Reference: Loan
Easton
The Mosaic law required that when an Israelite needed to borrow, what he asked was to be freely lent to him, and no interest was to be charged, although interest might be taken of a foreigner (Ex 22:25; De 23:19-20; Le 25:35-38). At the end of seven years all debts were remitted. Of a foreigner the loan might, however, be exacted. At a later period of the Hebrew commonwealth, when commerce increased, the practice of exacting usury or interest on loans, and of suretiship in the commercial sense, grew up. Yet the exaction of it from a Hebrew was regarded as discreditable (Ps 15:5; Pr 6:1,4; 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 27:13; Jer 15:10).
Limitations are prescribed by the law to the taking of a pledge from the borrower. The outer garment in which a man slept at night, if taken in pledge, was to be returned before sunset (Ex 22:26-27; De 24:12-13). A widow's garment (De 24:17) and a millstone (6) could not be taken. A creditor could not enter the house to reclaim a pledge, but must remain outside till the borrower brought it (De 24:10-11). The Hebrew debtor could not be retained in bondage longer than the seventh year, or at farthest the year of jubilee (Ex 21:2; Le 25:39,42), but foreign sojourners were to be "bondmen for ever" (Le 25:44-54).
See Verses Found in Dictionary
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.
"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. If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, read more. for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
"If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. read more. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. "If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave:
For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. read more. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly. "If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired servant. If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. He shall treat him as a servant hired year by year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee.
"You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
"When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. read more. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the LORD your God.
"You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge,
who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger,
Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;
Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.
One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor.
Take a man's garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners.
Take a man's garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for an adulteress.
Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.
Fausets
(See USURY.) The merciful character of Moses' law appears in the command not to keep the poor man's outer garment, his covering by night as well as day, after sunset (Ex 22:26-27; De 24:6,10-13,17; compare, however, Pr 22:27). The millstone, including all instruments necessary to life, and a widow's garment, were forbidden to be taken. The creditor must not enter the debtor's house to seize the pledge, but wait for the debtor to bring out an adequate security for payment.
The debtor could be held as a bondman only until the seventh year, i.e. for six years, and not beyond the Jubilee year, whatever his period of service might be (Ex 21:2). Then he must be sent away with a liberal supply of provisions, the prospect of such a gift doubtless stimulating zeal in service (De 15:12-18; Le 25:39-55); his land was to be restored. But foreign slaves might be held in continual servitude (2Ki 4:1; Isa 50:1; 52:3). The Roman or else the oriental law detaining the debtor in prison until he paid the uttermost farthing, and even giving him over to torturers, is alluded to in Mt 5:26; 18:34.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.
If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
"If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. read more. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 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. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly. "If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he grows rich he may redeem himself. He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired servant. If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. He shall treat him as a servant hired year by year. He shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. For it is to me that the people of Israel are servants. They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
"If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed. read more. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. But if he says to you, 'I will not go out from you,' because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you, then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same. It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired servant he has served you six years. So the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.
"No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge.
"When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. read more. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the LORD your God.
"You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge,
Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves."
If you have nothing with which to pay, why should your bed be taken from under you?
Thus says the LORD: "Where is your mother's certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
For thus says the LORD: "You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money."
Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,until he should pay all his debt.
Hastings
Smith
Loan.
The law strictly forbade any interest to be taken for a loan to any poor person, and at first, as it seems, even in the case of a foreigner; but this prohibition was afterward limited to Hebrews only, from whom, of whatever rank, not only was no usury on any pretence to be exacted, but relief to the poor by way of loan was enjoined, and excuses for evading this duty were forbidden.
As commerce increased, the practice of usury, and so also of suretyship, grew up; but the exaction of it from a Hebrew appears to have been regarded to a late period as discreditable.
Ps 15:5; Pr 6:1,4; 11:15; 17:18; 20:16; 22:26; Jer 15:10; Eze 18:13
Systematic breach of the law in this respect was corrected by Nehemiah after the return from captivity.
The money-changers, who had seats and tables in the temple, where traders whose profits arose chiefly from the exchange of money with those who came to pay their annual half-shekel. The Jewish law did not forbid temporary bondage in the case of debtors, but it forbade a Hebrew debtor to be detained as a bondman longer than the seventh year, or at farthest the year of jubilee.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing.
"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.
"If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.
You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
"If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave:
For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves.
Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, 'The seventh year, the year of release is near,' and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin.
Now there arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers.
I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, "So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied."And all the assembly said "Amen" and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.
who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger,
Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;
Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.
One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor.
Take a man's garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners.
Be not one of those who give pledges, who put up security for debts.
Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.
lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.