Should such a man as I flee? i.e. Should a man in my position, the head of the state, bound to set an example to others, fly from danger and hide myself? Surely not. And who is there, that, being as I am, would go into the temple to save his life?
Rather, "could go into the temple and live?" Dean Stanley compares Becket's noble words,—"I will not turn the cathedral into a castle,"—but the parallel is not close. Nehemiah feels, not that he would profane the temple by making it into a place of refuge, but that he would break the law by simply entering it.
Ewald shows that he has caught the point of the objection when he says, "Nehemiah thought that, as a layman, he must not break the Divine command by entering the sanctuary itself".