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Deuteronomy 15

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Deuteronomy 15 Overview

Deuteronomy 15 regulates the seventh-year release of debts, commands openhanded generosity toward the poor, provides for the release and generous furnishing of Hebrew servants, and requires firstborn males of herd and flock to be dedicated to the LORD. The chapter repeatedly warns against hardening the heart when economic obedience becomes costly.

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Before you read Deuteronomy 15

Coming from

Chapter 14 described tithes that supported worship, Levites, strangers, fatherless children, and widows.

In this chapter

Moses extends covenant concern into lending, poverty, servitude, and firstlings, making generosity and remembrance of Egypt part of Israel’s economic life.

Leads into

Chapter 16 moves into the national worship calendar—Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles—and then begins instructions for judges and public justice.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The release provisions operate inside Israel’s covenant community and agricultural economy. The statement that 'the poor shall never cease out of the land' is not an excuse for neglect; it is the reason Israel must keep opening its hand. Hebrew servitude here is regulated and time-limited, and a servant who freely chooses to remain has a defined procedure. Israel is repeatedly told to remember its own deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Truth 1

Economic obedience is tested most clearly when generosity threatens personal advantage.

Truth 2

God commands practical provision for the poor rather than sentimental concern alone.

Truth 3

Israel’s memory of slavery should shape humane treatment of servants.

Truth 4

Firstlings remind Israel that increase comes from God and that the first belongs to him in covenant worship.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Connection 1

Exodus 21 gives earlier laws concerning Hebrew servants.

Connection 2

John 12:8 echoes Deuteronomy 15:11 when Jesus says the poor are always present, without canceling the duty of generosity.

Connection 3

Acts 4:32–35 describes voluntary generosity in the Jerusalem church; it is not simply the Mosaic debt-release system transferred into the church.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Keep this clear 1

The seventh-year release should be read as Israelite covenant law, not as a direct modern civil code without attention to context.

Keep this clear 2

The presence of poverty does not excuse hardness; the chapter explicitly commands openhanded giving.

Keep this clear 3

The servant laws regulate an ancient institution and limit power; they should not be used to justify race-based chattel slavery.

Read Deuteronomy 15 watching for…

The warning not to refuse a loan because the release year is near.

The repeated commands to open the hand wide.

How Egypt is used as the reason for generosity toward servants.

The voluntary choice of a servant who does not want release.

The rules for firstborn animals and blemishes.

Chapter outline3 sections

1-11Debts are released in the seventh year and the poor are to be helped 12-18Hebrew servants are released and provided for 19-23Firstlings of the herd and flock belong to the LORD

At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.

And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD's release.

Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release;

Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it:

Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.

For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.

If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:

But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.

Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee.

Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.

And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.

And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee;

Then thou shalt take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise.

It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.

All the firstling males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.

Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household.

And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God.

Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart.

Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.

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Deuteronomy 15:13

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