Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient near East

Abstract

This book deals with the concept of justice and righteousness in ancient Israelite literature in comparison with identical concepts in ancient Near East. Various aspects of this ideal concept are taken into consideration: philological, historical, sociological and theological. Moshe Weinfeld surveys social reforms in the ancient Near East from the third millennium BCE to the Hellenistic period. The first chapters discuss semantics and centre in terms that denote social justice, such as social reforms embodied in the terms justice and righteousness and their equivalents in cognate languages. A separate chapter discusses the institutions of Shemitta and Jubilee in ancient Israel. A special discussion is dedicated to justice and righteousness on the individual level. Just as the ruler is commanded to do justice and righteousness -- to free his subjects from oppression, so every individual is asked to help the poor and the needy in their distress, which is to do justice and righteousness with others.

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