South Africa's parliament passed a motion for land expropriation from white farmers without compensation. This confiscation forms an integral part of the ruling African National Congress government's platform. The motion passed to begin the process of amending the country's constitution to allow confiscation of white-owned land without compensation. In one version of the proposal the government owns the land after confiscation and allocates it through bureaucrats to those deemed in need. A similar policy occurred in Zimbabwe where the president decided on fast-track land reform and declared that white settlers took the land without paying so it could be taken from them without paying. Farms were not given to black farm managers or workers. More than a million farm workers and dependents were displaced. Beneficiaries of the seizures were ruling-party officials and associates of the president. These elites lacked experience and equipment to operate the farms. Agricultural production declined sharply with maize yields falling from more than 1.5 million tons annually to 500,000 tons. Wheat production fell from 309,000 tons to 27,000 tons. Tobacco production dropped from 265,000 tons to 66,000 tons. Gross domestic product declined by half. Inflation rose 7600 percent. Unemployment reached 80 percent. Life expectancy fell to age 34 for women and 36 for men. The same pattern of land seizures has begun in South Africa.

Private property rights in land form a cornerstone of liberty that the American founders embedded in the Constitution, recognizing ownership as a safeguard against tyranny, yet these rights have steadily eroded through expanding socialism, environmental regulations, federal land holdings, and the Supreme Court's Kelo decision permitting eminent domain for private development. The Bible consistently affirms individual land ownership as a sacred principle established by God, evident from Abraham's purchase of property through the laws given to Israel that assume personal holdings, such as the prohibition against coveting a neighbor's house in the tenth commandment and the command not to remove ancient landmarks in Deuteronomy. This ownership extends to family inheritance, as illustrated by the Jubilee provisions requiring restoration of sold land to its original owners and Naboth's refusal to relinquish his ancestral vineyard to Ahab, an act that provoked divine condemnation of the king's abuse of power. In the New Testament, Peter upholds the same principle by affirming that land and its proceeds remain under individual control even amid communal sharing among believers, while the Mark of the Beast is portrayed as ultimately abolishing the right to buy and sell. God declares the world and its fullness to be His yet grants humans stewardship over land to teach lessons in authority and responsibility that prepare them for greater roles in His Kingdom. The progressive weakening of these biblical land rights in contemporary America reveals a broader departure from divine principles that once anchored the nation's foundations.

God is the ultimate Owner of all land: "The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine" (Leviticus 25:23), and the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness. Yet He fully intends that people share ownership with Him. In Numbers 33:53-54 He gives Israel the land to possess and commands that it be divided by lot as an inheritance among families, so that each family owns property. Land is fundamentally the basis of material wealth. Numbers 27 shows that private ownership of land, and therefore wealth, is not restricted to males. The eighth commandment, "You shall not steal," affirms every person's right to private property and forbids anyone from taking it without lawful permission, which means communism, with all property owned collectively by the state, lacks God's approval. The Jubilee law of Leviticus 25:8-10 limits the permanent accumulation of land. In the fiftieth year each person returns to his possession and family, restoring land lost through misfortune or mismanagement. This gives the original family the ability to build wealth again through disciplined work. Other laws in Leviticus 23-27 cover land that has been lost, sold, or set apart to earn money for God. A state that taxes away the wealth of its people becomes master instead of servant, and no government, business, or individual has God's right to take another's property.

God affirms through the commandment against stealing that every human being has the right to private property, and no one may take it without God-given, lawful permission. Communism, which makes the State the collective owner of all property, lacks His approval. The earth is the Lord's, and He gives it to whomever He pleases. Land is fundamentally the basis of material wealth, and God intended each family to own it. Before Israel entered the Promised Land, He had them divide it by lot among the tribes and families, a larger inheritance to the large and a smaller to the small (Numbers 33:53-54). Women could also own land (Numbers 27). Because the land is ultimately His and Israel were strangers and sojourners with Him, it could not be sold permanently (Leviticus 25:23). The Jubilee, every fiftieth year, returned land lost through misfortune or mismanagement to the original family owners, so a family never lost its opportunity to build wealth through disciplined work for more than fifty years at most. Related laws let a family redeem land it had devoted to God, by paying its value plus a fifth. Samuel warned that a self-chosen king would take the best fields, vineyards, and olive groves through taxation, a legal form of thievery that makes government the served rather than the servant.

The eighth commandment, "You shall not steal," implies a right to own property, since only what is owned can be stolen. By strong inference it also rules out communism, in which the state owns property collectively. God intended Israel to hold land individually: Numbers 33:53-54 has Him divide the land by lot among the families, a larger inheritance to the larger tribes and a smaller one to the smaller, each man's inheritance being whatever fell to him. The tithing laws of Numbers 18 show that the Israelites were expected to work that land to produce wealth for their families and to pay tithes from it. The Levites received no land, so they tithed on the tithes they received. Owning property and producing wealth is therefore a God-given privilege. Systems of producing wealth will always contain inequities, but taking what rightfully belongs to another violates that privilege however the thief justifies it. Ownership also rests on a deeper fact: the earth is the Lord's by creation (Psalm 24:1), and He has given it to the children of men (Psalm 115:16). Only He can give or take away, so no one may usurp property he has neither bought nor been given. Property is to be gained by honest labor or by rightful inheritance, and the owner is to work so that he can give his excess to those in need.