The tendency to hold certain practices in ancient Israel up to idealized modern Western norms is pervasive in much that passes for scholarship, though a glance at the treatment of the great class of debtors now being evicted from their homes in America and elsewhere should make it clear that, from the point of view of graciousness or severity, an honest comparison is not always in our favor.
Marilynne Robinson, “Open Thy Hand Wide” in When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012).
David W. Swanson 