Under the Lord’s guiding hand, King Artaxerxes sent
Nehemiah to rebuild Jerusalem’s broken walls (Nehemiah 2:6). The best Nehemiah can do is build walls from stone and timber, which are ultimately perishable again. God the Father sent
his beloved Son into this world to restore Jerusalem, the church (John 3:17; John 5:36–37; John 6:38). His work persists through the entire new dispensation and will be completed on the Last Day when the New Jerusalem will come down from heaven in perfect glory as the dwelling place of God with man (Revelation 21:1–27). Nehemiah’s mandate (his name means the Lord comforts
) foreshadows the mandate for the greater Comforter God would send in the fullness of time, the better Nehemiah.
6 And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time.