Read this if you…
- like memoir-style narrative (a Persian cupbearer telling you how he rebuilt Jerusalem)
- care about leadership stories: organizing builders, fending off saboteurs, finishing the walls in 52 days
- want the OT's portrait of post-exile restoration and religious reform under Ezra
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
Depicted in Art
Workers haul stone and timber on the Temple Mount as Ezra and Nehemiah direct the reconstruction of the Second Temple amid scaffolding and rubble.
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1847
Nehemiah, in a Romanesque arched frame, kneels before the enthroned King Artaxerxes and offers him a pyxis cup, the gesture of the cupbearer requesting leave for Jerusalem.
1220
Nehemiah on horseback at night surveys the broken stones and collapsed walls of Jerusalem, his attendants holding torches against the dark sky.
Gustave Doré, 1866
Nehemiah, in his role as governor of Judah, gestures over a workforce rebuilding Jerusalem's walls with trowels and dressed stones.
1873
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Oxford University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
Please support us by purchasing through these links, at no extra cost to you!
Notable Quotes
Neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
- Matthew Henry, Bible commentator, 1662–1714: "Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the tirshatha… were really greater men and more honourable… than Xenophon, or Demosthenes, or Plato himself."
- Hugh Stowell, Anglican preacher & hymn-writer, 1799–1865: Held Nehemiah up as the scriptural model for ethical lay leadership — pious, prayerful, and resolute under opposition.
- Tim Keller, American pastor & author, 1950–2023: God's people need not be powerful, only faithful — laboring for a God who fights for them.
- Robert Jeffress, evangelical pastor & Fox News contributor, b. 1955: "God chose a builder whose name was Nehemiah… God is NOT against building walls!"
- James Montgomery Boice, Reformed pastor & expositor, 1938–2000: "The most important thing about Nehemiah is that he was a man of God."
- Sean Ammirati, Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship, Carnegie Mellon University; venture capitalist: "The Book of Nehemiah is as good an entrepreneur's case study as any I use… at Carnegie Mellon."