For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.”
We have here the tears of the oppressed, which Solomon considered, Ecc 4:1. Let us consider them as here they are dropped before Nehemiah, whose office it was, as governor, to deliver the poor and needy, and rid them out of the hand of the wicked oppressors, Psa 82:4. Hard times and hard hearts made the poor miserable. I. The times they lived in were hard.
Commenting on Nehemiah 5:1-5
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...
For there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters, [are] many: therefore we take up corn [for them], that we may eat, and live. (b) This is the complaint of the people, showing the extremity they were brought to.