Nehemiah 10:31

31 "If the peoples of the lands bring merchandise or food to sell on Shabbat, we will not buy from them on Shabbat or on a holy day. "We will forego [planting and harvesting our fields] during the seventh year and collecting debts then.

Nehemiah 10:31 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 10:31

And if the people of the land bring ware
Any thing to be sold, any sort of goods, that being sold might be taken away, as the word signifies;

or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell;
anything to make food of; wheat or barley, as Aben Ezra interprets it; the same word is rendered corn, (See Gill on Genesis 42:1); to sell which was not lawful on the sabbath day, see ( Amos 8:5 )

that we would not buy it of them on the sabbath, or on the holy day;
any festival, as the feast of the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles:

and that we would leave the seventh year:
the ground untilled in that year, the vines unpruned, and the fruits of the earth, which sprung of themselves, for the poor to gather, ( Leviticus 25:4-7 ) ,

and the exaction of every debt;
that they would not demand the payment of any debt on the seventh year, as the law required they should not, ( Deuteronomy 15:2 ) .

Nehemiah 10:31 In-Context

29 joined their kinsmen and their leaders in swearing an oath, accompanied by a curse [in case of noncompliance], as follows: "We will live by God's Torah, given by Moshe the servant of God, and will perform and obey all the mitzvot, rulings and laws of ADONAI our Lord.

30 "We will not give our daughters as wives to the peoples of the land or take their daughters as wives for our sons.

31 "If the peoples of the lands bring merchandise or food to sell on Shabbat, we will not buy from them on Shabbat or on a holy day. "We will forego [planting and harvesting our fields] during the seventh year and collecting debts then.

32 "We will impose on ourselves a yearly tax of one-third of a shekel [one-seventh of an ounce of silver] for the service of the house of our

33 for the showbread, for the regular grain offering, for the regular burnt offering, for [the offerings] on Shabbat, on Rosh-Hodesh, at the designated times and at other holy times, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Isra'el, and for all the work connected with the house of our God.