Nehemiah 5:1-5

TEXT AND VERSE-BY-VERSE COMMENT

E. Internal difficulties arise and are overcome.
1. Selfishness and greed create a problem.

TEXT, Nehemiah 5:1-5

1

Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.

2

For there were those who said, We, our sons and our daughters, are many; therefore let us get grain that we may eat and live.

3

And there were others who said, We are mortgaging our fields our vineyards, and our houses that we might get grain because of the famine.

4

Also there were those who said, We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards.

5

And now our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers, our children like their children. Yet behold, we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters are forced into bondage already, and we are helpless because our fields and vineyards belong to others.

COMMENT

Chapter five presents a new kind of problem: the work is threatened by internal dissension. Somewhere along the line this almost always has to be faced. It may be pointed out that the problem is not identified exclusively with the rebuilding of the wall. The only mention of the wall in this chapter is in Nehemiah 5:16, and may be merely a statement that Nehemiah had helped on the construction at some time past. The problem of usury was probably larger and more extensive than the brief period of their work on the wall. It would give even more point to their complaint, however, if this was going on while the walls were being built. The presence of the chapter at this point does have its weight and does suggest a connection. It does follow logically from the things that have gone before.

With great numbers of workmen busy from dawn to dusk repairing the wall in the shortest time, and with their being forbidden even to go out of the city to take care of crops, some would begin to suffer hardship, The workers received no income apparently, and this kind of toil produced no consumer goods; hunger was the inevitable result. Opportunists arose and took advantage of the situation to make themselves wealthy at the expense of the hard pressed.

Nehemiah 5:1 identifies the opportunists as some of the more wealthy Jewish brethren. Some of these may have been of the number who had married the peoples of the lands (cf. comments on Ezra 9:1), and had become prosperous as a result. It made the load no lighter that those who were oppressing them were of their own race and religion.

Nehemiah 5:2. states the people's appeal to the government for relief, and identifies the first of three of their burdens: some had large families, Let us get grain may be their threat to steal to keep from starving, or it may be only a request for food to help them survive this time of desperation.

Nehemiah 5:3 gives the second source of their grief: many had gone in debt and mortgaged their property, and were in danger of default and the loss of everything. The famine alluded to may not have been a general condition; the word is used in other places occasionally of private hunger, so it may be only a suggestion of the conditions imposed on some persons by the circumstances mentioned above. These in themselves would be enough to produce the situation of hunger.

Their third burden, in Nehemiah 5:4, was taxes. Some had borrowed money, jeopardizing their lands and pledging their future crops to pay the Persian tribute; their subjection to Persia was an ever-present reality.

Nehemiah 5:5 is their plea, on the basis of compassion. If their creditors loved their children, they could be sure that the poor loved their children in the same manner. Some families had already been driven to sell their sons and daughters into slavery, and to part from them. In addition, some of their daughters had been forced into bondage. This may have been an euphemism for rape[54]; at the least it would imply marriages which were not of their choosing, since women were often sold into slavery for this purpose (Exodus 21:7-11).

[54] Interpreter's Bible, Vol. III, p. 708.

Of course all of this was legal: the Law of Moses made provision for a person to sell his children into slavery to pay his debts (Leviticus 25:39-43). He could even sell himself; he could not sell his wife separately, for the twain shall be one flesh.

And slavery was not as onerous as it became in more recent centuries. A Hebrew slave, male or female, was to be released after a maximum of six years (Deuteronomy 15:12-18), though slaves were not always freed as they should have been (Jeremiah 34:14-17). If he suffered any injury or abuse, he was to be released (Exodus 21:27). He had the further option of running away, in which case he was to be protected and not returned to his former owner (Deuteronomy 23:15 f). In effect, he was a slave only as long as he wanted to be a slave. Neither is today's employee in industry compelled to report to his job any longer than he wishes; but he won-'t get help in paying his expenses and his debts unless he does. Why, then, would they bemoan the enslavement of their children? Even at best there was the reality of separation from them.

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 i; 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.