Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/389

 TREA TMENT OF INFERIORS IN ISRAEL 375

standing up for their rights before Jehovah in accordance with the time-honored customs and laws of their people which base men were prone to ignore ; for then, as still it is true, the per- sonal element counted for quite as much as the legal.

Justice was also demanded for the poor, both in the treatment of them and in the judgments rendered in the local tribunals before which they came, or were brought. Of one who is commended, it is said he judged the cause of the poor and needy, and that in consequence of his rectitude as a judge it was well with him. It is added that in so doing he showed his knowledge of Jehovah, which is apparently an intimation that he revealed by his mercy in judging the poor the fact that he conceived of his God as the pitiful friend and defender of the poor (Jer. 22:16). This agrees with the emphasis which another places upon justice being vouch- safed the poor on the part of the righteous man ; as it agrees with all prophetic thought on the subject (Ezek. 18:8, 16; 33:15).

In two other directions the treatment of the poor in its ideal is presented and insisted upon : the pledge of the debtor was to be restored, and interest and increase were not to be exacted. As to the former, it was customary, it seems, to demand of the debtor some security. Usually this pledge seems to have been some commodity, some garment, or ornament, the transaction being akin to those of our pawnshops today. Such pledges were to be restored by the creditor upon the payment of the debt on the part of the poor. This was a wise provision on the part of the earliest known Israelitish law code (Exod. 22:26, 27), a provision which was re-emphasized by the deuteronomic law (24:12, 13), which also provided that a widow's garments were not to be so taken in any case, as a man's hand-mill was not, because it was essential to his very life (24:6, 17). It would seem that in the late time there was a disposition on the part of many to regard with disfavor those who showed any want of feeling in exacting pledges of the poor. In the book of Job we read of those who drove away the ass of the fatherless and took the ox of the widow in pledge, as men who were considered mean and contemptible (24:3). The sentiment of the prophetic writers was against, rather than in favor of, a man's receiving