> If we look at exactly what it was that the prophets opposed, we see that main wrongdoing is not the perversion of the judicial process, but oppression perpetrated by the rich landowners and the ruling circles, who control the socio-economic order. Amos rebukes those who "store up lawlessness and rapine in their fortresses" (3:10), the women who "rob the needy" (4:1), those who "exact a levy of grain" from the poor, but live in "houses of hewn stone" (5:11), those who "use an ephah too small and a shekel too big", who "buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals" (8:5-6). The last verse refers to those who are enslaved for non-payment of debts. > > This concept of משפט וצדקה is clearly expressed by Isaiah. After the parable of the vineyard, which ends: "he hoped for justice (משפט); for equity (lit. צדק, righteousness"), but behold, iniquity, צעקה, (lit. crying out") (Isa. 5:7)" [^33] , we find an indictment of landowners who enlarge their estates: "Ah, those who add house to house and join field to field, till there is room for no one but you to dwell in the land" (v. 8). This undoubtedly refers to those who foreclose the mortgages of the poor who cannot repay their debts, and turn their fields into their own personal property. Elsewhere Isaiah rebukes those who "enact laws of injustice and compose (lit. write ומכתבים iniquitous decrees", i.e. those responsible for enacting laws and regulations (Isa. 10:1)[^34]. By making unjust laws, they subvert the cause of the poor, rob the rights of the needy, despoil the widows and make orphans their booty (Isa. 10:2). Subverting justice here does not refer to abusing the judicial system per se, but rather to the enactment of unjust laws. > > These unjust laws are apparently the cause of the foreclosures referred to in Isaiah 5:8. An echo of the situation described in Isaiah 5:8ff. and 10:1ff. is found in Psalm 94. The poet turns to the divine judge, and asks him to wreak vengeance on the evil, haughty men who oppress God's people and his inheritance (vv. 5, 14). He decries the evil men who act unjustly (v. 4), who commit crimes against widows and orphans (v. 6), and the righteous man (v. 21), and he prays that "judgement (משפט) shall once again accord with righteousness (צדק) (15) All this is done by those who "frame mischief through statutes (עמל עלי חק)" (v. 20) which reminds us of Isaiah 10:1. The beginning of Psalm 94: "give the haughty their deserts" (v. 2) reminds us of Isaiah 5:15-16: "Yea, man is bowed, and mortal brought low, brought low is the pride of the haughty. And YHWH of Hosts is exalted by the Holy God proved holy by צדקה". According to these verses, God, the judge who performs משפט and צדקה is exalted by bringing down the haughty. (Weinfeld, *Social Justice in Ancient Israel*, pgs. 36-38). --- >*The footnotes below are Weinfeld's* > > [^33]: The "cry" here is the cry of the oppressed and their complaint (of. Exot 22:26; 2Kgs. 8:5), compares "the cry of the poor," Ps. 9:13 and Job 34 28. and the cry of the people and their enslaved wives in Neh. 5:1 See above, p. 30, regarding the cry of Sodom in Gen. 18:20, 21, 19:13 > > [^34]: This verse teaches us that laws were presented in writing, as in Greece. Whoever sponsored a new bill in Athens was required to present it to writing (Sec. D. M. McDonnell, "Lawmaking at Athens in the Fourth Century B.C, Journal of Hellenic Studies 95 (1975), pp. 62-75. In Athens, where lawmaking was a democratic process, it was necessary to present the bill for approval of the Assembly while in the East the law was presented to a small council.