THE LAW BY MOSES.
God determined to deliver his enslaved people from the bondage in
Egypt, and to lead them out to the land he had promised to their
fathers. They had been strangers in Egypt; now they should have a land
of their own. To them liberty was but a tradition; they should now be
freemen. They had been a tribe; they should now be a nation.
God raised up Moses to be his special servant and the mouthpiece to
declare his will. He ordered his marvelous deliverance from the river,
and his training in court as a freeman. He then gave him direction to
lead his people out of their slavery, and also divine authority to
announce to his people the code of laws by which they were to be
governed in their free state. Some of these laws were ceremonial, to
conserve their religion, that they might not forget their God. Some
were civil and politic, to promote the moral, intellectual and
material welfare. All were in accord with the moral and religious
nature of man, and with sound economic principles. All were suited to
promote their highest good, and to secure them forever in their
freedom and national independence.
The great basal principles of law are found in concrete form.
Human life is sacred as we find from the explicit laws for its
protection. The owner of an ox was made responsible for the life taken
by "an ox that was known to push with its horns."
A battlement or balustrade was required on the houses, very like our
laws requiring fire escapes. The principle is the same.
The laws forbidding marriage within certain degrees of kinship have
been copied into the laws of every civilized people. The laws for the
preservation of social purity have never been surpassed.
The rights of property were sacred. Each had a right to his own. Theft
was severely punished. "If a thief be found breaking up, and be
smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him."
Each must assist in the protection of the property of others; even the
enemy's property must be protected. "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or
his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again."
The laws for the relief of the poor were kinder and more encouraging
to self-help and self-reliance than our modern poorhouses. Deut.
15:7-11: "If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren
within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy
poor brother; but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt
surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.
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 naught, and he cry unto
the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give
him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him:
because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all
thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor
shall never cease out of the land; therefore I command thee, saying,
Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to
thy needy, in thy land."
These divinely given laws never wrought injustice. They protected
life, purity and property, and required mutual helpfulness. They were
given by the divine mind, in infinite love, to promote the highest
good of this chosen people.
These laws of God, given by Moses, positively forbade usury or
interest, and this prohibition was so repeated that there was no
mistaking the meaning. Ex. 22:25: "If thou lend money to any of my
people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as a usurer,
neither shalt thou lay upon him usury."
This law is more fully presented in Lev. 25:35, 36, 37: "And if thy
brother be waxen poor, and fallen into decay with thee, then thou
shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that
he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase; but
fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give
him thy money upon usury, or lend him thy victuals for increase."
Prof. George Bush makes the following note upon this passage: "The
original term '_Neshek_' comes from the verb '_Nashak_' (to bite),
mostly applied to the bite of a serpent; and probably signifies biting
usury, so called perhaps because it resembled the bite of a serpent;
for as this is often so small as to be scarcely perceptible at first,
yet the venom soon spreads and diffuses itself till it reaches the
vitals, so the increase of usury, which at first is not perceived, at
length grows so much as to devour a man's substance."
An effort is sometimes made to limit the application of these laws by
placing special emphasis on the poverty of the borrowers and to
confine the prohibition of usury to loans to the poor to meet the
necessaries of life; and it is claimed that the laws are not intended
to prohibit usury on a loan which the borrower secures as capital for
a business.
In reply it can be said:
1. There may be more benevolence in a loan to enable a brother to go
into business than in a loan to supply his present needs. It may be
less benevolent and less kind to lend a dollar to buy flour for
present use than to lend a dollar to buy a hoe with which to go into
business and earn the flour. The highest philanthropy supplies the
means and opportunities for self-help.
2. A desire for capital to promote a business to gain more than is
necessary to nourish the physical and mental manhood is not justified
nor encouraged anywhere in the Word. There is just a sufficiency of
food necessary to the highest physical condition. There is just a
sufficiency of material wealth necessary to the development of the
noblest manhood. More decreases physical and mental vigor and degrades
the whole man. To seek more is of the nature of that "covetousness
which is idolatry." Prov. 23:4: "Labor not to be rich." Prov. 28:20:
"He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent."
Riches are a gift of God and a reward of righteousness.
Prov. 22:4: "The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are
riches and honor and life." Psalm 112:1, 3: "Blessed is the man that
feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. * * *
Wealth and riches shall be in his house."
"In the fourth petition of the Lord's prayer (which is: Give us this
day our daily bread) we pray, That of God's free gift, we may receive
a competent portion of the good things of this life and enjoy his
blessing with them."
3. If the prohibition is applicable only when the borrower is poor it
would be difficult to properly apply it by drawing the line between
the rich and the poor. Many who are rich feel that they are poor and
there are many high spirited poor who will not admit their poverty.
Many rich live in conditions that some poor would call poverty. The
line must be vague and indefinite and always offensive. If any one
should endeavor to clearly mark and emphasize such a division in any
modern community he would receive the contempt of all right thinking
people.
4. The laws of the Hebrews did not discriminate classes except in
their ceremonial and forms of worship. There was but one law and that
applicable to all alike. Even the stranger was included in the
uniformity of the law. Num. 15:15, 16: "One ordinance shall be both
for you of the congregation and also for the stranger that sojourneth
with you, * * * one law and one manner shall be for you and for the
stranger that sojourneth with you."
5. In the Hebrew community the man of independent resources did not
compromise his freedom by becoming indebted to another. Debt was a
sure indication of some embarrassment or strait. The mention of the
poverty of the possible debtor is not to limit the application of the
law but describes the borrower. Thou shalt not lend upon usury to the
poor unfortunate fellow who is compelled to ask a loan.
6. The laws of the Hebrew state were for the promotion of equity
between man and man and also for the protection of the weak and the
helpless. With these objects all good governments must be in harmony.
They can only be secured by general laws. It would be very imperfect
protection to the helpless poor if it was permitted to charge usury to
the covetous, greedy fellow who having much, yet desired to gain more
and was bidding urgently for the very loan the unfortunate brother
needed. Also even equity between the borrower and the lender would
work a hardness in the conditions of the poor man. Full protection
requires a law of general application.
7. Independence, self-reliance, self-support, was the condition aimed
at and encouraged in the Hebrew state. Borrowing was only in time of
sore need. The man who went a-borrowing was second only to the man who
went a-begging. The brother who, through misfortune became dependent,
was able the sooner to repay his loan and return to independence and
to self support.
8. In the repetition of the law in Deut. 23:19, 20, there is no
reference to the poverty of the borrower and it cannot by fair
interpretation be limited to the poor. "Thou shalt not lend upon usury
to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything
that is lent upon usury. Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury;
but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy
God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to do in the
land whither thou goest to possess it."