DEBTOR AND CREDITOR, LAWS OF. In the history of this, as of almost every other branch of jurisprudence, we may if we will, trace the march of social progress in general. In the earlier stages of life in the state, the arrangements for borrowing and lending are rarely such as to enable the citizens to avail themselves with security of their mutual resources, or to assign such limits to the powers of the creditor as either the claims of humanity or his own true interests demand. On the one hand, lending is confounded with alms-giving; and the exaction of interest, and even of capital, is regarded as an act of inhumanity towards the poor. On the other hand, no sooner do the creditor's rights come to he recognized in anything like a legal sense, than there seem to be no logical grounds on which any limits can be set to them. If he is entitled to exact the debt at all, lie is entitled to seize the goods of the debtor; and if the debtor has no goods, he is entitled to his services. But the possession of his services implies the possession of his person; and the possession of his person implies the possession of his life. Moreover, from the exaggerated notions of the domestic ties which usually prevail in early times, the person of the individual, where that individual is the father of a family, brings along with it that of his wife, his children, and his slaves. The creditor thus becomes the absolute master of the life and liberty of his debtor, and of all those who are dependent upon him. The arrangements of the Mosaic law are an illustration of the manner in which, in the ruder forms of society, the laws of debt thus combine a degree of lenity with a degree of severity which are equally alien to modern views. In this as in many other respects, they are, as Michaelis has pointed out (vol. ii. p. 300), a recognition of the consuetudinary law of the stage of society to which they belonged, rather than a system special to the Jews. If an Israelite became poor, it was a duty to lend to Min, and no interest was to be exacted either in money or in produce. If he was a foreigner, the case was different, and the taking of interest was legal (Exod. xxii. 25; Dem. xxiii. 19, 20; Lev. xxv. 35-3S). When the Sabbatical year arrived—i.e., at the end of every seven years—there was a general remission of debts as between Israelite and Israelite; and the near approach of the year of remission was not to bb recognized as an apology for declining to lend to an indigent brother (Dent. xv. 1-11).
Pledges, it is true, might be taken, but even here the same humane principles prevailed. The upper millstone was sacred, for to take it would be to deprive the debtor of the means of subsistence. If raiment was the pledge, it must be returned before nightfall, when it might be required for a covering; and the widow's garment could not be taken in pledge (Exod. xxii. 20, 27). In strange contrast to this is the provision (Lev. xxv. 39) that a poor Israelite may be sold to one possessed of substance, even when modified by the special provision that lie shall serve as a hired servant, not as a bond-servant, and shall be set at liberty when the year of jubilee arrived. Michaelis says that the judicial procedure for debt was quite summary, the most important causes being decided prob ably in a single quarter of an hour; and he remarks that Moses nowhere thinks it necessary to mention how a debt was to be proved before a judge.. There was, however, an extensive system of appeal; from the judge over 10, the case was carried to the judges over 50, 100, and 1000, and finally to Moses himself. As every Israelite was entitled to claim the land of his fathers at the jubilee year, and thus to place matters on the footing on which they were after the settlement in Palestine, debts and burdens on land were limited to claims to the fruits of forty-two harvests; but houses, with the exception of those of the Levites, might be sold in perpetuity (Lev. xxv. 29, 30, 32, 33). Children were often given in pledge (Job xxiv. 9), and ultimately into slavery, in payment of debt (2d Kings iv. 1). Subsequent to the captivity, the,pressure of debts upon the poor became so intolerable, that Nehemiah espoused their cause, and insisted on a general remission (Nehem. v.), exacting from the rich an oath that they would never after wards press for payment. Debts of the character here alluded to probably resembled those which• the recipients of parochial relief in our own day owe, to the community, rather than debts in the commercial sense. In Matt. xviii., Christ refers to the custom of selling the debtor, his wife and children, and all that lie had, in payment, rather as a general custom of all nations, than as one peculiar to the Jews—the "certain king" being a typical instance of a man of substance.