to the important office of royal cup-bearer at the palace of Shushan. The
king, Artaxerxes Longimanus, seems to have been on terms of friendly
familiarity with his attendant. Through his brother Hanani, and perhaps
from other sources (Nehemiah 1:2; 2:3), he heard of the mournful and
desolate condition of the Holy City, and was filled with sadness of heart.
For many days he fasted and mourned and prayed for the place of his
fathers’ sepulchres. At length the king observed his sadness of
countenance and asked the reason of it. Nehemiah explained it all to the
king, and obtained his permission to go up to Jerusalem and there to act as
tirshatha, or governor of Judea. He went up in the spring of B.C. 446
(eleven years after Ezra), with a strong escort supplied by the king, and
with letters to all the pashas of the provinces through which he had to
pass, as also to Asaph, keeper of the royal forests, directing him to assist
Nehemiah. On his arrival he set himself to survey the city, and to form a
plan for its restoration; a plan which he carried out with great skill and
energy, so that the whole was completed in about six months. He remained
in Judea for thirteen years as governor, carrying out many reforms,
notwithstanding much opposition that he encountered (Nehemiah 13:11).
He built up the state on the old lines, “supplementing and completing the
work of Ezra,” and making all arrangements for the safety and good
government of the city. At the close of this important period of his public
life, he returned to Persia to the service of his royal master at Shushan or
Ecbatana. Very soon after this the old corrupt state of things returned,
showing the worthlessness to a large extent of the professions that had
been made at the feast of the dedication of the walls of the city (Nehemiah
- See EZRA). Malachi now appeared among the people with words of
stern reproof and solemn warning; and Nehemiah again returned from
Persia (after an absence of some two years), and was grieved to see the
widespread moral degeneracy that had taken place during his absence. He
set himself with vigour to rectify the flagrant abuses that had sprung up,
and restored the orderly administration of public worship and the outward
observance of the law of Moses. Of his subsequent history we know
nothing. Probably he remained at his post as governor till his death (about
B.C. 413) in a good old age. The place of his death and burial is, however,
unknown. “He resembled Ezra in his fiery zeal, in his active spirit of
enterprise, and in the piety of his life: but he was of a bluffer and a fiercer
mood; he had less patience with transgressors; he was a man of action
rather than a man of thought, and more inclined to use force than