Nehemiah 5:3

Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.

The cry recorded here was raised by the poor Jews in Jerusalem after the return of the exiles from Babylon, while the wall of the city was still unfinished. Tillage had been neglected in the unsettled state of the country, and because of the selfish course of some who had returned to Judea the Lord's blessing was not resting upon their land. The result was failed crops, famine, and scarcity of grain, a dearth that left families without enough food.

Short of food, poor families were obliged to mortgage and pledge their lands, vineyards, and houses to buy corn and grain for food. They had to obtain provisions on credit at exorbitant prices and on costly terms, putting their property at risk. Those mortgages added to their distress and drove them into financial ruin and loss.

At the same time they were compelled to borrow money on interest to pay the heavy taxes and tribute imposed by the kings of Persia. Their debts thus arose from necessity, crop failure, hardship, scarcity, and heavy taxes. They arose not from idleness, indolence, or wastefulness.

Wealthier Jews, though of the same nation and children of the same covenant, took advantage of the necessities of the poor to enrich themselves. They exacted a high rate of interest and took mortgages on the lands of the poor, going directly contrary to God's commands. In this way they gradually reduced the unfortunate debtors to the deepest poverty, forcing many to sell sons and daughters into servitude with no hope of redeeming either children or lands.

Divine law given through Moses had required that every third year a tithe be raised for the benefit of the poor. It had also required that every seventh year agricultural labor should cease, the land lie fallow, and its spontaneous products be left to those in need. Faithfulness in devoting these offerings to the relief of the poor and to other benevolent uses would have kept fresh before the people the truth of God's ownership of all and their opportunity to be channels of blessing, training Israel away from selfishness and developing breadth and nobility of character.

The same law had forbidden acting as a usurer toward His poor people and lending upon usury of money, food, or anything lent. It had forbidden hardening the heart or shutting the hand against a poor brother, commanding instead to open the hand wide and surely lend him sufficient for his need, because the poor would never cease out of the land. This complaint belongs to the appeal of the poor and oppressed to Nehemiah for redress, which he answered by defending them and compelling the wrongdoers to remove the reproach resting upon them.

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