People do not borrow money for business. They seek investors who become part owners. Shared ownership requires a close familial or covenantal relationship first. Without that connection, that assumption of shared loss and gain on a fundamental level, there is no basis for money changing hands.
The investment in business assumes certain things. The entrepreneur may being taking in raw materials and processing them into desirable products of higher value. He needs the money for up-front equipment, labor and materials costs. The entrepreneur may engage in transportation of materials and goods from the place of high availability to a place of high demand. He needs to pay up-fronts costs in equipment and labor. Or perhaps something similar, such as working to distribute goods by means of purchase and storage, which relieves the producer of having to worry about marketing. He also relieves the buyer of having to chase down producers. There are variations, but these are valid primary business activities.
There is only one other motive for lending and borrowing: keeping people alive. This again assumes a familial or covenantal relationship. The scriptural use of the term “neighbor” assumes they are distant relatives or someone otherwise closely bound to you in a common welfare commitment. While the benefit may be indirect, keeping your neighbor alive is a good in its own right. Therefore, the basis for lending your unfortunate neighbor the necessities for staying alive in tough times is the assumption they may not pay it back in a timely manner, or at all. If you don’t sense a need to seek their welfare, you are an evil person.
In either case, there is no interest charged. The business investor is part owner; they share in the profits. If there is no profits, or if there is a loss, they share that, too. Either way, there is no debt, no interest charge. The investor can be bought out, but at whatever value their share of ownership would be.
We see the specific case where a wealthy nobleman invests money with his vassals, all of whom are likely distant relatives at least. They may also be bond servants living and working in his household. Strong familial bond there in the ANE feudalism. His investment is total ownership, and the entrepreneur simply gains a fat living from the handling of the business. It is wholly understood from both parties the entrepreneur will scrape off a fair percentage of the flow as the motivation for working hard. In the end, the noble investor gains a business, which he can then sell to some other investor, or continue to operate, typically with the same vassal as manager.
There is no other basis for loans, debts and investments. There is no option for removing the personal bond between the members of this exchange. Either you are keeping alive someone whose life matters to you, or you become a part owner with someone you know intimately. Any other basis if evil. De-personalizing things is a complete violation of God’s Laws.
Furthermore, there is this matter of Jubilee. Every fifty years all debts are simply wiped off the books. The books are thrown away and it all starts from scratch. All property held in security is returned, at least to the household, if not to the individual. That’s because all debts are between households, not simply individuals. But wiping the slate clean every fifty years prevents empowering the inevitable injustice of accumulating enough wealth to affect the lives of those not bound to you by blood or covenant. That sort of power is inherently evil; it cannot come to good. Mankind as a whole is incapable of acting morally when possessing such power. We are fallen, and the record of human history shows the exceptions are so rare as to be both remarkable and insignificant — they don’t change the basic assumption.
This is the fundamental moral law, written into the very cosmos in which we exist. Our modern banking system is an abomination. Thus says the Lord.
