Usury

NLT Exodus 22-25

If you lend money to any of my people who are in need, do not charge interest as a money lender would.

 NLT Deuteronomy 23:20

You may charge interest to foreigners, but you may not charge interest to Israelites, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you do in the land you are about to enter and occupy.

 

Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash 

 

Why is this ponderable?

Lending money and charging interest was a financial transaction long before the Exodus. What is ponderable here is that Moses forbade charging interest to his people in need. That must have seemed as counter intuitive to the people of that time as it would be for us today. Why put your own wealth at risk by lending it to someone who had already lost theirs?

Part of that answer is contained in the phrase, "to any of my people." Although Moses did not proscribe charging interest to those outside the Jewish community, there were no outsiders needing loans during the 40 years it took to reach the Promised Land.  These interest-free loans were actually the earliest form of insurance. As they traversed the dessert there were many ways a family could fall into need through no fault of their own. Livestock might be attacked and eaten by prey, wagons and carts might break apart, or illness might strike. Even though these interest free loans were expected to be repaid, there were no terms spelled out in Exodus. Therefore, we can assume these loans would be repaid whenever the recipient was able to do so or they were forgiven by the lender.

Once the Jewish community entered the Promised Land, there were many foreigners needing loans. They were more than willing to pay interest. So it was time to define the rules for doing so. Deuteronomy 23:20 reaffirms the no interest rule but opens the door to lending for gain in transactions with foreigners. 

This business practice came into prominence in the Middle Ages when the Christian Church emulated it. Christian bankers were not allowed to charge interest to fellow Christians. That was considered usury. However, they were allowed to charge interest to non-Christians. At that time most non-Christians were Jews. So Christian bankers could profit by lending money to Jews and Jewish bankers could profit by lending money to Christians without violating the usury laws of their respective religions. 

 

Jonathan loved David

NLT 1 Samuel 18:1-4

After David had finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan, the king’s son. There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David. ² From that day on Saul kept David with him and wouldn’t let him return home. ³ And Jonathan made a solemn pact with David, because he loved him as he loved himself. ⁴ Jonathan sealed the pact by taking off his robe and giving it to David, together with his tunic, sword, bow, and belt.

Why is this ponderable?

If the author of 1 Samuel had lived in the 21st Century, he might have used bromance to explain the bond between them: "a close, emotionally intense, non-sexual, male bonding relationship, distinguished by a particularly high level of emotional intimacy." This is ponderable because of the details provided by the author and the fact that it is the only relationship described this way in the entire Old Testament.

In the New Testament, we encounter "the disciple whom Jesus loved" in John 21:20-23  Although biblical scholars disagree about the identity this disciple, he is described this way in six different places in the Gospel of John. Some biblical scholars ponder if this could be a reference to Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary. Jesus wept when he learned that Lazarus had died before he arrived at his home. In fact, the death of his friend Lazarus was so devastating to Jesus that he called him back from the tomb. We do not hear about Lazarus again after this event which is also ponderable. Perhaps the Apostles were warned by Jesus to keep this event under wraps lest the people begin to follow Lazarus and fall away from Him.  

Give Us A King

TLB 1 Samuel 8:5-6

“Give us a king like all the other nations have,” they pleaded. ⁶ Samuel was terribly upset and went to the Lord for advice.

 

Why is this ponderable?

Why would anyone want to follow an earthly leader when God is on the front line with you?

In the Old Testament,  the giving of the Law, as the establishment of a covenant between God and Israel resembles treaties or covenants made between ancient kings and their subjects in that day. For them, it was a no-brainer that God was establishing the covenant basis for His rule as King over Israel. 

First, God delivers the Israelites from Egyptian bondage guided by His emissary Moses. Then God proclaims Himself as their King through a formal covenant;The Law of Moses. Only after the Israelites cross the Red Sea do they realize that it is not Moses who is fighting with Pharaoh but God. It was King Pharaoh--the most powerful king on earth at that time--fighting King God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. They were His chosen people who would reign over and protect them forever and ever.

In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God indicates that there will be a time when Israel will ask for a human king like those of their enemies. Chapter 8 of 1 Samuel is the first account of Israel’s demand for such a king. Samuel is displeased with this demand but, as usual, God is way ahead of the curve. During the gestation period between the flight from Egypt to the settlement in the Promised Land, the people of God's kingdom were like children being nursed by their mother. Now it is time to wean them and prepare them to take their place in the material world. They have been able to avoid idolatry but  not the many other temptations the world, the flesh, and the devil will throw at them.   

Samuel warns them that there will be many costs associated with binding themselves to an earthly king. 

At first it seems like only the elders of Israel are demanding a king. As the chapter unfolds, we see that all of the people of Israel are behind this movement to have a human  king.  Israel is testing God's permissive will and weaning themselves away from God's revealed will. Their elders are not leading, as much as they are representing the people in this democratic movement.

 

The simple fact is that Samuel is the greatest judge of all time. During the period of his service, Israel reaches one of its spiritual “high water marks.” No rebuke of Samuel is found in 1 Samuel, either as a prophet or as a father.  It is not just Samuel’s age and the corruption of his sons which prompt the Israelites to demand a king. From chapter 12, we learn that the military threat posed by Nahash, the king of Ammon, is perhaps the fundamental reason the Israelites want a king. The Ark of God is out of commission, Samuel is soon to be, and the Israelites want an earthly king in whom they can place their trust. They have been weaned...

Power to Get Wealth

NSRV Deuteronomy 8:18

But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today.

 

Why is this ponderable?

In light of the record-breaking $1.6 Billion Lottery we observed on Wednesday, this passage from Deuteronomy lets us ponder whether God himself selected the three final winners.  Given that the odds of having a Winning Ticket were about 1 in 300 million, the three winners cannot believe that their number selection ability beat out 300 million contenders. 

Anyone who purchased a ticket with so little hope for a win, must have some sense that a Power greater than themselves could intervene. Some may have attributed it to Lady Luck. Others may have felt it was their fate to win. And still others may have prayed for the wealth so they could help people in need. 

All Christians know that a prize, greater than any wealth on Earth, awaits them in Heaven. Yet Believers have pondered why God empowers some to get wealthy and not others. Often, in their estimation, the people whom God gives the greatest power to get wealth are the least worthy of it. And many decent hard-working people struggle daily just to put food on the table of life. 

We cannot know God's reasons. We can only trust Him to act with mercy and justice. Who knows? Perhaps those favored by Him while on Earth are merely instruments of His divine Will. And if such great wealth had fallen into our undeserving hands, it would have driven us to a life of selfish adolation. What good would it do us to have gained millions of dollars only to lose our souls in the process?

 

Watchers and Holy Ones

HNV  Daniel 4:17

  The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones; to the intent that the living may know that God rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whoever he will, and sets up over it the lowest of men.

Why is this ponderable?

Most biblical commentators tell us that the Watchers and Holy Ones are simply angels of the Lord who carry out His intentions. However, the context of this passage suggests that the Watchers, alluded to by Daniel, may be more like Umpires whose mission is to observe people and events on the earth and ensure God's rules are being faithfully observed.  If so, then Satan may have been doing exactly that when he noted that Job's righteousness was suspect. By his authority as a Watcher, he could take away all of Job's creature comforts to test the depth of that righteousness.

The fact that God did not cast Satan right to hell for even suggesting this gives us two clues about Satan's role in Job's case. First, he was allowed, or even assigned, to watch Job and judge potential violations of Trust. Second, he could rule that Job be separated from his material possessions and interrogated by his friends and even his wife. So we can conclude from this that the Watchers are more than ordinary angels. They have the authority to judge violations and rule on them.  But who or what are the Holy Ones?

If the Watchers patrol the earth looking for violations of God's Will, then perhaps the Holy Ones are angels who unpack God's Will in much the same way a compressed software application is unpacked and implemented.   They are empowered to execute any operation which they unanimously  agree is the will of God.  In Job's case it was God's will that Job become a role model for all who trust in God's providence and are grateful for all they are given. For King Nebuchadnezzar, the Holy Ones raised him up to be Supreme Ruler in order to show that all authority and power comes from God  who gives it to whomever he will--even the least worthy.

The Light of the Wicked

NLT Job 21:17

Yet the light of the wicked never seems to be extinguished. 
Do they ever have trouble?  Does God distribute sorrows to them in anger?

 

Why is this ponderable?

The phrase light of the wicked is ponderable because the Book of Job is the only place in the entire Bible that links light, lamp, or candle with the wicked. All other associations link light to God, Jesus, the Word, and the righteous. For example:

Ps 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
Ps 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Jn 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Eph 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  
Bible commentators generally focus on the point that the wicked never seem to be diminished by God nor do the Just escape sorrows. Job implies that, by allowing the wicked to flourish and the righteous to suffer, God is not fair.  And that is the issue posed by this passage. Yet the use of light symbology in this context seems contradictory. Are we to infer that the wicked have a light source which does not come from God? If so, what is the source?  Is it as powerful as the light from God?

In the Bible, light is a spiritual metaphor for truth and God’s unchanging nature (James 1:17). It is repeatedly used to assure us that God is wholly good and truthful (1 John 1:5). When we are “in the light,” we are with Him (1 Peter 2:9). He exhorts us to join Him in the light (1 John 1:7), for giving us light was His purpose (John 12:46). Light is the place where love dwells and is comfortable (1 John 2:9-10). God has created light (Genesis 1:3), dwells in the light (1 Timothy 6:16) and puts the light in human hearts so that we can see and know Him and understand truth (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Yet 2 Corinthians 11:14 warns us that, as a fallen angel,  Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light.  Like a TV commercial for unhealthy junk food, Satan bills himself as good, truthful, loving, and powerful--a genuine knockoff of God Himself. If he were to brand himself as a dark, dangerous hungry animal with horns who would want to follow him? 

So this one reference to the Light of the Wicked is a subtle hint to the faithful. It warns God's people: Not all that glitters is from God.

One of the advantages of being a Catholic is that it confers a complete intellectual freedom to examine any and all phenomena with the absolute assurance of their intelligibility.--J J Zavada   

Solomon Loved Many Foreign Women

NIV 1 Kings 11:1

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter--Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.

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Why is this ponderable?

Near the end of his wise and prosperous reign, King Solomon is reported to have accumulated at least 700 princess-wives and 300 concubines. To us this seems a bit much, especially considering that his lustful desires did not beset him until well past his prime. But we must also understand that the culture of Solomon's Era was not all about sexual pleasure. The goal of any young man was to accumulate sufficient wealth to attract women who could bear him children and expand his tribe. The concept of "one man and one woman" marriage had not yet evolved. Instead one man could have as many women as he could afford to purchase and support. Given Solomon's wealth, he could easily afford and keep 700 wives in whatever style to which they had become accustomed. That does not imply that he was obligated to keep them all sexually satisfied. 

Pharaoh's daughter was the first wife of Solomon. This was an "arranged" marriage  to cement a political alliance with Egypt. Although she is not named in the text, she is the only wife singled out to explain the  political significance of this marriage. We can assume most, if not all, of the other marriages were also rooted in such alliances. Also, certain numbers are used in the Bible to convey conceptual messages--not for accounting purposes. The number "7" conveys completeness of a goal or event. Each zero added to it increases the importance of the goal or event. So 700 wives tells us that Solomon had cemented enough political alliances through marriage to secure his kingdom for many years against any potential invasion.

The 300 concubines offer another example of a conceptual message. The number "3" alludes to God's Divine Will. So the 300 concubines likely included women who could "stand in" for wives that were barren or died during their tenure as a wife of Solomon. Alliance marriages in this era were often underwritten by including concubines in the arrangement. This protected both the monarch offering his daughter in an alliance marriage and the recipient of the alliance wife. The Hebrew word for concubine (pileges) is a non-Semitic loanword used to explain a marital phenomenon that did not evolve in Israel. Babylonian and Assyrian law codes regulate primary and secondary marriages more specifically than do the Old Testament laws. Concubines are mentioned primarily in early Israelite history during patriarchal times, the period of the judges, and the early monarchy.

 God commanded Solomon to avoid emotional entanglements with foreign women who might turn him to idolatry. The prohibition had nothing to do with the the Laws of Moses governing adultery. But Solomon had acquired a taste for novel and exotic amusements. This included the exotic customs of Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women. These customs revolved around homage to idols that promised heightened sexual pleasure and fertility. Giving homage to any god other than the  God of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham was strictly forbidden--especially for the King of Israel.

But Solomon wanted to please these exotic women and succumbed to their wishes instead of being  faithful to the God of Isreal, as his father, David, had been. He paid homage to Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. On the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, he even built a pagan shrine for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and another for Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. Solomon built such shrines to please his foreign wives who wanted to burn incense and offer sacrifices to their gods.

The use of the numbers 700 and 300 are intended to convey a spiritual message. God had given Solomon every material possession he could possibly want in that era. Many of the things Solomon accumulated would be considered eccentric even by today's standards. However, God trusted Solomon not to become attached to any of those things. But God cannot tolerate disloyalty. Wanting to please the foreign women opened the door to that choice and Solomon failed the loyalty test. The total of 700 and 300 equals 1000. In this test, the higher the score the greater is the offense. The text and the score tell us that Solomon failed big time. He had placed pleasing his foreign women ahead of his loyalty to God.