Nehemiah 5:6-13

2. Nehemiah protests, and offers a solution.

TEXT, Nehemiah 5:6-13

6

Then I was very angry when I had heard their outcry and these words.

7

And I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers and said to them, You are exacting usury, each from his brother! Therefore, I held a great assembly against them.

8

And I said to them, We according to our ability have redeemed our Jewish brothers who were sold to the nations; now would you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us? Then they were silent and could not find a word to say.

9

Again I said, The thing which you are doing is not good; should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies?

10

And likewise I, my brothers and my servants, are lending them money and grain. Please, let us leave off this usury.

11

Please, give back to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money and of the grain, the new wine, and the oil that you are exacting from them.

12

Then they said, We will give it back and will require nothing from them; we will do exactly as you say. So I called the priests and took an oath from them that they would do according to this promise.

13

I also shook out the front of my garment and said, Thus may God shake out every man from his house and from his possessions who does not fulfill this promise; even thus may he be shaken out and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen! And they praised the LORD, Then the people did according to this promise.

COMMENT

Note the personal tone of Nehemiah 5:6.

In Nehemiah 5:7, he makes two appeals. The first is addressed to the nobles and rulers, i.e., the persons making the loans at excessive interest, and buying the slaves (perhaps collecting exorbitant taxes, too). The second is to the people themselves (this is labeled a characteristic of Nehemiah[55]), whose support and good will is always ultimately essential to any rulers. The complaint is against usury (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35 ff; Deuteronomy 23:19). The purpose for making a loan should be to help the needy, not to enrich the lender.

[55] Interpreter's Bible, Vol. III, p. 709.

Nehemiah 5:8, before the assembled people, informs us that Nehemiah and others had bought Jews back from slavery to foreigners, to the limit of their means, either in the lands of their captivity or more recently in Judah. Now their fellow-Jews were selling them back into slavery. There was nothing illegal about this, but it just didn-'t make sense.

Nehemiah 5:9, still before the assembly, appeals to their creditors on the basis that their action was bringing aid and comfort to their enemies, who would hear reports of every oppression. There is the implication also that what they were doing was not consistent with reverence to God.

In Nehemiah 5:10, Nehemiah appeals to them on the basis of his own example. His brothers would be his relatives or associates whom he had brought with him from Persia; the servants would be the soldiers sent as his bodyguard. Each of these were making loans of food and money to the poor. There is a kindly compulsion in his words as he includes himself in the exhortation, Please, let us leave off this usury.

Nehemiah 5:11 suggests that the property which had been mortgaged and subjected to foreclosure, plus the crops and personal belongings, be returned to their original owners. The hundredth part of the money presents a problem. He may have asked them to drop all interest requirements, in which case the 1% would be the monthly rate. Even so, this would be low interest in a world where 20% was the standard figure (Leviticus 5:16; Leviticus 6:5). One suggestion is that one letter had slipped out of a word, and the text should be emended to read, also the claim on the money and the grain. [56] However, the interest rate is not that unbelievable; Latin sources speak of the same monthly rate of 1%, or annual rate of 12%.[57]

[56] Anchor Bible, Ezra-Nehemiah, p. 129.

[57] Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, Ezra-Nehemiah, p. 212.

Nehemiah 5:12 indicates their consent to this proposal. To avoid a change of heart later on, they were required to go through the formalities of taking an oath (see Take Oath, Word Studies for Ezra 10).

In Nehemiah 5:13 we see Nehemiah employ a visual aid. The folds of his garment served as pockets for the personal belongings he would carry; with a dramatic gesture he shook these out before his audience as a symbol of the loss of possessions which God would cause the person to suffer who violated his oath. The assembly cheered; they all praised God; and their creditors kept their promise.

WORD STUDIES

WEALTHY (Nehemiah 5:2: Chayil): in various contexts, it can mean (1) strength, might, valor; (2) forces, army; (3) ability, wealth; (4) integrity, virtue. It is usually translated army, but wealth in Ruth 2:1, where it describes Boaz.

The two most important letters in the word are the h and 1; these appear in our words heil, hale, heal, health, whole, and even holy: words having the same sense as the Hebrew, in certain contexts. They also occur in a word of very different derivation, but with the same connotations, in our slang (big) wheel; we wonder if this is only a coincidence. Try that expression in Nehemiah 5:2!

TRUMPET (Ruth 2:20: Shofar): scratch, scrape, rub, polish. This leads to the idea of brightness, brilliance, and a brilliant tone. The word for scribe (Sepher) is akin to it (cf. Word Studies on Ezra 7: note the resemblance in primary meaning). There seems to be a connection between what a person communicates by writing or speech, and what he conveys by musical tones.