19.
Very naturally, the merchants and the salespeople did not like this.
They did a good stroke of business on the Sabbath day, and would not lose their large profits without a struggle.

Accordingly, what do we find them doing?
They were refused admittance into the city, so they set up their stalls outside the walls.

If the Jerusalem people could not buy of them, because of that strait-laced, narrow-minded Nehemiah, still the country people who came in to attend the temple services could purchase at their stalls on their way home.

They might thus maintain a certain amount of their Sabbath business, and secure at least a portion of their Sabbath gains.

Not only so, but surely many Jews from the city itself, as they strolled through the gates on the day of rest, might pass by their stalls, and, in the conveniently loose folds of their robes, many, even of these inhabitants of Jerusalem, might conceal a pomegranate, or a melon, a piece of fish, or a bunch of grapes, a handful of figs, or a freshly-cut cucumber, and might easily escape detection by Nehemiah's servants, standing at the gate.
Nehemiah, seeing this state of things, feels that once again strong measures are required.