Nehemiah 4:12

12. Jews which dwelt by them That is, Jews who dwelt among the Samaritans and other enemies, and by that means found out their evil designs.

Said unto us ten times Thereby showing their intense anxiety. The expression is equivalent to a great many times, or again and again.

From all places whence ye shall return unto us Something seems to have fallen out of the text here. The words supplied by our translators, they will be upon you, do not fully clear up the obscurity, nor suit the previous words, whence ye shall return. Bertheau literally translates the Hebrew thus: From all places that ye return to us; and explains it as the request of the kinsmen and friends of those builders whose homes were in places some distance from Jerusalem, (like the men of Jericho, Tekoa, and Gibeon, Nehemiah 3:2; Nehemiah 3:5; Nehemiah 3:7,) to tarry no longer in danger at Jerusalem, but return to them. This, too, is the natural meaning of the marginal reading, that from all places ye must return to us. We take this to be the true meaning. The Jews who dwelt at a distance from Jerusalem were anxious to have their friends and kinsmen there return to their homes and families. Interpreters have too generally assumed that these words contained the information which the Jews from a distance brought to the rulers at Jerusalem; whereas, they are rather a request of those Jews for their relatives to leave the imperilled city, and thus escape the threatening danger. Exactly how the rulers at Jerusalem were informed of their enemies’ designs is not said, but, doubtless, it came through those Jews who dwelt among the enemy.