ABSTRACT
Social policies and societal arrangements that furnish indirect supports or which are designed to help people avoid poverty are rarely considered. But indirect measures are very important in all efforts to relieve the poor and help them to assume independence. This chapter analyzes indirect institutional supports for poor. Agriculture became less important in the Judean economy, the protection of rights and privileges of non-agricultural workers assumed increasing importance. In biblical times central government had no responsibility for assuring the welfare of poor. The central government did conscript workers for major building projects. The laws of ritual purity were so complex and far-reaching that those Jews who wanted to observe them strictly were required to limit their contact with the majority of the Jewish population that was more lax in observing them. Slavery was very common in antiquity; there were slaves in every society.
