Nehemiah 5
Some of the poor people left in the land of Judah were struggling and took loans and mortgages on their fields, going to far as selling their children into servitude.
The issue for Nehemiah is that the people loaning money and taking interest and a proportion of the crops and buying the children were not Assyrians or Babylonians or even other nations, Jews were doing this to fellow Jews.
This is contrary to the law of Moses which does not allow Jews to charge interest (at least to Jews) and to respect the poor.
The news of this outraged Nehemiah who spent some time pondering the issue and once he had made up his mind he called the nobles and leaders together and charged them with the wrongdoing - the wounds of the exile where the nation was carried off into slavery and exile were still fresh and the injustice of Jews taking advantage of their own people for profit would have been particularly galling.
When challenged they could not answer, and in the end were convinced enough to write off debts and stop charging interest on the loans.
In front of the priests the leaders made a solemn promise to not treat their fellows as non jews by charging interest
Nehemiah pointed out that while he was governor for a period of 12 years he did not take his allocated share of the taxes from the people, previous governors took full advantage, taxing the people for their food allowance. Moreover he fed over 150 officials and Jews at his own cost every day.
The rich no longer taking advantages probably would have helped Nehemiah by limiting the number of needy.
Nehemiah 6
Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem are particularly upset that the wall had been finished, the gaps filled in in, though the gates not yet fully secured and installed.
Sanballat sent messages to Nehemiah requesting a meeting, which Nehemiah declined with the excuse that he was busy building walls. - 5 times Sanballat tried to lure Nehemiah into an ambush and death or capture.
The last time a letter was delivered - rumour has reached Sanballat and vouched for by Geshem.
Nehemiah did not dignify this with anything more than saying that they made it up!
Once the wall was completed Sanballat and his cronies and in particular making Geshem to seem better than he was. But the completed wall kind of took the wind out of their sails. the fact that the Jews did not rebel against the overlord nor did Nehemiah try and set himself up as king meant that none of the charges could stick.
Some of the poor people left in the land of Judah were struggling and took loans and mortgages on their fields, going to far as selling their children into servitude.
The issue for Nehemiah is that the people loaning money and taking interest and a proportion of the crops and buying the children were not Assyrians or Babylonians or even other nations, Jews were doing this to fellow Jews.
This is contrary to the law of Moses which does not allow Jews to charge interest (at least to Jews) and to respect the poor.
The news of this outraged Nehemiah who spent some time pondering the issue and once he had made up his mind he called the nobles and leaders together and charged them with the wrongdoing - the wounds of the exile where the nation was carried off into slavery and exile were still fresh and the injustice of Jews taking advantage of their own people for profit would have been particularly galling.
When challenged they could not answer, and in the end were convinced enough to write off debts and stop charging interest on the loans.
In front of the priests the leaders made a solemn promise to not treat their fellows as non jews by charging interest
Nehemiah pointed out that while he was governor for a period of 12 years he did not take his allocated share of the taxes from the people, previous governors took full advantage, taxing the people for their food allowance. Moreover he fed over 150 officials and Jews at his own cost every day.
The rich no longer taking advantages probably would have helped Nehemiah by limiting the number of needy.
Nehemiah 6
Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem are particularly upset that the wall had been finished, the gaps filled in in, though the gates not yet fully secured and installed.
Sanballat sent messages to Nehemiah requesting a meeting, which Nehemiah declined with the excuse that he was busy building walls. - 5 times Sanballat tried to lure Nehemiah into an ambush and death or capture.
The last time a letter was delivered - rumour has reached Sanballat and vouched for by Geshem.
Nehemiah did not dignify this with anything more than saying that they made it up!
Once the wall was completed Sanballat and his cronies and in particular making Geshem to seem better than he was. But the completed wall kind of took the wind out of their sails. the fact that the Jews did not rebel against the overlord nor did Nehemiah try and set himself up as king meant that none of the charges could stick.
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