Nehemiah 2:2

2 The king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid.

Nehemiah 2:2 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 2:2

Wherefore the king said unto me, why is thy countenance sad,
seeing thou art not sick?
&c.] He had no disorder upon him to change his countenance and make him sorrowful, and therefore asks what should be the reason of it:

this is nothing else but sorrow of heart;
this is not owing to any bodily disease or pain, but some inward trouble of mind; or "wickedness of heart" ^F16, some ill design in his mind, which being conscious of, and thoughtful about, was discovered in his countenance; he suspected, as Jarchi intimates, a design to kill him, by putting poison into his cup:

then I was very sore afraid;
lest the king should have suspicion of an ill design on him; or lest, since he must be obliged to give the true reason, he should not succeed in his request, it being so large, and perhaps many about the king were no friends to the Jews.

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 (bl er) (ponhria kardiav) , Sept. "malum nescio quod in corde tuo est", V. L.

Nehemiah 2:2 In-Context

1 It happened in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been [before] sad in his presence.

2 The king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid.

3 I said to the king, Let the king live forever: why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and the gates of it are consumed with fire?

4 Then the king said to me, For what do you make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.

5 I said to the king, If it please the king, and if your servant have found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may build it.