Rebuild: Nehemiah 5

Notes:

Self-Destructive Behavior

Enemies surround them. Enemies laughing at the situation. These people are going into self-destructive behavior.

Quick Corruption

3 Groups from verses 2, 3, and 4

1st Group: Poor landless farmers

2nd: Those who have pledged fields, vineyards, and houses to get food, exacerbated by drought-caused famine.

3rd: Borrow in order to pay the Persian Royal tax. Herodius: 350 talents of silver for the fifth satrapy, i.e. Trans-Euphrates.

v. 4 And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards.

v. 4 re. the King’s Tax:

Twenty Million Darics/year

Daric=Soldier’s Monthly Wage

Melted gold and silver and stashed away. At Susa alone Alexander the Great found [270 tons] of coined gold and 1,200 tons of silver.

Proof this taxation was real!

Known interest= 20%

Examples of 60 and 100%

“And interest rates were high. They rose from 20 per cent in the time of Cyrus and Cambyses to 40-50 per cent at the end of the fifth century.” Davis

v. 5: Creditors are taking advantage of their own kind!. “Our flesh is like the flesh of their kinsmen, our children are like theirs.”

v. 5 Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

Derek Kilner: “Nehemiah’s charge is therefore that (in our terms) the lenders were behaving like pawnbrokers—and harsh ones at that—instead of like brothers.”

Dale Davis: “the problem was.. debt-slavery—with well-off Jews playing loan sharks and then possessing the pledge and collateral that needier Jews put up when the latter were unable to pay the principle.”

Klein: “A single episode of a more long-term economic problem in which some members of the upper class were usurious toward those who took out loans and deprived them of their land and forced their children into labor through a ruthless application of the rules of borrowing.”

v. 6: Direct confrontation with the Upper Class

I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. 7 I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother.” And I held a great assembly against them

“We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!”

Upper class sells their own “brothers.”

“Brothers” v. 1, 5, 7-8

v. 9: Confrontation

9 So I said, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? 10 Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain.

The Plan:

v. 11-12a: Reparations

Let us abandon this exacting of interest. 11 Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.” 12 Then they said, “We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.”

v. 12b-13: Vows

And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. 13 I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, “So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said “Amen” and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.

How are you leading to self-destructive behavior?

Individually.

Corporately

Nehemiah the Leader

Extract from Nehemiahs diary?

Self-congratulatory

Sacrifice

14 Moreover, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowance of the governor. 15 The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God.

Filled Interesting information:

12 year assessment of his rule.

445-433BC. Then returned back to Susa.

Klein: “Nehemiah provided enough meat to feed 600-800 people.”

Rational for Sacrifice:

15b: “I did not do so, because of the fear of God.”

Perseverance

v. 16 I also persevered in the work on this wall, and we acquired no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work.

??

17 Moreover, there were at my table 150 men, Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us.

Generosity

18 Now what was prepared at my expense for each day was one ox and six choice sheep and birds, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I did not demand the food allowance of the governor, because the service was too heavy on this people. 19 Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.

Nehemiah 5:19 “Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.”

Jesus the Leader