17. What wicked conduct is condemned in Isaiah’s first woe?

¹⁷ In Isa 5 verse 8, Isaiah is no longer quoting Jehovah’s words. Condemning some of the “wild grapes” produced in Judah, he personally pronounces the first of six woes: “Woe to the ones joining house to house, and those who annex field to field until there is no more room and you men have been made to dwell all by yourselves in the midst of the land!

Isaiah 5:8

18, 19. How do Isaiah’s contemporaries ignore Jehovah’s laws regarding property, and what will be the result for them?

¹⁸ In ancient Israel all land ultimately belonged to Jehovah. Each family had a God-given inheritance, which they could rent or loan out but never sell “in perpetuity.” (Leviticus 25:23) This law prevented abuses, such as real estate monopolies. It also protected families from sinking too far into poverty. Some in Judah, however, were greedily breaking God’s laws regarding property. Micah wrote: “They have desired fields and have seized them; also houses, and have taken them; and they have defrauded an able-bodied man and his household, a man and his hereditary possession.” (Micah 2:2) But Proverbs 20:21 warns: “An inheritance is being got by greed at first, but its own future will not be blessed.”