99131 66 peo and by a prophet was he preserved.' He was in a sense peculiar to himself the founder and representative of his ple. And, in accordance with this complete identification of himself with his nation, is the only strong personal trait which we are able to gather from his history. "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth." The word "meek" is hardly an adequate reading of the Hebrew term, which should be rather much enduring;" and, in fact, his onslaught on the Egyptian, and his sudden dashing the tables on the ground, indicate rather the reverse of what we should call" meekness." It represents what we should now designate by the word "disinterested." All that is told of him indicates a withdrawal of himself, a preference of the cause of his nation to his own interests, which makes him the most complete example of Jewish patriotism. He joins his countrymen in their degrading servitude. He forgets himself to avenge their wrongs. He desires that his brother may take the lead instead of himself.135 He wishes that not he only, but all the nation, were gifted alike:"Enviest thou for my sake ?"136 When the offer is made that the people should be destroyed, and that he should be made "a great nation," he prays that they may be forgiven -"if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written."138 His sons were not raised to honor. The leadership of the people passed, after his death, to another tribe. In the books which bear his name, Abraham, and not himself, appears as the real father of the nation. In spite of his great pre-eminence, they are never "the children of Mo 99137 134 133 In the New Testament Moses is spoken of as a likeness of Christ; and, as this is a point of view which has been almost lost in the Church, compared with the more familiar comparisons of Christ to Adam, David, Joshua, and yet has as firm a basis in fact as any of them, it may be well to draw it out in detail. 99139 1. Moses is, as it would seem, the only character of the Old Testament to whom Christ expressly likens Himself—“ Moses wrote of me. It is uncertain to what passage our Lord alludes, but the general opinion seems to be the true onethat it is the remarkable prediction 14" The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, from thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken... I 151 Hos. xii. 13. 132 Num. xii. 3. 133 Ex. i. 11, v. 4. 136 Num. xi. 29. 137 Ex. xxxii. 10. will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." This passage is also expressly quoted by Stephen," and it is probably in allusion to it, that at the transfiguration, in the presence of Moses and Elijah, the words were uttered, "Hear ye Him." It suggests three main points of likeness :-(a.) Christ was, like Moses, the great prophet of the people-the last, as Moses was the first. In greatness of position, none came between them. (b.) Christ, like Moses, is a lawgiver: "Him shall ye hear." (c.) Christ, like Moses, was a prophet out of the midst of the nation-" from their brethren." As Moses was the entire representative of his people, feeling for them more than for himself, absorbed in their interests, hopes, and fears, so, with reverence be it said, was Christ. 142 143 2. In Hebrews and Acts Christ is described, though more obscurely, as the Moses of the new dispensation-as the apostle, or messenger, or mediator, of God to the people-as the controller and leader of the flock or household of God. 3. The details of their lives are sometimes, though not oft. en, compared. Stephen" dwells, evidently with this view, on the likeness of Moses in striving to act as a peacemaker, and misunderstood and rejected on that very account. The death of Moses suggests the ascension of Christ; and the retardation of the rise of the Christian Church, till after its founder was withdrawn, gives a moral as well as a material resemblance. But this, though dwelt upon in the services of the Church, has not been expressly laid down in the Bible. 141 Acts vii. 37. Heb. iii. 1-19, xii. 24-29. 143 Acts vii. 37. 3. Divine origin of the Law of Moses-Its distinction from all other codes. § 2. Exam ination of the Law-Its leading principles-Its foundation in the THEOCRACY, accepted by the people, and ratified by God's Covenant with them-Whence follows the Religious, Moral, Civil, and Constitutional Law. § 3. Classification of the Law, based on the Two Tables of the Ten Commandments. § 4. Arrangement of the Ten Com mandments. § 5. Classification of the Law into-A. Laws religious and ceremonialB. Laws constitutional and political-C. Laws civil: human duties and rights-D. Laws criminal. § 6.-I. LAWS RELIGIOUS AND CEREMONIAL-The First Command. ment. § 7. The Second Commandment. § 8. The Third Commandment. § 9. The Fourth Commandment. § 1. 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. Its outline was given from Sinai by the voice of God himself.' One whole section of it, containing the ordinances of divine worship, was communicated to Moses by a special revelation, in the secrecy of the mount. And even in the case of 1 Ex. xx.-xxiii. 2 Ex. XXV. xxxi. those precepts, which were enacted as the occasion for each arose, we find Moses invariably referring the question to the express dcision of Jehovah. It is this character that distinguishes the legislation or Moses from that of all other great lawgivers, actual or mythical: Zoroaster, Menu, or Confucius; Zaleucus, Solon, or Lycurgus; besides that 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. § 2. Before attempting to classify the enactments of this code, it is necessary to discover first its leading principles. The basis of the whole commonwealth of Israel, as well as of its law, is the THEOCRATIC CONSTITUTION. Jehovah was present with the people, abiding in his tabernacle in their midst, visible by the symbol of His presence, and speaking to them through Moses and the High-priest. The whole law was the direct utterance of His will; and the government was carried on with constant reference to His oracular decisions. Thus He was to Israel what the king was to other nations; and hence their desire to have another king is denounced as treason to Jehovah. But more than this: He was, so to speak, the proprietor of the people. They were His possession, for He had redeemed them from their slavery in Egypt, and had brought them out thence to settle them in a new land of His own choice; and they, on their part, had accepted this relation to Jehovah by a solemn covenant. His right over their persons was asserted in the redemption of the first-born, and in the emancipation of the Jewish slave in the year of release. His right over their land was the fundamental law of property among the Jews. The tithes were a constant acknowledgment of this right; and the return of alienated land, in the year of jubilee, to the families who had at first received it by allotment from Jehovah, was the reassertion of His sole propriety. 66 On their part, the people were required to believe in this supreme and intimate relation of Jehovah to them. They accepted it at first by the covenant in Horeb," and into it every Israelite was initiated by circumcision, the common seal of this covenant and of that with Abraham, of which this was the sequel. They were to observe it in practice by the worship of Jehovah as the only God, by abstaining from idolatry, and by obedience to the law as the expression of His will. Of this relation of Jehovah to the people the whole law was the practical development; and from it each separate portion may be deduced. (i.) The Religious Law, which prescribed first the eternal principle of God's worship, and next the special ceremonies of His service under this particular dispensation. To these preregulating the Many of these typical of prin (11.) The Moral Law, which declared those duties of personal holiness and uprightness which arise out of man's relation to God and to his fellowman, apart from any peculiarity of race, or place, or time. cepts the Mosaic law appends certain special ordinances for details of life, which may be called the Law of Manners. minute observances are, no doubt, temporary. Some were ciples which, under a freer dispensation, belong to the province of the individual conscience, rather than of positive law, a distinction for which the Israelites were not yet prepared. Others were designed to impress upon them, by the teaching of common acts, the great lesson of "Holiness to Je hovah ;" and they were to be practiced as a means to the knowledge and love of God, and as a preparation for "the law of liberty," "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus." We forget this truth when we speak of such ordinances as narrow and slavish just as the Jews did when they tried to observe them only in the letter, and so felt them as "a yoke which they were unable to bear." (iii.) The Civil, Political, and Judicial Law.-It is here that the Theo cratic principle is most conspicuous, as distinguishing the legislation of Mo ses from all human constitutions. We have seen how it affected the tenure of property and the rights of persons: its influence on civil society is no less remarkable. All that is valuable in the theories on this subject is summed up, and many of their errors are corrected, in the axiom of Aristotle: "Civil society (the Polis; exists not for men to live, but for them to live well;" but, as applied to the Jews, it needs a supplement "for them to live well, as the people of God." In His presence, as the actual head of the State, "the right divine of kings to govern wrong" becomes blasphemy and treason, as we see practically in the case of Saul. His supreme authority over judges, priests, and kings, was actually asserted by the prophets, in their unsparing denunciation of wickedness in high places. Witness the behavior of Samuel toward Saul, and of Nathan to David, and the conflicts of Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah, with the kings of Israel and Judah. On the other hand, there is no room for the self-willed assertion of the "rights of man;" but those of them which deserve the name are secured by just and merciful laws, founded on right itself, as expressed by the will of God. There is no distinction between the provinces of action and thought, of free conscience and coercive law, nor between temporal and spiritual authority. It was not till, by the people's own sin, a worldly empire had usurped the theocratic throne, that they were bidden to "Render to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's, and to God the things that were God's." All was God's at first, and the scope of the whole law was in the precept: "Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might;" with its corollary, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (iv.) The Laws respecting Rewards and Punishments.-These also differed from those of other states, both in their nature and in the object that they aimed at. Every breach of the law was an act of disobedience to God, and not merely an offense against society. The rewards of obedience and the punishment of sin had reference to the covenant under which the people lived. They are fully expressed in the "blessing and the curse," as set forth by Moses. The reward is summed up in the frequently-repeated phrase, "that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee." The highest punishment of the offender was that "his soul should be cut off from Israel," his life severed from the congregation, and from all the present benefits of the covenant, as he had broken it on his side. This explains the infliction of death for so many offenses, some of thern beyond the cognizance of ordinary codes, but crimes against Jehovah. The 8 Acts xv. 10. 4 Deut. iv. 40, v. 16, vi. 3, 18, xii. 25, 28, xxii. 7, etc |