John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 24:10

"When thou dost lend thy neighbor any manner of loan, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge." — Deuteronomy 24:10 (ASV)

When you lend your brother anything. He provides against another iniquity in reclaiming a pledge: namely, a creditor ransacking his brother's house and furniture to pick out the pledge as he pleases. For, if this option were given to the avaricious rich, they would show no moderation but would seize upon all that was best, as if assaulting the poor to their very core. In short, they would ransack people's houses, or at any rate, while contemptuously refusing this or that item, they would fill the unfortunate with rebuke and shame.

Therefore, God wills that no pledge be reclaimed except what the debtor, of his own accord and at his own convenience, brings out of his house. He even proceeds further: the creditor shall not take back any pledge he knows is necessary for the poor person—for example, if the debtor should pledge the bed on which he sleeps, or his bedspread, cloak, or mantle. For it is not just that the poor person should be stripped, so as to suffer from cold, or be deprived of other necessities, the use of which he could not do without, without loss or inconvenience.

A promise, therefore, is added that this act of humanity will be pleasing to God when the poor person sleeps in the garment restored to him. He speaks even more distinctly and says: The poor will bless you, and it shall be accounted to you for righteousness. For God indicates that He hears the prayers of the poor and needy, so that the rich man should not think the bounty he confers upon a lowly individual is thrown away. Indeed, we must be more than iron-hearted if we are not disposed to such liberality as this, when we understand that, although the poor do not have the means to repay us in this world, they still have the power to recompense us before God—that is, by obtaining grace for us through their prayers.

An implied threat is also conveyed: if the poor man should sleep uncomfortably or catch cold through our fault, God will hear his groans, so that our cruelty will not be unpunished. But if the poor man on whom we have had compassion should be ungrateful, yet, even though he is silent, our kindness will cry out to God. On the other hand, our tyrannical harshness will suffice to provoke God’s vengeance, even if he who has been treated unkindly should patiently endure his wrong.

To be unto righteousness¹⁰⁸ is equivalent to being approved by God, or being an acceptable act. For since keeping the Law is true righteousness, this praise is extended to particular acts of obedience. However, it must be observed that this righteousness fails and vanishes unless we universally fulfill whatever God commands. It is, indeed, a part of righteousness to restore a poor man’s pledge. But if a man is only beneficent in this respect, while in other matters he robs his brothers, or if, while free from avarice, he exercises violence, is given to lust or gluttony, this particular righteousness, although pleasing in itself to God, will not be taken into account.

In fact, we must hold fast to the axiom that no work is accounted righteous before God unless it proceeds from a man of purity and integrity; yet there is no such person to be found. Consequently, no works are imputed for righteousness, except because God deigns to bestow His gratuitous favor on believers. Indeed, in itself it would be true that whatever act of obedience to God we perform is accounted for righteousness—that is, if the whole course of our life corresponded to it. However, no work proceeds from us that is not corrupted by some defect. Thus, we must fly to God’s mercy, so that, being reconciled to us, He may also accept our work.

What He had previously prescribed concerning the poor, He afterwards applies to widows alone, yet in such a way as to commend all poor persons to us under their name. We gather this both from the beginning of the verse (verse 17), where He instructs them to deal fairly and justly with strangers and orphans, and also from the reason that is added: namely, that they should reflect that they were slaves in the land of Egypt. For their condition there did not permit them to proudly insult the miserable, and it is natural that one who has experienced the same sufferings should be more affected by the ills of others. Since, then, this reason is a general one, it is also evident that the precept is general: that we should be humane towards all who are in want.

¹⁰⁸ “It shall be righteousness unto thee,” A V., and rightly, as it would appear, for, as Piscator (in Poole’s Syn.) remarks, “ante צצץ deficit praepositio.”