Nehemiah 5:11

Restore, I pray you, &c. On -I pray you" see note on Nehemiah 5:10. Nehemiah demands immediate redress for the wrongs done to fellow-countrymen. He demands restoration of property and remission of interest on loans.

even this day The same Hebrew word as is rendered in 1 Samuel 9:13, -at this time." Literally = -as if to-day," i.e. -immediately."

their lands … houses R.V. their fields … houses. The first part of the demand is the restoration to the poor of the property which had been offered as security for the sums borrowed from the money-lenders.

also the hundredthpart, &c. This -hundredth part" was in all probability reckoned by month. It corresponded therefore to the Latin -centesima usura," and represented interest at the rate of 12 per cent.

corn, the wine, and the oil This exorbitant rate of interest seems to have been exacted in kind if cash was not forthcoming.

The second part of Nehemiah's demand refers to the exaction of interest. It is impossible to suppose that he required the moneylenders to restore the sums which had already been paid in interest. The main verb -restore" is only by -zeugma" applicable to -the hundredth part;" and the meaning is -do not exact," -remit your claim to the 12 p. c. interest which you are accustomed to levy in money or produce of the land."

His twofold demand, for immediate restoration of property and for future renunciation of interest, corresponds to the twofold reply of the money-lenders in the following verse. It is probable that we are only to understand Nehemiah's intervention to be made in the interests of the poor. The transactions of the wealthy with one another are not contemplated by the early Israelite or the Levitical laws, Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36-37.

An ingenious conjecture, which alters the text by the insertion of one letter only, would read, instead of -the hundredth part" (um'ath), -the usury" (umash'ath). The latter part of the verse would then only expand in greater detail the substance of the first. The LXX. ἀπὸ follows a different pointing of the word.