’Let Thine ear now be attentive, and Thine eyes open, that Thou mayest hear the prayer of Thy servant, which I pray before Thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel Thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against Thee.’  And then, coming nearer home, he adds, ‘both I and my father’s house have sinned.’

Was it some special sin which he confessed before God then?  Can his sin, and the sin of his father’s house, have been the refusing twelve years ago to leave home and comforts behind them, and to return with Ezra to Jerusalem?

Then Nehemiah pleads God’s promises to His people in time past, and ends by definitely stating his own special need and request (Neh. i. 8-11).

By day and by night Nehemiah prays, and nearly four months go by before he does anything further.

The next step was not an easy one.  He had determined to speak to the great Persian monarch—­to bring before him the desolate condition of Jerusalem, and to ask for leave of absence from the court at Shushan, in order that he might go to Jerusalem, and do all in his power to restore it to something of its former grandeur.

It is not surprising that Nehemiah dreaded this next step.  The Persian kings had a great objection to being asked a favour.  Xerxes, the husband of Queen Esther, when on his way to Greece with his enormous army, passed through Lydia in Asia Minor.  Here he was feasted and entertained by a rich man named Pythius, who also gave him a large sum of money for the expense of the war, and furnished five sons for the army.  After this Pythius thought he might venture to ask a favour of the Persian monarch, so he requested that his eldest son might be allowed to leave his regiment, in order that he might stay at home to be the comfort and support of his aged father.  But, instead of granting this very natural request, Xerxes was so much enraged at having been asked a favour, that he commanded the eldest son to be killed and cut in two, and then caused his entire army to file between the pieces of the body.

Artaxerxes, the king whom Nehemiah served, was considered one of the gentlest of Persian monarchs, and yet even he was guilty of acts of savage cruelty, of which we cannot read without a shudder.  For example, when he came to the throne, he found in the palace a certain eunuch named Mithridates, who had been concerned in his father’s murder.  He condemned this man to be put to death in the most horrible and cruel way.  He was laid on his back in a kind of horse-trough, and strongly fastened to the four corners of it.  Then another trough was put over him, leaving only his head and hands and feet uncovered, for which purpose holes were made in the upper trough.  Then his face was smeared with honey, and he was placed in the scorching rays of the sun.  Hundreds of flies settled on his face, and he lay there in agony for many long days.  Food was given him from time to time, but he was never moved or uncovered, and it was more than a fortnight before death released him from his sufferings.