Nehemiah 5:8

Neh 5:8 And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing [to answer].

8. And I said unto them, We after our ability] This he speaketh, not in a vain glorious vaunting way, or to curry favour with the people; but to convince the contrary minded of their inhumanity to their poor brethren. Good works, saith Chrysostom, are unanswerable syllogisms, invincible demonstrations to confute and convert those that do otherwise. "Let your works so shine before men," &c.

Which were sold unto the heathen] This they did in obedience to the law, Deu 28:47-48.

And will ye even sell your brethren?] There was no resisting of such a rational reproof, no whit imbittered (as the manner is) with wrath or spite; but carried on with so much modesty and moderation.

Or shall they be sold unto us?] He makes himself a party, because of the same body politic.

Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer] Such is the majesty of a reproof rightly administered; it even gags the offender, as Mat 22:12, and renders him self condemned, Tit 3:11. Scipio, with his countenance only, quelled and quieted his seditious soldiers. Alexander the Great, and after him Augustus Caesar, and Severus the emperor, did the same, with a few quick words. Adrianus Boxsehafius, preacher of the word at Antwerp, hearing a certain monk railing at Luther out of the pulpit, Tell me, said he, thou perverse monk, and that openly before all this people, where, and when, and in what points Luther hath erred? The monk thus accosted, answered not a word, but got out of the pulpit, and fled away as fast as he could, and never came again into that country (Scultet. Annal.).

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Neh 5:8. We, after our ability, have redeemed our brethren — Nehemiah and his predecessors had used their utmost interest and power with the kings of Persia, that their brethren might be redeemed from bondage, whereby they had been restored both to their liberty and to their own country. And it is probable they had, with their money, procured the freedom of such as were slaves to some of the Babylonians, who would not part with them without a price paid for them. Shall they be sold unto us? — Do you expect that we should pay you a price for them, as we did to the Babylonians? Or must we use as much importunity to solicit you for their redemption as we used with their enemies? Then held they their peace — They made no reply, because they could neither deny the fact nor justify it, an express law of God being against them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Seeing God hath once delivered them from the bondage of the heathen, shall we make them our slaves?

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(8) Will ye even sell your brethren?—The appeal is a strong one. Nehemiah and his friends had redeemed Jews from the heathen with money; these men had caused Jews to be sold to Jews.

Nothing to answer.—They might have replied had the letter of the law been urged; but this argument puts them to shame.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8. We] ‘We’ and ‘ye’ in this verse are in emphatic antithesis.

after our ability] So Vulg. ‘secundum possibilitatem nostram.’ LXX. ἐν ἑκουσίῳ ἡμῶν. Another rendering is ‘according to the number of those that were among us.’

have redeemed] R.V. marg. ‘Heb. bought’, i.e. as many as were put up to sale we redeemed. Nehemiah apparently refers to what had been the merciful custom of himself and his countrymen when they were in exile; but possibly also to his action in Jerusalem since his arrival. The word for ‘redeemed’ here would be literally rendered ‘acquired’ or ‘bought.’ The word is used here presumably because the stress of the clause rests not so much on the slavery from which the Jews were delivered, but upon the price that Nehemiah and his companions willingly paid for them.

unto the heathen] Lit. ‘unto the nations.’

and will you even sell your brethren] R.V. and would ye, &c.

or shall they] R.V. and should they. Nehemiah’s indignant question contrasts the conduct of the wealthy money-lenders with his own practice and that of his friends. He in a foreign land redeemed every Jew he could that was being sold to the heathen, and here in Jerusalem itself he finds Jews selling their own flesh and blood, and the market in which they barter their brethren is within the walls of the Holy City. They not only sold Jews as slaves, but bought them as such. They were ready to buy them, not to redeem but to enslave them.

found nothing to answer] R.V. found never a word. There was no justification either in law or equity for their conduct, in making money out of their brethren’s misfortunes at a time of national danger.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Also I said, it is not good that ye do,.... The meaning is, that it was very bad; it is a "meiosis", by which more is intended than is expressed:

ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God; in reverence of him and his law, and according to that:

because of the reproach of the Heathen our enemies? whose mouths will be open to reproach the true religion, and the good ways of God; and say, these are the men that pretend to fear God, and serve him, and yet break his law, and use their brethren ill, see Rom 2:24.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Nehemiah contrasts his own example with that of the rich Jews. He had spent money in redeeming some countrymen in servitude among the pagan; they were causing others to be sold into slavery among the Jews.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Redeemed, by paying the ransom to the Babylonians, or by using all our endeavours to procure the releasement of our brethren. (Calmet) --- For us. Protestants, "or shall they be sold unto us?" (Haydock) --- A true pastor practises what he preaches to others. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen: I, and my, brethren, and predecessors, have used our utmost interest and power, both with the kings of Persia, that our brethren might be redeemed from that bondage into which God had sold them for their sins; and with particular persons in Babylon and Persia, and the adjacent parts, whose bond-slaves the Jews were, and who would not part with them without a price, which we paid for them.

Will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? do you expect that we should pay you a price for them, as we did to the Babylonians? or must we use as much importunity to solicit you for their redemption as we did to their enemies?

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. We — Nehemiah and other nobles and influential Jews before him, who had been instrumental in procuring the release of the Jews from captivity and permission for them to return to Judea and restore their fallen state.

After our ability — Literally, according to the sufficiency in us. Nehemiah and others had used official position and personal influence, which they held with the kings of Persia, to secure the deliverance of their brethren the Jews from their exile among the heathen.

Will ye even sell your brethren — Will ye now take advantage of their poverty to involve them into slavery among their own nation and race?

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We after our ability have redeemed our brethren. "We," here, may be either "we Jews of the captivity," in contrast with "you who have long returned from it," or "we of my house and household" (equivalent to the "I, my brethren, and my servants" of ver. 10), in contrast with "you rich Jews not of my household." Nehemiah must appeal to a well-known fact, that he and others had been in the habit of redeeming enslaved Jews among the heathen. Will ye even sell your brethren? An argumenturn ad verecundiam. Will ye do the exact opposite? Cause your brethren to be sold into slavery? And not to heathen masters, but to men of their own nation, unto us? Roman creditors, if they sold their debtor slaves, were required by law to sell them across the Tiber to men of a different race. It was felt to add to the indignity of the slave condition that one should have to serve one"s own countryman, recently one"s equal and (perhaps) acquaintance. They held their peace, and found nothing to answer. Or, "found never a word. The argument told. It admitted of no reply. The nobles were ashamed, and had not a word to say.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We - I, and my brethren, and predecessors, have used our utmost interest and power, both with the kings of Persia, that our brethren might be redeemed from bondage, and with particular persons in Babylon, and Persia, whose bond-slaves the Jews were, and who would not part with them without a price. Be sold - Do you expect that we should pay you a price for them, as we did to the Babylonians?. Or, must we use as much importunity to solicit you for their redemption, as we did to their enemies?

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

redeemed

(See Scofield "Exo 14:30").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And I said to them And so I said to them: We already bought our Jewish brethren who were in captivity from the heathens to whom they were sold.

with as much as we could afford with as much money as was in our hands.

and you too And you too will sell to the heathens your brethren who are subjected to you as slaves?

and they will be sold to us And the result will be that they will be sold to us by the heathens (and if so, why should you sell them, since we will be compelled to redeem them? This is found in certain editions).

and they remained silent They were silent and ashamed, and they did not know what to answer.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.