Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Nehemiah 6:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
When Sanballat and the enemies associated with him were unable to obstruct the building of the wall of Jerusalem by Open violence (Neh 4), they endeavoured to ruin Nehemiah by secret snares. They invited him to meet them in the plain of Ono ( Neh 6:1, Neh 6:2); but Nehemiah, perceiving that they intended mischief, replied to them by messengers, that he could not come to them on account of the building. After receiving for the fourth time this refusal, Sanballat sent his servant to Nehemiah with an open letter, in which he accused him of rebellion against the king of Persia. Nehemiah, however, repelled this accusation as the invention of Sanballat ( Neh 6:3-9). Tobiah and Sanballat, moreover, hired a false prophet to make Nehemiah flee into the temple from fear of the snares prepared for him, that they might then be able to calumniate him ( Neh 6:10-14). The building of the wall was completed in fifty-two days, and the enemies were disheartened ( Neh 6:15-17), although at that time many nobles of Judah had entered into epistolary correspondence with Tobiah, to obstruct the proceedings of Nehemiah ( Neh 6:18, Neh 6:19). Neh 6:1-2 The attempts of Sanballat and his associates to ruin Nehemiah. - Neh 6:1, Neh 6:2. When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of the enemies, heard that the wall was built, and that no breaches were left therein, though the doors were then not yet set up in the gates, he sent, etc. לו נשׁמע, it was heard by him, in the indefinite sense of: it came to his ears. The use of the passive is more frequent in later Hebrew; comp. Neh 6:6, Neh 6:7, Neh 13:27; Est 1:20, and elsewhere. On Sanballat and his allies, see remarks on Neh 2:19. The "rest of our enemies" were, according to Neh 4:1 ( Neh 4:7, A.V.), Ashdodites, and also other hostile individuals. וגו העת עד גּם introduces a parenthetical sentence limiting the statement already made: Nevertheless, down to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates. The wall-building was quite finished, but doors to the gates were as yet wanting to the complete fortification of the city. The enemies sent to him, saying, Come, let us meet together (for a discussion) in the villages in the valley of Ono. - In Neh 6:7, נוּערה of the present verse. The form כּפרים, elsewhere only כּפר, Ch1 27:25, or כּפר, village, Sa1 6:18, occurs only here. כּפירה, however, being found Ezr 2:25 and elsewhere as a proper name, the form כּפיר seems to have been in use as well as כּפר. There is no valid ground for regarding כּפרים as the proper name of a special locality. To make their proposal appear impartial, they leave the appointment of the place in the valley of Ono to Nehemiah. Ono seems, according to Ch1 8:12, to have been situate in the neighbourhood of Lod (Lydda), and is therefore identified by Van de Velde (Mem. p. 337) and Bertheau with Kefr Ana (Arab. kfr ‛ânâ) or Kefr Anna, one and three-quarter leagues north of Ludd. But no certain information concerning the position of the place can be obtained from Ch1 8:12; and Roediger (in the Hallische Lit. Zeitung, 1842, No. 71, p. 665) is more correct, in accordance both with the orthography and the sense, in comparing it with Beit Unia (Arab. byt ûniya), north-west of Jerusalem, not far from Beitin (Bethel); comp. Rob. Pal. ii. p. 351. The circumstance that the plain of Ono was, according to the present verse, somewhere between Jerusalem and Samaria, which suits Beit Unia, but not Kefr Ana (comp. Arnold in Herzog's Realenc…
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