Nehemiah and his fellow Jews had returned from captivity in Babylon only to find Jerusalem in ruins….the city walls broken down and the gates burned. And so this prayer of Nehemiah’s focused on God’s covenant of love…reminding God of His promises, obligations, and relationship with His chosen people. But in doing so, it also reminded Nehemiah and the people of all that God had done for them in the past. They probably then recalled Deuteronomy 7:9, where God’s anger extends only to the third and fourth generation, while His covenant of love He honors to a thousand generations.