Nehemiah 4:9 (YLT)

Passage

And we pray unto our God, and appoint a watch against them, by day and by night, because of them.

Nearby Context

Nehemiah 4:7 And it cometh to pass, when Sanballat hath heard, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, that lengthening hath gone up to the walls of Jerusalem, that the breeches have begun to be stopped, then it is very displeasing to them,

Nehemiah 4:8 and they conspire, all of them together, to come in to fight against Jerusalem, and to do to it injury.

Nehemiah 4:9 And we pray unto our God, and appoint a watch against them, by day and by night, because of them.

Nehemiah 4:10 And Judah saith, `The power of the burden-bearers hath become feeble, and the rubbish <FI>is<Fi> abundant, and we are not able to build on the wall.'

Nehemiah 4:11 And our adversaries say, `They do not know, nor see, till that we come in to their midst, and have slain them, and caused the work to cease.'

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "pray", "appoint", "watch", "against", and "night". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "pray" and "appoint", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 8's "and they conspire all of them together..." into verse 10's "And Judah saith The power of the...", so "pray" and "appoint" 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 "pray" and "appoint" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.