THE USURIOUS SPIRIT:
Moral Law Against Usury In the Bible
Bernard Pyron
In the law given to Moses by God there are Scriptures that
protect people who do not have a great deal of wealth from being
cheated out of it by the more wealthy.
Proverbs 22: 7 states as a warning to those who fear the Lord that
"The rich ruleth over over the poor, and the borrower
is servant to the lender."
This could be read as a statement of fact,
that the rich do rule over the poor. Yet other verses in the Old
Testament make it a sin to take what little money and goods the poor
have by way
of interest on loans, or usury. So the Lord wants to protect
the poor from loss of their small amount of money, land, houses and
possessions by usury. Those with low incomes especially, but also
others who have a little more money, are not to have a portion of
their money and possessions robbed by the more wealthy through
interest on loans.
God gives the poor rights to keep their small amount of money and
earthly possessions.
Isaiah 10: 2 warns extortioners and others who would cheat the poor
that
it is wrong to "...turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take
away the right from the poor of my people..."
Psalm 140: 12 also says "I know that the Lord will maintain the cause
of the afflicted, and the right of the poor." The right of the poor
means that God wants to protect the poor from having what little they
have taken from them by extortion and loan-sharking through usury.
Deuteronomy 28: 43-44 warns that "The stranger that is within
thee shall get
up above thee very high: and thou shalt come down very low. He
shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the
head, and thou shalt be the tail."
The borrower becoming servant to the lender and the lender getting up
very high while the borrower comes down very low and is the trail in
Deuteronomy 28 is punishment for not obeying God. For in Deuteronomy
28: 15 God says "...if thou wilt not harken to the voice of they
God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I
commanded thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee,
and overtake thee." Falling victim to the lender, the taker of usury,
is listed in the remainder of the chapter among these curses.
It is the extortion of money or possessions from people by the more
wealthy that God's moral law forbids. Unjust gain by usury or by any
other scheme is condemned as sin by the Bible. Although usury is not
specifically identified in the New Testament as a sin, in Matthew 21:
12, Mark 11: 15 and John 2: 14-15 Christ reacts strongly to the
practices of the money changers in the Temple. The money changers who,
he said, made the temple into a den of thieves were extorting money
from people in some way. And so it is not only taking interest on
loans that is said to be wrong in the Bible, but any form of extortion
and unjust gain.
Exodus 22:25 begins God's statement of his law against usury,
especially to extort money from the poor. "If thou lend money to any
of my people that is poor by
thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay
upon him usury".
Matthew Henry says of Exodus 22: 25 that it is "A law against
extortion in lending. They must not receive use for money from any
that borrowed for necessity."
Then, John Gill in his commentary on Exodus 22: 25 tells us that
"...the Israelites were not to be usurers, but they were not to be
like them; they were not to acquire
anything for lending a poor man a little money...or oblige him to give
interest for money borrowed..."
In Nehemiah 5 the setting for this clear Scripture against usury is
Jerusalem after the Jews returned from 70 years of captivity in
Babylon - because they had not obeyed God's laws and had turned to
pagan religion. Ezekiel 22: 12-22 says one of the laws they did not
obey was that on usury.
On coming back to Jerusalem, the wealthy Jews began lending money to
poor Jews. Usury as we know it began in
ancient Babylon, and maybe the Babylonian system of usury reinforced
the
practice of usury among the wealthy Jews who had practiced it before
the captivity.
In Nehemiah 5 the poor people realized they were in economic slavery
to the usurers and complained to Nehemiah. He ended up telling the
wealthy people to stop their usury.
Nehemiah 5:1-10 says "And there was a great cry of the people and
of their
wives against their brethren the Jews. For there were that said, We,
our sons, and our
daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may
eat, and live Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our
lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the
dearth.
("Dearth," food shortage, or famine)
There were also that said, We have borrowed money for
the king's tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards. Yet now
our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our
children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons
and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are
brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem
them; for other men have our lands and vineyards. And I was very
angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with
myself, and I rebuked the nobles,
and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his
brother. And I set a great assembly against them. Also I said, It is
not good that ye do: ought ye not to
walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our
enemies?
I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might
exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this
usury."
Matthew Henry says of Nehemiah 5: 1-10 that "We have here the tears of
the oppressed...Let us consider them as here they are dropped before
Nehemiah, whose office it was, as governor, to deliver the poor and
needy and rid them out of the hand of the wicked oppressors." Henry
is quoting Psalm 82: 4, "Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of
the hand of the wicked."
Then Henry goes onto say "Hard times and hard hearts make the poor
miserable...money must be had, but it must be borrowed and those that
lent them money, taking advantage of their necessity, were very hard
upon them and made a prey of them...They forced them to mortgage to
them their lands and houses for the securing of the money (Nehemiah 5:
3), but took the profits of them for interest (Nehemiah 5: 5, 11),
that by degrees they might make themselves masters of all they had.
Yet this was not the worst. They took their children as bond-servants,
to be enslaved or sold at pleasure (Nehemiah 5: 5)."
Psalm 15:5 teaches "He that putteth not out his money to usury,
nor taketh
reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be
moved".
Proverbs 22:7 says "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower
is
servant to the lender."
Proverbs 28:8 notes that "He that by usury and unjust gain
increaseth his
substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor."
Jeremiah 15:10 says "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me
a man
of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither
lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them
doth curse me."
Ezekiel 18: 4-8 explains "Behold all souls are mine:...the soul that
sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is
lawful and right...He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither
hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity,
hath executed true judgment between man and man."
Matthew Henry focuses in his commentary on Ezekiel 18: 8 upon the
usurer stopping his practice of usury, repenting from doing it, and
restoring the money he extorted to the borrower in saying :
"If at any time he has been drawn in through inadvertency to that
which afterwards has appeared to him to be a wrong thing, he does not
persist in it because he has begun it, but withdraws his hand from
that which he now perceives to be iniquity; for he executes true
judgment between man and man, according as his opportunity is of doing
it (as a judge, as a witness, as a juryman, as a referee), and in all
commerce is concerned that justice be done, that no man be wronged,
that he who is wronged be righted, and that every man have his own,
and is ready to interpose himself, and do any good office, in order
hereunto."
Ezekiel 22:12-20 says "In thee have they taken gifts to shed
blood; thou hast
taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy
neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.
Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy
dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been
in the midst of thee. Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be
strong,
in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it,
and will do it. And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and
disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of
thee. Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross:
all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the
furnace; they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith the
Lord GOD; Because ye are all
become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of
Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead,
and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to
melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will
leave you there, and melt you."
John Gill says in his commentary on Ezekiel 22: 12-20 that
"Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross…
Vile, despicable, useless, and unprofitable; to which the wicked of
the earth are compared, (Psalms 119:119) and here the Lord's
professing people, they differing nothing from them, being sadly
degenerated; formerly they were as silver, and so they might be
reckoned among themselves; but to God, who is omniscient, the searcher
of the hearts and reins, who saw all their actions, and knew the
spring of them, in his sight they were as dross: all they are brass,
and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the
furnace:
or "crucible" where they are put together, in order to be set in the
furnace, and melted down. It is not usual to put so many different
metals together for melting, but separately; but here it seems to
intend a mixture of them all together; and so the Targum and
Septuagint render it,
``all they as brass… are mixed...
so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury;
from the several parts of the land unto the city of Jerusalem: this
they thought was for their good and safety, but it was in wrath, and
in order to ruin: and I will leave you there, and melt you."
John Gill is telling us that dishonest gain in practicing usury was
one of the main sins of the people of Israel for which they were
punished.
Matthew 21: 12-13 says "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and
cast out
all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables
of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be
called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."
Jer 7:11 Mark 11:17 Luke 19:46
I searched the Internet to find information on whether these
moneychangers in Christ's time were loaning money on interest. I
did
not find anything one way or another on that hypothesis. But if the
moneychangers were not loaning money out on usury, why did Christ
react as strongly to them and say they made the temple into a den of
thieves?
When a Jewish man came to the Temple at Jerusalem from another country
to pay the Temple tax which he was required to do, the Temple priests
would not accept his foreign money. The moneychangers in the Temple
would exchange the man's foreign coins for Jewish shekels. It may be
the reason Jesus literally threw the moneychangers and their tables
out of the Temple - the only act of violence recorded that he did -
was because they were cheating foreign Jews by charging them extra to
exchange their foreign money, and the temple priests may have been in
this scam. The requirement that the Jews all pay a Temple tax set
things up for the moneychangers to exploit foreign Jews. This idea is
from:
http://www.brackenhurstbaptist.org/Matthew/Matthew_21_12-17.htm
Some might say that the Old Testament moral law saying that usury is
wrong was not brought into the New Testament. And therefore Christians
are not called to avoid usury.
But the moral law established in the Old Testament on usury is still
the moral law, even if its not written into the Ten Commandments..
According to that moral discipline, we are not to lend on interest or
to borrow and have to pay interest, if we can get by economically
without borrowing money. If we are so poor we cannot pay interest on a
debt, then God looks upon the lender as the culprit.
Although Matthew 21: 12 - and Mark 11: 15, as well as John 2: 14-15 -
does not say that the changers of money in the Temple were loaning out
money at interest, Christ's anger and actions toward them indicate
that they were extorting money from people by some type of scam,
perhaps by charging them extra to change their foreign money into
shekels.
Early Church Fathers Against usury
The statement below is from Tertullian's (about 160 to 225 A.D.)
book Against Marcion, Book
Four, Chapter 17, Concerning Loans. Prohibition of Usury and the
Usurious Spirit.
"And now, on the subject of a loan, when He asks, "And if ye lend to
them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye?" compare
with this the following words of Ezekiel, in which He says of the
before-mentioned just man, "He hath not given his money upon usury,
nor will he take any increase" meaning the redundance of
interest, which is usury. The first step was to eradicate the
fruit of the money lent, the more easily to accustom a man to the
loss, should it happen, of the money itself, the interest of
which he had learned to lose. Now this, we affirm, was the function of
the law as preparatory to the gospel. It was engaged in forming the
faith of such as would learn, by gradual stages, for the perfect
light of the Christian discipline, through the best precepts of which
it was capable, inculcating a benevolence which as yet expressed
itself but falteringly. For in the passage of Ezekiel quoted
above He says, "And thou shalt restore the pledge of the loan"
to him, certainly, who is incapable of repayment, because, as a
matter of course, He would not anyhow prescribe the restoration of a
pledge to one who was solvent. Much more clearly is it enjoined in
Deuteronomy: "Thou shalt not sleep upon his pledge; thou shalt be sure
to return to him his garment about sunset, and he shall sleep in his
own garment." Clearer still is a former passage: "Thou shalt
remit every debt which thy neighbour oweth thee; and of thy brother
thou shalt not require it, because it is called the release of the
Lord thy God." Now, when He commands that a debt be remitted to a
man who shall be unable to pay it (for it is a still stronger argument
when He forbids its being asked for from a man who is even able to
repay it), what else does He teach than that we should lend to those
of whom we cannot receive again, inasmuch as He has imposed so great a
loss on lending? "And ye shall be the children of God."
This commentary on Ezekiel 18: 8 by Tertullian is found at:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030416.htm
Clement of Alexandria said "the law prohibits a brother from taking
usury; designating as
a brother not only him who is born of the same parents, but also one
of
the same race and sentiments... Do not regard this command as marked
by philanthropy" Even the Alexandrian Fathers opposed usury.
From: http://www.transaction.net/money/book/notes.html
And Clement of Alexandria (written in 195 A.D) writes that
"His money he will not give on usury and will not take interest.
These words contain a description of the conduct of a Christian."'
from: http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/genuine-christianity.htm#loans
Commodianus (written in 240 A.D.) says
"You have lent on interest, taking 24 percent! Yet, now you wish to
bestow charity that you may purge yourself ... with what is evil. The
Almighty absolutely rejects such works as these"
Cyprian (written in 250 A.D) notes
"We must not take usury...You will not lend to your brother with
usury of money" [Deuteronomy 23:19]."
Lactantius (written between 304-313 A.D) teaches that
"If a Christian has lent any money, he will not receive interest - so
that the benefit that relieved necessity may be unimpaired... For it
is his duty in other respects not to be sparing of his property, in
order that he may do good. But to receive more than he has given is
unjust.."
The Catholic Church continued the prohibition on taking usury, though
in the major trading city-states in Italy in late medieval and
renaissance times the merchants got around the Church's moral law by
various kinds of contracts and money lending where the taking of
interest was hidden.
In 1524 Martin Luther condemned usury as grossly contrary to God's
Word. About 20 years later, John Calvin claimed that taking
interest on loans was not the sin of usury if the interest rate was
not excessive. Usury was redefined by Calvinists as the taking of
excessive interest, not as the taking of any interest rate as the
Scriptures define it.
The statement from Luther is at:
http://www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk/wealth.htm
John Calvin's liberalizing of the moral law on usury may have
resulted in a more rapid growth of capitalist enterprise in
Protestant countries because removing the Catholic discipline
forbidding usury allowed bankers to loan more money into existence.
But the Calvinist tolerance of usury may also have contributed to the
rise of the Money Power in Germany, Holland, England and the U.S., as
well as in Canada and Australia, and perhaps South Africa..
Max Weber in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
proposed that the predominantly Protestant nations showed more
economic growth than the Catholic countries. Weber also argued that
when organized Christian religion became a creature of the state it
tended to repress the people rather than free them. The process of
American organized Protestant Christianity becoming a creature of the
federal government through the 501C(3) corporate status has been
gradual over the last 50 years. But in part Weber may be right.
There are certainly signs that organized Protestant Christianity,
almost entirely under the 501C(3) corporate status and under the
Internal Revenue Service, has become more supportive of and obedient
to the big federal government.
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