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WHEN NEHEMIAH returned to Jerusalem and gained the support of the Jewish leaders to rebuild the wall, he immediately ran into opposition from the leaders of the peoples around: Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian (Neh. 2:19). Each of these men has now been identified by modern archaeological discoveries, and this helps to establish that the book of Nehemiah is authentic history.

Sanballat the Horonite appears to have come from Beth-horon, the city in the valley northwest of Jerusalem down which Joshua chased the defeated Canaanite army which besieged Gibeon. His name is Babylonian—Sinuballit, meaning ‘Sin [the moon god] has given life’— but his sons’ names, Delaiah and Shelemiah, each incorporate the Name of God, Yah. It is likely therefore that he was one of the Samaritans, people from Babylon and elsewhere in Mesopotamia, settled by the Assyrians in the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel, who combined their old pagan worship with the worship of the God of Israel (2 Kgs. 17:24-41).

On the southern borders of Egypt, at Biblical Syene (Ezek. 29:10; 30:6), modern Aswan, there was a Jewish colony called Elephantine, or Yeb as it was known to the Jews themselves. At the turn of the century a quantity of papyrus documents, written in Aramaic, and preserved in the dry climate, were discovered. These related to this Jewish colony. One letter is of particular interest. Apparently these Jews had built a temple at Yeb which had been destroyed in an Egyptian uprising against their Persian rulers. They had written to the high priest at Jerusalem asking for assistance in reconstructing their temple. This letter had been ignored, so they wrote again, this time to the Persian governor Bagoas, and a copy of this letter has survived. In the letter, which is dated 405 B.C. (Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem in 444 B.C.), they refer to having also written to Delaiah and Shelemiah, the sons of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria. By this time Sanballat must have been quite old, so perhaps that is why they wrote to his sons. They also refer to the high priest as being Johanan, evidently the one mentioned in Nehemiah 12:23.

Our knowledge of the Sanballat family was extended in 1962 with the discovery of papyrus documents in a cave north of Jericho. These refer to the period 375-335 B.C., the close of the Persian period, and state that they were written in Samaria. They refer to Hananiah, son of Sanballat; and, in view of the late date, it is thought that this Sanballat would have been the grandson of the original Sanballat of Nehemiah’s time.

In the case of Tobiah the Ammonite it is not strictly true to say that archaeological evidence of his existence has been found, only of the existence of a family of that name. At Araq el-Emir in central Transjordan (Biblical Ammon) the name Tobiah is found carved on a tomb dating to the third century B.C., some time after Nehemiah. Also, a letter has been found from an Ammonite governor of the name of Tobias, written to an Egyptian official called Zeno, who worked for the Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt about 150 years after Nehemiah’s time.

Two records of Geshem the Arabian have been found. One inscription relates to the kings of Dedan, a semi-independent kingship which ruled a large area in northwest Arabia in Persian times. It states: “Niran, son of Hadiru, inscribed his name in the days of Geshem, son of Shahar”, indicating that Geshem was well known. The second was discovered on the borders of Egypt, in a temple dedicated to the Arabian goddess Han-’Allat. Silver vessels were discovered, one of which bore the name “Qalnu son of Geshem king of Kedar”. Kedar was an Arabian kingdom, and at this time Arabian rule (under the Persians) stretched to the borders of Egypt.

These ancient records establish that Nehemiah’s enemies were influential people, for they were the rulers, under the Persians, of the surrounding territory: Samaria to the north, Ammon east of Jordan, and Arabia, which then stretched from the area southeast of Judea across Sinai to the Egyptian border. The book of Nehemiah is shown to reflect accurately the political set-up of those times.

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