and free from sin. 'So did not I,' he had said of himself, 'because of
the fear of God; that fear held me back from sin,' and he felt sure it
would be the same with Hananiah. He feared God, and therefore he could
be depended upon.

These two rulers, Hanani and Hananiah, planned out the defence of the
city. They divided the wall amongst all the men in Jerusalem, holding
each man responsible for the safety of that part of the wall which lay
nearest to his own house. Then, by Nehemiah's orders, they saw that the
guards took care that the gates were not only carefully closed every
night, but that they were kept closed till the sun was hot, that is,
till some hours after sunrise. These orders were most necessary, seeing
that there were traitors inside the gates as well as enemies without.

It was the sixth month of the Jewish year when the walls were finished.
Then came Tisri, the seventh month, the greatest and grandest of the
months. The Jews say that God made the world in the month Tisri, and in
it they have no less than two feasts and one great fast.

On the first day of the month Tisri was held the Feast of Trumpets, or
the day of blowing. On that day trumpets or horns were blown all day
long in Jerusalem; on the house-tops, and from the courts and gardens,
as well as from the temple.

Obedient to the voice of the trumpets, at early dawn the people all
gathered together, and stood by the water-gate, in a large open space
suitable for such a gathering. This gate is supposed to have been
somewhere at the south-east of the temple courts, and to have taken its
name from the fact that through it the temple servants, the Nethinims
and the Gibeonites, carried water from the dragon well into the city.