What Does Nehemiah 5:5 Mean?
Yet now, our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we are making our sons and our daughters servants, and some of our daughters are already made to serve. It is not in our hand to redeem them, for others hold our fields and our vineyards.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.THE KEY
The verse sets shared flesh against forced control: kinship remains visible even as the children’s labor and freedom are claimed.
THE MEANING
Shared flesh and shared parentage remain true, yet they do not shield this family: sons and daughters are being made to serve others. The parents have no power in their hands to reclaim them because other men hold their lands and vineyards.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being family, or sharing one flesh, is enough to keep children safe and within their parents’ reach is undone here.
THE ROOT
כֹבְשִׁים
kovshim
GROWS FROM
כבשׁ
To subdue, bring under control, or place under another’s dominion.
“hold” in this verse is kovshim. The same root appears first in the active form, “we bring into bondage,” and then in the passive form, “are brought unto bondage.” The shift makes the loss of agency visible: the daughters are already under another’s control.
ALSO GROWS
kavash: To subdue or bring under control.
כָּבַשׁ
This is the verb behind the family’s words “we bring into bondage,” naming the act of placing someone under another’s control.
kibbush: Conquest or subjugation.
כִּבּוּשׁ
This related form makes the force within the verb clear: the verse describes people being brought under control, not simply changing occupations.
nikhbasot: Are subdued or brought under control, feminine plural.
נִכְבָּשׁוֹת
This passive form is used for the daughters already in bondage, showing the same subjugation as something being done to them.
לַעֲבָדִים
la’avadim
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work or serve.
“making our sons and our daughters servants” in this verse is la’avadim. The word for “servants” comes from a root that also names work and service. The root names the labor and role being imposed; the repeated root כבשׁ shows that this service is under coercion.
ALSO GROWS
avad: To work or serve.
עָבַד
This verb connects the children’s assigned role to the labor they are made to perform for others.
eved: A servant.
עֶבֶד
This is the singular form behind the verse’s plural “servants,” naming the status imposed on the sons and daughters.
avodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch holds the labor itself alongside the person who serves, making the cost of the children’s loss concrete.
THE PATTERN
When economic dependence places a family under another’s control, the claim can reach the children and their labor.
Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, Your servant, my husband, is dead. You know that your servant stood in awe of the LORD. And the creditor has come to take my two sons to be his bonded servants.The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a servant to the lender.THE THREAD
Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, Your servant, my husband, is dead. You know that your servant stood in awe of the LORD. And the creditor has come to take my two sons to be his bonded servants.Both verses use עבד (avad, to work or serve) for children whose labor is being claimed by someone else. In 2 Kings, a creditor is coming for two sons; here, sons and daughters are being pulled into the same condition while others hold the family’s land.
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