Tobiah

Tobiah is the Ammonite official who, alongside Sanballat the Horonite and Geshem the Arabian, leads the standing opposition to Nehemiah's rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem and to the post-exilic restoration of the Yahweh-house. The name also attaches to a returnee family whose lineage could not be verified after the captivity. Most of the Tobiah material gathers in Nehemiah, where he appears first as a mocker outside the wall, then as a conspirator who tries to draw Nehemiah into a trap, then as a long-standing partner of priestly insiders inside the temple courts themselves.

A Family Without a Pedigree

A "sons of Tobiah" appears in the lists of returnees who came up out of Babylon but could not produce their father's house or their seed to prove their Israelite descent. Ezra's roll counts them with two other unproven families: "the sons of Delaiah, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nekoda, six hundred fifty and two" (Ezr 2:60). Nehemiah's parallel roll gives the same three families with a slightly different total — "The sons of Delaiah, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nekoda, six hundred forty and two" (Ne 7:62). The Tobiah-family of the captivity-roll is distinct from the Ammonite Tobiah of the Nehemiah narrative; the rolls do not connect them.

The Opposition Pair Hears of the Rebuild

The hostile reception of Nehemiah's commission begins as soon as the news reaches Samaria. "And when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the slave, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, for man came to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel" (Ne 2:10). Tobiah is named here with the gentilic "the Ammonite" and the status-tag "the slave," paired with Sanballat the Horonite as the lead opposition-pair. The same pairing recurs at the second hearing, this time joined by Geshem the Arabian: "But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the slave, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that you⁺ do? Will you⁺ rebel against the king?" (Ne 2:19).

The Fox-and-Stone-Wall Mockery

When Sanballat publicly mocks the rebuilding effort before the Samaria-army, Tobiah stands at his side and seconds the scorn-line. Nehemiah records: "Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they are building, if a fox goes up, he will break down their stone wall" (Ne 4:3). Tobiah's contribution is the fox-and-stone-wall image — the rebuild granted only as a hypothetical, the stone-course pronounced so fragile that the unlikeliest of agents, a fox, can topple it.

The mockery hardens into a coalition as the wall begins to close. "But it came to pass that, when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem went forward, [and] that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very angry; and they conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem, and to cause confusion in it" (Ne 4:7-8). The opposition-roster broadens — Tobiah's gentilic kinsmen the Ammonites are listed alongside the Arabians and the Ashdodites — and the response moves from scorn to an armed conspiracy.

The Plain-of-Ono Trap and the Hired Prophet

After the wall is built — gapless but still doorless — Tobiah and Sanballat shift from open assault to entrapment. "Now it came to pass, when it was reported to Sanballat and Tobiah, and to Geshem the Arabian, and to the rest of our enemies, that I had built the wall, and that there was no breach left in it (though even to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together in [one of] the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do mischief to me" (Ne 6:1-2). Nehemiah's reply is a refusal to come down (Ne 6:3), and four repeats of the invitation get four repeats of the same answer (Ne 6:4).

The fifth approach is an open letter alleging that Nehemiah and the Jews intend rebellion and that Nehemiah has appointed prophets to proclaim him king in Judah (Ne 6:5-7). Nehemiah denies the charge and prays for strengthened hands (Ne 6:8-9). When he then visits the shut-in Shemaiah son of Delaiah son of Mehetabel and is urged to take refuge inside the temple — supposedly because Tobiah and Sanballat's killers are coming for him in the night — Nehemiah refuses and discerns the prophet's commission: "And I discerned, and saw that God had not sent him; but he pronounced this prophecy against me: and Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. For this cause he was hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach me" (Ne 6:12-13). Nehemiah's prayer over the episode names the pair: "Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to these works of theirs, and also the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, that would have put me in fear" (Ne 6:14).

Subverting the Nobles of Judah

Tobiah's reach extends inside the city as well. "Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and [the letters] of Tobiah came to them. For there were many in Judah sworn to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah; and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah as wife. Also they spoke of his good deeds before me, and reported my words to him. [And] Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear" (Ne 6:17-19). Tobiah is now disclosed as bound by marriage to Judahite houses through his own father-in-law-relation to Shecaniah son of Arah and through his son Jehohanan's marriage to the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah, with a body of Judahite nobles "sworn to him" carrying his correspondence both ways and reporting Nehemiah's own words back to him.

Inside the House of God

By Nehemiah's return-visit the alliance has crossed from outside the wall to inside the Yahweh-house. "Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, being allied to Tobiah, had prepared for him a great chamber, where previously they laid the meal-offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the grain, the new wine, and the oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, and the singers, and the porters; and the heave-offerings for the priests" (Ne 13:4-5). Eliashib the chamber-overseer of the temple has cleared a great storeroom — formerly the holding-place for the meal-offerings, the frankincense, the vessels, and the Levite-singer-porter tithes of grain, new wine, and oil — and given it over to Tobiah.

Nehemiah, absent at the time on a return to Artaxerxes king of Babylon (Ne 13:6), comes back to discover the arrangement and acts: "and I came to Jerusalem, and understood the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. And it grieved me intensely: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers: and there I brought again the vessels of the house of God, with the meal-offerings and the frankincense" (Ne 13:7-9). The Ammonite who had stood outside mocking the stone-course at the Samaria-army is at last cast out of a chamber inside the courts of the house of God, and the chambers cleansed and restored to the meal-offerings, frankincense, and vessels they were built to hold.