Delaiah bar Sanballat and Shelemiah bar Sanballat. The Jews of Elephantine asked for the help of Sanballat's sons in rebuilding the Jewish temple at Elephantine, which had been damaged or destroyed by rioters. Modern research According to Magen (2007) he 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. According to Yitzakh Magen's reconstruction, he was commander of a garrison force who rose to be appointed governor of Samaria, the first of the Israelites to achieve this rank, sometime prior to Nehemiah's return from exile, and arrival in Judea in 444 BCE. In order to unite Samaria and its populations, he thought a sacred site was necessary. The Levite priesthood had migrated to Judea, and the priests of Baal were idolatrous, and he chose from tradition Mount Gerizim, over whose site he chose a high priest from a noble family in Jerusalem, a grandson of Eliashib, to preside, and to whom he gave his own daughter in marriage. He established a temple to YHWH on Mount Gerizim, over which his own descendants, as born into priestly blood, could minister. Josephus describes his construction of the Samaritan temple and says it was based on a copy of the Jerusalem temple.<ref>Josephus,Antinquities of the Jews 11.302–312, 322–325</ref> He also relates that many Israelites married to Samaritans moved to Samaria, causing much bewilderment in Jerusalem. Modern use In the first half of the 20th century, the radical nationalist poet and political activist Uri Zvi Greenberg – considered the spiritual mentor of Revisionist Zionism and of the present Israeli settlers on the West Bank – regularly used the term "The Sanballats" or "The Sanballat Gang" (כנופית הסנבלטים) as a catch-all term of abuse for antisemites and Palestinian nationalists as well as for political opponents from the Socialist Zionist camp. See also List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources Notes References Jacobs, Joseph and Ira Price. "Sanballat." Jewish Encyclopedia''. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906. 5th-century BC Asian people Ancient Samaritan people Ezra–Nehemiah Hebrew Bible people People from the Achaemenid Empire