In the Book of Nehemiah, he is called "the Horonite," Horon possibly identified with present-day Huwara,[2]) He was associated with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian.
According to the narrative, when Nehemiah and his escort arrive in Jerusalem, their return arouses the hostility of Sanballat and his allies.
Nehemiah 2:19 says, "When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard, they mocked us and held us in contempt and said, 'What is this that you are doing?
Sanballat sends another message, stating that Nehemiah was making alliances against Assyria and planning a rebellion.
This connection between priestly intermarriage with the Samaritans and Sanballat's family in Nehemiah 13:28 to the "dirty clothes" of Joshua in Zechariah 3 was first asserted in the 4th century AD by Rav Pappa and in Christian circles by Jerome.
Josephus records the marriage of Manasseh, grandson of Eliashib, to Sanballat's daughter in Nehemiah 13:28 as having taken place and causing the founding of the temple.
According to Yitzakh Magen (2007),[9] Sanballat appears to have been the scion of a veteran Samaritan family of the Israelite remnant originating in Horon, perhaps to be identified with the village of Huwara at the foot of Mount Gerizim.
[10] In Magen's reconstruction, Sanballat was commander of a garrison force who rose to be appointed governor of Samaria, the first of the Israelites to achieve this rank, sometime before Nehemiah's return from exile and arrival in Judea in 444 BCE.