Generosity to the Poor
The Law Concerning Bondservants
| << Deuteronomy 15:6 | Deuteronomy 15:8 >> |
Deuteronomy 15:1-11
The year of release is no doubt identical with the sabbatical year of the earlier legislation (Exodus 23:10 ff, and Leviticus 25:2 ff), the command of the older legislation being here amplified. The release was probably for the year, not total and final, and had reference only to loans lent because of poverty (compare Deuteronomy 15:4, Deuteronomy 15:7). Yet even so the law was found to be too stringent for the avarice of the people, because it was one of those which the rabbis "made of none effect by their traditions."
Deuteronomy 15:2
Because it is called the Lord' s release - Render, because proclamation has been made of the Lord' s release. The verb is impersonal, and implies (compare Deuteronomy 31:10) that "the solemnity of the year of release" has been publicly announced.
Deuteronomy 15:3
The foreigner would not be bound by the restriction of the sabbatical year, and therefore would have no claim to its special remissions and privileges. He could earn his usual income in the seventh as in other years, and therefore is not exonerated from liability to discharge a debt anymore in the one than the others.
Deuteronomy 15:4
There is no inconsistency between this and Deuteronomy 15:11. The meaning seems simply to be, "Thou must release the debt for the year, except when there be no poor person concerned, a contingency which may happen, for the Lord shall greatly bless thee." The general object of these precepts, as also of the year of Jubilee and the laws respecting inheritance, is to prevent the total ruin of a needy person, and his disappearance from the families of Israel by the sale of his patrimony.
Deuteronomy 15:9
literally: "Beware that there be not in thy heart a word which is worthlessness" (compare Deuteronomy 13:13 note).
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