What is the cause of their distress? What can have happened to move them so deeply? Have the Samaritans returned to attack the city? Are the walls on which they have spent so much labour overturned and laid low in the dust? No, all without is peaceful, there is no sound of war in the streets, and the hills around stand out brightly in the sunshine, and are untrodden by the foot of any foe. The trouble is at home this time, and as poor Nehemiah listens to the dismal noise, and as he tries to still the shrill cries, that his voice may be heard, and as he watches the people rocking to and fro, as Easterns do when moved by sorrow, he may well feel downcast and disappointed, for a city divided against itself cannot stand, and as Nehemiah listens to the cry, he clearly sees that, at that moment, Jerusalem, the city he loves best on earth, is indeed a divided city.
Who then were these citizens of Jerusalem, these men and these women, who raised the great cry? They were the poorer cla.s.ses of the city; it was a cry of the poor against the rich, a cry like that which was raised all over France at the time of the French Revolution, a cry for bread.
Nehemiah listens carefully to the cry and complaints of the people, and as he does so he feels sure they are not raised without cause. There is undoubtedly great and distressing poverty in the city, and he finds that this may be traced to three princ.i.p.al causes.
(1) The King of Persia had only allowed the returned captives a very small tract of country to live in. The rest of the land was filled up by the Samaritans, the Arabians, the Edomites and other nations who had settled in Palestine whilst the rightful owners were in Babylon.
Consequently, as their families increased, the Jews found this narrow strip of country was not sufficient to maintain them, and, as is always the case, over-population and over-crowding was followed by great poverty.
(2) Then there had evidently been a severe famine, which had made matters worse, for there had been numbers of mouths to feed and barely anything to feed them on. No country is more subject to famine than Palestine, for the harvest there is entirely dependent on the rainfall.
There are but few springs, there is no river but the Jordan, and that runs in a deep ravine; the whole fertility of the country hangs on the amount of rain that falls in autumn and winter. No rain means no corn, no corn means starvation, and the people know it well. Nowhere on earth are there such fervent prayers for rain, prayers which are offered by Turk, Jew, and Christian alike, as there are in Palestine to this very day, if the rainy season is pa.s.sing away and a sufficient quant.i.ty of rain has not fallen.
(3) Then Nehemiah found there was a third cause of distress. Every year, in addition to earning money to keep his wife and children alive, the poor man had to be ready for a visitor, and this visitor never received a very hearty welcome. Once a year there arrived at his door an official sent by the King of Persia. He was the tax-collector, sent to collect the tribute which had to be paid yearly to their master, the great sovereign at Shushan. Whatever else went unpaid, that tribute must be paid; whatever other debts they incurred, that sum must be paid in full, and paid at once.
Over-population, famine, tribute, it was no wonder that the people were so poor.
But the great cry in the streets of Jerusalem was not merely a cry of suffering and distress; it was an angry complaining cry; it was the cry of those who felt that others were to blame for their sorrows.
As Nehemiah walks amongst the weeping crowds, and as he talks to the people one by one, he finds that there are no less than three sets of complainants.
(1) There are the utterly poor people, those who have no private means whatever, but who are entirely dependent on the work of their hands and on the wages they get for that work. These come to Nehemiah and pour out their sorrowful tale. "We," they say, "have large families, for
"We, our sons, and our daughters, are many."
But "Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them," so runs the Psalm, and are not children a heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord?
Yet when the quiver is _more_ than full (for a quiver only held four arrows), and when bread is scarce and work bad, it needs faith to trust the children which the Lord has given to His care, and to feel sure that He who sent them will send the bread to feed them.
"Now," say these overburdened parents to Nehemiah, "we cannot let our children starve. We have been building this wall and earning nothing, but we have had to eat all these weeks; we have been obliged to take up corn for our families lest they should die, and the consequence is we have run very heavily into debt" (ver. 2). That was the first cla.s.s of complainants.
(2) But amongst the weepers Nehemiah found a second cla.s.s, those who had once been somewhat better off, and had, in happier days, owned a little property, and had some means of their own, but who, at the time of the late famine, had got into difficulties. "I," said one, "had a little farm in a village near Jerusalem." "I," said another, "was the owner of a nice little vineyard or oliveyard on the hill side," "I," said a third, "built a house in the city on my return from captivity, and hoped to leave it to my children." "But so terrible was our distress in the famine," say these men, "that we were obliged to borrow money of our neighbours the rich Jews in Jerusalem. They were willing to lend the money, but they required security for it, and we were compelled to pledge or mortgage our little property to these men, and now times are still bad, and we see no hope whatever that we shall be able to buy our little possessions back again" (ver. 3).
(3) But the shrillest cries of all came from the third cla.s.s of complainants. These were men who, up to a certain point, resembled the second cla.s.s. They had once possessed a little property, but in the time of famine they had parted with their lands, their houses, and their vineyards like the rest. But the story of the third cla.s.s did not end here, these had since then got into still worse difficulties. The tax-collector had come round to collect the tribute for Artaxerxes, and he had demanded immediate payment. They had, however, nothing to give him. What could they do? They were obliged once more to borrow money of their rich neighbours, who lent it to them at the rate of 12 per cent, (one eighth part of the money to be paid monthly). And what pledge, what security did these n.o.bles require for their money? The poor people had already lost their houses and their vineyards, there was nothing left to them but their children, and actually the son or the daughter was pledged or mortgaged to the rich money-lender. If the heavy interest is not paid, at any moment the child may be seized, and carried off to the n.o.ble"s house to be brought up as a slave. "Nay," cry some of the mothers in the crowd, "our case is worst of all; some of our daughters have been taken as slaves already, and we have no power to redeem them.
Yet we love our children just as much as these rich people love theirs, they are just as dear to us as theirs are to them" (ver. 5).
"And then," says Nehemiah,"when I had heard their cry and listened to their tale, I was very angry." But surely it was wrong of Nehemiah to be angry. Is not anger a bad thing? Is it not one of the works of the devil, which we are bidden to lay aside?
Yet what says St. Paul? "Be ye angry, and sin not." So it is possible to be angry, and yet to be sinless. And we read, Mark iii. 5, that, in the synagogue at Capernaum, the Lord Jesus looked round on the hard-hearted Pharisees with anger; and in Him was no sin.
Nehemiah was very angry, yet Nehemiah sinned not in being so, for it was anger at sin, anger at the wrongdoing which was bringing disgrace on his nation, anger at the conduct which was offending G.o.d and doing harm to G.o.d"s cause. It was righteous anger against the cruelty and selfishness of those who, in those hard times, had profited from the poverty and distress of their poor fellow countrymen.
For some time Nehemiah did nothing, but he carefully turned the matter over in his mind. He says, "I consulted with myself," or as it is in the margin, "My heart consulted in me." We can picture him pacing up and down, saying again and again, What shall I do? What is the wisest course to take? How can this great evil be stopped? Doubtless, too, he took this trouble, as he had taken all his other anxieties and cares, and laid it before the G.o.d of heaven.
Then he sends for the n.o.bles and all those who had oppressed the people, and he gives them very plainly his mind on the matter:
"I rebuked the n.o.bles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother."
And thereby they had broken the law, for no Jew was allowed to take interest, or increase, of another Jew, much less to exact usury: see Exod. xxii. 25; Ezek. xviii. 8, 17.
The Hebrew was to look upon every other Hebrew as his brother, and to treat him as such. There was to be brotherly love in time of misfortune, such love as would prevent the receiving of increase from the one who was in trouble. With regard to the mortgaging of land, it does not seem that these rich men had actually broken the law, such pledges were allowed, provided that the property mortgaged was returned in the year of jubilee. But, whilst they had not broken the letter of the law, these Jews had certainly acted in a hard, self-seeking way, showing no sympathy whatever for the sorrows of those around them.
How different was this from the generous conduct of Nehemiah himself!
All the time of his government he drew no taxes or contributions from the people over whom he ruled, as other governors did, and as his predecessors in Jerusalem had done. Eastern governors in those days, like Turkish governors now, were accustomed to farm their provinces.
That is to say, the king allowed them no salary, but he put the taxation of the people in their hands. A certain fixed sum was to be sent to him every year from the province; and whatever the governor could grind or squeeze out of the people, over and above this stated amount, went into his own pocket and formed his salary. Jerusalem now-a-days rings with many a cry of distress caused by the unjust means used by the pacha to increase his stipend by putting fresh burdens on the people. The former Jewish governors had made as much as forty shekels a day, or 1,800 a year out of the people in their province. But when Nehemiah came to Jerusalem, he found the people so poverty-stricken and oppressed that he would not take a single penny for himself. It is probable that his salary as cup-bearer had been continued, and on this he lived and kept his household going all the time of his government. Not only so; not only did Nehemiah pay all his private expenses, but he kept open house for the people of Jerusalem; every day 150 of the rulers and chief men dined with him, besides all the visitors to Jerusalem, Jews from other countries, strangers from foreign nations who were staying but a short time in the city, all of whom were invited to the governor"s house, and sat down at the governor"s table.
Nehemiah himself gives us his daily bill of fare, ver. 18.
1 ox.
6 fat sheep.
Fowls without number.
A fresh supply of wine of all kinds stored in every tenth day.
It was no small expense to have above 150 men to dinner daily, yet for all this Nehemiah took not a penny from his province, so touched was he to the heart by the poverty of the people. Not only so, but all the time the walls were being built he toiled away, and allowed all his household servants to work both night and day, and yet looked for no payment or compensation, ver. 16. Then besides all this, Nehemiah had been most generous in the time of the famine; he had supplied the poor people with money and with corn, and yet he had firmly refused to allow them to pledge or mortgage their lands, much less their children, ver. 10.
And Nehemiah tells us the secret of his consistent conduct; he tells us why he differed so much from the governors who went before him. A strong power held him back from sin.
"So did not I, because of the fear of G.o.d."
Thus Nehemiah had a right to speak, for he practised what he preached.
But in spite of this, his private appeal to the n.o.bles appears to have been in vain. They seem to have given no answer, to have taken no notice of his appeal, and to have given him no reason to think that they intended to change their conduct.
So he set a great a.s.sembly against them. He called a monster meeting of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, rich and poor, for he felt that if their conduct was publicly exposed and condemned, they might possibly be ashamed to continue it.
Nehemiah"s speech at the meeting was very much to the point. He first tried to shame the n.o.bles by reminding them that whilst he, ever since his return, had been spending his money in buying back those Jews who had been sold into slavery to the heathen round, they on the other hand had actually been doing the very opposite, bringing their fellow citizens into slavery to themselves. Was this right, or fair, or just?
The argument told, no one could answer it, there was dead silence, ver.
8.
Now, says Nehemiah, consider: "Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our G.o.d?" Ought ye not to be careful in your conduct, kind, and just, and generous in your dealing? And why?
"Because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies."
Because you Jews are G.o.d"s people, and all these heathen round will judge your G.o.d by what you are. You make a profession of religion, you claim to have high motives; but if they see you grasping, greedy, hard, like themselves, what will they think of your religion? Surely they will say, "These Jews are no better than ourselves, their religion cannot be worth much."
Now, says Nehemiah, remembering all this, bearing in mind the disgrace you are bringing upon the name of Jew, I call upon you at once to give up this practice of mortgaging and pledge-taking. Not only so, but I bid you restore at once the vineyards and the oliveyards, the fields and the houses, you have taken from these poor people. I bid you also return the interest they have paid you (the eighth part of the money), and I call upon you, in every way you can, to undo the evil you have done already, and for the future to do unto others as you would they should do to you, vers. 10, 11.
Nehemiah"s earnest words prevailed,
"Then said they, We will restore them."
This promise was followed by a very curious act on the part of Nehemiah.
"I shook my lap."
The lap is what the Latins called the _sinus_, a fold in the bosom of the tunic, which was used as a pocket. Eastern-like, Nehemiah used a sign to show what will happen to any man who shall break the promise he had just made. G.o.d will cast him forth as a homeless wanderer, emptied of all his possessions, all his ill-gotten wealth. He shall be void or empty, just as Nehemiah"s pocket was void or empty, ver. 13.
"And all the congregation said, Amen."
Then, instead of the great cry of distress, was heard the great shout of joy, for
They "praised the Lord."