Now the city [was] large and great: but the people [were] few therein, and the houses [were] not builded.
Ver. 4. Now the city was large] Heb. Broad in spans or spaces.
And great] Yet nothing so great as Nineveh was of old; or Babylon then; or Alcair and Quinsay at this day. Of the former Bunting saith, that it is sixty miles in compass. Of the latter, Paulus Venetus (who himself dwelt therein about the year 1260) writeth, that it is a hundred miles about, being of all the cities in the world the greatest. Jerusalem was a great city and spacious, though it fell far short of these.
And the people were few therein] But how exceedingly they multiplied afterwards appeareth by those many thousands of persons there destroyed and carried away by the Romans at the last desolation; as testifieth Josephus, an eyewitness, quem lege, et luge, what he collected and lamented. For present, they were so few that they were not able, without help, to defend the walls in so large a circuit.
And the houses were not builded] All could not be done in a day. But some ceiled houses there were, Haggai 1:4, and Nehemiah was all his time busy in building the old waste places, and raising up the foundations of many generations; so that he was worthily called, "The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in," Isaiah 58:12. Eusebius saith, Nehemiah was twelve years in building the walls; he should have said, the city. Jerome likewise saith, that he came to Jerusalem in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, and made an end of building the wall and city in the two and thirtieth year; so that, during the whole twelve years of his government, he was in action.