Isaiah: 5:8-10. “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! In mine ears, said the Lord of hosts, of a truth, many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
(A bath of wine is about 8 1/2 gallons: an homer is about 6.33 bushels, and an ephah is about 3/5 of a bushel.)
This is the first woe. They have become covetous and greedy. To combine one house to another, whether through marriage or by purchase, was meant to build up a monopoly and became extremely wealthy. They were violating the law of property laid down in Numbers 36:7 “So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe: for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. .God clearly intended for each new generation to stay within the physical boundaries of that tribe’s inheritance from God. They were not to cross tribal lines in purchasing houses and lands.To follow this law would have prevented monopolies, but greed begets greed. Money buys power as well as land.
The only biblical result of their behavior was desolation and scarcity. The land was God’s, not theirs.
The moral is accumulation of wealth over and above one’s need is robbery.
MMMMMMMmmmmmaybe. Really, I think it is growing wealthy at someone else’s expense, which probably boils down to the same thing in some cases. God never berates wealthiness; but He does scorn the love of money.
Accepted