Nehemiah 4:5 (DRB)

Passage

Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thy face, because they have mocked thy builders.

Nearby Context

Nehemiah 4:3 Tobias also the Ammonite who was by him said: Let them build: if a fox go up, he will leap over their stone wall.

Nehemiah 4:4 Hear thou our God, for we are despised: turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them to be despised in a land of captivity.

Nehemiah 4:5 Cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thy face, because they have mocked thy builders.

Nehemiah 4:6 So we built the wall, and joined it all together unto the half thereof: and the heart of the people was excited to work.

Nehemiah 4:7 And it came to pass, when Sanaballat, and Tobias, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Azotians heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and the breaches began to be closed, that they were exceedingly angry.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "cover", "iniquity", "blotted", "before", "face", "mocked", and "builders". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "cover" and "iniquity", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 4's "Hear thou our God for we are..." into verse 6's "So we built the wall and joined...", so "cover" and "iniquity" belong inside that flow. In Nehemiah context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "cover" and "iniquity" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.