Bible Strands
Nehemiah 5:10
I, as well as my brothers and my servants, have been lending the people money and grain. Please, let us stop this usury.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Nehemiah addresses the nobles and officials who have been charging interest on loans to the returning exiles. He speaks this during a public confrontation about economic exploitation within the community.
The words — The Hebrew verb noShim (H5383) means "are lending," paired with na'azvah (H5800), literally "let us abandon." These terms describe the financial practice as a heavy burden that must be dropped.
The thread — The text directly references the prohibition against charging interest found in Exodus 22:25. Nehemiah's stance continues the economic justice theme he established in his earlier rebuke in Nehemiah 5:7.
Why it lands — The passage commands the immediate cessation of interest-based loans among community members. It requires readers to identify and halt financial practices that exploit others for personal gain.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury.
Cross-references
- 2 Corinthians 6:1 As God’s fellow workers, then, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.
- Exodus 22:25 If you lend money to one of My people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him interest.
- Nehemiah 5:7 and after serious thought I rebuked the nobles and officials, saying, “You are exacting usury from your own brothers!” So I called a large assembly against them
- Psalms 15:5 who lends his money without interest and refuses a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.
- Ezekiel 18:8 He does not engage in usury or take excess interest, but he withholds his hand from iniquity and executes true justice between men.
- Ezekiel 18:13 He engages in usury and takes excess interest. Will this son live? He will not! Since he has committed all these abominations, he will surely die; his blood will be on his own head.
- Micah 2:1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
- Luke 3:13 “Collect no more than you are authorized,” he answered.
- 1 Corinthians 9:12 If others have this right to your support, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not exercise this right. Instead, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.
- 2 Corinthians 5:11 Therefore, since we know what it means to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is clear to God, and I hope it is clear to your conscience as well.