Verses 25-27 are concerned with the proper treatment of poor Israelites (my people). But they deal with the same concern of verses 21-24, since strangers, widows, and orphans were also disadvantaged. Furthermore, this verse begins with the word ʾim (If) rather than ki, which suggests a connection with the preceding laws.

If you lend money is literally “If silver you [singular] cause to borrow,” and in many languages the more natural rendering will be “If you let any of my people … borrow money from you.” “Silver,” of course, was used as money. (See the comment at 21.32.) Any of my people with you who is poor is simply “my people, the poor with you [singular].” Any of is understood. Revised Standard Version has who is poor because poor is singular, but Good News Translation‘s “any … who are poor” is better English. New Revised Standard Version avoids the problem, with “to my people, to the poor among you.” The word for poor means to be overwhelmed by want, and it is related to the verb “afflict” in verse 22. Contemporary English Version has “people who are in need.” In some cultures where only certain people own material things, the poor will be termed “people who have nothing” or “people who are like those who live far from the chief’s compound.”

You shall not be to him as a creditor means, as Good News Translation translates, that you should not “act like a moneylender.” Creditor literally means “lender,” with the implied meaning of “usurer” (New Jerusalem Bible), or one who collects interest. This is made clear in the next clause: and you shall not exact interest from him. In many languages it will be helpful to say something like “When you lend money to any of my people who are in need, you shall not act like other money lenders, who require the borrower to pay interest” or “… you shall not act like other money lenders, who take back more money than they loaned.” The and is not in the Hebrew, so some translations place a semicolon after creditor (New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh).

(Deut 23.19-20 allows for charging interest from a foreigner, but not from a fellow-Israelite.)

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .