In Nehemiah, chapter one, verse four, Nehemiah became deeply burdened for his people and God’s work in Judah. For four months, he poured out his heart to God in fasting and prayer with many tears because of the trouble afflicting God’s people in Jerusalem and Judah, as in Acts twenty, verse thirty-one. His prayer included confession of sin in verses six to seven, reminders to God of His word in verse eight, and Leviticus twenty-six, verses forty through forty-five, and Deuteronomy thirty, verses one to six, concern for God’s glory and purposes in verses five through eight, and continual intercession for the children of Israel.
The revelation of the actual condition of Jerusalem came upon Nehemiah with a shock. He had perhaps not thought much upon the subject before; he had had no means of exact information; he had supposed the city flourishing under the superintendence of Ezra, whose piety and patriotism were no doubt known to him. It was a bitter grief to him to find that his people were still “a reproach to their neighbors,” laughed to scorn by those whose walls had never been destroyed or who had been allowed to rebuild them. And he may have felt that his city, the circumstances of the time, was in danger.
Nehemiah’s appeal to God. The prayer is a perfect example of the private and individual devotion. It begins with a formal and appropriate invocation, as in Nehemiah one, verses five to eight, flows into earnest confession in verses six through seven, pleads the covenant promises in verses eight to ten, and supplicates a present answer in verse eleven. The extant Scriptures, freely used, are the foundation of all. Like Daniel, Esther, and Ezra, Nehemiah fasted: a prominent part of individual devotion, as it is in the New Testament.
However, fasting should be for spiritual reasons to draw closer to God and not for financial or physical reasons.