I provided for the wood offering … and for the first fruits: Nehemiah also takes credit for making provision or for establishing regulations for the firewood for the Temple and for gathering the offerings of the first fruits. The wood offering was regulated in Neh 10.34 as part of the oath taken by the people. The arrangements for the collection of the first fruits were also part of the oath in Neh 10.35-39, and their gathering and distribution were regulated in Neh 12.44-47. Good News Translation specifies what offerings the people were to bring on the basis of Neh 10.35, and translators may wish to do the same in order to avoid possible ambiguity about the meaning of first fruits.

For at appointed times, see the comments at Ezra 10.14 and Neh 10.34.

Remember me, O my God, for good: In conclusion, Nehemiah prays the prayer that he has prayed earlier in Neh 5.19 and verses 14, 22 and 29 of this chapter. Up to now it has been in the form of an interruption in his account. Here it is his conclusion, and this is the shortest version of the prayer. He only asks God to Remember him for good or “favourably” (Revised English Bible). He leaves it implicit that he is asking his God to remember him because of all that he has done for the Temple and its personnel. This is a request for God’s blessing and protection (see Ezra 8.22; Neh 2.18), and it provides the ending to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The closing prayer is final in its brevity and abruptness. Translators should render it similarly to its form in the earlier versions, if possible, repeating the form of the first part of the prayer in Neh 5.19, with which it is identical. The prayer should be grammatically and syntactically complete. It may be presented in the form of an exclamation as in Revised English Bible, which has “God, remember me favourably!” Like the earlier prayers, it may be set apart in a separate paragraph as in Good News Translation.

The text ends here without any formal discourse mark of the closing of the narrative of Ezra-Nehemiah. No special discourse markings should be used to draw the book to a close because none are used in the Hebrew text. Nehemiah’s short prayer constitutes the end of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.