Do Not Become Surety for a Strangers Debt – (Proverbs 20:16)

Daily Bible Study
Here the book of Proverbs is once again giving us practical wisdom for everyday life. It's foolish to lend to a stranger without any type of security. These passages are here to provide wisdom meant to help us live a better, more meaningful life in a fallen world. In ancient Israel the outer garment or coat as we would call it today, was a common security for a loan. However, it had to be returned by sundown incase it's owner needed it. So what would happen is the lender would return the coat at sundown and take it back again the next morning. And this would continue until the load was paid. This was part of Jewish custom as well as part of the Law of Moses. In addition, the outer garment would be evidence that a loan was made. In addition, the people of Israel were not allowed to charge interest on the loan either. Because they were slaves out of Egypt and God gave them the land as a covenant gift, they were not allowed to charge each other interest.

But here's the catch, this was a custom or a law only for the people of Israel, and it did not apply to a foreigner or someone who was not part of the Abrahamic Covenant. And in the Jewish culture any foreigner was considered a stranger because they were not part of the Abrahamic Covenant, nor part of the twelve tribes of Israel and therefore, they were not bound by the Jewish law. This means a stranger had no such requirement to pay back a loan, and if you did not take any type of security from the stranger chances are you would never see your money back again. Therefore, this proverb tells us to secure any loan given to those who have no obligation to repay. And the custom of the day was to take the outer garment, and in the case of the stranger you would hold on to it until you were repaid and not return it again at sundown. We can see this concept in use in our world today, as many times collateral is required before loans are made. This is done in order to ensure the borrower's ability to pay back the loan.