Renz's Thesis No. 3 - "Loans to a foreigner (nokri) were commercial loans"

Deuteronomy 23:20 states that usury may be taken of the “foreigner.” The first thing to note is that the exception enunciated here implies that there is no exception embodied in the general rule stated in 23:19. Indeed, following declaration of the exception, the general rule is reiterated, so that the exception is sandwiched, as it were, between two simple statements of a broad and general rule: you shall not take usury of your countryman, of a foreigner you may take usury, but of your countryman you shall not take usury.

The text quite plainly is staking the exception upon a distinction of borrowers - foreign vs. countryman. It equally is plain that a distinction of loans - commercial vs. charitable - nowhere is in view. In order to understand the exception properly, one must properly assess the distinction upon which it is predicated. Whether a loan is for commercial or charitable purposes makes no difference at all in the question of whether usury is justified. Whether usury is justified depends entirely upon whether the loan was extended to a foreigner (in Hebrew, nokri) or to a countryman, including the sojourner (in Hebrew, ger). In this light, Thomas’s third Thesis is at best uninteresting. Even if there were some way of knowing (which there is not) that the typical loan of Israel to nokri was for commercial purposes, it would have no bearing at all upon the usury debate, for the question of usury and the nature and pretext of the exception in Deuteronomy 23:20 has nothing at all to do with such a question. However, in terms of the issue as Thomas has misconstrued it, the question of “commercial loans” to nokri has quite a lot to do with the basic issues of usury. After all, that is how the matter came to be one of his twelve Theses on the subject. Therefore, it will prove instructive to examine whether Thomas’s third Thesis serves his own purposes, even though it serves no truly useful purpose in the usury question.

The idea that Israelite loans to nokri are “commercial” is pure conjecture. Thomas makes the case that nokri are distinguished from ger by the simple fact that the latter dwell within the polity of Israel and the former without it. That being the case - so the conjecture goes - there hardly is any reason why nokri should be traveling through Israel and have occasion to borrow except for commercial purposes. Indeed, Thomas conjectures that a Philistine might travel to Israel for the sole purpose of borrowing silver that he might return home with it and expand his olive oil production. However, such a notion ignores the fact that in the immediate context in which this law was given, it was Israel who were the travelers. It was following the giving of the law through Moses that Israel entered into the promised land, with the command to conquer, eradicate, and displace the inhabitants thereof. It was not nokri who entered into the land of Israel; Israel entered into the land of nokri. Israel traveled into the realm where nokri lived their everyday lives. Here they encountered the personal need of nokri, springing from hardship and misfortune, which provided the occasion for loans having nothing whatever to do with commerce.

Further, we might hearken back to Thesis No. 1, as its importance in Thomas’s overall position comes more fully into view. His little vignette of the Philistine olive oil producer from Ekron presents an example of what M. I. Finley meant by a false account of things arising from exporting our Modern ideas of commerce back onto the Ancient economic landscape. The very last thing that a Philistine businessman would do would be to travel to a foreign land to borrow. The very last thing that an Israelite with a surplus of silver would do would be to lend it to a Philistine, whom he never had seen before, and watch him ride off into the sunset with any expectation that he ever would see that Philistine, or his silver, again. These are insurmountable problems with Thomas’s vignette that arise even after we already have assumed that individuals in the Ancient world were free to launch into a business enterprise, free to roam about the world in search of a loan, and at liberty to travel long distances bearing valuable property without danger of plunder. Israel’s own episodes, as recounted in Numbers 20:13-21, and 21:21-24, provide an easily accessible account of the obstacles a Philistine businessman from Ekron might have faced in his quest to secure a loan of silver from Israel. It was consideration of such difficulties that led to dismissal of Thomas’s first Thesis, and whereas his first Thesis does not hold, therefore his third Thesis cannot gain any footing.

The true basis of the Deuteronomic exception lies not in a distinction of commercial vs. consumer borrowing, but of foreign vs. countryman borrowers. It remains therefore to expound upon this distinction of borrowers. As the law also required Israel to treat the sojourner charitably, the distinction reflected in the difference between the Hebrew terms nokri and ger becomes one of critical importance. Thomas considered this distinction, as mentioned, but found in it a difference only of those within (ger) and those without (nokri) Israel’s polity. This distinction by itself seems insufficient to account for a strict prohibition of usury in one case coincident with a particular permission of usury in the other case. Indeed, if that were all there was to the distinction, not a great deal could be hung upon it. This point hints at the next Thesis, and accordingly further discussion of the distinction shall, Lord willing, be resumed in my following reply.