Nehemiah Chapter 2

Nehemiah, commissioned by Artaxerxes, goes to Jerusalem

2:1 And it so happened in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes אַרְתַּחְשַׁשְׂתְּא
Artaḥšaśtəʾ, אַרְתַּחְשַׁסְתְּא ʾArtaḥšastəʾ, or אַרְתַּחְשַׁשְׂתָּא ʾArtaḥšaśtāʾwas the fifth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, from 465 to December 424 BC.He was the third son of Xerxes I. In Greek sources he is also surnamed “long-handed” (Ancient Greek: μακρόχειρ Makrókheir; Latin: Longimanus), allegedly because his right hand was longer than his left. For more info click here the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.
2:2 And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very much afraid,
2:3 And [I] said to the king, Let the king live for ever: why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchers ˈsepəlkər (British sepulchre)
noun – a small room or monument, cut in rock or built of stone, in which a dead person is laid or buried. — verb [with object] literary lay or bury in or as if in a sepulcher: tomes are soon out of print and sepulchered in the dust of libraries. – serve as a burial place for – Middle English: via Old French from Latin sepulcrum ‘burial place’, from sepelire ‘bury’., lies wasted, and the gates of it are consumed with fire?
2:4 Then the king said to me, For what do you ask? So I prayed to the El Haiאלהי‎
“Living El” (EL=God) For more info click here of Heaven.
2:5 And I said to the king, If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ sepulchers ˈsepəlkər (British sepulchre)
noun – a small room or monument, cut in rock or built of stone, in which a dead person is laid or buried. — verb [with object] literary lay or bury in or as if in a sepulcher: tomes are soon out of print and sepulchered in the dust of libraries. – serve as a burial place for – Middle English: via Old French from Latin sepulcrum ‘burial place’, from sepelire ‘bury’., that I might build it.
2:6 And the king said to me, (the queen wife probably Esther also sitting beside him,) For how long shall your journey be? and when will you return? And I set him a time so it pleased the king to send me; .
2:7 And I said to the king, If it good to the king, let letters be given me to the governors Beyond the River, so that they may let me go through until I come to Judah;
2:8 And a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which is for the house, and for the city wall, and for the house into which I will enter. And the king granted [it] to me, according to the good hand of my El Haiאלהי‎
“Living El” (EL=God) For more info click here on me.
2:9 Then I came to the governors [of the province] Beyond the River, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent commanders of the army and horsemen with me.
2:10 When Sanballat the Horonite (or Moabite), and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them greatly that a man had come to seek the good of the sons of Israel.
2:11 So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.

Nehemiah’s night view

2:12 And I got up in the night, I and some few men with me; and I told no man what my El Haiאלהי‎
“Living El” (EL=God) For more info click here had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. And there was no animal with me, except the animal that I rode on.
2:13 And I went out by night by the Valley Gate, even before the Jackal Fountain, and to the Dung Gate. And examined the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates of it were burned with fire.
2:14 Then I passed on to the Fountain Gate, and to the King’s Pool. But there was no place for the animal that was under me to pass.
2:15 Then went I up in the night by the brook, and examined the wall, and turned back, and entered by the Valley Gate, and returned.
2:16 And the rulers didn’t know where I had gone, or what I was doing. Or had I told it as of yet to the Jews, or to the priests, or to the nobles, or to the rulers, or to the rest that did the work.
2:17 Then said I to them, ya’ll see the evil that we are in, how Jerusalem lies wasted, and the gates of it are burned with fire. Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer be a reproach.
2:18 Then I told them of the hand of my El Haiאלהי‎
“Living El” (EL=God) For more info click here which was good on me; and also the king’s words that he had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they made their hands strong for this good work.
2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard, they mocked us, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ya’ll are doing? Will ya’ll rebel against the king?
2:20 Then answered I them, and said to them, The El Haiאלהי‎
“Living El” (EL=God) For more info click here of Heaven, He will prosper us; and we his servants will arise and build: but ya’ll have no portion, or right, or memorial, in Jerusalem.