I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest! – Nehemiah 5:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 19, 2014): Nehemiah 5

At the close of the First World War, there were two competing ideas on what to do with Germany. The winning idea was to hamstring Germany and saddle them with reparation payments to the winning nations. This idea was championed by France who had suffered so much loss during the war. But that was not the only idea. The competing suggestion was to simply forgive Germany of their transgressions arguing that the nation had suffered severely for their aggression as it was, and to have the United States primarily, but other nations as well provide low interest or no interest loans to the European mainland to quicken the rebuilding of the war torn areas. The idea was that the best way to avoid a repeat of the war that had rocked the world was to build a strong Europe. The possible money that would have been lost with the idea would have been more than made up for in world security. But the plan fell on deaf ears and the decision to punish Germany prevailed – and quite possibly became one of the factors in the development of the conflict in Europe that became the Second World War.

As Judah began to try to recover and rebuild after the exile, there were some significant challenges for the people. And one of the challenges was that the land needed to be reclaimed, seed needed to be bought and homes needed to be rebuilt. And with all of the expenses that was needed in the rebuilding, there was not much left for things like taxes. But there were among Judah, men who had the financial backing to be able to lend to the poorer people of the land. These were the leaders and nobles, possibly even men that had never had to suffer the exile. For whatever reason, they were men that had excess and were willing to lend what they had to the ones that were trying to establish themselves, but they were also sensing a payday – there was great interest that could be made by lending grain and money to desperate people. The result was that the returnees were not able to get established. Everything that they made was being spent either on taxes or on interest, but there was nothing left to allow the people to gain any financial security.

And Nehemiah is exasperated by the results. While he and his men are doing everything they can to help those who needed it, other Jews are making money and the result was that the development and security of the nation was lagging. Judah was remaining both an object of scorn and vulnerable to enemy attack, and Nehemiah believed that it did not have to be that way. If the whole nation would simply get on the same page and begin to assist each other rather than trying to gain an advantage off of each other, then the problems plaguing Judah could be fixed. A sacrifice now would mean an advance in the structure and the security of the nation that would benefit everyone.

So Nehemiah makes the ask. For the good of the nation and all of the people, those with assets needed to be able to lend to those without, and to do it without increasing the financial load on the poorest of the nation. Nehemiah was setting the example. Now the wealthy in Judah needed to follow that example – for the good of everyone and the prospering of the nation.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Nehemiah 6