Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 2 Complete John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
11. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.
11. Foris subsistes, et vir cui mutuabis afferet ad te pignus foras.
12. And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge.
12. Quod si vir pauper fuerit, non dormies cum pignore ejus.
13. In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord thy God.
13. Restituendo ei restitues pignus dum sol occumbit: ut dormiat in vestimento suo, et benedicat tibi: eritque tibi in justitiam coram Jehova Deo tuo.
17. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment to pledge:
17. Non pervertes judicium pupilli et peregrini, non capies in pignus vestimentum viduae.
18. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bond-man in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.
18. Recordare quod servus fueris in AEgypto, et redemerit te Jehova Deus tuus inde: idcirco praecipio tibi ut hoc facias.
Deuteronomy 24:6 No man shall take the nether. God now enforces another principle of equity in relation to loans, (not to be too strict 107
) in requiring pledges, whereby the poor are often exceedingly distressed. In the first place, He prohibits the taking of anything in pledge which is necessary to the poor for the support of existence; for by the words which I have translated meta and catillus, i e., the upper and nether millstone, He designates by synecdoche all other instruments, which workmen cannot do without in earning their daily bread. As if any one should forcibly deprive a husbandman of his plough, or his spade, or harrow, or other tools, or should empty a shoemaker's, or potter's, or other person's shop, who could not Added from Fr.