Money worries and debt

The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

An observation, not a rule the world must obey: a lender holds power over a borrower, and owing money turns a free person into something close to a servant. The proverb states the arrangement plainly and promises nothing about escaping it.

And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. For there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live. Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth. There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.

Jerusalem's poor, in a famine, had mortgaged fields and borrowed to pay the king's tax until they were selling their own children into service. The complaint is against their neighbours. The Bible records the debt crisis as a crisis, not as a failing.

At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD’s release.

Israel's law cancelled debts every seventh year. Whatever a creditor was owed, he released. The law assumed people would fall into debt and set an outer limit on how long it could hold them, rather than treating repayment as endless.

When thou dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee. And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge: In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the LORD thy God.

A lender could take a pledge as security but could not walk into the house to seize it, and a poor man's cloak had to be returned by nightfall so he could sleep in it. Collection had limits set by the debtor's dignity.

Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the LORD: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.

A widow whose creditor is coming to take her two sons as bondmen. Elisha asks what is in the house, and the answer is one pot of oil. The story ends in provision, though the oil stops the moment the borrowed vessels run out.

Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

Bread from heaven, gathered a day's portion at a time, with nothing kept back. Israel ate this way for forty years without ever holding more than a single day's supply, which is a different kind of security from having a reserve.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Five words in the prayer Jesus taught, asking for one day's bread. The request is for enough today rather than for a settled future, and it is plural, asked on behalf of everyone saying it.

Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.

Agur asks for neither poverty nor riches but for the food he needs, and gives his reason: plenty can make a person forget God, and want can drive him to steal. It treats both ends of the scale as dangerous.

Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Paul writes from prison to a church that has sent him money. The famous line about doing all things through Christ finishes a sentence about being full and being hungry. It is about enduring either state, not about achieving whatever a person attempts.