But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?
Will ye rebel against the king? - i:e., the king of Babylon, the Persian monarch, to whom, it would seem, Moab, as well as Judea, was at that time tributary.