Nehemiah 4:21-22

4:21 So we worked on, ¹  with half ²  holding spears, from dawn till dusk. ³  4:22 At that time I instructed ⁴  the people, “Let every man and his coworker spend the night in Jerusalem and let them be guards for us by night and workers by day.

Nehemiah 4:1

Opposition to the Work Continues

4:1 (3:33) ⁵  Now when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall he became angry and was quite upset. He derided the Jews,

Nehemiah 5:6-8

5:6 I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. ⁶  5:7 I considered these things carefully ⁷  and then registered a complaint with the wealthy ⁸  and the officials. I said to them, “Each one of you is seizing the collateral ⁹  from your own countrymen!” ¹⁰  Because of them I called for ¹¹  a great public assembly. 5:8 I said to them, “To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews ¹²  who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, ¹³  so that we can then buy them back!” They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

¹ tn Heb “and we were doing the work.”

² tn Heb “half of them.”

³ tn Heb “from the coming up of the dawn till the coming forth of the stars.”

⁴ tn Heb “said [to].”

⁵ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:23 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:33 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:34 HT, 4:3 ET = 3:35 HT, 4:4 ET = 3:36 HT, 4:5 ET = 3:37 HT, 4:6 ET = 3:38 HT, 4:7 ET = 4:1 HT, etc., through 4:23 ET = 4:17 HT. Thus in the Hebrew Bible chap. 3 of the Book of Nehemiah has 38 verses, while chap. 4 has only 17 verses.

⁶ tn Heb “words.”

⁷ tn Heb “my heart was advised upon me.”

⁸ tn Heb “nobles.”

⁹ tn Heb “taking a creditor’s debt.” The Hebrew noun מַשָּׁא (masha’) means “interest; debt” and probably refers to the collateral (pledge) collected by a creditor (HALOT 641-42 s.v.). This particular noun form appears only in Nehemiah (5:7, 10; 10:32); however, it is related to מַשָּׁאָה (masha’ah, “contractual loan; debt; collateral”) which appears elsewhere (Deut 24:10; Prov 22:26; cf. Neh 5:11). See the note on the word “people” at the end of v. 5. The BHS editors suggest emending the MT to מָשָׂא (masa’, “burden”), following several medieval Hebrew MSS; however, the result is not entirely clear: “you are bearing a burden, a man with his brothers.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “his brothers.”

¹¹ tn Heb “I gave.”

¹² tn Heb “our brothers, the Jews.”

¹³ tn Heb “your brothers.”