The climax and unity of the book is seen in this way.
Remember that the book has two parts. The first and longer part concerns the building of the walls, a task in which Nehemiah played the leading role. This part fills chapters 1-7. The second, shorter part concerns the revival in Jerusalem and the rededication of the people. In this revival Ezra, the priest and spiritual head of the nation, is most prominent. This part occupies chapters 8:1-12:26. In the dedication of the walls these two important sections of the book come together. Ezra is present to lead one half of the celebrating people. Nehemiah leads the other. Moreover—and this is most significant—the two groups circle the walls which Nehemiah had built and converge at the temple, the spiritual center of the nation’s life, at which Ezra presided. One commentator puts it like this:
When the people march on the walls to the Temple they do so after having placed the Temple once again at the center of their thoughts (10:32-39). The walls thus appear for what they are: not a monument to the strength of Judah—heaven forbid!—but God’s gift for the protection and perpetuation of his name in the world.1
It is significant in this overall scheme of things that with the section beginning at verse 27 (specifically at verse 31) the first person narrative style, which was followed in the first half of the book, is resumed again. That is, with verse 31 Nehemiah again refers to himself as “I,” and continues the narrative in that way until the end. The meaning seems to be that Nehemiah rightly assumed a back seat while Ezra the priest led in the renewal and rededication of the people, but that now, as the rededicated people were prepared to dedicate the walls, he reassumed the leading role. It was certainly appropriate that he led in the dedication of the walls, since he had been the chief mover in their reconstruction.
What a great list of accomplishments lay behind Nehemiah as he came to the climax of this first year of his triumphant governorship of Judah! They are so impressive that it is worth reviewing them.
1. Nehemiah secured Artaxerxes permission to rebuild the walls of the desolated city. This was not so easy an achievement as it might seem at first glance to have been. One obstacle was Nehemiah’s position at the court. He was useful to Artaxerxes, and it was not to be expected that the king would willingly release him for a task in a distant land. More formidable than this, however, was the fact that Nehemiah was asking the king to reverse a previously established policy regarding Jerusalem. There had already been an earlier attempt to rebuild the walls under Ezra. But when the leaders of the cities around Jerusalem saw what was happening they petitioned Artaxerxes against the project (Ezra 4:11-16), and Artaxerxes stopped it. It was this same king whom Nehemiah had to ask to let him rebuild the walls.
Nehemiah prevailed in this attempt, as we know. His success was due in part to his wisdom in approaching Artaxerxes, but chiefly to his dependence on God which he showed by his approach to God in prayer. Nehemiah is seen to be a man of prayer throughout the narrative.
2. Nehemiah developed a plan for constructing the walls. Part of his plan involved advance preparation in which he arranged with the king to be provided with the necessary supplies. The other part of the plan emerged as a result of his nocturnal inspection of the ruins. It was no small objective—to reassemble huge stones into a one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half mile long fortification around the ruined city. But Nehemiah worked out how it could be done and launched the project.
1J. G. McConville, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, in The Daily Study Bible—Old Testament, ed. John C. L Gibson (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1985), 142.
