1. Nehemiah 1:9 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What does the term “gather” mean?

Nehemiah 1:9 (ESV)

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.’

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.