300 pages ; 23 cm
"This book deals with the concept of justice and righteousness in ancient Israelite literature in comparison with identical concepts in ancient Near East. Various aspects of this ideal concept are taken into consideration: philological, historical, sociological and theological. Moshe Weinfeld surveys social reforms in the ancient Near East from the third millennium BCE to the Hellenistic period. The first chapters discuss semantics and center in terms that denote social justice, such as social reforms embodied in the terms justice and righteousness and their equivalents in cognate languages. A separate chapter discusses the institutions of Shemitta and Jubilee in ancient Israel. A special discussion is dedicated to justice and righteousness on the individual level. Just as the ruler is commanded to do justice and righteousness - to free his subjects from oppression, so every individual is asked to help the poor and the needy in their distress, which is to do justice and righteousness with others"--Publisher description
Includes bibliographical references (pages 252-272) and indexes
Introduction -- The proclamation of liberty and the concept of freedom -- The liberated person as the servant of God -- Justice and righteousness as the goal of the individual -- Righteousness and justice in the kingdom of God -- 1. "Justice and righteousness" -- The expression and its meaning -- Performing misarum in Mesopotamia and in Israel: The concrete meaning of the concepts -- 2. Justice and righteousness as the task of the king -- 3. Justice and righteousness as the task of the eschatological king -- The Biblical prophecies regarding the establisher of justice and righteousness -- The shoot of royalty -- The righteous king in ancient near eastern prophecy -- 4. Proclamations of "freedom" in Mesopotamia and their reflections in ancient Israel -- 5. Privileges and freedom for temple cities -- Rights of the holy city of Jerusalem -- Asylum and refuge in the holy city -- 6. Rights and freedoms of estates and individuals -- 7. Proclamations of "freedom" in Egypt, Persia, and Greece -- Liberation in Persia, Greece, and the Hellenistic world -- 8. Sabbatical year and jubilee in the Pentateuchal Laws and their ancient near eastern background -- Remission of debts in the time of Nehemiah -- The institution of jubilee and its background -- 9. God who establishes equity and performs righteous justice -- "Justice and righteousness" in Jacob -- Righteousness and Justice as political salvation -- Righteousness and justice in the eschatological sense -- The Day of Atonement and freedom -- 10. Justice and righteousness as the task of the individual -- 11. The Israelites as servants of YHWH, and the land of Israel as the land of YHWH: On the nature of the judicial pattern -- Proclamation of "liberty" and its reflection in the model of Exodus -- The pattern of "liberation" in the prophecies of Second-Isaiah

Weinfeld, Moshe

Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press ; Jerusalem: Magnes

1517 Media

Minneapolis, Minn, Jerusalem, Minnesota, 1995

United States, United States of America

First Edition, PS, 1995

Includes bibliographical references(p. 252-272) and indexes.

2023-06-28