Nehemiah now provides a detailed list of what the more powerful had been taking from their weaker brethren. The list includes real estate and the cottage industries (connected with land) from which the owner made a living and potentially earned the money needed to pay existing debts. The list included also the house where one could live without having to divert funds to pay rent. In the list was also whatever immoral activity (here again translated as exacting some interest) was involved in supplying money, grain, wine, and oil. In step with the rule of Leviticus 25:35 (you shall support…and he shall live with you
), these were all to be returned. Obviously, this publicly voiced instruction to the guilty (nobles and officials as they were!) would have been applauded by the oppressed when they heard, but awkward for the oppressors to hear.
11 Return to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the percentage of money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.”