(6) В¶ And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. (7) Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, everyone of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them. (8) And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer. (9) Also I said, It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? (10) I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury. (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. (12) Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. (13) Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the LORD. And the people did according to this promise.
What a masterly speech doth Nehemiah here make! How unanswerable the arguments he adopted to induce tenderness in the minds of the people! And how successful his reasoning. But how infinitely superior is the lesson the Lord Jesus brought forward, in the days of his flesh, to the question of his servant the apostle, on the subject of offences. Jesus hath ransomed us when under a debt of ten thousand talents, which no human ability could ever pay. And therefore to bear hard upon a brother of poorer circumstances, in the paltry debt of an hundred pence, must imply a cruelty unsuited to a regenerated mind. According to Nehemiah's strong figure of shaking the lap, we may well conclude God will shake off, and shake out, all merciless characters of this description; or to use the higher and better words of our Lord Jesus Christ, every such wretch will be delivered to the tormentors; and so will God our heavenly Father do unto us, if we from our hearts forgive not everyone his brother his trespasses. Matthew 18:34-35.