(3.) The law was entirely explicit and positive in its prohibition of usury. By “usury” the Hebrew meant, not merely excessive or illegal interest, but interest itself—all interest—money paid for the use of money, or any thing valuable paid for the use of any other property borrowed.——The first statute (Ex. 22: 25) was general, yet fully covered the principle: “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.” The law contemplated the poor only; for the rich are presumed to be above the necessity of borrowing money. The borrowing of money as capital to be used in trade, or in manufacture, or in the purchase of land, had no place at all in the business economy of Israel. The borrowing which the law contemplated was only that of the poor man to meet his imperative necessities. A man who had no accumulations to draw from for a sick day or a casualty, must borrow or go hungry. God speaks of such poor as “my people,” and forbids taking interest on what they must needs borrow.
In the later books (Lev. 25: 35–38 and Deut. 23: 19, 20) we have perhaps a later and revised form of the statute. “If thy brother be waxen poor, thou shalt relieve him. Take thou no usury of him or increase;fear thy God, that thy neighbor may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.” In Deut. (as above) the law discriminates between “thy brother” and a stranger. “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury.” The ground for this discrimination against the stranger may be a purpose to discourage his residence in the land; or it may be related to the general fact that foreigners were the men of traffic. (The original words for Canaanite and for merchant were the same.) Tradesmen, doing business on borrowed capital, might afford to pay interest; and on every principle of right and justice, ought to do so. But God did not encourage the Israelites in traffic with other nations. It would have been quite too perilous to their morals, and to their religion.
The reader will scarcely need the suggestion that the Hebrew law against interest applies in our Christian age only to the case of loans made to the poor to meet their necessities. The spirit of the law unquestionably does apply in such cases, and does not apply to any other.
(4.) Many special statutes contemplated relief for the poor.——The corners and the gleanings of the harvest field; a forgotten sheaf; a few clusters of grapes also and some olives on the olive tree, must be left for the poor and the stranger (Lev. 19: 9, 10, and 23: 32, and Deut. 24: 19–22)—each of these successive statutes adding somewhat in detail to the preceding.——The day wages of the poor laborer must be promptly paid, even on the very same day (Lev. 19: 13 and Deut. 24: 14, 15). But especially the sabbatic year (each seventh) was designed to be a special benefaction to the poor. This law (Deut. 15: 1–11) uses chiefly the word “release” in regard to the debts of the poor. Critics are sharply divided over the question whether this release was an entire remission of debts, or only a stay of collection, putting it over for this one year. In favor of the latter view, Michaelis and others urge that the reason for stay of collection was that no cultivation of land was permitted during this year, and hence there were no crops of this sort, and therefore only diminished means of paying debts. Also that the law might be so abusedas mostly to annihilate all rights of property, inasmuch as the statute (v. 9) would virtually put the property of the more wealthy within the control of the less wealthy. Thou shalt not withhold because the year of release is at hand, etc.
On the other hand, the arguments for construing the law to mean an actual release of debt in the case of “thy poor brother” or neighbor, are strong, and in my view, conclusive; e. g.
(a.) This is the legitimate meaning of the original word translated “release.” There should never be any deviation from the legitimate sense of the original staple word, without cogent reasons—a principle which is doubly strong in the words of a law.
(b.) This construction is fully in harmony with the genius of the entire code in all its statutes for the relief of the poor.
(c.) On this construction the limitations of the statute are precisely in place; e. g.—to the case of “thy poor brother.” “Thou shalt release save when there shall be no poor among you”: also—“If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren, etc., thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but shalt open thy hand wide unto him, and shall surely lend unto him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth”—[not all your property: you are not required to make over every thing you have]. “Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying—The year of release is at hand” [and I shall never get my money or my grain back again], “and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.” This shaping of the statute plainly contemplates a real remission of this sort of debts on each seventh year.
(d.) To the same purport is this—that the law excepts debts against a foreigner: “Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it.” Our translators have taken the liberty to add the word “again,” but without the least authority from the Hebrew. The word “again” seems to come from the theory that this statute required a stay of collection for one year in the case of the foreigner: but of this there is no proof in the law as it came from the hand of Moses.——In the time of Nehemiah (5: 1–12) there was unquestionably an entire remissionof debts to the poor, and not the least hint that this was going beyond the Mosaic law. On the contrary it is implied that “the fear of our God” (v. 9)—equivalent to obedience—would require just this.
This seventh or sabbatic year had other special features besides the remission of the poor man’s debts as in Deut. 15: 1–11. These additional features appear in Lev. 25, which provides (vs. 2–7) that this year shall be a Sabbath of rest to the soil—rest from its usual cultivation.——In this chapter we find also a kindred institution—the Jubilee—each fiftieth year—next following each seventh Sabbatic year. Inasmuch as this arrangement would bring two years of land-rest together, the Lord gave a special promise that the fertility of the year immediately preceding should suffice against the necessities of these two years of rest—a fact which testifies that God ruled his people Israel under a system of special providences. If Moses is to be considered as even in a secondary sense the legislator of the people, he must have had unbounded confidence in God’s special direction and counsel in these statutes.