Nehemiah 3:13

‘Hanun, and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the valley gate. They built it, and set up its doors, its bolts and its bars, and a thousand cubits of the wall to the dung gate.'

Next to Shallum and his daughters were Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah. They repaired the Valley Gate (from which Nehemiah initially went out to view the walls. See Nehemiah 2:13; 2 Chronicles 26:9), and the wall for the next fifteen hundred feet (almost five hundred metres), going as far as the Dung Gate, which was at the southernmost part of the walls. The Dung Gate was the gate through which rubbish was taken out in order to be flung into the valley below. It was by the Pool of Siloam, and may well be the Potsherd Gate of Jeremiah 19:2. Responsibility for such a large section may suggest that the wall in that section was in a fairly good state of repair.

Hanun, which means ‘favoured' or ‘pitied', was also the name of one of the six sons of Zalaph who assisted in repairing the East wall (Nehemiah 3:30), as well as being the name of a son and successor of Nahash, king of Ammon, who dishonoured David's messengers and rued the consequences (2 Samuel 10:1 ff; 1 Chronicles 19:1 ff).

Zanoah was a town in the Judean Shephelah (lowlands), grouped with Eshtaol, Zorah and Ashnah (Joshua 15:34). It was 3 kilometres (2 miles) south of Bethshemesh and was reoccupied by Jews after the Exile (Nehemiah 11:30). Along with Jericho it indicates something of the area in which the returnees settled (from Jericho to the Shephelah).