Nehemiah 13:6

6 I was not in Jerusalem at that time, for I had returned to King Artaxerxes of Babylon in the thirty-second year of his reign, though I later asked his permission to return.

Nehemiah 13:6 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 13:6

But in all this time was not I at Jerusalem
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 ^F2 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 ^F3 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 ^F4 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 Apud Ganz. Tzemach David, par. 2. fol. 8. 2.
F3 Polymnia, sive, l. 7. c. 1.
F4 Connect. par. 1. p. 397.

Nehemiah 13:6 In-Context

4 Before this had happened, Eliashib the priest, who had been appointed as supervisor of the storerooms of the Temple of our God and who was also a relative of Tobiah,

5 had converted a large storage room and placed it at Tobiah’s disposal. The room had previously been used for storing the grain offerings, the frankincense, various articles for the Temple, and the tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil (which were prescribed for the Levites, the singers, and the gatekeepers), as well as the offerings for the priests.

6 I was not in Jerusalem at that time, for I had returned to King Artaxerxes of Babylon in the thirty-second year of his reign, though I later asked his permission to return.

7 When I arrived back in Jerusalem, I learned about Eliashib’s evil deed in providing Tobiah with a room in the courtyards of the Temple of God.

8 I became very upset and threw all of Tobiah’s belongings out of the room.

Footnotes

• [a]. King Artaxerxes of Persia is here identified as the king of Babylon because Persia had conquered the Babylonian Empire. The thirty-second year of Artaxerxes was 433