15 the lustration by the ashes of the red heifer. In some cases, as in leprosy, unclean persons were shut out from the camp. 16 18 § 6. The distinction between Clean and Unclean Animals for food as well as sacrifice. Unclean animals were those strangled, or which had died a natural death, or had been killed by beasts or birds of prey; whatever beast did not both part the hoof and chew the cud; and certain other smaller animals rated as 66 creeping things;" certain classes of birds mentioned in Lev. xi. and Deut. xiv., twenty or twenty-one in all; whatever in the waters had not both fins and scales; whatever winged insect had not, besides four legs, the two hind-legs for leaping; besides things offered in sacrifice to idols; and all blood, or whatever contained it; as also all fat, at any rate that disposed in masses among the intestines, and probably wherever discernible and separable among the flesh." The eating of blood was prohibited even to "the stranger that sojourneth among you." The fat was claimed as a burnt-offering, and the blood enjoyed the highest sacrificial esteem. In the two combined the entire victim was by representation offered, and to transfer either to human use was to deal presumptuously with the most holy things. But besides this, the blood was esteemed as "the life" of the creature, and a mysterious sanctity beyond the sacrificial relation thereby attached to it. Hence we read, "Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people." 19 Whereas the offender in other dietary respects was merely "unclean until even. Sanitary reasons have been sought for these laws;21 and there may be something in this view, though their first signification was religious. Under the New Covenant, the first lesson that was taught Peter, as a preparation of preaching the Gospel to Gentile proselytes, was "not to call any thing common or unclean.' On the other hand, the apostles and the primitive Church extended to Gentile converts the restriction from eating blood and things strangled," apparently as a precaution against their taking part in heathen festivals, just as they were recommended by Paul to abstain from things offered to idols.24 To make these restrictions a part of the permanent law of Christianity is opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel. 1122 1.20 § 7. The Laws against Personal Disfigurement, by shaving the head and cutting the flesh, especially as an act of mourning, have also reference to the customs of the heathen.25 The humane restriction on the number of stripes that might be inflicted was designed to prevent a man's degradation in the eyes of his brethren.26 § 8. The Provisions for the Poor, regarded as brethren in the common bond of the covenant of God. Gleanings in the field and vineyard were their legal right:27 slight trespass was allowed, such as plucking corn while passing through a field, provided that it was eaten on the spot; the second tithe was to be bestowed partly in charity;29 wages were to be paid day by day;" 15 Numb. xix. 16 Num. xii. 15. 17 Lev. iii. 14-17, vii. 23. 18 Lev. xvii. 10, 12, 13, 14. 20 Lev. xi. 40, xvii. 15. 21 We have not thought it necessary to discuss the now exploded view, which based a large part of the Mosaic law on similar grounds of expediency. 22 Acts x. 9-16, 28; comp. 1. Tim. iv. 4. 31 loans might not be refused, nor usury taken from an Israelite; pledges must not be insolently or ruinously exacted; no favor must be shown between rich and poor in dispensing justice; 33 and besides all this, there are the most urgent injunctions to kindness to the poor, the widow and the orphan, and the strongest denunciations of all oppression. 34 § 9. The care taken to enforce humanity in general may be regarded as an extension of the same principle; for the truest motive to humanity is the constant sense of man's relation to his Heavenly Maker, Father, and Master. For example, the state of slavery was mitigated by the law that death under chastisement was punishable, and that maiming at once gave liberty. 35 Fugitive slaves from foreign nations were not to be given up ;36 and stealing and selling a man was punished with death. 37 The law even "cared for oxen,' declaring, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. It went further, and provided against that abominable law of our corrupt nature, which finds pleasure in wanton cruelty, adding such precepts as those which forbade the parent bird to be captured with its young, 39 or the kid to be boiled in its mother's milk.40 138 The institutions of the Sabbatic Year and the Year of Jubilee were a great public homage to the principle, that both the people and their property were sacred to Jehovah; but they may be most fitly described under the next head of Sacred Seasons. Indeed, if we were to carry out the principle to all its consequences, it might include the whole civil and criminal law. But what strictly belongs to this head must not be dismissed without noticing the constant perversion of the idea of personal and national sanctity. by the Jews in all their after history. They forgot the duty of purity toward God in the pride of superiority over other men, and became exclusive instead of truly holy. And just as their holiness was the type of Christian dedication to God, so is there the danger of our following their great mistake, especially by looking at the Old Testament otherwise than in the light of the New. 31 Ex. xxii. 25-27; Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. 35 Ex. xxi. 20, 26, 27. 36 Deut. xxiii. 15. 37 Ex. xxi. 16. 38 Deut. xxv. 4; comp. 1 Cor. ix. 9; 1 Tim. 39 Deut. xxii, 6, 7. 40 Ex. xxiii. 44 7. 18. NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. LEPROSY. the Egyptians drove out the Israelites as infected with leprosy-a strange THE predominant and characteristic reflex, perhaps, of the Mosaic narraform of leprosy in Scripture is a white tive of the “ plagues" of Egypt, yet variety, covering either the entire probably also containing a germ of body or a large tract of its surface; truth. The principal morbid features which has obtained the name of lepra mentioned in Leviticus are a rising Mosaica. Such were the cases of or swelling, a scab or baldness, and a Moses, Miriam, Naaman, and Gehazi bright or white spot (xiii. 2). But (Ex. iv. 6; Num. xii. 10; 2 Kings v. especially a white swelling in the skin, 1, 27; comp. Levit. xiii. 13). The with a change of the hair of the part Egyptian bondage, with its studied from the natural black to white or yeldegradations and privations, and es- low (3, 10, 4, 20, 25, 30), or an appecially the work of the kiln under an pearance of a taint going "deeper Egyptian sun, must have had a fright- than the skin," or again, "raw flesh" ful tendency to generate this class of appearing in the swelling (10, 14, 15). disorders; hence Manetho asserts that were critical signs of pollution. SECTION VI. THE SACRED SEASONS. 1. Classification of the festivals. 2.-I. FESTIVALS CONNECTED WITH THE SABBATH--The Sabbath. § 3. Feast of the New Moon. § 4. The Sabbatical Month and Feast of Trumpets. §5. The Sabbatical Year. § 6. The Year of Jubilee. § 7.-II. THE THREE GREAT HISTORICAL FESTIVALS-Their general characteristics. § 8. The Passover-Difference between the Egyptian and the Perpetual Passover. § 9. Order of the observance of the Passover. § 10. Further details. § 11. The Feast of Pentecost. § 12. The Feast of Tabernacles. § 13.—III. THE DAY OF ATONEMENT. § 14. FESTIVALS AFTER THE CAPTIVITY-The Feast of Purim. 15. The Feast of Dedication. § 1. THE religious times ordained in the law fall under three heads : I. Those connected with the institution of the Sabbath—namely, 1. The weekly Sabbath itself. 2. The Feast of the New Moon. 3. The Sabbatical Month and the Feast of Trumpets. 4. The Sabbatical Year. 5. The Year of Jubilee. II. The Three Great Historical Festivals-namely, 1. The Passover. 2. The Feast of Pentecost. 3. The Feast of Tabernacles. III. The Day of Atonement. To these must be added IV., the festivals established after the Captivity -namely, "1 1. The Feast of Purim of Lots. 2. The Feast of Dedication. I. FESTIVALS CONNECTED WITH THE SABBATH. The con § 2. (1.) The SABBATH is so named from a word signifying rest. secration of the Sabbath was coeval with the Creation; for on no principle of sound criticism can the narrative of the Creation be severed from its concluding words: "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all His work, which God created and made.' The opinion, that these words are an anticipatory reference to the Fourth Commandment, can only have arisen from the error of regarding the law of Sinai as altogether new. The only argument in support of that opinion is the absence of any record of the observance of the Sabbath between the Creation and the Exodus. It might just as well be said that the Fourth Commandment was not of immediate application, since the Sabbath is not mentioned from Moses to David. But this is just in accordance with the plan of the Scripture narrative, in which regular and ordinary events are unnoticed. The same is true of circumcision, which is not mentioned after its first institution, not even in the case of Isaac, till the time of Moses; but its observance by the patriarchs is implied by their imposing it on the Shechemites. So likewise the celebration of sacrifice is only mentioned on & Gen. ii. 3. 2 Gen. xxxiv. 13. a few special occasions. And so with the Sabbath: there are not wanting indirect evidences of its observance, as the intervals between Noah's sending forth the birds out of the ark, an act naturally associated with the weekly service, and in the week of a wedding celebration; but, when a special occasion arises, in connection with the prohibition against gathering manna on the Sabbath, the institution is mentioned as one already known. And that this was especially one of the institutions adopted by Moses from the ancient patriarchal usage, is implied in the very words of the law, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." But even if such evidence were wanting, the reason of the institution would be a sufficient proof. It was to be a joyful celebration of God's completion of His creation: and, "when the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy" at only witnessing the work, is it to be supposed that the new-made man himself postponed his joy and worship for twenty-five centuries? It has indeed been said that Moses gives quite a different reason for the institution of the Sabbath, as a memorial of the deliverance from Egyptian bondage. As if Moses, in his repetition of the law, had forgotten the reason given by God himself from Sinai. The words added in Deuteronomy are a special motive for the joy with which the Sabbath should be celebrated, and for the kindness which extended its blessings to the slave and beast of burden as well as the master: "that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou." These attempts to limit the ordinance proceed from an entire misconception of its spirit, as if it were a season of stern privation rather than of special privilege. But, in truth, the prohibition of work is only subsidiary to the positive idea of joyful rest and recreation, in communion with Jehovah, who himself "rested and was refreshed.' It was to be a sacred pause in the ordinary labor by which man earns his bread; the curse of the fall was to be suspended for one day; and, having spent that day in joyful remembrance of God's mercies, man had a fresh start in his course of labor. When God sanctified the day He blessed it; made it happy when He made it holy; and the practical difficulty in realizing this union arises, on the one hand, from seeking happiness in gain, and on the other from confounding recreation with sinful pleasure. A great snare, too, has always been hidden in the word work, as if the commandment forbade occupation and imposed idleness. A consideration of the spirit of the law and of Christ's comments on it will show that it is work for worldly gain that was to be suspended; and hence the restrictive clause is prefaced with the positive command: "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work;" for so only could the Sabbatic rest be fairly earned. Hence, too, the stress constantly laid on permitting the servant and beast of burden to share the rest, which selfishness would grudge to them. Thus the spirit of the Sabbath was joy, refreshment, and mercy, arising from remembrance of God's goodness as the Creator, and as the deliverer from bondage. 119 These views are practically illustrated by the manner in which the Israelites were to spend, and in which the prophets afterward reprove them for 3 Gen. viii. 7-12. 4 Gen. xxix. 27, 28. 5 Ex. xvi. 22-30. All this is confirmed by the great antiquity of the division of time into weeks, and the naming the days after the sun, moon, and planets. See Archdeacon Tare "On the Names of the Days of the 8 Deut. v. 14. 9 Ex. xxxi. 17; comp. xxiii. 12. |