Devotional Nehemiah 5: Social Injustice and the Forgiveness of Debts Devotional on Nehemiah 5: The people's protest against the nobles' usury, Nehemiah's rebuke, and the restitution of property as an example of justice. Topics: Devotional, Old Testament.

Devotional Nehemiah 5: Social Injustice and the Forgiveness of Debts

Today, continuing with our meditations on the book of Nehemiah, after the Jews continued rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem while protecting themselves from the surrounding enemies, the people, especially the women, cried out to God and complained to Nehemiah. For while all the families were helping to build the wall, many of them had no bread to eat due to the usury of the nobles and officials.

Some families complained that they were hungry because they did not even have wheat to make bread.

Others complained that they no longer owned their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and houses, as they had mortgaged them to buy wheat.

Still others complained that they had nothing left and had to yield their daughters into slavery to buy wheat so they could feed their sons and daughters—for Jewish families were large!

All this happened because they borrowed money from their fellow countrymen—even to pay taxes on their properties to the king. Because of these debts, they suffered at the hands of their fellow countrymen who took advantage of their situation to charge interest, which many could not pay. They were thus forced into slavery after selling all their possessions to their creditors.

Nehemiah summoned the priests and nobles and called everyone together for an assembly to rebuke them for their hypocrisy toward their brothers. He condemned them for committing the same atrocities that the Gentiles had committed against the people during their captivity in Babylon and the Persian Empire. He reminded them that they had to buy back their own brothers from the hands of the Gentiles, yet now they were doing the same thing to their own brethren: charging very high interest to the point of forcing them to sell all their property and become slaves just to pay their debts and feed their families. Charging interest on loans was a practice strictly forbidden by the Law of Moses, yet they were doing it anyway.

In the end, Nehemiah made them promise and swear before the priests and the congregation that they would forgive the debts of their brothers and return their property so they could once again sustain their families. If they failed to do so, God would shake out every person from their house who did not fear Him or act according to His will.

This is something we still see today. Most private corporations charge ridiculous interest rates to the population, even knowing they are facing economic hardship due to inflation caused by the pandemic and wars. The wealthy take advantage of the situation to accumulate more money and assets at the expense of others’ misfortune.

As Christians, we must do precisely the opposite. We must be outraged by such behavior among our brothers and not allow injustice to prevail. We must fight for the rights of our brothers and condemn the actions of exploiters.

We must be the light of the world and demonstrate God’s love to the world through our conduct and practice.

When we lend money to a brother or sister, we should not charge interest. We should only collect what we lent—nothing more and nothing less—to set an example of how a Christian ought to behave.

It is deeply saddening to see what the wealthy often do to accumulate more riches at the expense of others’ misery. But we are called by God the Father and Jesus Christ to be different and to lead others through our example.