Exodus 22:25
“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.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →God forbids charging interest on loans to the poor, transforming lending into an act of mercy rather than profit.
Context
In ancient economies, debt was often a trap: the poor borrowed to survive, and interest rates enslaved them. God's law breaks this cycle by commanding interest-free lending.
What Does Exodus 22:25 Mean?
The word 'usurer' carries contempt. A usurer is a predator who profits from another's desperation. In the ancient world, a poor person borrowing for seed or food at high interest often could not repay and lost everything—land, children, freedom. God looks at this system and rejects it entirely. 'Thou shalt not be to him as a usurer.' Instead, the lender must become a helper, someone who sees the poor person's need and meets it without profit.
This is radical. It says: money is not your ultimate good. Relationship with your neighbor and with God is. Lending without interest costs you time and risk with no financial reward. But it buys community, it buys faithfulness to God's vision of justice, it buys the kind of world God wants to see. Later, in Leviticus 25, this impulse will expand into the Jubilee—a complete forgiveness of debts every fifty years.
In the Original Language
neshekh (Hebrew), 'usury, interest' -- literally 'a bite'; interest that 'bites' the poor person, consuming their ability to recover.
Application
In modern economies built on credit and interest, this verse challenges us: are we profiting from others' desperation? Are we lending to help or to gain advantage? What would it look like to lend mercy instead of demanding return?