Verse 16, “After him repaired Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, unto the place over against (_neged_ = in front of) the sepulchres of David.” The wall of the Pool of Shelah was an offshoot from the wall of the High Town, so the writer returns and continues his description of the wall of the High Town. Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, takes up the repairs at the Fountain Gate and works northward. He comes over against the royal sepulchres, which are therefore on the Ophel side of the Tyropœon, a little north of the Stairs. The entrance would have to be low down in the valley bed to be outside the wall which protects Ophel on the west; but there is no reason why it should not be low down. The only doubt we need have is whether the spot marked in the plan is quite far enough north. In either case the excavations for royal tombs were so extensive as at length to approach the south wall of the Temple, perhaps even to touch the wall (at a point now under the mosque El Aksa). This is complained of by the prophet Ezekiel as a desecration. “The house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, and by the carcases of their kings in their death; in their setting of their threshold by my threshold, and their door-post beside my door-post, and there was but the wall between me and them” (Ezek. xliii. 7, 8).
Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, continues working northward “unto the pool that was made” (_berekah_, probably the “king’s pool” of ii. 14, and the “reservoir between two walls” of Isaiah xxii.). He goes on “unto the house of the mighty men.” If this is the house of the king’s bodyguard, the men of war mentioned in 2 Kings xxv. 4, we shall find that they are conveniently placed about midway between the armoury and the king’s house.
In the remaining short space on the west side of the Tyropœon we have no less than four bands of workers, indicating that the destruction had been very great, as indeed Nehemiah found it to be when there was no possibility of his beast getting along; and the next indication of locality is in
Verse 19, “the turning” of the wall, “over against the ascent to the armoury.” The armoury, therefore, was in or near the north-eastern angle of the suburb.