In The Beginning
Trade, if it is just and fair, is actually more just and more responsible than having everything for free. I spent the first three years of my life on Nauru, a small Pacific island nation dependent on the mining of phosphate fertilizer as its main source of income. My father was the engineer in charge of building some of the port facilities there from 1956-59. In Nauru they had a custom called “bubiji” or “bubishi” which meant that you were given whatever you asked for or desired from another person. So if your cousin bought a new car you could just say “Gee, that’s a nice car” and she would have to give it to you. Or you could see a pretty child and say “Wow what a beautiful child! And providing the child was in your clan line, then the child would be given to you. Our houseboy would arrive on a different bicycle each day.
Without a sense of private property, ownership or the price of things Nauru was set for disaster in the modern world. At the time of its independence in 1968 it had put away 3 billon dollars Australian of phosphate money for its 3000 citizens thus making it the richest nation on earth with every individual a millionaire. However this huge fund soon became a target for unscrupulous conmen and “advisors” and for corruption. The phosphate ran out and the nest egg was plundered and spent foolishly. Since the nation lacked a long history of private ownership, exchange and fair trade the Nauruan people were terribly vulnerable when it came to managing this kind of money. Now Nauru is bankrupt. The ideals of Paradise did not develop responsibility and wisdom but the realities of trade will I think eventually do that for this lovely Pacific nation.
On a larger scale can you imagine what would happen if everything in Los Angeles was declared to be free? The long lines outside the BMW showroom and the fights to be first in the door to grab a car, the top fashion stores under siege, the quickly emptied supermarket shelves as people wheeled out trolley after trolley of groceries. The strong and those with handguns would seize everything and the weak would get little. It would quickly degenerate into the rule of might. Thus it is very important that everything have a price and that this price be respected by law. This places a wise social constraint on the movement of property between persons. It ensures producers get fair value for their labour and in a just world, that consumers do not pay too much for their products. Even in heaven spiritual things seem to have a spiritual price such as sacrifice or earnest prayer. (Let me quickly add that we do not earn our salvation, the price for that has already been paid with something greater than silver or gold – the precious blood of Jesus.)
We have just seen that exchange without price is an irresponsible concept. But exchange at a price, quickly leads to the concept of trade. And trade can be corrupted and distorted. This appears to have happened even in heaven and led to the fall of Satan.
(Ezekiel 28:1-19 NKJV) The word of the LORD came to me again, saying, {2} "Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "Because your heart is lifted up, And you say, 'I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, In the midst of the seas,' Yet you are a man, and not a god, Though you set your heart as the heart of a god {3} (Behold, you are wiser than Daniel! There is no secret that can be hidden from you! {4} With your wisdom and your understanding You have gained riches for yourself, And gathered gold and silver into your treasuries; {5} By your great wisdom in trade you have increased your riches, And your heart is lifted up because of your riches)," {6} 'Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Because you have set your heart as the heart of a god, {7} Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers against you, The most terrible of the nations; And they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, And defile your splendor. {8} They shall throw you down into the Pit, And you shall die the death of the slain In the midst of the seas. {9} "Will you still say before him who slays you, 'I am a god'? But you shall be a man, and not a god, In the hand of him who slays you. {10} You shall die the death of the uncircumcised By the hand of aliens; For I have spoken," says the Lord GOD.'" {11} Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, {12} "Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. {13} You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. {14} "You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. {15} You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. {16} "By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. {17} "Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you. {18} "You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you. {19} All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; You have become a horror, And shall be no more forever."' "
Bible scholars tell us that this “prince of Tyre / king of Tyre” lament is a dual prophecy describing both the doom of an earthly king and the fall of Satan. The prince of Tyre is the human king who has become so proud that he has declared himself to be a god. (Ezek 28:1-10) Greater than this prince is a fallen spiritual being who was in Eden and who was even an anointed cherub in heaven. This being is called “the king of Tyre” and is Satan. (Ezek 28:11-19) The indications that more than just a human king is meant by the “king of Tyre” include references to being “in Eden the garden of God” to being “an anointed cherub” and to being a created spiritual being of perfection that dwelt “among the fiery stones” which are the same as the stones in the breastplate of the high priest (Exodus 28:17) and the same as the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:20). The prince of Tyre is just a man but is empowered by the spiritual and fallen “king of Tyre” and has a proud, darkened and fallen spirituality. The trading nation and its prince are actually pawns of a deeper and more ominous being. A being that is doomed to become a horror but that will take many with it along the way.
What caused this being of perfection and beauty to become the horror and monstrosity that Satan is and to plunge to its doom of eternal perdition? Lets look at what the “king of Tyre” passage says:
1. Trading led to a predatory inner nature: “By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within.”
2. Which led to outward sin: And you sinned.
3. And a loss of holiness and a becoming secular and even profane: Therefore I cast you out as a profane thing
4. Pride and elitism: Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty
5. Corrupted wisdom: You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor
6. And a defiling of sacred places for the sake of trade: You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading.
7. Destruction arising from his own evil nature: Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you. {19} All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; You have become a horror, And shall be no more forever."'
I will discuss each of this seven aspects in greater detail below:
Trading led to a predatory inner nature:
The Hebrew word for violence is the Hebrew word “chamac” and here is how Strong’s dictionary renders the word:
2555. chamac, khaw-mawce'; from H2554; violence; by implication -. wrong; by metonymy. - unjust gain:--cruel (-ty), damage, false, injustice, X oppressor, unrighteous, violence (against, done), violent (dealing), wrong..
Thus the violence of trade that Satan was filled with within was unjust, cruel, damaging and oppressive and unrighteous. It is the strong desire to wrong others for commercial gain. It is the nature of the cold, calculating and complete predator. “Chamac” is reflected in the unjust, cruel, cunning and violent nature of many of the metaphors that picture Satan as “the dragon”, “the serpent” or “the wolf”.
Satan’s desire for trade developed a violent and cruel inner nature that was not present originally in him (he was created beautiful, perfect and holy). Satan is described as being created as the very seal of perfection, full of wisdom and beauty, and covered in precious stones. In the end he becomes a “horror”. Something has changed. Trade has made him violent. This violence that got Satan thrown from heaven may well have been murder, for Jesus describes Satan as “ a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).
Which led to outward sin:
Whatever the sin was, we know that it caused Satan (probably then called Lucifer, Isaiah 14:12) to fall from heaven. The sinful heart resulted in sinful action and a rebellion so vast that many other angels fell with him (Revelation 12, 2 Peter 2:4). The violent nature of Satan was behind a massive rebellious attempt to be like God that is briefly described in Isaiah 14.
(Isaiah 14:12-15 NKJV) "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! {13} For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; {14} I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' {15} Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit.
Trading success seems to have inspired Satan to stage an attempted coup against the “political power” of Heaven, Him who sits upon the Throne, that is God. Satan and his angels were variously imprisoned and demoted in the process. The details are obscure which is probably not a bad thing. What is clear though is that trading led to cruelty and violence and this violence then led to lawlessness and rebellion, which then led to judgment and inevitable destruction. The physical kingdom of Tyre was made an earthly example of this process and went from being a pre-eminent and luxurious trading nation to a bare rock on which fishermen spread their nets.
And a loss of holiness and a becoming secular and even profane:
“Therefore I cast you out as a profane thing…” (Ezekiel 28:16) God’s judgments are always just, so if Satan was cast out as a profane thing, then he must have been profane. The holy guardian cherub had become unholy and most unfit for heaven. Trade tends to profane things and Paul called it “filthy lucre” ( 1 Timothy 3:3,8 Titus 1:7) and Jesus calls it “unrighteous Mammon” (Luke 16:9-13). Trade profaned the temple in Jesus’ day and is profaning sectors of the church today. When we look at the New Testament and those who “fell” from high positions of grace such as Judas, Ananias and Sapphira and Demas we find they al fell because money caused them to move from being holy to being profane. Paul picks up this theme in his letter to Timothy:
(1 Timothy 6:9-10 NASB) But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. {10} For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang.
Trade caused Satan to move from being holy to being profane, was the demise of Judas, the death of Ananias and Sapphira and causes many to wander from the faith and pierce themselves with many a pang. Thus it is a major source of “the profane” in our midst.
Pride and elitism:
Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty The word for beauty “yapeh” denotes a fitness of form and function and a outworking of the original created intention so that cows that are unblemished sleek and fat are “yapeh” along with beautiful women and handsome young men. It is “perfect beauty” or “flawless beauty” and the kind that easily leads to vanity as in Satan and later with Absalom, who in some respects could be said to be a “type” of Satan. Satan was covered in precious gems and perfect in beauty and wisdom and this seems to have seduced the other angels to follow him, even today Satan appears to be “an angel of light” ( 2 Corinthians 11:14). The corollary for the commercial world is that the riches of trade make people wealthy and “beautiful” and vain and this deep vanity is seductive to others but destructive in the end.
Corrupted wisdom:
You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor (Ezekiel 28:17) This corrupted Satanic wisdom is described in the book of James and I will quote it in three slightly different but well known as accurate translations:
(James 3:14-16 NASB) But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. {15} This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. {16} For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.
(James 3:14-16 NKJV) But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. {15} This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. {16} For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
(James 3:14-16 NRSV) But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. {15} Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. {16} For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
The wisdom of Satan consists of “looking after number one”. It is described as bitterly envious/jealous, self-seeking/selfishly ambitious, arrogant/boastful, lying against/false to the truth, earthly, natural/sensual/unspiritual and demonic/devilish and results in confusion/disorder and every evil thing/wickedness of every kind.
This is “corporate wisdom’ the wisdom of the person who pursues success at any price. It is the wisdom of selfish ambition and “career above all” and of office politics and ruthless international trade. It is not the wisdom that “comes from above”, from God but is the wisdom that has inferior sources being earthly, sensual/natural and demonic in origin. It is worldly wisdom and the wisdom of the Prince of This World – Satan.
Satan chose to be worldly wise rather than heavenly minded because he was chiefly concerned with his own glory and splendor. “You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.” (Ezek28:17). When the desire for human glory, corporate glory or national glory becomes paramount then ethics go out the window and pragmatism and earthly wisdom enter in.
Deep down world trade is not just about making a profit. It is about achieving splendor, beauty and a feeling of being amongst the very elite. While money is important, feeling elite and splendid, feeling that all doors open for you, that you are wanted, powerful, invited to the top gatherings and able to call the shots is a deep driving force among the wealthy. The desire for glory and splendor for one’s self are a large part of what drives world trade. It is certainly not run to give glory to God or carry out His will. Rather it is run to give glory to the elite and carry out their will. This deep and subtle distortion twists the nature of world trade and injects it with a dark and pragmatic wisdom that eventually results in “disorder and every evil thing” (including, I will argue, world terrorism).
When people decide to frantically pursue their own greed, ambition and self-interest regardless of the welfare of others then disorder quickly sets into that community. A corporate power struggle can tear apart an otherwise good business. A takeover bid can leave many unemployed and corporations that drive competitors out of business pursuing ruthless ambitions cause much grief. Even in churches, when ecclesiastical politics and “hard business decisions” take over an organization or a denomination, then “disorder and every evil thing” seems to invade like storm-troopers. Years of pain often follow such a shift in focus.
World trade, based on earthly wisdom is thus demonic in its reasoning and the very assumptions it is based on and the very foundational practices of global corporate life will create “disorder and every evil thing”.
And a defiling of sacred places for the sake of trade: You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading. (Ezek 28:18) The word for sanctuaries here is “miqdash” and is defined as “a consecrated thing or place, espec. a palace, sanctuary (whether of Jehovah or of idols) or asylum:--chapel, hallowed part, holy place, sanctuary.”
Satan seems to have had some holy places in heaven that he administered. Anyway he is accused of defiling them. The besmirching and defiling of the holy is very much part of Satanic activity. In this case it was Satan’s trading activity that did the defiling. Nothing is sacred to the purely commercial world of trade and this defiling through trade is seen in areas as diverse as the traders in the temple in Jesus day, to churches become bingo halls, to those trying to enter Jerusalem on the Sabbath in Nehemiah’s day, the push for Sunday trading in recent years, the prosperity gospel, the selling on indulgences in the Middle Ages, the trade in so called religious relics and the intrusion of crass commercialism into the gospel preaching of certain televangelists.
In Scripture there are a number of ways a sanctuary or temple can be “defiled”. These include the presence of idols (Ezekiel 5:11), physical destruction (Psalms 74:7, 79:1), human sacrifice of children to the pagan god Molech (Leviticus 20:3, Ezekiel 23:37-40), profaning the Sabbath (Ezekiel 23:38), trade (Ezekiel 28:18), having priests who were foreigners, that is not of the covenant people (Ezekiel 44:7) [This would be the equivalent having a non-Christian pastor today.] Antiochus Epiphanes, the type of the Anti-Christ defiled the sanctuary by removing the daily sacrifices and setting up an image of Zeus (Daniel 11:31). Finally the church is defiled by false doctrine not founded on Christ (1 Corinthians 3:10-17).
Unjust trade does all this and more. Third World debt repayments are estimated to result in 7 million children a year dying just a surely if they had been fed to Molech. Sanctuaries and holy places are physically destroyed or removed. I was regularly preached at a lovely old church that was physically removed miles out of town because McDonalds wanted the prime corner block and the denominational hierarchy wanted the money. I was also a member of a Baptist church that appointed a pastor who was clearly unconverted because of his good management skills, and because he was recommended by people of money and influence. Shameful idols are erected by some businesses to placate local religious minorities and false doctrine based on Mammon abounds. The idolatrous nature of trade offends Christians, Jews and Muslims. The Sabbath is kept very strictly in some parts of Israel and buses traveling through orthodox Jewish neighborhoods on the Sabbath are stoned. In Islamic countries there is a strong feeling that Western influence is idolatrous and defiling and so the USA, which is the source of so much of this defilement is seen as “The Great Satan”. But how does God feel? God is furious and this defilement of holy places was seen as a “multitude of iniquities” that resulted in a fiery doom.
Self-destruction flowing from his evil nature:
(Ezekiel 28:18 NKJV) "You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you.
“Iniquity” is a powerful word and is much more than mere “sin” or transgression. The word for iniquity is “awon” which is defined as perversity, i.e. (moral) evil:--fault, iniquity, mischief, punishment (of iniquity), sin.
Iniquity is the concept of a peculiarly perverse and twisted sin that accumulates to the point where judgment is inevitable and doom is sure. It is used of sin being like a bulge in a wall that steadily grows until the whole situation becomes unstable and those under the bulge are crushed to death. It is sin that crashes down like a landslide upon the sinners. In this case iniquity results in a self-destructive fire (Ezekiel 28:18 NKJV….Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you. The fire that will devour Satan will somehow be brought “from your midst”. In a broader context world trade tends to reach a point where it self-destructs. Irresponsible tech stock booms go bust, junk bonds end up bankrupting those who buy them, and dishonest trade “burns” people. At various points, such as the Great Depression, the burning can become a wildfire. If world trade continues to be unjust it will “go up in smoke” and this indeed will be final fate of the unjust system of world trade that is centered in a city that the Bible calls Babylon.
(Revelation 18:8-18 NKJV) "Therefore her plagues will come in one day; death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. {9} "The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, {10} "standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, 'Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.'… "The fruit that your soul longed for has gone from you, and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all. {15} "The merchants of these things, who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, {16} "and saying, 'Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! {17} 'For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.' Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance {18} "and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, 'What is like this great city?'
The iniquity of world trade will finally reach a point where it is catastrophically and suddenly judged “in one hour your judgment has come”. This burning of the city will be accompanied by death and mourning and famine. While this will be the eventual judgment of a wicked economic system it does not have to occur just yet. There is still time to repent. The World Trade Center attacks were a prelude, a wake–up call, an enactment of the destruction of Babylon on a smaller scale. From first attack to final collapse this mini-judgment took one hour or so just like the final judgment will.
Satan’s control of world trade will only lead to a system that crashes and burns. If we let an unjust system prevail God will tear it down and we will lose our investment in it. In fact God tells us to flee the system of unjust trade: (Revelation 18:4 NKJV) And I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.
When Lot was heavily invested in Sodom he lost everything. His fortune, from the abundance of Sodom referred to earlier, literally ‘went up in flames”. He lost his goods, his wife, his sons-in-law and ended up committing incest with his daughters. Yet Scripture calls Lot a “righteous” man ( 2 Peter 2:7). He was what we would call a good Christian, with bad investments.
So we see that trade, though originally meant to teach people justice, responsibility and right values, has become a me-first scramble for wealth and privilege among the selfishly ambitious. We see that this perversion of the original purpose of trade was due to the trading activity of Satan and has passed to mankind through Satan being the “ruler of this world” and the “power that is at work in the sons of disobedience”(Ephesians 2:1-4). International trading has now a deep warp in its nature so that it tends to be violent, predatory and cruel without any mercy on the poor or powerless. Trade now results in disorder and every evil thing and leads to the defilement of all that is holy and consequently is destined for a fiery doom.
A Brief Biblical History of Trade
The biblical history of trade is long and inglorious starting with Abraham being sold the cave of Macpelah at an inflated price to bury Sarah (Genesis 23:16) and wending its way through Ishmaelite slave traders (Genesis 37:28) and the centralization of Egypt as Joseph acquired all the lands of Egypt for Pharaoh by exploiting the poor during a severe drought (Genesis 47:20,21). There is the glory of Solomon’s trading and the ships arriving every three years briging gold, silver, ivory, apes and monkeys (1 Kings 10:22). Interestingly Solomon’s income was 666 talents of gold! (Kings 10:14). Jehoshaphat tried to emulate this and lost his entire fleet of ships ( 1 Kings 22:48). The final corrupt days of the Northern Kingdom were characterized by such impatient and wicked trade that Amos prophesied against it in absolute terms:
(Amos 8:4-7 NKJV) Hear this, you who swallow up the needy, And make the poor of the land fail, {5} Saying: "When will the New Moon be past, That we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, That we may trade wheat? Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, {6} That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals; Even sell the bad wheat?" {7} The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: "Surely I will never forget any of their works.
By the time of Isaiah the merchants of Tyre were “princes” and “among the honourable of the earth and wealth from trading was achieving social prominence for its possessors (Isaiah 23). By Nehemiah’s day merchants were part of society and making repairs to the walls of Jerusalem. This reflects the fact that merchants and traders do achieve a lot of social good through philanthropic efforts. (Nehemiah 3:31,32) but by the end of the book they are back to trying to trade on the Sabbath and Nehemiah is threatening to lay hands on them! (Nehemiah 13:20). Ezekiel calls Babylon “ a land of merchants” with obvious derision (Ezek 16:29, 17:4) and prophesies against the trading activities of Tyre in chapters 27 & 28. The long list of traded wares in chapter 27 shows a worldwide trading nation with a wide assortment of gods from luxury items such as gold, silver and spices to more common items such as saddles and the Greeks traded “human lives and bronze” with Tyre. (Ezek 27:13) The final days of Nineveh were also characterized by numerous merchants, predatory practices and unjust trade as Nahum prophesies the gain would be temporary and all would be lost as the Babylonians would swarm on Nineveh like locusts:
(Nahum 3:16 NKJV) You have multiplied your merchants more than the stars of heaven. The locust plunders and flies away.
The post-exilic prophet Zephaniah predicts that the doom of the merchants will come about shortly before the “great and terrible day of the Lord”
(Zephaniah 1:8-18 NKJV) "…That I will punish the princes and the king's children, And all such as are clothed with foreign apparel. …Who fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit. … For all the merchant people are cut down; All those who handle money are cut off. …And punish the men Who are settled in complacency, Who say in their heart, 'The LORD will not do good, Nor will He do evil.' {13} Therefore their goods shall become booty, And their houses a desolation; …The great day of the LORD is near; It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. {18} Neither their silver nor their gold Shall be able to deliver them In the day of the Lord's wrath; But the whole land shall be devoured By the fire of His jealousy, For He will make speedy riddance Of all those who dwell in the land.
In the New Testament Jesus says that the temple has become a “house of merchandise” (John 2:16) and drives out the traders from the sacred place. Yet He is not entirely contemptuous of merchants using their trading ability as a parallel to the building up of spiritual riches and seeking after truth (Matthew 13:45, 25:16). Trade and idolatry are linked especially via the work of the goldsmiths, silversmiths and coppersmiths who made the idols. They were responsible for the riot in Ephesus and for doing Paul and his co-workers “much harm” (Acts 19:24-27, 2 Timothy 4:14). Finally in Revelation 18 the final vast trading empire meets its doom as the world staggers to its inglorious end. So we see that Nineveh, Tyre, Sidon, Babylon, and both the Northern and Southern kingdoms were steeped in unjust trade just prior to being finally judged by God and the prior to the final judgment of God unjust trade will fill the entire earth. This should give us pause.