Nehemiah 2:10

When Sanballat the Horonite,.... Who either presided at Horonaim, or sprung from thence, a city of Moab, Isaiah 15:5 and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite; who was formerly a slave, but now raised,

When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel. Sanballat the Horonite.

Sanballat the Horonite; so called, either from his family, or from the place of his birth or rule, which is supposed to be Horonaim, an eminent city of Moab, . Tobiah the servant; so called probably from his servile original or condition, from which he was advanced to his present power and dignity; which also may be mentioned as one reason why he now carried himself so insolently and perversely towards the Jews, it being usual for persons suddenly raised from a mean to a high estate so to demean themselves.

Nehemiah 2:10 When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard [of it], it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.10. When Sanballat the Horonite] That is, the Moabite, Isaiah 15:4 Jeremiah 48:3; Jeremiah 48:5; Jeremiah 48:34. His name signifieth, saith one, a pure enemy; he was come of that spiteful people, who were anciently irked because of Israel, Numbers 22:3-4, or did inwardly fret and vex at them, as Exodus 1:12, who yet were allied unto them, and did them no harm in their passage by them, yea, had done them good by the slaughter of the Amorites, their encroaching neighbours. And Tobiah the servant] A servant or bondslave once he had been, though now a Toparch, a lieutenant to the king of Persia. Now such are most troublesome, Proverbs 30:22. Asperlus nihil est humili, cum surgit in altum. Aφορητοςεστινευτυχωνμαστιγιας. Heard it] As they might soon do by means of their wives, who were Jewesses. And the Jews to this day are generally found the most nimble and mercurial wits in the world. Every vizier and bashaw of state among the Turks useth to keep a Jew of his private counsel; whose malice, wit, and experience of Christendom, with their continual intelligence, is thought to advise most of that mischief which the Turk puts in execution against us. It grieved them exceedingly] Heb. It seemed to them an evil, a great evil; it displeased them sore, and vexed them at the very heart, such was their spleen and spite. Envy is a deadly mischief; and because it cannot feed upon other men’ s hearts, it feedeth upon its own, drinking up the most part of its own venom. The envious man is not like the maid in Avicen, who, feeding upon poison, was herself healthy, yet infected others with her venomous breath; but like the serpent Porphyrius, which is full of poison, but, wanting teeth, hurteth none but himself; or as the hill Aetna, &c. That there was come a man to seek the welfare, &c.] This they looked upon with an evil eye, and were vexed, Invidia Siculi, &c. Who can stand before envy? Proverbs 27:4. It espieth with great grief the smallest things the good man doth or hath, and is, therefore, absolutely the best thing to clear the eyesight, said Actius Sincerus, a nobleman, to King Frederick.

(10) Sanballat the Horonite.—Satrap of Samaria under the Persians, whose secretary or minister was “Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite.” Sanballat was from one of the Beth-horons, which had been in Ephraim, and were now in the kingdom of Samaria. His name is seemingly Babylonian, while that of Tobiah is Hebrew. The revival of Jerusalem would be a blow to the recent ascendency of Samaria.

Verse 10. Sanballat the Horonite] Probably a native of Horonaim, a Moabite by birth, and at this time governor of the Samaritans under the king of Persia. Tobiah the servant] He was an Ammonite; and here, under the Persian king, joint governor with Sanballat. Some suppose that the Sanballat here mentioned was the same who persuaded Alexander to build a temple on Mount Gerizim in favour of the Samaritans. Pelagius thinks there were two governors of this name.

10. When] R.V. And when.This is the first mention of the opposition which Nehemiah encountered. The news of his mission quickly spread, although its precise object was not known (cf. Nehemiah 2:12; Nehemiah 2:16). Sanballat and Tobiah appear throughout the book as the bitterest foes he had to encounter. ‘Sanballat,’ or, as perhaps it should be called, Saneballat (LXX. Σαναβαλλὰτ, Josephus Σαναβαλλέτης) is probably an Assyrian name, meaning ‘Sin (the moon-god of the Assyrians) giveth life,’ just as Nabubalitanni means ‘Nebo giveth the life.’ The name of the moon-god appears also in Sennacherib = ‘Sin gives many brothers.’ Sanballat is distinguished as ‘the Horonite,’ by which is probably meant ‘dweller in Beth-horon,’ a town on the borders of Ephraim (Joshua 16:3; Joshua 16:5; Joshua 18:13; Joshua 21:22; 2 Chronicles 8:5; 2 Chronicles 25:13), about 18 miles N.W. of Jerusalem, upon the main road leading to the plain of the coast. Beth-horon commanded the pass into the mountains. Strategically it was a place of great importance. It is famous for its connexion with the victories of Joshua (Joshua 10:10), of Judas Maccabeus (1Ma 3:15; 1Ma 7:39), and as the scene of the overthrow of Cestius Gallus (Joseph. Bell. J. ii. 19. 8). Sanballat was evidently one of the leaders of the Samaritan community (see on Nehemiah 4:2). Some scholars imagine from the frequent conjunction of his name with that of Tobiah the Ammonite, that Sanballat must have been a Moabite, and that the title ‘Horonite’ denotes a dweller in ‘Horonaim,’ a town in Southern Moab, mentioned in Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 48:3; Jeremiah 48:5; Jeremiah 48:34, and twice in the Inscription of the Moabite Stone. Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite] Why Tobiah is called ‘the servant’ is not clear. It may denote that he once held some position under the Persian governor or under the king. Rawlinson’s suggestion that he was Sanballat’s secretary and councillor, and had originally been an Ammonite slave, is less probable. He is generally mentioned on an equality with Sanballat, and in Nehemiah 6:12; Nehemiah 6:14, his name stands first. Frequent mention is made of Tobiah’s intrigues against the work and authority of Nehemiah. According to some, the termination ‘-jah’ shows him to have been a renegade Jew: cf. Ezra 2:60; Zechariah 6:10, where the same name occurs. His son’s name, Jehohanan (Nehemiah 6:18), is also compounded of the Jewish Sacred Name. The race-hatred between the Jews and the Ammonites and Moabites (see Nehemiah 13:1-2) may explain in some degree Tobiah’s hostility. But in all probability the Samaritans and the neighbouring nations (Moabites, Ammonites, Arabians, &c.) were combined in the desire to foil any effort made to reinstate Jerusalem in her old position of being the most powerful town in Palestine. The policy of Nehemiah would weaken the neighbouring tribes in proportion as it would strengthen the Jews. Tobiah may have in some way represented the Ammonites, possibly as governor of their small community, having received the position from the court where he had been a slave (cf. Ecclesiastes 10:6; Lamentations 5:8, ‘servants rule over us’).

The name Sanballat is probably Babylonian the first element being the same which commences “Sennacherib,” namely, “Sin,” the moon-God, and the second balatu, “eminent” (?),which is found in the Assyrian name, Bel-balatu.

10. Sanballat the Horonite — This noted man seems to have been an officer of the Persian government, holding a military command at Samaria. Compare Nehemiah 4:2.