The Open Hand and the Open Heart Text: Deuteronomy 15:7-11
Introduction: Covenant Economics vs. Heart Economics
We live in an age that has a very complicated and often diseased relationship with money. On the one hand, we have the mammon-worshippers, the prosperity preachers, who treat God like a cosmic slot machine. On the other hand, we have the socialists, both secular and professing Christian, who believe that wealth is inherently sinful and that the state should be the great equalizer, taking from the productive to give to the unproductive. Both are profoundly wrong because both start with man, not with God. One starts with greed, the other with envy, but both are idolatrous.
The Bible, as always, carves a third path. It is a path of stewardship, generosity, and covenantal faithfulness. God is not against wealth; He is the one who gives the power to get wealth (Deut. 8:18). But He gives it for a purpose, and that purpose is not to hoard it in a Scrooge McDuck vault, nor is it for the state to confiscate and redistribute it according to some bureaucratic five-year plan. God gives wealth so that His people might build His kingdom, reflect His character, and care for one another within the bonds of the covenant.
This passage in Deuteronomy 15 is a direct assault on our natural, fallen economic tendencies. Our default setting is the clenched fist and the hardened heart. We are naturally selfish. We calculate. We perform cost-benefit analyses on everything, including obedience. We want to know, "What's in it for me?" And if the answer is, "You might lose your principal," then our instinct is to slam the door on our brother's need.
But God here is not just interested in the transaction; He is interested in the transformation of the heart. He is not just legislating charity; He is commanding a certain kind of heart. He is dealing with what we might call "heart economics." This is not about financial planning in the worldly sense. This is about how a citizen of the kingdom of God is to think and act with regard to his brother who is in need. And as we will see, this law is not some dusty relic of the Sinai desert; it is a foundational principle of the gospel that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Text
"If there is a needy one among you, one of your brothers, in any of your gates of the towns in your land which Yahweh your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand from your needy brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. Beware lest there be a vile thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of the remission of debts, is near,’ and your eye is hostile toward your needy brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry to Yahweh against you, and it will be a sin in you. You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you send forth your hand to do. For the needy will never cease to be in the land; therefore I am commanding you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your afflicted and needy in your land.’"
(Deuteronomy 15:7-11 LSB)
The Command Against a Calloused Heart (v. 7-8)
The instruction begins by identifying the object of our concern and the required response.
"If there is a needy one among you, one of your brothers, in any of your gates of the towns in your land which Yahweh your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand from your needy brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks." (Deuteronomy 15:7-8)
Notice the context. This is not a command to solve global poverty. It is intensely personal and covenantal: "one of your brothers." This is about family responsibility. The church is the household of God, and our primary duty of care is to those within the covenant community. This does not mean we ignore the needs of those outside, but it does establish a clear priority. Our charity begins at home, in the household of faith (Gal. 6:10).
The command is both negative and positive, and it addresses both the internal disposition and the external action. The negative is "you shall not harden your heart nor close your hand." God knows our sinful anatomy. The heart hardens first, and then the hand closes. A tight fist is always the result of a calloused heart. Stinginess is a spiritual condition before it is a financial one. It is a form of atheism, because it reveals that we believe our security lies in our bank account, not in our sovereign God.
The positive command is a beautiful picture of liberality. "You shall freely open your hand to him." The Hebrew is emphatic; it literally says, "opening you shall open your hand." This is not a reluctant, grudging, tight-lipped giving. This is a wide-open, cheerful generosity. And what are we to give? We are to "generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks." This is not a blank check for his wants, but a generous provision for his needs. It requires wisdom and discernment. The goal is not to create dependency, but to restore a brother to a place of productive standing in the community. The loan was the primary means of welfare in ancient Israel. It was a hand up, not a handout, preserving the dignity of the recipient.
The Sin of Calculation (v. 9)
God, knowing the deceitfulness of our hearts, anticipates the precise excuse we would concoct to justify our disobedience.
"Beware lest there be a vile thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of the remission of debts, is near,’ and your eye is hostile toward your needy brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry to Yahweh against you, and it will be a sin in you." (Deuteronomy 15:9)
This is remarkable. God is legislating against a "vile thought." The Hebrew word is belial, which means worthless, wicked, or destructive. It is later used as a name for Satan. God is telling us that a certain kind of economic calculation is not just bad business; it is satanic. What is this thought? It is the thought that says, "If I lend to him now, in year six, the sabbatical year will come and I will have to forgive the debt. I'll lose my money."
This is the voice of worldly prudence. It is the voice of risk management. It is the voice of Wall Street. And God calls it vile. Why? Because it elevates financial security above faithfulness to God and love for brother. It is a heart that trusts in the predictable returns of mammon more than in the sure promises of Yahweh. Notice the progression: the vile thought leads to a "hostile eye," which leads to giving "him nothing." The eye is the lamp of the body. When your economic vision is darkened by greed and fear, your whole life becomes stingy and mean.
And there are consequences. The needy brother has recourse. He "may cry to Yahweh against you." The Lord hears the cry of the poor and the oppressed. This is a central theme of Scripture. And when God hears that cry, caused by your selfish calculation, "it will be a sin in you." Your inaction, your failure to lend, is not a neutral act. It is a positive sin that incurs guilt before a holy God who takes the side of the poor brother.
The Promise of Blessing (v. 10)
In contrast to the sin of calculation, God gives the motivation of divine blessing.
"You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you send forth your hand to do." (Deuteronomy 15:10)
Again, the Hebrew is emphatic: "giving you shall give." And the condition of the heart is central: "your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him." God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). He is not interested in generosity that comes with a sigh and an eye-roll. He wants a heart that delights to do good, a heart that is not pained by the thought of giving something away. This is a supernatural work. Our natural hearts are always grieved to part with money.
The promise is attached to this cheerful, open-handed generosity. "Because for this thing Yahweh your God will bless you." This is not the crass health-and-wealth gospel. This is covenantal cause-and-effect. God promises to bless the obedience of His people. The blessing is comprehensive: "in all your work and in all that you send forth your hand to do." This means that the man who is generous to his brother is not actually losing anything. He is making the wisest investment possible. He is entrusting his capital to the God who owns all the cattle on a thousand hills. You cannot out-give God. The man who clenches his fist to "save" his money will find that it slips through his fingers like sand. The man who opens his hand to his brother will find that God opens the windows of heaven to him.
The Realism of the Command (v. 11)
Finally, God grounds this command in a statement of realism that has often been misunderstood and misused.
"For the needy will never cease to be in the land; therefore I am commanding you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your afflicted and needy in your land.’" (Deuteronomy 15:11)
Jesus quotes this very verse in Matthew 26:11. It is not a statement of cynical resignation. It is not an excuse for inaction, as though God were saying, "Poverty is an intractable problem, so don't worry about it." Quite the opposite. God is saying that precisely because need will be a constant reality in a fallen world, the opportunity for covenantal generosity will also be a constant reality. The presence of the poor is a permanent test of our faith and a permanent opportunity for our obedience.
Utopian schemes that promise to eradicate poverty always fail, because they fail to account for sin. They believe the problem is structural or economic, when the problem is the human heart. There will always be need because there will always be sin, laziness, foolishness, and calamity in this life. Therefore, the command to be generous is not a temporary measure for a specific crisis. It is a permanent feature of the Christian life. "Therefore I am commanding you..." The constant presence of need requires the constant practice of generosity.
The Gospel Debt
As with all Old Testament law, we must read this through the lens of the cross. This passage is a beautiful illustration of the gospel. For we were the needy brother. We were not just in a bit of financial trouble; we were utterly bankrupt, spiritually destitute, with nothing to offer. We were formless and void, with a debt we could never repay.
And God did not look upon our need with a hostile eye. He did not engage in some vile, calculating thought. He knew what it would cost to lend to us. It would cost Him everything. The year of remission for us was not the sabbatical year; it was the year of our Lord, when the debt would be cancelled entirely. And knowing the full cost, God did not harden His heart or close His hand.
He freely opened His hand. And what was in His hand? Not just silver and gold, but His only begotten Son. God "lent" His Son to us, knowing that the cost of our redemption was His crucifixion. Jesus Christ paid the debt that He did not owe, because we had a debt that we could not pay. On the cross, the ultimate year of remission was proclaimed. Our debt was not just postponed; it was cancelled. Nailed to the tree. Paid in full.
Therefore, our generosity toward our brothers is never the ground of our salvation. It is the fruit of it. We do not give in order to be blessed; we give because we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We do not lend in order to get into heaven; we lend because heaven has been given to us as a free gift. When we see our brother in need, we are to see a reflection of ourselves. And we are to give to him from the same motivation that God gave to us: pure, uncalculated, open-handed, cheerful grace. Because He did not grieve to give His Son for us, we must not grieve to give our bread to our brother.