Poor or No Poor?

Today's question:

In Deuteronomy 15:4 it says there will be no poor among the Israelites because of the abundance of the land they are entering. Then later in the same chapter (15:11) it says there will never cease to be poor in the land. I know the Bible isn’t contradicting itself, but I wondered how to understand these two statements.

I just received this question, and I happened to notice the same thing in my reading of the Legacy Standard Bible earlier this year. I had not considered it before because the NKJV, my normal reading Bible, offers a different translation:

NKJV Deut 15:4 "except when there may be no poor among you; for the LORD will greatly bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance."

But when I read the LSB, I noticed the problem:

LSB Deut 15:4 "However, there will be no needy one among you, since Yahweh will surely bless you in the land which Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess."

The supposed contradiction arises in 15:11 where the translations are in agreement: "For the poor will never case from the land" and "For the needy will never cease to be in the land."

I think the NKJV translators noticed the discrepancy and wanted to help the reader understand what is going on. But I believe the key to understanding that there is no contradiction is that verse 5 contains an IF clause that controls the prior verse. IF you will carefully obey God, then you will be blessed. The idea is that if they are obedient to God, they will be so blessed that they will not have any poverty. This is in accord with the general promises of blessing under the Mosaic covenant. However, given the reality of depravity, the condition of verse 11 will be the normal situation—because of sin, oppression, disobedience, and God's disfavor, there will be poverty amongst the people. That poverty will be one of the curses of disobedience.

To this the words of the Lord Jesus agree, for in Matthew 26:11 he says, "For you have the poor with you always."