In the month Nisan— Which answers to part of our March and April. So that it was almost four months between his hearing of the disconsolate condition wherein Jerusalem lay, and his requesting leave of the king to go thither. Now, besides that it might not come to his own turn of waiting sooner, there might be these further reasons assigned for his long silence and delay: that he could not take so long and dangerous a journey in the winter; that he could not sooner meet with a seasonable opportunity of speaking with the king upon so critical an affair: or, as others will have it, that he retired all this intermediate while, and spent it in fasting and prayer. See Patrick and Poole.
Related Commentaries of Nehemiah 2:1
Nehemiah 2:1
1 And it came to pass in the month Nisan, 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. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.