Prozbul

The prozbul is a legal device created by the Jewish legal scholar Hillel near the end of the intertestamental period. A creditor who transferred the debts owed to him to a court could keep them from being canceled when the sabbatical year passed. Many scholars hold that the word comes from Greek, and it is commonly explained as deriving from pros boulē, meaning "before the council (court)." There are, however, several theories about its etymology.

Background

Deuteronomy 15 commands that debts among fellow Israelites be released every seventh year. The New Korean Revised Version calls this year the "year of release," the same term used in the KJV. This year was understood to coincide with the sabbatical year, in which the land was to lie fallow. The law warns against refusing to lend to a poor brother on the grounds that the year of release is approaching (Deuteronomy 15:9). According to Jewish sources, people in practice stopped lending money as the sabbatical year drew near, making it difficult for the poor to obtain loans in times of need.

Development

Tradition holds that the prozbul was instituted during Hillel's lifetime. Hillel's activity is generally dated from the late first century BC to the early first century AD. The earliest written record of the institution is the Mishnah, a compilation of Jewish oral law edited around the end of the second century.

• The Mishnah tractate Shevi'it ("The Sabbatical Year") records that Hillel instituted the prozbul when he saw that people were refusing to lend to one another, in violation of the law's warning.
• The same text preserves the form of the document. The creditor declares, "I declare before you, So-and-so and So-and-so, the judges in such-and-such a place, that I will collect any debt owed to me whenever I wish," and the judges or witnesses sign it.
• The legal basis for this device is commonly found in an interpretation of Deuteronomy 15:3: "that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release." On this reading, the release applies only to debts held by an individual; a debt transferred to a court is no longer in the individual's hand and is therefore not subject to release.
• The Mishnah tractate Gittin lists the prozbul among the enactments made "for the good order of the world."

Results and Influence

The prozbul allowed lending and borrowing to continue even as the sabbatical year approached. The institution is frequently cited as a classic example of adjusting the application of the law to social realities while leaving the text of the law itself intact. The later Talmud discusses at length whether Hillel had the authority to effectively circumvent a biblical command. Among the explanations it offers are that the release of debts in that period was in force only as a rabbinic ordinance, not a biblical one, and that a court has the authority to determine the ownership of property. In Orthodox Judaism the custom of drawing up a prozbul before the end of the sabbatical year continues to this day.

Assessment

Jewish tradition has generally regarded the prozbul as a wise piece of legislation that preserved access to credit for the poor. The Talmud, however, also records that the third-century scholar Samuel called it "an arrogance of the judges" and said he would abolish it if he could. There was thus disagreement even within the tradition.

Christian assessments are likewise divided. Some interpreters see the prozbul as an instance of evading God's commandment through a human rule, like the "tradition of the elders" that Jesus criticized. Others see it as an attempt to uphold the original intent of the law, which forbade neglecting a poor neighbor on the pretext of the year of release. In the Korean church the prozbul is rarely discussed on its own. It is mainly introduced as background when studying Deuteronomy 15, the traditions of the Pharisees in Jesus' day, and the teaching to lend without expecting anything in return (Luke 6:35–37).