blackened space showed where each had stood, but they may have joined
together in that other psalm, which was probably written about this
time, Psalm cii.

'Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her,
yea, the set time, is come.

'For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and it pitieth them to
see her in the dust.'

There is no misadventure on the journey, they travel safely under the
care of the king's guard; but surely Nehemiah saw a dark cloud on the
horizon as he handed in his letters to the governors beyond the river.
One of these was Sanballat, the satrap or governor of Samaria. His name
was an Assyro-Babylonian one, so that he was probably descended from
one of the Babylonian families settled in Samaria, and it signifies 'The
Moon God gives life.' His native place was Horonaim in Moab, and
Sanballat was by nation a descendant of Lot.

With the Samaritan governor was his secretary Tobiah, the servant or the
feud slave, a man also descended from Lot, for he was an Ammonite, and
standing evidently very high in Sanballat's favour.

It was probably Tobiah who read Artaxerxes' letter to his master, and
very black and gloomy were both their faces as they heard the news it
contained.

At the court of Sanballat was a friend of his, Geshem the Arabian, the
head or chief of a tribe of Arabs, which we find, from the ancient
Assyrian monuments recently discovered, had been planted in Samaria by
Sargon, King of Assyria. This man Geshem was therefore a Bedouin, a
descendant of Esau.

These three, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, cannot conceal their disgust
that anyone has been sent from Persia to look after the welfare of
Jerusalem. So far they have trampled the Jews under foot as much as
possible, and the Jews have been powerless to resist them. But now here
is a man come direct from the court at Shushan, with letters from their
royal master in his hand, and with orders to rebuild and fortify
Jerusalem.

From that moment Sanballat and his friends became Nehemiah's bitter
enemies, determined to thwart and to oppose him to the utmost of their
power.

At length the wearisome journey is over, and Nehemiah arrives in
Jerusalem. He tells no one why he has come; but, worn out with the
fatigue he has undergone, he goes quietly to the house of a friend,
probably to that of his brother Hanani, and for three days he rests
there. Then, on the third night after his arrival, when all Jerusalem is