Nehemiah 5:1-13: A Parable for our Times?
From time to time I pick up the KJV Bible I stole from a hotel room and read a section or two. The
other night I read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah which concern the
reconstruction of the temple and the Jewish community in the reign of King
Cyrus that followed the exile in Babylon. I must say that, where a certain sort
of Christianity is concerned, it is not encouraging. Ordinary Jewish people were
having trouble making ends meet and were particularly burdened by taxes demanded by
the Persian Empire. The ‘nobles’ and ‘leaders of the people’ took full
advantage, of course, by making a series of predatory ‘sub-prime’ loans. To
borrow money ordinary Jews put up their farms and vineyards for collateral.
When they inevitably defaulted the ‘nobles’ scooped up their land which, one
has little doubt, was their intention all along. The inevitable result of this,
of course, was a concentration of land among a few ruling nobles and penury for
the rest including people so desperate they sold their own children into
bondage. Did Nehemiah congratulate the nobles on the prosperity with which God
rewarded them? Seems he did not. In a shocking act of class warfare he ordered
the nobles to cancel all debts AND to pay back every penny and restore every
jot and tittle of the land. Since promises from such people are empty, he made
them swear an oath before God subject to the severest penalties if they
reneged. The wealth creators were forced to give up their job creating money to
people with nothing to eat. Most shockingly of all, they were paid nothing for
their loss from the treasury of the state. Nehemiah did not even petition the
King of Persia to bail out the too big to fail Jewish nobility!
Of course the nobles were not very clever. They had more
leverage than they thought. It seems that on the question of intermarriage
Nehemiah took a hard line. To prevent the Jewish people from simply
disappearing he forbade intermarriage with Canaanite women. He went so far as
to demand that Jewish men divorce women they had already married. Here was an
opportunity missed for what if the nobles agreed to back this policy in return
for Nehemiah toning down his social criticism? What if he were promised a
couple of anti-intermarriage judges if, in return, he forgot about the pesky
widows and orphans and the lazy riff-raff who had foolishly mortgaged their
futures by signing bad loans? Funnily enough, the offer was never made. Had it
been the good and holy people of Israel would surely have begged him to take
it. What is social injustice when weighed in the balance with inter-marriage?
Here’s where I must give up in confusion. The nobles did not play their strong
card. They simply caved and paid the money and land back as if they were
actually responsible to something beyond their own ego. Even back then there
was a sucker born every minute. Of course I am not a biblical scholar and I am
not a theologian nor can I say what weight you ought to give this text or any
others that seem to decenter individual prosperity in favor of communal
responsibility. If you are a biblical literalist though, you might want to take
it seriously.
Well! This should be widely read. :)
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