Passage
that Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, “Come, let us meet together at Chephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to do me harm.
Nehemiah 6:2 (LSB)
Nearby Context
Nehemiah 6:1 Now it happened when it was heard by Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not made the doors to stand in the gates,
Nehemiah 6:2 that Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, “Come, let us meet together at Chephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to do me harm.
Nehemiah 6:3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”
Nehemiah 6:4 And they sent messages to me four times in this manner, and I responded to them in the same manner.
Study Lenses
The verse centers on "sanballat", "geshem", "sent", "message", "saying", "come", "meet", and "together". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "sanballat" and "geshem", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 1's "Now it happened when it was heard..." into verse 3's "So I sent messengers to them saying...", so "sanballat" and "geshem" belong inside that flow. In Nehemiah context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "sanballat" and "geshem" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.