For much of church history, pastoral leaders believed the Old Testament taught that no interest should be charged on any loans. The care and protection for the Israelite working poor was the main rationale for such a prohibition that no interest should be charged on such loans:

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 (Exod. 22:25).

Before we go too much further, let me state the obvious. What we are discussing here is the matter of loans that were offered to fellow Israelites who had the potential for paying the loan back. One doesn’t offer a loan to someone who has no means of paying it back; in that case one offers charity. The subject of charity is a different one with which the Old Testament makes provision through other means (e.g., gleaning [Lev. 19:9-10], sabbatical year [Exod. 23:10-11], and triennial tithes [Deut. 14:28-29]). The topic of this blog is about lending, not charity.

As mentioned, for many years it was understood that the Old Testament taught a complete ban on any interest on loans. For example, Robert Maloney notes, “The Fathers saw the Old Testament prohibition [against usury] as still binding” and that “usury was incompatible with Christian love.”

Likewise Brenda Ihssen states,

One safely concludes that they [the Greek church fathers] did not consider usury to be either a moral, justifiable, or advantageous action, but in fact, almost unanimously argued against the practice.

But a question came to my mind: what about loans for other purposes, such as productive loans for business? Was that excluded as well?

So, I thought I would take another look at the relevant Old Testament passages to find out what the Old Testament says about loans and interest. I learned that a few matters may confuse the study of this issue.

What Does “Usury” Actually Mean?

For most of history, the term “usury” meant the same as “interest,” until about the eighteenth century when “usury” began to mean excessive interest, as it does still today. So in historical records, when someone after the 1700s stated they are against “usury” they meant they were against excessive interest. For documents before that time, when someone agreed that “usury” should be banned, they usually meant they were against any interest, unless a clarification was made.

Does Charging Interest Mean “Biting”?

Another confusion relates to the Hebrew verb, nāšak, that is translated as “to charge interest.” Earlier Hebrew lexicons stated there was only one root and it meant both “to charge interest” and “to bite,” so charging interest was like taking a bite, indicating a negative action.

Yet more recent lexicons identify two separate roots: root I is “to bite” (mostly of snake bites), and root II is “to charge interest.” So there is no connection between charging interest and biting.

Two Different Terms with Distinct Meanings

Finally, there are two different Hebrew terms that relate to our particular subject of lending. Lending with interest (nāšak), already mentioned, is the term used in Exodus 22:25 quoted above. The other term, lending with a pledge (nāšā), appears, for example, in Deuteronomy 24:10, “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge.”

It is this particular term, meaning “lending with a pledge,” that appears in the economic crisis that is recorded in Nehemiah 5:7, 10. Some English versions translate the verb as lending with interest (e.g., ESV, NASV, NIV). Rather, a better translation is offered by the NET Bible, “Each one of you is seizing the collateral from your own countrymen!” (Neh. 5:7).

Three Passages for Closer Study

The three key passages for our study against charging interest on loans are in the Pentateuch: Exodus 22:25 (above), Leviticus 25:35-37, and Deuteronomy 23:19-20. The key difference in the passages, and the source of the long controversy, was based on the difference between Exodus 22:25 and Leviticus 25:35. These two passages focus on banning interest on loans to the poor, whereas Deuteronomy 23:19-20 excludes interest on loans to “your brother.” We will take up that aspect of the study in my next blog.

Editor’s note: Read Dr. Issler’s full paper on the topic, “Lending and Interest in the OT: Examining Three Interpretations to Explain the Deuteronomy 23:19–20 Distinction in Light of the Historical Usury Debate” published by the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (vol. 59, 2016, 761-89).

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