Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Old and New Testaments Connected, Vol. 2 of 3: In the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations, From the Declensions of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the Time of Christ
The burden which the people underwent in the carrying on of this work, and the incessant labour which they were forced to undergo to bring it to so speedy a conclusion, being very great, and such as made many of them faint and groan under it, and express a despair of being able to perfect it to revive their drooping spirits, and make them the more easy and ready to proceed in that which was farther to be done, care was taken to relieve them from a much greater burden, the oppression of usurers, which they then in great misery lay under, and had much greater reason to complain of.p For the rich, taking advantage ofthe necessities of the meaner sort, had exacted heavy usury of them, making them pay the centesima for all moneys lent them, q that is, one per cent. For every month, which amounted to twelve per cent. For the whole year; so that they were forced to mortgage their lands, and sell their children into servitude, to have wherewith to buy bread for the support of themselves and their families which being a manifest breach of the law of God given them by Moses (for that forbids all the race of Israel to take usury of any of their brethren, )r Nehemiah, on his hearing hereof, resolved forthwith to remove so great an iniquity: in order whereto he called a general assembly of the people; where, having set forth unto them the nature of the offence, how great a breach it was of the divine law, and how heavy an oppression upon their brethren, and how much it might provoke the wrath of God against them, he caused it to be enacted, by the general suffrage of that whole assembly, that all should return to their brethren whatsoever.
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