The defense of the Jews against their enemies consisted of two actions: to pray to God and to take steps to protect themselves.

We prayed to our God: The text does not provide the content of the prayer. It does not say what they asked of God. The grammar of some languages will require a neutral object filler, for example, “we prayed thing to our God” or “we prayed prayers…,” but the translator should not try to make explicit what they prayed about.

Set a guard as a protection against them: A literal translation of the Hebrew might read “set a watch against them” (New King James Version ). Revised Standard Version expands to make the meaning clear by adding as a protection. Some languages may have technical terms for “guard” and for “posting a guard.” Other languages may need to describe the task, for example, “putting a person to watch.” The Jews set people to be on guard lest their opponents who were trying to cause trouble for them attacked them by surprise. Against them refers to their opponents.

Day and night: Guards were assigned to keep watch throughout the day and all night long. Some languages say “night and day” or “night with day,” indicating a 24-hour period of time, while other languages have a specific term.

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 .