t HD I IT V4 UC-NRLF *B bSfl ISb My Neighbour's idmark By, FREDERICK VERINDER GIFT OF Mill cent ^.'". Shinn < ^^f ' // CQ/pf-^ /r , ^ hz-n ;tL MY NEIGHBOUR'S LANDMARK SHORT STUDIES IN BIBLE LAND LAWS FREDERICK VERINDER WITH A PREFACE BY THE VERY REV. G. W. KITCHIN. D.D.. F.S.A.. Dean of Durham and Warden of Durham University. JOSEPH PELS FUND BLYMYER BUILDING. CINCINNATI. OHIO FOREWORD There is need of this book, and American readers will be, as were the English readers, grateful for the work that Mr. Verinder has done. I am confident that everyone who reads it will feel as I did, glad of the opportunity for himself and glad of it for all others. Mary Fels. (Mrs. Joseph Fels.) 948554 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 pos- session 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 Hfe. Their main principle was that the holding of land, un- like the owning of commodities, carried with it a great social duty; land is the base of Hfe, 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 produc- tion. Mr. Verinder has revived in our hearts an ancient pleasure; for he has shown that the most modern aspir- ations breathe in the oldest Scriptures; it is as fit for ancient civilizations 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 today, 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 hope- ful 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 civilized 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 PAGE Foreword ........ 3 Preface . . . . . . . .5 CHAPTER I BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION § 1. On "Cursing one's Neighbours." — § 2. The Appeal of Christ and the Church to Moses and the Prophets. — § 3. The Three Stages of Reform. — § 4. The Bible as a Text-Book of Ethics. — § 5. How the Law was handed down to us. — § 6. The Modern Literary Criticism of the Pentateuch. — § 7. Moses the Liber- ator and Lawgiver. — § 8. Hebrew Land Laws : Prin- ciples and Details. "The Mother of all Things." — § 9. The Modern Application . . .13 CHAPTER II FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S No Private Property in Land. — § 2. God, the only Landowner, — § 3. has given the Land to the Human Race. — § 4. All Men and all Generations have equal Rights of Use.— § 5. The Profit of the Earth is for All 24 CHAPTER III THE MEANING OF THE LANDMARK PAGE § 1. The Conquest of Canaan. — § 2. Hebrew View of the Conquest. — § 3. God*s Punishment of National Wrong-Doing. — § 4. The Family and the Nation. — § 5. Trade and Agriculture among the Hebrews. — § 6. The Division of the Land. — § 7. Josephus on Land Value. — § 8. The Landmark and its Mean- ing. — § 9. Naboth's Vineyard. — § 10. Micah and the Land-Grabbers. — § 11. Sir Edward Strachey and Flavins Josephus on the Landmark. — § 12. The Landmark in Modern England . . .30 CHAPTER IV THE YEAR OF JUBILEE: LAND AND LIBERTY § 1. Landlordism and Slavery. — § 2. No Involuntary Pov- erty under just Social Conditions. — § 3. The Peo- ple's Jubilee in the Old Testament, — § 4, contrasted with the Victorian "Jubilee." — § 5. Meaning of the Hebrew Jubilee. — § 6. Riches and Poverty. — § 7. The Law of the Jubilee. Compensation for unex- hausted Improvements. — § 8. The essential Differ- ence between Land and Improvements. — § 9. Prop- erty in Land is Property in Man . . .46 CHAPTER V LAND, LABOUR, LEISURE AND LEARNING The Sabbatical Cycle and the Hebrew Holidays. — § 2. The Sabbath Day: its Meaning and Use.— § 3. The Relation between Labour and Rest. Work for All, Overwork for None. — § 4. The Sabbath Year, — § 5, or Year of Release, — § 6, as a Witness to Equal Rights in Land, — § 7, and as a Provision for Na- tional Education.— § 8. What the Law meant to the Hebrew ....... 59 8 . CHAPTER VI COMPENSATION PAGE The Place of the Levites in the Hebrew Common- wealth: their Functions, — § 2, and their Inheritance. — § 3. The Meaning of the Tithe.— § 4. To whom is "Compensation" Due? — § 5. Land Restoration under Nehemiah . . . . .70 CHAPTER VII JUSTICE § 1. The Ethical Significance of Christ's Resurrection, — § 2, and of the Deliverance from Egypt. — § 3. The Meaning of "Righteousness." — § 4. Justice the Foun- dation of all Law, Divine and Human. Because God is just, the Law must be just, and must be justly administered, — § 5, and Justice must rule all our Social Relations. — § 6. The Messianic Ideal : the coming Reign of Justice and Social Peace. — § 7. The Christian Ideal of Universal Justice. The Ful- filling of the Law. — § 8. Jesus Christ and His Apostles on Justice. — § 9. Justice does not permit Private Property in Land. — § 10. "The Simple but Sovereign Remedy." — § 11. The Parable of Naaman the Syrian . . . . . .77 APPENDIX A. The Encroachments of Injustice . . . .90 B. The Effects of Land Monopoly . . . .92 C. The Restoration of Equal Rights . . .97 D. The Coming Reign of Justice . . . .99 List of Jewish Authorities Quoted .... 103 Index of Names and Subjects .... 110 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 Eng- Hsh 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. . . . Flavins Josephus; Jewish historian and apolo- gist. 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. J. 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 5". 10 "To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no Hght in them" (Isa. viii. 20). "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them" (Luke xvi. 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. i. 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. xv. 4). "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John viii. 32). 11 MY NEIGHBOUR'S LANDMARK CHAPTER I 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 speak- ing and writing." — The Prologue of the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach. § 1. It is still, I believe, a popular superstition that, on the first day of Lent in each year, the Church of Eng- land invites her children to meet in their parish churches for the purpose of "cursing their neighbours/' 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 re- flected 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, 13 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 offences against morals that, in the very nature of things, carry with them a curse. The of- fences 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 fellows ; sins, which deny fundamental rights. The avowed purpose of the service which strikes the key- note of the Church's Lenten discipline is, that, being ad- monished by this terrible recital, we may "flee from such vices, for which we affirm with our own mouths the curse of Gk)d 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 favour of Social Reform has been seen in our time as would take place if, on any Ash- Wed- nesday, 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 "unmer- ciful, fornicators, and adulterers, covetous persons, idola- ters, slanderers, drunkards, and extortioners" — stands this— "Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour'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- 14 and-twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy."^ Like her Lord and Master, in the parable of Social Inequality,^ 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."^ She throws us back on the teaching of the Old Testament about the Land Question. § 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 im- possible thing is done, "that's exactly what we have been in favour 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 civilized country, is working to- wards 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 teachings of the Bible? § 4. Now, whether we regard the Bible as a book in a special way "inspired," or as a collection of books 1. Deut. xxvii. 17. 2. St. Luke xvi. 19-31. 8. St. Matt. v. 17. 16 in a special degree ''inspiring''; whether we treat these ancient Hebrew writings as authentic history or as al- legorical tradition, the answer is, in either case, inter- esting and important. For the traditions, history, laws and literature of the Jews are better known to most Englishmen than the traditions, history, laws and liter- ature of their own nation. There is still, as Dr. Mar- goliouth points out,^ a large class, "though smaller than it once was, whose sole encyclopaedia, not only of theology and ethics, but also of history and archaeology, is the Bible." For the Hebrew records, in their English ver- sion, 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 Ed- ward 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 his- tory at all, here is the best known and most accessible of all histories ready to our hand. Pliny's latifundia perdidere Italian . . . et privincias^ 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" Socie- ties, or through the pages of arid volumes on Moral Phil- osophy. 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. It is quite possible to doubt whether Moses act- ually wrote the whole of the five books to which his name 1. Introduction to new edition of Whiston's Josephus (1906), p. ix. 2. Plin., Nat. Hist., xviii. 7. 3: "Modum agri in primis servandum antiqui putayere, quippe ita censebant, satius esse minus serere et melius arare; qua in sententia et yergilium fuisse video. Verumque confifentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam, iam vero et provincias. Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps." (Cp. Verg. Georg. ii. 412: "Laudato ingentia rura, Exiguum colito.") 16 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 earHest 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 Coven- ant,'' nor has he so much as heard of the literary labours of the "Elohist" and the "J^^ovist." 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 Dar- win 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 com- pilations ; that it contains the work of many writers who flourished under the divided monarchy, and during the Exile. These writers collected, partly from earlier writ- ings, now lost to us, and partly from stories handed down by word of mouth, often in verse,^ the traditions, folk- lore, 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 col- lected 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 1. e. g. the "Book of Jasher" (Josh x. 1?, 13; 2 Sam. i. 18); "Book of the Wars of the Lord" (Num. xxi. 14); the "Song of Deborah" (Judg. v.), etc. etc. 17 one volume with the "Psalms of David" ; exactly as pro- verbs 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.^ § 6. No attempt is made in this little book to distin- guish between the various Hterary "sources" of the He- brew Land Laws.^ The material has been drawn freely from all of them. My present purpose is simply to dis- entangle 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 in- dependent 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 absolutly 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 writ- ing. "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 die religious contents of parts of the Old Testa- ment 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 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 edi- fying adaptations."^ For "the Jewish law, if it is to be judged properly, must be judged as a whole, and not with exclusive refer- 1. 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. 2. See article by Rev. P. H. Wicksteed on "The Year of Jubilee" in Christian Reformer, August 1887. 3. Cheyne and Black, Postscript to Encyclopaedia Biblica, vol. iv., p. 12 [1903]. 18 ence 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 main- tained; it taught them that human nature Heeded to be restrained; it impressed upon them the necessity of dis- cipline."^ § 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 his- torical figure of the Lawgiver dominates them through- out, 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 honour, asked him to rebuke some unauthorized persons who "prophesied" in the camp; *'would God that ail the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His spirit upon them!"^ If it was through Moses that ''the Lord gave the word," it is no less true that "great was the company of those that pubHshed it."^ A descendant of Levi, nursed by his own Hebrew mother, though adopted by an Egyptian princess and brought up as an Egyptian.^ 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,^ under which they were being oppressed. According to Manetho, he was brought up as a priest, and was well acquainted with Greek, Chaldaean 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 1. Driver, on "Law in the O. T.," in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 72 b. 2. Num. xi. 29. 8. Ps. Ixviii. 11. 4. Ex. ii. 1, 9, 10. Cp. in verse 19, "an Egyptian delivered us." 5. Acts vii. 22. Cp. 1 Kings iv. 30; Isa. xix. 11, 13. 19 kinsmen.^ 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.^ Into his peaceful and meditative life, as Jethro's shepherd in Arabia, broke the Divine call to become the deliverer of his race.^ "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.^ 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." 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 sketch- ed broad outlines, within which a long succession of later legislators and teachers supplied the details, matters Ht- tle. 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,^ it witnesses to an original which can only be accounted for on the assump- tion 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."^ § 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 1. Heb. xi. 24-27. 2. Ex. ii. 11-15. 3. Ex. iii. 4. Ex, iii. 6, 14. Deutsch translates the expression Nuk-pu-Nuk in the Egyptian "Ritual of the Dead" by "I am HE who I am." 5. For instance, many of the "Mosaic" provisions can be paralleled from the Code of the Babylonian king, Hammurabi f — Amraphel, Gen. xiv. 9], discovered in 1902; but "the care taken by Israelite law to protect strangers finds no parallel in Babylonia" (S. A. Cook, Lazvs of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, p. 276). Israel was once a "stranger" in Egypt, and "a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." 6. See Canon Driver, Literature of the O. T., pp. 152 ff. 20 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 sys- tem. It is, of course, obvious that the details of the land laws which Moses promulgated, and to which the Proph- ets appealed, cannot apply to a nation so differently cir- cumstanced 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 peo- ple. ''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 vapour 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."^ But the principles which underlay those "pre- cepts" are fundamental and immutable, because the rela- tion 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."^ Land is still, as it was in the time of Moses, the home and the workshop of the human race, the reser- voir from which human labour draws all the raw mater- ials^ wherewith to satisfy its needs. "Land is perpetual man." "One generation passeth away, and another gen- eration Cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."^ The Pentateuchal tradition recognises, in what has been de- scribed as a "first attempt at organic chemistry," as clear- 1. St. Chrysostom on Matt. v. 36, 37; translation in Pusey's Library of the Fathers, p. 263. 2. 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. xl. 1; and compare the notes below). 3. Ps. civ. 14, 15; Job xxviii. 1-6; Deut. viii. 9. 4. Eccles. i. 4. 21 ly 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.^ § 9. It is, therefore, to the underlying principles of the Hebrew social philosophy, rather 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 Ed- ward Dove, Herbert Spencer (in his earlier phase), Al- fred 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 liberator could hardly have found in our time a more fitting and sympathetic expositor. But, ancient as these principles are, the most character- istic of modern problems — problems of poverty amid in- creasing wealth, of housing, of unemployment — are com- pelling 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 organization. When "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground," He so formed him that he could live 1. Gen. ii. 7 [Hebr. Adamah-zzzST^ound], iii. 19; cf. Ps. civ. 29, cxlvi. 4; Job. xxxiv. 15; Eccles. iii. 20, xii. 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. x. 10, 14); "The Lord created man of the earth, and furned him into it again" (Ecclus. xvii. 1, also xxxiii, 10, xl. 1 (quoted in an earlier note), xli. 10; Wisd. xv. 8; 1 Cor. xv. 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 land or clime, but he might claim the whole world as his country and mankind irrespective of class or creed as his family." — 5",] 28 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 sentence^), that "Land is the mother and Labour 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. 1. Quoted Karl Marx, Das Kapital, chap. i. 83 CHAPTER II FIRST PRINCIPLES: "THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S" "Thy land which Thou hast given to Thy people for an in- heritance." — 1 Kings viii. 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 im- possible, 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/'^ and is frequently repeated else- where.^ "The sea is His, and He made it : and His hands formed the dry land."^ "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods."^ "The world is Mine, and the ful- ness thereof."^ "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool . . . for all those 1. Gen. i, 1, xxiv. 3; Neh. ix. 6; Ps. cii. 25, cxxiv. 8; Isa. xlii. 5, xlv. 12; Jer. X. 12; Heb. i. 10. 2. It was evidently recognized as a distinctly Hebrew belief (Jonah i. 9). 3. Ps. xcv. 6. 4. Ps. xxiv. 1, 2; cp. 1 Cor. x. 26, 28. 5. Ps. 1. 12; cp. Ixxxix. 11, 12; Ex. xix. 5. 24 things hath Mine hand made.^ God Almighty is, there- fore, by right of creation, the only landlord. When the late Lord Salisbury attempted, in the House of Lords,^ 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 state- ment would have been regarded by the Hebrew Lawgiver as blasphemous, and would probably have been character- ised by the plain-speaking Amos in language to which most of our newspapers would hesitate to accord the honour of a verbatim report. § 3. For, while the class which the late Lord Salis- bury 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." There- fore "unto the Lord thy God belongeth the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that therein is."^ "The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath He given to the children of menf'^ No phrase could possibly be wider in its application, or more completely destructive of the claims of a land- lord class to the monopoly of God's earth, than the sim- ple 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 1. Isa. Ixvi. 1, 2. 2. 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 credi- tors, 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 capi- talist) should stand before the landlord, because that would not be just. Tke 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." .S. Deut. X. 14, R. V.; "heaven of heavens"="the highest heaven.'* Cp. 2 Cor. xii. 2, where "the third heaven" probably means the same thing. 4. Ps. cxv. 16. 25 or white, lord or peasant, rich or poor^ — 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 ^Terplexed Philosopher'' did. "For thus said the Lord that created the heavens ; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath es- tablished it, He created it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord ; and there is none else/'^ 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 ;^ with Land and Labour. It is the will of God that man should satisfy his bodily needs by the exercise of his labour 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 labour 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."^ For man is so made, that he has noth- ing but the land to live from, nothing but labour — his own or some one else's — to live by. "So God created man in His own image, . . . male and female created He them. And God blessed 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, 1. ["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, nor smill, nor black, nor white, but man." Again we are told: "In the day that God created man," and the Hebr. sages explain: "God fash- ioned 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 ordi- nances 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.I 2. Isa. xlv. 18; cp. 2 Esd. vi. 55, 59. 3. Gen. ii. 8, 9, 15, "garden" (in LXX, "paradise") is rather "park.." The corresponding Hebrew word is so translated in Neh. ii. 8 [R. V. m.] and Eccles. ii. 5 [R. V.]. 4. Eccles. iii. 13, v. 18. 26 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.'i 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.^ § 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,"^ saith the Lord. No man could sell land "for ever;^ for any man's interest in it was only a life-interest; a temporary usufruct, and not a perman- ent, 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."^ For God has given the land — i.e. the use of it — not to 1. Gen. i. 27-31; cp. ix. 1-3; Ps. viii. 6-8. 2. Gen. iii. 17-19, 23. Cp. Verg. Georg. i. 118-46. 3. Lev. XXV. 23. 4. R. V. gives "the land shall not be sold in perpetuity"; Vulg., "in per- petuum"; Hebr., "to extinction" (so Oehler, Theology of the O. T., i. 348), "out and out." Maimonides (Tractatus de juribus Anni Septimi et Juhilaei; Maius' Lat. trans., 1708) translates: "Terram non vendito absolute." Ac- cording to Hebr. tradition, Abraham bought land "out and out," from the Hittites, for a family burying-place. The detailed account of this transaction (Gen. xxiJi.) is interesting; note especially the lawyer-like precision with which the subject of the purchase is specified (verses 17, 18) (xlix. 29-32). Jacob also bought land for a sanctuary (xxxiii. 19, 20; Josh. xxiv. 32). 5. Ecclus. xxxvii. 25. 27 any particular class or generation of men, but to all generations of mankind. § 5. Lastly, ''the profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field. "^ If these be, as I believe they are, the leading prin- ciples of the ancient teaching of ''Moses and the Proph- ets" on the Land Question, the most surprising thing about them is, perhaps, their modernity. The mode of their expression is, of course, always coloured by the Theocratic conceptions of the Hebrew Commonwealth. But when our own great legal and constitutional author- ities tell us that "all landlords are merely tenants in the eyes of the law" f that ''the idea of absolute ownership ... is quite unknown to the English law; no man is in law the absolute owner of lands, he can only hold an estate in them" f that "the king, therefore, hath only ahsohitnm et directum dominium, ... A subject hath only the usufruct, not the absolute property of the soil" ;'* they are only expressing in different language the same ideas as are embodied in the passages of Scripture above quoted. The theory of the old English law, which vested the ownership of the land in the Crown, as the visible embodiment of the claim of the whole Nation, genera- tion after generation, to "the land which the Lord their God hath given them," resulted in exactly the same negation of private and individual ownership of land as followed upon the Hebrew formula, "The earth is the Lord's; the earth hath He given to the children of men." For, as the last of the Theocratic Republicans told the Israelites, "The Lord your God was your King."^ The highest interest in land which a Hebrew could hold was a tenancy in capita from the Lord Jehovah, the unseen 1. Eccles. V. 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" (t. 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). 2. Joshua Williams, On Real Property, ch. i. 3. Ibid. 4. Blackstone. 6. 1 Sam. xii. 12. 28 King of Israel. There was no rent to pay, unless the small offering of first-fruits — a basket of ''the first of the first-fruits" of all the fruit of the earth"^ — be regarded as a sort of quit-rent, — a formal acknowledgment of Jehovah's absolutism ct directum dominium. The Deu- teronomic edition of the Law does, in fact, prescribe a ritual for the offering of the first-fruits, in which this view is clearly and beautifully impHed.^ So when Henry George, in drafting the first manifesto of the first National Society for the propagation of his teachings, wrote^ that ''no number of individuals can just- ly 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 prim- itive 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, it was easier than it is now for men to see the truth about the Land Question steadily, and to see it whole. 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 ex- penses, he is only restating, in terms of modern condi- tions, the truth that "the profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field." 1. Ex. xxii. 29, xxieague for the Taxation of Land Values), 1884. The League was founded in March, 1883. 29 CHAPTER III THE MEANING OF THE LANDMARK "The land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel."— Josh, i, 2, 6, 11, 15. "Joshua took the whole land . . . and . . . gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes."— Josh. xi. 23. "And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another." — Ezek. xlvii. 14. _ § 1. The Hebrew history tells us that the Law was promulgated in the wilderness at a time when the Israel- ites 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 fulfillment of the promise made to the founder of their race, the Chaldaen sheikh, Abraham. But they found the coun- try already in possession of a number of tribes — the oft- mentioned "Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites,'' etc.^ — entrenched in their hill-fortress- es. Moses was dead, having only seen the promised land from afar, from Mount Nebo.^ But Joshua, his appoint- ed successor,^ led the nation in arms against the peoples of Canaan. The country to the east of the Jordan had, in- deed, been already conquered,* and allotted to the pastoral tribes^ of Reuben and Gad, and the ''half-tribe'' of Manas- seh, 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 peo- 1. Ex. iii. 8; Josh xii. 8, etc. 2. Deut. xxxiv. 3. Num. xxvii. 15-23. 4. Num. xxi. 21-35. 5. Num. xxxii.; Deut. iii. 19; Josh. xiii. 15-21, 24-32; Judg. v. 15, 16. 30 pies in possession. With a view to striking terror into their foes, Joshua took and burnt Jericho, utterly ex- terminating its inhabitants, and placing the rebuilding of the city under a ban.^ One after another, Canaanite strongholds were carried by assault, looted, and their inhabitants put to the sword.^ The Gibeonites, crafty in diplomacy, saved themselves from the general massacre by entrapping the Israelites into an alliance;^ but, al- though 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 grad- ually, were in later times ''put to tribute/'^ § 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 creAV, and the parents, that killed with their own hands souls desti- 1. Josh. vi. 21, 24, 26. 2. Ai, Josh. viii. 21; Makkedah, x. 20, 28; Libnah, x. 30; Lachish, x. 32; Eglon, X. 35; Hebron, x. 37; Debir, x. 39; Hazor, xi. 10, 14 ("neither left they any to breathe"). Josh. xii. 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. 463^). See the story of Adonibezek (Judg. i. 3-7). In a note on "utterly destroy" (="ban" or "devote"), the Rev. Prof. H. Wheeler Robinson (Century Bible at Deut. xx. 17) says: "The same word, with the same meaning, occurs in the inscription of Mesha (Moabite stone), where Mesha says that, having captured Nebo from Israel, he slew the whole of its seven thousand inhabitants, and dragged the vessels of Yahweh [Jehovah] before his god Kemosh [see 1 Kings xi. 7], because he had 'devoted* it to Ashtar-Kemosh." For a later attempt to lessen the horrors of war, see Deut. XX. 10-20, xxi. 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. i. 1-ii. 5, recent commentators should be consulted. 3. Josh. ix. 3-27. 4. Josh. xvii. 13; Judg. i. 27-36. Solomon put them to forced labour in the building of the Temple, etc. (1 Kings ix. 20, 21 ; 2 Chron. ii. 17, 18, viii. 7, 8). Part of the territory of Dan was not conquered till much later (Judg. xviii); Jebus (Jerusalem), not till the time of David (2 Sam. v. 6; 1 Chron. xi. 4). See also 1 Chron. iv. 89-43, v. 10-22. 31 tute of help; that the land, which Thou esteemedst above all other, might receive a worthy colony of God's children."i § 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 wxre part of the relig- ious rites of the Hebrews' Semitic neighbours,^ 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 unpardon- able sin. It brought in its wake *'red ruin and the break- ing 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."^ But behind the mission, there always lurked the ques- tion, Qitis custodiet ipsos ciistodesf The leaders of He- brew 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;^ 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 1. Wisd. xii. 3-7. There are many references in the O. T. to the sacri- ficing of children to the local deities, most frequently in connection with the adoption of the practice by the Israelites in imitation of their neighbours. See Lev. xviii. 21-30, xx. 1-5; Deut. ix. 4, 5, xii. 31; 2 Kings xvi. 3, xvii. 17, xxi. 6; 2 Chron. xxviii. 3, xxxiii. 6; Ps. cvi. 34-39; Jer. xxxii. 35; cp. Mesha's sacrifice, 2 Kings iii. 26, 27. 2. Lev. xxi. 9; Deut. xxiii. 17, 18; 1 Kings xiv. 24, xv. 12, xxii. 46; 2 Kings xxiii. 7; Mic. i. 5, 7; Hos. iv. 13, 14. 3. Bp. Westcott, Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 139. He quotes Deut. xii. 81; Lev. xviii. 24 ff. 4. Deut. XXV. 13, 14; Lev. xxiv. 22. 32 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 real- ised that ''if the salt have lost his savour, it is thence- forth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."^ The legislators, the chron- iclers, the reformers and the poets of Israel tell their peo- ple, in passages far too numerous to be fully quoted or even referred to that drought and dearth,^ disease and pestilence,^ civil war and the breaking-up of the national unity ,^ defeat before invading enemies,^ and, finally, cap- tivity and exile ;^ the ''four sore judgments'' of Ezekiel — "the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence'"^ — 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 polit- ical teachers,^ or committed the social injustices against which the stern prohibitions of the Law and the Proph- ets were directed.^ 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,^^ and which the prophets denounced^^ as the root cause of social robbery, of dire poverty amid increasing wealth,^^ is bluntly described by St. Paul as "idolatry,"^^ "a root of all kinds of evil," by which men are "led astray from 1. Matt. V. 13. 2. 1 Kings xvii.; Jer. viii. 13, xiv. 3. Ex. xxxii. 35. 4. 1 Kings xi. 30-33. 5. Jer. xix. 6 flF. 6. Deut. iv. 25-28; 1 Chron. v. 25, 26; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14 ff.; Ezra. v. 12, ix. 7; Ezek. xxxix. 23; 2 Esd. xiv. 28-33; and, generally. Lev. xx. 22, xxvi. 14-39; Deut. viii. 19, 20; Ps. Ixxviii. 55-64; Dan. ix. 4-15; Jude 5, 7. 7. Ezek. xiv. 21; cp. Jer. xv. 3. 8. See, for instance, Isa. xliv. 9-20; Hos. viii. 6; Hab. ii, 18-20; Wisd. xiii. 10-xiv. 2. 9. Jer. V. 1-6, vi. 11-13, vii.; Ezek. xxii. 29, 31; Zech. vii. 8-14; Hab. i. 1-6, etc. 10. Ex. XX. 17; Deut. v. 21. 11. Mic. ii. 2; Hab. ii. 9; Jer. vi. 12, 13, xxii. 17; cp. Ps. x. 3; Prov. xxi. 25, 26. 12. See Rev. A. C. Auchmuty, Dives and Pauper, sermon I. 13. Col. lii. 5; Eph. v. 3, 5; Rom. i. 25, 29; cp. Mark vii. 22; Luke xii. 15. 33 the faith/'^ The Christian who was a ''fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator," was excommunicate.^ § 4. According to the Hebrew theory of landholding, as we have seen, God was the only absohite 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 Pro- prietor of the land, and He gives it to the people only as beneficiaries."^ ''What would now be called State- loan land, or royal-loan estates, was at that time regard- ed as being more directly Jehovah's estates, as hereditary land which the individual had on loan from Jehovah."^ The method by which these principles were carried in- to practice was, of course, largely determined by the spec- ial circumstances and needs of an Eastern people, settling in a fertile land : "a good land and a large, a land flow- ing with milk and honey ;^ "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat,^ and barely, 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 lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayst dig brass.""^ The method, too, was strongly influenced by two great Hebrew conceptions: that of the family^ as the unit of the Nation ; and that of the Nation itself as a larger fam- ily — the children of Abraham — closely bound together by a common descent and a common religion. "The land w^hich the Lord thy God hath given thee" was not a 1. 1 Tim. vi. 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 xvi. 13, 14). 2. 1 Cor. V. 10, 11, vi. 9, 10; cp. 2 Pet. ii. 14. 8. Oehler, Theol of the O. T.; i. 348. 4. Ewald, Antiquities of Israel (English trans, of 3rd ed.), 178 n. 5. Ex. iii. 8, 17; Num. xiv. 6-8; Jer. xi. 5, etc. 6. For the exportation of agricultural produce from Palestine, see Ezek. xxvii. 17; 2 Chron. ii, 10. 7. Deut. viii. 7-9; cp. i. 25; xi. 9-12; Ezek. xx. 6, 15; Neh. ix. 25. 8. See, for instance, Ex. xx. 5, 6; Lev. xx. 5; Num. i. 2; Deut. v. 9, 10, xxv. 10 (where "house" means "household," "family," as in Ex. i. 21) ; 1 Sam. XX. 6; 2 Kings ix. 26; Jer. ii. 4. Of the tribe as a larger family, Judg. xiii. 2 (Dan), xvii. 7 (Judah). Owing to the practice of polygamy and the inclusion of slaves, the Hebrew "family" was larger than ours (Job i. 3; Jud. 34 mere fagon de parler to the Hebrew ; he conceived of his nation or race, "Israel/' as a collectivity, almost as a per- sonality. *'When Israel v^as a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt.^ God had given the fertile land of Canaan to the v^hole Hebrew nation as a common heritage, in which every family of the common- wealth had equal rights. § 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 agri- cultural and pastoral people; a republic of farmers and shepherds. After the conquest they dwelt in valliges^ 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 PhiUistine or Midianite raid, the Israelites had to take refuge in caves or mountain fastnesses.^ There was no strong central government. Sea-going commerce was, during all their earlier history, practical- ly. 10). The family tie bound the next-of-kin, in case of need, to redeem a man's inheritance (Lev. xxv. 25; Ruth iv. 1-10; Jer. xxxii. 6-12), or his person (Lev. xxv. 47-49), and, if he were murdered, to take up the blood- feud (Gen. ix. 5, 6; Ex. xxi. 12; Deut. xix. 6; 2 Sam. xiv. 6, 7). In earlier times the family as a whole could be punished for the offense of one of its members (as Achan, Josh. vii. 20, 24; cp. Gen. xliv. 16, 17), but the Deuter- onomic legislation forbade this (Deut. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 6), and some of the prophets protested against it (Jer. xxxi, 29, 30; Ezek. xviii. 1-4). The passionate desire of the Hebrews for children (Ps. cxxvii. 3-5), which finds frequent and often pathetic expression in the literature, had a curious legis- lative outcome in the law of the Levirate marriage (Deut. xxv. 5-10; Matt, xxii. 23-27; Luke xx. 27 ff.). The "first commandment with promise" (Eph. vi. 2) makes continuance in the land dependent upon the proper main- tenance of the family organisation (Ex. xx. 12; Deut. v. 16). 1. Hos. xi. 1, and Ex. iv. 22, 23; cp. "thy brother Israel" (Num. xx. 14); "thy brother Jacob" (Obad. 10); "King of Jacob" (Isa. xH. 21). 2. Judg. V. 7; cp. 2 Kings xiii. 5. "To your tents, O Israel," long re- mained the formula of dispersion in defeat or revolt (1 Kings xii. 16; 2 Chron. x. 16; cp. 1 Sam. iv. 10, xiii. 2; 2 Sam. xviii. 17, xix. 8, xx. 1, 22; 1 Kings viii. 66; 2 Chron. xxv, 22). Later we sometimes find "every man to his city" (1 Sam. viii. 22; 1 Kings xxii. 36; Ezra ii. 1; Neh. vii. 6). 3. Judg. vi. 2; 1 Sam. xiii. 6. 35 ly 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 Phillistine immi- grants "from Caphtor"^ 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 Egypt- ians. ''We neither inhabit a maritime country," he says, "nor do we delight in merchandise, nor in such inter- course 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.''^ There is said to be no native Hebrew word for seaport.^ Internal trade also appears to have been carried on mainly by the aborigines.'* Mining and manufacture, as we know them, were practically unknown to the Israel- ites; the metals appear to have been mostly imported.^ Always excepting the tribe of Levi — to be specially con- sidered 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.^ Even after he had been anointed king by Samuel, and the choice had been ratified by a vote of the people, Saul 1. ? Crete. Deut. ii. 23; Amos ix. 7; Josh. xiii. 2-6; Judg. i. 31. 2. Against Apion, i. 60. 3. The first notice of an Israelite navy is in the time of Solomon (1 Kings ix. 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 in- struct the Hebrews in seamanship (2 Chron. \iii. 18, ix. 21). 4. See Isa. xxiii. 2, 8, 11 (R. V. m.) and 18. Ewald conjectures that Maktesh (in Zeph. i. 11) was the Phoenician quarter of Jersualem. In Prov. xxxi. 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. xii. 7; Zech. xiv. 21; Ezek. xvi. 29, xvii. 4. The merchants in Jerusalem after the return from captivity were Tyrians (Neh. xiii. 16) In earlier times, we read of caravans of fshmaelites (or Midianites) trading in spices and slaves (Gen. xxxvii. 25, 27, 28, 36, xxxix. 1). 5. But see Deut. viii. 9. 6. Judg. vi. 11. 3G had to be summoned from his farm — as Cincinnatus was called to deliver the Romans from the Aequians — to raise the siege of Jabesh-Gilead.^ David was ''keeping the sheep/' when he was selected as Saul's successor.^ Elisha was "plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him," when the prophet's mantle fell upon him,^ and Amos, the great Radical reformer, was ''an herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees ;^ and so on. Uzziah, among the later kings, was distinguished by his love of hus- bandry.^ "Hate not laborious work," so said "a man of great diligence and wisdom among the Hebrews," "neith- er husbandry, which the Most High hath ordained."^ § 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 labour 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 1. 1 Sam. xi. 5. 2. 1 Sam. xvi. 11. 3. 1 Kings xix. 19. 4. Amos i.. 1, vit. 14 (R. V.). 5. 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. 6. Ecclus. vii. 15. The honour in which agriculture was held is curi- ously shown in some of the provisions of the Law, e. g. Deut. xx, 6 (exemp- tion from military service), xx. 19, 20 (fruit trees not to be cut down even to serve the exigencies of a siege, but cp. 2 Kings iii. 19, 25). The story of Cain, who was "a tiller of the ground" and afterwards "builded a city" (Gen. iv. 2, 17; co. iii. 17-19, viii. 21; 2 Esd. vii. 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. xxvi. 5 (R. V. m.); Gen. xlvi. 32, 34. According to Josephus (Antiq. 1. ii. 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. ix. 20 ff.). 37 land.^ A body of representative men, specially selected — not unlike what we should now call a Royal Commis- sion — 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.^ To secure fairness of division as between the tribes, the final apportionment was to be by lot.^ 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."^ Even in those early times, we find, in connection with the division of the land, a remarkable recognition of women's rights.^ The records of the actual division in accordance with these "commandments and judgments of Moses" are to be found in the Book of Joshua.® A commission of sur- vey was appointed (three men from each tribe) ; a re- port 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.""^ § 7. Josephus tells us that the land was not divided into equal areas, but according to its value for agricultural 1. Num. xxvi. 1-51. 2. Num. xxxiv. 16-29. 3. Num. xxvi. 55, 56. Cp. Ezek. xlvii. 22, 23, where the "stranger" is to have his share in the land equally with the born Israelite. 4. Num. xxvi. 52-54, xxxiii. 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. ii. 5; Amos vii. 17). 5. On the ex parte application of the daughters of Zelophehad (Num. xxvi. 33, xxvii. 1-11; Josh. xvii. 3, 4). The decision was reviewed on ap- peal, and made subject to a proviso for the protection of inter-tribal rights (the representatives of the Manassite clan Machir, appellants) (Num. xxxvi 1-12). 6. Num. xxxvi. 13; Josh, xiii.-xix. 7. Josh. xix. 51; Num. xxxiv. 13, 16-29. Cp. Ezek. xlviii. 1-7, 23-29. purposes; though whether he was preserving an ancient tradition or merely putting a probable gloss upon the ex- isting 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 ac- count 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 large- ness of its measure, it often happening that one acre of some sort of land was equivalent to a thousand other acres."^ § 8. The boundaries of the family allotments were carefully marked, and the sanctity of these ''landmarks"^ — the outward and visible signs of the equal right to the use of the earth — was protected by the public and solemn denunciation of a curse against him who should dishon- estly tamper with them. The whole Nation was conven- ed 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 resolu- tions, to which the people gave their unanimous assent. Those resolutions classed the removal of the landmark — 1. Josephus, Antiq. v. i. 76-78. 2. "Landmark. — An object such as a stone, a heap of stones, or a tree with a mark on its bark, intended t'o 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 neighbouring proprietors. ... In Egypt, the land had to be remeasured and^ alloted 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. 39 the infringement of the equal right of access to land — with those social sins which bring a curse upon the Na- tion; with the sins which break up families, which re- duce men to the level of the brute ; with idolatry, adultery, and incest; with the perversion of justice, and treacher- ous murder, and the crime of the hired assassin.^ For, to the Hebrew, the landmark was a sacred symbol.^ But it was not the symbol of private ''property'' in land. § 9. The story of Ahab and Naboth illustrates, in a terribly dramatic way, at once the passionate attach- ment 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 compen- sation.^ M. Renan has, indeed, attempted to whitewash Ahab, whom he regarded as a wise and progressive mon- arch, thwarted in a scheme of public improvement by the obstinate perversity of those clerical anarchists, the prophets, and grossly libelled by the Tory High-Church- man who wrote that part of the Book of the Kings! The argument is original and amusing — but hardly con- vincing.* 1. Deut. xxvii. 11-26, xix. 14 ("remove" = Hebr. "set back"); Josh, viii. 33; Job xxiv. 2; Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10; Isa. v. 8; Hos. v. 10; Mic. ii. 2. "The Hebr. word in Deut. xix. 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 neigh- bour fixed by the ancients,' i. e. in order to add to thy portion what properly belongs to thy neighbour. 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 Diet, of the Bible, p. 276). 2. The Oxford Bible gives a picture (Plate L) of a Babylonian land- mark (Brit. Mus. No. 106). The figures upon the upper part of the stone are supposed to represent certain gods and signs of the zodiac. 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 "everlasting landmark," or at- tempt 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 to 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. xxxi. 43-55) ; perhaps a tradition of an ancient delimitation of frontier between Israel and Syria. — The Dean of Durham writes to the author: "The 'land- mark' hereabouts used to be a rude cross set up between one property and an- other. We have an example of one of these in our Library Collection of an- cient 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." 3. 1 Kings xxi. ; 2 Kings ix. 10, 25, 26. 4. Renan, Histoirc du peuple d' Israel (1889), ii. 293. 40 § 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 lead- ing part. Like his contemporary, the courtier and poli- tician 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, be- cause 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 this fam- ily do I devise an evil [viz. the yoke of captivity] from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye walk haughti- ly: for it as an evil time. In that day shall theyi 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.' There- fore thou shalt have none that shall cast the line by lot in the congregation of the Lord." 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 land- grabbers protest, indignantly, and with a touch of sanc- timoniousness — "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, Ts 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 from war. 1. "They" is indefinite [A. V., "one"], and means the professional mourners hired for funerals in the East. 41 The women of My people ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their young children ye take away My glory^ 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 judg- ment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jesusalem with iniquity. . . . Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the House^ as the high places of a forest."^ § 11. '^Selfishness," says a modern writer/ 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 lia- ble to abuse than in connection with the possession of land. Men desire, by an almost universal instinct, to pos- sess 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 endeavour 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 1. 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. 2. t. e. the mountain on which the Temple stood, as is clear from iv. 1. 3. Mic. ii., iii. [R. V.]. 4. Sir Edward Strachey, Bart., Jewish History and Politics, p. 64. 42 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." Eighteen centuries earlier than Sir E. Strachey, anoth- er 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, neith- er 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."i § 12. It is plain that the method adopted in the Com- monwealth 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 meth- od for their own time, without holding it either necessary or desirable to graft the details of early Hebrew legisla- tion 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 1. Joscphus, Antiq. iv. 8. 226. 43 asserting the doctrine of equal rights, it ceases to be a convenient or even a just way as soon as civiHsation pass- es 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.^ 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 occu- pancy of the house equally, or occupy the house unequal- ly, 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 favour 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, any 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 when 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 1. See Chapter VI., § 3, below. 44 clearances and Glenbeigh evictions are modern survivals of the primitive, brutal methods of a landmark 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 na- tive 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 neighbours' 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, hav- ing the pow^er, neglect to repeal it, are as much respon- sible for the wrong done, as are those who profit by the law while it stands. A large and increasing body of students of social ques- tions 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 IV THE YEAR OF JUBILEE: LAND AND LIBERTY "And they praised the God of their fathers, because He had given them freedom and Hberty/' — 1 Esd. iv. 62. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."— 2 Cor. iii. 17. "Ye shall . . . proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." — Lev. xxv. 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 in- voluntary poverty in a community whose Law did not permit the divorce of land from labour. ''He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread/' "shall be satisfied with bread."^ It is very significant that while Moses (no doubt ''for the hardness of their hearts," Mark x.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,^ 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 1. Prov. xii. 11, xxviii. 19. 2. Note, in addition to what is given below, the effort to protect slaves against injury by their masters (Ex. xxi. 20, 26, 27; op. Lev. xxiv. 17-22), and the attempts to mitigate the position of the woman slave fEx. xxi. 7-11; Deut. xxi. 10-14). Asylum for escaped slaves (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16). "Ser- vant" in the English versions=**bondman" (R. V. m. Ex. xxi. 2, etc.), or "slave." "The Deuteronomic law in favour 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). 46 def raudeth him thereof is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbour's Hving slayeth him; and he that de- fraudeth the labourer of his hire is a blood-shedder/'^ § 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 pos- sess 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."^ So long as the Law was kept, no Hebrew need toil for sweated wages^ for a brother Hebrew. By his own labour, 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 ex- ploiter of labour. ''Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof."^ "They shall build houses and in- habit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another in- habit; 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 labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble."^ "The 1. Ecclus. xxxiv. 21, 22, curiously echoed by Shakespeare (Merch. of Ven., Act iv. sc. 1): "You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live." Cp. Deut. xxiv. 6: "No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man's life to pledge." 2. Deut. XV. 4, 5. 3. **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 Host's?" (Isa. iii. 14, 15). 4. Prov. xxvii. 18. 5. Isa. Ixv. 21-23; cp. Amos v. 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 vine- yards, but ye shall not drink the wine thereof" [R. V.], and also, in the same sense, Lev. xxvi. 15, 16; Deut. xxviii. 30, 38-41; Mic. vi. 10-15; Zeph. i. 13. 47 husbandman that laboureth must be the first to partake of the fruits."^ ''Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof ? or who feedeth a flock, and eat- eth 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 should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope."^ § 3. But it is written that ''God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."^ 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 mis- fortune. 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 condi- tions. 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 pro- letariat, 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 labour. Hence the institution of the Year of Jubilee. 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. Jubilcctis est ad imiversam civitatem restauran- 1. 2 Tim. ii. 6 [R. V.]. 2. 1 Cor. ix. 7-10; Deut. xxv. 4; 1 Tim. v. 18. 3. Eccles. vii. 29. 48 dam} It had nothing whatever to do with the reign of a monarch. One of the greatest Hebrew statesmen sol- emnly 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 land- ed aristocracy, the subjection of the common people, the manufacture of flunkeys, the taxation of food, the crea- tion of a standing army^ — would follow upon such an act of treason to the unseen King^ as the establishment of a dynasty. § 4. In our ''Diamond Jubilee'' procession, on 22nd June 1897, the visible embodiments of Samuel's forecast were paraded before the eyes of an admiring pubHc; 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 post- poning the public support and control of the public hos- pitals. 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 unnecessary^ by remedying the social injus- tices 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.^ To the Hebrews, the Jubilee meant a year's holiday.^ The Victorian equivalent for this was a day's holiday by Royal proclamation — a holiday for which many w^orkmen 1. Thus tersely Ewald, De feriarum Hcbr. origine acg ratione (1841), p. 25. In his later Alterthumer Volkes Israels he has discussed the subject fully. 2. 1 Sam. viii. 11-18; cp. xiii. 1, 2, xiv, 52; 1 Kings iv. 7, xviii. 5; "the king's mowings" (Amos vii. 1) ; the building of Jehoiakim's palace by forced, unpaid labour (Jer. xxii. 13-19); Ezek. xlvi. 18; Deut. xvii. 14-20. 3. 1 Sam. x. 19, xii. 12, 19; Isa. xli. 21; Hos. viii. 4 and xiii. 10, 11. There is an early tradition that Gideon, the "Judge" or Deliverer, refused an offer of hereditary kingship. Note his reason as given in Judg. viii. 23. 4. St. Paul chides the Corinthian Christians for profaning the Sacra- ment of Brotherhood. "For this cause," he says, "many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (1 Cor. xi. 30). 5. 2 Thess. iii. 10. 6. ». e. from their usual agricultural work (Lev. xxv. 11, 12). 49 had to pay by the loss of a day's wages — and even this (so incurably are we given over to the worship of Mam- mon) 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 Jub- ilee Syndicates, gathering unearned increment along the line of route at an "expected," but not always realised, "profit" to the shareholders of thousands per cent. In England, with its immense wealth and its chronic poverty, with its Empire upon w^hich 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 Na- tional 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 reestablished ; because the erstwhile disinherited w^as 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 years^ — 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, wxre 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 1. The Book of Jubilees (second century B. C.) makes the Jubilee cycle one of forty-nme years. But according to Jos. (Antiq. iii. 12. 282), and most other authorities, it was the fiftieth year. Ewald (Antiq., Engl, transl. of 8rd 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 pre- paratory day of the Autumn festival, after the year's harvest of every kind was complete." 50 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 fam- ily.'i 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." Ewald^ 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"^ 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 in- 1. Lev. XXV. 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 capitivity.) "On a close in- spection 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 certuries a reality in the national life of Israel" Ewald, Antiq. 378). "It is impossible to think that (as has sometimes been supposed) the institu- tion of the jubilee is a mere paper-law — a theoretical completion of the system of seven; at least as far as concerns the land (for the periodical redistribu- tion 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 (vii. 12, 13) mentions its non-observance as one of the signs that "the end is come" upon the nation for its abominable misdoings (vii. 2, 3). 2. Antiq. Isr. (Engl, transl. of 3rd ed.), p. 177. 3. Bishop Westcott has an interesting note (at Heb. vi. 12) on the Bibli- cal use of KKrjpovo^iia (rr: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 1 have italicised show how aptly the word "inheritance" is used of land as distinguished from the results of labour. 51 terest in land, and, if he sold anything, he could only sell that interest.^ He could not sell the equal interest of his children or his children's children.^ 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 fam- ilies 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.^ 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. § 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 landless^ pauper class on the other, were 1. 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^ 809. 2. 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, in which every child that is born acquries a share (Henry George, Progress and Poverty, bk. vii. ch. i. n.). 3. 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 re- turned "to him to whom the possession of the land belonged" (I-ev. xxvii. 22-24). 4. Le but principal de cette institution etait de maintenir autant dc possible I'egalite primitive du partage des ferres, de reparer les perturbations arrivees dans le courant de quaranteneuf ans, et de prevenir ainsi le complet et durable apprauvissement de certaines families plus malheureuses que d'autres" (Diet. Encycl. de la Theol. Catholique, s. v. Jubile). "With the con- sistent administration of this law, a class wholly without property would have been impossible in Israel" (Oehler, Theol. of the O. T., i. 348. Jahn (Bibli- cal Arcncoology) 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 Heine writes: Moses endeavoured to bring property into harmony with mor- 53 rendered alike impossible. Although there might be, and naturally would be, inequalities arising from varying de- grees 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 equal- ity pf 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."^ ''The sleep of a labouring 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."^ A writer in the Book of Pro- verbs tells us that "much food is in the tilled land of the poor; but there is that is destroyed by reason of injus- tice,''^ while Isaiah^ drives the lesson home by his descrip- tion of the barrenness of the land under monopoly. "There is that withholdeth what is justly due, but it tend- eth 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."^ "As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not ; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall ality, with the true law of reason, and this he accomplished by the introduc- tion 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 "out- lawry" 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 de- manded restitution in due legal form. This last condition left the field open to every possible fraud, especially in a state where despotism and jurispru- dence were in bloom, and where the unlav/ful 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. — 5".]. 1. Prov. XXX. 8, 9. 2. Eccles. V. 12, 13. 3. Prov. xiii. 23 (R. V. m.). 4. Isa. V. 10; see above, ch. iii. § 11. 5. Prov. xi. 24, 26 (R. V. m.). 53 leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a iooV'^ For ^'better is a little with righteous- ness than great revenues with injustice.'''^ § 7. The price paid on such "sales" was naturally based upon the number of years that were to elapse be- fore the next Year of Jubilee: so many years' purchase of the usufruct. "And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buyest ought of thy neighbour'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 neighbour, 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. xxv. 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 improve- ments," and had already recognised the principle of com- pensation 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 gath- ered, 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 ex- penses prove more than the fruits, the present possessor re- ceives 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."3 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. 1. Jer. xvii. 11. 2. Prov. xvi. 8 (R. V.); Ps. xxxvii. 16. 3. Jos., Antiq., iij. 12. 283, 284. 5i a § 8. For there is an essential difference between the ''land/' which God made, and the ''improvements" which the labour of man has made upon the land. 'Tor every house is builded by some man ; but He that built all things is God/'^ Not only are improvements made by labour; they have to be maintained by labour. "By much sloth- fulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through."^ Some elemen- tary appreciation of this economic distinction, not per- haps much more definite than that which has found ex- pression 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 through- out 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 ot the country; they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the Jubilee" (Lev. xxv. 29-31). 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.^ "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 w^ere supposed to live by trade."^ § 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 foot- 1. Heb. iii. 4. 2. Eccles. X. 18. 8. For the exceptional treatment of the Levites* houses, and the reason of it, see Chapter VI. Lev. xxv. 32-34. 4. Bush, quoted in Gray's Biblical Museum (on Lev. xxv. 29). For the Canaanite traders, see p. 36, n. 55 hold upon the land, he enjoyed freedom and had within his hand the opportunity of winning a comfortable sub- sistence 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.^ 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 landlord- ism. "And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor,2 and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant; but as an hired servant,^ 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 rigour; but shalt fear thy God.'' (Lev. XXV. 39-43). The kidnapping of a brother Hebrew into slavery was punishable by death.* But the Hebrews were permitted 1. Note, in the story of Joseph, the express recognition of the fact that the people of Egypt, by selling their land to Pharaoh during the famine, be- came Pharaoh's slaves (Gen. xlvii. 18-21); and cp. Neh. v. 5. 2. 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 iv. 1; cp. Matt, xviii. 25, and Neh. V. 5: A man might also become a bond-slave as a punishment for theft, if unable otherwise to make restitution (Ex. xxii. 3). Cp. Jos. Antia., iii. 12. 282. 3. i. e. day-labourer. A "hired servant," whether native or foreigner, was not to be oppressed or defrauded (Deut. xxiv. 14; cp. Luke xv. 17-19), and his wages were to be paid every evening (Deut. xxiv. 15; Lev. xix. 13; Tob. iv. 14; Matt. xx. 2, 8-13. [The normal day of labour 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 prescribed 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.] 4. Ex. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 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 labour. 56 to make slaves of the captives of war, and to buy slaves ''of the heathen that are round about you,"^ to treat them as property,^ and to leave them as an inheritance to their children.^ Even foreign settlers among the Hebrews were sub- ject 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,^ if he had not, in the meantime, been able to redeem himself, or been redeemed by a kinsman. So, once in every generation did the Law ''proclaim liberty to the captives'' in "the acceptable Year of the Lord."^ Well does one of the prophets call it "the Year of Liberty.''^ 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 pro- vided by which even before the Jubilee, under favouring 1. Lev. XXV. 44-46; Num. xxxi. 18, 26, 27; Deut. xx. 14; 1 Kings ix. 21. 2. "Nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's" (Ex. xx. 17) ; cp. xxi. 21, "for he is his money." 3. 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. ("Christ was not the second Abraham, but the second Adam." — Rev. Thos. Hancock.) When Malachi (ii. 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 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 xvii. 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. iii. 28. [The reason why the Jewish ritual contains the pas- sage "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. xxxiii. 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. 4. Lev. XXV. 47-55. 5. Isa. Ixi. 2; Luke iv. 18, 19. fi. Ezek. xlvi. 17. 57 conditions, the man may be redeemed from bondage/ or the land from the hand of the stranger.^ There are few tracts on the Land Question so thought- provoking as to the first principles of just social relation- ships 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 em- body 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 that private property in land is private property in man; that landlordism is slavery; that Land and Liberty are both essential to the well-being of a Nation. 1. Lev. XXV. 48-52. 2. Lev. XXV. 25-28. 58 CHAPTER V LAND, LABOUR, LEISURE AND LEARNING "Ye shall keep My Sabbaths ... I am the Lord." — Lev. xix. 30, XXV. 2; Ex. xxxi. 13. "The wisdom of a learned man cometh 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 labours, and whose talk is of bullocks ? ... So every car- penter 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. xxxviii. 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 iniquity." — Sayings J.F,, ii. 2 "R. Lazar ben Azariah said. No Torah, no culture: no cul- ture, no Torah." — Sayings J.F., iii. 26. § 1. There is not, at first sight, a very obvious con- nection between the observance of the Sabbath and the Land Question. But, as a matter of fact, Hebrew nation- al life was marked out by a great cycle of Sabbatical periods, of which the Jubilee was, as it were, the cul- minating point. Every seventh day was a Sabbath day. Every seventh year was a Sabbath year. When "seven Sabbaths of years . . . seven times seven years'*^ 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. 1. Lev. XXV. 8. 59 One is almost tempted to include in the cycle (although, perhaps, it does not strictly belong to it) the seventh month/ 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.2 § 2. In Egypt, the Israelites had suffered the bitter- ness of unremitting and hopeless toil. "The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: 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 rigour."^ Moses sought to teach them the needful lesson that work and rest, each in its own time and in due pro- portion, were both sacred ; good alike for master and ser- vant, for man and beast. There was a danger, on tlie 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 1. 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. xxiii. 24; Num. xxix. 1). 2. Lev. xxiii. 23-44; Num. xxix The first, tenth, fifteenth and twentv- second days of Tishri were public holidays: "Ye shall do no (servile) work therein" (Lev. xxiii. 25, 28, 31, 35, 36). On the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths — the autumnal "Feast of Ingathering" — see Ex. xxiii. 16; Lev. xxiii. 34-36 and 39-43; Num. xxix. 12 flf.; Deut. xvi. 13-15; Ezek. xlv. 25. Ac- counts of actual observances of this festival are given in 1 Kings viii. 2, 65 (Solomon); Ezra. iii. 1-4; Neh. viii. 13-18 (Ezra); and cp. 2 Mace. x. 6-8. The other principal feasts were the Passover (lasting for a week) and Pente- cost, fifty days later at wheat-harvest. At the three principal feast's every male citizen, unless for sufficient excuse, was expected to make a pilgrimage 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. XVI. 16; Ex. xxiii. 14-17, xxxiv. 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 commemorated the wanderings in the wilderness. 3. Ex. i. 13, 14, V. 6-19. Note the striking phrase, "the iron furnace of Egypt" (Deut. iv. 20; 1 Kings viii. 51; Jer. xi. 4; and cp. Isa. xlviii. 10). 60 a weekly rest-day. It was at once a holy-day and a hol- iday. On it, agricultural labour^ and trading^ were spec- ifically forbidden. But it was a feast, and not a fast;^ and, like all the national festivals, a time of '"rejoicing" for all the members of the Hebrew household, a "de- light,'' a day of "mirth."^ Its observance was secured by the strongest possible sanctions. Its benefits were ex- tended alike to native and to foreign settler, to master and to slave, to man and to beast. The sabbatical law ap- pealed to the religious sentiment, by connecting the weekly rest-day with the rest of God the Creator f to humanitar- ian sympathy;^ 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 ser- vant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretchedout arm; therefore the Lord thy God com- mandeth thee to keep the Sabbath day.""^ So important to the general welfare was the observance of this law considered, that the punishment for its infraction was death.^ § 3. Modern Sabbatarians, who, forgetting that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- bath."^ 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 labour law as a rest law. Its opening w^ords are, "Six days shalt thou labour.''^^ Seven days' idleness involves a much more frequent in- fraction of the command than seventh-day work does. "God's covenant with us," said Rabbi Akiba,^^ "included 1. Ex. xxxiv. 21 ("earing"rr:Ploughing). 2. Neh. X. 31, xiii. 15-22; Jer. xvii. 19-27; Amos viii. 5.. 3. Lev. xxiii. 1-3; Jud. viii. 6. 4. Deut. xii. 12, 18, xiv. 26, xvi. 11; Isa. Iviii. 13, 14; Hos. ii 11. 5. Ex. XX. 11, xxxi 17; Gen. ii. 2, 3. 6. Ex. xxiii. 12; Deut. V. 14. 7. Deut. V. 15; Ezek. xx. 10-12. 8. Ex. xxxi. 14, XXXV. 2; Num. xv. 30-36. 9. Mark ii. 27. 10. Cp. Ezek. xlvi. 1: "The six working days ... the Sabbath." 11. Talmud, Ahoth d. R. Nathan, xi. Cp. He alone will enjoy the repose of the Sabbath who has laboured on the eve of the Sabbath. — Ahod. Sar. 8*. See Herman Gollancz, "Dignity of Labour as Taught in the Talmud," Imperial 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 Sabbatarian- ism 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 w^ell as of those who are idle (and poor) because they cannot get work to do. The Church of England Catech- ism paraphrases the Fourth Commandment in very gen- eral terms: "To serve Him truly all the days of my life." St. Paul annotates it, from the Christian stand- point, 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 eatA For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies^ Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work and eat their own bread^ . . . 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." (^Thess. iii. 6, 10-14). § 4. The securing to all Englishmen of opportunity both for work and leisure depends, not upon the literal and Asiatic Quarterly Revieiu, July, 1891. [The Talmud: "Love work; do not despise it, or consider thyself superior to it." "Only he who tilleth tht soil will be nourished by it." "Great is labour, for it honours the labourer." "Greater even than the God-fearing man is he who lives by his toil." "Fla> a carcase in the street and take thy wages, and say not, I am a great man and the occupation is beneath me." — 5".] 1. R. v.: "If any will not work, neither let him eat." 2. Shemaiah said: "Love work and hate lordship; and make not thyself known to the Government. — Sayings, J. F., i. 10. 3. The idler who consurnes without producing is a thief. Note the anti- thesis in Eph. iv. 28: "Let nim that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good"; and 2 Thess. iii. 7, 8; "Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught, but wrought [worked] with labour and travail," etc. (cp. Acts xviii. 3, xx. 33-35); and again (1 Thess. iv. 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 maty walk honestly toward, them that are without and that ye may have lack of nothing"; and once again (Tit. iii. 14, R. V. m.): "And let our people learn to pro- fess honest occupations for necessary wants, that they be not unfruitful" [t. e. useless]. — "He who does not teach his son some handicraft is as though he had trained him to become a robber" (Talmud, Kidduschin, 82). "If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house[hold], he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim. v. 8). 62 application of part of the letter of the Fourth Command- ment 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 un- dressed : for it is a year of rest unto the land" (Lev. xxv. 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. xxiii. 10-12 [R.V.] — Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof; but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow; that the poor of thy people may eat: and v/hat they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest : that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the strang- er, may be refreshed. § 5. The seventh year was also called the ''year of release," partly because the land was "released"^ from cultivation, and partly because there was then a general remittance of all debts due from one Hebrew to an- 1. See R. V. m. at Ex. xxiii. 11. 63 other/ and a manumission of all Hebrew bond-servants.^ 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 unde- served 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. § 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 sug- gestion. And, -besides, he will probably ask, what was the use of it? Let us see. (a). The orignal 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 labour use, to an approximately equal share of land. But the Hebrew system of cultivation was very primi- tive. The plough was merely a big crooked stick attached 1. Deut. XV. 1-11. Or rather perhaps, as Keil (Biblical Archxcology, ii. 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 (t. e. respite), not remission or acquittal." The Talmud (Shebiith, x. 1) says that labourers' wages are not "released." 2. Deut. XV. 12-14. On the face of it, here and in Ex. xxi. 2; Jer. xxxiv. 8-17 (cp. Josephus, Antiq. iv. 8. 273, xvi. 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 scooe of the present book. See Lev. xxv. 39-43, and consult the larger modern Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries; and Mr. Wicksteed's article referred to on p. 18n. If the "bondman" had married into the family or clan, he could voluntarily be- come a permanent member of it (Ex. xxii. 5, 6). to a wooden frame (1 Kings xix. 21), shod with a tri- angular piece of iron (1 Sam. xiii. 19-21; Isa. ii. 4; Joel iii. 10; Mic. iv. 3). It was usually drawn by oxen, some- times by asses, yoked together,^ the ploughman guiding the plough with one hand (Luke ix. 62), and using the goad — an instrument like a spear and capable at need of being used as one (Judg. iii. 31) — with the other. The ploughing with such a light instrument was neces- sarily shallow.^ There are but feeble traces of the sys- tematic 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 any 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 stead- ily decreasing productiveness. The Law therefore safe- guarded the equal rights of future generations by enact- ing a periodical fallow. During one year in every seven, the soil, left to the influences oi 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."^ 1. Amos vi. 12; Isa. xxx. 24 ("ear"=plough) ; cp. Deut. xxii. 10. A "yoke" (1 Sam. xiv. 14; the explanatory words in italics are not in the original) was a recognised measure of land; in Isa. v. 10 translated "acre." So Latin jugum. "lugum vocabatur, quod uno iugo bourn in die exarari posset" (Plin., Nat. Hist., xviii. 3. 3). ["They gave him of the cornland. That was of public right, As much as two strong oxen Could plough from morn till night" (Macaulay).] 2. Syria tenui sulco arat (Plin. xviii. 47). Vergil (Georgica, i. 169) and Pliny (Nat. Hist., xviii. 48) describe the same sort of plough as being in use among the Romans at their time. 3. The writer of 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21 ascribes the desolation of the land during the Captivity to the non-observance of the Sabbath years (Jer. xxxiv. 8-22; cp. Lev. xxvi. 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" (Sayings J. F., v. 14). After the Captivity the observ- ance was restored (Neh. x. 31: "And that he would leave [R.V., forgo] the seventh year and the exaction of every debt"). Later 1 Mace. vi. 49, 53. Josephus has several interesting references to the non-cultivation of the land in the "Sabbatic year" (Antiq. xiii. 8. 234, xv. 1. 7; Jewish War, i. 2. 60) and refers to the remission of tribute in that year on that account (Antiq. xi. 8. 337, 345, xiv. 10. 202). The observance of the septennial fallow has recentlv (since 1888-9) been revived by the Zionist Jews in Palestine (Jewish Encyct, x. 607; Murray's Illus. Bible Dictionary, 759). 65 § 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 pro- vision, 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 labour that was forbidden — plough- ing, sowing, reaping, pruning, vintage.^ Other occupa- tions 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 ever> 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.2 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 wither ye go over Jordan to possess it."3 § 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 com- pletely misrepresent the facts of the case under the ap- pearance of stating the bare, literal truth about them. It is true, of course, that the rolls of the "Law of Moses" now form part of what we now call the Bible — the col- lection of ancient writings from which extracts are read in church services. The peculiar position so long assign- 1. Lev. XXV. 4, 5. 2. Parallels are abundant in English history. E. g. "For the more as- surance 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 accursed 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). 3. Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Neh. viii. 16-18 (cp. especially verses 7, 8: "The Levites 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. iv. 8. 209. 66 ed to these Hebrew writings in our own religion has pre- vented most Englishmen from realising what they meant to the Hebrews. They were at once "sacred'' and "secular." They as- sumed 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 complete- ly free from any trace of "other-wordliness" is the He- brew Torah, that a good bishop once deduced an argu- ment in favour 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 right-doing is the ideal life of a free and industrious Commonwealth, in which every citizen, secure in the enjoyment of the produce of his labour, sur- rounded by stalwart sons and comely daughters, sits un- der 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 sacrifices^ and the liturgy^ of the Jewish religion, but the biographies of their national heroes, and the his- tory of the Nation itself. The primitive science of the infant Commonwealth lay in it side by side with the lays 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 1. See, especially, Lev. i.-vii. 2. Or rather some fragments of liturgical forms, such as Deut. xx. 8, 4, xxi, 7, 8 (and, possibly, xxvii. 14-26, xxviii.); Num. vi. 22-26, x. 35, 3«. In later times it became the duty of every pious Jew to recite the Shemo (Deut. vi. 4-9 and xi. 13-21; with Num. xv. 37-41) every morning and even- ing. Our Lord quoted the opening words of the Shema in reply to the Phari- sees' question, "Which is the great commandment of the Law?" (Matt, xxii 37; Mark xii. 29, 30). 67 Lush to organize a general strike against the Egyptian taskmasters, claimed also that the skill of the handicrafts- man, no less than the wisdom of the legislator, was due to Divine inspiration.^ If the Law regulated with min- ute care the vestments of the high-priests, it was no less careful of the foods of the people.^ It prescribed in de- tail the lavish ornaments of the Tabernacle, the outward symbol of national unity ,^ but it also told the citizen how to keep his person, his clothing, and his house clean and healthy.^ 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 neighbour. The "statutes and judgment of Moses" were the Acts of 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 re- turns or Mr. Lloyd-George's Land Valuation have to students of English social history. 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 in- stitutions safeguarded, was, for his time and place, a liberal education. To place within the reach of the Eng- lish worker, once in every seven years, a year's course at 1. Ex. xxviii. 3 (tailors), xxxi. 1-6 (masons, metal-workers, etc.), Kxxv. 30-35, xxxvi. 1-4. 2. Gen. ix. 4; Lev. vii. 17, 19, 26, xi. 1-47, xvii. 10-16, xix. 6, 26, xxii. 8; Deut. xii. 16, xiv. 3-21. 3. Ex. xxxvi.-xxxviii. 4. Uncleanness was a form of sin. Driver ("Law in the O. T.," in Hastings* Diet, of the Bible, iii. 72») says that in Lev. xiv. 49, 52; Num. xix. 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. XV.) the phrase "he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water" occurs no less than ten times (cp. Heb. x. 22). It is a characteristically He- brew idea that the camp is to be kept free from contagious diseases because God dwells in the midst thereof (Num. v. 3). See also Ex. xxx. 17-21, xl. 12, 80-32. Sanitary bve-laws for camp (Lev. iv. 11, 12, 21, vi. 11; Deut. xxiii. 12-14). 68 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.^ 1. In a remarkable passage (Against Apion, ii. 168 ff.), Josephus claim* 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." 69 CHAPTER VI COMPENSATION "Restore, I pray you, even this day, their lands, their vine- yards, their oliveyards, and their houses. . . . Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them." — Neh. v. 11, 12. "If I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold."— Luke xix. 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,^ 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 centred 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 assembly^ for the people. The Levites were solemnly set apart for their work,^ to which the prime of their lives was devoted. Their term 1. Num. i. 2, 3, 47-53, iii. 5 ff., iv., viii. 5 ff. 2. A, v., "tabernacle of the congregation"; R. V., **tent of meeting" (cp. the two versions at Lev. i. 1, and elsewhere). In later times, replaced by the Temple at Jerusalem. 3. Num. viii. 70 of full service was from thirty to fifty years of age, ap- parently after a training of five years; and, when their time had expired, lighter duties were found for them.^ They were also the official preachers of the Law, and the custodians of the official copy of it.^ 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 teach- ers^ of religion and law, administrators of justice,^ the medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors, charged with the duties of inspecting, isolating, and (after re- covery) disinfecting persons suffering from certain con- tagious diseases,^ of disinfecting unclean garments and bedding, of inspecting, cleansing, or, if need be, demolish- ing infected dwellings f 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. § 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 labour, and that some other pro- vision 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 1. Num. iv. 3, 23, etc., viii. 24-26; cp. Ezra iii. 8. 2. Deut. xxvii. 14, xxxi. 25, 26. On the Levites in the time of David, see 1 Chron. xxiii, 3. Lev. X. 11; Deut. xxxi. 9-13; xxxiii, 10; cp. 2 Chron. xv. 3; Mai. ii. 7. 4. Deut. xvii. 8-13, xxi. 5. In the time of David, "six thousand were officers and judges" (1 Chron. xxiii. 4) ; cp. Jehosaphat's high court of appeal (2 Chron. xix. 8-10); Ezek. xliv. 24; Ecclus. xlv. 17. 5. Especially diseases of the skin, of which the most dreadful was leprosy. On the isolation of a leprous king, and the appointment of a regent, sec 2 Kings XV. 5; 2 Chron. xxvi. 21. The tendency to this form of disease may have been a legacy from the period of Egyptian bondage (Deut. vii. 15). Manetho has a curious story, quoted and criticised by Josephus, of eighty thousand leprous Egyptians, who were put to work in the quarries on the east side of the Nile, and who, re^olting 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. 283 ff.). 6. Lev. xiii., xiv., xv. 71 Levites were provided with residences in forty-eight cities, assigned specially to them ''with the suburbs^ thereof" — a certain amount of surrounding meadow-land^ for the pasturage of their cattle. These cities were to be taken in fair proportion from all the tribes.^ Thirteen of them were allotted to the priests.^ Six were appointed as "cities of refuge,'* to which "the slayer that killeth un- awares and unwittingly" might flee in order to escape lynching and to secure a fair trial. ^ 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 clear- ly 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,^ and the Levites, in their turn, paid one-tenth of this tithe — "a tithe of the tithe" — to the Aaronic priesthood.*^ § 3. This is, beyond doubt, the meaning and intention of the tithe.® It was not payment for services rendered 1. R. V. m. gives "pasture-land." 2. Num. XXXV. 1-5; Josh. xiv. 4, xxi. ; 1 Chron. vi. 54-81. 3. Num. XXXV. 8. 4. Tosh. xxi. 13-19. 5. Ex. xxi. 13; Num. xxxv. 6, 9-34; Deut. iv. 41-43, xix. 1-13. Josh. XX. But not even the taking of sanctuary at an altar could save the deliberate murderer from punishment (Ex. xxi. 14'; 1 Kings ii. 28-34; cp. i. 50). An additional protection from the prevailing" Eastern custom of blood-revenge was the requirement of two witnesses for a conviction for murder (Num. xxxv. 30; Deut. xix. 15). See note 8 on p. 34, 6. Num. xviii. 21-24; Lev. xxvii. 32, 33; 2 Chron. xxxi. 5, 6; Neh. x. 37, xii. 44, xiii. 5, 12. Nehemiah (xiii. 10) relates that, at a time when the tithes were not paid, the Levites had to support themselves by agricultural work. 7. Num. xviii. 25-32; Neh. x. 38. 8. ^ 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. xii. 6, 17; Neh. viii. 10, 12), and may be compared v.ith the saving- 72 to the community. It was not a mere tax upon the la- bour of the people for the maintenance of ministers of re- ligion. 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 neighbour's land- mark 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 com- pensation 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. "^ 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 quota- tions : — "Unto these [the eleven tribes] the land shall be divided for an inheritance" (Num. xxvi. 53). for-holidays-clubs common today in some parts of England, especially in Lan- cashire. The produce could be turned into money in the country for conven- ience of carriage to Jerusalem (Deut. xiv. 22-27), and the money there spent for its appointed purposes. Authorities are divided on the question whether the "tithe" mentioned in Deut. xiv. 28, 29, xxvi. 12 ff., 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. Cp. 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 ophans" (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. i. 7, 8). See Amos iv. 4. 1. 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 favour 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." Gebiah 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 hun- dred thousand men who worked for ye for naught, and we will return the gold and silver." 73 "There was no inheritance [in the land] given them [the Levites] among the children of Israel" (Num. xxvi. 62; cp. Deut. X. 9, xii. 12, xviii. 1, 2; Josh. xiv. 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 chil- dren of Israel they shall have no inheritance" (Num. xviii. 20-24).! The fact that the Levites were (among other things) ministers of reHgion 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 now- adays 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 pro- tected by the curse upon the landmark remover. The "inheritance" of the Levite was protected by "devoting" it to the Lord.^ 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 perman- ently alienated f 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,^ subject to a right of redemp- tion within one full year.^ § 4. The Hebrew laws applied to the special case of 1. cp. Ezek. xliv. 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. xlv. 20-22. 2. Lev. xxvii. 30-33 ; cp. 28. See Gen. xxviii. 22 ; 1 Sam. ii. 12-17. Lev. XXV. 32-34. 4. Lev. XXV. 29, 80. 5. 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. xviii. 14-19; cp. iii. 12-13, 44), and partly in perquisites (see the law of the sacrifices. Lev. i.-vii.; "the priest's due," Deut. xviii. 3; and elsewhere). 74 rights in land the spirit of those general maxims of Eng- lish law which declare that no man ought to be enriched by another man's loss, or to obtain an advantage by his own wrong.i To "set back" one's neighbour's landmark was a crime against God, Who had given him an equal right in the land, and against the neighbour, who was be- ing 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 toler- ated 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.^ 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 Hberty were dependent? It is only in modern England, aftei 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. Nor in the New. We read that Zacchaeus was ''chief among the puhlicani'' — a class of men who enriched them- selves by unjust extortion (Luke iii. 12, 13) under a vicious method of indirect taxation; "and he was rich." He came under the influence of Jesus. Then, immed- iately — "Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wrong- fully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, Today is salvation come to this house" (Luke xix. 1-10, R.V.). 1. Nemo debet locupletari alienfl jactura (cited by Bovill, C. J.). Nullus commodum capere potest de injuria suft propria. Coke, Littleton, 148. See Wharton, Law Lexicon (9th edit.), pp. 504, 521. 2. Ex. xxii. 1-15. 75 His first Christian impulse was to make direct and gen- erous 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 has 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 con- dition not unlike that of today. Landlordism had grown up. The people were in bondage, racked with usury, tax- ed 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 disin- herited,^ 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. What would be the modern parallel to this? Is it quite mad to picture, say, an English Archbishop of Can- terbury, 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 tax- ation? Mad enough, no doubt; for modern priests and prophets are not always built after Biblical models. 1. See Appendix C. 76 CHAPTER VII JUSTICE "Justice, justice shalt thou follow." — Deut. xvi. 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. vi. 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 xvii. 6. § 1. Every Easter Day the Church keeps the com- memoration 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 transcen- dental. 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 77 another in their ordinary family and social relations, would have quite well understood it all. The Epistle is, in fact, selected from his writings.^ § 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 per- fect 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. xxv. 13-16). "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neigh- bour. ... 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 ought of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all My statutes, and all My judgments, and do them : I am the Lord" (Lev. xix. 15, 35-37). 2 So, one of the morals of the epoch-making deliverance from Egypt^ 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. § 3. The Hebrew words^ usually translated "right- 1. Col. iii., 1-6, which see. 2. Cp. Ezek. xlv. 10-12; Prov. xi. 1, xvi. 11, xx. 10; Hos. xii. 6, 7; Amos viii, 4-6; Mic. vi. 10, 11. 3. It is also quoted as the reason for not charging interest to a brother Israelite (Lev. xxv. 35-38), and for not oppressing or defrauding the "stranger" or the unfortunate (Ex. xxii. 21, xxiii. 9; Lev. xix. 34; Deut. xxiv. 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 Lazvs of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi, p. 276). 4. Za^ak and its derivatives aedek, zaddik, etc. "The use of 'righte9us' as a translation of yashar (r^iupright) is less frequent. . . . The original implications of the root zadak are involved in doubt. To be 'hard,' 'even' and 78 eous" and ''righteousness," but sometimes also trans- lated ''jusf' and "justice/'^ are represented in the Sep- tuagint by the Greek words, sUaios and SiKaicavvrj [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 right- eousness [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 him^ that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong ;3 that useth his neighbour'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 cieled** with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest^ thyself in cedar? did not thy father eai 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.^ and for to shed innocent blood, and for op- pression, and for violence, to do it" (Jer. xxii. 3,13-17). § 4. The conception of JUSTICE as the foundation '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, man, or even God, is what it, or he, should be, that is, 'normal,' 'fit.' ... In its earliest use among Hebrews the term 'righteous- ness' seems to have had a moral intention" (Jewish Encyclopccdia, x. 420). The Hebrew word means "conformity to a recognised norm or standard" {Encyclopaedia Biblica, iv. 4102). So used of a just weight or measure (Deut. XXV. 15), of a just king or judge (Lev. xix. 15), etc. 1. In Prov. X. 6, 7, where the "just" is contrasted with the "wicked," the R. V,. differing from A. V., uses both "righteous" (verse 6) and "just" (7). In Isa. V. 7; Prov. iii. 31, 32, the contrast is between the "just" and the "oppressor"; "oppression, violence and robbery" (Amos iii. 9, 10); "justice" opposed to spoliatory taxation (Ezek. xlv. 9). "Judgment . . . equity . . . iniquity" (Mic. iii. 9, 10). 2. Jehoiakirn, King of Judah (cp. verse 18 and 2 Kings xxiv. 4). 3. R. v., injustice. 4. In the English of the time of A. V.r=:"panelled." 6. R. v., strivest to excel in cedar. At a time of national poverty, when the nation was under heavy taxation to pay tribute to Egpyt (2 Kings xxiii. 33-35; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 5),' Jehoiakim was building himself a costly palace by the forr'^d. unpaid labour of the people. 6. R. V. m., dishonest gain. 79 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."^ "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether''; He "is righteous in all His ways";^ He judges truly and justly for ever.^ Because the just Lord loveth justice,^ and delights in it,^ and honours the just,^ He gives just laws to His peo- ple. "What great nation is there, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set be- fore you this day?""^ Because the just God, the Judge of all the world, judges "in justice,"® the Law must be justly administered. "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.''^ The earthly judge must '*judge the people with just judgment'' ;^^ must have no respect of persons ;^^ must not take bribes.^^ A man might only be punished after diligent inquiry,^^ and on sufficient evidence.^^ Punish- ment, on conviction, was not to be excessive, and must be carried out in the presence of the judge.^^ Perjury, 1. Deut. xxxii. 4. 2. Ps. xix. 9, cxix. 7, 62, 106, 160, 164, cxlv. 17; Ezra. ix. 15; Neh. ix. 8; Isa. xlv. 21; Job. viii. 3, xxxvii. 23. 3. Tob. iii. 2. 4. Ps. xi. 7. Vulg., quoniam Justus Dominus et justitias dilexit (cp. A. v.). 6. Jer. ix. 24. 6. Ps. xlv. 7. 7. Deut. iv. 8. "The Jews . . . live by most just laws" (Artaxerxes in the Apoc. Esth. xvi. 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, ii. 291). 8. Ps, ix. 4 (Vulg., sedisti super thronum qui judicas justitiam), 8, Ixvii. 4, xcvi. 10, 13; Gen. xviii. 25. 9. 2 Sam. xxiii. 3; Ps. Ixxii. 10. Deut. xvi. 18. 11. Justice is to be done between Hebrew and Hebrew, between Hebrew and stranger, between small and great (Deut. i. 16, 17; Ex. xxiii. 6; Lev. xix. 15). 12. Deut. xvi. 19; Amos v. 12. 13. Deut. xvii. 4. 14. Deut. xvii. 6, xix. 15. 15. Deut. XXV. 1-3. 80 which poisons the well of justice, was severely punished.^ There was provision for appeal to the highest court in difficult cases.^ ''That which is altogether just shalt thou follow,^ that thou mayst live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." § 5. But the Hebrew conception of Justice was not merely forensic. It was not enough that the administra- tion 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."^ Justice must rule in Israel, because "the just Lord is in the midst thereof,"^ and "they that fear the Lord shall find judgment, and shall kindle justice as a light" f "for the ways of the Lord are right and the just shall walk in them.""^ Nor did "Justice" consist in the mere formal obser- vance of written laws or of binding custom which for- bade 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.^ Man must be just before he is generous, because generosity cannot begin till justice has been done:^ he ought to be both just and generous. The Law secured to him, under the protec- tion of a curse, the equal right of access to land, and therewith the right to the produce of his own labour ; but it made common to all the spontaneous growths of the sabbatic year "that the poor of thy people may eat,"^® and it secured to the "stranger, the fatherless and the 1. Deut. xix. 16-21. 2. Deut. xvii. 8 ff. 3. Deut. xvi. 20. The Hebrew is very emphatic. "Justice, justice shalt thou follow" (see R. V. m.). 4. Ps. Ixxxix. 14, 15; cp. Isa. Iviii. 2; Hos. ii. 19. 5. Zeph. iii. 6; Ps. Ixxxii. 1-4; cp. Phil. iv. 8; 1 Pet. i. 17. 6. Ecclus. xxxii. 16; Prov. iv. 18. 7. Hos. xiv. 9. 8. Ter. ix. 24; Ps. cxlv. 9; cp. Hos. x. 12. 9. Luke xi. 41, 42. 10. "That which groweth of its own accord" (Lev. xxv. 3 7; Ex. xxiii. 11). 81 widow" the immemorial right of gleaning/ and to the wayfarer the right to satisfy his hunger from the grow- ing crops.^ The just man, enjoying the bounteous pro- vision which God has made for His children, considers the cause of the poor.^ He should lend to his brother Hebrew in misfortune without grudging,^ and without interest.^ He should be ready to put himself to trouble in order to save his "brother,''® or even his "enemy,"'^ 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.^ 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."^ The ox that tramped round the threshing floor must not be muzzled in sight of the heap of corn ;^^ a weaker and a stronger animal must not be yoked togeth- er to the same plough. ^^ § 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 ?^2 Then the Sun of Justice shall arise with healing in His wings, and all the inhabitants of the world will learn Justice.^^ So, 1. The corners of the field not to be reaped (Lev. xix. 9, 10, xxiii. 22) ; the forgotten sheaf not to be fetched (Deut. xxiv. 19). 2. Deut. xxiii. 24, 25; Luke vi. 1. 8. Prov. xxix. 7. 4. Deut. XV. 7-10; Luke vi. 34, 35. 6. Ex. xxii. 25; Lev. xxv. 35-37; Deut. xv. 3, xxiii. 19, 20. Cp. the law about pawning (Ex. xxii. 26; Deut. xxiv. 6, 10-13; and see Job xxii. 6, xxiv. 8). 6. Deut. xxii. 1-4; Lev. vi. 3, 5. 7. Ex. xxiii. 4, 6. . ,. , , 8. Ex. xxi. 33, 34; Deut. xxii. 8, are among the earliest building by-laws that have come down to us. 9. Prov. xii. 10. 10.' Deut. xxv. 4. ..,.., 11. Deut. xxii. 10. Note the curious law about bird's-nesting in the pre- vious verses (6, 7). ^ ... ^ 12. Isa. xxviii. 16, 17, ix. 7, xi. 4, 5; Jer. xxni. 5, xxxiii. 15, 16; Ps. Ixxii. The Apostles referred to Christ as "the Just One" (Acts in. 14, vii. 52, xxii. 14). . , ... 13. Mai. iv. 2 (Vulg., sol justitiae); Isa. xxvi. 9 (Vulg., justtttam discent habitores orbis). 82 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] re- main in the fruitful field. And the work of righteous- ness [justitice] shall be peace; and the effect of right- eousness [cultus justitice] quietness and assurance [securitas] for ever."^ § 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 at- tempts of legislators and prophets to break through bounds which were cramping their expanding ethical and relig- ious conceptions. But not until our Lord, in one of the most dramatic passages in the Gospels, showed that even the apostate, excommunicated, half-caste Samaritan^ — the traditional enemy, since the Exile, of the orthodox Jew — was a '^neighbour," 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,^ formulated, for Jew and Gentile alike, the doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man, founded on the universal Fatherhood of God^ — not till then did the Mosaic Law of Justice reach its full development and ex- pression. When the old Law said, "Thou shalt love they neigh- bour as thyself,'' the context usually shows that "neigh- bour'' means merely "fellow-citizen."^ But the same words in the N. T. always have an infinitely wider meaning, for Christ has told us that every man is our neighbour.^ To love one's neighbour as oneself is "the royal law accord- 1. Isa. xxxii. 1, 16, 17. For the contrast, see Hos. x. 13, 14. 2. Luke X. 25-37, ix. 51-56; 2 Kings xvii. 24; Ezra iv. 8-10; John iv. 9. viii. 48; Ecclus. 1. 25, 26. 3. Acts xvii. 28. 4. Acts xvii. 26; Rom. x. 12; Gal. iii. 28; Col. iii. 11. See an eloquent passage on this side of St. Paul's teaching by the eminent Jewish scholatj C. G. Montefiore, in his "First Impressions of Paul," Jewish Quarterly Review, April, 1894, p. 431. 5. As Lev. xix. 18; Prov. iii. 29. ^ , 6. Matt. V. 43-45; vii. 12, xix, 19, xxii. 39, 40; Mark xii. 31-34; Luke x. 27, 36, 37. 83 ing to the Scripture."^ It is the only legitimate restraint upon our liberty,^ because "love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law."^ 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 ?''^ § 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 ages^ ... all the nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy righteous acts have been made manifest'';® the great multitude in the apocalyptic heaven, like the singers in the Jerusalem Temple, tell of the justice of God's judgments."^ 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 harmonics. 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"® — to give a wider and deeper import to the principles they enunciated. It is good to abstain from overt acts like murder, or adul- tery, or false swearing. "But I say unto you," don't even harbour angry feelings unjustly toward your neighbour; don't wrong a woman even in your inmost thought; 1. James ii. 8. 2. Gal. V. 13, 14; 1 Pet. ii. 16. Co. Tobit iv. 15. Every man "has free- dom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man" (Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1850), eh. ix. § 1). 3. Rom. xiii. 9, 10. 4. 1 John iv. 8, 12, 16, 20. 5. Many ancient authorities read "King of the nations." 6. Rev. XV. 3, 4 [R. V.]. 7. Rev. xix. 2. 8. Matt. V. 21 ff. Cp. Paul in Acts xxiv. 14. 84 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/'^ Even when "righteousness" had become 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 super- seded by the new use of the old word. To be "justified" was to be put into one's right and just and "normar' rela- tion to God and man. The O. T. writers tell us that "righteousness exalteth a nation'' ;2 that the keeping of the just Law of God is "not a vain thing for you; be- cause it is your [national] life;^ and through this thing ye shall prolong your days [as a nation] in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it."^ 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.^ 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,^ the Prophet greater than he, the Preacher on the mount, tells us that we shall cease to be "worried to death""^ about the supply of our daily, bodily needs only if we "seek 1. Cp. Zech. viii. 16, 17. 2. Prov. xiv. 34 (Vulg. Justitta elevat gentem). 3. And so of the individual (Prov. xii. 28; Isa. xxxiii. 15, 16). 4. Deut. xxxii. 47. 5. Matt. XXV. 31-46. 6. Deut. vii. 12 ff., xi. 13 ff., etc. 7. "Take no thought" (R. V., "be not anxious'*). Cr. M^ ficpitivarf (cp. 1 Sam. ix. 5 with x. 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" bv noli te solicitudine conHcere. "The pale cast of thought" is associated by Shakespeare {Hamlet, III. 1; Ant. and Chop., IV. 6) with a guilty conscience and with the contemplation of suicide. So "take thought and die for Caesar," Jul. Caes. II. 1. "Queen Catherine Parr [wife of Henry \ail.] died of thought" (Somers' Tracts, 1. 172). "Gonzales was done to death by Gasca. Soto died of thought in Florida" (Purchas's Pilgrtmage (1613), p. 871). "Hawis, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died with thought and anguish, before his business came to an end" (Bacon, Henry VII. (1622), p. 230). 85 first the kingdom of God and His [its] righteousness.'*^ So only shall "all these things" — food as sure as the birds', clothing as beautiful as the lilies' — be "added un- to us" ; "for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things."^ 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." 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,"^ 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 in- justice*'^ 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?"^ and, in a later gen- eration, 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 help- less.^ "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 1. Gr. T7]v diKaioavfTjv avrov ', Vulg., justitiam ejus; "justice." as in Douai Version. 2. Matt. vi. 24-34; Luke xii. 22-31. 3. Lam. iii. 35, 36. 4. 2 Tim. ii. 19. The A. V. has "depart from iniquity"; R. V., "depart from unrighteousness." The Gr. is dTrotrr^rw dirb dSiKias. 5. Mic. vi. 6-12; Prov. xxi. 3; Isa. i. 10-17; Iviii. 5-12, Ixi. 8; Jer. vii. 4-7; Amos v. 21-24; Hos. vi. 6; Ps. I. 7-23 (li. 16-19); Ixix. 30, 31; Heb. xiii. 15, 16. 6. Matt. V. 20, xxiii. 4-14, 23-33; Mark xii. 38-40; Luke xi, 42, xx. 47; cp. James i. 27. 86 Ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers. ... Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cum- min, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law — judgment, mercy and faith." § 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 century,^ "does not permit private property in land." '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 w^ith the great name of Henry George, — can plead scriptural war- 1. Social Statics, ch. ix. J 2. On Spencer's later partml ret*'^,ctai\o"/ ^^ Spei iblici 87 Henry George, A Perplexed Philosopher (1892); Spencer, Justice {\^9\)\ and the present writer's controversy with Spencer in tne London Daily Chrontcte (1904). (Reprinted: Land Values Publication Department, 876 Strand. Id.) rant for the principle which underHes and justifies it. For, as we have seen,^ it is not by means of "compensa- tion" to landlords, which Spencer by implication repud- iated 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." It is no part of the plan of this little book to work out the application of this reform to modern social con- ditions. 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 Tax- ation 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 the "nationalisation" and "socialisation" of all the land values as the sole basis of taxation can do so much that is claimed for it, can make the doing of so many other re- forms so much easier, or — render them altogether unnec- essary? Does not the terrible nature of our social disease call for something "much more effective" than the grad- ual 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 regimenta- tion of the workers upon it under Commissions of Ex- perts, 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 valour, 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 1. Chapter VI. 88 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, Be- hold, 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 spake unto him, and said. My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some greai 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. 1-14). "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 flavour; so also the fashioning of the language delighteth the ears of them that read the story. And here shall be the end.'*^ 1. 2 Mace. XV. 38, 39. 89 APPENDIX A. The Encroachments of Injustice The setting-up of a privileged class — "He [the king] will take your fields, and your vine- yards, 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,^ and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men,2 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. viii. 14-18; cp. Ezek. xlvi. 16-18; Jer. xxii. 13-17, on which see above, Chap. VII. § 3). *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. i. 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 1. R. V. m., eunuchs. 2. LXX, goodliest herds. 90 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. iii. 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. v. 8 [R.V.] ; cp. Mic. ii., iii., on which see above, Chap. III. § 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. X. 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 punish- ment thereof ; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes ;^ that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor,^ and turn aside the way of the meek : . . . and they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned^ in the house of their god" (Amos ii. 6-8). "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 1. This expression is probably connected with the practice of selling land by the transfer of a shoe (cp. viii. 6 and Ruth iv. 7). In 1 Sam. xii. S, the LXX reads: "Of whose hand have I received a bribe or a pair of shoes?" cp. Ecclus. xlvi. 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 he, quoting Expository Times, xii. 378). 2. "This could only mean that the land-hunger is so great that they de- sire 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." 3. R. v., of such as have been fined. 91 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. v. 26-29 [R. V.]). B. The Effects of Land Monopoly The denial of equal rights in land 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.i 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 2 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 woundeth 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 risetli with the light, he killeth the poor and needy ; 1. LXX, flocks with their shepherd. 2. Prof. Peake (Century Bible, ad. loc.) suggests the rendering: "Be- hold, as wild asses of the desert they go forth, seeking diligently the prey of the wilderness. There is no bread for the children." 92 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 xxiv. 2-17 [R.V]). 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 in- habitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah"^ (Isa. v. 9, 10 [R.V.] ; cp. Amos iii. 15). ''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 your 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; Be- hold 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; there- fore will I save My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle" (Ezek. xxxiv. 17-22; cp. Prov. xiii. 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 1. An ephah (dry measure) and a bath (liquid measure) were each the tenth part of a homer (Ezek. xlv. 11). Homer— about 90 gallons. 93 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 v. 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" (Mai. iii. 6). "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 laborours who moved 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 Sa- baoth. Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your plasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter" (Jas. v. 1-5 [R.V.] ; cp. Job xx. ; 1 Tim. vi. 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. xlii. 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 94 Israel come! ... Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near ; that lie up- on 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 v^ine 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 vi. 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 daugh- ters 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 headtires, and the ankle chains, and the sashes, and the perfume boxes, and the amulets ; the rings, and the nose jewels ; the fes- tival 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 sack- cloth; branding instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall 95 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. iii. 16 — iv. 1 [R.V.] ; cp. the four preceding verses, iii. 12-15; xxxii. 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 iv. 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. x. 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. v. 1-5 [R.V.]). "The needy shall not always be forgotten. Nor the expectation of the poor perish for ever" (Ps. ix. 18). 96 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 bor- rowed 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 men^ have our fields and vineyards. ''And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with myself, and con- tended 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 re- deemed 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 ser- vants, do lend them money and corn on usury. I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to 1. The Lucian recension of the LXX reads "for the nobles" (see next verse). 97 them, even this day, their fields, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part^ of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them." — 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,^ and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise; even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said. Amen, and prais- ed the Lord. And the people did according to this prom- ise." 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 for- mer governors that were before me laid burdens upon the people, and took of them bread and wine, beside^ 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.]). 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 1. (?) One per cent, per month. Usury^rinterest. 2. Cp. Acts xviii. 6. S. R. V. m., at the rate of. Vulg., gMf>fWtVr=dail\ . 98 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 inherit- ance. . . . 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. xi. [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. xlv. 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 fath- ers ; and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God" (Ezek. xxxvi. 28). — men shall enjoy the produce of their labour. ''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. xxviii. 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 laboured ; 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. Ixii. 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 99 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 labour in vain, nor bring forth for calamity'' (Isa. Ixv. 21-23 [R.V.]). Life will he 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 to- gether: 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. xxxi. 4, 5, 12, 13, 14; cp. Ps. xxxiv. 12-16; 1 Pet. iii. 10-12). — in happy childhood and hale old age. ''Thus saith the Lord of hosts : There shall yet old men and old w^omen dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.^ And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof" (Zech. viii. 4, 5). Cp. 1 Mace. xiv. 9. There will he 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 ad- 1. R. V. m., for multitude of days. 100 versary ; for I set all men every one against his neighbour. 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 neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates : and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour ; and love no false oath : for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord" (Zech. viii. 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. xxxiv. 27, 28 [R.V.m.] ; cp. xxxvi. 29, 30). "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plow- man shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him 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 ix. 13-15). — and peace at home and abroad. ''Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and 101 ^ ««> V . '')'> ' ^-r '' *•"'' » -"'^ *^ 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 eflfect of righteousness quietness and con- fidence for ever. And my people shall abide in a peace- able habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet rest- ing places" (Isa. xxxii. 15-18 [R.V.]). "And He shall judge between many peoples, and shall reprove strong nations afar oflf ; 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 any more. 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. iv. 3, 4 ; cp. Isa. ii. 4, Ixv. 25 ; I Mace. xiv. 12, 13). "In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig-tree" (Zech. iii. 10). 102 LIST OF JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED OLD TESTAMENT. Genesis i. 1 i. 27-31 . ii. 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 iii. 17-19, 23 iv. 2, 17 viii. 21 . ix. 1-3, 4, 5, 6 ix. 20ff xiv. 9 xviii. 25 xxiii. xxiv. 3 . xxviii. 22 xxxi. 43-55 xxxiii. 19, 20 xxxvii. 25ff xliv. 16, 17 xlvi. 32, 34 xlvii. 18-21 xlix. 29-32 . Exodus i. 13, 14 i. 21 ii. 1, 9, 10, 19 ii. 11-15 iii. . iv. 22, 23 V. 6-19 xix. 5 XX. 5, 6 XX. 11 XX. 12 XX. 17 xxi. 2 xxi. 7-11 xxi. 12 . 15 27, PAGE 24 27 22, 26, 61 22, 27, 37 37 37 35, 68 37 20 80 27 24 74 40 27 36 35 3: 56 27 60 34 19 20 30, 34 35 60 24 34 61 35 33, 57 20, 46. 64 40 35 Exodus xxi. 13, 14 xxi. 16 . xxi. 20, 21, 26, 27 xxi. 33, 34 . xxii. 1-15 xxii. 21 . xxii. 25, 26 . xxii. 29 xxiii. 4, 5, 6, 9 xxiii. 10-12 . xxiii. 14-17 . xxiii. 19 xxviii. 3 xxx. 17-21 . xxxi. 1-6 xxxi. 13, 14, 17 xxxii. 35 xxxiv. 21, 22, 23, 26 XXXV. 2 XXXV. 30-35 . xxxvi. 1-4 . xxxvi-xxxviii xl. 12, 30-32 . Leviticus i.-vii. iv. 11, 12, 21 vi. 3, 5 . vi. 11 . vii. 17, 19, 26 x. 11 . xi. 1-47 xiii. xiv. XV. xvii. 10-16 . xviii. 21-30 . xix. 6, 26 xix. 9, 10 PAGE 72 56 46, 57 82 66, 64, 75 78 82 29 78, 80, 82 61, 63, 81 60 29 68 68 68 59, 61 33 , 60, 61 61 68 68 68 68 70, 74 68 82 68 68 71 68 68. 71 68 32 68 82 29, 67, 103 JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED— Continued Leviticus xix. 13 xix. 15, 34-37 xix. 18 . xix. 30 . XX. 1-5 . XX. 22 . xxi. 9 . xxii. 8 . xxiii. 1-3 xxiii. 17 xxiii. 22 xxiii. 23-44 xxiv. 17-22 XXV. 1-7 XXV. 8-10 XXV. 11, 12 XXV. 14-16 XXV. 18-22 XXV. 23 XXV. 25-28 XXV. 25, 35, 39-43 XXV. 29-31, 32-3 4 XXV. 35^8 XXV. 44-46 XXV. 47-55 xxvi. 14-39 xxvii. 22-24 xxvii. 28, 30-33 Numbers i. 2, 3, 47 iii. 5 ff. iii. 12-13, 44 iv. 3, 23 V. 3 vi. 22-26 viii. 5 ff. x. 35, 36 xi. 29 . xiv. 6-8 XV. 19-21 XV. 30-36 XV. 37-41 xviii. 14-19 xviii. 20-24 xviii. 25-32 xix. 12, 13, 19, XX. 14 xxi. 14 . 59, 63, 46. 35, 35, 33, 53 1,20 PAGE 56 Numbers xxi. 21-35 78, 79 xxvi. 83 xxvii. 1-11 . 59 xxvii. 15-23 . 32, 34 xxix. 33 xxxi. 18, 26, 27 32 xxxii. . 68 xxxiii. 54 61 xxxiv. 13, 16-29 29 XXXV. 1-6, 8, 9-34 82 xxxvi. 1-12, 13 60 Deuteronomy i. 16. 32, 46 i. 25 66, 81 ii. 23 . 51, 59 iii. 19 . 49 iv. 8 54 iv. 20 . 63 iv. 25-28 27 iv. 41-43 58 V. 9, 10 . 56, 64 V. 14, 15 55, 74 V. 16 . 78, 82 V. 21 57 vi. 4-9 . 57, 58 vii. 12 ff 47, 65 vii. 15 . 52 viii. 7, 8, 9 72, 74 viii. 19, 20 34, 70 ix. 4, 5 . 70 x. 9 74 X. 14 70, 71 xi. 9-12 68 xi. 13-21 67 xii. 6, 17 70 xii. 12, 18 67 xii. 16 . 19 xii. 31 . 34 xiv. 3-21 29 xvi. 22-29 61 XV. 1-14 67 xvi. 11 . 74 xvi. 13-16 72, 74 xvi. 18, 19, 20 72 xvii. 4, 6, 8 68 xvii. 8-13 35 xvii. 14-20 17 xviii. 1, 2, 3 104 38, 21, 47, 77.' PAGE 30 73, 74 38 30 60 57 30 38 38 72 38 80 34 36 30 80 60 33 72 34 61 35 33 67 85 71 34, 36 33 32 74 25 34 67, 85 72 61, 74 68 32 68 61, 73 64, 82 61 60 80, 81 80, 81 71, 81 49 74 JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED— Continued Deuteronomy xviii. 4 xix. 1-13 xix. 6 . xix. 14 . xix. 15, 16-21 XX. 3, 4 XX. 6, 10-20 31, xxi. 7, 8 xxi. 10-14 . xxii. 1-4 xxii. 6, 7, 8, 10 xxiii. 12-14 . xxiii. 15, 16 xxiii. 17, 18 xxiii. 19, 20, 24, 25 xxiv. 6 . xxiv. 7 . xxiv. 10-13 xxiv. 14, 15, 17- 22 . . 56, xxiv. 16 XXV. 1-3 XXV. 4 . XXV. 5-10 XXV. 13-16 . 32, xxvi. 1-11 xxvi. 12 ff. xxvii. 11-26 . 15, 40, xxviii. . xxxi. 10-13 xxxii. 4 xxxii. 47 xxxiii. 10 xxxiv. . Joshua i. 2, 6, 11,15 vi. 21, 24, 26 vii. 20, 24 viii. 33 ix. 3-27 X. 12, 13 X. 20 ff . xi. 10, 14, 23;xii. 7-24, xiii.-xix. 30, 36, 38, xvii. 3, 4 xyii. 13 . . . xix. 51 . XX. xxi. PAGE 29 Joshua xxiv. 32 72 Judges i. 1-ii. 5 35 iii. 31 . 40 V. . . 17, 72, 81 vi. 2, 11 67 viii. 23 37, 57 xviii. 67 Ruth iv. 1-10 . 31, 46 1 Samuel ii. 12-17 82 iv. 10 . 65, 82 viii. 11-18 68 viii. 22 . 46 ix. 5; X. 2 32 X. 19 . 82 xi. 5 47, 82 xii. 3 [Ixx.] 56 xii. 12, 19 82 xiii. 1, 2, 6 xiii. 19-21; xiy.l4 78, 82 xiv. 52 . 35 xvi. 11 . 80 XX. 6 . 48, 82 2 Samuel i. 18 34, 35 V. 6 . 78, 79 xiv. 6, 7 29, 37 xviii. 17; xix. 8;: 73 xxiii. 3 67, 71 1 Kings i. 50 ; ii. 28-34 47, 67 iv. 7 66, 71 iv. 30 . 80 viii. 2, 65 85 viii. 36, 51, 66 71 ix. 20, 21, 26 30 xi. 7, 30-33 30 xii. 16 . 31 xiv. 24; xv. 12 35 xvii. 40 xviii. 5 31 xix. 19, 21 17 xxi. 31 xxii. 36, 46 30, 31 2 Kings iii. 19, 25-27 72, 74 iv. 1, 42 38 V. 1-14 31 ix. 10, 25, 26 38 xiii. 5 . 72 xiv. 6 . :. 1. 24, 31, PACl 27 31, 36 65 30, 35 35, 36 49 31 35, 91 74 35 49, 90 35 85 49 37 91 28, 49 35, 49 65 40 37 34 17 31 35 35 80 72 49 19 60 35, 60 36, 57 31, 33 35 32 33 49 37, 65 40 32, 35 32, 37 29, 56 89 34, 40 35 35 22 105 JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED— Continued PAGE PAGE 2 Kings XV. 5 . . 71 Psalms xi. 7 ; xix. 9 80 xvi. 3 . 32 xxiv. 1, 2 24 xvii. 17, 24 . 32, 83 xxxiv. 12-16 . 100 xxi. 6 . • 32 xxxvii. 16 54 xxiii. 7, 33-35 32, 79 xlv. 7 . 80 xxiv. 4 . 79 1. 7-23 . 24, 86 1 Chronicles iv. 39-43 31 Ii. 16-19 86 V. 10-22, 25, 26 31, 33 Ixvii. 4 80 vi. 54-81 72 Ixviii. 11 19 xi. 4 . 31 Ixix, 30, 31 . 86 xxiii. 71 Ixxii. 80, 82 2 Chronicles ii. 10 , 17, 18 31, 34 Ixxviii. 55-64 33 viii. 7, 8, 18 . 31, 36 Ixxxii. 1-4 . 81 ix. 21 . 36 Ixxxix. 11, 12, 14, 15 24, 81 X. 16 . 35 xcv. 5 . 24 XV. 3 ; xxiii. 4 71 xcvi. 10, 13 . 80 xix. 8-10 71 cii. 25 . 24 XXV. 22 35 civ. 14, 15, 29 21, 22 xxvi. 10, 21 . 37, 71 cvi. 34-39 . 32 xxviii. 3 32 cxv. 16 25 xxxi. 5, 6 72 cxix. 7, 62, 106, 1 60, 164 80 xxxiii. 6 32 cxxiv. 8 24 xxxvi. 5, 14, 21 .' 33, 65, 79 cxxvii. 3-5 . 35 Ezra ii. 1 35 cxlv. 9, 17 80, 81 iii. 1-4, 8 . 60, 71 cxlvi. 4 22 iv. 8-10 83 Proverbs iii. 29, 31, 32 79, 83 V. 12; ix. 7, 15 33, 80 iv. 18 . 81 Nehemiah ii. 8 26 X. 6, 7, 15 . 79, 96 V. . 56 70,98 xi. 1, 24, 26 . 53, 78 vii. 6 35 xii. 10, 11, 28 46 82, 85 viii. 7, 8, 10-18 . 60, 66, 72 ix. 6, 8, 25, 37 . 24, 3-1, 80 xiii. 23 . 53, 93 X. 31, 35, 37, 38 xiv. 34 . . 85 29, 61, 65, 72 xvi. 8, 11 54, 78 xi. 99 XX. 10 . . 78 xiii. 5, 10, 12, 15 16, 22 , 44 xxi. 3, 25, 26 33, 86 . 36, 61, 72 xxii. 28 ; xxiii. 10 . 40 Job i. 3 . 34 xxvii. 18 47 viii. 3 . 80 xxviii. 19 46 XX. 94 xxix. 7 . 82 xxii. 6 . 82 xxx. 8, 9 53 xxiv. 2-17 40, 82, 92, 93 xxxi. 24 36 xxviii. 1-6 . 21 Ecclesiastes i. 4 21 xxxiv. 15 22 ii. 5 26 xxxvii. 23 . 80 iii. 13, 20 22, 26 Psalms viii. 6-8 27 v. 9, 12, 13, 18 . 26, 28, 5:^ ix. 4, 8, 18... 80, 9C. vii. 29 . . . 48 X. 3 33 X. 18 . 55 106 JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED— Continued PAOB PAGt Ecclesiastes xii. 7 22 Lamentations iii. 35, 36 . 86 Isaiah i. 10-17, 23, 24 86, 90 V. 1-5 . 96 ii. 4 65, 102 Ezekiel vii. 2, 3, 12, 13 . 51 iii. 12-15, 16-iv. 1 . 47, 91, 90 xiv. 21 . . 33 V. 7 79 xvi. 29 ; xvii. 4 . 36 V. 8, 9, 10 . 16, 40, 42, xviii. 1-4 35 53, 65, 91, 93 XX. 6, 10-12, 15 . 34, 61 viii. 20 . 11 xxii. 29, 31 . 33 ix. 7 . 82 xxvii. 17 34 X. 1, 2 . 91 xxviii. 25, 26 99 xi. 4, 5 . 82 xxxiv. 17-22, 27, 28 93, 101 xix, 11, 12 . 19 xxxvi. 28, 29, 30 . 99. 101 xxiii. 2, 8, 11, 18 30 xxxix. 23 33 xxvi. 9 ; xxviii 16, 17 82 xliv. 24, 28 . 71, 74 XXX. 24 65 xlv. 8-12, 25 60, 78, xxxii. 1, 9-18 83, 96, 102 79, 93, 99 xxxiii. 15, 16 82, 85 xlvi. 1, 16-18 49, 57. 61,90 xli. 21 . 35, 49 xlvii. 14, 22, ) 23 30, 38 xlii. 5, 22 . 24, 94 xlviii. 1-7, 23 29 38 xliv. 9-20 33 Daniel ix. 4-15 33 xlv. 12, 18, 21 . 24, 26, 80 Hosea ii, 11, 19 61, 81 xlviii. 10 60 iv. 13, 14 32 Iviii. 2, 5-12 81, 86 V. 10 . 40 Iviii. 13, 14 . 61 vi. 6 86 Ixi. 2, 8 57, 86 viii. 4, 6 33, 49 Ixii. 8, 9 99 X. 12, 13, 14 81, 83 Ixv. 21-23, 25 47, 100, 102 xi. 1 35 Ixvi. 1, 2 25 xii. 6, 7 36, 78 Jeremiah ii. 4 . 34 xiii. 10, 11 49 V. 1-6, 26-29 33, 92 xiv. 9 . 81 vi. 11-13 33 Joel iii, 10 65 vii. 33, 86 Amos i. 1 37 viii. 13 . 33 ii. 6-8 . 91 ix. 24 . 80, 81 iii. 9, 10, 15 79, 93 x. 12 . 24 iv. 1-4, 6 73, 96 xi. 4, 5 . 34, 60 vi 11, 12 47, 80, 94 xiv. ; XV. 3 . 33 V. 21-24 86 xvii. 11, 19-27 54, 61 vi. 1-13 65, 95 xix. 6 ff. 33 vii. 1, 14-17 37, 38, 49 xxii. 3, 13-19 33, 49, 79, 90 viii. 4, 5, 6 61. 78 xxiii. 5 . 82 ix, 7, 13-15 56, 101 xxxi. 4, 5, 12-14 100 Obadiah 10 35 xxxi. 29, 30 . 35 Jonah i. 9 24 xxxii. 6-12 . 35 Micah i. 5, 7 32 xxxii. 35 32 ii, iii. 42, 91 xxxiii. 15, 16 82 ii, 2, 5 . 33, 38, 40 xxxiv. 8-22 . 64, 65 iii. 9, 10 79 107 JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED— Continued PAGE PAGB Micah iv. 3, 4 . . B5, 102 Zechariah vii. 8-14 . . 33 vi. 6-12, 10-15 47, 78 86 viii. 4, 5, 10-12, 1 6 17 Habakkuk i. 1-6 33 85, 100, 101 ii. 9, 18-20 33 xiv. 21 . . 36 Zephaniah i. 11, 1?> '36 47 Malachi ii. 7, 10 57 71 iii. 5 . 81 iii. 5 . . . 94 Zechariah iii. 10 • 102 iv. 2 . 82 APOCRYPHA 1 Esdras iv. 62 40 Ecclesiasticus xvii. 1 22 2 Esdras vi. 55, 59 26, 77 xxxii. 16 81 vii. 11-14 .. 37 xxxiii. 10, 30, 31 22, 57 X. 10, 14 22 xxxiv. 21, 22 47 xiv. 28-33 . Tobit i. 7, 8 . 33 73 xxxvii. 25 27 iii. 2 80 XXX viii. 24-34 59 iv. 14, 15 56, 84 xl. i. . 21 Judith iv. 10 . 34, 35 xii. 10 . 22 viii. 6 . 61 xiv. 17, 20-22 71, 74 Esther xvi. 15 80 xlvi. 19 91 Wisdom xii. 3-7 32 1. 25, 26 83 xiii. lOff 33 1 Maccabees vi, 49 53 65 XV. 8 . 22 xiv. 9, 12, 13 100, 102 Ecclesiasticus. Pro logu( 13 2 Maccabees x. 6-8 60 vii. 15 . 37 XV. 38, 39 . 89 NE W TESTAMENT Matthew v. 13, 17, Luke iii. 12, 13 . 75 20, 21, 36, 37, iv. 18, 19 . , 57 43-45 . 15, 21, 33, vi. 1, 34, 35 . 82 83, 84, 86 ix. 51-56, 62 65, 83 vi. 24-34 86 X. 25-37 , 83 vii. 12 . 83 xi. 41, 42 81, 86 xviii. 25 56 xii. 15, 22-31 33, 86 xix. 19 . 83 XV. 17-19 . 56 XX. 2, 8-13 . 56 xvi. 13, 14, 19-31, 29 xxii. 23-27, 37, 39, 41 3 11, 15, 34 35, 67, 83 xix. 8, 1-10 . 70, 75 xxiii. 4-14, 23-33 86 XX. 27ff., 47 . 35, 86 XXV. 31-46 . 85 John iv. 9 , 83 Mark ii. 27 61 viii, 32, 48 11, 83 vii. 22 . . 33 Acts iii. 14 82 X. 5 . . . 46 vii. 22, 52 19, 82 xii. 29, 30, 31-34, : 38-40 xvii. 6, 24, 26, 28 . 57, 77, 83 67, 83, 86 xviii. 3; xx 33-3f ) 62 108 JEWISH AUTHORITIES QUOTED-Continued PACK Acts xxii. 14 . 82 xxiv. 14 84 Romans i. 25, 29 33 X. 12 . 83 xiii. 9, 10 84 XV. 4 11 1 Corinthians v. 10, 11; vi. 9, 10 , , 34 ix. 7-10 48 X. 26, 28 24 xi. 30 . 49 XV. 47-49 22 2 Corinthians iii. 17 46 xii. 2 25 Galatians iii. 28 57, 83 V. 13, 14 84 Ephesians iv. 28 62 V. 3, 5 . 33 vi. 2 . 35 PhiHppians iv. 8 81 Colossians iii, 1-6, t 5, 11* 33, 78, 83 1 Thessalonians iv. : 11, 12 62 2 Thessalonians iii. 6, 7 8, lOff 49, 62 1 Timothy v. 8, 18 vi, 9, 10, 17 . 34, 48, 62, 94 2 Timothy ii. 6, 19 . 48, 86 Titus iii. 14 62 Philemon 16 . 57 Hebrews i, 10 . 24 iii. 4 . . . 55 vi. 12 . . . 51 X. 22 . 68 xi. 24-27 20 xiii. 15, 16 . 86 James i. 27 . 86 ii. 8 84 V. 1-5 . 94 1 Peter i. 17 . 81 ii. 16 . . . 84 iii. 10-12 100 2 Peter i. 21 . 11 ii. 14 . . . 34 1 John iv. 8, 12, 16, 20 . 84 Jude 5, 7 . 33 Revelation xv. 3, 4; xix. 2 . . . 84 ENTRA-CANONICAL Book of Jubilees ... 50 Josephus, Antiquities 37, 38, 39, 43, 50, 54, 56, 64, 65, 66, 73 Josephus, Jewish War . 65 Josephus, Against Apion 36, 69, 71, 80 The Talmud [incl. Sayings J. F.] . . 22, 26, 57, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 77 MODERN Adler, Rev. Dr. . . . 68 Gollancz, H. .... 61 Jewish Chronicle . . 68 Jewish Encyclopcedia . 51, 65, 79 Jewish Quarterly Reviczv 83 Maimonides .... 27 Montefiore, C. G. . . 8.1 Salomons, Rev. B. J., Notes by . . 22, 26, 52, 56. 57, 62 109 INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS Abraham, land bought by, 27 Adamah; Adam, 22, 27. Agriculture, Hebrew, 36, 37, 64. Agur, prayer of, 53. Amos, 37. Animals, kindness to, 82. Artaxerxes, 80. Ash-Wednesday, 13. Auchmuty, Rev. A. C, 33. Bacon's Henry VII., 85. Baret's Alvearie, 85. Bennett, Rev. Prof., 18. Bible as text-book of Ethics, 15 Blackstone, 28. Blood-feud, blood-revenge, 35, 72. Book of the Covenant; of or- igins, 17. Book of Jasher; Wars of the Lord, 17. Bribery, 80, 90. Brotherhood of man, 22, 25, 56, 57, 83. Building By-laws, 82. Cain, 37. Canaan, fertihty of, 35. conquest of, 31. survey and division of , 37,38 "Canaanite" (=merchant), 36. Catechism, Church, 62, 87. Cheyne, Prof., 18. Chrysostom, St., 21. Cincinnatus, 37. Cities of Refuge, 72. Coke's Littleton, 52. Cook, S. A., 20, 46, 78. Covetousness is idolatry, 33, 34, 77, 79. David, 37. Deutsch, E., 20. diVatos, diKaioavvT], 79, 85. Dove, Patrick Edward, 22. Driver, Prof. S. R., 19, 20, 51, 68. "Ear" (=plough), 61, 65. Easter lessons, 77. Education, Hebrew, 68. Egypt, Israel in, 60. Elisha, 37. Elohist, 17. Emerson, 73. Ewald H., 34, 49, 50, 51. Fatherhood of God, 22, 57, 83. Family, the Hebrew, 34. Festivals, Hebrew, 59, 60. First-fruits, 29. Garden of Eden, 26, 27. Gebul, 40. George, Henry, 22, 29, ^5, 52, 87, 88. Gibeonites, 31. Gideon, 36, 49. Gleaning, 82. Glenbeigh evictions, 45. Hammurabi, Code of, 20, 46, 78. Hancock, Rev. Thos., 57. "Heaven of heavens," 25. Heine, Heinrich, 52, 53. Horton, Rev. R. F., 91. Hull, Prof. E., 39. Idleness and theft, 62. Idolatry, Canaanite, 31, 32. Hebrew, 31, 33. 110 NAMES AND SUBJECTS— Continued Improvements, compensation for, 54. distinguished from land, 55. "Inheritance," 51. of Levites, 74. Interest. (See Usury.) Isaiah, 41, 53. Jacob, 27, 40, 48. Jahn, 52. Jehoiakim, 79. Jehovist, 17. Joseph, 56. Joshua, 19, 30, 38. Jubilee, Diamond, 49. Jubilee, year of, 49ff. "Just," "justice," 79, 84. Keil, 64. Kennedy, Prof., 38. KXTjpovofjiia, 51. Kemosh (Chemosh), 31. Labour Laws, 56. Landmarks, Babylonian, 40. Egyptian, 39. Landmark, Hebrew, 39. Roman, 40. in Durham, 40. Land value, Josephus on, 38. private appropriation of, 45. taxation of, 45, 74, 88. Law, of Moses, 20, 66. Hebrew and English, 28, 52, 74, 75. Hebrew and Roman, 53. principles and "precepts," 21, 43ff. Lent Lessons, 13. Leprosy, 71. Levi, tribe of, 36, 44, 70. Levirate marriage, 35. Levites* houses, 55. Liturgical forms, 67. Locke, John, 22. Macaulay, 65. Manetho, 19, 71. Man-stealing, 56. Maoris, 52. Margoliouth, Dr. 16. Martin, Prof. G., Currie, 28. Maxims of English law, 52, 75. M-^ fjLepL/jLvdre, 85. Mesha, K. of Moab, 31. Messianic hope, 82. Micah, 40, 41, 86. Moabite stone, 31. Monarchy, 49, 90. Moses, Deliverer and Law- giver, 19. Naaman, 88. Naboth's vineyard, 40. Navy, Hebrew, 36. Nehemiah, 76, 97flF. Noah's vineyard, 37. Oehler, 27. 34, 52. Ogilvie, William, 22. Onesimus, 57. Ottley, Canon, 18. "Pair of shoes," 91. Pawning, pledging, 47, 82. Peake, Prof. A. S., 92. Pentateuch, sources of, 17. Perjury, 80. Petty, Sir W., 23. Pharisees, 86. Pliny, 16, 65. Plough, 65. Poor-tithe, 72. Purchases Pilgrimage, 85. Renan, E., 40. "Righteous," "righteousness," 79, 85. Ritual of the Dead, 20. Robinson, Prof. Wheeler, 31. Sabbatarianism, true, 61 ff. Sabbath-day, 59ff. Sabbath-year, 63flf. Sacrifices, 67, 86. Sale of land forbidden, 27, 51. Ill NAMES AND SUBJECTS— Continued Salisbury, Lord, 24. Samaritans, 83. Samuel, 36. Sanitary laws, 70, 71. Saul, 36. Sermon on the Mount, 85. Shakespeare, 47, 85. Shema, 56, 67. Single Tax, 88. Sins that are cursed, 14, 40. Slavery, permitted but restrict- ed, 46, 56, 57. Smith, Prof. G. A., 91. Somers' Tracts, 85. Song of Deborah, 17. Spence, Thomas, 22. Spencer, Herbert, 22, 24, 26, 84. 87, 88. Strachey, Sir E., 42. "Strangers," 20, 55, 78, 80, 81. Sutherland clearances, 44, 45. Sweating, 47. "Take no thought," 85. Taylor, 57. Tefillah, 56. "Tent of Meeting," 70. Theocracy, Hebrew, 28, 29, 48, 49. Tithe, its meaning, 72ff. Torah (=:Law), 18, 59, 67, 77. Uncleanness (=:Sin), 68. Usury (=Interest), 76, 78, 82, 98. "Utterly destroy," 31. Uzziah, 37. Vergil, 16, 27, 65. Wage-slavery, 56. Wallace, Prof. A. R., 22. War, laws of, 30, 37. Weights and measures, 78, 93. Westcott, Bp., 32, 51. Wicksteed, Rev. P. H., 18, 64. Williams, Joshua, 28. Winstanley, Gerrard, 22. Women's rights, 38. Workmen, inspired, 68. Yashar, 78. Yahweh (:= Jehovah), 31. Year of release, 63 ff. Yoke of land, 65. Zacchaeus, 75. Zadak, 78. Zelophehad's daughters, 38. ' 112 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. 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