For example, in contrast to pre-Israeli Canaanite society which was organized along 'feudal' lines, with power residing at the elite top of a highly stratified social pyramid, Israel was a 'tribal' society. It had a kinship structure based on a large number of 'extended-family', land-owning households. These units, which were largely self-sufficient economically, performed most of the socially important functions locally---judicially, economic, cultic, military. Israelite society was more broadly 'egalitarian' rather than 'hierarchical'.
This same contrast is seen in economic life in the forms of land tenure. In the Canaanite city-states, all land was owned by the king and there were feudal arrangements with those who lived and worked on it. In Israel the land was divided up as widely as possible into multiple ownership by extended-families. In order to preserve this system, it could not simply be bought and sold commercially, but had to be retained within the kinship groups. Furthermore, many of the Old Testament laws and institutions of land use indicate an overriding concern to preserve this comparative equality of families on the land and to protect the poorer, the weaker and economically threatened, and not to uphold the status and wealth of a small land-owning nobility.
Likewise, in political life, power in Israelite society was originally very decentralized and located in the wide network of local elders in each community.
Notice how the social, economic and political systems all worked together to provide the framework for a just society. Wright states the following principles:
1. The land was a divine gift from God, but God was still the acknowledged owner. In a sense, God was the landlord and the Israelites were his tenants (Lev. 25:23). All other economic principles flow from this theological foundation.
2. Only on the basis of God as ultimate owner and involved landlord is it safe to talk about individual property rights at the household level. In one sense, this household or kinship ownership was inalienable, almost sacred, because the land could not be bought and sold commercially as was noted above. If each household does not control its own land, then a household is under the control of someone else. This opens the door to oppression.
3. These land rights were balanced by a set of responsibilities. Rights without responsibilities can become the basis for greed. Responsibilities to God included such things as the first fruits of the harvest, the fallow year and the release of debt-pledges. Responsibilities to the family included "redemption procedures, inheritance rules and levirate marriage." Responsibilities to neighbors included "respect for integrity of [land] boundaries, generosity in leaving harvest gleanings [for the poor], and fair treatment of employees." From this balance of rights and responsibilities flowed right relationships---justice-righteousness.
4. When the above principles of justice-righteousness were violated, God sent prophets to warn the offenders. King Ahab was condemned by the prophet Elijah for conniving to obtain Naboth's vineyard. According to God's principle, Naboth could not sell the land. Amos, Isaiah, Micah and others ranted and raved against the injustice of "more and more people being deprived of their ancestral land and forced, by debt-bondage and other means, into a state of virtual serfdom on land once their own but now in the hands of the wealthy, powerful few."
5. Wright cleverly points out the radical nature of the Old Testament socio-economic ethics with a series of statements and questions:
Not that there was any illusion in the Old Testament that such economic obedience to God was easy. It was one thing to celebrate the victories of God in past history. It was another to trust in his ability to produce the future harvest. It was still another to trust his ability to provide you and your family with sustenance for a year if you obeyed the fallow or sabbatical year laws and did not sow a crop---or for two years if you had a double fallow at the jubilee! And could you afford to let your slave, an agricultural capital asset, go free after six years, still less with a generous endowment of your substance, animal and vegetable? Were you not entitled to extract maximum yield from your own fields and vineyards without leaving valuable remainders for others? How could you possibly cancel debts after six years?
6. The land, the resources of the earth, God's creation gift, are to be available to all mankind. "Ownership does not entail absolute right of disposal, but rather responsibility for administration and distribution. The right of all to use is prior to the right of any to own." Private property, yes, but only under carefully controlled conditions. "There is no mandate in the creation material for private exclusive use, nor for hoarding or consuming at the expense of others."
7. Why are the socio-economic principles spelled out in such detail and with such care? To counter the corrupting impact of the Fall. Greedy, oppressive possession of the land replaced responsible property rights. Strife and warfare replaced sharing. Covetousness and materialism turned into idolatry. The poor became objects of exploitation rather than opportunities for sharing. "The effect of the fall was that the desire for growth became obsessive and idolatrous, the scale of growth became excessive for some at the expense of others, and the means of growth became filled with greed, exploitation and injustice." Wright concludes: "But in a fallen world, where human greed, injustice and incompetence have already put chasms between the rich and poor, that creation principle of sharing cannot be approached without the redemption principle of sacrifice and the costly waiving of self-interest."
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