Commentaria in II Esdrae (Nehemiam)
Chapter 1. Synopsis of the Chapter
Nehemias, having heard of the afflictions of the Jews in Judea, mourns and groans, and with fasting and prayers implores God’s help.
1. The words of Nehemias the son of Helchias. And it came to pass in the month of Casleu, in the twentieth year, that I was in Susan the castle. 2. And Hanani one of my brethren came, he and some men of Juda: and I asked them concerning the Jews that remained, who were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 3. And they said to me: They that have remained, and are left of the captivity there in the province, are in great affliction and reproach: and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. 4. And when I had heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days: and I fasted, and prayed before the face of the God of heaven. 5. And I said: I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the strong, great and terrible, who keepest covenant and mercy with them that love thee, and keep thy commandments: 6. Let thy ears be attentive, and thy eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee this day, night and day, for the children of Israel thy servants; and I confess the sins of the children of Israel, by which they have sinned against thee: I and my father’s house have sinned. 7. We have been seduced by vanity, and have not kept thy commandment, and the ceremonies and judgments which thou didst command Moses thy servant. 8. Remember the word which thou didst command Moses thy servant, saying: If you transgress, I will scatter you among the nations; 9. but if you return to me, and keep my commandments, and do them, though you should be led away to the farthest parts of the heaven, I will gather you from thence, and bring you back to the place which I have chosen, that my name might dwell there. 10. Now these are thy servants, and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great strength, and by thy mighty hand. 11. I beseech thee, O Lord, let thy ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name; and direct thy servant this day, and grant him mercy before this man; for I was cupbearer to the king.
1. The words of Nehemias. Nehemias speaks here, and relates his own deeds for the Jews and writes them down as he relates them. Hence it is clear that he is the author of this book. Note: Nehemias under Cyrus had led the Jews back from Babylon to Jerusalem with Zorobabel; soon, when Cambyses the son of Cyrus hindered the building of the city and the temple, he returned to Babylon, and by his industry, holiness and obedience bound King Artaxerxes to himself and to the Jews.
In the month of Casleu (which corresponds partly to our November, partly to December), in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes—not Mnemon, as Scaliger and Pererius would have it, but Longimanus, as interpreters commonly teach.
And I was in Susan the castle. Susa was the seat and royal city of Artaxerxes and of the kings of the Persians, so called from lilies and the fertility of lilies; for susan is a lily. See what I said on Daniel 8:2. This city was very strongly fortified, and therefore is called a castle.
2. And Hanani, one of my brethren, came—that is, of my fellow tribesmen, namely one descended from the tribe of Levi, from which I descend.
3. And the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire—by the Chaldeans, 4 Kings, last chapter, verse 10. But Nehemias already knew this, indeed had seen it, when he returned to Jerusalem under Cyrus. Hence it seems that the Jews under Darius Hystaspes, while building the temple, at the same time restored the city, the walls and the gates with light work. For where would so many thousands of Levites and priests serving the temple, and of citizens brought back from Babylon, have dwelt safe and secure, if not in a Jerusalem girt with walls and closed with gates? Here it appears that, after Nehemias’s return from Jerusalem to Babylon, the Samaritans and other enemies of the Jews invaded Jerusalem, broke down the walls and burned the gates; and Hanani here announces this to Nehemias, who, hearing it, groaned, and bewailed the calamity of his country, which he dearly loved. For many of the Jews who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem seem, when they saw the desolation of the city and the frequent assaults of the enemy, to have gone back to Babylon, and therefore it was easy for the enemies to break down the walls of the city and burn the gates; not so the temple, because this was like a citadel and was stoutly defended by a few Jews fighting for their altars and hearths.
9. The farthest parts of heaven—that is, the farthest regions of the earth; for what are the farthest things on our horizon seem to touch the extremity of the curved and rounded heaven. So judges the eye of the common people, to whose perception Scripture sometimes conforms itself. The Septuagint renders it, at the summit of the foundation of heaven—that is, from that part where heaven seems to be founded and as it were to rest upon and lean down on the edge of the earth. So it is said in Deuteronomy the ends of the earth, which seem to be like hinges supporting heaven; “if thou shalt be scattered, from thence he will bring thee back.”
10. Whom thou hast redeemed—oftentimes from the yoke of the Philistines, the Ammonites, the Madianites, etc., as is clear from the book of Judges and of Kings.
11. And grant him (me, Nehemias) mercy before this man —King Artaxerxes, whose cupbearer I am, that I may obtain from him what I desire to ask when occasion is given, namely the restoration of Jerusalem.
from the servitude of the Egyptians,