Nehemiah 5:7

5:7 I considered these things carefully ¹  and then registered a complaint with the wealthy ²  and the officials. I said to them, “Each one of you is seizing the collateral ³  from your own countrymen!” ⁴  Because of them I called for ⁵  a great public assembly.

Proverbs 28:9

28:9 The one who turns away his ear ⁶  from hearing the law,

even his prayer ⁷  is an abomination. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 34:9-17

34:9 Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved. ⁹  34:10 All the people and their leaders had agreed to this. They had agreed to free their male and female slaves and not keep them enslaved any longer. They originally complied with the covenant and freed them. ¹⁰  34:11 But later ¹¹  they had changed their minds. They had taken back their male and female slaves that they had freed and forced them to be slaves again. ¹²  34:12 That was when the Lord spoke to Jeremiah, ¹³  34:13 “The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. ¹⁴  ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors ¹⁵  when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. ¹⁶  It stipulated, ¹⁷  34:14 “Every seven years each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you for six years, you shall set them free.” ¹⁸  But your ancestors did not obey me or pay any attention to me. 34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves ¹⁹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ²⁰  34:16 But then you turned right around ²¹  and showed that you did not honor me. ²²  Each of you took back your male and female slaves whom you had freed as they desired, and you forced them to be your slaves again. ²³  34:17 So I, the Lord, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman. ²⁴  Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom ²⁵  to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the Lord, affirm it! ²⁶  I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you. ²⁷ 

Matthew 18:28-35

18:28 After ²⁸  he went out, that same slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him one hundred silver coins. ²⁹  So ³⁰  he grabbed him by the throat and started to choke him, ³¹  saying, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ ³²  18:29 Then his fellow slave threw himself down and begged him, ³³  ‘Be patient with me, and I will repay you.’ 18:30 But he refused. Instead, he went out and threw him in prison until he repaid the debt. 18:31 When ³⁴  his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were very upset and went and told their lord everything that had taken place. 18:32 Then his lord called the first slave ³⁵  and said to him, ‘Evil slave! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me! 18:33 Should you not have shown mercy to your fellow slave, just as I showed it to you?’ 18:34 And in anger his lord turned him over to the prison guards to torture him ³⁶  until he repaid all he owed. 18:35 So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive your ³⁷  brother ³⁸  from your heart.”

¹ tn Heb “my heart was advised upon me.”

² tn Heb “nobles.”

³ tn Heb “taking a creditor’s debt.” The Hebrew noun מַשָּׁא (masha’) means “interest; debt” and probably refers to the collateral (pledge) collected by a creditor (HALOT 641-42 s.v.). This particular noun form appears only in Nehemiah (5:7, 10; 10:32); however, it is related to מַשָּׁאָה (masha’ah, “contractual loan; debt; collateral”) which appears elsewhere (Deut 24:10; Prov 22:26; cf. Neh 5:11). See the note on the word “people” at the end of v. 5. The BHS editors suggest emending the MT to מָשָׂא (masa’, “burden”), following several medieval Hebrew MSS; however, the result is not entirely clear: “you are bearing a burden, a man with his brothers.”

⁴ tn Heb “his brothers.”

⁵ tn Heb “I gave.”

⁶ sn The expression “turn away the ear from hearing” uses a metonymy to mean that this individual will not listen – it indicates a deliberate refusal to follow the instruction of the law.

⁷ sn It is hard to imagine how someone who willfully refuses to obey the law of God would pray according to the will of God. Such a person is more apt to pray for some physical thing or make demands on God. (Of course a prayer of repentance would be an exception and would not be an abomination to the Lord.)

⁸ sn C. H. Toy says, “If a man, on his part, is deaf to instruction, then God, on his part, is deaf to prayer” (Proverbs [ICC], 499). And W. McKane observes that one who fails to attend to God’s law is a wicked person, even if he is a man of prayer (Proverbs [OTL], 623).

⁹ tn Heb “after King Zedekiah made a covenant…to proclaim liberty to them [the slaves mentioned in the next verse] so that each would send away free his male slave and his female slave, the Hebrew man and the Hebrew woman, so that a man would not hold them in bondage, namely a Judean, his brother [this latter phrase is explicative of “them” because it repeats the preposition in front of “them”].” The complex Hebrew syntax has been broken down into shorter English sentences but an attempt has been made to retain the proper subordinations.

¹⁰ tn Heb “And they complied, [that is] all the leaders and all the people who entered into the covenant that they would each let his male slave and his female slave go free so as not to hold them in bondage any longer; they complied and they let [them] go.” The verb “they complied” (Heb “they hearkened”) is repeated at the end after the lengthy description of the subject. This is characteristic of Hebrew style. The translation has resolved the complex sentence by making the relative clauses modifying the subject independent sentences describing the situational background before mentioning the main focus, “they had complied and let them go.”

¹¹ sn Most commentators are agreed that the incident referred to here occurred during the period of relief from the siege provided by the Babylonians going off to fight against the Egyptians who were apparently coming to Zedekiah’s aid (compare vv. 21-22 with 37:5, 7). The freeing of the slaves had occurred earlier, under the crisis of the siege while the people were more responsive to the Lord due to the threat of destruction (cf. v. 15).

¹² tn Heb “they had brought them into subjection for male and female slaves.” However, the qualification of “male and female” is already clear from the preceding and is unnecessary to the English sentence.

¹³ tn Heb “And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying.” This is the resumption of the introduction in v. 8 after the lengthy description of the situation that had precipitated the Lord’s message to Jeremiah. “That was when” is intended to take the reader back to v. 8.

¹⁴ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘…’” The style adopted here has been used to avoid a longer, more complex English sentence.

¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 14, 15).

¹⁶ tn Heb “out of the house of bondage.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “made a covenant, saying.” This was only one of several stipulations of the covenant. The form used here has been chosen as an indirect way of relating the specific stipulation that is being focused upon to the general covenant that is referred to in v. 13.

¹⁸ sn Compare Deut 15:12-18 for the complete statement of this law. Here only the first part of it is cited.

¹⁹ tn The presence of the independent pronoun in the Hebrew text is intended to contrast their actions with those of their ancestors.

²⁰ sn This refers to the temple. See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 and the study note on 10:25 for the explanation of the idiom involved here.

²¹ sn The verb at the beginning of v. 15 and v. 16 are the same in the Hebrew. They had two changes of heart (Heb “you turned”), one that was pleasing to him (Heb “right in his eyes”) and one that showed they did not honor him (Heb “profaned [or belittled] his name”).

²² sn Heb “you profaned my name.” His name had been invoked in the oath confirming the covenant. Breaking the covenant involved taking his name in vain (cf. Exod 20:7; Deut 5:11; Jer 5:2). Hence the one who bore the name was not treated with the special honor and reverence due him (see the study note on 23:27 for the significance of “name” in the OT).

²³ tn Heb “and you brought them into subjection to be to you for male and female slaves.” See the translator’s note on v. 11 for the same redundant repetition which is not carried over into the contemporary English sentence.

²⁴ tn The Hebrew text has a compound object, the two terms of which have been synonyms in vv. 14, 15. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 189) make the interesting observation that these two terms (Heb “brother” and “neighbor”) emphasize the relationships that should have taken precedence over their being viewed as mere slaves.

²⁵ sn This is, of course, a metaphorical and ironical use of the term “to grant freedom to.” It is, however, a typical statement of the concept of talionic justice which is quite often operative in God’s judgments in the OT (cf., e.g., Obad 15).

²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

²⁷ sn Compare Jer 15:4; 24:9; 29:18.

²⁸ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

²⁹ tn Grk “one hundred denarii.” The denarius was a silver coin worth about a day’s wage for a laborer; this would be about three month’s pay.

³⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so.” A new sentence was started at this point in the translation in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

³¹ tn Grk “and he grabbed him and started choking him.”

³² tn The word “me” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

³³ tn Grk “begged him, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant here in contemporary English and has not been translated.

³⁴ tn Grk “Therefore when.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

³⁵ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the first slave mentioned in v. 24) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³⁶ tn Grk “handed him over to the torturers,” referring specifically to guards whose job was to torture prisoners who were being questioned. According to L&N 37.126, it is difficult to know for certain in this instance whether the term actually envisions torture as a part of the punishment or is simply a hyperbole. However, in light of the following verse and Jesus’ other warning statements in Matthew about “fiery hell,” “the outer darkness,” etc., it is best not to dismiss this as mere imagery.

³⁷ tn Grk “his.” The pronoun has been translated to follow English idiom (the last pronoun of the verse [“from your heart”] is second person plural in the original).

³⁸ tn Here the term “brother” means “fellow believer” or “fellow Christian” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a), whether male or female. Concerning the familial connotations, see also the note on the first occurrence of this term in v. 15.