Deuteronomy 15:7

"If there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates in thy land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother; but thou shalt surely open thy hand unto him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth. Beware that there be not a base thought in thy heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou give him naught; and he cry unto Jehovah against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him; because that for this thing Jehovah thy God will bless thee in all thy work, and in all that thou puttest thy hand unto. For the poor will never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt surely open thy hand unto thy brother, to thy needy, and to thy poor, in thy land."

God's commandment to give to the poor dominates this paragraph. Note that the very motives of men's hearts are brought under judgment by such passages as this. If a poor man needs assistance shortly before the Sabbatical Year, those able to help him were forbidden to deny help because of the proximity of the year of "release." Incidentally, this shows that the "release" was not a mere moratorium, but a genuine and complete remission.

The admonition not to be "grieved" because of giving to a poor brother is strongly suggestive of Paul's famous quotation from Jesus, "God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7).

It is extremely significant that Deuteronomy 15:7-9 indicate that, "God will regard the cry of the poor as a witness against the hardhearted."[9] The Sabbatical Year made certain that a great deal of "lending to the poor" actually turned out to be giving to the poor! Giving to the poor without any thought of repayment is by far the best procedure. The Lord has said, "He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord" (Proverbs 19:17). Notice that in this very paragraph God has specifically promised to bless the man whose hand is open to his poor brother.

We like the picturesque manner in which Clarke translated Deuteronomy 15:9: "Beware that there be not a thought in thy good-for-nothing heart,"[10] with reference to that Sabbatical Year and the release of debts! The reason for the cheerfulness in giving, or the lack of grief, mentioned in Deuteronomy 15:10 was explained thus by Alexander: "They should not grieve in giving, because God would bless them in all their works, so that they should not only be no losers by so doing, but actually should be gainers by their generosity!"[11]

Despite the fact of its not being the will of God that poverty should exist (Deuteronomy 15:4), one has the flat statement in Deuteronomy 15:11 that "It shall never cease." "In the ideal order (where every person did the full will of God) there would be no poverty, but here, God is concerned with the actual realities of the present world."[12]

One other observation regarding the poor is that made by Adam Clarke who wrote: "It is an act of mercy that God leaves the poor among men in order to give men the opportunity to exercise feelings of tenderness, compassion, and mercy. Without occasions for men to exercise these feelings, man would soon degenerate into a Stoic or a brute."[13]