Nehemiah 2:8

8 And please give me a letter addressed to Asaph, the manager of the king’s forest, instructing him to give me timber. I will need it to make beams for the gates of the Temple fortress, for the city walls, and for a house for myself.” And the king granted these requests, because the gracious hand of God was on me.

Nehemiah 2:8 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 2:8

And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest
The forest or mountain of Lebanon, which, because of its odoriferous and fruit bearing trees, was more like an orchard or paradise, as this word signifies, and so it is translated in ( Ecclesiastes 2:5 ) ( Song of Solomon 4:13 ) and at the extreme part of it, it seems, there was a city called Paradisus ^F18; such an officer as here was among the Romans, called Saltuarius ^F19, and is now among us:

that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace
which appertaineth to the house;
not the king's palace near the temple, for that might have occasioned suspicion in the king, that his view was to set up himself as king in Judea; but for the gates of the courts adjoining to the temple, and of the wall of the outward court, and of the wall which was to encompass the mountain of the house, the whole circumference of it:

and for the wall of the city;
to make gates of in various places for that, where they stood before:

and for the house which I shall enter into;
and dwell in during his stay at Jerusalem:

and the king granted me;
all the above favours:

according to the good hand of my God upon me;
the kind providence of God, which wrought on the heart of the king, and disposed it towards him, and overruled all things for good.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 Ptolem. Geograph. l. 5. c. 15. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 23.
F19 Vid. Servium in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 2. ver. 485.

Nehemiah 2:8 In-Context

6 The king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked, “How long will you be gone? When will you return?” After I told him how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request.

7 I also said to the king, “If it please the king, let me have letters addressed to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates River, instructing them to let me travel safely through their territories on my way to Judah.

8 And please give me a letter addressed to Asaph, the manager of the king’s forest, instructing him to give me timber. I will need it to make beams for the gates of the Temple fortress, for the city walls, and for a house for myself.” And the king granted these requests, because the gracious hand of God was on me.

9 When I came to the governors of the province west of the Euphrates River, I delivered the king’s letters to them. The king, I should add, had sent along army officers and horsemen to protect me.

10 But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of my arrival, they were very displeased that someone had come to help the people of Israel.