The wall—also is broken down, &c.— The commissions which had hitherto been granted to the Jews were supposed to extend no further than to the rebuilding of the temple, and their own private houses; and therefore the walls and gates of the city lay in the same ruinous condition in which the Chaldeans left them after that devastation.
REFLECTIONS.—Nehemiah, though nobly advanced at court, and honoured with a mansion in the palace of Shushan, still bore in his heart the welfare of Zion, and still preferred Jerusalem's prosperity before his chief joy. Note; God has sometimes his friends even in the palace; and, though a court is usually a soil too unfavourable to religious concerns, he had monuments of grace even in Nero's houshold.
1. Nehemiah, on the visit of some of his brethren to Babylon, probably to solicit some favour in behalf of the Jews, earnestly inquires after Jerusalem, and the returned captives who dwelt in it; but receives an afflicting narrative of their wretched situation: the city lying in its desolations, and the people under distress, insulted, oppressed, and reproached by their more powerful neighbours. Note; (1.) We must not, in our advancement, forget ourselves, and grow strange to our brethren because they may be poor or afflicted. (2.) The persecution of God's people, which discourages the unfaithful, awakens the greater zeal and concern of such as are true-hearted.
2. The melancholy account affected the good Nehemiah: the tears ran down his cheeks; and, in affliction, four days he fasted and prayed before the God of heaven, that he would remember their misery, and return to them in mercy. Note; (1.) In seasons of public or private calamities, fasting and weeping should accompany our prayers. (2.) It is a relief to the oppression of our own spirit, when with tears we can pour our complaints into the bosom of a compassionate God. (3.) While we have a God in heaven to go to, our deeper distresses are not desperate.