Deuteronomy

Usury and Charity

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 76-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 076

Dictation Name: RR187AP76

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosannah in the highest. Let us pray.

Almighty God our Heavenly Father who by Thy grace has separated us from the world’s darkness and made us children of life. We thank Thee that Thy son Jesus Christ is our Lord, our King, our Redeemer. We thank Thee that He has come that He has begun a work that shall not end until all the kingdoms of the world are the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Make us joyful therefore in the victory that is ours in Him. That day by day we may praise Thee as we ought and move in holy confidence in Thy service. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 23:19-20. Our subject: Usury and Charity. Deuteronomy 23:19-20.

“Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, usury of vittles, 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 and all thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it.”

This is a summary of what was stated in some detail in Deuteronomy 15:1-11. In brief we are told in these two texts that loans to fellow believers in need must be without interest of any kind either in money, food or anything else. A loan to an alien, a non-believer can be upon interest.

Now, we need to consider this repetition. Men are not inclined to be charitable with their money. With their advice, yes, everyone is very charitable with their advice, but not money. This means that they indite themselves, they isolate themselves, and they think every man only of their own interests. God strikes at this self-isolation by telling his covenant people to be generous with their non-interest-bearing loans to their needy fellow covenant members. The premise of such a loan is covenantal. It presupposes a community of faith and life wherein indeed men are members one of another as Paul in Ephesians 4:25 tells us. In the pre-World War Two era there were many conflicts and tensions in rural America but there was also still some sense of community. Farm equipment was loaned back and forth since the poor farmers could not afford to buy all the needed horse drawn equipment. For emergency situations neighbors would come over and help. Now such neighborliness still persists in some areas but in others it is gone. Now it is interesting that the classic work edited by James Hastings, The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, has no entry for community although there is a long one on communion and one on the community of goods.

The same is true of various other biblical encyclopedias. In the encyclopedia Judecia [sp?] there is an excellent historical survey of the subject but no biblical commentary or analysis. There is a reason for this. Community is a religious fact, not a coerced condition. Community requires a common and governing faith. Too often we see men having a common faith which is however not a governing and determining factor in their lives. The United States of our time, the 1990s, well over 90% believe in God and almost all of that 90% regard themselves as in some sense Christian but only a small minority of these are rigorously governed by their faith. It is one thing to believe that God is real, we can believe that the moon and stars are real but quite another to be totally governed by God and His law word. The first is a belief, the second a governing faith. Covenantal faith sees us as members one of another. None-covenantal thinking restricts our religion to some kind of relationship to God whereas covenantal thinking sees our relationship to God as one with a membership in a covenant community and this the covenant community cannot be limited to or confused with church membership. Communities have laws and God’s law governs the faith or covenant community. One aspect of this law concerns usury. In the modern sense usury is excessive interest. In the biblical sense it means any interest whether disguised or open. The prohibition has as its purpose to prevent covenantal community assistance from becoming commercial and a source of profit. It must be charity to a needy brother, not a business loan.

Now it is interesting that the Jewish toleration for usury began during the Babylon captivity according to the Encyclopedia Judecia [sp?] which points out that since then a vast network of evasion has been developed such as lending money to a gentile to be re-loaned to a Jew in order to collect interest. Partnerships were formed whose purposes were to lend money under the pretext that the borrower managed the business and shared the profits. In 1179 the medieval church forbad the partaking of interest from a fellow believer. This rule meant that the Jews became thereby the money lenders to Christians. This made the loans legal for both Christians and Jews. The reformation to a great extent inherited the medieval view but it also studied texts such as Deuteronomy 15:7 following, our text, Leviticus 25:35-37, Psalm 15:5, Ezekiel 18:8, Luke 6:35 and so on without the older Aristotelian perspective. Calvin wrote with regards to usury and I quote:

“Here an objection is made that today also usury shall not be permitted us for the same reason it was forbidden the Jews, because there is a paternal union among us. To that I reply there is some difference in the political union, for the situation in which God placed the Jews and many other circumstances made it possible for them to trade conveniently among themselves without usury. Our union is not at all the same; therefore I do not concede that it is forbidden us simply as long as it is not contrary to equity or to charity.” Unquote.

In other words the modern state is not even though at that time many of the states claimed to be, simply a Christian state. The society we live in is not therefore identical with the covenant communities of believers where charity must prevail. If the commercial laws are not contrary to equity or charity they are permitted.

Hedrick Bollinger in 1530 had already set forth new views on the subject. With reference to Luke 6:34 and 35 Bollinger saw this as referring to help to a neighbor and not a commercial loan. The requirement of love for one’s neighbor still governed in such things. Now, with this in mind, we can understand the meaning of this law. First, the society of the believers is a covenant community, in that community our relations must be godly and neighborly. This means dealing with one another honestly and lawfully, charitably. Some but by no means all such relationships must of necessity be charitable. In such dealings we must be just and law abiding but the need for charity is not universal. The covenant community will be exploited if its only law or governing law is charity. During this centuries long history of the Jews the beggar has been a constantly exploiting person in the Jewish community. Anyone who went begging had entry everywhere because of the misreading of this law and it was used for exploitive reasons. Second, this law militates against isolation, against an anarchistic individualism. One of the appeals in this century of the city has been its facelessness. I’ve heard many people over the years express their delight at the anonymity of urban life. They could escape their family and relatives. I recall in a California bay community retired people building homes designed to make it impossible for their children or grandchildren to visit them overnight because there was no guest rooms. The era of individualism was hostile to family and to community responsibilities and this law forbids such a way of life. Then third, loans to aliens, rich or poor, are legal with interest. Their lack of faith in the God of scripture leaves them without community as a willed choice. The pagan community can be severely restrictive and it is not a loving one but a coercive one. Being isolated from the living God they are isolated one from another.

True charity is a two way street. The giver recognizes the need in His brother and his help is an act of covenant grace. The recipient knows that God governs the giver and the gift, in this case the interest free loan, and his response is marked by gratitude and grace. Various Christian groups and churches especially now have loan funds to help the needy in their circles with an interest free loan. Such funds represent a true application of this law whose purpose is not to create exploiters but a covenant community. Let us pray.

Our Father, we thank Thee for Thy word. Give us grace indeed to be members one of another and to create around the world communities of faith wherein we are mindful of the needs of our brethren. Wean us oh Lord from our self-willed ways and make us obedient to Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question] In the abolition of usury limits in the United States has victimized the whole populace.

[Rushdoony] Yes, we have withdrawn the whole subject from the field of morality. Of course the major form of usury today is inflation. Inflation was very early seen by monarchs as a way of exacting a hidden tax or interest whichever word you want to use from the population. So you are paying constantly by means of inflation a hidden tax or interest to the federal government and you have no relief from that. It used to be that churchmen saw this as a form of theft, a violation of God’s law on several counts. And Luther, for example, felt that it was essential to see that inflation was a radical and especially evil violation of God’s law. After all, if it’s a banker, or a pawn broker, or whoever, you can struggle to avoid going to him but there is no way you can avoid using the money of the civil government under which you live. So it’s a particularly evil form of taxation and interest so when you read the reports of the rate of inflation which are themselves not accurate, they lie to us about that, you are being charged that much interest in order to provide the government with an extra means of funding.

Are there any other questions or comments?

It is very, very interesting that this whole subject has disappeared from the field of ethics. Now, partly it’s because the biblical foundation is no longer regarded seriously and also because the source of the medieval view was to a great extent Aristotelian. And Aristotle regarded money as something that could not be productive and therefore it would be a sin to make it productive. A peculiar position. And we have rebelled both against the Greek heritage, rightly so, and against our Christian heritage, wrongly so. So we have no moral foundation now for any regard of usury as in any sense ever wrong. This leaves the peoples of countries in the modern world radically helpless. Yes?

[Question] Similar reports estimate present rate of inflation in the United States at between nine and ten percent. The government puts it at three and a half. The difference is is that the government only measures the rate of inflation in financial terms and similar surveys handling incomes and expenditures.

[Rushdoony] Well, this means that everybody is paying a double interest on their money and on their purchases. So this means that a very sizable percentage of the income of every person today goes in the form of usury. It’s a very deadly factory in modern life. Yes?

[Question] Too bad we can’t sue the government for damages.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Question] Each person would probably get a sizable income.

[Rushdoony] Yes... well...[laughs] there is no possibility of doing that. It’s like asking someone who has a gun on you to hand over the gun. He’s not about to do that. Any other questions or comments? Well if not let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank Thee for Thy word. And we pray that Thou wouldst recall Thy church to Thy son and His word. That we might have the power where with all to make the kingdoms of this world Thy kingdom, to reorder every area of life and thought, to cleanse our world of the statist money changers and make us again a righteous nation. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, the God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.