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Nehemiah 5:11

Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the grain, the wine, and the oil, that you exact of them.

All Commentaries on Nehemiah 5:11 Go To Nehemiah 5

Bede

AD 735

As the most excellent leader of the heavenly militia and “wise architect” of God’s city, he first of all declared that he himself had done what he wished the nobles and magistrates of the people to do, namely, to give alms to the poor and seek nothing from them except faithfulness to God’s law and the building of his city. In this passage, we do not need to scrutinize the allegorical meaning but to observe the literal meaning of the text itself by performing it as diligently as we can, namely, so that quite apart from the daily fruits of almsgiving, we should take care whenever a general time of famine and destitution has afflicted the people, not only to give poor people what we can but also to forgive that tribute that we have been accustomed to exact from our subjects as though by right, in order that the Father might forgive us our debts too.

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20