Isaiah 5:8 - Exposition

Woe unto them that join house to house . This is the first woe . It is pronounced on the greed which leads men to continually enlarge their estates, without regard to their neighbors' convenience. Nothing is said of any use of unfair means, much less of violence in dispossessing the former proprietors. What is denounced is the selfishness of vast accumulations of land in single bands, to the detriment of the rest of the community. The Jewish law was peculiarly inimical to this practice ( Numbers 27:1-11 ; Numbers 33:54 ; 1 Kings 21:4 ); but perhaps it is not without reason that many writers of our own time object to it on general grounds. Till there be no place ; literally, till want of place ; i.e. till there is no room for others. A hyperbole, doubtless, but marking a real national inconvenience. That they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth; rather, that ye may dwell by yourselves in the midst of the land . The great landlords wished to isolate themselves; they disliked neighbors; they would fain "dwell by themselves," without neighbors to trouble them. Uzziah seems, by what is said of his possessions ( 2 Chronicles 26:10 ), to have been one of the greatest sinners in respect of the accumulation of land.