Discovery BoxNehemiah 6:10-13 
Context6:10 Then I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel. He was confined to his home. 1 He said, “Let’s set up a time to meet in the house of God, within the temple. Let’s close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you. It will surely be at night that they will come to kill you.”
6:11 But I replied, “Should a man like me run away? Would someone like me flee to the temple in order to save his life? 2 I will not go!” 6:12 I recognized the fact that God had not sent him, for he had spoken the prophecy against me as a hired agent of Tobiah and Sanballat. 3 6:13 He had been hired to scare me so that I would do this and thereby sin. They would thus bring reproach on me and I 4 would be discredited. 5
1 tn Heb “shut in.” The reason for his confinement is not stated. BDB 783 s.v. עָצַר suggests that it had to do with the fulfillment of a vow or was related to an issue of ceremonial uncleanness.
2 tn Heb “go into the temple and live.”
3 tn Heb “and Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.”
4 tc The translation reads לִי (li, “to me”) rather than the MT reading לָהֶם (lahem, “to them”).
5 tn Heb “would have a bad name.”
