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Though Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobias the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian make scorn of us, and say, 'What do these weak Jews? If a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall; yet the Lord our God is with us, and He can cause our work to prosper.
These three, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, cannot conceal their disgust that anyone has been sent from Persia to look after the welfare of Jerusalem. So far they have trampled the Jews under foot as much as possible, and the Jews have been powerless to resist them.
The first thing we read, after the decision had been made to rebuild the walls, is: "When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?" These men were very indignant. They didn't care for the welfare of Jerusalem. Who were they?
It was certainly a very providential opportunity for Nehemiah to 'throw his views before the public, when Geshem, Sanballat, and Tobiah invited and urged him to stop building the wall and hold a public discussion as to the right to build. And doubtless a great many Jews said to him, 'Unless we establish the right in the first place, it will surely be taken from us utterly.
So they strengthened their hands for this good work. But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?
At the court of Sanballat was a friend of his, Geshem the Arabian, the head or chief of a tribe of Arabs, which we find, from the ancient Assyrian monuments recently discovered, had been planted in Samaria by Sargon, King of Assyria. This man Geshem was therefore a Bedouin, a descendant of Esau.
Another would have been sure to grumble at the expense, would have asked how they, poor down-trodden Jews as they were, could ever afford to give time or money to such a vast undertaking? A third would have risen with a long face, and would have asked, 'What will Sanballat say if we rebuild the wall? What will Tobiah do? What will Geshem whisper?
I gave my oath to Geshem the Arabian, Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the Ammonite, not to allow it to be rebuilt, from fear of the Jews, lest they rise up against me." For the moment, Esther refrained from uttering her petition. All she asked was, that the king and Haman would come to a banquet she proposed to give. She had good reasons for this peculiar course of conduct.
That Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?
In a later age the "Arabs" who, according to the inscriptions of Sennacherib, formed the body-guard of Hezekiah were probably Bedâwin, and Geshem the Arabian in the time of Nehemiah seems to have represented the Amalekite chieftain of an earlier epoch. The Bedâwin still haunt the plains and unfrequented paths of Palestine, waylaying the traveller and robbing the peasant of his flocks.
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