Debt, Land and the Governor's Example

"And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews." Some said: "We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them." Others: "We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth." Others: "We have borrowed money for the king's tribute."

"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, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards."

"And I was very angry." Nehemiah rebukes the nobles and rulers: "Ye exact usury, every one of his brother." He calls a great assembly: we have redeemed our brothers who were sold to the nations, "and will ye even sell your brethren?" "They held their peace, and found nothing to answer."

"Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them." They agree. Nehemiah calls the priests and makes them swear, shakes out his lap: "So God shake out every man from his house… that performeth not this promise." "And all the congregation said, Amen."

"From the time that I was appointed to be their governor… even unto the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes… I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor." Earlier governors burdened the people and took forty shekels of silver besides bread and wine. Nehemiah fed 150 Jews and rulers plus visitors daily: one ox, six choice sheep, fowls, and wine every ten days. "Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people."

Three kinds of distress

Large families short of grain; mortgaged land in famine; loans to pay the royal tax (middat hammelekh). The Persian empire collected tribute in silver and in kind; Yehud's taxes went partly to the satrapy and the king. Drought is the text's explanation; no independent climate record for these years is cited.

Sons and daughters in bondage

Israelite law allowed a debtor's child to serve a creditor for a time (Exodus 21:2–11; Deuteronomy 15:12–18) and forbade charging interest to the poor (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35–37; Deuteronomy 23:19–20). Debt bondage is not chattel slavery, but it was real loss of freedom, and daughters were especially vulnerable (Exodus 21:7). The text gives the families' own words.

"The hundredth"

5:11 asks the creditors to give back "the hundredth" (me'at) of money, grain, wine and oil. Interpretations: a charge of one percent a month (twelve percent a year); a percentage of the produce; or, with a small emendation, "the debt" (mashsha't) itself. Some read it as "stop taking" rather than "give back." The library's Greek (Giguet) has no "hundredth." Modern equivalents like "12% APR" are guesses, not facts.

The governor's table

Persian governors received provisions from their provinces (compare the Persepolis Fortification tablets' rations for officials). Nehemiah's "bread of the governor" was such an allowance. His table of 150 and the daily ox and sheep are the text's figures. Twelve years, from the 20th to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes (445–433 BC), is his first term.

Debt release as policy

Mesopotamian kings proclaimed misharum or andurarum decrees cancelling some debts (Ammisaduqa's edict, c. 1640 BC). Nehemiah's act resembles these more than the Jubilee of Leviticus 25, which has no record of observance. The 'debt release' Echo sets out the parallels and the differences.

A self-portrait

Nehemiah's "Think upon me, my God, for good" (5:19) recurs (13:14, 22, 31). The memoir presents its author favorably, as Near Eastern royal and official inscriptions do. That shapes how readers weigh its account of opponents and reforms.