Worthy.Bible » STRONG » Deuteronomy » Chapter 15 » Verse 1-23

Deuteronomy 15:1-23 King James Version with Strong's Concordance (STRONG)

1 At the end H7093 of every seven H7651 years H8141 thou shalt make H6213 a release. H8059

2 And this is the manner H1697 of the release: H8059 Every creditor H1167 H4874 H3027 that lendeth H5383 ought unto his neighbour H7453 shall release H8058 it; he shall not exact H5065 it of his neighbour, H7453 or of his brother; H251 because it is called H7121 the LORD'S H3068 release. H8059

3 Of a foreigner H5237 thou mayest exact H5065 it again: but that which is thine with thy brother H251 thine hand H3027 shall release; H8058

4 Save H657 when there shall be no poor H34 among you; for the LORD H3068 shall greatly H1288 bless H1288 thee in the land H776 which the LORD H3068 thy God H430 giveth H5414 thee for an inheritance H5159 to possess H3423 it:

5 Only if thou carefully H8085 hearken H8085 unto the voice H6963 of the LORD H3068 thy God, H430 to observe H8104 to do H6213 all these commandments H4687 which I command H6680 thee this day. H3117

6 For the LORD H3068 thy God H430 blesseth H1288 thee, as he promised H1696 thee: and thou shalt lend H5670 unto many H7227 nations, H1471 but thou shalt not borrow; H5670 and thou shalt reign H4910 over many H7227 nations, H1471 but they shall not reign H4910 over thee.

7 If there be among you a poor man H34 of one H259 of thy brethren H251 within any H259 of thy gates H8179 in thy land H776 which the LORD H3068 thy God H430 giveth H5414 thee, thou shalt not harden H553 thine heart, H3824 nor shut H7092 thine hand H3027 from thy poor H34 brother: H251

8 But thou shalt open H6605 thine hand H3027 wide H6605 unto him, and shalt surely H5670 lend H5670 him sufficient H1767 for his need, H4270 in that which he wanteth. H2637

9 Beware H8104 that there be not a thought H1697 in thy wicked H1100 heart, H3824 saying, H559 The seventh H7651 year, H8141 the year H8141 of release, H8059 is at hand; H7126 and thine eye H5869 be evil H7489 against thy poor H34 brother, H251 and thou givest H5414 him nought; and he cry H7121 unto the LORD H3068 against thee, and it be sin H2399 unto thee.

10 Thou shalt surely H5414 give H5414 him, and thine heart H3824 shall not be grieved H3415 when thou givest H5414 unto him: because H1558 that for this thing H1697 the LORD H3068 thy God H430 shall bless H1288 thee in all thy works, H4639 and in all that thou puttest H4916 thine hand H3027 unto.

11 For the poor H34 shall never cease H2308 out of H7130 the land: H776 therefore I command H6680 thee, saying, H559 Thou shalt open H6605 thine hand H3027 wide H6605 unto thy brother, H251 to thy poor, H6041 and to thy needy, H34 in thy land. H776

12 And if thy brother, H251 an Hebrew man, H5680 or an Hebrew woman, H5680 be sold H4376 unto thee, and serve H5647 thee six H8337 years; H8141 then in the seventh H7637 year H8141 thou shalt let him go H7971 free H2670 from thee.

13 And when thou sendest H7971 him out free H2670 from thee, thou shalt not let him go away H7971 empty: H7387

14 Thou shalt furnish H6059 him liberally H6059 out of thy flock, H6629 and out of thy floor, H1637 and out of thy winepress: H3342 of that wherewith the LORD H3068 thy God H430 hath blessed H1288 thee thou shalt give H5414 unto him.

15 And thou shalt remember H2142 that thou wast a bondman H5650 in the land H776 of Egypt, H4714 and the LORD H3068 thy God H430 redeemed H6299 thee: therefore I command H6680 thee this thing H1697 to day. H3117

16 And it shall be, if he say H559 unto thee, I will not go away H3318 from thee; because he loveth H157 thee and thine house, H1004 because he is well H2895 with thee;

17 Then thou shalt take H3947 an aul, H4836 and thrust H5414 it through his ear H241 unto the door, H1817 and he shall be thy servant H5650 for ever. H5769 And also unto thy maidservant H519 thou shalt do H6213 likewise.

18 It shall not seem hard H7185 unto thee, H5869 when thou sendest him away H7971 free H2670 from thee; for he hath been worth H7939 a double H4932 hired servant H7916 to thee, in serving H5647 thee six H8337 years: H8141 and the LORD H3068 thy God H430 shall bless H1288 thee in all that thou doest. H6213

19 All the firstling H1060 males H2145 that come H3205 of thy herd H1241 and of thy flock H6629 thou shalt sanctify H6942 unto the LORD H3068 thy God: H430 thou shalt do no work H5647 with the firstling H1060 of thy bullock, H7794 nor shear H1494 the firstling H1060 of thy sheep. H6629

20 Thou shalt eat H398 it before H6440 the LORD H3068 thy God H430 year H8141 by year H8141 in the place H4725 which the LORD H3068 shall choose, H977 thou and thy household. H1004

21 And if there be any blemish H3971 therein, as if it be lame, H6455 or blind, H5787 or have any ill H7451 blemish, H3971 thou shalt not sacrifice H2076 it unto the LORD H3068 thy God. H430

22 Thou shalt eat H398 it within thy gates: H8179 the unclean H2931 and the clean H2889 person shall eat it alike, H3162 as the roebuck, H6643 and as the hart. H354

23 Only thou shalt not eat H398 the blood H1818 thereof; thou shalt pour H8210 it upon the ground H776 as water. H4325

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 15

Commentary on Deuteronomy 15 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Verse 1-2

On the Year of Release. - The first two regulations in this chapter, viz., Deuteronomy 15:1-11 and Deuteronomy 15:12-18, follow simply upon the law concerning the poor tithe in Deuteronomy 14:28-29. The Israelites were not only to cause those who had no possessions (Levites, strangers, widows, and orphans) to refresh themselves with the produce of their inheritance, but they were not to force and oppress the poor. Debtors especially were not to be deprived of the blessings of the sabbatical year (Deuteronomy 15:1-6). “ At the end of seven years thou shalt make a release .” The expression, “at the end of seven years,” is to be understood in the same way as the corresponding phrase, “at the end of three years,” in Deuteronomy 14:28. The end of seven years, i.e., of the seven years' cycle formed by the sabbatical year, is mentioned as the time when debts that had been contracted were usually wiped off or demanded, after the year's harvest had been gathered in (cf. Deuteronomy 31:10, according to which the feast of Tabernacles occurred at the end of the year). שׁמטּה , from שׁמט morf , , to let lie, to let go (cf. Exodus 23:11), does not signify a remission of the debt, the relinquishing of all claim for payment, as Philo and the Talmudists affirm, but simply lengthening the term, not pressing for payment. This is the explanation in Deuteronomy 15:2 : “ This is the manner of the release ” ( shemittah ): cf. Deuteronomy 19:4; 1 Kings 9:15. “ Every owner of a loan of his hand shall release (leave) what he has lent to his neighbour; he shall not press his neighbour, and indeed his brother; for they have proclaimed release for Jehovah .” As שׁמוט (release) points unmistakeably back to Exodus 23:11, it must be interpreted in the same manner here as there. And as it is not used there to denote the entire renunciation of a field or possession, so here it cannot mean the entire renunciation of what had been lent, but simply leaving it, i.e., not pressing for it during the seventh year. This is favoured by what follows, “ thou shalt not press thy neighbour ,” which simply forbids an unreserved demand, but does not require that the debt should be remitted or presented to the debtor (see also Bähr, Symbolik , ii. pp. 570-1). “The loan of the hand:” what the hand has lent to another. “The master of the loan of the hand:” i.e., the owner of a loan, the lender. “His brother” defines with greater precision the idea of “a neighbour.” Calling a release, presupposes that the sabbatical year was publicly proclaimed, like the year of jubilee (Leviticus 25:9). קרא is impersonal (“they call”), as in Genesis 11:9 and Genesis 16:14. “ For Jehovah: ” i.e., in honour of Jehovah, sanctified to Him, as in Exodus 12:42. - This law points back to the institution of the sabbatical year in Exodus 23:10; Leviticus 25:2-7, though it is not to be regarded as an appendix to the law of the sabbatical year, or an expansion of it, but simply as an exposition of what was already implied in the main provision of that law, viz., that the cultivation of the land should be suspended in the sabbatical year. If no harvest was gathered in, and even such produce as had grown without sowing was to be left to the poor and the beasts of the field, the landowner could have no income from which to pay his debts. The fact that the “ sabbatical year ” is not expressly mentioned, may be accounted for on the ground, that even in the principal law itself this name does not occur; and it is simply commanded that every seventh year there was to be a sabbath of rest to the land (Leviticus 25:4). In the subsequent passages in which it is referred to (Deuteronomy 15:9 and Deuteronomy 31:10), it is still not called a sabbatical year, but simply the “year of release,” and that not merely with reference to debtors, but also with reference to the release ( Shemittah ) to be allowed to the field (Exodus 23:11).


Verse 3

The foreigner thou mayest press, but what thou hast with thy brother shall thy hand let go. נכרי is a stranger of another nation, standing in no inward relation to Israel at all, and is to be distinguished from גּר , the foreigner who lived among the Israelites, who had a claim upon their protection and pity. This rule breathes no hatred of foreigners, but simply allows the Israelites the right of every creditor to demand his debts, and enforce the demand upon foreigners, even in the sabbatical year. There was no severity in this, because foreigners could get their ordinary income in the seventh year as well as in any other.


Verse 4

Only that there shall be no poor with thee .” יהיה is jussive, like the foregoing imperfects. The meaning in this connection is, “Thou needest not to remit a debt to foreigners in the seventh year; thou hast only to take care that there is no poor man with or among thee, that thou dost not cause or increase their poverty, by oppressing the brethren who have borrowed of thee.” Understood in this way, the sentence is not at all at variance with Deuteronomy 15:11, where it is stated that the poor would never cease out of the land. The following clause, “for Jehovah will bless thee,” etc., gives a reason for the main thought, that they were not to press the Israelitish debtor. The creditor, therefore, had no need to fear that he would suffer want, if he refrained from exacting his debt from his brother in the seventh year.


Verse 5-6

This blessing would not fail, if the Israelites would only hearken to the voice of the Lord; “ for Jehovah blesseth thee ” (by the perfect בּרכך , the blessing is represented not as a possible and future one only, but as one already bestowed according to the counsel of God, and, so far as the commencement was concerned, already fulfilled), “ as He hath spoken ” (see at Deuteronomy 1:11). “ And thou wilt lend on pledge to many nations, but thou thyself wilt not borrow upon pledge .” עבט , a denom . verb, from עבוט , a pledge, signifies in Kal to give a pledge for the purpose of borrowing; in Hiphil , to cause a person to give a pledge, or furnish occasion for giving a pledge, i.e., to lend upon pledge. “ And thou wilt rule over many nations ,” etc. Ruling is mentioned here as the result of superiority in wealth (cf. Deuteronomy 28:1 : Schultz ).


Verse 7-8

And in general Israel was to be ready to lend to the poor among its brethren, not to harden its heart, to be hard-hearted, but to lend to the poor brother מחסרו דּי , “the sufficiency of his need,” whatever he might need to relieve his wants.


Verse 9-10

Thus they were also to beware “ that there was not a word in the heart, worthlessness, ” i.e., that a worthless thought did not arise in their hearts ( בּליּעל is the predicate of the sentence, as the more precise definition of the word that was in the heart); so that one should say, “ The seventh year is at hand, the year of release, ” sc., when I shall not be able to demand what I have lent, and “ that thine eye be evil towards thy poor brother, ” i.e., that thou cherishest ill-will towards him (cf. Deuteronomy 28:54, Deuteronomy 28:56), “ and givest him not, and he appeals to Jehovah against thee, and it becomes sin to thee, ” sc., which brings down upon thee the wrath of God.

Deuteronomy 15:10

Thou shalt give him, and thy heart shall not become evil, i.e., discontented thereat (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7), for Jehovah will bless thee for it (cf. Proverbs 22:9; Proverbs 28:27; Psalms 41:2; Matthew 6:4).


Verse 11

For the poor will never cease in the land, even the land that is richly blessed, because poverty is not only the penalty of sin, but is ordained by God for punishment and discipline.


Verses 12-14

These provisions in favour of the poor are followed very naturally by the rules which the Israelites were to be urged to observe with reference to the manumission of Hebrew slaves . It is not the reference to the sabbatical year in the foregoing precepts which forms the introduction to the laws which follow respecting the manumission of Hebrews who had become slaves, but the poverty and want which compelled Hebrew men and women to sell themselves as slaves. The seventh year, in which they were to be set free, is not the same as the sabbatical year, therefore, but the seventh year of bondage. Manumission in the seventh year of service had already been commanded in Exodus 21:2-6, in the rights laid down for the nation, with special reference to the conclusion of the covenant. This command is not repeated here for the purpose of extending the law to Hebrew women, who are not expressly mentioned in Ex 21; for that would follow as a matter of course, in the case of a law which was quite as applicable to women as to men, and was given without any reserve to the whole congregation. It is rather repeated here as a law which already existed as a right, for the purpose of explaining the true mode of fulfilling it, viz., that it was not sufficient to give a man-servant and maid-servant their liberty after six years of service, which would not be sufficient relief to those who had been obliged to enter into slavery on account of poverty, if they had nothing with which to set up a home of their own; but love to the poor was required to do more than this, namely, to make some provision for the continued prosperity of those who were set at liberty. “ If thou let him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go (send him away) empty: ” this was the new feature which Moses added here to the previous law. “ Thou shalt load ( העניק , lit., put upon the neck) of thy flock, and of thy floor (corn), and of thy press (oil and wine); wherewith thy God hath blessed thee, of that thou shalt give to him .”


Verse 15

They were to be induced to do this by the recollection of their own redemption out of the bondage of Egypt, - the same motive that is urged for the laws and exhortations enjoining compassion towards foreigners, servants, maids, widows, orphans, and the poor, not only in Deuteronomy 5:15; Deuteronomy 10:19; Deuteronomy 16:12; Deuteronomy 24:18, Deuteronomy 24:22, but also in Exodus 22:20; Exodus 23:9, and Leviticus 19:34.


Verse 16-17

But if the man-servant and the maid-servant should not wish for liberty in the sixth year, because it was well with them in the house of their master, they were not to be compelled to go, but were to be bound to eternal, i.e., lifelong bondage, in the manner prescribed in Exodus 21:5-6.

(Note: Knobel's assertion, that the judicial process enjoined in Exodus 21:6 does not seem to have been usual in the author's own time, is a worthless argumentum e silentio .)

This is repeated from Ex 21, to guard against such an application of the law as might be really cruelty under the circumstances rather than love. Manumission was only an act of love, when the person to be set free had some hope of success and of getting a living for himself; and where there was no such prospect, compelling him to accept of freedom might be equivalent to thrusting him away.


Verse 18

If, on the other hand, the servant (or maid) wished to be set free, the master was not to think it hard; “ for the double of the wages of a day-labourer he has earned for thee for six years ,” i.e., not “twice the time of a day-labourer, so that he had really deserved twice the wages” ( Vatablius, Ad. Osiander, J. Gerhard ), for it cannot be proved from Isaiah 16:14, that a day-labourer generally hired himself out for three years; nor yet, “he has been obliged to work much harder than a day-labourer, very often by night as well as day” ( Clericus, J. H. Michaelis, Rosenmller, Baumgarten ); but simply, “he has earned and produced so much, that if you had been obliged to keep a day-labourer in his place, it would have cost you twice as much” ( Schultz, Knobel ).


Verses 19-23

Application of the first-born of Cattle. - From the laws respecting the poor and slaves, to which the instructions concerning the tithes (Deuteronomy 14:22-29) had given occasion, Moses returns to appropriation of the first-born of the herd and flock to sacrificial meals, which he had already touched upon in Deuteronomy 12:6, Deuteronomy 12:17, and Deuteronomy 14:23, and concludes by an explanation upon this point. The command, which the Lord had given when first they came out of Egypt (Exodus 13:2, Exodus 13:12), that all the first-born of the herd and flock should be sanctified to Him, is repeated here by Moses, with the express injunction that they were not to work with the first-born of cattle (by yoking them to the plough or waggon), and not to shear the first-born of sheep; that is to say, they were not to use the first-born animals which were sanctified to the Lord for their own earthly purposes, but to offer them year by year as sacrifices to the Lord, and consume them in sacrificial meals. To this he adds (Deuteronomy 15:21, Deuteronomy 15:22) that further provision, that first-born animals, which were blind or lame, or had any other bad fault, were not to be offered in sacrifice to the Lord, but, like ordinary animals used for food, could be eaten in all the towns of the land. Although the first part of this law was involved in the general laws as to the kind of animal that could be offered in sacrifice (Leviticus 22:19.), it was by no means unimportant to point out distinctly their applicability to the first-born, and add some instructions with regard to the way in which they were to be applied. (On Deuteronomy 15:22 and Deuteronomy 15:23, see Deuteronomy 12:15 and Deuteronomy 12:16.)