Nehemiah 3:20

The wall from the angle to the place of the court of the prison by the king's upper house. - Neh 3:20 After him Baruch the son of Zabbai emulously repaired a second length of wall, from the angle to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest. Bertheau objects to the reading החרה, and conjectures that it should be ההרה, "up the hill." But the reason he adduces, viz., that often as the word החזיק occurs in this description, a further definition is nowhere else added to it, speaks as much against, as for his proposed alteration; definitions of locality never, throughout the entire narrative, preceding החזיק, but uniformly standing after it, as also in the present verse. Certainly החרה cannot here mean either to be angry, or to be incensed, but may without difficulty be taken, in the sense of the Tiphal תּחרה, to emulate, to contend (Jer 22:15; Jer 12:5), and the perfect adverbially subordinated to the following verb (comp. Gesen. Gramm. 142, 3, a). The Keri offers זכּי instead of זבּי, probably from Ezr 2:9, but on insufficient grounds, the name זבּי occurring also Ezr 10:28. Of the position of the house of Eliashib the high priest, we know nothing further than what appears from these Ezr 10:20 and Ezr 10:21, viz., that it stood at the northern part of the eastern side of Zion (not at the south-western angle of the temple area, as Bertheau supposes), and extended some considerable distance from south to north, the second length of wall built by Meremoth reaching from the door at its southern end to the תּכלית, termination, at its northern end. On Meremoth, see rem. on Neh 3:4.

Saying and doing are often two things: many are ready to say, "Let us rise up and build," who sit still and do nothing, like that fair-spoken son who said,"I go, Sir, but went not." The undertakers here were none of those. As soon as they had resolved to build the wall about Jerusalem they lost no time, but set about it presently, as we find in this chapter. Let it never be said that we left that good work to be done tomorrow which we might as well have done today. This chapter gives an account of two things: - I. The names of the builders, which are recorded here to their honour, for they were such as herein discovered a great zeal for God and their country, both a pious and a public spirit, a great degree both of industry and courage; and what they did was fit to be thus largely registered, both for their praise and for the encouragement of others to follow their example. II. The order of the building; they took it before them, and ended where they began. They repaired, 1. From the sheep-gate to the fish-gate (Neh 3:1, Neh 3:2). 2. Thence to the old-gate (Neh 3:3-5). 3. Thence to the valley-gate (Neh 3:6-12). 4. Thence to the dung-gate (Neh 3:13, Neh 3:14). 5. Thence to the gate of the fountain (Neh 3:15). 6. Thence to the water-gate (Neh 3:16-26). 7. Thence by the horse-gate to the sheep-gate again, where they began (Neh 3:27-32), and so they brought their work quite round the city.