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http://www.grundskyld.dk/w-Landmark.doc. My
Neighbor's Landmark:
Short Studies in Bible Land Laws by Frederick Verinder www.grundskyld.dk First published 1911 Andrew Melrose. London Preface by The Very Rev. G.W. Kitchin, D.D. F.S.A. *** Digital edition 2003, by www.grundskyld.dk, adapted and expanded by www.wealthandwant.com Preface When we meet with a new interpreter, eager to impart a revelation, we set ourselves to challenge and compare his impassioned message with the ruling spirit of the age, the Zeitgeist, as the Germans call it. Thus when Mr. Verinder speaks of the land-usages and laws of our times, and sets against them the ancient orders and directions of the Pentateuch, we are aroused at once to question and to find out how this new view of possession and occupation fits in with the dominant thoughts of today. From these sacred books he builds a creed for working folk: that the earth is the Lord's, and that any occupier who claims more than the ancient Jubilee gave is a bold interloper; and he bases on these early Scriptural regulations a new brotherhood between the man of labor and the soil on which his sinews work. There springs out of his argument another proof of the universal nature of the Bible. It is alike ancient and modern. He points out to us that private property in land is nothing but a survival of privileges won by the mailed fist. We know that the first settlement of the Jews in the land flowing with milk and honey was really a raid of moving "landgrabbers." After their bad times in Egypt, they fell on the natives of Palestine, drove them out, and took their place: as the missionaries of Jehovah they proclaimed that they had seized it for His use and in His Name; and they went on to show the world a better way of occupation, and a happier and more equable life. Their main principle was that the holding of land, unlike the owning of commodities, carried with it a great social duty; land is the base of life, and to till the land the first of human tasks; not because a man owns it, but that he holds it as a trust from God, and must use his energy to coax the shy ground to produce more and more. This is his duty before God, the real Owner of it all. If the man is idle and ignorant, he will have to stand aside and starve. The State has to see to it that the opportunities of the land shall not be wasted; and the tiller has to do his best "that two blades may grow where there was but one before." This book may be called a Utopia, as being of an imaginary aim. Still it is based on the history of the early Jews, and the undeveloped possibilities of a great growth of prosperity from the soil, unique mother of all production. Mr. Verinder has revived in our hearts an ancient pleasure; for he has shown that the most modern aspirations breathe in the oldest Scriptures; it is as fit for ancient civilisations as for our days, when we now record the triumph of Knowledge over the powers of Nature. For all ages, whether three thousand years ago or to-day, there is the same hope; the hope of living in days of happy productiveness. Now that what Cobbett used to call the "great Wen" of London has seen the growth of many like "wens" all over the country, we are filled with a hopeful longing for a renewed country-life; we discern that, with better relations between mankind and the land, we shall attain to a purer life in the cleanness of country air, laboring there in liberty, self-supporting, and reviving the happiness of family life in peace. For it prophesies to us a new view of civilised activity, ohne Hast, ohne Rast. Let us welcome this interesting book; it releases us from a city-made population, and brings us back to that healthy life, the true heritage of a vigorous race, escaping from the stifling atmosphere of the hurrying town. G.W.K.
Contents
Abbreviations
used
Apoc. Apocryphal or deutero-canonical books of the O.T. (see vi. Article of Religion). A.V. "Authorised" Version of the Bible. The English translation of 1611. Eccles The Book of Ecclesiastes (O.T.). Ecclus The Book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or "Ecclesiasticus" (Apoc.) Gr. Greek. Hebr. Hebrew. Heb. The Epistle to the Hebrews (N.T.). Jos. Flavius Josephus; Jewish historian and apologist. Born 37 A.D. Wrote in Gr. LXX Septuagint; ancient Gr. translation of Hebr. O.T. (The Version usually quoted by N.T. writers.) m. Marginal readings of A.V. or R.V. n. Note. N.T. New Testament. O.T. Old Testament. R.V. Revised English translation of O.T. (1884) and N.T. (1880.) Sayings J.F. "Sayings of the Jewish Fathers" — Pirke Aboth, or Chapters of the Fathers: a Mishnah Tract in the Talmud (translated and edited by Taylor, 2nd edit.). Vulg. The Vulgate: ancient Latin Version of Bible. The A.V. is generally used in the following pages, but with frequent reference to R.V., and especially to the very helpful R.V.m. The author is greatly indebted to a learned Jewish friend, the Rev. B. T. Salomons, of Montefiore College, Ramsgate, who has kindly read the proofs with special reference to the quotations from extra-canonical Jewish writings, and has supplied some additional material which has been embodied in the notes. These additions are enclosed in square brackets and are marked S. "To
the law and to the testimony: if
they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light
in them" (Isa. 8:20).
''They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them" (Luke 16:29). "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. 1:21). "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Rom. 15:4). "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free " (John 8:32). Chapter 1:
By
Way of Introduction
Many
and great things have been
delivered unto us by the Law and the Prophets, and by others that have
followed their steps, for the which things Israel
ought to be commended
for learning and wisdom; and whereof not only the readers must needs
become skilful themselves, but also they that desire to learn be able
to profit them which are without, both by speaking and writing."—The
Prologue of the Wisdom of Jesus, the
son Sirach.
§ 1. IT is still, I believe, a popular superstition that, on the first day of Lent in each year, the Church of England invites her children to meet in their parish churches for the purpose of "cursing their neighbors." No one who is familiar with the Commination Service will need to be reminded that this is neither an accurate nor an adequate description of the "godly discipline of the Primitive Church," so far as it is somewhat mildly reflected in the special service appointed for the beginning of the season of spiritual spring-cleaning. The cheap and easy exercise of confessing other folk's sins comes too naturally to the ordinary man to need a special day to be set apart for it; he does it most days without the stimulus of a solemn exhortation. What we are invited to do on Ash Wednesday is (not to utter a string of imprecations upon other "miserable sinners," who are not present to hear them; but) to note, for our own warning and betterment, a number of facts. The formula is not "cursed be," but "cursed is." We are asked to give our solemn assent to the proposition that there are certain offenses against morals that, in the very nature of things, carry with them a curse. The offenses which are specified are nearly all social sins — sins, which break up the sacred family life; sins, which destroy confidence between man and man; sins, which poison the fountain of justice; sins of taking a mean advantage of one's fellow's; sins, which deny fundamental rights. The avowed purpose of the service which strikes the keynote of the Church's Lenten discipline is, that, being admonished by this terrible recital, we may "flee from such vices, for which we affirm with our own mouths the curse of God to be due." § 2. Sermons and addresses on social subjects have, therefore, rightly had a notable prominence among Lenten observances for several years past. No such demonstration in favor of Social Reform has been seen in our time as would take place if, on any Ash Wednesday, all the people in every English parish should meet, and understandingly and unfeignedly give their assent to the series of "resolutions" which their parish priests are instructed to move in the parish assembly, and for which the people are asked to "vote" by saying, not "Aye," but "Amen." In the very forefront of the catalogue of sins that bring a curse — in the same dreadful list as the "unmerciful, fornicators, and adulterers, covetous persons, idolaters, slanderers, drunkards, and extortioners" — stands this — "Cursed is he that removeth his
neighbor's landmark.
And the people shall answer and say, Amen." Nothing could more clearly illustrate the social purpose of the Ash-Wednesday service. We are told that this is one of the "sentences gathered out of the seven-and-twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy."2 Like her Lord and Master, in the parable of Social Inequality,3 the Church throws us back on the social lessons to be learnt from the history and laws of the Hebrew people. "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."4 She throws us back on the teaching of the Old Testament about the Land Question. 1 Deut. 27:17.
2 St. Luke 16:19-31. 3 St. Matt. 5:17. 4 Introduction to new edition of Whiston's Josephus (1906), p.ix. § 3. It has been well said that every great reform has to pass through three stages. First, "it's against the teaching of the Bible," and no one will listen to it. Then, "it's all very well in theory, but you can't carry it out;" and practical politicians pooh-pooh it as visionary and Utopian. Lastly, when the impossible thing is done, "that's exactly what we have been in favor of, all along!" and all men praise it, and take credit for it. Especially the practical politicians. As regards the great movement of Social Reform which, in nearly every civilised country, is working towards the abolition of private property in land, we are beginning to hope that some of us, who have taken part in it, may, after all, live to see it reach the beginning of the third stage. But although the world as a whole moves forward, some men move more slowly than others; and there are many who are still struggling against doubts which strike at the very root of the proposed reform. Is the proposed change, they ask, — a change so vast and momentous as to amount to a social revolution, — is this change in accordance with those principles by which we have learned to judge what is right and wrong in the sight of God, and between man and man? And, for a very large number of Englishmen, this still means — Is it in accordance with the teaching of the Bible? § 4 Now, whether we regard the Bible as a book in a special way "inspired," or as a collection of books in a special degree "inspiring;" whether we treat these ancient Hebrew writings as authentic history or as allegorical tradition, the answer is, in either case, interesting and important. For the traditions, history, laws and literature of the Jews are better known to most Englishmen than the traditions, history, laws and literature of their own nation. There is still, as Dr. Margoliouth points out5, a large class, "though smaller than it once was, whose sole encyclopædia, not only of theology and ethics, but also of history and archaeology, is the Bible." For the Hebrew records, in their English version, have long been the most widely circulated English classic. It is even "sold under cost price at tenpence" by a great Society, solely devoted to its dissemination. Men who know nothing of the Laws of their own Edward the Confessor, who never heard that Edward I. was called the English Justinian, and could not even guess why he was so called, know at least something of the Laws of Moses and of the reconstructive work of Nehemiah. If we are to learn from the lessons of history at all, here is the best known and most accessible of all histories ready to our hand. Pliny's Latifundia perdidere Italiam ... et provincias6 teaches the same lesson as, e.g., Isaiah v. 8-10, but to English ears it has not the same intimate appeal to old-standing memories and treasured associations. Only a very small number of English citizens pursue their study of moral principles in the somewhat dreary atmosphere of "Ethical" Societies, or through the pages of and volumes on Moral Philosophy. But, to the vast majority of our fellow-country-men, the Hebrew Bible, clothed in the beautiful English of the Jacobean translation, still holds a position of pre-eminent authority on moral questions. 5 Introduction
to new edition of Whiston's
Josephus (1906), p.ix.
6 Plin. Nat. Hist. xviii; 7. 3: "Modum agri in primis servandum antiqui putavere, quippe ita censebant, satius esse minus serere et melius arare; qua in cententia et Vergilium fuisse video. Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam, iam vero et provincias. Sex domini semissem Africæ possidebant, cum interfecit eox Nero princeps." (Cp. Verg. Georg. ii. 412; "Laudato ingentia nura, Exiguum colito.") § 5. It is quite possible to doubt whether Moses actually wrote the whole of the five books to which his name is attached, and to be uncertain whether there were one or two or several "Isaiahs," and yet to have the highest reverence for the ancient documents, which have brought down to us, through a thousand generations, some of the earliest traditions of mankind. It would be out of place in these pages to discuss either the theological or the critical questions which beset the study of the Pentateuch. The average British Bible-reader knows little, and cares less, about the dissection of the "Book of Origins" from the "Book of the Covenant," nor has he so much as heard of the literary labors of the "Elohist" and the "Jehovist." He takes for granted the Mosaic authorship of the "Five books," just as he often assumes the accuracy of Bishop Ussher's marginal dates. The modern literary criticism of the Pentateuch, pursued with unflagging zeal by a multitude of scholars during more than half a century past, has sought, by the application to words and phrases of much the same method of patient observation and generalisation as Darwin applied to the facts of Biology, to make these ancient writings give up the secret of their evolution into their present form. It is now believed that the Pentateuch, as it has been handed down to us in the Jewish canon, is a compilation, or rather the result of a series of compilations; that it contains the work of many writers who flourished under the divided monarchy, and during the Exile. These writers collected, partly from earlier writings, now lost to us, and partly from stones handed down by word of mouth, often in verse,7 the traditions, folklore, laws and customs of their race. The laws were not only recorded, but annotated, supplemented, and to some extent adapted to the varying circumstances and changing ideas of two or three eventful centuries. After the fashion of Eastern writers, these laws, in their collected form, were attributed to the great Lawgiver, Moses, exactly as even the Psalms which the exiles sang as they "wept by the waters of Babylon" were included in one volume with the "Psalms of David"; exactly as proverbs of later date were fathered upon Solomon. The documents thus compiled, though subjected to frequent editing, still largely preserve, in their combined form, their individual peculiarities of language, formula, nomenclature and standpoint.8 7 e.g. the "Book of Jasher"
(Josh. 10:12,
13; 2 Sam. 1:18); "Book of the Wars of the Lord" (Num. 21:14); the
"Song
of Deborah" (Judg. 5.), etc. etc.
8 For a very brief and clear account of the generally received results of the literary criticism, see the Rev. Prof. Bennett's introduction to Genesis in the Century Bible; or Canon Ottley's Short History of the Hebrews, Apps. I. and II. 9 See article by Rev. P. H. Wicksteed on "The Year of Jubilee" in Christian Reformer, August 1887. § 6. No attempt is made in this little book to distinguish between the various literary "sources" of the Hebrew Land Laws.9 The material has been drawn freely from all of them. My present purpose is simply to disentangle from the best known of the extant Hebrew writings the main lines of Hebrew thought on the Land Question. The results are, on the whole, practically independent of the conclusions of the Higher Criticism; for while there may be differences of detail between (say) the Deuteronomic and the "Priestly" legislation, there is absolutely no difference in principle. The Torah or "Law" is, therefore, here taken in the form which it assumed when completely developed and fully committed to writing. "For," as is well said by two writers who may be thought to have pushed fearlessness of criticism almost to the point of rashness, "even if the religious contents of parts of the Old Testament in their original form should turn out to be somewhat less rich and varied than is agreeable to traditional ideas, yet the text in its present form, even if not in the original, has an independent right of existence, and the interpretation put upon this text by Jewish and Christian students deserves the most respectful attention. The Old Testament was surely not a dead book to the Jews of the great post-exilic age, but was full of light, and susceptible of the most varied and edifying adaptations."10 9 See article by Rev. P. H.
Wicksteed on "The
Year of Jubilee" in Christian Reformer, August 1887.
For "the Jewish law, if it is to be judged properly, must be
judged as a whole, and not with exclusive reference to one of its
parts. … In all its stages, the Mosaic law held before the eyes of
Israel an ideal of duty to be observed, of laws to be obeyed, of
principles to be maintained; it taught them that human nature needed to
be restrained; it impressed upon them the necessity of discipline."1110 Cheyne and Black, Postscript to Encyclopædia Biblica, vol. iv. p. xii. [1903]. 11 Driver, on "Law in the O.T.,"
in Hastings'
Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 72 b.
§ 7. But, whatever may have been the process by which these writings assumed their present form, they are rightly called the Books of Moses, for the great historical figure of the Lawgiver dominates them throughout, and alone makes them intelligible. Moses nowhere claims the authorship of the Pentateuch, and he would have been the last to complain that some part of the legislation it contains should be attributed to other hands. "Enviest thou for my sake?" He said, when Joshua, jealous for his chief's honor, asked him to rebuke some unauthorised persons who "prophesied" in the camp; "would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His spirit upon them!"12 If it was through Moses that "the Lord gave the word," it is no less true that "great was the company of those that published it."13 12 Num. 11:29.
13 Ps. 48:11. A descendant of Levi, nursed by his own Hebrew mother, though adopted by an Egyptian princess and brought up as an Egyptian,14 Moses was familiar from his earliest days both with the traditions of the people who looked back to Abraham as their ancestor, and with the culture of the proud Egyptian empire,15 under which they were being oppressed. According to Manetho, he was brought up as a priest, and was well acquainted with Greek, Chaldæan and Assyrian literature. But the ties of blood, and his faith in the God of his fathers were strong enough to make him renounce the prospect of a great career, and to throw in his lot with his enslaved kinsmen.16 In early manhood, moved by indignation at an act of oppression, he killed an Egyptian who was ill-treating a Hebrew, and was driven into exile.17 Into his peaceful and meditative life, as Jethro's shepherd in Arabia, broke the Divine call to become the deliverer of his race.18 "The God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" is revealed to him by a Name with which his Egyptian learning must have made him already familiar.19 His Hebrew birth and his Egyptian education alike call him to, and equip him for, the task of deliverance. "Come thou, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayst bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt." 14 Ex. 2:1, 9, 10. Cp. in verse
19, "an
Egyptian delivered us."
15 Acts 7:22. Cp. I Kings 4:30; Isa. 19:11, 12. 16 Heb. 11:24-27. 17 Ex. 2:11-15. 18 Ex. 3. 19 Ex. 3:6, 14. Deutsch translates the expression Nuk-pu-Nuk in the Egyptian "Ritual of the Dead" by "I am HE who I am." Whether Moses, during the educative and constructive period of the desert wandering, laid down the "Law" in detail as we now know it, or whether he merely sketched broad outlines, within which a long succession of later legislators and teachers supplied the details, matters little. The spirit and the groundwork of the Law is clearly Mosaic. In its differences from other ancient codes, no less than in its resemblances to them,20 it witnesses to an original which can only be accounted for on the assumption that Moses lived, and delivered the Hebrews from slavery, and laid the foundation of their national law; that he was "the ultimate founder of both the national and the religious life of Israel."21 20 For instance, many of the
"Mosaic" provisions
can be paralleled from the Code of the Babylanian king, Hammurabi
[=Amraphel,
Gen. 9:9], discovered in 1902; but "the care taken by Israelite law
to protect strangers finds no parallel in Babylonia" (S. A. Cook, Laws
of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, p. 276). Israel was once a
"stranger"
in Egypt, and "a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind."
21 See Canon Driver, Literature of the O.T., pp. 152 ff. § 8. It is natural enough that Moses and the Prophets should have a good deal to say, and for us to hear, on the Land Question. For, so long as man remains a land animal, the Lawgiver and the Social Reformer cannot avoid the ever-pressing question of the relation of man to land. Like some other ancient peoples (and some modern "savages"), the Hebrews saw clearly truths about the Land Question which have become obscured to most of us by the complexities of our modern industrial system. It is, of course, obvious that the details of the land laws which Moses promulgated, and to which the Prophets appealed, cannot apply to a nation so differently circumstanced as our own. In considering the details, we must constantly bear in mind the circumstances of the time and place, and the history and condition of the people. "The precepts then uttered," said one of the early Fathers of the Church, in discussing certain provisions of the Mosaic law, "had reference to the weakness of them who were receiving the laws; since also to be worshipped with the vapor of sacrifice is very unworthy of God, just as to lisp is unworthy of a philosopher. Do not thou then require their excellency now, when their use is past; but then when the time was calling for them."22 But the principles which underlay those "precepts" are fundamental and immutable, because the relation of man to the land on which he lives and works is always and essentially the same. The earth is still what one of the Apocryphal writers called it, "the mother of all things."23 Land is still, as it was in the time of Moses, the home and the workshop of the human race, the reservoir from which human labor draws all the raw materials24 wherewith to satisfy its needs. "Land is perpetual man." "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."25 The Pentateuchal tradition recognises, in what has been described as a "first attempt at organic chemistry," as clearly as the modern scientist does, that even the materials of which the human body is composed are drawn from the land and finally return to it.26 22 St. Chrysostom on Matt. 5:36,
37; translation
in Pusey's Library of the Fathers, p. 263.
23 Great travail is created for every man, and an heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb, till the day that they return to the mother of all things (Ecclus. 40. I ; and compare the notes below). 24 Ps. civ. 14, 15 ; Job 28:1-6; Deut. 8:9. 25 Eccles. 1:4. 26 Gen. 2:7 [Hebr. Adamah=ground), 3:19. cf. Ps. civ. 29, 146:4; Job 34:15; Eccles. 3:20, 12:7; and "For out of [the earth) came all [men) at the first, and out of her shall all others come ... even so the earth also hath given her fruit, namely, man, ever since the beginning, unto Him that made her" (2 Esd. 10:10, 14); "The Lord created man of the earth, and turned him into it again" (Ecclus. 17:1, also 33:10, 40:1 (quoted in an earlier note), 41:10; Wisd. 15:8; 1 Cor. 15:47-49). [The Bible asserts that God formed man of the dust of the ground, whereupon the Hebr. commentators remark: "The universal Father gathered dust from all parts of the earth for the purpose, to show that man need not be confined to one particular clime, but he might claim the whole world as his country and mankind irrespective of class or creed as his family."-S.] § 9. It is, therefore, to the underlying principles of the Hebrew social philosophy, other than to the details of Mosaic legislation, that this little work is designed to call attention. Modern writers on the Land Question — Gerrard Winstanley the Digger, Spence of Newcastle, John Locke, William Ogilvie of Pittensea, Patrick Edward Dove, Herbert Spencer (in his earlier phase), Alfred Russel Wallace, and, above all, Henry George — have, after all, only restated, and attempted to apply to modern social needs, principles which were enunciated by Moses and enforced by many later Hebrew teachers. Some of them would have readily admitted this: would, indeed, have gloried in it. It is not without significance that one of Henry George's most telling and popular lectures had as its subject, "Moses." The great Hebrew liberation could hardly have found in our time a more fitting and sympathetic exposition. But, ancient as these principles are, the most characteristic of modern problems — problems of poverty amid increasing wealth, of housing, of unemployment — are compelling the attention of social reformers, more and more, to them. For, what we call the Land Question remains essentially the same under everchanging forms of social organisation. When "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground," He so formed him that he could live only upon and from the land whence he came. It is true, now as always (as Sir William Petty long ago put it in an arresting sentence27), that "Land is the mother and Labor is the father of all wealth." Many centuries earlier, the writer of one of the Hebrew "wisdom books" had, as we have already seen, proclaimed the same truth.
27 Quoted Karl Marx, Das Kapital, chap. i.
"Thy land which Thou hast given
to Thy people for an inheritance."— 1 Kings 8:36.
§ 1. THE general principles upon which the Hebrew Land Laws were based are absolutely fatal to the idea of private property in land. It would be too little to say that land monopoly was treated with great severity by the Law: the Law was expressly designed to make it impossible, for the Lawgiver knew that there can be no social justice in a State while what Herbert Spencer called "the equal right to the use of the earth" is denied to its members. § 2. The keynote is struck in the very first sentence of the Pentateuch. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"28 and is frequently repeated elsewhere.29 "The sea is His, and He made it and His hands formed the dry land."30 "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods."31 "The world is Mine, and the fulness thereof."32 "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool … for all those things hath Mine hand made."33 God Almighty is, therefore, by right of creation, the only landlord. When the late Lord Salisbury attempted, in the House of Lords,34 to justify the preferential claim of the landlord over all the other creditors of the farmer, on the ground that "the landlord furnishes the land" to the farmer, his statement would have been regarded by the Hebrew Lawgiver as blasphemous, and would probably have been characterised by the plain-speaking Amos in language to which most of our newspapers would hesitate to accord the honor of a verbatim report. 28 Genesis 1:1; 24:3; Nehemiah
9:6; Psalm 102:25; 124:8; Isa 42:5; 45: 12; Jer. 10:12; Heb 1:10
29 It was evidently recognized as a distinctively Hebrew belief (Jonah 1:9). 30 Psalm 95:5 31 Psalm 24:1, 2; cp 1 Co 10:26, 28 32 Psalm 1:12; cp 89: 11, 12; Ex 19:5 33 Isa. 66:1, 2 34 In 1885, Speech on the "British Agricultural Association Bill." The Bill proposed "to enable a company of capitalists to lend money to the farmer against his crop," the crop being ear-marked, as against other creditors, for the repayment of the advance. "But it is to be noticed," said this sturdy champion of landlordism, "that it is not proposed that he (the capitalist) should stand before the landlord, because that would not be just. The landlord furnishes the land, and the capitalist the capital, and it would not be fair that the capitalist should come and thrust the landlord aside, and stand before him. The landlord's interest is saved. He has an absolute veto on any proceedings under this bill." § 3. For, while the class which the late Lord Salisbury so worthily represented seems to say, "The earth is the (land)lord's, and land doth he 'furnish' to the farmer," the Biblical reading is quite otherwise. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Therefore "unto the Lord thy God belongeth the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that therein is."35 "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath He given to the children of men."36 35 Deut 10:14 R.V.; "heaven of
heavens" = "the highest heaven." Cp 2 Cor 12:2, where "the third
heaven" probably means the same thing.
36 Ps. 115:16. No phrase could possibly be wider in its application, or more completely destructive of the claims of a landlord class to the monopoly of God's earth, than the simple words "children of men." Is there any man, woman or child who lives now, or who ever has lived, or who ever will live, who is not included among "the children of men?" No: Jew or Greek, native or foreigner, black or white, lord or peasant, rich or poor37 — all find, in this sweeping generalisation, the charter of their birthright in the soil. The simple and unlettered field-worker, who never heard of Herbert Spencer, may yet deduce from his Bible as good an argument for the "equal right to the use of the earth" as is to be found in Social Statics; and he will probably hold to it more tenaciously than the "Perplexed Philosopher" did. 37 ["This is the book of the
generations of Adam," says the Bible; and the Rabbis comment: "Not
rich, nor poor, nor learned, nor unlearned, nor great, no small, nor
black, nor white, but MAN." Again, we are told: "In the day that
God created man," and the Hebr. sages explain: "God fashioned Adam
alone, from whom sprang the entire human race. Thus no man can say, 'I
am of a better or earlier stock.'" "And these are the ordinances
by which man shall live," enjoins the Bible; and the Talmud asserts,
"Not the king or prince, not the priest or Levite, but MAN. All
alike were formed in the image of God." -- S.]
"For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else."38 So, in the Jewish tradition of the beginnings of the human race, as in other early traditions, the story begins with a man and a woman in a garden;39 with Land and Labor. It is the will of God that man should satisfy his bodily needs by the exercise of his labor upon the material which He has so abundantly provided. "It is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him; for it is his portion"; "it is the gift of God."40 For man is so made, that he has nothing but the land to live from, nothing but labor — his own or some one else's — to live by. 38 Isa. 45:18; cp 2 Esd. 6:55,
59.
39 Gen 2:8, 9, 15 "garden" (in LXX "paradise") is rather "park." The corresponding Hebrew word is translated in Neh 2:8 [R.V.m] and Eccles 2:5 [R.V.] 40 Eccles. 3:13, 5:18. "So God created man in His own image, … male and female created He them. And God blesses them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. … Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree; ... to you it shall be for meat. … And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good."41 41 Gen 1:27-31; cp. 9:1-3; Ps.
8:6-8.
But Adam was not the owner of the Garden of Eden; he only had the use of it, upon conditions. When those conditions were violated, "the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground whence he was taken," and to till it sorrowfully and in the sweat of his face.42 42 Gen 3:17-19, 23. Cp.
Verg. Georg 1:118-46
§ 4. If, therefore, God, the sole Landowner, has given the land to "the children of men" — i.e. to the whole human race in its widest extension through time and space — it follows that no single generation, still less any single individual, has absolute ownership in land. It is not the right of property in land, but the right to use land — limited by the equal right of every one else, now and for ever, to use land — that God has given to man. No man can claim land as "his very own," "to do as he likes with," e.g. to sell. "The land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me,"43 saith the Lord. No man could sell land "for ever"44 for any man's interest in it was only a life-interest; a temporary usufruct, and not a permanent, absolute ownership. It is only the interest of the race that is perpetual. "The days of the life of man may be numbered; but the days of Israel are innumerable."45 For God has given the land — i.e., the use of it — not to any particular class or generation of men, but to all generations of mankind. 43 Lev. 25:23
44 R.V. gives "the land shall not be sold in perpetuity;" Vulg., "in perpetuum;" Hebr., "to extinction" (so Oehler, Theology of the O.T., i. 348), "out and out." Maimonides (Tractatus de juribus Anni Septimi 3t Jubilaei; Maius' Lat. trans., 1708) translates: "Terram non vendito absolute." According to Hebr. tradition, Abraham bouht land "out and out," from the Hittites, for a family burying-place. The detailed account of this transaction (Gen. 23) is interesting; note especially the lawyer-like precision with which the subject of the purchase is specified (verses 17, 18) (49:29-32). Jacob also bought land for a sanctuary (33:19, 20; Josh 24:32). 45 Ecclus.37:25 § 5. Lastly, "the profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field."46 46 Eccles. 5:9. So
translated in both the current English versions. But the R.V.m.
gives as alternative readings: "But the profit of a land every way is a
king that maketh himself servant to the field" (i.e., promotes the
cultivation of the land; or "is a king over the cultivated
field." "A sort of ancient claim that 'back to the land' is the
only solution of the social problem") Prof. G. Currie Martin).
If these be, as I believe they are, the leading principles of the ancient teaching of "Moses and the Prophets" on the Land Question, the most surprising thing about them is, perhaps, their modernity. The mode of their expression is of course, always colored by the Theocratic perceptions of the Hebrew Commonwealth. But when our own great legal and constitutional authorities tell us
47 Joshua Williams, On Real Property, Chapter 1.
48 ibid. 49 Blackstone 50 1 Samuel 12:12 51 Ex 22:29, 23:19, 24: 22, 26; Lev. 23:17; Num 15: 19-21; Deut 18:4; 2 Kings 4:42; Neh. 10:35, 37. 52 Deut. 26:1-11. So when Henry George, in drafting the first manifesto of the first National Society for the propagation of his teachings, wrote53 that "no number of individuals can justly grant away the equal rights of other individuals to land, and no generation can grant away the rights of future generations," he was merely re-echoing, as he would have been the first to admit, some of the most primitive doctrines on the Land Question. For, in the youth of the world, when the relation of man to the earth on which he lived was still simple and natural, was easier than it is now for men to see the truth about the Land Question steadily, and to see it whole. 53 Manifesto of the English Land
Restoration League (now the English League for the Taxation of Land
Values), 1884. The League was founded in March, 1883.
Again, when the modern Land Reformer draws from his general principles the practical deduction that the value of land should meet the cost of the public expenses, he is only restating, in terms of modern conditions, the truth that "the profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field." The
land which I do give to
them, even to the children of Israel." — Josh. 1:2, 6, 11, 23.
"Joshua took the whole land ... and ... gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes." — Josh. 6:23. "And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another." — Ezek. 47:14. § 1. THE Hebrew history tells us that the Law was promulgated in the wilderness at a time when the Israelites had as yet no land of their own to dwell in. Their wanderings at last brought them to the borders of the land of Canaan, and within sight of the fulfilment of the promise made to the founder of their race, the Chaldæan sheikh, Abraham. But they found the country already in possession of a number of tribes — the oft-mentioned "Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites," etc.54 — entrenched in their hill-fortresses. Moses was dead, having only seen the promised land from afar, from Mount Nebo.55 But Joshua, his appointed successor,56 led the nation in arms against the peoples of Canaan. The country to the east of the Jordan had, indeed, been already conquered,57 and allotted to the pastoral tribes58 of Reuben and Gad, and the "half-tribe" of Manasseh, on condition that the warriors of those tribes assisted the rest of the nation also to win its inheritance. Then followed a ruthless war of extermination against the peoples in possession. With a view to striking terror into their foes, Joshua took and burnt Jericho, utterly exterminating its inhabitants, and placing the rebuilding of the city under a ban.59 One after another, Canaanite strongholds were carried by assault, looted, and their inhabitants put to the sword.60 The Gibeonites, crafty in diplomacy, saved themselves from the general massacre by entrapping the Israelites into an alliance;61 but, although their lives were spared, their deceit was punished by reducing them to a servile condition. The remnant of the inhabitants, who could only be conquered gradually, were in later times "put to tribute."62 54 Ex. 3:8; Josh. 12:8, etc.
55 Deut. 34. 56 Num. 23:15-23. 57 Num. 21:21-35. 58 Num. 23; Deut. 3:19; Josh. 13:15-21, 24-32; Judg. 5:15,16. 59 Josh. 6:21, 24, 26. 60 Ai, Josh. 8:21; Makkedah, 10:20, 28; Libnah, 10:30; Lachish, 10:32; Eglon, 10:35; Hebron, 10:37; Debir, 10:39; Hazor, 11:10, 14 ("neither left they any to breathe"). Josh. 12:7-24 gives a list of thirty-one petty "kings" smitten by Joshua. "Assyrian inscriptions and portrayals abundantly testify to the barbarous practices that prevailed in ancient Asiatic warfare, when cities were stormed and sacked" (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 463a). See the story of Adonibezek (Judg. 1:3-7). In a note on "utterly destroy" (=" ban" or "devote"), the Rev. Prof. H. Wheeler Robinson (Century Bible at Deut. 20:J7) says: "The same word" with the same meaning, occurs in the inscription of Mesha (Moabite stone), where Mesha says that, having captured Nebd from Israel, he slew the whole of its seven thousand inhabitants, and dragged the vessels of Yahweh [Jehovah] before his god Kemosh [see I Kings 11:7], because he had 'devoted' it to Ashtar-Kemosh." For a later attempt to lessen the horrors of war, see Deut. 20:10-20, 21:10-14. On the interesting question of the relation between the story of the Conquest as told in Joshua, and the fragments of another and probably older tradition embodied in Judg/ 1:1-2:5, recent commentators should be consulted. 61 Josh. 9:3-27 62 Josh. 17:13; Judg, 1:27-36. Solomon put them to forced labor in the building of the Temple, etc. (I Kings 9:20, 21 ; 2 Chron. 2:17, 18, 8:7, 8). Part of the territory of Dan was not conquered till much later (Judg.. 18); Jebus (Jerusalem), not till the time of David (2 Sam. 5:6; I-Chron. 11:4). See also I Chron. 4:39-43, 5:10-22. § 2. The Hebrew view of the war of conquest is well expressed by one of the later writers— "For it was Thy will to destroy
by the hands of our fathers both those old inhabitants of Thy holy
land, whom Thou hatedst for doing most odious works of witchcrafts, and
wicked sacrifices; and also those merciless murderers of children, and
devourers of man's flesh, and the feasts of blood, with their priests
out of the midst of their idolatrous crew, and the parents, that killed
with their own hands souls destitute of help; that the land, which Thou
esteemedst above all other, might receive a worthy colony of God's
children."63
63 Wisd. 12:3-7. There are many references
in the O.T. to the sacrificing
of children to the local deities, most frequently in connection with
the adoption of the practice by the Israelites in imitation of their
neighbors. See Lev. 18:21-30, 20:1-5; Deut. 9:4, 5, 12:31; 2
Kings 16:3, 17:17, 21:6; 2 Chron. 23:3, 33:6; Ps. 106:34-39; Jer. 32:35;
cp. Mesha's sacrifice, 2 Kings 3:26,27.
§ 3. Not only the sacrifice of children, but also the degradation of both men and women, seem to have been inseparable from the obscene ritual with which the local Baals were worshipped. It is only when one realises that the sins which have linked the memory of Sodom and Gomorrah with undying infamy were part of the religious rites of the Hebrews' heretic neighbors,64 that it is possible to understand the savage hatred with which the Hebrew lawgivers and reformers assailed the idolatry which came so near, in their eyes, to being the unpardonable sin. It brought in its wake "red ruin and the breaking up of laws." It was more than a rival cult; it was the negation of moral and social order. There was no remedy for it but the extermination of all its professors. The Israelites conceived themselves as the instruments chosen and used by Jehovah to this end. "Conduct, character, is the one end of the Mosaic system. The heathen — the Canaanite nations especially — are punished not for false belief, but for vile actions."65 64 Lev. 12; Deut. 23:17,18; I Kings 14:24, 15:12,
22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; Mic. 1:5, 7; Hos. 4:13, 14.
65 Bishop Westcott, Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 139. He quotes Deut. 12:31; Lev. 18:24 ff. But behind the mission, there always lurked the question, Quis custodict ipsos custodes? [ ] The leaders of Hebrew thought had no hesitation as to the answer. It is one of the most insistent notes in Jewish literature. The Law which prescribed equal weights and measures for buying and selling between one citizen and another; which had only "one manner of law" for the home-born citizen and the alien immigrant;66 could not possibly fail, in a matter of such supreme importance, to apply the same law to the Israelite as to the Canaanite. If Israel polluted the land as his predecessors had done, his fate would be as theirs. The israelites may have been, at times, a little too conscious that they were "the salt of the earth." But there were always some among them who realised that "if the salt have lost his savor, it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."67 The legislators, the chroniclers, the reformers and the poets of Israel tell their people, in passages far too numerous to be fully quoted or even referred to, that drought and dearth,68 disease and pestilence,69 civil war and the breaking-up of the national unity,70 defeat before invading enemies,71 and, finally, captivity and exile;72 the "four sore judgments" of Ezekiel — "the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence"73 — were God's appointed punishments for the Israelites, if they lapsed into the idolatry which was the butt of the bitterest satire of their religious and political teachers,74 or committed the social injustices against which the stern prohibitions of the Law and the Prophets were directed.75 66 Deut. 25:13, 14; Lev. 24:22.
67 Matt. 5:13. 68 1 Kings 17; Jer. 8:13; 14. 69 Ex. 32:35. 70 1 Kings 11:30-33. 71 Jer. 19:6ff. 72 Deut. 4:25-28; 1 Chron. 5:25, 26; 2 Chron. 36:14 ff.; Ezra 5:12, 9:7; Ezek. 39:23; 2.Esd. 14:28-33; and, generally, Lev. 20:22; 26:14-39; Deut. 8:19,20; Ps. 78:55-64; Dan. 9:4-15; Jude 5,7. 73 Ezelc. 14:21; cp.Jer. 15:3.' 74 See, for instance, Isa. 44:9-20; Has. 8:6; Hab. 2:18-20; Wisd. 13:10- 14:2. 75 Jer 5:1-6, 6:11-13; 7; Ezek 22:29,31; Zech. 7:8-14; Hab. 1:1-6, etc. There is, indeed, at bottom, but little distinction, at least in Christian theology, between these two deadly sins. For the "covetousness" which the Decalogue forbade,76 and which the prophets denounced77 as the root cause of social robbery, of dire poverty amid increasing wealth,78 is bluntly described by St. Paul as "idolatry,"79 "a root of all kinds of evil," by which men are "led astray from the faith."80 The Christian who was a "fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator," was excommunicate.81 76 Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21.
77 Mic. 2:2; Hab. 2:9; Jer. 6:12, 13, 22:17; cp. Ps 10:3; Prov. 21:25, 26. 78 See Rev. A. C. Auchmuty, Dives and Pauper, sermon I. 79 Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:3; 5; Rom. 1:25, 29; cp. Mark 7:22; Luke 12:15. 80 I Tim. 6:10 [R.V] cp. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon. And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard these things: and they derided Him" (Luke 16:13,14). 81 I Cor. 5:10, 11, 6:9,10; cp. 2 Pet. 2:14. § 4. According to the Hebrew theory of land-holding, as we have seen, God was the only absolute Owner of land, while all God's children had equal rights in the use of it. "God, the King of the people, is the real proprietor of the land, and He gives it to the people only as beneficiaries."82 "What would now be called state-loan land, or royal-loan estates, was at that time regarded as being more directly Jehovah's estates, as hereditary land which the individual had on loan from Jehovah."83 82 Oehler, Theology of the O.T.,
i. 348.
83 Ewald, Antiquities of Israel (English trans. of 3rd ed.), 178 n. The method by which these principles were carried into practice was, of course, largely determined by the special circumstances and needs of an Eastern people, settling in a fertile land: "a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey;"84 "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat,85 and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not back anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayst dig brass."86 84 Ex. 3:8, 17; Num. 14:6-8; Jer. 11:5,
etc.
85 For the exportation of agricultural produce from Palestine, see Ezek. 27:17; 2Chron. 2:10. 86 Deut. 8:7-9; cp. 1:25, 11:9-12; Ezek. 20:6, 15; Neh. 9:25. The method, too, was strongly influenced by two great Hebrew conceptions: that of the family87 as the unit of the Nation; and that of the Nation itself as a larger family — the children of Abraham — closely bound together by a common descent and a common religion. "The land which the Lord thy God hath given thee" was not a mere façon de parler to the Hebrew; he conceived of his nation own race, "Israel," as a collectivity, almost as a personality. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt."88 God had given the fertile land of Canaan to the whole Hebrew nation as a common heritage, in which every family of the commonwealth had equal rights. 87 See, for instance, Ex. 20:5, 6; Lev.
20:5 ; Num 1:2; Deut. 5:9,
10, 25:10 (where "house" means "household,"
"family," as in Ex. 1:21); I Sam.20:6; 2Kings 9:26; Jer: 2:4. Of
the tribe as a larger family, Judg 13:2 (Dan), 17:7
(Judah). Owing to the practice of polygamy and the
inclusion of
slaves, the Hebrew "family" was larger than ours (Job
1:3; Jud 4:10). The family tie bound the next-of-kin, in case of
need, to redeem a man's inheritance (Lev. 25:25, Ruth 4:1-10; Jer.
32:6-12), or his person (Lev. 25:47-49), and, if he were
murdered, to take up the blood-feud (Gen. 9:5,6; Ex. 21:12;
Deut.19:6; 2 Sam, 14:6,7). In earlier times the family as a whole
could be punished for the offence of one of its members (as
Achan, Josh. 7:20,24; cp. Gen. 4416, 17), but the
Deuteronomic legislation forbade this (Deut. 24:16; 2 Kings 14:6),
and some of the prophets protested against it (Jer. 31:29, 30;
Ezek. 18:1-4). The passionate desire of the
Hebrews for children (Ps. 127:3-5), which finds frequent and often
pathetic expression in the literature, had a curious legislative
outcome in the law of the Levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5-10;
Matt.22:23-27; Luke 20:27 ff.). The "first commandment with
promise" (Eph: 6:2) makes continuance in the land dependent upon the
propert maintenance of the family organization. (Ex. 20:12; Deut.
5:16).
88 Hos. 11:1, and Ex. 4:22, 23; cp. "thy brother Israel" (Num. 20:14) ;" thy brother Jacob" (Obad. 10); "King of Jacob" (Isa. 41:21). § 5. The problem which the Mosaic Law set itself to solve was, therefore: How to secure, at least within the limits of the Hebrew Commonwealth, to each family and to every generation, the equal right to the use of "the land which the Lord their God had given them." The social organisation of the Hebrews was on such a primitive model that the problem was comparatively free from complications. They were almost entirely an agricultural and pastoral people; a republic of farmers and shepherds. After the conquest they dwelt in villages89 of tents: the "fenced cities" of the Canaanites which had been captured had been destroyed; many others were still in Canaanite hands: so that, in case of a Philistine or Midianite raid, the Israelites had to take refuge in caves or mountain fastnesses.90 89 Judg. 5:7; cp. 2 Kings 13:5. "To your
tents, O Israel,"
long remained the formula of dispersion in defeat or revolt (1 Kings
12:16; 2 Chron. 10:16; cp. 1 Sam. 4:10, 13:2; 2 Sam. 18:17, 19:8, 20:1,
22; I Kings 8:66; 2 Chron. 25:22). Later we sometimes
find "every man to his city" (I Sam. 8:22; I Kings 22:36; Ezra 2:1;
Neh. 7:6).
90 Judg, 6:2; I Sam. 13:6. There was no strong central government. Sea-going commerce was, during all their earlier history, practically interdicted to them by the fact that the northern ports of the Mediterranean coast were in the possession of the Phoenicians, while in the south the Philistine immigrants "from Caphtor"91 held the maritime plain, with its seaports from Gaza to Joppa, and commanded the main caravan-route between Syria and Egypt. Even in the first century of the Christian era, Josephus gives this fact as the reason why the Hebrews were less known to the Greeks than were the Phoenicians and the Egyptians. "We neither inhabit a maritime country," he says, "nor do we delight in merchandise, nor in such intercourse with other men as arises from it, but the cities we dwell in are remote from the sea, and, having a fruitful country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only."92 There is said to be no native Hebrew word for seaport.93 91 ? Crete. Deut. 2:23; Amos 9:7; Josh.
13:2-6; Judg. 1:31.
92 Against Apion, i. 60. 93 The first notice of an Israelite navy is in the time of Solomon (I Kings 9:26). It had its headquarters at Ezion-Geber, at the head of the Gulf of Akabah, a branch of the Red Sea. Tyrian sailors had to be imported to instruct the Hebrews in seamanship (2 Chron. 8:18, 9:21). Internal trade also appears to have been carried on mainly by the aborigines.94 Mining and manufacture, as we know them, were practically unknown to the Israelites; the metals appear to have been mostly imported.95 Always excepting the tribe of Levi — to be specially considered in Chapter VI — there was virtually only one class among the Hebrews, the great mass of working farmers and shepherds. Gideon was "threshing wheat by the winepress" when the messenger of Jehovah called him to deliver the people from the Midianite invader.96 Even after he had been appointed king by Samuel, and the choice had been ratified by a vote of the people, Saul had to be summoned from his farm — as Cincinnatus was called to deliver the Romans from the Æquians — to raise the siege of Jabesh-Gilead.97 David was "keeping the sheep," when he was selected as Saul's successor.98 Elisha was "plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him," when the prophet's mantle fell upon him,99 and Amos, the great Radical reformer, was "an herdsman, and a dresser of sycomone trees";100 and so on. Uzziah, among the later kings, was distinguished by his love of husbandry.101 "Hate not laborious work," so said "a man of great diligence and wisdom among the Hebrews," "neither husbandry, which the Most High hath ordained."102 94 See Isa. 23:2, 8, 11 (R.V.m.) and 18. Ewald conjectures that Maktesh (in Zeph. 1:11) was the Phoenician quarter of Jerusalem. In Prov. 31:24, "merchant" is in the original, "Canaanite" [R.V.m,]; much as, in modern times, "Jew" has sometimes been used for "money-lender" or "usurer." So also R.V.m. in Hos. 12:7; Zech. 14:21; Ezek. 16:29, 17:4. The merchants in Jerusalem after the return from captivity were Tyrians (Neh. 13:16). In earlier times, we read of caravans of Ishmaelites (or Midianites) trading in spices and slaves (Gen. 37: 25, 27, 28, 36, 39:1). 95 But see Deut. 8:9.
96 Judg 6:11. 97 1 Sam. 6:5. 98 1 Sam. 16:11. 99 1 Kings 19:19. 100 Amos 1:1; 7:14 (R.V.) 101 2 Chron. 26:10 102 Ecclus. vii. 15. The honor in which agriculture was held is curiously shown in some of the provisions of the Law, e.g. Deut. 20:6 (exemption from military service), 20:19, 20 (fruit trees not to be cut down even to serve the exigencies of a siege, but cp. 2 Kings 3:19, 25). The story of Cain, who was "a tiller of the ground" and afterwards "builded a city" (Gen. 4:2, 17; cp. 3:17-19, 8:21; 2 Esd. 7:11-14), probably embodies the traditions and prejudices of the earliest Israelites in their nomad stage, when the patriarchs wandered from place to place with their flocks and herds -- the "wandering Aramaeans" of Deut. 26:5 (R.V.m.); Gen. 46:32, 34. According to Josephus (Antiq.l. 2:54, 62), Cain was the first to enclose and plough land. A similar significance may attach to the story of Noah and his vineyard (Gen. 9:20 ff.). § 6. What the Israelites required, therefore, in order to embody in practice the general principle that God had given them equal rights to the use of the earth, was that the Law should secure them the right of equal access to the land of Canaan for the purpose of exercising their labor upon it. The land belonged in usufruct (subject to the sovereign rights of the unseen King) to the whole Nation; every family in the Commonwealth had equal rights in it. The natural and easy way for giving effect to those equal rights, under the circumstances of their time and place, was by an equal division of the land itself among all the families of Israel. The process by which the division was to be carried out was prescribed beforehand by Moses. A census of the people, by tribes and families, was taken in the plains of Moab on the south-eastern border of the promised land.103 A body of representative men, specially selected — not unlike what we should now call a Royal Commission — was charged with the duty of dividing the land. It consisted of one representative from each tribe under the presidency of Joshua ben Nun and Eleazar the Priest.104 To secure fairness of division as between the tribes, the final apportionment was to be by lot.105 Every tribe, and every family in each tribe (Levi only excepted), had its proportionate share of the common heritage. "To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance; to every one [of the tribal chiefs] shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him."106 Even in those early times, we find, in connection with the division of the land, a remarkable recognition of women's rights.107 103 Num. 26:1-51.
104 Num. 34:16-29. 105 Num. 26:55, 56. Cp; Ezek. 47:22, 23, where the "stranger" is to have his share in the land equally with the born Israelite. 106 Num. 26:52-54, 33:54. Render with Prof. Kennedy (Century Bible, ad loc.): "For the (tribe or clan that is) large, thou shalt make its inheritance large, and for that which is small thou shalt make its inheritance small; according to its census return shall its inheritance be given to each (tribe or clan)." The allotments were measured by a (measuring) "line" or "cord "(Mic. 2:5; Amos 7:17). 107 On the ex parte application of the daughters of Zelophebad (Num. 26:33, 27:1-11; Josh. 17:3, 4), The decision was reviewed on appeal, and made subject to a proviso for the protection of inter-tribal rights (the representatives of the Manassite clan Machir, appellants) (Num. 36:1-12). The records of the actual division in accordance with these "commandments and judgments of Moses" are to be found in the Book of Joshua.108 A commission of survey was appointed (three men from each tribe); a report was drawn up; and "Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel divided [the land] for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. So they made an end of dividing the country."109 108 Num. 36:13; Josh. 13-19.
109 Josh. 19:51; Num. 34:13, 16-29. Cp. Ezek. 48:1-7, 23-29. § 7. Josephus tells us that the land was not divided into equal areas, but according to its value for agricultural purposes; though whether he was preserving an ancient tradition or merely putting a probable gloss upon the existing record is not easy to determine. However, the passage is worth transcribing — "So
[Joshua] sent men to measure
their country, and sent with them some geometricians, who could not
easily fail of knowing the truth, on account of their skill in that
art. He also gave them a charge to estimate the measure of that part of
the land that was most fruitful, and what was not so good; for such is
the nature of the land of Canaan, that one may see large plains, and
such as are exceeding fit to produce fruit, which yet, if they were
compared to other parts of the country, might be reckoned exceeding
fruitful, yet if they be compared with the fields about Jericho, and to
those that belong to Jerusalem, will appear to be of no account at all.
And although it so falls out, that these people have but a very little
of this sort of land, and that it is for the main mountainous also, yet
does it not come behind other parts, on account of its exceeding
goodness and beauty: for which reason Joshua thought the land for the
tribes should be divided by estimation of its goodness, rather than the
largeness of its measure, it often happening that one acre of some sort
of land was equivalent to a thousand other acres"110
110 Josephus, Antiq.,v. i. 76-78
§ 8. The boundaries of the family allotments were carefully marked, and the sanctity of those "landmarks"111 — the outward and visible signs of the equal right to the use of the earth — as protected by the public and solemn denunciation of a curse against him who should dishonestly tamper with them. The whole Nation was convened in solemn assembly on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal. To adopt the language of the modern newspaper, the Levites proposed to this mass meeting a series of resolutions, to which the people gave them unanimous assent. Those resolutions classed the removal of the landmark — the infringement of the equal right of access to land — with these social sins which bring a curse upon the Nation; with the sins which break up families, which reduce men to the level of the brute; with idolatry, adultery, and incest; with the perversion of justice, and treacherous murder, and the crime of the hired assassin.112 For, to the Hebrew, the landmark was a sacred symbol.113 But it was not the symbol of private "property" in land. 111 LANDMARK.-- An object such
as a stone, a heap of stones, or a tree with a mark on its bark,
intended
to mark the limit of a field, a farm, or the property of an individual.
In Palestine, these landmarks are scrupulously respected; and in
passing
along a road or pathway one may observe from time to time a stone
placed
by the edge of the field from which a shallow furrow has been ploughed,
marking the limits of cultivation of neighboring proprietors. . . . In
Egypt, the land had to be remeasured and allotted after each inundation
of
the Nile, and boundary-stones placed at the 'junction 'of two
properties.
A collection of such objects is to be seen in the Assyrian Room,
British Museum." --Prof. Edwd. Hull in Hastings' Dictionary of the
Bible, iii. 24.
112 Deut. 27:11-26, 19:14 ("remove"=Hebr. "set back"); Josh. 8:33; Job 29:2; Prov. 22:28, 23:10; Isa. 5:8; Hos. 5:10; Mic. 2:2. "The Hebr. word in Deut. 19:14, and elsewhere, is gebul, lit. 'border' or 'boundary.' Instead, therefore, of 'Thou shalt not remove the landmark, etc., we should translate, 'Thou shalt not move the boundary of thy neighbor fixed by the ancients, i.e., in order to add to thy portion what properly belongs to thy neighbor. In arable land, which is mainly important, the usual boundary line is a furrow of double width, with a stone set up at either end" (Temple Dict. of the Bible, p. 376). 113 The Oxford Bible gives a picture (Plate
L) of a Babylonian
landmark (Brit. Mus. No. 106). The figures upon the upper part of the
stone are supposed to represent certain gods and signs of the zodiak -
the inscription upon the reverse gives
the details of the situation and price of the land and the name of
the land-surveyor. It closes with a series of curses upon any official
or
other person who shall remove this "ever-lasting landmark," or
attempt to interfere with the boundaries of the land described upon it.
The gods are entreated to destroy any such offender and his children
for ever and ever. (See
also Oxford Helps for the Study of the Bible, p. [77] and Plate
cxi.). Numa ordered the Romans to mark the boundaries of their lands by
stones, which were consecrated to the
god Terminus. At these stones yearly sacrifices were to be offered. So,
Jacob offered sacrifices at the heap of stones marking the boundary
between himself and Laban (Gen. 31:43-55); perhaps a tradition of
an 'ancient delimitation of frontier between Israel and
Syria - The Dean of Durham writes to the author: "The 'landmark'
hereabouts used to be a rude cross set up between one property
and another. We have an example of one of these in our Library
Collection
of ancient stones. It used to mark off the Prior's fields from those of
the Bursar. It signified the ownership of God over all men's
possessions in land."
§ 9. The story of Ahab and Naboth
illustrates, in a terrible dramatic way, at once the passionate
attachment of the Hebrew to the "inheritance of his fathers," and the
iniquity of the attempt to dispossess him of it, even by so mild a
method as expropriation with compensation.114 M. Renan has, indeed,
attempted to whitewash Ahab, whom he regarded as a wise and progressive
monarch, thwarted in a scheme of public improvement by the obstinate
perversity of those clerical anarchists, the prophets, and grossly
libelled by the Tory High-Churchman who wrote that part of the Book of
the Kings! The argument is original and amusing — but hardly
convincing.115114 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9:10, 25, 26.
115 Renan, Histoire du peup.ted'Israel (1881;1), ii. 293. § 10. We get another vivid glimpse of an episode in the agelong struggle for the rights of man against the encroachments of monopoly in the dramatic scene which Micah describes, and in which he himself plays the leading part. Like his contemporary, the courtier and politician Isaiah, this peasant leader from a southern village denounced the land-grabbers to their faces — "Woe
to them that devise
iniquity and work evil upon their beds. When the morning is light, they
practise it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet
fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away; and they
oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.
"Therefore, thus saith the Lord: Behold, against his family do I devise an evil [viz. the yoke of captivity] from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk haughtily for it is an evil time. In that day shall they116 take up a parable against you, and lament with the lamentation, 'It is done' [R.V.m], and say, We be utterly spoiled; He changeth the portion of my people; how doth He remove it from me? to the rebellious [heathen] He divideth our fields. Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast the line by lot in the congregation of the Lord," 116 "They" is indefinite [A.V. "one"], and
means the
professional mourners hired for funerals in the East.
That is, captivity is to be the punishment of the land monopolists. They shall no more have a share in the land which the Lord their God had given them, because they have violated the law of equal rights. But the landgrabbers protest, indignantly, and with a touch of sanctimoniousness— "Prophesy
ye not. … They shall
not prophesy of these things [R.V.m.]; their reproaches never cease.
Shall it be said, O house of Jacob, 'Is the Spirit of the Lord
straitened?' Are these His doings?"
But the prophet will have no such conception of an easy-going God who overlooks crimes against justice, and in His name he replies— "Do
not My words do good to him
that walketh uprightly? But yesterday [R.V.m]. My people is risen up as
an enemy: ye strip the robe [outer robe= 'overcoat') from off the
garment from them that pass by securely as men averse front war. The
women of My people ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their
young children ye take away My glory117 for ever. Arise ye, and depart;
for this (land) is not your rest: because of uncleanness, ye shall be
destroyed [LXX] with a grievous destruction. … Hear, I pray you, ye
heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel; is it not for you to
know judgment? who hate the good, and love the evil; who [like
faithless shepherds devouring the sheep] pluck off their skin from off
them, and their flesh from off their bones who also eat the flesh of My
people; and they flay their skin from off them, and break their bones:
yea, they chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the
caldron. … Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and
rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all
equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. …
Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem
shall become heaps, and the mountain of the House118 as the high places
of a forest."119
117 Viz. the privilege of belonging to the
congregation of the Lord, which is
lost when the children are sold into a heathen land [Century Bible,
n. ad loc.]. These men rob their fellow-citizens of their
rights in the land, evict women from their homes, sell children into
slavery, and strip the very clothes off their backs.
118 i.e., the mountain on which the Temple stood, as is clear from 4:1. 119 Mic. 2, 3 [R.V.] §11. "Selfishness," says a modern writer,120 referring to a similar but shorter passage in Isa. v. 8-10, "is the great sin in all ages and peoples. As soon as national institutions have awakened the sense of personality and the feeling of self-respect, the desire of accumulating wealth grows with them. And in no form is it more liable to abuse than in connection with possession of land. Men desire, by an almost universal instinct, to possess property in land. … Yet, since the land cannot be increased in quantity, its possession by one man is the exclusion of another, and the Hebrew laws endeavor to meet this difficulty by special provisions, the breach or evasion of which the prophet now denounces in His first 'woe' on the selfish landowner. He who can join house to house, and lay field to field, when he knows, and long has known, face to face, the very man, wife and child whom he has dispossessed, and can drive out by his own simple act his fellow-men to be desolate in their poverty, in order that he may be alone in his riches, may expect a punishment proportioned to his crime. Such men were the nobles of Judah and Israel throughout the land; and the prophet heard ringing in his ears, the declaration of Jehovah, the King of the land, that the great and fair palaces should become as desolate as the peasants' and yeomen's cottages which had made place for them: — the vineyard of ten acres shall yield but eight gallons of wine, and the cornfield shall give back but a tenth part of the seed sown in it." 120 Sir Edward Strachey, Bart., Jewish History and Politics, p. 64.
Eighteen centuries earlier than Sir E. Strachey, another writer, a Jew, paraphrasing and annotating the Law of his Nation for the benefit of the Greeks, had thus summed up the matter — "Let
it not be esteemed lawful
to remove boundaries, neither our own, nor of those with whom we are at
peace. Have a care you do not take those landmarks away, which are, as
it were, a divine and unshaken limitation of rights made by God
Himself, to last for ever, since this going beyond limits, and gaining
ground upon others, is the occasion of wars and seditions; for those
that remove boundaries are not far off an attempt to subvert the
laws."121
121 Josephus, Antiq. iv: 8, 225.
§ 12. It is plain that the method adopted in the Commonwealth of Israel for the practical assertion of the equal right to the use of the earth, however good for the time and place, could not possibly be followed in a modern State, with its complicated social organisation and its varied agricultural, mining, manufacturing and trading interests. But "God fulfils Himself in many ways," and it is quite possible to hold that the Mosaic Land Laws were absolutely right in principle, and also right in method for their own time; without holding it either necessary or desirable to graft the details of early Hebrew legislation on a later and alien Western civilisation. Just as we have long learnt to worship God without filling our churches with the reek of burning bullocks, so, in these latter days, we are learning how to make equal rights in land a reality without an equal division of the land itself. Although such a division is one of the possible ways of asserting the doctrine of equal rights, it ceases to be a convenient or even a just way as soon as civilisation passes beyond the pastoral and agricultural stage. As we shall see later, the special position of the tribe of Levi in the Hebrew State led to the introduction, in their case, of a modification which directly suggests the method of modern Land Reform.122 Fortunately it is not even difficult to assert an equal and common right without physical division. If a father gives his children a cake, they naturally assert their equal rights by cutting it up into equal shares. But if he gives them a pony, they divide, not the pony, but the use of it. If he leaves them a house in equal shares, they may either share the occupancy of the house equally, or occupy the house unequally, according to the need of each for house-room, paying the rental into a common fund, from which each draws an equal share; or they may let the whole house to some one else and equally divide the rent. A proposal to divide a railway — permanent way, buildings and rolling-stock — among the shareholders would meet with scanty favor at a shareholders' meeting: They know well that they divide the railway best by dividing its earnings in the form of dividend. So with the land. It is still true that all men have equal rights in land; it is the joint-stock property of the whole people; every citizen has one share in it. It is no longer true that all men require to use land in equal portions, and more than that every railway-shareholder travels an equal number of train-miles. It is not true that equal portions of land, even if the land were so divided, are even approximately of equal value. Today when we measure land rather by value than by area, and then only a comparatively small percentage of the people is directly engaged in tilling the soil, the natural and easy and inevitable way of asserting our equal rights in the common heritage is to divide the value of the land (i.e. "economic rent"), by having it paid into a common fund, and by applying it to the common uses in which all can share. "The profit of the earth is for all," and it expresses itself in land value. Sutherland clearances and Glenbeigh evictions are modern survivals of the primitive, brutal methods of a land-mark remover who does his business inartistically. These methods have become unpopular, because they allow the character and the results of the transaction to be seen in all their native horror, and because they have the damning defect of being not only brutal, but — unnecessary. The exact modern equivalent of the sin of "setting-back" one's neighbors' landmarks is a more subtle and therefore a more dangerous, because a less disgusting, thing. It is the private appropriation of the land value which the community creates. It is a sin which brings a brood of curses, both upon him who gains, and upon those who lose. It is a sin of which all of us, and not merely the landlords, need to be called upon to repent. For in a democratically governed country, with a wide (though not yet nearly wide enough) franchise, when wrong is done by law, the people who made the law, or who, having the power, neglect to repeal it, are as much responsible for the wrong done, as are those who profit by the law while it stands. 122 See Chapter 6, § 3,
below.
A large and increasing body of students of social questions are urging that the true key to Social Reform, the surest and safest foundation for Social Justice, lies in the application of the principles of the Old Testament to the modern Land Question, by the method advocated by Henry George; and that, under modern conditions, the first step towards reasserting the ancient and eternal truths which informed the Mosaic Land Laws must be the Taxation of Land Values. Chapter
4: The Year of Jubilee: Land and Liberty
"And
they praised the God of
their fathers, because he had given them freedom and liberty."—1
Esd.
4:62.
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty"—2 Cor. 3:17. "Ye shall … proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."—Lev. 25:10. § 1. The equal division of the land gave to every family in the Commonwealth of Israel direct access to the soil. There was little room for the growth of involuntary poverty in a community whose Law did not permit the divorce of land from labor. "He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread," "shall be satisfied with bread."123 It is very significant that while Moses (no doubt "for the hardness of their hearts," Mark 10:5) did permit to the Hebrews a certain form of chattel-slavery — then probably universal among Eastern nations — though hedging it about with unusually stringent limitations,124 yet he prohibited absolutely that more insidious form of slavery, landlordism, which reduces men to subjection by monopolising the natural elements necessary to their existence. "The bread of the needy is their life: he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbor's living slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder."125 123 Prov. 12:11, 28:19.
124 Note, in addition to what is given below, the effort to protect slaves against injury by their masters (Ex 21:20, 26, 27; cp. Lev. 24:17-22), and the attempts to mitigate the position of the woman slave (Ex. 21:7-11; Deut. 21:10-14). Asylum for escaped slaves (Deut. 23:15, 16). "Servant" in the English versions = "bondman" (R.V. m. Ex. 21:2, etc.), or "slave." "The Deuteronomic law in favor of the fugitive slave is in marked contrast with the severe enactments in the Code of Hammurabi" (S. A. Cook, The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, p. 274). 125 Ecclus. 34:21, 22, curiously echoed by Shakespeare (Merch. of Ven., Act IV, Scene I): "You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.." Cp. Deut. 24:6: "No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man's life to pledge." § 2. So far, then, as the first settlers in the land of Canaan were concerned, they all had a fair start. Wage slavery and undeserved poverty were unknown. The legislator was able to contemplate the possibility of an ideal state of society "when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it"; but "only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day."126 So long as the Law was kept, no Hebrew need toil for sweated wages127 for a brother Hebrew. By his own labor, under the Law which secured to him the equal right to the use of the earth, he could produce all that he needed, without being beholden to or controlled by any one else. Under such a Law, the worker's wages consisted of the whole of his product. He was not compelled to share what he produced either with a landlord or with an exploiter of labor. "Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof?"128 "They shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble."129 "The husbandman that laboreth must be the first to partake of the fruits."130 "Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? . . For it is written in the Law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith He it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written that he that ploweth the land plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope."131 126 Deut 15:4,5.
127 "The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of His people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord of Hosts?" (Isa. 3:14, 15). 128 Prov. 27:18. 129 Isa. 65:21-23; cp. Amos 5:11: "Forasmuch therefore as ye trample upon the poor, and take exactions from him of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink the wine thereof" [R. V.], and also, in the same sense, Lev. 26:15, 16; Deut. 28:30, 38-41; Mic. 6:10-15; Zeph. 1:13. 130 2 Tim 2:6 [R.V.] 131 1 Cor. 9:7-10; Deut 25:4; 1 Tim 5:18. § 3. But it is written that "God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."132 There was a good deal of human nature about the descendants of the crafty Jacob. They were subject to at least their share of human weaknesses and imperfections, and were, moreover, liable, like other folk, to accident and misfortune. It was necessary that the Law should take this into account, and provide, not only for a fair start in the first instance, but also for a continuance of fair conditions. Each succeeding generation had the same equal right to the use of the earth. So abhorrent to the Mosaic conception of justice was the idea of a landless proletariat, that special provision was made to secure, once in each generation, a restoration of the original right of equal access to the natural opportunities of labor. Hence the institution of the Year of Jubilee. 132 Eccles. 7:29.
In spite of many learned disquisitions and much acute speculation, the derivation of the word "Jubilee" remains among the unsettled questions of Hebrew philology. Happily, the nature and significance of the institution itself is not open to doubt. No two things bearing the same name could well differ more completely than the jubilee of the Hebrew Commonwealth and the Victoria celebrations in connection with which its name was taken in vain. Jubilæus est ad universam civitatem restaurandam.133 It had nothing whatever to do with the reign of a monarch. One of the greatest Hebrew statesmen solemnly warned his nation against the evils of monarchy, and showed them how inevitably great social and political evils — the rise of a privileged class, the growth of a landed aristocracy, the subjection of the common people, the manufacture of flunkeys, the taxation of food, the erection of a standing army134 — would follow upon such an act of treason to the unseen King135 as the establishment of a dynasty. 133 Thus tersely Ewald, De feriarum
Hebr. origine ac ratione
(1841), p. 25. In his later Altertkiimcr Volkes Israels he
has discussed the subject fully.
134 1 Sam. 8:11-18; cp. 13:1, 2; 14:52; I Kings 4:7, 18:5; "the king's mowings" (Amos 7:1); the building of Jehoiakim's palace by forced, unpaid labor (Jer. 22:13-19); Ezek. 46:18; Deut. 17:14-20. 135 1 Sam. 10:19, 12:12,19; Isa, 41:21' Hos. 8:4 and 13:10, 11. There is an early tradition that Gideon, the "Judge" or Deliverer, refused an offer of hereditary kingshlp. Note his reason as given in Judg. 8:23. §4. In our "Diamond Jubilee" procession, on 22nd June 1897, the visible embodyments of Samuel's forecast were paraded before the eyes of an admiring public; a procession of rent-eaters and tax-eaters, titled and other, along a lane of forty thousand fighting men. The then Prince of Wales fathered a "Jubilee" fund for postponing the public support and control of the public hospitals. His gracious consort started another fund for giving one square meal for once in a while to some of the beggars and outcasts who people the slums. But a real Jubilee on Old Testament lines would, if carried into practice in Bible-reading England, render five-sixths of the hospitals unnecessary136 by remedying the social injustices which breed avoidable sickness and cause premature death; and, by establishing equity as the basis of social relations, would abolish the slums, and impose starvation as a penalty only upon wilful and obstinate idlers.137 To the Hebrews, the Jubilee meant a year's holiday.138 The Victorian equivalent for this was a day's holiday by Royal proclamation — a holiday for which many workmen had to pay by the loss of a day's wages — and even this (so incurably are we given over to the worship of Mammon) was announced, not as a national holiday, or as a religious holy-day, but as a "Bank" holiday. This was entirely worthy of a nation of shopkeepers, who exploited even a revel of "loyalty" in the interests of Diamond Jubilee Syndicates, gathering unearned increment along the line of route at an "expected," but not always realised, "profit" to the shareholders of thousands per cent. 136 St. Paul chides the Corinthian
Christians for profaning the Sacrament of Brotherhood; "For this
cause," he says, "many are
weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (1 Cor. 11:30).
137 Thess. 3:10. 138 i.e., from their usual agricultural work (Lev. 25:11, 12). In England, with its immense wealth and its chronic poverty, with its Empire upon which the sun never sets and its slums where the sun never rises, there is nothing more greatly to be desired than a real Jubilee. Once in every generation the Hebrew people were called to a National rejoicing: not because the courtiers' prayer, "O King, live for ever" had sounded in royal ears for half a century, but because the reign of social justice was being re-established; because the erstwhile disinherited was once more a free man and a citizen. If the principles of the Hebrew land laws were applied under our constitutional monarchy, we could with the greater heartiness "sing with heart and voice, God save the King," because we should no longer fear that a crowd of hungry men might send back, as a sort of dismal echo, the dreary chorus, "We've got no work to do." § 5. For once in every fifty years139 — which we may take roughly to represent a generation of Hebrew life — the original equal division of the land was restored. Whatever inequalities might have crept in, through the foolishness or improvidence of some, or through the selfishness or injustice of others, were redressed when, in the fiftieth year, "on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement," the trumpet of the Jubilee sounded throughout all the land and proclaimed the national festival of Land and Liberty. "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee to you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family."140 139 The Book of Jubilees (second century
B.C.) makes the Jubilee cycle one of forty-nine years. But
according to Jos. (Antiq. iii.
12. 282), and most other authorities, it was the
fiftieth year:. Ewald (Antiq., Engl. transl. of 3rd ed., pp.
374,
375) says that it included the last half of the 49th and the first half
of the 50th year; and that it "naturally began with the preparatory
day of the Autumn festival, after the year's harvest of every kind was
complete."
140 Lev. 25:8-10. There is no definite historical record of the actual observance of the Year of jubilee. (But see Jewish Encyclopedia, x. 607, for the tradition of its observance before the captivity.) "On a close inspection nothing is more certain than that the idea of the Jubilee is the last ring of a chain which only attains in it the necessary conclusion, and that the history of the Jubilee, in spite of its at first seemingly strange aspect, was once for centuries a reality in the national life of Israel" (Ewald, Antiq. 378). "It is impossible to think that (as sometimes been supposed) the institution of the Jubillee is a mere paper-law -- a theoretical completion of the system of seven; at least as far as concerns the land (for the periodical redistribution of which there are... analogies in other nations) it must date from ancient times in Israel (Driver, Literature of the O.T., 7th ed. p. 57). Ezekiel (7:12, 13) mentions its non-observance as one of the signs that "the end is come" upon the nation for its abominable misdoings (7:2,3). It is to be noted that the Hebrew's estate in land is always spoken of as his "possession" or his "inheritance," and never as his "ownership" or "property." Ewald141 seems to have expressed the distinction with exactness: — "The existence of property is
assumed by every system of legislation, even the earliest, because such
a system can only follow on a long period of social development and
exertion. But Jahveism assumes more than this. For, according to it,
each of the tribes of Israel is to have its landed possessions, and each individual
household in the tribe is to have its definite portion of the land
belonging to the tribe, which is for ever to remain the inalienable heritage of this house and form
the sure basis of all property."142
141 Antiq. Isr. (Engl. transl. of
3rd. ed.), p. 177.
142 Bishop Westcott has an interesting note (at Heb. 6:12) on the Biblical use of kanpovouia (= inheritance). He says,"The idea of inheritance which [the Gr. words used in the LXX] convey is in some important respects different from that which we associate with the word. . . . The dominant Biblical sense of 'inheritance' is the enjoyment by a rightful title of that which is not the fruit of personal exertion. . there is no necessary thought of succession to one who has passed away" (Bishop Westcott on Hebrews, 2nd edit., pp. 167-169). The words which I have italicised show how aptly the word "inheritance" is used of land as distinguished from the results of labor. The Hebrew did not own land. It was not "his own" to do as he liked with; "the land shall not be sold out and out;" it was only his to use, subject to the equal rights of every other Hebrew. He only enjoyed an interest in land, and, if he sold anything, he could only sell that interest.143 He could not sell the equal interest of his children or his children's children.144 The land of Canaan was, as it were, held from God on lease, by the families of Israel. At the end of every fifty years, all the leases fell in simultaneously, and God made a fresh grant of the land, for another fifty years, to all the families of His people, in equal shares as at the first. Hence the Hebrew who, voluntarily or through some compulsion, "sold his land," sold, not the ownership of the land, but the "fag-end of the lease" — till the next year of Jubilee.145 When the Jubilee proclamation again sounded from the sacred rams' horns, the land came back to his family, all contracts of sale to the contrary notwithstanding, and his children enjoyed the same advantage of a "fair start" as their father had had before them. 143 It is a maxim of English law that no
one can give a better title than he has. Nemo dat quod non habet. See
Broom's
Legal Maxims, 6th edit., 761. Nemo potest plus juris ad
alium transferre quam ipse habet. Coke's Littleton, 309.
144 This natural and inalienable right to the equal use and enjoyment of land is so apparent, that it has been recognised by men wherever force or habit has not blunted first perceptions. To give but one instance: The white settlers of New Zealand found themselves unable to get from the Maoris what the latter considered a complete title to land, because, although a whole tribe might have consented to a sale, they would still claim with every new child born among them an additional payment on the ground that they had parted with only their own rights, and could not sell those of the unborn. The Government was obliged to step in and settle the matter by buying land for a tribal annuity, which every child that born acquires a share (Henry George, Progress and Roverty, Book VII, Chapter 1). 145 This is very clearly illustrated by the fact that a man who "bought" a field from another and "devoted it to the Lord" could only "devote" the value of the usufruct till the next year of Jubilee, when the land itself returned "to him to whom the possession of the land belonged" (Lev. 27:22-24). § 6. It is plain that, under such a Law, the growth of a wealthy landlord class with large estates on the one hand, and of a landless146 pauper class on the other, were rendered alike impossible. Although there might be, and naturally would be, inequalities arising from varying degrees of industry, there would be no such extremes of poverty and riches as we are familiar with. The two idle classes — the wealthy idlers of the West end and the starving idlers of the East — which disgrace our modern "civilisation," could not coexist with the equality of opportunity secured by the Hebrew Law. The prayer of Agur, the son of Jakeh, perhaps represents the ideal of such a society. "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me; lest I be full and deny Thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain."147 "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt."148 A writer in the Book of Proverbs tells us that "much food is in the tilled land of the poor; but there is that is destroyed by reason of injustice,"149 while Isaiah150 drives the lesson home by his description of the barrenness of the land under monopoly. "There is that withholdeth what is justly due, but it tendeth only to want. ... He that withholdeth corn [and, may we not add, he that withholdeth the land on which alone the corn can be grown], the people shall curse him"151 "As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool."152 For "better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice."153 146 Le but principal de cette institution
etait de maintenir
autant de possible l'egalite primitive du partage des terres, de
reparer
les perturbations arrivees dans le courant de quarante-neuf ans, et de
prevenir ainsi le complet et durable apprauvissement de certaines
familles plus malheureuses que d'autres (Dict. Encycl. de la Theol. Catholique,
s.v., Jubile).
"With the consistent administration of this 1aw, a class wholly
without property would have been impossible in Israel" (Oehler,
Theol. of the O.T.,i. 348). Jahn (Biblical Archaeology)
well describes the Jubilee as "a regulation which prevented the
rich from coming into possession [by "free trade in land"] of
large tracts of land, and then leasing them out in small parcels to the
poor; a practice which anciently prevailed, and does to this
day, in the East." [Heinrich Hein writes: Moses endeavored to
bring property into harmony with morality, with the true law of
reason, and this he accomplished by the introduction of the Year of
Jubilee, in which alienated land that was inherited . . . fell back to
the
original owner, regardless of the manner in which it had been disposed
of. This
institution forms the most decided contrast to that "outlawry" with the
Romans, where after the lapse of a certain time the
actual possessor of a property could not be compelled by the legitimate
owner to return the property, if he could not bring evidence to show
that
he had demanded restitution in due legal form. This last condition
left the field open to every possible fraud, especially in a state
where
despotism and jurisprudence were in bloom, and where the lawful
possessor had in his power all the means of intimidation, especially
when confronted by the poor man who could not afford the expenses which
a contest involved. The Roman was soldier
and lawyer at the same time, and he knew how to defend with his glib
tongue the property taken from others, often with the sword.
--S.].
147 Provo 30:8, 9. 148 Eccles. 5:12, 13. 149 Prov. 13:23 (R.V. m). 150 Isa. 5:10; see above, Chapter 3 § 2). 151 1 Provo 11:24,26 (R. V.m..) 152 Jer. 17:11. 153 Prov. 16:8 (R.V.); Ps. 27:16. § 7. The price paid on such "sales" was naturally based upon the number of years that were to elapse before the next Year of Jubilee: so many years' purchase of the usufruct. And if thou sell ought unto thy
neighbor, or buyest ought of thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not
oppress [R.V., wrong] one another. According to the number of years
after the Jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor, and according unto
the number of years of the fruits [R.V., crops] he shall sell unto
thee. According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price
thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the
price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits
[R.V., for the number of the crops] doth he sell unto thee" (Lev.
25:14-16).
Once more we note the astonishing modernity of the ancient Law. For, if the testimony of Josephus is to be believed, the Hebrew legislation had already drawn a distinction between "land" and "agricultural improvements," and had already recognised the principle of compensation for tenants' improvements. "When the Jubilee is come, which
name denotes liberty, he that
sold the land, and he that bought it,
meet together, and make an estimate, on the one hand, of the fruits
gathered, and, on the other hand, of the expenses laid out upon it. If
the fruits gathered come to more than the expenses laid out, he that
sold it takes the land again; but if the expenses prove more than the
fruits, the present possessor receives of the former owner the
difference that was wanting, and leaves the land to him; and if the
fruits received, and the expenses laid out, prove equal to one another,
the present possessor relinquishes it to the former owner."154
154 Jos. Antiq. 3:12/ 283, 284.
That is, if the outgoing tenant has spent more on the land than he has got out of it, he receives compensation for his unexhausted improvements. § 8. For there is an essential difference between the "land," which God made, and the "improvements" which the labor of man has made upon the land. "For every house is builded by some man; but He that built all things is God."155 Not only are improvements made by labor; they have to be maintained by labor. "By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through."156 Some elementary appreciation of this economic distinction, not perhaps much more definite than that which has found expression in our own proverb, "God made the country and man made the town," may be traced in the provision of the Law as to the sale of houses. If a man sell a dwelling-house
in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is
sold; within a full year may he redeem it. And if it be not redeemed
within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled
city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his
generations! it shall not go out in
the Jubilee.
"But the houses of the villages which have no wall about them shall be counted as [R.V., reckoned with] the fields of the country; they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the Jubilee" (Lev. 25:29-31). 155 Heb. 3:4.
156 Eccle. 10:18. That is, a house in the town could be sold "out and out," but houses in the open country were treated as a part of the inheritance, and were restored, with it, at the Jubilee.157 "This provision was made to encourage strangers and proselytes to come and settle among them. Though they could not purchase land in Canaan for themselves and their heirs, yet they might purchase houses in walled cities, which would be most convenient for them, who were supposed to live by trade."158 157 For the exceptional treatment of the
Levites' houses, and the reason of
it, see Chapter 6. Lev. 25:32-34.
158 Bush, quoted in Gray's Biblical Museum (on Lev. 25:29). For the Canaanite traders, see p. 34, n. § 9. The Law clearly recognises the fact that slavery, in one form or another, is caused by the denial of equal rights in land. So long as the Hebrew retained his foothold upon the land, he enjoyed freedom and had within his hand the opportunity of winning a comfortable subsistence by honest toil. No landlord could rack-rent him for permission to till the ground, or confiscate the results of his industry by raising the rent on his improvements. Economically and politically, he was a free man.159 But if, in the course of time, he lost to another man his share in the land — through misfortune, or laziness, or vice on his own part; or through the cunning or violence of his fellows — he must either become a tramp, or hire himself for wages to a brother-Israelite. To the man who gained by such a transaction it meant the beginning of monopoly: to the man who lost, and to his family, a descent into social slavery. Wage-slavery is the daughter of landlordism. "And if they brother that
dwelleth by thee be waxen poor,160 and be sold unto thee thou shalt not
compel him to serve as a bondservant: but as an hired servant,161 and
as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the
year of Jubilee: and then he shall depart from thee, both he and his
children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the
possession of his fathers shall he return. For they are My servants,
which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold
as bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor; but shalt fear
thy God" (Lev. 25:39-43).
159 Note, in the story of Joseph, the
express recognition of the fact
that the people of Egypt, by selling their land to Pharoah
during the famine, became Pharaoh's slaves (Gen.47:18-21); and cp.
Neh. 5:5.
160 Note the sequence: "If thy brother be waxen poor and hath sold away some of his possession (verse 25). . . and be fallen in decay (35) . . . and be sold" (39). See an instance in 2 Kings 4:1; cp. Matt. 18:25, and Neh. 5:5: A man might also become a bond-slave as a punishment for theft, if unable otherwise to make restitution (Ex. 22:3). Cp. Jos. Antiq., 3.12. 282. 161 i.e., day-laborer. A "hired servant," whether native or foreigner, was not to be oppressed or defrauded (Deut. 24:14; cp. Luke 15:17-19), and his wages were to be paid every evening (Deut. 24:14; Lev. 19:13; Tob. 4:14; Matt. 20:2, 8, 13). The normal day of labor is fixed in the Jewish law at twelve hours, from which two were remitted in the course of the day for meals and the recital of the prescribved prayers -- the Shema and Tefillah -- thus leaving ten hours for work. Workmen could require better conditions, but not a decrease in the number of hours; and a rise in wages could not secure for employers increased time, but a better quality of work. --S.]' The kidnapping of a brother Hebrew into slavery was punishable by death.162 But the Hebrews were permitted to make slaves of the captives of war, and to buy slaves of "the heathen that are round about you,"163 to treat them as property,164 and to leave them as an inheritance to their children.165 162 Ex. 21:16; Deut. 24:7. Man-stealing is
the only form of
robbery for which the Law awards the punishment of death. For the
stealing of goods or cattle the penalty is restitution, or its
equivalent in labor.
163 Lev. 25:44-46; Num. 31:18, 26, 27; Deut. 20:14; I Kings 9:21. 164 "Nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is "thy neighbor's" (Ex. 20:17); cp. 21:21 "for he is his money." 165 The later teaching, fully developed only in the N. T., extended the older Jewish conception of the brotherhood of the children of Abraham so as to include all the children of Adam. ("Christwas not the second Abraham, but the second Adam" -- Rev. Thos. Hancock.) When Malachi (2:10) asked: "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?" he was thinking only of his own nation. But the universal Fatherhood of God, as preached by Jesus Christ, and by St. Paul on Mars' Hill, made slavery logically impossible to Christians. "God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth. .. . .. As certain also of your own poets have said, For we also are His offspring." (Acts 17: 24, 26, 28). In the Jews' morning prayer, the men, in three consecutive benedictions; bless God "Who hath not made me a Gentile . . . a slave . ..a woman" (Taylor, Sayings J.F., p. 15, n.). St. Paul certainly had this prayer in mind when he dictated Gal. 3:28. (The reason why the Jewish ritual contains the passage "not '-.. . a Gentile. . . a slave. ...a woman" is, that these three classes were exempt from certain religious obligations.,..- S.] Jesus ben Sirach exhorts the master, for motives of self-interest, to "entreat" the slave whom he has bought ''as a brother" (Ecclus. 33: 30, 31). St. Paul may have been thinking of this passage when he wrote about the runaway slave Onesimus (Philem. 16)., but the reason he gives is based on higher grounds. Even foreign settlers among the Hebrews were subject to the law of Jubilee, so far as their Hebrew slaves were concerned. If a rich foreigner bought a Hebrew as his slave, he must treat him as "a yearly hired servant," and must set him free in the Year of Jubilee,166 if he had not, in the meantime, been able to redeem himself, or been redeemed by a kinsman. 166 Lev. 25:47-55
So, once in every generation did the Law "proclaim liberty to the captives" in "the acceptable Year of the Lord."167 Well does one of the prophets call it "the Year of Liberty."168 167 Isa.51:2; Luke 4:18,19.
168 Ezek. 46:17. The emancipation of the man and the restoration of the land go hand in hand. The same law applies to both: the Jubilee sets them both equally free. Means are provided by which, even before the Jubilee, under favoring conditions, the man may be redeemed from bondage,169 or the land from the hand of the stranger.170 169 Lev. 25:48-52.
170 Lev. 25:25-28. There are few tracts on the Land Question so thought-provoking as to the first principles of just social relationships as the little leaflet which has floated down to us through the ages, and which we usually refer to as the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus. The details of the legislation there recorded have long ceased to have other than an antiquarian interest, but the principles they embody and illustrate are eternal. We have here at once one of the most ancient and one of the most modern treatises on the Land Question; for it is based on the fundamental truth
"Ye shall keep
My Sabbaths … I am the Lord."- Lev. 9:3; 25:2 Ex. 31:13.
The wisdom of a learned man commeth by opportunity of leisure. … How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labor, and whose talk is of bullocks? … So every carpenter and workmaster … the smith also sitting by the anvil … the potter … turning the wheel about with his feet … without these cannot a city be inhabited. They will maintain the state of the world, and their desire is in the work of their craft" — Ecclus. 38:24-34. "Rabban Gamliel said, Excellent is Torah study together with worldly business, for the practice of them both puts iniquity out of remembrance; and all Torah without work must fail at length and encourage inequity" — Sayings J.F., ii. 2 "R. Lazar ben Azariah said, No Torah, no culture: no culture, no Torah." — Sayings J.F., iii. 26. § 1. THERE is not at first sight, a very obvious connection between the observance of the Sabbath and the Land Question. But, as a matter of fact, Hebrew national life was marked out by a great cycle of Sabbatical periods, of which the Jubilee was, as it were, the culminating point. Every seventh day was a Sabbath day. Every seventh year was a Sabbath year. When "seven Sabbaths of years ...seven times seven years"171 had been kept, the fiftieth year closing the cycle, was kept as the Year of Jubilee. The whole series of Sabbatical holidays were threaded on one string, and formed so many links in the chain of a just agrarian system. 171 Lev. 25:8
One is almost tempted to include in the cycle (although, perhaps, it does not strictly belong to it) the seventh month,172 which, by reason of its religious festivals, kept as general holidays, was largely a sacred, and therefore a holiday, month; for the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles or Harvest Thanksgiving (kept up for eight days) all occurred in it.173 172 i.e., Tishri (October), the seventh month
of the ecclesiastical year. It was the first month of the civil year.
The Feast of Trumpets was therefore the Hebrew "New Year's Day" (Lev. 23:24;
Num. 29:1).
173 Lev. 23:'23-44; Num. 29. The first, tenth, fifteenth and twenty-second days of Tishri were public holidays: "Ye shall do no (servile) work therein "(Lev. 23:25, 28,31, 35, 36). On the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths, the autumnal "Feast of Ingathering "-see Ex. 23:16; Lev. 23:34-36 and 39-43; Num. 29:12; Deut. 16:13-15; Ezek. 45:25. Accounts of observances of this festival are given in 1 Kings 8:2, 65 (Solomon); Ezra 3:1-4; Neh. 8:13-18 (Ezra); and cp. 2 Macc. 10:6-8. The other principal feasts were the Passover (lasting for a week) and Pentecost, fifty days later at wheat-harvest. At the three principal feasts every male citizen, unless for sufficient excuse, was expected to "make a pilgramage to the central sanctuary, and to join the general assembly of the nation; to "appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose" (Deut. 16; Ex. 23:14-17, 34:23, etc.). It will be noted that one of the three great festivals was held in commemoration of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and that the other two were directly connected with the cultivation of the land. The Feast of Tabernacles also commemmorated the wanderings in the wilderness. § 2. In Egypt, the Israelites had suffered the bitterness of unremitting and hopeless toil. "The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor."174 Moses sought to teach them the needful lesson that work and rest, each in its own time and in due proportion, were both sacred; good alike for master and servant, for man and beast. There was a danger, on the one hand, that long experience of grinding slavery might have reduced the Israelites to the wretched condition in which slum-children have sometimes been found in schools in London and New York of "not knowing how to play;" a danger, on the other hand, of a violent reaction against regular work, on the ground that all work was a form of slavery. Hence the obligation to observe the Sabbath as a weekly rest-day. It was at once a holy-day and a holiday. On it, agricultural labor175 and trading176 were specifically forbidden. But it was a feast, and not a fast;177 and, like all the national festivals, a time of "rejoicing" for all the members of the Hebrew household, a "delight," a day of "mirth."178 Its observance was secured by the strongest possible sanctions. Its benefits were extended alike to native and to foreign settler, to master and to slave, to man and to beast. The sabbatical law appealed to the religious sentiment, by connecting the weekly rest-day with the rest of God the Creator;179 to humanitarian sympathy;180 and to the traditions of the race. For here, as is so often the case in the Law, the remembrance of the deliverance from slavery is appealed to as the ground of right-doing. "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commandeth thee to keep the Sabbath day."181 So important to the general welfare was the observance of this law considered, that the punishment for its infraction was death.182 174 Ex. 1:13, 14; 5:6-19. Note the
striking phrase, "the iron furnace of Egypt" (Deut. 4:20; 1 Kings 8:51; Jer
11:4; and cp. Isa.48:10.
175 Ex. 34:21 ("earing"="ploughing). 176 Neh. 10:31, 13: 15-22; Jer. 17:19-27; Amos 8:5. 177 Lev. 23:1-3; Jud. 8:6. 178 Deut. 12:12, 18, 14:26, 16:11; Isa. 58:13, 14; Hos. 2:11 179 Ex. 20:11, 31:17; Gen. 2:2, 3. 180 Ex. 23:12; Deut. 5:14. 181 Deut. 5:15; Ezek. 20:10012 182 Ex. 31:14; 35:2; Num 15:30-36. § 3. Modern Sabbatarians, who, forgetting that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,"183 seek to apply these Jewish enactments to the first day of the week, are apt to overlook the fact that the Fourth Commandment is as much a labor law as a rest law. Its opening words are, "Six days shalt thou labor."184 Seven days' idleness involves a much more frequent infraction of the command than seventh-day work does. "God's covenant with us" said Rahbi Akiba,185 "included work; for the command, 'Six days shalt thou work, and the seventh shalt thou rest,' made the 'rest' conditional upon the 'work'." "The principles of a true Sabbatarianism would necessitate the abolition alike of overwork and of idleness, the extinction of all the idle classes — of those who are idle (and rich) because they "need not work," as well as of those who are idle (and poor) because they cannot get work to do. The Church of England Catechism paraphrases the Fourth Commandment in very general terms: "To serve Him truly all the days of my life." St. Paul annotates it, from the Christian standpoint, in a very remarkable passage — "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. … For
even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work,
neither should he eat.186 For we hear that there art some which walk among
you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.187 Now them that are
such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread188 … and
if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company
with him, that he may be ashamed" (2 Thess. iii. 6, 10-14.)
183 Mark 2:27.
184 Cp.Ezek. 46:1: "The six working days . . . the Sabbath." 185 Talmud. Aborth d. R. Nathan, 11. Cp. He alone will enjoy the repose of the Sabbath who has labored on the eve of the Sabbath. -- Abod. Sar. 3a. See Hermann Gollancz, "Dignity of Labor as Taught in the Talmud," Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, July 1891. [The Talmud: "Love work; do not despise it, or consider thyself superior to it." "Only he who tilleth the soil will be nourished by it. "Great is labor, for it honors the laborer." "Greater even than the God-fearing man is he who lives by his toil." "Flay a carcase in the street and take thy wages, and say not, I am a great man and the occupation is beneath me." -- S.] 186 R. V.: "If any will not work, neither let him eat." 187 Shemaiah said: "Love work and hate lordship; and make not thyself known to the Government." -- Sayings J.F., i 10. 188 The idler who consumes without producmg is a thief. Note the antithesis in Eph. 4:28: "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good" ; and 2 Thess 3:7;8: "Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought [worked] with labor and travail," etc. (cp. Acts 18:3, 20:33-35); and again (I Thess. 4:11,12): "And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you: that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without and that ye may have lack of nothing;" and once again (Tit. 3:14, R.V.m): "And let our people learn to profess honest occupations for necessary wants, that they be not unfruitful" [i.e. useless].- "He who goes not teach his son some handicraft is as though be had trained him to become a robber" (Talmud, Kidduschin, 82). "If any provide not for hisown, and specially for those of his own house[hold], he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim. 5:8) § 4. The securing to all Englishmen of opportunity both for work and leisure depends, not upon the literal application of part of the letter of the Fourth Commandment to one day of the week, but upon the observance of the spirit of the Hebrew land laws with which all the sabbatical institutions were originally so closely connected. The language of the Law shows this connection quite clearly— "When ye come into the land which I give you,
then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow
thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit
thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land,
a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field nor prune thy vineyard.
"That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land" (Lev. 25:1-7, 18-22). The connection between Sabbath day and sabbath year is even more briefly and forcibly expressed in the parallel phrases of Ex. 23:10-12 [R.V.]
§ 5. The seventh year was also called the year of release, "partly because the land was "released"189 from cultivation, and partly because there was then a general remittance of all debts due from one Hebrew to another,190 and a manumission of all Hebrew bondservants.191 The war-cries of monopolists against reform in modern times would have been treated with scanty respect by Moses and the prophets. They recognised neither the right of the landlord to "do what he liked with his own," nor the "sacredness of (private) contract" made against public policy, nor the inalienable right of every (white) man to "whop his own nigger," or to sweat his own wage-slave. The Law aimed at making involuntary and undeserved poverty, as nearly as might be, impossible. When and where, through the vices or frailty of human nature, it crept in, temporarily and in spite of the Law, the most careful provision was made for mitigating its evils. 189 See R.V.m. at Ex. 23:11.
190 Deut. 15:1-11. Or rather perhaps, as Keil (Biblical Archaeology, 2:10) suggests, an arrest on the collection of debts; "there is enjoined on the creditor, for this year," during which no crops could be gathered, "a leaving over (i.e. respite), not remission or acquittal." The Talmud (Shebitth, 10:1) says that laborers' wages are not "released." 191 Deut. 15:12-14. On the face of it, here and in Ex. 21:2; Jer. 35:8-17 (cp. Josephus, Antiq. 4:8. 273, 16:1/3), it looks as if the seventh year of their service is meant, and not the regularly recurring "seventh year" of fallow. The whole question of the relation of this law to the sabbath-year law, and to the Jubilee, is admittedly, difficult, and involves questions of historical and literary criticism beyond the scope of the present book. See Lev. 25:39-43; and consult the larger modern Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries; and Mr. Wicksteed's article referred to on p. 8n. If the "bond-man" had married into the family or clan, he could voluntarily become a permanent member of it (Ex. 22:5, 6). § 6. To the average Englishman, who no longer keeps Saints' days, and who feverishly rushes through long railway journeys on four "Bank holidays" in the year, the idea of one year's rest in every seven from his ordinary occupations must seem an impossibly comic suggestion. And, besides, he will probably ask, what was the use of it? Let us see. (a). The original division of the land secured to every Hebrew family the equal right of access to land. The Year of Jubilee was intended as one of the means for conserving that equal right from generation to generation. So far as it went, the Jubilee Law secured to each family in each generation the right of access, for labor use, to an approximately equal share of land. But the Hebrew system of cultivation was very primitive. The plough was merely a big crooked stick attached to a wooden frame (I Kings 19:21), shod with a triangular piece of iron (1 Sam. 13:19-21; Isa. 2:4; Joel 3:10; Mic. 4:3). It was usually drawn by oxen, sometimes by asses, yoked together,192 the ploughman guiding the plough with one hand (Luke 9:62), and using the goad — an instrument like a spear and capable at need of being used as one (Judg. 3:31) — with the other. 192 Amos 6:12; Isa. 30:24("ear" = plough); cp Deut.
22:10. A "yoke" (I Sam. 14:14: the explanatory
words in italics are not in the original) was a recognised measure of land; in Isa. 4:10 translated "acre." So Latin jugum. "Iugum vocabatur, quod uno iugo boum in die exarari posset" (Plin., Nat. Hist., 13. 3. 3). - ["They gave him of the cornland, That was of public right, As much as two strong oxen Could plough from morn tilll night." (Macaulay).] The ploughing with such a light instrument was necessary shallow.193 There are but feeble traces of the systematic use of manure. The rotation of crops was almost certainly unknown. Had the Hebrew cultivator been allowed to keep on growing the same crop from year to year on the same land, without an intermission, there would always be a danger of exhausting even the fertile soil of Canaan, and of handing on to later generations a possession undiminished, indeed, in area, but of steadily decreasing productiveness. The Law therefore safeguarded the equal rights of future generations by enacting a periodical fallow. During one year in every seven, the soil, left to the influences of sun and frost, wind and rain, was to be allowed to "re-create" itself after six years' cropping, exactly as the tiller of the soil renewed his strength, after six days' work, by his Sabbath day's rest. "The seventh year thou shalt let the land rest and lie fallow." "It is a year of rest to the land."194 193 Syria tenui sulco arat (Plin. 18:47). Vergil (Georgica,
1:169) and Pliny (Nat. Hist., 18:48) describe the same sort of plough
as being in use among the Romans at their time.
194 The writer of 2 Chron.36:21 ascribes the desolation of the land during the Captivity to the non-observance of the Sabbath years. (Jer. 34:8-22; cpo Lev. 26:14, 34, 35). "Captivity comes upon the world for strange worship; and for incest; and for shedding of blood; and for (not) giving release to the land " (Sayins J.F., 5:14). After the Captivity the observance was restored (Neh. 10:31: "And that we would leave [R.V., forgo] the seventh year and the exaction of every debt "). Later, I Macc. 6:49, 53. Josephus has several interesting references to the non-cultivation of the land in the "Sabbatic year" (Antiq. 13: 8. 234, 15:1.7. ,Jewish War, 1:2. 60), and refers to the remission of tribute in that year on that account (Antiq. 11:8.337, 345, 14:10.202). The observance of the septennial fallow has recently (since 1888-9) been revived by the Zionist Jews in Palestine (Jewish Encycl. x. 607; Murray's Illus. Bible Dictionary, 759). § 7. But, (b) while the main object of the Sabbath year was undoubtedly the protection of the land-rights of future generations, it was, by a statesman-like provision, made useful to the present generation also. It was to be a year of rest, truly, but not of idleness; a year of re-creation, not of mere cessation from work. It was only agricultural labor that was forbidden — ploughing, sowing, reaping, pruning, vintage.195 Other occupations were, undoubtedly, permitted, but the leisure from the ordinary work of the farm and vineyard was used, at least in part, for educational ends. "Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of
every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of
tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the
place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in
their hearing.196 Gather the people together, men and women, and children,
and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they
may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this
law; and that their children, which have not known anything, may hear, and
learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye
go over Jordan to possess it."197
195 Lev. 25:4, 5.
196 Parallels are abundant in English history. E.g." For the more assurance of this thing we will and grant that all Archbishops and Bishops for ever shall read this present Charter in their Cathedral churches twice in the year, and upon the reading thereof in every one of their parish churches shall openly denounce as cursed all those that willingly do procure to be done anything contrary to the tenor force and effect of this present Charter in any point or article" (34 Edw. 1 stat. 4. cap 6). 197 Deut. 31:10-13; Neh. 8:16-18 (cp. especially verses 7, 8: "The Levltes caused the people to understand the Law. . . . So they read in the book, in the law of God distinctly [R.V. "with an interpretation], and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading"). See also Josephus, Antiq. 4.8.209. § 8. To say that, in the seventh year, the Israelites attended a Bible class conducted by their clergy would be to use one of those dangerous phrases which completely misrepresent the facts of the case under the appearance of stating the bare, literal truth about them. It is true, of course, that the rolls of the "Last of Moses" now form part of what we now call the Bible — the collection of ancient writings from which extracts are read in church services. The peculiar position so long assigned to these Hebrew writings in our own religion has prevented most Englishmen from realising what they meant to the Hebrews. They were at once "sacred" and "secular." They assumed in every paragraph the existence of God; but He was a God who stood in direct, constant, and immediate relation to the life of the Nation "the God of thy fathers," "the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the house of bondage," the God who dwelt in the midst of Israel. Yet — not in spite of this, but because of it — the Hebrew writers hold, as strongly as any modern secularist, that "the affairs of this life and of this world demand, and will repay, our utmost care and attention." So completely free from any trace of "other-worldliness" is the Hebrew Torah, that a good bishop once deduced an argument in favor of the inspiration of the Pentateuch from the fact that it contains no reference to a life after death. The future life to which the Law points as the result and the reward of rightdoing is the ideal life of a free and industrious Commonwealth, in which every citizen, secure in the enjoyment of the produce of his labor, surrounded by stalwart sons and comely daughters, sits under his own vine and his own fig tree, none daring to make him afraid "in the land which the Lord thy God hath given thee." The Law contained not only the elaborate ritual of the sacrifices198 and the liturgy199 of the Jewish religion, but the biographies of their national heroes, and the history of the Nation itself. The primitive science of the infant Commonwealth lay in it side by side with the laws of their minstrels and an outline of civil and criminal law. The same collection of documents which told them how the voice of God called upon Moses from the burning bush to organise a general strike against the Egyptian taskmasters, claimed also that the skill of the handicraftsman, no less than the wisdom of the legislator, was due to Divine inspiration.200 If the Law regulated with minute care the vestments of the high-priests, it was no less careful of the foods of the people.201 It prescribed in detail the lavish ornaments of the Tabernacle, the outward symbol of national unity,202 but it also told the citizen how to keep his person, his clothing, and his house clean and healthy.203 It insisted upon man's duty to God, but no less upon man's duty to his fellows. With a magnificent impartiality it denounced a curse upon the idolater, who rebelled against the majesty of the Most High, and upon the remover of the landmark, who invaded the equal right of his neighbor. The "statutes and judgments of Moses" were the Acts of the Parliament and the case-law of the Hebrew Commonwealth. Whole chapters in Numbers and Joshua are filled with dry lists of names, which were once full of the same kind of interest and significance to the Hebrew reader as Doomsday Book or the Census returns or Mr. Lloyd-George's Land Valuation have to students of English social history. 198 See, especially, Lev. 1-7.
199 Or rather some fragments of liturgical forms, such as Deut. 20:3, 4, 21:7, 8 (and, possibly, 27:14-26, 28); Num. 6:22-26, 10:35, 36. In later times it became the duty of every pious Jew to recite the Shema (Deut. 6: 4-9 and 11:13-21; with Num. 15:37-41) every morning and evening. Our Lord quoted the opening words of the Shema in reply to the Pharisees' question, "Which is the great commandment of the Law? " (Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:29, 30). 200 Ex. 23:3 (tailors), 31:1-6 (masons, metal-workers, etc.), 35:30-35, 36:1-4. 201 Gen. 9:4; Lev. 7:17, 19, 26, 11:1-47, 17:10-16, 19:6, 26, 22:8; Deut. 12:16, 14:3-21. 202 Ex. 36-38. 203 Uncleanness was a form of sin. Driver (."Law in the O. T.," in Hastings' Dict. of the Bible, 3.72a) says that in Lev. 14:49, 52; Num, 19:12, 13, 19, 20, the Hebr. for cleanse, purify is properly to "free from sin.'" Dr. Adler, the late Chief Rabbi, pointed out, a few years ago, in a paper read before the Church of England Sanitary Association at the Church House, Westminster, and reported in the Jewish Chronicle, that in one single chapter (Lev. 15) the phrase "he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water" occurs no less than ten times (cp. Heb. 10:22). It is a characteristically Hebrew idea that the camp is to be kept free from contagious diseases because God dwells in the midst thereof (Num. 5:3). See also Ex. 30:17-21, 40:12, 30-32. Sanitary bye-laws for camp (Lev. 4:11, 12, 21, 6:11; Deut. 23:12-14). To the Hebrew, therefore, the study of "all the words of this Law," enjoined in every seventh year, and made possible by the just land system which the sabbatical institutions safeguarded, was, for his time and place, a liberal education. To place within the reach of the English worker, once in every seven years, a year's course at a university in science and law and literature and theology, would be something like the modern equivalent for one of the advantages which the sabbath year offered to the ancient Hebrew.204 204 In a remarkable passage (Against Apion, ii.
168 ff.), Josephus claims that, while the best knowledge of olden times
was usually treated as a secret and confined to the few, it was the glory
of Moses that he "made it current coin."
"Restore,
I pray you, even this
day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive-yards, and their houses.
… Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of
them."—Neh. 5:11, 12.
"If I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold."—Luke 19:8 [R.V.]. § 1. ONE tribe out of all the tribes of Israel was set aside for the performance of important public functions. According to the Theocratic constitution of the Hebrew Commonwealth, the men of the tribe of Levi formed the Civil Service of the unseen King of Israel. In order to set them free for the performance of their duties, they were exempted from service in the citizen army,205 in which all the capable males of all the other tribes were liable to serve "from twenty years old and upwards, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel." They were the servants of the Lord, and therefore of the Lord's people. Their duties are set forth with great minuteness. They chiefly centered round the one great public building of the nation, the dwelling-place of the Most High, the seat of the national worship, the symbol of the national unity, the central place of assembly206 for the people. 205 Num. 1:2, 3, 47-53, 3:5ff., 4, 7:5ff.
206 A. V., "tabernacle of the congregation"; R.V., "tent of meeting" (cp. the two versions at Lev. 1:1, and elsewhere). In later times, replaced by the Temple at Jerusalem. The Levites were solemnly set apart for their work,207 to which the prime of their lives was devoted. Their term of full service was from thirty to fifty years of age, apparently after a training of five years; and, when their time had expired, lighter duties were found for them.208 They were also the official preachers of the Law, and the custodians of the official copy of it.209 Those members of the tribe of Levi who claimed descent from Aaron formed, within the tribe, a special order with special functions — the priests. They were not only the national clergy — sacrificing, absolving, and blessing — but also the teachers210 of religion and law, administrators of justice211, the medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors, charged with the duties of inspecting, isolating, and (after recovery) disinfecting persons suffering from certain contagious diseases,212 of disinfecting unclean garments and bedding, of inspecting, cleansing, or, if need be, demolishing infected dwellings;213 and so on. This mixture of "sacred" and "secular" functions is characteristic of a theory of government which, recognising no king but God, could draw no hard-and-fast line between the service of God and the service of humanity. 207 Num. 8.
208 Num 4:3, 23, etc., 8:24-26; cp Ezra 3:8. 209 Deut. 27:14. 31:25, 26. On the Levites in the time of David, see 1 Chron. 23. 210 Lev. 10:11; Deut 31:9-13; 33:10; cp 2 Chron. 15:3; Mal. 2:7. 211 Deut 17:8-13, 21:5. In the time of David, "six thousand were officers and judges" (I Chron. 23:4); cp Jehosaphat's high court of appeal (2 Chron. 19:8-10); Ezek. 44:24; Ecclus. 14:17. 212 Especially diseases of the skin, of which the most dreaded was leprosy. On the isolation of a leprous king, and the appointment of a regent, see 2 King 15:5; 2 Chron. 26:21. The tendency to this form of disease may have been a legacy from the period of Egyptian bondage (Deut. 7:15). Manetho has a curious story, quoted and criticized by Josephus, of eighty thousand leprous Egyptians, who were put to work in the quarries on the east side of the Nile, and who, revolting under the leadership of a priest of Heliopolis named Osarsiph or Moses, made a league with the "shepherds" of the Exodus, now settled at Jerusalem (Against Apion, i.233ff.). 213 Lev. 13, 14, 15. § 2. If the Levites were to give their whole time and attention to the important public duties which have been hinted at above, it was clearly necessary that they should be set free from the necessity of earning their livelihood by ordinary agricultural labor, and that some other provision must be made for them. In order, therefore, that the ministrations of religion and the means of instruction might be brought within the reach of all the citizens, the Levites were provided with residences in forty-eight cities, assigned specially to them "with the suburbs214 thereof" — a certain amount of surrounding meadow-land215 for the pasturage of their cattle. These cities were to be taken in fair proportion from all the tribes.216 Thirteen of them were allotted to the priests.217 Six were appointed as "cities of refuge," to which "the slayer that killeth unawares and unwittingly" might flee in order to escape lynching and to secure a fair trial.218 214 R. V.m. gives "pasture-land."
215 Num. 35:1-5; Josh. 14:4, 21; 1 Chron. 6:54-81. 216 Num. 35. 217 Josh. 21:13-19. 218 Ex. 11:13; Num. 35:6, 9-34; Deut. 4:41-43, 19:1-13; Josh. 20. But not even the taking of sanctuary at an altar could save the deliberate murderer from punishment (Ex. 21:14; 1 Kings 2:28-34; cp: 1.50). An additional protection from the prevailing Eastern custom of blood-revenge was the requirement of two witnesses for a conviction for murder (Num. 35:30; Deut. 19:15). See note 87. But it is plain that the provision of an official residence fell far short of what the Levite would have received had he been born into any other tribe. For the Levites had no part in the division of the land, although they obviously had the same "right to the use of the earth" as the other tribes. The families of eleven tribes divided among them land in which the families of twelve tribes had rights to equal shares. The excluded tribe was clearly entitled to compensation for the loss of rights of which, for reasons of public policy, it had been deprived. This compensation was given by means of the tithe. The tribes who had divided among themselves the Levites' share of the land, as well as their own, paid to the Levites one-tenth of the produce of the land,219 and the Levites in their turn, paid one-tenth of this tithe — "a tithe of the tithe" — to the Aaronic priesthood.220 219 Num. 18:21-24; Lev. 27:32, 33; 2 Chron.
31:5, 6; Neh. 10:37,
12:44, 13:5, 12. Nehemiah (13:10) relates that, at a time when
the tithes were not paid, the Levites had to support
themselves by agricultural work.
220 Num 18:25-32; Neh. 10:38. § 3. This is, beyond doubt, the meaning and intention of the tithe.221 It was not payment for services rendered to the community. It was not a mere tax upon the labor of the people for the maintenance of ministers of religion. It was compensation for land-rights. For the scriptural, as well as the common-sense, view is that, if there is to be any talk of "compensation" in connection with the land question, the compensation is due to those who have been deprived of their rights in the land, and not to those who, having set back their neighbor's landmark to their own advantage, are afterwards compelled to obey the law of equal rights. It is to the landless and disinherited, and not to the landlord, that the Bible awards compensation. Emerson answered the demand for compensation to slave-"owners" in the same spirit — "Pay ransom to the owner,
And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is the owner, And ever was. Pay him"222 221 A second "tithe" seems to have been
mainly a provision for holidays -- a setting-aside of 10 per cent. of
the annual produce of the land against the rejoicings and hospitalities
which accompanied the great
national festivals (Deut. 12:6,7; Neh. 8:10,12), and may be
compared with the saving-for-holidays-clubs common today in some parts
of England, especially in Lancashire. The produce could be turned into
money in the country for convenience of carriage to Jerusalem (Deut.
14:22-27), and the money there spent for its appointed purposes.
Authorities
are divided on the question whether the "tithe" mentioned in
Deut. 14:28, 29, 26:12ff., was an extra tithe in every third year --
the
so-called "poor-tithe"-- or a special provision for
the use of the tithe in every third year. The Rabbis incline to the
former opinion. Cpo the following: "Besides these two
tithes, which I have already said you are to pay every year, the one
for
the Levites, the other for the festivals; you are to bring every third
year
a third tithe to be distributed to those that want; to women also that
are
widows; and to children that are orphans" (Jos., Antiq.,
iv. 8.240); and "The first tenth of all increase I gave to
the sons of Aaron, who ministered at Jerusalem: another tenth part
I
sold away, and went, and spent it every year at Jerusalem; and the
third I gave unto them to whom it was meet because I was left
an
orphan by my father" (Tob. 1:7; 8). See Amos 4:4.
222 From the "Boston Hymn," read in the Music Hall, Boston; January 1, 1863. There is in the Talmud an interesting story of Gebiah ben Pesisah, "a wise man." "Then came the Egyptians; saying, 'God gave the Israelites favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they lent them gold and silver.' Now, return us the gold and silver which our ancestors lent ye." Geblah appeared for the sages of Israel. "Four hundred and thirty years," said he, "did the children of Israel dwell in Egypt. Come, now, pay us the wages of six hundred thousand men who worked for ye for naught, and we will return the gold and silver." The language of the Pentateuch proves that this is no merely fanciful interpretation. Note, for instance, the use of the word "inheritance" in the following quotations:— "Unto these [the eleven tribes]
the land shall be divided for an inheritance" (Num. 26:53).
"There was no inheritance [in
the land] given them [the Levites] among the children of Israel" (Num,
26:62; cp Deut. 10:9, 12:12, 18:1, 2; Josh. 14:3, 4).
"Thou [Aaron] shalt have no inheritance in their land. … I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the Tabernacle of the congregation. … But the tithes of the children of Israel … I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance" (Num. 18:20-24).223 223 Cp. Ezek. 44:28: "It shall
be unto them for an inheritance: I am their inheritance: and ye shall
give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession"; Ecclus
45:20-22
The fact that the Levites were (among other things) ministers of religion has caused the true meaning of this arrangement to be misunderstood. It was a method of maintaining the principle of equal rights in land, even in the face of an unequal division of the land itself. It was, exactly in principle and roughly in practice, the same kind of equalisation of land-rights as we seek nowadays to bring about by the taxation of land values. After the usual Hebrew fashion, the just arrangement, once made, was protected by a religious sanction. The "inheritance" of the Simeonite or Ephraimite was protected by the curse upon the landmark remover. The "inheritance" of the Levite was protected by "devoting" it to the Lord.224 The Levite's house — the site of which was the one firm foothold he had upon God's earth — was subject to the law of Jubilee, and could not be permanently alienated;225 nor could the common pasture of the "suburb" of his city; though ordinary houses in walled towns (probably mostly occupied by "strangers") could be bought and sold outright,226 subject to a right of redemption within one full year.227 224 Lev. 27:30-33; cp. 28.
See Gen. 28:22; 1 Sam. 2:12-17.
225 Lev. 25:32-34. 226 Lev. 25:29-30. 227 The actual salaries of the priests and Levites for services rendered were paid partly in money, e.g., for the redemption of the firstborn (Num. 18:14-19; cp. 3:12-13, 44), and partly in perquisites (see the law of the sacrifices, Lev 1-7; "the priest's due," Deut. 18:3; and elsewhere). § 4. The Hebrew laws applied to the special case of rights in land the spirit of those general maxims of English law which declare that no man ought to be enriched by another man's loss, or to obtain an advantage by his own wrong.228 To "set back" one's neighbor's landmark was a crime against God, Who had given him an equal right in the land, and against the neighbor, who was being robbed, of his just rights; a summa injuria against which the Law hurled a curse and the prophets denounced a Woe! Neither Lawgiver nor Prophet would have tolerated for a moment the notion that this invasion of a fundamental human right could only be rectified by awarding compensation to the invader. It was not in accordance with the ethical principles of Hebrew law that a man should be compensated when he ceased to profit by his own wrong at the expense of his fellow-citizen's rights. The housebreaker, the cattle-thief, the trespasser on another man's pasture, had to make, at the very least, full restitution to the man upon whom he had inflicted loss.229 Why should this principle cease to apply, or be actually reversed, when it was a question of depriving another of the right upon which his living and his liberty were dependent? It is only in modern England, after centuries of landlord usurpation, that such a perversion of ethical principle can be advocated. There is no trace of such a view in the O.T. 228 Nemo debet locupletari aliena jactura
(cited by Bovill, C. J.). Nullus
commodum capere potest de injuria sua propria. Coke, Littleton,
148. See Wharton, Law Lexicon (9th edit.), pp.. 504,
521.
229 Ex. 22:1-15. Nor in the New. We read that Zacchæus was "chief among the publicani" — a class of men who enriched themselves by unjust extortion (Luke 3:12, 13) under a vicious method of indirect taxation; "and he was rich." He came under the influence of Jesus. Then, immediately — "Zacchæus stood, and said
unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor;
and if have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold.
And Jesus said unto him, To-day is salvation come to this house" (Luke
19:1-10, R.V.).
His first Christian impulse was to make direct and generous restitution to those whom he knew he had wronged personally, and to make what general restitution he could to the unknown victims of the system by which he had unjustly become rich. Apparently it never occurred to this unsophisticated convert that "the poor" ought rather to compensate him for leaving off his profitable but wrongful exactions. § 5. After the return from the Exile, the great leader of the restored Israelites, Nehemiah, had to face a condition not unlike that of today. Landlordism had grown up. The people were in bondage, racked with usury, taxed on their daily food. It is refreshing to contrast the action of Nehemiah with the schemes of compensation to landlords which are advocated by some reformers today because of the supposed dishonesty of what they call "confiscation" — i.e. of the restoration to the people of their lost rights in the land, by putting into the fiscus, or public treasury, the values which the public creates. Before a mass meeting of the landless and disinherited,230 Nehemiah addressed the "nobles and the rulers" who had profited by social injustice. He "set a great assembly against them," and called upon them to make immediate restitution. No offer of "compensation" is made on the one side, no demand for it on the other. 230 See Appendix C.
What would be the modern parallel to this? Is it quite mad to picture, say, an English Archbishop of Canterbury, Bible in hand like Nehemiah, "very angry," because he has heard the cry of the victims of injustice; setting a "great assembly" of landless citizens against the House of Lords, and enforcing a popular demand for the restoration to the people of their God-given rights in the land, without any compensation, except compensation to the plundered people for the exactions of indirect taxation? Mad enough, no doubt; for modern priests and prophets are not always built after Biblical models. "Justice, justice shalt thou
follow." — Deut. 16:20 [R.V.m].
"Thou hast said that for our sakes. Thou madest this world. … If the world now be made for our sakes, why do we not possess for an inheritance our world? How long shall this endure?" — 2 Esd.6:55, 59 [R.V.]. "One came to Hillel to be converted, provided that he could be taught the whole Torah [Law] whilst he stood on one foot. Hillel said: What is hateful to thyself do not to thy fellow: this is the whole Torah and the rest is commentary; go study." — The Talmud. These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." — Acts 17:6. § 1. Every Easter Day the Church keeps the commemoration of her Lord's Victory over Death, of which the deliverance from Egypt has always been held to be a type. In her appointed services for the day she draws the moral of the stupendous miracle of the Resurrection. The average sensual man would probably expect it to be, on such an occasion, something unusually transcendental. Yet in the most solemn Service of the day, the Gospel merely tells us the story of the empty tomb in the simple language of the Beloved Disciple, while the Collect asks that we may be helped to bring to good effect the good desires which God has put into our minds, and the Epistle exhorts us, because Christ is risen, and we are risen with him to lead clean and wholesome lives and to avoid "covetousness, which is idolatry." To some this may seem a lame and impotent conclusion, not far removed from bathos. Yet St. Paul, who wound up some of his deepest theological discussions with the tritest moral advice about the duties of men one toward another in their ordinary family and social relations, would have quite well understood it all. The Epistle is, in fact, selected from his writings.231 231 Col. 3:1-6, which see.
§ 2. Some foreshadowing of this way of looking at things may be frequently found in the O.T. writers. Note, for instance, the implied argument in the following passages:— Thou shalt not have in thy bag
divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house
divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and
just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days
may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For
all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an
abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Deut. 25:13-16).
"Ye shall do no unrighteousness
in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor
the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy
neighbor. … Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard,
in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah,
and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, which brought
you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all My
statutes, and all My judgments, and do them: I am the Lord " (Lev.
19:15, 35-37)232
232 Cp. Ezek.45:10-12; Prov. 11:1, 16:11,
20:10; Hos. 12:6,7; Amos 8:4-6; Mic. 6:10-11.
So, one of the morals of the epoch-making deliverance from Egypt233 is, that a pound must not weigh less than sixteen ounces, and that a bushel measure must always be big enough to hold a bushel; and so important is this elementary sort of honesty, that the national existence depends upon the faithful observance of it. 233 It is also quoted as the reason for not
charging interest to a brother
Israelite (Lev. 25:35-38) and for not oppressing or defrauding
the "stranger" or the unfortunate (Ex. 22:21, 23:9; Lev.
19:34; Deut. 24:14, 15, 17, 18, and see 19-22), etc.. "The
care taken by Israelite law to protect strangers finds no parallel
in Babylonia" (S. A. Cook, The Laws of Moses and the
Code of Hammurabi, p. 276).
§ 3. The Hebrew words234 usually translated "righteous" and "righteousness," but some times also translated "just" and "justice,"235 are represented in the Septuagint by the Greek words, διχαιος and διχαιοςοσνυτ [in the Vulgate, justus and justitia] They mean primarily "just" and "justice," and much of the O.T. would have a clearer meaning to us if they were usually so rendered, especially in the older parts of the O.T. writings, where their significance is purely ethical. Consider, for instance, the definition of "righteousness" implied by Jeremiah's use of the word —. "Thus saith the Lord: Execute ye
judgment and righteousness [justice], and deliver the spoiled out of
the hand of the oppressor and do no wrong, do no violence to the
stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in
this place. … Woe unto him236 that buildeth his house by
unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong;237 that useth his
neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work;
that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and
cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled238 with cedar, and painted
with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest239 thyself in
cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice,
and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and
needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know Me? saith the
Lord. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy
covetousness,240 and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression,
and
for violence, to do it" (Jer. 22:3, 13-17).
234 Zadak and its derivatives zedek,
zaddik, etc. "The
use of 'righteous' as a translation of yashar (= upright) is
less
frequent. ... The original implications of the root zadak are
involved in doubt. To be 'hard,' 'even' and 'straight' (said of
roads, for instance) has been suggested as the primitive
physical idea. More acceptable is the explanation that the root notion
conveyed is that a thing, or even God, is what it, or he, should bem
that usm 'normal,' 'fit.' . . . In its earliest use among Hebrews
the term 'righteousness' seems to have had a moral
intention" (Jewish Encyclopedia, x.420). The
Hebrew word means "conformity to a recognized norm or standard" (Encyclopedia
Biblica, iv. 4102); So used of a just
weight or measure (Deut. 25:15), of a just king or judge (Lev. 19:15),
etc.
235 In Prov. 10:6,7 where the "just" is contrasted with the "wicked," the R.V., differing from the A.V., uses both "righteous" (verse 6) and "just" (7). In Isa. 5:7; Prov 3:31,32, the contrast is beytween the "just" and the "oppressor;" "oppression, violence and robbery" (Amos 3:9, 10); "justice" opposed to spoliatory taxation (Ezek. 45:9). "Judgment . . . equity . . . iniquity" (Mic.3:9,10). 236 Jehoiakim, King of Judah (cp. verse 18 and 2 Kings 24:4). 237 R.V., injustice. 238 In the English of the time of A.V. = "panelled." 239 R.V., strivest to excel in cedar. At a time of national povert, when the nation was under heavy taxation to pay tribute to Egypt (2 Kings 23:33-35; 2 Chron. 36:5), Jehoiakim was building himself a costly palace by the forced, unpaid labor of the people. 240 R.V. m. dishonest gain. § 4. The conception of JUSTICE as the foundation of all law, Divine and human, pervades all the teaching of the Law and the Prophets. God Himself is immovably just. "He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity [in-equity, injustice], just and right is He."241 "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether;" He "is righteous in all His ways;"242 He judges truly and justly for ever.243 241 Deut. 32:4.
242 Ps. 19:9, 119:7, 62, 106, 160, 164, 145:17; Ezra 9:15; Neh. 9:8; Isa. 45:21; Job 8:3, 37:23. 243 Tob. 3:2 Because the just Lord loveth justice244 and delights in it,245 and honors the just,246 He gives just laws to His people. "What great nation is there, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?247 244 Ps. 11:7. Vulg., quoniam justus Dominus et justitias dilexit
(cp. A.V.).
245 Jer. 9:24. 246 Ps. 45:7. 247 Deut. 4:8. "The Jews. . . live by most just laws" (Artaxerxes in the Apoc. Esth. 16:15). "As to the laws themselves . . . they are visible in their own nature, and appear to teach not impiety, but the truest piety in the world . . . they are enemies to injustice" (Jos., Against Apion, n. 291): Because the just God, the Judge of all the world, judges "in justice,"248 the Law must be justly administered. "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God."249 The earthly judge must "judge the people with just judgment;"250 must have no respect of persons;251 must not take bribes.252 A man might only be punished after diligent inquiry,253 and on sufficient evidence.254 Punishment, on conviction, was not to be excessive, and must be carried out in the presence of the judge.255 Perjury, which poisons the well of justice, was severely punished.256 There was provision for appeal to the highest court in difficult cases.257 "That which is altogether just shalt thou follow,258 that thou mayst live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." 248 Ps. 9:4 (Vulg. sedisti super thronum
qui judicas
justitiam), 8, 67:4, 96:10, 13; Gen 18:25.
249 2 Sam. 23:3; Ps. 72. 250 Deut. 16:18. 251 Justice is to be done between Hebrew and Hebrew, between Hebrew and stranger, between small and great (Deut. 1:16, 17; Ex. 23:6; Lev. 19:15). 252 Deut. 16:19. 253 Deut. 17:6, 19:15. 254 Deut. 25:1-3. 255 Deut. 19: 16-21. 256 Deut. 17:8ff. 257 Deut. 16:20. The Hebrew is very emphatic. "Justice, justice shall though follow" (See R.V.m.). § 5. But the Hebrew conception of Justice was not merely forensic. It was not enough that the administration of the national law should be just. Justice must rule all social relations within the Nation. "Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before Thy face. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance."259 Justice must rule in Israel, because "the just Lord is in the midst thereof,"260 and "they that fear the Lord shall find judgment, and shall kindle justice as a light;"261 "for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them."262 259 Ps. 89:14,15; cp. Isa. 58:2;
Hos. 2:19.
260 Zeph. 3:5; Ps. 82: 1-4; cp. Phil. 4:8; 1 Pet. 1:17. 261 Ecclus. 32:16; Prov. 4:18. 262 Hos. 14:9. Nor did "Justice" consist in the mere formal observance of written laws or of binding custom which forbade the invasion of the legal or customary rights of others; for the Lord exercises "loving-kindness" as well as "judgment and justice in the earth," and His tender mercies are over all His works.263 Man must be just before he is generous, because generosity cannot begin till justice has been done:264 he ought to be both just and generous. The Law secured to him, under the protection of a curse, the equal right of access to land, and therewith the right to the produce of his own labor; but it made common to all the spontaneous growths of the sabbatic year "that the poor of thy people may eat,"265 and it secured to "the stranger, the fatherless and the widow" the immemorial right of gleaning,266 and to the wayfarer the right to satisfy his hunger from the growing crops.267 The just man, enjoying the bounteous provision which God has made for His children, considers the cause of the poor.268 He should lend to his brother Hebrew in misfortune without grudging,269 and without interest.270 He should be ready to put himself to trouble in order to save his "brother,"271 or even his "enemy,"272 from the loss of what justly belongs to him. Nor might he build a house or dig a well without taking precautions to protect others from liability to accident.273 263 Jer. 9:24; Ps. 145:9; cp.
Hos. 10:12.
264 Luke 11:41, 42. 265 "That which groweth of its own accord" (Lev. 25:3-7; Ex 23:2). 266 The corners of the field not to be reaped (Lev. 19:9, 10, 23:22); the forgotten sheaf not to be fetched (Deut. 24:19). 267 Deut. 23:24, 25; Luke 6:1. 268 Prov. 29:7. 269 Deut. 15: 7-10; Luke 6:34, 35. 270 Ex. 22:25; Lev. 25:35-37; Deut. 15: 3, 23:19, 20. Cp. the law about pawning (Ex. 22:26; Deut 24:6, 10-13; and see Job 24:3). 271 Deut. 22:1-4; Lev. 6:3,5. 272 Ex. 23:4,5. 273 Ex. 21:33, 34; Deut. 22:8, are among the earliest building by-laws that have come down to us. Moreover, the Hebrew conception of justice covered also the conduct of man towards his still poorer relations, his humbler fellow-creatures of the stable and the field. "A righteous (Vulg., justus) man regardeth the life of his beast."274 The ox that tramped round the threshing-floor must not be muzzled in sight of the heap of corn;275 a weaker and a stronger animal must not be yoked together to the same plough.276 274 Prov. 12:10.
275 Deut. 25:4. 276 Deut. 22:10. Note the curious law about bird's-nesting in the previous verses (6, 7). § 6. Can we wonder that the later Prophets of Israel, inspired by such ideals as these, looked forward to the time when they should conquer the world of humanity, when the kingdom of the Messiah should be established in Zion on the "sure foundation" of Justice?277 Then the Sun of Justice shall rise with healing in His wings, and all the inhabitants of the world will learn Justice.278 So, through Justice, shall come Social peace. "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, [Vulg., in justitia], and princes shall rule in judgment. … Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness [justitia] remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness [justitiæ] shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness [cultus justitiæ] quietness and assurance [securitas] for ever."279 277 Isa. 28: 16, 17,, 9:7, 11:4,
5; Jer. 23:5, 33:15, 16; Ps 72. The Apostles referred to Christ
as "the Just One" (Acts 3:14, 7:52, 22:14).
278 Mal. 4:2 (Vulg., sol justitiae); Isa. 26:9 (Vulg., justitiam discent habitores orbis). 279 Isa. 32:1, 16,17. For the contrast, see Hos. 10:13, 14. § 7. Yet there was a certain element of narrowness which tended to limit the practical application of the law of Justice in O.T. times, in spite of the frequent attempts of legislators and prophets to break through bounds which were cramping their expanding ethical and religious conceptions. But not until our Lord, in one of the most dramatic passages in the Gospels, showed that even the apostate, excommunicated, half-caste Samaritan280 — the traditional enemy, since the Exile, of the orthodox Jew — was a "neighbor," and therefore to be loved as oneself; not until the Apostle of the Nations, following his Master, and even quoting a Greek poet in support of a Christian dogma,281 formulated, for Jew and Gentile alike, the doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man, founded on the universal Fatherhood of God282 — not till then did the Mosaic Law of Justice reach its full development and expression. 280 Luke 10:25-37, 9:51-56; 2
Kings 17:4; Ezra 4:8-10; John 4:9, 7:48; Ecclus. 50:25, 26.
281 Acts 17:28. 282 Acts 27:26; Rom. 10:12; Gal. 3:28; Col 3:11. See an eloquent passage on this side of St. Paul's teaching by the eminent Jewish scholar, C. G. Montefiore, in his "First Impressions of Paul," Jewish Quaterly Review, April 1894, p. 431. When the old Law said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," the context usually shows that "neighbor" means merely "fellow-citizen."283 But the same words in the N.T. always have an infinitely wider meaning, for Christ has told us that every man is our neighbor.284 To love one's neighbor as oneself is "the royal law according to the Scripture"285 It is the only legitimate restraint upon our liberty,286 because "love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law."287 It is at once the foundation, the outcome, and the test of our love for God; for he that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. … If we love one another, God dwelleth in us. … He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"288 283 As Lev. 19:18; Prov 3:29.
284 Matt. 5:43-45; 7:12; 19:19; 22:39-40; Mark 12:31-34; Luke 10:27, 36, 37. 285 James 2:8. 286 Gal. 5:13, 14; 1 Pet. 2:16; Cp. Tobit 4:15; Every man "has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man" (Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1850) ch 9, § 1). 287 Rom. 8:9:10. 288 1 John 4:8, 12, 16, 20. § 8. For, when we turn from the Old Testament to the New, we find that Christ and His Apostles insist, no less than Moses and the Prophets had done before them, on the fundamental importance of Justice. In "the Song of the Lamb," as well as in "the Song of Moses, the servant of God," "righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the ages289 … all the nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy righteous acts have been made manifest";290 the great multitude in the apocalyptic heaven, like the singers in the Jerusalem Temple, tell of the justice of God's judgments.291 Justice is still the dominant note; but, in the N.T., we hear it in even greater fulness and richness, for it is sounded with all its harmonies. The N.T. formula — "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time … but I say unto you" — enlarged and extended the ethical content of the term righteousness" or "justice." "I am not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfil"292 — to give a wider and deeper import to the principles they enunciated. It is good to abstain from overt acts like murder, or adultery, or false swearing. "But I say unto you," don't even harbor angry feelings unjustly toward your neighbor; don't wrong a woman even in your inmost thought; speak the truth always, simply and straightforwardly: be perfectly just in thought and word and deed, "as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."293 289 Many ancient authorities
read "King of the nations."
290 Rev. 15:3, 4 [R.V.]. 291 Rev. 19:2. 292 Matt 5:21ff. Cp. Paul in Acts 24:14. 293 Cp. Zech. 8:16, 17. Even when "righteousness" had became a technical term in the more highly developed Theology of the post-exilic Jewish Church and of the early Christian writers, its original ethical meaning was included in, and not superseded by the new use of the old word. To be "justified" was to be put into one's right and just and "normal" relation to God and man. The O.T. writers tell us that "righteousness exalteth a nation";294 that the keeping of the just Law of God is "not a vain thing for you ; because it is your [national] life;295 and through this thing ye shall prolong your days [as a nation] in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it."296 And when the Son of Man judges "all nations," it is not by the standard of orthodoxy of belief, but by the standard of rightness in social conduct — by their treatment of the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the poor and unfortunate — that He separates the sheep from the goats.297 294 Prov. 14:34 (Vulg. Justitia elevat
gentem).
295 And so of the individual (Prov. 12:28; Isa. 33:15, 16). 296 Deut. 32:47. 297 Matt. 25:31-46. If the great Prophet of Israel promises the material blessings of prosperity, fruitfulness, and good health to those who are obedient to the just Law of Jehovah,298 the Prophet greater than he, the Preacher on the mount, tells us that we shall cease to be "worried to death"299 about the supply of our daily, bodily needs only if we "seek first the kingdom of God and His [its] righteousness."300 So only shall "all these things" — food as sure as the birds', clothing as beautiful as the lilies' — be "added unto us;" "for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."301 So, in the universal human prayer — "The Lord's prayer" — we ask first that God's kingdom may come: then may we add, "Give us," all of us "day by day our daily bread." 298 Deut. 7:12ff., 12:13 ff., etc.
299 "Take no thought" (R.V., "be not anxious"). Gr. Mn, uepiuvare (cp. 1 Sam, 9:5 with 10:2). The phrase in A. V. at the time well represented the meaning of the Gr. Baret's Alvearie (1580) translates "take you no thought" by noli te solicitudine confrere. "The pale cast of thought" is associated by Shakespeare (Hamlet, III. I; Ant. and Cleop., IV: 6) with a guilty conscience and with the contemplation of suicide. So "take thought and die for Caesar,' Jul. Caes II. I. "Queen Catherine Parr [wife of Henry VIII.] died of thought" (Somers' Tracts, I. 172). "Gonzales was done to death by Gasca. Soto died of thought in Florida " (Purchas's Pilgrimage (1613), p. 871). "Hawis, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and dyed with thought and anguish, before his business came to an end" (Bacon, Henry VII. (1622), p. 230). 300 Gr. rhv dlkaioovnv avrov; Vulg. justitam ejus; justice as in Douai Version. 301 Matt. 6:24-34; Luke 12:22-31. The message of Jeremiah, "To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the Most High, to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not,"302 is re-echoed with startling emphasis and irresistible appeal in St. Paul's letter to Timothy: "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal. … Let every one that nameth the name of Christ stand aloof from injustice."303 302 Lam. 3:35, 36.
303 2 Tim. 2:19. The A.V. has "depart from iniquity;" R.V. "depart from unrighteousness." The Gr. is [?] Micah of Moresheth-Gath asked the Hebrews of the later monarchy the searching question: "Will the Lord be pleased with [sacrifices of] ten thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? … He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"304 And in a later generation, the Son of Man told the most religious Jews of His time, in terms of bitter denunciation, that the most scrupulous observance of the outward forms of religion, even to the meticulous tithing of the smallest herbs in the kitchen garden, could not make them fit to enter into the kingdom of Heaven so long as they were unjust towards their fellows, and plundered the poor and helpless.305 "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. … Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law — judgment, mercy and faith." 304 Mic. 6:6-12; Prov. 21:3; Isa. 1:10-17,
58:5-12, 61:8; Jer.
7:4-7; Amos 5:21-24; Hos. 6:6; Ps,50:7-23 (51:16-19),
69:30, 31; Heb. 13:15,16;
305 Matt. 5:20; 23:4-14, 23-33; Mark 12:38-40; Luke 11:42, 20:47, cp. James 1:27. § 9. Justice or Equity is, therefore, the foundation of the law of social life, both in the Old Testament and in the New. What, then, follows as to the Land Question? Let the results of our inquiry into the teaching of the Law and the Prophets be briefly restated in the language of a modern philosopher. "Equity," wrote Herbert Spencer in the middle of last century306 "does not permit private property in land." 306 Social Statics, ch. 9 § 2.
On Spencer's later partial retractation, see Henry George, A
Perplexed Philosopher (1892);
Spencer, Justice (1891); and the present writer's
controversy
with Spencer in the London Daily Chronicle (1904). (Reprinted:
Land Values Publication Department, 376 Strand. rd.)
"The verdict given by pure equity … dictates the assertion, that the right of mankind at large to the earth's surface is still valid; all deeds, customs, and laws notwithstanding" (Social Statics, ix.§3). "It is impossible to discover any mode in which land can become private property" (Ibid. § 4). "The theory of the co-heirship of all men to the soil is consistent with the highest civilisation … however difficult it may be to embody that theory in fact, Equity sternly commands it to be done". (§ 10) It is quite clear that there is no difference, except in literary form, between Spencer's conclusions, and those which have been deduced, in the foregoing chapters, from the writings of the Hebrew Lawgivers and Prophets. The famous ninth chapter of Social Statics might quite well be published, as the Church Catechism sometimes is, "with Scripture proofs." § 10. Even the modern method for doing that which, "however difficult," Justice "sternly commands to be done," — the method inseparably connected with the great name of Henry George, — can plead scriptural warrant for principle which underlies and justifies it. For, as we have seen307 it is not by means of "compensation" to landlords, which Spencer by implication repudiated in Social Statics and by implication defended forty years later in Justice, but by the taxation of land values, a proposal which he consistently ignored, that we can justly reassert "the co-heirship of all men to the soil," justly re-establish the equal "right to the use of the earth." 307 Chapter 6.
It is no part of the plan of this little book to work out the application of this reform to modern social conditions. That is done, in principle, in Henry George's books: in detail, with reference to English politics, in the numerous publications of the Leagues for the Taxation of Land Values. § 11. Does this "simple but sovereign remedy" of the Prophet of San Francisco seem too simple to serve as a solvent for an unjust social system? Is it hard to believe that so prosaic a reform as the adoption of land values, as the sole basis of taxation do so much that is claimed for it, can make the doing of so many other reforms so much easier, or — render them altogether unnecessary? Does not the terrible nature of our social disease call for something "much more effective" than the gradual establishment of just conditions under which grown men and women, using their God-given faculties in a free society, can work out their own social salvation? "Is not the "nationalisation" and "socialisation" of all the land by one magnificent financial operation, and the regimentation of the workers upon it under Commissions of Experts, far better than all your "Single Tax"? Hear ye the parable of Naaman the Syrian.— "Now Naaman, captain of the host
of the King of Syria, was a great man with his master … a mighty man in
valor, but he was a leper. …
"So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. "But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. "And his servants came near, and spoke unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? "Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." (2 Kings v. 1-12) "And if I have written well and to the point in my story, this is what I myself desired; but if meanly and indifferently this is all I could attain unto. For as it is distasteful to drink wine alone, and in like manner again to drink water alone, while the mingling of wine with water at once giveth full pleasantness to the flavor; so also the fashioning of the language delighteth the ears of them that read the story. And here shall be the end."308 308 2 Macc. 15:38, 39.
A. The encroachments of Injustice The
setting up of a privileged class —
"He (the King) will take your fields, and your vineyards and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And He will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers,309 and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men,310 and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king, which ye shall have chosen you" (1 Sam. 8:14-18; cp. Ezek. 46:16-18; Jer. 22:13-17, on which see above, Chap. 7. § 3). 309 R.V.m., eunuchs.
310 LXX, goodliest herds. "Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts [i.e. bribes], and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease Me of Mine adversaries, and avenge Me of Mine enemies "(Isa. 1:23, 24). —
leads to land monopoly —
"The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of His people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat My people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts"(Isa. 3:13-15). "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the earth!" (Isa. 5:8 [R.V.]; cp. Mic. 2, 3, on which see above, Chap. 3. § 10). "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of My people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless" (Isa. 10: 1, 2). —
and extremes of riches and poverty.
"Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;311 that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor,312 and turn aside the way of the meek: … and they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned313 in the house of their god" (Amos 2:6-8). 311 This expression is probably
connected with the practice of selling land by the transfer of a show
(cp. 8:6 and Ruth 4:7). In 1 Sam. 12:4, the LXX reads: "Of whose
hand have I received a bribe or a pair of shoes?" cp. Ecclus. 46:19.
"The shoe may therefore be regarded as the title-deed of the needy
man's inheritance, which the rich man has appropriated" (Horton in Century Bible, ad loc. quoting Expository Times, 12:378.)
312 This could only mean that the land-hunger is so great that they desire even the dust which rests on the poor man's head, perhaps sprinkled on it as a sign of mourning" (Horton). The LXX suggests to Prof. G. A. Smith the rendering: "Who trample to the dust of the earth the heads of the poor." 313 R.V., of such as have been fined. "For among My people are found wicked men; they watch, as fowlers lie in wait; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit; therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness: they plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they should prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" (Jer. 5:6-29 [R.V.]). B. The Effects of Land Monopoly The denial of equal rights in land drives drives men to the least productive soil — produces poverty — hunger in the midst of plenty — homelessness — misery in overcrowded cities — crime — and black despair. "There are that remove the landmarks; They violently take away flocks and feed them.314 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, They take the widow's ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way: The poor of the earth hide themselves together. Behold, as wild asses in the desert They go forth to their work, seeking diligently for meat; The wilderness yieldeth them food for their children.315 They cut their provender in the field; And they glean the vintage of the wicked. They lie all night naked without clothing, And have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, And embrace the rock for want of a shelter. There are that pluck the fatherless from the breast, And [R.V.m.] take in pledge that which is on the poor: So that they go about naked without clothing, And being an-hungred they carry the sheaves; They make oil within the walls of these men; They tread their wine-presses, and suffer thirst. From out of the populous city men groan, And the soul of the wounded crieth out: Yet God imputeth it not for folly. These are of them that rebel against the light They know not the ways thereof. Nor abide in the paths thereof. The murderer riseth with the light, he killeth the poor and needy; And in the night he is as a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, Saying, No eye shall see me: And he disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through houses: [R.V.m.] Which they had marked for themselves in the daytime; They know not the light. For the morning is to all of them as the shadow of death; For they know the terrors of the shadow of death. (Job 24:2-17 [RV.]). 314 LXX, flocks with their
shepherd.
315 Prof. Peake (Century Bibl, ad. loc.) suggests the rendering: "Behold, as wild asses of the desert they go forth, seeking diligently the prey of the wilderness. There is no bread for the children" Land
monopoly, by its economic wastefulness —
"In mine ears saith the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah"316 (Isa. 5: 9, 10 [R.V.]; cp. Amos 3:15). 316 An ephah (dry measure) and a
bath (liquid measure) were each the tenth part of a homer (Ezek.
45:11). Homer = about 90 gallons.
"And as for you, O My flock, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he-goats. Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep [R.V. clear] waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet? And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet." "Therefore thus saith the Lord God unto them; Behold I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle. Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad; therefore will I save My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle." (Ezek. 34:17-22 cp. Prov. 13:23 [R.V.]). —
brings evil upon the robbers, —
"Forasmuch therefore as ye trample upon the poor, and take exactions from him of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink the wine thereof. For I know how manifold are your transgressions, and how mighty are your sins; ye that afflict the just, that take a bribe, and that turn aside the needy in the gate from their right" (Amos 5:11, 12 [R.V.]). "And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the Lord of Hosts" (Mal. 3:5). "Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is if you kept back by fraud, crieth out: and the cries of them that reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter" (Jas. 5:1-5 [R.V.]; cp. Job 20; 1 Tim. 6:9, 10, 17). —
and upon the robbed.
"But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore" (Isa. 42:22). Luxury
brings social deterioration and carelessness about national welfare.
"Woe to them that are at ease in Zion … the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come! … Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; that sing idle songs to the sound of the viol; that devise for themselves instruments of music, like David's; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive … Saith the Lord, … I abhor the pride of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein. And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. … For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and the great house shall be smitten with breaches, and the little house with clefts. … Ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood" (Amos 6:1-13 [R.V.]). Idle
and luxurious ladies —
"Moreover the Lord said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their anklets, and the cauls, and the crescents; the pendants, and the bracelets, and the mufflers; the head tires, and the ankle chains, and the sashes, and the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the rings, and the nose jewels; the festival robes, and the mantles, and the shawls, and the satchels; the hand mirrors, and the fine linen, and the turbans, and the veils. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet spices there shall be rottenness; and instead of a girdle a rope; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; branding instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she shall be desolate and sit upon the ground. And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name; take thou away our reproach" (Isa. 3:16—4:1 [R.V.]; cp. the four preceding verses, 3:12-15; 32: 9-14). —
incite their husbands to further injustice.
"Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say unto their lords, Bring, and let us drink. The Lord God hath sworn by His holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that they shall take you away with hooks, and your residue with fish hooks. And ye shall go out at the breaches, every one straight before her. … And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord" (Amos 4:1-3, 6 [R.V.]; and cp. the rest of the chapter). The
parlous plight of the poor.
"The destruction of the poor is their poverty" (Prov. 10:15). "Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach. Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, Our houses unto aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, Our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us. Our pursuers are upon our necks: We are weary, and have no rest"(Lam. 5:1-5 [R.V.]). "The needy shall not always be forgotten, Nor the expectation of the poor perish for ever" (Ps. 9:18). C. The Restoration of Equal Rights Nehemiah
holds a mass meeting —
"Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. For there were that said, We, our sons and our daughters, are many; let us get corn, that we may eat and live. Some also there were that said, We are mortgaging our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses; let us get corn, because of the dearth. There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the King's tribute upon our fields and our vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage already: neither is it in our power to help it; for other men317 have our fields and vineyards. 317 The Lucian recension of the
LXX reads "for the nobles" (see next verse).
"And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and the rulers [or deputies], and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I held a great assembly against them." — to
demand the abolition of land monopoly without compensation —
"And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and would ye even sell your brethren, and should they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace, and found never a word. Also I said, The thing that ye do is not good: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God, because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies. And I likewise, my brethren and my servants, do lend them money and corn on usury. I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their fields, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part318 of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them." 318 (?) One per cent, per
month. Usury = interest.
—
and his proposed reforms are unanimously adopted.
Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do, even as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. Also I shook out my lap,319 and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise." 319 Cp. Acts 18:6.
He
abolishes unjust taxes and land speculation.
Moreover, from the time I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah … I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor. But the former governors that were before me laid burdens upon the people, and took of them bread and wine, beside320 forty shekels of silver: yea, even their servants lorded over the people: but so did not I, because of the fear of God … neither bought we any land". (Neh. v. 1-16 [R.V. with m.]) 320 R.V.m. at the rate
of Vulg., quotidie
= daily.
His
reforms are carried out.
And the princes of the people dwelt in Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city … but in the cities of Judah dwelt every one in his possession in their cities, to wit, Israel, the priests, and the Levites [etc.]. … And the residue of Israel, of the priests, the Levites, were in all the cities of Judah, every one in his inheritance. … And for the villages, with their fields, some of the children of Judah dwelt in Kiriath-arba, and the towns thereof, and in Dibon [etc.]. … (Neh. 11. [R.V.]). Ezekiel
demands land restoration.
"My princes shall no more oppress My people; but they shall give the land to the house of Israel according to their tribes (Ezek. 45:8 [R.V]). D. The Coming Reign of Justice With
equal rights to land restored —
"Ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God" (Ezek. 36:28). —
men shall enjoy the produce of their labor.
"Then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to My servant Jacob. And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards" (Ezek. 28:25, 26). "The Lord hath sworn by His right hand, and by the arm of His strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and strangers shall not drink thy wine, for the which thou hast labored: but they that have garnered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that have gathered it shall drink it in the courts of My sanctuary" (Isa. 62: 8, 9 [R.V.]). "And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree shall be the days of My people, and My chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for calamity" (Isa. 65: 21-23 [RV.]). Life
will be a joy —
Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: again shalt thou be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy the fruit thereof. … And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together unto the goodness of the Lord, to the corn, and to the wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, saith the Lord" (Jer. 31: 4, 5, 12, 13, 14; cp. Ps. 34: 12- 16; 1 Pet. 3:10-12). — in
happy childhood and hale old age.
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for every age.321 And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof " (Zech. 8: 4, 5); Cp.1 Macc. 14: 9. 321 R.V.m. for multitude of days.
There
will be security and plenty at home —
"For before those days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast: neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the adversary: for I set all men every one against his neighbor. But now I will not be unto the remnant of this people as in the former days, saith the Lord of hosts. For there shall be the seed of peace; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. … These are the things that ye shall do: Speak ye every man the truth with his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord" (Zech. 8:10-12, 16, 17 [R.V.]). "The tree of the field shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be secure in their land; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those that made bondmen of them. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the earth devour them; but they shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid." (Ezek. 34:27, 28; [R.V.m] cp. 36:29, 30). Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of graos hun that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God " (Amos 9:13-15). —
and peace at home and abroad.
"Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever. And my people shall abide in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places" (Isa. 32:15-18 [R.V.]). "And he shall judge between many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it" (Mic. 4:3, 4; cp. Isa. 2:4, 65:25; 1 Macc. 14: 12, 13). "In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig-tree" (Zech. 3:10). List
of Jewish Authorities Quoted322
\The original version has a list of Jewish Authorities quoted, with reference to page numbers. These are – for various reasons – not quoted here. /PMA |
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