Nehemiah 6:7, commentary and pictures

Sanballat's open message carried the false charge that Nehemiah had appointed prophets to preach of him at Jerusalem, proclaiming that there was a king in Judah. The claim was that prophets in the city were publicly declaring him king and that he was seeking kingship for himself. The charge was invented, with nothing true in it, and was recognized as fabricated to weaken the builders and obstruct their work.

The purpose was to make the rebuilding of the wall look like rebellion against the Persian king. By using supposed prophetic announcements to make the accusation credible, the enemies portrayed the work as revolt against Persia and branded Nehemiah's supporters as traitors plotting revolt. The threat that the matter would now be reported to the king according to those words was meant to frighten Nehemiah. The demand to take counsel together was pressure to force him into a meeting, presented as a summons to confer.

That invitation to meet was not genuine but part of the same trap. It was a lure to draw Nehemiah into his enemies' power so they could harm him, disrupt the rebuilding, and stop the work through intimidation and deceit. The letter was sent open so its contents would spread among the people and alarm and intimidate them as well as Nehemiah. In this way opponents of God's work use fabricated accusations, deceit, and intimidation to obstruct it. The episode belongs to the record of Sanballat and Tobiah's falsehood and treachery, set against Nehemiah's nobility, devotion, and self-sacrifice as an example of evil for readers to reject rather than imitate.