Selling brothers divides a community so that brothers become enemies
(recall the word against
in Nehemiah 5:1). But the real enemies
were the nations
outside the Jewish community, specifically the four angry peoples encircling Jerusalem who had formed an alliance to fight against the city and cause confusion in it (Nehemiah 4:7–8). That these nations now saw their enemy divided, even selling one another, would inevitably prompt them to laugh with glee. The word taunt
pictures Sanballat and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites speaking scornfully among themselves about those crazy Jews (and hence of their God).
9 So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies?