1
Penitence Nehemiah 5:1-19
1 And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews.
The Jews were in the process of an amazing time of progress under Nehemiah as the walls of the city were growing. There was a sense of excitement in the city. Soon they would have a complete wall, sturdy gates, and be able to live with a little more freedom.
But all was not well. While things had been going better for the Jews as a whole, there was an area of discontent.
The Persian Monarchy demanded that taxes be paid. And they were apparently quite high. People who had property had to pay taxes on it.
We can understand this better when we go to ancient documents.
Darius I declares in the Bīsotūn(Behistun) inscription (ll. 17-20) that the countries of the Persian empire brought him tribute. In 519 BC he established a new system of state taxes. The land was precisely measured in parasangs and classified according to crops cultivated and to the size of the harvest (Hdt., 6.42).
All the satrapies were obliged to pay in silver, taxes which had been strictly set for each province on the basis of the cultivated land and its fertility, as calculated by the average harvest yield for several years in accordance with the registry of the real estate for individual provinces. Such real estate documents have been preserved from Babylonia. They contain the number of fruit trees, the kinds of crops, and the extent of arable land. As seen from Herodotus (3.89), such a reform was made at the beginning of Darius’s reign, after he had quelled the revolts in 522-521 BCE. Since the earliest cadastral documents from Babylonia are dated to the third year of Darius I’s reign, this reform should be dated ca. 519 BCE (see Dandamayev, 1985, pp. 27-29).
Here's how it worked out for the Jews in Jerusalem and surrounding areas: The area of “Across the River”, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, and Cyprus, had to pay 350 talents.
In Greece, A talent of silver was the value of nine man-years of skilled work.
The value of 350 talents was over 2 million day's wages.
What does that mean in today's money? Let's take a $10.00 an hour wage. If you work 8 hours that is $80 a day. Multiply that by 2 million and that comes to $160,000,000.00 taxes due from that province.
The techniques for collecting state taxes are known from the documents of the business house of Murashu in Babylonia, among which are a large quantity of receipts of payment of assessments from the allotments granted by the kings. The assessments were paid in silver and in kind (barley, flour, small livestock, beer, etc.). As seen from documents of the fifth century BCE, many inhabitants of Babylonia had to mortgage their lands in order to obtain silver for the payment of taxes and were sometimes forced to hand over their children into debt slavery.
Now I am going to do a little of speculating here. I think that those who were having the greatest troubles with the taxation were the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had left behind to keep the land after the destruction of Jerusalem. These people would have been the laborer class. They had kept up the lands and preserved some from foreign takeover for some time now. But a taxation based on property ownership would have hit them hard.
However, it is likely that those who came from Babylon were more well to do. The carried their wealth in gold and silver, and the property that they had would have more likely been relatively small portions in the city of Jerusalem itself. So their taxes may have been less than their poorer fellow countrymen.
It is only natural that those with money would help those without any. The only problem was that they were profiting from the dire straits of their brothers.
Well, that was not the only problem. The other part of that was that they were going against the Word of God.
Exodus 22:25 (NKJV)
25 "If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest.
This is repeated 3 more times in different books.
Leviticus 25:36-37 (BBE)
36 Take no interest from him, in money or in goods, but have the fear of your God before you, and let your brother make a living among you.
37 Do not take interest on the money which you let him have or on the food which you give him.
Now it was not just the Jews who were having this problem with taxation. As we have seen it was across the empire.
But the Jews were called by God to be different.
They were to take care of their own when things were not going well.
Deuteronomy 15:11 (KJV)
11 For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command you, saying, You shalt open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor, and to your needy, in your land.
This was not all. God had given them the jubilee system.
Deuteronomy 15:12-13 (NKJV)
12 "If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.
13 And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed;
Deuteronomy 15:1-8 (NKJV)
1 "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts.
2 And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the LORD'S release.
3 Of a foreigner you may require it; but you shall give up your claim to what is owed by your brother,
4 except when there may be no poor among you; for the LORD will greatly bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance--
5 only if you carefully obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe with care all these commandments which I command you today.
6 For the LORD your God will bless you just as He promised you; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; you shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over you.
7 "If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother,
8 but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs.
Interestingly enough,
Deuteronomy 31:10-13 (NKJV)
10 And Moses commanded them, saying: "At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles,
11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
12 Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law,
13 and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess."
This was not the only cycle. There was the seven sevens, or the year of jubilee.
Leviticus 25:10-15 (BBE)
10 And let this fiftieth year be kept holy, and say publicly that everyone in the land is free from debt: it is the Jubilee, and every man may go back to his heritage and to his family.
11 Let this fiftieth year be the Jubilee: no seed may be planted, and that which comes to growth of itself may not be cut, and the grapes may not be taken from the uncared-for vines.
12 For it is the Jubilee, and it is holy to you; your food will be the natural increase of the field.
13 In this year of Jubilee, let every man go back to his heritage.
14 And in the business of trading goods for money, do no wrong to one another.
15 Let your exchange of goods with your neighbours have relation to the number of years after the year of Jubilee, and the number of times the earth has given her produce.
As a matter of fact, all debts and transfers of property were to be regulated by the 7 and 49 year cycles. The value of property was to be the time used until the Jubilee. After that all properties, except for houses in cities, reverted to the original owners. This was to stabilize and prevent massive accumulations of wealth and the resulting poverty on the other side.
This law actually was connected with some of the first women's property rights.
Numbers 27:1-11 (KJV)
1 Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
2 And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
3 Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons.
4 Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father.
5 And Moses brought their cause before the LORD.
6 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
7 The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.
8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.
9 And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.
10 And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren.
11 And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.
Provision was made for the son-less to pass his property along. But it was to remain in the tribe through the process of Jubilee.
So the situation in Nehemiah's time had been anticipated by God, and provisions for the problem outlined as Israel was coming into the promised land.
To some extent, the disregard for these very laws had been the downfall of Judah.
Jeremiah 34:8-17 (NKJV)
Jeremiah 34:8-17 (NLT)
8 This message came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people, proclaiming freedom for the slaves.
9 He had ordered all the people to free their Hebrew slaves—both men and women. No one was to keep a fellow Judean in bondage.
10 The officials and all the people had obeyed the king’s command,
11 but later they changed their minds. They took back the men and women they had freed, forcing them to be slaves again.
12 So the LORD gave them this message through Jeremiah:
13 “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors long ago when I rescued them from their slavery in Egypt.
14 I told them that every Hebrew slave must be freed after serving six years. But your ancestors paid no attention to me.
15 Recently you repented and did what was right, following my command. You freed your slaves and made a solemn covenant with me in the Temple that bears my name.
16 But now you have shrugged off your oath and defiled my name by taking back the men and women you had freed, forcing them to be slaves once again.
17 “Therefore, this is what the LORD says: Since you have not obeyed me by setting your countrymen free, I will set you free to be destroyed by war, disease, and famine. You will be an object of horror to all the nations of the earth.
This time, though, there was a difference.
When the sin was pointed out, accompanied by the reading of Deuteronomy, as we will see later, the Jews responded positively.
Now all this is not going on in a vacuum. The work is ongoing while these other issues have to be dealt with.
So not only were they restoring the city of Jerusalem, they were also restoring the worship of Jehovah God as he had commanded. And more than that, they were re-establishing their society as God would have it to be.
We see here that God is calling the Jews back to the social norms that he expected from them, and He begins with finances. Actually not really finances as much as greed and selfishness.
What principles have we seen today that we can apply to our situation?
God calls us to have compassion to those who have needs. And I will say, not just financial needs. The Jubilee system was designed that people might be able to progress, but also that they could not become massive overlords. It was God's way of saying, "Everything is mine. You only have it for a while. When you have wealth, use it wisely, for it is yours only until the Jubilee."
The Christian should be very clear that nothing is taken beyond the grave. How we treat people will last into that eternity of Jubilee, when God's people live forever more, their debts all canceled on the cross, and they can live with permanent riches, everlasting friendship and love.
Nehemiah 5:1 (NKJV)
1 And there was a great outcry of the people and their wives against their Jewish brethren.
Nehemiah 5:5 (NKJV)
5 Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and indeed we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been brought into slavery. It is not in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards."
Nehemiah 5:8-9 (NKJV)
8 And I said to them, "According to our ability we have redeemed our Jewish brethren who were sold to the nations. Now indeed, will you even sell your brethren? Or should they be sold to us?" Then they were silenced and found nothing to say.
9 Then I said, "What you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies?
Nehemiah 5:10-12 (NKJV)
10 I also, with my brethren and my servants, am lending them money and grain. Please, let us stop this usury!
11 Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them."
12 So they said, "We will restore it, and will require nothing from them; we will do as you say." Then I called the priests, and required an oath from them that they would do according to this promise.
Nehemiah 5:16 (NKJV)
16 Indeed, I also continued the work on this wall, ......
1