Nehemiah 2:6

2:6 Then the king, with his consort ¹  sitting beside him, replied, “How long would your trip take, and when would you return?” Since the king was amenable to dispatching me, ²  I gave him a time.

Nehemiah 4:22

4:22 At that time I instructed ³  the people, “Let every man and his coworker spend the night in Jerusalem and let them be guards for us by night and workers by day.

Nehemiah 6:1-2

Opposition to the Rebuilding Efforts Continues

6:1 When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and no breach remained in it (even though up to that time I had not positioned doors in the gates), 6:2 Sanballat and Geshem sent word to me saying, “Come on! Let’s set up a time to meet together at Kephirim ⁴  in the plain of Ono.” Now they intended to do me harm.

Nehemiah 13:21

13:21 But I warned them and said, ⁵  “Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you repeat this, I will forcibly remove you!” ⁶  From that time on they did not show up on the Sabbath. ⁷ 

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¹ tn Or “queen,” so most English versions (cf. HALOT 1415 s.v. שֵׁגַל); TEV “empress.”

² tn Heb “It was good before the king and he sent me.”

³ tn Heb “said [to].”

⁴ tn It is not entirely clear whether the Hebrew word כְּפִירִים (kÿfirim) is a place-name not mentioned elsewhere in the OT (as indicated in the present translation; so also NAB, NASB) or whether it means “in [one of] the villages” (so, e.g., NIV, NRSV, NLT; see BDB 499 s.v.; HALOT 493 s.v.). The LXX and Vulgate understand it in the latter sense. Some scholars connect this term with the identically spelled word כּפירים (“lions”) as a figurative description of princes or warriors (e.g., Pss 34:11; 35:17; 58:7; Jer 2:15; Ezek 32:2, 13; Nah 2:14; see HALOT 493 s.v.): “let us meet together with the leaders in the plain of Ono.”

⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes the words “to them,” but they have been excluded from the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁶ tn Heb “I will send a hand on you.”

⁷ sn This statement contains a great deal of restrained humor. The author clearly takes pleasure in the effectiveness of the measures that he had enacted.