Nehemiah 4:14

4:14 When I had made an inspection, ¹  I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the great and awesome Lord, ²  and fight on behalf of your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your families!” ³ 

Nehemiah 5:5

5:5 And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ⁴  and our children are just like their children, ⁵  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ⁶  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ⁷  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ⁸ 

Nehemiah 10:28

10:28 “Now the rest of the people – the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple attendants, and all those who have separated themselves from the neighboring peoples ⁹  because of the law of God, along with their wives, their sons, and their daughters, all of whom are able to understand –

Nehemiah 10:36

10:36 We also accept responsibility, as is written in the law, for bringing the firstborn of our sons and our cattle and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks to the temple of our God, to the priests who are ministering in the temple of our God.

Nehemiah 11:3

11:3 These are the provincial leaders ¹⁰  who settled in Jerusalem. (While other Israelites, the priests, the Levites, the temple attendants, and the sons of the servants of Solomon settled in the cities of Judah, each on his own property in their cities,

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¹ tn Heb “And I saw.”

² tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

³ tn Heb “houses.”

⁴ tn Heb “according to the flesh of our brothers is our flesh.”

⁵ tn Heb “like their children, our children.”

⁶ tn Heb “to become slaves” (also later in this verse).

⁷ tn Heb “there is not power for our hand.” The Hebrew expression used here is rather difficult.

⁸ sn The poor among the returned exiles were being exploited by their rich countrymen. Moneylenders were loaning large amounts of money, and not only collecting interest on loans which was illegal (Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), but also seizing pledges as collateral (Neh 5:3) which was allowed (Deut 24:10). When the debtors missed a payment, the moneylenders would seize their collateral: their fields, vineyards and homes. With no other means of income, the debtors were forced to sell their children into slavery, a common practice at this time (Neh 5:5). Nehemiah himself was one of the moneylenders (Neh 5:10), but he insisted that seizure of collateral from fellow Jewish countrymen was ethically wrong (Neh 5:9).

⁹ tn Heb “from the peoples of the lands.” Cf. vv. 30, 31.

¹⁰ tn Heb “the heads of the province.”