had trusted all to Him, and Nehemiah did not want a Providence to watch;
the God in whom he had put his confidence did not disappoint him.

'Let me go that I may rebuild Jerusalem,' says the cup-bearer; and the
great Persian king does not refuse his request, but (prompted, it may
be, by the queen who was sitting by him) he asks: 'For how long shall
thy journey be? and when wilt thou return?'

'And I set him a time.' How long a time we are not told. Nehemiah did
not return to Persia for twelve years; but it is probable that he asked
for a shorter leave of absence, and that this was extended later on, in
order to enable him to finish his work.

Cheered and encouraged by the king's manner, feeling sure that God is
with him and is prospering him, Nehemiah asks another favour of the
king. The Persian empire at that time was of such vast extent, that it
reached from the river Indus to the Mediterranean, and the Euphrates was
looked upon as naturally dividing it into two parts, east and west.
Nehemiah asks, ch. ii. 7, for letters to the governors of the western
division of the empire, that they may be instructed to help him and
forward him on his way.

He asks, ver. 8, for something more. There is a certain man named Asaph,
who has charge of the king's forest or park (see margin of R.V.). The
real word which Nehemiah used was paradise--the king's paradise. The
derivation of the word is from the Persian words Pairi, round about, and
Deza, a wall. Up and down their empire, in various places, the Persian
kings had these paradises--parks or pleasure grounds--surrounded and
shut off from the neighbouring country by a high fence or wall. These
paradises were places of beauty and loveliness, where the king and his