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Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. Creditors may file a bankruptcy petition against a debtor ("involuntary bankruptcy") in an effort to recoup a portion of what they are owed or initiate a restructuring. In the majority of cases, however, bankruptcy is initiated by the debtor (a "voluntary bankruptcy" that is filed by the bankrupt individual or organization).

In the Torah, or Old Testament, every seventh year is decreed by Mosaic Law as a Sabbath year wherein the release of all debts that are owed by Jews is mandated, while the release of debts owed by non-Jews is purposefully not mandated.^[1] The seventh Sabbath year, or forty-ninth year, is then followed by another Sabbath year known as the Year of Jubilee wherein the release of all debts is mandated, for Jews and non-Jews alike, and the release of all debt-slaves is also mandated whether they are of Jewish descent or not.^[2] The Year of Jubilee is announced in advance on the Day of Atonement, or the tenth day of the seventh Biblical month, in the forty-ninth year by the blowing of trumpets throughout the land of Israel.

In ancient Greece, bankruptcy did not exist. If a father owed (since only locally born adult males could be citizens, it was fathers who were legal owners of property) and he could not pay, his entire family of wife, children and servants were forced into "debt slavery", until the creditor recouped losses via their physical labour. Many city-states in ancient Greece limited debt slavery to a period of five years and debt slaves had protection of life and limb, which regular slaves did not enjoy. However, servants of the debtor could be retained beyond that deadline by the creditor and were often forced to serve their new lord for a lifetime, usually under significantly harsher conditions.

The word bankruptcy is formed from the ancient Latin bancus (a bench or table), and ruptus (broken). A "bank" originally referred to a bench, which the first bankers had in the public places, in markets, fairs, etc. on which they tolled their money, wrote their bills of exchange, etc. Hence, when a banker failed, he broke his bank, to advertise to the public that the person to whom the bank belonged was no longer in a condition to continue his business. As this practice was very frequent in Italy, it is said the term bankrupt is derived from the Italian banco rotto, broken bank (see e.g. Ponte Vecchio). Others choose rather to derive the word from the French banque, "table", and route, "vestigium, trace", by metaphor from the sign left in the ground, of a table once fastened to it and now gone. On this principle they trace the origin of bankrupts from the ancient Roman mensarii or argentarii, who had their tabernae or mensae in certain public places; and who, when they fled, or made off with the money that had been entrusted to them, left only the sign or shadow of their former station behind them.

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