Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”
Sanballat and Tobiah grew furious because they feared what a walled Jerusalem would become: strong and formidable against them. Their scorn was malice dressed up as mockery, yet it backfired. They despised the work as foolish and beneath serious opposition, so they delayed their attacks until the Jews had already made too much progress to be stopped.
AI summary
Commenting on Nehemiah 4:1-6
Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him,.... Who was one of his brethren he spake before, Neh 4:2, and he said; in the like contemptuous and scoffing manner: even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall; signifying not only that it was so low that a fox could easily get up to it, or leap over...
if a fox go up--The foxes were mentioned because they were known to infest in great numbers the ruined and desolate places in the mount and city of Zion (Lam 5:18).