Nehemiah 3:12

the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem R.V. the ruler of half the district of Jerusalem. See note on Nehemiah 3:9. This was the -Zion" half of the city.

he and his daughters The mention of -his daughters" is strange. Some consider that the word -daughters" is here used in its technical sense of -villages" and -country towns" (cf. Nehemiah 11:25; Nehemiah 11:27), the inhabitants of which placed workers under the command of the ruler of the whole district. Others again accepting this rendering of -daughters" = -villages," refer the pronoun -he" to -the district," i.e. -the district and the villages adjacent to that quarter of Jerusalem."

But the most simple and literal explanation is probably the best. The whole chronicle of the restoration of the walls is a register of personal effort. The exceptional mention of women does not justify us in excluding the possibility of their useful cooperation, not only by sympathy and exhortation, but also by gifts of money, by contributions of food, and by the labour of their servants and retainers.