What Does Deuteronomy 23:19 Mean?
You shall not lend to your brother at usury, usury of silver, usury of food, usury of anything that is lent at usury.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury:THE KEY
The Hebrew word for interest grows from “bite,” making the added charge visible as a bite taken from what a neighbor borrows.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks against lending to a brother in a way that takes more from him because he needs help. It names money, food, and anything else that can be lent, so the bite is visible in every kind of provision. The command meets the reader wherever lending turns another person’s need into an opportunity to take more.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a loan is automatically an act of care simply because it begins by providing help.
THE ROOT
נֶשֶׁךְ
neshekh
GROWS FROM
נשך
To bite.
“lend at usury” in this verse is neshekh. The word translated “usury” comes from a root meaning “bite,” and the verb for charging interest in this verse comes from that same root. Hebrew makes the extra taken from borrowed money, food, or any other provision feel like a bite into the borrower’s means.
ALSO GROWS
nashakh: To bite; also, to charge interest.
נָשַׁךְ
The verb and noun share the same root, linking the act of charging interest to the image of a bite.
neshekh: Interest or usury; literally, a bite.
נֶשֶׁךְ
The charge is pictured as something taken from the borrower, even when what was lent was food or another necessity.
THE PATTERN
Lending preserves kinship when provision does not become a way to take more from the person who needs it.
If you lend silver to any of my people who is bent low beside you, you shall not be to him as one who bites, nor lay the bite upon him.He does not give his silver at interest, nor take a gift against the clean one. He who does these will not totter for the ages.But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Highest, for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil.THE THREAD
If you lend silver to any of my people who is bent low beside you, you shall not be to him as one who bites, nor lay the bite upon him.Exodus repeats the same word for usury and makes the borrower’s poverty explicit. That shared bite-root shows how the added charge lands on the very person the loan is meant to help.
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