• He was the 3rd son of Xerxes I
•He may have been the “Artasyrus” mentioned by Herodotus as being a Satrap of the royal satrapy of Bactria.
There’s no shortage of leadership books in the marketplace. Amazon lists over 100,000 books on with more published every day.
Few of them are as practical and up-to-date as the book of Nehemiah.
None of them have the inspired power that resides in the thirteen chapters of this book, which is located near the end of the Old Testament historical books.
Nehemiah, who lived in the fifth century B.C., was born among the exiles of Judah.
Many years earlier, his people had been defeated and deported; but Nehemiah’s leaders placed him in the service of the most powerful king on earth, Artaxerxes of Persia.
As the book opens, Nehemiah received a report from his ancestral city, Jerusalem. The walls there were broken down, the gates were burned with fire, and the survivors were in distress.
God deeply burdened Nehemiah with the plight of Jerusalem, and within four verses of the beginning of the book, the reader finds Nehemiah weeping, mourning, fasting, and praying.
With the king’s permission, Nehemiah traveled to Jerusalem to oversee the rebuilding of the walls of the ancient capital of his people.
Also known as Xerxes I or Persia and Xerxes the Great.
He was the 4th king of the Empire Persa under the Achaemenid dynasty. In his reign, he continued the work of his father Darius I to cover the whole Greece by training the largest army in ancient times to reach 300,000 to 2,600,000 (based on the writings of Herodotus) but ended in a tragic conflict in the navy at Salamis Greeks and destroyed the remaining soldiers Persa led by Pausanias in the battle of Plataea.
Angered by another officer happened to Greece, he was murdered by Artabano, a captain of the guard there at Susa.
As we read the book of Nehemiah, we can’t help learning vital skills of leadership.
This book gives us one of Scripture’s best case-studies in spiritual and visionary oversight – setting goals, planning projects, delegating tasks, organizing people, solving problems, and accomplishing results.
One person empowered by God can make a difference – whether that person is Nehemiah or whether that person is you.
Key Thought:
One person like Nehemiah, blessed by God with passion and leadership, can make a difference for time and eternity.
Key Verses:
“So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days.
And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God” (Neh 6:15-16).
Key Action:
All of us can become better leaders by studying the life and methods of Nehemiah.