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 asleep, he rises, mounts a mule or donkey, and, with a few faithful followers, steals out to explore for himself the extent of the ruin, to see how things really were, what was the state of the walls, and how much had to be done to put them into good repair.
Stealing out of the city on the south side, at the spot on which in better days the Valley Gate had stood, a gate which was so called because it opened into the Valley of Hinnom, he turned into the ravine, and went eastward. No doubt there was a moon, and by its quiet light he could see the heaps of rubbish, and the work of the fire which had destroyed the gates 150 years ago. How sad and forsaken it all looked in the moonlight, as he turned 'towards the Dragon's well' (see Revised Version). The site of this Dragon's Well is very uncertain, but it is generally identified with Upper Gihon. It is sometimes confounded with the Virgin's Fount, called by the Arabs the Mother of Steps, because there are twenty-seven steps leading down to it, and the descent is very steep. This is the only spring near Jerusalem, and its water is carried by an underground passage to the Pool of Siloam. It is an intermittent spring, suddenly rising and as suddenly falling, at irregular intervals. Two explorers, Dr. Robinson and Mr. Smith, were just about to measure the water, when they found it suddenly rising; in less than five minutes it had risen a foot, in ten minutes more it had ceased to flow, and had sunk to its former level.
The common people believed in olden time, and believe still, that a dragon lies within the fountain, concealed from view; that when he is awake he stops the water from flowing, but that he finds it impossible to keep awake always, and when he falls asleep the water flows.
How eagerly those with Nehemiah would point out each object to him! We can picture Hanani walking by his side, showing him all the different objects, to himself so familiar, to Nehemiah so well known by name, but so strange by sight.