Topic: Persons Of The Bible -- Tobiah

The name "Tobiah" is from the Hebrew name טוֹבִיָּה (Toviyyah) which meant "YAHWEH is good". The name also means "pleasing to Jehovah" or "goodness of Jehovah".

The children of Tobiah were a family who returned with Zerubbabel, but were unable to prove their connection with Israel-- (Ezra 2:60; Nehemiah 7:62) (B.C. before 536.) He was a man of great influence, which he exerted in opposition to the Jews, and "sent letters" to Nehemiah "to put him in fear" (Neh. 6:17-19). Tobiah the Ammonite slave played a conspicuous part in the rancorous opposing position made by Sanballat the Moabite and his adherents to the rebuilding of Jerusalem. (B.C. 446) after the Exile. (Neh. 2:10) The two races of Moab and Ammon found in these men fit representatives of that hereditary hatred to the Israelites which began before the entrance into Caanan, and was not extinct when the Hebrews had ceased to exist as a nation. But Tobiah, though a slave, (Nehemiah 2:10,19)--unless, this is a title of opprobrium--and an Ammonite, found means to ally himself with a priestly family, and his son Johanan married the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah. (Nehemiah 6:18) He himself was the son-in-law of Shechaniah the son of Arah, (Nehemiah 6:17) and these family relations created for him a strong faction among the Jews. "Eliashib the priest" prepared for him during Nehemiah's absence "a chamber in the courts of the house of God," which on his return grieved Nehemiah sore, and therefore he "cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber" (13:7, 8).

Derived from Easton's and Smith's Bible Dictionaries

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