Nehemiah 2:1. And it came to pass in the month Nisan,
Three or four months after he began to pray.
Nehemiah 2:1. In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king.
We have in some of the old slabs and carvings some singular pictures of the dainty way in which the kings of Persia and Media were served by their cupbearers. They always spilled a little wine upon their left hand and drank first, for fear the king should be poisoned. So the greatest men of the different provinces of the empire were called by turns to act this part before the king. It was a piece of state ceremonial.
Nehemiah 2:1. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.
And there was a law-one of those stupid Median laws-that no man was to come before the king with a sad countenance. It was supposed that the king must be so serenely happy himself that none might come there unless they were happy, too. Nehemiah had been able to observe this rule, but on this occasion he did not, because he could not.
Nehemiah 2:1. And it came to pass in the month Nisan,
Three or four months after he began to pray.
Nehemiah 2:1. In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king.
We have in some of the old slabs and carvings some singular pictures of the dainty way in which the kings of Persia and Media were served by their cupbearers. They always spilled a little wine upon their left hand and drank first, for fear the king should be poisoned. So the greatest men of the different provinces of the empire were called by turns to act this part before the king. It was a piece of state ceremonial.
Nehemiah 2:1. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.
And there was a law-one of those stupid Median laws-that no man was to come before the king with a sad countenance. It was supposed that the king must be so serenely happy himself that none might come there unless they were happy, too. Nehemiah had been able to observe this rule, but on this occasion he did not, because he could not.