{"id":78185,"date":"2020-07-28T10:43:24","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T07:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=78185"},"modified":"2020-07-28T10:43:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T07:43:24","slug":"fighting-oppression-and-dispossession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/fighting-oppression-and-dispossession\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Oppression and Dispossession"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"78185","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":73524,"related_cahpter":"534","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"It was not a few malicious individuals, but an entire system that was corrupt\r\n\r\n","content":"

Micah begins this chapter targeting not the people’s actions, but their thoughts. He attacks those that “lie in their beds,” plotting the wickedness and evil that they will perform in the morning. Already, Micah provides us with a sense of the pervasiveness of the wickedness he faces. The night is a time to sleep \u2013 yet while the wicked lie in bed, they devise new forms of evil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Malbim suggests that while in Jewish thought God generally does not punish for sinful thoughts, He would do so here, because these people could carry out their plans immediately, without hesitation and any obstacles in their path. Micah’s plotters had the power to ensure that their designs would come to fruition \u2013 we would say that they had the courts in the palms of their hands. We begin to appreciate the level of corruption that Micah faced. While a common thief works at night, afraid of detection \u2013 these individuals worked in broad daylight, shielded by a government, which provided the legal justification to their actions. It was not a few malicious individuals Micah stood against, but an entire system that was malevolent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Micah then provides a detailed description of the actions that the plotters plotted and simultaneously condemns them with the steady repetition of short verbs that steadily build to a crescendo (they covet \u2026 they rob \u2026 they take \u2026 they oppress). Micah’s first accusation is that they violate the tenth commandment, \u201cdo not covet\u201d. The Ten Commandments connect coveting to both \u201cfields\u201d and \u201chouses.\u201d Maimonides notes that a person who pressures another to sell an object that the buyer desires against the seller’s will, even if the seller ultimately agrees and receives a high price, is guilty of coveting (Laws of Theft 1:9).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Radak suggests that the plotters would initially offer to buy the fields from the owners – but should they refuse, they intended to seize it by force (force being through legal means). Those who persisted in their refusal and stood against them would be beaten and placed in captivity. Micah makes two other subtle but significant points. In the first half of verse 2, damage and violence were inflicted onto fields and buildings; in the second half, Micah describes the effects suffered by “a man and his family.\u201d Not only was an individual hurt, but the evildoers caused pain to his entire family.<\/span><\/p>\n

The verse’s conclusion emphasizes the depth of the plotters’ sin \u2013 what they seize is not just land and houses \u2013 this is the person’s ancestral field, destined to be returned to a person when the Jubilee year arrives. While God condemned King Ahab for introducing the idolatrous Baal worship to the northern kingdom, He did not decree the extermination of his entire family, bringing his dynasty to a bloody end, until the incident where Ahab and Jezebel fabricated a capital case against Naboth, and then took possession of his ancestral land, after Naboth initially refused to sell it to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Naboth refuses King Ahab his vineyard. 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