What does the Torah say about lending money and interest?

The Torah addresses lending in two related passages. Exodus 22:24–25 states: "If you lend money to any of My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; do not exact interest from them." Leviticus 25:36–37 repeats and extends the point in the context of a fellow Israelite who has fallen on hard times: "Do not accept interest or profit from them... you shall not lend them your money at interest, or give them your food for profit." The Hebrew term used, neshekh (literally "a bite"), pictures interest as something that gradually consumes the borrower the way a bite of a predator does — a vivid image for compounding debt. What's notable across both passages is that the concern is specifically for the poor and vulnerable, not a blanket ban on all forms of commercial finance in every context; later rabbinic law (and later biblical texts such as Deuteronomy 23:19–20) developed more detailed distinctions between interest-bearing loans to fellow Israelites versus to outsiders, and Jewish legal tradition eventually built structured workarounds such as the heter iska to allow investment partnerships without violating the underlying prohibition. But the Torah's own framing in Exodus and Leviticus is unambiguous about the moral logic: lending to someone in need is supposed to function as an act of chesed (kindness) — a form of support extended without expectation of profit — rather than as a business opportunity to be maximized. Charging interest to someone who is already struggling is treated as exploiting their desperation, not as ordinary commerce.