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Nehemiah 5:7
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5 Yet now aour flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and indeed we bare forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been brought into slavery. It is not in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards.”  
6 And I became very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.
7 After serious thought, I rebuked the nobles and rulers, and said to them, a“Each of you is exacting usury from his brother.” So I2 called a great assembly against them.  
8 And I said to them, “According to our ability we have aredeemed our Jewish brethren who were sold to the nations. Now indeed, will you even sell your brethren? Or should they be sold to us?” Then they were silenced and found nothing to say.  
9 Then I said, “What you are doing is not good. Should you not walk ain the fear of our God bbecause of the reproach of the nations, our enemies?  
10 I also, with my brethren and my servants, am lending them money and grain. Please, let us stop this1 usury!  
11 Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them.”
Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
<< Nehemiah 5:6   Nehemiah 5:8 >>


Nehemiah 5:6-12

THE USURERS REBUKED. (Nehemiah 5:6-19)

I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words—When such disorders came to the knowledge of the governor, his honest indignation was roused against the perpetrators of the evil. Having summoned a public assembly, he denounced their conduct in terms of just severity. He contrasted it with his own in redeeming with his money some of the Jewish exiles who, through debt or otherwise, had lost their personal liberty in Babylon. He urged the rich creditors not only to abandon their illegal and oppressive system of usury, but to restore the fields and vineyards of the poor, so that a remedy might be put to an evil the introduction of which had led to much actual disorder, and the continuance of which would inevitably prove ruinous to the newly restored colony, by violating the fundamental principles of the Hebrew constitution. The remonstrance was effectual. The conscience of the usurious oppressors could not resist the touching and powerful appeal. With mingled emotions of shame, contrition, and fear, they with one voice expressed their readiness to comply with the governor's recommendation. The proceedings were closed by the parties binding themselves by a solemn oath, administered by the priests, that they would redeem their pledge, as well as by the governor invoking, by the solemn and significant gesture of shaking a corner of his garment, a malediction on those who should violate it. The historian has taken care to record that the people did according to this promise.




Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Nehemiah 5:7:

Deuteronomy 15:12
Nehemiah 5:6-12

 

<< Nehemiah 5:6   Nehemiah 5:8 >>

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