D23-27: Why It Was Okay To Charge A Foreigner Interest But Not A Fellow Hebrew When Lending Money

“You are not to lend at interest to your brother, no matter whether the loan is of money, food or anything else that can earn interest. To an outsider you may lend at interest, but to your brother you are not to lend at interest, so that Adonai your God will prosper you in everything you set out to do in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it.”-Deuteronomy 23:20-21

We are continuing to work our way verse-by-verse through Deuteronomy Chapter 23.

From verse 20, we again encounter that family of commandments that Yeshua’s brother James categorized as “true religion”.

Again, what James meant by true religion is be filled with the Spirit when carrying out the Lord’s commands as opposed to doing things in a mechanical fashion devoid of any mercy and love.

Verse 20 deals with making a loan to someone.

The instructions given to us are simple.

If the borrower is a brother meaning a full citizen of Israel, then no interest is to be charged.

However, when lending money to a non-Hebrew you can charge interest.

Depending on your Bible translation, the words used for a non-Hebrew can be “foreigner”, “stranger” or “outsider”.

The original Hebrew is NOKRI.

What does NOKRI mean exactly?

A NOKRI is basically a person who has no ethnic nor religious allegiance to Israel but is living in peace alongside Israel (in the land) for one reason or another.

More often than not a NOKRI was either a traveling merchant who was passing through from a distant land or a foreign merchant who had set up shop in Israel to do business for the long term.

The idea being presented here is that it’s perfectly normal and expected to lend money, food or anything of value with interest to a business person.

However, the premise for one Israelite lending to another Israelite is that the borrower was a poor person who was going through hard economic times.

Therefore, to charge him interest when lending money would be a cruel thing to do since this was his health and welfare that were in danger as opposed to a business transaction.

We’ll continue this discussion the next time we meet.