Ezekiel 18:8 - Exposition

He that hath not given forth his money upon usury. The word "usury," we must remember, is used, not, as with us, for exorbitant interest above the market rate, but for interest of any kind. This was allowed in commercial dealings with foreigners ( Deuteronomy 23:20 ), but was altogether forbidden in the ease of loans to Israelites ( Exodus 22:25 ; Le Exodus 25:35 , Exodus 25:37 ; Deuteronomy 23:19 : Isaiah 24:2 ). The principle implied in this distinction was that, although it was, on strict principles of justice, allowable to charge for the use of money, as for the use of lands or the hire of cattle, Israel, as a people, was under the higher law of brotherhood. If money was to be lent at all, it was to be lent as to a brother in went ( Matthew 5:42 ; Luke 6:35 ), for the relief of his necessities, and not to make profit. A brother who would not help a brother by a loan without interest was thought unworthy of the name. The ideal of the social polity of Israel was that it was to consist of a population of small freeholders, bound together by ties of mutual help—a national friendly society, rather than of traders and manufacturers; and hence the whole drift of its legislation tended to repress the money making spirit which afterwards became specially characteristic of its people, and ate like a canker into its life. The distinction between the two words seems to be that "usury" represents any interest on money; and "increase," any profit on the sale of goods beyond the cost of production, as measured by the maintenance of the worker and his family. To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest was not to be the rule in a nation of brothers, and it was wiser to forbid it altogether rather than to sanction what we call a "reasonable rate" of interest or profit. Hath executed true judgment . The last special feature in the description of the righteous man is that he is free from the judicial corruption which has always been the ineradicable evil of Eastern social life ( 1 Samuel 8:3 ; 1 Samuel 12:3 ; Amos 5:12 ; Isaiah 33:15 ).