nehemiah

2 definitions found

nehemiah - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  Nehemiah
      n 1: an Old Testament book telling how a Jewish official at the
           court of Artaxerxes I in 444 BC became a leader in
           rebuilding Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity [syn:
           Nehemiah, Book of Nehemiah]

nehemiah - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

  Nehemiah
  comforted by Jehovah. (1.) Ezra 2:2; Neh. 7:7. (2.) Neh. 3:16.
  
    (3.) The son of Hachaliah (Neh. 1:1), and probably of the
  tribe of Judah. His family must have belonged to Jerusalem (Neh.
  2:3). He was one of the "Jews of the dispersion," and in his
  youth was appointed 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 (Neh. 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 (Neh.
  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 (Neh. 12. 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 persuasion. His
  practical sagacity and high courage were very markedly shown in
  the arrangement with which he carried through the rebuilding of
  the wall and balked the cunning plans of the 'adversaries.' The
  piety of his heart, his deeply religious spirit and constant
  sense of communion with and absolute dependence upon God, are
  strikingly exhibited, first in the long prayer recorded in ch.
  1:5-11, and secondly and most remarkably in what have been
  called his 'interjectional prayers', those short but moving
  addresses to Almighty God which occur so frequently in his
  writings, the instinctive outpouring of a heart deeply moved,
  but ever resting itself upon God, and looking to God alone for
  aid in trouble, for the frustration of evil designs, and for
  final reward and acceptance" (Rawlinson). Nehemiah was the last
  of the governors sent from the Persian court. Judea after this
  was annexed to the satrapy of Coele-Syria, and was governed by
  the high priest under the jurisdiction of the governor of Syria,
  and the internal government of the country became more and more
  a hierarchy.