Nehemiah 5:6 Commentary and Bible Study

Nehemiah is thunderstruck. ‘I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words.’ He is appalled at such behaviour by one Jew towards another Jew. He took counsel with himself – he carefully reflected on the situation before acting. The nobles were behaving utterly selfishly and although they could make a case for charging interest of one another, it was entirely against the spirit of mutual care and compassion that God expected from the nation. Nehemiah knows that he has to confront the nobles for this and bring them to be ashamed of what they have done. He therefore lays bare their guilt in a way that they cannot deny. They exact usury, they charge their brethren – fellow Jews – interest on their loans. All such personal gain should have been forgotten about and help extended. Who makes one rich and another poor? The rich wanted to take the credit for their position, when so much was out of their hands. Though he had the authority to deal with it himself, Nehemiah convenes a great assembly to add force to his words. He makes these charge in front of many others in order to bring the nobles to shame. The whole assembly of families must all be involved in the action he is about to press for. He lays down the charges, all that has been happening: the selling of children and families, the loss of property, and there was no defence. ‘They found nothing to answer.’ They put up no representative. Why was this? Well they were rather under conviction. One of the good things about this narrative, in spite of the terrible things the nobles and the family heads had been doing – just making money out of the people, to their detriment – is that they are not going to respond like the Israelites so often do in their history. They are not going to ignore their prophets and their leaders, and to ignore the reproofs. This particular generation of returnees in Jerusalem are going to listen and respond. ‘They made no defence of themselves.’ So having laid the charges, Nehemiah goes on and presses the consequences of their action, the damage.