Leviticus 19

Lev. 19 1 AND the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the 2 children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy. 20 7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God. And 8 ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you. De. 6 4 Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD: (or, the LORD is one God, the LORD 5 alone:) and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Lev. 19 18 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

THE BASIS OF THESE TWO ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES: THE ABSOLUTE UNITY, SUPREMACY, AND HOLINESS OF JEHOVAH.

De. 6 : 4. The Lord our God is one Lord; Or, The LORD is one God, the LORD alone. Lev. 19 : 2. I the Lord your God am holy.

The God of Israel, Jehovah, is one, indivisible, and incommunicable. He is the Absolute and the Infinite One, who alone is to be worshipped, on whom all depend, and to whose command all must yield obedience (cf. Zech. 14 : 9). Not only to polytheism, but to pantheism, and to the conception of a localized or national deity, is this declaration of the unity of Jehovah opposed. With these words the Jews begin their daily liturgy, morning and evening; the sentence expresses the essence of their religious belief; and so familiar is it to their thought and speech that, it is said, they were often, during the persecution in Spain, betrayed to their enemies by the involuntary utterance of it. W. L. A.

The most prominent and characteristic feature of the religion of Israel as compared with other religions of the ancient world was its teaching of God. It taught in every variety of way, and with every possible emphasis, that there is one God only, from whom all things proceed, who is absolutely alone in his unutterable majesty, above and separate from his creation yet ruling it according to his own holy will, and requiring from his creatures worship, obedience, love, and the imitation of his own holiness and purity. Whatever other features may present themselves in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, or the Prophets, at whatever time those may have been severally published, and whatever may have been the conduct of the people, obviously to every reader in every age this is the one foundation of the religion of Israel as seen in its sacred books. It is recognized that the religion of the Old Testament stands, in this respect, upon a different and far higher level than that of any other ancient nation. Nowhere else is there the same recognition at once of the unity of the Supreme Being, of his separation from and yet constant government over his creation, and of the consequent relations of duty and love on the part of man toward him.

In Israel the first notes that are heard at all are of solitary supremacy. The fundamental utterance alike of command, of history, of popular song, through all the previous ages, is summed up in the words of Isaiah (42:8), “I am the LORD; my glory will I not give to another.” The Ten Commandments form the very gist and kernel of the Hebrew religion, and are acknowledged by all critics to be a part of its most ancient statutes. They belonged to Israel when just emerging from a servile condition and when bent upon having a golden calf for their god; yet they open with the absolute and uncompromising command: “I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none other gods but me.” Around these commandments, as a nucleus and centre, the whole religion of Israel is grouped, and they announce an absolute and exclusive monotheism, with a summary of the duty of man toward God and toward his fellows flowing from this fundamental truth. Gardiner.

It is the same God exhibited under the Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian dispensations. Except in the degree of development, there is no difference between God as revealed in Eden, on Sinai, and on Calvary; between God as exhibited in the books of Moses, and God as exhibited so many centuries later in the writings of Paul and John. In the garden we have the Lawgiver, and we have indications, too, of the Saviour. On Mount Sinai, there is the same combination of awful justice and condescending mercy. In the mysterious transactions on Calvary, there is an awful forsaking and a fearful darkness, emblematic of the righteousness and indignation of God, as there is also a melting tenderness in the words of our Lord breathing forgiveness and love, and telling of an opened paradise. The first book discloses to us, near its commencement, a worshipper offering a lamb in sacrifice, and the last shows a lamb as it had been slain in the midst of the throne of God. To Moses he discloses himself as the Jehovah, the Lord God, “merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness, in truth,” and that “will by no means clear the guilty.” Paul speaks of him as “just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly;” and John, as “faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” Whence this harmony or rather unity in the Divine character? Whence this wonderful correspondence in the portraits drawn by so many different hands? We can only account for it by supposing that they all drew from one great original. The God of revelation is also the God of nature, when nature is rightly expounded and when all its phenomena are contemplated. An exalted view of the spiritual nature of man will at once conduct to a belief in the spiritual character of God. Enlarged conceptions of space and time and of the magnitude of creation, will at once suggest an omnipotent and omnipresent God. The providence of God indicates wisdom and care, with government the most particular and minute. The moral principle in man, pointing to an excellence in God to be admired, but to an excellence which man does not possess, gives evidence of a holy God governing a fallen race. Leave out any of these classes of natural phenomena, and we have a God under some one or other of the partial and imperfect forms in which he has been presented in different ages and nations. Combine the whole, and we have a God identical with the Jehovah of the Scriptures. McGosh.

The God of the Bible, as revealed to us, satisfies the cravings of intellect and heart. In Jesus Christ, God is “manifest” as nowhere else. Nor should we leave out the touching word, “the Lord our God.” We have one God and Father of all, to whom the vast and the minute are equally distinct, and by whose hand both are moved with equal ease; who, while he rolls the stars along, can take under his special sheltering love the widow and the fatherless. It is our inestimable privilege to know that infinitely above us, combined with an arm of mighty power, there is a heart of tenderest love, whose great concern it is to heal the wounds, to dry the tears, and obliterate the sins of a bleeding, weeping, guilt-stained world! What a revelation is this to our race! Well might Moses bid Israel “hearken”! For surely this one message to man, that there is a redeeming God whom he may call his own, is our gospel, our life, our joy, our crown! C. C.

Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah. Here plurality and unity are plainly ascribed to Jehovah at the same time. “The only expressible idea suggested by such a statement is, that while there is but one God and while that God is one in substance, there is nevertheless a distinction of some sort or other co-existing with this unity and compatible with it.” (Alexander.) Seeing that in the later Hebrew Scriptures the doctrine of a plurality in the Divine essence is unquestionably taught, what occasion is there for denying that its germ is found in the Pentateuch—a supposition which would at once account for the use of the plural term Elohim? D. M.

A clear developed dogma of the Trinity is not to be found in the Old Testament, and that for good reasons. It was all-important under that dispensation that, in the face of heathen polytheism, the great fundamental truth of the Divine unity should be impressed on the religious consciousness of God’s ancient people. Too plain an utterance of Trinitarian doctrine would in such times have obscured the truth of the Divine unity, and misled into Tritheism. And for the like reasons our Lord did not at first reveal the triunity of the Divine nature to his disciples. It was not till they had learned to believe in his Divine Sonship, and in some measure to apprehend his unity with the Father and pre-existence, that he could speak to them of the Divine Person of the Second Comforter; nay, it was not till he had proved himself to be the fountain of eternal life by his own resurrection, and by his breathing on the apostles had kindled in their hearts the fire of the Holy Spirit, that he found them capable of receiving the divinest of mysteries, and therefore could leave behind him as a precious heirloom to his Church—as the deepest revelation of the Divine nature, as the one foundation of Christian faith, knowledge, and practice, and as the final seal and crown of all his teaching while here on earth—the great commission: “Go into all the world, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Christlieb.

—In the Old Testament three, and only three, persons appear as manifestations of God: appearing, however, not absolutely as Divine persons, but as having each a specific part in the conduct of the economy of providence and grace. In the New Testament these three persons have their parts more distinctly assigned to them: the Son is the Incarnate Son, declaring himself sent by the Father and yet co-equal with him, and himself promises another self, a self who is yet another, the Holy Ghost. After the baptismal formula has been laid down, the redemptional Trinity is literally everywhere in the New Testament. Pope.

Lev. 19:1. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation. Here is the gracious method by which our holiness is made possible. The holy God speaks. The holy men of God speak as they are moved by the Holy Ghost. The holy Word speaks, everywhere and always. The holy life is maintained among the holy people. The holiness of humanity will be achieved as a fact through a holy ministry of the people of God to the world at large. R. A. R.

Lev. 19:2. Ye shall be holy. This is the general principle. The reason follows. For I the Lord your God am holy. Two reasons at least wrapped up in this. First, the Author of your being is holy; and the stream should taste of the fountain. Second, the covenant of grace implied in the terms “the Lord your God” forms the most powerful motive to holiness. Other reasons are implied. Reason binds you to be holy; a sanctified reason enforces the obligation by new motives. M.—The entire spirit of the Old Testament is pervaded by the command, “Ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy;” and the direction [elsewhere given], “the words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart,” shows plainly that this law is for the inner man. In short, the principles of moral duty, set forth here with a solemnity suited to their high preeminence, were understood in the ancient church to relate to the internal state of the heart; enjoining love to God with unceasing solicitude and love to our neighbor; requiring heartfelt piety, well-regulated desires and active benevolence. The true Israelite always understood that the Law of God required the sincere cultivation of purity, mercy, and truth. S. R.—They should not measure the service of God by their own conceits, but rather by his nature; and they should begin by studying to be holy. Here they are recalled to the imitation of God, who in adopting them desired that they should bear his image, just as good and undegenerate children resemble their father. To this point did all the ceremonies tend, whereby God exercised his ancient people unto holiness. Calv.

The holiness of the people, as the children of God, his “saints who had made a covenant with him by sacrifice,” was a principle as sacred as the consecration of the priests. They, like the children of the New Covenant, were “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people,” the purchased possession of Jehovah; and for both there was the same simple law: “BE YE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” This principle, from which Paul so often deduces the spiritual law of the complete devotion of the whole nature to God’s service, was enforced upon the Jews by ceremonies and restrictions reaching to every detail of their daily lives. It is the central subject of the Book of Leviticus, which gradually rises from the laws of sacrifice to the assertion and development of the holiness and purity of the people, in person, act, speech, and property. P. S.

It is characteristic of the Hebrew Scriptures that they bring into prominence, into increasing prominence, as the most awful feature in Jehovah, his holiness. That they term emphatically his “glory”; and on the strength of that they claim for him our deepest veneration and fear. The majesty of God as the all-powerful, all-wise Creator and Sovereign, is far from being overlooked. Often is it dwelt upon to humble human pride and lay our hearts low in the dust. But the attributes of Jehovah which, far more than his physical superiority, abash the Old Testament saints, and keep their feet far off from presumptuous familiarity or a too close approach, are his moral attributes: his inviolable purity, his righteousness, his terribleness against sin, his faithfulness to the truth, his unapproachable holiness. Dykes.

The moral attributes form the basis of the scriptural revelations of God; and of these his holiness occupies the first place. This was the fundamental element in the Theocracy and the religious life of the Old Testament, and that which distinguished it equally with, if not even more than, the doctrine of the Divine unity from all other systems. The great end, in fact, of the Law was to produce in the covenant people a copy of God’s holiness. D. M.—The monarchy of God is ever based on righteousness. After the selection of the Hebrew family to constitute the visible kingdom of Jehovah and to act as conservators of the true religion in the midst of Gentilism, it is continually proclaimed that they are Israelites indeed who labor to be God-like; that such alone are properly the subjects of the Lord of Hosts and are entitled to approach the seat of his peculiar presence. Hardwick.

The Israelites were told repeatedly and in most express terms that they were called be a holy people to their God. Again and again, Moses was directed to declare in God’s name to the whole congregation: “Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy!” To enforce this, and to produce in the people a conviction of the holiness of the Divine character, a conviction indispensable to the realization of the same holiness in themselves, was a primary object of the whole theocratic legislation. Of the holiness of God the Israelite must be reminded not only in the reading of the Law, but also in acts and ordinances kept constantly before his eyes. And all these laws and institutions, sacred and secular, spoke a language intelligible to the lowest capacity. Holiness and purity, with other dispositions and relations of like character, were seen to be realities acceptable to God and beneficial to man, while the opposite qualities led to consequences directly the reverse. To exhibit and inculcate holiness and purity was the chief object in view in all the arrangements and ordinances respecting the camp and the dwelling, as well as those which more directly concerned the sanctuary and its worship. Not only what was in itself impure, but what was suggestive of impurity, or any way associated therewith, must be carefully avoided. D. M.

The faultless purity, rigid separation, absolute surrender, mysterious reverence, with which the Mosaic Law invested everything or person consecrated to God, trained the worshipper’s feelings regarding God; and these feelings gave birth to ideas in their own likeness. God’s own innate holiness came to be recognized as the fountain from which the holiness belonging to things, persons, actions, times, places, streamed forth. Hence the central idea of holiness in the Old Testament is essentially moral or spiritual. To suppose it ceremonial, because largely taught by ceremonies, is a shallow but fatal error. The smallest amount of intelligent reflection must have taught the Hebrew worshipper that ceremonial (or ritual) holiness could not belong to God. God’s holiness could mean nothing less than that nature and character which make him supremely worthy of worship and love; what in modern phrase we express by “supreme moral excellence” or “spiritual perfection.” This fact lies at the very heart of the Hebrew religion. No explanation is worth looking at that does not account for it. The evidence of its reality must be sought in careful study, not only of the books of Moses, but of the commentary supplied by later writings—especially the Psalms, Proverbs, and prophetic books—on the view of Divine holiness actually held and taught by the religious authorities of the nation. At the very outset of such study it is to be borne in mind that the Ten Commandments, the starting point of the whole legislation, are not ritual but moral. E. R. Conder.—What an amazing help to holiness did these ten words supply! Had a man been earnestly minded to conform himself to God’s will, here was a perfect rule of right, not capable of being confused, distorted, and perverted, like the moral sense, but explicit, comprehensive (when rightly understood) of the minutest details of duty, as well as of its loftiest principles, and resting upon an authority which could not be shaken or impeached. E. M. G.

Holiness is wholeness—completeness. Whole was formerly written without the w, and in early English “whole” and “hale” were the same word. He who is hale is whole; and he who is holy is spiritually healthy. A hale man is a complete man physically, as a holy man is a complete man spiritually. S. S. T.—Holiness is that attribute which is the very crown of all the culture of humanity; for it carries the soul up nearest to the everlasting Fountain of wisdom, power, goodness, from which it came. It enters in only where repentance opens the way, and spiritual renewal puts the heart into wholesome relations with the Divine will. It is the peculiar gift for which the world stands indebted to revelation, and it is multiplied just in proportion as the heart is formed into the likeness of Christ’s. It is the summit of manhood, but no less the grace of God. F. D. H.

God has willed his people to be holy, and separate from all contagion of unrighteousness and iniquity. Of such a character ought God’s worshippers and servants to be, gentle, grave, thoughtful, pious, blameless, uncorrupt, unspotted, that whosoever sees them should adadmine them, saying, “Truly these are men of God.” A man of God ought in such wise to exhibit himself and to act, that there may be no one who does not desire to see him and long to hear him; no one who, having seen him, does not believe him to be a child of God. For this is the sacrifice which God seeks for and loves above all sacrifices, that by means of our just works his name may everywhere be praised, and he may be proved by works and actions to be the true God of his servants. They do indeed glorify God who employ themselves on that only whereby his name may be glorified. Fastidius.

“Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,” is the comprehensive counsel of the Apostle Peter. It is a wonderful time in the soul’s history, when from words with dulled and worn-out meaning it rises to a glimpse, dim perhaps, yet certain, of what the words really mean; rises to think and feel as we ought, however imperfectly, of him who is above all time, of Almighty God “as he is.” A new impulse is given, a new course begins, a new view opens of all things, of the world, of life, of action, of duty; it ought to be a larger and deeper one, more cheerfully and thoroughly practical, more kindly, more generous, more wise; it cannot but be a more solemn one, and more full of grave import. Under it, mind and soul are enlarged; and, in turn, their needs become higher. Then, as the soul grows under this high consciousness, it must reach after ever worthier and more adequate conceptions of all that is involved when it names his name—(f the infinite combination of clearness and mystery—clearness as the sun, and mystery unfathomable; of power, as we see it in the laws and works of the universe; of righteousness and love and pitying help for men, as we see them in “the only begotten Son who hath declared the Father.” They are thoughts which cannot be exhausted. The soul which has once caught sight of them needs them always; it needs to have Him always before it, to live under his presence, to be guided by his eye. This is what makes religion a living force, and, at the same time, governs, controls, calms, steadies it—this central hold of the thought of God—when, beyond saying and thinking what is true and worthy about God, a man with awe, and yet with joy and trust and love, meets him in his heart, and owns him there—owns him in his incomprehensible immensity, and yet also in his certain goodness and loving-kindness to men. That is what, I suppose, Peter meant when he bids us “sanctify the Lord God [the Lord Christ] in our heart.” Church.

Much of our current religion errs through want of reverence. We come with unprepared minds to the holiest services. A spirit inwardly sensitive to the real solemnity of God’s presence, a heart that secretly bows down in earnest awe before the holiness of him who is inconceivably above us, a silent shrinking of the soul from any rash or light familiarity with One, the latchet of whose shoes even while he walked the earth none of us was worthy to untie, this would be a happy improvement on much that offends in modern Protestantism. You cannot build a strong, grave, or manly piety on anything else than veneration; and no man can front the terrible problems with which religion has to deal, or study long the character of Jesus as the image of the Divine, or live much with God beneath the shadow of the cross, without being aware of a deepening soberness of tone, a gathering awe, a solemn worship at his heart. Dykes.

Lev. 19 3 Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and ye shall keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God. Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and thou shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD. Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but thou shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the LORD. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbour, and not bear sin because of him. Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people: I am the LORD. Ye shall not steal; neither shall ye deal falsely, nor lie one to another. And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, so that thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgement, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt. And ye shall observe all my statutes, and all my judgements, and do them: I am the LORD.

De. 25 13 Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. A perfect and just weight shalt thou have; a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be long upon the

16 land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, even all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.

De. 19 14 Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set, in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit, in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.

Lev. 19 27 Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you : I am the LORD.

De. 14 1 Ye are the children of the LORD your God : ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.

Lev. 19 19 Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind : thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed : neither shall there come upon thee a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together.

De. 22 9 Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with two kinds of seed : lest the whole fruit be forfeited, the seed which thou hast sown, and the increase of the vineyard.

10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together.

12. Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four borders of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself.

5. A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment : for whosoever doeth these things is an abomination unto the LORD thy God.

You may perhaps have looked with astonishment upon that indefinite number of external ceremonies and statutes with which Moses encompassed the children of the Old Dispensation. An Israelite could scarcely spend a single hour without being reminded of some one of the many outward duties which were prescribed for him. These outward disciplinary laws were the very barrier for the sinful inclinations of such a heart as was not swayed by the Spirit. If from the depth of the Israelite’s consciousness the feeling did not force itself upon him that he was dependent, constantly and in all his deeds, upon the invisible King of all kings, still by such a system of outward legal discipline this feeling must have been ever freshly excited in his bosom. He was not permitted to resign himself to his impulses. Every one of these commands would be a fact preaching to the heart that had forgotten its Creator—man, thou art a servant of God. Tholuck.

3. Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father. The “fear” here required is virtually the same with the honor commanded by the fifth commandment. It includes inward reverence and esteem, outward expression of respect, obedience to the lawful commands of parents, care and endeavor to please and render them comfortable, and to avoid anything that may offend and grieve them, or incur their displeasure. It will be noticed that the “mother” is mentioned before the “father.” The two precepts, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” and “Fear thy mother and thy father,” when taken together plainly evince that both father and mother are to be regarded as entitled to equal tokens of honor, respect, and reverence. Bush.

And keep my Sabbaths. Fearing parents and keeping the Sabbath are associated here as they are in the Decalogue, where they unite the first and second tables of the Law—our duty to God and our duty to man. Reverence to parents is the foundation of all piety and equity. Up to the years of discretion the parent is in the place of God to the child. Reverence for the parents and their faithful lessons will beget reverence for God in the heart. The Sabbath is the appointed season of rest from labor, of leisure for holy converse, of convocation for religious instruction and worship in all our dwelling-places. It is, therefore, the fountain of all social religion, peace, purity, and liberty. In the eyes of him who inspired the legislator it stands on a par with obedience to parents, among the very pinnacles of holiness. And the history of Jew and Christian corroborates the sentence that lays honor to parents and the keeping of the Sabbath at the foundation of all morality and religion. M.

30. The command in this verse differs from that in verse 3 by adding the injunction to reverence my sanctuary to that requiring the observance of the Sabbath. It is a matter of experience that where the Sabbath is not kept, God’s sanctuary is not reverenced, and that that reverence increases or falls away according as the obligation of the Sabbatical Law, whether in its Jewish form or its Christian form, be more or less recognized. The Sabbatical ordinance is necessary as a previous condition of religious worship. Without it, the business and pleasure of the world are too strong to give way to the demands upon time made by the stated service of God. The verse is repeated in Lev. 26:2: “When the Lord’s Day is kept holy, and a holy reverence for the Lord’s sanctuary lives in the heart, not only are many sins avoided, but social and domestic life is pervaded by the fear of God, and characterized by devoutness and propriety” (Keil). F. M.

These precepts are enforced on the simple supreme authority of him who enacts them; I am the Lord your God—a declaration which in this connection is a royal signature to a solemn edict. Bush.—This lofty and solemn reminder is the one emphatic sanction annexed to all the Divine precepts, and in form or substance to all Divine promises and threatenings. It is linked, as we have already seen, with a multitude of special commands covering particular duties, ritual, moral, and social. Its expression is here emphasized, in connection with these injunctions concerning personal holiness, reverence to parents and elders, keeping the Sabbath and honoring the sanctuary, turning from idolatry, stealing, false dealing, lying and profanity, just weights and balances, changing of landmarks, and hurtful mourning practices. As we read the text in its orderly arrangement above, this intensely solemn and sublime sanction constantly repeats its momentous and impressive refrain, I AM THE LORD! B.

Lev. 19:32. With remarkable solicitude the Law of Moses impresses reverence for the authority and attention to the wants of the aged, delivering as the direct command of Jehovah, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.” How much praise have the Spartan institutions justly obtained for cherishing this principle; yet how much more energetic and authoritative is the language of the Jewish Lawgiver! Graves.—There is probably no object in creation so fitted to inspire reverence as the sight of the snowy locks of the old man, and consequently the duty here enjoined has been recognized in all civilized nations as one the violation of which is deserving of the severest punishment. Bush.

Respecting the Deaf and the Blind.

Lev. 19:9. When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap. Heb., thou shalt not finish, make a full end of the corner of thy field; thou shalt not make a clean riddance of it. On this precept the Jewish canons remark, “He that reapeth his field must not reap all the field wholly; but must leave a little standing corn for the poor in the end of the field, whether he cut it or pluck it up: and that which is left is called the corner.” And so of the trees, when he gathereth their fruit he must leave a little for the poor. And so also in respect to the scattered grape-clusters of the vintage. The rule thus given was intended for the benefit not only of the poor, but also of the stranger; for as strangers and foreigners could not hold their possessions on the same advantageous terms as native Israelites, they were very liable to be oppressed by poverty. It is easy to perceive that the natural tendency of this law was to inculcate a kindly, liberal, generous spirit. Bush.

De. 24: 29. In Deuteronomy, the oliveyard is specified together with the harvest-field and the vineyard, and it is added that, if a sheaf be by chance left behind, it is to remain for the benefit of the poor. The object of this law is to inculcate a general spirit of mercy, which is willing to give up its own exact rights in kindness to others suffering from want. The word here used for vineyard covers also the oliveyard. The expression, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard, would be more literally rendered, neither shalt thou gather the scattering of thy vineyard, meaning the berries (grapes or olives) which had fallen or which were left singly on the boughs. F. M.

21. Thou shalt not glean it afterward; literally, Thou shalt not glean after thee—i.e., after thou hast reaped and gathered for thyself. It is still the custom among the Arabs for the poor to be allowed to gather the berries that may be left on the olive trees after they have been beaten and the main produce carried off by the owner. All the injunctions in this section are adapted to preserve relations of brotherliness and love among the people of the Lord. W. L. A.

Piety which begins and ends in acts of devotion is one that may be reasonably suspected; it is not of the scriptural order. Philanthropy may not have its synonym in the Old Testament, but the Hebrew legislator was not ignorant of the idea, and the Hebrew people were not left without in-itement to the thing itself. Hence these injunctions to leave some corn in their fields, and scattered ears for the reaping and gleaning of the poor; to leave also some clusters of grapes for needy hands to pluck to take no advantage of the weaker members of their society; and to show kindness to the stranger. W. C.

De. 24: 19. That the Lord thy God may bless thee. Charity to their poor brethren had many promises of a great reward; and this law was made peculiarly for their relief. God ordered them all to live together as brethren, children of the same father; and descended, as indeed they all were, from one and the same original. To this end all these precepts were given which require them to lend gratuitously to their poor brother; to restore the pledge left with them; to leave the corners of their fields unreaped; not to gather the gleanings of the harvest and vintage; and to observe the year of release and of jubilee. Patrick.—It is His honor, and will be ours, to help the helpless. And if we thus serve God and do good with what we have, it is promised here that the Lord our God will bless us in all the work of our hand. The blessing of God descends upon the giving hand; he that thus scatters certainly increases, and the liberal soul will be made fat. It is an undoubted truth, though little believed, that to be charitable to the poor, and to be free and generous in the support of religion and any good work, is the surest and safest way of thriving. What is lent to the Lord will be repaid with abundant interest (Ezek. 44: 30). H.

De. 23: 24, 25. Thou mayest eat grapes . . . pluck the ears. The Law enacted that the poor should have a claim to a certain portion of the produce of the ground. Hence, when a man was hungry he had a right to go to any field or vineyard, and eat as much corn or grapes as would satisfy his hunger. Acting upon this right, the disciples who, with Jesus, went on the Sabbath-day through the corn, when they “were an hungered began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.” Ginsburg.—The quantity plucked was a loss never felt by the proprietor, and it was a kindly privilege afforded to the poor and wayfaring man. Jameson.—Thou mayest take for necessity, not for superfluity. Trapp.—In other words, the hungry was regarded as having a right to satisfy the cravings of nature and to pass on. And when it was placed on the statute-book as a right, it saved the poor man’s self-respect and never interfered with his personal freedom. This “poor-law” gives man his need without asking him to surrender his liberty. It meets the pressing necessity without destroying the person’s legitimate self-respect. Edgar.

Usury, or the Exaction of Interest.

Curse the deaf. The general meaning is, thou shalt not take advantage of a man’s incapacity to defend himself, and hurt him either in his body, fortunes, or reputation. To abuse an absent person, to calumniate in secret, to attack another’s reputation in the dark and in disguise, to defame those who are dead, to hurt in any manner those who are unable to help and redress themselves—all this may be called, “to curse the deaf.” Dr. Jortin.

Thou shalt not put a stumbling-block before the blind. For this is to add affliction to the afflicted, and to make God’s providence a servant to our malice. This prohibition implies a precept to help the blind, and remove stumbling-blocks out of their way. The Jewish writers, thinking it impossible that any should be so barbarous as to put a stumbling-block in the way of the blind, understood it figuratively, that it forbids giving bad counsel to those that are simple and easily imposed upon, by which they may be led to do something to their own prejudice. We ought to take heed of doing anything which may occasion our weak brother to fall. It is added, as a preservative from these sins, but fear thou God. “Thou dost not fear the deaf and blind, they cannot right themselves; but remember it is the glory of God to help the helpless, and he will plead their cause.” The fear of God will restrain us from doing that which will not expose us to men’s resentments. H.

Against Tale-bearing (Lev. 19:16).

Go up and down as a tale-bearer. It is as bad an office as a man can put himself into to be the publisher of every man’s faults, divulging what was secret, aggravating crimes, and making the worst of everything that was amiss, with design to blast and ruin men’s reputation, and to sow discord among neighbors. The word signifies a peddler or petty chapman, the interlopers of trade; for tale-bearers pick up ill-natured stories at one house, and utter them at another, and commonly barter slanders by way of exchange. H.

For the evil done by mere idle tale-bearing, see Bishop Butler’s sermon “Upon the Government of the Tongue,” and four sermons by Bishop Jeremy Taylor on “The Good and Evil Tongue; Slander and Flattery; the Duties of the Tongue.” Neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor; that is, thou shalt not endanger his life, which is the result of the worst kind of tale-bearing—namely, bearing false witness against him. Thus the effect of the false witness of the two men of Belial against Naboth was that “they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.” F. M. — “Standing against the blood,” must mean taking ground against the very life, and must not be construed to forbid truthful testimony against the real murderer. But the informer should constantly remember that his neighbor’s interests and life are too precious to be lightly tampered with. H. C.

Neighbor-hate and Revenge Forbidden. Faithful Rebuke Enjoined (Lev. 19 : 17, 18).

This double precept forms the introduction to the great law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Section 110).

17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart;** for malice is murder begun. If our brother has done us an injury, we must not return it upon him, that is avenging; we must not upon every occasion upbraid him with it, that is bearing a grudge; but we must both forgive it and forget it, for thus we are forgiven of God. H.—The Jews explain the precept thus: “When any man is sinned against by another, he must not inwardly hate him and keep silence; as it is said of the wicked, ‘And Absalom spake unto his brother Amnon neither good nor bad, for Absalom hated Amnon’ (2 Sam. 13 : 22); but he is commanded to make it known unto him, and to say, Why hast thou done thus unto me?” This is confirmed by the Gospel rule (Luke 17 : 3), “If thy brother sin against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.”

Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor. Heb. thou shalt by all means rebuke, or, thou shalt freely, plainly, soundly rebuke. The true force of the original is to convince of wrong by reasoning and argument. Bush.—Thou shalt rebuke thy neighbor for his fault, and endeavor to convince him of it: and “not bear sin because of him;” meaning, that by forbearing to reprove thy neighbor thou mayest not bring his guilt upon thyself. Bp. Patrick.—In many cases direct remonstrances to the faulty are necessary, which, therefore, such as with propriety can, are bound to make whatever reluctance they may find in so painful a work. Timely admonition may stop him short just at the entrance upon a wrong course. Even those who are farther gone may yet be recalled by a lively representation of their guilt and danger. But we must be very careful that we never bring a charge unless we have incontesttable proof of its truth; that a genuine friendly concern be evidently the principle of all we say; that we express more sorrow than anger, where circumstances will allow it; that we use tender expostulations by choice, and strong expressions only when nothing else will prevent ruin. Secker.

Stealing, Lying, False Dealing and False Swearing, and Profaning God’s Name, Included in a Single Prohibition (Lev. 19 : 11, 12).

Stealing had been before forbidden in the eighth commandment, and lying in the ninth, but they are here repeated and put together, because they generally go together. He that will steal will lie to hide it; and he that will lie shows that the first moral barrier is broken down which stands in the way of the commission of any and all crimes. Bush.

Cheating is to stealing as equivocation is to lying. Cheating and equivocating only differ morally from stealing and lying by being more mean and cowardly. The law of man cannot prevent cheating. It can indeed send inspectors to see that there are “just balances and just weights;” but that is not enough to prevent cheating. The only thing that will do this is the fear of the Lord and the consciousness that the unjust appropriation of anything, however small, is contrary to the will of God. “Thou shalt not deceive thy neighbor” is the rule of conduct. Whether this deception takes place by means of a lie, or of an equivocation, or of a mental reservation makes no difference in the morality of the act. The defence of equivocation rests upon a confusion of two things totally different—material truth and moral truthfulness. The statement that the sun rises or sinks is materially false, because it remains stationary. But the man who makes such a statement is morally truthful, if he makes it not intending to deceive his neighbor and knowing that he will not be deceived. F. M.

Just Balances, Just Weights, Just Measures.

Lev. 19 : 35, 36. These verses, beginning with the same words as verse 15, Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, contain another and wider application of that principle. Verse 15 prohibited unrighteousness in the judge, or in one who was in the position of a judge; these verses forbid it in merchants and tradesmen. It is the more necessary to condemn dishonesty in unmistakable terms, as men who make a profession of religion, and therefore would be shocked at stealing, have often less scruple in cheating. Here and in Deuteronomy, where the Law is repeated, a religious sanction is given to the command; “For all that do unrighteously are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.” F. M.

The ephah is here taken as the standard of dry measure, and the hin as the standard of liquid measure (cf. Ezek. 45:10-12). Two very different estimates of the capacities of these measures have been formed. Clark.

De. 25:13. Thou shalt not have divers weights. They must not only not use them, but they must not have them; not have them in the bag, not have them in the house; for if they had them they would be strongly tempted to use them. They must not have a great weight and measure to buy by and a small one to sell by, for that was to cheat both ways, when either was bad enough; as we read of those that made the ephah small, in which they measured the corn they sold, and the shekel great, by which they weighed the money they received for it (Am. 8:5). But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight (verse 15). That which is the rule of justice must itself be just; if that be otherwise it is a constant cheat. This law is enforced with two very good reasons. (1) That justice and equity will bring down upon us the blessing of God. The way to have our days lengthened and to prosper, is to be just and fair in all our dealings; honesty is the best policy. (2) That fraud and injustice will expose us to the curse of God (verse 16). Not only unrighteousness itself, but all that do unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord. And miserable is that man who is abhorred by his Maker. How hateful all the arts of deceit are to God, Solomon several times observes (Prov. 11:1; 20:10, 23), and the apostle tells us that the Lord is the Avenger of all such as overreach and defraud in any matter (1 Thess. 4:6). H.

16. Besides what everybody calls theft, there are many practices which amount indirectly to much the same thing, however disguised in the world under gentle names. Thus in the way of trade and business, if the seller puts off anything for better than it is by false assertions or deceitful arts: if he takes advantage of the buyer’s ignorance or particular necessities or good opinion of him to insist on a larger price for it than the current value; or if he gives less in quantity than he professes or is understood to give: the frequency of some of these cases cannot alter the nature of any of them. No one can be ignorant that they are wrong but such as are wilfully or very carelessly ignorant: and the declaration of Scripture against the last of them is here extended to every one of the rest. “For all that do such things, even all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God” (verse 16). Seeker.

It is apparently easy to make money by light weights and short measures. It is not only securing the ordinary profits, but gaining by the deficiency palmed off for the perfect measure. It is again by quantity as well as by price. And plenty of people who look only at the surface imagine that they can easily enrich themselves by a little dishonesty, which will never be detected. Inspectors of weights and measures are the embodiment of the suspicions of society. Edgar.—“On the average,” says Mr. Spencer, “men who deal in bales and tons differ but little in morality from men who deal in yards and pounds. Illicit practices of every form and shade, from venial deception up to all but direct theft, may be brought home to the higher grades of the commercial world. Tricks innumerable, lies acted or uttered, elaborately devised frauds, are prevalent—many of them established as ‘customs of the trade;’ nay, not only established, but defended.” The saddest feature in the outlook is the apparent prevalence of the feeling that trickery of this kind is absolutely essential to success—that a man can’t get on without it. Trade dishonesty should, if possible, be checked: (1) In view of its inherent immorality. Nothing can be more despicable, more mean and disgraceful, than the lies, frauds, briberies, malpractices, adulterations, which abound in all branches of trade. (2) In view of its corrupting effect on morals generally. It saps principle, eats out faith in virtue, unfits the individual for every moral task. (3) In view of its effects on national prosperity. God’s displeasure rests on the nation, and he is certain to chastise it. (4) As a measure of self-protection. Each individual suffers as part of the whole. He is frequently cheated, sometimes incurs serious losses. Hard-earned money finds its way into the pockets of clever but unscrupulous scoundrels, who as rapidly squander it in reckless living. Orr.

Business men and devout women may be Christians, and devising liberal things for their Master, whose hands have never learned to wipe out the small dust of deceit which usage and precedent have left in the balance. But the sooner they make away with it, the better honor for the Head, and the better progress and power for the Church. Remember, nothing stays her wheels like the frauds of her defenders. Nothing under the Holy Spirit speeds them like saints whose ways, patterned after their Eternal King’s, are true and just. F. D. H.

It is interesting to notice in these regulations, and throughout the entire law, the care which is taken to keep religion and morality closely wedded and welded together. “I am the Lord your God,” is continually put forth, not as a creed article, but as an unanswerable argument for strictest obedience and the most scrupulous integrity. The relations of privilege which the people enjoyed are continually set forth as increasing their responsibility. “To whom much is given, of them much shall be required,” is a principle taken for granted all through. “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.” J. M. G.

Against Removing Landmarks (De. 19 : 14). Landmarks placed by a man’s ancestors to mark the boundaries of possessions were not to be surreptitiously altered. Landmarks were held sacred, and a curse is pronounced against those who remove them. Among other nations also landmarks were regarded as sacred. W. L. A.—He who fraudulently removes a landmark is convicted because he disturbs the lawful owner in his possession of the land; while he who advances the boundaries of his own land to his neighbor’s loss, doubles the crime by the concealment of his theft. Whence we gather that not only are those thieves who actually carry away their neighbor’s property, who take his money, or pillage his granaries, but also those who unjustly possess themselves of his land. Cale.—This, without doubt, is a moral precept, and to us it forbids the invading of any man’s right, and taking to ourselves that which is not our own, by any fraudulent arts or practices, as by forging, concealing, destroying, or altering, deeds and writings, which are our landmarks, to which appeals are made; or by shifting hedges, meer-stones, and boundaries. H.

Cutting of the Hair and Beard (Lev. 19 : 27). Idolatrous priests, ministers of a false religion, made the mode of cutting the hair and beard, forbidden by Moses, essential to the acceptable worship of the gods, and efficacious in procuring the several blessings prayed for by the worshippers. It was to eradicate idolatry that Moses introduced this prohibitory statute into his code. E. C. W.

Self-Laceration or Maiming for the Dead Forbidden (Lev. 19 : 28. De. 14 : 1, 2). Among the excitable races of the East this custom appears to have been very common. The Persians, Abyssinians, Bedouins, and many other nations still practise it. Clark.—They were not to maim or lacerate their persons in any manner in their mourning ceremonies, as with the vain idea of pacifying or propitiating the infernal spirits in behalf of the dead, a notion very prevalent among the heathen idolaters. Mourning habits they might put on if they chose, and, with the exception of the high priest, rend their garments in token of grief; but they were not to disfigure their bodies. This would be utterly unbecoming a people who were instructed to a better knowledge of a future state and of the invisible world than the ignorant heathen could be supposed to possess. Bush.

Ye are the children of the Lord: . . . An holy people unto the Lord. These words suggest the principle which underlies these precepts. It was unbecoming their dignity and privileges to disfigure themselves in mourning, as the heathen which have no hope. Espin.—It is an excellent passage which Mr. Ainsworth here quotes from one of the Jewish writers, who understands this as a law against immoderate grief for the death of our relations. “If your father die you shall not cut yourselves—that is, you shall not sorrow more than is meet, for you are not fatherless; you have a Father who is great, living, and permanent, even the holy blessed God whose children ye are. But an infidel when his father dies hath no father that can help him in time of need; for he hath said to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth (Jer. 2 : 27), therefore he weeps, cuts himself, and makes him bald.” We that have a God to hope in and a heaven to hope for must bear up ourselves with that hope under every burden of this kind. H.

Against Mixing Diverse Things (Lev. 19 : 19. De. 22 : 5, 9-11). The law in Deuteronomy against sowing a field with diverse seed, ploughing with an ox and ass yoked together, wearing garments of mingled woollen and linen, and forbidding one sex to wear the clothing of the other, is, as it would appear, but an enlargement of that of Leviticus, two of the particulars being precisely the same, and the unlike one in the latter code—that cattle of diverse kinds shall not be allowed to gender together—not being of such a nature as to suggest priestly improvements of a later date. A peculiar dual form is found only in these two places. The same is true of another word, which is explained in the more popular code as meaning a material made up of woollen and linen. Deuteronomy speaks of “vineyard,” in place of “field” found in Leviticus; but it is an unimportant variation. The motive urged in Deuteronomy for not sowing with diverse seeds is worthy of notice, “lest it be made holy”—that is, be confiscated to feed the priests and Levites of the sanctuary (cf. Lev. 6:11). E. C. B.

The different directions here given may be reduced to one idea, that of genuineness. The vineyards were to be sown with pure seed, that the plants might have a fair chance of growing luxuriantly. The ploughing was not to be done by an ox and ass together, for the contrariety in temper and inequality in power would prevent good work. Linsey-woolsey was to be avoided as poor stuff compared with either woollen or linen alone. Edgar.

There should be no unnatural mixtures. For the examples furnished, sound economic and hygienic reasons may be given. But the spirit of the Law is moral. The people of God are taught by it to avoid everything that would compromise their simplicity and sincerity (2 Cor. 6:14). They must avoid marriages with the ungodly. In business they must be careful not to join in ungodly partnerships. In friendships they must choose those who are of the household of faith. J. A. M.

De. 22:5. The divinely instituted distinction between the sexes was to be sacredly observed, and, in order to this, the dress and other things appropriate to the one were not to be used by the other. That which pertaineth unto a man; literally, the apparatus of a man, including not dress merely, but implements, tools, weapons, and utensils. This is an ethical regulation in the interests of morality. Whatever tends to obliterate the distinction between the sexes tends to licentiousness; and that the one sex should assume the dress of the other has always been regarded as unnatural and indecent. Such a change of vesture is here declared to be an abomination to the Lord, because of its tendency to immorality. W. L. A.

It was an idolatrous custom for men to wear the flowered garments of women, when they worshipped Venus; and for women to wear a coat of mail and armor, when they worshipped Mars; these dresses being accounted more pleasing to them, as better suiting their particular characters; for Venus was supposed to be the goddess of pleasure and love, and Mars the god of arms and war. The idolatrous notion of deities of different sexes was a great corruption of the knowledge of the true God, and gave great occasion for impure rites, even in their religious worship. It was this custom which the present law was designed to discountenance. Lowman.—If men and women were wont to dress alike, there could be no enforcement of decorum such as difference in dress renders possible. The sexes are intended to be distinct, and it is a deep injury to both to obliterate the distinctions Providence has made. Whatever tends to render the male sex effeminate and the female sex masculine is an injury to both; and those reformers are not friends of either sex who try to break down the barriers between them. Edgar.

De. 22:12. Make fringes upon thy vesture. This also had regard to modesty in dress. Divine provisions were made even with respect to their garments, so that the elect people should cultivate decency, and diligently guard against everything immodest and whatever is repugnant to purity. Calv.

De. 23:1,2. The meaning of these prohibitions is mainly a symbolical one; what was perfect and pure only was to be used for sacrifice. In like manner, no one might belong to the people of the Lord on whose person the Divine creation had been disfigured by man’s wilful act. Mutilation, so frequent in the East, was therefore prevented by this law. Gerl.—Though exclusions of this kind are done away in Christ, there was a fitness under the Theocracy in the exclusion of the classes specified from full participation in covenant privilege, such exclusion being in harmony with the idea of “a holy nation.” The truth conveyed is that the impure are unalterably debarred from membership in God’s kingdom. Impurity of heart and life exclude from inward membership in it now, and will do so forever. Known impurity should exclude from Church fellowship on earth. Orr.

All these laws, with others of an apparently like trivial nature, were aimed against the idolatrous customs then prevalent in the world. There were some things condemned in them which are in themselves innocent and harmless, as worshipping God in groves, sowing mixed seeds, wearing clothes of wool and flax mingled together, etc. But in that age these things were so closely connected with others which were evil, that the permission of the one would be likely to draw after it the practice of the other. E. C. W.

CONCLUSION OF MOSAIC LEGISLATION: ISRAEL’S THREEFOLD RELATION TO THE THREEFOLD LAW. CENTRAL PLACE OF THE LEGISLATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY; COEVAL WITH ISRAEL’S EXISTENCE AS A NATION. PRINCIPLES OF THE CIVIL CODE OF UNIVERSAL APPLICATION. THE WRITTEN LAW THE GREAT CAUSE OF NATIONAL UNITY AND SEPARATION. THIS DIVINE CODE SUPERSEDED BY TWO HUMAN CODES.

The people of Israel, standing at the base of Mount Sinai, are to be contemplated in three different relations, with reference to each of which these laws were given.

First. They stood as men representative of all men of the Adam race, owing duties to God and to his other creatures.

Second. As the chosen, organized, spiritual body under the covenant with Abraham, constituting them Jehovah’s peculiar people, and him their God.

Third. As a social and civil organization which is to possess a country guaranteed to them as an inheritance for a special purpose.

Contemplated in the first aspect, they needed a moral law, or ethical rule of life, definitely pointing out their duties to God and man. Such a law of two tables they received, as the foundation of all other laws which are but the detailed application of its principles. Its provisions are arranged with marvellous logical method, so as to be exhaustive on the subject of moral duty. Those concerning God, the invisible, begin with the invisible acts of the heart, and proceed outward to the words and deeds of the life; those concerning man, visible, begin with the outward deeds and proceed inwardly to the desires of the heart. The substance of the ten commands is, thou shalt worship God only; in his appointed way only; using his name reverently in worship only; specially worship him at his appointed times; honor father and mother, his representatives, and types of all that earthly authority which he has delegated for social order; nor shalt thou injure thy fellow-man either in deed, against his life, affections or property—in word, against his reputation—nor in desire, against anything that is his. So perfect and exhaustive is this ethical code, few as its words are and simple, that the human mind can conceive of no moral act or impulse that comes not under one or other of its categories.

Contemplated in the second aspect, as the chosen and organized spiritual body under the covenant with Abraham, they needed—not an ecclesiastical constitution organizing them, for that they already had; nor a theological creed and ritual of worship, for that they also had already—but a further development of their ecclesiastical constitution, adapting it to their new condition; and a fuller detail of their theology and ritual, in order to set forth more clearly, by its symbols, both the objective theology of redemption by atonement, and the subjective theology of that atonement, applied by the faith of the individual, to the renewal and purification of his nature. Such an adaptation of their ecclesiastical constitution they received, in various incidental precepts and enactments; and such an expansion of the ritual, in the elaborate detail of Leviticus, with incidental precepts and enactments elsewhere.

Contemplated in the third aspect of a social organization to dwell together as a nation—they needed not organization and a political constitution, for that they already had. And had it been the purpose of Jehovah to leave them simply an ordinary civil community, with his church established among them, there would have been no revelation of civil law, save by way of illustrating and applying the moral law as before mentioned. They would have modified and changed their civil polity as experience and the counsels of wise statesmen, such as Jethro, might suggest; just as any other people under the guidance of natural law and reason may modify their civil laws. But it being the purpose of Jehovah to dwell among them by his visible presence, and to be a perpetual prophecy of the coming Messiah, it was needful to introduce various modifications of their civil code with reference to that purpose. Hence those peculiar laws forbidding the alienation of their lands by any family, or the alienation, permanently, of his liberty by any Israelite; hence the various ordinances making idolatry, consultation of evil spirits, false prophecies, etc., treasonable. Hence, in short, the whole of the peculiar principles of civil law in the Mosaic Code and in the administration under it.

But while, for purposes of analysis and exposition, we may thus contemplate the Sinai covenant as aiming to meet the threefold aspect of the body with whom it was made—viz., men as men, as church-members, and as citizens of a peculiar civil commonwealth, we must not forget that, in its great practical aspect, these divisions all merge together, and, practically, it is to be considered in its twofold character of a law to convict of sin, and a gospel to teach the pardon and justification of the sinner 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 before the convicted sinner, 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. And while many of the Mosaic enactments, practically applying principles, expired by limitation, all the great Gospel truths and principles of the Sinai covenant remained, notwithstanding the fashion of uttering them changed and the concrete ritual and typical organisms which they animated passed away.

No one who is familiar with the reasonings of that great apostle, whose specialty it was to be the Jewish iconoclast, and dash in pieces the narrow perverted ritualism of his age, but must be filled with admiration at the heights and depths of his inspired logic, when, planting his premises upon these Old Covenants with Adam and Abraham and Israel at Sinai, and David, as the great Gospel bonds in which Jehovah hath bound himself to secure the sinner’s salvation—he proceeds to reason out the title of all that believe, irrespective of blood, or nation, or age, to the benefit of those covenants as being represented in them. And with what transcendental generalization does he, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, take the dead symbolism to which a contracted, unspiritual ritualism still clings, and reanimate it with the new, fully developed Gospel truths, until tabernacle, and smoking altar, and flowing blood, and floating cloud of incense become so many infinite transparencies blazing with excess of light, exhibiting to us the actual scenes transpiring in the inner temple of the spiritual universe.

This is the true spirit in which to study the

Gospel of this Sinai covenant. It is no curious and amazing history, merely, of how Jehovah once spake and covenanted with certain Israelites at Sinai. “Not with your fathers merely,” said Moses forty years afterward, “did he make this covenant at Horeb, but with us who are all alive here this day.” And said Stephen, fifteen hundred years afterward, under his own dispensation, “He spake in Mount Sinai with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us.” And just as truly was it with us, “who are all alive this day,” that He made that covenant. It was to us that He spake these “ten words” of command to show us our sin and make us feel it. For us He appointed that ritual of atoning sacrifice to teach us, by its beautiful symbols, how the sin is to be taken away; for us those typical purifications for sin and uncleanness and those signs and the cleansings of the leprosy; for us those cities of refuge, and that singular typical commonwealth with its curious laws and constitution. All this is just as really and truly the Word of Jehovah to us, and as really deserving of our reverence, as though we heard the voice of the thunders, and had seen the lightnings and the smoke and the shaking of the huge mountains, and nature herself, half dissolved in fear, prostrating herself in reverent awe to attest the words of her Maker and Lord, as the word of the Almighty to men. Stuart Robinson.

The central mass, both of the history and antiquities of the Old Testament, is the Mosaic legislation. The only way in which the parts of the Old Testament can be brought into agreement, so as to constitute one harmonious whole, is by assuming that what goes before the Law of Moses was intended to prepare the way for it, and that what follows was designed to show how far it was observed, departed from, or modified in later times. Nor is this true only of the history. The prophecies bear a definite relation to the Law, without due regard to which they are almost unintelligible. The same is true, though in a less degree, of the remaining books. J. A. A.

The connection between religion and history, the first great distinctive character of the religion of the Old Testament Scriptures, is strongly marked with regard to these three essential elements of the system set up by Moses: the Tabernacle, the Priesthood, the Sacrificial Ritual. All three are inseparably interwoven with the main facts of Hebrew story: the deliverance from Egypt, the encampment at Sinai, the covenant between Jehovah and his people, the giving of the Law, the stubborn rebelliousness of Israel, and the consequent delay of their entrance into Canaan until the death of Moses in the fortieth year from the exodus. You cannot explain the religion apart from the history, nor the history apart from the religion. And throughout the Old Testament the religion bears witness to the history. Solomon’s temple presupposes the tabernacle. It actually contained the ark. But the ark and the tabernacle presuppose the wandering in the wilderness; which in turn presupposes Sinai and the deliverance. David’s institutions, which survived the captivity and lasted into the Christian era, attest the national importance and numerical strength of the tribe of Levi, their sacred character, and the hereditary priesthood of the descendants of Aaron. How can these (joined with the fact that Levi was a landless tribe) be explained apart from a legislation coeval with the existence of the nation? In a word, is it rationally conceivable that a nation so numerous, compact, tenacious of tradition, yet sturdily independent, prone to strife, and obstinately addicted to forbidden rites, should have been persuaded (before, during, or after the reigns of David and Solomon) to receive a body of new institutions, forged laws, and fictitious public annals, and that this astonishing fabrication, unparalleled in all literature, should have gained that prodigious hold on national belief and reverence which the writings ascribed to Moses undeniably possessed after the return from Babylon? The demands made on our faith by modern sceptical criticism far exceed in fact those made by all the miracles of the Bible. In the latter case, apparent physical impossibilities find an adequate explanation in the exercise of Divine power for worthy ends; whereas in the former case, moral impossibilities are presented for our belief with no explanation at all. E. R. Conder.

At Sinai, after the most solemn preparations and under the most terrific circumstances, the great Lawgiver of the Jews delivered that singular constitution to his people, which presupposed their possession of a rich and fertile territory in which as yet they had not occupied an acre, but had hitherto been wandering in an opposite direction, and not even approached its borders. The laws of a settled and civilized community were enacted among a wandering and homeless horde who were traversing the wilderness, and more likely, under their existing circumstances, to sink below the pastoral life of their forefathers, than advance to the rank of an industrious agricultural community. Yet, at this time, judging solely from its internal evidence, the Law must have been enacted. Who but Moses ever possessed such authority as to enforce submission to statutes so severe and uncompromising? Yet as Moses incontestably died before the conquest of Canaan, his legislation must have taken place in the desert. To what other period can the Hebrew constitution be assigned? To that of the judges? a time of anarchy, warfare, or servitude! To that of the kings? when the republic had undergone a total change! To any time after Jerusalem became the metropolis? when the holy city, the pride and glory of the nation, is not even alluded to in the whole Law! After the building of the temple? when it is equally silent as to any settled or durable edifice! After the separation of the kingdoms? when the close bond of brotherhood had given place to implacable hostility! Under Hilkiah? under Ezra? when a great number of the statutes had become a dead letter! The Law depended on a strict and equitable partition of the land. At a later period it could not have been put into practice without the forcible resumption of every individual property by the State; the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of such a measure, may be estimated by any reader who is not entirely unacquainted with the history of the ancient republics. In other respects the Law breathes the air of the desert. Enactments intended for a people with settled habitations, and dwelling in walled cities, are mingled up with temporary regulations, only suited to the Bedouin encampment of a nomad tribe. There can be no doubt that the statute book of Moses, with all his particular enactments, still exists, and that it recites them in the same order, if it may be called order, in which they were promulgated. Milman.

It is sometimes alleged that Moses borrowed his institutions from Egypt. But from what fountain did Egypt herself, in all likelihood, draw her best principles of law? There is a common fact in the history of the Hebrews and the Egyptians which sheds an important light on this subject. By an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, an Israelite, some centuries prior to the age of Moses, had been raised to the primacy of Egypt. For eighty successive years Joseph swayed the destinies of that empire; and an inspired writer has told us that he taught her senators wisdom (Ps. 105:22). It cannot be doubted, therefore, that many of the wisest maxims of Egyptian policy were due to the genius of that illustrious minister, and to the special Divine guidance vouchsafed to him in his administration. The argument for the Divine legation of Moses may be stated in one sentence. The general credibility of the Pentateuch, the publication of a theology worthy of the true God, the overthrow of idolatry and the substitution of a better faith and worship in its place, the superhuman purity and excellence of his moral code, and the clear and well-established power of miracles—such is the array of proofs which concentrate their force in a blaze of demonstration around the warrant of Moses to publish laws in the name of Jehovah. E. C. W.

The Hebrew Code of civil law simply expands and applies the general principles expressed or implied in the Ten Commandments. The great principles of this code should underlie every code of human law. These principles must be good for all time—for man in his social and civil relations everywhere. For example, its doctrine of equity; its law of love; its regard for the personal rights of life, chastity, property; its doctrine of the essential equality of every man’s rights before the Law; and its assumption that the poor, being otherwise defenceless, have special need of the protection of law, and should be regarded therefore as the special wards of government and its officers. And as the Hebrew Civil Code, while accepting the supreme authority of the Ten Commandments and aiming to embody and apply its principles, did yet allow to itself a certain latitude in adjusting its “precepts and statutes” to the condition of the people, so may human legislators. Lessons of wisdom may be drawn from this code in both these lines of its examples—viz., its fidelity to the principles and doctrines of the perfect moral law of Sinai, and its careful adaptation of these principles to the actual status of the people so as to reach the highest possible amount of practical efficiency in securing the ends of justice and of virtue. H. C.

Subdued yet unvanquished, scattered yet not lost, the dispersion of a people without their dissolution is a phenomenon in the annals of mankind; no human power has broken the solitary unity of this ancient people. Their separation from all the generations of mankind is to be ascribed mainly to the written Law of Moses, received as of Divine institution, including especially the institution of the Sabbath, the multitude and the minuteness of their rites in their ceremonial law, and the prohibition of certain ailments.

The restriction of the education of the Jewish people to their Divine Law unquestionably preserved them during their national independence as a great and religious community. There could be no non-conformity in the land of Israel; any opposition to the code of the Theocracy from a protester or a dissenter would have involved them in an overt act of treason, since their religion was their law; and the citizen who violated the civil precepts of the Mosaic Code necessarily incurred the pains of the blasphemer, since their law was their religion. And it is the abiding attachment of the Israelites to their sacred code that has perpetuated their immutable faith. As members of a political institution they were to be made entirely different from every other people; and what no other nation had imagined, their governing principle was to be that of a religious republic. D’Israeli.

The religious Judaism of the Theocracy degenerated into Rabbinical Judaism. Two human codes have superseded the code delivered from heaven; the one originates in imposture—that of their traditions; and the other is founded on tyranny—that of their customs. Twelve folios of the Babylonish Talmud, or “the Doctrinal,” the labor of nearly five hundred years, form this portentous monument in the intellectual history of man. Here we find a prodigious mass of contradictory opinions, an infinite number of casuistical cases, a logic of scholastic theology, some recondite wisdom, and much rambling dotage; many puerile tales and Oriental fancies; ethics and sophisms, reasonings and unreasonings, subtle solutions, and maxims and riddles; nothing in human life seems to have happened which these doctors have not perplexed or provided against. The children of Israel, always children, were delighted as their Talmud increased its volume and their hardships. The Gemara was a third law to elucidate the Mishna, which was a second law, and which had thrown the first law, the Law of Moses, into obscurity. D’Israeli.