There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute, [and that upon] our lands and vineyards.
Ver. 4. There were also that said] Here was a third complaint to good Nehemiah; to whom whosoever lamented were sure to have redress and remedy, he did not serve these poor people as that merciless bishop of Mentz, in Germany, did; who, to rid his hands of them in a time of famine, in horreo conclusos iussit concremari, shut them up all together in a barn, and there burnt them (Hatto, Archiep. Mogunt. A. D. 923). He was afterwards eaten to death by rats, non sine maxima divinae vindictae suspicione, saith mine author, by a just hand of God upon him for his cruelty to those poor, whom he would not relieve with his grain, but let the rats eat it; and of whom he said, when they were burning in his barn, that they cried like a company of rats.
We have borrowed money for the king's tribute] They did not deny payment, and rise up in arms, making poverty their captain, as the Suffolk men did here in Henry VIII's time. Neither did they answer the king of Persia's officers, as the men of Andros once did Themistocles. He, being sent by the Athenians to them for tribute, told them that he came unto them on that errand, accompanied with two goddesses, Eloquence, to persuade, and Violence, to enforce them. Their answer was, that they also had on their side two goddesses as strong; Necessity, for they had it not, and Impossibility, for they knew not how to raise it (Plutarch). These men pawn their lands to pay tribute; but it went to their hearts, and caused this complaint.