Commentaria in II Esdrae (Nehemiam)
Chapter 5. Synopsis of the Chapter
At the abundance of the poor and their outcry, Nehemias rebukes the rich and greedy, forbids usury, and pours out his own goods upon the poor.
1. And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. 2. And there were some that said: Our sons and our daughters are many: let us take corn for their price, and eat and live. 3. And there were others that said: Let us pledge our fields, and vineyards, and houses, and take corn in the famine. 4. And others said: Let us borrow money for the king’s tribute, and give our fields and vineyards: 5. and now as the flesh of our brethren, so is our flesh: and as their children, so are our children. Behold, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters, and of our daughters some are servants already, and we have not wherewith they can be redeemed, and others possess our fields and our vineyards. 6. And I was exceedingly angry when I heard their cry according to these words: 7. and my heart thought with me, and I rebuked the nobles and the magistrates, and said to them: Do you each exact usury of your brethren? And I assembled a great assembly against them, 8. and said to them: We, as you know, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, who were sold to the nations, according to our ability: and will you then sell your brethren, and shall we redeem them? And they held their peace, and found not what to answer. 9. And I said to them: The thing that you do is not good: why do you not walk in the fear of our God, that we may not be reproached by the nations our enemies? 10. And I, and my brethren, and my servants, have lent many people money and corn: let us not demand this in common, and let us remit what is owing to us. 11. Restore to them this day their fields, and their vineyards, and their oliveyards, and their houses: yea, and give the hundredth part of the money, of the corn, of the wine, and of the oil, which you were wont to exact of them, for them. 12. And they said: We will restore, and will require nothing of them: and so will we do as thou sayest. And I called the priests, and made them swear that they would do according as I had said. 13. I shook also my lap, and said: So may God shake out every man that doth not perform this word, from his house, and from his labours: so may he be shaken out and emptied. And all the multitude said: Amen. And they praised God. The people therefore did as had been said. 14. And from the day that the king commanded me to be governor in the land of Juda, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of king Artaxerxes, for twelve years, I and my brethren did not eat the allowances that were due to the governors: 15. but the former governors that were before me burdened the people, and took of them for bread, and wine, and money, daily forty sicles; yea, and their servants oppressed the people. But I did not so, for the fear of God: 16. yea rather I laboured in the work of the wall, and bought no land, and all my servants were gathered together to the work. 17. The Jews also and the magistrates, a hundred and fifty men, and they that came to us from the nations that are round about us, were at my table. 18. And there was prepared for me daily one ox, and six choice rams, besides fowls, and between ten days divers wines, and other things in abundance: yet notwithstanding I required not the allowances of my government: for the people were very much impoverished. 19. Remember me, O my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.
3. Let us pledge our houses—that is, we will pledge them to the moneylenders. For they had recently returned from Babylon, and had consumed everything on the journey and in the building of the city. Wherefore they laboured under great poverty, and to relieve it they thought of pledging their goods, indeed of selling their sons and daughters (verse 2).
4. For the king’s tribute—that is, that we may obtain what we must pay every year in place of tribute to the king of the Persians.
5. And now (understand: we are very harshly and unjustly drained by the richer, for) as the flesh of our brethren, so is our flesh; and as their children, so are our children.—As if to say: We and our children here serve a hard servitude like that which our brethren, that is, our fellow tribesmen who remained in Babylon and Persia, serve, and this through the injustice and wrong of the richer Jews, who oppress us their poor brethren by usury and by the purchase of our children, as follows. So we are in a worse place than our brethren in Persia: for they are afflicted by foreign and idolatrous Persians; we by our fellow tribesmen, who are our brethren in blood and religion. For it is more bitter to be tormented by a friend and brother than by an enemy and stranger. For although the law, Deuteronomy 23:19, commands that loans be given gratis to brethren, they exact great usury from us for a loan; so we are forced to sell or hand over our sons and daughters into servitude, that we may pay this usury. So Cajetan, Vatablus and others.
7. And I assembled against them (the rich usurers) a great assembly—that is, a great gathering of the whole people, that, reproved and put to shame by me before it, they might give up their usury.
11. The hundredth part of the money, of the corn, of the wine, and of the oil.—“The hundredth part,” that is, the usury by which, namely, each month one for a hundred was exacted for the use of the loan, or usury; that is, twelve for a hundred each year. Hence it is clear that this usury was common among the Jews, as it afterwards was among the Romans; and it was heavy, since in it every year an eighth part of the capital sum borrowed was paid; for twelve, for example, is an eighth part of a hundred gold pieces, because eight times twelve make 96, to which add four, and you will have a hundred. Hence in the eighth year the usury almost equalled the capital itself, and so doubled it, so that for a loan of a hundred gold pieces almost two hundred had to be paid, precisely 196, and after another eight years it tripled it, and after another eight quadrupled it. When half of this usury, six for a hundred, was paid yearly, it was called semisses, or half usury; when four for a hundred were paid, it was called trientes; when only one, it was named unciales, which was the least usury, as that of twelve was the greatest.
Give for them—that is, remit to them, and moreover return and restore what was received, as went before; hence these words are not in the Hebrew, because they are understood to be repeated from the preceding. Since usury is against commutative justice, it does not pass into the ownership of the usurer; hence it must be restored by him to the one who gave it in return for the loan.
12. And they said (moved partly by shame, partly by the authority and example of Nehemias, partly by love of the public good, partly by pity for the poor): We will restore (the fields, vineyards and oliveyards which the poor pledged to us for the loan received, and handed over as pledges, until the loan We will require nothing of them—that is, we will exact nothing as usury.
And I called the priests (guilty of this usury), and (privately, out of reverence for the priesthood, lest I should shame them before the people) made them swear—that they would remit the usuries, and in this matter go before laymen and usurers by the example of justice and charity.
13. So may God shake out every man that doth not perform this word, from his house (so that, stripped of his house, he may be forced to wander as an exile and vagabond) and from his labours—that he may be deprived of the fruit and reward of his labours, as I have shaken out my lap.
For those who shake others out by usury deserve themselves to be shaken out of their houses and possessions, to be exiled and made poor, as often happens by the just judgment of God.
14. And from the day that the king commanded me to be governor in the land of Juda, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, I and my brethren did not eat the allowances that were due to the governors.—Governors were wont to receive from the citizens of Jerusalem over whom they ruled allowances, that is, the necessaries of life, for example a fixed measure of corn, wine, oil, money, etc.; but Nehemias refused to receive them, both lest he burden the poor people with this contribution, and to give the rich an example of remitting usuries; and he did this for twelve years, during which he ruled at Jerusalem as governor: whence many think that he stayed continuously at Jerusalem for twelve years. But this does not sufficiently answer to the desire of the king and queen, who wished Nehemias to return to them at once, within the short time appointed by him, as was said in chapter 2, verse 6. Therefore it seems that Nehemias, shortly after the work of the walls was finished, that is, after 52 days, as is said in chapter 6, verse 15, returned to the king, and left a deputy in his place, or vice-governor, at Jerusalem to rule the people. For Artaxerxes had appointed him governor of Jerusalem for 12 years, whether he was absent or present. Wherefore, even absent, he could by right exact these allowances from the people as the stipend of his governorship, especially as he was absent by the king’s summons and in his service; but he refused to receive them for the reasons already given. So Salianus and Sanchez. This will be clearer at verse 17 and chapter 12, verse 6, where Nehemias, returning to Jerusalem in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, corrected many abuses which had crept into Jerusalem during the twelve years in which he had been absent.
15. But the former governors that were before me (appointed by Esdras by the king’s command, as was said in 1 Esdras 7:25) burdened the people, and took of them for bread, and wine (a fixed measure of bread and wine), and money daily forty sicles.—From the Hebrew it is clear that besides bread and wine they took forty sicles in money; for it reads thus: They burdened the people for bread and wine, besides forty sicles of silver, which make forty Brabant florins, or 40 French francs, which was an immense sum and impossible for so poor a people to pay.
16. Yea rather I laboured in the work of the wall.—In chapter 3 we hear of no particular place assigned to Nehemias for building, but he himself, as leader, was present with all who were building in the place assigned to each, and presided over all, directing, urging, and helping the works by himself and his own men; and bought no land—as if to say: I did not increase my property and estates, but rather spent myself and all that was mine for the city’s and the citizens’ advantage. This was a wonderful self-restraint in Nehemias, no less than his charity and liberality towards his citizens. For many leaders and governors plunder their subjects to enrich themselves; hence in a few years of their governorship they return home laden with wealth. Nehemias did not so, whose memory therefore is in benediction. Thomas More did the same: though he was Chancellor of England for several years, he did not increase his property or annual income by more than two hundred gold pieces, as Stapleton relates in his Life.
17. The Jews also and the magistrates (whom I had appointed throughout Judea by the king’s command), a hundred and fifty men, and they that came to us from the nations (ambassadors of the neighbouring nations) that are round about us, were at my table.—As if to say: I fed all these liberally at my own cost, or from my own wealth, which the king had given me. Hence it is clear that Nehemias did not remain twelve years in Jerusalem. For he could not have furnished such expenses daily to so many guests for so many years, indeed he would have exhausted the royal wealth.
18. Between ten days divers wines.—This place is obscure: hence, first, Pagninus renders and explains it thus, as if to say: These guests consumed in one day as much wine as would have sufficed me and my household for ten days. Second, Vatablus, more fittingly to the Hebrew and Greek, renders: Every tenth day wine was given to all in abundance; but on the other nine days a fixed measure was given. Third, Sanchez: Ten kinds of wine, he says, were served, one each day, so that when the course of ten days was finished, those ten wines had been served, and again and again the same kind and series of wines recurred in the same order.
This opinion is more conformable to the Vulgate version, if you refer the ten not to the wines (for it is unusual and extravagant to serve ten kinds of wine to guests at one banquet, which not even kings and the greatest gluttons did), but to the days, as if to say: Each day various wines were given, and that for ten days, at the end of which the casks were emptied, and other wines of different kinds had likewise to be supplied. Nehemias was therefore a great and magnificent leader, and showed himself outstanding in all things. Truly Bias says: “Office shows the man.” And Cicero, in his book On Old Age, says of the great Cato the Censor: “He is a good senator, a good general, a good farmer.” The same, and more, you may say of Nehemias.
19. Remember me, etc.—As if to say: Grant me, O Lord, such things as I have granted to thy people and mine, that thou mayest be as liberal to me as I have been to them.