A cupbearer with a burden — Jerusalem's walls rebuilt in fifty-two days.
"For the joy of the LORD is your ______."
Nehemiah was the king of Persia's cupbearer — a trusted taster of royal wine — who talked his way into a leave of absence, a lumber grant, and a governorship.
The wall of Jerusalem went up in fifty-two days, with builders holding a tool in one hand and a weapon in the other. Even their enemies concluded the work 'was wrought of our God.'
'The joy of the LORD is your strength' comes from a day when the whole city stood listening to the law from morning until midday — and had to be told to stop weeping and go feast.
Nehemiah's memoir keeps breaking into prayer mid-paragraph — 'Remember me, O my God' — the journal of a man who never clocked out of either job.