Texts in Conversation
Exodus rejects profit from loans to the poor where Hammurabi regulates interest in commercial lending. The difference makes a neighbor's need a reason to give up a return that would be accepted in an ordinary business transaction.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Code of Hammurabi 1:101
Babylonian Legal Text
Ancient Near East
78 If a merchant lends grain at interest, he shall take one hundred ka of grain per gur as interest, a rate of one-third; if he lends silver at interest, he shall take thirty-six barleycorns per shekel of silver, a rate of one-fifth. 79 If a man who owes an interest-bearing loan has no silver to repay it, the merchant shall take grain and silver according to the royal edict, with interest for the year at sixty ka per gur; if the merchant tries to raise and collect the interest beyond one hundred ka of grain per gur, or beyond thirty-six barleycorns per shekel of silver, he forfeits whatever he lent.
Exodus 22:25
Hebrew Bible
23 If you afflict them in any way and they cry to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my anger will burn and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children will be fatherless. 25 “If you lend money to any of my people who are needy among you, do not be like a moneylender to him; do not charge him interest. 26 If you do take the garment of your neighbor in pledge, you must return it to him by the time the sun goes down, 27 for it is his only covering—it is his garment for his body. What else can he sleep in? And when he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.
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Notes and References
“... 22:25. charging interest. Two principles are evident in the restriction on charging interest on loans: (1) a village-based, agricultural people realize they must depend on each other to survive, and (2) interest payments are a phenomenon of the city-based merchants with whom farmers sometimes had to deal and who were not concerned with the village community (see Hos 12:7-8). Thus to maintain their sense of the equality of all Israelites and to prevent growing antagonism between rural and urban citizens (see Neh 5:7, 10-11 and Ezek 22:12 for violations of the law), charging interest of Israelites had to be outlawed (see Lev 25:35-38; Deut 23:19). Only loans to non-Israelites could accrue interest (Deut 23:20). This stands in contrast to the more familiar business practices employed elsewhere and to the systematic listing of interest that can be charged on loans in the laws of *Eshnunna and *Hammurabi. ...”
Walton, John H.
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
(p. 101) InterVarsity Press, 2000
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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