The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Generosity in Lending and Giving
Deuteronomy 15:7–11 — Generosity in Lending and Giving. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
7If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- yih·yeh ’eḇ·yō·wn ḇə·ḵā mê·’a·ḥaḏ ’a·ḥe·ḵā bə·’a·ḥaḏ šə·‘ā·re·ḵā bə·’ar·ṣə·ḵā ’ă·šer- Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā nō·ṯên lāḵ lō ṯə·’am·mêṣ ’eṯ- lə·ḇā·ḇə·ḵā wə·lō ṯiq·pōṣ ’eṯ- yā·ḏə·ḵā hā·’eḇ·yō·wn mê·’ā·ḥî·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“When there-is among-you a-destitute-one (’eḇyôn), from-one-of your-brothers within-one of-your-gates, in-your-land that YHWH your-God is-giving to-you — you-shall-not make-strong (’ammēṣ) your-heart, and-you-shall-not draw-tight (qāphaṣ) your-hand from your-brother, the-destitute-one.”
Where the English smooths the original
There are some men who ‘grieve’ (grudge) whether they give or not;” therefore it is said, “Thou shalt not harden thy heart; there are some who stretch out the hand (to give), and yet close it; therefore it is said, Thou shalt not shut thine hand.Ellicott is here relaying Rashi’s reading of the two clauses — the closed heart and the closing hand.
a native of the land was to be preferred to a foreigner, and a brother, whether in relation or religion, to a proselyte of the gate; and the poor of a city to which a man belonged, to the poor of another city
One of the most beautiful as it is one of the most characteristic passages in the laws of D: illustrating not only the humane spirit, and the practical thoughtfulness of this code, but its extension of the Law to the thoughts and interests of the heart
Harden thine heart ; literally, maize strong , so as to suppress natural compassion and sympathy.“maize strong” is the source’s OCR slip for “make strong” — the gloss on ’ammēṣ stands.
Lest the foregoing law should prevent the Israelites lending to the poor, Moses here admonishes them against so mean and selfish a spirit and exhorts them to give in a liberal spirit of charity and kindness, which will secure the divine blessingJFB names the very motive the law forecloses — the fear of losing the loan at the sabbatical release (vv. 1–2).
8Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him whatever he needs.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- p̄ā·ṯō·aḥ tip̄·taḥ ’eṯ- yā·ḏə·ḵā lōw wə·ha·‘ă·ḇêṭ ta·‘ă·ḇî·ṭen·nū dê maḥ·sō·rōw ’ă·šer yeḥ·sar lōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“For opening you-shall-open (pāṯōaḥ tiptaḥ) your-hand to-him, and-pledging you-shall-pledge-to-him (haʻăḇēṭ taʻăḇîṭennû) the-sufficiency-of his-lack that he-lacks for-him.”
Where the English smooths the original
If he does not like to take it as a gift, grant it to him as a loan.” Sufficient for his need. —“But it is not thy duty to make him rich.Ellicott relaying Rashi: relief framed as a loan, bounded by genuine need.
Open thine hand wide unto him, i.e. deal bountifully and liberally with him, giving him as it were by handfuls.
the heart must be first opened, the affections moved, and a willing mind disposed to give generously: and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth: enough to answer his present exigencies, but not to cause him to abound
to lend to the poor brother מחסרו דּי, "the sufficiency of his need," whatever he might need to relieve his wants.
9Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hiš·šā·mer lə·ḵā pen- yih·yeh ḇə·lî·ya·‘al lê·mōr ḏā·ḇār ‘im- lə·ḇā·ḇə·ḵā haš·še·ḇa‘ šə·naṯ- šə·naṯ haš·šə·miṭ·ṭāh qā·rə·ḇāh ‘ê·nə·ḵā hā·’eḇ·yō·wn bə·’ā·ḥî·ḵā wə·rā·‘āh ṯit·tên wə·lō lōw wə·qā·rā ’el- Yah·weh ‘ā·le·ḵā wə·hā·yāh ḇə·ḵā ḥêṭ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Guard yourself (hiššāmer lᵉḵā) lest there-be a-word (dāḇār) in-your-heart, worthlessness (bᵉliyyaʻal), saying ‘The-seventh, the-year-of release, is-near,’ and-your-eye be-evil toward your-brother the-destitute, and-you-give him nothing — and-he-cry against you to YHWH, and-it-becomes in-you sin (ḥēṭʼ).”
Where the English smooths the original
Beware — Suppress the first risings of such uncharitableness. And thine eye be evil — Envious, unmerciful, unkind, as this phrase means, Proverbs 23:6 ; that is, thou grudge to relieve him. The opposite to this is a bountiful eye, Proverbs 22:9 .
a thing in thy heart worthlessness , i . e . a thing which is worthless and unworthy. The word used is belial
that a worthless thought did not arise in their hearts
That is a wicked heart indeed, which raises evil thoughts from the good law of God, as theirs did, who, because God had obliged them to the charity of forgiving, denied the charity of giving.
Beware that there be not in thy heart a word which is worthlessnessBarnes preserves the Hebrew word order — dāḇār (“a word”) standing first, bᵉliyyaʻal (“worthlessness”) in apposition — exactly as K&D parse it.
10Give generously to him, and do not let your heart be grieved when you do so. And because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything to which you put your hand.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
nā·ṯō·wn tit·tên lōw wə·lō- lə·ḇā·ḇə·ḵā yê·ra‘ bə·ṯit·tə·ḵā lōw kî biḡ·lal had·dā·ḇār haz·zeh Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·he·ḵā yə·ḇā·reḵ·ḵā bə·ḵāl ma·‘ă·śe·ḵā ū·ḇə·ḵōl miš·laḥ yā·ḏe·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“Giving you-shall-give (nāṯôn tittēn) to-him, and-it-shall-not be-evil in-your-heart in-your-giving to-him; for because-of this word (biḡlal haddāḇār hazzeh) YHWH your-God will-bless-you in-all your-work and-in-all the-sending-out-of your-hand.”
Where the English smooths the original
Even when thou hast promised to give, thou wilt receive the reward of the promise as well as the reward of the deed;” and we may compare St. Paul. “If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.Ellicott pairs Rashi’s comment with 2 Corinthians 8:12 on the willing mind.
thou shalt give not only with an open hand, but with a willing and cheerful mind and heart, Romans 12:8 2 Corinthians 9:9 , without which thy very charity is uncharitable, and not accepted by God, who requires the heart in all his services.
it should he given freely and cheerfully, for God loves a cheerful giver: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all thou puttest thine hand unto
Thou shalt give him, and thy heart shall not become evil, i.e., discontented thereat (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7 ), for Jehovah will bless thee for it
11For there will never cease to be poor in the land; that is why I am commanding you to open wide your hand to your brother and to the poor and needy in your land.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî lō- yeḥ·dal ’eḇ·yō·wn miq·qe·reḇ hā·’ā·reṣ ‘al- kên ’ā·nō·ḵî mə·ṣaw·wə·ḵā lê·mōr pā·ṯō·aḥ tip̄·taḥ ’eṯ- yā·ḏə·ḵā lə·’ā·ḥî·ḵā la·‘ă·nî·ye·ḵā ū·lə·’eḇ·yō·nə·ḵā bə·’ar·ṣe·ḵā
Literal — word-for-word from the original
“For not will-cease the-destitute from-the-midst of-the-land; therefore I-myself (’ānōḵî) am-commanding-you, saying — opening you-shall-open (pāṯōaḥ tiptaḥ) your-hand to-your-brother, to-your-afflicted (‘ānî) and-to-your-destitute (’eḇyôn) in-your-land.”
Where the English smooths the original
“ thy poor” and “ thy needy” are expressions teaching the truth that we are “members one of another.” We may not pass by our poorer brethren, and say we have nothing to do with them. Jehovah calls them ours—“ thy poor man,” and “ thy needy man.”
The poor shall never cease — God, by his providence, will so order it, partly for the punishment of your disobedience, and partly for the trial and exercise of your obedience to him, and charity to your brother.
There would be always such objects to exercise their charity and beneficence towards, John 12:8 , which is no contradiction to Deuteronomy 15:4 for had they been obedient to the laws of God, they would have been so blessed that there would have been none
Two of the three Hebrew synonyms for poor. The first is a passive form, forced, afflicted , then wretched , whether under persecution, poverty or exile
in the providence of God who foresaw the event, it was permitted, partly as a punishment of disobedience and partly for the exercise of benevolent and charitable feelings, that "the poor should never cease out of the land."JFB, like Benson and Poole, reads the permanence of poverty as both penalty and providential occasion for charity — not a flaw in the gift-land of v. 4.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The law is built on a single bodily antithesis. In v. 7 the hand is forbidden to clench — tiqpōṣ, the rare verb qāphaṣ that elsewhere snaps a mouth shut (Job 5:16; Psalm 107:42) — and the heart is forbidden to be made strong, təʼammēṣ, fortified against pity. In v. 8 both reverse: “opening you shall open” (pāṯōaḥ tiptaḥ), the doubled verb of emphasis. Ellicott, relaying Rashi, diagnoses the two failures the law forecloses: “some who stretch out the hand (to give), and yet close it.” Poole reads the open hand as giving “as it were by handfuls,” yet the measure is exact: the object is dê maḥsōrô, “the sufficiency of his need” — which Keil & Delitzsch render just so, and which Gill bounds as “enough to answer his present exigencies, but not… needless and superfluous.” Generosity here is neither stingy nor reckless; it is fitted to the lack.
The center of the pericope is its most searching turn: the sin is named before it is acted. hiššāmer — “guard yourself” — lest there be a dāḇār, a word, in the heart, and that word is bᵉliyyaʻal, worthlessness. The Pulpit Commentary presses the lexical point: belial “does not denote that which is wicked so much as that which is worthless.” The worthless word is a calculation — the year of release is near — that turns God’s own mercy-statute (the šᵉmiṭṭāh of vv. 1–2) into a reason to withhold. Matthew Henry names the perversity with unmatched edge: a “wicked heart… which raises evil thoughts from the good law of God… who, because God had obliged them to the charity of forgiving, denied the charity of giving.” Keil & Delitzsch confirm the grammar: bᵉliyyaʻal stands in apposition, “that a worthless thought did not arise.” And the poor man is not without recourse: he cries (wᵉqārā) to YHWH, and the withheld loan becomes ḥēṭʼ, reckoned sin.
Matter and manner are commanded together. “Giving you shall give” (nāṯôn tittēn) — the third doubled verb — and then the inner condition: wᵉlōʼ yēraʻ lᵉḇāḇᵉḵā, “let not your heart be made evil,” the same root rāʻaʻ as the grudging eye of v. 9. Every PD voice on this verse hears Paul behind Moses. Poole: give “with a willing and cheerful mind and heart… without which thy very charity is uncharitable, and not accepted by God.” Gill and Keil & Delitzsch both cite 2 Corinthians 9:7 — God loves a cheerful giver — as the apostolic gloss on the un-grieved heart. The promised return is not the loan recovered but blessing on mišlaḥ yāḏeḵā, “the sending-out of your hand”: the very hand the law has been training, forbidden to clench (v. 7), commanded to open (v. 8), now blessed in all it undertakes.
The law closes on a realism that has troubled readers since antiquity: “the poor will never cease” (lōʼ yeḥdal ’eḇyôn), set against v. 4’s ideal that “there shall be no poor among you.” Barnes and the Pulpit Commentary reconcile them as promise and condition: v. 4 is the blessing of obedience, v. 11 the standing occasion of charity in a world that will not obey. Benson and Poole read the permanence as ordained “for the trial and exercise of your obedience.” The frame is exact: the destitute man (’eḇyôn) who opened v. 7 closes v. 11, now joined to the ‘ānî, the afflicted. Ellicott, with Rashi, hears in the repeated possessive the doctrine of solidarity: “Jehovah calls them ours… we are members one of another,” — the very question the lawyer would later put to Jesus, “who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29).
⚙ Read whole, Deuteronomy 15:7–11 is a single argument that runs from the hand inward and back out again. It opens at the body — the fist that must not clench (qāphaṣ) and the heart that must not be fortified (’āmaṣ) — then drives to the heart’s secret sentence in v. 9: the worthless word that does its accounting and finds the poor man a bad risk because release is near. That is the genius and the severity of this law. It anticipates the loophole and forbids it by name; it knows that the most religious-sounding prudence (the statute is on my side; the debt will be cancelled anyway) can be the precise shape of hardness. So the command is doubled three times over — open-you-shall-open, lend-you-shall-lend, give-you-shall-give — and crowned not with a sum but with a temper: and your heart shall not be grieved. God will be satisfied with nothing less than a cheerful hand. The closing realism — the poor will not cease — is not despair but commission: because need is permanent, mercy is permanent work, and the open hand is never out of a job. This reading is the tool’s own and is offered to be tested against the text.
The law forecloses the loophole before you reach it: it forbids not only the shut hand but the worthless word in the heart that would justify it.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
⚙ The doubled verb of v. 8, haʻăḇēṭ taʻăḇîṭennû (root ‘āḇaṭ, “to lend on pledge”), is among the rarest in the Hebrew Bible — it occurs in only four verses, all clustered around the law of lending. Deuteronomy 24:10 governs how to take the pledge (do not enter the borrower’s house); 15:6 promises Israel will lend and not borrow. The verbal link is exact and rare, the Verifier-recorded basis for treating these as one legal vocabulary.
Deuteronomy 24:10 · Deuteronomy 15:6
basis: shared rare lexeme H5670 ʻâbaṭ (in only 4 verses) — the technical verb for lending on pledge, binding Deut 15:8 to 24:10 and 15:6
⚙ The temptation in v. 9 is named by the statute it abuses: “the seventh year, the year of release (šᵉmiṭṭāh) is near.” The release-law itself stands at the head of this chapter (15:1–2) and its sabbatical reading is appointed in 31:10. The noun šᵉmiṭṭâh (H8059) appears in only four verses in all of Scripture; the shared rare lexeme is the recorded basis for binding v. 9’s loophole to the very law it would exploit.
Deuteronomy 15:1 · Deuteronomy 15:2 · Deuteronomy 31:10
basis: shared rare lexeme H8059 shᵉmiṭṭâh (in only 4 verses), with H7651 shebaʻ and H8141 shâneh — the same release-statute named in Deut 15:9 and legislated in 15:1–2, 31:10
⚙ The vivid verb of v. 7, qāphaṣ (“to draw together, clench shut”), is rare — seven occurrences in the whole Hebrew Bible. Outside this law it most often shuts a mouth: God “shuts the mouth” of iniquity (Job 5:16) and unrighteousness “stops her mouth” (Psalm 107:42); in the fourth Servant Song the verb turns the other way, where “kings shall shut their mouths” in astonishment at the exalted Servant (Isaiah 52:15). The same rare lexeme binds the closed hand of Deuteronomy to the closed mouth of the wisdom and prophetic books — one gesture of drawing-tight, refusal in the law, awed silence before the Servant. This is a shared-lexeme verbal link, not a quotation: no text here cites another.
Job 5:16 · Psalm 107:42 · Isaiah 52:15 · Job 24:24
basis: shared rare lexeme H7092 qâphats (in only 7 verses) — the clench/shut gesture, linking the shut hand (Deut 15:7) to the shut mouth (Job 5:16; Ps 107:42; Isa 52:15); a verbal/lexical link, not a citation
⚙ The destitute man (’eḇyôn) and the “sending-out” of the hand (mišlôaḥ, v. 10) reappear together in Esther 9:22, where Purim is kept by “sending portions” (mišlôaḥ mānôṯ) and “gifts to the needy” (’eḇyôn). The link is thematic rather than a quotation — the shared lexemes are common — but the pattern is the same: covenant joy that translates into open-handed provision for the poor. Tiered structural, not verbal, because ’eḇyôn (58 verses) is not rare.
Esther 9:22
basis: shared lexemes H34 ʼebyôwn (58 vv) and H4916 mishlôwach (10 vv) — common terms, so the link is the shared motif of provision for the needy, not a verbal quotation
⚙ The PD commentators are unanimous that v. 10’s “let not your heart be grieved when you give” is the seedbed of Paul’s “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7) — Gill, Poole, Keil & Delitzsch, JFB, and Henry all make the link. This is a Greek↔Hebrew connection, so it cannot rest on shared Strong's numbers and is not a quotation: Paul does not cite Deuteronomy here. It is a structural/thematic resonance — the un-grieved, willing heart as the condition God prizes in giving — carried by the long human-commentary tradition rather than by a verbal citation.
2 Corinthians 9:7 · 2 Corinthians 8:12 · Romans 12:8
basis: cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared Strong's possible; thematic link of the cheerful/willing heart in giving, attested by Gill, Poole, K&D, JFB on Deut 15:10
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
⚙ Matthew Henry reads the chapter’s “year of release” as a type: it “typified the grace of the gospel, in which is proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord; and by which we obtain the release of our debts, that is, the pardon of our sins.” The connection is ancient and widely held in Christian reading: the sabbatical remission of debts (šᵉmiṭṭāh) foreshadows the jubilee Jesus announces in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:18–19, citing Isa 61), and the cancellation of debt becomes the gospel image for the forgiveness of sin (cf. Matt 6:12; Col 2:14). The tool notes the figural step honestly: Henry's typology is interpretive, not a verbal claim of the Hebrew on the Greek.
Luke 4:18 · Luke 4:19 · Colossians 2:14
⚙ The law that commands the open hand to the ’eḇyôn finds its deepest fulfillment, in the historic Christian reading, in the One who “though He was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9) — and it is in that same letter, one chapter on, that Paul sets down the cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7) whom the PD voices already read back into Deuteronomy 15:10. Christ does not merely keep the command to open the hand; He is the destitute brother and the generous giver at once — the cheerful giver God loves, given for the poor. This is a typological/devotional reading, offered as such and to be tested; it is not claimed as a verbal citation of Deuteronomy.
2 Corinthians 8:9 · Philippians 2:7 · 2 Corinthians 9:7
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) This unit is Deuteronomy 15:7–11, not Joshua, and contains no verse 1:5 — so the standing Joshua 1:5 → Hebrews 13:5 flag does not arise here. (2) Several PD voices on this passage are explicitly relaying Rashi (Ellicott says so outright; Gill and the Cambridge notes follow him): these are kept verbatim and their secondhand character is flagged in the editorial notes, because the charity-ladder and the gift-or-loan distinctions are medieval Jewish exegesis transmitted through 19th-century Christian commentary, not the commentators' own innovations. (3) The Pulpit Commentary's “maize strong” is a transcription/OCR error for “make strong” (the gloss on ’ammēṣ); the substring is preserved exactly as supplied. (4) The cheerful-giver link to 2 Corinthians 9:7 is a thematic, not a verbal, connection — it is carried by the unanimous commentary tradition, not by a Hebrew↔Greek lexical match, and is tiered accordingly. (5) The v. 4 / v. 11 tension (no poor vs. the poor will never cease) is real and ancient; the synthesis follows Barnes and the Pulpit Commentary in reading them as the blessing of obedience versus the standing occasion of charity, but the reader should weigh this for himself. (6) Strong's roots are quoted as given in the Berean data, including their truncations (e.g. “to be flabby” for ḥāḏal); glosses build from those, and any over-reading is the tool's and is fallible. (7) The “verbal / quotation — confirmed” badges on the ‘āḇaṭ (lending-on-pledge), šᵉmiṭṭāh (release), and qāphaṣ (clench/shut) threads rest on shared rare lexemes (4, 4, and 7 occurrences respectively), not on any verse citing another. The tier marks a genuine verbal/lexical link — the same uncommon word reused — and is deliberately distinguished here from an actual quotation; the cross-Testament cheerful-giver and Christ readings, which have no shared Hebrew↔Greek lexeme, are tiered structural/typological instead and never verbal.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)