Slavery breeds Captivity

Michael Walzer again:

While Israel entered the promised land, much of their experience in that land was a return to Egypt. Walzer explains: “So the land of Canaan did not exactly flow with milk and honey, but there was milk and honey and flesh to fill the pots. The extended meaning of the promise — the end of oppression — that was more problematic. Pharaoh reappeared in Moabite and Philistine form and then in Israelite form… The textual explanation for the new oppression is simple and straightforward: ‘The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.’… The prophets make a larger argument: the oppression of Israelites by foreigners finds its deepest cause in the oppression of Israelites by one another. The argument is briefly and sharply put in the first chapter of Lamentations: ‘Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude.’ (1:3)