When it is said
Nehemiah set it down in his own account, while his enemies were trying to frighten him into stopping the work.
It is short enough to pray in the middle of any hard task, when people want you to give up.
Where it comes from
Author known
Who Nehemiah was
Nehemiah was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes and served the king his wine. When word came that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and its gates burned, he asked the king to send him to Judah to rebuild the city of his fathers, and the king agreed.
Threats and lies
When the wall stood with no gap left, his enemies Sanballat and Geshem asked him four times to meet them in the plain of Ono, meaning to harm him. Each time he answered that he was doing a great work and could not come down. Then Sanballat sent an open letter claiming that Nehemiah meant to rebel and make himself king. Nehemiah replied that none of it was true.
The wall was finished
His enemies hoped that fear would make the builders’ hands drop from the work. Nehemiah prayed for strong hands instead. He also turned down a hired prophet who urged him to hide in the temple. The wall was finished in 52 days. When his enemies heard of it, they lost heart, because they saw that God had done this work.
What the words mean
Who it speaks to
The Hebrew line, “But now, strengthen my hands,” names no one. In its setting it is a prayer to God. Nehemiah breaks off his account to speak to Him more than once, as when he asks God to remember what his enemies had done (Nehemiah 6:14). The King James Version adds “O God” to make this plain. The Greek Septuagint reads the line as a statement, “Now therefore I have strengthened my hands.”
The Hebrew with the Jewish Publication Society’s English (1917); Brenton’s English of the Greek Septuagint
The Scripture in it
For they were all trying to frighten us, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, my God, strengthen my hands.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.