Tobiah

Tobiah the Ammonite was a powerful official who, alongside Sanballat the Horonite and Geshem the Arab, actively opposed Nehemiah's project to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:10, 19). His name means the Lord is good. Despite his Ammonite identification and hostility to the restoration project, Tobiah had extensive family and social connections with prominent Jewish households in Jerusalem through his son's marriage into the family of Shecaniah (Neh. 6:17-18).

These connections provided him with a network of intelligence inside the city and led Nehemiah to distrust certain leading men who were passing information to Tobiah (Neh. 6:19). After Nehemiah's return to Persia, Tobiah was actually given a room in the temple storerooms by the priest Eliashib — a desecration Nehemiah remedied upon his return by throwing Tobiah's furniture out and purifying the chamber (Neh. 13:4-9). He remains the primary antagonist of the Nehemiah memoir.