Throughout my studies of Nehemiah, I am reminded of a story that was once told to me and is referred to in Campbell's book "Nehemiah: Man in Charge". Briefly, the story tells of a woman who was attacked and stabbed on her way home from her night job in New York. After many desperate cries for help, none of the 38 residents of New York who witnessed the attack responded to her cries. This is similar to some responses from Christians to the needs of our world today: non-involvement. However with the study of Nehemiah a believer should see a man who acted promptly to the pleas made from Jerusalem by the people of Judah. He didn't only hear the pleas for help, Nehemiah also responded by involving himself into the affairs of God's people. His involvement was to bring about the reconstruction of Jerusalem's walls and respectively the renewal of the covenant between God's people and God Himself.
             The city of Jerusalem was first captured by the Babylonians in 586 BC. Then the Babylonian Empire was later replaced by the Persian Empire. In 538 BC the priest Ezra heads the first of three returns to Jerusalem with 49,897 Jewish people for the rebuilding and restoration of the temple followed by the reformation of the Jewish people (see Open Bible New Living Translation, introductory notes on Nehemiah, see also Ezra 1:3). This is followed by the second return and this is where Nehemiah comes into play. At the beginning of his time Jerusalem and the Jewish people are still in captivity. At this point, the city of Jerusalem has undergone some reconstruction. Most significant was the rebuilding of the temple. The rebuilding of the temple signified the reformation of the Jewish people of moral, spiritual and social restoration (Ezra 7:10). In the year of 445 BC Nehemiah is in Persia as well as many other Jewish people while his contemporary, Ezra, is in Jerusalem and is trying to establish the comm...