Debt in the Torah
Considerations of usury in the Old Testament are less about the practice of lending itself than about the particular harms caused by the practice in certain contexts. The Israelites were literally family. Therefore not sharing was reprehensible and punished severely by their laws. Furthermore, God hates people engaging in usury in ways that enslave their neighbors or harm and exploit the most vulnerable.
Old Testament authors saw lending in a very particular light and context: rich lending to poor; charging interest as harmful, almost punitive; and lending as power and borrowing as weakness or disadvantage. Nor were they wrong to see it this way.
In ancient and medieval societies, people borrowed because of tragedy, weakness, or desperation—a drought, a blight, the death of a husband or father, etc.—hence the importance of stories about widows and orphans. The poor would borrow from those with wealth, influence, and power. As I mentioned earlier, God created rules regarding slavery, lending, and Jubilee to protect the vulnerable and promote shalom in a society of brothers and sisters.
At first glance, God appears to take a very dim view of usury. He repeatedly prohibits the Israelites from employing usury and taking profit from their fellow Israelites:
- Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. —Leviticus 25:36–37
- If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—if he … does not lend at interest or take any profit… he shall surely live, declares the Lord God. —Ezekiel 18:8
- You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. —Deuteronomy 23:19
- Whoever multiplies his wealth by interest and profit gathers it for him who is generous to the poor. —Proverbs 28:8
- Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He … who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. —Psalm 15:5
While this may seem like a sweeping condemnation of lending money at interest, deeper consideration of the context suggests that God is not condemning usury per se, but rather abusive uses of usury. Consider that: (1) these condemnations take place within a specific set of relationships and situations; (2) other passages allow and even encourage lending at interest; (3) Scripture condemns lending, not as inherently sinful (like, say, adultery or worshiping an idol), but as one of a variety of practices that can be used sinfully—namely, not loving one’s neighbor and not caring for the poor.
Notice, for example, the connections between poverty, borrowing, and debt. The Pentateuch addresses usury in Exodus 22, Leviticus 25, and Deuteronomy 15, 23, and 28. In Exodus 22:25, God tells the Israelites that “if you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.” Notice that the command explicitly talks about lending to the poor. This passage stresses caring for the poor, and it condemns usury as harming or neglecting them.
This fits the preceding verse (22), which talks about not taking advantage of widows and orphans, who would be the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. It also fits the subsequent verses (26–27) about the importance of returning a poor neighbor’s pledged cloak before nightfall because it could be his only cloak and he will be more exposed to the elements if you keep it.
The Leviticus 25:36–37 passage is similar. Before the verse about not charging interest, we are explicitly told that the borrower is poor and unable to support himself. God says we have a responsibility to care for such a brother. Then comes the prohibition: “You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.”
God seems focused on the welfare of the poor brother, not on the inherent sinfulness of borrowing and lending. By the way, the broader context of this chapter in Leviticus is the year of Jubilee, when debts were to be forgiven and Hebrew slaves were to be freed. God institutes the year of Jubilee because He brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt: “For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God” (Lev. 25:42–43, emphasis added). Canceling debts freed the poor from slavery and destitution.
There is another significant reason why this was part of the Mosaic law: God’s ownership of the land and the inheritance he intended for his people. Returning land in the year of Jubilee is part of God’s rules of inheritance, as the land ultimately belongs to Him.
Deuteronomy 15:8 has similar commands about caring for the poor and not charging them interest, but it adds a further detail of what biblical authors assume when they talk about charging interest: that lenders are rich and borrowers are poor. Why else would God tell Israel multiple times that if they follow him they will be blessed, wealthy, and lenders to the nations rather than borrowers?
- For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. —Deuteronomy 15:6
- The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. —Deuteronomy 28:12
If they don’t follow God, however, they will be poor and borrow from the nations: “He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail” (Deut. 28:44). The author of Proverbs echoes this idea: “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender” (22:7).
Similarly, why would God allow them to charge interest to the nations but not to their brothers: “You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest” (Deut. 23:20)? In fact, when it comes to a brother, “you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be,” instead of shutting your hand and hardening your heart to your poor brother.
I should note that biblical authors are not always talking about a formal business transaction when referring to borrowing and lending. Letting someone use your hammer or drill or borrow your car for a day, giving a friend your umbrella temporarily, these would all be modern examples of the kinds of lending the Bible speaks about in Psalm 37:26, Psalm 112:5, and Proverbs 19:17, for example.
We can’t always distinguish when “lend” really means “give.” We’ve all experienced situations where we have “lent” something and never gotten it back. This can be irksome if we expected it back, but we will often lend not expecting anything in return. Luke 11:5 illustrates how “lend” can be used to mean “give”: “And he said to them, ‘Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves.”’”
This is clearly not a business transaction. The friend may hope or expect that you will give him some loaves in the future, but you will clearly not be returning these three loaves the way you would return a plow.
We find more condemnation of usury in Nehemiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. These condemnations fit the pattern I’ve described above: God requires us to care for the poor and to practice generosity rather than greedily seeking gain when we interact with the poor and the vulnerable. Doing so honors God and recognizes that He did not make us to rule ruthlessly over our fellow men and women as slaves.
Nehemiah condemns the wealthy Israelites for not dealing generously with their poor brothers and sisters. Instead, the wealthy Israelites charged the poor so much interest and profit that the poor say, “[We] are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine. … [We] are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards” (Neh. 5:3–5).
These verses show something else God cares about—people’s ability to generate income, which in agrarian societies primarily consisted of food and clothing, to provide for themselves, and to be part of the community. Not only are the poor indebted in Nehemiah’s time but they also have no means to improve their situation because they have mortgaged or sold their productive assets (fields and vineyards). They are permanently poor now and slavery must inevitably follow. Nehemiah explicitly calls out the charging of interest (in violation of the Pentateuch’s prohibitions) as the main problem: “I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. I said to them, ‘You are exacting interest, each from his brother.’ And I held a great assembly against them. … Let us abandon this exacting of interest” (Neh. 5:7–10).
The context suggests that the problem stems from the particular use of usury, not from the activity itself. Such a reading resolves the otherwise puzzling passages about lending to foreigners and Jesus’ parable of how the servant should have given the talent to the bankers to lend with interest (Matt. 25:14–30).