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.
It came to pass in the month Nisan. This was nearly four months after he had learned the desolate and ruinous state of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:1). The reasons of so long a delay cannot be ascertained.
I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Xenophon has particularly remarked the polished and graceful manner in which the cup-bearers of the Median, and consequently the Persian, monarchs performed their duty of presenting the wine to their royal master. Having washed the cup in the king's presence, and poured into their left hand a little of the wine, which they drank off in his presence, they then handed the cup to him, not grasped, but lightly held with the tips of their thumb and fingers. This description has received some curious illustrations from the monuments of Assyria and Persia, on which the cup-bearers are frequently represented in the act of handing wine to the king.