Nehemiah 2:5

2:5 and said to the king, “If the king is so inclined ¹  and if your servant has found favor in your sight, dispatch me to Judah, to the city with the graves of my ancestors, so that I can rebuild it.”

Nehemiah 2:7-8

2:7 I said to the king, “If the king is so inclined, let him give me letters for the governors of Trans-Euphrates ²  that will enable me to travel safely until I reach Judah, 2:8 and a letter for Asaph the keeper of the king’s nature preserve, ³  so that he will give me timber for beams for the gates of the fortress adjacent to the temple and for the city wall ⁴  and for the house to which I go.” So the king granted me these requests, ⁵  for the good hand of my God was on me.

Nehemiah 2:18-19

2:18 Then I related to them how the good hand of my God was on me and what ⁶  the king had said to me. Then they replied, “Let’s begin rebuilding right away!” ⁷  So they readied themselves ⁸  for this good project. 2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard all this, ⁹  they derided us and expressed contempt toward us. They said, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

Nehemiah 3:15

3:15 Shallun son of Col-Hozeh, head of the district of Mizpah, worked on the Fountain Gate. He rebuilt it, put on its roof, and positioned its doors, its bolts, and its bars. In addition, he rebuilt the wall of the Pool of Siloam, ¹⁰  by the royal garden, as far as the steps that go down from the City of David.

Nehemiah 5:14

5:14 From the day that I was appointed ¹¹  governor ¹²  in the land of Judah, that is, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes – twelve years in all – neither I nor my relatives ¹³  ate the food allotted to the governor. ¹⁴ 

[2:5]  ¹ tn Heb “If upon the king it is good.” So also in v. 7.

[2:7]  ² tn Heb “across the river,” here and often elsewhere in the Book of Nehemiah.

[2:8]  ³ tn Or “forest.” So HALOT 963 s.v. פַּרְדֵּס 2.

[2:8]  ⁴ tc One medieval Hebrew MS, the Syriac Peshitta, Vulgate, and the Arabic read here the plural וּלְחוֹמוֹת (ulÿkhomot, “walls”) against the singular וּלְחוֹמַת (ulÿkhomat) in the MT. The plural holem vav (וֹ) might have dropped out due to dittography or the plural form might have been written defectively.

[2:8]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text does not include the expression “these requests,” but it is implied.

[2:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “the words of the king which he had spoken to me.”

[2:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “Arise! Let us rebuild!”

[2:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “strengthened their hands.”

[2:19]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text does not include the words “all this,” but they have been added in the translation for clarity.

[3:15]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew word translated “Siloam” is הַשֶּׁלַח (hashelakh, “water-channel”; cf. ASV, NASB, NRSV, TEV, CEV “Shelah”). It apparently refers to the Pool of Siloam whose water supply came from the Gihon Spring via Hezekiah’s Tunnel built in 701 B.C. (cf. Isa 8:6). See BDB 1019 s.v. שִׁלֹחַ; W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 372. On the etymology of the word, which is a disputed matter, see HALOT 1517 s.v. III שֶׁלַח.

[5:14]  ⁷ tc The BHS editors suggest reading צֻוֵּאתִי (tsuvve’ti, “and I was appointed”) rather than the reading of the MT, אֹתִי צִוָּה (tsivvah ’oti, “he appointed me”).

[5:14]  ⁸ tc The translation reads with one medieval Hebrew MS פֶּחָה (pekhah, “governor”) rather than פֶּחָם (pekham, “their governor”) of the MT. One would expect the form with pronominal suffix to have a tav (ת) before the suffix.

[5:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “brothers.”

[5:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the food of the governor.” Cf. v. 18.