A study of the Declaration of Independence and the other American founding documents should lead us to reflect upon something remarkable: Whence came this idea of unalienable rights? It runs as a thread through the history of western law generally and English law specifically—from St. Patrick to King Alfred to Magna Carta and the Petition of Right. The Founders cited the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as the justification for dissolving the political bands that had, until that moment, connected them to the English Crown.
Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders believed in the rule of law under God, as may be seen in a careful reading of the American Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The word “unalienable” means that these rights belong to everybody individually. They cannot be permanently given away, sold, or transferred to some collective entity such as a group, a political party, or the State.
The story of Naboth’s Vineyard (1 Kings 21) dramatizes both Rene Girard’s concept of mimetic rivalry and Frederic Bastiat’s critique of legal plunder. It should be read with the word “unalienable” in mind. Naboth held stewardship over the property God had given his ancestors, as established by law in Leviticus 25. Just as the vineyard had been passed down to him, Naboth, in turn, held it in trust for his heirs. Under the Mosaic inheritance law (Lev. 25:10, 23), it was unlawful for landed property to be permanently given away, sold, or transferred to another tribe.
The reason for such restrictions on the conveyance of real estate within the Promised Land had to do with the peculiar relationship between the people of Israel and the God who had chosen them and then, after a period of slavery in Egypt, rescued them from bondage and established a covenant relationship with them. It is a story of repeated testing, infidelity, alienation, bondage, exile, redemption, and restoration.
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To understand the relevance of this story to the subject of public policy, we need to first recognize that Leviticus 25 establishes the rule of law and a system of checks and balances regarding land tenure as an expression of this covenant relationship and in order to protect specifically against oppression and injustice. It operated as a law of the land. We see this pattern most dramatically in the book of Exodus, repeatedly in the writings of the prophets, and continuing into the New Testament era. As the Apostle Paul summarized in Romans 8:38-39, “nothing can separate [or alienate] us from the love of God.” God redeemed His people from bondage and established a comprehensive system to instruct the people, construct a community, and administer justice.
The larger context of the story of Naboth’s vineyard is the reign of an idolatrous king of Israel, Ahab, and his treacherous wife Jezebel. Beginning in 1 Kings 16, the biblical narrative covers a series of events that begin inauspiciously with spiritual adultery and human sacrifice – indicative of the resurgence of pagan fertility cults.
Once the stage has been set, the Naboth pericope (1 Kings 21) begins with a covetous Ahab who wishes to purchase the vineyard. This is forbidden under Leviticus 25, so Naboth sternly rejects the offer. Afterward Jezebel finds the king in a sullen mood, pouting. Here the words of the Apostle Paul are especially helpful to understand the dynamic that is at work: “I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died” (Rom. 7:7-9).
What does this mean in practice? Ahab’s unfaithfulness to the laws of God had already been clearly illustrated by this time beginning in 1 Kings 18. Now Ahab’s covetousness sets into motion a tragic series of events. When his efforts to persuade Naboth to break the law fail, sin rears up in the heart of his duplicitous queen. Jezebel usurps her husband’s authority and even misuses his seal to instruct the city fathers to honor Naboth with a banquet while arranging to have him accused of blasphemy. For their part, the city fathers conspire with her. The logic of cronyism forges bonds of complicity. Naboth is hustled out and stoned to death. Thus sin reproduces, multiplies, and fills the land: a good description of Girard’s mimetic contagion. The story culminates nearly a generation later with the outworking of God’s judgment upon the royal house. This story is both a byword and a microcosm of the despotism and oppression that stains the pages of history.
Returning to the property laws in Leviticus 25 it should be clear that, even in a case where someone should sell himself into servitude, the Bible provides no reason to suppose it is a heritable status that may be passed down through the generations. The institution of chattel slavery has no basis in the Bible. The year of Jubilee proclaimed in the same chapter might, to use James Madison’s language, be described as an auxiliary precaution against such an interpretation. This provision was clearly designed to restore liberties and property that had in fact been previously alienated. The grip of slavery as an institution was broken through the Bible’s cultural influence.
Within the Israelite regime we may discern a constitutional rule of law and a system of divided and limited power that later influenced the English common law and American constitutional systems. The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is inscribed with words from Leviticus 25:10 that evoke the Jubilee: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” The redemption and emancipation of captives and slaves—along with judgments against the oppression of widows, orphans, and strangers—is a theme that runs through the Bible into subsequent history.
In more recent times, the challenges are perhaps more likely to come as much from rent-seeking—controlling access to public goods, which may extend to include specifying acceptable opinions or schools of thought—as from the high-handed disregard of the law exhibited by Ahab and Jezebel. The danger is that the practice of rent-seeking has been rationalized and universalized into a system, as Bastiat noted when he equated socialism with legal plunder. By favoring group identity politics, our pernicious political rent-seeking has helped break down constitutional safeguards that protect individual rights. Indeed, property rights were divorced from human rights by Progressives more than a century ago.