Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.
All Commentaries on Nehemiah 5:5 Go To Nehemiah 5
Bede
AD 735
The people desired to construct the city wall but were being hindered from the holy work by the severity of the famine. This famine had been caused not only by a scarcity of crops but also by the greed of the rulers, since they were demanding greater taxes from these people than they were able to pay. We see that this occurs among us in the same manner every day. For how many are there among God’s people who willingly desire to obey the divine commands but are hindered from being able to fulfill what they desire not only by lack of temporal means and by poverty but also by the examples of those who seem to be endowed with the garb of religion but who exact an immense tax and weight of worldly goods from those whom they claim to be in charge of while giving nothing for their eternal salvation, either by teaching them or by providing them with examples of good living or by devoting effort to works of piety for them? Would that some Nehemiah (i.e., a “consoler from the Lord”) might come in our own days and restrain our errors, kindle our breasts to love of the divine and strengthen our hands by turning them away from our own pleasures to establishing Christ’s city! But we should observe according to the literal meaning that the unhappy outcry of the afflicted people was attended by a threefold distinction. For some, compelled by the famine, were proposing to sell their own children to the more wealthy for food; others, sparing their children, wished rather to give up their fields and own homes for food; and some, by contrast, prohibiting the sale of both children and fields, were urging that they should merely borrow money for the king’s taxes, giving their fields and vineyards as a pledge until a fruitful supply of crops returned and they could restore the moneylenders what they had borrowed.
