seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Deuteronomy 15:7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. 8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
Be honest, if you knew that every seven years all loans were cancelled, would you be loaning money in the sixth year? God told the Israelites that they had to be generous and every seven years they had to forgive every single debt, including the debts that had just been established. That's putting the banks on notice, don't you think?
This is from the easy English site.
If the Israelites obeyed God and his commandments, he would bless them. Then the Israelites would never owe money to other nations. Other nations would never rule over the people in Israel. Instead, Israel would lend money to other nations. They would rule over the other nations. The Israelites should be generous. They should lend money to people, even if people did not give back the money.
This is from bibletrack.org
Deuteronomy's conception of the covenant between Israel and God entails a similar fresh start in which prior economic obligations are canceled at the initiative of the divine monarch. Now, however, it is not financial obligations to a privileged monarch that are canceled. Instead, the covenant requires the wealthy to forgive the debts of the poor! Moreover, this remission of debts and still unpaid labor contracts is no longer to be a voluntary, one–time act but a covenantal obligation that recurs every seven years. This blueprint for social justice is highly idealistic. By providing specific mechanisms to eliminate poverty and financial inequality every seven years, Deuteronomy seeks to prevent economic injustice from becoming entrenched in society.
You know, if humanity actually started being nice to the poor back in the days of Moses.... and if they kept it up through all those generations from then until now.... it would be normal [entrenched in society]. I wonder.... will the Bible show us when it stopped? Do the Jews still forgive all debt every seven years or did it end when rotation of the crops got to be scheduled so that there was no loss of product every seven years?
