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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Poor
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The considerate provisions of the law for the poor (based on principles already recognized by the patriarchs: ; -4; -10; especially -16; ) were:
(1) The right of gleaning; the corners of the field were not to be reaped, nor all the grapes to be gathered, nor the olive trees to be beaten a second time; the stranger, fatherless, and widow might gather the leavings; the forgotten sheaf was to be left for them (-10; ; ; ).
(2) They were to have their share of the produce in sabbatical years (; ).
(3) They recovered their land, but not town houses, in the Jubilee year (-30).
(4) Usury, i.e. interest on loans to an Israelite, was forbidden; the pledged raiment was to be returned before sundown (-27; -13); generous lending, even at the approach of Jubilee release, is enjoined: (-11) "thou shalt open thy hand wide to THY poor"; God designs that we should appropriate them as our own, whereas men say "the poor."
(5) Lasting bondservice was forbidden, and manumission, with a liberal present, enjoined in the sabbatical and Jubilee years (-15; -42; -54); the children were not enslaved; an Israelite might redeem an Israelite who was in bondage to a rich foreign settler.
(6) Portions from the tithes belonged to the poor after the Levites (-29; -13).
(7) The poor shared in the feasts at the festivals of weeks and tabernacles (; ; ).
(8) Wages must be paid at the day's end (); yet partiality in judgment must not be shown to the poor (; ).
In the New Testament, Christ lays down the same love to the poor (; ; ; ; ; ), the motive being "Christ, who was rich, for our sake became poor that we through His poverty might be rich" (). Begging was common in New Testament times, not under Old Testament (-21; ; ; ; .) Mendicancy in the ease of the able bodied is discouraged, and honest labour for one's living is encouraged by precept and example (; ; -12).
The prophets especially vindicate the claims of the poor: compare ; -17; ; ; ; ; ; , "pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor," i.e., thirst after prostrating the poor by oppression, so as to lay their heads in the dust; or less simply (Pusey) "grudge to the poor debtor the dust which as a mourner he strewed on his head" (; ). In the creditor must not exact a debt in the year of release, "save when there shall be no poor among you," but as says "the poor shalt never cease out of the land," translated "no poor with thee," i.e. release the debt for the year except when no poor person is concerned, which may happen, "for the Lord shall greatly bless thee": you may call in a loan on the year of release, when the borrower is not poor. Others regard the promise, , conditional, Israel's disobedience frustrating its fulfillment. Less costly sacrifices might be substituted by the poor (; ).