Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews. For there were some who said, “We, our sons and our daughters, are many. Let us get grain, that we may eat and live.” There were also some who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses. Let us get grain, because of the famine.” There were also some who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute using our fields and our vineyards as collateral. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”
I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers, and said to them, “You exact usury, everyone of his brother.” I held a great assembly against them. I said to them, “We, after our ability, have redeemed our brothers the Jews that were sold to the nations; and would you even sell your brothers, and should they be sold to us?” Then they held their peace, and found not a word to say. Also I said, “The thing that you do is not good. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God, because of the reproach of the nations our enemies? I likewise, my brothers and my servants, lend them money and grain. Please let us stop this usury. Please restore to them, even today, 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 charging them.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Against the rich which oppressed them.
Against the rich which oppressed them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–11 Neh 5:1 And there was a great cry of…
Neh 5:1 And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews.
Ver. 1. And there was a great cry] Such as seditious ones use to set up in their outrageous uproars; or such as is the expression of great grief and anguish of heart.
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Of the people] The ignobile common people, a most dangerous and heady water, when once it is out.
And of their wives] Who being pinched with penury, made piteous outcries. Invalidum omne, natura querulum. Significat clamorem vel querulum, vel imperiosum, iracundum, minacem (Seneca).
Against their brethren the Jews] The richer sort, who oppressed them and drew them before the judgment seats, as St James hath it of the Jews of his time; for they were no changelings. Let the Philistines bind Samson, and he can bear it; but do not you lay hands on me, saith he to his countrymen. Scipio had rather Hannibal should eat his heart with salt than Laelius give him a cross word. Had it been mine enemy, saith David, I could have digested it. So could these poor creatures far better have borne the insolencies of strangers than the oppressions of fellow brethren. Tacitus tells us, that in his time the Jews were very merciful to those of their own nation, and cruel to all others, Misericordia in promptu apud suos, &c. But here their own complain, and this was doubtless a great grief to good Nehemiah.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 To wit, the great and rich who had oppressed…
To wit, the great and rich who had oppressed their brethren.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 We have here the tears of the oppressed, which…
We have here the tears of the oppressed, which Solomon considered, Ecc 4:1. Let us consider them as here they are dropped before Nehemiah, whose office it was, as governor, to deliver the poor and needy, and rid them out of the hand of the wicked oppressors, Psa 82:4. Hard times and hard hearts made the poor miserable.
I. The times they lived in were hard. There was a dearth of corn (Neh 5:3), probably for want of rain, with which God had chastised their neglect of his house (Hag 1:9-11) and the non-payment of their church-dues, Mal 3:9, Mal 3:10. Thus foolish sinful men bring God's judgments upon themselves, and then fret and complain of them. When the markets are high, and provisions scarce and dear, the poor soon feel from it, and are pinched by it. Blessed be God for the mercy, and God deliver us from the sin, of fulness of bread, Eze 16:49. That which made the scarcity here complained of the more grievous was that their sons and their daughters were many, Neh 5:2. The families that were most necessitous were most numerous; here were the mouths, but where was the meat? Some have estates and no children to inherit them; others have children and no estates to leave them. Those who have both have reason to be thankful; those who have neither may the more easily be content. Those who have great families and little substance must learn to live by faith in God's providence and promise; and those who have little families and great substance must make their abundance a supply for the wants of others. But this was not all: as corn was dear, so the taxes were high; the king's tribute must be paid, Neh 5:4. This mark of their captivity still remained upon them. Perhaps it was a poll-money that was required, and then, their sons and their daughters being many, it rose the higher. The more they had to maintain (a hard case!) the more they had to pay. Now, it seems, they had not wherewithal of their own to buy corn and pay taxes, but were necessitated to borrow. Their families came poor out of Babylon; they had been at great expense in building them houses, and had not yet got up their strength when these new burdens came upon them. The straits of poor housekeepers who make hard shift to get an honest livelihood, and sometimes want what is fitting for them and their families, are well worthy the compassionate consideration of those who either with their wealth or with their power are in a capacity to help them.
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II. The persons they dealt with were hard. Money must be had, but it must be borrowed; and those that lent them money, taking advantage of their necessity, were very hard upon them and made a prey of them. 1. They exacted interest from them at twelve per cent, the hundredth part every month, Neh 5:11. If men borrow large sums to trade with, to increase their stocks, or to purchase land, there is no reason why the lender should not share with the borrower in his profit; or if to spend upon their lusts, or repair what they have so spent, why should they not pay for their extravagances? But if the poor borrow to maintain their families, and we be able to help them, it is certain we ought either to lend freely what they have occasion for, or (if they be not likely to repay it) to give freely something towards it. Nay, 2. They forced them to mortgage to them their lands and houses for the securing of the money (Neh 5:3), and not only so, but took the profits of them for interest (Neh 5:5, compare Neh 5:11), that by degrees they might make themselves masters of all they had. Yet this was not the worst. 3. They took their children for bond-servants, to be enslaved or sold at pleasure, Neh 5:5. This they complain of most sensibly, as that which touched them in a tender part, and they aggravate it with this: "Our children are as their children, as dear to us as theirs are to them; not only of the same human nature, and entitled to the honours and liberties of that (Mal 2:10; Job 31:15), but of the same holy nation, free-born Israelites, and dignified with the same privileges. Our flesh carries in it the sacred seal of the covenant of circumcision, as well as the flesh of our brethren; yet our heirs must be their slaves, and it is not in our power to redeem them." This they made a humble remonstrance of to Nehemiah, not only because they saw he was a great man that could relieve them, but a good man that would. Whither should the injured poor flee for succour but to the shields of the earth? Whither but to the chancery, to the charity, in the royal breast, and those deputed by it for relief against the summum jus - the extremity of the law?
Lastly, We will leave Nehemiah hearing the complaint, and enquiring into the truth of the complainants' allegations (for the clamours of the poor are not always just), while we sit down and look, (1.) With a gracious compassion upon the oppressed, and lament the hardships which many in the world are groaning under; putting our souls into their souls' stead, and remembering in our prayers and succours those that are burdened, as burdened with them. (2.) With a gracious indignation at the oppressors, and abhorrence of their pride and cruelty, who drink the tears, the blood, of those they have under their feet. But let those who show no mercy expect judgment without mercy. It was an aggravation of the sin of these oppressing Jews that they were themselves so lately delivered out of the house of bondage, which obliged them in gratitude to undo the heavy burdens, Isa 58:6.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–11 And there was a great cry of the people,…
And there was a great cry of the people, and of their wives,.... Those of the poorer sort:
against their brethren the Jews; the rich that oppressed them; and this cry or complaint was made to Nehemiah for redress.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 The poor complain of being oppressed by the rich,…
The poor complain of being oppressed by the rich, ver. 1-5. Nehemiah removes the oppression, ver. 6-13. He sets an example of compassion on the poor, ver. 14-19.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 The people complain that they are oppressed and enthralled…
CHAPTER V
The people complain that they are oppressed and enthralled by
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their richer brethren, 1-3.
Nehemiah calls them to account; upbraids them for their cruelty;
and obliges them to swear that they will forgive the debts,
restore the mortgaged estates, and free their servants, 4-13.
Nehemiah's generosity and liberality, 14-17.
The daily provision for his table, 18, 19.
NOTES ON CHAP. V
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 Neh 5:1. There was a great cry of the…
Neh 5:1. There was a great cry of the people, &c. — Of the poor against their rich brethren, who had oppressed them; for though the people in general were cured of their idolatry by their captivity, yet they were not cured of their other sins, but loved strange women, as we read before in the book of Ezra; and were so covetous that they oppressed the poor and needy; and this at a time when their enemies threatened the destruction of them all. This crime was the more heinous, because the twentieth of Artaxerxes, when this was done, began about the end of a sabbatic year, (as Dr. Alix observes,) which raised the cry of the poor to a greater height against their creditors, who exacted their debts of them contrary to the law, Deu 15:2; which was read to them publicly in such a year, Deu 31:12.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 Are many - A slight emendation brings this verse…
Are many - A slight emendation brings this verse into exact parallelism with the next, and gives the sense - “We have pledged our sons and our daughters, that we might get corn, and eat and live.” Compare Neh 5:5.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11 Cry. Ven. Bede (iii. 21.) complains of some pastors…
Cry. Ven. Bede (iii. 21.) complains of some pastors who neglect the flock, but exacted revenues. May not the same complaint still be made? (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 1And there was a great cry of the people…
Neh_5:1-19
1And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. 2For there were that said, We, our sons and our daughters are many; therefore we take up corn [perhaps, our sons and our daughters we mortgage, that 3we might buy corn] for them, that we may eat and live. Some also there were that said. We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth 4There were also that said, we have borrowed money 5for the king’s tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards. Yet [and] now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children [sons] as their children [sons]: and lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage already: neither is it in our power [and our hand is not to God] to redeem them; for [and] other men have our lands and 6vineyards. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. 7Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them. 8And I said unto them, We, after our ability, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to 9answer [and found no word]. Also [and] I said, It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our 10enemies? [And] I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants might, exact of 11[have lent] them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the 12wine and the oil, that ye exact of [lent] them. Then [and] said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then [And] I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. 13Also I shook my lap [bosom], and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performest not this promise [word], even thus be he shaken out and emptied [empty]. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise 14[word]. Moreover from the time that I was appointed [he (Artaxerxes) 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, that is, twelve years, I and my 15brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor. But [And] the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people: but [and] so did not I, because of the fear of God. 16Yea, also I continued in the work of this wall, neither bought we any land: and all my 17servants were gathered thither unto the work. Moreover [And] there were at my table a hundred and fifty of the Jews and rulers, besides [and] those that came 18unto us from among the heathen that are about us. Now [and] that which was prepared for me (i.e., at my expense) daily [for one day] was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me (i.e., at my expense), and once in ten days store [large quantity] of all sorts of wine: yet [and] for all this required not I the 19bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people. Think upon [remember to] me, my God, for good, according to [om. according to] all that I have done for this people.
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TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
1 Neh_5:5. The E. V. rightly supplies an equivalent to לִפְרֹתָם.
2 Neh_5:6. וַיִּמָּלֵךְ. This Niphal evidently carries the Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan meaning of the verb. Comp. Dan_4:24 (27) where the derivative noun is used. The literal translation here is “and my heart was consulted upon me.” Why the lexicographers give it a Kal meaning I know not.
3 Neh_5:15. אַחַר is rightly rendered “besides.” After the forty shekels salary they received the bread and wine.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Hindrances (2) from the Tyranny of Jews over one another
It might at first sight seem as if this episodical chapter was out of place, and should properly follow chap. 8; but there is no sound reason why we should not consider the complaint to have been made while all were engaged in the important work of fortifying the city, as a time when it would be the easier to remedy the evil under the pressure of the common danger.
Neh_5:2. We, our sons and our daughters, are many,etc. The error of the Heb. text here in writing rabbim for orebim (requiring only one letter prefixed in the Hebrew) is very evident (according to Houbigant), so that it should read in English, we have mortgaged our sons and our daughters that we might buy corn. Compare the structure of the next verse. The complaint was three-fold: 1. We mortgage our children for food. 2. We mortgage our estates for food. 3. We mortgage our estates for the royal tribute. In all these their brethren were the exactors, not only acting tyrannically towards them, but breaking the written law of God in its spirit (Exo_22:25-27) as well as in its letter (see Neh_5:7).
Neh_5:5. Neither is it in our power. Lit. “and our hand is not to God.” So Gen_31:29.
Neh_5:7. Then I consulted with myself.—The Niphal use of malak (wayyimmalek) is peculiar, and suggests a peculiar sense in this place. The Syriac use of the word as “consult” (see Dan_4:24; Dan_4:27) is probably the right one here. Ye exact usury.—The words refer both to the pledges and the interest (Neh_5:11). And I set a great assembly against them.—In the midst of the necessity of the wall-building Nehemiah summons a great mass-meeting of the Jews (see the word Kehillah in Deu_33:4) to have this fraternal outrage stopped instantly by the force of public opinion.
Neh_5:8. The Jewish colony had probably often redeemed Jews from captivity.
Neh_5:9. Because of the reproach of the heathen.—That is, so as to avoid giving them an opportunity to reproach us.
Neh_5:10. I likewise, and my brethren and my servants might exact of them.—Rather: I likewise, that is, my brethren and my servants exact of them, or rather “lent them.” It is a confession of Nehemiah that he too was implicated from the fact that he had found his own family engaged in the oppression. Hence he says: “let us leave off this usury.” The law expressly forbade lending money to Jews on interest. See Exo_22:25; Lev_25:36; Deu_23:19. All the lands those rich men had acquired had been obtained in thisway.
Neh_5:11. This hundredth part was probably a monthly interest, that is, an interest at the rate of twelve per cent per annum. That ye exact of them. Rather: “that ye lent them.”
Neh_5:12. The moral force of the great assembly produced an immediate conformity to Nehemiah’s demand. His action was a master-piece of management. The oath would have greater solemnity as administered by the priests.
Neh_5:13. My lap.—This is the bosom of the outer garment (sinus togæ), which was used as a pocket. (See for this significant action Act_18:6.)
Neh_5:14. This verse and those which follow form an interruption of the narrative. They show that Nehemiah was for twelve years governor of Judah, and did not write this history till the expiration of that time. The parallel between Nehemiah and Washington in refusing salary while saving the nation is striking.
Neh_5:15. Forty shekels of silver.—This (like the interest in Neh_5:11) is probably to be reckoned for the month. The former governors had received their table and 480 shekels a year as salary. The 480 shekels would be only $360 in amount of silver; but this would represent in value a large official salary in that day.
Neh_5:16. A second point to which Nehemiah refers with satisfaction and as a proof of his disinterested conduct is his allowing no speculation in land on his own part or that of his immediate attendants.
Neh_5:17. A third point is his free entertainment of a hundred and fifty Jews, and besides this visitors from surrounding nations.
Neh_5:18. The bondage.—The service needed to the king of Persia and also that which was needed for the restoration of their national welfare.
Neh_5:19. Think upon me, my God,etc.—Rather: Remember to me for good all which I have done to this people. It becomes necessary sometimes for a man of God to declare his integrity against the oppositions and insinuations of enemies. In such cases he can without presumption expect God to vindicate His faithfulness. See Paul’s words before the Sanhedrim (Act_23:1), and compare also 2Co_1:12; 2Co_4:4; 2Ti_1:3; Heb_13:18.
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL
1. The advantage taken in troublous times for men to prey upon their associates and kindred exhibits the deep depravity of human nature. The violence of open enemies and the presence of surrounding dangers should have encouraged the virtue and piety of the Jews by the odiousness of the opposite and their sense of weakness and need of the Divine help. But as often sailors on a wreck, or as men (e.g. the Florentines) in the midst of the plague, have given themselves up to debauchery and revelling, so the Jewish remnant, persecuted and straitened, oppressed one another. It was no little bravery in Nehemiah to face these tigers of his own nation, while guarding Jerusalem from the foreign foe. A weak spirit would have reasoned that it was enough to do the latter, and that domestic evils must be endured until a more propitious time for their cure. That “great assembly” was a grand token of Nehemiah’s marvellous energy and fertile resources.
2. Nehemiah’s refusal of official salary was. like Paul’s refusal of support at Corinth and Thessalonica (2Co_2:9; 1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:8), a waiving of an undoubted right for the sake of the higher good. Summum jus summa injuria is a sentiment which every tender conscience must often put into exercise. It sees that the only right is to give up right. A sublime spirit discerns when lex, no longer rex, becomes nex.
3. Nehemiah’s soul was frank with God. There is freedom of access to a throne of grace for every believer (Heb_4:16). “Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people,” is not a presumptuous conceit, but a child-like simplicity. The gross mind of the world would confound the two. Where we know that God has led us in paths of righteousness, we may well use that knowledge and encourage our souls by it. Nehemiah had but few around him who could reach high enough to sympathize fully with him, and it was thus his great comfort to pour out his soul, according to truth, before the God, whose good hand had guided him. God wishes no mock modesty from us. His grace in our hearts and lives should be acknowledged (comp. 1Ti_1:12).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Neh_5:1-13. The most powerful hinderances to the development of the congregation. 1) That they are discords and separations, but especially the complaints of the poor against the rich. 2) Whence they arise: from want of love. 3) What do they teach: they challenge to a more powerful proving of love, and lead, when such proof is given, to a new impulse in the life of the congregation, but particularly to new praising of the Lord in common.
The old, and ever new, need 1) In what it consists; want, poverty, and misery are ever in the Lord’s congregation. 2) Whence this arises, a) From sin (that of others, but also our own), from laziness, discontent, ingratitude, etc. b) From God’s wise intention: He knows the sins, and wishes to remove them; He wishes to give opportunity to the rich to exercise their love, and to the poor to struggle against their discontent. 3) How it is removed: not through all sorts of new social regulations and laws—not through home missionary societies, in so far as their work is scarcely experienced by the poor as a mark of love, and is easily looked upon by them as help owed to them, but through an awaking of the heart to the proving of true love and benevolence as the Lord ever anew renders possible.—Starke: God scourges not alone with a single, but also at times with a double rod, and sends one cross and misfortune upon another. Job_10:17. But the godly have great consolations and promises on the other hand. Psa_33:19; Psa_37:19; Psa_37:25. Usury against our poor brethren is forbidden. Lev_25:36; Psa_15:5; Eze_18:13; Eze_22:12; for whoever builds his house with the property of others, gathers stones for his own grave. Sir_21:9. It is a bad case when we show ourselves to our fellow-Christians in such a way that they must sigh and cry to God against us. Gen_18:21; Sir_4:6.
Neh_5:7-13. What renders the admonition to exercise love effective? 1) Mildness in example. 2) Readiness of the preacher and his friends to take precedence in the example of love (Neh_5:10). 3) The assurance that God rejects the unloving from His communion, and robs him of His blessing (Neh_5:13).
Starke: Anger in office is not, indeed, forbidden, yet one should be angry so as not to sin, Psa_4:5, and moderate himself properly. Sir. 30:26. As storming showers beat down the grain to the earth, but gentle drops, on the contrary, revive and ripen it, so is it also with speech. Friendly language has more effect than severe rebuke, particularly with the irascible and people of rank, who cannot submit to hard reproof.
Neh_5:7-19. How important, but how difficult it is to go forward as an example in true proving of love. 1) How important (Neh_5:7-13). a) When one condemns hard-heartedness, but is himself hard-hearted, he shows that he was not in earnest in his condemnation. b) When one makes claim to the God of love against the unloving, but is himself unloving, he shows that he does not really possess the fear and faith of God, but hypocritically pretends to have it. c) Those who support their word by their actions always make the greatest impression. 2) How difficult. It is not sufficient to exercise love in that one particular in which one desires proofs of love, much more must love, self-denial, and self-sacrifice be shown in every relation (Neh_5:14), and indeed beyond common obligations (Neh_5:15), in spite of particular deeds, on account of which one could be entitled to make claims (Neh_5:16) in spite of the great sacrifice which the willingness for immolation imposes (Neh_5:17-18). Schluss: The example of true deeds of love is (Neh_5:19) particularly also so important on this account because it gives us the assurance and the joyful sentiment of the love and care of God, but it is always on this account so difficult because with sin is joined such want of love, so that we Christians can only find the prayer of Nehemiah (Neh_5:19) justified in the mouth of Christ, and only for Christ’s sake are allowed to dare to beg for God’s care and love.—Starke: When necessity or other cogent reasons demand it, one should willingly forego that which otherwise he would with good reason demand and take. Mat_10:10; 1Co_9:18; 1Ti_5:18. He never rules well who does not do everything he can. God will reward good works, not according to the worthiness of the merit, but from grace. Luk_17:18.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v6 THE USURERS REBUKED. (Neh 5:6-19)
THE USURERS REBUKED. (Neh 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.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–11 REFORMING OF ABUSES, Neh_5:1-13.
REFORMING OF ABUSES, Neh_5:1-13.
1. A great cry — The outcry of poverty, oppression, and abuse.
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Against… brethren — So there were troubles and abuses among themselves, as well as from their enemies.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–11 1. And there was a great cry, &c.] R.V.…
1. And there was a great cry, &c.] R.V. Then there arose a great cry, &c. The R.V. rightly shows that the outbreak of the discontentment described in these verses was connected with the rebuilding of the walls. A general stoppage of trade must have resulted from the national undertaking. The presence of the enemy in the neighbourhood prevented free agricultural labour.
the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews] By ‘the people and their wives’ are denoted the poorer classes, the great bulk of the nation as distinguished from the nobles and the priests. ‘Their brethren the Jews,’ seem here to denote ‘the nobles and the rulers’ whom Nehemiah rebukes in Neh_5:7. At any rate the cry proceeds from the poor, the multitudes who were driven in their need to borrow, against the few who could afford to lend. The actual expression ‘their brethren the Jews,’ as in Neh_5:8, does not imply any particular section of the people, but is employed to contrast the true fraternal relation of fellow-citizens with the existing selfishness and oppression.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–11 (1) Their brethren the Jews.—Nehemiah’s other troubles had come…
(1) Their brethren the Jews.—Nehemiah’s other troubles had come from the enemies without: he begins this account by laying emphasis on the hard treatment of Jews by Jews.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–11 INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES, AND NEHEMIAH"S MODE OF MEETING THEM. (Neh_5:1-13)…
INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES, AND NEHEMIAH"S MODE OF MEETING THEM. (Neh_5:1-13) While the building of the wall was in progress, but not, so far as it is stated, in direct connection with the employment of the mass of the people in unremunerative labour, internal evils showed themselves which demanded prompt attention and remedy. Complaints were made to Nehemiah by large numbers of the lower orders, both men and women the shrill voices of the latter rising to the intensity of a "great cry" (ver. 1) to the effect that the oppression of the rich and great, combined with some other permanent or temporary causes, was depriving them of their houses and plots of land, and forcing them to sell their sons and their daughters into slavery (vers. 2-5). According to the existing text, the primary causes of the general poverty were three:
1. Over-population (ver. 2);
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2. A recent famine (ver. 3); and,
3. The weight of taxation, arising from the large amount annually demanded from the province by the Persians in the way of tribute (ver. 4). As there is no reason to suppose that the tribute had been augmented recently, this cause must be viewed as constant. The over-population may have arisen, in part, from the influx of immigrants, in part from the narrow extent of the territory which the returned tribes had been allowed to occupy (Ewald, "History of Israel," vol. 5. pp. 80, 115, etc.). The famine, which has been attributed to the calling off of the people from their ordinary employments (ibid. p. 152), can scarcely have had this as its main origin if the whole work was begun and ended, as Nehemiah tells us it was, (Neh_6:15) in less than two months; but supposing that already there was a scarcity produced by bad harvests, as in Haggai"s time, (Hag_1:9-11) it may have been aggravated by this circumstance. The entire result was that the poorer classes were compelled, first of all, to mortgage their houses and such lands as they possessed (ver. 3), and secondly to pledge the persons of their sons and daughters (ver. 5), in order to raise money, with the near prospect of having to allow them to become slaves if they were unable to repay their creditor at the time appointed. Under these circumstances they appealed to the new governor, probably not long after his arrival, for relief. The appeal placed him in a position of great difficulty. He was not rich enough to take upon himself the whole burthen; and though he himself, and also his brothers and personal attendants, did lend freely, out of their private store, money and grain (ver. 10, with comment), yet this was far from being enough it did not go to the root of the evil Had he stopped at this point and done no more, the distress would have continued, and with it the discontent the mass of the population would have held aloof from him in sullen anger, and his whole undertaking might have been frustrated. On the other hand, it was impossible for him, under the Persian system of government, to carry matters with a high hand, as a Grecian lawgiver might have done, and order a general can-ceiling of debts. He could only have recourse to persuasion, argument, and personal influence. He therefore, first of all, spoke to the "nobles," who were the moneylenders, rebuked them, and endeavoured to induce them to desist from their malpractices (ver. 7); but failing to produce in this way any considerable effect, he brought the matter before an assembly of the people (ibid. ). There, he first shamed the nobles by alleging his own contrary example, and then called on them, "for the fear of God and because of the reproach of the heathen," to restore the forfeited lands and houses to their former owners, repay all that they had received in the way of interest on the money lent, and give up the entire practice of lending money upon pledge or mortgage (vers. 7-11). Moved by this public appeal, the nobles intimated their consent, whereupon he made them clench their promise by an oath (ver. 12), adding on his own part a malediction if the oath were not observed, which was hailed with acclaim by the people. Thus the whole matter was brought to a happy conclusion the promise made was kept people," i.e. the whole nation, nobles included, "did according to this word" (ver. 13).
A great cry. Compare ver. 6, where the "cry" is distinguished from the "words." The Oriental habit of shrill lamentation must be borne in mind it is always shrillest when the women have a part in it, as on this occasion. Their wives. Mothers, whose children had been sold into slavery, or who anticipated losing them in this sad way speedily (ver. 5). Their brethren the Jews. i.e. the richer Jews, who had adopted the practice of lending upon pledge.
Vers. 1-13. Extortion rebuked.
Rulers of men have no easy task. No sooner have they provided a remedy for one evil than another presents itself. Nehemiah found this to be the case. He had preserved the city from the enemies outside, and was fast proceeding with the fortifications which would be a permanent protection; but before they were completed a cry arose within which called his attention to dangers quite as threatening. Of what avail to have secured the people from the foreign foe if they were to destroy one another by extortion and dissension? The wisdom and courage of the governor, however, proved equal to the occasion. Observe
I THE LOUD COMPLAINT MADE (vers. 1-5). A large number of the people "and of their wives" came to Nehemiah and complained bitterly of their condition, and of the extortion to which they were subjected by their rich and noble brethren. The complainers were of three classes. Some who were originally poor found themselves, with large families, unable to obtain food for them on account of the pressure of the times. They desired that corn might be distributed among them. Others had borrowed money to obtain food, and given up their lands and houses in pledge. A third class had taken a like course to enable them to pay the taxes of the Persian monarch. Some (of each class probably) had already been compelled to obtain supplies by selling sons, and even daughters, as servants, and saw no resource but to sell others of their children. Moreover, contrary to the Mosaic law, heavy interest was being charged for the loans. The rich were taking advantage of the necessities of their poorer brethren to enrich themselves yet more, regardless of the suffering and humiliation they were inflicting. The sufferers felt and said that they were of the same flesh and blood as their rich oppressors, and their children as dear to them.
II THE EFFECT ON NEHEMIAH OF THIS COMPLAINT. "I was very angry" (ver. 6). A very just anger; the anger of a righteous man at flagrant wrong; of a noble and generous spirit at base rapacity; of a lover of the people, who was making great sacrifices for their good, against those who cared not for the welfare of the community, so that they could accumulate wealth for themselves and their families; of one who feared God, that his name should be dishonoured by the very people whose mission was to exalt it.
III THE COURSE HE TOOK.
1. He carefully considered the matter (ver. 7).
2. He rebuked the offenders (ver. 7).
3. He called an assembly upon the case.
4. He publicly remonstrated with the offenders.
(1) Contrasting their conduct with that of himself and his immediate friends (vers. 8, 10). He and others like-minded had bought Jews out of slavery to the heathen, while these were selling, or causing to be sold, into slavery to Jews their brethren around them. He, his brothers and servants, had also lent money and corn to the needy, but without exacting pledge or interest.
(2) Reminding them of the reproach they were bringing on the Jewish name and religion, and which the fear of God should have prevented their incurring.
(3) Entreating them to give up to their owners the property they held in pledge, and cease to require interest on the money due to them (ver. 11).
IV THE RESULTS.
1. The self-conviction of the offenders (ver. 8).
2. Their promise to comply with his proposals (ver. 12). A promise solemnly ratified by
a. An oath administered by the priests.
b. A malediction pronounced by Nehemiah, with a significant ceremony (ver. 13).
3. The joy and thankfulness of the people (ver. 13). They responded "Amen" to the malediction, and "praised Jehovah.
4. The performance of the promise (ver. 13).
Lessons:
1. The hideousness of avarice. "The love of money is the root of all evil." It here appears as inhumanity, oppression, violation of Divine law, disregard of the claims of patriotism. Especially odious and injurious in nobles and rulers, who ought to be examples of generosity, protectors of the poor, and promoters in every way of the general good.
2. The duty of discountenancing and suppressing this vice. Rulers and magistrates are peculiarly bound to do so.
3. The power of good example. Gives confidence in reproving iniquity and urging amendment, and force to reproofs and appeals.
HOMILIES BY J.S. EXELL. Vers. 1-13. The rich rebuked for taking advantage of the poor.
I THE POOR.
1. Numbers tend to poverty. "We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live" (ver. 2).
2. Borrowing tends to poverty. "We have mortgaged our lands" (ver. 3).
3. Taxation tends to poverty. "We have borrowed money for the king"s tribute" (ver. 4).
4. Poverty may sometimes have cause for protest against injustice.
5. Poverty is experienced by the people of God who are engaged in holy toils.
II THE RICH.
1. The rich must not take undue advantage of calamitous circumstances. "Because of the dearth" (ver. 3).
2. The rich must not be inconsiderate. "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren" (ver. 5).
3. The rich must not be cruel. "Our daughters are brought unto bondage" (ver. 5).
4. The rich must not violate the law of God. "Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God?" (ver. 9).
III THE REBUKE.
1. Angry. "And I was very angry.
2. Reflective. "I consulted with myself" (ver. 7).
3. Impartial. "The nobles and the rulers.
4. Sustained. "And I set a great assembly against them.
5. Argumentative (ver. 8).
6. Unanswerable. "They held their peace, and found nothing to answer.
7. Successful. "We will restore. E.
HOMILIES W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-13. Error and return.
In the very midst of apparent success, when the Church is building its walls and seems likely to be triumphant and secure, there may be an aggravated evil springing up and spreading to its very heart. Such was the case at Jerusalem when the walls of its defence were rising. When priests and people were repairing the defences, there was circulating a deadly mischief within the whole body. We look at
I THE WORST EVIL FROM WHICH THE CHURCH OF CHRIST CAN SUFFER (vers. 1-5).
1. An internal evil, always more dangerous and deadly than an external one. Better a hundred carping or even conspiring Samaritans than ten Jews inside the walls carrying a curse within their breast. Better an army of Canaanites in battle array than one Achan in the comp.
2. The evil of discord. One Jew was complaining of another, one class of another class; seeds of dissension and strife were springing up and bearing bitter fruit. Internal evil in a Christian society may take many forms error, sloth, pride, etc. but the worst of all is discord. The Master is never so grieved as when his first commandment is broken, and when they who are specially bound to love one another are indulging" in "bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, malice.
3. Discord springing from oppression. The richer Jews had made use of a time of want, arising from dearth (ver. 3), to compel the necessitous to (a) mortgage their children (ver. 2) and (b) their ancestral property (ver. 3) in order to save themselves and their families from starvation (vers. 2, 3), as well as to pay the tribute to the king of Persia (ver. 4). What naturally afflicted them the most was, that through the cupidity and hardness of the wealthy they had been obliged to sell into servitude their own sons and daughters; said they, in their forcible lament, "Yet our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren: our children as their children" (ver. 5). Nor were they able to redeem them (ver. 5). There is great bitterness of soul when one member of a Christian Church is heedless of the natural human affections of any of his brethren: guilt can hardly go further.
II ITS DEPLORABLE CONSEQUENCES (vers. 1, 9).
1. Misery (ver. 1). "There was a great cry of the people and of their wives" (ver. 1). When one part of a society is sinning and the other part "sinned against," when the Church is divided into wrong-doers and wrong-sufferers, misery sinks to its depth. There is no gladness of heart so great as when harmony and love prevail; so, there is no wretchedness of soul so complete as when hatred and injury abound.
2. Reproach (ver. 9). "It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? It is our primary duty, and should be our most earnest desire, so to let our light shine that men may glorify Christ, to "adorn the doctrine" of our Saviour; when we so act as to cause the enemy of God to blaspheme, we are "verily guilty before God.
III THE WAY OF ESCAPE AND RECOVERY (vers. 6-13). Happily, in this instance, it did not go too far, because it was not allowed to.do its work too long. There was
1. An appreciation of its enormity (ver. 6). Nehemiah was "very angry when he heard their cry and these words." Angry, but certainly not sinful; (Eph_4:26) angry with a holy wrath, roused by a profound sense of the magnitude of the guilt and the danger.
2. Self-control (ver. 7). He "consulted with himself." Instead of acting with injurious haste, he waited till he had well considered the best course to take. When wrath is roused, it is well indeed to "consult with ourselves" before we speak to others or act on others.
3. Concerted action (ver. 7). "I set a great assembly against them." Nehemiah directed against the evil the full force of public sentiment the national conscience.
4. Boldness on the part of the leader. There is a time for decided speech and action. "I rebuked the nobles" (ver. 7). "We... have redeemed our brethren; ... and will ye even sell your brethren?" (ver. 8). "Restore their lands, their vineyards," etc. (ver. 11). "I shook my lap," etc. (ver. 13). In times of great defection or oppression, when things are going ill with the cause of God, it is not honied words, but the language of reproach that is wanted. "Reprove, rebuke, exhort," though "with all long-suffering". (2Ti_4:2)
5. Repentance on the part of the erring. This includes
(a) Conviction of sinfulness having "nothing to answer" (ver. 8), under a sense of guilt.
(b) Acknowledgment and promise of reform (ver. 12). This may well be accompanied by the most solemn vows uttered before God (ver. 12).
(c) Amendment (ver. 13). And the people did according to this promise.
(1) Conviction,
(2) confession,
(3) the solemn vow,
(4) the homeward step this is to walk in the way of recovery. C.
HOMILIES BY R.A. RADFORD Vers. 1-19. An example of successful activity for God.
A great practical reformation carried out by a religious ruler on the highest religious principles, and by the strength of religious character. No more difficult task than to deal successfully with such circumstances in which men"s selfish interests were involved, and the monied classes would be against reform. Nehemiah, by his wisdom, boldness, and simple-minded appeal to God, achieved a marvellous success. Notice
I The direct appeal to great MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES. We cannot do better than bring men face to face with conscience.
1. Humanity.
2. Patriotism. They are brethren.
3. Fear of God, who is no respecter of persons.
The Jews all professed to be rearers of God. All civil law and common life were based upon the Divine law. That which was manifestly displeasing to God could not be legally right. We acknowledge the same principle. All human law rests on the word of God. We cannot directly appeal to the letter of Scripture in dealing with ungodly men, but we may use it to make the law of nature clearer.
4. The universal conscience. "I set a great assembly against them." No wrong-doers can withstand the appeal to the common sentiment of right. Educate the moral sentiment of society. and it becomes a protection against the self-will of individuals. Vox populi should be vox Dei. In a truly progressive society it will be more and more so. The great leaders of thought and action should not be afraid of making their appeal to great assemblies, in Nehemiah"s spirit.
II AN EXAMPLE OF WISE METHOD. Much depends on method in every successful reformation.
1. The means used were moral. Remonstrance, persuasion, appeal to the heart and conscience. No violence. No craft. No resort to mere worldly expediency. No compromise of religious position. No truckling to rich men.
2. Personal character was brought to bear upon those whose conduct must be changed. Nehemiah"s moral indignation had great influence. His bold challenge of the wrongdoing. His appeal to his own example and that of others. His tender interest in the poor, and imploring earnestness in their cause.
3. While acting as a ruler, and with a ruler"s authority, the public feeling, is enlisted in support of reform. It is a great matter to enlist the sympathy of the majority.
4. In all practical measures and social reformations we should endeavour to unite the two forces of religious and civil law. "I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise." With solemn appeal to God, and in the presence of all the congregation, who "said Amen, and praised the Lord," Nehemiah bound the wrong-doers to carry out their word.
III An illustration of the BENEFICIAL EFFECT of decisive and speedy reform when effected on religious principles and by wise methods.
1. Liberation of human energy, both for the Church and for the state. What could the people do when they were so oppressed? How could they work with men who treated them so cruelly? All real reformation is the setting free of power for the future. We must not look at temporary inconveniences, but at permanent benefits.
2. The value of great moral and political precedents. Such an instance of heroic championship in the cause of God and humanity becomes an inestimable treasure for future generations. What power there is in the histories of all great reformations!
3. We cannot doubt that, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, the moral and social work which Nehemiah accomplished was intended to prepare the way for that more directly religious work which followed. All true reformation is a preparation for advancement. John the Baptist heralds the kingdom of God.
4. An immense service to the cause of righteousness when governors and statesmen identify their names with great movements for the lifting up of the people. Their self-sacrifice, their faithfulness, their victory become part of God"s word. God thinks upon them for good, and will make the world think of them. The best monument to a great man is "what he has done for the people. R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 9, 10 And there was a great cry of the people.
Neh_5:1-13
And there was a great cry of the people.
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The friend of the poor
I. The complaint of the poor. It is sometimes alleged the poor have a morbid disposition to complain of their indigence and sufferings; and this may be true of certain classes of them. The ignorant and vicious, the idle and intemperate, are prone to bewail their hardships in querulous words. They complain bitterly of the miseries of their lot, and perhaps charge those with having a hard heart who do not give them the relief they desire. They try thus to excite the pity of the benevolent, or to extort the gifts of charity which they do not deserve. But it is altogether different with the industrious and pious poor. The poor of the children of Judah are manifestly brought to the very extremity of suffering before they disclose their sorrowful circumstances; and when they are compelled to make them known, it is in language remarkable for dignified sobriety and true pathos. The complaint of these poor Israelites unveils their varied load of sorrow.
1. Some complained of the extent of their necessities. We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live. The calls of hunger were many; the means of supply, on their own inheritance, were small; and they required to purchase corn for bread from others. Their straits, too, were increased by the present dearth. It is one of the many glories of the religion of the Bible that it makes a benevolent care of the poor a paramount duty in all who have it in their power to relieve their necessities, and enforces this duty by threatenings for its neglect, and by promises of reward for its observance.
2. Some of the poor here also complain of the severity of public burdens. They were still subject to the Persian king, and to secure the continuance of his favour to Jerusalem they had made every possible effort to pay his tribute. Their more wealthy countrymen met this tax without abridging their home comforts, but the burden was heavy on the poor.
3. The sorrows of the poor were in this case deepened by the thought that they were occasioned by the ungenerous conduct of their own brethren. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, neither is it in our power to redeem them. They possessed a common relation to the covenant inheritance. They had left the land of their exile animated with the same faith, and embarked in the same enterprise. Many of them had quitted comforts in that foreign land, out of love to Jerusalem, and were now enduring the first trials of returned captives. They had laboured, too, by their united endeavours, to restore the city of their fathers, instead of seeking every man his own things in the care of his patrimonial inheritance. It might have been expected that, thus labouring for a common object, they would have shared a common sympathy, and been free from the grasp of selfishness.
4. How mysterious are sufferings like these, especially of the poor people of God engaged in His service. We do not wonder that those Jews who remained in the land of idols, after they were free to return to Judah, might suffer adversity. They despised the Lords goodness in offering deliverance from exile, and preferred ease in a strange country to spiritual blessings in the holy land. It is not wonderful though they might be visited with trials in providence, and be made to read their sin in their suffering. But here those endure affliction who willingly left the land of the heathen, and they are involved in deep trouble while doing a service to the city of God. Shall we think that they disprove either the wisdom or goodness of Gods providence to His people? Do they not rather show His thoughts to be far above our thoughts, and His procedure in carrying out His great plan to be too high for us to understand? Do they not clearly indicate that He tries the faith of His servants in the very moment of accepting their love, and rewards their affection, not in the comforts of earth, but in the glories of immortality? It is thus that the world in which we dwell is still a place of weeping, where the poor and needy pour out their tears in floods. Thousands of righteous ones languish in poverty, or are persecuted for their fidelity to the truth of God.
II. Nehemiahs expostulation with the nobles. The promptitude with which he listens to the complaint of the poor does honour to his heart, and the courage with which he proceeds to redress their wrongs sheds a lustre on the justice of his administration. The cry of the lowly for relief from distress or opposition is often disregarded, yea, proves the occasion of augmenting their misery. And in his very first step for reform of these abuses in Judah he evinces again the self-reliance of a great mind. Then, says he, I consulted with myself. To this, indeed, he was shut up by his peculiar and trying circumstances.
1. He rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. To see the full force of this charge, it must be borne in mind that the Israelites were forbidden in the law of Moses to lend money to the poor on interest. With strangers, or perhaps with the rich, they might trade in this way; but this is the law interdicting such a practice with their poor brethren:--If thou lend money to any of My people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. This, then, is a grave charge against the nobles of violating the Divine law; and it falls on ears not accustomed to such plain words. Men of rank and affluence seldom hear this language of remonstrance addressed to them, and they can ill bear such reflections on their honour. But no earthly station exempts wrong-doers from just reproof; and Nehemiahs zeal for God, as well as his love to His people, inspires him with faithfulness. True kindness to them, not less than compassion for the lowly objects of their exactions, prompted his faithful expostulation. The reproof here was administered with firmness, yet it was accompanied with the prudence of wisdom, adopting a course fitted to fortify remonstrance, and to secure its desired effect. I set, says he, a great assembly against them. What was the object of this concourse? We cannot suppose that the servant of God intended, through this means, to overawe the nobles by numbers, or to constrain them to a decision contrary to reason. He appears rather to have convened this assembly to allow the free expression of sentiment on the evil complained of, and to bring all under the salutary influence of public opinion. In no free community can public opinion be set at defiance with either justice or safety. It may, indeed, be sometimes corrupted by designing men, and it may for a season be swayed by impulses perilous to the common-weal. It requires, then, to be corrected and regulated by the power of truth. But a healthful public opinion, wisely formed, rightly guided, freely expressed, is the bulwark of national liberty, and an essential condition of the progress of mankind.
2. Nehemiah addressed to the rulers of Judah persuasive argument. The arguments he employed are threefold. He first of all pleads the efforts already made to redeem Judah from captivity. And on this ground he asks if it is right they should be again sold into bondage. We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, who were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? This appeal reminds believers in Christ of their duty, not to come again into bondage to sin. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Nehemiah, moreover, pleads the exposure of the common cause to the reproach of the enemy as a reason for the nobles ceasing their oppression. Also I said, It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? This is a powerful argument for watchfulness and consistency in all who love Zion. Many are jealous for their own reputation, and quick to wipe off any reproach from themselves, while they have little care for the honour of God. Nehemiah, once more, appeals to his own conduct as an example of a generous spirit to his poor brethren. He, too, might have exacted money and corn, but he freely surrendered his private rights for the sake of the public good. It is not in a boastful spirit that he thus refers to himself and the course of self-denial he pursued. Perhaps, also, he wishes to suggest that he gained far more in enjoyment than he gave up in substance. The powerful and persuasive appeal was crowned with complete success. The result of this appeal also proves the power of religious motive in remedying social evils. These often grow and spread in face of all arguments deduced from considerations of humanity and justice. But here, in Jerusalem, religion pours the oil of love on the troubled waters; she addresses a winning appeal to open hearts, and at once the grasp of oppression is relaxed. If any great social evils are allowed to prevail where religion is professed, it is only by neglecting or denying its power. Christianity will either destroy every iniquity that abounds in a land, or itself will decline and depart from a people who will not hear its voice, to break off their sins by righteousness.
III. Nehemiahs testimony to his own disinterested conduct. (W. Ritchie.)
Brave compassion
Now Nehemiah, as we have seen, was a business man--a man of great energy and prudence; and it would not have been strange if he had postponed the consideration of the complaints thus brought before him. He might naturally enough have been afraid lest, by now finding fault with the nobles and rulers, he should alienate them from himself, and thus hinder the completion of his great enterprise. And so he might have said to these poor people, You see that my hands are full of work; I cannot attend to this matter now--one thing at a time. No doubt you have a grievance, but let us get the wails finished first, and then I will see what can be done. It is thus that many men of business act in daily life. Their very energy leads them to brush aside everything that threatens to interfere with their present work. They cannot bear interruptions, and are so eagerly bent on reaching their end that they cannot pause to do good on their way. But Nehemiah was more than a mere man of business; he was a man with a tender heart. (T. C. Finlayson.)
A great schism averted
I. That social injustice may exist even amongst fellow-workers in a great and good cause.
II. That social injustice, if not corrected, will undermine the stability of any cause, however righteous.
III. That social injustice should be regarded by all good men with feelings of righteous indignation.
IV. That social injustice, whenever discovered, should be calmly, yet promptly, dealt with.
V. That conciliatory appeals are sometimes more efficacious than coercive measures in dealing with social injustice. (Homiletic Commentary.)
The accusing cry of humanity
I. The unending struggle. Wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, brain and brawn, capital and labour--when in all ages have not these come into collision?
II. Elements of bitterness in this struggle.
1. On the side of the oppressors there is power (Neh_5:7).
2. The oppressed are the brethren of the oppressors.
3. They were engaged in a common cause.
III. Light in dareness.
1. Christ cams to proclaim the brotherhood of humanity.
2. Signs of the times. The teacher is abroad. Society is tending towards redress. (Homiletic Commentary.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Nehemiah 5
USURY
Nehemiah 5
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WE open the fifth chapter of Nehemiah with a shock of pain. The previous chapter described a scene of patriotic devotion in which nearly all the people were united for the prosecution of one great purpose. There we saw the priests and the wealthy citizens side by side with their humble brethren engaged in the common task of building the walls of Jerusalem and guarding the city against assault. The heartiness with which the work was first undertaken, the readiness of all classes to resume it after temporary discouragements, and the martial spirit shown by the whole population in, standing under arms in the prosecution of it, determined to resist any interference from without, were all signs of a large-minded zeal in which we should have expected private interests to have given place to the public necessities of the hour. But now we are compelled to look at the seamy side of city life. In the midst of the unavoidable toils and dangers occasioned by the animosity of the Samaritans, miserable internal troubles had broken out among the Jews and the perplexing problems which seem to be inseparable from the gathering together of a number of people under any known past or present social system had developed in the most acute form. The gulf between the rich and the poor had widened ominously: for while the poor had been driven to the last extremity, their more fortunate fellow-citizens had taken a monstrously cruel advantage of their helplessness. Famine-stricken men and women not only cried to Nehemiah for the means of getting corn for themselves and their families, they had a complaint to make against their brethren. Some had lost their lands after mortgaging them to rich Jews. Others had even been forced by the moneylenders to sell their sons and daughters into slavery. They must have been on the brink of starvation before resorting to such an unnatural expedient. How wonderfully, then, do they exhibit the patience of the poor in their endurance of these agonies! There were no bread-riots. The people simply appealed to Nehemiah, who had already proved himself their disinterested friend, and who. as governor, was responsible for the welfare of the city.
It is not difficult to see how it came about that many of the citizens of Jerusalem were in this desperate plight. In all probability most of Zerubbabels and Ezras pilgrims had been in humble circumstances. It is true successive expeditions had gone up with contributions to the Jerusalem colony, but most of the stores they had conveyed had been devoted to public works, and even anything that may have been distributed among the citizens could only have afforded temporary relief. War utterly paralyses industry and commerce. In Judaea the unsettled state of the country must have seriously impeded agricultural and pastoral occupations. Then the importation of corn into Jerusalem would be almost impossible while roving enemies were on the watch in the open country, so that the price of bread would rise as a result of scarcity. At the same time the presence of persons from the outlying towns would increase the number of mouths to be fed within the city. Moreover, the attention given to the building of the walls and the defence of Jerusalem from assault would prevent artisans and tradesmen from following the occupations by which they usually earned their living. Lastly, the former governors had impoverished the population by exacting grievously heavy tribute. The inevitable result of all this was debt and its miserable consequences.
Just as in the early history of Athens and later at Rome, the troubles to the state arising from the condition of the debtors were now of the most serious character. Nothing disorganises society more hopelessly than bad arrangements with respect to debts and poverty. Nehemiah was justly indignant when the dreadful truth was made known to him. We may wonder why he had not discovered it earlier, since he had been going in and out among the people. Was there a certain aloofness in his attitude? His lonely night ride suggests something of the kind. In any case his absorbing devotion to his one task of rebuilding the city walls could have left him little leisure for other interests. The man who is engaged in a grand scheme for the public good is frequently the last to notice individual cases of need. The statesman is in danger of ignoring the social condition of the people in the pursuit of political ends. It used to be the mistake of most governments that their foreign policy absorbed their attention to the neglect of home interests.
Nehemiah was not slow in recognising the public need, when it was brought under his notice by the cry of the distressed debtors. According to the truly modern custom of his time in Jerusalem, he called a public meeting, explained the whole situation, and appealed to the creditors to give back the mortgaged lands and remit the interest on their loans. This was agreed to at once, the popular conscience evidently approving of the proposal. Nehemiah, however, was not content to let the matter rest here. He called the priests, and put them on their oath to see that the promise of the creditors was carried out. This appeal to the priesthood is very significant. It shows how rapidly the government was tending towards a sacerdotal theocracy. But it is important to notice that it was a social and not a purely political matter in which Nehemiah looked to the priests. The social order of the Jews was more especially bound up with their religion, or rather with their law and its regulations, while as yet questions of quasi-foreign policy were freely relegated to the purely civil authorities, the heads of families, the nobles, and the supreme governor under the Persian administration.
Nehemiah followed the example of the ancient prophets in his symbolical method of denouncing any of the creditors who would not keep the promise he had extracted from them. Shaking out his mantle, as though to cast off whatever had been wrapped in its folds, he exclaimed, "So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied." {Neh_5:13} This was virtually a threat of confiscation and excommunication. Yet the ecclesia gladly assented, crying "Amen" and praising the Lord.
The extreme position here taken up by Nehemiah and freely conceded by the people may seem to us unreasonable unless we have considered all the circumstances. Nehemiah denounced the conduct of the money-lenders as morally wrong. "The thing that ye do is not good," he said. It was opposed to the will of God. It provoked the reproach of the heathen. It was very different from his own conduct, in redeeming captives and supporting the poor out of his private means. Now, wherein was the real evil of the conduct of these creditors? The primitive law of the "Covenant" forbade the Jews to take interest for loans among their brethren. {Exo_22:25} But why so? Is there not a manifest convenience in the arrangements by which those people who possess a superfluity may lend to those who are temporarily embarrassed? If no interest is to be paid for such loans, is it to be expected that rich people will run the risk and put themselves to the certain inconvenience they involve? The man who saves generally does so in order that his savings may be of advantage to him. If he consents to defer the enjoyment of them, must not this be for some consideration? In proportion as the advantages of saving are reduced the inducements to save will be diminished, and then the available lending fund of the community will be lessened, so that fewer persons in need of temporary accommodation will be able to receive it. From another point of view, may it not be urged that if a man obtains the assistance of a loan he should be as willing to pay for it as he would be to pay for any other distinct advantage? He does not get the convenience of a coach-ride for nothing, why should he not expect to pay anything for a lift along a difficult bit of his financial course? Sometimes a loan may be regarded as an act of partnership. The tradesman who has not sufficient capital to carry on his business borrows from a neighbour who possesses money which he desires to invest. Is not this an arrangement in which lending at interest is mutually advantageous? In such a case the lender is really a sort of "sleeping partner," and the interest he receives is merely his share in the business, because it is the return which has come back to him through the use of his money. Where is the wrong of such a transaction? Even when the terms are more hard on the debtor, may it not be urged that he does not accept them blindfold? He knows what he is doing when he takes upon himself the obligations of his debt and its accompanying interest; he willingly enters into the bond, believing that it will be for his own advantage. How then can he be regarded as the victim of cruelty?
This is one side of the subject, and it is not to be denied that it exhibits a considerable amount of truth from its own point of view. Even on this ground, however, it may be doubted whether the advantages of the debtor are as great as they are represented. The system of carrying on business by means of borrowed capital is answerable for much of the strain and anxiety of modern life, and not a little of the dishonesty to which traders are now tempted when hard pressed. The offer of "temporary accommodation" is inviting, but it may be questioned whether this is not more often than not a curse to those who accept it. Very frequently it only postpones the evil day. Certainly it is not found that the multiplication of "pawn-shops" tends to the comfort and well-being of the people among whom they spring up, and possibly, if we could look behind the scenes, we should discover that lending agencies in higher commercial circles were not much more beneficial to the community.
Still, it may be urged, even if the system of borrowing and lending is often carried too far, there are cases in which it is manifestly beneficial. The borrower may be really helped over a temporary difficulty. In a time of desperate need he may even be saved from starvation. This is not to be denied. We must look at the system as a whole, however, rather than only at its favourite instances.
The strength of the case for lending money at interest rests upon certain plain laws of "Political Economy." Now it is absurd to denounce the science of "Political Economy" as "diabolical." No science can be either good or bad, for by its nature all science deals only with truth and knowledge. We do not talk of the morality of chemistry. The facts may be reprehensible, but the scientific co-ordination of them, the discovery of the principles which govern them, cannot be morally culpable. Nevertheless "Political Economy" is only a science on the ground of certain presuppositions. Remove those presuppositions, and the whole fabric falls to the ground. It is not then morally condemned, it is simply inapplicable, because its data have disappeared. Now one of the leading data of this science is the principle of self-interest. It is assumed throughout that men are simply producing and trading for their own advantage. If this assumption is allowed, the laws and their results follow with the iron necessity of fate. But if the self-seeking principle can be removed, and a social principle be made to take its place, the whole process will be altered. We see this happening with Nehemiah, who is willing to lend free of interest. In his case the strong pleas for the reasonableness, for the very necessity of the other system fall to the ground. If the contagion of his example were universal, we should have to alter our books of "Political Economy," and write on the subject from the new standpoint of brotherly kindness.
We have not yet reached the bottom of this question. It may still be urged that, though it was very gracious of Nehemiah to act as he did, it was not therefore culpable in others who failed to share his views and means not to follow suit. In some cases the lender might be depending for a livelihood on the produce of his loans. If so, were he to decline to exact it, he himself would be absolutely impoverished. We must meet this position by taking into account the actual results of the money-lending system practised by the Jews in Jerusalem in the days of Nehemiah. The interest was high-"the hundredth part of the money" {Neh_5:11} -i.e., with the monthly payments usual in the East, equivalent to twelve per cent annual interest. Then those who could not pay this interest, having already pledged their estates, forfeited the property. A wise regulation of Deuteronomy-unhappily never practised-had required the return of mortgaged land every seven years. {Deu_15:1-6} This merciful regulation was evidently intended to prevent the accumulation of large estates in the hands of rich men who would "add field to field" in a way denounced by the prophets with indignation. {e.g. Isa_5:8} Thus the tendency to inequality of lots would be avoided, and temporary embarrassment could not lead to the permanent ruin of a man and his children after him. It was felt, too, that there was a sacred character in the land, which was the Lords possession. It was not possible for a man to whom a portion had been allotted to wholly alienate it, for it was not his to dispose of, it was only his to hold. This mystical thought would help to maintain a sturdy race of peasants-Naboth, for example-who would feel their duty to their land to be of a religious nature, and who would therefore be elevated and strengthened in character by the very possession of it. All these advantages were missed by the customs that were found to be prevalent in the time of Nehemiah.
Far worse than the alienation of their estates was the selling of their children by the hard-pressed creditors. An ancient law of rude times recognised the fact and regulated it in regard to daughters, {Exo_21:7} but it is not easy to see how in all age of civilisation any parents possessed of natural feeling could bring themselves to consent to such a barbarity. That some did so is a proof of the morally degrading effect of absolute penury. When the wolf is at the door, the hungry man himself becomes wolfish. The horrible stories of mothers in besieged cities boiling and eating their own children can only be accounted for by some such explanation as this. Here we have the severest condemnation of the social system which permits of the utter destitution of a large portion of the community. It is most hurtful to the characters of its victims, it dehumanises them, it reduces them to the level of beasts.
Did Ezras stern reformation prepare the way for this miserable condition of affairs? He had dared to tamper with the most sacred domestic ties. He had attacked the sanctities of the home. May we suppose that one result of his success was to lower the sense of home duties, and even to stifle the deepest natural affections? This is at least a melancholy possibility, and it warns us of the danger of any invasion of family claims and duties by the church or the State.
Now it was in face of the terrible misery of the Jews that Nehemiah denounced the whole practice of usury which was the root of it. He was not contemplating those harmless commercial transactions by which, in our day, capital passes from one hand to another in a way of business that may be equally advantageous to borrower and lender. All he saw was a state of utter ruin-land alienated from its old families, boys and girls sold into slavery, and the unfortunate debtors, in spite of all their sacrifices, still on the brink of starvation. In view of such a frightful condition, he naturally denounced the whole system that led to it. What else could he have done? This was no time for a nice discrimination between the use and the abuse of the system. Nehemiah saw nothing but abuse in it. Moreover, it was not in accordance with the Hebrew way ever to draw fine distinctions. If a custom was found to be working badly, that custom was reprobated entirely, no attempt was made to save from the wreck any good elements that might have been discovered in it by a cool scientific analysis. In The Law, therefore, as well as in the particular cases dealt with by Nehemiah, lending at interest among Jews was forbidden, because as usually practised it was a cruel, hurtful practice. Nehemiah even refers to lending on a pledge, without mentioning the interest, as an evil thing, because it was taken for granted that usury went with it. But that usury was not thought to be morally wrong in itself we may learn from the fact that Jews were permitted by their law to practise it with foreigners, {Deu_15:3-6} while they were not allowed to do any really wrong thing to them. This distinction between the treatment of the Jew and that of the Gentile throws some light on the question of usury. It shows that the real ground of condemnation was that the practice was contrary to brotherhood. Since then Christianity enlarges the field of brotherhood, the limits of exactions are proportionately extended. There are many things that we cannot do to a man when we regard him as a brother, although we should have had no compunction in performing them before we had owned the close relationship.
We see then that what Nehemiah and the Jewish law really condemned was not so much the practice of taking interest in the abstract as the carrying on of cruel usury among brothers. The evil that lies in that also appears in dealings that are not directly financial. The world thinks of the Jew too much as of a Shylock who makes his money breed by harsh exactions practised on Christians. But when Christians grow rich by the ill-requited toil of their oppressed fellow-Christians, when they exact more than their pound of flesh, when drop by drop they squeeze the very life-blood out of their victims, they are guilty of the abomination of usury in a new form, but with few of its evils lightened. To take advantage of the helpless condition of a fellow-man is exactly the wickedness denounced by Nehemiah in the heartless rich men of his day. It is no excuse for this that we are within our rights. It is not always right to insist upon our rights. What is legally innocent may be morally criminal. It is even possible to get through a court of justice what is nothing better than a theft in the sight of Heaven. It can never be right to push any one down to his ruin.
But, it may be said, the miserable man brought his trouble upon himself by his own recklessness. Be it so. Still he is our brother, and we should treat him as such. We may think we are under no obligation to follow the example of Nehemiah, who refused his pay from the impoverished citizens, redeemed Israelites from slavery in foreign lands, lent money free of interest, and entertained a number of Jews at his table-all out of the savings of his old courtier days at Susa. And yet a true Christian cannot escape from the belief that there is a real obligation lying on him to imitate this royal bounty as far as his means permit.
The law in Deuteronomy commanded the Israelite to lend willingly to the needy, and not harden his heart or shut up his hands from his "poor brother." {Deu_15:7-8} Our Lord goes further, for He distinctly requires His disciples to lend when they do not expect that the loan will ever be returned-"If ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive," He asks, "what thanks have ye? even sinners lend to sinners, to receive again as much." {Luk_6:34} And St. Paul is thinking of no work of supererogation when he writes, "Bear ye one anothers burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." {Gal_6:2} Yet if somebody suggests that these precepts should be taken seriously and put in practice today, he is shouted down as a fanatic. Why is this? Will Christ be satisfied with less than His own requirements?
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Neh_5:1. Against their brethren] i. e. the richer portion…
EXPLANATORY NOTES.]
Neh_5:1. Against their brethren] i. e. the richer portion (Neh_5:7).
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Neh_5:2-4. There were that said] Keil divides into three classes. (a) The workers, who had no property. (b) Those who had mortgaged their fields, vineyards, and houses. (c) Those who had borrowed money for the king’s tribute upon their fields and vineyards.
Neh_5:2. We take up corn] Not by force. The words mean, We desire that corn may be provided.
Neh_5:3. Because of the dearth] Probably Sanballat and his army intercepted the supplies.
Neh_5:4. For the king’s tribute] We have made our fields and our vineyards answerable for money for the king’s tribute (Bertheau), i. e. We have borrowed money upon our fields for tribute. This they could only do by pledging the crops (comp. the law, Lev_25:14; Lev_25:17).
Neh_5:5. “Our brethren”] The richer Jews. The sense of the first half of the verse is, We are of one flesh and blood with these rich men. The law not only allowed to lend to the poor on a pledge (Deu_15:8), but also permitted Israelites, if they were poor, to sell themselves (Lev_25:39), and also their sons and daughters, to procure money. It required, however, that they who were thus sold should not be retained as slaves, but set at liberty without ransom, either after seven years or at the year of Jubilee (Lev_25:39-41; Exo_21:2 seq,). It is set forth as a special hardship in this verse that some of their daughters were brought into bondage for maidservants.—Keil. Neither is it in our power] Lit. Our hand it not to God (Gen_31:29). Keil explains thus: The power to alter it is not in our hand. Our fields and our vineyards are in the hands of others.
Neh_5:7. I consulted with myself] My heart took counsel upon it. Ye exact usury] Usury and injustice are closely allied.
Neh_5:8. We redeemed. Ye sell] Strong contrast. The sale of their brethren for bondservants forbidden (Lev_25:42).
Neh_5:11. Hundredth part] Probably a monthly interest.
Neh_5:12. I called the priests] To witness the oath.
Neh_5:13. I shook my lap] A symbolical action. “The lap of the garment, in which things are carried (Isa_49:22), where alone the word is again found.”—Keil. See for this significant action Act_18:6; Act_18:14.] Crosby says this verse and those which follow form an interruption of the narrative. They show that Nehemiah was for twelve years governor of Judah, and did not write this history till the expiration of that time. The bread of the governor] The food and wine with which the community had to furnish him.
Neh_5:15. Even their servants bare rule] Arbitrary, oppressive rule. Abuse of power for extortions.
Neh_5:17. The rulers] The heads of the different louses of Judah.
Neh_5:19. Think upon me] (Comp. Neh_13:14; Neh_13:31).
HOMILETICAL CONTENTS OF CHAPTER 5
Neh_5:1-19. Greed corrected.
Neh_5:1-19. Godless Rich Men.
Neh_5:1-13. A Great Schism averted.
Neh_5:1. The Accusing Cry of Humanity.
Neh_5:3-5. The Miseries of Debt.
Neh_5:6. Righteous Anger.
Neh_5:7. Introspection.
Neh_5:7. An Assembly convoked against Sinners.
Neh_5:8. Inconsistency without Excuse.
Neh_5:9. God’s People under the Eye of a Critical World.
Neh_5:10. What Others do no Excuse for My doing.
Neh_5:12. Clenching a Good Resolution.
Neh_5:13. The Terrors of the Lord persuading Men.
Neh_5:14. A Man foregoing his Rights for the sake of his Duties.
Neh_5:15. A Motto for a Manly Life.
Neh_5:19. Conscious Integrity.
Neh_5:19. The Saint’s Support.
Neh_5:19. The Remembrance of Good Deeds a Pillow of Rest for a Good Man.
GREED CORRECTED
Chap. 5
THE chapter is complete in itself. It is not only a story, but a parable of everlasting suggestiveness. In the history of every generation we find some situation similar to the one recorded here. The great humanness of the Bible is not less striking than its divinity. God’s book is sublimely crowded with pathetic interest in man’s life. Here is a picture of the desolations of greed and their correction.
I. The desolations of greed. The cry of the people in the first verse is a note in the “still, sad music of humanity” which has rung out in every age. The cry of the people in the days of Norman tyranny; the wail of nations in the priest-ridden dark ages; the lamentations of the negro race in the slaveries of the last century; the shriek of the despised people prior to the bloody struggle of the French Revolution; the clamour of the English poor in the days of the Corn Laws,—are all re-echoes of this old cry. “So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter” (Ecc_4:1). Such was the melancholy view which made Solomon praise the dead, whose eyes were shut upon the scene, and the unborn, who had the chance of coming to look upon a better spectacle. In this fifth chapter of Nehemiah we have the whole of the dark parable of poverty and oppression—hunger debt, mortgage, serfdom. Jesus Christ redeemed poverty by himself becoming poor; not to show that poverty is a good, but to show that the highest moral conditions of man’s soul may co-exist with these hard conditions. He, Jesus of Nazareth, was (temporally speaking) a vassal of Rome, and had not where to lay his head. This story of the earthly sojourn of the mighty God is a golden ray which gilds the deep valley of humiliation, where millions walk all through their threescore years and ten; but woe to those who help to deepen the gloom of that dreary place by their own narrow and damnable selfishness. “I was angry,” says Nehemiah, “when I heard their cry” (Neh_5:6); and he did well to be angry.
1. WANT. Bread! bread! bread! what a cry is that to be the chief cry of immortal creatures. Yet such is and will yet be the wail of the hungry. “God deliver us,” says Isaac Walton, “from pinching poverty.” “Feed me with food convenient for me,” meekly said the good man in olden days. By industry and frugality let us offer this prayer.
2. DEGRADATION is the result of this want. Great are thy temptations, O Poverty. What will not the poor man in the wilderness, with hunger in his body and the devil beside him, do to make stones into bread? How can a man be a man while he is kept in slavery to his pinching need? Again let the woe, woe, woe go forth upon those whose selfish greed breaks the staff of bread for the people.
3. HOPELESSNESS. Here is a picture from one of Thomas Carlyle’s graphic books. “Passing by the workhouse of St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, on a bright day last autumn” (about 1840), “I saw sitting on wooden benches, in front of their Bastille, and within their ring-wall and its railings, some half hundred or more of these men. Tall, robust figures; young mostly, or of middle age; of honest countenance; many of them thoughtful and even intelligent-looking men. They sat there, near by one another; but in a kind of torpor, especially in a silence, which was very striking. In silence; for, alas, what word was to be said? An earth all lying round, crying, Come and till me, come and reap me;—yet we here sit enchanted! In the eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but of grief, and shame, and manifold, inarticulate distress, and weariness. They returned my glance with a glance that seemed to say, ‘Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here; we know not why.’ There was something that reminded me of Dante’s hell in the look of all this, and I rode swiftly away.” What a dark outlook utter want has! what a dreary nightmare to lie on a human spirit! In the poor wretches whose condition stirred Nehemiah’s anger with their want and their hopeless debt and their heart-breaking family separations, as son and daughter went in pawn for bread, there is a scene to smite the buried conscience of the grinding oppressor, and to call forth some natural tears from the eyes of onlooking philanthropists. “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”
II. The corrections of philanthropy. Like a Howard moved with pity and shame for the prisoner as if he had been his own mother’s son, or a Wilberforce making his vow to break the iron chain of the negro, Nehemiah rose up to mend the evil. It was a monster that would have frightened back to Persia a less dauntless man, but fear and discouragement were his playmates. Nehemiah proceeded to correct this evil by his exhortation and by his example.
1. Echortation. He rebuked the greed of gain. In Neh_5:6-8 we have the grand outpouring of his aroused sympathies. “Then they held their peace, and found nothing to answer.” Read from Neh_5:12-13. Knowing how subtle is the devil of greed, Nehemiah called the priests to a religious solemnity, that the promise of the repentant oppressors might as it were be written down in the great doom-book of God, so that each man might go back to his money-bags with his own Amen! with the curse on greed ringing in his ears. Here is an example. What is good to be done should be done in the solemn name of God. Strike the iron of a good resolution while it is hot. Second thoughts are selfish thoughts in all Divine things. Bind the soul while it. is willing fast to God’s altar. Pledges, vows, oaths; let those mock these who will. Our evil nature is a Samson, who snaps cords like tow; nay, a demoniac whom no man can bind, no, not with chains. If the obligations of a solemn pledge to God can do it, let it be done. “I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise.” You who are meditating surrender to Christ, or reformation from drunkenness, or abandonment of some evil thing or associate, go and do likewise.
2. Example. Grand as was Nehemiah’s exhortation, his example is still grander. He enforced his sermon by living it out before his congregation. The perquisites of his office he abandoned for the sake of example (Neh_5:15); what he might have regarded as a right he surrendered in order to be himself a type of unselfishness. His chances of gain were many. He knew what his plans were, and could have invested well in the new city; but, says he, “Neither bought we any land,” a suggestion to public persons whose office gives them the chances of gain. “I took no advantage of my opportunites.” Besides his servants, he maintained himself. The men he had brought to do the noble work of renovation were men who had claim to reward; and what was needful Nehemiah gave them out of his own private means. He wanted to build Jerusalem as Michael Angelo said he would build St Peter’s—“for the glory of God.”
Application.
1. Have an ear for the cry of the poor and oppressed. Keep a heart alive for such as be prostrate.
2. Emulate Nehemiah’s self-sacrifice. Do not say, “He was a hero.” His character made him a hero. His sublime fear of God and pity for man did not flow from his heroism so much as make it. He was but a cupbearer to the king, and had a snug birth and a good stipend and great expectations, but these were chaff when compared with an opportunity of making a good mark in his generation, and of writing his name in the book of life. “By faith he obtained a good report!”
Illustrations:—“Every grain of riches hath a Vermin of pride and ambition in it.” “Oppression is a bony sin” (Amo_5:12-13). “As God hath enlarged any man in his outward estate, he must be answerably enlarged in works of mercy.” “It is one thing to be rich in this world, and another thing to be rich towards God, as our Saviour phraseth it; to be rich in knowledge, as St. Paul hath it; rich in faith, as St. James.” “Highmindedness, causing men to think great things of themselves, and to seek great things for themselves, is a blab that the devil will easily blow up in rich misers, to think themselves simply the better men because richer than others, which is all one as if the silly ant, the higher she gets upon her hillock, the greater she should conceit herself.”—Trapp. “Poverty,” it has been said, “has many wants; but avarice is in want of everything.”
“The sense to value riches, with the art
T’enjoy them, and the virtue to impart,
Not meanly nor ambitiously pursued,
Not sunk by sloth, nor raised by servitude;
To balance fortune by a just expense,
Join with economy, magnificence;
With splendour, charity; with plenty, health;
O teach us.”—Alexander Pope.
GODLESS RICH MEN
Chap. 5
This is not the only page of the Bible on which the sins of covetousness, oppression, and luxury are linked together and denounced. Isaiah represents the Lord of Hosts looking for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry; and then hurls a Divine woe against those that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth; that rise up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink, &c. (Isa_5:7-12). Amos speaks of those who cause the seat of violence to come near, that lie upon beds of ivory (Amo_6:3-4). Micah utters a woe against those who covet fields and houses, and take them by violence (Mic_2:2). Even Christ takes up his parable against those who devour widows’ houses (Mat_23:14). The apostles follow his example. But they remind us that other gifts may be misused—power, beauty, any gift of God.
I. The value of wealth. The word of God does not despise wealth. The references to riches and rich men are no fewer than one hundred and seventy—descriptive, regulative, corrective.
1. Riches are God’s gift. Not invariably. He has not ordained that right and riches should be inseparable, or that wrong and want should be invariably cause and effect. Still it is true that “the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich.” “Riches and honours come of him.” “The earth is full of his riches.” The virtuous he “maketh fat and flourishing.” He has not made poverty the outward and visible sign of his displeasure, nor wealth of his favour. Had he done so the Church would have been sectional. Large numbers would have been shut out by circumstances. It would have been in antagonism to human weal. There is a working force and a conserving force.
2. Wealth is man’s glory. With it he can surround himself with all that is ennobling in science and art, the conveniences of life. With it he can rule men. It elevates. Prosperous families and prosperous nations become refined.
II. The responsibility of wealth. We take this responsibility to be personal and relative.
1. A man owes a duty to himself. The first contrast here is between getting and covetous hoarding. The Bible preaches no Crusade against getting. It does not say, “Take no care for the morrow.” It does say, “Take not anxious, boding thought.” Christianity is a system of prudence. It imposes restraint because license leads to ruin. It gives a premium to diligence. Idleness is treated with scorn by the inspired writers. The sun shines on no fairer prospect than a diligent person; whatever his station, whatever his aim, the first condition of success is toil, the second is toil, the third is toil. But the crucial test is, “Are we getting to live?” or, “Are we living to get?” Do we lay up or lay out? At every step in our inquiry we are upon the horns of a dilemma. The breakers are on every side. The vessel needs careful piloting. Laying up is not wrong, and nature as well as revelation teaches that he that does not provide for his own house is worse than an infidel. “Naked came we into this world, and naked shall we return thither;” but we do not read that we must leave those naked whom we leave behind. For the majority this must be so. The law of life for most is from hand to mouth. Very literally their prayer is answered, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But for the middle and upper classes John Wesley’s famous rules apply. “Get all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” At eighty years of age he thus narrated his own experience. “Two-and-forty years ago I wrote many books. Some of these had such a sale as I never thought of, and by this means I unawares became rich. I gain all I can without hurting either my soul or body. I save all I can, not willingly wasting anything, not a sheet of paper, or a cup of water. I do not lay out anything, not a shilling, unless as a sacrifice to God. Yet by giving all I can I am effectually secured from laying up ‘treasures upon earth.’ And I am secured from either desiring or endeavouring it as long as I give all I can. But my own hands will be my executors.” Generally no better executors can be found. The Peabodys and Burdett-Coutts act on this principle, and their memorial remains in model cottages and Christian sanctuaries. Howard’s rule was “that our superfluities give way to other men’s conveniences; that our conveniences give way to other men’s necessities; and that even our necessities sometimes give way to other men’s extremities.” “Charity,” says Chrysostom, “is the scope of all God’s commands.”
2. A man owes a duty to others. “No man liveth to himself.” (a) We have spoken of the kingly rule of wealth. A king’s is a noble office. But sometimes kingship becomes kingcraft. Kingship rules for the good of the subject; kingcraft rules for personal ends, and then power becomes tyranny. To rule well is a difficult task. In most men the love of power is a ruling passion. In no form is it stronger than in ruling men. The pages of history are stained with the blood shed by the oppressor. But there are other thrones than that on which the monarch sits. Every master is a king. Let him never forget that kingly honours imply kingly reponsibilities. “Read the indictment in Epistle of Jas_5:1-6.” The “labourers” are dependent on you—their masters. The moral claim is stronger than the legal. There are forms of oppression which are too subtle for the coarse instruments of law. But God has a special controversy with the oppressor. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust.” “The poor, and him that hath no helper,” find a helper in God. One duty of a Queen’s Counsel is to plead the cause of the queen’s subject, who would otherwise be defenceless. The queen is the defender of the weak. “Now will I arise,” saith the Lord, “for the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy” (Psa_12:5); “He shall judge the poor of the people” (Psa_72:4); and, not to quote passages, he is the Advocate of the poor, the Elevator of the poor, the Satisfier of the poor, the Deliverer of the poor. The sin of oppression is the child of covetousness. Ye exact usury! Sins which are passed by because of the power of those who commit them, or passed by because of the poverty and powerlessness of those who suffer from them, are said to cry to God. There are many species of slavery below the actual thing. When we get from our servants more than they are well able to do, when remuneration is insufficient, when in any way we prey upon their necessities we are slaveholders in all but the name. Remember, “the Lord of Hosts” is the poor’s Avenger. What hosts he can send against us. Wilt thou contend with God? “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb_10:31). It is hard to possess riches without sin. They are called “the mammon of unrighteousness.” They are often possessed by the wicked, much admired by them, and not seldom gained by fraud. Many a fortune is built on wrong, and wrong is a foundation of sand. It is not easy to have them and not be hindered by them. A ship that takes in too much cargo is liable to sink. Many rich men bend under their mountain of gold. A man who should bear this burden should be a very Atlas for moral strength. The beasts become fierce when well fed. And it is hard for the purse-full to be other than purse-proud. God can best be served by a mean, “Give me not riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?” “Give me not poverty, lest I take the name of God in vain.” If riches increase, set not thine heart upon them. “Possess them; let them not possess you.” “God gives riches to the good lest they should be thought evil; he gives them to the bad lest they should be thought the only good.” It is not impossible for a rich man to be virtuous. Abraham and Job were the wealthiest men of the East. In the highest circles the fair flower of piety flourishes. Those, however, who have so much to keep them here may well find it difficult to be absorbed in the contemplation of a hereafter. Prosperity begets security.
III. The punishment of misused wealth. Nehemiah cites them, as it were, to God’s judgment-seat. They are called upon to plead their cause.
1. The punishment is self-caused. “Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days,” as the New Testament apostle teaches (James 5). The punishment grows out of the gain. The wind shakes the tallest trees. The willow bends under the storm and rises when the gust is over; the oak stands until endurance is no longer possible. Men fall from eminences. He who keeps on the ground has generally secure foothold.
2. The punishment is self-inflicting. All speech is translatable by God. The young lions’ cry for prey is an appeal to God, and he gives scent and swiftness. The parched ground speaks to him and pleads that the windows may be opened, and the rain-drops fall from the closed storehouse. There is something terribly suggestive in the RUST of wrongly-withheld gain, and the helpless CRIES of the defrauded poor passing up through distant space and taking their case to the highest tribunal, pleading with an earnestness akin to that of the woman who came to the unjust judge, but, unlike her, pleading with the Judge of the whole earth, the only absolutely righteous Judge, who will surely avenge his own elect. Heard by God, it becomes the instrument of the punishment. “The canker and rust shall witness against you.” “Miseries shall come upon you.” Calamities everywhere attended the Jews soon after the ascension of Christ. Proverbial for their wealth, they were ransacked and punished. From then till now they have been a persecuted people, and mainly through their wealth. Every one remembers Shakespeare’s Shylock, and Sir Walter Scott’s Isaac of York. Covetousness brings God’s curse on our estates. He sends putrefaction, the rust, and the moth. Ill gains are equivalent to losses, because providence often scatters them. There is a “withholding that tends to poverty.” “He that will save must lose” is the gospel riddle. The best way of bringing in is laying out. What is given to the poor is lent to God, and he is a safe banker; he repays with interest. God can easily corrupt that which we lay up, and make the worm breed in manna. God is in no lack of servants to carry information or effect his purposes. Corruption, canker, moth, all are at his beck and call. Some rise from within, as corruption; some attack from without, as the moth; the rust corrupts the substance, eats it away. He can arm the elements of fire, wind, and water. He can take the lightning into his hand. The stormy wind and vapour fulfil his word, and these he can bring at last as witnesses against us. Sealed volumes. God breaks the seal, and each circumstance becomes an unbribed witness. Many things now fair-seeming will show rottenness in the day of judgment. Vividly does the prophet tell us of the houses built by oppression coming as witnesses against the owners. “The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.” The stones will say, “We were hewn by violence,” and the timbers, “We were inlaid by fraud.” Many of the great works of ancient times, i. e. the pyramids, many colossal fortunes and magnificent mansions of modern times, were built with bones and cemented with blood—the blood and bones of the men who built them, or the men from whom the wealth was obtained. The circumstances of sin are so many memorials to put us in mind of guilt and to put God in mind of vengeance. Conscience writes when it does not speak. There is a book of remembrance. All conceptions of torment indicate a relation between sin and punishment not only in justice and duration, but in kind. In this world each sin has its own avenger; many sins are their own avengers. Anger—the agitation and unrest, are not they like whips whose lashes are weighted with lead?
Application.
1. Let us learn to weep tears of penitence, that we may not have to shed tears of remorse. After great showers the air is clear. It is better to weep in a way of duty than to weep in a way of judgment.
2. Let us learn the secret of happiness. The saint in the Old Testament commanded his soul to be merry because God was the light of his countenance; the fool in the gospel because he had much goods laid up for many years.
3. Let us learn to provide ourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth nor moth corrupteth. For all that is in the world is not of the Father. And the world passeth away, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The rich man’s empire.—“The empire which a rich man exercises finds no nation or tribe that wishes to resist it. It commands the services of man wherever man can be reached, because it offers to the desires of man the power of acquiring whatever objects of external enjoyment he is most eager to acquire. From the north to the south, from the east to the west, everything that can be rendered active is put in motion by him, who remains tranquilly at home, exciting the industry of those of whose very existence he is ignorant, and receiving the products of labour for his own use without knowing from whom he receives them. It is almost as in the magic stories of romance, in which the hero is represented as led from the castle-gate by hands that are invisible to him, ushered to a splendid banquet, where no one seems present, where wine is poured into the goblet before him at his very wish, and luxurious refreshment after refreshment appears upon the board, but appears as if no hand had brought it. To the rich man, in like manner, whatever he wishes seems to come merely because he wishes it to come. Without knowing who they are who are contributing to his idle luxury, he receives the gratification itself, and receives it from hands that operate as invisibly as the fairy hands at the banquet. He gathers around him the products of every sea and every soil. The sunshine of one climate, the snows of another, are made subsidiary to his artificial wants; and though it is impossible to discern the particular arms which he is every instant setting in motion, or the particular efforts of inventive thought which he is every instant stimulating, there can be no doubt that such a relation truly exists, which connects with his wishes and with his power the industry of those who labour on the remotest corner of the earth which the enterprising commerce of man can reach.”—Dr. Thomas Brown.
Possessions.—Possessions distinguish man from the brute, and civilized man from the savage. Labour finds in possessions its normal fruit; possessions are labour as having become reality. The brute is possessionless because he does not labour. In property man ceases to be a mere isolated individual of his species; he creates for himself a world about himself which he can call his own; his property is the outward manifestation of his inward peculiarity. The fact that he who possesses much is also much regarded and esteemed in the world is indeed often very hollow and baseless, though in reality it springs from the correct consciousness that possessions are the fruit of labour, the result of moral effort. He who acquires nothing for himself passes in the world, not without reason, for unrespectable. Of a special virtue of possession-despising, as with the mendicant monks, there can, in the ante-sinful state, be no question; and even after the fall possessions are presented as a perfectly legitimate end of moral effort, and their being increased as a special Divine blessing. Cain and Abel possess already personal property; and the God-blessed possessions of the patriarchs occupy a very large place in their morally religious life [Gen_12:5; Gen_12:16; Gen_13:2; Gen_14:14; Gen_24:22; Gen_24:35; Gen_24:53; Gen_26:13-14; Gen_27:28; Gen_30:27; Gen_30:30; Gen_30:43; Gen_31:42; Gen_32:5; Gen_32:10; Gen_32:13 sqq.; Gen_33:11; Gen_39:6; Gen_49:25; Exo_23:25; Lev_25:21; Deu_2:7; Deu_7:13; Deu_15:14 sqq.; Deu_16:15; Deu_16:17; Deu_28:3 sqq.; Deu_33:13 sqq.; Deu_24:22 : comp. 1Ki_3:13; Psa_107:38; Psa_112:2-3; Psa_132:15]. Property being the enlarged life-sphere of the moral person,—in some sense his enlarged personality itself,—the moral phase thereof lies not merely in its antecedent ground, namely, labour, but also in its moral use and application. To its enjoyment man has a moral right, as such enjoyment is the reward of labour; but to the exclusive enjoyment of it for himself alone he has no moral right, seeing that he is bound to other men by love, and love manifests itself in communicative distribution.”—Wuttke’s ‘Christian Ethics.’
A GREAT SCHISM AVERTED
Neh_5:1-13. And there was a great cry of the people, &c.
The paragraph teaches—
I. That social injustice may exist even amongst fellow-workers in a great and good cause (Neh_5:1-6). The complaint of the poor was forced from them. Wrong may be long endured; but it will find a voice, a cry “not loud, but deep.”
II. That social injustice, if not corrected, will undermine the stability of any cause, however righteous. Sanballatʼs army less fatal than the nobles’ avarice.
III. That social injustice should be regarded by all good men with feelings of righteous indignation (Neh_5:6). From a realization of the brotherhood of men; of interdependence; of a Divine purpose in the elevation of the downtrodden.
V. That social injustice, whenever discovered, should be calmly yet promptly dealt with (Neh_5:7). The prudent Nehemiah brought a moral force to bear upon the offenders. “Set an assembly.” The courageous Nehemiah rebuked the offenders, albeit they were highest in name and station. The far-seeing Nehemiah discerned ruin if internal wrongs remained unredressed.
V. That conciliatory appeals are sometimes more efficacious than coercive measures in dealing with social injustice (Neh_5:8-13). Nehemiah used persuasive arguments.
1. The efforts already made to redeem their captive brethren (Neh_5:8).
2. The exposure of the national cause to reproach (Neh_5:9).
3. His own unblemished life and fit example (Neh_5:10).
THE ACCUSING CRY OF HUMANITY
Neh_5:1. There was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren
THE ACCUSERS.—“The many” who lack bread (Neh_5:2). THE ACCUSED.—“Their” richer “brethren,” “the nobles and the rulers” (Neh_5:1; Neh_5:7). THE ACCUSATION.—“Ye exact usury. Ye have our lands and vineyards.” A story of the olden time of ever-new significance. A twice twenty-times told tale.
I. The unending struggle. Wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, brain and brawn, capital and labour—when in all the ages have not these come into collision? Communists, Socialists, Nihilists—are not these today voices from many lands (whether rightly or wrongly); the “great cry” of the poor of many nationalities against their richer brethren? The prayer of the philanthropists of every age has been expressed by a poet of our own:—
“Ring out the false, ring in the true;
Ring out the darkness of the land;
Ring out the fend of rich and poor;
Ring in redress to all mankind;
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring in the love of truth and right;
Ring in the common love of good.”
THE HEBREW PROPHETS declare that they that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field (Lam_4:9). They tell how God’s judgments came upon the land because the righteous were sold for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes (Amo_2:6). The scathing words of JESUS CHRIST were reserved for those who used the pride of place to oppress the poor and him that hath no helper. The EARLY PERIOD of English history is associated with William the Conqueror. The DARK AGES had light enough to show the few how to prey upon the many. Through much tribulation NATIONS have emerged into the light, and CLASSES burst the shackles of slavery and proclaimed their freedom. With a great sum England obtained the freedom of the WEST INDIES. The blood of AMERICA’S sons wiped out the stain of slavery which disgraced the greatest republic the world has seen. A great cry has gone up to God as our poor world has struggled on towards knowledge and liberty.
II. Elements of bitterness in this struggle.
1. On the side of the oppressors there is power. They are “the nobles and the rulers” (Neh_5:7). “The names of king and priest are the most appalling in history.” So perverted have they become. Anciently to rule was also to feed (Psa_78:71-72). A bishop is a shepherd. The pastoral staff is the shepherd’s crook.
2. The oppressed are the brethren of the oppressors. “Our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children.” Same blood, same love of children, same sensitiveness to pain. Hath not a poor man eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Is he not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a rich man? If you prick a poor man, will he not bleed? if you tickle him, will he not laugh? if you poison him, will he not die?
3. They were engaged in a common caus—rebuilding God’s chosen city. To make this world a paradise; to compel all kings to recognize the King of kings; to set up a kingdom of righteousness and peace, is not this the task given to humanity, the goal toward which our world should move?
III. Light in the darkness. “Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh.”
1. Christ-came to proclaim the brotherhood of humanity. His Beatitudes direct men to look to character, not to position, for Divine approval. The strait gate must be passed through by rich and noble as well as by poor and unknown. Jesus spoke to the poor, felt for the degraded, raised hope in the oppressed.
2. Signs of the times. The “many” (Neh_5:2) are not unheard; their influence not unfelt. There is wrong, but society tends towards redress. Ignorance abounds, but the teacher is abroad. Many rich forget their duties—not all. Tennyson’s Sir Walter Vivian is not the creation of a poet’s fancy.
“Sir Walter Vivian all a summer’s day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people: thither flocked at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighbouring borough, with their Institute,
Of which he was the patron.
Why should not these great Sirs
Give up their parks some dozen times a year
To let the people breathe?”
Tennyson’s vision will one day be actualized.
“I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the havens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.”
“How long, O Lord?”
ILLUSTRATION
The passion for power.—“Christianity has joined with all history in inspiring me with a peculiar dread and abhorrence of the passion for power, for dominion over men. There is nothing in the view of our Divine Teacher so hostile to his Divine spirit as the lust of domination. This we are accustomed to regard as eminently the sin of the arch-fiend. ‘By this sin fell the angels.’ It is the most Satanic of all human passions, and it has inflicted more terrible evils on the human family than all others. It has made the names of king and priest the most appalling in history. There is no crime which has not been perpetrated for the strange pleasure of treading men underfoot, of fastening chains on the body or mind. The strongest ties of nature have been rent asunder, her holiest feelings smothered, parents, children, brothers murdered to secure dominion over man. The people have now been robbed of the necessaries of life, and now driven to the field of slaughter like flocks of sheep to make one man the master of millions. Through this passion government, ordained by God to defend the weak against the strong, to exalt right above might, has up to this time been the great wrong-doer. Its crimes throw those of private men into the shade. Its murders reduce to insignificance those of the bandits, pirates, highwaymen, assassins against whom it undertakes to protect society. Power trampling on right, whether in the person of king or priest, or in the shape of democracies or majorities, is the saddest sight to him who honours human nature and desires its enlargement and happiness.”—W. E. Channing.
THE MISERIES OF DEBT
Neh_5:3-5. Some also there were that said, &c.
Dr. Jamieson, the Bible interpreter, thus writes on this passage:—“The poor made loud complaints against the rich for taking advantage of their necessities, and grinding them by usurious exactions. Numbers of them had, in consequence of these oppressions, been driven to such extremities that they had to mortgage their lands and houses to enable them to pay the taxes to the Persian Government, and ultimately even sell their children for slaves to procure the means of subsistence.” Generalizing this particular instance, we have the subject of debt and its miseries.
I. Mental unrest. Credit is necessary. The world’s business could not otherwise be carried on. The every-day word trust is, like most every-day words, suggestive. It is confidence between man and man. It supposes an honourable undertaking. Faith is not only a theological word; it is a force in this working-day world. No man ought to receive credit without a prospect of being able to pay. The violation of this rule is dishonest. To take a man’s purse is stealing. So is taking up goods without paying for them, and receiving wages for which the stipulated labour has not been given. Unless hardened through a long series of dishonesties, a man cannot be contented who does not obey the New Testament law, “Owe no man anything.”
II. Social degradation. It is pro verbial that to be in debt is to be in danger; danger of detection and exposure. Do not pretend to be what you are not; do not keep up a style and scale of cost beyond your means.
III. Family ruin. A man owes a first duty to his own house. The helpless hang on him. He may bring ruin through extravagance.
IV. A disregard of a Divine command. “THOU SHALT NOT STEAL” was written with the finger of God. This law has not been abrogated.
Application.
1. Christians should set the world an example.
2. Watch the beginnings of extravagance.
3. In small things as well as in greater act on Christian principle. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”
Illustrations:—“The Persians reckoned these two very great sins.
1. To be in debt.
2. To tell a lie; the latter being often the fruit of the former.”
“By the twelve tables of Rome, he that owed much, and could not pay, was to be cut in pieces, and every creditor was to have a piece of him according to the debt.”
“We read of a certain Italian gentleman who, being asked how old he was, answered that he was in health; and to another that asked how rich he was, answered that he was not in debt. He is young enough that is in health, and rich enough that is not in debt.”—Trapp.
RIGHTEOUS ANGER
Neh_5:6. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words
“Ezra and Nehemiah were both of them very wise, good, useful men; yet in cases not unlike theirs there is a great deal of difference between their management. When Ezra was told of the sin of the rulers in marrying strange wives he rent his clothes and wept, and prayed, and was hardly persuaded to attempt a reformation, fearing it impracticable; for he was a man of a mild, tender spirit. When Nehemiah was told of as ill a thing he warmed presently, fell foul upon the delinquents, incensed the people against them, and never rested till, by all the rough methods he could use, he forced them to reform; for he was a man of a hot and eager spirit. Very holy men may differ much from each other in their natural temper, and in other things that result from it. Again, God’s work may be done, well done, and successfully, and yet different methods taken in doing it; which is a good reason why we should neither arraign others’ management nor make our own a standard. There are diversities of operation, but the same spirit.”—Matthew Henry. Nehemiah’s soul was stirred within him as he saw the oppression of his voiceless brethren. But they who were not able to help themselves were not therefore to remain unhelped.
“The voice of their indignation
Rose up to the throne of God.”
They bore long, until suffering was no longer endurable; and then they appealed from Festus unto Cæsar, from the nobles and rulers who were set over them to Nehemiah under whom they all served. The longer Nehemiah mused the more fiercely the fire of his anger burned. There cannot be supreme love of right without bitterest hatred of wrong. Admiration of virtue and scorn of vice are correlative. There is such a thing as righteous anger.
I. The righteousness of anger depends upon its cause and occasion. “What is anger? It is displeasure felt in a high degree; a feeling which is awakened when we think ourselves injured. It is usually attended with a restless uneasiness of mind, and frequently with something worse. But is anger in no case allowable? Perhaps it is. ‘God is angry with the wicked every day’ (Psa_7:11); that is, he is highly displeased with their sinful conduct, and resolved to punish them on its account; yet anger in God is infinitely remote from anything of turbulence and malevolence. We read of our Lord Jesus looking round on the people, particularly on the Pharisees, ‘with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts’ (Mar_3:5); but this anger was perfectly consistent with the purest benevolence, with the tenderest, the most disinterested kindness. Anger in depraved creatures is certainly very different from what it is in God, and from what it was in Jesus Christ; and we should be cautious how we give the least allowance to so dangerous a passion. It has been judiciously remarked, when anger ‘proceeds from pride, or from selfishness; when it rises high, or continues long; and when it is accompanied by anything like hatred or ill-will towards the person who is its object, then it is sinful and hurtful. But whatever we may think of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of anger in itself, and how difficult it may be to ascertain in what cases and in what degree it is allowable, one thing is evident—we cannot be too cautious of yielding to its influence. It is a passion so difficult to be regulated and so dreadful often in its effects; so destructive of that meekness, gentleness, and love which form the very essence of the Christian character; so expressly forbidden in various passages of the New Testament, and so carefully guarded even in those where it seems to be in some measure allowed, that we have much more reason to restrain than to encourage it even in the smallest degree.’ There is one object against which anger may be innocently directed, and this object is sin; either sin in ourselves, or sin in others. Peter was angry, exceedingly displeased with himself, when, at the recollection of his sin in denying his blessed Lord, ‘he went out and wept bitterly.’ The brethren of Joseph were angry with themselves, displeased at their base behaviour, when convinced of their cruelty towards an unoffending brother; and doubtless the feeling was laudable. The soul of righteous Lot was ‘vexed;’ he was angry with the filthy conversation of the wicked among whom he dwelt; and as we dwell among a people of unclean lips and unholy conduct, our blame would be great if we felt not displeasure at what we hear and witness.”—Kidd. We read of the fierce anger of the Lord when Israel joined himself unto Baal-Peor (Num_25:1-9). Pronounced upon disobedience (Deu_29:20). When Jesus Christ looked upon his spying enemies with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, which predominated, the anger or the grief? Contrast the anger of Sanballat (chap. 4) with the anger of Nehemiah (chap. 5); how different the occasion, how unlike the cause. For a good work Sanballat was prepared to stone the Jews; for an evil act of oppression Nehemiah rose up to rebuke the nobles. Be ye angry and sin not in reference to cause.
II. The righteousness of anger depends upon its spirit and limitations. Note, especially, the anger of Jesus Christ had reference to the evil, the hardness of their hearts. Righteous anger is against wrong, not against wrong-doers. Must have in it no personal malice, no spleen. Must not cross the line to revenge. Anger is the basis of magistracy, the support of laws, and the pillar of decency and right conduct. “Magistrates are mortal gods, and God is an immortal magistrate; therefore, as the merciful God heareth in his holy habitation in heaven the cry of the miserable, oppressed people in earth, so should every godly ruler hear and relieve the pitiful cry of the oppressed, being his brethren, seeing he is God’s lieutenant, and hath the sword and law in his hand to bridle such ill-doers, and must not for favour, gifts, nor fear suffer it unamended; else he doeth not his duty unto the mighty Lord, who set him in that place, gave him the authority, and will ask a strait account how he hath used it to the relief of the oppressed. Some be of opinion that a magistrate should not be moved with anger in doing his office, but give every man fair words, pass over matters slowly, please all men, though he do them little good; but, the truth being well considered, it may be judged otherwise. Lactantius writeth a book wherein he proveth that God himself is angry, and every anger is not sin. If God then be angry against sin, why may not a good man in God’s cause then do the same? Hate not the man, but his ill-doing; be not angry without a just cause unadvisedly; keep not thy anger long, that it grow not into hatred; let it be no more nor no less than the fault deserveth, and let it be without raging, fuming, fretting, swelling, and raving and disquieting of body or mind; not for malice of revenging, but for pity or justice to correct and amend; and anger well qualified is not ill. This is not spoken to give liberty to anger, for we are too ready to it by nature; but rather to bridle it, seeing it standeth on so narrow a point to keep measure in. This qualifying of anger is declared in the Scripture as that it should not continue. St. Paul saith, ‘Let not the sun set upon your anger;’ and that it should not be rashly, without cause, nor more than the cause requireth. The gospel teacheth, saying, ‘He that is angry with his brother without a just cause is guilty of judgment.’ This anger of Nehemiah was just in all circumstances, and kept the rule of St Paul, ‘Be angry and sin not,’ which is a hard point to keep.”—Pilkington. He who hates sin will escape it. An extreme sentimentalism would make all virtue consist in amiability. Men have proclaimed the love of God as if it denied his justice. “God is love.” “Our God is a consuming fire.” The two poles of the Divine character.
Application.
1. Temperamental anger to be subdued by holy thought, prayer, and effort. Lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset.
2. Distinguish between the wrong and the wrong-doers. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
3. Remember Christian doctrine of forgiveness. If thy brother trespass against thee and return, saying, Repent, forgive him. Let the daily prayer be, Forgive us our trespasses, and help us to forgive them that trespass against us. For this doctrine of forgiveness is one of the hard sayings of Jesus Christ.
INTROSPECTION
Neh_5:7. Then I consulted with myself
The position was perilous. The nobles and the rulers were powerful; their services were needed. The toilers were embittered; the common cause endangered. Too little courage or too much prudence, cowardice or temporizing, would prove fatal. “Then I consulted with myself.” His heart took counsel upon the injustice. From this instance of introspection or self-communion let us consider self-communion generally.
I. The value of self-communion. Thought comes in solitude. Character is formed by self-communings. A preacher must return sometimes to “fructifying silence.” We are not enough alone. Our age is restless. It craves results—speedy and sure. Too much bustle and hurry. Duty treads upon the heels of duty. Moses, Elijah, John Baptist, Paul, yes, and Christ himself, lived in the wilderness alone with God. Cecil, Scott, Newton, Wesley, the spiritual giants, were men of solitary hours. Too much familiarity with men breeds contempt and distrust. Know thyself! “Come ye yourselves apart,” said Jesus to disciples flushed with success (Mark 6). Need of rest and self-communion evident in all spheres of life. Restlessness characterizes most men. Space and time are nearly annihilated. Parliamentary speech spoken in the early hours of the morning is printed and transmitted to the breakfast-table. Markets of Odessa, Alexandria, New York, Calcutta, and Sydney hardly closed ere the electric current has flashed the quotations. Best and time to think almost denied many commercial and professional men. It was the sin of Israel. “My people doth not consider.” “Consider your ways”—there speaks a prophet. “Think on these things”—there speaks an apostle. “Hear ye the word of the Lord” ushers in the Old Testament. “He that hath ears to hear let him hear” introduces the New. He who pleads the pressure of business has too much business. Men must find time to prepare for eternity. Too much religious work dangerous. “They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept” (Song of Solomon). “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway” (Paul). “Nothing is so important as to keep an exact proportion between the interior source of virtue and the external practice of it, else, like the foolish virgins, we shall find that the oil in our lamps is exhausted when the bridegroom comes” (Chrysostom). Is this the meaning of our Lord’s solemn words, “Many will say to me,” &c. (Mat_7:22-23)? Christian charity begins at home. It is possible to build reformatories and be ourselves unreformed; possible to send the Bible to others and ourselves forget to read it; possible to lay costly gifts on God’s altar and not bow in penitence at his footstool. The Christian life a growth. It is the burden of direct precept. “Grow in grace and in knowledge” (2Pe_3:18). “Add to your faith” (2Pe_1:5). It is variously illustrated. “The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger” (Job_17:9). “He shall be like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out its roots by the river” (Jer_17:8). It is the subject of apostles’ joy when Christians “stand fast in the Lord” (Php_4:1). Can this be effected without time and thought? Does not the garden of the soul require culture? Do the flowers of humility and charity grow wild? Does business demand application, but the soul’s commerce none? Must the children’s minds be educated and their hearts remain untrained? Each must come into some desert place and rest awhile with Christ.
II. The dangers of self-communion.
1. Morbid religion. Don’t be always a spiritual anatomist. Too frequent looking within brings depression. Religious depression arising from neglect of duty or commission of sin cannot coexist with spiritual life. But very much depression is needless or self-induced. We may say sometimes, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” (Psa_42:11). A man feels forsaken, and, projecting his own feelings, imagines God has forsaken him. Do not rashly imagine that because you cannot every hour “read your title clear” that therefore your name is erased from the book of life.
2. Out of undue self-communion arose asceticism of middle ages; arises some conventual tendencies of our own. Dream not of becoming unworldly by escaping from duty. “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (Joh_17:15).
III. The safe-guards of self-communion.
1. Action. From the temple to the city.
“ ’Twixt the mount and multitude,
Doing or receiving good.”
Thought the basis of action. Acts become habits. “I must work the works of him that sent me” (Joh_9:4). “As the Father hath sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world” (Joh_17:18; Joh_20:21). Do not put asunder what God hath joined together. Different temperaments will give varying prominence to contemplation and action; the inward and the outward. But woe to those who neglect either. A pure heart the indispensable condition of a noble life.
2. God’s word. Make that the only guide.
AN ASSEMBLY CONVOKED AGAINST SINNERS
Neh_5:7. And I set a great assembly against them
Partly because persons implicated were numerous and powerful to show them that greater numbers disapproved, and partly to cause such shame and remorse as might lead them to renounce their criminal practices. The measure was successful. Show impenitent sinners how great an assembly may be set against them. Sinners rely on being a majority. They are decidedly superior to the servants of God; not only in number, but in wealth and power and influence. Were the great question What is truth? to be decided by numbers, they could easily determine it in their own favour. Show that those whose opinions and approbation are more important are against them.
I. The good men now in the world. Not necessarily professors of religion. Many professors not good men. By good men is meant men whom God will acknowledge to be good.
II. All the good men who have ever lived. These compose an assembly far exceeding in number all the good men who are now alive. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, John Baptist, disciples of Jesus, early Christians, martyrs, reformers, men of ‘May-Flower.’
III. All the writers of the Old and New Testaments. They are good men; they are more—they are inspired men. Being taught by the eternal Spirit of God, with one voice they cry, Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him! Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s words never.
IV. The holy angels. Consider number, character, and intellectual rank. Perhaps exceed in number the human race. “An innumerable company.” In comparison with the least angel the wisest human philosopher is a child. Their holiness is perfect, spotless. They execute the will of God.
V. The Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord of angels and men, the appointed Judge, who will pronounce a sentence on both.
VI. God the Father. Sinners strive with their Maker. Survey the whole assembly which is arrayed against evil and evil-doers. Terrible to sinners; consolatory to Christians.—Dr. Payson, abridged.
INCONSISTENCY WITHOUT EXCUSE
Neh_5:8. And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer
They found nothing to answer. For what answer could be given? They which heard Nehemiah’s accusation were convicted by their own conscience. Brotherhood, memories of bondage, the great price at which they had redeemed their brethren from Persian masters, the inspiration of their journey to the decayed city, the work God had given them to do—these rose up like prophets of evil tidings to second the noble censures of Nehemiah. Their inconsistency was without excuse.
I. The admirableness of consistency. It is manly. Everybody reverences it. Even in an unworthy cause it extorts a momentary recognition. In a worthy cause all bow the knee and do it homage. The heroes of history by flood and field, the redressers of human wrongs at home and abroad, the characters of Bible story, were consistent. They had a purpose and stuck to it. Despised of men, mocked at by demons, are those whom the inspired apostle describes as “wavering like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed; the double-minded, who are unstable in all their ways” (Jas_1:6-8). Dignity is robbed of its excellency and power of its strength in the Reubens who are “unstable as water” (Gen_49:3-4). Be persistent. Be consistent. Is it consistent for Christian men to enter into partnership with those who work without a conscience? Ought Christian parents to consult first and foremost the worldly convenience and advantage of their children? If religion be true, should it not decide the just weight and the true measure? In business, in pleasure, at home, abroad, through the week as well as on the Sabbath, be consistent.
II. The inexcusableness of inconsistency. Has nothing to recommend it. Nothing gained. Brings discredit upon any cause. The inconsistent man has no faith in his position. An inconsistent Christian may profess but does not possess a good creed. The creed which influences conduct is not that which a man holds, but that which holds him. Life is the expositor of doctrine. Nehemiah’s nobles called the workmen brethren. But that was only a word of the lip. The deed of the life made them slaves and foreigners. For a time the nobles prospered. Success smiled upon oppression. But a reckoning day came. Summoned to Nehemiah’s bar, they “found nothing to answer.” A New Testament parable is recalled. The man who had not on a wedding garment was “speechless” (Mat_22:1-14). Profession and possession, reality and hypocrisy, are not always distinguishable here and now. Parable of tares: “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Mat_13:24-30). In earlier times men strove for a pure visible Church. That impossible. Our eyes cannot distinguish true from false in every instance. By-and-by inconsistency will stand self-convicted. At heaven’s judgment-seat every one must give an account.
Application.
1. The supreme importance of character. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Pro_23:7). “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Pro_4:23).
2. The value of self-reliance. Wrong-doing is contagious. One noble imitated another in exacting usury. Those who were half conscious that they were doing wrong were encouraged by the evil example of others. Trust thyself when thou hast the approval of thy own conscience.
3. Remember the bar of God. He who made Nehemiah upright “is a God all whose ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity” (Deu_32:4). “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Psa_94:9).
SAME THEME
The marvellous personal power of Nehemiah. Great individuality triumphs over all things. Napoleon laughed away the pretensions of rank by saying, “I am an ancestor.” The force of personal character makes all other forces give way. Especially when the individuality is a good individuality; when the strength of manhood is backed by the strength of right. Illustration of this in the text, where the dumbfounded nobles stand ashamed before the challenge of the man who has come to spy out their faults and to mend them at all costs to himself. Subject, the inexcusableness of inconsistency.
I. The inconsistency. Define inconsistency. Want of harmony in the parts of a man’s life. The presence in a man’s being of two things which cannot be together. A man who swears the British oath of allegiance and takes the pay of the English state would be an inconsistent man if he betrayed state secrets to a hostile country, or gave guidance to an invading foe. That would be treason. Religious inconsistency is treason against the King of kings—treason and treachery against the truth.
1. Worldly inconsistency. Worldly men point sneeringly to any little deviation from consistency in Christian people; but if Christian charity did not forbid the sneer might be returned. The cant and pretence and selfish departure from avowed principles which fills the life of the children of this world may well creep a little into the Church. A politician who loves liberty, and is at the same time a tyrant in his household and to his servants; a man who loves to read and to talk fine sentiment, and whose common life runs along a low level of worldly meanness, are examples of inconsistency. The world had need to pluck the beam out of its own eye before meddling with the mote in the eye of the Church. 2. Religious inconsistency. Example of Balaam, who prayed, “Let me die the death of the righteous,” and who died with a sword drawn against God; the Puritan, who fought for liberty to worship God, and then would not grant toleration to his brother’s creed; the professing Christian of even late years, who bought and sold men, women, and children as slaves, are glaring instances of contradictions in character and conduct. Enumerate common forms of inconsistency in the ordinary life of professedly Christian people.
3. Injurious effects of inconsistency. (a) To self. It blunts the conscience, and so damages the finer spiritual perceptions as to deprive the soul of the perfect peace of those who are in perfect truth. (β) To others. It seems a contradiction of religion, a confession of its inadequacy to master the sin in a man, and shakes the faith of an on looking world in the power of the gospel.
II. The inexcusableness. With heads hanging like bulrushes the dumbfounded men stood before Nehemiah, as now the inconsistent stands before the convictions of God’s Spirit and the reproach of the world.
1. Infirmity is often pleaded as an excuse. The follower of the meek and lowly Jesus so excuses his outbursts of violent passion. The man who hides his convictions in a worldly circle so excuses his want of religious courage. The man who grasps at some questionable advantage of the world so covers the selfishness which has shown itself mightier than his Christian self-denial. It is dangerous to so shake hands with our own infirmity.
2. Ignorance is another excuse. Want of true perception of God’s law and lack of thoughtfulness concerning the true significance of his own actions are a reason, but not an excuse, for much inconsistency among the professed servants of God. As some uninstructed persons are not sure of the difference between green and blue, and are not pained by want of harmony in colours that are joined but not reconciled to each other, so a blunt moral sense may not detect all the contradictions of his own religious character.
3. But infirmity may be strengthened and ignorance may be instructed. These are not excuses. “Truth in the inward parts” is the requirement of him “whose we are, and whom we serve.” To be sanctified wholly (not one-sidedly or partially) is the Christian’s prayer—body, soul, and spirit all penetrated through and through with holiness.
Application.
1. Do not leave to others the task of detecting your inconsistency. Find it out yourself.
2. Do not weakly reconcile yourself to things which can have no place in a complete Christian character.
3. Seek more of that freedom of the truth which liberates a man from these reproaching faults.
GOD’S PEOPLE UNDER THE EYE OF A CRITICAL WORLD
Neh_5:9. Also I said, It is not good, &c.
The world has a spleen against the Church. The Church is an incarnate condemnation of the world. “I have saved them out of the world.” However full of charity the elect of God may be, they stand rank on rank, by their creed and their practice, witnessing with silent censure against all ungodliness. Hence in self-defence the world watches for the Church’s faults, “rejoicing in iniquity”—the discovered iniquity of the professedly good. Our religious self-government is watched by a critical “opposition,” ever ready with its “reproach.” Nehemiah asks a fair question: “Ought ye not to walk in the fear of God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies?”
I. The reproach of the enemy. The world’s criticism of God’s people is very merciless and very unfair. It makes no allowances. It does not “remember that we are dust.” It has no place for the extenuations of charity. The world will not under-rate, but over-rate, the defects of the good. Malicious rumour makes a mountain out of a molehill; like photography, it exaggerates every freckle or scar on the countenance of a good man’s life. Beware of the reproach of the world our enemy.
1. Accept this condition of life. It is useless to kick against the pricks. We may be moved to scorn by the mean carping of the foe; but it flings back its motto, “All’s fair in war.” If you contend with an uncivilized enemy you get ready for uncivilized deeds. Give mercy, but expect none. Do not call the world hard names; the world is simply the world, and no more. “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers,” nor because of their evil tongues.
2. Do not despise this power of enmity. (a) There is a noble scorn of the evil-tongued society. Here is an old motto of an independent mind. “They say! What do they say? Let them say!” Do not be afraid to live. Let us not creep apologetically through the world. We owe no one an apology for our fear of God. It is they who are wrong, and most of them know it very well. If you carry the Christian flag as if ashamed of it the world will despise you all the more. It likes out and out manhood. Do not “liberalize” your creed, or conceal your conviction, or blush at your good deeds for fear of reproach. “Whosoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will I be ashamed.” Be no “reed shaken with the wind.” (β) But there is an unwise scorn of the world’s opinion. A thing lawful for me as a man may be inexpedient for me as a Christian man. Many good men are doing hurt to Christ’s cause by a reckless bravado, which flows out of an uncontrolled independence or out of an unthinking foolishness. A man in ambush may show he is no coward by exposing himself to danger before the enemy, but he may show that he is a fool by revealing the position of his comrades and involving them in peril. “Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.”
3. For the world’s own sake have a care of the world’s reproach.
(1) You may make the evil man doubt the God you fear. “Another saint unmasked,” says the world, as it exults over the declared inconsistency of a Christian. “By one judge all,” says the critic. You cast a veil over God’s face, and put truth at the bar “on suspicion,” when you do not walk before the enemy in the fear of God.
(2) You may hurt the conscience of the worldly man. To let him see his own fault in you is to justify his fault to his pliant conscience. When you do an ill thing you endorse the ill things another does.
(3) You cast away your influence for good. All things are possible to you if the world believes in you. You can cast out its devils and tread on its serpents and scorpions, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. But if you cast away the confidence of your unconverted brother you can do nothing with him because of his unbelief. We want to have faith in God and to make the world have faith in us.
II. The caution of the godly. “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: … having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.”
1. Elements of caution. (α) Be strong in the fear of God. Let the solemn thought of his watchfulness guide your steps. Remember the one omnipresent Witness whose eye shines like a star over the darkest gloom of secrecy. “Fear him, ye saints, and ye shall then have nothing else to fear.” Cultivate the sentiment of that ancient saying, “Thou God seest me!” If clear of his reproach, the reproach of the enemy shall be but as a hailstone against the flint. (β) Be rigorous in self-condemnation; Be charitable in judging others; be just in judging thyself. If you are lax, let it not be with self. For your own sake be what you would seem. Above all fear of the world’s reproach, fear the reproach of an indignant self. “To thine own self be true, and it shall follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
2. Spheres of caution. (α) Personal life. In all those elements of life which are “your own business,” and not the world’s affair, be on your guard. Reverent behaviour, amiable temper, truth and kindness of tone and speech in conversation, godly direction of your habits and your household—let these be above suspicion. Your habits are the atmosphere and your home the environment of yourself; let them become you. (β) Public life. Though in Rome, despise the ill-doer’s motto. In the world; be not of it. Where association makes you unable to prevent be no advocate of evil. Do the world’s work and change the world’s gold with Christian fingers. (γ) Church life. Remember that in all Church life higher maxims and nobler usages than those of the world should predominate. Do not blare out the faults of fellow Christians. For Christ’s sake, for the world’s sake, cast a cloak of charity over the misunderstandings and the misunderstandable doings of the household of faith. Do not tell your enemy how weak your own brother is. In private life, in public life, in Church life, walk in the fear of God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies.
Application.
1. Pray. “Who is sufficient for these things?” Draw deep inspirations of the Holy Spirit of God.
2. Watch. Keep open eyes on yourself and on your temptations.
WHAT OTHERS DO NO EXCUSE FOR MY DOING
Neh_5:10. I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might, &c.
Nehemiah’s great strength of goodness and his nobleness of mind made him in his historic conduct a law unto himself.
1. He rose above all example. The contrast between himself and the common run of his contemporaries is evident throughout the story. “He heard a voice they could not hear.”
2. He rose above all the bare requirements of law. “Is it so nominated in the bond?” is never the question of a heroically good man. Not what I am required to do, but what I am able to do; not what I am commanded, but what I can, is his rule of action.
3. His generous goodness made him a law unto himself. See this illustrated in the text. What others do is no excuse for my doing the same. “I might exact of them.”
I. Common contravention of this rule.
1. A common reason for wrongdoing is that others do it. Easy to find precedent and example for anything we wish to do. In the practices of the world and in the faults of good men we can find, if we are perverse enough, plenty of examples of evil.
2. A more powerful reason still is the fact that it will be done, so I may as well do it, and have the benefit of it. This will justify anything to a man. The schoolboy in Cowper’s story robs the orchard because his companions will go even if he should remain away. The business man contents himself with iniquitous action because others would do it in any case, and he may as well have the benefit as another. The legislator enacts an unrighteous statute or favours an unholy conquest because these things will be done.
II. Vindication of this rule.
1. Not another’s conscience, but his own conscience, is a man’s guide. If every one descended to the lower level of his neighbour, the world would go with swift slide into the bottomless pit. To stand faithful where others fail is the glory of the servant of the Lord. “They do it, and will do it:—let them do it; I will not.”
2. The evil doings of others will not save a man from the doom of his own wrong-doing. “Thou hast delivered thy soul.” That surely is some consolation for the man who stands aloof from evil. “I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn,” if this wrong exaction by others might justify it in us.
CLENCHING A GOOD RESOLUTION
Neh_5:12. Then said they, We will restore, &c.
“In a time of danger we understand a general interest. Every one is called in to take a part in the struggles that we make for liberty. And yet when the toil was a little over some of them acted as if they thought that Providence was not a public friend, but only a sort of a factor to a few private families. It is a misrepresentation of him who gives us the mercy if we do not make it extensive. He accepts not the persons of princes nor regards the rich more than the poor, for they are all the work of his hands. You must not think he is so lavish of his bounty to the great men of the earth merely that they may glitter upon a throne, but be his ministers for good; and this they cannot be if they resolve to confine their influence. Princes love to be called God’s representatives, but they usually understand it in no other attribute than his power; whereas that is incommunicable; it is a glory that he never gives to another. The chief titles in which he would be represented by them are those of justice and mercy.” These strong, brave, and true words were written by Thomas Bradbury more than a century and a half ago, and applied to his own times. The human heart is the same in all ages. It is treacherous. Nehemiah knew this. The words of the oppressors were fair-seeming. “We will restore.” “We will require nothing of them.” “We will do as thou sayest.” But the very greatness of the promise constitutes its danger. It is too good to be true; needs binding force. The priest’s presence will give the oath “legal validity for judicial decisions.” It will also impart solemnity. If tempted to oppress again the awful oath will rise to recollection. There is the truth of life in this old-world scene. Men need all the helps they can get.
I. In the resistance of temptation. The balance of our lives has need of one scale of reason to poise another of passion. The proverbs of many peoples speak of the fragile nature of promises and vows. He who stands on his unaided resolution has insecure footing. Forgetting is easy. Self-interest is powerful. The present moment outweighs the future hour. Philosophy would teach us to forego a moment’s rapture for lifelong peace; but we are not all philosophical. The now is here, the rapture is possible; the future is uncertain, the peace is contingent. All experience of life teaches that men will barter future blessedness for present happiness. “The things which are seen” bulk larger in the eyes of men than “the things which are not seen.” We cannot afford to neglect (a) the daily reading of the word of God; (b) private and ejaculatory prayer; (c) covenant engagements with God. Many Christians have found it helpful to enter into a written covenant. The signature has had the same effect as Nehemiah’s oath. Any system of spiritual mnemonics is valuable. What is wanted is quickness to discover temptation, and firmness to resist it. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psa_119:11). “It is written!” Jesus answered and said to the tempter (Matthew 4). “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” (Mat_26:41). All inspirations that are available are needed.
II. In the performance of duty. Doing good is a more comprehensive phrase than easy task. “Virtue is its own reward.” Possibly, but not always so regarded. A hard task trying to help those who hinder. He who will serve must suffer. Let him despise not the smallest strength from any quarter. Bind thyself to God’s altar with any cords thou mayest obtain. Reliance on God will bring the only safe self-reliance. For each day’s task God has promised daily strength. For rugged paths he has provided wear-resisting shoes. Lift up thy burden. Put thy foot forward along the path God has marked out. “Trust in the Lord and do good.” “Thy God hath commanded thy strength.”
THE TERRORS OF THE LORD PERSUADING MEN
Neh_5:13. Also I shook my lap, and said, &c.
This text describes a solemn scene. A reformer with a stern, hard nerve of righteousness arraigning a guilty band of fellow mortals before God. The nobles feel the spell of Nehemiah’s strong conscience and the still stronger spell of Jehovah’s threatening, and have promised to reform their deeds. Their ruthless friend, having compelled them to swear to their resolves, turning upon them, exclaims, “Now you are committed to your course.” “I shook my lap, and said. So God shake out every man that performeth not this promise. And all the congregation said, Amen.” A similar scene is recorded in Deuteronomy 27, where the curses of God were read as the doom of those who broke the laws solemnly repeated before the people, and where, like the murmur of a surge on the coast, the deep Amen of the people rolled back in acceptance of the stern alternative—obedience on the curse. Twelve times over from the slopes of Ebal rang the “Cursed be he” of the officiating Levite, and twelve times was flung back the united Amen of Israel. In a similar spirit Nehemiah extemporized this solemn binding ceremony of the text.
I. The doom of unrighteousness acknowledged. Amen in one significance means “verily,” “truly,” “so it is and shall be.” The Lord will shake out from his lap the wicked like a man shaking the worthless dust from his garment. It is even so. Amen! Say to the wicked, It shall be ill with him.
1. Natural instinct asserts this. By natural instinct one holds no precise philosophical dogma. This is enough for our purpose. Every rational mind in a land of light and knowledge has the deep, inwrought conviction that doom must follow misdoing. Fiery sentences asserting this are written in legends of the heathen world. Nemesis, like a bloodhound, follows the wrongdoer. Ancient poetry grows terrible in its tragic representations of this great belief. “Our heart condemns us.” God’s warning words are answered by the soul’s Amen! It is even so!
2. The operation of natural law exhibits this great principle, that God must one day shake away the worthless. “Nature gives us a word and a blow, and the blow first.” Excess or transgression of physical law threatens us as with fixed bayonets. Put a bound upon thy lust and appetite, or beware, is the voice of all experience. No less a human than a Divine proverb is the saying, “He that breaketh the hedge, the serpent shall bite him.” The sensual, who has lost his health; the drunkard, who has pulled down the pillars of his home; the dishonest, who is cast out a despised and characterless thing, all point one way. It is nature’s Amen to the Bible curse—It is so.
3. History fills her picture-galleries with illustrations of this point. The history of nations is a story of well-doing and its reward, prosperity, and of ill-doing and its sure-footed vengeance. History puts her brazen trumpet to her lips and blows out an assenting Amen! It is so. God will shake out as he has shaken out the wicked. You cannot argue with or alter this stable law of life. You may lay an unbelieving hand upon the letters of doom, you may cast doubt after doubt into the bottomless pit, but not one jot or tittle of the world’s law which is God’s law can be affected thereby. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
II. The doom of unrighteousness accepted. Amen not only means “It is so,” but, “So let it be.” By their Amen the people signed their agreement to the conditions, their acceptance of the pains and penalties of the transgressor. The repentant people said Amen to the curse. They indignantly denounced their baser self. “If I could be so base as to neglect my vow to God, let it be even thus—let me be shaken out of God’s lap of rest and blessedness.” That is the significance of their Amen!
1. Yet it is dangerous to misunderstand this. Many a struggling man, after being repeatedly vanquished by a bad habit, has in an hour of despair clutched at something like this as if to frighten his own soul. He has invoked a conditional curse upon his head. “If I repeat this let me perish by it!” has gone from the half-maddened mind in the hour of self-disgust. Then there has come the repetition of the sin, “for the strongest oaths are straw to the fire in the blood,” and the poor sinner has settled down with the thought that his doom is sealed. There is not a little of this practical fatalism. Avoid it! “That way madness lies!”
2. But there is no need to pray for a curse. If we sin the curse is sure; and the Amen of the repentant soul, whose only wish is for well-doing, is merely a waking up of the conscience to this gloomy fact. Let it sink into the soul. Our God is a consuming fire, therefore know “the terrors of the Lord.” We may look at the mild glories of mercy until we forget the sterner side of life. Brace the soul by meditations on the deep, inexorable sternness of offended law.
3. When engaging in formal covenant with God, when taking the pledge of conversion, when engaging in the solemnities of public or private worship, we virtually bind our souls with this curse. To give ourselves up to blessing is to denounce upon our backsliding self the curse. When a soldier takes his oath he insures his fidelity of the reward and prospective promotion, and by that same act says Amen to the law, “Thou shalt be shot for desertion or for treachery!” It is the same in citizenship. All well-doing, right-loving citizens agree to the pains and penalties which await their possible malefactions. It is thus that life is girdled with a deep gulf of doom. Evil to the evil-doer is the proposition. It is so. Amen! says every voice that can argue with man. So be it. Amen! says the soul that rises up to follow good.
III. The doom of unrighteousness avoided. “And the people did according to their promise.”
1. The good man shuts himself up to his course. Like Simon Peter, he can turn nowhere. “To whom shall we go” but unto Thee. No turning, like Lot’s wife. The fire of doom is the end of all backward steps. Paul-like, let us “leave the things that are behind.”
2. The good man must not depend upon the mere binding force of his oath. Pledges and prisons are but geeen withes on the strong man of sin if there be no other bond. Goodness by the ROD is not safe or real or lasting. The commandment often arouses the contrary desire.
3. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” The vow of the soul is its warrant of sincerity; the steadfast faith of the soul in the grace of Jesus Christ is its defence against temptations to desertion and disobedience.
Application.
1. Ponder the inevitable terrors of the Lord against all unrighteousness.
2. Vow solemnly the vow of repentance and reformation.
3. Pray for hourly strength to do according to this promise.
A MAN FOREGOING HIS RIGHTS FOR THE SAKE OF HIS DUTIES
Neh_5:14. Moreover from the time that I was appointed, &c.
Nehemiah was a law unto himself. Refused to be guided by others’ example. “I might exact of them money and corn” (Neh_5:10). Rose superior to insistence on his own rights. “The former governors were chargeable unto the people” (Neh_5:15). The principle is this:—A man must sometimes forego his rights for the sake of his duties.
I. Rights must be asserted. It will not do to weakly allow selfishness to trample upon the too submissive soul. St. Paul’s insisting on his privileges as a Roman citizen an example.
II. Rights must not be pressed too far. A man has prejudiced views of his own worth and deserts. According to his self-importance will be the large ness of his views of his own rights. “The rights of man” is frequently a hollow cry of selfishness.
III. Rights must be tempered by considerations of duty. Duty is a grand governing word. It sways men more than we think. The holiday-maker is restless after a while to get back to the routine of his duties. Duty is our home; pleasure is the place we take a trip to now and then. Our happiness is more bound up with our duties than with our rights. We can survive being cheated of a right, but we cannot escape if we have neglected our duties. It was such considerations as these which swayed the Jewish liberator.
IV. The due adherence to this principle is the self-sacrificing spirit of Christianity. “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” The crowning glory of the redemptive life of Jesus is, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor. In the second chapter of the Philippian Epistle we have the Christian setting of this doctrine. The example of Nehemiah, who came among the miserly, selfish Jews, and flung back to the people even the dues and monies which were properly his, in the greatness of his self-sacrifice shrinking from insistence on his own rights as he would from sin, was like an incarnation of nobleness for the fallen minds of his contemporaries to look at and emulate. In the sweet story of old this same grand law is carried higher. In the life of St. Paul it is repeated. In the story of missionaries and martyrs there is a prolongation of this line of light. Blessed are they who reflect its blaze and join this glorious succession.
Application.
1. Guard against the selfish spirit of the world.
2. Seek and show the unselfish spirit of Christ.
A MOTTO FOR A MANLY LIFE
Neh_5:15. So did not I, because of the fear of God
There is a motto for a manly life. The key-note of his character was not fear of the crowd, but fear of his own conscience. What a noble thing is the iron sense of duty. This was the strong sinew of the Duke of Wellington’s great nature. Whether in the Church or the world, every circle feels the presence and reverences the career of one who bears this hall-mark of duty. So will not I, for conscience’ sake. Briefly sketch the story of Nehemiah, as illustrating his adherence to his self-chosen motto. It was the banner of his whole life-battle, and he held it with a clenched hand in every high place of temptation.
I. The regulative power of a lofty motive. In manifold forms the firm and heroic have ruled their lives by a power superior to their own lower nature.
1. “The fear of God” is Nehemiah’s phrase. That reverential, loving awe of the all-holy Father and Ruler of men.
2. “The love of Christ” is the warmer sentiment which corresponds to this in Paul’s phraseology. Fuller light brought a deeper sentiment. The thought of Christ’s love awakening love for Christ, and becoming in man an incarnation of heavenly inspiration.
3. “Religious principle” is another colder, broader, yet noble expression of the same animator of good men.
4. “Conscience,” “the sense of duty,” “the instinct of right” are less precise variations of the motives which sway all whose lives are redeemed from the ignoble.
II. The courage to be singular is implied in this motto of the Jewish liberator.
1. Let there be no singularity for singularity’s sake. Opposition may be our misfortune, but must not be our ambition. To sing out of tune for the sake of having your voice heard is weakness, not strength.
2. Yet this world has always rested as on granite pillars on men who could be singular. Moses refusing to be identified with the godless nationality of Egypt. The three Hebrew children standing upright in Babylon like watch-towers of truth. Peter and John giving their summary answer to the council: “We ought to obey God rather than man.” Luther at Worms crying out, “It is not wise or safe for a man to do anything against his conscience.” These men and their heroic brethren in resistance have all glorified their lives by this motto: “So did not I.”
III. Applications of this principle in the commonplace life of all men.
1. To HIMSELF a man must say NO! “Let him deny himself” is a precept we must practise if we would even live. It is also a necessity of our happiness. “True quietness of heart is gotten not by obeying our passions, but by resisting them.” It is essential to our self-respect in “the struggle of the instinct that enjoys with the more noble instinct which aspires.” The mastery of self is the foundation-victory. “To thine own self be true, and it shall follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
2. To THE WORLD a man must say NO! Prevalency of temptations for a man to let himself down, to barter purity for pleasure and honour for gold. How many poor men sell their birthright of immortality for some animal gratification! How many sell their Lord for thirty pieces of silver, more or less.
3. “So did not I” is the YOUTH’S motto. “If sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” It is a manlier and a stronger thing to go right than to go wrong. “Stand thou firm as an anvil that is beaten.”
IV. The simplicity and directness of this life-motto. Nehemiah’s reason for his nonconformity was a very simple one. “In my view this practice is not right!” You cannot be always arguing a thing. You cannot be “seeking truth” (to quote the world’s cant expression for moral irresolution) all your life. Find it quickly, and stick to it always. Pro viding a man’s heart is bad enough, his head will usually be clever enough to argue for his defence. The devil is said to be the best of advocates, and can quote Scripture to his purpose. But in plain matters of right and wrong “there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” Nehemiah’s reason for not pocketing the money as others had done was a very simple answer—“I fear God.”
V. This motto is our guide in doubtful matters. Many bad things are doubtful for want of a sensitive nerve in the soul. That which to one is “but a choleric word, to another is flat blasphemy.” To Nehemiah’s contemporaries and predecessors this practice of money-making had seemed a lawful one, but Nehemiah said that it was one in which a man could not keep clean hands. The scrupulous has the solution of his difficulties in his own conscience. Forego the doubtful for God’s sake. Make your self-denial in that matter a sacrifice to God, and it shall be to him as the odour of incense.
Application.
1. Let us understand and acquire this great life-principle. The fear of God is not fear or dread of a Being outside us, but reverence and submission to a holy Spirit within.
2. Let it be our strife, at whatever sacrifice, to reverence this powerful sentiment. “Hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”
ILLUSTRATIVE POEM:—
“Brother, up to the breach
For Christ’s freedom and truth;
Let us act as we teach,
With the wisdom of age and the vigour of youth.
Heed not their cannon-balls,
Ask not who stands or falls,
Grasp the sword
Of the Lord,
And forward!
Brother, strong in the faith
That “the right will come right,”
Never tremble at death,
Never think of thyself ’mid the roar of the fight.
Hark to the battle cry
Sounding from yonder sky!
Grasp the sword
Of the Lord,
And forward!
Brother, sing a loud psalm;
Our hope’s not forlorn.
After storm comes the calm,
After darkness and twilight breaks forth the new morn.
Let the mad foe get madder;
Never quail! up the ladder
Grasp the sword
Of the Lord,
And forward!
Brother, up to the breach
For Christ’s freedom and truth;
If we live we shall teach,
With the strong faith of age and the bright hope of youth.
If we perish, then o’er us
Will ring the loud chorus:
Grasp the sword
Of the Lord,
And forward!—Norman Mac Leod.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Singularity.—“We must learn to say ‘No.’ We must dare, if need be, to be singular. Like the young Joseph, when you are tempted astray by seducing voices, let your answer be, ‘How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?’ Like the young Daniel, when forbidden pleasures and questionable delights are urged upon your appetites, be ‘purposed in’ your ‘heart that’ you ‘will not defile’ yourself with them, and choose pulse and water with the relish of a good conscience rather than such dainties. Like the same Daniel, when the crowd are flocking at the sound of the sackbut and psaltery to worship some golden image, keep your knees unbent amidst the madness, learn to stand erect though you alone are upright in the midst of a grovelling multitude, and protest, ‘We will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.’ Like Nehemiah, dare to lose money rather than adopt sources of profit which others may use without a thought, but which your conscience shrinks from; and to all the various enticements of pleasure, and gain, and ease, and popular loose maxims for the conduct oppose immovable resistance, founded on a higher law and a mightier motive. ‘So did not I, because of the fear of God.’ ”—A. Maclaren, D.D.
The mighty motive. “So did not I, because of the fear of God.” “The heart cannot be prevailed upon to part with the world by a simple act of resignation. But may not the heart be prevailed upon to admit into its preference another, who shall subordinate the world, and bring it down from its wonted ascendancy? If the throne which is placed there must have an occupier, and the tyrant that now reigns has occupied it wrongfully, he may not leave a bosom which would rather detain him than be left in desolation. But may he not give way to the lawful sovereign?”—Chalmers.
“By his place Nehemiah had an advantage of oppressing his brethen, if he durst have been so wicked; and from those that had before him been honoured with that office he had examples of such as could not only swallow the common allowance of the governor without rising in their consciences, which showed a digestion strong enough, considering the peeled state of the Jews at that time; but could, when themselves had sucked the milk, let their cruel servants suck the blood of this poor people also by illegal exactions; so that Nehemiah, coming after such oppressors, if he had taken his allowance, and but eased them of the other burdens which they groaned under, no doubt might have passed for merciful in their thoughts. But he durst not go so far. A man may possibly be an oppressor in exacting his own. Nehemiah knew they were not in a condition to pay, and therefore he durst not require it. But as one who comes after a bad husbandman, that hath driven his land and sucked out the heart of it, casts it up fallow for a time till it recovers its lost strength, so did Nehemiah spare this oppressed people. And what, I pray, was it that preserved him from doing as the rest had done? We have the answer in his own words: ‘But so did not I, because of the fear of the Lord.’ The man was honest, his heart touched with a sincere fear of God, and this kept him right.”—Gurnall.
CONSCIOUS INTEGRITY
Neh_5:19. Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people
Nehemiah’s appeal to God to deal with him according to the integrity of his life is several times repeated in this book (Neh_13:14; Neh_13:22). “He fed the people in the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.” God-fearing, faithful, and unselfish, in every step he could boldly look back upon his progress and take the satisfaction of an approving conscience. There is something noble and something dangerous in this sentiment.
I. The habit of righteousness. To some men it is given to possess great accuracy of character, to others it is given to be exposed constantly to a course of honest blundering. Illustrated in the sphere of intelligence. One man can never write a letter to satisfy him the first time—he must re-write it; while another lays a firm hand on the paper and never writes anything that he needs to erase or be sorry for. Among men of genius there are some who are dashing and brilliant in their thoughts and deeds, but now and then their work is weakened by the mistakes found therein; while there are others who seem never to be inaccurate in thought or blundering in deed. “The Duke of Wellington is, I believe (says Niebuhr), the only general in whose conduct of war we cannot discover any important mistake.” The mind of such men is a chronometer as compared with the cheap clock-work of less careful and less certain minds. So it is in the moral sphere. One has a severely even and consistent nature, another full of moral eccentricities. Bursts of virtue and of faultiness alternate in these last-named so as to make them a continual perplexity to their friends. Goldsmith happily touches this in his pleasantry on a contemporary.
“Here lies Edmund Burke, whose genius was such
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much.”
Yet when we consider how an hour’s fault may undo a week’s virtue, how by one error or sin you may put back your nature or your work more than you promote it by many excellences, it is wise to be severe upon “faults,” especially upon our own. To be “without fault in the day of God is the mark of all Christian longing; to have “neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing” in his glorious vesture the Church is the desire of that Lord of whom it was said while he tabernacled among men, “I find in him no fault at all.”
1. Aim at a perfect walk with God. “Search me, O God, and see if there be any wicked way in me.” See Neh_5:9 : “Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies.” “Ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost” is the restraining thought to keep us from fault. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin” is our refuge in our stumbles.
2. Strine to remedy the faults of your brother. To mend his character is better than to mend his fortune; to perfect him is better than to perfect the surroundings which he must leave behind him.
3. At the same time, cover with charity and bear with patience the failures of weak human nature. You cannot measure the greatness of his inward difficulties.
“What’s done you partly may compute,
But never what’s resisted.”
Be severe on your own fault; be gentle with the fault of your brother.
II. The noble refuge of the righteous. A little poem, whose every line is a thread of gold, speaks of the man “whose conscience is his strong retreat.” In every circumstance and crisis of life this is a safe place for the thoughts to dwell.
1. In prosperity. It is a joy to know that good has come by good means. The rich man whose moneybags are all witnesses of iniquity, whose every gain signifies dishonour, must have a wasp-sting in every fruit he tastes. Accumulated wealth is but an accumulation of doom to the man who prospers wrongfully. But to have a good conscience as the companion of good fortune is to drink of the sweetest cup of earthly happiness.
2. In adversity. When other miseries are upon a man it is glorious to be free from that archangel of misery, a guilty conscience. The drunkard, who looks upon the desolation of his family, and who knows that his own trembling hands have pulled down the pillars of his home; the extravagant and reckless, who see in their ruin the ripe harvest for which they sowed, sit in the dark place with no consolatory light at all. If I am bereft of my integrity I am bereaved. Sweet it is in adversity to sit without the whips and scorns of self-accusation.
3. In the relationships of life. To know I have not wilfully hurt the health, or conscience, or happiness of my fellow is an angel remembrance as life’s evening comes on. Guilty men have repented and found a Saviour’s mercy before now whose after-thoughts have been gloomy with remembrance of injuries done to their fellows. So St. Paul meekly sorrows over the madness which had in former days damaged the flock of God.
4. In death. O death, where is thy sting if the soul is found in Christ, and the memory plays like a setting sun on a well-spent life? “All that I have done for this people.” The good deeds of a well-spent life are shining companions to the soul as it goes through the windings of the last dark valley. Contrast with all this the guilty thoughts of the bad king.
“I have lived long enough; my way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age
I must not look to have; but in their stead
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour breath
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.”
III. The dangers of the righteous. To stand upon our righteous habits is to select a wrong basis. Goodness is rather the buttress of the wall than its foundation.
“Nor alms or deeds that I have done
Can for a single sin atone;
To Calvary alone I flee;
O God, be merciful to me.”
Self-righteousness brings pride and uncharitableness. When Archbishop Whateley lay dying some one said, “It is the greatness of your lordship’s mind that supports you.” “No, it is not” (he said); “it is faith in Christ that supports me.” That is the Rock of ages.
Application.
1. Strive after such integrity as will bring satisfaction to the soul in the great review at the last.
2. Let no thought of your own goodness come as a shadow in front of the cross to rob the Redeemer of the glory of his salvation.
THE SAINT’S SUPPORT
Neh_5:19. Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people
Two motives induced Nehemiah to pray thus: the many great and good things he had done for Church and state; the many great and desperate dangers he had already met with, and would still have to encounter. There were three solemn comings of three famous persons to Jerusalem—Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The secret of Nehemiah’s courage—his heart was on his God.
First, of the sense of the text. “Think,” properly “remember.” To remember is (a) to keep and hold fast in memory; opposed to forgetting. (b) To call to mind forgotten things. A word derived from this root is put for a memorial (Exo_28:12) and for records (Est_6:1). Remembering is in Scripture applied to
(1) God and
(2) man. To God properly in first signification. God never forgets. “Known unto him are all his works” (Act_15:18). Remembrance is also applied to God in the second signification (Job_7:7; Job_9:9; Job_14:3). He has a book of remembrance (Mal_3:16). These are to be taken “tropically,” by way of similitude. Nehemiah’s “remember” means, “May I have assurance and others’ evidence.” “My God,” an appropriating particle (“God”—Heb. Elohim), a plurality of persons, a unity of nature. “For good,” i. e. goodness. The saint’s support is God.
1. The person petitioned.
2. The point prayed for.
I. The person.
1. General title. “God.”
2. Special relation. “My.”
II. The point prayed for.
1. The kind of it
2. The end of it.
1. The kind.
(1) An act desired of God. “Think upon.”
(2) The special object. “Me.”
2. The end.
(1) Generally. “For good.”
(2) Particularly. (a) The ground—“that I have done.” (b) The rule:—“according to.” (c) The extent—“all.” (d) The limitation—“for this people.” Observations hence arising.
1. God the support of his saints.
2. Peculiar God to believer. “My.”
3. God hath remembrancers.
4. God is soonest drawn to his own.
5. Prayer proper for one’s own good.
6. Works may be pleaded before God.
7. Man’s works are the rule of God’s reward.
8. Everything well done shall be rewarded.
9. Good done to God’s people is most acceptable.—Dr. Wm. Gouge, 1642.
THE REMEMBRANCE OF GOOD DEEDS A PILLOW OF REST FOR A GOOD MAN
Neh_5:19. Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people
“Nehemiah’s soul was frank with God. There is freedom of access to a throne of grace for every believer (Heb_4:16). ‘Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people,’ is not a presumptuous conceit, but a childlike simplicity. The gross mind of the world would confound the two. Where we know that God has led us in paths of righteousness, we may well use that knowledge, and encourage our souls by it. Nehemiah had but few around him who could reach high enough to sympathize fully with him; and it was thus his great comfort to pour out his soul, according to truth, before the God whose good hand had guided him. God wishes no mock modesty from us. His grace in our hearts and lives should be acknowledged (comp. 1Ti_1:12).”—Crosby. The personal pronoun is very prominent in David’s autobiography. “I have preached.” “I have not refrained my lips” (Psalms 40). “My defence is of God” (Psalms 7). “Thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing” (Psalms 17). St. Paul boldly cites his own example. Readers of his epistles note his self-consciousness. “Whatsoever things ye have learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do” (Php_4:9). “Brethren, be followers together of me” (Php_3:17). “I beseech you be as I am” (Gal_4:12). “These hands have ministered to my necessities” (Act_20:34). “I have fought a good fight” (2Ti_4:7).
I. Life’s review will be a review of the whole of life. Its good as well as its evil. When “backward are our glances bent” we shall need the recollection of every pure thought, guiding word, kindly deed. When we lie down in the long sleep men call death may no pleasant dreams come?
II. Life’s reward will be rendered according to its deeds. God will “give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev_22:12). We are saved by grace, “looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jud_1:21). But there is a rewardableness of works. “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body” (2Co_5:10). “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; their works do follow them” (Rev_14:13). “We carry nothing out of the world with us but the conscience and comfort of what we have done for God.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. First let me put the main principle that…
Neh 5:15
I. First let me put the main principle that lies here in these words: nothing will go right unless you dare to be singular. "So did not I." The chief field for the exercise of this resolute non-compliance with common practice is in the region of moral action in the daily conduct of your lives. (1) He who yields is wrecked and ruined. (a) The absolute necessity for this sturdy resistance is plain from the very make of our own natures, (b) It is enforced if we think of the order of things in which we dwell. (c) It is chiefly enforced by the fact that every one of us is thrown more or less closely into contact with people who themselves are living as they should not, and who would fain drag us after them. (2) Remember that not only does easy yielding to such enticements bring all sorts of moral confusion and failure into a man’s life, but that such compliance is in itself weak and unworthy. Surely there is nothing that walks the earth more contemptible, as well as more certainly evil, than a man that lets himself be made by whatever force may happen to be strongest near him, and fastening up his helm and unshipping his oars, is content to be blown about by every vagrant wind and rolled in the trough of each curling wave. (3) Another very solemn consideration may be suggested, enforcing the need of this vigorous non-compliance with the temptations around us, from the remembrance of what a poor excuse for wrong-doing they will be found to be at last.
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II. You cannot resist the evil around you unless you give yourselves to God. "So did not I, because of the fear of God." God in Christ, trusted in, loved, reverenced, obeyed, imitated—God in Christ alone strengthens a man for this resistance and non-compliance. (1) In Christ we have an all-sufficient pattern. There is a Man whom it is safe and blessed to imitate—the Man Christ Jesus. (2) That fear of God which is all transfused and mingled with the love of Him gives us next an all-powerful motive. (3) The fear of God strengthens us for resistance because it gives us an omnipotent power in ourselves whereby we resist.
As the secret of all negative forbearance from evil, take for your watchword "So did not I, because of the fear of God." As the secret of all positive allegiance to God, let your motto be "The love of Christ constraineth me."
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 89.
Reference: Neh 5:15.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1716.
Neh 5:19
If we use this motto of Nehemiah, we must live in the spirit of Nehemiah.
I. We must think on God and God’s glory. Let us be interested in Zion, concerned in the decay of Jerusalem, grieved because religion does not make the progress it ought to do. Let us be concerned about the assaults made on Jerusalem, whether by scepticism, or worldliness, or superstition. Let us care for Jerusalem and be zealous for its building up and its defence.
II. Let us be willing to sacrifice ease, and luxury, and pleasure for the toils and sufferings of the people of God. Nehemiah gave up much. He laboured for the benefit of Jerusalem and Zion. Let us follow his example and be practical in our sympathy. Let us be diligent in service, and then we may leave our welfare and our earthly happiness to God’s care. "Think upon me, my God, for good."
III. There are two essential things in saying, "my God"—a personal reliance on Him for salvation and a personal consecration to His service. Faith in Christ involves surrendering ourselves to Christ. Are we imitating Him and walking in His way? Let us yield ourselves to Him and avow that the Lord is our God.
Newman Hall, Penny Pulpit, No. 711.
Reference: 5—Parker, Fountain, Sept. 27th, 1877.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Nehemiah's Measures in alleviation of Poverty
Nehemiah's Measures in alleviation of Poverty
1. The people] i.e. the commons (as contrasted with the nobles and rulers, Neh_5:7). These had neglected their own interests to labour gratuitously on the fortifications, and now in the time of dearth were feeling the pinch of want.
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2. Therefore we take up corn] better, 'we must get corn.' The language is that of desperate men, compelled by necessity to accept the harsh conditions imposed by those to whom they had recourse for the corn they required.
4. The king's tribute] The common people were not exempted from paying taxes to the Persian king, like the priests and other ministers of the Temple (Ezr_7:24; Neh_9:37).
5. Our flesh, etc.] i.e. we are as much Jews as the creditors to whom we have sold our children. Bondage] The sale of children to defray a debt was recognised in the Mosaic Law: see Exo_21:2-7; Deu_15:12. cp. also 2Ki_4:1.
7. Ye exact usury] Usury was prohibited by the Law in connexion with loans made to fellow-Israelites (Exo_22:25; Deu_23:19); but the Jews doubtless interpreted the prohibition with the same latitude as Christians have done the similar command in the Gospel (Luk_6:35). The Law probably had in view cases where money was borrowed under the pressure of misfortune, not as a help in commercial ventures; and the like considerateness towards the necessitous is incumbent upon Christians.
8. Have redeemed.. heathen] probably during Nehemiah's residence in Persia.
9. The reproach] the humiliation they had undergone in consequence of their failure to walk in the fear of God.
10. Might exact] RV 'do lend.. on usury.' Nehemiah, to conciliate those whom he wished to persuade, admitted that he (probably in the persons of his relatives and dependents) had been guilty of the same conduct against which he was protesting.
11. Their lands, etc] These had been given in pledge, and, if unredeemed, were retained by the creditor. The hundredth part] usually regarded as one per cent, a month, and so equivalent to twelve per cent, a year. The expression restore, in connexion with the interest, probably means 'cease to require': cp. Neh_5:12. Corn, wine, oil] i.e. interest paid in kind.
12. Took an oath of them] i.e. took of the money-lenders an oath which the priests administered to them.
13. Shook my lap] For similar symbolic acts cp. 1Ki_22:11; Jer_27:2; Jer_28:10.
14. From the twentieth.. unto the two and thirtieth] i.e. from 445-433 b.c. The fact that Artaxerxes seems to have been unwilling to part with his cup-bearer for a long period, and stipulated for a date by which he was to return (Neh_2:6), makes it rather surprising that he should have thus been absent from court for twelve years; but it is to be assumed that his leave of absence was extended by the king.
The bread of the governor] i.e. the supplies due to the Persian governor from the people.
16. Neither bought we] better, 'neither got we' (by foreclosing mortgages). All my servants] He did not retain them to attend to himself or to his own interests. The whole conduct of Nehemiah was that of a warmhearted, generous man.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v8 (See Scofield "Exo 14:30").
redeemed
(See Scofield "Exo 14:30").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The complaint of oppression (Neh 5:1-5)
CHAPTER 5
1. The complaint of oppression (Neh 5:1-5)
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2. Nehemiah’s rebuke and demands (Neh 5:6-13)
3. Nehemiah’s generosity (Neh 5:14-19)
Neh 5:1-5. The internal conditions among the toiling people were serious. The work which was done in rebuilding the walls was a labor of love; no wages were paid. As the people were thus engaged their other occupations, including agriculture, had to be neglected. As a result the poor had been driven to mortgage their lands, vineyards and houses in order to buy corn, because of the dearth. The rich had taken advantage of this and had enslaved their sons and daughters, and there seemed to be no prospect of redeeming them. The rich Jews by usury oppressed the poor, who had lost their lands and houses. There was therefore a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. It was a sad condition; the enemy was doing his work in the camp (Act 6:1). Oppression of the poor is especially displeasing to God and His Spirit condemns and warns against it (Amo 2:6; Amo 5:12; Amo 8:4-8; Pro 14:31; Pro 22:16; Pro 28:3; and Jas 5:1-6).
Neh 5:6-13. Righteous Nehemiah, when he heard all this, was moved with indignation and righteous anger took hold on him. Nehemiah, the Governor, writes, “I consulted with myself.” No doubt much prayer was connected with this self consultation. He then rebuked the nobles and rulers for having done what the law of God forbids and condemns (Exo 22:25; Lev 25:36-37; Deu 23:19; Psa 15:5) to exact usury. A great assembly was called in which their conduct was denounced unsparingly. “We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us?” When Nehemiah came to Jerusalem he had freed those Jews who were in bondage to the heathen on account of some debt, and these rich usurers were selling their own brethren. They had no answer to give but were convicted of their evil deeds. He then demanded full restitution, “Restore, I pray you, to them even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine and the oil, that ye exact of them.” The appeal was effectual. They were at once ready to restore, to require nothing more of them, and to do all Nehemiah had demanded. It was a great victory. Had the oppression continued and the internal strife, it would have resulted in disaster. How often these internal strifes and acts of injustice have brought reproach upon the people of God, and dishonor to that worthy Name! (Gal 5:15; Jas 3:16.) They had to give an oath to do this, and solemnly Nehemiah shook his lap and said, “So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, who performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out and emptied.” An “Amen” from the great congregation followed, and they acted upon the promise.
Neh 5:14-19. The closing verses show the generosity and self-denying character of this man of God. It reminds us somewhat of the apostle Paul and his testimony concerning himself (1Co 4:12; 2Co 12:15-16; 1Th 2:9-10). In all he had done as a servant of God he had the comfort that God knew and would be his Rewarder. “Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.” He will have his reward, and so will all His people, who serve in behalf of God’s people as Nehemiah did.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Complaint of the People Adjusted by Nehemiah
The Complaint of the People Adjusted by Nehemiah
v. 1. And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives, namely, the poorer ones in the nation, against their brethren, the Jews, the richer members of their own nation, who were taking advantage of their poverty.
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v. 2. Nor there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters are many; therefore we take up corn for them that we may eat and live. The more exact rendering of this sentence seems to be: We have mortgaged our sons and our daughters that we might buy corn. They had been forced by their creditors to give their very children as security, as hostages, in order to get food for their families.
v. 3. Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses that we might buy corn because of the dearth. The shortage of food may have been due as well to the excessive rains, Ezr 10:9; Hag 1:6-11, as to the fact that the Samaritan adversaries managed to keep so many of them penned up in the city of Jerusalem, which made it impossible for them to till their lands.
v. 4. There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, the taxes laid upon them by the Persian government, and that upon our lands and vineyards. It was a most deplorable condition of affairs which compelled these poorer members of the congregation to mortgage their children and all their property for the sake of procuring food and the necessary funds to pay their taxes to the Persian government.
v. 5. Yet, now, our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children, they rightly felt that they had equal rights with their richer neighbors before the Lord; and, lo, we bring into bondage our Sons and our daughters to be servants, practically forced to sell them as slaves, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already, apparently said of their being used for immoral purposes, Exo 21:7-11; neither is it in our power to redeem them, literally, "and not is toward God our hand"; for other men have our lands and vineyards, they were at the mercy of their creditors.
v. 6. And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words, since these conditions were strictly against the Law of Jehovah, Exo 22:25-27.
v. 7. Then I consulted with myself, since his heart was filled with pity for his oppressed brethren, and I rebuked the nobles and the rulers, these being the guilty ones in this instance, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, both in taking pledges and in charging interest, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them, calling a mass-meeting in spite of the urgent need of wall-building, in order to have the outrage stopped immediately by the expression of the opinion of the whole congregation.
v. 8. And I said unto them, with great force and emphasis, We, after our ability, have redeemed our brethren, the Jews, by paying ransom-money to free them from bondage in the land of their captivity, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren, or shall they be sold unto us? That is what the custom then in vogue practically amounted to, an enslaving of the poor. Then held they their peace and found nothing to answer, being overcome by Nehemiah’s remonstrance.
v. 9. Also I said, It is not good that ye do, there was a second reason which condemned their action. Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God, in a wholesome awe of His holy presence, because of the reproach of the heathen, our enemies? If the latter heard of the conditions existing in the midst of the Jews, they would be sure to reproach them, to scoff at them.
v. 10. I likewise, and my brethren and my servants, might exact of them money and corn, rather, "And also I, that is, my brethren and my servants, exact of them, by lending them money," members of his own family had been found guilty. I pray you, let us leave of this usury, which was expressly forbidden in the Law, Exo 22:25; Lev 25:36; Deu 23:19.
v. 11. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and their houses, everything that had been taken as security, also the hundredth part of the money and of the corn, the wine and the oil, that ye exact of them, the interest charged them, which amounted to twelve per cent. a year.
v. 12. Then said they, overcome by the force of the arguments used by Nehemiah, We will restore them, both the pledges and the interest exacted,and will require nothing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, as the representatives of the Lord,and took an oath of them, the priests administering this solemn oath, that they should do according to this promise, the men involved thus binding themselves before the face of Jehovah Himself.
v. 13. Also I shook my lap, the bosom of his outer garment, which was used as a pocket, and said, So God shake out every man from his house and from his labor that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out and emptied. It was a symbolical act, also used by the Apostle Paul at a later time, Act 18:6, and similar to that of shaking off the dust from the garments and feet in the time of Jesus. And all the congregation said, Amen, stating their full agreement with the sentiments expressed by Nehemiah, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise, they lived up to their solemn agreement, as Nehemiah carefully notes. If similar conditions are found in a Christian congregation, if richer’ members forget their duties of love and mercy toward their poorer brethren, the Word of God must be applied with the emphasis required by the occasion until the wrong has been righted.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 9 Then the men and their wives raised a great…
Then the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews
Since they were working on the wall, the workers did not have enough time to work to buy and grow food for their families. The full meaning of this statement can be made clear. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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the men and their wives
This refers to the men who were working on building the wall.
raised a great outcry
The word "outcry" can be expressed as a verb. AT: "cried out loudly" (See: Abstract Nouns)
We are mortgaging our fields
"We are having to pledge" or "We are having to give in pledge"
translationWords
Jew
son
grain
life
vineyard
famine
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 5:1-13 Although severe financial problems threatened to derail the…
5:1-13 Although severe financial problems threatened to derail the wall’s completion (5:1-5), Nehemiah worked out a solution (5:6-13).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.