Nehemiah 5:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ye exact usury, &c.— This usury was the more grievous, because it was not only contrary to their law, and demanded at a time when they were hard at work, and their enemies threatening to destroy them all; but, as some have observed, the twentieth of Ahasuerus, wherein this was done, began about the end of a sabbatical year, after the law, which forbad every creature to exact any debt of his neighbour or his brother, Deuteronomy 15:2 had been so frequently read. This raised the cry of the poor to a greater height, having been forced to sell their children, and being deprived now of all power to redeem them, because their lands were mortgaged to these oppressors. See Bishop Patrick.