Nehemiah 6:2

2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages ^[a] on the plain ^[b] of Ono.” But they were planning to harm me.

Nehemiah 6:2 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 6:2

Then Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me
Messengers:

saying, come, let us meet together in some one of the villages;
in Cephirim, which Jarchi takes to be the name of a place, perhaps the same with Cephirah, a city in the tribe of Benjamin, ( Joshua 18:26 )

in the plain of Ono;
which was in the same tribe, see ( 1 Chronicles 8:12 ) , they might pretend a friendly meeting, to accommodate differences between them, or to converse together about the general interest of the king of Persia in those parts:

but they thought to do me mischief;
to kill him, or at least to confine him; this he either conjectured from their general character and behaviour, or he had intelligence of their design.

Nehemiah 6:2 In-Context

1 When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left—though to that time I had not yet installed the doors in the gates—

2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to harm me.

3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to go down to you?”

4 Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave the same reply.

5 The fifth time, Sanballat sent me this same message by his young servant, who had in his hand an unsealed letter

Footnotes

• [a]. Or in Kephirim
• [b]. Or in the valley