 According to the Talmud, the debtor would be as guilty as the lender, since it interprets one of the biblical verbs referring to "usury", namely "tashshik", to be in the causative voice; due to the Talmud's figurative interpretation of the "lifnei iver" regulation, it even regards any witnesses to usury contracts, as well as the scribe writing the contract for the parties, to be as culpable for usury as the lender and debtor themselves.The Mishnah states that it is not permissible to withhold the whole of something such as a field, for which part of the selling price has already been paid, because any income arising from possession of the entity would effectively be interest on the outstanding amount.However, the Mishnah does permit the refusal to hand over something for which only partial payment has been received if it had been sold on the terms that payment would be made by a certain date and that date has passed; in English Law, the mortgage was invented to take advantage of this exception.