If you lend money to any of my people. Humanity should be highly regarded in the matter of loans, especially when a person, reduced to extremities, implores a rich man’s compassion. For this is, in point of fact, the genuine trial of our charity when, in accordance with Christ's precept, we lend to those from whom we expect no return ([Reference Luke 6:35]).

The question here is not about usury, as some have falsely thought,¹¹¹ as if He commanded us to lend gratuitously and without any hope of gain. However, since private advantage is most often sought in lending, we therefore neglect the poor and lend our money only to the rich, from whom we expect some compensation. Christ reminds us that if we seek to acquire the favor of the rich, we offer no proof of our charity or mercy in this way. Hence, He proposes another kind of liberality, which is plainly gratuitous: giving assistance to the poor, not only because our loan to them is perilous, but also because they cannot repay us in kind.

Before descending to speak of loans, God here refers to poverty and distress ([Reference Leviticus 25:35]), so that men's minds may be disposed to compassion. If anyone is afflicted with poverty, He commands us to relieve his necessity. However, He makes use of a metaphor,¹¹² that one who is tottering should be strengthened, as if by catching hold of his hand.

What follows about the stranger and sojourner extends and amplifies, in my opinion, the previous sentence, as if to say that since humanity is not to be denied even to strangers, much more should assistance be given to their brethren. For when it pleased God that strangers should be permitted to inhabit the land, they were to be kindly treated¹¹³ according to the rights of hospitality; for to allow them to live is to make their condition just and tolerable. And thus God indirectly implies that such unhappy persons are expelled and driven away, so as not to live, if they are oppressed by unjust burdens. This, then, is the sum of the first sentence: that the rich, who has the ability, should uplift the failing poor man with his assistance, or should strengthen the tottering.

A precept is added regarding lending without interest, which, although it is a political law, still depends on the rule of charity, since it almost inevitably happens that the poor are entirely drained by the exaction of interest, and that their blood is almost sucked away. God had no other object in view than that mutual and brotherly affection should prevail among the Israelites.

It is plain that this was a part of the Jewish polity, because it was lawful to lend at interest to the Gentiles, a distinction the spiritual law does not admit. The judicial law, however, which God prescribed to His ancient people, is abrogated only to the extent that what charity dictates should remain; that is, that our brethren who need our assistance are not to be treated harshly.

Moreover, since the wall of partition that formerly separated Jew and Gentile is now broken down, our condition is now different. Consequently, we must spare all without exception, both regarding taking interest and any other mode of extortion; and equity is to be observed even towards strangers. The household of faith indeed holds the first rank, since Paul commands us specially to do good to them ([Reference Galatians 6:10]); still, the common society of the human race demands that we should not seek to grow rich by the loss of others.

Regarding the political law, it is no wonder that God permitted His people to receive interest from the Gentiles, since otherwise a just reciprocity would not have been preserved, without which one party would inevitably be injured. God commands His people not to practice usury, yet lays only the Jews, and not foreign nations, under the obligation of this law. Therefore, in order that equality (ratio analogica) might be preserved, He grants¹¹⁴ the same liberty to His people that the Gentiles would assume for themselves; for this is the only interaction that can be endured when the condition of both parties is similar and equal. For when Plato¹¹⁵ asserts that usurers are not to be tolerated in a well-ordered republic, he does not go further than to enjoin that its citizens should abstain from that base and dishonest traffic between each other.

The question now is whether usury is evil in itself. Surely, what even heathens have detested appears by no means lawful for the children of God. We know that the name of usurer has everywhere and always been infamous and detested. Thus Cato,¹¹⁶ desiring to commend agriculture, says that thieves were formerly condemned to a fine of double, and usurers quadruple, from which he infers that the latter were deemed the worst. When asked what he thought of usury, he replied, “What do I think of killing a man?” – thereby wishing to show that it was as improper to make money by usury as to commit murder. This was the view of one private individual, yet it is derived from the opinions of almost all nations and persons. And certainly, for this reason, great tumults often arose at Rome, and fatal contentions were awakened between the common people and the rich, since usurers almost inevitably suck men’s blood like leeches.

But if we are to come to an accurate decision about the thing itself, our determination must be derived from nowhere else than the universal rule of justice, and especially from the declaration of Christ, on which hang the Law and the Prophets: Do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself ([Reference Matthew 7:12]). For crafty men are forever inventing some little subterfuge or other to deceive God. Thus, when all men detested the word foenus, another was substituted which might avoid unpopularity under an honest pretext; for they called it usury, as being a compensation for the loss a man had incurred by losing the use of his money.

But¹¹⁷ there is no description of foenus to which this specious name may not be extended. For whoever has any ready money and is about to lend it will allege that it would be profitable to him if he were to purchase¹¹⁸ something with it, and that at every moment opportunities of gain are presenting themselves. Thus, there will always be grounds for his seeking compensation, since no creditor could ever lend money without loss to himself. Thus usury,¹¹⁹ since the word is equivalent to foenus, is merely a covering for an odious practice, as if such glosses would deliver us in God’s judgment, where nothing but absolute integrity can avail for our defense.

There was an almost similar mode of subterfuge among the Israelites. The name נשך, neschec, which is derived from biting, had a bad connotation. Since then no one chose to be compared to a hungry dog that fed itself by biting others, some escape from the reproach was sought; and they called whatever gain they received beyond the capital, תרבית, therbith, as being an increase. But God, in order to prevent such deception, unites the two words ([Reference Leviticus 25:36]) and condemns the increase as well as the biting. For where He complains of their unjust modes of spoiling and thieving in Ezekiel,¹²⁰ and uses both words as He does here by Moses, there is no doubt that He designedly cuts off their empty excuses ([Reference Ezekiel 18:13]). Therefore, lest anyone should reply that although he derived advantage from his money, he was not on that account guilty of usury, God at once removes this pretense and condemns in general any addition to the principal. Assuredly, both passages clearly show that those who invent new words to excuse evil do nothing but vainly trifle.

I have, then, admonished people that the fact itself is simply to be considered: that all unjust gains are ever displeasing to God, whatever color we try to give them. But if we would form an equitable judgment, reason does not allow us to admit that all usury is to be condemned without exception. If the debtor has protracted the time by false pretenses to the loss and inconvenience of his creditor, will it be consistent for him to reap advantage from his bad faith and broken promises? Certainly, I think no one will deny that usury ought to be paid to the creditor in addition to the principal to compensate his loss.¹²¹ If any rich and moneyed man, wishing to buy a piece of land, should borrow some part of the sum required from another, may not the one who lends the money receive some part of the revenues of the farm until the principal shall be repaid? Many such cases daily occur in which, as far as equity is concerned, usury is no worse than purchase.

Nor will that subtle argument¹²² of Aristotle avail, that usury is unnatural because money is barren and does not beget money. For a crafty person, such as I have described, might make much profit by trading with another man’s money, and the purchaser of the farm might in the meantime reap and gather his vintage. But those who think differently may object that we must abide by God’s judgment when He generally prohibits all usury to His people. I reply that the question is only about the poor, and consequently, if we are dealing with the rich, usury is freely permitted, because the Lawgiver, in alluding to one thing, seems not to condemn another about which He is silent. If again they object that usurers are absolutely condemned by David and Ezekiel ([Reference Psalms 15:5]; [Reference Ezekiel 18:13]), I think that their declarations ought to be judged by the rule of charity; and therefore only those unjust exactions are condemned by which the creditor, losing sight of equity, burdens and oppresses his debtor.

I should, indeed, be unwilling to take usury under my patronage, and I wish the name itself were banished from the world; but I do not dare to pronounce upon so important a point more than God’s words convey. It is abundantly clear that the ancient people were prohibited from usury, but we must confess that this was a part of their political constitution. Hence it follows that usury is not now unlawful, except insofar as it contravenes equity and brotherly union. Let each one, then, place himself before God’s judgment-seat and not do to his neighbor what he would not have done to himself, from which a sure and infallible decision may be reached. To exercise the trade of usury, since heathen writers accounted it among disgraceful and base modes of gain, is much less tolerable among the children of God; but in what cases, and how far it may be lawful to receive usury upon loans, the law of equity will better prescribe than any lengthy discussions.

Let us now examine the words. In the first place, where we have translated the words, You shall not be to him as a usurer,¹²³ there is some ambiguity in the Hebrew word נשך, nashac, for it is sometimes used generally to lend, without any ill meaning. But here it is undoubtedly applied to a usurer who bites the poor, as also in Psalm 109:11: Let the usurer catch all that he has.¹²⁴ The sum is that the poor are to be liberally aided and not oppressed by harsh exactions; and therefore immediately afterwards it is added, neither shall you lay upon him usury. When He again repeats, And if your brother has become poor, etc., we see that reference is everywhere made to the poor. This is because, although sometimes those who possess large properties are ruined by usury (as Cicero says that certain luxurious and prodigal persons in his days contended against usury with the fruits of their farms, because their creditors swallowed up the whole produce¹²⁵), still the poor alone, who had been compelled to borrow by want and not by luxury, were worthy of compassion.

The third passage, however, admirably explains the meaning of God, since it extends usury to corn and wine, and all other articles. For many contracts were invented by artful men, by which they pillaged the needy without shame or disgrace. And nowadays no rapacity is more cruel than that which imposes a payment upon debtors without any mention of usury; for instance, if a poor man should ask the loan of six measures of wheat, the creditor will require seven to be repaid, or if the same thing should happen regarding wine. This profit will not be called usury because no money will pass. But God, indirectly casting ridicule upon their craftiness, shows that this plague of usury¹²⁶ extends itself to various things and to almost all sorts of traffic. From which it clearly appears that nothing else is prescribed to the Israelites than that they should humanely assist each other. But since greed blinds people and leads them aside to dishonest dealings, God sets His blessing in opposition to all such iniquitous arts by which they, as it were, hawk for gain, and commands them to look for riches from Him, the author of all good things, rather than to hunt for them by plunder and fraud.

Albert Barnes Commentary Exodus 22:25

Exodus 22:25

Exodus 22:25

SCRIPTURE