Translations
KJVPrimary
King James VersionFor they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GFor they were all trying to frighten us, saying, "Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done." And now, O Elohim, strengthen my hands!
F.O.G.M
F.O.G MessageTheir whole strategy was to frighten us into giving up—hoping our hands would go slack and the work would grind to a halt. So I prayed: "Now, O God—strengthen my hands!"
BSB
Berean Standard BibleFor they were all trying to frighten us, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, my God, strengthen my hands.
Footnotes
The Hebrew חַזֵּק אֶת־יָדָי (chazzeq et-yadai), "strengthen my hands," is one of Nehemiah's characteristic arrow-prayers—terse, urgent intercessions fired mid-crisis without ceremony (cf. 2:4; 4:4; 5:19). The contrast is stark and deliberate: the enemy prays that Nehemiah's hands will drop (תִּרְפֶּינָה יְדֵיהֶם, tirpeynah yedehem—lit. "may their hands go limp"), while Nehemiah immediately counters by asking YHWH/God for the opposite. FOG embeds the prayer within the verse's narrative flow; FOG Message sets it off as an explicit, dramatic moment of intercession to heighten its immediacy.
