The Right to Property and Inheritance in the Old Testament

The right to property is considered to be the most accomplished real prerogative, as it endows its holder with all the attributes deriving thereby namely the right to ownership, the right to use and the right to dispose of properties. In the Law written in the Old Testament, the right to ownership had a special nature given the fact that Yahweh was the owner of the Promised Land, the Jewish people being regarded only as usufructuary. Inheritance is the legal and social practice of passing properties, titles, debts, rights and obligations of a deceased person onto the legal, testamentary heirs. Inheritance has for ever played an important part in human societies and it still does in certain areas of the world. The Jewish right to succession had some features that derived from the patriarchal family, which had been thoroughly established even before the age of state consolidation.