Roy E. Gane
Divine laws presented in the Pentateuch have a lot to say about social justice. This paper surveys pentateuchal laws relevant to social power and distribution of resources and briefly explores the potential for applying principles from these laws within our modern world. The paper is abstracted and adapted from two of my recent publications: the chapter on “Social Justice in Old Testament Law” in my book titled Old Testament Law for Christians: Original Context and Enduring Application (Baker Academic, 2017) and the chapter on “Social Justice” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law (2019).1
Social justice involves fairness in relationships between individuals and their society in areas such as distribution of resources, social status and privileges, and opportunities for activity. Various ancient Near Eastern texts show concern for socially marginalized persons from early times.2 Uniquely in the ancient Near East, however, the Israelites were to kindly assist and protect disadvantaged individuals (including immigrants) in specific ways as part of their covenant obligations to their deity, for which he held them accountable. Consequently, their treatment of such people was to affect their own well-being and destiny as individuals and as a nation.3
Contemporary social justice movements are pushing against the social status quo and seeking to overcome its barriers in order to gain equality of rights and economic and social benefits. “Social justice” as a distinct term for justice regarding society does not appear in the Bible, but is generally regarded as having originated with the Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio in 1840.4 Therefore, we should not be surprised that the full-blown modern ideas of “social justice” do not appear in biblical texts.
Social justice in biblical times was not about class struggle, ending ethnic discrimination, women trying to break through a “glass ceiling,” family members seeking parity with the representative head of the household, entitlements to public wealth, or creation of economic safety nets, such as welfare programs. In a tribal society with a predominantly agrarian subsistence economy, there was no public wealth or welfare as we know it today. Individuals survived by belonging to and carrying out their cooperative duties within extended families. Failure to cooperate was not a viable option (cf. Deut 21:18–21).
Social justice measures in OT law had the purpose of preserving the status quo by maintaining or restoring the preexisting socioeconomic opportunities of individuals so that they could receive what was reasonably due to them when they fulfilled their expected roles within the society as it was.5 Joshua A. Berman points out that in the Pentateuch, “equality is born of a communitarian ideal. The equality between members of the Israelite polity is granted to them in order that they should collectively answer the higher calling of serving as subordinate kings in covenantal partnership. Individual rights exist, but they exist essentially to advance a collective good.”6
Social justice is a high priority in biblical law, but it does not mandate revolutionary social engineering. Rather, it outlines a blueprint for an existing society to undergo moral transformation by moving its people along the road of social justice at a pace that they can be expected to handle if they are loyal to the Lord and exercise faith in him.
Land as the Basic Resource
The Lord had delivered his people from Egypt, thereby accomplishing the paradigmatic social justice revolution, in order for them to be free and independent (cf. Lev 26:13) on their own land.7 Having provided a powerful example by freeing his people, he expected them to treat one another with similar kindness and justice (Lev 25:35–38; Deut 10:17–22; 15:13–15; 24:17–22).8
The Israelites’ use of the land that God gave them was crucial because it was their most basic and essential resource. YHWH provided for its equitable distribution among the Israelite tribes and clans when they conquered Canaan (Num 26:52–56; 33:54; Josh 13–19, 21). This land was to be passed on to subsequent generations within the same clans9 so that all Israelite families could have the opportunity to independently support themselves and prosper on their own ancestral properties.
Protecting Economically Vulnerable Israelites and Alleviating Some Hardship
Deuteronomy 15 expresses the ideal that there would be no poor among the Israelites, whom God would bless if they would obey him (vv. 4–5). On the other hand, the same chapter acknowledges the reality that there would always be poor in the land, who would need assistance from others (v. 11).
Biblical law recognizes that Israelites would experience differences in economic success. But it calls for prevention of undue hardship by prohibiting unjust practices, such as moving landmarks that show boundaries of ancestral land (Deut 19:14; cf. 27:17), using deceptive weights and measures (Lev 19:35–36), or charging interest (Exod 22:25 [Heb. v. 24]; Lev 25:36–37; Deut 23:19–20 (Heb. vv. 20–21). A poor day laborer, whether an Israelite or an immigrant, is to be paid on the same day (Lev 19:13; Deut 24:14–15) and a primary garment taken as collateral must be returned before nightfall (Exod 22:26–27 [Heb. vv. 25–26]; Deut 24:12–13). It is forbidden to take a millstone or a widow’s garment as collateral (Deut 24:6, 17), and a creditor is obliged to treat a debtor with respect by staying outside the latter’s dwelling to receive his collateral (Deut 24:10–11).
Biblical laws seek to relieve hardship by encouraging generosity and compassion (Lev 25:35; Deut 15:7–8), especially for those who lack land on which to support themselves. Poor and socially marginal persons have the right to glean from harvests of others (Lev 19:9–10; 23:22; Deut 24:19–21) and to gather and eat the natural produce of uncultivated land during sabbatical and jubilee years (Exod 23:11; Lev 25:6, 11–12). Every third year, (landless) Levites, resident aliens, fatherless children, and widows are to eat from tithes of agricultural produce that other Israelites are to give (Deut 14:28–29, 26:12–13).
Notice that only the tithes, which belonged to God, could be eaten without any work. There were no handouts from the labor of other people.
These measures would not suffice as a comprehensive welfare program to fully support people throughout each year,10 but they would partly alleviate privation, include socially marginal individuals in the community (cf. Deut 16:11, 14 of inclusion at festivals), and could serve to remind their fellow citizens to assist them at other times. YHWH’s ritual system sets an example of including the poor by giving them access to ritual benefits through inexpensive offerings (Lev 1:14–17, 5:7–13, 12:8, 14:21–32; cf. 27:8; Deut 16:17).11
Releasing Debt and Restoring Land
Deuteronomy 15 provides more substantial aid by calling for a cyclical release of debts every seventh year (vv. 1–3). Mesopotamian kings had occasionally proclaimed release from debts and other obligations and manumission of slaves,12 but Deuteronomy makes debt release regular, independent of a human monarch’s will.13
This solves one problem but creates another, which Deuteronomy 15 acknowledges: people with means would not be willing to loan to the poor as the seventh year approached (v. 9a).14 Nevertheless, the law commands them to take the risk by doing so anyway because they will be sinning (and therefore subject to divine punishment) if they do not, but the Lord will make it up to them by blessing them if they do (vv. 9b–10). Here the operational principle is not economic prudence, but faith.
Release of debt could prevent or terminate debt slavery, which in any case is limited to six years in individual cases (Exod 21:2; Deut 15:12). Recognizing that freedom brings the need for independent survival, Deuteronomy 15 commands the Israelite master to supply his departing servant with a rich gift of food and drink (vv. 13–14). But if the liberated person has lost his land on which to make a living, what happens when the gift is used up?
Leviticus 25 addresses the problem of loss of ancestral land within a downward spiral of increasing poverty. Negative circumstances could disrupt the ability of Israelite farmers to gain the benefits of their labors. Such a circumstance could be crop failure due to drought, plant disease, storms, or pests; interference from warfare or raiding; or illness or death of one or more family members who had provided essential farm labor.
Such setbacks could necessitate economic assistance for survival, not only for food, but also for seed to plant in the following year. Such aid could only come from private individuals with limited resources. The best-case scenario was to receive temporary support by a more fortunate Israelite (e.g., Lev 25:35), with whom a needy Israelite would share kinship ties. Even then, economically dependent individuals could be vulnerable to exploitation (vv. 36–37).
If an Israelite became so poor that he had to sell some of his land, a near kinsman was to “redeem” it by buying it back (v. 25), thereby keeping it within the family.15 If the poor man had nobody to redeem it and could not redeem it himself, the land remained under the buyer’s control until the jubilee year, when it automatically reverted to the original owner, that is, the poor man (vv. 26–28).
The fact that this radical social justice legislation mandates the cyclical release of ancestral land in each jubilee year (vv. 10, 13–16, 28) means that purchase of such property would only amount to a leasehold for producing crops (v. 16). Thus, every generation receives the opportunity to make an independent living on their own land, even if the previous generation was forced to give up their land due to hard times. The jubilee, which follows seven sabbatical year cycles and thereby extends the sabbatical principle of rest and release, would contribute to egalitarianism among landholding citizens by making temporary the accumulation of land by some at the expense of others.
Potential for Modern Application of Biblical Social Justice Principles
Most biblical scholars recognize that there is some overall or indirect continuity between the biblical legislation and modern life in terms of shared principles, paradigms, or points of contact, but with discontinuity of many details.16 The detailed biblical cases or examples are valuable in that “they bring to life the social context from which the text emerged.”17
We should be careful not to read modern concerns back into biblical texts.18 However, examples of some transferable principles are as follows:
First, human relationships should be viewed in moral terms.19
Second, members of society should provide special nurture, support, and protection for those who lack the benefits of belonging to families or to the controlling social group.
Third, employers should treat their workers kindly, rather than taking advantage of them.
Fourth, Walter Houston applies a jubilee principle: “human beings have no right to absolute possession of the earth or any part of it to do with as they wish: it belongs to a higher purpose.”20
Fifth, society should make resources available to as many as possible so that they can at least have a fair opportunity to thrive independently. What a difference it would have made in American history if every family of freed slaves had been provided with 40 acres and a mule!21
Sixth, those who are in need should work for their sustenance if they are able to do so, rather than living off the work of others. As the apostle Paul put it, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess 3:10). The Leviticus 25 plan offers the most thorough OT law solution to poverty during temporary hard times, but it does not tax the fruits of labor from those who possess them in order to distribute them to those in need, thereby tending to reduce the incentive of both parties. Rather, the “have-nots” are to be sustained by the “haves” as workers in a mutually beneficial relationship, although it is not ideal, until the poor can recover the essential resource, land, through which to obtain the fruits of their own labor in a better situation.
The resource of land that was equitably distributed provided opportunity; it was not the outcome of other people’s success, nor did it guarantee success (cf. Deut 15:11). Thus, although the system outlined in Leviticus 25 could be regarded as a major form of welfare, it would preserve incentive to work, the dignity that goes with it, and healthy relationships between the providers and beneficiaries of economic assistance.
Jonathan Burnside observes:
In contrast to both capitalism and Marxism, biblical law presents a third way; access to the means of production and incentives to work hard. Whereas modern Western approaches to social welfare favor a system of redistributive taxation after the process of wealth creation, biblical law provides for a roughly equitable distribution of productive assets that can be maintained over a lifetime. To put it another way, biblical law addresses the question of social welfare by giving as many people as possible the capacity to produce and hence to look after themselves.22
It is true that the ancient setting and circumstances greatly differed from ours. But before modern people dismiss the biblical laws as irrelevant or utopian,23 perhaps we can learn something!
Ellen G. White recognized this when she wrote with regard to the biblical system of land use, including the jubilee:
In God’s plan for Israel every family had a home on the land, with sufficient ground for tilling. Thus were provided both the means and the incentive for a useful, industrious, and self-supporting life. And no devising of men has ever improved upon that plan. To the world’s departure from it is owing, to a large degree, the poverty and wretchedness that exist today.24
Also Jacob Milgrom has pointed out the modern value of the biblical instructions regarding the jubilee in his commentary on Leviticus 23-27:
…the debtor world has issued the following demands to the creditor nations…: (1) cancellation of their debts; (2) restitution of land and resources to their original owners; (3) cessation from pilfering natural resources and polluting them…; and (4) termination of economic slavery…by universally raising wages to a subsistence level.
The jubilee prescribing remission of debts, restoration of land, sabbath rest for land and people, and release from economic servitude corresponds to all four demands…evidence can be adduced that countries employing some of the jubilee provisions have experienced spectacular economic growth rather than precipitous decline…Thus the jubilee laws, mutatis mutandis, offer a realistic blueprint for bridging the economic gap between the have and have-not nations, which otherwise portends political uprisings that can engulf the entire world.25
Social justice is a high priority in biblical law, but it did not mandate revolutionary social engineering. Rather, it outlined a blueprint for an existing society to undergo moral transformation by moving its people along the road of social justice at a pace that they could be expected to handle if they were loyal to YHWH and exercised faith in him. Economic measures mandated by law did not provide comprehensive solutions, but they supplied strategic assistance and encouraged Israelites who were better off to go beyond the minimum requirements enforceable by human authority in providing generous brotherly aid to the less fortunate members of their communities (e.g. Deut 15).
Biblical law fosters a society in which individuals and families enjoy fair representation and in which they have access to resources with which to independently support themselves. Such a society is healthier, more prosperous, and safer for all (including elites) than one in which there are gross inequities between a privileged elite and downtrodden masses who exist to support them.26
Biblical law recognizes that social justice, which it does not distinguish from social welfare,27 is based on moral/ethical values involving individual commitment to just and unselfish concern for others.28 These values must be taught, encouraged, and accepted as a major part of the collective world view, as “a character of society”; it is not enough to legislate and enforce them.29
__________
1 This text is a summary of Roy E. Gane, Old Testament Law for Christians: Original Context and Enduring Application (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 281-310 on “Social Justice in Old Testament Law”; idem, “Social Justice,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law, ed. Pamela Barmash (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 19-34.
2 The Sumerian king Uru-inimgina of Lagash (ca. 2351–2342 B.C.) initiated the first known systematic legal reforms (see trans. William W. Hallo, “Reforms of Uru-Inimgina,” in The Context of Scripture, ed. William W. Hallo, 3 vols. [Leiden: Brill, 1997-2002], 2:407–8), which pioneered the tradition of ANE social justice. His reforms include the following: “A citizen of Lagash living in debt, (or) who had been condemned to its prison for impost, hunger, robbery, (or) murder—their freedom he established. Uru-inimgina made a compact with the divine Nin-Girsu that the powerful man would not oppress the orphan (or) widow” (ibid., 408). On social justice in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, cf. Enrique Nardoni, Rise Up, O Judge: A Study of Justice in the Biblical World, trans. Seán Charles Martin (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 1–41.
3 Jeremiah Unterman, Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), 41-84, esp. 83-84.
4 Thomas Patrick Burke, The Concept of Justice: Is Social Justice Just?, Continuum Studies in Political Philosophy (London, U.K.: Continuum, 2011), 31-42.
5 Raymond Westbrook, Law from the Tigris to the Tiber: The Writings of Raymond Westbrook, ed. Bruce Wells and Rachel Magdalene, 2 vols. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 1:143–44, 160. Moshe Weinfeld has argued that the biblical ideal of doing justice and righteousness (mishpat utsedaqah) “implies maintaining social justice” (Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995], 5). This includes carrying out responsibilities to put things right by helping the needy and oppressed (Bruce V. Malchow, Social Justice in the Hebrew Bible: What Is New and What Is Old [Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 1996], 16–17), with emphasis on equity of responsibilities rather than rights or benefits (Joe M. Sprinkle, Biblical Law and Its Relevance: A Christian Understanding and Ethical Application for Today of the Mosaic Regulations [Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006], 16; Joshua A. Berman, Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 175).
6 Berman, Created Equal, 174.
7 Cf. Nardoni, Rise Up, O Judge, 42–62.
8 Cf. Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 253–65; 459–60. YHWH’s deliverance often appears in motive clauses of social justice laws (Exod. 22:21 [22:20 MT]; 23:9; Lev. 19:34; 25:42, 55; Deut. 5:15; etc.).
9 As in Lev. 25:13–16, 23–24, 34; Num. 36; cf. 1 Kings 21:3.
10 Walter J. Houston, Contending for Justice: Ideologies and Theologies of Social Justice in the Old Testament, Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 428 (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 115–16.
11 See Richard H. Hiers, Justice and Compassion in Biblical Law (New York: Continuum, 2009), 180; J. David Pleins, The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 64–65.
12 Moshe Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995), 75–96.
13 Jeffries M. Hamilton, Social Justice and Deuteronomy: The Case of Deuteronomy 15, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 136 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1992), 48–56, 71–72; Raymond Westbrook, Law from the Tigris to the Tiber: The Writings of Raymond Westbrook, 2 vols. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 1:151–60.
14 Westbrook, Law from the Tigris to the Tiber, 1:159.
15 Raymond Westbrook, Property and the Family in Biblical Law, JSOTSup 113 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 58–62.
16 Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Joe M. Sprinkle, Biblical Law and Its Relevance: A Christian Understanding and Ethical Application for Today of the Mosaic Regulations (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006); Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004). On hermeneutics of cultural analysis, see William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001).
17 Walter J. Houston, Justice: The Biblical Challenge, Biblical Challenges in the Contemporary World (London: Equinox, 2010), 18.
18 Cyril S. Rodd, Glimpses of a Strange Land: Studies in Old Testament Ethics, Old Testament Studies (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 2001).
19 Houston, Contending for Justice, 228.
20 Ibid., 202.
21 See, e.g., https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/, accessed Sept. 28, 2021.
22 Burnside, God, Justice, and Society, 251; cf. 249–50.
23 A number of scholars regard the jubilee regulations as impractical and utopian (e.g., Westbrook, Property and the Family, 38–56; idem, Law from the Tigris to the Tiber, 1:159; Houston, Contending for Justice, 189–91, 197–99, 201). Part of their support for this view is the apparent lack of a clear description of jubilee observance in other biblical texts to attest its actual implementation. But see the attempt of Lisbeth S. Fried and David N. Freedman, “Was the Jubilee Year Observed in Preexilic Judah?,” in Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 3B (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 2257–70.
24 Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1905, 1909), 183-84. See also idem, Education (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1903), 44: “Were the principles of God’s laws regarding the distribution of property carried out in the world today, how different would be the condition of the people! An observance of these principles would prevent the terrible evils that in all ages have resulted from the oppression of the poor by the rich and the hatred of the rich by the poor. While it might hinder the amassing of great wealth, it would tend to prevent the ignorance and degradation of tens of thousands whose ill-paid servitude is required for the building up of these colossal fortunes. It would aid in bringing a peaceful solution of problems that now threaten to fill the world with anarchy and bloodshed.” I am grateful to Kevin Burton for bringing these statements of Ellen G. White to my attention.
25 Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, 2271.
26 Houston, Contending for Justice, 172.
27 Burnside, God, Justice, and Society, 240–42; Houston, Contending for Justice, 200.
28 Houston, Contending for Justice, 131–132, 230.
29 Ibid., 107, 117, 187; cf. Berman, Created Equal, 169.