Nehemiah 5:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

There was a great cry of the people, &c. Of the poor against their rich brethren, who had oppressed them; for though the people in general were cured of their idolatry by their captivity, yet they were not cured of their other sins, but loved strange women, as we read before in the book of Ezra; and were so covetous that they oppressed the poor and needy; and this at a time when their enemies threatened the destruction of them all. This crime was the more heinous, because the twentieth of Artaxerxes, when this was done, began about the end of a sabbatic year, (as Dr. Alix observes,) which raised the cry of the poor to a greater height against their creditors, who exacted their debts of them contrary to the law, Deuteronomy 15:2; which was read to them publicly in such a year, Deuteronomy 31:12.