מקץ שבע שנים, “at the conclusion of seven years;” the rules governing the sh’mittah year do not commence until the end of the seventh year. The reason why this paragraph is appended here is that in 14,29, we have read that we have to care for the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the stranger, and this is what basically the sh’mittah legislation is also about.

וזה דבר השמיטה, “and this is the manner of the sh’mittah, release;” this year even releases a person from fulfilling an undertaking confirmed by an oath. If a person had undertaken to do something for his fellow and confirmed it by an oath, the advent of the end of the last day of the sh’mittah year releases him from it if he had not made good on his promise until then. (B’chor shor)

שמוט כל בעל משה ידו, “every creditor shall release that which he has lent;” only loans are released, not proceeds from a robbery or something given to keep in trust. (Sifri)

לא יגוש, “he (the creditor) shall not exact it.” Why does this have to be added? The Torah has already asked the creditor to release the debtor from his indebtedness, if he had been unable to repay him. Imagine the following scenario: a debtor, who owns a field, has dutifully released the seventh year’s crop to fulfill G-d’s commandment, as a result of which has no crop of his own to sell and to use the proceeds to repay his loan to his creditor. During normal years he would not have had a problem to repay his loan. If the creditor now presses the debtor to repay him what he owes him, but adds that he will gladly wait until after next year’s crop has ripened for the debtor to repay him, this is forbidden. The Torah forbids the creditor to extend the terms of the loan. This would not be fulfilling the Torah’s law of: “release it!” This is the meaning of the term: מקרא קודש in Leviticus 23,7 and elsewhere.

כי קרא שמטה, “Time is of the essence in this legislation.”

את הנכרי, “the gentile debtor, who is allowed to grow crops during that year and sell them, and is therefore able to repay his debts, him you may exact repayment from during that year.

את אחיך תשמוט ידך, “what is your brother’s you must not exact from him.”There is an exception to this rule when the creditor in question has deposited the loan agreement with a Jewish court, and he charges the court with collecting the debt from the debtor, as if the debt were owed to the court. In this way a debtor who is able to repay but hides behind this legislation to procrastinate repayment until the end of this year will not benefit by his insincerity. He will prefer to repay the creditor and not ruin his reputation as a potential borrower. This system known as prusbol, was introduced by Hillel, as otherwise lenders would simply not extend loans to indigent borrowers who did not either put up a security or pay interest, which it is forbidden for a Jew to charge a fellow Jew.

אפס כי לא יהיה בך אביון, “there will be no destitute among you;” this is the Torah’s promise if the people of Israel will meticulously observe the sh’mittah and yovel year legislation. [The latter occurs only once in 50 years. Ed.] The reason that is so is that the poor who had felt forced to sell themselves or their daughters, will automatically regain their status as free men in the next sh’mittah year, and if they still owe money, that debt will have been scrapped at the end of the most recent sh’mittah cycle. With the advent of the yovel year, they or their heirs will automatically regain their title to the ancestral heritage they might have had to sell earlier. No one will therefore be permanently destitute. (b’chor shor)

כי ברך יברכך, G-d will bless both the lender and the borrower (hence the repeat of the verb ברך in this verse). We have already explained how the borrower will become blessed. As a result of the lender having foregone a claim he had on the borrower, G-d promises him that he will not become poorer as a result of having done so. In practice, G-d will see to it that he has the opportunity to extend loans to gentiles who will pay him generous interest for having received such loans. (Verse 6) If you were to argue that you do not even have contact with such gentiles, the Torah promises that they, of themselves, will make contact with you for such purpose, as you will dominate their countries politically, i.e. ומשלת בגויים רבים, “you will rule over many nations,” (end of verse 6).

ברכך כאשר דבר לך, “He will bless you as He has promised you.” Where has this blessing been spelled out? Look at Deuteronomy 7,4.

ולא תקפץ, “and do not shut (your hand).” This expression occurs in the same meaning in Psalms 107,42 as well as in Job 5,16.

העבט תעביטנו, “take his security pawn as a guarantee that he will repay you the loan.”

קרבה שנת השבע, “the seventh year of the sh’mittah is approaching; “I might not get paid back because of the law to remit outstanding debts.” Moreover, in the coming year this lender will not even be allowed to seed his field and harvest a crop from which to sustain himself. As a result of such considerations he does not wish to extend a loan to the needy.

ולא ירע לבבך בתתך לו, “not only are you not to refuse a loan but you must not extend a loan reluctantly;” the Torah warns you not to think that you will suffer economic hardship for having been goodhearted. G-d promises that He will bless you for your good heartedness.

כי לא יחדל אביון, “for there will not cease to be destitute people.” This sounds like a contradiction to what the Torah had promised in verse 4, where it stated that there would not be destitute people in our land. The promise in verse 4 had been linked to a condition. i.e. that the entire population observes the sh’mittah and yovel legislation. The critical word there had been the word כי. In our verse here this word occurs again but here it means: “maybe, possibly.” In our paragraph the word כי occurs no fewer than four times. It has a different meaning each time. We have a conditional word כי in כי יהיה בך אביון, “if there should be among you a destitute person;” we have a word כי meaning “but,” in כי פתוח תפתח, “but you shall definitively open your hand;” we have the word כי meaning “because of” in בגלל הדבר הזה, “for the sake of this matter G-d will bless you;” and we have the word כי meaning “so that not,” in כי לא יחדל אביון “if perchance your actions were not charitable enough to prevent the existence of destitute people among you.”

לאחיך, “to your brother, who takes precedence over your unrelated neighbour.

לענייך, “to the poor,” in your family who take precedence over the other poor of your towns.

לאביוניך בארצך, “to the destitute in your country (city),” who take precedence over the destitute people in other cities. (Ibn Ezra)

כי ימכר לך, “if your brother (fellow Jew) will be sold to you;” the reason why this paragraph has been written here is because the paragraphs written immediately preceding this one dealt with situations in which Jews have become poor, and how to forestall wholesale poverty amongst Jews.

ועבדך, “and he will serve you;” the emphasis is on the pronoun ending “you,” which precludes this Jewish servant from being passed on to the heir of his master, even if the period for which he had been indentured had not come to an end. (Sifri)

תשלחנו חפשי מעמך “you have to release him unconditionally.” If he was released due to having fallen sick, and he recovered, and you felt that he should recompense you for the period that he was not working for you, the Torah writes: “in the seventh year he will go free, period,” regardless of whether he has rendered the required number of years of service. (Sifri on Exodus 21,2)

מצאנך, מגרנך, ומיקבך, “from your flocks, your threshingfloor or your winepress.” These terms are short for “bread, wine, and meat.” The verse discusses a thief who has been sold by the court as he did not have the means to repay his victim for what he had stolen from him. Seeing that he is penniless, how could he establish an economic footing and not begin to steal again unless you provided him with these essentials? (B’chor shor)

ונתת באזנו ובדלת, “and you will thrust it (the awl) through his ear into the door;” the door frame is presumed to be made of wood and therefore can be pierced easily, as opposed to a door frame made of stone. (B’chor shor)

לא יקשה בעיניך, “it shall not appear an unreasonably hard rule to you;” (that you have to give him so much for “free”) The Torah reminds the owner that he had obtained far more value in labour from this “slave” than he would have had from an ordinary hired labourer working for him as he had been at his disposal not only during the daylight hours, etc. Our author suggests a different comparison, one found in Isaiah 16,14, according to which fixed labour is hired only for three years and this man has served six years. [Different calculations are made by different commentators; the basic common denominator agreed is that the Torah reminds the employer/owner, that this servant/slave has done more for him than a hired hand would have done. Ed.]

יברכך ה' אלוקיך, “the Lord your G-d will bless you.” Whenever the Torah asks members of the Jewish people to give up something they considered as belonging to them, we find a verse where G-d promises them that they will enjoy His blessing, i.e. that in the end instead of becoming poorer through sharing material blessings with the less fortunate members of society, they will become wealthier. They will experience beyond question that G-d will make all their undertakings successful.

כל הבכור, “all the firstling males, etc.;” this paragraph has been written here seeing that previously the Torah dealt with the rules governing the treatment of a Jewish “slave,” i.e. someone employed by a fellow Jew not of his free choice, and not free to leave such employment at will. Here, in verse 19, the Torah imposes restrictions on how the owner of an animal is not free to treat such an animal as if it did not possess any rights, i.e. לא תעבוד בבכור שורך, “you shall not make the firstborn of your ox perform menial labour.” Not only that, but the Torah has repeated this legislation in order to teach us that a blemished firstling animal must not even be offered as a sacrifice to G-d.

אשר יולד "which is born": exclude a first-born who was born by a Caesarian birth (Ibn Ezra)

הזכר תקדיש, if such a firstling animal is male, you must treat it as holy for the Lord your G-d. You must offer such an animal to the Lord your G-d as His, and consume the parts that are permitted in a location that is sacred, after having performed the rites pertaining to sacrificial animals. The rituals are fewer than normal sacrificial offerings, as there is no need to perform s’michah, etc. i.e. the symbolic acts raising this animal to the status of being holy as such, as it has been born holy. (Talmud tractate Menachot, folio 90)

כל מום רע, “any serious blemish;” for instance the offering to G-d as a sacrifice if it was born with a serious (permanent) blemish. (Sifri)

לא תזבחנו, “you must not sacrifice it;” the reason is clear, seeing that G-d had already declared this animal as being “Mine,” so how could the owner of its mother bring it as “his offering” (compare Exodus 12,9) From that verse I would have inferred that both perfect and blemished firstborn animals could not be offered as a sacrifice. This is why the Torah repeats here that we speak about a blemished firstborn male animal only.

בשעריך תאכלנו, ”you shall eat it within your gates (not on sacred grounds);” the Torah here addresses the priest, as a commoner is not allowed to eat it anywhere.

הטמא והטהור, “the ritually impure as well as the ritually pure.” The author already explained this term in his commentary on Exodus 12,15.