There are a few places in the Old Testament where it talks about people living under their own vine and fig. The notable thing about this image is that people are owners and not renters or tenants.
The Torah had a provision where every 50 years, land bought and sold would return to its ancestral owners. One of the effects of this law was that there would not be rentier and tenant classes in Israel and that the means of production in that agricultural society would not be concentrated in the hands of a few. Ideally, people would own things and be self-sufficient.
This is one reason Christians should be worried about not just increasing income inequality in society, but more people living in perpetual debt because they don’t own anything. It’s hard to buy commercial software with a perpetual license these days. It seems like nobody owns their own music or movies any longer. Businesses love subscriptions and recurring revenue.
Anyway, this is stuff I’ve been thinking about recently. I’d love other people’s thoughts on this. Is there a simple way to explain that the Bible addresses these types of social issues? Am I missing something?
Some related scriptures …
1 Kings 4:25
During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, lived in safety, everyone under their own vine and under their own fig tree.
Micah 4:4
Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
Zechariah 3:10
‘In that day each of you will invite your neighbor to sit under your vine and fig tree,’ declares the Lord Almighty.
Isaiah 5:8
Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.
Micah 2:1-2
Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning’s light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it.
They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them.
They defraud people of their homes,
they rob them of their inheritance.
