2 Therefore the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but asorrow of heart.” So I became dreadfully afraid,
3 and said to the king, a“May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when bthe city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with cfire?”
4 Then the king said to me, “What do you request?” So I aprayed to the God of heaven.
5 And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.”
6 Then the king said to me (the queen also sitting beside him), “How long will your journey be? And when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him aa time.
7 Furthermore I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given to me for the agovernors oftheregion beyond1 the River, that they must permit me to pass through till I come to Judah,
8 and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he must give me timber to make beams for the gates of the1 citadel which pertainsato the temple, for the city wall, and for the house that I will occupy.” And the king granted them to me baccording to the good hand of my God upon me.
9 Then I went to the governors intheregion beyond the River, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me.
10 When aSanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard ofit, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel.
Nehemiah Views the Wall of Jerusalem
11 So I acame to Jerusalem and was there three days.
12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one on which I rode.
13 And I went out by night athrough the Valley Gate to the Serpent Well and the1 Refuse Gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were bbroken down and its gates which were burned with fire.
the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad?—It was deemed highly unbecoming to appear in the royal presence with any weeds or signs of sorrow (Esther 4:2); and hence it was no wonder that the king was struck with the dejected air of his cupbearer, while that attendant, on his part, felt his agitation increased by his deep anxiety about the issue of the conversation so abruptly begun. But the piety and intense earnestness of the man immediately restored [Nehemiah] to calm self-possession and enabled him to communicate, first, the cause of his sadness (Nehemiah 2:3), and next, the patriotic wish of his heart to be the honored instrument of reviving the ancient glory of the city of his fathers.
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