What Does Exodus 22:25 Mean in the King James?

If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

Exodus 22:25 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The Hebrew word translated “usury” carries the image of a bite: the verse names profit taken from a poor neighbor as something that wounds.

THE MEANING

When someone poor is beside you, this verse describes a loan as a relationship that must not become predatory. It forbids turning that person’s need into an added charge that takes from them. The neighbor stands beside you, not beneath you as a source of gain.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie is that whatever a lender can extract from someone in need is simply the price of help. This verse names that extraction as a bite.

THE ROOT

נֶשֶׁךְ

neshekh

GROWS FROM

נשך

n-sh-k

To bite.

The Hebrew word for “usury” carries the same root as “to bite.” English can make the charge sound like a neutral financial category; the root shows the image beneath it: taking a bite from someone already in need.

ALSO GROWS

nashakh: To bite.

נָשַׁךְ

This is the verb from the same root; Numbers 21:6 uses it when serpents bite the people.

neshekh: Interest, usury.

נֶשֶׁךְ

The noun gives a demanded increase the image of a bite taken from the borrower.

THE PATTERN

A loan to someone in need is treated as aid, not turned into a means of taking more from them.

Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.

Leviticus 25:36 · KJVThe prohibition is tied to the neighbor’s ability to live alongside you, rather than to become a source of gain.

Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury:

Deuteronomy 23:19 · KJVThe verse extends the prohibition across money, food, and anything else lent.

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Luke 6:35 · KJVEven lending beyond familiar bonds is framed as giving without making repayment the condition of the help.

THE THREAD

And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Numbers 21:6 · KJV

The verb translated “bit” comes from the same ⁨נשך⁩ root as the word for “usury” here. That shared root gives the charge a physical image: like a bite, it takes something from a person who is already exposed.

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