Nehemiah 2:7-8

NEHEMIAH—NOTE ON Nehemiah 2:7 Nehemiah is encouraged by the king’s positive response. He now asks for specific authority to show letters to the governors of the province Beyond the River. This included the very people who had previously persuaded Artaxerxes to stop the rebuilding of the city (Ezra 4:7). Nehemiah goes further, requesting timber from the king’s forest (location unknown). The name Asaph suggests that he was a Jewish royal official. The fortress of the temple was a special defense of the temple, probably on the northern, most vulnerable side. The temple fortress may have included the towers mentioned in Nehemiah 3:1. The wood for the wall of the city would have been mainly for the gates.