Question

In Nehemiah 5:9, Nehemiah uses the word reproach to describe how the gentile community views the events and circumstances of the poor people of Jerusalem. Why is this a biblical principle?   In other words, what impact does behavior on the part of believers have on unbelievers? Discuss Nehemiah’s concern for the poor, but also his concern for the witness that the actions and attitudes of the nobles and officials is having in the community among those on the outside who are observing the drama unfolding before them

Answer 1

If we look at the past, it is clear that the acts of the Jews with the fellow people was not correct due to their unfair treatment. Alternatively, we can say that the fellow jews were subjected to oppression when they were charged with high interest. This action was seen as the example of great hypocrisy by the non-believers because it was always preached by the believers to take care of others but the way they treated their fellow Jews was contradicting their preaching. Thus the words of the believers were not taken seriously by the non-believers as there was a difference in the actions and the words.

The oppression of the poor was the main concern of Nehemiah as the fields, vineyards, houses and olive groves of poor were captured by the Nobles and Officials. This resulted in the borrowing of money and grain from the rich by the poor and they have to pay back the interest that was the main reason for the annoyance of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was displeased by the way poor were treated unfairly by the rich and thus Nehemiah ordered the rich not to charge interest from the poor and return their fields, vineyards, houses, and olive groves

Nehemiah was also thinking about how this will be treated by the observers. The Jews will always believe that the people must care for each other but they were acting against this and thus they might be seen as hypocrites by the others. This created a lot of problem to convince the nonbelievers about the preaching of Jews. Thus by taking some certain actions, Nehemiah tried to have some matching between the teachings and the actions of the people