1. Nehemiah 2:1 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is “the month of Nisan”?

Nehemiah 2:1 (ESV)

1 In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.

The month Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar. In the year 445 BC (when the events of this paragraph occur), the month Nisan spanned the four-week period beginning on April 13 of the Gregorian calendar. Nisan is four months after the month Chislev, mentioned in Nehemiah 1:1. Nehemiah had continued fasting and praying day and night during this four-month period (Nehemiah 1:4, Nehemiah 1:6).