ABSTRACT
This text is the first of several in the Torah that concern making loans to the poor. That is because the most common way of extending help to the needy in the agrarian economy of ancient Israel was through non-interest loans. The understanding was that indigence was temporary, perhaps due to some sort of crop failure and that, when conditions improved, the aggrieved could make up the loss. Help in this context was understandably kin based and, as will become clear in other portions of the Torah, distinctions were made between those within the larger kin unit and foreigners.
