I don’t know who needs to hear this, but this is a terrible time to buy a house. Unless you’re paying cash, anyone who is looking to move will end up with a mortgage that has a 7% loan attached to it. This is about 4-5% higher than it was just five years ago.
Because of that, it’s easy to read Deuteronomy 23:19 with rose-colored glasses, arguing that “if the Israelites didn’t charge each other interest, then why should we?”
That’s a fair point. But in order to understand what usury actually is, we have to look at it through the lens of someone in that time period.
To be clear, usury was only forbidden on loans that were done from Israelite to Israelite. If a Jew wanted to charge interest to a guy from Syria, for example, have at it. God did not forbid that in the slightest.
But loans that were given inside of Israel were regulated; charging interest of any kind was strictly forbidden.
Why? Because it’s assumed that the person who needed this type of loan was already impoverished.
Clearly, according to Exodus 22:25, not everyone who took out a loan was poor. Indeed, some most likely did it for the same reason people take out loans today: to build a business, buy land, or finance a new car.
But in a world where it was not uncommon for a person to charge anywhere from 30-50% interest, God’s law was revolutionary. Instead of keeping the impoverished in a state of poverty to benefit the lender, outlawing usury allowed them to get back on their feet.
We don’t have to look very far to see this in action today. How many stores in your hometown average payday loans that will give you your check early in exchange for a cut of the amount? How many stores allow you to rent-to-own, charging a lower amount for a long period of time, ultimately costing you several multiples over the value of the item? Ever see the interest rate on a personal loan for a person with bad credit?
These types of institutions are perfectly legal; that’s not my point. But there can be no doubt that those setups are not designed to benefit the person borrowing money, even if they advertise goodwill. Instead, they’re designed to turn a profit, just as all businesses want to do in their own way.
For God to outlaw usury is to force an Israelite to put their brother before themselves and to extend generosity when it could easily be overlooked. In doing that, their action benefits the entire nation.