A Persian Commission and a Midnight Survey

"It came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king." The king asks: "Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart." Nehemiah is afraid; a sad face before the king was dangerous.

"Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste?" The king asks, "For what dost thou make request?" "So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king… send me unto Judah." The queen is sitting by him. The king asks how long the journey will take; Nehemiah sets a time.

He asks for letters to the governors beyond the river, and "a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city." "And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me." The king sends captains of the army and horsemen with him.

"When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel."

Three days after arriving, Nehemiah rides out by night with a few men, telling no one. He goes out by the Valley Gate, past the Dragon Well to the Dung Gate, to the Fountain Gate and the King's Pool, where there is no room for his animal to pass, then up the brook (the Kidron) and back. Then he tells the leaders: "Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach." They answer, "Let us rise up and build." Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem the Arab laugh: "Will ye rebel against the king?" Nehemiah: "The God of heaven, he will prosper us… but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem."

"The keeper of the king's pardes"

Pardes is a Persian loanword (Old Persian *paridaida, an enclosure or park). Persian kings and satraps kept walled parks with trees and game; Xenophon describes them as paradeisoi. The Greek Bible translated pardes as paradeisos, the word used for the garden of Eden in Greek Genesis; later "paradise" came to mean heaven. In Nehemiah it is a royal timber reserve. The library's Greek (Giguet) reads "the garden," the Vulgate "the forest" (saltus).

"The queen also sitting by him"

Persian court etiquette restricted women's presence at banquets (Esther 1:10–12; Herodotus 5.18). Some think the scene is private; others suggest the queen mother. The text gives only the detail.

Three opponents

Sanballat "the Horonite" may come from Beth-horon or Horonaim; the Elephantine papyri (407 BC) name "Sanballat, governor of Samaria," whose sons were then active. Tobiah "the servant" ('eved) may be an official title (servant of the king); a later Tobiad family was powerful in Ammon (the Tobiad estate at 'Iraq al-Amir). Geshem the Arab may be the Geshem (Gashmu) of a silver bowl from Tell el-Maskhuta naming "Qainu son of Geshem, king of Qedar" (late 5th century BC). Each identification is plausible, not proven.

The night ride, schematic

Valley Gate (west or southwest of the City of David), Dragon Well (perhaps En-rogel), Dung Gate (south), Fountain Gate and King's Pool (near Siloam), then up the Kidron valley. These names suggest a circuit of the southern and eastern City of David. None of the gates has been securely identified on the ground; the atlas shows the route only as a schematic.

"No portion, nor right, nor memorial"

Nehemiah's reply denies his opponents any share (heleq), legal right (tsedaqah) or memorial (zikkaron) in Jerusalem. It is his claim in the narrative, a political and religious boundary, not a neutral description of the region's relationships.

A plausible commission

Persian kings did appoint trusted courtiers of local origin to govern their home provinces; Udjahorresnet in Egypt served Cambyses and Darius I and was sent home to restore institutions. Nehemiah's letters and escort fit Persian practice. The documents themselves survive only in Nehemiah's account.

Why would Artaxerxes agree?

Ezra 4:7–23 says Artaxerxes had earlier stopped the building of Jerusalem's walls. Explanations for the change: political pressure in the west (the Egyptian revolt of Inaros c. 460–454 BC and the rebellion of the satrap Megabyzus), the value of a loyal fortified city near Egypt, and the king's personal trust in his cupbearer. These are reconstructions.