Land ownership inviolate

A man could not be forced to sell his property. Neither did the principle of “eminent domain” apply in Israel. This was illustrated in the refusal of Naboth to sell a field of his inheritance to King Ahab.—1 Ki. 21:1-4, 17-19; compare Ezekiel 46:18.

The Levites

To protect the Levites, who had no individual land inheritance, only houses in the Levite cities and the surrounding pasture grounds being given to them, their fields could not be sold. If a Levite sold his house in a Levite city, the right of repurchase continued for him, and in the Jubilee, at the latest, it was returned to him.—Lev. 25:32-34.

Jehovah the Landowner

As the productive land yielded fruitage, the Great Proprietor of all the land was not to be left out of the picture. By means of the tithing arrangement, a tenth of the produce was to be used to support the Levites in their important functions related to Jehovah’s worship, thus spiritually benefiting all Israel.—Num. 18:21-24; Deut. 14:22-29.

The sanctuary

The sanctuary of Jehovah could also become a landholder by reason of fields “sanctified” to Jehovah; that is, the produce of these fields went to the sanctuary for a period of time designated by the owner or possessor. (Lev. 27:16-19) Such a field, if sanctified by the owner and repurchase was not made, but the owner allowed the field to be sold to another man, reverted to the sanctuary at Jubilee, as a permanent possession. (Lev. 27:20, 21) Also, fields “devoted” to the sanctuary by their owners remained the permanent possession of the sanctuary.—Lev. 27:28.

IN THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION

The Bible makes it clear that individual property rights were recognized in the Christian congregation. When the congregation was established, on Pentecost day, 33 C.E., many Jews and proselytes of the Jewish religion from other lands had gathered at Jerusalem to observe the festival. A large number of these were present to hear Peter’s discourse, and began to be believers in Christ. (Acts 2:1, 5, 9-11, 41, 42, 47) They remained to learn more. So the Christians voluntarily sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds to help these visiting ones and others who were needy. They had “all things in common.” (Acts 2:44-46) This was not socialism or communism, but a voluntary sharing for the purpose of aiding persons interested in the good news and in furthering the spread of it.

Later, for similar reasons, and partly due to persecution of the Christians by Jerusalem’s rulers, this practice continued, under the spirit and undeserved kindness of God. Fields were sold and the proceeds brought to the apostles, who administered the assistance program. (Acts 4:31-37) But each Christian’s property was his own and his rights were inviolate, he being under no compulsion to put his property into a common pool. It was counted as a privilege to do so, not a duty. Right motive dominated and moved them.

In the case of Ananias and Sapphira, however, a hypocritical show was made in order to get plaudits and honor of men. They conspired together to sell a field and to give only part of the proceeds to the apostles, with the claim that they were generously giving up all the possession. Peter, by direction of holy spirit, discerned what they were doing, but he did not say, ‘Why did you not give us all the money you received for the field?’ as if they were under obligation to do so. He did say: “Ananias, why has Satan emboldened you to play false to the holy spirit and to hold back secretly some of the price of the field? As long as it remained with you did it not remain yours, and after it was sold did it not continue in your control? Why was it that you purposed such a deed as this in your heart? You have played false, not to men, but to God.”—Acts 5:1-4.

About three hours later, when Sapphira came in, not knowing what had happened, she made the same claim, and Peter replied: “Why was it agreed upon between you two to make a test of the spirit of Jehovah?” (Acts 5:7-9) Their sin was in lying to Jehovah, making a mockery of him and his congregation as if God’s spirit were not upon it. (Gal. 6:7) It was not that they were compelled to part with their property in any socialistic or communistic arrangement.

JEHOVAH’S DISPOSAL OF LAND AS HE PLEASES

Jehovah, the Supreme Owner, could exercise his ownership right by granting possession of land as a payment for services rendered to him. This he did in giving domination over the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in compensation for his service in executing judgment on the city of Tyre.—Ezek. 29:18-20.

JEHOVAH’S OWNERSHIP MUST BE RECOGNIZED

Since Jehovah is the Owner of all the land, the landowner on earth must respect his possession and use it properly. Otherwise it will become a ruin and he will eventually suffer complete loss of it. (Prov. 24:30-34) Even nations must recognize this fact. (Isa. 24:1-6; Jer. 23:10) Eventually those who ignore this principle will themselves be ruined.—Rev. 11:18.

Recognition of God’s real ownership will also prevent one from trying to gain possession of land in a greedy or wrongful way. (Prov. 20:21; 23:10, 11) When Israel departed from God’s law, there were men against whom God expressed condemnation, saying: “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!”—Isa. 5:8; Mic. 2:1-4.

On the other hand, Jesus said: “Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5; Ps. 37:9, 22, 29) He taught his followers to pray to God: “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.” (Matt. 6:10) Under the kingdom sovereignty of the Great Landowner himself, those holding land in trust for him in faithfulness are to experience the full joy of ownership in complete security. God stated his viewpoint of proper conditions as regards land ownership when he gave restoration prophecies through the mouths of Isaiah and Micah. These indicate what situation he will bring about when his ‘will takes place on earth.’ He said of his people: “They will certainly build houses and have occupancy; and they will certainly plant vineyards and eat their fruitage. They will not build and someone else have occupancy; they will not plant and someone else do the eating.” “And they will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble.”—Isa. 65:21, 22; Mic. 4:4; see ʽAM HA-ʼAʹRETS.

LANGUAGE

Any means, vocal or other, by which feelings or thoughts are expressed or communicated. Generally, however, language means a body of words and the methods of combining these as understood by a community of people. The English word “language” comes from the Latin lingua, meaning “tongue.” The Hebrew and Greek words for “tongue” also signify “language.” The Hebrew term for “lip” is used in a similar way.

Language, of course, is most intimately associated with the mind, which employs the speech organs—throat, tongue, lips and teeth—as its instruments. Thus, the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1959 ed., Vol. 5, P. 740) states: “Thinking and words go together. For thinking, to be clear, has to rely upon names [or nouns] and their various associations with one another. . . . While some minor reservations are justifiable there is an overwhelming mass of evidence . . . that fortifies the contention stated above—no words, no thinking.” Words are man’s principal means of receiving, storing, manipulating and transmitting information.

ORIGIN OF SPEECH

The first human, Adam, was created with a vocabulary, as well as with the ability to coin new words and thus expand his vocabulary. Without a God-given vocabulary the newly created man would have been no more able to comprehend verbal instructions from his Creator than the unreasoning animals. (Gen. 1:27-30; 2:16-20; compare 2 Peter 2:12; Jude 10.) So, while only intelligent man of all earth’s creatures has the ability of true speech, language did not originate with man but with man’s All-wise Creator, Jehovah God.—Compare Exodus 4:11, 12.

On the origin of language, the well-known lexicographer Ludwig Koehler wrote: “There has been, especially in former times, much speculation as to how human speech ‘came into being’. Writers strove to explore ‘animal language’. For animals also are able to express audibly by sounds and groups of sounds their feelings and sensations, such as contentment, fear, emotion, threat, anger, sexual desire and satisfaction in its fulfillment, and perhaps many other things. However manifold these [animal] expressions may be . . . they lack concept and thought, the essential domain of human language.” After showing how men can explore the physiological aspect of human speech, he adds: “But what actually happens in speech, how the spark of perception kindles the spirit of the child, or of mankind generally, to become the spoken word, eludes our grasp. Human speech is a secret; it is a divine gift, a miracle.”—Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. I, No. 1, January 1956, p. 11.

Language had been employed for untold ages prior to man’s appearance on the universal scene. Jehovah God communicated with his heavenly firstborn Son and evidently used him in communicating with his other spirit sons. Hence that firstborn Son was called the “Word.” (John 1:1; Col. 1:15, 16; Rev. 3:14) The apostle Paul made inspired reference to “tongues of men and of angels.” (1 Cor. 13:1) Jehovah God speaks to his angelic creatures in their ‘tongue’ and they ‘carry out his word.’ (Ps. 103:20) Since He and his spirit sons are not reliant upon an atmosphere (which makes possible the sound waves and vibrations necessary for human speech), angelic language is obviously beyond human conception or attainment. To talk with men as God’s messengers, angels therefore employed human language, and angelic messages are recorded in Hebrew (Gen. 22:15-18), Aramaic (Dan. 7:23-27) and Greek (Rev. 11:15), the cited texts being written in those languages respectively.

MULTIPLICATION OF HUMAN LANGUAGES

According to language academies, about 3,000 tongues are spoken today throughout the earth. Some of these are accredited as languages, others are classified as dialects; some are spoken by hundreds of millions of persons, others by fewer than a thousand. Though the thoughts expressed and communicated are basically the same, there are thousands of ways to express them. The Bible history alone explains the origin of this strange diversity in human communication.

Up until some point after the global Flood, all mankind “continued to be of one language [literally, “lip”] and of one set of words.” (Gen. 11:1) The Bible indicates that the language later called “Hebrew” was that original “one language.” (See HEBREW, II.) As will be shown, this does not mean that all other languages stemmed from and are related to Hebrew but that Hebrew preceded all other languages.

The Genesis account describes the uniting of some part of the post-Flood human family in a project that opposed God’s will as stated to Noah and his sons. (Gen. 9:1) Instead of spreading out and ‘filling the earth,’ they determined to centralize human society, concentrating their residence on a site in what became known as the plains of Shinar in Mesopotamia. Evidently this was also to become a religious center, with a religious tower.—Gen. 11:2-4.

Almighty God gave their presumptuous project a setback by breaking up their unity of action, accomplishing this by confusing their common language. This made impossible any coordinated work on their project and led to their scattering to all parts of the globe. The confusion of their language would also hinder or slow down future progress in a wrong direction, a God-defying direction, since it would both limit mankind’s ability to combine its intellectual and physical powers in ambitious schemes and also make it difficult to draw upon the accumulated knowledge of the different language groups formed—knowledge, not from God, but gained through human experience and research. (Compare Ecclesiastes 7:29; Deuteronomy 32:5.) So, while it introduced a major divisive factor into human society, the confusion of human speech actually benefited human society in retarding the attainment of dangerous and hurtful goals. (Gen. 11:5-9; compare Isaiah 8:9, 10.) One has but to consider certain developments in our own times, resulting from accumulated secular knowledge and man’s misuse thereof, to realize what God foresaw as due to develop long ago if the effort at Babel were allowed to go unhindered.

How was the ‘confusing’ done?

Philology, the comparative study of languages, generally classifies languages into distinct “families.” The “parent” language of each major family usually has not been identified; much less is there any evidence pointing to any one “parent” language as the source of all the thousands of tongues now spoken. As we have noted, the Bible record does not say that all languages descended or branched off from Hebrew. In what is commonly called the “Table of Nations” (Genesis chapter 10) the descendants of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, are listed, and in each case are grouped ‘according to their families, according to their tongues, in their lands, by their nations.’ (Gen. 10:5, 20, 31, 32) It appears, therefore, that, when miraculously confusing human language, Jehovah God produced, not dialects of Hebrew, but a number of completely new languages, each capable of expressing the full range of human feeling and thought.

Thus, after God confused their language, the builders at Babel not only did not have “one set of words” (Gen. 11:1), one common vocabulary; they also did not have a common grammar, a common way of expressing the relationship between words. Professor S. R. Driver states: “Languages, however, differ not only in grammar and roots, but also . . . in the manner in which ideas are built up into a sentence. Different races do not think in the same way; and consequently the forms taken by the sentence in different languages are not the same.” (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 791) Thus, different languages require quite different thought patterns, making it difficult for a new learner to ‘think in the language.’ (Compare 1 Corinthians 14:10, 11.) This is also why a literal translation of something said or written in an unfamiliar language may seem illogical, often causing persons to say, “But it doesn’t make sense!” So, it appears that, when Jehovah God confused the speech of those at Babel, he first blotted out all memory of their previous common language and then introduced into their minds not only new vocabularies but also changed thought patterns, producing new grammars.—Compare Isaiah 33:19; Ezekiel 3:4-6.

We find, for example, that certain languages are monosyllabic (made up of words of only one syllable), such as Chinese. By contrast, the vocabularies of a