiting to put into effect, we cannot know, but the king observed the sadness of
the man, and knowing that he was not physically ill, his comment was, "This is nothing
else but sorrow of heart". Instead of saying, "Now I knew that I should be pitied by my
royal master", Nehemiah makes no secret of the fact that the king's command made him
"sore afraid". He promptly, yet respectfully, unburdened his heart before the king,
saying,
"Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the
place of my father's sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with
fire?" (Neh. 2: 3).
The Lord prospered the way of Nehemiah and the first obstacle was surmounted:
"For what dost thou make request?" (Neh. 2: 4).
This word, "make request", is often used to indicate prayer, for example, "To seek" by
prayer and supplication, as in Dan. 9: 3. Before Nehemiah prays the King's aid, he puts
up another prayer to the God of heaven, but this time, no analysis of it nor comparison
with Daniel's is possible for it was wordless and instantaneous.
"So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said unto the king" (Neh. 2: 4, 5).
Like Daniel, Nehemiah may have prayed regularly "three times a day" "toward
Jerusalem" (Dan. 6: 10) "kneeling on his knees". But Nehemiah knew that prayer was
something beyond and above all convention; without bodily movement or the upward
glance of an eye, without perceptible pause, he cast his all on God and spoke to the king.
Now, preparation for this very epoch-making movement had been made by God
Himself. Thirteen years previously, a Jewess, named Esther, had been taken by the King
and made queen instead of the deposed Vashti (Esther 2: 17). When the people of Israel
were threatened with extermination by the hatred of Haman, Mordecai, Esther's uncle,
even then realized the Lord's hand in the elevation of his niece to the throne, saying,
"Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
(Esther 4: 14).
Nehemiah's request was put before the king:--
"If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou
wouldst send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchers, that I may build it"
(Neh. 2: 5).
Before the record of the king's reply comes the parenthetical clause ("the queen also
sitting by him"). The more frequent word for "queen" is the Hebrew Malkah, but the
word here is Shegal, which occurs only in Psalm 45: 9; Dan. 5: 2, 3, 23, and in the