Deuteronomy 23:15-25

How do the remaining commands protect a refugee, limit profit, and require truthful commitments?

Berean Standard Bible

15 Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you. 16 Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him. 17 No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute. 18 You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God. 19 Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan. 20 You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess. 21 If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. 22 But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin. 23 Be careful to follow through on what comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth. 24 When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you must not put any in your basket. 25 When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

What is the context?

An escaped slave who takes refuge must not be returned to the master but may live where he chooses without oppression. The passage then forbids shrine prostitution and bringing its wages into the Lord’s house for a vow.

Loans to a fellow Israelite must not bear interest, while a foreigner is distinguished. A freely made vow must be fulfilled, but choosing not to vow is not sin. The closing food provision permits eating grapes or hand-plucked grain from a neighbor’s field without taking a basketful or harvesting with a sickle.

These commands distinguish help and exploitation, sacred gifts and prohibited gain, voluntary promises and binding obligations. Permission to meet an immediate need does not become permission to seize someone else’s harvest.

How is this passage commonly understood?

Wesley limits the fugitive-slave case to neighboring outsiders and oppression, but those further qualifications are his explanation rather than conditions stated in the BSB command. He also distinguishes immediate eating from taking produce away and emphasizes that a voluntary vow becomes an obligation once made. The text’s own protection against returning and oppressing the refugee must not disappear behind a reconstruction of who probably fled.

What is our position?

We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.

Where can I study this further?

No deeper study linked yet.

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