John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 5:8

"Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!" — Isaiah 5:8 (ASV)

Woe to them that join house to house and field to field. He now rebukes their insatiable avarice and covetousness, from which acts of cheating, injustice, and violence usually arise. For it cannot be condemned as wrong in itself if a man adds field to field and house to house; but he looked at the disposition of mind, which cannot be satisfied at all once it is inflamed by the desire for gain.

Accordingly, he describes the feelings of those who never have enough, and whom no wealth can satisfy. So great is the intensity of covetous men that they desire to possess everything themselves alone, and consider everything obtained by others to be something they lack and which has been taken from them.

Therefore, Chrysostom beautifully observed that "covetous men, if they could, would willingly take the sun from the poor," for they envy their brothers the common elements and would gladly swallow them up—not so that they might enjoy them, but because such is the madness to which their greed leads them. Meanwhile, they do not consider that they need the assistance of others, and that a man left alone can do nothing. All their concern is to scrape together as much as they can, and so they swallow up everything by their covetousness.

He therefore accuses covetous and ambitious men of such folly that they would wish to have other men removed from the earth, so that they might possess it alone; and consequently, they set no limit to their desire for gain. For what madness it is to wish to have those driven away from the earth whom God has placed in it along with us, and to whom, as well as to us, He has assigned it as their dwelling!

Certainly, nothing more ruinous could happen to them than to obtain their wish. If they were alone, they could not plow, or reap, or perform other tasks essential for their survival, or supply themselves with the necessities of life. For God has linked men so closely together that they need the assistance and labor of each other; and only a madman would disdain other men as harmful or useless to him.

Ambitious men cannot enjoy their renown except in the midst of a multitude. How blind are they, therefore, when they wish to drive and chase away others, so that they may reign alone!

Regarding the size of houses, the same remark we previously made about fields applies, for he points out the ambition of those who desire to inhabit spacious and magnificent houses. If a man with a large family uses a large house, he cannot be blamed for it.

But when men, swollen with ambition, make unnecessary additions to their houses merely so they may live in greater luxury, and when one person alone occupies a building that could serve as a home for many families, this is undoubtedly empty ambition and ought justly to be blamed. Such persons act as if they had a right to drive out other men and be the only ones to enjoy a house or a roof, and as if other men ought to live in the open air or must go somewhere else to find a dwelling.