Sanballat the Horonite

Nevertheless, foreign women made even him to sin.

Shall we then listen to you, and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women? And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliash of the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite.

Therefore I chased him from me.

Remember them, O my God, because they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

So the Hebrew word is mishmar.

So Nehemiah set a watch against Sanballat and others, uh, and, and it, it also means persons were assigned the watch or guarding of the young King Joash.

We can read about that.

Habakkuk, we're going to read this scripture.

Now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me.

And when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard of it, please notice they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel.

We'll leave you with this principle from chapter 2.

With opportunity comes opposition.

With opportunity comes opposition.

Why were these guys upset? We're going to read more about Sanballat and Tobiah in the chapters to come.

What were they so upset about? Look at the last part of that sentence.

Because a man, that's Nehemiah, had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel.

Daniel 9 verse 25 Nehemiah soon found on his arrival at Jerusalem that his position there would be one of great difficulty, requiring both judgment and courage.

The enemies of the Jews, especially Sambalat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite, were possessed of power, cunning and the most determined resolution to prevent the rebuilding of the ruined wall.

It was in the stillness of night that a single horseman, accompanied by a few attendants on foot, passed out through the gate of the valley.

Thoughtfully he rode on where in ancient and happier times the bulwarks of Jerusalem had stood, he gazed sorrowfully on the blackened ruins over which the Assyrian conquerors had passed.

A reading from the fourth chapter of Nehemiah.

Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he mocked the Jews.

He said in the presence of his associates and of the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish it in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish and burn ones at that? Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, That stone wall they are building, any fox going up on it will break it down.

Hear, O God, for we are despised.

Do not cover their guilt, and do not let their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have hurled insults in the face of the builders.

So we rebuilt the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and the gaps were beginning to be closed, they were very angry and all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it.

So we pray to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.