Deuteronomy 15
Every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor
Here Moses gives instruction on how the Israelites should interact with one another around the issue of giving money and forgiving debts. Then, he reminds the people what caliber their sacrifices must be that they offer to YAHWEH.
Bible Passage:
15:1 At the end of every seven years, you shall make a release. 2 And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother, because YAHWEH’s release has been proclaimed. 3 Of a foreigner you may exact it. But whatever of yours is with your brother, your hand shall release. 4 Nevertheless there shall be no poor with you (for YAHWEH will surely bless you in the land which YAHWEH your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it), 5 if only you diligently listen to the voice of YAHWEH your God, to observe to do all this commandment which I command you this day. 6 For YAHWEH your God will bless you, as he promised you. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
7 If there is with you a poor man, one of your brothers, within any of your gates in your land which YAHWEH your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; 8 but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wants. 9 Beware that there be not a worthless thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand;’ and your eye looks evilly against your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cries to YAHWEH against you, and it becomes sin for you. 10 You shall surely give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him; because for this thing YAHWEH your God will bless you in all your work, and in all that you put your hand to. 11 For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore, I command you, saying, ‘You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.’
12 If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, and serves you six years; then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty. 14 You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, and out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress; as YAHWEH your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. 15 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and YAHWEH your God redeemed you. Therefore, I command you this thing today. 16 And it shall be, if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you;’ because he loves you and your house, because he lives well with you; 17 then you shall take an awl, and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. And also to your female servant, you shall do likewise. 18 It shall not seem hard to you, when you let him go free from you. For to the double of the hire of a hireling, he has served you six years, and YAHWEH your God will bless you in all that you do.
19 All the firstling males that are born of your herd and of your flock, you shall sanctify to YAHWEH your God. You shall do no work with the firstling of your herd, nor shear the firstling of your flock. 20 You shall eat it before YAHWEH your God year by year in the place which YAHWEH shall choose, you and your household. 21 And if it has any blemish, as it is lame or blind, any ill blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to YAHWEH your God. 22 You shall eat it within your gates. The unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the deer. 23 Only you shall not eat the blood of it; you shall pour it out upon the ground as water.
Reflection:
It’s interesting how often I feel modern Christians are told to not think about reward for the work that they do. Yet, God consistently will tell people to do what is right because ‘I will reward you for it.’ The people know that God will bless them and cause them to prosper and it is meant to be a motivation for them. I often think about Hebrews 11 and what it states about faith. “For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.” We have to believe that YAHWEH is a God who rewards the one who seeks him. Obviously, we can’t declare that we know what that reward will always be, but Scripture states it is fundamental that God responds to those who seek him and rewards that effort. We shy away from remembering the reward to motivate us to pursue God and yet, it seems like it is a motivation God himself uses here.
Questions and Answers:
Verse 1: What is a remission? [Gwendolyn, 9]
NASB has “remission” instead of “release” here.
The Hebrew noun “Shemittah” comes from a verb that means “to release” or “to drop.” However, the noun is only used in Deuteronomy 15, and always in the context of financial debts someone owes. So, rather than simply saying “release,” the general meaning of the word, the NASB uses “remission” more specifically to connect the word to finances. Remission means to cancel or forgive a debt. So when the LORD proclaims a year of remission, he means all the debts that Israelites owe to one another must be cancelled every seven years.
Verse 4: Is he saying that if they obey God, no one will be poor? [Monique, 33]
Yeah, he says that pretty explicitly. If they can diligently listen to YAHWEH’s voice, there will be no poor among them. But he also makes it clear that they won’t obey his voice with that type of zeal in order to be able to raise everyone’s economic status all around them. It is literally in the same paragraph that he says “the poor will never cease out of the land.”
I think the reality is if the whole of the community really lived by the standards and commandments which YAHWEH had set, then the condition of poverty would naturally cease. If everyone gave generously, trusted YAHWEH would bless them, forgave their brothers’ debts, and worked hard at what they did, then poverty would cease to be. Even for those who had no ability to work to provide for themselves, the disabled, the widow, the orphan and the foreigner, they would not be impoverished because the community would provide for them richly and take care of them together. This is the ideal that God knows could actually take place if we obeyed…but obedience is not our strong suit. It’s beautiful to know that God actually believes humanity could do that if we tried, but he also knows we won’t.
Verse 17: What does it mean “pierce it through his ear into the door”? [Gwendolyn, 9]
The essence of this rite is about making someone a perpetual slave. Again, we look at this with huge disdain in our context, but that is not what is happening at all. This is when someone’s life as a slave is so good that when the time comes for release, and they could go out into the land as a free man, they decide they would rather remain a slave. This is about a slave whose deep love for his master and his quality of life makes him realize that this is the life he wants, that it’s better than what he could have elsewhere.
What happens in the rite is that the slave has his ear pierced with an awl and the door acts as a backstop for the piercing. The door is also symbolic, because it represents the master’s house in which you would serve forever. You would pull the awl out and then the slave’s ear would have a hole in it, it’s not like he was left pinned to the door by his ear forever. Most likely, this means there was an earring or metal bar inserted into the hole, but it isn’t specified what happens next in either Exodus 21 or here.
Recording of the Passage:
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