large room, the
softest of divans, the most comfortable of cushions, the most elaborate
ornaments and decorations surround Nehemiah on all sides, as he stands
amazed and disconsolate in their midst.

Nehemiah calls one of the priests, and inquires the meaning of this
extraordinary change in the building. He is told, to his horror, that
this grand reception room has actually been made for the use and
convenience of Tobiah the secretary. Tobiah the heathen, Tobiah, who had
mocked them as they built the walls, and who had done all that was in
his power ever since to annoy and to hinder Nehemiah and his helpers.
This splendid apartment has actually been made and fitted up, in order
that Tobiah may have a grand place in which to dwell, and in which to
entertain his friends whenever he chooses to pay a visit to Jerusalem.

What an abominable thing is this, which the poor governor has
discovered! For was not this Tobiah an Ammonite, a Gentile? and as such
Nehemiah knew perfectly well he had no right to set his foot in the
Court of the Women, or the Court of Israel; much less then had he the
right to enter the temple building.

Where is Eliashib the high priest? How is it that he has not put a stop
to this proceeding? Nehemiah finds, to his dismay, that Eliashib has
actually been the very one who has had this chamber prepared. The very
man who was responsible for the temple, and who had, by his office, the
right and the power to shut out from the holy building all that was
evil, had been the man to introduce Tobiah the heathen, with marked
honour, into the temple itself.

Eliashib had begun well. Earnestly and heartily he had helped in
building the walls; he had actually led the band of workers, and had
been the very first to begin to build, chap. iii. 1.

But Eliashib had a grandson named Manasseh, and this young man had made
what he thought a very good match. Priest though he was, he had married
the daughter of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria, a heathen girl, who
was rich and possibly good-looking, and whose father was the most
powerful man in the country, but who did not fear or own the God of
Israel. And the grandfather, so far from forbidding the marriage, seems
to have connived at it and sanctioned it.

Nay, he seems not only to have allowed himself to be allied with
Sanballat the governor, but also with Tobiah the secretary, chap. xiii.
4. In what way he was connected by marriage we are not told, but
inasmuch