• Title Page
• Pentateuch
• History
• Poetry
• Prophets
• Post Captivity Prophets
  • Lesson 33: Summing Up The Ante-Captivity Prophets
  • Lesson 34: Daniel
  • Lesson 35: Ezra and Haggai
  • Lesson 36: Zechariah
  • Lesson 37: Nehemiah and Malachi
• Gospels, Acts
• Pauline Epistles
• General Epistles

(Zechariah 14:9); as will also Judah and Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:10-11); their enemies will be punished, and the millennium will have begun (Zechariah 14:16, and the following verses).

Nehemiah and Malachi

Nehemiah

In the chronological order Nehemiah follows Ezra, and perhaps one ought to say Haggai and Zechariah also, after a period of about ten years, and although a Jew, he is an official of influence in the court of Persia, and one of those who did not return with either the company of Zerubbabel or the later one under the leadership of Ezra. Some of the returned captives, among them his brother Hanani, are revisiting Persia at the time when the book opens, from whom he learns that the condition of the people in the Holy Land is one of “affliction and reproach” (Nehemiah 1:1-3). His heart is moved by the intelligence, and like a true Israelite and true child of God he brings the matter before Him. The prayer that follows and which is the substance of the remainder of chapter one, is one of the many supplications of saints in the Old Testament which will repay the closest attention from both the historical and devotional point of view. The prayer was very definite and pointed and met with an early and favorable answer, one which it may be said Nehemiah himself helped to bring about (Nehemiah 2:1-8).

Arrived on the site of Jerusalem with his commission and authority as governor and repairer of the breaches, Nehemiah makes a quiet and personal investigation of the condition of the walls before he reports his plans and purposes to the leaders of the people; but when he does so they are ready to engage in the work (Nehemiah 2:9-18).

This work, let it be remembered, was the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, not the rebuilding of the Temple, which, as you recall, was undertaken and carried through successfully in the days of Zerubbabel, who was aided by the prophesying of Zechariah and Haggai. But though the Temple was rebuilt, yet the defenseless condition of the city in consequence of the broken walls, left the Jews at the mercy of every enemy, not a few of whom were adjacent to them and ready to take every opportunity of injuring them. The rebuilding of the walls, therefore, was important as resulting in that reestablishment of their national