18.
1 ox.
6 fat sheep.
Fowls without number.
A fresh supply of wine of all kinds stored in every tenth day.
It was no small expense to have above 150 men to dinner daily, yet for all this Nehemiah took not a penny from his province, so touched was he to the heart by the poverty of the people.

Not only so, but all the time the walls were being built he toiled away, and allowed all his household servants to work both night and day, and yet looked for no payment or compensation, ver.16.Then besides all this, Nehemiah had been most generous in the time of the famine; he had supplied the poor people with money and with corn, and yet he had firmly refused to allow them to pledge or mortgage their lands, much less their children, ver.

10.
And Nehemiah tells us the secret of his consistent conduct; he tells us why he differed so much from the governors who went before him.

A strong power held him back from sin.
'So did not I, because of the fear of God.' Thus Nehemiah had a right to speak, for he practised what he preached.
But in spite of this, his private appeal to the nobles appears to have been in vain.

They seem to have given no answer, to have taken no notice of his appeal, and to have given him no reason to think that they intended to change their conduct.
So he set a great assembly against them.