A pledge or item taken as collateral for a debt. In Israelite law, taking a pledge was regulated to protect the poor from exploitation. The pledge system reveals the tension between commerce and compassion.
God's laws about pledges are radical social ethics. You cannot take a widow's garment as pledge (Deut 24:17). If you take a poor man's cloak, return it by sunset — because he has nothing else to sleep in (Ex 22:26–27). These laws reveal God's heart: economic systems must serve human dignity. The prophets condemned those who 'lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge' (Amos 2:8) — turning exploitation into worship, the ultimate blasphemy.