YET it is significant that in Hebrew there is no special word for charity. The term צדקה (Zedakah) meant originally righteousness, and the righteousness which the prophets advocated was the substance of social justice. It was incorporated into the fundamental law of the Jewish state, which differed from that of other ancient states in the fact that its intention was to secure freedom and "life" for each individual man. Charity, as we now understand the word, had no place in the social conceptions of the prophets and was not acknowledged in the Law. The three codes which are preserved to us in the Bible from the covenant in Exodus to the extraordinarily profound legislation of Leviticus express an evolution of the social sense founded on a right appreciation of social justice and democracy. "Life," and its sustenance food, and shelter were regarded as the rights of each and every man and not as gifts from one man to another. The law concerning the tenure of land is particularly significant for its insight into the economic basis of social justice, and the laws concerning indebtedness and slavery only less so. Charity appears only when the state disintegrates. It is coincident with the decay of the social organization and the consequent failings of the sense of corporate responsibility, and consists substantially of the conversion of a right into a gift. This change is registered in the new meaning which the word "Zedakah" receives. For a state in which social justice prevails there is no room for charity, while a social order which involves charity is not one which maintains justice. Thus it may be said that the prophets, because they operated in terms of the reorganization of the whole of society and not of the incidental correction of piecemeal evils, were humanists. Their program was constructive and aimed at the enfranchisement of manhood. The rabbis, on the other hand, were (relatively only) philanthropists. Their program was remedial, and they aimed rather at the relief of suffering than the realization and perfection of human potentialities.