Nehemiah 4:23

So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) Saving that every one put them off for washing.—This rendering is very improbable, as the words are simply: “every man his weapon water.” Some interpret that “each man’s weapon was his water”: evidently too subtle a turn of thought. It is best, on the whole, to supply the ellipsis: “every man went with his weapon to the water.”

Benson Commentary

Nehemiah 4:23. None of us put off our clothes — Neither by day nor by night, as the manner is when people go to rest, but they constantly kept themselves in readiness to fight, if any assault were made on the city. Saving that every one put them off for washing — When they were to wash and cleanse themselves from some impurity, which might befall them or their garments.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:16-23 We must watch always against spiritual enemies, and not expect that our warfare will be over till our work is ended. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit, which we ought to have always at hand, and never to have to seek for it, either in our labours, or in our conflicts, as Christians. Every true Christian is both a labourer and a soldier, working with one hand, and fighting with the other. Good work is likely to go on with success, when those who labour in it, make a business of it. And Satan fears to assault the watchful Christian; or, if attacked, the Lord fights for him. Thus must we wait to the close of life, never putting off our armour till our work and warfare are ended; then we shall be welcomed to the rest and joy of our Lord.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Saving ... - The text here is probably unsound. It yields no satisfactory sense. See the margin.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Ne 4:7-23. He Sets a Watch.

7-21. But … when Sanballat … heard that the walls … were made up, and … the breaches … stopped—The rapid progress of the fortifications, despite all their predictions to the contrary, goaded the Samaritans to frenzy. So they, dreading danger from the growing greatness of the Jews, formed a conspiracy to surprise them, demolish their works, and disperse or intimidate the builders. The plot being discovered, Nehemiah adopted the most energetic measures for ensuring the common safety, as well as the uninterrupted building of the walls. Hitherto the governor, for the sake of despatch, had set all his attendants and guards on the work—now half of them were withdrawn to be constantly in arms. The workmen labored with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other; and as, in so large a circuit, they were far removed from each other, Nehemiah (who was night and day on the spot, and, by his pious exhortations and example, animated the minds of his people) kept a trumpeter by his side, so that, on any intelligence of a surprise being brought to him, an alarm might be immediately sounded, and assistance rendered to the most distant detachment of their brethren. By these vigilant precautions, the counsels of the enemy were defeated, and the work was carried on apace. God, when He has important public work to do, never fails to raise up instruments for accomplishing it, and in the person of Nehemiah, who, to great natural acuteness and energy added fervent piety and heroic devotion, He provided a leader, whose high qualities fitted him for the demands of the crisis. Nehemiah's vigilance anticipated every difficulty, his prudent measures defeated every obstruction, and with astonishing rapidity this Jerusalem was made again "a city fortified."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

None of us put off our clothes; neither by day, nor by night, as the manner is when we go to bed; they constantly kept themselves in a readiness for fighting.

Saving that every one put them off for washing; when they were to wash and cleanse themselves from some natural or moral impurity, which might befall them or their garments.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So neither I, nor my brethren,.... The nobles and rulers:

nor my servants; his domestic servants that waited upon him:

nor the men of the guard which followed me; his bodyguard, which attended him as a commissioner of the king of Persia for state and grandeur:

none of us put off our clothes; at night when they laid themselves down to sleep, but laid in, them, that they might be ready upon an alarm made:

saving that everyone put them off for washing; not for common washing, because dirty, but for washing on account of ceremonial uncleanness, which required washing both of bodies and garments, see Leviticus 15:5, &c. and the Vulgate Latin version expresses it by baptism, as the apostle calls such ceremonial ablutions in Hebrews 6:2. It is in the margin of our Bibles, "everyone went with his weapon for water"; when he went to Siloam, or any other place, for water, he took a weapon with him to defend himself upon occasion; which is no bad sense of the words. Noldius (g) renders the words, "everyone with his weapon (and) water"; both were at his bolster, ready, if wanted, see 1 Samuel 26:11.

(g) Ebr. Concord. Partic. p. 322.

Geneva Study Bible

So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off {l} for washing.

(l) That is, when they purified themselves or else when they washed their clothes.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. my brethren … servants … men of the guard which followed me] Nehemiah mentions in detail those in whom he had complete confidence and upon whose faithfulness the success of his project depended. These shared their leader’s vigilance and imitated his endurance. Not one of them put off his clothes the whole time that the building went on. They were prepared for an attack at any moment.

‘brethren.’ These would be the relatives of Nehemiah, cf. Nehemiah 1:2. The whole house or clan to which he belonged staunchly supported him throughout the crisis.

‘servants’ … ‘men of the guard which followed me.’ Under these two heads Nehemiah seems to describe those whom he has mentioned in Nehemiah 4:17 as ‘my servants.’ He distinguishes here between his personal attendants consisting of Jewish retainers, and the bodyguard consisting chiefly of foreigners allotted him as governor by the Persian king.

saving that every one put them off for washing] R.V. every one went with his weapon to the water. R.V. marg. ‘The text is probably faulty.’ The clause has occasioned great difficulty. Literally rendered the words run, ‘each one his weapon the water.’ The LXX. omit the words, probably from inability to discover their meaning. The error in the text is therefore of very early date. The Syriac seems to have conjectured ‘days’ for ‘water.’

(a) The A.V. follows the conjecture of the Vulg. ‘unusquisque tantum nudabatur ad baptismum,’ according to which the Hebrew word for ‘his weapon’ becomes by a change of vocalization a verb = ‘they sent (i.e. cast off) each one his clothes for the water,’ i.e. in order to wash. The Hebrew however could not possibly bear this very strained interpretation.

(b) Another old rendering is ‘each one his weapon was (in the place of, or equivalent to) water,’ i.e. ‘instead of washing they had each to stand fast to their arms,’ is equally improbable.

(c) Another rendering ‘each one had (by his side) his weapon (and) his (draught of) water’ gives intelligible sense, but not such as can be justified by the original.

(d) Ewald’s rendering, ‘the taking off of each man’s clothes was for water,’ i.e. ‘to satisfy his necessities, not to lie down to rest,’ seems very uncalled for. It is greatly to be questioned whether Nehemiah even ‘in his rough and open style’ would have introduced such an allusion or in such words. (Ewald, Hist. of Isr. vol. v. p. 156, note 1, Eng. Transl.).

(e) Some moderns rendering ‘his weapon’ (shil’kho) as if it were the verb (shâl’khû) translate ‘they sent each one for water.’ They could not leave their post, and had to have the necessaries of life brought to them where they stood. This use of ‘send’ as equivalent to ‘send for,’ is scarcely supported by 2 Samuel 15:12, since here a thing and not a person is the object of the verb. Others, reading ‘shâl’khû, render, ‘Every one gave up the use of water,’ a quite inadmissible translation.

(f) The R.V. rendering which introduces the words ‘went with … to’ makes good sense of the clause, but follows very unnaturally upon ‘none of us put off our clothes,’ neither stating an exception nor introducing a cognate idea.

(g) A good conjectural emendation of the text gives the sense ‘each one remained with his weapon in his hand’ (or ‘in his right hand’).

(h) But it is probable that the error of the text is due to the accidental omission of certain words. We expect some statement of the length of time during which Nehemiah and his followers continued without retiring to rest. Perhaps the clause may have run ‘each one with his weapon in his hand for a full month of days.’ The Syriac version ‘we will not put off our clothes during a month of days’ agrees with this suggestion, and the Arabic gives a similar rendering, ‘till the end of a month and days.’

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - My brethren. Actual brothers probably. That Nehemiah had brothers appears from Nehemiah 1:2; that one of them, Hanani, had accompanied him to Jerusalem is evident from Nehemiah 7:2. My servants. See above, ver. 16. The men of the guard that followed me. As governor, Nehemiah would maintain a body-guard, in addition to his band of slaves. Saving that every one put them off for washing. So the Vulgate: "Unnsquisque tantum nudabatur ad baptismum;" but it is at least doubtful whether the Hebrew words can possibly have this meaning. The most natural and literal sense of them is that given by Maurer and Rambach - "Each man's weapon was his water;" the supposed connection of the clause with the preceding being, "No one took off his clothes," not even for the bath - no one bathed; "a man's only bath was his weapon." Some critics, however, defend the rendering of the A. V.; others take the words in the same way, but explain the term "water" differently, of a natural want (Ewald, Stanley); while many regard the text as unsound, and propose emendations. None, however, that has as yet been proposed is satisfactory.



Nehemiah 4:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Nehemiah, moreover, and his brethren (his kinsmen and the members of his house), and his servants, and the men of the guard in his retinue, were constantly in their clothes ("not putting off our clothes" to rest). The last words, המּים שׁלחו אישׁ are very obscure, and give no tolerable sense, whether we explain המּים of water for drinking or washing. Luther translates, Every one left off washing; but the words, Every one's weapon was water, can never bear this sense. Roediger, in Gesen. Thes. s.v. שׁלח, seeks to alter המים into בידו, to which Bttcher (N. krit. Aehrenl. iii. p. 219) rightly objects: "how could בידו have been altered into המּים, or המּים have got into the text at all, if some portion of it had not been originally there? What this בידו expresses, would be far more definitely given with the very slight correction of changing the closing ם of המּים, and reading המינו equals המינוּ (comp. 2 Samuel 14:19); thus each had taken his missile on the right (in his right hand), naturally that he might be ready to discharge it in case of a hostile attack." This conjecture seems to us a happy emendation of the unmeaning text, since נוּ might easily have been changed into ם; and we only differ in this matter from Bttcher, by taking שׁלח in its only legitimate meaning of weapon, and translating the words: And each laid his weapon on the right, viz., when he laid himself down at night to rest in his clothes, to be ready for fighting at the first signal from the watch.