Nehemiah 5:2

2 Some said, "With our sons and daughters we are many, and we all need grain to eat and stay alive."

Nehemiah 5:2 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 5:2

For there were that said, we, our sons, and our daughters, are
many
Not that they complained of the number of their children, for a numerous offspring was always reckoned a blessing with the Jews; but this they observed to show that their families, being large, required a considerable quantity of food to support them:

therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat and live;
that is, they were obliged to take it at an exorbitant price, which is the thing complained of; or otherwise they must starve, the rich taking the advantage of their poverty and present dearth.

Nehemiah 5:2 In-Context

1 Then there was a great protest of the people and their wives against their fellow Jews.

2 Some said, "With our sons and daughters we are many, and we all need grain to eat and stay alive."

3 Others said, "We have to mortgage our fields, our vineyards, and our houses in order to get grain during the famine."

4 Still others said, "We have had to borrow money against our fields and vineyards in order to pay the king's tax."

5 "We are of the same flesh and blood as our kin, and our children are the same as theirs. Yet we are just about to force our sons and daughters into slavery, and some of our daughters are already slaves! There is nothing we can do since our fields and vineyards now belong to others."