Sanballat the Horonite

Sanballat the Horonite (Hebrew: סַנְבַלַּט Sanḇallaṭ) – or Sanballat I – was a Samaritan leader, official of the Achaemenid Empire, and contemporary of the Israelite leader Nehemiah who lived in the mid-to-late 5th century BC. He and his family are mentioned in the contemporary Elephantine papyri and ostraca.

In Hebrew the name is Sanḇallaṭ (Hebrew: סַנְבַלַּט). Eberhard Schrader, cited in Brown–Driver–Briggs, considered that the name in Akkadian was Sīn-uballiṭ (Akkadian: *𒌍𒋾𒆷, 30.TI.LA) from the name of the Sumerian moon god Sīn meaning "Sīn gave life".

The name of the god Sīn in the context of Sanballat's name has since been mistakenly confused with the unrelated English noun sin in some popular English commentaries on Nehemiah. Other earlier commentators had sometimes taken Sanballat as being a military rank rather than a name.^[1]

Sanballat is best known from the Book of Nehemiah, which casts him as one of the chief opponents of the Jewish governor Nehemiah during the latter's efforts to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and carrying out his reforms among the Jews. In Jewish tradition, he was called "the Horonite," (from "Horon", possibly identified with present-day Huwara^[2]) and was associated with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian.^[3] His home was evidently in Samaria.

According to Nehemiah, when he and his escort arrived in Jerusalem, their return aroused the hostility of Sanballat and his allies. They were aggrieved^[4] that the welfare of the Jews should be fostered. In Nehemiah 2:19, it says, "When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard, they mocked us and held us in contempt and said, 'What is this that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?'" Nehemiah resented their insinuation and told them they had no right in Jerusalem or interest in its affairs. As soon as Sanballat and his associates heard that Nehemiah and the Jews were building the walls, they were angry, and Sanballat addressed the army of Samaria with a contemptuous reference to "these feeble Jews."^[5] Tobiah appeased him by saying that a fox (or a jackal) climbing on their wall would break it down. Nehemiah and his builders, the Jews, vigorously hurried the work, while Sanballat and his associates organized their forces to fight against Jerusalem.^[6] Nehemiah prepared to meet the opposition and continued the work on the walls. Five different times, Sanballat and his confederates challenged Nehemiah and the Jews to meet them for a conversation in the plain of Ono.^[7] Nehemiah was equal to the emergency and attended strictly to his work. Then Sanballat, with Jews in Jerusalem who were his confederates, attempted to entrap Nehemiah in the Temple; but the scheme failed.^[8] Sanballat's Jewish allies, however, kept Sanballat and Tobiah informed as to the progress of the work in Jerusalem. With the hand of the Lord upon Nehemiah, along with Nehemiah's far-sighted policy and cunning, he was kept out of the hands of these neighbor-foes. In his reforms, so effectively carried out, he discovered that one of the grandsons of the current high priest Eliashib had married a daughter of this Sanballat and was thus son-in-law of the chief enemy of the Jews.^[9] Nehemiah also found that Eliashib had leased the storerooms of the temple to Tobiah, thus depriving the Levites of their share of the offerings in Nehemiah's absence. The high priest (and/or possibly his son Jehoiada and the unnamed grandson) was driven out of Jerusalem on the ground that he had defiled the priesthood (Nehemiah 13:28).

It has been speculated that the business dealings of Sanballat with the descendants of Joshua the High Priest, in particular with Jeshua's grandson, the high priest Eliashib, and with Jeshua's great-grandson who had betrothed his son to a daughter of Sanballat, may form part of the context for the "vision" of Joshua the High Priest in a heavenly tribunal between the angel of the Lord and a satan figure in Zechariah 3. This connection between priestly intermarriage with the Samaritans and Sanballat's family in Nehemiah 13:28 to the "dirty clothes" of Joshua in Zechariah 3 was first asserted by Rav Pappa (300–375) and in Christian circles by Jerome.^[10] It is also noted by medieval Jewish commentators David Kimhi, Rashi and Moses ibn Ezra, though ibn Ezra after considering the connection rejects it.^[11]

Josephus (Antiquities xi. 7, § 2.) places Sanballat later on in Persian history, during the reign of Darius III (336–331 BCE). He likely confused this Sanballat with one of his successors, possibly Sanballat II or Sanballat III. Josephus's story is probably a traditional account of the origin of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim. Josephus records the marriage of Manasseh and Sanballat's daughter from Nehemiah 13:28 as actually having taken place and causing the founding of the temple.

In the Elephantine papyri and ostraca, CAP 30,^[a] Sanballat is said to have had two sons, Delaiah bar Sanballat and Shelemiah bar Sanballat.^[12] The Jews of Elephantine asked Sanballat's sons for help rebuilding the Temple at Elephantine, which had been damaged or destroyed by rioters.

According to Yitzakh Magen (2007),^[13] Sanballat appears to have been the scion of a veteran Samaritan family of the Israelite remnant originating in Horon, perhaps to be identified with the village of Huwara at the foot of Mount Gerizim.^[14] In Magen's reconstruction, he was commander of a garrison force who rose to be appointed governor of Samaria, the first of the Israelites to achieve this rank, sometime before Nehemiah's return from exile, and arrival in Judea in 444 BCE. He thought a sacred site was necessary to unite Samaria and its populations. The Levite priesthood had migrated to Judea, and the priests of Baal were idolatrous. He chose from tradition Mount Gerizim, over whose site he chose a high priest from a noble family in Jerusalem, a grandson of Eliashib,^[b] to preside, and to whom he gave his daughter in marriage. He established a temple to Yahweh on Mount Gerizim, over which his own descendants, born into priestly blood, could minister.^[15] Josephus describes his construction of the Temple on Gerizim and says it was modeled on the Temple in Jerusalem.^[16] He also relates that many Israelites married to Samaritans moved to Samaria, causing much bewilderment in Jerusalem.

In the first half of the 20th century, the radical nationalist poet and political activist Uri Zvi Greenberg – considered the spiritual mentor of Revisionist Zionism and of the present Israeli settlers on the West Bank – regularly used the term "The Sanballats" or "The Sanballat Gang" (כנופית הסנבלטים) as a catch-all term of abuse for antisemites and Palestinian nationalists as well as for political opponents from the Socialist Zionist camp.^{[citation needed]}

• List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources

• Jacobs, Joseph and Ira Price. "Sanballat." Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906.