Jesus, the Jubilee, and Prozbul: Understanding the Financial World of the New Testament and Why the Savior Clashed with the Pharisees

This post examines why Jesus often disagreed with the Pharisees - specifically on financial issues, such as debt forgiveness. Here we discover the Prozbul clause which was one of the main points of contention between the Savior and the religious leaders of the day. This clause defied biblical law about the the seventh year and Jubilee cycle and undermined God's social welfare programs. It completely altered the financial workings of the New Testament world, making it easy for the rich to prey on the poor. Learning about this clause will help us to understand the context of the Messiah's words throughout the Gospels. 

In Jesus's first sermon, recorded in Luke 4:16-20, he quoted Isaiah 61 announcing the Jubilee year. While Christians today read that as an innocuous declaration of how great things are with the Messiah on the scene, many of the religious leaders and powerful financiers of that time found that reference to be offensive and even threatening.

If you read through the Gospels, it doesn't take long to see that the Jesus and the Pharisees didn't see eye to eye and often clashed on issues of the day. But it's not always clear to us why that was. A lot of people believe that Jesus was more about the 'spirit' of things and religious leaders were often obsessed with the 'letter of the law,' but there's more to these standoffs than the Savior thinking these guys were annoyingly focused on small details.

Something to keep in mind about the Pharisee movement at the time of the Gospels was that it had been strongly influenced by a man named Hillel. Also known as Hillel the Elder, he is remembered for playing a leading part in developing and recording the Mishnah and Talmud - two books on Jewish oral law and tradition. While these writings offer invaluable historic and cultural insight, it's important to recognize that these are considered different than Scripture. Hillel lived until the year 10CE, so his teachings and ideas were very much still present and influential in the days of the Messiah.

Hillel's most famous influential act was his endorsement of what is known as the Prozbul clause. 

What that clause did was create loans that were not eligible for forgiveness during the Jubilee, or Shmita years - something that is in direct contrast to biblical law. Deuteronomy 15:1 tells us that every seventh year we must cancel the debts of anyone that owes us money. (Jesus's prayer "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," was not a parable.) The Prozbul clause disregarded this law, making debts lifelong and making it nearly impossible for anyone in debt to get free of that.

The Prozbul clause was an absolute economic bombshell in the New Testament world! It touched every aspect of life. It made the poor poorer and created substantial opportunities for the well-off to exploit those of lesser means. Most of us are familiar with the burden of debts that follow you throughout your life. Imagine going from a world where every seven years those debts were erased to suddenly being weighed down with them - in many cases by religious leaders. It also created a precedent for setting aside God's laws in favor of what men decide is more expedient.

There are many arguments made that the Prozbul clause was not created to stoke greed and let the wealthy gain more control of regular people, but rather it was intended to ensure that the poor would always find a willing lender to provide them with lifesaving loans so they could buy food for their families. The logic being that lenders would not be incentivized to give money if they didn't think it would be repaid before the seventh year. It could very well be that Hillel was well-intended when he made this clause, but of course this suggests that lenders were acting in ways that directly contradict Scriptures such as Leviticus 25:37 that says no one should lend money to the poor at interest or sell them food at a profit. 

Jesus comments on this issue directly in Luke 6:35 when he says to lend without expecting to repaid. His words are literally the opposite of Hillel's Prozbul clause. 

Note that this idea was not new to Jesus, and that the forgiveness of debts is at the core of biblical law. Scripture is filled with protections for the poor and those in debt...protections that benefited not just individual debtors but the economic and spiritual health of society. One of the main criticisms of kings of Israel and Judah had to do with them letting oligarchies control the land, and we see Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and Micah denounce kings for refusing to protect the poor from creditors. Jeremiah and Ezekiel in particular were major advocates of debt forgiveness, because they recognized forfeitures of land and personal liberty were violations of the Jubilee covenant that YHWH created.

The New Testament world was filled with men ignoring and breaking that covenant. Unethical money lenders were entrapping the people in debt, in direct opposition to God's directives. This was offensive to the Savior who placed so much importance on the Passover story and remembering how God redeemed his people from bondage. Of course he would have been angry with religious leaders for working to ensnare his people in debt! 

When we realize much of the Old Testament has to do with the conflict between debtors and creditors, it only makes sense that this issue would continue to come up in the Messiah's day. This is why Jesus was angry with the money lenders in the Temple, why he encouraged people to sell their possessions and give to the poor, why he told parables about debt relief (Matthew 18:21), why he believed it was hard for a rich man to enter God's kingdom (Matthew 19:23), why he was against wage labor (Matthew 20), and why he did not believe YHWH and money could be served simultaneously. 

This means the Savior didn't think the Pharisees were too focused on God's laws - he was angry that they disregarded them. Understanding the Prozbul clause is a key to seeing the words of Jesus as he truly meant them.

Related posts:
How Did John the Baptist Prepare the Way for Jesus?
What Jesus Meant by the Poor Will Always Be With You
What the Laws and Rulings of Ezekiel 25 Mean