What Does Leviticus 25:36 Mean in the King James?
Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word for usury is a bite, so the verse measures a loan by whether the brother receiving it can still live beside the lender.
THE MEANING
Your brother’s need is not a place for your increase to feed. Awe of God places a boundary around what can be taken, protecting the life you share. The measure named here is that your brother lives with you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that another person’s urgent need is fair ground for your increase.
THE ROOT
נֶשֶׁךְ
neshekh
GROWS FROM
נשך
n-sh-kh
to bite
“usury” in this verse is neshekh. The word for interest grows from the verb “to bite,” picturing an extraction that fastens into the borrower. The verse places that bite beside a limit, then names the life it protects: a brother living alongside you.
ALSO GROWS
nashakh: to bite
נָשַׁךְ
This verb carries the physical image hidden inside the financial term.
neshekh: interest, usury
נֶשֶׁךְ
This is the verse’s word for the added charge, carrying the root’s image of a bite.
תַּרְבִּית
tarbit
GROWS FROM
רבה
r-b-h
to become many; to increase
Tarbit names an addition or increase, from a root of becoming many. Paired with “bite,” it names both the extraction and the growth it produces; the brother’s life sets the boundary on that increase.
ALSO GROWS
ravah: to become many; to increase
רָבָה
This verb shows the growth carried in the word for increase.
harbeh: much; many
הַרְבֵּה
This form makes the root’s sense of abundance visible.
חֵי
chei
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
to live; to be alive
The verb names being alive, and its noun chayyim means “life.” Joined to “with you,” life here is shared presence: the stated outcome is a brother who continues to live alongside you.
ALSO GROWS
chai: living; alive
חַי
This form describes the state the verse protects.
chayyim: life; living
חַיִּים
This noun makes explicit the life named in the verse’s final clause.
THE PATTERN
A lending relationship preserves shared life when the lender refuses to turn need into a source of gain.
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.He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.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.THE THREAD
He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew roots for “usury” and “increase,” placing the bite and its growth together again. It then turns to the poor, opening Leviticus’s concern for a brother’s continued life into a question of what accumulated gain ultimately serves.
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