Bible Strands
Isaiah 5:8
Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field until no place is left and you live alone in the land.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Isaiah pronounces judgment against the house of Israel and Judah immediately after describing God's search for justice and righteousness in the vineyard metaphor. The words — The Hebrew ה֗וֹי (Ho) issues the warning, while מַגִּיעֵי בַיִת בְּבַיִת and יַקְרִיבוּ שָׂדֶה בְּשָׂדֶה literally describe those who make a house touch another and bring a field near a field. The thread — This condemnation of land accumulation appears in Micah 2:2, Habakkuk 2:9, and Jeremiah 22:13. Why it lands — The text states that monopolizing property and displacing others results in isolation rather than security, demanding a clear-eyed assessment of how greed destroys community.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
Cross-references
- Micah 2:2 They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance.
- Habakkuk 2:9 Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!
- Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms without justice, who makes his countrymen serve without pay, and fails to pay their wages,
- Luke 12:16 Then He told them a parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced an abundance.
- 1 Kings 21:16 And when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
- Ezekiel 11:15 “Son of man, your brothers—your relatives, your fellow exiles, and the whole house of Israel—are those of whom the people of Jerusalem have said, ‘They are far away from the LORD; this land has been given to us as a possession.’
- Ezekiel 33:24 “Son of man, those living in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as a possession.’
- Matthew 23:13 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.