So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. The twenty and fifth - of - Elul - This Jewish month answers to a part of our August and September.
Fifty and two days - I see no difficulty in supposing that several thousand workmen, each of whom was working as for God, should be able to complete this wall in fifty-two days. There is little doubt that several parts of the old wall were entire; in many places the foundations still remained; there were all the materials of the old wall still at hand; and though they had to clear and carry away much rubbish, yet they do not appear to have had any stones to quarry. The work mentioned here was little when compared to what Caesar did in Gaul and other places; and to what Titus did at Jerusalem, who built a wall round Jerusalem of five thousand paces in three days, besides, thirteen towers of ten stadia in circuit. And Quintus Curtius and Arrian inform us that Alexander the Great built the walls of Alexandria, on the Tanais, which were nearly eight miles in compass, in the space of between twenty and thirty days. Nehemiah therefore had time sufficient in fifty-two days to repair and restore the walls of Jerusalem. See Calmet on this place.