Nehemiah 2:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Why should not my countenance be sad, &c.— There is a piety due to one's own country, which cannot be extinguished by the pleasure or plenty of any other. It is no weakness to be deeply affected with the misfortunes or for the death of our nearest friends and relations, at what distance soever we are from them; nor can any prosperity in another country hinder or excuse a man from being grieved for a calamity which befals his own. Nehemiah was in no mean station when he was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes; and we may very reasonably believe, by the grace and bounty which the king shewed him, that he might have had great preferment in that flourishing empire, if he had asked it; yet, when that great king discerned that there was sorrow of heart in his countenance, and demanded the reason of it, he made no other excuse than this: the place of my fathers' sepulchres lieth waste: and when the king so graciously invited him to ask some favour worthy of his royal bounty, he would require nothing else but, Send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it. A generous spirit can think of nothing but relieving his country, while it is under a general misery, and calamity. Note; (1.) When we take in hand God's work, we cannot but be deeply concerned for the success. (2.) The afflictions of God's church and people draw forth the sympathetic tear from every friend of Zion. (3.) In our passage through this mortal vale, the best of men must expect to meet with trials. (4.) There is a king who minutes our sorrows, and will not suffer us to mourn long.