At this point, for reasons that I have endeavoured to explain in my notes to the last chapter (see verses 32, 33 and 38 of chapter 3), most Christian versions, including the King James, ended chapter 3 at verse 32, bringing the next six verses with them to here, and thereby giving chapter 4 twenty-three verses; the Yehudit version, which I am using, keeps those six verses here, and so its chapter 4 has only 17 verses. I have marked the KJ chapter and verse accordingly on each occasion.
4:1 VA YEHI CHA ASHER SHAM'A SANVALAT VE TOVI-YAH VE HA ARVIM VE HA AMONIM VE HA ASHDODIM KI ALTAH ARUCHAH LE CHOMOT YERU-SHALA'IM KI HECHELU HA PERUTSIM LEHISATEM VA YICHAR LAHEM ME'OD
וַיְהִי כַאֲשֶׁר שָׁמַע סַנְבַלַּט וְטוֹבִיָּה וְהָעַרְבִים וְהָעַמֹּנִים וְהָאַשְׁדּוֹדִים כִּי עָלְתָה אֲרוּכָה לְחֹמוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם כִּי הֵחֵלּוּ הַפְּרֻצִים לְהִסָּתֵם וַיִּחַר לָהֶם מְאֹד
BN (BibleNet translation): But it came to pass that, when Sanvalat, and Tovi-Yah,
and the Arvim, and the Amonim, and the Ashdodim, heard that the repairing of
the walls of Yeru-Shala'im was going forward, and that the breaches had begun to
be filled, then they became extremely agitated.
HA ARVIM: The second time this name has occurred, and each
time the translator rendered it as Arabians - and I still think that's an anachronism,
and that this means something quite different.
ASHDODIM: One of the five principal cities of the Pelishtim - no surprise that the Shomronim would have rallied the support of the Pelishtim to try to prevent the "Zionist invasion".
VA YICHAR LAHEM: see my note to this in the previous
chapter. I have gone for "agitated" on this occasion, which I think gets the
tone better than the full-scale "angry".
4:2 VA YIKSHERU CHULAM YACHDAV LAVO LEHILACHEM BIY'RUSHALA'IM
VE LA'ASOT LO TO'AH
וַיִּקְשְׁרוּ כֻלָּם יַחְדָּו לָבוֹא לְהִלָּחֵם בִּירוּשָׁלִָם וְלַעֲשׂוֹת לוֹ תּוֹעָה
BN: And they conspired, all of them together, to come and
fight against Yeru-Shala'im, and to cause confusion there.
4:3 VE NITPALEL EL ELOHEYNU VA NA'AMID MISHMAR ALEYHEM YOMAM
VA LAILAH MIPNEYHEM
וַנִּתְפַּלֵּל אֶל אֱלֹהֵינוּ וַנַּעֲמִיד מִשְׁמָר עֲלֵיהֶם יוֹמָם וָלַיְלָה מִפְּנֵיהֶם
BN: But we prayed to our gods, and set a watch against them
day and night, because of them.
Given that he has come with the full backing of the king, plus armed escort, and has the governor of Pachat-Mo-Av in situ, the request for divine intervention is probably less essential than the posting of the guards.
4:4 VA YOMER YEHUDAH KASHAL KO'ACH HA SABAL VE HE'APHAR HARBEH VA ANACHNU
LO NUCHAL LIVNOT BA CHOMAH
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוּדָה כָּשַׁל כֹּחַ הַסַּבָּל וְהֶעָפָר הַרְבֵּה וַאֲנַחְנוּ לֹא נוּכַל לִבְנוֹת בַּחוֹמָה
BN: And Yehudah said: "The physical strength of the labourers is no longer what it was, and there is so much dust that we are not able to build
the wall."
YEHUDAH: a person, or the people? We have to assume this means the people, and is a made-up generalisation to describe the mood, rather than an actual quote.
KASHAL: Tottering, staggering, feeling faint, any one of these would be KASHAL in Yehudit.
SABAL: Is that "suffering"? Probably another word-play, because LISBOL is the verb for "to suffer", and is used for carrying burdens - which of course a hod-full of mortar would have been, in the intense heat of Yer-Shala'im, especially for those brought up in the priesthood.
KASHAL: Tottering, staggering, feeling faint, any one of these would be KASHAL in Yehudit.
SABAL: Is that "suffering"? Probably another word-play, because LISBOL is the verb for "to suffer", and is used for carrying burdens - which of course a hod-full of mortar would have been, in the intense heat of Yer-Shala'im, especially for those brought up in the priesthood.
APHAR: Dust, and only dust - building with stone in the desert in the summer causes dust. I have no idea why the translators think this is refuse. And the imagery of the next verse confirms it.
4:5 VA YOMRU TSAREYNU LO YED'U VE LO YIR'U AD ASHER NAV'O EL
TOCHAM VA HARGENUM VE HISHBATNU ET HA MELA'CHAH
וַיֹּאמְרוּ צָרֵינוּ לֹא יֵדְעוּ וְלֹא יִרְאוּ עַד אֲשֶׁר נָבוֹא אֶל תּוֹכָם וַהֲרַגְנוּם וְהִשְׁבַּתְנוּ אֶת הַמְּלָאכָה
BN: And our enemies said: "They shall neither know, nor
see, until we come into their midst and slay them, and cause the work to cease."
TSAREYNU: Adversaries, or enemies? See verse 9.
KJ (4:12): And it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you.
So the text should surely read, after ETSLAM: "VA AMARNU LAHEM ESER PE'AMIM"... and we told them ten times... "MI KOL HA MEKOMOT ASHER TASHUVU ALEYNU... from wherever you are, come back to us".
4:7 VA A'AMID MI TACHTEYOT LA MAKOM ME ACHAREY LA CHOMAH BA TSECHICHIM VA A'AMID ET HA AM LE MISHPACHOT IM CHARVOTEYHEM RAMCHEYHEM VE KASHTOTEYHEM
KJ (4:13): Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows.
KJ (4:14): And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
KJ (4:15): And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work.
MACHAZIYKIM: It can't just be coincidence. Yet again he is playing with the same root, and it really isn't the verb anyone would expect him to use; but just like the "strengthening" of the previous chapter, so, here, what he hear is Chizki-Yah, the king who "strengthened" the wall, who put his soldiers in the towers and on the parapets, so that Yeru-Shala'im could survive the assault by Sennacherib.
ACHAREY: Confirming my complaint about ACHARAV and ACHAREYHEM in the previous chapter. But also leaving a question: I have translated this as the nobles being "in support of", but the nobles do tend, in war-times, like the generals, to be the "behind", the "acharey", while the regular soldiers are doing the avant garde, the front line. It is not at all certain which option Nechem-Yah intends here.
4:11 HA BONIM BA CHOMAH VE HA NOS'IM BA SEVEL OMSIM BE ACHAT YADO OSEH VA MEL'ACHAH VE ACHAT MACHAZEKET HA SHALACH
KJ (4:17): They which builded on the wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon.
HA BONIM: Cf Ezra 3:10, which is one of the sources for the name of a major Jewish youth movement in the modern era, though the principal source is usually regarded as Psalm 118:22, where Ma'asu ha bonim speaks of the once-rejected stone finding itself chosen as the cornerstone of the Temple itself. I am inclined to favour this verse though as the more inspirational source, because Habonim from the outset saw itself as Chalutsim, pioneers who would go back to the Yishuv and help rebuild it, exactly as Nechem-Yah is doing here, and very different from those who built the First Temple in an already conquered and affluent and secure Solomonic kingdom. The image of "one hand at the work and one hand on the rifle" is also the predominant image of heroism among those early pioneers of modern Israel, especially during the 1948 War of Independence (I can confirm from personal experience, my own kibbutz during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 having been a Habonim kibbutz, that it remains the case to this day).
4:6 VA YEHI KA ASHER BA'U HA YEHUDIM HA YOSHVIM ETSLAM VA
YOMRU LANU ESER PE'AMIM MI KOL HA MEKOMOT ASHER TASHUVU ALEYNU
וַיְהִי כַּאֲשֶׁר בָּאוּ הַיְּהוּדִים הַיֹּשְׁבִים אֶצְלָם וַיֹּאמְרוּ לָנוּ עֶשֶׂר פְּעָמִים מִכָּל הַמְּקֹמוֹת אֲשֶׁר תָּשׁוּבוּ עָלֵינוּ
BN: And it came to pass that, when the Yehudim who lived
among them came, they said to us, ten times, "You must return to us from all
places."
I think this verse has been written down incorrectly. These are either Yehudim who are remnants of those who were
left behind at the conquest, and then found themselves "swamped by migrants" when the Babylonians transported a second conquered people to Shomron - the
people of Sanvalat, and Tovi-Yah et al; or they are returnees who have chosen
to make their homes elsewhere than in Yeru-Shala'im. Either way, they are feeling
threatened, and have absolutely no chance of defending themselves in the towns and hills and villages; whereas in Yeru-Shala'im defense is viable, provided that they have the numbers.
4:7 VA A'AMID MI TACHTEYOT LA MAKOM ME ACHAREY LA CHOMAH BA TSECHICHIM VA A'AMID ET HA AM LE MISHPACHOT IM CHARVOTEYHEM RAMCHEYHEM VE KASHTOTEYHEM
וָאַעֲמִיד מִתַּחְתְּיוֹת לַמָּקוֹם מֵאַחֲרֵי לַחוֹמָה בַּצְּחִחִים וָאַעֲמִיד אֶת הָעָם לְמִשְׁפָּחוֹת עִם חַרְבֹתֵיהֶם רָמְחֵיהֶם וְקַשְּׁתֹתֵיהֶם
BN: Then I set up, in the lowest parts of the area behind the wall, even the places most open to the burning sun, I even set the people up in families, with their swords, and spears and bows.
TSECHICHIM: TSACHAH really means "bright white", and is distinguished from LAVAN, which also means white, in the most beautifully poetical way imaginable - LAVAN is the white light from the moon, but TSECHI'ACH is the absolute intensity at the heart of sunlight; cf Isaiah 18:4. And because it is sunlight, the same root yields words for "dry land" and "drought", as in Isaiah 5:13 and Psalm 68:7. Ezra uses it in its Aramaic form in 2:43, though there it is apparently a person's name.
Reminiscent of the pioneering days of the kibbutzim, in the first half of the
20th century, men and women going out to farm and build with their rifle in one
hand and their work-implement in the other. Haganah it was called then, but
here... see verse 11 below.
4:8 VA ER'E VA AKUM VA OMAR EL HA CHORIM VE EL HA SEGANIM VE EL YETER HA AM AL
TIR'U MIP'NEYHEM ET ADONAI HA GADOL VE HA NOR'A ZECHORU VE HILACHAMU AL
ACHEYCHEM BENEYCHEM U VENOTEYCHEM NESHEYCHEM U VATEYCHEM
וָאֵרֶא וָאָקוּם וָאֹמַר אֶל הַחֹרִים וְאֶל הַסְּגָנִים וְאֶל יֶתֶר הָעָם אַל תִּירְאוּ מִפְּנֵיהֶם אֶת אֲדֹנָי הַגָּדוֹל וְהַנּוֹרָא זְכֹרוּ וְהִלָּחֲמוּ עַל אֲחֵיכֶם בְּנֵיכֶם וּבְנֹתֵיכֶם נְשֵׁיכֶם וּבָתֵּיכֶם
BN: And I looked, and got up, and spoke formally to the nobles, and to the rulers, and to
the rest of the people: "Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is
mighty and powerful, and fight for your kinsmen, your sons and your daughters,
your wives and your homes."
VA ER'E VA AKUM: Employing the Vav Consecutive for dramatic effect. VA AKUM needs to be Henry V before Agincourt (though hopefully there were no breaches on this occasion); "got up" is a man getting out of his chair, whereas this sounds like he climbed onto the parapet, or up into one of the towers, and shouted loud enough that still not everybody could hear.
CHORIM: Elders? Or parents? Given the previous verse, it surely has to be
parents; and even more so for the latter part of this verse. But in verse 13 it
cannot mean parents.
SEGANIM: Is that in fact the same root as HAGANAH, and therefore means "defenders" here, rather than "deputies" as it did in 2:16.
SEGANIM: Is that in fact the same root as HAGANAH, and therefore means "defenders" here, rather than "deputies" as it did in 2:16.
ADONAI: the Lord; this usage is uncommon, normally Adonai is attached to either
YHVH or Elohim, whether directly or indirectly, or is used as a form of address
to a human ruler. But this is also the form in which the Shomronim would have
addressed Adonis, one of their three principal deities, and which would become the
form in which both Adonis and Tammuz, reincarnated as Jesus, would be addressed
by Christians later on.
pey break
4:9 VA YEHI KA ASHER SHAM'U OYEVEYNU KI NOD'A LANU VA YAPHER HA ELOHIM ET
ATSATAM VA NASHUV KULANO EL HA CHOMAH ISH EL MELA'CHTO
וַיְהִי כַּאֲשֶׁר שָׁמְעוּ אוֹיְבֵינוּ כִּי נוֹדַע לָנוּ וַיָּפֶר הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת עֲצָתָם ונשוב (וַנָּשָׁב) כֻּלָּנוּ אֶל הַחוֹמָ אִישׁ אֶל מְלַאכְתּוֹ
BN: And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that we knew their plans, and that Elohim
had brought their counsel to nought, that all of us returned to the wall, each
one to his respective task.
OYEVEYNU: As opposed to TSAREYNU in verse 5. The reason why I have asked - twice in fact, the other in a previous chapter - what was intended by the use of the word TSAREYNU. Is it that our adversaries only become our enemies when war is declared?
ELOHIM: The English translators refuse to distinguish one god or gods from any other, insisting on the Christian "God" every time; but the Yehudim have never believed in that "God", and certainly not Nechem-Yah, who does not even seem to consider YHVH as all that important. His "God" is plural, polytheistic, Elohim.
4:10 VA YEHI MIN HA YOM HA HU CHATSI NE'ARAI OSIM BA MELA'CHAH VE CHETSYAM
MACHAZIYKIM VE HARMACHIM HA MAGINIM VE HA KESHATOT VE HA SHIRYONIM VE HA SARIM
ACHAREY KOL BEIT YEHUDAH
וַיְהִי מִן הַיּוֹם הַהוּא חֲצִי נְעָרַי עֹשִׂים בַּמְּלָאכָה וְחֶצְיָם מַחֲזִיקִים וְהָרְמָחִים הַמָּגִנִּים וְהַקְּשָׁתוֹת וְהַשִּׁרְיֹנִים וְהַשָּׂרִים אַחֲרֵי כָּל בֵּית יְהוּדָה
KJ (4:16): And it came to pass from that time forth, that the half of my servants wrought in the work, and the other half of them held both the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the habergeons; and the rulers were behind all the house of Judah.
BN: And so it became the pattern from that time forth that half of my young men got stuck into the work, while half of them held the spears, the shields, and the bows, and the
coats of mail; and the nobles gave total support to the entire Beit Yehudah.
NE'ARAI: "Young men" - and it does get used to mean "servant" (cf Proverbs 9:3 or 31:15, but more relevantly Nehemiah 5:15 and 16), but only because the particular job is normally done by a young person. The root is NO'AR, which means "youth".
VE HA REMACHIM: I don't understand the Vav here; shouldn't it be BE, or even BA, and drop the Hey?
SHIRYONIM: Is there a chirik invisible beside the first Yud? It is placed slightly higher than the second Yud; I presume as a way of denoting the chirik and making this SHIRYONIM. If not, the sheva under the Reysh is in error.
SHIRYONIM: Is there a chirik invisible beside the first Yud? It is placed slightly higher than the second Yud; I presume as a way of denoting the chirik and making this SHIRYONIM. If not, the sheva under the Reysh is in error.
Interesting word, worth a short paragraph. 1 Samuel 17:5 and 1 Kings 22:34 confirm that it is armour of some sort, though what kind is not obvious, and "chain-mail" as per the KJ and several other translations, may or may not be correct. However, there is also the word SIRYON, where the Sheen becomes a Seen (a simple movement of a dot from the top right to the top left), a word that only comes up very rarely in the Tanach, most significantly for our purposes in Deuteronomy 3:9, where it has absolutely nothing to do with armour, let alone chain-mail; it is the Phoenician name, specifically that of the people of Tsidon, for Mount Chermon. Absolutely nothing? Well, no, that isn't correct. The traditional understanding (I am quoting Gesenius) is that "This name appears to have been taken from its resemblance to a breastplate, just like the Greek name for the mountain of Magnesia".
So which is correct? Shiryonim should be Siryonim, or vice versa?
ACHAREY: Confirming my complaint about ACHARAV and ACHAREYHEM in the previous chapter. But also leaving a question: I have translated this as the nobles being "in support of", but the nobles do tend, in war-times, like the generals, to be the "behind", the "acharey", while the regular soldiers are doing the avant garde, the front line. It is not at all certain which option Nechem-Yah intends here.
4:11 HA BONIM BA CHOMAH VE HA NOS'IM BA SEVEL OMSIM BE ACHAT YADO OSEH VA MEL'ACHAH VE ACHAT MACHAZEKET HA SHALACH
הַבּוֹנִים בַּחוֹמָה וְהַנֹּשְׂאִים בַּסֶּבֶל עֹמְשִׂים בְּאַחַת יָדוֹ עֹשֶׂה בַמְּלָאכָה וְאַחַת מַחֲזֶקֶת הַשָּׁלַח
BN: Those who were building the wall, and those who were carrying the hods of mortar,
every one did his work with one hand, and carried his weapon in the other.
SEVEL: See my note to SABAL at verse; the equivalent, in today's parlance, of the wheelbarrows and the bags of cement.
HA BONIM: Cf Ezra 3:10, which is one of the sources for the name of a major Jewish youth movement in the modern era, though the principal source is usually regarded as Psalm 118:22, where Ma'asu ha bonim speaks of the once-rejected stone finding itself chosen as the cornerstone of the Temple itself. I am inclined to favour this verse though as the more inspirational source, because Habonim from the outset saw itself as Chalutsim, pioneers who would go back to the Yishuv and help rebuild it, exactly as Nechem-Yah is doing here, and very different from those who built the First Temple in an already conquered and affluent and secure Solomonic kingdom. The image of "one hand at the work and one hand on the rifle" is also the predominant image of heroism among those early pioneers of modern Israel, especially during the 1948 War of Independence (I can confirm from personal experience, my own kibbutz during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 having been a Habonim kibbutz, that it remains the case to this day).
OMSIM: The form here is actually slightly different from verse 5; OMSIM is the verb, meaning "to carry", while the SEVEL is the noun, "the burden", which being more precise here is "the hod". Same overall meaning, but interesting to witness the varied mode to get there.
4:12 VE HA BONIM ISH CHARBO ASURIM AL MATNAV U VONIM VE HA TOKE'A BA SHOPHAR
ETSLI
וְהַבּוֹנִים אִישׁ חַרְבּוֹ אֲסוּרִים עַל מָתְנָיו וּבוֹנִים וְהַתּוֹקֵעַ בַּשּׁוֹפָר אֶצְלִי
BN: Each of the builders had his sword girded on his hip, and thus he
built. And he who sounded the shofar stayed at my side.
Given that they are building and expecting a war concurrently, we might have expected a Chatsotsrah rather than a Shophar - though it is entirely possible that secular Nechem-Yah didn't know there was a difference, or knew there was one, but not what precisely that difference was. The Chatsotsrah was made of metal, where the Shophar was carved out of a ram's horn. The Chatsotrah was exclusively a military trumpet, or if used for musical entertainment, then only of a secular kind. The Shophar, on the other hand, is reserved for religious contexts, specifically the great sounds of the Jubilee and the New Year, but also musical celebrations at the shrines, or indeed a holy war such as Yehoshu'a's at Yericho (Joshua 6). So a Shophar would have been used to sound the calls to prayer, or to announce the sunset, or the start of the Sabbath, or any festival that fell, including the New Moon, or, as in verse 14, it was the siren, the warning-signal in the event of an attack. Having said which, it would have been very audible to Sanvalat, and to Tovi-Yah, regardless of whether it was a Shophar or a Chatsotrah, and would have made its very clear point very clear-pointedly either way.
4:13 VA OMAR EL HA CHORIM VE EL HA SEGANIM VE EL YETER HA AM HA MELA'CHAH HARBEH
U RECHAVAH VA ANACHNU NIPHRADIM AL HA CHOMAH RECHOKIM ISH ME ACHIV
וָאֹמַר אֶל הַחֹרִים וְאֶל הַסְּגָנִים וְאֶל יֶתֶר הָעָם הַמְּלָאכָה הַרְבֵּה וּרְחָבָה וַאֲנַחְנוּ נִפְרָדִים עַל הַחוֹמָה רְחוֹקִים אִישׁ מֵאָחִיו
BN: And I said to the nobles, and to the defenders, and to the rest of the people, "There is much work over a wide area, and we are separated on the
wall, well apart from one another...
4:14 BI MEKOM ASHER TISHME'U ET KOL HA SHOPHAR SHAMAH TIKAVTSU ELEYNU ELOHEYNU YILACHEM LANU
בִּמְקוֹם אֲשֶׁר תִּשְׁמְעוּ אֶת קוֹל הַשּׁוֹפָר שָׁמָּה תִּקָּבְצוּ אֵלֵינוּ אֱלֹהֵינוּ יִלָּחֶם לָנוּ
BN: "In whatever place you hear the sound of the shophar, gather with us there;
our gods will fight for us."
BI MEKOM: One of the endlessly repeated struggles with the text - the entire text of the entire Tanach - is with ellided words, because Yehudit grammar does not usually separate the preposition from the noun. "In a place" is constructed from BE = "in" and MEKOM = "place", which would be two separated words in English, or actually three, because Yehudit does not bother with an indefinite article; "in the place" would be BE HA MEKOM, but the preposition and definite article would be ellided into BAH, and then the whole thing ellided again into BAMKOM. In my transliteration I am always torn between reflecting the Yehudit precisely, or showing the construction - and usually I make the decision by whatever needs, if any, arise for commentary. So, here, I have removed the ellisions and transliterated it as BI MEKOM, because there happens also to be a completely different word, BIMKOM, which means "instead" ("in the place of" - it comes from the same root), and "instead" is definitely not the intention here.
TIKVATSU: the word that yields the kibbutz, originally among the Chasidim of cetral and eastern Europe as a religious community, then amongst the Communists and Socialists of the Galilee and the Negev as a farming community: a gathering-together in either usage.
4:15 VA ANACHNU OSIM BA MELA'CHAH VE CHETSYAM MACHAZIYKIM BA REMACHIM ME ALOT
HA SHACHAR AD TSE'T HA KOCHAVIM
וַאֲנַחְנוּ עֹשִׂים בַּמְּלָאכָה וְחֶצְיָם מַחֲזִיקִים בָּרְמָחִים מֵעֲלוֹת הַשַּׁחַר עַד צֵאת הַכּוֹכָבִים
BN: So we committed ourselves to the work; and half of them held their spears from sunrise
until the stars appeared.
BA MELA'CHAH: Or should that be BAMLA'CHAH? See my note to BI MEKOM above. Ditto for BA REMACHIM (BARMACHIM).
4:16 GAM BA ET HA HI AMARTI LA AM ISH VE NA'ARO YALIYNU BETOCH YERU-SHALA'IM VE
HAYU LANU HA LAILAH MISHMAR VE HA YOM MELA'CHAH
גַּם בָּעֵת הַהִיא אָמַרְתִּי לָעָם אִישׁ וְנַעֲרוֹ יָלִינוּ בְּתוֹךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם וְהָיוּ לָנוּ הַלַּיְלָה מִשְׁמָר וְהַיּוֹם מְלָאכָה
BN: At the same time I said to the people: "Let every one, with his children, stay inside Yeru-Shala'im, so that we can be safely guarded at night, and get this job done by day.
Confirming my correction to verse 6; these are people from outlying towns and villages, and he is congregating them in Yeru-Shala'im for their own safety, as well as to get the wall built.
4:17 VE EYN ANI VE ACHI U NE'ARAI VE ANSHEY HA MISHMAR ASHER ACHARAY EYN
ANACHNU POSHTIM BEGADEYNU ISH SHILCHO HA MAYIM
וְאֵין אֲנִי וְאַחַי וּנְעָרַי וְאַנְשֵׁי הַמִּשְׁמָר אֲשֶׁר אַחֲרַי אֵין אֲנַחְנוּ פֹשְׁטִים בְּגָדֵינוּ אִישׁ שִׁלְחוֹ הַמָּיִם
BN: So neither I, nor my kinsmen, nor the children servants, nor the men of the guard who were under my command, none of us took off our clothes, even when we went to the washroom.
A very colloquial sentence this! EYN ANACHNU for example, and even more so as it follows EYN ANI. But especially ISH SHILCHO HA MAYIM: which is a very decorously euphemistic way of saying that they went to the toilet (and probably washing their hands too, but SHILCHO infers sending water, where washing involves receiving it.)
samech break
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