Woe to the Covetous
E. Johnson Isaiah 5:8-10 Woe to them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place… To understand this passage we should bear in mind the truths connected with real property as a condition of national well-being. I. THE INSTITUTION OF LANDED PROPERTY IN ISRAEL. According to the Law, each of the twelve tribes was to have its landed possessions, and each particular household was to have its definite portion of the land belonging to the tribe; and this was to be an inalienable heritage. Among an agricultural people it is most necessary that each family should thus have a fixed foothold on the land, a home, a center of toil and acquisition; and that thus its members should be firmly bound to their native land and to their fellow-countrymen. In a conquered land, again, it was equitable that the fields should be divided among those who took part in the burdens of war, and who desired to cultivate the conquered land in peace. In many passages of the Law we find the impress of this institution of real property. In the year of jubilee every man was to be restored to his patrimony (Leviticus 25:13). The land was never to be sold, because in fact it belonged to Jehovah (ver. 23), and the people were but his stewards. In the interesting case of the daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27:1-11), who had died in the desert, we find it laid down that the children, or nearest relatives of one who had died without coming into his portion, were to possess it in his stead. Again, the men of Reuben and of Gad refused to go to war until every man of them had received his inheritance (Numbers 32:16, sqq.). And Moses agreed to their conditions. In the same book we read the direction, "Ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance" (Numbers 33:54). The land, it will be seen, was considered as in tenure from Jehovah himself, the only landlord. And how attached an Israelite would become to his ancestral estate, is seen from the story of Naboth, who will not give up his even for a better one, and at the king's request (1 Kings 21:3, sqq.; 2 Kings 9:10, 25, sqq.). The virtues of patriotism struck deep root in this relation to the soil of Palestine. These facts help us to understand the moral and national evils springing from selfish greed, which threatened this institution of property, of which the prophet here complains. II. THE VICE OF COVETOUSNESS. The root of the vice is a thorough-going selfishness. The rich men use the means at their command unjustly to absorb the land into their own possession. The result must be the hopeless misery and degradation of the mass of the people. An instructive parallel to the state of things described by the prophet is to be found in the history of Sparta, at the time of the great lawgiver, Lycurgus. Plutarch tells us that the disorders which he found existing in the state arose in great measure from the gross inequality of property, and from the long avarice and rapacity of the rich, who had thus added house to house and field to field. The lawgiver, therefore, redistributed the whole territory of Sparta. In Roman letters we-read allusions to the habit of forming latifundia, or "broad farms," with its unsocial consequences. "How far," indignantly exclaims Seneca, "will ye extend the bounds of your possessions; not content to circumscribe the area of your estates by the sowing of provinces? The broad acres own one lord; the people crowd into a narrow field. The courses of bright streams flow through private estates; great rivers, bounds of great nations, from the source to the mouth, all are yours. And this is nothing unless you have girdled your broad farms with seas; unless across the Hadriatic, the Ionian, and the AEgean your bailiff reigns; unless islands, domiciles of great dukes, are reckoned amongst the commonest of things. Shall there be no lake over which the roofs of your villas hang not? no stream whose banks are not covered by your buildings?" (Ep. 88.). In his beautiful 'Deserted Village,' Goldsmith says - "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." Too well we know what inappeasable discontent and seeming incurable misery has been begotten in Ireland of past selfishness and injustice of the few. Surely it is the part of every patriotic Christian man to forward all legislation which throws open God's land to tillage, and breaks up selfish monopolies. III. THE PUNISHMENT OF COVETOUSNESS. 1. Its folly is exposed. One would think, from their conduct, that these grasping men desired to dwell alone amidst a waste! But, as the old agricultural poet of Greece says, "The man who frames ills against another frames them against himself, and ill counsel turns out worst for him who devised it. The all-seeing eye of Zeus looks upon these things, and they escape him not" (Hesiod, 'Works and Days,' 265, 266). Judgment gets the better of injustice when it comes to the final issue, and the fool who suffers from his avarice knows it to his cost. Like a wronged woman, she passes through the city, bewailing the manners of the people, clothed in mist; for men see not her approach, and know not that she is the cause of their calamities, who have driven her forth by her unjust deeds. Those, continues the poet, who do right by the strangers and the natives of the land - their city flourishes, the people blossom therein; and peace, the nourisher of youths, prevails through the land. To them far-seeing Zeus appoints no bitter war; famine and curse are unknown. The earth produces abundance, the trees drop fruit and honey, the fleeces are heavy on the sheep; and mothers bear a noble offspring. But often a whole city suffers from an evil man, who is a sinner and devises haughty plans. Pestilence and famine come from the hands of the Supreme upon men; the houses are thinned and the people perish (ibid., 55. 217, etc.). These are close analogies to the great thoughts of our prophet. 2. The appropriate punishment. Those who have grasped at more than their right will find the coveted good dwindling in their hands, or, like a Dead Sea fruit, turning to ashes on their lips. One bucket only will be obtained from the "yoke" of vineyard; one bushel of corn from a quarter's seed. Thus may we find in nature a profound Scripture, a record and a testimony of Divine law not to be gainsaid. In this day of science perhaps we fix our thought too exclusively on the dependence of man on Nature. There is another side of truth equally important - the dependence of Nature on man. In moral energy, in compliance with the laws of right, we become more and more the masters of Nature, and she smiles back upon us with an aspect of recognition and blessing. In the sloth of our spirit and its corruption from truth we can no longer win the sympathy of the earth; and her groaning aspect reflects and represents a guilty decline of the soul These troths are general; only experience can teach where and how they must be modified in their application. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! WEB: Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!