Wednesday Bible Study: The New Deal

Nehemiah 5 may be a tad confusing because it doesn ' t give context -- we just find the situation as it is. The society has become highly unequal, with a small ruling class exploiting the masses. The people are in debt, they don ' t own their ow fields, and have even sold their daughters into servitude. So Nehemiah does an FDR and puts and end to debt slavery and for that matter, to lending money at interest. He also renounces riches himself, in contrast to previous governors. I can get behind this, but it hasn ' t become a universal norm among Jews, of course, who span the political spectrum. There obviously isn ' t any obligation within the religion to renounce wealth. But it might be useful to quote this chapter in certain circumstances.5 Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.2 Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.”3 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.”4 Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.5 Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong t...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs