Economics in Biblical Perspective - Commonly Misunderstood Passages - "You shall not lend him your money at Interest
Introduction and Review
In our
last lesson, we began to take a look at some commonly misunderstood passages of
Scripture as they relate to economics. We began with Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-37
which tell us that the early believers “had all things in common.” Marxists
have seized upon these passages and used them to support their socialist vision
of society. To see why they are mistaken, click here.
Today, we will look at some passages (again misused by socialists) that deal with the subject of lending at interest.
Lending at Interest
In a
world in which charging interest on loans is taken for granted, it may be a
surprise to learn that this was once a widely forbidden practice within
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It still is in Islam, although a convenient
loophole has been created to get around the prohibition.
In both Judaism and Christianity, lending at interest was rarely forbidden by law, and if it was, the law was rarely enforced. It was largely considered a moral rather than a criminal offense, to be punished by God rather than by a human court of law. According to the most learned churchmen, the “selling” of money by charging interest was a grave sin that placed the soul in peril. “This was the unanimous view of the Christian world throughout the Middle Ages.”[1]
In the Inferno, written in the early 14th century,[2] the poet Dante imagines hell being composed of nine “circles” or nine descending levels, each exposing its inhabitants to greater degrees of punishment. In the first level, called limbo, are placed unbaptized but virtuous pagans who experience no active torment but simply suffer the grief of lacking God’s presence. In the ninth circle (the lowest hell, for the worst offenders) are Lucifer and all who commit acts of betrayal, most notably Judas Iscariot who is chewed mercilessly in Satan’s jaws throughout all eternity.
In the seventh circle there are three rings. In the first are those who have committed violence; in the second, suicides, those who have committed violence against themselves; and in the third (1) blasphemers, (2) sodomites, and (3) usurers, the Medieval term for those who charge interest. Their punishment? They are condemned to sit on a desert of burning sand with a constant rain of fire pouring down on them for all eternity. This reflects the near universal opprobrium cast upon lending at interest during the Middle Ages.
Why such strong and consistent opposition to charging interest on borrowed money? In the Christian world at least, because of passages in the Bible that many have interpreted as prohibiting the practice without qualification.
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. (Ex. 22:25)
If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. (Lev. 25:35-37)
You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. (Deut. 23:19-20)
The prophet Ezekiel issues strong denunciations of those who violate this command.
If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—if he… does not lend at interest or take any profit… 9 he is righteous; he shall surely live… If he fathers a son who… lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he live? He shall not live… (Ezek. 18:5, 8-9, 10, 13)
In you [Jerusalem] they take bribes to shed blood; you take interest and profit and make gain of your neighbors by extortion; but me you have forgotten, declares the Lord God. (Ezek. 22:12)
David speaks of the blessedness of those who (among other things) refrain from “putting their money out at interest.”
O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
There is little in the New Testament about charging interest, but we do have this from Jesus,
And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. (Lk. 6:34-35)
Notice that Jesus is going a step further than simply forbidding lending at interest. He is advocating lending at a loss for the sake of love. “Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount… Do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” He does not mean, “do not expect interest in return” but do not expect even the principal in return.
And there are of course several passages both in the gospels and in the letters of Paul that warn about the moral hazards of money.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matt. 6:24)
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Tim. 6:9-10)
Christian scholars from the very beginning consistently cite these passages when they address the subject of lending at interest and consistently represent doing so as a great moral evil, men like Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius (an advisor to Constantine the Great), Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, Jerome, the Cappadocian Fathers, and Augustine, just to name a few.
Lending at interest was considered such a grave and pervasive sin that the bishops attending the Council of Nicea (a.d. 325) felt the need to address its practice among the clergy. The seventeenth canon of the Council forbids them from charging interest upon pain of deposition from office.
Forasmuch as many enrolled among the Clergy, following covetousness and lust of gain, have forgotten the divine Scripture, which says, “He hath not given his money upon usury, and in lending money ask the hundredth of the sum [i.e., 1% interest compounded monthly for a 12.6% effective annual percentage rate] the holy and great Synod thinks it just that if after this decree any one be found to receive usury, whether he accomplish it by secret transaction or otherwise, as by demanding the whole and one half, or by using any other contrivance whatever for filthy lucre’s sake, he shall be deposed from the clergy and his name stricken from the list.
Among the scholastics of the Middle Ages, Anselm (1033-1109), claimed that lending at interest, theft, and fraud were all of a kind, each representing an equal violation of the eighth commandment.[3] Thomas Aquinas, dubbed the Angelic Doctor (Teacher), also lent his considerable pen to condemning interest.[4]
Lending at interest was also condemned by pagan philosophers. The Roman statesman, Cicero (106-43 b.c.) famously said, “If you are asking about usury, then you are ultimately asking about killing a man.”[5] Two hundred years earlier, Aristotle, whose philosophy exerted an enormous influence over all subsequent philosophy and theology, said, “The most hated sort [of gaining wealth], and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself… Of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”[6]
Now, why does Scripture condemn the practice of lending at interest? And why was it so consistently condemned by even the wisest pagans? As Garrett observes, “In ancient Israel borrowing was done almost exclusively for emergencies only.”[7] And no doubt this was true throughout the rest of the ancient world, as well, no matter the culture. The vast majority of people lived in subsistence economies, meaning that just enough was grown, raised, hunted, and crafted to provide for the most basic needs of one’s family. If there was a need to borrow, it was likely because one’s survival depended on it. Hence, Cicero’s statement, “If you are asking about usury, then you are ultimately asking about killing a man.” It’s a bit of hyperbole, but not by much. Charging a poor man interest when he is already needing a loan for survival only puts him further behind. Perhaps the loan staves off starvation in the short term, but at a subsistence level of existence, paying off the principle is going to be difficult enough. How is he ever going to pay off the accrued interest, especially considering that interest rates were high in the ancient world?[8]
A careful reading of the Biblical prohibitions against interest shows that it is lending at interest specifically to the poor that is forbidden.
If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor… (Ex. 22:25)
If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you… You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. (Lev. 25:35, 37)
This is a very important qualification of the prohibition that should not be overlooked. The commands are specifically addressing loans to the poor, not business loans, home loans, and so on.
The prohibition of lending at interest to the poor is intended to prevent the kind of situation addressed in the book of Nehemiah 5:1-13. Many of the returned exiles were impoverished by famine and the king’s tax on their fields and vineyards and were forced to borrow from their better-off fellow Jews, but they could not keep up with the interest payments. In the end, they lost their fields and vineyards, and in some cases even their children were forced into slavery.
I repeat, the passages in the law prohibit lending at interest to the poor. They do not take into account other types of loans, capital improvement loans, home mortgages, etc.
In other passages that condemn lending at interest, it is not stated that the prohibition refers to lending specifically to the poor, but it is implied in the context.
In Ezekiel 18, for instance, a righteous man is described as one who (among other things) “does not…oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, does not lend at interest or take any profit” (vv. 7-8a). The implication is that he does not charge interest to those just mentioned “the hungry” or “naked,” i.e., the poor.[9]
Likewise, in Ezekiel 22, the Lord accuses “the princes of Israel” (v. 6) of “extortion” and “oppression” by taking “interest and profit and mak[ing] gain of [their] neighbors” (v. 12). The neighbors he mentions are the usual biblical examples of the poor and needy. “The sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the fatherless and the widow are wronged in you [Jerusalem]” (v. 7). It would seem, then, that what is condemned in this passage with regard to charging interest is charging it on the poor as prohibited in Ex. 22:25 and Lev. 25:35-37.
The surrounding context in all three passages is similarly structured, as we can see from the following chart.
Exodus
warns against wronging/mistreating sojourners, widows, and fatherless children,
and then immediately proceeds to prohibit charging interest on loans to the
poor, presumably the very same categories of people just named. Leviticus
follows the same pattern. So does Ezekiel. The prophet first rebukes those who
commit extortion against sojourners, the fatherless, and widows (v. 7) and then
rebukes lending at interest.
The same implied connection is found in Proverbs 28:8.
gathers it for him who is generous to the poor.
This is an instance of antithetic parallelism, a poetic couplet in which the second line forms a contrast to the first.[10] Generosity to the poor (in the second line) contrasts with charging them interest and thus making a profit from their misfortune (in the first line).
Only two passages above (Ps. 15:5 and Deut. 23:19-20) lack any specific mention of the poor, but both should probably be understood as referring to them. The blameless man in Psalm 15, “who does not put out his money at interest” (v. 5) echoes the righteous man in Ezekiel 18, who “does not lend at interest or take any profit” from the “hungry” and “naked” (vv. 7-8).
The Deuteronomy passage should be understood in the same light, although further explanation is needed regarding the permission granted to charge interest on loans made to foreigners. But we will have to save that discussion for another time.
[1] Jay
Richards, Money, Greed, and God, p 136
[2] Between
1308 and 1321
[3] https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/2025/9/16/we-have-got-to-talk-about-usury-part-viii-medieval-theologians
[4] See Summa
Theologica II-II Q. 78. Of the Sin of Usury that is Committed in Loans
[5] Cicero, On
Duties II.89, cited in https://www.gottesdienst.org/gottesblog/2025/7/23/we-have-got-to-talk-about-usury-part-iv-the-church-fathersclement-of-alexandria-through-hilary-of-poitiers-c-150386-ad
[6]
Aristotle, Politics 1.10. Aristotle said, “getting wealth out of fruits
and animals is always natural” because doing so is tied to what nature itself
provides. Increase depends on proper management, but such management is good
and natural. But he takes a very dim view of gaining wealth by retail trade. “There
are two sorts of wealth-getting…; one is a part of household management, the
other is retail trade: the former necessary and honourable, while that which
consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by
which men gain from one another.” Ibid
[7] Duane A.
Garrett, A Commentary on Exodus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications,
2014), p. 519
[8] “How Did Ancient
Bureaucrats Set Their Interest Rates?” by Michael Hudson; January 2, 2019 (https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/ancient-interest-rates/),
accessed 12/14/25
[9] And this
is how verses 13 and 17 should be understood as well.
[10]
On the various kinds of parallelisms is Hebrew poetry, see Milton Terry, Biblical
Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, n.d.) p. 95-99;
for a more detailed discussion, see Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry
(New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011), pp. 1-29
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