Backgrounds of the Biblical Law against Usury

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible contains a thrice repeated prohibition against the taking of interest on loans. For many centuries, these injunctions exerted a profound influence on the life and thought of the Western World. However, they have never been significantly observed or consistently enforced in their original, categorical terms. From an absolute prohibition, which treated all interest (of any kind, in any amount) as usurious, we have developed, through economic revolutions and moral transvaluations, a quantitative morality which determines legality by the rate of taking, rather than by the fact of interest. Today, these laws lack force either as social legislation or as religious command. They are virtually ignored and forgotten by men of affairs of all stations, Jewish and Christians alike. Only the social and religious philosophers, historians and other scholars of the past are still excited by the moral implications of this prohibition.