Ex. 19 1 In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. And when they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the wilderness of Sinai, they pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.

Nu. 33 15 And they journeyed from Rephidim, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai.

The distance to Mount Sinai, from the point on the Gulf of Suez at which the Hebrews had crossed the Red Sea, is only about one hundred and fifty miles, including the windings of the route; but it was not till the third month after the exodus that the host at last pitched its tents under the shadow of the mountain. They had rested at various points for refreshment or supplies; now they were to camp on the same spot for nearly eleven months, while they were being finally organized as a nation. Geikie.

It is but about seven weeks since Israel came out of Egypt: in which space God had cherished their faith by five several wonders: yet now he thinks it time to give them statutes from heaven, as well as bread. The manna and water from the rock (which was Christ in the Gospel) were given before the Law; the sacraments of grace before the legal covenant. Bp. II.

1. In the third month.** Hebrew, in the third new (moon); as the term properly signifies, by which is to be understood, according to Jewish usage, the first day of the month, although for the sake of greater explicitness the phrase, “the same day,” is added, meaning the first day of the month. This was just forty-five days after their departure from Egypt; for adding sixteen days of the first month to twenty-nine of the second, the result is forty-five. To these we must add the day on which Moses went up to God (verse 3), the next day after when he returned their answer to God (verses 7, 8), and the three days more mentioned (verses 10, 11), which form altogether just fifty days from the passover to the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. Hence the feast which was kept in afterattitudes to celebrate this event was called Pentecost, or the fifieth day. And it was at this very feast that the Holy Ghost was given to the apostles, to enable them to communicate to all mankind the new covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Bush.

2. “And pitched in the wilderness of Sinai.” After their long halt, exulting in their first victory, they advanced deeper into the mountain ranges, they knew not whither. They knew only that it was for some great end, for some solemn disclosure, such as they had never before witnessed. Onward they went, through winding valley, and under high cliff, and over rugged pass, and through gigantic forms, on which the marks of creation even now seem fresh and powerful; and at last, through all the different valleys, the whole body of the people were assembled. On their right hand and on their left rose long successions of lofty rocks, forming a vast avenue, like the approaches which they had seen leading to the Egyptian temples between colossal figures of men and of gods. At the end of this broad avenue, rising immediately out of the level plain on which they were encamped, towered the massive cliffs of Sinai, like the huge altar of some natural temple; encircled by peaks of every shape and height, the natural pyramids of the desert. In this sanctuary, secluded from all earthly things, they waited for the revelation of God. A. P. S.

The use of the names Sinai and Horeb has always been very variable. Hengstenberg and Robinson decide that, in the Pentateuch and the Bible generally, Horeb is used as the original name of the entire group, while Sinai is restricted to one particular mountain (that of the Law); and

(From the Ordnance Survey.)

in this decision Rödiger and Ritter concur. It is certain, at the outset, that if either of the two names is more comprehensive than the other, it must be the name Horeb; for there is not a single passage in the Old Testament in which the name Sinai is employed where the context shows that it necessarily refers to the entire group of mountains. On the other hand, the plain at the foot of the particular mountain (of the Law) is always called “the desert of Sinai.” K.—The mention of Horeb in later books (e.g., 1 Kings 8:9; 19:8) seems to show that it had then become the designation of the mountain and region generally. But Sinai is clearly a summit distinctly marked. Dic. B.

The mountain mass of Jebel Musa (Horeb), or as it would be better named, Musa-Sufsafeh, is about two miles long, running from southeast to northwest, and one broad. Its general elevation is 6500 feet, but at its southern extremity Jebel Musa rises to 7363 feet, and at its northern end the peak of Ras Sufsafeh (Sinai) to 6937 feet, while the intervening space is cut up by a series of deep clefts into numerous peaks of lower altitude. On the west the mountain is bounded by Wady Leja, and on the east by Wady ed-Deir; both valleys run northward, and the former sweeping round the foot of Sufsafeh, which rises almost precipitously to a height of 2000 feet, joins the latter at Aaron’s Mound (Harun). To the north of the Ras Sufsafeh, and sloping uniformly down to its very base, lies the plain of Er Rahah, containing four hundred acres of available standing-ground directly in front of the mountain. The southern boundary is formed by Wady Sebaiyeh, the bed of which is separated by nearly a mile and a quarter of rugged broken ground from the peak of Jebel Musa. It will thus be seen that the block Musa-Sufsafeh is almost isolated, and we must mention another feature, Wady Shreich, which runs nearly parallel to Wady Leja, and cuts off, as it were, a thin slice from the western face of the mountain.

Though the peak Jebel Musa has been identified with Sinai from the fourth or fifth century, it cannot be seen from the plain of Er Rahah, and there is not sufficient space near the mountain to accommodate the Israelites in Wady Sebaiyeh. The Ras Sufsafeh, on the other hand, stands directly over the plain of Er Rahah, and as we find in it every topographical feature required by the Bible even to the minutest detail, we would identify it with the mount of the Law in preference to the rival peak Jebel Musa. We have here a moun ain summit overlooking a plain which, with its branches Seil Leja and Wady ed-Deir, contains 4,293,000 square yards in full view of the mount, ample standing-ground for the Israelites without including the mountain slopes on which large numbers of people could have stood. There is also in the valleys within a radius of six miles of Ras Sufsafeh sufficient space for the whole multitude to have encamped, and from this distance they could easily have been assembled before the mount on any special occasion. On Er Rahah the people would be able to stand at “the nether part of the mount,” on sloping ground where they would be well placed for hearing the voice of the Lord when he spake “out of the midst of the fire,” and they would be able to “remove and stand afar off” on the ground to the north near the mouth of the Nagb Hawa. The peak of the Ras Sufsafeh is the first object which strikes the eye of the traveller as he leaves the Nagb, and from that moment he never loses sight of the “top of the mount” till he reaches the foot of the great mass which rises so abruptly that it may well be described as a mountain that can be “touched.” The block of Musa-Sufsafeh is so completely isolated from the surrounding mountains that there would be no difficulty in placing bounds round it, and there is in its vicinity a better supply of water and pasturage than in any other part of the peninsula; besides six perennial streams, there are several large and good springs; the numerous gardens show what can be produced by a little cultivation, and everywhere among the mountains there are small basins in which grass and other desert vegetation grow in great profusion. Without attempting to localize the minor incidents of the narrative, we may point out how well the features of Wady Shreich, with its tiny stream, its easy ascent to the mountain, and the bend near its mouth, lend themselves to the incident of the Golden Calf; and the peculiar features of Jebel Moneijah (the Mount of Conference) well adapt it to have been the original site of the Tabernacle of Witness. Wilson.

The peaks of Ras Sufsafeh have been wrongly described by some travellers as an independent mountain. The Ras Sufsafeh does, in fact, form the northern portion of Jebel Musa. Its peaks rise up precipitously from the bottom of the plain of Er Rahah to a height of about two thousand feet, being distinctly visible from every part of that plain, and they are well described by Dean Stanley as “standing out in lonely grandeur against the sky like a huge altar.” A central elevated basin, encircled by a ring of higher peaks, is a common feature of the granitic mountains in the Peninsula of Sinai, and such, more or less, is the character of Jebel Musa, which is about two miles long from north to south, and one mile in breadth. The southern peak, on which stand a little chapel and the ruins of a mosque, is its highest point; and although the name of Jebel Musa is used for the whole mountain, it is more especially applied to this one peak.

On the east of the mountain runs Wady ed-Deir, “the Valley of the Convent,” so called from the convent of St. Catharine, which is situated near its head. On the west of it runs Wady Shreich, a very steep and rocky valley, containing old monastic gardens and a copious spring. This valley, again, is separated by the narrow ridge of Jebel Fara from Wady Leja, a valley lying farther westward.

Thus, on the north, east, and west, Jebel Musa [Horeb] is separated from the surrounding mountains; on the south two smaller valleys—one flowing eastward into Wady Sebaiyeh, and the other westward into Wady Leja—separate it also from the range of mountains which lies between the Wady Sebaiyeh and Jebel Catharine. And so, being isolated by valleys from the mountains on every side, it would be by no means difficult to set bounds round about it, while, at the same time, its northern cliffs rise so precipitously from the plain beneath that it might well be described as “a mountain that could be touched,” and at the nether part of which the people could stand. It is easily seen on the spot that the Wady Sebaiyeh could not have been the place where the Israelites were assembled to receive the Law. That valley does not lie immediately below the mountain; and its character, position, and extent, all appear to render such a view extremely improbable. On the other hand, no place could be conceived more suitable than the plain of Er Rahah for the assembling together of many thousands of people, both to witness “the thunders and lightning, and the thick cloud upon the mount,” and to hear the voice of the Lord, when he spake unto them.

The plain itself is upward of two miles long, and half a mile broad, and slopes gradually down from the water-shed on the north to the foot of Ras Sufsafeh. About three hundred yards from the actual base of the mountain there runs across the plain a low, semicircular mound, which forms a kind of natural theatre, while farther distant on either side of the plain the slopes of the enclosing mountains would afford seats to an almost unlimited number of spectra of the water-shed of the plain of Er Rahah, and runs westward into the Wady T’lah; and a fourth is formed by the drainage from the mountains of Umm Alawy, to the east of Wady Sebaiyeh, and finds its way into that valley by a narrow ravine opposite Jebel ed-Deir. In addition to these streams there are numerous wells and springs, affording excellent water. Throughout the whole of the granitic district I have seldom found it necessary to carry water when making a mountain excursion; and the immediate neighborhood of Jebel Musa would, I think, bear comparison with many mountain districts in Scotland with regard to its supply of water. There is also no other district in the peninsula which affords such excellent pasturage. Holland.

Jebel Musa is not a single peak, but a huge mountain block, about two miles in length and one mile in breadth, with a narrow valley on

tors. The members of our expedition were unanimous in their conviction that the Law was given from Ras Sufsafeh to the Israelites assembled in the plain of Er Rahah.

It appears to be quite unnecessary to suppose that all the tents of the Israelites were pitched before the mount; but I may mention that there is near the mouth of Wady Leja an extensive recess, about a mile and a half long, by three quarters of a mile broad, which would add largely to the available camping-ground so situated. With regard to the water-supply, there is no other spot in the whole peninsula which is nearly so well supplied as the neighborhood of Jebel Musa [Horeb]. Four streams of running water are found there: one in Wady Leja [it runs just at the foot of Sufsafeh. S. C. B.]; a second in Wady T’lah, which waters a succession of gardens extending more than three miles in length, and forms pools in which I have often had a swim; a third stream rises to the north either side (Wady Shreich and Wady ed-Deir), a somewhat larger one at the southeastern extremity (Wady Sebaiyeh), and a spacious plain, ER RAHAH, at the northwestern end. The summit (Jebel Musa, the southeastern end) is invisible from any part of the spacious plain of Er Rahah. Fronting that plain and commanding a view of its entire extent is the magnificent bluff called RAS SUFSAFEH, in which the mountain terminates on the northwestern end of the massive block. Palmer.

Sufsafeh, while affording this magnificent amphitheatre at its very foot, and while so facile of ascent, rises sharp, grand, and absolutely separate and solitary; a unique temple, not made with hands, fit resting-place for the glory of the sole Jehovah. S. C. B.

The “nether part of the mount”—namely, the bluff of Sufsafeh, rises so abruptly from the plain that you may literally stand under it and touch its base. Palmer.—I was astonished at the literal truth of the Scripture passage which speaks of the mountain that might be touched. I had often wondered what it meant, for it seemed a natural question respecting any mountain, “Where it commenced.” Now, however, when I saw Mount Sinai, the literal truth of the whole description flashed upon me. Duff.

The whole block of Jebel Musa is so separated from the adjacent mountains by narrow rugged valleys that it would be easy to “set bounds about the mount.”

The full proportions of the Ras Sufsafeh are best seen from the approach by the great plain of Er Rahah. At the base of the bluff is a long semicircular mound, forming a sort of amphitheatre, from which a select congregation of elders might obtain a nearer view of the mountain. Palmer.

The Plain of Er Rahah.

It is clear that at the foot of Sinai there was a plain commanding a view of the mountain from every part, and sufficiently large to admit of the people manoeuvring upon it; at one time to “come near and stand under the mountain,” at another “to remove and stand afar off.” The words of the Bible (Ex. 19:17) do not imply that all the Israelites were encamped upon the plain itself. They would doubtless spread over a considerable area, and occupy many of the neighboring glens, valleys, and mountain-sides, especially where there was plenty of water and pasturage for their flocks and herds. All that is required is a plain capable of affording standing room for the Israelites as spectators; and the plain of Er Rahah more than satisfies this condition. Palmer.—There is space for the entire host of the Israelites, taking the highest calculation of their numbers. This fact, of cardinal importance in the question, is attested by the military officers who conducted the survey. Indeed Sir Henry James concurs with those officers in the opinion that no spot in the world can be pointed out which combines in a more remarkable manner the conditions of a commanding height, and of a plain in every part of which the sights and sounds described in Exodus would reach an assembled multitude of more than two million souls. Cook.

That such a plain should exist in front of such a cliff is so remarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative as to furnish a strong internal argument, not merely of its identity with the scene, but of the scene itself having been described by an eye-witness. The awful and lengthened approach, as to some natural sanctuary, would have been the fittest preparation for the coming scene. The low line of alluvial mounds at the foot of the cliff exactly answers to the “bounds” which were to keep the people off from “touching the mount.” The plain itself is not broken and uneven, and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the range, but presenting a long retiring sweep, against which the people could “remove and stand afar off.” The cliff, rising like a huge altar in front of the whole congregation, and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very image of the “mount that might not be touched,” and from which “the voice” of God might be heard far and wide over the stillness of the plain below. Stanley.

As we advanced [from the north toward Er Rahah] the valley still opened wider and wider, shut in on each side by lofty granite ridges with rugged shattered peaks a thousand feet high, while the face of Horeb rose directly before us. Both my companion and myself involuntarily exclaimed: “Here is room enough for a large encampment!” Reaching the top of the ascent, a fine broad plain lay before us, sloping down gently toward the S. S. E., enclosed by rugged and venerable mountains of dark granite, stern, naked, splintered peaks and ridges, of indescribable grandeur, and terminated at the distance of more than a mile by the bold and awful front of Horeb, rising perpendicularly in frowning majesty from twelve to fifteen hundred feet high. It was a scene of solemn grandeur, and the associations which at the moment rushed upon our minds were almost overwhelming. Robinson.

As we picked our way down the rocky pass, there opened before us, not a narrow mountain gorge, nor even a somewhat spacious wady, but a plain over two miles long and half a mile wide, which was enclosed by hills, and thus formed a natural amphitheatre. It was not level, but slightly descending, like the floor of some grand auditorium, so that all who stood upon it might be in full sight and hearing of a vision and a voice that were in the very focus of this vast circumference. Every eye could be fixed upon that awful mount. Such an arena, a hundred times more spacious than the Coliseum at Rome, seems as if prepared for a great assembly and a great occasion. Never was there a spot more fitted for a scene so august. No sooner does one enter it than he feels that it must have been intended for the camp of Israel, and for the hearing of the Law. The impression grows as we advance toward the foot of the mount, for at each step we pass over the very ground where Israel stood. . . . From the top of Sufsafeh we observed what we had noticed in the plain, that the ground is lowest nearest the mountain, and that it rises as it recedes, like the seats of an amphitheatre, so that all converge to one point, which is the centre of the scene. At the farther end of the plain the surface is more broken, rising and falling in gentle undulations, so that if any fled terror-stricken from the base of the mount, they could still behold it afar off, from the distant slopes, while they heard the mighty voice that swept across the plain, and reverberated like thunder in the farthest recesses of the mountains. Field.

In the afternoon I went by myself down Wady ed-Deir and up the plain of Er Rahah to the water-shed. The air was so clear that objects a mile distant seemed quite close at hand. This noble plain, over two miles long and half a mile wide, is almost perfectly smooth in its whole extent, with scattered tufts of desert herbage only; and it would be as difficult to find here a place that was unfit for a camp as in Sebaiyeh to find a spot that was fit. There could hardly be a more magnificent area for the purpose recorded in the Scriptures, all in full sight of and close contact with the sharply-defined and isolated peak at its foot, while surrounded by all facilities for pasturage and water-supply. It was an easy thing to surrender the mind and heart to all the historic associations of the ancient scene. S. C. B.

View from the Southeastern Summit—Jebel Musa.

The summit of the mount was reached, a holy place to the mightier half of the nations of the earth, to Jews, Moslems, and Christians. The view from its height of 7000 feet extends over a circle of more than 360 miles in diameter, and 1600 miles in circumference: a rugged outline of a desert panorama of terrible beauty under the blue vault of the purest and brightest heaven of Arabia. No other place comes near to it in all this. On the east and west the eye catches glimpses of the girdle of sea which encircles the highlands of the peninsula: beyond it are seen the ranges of Arabian and Egyptian heights. In the space between no green meadow, no cultivated field, no wood, no brook, no village, no Alpine hut. Only storm and thunder resound in the wilderness of Sinai, else forever silent. Schubert.—Everywhere the rocks are rent, fissured, and crumbling; breaking off along steep walls, and traversed by dry ravines and treeless valleys. The ideas of solitude, of waste, and desolation contend with those of awe and admiration. Beyond, the eye wanders over a succession of rugged mountains and deep ravines, bounded on either hand by the deep depressions in which lie the Gulfs of Suez and Akabah. Distant glimpses of the tableland of the Tih to the north, and of the mountains of Edom which bound the Arabah on the east, are also obtained. Hull.

One who went from the summit of Jebel Musa, along the heights to Sufsafeh, says: “No one who has not seen them can conceive the ruggedness of these vast piles of granite rocks, rent into chasms, rounded into small summits, or splintered into countless peaks, all in the wildest confusion, as they appear to the eye of an observer from any of the heights. But when we did arrive at the summit of Sufsafeh, and cast our eyes over the wide plain, we were more than repaid for all our toil. One glance was enough. We were satisfied that here, and here only, could the wondrous displays of Sinai have been visible to the assembled host of Israel; that here the Lord spoke with Moses; that here was the mount that trembled and smoked in presence of its manifested Creator! We gazed for some time in silence; and when we spoke, it was with a reverence that even the most thoughtless of our company could not shake off. I read on the very spot, with what feelings I need not say, the passage in Exodus which relates the wonders of which this mountain was the theatre. We felt its truth, and could almost see the lightnings and hear the thunders, and the ’trumpet waxing loud.’ I had stood upon the Alps in the middle of July, and looked abroad upon their snowy empire; I had stood upon the Apennines, and gazed upon the plains of beautiful Italy; I had stood upon the Albanian Mount, and beheld the scene of the Cneid from the Circean promontory, over the Campagna, to the eternal city and the mountains of Tivoli; I had sat down upon the pyramids of Egypt, and cast my eyes over the sacred city of Heliopolis, the land of Goshen, the fields of Jewish bondage, and the ancient Memphis, where Moses and Aaron, on the part of God and his people, contended with Pharaoh and his servants, the death of whose ‘firstborn of man and beast in one night’ filled the land with wailing; but I had never set my feet on any spot from whence was visible so much stern, gloomy grandeur, heightened by the silence and solitude that reign around, but infinitely more by the awful and sacred associations of the first great revelation in form from God to man.” Durbin.

OF law, there can no less be acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempt from her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a different sort and name, yet all, with one uniform consent, admire her as the mother of their peace and joy. Hooker.

The Law—the intermediate point between the fall and redemption—had its preparation as well as the Gospel. When the properly legal period came, the materials to a considerable extent were already in existence, and only needed to be woven and consolidated into a compact system of truth and duty. It is enough to instance the case of the Sabbath, not formally imposed though divinely instituted from the first—the rite of piacular sacrifice, very similar as to its original institution—the division of animals into clean and unclean—the consecration of the tenth to God—the sacredness of blood—the Levirate usage—the ordinance of circumcision. The whole of these had their foundations laid, partly in the procedure of God, partly in the consciences of men, before the Law entered; and in regard to some of them the Law’s prescriptions might be said to be anticipated, while still the patriarchal age was in progress. P. F.

The Mosaic economy was a school of preparatory training, in which certain habits of thought and feeling were to be wrought into the national character by a forcible pressure from without. Under such a system the forms of religion are of paramount importance, for it is by these that the inner spirit is to be called into existence. The object aimed at is to hold human nature in a fixed mould until it has received the desired impression and imbibed the spirit which lies latent in the form; the mould, therefore, must be of inflexible material, incapable of expansion and contraction, and of elaborate finish, and must press from without upon all parts of the religious life. The lawgiver will multiply rules, enjoin specific acts of religion, appoint “days and months and times and years;” instead of general principles, issue literal prescriptions; in short, construct such a religious polity as, by the Divine wisdom, was imposed on the Israelitish people. Litton.—The Mosaic system as a whole in all its great departments was preparative. It was not intended to endure. It bore within itself the evidence of its own transitoriness. Israel was allowed scarcely any initiative. He was confined to routine. The utmost precision in following that routine was his merit. That routine was his sacred trust. Yet it was more than dead routine. It was a Divine education. It provided the germs of all those moral or mental states and operations which are involved in man’s first becoming reconciled to God, and then living as a loyal citizen of God’s kingdom. It provided, also, for the gradual, and at length the complete development of those germs. Grey.

The time was now come for the revelation of a Divine law, extending to every department of their religious and civil life, perfect in its adaptation to its end. That end was to educate a nation so degraded by oppression, so little capable of moral principle, that some rules were enacted (as we know on the highest authority), because of “the hardness of their hearts.” And yet throughout these rules, merely ceremonial and coercive as they may seem at first sight, there was a profounder purpose which they no less perfectly fulfilled, and that was to develop in this nation a sense of sin, and a conviction that God is the only redeemer from sin, which prepared the seed of Abraham for the fulfilment of the promise, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. J. P. N.—This chosen family has now become a nation, ready to be planted on the hills of Palestine along the Mediterranean as the spiritual lighthouse of the nations. And Moses is selected as the agent of God to convey to them from God himself a system of religious and civil government adapted to the designs which Providence intended to accomplish by this chosen people—namely, to hold up the standard which he designed to erect of the one true God in opposition to the world’s idolatry; to exhibit them as an example of God’s divine providence over men, by rewarding their piety and punishing their sins; and to prepare the way, by them, for the promised Saviour Christ Jesus.

Here was indeed a lofty purpose to be accomplished by a system of law—something more than the ordinary purpose of “protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If a scheme of law was contrived to answer such an end effectually, it is thereby demonstrated to be of God. S. R.

Israel was not to be merely a nation, like the other nations, resting on no other basis than that of natural life. According to its vocation and its destiny it was to be the nation of God, the holy nation, the chosen race, the possessor and messenger of salvation for all the nations of the earth. Moses, the deliverer of the people by the power of God, led them to the majestic altar of the Lord, that altar which he, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, had erected for himself among the rocks of Sinai, with their heads lifted toward heaven; and there they were set apart as a holy nation. But as God never demands without giving, so he never gives without demanding. And therefore, when Israel entered upon the privileges of the covenant-nation, and obtained possession of the gifts and goods, the promises and hopes of the covenant, it necessarily undertook the duties of a covenant-nation, and submitted to the commandments, the restrictions, and the sacrifices which such a relation involved. The conclusion of the covenant was therefore accompanied by the giving of a law, which defined the privileges and prescribed the duties of the covenant nation. This Law also conferred upon Israel a constitution, suited to its vocation and its future destiny, by which its internal organization was completed, its external distinctions defined, and its safety insured. The events attendant upon the legislation and the conclusion of the covenant ushered in the second step in the onward progress of the nation—namely, the determination of the peculiar constitution, which was henceforth to regulate the course and development of the history of Israel—in other words, the establishment of the Theocracy. The mediator of the covenant and the agent in the foundation of the Theocracy was Moses, the man of God. K.

A large portion of the second and fourth books of the Pentateuch (Exodus and Numbers), and nearly the whole of its third and fifth books (Leviticus and Deuteronomy), are occupied with the Laws, which Moses was the instrument of giving to the Jewish people. He keeps ever before our eyes the fact that the Law was the Law of Jehovah. This is the only authentic case, in the history of the world, of a newly-formed nation receiving at once and from one legislator a complete code of laws for the direction of their whole future course of life. P. S.

The most ancient legislators, to enforce their codes by irrefragable authority, have pretended to deliver them as of Divine origin; but these, like all other human institutions, have decayed and perished. The fabulous deities of Polytheism never manifested themselves by a prodigality of miracles; but the sublime Hebrew appeals to “the many great and terrible things their eyes had seen from the God of Israel.” The laws of other legislators have passed away, for their views were transient as the glory of the people to whom they were administered—there was no holy principle in them of enduring potency to carry them beyond the state they governed. But the laws of Moses—unaltered as they were first delivered to his race, breathing the inspiration in which they originated, and binding together the spirit of religion with the spirit of polity—after countless ages are now operating on their unchangeable people, still ancient and still our contemporaries! The sublime legislator led his people like children; and the immortal historian of the Hebrews was struck by this great singularity. Thus speaks Josephus: “We live under our laws as under the care of the father of a family; and that we may not fail in them on the plea of ignorance, our legislator, not satisfied that we should hear them once or twice, has obliged us to abstain from all labors one day in the week, that we may apply ourselves to hear and to learn them; a circumstance which all other legislators seem to have neglected.” D’Israeli.

Historically, ethnologically, politically, the Greek and Roman founders are nearer to us, much nearer to us, than the Oriental Lawgiver; but spiritually, humanly, in all that concerns our truest, our most central manhood, how much more akin to us is Moses than Lycurgus or Numa? How much better we understand—not his writings merely, but his humanity as one with our humanity. How much more does he enter, not only into the religion, but into the literature, the legislation, in a word, the whole thinking of our modern society, than any influence that has descended from Greek or Roman books. T. L.—The uniqueness of the leadership of Moses consists less in the number and character of the functions he assumed, than in the manner of discharging them. In him the grandeur of the prophetic office received its highest expression; beside him, the greatest prophets of other religions seem pygmies. Mahomet, in so far as his message was new, was intelligible only to certain martial and passionate, half-civilized peoples of Asia and Africa. To Moses progressive mankind has listened, and must forever continue reverently to listen; for the truths he taught are the only basis of durable and healthful progress. Morse.

Moses tells us that these laws are not his; he is only the interpreter of that God who delivered his people; in the name of that great God and by commission from Him, they were given to the Jews. The obligation to observe them flows from His sovereign will, which is always wise and just, and the only solid foundation of virtue; and the sanctions of these laws are that prosperity which He promises to them as the reward of their obedience, and those dreadful scourges which He denounces against them in case of disobedience. These sanctions no other legislator ever presumed to give to his laws, but here they were verified by a wonderful series of events. Every part of the Jewish legislation displays the high and Divine wisdom of the legislator. Its doctrines are rational and sublime; its religious and moral precepts, holy and pure; its political, military, and civil laws are wise, equitable, and mild; even its ritual laws are founded in reason; all of them, in short, are admirably suited to the designs and views of the legislator, to the circumstances of time, place, climate, to the inclinations of the Hebrews, and to the manners of the neighboring nations. There is nothing in this legislation that contradicts the laws of nature or of virtue. Everything here breathes justice, piety, honesty, benevolence. Its object, its antiquity, its origin, its duration, the talents and virtues of the legislator, the respect of so many nations, all these things conspire to prove the excellence of it. Jews Letters.

When we speak of the Law, we reach a plane purely Divine. But we feel how fitting beyond all other men was the man selected and trained by God to communicate that legislation to the Jewish nation, and, in its basis and a multitude of its principles and details, to the world. For it has been well said: “Throughout Europe, with its American dependencies, the larger part of Asia, and the north of Africa, the opinions, the usages, the civil as well as the religious ordinances, retain deep and indelible traces of their descent from the Hebrew polity;” and these traces are growing wider and deeper as Christian civilization is moving round the world. It was a law eternal in its principles, though national in its adaptation, and tinged with traces of the desert in which it was first given to man. An.

The leading principle is its theocratic character—i.e., its reference of all actions and thoughts of men directly and immediately to the will of God. But this theocratic character of the Law depends necessarily on the belief in God, as not only the Creator and sustainer of the world, but as, by special covenant, the head of the Jewish nation. This immediate reference to God as their king is clearly seen as the groundwork of their whole polity. From this theocratic nature of the Law follow important deductions with regard to (a) the view which it takes of political society; (b) the extent of the scope of the Law; (c) the penalties by which it is enforced; and (d) the character which it seeks to impress on the people. (a) The Mosaic Law seeks the basis of its polity, first, in the absolute sovereignty of God, next in the relationship of each individual to God, and through God to his countrymen. It is clear that such a doctrine, while it contradicts none of the common theories (of the delegation of individual rights to political authorities, mutual needs of men, “social compact,” etc.), yet lies beneath them all. (b) The Law, as proceeding directly from God, and referring directly to him, is necessarily absolute in its supremacy and unlimited in its scope. It is supreme over the governors, as being only the delegates of the Lord, and therefore it is incompatible with any despotic authority in them. On the other hand, it is supreme over the governed, recognizing no inherent rights in the individual, as prevailing against or limiting the Law. It regulated the whole life of an Israelite. His actions were rewarded and punished with great minuteness and strictness; and that according to the standard, not of their consequences, but of their intrinsic morality. His religious worship was defined and enforced in an elaborate and unceasing ceremonial. (c) The penalties and rewards by which the Law is enforced are such as depend on the direct Theocracy. With regard to individual actions, as some penalties are generally inflicted by the subordinate, and some only by the supreme authority, so among the Israelites some penalties came from the hand of man, some directly from the providence of God. The bearing of this principle on the inquiry as to the revelation of a future life in the Pentateuch, is easily seen. The sphere of moral and religious action and thought to which the Law extends is beyond the cognizance of human laws and the scope of their ordinary penalties, and is therefore left by them to the retribution of God’s inscrutable justice, which, being but imperfectly seen here, is contemplated especially as exercised in a future state. Hence arises the expectation of a direct revelation of this future state in the Mosaic Law. Such a revelation is certainly not given. The truth seems to be that in a law which appeals directly to God himself for its authority and its sanction, there cannot be that broad line of demarcation between this life and the next which is drawn for those whose power is limited by the grave. (d) But perhaps the most important consequence of the theocratic nature of the Law was the peculiar character of goodness which it sought to impress on the people. The Mosaic Law, beginning with piety, as its first object, enforces most emphatically the purity essential to those who, by their union with God, have recovered the hope of intrinsic goodness, while it views righteousness and love rather as deductions from these than as independent objects. The appeal is not to any dignity of human nature, but to the obligations of communion with a Holy God. The subordination, therefore, of this idea also to the religious idea is enforced; and so long as the due supremacy of the latter was preserved, all other duties would find their places in proper harmony. But the usurpation of that supremacy in practice by the idea of personal and national sanctity was that which gave its peculiar color to the Jewish character. It is evident that this characteristic of the Israelites would tend to preserve the seclusion which, under God’s providence, was intended for them, and would in its turn be fostered by it. Dic. B.

Of the theology of this system, the first principle is “Hear, O Israel! The Lord thy God is one Lord.” And of the attributes of this one God, the one most prominently brought forth is his self-existence—the very attribute out of which as their source modern scientific theology seeks to develop logically all the attributes of God. He is the Jehovah—“I am that I am.” This self-existent God is supreme. “Know therefore this day the Lord, he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else.” This self-existent and Supreme God possesses, also, every perfection: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.” And this God is governing the universe not merely by general laws, but by a particular providence over the affairs of men. He is a God nigh at hand. For the very foundation of this whole civil Government was reliance upon this special providence of Jehovah over it. Contrast these pure and lofty, yea most philosophical conceptions of God, with the ideas current in that era of the world, as testified by the history of all the monuments of that era of civilization; and let any one account, if he can, for these ideas of Moses in such marked antagonism to all the theological theories of the world, and separated by a gulf as wide and bridgeless as that between heaven above and earth beneath from all the theologies of the world, on any other theory than that Moses was guided directly by God himself. S. R. The primary truth of the theology of the Jewish system, the truth which underlies the whole system, the truth which it is the leading object of the system to unfold and enforce, is that great doctrine, which forms the basis of all true religion—the self-existence, eternity, unity, perfections, and providence of Jehovah, the creator of heaven and earth. Setting itself in opposition to the universal religious belief and practice of mankind, at the time of its promulgation, it rejected and denounced all false gods; all image-worship, whether the object of adoration was intended as a representation of the true God or of idols; and all the absurdities, pollutions, impieties, and abominations of idolatry, of every name and sort. Nor was this all. The Law of Moses revealed, in type and shadow, the whole mystery of redemption, through the sacrificial death and the intercession of Jesus Christ. It prepared the way for the introduction and universal diffusion of that more spiritual religion, which was promulgated in the Gospel. This is largely proved by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Still further: Not only did the Mosaic Law maintain the radical principles of true theology, not only did it prepare by its typical representations for the introduction of the Gospel and the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom, but by the spirituality, breadth, and strictness of its moral precepts, it probed the human heart to the core, and laid bare the depths of its depravity. Thus did it expose to man his moral weakness, his inability to obtain eternal happiness on the ground of his own merit, and his need of a justifying righteousness out of himself. Thus did it shut him up to the faith of the Gospel, and serve as “a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ.”

A civil constitution, inseparably interwoven with the worship of the one living God, was, as far as we can judge, an indispensable agency in enabling, rather in compelling the Hebrews to answer their high destination. By this means the worship of the true God would be made imperishable so long as the nation continued a nation. By this means it would happen that religion and the political existence of the people must be annihilated together. Whatever reason, therefore, there was for desiring the overthrow of idolatry, there was the same reason for incorporating the idea of the Divine unity into the political structure of the Hebrew commonwealth.

Heathen legislators employed religion in establishing their political institutions, while Moses made use of a civil constitution as a means of perpetuating religion. With the heathen legislators religion was the means, and government the end, while with him government was the means, and religion the end. Thus Moses made the worship of the one only God the fundamental law of his civil institutions. This law was to remain forever unalterable, through all the changes which lapse of time might introduce into his constitution. There is one God, says the Jewish Lawgiver, and there is none besides him. He is the sole object of religious trust and worship. Himself the supreme being and the necessary source of all other beings, there is no other that can be compared with him. A spirit, pure, immense, infinite—no material form can be a fit symbol of his nature. He framed the universe by his power; he governs it by his wisdom; he regulates it by his providence. Nothing escapes his omniscient glance; nothing can resist his almighty power. The good and evil of life are alike dispensed by his righteous hand.

A public worship of this God is instituted. Ministers to preside over it are appointed. Sacrifices and offerings and a splendid ceremonial are established. But all this pomp is nothing in his eyes, unless prompted and animated by the sentiments of the heart. The worship which he demands, before all and above all, is the acknowledgment of our absolute dependence and of his supreme dominion; gratitude for his benefits; trust in his mercy; reverence for his authority; love toward his excellence; and submission to his Law.

What purity and beauty in the moral doctrines of this code! Equity, probity, fidelity, industry, compassion, charity, beneficence—in a word, everything that makes men respectable in their own eyes, everything that can endear them to their fellows, everything that can assure the repose and happiness of society—are placed among the number of human duties.

Where else, in all antiquity, are to be found ideas of God and his worship so just and sublime; religious institutions so pure and spiritual; ethical doctrines so conformable to the sentiments of nature and the light of reason? Recall the picture of the religious and moral condition of the ancient world. What false and grotesque notions of the Divine nature! What extravagant, impure, and cruel rites! What objects of adoration! From the heavenly orbs to the meanest plant, from the man distinguished for his talents or his crimes to the vilest reptile—everything has its worshippers. Here, chastity is sacrificed in the temples. There, human blood flows upon the altars, and the dearest victims expire amid flames, kindled by superstition. Again, nature is outraged by beastly amours, and humanity brutalized by vices that cannot be named without offence. Everywhere the people are plunged into a frightful ignorance, and the philosophers themselves grope in doubt and uncertainty. Wherefore this difference? But one cause, adequate to the result, can be assigned. All the pagan nations had for their guide only the feeble and tremulous light of human reason. Among the Hebrews, a higher, even the pure and eternal reason, had pierced the darkness, scattered its shades, and poured a Divine illumination into the mind of prophet, priest, lawgiver, judge, and king. Thus was the intellect of the nation enlightened and its heart purified. Thus were its manners humanized, its morals elevated, its institutions liberalized. Thus was the nation educated for its great mission of guidance and of blessing to all the nations of the earth, in all the periods of their history.

The Hebrew government was a government of tutelage. No form of polity has ever approached it in grandeur, purity, simplicity, and beneficence. Had men been more perfect, it would have stood forever. But human inconstancy wearied even of a perfect government; mortal passions corrupted even a Divine institution; and the commonwealth of Israel, like the empire of Rome, at length fell beneath the weight of its own vices, and disappeared from the brotherhood of nations. It lives only in history, a monument at once of the Divine goodness and equity. E. C. W.

Old Testament Ethics is practical. It sets before man a vivid thought of God and of his will as the reason for duty. Old Testament ethics is not a philosophy; the Hebrews had none. It is not speculative; it has no abstract reasonings about the nature or grounds of duty. It enforces duty by considerations drawn from the direct, personal relation which men sustain to the holy God. Men are to be merciful because God has been merciful to them. The motives of gratitude are all drawn from this personal relation. When they are threatened for disobedience, the same conception of God as directly rewarding and punishing is vividly presented.

The commandments and prohibitions of the Old Testament all bear this personal character. Duty is obedience to God, and whatever the motives by which it is enforced, they are drawn from a vivid realization of the character of God as personal, and of every man’s relation as direct to him. How any one could volatilize the Old Testament conceptions, as Matthew Arnold has done, so as to find in the God of the Jews only a non-personal “not-ourselves,” in their monotheism only “seriousness,” and in Old Testament morals and religion only an “aspect of the not-ourselves,” “which makes for righteousness,” and then, to crown all, could conceive the “righteousness” of the Old Testament as only equivalent to “conduct” (“Literature and Dogma,” p. 31), is a psychological problem for which the known laws of normal human thought furnish no solution. The facts are, that the Old Testament conception of God is most intensely personal, amounting even to ascriptions of events to his personal agency which we are wont to attribute to nature, or to the working of providential laws.

Old Testament ethics deals with man as he is. It does not speculate; it does not argue with him. It assumes that the will of the personal God is law, and it bases its commands and precepts upon that will as revealed to chosen leaders and teachers. It adapts itself to man in his actual needs and conditions. It gives no vague principles; it tells him what to do; it proclaims the consequences if he disobeys. It doesn’t look upon sin as an abstraction, but as a reality—concrete and guilty. It is personal and practical throughout.

Old Testament ethics is not merely individual, but social. It has the building up of society always in view. “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.” It teaches not merely what a man shall be and do, considered apart by himself, but what he shall be as a member of a community which is to have a collective unity as God’s people. The rights of men in their mutual relations and their corresponding duties have a large place in this morality. This is not the case among primitive heathen peoples. There all is atomism. Here life is organic. There the principle is: Every man for himself. Here the idea prevails that every man is his “brother’s keeper.” Every man is keeper of his brother’s rights and privileges as far as he has any relations to him. Hence the Mosaic Law contains ameliorations for the unfortunate, the poor, and the enslaved unknown to any other primitive people. Every seventh year the land lay fallow “that the poor of thy people may eat.” The grain in the corners of the field and the fallen fruit of the vineyard were left for the poor. In the year of jubilee all slaves went free; all cruelty and inhumanity in their treatment during servitude were severely forbidden. In like manner the family was protected and fostered as in no other primitive community. Crimes against purity were rigorously punished, and the ideal Hebrew woman was she “in whom the heart of her husband doth safely trust” (Prov. 31: 11). The evils of polygamy, so universal in early ages, were mitigated, and principles were set in operation which at length secured its termination. Thus the Old Testament morality aimed at founding a social fabric in which the notion of Theocracy—the reign of God—shall be realized. The watchword of this society is “Holiness;” and both the idea and the ground of this holiness are derived from the holiness of the personal God: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” And just as the life of the individual was not for itself alone, but for the community, so the life of the community was not for itself alone, but for the world. As early as the covenant with Abraham it was clearly stated that the blessing guaranteed to him was for the world (Gen. 18: 18). The undercurrent of thought running through the Old Testament is that Israel is charged with a world-redeeming mission. The Messianic hope everywhere presupposes this. The whole process of moral training, therefore, has this greater result for its goal. It has in view the universal good. Stevens.

If we compare the Mosaical and the Christian dispensations, we may observe that both proceeded from the same author, teach the same religion, inculcate the same moral duties, breathe the same spirit of devotion, love, and purity, and are mutually connected with each other. The former was preparatory to the latter, and typical of it. The former, as to its ritual, was the shadow; the latter is the substance. The former was partial in its discoveries, material in its ordinances, limited in its application, and temporary in its duration; but completeness, spirituality, universality, and perpetuity are the attributes of the latter. An.

Consider the Hebrew Law as designed and formed to answer many useful ends, all of them of great service to the state of the Church and world at that time; observe carefully how it answered the great ends of religion, the true knowledge of the one true God, in a worship honorable and acceptable to Him; and how well it improved the mind in virtue and real goodness, the true perfection and happiness of the soul. Consider it further as a wise and most effectual means to prevent the great and most dangerous progress of idolatry, which threatened the extirpation of all true religion, and with it the true principles of virtue, out of the world. Observe, once more, of what great use this Law was, to prepare the minds of all men, Gentiles as well as Jews, for the more perfect state of a Catholic Church, when in the fulness of time the promised Messiah should come, and you will find great reason to justify and admire this constitution as an instance of great wisdom and goodness in God, of great favor to the family of Abraham, and of universal advantage to all the nations of the earth when the mystery of Christ was revealed, that “the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and partakers of his promise in Christ, by the Gospel” (Eph. 3:6). Loveman.

The Sinai covenant [Mosaic system] is to be considered in its twofold character of a law to convict of sin, and a gospel to teach pardon and justification by faith, and that a faith which purifies the heart. In this view it is, on the one hand, a law of commandments “exceeding broad, reaching to the thoughts and intents of the heart,” with Divine annotations showing the application of its precepts to every relation of man as a creature of God, and as a social being with relations to his fellow-men. On the other hand, it sets forth in fullest detail the Gospel salvation by symbols and types. The perpetual daily offering of the lamb upon the altar is its central symbol; and around that ancient figure of the old covenants is arranged, in eloquent symbols, the whole subjective process of salvation—faith, purification—consecration to Jehovah. It is law, but not antithetical to the Gospel, or as contrasted with the doctrines of Jesus and his apostles. It is law and gospel both. Nay the very Law itself is grounded upon an evangelical motive, “I am Jehovah thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt”—who have redeemed thee, and entitled myself to grateful service and obedience—therefore worship me only; nor in deed, nor word, nor desire, do any injury to thy fellows. Hence, that which is most distinctively ethical in the Sinai revelations is yet distinctly evangelical in the ground and motive of obedience. Having in literal terms furnished a law of life to convict of sin, far more clear and in detail than any previous revelation, the Sinai covenant proceeds also, far more clearly and in detail than ever before, not only to hold up as heretofore the Gospel provision for sin in atoning blood, but the Gospel instructions for the application of that provision to the conscience of the sinner by faith—the cleansing of the heart to which such faith leads, and the consecration of the life to the Redeemer. Thus the Gospel according to Moses differs neither in creed nor practical religion from the Gospel according to Jesus and Paul, but only in the language in which, from the necessity of the case, it had to find utterance. S. R.

Form of the Mosaic Legislation.

The legislation, properly so called, comprises a series of minute yet laconic regulations directly opposite in form to the endless iterations and synonyms of modern statute books. These laws, instead of being wrought into a system, or standing insulated by themselves, are interrupted yet connected by a running narrative, with dates and geographical specifications, at unequal intervals. . . . The legislation is one in purpose and harmonious in detail, but recorded in the order of its promulgation. It differs from a formal system, such as some would find in it, just as a modern statute book or digest differs from the journal of a legislative body in which the enactments are recorded at length. It is a code of laws inserted in a frame of history. To this fact due regard must be had in the interpretation of the laws themselves. J. A. A.

The laws of the Pentateuch are anything but a carefully arranged code. You have laws intermixed with the history, laws repeated, laws inserted, apparently as they were given by God, or as the need arose. In its lack of arrangement, it is just the book which Moses might have been supposed to write during the desert wanderings, when he had to bear the burden of the people alone. Watson.

Divisions of the Law.

As the people of Israel may be viewed under a threefold aspect, so we have a foundation laid in this fact for a threefold acceptance of the word Law. They may be viewed: (1) As rational and responsible creatures, depending upon God and subject to his will as the supreme Ruler and Judge of the universe. In this capacity the law of the ten commandments, or the moral law, was given to them, which is substantially one and the same with the law of nature, and binding all men as such. (2) As the Church of the Old Testament, expecting the Messiah, and furnished with a system of worship embracing a great variety of rites and ceremonies which pointed more or less distinctly to Him. Viewed in this ecclesiastical character, God bestowed upon them the ceremonial law, which was a body of rules and precepts regulating their religious worship. (3) As a peculiar people, having a civil polity and constitution especially appointed for them and distinguishing them from all other nations, their government being in fact a theocracy, in which God himself was their supreme magistrate. Viewed in this light a code of civil laws was prescribed them. The term “the Law” is sometimes applied to one of these systems, and sometimes to another, and again to the whole taken collectively; so that we must often be governed in great measure by the context in determining the precise sense in which the term is used. It is, however, most legitimately and emphatically employed in reference to the first of these, the moral law, which was distinguished from the others by being audibly delivered by God himself and afterward written by him upon two tables of stone. Bush.

Where in the whole compass of human literature can a summary of moral duty be found comparable to that contained in the Decalogue? Here are the seminal principles of all virtue, piety, filial duty, justice, truth, benevolence, and internal purity. The Law of Moses enjoined supreme love to God, love to our neighbor equal to that which we bear ourselves, reverence for old age, forgiveness of injuries, the rendering of good for evil, mutual kindness, compassion toward the unfortunate, and a generous hospitality. It earnestly enforced the conviction that God requires of his rational creatures not a mere external service, but an internal worship; desires duly regulated; and a benevolence expansive, ardent, and active. It represented the love of God as a practical principle, stimulating to the cultivation of purity, justice, humanity, mercy, and truth. In a word, the Gospel itself has scarcely a single moral precept which had not been already promulgated in the Mosaic institution. In its moral teachings, Christianity does little more than give a greater breadth to principles which Judaism had formed into a body of practical ethics more than a thousand years before Socrates and Plato flourished. E. C. W.

The ceremonial law relates to the priests, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and other religious rites and services. God commanded that those who should be employed about the tabernacle or in the offices of public worship should be of the posterity of Levi; and hence this law is sometimes called the Levitical Law; but the priesthood itself was to be confined to Aaron and his descendants. The principal objects of the ceremonial law were to preserve the Jews from idolatry, to which all the neighboring nations were addicted, and to keep up in their minds the necessity of an atonement for sin. A. C.

The purpose of the ritual law was to teach by signs and actual observances at a time when teaching by language was not understood; and by means of these emblems and usages, all of which referred to Jehovah as King, to instil into the minds of the whole people the feeling that every relation of life, every movement of nature, every detail of human intercourse, placed them in constant dependence on God. Gert.

The highest laws are not to be regarded as useless because they are certain to be generally neglected. The Hebrew Law in regard to sacrifices, attendances at the Temple, and the Holy Convocations was perhaps, even in ordinary times, as much neglected as the rules of the Christian Church are in our day. But the Law was not foiled of its purpose. It was intended to represent human duty in its relation to Divine holiness, to show forth and reprove human weakness, not to stoop to it. Its requirements were not lowered to the probabilities of man’s conduct. It was not, like the legislation of ordinary States, intended primarily to meet the exigencies of existing facts and to keep offenders in order. Its purpose was to help and instruct the best of the people, not merely to chastise the worst. Other legislators have taken their starting points from human facts. Moses took his from the character and purpose of God. Clark.

Beside their political and judicial aspects, these relate to the ownership of the soil, its sale, redemption, and inheritance; to domestic circumstances; to servants or slaves, their treatment and manumission; to debts, lending of money, and the recovery of it; to the rights of the poor, the stranger, the infirm, the old, and even of the lower animals. Almost all of them have a moral import, and rest upon a moral foundation. They aimed at the general good, and at the preservation and training of the people of God with reference to that peculiar position which, in virtue of the moral and ceremonial law and of the Divine promises, they already occupied among the nations. Even this description of laws, which we find scattered up and down from Exodus to Deuteronomy, evince great lenity and indulgence, require the same charity as the moral law demands, and equally put to the test the obedience of the people to that sovereign Lord and King from whom they had been received. The entire legislation, comprehending the civil precepts and administration of justice, has a distinct reference to Jehovah. Reverence, love, and obedience to him were to manifest themselves among the people in all the relations of life. Every law, even such as related to the commonest affairs, was ordained and sanctioned by Jehovah. C. G. B.

If we once admit that all the national concerns of Israel were under an extraordinary guidance from above, it becomes unnecessary to assume a twofold constitution, since all public affairs were in a certain sense religious, because all designed for a religious purpose, and divinely ordered so as to secure it. Under such a dispensation, things which with us require a double machinery could be effected by a single undivided organization. The whole nation was a kingdom of priests. Its rulers, therefore, were religious rulers. In providing for the spiritual wants of the people, provision was effectually made for many of their most important secular interests, or such as must be secular in our case, from the total difference of our situation. Those regulations of the Law which seem to have least of a religious character are not then to be looked upon as fragments of another system, accidentally and partially disclosed, but as the more subordinate and less important parts of that which is described at length. J. A. A.

The Hebrew system surpassed all others, especially in this—that it gave to human government and law the sanction of God’s authority, and enforced them upon the human heart and conscience by this most impressive and benign of all influences. H. C.—Political laws are not only enacted with reference to earthly affairs, in order that men should maintain mutual equity with each other and should follow and observe what is right, but that they should exercise themselves in the veneration of God. For Plato also, when he lays down the legitimate constitution of a republic, calls the fear of God the preface of all laws; and every other profane author has confessed this to be the principal part of a well-constituted state, that all with one consent should reverence and worship God. The wisdom of men was at fault in that they deemed any religion which they might prefer was to be sanctioned by laws and by punishments: yet the principle was a just one, that the whole system of law is perverted if the cultivation of piety is ignored by it. Calv.

This divinely given code rested upon justice and equity, and determined everything by this standard. So doing, it ruled out at once a multitude of interests and ends which human laws have often sought to secure. Its example therefore, in so far at least, was simply and supremely beneficent. It recognized the common and equal rights of all men. It appreciated at their just value the rights of the poor. H. C.—The laws governing the details of business intercourse were all such as to promote industry and peaceful social relations. For they all have their germinal idea in the great command: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” And all their very remarkable social and civil institutions tend to the same end. It is a national government by families in which freedom is secured, property protected, life held sacred, religion, a real religion of the heart, cultivated, beneficence toward the poor and helpless and the stranger inculcated in the most forcible manner. And these also with the most awful sanctions. Even the favor or displeasure of their sovereign, Jehovah himself. S. R.

While the moral law forms the groundwork of the whole political and social constitution of the people, it is perfectly clear that the object of all the other commandments was to bring these ten commandments to bear on every particular of daily life. As the Lawgiver himself is a Spirit, and holy, so are all these commandments holy, and to be understood, not according to the letter only, but after a spiritual, moral, and inward sense. At the same time that the prohibition goes on from deed to word, and from word to desire, it is quite clear that the thing prohibited is not to be understood merely as the outward act, but is regarded in its inmost root—in its inward cause and exciting spirit as an offence against God. Gerl.

Thus the religion of the Hebrews not only included all that regarded the worship of God; it extended to the regulation of the commonwealth, the ratification of the laws, the forms and administration of justice, and almost all the relations of civil and domestic life. With them almost every point of conduct was connected either directly or indirectly with religion. Louth.—In this high position accorded to the community by the theocratic principle of the constitution, what a boon was conferred on Israel! It gave to every one who imbibed the spirit of the constitution the lofty sense of a near relationship to God, and not only warranted, but in a manner constrained him to view everything connected with his state in the light of the Divine will and glory. What he possessed, he held as a sacred charge committed to him from above; what he did, he behooved to do as a steward of the great Lord of heaven and earth. Then, in the oneness of this covenant standing among the families of Israel, what a sacred bond of brotherhood was established! what a security for the maintenance of equal rights and impartial administrations between man and man! Members alike of one divinely constituted community—subjects of one Almighty King—partakers together of one inheritance, and that an inheritance held in simple fee of the same Lord; surely nowhere could the claims of rectitude and love have been more deeply grounded—nowhere could acts of injustice and oppression have worn a character more hateful and unbecoming. P. F.—Their laws were their religion; and their religion, descending from heaven, sent forth a mightier impulse than that uncertain patriotism, which is its imperfect substitute among other nations. D’Israeli.

THERE are three codes which can be clearly discriminated from one another. (1) One is called the Book of the Covenant, and is contained in Ex. 20–24, of which chapter 34 is a compendium. It is expressed in a brief, sententious way, and is in general of a judicial character. (2) Another is contained in De. 12–26, and was called by Eichhorn a people’s code, because of its popular character. It was directed to a people already dwelling in the land of Canaan, and in it Moses comes forward as a prophet of Jehovah to exhort the people to obey the laws made known to them. (3) The third is the Priest code, consisting of the scattered legislation found in the middle books of the Pentateuch, in which the whole Levitical system is developed. Chambers.

The variation in the three codes is so constant that it is impossible to explain it away. These variations were noted in part by Calvin, who wrote a Harmony of the Legislation, but he was not followed by later writers. These variations were more closely scrutinized by Eichhorn, and he explained them on the ground that the Deuteronomic code was a people’s code, the legislation of the middle books a priests’ code. Another important difference to which Riehm calls attention is that the Priest code was designed for a people still wandering in the wilderness, the other for a people dwelling in the land of Canaan. Moreover, the Deuteronomic code is connected with a new covenant besides the original covenant at Horeb (De. 29: 9–14). The Priest code is given as the words of Jehovah revealed to Moses. In the Deuter-

Deuteronomic code Moses comes forward as a popular orator to urge the people to the observance of the laws which he makes known as the prophet of Jehovah.

Thus, according to Eichhorn and Riehm, we have a difference of point of view, which determines the structure and the character of these codes, and necessarily produced a variation throughout. To this discrimination of the Deuteronomic and Priests’ codes we may add that the codes Ex. 20–24 and 34 differ no less strikingly from them both. They were written by Moses in an earlier and later Book of the Covenant. They contain brief, terse, pregnant sentences of command. They resemble the Decalogue itself. . . . We thus have a third and earlier point of view. These three codes, therefore, present us the judicial, the prophetic, and the priestly points of view, which determine the variation in aim, form, structure, and character of the three codes. . . . Let us look at the differences and inquire how they may be harmonized. The following five specimens of variation will be sufficient for our purpose.

(a) In the Priesthood. The Book of the Covenant knows no priests as such, the Deuteronomic code presents the Levites—the whole tribe of Levi—as priests, the Priest code makes the sons of Aaron the priests and Levites subordinate ministers.

(b) In the Altars. The Book of the Covenant commands the erection of altars “in all places” where Jehovah records his name (Ex. 20: 24). The Deuteronomic code forbids the offering of sacrifices at any place save “in the place that

Jehovah chooseth in one of thy tribes” (De. 12 : 13). The Priest code commands the sacrifices to be presented at the door of the tent of meeting, and that the Aaronic priests shall receive the blood and apply it to the altar (Lev. 1, sq.).

(c) The Sacrifices. Those in the Covenant code are burnt offerings and peace offerings only. The Deuteronomic code adds tithes, votive and free will offerings. The Priest code adds the sin and trespass offerings, and specifies various details of the other classes.

(d) Purifications. According to the Covenant code, the men of Israel are holy, and are not to eat flesh of beasts in the field. The Deuteronomic code forbids them to cut themselves, distinguishes the clean from the unclean animals (14 : 3-21), prescribes washing with water for uncleanness (23 : 10, sq.). The Priest code gives an extended series of purifications in the varied use of water, and by the use of ashes of the red heifer (Lev. 12 ; Nu. 19), and various ingredients in the healing of the leper (Lev. 13-14).

(e) The Feasts. The Covenant code ordains the Sabbath, feasts of unleavened bread, harvest and ingatherings, and the seventh year (Ex. 23 : 10-17). The Deuteronomic code mentions the passover, feast of unleavened bread, feast of weeks, feast of tabernacles, and year of release (De. 15, 16). The Priest code gives a complete cycle of feasts (Lev. 23 ; Nu. 28), new moons, Sabbaths, the seven great Sabbaths, passover and unleavened bread, day of first-fruits, feast of trumpets, day of atonement, tabernacles, the seventh year’s feast, the year of jubilee-a most artistic system.

It will be observed that these variations are in the chief features of the ceremonial system. They present the appearance of development from the more simple to the more complex, and in the order, Covenant code, Deuteronomic code, and Priest code. A code for the elders and judges of tribes or clans in their various localities, a code for the instruction of the nation as a whole in rhetorical and popular form, and a code for the priests from the holy place as a centre, in the nature of the case will show a progress from the simple to the more and more complex and elaborate in matters of ritualistic observance. The Covenant code is a series of decalogues for the elders in the administration of justice in various localities. It is based on the Sinaitic covenant, and lies at the root of the Pentateuchal legislation. It is expressly claimed as written by Moses in the two books of the Covenant. The Deuteronomic code is a people’s code in a prophetic form to instruct and stimulate the people of Jehovah as an organic whole. It is based on the experience of the wandering in the wilderness, it looks forward to a prolonged occupation of the promised land, and is based on a new covenant in the plains of Moab. We would expect to find progress and development here, especially on the practical side. This code is also claimed to have been written by Moses, and we can see no sufficient reason for doubting it as to its essential features. The Priest code is from the priestly point of view in connection with the tabernacle and its institutions. It will necessarily exhibit progress and development on the technical side in the details of the ritual. This code is scattered in groups in the middle books, and broken up by insertions of historical incidents, but when put together exhibits an organic whole, a unity and symmetry which is wonderful in connection with the attention given to details. This code is represented as given by Jehovah to Moses or Aaron, or both, but it is not represented as written down by Moses, as is the case with the two other codes. It claims to be Mosaic legislation, but if we should suppose that Eleazar or some other priest gathered these detailed laws and groups of laws into a code in the time subsequent to the conquest, all the conditions of variation and development might be explained.

There are several insuperable obstacles to the composition of the Priest code in the post-exilian period : (1) The language of the Elohist and Priest code is classic, and cannot, on that account, be placed subsequent to Jehoshaphat. The discussions respecting the language of the Elohist have proved beyond question marked differences from the Jehovist and Deuteronomist, but they have not proved any such deflection in syntax of the var consecutive, and multiplication of nouns formed by affixes as characterize Jeremiah and Ezekiel, not to speak of post-exilian writers.

(2) The Priest code is a unit in its wonderful variety of detail. Given the ark of the covenant as the throne of Jehovah, the King of Israel, the holy God, and all the institutions, and the ritual seem to be the most appropriate elaboration of that one idea. They are wrapped up in the idea itself as a germ, and we do not see why it should require centuries for the development of the germ into its legitimate flowers and fruit. An idea like that would be more than seed-corn to Israel in the wilderness. We would expect some such practical development as we do find in the Priest code at the time.

(3) The Priest code is realistic, and its realism is that of the wilderness, of the wanderings, and the nomadic life. This is so inextricably involved with the ideal in all parts of the legislation, so simple, artless, and inartistic, that it seems incredible that it should be pure invention or the elaboration of an ideal which could not escape anachronisms in some particulars.

(4) The Elohist and the Elohistic Priest code differ in their doctrinal and ethical conceptions in many respects from the Jehovist and the Deuteronomist and their codes, but these differences are in type and point of view. The doctrines and morals of the Elohist are still at the basis of the doctrinal and the ethical development of Old Testament theology. In the whole Pentateuch we find the Messianic idea knows nothing of the Messianic king or the suffering servant. In eschatology it knows nothing of the Resurrection, or of the joyful communion with God in Sheol such as we find in Job 19 and Ps. 16. In the appropriation of redemption it is behind the conceptions of Ps. 40, 50; Mic. 6; and Is. 1, 57. In ethics it is less developed than Ps. 15; Is 33, and especially Job 31. The four constituent parts of the Pentateuch resemble one another in theology far more than any of them resemble the Prophets, the Psalter, or the Ethical writings. They differ from one another and yet resemble one another, as do the gospels, and lie at the roots of Old Testament theology, as do the gospels at the basis of the New Testament.

1. We have not one narrative, but a fourfold narrative of the origin of the Old Covenant religion coming down to us from the Mosaic age, as we have a fourfold gospel giving the narrative of the origin of the New Covenant religion. There is, indeed, a remarkable correspondence in these four types or points of view. The second Elohist may be compared with Mark, the Jehovist with Matthew, the first Elohist with Luke, and the Deuteronomist with John. The difference between the Pentateuch and the gospels is that the four narratives of the Pentateuch have been compacted by an inspired redactor; whereas the gospels have to be harmonized by uninspired teachers in the Church. How this unity in variety strengthens the credibility of the Pentateuch! As the four gospels contain the Gospel of Christ, so the narratives of the Pentateuch contain the Law of Moses. As our Saviour is set forth by the evangelist as the mediator of the New Covenant, Moses is set forth by the narratives of the Pentateuch as the mediator of the Old Covenant.

2. The Pentateuch does not give us one Mosaic code, but three codes of Mosaic legislation—a judicial code, a people’s code, and a priest code—contained in the Jehovistic, Elohistic, and Deuteronomic narratives, somewhat as the gospels present us the discourses of Jesus in the varied types peculiar to Matthew, to Luke, and to John. As we harmonize the latter for a complete and symmetrical statement of the doctrine of Jesus, so we harmonize the three codes of the Pentateuch for a complete and symmetrical exposition of the legislation of Moses. The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

3. The Mosaic legislation was delivered through Moses, but it was enforced only in part, and in several stages of advancement, in the historical life and experience of Israel from the conquest to the exile. It was a Divine ideal, a supernatural revealed instruction, to guide the people of Israel throughout their history, and lead them to the prophet greater than Moses, who was to fulfil and complete his legislation. The Law was the true light of Israel until the First Advent, even as the Gospel is the light and guide of the Church until the Second Advent. Israel appropriated more and more the instruction of the Law as the Church has appropriated more and more the doctrine of the Gospel. The history of God’s people under both covenants has been essentially the same—a grand march forward under the supernatural light of a Divine revelation.

4. Law and prophecy are not two distinct and separate modes of revelation, but the same. The Law of Moses was as much prophetic as legal. Moses was even more a prophet than a lawgiver. The prophets of God that followed him all give Divine law as well as Divine prophecy. As the apostles in the New Covenant were not merely expositors of the Gospel, but came forth from the risen and glorified Christ with new revelations, enlarging and completing the Gospel, so the prophets were not mere expositors of the Law, but came forth immediately from the presence of Jehovah as really as Moses did, with new revelations, enlarging and completing the old. The distinction between law and prophecy in the Bible is a fluctuating one, so that the whole Divine revelation may be called law, and also prophecy, according to the usage of the Bible itself.

5. There is in the Law, as in the Gospel, a Divine transforming power which shaped the history of Israel, as the Gospel has shaped the history of the Church in successive stages of appropriation. Not without some reason have many recent Christian scholars after Neander divided the history of the Christian Church after the names of the chief apostles, as indicating the various types of Christianity. With even more reason might we divide the history of Israel into stages of progress in accordance with the three Mosaic codes. The Christian Church may look forward to a time when the unity and variety of the Gospel of Christ shall be fully manifested in her historic life. The people of Israel also reached a stage when in her historic life the three codes were harmonized, and the whole bent of the nation was in the study of the Law and a conscientious fulfilment of it, and then in the fulness of time Christ Jesus the Mersiah came.

The deeper study of the unity and variety of the Pentateuchal narratives and laws, as we defend them against Reuss, Kuenen, and Wellhausen, and advance in the apprehension of their sublime harmony, will fructify and enrich the theology of our day, just as the deeper study of the unity and variety of the gospels by the school of Neander, in the defence of them against Strauss, Renan, and Baur, has been an unspeakable blessing in the past generation. This having been accomplished, we may look forward to a time when our eyes shall be opened as never before to the magnificent unity of the whole Bible in the midst of its wondrous variety. Then the Word of God, as one supernatural Divine revelation, will rise into such a position of spiritual power and transcendent influence, as shall greatly advance the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and hasten the realization of that most blessed hope of both the Old and New Testaments, the coming of the Messiah in glory. Briggs (Pres. Rev., 1883).

The Critical View.

These three groups of laws the critics declare cannot belong to any one period of the world’s history, much less to one so early as that of Moses. It is not denied that this is the uniform representation of the Pentateuch itself; but it is said that it is one which is inherently improbable and does not harmonize with the form and contents of the work. Kuenen does not for a moment hesitate before the alternative, which he himself puts as follows: “Either the laws really came from Moses and the desert, or they are merely put into his mouth, and the desert and so forth belong to their literary form of presentment.” The three codes, it is asserted, reflect not only three distinct and widely separated periods, but almost every intervening period. They are a growth in thought, it is said, which began first to take on tangible written form about the time of the earlier kings of Israel and reached its present completeness at the time of the exile, or, as Kuenen maintains, considerably later than that. During all this time priests and prophets, especially the former, were making new laws supposed to be suitable to the exigencies of their own periods, and, in order to give them currency, ascribed them to Moses, or to Moses and Aaron, or to Moses and Eleazar, after the assumed death of Aaron. As a part of the illusion, Moses is made to say that all the commandments, institutions, and judgments which he had to teach to Israel he received from Jehovah, on Mount Horeb, and on the “face of the whole legislation, we read that the theatre is the desert; Israel is encamped there; the settlement of Canaan is in the future.”

Can we fairly conceive of such a process of law-making as possible? It is kept up for a millennium, the sons doing as the fathers did in this respect for thirty generations. Every new statute coming into being is carefully and most ingeniously given the Mosaic stamp and the coloring of the desert. Or if this was not done at the time the laws were made, it was done subsequently through the skilful retouching of later editorial hands. It might be asked, Why should it have been done at all, if not at first? If the help of Moses’s name was needed, it was needed most when the laws were first promulgated. To attach it to them after they had once come to be known as the work of contemporaneous legislators would have been, one might suppose, an occasion of weakening, more than strengthening their authority.

But in the one way or the other this most anomalous method of legislating for a great people, it is affirmed, went on for hundreds of years. Nobody pretends to assert that there has ever appeared any evidence that the people of Israel themselves recognized, as such, the illusion with which they beguiled themselves. Every supposed legislator—there must have been scores of them—keeps himself as carefully out of sight as though he had never existed. The result of the whole is the Pentateuch, a literary composition equally a marvel of moral elevation and intellectual strength—a work that presents a body of laws making just claim to be essentially a unit in conception and teaching, and one that, placed at the beginning of the Bible, has left its indelible mark on every part of it. It is admitted that there are some serious difficulties involved in the common view of the origin and literary structure of the Pentateuch; there are surely none that call for such a stretch of credulity as this. But it is pronounced highly improbable that such a body of legislation could have originated in the limited period allowed—that is, during the first year after the exodus and the closing months of the fortieth year in the wilderness. Admitting the claim, however, that these laws were, to a large extent, supernaturally given, there need be no improbability attaching to the matter. Even without this postulate, their origin in this limited time, all things considered, is much more credible than the alternative hypothesis.

The Moral Question Involved.

At the outset of our inquiries concerning the Pentateuch laws, we are confronted with the fundamental question whether the representation they make that they come “from Moses and the desert” is probably genuine or belongs simply to their “literary form of presentment,” as it is alleged. It is certain that there is nothing in the substance of these laws to encourage a theory of deception. The moral plane on which they move is confessedly the highest. Not only is supreme loyalty to Jehovah demanded, but thoroughly upright dealing between man and man. Let there be noted, for example, under what strict rules judges and officers are put in the discharge of their functions (De. 16:18-20; 17:8-13); the requirement respecting those testifying in criminal suits (17:6; 19:15); the severe punishment visited upon false witnesses (19:15-21), and the strenuous insistence on the use of correct weights and measures in business transactions (25:13-16). It is too much to suppose, as the theory of Kuenen does, that persons introducing laws of this character would themselves flagrantly sin against them.

Changes in the Legislation of Deuteronomy.

Compare the amount of new or revised legislation called for in one of the United States in a single year with that of the whole Israelitish nation in a peculiar period of its history and during the space of forty years. Compare further with the same the changes that are often thought necessary in laws, made one year, by a legislature meeting the next or the second year after, under circumstances to all appearance quite similar, and one will be surprised not only at the condensed form but the wonderful unity and consistency of the laws of the Pentateuch.

It is said, however, that, as God-given, the same subject being under consideration, there should have been no change; no Deuteronomy, for example, following so soon the Book of the Covenant and the code of Exodus—Numbers. Such a statement betrays a serious misunderstanding not only of what might be expected to be, but of what actually is the uniform method of the Bible. It adapts itself to the circumstances of men. Its declared aim is to be a stimulus, and not a discouragement. It was meant to have an educating influence as well as to offer a goal and standard of ultimate appeal. Had it not been so, there would have been no need of any Old Testament at all. The fully developed teachings of Christ and his apostles would have been given at once at the beginning of human history. As it is, we find many precepts and injunctions touching matters civil, social, and ecclesiastical which again and again change their form as the needs of the people for whom they are designed are changed.

It is not surprising that they should change, even within the limits of a few months, when we consider the mighty crisis through which the children of Israel were passing at the time when the laws purport to have been given; much less that the trying forty years of the wilderness sojourn should make more radical alterations necessary. Meanwhile, it is to be carefully noticed that there is also something unchanging in them: the ethical and spiritual element. The demand for supreme loyalty to Jehovah, for example, is made upon the ancient Hebrew in form and degree just as it is upon the modern Christian. An inflexible standard in certain things, combined with development and change in others that concern not the essence but the form, is in perfect harmony with the theory that the Bible is a supernatural revelation; it is an inexplicable problem to him who would explain it solely on the hypothesis of a natural development.

Origin of the Three Codes in the Mosaic Period.

Looking at the several Pentateuch codes as distinct collections, there was good and sufficient reason for the origin of each of them in the Mosaic period.

1. Book of the Covenant.—The Bible nowhere states that every specific law arose de novo at the period of the exodus. It is exceedingly probable that not a few of those found in the so-called Book of the Covenant represent, either in a written or unwritten form, previous customs of the people under their elders and judges. Israel went down into Egypt as a family under its patriarchal head. It dwelt in Goshen as a distinct, and for a long time, as it would appear, as a quasi-independent, people. It cannot have been without laws of some sort during this time. Whatever laws they may have had they doubtless took back with them to Canaan. In principle, many of them, we believe, are found in chapters 21-23 of Exodus. The terse, laconic form in which they appear is entirely in harmony with this supposition; and there is documentary confirmation of it. Before the giving of the Law on Sinai Moses is represented as saying to Jethro, his father-in-law: “The people come unto me to inquire of God . . . and judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.”

2. The legislation respecting the tabernacle and its worship contained in Exodus—Numbers. The laws centering in the sanctuary, with its sacrifices and ministry, had a no less direct historic occasion. When the people of Israel left Egypt, and for some time afterward, there appeared no sign of a Levitical priesthood. It looked as though Jehovah intended to take as his priests the first-born of every family. By sparing them in Egypt he had made good his claim upon them. This seems, in fact, to be implied in the words addressed to Moses just before the giving of the Sinaitic law: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” Such a high calling, however, was a contingent on Israel’s obeying in the matter of the covenant. The subsequent sin with the golden calf was of the nature of a revolution. It radically changed the status of Israel. The covenant had been literally broken, as it was symbolically when Moses dashed in pieces the tables of stone. A change of administration was therefore found to be wise. That it had been foreseen and provided for does not alter the facts. It consisted in designating the whole tribe of Levi for service at the sanctuary in place of the firstborn of each family. Why this tribe in preference to another was chosen the history gives us distinct intimation (Ex. 32: 26). And how definitely the idea of substitution ruled throughout—one tribe being accepted for all the firstborn—appears in the fact that the exchange was made in detail, man for man, by actual count. Wherein the one tribe failed to cover the whole number of firstborn was made good by a contribution of money to the sanctuary (Nu. 3: 46-48). Previous to the worship of the golden calf, the building of the tabernacle and the consecration of Aaron and his sons had been enjoined. Subsequent to it, the setting apart of the rest of the tribe of Levi for service at the sanctuary was legalized, and all the laws respecting worship, the maintenance of priests and Levites, and the like, were promulgated. Further, it cannot be disputed that there was a highly fitting occasion in the exodus period for such a collection of laws as the one found in the middle books of the Pentateuch. To take them out of their present historical setting, in which along with the narrative of the national revolt at Sinai and its alleged results are interwoven such incidents as that of the free-will offerings of the people for the tabernacle, the rebellion of Nadab and Abihu, the leprosy of Miriam, the diary of the journeyings of the camp from place to place, and scores of others, for any such reason as our critics give, appears to us rash and unjustifiable in the extreme.

3. The occasion for the Deuteronomic code as a product of this period is perhaps clearest of all. The representation is that the addresses in which it is included were spoken by Moses in the fields of Moab just before the crossing of the Jordan. The introductory address is a brief review of the experiences of the preceding forty years in the wilderness. The code itself has a hortatory, popular form, precisely such as the alleged circumstances might lead us to expect. It is especially noticeable in three particulars: It does not refer in detail to the body of priestly legislation found in the middle books of the Pentateuch, but only cursorily, though sometimes directly, to some parts of it. It has laws peculiar to itself, and, as can easily be shown, they are such as grow out of the altered circumstances of the people. It repeats, enlarges, or otherwise modifies, as occasion seems to demand, the succinct precepts of the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 20: 23; 23). Now, in the very statement of these facts, sufficient ground for the existence of the third code is apparent. The others needed to be supplemented and modified in certain particulars by this, in order to fit them for a people like Israel at this juncture. It is not sufficiently to the point, though in general quite true, for Kuenen to say that, inasmuch as the laws contained in Exodus—Numbers were themselves shaped for a settled people, cultivating the soil, there should have been no demand for any modification of them on entering Canaan. It is literally true of the greater part of the Levitical priestly legislation of the middle books. It required and received no modification. There were laws that were repeated, it would seem, for the mere sake of repetition and emphasis, as in the case of that concerning the destruction of idols, the worship of Moloch, food as clean and unclean, mourning customs and the like; but, on the other hand, there were some laws which, on the ground of altered circumstances or new experience, actually needed, as they appeared, to be revised to some extent. As it respects such laws, it would be disingenuous to affirm that in their original form they assume to be final, or so to cover the future with their claim as to admit of no alteration.

Supposing, then, that the Pentateuch codes arose in this manner—that is, as described in detail in the Bible—there is nothing surprising in the fact that each has a peculiar linguistic character, and is marked by fixed formulae not found in the other groups, though too much may easily be made of this fact. Comparing the code of Deuteronomy with that of the middle books, for example, there are no differences of this sort that cannot be readily explained on the ground of the changed point of view of the legislator or other natural circumstances. The one is priestly legislation; the other is popular. The one is at the beginning of forty years of wandering, the other at its close. The one has immediately—though not ultimately—before it life in camp, the other life in Palestine. . . . The statement which the Bible makes concerning the origin of the codes is sufficient to explain perfectly their outward diversity. And if they were not meant to supplement one another, and together present a complete rule, their contradictions are certainly of the baldest character. We should not only be unable to interpret them in harmony with one another as originating in the period of the exodus, but in any other period of Israelitish history. The law of Deuteronomy is naturally fuller than that of the Book of the Covenant, and its amplifications perfectly accord with the representation of its rise in the border lands of Canaan. That Moses actually penned the whole Pentateuch no one holds. Under his general direction a number of hands may have been, and in all probability were, employed upon it. Accordingly, we find ourselves under no necessity for harmonizing the style of the several parts, so that, for instance, the same name of God shall be everywhere used, the same method of designating the months, the same expression for capital punishment, and the like. Bissell.

The three Pentateuchal codes do not belong to distinct periods of the people’s history. It is claimed for them all in the most explicit manner that they were delivered immediately by Moses himself. The account given of them is quite simple and satisfactory, and there is no sufficient reason for discrediting it. The Book of the Covenant was drawn up at Mount Sinai directly after the proclamation of the ten commandments from its summit and preparatory to the formal ratification of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel. That such a relation was established then and there and under the circumstances here recorded was the steadfast faith of Israel from that time forward; a faith which is well accredited, and is the more remarkable as the scene is altogether outside of the territory of Israel, the holy land, to which, as the critics tell us, Jehovah and his worship were so strictly bound. No possible reason can be given why this most sacred transaction, which lay at the basis of the entire history and worship of Israel, should have been referred to this remote point in the desert, away from the sacred soil of Canaan, away from every patriarchal association, away from every spot that was venerated in the past or that was hallowed or resorted to in the present, unless that was the place where it actually occurred. That laws first issued in Jehovah’s name in Canaan should be attributed to this mountain in the wilderness, with which Jehovah had no special connection before or since, is inconceivable. The sublime miracles attending the promulgation of the Law are surely no reason for disputing the truth of the record; for they were certainly in place if miracles ever were. Moses, trained in the wisdom of Egypt, was plainly competent to the task of framing this simple body of statutes, which was largely intended in the first instance for the guidance of the judges who had recently been appointed to assist Moses in the settlement of controversies arising among the people. And as they expected shortly to take possession of Canaan, these laws naturally contemplated not only the immediate present, but the proximate future when they would be the owners of fields and vineyards and be engaged in agricultural pursuits.

After the covenant with Jehovah had been duly ratified, provision was next made for the maintenance of this relation by instituting ordinances of worship. A new body of regulations was accordingly demanded for this specific purpose, establishing a sanctuary, a priesthood, a ritual, and sacred seasons. This was done in the Levitical law or the so-called Priest code, which was mainly drawn up during the year that the people remained encamped at Sinai, and then added to from time to time during the subsequent journeying in the wilderness. The particularity and minuteness of its prescriptions need not surprise any one who recalls the numerous petty details with which the ritual of ancient Egypt was burdened.

Finally, when Israel had reached the borders of the promised land, and their great leader knew that he must die, he delivered those impressive farewell discourses which are found in the Book of Deuteronomy, exhorting them in the most tender and earnest terms to adhere faithfully to the LORD’s service and to obey his laws. And he takes this opportunity to recapitulate them so far as was needed for the guidance of the people, with such modifications as were suggested by the experience of forty years and the altered circumstances of Israel, who were now to enter at once upon the inheritance promised to their fathers.

Each of these bodies of law has thus its distinct occasion and separate purpose, and each is appropriate to the circumstances which called it forth. They are throughout cast in the mould of the Mosaic age and of the abode in the wilderness, and their whole style and character are as different as possible from that which they must have borne if they had been produced at any subsequent period. Much of the contents, particularly of Deuteronomy and of the Levitical law, would be not only superfluous, but preposterous, if the former was produced in the time of Josiah, and the latter in that of Ezra. W. H. G.

| SUBJECT. | EXODUS. | LEVITICUS. | NUMBERS. | | — | — | — | — | | Blasphemy, | | 24:15, 16. | 15:30, 31. | | Sacred Vestments, | 28:1-43. | | | | Consecration of Priests, | 29:1-42. | 6:12-16:8. | | | Anointing Oil, | 30:22-33. | 10:8-11; 21:1-24. | | | High Priest from Eleazar’s Line, | | | 25:10-13. | | Who might Eat of the Sacrifices, | | 22:1-16. | 18:10 ff. | | Special Prerogatives of Priests, | | | 6:22-27; 10:1-10. | | Tabernacle and its Furniture, | 25:1-27:19; cf. 36:1-38:31. | | | | Altar of Incense, | 30:1-21, 34-38. | | | | Table of the Shew-bread, | 25:23-30. | 24:5-9. | | | Care of the Lamps of the Tabernacle, | 27:20, 21. | 24:1-4. | 8:1-4. | | The Burnt Offering, | | 1:1-17; 6:1-6. | 28:1-15. | | Meal and Drink Offering, | | 2:1-16; 6:7-11; 10:12, 13. | 15:1-12; ch. 28. | | Peace-Offering, | | 3:1-17; 7:11-34; 19:5-8; 22:20, 30. | | | Sin-Offering, | | 4-5:13; 6:17-23. | 15:22-28. | | Trespass-Offering, | | 5:14-26; 7:1-10. | 5:5-10. | | Of Release from Vows, | | 27:1-34. | | | The Nazarite, | | | 6:1-21. | | Purification at Childbirth, | | 12:1-8. | | | Purification by the Ashes of a Red Heifer, | | | 19:1-22. | | Initial Feast of Seventh Month, | | 23:23-25. | 29:1-6. | | The Day of Atonement, | 30:10. | 16:1-34; 23:26-32. | 29:7-11. |

| SUBJECT. | DEUTERONOMY. | EXODUS. | LEVITICUS AND NUMBERS. | | — | — | — | — | | 1 Introductory, | 12:1 (see Hebrew text throughout). | | | | 2 Destruction of idols, etc., | 12:2-4, 29, 30; 4:15-19; 7:5 25, 26; 20:18 | 23:24, 33; 34:12-17; cf. 23:13 | N. 33:51, 52 | | 3 Centralization of worship, | 12:5-28; cf. 26:2 ff. | 20:24, 25; 34:23-26 | L. 17:1 ff. et passim. | | 4 Worship of Moloch, | 12:31; cf. 18:10 | | L. 18:21; 20:2-5 | | 5 Seduction to idolatry, | 13:1-19; 16:21-22 | | | | 6 Destruction of Canaanitish cities, | 13:13-19; 20:15-18 | 23:23, 24, 27-33; 34:12-16 | N. 33:50-56 | | 7 Forbidden mourning customs, | 14:1, 2 | | L. 19:27, 28; 21:5 | | 8 Food as clean and unclean, | 14:3, 20 | | L. 11:1-21, 22-43 | | 9 Animals eaten to be properly slain, | 14:21 | 22:30 | L. 17:15 | | 10 Offerings, | 14:22-29; cf. 12:17-19; 15:19-23; 26:12-19 | 22:29; 23:18, 19a; 34:19, 20:25, 26a | N. 18:21-32 et passim. | | 11 Sabbatic Year, | 15:1-11 | 23:9-11 | L. 25:1-7 | | 12 Release of Hebrew servants, | 15:12-18 | 21:2-6 | L. 25:39-46 | | 13 Sacrifices to be faultless, | 15:19-23; 17:1 | | L. 22:19-27 | | 14 The feasts, | 16:1-17 | 23:14-17; 34:21-23 | L. 23:4 ff.; N. 28:11 ff. | | 15 Judges and Officers | 16:18-20; 19:8-13 | | | | 16 Oppression of the poor, | 16:19-20; 24:14, 15 | 22:21-24 | L. 19:33, 34 | | 17 Punishment of Hebrew Idolaters, | 17:2-5; cf. 4:19 | 22:19 | | | 18 Witnesses needful, | 17:6, 7; cf. 19:15, 16 | | N. 35:30 | | 19 The king, | 17:14-20 | | | | 20 Priests and Levites, | 18:1-8 | | L. 7:8-10; 10:14, 15; N. 18:8-20 | | 21 Magical arts, etc., | 18:9-14 | 22:17 | L. 19:26, 21; 20:6, 27 | | 22 The prophet, | 18:15-22 | | N. 23:23 |

TABLE OF LAWS PECULIAR TO OR REPEATED AND MODIFIED IN DEUTERONOMY—Continued.

| SUBJECT. | DEUTERONOMY. | EXODUS. | LEVITICUS AND NUMBERS. | | — | — | — | — | | 23 Cities of refuge, | 19 : 1-13 ; cf. 4 : 41-43 ; 23 : 16 | 21 : 13 | N. 35 : 1-34 | | 24 Removing Landmark, | 19 : 14 | 23 : 1-3 | L. 19 : 12, 15, 16 | | 25 False witness, | 19 : 15-21 | | | | 26 Preparation for battle, | 20 : 1-9 ; 24 : 5 | | | | 27 Hostile cities, | 20 : 10-14, 19, 20 | | | | 28 Purification for murder, | 21 : 1-9 | | | | 29 Female captives, | 21 : 10-14 | | | | 30 Right of inheritance, | 21 : 15-17 | | N. 27 : 1 ff. ; ch. 36 | | 31 Disobedient son, | 21 : 18-21 | | | | 32 Hanging, | 21 : 22-23 | | | | 33 Property of a brother Israelite, | 22 : 1-4 | 23 : 4, 5 | L. 22 : 28 | | 34 Kindness to animals, | 22 : 6, 7 ; cf. 14 : 21 ; 25 : 4 | 23 : 195 ; 34 : 265 | | | 35 Regard for human life, | 22 : 8 | | L. 19 : 19 | | 36 Mixing of diverse things, | 22 : 5, 9-11 | | N. 15 : 37-41 | | 37 Fringes, | 22 : 12 | | | | 38 Charge of unchastity, | 22 : 13-21 | | L. 18 : 6-30 ; 20 : 10-26 | | 39 Sin against chastity, | 22 : 22-29 ; 23 : 1 | 22 : 16, 18 | | | 40 Persons shut out of the congregation, | 23 : 2-9 | | L. 15 : 1-33 ; N. 5 : 1-4 et passim. | | 41 Cleanliness of the camp, | 23 : 10-15 | | L. 18 : 22 ; 19 : 29 | | 42 Fugitive slave, | 23 : 16, 17 | | L. 25 : 35-37 | | 43 Prostitution, | 23 : 18, 19 | | L. chs. 7, 22, 23, 27 ; N. chs. 6, 15, 29, 30 | | 44 Usury, | 23 : 20, 21 | 22 : 24 | | | 45 Vows, | 23 : 22-24 ; cf. 12 : 6, 11, 17, 26 | | | | 46 Divorce, | 24 : 1-4 | | | | 47 Pledges, | 24 : 6, 10-13, 17, 18 | 22 : 25, 26 | | | 48 Man-stealing, | 24 : 7 | 21 : 16 | | | 49 Leprosy, | 24 : 8, 9 | | L. chs. 13, 14 | | 50 Gleaning, | 24 : 19-22 | | L. 19 : 9, 10 ; 23 : 22 | | 51 Forty stripes, | 25 : 1-3 | | | | 52 Levirate Marriage, | 25 : 5-10 | | | | 53 Punishment of immodesty, | 25 : 11, 12 | | | | 54 Just weights and measures, | 25 : 13-16 | | L. 19 : 35, 36 | | 55 Amalek, | 25 : 17-19 | | | | 56 Offering of first-fruits, etc. | 26 : 1-19 | | |

“The Pentateuch,” by E. C. Bissell, D. D.

NOTE —In this connection refer to Section 181 (Introduction to Deuteronomy). Besides these two Sections, the reader will find upon many pages of this volume citations bearing upon positions assumed by leading critics of the destructive school. These passages are cited for the double purpose of effective refutation and as presenting a clear statement or exposition of particular laws. B.

THE FIRST SINAI COVENANT : COMPREHENSIVE AND SUBLIME PROMISE ; CONDITIONED UPON OBEDIENCE ; ANSWERING PLEDGE OF THE PEOPLE ; THE KINGDOM OF GOD INAUGURATED, AS A THEOCRACY, AT SINAI. DISTINCTIVE NATURE OF THE THEOCRACY. WHAT IT MIGHT HAVE ACHIEVED. UNITY OF THE OLD AND NEW COVENANTS.

Ex 19 3 And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel ; 4 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, 5 and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me from among all 6 peoples : for all the earth is mine : and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children 7 of Israel And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and set before

8 them all these words which the LORD commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses reported 9 the words of the people unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and may also believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.

The Mosaic religion did not start into being as something original and independent; it grew out of the Patriarchal, and was just, indeed, the Patriarchal religion in a further state of progress and development. So much was this the case, that the mission of Moses avowedly begins where the communications of God to the patriarchs end; and, resuming what had been for a time suspended, takes for its immediate object the fulfilment of the purpose which the Lord had, ages before, pledged his word to accomplish. Its real starting-point is the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with an especial reference to that part of it which concerned the occupation of the land of Canaan. And as the one dispensation thus commenced with the express design of carrying out and completing what the other had left unfinished, the latter of the two must be understood to have recognized and adopted as its own all the truths and principles of the first. What might now be regarded as fundamental, and required as such to be interwoven with the historical transactions by which the dispensation of Moses was brought in, must have been, to a considerable extent, super-additional—including those, indeed, which belonged to the Patriarchal religion, but coupling with them such others as were fitted to constitute the elements of a more advanced state of religious knowledge and attainment. The Patriarchal religion was designed to inspire the hope and direct the steps of Adam’s fallen family to a paradise restored. The religion associated with the redemption from Egypt began with an inheritance, not lost, indeed, but standing at an apparently hopeless distance, though conferred in free grant, and secured by covenant promise to a peculiar seed. It was the immediate aim of the mission of Moses to conduct the heirs of that promise into the actual possession of its blessings; and to do this, not simply with the view of having the hope turned into reality, but so as at the same time, and in accordance with God’s general plan, to unfold the great principles of his character and government, and raise his people to a higher position in all religious knowledge and experience. In a word, God’s object then was, as it has ever been, not merely to bring man to the possession of a promised good, but to furnish by his method of doing it the elements of a religion corresponding in its nature and effects to the inheritance possessed or hoped for, and thus to render the whole subservient to the highest purposes of his moral government. P. F.

With the narrative of the exodus, the forty days in the wilderness, and the conquest of Canaan is interwoven the record of the national code and constitution, moral, religious, political, and social. The historic reality of the Divine manifestation to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel is assumed as the necessary starting-point of God’s dealings with their descendants. His promise to Abraham is treated as a “covenant,” to which Divine faithfulness stands irrevocably pledged. But a new starting-point is now given, after the deliverance, by a fresh “covenant” granted by Jehovah, and freely accepted by the people. Such a record as this has no parallel in fact or fiction. Many law-givers have claimed Divine authority. Many sacred books have been accounted divinely inspired; many nations have deemed themselves patronized by a national deity and favorites of heaven. But this description of the founding of a nation and laying the basis of national legislation, by a solemn contract of sovereignty and obedience between the Almighty Creator and the representatives of the whole nation, is absolutely unique in its sober majesty, its severe literal reality, and its moral grandeur. On the basis, thus laid, the whole fabric of legislation and framework of national life, according to the books of Moses, rested. All the subsequent history proceeds from this starting-point. The religion of personal faith, prayer, and obedience, depicted in Genesis, is never lost sight of; but it is overshadowed by the religion of national faith, public worship, and obedience to the law binding on the nation. The Ten Commandments, and the subsequent laws given by Moses, are expressed in such a form that the word “Thou” may apply equally to the individual Israelite or to the nation. Divine providence and government are illustrated on a corresponding scale. The wanderings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the sufferings and glory of Joseph, illustrate God’s care and control of personal history down to its least details. Egypt, the Red Sea, Sinai, the desert, the manna, the water from the rock, the pillar of cloud and fire, teach a like lesson in regard to national history, on a scale never equalled, never to be repeated. E. R. Conder.

God, the self moved source of the Covenant.

3. Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel.** The Maker and the first Mover of the covenant is God himself. Nothing was said or done by this unthinking people themselves toward this settlement; no motion made, no petition put up for God’s favor; but this blessed charter was granted purely out of God’s own good will. So in all our dealings with God free grace prevents us with the blessings of goodness, and all our comfort is owing, not to our knowing God, but to our being known of him (Gal. 4:9). We love him, visit him, and covenant with him, because he first loved us, visited us, and covenanted with us. H.

God’s gracious dealings the basis upon which the covenant is presented.

4. Ye have seen what I did.** This is the ground upon which God presents his claim upon their obedience and fidelity. He had delivered them from the Egyptian bondage. They had abundant evidence of his power to deliver and of his purpose to bless. He appeals to their past experience of his goodness as the proof of his good will toward them, and of his ability to fulfil these new and vastly larger, richer promises. B.—He gave before he demanded; he gave proofs of his love before he asked for obedience; he gave himself to Israel before he required Israel to give itself to him. K.

How I bare you on eagles’ wings. The parent bird it is said sweeps gently past the young ones perched on a ledge of rock, and when one venturing to follow begins to sink with drooping wing, glides underneath, and bears it aloft again. This beautiful figure strikingly illustrates the patient tenderness with which the Lord labored to train his people for the escape from Egypt, and guarded them from the hazards of the way. M.—A similitude denoting the speed, the security, and the tender care with which they were transported from the house of bondage, and which is expanded in fuller significance (De. 32:11, 12), “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him.” In like manner, as the Church of Israel here fled from the dragon Pharaoh, as he is termed (Ezek. 29:3), so the Christian Church in a time of persecution is represented

(Rev. 12:14) as flying into the wilderness from the serpent or dragon, with two wings of a great eagle. Wings in this acceptance are a symbol of protection. The idea of this passage is strikingly set forth by the prophet at a long subsequent period (Is. 63:9). “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Bush.

The comprehensive and sublime promise (verses 5, 6).

5. And now is added the promise in new and expressive terms, containing the three great elements of salvation, as expressed in the terms which ever since have been household words in the Church of God, Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me. It is the phrase so often occurring afterward. “For the Lord’s portion is his people.” “The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself,” repeated Moses forty years afterward. So David, “The Lord hath chosen Israel for his peculiar treasure.” It is this germinal saying which doubtless Paul had in mind when he wrote Titus, “Who gave himself, that he might purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.” And Peter, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” Thus showing that the apostles attached to the language here at Sinai the highest spiritual significance. S. R.—God’s promise to Israel, “Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me,” has often been misconceived as meaning that Israel should be a peculiar people in the ordinary sense of that phrase. The exact sense of the words is “mine own possession”—i.e., peculiarly mine—mine in a sense in which no other people is. Chambers.—Throughout the Old and New Testaments (jeweils, Mal. 3:17, peculiar people, 1 Pet. 2:9) the word means something select, precious, endeared; something exceedingly prized and sedulously preserved. Bush.

As Elohim, he was a King over Israel, as he is over every nation, by virtue of unconditional necessity; as Jehovah, he was King over Israel in consequence of the free concurrence of the people, and in a sense in which no other nation could claim him as King. The first position assigned to Israel by the covenant of Jehovah was this: “Ye shall be my property out of (before) all nations, for the whole earth is mine.” All the nations of the earth are God’s property—they are so by virtue of their creation. Israel, however, was to be so, not by creation only, but by virtue of redemption also. For this reason the preliminaries of the covenant commenced with a reference to the deliverance from Egypt. K.

6. Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests.** That is, a kingdom whose citizens are priests, and as such possess royal dignity and power, or, in the language of Peter, “a royal priesthood.” So far as Israel was concerned, the outward and visible Theocracy which God established among them was only the means by which this end was to be obtained, just as their observing the covenant was the condition of it. But the promise itself reached far beyond the Old Covenant, and will only be fulfilled in its completeness when “the Israel of God”—whom already the Lord Jesus, “the First-begotten of the dead and the Prince of the kings of the earth,” “hath made kings and priests unto God and his Father”—shall share with him his glory and sit with him on his throne. Thus the final object of the royal priesthood of Israel were those nations, from among whom God had chosen his people for a precious possession. Toward them Israel was to act as priests. For just as the priest is the intermediary between God and man, so Israel was to be the intermediary of the knowledge and salvation of God to all nations. And this their priesthood was to be the foundation of their royalty. A. E.

Out of the mass of fallen men God purposed to save some in Christ. Until this Saviour actually came, the body of the saved was represented by a chosen people, who might therefore be collectively regarded as a kind of mediator, and correctly represented as a nation of priests. But in order that this same great doctrine might be kept before the minds of the representatives themselves, a single tribe was set apart from among them, to represent the whole, and as it were to mediate between God and his people. By a further application of the same symbolical idea, a single family was chosen from this chosen tribe, as if to represent it; while in this family itself, a single individual, its natural hereditary head, represented his family, and through that family his tribe, and through that tribe his people, and through that people the elect of God. In the High Priest, therefore, the entire representation was concentrated and completed. At the same time, this symbolical representative of the body was a typical representative of the Head, the promised Saviour, the two functions being not only consistent but inseparable on account of the peculiar and most intimate relation of the Head and the body to each other. In no other system upon record, whether civil or religious, has the great principle of representation been so fully embodied and distinctly carried out as in the sacerdotal system of the ceremonial law. An important corollary from this statement is, that even under that economy, the Jewish race was not so much the people of God as its appointed representative. J. A. A.

The Septuagint renders the phrase “a priesthood of kings,” instead of “a kingdom of priests;” and the Apostle Peter seems to follow that rendering in calling it “a royal priesthood.” And the Apostle John, in the Apocalypse, doubtless referring to these remarkable terms in the Sinai transaction, in his magnificent opening doxology evidently understands it to be both—“And hath made us to be kings and priests unto God and his father.” And in like manner he represents the rejoicing myriads around the throne in heaven as singing, “Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.” Thus not only are these words of Jehovah to be taken in the highest spiritual sense, but whatever is implied in them is true of the Church through all the after ages and onward in eternity. Nor need we any other evidence to prove to us that the matter we are now entering upon, so far from being a mere historical transaction with the house of Jacob at Sinai, is with the redeemed Church of God in all the ages through the “sons of Israel representing there the Church of all ages alike.” It is manifest that the kingdom of priests here represents the great idea of a community organized and invested with powers of sovereignty; and being a kingdom of priests indicates not only the benign sway of this sovereignty, but also that this kingdom finds mankind under the ban of disobedience and the doom of death. That it is the function of this priestly kingdom to provide atonement for the sin of the world, to intercede for the penitent and lead him to God. And where do these functions meet their full solution until apostles in times describe the spiritual body of which Christ is the head, by virtue of his kingly and priestly offices? Then there is this Church—the one and the same Church of the ages—standing thus at Sinai to renew her covenant of obedience to her redeeming Lord. S. R.

Condition of the Covenant.

5. If ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant.** The key-note to the Mosaic legislation is found in the opening words of the covenant made in Sinai. They precede all law and all ritual. They also give a tone to the whole legislation, which it loses the moment they are overlooked. The words are, “If ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant.” A form of speech the same, or nearly the same, runs through the whole Old Testament, though lost sight of in our English translation. As the Hebrew word for to hear means also to obey, the mixing up of the two ideas in the English Bible has obscured the sense in many passages. The phrase, “To obey my voice,” with its various changes of form, became the thread on which the events of history were ultimately strung. “Obey” was the first and the great thing; “sacrifice” came far behind then, even as it did in Samuel’s day. Sime.

This passage is addressed to the people both in their natural relations as “the house of Jacob” and in their spiritual relations as “the children of Israel.” After reminding them of the great act of redemption from the bondage of Egypt, and how fully he has kept, on his part, the passover covenant by which he promised to deliver them, he now calls upon them to accept lovingly and cheerfully his claim to obedience. S. R.—God will make no covenant with the unwilling; how much less the Covenant of Grace, which stands all upon love! If we stay till God offer violence to our will, or to us against our will, we shall die strangers from him. The obstinate have nothing to do with God: the title of God’s people is, A Willing People. Bp. H.

An holy nation. The same word which declared them to have been taken by God for a peculiar treasure, and a kingdom of priests, called them to be an holy nation—to be holy, even as God himself was holy. And throughout all the revelations of the Law, and its manifold ordinances of service, the voice which continually sounded in the ears of the people was, in substance, this: “I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.” Next to the fundamental principle of the Divine Unity, the point in respect to which the object of Jewish worship differed most essentially from the gods of the heathen, was the absolute holiness of his character. P. F.—“Holy,” in the Scripture, always includes the idea of separation from what is common and unclean, “and the surrender to God and his service.” In the Old Testament the more external signification appears to prevail, of being dedicated to the outward service of God. But as this outward service of God bore a continual reference to the inward, the express relation of the holiness of the people to the holiness of God (Lev. 11:44; 19:2), which is represented as the direct opposition to all that is evil, alone explains the perfect, entire meaning of the expression. Gerl.

A still more solemn description of Israel, and of us who are called “the Israel of God,” is that of “holy nation.” As Calvin observes: “This designation was not due to the piety or holiness of the people, but because God distinguished them by peculiar privileges from all others. But this sanctification implies another—viz., that they who are so distinguished by God’s grace should cultivate holiness, so that in turn they sanctify God.” The Hebrew term for “holy” is generally supposed to mean “separated, set apart.” But this is only its secondary signification, derived from the purpose of that which is holy. Its primary meaning is to be splendid, beautiful, pure, and uncontaminated. God is holy—as the absolutely pure, resplendent, and glorious One. Hence this is symbolized by the light. God dwelleth in light that is unapproachable; he is “the Father of light, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”—light which never can grow dimmer, nor give place to darkness. And Israel was to be a holy people as dwelling in the light, through its covenant relationship to God. It was not the selection of Israel from all other nations that made them holy, but the relationship to God into which it brought the people. A. E.—Every part of the Law is directed toward the supreme end of holiness, which is here brought into view at the very beginning: “If ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a . . . holy nation.” The religion of the Bible is a character religion throughout. “God hath called us unto holiness”—through form, through faith, through Moses, through Christ; but always to holiness. “Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” This is the kernel of the Old Testament. It is also the core of the New. . . . Temporal blessings were included under the Old Covenant, just as they are under the new; but the great blessings of the Old Covenant were undoubtedly spiritual, as is manifest here. Nearness to God, dearness to God, holiness—these were the characteristic blessings of the Old Covenant. These promises are among the richest and most deeply spiritual in the whole Bible. J. M. G.

There comes out here the grand idea of this body having kingly and priestly functions, and withal qualified by being “a holy nation,” to become the agency for the salvation of the world. S. R.—The words mark the special character assigned to the Israelites, and still more to the spiritual Israel. Not that they were to be separated from all nations in proud exclusiveness, for their own sake: this was the great mistake of their history. But as “all the earth is Jehovah’s,” they were his in a special sense, to bring all nations back to him; kings and priests for others’ good, and a holy nation for a pattern to all the rest. P. S.—As Israel was ideally, so all nations were through Israel’s ministry to become really the possession of God: a kingdom of priests, a holy people; for all the earth, as well as Israel, was God’s. And the realization of this would be the kingdom of God on earth. All the institutions of Israel were in strict accord with this ideal destiny. Alike the laws, the worship, the institutions, and the mission of Israel were intended to express two things: acknowledgment of God and dependence upon God. A. E.

They were to be the trustees, for humanity at large, of the revelations, promises, and ordinances which God communicated, and they were to keep them for the benefit of all mankind. For a time, indeed, these heavenly communications were to be reserved to themselves; only, however, that they might be the more securely preserved; but at length all restrictions would be broken down, and that which, in its ritual exclusivism, had been confined to them would, in its spiritual pervasiveness, become the heritage of every true believer who should, like them, enter into covenant with the Lord, not over a merely typical sacrifice, but over the true and real atonement which Christ would make for the sins of men. Thus, in this peculiar promise, which looks at first as if it conferred a patent of protected privilege, we see that the present protection is in order to the future diffusion; and we have an echo of the Abrahamic blessing, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” What the Levitical tribe ultimately was among the Israelites themselves, that the Israelites were to be among the nations; and the more faithfully they performed their duties, the richer would be the ultimate blessing to the Gentiles. Reading these words in the light of the history to which they form the introduction, it needs no keenness of insight to perceive the bearing of these principles upon ourselves; for we Christians are now the world’s priests, custodians of those spiritual blessings by which our fellowmen are to be benefited; and only in proportion as we maintain holiness—not of ritualism, but of character—shall we discharge our duties to mankind at large. So, side by side with these promises, at the foundation of the earthly Theocracy, we place the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, in his manifesto at the inauguration of the kingdom of which he is the head; and we find in the latter the spiritual interpretation of the former: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” W. M. T.

Answering Pledge of the People.

S. All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. This was the acceptance of the covenant by the people, Moses acting strictly as mediator or go-between in the transaction. And this his mediatorship was to be substantiated (verse 9) by the speaking of Jehovah, present in the darkness of a cloud, with Moses, and the people hearing. Then they would believe forever in the Divine mission and authority of Moses. Alf.

That the people should have an authoritative voice in the enactment of the laws is another of those great ideas which underlie the Hebrew government. When Moses, on descending from the mount, rehearsed to the people the laws which he had received from the Lord, with one voice they answered and said, “All the words that the Lord has said, will we do.” What is this but an acceptance by the nation of the constitution proposed to them? “This adoption by the Jewish nation of the laws which Moses brought from God was repeated at the death of Moses, and by a statute, once in seven years was to be repeated ever after by the assembled nation. So that from generation to generation, once in seven years, the tribes met in a great national convention and solemnly ratified the constitution.” E. C. W.

No longer one family as in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; no longer a mere tribe, clustering several families under one or more patriarchs, but a group of many tribes, enlarging fast toward the proportions of a great nation; and what is more, a people no longer under the emasculating incubus of bondage, but emancipated, and free to rise and assume the duties of self-government with all its possibilities of growth and improvement, personal and national—this great people were at this point summoned of God to enter into solemn national covenant with himself. In its spirit and significance this covenant differed in no essential point from that which God made with Abraham more than six hundred years before. In that earlier covenant Abraham spake for himself, and so far as it was naturally possible, for his posterity as well; and God on his part promised to be a God not to him only but to his seed after him; yet when this seed of Abraham became a great people, there was special fitness in summoning them to renew this covenant for themselves. Precisely this was done before Sinai. A. C.

The promise of a covenant with the nation leads us back to the promise formerly made of a covenant with the family (“In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”), and it becomes apparent that the covenant at Sinai was precisely the same as that which had formerly been concluded at Mamre. The one was merely a renewal of the other—a transference to the nation, which had sprung from the family, of the promise and call which the family itself had already received. The individuality and exclusiveness which characterized the former covenant were equally manifest in the latter, for out of all nations Israel was the property of Jehovah; but the fact that the covenant was destined for the most unlimited universalism, appeared in the latter also, bright and clear, as the pole-star of the future. Here also was the truth exhibited and confirmed—that Israel was merely the firstborn, not the only child of Jehovah; that the other nations, as younger members of the family of Jehovah, were to be made partakers of the same sonship which Israel was the first to receive, but which it received as the pledge of the future adoption of the other nations of the earth; “for the whole earth is mine,” saith the Lord. K.

And from this great swearing-in at the foot of the mount which might not be touched, the people passed away with a sublime and awful consciousness that God had spoken and so had they. “I will be your God,” had Jehovah said, “and all that thou hast spoken will we do,” had they replied, and, registered in heaven, it seemed as if the vow were written on the floor and roof at once of that great desert sanctuary. Had the people been but equal to it, here was an occasion unprecedented, an opportunity given to a new and virgin nation to start on a career the like of which had never been exhibited, receiving their laws from God and from him deriving their protection—God dwelling among them palpably, fighting their battles, brightening their abodes, preserving their going out and coming in, and with his approving presence glorifying their entire existence. The ideal was imperfectly realized. Except to a very partial extent, and for brief intervals, the nation never rose to its high calling, and seldom was it that either the camp of its pilgrimage or the land of the promise suggested the heaven on earth which it ought to have been. But no knowledge of Israel’s frailty, no foresight of human failure, hindered the Most High from expounding his own gracious plan. Hamilton.

The real beginning of the kingly rule was when Jehovah bound the tribes of Israel into a community by the formation of a legal covenant. This covenant was the constitution of the kingdom of God. It had been necessary to make a preparation for this inauguration of the kingdom, even as a preparation was needed for the coming of Christ. The family of Abraham had been enlarged to a tribe—to a race; the furnace of affliction in Egypt and the wonderful deliverance under the guidance of Jehovah made the race a nation; the preparation was completed; the kingdom was inaugurated, for a fulness of time was reached. The records respecting the inauguration of this kingdom are in Ex. 19:3-19; 20:18-21; 24:3-8. The covenant proposed by God was verbally accepted by the people at once, and later it was formally ratified. In Ex. 19:3-6 we find that God’s assumption of the kingship is based upon his deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Even as to-day we assure the saint and sinner alike that they belong to God by virtue of a redemption wrought out in Christ, so Moses and the prophets always based God’s peculiar claims to Israel upon the deliverance from Egypt. There is, however, a yet broader presupposition—i.e., that Jehovah owns all the earth. As all other nations have forsaken God and know him not, God left them and chose Israel as his peculiar people, and this for some reason of his own. In this choice there was also an element of separation or exclusiveness. This exclusiveness was temporarily external. Although there was to be forever an inner separation, the outer separation was not an essential or permanent characteristic of the religion. The real meaning of the exclusiveness concerned a holy character, and that has not abated even at this day. The purpose of this choice was to bring Israel into intimate relations with God. They were to be priests—i.e., servants to God; holy—i.e., dedicated to him. The exclusiveness was not explained save that it was based upon their relations with God and that it was for the purpose of maintaining these relations.

In the historical development of this kingdom it has been called a THEOCRACY. All political powers were united in God, and he ruled through such agents as he chose. The character of the agent was no essential element in the Theocracy, provided he was sent from God. Neither was a constant miraculous element necessary more than it has been in the Christian Church. The great fact was that Israel was in covenant with God, so that they were his peculiar people and he their chosen king. The agent in this Theocracy might be prophet, as Samuel, priest, as Phinehas, or king, as David, or a special servant, as Joshua or Gideon. Still the Theocracy was established through the mediation of a prophet, and a prophet was regarded as occupying a chief rank among the agents in the Theocracy.

The privileges in this kingdom were the nearness of God (De. 4 : 7, 8) and a righteous Law (De. 33 : 3, 4 ; 4 : 6). This relation had been entered as a matter of choice, hence it was a moral relation ; it recognized duties and obligations, hence it required discipline. Such was the ideal of the kingdom at the time of its inauguration. Denio.

The Pentateuch is the history and the picture of the personal government by God of the Israelites. “Our legislator,” says the historian Josephus, “had in his thoughts not monarchies, nor oligarchies, nor democracies, nor any one of those political institutions : he commanded that our government should be (if it is permitted to make use of an expression somewhat exaggerated) what may be styled a Theocracy.” Guizot.— To describe the spiritual and mysterious government of the Jewish people, Josephus combined two Greek words in the term Theokratia, Theocracy, or God’s rule ; a government administered by men, but the sovereignty was held by the Divinity. The Deity manifested himself in the double character of a celestial and a terrestrial sovereign. Wherever the Israelite turned he was reminded of the presence of his God and of his King. His King was in heaven : his God was on earth. I. D’Israeli.

But Jehovah was not the less Israel’s God because he became Israel’s King. The peculiarity of the new relation was just this, that he was God and King in one person ; in other words, was God-King. And as divinity and royalty were thus combined in the Head of the new commonwealth (their God manifesting himself and acting as their King, and their King as their God), all his commandments bore this twofold character : the religious commandments were also political, and the political at the same time religious. The breach of a religious commandment was also a civil crime ; and the violation of a civil and political institution was treated at once as sin. The moral, civil, and ceremonial laws were not in any way subordinated the one to the other, but were in all respects equal ; and whenever they were broken, they all required, according to the heinousness of the offence, in precisely the same way, religious expiation and civil punishment. A faithful subject was therefore a pious child of God, and vice versa. And this did not apply to the commands alone ; but the gifts and promises of this God and King partook of the same twofold character. What he promised as God, he performed as King ; and what he did as King, subserved his Divine purposes—viz., the accomplishment of his eternal plan of salvation. K.

The distinctive nature of the Theocracy stood in the formal exhibition of God as King or Supreme Head of the commonwealth, so that all authority and law emanated from him ; and by necessary consequence there were not two societies in the ordinary sense, civil and religious, but a fusion of the two into one body, or, as we might express it from a modern point of view, a merging together of Church and State. This is a different thing from giving religion, or the priesthood appointed to represent its interests and perform its rites, a high and influential place in the general administration of affairs. The religious interest was peculiarly powerful in Egypt. The priestly caste stood nearest to the throne, and furnished from its members the supreme council of State. Much of the property, and many of the higher functions of government, were in their hands ; so that they formed a kind of ruling hierarchy. But this by no means rendered the constitution a Theocracy. The civil and the religious were still distinct provinces ; and it was more as “a highly privileged nobility” (to use an expression of Heeren’s) that the priesthood had such a sway in the government, than as persons acting in their religious capacity. It was otherwise in Israel, where the doctrine of one living and true God formed the Alpha and the Omega of all instruction. Here there was, what was elsewhere wanted, a proper religious centre, whence a sovereign and presiding agency might issue its injunctions upon every department of the State, as well as upon all the spheres of domestic and social life. And this is simply the idea embodied in the Jewish Theocracy; it is the fact of Jehovah condescending to occupy, in Israel, such a centre of power and authority. He proclaimed himself “King in Jeshurun.” Israel became the commonwealth with which he more peculiarly associated his presence and his glory. Not only the seat of his worship, but his throne also, was in Zion—both his sanctuary and his dominion. The covenant established with the people laid its bond upon their national not less than their individual interests, and the laws and precepts which were “written in the volume of the book” formed at once the directory of each man’s life and the statute book of the entire kingdom. Nor was this state of things materially interfered with by the special commissions given to prophets, the temporary elevation of judges, or the more settled government of the kings; for these had no authority to do or prescribe aught but as the ambassadors and delegates of him who dwelt between the cherubim. Nay, the higher any one might stand in office, he was only held the more specially bound to “meditate in the Law of the Lord, and observe to do all that was written therein.” Hence, also, as being alike formally and really at the head of the kingdom, Jehovah charged himself with the practical results of its administration; according to the loyalty or disobedience of his subjects, he made distribution to them in good or evil.

God himself was disclosed in the details of his ruling. His relation to his people as King of Zion, with the many special appointments of service and interpositions of Providence to which it naturally gave rise, served to bring out, in almost endless variety and minuteness of detail, the revelation of his mind and will. Every attribute of his character received in turn its appropriate manifestations; and nothing that essentially concerned his wisdom and power, his faithfulness and love, his inflexible hatred of sin or supreme regard to righteousness and truth, could remain hid from those who meditated aright in his word and ways. Not only so: but things connected with these which might have been known, and yet continued dim and shadowy to men’s view, became, through the working of the Theocratic institution, clothed as with flesh and blood; the Eternal was brought as from the depths of infinitude, whither the human spirit labors in vain to find him, and rendered objectively present to the soul by being on every hand allied to the relations of sense and time. The children of the covenant, continually as they came to draw near to his habitation and witness or take part in the outward ministrations of his service, were made, in a manner, to feel as if they saw his form and heard his voice. And even now, amid the higher privileges and ampler revelations furnished to our hand, yet how much do not we owe for our clearness of conception in the things of God, and for fitting terms to tell forth our conceptions, to the records of these dealings of God with Israel, and the impressions produced by them on the hearts of the people! What a loss should we not have sustained had we but wanted the more special reflection given of them in the Book of Psalms!—a book to which even the French theosophists of the last century were fain to betake themselves when seeking to compose a liturgical service to their god of nature, and of which one of the profoundest of modern historians (John von Müller) writes: “My most delightful hour every day is furnished by David. His songs sound to the depth of my heart, and never in all my life have I so seen God before my eyes.”

The results which the Theocracy produced in the personal and family life of the people were nowhere else produced in the ancient world. It is to Israel alone of all the nations of antiquity that we must turn alike for the more pure and lovely, and for the more stirring examples of moral excellence—sanctified homes, where the relations of domestic and family life stood under law to God, and where something was to be seen of the confiding simplicity, the holy freedom, and peaceful repose of heaven; lives of patient endurance and suffering, or of strong wrestling for the rights of conscience, and the privilege of yielding to the behests of duty; manifestations of zeal and love, in behalf of the higher interests of mankind such as could scorn all inferior considerations of flesh and blood, and even rise at times in “the elected saints” to such a noble elevation, that they have “wished themselves razed out of the book of life, in an ecstasy of charity and feeling of infinite communion” (Bacon). For refreshing sights and ennobling exhibitions like these, we must repair to the annals of that chosen seed, who were trained under the eye of God, and moulded by the sacred institutions of his kingdom. How different from what is recorded of the worldly, self-willed, luxurious Asiatics around them! And how fraught with lessons of wisdom and heroic example to future times and other generations!

Let but one be selected who had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the Theocracy, and entered cordially into its design: take David, for example, of whom this may strictly be said, notwithstanding standing a few mournful failures, which he himself most bitterly deplored; and where, in those ancient times, shall any approach be found to his marvellous combination of gifts and graces? Where may we desery a character at once so high-toned and so fully orbed? Think of this man as passing from the rustic simplicities of shepherd-life to the throne of the kingdom, yet bearing with him still the same tender, open, and glowing heart; treated on his way to the throne with the basest ingratitude and most ruthless persecution, forced even to become for many tedious years the tenant of savage wilds and caves of the desert, yet never lifting, when it was in his power to do so, the arm of vengeance, but ever repaying evil with good, and over the fall of his fiercest persecutor raising the notes of a most pathetic lamentation; distinguished above others by deeds of chivalry and military prowess, by which the kingdom was raised from its oppression and widely extended in its domain, yet reigning not for selfish ambition or personal glory, but as Jehovah’s servant for the establishment of truth and righteousness in the land; gifted, moreover, with a genius so fine, with sympathies so fresh and strong, as to be able to originate a new species of poetry, yet consecrating all to the service of the same Lord, in celebrating the praise of his doings, and telling forth the moods and experiences of the soul in its efforts to be conformed to the will of Heaven; and doing it in strains of such touching pathos and power, that they have found an echo in every pious bosom through succeeding generations, and to myriads of tempted souls have proved the greatest solace and support. The history of remote times can indeed tell of individuals who have risen from humble and sequestered life to sit with princes of the earth, or extend the glory of their country; but it can tell of no individual fitted by many degrees to be placed beside the shepherding and sweet psalmist of Israel. Nor could it have told of him, but for the training he enjoyed under that Theocracy with which he was so closely identified, and of which, in the grand features of his character, he was at once the legitimate offspring and the noblest representative. P. F.

What the Theocracy Might have Achieved.

The Israelitish, or Theocratic government, was a model of society beyond all human contrivance; it was a government of tutelage, and no form of government approached its simplicity and its magnificence. Had men been more perperfect, it was a state which would have everlastingly endured. D’Israeli.

Bishop Butler, in his “Analogy,” refers to the Jewish people as an illustration of the influence which a kingdom, administered with highest wisdom and perfect righteousness, would have on the face of the earth. “It would plainly be superior to any other, and the world must gradually come under its empire. The head of it would be an universal monarch; and the Eastern style would be literally applicable to him, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” In the fullest sense would this have been realized in the Jews abiding as a faithful people under the Theocracy. An example of the highest form of national life, just, virtuous, peaceful, and prosperous, undisturbed by internal strifes, invincible yet not ambitious or aggressive, these influences must have been felt throughout all nations; and the truth of their religion, their conceptions of God, of his unity, wisdom, holiness, goodness, and power, must have found wide recognition in all lands. In due time all peoples would have recognized them as the just and holy nation; their land as “a delightsome land,” and their God as worthy the reverence and adoration of all. Thus through the Theocratic relation and as the Head of a nation could Jehovah present himself as the King to whom all rulers on the earth owed obedience, and as the God whom all should worship. However bitterly opposed the spirit of heathenism to the pure religion of Jehovah, many would have been found among all peoples who would have hearkened willingly to spiritual truth coming to them from a people which illustrated it in all its national acts, and in the holy, blameless lives of its citizens. The words of the prophet Isaiah (2 : 3) would early have found the beginning of their fulfilment: “Many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Andrews.

The Ulterior Development and Final Issues of the Jewish Theocracy in Christianity.

There was a striking difference in respect of development between the kingdom of God in Israel and the worldly kingdoms by which it was surrounded, and for a time overborne. “Their end and aim,” so the difference is drawn even by Ewald in his History of the Jewish People, “lay only in themselves, rose into strength through human power and caprice, and again passed away. But here (viz., in the Jewish Theocracy) we have, for the first time in history, a kingdom which finds its origin and its aim external to itself, which did not come into being of man, nor of man attained to its future increase; therefore a kingdom which, itself affecting only what is Divine, carries also in its bosom the germ of an eternal duration, in spite of all incidental change, preserves still its inner truth, and revives anew in Christianity as with the freshness of a second youth.” P. F.—The form of the Theocracy was changeable and temporary. Its essence, like the purposes of salvation from which it had sprung, was imperishable: it existed before the establishment of the ancient covenant, and continued to exist when the design of the covenant had been fully accomplished. The kingdom of God on earth then passed beyond the national limits, within which the wisdom of God had confined it during the time of the ancient covenant; the sphere of the operations of Jehovah henceforth embraced all nations, and was co-extensive with that of the operations of Elohim. Jehovah was still a King, as he had been before; but his kingdom was no longer a national one, and his government no longer political and magisterial. For the political affairs of a State arise out of its separation from other States, and its connection with or opposition to them; but in the new Divine State, in the kingdom of God under the New Testament, all distinction, separation, and opposition between tribes and nations have been abolished—“there is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ.” In the same way are the magisterial functions (lit. the police administration) of the Divine government intrusted (or rather, like the political, they naturally fall again) to the very same authorities to which they had been intrusted from the beginning, under the universal government of Elohim. But the real, eternal, imperishable kernel of the Theocracy, the personal interposition on the part of God to carry out his plans of salvation, his personal activity in connection with human affairs, his incorporation in the creature, have not come to an end, but, on the contrary, have now received their complete and highest fulfilment. K.

The Spirit-endowed Church of Christ is the Theocracy in its new, its higher, its perennial form; since it is that in which God peculiarly dwells, and with which he identifies his character and glory. Every individual member of this Church, according to the proper idea of his calling, is a king and a priest to God; therefore not in bondage to the world, nor dividing between the world and God, but recognizing God in all, honoring and obeying God, and receiving power, as a prince with God, to prevail over the opposition and wickedness of the world. Every particular Church, in like manner, is, according to the idea of its calling, an organized community of such kings and priests; therefore bound to strive that the idea may be realized by the united strenuousness of its exertions in the cause of Christ, and the steady growth of its members toward a state in which they shall be without spot and blameless. The more this is the case, the more is the prayer of the Church fulfilled, “Thy kingdom come;” and the nearer shall we be to that happy time, when all power, and authority, and rule shall give way before the one heaven-anointed King, to whom the heritage of the earth belongs. P. F.—Simple as the phrase “kingdom of heaven” may seem, we cannot be said to have grasped the fulness of its meaning until we see in it the germinant thought of all the Scriptures; the moving force of all dispensations; the focal point of all the activities in heaven and on earth. It is no insignificant height to which we are lifted when we pray: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” Nothing appears as more characteristic of this kingdom, whose proclamation and unfolding engaged the thought of prophet and apostle, whose realization is the mission of the Church, than the directness of its relation to each one of its innumerable subjects. It is not the rule of preservation, or of Providence, or even of moral law, but of grace, to which our attention is summoned; the kingdom of redeemed and sanctified souls, of a new heaven and earth, delivered from bondage, cleansed from sin, established in righteousness. That kingdom is not of the letter but of the spirit. It comes not in and by ordinances; its every enactment is a law of life. The rule is immediate, personal, spiritual. There is very little of pomp; there is much of power. It is a kingdom whose constitution inheres in the holy will of God; all the machinery of whose administration is lodged in his moral omnipotence; representing the most absolute of autocracies sustained by the most radical of all democracies. The emphasis on this feature of personal authority appears in the very word translated “kingdom,” which signifies both the royal authority, and the constituency or territory under its control. So intimately related are the authority and the subjects on whom it terminates, that one word describes them both. The despotisms of the East present no such concentration of power as that which meets us in the kingdom of heaven. Yet was Athens not half so democratic. For there is no compulsion but that of reason, no constraint but that of love.

The enactments are not formal and external, enforced by the instruments of law or fear; they are inward and self-administrative, mastering the thoughts, bringing into captivity the deepest and subtlest of mental and moral activities. The kingdom of God is a form of government in which the ruler and the subject are brought into closest personal relation. It takes its departure from the New Birth; personal, radical regeneration is the centre of which the kingdom is the rounded sphere—the renewal of the soul into complete and cordial conformity to the will of God.

It is plain that Church and State, the forms of civil and religious life as we know them, must both disappear before the rising into noonday sovereignty of this coming rule. They are means, not ends; a universal and inclusive Theocracy or Christocracy is the ideal of Scripture. The clamor for a king by Israel was treated as an act of apostasy, an abandonment of their lofty calling to a nationality of kings and priests. Instituted government is indeed of God, and the civic magistracy is worthy of honor; the Church, too, is of Divine parentage; but they exist in deference to man’s weakness, his inability of complete self-government; they are limitations and helps that are provisional and disciplinary, to be laid aside when he has reached his spiritual maturity. The final form of government is that in which the civil and the ecclesiastical blend in the Divine, in which all machinery becomes needless, in which freedom and law, duty and preference, walk arm-in-arm, in which every citizen is a sovereign, a king, and a priest, while one personal will billows its authority over and through all minds and hearts. Behrends.

Reasons for the Study of the Hebrew Theocracy.

The first reason for the study of the Hebrew Theocracy is found in the supreme worth to the race of moral ideas, and the for this reason immense interest that attaches to that nation which, during an age of comparative groping after moral truth among otherwise extremely enlightened peoples, received and transmitted from generation to generation a morality that in its outlines presents still the canons for all mankind. This morality, intimately connected with, even the outgrowth of, a sublime monotheism, is presented in the Old Testament in such commanding simplicity and with such reasonable grandeur as to make all the precepts and corollaries of the heathen mythologies of refined peoples seem puerile and empty. If the mythologies of Greece and the Norsemen are worth studying for the thought of the people whose conceptions they embody, then the ethical and religious conceptions of a people more ideal than the Germans, of intenser self-respect than the Romans, of majestic purity as compared with the Greeks, of more ardent family feeling than the English—the people from whose moral and religious reservoir all the world has drawn the tonic of daily social life—is worthy of study in its origin and history, in its ritual and its literature.

The second reason for the study of the Hebrew Theocracy is to be found in the great influence which the ideas of this Theocracy have exerted in the reformatory crises in the history of the race. To pass by for the present the transition of those ideas into the essence of Christianity, with what intensity and power the idea of the wide and ineffaceable difference between right and wrong—the idea of retribution swift and certain for iniquity, and of ultimate blessedness for the righteous—the idea as applied to nations that there can be no permanent peace or prosperity except through obedience to the perfect moral law, with what intensity and power these ideas leaped forth in the preaching of Savonarola, in the reformation work of Luther and Calvin, in the awakening of the demand for liberty of conscience in the Netherlands and in England, and in the settlement and early legislation of our own New England. In the preparation of the nations for, and in the attainment of, a purer life, it has always been the ideas of that Theocracy that have had the most stimulating and unrelenting force. The Law, the Hebrew moral Law, has always been for the nations the schoolmaster to quicken and arouse the sleeping conscience, and to prepare the way for liberty.

Another reason for the study of the ideas of the Hebrews is found in the thoroughness with which these ideas pervade the new literatures. This is but an extension of the previous reason, but by considering this we shall see still more plainly how momentous the Jewish influence has been in the new moral beginnings, in the great revivals of the world. As Ulfilas carried the Bible to the Goths in their own tongue, and secured the fragments of that precious monument to scholars, so every renewal of literary life among the Germans has been enkindled or accelerated by Hebrew ideas, though in some cases the Jewish conceptions have been overlaid by the Christian. The old High-German literary revival had its impulse in connection with the extension of the sway of the Roman Church, the Middle-German from the crusades, though translations from the Psalms and the Pentateuch are among the remains from that period; but the revival of morality in the Reformation, by the aid of Luther’s Bible, renewed the German language, and that popular translation did for the common language the same, but much more than King James’s version has done for the English. Hence even in the noblest literary monuments the traces of the original inspiration, both in language and ideas. Milton’s “Paradise Lost” was the outgrowth of a greater moral revival than Dante’s “Inferno,” and to it must be referred the inspiration that produced for the Germans Klopstock’s “Messiah.”

The attitude and isolation of the Jews, the origin and maintenance of such a morality under such conditions, the history and polity of that Theocracy furnish a valid argument against the sceptical patrons of development and the best antidote for too much Hellenism in modern education. If with all our boasted progress we have not yet in moral purity surpassed what underlies the Ten Commandments, if the history of the Jews studied with care confirms the teaching of sound philosophy that in ethical conceptions the race has descended, not ascended, then what is better wherewith to controvert a false philosophy than the records of a people who cannot be brought under the deductions of developed atoms endowed with the promise of morality, but as a unique race, though sometimes disobeying and sometimes stoning their prophets, who yet on the whole make good by the majesty and purity of their ideas their claim to be the chosen people of the one true God? And if in the development of individualism in the modern enthusiasm for Greek art and the dominion of beauty, there are creeping in tendencies among the most cultivated akin to those which John Foster deprecated as likely to result from classical study, but far more devastating in a land like ours than any that could arise in England, what shall hold to the supremacy of perfect moral law and prevent any man’s becoming a law unto himself, any man’s assuming as good for his life and personality such freedom of habits and such disregard of moral sanctions as characterized the Greeks? The agnostic philosophy and the adoration for beauty may issue in Greek license and frivolity—in an utterly sociological morality in which depravity is sin because it is hideous, and not hideous because it is sin. As preventive of such results, as destructive of the very germs of such a ghastly morality, the ideas of the Hebrew Theocracy furnish the best antidote.

Once more, we need this study because it is the historical basis of Christianity. However foreign the knowledge of those types and symbols might have been, if the thing signified had never come forth; however vague and shadowy those prophetic utterances of rapture over a coming Messiah might have been, if the Messiah were still expected; these types and utterances would still command the admiration of the upright, as embodying the loftiest morality and representing in the sharpest light the wide, eternal difference between right and wrong. One might tremble beneath Sinai and wonder at the imprecations in the Psalms, but an earnest mind could not fail to feel the solemnity of human conduct under the reiteration of such commandments, of rubrics so red with the blood of sacrifices. But now that the sharpness of law has been merged in the love of an incarnate rectitude; now that the prohibitory maxims like faint day-stars have paled before the law of love, the splendor of a risen “Sun of righteousness;” now that “the blood of bulls and of goats” has given place to “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world;” now that Jesus has come in the line of Abraham and David, and the reign of this pacific Prince has expanded the scope and dominion of Hebrew ideas through the loving zeal of his followers, and embraced as did his arms upon the cross all the world; now that what Matthew Arnold calls the narrow, dogmatic spirit of Hebraism has been lost in the charitable sweetness of Christianity, how profoundly instructive the Old Testament becomes and all Hebrew history previous to Christ. Who would not know the history and the customs of that people? Carter.

With a mighty arm Jehovah leads his people out of the land of bondage; and when they have been witnesses again and again of his power and merciful protection, he, at Mount Sinai, enters into a covenant relation with them as a people. The motive is the same in the cases of both Abraham and Israel—namely, outwardly to establish them in such surroundings that God could accomplish his inner educational purpose within them. The rule of God, or the Theocracy, in the individual now becomes such in a people. For that reason, they are to form one nation separated entirely from all the rest, living in a land chosen for them and their historical mission by God himself, and under his own peculiar rule and government. If the great plans of God are to be realized then such a separation and such a Theocracy were a necessity. Otherwise the attractions of sin would have thwarted the Divine purposes.

The plans of God in Israel are the same as those he had in view in the case of the patriarchs; for the covenant he makes with the people is the same in principle and character, and is, in fact, identical with the one entered upon by Abraham and the other fathers. This identity is throughout the sacred records everywhere felt and expressed. God reveals himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and as such Jehovah is to be proclaimed to the people, and Moses is to inform them that now the time has come when God will redeem his promises given unto the patriarchs, and will lead his people into the possession of the land flowing with milk and honey. But as these promises were given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in virtue of the covenant of grace and faith existing between them and their God, this fulfilment of the promises on God’s part is in itself alone a sufficient testimony that the same covenant was still abiding in the case of the people. There is not only not a syllable in all the revelations through Moses, and in all the arrangements of Mosaism, that points to a change or abrogation in the character of the covenant, but there is proof abundant both clearly expressed and implied, that, before as after, the covenant relation depended upon the faith and trust put by men in the promises and words of God.

The objective ground of this covenant, or the reason why God selects Israel and no other people to be the recipients of his special mercies, is everywhere in the Pentateuch recognized to be the unmerited grace of Jehovah. Nowhere is there any intimation given that Israel was chosen on account of any special merit; but rather the very opposite, the confession that Israel was entirely unworthy of this election, finds repeated expression. The Lord chose them because he loved them (De. 7 : 7, 8 ; 8 : 17). The mighty deeds of God in delivering the people from the hands of their oppressors, and of doing so without any merit or virtue on their part to deserve it, is a thought underlying not only all Mosaism, but also all later revelation. He who fails to see this deep undercurrent of a confession of unworthiness of God’s grace, and the strong consciousness of sin in the whole Old Testament revelation, will never be able thoroughly to understand and appreciate pre-Christian revelation. Mosaism knows nothing of self-righteousness, but acknowledges itself as the constant recipient of undeserved mercies in God’s hands. This idea, which necessarily lies at the bottom of, and is presupposed in, a covenant of grace, finds a much clearer expression in the early narratives of Israel than in the accounts of Abraham. It was only on this basis that they hoped to be a “peculiar treasure above all people . . . a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” For in the disavowal of all merit or righteousness in themselves lay the other element, or the subjective side, of this covenant—namely, faith in God. Although this demand of the covenant finds its clearest and plainest expression not in words, but in the actions of the people, in the following of God’s appointed servant, in their willingness to be guided by Jehovah, in their religious ceremonies and ordinances; yet it is also plainly expressed, that Israel as a people, and individually, is acceptable and righteous before the Lord—i.e., is true to the covenant relation with the Lord, if he, like his forefathers, the patriarchs, puts his trust and confidence in God and in God alone. The chief sin of which the Mosaic system, and indeed the whole Old Testament and its covenant has any knowledge, is that of idolatry, which is nothing but the transfer of a faith and confidence from the true to a false God. In this manner the spirit of the covenant could be, and was, most easily violated; and against this sin the very first of the Ten Commands which form the corner-stone of the whole Mosaic structure is directed. It recognizes faith, then, as the subjective basis of this covenant. Indeed, the whole spirit of God’s revelations to Israel and His deeds in the formative stage of their national life, show clearly enough two things as essential elements in the covenant established between them: First, that God chose Israel, and showered His blessings upon it as an act of pure grace and mercy; and, secondly, that Israel, if it would be acceptable before the Lord, must in faith and obedience follow the leading of the Lord, as this is laid down in the ordinances and commands he has given to them. An Israelite was then true to the covenant, if his life and actions showed that he had faith and confidence in the Lord of the covenant.

But how about the Law? Does not the existence and object of the Mosaic Law prove false the view of the Old Testament religion here expressed? By no means; but, if rightly understood, it only confirms what has been said. It cannot be repeated too often, that to identify the Old Covenant with the Mosaic dispensation, or to make Mount Sinai annul the Abrahamic covenant, and establish in its place a new covenant with the principle of legal righteousness, is totally false. Mosaism nowhere claims this for itself, and there is no scriptural warrant for such a view. The Law finds its mission in and within the covenant, and represents one stage in the growth and unfolding of this covenant. Its object was not to supplant the covenant of grace and faith, but rather to be subservient in making this effectual in Israel’s spiritual life and in the history of God’s kingdom. Paul, who so clearly states that the Old Testament saints were justified by faith alone has not forgotten to inform us of the important work of the Law in the unfolding of God’s plans. He says (Gal. 3 : 19) : " Wherefore then serveth the law ? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made ; ’ and in verses 21-24 : " Is the law then against the promises of God ? God forbid : for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto faith which should afterward be revealed. Wherefore the law was a schoolmaster [R. V. tutor] to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Παυδαγωγός εἰς Χριστὸν tells the secret. The Law was an educational means to bring the people to a realization of the requirements and to a full and real acceptance of the covenant. Its aim was a propedeutic and preparatory one, both for Israel and for the history of God’s kingdom. If the ideal attitude of the souls of the covenant adherents toward the covenant Lord, as this is expressed in the official covenant established at Mount Sinai, was ever to become a life and a truth in the hearts of the people, and not a mere outward formality, then the people would have to be educated up to an understanding of its principles, and the acceptance of all that it involved. That they had not attained to this standard when the covenant was established, nor indeed ever afterward, is one of the most evident teachings of their history. A righteousness accounted through faith implies recognition of a want of righteousness in one’s self, and a dependence for righteousness and salvation upon somebody else. In the covenant of the Old, as well as in that of the New, Testament, the anthropological principles of an absolute inability to render one’s self acceptable or just before God, as also the soteriological principle that such a salvation or re-establishment of that true relationship between God and man, which existed before the break caused by sin, must come from the grace and mercy of the Lord, are implied and presupposed. The covenant required faith and absolute allegiance to God ; but faith and absolute allegiance to God would be possible only when it was apparent that such faith and allegiance were the only means of righteousness ; and this brought with it the further truth that any departure from such a life of faith - i.e., any sin of whatever nature and character, was also a violation of the covenant relation, and hence a forfeiture of the blessings it brought ; for which sin some restoration and atonement would have to be made, if the broken covenant relation was to be re-established. That all these principles are embraced in the covenant in its Mosaic form is apparent from the sacrificial and atonement system, where they are recognized by word and deed.

In order that these great truths in God’s plans of redemption should work out their way into the consciousness and convictions of the chosen people, and in order that these should become the people of the covenant in truth, God established them as a politico-religious state, under His own special government, and gave them the whole complex system of moral and ceremonial law known as Mosaism, and contained in the Pentateuch. This body formed the limits in which the covenant as a soul should have its being and undergo its development. The whole legal system, as established by Moses, in its religious, political, and social features, was the outward wall that protected the inner growth of the covenant principle, and at the same time promoted the latter. The commandments of the Lord, from the highest of the Ten Commandments to the lowest and least behest for the conduct of private affairs, represented to those under the covenant the just demands which the Lord of the covenant had a right to make upon those who would possess the blessings of the covenant ; it represented to those who, of their own free will and choice, had sworn allegiance to this covenant at Mount Sinai the duties which they owed to Jehovah. It brought vividly and strongly before their eyes the knowledge of what the faithful performance of their covenant relation involved and demanded of them, and at the same time would necessarily awaken in them a consciousness of their inability to comply with these demands, and to be faithful to their promises. Indeed, this latter fact of inability, and of a sinful state, is recognized by the Law itself as a necessary feature in the life of those subject to it. For the same law that commands and condemns also provides for means of pardon and atonement for the violation of its mandates, primarily indeed only typically and hopefully, but this in view of the real atonement and pardon to come in Christ. The sacrificial portion of the Mosaic system can be understood only on the premises that an honest child of the covenant would recognize his sinful state and deserved condemnation and rejection, and that the life under the Law would necessarily be a life of constant contrition and confession of transgressions, and a constant resort to the throne of grace for pardon and a renewed acceptance. This feature of the legal code shows that at the bottom of the covenant, of which it was the outward framework, lay the ideas of repentance for sins and faith in Jehovah to forgive these sins. As Christ says (Matt. 23 : 23) the weightier matters of the Law were “judgment, mercy, and faith.” To promote these in the hearts of the Israelites was the purpose of the Sinaitic code. Its complex character and minute ramifications covered the whole public and private existence of the Israelite, and constantly reminded him of what he owed his Divine King, whose rule he had chosen for himself by agreeing to accept his covenant. Hence, too, for the Israelite there was no difference between a moral and a ceremonial law; both were equally an expression of the will of Jehovah under the covenant relation; a violation of either was a rejection of the principle of faith and obedience, and hence equally punishable. Later, when the kingdom of God had passed beyond the circumscribed limits of a single state and nation, and had become more spiritual, and particularity had developed into universality, then those features of the Law which were conditioned by the preparatory stage, and were not based upon the fundamental truths of the covenant, could fall away, as they did when Christ came and established the congregations of saints, not only in Israel, but over the whole world. But as long as the covenant was circumscribed by locality and nationality for the education of a peculiar people, so long, too, all those laws established by God for effecting his purpose were equally binding upon the adherents of the covenant. Under such circumstances, a transgression of a ceremonial law was punishable equally with one of the moral command.

These facts explain why it is that in the establishment of the covenant, as this is recorded in Ex. 19 sqq., so much stress is laid upon the obedience of the people to the commands of the Lord. This obedience is the obedience of faith, and the faith of those living under the legal rule finds its expression in the obedience to this law of the covenant. An Israelite is חֲלִית, or just, in so far as he complies with the norm of the Law; because a transgression of these laws given by Jehovah for the guidance of his life and worship is a rejection of the authority of God and a refusal to trust him. A rebellion against God’s ordinances is a rebellion against the very covenant itself. An Israelite who truly believed in Jehovah would necessarily feel himself in duty bound to obey these laws. He could not do otherwise, or his life and his confession would antagonize each other. But never do we read that such an obedience is to be regarded in itself as a meritorious act, or a means of righteousness. The Mosaic system knows of no legal or work righteousness.

While recognizing, then, their duty to obey in all their minutiae the commands of the Law, and learning by that how sinful they were, those under the Law put their trust for righteousness and deliverance in the mercy of the Lord. Just to what extent the object of their faith was the mercy of God in general, or the merits of the promised seed, might be a debatable question. In truth, the real objective ground ever was the latter, and was undoubtedly recognized to be such by at least the most advanced among the covenant children. (Cf. John 8 : 56; Gal. 3 : 10-18.) Their life under the Law certainly pointed out to them the necessity of looking solely to the grace of Jehovah; but whether, and to what extent, they were conscious of the fact that the objective grounds of this grace were the life and death of the promised Messiah may not be easily decided. Certain it is, though, that from the time of the protevangelium in Gen. 3 to the evangelistic flights in the second part of Isaiah (chiefly in ch. 53) there is a golden chain of prophecies running through the whole Old Testament life and revelation, that a Redeemer and a Messiah should come. And that in the Mosaic system this personal Saviour is the object of faith seems evident from the typical and symbolical actions in the sacrifices and atonements, as their true significance and meaning are explained in the Epistle to the Hebrews. There and in other places in the New Testament the typical character of the tabernacle, of the cultus in its different kinds, of the festivals, etc., is recognized, and the relation between the type and thing typified shown, and there Mosaism repeatedly recognizes the coming of a personal Messiah and Deliverer, and has before it all the grand prophecies to this effect given to the patriarchs centuries before.

Such then, according to the New Testament, and also according to the Old, was the historical mission of the Law in its relation to and bearing on the Old Covenant. Far from standing in an antagonism to a covenant of grace and faith, its aim was to develop and make such a covenant the soul and life of a nation, so that its principles might become in the growth of this people some of the great truths of history, that, in the fulness of time, Christianity might base its work of victory on such results of an earlier development.

Hand in hand with the Mosaic dispensation, and closely allied to it, was prophecy in Israel. It is a fatal error of the new critical school to place the Law and the prophets in antagonism to each other. Those passages in the prophets that seem to speak slightly of the Law can be interpreted as in opposition to the proper mission and functions of the Law only by a misinterpretation of the legal features in the religious development of Israel; not the use, but the abuse of the Law, by reducing it to an opus operatum formalism, or to a means of pharisaic self-righteousness, is condemned by the prophets. The Law and the prophets are not only contemporaneous in the point of time, but are also closely related in the covenant work and mutually complimentary. The fact that the earlier prophets were men of action chiefly, and the latter engaged also in literary work, should not mislead us into separating, as far as time is concerned, what is actually found at the same time. Moses himself, the Lawgiver, was also a prophet; and both Mosaism and Prophecy, in their Divine purposes and actual workings, conspired together toward the development of the great truths of the covenant between God and the chosen people. Instead of being contradictory and antagonistic, they rather work together to make God’s plans facts and truths. While the Law points out to man the duties he is to perform as a child of the covenant, and thus instructs him in the great truths of sin and the constant need of Divine pardon and mercy, and while this Law is to make these truths the teachings of Israel’s history in them and for others, the prophets, as the speakers and seers of God, accompany this historical development with their revelations of knowledge, reproof, guidance, and consolation. The prophets are the instructors of the people, sent by the Lord of the covenant, so that the people would be taught to walk and live aright under the conditions of this covenant, toward the fulfilment of their historical mission. Prophecy had thus, like the Law, a work to perform in the unfolding of God’s kingdom, and this work was for the same ultimate end. It must not be forgotten that the chief work of the prophets was not, as it is sometimes supposed to be, the prediction of future events. The prophets were decidedly men of words and actions for the immediate present, for the demands of the hour. They preached to Israel, and not only or principally to later generations; and what they did and said was intended to have its effect in moulding the religious destiny of the people they addressed. All prophecy, both those specially so called, as also the books written in a prophetic spirit, as also the Psalms and the other Hagiographa, must be looked upon and interpreted as reflecting the character, spirit, and life of the Old Covenant. They represent one phase in the development of this covenant, and hence can fairly be called upon for instruction as to what the nature of this covenant really was. The lives and teachings of the prophets and psalmists, as well as of all those under the Old Covenant who proved acceptable before the Lord, can be fairly regarded as expressive of its genius and soul. Yet nowhere do we find among the Old Testament believers a single one who considers himself just because of his obedience to the Law, and who bases the correctness of his attitude to the covenant, and consequently his hope of justification, upon the fulfilment of the Mosaic code. The experience and faith of the men of God under the old dispensation, as this finds utterance in the records of the sacred volume, those correct exponents and indices of the religious life and hope under the covenant, leave no room for doubt or debate that they knew nothing of a legal or self-righteousness. So strongly does the confidence of faith find expression in the Psalms, for instance, that later revelation and Christian gratitude have found no higher and deeper utterance for it. One thing is sure, that the saints of the Old Testament felt and rejoiced in their acceptance before the Lord; for them full righteousness and membership in the kingdom of God was not regarded simply as a possibility of the future, but as a present reality and a fact. That the prophets and psalmists, and all the true representatives of the Old Testament covenant life, feel this in their heart of hearts, and that peace with God was to their souls existence and life, is as historically certain as anything in the sacred records can be, and that they did not base this happiness upon the righteousness of the Law is equally certain. The total absence of any hint or word in this direction is alone a sufficient testimony. But the evidence for the opposite is found in abundance. Every page of the prophetic books or the Hagiographa furnishes this. The prophets, as a rule, start out with the lesson of the Law—namely, the recognition and confession of sin. They recite how merciful the Lord has been to his people, how undeserving of this grace they have been, and how unfaithful they have been in their covenant relation. On the basis of this knowledge they exhort the people to repentance and faith, assuring them in the name of the Lord of the covenant, whose spokesmen they are, that if the sinners will return in repentance the Lord will pardon them their transgressions, and again receive them as his own peculiar people, and that they should put their confidence in him, and in him alone. It is this line of thought that we everywhere find in the prophetic words and the prophetic deeds. They upbraid sin, call to repentance, and then offer to the repentant and trusting sinner the fulness of God’s mercy. In the prophetic features of the Old Testament development, these are the cardinal and leading thoughts, and show with clearness that for them, too, it was a covenant of grace. In one prominent point the prophets advance beyond Mosaism—namely, in the clear announcement of the objective ground of grace which God promises to the penitent sinner. The Messianic feature of the prophecies constantly grows in clearness and emphasis, until in such visions as Isaiah 53 we seem to hear not prophecy, but the record of history. The evangelical clearness in prophecy is ever unfolding itself more and more. In their hands the Law becomes more and more a school-master unto Christ, because they can interpret the Law. They teach not only that the Law cannot justify, and that in his mercy God will do so, but also that he will do so for the sake of the future Redeemer. They believed not only in a salvation to come, but also in a Saviour to come, and it was thus only that the circuit of saving truth was completed.

This, then, in general outlines, is the character of the Old Testament covenant. It is, like the New, a covenant of grace; the fundamental ideas of both are the same. The chief difference lies in this: that in the Old is found the preparatory stage, where, within the bounds of a nation and the hedge of a law, the consciousness of sin and the need of a Saviour were developed; the New starts out with this knowledge, and proclaims the Saviour from these sins. The sins demanded a sacrifice; Christ did, by his life and his deeds, become a sacrifice and atonement; and with these words the greatest difference between the Old and the New Testament covenant has been stated. The Old teaches the knowledge of sin, and looks forward to the coming sacrifice as a hope and a promise; the New starts out with this conviction, and has the complete sacrifice already performed. But the basis of hope, the object of faith, is in both the same—namely, Christ Jesus our Lord.

In view of these facts, it may be called a piece of doubtful wisdom to speak of two covenants, as now understood, at all. In reality there is but one covenant—namely, that of grace and faith, but in two historical stages of development, the preparatory and the completed. Between the two there is a difference, not of kind, but merely of degree. The biblical and traditional theological terminology, concerning a new and an old covenant, as these are generally understood, tends rather to separate and keep apart as distinct, or even antagonistic, two things that are really but the two sides of one and the same thing. The covenant idea is the connecting link between the two testaments, as it is declared to be by the preaching of John the Baptist, and of Christ. They announce that the kingdom of God, which has hitherto been in preparation and a promise, has now arrived and is at hand; and they, consciously, thus place their mission and work in direct connection as complementary to that which has preceded. They build upon the foundation of Moses and the prophets.

Our examination has shown how intimately, in their roots and essence, the two testaments are connected, and how correct is the terse dictum of St. Augustine, that the New Testament lies concealed in the Old, and the Old lies revealed in the New. Both proclaim the sin of man, but both announce also the mercy of God, ready to pardon man if he repents. They record for us how God, who did not desire the dire work of sin to succeed, made a covenant for the purpose of thwarting the destruction of mankind; how this covenant, in which God asked that man should have faith and confidence in him alone, grew and developed under the politico-religious kingdom of Israel, until in the fulness of time this development had taught, beyond a doubt, its great lesson, the need of a Saviour; the Saviour really came and performed what had been predicted, prefigured, and typified before—namely, the work of redemption and salvation. The New and the Old are one undivided revelation, because they are the record of one kingdom of God on earth. Schodde.

The Covenant is the fundamental principle of the Divine revelation, to which the Divine revelation commits its treasures and from which man continually draws upon them. The Covenant has a great variety of forms in the sacred Scriptures, but the most essential and comprehensive form is that assumed in the Mosaic Covenant at Sinai which becomes the Old Covenant pre-eminently, and over against that is placed the New Covenant of the Messiah Jesus Christ, so that the great historical division becomes the Theology of the Old Covenant and the Theology of the New Covenant. The Covenant is a union and communion effected between God and man. It involves a personal relationship which it originates and maintains by certain events and institutions. This is Religion. The Covenant and its relations, man apprehends as an intelligent being with meditation, reflection, and reasoning. All this he comprehends in doctrines, which he apprehends and believes and maintains as his faith. These doctrines will embrace the three general topics of God, of Man, and of Redemption. The Covenant still further has to do with man as a moral being, imposing moral obligations upon him with reference to God and man and the creatures of God. All these are comprehended under the general term Ethics. These distinctions apply equally well to all the periods of Divine revelation; they are simple, they are comprehensive, they are all-pervading. Briggs.

Ex. 19 10 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to-day and 11 to morrow, and let them wash their garments, and be ready against the third day : for 12 the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount 13 Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed 14 to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it : whoso- 15 ever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death : no hand shall touch him, but 16 he shall surely be stoned, or shot through ; whether it be beast or man, it shall not 17 live : when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. And 18 Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people ; and 19 they washed their garments. And he said unto the people, Be ready against the 20 third day : come not near a woman. 21 And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thun- 22 ders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet 23 exceeding loud ; and all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses 24 brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God ; and they stood at the nether 25 part of the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the LORD 26 descended upon it in fire : and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a fur- 27 nace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet 28 waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the 29 LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mount : and the LORD called 30 Moses to the top of the mount ; and Moses went up. And the LORD said unto 31 Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, 32 and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, 33 sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them. And Moses said unto 34 the LORD, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai : for thou didst charge us, 35 saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it. And the LORD said unto him, 36 Go, get thee down ; and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee : but let 37 not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he 38 break forth upon them. So Moses went down unto the people, and told them.

God had entered into covenant with his people. Israel was now no longer a family or tribe. They had begun to be a great nation. God would make them his “peculiar treasure.” And all the people had said, “All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do.” But a people that is to be the Lord’s must know his will. That will he is now to make known. And he prefaces the utterance by signs which indicate that he is great and terrible in his holiness; a jealous as well as long-suffering God. Everything is ordered so as to deepen this impression. Two days are given to cleansing. Bounds are set so that neither man nor beast can come near the mountain. Then, amid thunderings and lightnings, the quaking of the mountain and the terror of the people, the Lord descends. An.

PREPARATION FOR THE THIRD DAY (verses 10-15).

10. They were about to approach a holy God, a God of infinite purity, who cannot bear any unclean thing in his presence, and therefore they were to take care that no defilement was upon them. They were to wash their clothes and preserve their persons free from all impurity. Not that there was any intrinsic virtue in mere external ablutions and abstinences; they were to do this in token of their cleansing themselves from all sinful pollutions. Bush.

12. By what follows in verse 23 it appears that this command of setting bounds was meant of placing a material fence around the bottom of the actual rise of Sinai, so that the people could not break through. Aif.

13. If a man or a beast should break through the prescribed limits and advance toward the mountain, they were to slay him on the spot by casting stones or shooting darts at him from a distance. What a speaking commentary upon God’s estimate of presumptuous sin! Bush.

See the difference of God’s carriage to men in the Law and in the Gospel: here, the very hill where he appeared may not be touched of the purest Israelite; there, the hem of his garment is touched by the diseased woman, yea, his very face was touched with the lips of Judas: here, the very earth was prohibited them on which he descended; there, his very body and blood is proffered to our touch and taste. Oh, the marvellous kindness of our God! How unthankful are we, if we do not acknowledge this mercy above his ancient people! They were his own; yet strangers, in comparison of our liberty. It is our shame and sin, if, in these means of entireness we be no better acquainted with God, than they which in their greatest familiarity were commanded aloof. Bp. H.

JEHOVAH DESCENDS UPON THE MOUNT (verses 16-25).

As the people gazed on it, “Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke.” That vast isolated mountain-block—two miles in length and one in breadth—seemed all on fire! As “the smoke of a furnace” it rose to heaven, “and the whole mount quaked greatly,” and “there were thunders and lightnings,” and “the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud.” But, more awful than any physical signs, “Jehovah came down upon Mount Sinai.” A. E.

The account of the way in which God appeared and of what he did, is worthy of him, and quite in harmony with the nature and object of revelation at this stage. The two greatest phenomena of nature, sea, and mountain, obey his will and bow before his glory! The sea divides; the mountain trembles. Both become scenes of the display of his righteous power. By the sea his might as judge is revealed upon his enemies; on the mountain, his might and authority as Ruler and Legislator for the people. Through the act of giving the Law, Jehovah comes personally before the people as their King and Lord, in the fulness of his majesty. That they might be thrown upon him, and not be engrossed again with worldly affairs, Israel is not led directly to Canaan, but by long journeys through the desert. He undertakes, as the wilderness is without food and without a road (the simplest signs of civilization) to feed the people with manna and to lead them by the pillar of cloud and fire, so that they may be pointed to him directly, and accustomed to the thought of him. Therefore was the wonder-working grace of God thus daily visible throughout the long march in the wilderness, on the earth by the manna, in heaven by the cloudy, fiery pillar. Auberien.

The great miracle of Judaism was the Divine institution of the religion. “The earth shook and the heavens also dropped in the presence of God.” The devouring fires of Sinai proclaimed the deliverance of the Law of Moses. The apparition of the Deity—an apparition without similitude—rested before the eye of mortal man. Two millions of human witnesses attested and trembled. From amidst the dense cloud hanging on the mountain, “the voice of the words” established Judaism. On this awful revelation to a whole people rests the foundation of the Jewish faith in the Law of Moses. D’Israeli.

16. And it came to pass on the third day.** The eventful day at length arrived, the sixth of the month Sivan, and the fiftieth after the departure from Egypt. The morning was ushered in with terrible thunders and lightnings, and a cloud of deep lowering darkness resting upon the summit of the mount. The heavens and the earth and the elements conspired to signalize the advent of the Creator and Lord of the universe to this part of his dominions. Nearly every object of grandeur and awe of which we can conceive, enters into the description. Thunder, lightning, tempest, the blackness of darkness, smoke, fire, earthquake, and the trumpet of God! Never till the light of the last morning shall dawn, and the trump of the archangel shall peal its summons to arouse the dead, will such a spectacle be again witnessed on earth. A deep moral impression in regard to the Law about to be delivered was to be produced. Everything accordingly was so ordered as to afford the most striking display of the glorious majesty of the Lawgiver, to point out the character of the Law in its strictness and rigor, and its tremendous penalty.

The people trembled. When a sound was heard, shrill and piercing like the notes of a trumpet, but rising above the peals and the crash of the thunder, no wonder that the impression upon the people was terrific beyond all conception. No wonder that the terms “voice of the archangel and trump of God” should have arisen from this incident of the dread phenomena which struck the senses of assembled Israel at the base of the holy mount; and that the Scriptures associate the sound of a great trumpet with the awful occurrences of the day of judgment, of which the giving of the Law from Sinai was intended to be a faint type and shadow.

19. God answered by a voice.** Their hearing with their own ears the voice of God speaking to his servant, would utterly cut off all future pretext for saying that Moses palmed upon them a system of laws and statutes of his own devising, or imposed upon their credulity in any way whatever. In affirming this they would be witnesses against themselves. They had a demonstration that the Laws to which they were required to submit, were promulgated from the highest authority in the universe, of which Moses was merely the ministering mediator. Bush.

Never was so great a congregation called together, and preached to, at once, as this was here. No one man’s voice could have reached so many, but the voice of God did.

Now, at length, is come that memorable day, that terrible day of the Lord, that day of judgment, in which Israel heard the voice of the Lord God speaking to them out of the midst of the fire, and lived (De. 4 : 33). Never was there such a sermon preached, before or since, as this which was here preached to the Church in the wilderness.

The Preacher was God himself (verse 18); The Lord descended in fire, and (verse 20), The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai. The Shekinah, or Glory of the Lord, appeared in the sight of all the people; he shined forth from Mount Paran, with ten thousands of his saints (De 33 : 2)—that is, attended, as the Divine Majesty always is, with a multitude of the holy angels, who were both to grace the solemnity and to assist it. Hence the Law is said to be given by the disposition of angels (Acts 7 : 53). The pulpit (or throne rather) was Mount Sinai, hung with a thick cloud (verse 16), covered with smoke (verse 18), and made to quake greatly. Now it was that the earth trembled at the presence of the Lord, and the mountains skipped like rams (Ps. 114 : 4, 7); that Sinai itself, the rough and rocky, melted from before the Lord God of Israel (Judg. 5 : 5). Now it was that the mountains saw him, and trembled (Hab. 3 : 10). H.

God was ever wonderful in his works and fearful in his judgments; but he was never so terrible in the execution of his will, as now in the promulgation of it. Here was nothing but a majestical terror in the eyes, in the ears of the Israelites; as if God meant to show them by this how fearful he could be. Here was the trumpet of God drowning the thunder-claps, the voice of God outspeaking the trumpet; the cloud enwrapping, the smoke ascending, the fire flaming, the mount trembling, Moses climbing and quaking, paleness and death in the face of Israel, uproar in the elements, and all the glory of heaven turned into terror. And if the Law were thus given, how shall it be required? If such were the proclamation of God’s statutes, what shall the sessions be? I see and tremble at the resemblance. To the one, Moses, that climbed up that hill and alone saw it, says, “God came with ten thousands of his saints;” in the other, “thousand thousands shall minister to him, and ten thousand thousands shall stand before him.” In the one, Mount Sinai only was on a flame; all the world shall be so in the other. In the one, there were fire, smoke, thunder and lightning; in the other, a fiery stream shall issue from him, wherewith the heavens shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt away with a noise. O God, how powerful art thou to inflict vengeance upon sinners, who didst thus forbid sin! and if thou wert so terrible a Lawgiver, what a Judge shalt thou appear! Bp. H.

If he was dreadful at Sinai, coming in threatening flames to promulgate his Law; what must he be “coming in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!’ Bush. —For even in Calvary, Sinai is not forgotten. The steps of the earthquake are felt beneath the Cross, thick darkness overshadows it, a piercing voice that tells of the fearful evil of sin descends from it, and we are addressed in the Gospel: “Wherefore let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.” Ker.

The Law was given in an awful manner to make all sensible how great that authority, power, and justice was, that stood engaged to exact the fulfilment of this Law, and to see it fully executed; and how strictly God would require the fulfilment: and how terrible his wrath would be against every breaker of it; that men, being sensible of these things, might have a thorough trial of themselves, and might prove their own hearts, and know how impossible it is for them to have salvation by the works of the Law, and might see the absolute necessity they stood in of a mediator. We regard this Law now given at Mount Sinai not as the covenant of works, but as a rule of life; so it is made use of by the Redeemer as a directory to his people, to show them the way in which they must walk as they would go to heaven: for a way of sincere and universal obedience to this Law is the narrow way that leads to life. Edwards.

20-24. Moses, called of God, ascended, followed by the eager eyes of the multitude, up into the cloud; only, however, to be sent down again, to take yet stronger precautions lest any one, through ignorance or rashness, might break through the bounds and perish. W. M. T.

20. All the verbs here should be rendered in the pluperfect tense, “had come down,” “had called,” “had gone up,” and the whole verse considered as parenthetical. The scope of it seems to be, to inform us how it happened that Moses was in a situation to hold this intercourse with Jehovah; for it does not appear that in any stage of the proceedings did God communicate with Moses while he remained among the people below. He was invariably called up to the summit, or near the summit of the mountain. Bush.

When we think of Moses coming so near to Jehovah in his majesty wielding the terrific agencies of flood and storm and fire, of darkness and lightning and the voice of trumpet exceeding loud—Mount Sinai rocking beneath his feet, and Moses alone drawing near the Awful Presence and talking with God face to face there—what shall we say of the possibilities of communion between man and his Maker? Whatever speculations we may have as to the means and methods by which the thought of God was borne to the mind of Moses and the thought of Moses to the mind of God, the great fact of communion of mind with mind—thought meeting thought—of command from the superior party, received and obeyed by the inferior—is on the outer face of the whole history and admits of no question. God can speak to man so that man shall know the voice to be His and comprehend perfectly its significance. Relations of obedience, confidence, and love on the part of man toward his Maker are established, and God meets them with appropriate manifestations of his favor. This great fact is one of telling significance in the whole province of Christian experience. Its significance cannot terminate with the present life, but must pass on to be unfolded far more gloriously in the revelations of the eternal world. “It doth not yet appear” [in all points] “what we shall be”—but it does appear that God has made us capable of exceedingly intimate relations to himself—as we shall know more perfectly when we shall see as we are seen and know as also we are known. H. C.

22. Let the priests sanctify themselves.** There were priests among the Hebrews before the consecration of Aaron and his sons. Though their functions might be suspended while under persecution in Egypt, yet the persons existed whose right and duty it was to offer sacrifices to God. Moses requested liberty from Pharaoh to go into the wilderness to sacrifice; and had there not been among the people both sacrifices and priests, the request itself must have appeared nugatory. Sacrifices from the beginning had constituted an essential part of the worship of God; and there certainly were priests whose business it was to offer them to God, before the giving of the Law; though this for especial reasons was restricted to Aaron and his sons, after the Law had been given. As sacrifices had not been offered for a considerable time, the priests themselves were considered in a state of impurity; and therefore God requires that they also should be purified for the purpose of approaching the mountain. A. C.

There is a tradition current among the Jews that the Law was given upon Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day from the date of the Exodus; and there seems every reason to accept it. Sinai then was the Pentecost of the old dispensation. And conversely, Pentecost is the Sinai of the new. Fifty days after the slaying of the paschal lamb there was the coming down of the

Holy One upon the mount. Fifty days after “Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us” the Holy Spirit descended on the Church met together on that mount of ordinances in the upper room. The inner relations of the two events will be clearly discerned by an examination of that passage in Jeremiah which is quoted with so much effect in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” (Jer. 31: 31-33). This, as we all know, is the work of the Holy Ghost. On the Pentecostal day of the Old Covenant, Jehovah came down from heaven to reveal himself as the Holy One, and give his Law to his redeemed people; on the Pentecostal day of the New Covenant in like manner he descended in the person of the Holy Ghost, to write his Law, “not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart”—the hearts of all who were redeemed by the blood of the Great Sacrifice which had been offered up on Calvary; and this seems to have been in the mind of the apostle when he wrote: “The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of sin and death” (Rom. 8: 2). And just as the holy Law was securely kept in the ark of the covenant within the holiest of all; so has the Holy Ghost remained in the midst of the true Church of Christ, according to the Saviour’s promise. So too every true believer should have in his inmost heart a shrine for the Holy One, who comes to dwell in us in the blessed fulness of Pentecostal grace. Thus and thus only can we realize the fulfilment of those “great and precious promises,” which were given of old to Israel, and of which we who believe in Christ are the true heirs; thus and thus only can we prove ourselves to be “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.” J. M. G.

MORAL LAW: “GOD SPAKE.” MEANING OF “THE TEN WORDS.” DIVISION INTO TABLES. TWO COPIES OF THE DECALOGUE. ITS CHARACTER AND PERPETUITY. RELATION OF MORAL LAW: 1. TO THE CEREMONIAL; 2. TO THE PROMISE; 3. TO CHRIST. RELATION OF THE CHRISTIAN TO THE LAW.