What is the cause of their distress? What can have happened to move them
so deeply? Have the Samaritans returned to attack the city? Are the
walls on which they have spent so much labour overturned and laid low in
the dust? No, all without is peaceful, there is no sound of war in the
streets, and the hills around stand out brightly in the sunshine, and
are untrodden by the foot of any foe. The trouble is at home this time,
and as poor Nehemiah listens to the dismal noise, and as he tries to
still the shrill cries, that his voice may be heard, and as he watches
the people rocking to and fro, as Easterns do when moved by sorrow, he
may well feel downcast and disappointed, for a city divided against
itself cannot stand, and as Nehemiah listens to the cry, he clearly sees
that, at that moment, Jerusalem, the city he loves best on earth, is
indeed a divided city.

Who then were these citizens of Jerusalem, these men and these women,
who raised the great cry? They were the poorer classes of the city; it
was a cry of the poor against the rich, a cry like that which was raised
all over France at the time of the French Revolution, a cry for bread.

Nehemiah listens carefully to the cry and complaints of the people, and
as he does so he feels sure they are not raised without cause. There is
undoubtedly great and distressing poverty in the city, and he finds that
this may be traced to three principal causes.

(1) The King of Persia had only allowed the returned captives a very
small tract of country to live in. The rest of the land was filled up by
the Samaritans, the Arabians, the Edomites and other nations who had
settled in Palestine whilst the rightful owners were in Babylon.
Consequently, as their families increased, the Jews found this narrow
strip of country was not sufficient to maintain them, and, as is always