If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down,
Here is, I. A law against extortion in lending. 1. They must not receive use for money from any that borrowed for necessity (Exo 22:25), as in that case, Neh 5:5, Neh 5:7. And such provision the law made for the preservation of estates to their families by the year of jubilee that a people who had little concern in trade could not be supposed...
Commenting on Exodus 22:25-31
Thou shalt not revile the gods,.... Meaning not the idols of the Gentiles, which they reckon gods, and worship as such; which is the sense of Philo, and some others, particularly Josephus (i), who, to curry favour with the Roman emperors given to idolatry, has from hence inserted the following among the laws given to Moses;"let no man blaspheme the gods, which other cities think...
If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, &c.--From the nature of the case, this is the description of a poor man. No Orientals undress, but, merely throwing off their turbans and some of their heavy outer garments, they sleep in the clothes which they wear during the day.