Nehemiah 5

Neh 5:7 After serious thought, I rebuked the nobles and rulers, and said to them, "Each of you is exacting usury from his brother." So I called a great assembly against them.

We are going to take a break from the outline of ministry to deal with this new problem in Israel. Because everybody was fully dedicated to working on the walls, nobody was working to make money. This became a problem when they had to pay for food and clothing. What ended up happening is the poor Jews would sell the children to the rich Jews (Rulers) in order to make sure their children would have food and shelter. The children would become full time servants. This went on until finally, the people could not take it anymore. The poor Jews wanted their children back and they needed a way to pay off their homes.

Nehemiah took time. "After serious thought" he came up with a solution. He was going to rebuke the nobles and rulers. Most of the nobles and rulers were not working on the wall anyways. They were also crafty business men. We figure this because, they too went to Babylon in captivity. However, they left Babylon rich and esteemed as nobles. These Jews thrived under the Babylonian market system and now they had come to the home land to retire. Here they saw another opportunity to make some profit. Being the crafty business men that they were they started to buy themselves servants from their fellow Jews. I am sure they made themselves look like this was their way of giving to the wall. Nehemiah would not have it.

Nehemiah rebuked, which is something we may all have to do when push comes to shove. It is not wrong to rebuke. It simply needs to be done in the right context at the right time. Nehemiah would no longer allow these men to fight the cause before them. He could not make them work, but he would not allow them to cheat everybody else. He was going to take advantage of their riches to fund the poor so they can continue working.