John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 6. But in all this time was not I at Jerusalem , etc.] Nehemiah, who was absent all the while these things were done by Eliashib, or otherwise they would not have been suffered: for in the thirty second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon, came I unto the king from Jerusalem ; after he had governed there twelve years, to whom he came to give an account of affairs there; this was not Xerxes, as some have thought, for he reigned but twenty one years; but Darius Hystaspis, who reigned thirty six years, according to Ptolemy’s canon, and with which Herodotus agrees; he is called king of Babylon, because that, with the whole empire, was in the hands of the king of Persia, as it had been from the times of Cyrus: and after certain days obtained I leave of the king ; to return to Jerusalem again; not after five years, as Dr. Prideaux thinks; for it is not likely that Nehemiah would stay so long ere he asked leave of the king to return to Jerusalem, which was so much his care, and on whose prosperity his heart was so much set; rather at most it was but a full year he stayed ere he got leave to return, as Vatablus and Piscator interpret it; in which sense the phrase of certain days is used in ( Leviticus 25:29), and in other places quoted by the last mentioned interpreter.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-9 - Israel was a peculiar people, and not to mingle with the nations. Se the benefit of publicly reading the word of God; when it is dul attended to, it discovers to us sin and duty, good and evil, and show wherein we have erred. We profit, when we are thus wrought upon to separate from evil. Those that would drive sin out of their hearts, the living temples, must throw out its household stuff, and all the provision made for it; and take away all the things that are the foo and fuel of lust; this is really to mortify it. When sin is cast out of the heart by repentance, let the blood of Christ be applied to it by faith, then let it be furnished with the graces of God's Spirit, for every good work.
Original Hebrew ובכל3605 זה2088 לא3808 הייתי1961 בירושׁלם3389 כי3588 בשׁנת8141 שׁלשׁים7970 ושׁתים8147 לארתחשׁסתא783 מלך4428 בבל894 באתי935 אל413 המלך4428 ולקץ7093 ימים3117 נשׁאלתי7592 מן4480 המלך׃4428
