The Vig

His money he does not give at interest and no bribe for the innocent takes.  He who does these things will never stumble. Psalm 15:5  Robert Alter

Never Stumble – When the Medici started the banking system in Florence, they invented Western economics.  They created the world of debt.  They loaned to the King of England and to the King of France, financing both sides of the war.  The winner paid.  The loser paid.  The Medici won.  Credit became currency.  The world changed.  Along with that change came the opportunity to have your desires now—and pay later.  But pay you will.  There is no avoiding the vig.

Vigorish (also known as juice, under-juice, the cut, the take, the margin, the house edge or simply the vig) is the fee charged by a bookmaker (or bookie) for accepting a gambler’s wager. In American English, it can also refer to the interest owed a loanshark in consideration for credit.[1]

The Torah has a lot to say about the vig.  So does Yeshua.  For most Westerners, biblical thinking is simply unthinkable.  As one man said to me, “If I don’t charge interest, how can my business survive.”  Debt, and the interest it generates, is a way of life in the West (and everywhere else these days).  So, what do we do with the poet’s clearly utopian ideal?  First, let’s start with some reality clarification about the banking system.

SLAVES TO DEBT VIDEO

Now, let’s consider the origin of the Hebrew word for interest. The word is nešek.  It is a derivative of nāšak.  And what is nāšak?  Oh, it’s the word for “bite,” almost always as “snake bite.”  Interest is the bite.  I wonder if Genesis 3:17 wasn’t prophetic in a different sense.  “It shall bite your heel”: the role of the vig.  Of course, the Mosaic code is pretty severe about charging interest.  At least that’s what we think when we read passages like Deuteronomy 23:19-20:

You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.  ESV

The attempts by some Christian exegetes to avoid this prohibition are quite revealing:

Is it a sin to charge other Christians interest on money borrowed or for a Christian to receive interest? Leviticus says charging interest is a sin.

First, Christians are not under the Mosaic Law. God gave His law to Israel alone as part of their Mosaic Covenant. Christians (and Gentiles in general) are not a party to that covenant nor are we required to keep the Jewish Law. The Bible says Christians are under the Law of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2), and this law places no restrictions on charging or receiving interest. So a Christian has complete liberty to earn interest and charge others interest. (Our ministry offers a number of articles on the Christian’s liberty and freedom from the Law.)[2]

Apparently the reason we can charge interest today is because Moses is obsolete.  I wonder if the same argument would be used about dishonoring parents, lying, committing murder, and etc.  If Moses is truly obsolete, then nothing he says (or that God says through him) matters, right?

It’s fairly clear that this Christian explanation is not based in any historical research.  It is merely justification for what the Medici invented.  The real circumstances behind the Hebrew text are eye-opening:

With regard to the usage of the noun usury or interest, new study has clarified the situation as expressed in Lev 25:35–54. It is often supposed that this passage and the one in Deut 23:19–20 forbids one Israelite loaning on interest to another. Indeed, Israel was constantly reminded to give to the poor, but, as pointed out by Speiser, Lev 25 cannot oppose the charging of interest for the passage speaks of enslavement of the debtor (Lev 25:39; Oriental and Biblical Studies, Collected Writings of E. A. Speiser, ed. by Finkelstein and Greenberg, pp. 131–135, 140–141). He shows the terms nešek “usury” and marbît “increase,” find excellent parallels in tablets from Alalakh and Nuzi. There the arrangement is more fully known. Loans were made with the interest discounted at the start. A debtor might get only 80 shekels on a 100 shekel loan. This is the old use of the word nešek. When the loan came due, the man, if he could not pay, was seized (Lev 25:35 wĕheḥĕzaqtā bô “and you shall seize him”). However, according to the surrounding practice and also according to Lev, no further interest or increase (nešek or marbît) could be charged. If a second interest as well as slavery were exacted, the debtor could likely never work off the loan. The Levitical code further enjoins humane treatment of the brother thus enslaved. This was not a feature of the legislation of the surrounding countries. In short, interest was allowed, but unreasonable interest (usury) was not. r.l.h.]

In the prohibatory [sic] statement in Deut 23:19–20 is the stipulation, not only “usury of money” but of food or “anything that is lent upon usury” as well. In the simplest of terms, what is denoted by either the verb or nominal form is any excessive increase made in the repayment of a debt, whether the thing borrowed was money or otherwise. Remembering that the coinage of cash money as we know it was unknown until the seventh century b.c., this imprecision in meaning is readily understandable.^[3]

What the Torah prohibits is the vig, not interest.  Moses is as relevant today as ever.  So is the snake bite.

Topical Index: vig, interest, snake bite, nāšak, Psalm 15:5

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigorish

[2] https://www.versebyverseministry.org/bible-answers/can-christians-charge-one-another-interest

^[3] Fisher, M. C. (1999). 1430 נָשַׁך. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 605). Chicago: Moody Press.