[203] At Ono. This place has not yet been found. It cannot well be _Beit Unia_, north-west of Jerusalem, near _Beitin_ (Bethel). Its association with Lod (Lydda) in 1 Chron. viii. 12 and Neh. xi. 35, points to the neighbourhood of the latter place. But Nehemiah was not caught by the "confidence trick." He knew the conspirators intended to do him mischief. Yet as this intention was not actually proved against them, he put no accusation into his reply. The inference from it was clear enough. But the message itself could not be construed into any indication of discourtesy. Nehemiah was doing a great work. Therefore he could not come down. This was a perfectly genuine answer. For the governor to have left Jerusalem at the present crisis would have been disastrous to the city. The conspirators then tried another plan for getting Nehemiah to meet them outside Jerusalem. They pretended that it was reported that his work in fortifying the city was carried on with the object of rebelling against the Persian government, and that this report had gone so far as to convey the impression that he had induced prophets to preach his kingship. Some such suspicion had been hinted at before, at the time of Nehemiah's coming up to Jerusalem,[204] but then its own absurdity had prevented it from taking root. Now the actual appearance of the walls round the once ruinous city, and the rising reputation of Nehemiah as a man of resource and energy, might give some colour to the calumny. The point of the conspirators' device, however, is not to be found in the actual spreading of the dangerous rumour, but in the alarm to be suggested to Nehemiah by the thought that it was being spread. Nehemiah would know very well how much mischief is wrought by idle and quite groundless talk. The libel may be totally false, and yet it may be impossible for its victim to follow it up and clear his character in every nook and cranny to which it penetrates. A lie, like a weed, if it is not nipped in the bud, sheds seeds which every wind of gossip will spread far and wide, so that it soon becomes impossible to stamp it out. [204] Neh. ii. 19.