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Deuteronomy 15 Bible study: Open your hand
The seventh year was "the LORD’s release" (15:2). The same law that says "the poor will never cease out of the land" makes it the reason to "surely open your hand" (15:11), and a freed servant was not to go out empty, because "you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you" (15:15).
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“For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“Deuteronomy 15 calls the seventh-year release of debts "the LORD’s release".”
Is that in Deuteronomy 15, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
A year of release, and it is the LORD's
The chapter opens, "At the end of every seven years, you shall cancel debts" (15:1). Then Moses says how: "every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not require payment from his neighbor and his brother, because the LORD’s release has been proclaimed" (15:2). The year's name is shemittah, "release" (tap release in 15:9), and it belongs to the LORD. Exodus had given the seventh year to the land: "the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat" (Exodus 23:11). Deuteronomy uses that same Hebrew verb, shamat, for what is owed: "your hand shall release" (15:3). And "require payment" is, in Hebrew, the verb used for Egypt's taskmasters (tap require). The year comes back near the end of the book: "At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of booths", the law was to be read "before all Israel in their hearing" (31:10-11).
Where it leads to Jesus
"You always have the poor with you"
Deuteronomy 15:11leads toMark 14:7
Moses says, "For the poor will never cease out of the land. Therefore I command you to surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land" (15:11). At Bethany, when some said the woman's ointment "might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor" (Mark 14:5), Jesus said, "For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want to, you can do them good; but you will not always have me" (Mark 14:7). Matthew and John give it as "For you always have the poor with you, but you don’t always have me" (Matthew 26:11; John 12:8). Jesus doesn't name Deuteronomy, so this is a reading. Some hear 15:11 in his words: the poor who never cease, and the good that can be done them. Others read his words as a plain statement about that moment, when she "has anointed my body beforehand for the burying" (Mark 14:8), without pointing to this chapter.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 15
That was a taste
The rest of Deuteronomy 15 is waiting in Favor
- Heart, hand and eye
- What Deuteronomy adds to the servant law
- The servant law, told three times
- The ear at the door, told again
- The firstborn, told again
- 12 questions as you read
- 13 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Deuteronomy 15 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
שְׁמִטָּהshemittahsay she-mit-TAH
Strong's: "from 8058; remission (of debt)". Brown-Driver-Briggs: "a letting drop of exactions, a (temporary) remitting". Strong's traces it to the verb shamat (tap release in 15:2). "At the end of every seven years, you shall cancel debts" (15:1) is, in Hebrew, you shall make a shemittah. The chapter then calls it "the LORD’s release" (15:2) and "the year of release" (15:9). The Hebrew Bible uses the word five times, all in Deuteronomy: four in this chapter (15:1, twice in 15:2, 15:9) and once more for the year the law was read aloud, "in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of booths" (31:10). Whether the release ended a debt or let it rest for the year is an honest question below.
For your group
Deuteronomy 15 Bible study questions
- 1"You shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; but you shall surely open your hand to him" (15:7-8). When have you felt your hand close toward someone in need? What helped it open, or what would?
- 2"You shall surely give, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him" (15:10). Moses cares about the heart behind the gift, not only the gift. What makes giving hard for you, and what makes it glad?
- 3"You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you. Therefore I command you this thing today" (15:15). What has God set you free from, and how could remembering it change the way you treat someone who owes you or depends on you?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Deuteronomy 15 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home