God’s Laws for Lending, Borrowing, and Release

 

There is perhaps no area of life where men feel more trapped than in debt. A man may have a home, a job, a family, and possessions, yet every month much of what he earns has already been promised to somebody else. Before his wages ever reach his hand, creditors are waiting for their portion.

The Bible does not ignore this problem. God gave laws concerning lending, borrowing, interest, poverty, property, and the release of debt. These laws reveal something important about His character: God did not design an economic order in which one man could endlessly enrich himself from another man’s misfortune.

Scripture warns us plainly:

“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”
—Proverbs 22:7

There is a lesson in those words that modern society often refuses to acknowledge. Debt creates obligation, and obligation creates a form of servitude. The greater the debt becomes, the less freedom the debtor possesses.

Lending Was to Help, Not Exploit

God did not prohibit lending. There were circumstances in which a brother might genuinely need assistance. What God prohibited was turning another man’s hardship into an opportunity for exploitation.

Exodus 22:25 declares:

“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.”

Notice the circumstances. The man is poor. He is not borrowing so that he may speculate or live extravagantly. He is in need.

God therefore commanded the lender not to become an oppressor.

The same principle appears again in Leviticus:

“And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him… Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.”
—Leviticus 25:35-36

That last phrase explains the purpose: “that thy brother may live with thee.”

The object of lending was restoration, not destruction.

If a man had fallen into hardship, his neighbour was to help him recover. Lending was not supposed to become a machine through which the lender gradually acquired the debtor’s possessions, land, labour, and future income.

Biblical economic law places mercy alongside responsibility.

God’s Law Against Usury

The Bible repeatedly condemns usury among brethren.

Leviticus 25:37 says:

“Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase.”

Money was not the only thing covered. Even food supplied to a brother in distress was not to become an opportunity for profit.

This gives us a very different picture from an economy built upon perpetual interest-bearing debt.

When interest is compounded year after year, a relatively small obligation can become enormous. A man may repay the amount originally borrowed and nevertheless continue owing money because the interest itself continues producing more interest.

God’s laws prevented debt from becoming an endless instrument of domination.

The principle was simple: when your brother falls, help him stand again. Do not place your foot upon him while he is down.

The Seventh-Year Release

God established an even greater protection in Deuteronomy 15:

“At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.”
—Deuteronomy 15:1

Then Scripture explains:

“Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD’S release.”
—Deuteronomy 15:2

This is extraordinary when compared with modern debt systems.

Debt was not permitted to follow a man indefinitely. There was a point at which the obligation ended.

The seventh year was called the LORD’S release.

The principle was greater than bookkeeping. It prevented economic hardship from becoming permanent hereditary servitude. It gave a struggling household an opportunity to begin again.

Material hosted at Christogenea dealing with the Sabbath and the year of release emphasizes precisely this connection: the seventh-year release involved forgiveness of private debts and formed part of a broader pattern of rest, restoration, and eventual redemption.

God Commanded Generosity Even When Release Was Near

A selfish lender might naturally have reasoned, “The seventh year is approaching. If I lend this man money now, he may not repay me before the debt must be released.”

God anticipated that very thought.

He warned Israel:

“Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought.”
—Deuteronomy 15:9

This is important.

God did not allow the possibility of financial loss to become an excuse for refusing mercy.

He continued:

“Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him.”
—Deuteronomy 15:10

God promised blessing for obedience.

His economic laws therefore depended upon something modern systems cannot manufacture through regulations alone: faith in God and love toward one’s brethren.

Lending Without Becoming a Nation of Borrowers

God also gave Israel a national principle:

“For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow.”
—Deuteronomy 15:6

There is tremendous wisdom here.

The nation that continually borrows places itself under the power of its creditors just as surely as an individual does.

Remember Proverbs:

“The borrower is servant to the lender.”

That principle applies to households, businesses, and nations.

A people buried beneath debt eventually discovers that much of its labour no longer benefits its own families and communities. Its earnings are transferred to those who hold the obligations.

God’s intention was different. Obedience was supposed to produce stability, independence, and abundance rather than perpetual indebtedness.

Debt Was Never Intended to Become Permanent Slavery

When we put these laws together, a clear pattern emerges.

There could be lending.

There could be borrowing.

There could be genuine obligations.

But there were boundaries.

The poor were to be helped.

Usury was forbidden among brethren.

Creditors were restrained.

Debts were periodically released.

Property itself was protected through the larger Sabbatical and Jubilee system, which prevented permanent economic dispossession. Material preserved at Christogenea on the Sabbatical and Jubilee laws describes the ultimate objective as preventing Israelites from sinking permanently into slavery or serfdom through debt and loss of property.

God’s law recognized something our age desperately needs to remember: money must remain the servant of man; man must not become the servant of money.

A financial system without mercy eventually concentrates wealth and power into fewer hands. A debt that can never be escaped becomes bondage. Interest upon interest can transform temporary hardship into lifelong servitude.

God put limits upon that power.

A Christian Principle We Should Remember

Christ taught us to have mercy. He taught us to forgive. He taught us that a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses.

The laws concerning debt teach the same underlying principle.

When your brother is struggling, you do not ask, “How much can I gain from his trouble?”

You ask, “How can I help restore him?”

God’s laws were designed so that misfortune would not permanently destroy a family and prosperity would not give one man unlimited power over another.

Debt might exist for a season.

Hardship might come.

A man might stumble financially.

But God’s law provided something that every debtor longs to hear:

There comes a time of release.