"In an agricultural society, land is capital, so land was the basic means of producing wealth in Israel. At the beginning, ... the land was divided more or less equally among the tribes and families. Apparently God wanted that basic equality of economic opportunity to continue. Hence his command to return all land to the original owners every fifty years. Private property was not abolished. Regularly, however, the means of producing wealth was to be equalized—up to the point of every family having the resources to earn a decent living."