“Do not charge your brother interest”
Deuteronomy 23:19
Legal referenceSettledMoses
Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan. (Deuteronomy 23:19 BSB)
* Lending to a fellow Israelite in need was to be interest-free (commercial loans to foreigners were exempt); a loan was for relief, not for profiting off a neighbor's hardship.
What it sounds like today
A dry banking regulation about loan rates.
The cultural key
In Israel, lending to a fellow member of the covenant was an act of charity toward someone in trouble, so charging interest, profiting from a neighbor's need, was forbidden. Loans to foreigners, which were commercial rather than relief, were exempted. The concern is not economics in the abstract but compassion: the poor were not to sink deeper because a brother saw a chance to gain. The prophets later thunder against those who lend at interest and grind the needy.
Recovered meaning
Money lent to a struggling brother was meant to lift him up, not to enrich the lender off his misfortune. The interest ban treats the vulnerable neighbor as family, not as a market.
Parallels: Exodus 22:25; Ezekiel 18:8