(3) But the shrillest cries of all came from the third class of complainants.  These were men who, up to a certain point, resembled the second class.  They had once possessed a little property, but in the time of famine they had parted with their lands, their houses, and their vineyards like the rest.  But the story of the third class did not end here, these had since then got into still worse difficulties.  The tax-collector had come round to collect the tribute for Artaxerxes, and he had demanded immediate payment.  They had, however, nothing to give him.  What could they do?  They were obliged once more to borrow money of their rich neighbours, who lent it to them at the rate of 12 per cent, (one eighth part of the money to be paid monthly).  And what pledge, what security did these nobles require for their money?  The poor people had already lost their houses and their vineyards, there was nothing left to them but their children, and actually the son or the daughter was pledged or mortgaged to the rich money-lender.  If the heavy interest is not paid, at any moment the child may be seized, and carried off to the noble’s house to be brought up as a slave.  ‘Nay,’ cry some of the mothers in the crowd, ’our case is worst of all; some of our daughters have been taken as slaves already, and we have no power to redeem them.  Yet we love our children just as much as these rich people love theirs, they are just as dear to us as theirs are to them’ (ver. 5).

‘And then,’ says Nehemiah,’when I had heard their cry and listened to their tale, I was very angry.’  But surely it was wrong of Nehemiah to be angry.  Is not anger a bad thing?  Is it not one of the works of the devil, which we are bidden to lay aside?

Yet what says St. Paul?  ‘Be ye angry, and sin not.’  So it is possible to be angry, and yet to be sinless.  And we read, Mark iii. 5, that, in the synagogue at Capernaum, the Lord Jesus looked round on the hard-hearted Pharisees with anger; and in Him was no sin.

Nehemiah was very angry, yet Nehemiah sinned not in being so, for it was anger at sin, anger at the wrongdoing which was bringing disgrace on his nation, anger at the conduct which was offending God and doing harm to God’s cause.  It was righteous anger against the cruelty and selfishness of those who, in those hard times, had profited from the poverty and distress of their poor fellow countrymen.

For some time Nehemiah did nothing, but he carefully turned the matter over in his mind.  He says, ‘I consulted with myself,’ or as it is in the margin, ‘My heart consulted in me.’  We can picture him pacing up and down, saying again and again, What shall I do?  What is the wisest course to take?  How can this great evil be stopped?  Doubtless, too, he took this trouble, as he had taken all his other anxieties and cares, and laid it before the God of heaven.

Then he sends for the nobles and all those who had oppressed the people, and he gives them very plainly his mind on the matter: