Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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to those who are oppressive that they have the cry of the poor against them, which God will hear. Nay,
(2.) He will severely reckon with those that do oppress them. Though they escape punishments from men, God's righteous judgments will pursue and overtake them, Ex 22:24. Men that have a sense of justice and honour will espouse the injured cause of the weak and helpless; and shall not the righteous God do it? Observe the equity of the sentence here passed upon those that oppress the widows and fatherless: their wives shall become widows, and their children fatherless; and the Lord is known by these judgments, which he sometimes executes still.
23 If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will
surely hear their cry;
24 and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and
your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.
25 If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou
shalt not be to him as a usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.
A law against extortion in lending. 1. They must not receive use for money from any that borrowed for necessity (Ex 22:25), as in that case, Ne 5:5,7. And such provision the law made for the preservation of estates to their families by the year of jubilee that a people who had little concern in trade could not be supposed to borrow money but for necessity, and therefore it is generally forbidden among themselves; but to a stranger, whom yet they might not oppress, they were allowed to lend upon usury: this law, therefore, in the strictness of it, seems to have been peculiar to the Jewish state; but, in the equity of it, it obliges us to show mercy to those of whom we might take advantage, and to be content to share, in loss as well as profit, with those we lend to,
26 If thou at all take thy neighbor’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt
deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:
They must not take a poor man's bed-clothes in pawn; but, if they did, must restore them by bed-time, Ex 22:26,27. Those