Miscellanies 2.18.86

Do you see how the legislation proclaims God's justice and goodness together, since he supplies food to all ungrudgingly? And again, in the vintage it has forbidden those who gather to go back over what was left and to pick up the fallen grapes; the same is ordered for those gathering olives. Indeed, the tithes of the fruits and of the flocks taught people to be godly toward the divine and not to be wholly greedy for gain, but to share their humanity with their neighbors too. For from these, I think, and from the firstfruits the priests also were supported. Do we now understand that we are being trained by the law in godliness, fellowship, justice, and philanthropy? Is it not so? Does it not command that the land be left idle in the seventh year, and bid the poor use without fear the fruits that grow by God's doing, nature farming for those who wish? How, then, is the law not good and a teacher of justice? And again in the fiftieth year it commands the same things to be done as in the seventh, restoring to each his own, if anyone in the meantime had been deprived of land through some misfortune, limiting the desire of those eager to acquire by a measured time of enjoyment, and pitying those who have paid the penalty of long poverty and are punished for life. “Acts of mercy and faithfulness are royal guards”; “blessing is on the head of the one who shares”; and “the one who pities the poor will be blessed,” because he shows love to his like through love for the Creator of the human race.