What Does Nehemiah 5:18 Mean in the King James?
Now that which was prepared for me daily was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine: yet for all this required not I the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The governor’s abundant table stands beside the people’s heavy labor, and Nehemiah refuses to add his claim to their load.
THE MEANING
Provision and the labor that sustains it stand in the same field of vision. Nehemiah’s refusal makes the people’s heavy work count in what a leader receives. The verse keeps that weight visible beside the full table.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what an office entitles its holder to receive is costless to the people who provide it.
THE ROOT
עֲבֹדָה
avodah
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
To work, serve, or labor.
The word rendered “bondage” is עֲבֹדָה (avodah, labor or service), naming the people’s work itself. Its root also gives words for serving and for a servant, so the burden here is labor borne by people from whom a governor could claim provision.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvad: To work or serve.
עָבַד
The people’s condition is tied to the work they are doing, not only to an abstract state of hardship.
ʿeved: Servant or slave.
עֶבֶד
This branch makes the human relationship within the labor visible: people serving under a burden.
כָּבְדָה
kavdah
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
“heavy” in this verse is kavdah. The same root gives כָּבוֹד (kavod, weight, honor, or glory). The people’s work is not background detail: it has weight in Nehemiah’s decision about what the governor receives.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight, honor, or glory.
כָּבוֹד
The root carries the sense of weight into honor and glory, giving the people’s burden real weight in the verse.
kaved: Heavy or weighty.
כָּבֵד
This related form holds the same weight the verse names in the people’s labor.
THE PATTERN
Leadership’s provision is measured against the burden it places on the people it serves.
But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, beside forty shekels of silver; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people: but so did not I, because of the fear of God.For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.THE THREAD
Let there more work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard vain words.Exodus 5:9 uses עבד (ʿ-b-d, work or serve) and כבד (k-b-d, be heavy or weighty) together, the same roots behind “bondage” and “heavy” here. There, the command makes the work heavier; here, Nehemiah’s choice is measured against work already heavy.
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