Nehemia 1:6

1:6 may your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer of your servant that I am praying to you today throughout both day and night on behalf of your servants the Israelites. I am confessing the sins of the Israelites that we have committed ¹  against you – both I myself and my family ²  have sinned.

Nehemia 2:8

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.

Nehemia 5:18

5:18 Every day one ox, six select sheep, and some birds were prepared for me, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Despite all this I did not require the food allotted to the governor, for the work was demanding on this people.

Nehemia 7:3

7:3 I ⁶  said to them, “The gates of Jerusalem must not be opened in the early morning, ⁷  until those who are standing guard close the doors and lock them. ⁸  Position residents of Jerusalem as guards, some at their guard stations and some near their homes.”

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “have sinned.” For stylistic reasons – to avoid redundancy in English – this was translated as “committed.”

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “the house of my father.”

[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.

[7:3]  ⁶ tc The present translation (along with most English versions) reads with the Qere, a Qumran text, and the ancient versions וָאֹמַר (va’omar, “and I said”) rather than the Kethib of the MT, which reads וַיֹּאמֶר (vayyo’mer, “and he said”).

[7:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “until the heat of the sun.” The phrase probably means that the gates were to be opened only after the day had progressed a bit, not at the first sign of morning light (cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV). It is possible, however, that the Hebrew preposition עַד (’ad), here translated as “until,” has a more rare sense of “during.” If so, this would mean that the gates were not to be left open and unattended during the hot part of the day when people typically would be at rest (cf. NLT).

[7:3]  ⁸ tn Presumably this would mean the gates were not to be opened until later in the morning and were to remain open until evening. Some, however, have understood Nehemiah’s instructions to mean that the gates were not to be left open during the hottest part of the day, but must be shut and locked while the guards are still on duty. See J. Barr, “Hebrew עַד, especially at Job i.18 and Neh vii.3,” JJS 27 (1982): 177-88.