The rest of the restoration community joined those who signed their names pledging to obey the Mosaic Law (vv. 28-29). The "curse"they took on themselves was submission to the curse that God promised would come on those who did not keep His Word (v. 29; Deut. 28:15-68). "Law"(Heb. torah) refers to all God's instructions, "commandments"are His rules, "ordinances"are His judicial pronouncements, and "statutes"are His permanent decrees (v. 29; cf. Deut. 4:45).
These Jews promised specifically not to intermarry with pagans (v. 30) and to keep the Sabbath day and the sabbatical year (v. 31). They further committed to support the temple service financially (vv. 32-34), to give their first-fruits to God (vv. 35-37a), and to pay their basic tithe tax (vv. 37b-39). The last sentence in verse 39 shows that the primary concern of the people was the worship that was the heart of their national life. Their priorities were proper.
The Law required Israelites 20 years old and older to pay one-half a shekel as a temple tax (Exod. 30:11-16). The people here only promised one-third of a shekel (v. 32). Perhaps Nehemiah reduced the amount since the returned exiles were now poor.74Another explanation is that the people may have pledged this one-third shekel in addition to the other one-half.75A third possibility is that a different system of evaluating the shekel had replaced the older one.76The text is not specific on this point. In any case the people responded sacrificially.
