Nehemiah Helps the Poor Israelites
Nehemiah 5: 1-19
445 BC During the ministry of Nehemiah (see Bt – The Third Return).
Compiled by: The Chronicler from the Ezra and Nehemiah Memoirs
(see Ac – Ezra-Nehemiah From a Jewish Perspective: The Nehemiah Memoirs).
No sooner had the external difficulties been resolved than internal ones reared their ugly heads. Even though Nehemiah’s workforce had essentially been cut in half – with half the men working while the other half stayed on guard-duty – progress on the wall continued. Yet, at the end of a typical day, Nehemiah’s workers had neither the time nor the energy left to attend to many of their personal responsibilities, such as paying their taxes and gathering enough food to feed their families.
This led many of the people into financial difficulties. They had debts that they could not pay right away, or they had to borrow money to pay their taxes. Some of them had to go outside the City to work as hired hands harvesting other people’s crops. In addition, Nehemiah’s order for the workers to remain in Jerusalem (Nehemiah 4:16), evidently had much to do with aggravating the situation. Many people in Yerushalayim and the surrounding areas were going hungry, and they ended up being exploited by those who were more fortunate. These economic pressures created by the rebuilding of the wall brought out problems long simmering under the surface that needed to be addressed before the project could proceed. They cried out for help.
ADONAI had given clear instructions to His people to be generous to the poor. However, Nehemiah discovered that despite the work on the wall and the Temple, the people were not obeying the commandments that Ha’Shem had given Isra’el. In spite of the new start in the Land, many Jews were still reluctant to live in the way YHVH had instructed. They were taking unfair advantage of the poor for personal gain.245
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