and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
Not to serve as a guarantor, witness, or agent in a loan involving interest between Israelites
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
אִם־כֶּסֶף תַּלְוֶה אֶת־עַמִּי אֶת־הֶעָנִי עִמָּךְ לֹא־תִהְיֶה לוֹ כְּנֹשֶׁה לֹא־תְשִׂימוּן עָלָיו נֶשֶׁךְ
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהיר מהתעסק בהלואת רבית בין המלוה והלוה לא להיות ערב לאחד מהם ולא להיות עד עליהם ולא לכתוב ביניהם שטר במה שהסכימו עליהם מענין הרבית, והוא אמרו לא תשימון עליו נשך. ולשון גמרא מציעא (שם) ערב ועדים אינן עוברין אלא משום לא תשימון, ושם התבאר שהסופר והעדים והערב גם כן עוברים, ושם התבאר גם כן שזה הלאו שהוא לא תשימון עם היותו בא על האמצעיים רוצה לומר המתעסקים בענין ההוא הנה הוא כולל גם כן המלוה, ולכן יהיה המלוה ברבית עובר בששה לאוין, אחד מהם לא תהיה לו כנושה, והשני לא תתן לו בנשך, והשלישי ובמרבית לא תתן אכלך, והרביעי אל תקח מאתו, החמישי לא תשימון עליו נשך, הששי ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול, ושם אמרו ואלו העוברים בלא תעשה המלוה והלוה והערב והעדים וחכמים אומרים אף הסופר על לא תתן לו ואל תקח ולא תהיה לו כנושה ולא תשימון ולפני עור לא תתן. ובגמרא (שם) אמר אביי מלוה עובר בכלן לוה עובר בלא תשיך ולפני עור לא תתן מכשול ערב ועדים אינן עוברין אלא משום לא תשימון, והעובר על לאו זה אם היה רבית קצוצה הנה נוציא אותה ממנו ונחזירה למי שנלקחה ממנו. (משפטים, שם):
He prohibited being involved with a loan with interest between a borrow and a lender - not to be a guarantor for one of them, not to be a witness for them and not to write a contract about what they agreed upon about the interest. And that is His saying, "you shall not lay upon him interest" (Exodus 22:24). And the language of the Gemara, Metzia (Bava Metzia 75b), is "The guarantor and the witnesses only transgress on account of, 'you shall not lay.'" And there, it is explained that the scribe, the witnesses and the guarantor also transgress. And there, it is also explained that this negative statement, which is 'you shall not lay' - even with its coming about the middlemen, meaning those [tangentially] involved in that matter - also includes the lender. And therefore the lender transgresses six negative statements: The first is, "do not be to him as a creditor" (Exodus 22:24); the second is, "Your money you shall not give him on interest" (Leviticus 25:37); the third is, "and on increase you shall not give your food" (Leviticus 25:37); the fourth is, "Do not take from him" (Leviticus 25:36); the fifth is, "you shall not lay upon him"; and the sixth is, "and you shall not put a stumbling block in front of the blind" (Leviticus 19:14). And there, they said, "These transgress a negative commandment: The lender; the borrower; the guarantor; and the witnesses. And the Sages say, 'Even the scribe.' They transgress, 'you shall not give him'; 'Do not take'; 'do not be to him as a creditor'; 'you shall not lay'; and 'you shall not put in front of the blind.'" And in the Gemara: "Abbaye says, 'The lender transgresses them all; the borrower transgresses, "You shall not charge interest" (Deuteronomy 23:3) and "and you shall not put a stumbling block in front of the blind"; the guarantor and the witnesses only [transgress] on account of "you shall not lay."'" And one who transgresses this negative commandment: If the interest was fixed, we take it away from him and return it to the one from whom it was taken. (See Parashat Mishpatim; 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 flat, unconditional command
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
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
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
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite As the catalog records it: biblical core only (rejects rabbinic facilitator extension)
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.
Philo of Alexandria
- De Virtutibus 82-87 The catalog describes this reception as: affirmed rationalized Philo also treats the interest prohibition at De Specialibus Legibus 2.74-78; the De Virtutibus locus should not be read as the sole or definitive reference
Josephus
- Antiquities 4.266 affirmed it Affirms the biblical prohibition on lending at interest among Israelites; does not address the rabbinic extension to guarantors, witnesses, or scribes
The New Testament
- Luke 6:34-35 reinterpreted it Lending without expecting return reframed as ethical ideal; not addressing facilitator liability
The Church Fathers
- Ambrose, De Tobia 14-15 expanded it homiletically
The Qur'an and hadith
- Q 2:275-279 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 interest rates on grain and silver loans (rate caps rather than prohibition) Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§88-89 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor 2nd ed. (1997)
- laws of eshnunna fixed maximum interest rates stated separately for silver loans and for grain loans (rate regulation, not prohibition) Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§18A, 20-21 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor 2nd ed. (1997)
- code of hammurabi Old Babylonian interest-rate regulations requiring witnesses to loan contracts without any concept of witness-liability for the transaction terms; Mesopotamian law normalized witness and scribe participation in interest-bearing loans, standing in contrast to the rabbinic extension of the Israelite prohibition to all facilitating parties via the lifnei iver principle Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast §§88-89 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- laws of eshnunna Fixed statutory interest-rate provisions assuming the involvement of witnesses and scribes in loan documentation as normal commercial practice, with no liability attaching to facilitating parties 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.
No tension with the catalogued modern frameworks is recorded here.