Hanun: This is the first of two persons with this name among those who repaired the wall of Jerusalem (see verse 30 below).

Zanoah was a town 23 kilometers (14 miles) southwest of Jerusalem.

The distance from the Valley Gate (see the comments at Neh 2.13) to the Dung Gate was a thousand cubits, that is, about 500 meters or 1,500 feet. For cubit see the comments at Ezra 6.3. This was the longest stretch of wall without a gate. The whole city from north to south was only about 1,200 meters or 3,600 feet. It is possible that there were a lot of people working on this one section, or possibly this part of the wall had not been seriously damaged.

The Hebrew has “Cheese Gate” instead of Dung Gate (see the comments at Neh 2.13), but this is a scribal error as is evident from the next verse. It should therefore be translated Dung Gate, as Revised Standard Version has done.

Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Nehemiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .