Nehemiah 4:7 - Exposition

It came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah , at Samaria, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites , in their respective residences, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up , or "that the (entire) wall of Jerusalem was of a (good) height," they were wroth . Observe that Tobiah is here quite separated from the nation of the Ammonites, and in no way represented as their leader. Jealousy of Jerusalem on the part of the Ammonites and Philistines is quite natural; and, if the Arabs are the Edomites, their opposition would be equally a matter of course ( Psalms 137:7 ; Ezekiel 25:12 ; Amos 1:11 ; Obadiah 1:10 , Obadiah 1:14 ); but the Edomites are not called Arabs in Scripture, nor do Arabs appear very often among the enemies of the Jews. It has been suggested that the "Arabians" here mentioned are the descendants of a colony which Sargon planted in Samaria itself. This, of course, is possible; but they may perhaps have been one of the desert tribes, induced to come forward by the hope of plunder (Ewald), and influenced by the Ammonites, their neighbours.