Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 64:3 (Sep 2021)
Article: Social Justice For Social Outliers In Ancient Israel, Part 1: Cultural Background
Author: Michael A. Harbin

JETS 64:3 (September 2021) p. 471

Social Justice For Social Outliers In Ancient Israel, Part 1: Cultural Background

Michael A. Harbin*

^* Michael A. Harbin is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies, Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, and resides at 629 W. South St., Upland, IN 46989. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: The Torah interweaves guidelines for social justice throughout. While covering all of Israelite society, three groups considered social outliers—widows, orphans, and resident aliens—are addressed collectively with special provisions because they had common needs. This two-part article examines how the community structure of ancient Israel’s agrarian culture produced key social norms for each interdependent community (part 1) and then shows how the three groups fell outside of those norms and thus needed special provisions (part 2). Part 1 describes the agrarian structure of a typical Israelite community, drawing on anthropological studies of analogous modern cultures in the same area. Part 2 clarifies the nature of the outliers and explains how the provisions of levirate marriage, gleaning, third-year tithes, and Sabbath-year garnering provided essential welfare support for those who needed it.

Key words: social justice, widows, orphans, resident aliens, farm, immigrant, Ruth

Ultimately, Jesus’s declaration of what we call the golden rule, “Do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matt 7:12 NIV), a standard God had already given Israel at Sinai, is the essence of social justice. Leviticus 19:18 records God declaring that they should “love [their] neighbor as [themselves],”1 a more abstract way of expressing the same idea. Further, social justice concepts show up early throughout the Ancient Near East, indicating a racial awareness of the idea of justice from the beginning2 and reflecting an equally long history of injustice.3 While those historical evidences suggest that social justice as an abstract concept has long been considered an ideal to strive for, its implementation in any culture has been problematic at best, and periodically humans need not only reminders to be socially just, but also models of how to do so. Much of the OT law actually provides such models, designed to guide ancient Israel on how to implement social justice in their agrarian society.

JETS 64:3 (September 2021) p. 472

To transfer guidelines designed for agrarian Bronze Age Israel ...