You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
Not to lend money to a fellow Israelite at interest
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אֶת־כַּסְפְּךָ לֹא־תִתֵּן לוֹ בְּנֶשֶׁךְ וּבְמַרְבִּית לֹא־תִתֵּן אָכְלֶךָ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר מהלוות ברבית. והוא אמרו יתעלה את כספך לא תתן לו בנשך ובמרבית לא תתן אכלך, ושני לאוין אלו אמנם הם בענין אחד ובאו לחזוק וכדי שיהיה מי שילוה ברבית עובר בשני לאוין לא שהם שני ענינים כי הנשך הוא הרבית והרבית הוא הנשך. ובגמרא מציעא (דף ס' ע"ב) אמרו אי אתה מוצא נשך בלא תרבית ולא תרבית בלא נשך ולא חלקן הכתוב אלא לעבור עליו בשני לאוין, ושם אמרו דאורייתא נשך ותרבית חדא מלתא היא, ושם אמרו השתא דכתיב את כספך לא תתן לו בנשך קרי ביה הכי את כספך לא תתן לו בנשך ובמרבית ובנשך ומרבית לא תתן אכלך, הנה יהיה כל מה שילוה ברבית או כסף או פירות כבר עבר בשני לאוין מחובר אל שאר לאוין שבאו גם כן במלוה לחזוק גם כן, כי הנה נכפלה האזהרה זו בלשון אחר ואמר לא תקח מאתו נשך ותרבית, והתבאר בגמרא מציעא (דף ס"א) שזה הלאו גם כן למלוה הוא, אבל אלו כלם לאוי יתירי כמו שבארנו בשרש ט' שהם כלם בענין אחד נכפל, והוא שיזהיר המלוה מהלוות ברבית. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו בחמישי ממציעא. (בהר, הלכות מלוה ולוה פ"ד):
He prohibited lending with interest. And that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "Your money you shall not give him on interest, and on increase you shall not give your food" (Leviticus 25:37). However these two negative statements are the same content and came to strengthen [it]; and are in order that one who lends with interest transgress two negative statements - not that they are two matters. For interest is increase, and increase is interest. And in the Gemara, Metzia (Bava Metzia 60b), they said, "You will not find interest without increase; increase without interest. And the verse only separated them to [make one] transgress two negative statements." And there, they said, "From Torah law, interest and increase is one thing." And there, they [also] said, "Now that it is written, 'Your money you shall not give him on interest, and on increase you shall not give your food' (interposing both interest and increase between money and food), read it like this: 'Your money you shall not give him on interest and increase; and on interest and increase you shall not give your food.'" Behold anyone who lends money or fruits with interest has already transgressed two negative statements - along with the other negative statements that also come about [such] a lender - to strengthen [it]. For behold this prohibition was already repeated with a different language with His saying, "Do not take interest and increase from him" (Leviticus 25:36). And it is explained in the Gemara, Metzia (Bava Metzia 61a), that this prohibition is also upon the borrower. But these are all extra negative statements, as we explained in Principle 9 (Sefer HaMitzvot, Shorashim 9:2) - that they are all repeated about the same content, and that is that He is prohibiting the lender from lending with interest. And the regulations of this commandment have already been explained in the fifth [chapter] of [Bava] Metzia. (See Parashat Behar; Mishneh Torah, Creditor and Debtor 4.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding, with modification
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Shemot Rabbah 31:13 expanded it homiletically
- Vayikra Rabbah 34:1 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Spec. Leg. 2.74-78 affirmed it
- De Virtutibus 82ff. affirmed it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.266 affirmed it
The New Testament
- Luke 6:34-35 reinterpreted it Jesus extends the principle of lending without expecting return, generalizing beyond the Israelite-kin restriction
The Church Fathers
- Ambrose, De Tobia 15.51 reinterpreted it
- Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 2.18 read it spiritually
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 2:275-279 carried a parallel
- Q 3:130 carried a parallel
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi regulation of maximum interest rates (33⅓% on grain, 20% on silver) rather than outright prohibition Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§88-96 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- laws of eshnunna fixed interest rates on silver and grain loans Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§18A-21 Roth, Law Collections 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi Old Babylonian interest-rate regulation normalizing grain and silver loans with stated maximum rates (33⅓% and 20%), treating interest as an acceptable commercial practice requiring only rate caps rather than a biblical-style outright prohibition within the covenant community Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§88-96 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- laws of eshnunna Pre-Hammurabi fixed statutory interest rates for silver and grain loans (slightly earlier Old Babylonian period), confirming that rate regulation rather than prohibition was the standard Mesopotamian approach to lending Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§18A-21 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Mishnah Makkot 3:2 and b. Bava Metzia 61a prescribe thirty-nine lashes for lending at interest to a fellow Israelite; modern penal proportionality precludes corporal punishment for a commercial contractual arrangement.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
ICCPR Article 7 prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; court-administered flogging for a financial transaction between consenting parties is incompatible with the standards established under this article.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
Modern market economies rest on the assumption that interest on capital is a legitimate return for risk and time-value; a blanket prohibition on intra-community interest-bearing lending, enforced through criminal sanction, is incompatible with the foundational premises of contemporary commercial and contract law, even setting aside the enforcement method.
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abrogated_in_practice
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
The malkot sanction has not been administered since the dissolution of the Sanhedrin; rabbinic innovation (heter iska) further attenuated the prohibition's economic effect by permitting investment-return structures, though the de jure norm against simple interest between Israelites remains.