Neh 5:14-15 | KD | STEP | The statement following is compared with the special occurrence preceding it by גּם. As in this occurrence he had used his credit to do away with the oppression of the people by wealthy usurers, so also had he shown himself unselfish during his whole official career, and shunned no sacrifice by which he might lighten the burdens that lay upon his fellow-countrymen. “From the time that he appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even unto the two-and-thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, I and my servants have not eaten the bread of the governor.” The subject of צוּה is left undefined, but is obviously King Artaxerxes. פּחם, their (the Jews') governor. This he was from the twentieth (comp. ) to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, in which, according to , he again visited the court of this monarch, returning after a short interval to Jerusalem, to carry out still further the work he had there undertaken. “The bread of the Pechah” is, according to , the food and wine with which the community had to furnish him. The meaning is: During this whole period I drew no allowances from the people.

‏ Nehemiah 5:14-15

The statement following is compared with the special occurrence preceding it by גּם. As in this occurrence he had used his credit to do away with the oppression of the people by wealthy usurers, so also had he shown himself unselfish during his whole official career, and shunned no sacrifice by which he might lighten the burdens that lay upon his fellow-countrymen. “From the time that he appointed me to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even unto the two-and-thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, I and my servants have not eaten the bread of the governor.” The subject of צוּה is left undefined, but is obviously King Artaxerxes. פּחם, their (the Jews') governor. This he was from the twentieth (comp. Neh 2:1) to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, in which, according to Neh 13:6, he again visited the court of this monarch, returning after a short interval to Jerusalem, to carry out still further the work he had there undertaken. “The bread of the Pechah” is, according to Neh 5:15, the food and wine with which the community had to furnish him. The meaning is: During this whole period I drew no allowances from the people. Neh 5:15

The former governors who had been before me in Jerusalem - Zerubbabel and his successors-had received allowances, העם על הכבּידוּ, had burdened the people, and had taken of them (their fellow-countrymen) for bread and wine (i.e., for the requirements of their table), “afterwards in money forty shekels.” Some difficulty is presented by the word אחר, which the lxx render by ἔσχατον, the Vulgate quotidie. The meaning ultra, praeter, besides (EW. §217, 1), can no more be shown to be that of אחר, than over can, which Bertheau attempts to justify by saying that after forty shekels follow forty-one, forty-two, etc. The interpretation, too: reckoned after money (Böttcher, de Inferis, §409, b, and N. krit. Aehrenl. iii. p. 219), cannot be supported by the passages quoted in its behalf, since in none of them is אחר used de illo quod normae est, but has everywhere fundamentally the local signification after. Why, then, should not אחר be here used adverbially, afterwards, and express the thought that this money was afterwards demanded from the community for the expenses of the governor’s table? “Even their servants bare rule over the people.” שׁלט denotes arbitrary, oppressive rule, abuse of power for extortions, etc. Nehemiah, on the contrary, had not thus acted because of the fear of God.