One of these was Sanballat, the satrap or governor of Samaria. His name
was an Assyro-Babylonian one, so that he was probably descended from
one of the Babylonian families settled in Samaria, and it signifies 'The
Moon God gives life.' His native place was Horonaim in Moab, and
Sanballat was by nation a descendant of Lot.

With the Samaritan governor was his secretary Tobiah, the servant or the
feud slave, a man also descended from Lot, for he was an Ammonite, and
standing evidently very high in Sanballat's favour.

It was probably Tobiah who read Artaxerxes' letter to his master, and
very black and gloomy were both their faces as they heard the news it
contained.

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.

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. But now here
is a man come direct from the court at Shushan, with letters from their
royal master in his hand, and with orders to rebuild and fortify
Jerusalem.

From that moment Sanballat and his friends became Nehemiah's bitter
enemies, determined to thwart and to oppose him to the utmost of their