How closely were laws on the poor observed in the biblical age?

There are few specific indications in the Bible that the laws on the poor were broken, let alone that the system broke down, at any time. No biblical poor laws operate in the only detailed account we have in the Bible of economic strategy during a famine, the story of Joseph, eponymous father of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Biblical law, in contrast, requires the Temple priests in Jerusalem to distribute food to the poor; and landowners had no right to charge the poor for gleaning, or restrict their rights. The biblical view is evidently that the laws, being God-given, apply even in the absence of land and Temple; and they still need to be remembered, even when they cannot be observed, in the hope and expectation that they will someday come back in force. The origin of 'holy poor' in European culture may be found chiefly in these biblical texts from the 6th century bce.