This book is historically 12 or 13 years subsequent to the last chapters of the book of Ezra, and except that Malachi may be a little later, it gives the last view of the children of Israel in the Old Testament, as to their current history. Like Ezra, Nehemiah was found among' the captives in Persia; and like him, his heart was on his people in the land of Israel, the remnant that had returned from the Babylonian captivity. Nehemiah was at Shushan, the scene of the chief events of the book of Esther, and over two hundred miles east of Babylon, when certain men of Judah came with news of the Jews that were left of the captivity concerning Jerusalem.
The story they told filled Nehemiah's heart with sorrow, and he sat and wept, and mourned, fasted and prayed, confessing sins of the nation, and seeking help from God in speaking to the king about the matter.
As the king's cupbearer, Nehemiah occupied a position of responsibility and importance, but he was not thinking of what he might do there, but of being identified with his people, the people of God. Like Moses, he was prepared to surrender the present prospect, for the future, to give up the king’s court for the companionship of those that were the people of God; he looked past man, however exalted, and however influential, to God, in whom is all power to act for His own.
It was Israel's sins that had brought upon them the humbling, the affliction, the reproach, as it is the unfaithfulness of the people of God in the present dispensation of grace, that explains the divided and shamefully low state of His Church today. Yet God is faithful (1 Cor. 1:99God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9); Tim. 2:13), and He is always the resource of His own (1 Peter 3:1212For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. (1 Peter 3:12)).
Nehemiah knew this, and prayed, but his sadness was not removed, because he was in grief over the state of the people of God; a deep sense of the ruin that had taken place was upon him.