Remember me, O my God, concerning this: Nehemiah concludes most of the reforms that he has instituted with a brief prayer that his God will Remember him because of the good things that he has done (verses 14, 22, 31). This prayer that was first prayed in Neh 5.19 comes as a parenthesis in the narrative here and therefore may be made a separate paragraph as in Good News Translation (see the comments at Neh 5.19). Remember is to call to mind so as to act on that memory (see Neh 1.8). Here it is a personal appeal by Nehemiah to God to remember him in a good way concerning this. The second part of his prayer specifies what he wants God to remember.
For O my God, see the comments at Ezra 9.6. In some cultures the invocation should come at the beginning of the prayer as in New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh.
And wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God: Having first prayed positively that God will remember him for what he has done, Nehemiah prays in the negative asking God to wipe not out the good things he has done. The verbal picture of wipe not out visualizes that his actions had been written in a heavenly account book that could be erased (compare Dan 7.10; Mal 3.16). Revised English Bible understands this to refer to God’s memory, so it has “do not wipe out of your memory.” If possible, translators should retain the figurative language, which may be rendered “do not blot out” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “do not wipe away from your eyes.”
Good deeds is a translation of the Hebrew word chesed (“covenant love”) and refers to Nehemiah’s faithfulness to God’s covenant and his acts of care for the Temple (see Ezra 3.11). Jerusalem Bible calls this his “pious deed” and New Jerusalem Bible says “good deeds.” However, a number of translations render the Hebrew term as “faithfulness” (Bible en français courant, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible); others translate it as “devotion” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Revised English Bible). Another possibility is “loyalty.”
His service: Revised Standard Version interprets the possessive pronoun his to refer to God, whereas Good News Translation interprets it to refer to the Temple, and either is possible. In either case, however, the service is related to the religious observances in the Temple (see Neh 12.45). Jerusalem Bible refers to “its liturgy,” while New Jerusalem Bible speaks of “its observances.”
In the Revised Standard Version rendering of this prayer we see a shift from speaking to God in the second person to referring to him in the third person while still praying to him. It frequently happens in Hebrew poetry and in prayers that the speaker shifts back and forth between second and third person when addressing God. Good News Translation restructures the prayer to address God only in the second person. It condenses the prayer to make it simpler, but it removes the contrast of the positive and negative and it loses the visual image (also Contemporary English Version). Translators should try to convey the full expression of Nehemiah’s prayer. Revised English Bible and New Jerusalem Bible consider the tone of this prayer to be emphatic and they mark this by a final exclamation point.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .