Isaiah Chapter 5:8-10: The Six Sins of Stinky Fruit Part 1. Greed
You have heard of the seven deadly sins? Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. This is not a biblical list, even though it is a good list of warning. Here, following the Vineyard Song where YHWH lamented the production of wild or sour grapes where there should have been good fruit, we get a list of six sins. These are the six “stinky fruits” produced as the sins of Judah in Isaiah’s day. They are still very relevant to today, particularly in Western Christianity.
The first of these is GREED. “Woe to those who join house to house.”
The idea here comes from the law of Moses. The promised land belonged to God and had been divided among the tribes and families of Israel. Throughout time, the lands were supposed to remain in those families. When a portion was “sold” to another family due to financial need, it was supposed to be bought back when possible. Barring that, it was to be returned in the Year of Jubilee, every 50 years.
Instead, in Isaiah’s day, wealthy families had bought up all the land they could, and had created huge domains with mansions, built on the backs of the poor. Wealth in and of itself is not a bad thing in the Bible’s view, but wealth built or maintained injustly is.
We are not so different today. The world is increasingly divided between the very few who are wealthy and the many, many more who are poor. Yet even the poor in western societies are among the richest people to ever live on the planet. And, even the poor who do not have huge tracts of land are all about material acquisition and accumulation. Western society is all about accumulating as much stuff as possible, all destined to be tossed out as garbage eventually. Even in societies like the USA, where charity is a deeply ingrained value, people spend the majority of their income on collecting junk, trinkets, and baubles that lose their shine as soon as they are brought home.
We embrace materialism and the empty happiness it promises. We idolize junk!
The first of these is GREED. “Woe to those who join house to house.”
The idea here comes from the law of Moses. The promised land belonged to God and had been divided among the tribes and families of Israel. Throughout time, the lands were supposed to remain in those families. When a portion was “sold” to another family due to financial need, it was supposed to be bought back when possible. Barring that, it was to be returned in the Year of Jubilee, every 50 years.
Instead, in Isaiah’s day, wealthy families had bought up all the land they could, and had created huge domains with mansions, built on the backs of the poor. Wealth in and of itself is not a bad thing in the Bible’s view, but wealth built or maintained injustly is.
We are not so different today. The world is increasingly divided between the very few who are wealthy and the many, many more who are poor. Yet even the poor in western societies are among the richest people to ever live on the planet. And, even the poor who do not have huge tracts of land are all about material acquisition and accumulation. Western society is all about accumulating as much stuff as possible, all destined to be tossed out as garbage eventually. Even in societies like the USA, where charity is a deeply ingrained value, people spend the majority of their income on collecting junk, trinkets, and baubles that lose their shine as soon as they are brought home.
We embrace materialism and the empty happiness it promises. We idolize junk!
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