Nehemiah Chapters 5-6
Chapter 5 5:1 Up to this point Nehemiah’s challenges as a spiritual leader focused primarily on those outside of Judah. In this chapter he faces a new challenge, problems which were caused by God’s professed people. Evidently the people in Judah faced a food shortage (5:2 “Let us get grain that we may eat and live”). In order to get this grain, the people were forced to mortgage their fields, vineyards, and homes (5:3). Others had to borrow money from their Jewish brothers to pay property taxes to King Artaxerxes (5:4). This problem was compounded by the fact that they were charged exorbitant interest rates by their own Jewish brethren. “The troubles are real enough. Verse 2 reveals a natural tendency to argue that too much was being sacrificed to Nehemiah’s project. ‘After all’, as such citizens might have put it, ‘you can’t eat walls’” (Kidner p. 95). 5:2 The size of these Jewish families had increased, but their food production had not increased accordingly. 5:3 With all financial resources exhausted, there was but one recourse open to them if they were to continue to eat---mortgaged homes and farms. 5:4 Despite the poverty of the common people, taxes levied by the Persian king still had to be paid. With no money to meet these obligations, more and more mortgages were issued on property; and family inheritances were being lost by default with ever increasing speed. 5:5 Things had become so bad that children, sons, and daughters were being sold into slavery to cover unpaid debts (Exodus 21:1-11). “Expenses exceeded income; land had been lost through foreclosures. There was no way to redeem those already taken as slaves, nor to prevent others from being enslaved. It was a heart-rending cry that came to the ears of a sympathetic governor” (Winters p. 100). 1. Even some commentators argue that all this work on the wall had taken men from the fields, and hence the work on the wall was partly to blame for this economic crisis. Such is often a typical response to
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