Nehemiah 1:2

That Hanani, one of my brethren,.... Either in natural relation, Ne 7:2, or being a Jew of the same nation and religion; so Jarchi interprets it, one of my companions or acquaintance: he and certain

That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.

One of my brethren; of my family, or tribe, or nation. That had escaped out of the slavery which they endured in strange lands. Which, were left of the captivity; the remnant of those numerous captives.

Nehemiah 1:2 That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and [certain] men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.Ver. 2. That Hanani] A gracious man, according to his name ( Nomine tu, quin sis natura Gratius, ac te Gratius hoc Christi gratia praestet, Amen), and zealous for his country; which indeed is a man’ s self; and therefore when our Saviour used that proverb, Physician, heal thyself, the sense is, heal thy country, Luke 4:23. One of my brethren] Not by race, perhaps, but surely by grace and place; a Jew, and that inwardly, and therefore intrusted, after this, by Nehemiah with a great charge, Nehemiah 7:2. Came, he and certain men of Judah] Upon some great suit, likely, for their country; because they took so long and troublesome a journey in the winter, not without that Roman resolution of Pompey in like case, Necesse est ut eam, non ut vivam. It is necessary that I go not that I live. Whatever their business was, these men had better success than afterwards Philo the Jew and his colleagues had in their embassy to Caligula the emperor; who cast them out with contempt, and would not hear their apology against Appion of Alexandria, their deadly enemy. And I asked them concerning the Jews] The Church was his care; neither could he enjoy aught so long as it went ill with Zion. He was even sick of the affliction of Joseph; and glad he had got any of whom to inquire; he asked them, not out of an itch after news; but of an earnest desire to know how it fared with God’ s poor people, that he might cum singulis pectus suum copulate, with singleness of purpose, having bound him, as Cyprian speaketh, rejoice with them that rejoiced, and weep with those that wept, Romans 12:15, a sure sign of a sound member. Which were left of the captivity] One of whom he well knew to be more worth than a rabble of rebels, a world of wicked persons; as the Jews rise to say of those seventy souls that went down with Jacob into Egypt, that they were better worth than all the seventy nations of the world besides.

(2) He and certain men of Judah.—From Judah: Hanani was Nehemiah’s own brother (Nehemiah 7:1). He and his companions came from “the province” of Judah (Nehemiah 1:3); nothing is said as to their motive in coming; and certainly there is no intimation that they had been sent to the Persian court on account of recent disturbances.

Verse 2. I asked them concerning the Jews] Josephus gives a probable account of this business: "Nehemiah, being somewhere out of Susa, seeing some strangers, and hearing them converse in the Hebrew tongue, he went near; and finding they were Jews from Jerusalem, he asked them how matters went with their brethren in that city, and what was their state?" And the answer they gave him is, in substance, that recorded in the text; though with several aggravations in Josephus. - Joseph. Ant. lib. xi., c. 5.

Nehemiah 1:1 to Nehemiah 7:73 a. Extract from the memoirs of Nehemiah1. The Superscription. ‘In many MSS. and editions the beginning of this book is closely united with the last verse of Ezra, and in some it appears without line or interval between as part of Ezra’ (Davidson’s Hebrew Text). The words] R.V. marg. the history. (a) The rendering ‘words’ merely calls attention to the fact that we here have a portion of the writings of Nehemiah himself. (b) The rendering ‘history’ is more formal, and is capable of being understood in two different ways, (1) as a reference to a well-known work of history from the pen of Nehemiah, as in ‘the histories (marg. Heb. words) of Shemaiah, the prophet, and Iddo, the seer’ (2 Chronicles 12:15) and ‘the history (marg. Heb. words) of Jehu, the son of Hanani’ (2 Chronicles 20:34); (2) as a descriptive heading of the present book, ‘the history of Nehemiah’ being equivalent to ‘the acts of Nehemiah’; the common expression ‘the acts of,’ e.g. Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), is literally ‘the words of.’ In order to choose between these renderings, we must remember that the clause is probably an editorial heading, inserted by the Chronicler in the compilation of his work. Perhaps the preference should be given to (a) ‘the words of,’ on the ground that when Ezra and Nehemiah formed one continuous work it was not likely that a heading (whether giving the title of a work that is quoted, or describing the remainder of the Chronicler’s book) would be inserted in the middle of the text. But the insertion of a note, to explain the transition from the 1st person, used in the extracts from Ezra’s memoirs, to the 1st person used in the memoirs of Nehemiah, is only what we might expect. For superscriptions introduced by editorial hands, compare Isaiah 1:1; Jeremiah 1:1; Hosea 1:1; Amos 1:1; Micah 1:1. This, however, is the only superscription of the kind in an historical book. Hachaliah] R.V. Hacaliah, cf. Nehemiah 10:1. The father’s name enables us to distinguish Nehemiah from the men of the same name mentioned in Ezra 2:2; Nehemiah 3:16. The name Hacaliah does not occur elsewhere in the O.T. We are not told what tribe Nehemiah belonged to. Some have supposed the tribe of Levi; and in favour of this suggestion should be observed (a) the mention of his ‘brother’ Hanani’s appointment (Nehemiah 7:2) along with the appointment of the porters, singers, and Levites; (b) the prominent consideration paid by Nehemiah to the interests of the priests and Levites. Others have suggested the tribe of Judah, and in support of their view refer to the mention of his ‘house’ (Nehemiah 1:6). Nehemiah 1:1 to Nehemiah 2:11. Nehemiah’s Commission1–4. The Evil Tidings from Jerusalem1b. And] R.V. Now. See note on Ezra 1:1. The copula implies that something has preceded. The Memoirs of Nehemiah did not open with these words. The Chronicler only gives us extracts (Nehemiah 1:1 b–7:73a, Nehemiah 12:27-43, Nehemiah 13:4-31).

Hanani seems to have been an actual brother of Nehemiah Nehemiah 7:2.

2. Hanani, one of my brethren — Called emphatically his own brother in Nehemiah 7:2.