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Nehemiah 2 Bible study: Let's rise up and build
When Nehemiah told the mockers, "we, his servants, will arise and build" (2:20), he used, in Hebrew, the very words the people had just said: "Let’s rise up and build" (2:18). And his call to build (2:17) repeats, in Hebrew, words from the bad news he had wept over (1:3-4).
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“I told them about the hand of my God which was good on me, and also about the king’s words that he had spoken to me. They said, “Let’s rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work.”
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“When the king asked why his face was sad, Nehemiah says he was very much afraid.”
Is that in Nehemiah 2, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
A sad face in front of the king
The chapter opens at the king's table: "when wine was before him, I picked up the wine, and gave it to the king" (2:1). Chapter 1 had ended, "Now I was cup bearer to the king" (1:11). Then comes a small sentence that matters: "Now I had not been sad before in his presence" (2:1). The king notices at once: "Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart" (2:2). Nehemiah tells us how that felt: "Then I was very much afraid" (2:2). He answers anyway: "Let the king live forever! Why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates have been consumed with fire?" (2:3). He had ended his prayer in chapter 1 asking God to "grant him mercy in the sight of this man" (1:11). Chapter 2 brings him before the king.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Nehemiah 2
That was a taste
The rest of Nehemiah 2 is waiting in Favor
- A prayer between a question and an answer
- The same words as the bad news
- He looked before he spoke
- The good hand, from Ezra to Nehemiah
- Gates you'll meet again
- "Will you rebel against the king?"
- 8 questions as you read
- 13 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Nehemiah 2 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
טוֹבtovsay TOHV
Brown-Driver-Briggs gives the adjective as "pleasant, agreeable, good", and the feminine noun, tovah, as "welfare, benefit, good things, good". Strong's: "good (as an adjective) in the widest sense". It comes four times in this chapter. "The king granted my requests, because of the good hand of my God on me" (2:8). Sanballat and Tobiah were grieved "because a man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel" (2:10): welfare is tovah. Nehemiah told the people "about the hand of my God which was good on me" (2:18), "So they strengthened their hands for the good work" (2:18): there the good work is one Hebrew word, latovah, a form of tovah, and the Hebrew has no separate word for work. The book of Ezra had said it of Ezra: "according to the good hand of his God on him" (Ezra 7:9). The book's last words ask for it: "Remember me, my God, for good" (13:31).
For your group
Nehemiah 2 Bible study questions
- 1Between the king's question and his own answer, Nehemiah "prayed to the God of heaven" (2:4). Where this week are you likely to need a prayer that short and that quick?
- 2Nehemiah went out by night and looked at the broken walls before he asked anyone to build (2:12-17). What in your life, or in your church, needs an honest look before anything is rebuilt?
- 3"So they strengthened their hands for the good work" (2:18). Whose hands could you strengthen this week, and how?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Nehemiah 2 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home