Nehemiah 5:1-13
Summary for Neh 5:1-13: 5:1-13 a Although severe financial problems threatened to derail the wall’s completion (5:1-5 b), Nehemiah worked out a solution (5:6-13 c).5:2 d Some farmers had diverted their efforts from raising crops to building the wall, leaving their large families in need of food to survive. Someone had to feed their families, or they would have to stop work on the wall and go home to work in their fields.
5:3 e Some small landowners had mortgaged everything to survive. The famine made the problem worse because grain was scarce and the price of food naturally increased.
5:4 f to pay our taxes: Despite the famine, the Persians did not cancel the onerous royal tribute due at harvest time.
5:5 g we must sell our children into slavery: See Exod 21:1-11 h. These families were desperate to survive.
Summary for Neh 5:6-7: 5:6-7 i Nehemiah was very angry, but he controlled himself, thought it over, and then spoke out in order to resolve the conflict rather than make it worse (see Jas 1:19-20 j).
5:9 k walk in the fear of our God: See Lev 25:35-43 l.
• avoid being mocked: See also Neh 1:3 m; 2:19 n; 4:1-3 o.
5:10 p I myself ... have been lending: Nehemiah and his associates were evidently making loans without burdening people. Nehemiah’s example was the solution: to give financial help without pushing people further into debt by charging interest (see Deut 15:7-11 q).
5:11 r Nehemiah demanded that the rich lenders restore their fields and repay the interest (literally the hundredth part), which they should not have collected (see also Exod 22:25 s; Lev 25:35-37 t). The literal hundredth part suggests that the interest was one percent per month, lower than the twenty percent annual rate found in some documents of that time, or the sixty percent annual rate charged at Elephantine in Egypt. But even a relatively low rate of interest violated God’s covenant.
5:12 u made the nobles and officials swear: Both God and the community would hold them accountable.
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