"The poor in the Bible"
Ruy O. Costa, PhD
Executive Director
Episcopal City Mission
In the gospel according to Saint Matthews, chapter 26, verse 11, Jesus said: "… you always have the poor with you." If there is a text of Scripture pregnant with unintended surplus of meaning, this is it. "Surplus of meaning" refers to meaning generated by a text which goes beyond the original intention of the text and often undermines it. So, Mt.26.11 has been quoted to argue that Christians should not waste time working for social and economic justice, or that social and economic justice should not imply the elimination of poverty. It is almost as if one needs to make sure that poverty is never eliminated so that the words of the Gospel are not proven wrong -- a perverse effort to make sure that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy -- as if the credibility of Jesus would depend upon the perpetuation of poverty in the world and might be undermined by its elimination.
Another assumption that colors much of the debate over poverty is a certain work ethic that attributes prosperity to hard work and poverty to laziness. This is the teaching found in the "Wisdom literature," for example.1 Other texts are even more radical, attributing poverty to God's punishment and wealth to God's blessing.2 A major complication however, in researching Scriptures for insight on poverty, is that often the poor is seen as the object of God's special favor and poverty may be seen as a virtue while wealth is scorned as wickedness.3 These various themes merge with each other, split from one another and weave a complex web of meanings in the writings of the prophets, the books of the law, the wisdom literature, in the poetry and hymnody of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as in the Gospels.
Of the various types of poverty found in Scripture, socio-economic poverty is the main focus of concern in the various traditions engaged by the writers of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. The oldest of these traditions is probably the classical prophets. They were moved by a passionate (some might say "fanatical") pursuit of piety understood as social justice in reverence to God. Some scholars attribute this tradition to the religion of the pastoral tribes that preceded the establishment of Israel in Palestine. These tribes had a profound sense of connectedness; they shared a belief in the universal presence of God (as opposed to the belief in local deities of the agrarian and urban cultures of that time) and a life style that demanded collective stewardship of the means of production under the head of the tribe.4 When confronted with the taxing demands of a centralized government in Jerusalem, (and the ideology that privileged Jerusalem as the site of God's throne) as well as the economic exploitation of the poor by the powerful city elites and rural land owners, this ancient tradition of human equality under the rule of God, would have erupted as a revolutionary antithesis to the status quo. The prophet Amos, for example, regarded as the oldest of the classical prophets, holds nothing back in his denunciation of the oppressive rich.
Not all poverty, however, is caused by social structures. As mentioned earlier, the wisdom literature warns against sloth as a cause of ruin. Other reasons why some may fall into poverty are certain limitations which nature or accidents may impose on some. Illness, shipwreck, a poor harvest and other calamities can cause individuals, families and whole communities to become more dependent on the wealth held in common from time to time. The social legislation of the Hebrew Scriptures was intended to alleviate such crises and prevent them from resulting in permanent unbearable gaps.
In the Torah, especially in Deuteronomy, and in the "writings," especially in the writings of the deuteronomistic school, collective blessings and curses are attributed to God's people's collective embrace of the law of God as a way of life. At the very heart of the deuteronomistic literature is the social legislation that provides for regular redistribution of the land (the main means of production in an agrarian society) and the laws regarding the protection of the more vulnerable members of society, such as orphans, widows and the foreigners. (Dt. 15, Lv. 25, etc) The intention of this legislation was to protect society from unbalanced accumulation of resources in the hands of some while others were permanently disenfranchised. This is stated explicitly in Deuteronomy 15.
The worship of Baal and the baalins (God and gods of Canaan) is attacked as idolatry because it represents trust in human power and wealth. Baal means among other things, lord, land-lord, and owner; the religion of Baal, was therefore, rejected by the prophets and poets of the Hebrew Scriptures as the religion of material accumulation. The prophetic rejection of the Canaanite agrarian and urban socio-economic arrangements, as structurally oppressive, generates a body of poetry in which the poor are those who trust in God versus those who trust in their own power, or the power of the king, or in the power of many horses, or in the power of gold and silver. The poor of Yahweh are the people of the land, who are not rich or powerful but trust in God for their livelihood. In Hebrew poetry and songs, God provides for them and defends them from their oppressors and they are God's people because they recognize God as their only savior.
This attribution of virtue to the poor generates another use for words that are translated as poor: the "poor in spirit," or those who in spite of social class (even if they are not economically poor) rely only in God.
The poetry and hymnody of Hebrew Scriptures document two related traditions regarding the well being of the poor: On the one hand, Hebrew poetry and hymnody affirm that Yahweh is the protector of the poor and oppressed. This claim was not only a confession of faith in the goodness of God, it was also a veiled rejection of royal ideology -- if only God is the defender of the poor and oppressed, it follows that the king is not. In fact, the deuteronomists argued that when Israel wanted to have a king "like the other nations" they had rejected the sovereignty of Yahweh over them and in so doing had invited oppression. (I Sam. 8) On the other hand, in order to justify the monarchy, its partisans adopted the Ugaritic royal ideology that defined a just king as one who defends the poor and oppressed.5 This ideology is affirmed in Psalm 72 (especially vv. 12-14) and other similar texts. In the Hebrew hymnody, however, the just king delivers the needy as an act of obedience to Yahweh to whom the governor owes all authority.
Not only is the just governor called to defend the poor and oppressed, all those who seek to live a pious life, especially those who have been blessed with worldly resources, have an obligation to relieve the poor and oppressed from their needs.
From the perspective of the prophetic tradition and its radical vision of equality under God, the ethics of the royal ideology may seem like surrender to a lesser way of life. In the context of the Canaanite religion of prosperity and accumulation, however, the assertion that the just king is the champion of the poor places a burden on government to be intentional in the promotion of social and economic justice.
At the time of the New Testament, the radical hope for an egalitarian society had virtually disappeared and the pious Jews were those who practiced some sort of charity. In that context, the Magnificat, with its proclamation of a historical reversal of power in which the poor are sent away full (Lk. 1.53), is a retrieval of the ancient prophetic hope for a time in which the Yahwist vision for equality and justice would be fulfilled. The same upbeat language is found in Is.61.1-2 quoted by Jesus to define his work in Lk. 4.18-19.
When Jesus remarks in Mt.26.11 that "you always have the poor with you" he was quoting Dt. 15.11: "since there will never cease to be poor people on the earth, I therefore command you, 'open your hand to the poor and needy in your land.'" In Mk. 14.7 Jesus reaffirms the commandment found in Deuteronomy for he finishes the sentence with a reminder that they can always do good to the poor.
The world will always have poor people not because of an economic necessity; i.e., not because the economy must be organized in a way that necessarily generates or perpetuates poverty. The world will always have poor people only because in every society and in any age, there will be those less capable of providing for themselves – either due to some physical, mental or other limitation – or because the accidents of life leave them behind and they need a hand to move on. From a Biblical perspective, a just society should seek to govern its economic affairs in ways that prevent structural inequality and to provide those less able to fend for themselves with the resources they need. Even when we reach that level of economic justice, the poor will still be with us, in the sense that some people will always need help.
There is no need to try to prove Jesus right by supporting an economic system designed to profit from poverty.
1 See, especially, Prov. 6.6-11; 10.4; 20.4-13; 24.30-34; 14.23; 28.19; 12.11.
2 See, for example, Dt. 28.15-46; Lv. 26.14-26.
3 See Micah 6.10-12 for an example.
4 Scott, Robert Balgarnie Young, The Relevance of the Prophets, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1953, pp. 18-39; Gottwald, Norman, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction, Philadelphia, fortress press, 1985, pp. 285-87
5 See the Middle Assyrian Laws, Tablet A, #40 in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, ed. By James B. Pritchard (3rd ed. With Supplement; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp.183-85, pp. 149-55