Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: everyone loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come unto them.[IV-4]
Then Isaiah enters upon perhaps the most open, daring, and indignant challenge to doers of social iniquity that is to be found anywhere:
Ye have eaten of the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?[IV-5]
After the manner of Amos, Isaiah protested vigorously against the judges and officers of the law who for a bribe vindicate the wicked and deprive the innocent man of his innocence. He denounced in no doubtful language the scribes who devote themselves to writing oppression, who turn aside the dependent from securing justice, who prevent Jehovah’s followers from receiving honest treatment, who prey upon widows and despoil orphans. Special condemnation was heaped upon those who set up iniquitous decrees.
Isaiah was a forerunner in an indirect sense of Henry George, for he vehemently rebuked land monopolists. His new principle is contained in a pronouncement of woes upon the persons who join house to house and add field to field, until there is no land left except for the monopolist who dwells as a lord over all. Isaiah protested against social injustice not only because of the harmful effects upon the individual but also because of the destructive and enervating national results.
After the fashion of Amos and Isaiah, Micah conceived of Jehovah as a just God. Micah depicts the social injustice of his day in terms of the persons who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck off the skin of the weak, even the flesh from the bones of Jehovah’s followers; “who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.”[IV-6]
Micah unhesitatingly condemns the priests who are giving oracles for a reward, and the prophets who are divining for silver and who are trusting in Jehovah to protect them. Micah was perhaps the first person to describe the activities of the criminaloid which have been so carefully analyzed by Professor E. A. Ross. He grasped the concept of the social sinner who keeps within the law. He attacked wealthy landowners who crush the small holders; he spared neither high officials, nor priests. He presented his social concepts with precision and effectiveness.
The invectives against social injustice are carried into the teachings of Jeremiah. They appear later in the Deuteronomic Code. The Psalmists deprecated injustice. The wisdom teachers uttered profound warnings on the subject. The writer of Job deplored injustice. Throughout the Old Testament the almost countless references justify the conclusion that justice is the leading social concept which is presented by ancient Hebrew thought.
The Old Testament parallels its denunciation of unjust social relationships with diatribes against luxury. The evil effects of great riches are again and again described. Amos boldly pointed the finger of scorn at the idle rich, at those who “lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches.”
The possession of vast wealth has usually been considered by those persons who are immediately concerned as an expression of divine favor. Amos exposed the fallacies in this belief, commanded the owners of wealth to assume social responsibility, and instantly to cease their unholy practices of securing gain.