Nehemiah 5:3

Biblia Hebrica Stuttgartensia (1967/77)

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

mortgaged: Genesis 47:15-25, Leviticus 25:35-39, Deuteronomy 15:7

because: Malachi 3:8-11

Reciprocal: Genesis 47:19 - buy us Nehemiah 5:11 - their lands

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Some also there were that said, we have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses,.... Made them over to others, put them into their hands as pledges for money received of them:

that we may buy corn; for the support of their families:

because of the dearth; or famine; which might be occasioned by their enemies lying in wait and intercepting all provisions that might be brought to them; for this seems not to be the famine spoken of in Haggai 1:10 for that was some years before this, and for a reason which now was not.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Nehemiah 5:3. Because of the dearth. — About the time of Zerubbabel, God had sent a judicial dearth upon the land, as we learn from Haggai, Haggai 1:9, c., for the people it seems were more intent on building houses for themselves than on rebuilding the house of the Lord: "Ye looked for much, and, lo, it is come to little because of mine house that is waste; and ye run, every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground brought forth; and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands." This dearth might have been continued, or its effects still felt; but it is more likely that there was a new dearth owing to the great number of people, for whose support the land that had been brought into cultivation was not sufficient.