Nehemiah 5:11

Biblia Hebrica Stuttgartensia (1967/77)

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Restore: Leviticus 6:4, Leviticus 6:5, 1 Samuel 12:3, 2 Samuel 12:6, Isaiah 58:6, Luke 3:8

their lands: Nehemiah 5:3, Nehemiah 5:4

the hundredth: This was probably the rate of interest which they obliged their poor debtors to pay each month, which would amount to about 12 percent. Another author states that this is the lowest rate of interest in Syria: the usual rate is 20; and it is sometimes as high as 30 percent.

Reciprocal: Exodus 22:25 - General Matthew 18:28 - and took

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Restore, I pray you, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses,.... Which they had made over to them for corn they had had, or money they borrowed of them; it is entreated that an immediate restitution be made, and the rather, if what Aben Ezra observes is true, that this was the year of release, when debts were not to be exacted, but forgiven, Deuteronomy 15:1,

also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them; the hundredth part of the money might be what they took for usury, as the Romans did in later times, even so much a month; so that if the loan was one hundred pounds, a pound was given every month for it, and so one hundred and twelve pounds in the year; and the hundredth part of the corn, wine, and oil, might be the hundredth part of those fruits of the earth which the rulers demanded for their salary, see Nehemiah 5:15.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The hundredth part of the money ... - i. e. the interest. It is conjectured that the 100th part was payable monthly, or, in other words, that interest was taken at the rate of twelve per cent. The Law altogether disallowed the taking of interest from Israelites (see Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:36, etc.).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Nehemiah 5:11. Also the hundredth part of the money — Houbigant contends,

1. That the word מאת meath, which we and the Vulgate translate one hundredth part, never means so anywhere; and

2. That it would have answered no end to have remitted to people so distressed merely the one hundredth part of the money which had been taken from them by usury.

He understands מאת meath as signifying the same as מן את min eth, contracted into מאת meeth, a preposition and demonstrative particle joined together, also a part FROM THE money. Neither the Syriac, Septuagint, nor Arabic acknowledges this hundredth part. Some think that the hundredth part is that which they obliged the poor debtors to pay each month, which would amount to what we would call twelve per cent. interest for the money lent, or the debt contracted. See the introduction.