Restore their land, &c. Give them up their mortgages, put them again in possession of their estates, remit the interest, and give them time to pay the principal. I pray you Though he had authority to command, yet, for love's sake, he rather beseeches. Also the hundredth part of the money Require not this, as the next verse explains it, where it is expressed in their grant of this desire. The hundredth part of the money lent was wont to be required every month for the use of it, according to the custom then prevailing in those countries, and afterward adopted by the Romans. So that every year an eighth part of the principal was paid for interest, which was a very extravagant usury.
Related Commentaries of Nehemiah 5:11
Nehemiah 5:11
11 Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them.