The term gather
implies passivity on the part of the persons or things being gathered. The outcasts, then, are helpless in the land of their exile; they require God’s acting upon them if they are to return to the Promised Land. Such divine acting upon the helpless had been promised long ago through Moses (Deuteronomy 30:4) and echoed by the prophets (Isaiah 43:5; Isaiah 54:7; Isaiah 56:8; Jeremiah 31:8, Jeremiah 31:10: Micah 2:12; Micah 4:6; Ezekiel 11:17). That promise forms the foundation for Nehemiah’s present petition.
9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’