for something more. There is a certain man named Asaph,
who has charge of the king's forest or park (see margin of R.V.). The
real word which Nehemiah used was paradise--the king's paradise. The
derivation of the word is from the Persian words Pairi, round about, and
Deza, a wall. Up and down their empire, in various places, the Persian
kings had these paradises--parks or pleasure grounds--surrounded and
shut off from the neighbouring country by a high fence or wall. These
paradises were places of beauty and loveliness, where the king and his
friends might meet and walk together, and enjoy each other's society.

Is not this the Lord's own picture of the place He went to prepare for
His people? Did He not say to the thief on the cross, 'To-day thou shalt
be with Me in Paradise?' It was a new name taken by our Lord from these
paradises of the Persian kings, and given by Him to that new place which
He went to prepare for His people, even the Garden of the Lord, the
pleasure ground of the King of kings, the place to which His people go
when they die. There they enjoy His company, and see His face, and walk
with Him and talk to Him, waiting for that glorious day when they shall
pass from the garden of the King into the palace itself.

We are not told where this particular paradise was, of which Asaph was
the keeper, but probably it was the place which the kings of Judah had
always made their pleasure ground. This was at Etam, about seven miles
from Jerusalem, where Solomon had fine gardens, and had made large lakes
of water, fed by a hidden and sealed spring.

Solomon himself twice used the word paradise of his gardens, and these
are the only places in which the word occurs in the Old Testament,
except in Neh. ii. 8.

Solomon says, Eccles. ii. 5, 'I made me gardens and paradises.' In Cant.
iv. 13 he speaks of 'a paradise of pomegranates, with precious fruits.'

For three purposes Nehemiah wanted wood from Asaph's paradise, and asked
the king to give him an order for it, that he might deliver to the
keeper.

He wanted it (1) for the gates of the palace of the house. _The_
house means the temple, and the palace should be translated the castle.
It was a tower which stood at the north-west corner of the temple
platform, and commanded and protected the temple courts. (2) He required
wood for the gates of the wall, and (3) for 'the house that I shall enter
into,' i.e. for my own dwelling-house.

All is granted--the royal s