Not as a Usurer: The Commandment Against Lending at Interest to the Poor
"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." Exodus 22:25 addresses a specific situation — lending to someone in need — and forbids turning that loan into a source of profit. Centuries later, Nehemiah found this exact law broken at scale in Jerusalem, and confronted his own household along with everyone else's. And in Ezekiel's exile-era prophecy, abstaining from this practice had become one of the standard marks of a righteous life.
"Thou Shalt Not Be to Him as a Usurer"
This law sits in a dense cluster of protections for the vulnerable in Exodus 22 — alongside warnings against mistreating widows, orphans, and strangers. Its scope is precise: "if thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee." The prohibition is not a blanket rule against all lending or all interest in every commercial context — it targets a specific situation: someone with means lending to someone without, where the loan exists because of need.
Two things are forbidden in that situation. The lender must not be "as an usurer" — the Hebrew word describes a creditor who presses and exacts, treating the relationship as a debt to be aggressively collected. And the lender must not "lay upon him usury" — charge interest at all. A loan to a poor neighbor, this law says, is meant to function as an act of tzedakah (#127), not as a transaction that profits from someone else's hardship.
Nehemiah's Confrontation
Centuries later, while Nehemiah was leading the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls, this exact law had been broken at scale. The poor among the people cried out: they had mortgaged their fields and vineyards for grain, and some had been forced to sell their own children into servitude to pay debts to their fellow Jews (Nehemiah 5:1-5). Nehemiah was "very angry" (Nehemiah 5:6) and confronted the nobles and rulers directly.
What he says next is striking: "I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn; I pray you, let us leave off this usury." Nehemiah does not exempt himself from the correction — he names his own household as part of the problem and calls for everyone, himself included, to stop. He then goes further than simply halting the practice: he requires the nobles to restore the fields, vineyards, olive yards, and houses they had taken, along with "the hundredth part of the money" already collected as interest (Nehemiah 5:11-12). The correction reaches backward, not just forward.
Ezekiel's Portrait of the Righteous Man
By the time of Ezekiel's exile-era prophecy, abstaining from interest-taking had become a standard entry on the list of what righteousness looks like. Ezekiel 18:5-9 describes a "just" man: he does not oppress, he restores a debtor's pledge, he gives bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, he executes true judgment between disputing parties — and, in the same breath, "hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase."
The chapter's structure matters here. Ezekiel 18 is built entirely around contrasts — a righteous father and a wicked son, a wicked father and a righteous son, each evaluated by the same checklist. Lending at interest to someone in need is not singled out as a uniquely severe sin, nor dismissed as a minor technicality. It is placed in a list alongside violence, idolatry, and oppression as one of the marks by which a life is weighed.
Key Figures
Study Questions
A loan to someone in need was meant to function as tzedakah, not as a transaction — and when that line was crossed in Jerusalem, even Nehemiah found his own household standing on the wrong side of it.
Open Exodus 22:25 in Torah Reader