Texts in Conversation
Leviticus redirects the lending regulated by Hammurabi toward keeping a struggling neighbor alive. Interest becomes unacceptable when a loan is meant to relieve poverty, because the lender's profit can undermine the help being offered.
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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.
Leviticus 25:36
Hebrew Bible
32 As for the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities which they possess, the Levites must have a perpetual right of redemption. 33 Whatever someone among the Levites might redeem—the sale of a house which is his property in a city—must revert in the Jubilee, because the houses of the cities of the Levites are their property in the midst of the Israelites. 34 Moreover, the open field areas of their cities must not be sold, because that is their perpetual possession. 35 “‘If your brother becomes impoverished and is indebted to you, you must support him; he must live with you like a foreign resident. 36 Do not take interest or profit from him, but you must fear your God, and your brother must live with you.
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Notes and References
“... 25:38. prohibition against taking interest. Like the other prohibitions against charging interest on loans to fellow Israelites (Ex 22:25; Deut 23:19, see comments there), this legislation is designed to help a person to escape his insolvent condition and to prevent him from falling into debt servitude due to default on a loan. This applies to loans of money as well as grain, which would ordinarily be paid back at the end of the harvest. These laws are also a way to allow the debtor to retain a measure of personal dignity and honor by being treated on a level higher than a slave or a foreigner (see Deut 23:20). Both the laws of *Eshnunna and *Hammurabi’s code contain set rates of interest on loans (20 percent to 33.3 percent was not uncommon and was considered fair). However, it was understood that “acts of god,” such as a flood, require compassion on the debtor and a cancellation of interest payments. ...”
Walton, John H.
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
(p. 140) 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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