>In smooth succession unit ii, consisting of a woe and a corresponding verdict, attacks the practice of enclosing peasant holdings on the pretext of insolvency or by application of eminent domain (as with Naboth's vineyard, 1 Kgs 21) or by some form of legal legerdemain. We therefore have a situation similar to that of Greece at the time of Solon or Rome in the days of the Gracchi, one also lamented by Seneca, who actually speaks of the avaricious joining together of field to field (*licet agros agros adiiciat*, see van der Horst). This was a situation in which the system of patrimonial domain was being undermined both by the emerging state apparatus, hungry as always for land, and members of powerful families, a process eventuating in vast social changes including the formation of latifundia and the prevalence of rent capitalism. At this point Isaiah represents an emerging prophetic tradition of protest against exploitation of an immemorial peasant way of life for which ownership of the patrimonial plot (*nahala*) by the household (*bet 'ab*) was the indispensable basis for subsistence. This tradition of protest is shared with Amos and Micah (see especially Micah 2:1-5), and its existence comes to even clearer expression in the verdict based on a standard curse formula-"you have built houses but shall not live in them, you have planted vineyards but shall not drink their wine" (cf. Amos 5:11; Zeph 1:13; Deut 28:30 and its reversal in Amos 9:14; Isa 65:21- 22) -perhaps deriving ultimately from vassal treaty curses. The point about vineyards has been modified, perhaps with the "song of the vineyard" in mind: a vineyard that it would take a yoke of oxen ten days to plough (the צמד, here translated "hectare," means literally "yoke of oxen") will produce only one paltry *bath* of wine (a liquid measure of about 30 liters here translated "barrel"); a *homer* ("donkey load") of corn seed will yield only an *ephah* (here translated "bushel") i.e., a tenth of a *homer* rather than the traditional tenfold or a hundredfold - the hyperbole is obvious. (Blenkinsopp, *Isaiah 1-39*, pgs. 213).