Ezekiel 18:13

18:13 engages in usury and charges interest. Will he live? He will not! Because he has done all these abominable deeds he will certainly die. ¹  He will bear the responsibility for his own death. ² 

Ezekiel 18:17

18:17 refrains from wrongdoing, ³  does not engage in usury or charge interest, carries out my regulations and follows my statutes. He will not die for his father’s iniquity; ⁴  he will surely live.

Ezekiel 22:12

22:12 They take bribes within you to shed blood. You engage in usury and charge interest; ⁵  you extort money from your neighbors. You have forgotten me, ⁶  declares the sovereign Lord. ⁷ 

Exodus 22:25

22:25 “If you lend money to any of ⁸  my people who are needy among you, do not be like a moneylender ⁹  to him; do not charge ¹⁰  him interest. ¹¹ 

Leviticus 25:35-37

Debt and Slave Regulations

25:35 “‘If your brother ¹²  becomes impoverished and is indebted to you, ¹³  you must support ¹⁴  him; he must live ¹⁵  with you like a foreign resident. ¹⁶  25:36 Do not take interest or profit from him, ¹⁷  but you must fear your God and your brother must live ¹⁸  with you. 25:37 You must not lend him your money at interest and you must not sell him food for profit. ¹⁹ 

Deuteronomy 23:19-20

Respect for Others’ Property

23:19 You must not charge interest on a loan to your fellow Israelite, ²⁰  whether on money, food, or anything else that has been loaned with interest. 23:20 You may lend with interest to a foreigner, but not to your fellow Israelite; if you keep this command the Lord your God will bless you in all you undertake in the land you are about to enter to possess.

Nehemiah 5:1-11

Nehemiah Intervenes on behalf of the Oppressed

5:1 Then there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews. ²¹  5:2 There were those who said, “With our sons and daughters, we are many. We must obtain ²²  grain in order to eat and stay alive.” 5:3 There were others who said, “We are putting up our fields, our vineyards, and our houses as collateral in order to obtain grain during the famine.” 5:4 Then there were those who said, “We have borrowed money to pay our taxes to the king ²³  on our fields and our vineyards. 5:5 And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ²⁴  and our children are just like their children, ²⁵  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ²⁶  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ²⁷  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ²⁸ 

5:6 I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. ²⁹  5:7 I considered these things carefully ³⁰  and then registered a complaint with the wealthy ³¹  and the officials. I said to them, “Each one of you is seizing the collateral ³²  from your own countrymen!” ³³  Because of them I called for ³⁴  a great public assembly. 5:8 I said to them, “To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews ³⁵  who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, ³⁶  so that we can then buy them back!” They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

5:9 Then I ³⁷  said, “The thing that you are doing is wrong! ³⁸  Should you not conduct yourselves ³⁹  in the fear of our God in order to avoid the reproach of the Gentiles who are our enemies? 5:10 Even I and my relatives ⁴⁰  and my associates ⁴¹  are lending them money and grain. But let us abandon this practice of seizing collateral! ⁴²  5:11 This very day return to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive trees, and their houses, along with the interest ⁴³  that you are exacting from them on the money, the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil.”

Psalms 15:5

15:5 He does not charge interest when he lends his money. ⁴⁴ 

He does not take bribes to testify against the innocent. ⁴⁵ 

The one who lives like this ⁴⁶  will never be upended.

Proverbs 28:8

28:8 The one who increases his wealth by increasing interest ⁴⁷ 

gathers it for someone who is gracious ⁴⁸  to the needy.

Jeremiah 15:10

Jeremiah Complains about His Lot and The Lord Responds

15:10 I said, ⁴⁹ 

“Oh, mother, how I regret ⁵⁰  that you ever gave birth to me!

I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. ⁵¹ 

I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone.

Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” ⁵² 

[18:13]  ¹ tn Heb “be put to death.” The translation follows an alternative reading that appears in several ancient textual witnesses.

[18:13]  ² tn Heb “his blood will be upon him.”

[18:17]  ³ tc This translation follows the LXX. The MT reads “restrains his hand from the poor,” which makes no sense here.

[18:17]  ⁴ tn Or “in his father’s punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity/punishment” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and in vv. 18, 19, 20; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”

[22:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “usury and interest you take.” See 18:13, 17. This kind of economic exploitation violated the law given in Lev 25:36.

[22:12]  ⁶ sn Forgetting the Lord is also addressed in Deut 6:12; 8:11, 14; Jer 3:21; 13:25; Ezek 23:35; Hos 2:15; 8:14; 13:6.

[22:12]  ⁷ tn The second person verb forms are feminine singular in Hebrew, indicating that the personified city is addressed here as representing its citizens.

[22:25]  ⁸ tn “any of” has been supplied.

[22:25]  ⁹ sn The moneylender will be demanding and exacting. In Ps 109:11 and 2 Kgs 4:1 the word is rendered as “extortioner.”

[22:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “set.”

[22:25]  ¹¹ sn In ancient times money was lent primarily for poverty and not for commercial ventures (H. Gamoran, “The Biblical Law against Loans on Interest,” JNES 30 [1971]: 127-34). The lending to the poor was essentially a charity, and so not to be an opportunity to make money from another person’s misfortune. The word נֶשֶׁךְ (neshekh) may be derived from a verb that means “to bite,” and so the idea of usury or interest was that of putting out one’s money with a bite in it (See S. Stein, “The Laws on Interest in the Old Testament,” JTS 4 [1953]: 161-70; and E. Neufeld, “The Prohibition against Loans at Interest in the Old Testament,” HUCA 26 [1955]: 355-412).

[25:35]  ¹² tn It is not clear to whom this refers. It is probably broader than “sibling” (cf. NRSV “any of your kin”; NLT “any of your Israelite relatives”) but some English versions take it to mean “fellow Israelite” (so TEV; cf. NAB, NIV “countrymen”) and others are ambiguous (cf. CEV “any of your people”).

[25:35]  ¹³ tn Heb “and his hand slips with you.”

[25:35]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “strengthen”; NASB “sustain.”

[25:35]  ¹⁵ tn The form וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living,” but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal, and GKC 218 §76.i; cf. Lev 18:5).

[25:35]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a foreigner and resident,” which is probably to be combined (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 170-71).

[25:36]  ¹⁷ tn The meaning of the terms rendered “interest” and “profit” is much debated (see the summaries in P. J. Budd, Leviticus [NCBC], 354-55 and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 178). Verse 37, however, suggests that the first refers to a percentage of money and the second percentage of produce (see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 421).

[25:36]  ¹⁸ tn In form the Hebrew term וְחֵי (vÿkhey, “shall live”) is the construct plural noun (i.e., “the life of”), but here it is used as the finite verb (cf. v. 35 and GKC 218 §76.i).

[25:37]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “your money” and “your food.” With regard to “interest” and “profit” see the note on v. 36 above.

[23:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “to your brother” (likewise in the following verse). Since this is not limited to actual siblings, “fellow Israelite” is used in the translation (cf. NAB, NASB “countrymen”).

[5:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “their brothers the Jews.”

[5:2]  ²² tn Heb “take” (so also in v. 3).

[5:4]  ²³ tn Heb “for the tax of the king.”

[5:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “according to the flesh of our brothers is our flesh.”

[5:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “like their children, our children.”

[5:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “to become slaves” (also later in this verse).

[5:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “there is not power for our hand.” The Hebrew expression used here is rather difficult.

[5:5]  ²⁸ sn The poor among the returned exiles were being exploited by their rich countrymen. Moneylenders were loaning large amounts of money, and not only collecting interest on loans which was illegal (Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), but also seizing pledges as collateral (Neh 5:3) which was allowed (Deut 24:10). When the debtors missed a payment, the moneylenders would seize their collateral: their fields, vineyards and homes. With no other means of income, the debtors were forced to sell their children into slavery, a common practice at this time (Neh 5:5). Nehemiah himself was one of the moneylenders (Neh 5:10), but he insisted that seizure of collateral from fellow Jewish countrymen was ethically wrong (Neh 5:9).

[5:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “words.”

[5:7]  ³⁰ tn Heb “my heart was advised upon me.”

[5:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “nobles.”

[5:7]  ³² tn Heb “taking a creditor’s debt.” The Hebrew noun מַשָּׁא (masha’) means “interest; debt” and probably refers to the collateral (pledge) collected by a creditor (HALOT 641-42 s.v.). This particular noun form appears only in Nehemiah (5:7, 10; 10:32); however, it is related to מַשָּׁאָה (masha’ah, “contractual loan; debt; collateral”) which appears elsewhere (Deut 24:10; Prov 22:26; cf. Neh 5:11). See the note on the word “people” at the end of v. 5. The BHS editors suggest emending the MT to מָשָׂא (masa’, “burden”), following several medieval Hebrew MSS; however, the result is not entirely clear: “you are bearing a burden, a man with his brothers.”

[5:7]  ³³ tn Heb “his brothers.”

[5:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “I gave.”

[5:8]  ³⁵ tn Heb “our brothers, the Jews.”

[5:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “your brothers.”

[5:9]  ³⁷ tc The translation reads with the Qere and the ancient versions וָאוֹמַר (va’omar, “and I said”) rather than the MT Kethib, וַיֹּאמֶר (vayyo’mer, “and he said”).

[5:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “not good.” The statement “The thing…is not good” is an example of tapeinosis, a figurative expression which emphasizes the intended point (“The thing…is wrong!”) by negating its opposite.

[5:9]  ³⁹ tn Heb “[should you not] walk.”

[5:10]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “brothers.”

[5:10]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “lads.”

[5:10]  ⁴² tn Heb “this debt.” This expression is a metonymy of association: “debt” refers to the seizure of the collateral of the debt.

[5:11]  ⁴³ tc The MT reads וּמְאַת (umÿ’at, “and the hundredth”) which is somewhat enigmatic. The BHS editors suggest emending to וּמַשַּׁאת (umasha’t, “and the debt”) which refers to the interest or collateral (pledge) seized by a creditor (Deut 24:10; Prov 22:26; see HALOT 641-42 s.v. מַשָּׁא). The term מַשַּׁאת (masha’t) is related to the noun מָשָּׁא (masha’, “debt”) in 5:7, 10.

[15:5]  ⁴⁴ sn He does not charge interest. Such an individual is truly generous, and not simply concerned with making a profit.

[15:5]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “a bribe against the innocent he does not take.” For other texts condemning the practice of a judge or witness taking a bribe, see Exod 23:8; Deut 16:19; 27:25; 1 Sam 8:3; Ezek 22:12; Prov 17:23.

[15:5]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “does these things.”

[28:8]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “by interest and increase” (so ASV; NASB “by interest and usury”; NAB “by interest and overcharge.” The two words seem to be synonyms; they probably form a nominal hendiadys, meaning “by increasing [exorbitant] interest.” The law prohibited making a commission or charging interest (Exod 22:25; Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:20; Ps 15:5). If the poor needed help, the rich were to help them – but not charge them interest.

[28:8]  ⁴⁸ tn The term חוֹנֵן (khonen, “someone who shows favor”) is the active participle.

[15:10]  ⁴⁹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark a shift in the speaker.

[15:10]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “Woe to me, my mother.” See the comments on 4:13 and 10:19.

[15:10]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “A man of strife and a man of contention with all the land.” The “of” relationship (Hebrew and Greek genitive) can convey either subjective or objective relationships, i.e., he instigates strife and contention or he is the object of it. A study of usage elsewhere, e.g., Isa 41:11; Job 31:35; Prov 12:19; 25:24; 26:21; 27:15, is convincing that it is subjective. In his role as God’s covenant messenger charging people with wrong doing he has instigated counterarguments and stirred about strife and contention against him.

[15:10]  ⁵² tc The translation follows the almost universally agreed upon correction of the MT. Instead of reading כֻּלֹּה מְקַלְלַונִי (kulloh mÿqallavni, “all of him is cursing me”) as the Masoretes proposed (Qere) one should read קִלְלוּנִי (qilluni) with the written text (Kethib) and redivide and repoint with the suggestion in BHS כֻּלְּהֶם (qullÿhem, “all of them are cursing me”).