of God, given by Moses, positively forbade usury or
interest, and this prohibition was so repeated that there was no
mistaking the meaning. Ex. 22:25: "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."

This law is more fully presented in Lev. 25:35, 36, 37: "And if thy
brother be waxen poor, and fallen into decay with thee, then thou
shalt relieve him; yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that
he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase; but
fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give
him thy money upon usury, or lend him thy victuals for increase."

Prof. George Bush makes the following note upon this passage: "The
original term '_Neshek_' comes from the verb '_Nashak_' (to bite),
mostly applied to the bite of a serpent; and probably signifies biting
usury, so called perhaps because it resembled the bite of a serpent;
for as this is often so small as to be scarcely perceptible at first,
yet the venom soon spreads and diffuses itself till it reaches the
vitals, so the increase of usury, which at first is not perceived, at
length grows so much as to devour a man's substance."

An effort is sometimes made to limit the application of these laws by
placing special emphasis on the poverty of the borrowers and to
confine the prohibition of usury to loans to the poor to meet the
necessaries of life; and it is claimed that the laws are not intended
to prohibit usury on a loan which the borrower secures as capital for
a business.

In reply it can be said:

1. There may be more benevolence in a loan to enable a brother to go
into business than in a loan to supply his present needs. It may be
less benevolent and less kind to lend a dollar to buy flour for
present use than to lend a dollar to buy a hoe with which to go into
business and earn the flour. The highest philanthropy supplies the
means and opportunities for self-help.

2. A desire for capital to promote a business to gain more than is
necessary to nourish the physical and mental manhood is not justified
nor encouraged anywhere in the Word. There is just a sufficiency of
food necessary to the highest physical condition. There is just a
sufficiency of material wealth necessary to the development of the
noblest manhood. More decreases physical and mental vigor and degrades
the whole man. To seek more is of the nature of that "