Nehemiah 10:31

Prohibition of Traffic on the Sabbath; and Observance of Sabbatic Year

people R.V. peoples. -The peoples of the land ("ammey haârec̣) are the heathen dwellers in the land. The title -the people of the land" ("am haârec̣) w as used in later days of the unlearned multitude -which knoweth not the law" (John 7:49).

ware The Hebrew word occurs only here in the O.T. (LXX. ἀγορασμούς, Vulg. -venalia").

on the sabbath day The prohibition is not found in so many words in the Pentateuch. But it represents the natural expansion of the command to keep the Sabbath holy. Pollution would most easily be contracted by the interchange of wares with the heathen.

Complete abstention from such occupation was the only safeguard for the purity of the people, as well as for the observance of the Sabbath as a day of rest, cf. Nehemiah 13:15. This abstention was practised in the kingly period in respect of the sabbath and the new-moon days. Amos 8:5, -When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?"

on the holy day R.V. on a holy day. The days set apart to be observed as -holy-days" are described in Numbers 28:31.

That these were to be observed as -days of rest," and were thus on the same footing with the Sabbath-days argues the acquaintance of the writer with the Levitical Law of the Priestly Code.

leave R.V. forgo. The same word that is used in Exodus 23:11 for -let lie fallow." LXX. ἀνήσομεν.

the seventh year See Exodus 23:10-11, -And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof; but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest (marg. -release it") and lie fallow." This observance of the Sabbatic year is not referred to in the Deuteronomic Law which only speaks of it as the year of release from debt (Deuteronomy 15). But the Priestly Law in Leviticus 25:2-7 enters with some minuteness into the agricultural -rest" of the seventh year. This regulation was not, for practical reasons, scrupulously carried out; its neglect is the subject of rebuke, Leviticus 26:34-35; Leviticus 26:43; 2 Chronicles 36:21. It seems to have been observed in later times, cf. 1Ma 6:49; 1Ma 6:53; Jos. Ant.xi. 8. 6, xiii. 8. 1, &c. Tacitus, who is prejudiced against the Jews, attributes the custom to national laziness, Hist.Nehemiah 10:4.

and the exaction of every debt This is a technical expression taken from Deuteronomy 15:2, and constitutes the expansion, for the requirements of a more developed time, of the principle laid down in the agricultural Law of the Sabbatic Year (Exodus 23). By a common error it has been supposed that debts were on this year altogether remitted. The analogy of the -fallow" land shows that the debts remained, but were not exacted; payment was -hung up" for a whole year. Some render -the exaction of every man's pledge." The versions are literal, LXX. ἀπαίτησιν πάσης χειρός. Vulg. -exactionem universae manus." The remission of -the exaction of debt" on the seventh or Sabbatic year is found in the Deuteronomic, but not in the Levitical Laws. The covenant to which the Israelites were now subscribing did not rest on a Levitical code alone, but recognised the authority of other portions of the Pentateuch.

This is one indication among others that the Law, which Ezra administered, contained substantially all the component parts of our Pentateuch, though not necessarily every item, as we now have it, in each component part.