Nehemiah 5:18
Now that which was prepared for me daily was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine: yet for all this required not I the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people.
After the return from exile Nehemiah rebuked the extortion of the poor while the wall of Jerusalem was still unfinished amid strained and crowded conditions. The heavy bondage upon the people was scarcity of grain because tillage had been neglected in the unsettled country and the divine blessing was not resting on the land because of the selfish course of some who had returned to Judea. In that scarcity the poor had to buy food on credit at exorbitant prices and borrow on interest to pay the heavy taxes imposed by the kings of Persia, while the more wealthy Jews took advantage of their necessities to enrich themselves.
The standard applied in the rebuke was the law given through Moses that every third year a tithe be raised for the benefit of the poor, and that every seventh year agricultural labor cease with the land lying fallow and its spontaneous products left to those in need. Money lent to the poor was to be given without acting as a usurer and without interest on money, food, or anything lent, but with heart and hand opened wide to lend sufficient for need, since the poor would never cease out of the land. Faithfulness in devoting such offerings to relief of the poor and to other benevolent uses keeps fresh that God owns all and gives the opportunity to be channels of blessing, training His people to eradicate selfishness and develop breadth and nobility of character.