31 and if the peoples of the land bring wares or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy of them on the Sabbath, or on a holy day; and that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Bring ware on the sabbath day - Compare Nehemiah 13:16, where this desecration of the Sabbath is shown to have commonly taken place.
Leave the seventh year - i. e., "let the land rest in the sabbatical year" (margin reference) and give up the "pledge-taking" Nehemiah 10:2-10.
Bring ware - We will most solemnly keep the Sabbath. Leave the seventh year - We will let the land have its Sabbath, and rest every seventh year. See on Exodus 23:10-11 (note).
And [if] the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the sabbath day to sell, (f) [that] we would not buy it of them on the sabbath, or on the holy day: and [that] we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.
(f) Which nonetheless they broke soon after, (Nehemiah 13:15).
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,
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.
People of the land - The Heathens. On the sabbath - They that covenant to keep all the commandments of God, must particularly covenant to keep the sabbath holy. For the profanation of this is a sure inlet to all manner of profaneness.
*More commentary available at chapter level.