Artaxerxes king of Babylon - See Nehemiah 1:1. Compare Ezra 6:22, where Darius Hystaspis is called “king of Assyria.”
After certain days - Or, “at the end of a year,” which is a meaning that the phrase often has Exodus 13:10; Leviticus 25:29-30; Numbers 9:22. Nehemiah probably went to the court at Babylon in 433 B.C., and returned to Jerusalem 432 B.C.