LECTURE II.

RABBINIC EXEGESIS.

"Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men who turn away from the truth."-TIT. i. 14.

A BOOK needs for the most part but little explanation in the age to which it is addressed. It may be assumed as a fundamental principle that an author writes for the purpose of being understood. His thoughts, his allusions, his special opinions are influenced by the times in which he lives, and are clearer to his contemporaries than they can be to men of other epochs. But as the centuries advance books require an interpreter in proportion to their depth and sacredness. Schools of expositors were soon needed to explain the Vedas 2 and the Koran.3 Chairs were founded to comment upon the Divina Commedia of Dante as early as fifty years after his death, and the existing commentaries on that immortal vision are now nearly thirteen hundred in number.

The interpretation of Scripture can hardly be said to have begun before the days of Ezra. Indeed up to his days we

1 οὐ προσέχοντες Ἰουδαικοῖς μύθοις καὶ ἐντολαῖς ἀνθρώπων ἀποστρεφομένων τὴν aλhear. Comp. verse 10. Εἰσὶ γὰρ πολλοὶ . . . ματαιολόγοι καὶ φρεναπάται, μάλιστα οἱ ἐκ περιτομῆς.

2 See Muir, Sanscrit Texts, iii. pp. 138-179.

3 The Koran has its schools of expositors. The mystics (Karmathai); the Rationalists (Muatasiliten); the scholastic students (Mutekellemún). Like the Sopherim, the Sunnites maintain the existence of Tradition (Sunna); and, like the Karaites, the Schiites deny it. See Etheridge, Hebr. Lit. p. 295. The republic of Florence endowed a Lectureship in 1373.

are unable to say how much of the Old Testament in its present form was known to the mass of the Jewish people. The Mosaic system from a very early period seems not only to have fallen into desuetude, but even to have been so utterly forgotten that the discovery of the "Book of the Law" by the high priest Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah produced a burst of astonishment.1 During the Exile it again fell into complete abeyance. In the days of Nehemiah its main provisions were so little observed that their simple rehearsal woke mingled feelings of amazement and remorse.2

Yet though we do not find in the Old Testament anything which can be strictly called commentary, we do find, both in the Psalms and in the Prophets, the enunciation of principles so rich and broad that, had they been duly taken to heart, nine-tenths of the labours of the national teachers might have been saved from abortiveness. For those labours were based on the two assumptions that every word in the Five Books of Moses was supernaturally communicated, and that every tittle of Levitical formalism was of infinite importance. Nothing can be clearer than that the free attitude of the earlier Prophets towards the Law would have been impossible if they had accepted either hypothesis. Had they done so, they too might have sunk to the level of Priests and Scribes, and could never have been the inspired teachers of mankind. Moses is only mentioned three times in all the Prophets. The word Sinai does not once occur in them, nor the word High Priest. They scarcely show a trace of any influence from the Levitic system. To the official Priesthood their general attitude is one of strong antagonism, and so far from bowing to sacerdotal authority they rebuke these Temple ministers with scathing satire

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1 2 Kings xxii. 8-15; xxiii. 1-3.

2 Nehem. viii. ix. xiii.

3 Is. lxiii. 12; Jer. xv. 1; Mal. iv. 4. It is only in the third passage that "the law of Moses" is mentioned. Other allusions to "the law of the Lord" are general, as Amos ii. 4, Hos. iv. 6, viii. 1; Jer. ix. 13, &c., Zeph. iii. 4. A written law is referred to in Hos. viii. 12, Jer. viii. 8. See on the whole subject Smend, Ueber die Genesis d. Judenthums (Zeitschr. f. alttest. Wissensh 1882).

Spirit of the Prophets.

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and unmeasured invective.1 But what is most remarkable is their varied and magnificent protest against the spirit of legalism, which substitutes outward ordinances for genuine holiness. In urging this theme Samuel, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, Hosea, Habakkuk, use language so sweeping in its universality, that they might have seemed to be filled with a spirit not only of indifference, but even of contempt for that yoke of ritual bondage which it required a courage as high as that of St. Peter, so many centuries afterwards, to declare that neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear. "Behold to obey," said Samuel, “is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." 3 "Thou desirest not sacrifice," says David, "else would I give it thee; but thou delightest not in burnt offerings." "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord," is the message of Isaiah. "I hate, I despise your feastdays," is the word of the Lord through Amos. "I spake not unto your fathers concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices," says the word of the Lord in Jeremiah; “but this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice." "What doth the Lord require of thee," asks Micah, "but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" "I desired mercy and not sacrifice," is the terse message of Hosea. "I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live," was the bold utterance which, however interpreted, almost cost the prophet Ezekiel his place in the Jewish canon.1 10 Such thoughts were the most direct antithesis to the views and methods of the Scribes.

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1 See Is. xxviii. 7, 8; lvi 10, 11; Jer. iii. 16; v. 13; vi. 13; vii. 21, 22; viii. 10; xii. 10; xxiii. 11; Ezek. xxii. 25, 26; Hos. vi. 9; Zeph. iii. 3, 4; Mal. ii. 1-10, &c.

2 Acts xv. 10.

5 Is. i. 11.

8 Mic. vi. 6-9.

31 Sam. xv. 22.

6 Amos v. 21, 22.

9 Ezek. xx. 25.

4 Ps. li. 16. 7 Jer. vii. 22, 23.

10 See Jer. Ep. ad Paulin. Zunz, Gottesd. Vortr. c. ix. L. Wogue, Hist. de la Bible, p. 34. "Revere the memory of Chananiah ben Chizkiyah, for had it not been for him the book of Ezekiel would have been suppressed because of the contradictions it offers to the word of the law. By the help of 300 bottles of oil . . . he prolonged his studies till he succeeded in reconciling all the discrepancies."-SHABBATH, f. 13, 2. See too Menachoth, f. 45, and

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Theoretically indeed these Prophetic teachings were always admitted. They were recognised in the Pentateuch itself.1 When our Lord answered the question of the Scribes by summing up the Law in two great commandments, some of them at least were able to appreciate the glorious truth and insight of the answer. Nay, if there be not a wilful falsification in the Talmudic records-if the later Rabbis did not in this instance as in many others light their torches at the sun which yet they cursed-Hillel himself had in a mutilated form given half of the same answer. Shammai drove away with a builder's rod the rude Gentile who promised to become a proselyte if he would teach him the whole Law while he stood on one leg, but Hillel converted him by answering, "What is hateful to thyself do not to thy neighbour. This is the whole law; all the rest is but comment and fringe.”3

But if Hillel ever used those words it was one of the many proofs that he could breathe in a purer atmosphere than had been reached by his brother Rabbis. They had proclaimed that there were 613 precepts, of which some were "light" and some were "heavy." It therefore became a frequent question among them, "which was the first and great commandment?" In the tract Shabbath we are told that the most important law was the one about fringes, so that, on one occasion, R. Rabba, having accidentally stepped on and torn his fringe while mounting a ladder, would not move until it had been mended. How little the Jews are ashamed of a judgment so diametrically opposed to the opinions of their mightiest Prophets is shown by the fact that no less a person than Rashi, even in the twelfth century, is still bold enough to repeat that the Law about fringes is the first and great

other passages of the Talmud cited by Hamburger s. v. Jechezkel; Hershon, Talm. Miscell. p. 226. The difficult verse, Ez. xx. 25, is alluded to in Megilla f. 32. 1.

1 Deut. x. 12.

2 Mark xii. 32-34. καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ γραμματεὺς Καλῶς, διδάσκαλε, κ.τ.λ. 3 Shabbath, f. 31, 1. It must be borne in mind that "neighbour" usually meant "Jew." Baba Qamma. f. 38, 1, Amsterd. ed. Hershon, Genesis, p. 370.

This was deduced from Gematria, because = 611, which with "I am" and "thou shalt have no other" 613. Makkoth, f. 23, 2.

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commandment.1 Such was the difference between the spirit of the Prophets and that of the Rabbis, in whose days "there was no Prophet more!"

I. The question may well be asked how a change so immense was effected, and to whose influence it was due. Vast revolutions are usually brought about by the genius of one man who concentrates in his own person the energy of some new impulse, and, for good or for evil, pours its tidal wave over coming generations with a force which, centuries afterwards, is still unspent.

3

The founder of Judaism as distinct from Mosaism;2 he who transformed the theocracy into a nomocracy; he who changed Israel from a people into a church, and from a political power into an international sect; he who established a system under which Prophecy ceased because it was no longer esteemed a necessity; he who based the influence of the Scribe on so strong a foundation that it

1 Rashi on Num. xv. 39 (following the Talmud, Shevuoth, f. 29, 1) proved his point by Gematria (see infra, p. 98), because the numerical value of Tsitsith ("fringes") is 600, and this with the eight threads and the five knots 613, the number of "all the commandments of the Lord." Num. xv. 39. A Jew who neglected to wear the Tsitsith was excommunicated (Pesachim, f. 113, 2) and regarded as a churl (am ha-arcts, Berakhoth, f. 47, 2), since he transgressed five positive commands (Menachoth, f. 44, 1). Any one who wore them would have 2,800 slaves to wait on him (Shabbath, f. 32, 2). Rashi proves this from Zech. viii. 23, because there are four fringes, and if 10 men of the 70 nations seize hold of them, 70 X 10 X 4 2,800. See Hershon, Talm. Miscellany, p. 260.

2 Weill, Le Judaïsme, i. 58.

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3 Weber, Altsyn. Theol. i. Hence it is Hillel's highest honour to be called a "scholar of Ezra," who revived the law. Sanhedrin, f. 11, 1. See Ezra, x. 7-8. Jost, Gesch. d. Israeliten, iii. Ewald (Hist. of Isr. v. 53) prefers the term Hagiocracy, i.e. the belief in a Holy Land, a Holy People, &c.

* See Ezra vii. 10; Ecclus. xxxix. 1. "Dignity" is the special prerogative of the Scribe. Id. x. 5; Matt. xxiii. 7, 8; Mark x. 51; John xx. 16. Weber, 4, 122. "The wise man (i.e. the Rabbi) is greater than the Prophet' (SEY DO, Baba Bathra, f. 12, 1). In Sanhedrin, 11, the Shekhinah, after the last prophet had died, rested on Hillel, and then on Samuel the Little. It is said that at the destruction of the Temple Prophecy was taken from the Prophets and given to the Wise. Baba Bathra, 18 c. After the death of Malachi the Jews had only the rare and dubious "Daughter of a Voice" (Bath Qol), on which see Jos. Antt. xii. 10, 3.; Yoma, f. 9, 2; Jer. Sota, ix. 16. It is mentioned in the Jerusalem Targum on Deut. xxviii. 15. 5 See the Talmudic references in Herzfeld, Gesch. d. V. Isr. i. 126. The Rabbis derived sopherim from sophar, "to number," because they numbered the letters of the sacred books. Qiddushin, f. 30, 1. This is a mistake (Jost, Gesch. d. Isr. iii. 119), though stated by Elias Levita. The Scribes did, however, number the letters, and found that the 1 in Lev. ix. 42 is the middle