Nehemiah 6:2

2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, "Come and let us meet together in [one of] the villages in the plain of Ono." But they planned to do evil to 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 Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and to the rest of our enemies that I had built the wall and that no gap was left in it--though up to that time I had not erected doors in the gates--

2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, "Come and let us meet together in [one of] the villages in the plain of Ono." But they planned to do evil to me.

3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work and I am not able to come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you all?"

4 And they sent a message to me four times like this, and I returned an answer like this to them.

5 And Sanballat sent his servant with an open letter, [another] word like this to me a fifth time, in his hand.