Nehemiah’s Prayer: Asking God to Remember Us (Neh 13:14, 22)

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God and for his service.

And I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves and come and guard the gates, to keep the sabbath day holy. Remember this also in my favor, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of your steadfast love. 

Background

Both of these prayers, similar in content and structure, come from this last chapter of Nehemiah—a chapter that is more sobering than the previous. The prayer comes during events about 15 years later than in the last prayer passage. 

Nehemiah, back in Persia after his first term, asks the king if he can return to Jerusalem to see how things are going. The king grants him a second term as governor. When he arrives, he finds that many of the reforms he instituted have failed. The people have forgotten, or ignored, or simply let them lapse. Most have to do with the maintenance and care of those who work in the Temple and the keeping of the Sabbath. Another issue (which we’ll examine in the next chapter), is making sure that the community of believers is not influenced by foreign practices and religion.

The first prayer comes after Nehemiah discovered that the Levites and the singers of the Temple were not being given the donations of food meant for them (to support them so they could do the work). Therefore, they had gone back to laboring on farms. Angry, Nehemiah confronted the officials, and then put others in charge of the donations—those he deemed more responsible and faithful. The section closes with his short prayer above: that God remember all the good things he did for God’s house.

Next (vv15-22), he discovers that food sellers and artisans were bringing goods into the city on the Sabbath to sell the next day, and that some foreigners (non-Jews) were selling on the Sabbath. This violated the law of Moses and part of Nehemiah’s significant reforms. The Sabbath was a day devoted to rest and worship—carrying burdens and working was forbidden.¹ Again, Nehemiah confronts the nobles in charge of the workers who were doing this. He reminds them that their ancestors did the same thing and brought destruction! He commanded the gates to be shut at sundown and posted a guard. The next morning, he found that the sellers had spent the night outside the gates with their goods, ready to come in and sell. He remonstrated them: if they did it again, he would physically attack them. 

He asked the Levites to purify themselves and guard the gates, to keep the Sabbath holy in honor of God. The passage closes with the second prayer, asking God to remember what he did, and to spare him any judgment.

Meaning

It seems the Jerusalem leaders did not expect Nehemiah to come back to Jerusalem after his first term. So the intentions of corrupt and selfish leaders caused at least some of these problems. The priests who offer sacrifices are allowed to keep some grain, oil, wine, meat offered for their meals, so they were being supported (which tells us that, at least, the sacrifices were continuing). But other Temple workers relied on donations from the people, to support them as they did God’s work. All of this is spelled out in the Law. The contributions were no longer being given, and maybe some were being given, but leaders were taking them for their own enrichment.

Nehemiah offers one of the many “remember” prayers in the book. This prayer contains the idea that God keeps a “record book” of the actions of people. (The passage does not indicate whether this record is for everyone or just those specially chosen by God to do his work?) Nehemiah’s petition is that his “good deeds” will not be erased by the failures in his absence.

The second issue involved both Jews and Gentiles. Jewish farmers were bringing their goods into the city on the Sabbath, and the Tyrians (Phoenicians) were selling fish and other items (known for their commerce and trading networks). Nehemiah needed to forbid both groups because trading in Jerusalem on the Sabbath defeated the purpose of the day—even if it was by Gentiles who were not under the Law. (Notice that when Nehemiah discovers this violation, he waits until after the Sabbath to confront the leaders—otherwise he would violate the Sabbath, too!) 

When the sellers found a way around Nehemiah’s prohibition by camping overnight outside the closed gate, he threatened them: they were no longer being lazy or ignorant, they were attempting to flout God’s laws with intent.

Again, Nehemiah closes with a “remember” prayer. The phrasing of the last part (“spare me…”) is merely a different way of asking God not to let his good deeds be erased, as in the first prayer.

The book of Nehemiah does not close with a happy ending of blessings, joy, thanksgiving, and praise. Sadly, the history of God’s people is replete with repetitive failure, selfishness, forgetfulness, and even corruption. Spiritual leaders bear responsibility for this, but in our modern age of the church, each one of us bears the responsibility of being faithful—even if our leaders are leading us astray on purpose or out of ignorance.

Application

This passage (and the ones in the next chapter) might make us wonder if Nehemiah was being too harsh. We’ll discuss this more fully in the next chapter, where the issue is more emphatic. Here, it is enough to say that God has told his people the best way to live. While there are practices that are not as crucial as others, the issues in this passage were the same ones that led to such unfaithfulness that it led to destruction and captivity.

Nehemiah’s “remember” prayers are unique. How might we adopt them for our own use? 

First, the issue behind the prayers had to do with Nehemiah’s work for God and God’s people. Nehemiah asked God to remember his work because he had worked so hard, despite the failures after he left. If we have done “good works” for God and his people, we can pray the same prayer. If not, this is a call for us to confess we have not done enough, and a petition to help us do so so that we can offer this prayer in the future.

Second, the prayers show that God does pay attention to what we do, and that we are allowed to remind him! That might seem selfish: “remember me!” “Bless me!” But if I seek to be God’s person in everything I do, then this sort of relationship and conversation is appropriate. Even if my hard work has been corrupted or stained by others, I can still ask to be remembered by God for our efforts. It is the attitude by which we offer ourselves that matters, not the results—because often we have no control over the full results because of outside forces. A prayer asking God to remember you and your work is appropriate—no matter how small or how successful that work has turned out to be.

1. This problem was not new, and would not end here. See Amos 8:5 and Jer 17:19–27 for the same problems. Jesus driving the sellers out of the Temple precincts was a similar problem: “do not turn my Father’s house into a market” (John 2.16). ↩