Neville Goddard on Nehemiah 1:5-9 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Nehemiah 1 in context

Scripture Focus

5And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments:

6Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.

7We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses.

8Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations:

9But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

Nehemiah 1:5-9

Biblical Context

Nehemiah prays to God, confesses Israel's sins and covenant breach, recalls the warning of scattering, and expresses the hope that turning back to obedience will restore and gather the people.

Neville's Inner Vision

To Nehemiah, the 'great and terrible God' is the field of awareness you call I AM, the living law that keeps covenant and mercy with those who love and observe it. The covenant is not a distant rule but the alignment of your entire being with the truth you choose to inhabit. Your prayer—'Let thine ear be attentive'—is the decision to listen to your own inner voice, to attend to the inner movement of imagination day and night, until the image of restoration becomes your lived present. The confession of sins is the recognition that thoughts of failure, separation, and exile have occupied your mind; you willingly own them so you may release them. The sentence, 'If ye transgress, I will scatter you,' speaks to fear of separation. Yet the greater promise—'But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments'—is the invitation to revise and return, to reassemble the scattered aspects of self. The 'place that I have chosen to set my name there' is the sanctuary of your own consciousness where the I AM rests, constant and unchanging. By turning and keeping the inner commandments, you are gathered and made whole again, here and now, in your present awareness.

Practice This Now

Imaginative act: Assume the feeling that you are already in the inner sanctuary where God's name dwells; repeat, 'I turn unto the I AM and am kept by its covenant,' and let that sense saturate your mind until it feels real.