What Is the Background of the Book of Nehemiah?

Nehemiah is about events during the end of the Babylonian exile, during the period when, under the Persians who conquered the Babylonians, the Jewish people were allowed to return to the land of Israel. The northern kingdom of Israel, comprised primarily of ten Jewish tribes, had been defeated and scattered by the Assyrian conquest in 721 BC. The southern kingdom of Judah, made up primarily of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin with substantial numbers of Levites, endured until the Babylonian conquest under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Nebuchadnezzar took captive much of the population of Jerusalem, including the noble and royal families, deporting them to Babylon.

With the later fall of the Babylonian empire to that of the Medes and Persians (beginning in 539 BC), the Jewish people were eventually allowed to begin returning to their homeland after the 70 years of exile prophesied by Jeremiah (Jr 29:10). The first return under Zerubbabel (a descendant of David) occurred in 538 BC, followed by a later return led by Ezra the priestly scribe in 458 BC. Thus, some of these Jewish people had been back in the land for over 90 years as the book of Nehemiah opens (445 BC), explaining his surprise and lament that the walls and gates of Jerusalem remained in shambles, and prompting Nehemiah’s request of Artaxerxes that he might lead an expedition to restore Jerusalem.

In the absence of a strong political presence in Judea, local power devolved to several petty nobles, among them Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arab (the descendants of many of Israel’s ancient enemies); these figures became Nehemiah’s nemeses in his work of reconstruction and restoration.