In Nehemiah, chapter two, verse two, fear will always accompany an attempt to do the unusual for God. Courage is not the absence of fear but the knowledge that what one is undertaking is worth the fear. Although Nehemiah knew the human emotion of fear, the faith and courage he faced made the king enable God to work on his behalf.
Waiting on Providence, Nehemiah had discharged his duties for three months without being sad in the king’s presence. However, on this day, he could not repress his sorrow. His fear sprang from the king’s abrupt inquiry. A sad countenance is intolerable in the royal presence of a leader. Although Artaxerxes was milder than any other Persian monarch, the tone of his question showed that he was not an exception.
Nehemiah was partly scared, being daunted by the majesty of the king and the suddenness and sharpness of his question; partly, fearing lest there was arising some jealousy or ill opinion in the king concerning him; partly, because it was an unusual and ungrateful thing to come into the king of Persia’s presence with any badges or tokens of sorrow, as in Esther four, verse two, and principally, from his doubts or fears of disappointment, because his request was big and hateful, and horrible to the most of the Persian courtiers, and might be represented as dangerous, and might seem improper for a time of feasting and amusement.
Nehemiah’s fear was very natural. The long-expected and dreaded moment had come on which he was to plead his people’s cause. Their destiny and perhaps his own life depended upon his success. The capricious temper of Persian kings was well known. Artaxerxes may have been prejudiced against the Jews by such complaints as had occasioned the disastrous edict of Ezra four, verses seventeen through twenty-two.