Nehemiah 13:17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then I contended with the nobles Their chief men and rulers; whom he charges with this sin, because, though others committed it, it was done by their countenance or connivance, probably by their example: and if these nobles had exercised their authority, the people durst not have done as they did. If magistrates, nobles, and people in the higher ranks of life, allow themselves in recreations, in idle visits and idle talk on the sabbath day, men of business will profane it by their worldly employments, as the more justifiable practice of the two.