Bible Strands
Nehemiah 5:9
So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our foreign enemies?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Nehemiah addresses the Jewish nobles and officials who are charging interest and selling their poorer countrymen into servitude. He speaks during a public confrontation immediately after exposing their exploitation of fellow Jews.
The words — The phrase לֹא־טוֹב הַדָּבָר (lo'- tov ha-davar) literally means "not good the thing," functioning as a direct Hebrew declaration that an action is morally wrong. The particle הֲלֹא (ha-lo') introduces a rhetorical challenge demanding they acknowledge their duty to God.
The thread — Linking economic conduct to reverence for God mirrors the usury prohibition in Leviticus 25:36. The warning against bringing reproach on the community parallels the justice concern in Proverbs 18:5.
Why it lands — The text requires that financial practices be governed by communal reverence for God rather than personal gain. It asks readers to evaluate whether their actions protect the community's integrity or invite public shame.
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
Also I said, It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies?
Cross-references
- Leviticus 25:36 Do not take any interest or profit from him, but fear your God, that your countryman may live among you.
- 2 Samuel 12:14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have shown utter contempt for the word of the LORD, the son born to you will surely die.”
- Proverbs 18:5 Showing partiality to the wicked is not good, nor is depriving the innocent of justice.
- Romans 2:24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
- 1 Peter 2:12 Conduct yourselves with such honor among the Gentiles that, though they slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.
- Titus 2:5 to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.
- Genesis 13:7 And there was discord between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were also living in the land.
- Genesis 20:11 Abraham replied, “I thought to myself, ‘Surely there is no fear of God in this place. They will kill me on account of my wife.’
- Genesis 42:18 and on the third day he said to them, “I fear God. So do this and you will live:
- 1 Samuel 2:24 No, my sons; it is not a good report I hear circulating among the LORD’s people.