Tobiah and company couldn’t betray Nehemiah; they had to pay a friend he trusted to do that.
Nehemiah wasn’t quite out of danger yet. He had stayed inside the city to avoid the trap set for him on the way to Ono. The road from Jerusalem to Ono, following the Aijalon Valley, would have scores of perfect ambush sites. So Nehemiah had wisely stayed within the city walls. But as surely as there were dangers without, there were also dangers within. Living in the city was an acquaintance named Shemaiah who, it turns out, “was a secret informer.” He said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you” (Neh 6:10). If the invitation to Ono exposed him to physical danger, the idea that he, not a priest, would hole up in the temple (not the courtyard, but behind the temple’s closed doors), would be a spiritual danger. One of Nehemiah’s chief enemies against the project was Giant Fear, demoralizing and distracting the people. He had combatted this by taking every challenge to the Lord in public prayer (4:9). He also took practical steps in arming the men, and having a trumpeter for an early warning system. But his most potent weapon was his own resolute example, brushing away even threats of death like spider webs. Now this? “Should such a man as I flee?…I will not go in!” (v 11). The jig was up! He saw that Shemaiah had “pronounced this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him” (v 12). A prophet for profit! Nehemiah again proved both sides of the double-edged adage: “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe” (Prov 29:25). And once again, he handed over this betrayal, another unpaid wrong, to his Collection Agency in heaven. “My God, remember…” (v 14).