godly leadership

Oppressing the poor

“God’s compassion for the poor is reflected in every part of the Bible.” The Mosaic Law protected the poor in various ways such as not charging interest on debts (Leviticus 25:36) and cancelling debts every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1). “The Bible sees the greatest cause of poverty as others’ greed and desire for power, and it strongly denounces those who behave this way (Isaiah 3:13-15; Amos 4:1; 8:4)” (The Spiritual Growth Bible, Caring for the Poor, p. 185).

Nehemiah noticed that the Jews had a problem with oppressing the poor when they returned to Jerusalem after being held captive in Babylon for 70 years. In the midst of their effort to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, Nehemiah 5:1-5 tells us:

Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.” There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards. Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

Nehemiah was very angry when heard how the poor were being oppressed. Nehemiah brought charges against the leaders who were guilty of charging interest on loans and told them, “The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies?”

Nehemiah channeled his anger into a course of action. It says in Nehemiah 5:7 that he, “took counsel with himself” before he confronted the Jewish leaders and brought charges against them. The Hebrew word that is translated counsel in this verse, malak (maw-lakˊ) means “to reign; (inceptive) to ascend the throne; (causative) to induct into royalty; hence (by implication) to take counsel” (H4427). Rather than looking to others for guidance, Nehemiah relied on his own wisdom to decide what needed to be done. The people who were charging interest were breaking God’s law, so it was right for Nehemiah to be angry and to do something about the situation. Nehemiah calculated what steps needed to be taken to bring the law breakers to justice and to free the poor from their oppression.

The first thing Nehemiah did was to confront the guilty parties. Nehemiah said to them, “You are exacting interest, each from his brother” (Nehemiah 5:7). All Nehemiah did was tell them what they were doing wrong. Then, Nehemiah gathered together all the people and made a public announcement. Nehemiah said, “We, as far as we are able, have brought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us” (Nehemiah 5:8). Nehemiah’s accusation went straight to the heart of the matter and as a result, the guilty parties, “were silent and could not find a word to say.”

Nehemiah’s influence over the people and his pure motives in trying to correct the situation were evident in the solution that he proposed and the response that he got to it. Nehemiah stated, “’I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us abandon this exacting of interest. Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.’ Then they said, ‘We will do as you say.’ And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, ‘So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.’ And all the assembly said, ’Amen’ and praised the LORD. And the people did as they promised” (Nehemiah 5:10-13).

Nehemiah’s godly leadership brought an end to the oppression of the poor and a short while later the work of rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem was finished (Nehemiah 6:15). It says in Nehemiah 6:16, “And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.”  God told the people of Israel that if they gave generously to the poor and not grudgingly that he would bless them in everything they did. (Deuteronomy 15:10). Because they stopped oppressing the poor, the Jews were able to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem in just fifty-two days.

A troubled heart

One of the primary complaints God had against the Israelites when he sent them into exile was their lack of concern over the wicked state of their nation (Amos 8). The prophet Amos “used the illustration of a ‘sieve’ to show that God would sift out every evil thing that had been committed and not one deed would pass through this judgment. The people were proud of their sin (Amos 9:10), but what they did not realize was that God would ultimately judge them for all their sin” (note on Amos 9:9, 10).

God wanted his people to see things the way he did, and he went to great lengths to change the people of Israel’s attitude toward the worship of idols. After Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, there was no doubt that God was judging his people and he would no longer tolerate the wicked behavior that was common among the Jews that were taken into captivity.

The book of Ezra tells us that the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia in 538 B.C. and he made a proclamation that the Jews could go back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple, “that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled” (Ezra 1:1-2). Almost 100 years later, we find in the book of Nehemiah that things weren’t going well for those who had returned to Jerusalem. Nehemiah 1:1-3 says, “Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, ‘The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.’”

We do not think much about city walls these days, and so the news Nehemiah heard about the sad state of Jerusalem’s walls may not seem like a big deal to us. But actually, a city’s walls were arguably more important than its army. Without walls, a city would be at the mercy of whatever band of marauders came through. It could not control itself. Jerusalem was in such a state. Nehemiah heard about it, was moved, and immediately turned to prayer. His first act was to go to God, who is sovereign over all the empires that might descend upon Jerusalem. (A Godly Leader Prays, The Spiritual Growth Bible, p. 453)

Nehemiah’s godly leadership was the by-product of a troubled heart. It says in Nehemiah 1:4 when he heard Hanani’s report, Nehemiah sat down and wept and mourned for days. Nehemiah fasted and prayed until he felt equipped to communicate what was really troubling him and was able to effectively seek God’s help.

Nehemiah’s prayer (Nehemiah 1:5-11) shows us that what was really troubling him was that the Jews had ruined God’s reputation by being unfaithful to him. Nehemiah realized that his sin along with everyone else’s reflected poorly on God (Nehemiah 1:7, 10). Nehemiah’s “godly character is seen in how, on hearing of Jerusalem’s troubles, he gave himself to four months (1:1; 2:1) of mourning, fasting, and praying (1:4) for a city that he had never seen. When the king finally saw that there was something on Nehemiah’s heart, he not only inquired about the problem but took steps to enable Nehemiah to fix it—a reflection on how the king trusted Nehemiah and how Nehemiah’s life of service to that point was about to bear fruit (2:1-8)” (Nehemiah, The Spiritual Growth Bible, p. 454).

Nehemiah’s condition was described by King Artaxerxes as “sadness of the heart” and the king asked Nehemiah, “Why is your face sad, seeing that you are not sick?” (Nehemiah 2:2). The words that are translated sadness, rôaʻ (roˊ-ah) and sad, raʻ (rah) come from the same root word raʻaʻ (raw-ahˊ) which means “to spoil (literally, by breaking to pieces)” and in a figurative sense, “to make (or be) good for nothing” (H7489). Nehemiah’s face reflected the condition of Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s walls were broken down, and the city was good for nothing without them. This troubled Nehemiah so much that his heart was breaking for God’s people.

The condition of Nehemiah’s heart and his persistent prayer and fasting prompted God to respond and intervene on his behalf. King Artaxerxes not only gave Nehemiah permission to return to Jerusalem but also provided him with the resources he needed to solve the people’s problem (Nehemiah 2:1-8). After Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he faced much opposition from enemies (Nehemiah 2:19; 4:1-3, 7-8, 11; 6:1-2, 4-7), but Nehemiah continued to cry out to God for help (Nehemiah 4:4-5, 9; 6:14) and the wall was miraculously rebuilt in just fifty-two days (Nehemiah 6:15).