The valley gate repaired Hanun, and the inhabitants of Zanoah; they built it, and set up the doors thereof, the locks thereof, and the bars thereof, and a thousand cubits on the wall unto the refuse gate.
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Bede
AD 735
And it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated every foreigner from Israel. And over this was Eliashib5 the priest. When they heard the law concerning the anathematizing of the two hostile nations, the faithful people immediately separated every foreigner from them, because we must so direct ourselves to the hearing of the truth, when we are prohibited by divine reading from any particular vice, we must immediately struggle to remove both from our deeds and from our conscience not only the one that happens to have been mentioned but whatever polluting vice we find in ourselves. “Neh. 13:5-6” He therefore made himself a large storeroom and there in front of him they were placing the gifts and incense and vessels, and also the tithes of corn, wine, and oil, the portions of the Levites and singers and gatekeepers, and the first-fruits of the priests. But during all this I was not in Jerusalem, and so on. This sentence, in which Nehemiah writes that he was not in Jerusalem, appears to pertain not to those matters that he had recounted above until this point, but only to the present passage. For during that previous time in which the city was built and dedicated, whatever was done and said seems to relate to when Nehemiah was still dwelling in Jerusalem; and when these things had been completed by his efforts, he returned to the king and it was in his absence that Eliashib made himself a large treasury, in which to store those articles that were necessary either for the ministry of the Lord's house or for the use of the ministers. He /1950/ did not even fear to put certain illicit objects in the treasury of the Lord's house which Nehemiah, when he returned to Jerusalem, was immediately keen to get rid of, for there follows:
