I bid you also return the interest they have paid you (the eighth part of the money), and I call upon you, in every way you can, to undo the evil you have done already, and for the future to do unto others as you would they should do to you, vers.

10, 11.
Nehemiah's earnest words prevailed, 'Then said they, We will restore them.' This promise was followed by a very curious act on the part of Nehemiah.
'I shook my lap.' The lap is what the Latins called the _sinus_, a fold in the bosom of the tunic, which was used as a pocket.

Eastern-like, Nehemiah used a sign to show what will happen to any man who shall break the promise he had just made.

God will cast him forth as a homeless wanderer, emptied of all his possessions, all his ill-gotten wealth.

He shall be void or empty, just as Nehemiah's pocket was void or empty, ver.