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Title: The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Leviticus
Author: Kellogg, S H
Language: English
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* * * * *
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor," etc._
THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS
BY THE REV
S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
_Toronto, Canada_
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MCMVI
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._
FIRST SERIES.
Colossians.
By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D., D.Lit.
St. Mark.
By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry.
Genesis.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
1 Samuel.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
2 Samuel.
By the same Author.
Hebrews.
By Principal T. C. EDWARDS, D.D.
SECOND SERIES.
Galatians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D.
The Pastoral Epistles.
By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Isaiah I.--XXXIX.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, DD. Vol. I.
The Book of Revelation.
By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.
1 Corinthians.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D,
The Epistles of St. John.
By the Most Rev. the Archbishop of Armagh.
THIRD SERIES.
Judges and Ruth.
By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
Jeremiah.
By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.
Isaiah XL.--LXVI.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Vol. II.
St. Matthew.
By the Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
Exodus.
By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry.
St. Luke.
By the Rev. H. BURTON, M.A.
FOURTH SERIES.
Ecclesiastes.
By the Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.
St. James and St. Jude.
By the Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Proverbs.
By the Rev. R. F. HORTON, D.D.
Leviticus.
By the Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.
FIFTH SERIES.
The Psalms.
By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
The Book of Job.
By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
Ephesians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A., D.D.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.
SIXTH SERIES.
1 Kings.
By the Very Rev. F. W. FARRAR, F.R.S.
Philippians.
By Principal RAINY, D.D.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Joshua.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
The Psalms.
By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.
The Epistles of St. Peter.
By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
SEVENTH SERIES.
2 Kings.
By the Very Rev. F. W. FARRAR, F.R.S.
Romans.
By the Right Rev. H. C. G. MOULE, D.D.
The Books of Chronicles.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, D.D., D.Lit.
2 Corinthians.
By Prof. JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
Numbers.
By the Rev. R. A. WATSON, M.A., D.D.
The Psalms.
By the Rev. A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III.
EIGHTH SERIES.
Daniel.
By the Very Rev. F. W. FARRAR, F.R.S.
The Book of Jeremiah.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, D.D., D.Lit.
Deuteronomy.
By Prof. ANDREW HARPER, B.D.
The Song of Solomon and Lamentations.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Ezekiel.
By Prof. JOHN SKINNER, M.A.
The Books of the Twelve Prophets.
By Prof. G. A. SMITH, D.D. Two Vols.
THE
BOOK OF LEVITICUS
BY THE REV.
S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
AUTHOR OF
"THE JEWS; OR, PREDICTION AND FULFILMENT," "THE LIGHT OF ASIA
AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD," ETC.
_FIFTH EDITION_
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MCMVI
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
CONTENTS.
PART I.
_THE TABERNACLE WORSHIP._
(LEV. i.-x., xvi.)
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY (i. 1) 3
The Origin and Authority of Leviticus, 5.--The Occasion and
Plan of Leviticus, 18.--The Purpose of Leviticus, 20.--The
Present-day use of Leviticus, 24.
CHAPTER II.
SACRIFICE: THE BURNT-OFFERING (i. 2-4) 29
The Ritual of the Burnt-offering, 36.--The Presentation of
the Victim, 39.--The Laying on of the Hand, 41.
CHAPTER III.
THE BURNT-OFFERING [CONCLUDED] (i. 5-17; vi. 8-13) 47
The Killing of the Victim, 47.--The Sprinkling of the
Blood, 48.--The Sacrificial Burning, 50.--The Continual
Burnt-offering, 59.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MEAL-OFFERING (ii. 1-16; vi. 14-23) 63
The Daily Meal-Offering, 79.
CHAPTER V.
THE PEACE-OFFERING (iii. 1-17; vii. 11-34; xix. 5-8; xxii.
21-25) 82
The Prohibition of Fat and Blood, 99.--Thank-offerings,
Vows, and Freewill-offerings, 104.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SIN-OFFERING (iv. 1-35) 109
Graded Responsibility, 120.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RITUAL OF THE SIN-OFFERING (iv. 4-35; v. 1-13; vi.
24-30) 134
The Sprinkling of the Blood, 136.--The Sanctity of the
Sin-offering, 150.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GUILT-OFFERING (v. 14; vi. 7; vii. 1-7) 155
CHAPTER IX.
THE PRIESTS' PORTIONS (vi. 16-18, 26; vii. 6-10, 14, 31-36) 175
CHAPTER X.
THE CONSECRATION OF AARON AND HIS SONS, AND OF THE
TABERNACLE (viii. 1-36) 181
The Levitical Priesthood and Tabernacle as Types,
184.--The Washing with Water, 190.--The Investiture,
191.--The Anointing, 201.--The Consecration Sacrifices,
204.
CHAPTER XI.
THE INAUGURATION OF THE TABERNACLE SERVICE (ix. 1-24) 219
The Double Benediction, 231.
CHAPTER XII.
NADAB'S AND ABIHU'S "STRANGE FIRE" (x. 1-20) 237
Mourning in Silence, 247.--Carefulness after Judgment, 250.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GREAT DAY OF ATONEMENT (xvi. 1-34) 256
Azazel, 264.
PART II.
_THE LAW OF THE DAILY LIFE._
(LEV. xi.-xv.; xvii.-xxv.)
CHAPTER XIV.
CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS, AND DEFILEMENT BY DEAD
BODIES (xi. 1-47) 277
CHAPTER XV.
OF THE UNCLEANNESS OF ISSUES (xv. 1-33) 305
CHAPTER XVI.
THE UNCLEANNESS OF CHILD-BEARING (xii. 1-8) 313
The Ordinance of Circumcision, 315.--Purification after
Child-birth, 320.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE UNCLEANNESS OF LEPROSY (xiii. 1-46) 327
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER (xiv. 1-32) 345
Leprosy in a Garment or House, 358.
CHAPTER XIX.
HOLINESS IN EATING (xvii. 1-16) 367
CHAPTER XX.
THE LAW OF HOLINESS: CHASTITY (xviii. 1-30) 379
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LAW OF HOLINESS [CONCLUDED] (xix. 1-37) 391
CHAPTER XXII.
PENAL SANCTIONS (xx. 1-27) 418
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LAW OF PRIESTLY HOLINESS (xxi. 1-xxii. 33) 432
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SET FEASTS OF THE LORD (xxiii. 1-44) 447
The Weekly Sabbath, 453.--Passover and Unleavened
Bread, 455.--Pentecost, 459.--The Feast of Trumpets,
461.--The Day of Atonement, 463.--The Feast of
Tabernacles, 464.--Typical Meaning of the Feasts of
the Seventh Month, 468.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE HOLY LIGHT AND THE SHEW-BREAD: THE BLASPHEMER'S
END (xxiv. 1-23) 474
The "Bread of the Presence," 477.--The Penalty of
Blasphemy, 480.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE (xxv. 1-55) 487
The Jubilee, 489.--The Jubilee and the Land, 491.--The
Jubilee and Dwelling-houses, 494.--The Jubilee and
Slavery, 497.--Practical Objects of the Sabbatic Year
and the Jubilee, 502.--Typical Significance of the
Sabbatic and Jubilee Years, 510.
PART III.
_CONCLUSION AND APPENDIX._
(LEV. xxvi., xxvii.)
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PROMISES AND THREATS OF THE COVENANT (xxvi. 1-46) 519
The Promises of the Covenant, 521.--"The Vengeance of
the Covenant," 522.--The Promised Restoration, 534.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CONCERNING VOWS (xxvii. 1-34) 541
The Vowing of Persons, 542.--The Vowing of Domestic
Animals, 545.--The Vowing of Houses and Fields,
546.--The Vow in New Testament Ethics, 549.--Exclusions
from the Vow, 553.--The Law of the Ban, 554.--The
Law of the Tithe, 559.
PART I.
_THE TABERNACLE WORSHIP._
I.-X., XVI.
SECTION 1. THE LAW OF THE OFFERINGS: i.-vi.
SECTION 2. THE INSTITUTION OF THE TABERNACLE SERVICE: viii.-x.
(1) THE CONSECRATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD: vii.
(2) THE INDUCTION OF THE PRIESTHOOD: ix., x.
SECTION 3. THE DAY OF ATONEMENT: xvi.
CHAPTER I.
_INTRODUCTORY._
"And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the
tent of meeting."--LEV. i. 1.
Perhaps no book in the Bible presents to the ordinary reader so many
and peculiar difficulties as the book of Leviticus. Even of those who
devoutly believe, as they were taught in their childhood, that, like
all the other books contained in the Holy Scriptures, it is to be
received throughout with unquestioning faith as the very Word of God,
a large number will frankly own in a discouraged way that this is with
them merely a matter of belief, which their personal experience in
reading the book has for the most part failed to sustain; and that for
them so to see through symbol and ritual as to get much spiritual
profit from such reading has been quite impossible.
A larger class, while by no means denying or doubting the original
Divine authority of this book, yet suppose that the elaborate ritual
of the Levitical law, with its multiplied, minute prescriptions
regarding matters religious and secular, since the Mosaic dispensation
has now long passed away, neither has nor can have any living relation
to present-day questions of Christian belief and practice; and so,
under this impression, they very naturally trouble themselves little
with a book which, if they are right, can now only be of special
interest to the religious antiquarian.
Others, again, while sharing this feeling, also confess to a great
difficulty which they feel in believing that many of the commands of
this law can ever have been really given by inspiration from God. The
extreme severity of some of the laws, and what seems to them to be the
arbitrary and even puerile character of other prescriptions, appear to
them to be irreconcilable, in the one case, with the mercy, in the
other, with the dignity and majesty, of the Divine Being.
With a smaller, but, it is to be feared, an increasing number, this
feeling, either of indifference or of doubt, regarding the book of
Leviticus, is further strengthened by their knowledge of the fact that
in our day its Mosaic origin and inspired authority is strenuously
denied by a large number of eminent scholars, upon grounds which they
claim to be strictly scientific. And if such Christians do not know
enough to decide for themselves on its merits the question thus
raised, they at least know enough to have a very uncomfortable doubt
whether an intelligent Christian has any longer a right to regard the
book as in any true sense the Word of God; and--what is still more
serious--they feel that the question is of such a nature that it is
impossible for any one who is not a specialist in Hebrew and the
higher criticism to reach any well-grounded and settled conviction,
one way or the other, on the subject. Such persons, of course, have
little to do with this book. If the Word of God is indeed there, it
cannot reach them.
With such mental conditions so widely prevailing, some words regarding
the origin, authority, purpose, and use of this book of Leviticus
seem to be a necessary preliminary to its profitable exposition.
THE ORIGIN AND AUTHORITY OF LEVITICUS.
As to the origin and authority of this book, the first verse presents
a very formal and explicit statement: "The Lord called unto Moses, and
spake unto him." These words evidently contain by necessary
implication two affirmations: first, that the legislation which
immediately follows is of Mosaic origin: "The Lord spake unto
_Moses_;" and, secondly, that it was not the product merely of the
mind of Moses, but came to him, in the first instance, as a revelation
from Jehovah: "_Jehovah_ spake unto Moses." And although it is quite
true that the words in this first verse strictly refer only to that
section of the book which immediately follows, yet, inasmuch as the
same or a like formula is used repeatedly before successive
sections,--in all, no less than fifty-six times in the twenty-seven
chapters,--these words may with perfect fairness be regarded as
expressing a claim respecting these two points, which covers the
entire book.
We must not, indeed, put more into these words than is truly there.
They simply and only declare the Mosaic origin and the inspired
authority of the legislation which the book contains. They say nothing
as to whether or not Moses wrote every word of this book himself; or
whether the Spirit of God directed and inspired other persons, in
Moses' time or afterward, to commit this Mosaic law to writing. They
give us no hint as to when the various sections which make up the book
were combined into their present literary form, whether by Moses
himself, as is the traditional view, or by men of God in a later day.
As to these and other matters of secondary importance which might be
named, the book records no statement. The words used in the text, and
similar expressions used elsewhere, simply and only declare the
legislation to be of Mosaic origin and of inspired authority. Only, be
it observed, so much as this they do affirm in the most direct and
uncompromising manner.
It is of great importance to note all this: for in the heat of
theological discussion the issue is too often misapprehended on both
sides. The real question, and, as every one knows, the burning
Biblical question of the day, is precisely this, whether the claim
this book contains, thus exactly defined, is true or false.
A certain school of critics, comprising many of the greatest learning,
and of undoubted honesty of intention, assures the Church and the
world that a strictly scientific criticism compels one to the
conclusion that this claim, even as thus sharply limited and defined,
is, to use plain words, not true; that an enlightened scholarship must
acknowledge that Moses had little or nothing to do with what we find
in this book; that, in fact, it did not originate till nearly a
thousand years later, when, after the Babylonian captivity, certain
Jewish priests, desirous of magnifying their authority with the
people, fell on the happy expedient of writing this book of Leviticus,
together with certain other parts of the Pentateuch, and then, to give
the work a prestige and authority which on its own merits or over
their own names it could not have had, delivered it to their
countrymen as nearly a thousand years old, the work of their great
lawgiver. And, strangest of all, they not only did this, but were so
successful in imposing this forgery upon the whole nation that history
records not even an expressed suspicion of a single person, until
modern times, of its non-Mosaic origin; that is, they succeeded in
persuading the whole people of Israel that a law which they had
themselves just promulgated had been in existence among them for
nearly ten centuries, the very work of Moses, when, in reality, it was
quite a new thing.
Astonishing and even incredible as all this may seem to the
uninitiated, substantially this theory is held by many of the Biblical
scholars of our day as presenting the essential facts of the case; and
the discovery of these supposed facts we are called upon to admire as
one of the chief literary triumphs of modern critical scholarship!
Now the average Christian, whether minister or layman, though
intelligent enough in ordinary matters of human knowledge, or even a
well-educated man, is not, and cannot be, a specialist in Hebrew and
in the higher criticism. What is he then to do when such a theory is
presented to him as endorsed by scholars of the highest ability and
the most extensive learning? Must we, then, all learn Hebrew and study
this higher criticism before we can be permitted to have any
well-justified and decided opinion whether this book, this law of
Leviticus, be the Word of God or a forgery? We think not. There are
certain considerations, quite level to the understanding of every one;
certain facts, which are accepted as such by the most eminent
scholars, which ought to be quite sufficient for the maintenance and
the abundant confirmation of our faith in this book of Leviticus as
the very Word of God to Moses.
In the first place, it is to be observed that if any theory which
denies the Mosaic origin and the inspired authority of this book be
true, then the fifty-six assertions of such origin and authority
which the book contains are unqualifiedly false. Further, however any
may seek to disguise the issue with words, if in fact this Levitical
ritual and code of laws came into existence only after the Babylonian
captivity and in the way suggested, then the book of Leviticus can by
no possibility be the Word of God in any sense, but is a forgery and a
fraud. Surely this needs no demonstration. "The Lord spake unto
Moses," reads, for instance, this first verse; "The Lord did _not_
speak these things unto Moses," answer these critics; "they were
invented by certain unscrupulous priests centuries afterwards." Such
is the unavoidable issue.
Now who shall arbitrate in these matters? who shall settle these
questions for the great multitude of believers who know nothing of
Hebrew criticism, and who, although they may not well understand much
that is in this book, have yet hitherto accepted it with reverent
faith as being what it professes to be, the very Word of God through
Moses? To whom, indeed, can we refer such a question as this for
decision but to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, our Lord and Saviour,
confessed of all believers to be in verity the only-begotten Son of
God from the bosom of the Father? For He declared that "the Father
showed unto Him," the Son, "all things that He Himself did;" He will
therefore be sure to know the truth of this matter, sure to know the
Word of His Father from the word of man, if He will but speak.
And He has spoken on this matter, He, the Son of God. What was the
common belief of the Jews in the time of our Lord as to the Mosaic
origin and Divine authority of this book, as of all the Pentateuch,
every one knows. Not a living man disputes the statement made by a
recent writer on this subject, that "previous to the Christian era,
there are no traces of a second opinion" on this question; the book
"was universally ascribed to Moses." Now, that Jesus Christ shared and
repeatedly endorsed this belief of His contemporaries should be
perfectly clear to any ordinary reader of the Gospels.
The facts as to His testimony, in brief, are these. As to the
Pentateuch in general, He called it (Luke xxiv. 44) "the law of
Moses;" and, as regards its authority, He declared it to be such that
"till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no
wise pass away from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt. v. 18).
Could this be truly said of this book of Leviticus, which is
undoubtedly included in this term, "the law," if it were not the Word
of God, but a forgery, so that its fifty-six affirmations of its
Mosaic origin and inspired authority were false? Again, Christ
declared that Moses in his "writings" wrote of Him,--a statement,
which, it should be observed, imputes to Moses foreknowledge, and
therefore supernatural inspiration; and further said that faith in
Himself was so connected with faith in Moses, that if the Jews had
believed Moses, they would have also believed Him (John v. 46, 47). Is
it conceivable that Christ should have spoken thus, if the "writings"
referred to had been forgeries?
But not only did our Lord thus endorse the Pentateuch in general, but
also, on several occasions, the Mosaic origin and inspired authority
of Leviticus in particular. Thus, when He healed the lepers (Matt.
viii. 4) He sent them to the priests on the ground that Moses had
commanded this in such cases. But such a command is found only in this
book of Leviticus (xiv. 3-10). Again, in justifying His disciples for
plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath day, He adduces the example
of David, who ate the shew-bread when he was an hungered, "which was
not lawful for him to eat, but only for the priests" (Matt. xii. 4);
thus referring to a law which is only found in Leviticus (xxiv. 9).
But the citation was only pertinent on the assumption that He regarded
the prohibition of the shew-bread as having the same inspired
authority as the obligation of the Sabbath. In John vii. 32, again, He
refers to Moses as having renewed the ordinance of circumcision, which
at the first had been given to Abraham; and, as usual, assumes the
Divine authority of the command as thus given. But this renewal of the
ordinance of circumcision is recorded only in Leviticus (xii. 3). Yet
once more, rebuking the Pharisees for their ingenious justification of
the hard-hearted neglect of parents by undutiful children, He reminds
them that Moses had said that he who cursed father or mother should be
put to death; a law which is only found in the so-called priest-code,
Exod. xxi. 17 and Lev. xx. 9. Further, He is so far from merely
assuming the truth of the Jewish opinion for the sake of an argument,
that He formally declares this law, equally with the fifth
commandment, to be "a commandment of God," which they by their
tradition had made void (Matt. xiv. 3-6).
One would suppose that it had been impossible to avoid the inference
from all this, that our Lord believed, and intended to be understood
as teaching, that the law of Leviticus was, in a true sense, of Mosaic
origin, and of inspired, and therefore infallible, authority.
We are in no way concerned, indeed,--nor is it essential to the
argument,--to press this testimony of Christ as proving more than the
very least which the words fairly imply. For instance, nothing in His
words, as we read them, any more than in the language of Leviticus
itself, excludes the supposition that in the preparation of the law,
Moses, like the Apostle Paul, may have had co-labourers or amanuenses,
such as Aaron, Eleazar, Joshua, or others, whose several parts of the
work might then have been issued under his endorsement and authority;
so that Christ's testimony is in no wise irreconcilable with the fact
of differences of style, or with the evidence of different documents,
if any think that they discover this, in the book.[1]
[1] "Genesis may be made up of various documents, and yet have
been compiled by Moses; and the same thing is possible, even in
the later books of the Pentateuch. If these could be
successfully partitioned among different writers, on the score
of variety in literary execution, why may not these have been
engaged jointly with Moses himself in preparing each his
appointed portion, and the whole have been finally reduced by
Moses to its present form?... Why might not these continue their
work, and record what occurred after Moses was taken
away?"--Professor W. H. Green, _Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia_;
article, "The Pentateuch."
We are willing to go further, and add that in the testimony of our
Lord we find nothing which declares against the possibility of one or
more redactions or revisions of the laws of Leviticus in post-Mosaic
times, by one or more _inspired_ men; as, _e.g._, by Ezra, described
(Ezra vii. 6) as "a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord,
the God of Israel, had given;" to whom also ancient Jewish tradition
attributes the final settlement of the Old Testament canon down to his
time. Hence no words of Christ touch the question as to when the book
of Leviticus received its present form, in respect of the order of its
chapters, sections, and verses. This is a matter of quite secondary
importance, and may be settled any way without prejudice to the Mosaic
origin and authority of the laws it contains.
Neither, in the last place, do the words of our Lord, carefully
weighed, of necessity exclude even the possibility that such persons,
acting under Divine direction and inspiration, may have first reduced
some parts of the law given by Moses to writing;[2] or even, as an
extreme supposition, may have entered here and there, under the
unerring guidance of the Holy Ghost, prescriptions which, although new
as to the letter, were none the less truly Mosaic, in that by
necessary implication they were logically involved in the original
code.[3]
[2] "If it be proven that a record was committed to writing at a
comparatively late date, it does not necessarily follow that the
essential part has not been accurately handed down."--Professor
Strack, _ibid._
[3] Something like this seems to have been the final position of
the late Professor Delitzsch, who said: "We hold firmly that
Moses laid the foundation of this codification" (of the
"priest-code" of Leviticus, etc.), "but it was continued in the
post-Mosaic period within the priesthood, to whom was entrusted
the transmission, interpretation, and administration of the law.
We admit this willingly; and even the participation of Ezra in
this codification in itself furnishes no stumbling block for us.
For it is not inconceivable that laws which until then had been
handed down orally were fixed by him in writing to secure their
judicial authority and execution. The most important thing for
us is the historico-traditional character of the Pentateuchal
legislation, and especially the occasions for (the laws) and the
fundamental arrangements in the history of the times. That which
we cannot be persuaded to admit is that the so-called Priestly
Code is the work of the free invention of the latest date, which
takes on the artificial appearance of ancient history."--_The
Presbyterian Review_, July 1882; article, "Delitzsch on the
Origin and Composition of the Pentateuch," p. 578.
We do not indeed here argue either for or against any of these
suppositions, which were apart from the scope of the present work. We
are only concerned here to remark that Christ has not incontrovertibly
settled these questions. These things may be true or not true; the
decision of such matters properly belongs to the literary critics. But
decide them as one will, it will still remain true that the law is
"the law of Moses," given by revelation from God.
So much as this, however, is certain. Whatsoever modifications may
conceivably have passed upon the text, all work of this kind was done,
as all agree, long before the time of our Lord; and the text to which
He refers as of Mosaic origin and of inspired authority, was therefore
essentially the text of Leviticus as we have it to-day. We are thus
compelled to insist that whatever modifications may have been made in
the original Levitical law, they cannot have been, according to the
testimony of our Lord, such as in any way conflicted with His
affirmation of its Mosaic origin and its inspired authority. They can
thus, at the very utmost, only have been, as suggested, in the way of
legitimate logical development and application to successive
circumstances, of the Levitical law as originally given to Moses; and
that, too, under the administration of a priesthood endowed with the
possession of the Urim and Thummim, so as to give such official
deliverances, whenever required, the sanction of inerrant Divine
authority, binding on the conscience as from God. Here, at least,
surely, Christ by His testimony has placed an immovable limitation
upon the speculations of the critics.
And yet there are those who admit the facts as to Christ's testimony,
and nevertheless claim that without any prejudice to the absolute
truthfulness of our Lord, we may suppose that in speaking as He did,
with regard to the law of Leviticus, He merely conformed to the common
usage of the Jews, without intending thereby to endorse their
opinion; any more than, when, conforming to the ordinary mode of
speech, He spoke of the sun as rising and setting, He meant thereby to
be understood as endorsing the common opinion of men of that time that
the sun actually passed round the earth every twenty-four hours. To
which it is enough to reply that this illustration, which has so often
been used in this argument, is not relevant to the case before us. For
not only did our Lord use language which implied the truth of the
Jewish belief regarding the origin and authority of the Mosaic law,
but He formally teaches it; and--what is of still more moment--He
rests the obligation of certain duties upon the fact that this law of
Leviticus was a revelation from God to Moses for the children of
Israel. But if the supposed facts, upon which He bases His argument in
such cases, are, in reality, not facts, then His argument becomes null
and void. How, for instance, is it possible to explain away the words
in which He appeals to one of the laws of Exodus and Leviticus (Matt.
xv. 3-6) as being _not_ a Jewish opinion, but, instead, in explicit
contrast with the traditions of the Rabbis, "a commandment of God"?
Was this expression merely "an accommodation" to the mistaken notions
of the Jews? If so, then what becomes of His argument?
Others, again, feeling the force of this, and yet sincerely and
earnestly desiring to maintain above possible impeachment the perfect
truthfulness of Christ, still assuming that the Jews were mistaken,
and admitting that, if so, our Lord must have shared their error, take
another line of argument. They remind us of what, however mysterious,
cannot be denied, that our Lord, in virtue of His incarnation, came
under certain limitations in knowledge; and then urge that without
any prejudice to His character we may suppose that, not only with
regard to the time of His advent and kingdom (Matt. xxiv. 36), but
also with respect to the authorship and the Divine authority of this
book of Leviticus, He may have shared in the ignorance and error of
His countrymen.
But, surely, the fact of Christ's limitation in knowledge cannot be
pressed so far as the argument of such requires, without by logical
necessity nullifying Christ's mission and authority as a religious
teacher. For it is certain that according to His own word, and the
universal belief of Christians, the supreme object of Christ's mission
was to reveal unto men through His life and teachings, and especially
through His death upon the cross, the Father; and it is certain that
He claimed to have, in order to this end, perfect knowledge of the
Father. But how could this most essential claim of His be justified,
and how could He be competent to give unto men a perfect and inerrant
knowledge of the Father, if the ignorance of His humiliation was so
great that He was unable to distinguish from His Father's Word a book
which, by the hypothesis, was not the Word of the Father, but an
ingenious and successful forgery of certain crafty post-exilian
priests?
It is thus certain that Jesus must have known whether the Pentateuch,
and, in particular, this book of Leviticus, was the Word of God or
not; certain also that, if the Word of God, it could not have been a
forgery; and equally certain that Jesus could not have intended in
what He said on this subject to accommodate His speech to a common
error of the people, without thereby endorsing their belief. It thus
follows that critics of the radical school referred to are directly
at issue with the testimony of Christ regarding this book. It is of
immense consequence that Christians should see this issue clearly.
While Jesus taught in various ways that Leviticus contains a law given
by revelation from God to Moses, these teach that it is a priestly
forgery of the days after Ezra. Both cannot be right; and if the
latter are in the right, then--we speak with all possible deliberation
and reverence--Jesus Christ was mistaken, and was therefore unable
even to tell us with inerrant certainty whether this or that is the
Word of God or not. But if this is so, then how can we escape the
final inference that His claim to have a perfect knowledge of the
Father must have been an error; His claim to be the incarnate Son of
God, therefore, a false pretension, and Christianity, a delusion, so
that mankind has in Him no Saviour?
But against so fatal a conclusion stands the great established fact of
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; whereby He was with
power declared to be the Son of God, so that we may know that His word
on this, as on all subjects where He has spoken, settles controversy,
and is a sufficient ground of faith; while it imposes upon all
speculations of men, literary or philosophical, eternal and
irremovable limitations.
Let no one think that the case, as regards the issue at stake, has
been above stated too strongly. One could not well go beyond the often
cited words of Kuenen on this subject: "We must either cast aside as
worthless our dearly bought scientific method, or we must for ever
cease to acknowledge the authority of the New Testament in the domain
of the exegesis of the Old." With good reason does another scholar
exclaim at these words, "The Master must not be heard as a witness! We
treat our criminals with more respect." So then stands the question
this day which this first verse of Leviticus brings before us: In
which have we more confidence? in literary critics, like a Kuenen or
Wellhausen, or in Jesus Christ? Which is the more likely to know with
certainty whether the law of Leviticus is a revelation from God or
not?
The devout Christian, who through the grace of the crucified and risen
Lord "of whom Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write," and who
has "tasted the good word of God," will not long hesitate for an
answer. He will not indeed, if wise, timidly or fanatically decry all
literary investigation of the Scriptures; but he will insist that the
critic shall ever hold his reason in reverent subjection to the Lord
Jesus on all points where the Lord has spoken. Such everywhere will
heartily endorse and rejoice in those admirable words of the late
venerable Professor Delitzsch; words which stand almost as of his last
solemn testament:--"The theology of glory which prides itself upon
being its own highest authority, bewitches even those who had seemed
proof against its enchantments; and the theology of the Cross, which
holds Divine folly to be wiser than men, is regarded as an
unscientific lagging behind the steps of progress.... But the faith
which I professed in my first sermons, ... remains mine to-day,
undiminished in strength, and immeasurably higher than all earthly
knowledge. Even if in many Biblical questions I have to oppose the
traditional opinion, certainly my opposition rests on this side of the
gulf, on the side of the theology of the Cross, of grace, of
miracles!... By this banner let us stand; folding ourselves in it, let
us die!"[4] To which truly noble words every true Christian may well
say, Amen!
[4] _The Expositor_, January, 1889; article, "The Old Theology
and the New," pp. 54, 55.
We then stand without fear with Jesus Christ in our view of the origin
and authority of the book of Leviticus.
THE OCCASION AND ORDER OF LEVITICUS.
Before proceeding to the exposition of this book, a few words need to
be said regarding its occasion and plan, and its object and present
use.
The opening words of the book, "And the Lord said," connect it in the
closest manner with the preceding book of Exodus, at the contents of
which we have therefore to glance for a moment. The kingdom of God,
rejected by corporate humanity in the founding of the Babylonian
world-power, but continuing on earth in a few still loyal souls in the
line of Abraham and his seed, at last, according to promise, had been
formally and visibly re-established on earth at Mount Sinai. The
fundamental law of the kingdom contained in the ten commandments and
certain applications of the same, had been delivered in what is called
the Book of the Covenant, amid thunders and lightnings, at the holy
mount. Israel had solemnly entered into covenant with God on this
basis, saying, "All these things will we do and be obedient," and the
covenant had been sealed by the solemn sprinkling of blood.
This being done, Jehovah now issued commandment for the building of
the tabernacle or "tent of meeting," where He might manifest His glory
and from time to time communicate His will to Israel. As mediators
between Him and the people, the priesthood was appointed, their
vestments and duties prescribed. All this having been done as ordered,
the tent of meeting covering the interior tabernacle was set up; the
Shekinah cloud covered it, and the glory of Jehovah filled the
tabernacle,--the manifested presence of the King of Israel!
Out of the tent of meeting, from this excellent glory, Jehovah now
called unto Moses, and delivered the law as we have it in the first
seven chapters of the book of Leviticus. To the law of offerings
succeeds (viii.-x.) an account of the consecration of Aaron and his
sons to the priestly office, and their formal public assumption of
their functions, with an account of the very awful sanction which was
given to the preceding law, by the death of Nadab and Abihu before the
Lord, for offering as He had not commanded them.
The next section of the book contains the law concerning the clean and
the unclean, under the several heads of food (xi.), birth-defilement
(xii.), leprosy (xiii., xiv.), and unclean issues (xv.); and closes
(xvi.) with the ordinance of the great day of atonement, in which the
high priest alone, presenting the blood of a sin-offering in the Holy
of Holies, was to make atonement once a year for the sins of the whole
nation.[5]
[5] From the note in xvi. 1 it would appear that this chapter,
so different in subject from the five preceding chapters on
"Uncleannesses," originally preceded them, and so followed x.,
with which it is so closely connected. Its exposition is
therefore given immediately after that of x.
The third section of the book contains the law of holiness,[6] first,
for the people (xvii.-xx.), and then the special laws for the priests
(xxi., xxii.). These are followed, first (xxiii.), by the order for
the feasts of the Lord, or appointed times of public holy convocation;
then (xxiv.), by a historical incident designed to show that the law,
as given, must, in several respects noted, be applied in all its
strictness no less to the alien than to the native-born Israelite; and
finally (xxv.), by the remarkable ordinances concerning the sabbatic
year, and the culmination of the sabbatic system of the law in the
year of jubilee.
[6] This name is often restricted to xviii.-xx.
As a conclusion to the whole, the legislation thus given is now sealed
(xxvi.) with promises from God of blessing to the nation if they will
keep this law, and threats of unsparing vengeance against the people
and the land, if they forsake His commandments and break the covenant,
though still with a promise of mercy when, having thus transgressed,
they shall at any time repent. The book then closes with a
supplemental chapter on voluntary vows and dues (xxvii.).
THE PURPOSE OF LEVITICUS.
What now was the purpose of Leviticus? In general, as regards Israel,
it was given to direct them how they might live as a holy nation in
fellowship with God. The key-note of the book is "Holiness to
Jehovah." More particularly, the object of the book was to furnish for
the theocracy set up in Israel a code of law which should secure their
physical, moral, and spiritual well-being. But the establishment of
the theocracy in Israel was itself only a means to an end; namely, to
make Israel a blessing to all nations, in mediating to the Gentiles
the redemption of God. Hence, the Levitical laws were all intended and
adapted to train and prepare the nation for this special historic
mission to which God had chosen them.
To this end, it was absolutely necessary, first of all, that Israel
should be kept separate from the heathen nations. To effect and
maintain this separation, these laws of Leviticus were admirably
adapted. They are of such a character, that obedience to them, even in
a very imperfect way, has made the nation to this day to be, in a
manner and degree perfectly unique, isolated and separate from all the
peoples in the midst of whom they dwell.
The law of Leviticus was intended to effect this preparation of Israel
for its world-mission, not only in an external manner, but also in an
internal way; namely, by revealing in and to Israel the real character
of God, and in particular His unapproachable holiness. For if Israel
is to teach the nations the way of holiness, in which alone they can
be blessed, the chosen nation must itself first be taught holiness by
the Holy One. A lesson here for every one of us! The revelation of the
holiness of God was made, first of all, in the sacrificial system. The
great lesson which it must have kept before the most obtuse conscience
was this, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission of
sin;" that God therefore must be the Most Holy, and sin against Him no
trifle. It was made, again, in the precepts of the law. If in some
instances these seem to tolerate evils which we should have expected
that a holy God would at once have swept away, this is explained by
our Lord (Matt. xix. 8) by the fact that some things were of necessity
ordained in view of the hardness of men's hearts; while, on the other
hand, it is certainly quite plain that the laws of Leviticus
constantly held before the Israelite the absolute holiness of God as
the only standard of perfection.
The holiness of God was further revealed by the severity of the
penalties which were attached to these Levitical laws. Men often call
these harsh, forgetting that we are certain to underestimate the
criminality of sin; forgetting that God must, in any case, have
rights over human life which no earthly ruler can have. But no one
will deny that this very severity of the law was fitted to impress the
Israelite, as nothing else could, with God's absolute intolerance of
sin and impurity, and make him feel that he could not trifle with God,
and hope to sin with impunity.
And yet we must not forget that the law was adapted no less to reveal
the other side of the Divine holiness; that "the Lord God is merciful
and gracious, and of great kindness." For if the law of Leviticus
proclaims that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," with
equal clearness it proclaims that with shedding of blood there can be
remission of sin to every believing penitent.
And this leads to the observation that this law was further adapted to
the training of Israel for its world-mission, in that to every
thoughtful man it must have suggested a secret of redeeming mercy yet
to be revealed. Every such one must have often said in his heart that
it was "not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take
away sin;" and that as a substitute for human life, when forfeited by
sin, more precious blood than this must be required; even though he
might not have been able to imagine whence God should provide such a
Lamb for an offering. And so it was that the law was fitted, in the
highest degree, to prepare Israel for the reception of Him to whom all
these sacrifices pointed, the High Priest greater than Aaron, the Lamb
of God which should "take away the sins of the world," in whose person
and work Israel's mission should at last receive its fullest
realisation.
But the law of Leviticus was not only intended to prepare Israel for
the Messiah by thus awakening a sense of sin and need, it was so
ordered as to be in many ways directly typical and prophetic of Christ
and His great redemption, in its future historical development. Modern
rationalism, indeed, denies this; but it is none the less a fact.
According to the Apostle John (v. 46) our Lord declared that Moses
wrote of Him; and, according to Luke (xxiv. 27), when He expounded
unto the two walking to Emmaus "the things concerning himself," He
began His exposition with "Moses;" and (ver. 44) repeated what He had
before His resurrection taught them, that all things "which were
written in the law of Moses" concerning Him, must be fulfilled. And in
full accord with the teaching of the Master taught also His disciples.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, especially, argues from this
postulate throughout, and also explicitly affirms the typical
character of the ordinances of this book; declaring, for example, that
the Levitical priests in the tabernacle service served "that which is
a copy of the heavenly things" (Heb. viii. 5); that the blood with
which "the copies of the things in the heavens" were cleansed,
prefigured "better sacrifices than these," even the one offering of
Him who "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Heb. ix. 23-6);
and that the holy times and sabbatic seasons of the law were "a shadow
of the things to come." The fact is familiar, and one need not
multiply illustrations. Many, no doubt, in the interpretation of these
types, have broken loose from the principles indicated in the New
Testament, and given free rein to an unbridled fancy. But this only
warns us that we the more carefully take heed to follow the
intimations of the New Testament, and beware of mistaking our own
imaginings for the teaching of the Holy Ghost. Such interpretations
may bring typology into disrepute, but they cannot nullify it as a
fact which must be recognised in any attempt to open up the meaning of
the book.
Neither is the reality of this typical correspondence between the
Levitical ritual and order and New Testament facts set aside, even
though it is admitted that we cannot believe that Israel generally
could have seen all in it which the New Testament declares to be
there. For the very same New Testament which declares the typical
correspondence, no less explicitly tells us this very thing: that many
things predicted and prefigured in the Old Testament, concerning the
sufferings and glory of Christ, were not understood by the very
prophets through whom they were anciently made known (1 Peter i.
10-12). We have then carefully to distinguish in our interpretation
between the immediate historical intention of the Levitical
ordinances, for the people of that time, and their typical intention
and meaning; but we are not to imagine with some that to prove the
one, is to disprove the other.
THE PRESENT-DAY USE OF LEVITICUS.
This very naturally brings us to the answer to the frequent question:
Of what use can the book of Leviticus be to believers now? We answer,
first, that it is to us, just as much as to ancient Israel, a
revelation of the character of God. It is even a clearer revelation of
God's character to us than to them; for Christ has come as the
Fulfiller, and thus the Interpreter, of the law. And God has not
changed. He is still exactly what He was when He called to Moses out
of the tent of meeting or spoke to him at Mount Sinai. He is just as
holy as then; just as intolerant of sin as then; just as merciful to
the penitent sinner who presents in faith the appointed blood of
atonement, as He was then.
More particularly, Leviticus is of use to us now, as holding forth, in
a singularly vivid manner, the fundamental conditions of true
religion. The Levitical priesthood and sacrifices are no more, but the
spiritual truth they represented abides and must abide for ever:
namely, that there is for sinful man no citizenship in the kingdom of
God apart from a High Priest and Mediator with a propitiatory
sacrifice for sin. These are days when many, who would yet be called
Christians, belittle atonement, and deny the necessity of the shedding
of substitutionary blood for our salvation. Such would reduce, if it
were possible, the whole sacrificial ritual of Leviticus to a symbolic
_self_-offering of the worshipper to God. But against this stands the
constant testimony of our Lord and His apostles, that it is only
through the shedding of blood _not his own_ that man can have
remission of sin.
But Leviticus presents not only a ritual, but also a body of civil law
for the theocracy. Hence it comes that the book is of use for to-day,
as suggesting principles which should guide human legislators who
would rule according to the mind of God. Not, indeed, that the laws in
their detail should be adopted in our modern states; but it is certain
that the principles which underlie those laws are eternal. Social and
governmental questions have come to the front in our time as never
before. The question of the relation of the civil government to
religion, the question of the rights of labour and of capital, of
land-holding, that which by a suggestive euphemism we call "the social
evil," with its related subjects of marriage and divorce,--all these
are claiming attention as never before. There is not one of these
questions on which the legislation of Leviticus does not cast a flood
of light, into which our modern law-makers would do well to come and
walk.
For nothing can be more certain than this; that if God has indeed once
stood to a commonwealth in the relation of King and political Head, we
shall be sure to discover in His theocratic law upon what principles
infinite righteousness, wisdom, and goodness would deal with these
matters. We shall thus find in Leviticus that the law which it
contains, from beginning to end, stands in contradiction to that
modern democratic secularism, which would exclude religion from
government and order all national affairs without reference to the
being and government of God; and, by placing the law of sacrifice at
the beginning of the book, it suggests distinctly enough that the
maintenance of right relation to God is fundamental to good
government.
The severity of many of the laws is also instructive in this
connection. The trend of public opinion in many communities is against
capital punishment, as barbarous and inhuman. We are startled to
observe the place which this has in the Levitical law; which exhibits
a severity far removed indeed from the unrighteous and undiscriminating
severity of the earlier English law, but no less so from the more
undiscriminating leniency which has taken its place, especially as
regards those crimes in which large numbers of people are inclined to
indulge.
No less instructive to modern law-makers and political economists is
the bearing of the Levitical legislation on the social question, the
relations of rich and poor, of employer and employed. It is a
legislation which, with admirable impartiality, keeps the poor man
and the rich man equally in view; a body of law which, if strictly
carried out, would have made in Israel either a plutocracy or a
proletariat alike impossible. All these things will be illustrated in
the course of exposition. Enough has been said to show that those
among us who are sorely perplexed as to what government should do, at
what it should aim in these matters, may gain help by studying the
mind of Divine wisdom concerning these questions, as set forth in the
theocratic law of Leviticus.
Further, Leviticus is of use to us now as a revelation of Christ. This
follows from what has been already said concerning the typical
character of the law. The book is thus a treasury of divinely-chosen
illustrations as to the way of a sinner's salvation through the
priestly work of the Son of God, and as to his present and future
position and dignity as a redeemed man.
Finally, and for this same reason, Leviticus is still of use to us as
embodying in type and figure prophecies of things yet to come,
pertaining to Messiah's kingdom. We must not imagine with some that
because many of its types are long ago fulfilled, therefore all have
been fulfilled. Many, according to the hints of the New Testament,
await their fulfilment in a bright day that is coming. Some, for
instance, of the feasts of the Lord have been fulfilled; as passover,
and the feast of Pentecost. But how about the day of atonement for the
sin of corporate Israel? We have seen the type of the day of atonement
fulfilled in the entering into heaven of our great High Priest; but in
the type He came out again to bless the people: has that been
fulfilled? Has He yet proclaimed absolution of sin to guilty Israel?
How, again, about the feast of trumpets, and that of the ingathering
at full harvest? How about the Sabbatic year, and that most
consummate type of all, the year of jubilee? History records nothing
which could be held a fulfilment of any of these; and thus Leviticus
bids us look forward to a glorious future yet to come, when the great
redemption shall at last be accomplished, and "Holiness to Jehovah"
shall, as Zechariah puts it (xiv. 20), be written even "on the bells
of the horses."
CHAPTER II.
_SACRIFICE: THE BURNT-OFFERING._
i. 2-4.
The voice of Jehovah which had spoken not long before from Sinai, now
speaks from out "the tent of meeting." There was a reason for the
change. For Israel had since then entered into covenant with God; and
Moses, as the mediator of the covenant, had sealed it by sprinkling
with blood both the Book of the Covenant and the people. And therewith
they had professedly taken Jehovah for their God, and He had taken
Israel for His people. In infinite grace, He had condescended to
appoint for Himself a tabernacle or "tent of meeting," where He might,
in a special manner, dwell among them, and manifest to them His will.
The tabernacle had been made, according to the pattern shown to Moses
in the mount; and it had been now set up. And so now, He who had
before spoken amid the thunders of flaming, trembling Sinai, speaks
from the hushed silence of "the tent of meeting." The first words from
Sinai had been the holy law, forbidding sin with threatening of wrath:
the first words from the tent of meeting are words of grace,
concerning fellowship with the Holy One maintained through sacrifice,
and atonement for sin by the shedding of blood. A contrast this which
is itself a Gospel!
The offerings of which we read in the next seven chapters are of two
kinds, namely, bloody and unbloody offerings. In the former class were
included the burnt-offering, the peace-offering, the sin-offering, and
the guilt-, or trespass-offering; in the latter, only the
meal-offering. The book begins with the law of the burnt-offering.
In any exposition of this law of the offerings, it is imperative that
our interpretation shall be determined, not by any fancy of ours as to
what the offerings might fitly symbolise, nor yet, on the other hand,
be limited by what we may suppose that any Israelite of that day might
have thought regarding them; but by the statements concerning them
which are contained in the law itself, and in other parts of Holy
Scripture, especially in the New Testament.
First of all, we may observe that in the book itself the offerings are
described by the remarkable expression, "the bread" or "food of God".
Thus, it is commanded (xxi. 6) that the priests should not defile
themselves, on this ground: "the offerings of the Lord made by fire,
the bread of their God, do they offer." It was an ancient heathen
notion that in sacrifice, food was provided for the Deity in order
thus to show Him honour. And, doubtless, in Israel, ever prone to
idolatry, there were many who rose no higher than this gross
conception of the meaning of such words. Thus, in Psalm l. 8-15, God
sharply rebukes Israel for so unworthy thoughts of Himself, using
language at the same time which teaches the spiritual meaning of the
sacrifice, regarded as the "food," or "bread," of God: "I will not
reprove thee for thy sacrifices; and thy burnt-offerings are
continually before Me.... I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor
he-goats out of thy stalls.... If I were hungry, I would not tell
thee; for the world is Mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the
flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God the
sacrifice of _thanksgiving_; and _pay thy vows_ unto the Most High;
and call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee and thou
shalt glorify Me."
Of which language the plain teaching is this. If the sacrifices are
called in the law "the bread of God," God asks not this bread from
Israel in any material sense, or for any material need. He asks that
which the offerings symbolise; thanksgiving, loyal fulfilment of
covenant engagements to Him, and that loving trust which will call on
Him in the day of trouble. Even so! Gratitude, loyalty, trust! this is
the "food of God," this the "bread" which He desires that we should
offer, the bread which those Levitical sacrifices symbolised. For even
as man, when hungry, craves food, and cannot be satisfied without it,
so God, who is Himself Love, desires our love, and delights in seeing
its expression in all those offices of self-forgetting and
self-sacrificing service in which love manifests itself. This is to
God even as is food to us. Love cannot be satisfied except with love
returned; and we may say, with deepest humility and reverence, the God
of love cannot be satisfied without love returned. Hence it is that
the sacrifices, which in various ways symbolise the self-offering of
love and the fellowship of love, are called by the Holy Ghost "the
food," or "bread of God."
And yet we must, on no account, hasten to the conclusion, as many do,
that therefore the Levitical sacrifices were _only_ intended to
express and symbolise the self-offering of the worshipper, and that
this exhausts their significance. On the contrary, the need of
infinite Love for this "bread of God" cannot be adequately met and
satisfied by the self-offering of any creature, and, least of all, by
the self-offering of a sinful creature, whose very sin lies just in
this, that he has fallen away from perfect love. The symbolism of the
sacrifice as "the food of God," therefore, by this very phrase points
toward the self-offering in love of the eternal Son to the Father, and
in behalf of sinners, for the Father's sake. It was the sacrifice on
Calvary which first became, in innermost reality, that "bread of God,"
which the ancient sacrifices were only in symbol. It was this, not
regarded as satisfying Divine justice (though it did this), but as
satisfying the Divine love; because it was the supreme expression of
the perfect love of the incarnate Son of God to the Father, in His
becoming "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
And now, keeping all this in view, we may venture to say even more
than at first as to the meaning of this phrase, "the bread of God,"
applied to these offerings by fire. For just as the free activity of
man is only sustained in virtue of and by means of the food which he
eats, so also the love of the God of love is only sustained in free
activity toward man through the self-offering to the Father of the
Son, in that atoning sacrifice which He offered on the cross, and in
the ceaseless service of that exalted life which, risen from the dead,
Christ now lives unto God for ever. Thus already, this expression, so
strange to our ears at first, as descriptive of Jehovah's offerings
made by fire, points to the person and work of the adorable Redeemer
as its only sufficient explication.
But, again, we find another expression, xvii. 11, which is of no less
fundamental consequence for the interpretation of the bloody offerings
of Leviticus. In connection with the prohibition of blood for food,
and as a reason for that prohibition, it is said: "The life of the
flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to
make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh
atonement,"--mark the expression; not, as in the received version,
"_for_ the soul," which were mere tautology, and gives a sense which
the Hebrew cannot have, but, as the Revised Version has it,--"by
reason of the life," or "soul" (marg.). Hence, wherever in this law we
read of a sprinkling of blood upon the altar, this must be held fast
as its meaning, whether it be formally mentioned or not; namely,
atonement made for sinful man through the life of an innocent victim
poured out in the blood. There may be, and often are, other ideas, as
we shall see, connected with the offering, but this is always present.
To argue, then, with so many in modern times, that because, not the
idea of an atonement, but that of a sacrificial meal given by the
worshipper to God, is the dominant conception in the sacrifices of the
ancient nations, therefore we cannot admit the idea of atonement and
expiation to have been intended in these Levitical sacrifices, is
simply to deny, not only the New Testament interpretation of them, but
the no less express testimony of the record itself.
But it is, manifestly, in the nature of the case "impossible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." Hence, we are
again, by this phrase also, constrained to look beyond this Levitical
shedding of sacrificial blood, for some antitype of which the innocent
victims slain at that altar were types; one who, by the shedding of
his blood, should do that in reality, which at the door of the tent of
meeting was done in symbol and shadow.
What the New Testament teaches on this point is known to every one.
Christ Jesus was the Antitype, to whose all-sufficient sacrifice each
insufficient sacrifice of every Levitical victim pointed. John the
Baptist struck the key-note of all New Testament teaching in this
matter, when, beholding Jesus, he cried (John i. 29), "Behold the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Jesus Christ declared
the same thought again and again, as in His words at the sacramental
Supper: "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many
for the remission of sins." Paul expressed the same thought, when he
said (Eph. v. 2) that Christ "gave Himself up for us, an offering and
a sacrifice to God, for an odour of a sweet smell;" and that "our
redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses," is "through His blood"
(Eph. i. 7). And Peter also, speaking in Levitical language, teaches
that we "were redeemed ... with precious blood, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ;" to which he adds
the suggestive words, of which this whole Levitical ritual is the most
striking illustration, that Christ, although "manifested at the end of
the times," "was foreknown" as the Lamb of God "before the foundation
of the world" (1 Peter i. 18-20). John, in like manner, speaks in the
language of Leviticus concerning Christ, when he declares (1 John i.
7) that "the blood of Jesus ... cleanseth us from all sin;" and even
in the Apocalypse, which is the Gospel of Christ glorified, He is
still brought before us as a Lamb that had been slain, and who has
thus "purchased with His blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and
people, and nation," "to be unto our God a kingdom and priests" (Rev.
v. 6, 9, 10).
In this clear light of the New Testament, one can see how meagre also
is the view of some who would see in these Levitical sacrifices
nothing more than fines assessed upon the guilty, as theocratic
penalties. Leviticus itself should have taught such better than that.
For, as we have seen, the virtue of the bloody offerings is made to
consist in this, that "the life of the flesh is in the blood;" and we
are told that "the blood makes atonement for the soul," not in virtue
of the monetary value of the victim, in a commercial way, but "by
reason of the life" that is in the blood, and is therewith poured out
before Jehovah on the altar,--the life of an innocent victim in the
stead of the life of the sinful man.
No less inadequate, if we are to let ourselves be guided either by the
Levitical or the New Testament teaching, is the view that the
offerings only symbolised the self-offering of the worshipper. We do
not deny, indeed, that the sacrifice--of the burnt-offering, for
example--may have fitly represented, and often really expressed, the
self-consecration of the offerer. But, in the light of the New
Testament, this can never be held to have been the sole, or even the
chief, reason in the mind of God for directing these outpourings of
sacrificial blood upon the altar.
We must insist, then, on this, as essential to the right
interpretation of this law of the offerings, that every one of these
bloody offerings of Leviticus typified, and was intended to typify,
our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The burnt-offering represented Christ; the
peace-offering, Christ; the sin-offering, Christ; the guilt-, or
trespass-offering, Christ. Moreover, since each of these, as intended
especially to shadow forth some particular aspect of Christ's work,
differed in some respects from all the others, while yet in all alike
a victim's blood was shed upon the altar, we are by this reminded that
in our Lord's redemptive work the most central and essential thing is
this, that, as He Himself said (Matt. xx. 28), He "came to give His
life a ransom for many."
Keeping this guiding thought steadily before us, it is now our work to
discover, if we may, what special aspect of the one great sacrifice of
Christ each of these offerings was intended especially to represent.
Only, by way of caution, it needs to be added that we are not to
imagine that every minute circumstance pertaining to each sacrifice,
in all its varieties, must have been intended to point to some
correspondent feature of Christ's person or work. On the contrary, we
shall frequently see reason to believe that the whole purpose of one
or another direction of the ritual is to be found in the conditions,
circumstances, or immediate intention of the offering. Thus, to
illustrate, when a profound interpreter suggests that the reason for
the command that the victim should be slain on the north side of the
altar, is to be found in the fact that the north, as the side of
shadow, signifies the gloom and joylessness of the sacrificial act, we
are inclined rather to see sufficient reason for the prescription in
the fact that the other three sides were already in a manner occupied:
the east, as the place of ashes; the south, as fronting the entrance;
and the west, as facing the tent of meeting and the brazen laver.
THE RITUAL OF THE BURNT-OFFERING.
In the law of the offerings, that of the burnt-offering comes first,
though in the order of the ritual it was not first, but second,
following the sin-offering. In this order of mention we need, however,
seek no mystic meaning. The burnt-offering was very naturally
mentioned first, as being the most ancient, and also in the most
constant and familiar use. We read of burnt-offerings as offered by
Noah and Abraham; and of peace-offerings, too, in early times; while
the sin-offering and the guilt-offering, in Leviticus treated last,
were now ordered for the first time. So also the burnt-offering was
still, by Divine ordinance, to be the most common. No day could pass
in the tabernacle without the offering of these. Indeed, except on the
great day of atonement for the nation, in the ritual for which, the
sin-offering was the central act, the burnt-offering was the most
important sacrifice on all the great feast-days.
The first law, which applies to bloody offerings in general, was this:
that the victim shall be "of the cattle, even of the herd and of the
flock" (ver. 2); to which is added, in the latter part of the chapter
(ver. 14), the turtle-dove or young pigeon. The carnivora are all
excluded; for these, which live by the death of others, could never
typify Him who should come to give life. And among others, only clean
beasts could be taken. Israel must not offer as "the food of God" that
which they might not eat for their own food; nor could that which was
held unclean be taken as a type of the Holy Victim of the future. And,
even among clean animals, a further selection is made. Only domestic
animals were allowed; not even a clean animal was permitted, if it
were taken in hunting. For it was fitting that one should offer to God
that which had become endeared to the owner as having cost the most of
care and labour in its bringing up. For this, also, we can easily see
another reason in the Antitype. Nothing was to mark Him more than
this: that He should be subject and obey, and that not of constraint,
as the unwilling captive of the chase, but freely and unresistingly.
And now follow the special directions for the burnt-offering. The
Hebrew word so rendered means, literally, "that which ascends". It
thus precisely describes the burnt-offering in its most distinctive
characteristic. Of the other offerings, a part was burned, but a part
was eaten; in some instances, even by the offerer himself. But in the
burnt-offering all ascends to God in flame and smoke. For the creature
is reserved nothing whatever.
The first specification in the law of the burnt-offering is this: "If
his oblation be a burnt-offering of the herd, he shall offer it a male
without blemish" (ver. 3). It must be a "male," as the stronger, the
type of its kind; and "without blemish," that is, ideally perfect.
The reasons for this law are manifest. The Israelite was thereby
taught that God claims the best that we have. They needed this lesson,
as many among us do still. At a later day, we find God rebuking them
by Malachi (i. 6, 13), with indignant severity, for their neglect of
this law: "A son honoureth his father: ... if then I be a Father,
where is My honour?... Ye have brought that which was taken by
violence, and the lame, and the sick; ... should I accept this of your
hand? saith the Lord." And as pointing to our Lord, the command was no
less fitting. Thus, as in other sacrifices, it was foreshadowed that
the great Burnt-offering of the future would be the one Man without
blemish, the absolutely perfect Exemplar of what manhood should be,
but is not.
And this brings us now to the ritual of the offering. In the ritual of
the various bloody offerings we find six parts. These are: (1) the
Presentation; (2) the Laying on of the Hand; (3) the Killing of the
Victim; in which three the ritual was the same for all kinds of
offerings. The remaining three are: (4) the Sprinkling of Blood; (5)
the Burning; (6) the Sacrificial Meal. In these, differences appear in
the various sacrifices, which give each its distinctive character;
and, in the burnt-offering, the sacrificial meal is omitted,--the
whole is burnt upon the altar.
First is given the law concerning
THE PRESENTATION OF THE VICTIM.
"He shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he
may be accepted before the Lord" (ver. 3).
In this it was ordered, first, that the offerer should bring the
victim himself. There were parts of the ceremony in which the priest
acted for him; but this he must do for himself. Even so, he who will
have the saving benefit of Christ's sacrifice must himself bring this
Christ before the Lord. As by so doing, the Israelite signified his
acceptance of God's gracious arrangements concerning sacrifice, so do
we, bringing Christ in our act of faith before the Lord, express our
acceptance of God's arrangement on our behalf; our readiness and
sincere desire to make use of Christ, who is appointed for us. And
this no man can do for another.
And the offering must be presented for a certain purpose; namely,
"that he may be accepted before the Lord;"[7] and that, as the context
tells us, not because of a present made to God, but through an atoning
sacrifice. And so now it is not enough that a man make much of
Christ, and mention Him in terms of praise before the Lord, as the One
whom He would imitate and seek to serve. He must in his act of faith
bring this Christ before the Lord, in such wise as to secure thus his
personal acceptance through the blood of the Holy Victim.
[7] The usage of the common Hebrew phrase so rendered does not
warrant the translation in the old version: "of his voluntary
will."
And, finally, the _place_ of presentation is prescribed. It must be
"at the door of the tent of meeting." It is easy to see the original
reason for this. For, as we learn from other Scriptures, the
Israelites were ever prone to idolatry, and that especially at places
other than the appointed temple or tent of meeting, in the fields and
on high places. Hence the immediate purpose of this order concerning
the place, was to separate the worship of God from the worship of
false gods. There is now, indeed, no law concerning the place where we
may present the great Sacrifice before God. At home, in the closet, in
the church, on the street, wherever we will, we may present this
Christ in our behalf and stead as a Holy Victim before God. And yet
the principle which underlies this ordinance of place is no less
applicable in this age than then. For it is a prohibition of all
self-will in worship. It was not enough that an Israelite should have
the prescribed victim; it is not enough that we present the Christ of
God in faith, or what we think to be faith. But we must make no terms
or conditions as to the mode or condition of the presentation, other
than God appoints. And the command was also a command of publicity.
The Israelite was therein commanded to confess publicly, and thus
attest, his faith in Jehovah, even as God will now have us all make
our confession of Christ a public thing.
The second act of the ceremonial was
THE LAYING ON OF THE HAND.
It was ordered:
"He shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and
it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him" (ver.
4).
The laying on of the hand was not, as some have maintained, a mere
declaration of the offerer's property in that which he offered, as
showing his right to give it to God. If this were true, we should find
the ceremony also in the bloodless offerings; where the cakes of corn
were no less the property of the offerer than the bullock or sheep of
the burnt-offering. But the ceremony was confined to these bloody
offerings.
It is nearer the truth when others say that this was an act of
designation. It is a fact that the ceremony of the laying on of hands
in Scripture usage does indicate a designation of a person or thing,
as to some office or service. In this book (xxiv. 14), the witnesses
are directed to lay their hands upon the blasphemer, thereby
appointing him to death. Moses is said to have laid his hands on
Joshua, thus designating him in a formal way as his successor; and, in
the New Testament, Paul and Barnabas are set apart to the ministry by
the laying on of hands. But, in all these cases, the ceremony
symbolised more than mere designation; namely, a transfer or
communication of something invisible, in connection with this visible
act. Thus, in the New Testament the laying on of hands always denotes
the communication of the Holy Ghost, either as an enduement for
office, or for bodily healing. The laying of the hands of Moses on
Joshua, in like manner, signified the transfer to him of the gifts,
office, and authority of Moses. Even in the case of the execution of
the blaspheming son of Shelomith, the laying on of the hands of the
witnesses had the same significance. They thereby designated him to
death, no doubt; but therewith thus symbolically transferred to the
criminal the responsibility for his own death.
From the analogy of these cases we should expect to find evidence of
an ideal transference of somewhat from the offerer to the victim here.
And the context does not leave the matter doubtful. It is added (ver.
4), "It shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him." Hence
it appears that while, indeed, the offerer, by this laying on of his
hand, did dedicate the victim to death, the act meant more than this.
It symbolised a transfer, according to God's merciful provision, of an
obligation to suffer for sin, from the offerer to the innocent victim.
Henceforth, the victim stood in the offerer's place, and was dealt
with accordingly.
This is well illustrated by the account which is given (Numb. viii.)
of the formal substitution of the Levites in the place of all the
first-born of Israel, for special service unto God. We read that the
Levites were presented before the Lord; and that the children of
Israel then laid their hands upon the heads of the Levites, who were
thus, we are told, "offered as an offering unto the Lord," and were
thenceforth regarded and treated as substitutes for the first-born of
all Israel. Thus the obligation to certain special service was
symbolically transferred, as the context tells us, from the first-born
to the Levites; and this transfer of obligation from all the tribes to
the single tribe of Levi was visibly represented by the laying on of
hands. And just so here: the laying on of the hand designated,
certainly, the victim to death; but it did this, in that it was the
symbol of a transfer of obligation.
This view of the ceremony is decisively confirmed by the ritual of the
great day of atonement. In the sin-offering of that day, in which the
conception of expiation by blood received its fullest symbolic
expression, it was ordered (xvi. 21) that Aaron should lay his hands
on the head of one of the goats of the sin-offering, and "confess over
him all the iniquities of the children of Israel." Thereupon the
iniquity of the nation was regarded as symbolically transferred from
Israel to the goat; for it is added, "and the goat shall bear upon him
all their iniquities unto a solitary land." So, while in this ritual
for the burnt-offering there is no mention of such confession, we have
every reason to believe the uniform Rabbinical tradition, that it was
the custom to make also upon the head of the victim for the
burnt-offering a solemn confession of sin, for which they give the
form to be used.
Such then was the significance of the laying on of hands. But the
ceremony meant even more than this. For the Hebrew verb which is
always used for this, as the Rabbis point out, does not merely mean to
lay the hand upon, but so to lay the hand as to rest or lean heavily
upon the victim. This force of the word is well illustrated from a
passage where it occurs, in Psalm lxxxviii. 7, "Thy wrath lieth hard
upon me." The ceremony, therefore, significantly represented the
offerer as resting or relying on the victim to procure that from God
for which he presented him, namely, atonement and acceptance.
This part of the ceremonial of this and other sacrifices was thus full
of spiritual import and typical meaning. By this laying on of the hand
to designate the victim as a sacrifice, the offerer implied, and
probably expressed, a confession of personal sin and demerit; as done
"before Jehovah," it implied also his acceptance of God's penal
judgment against his sin. It implied, moreover, in that the offering
was made according to an arrangement ordained by God, that the offerer
also thankfully accepted God's merciful provision for atonement, by
which the obligation to suffer for sin was transferred from himself,
the guilty sinner, to the sacrificial victim. And, finally, in that
the offerer was directed so to lay his hand as to rest upon the
victim, it was most expressively symbolised that he, the sinful
Israelite, rested and depended on this sacrifice as the atonement for
his sin, his divinely appointed substitute in penal death.
What could more perfectly set forth the way in which we are for our
salvation to make use of the Lamb of God as slain for us? By faith, we
lay the hand upon His head. In this, we do frankly and penitently own
the sins for which, as the great Burnt-sacrifice, the Christ of God
was offered; we also, in humility and self-abasement, thus accept the
judgment of God against ourselves, that because of sin we deserve to
be cast out from Him eternally; while, at the same time, we most
thankfully accept this Christ as "the Lamb of God which taketh away
the sins of the world," and therefore our sins also, if we will but
thus make use of Him; and so lean and rest with all the burden of our
sin on Him.
* * * * *
For the Israelite who should thus lay his hand upon the head of the
sacrificial victim a promise follows. "It shall be accepted for him,
to make atonement for him."
In this word "atonement" we are introduced to one of the key-words of
Leviticus, as indeed of the whole Scripture. The Hebrew radical
originally means "to cover," and is used once (Gen. vi. 14) in this
purely physical sense. But, commonly, as here, it means "to cover" in
a spiritual sense, that is, to cover the sinful person from the sight
of the Holy God, who is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." Hence, it
is commonly rendered "to atone," or "to make atonement;" also, "to
reconcile," or "to make reconciliation." The thought is this: that
between the sinner and the Holy One comes now the guiltless victim; so
that the eye of God looks not upon the sinner, but on the offered
substitute; and in that the blood of the substituted victim is offered
before God for the sinner, atonement is made for sin, and the Most
Holy One is satisfied.
And when the believing Israelite should lay his hand with confession
of sin upon the appointed victim, it was graciously promised: "It
shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him." And just so
now, whenever any guilty sinner, fearing the deserved wrath of God
because of his sin, especially because of his lack of that full
consecration which the burnt-sacrifice set forth, lays his hand in
faith upon the great Burnt-offering of Calvary, the blessing is the
same. For in the light of the cross, this Old Testament word becomes
now a sweet New Testament promise: "When thou shalt rest with the hand
of faith upon this Lamb of God, He shall be accepted for thee, to make
atonement for thee."
This is most beautifully expressed in an ancient "Order for the
Visitation of the Sick," attributed to Anselm of Canterbury, in which
it is written:--
"The minister shall say to the sick man: Dost thou believe that thou
canst not be saved but by the death of Christ? The sick man answereth,
Yes. Then let it be said unto him: Go to, then, and whilst thy soul
abideth in thee, put all thy confidence in this death alone; place thy
trust in no other thing; commit thyself wholly to this death; cover
thyself wholly with this alone.... And if God would judge thee, say:
Lord! I place the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between me and Thy
judgment; otherwise I will not contend or enter into judgment with
Thee.
"And if He shall say unto thee that thou art a sinner, say: I place
the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between me and my sins. If He shall
say unto thee, that thou hast deserved damnation, say: Lord! I put the
death of our Lord Jesus Christ between Thee and all my sins; and I
offer His merits for my own, which I should have, and have not."
And whosoever of us can thus speak, to him the promise speaks from out
the shadows of the tent of meeting: "This Christ, the Lamb of God, the
true Burnt-offering, shall be accepted for thee, to make atonement for
thee!"
CHAPTER III.
_THE BURNT-OFFERING (CONCLUDED)._
LEV. i. 5-17; vi. 8-13.
After the laying on of the hand, the next sacrificial act was--
THE KILLING OF THE VICTIM.
"And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord" (ver. 5).
In the light of what has been already said, the significance of this
killing, in a typical way, will be quite clear. For with the first
sin, and again and again thereafter, God had denounced death as the
penalty of sin. But here is a sinner who, in accord with a Divine
command, brings before God a sacrificial victim, on whose head he lays
his hand, on which he thus rests as he confesses his sins, and gives
over the innocent victim to die instead of himself. Thus each of these
sacrificial deaths, whether in the burnt-offering, the peace-offering,
or the sin-offering, brings ever before us the death in the sinner's
stead of that one Holy Victim who suffered for us, "the just for the
unjust," and thus laid down His life, in accord with His own
previously declared intention, "as a ransom for many."
In the sacrifices made by and for individuals, the victim was killed,
except in the case of the turtle-dove or pigeon, by the offerer
himself; but, very naturally, in the case of the national and public
offerings, it was killed by the priest. As, in this latter case, it
was impossible that all individual Israelites should unite in killing
the victim, it is plain that the priest herein acted as the
representative of the nation. Hence we may properly say that the
fundamental thought of the ritual was this, that the victim should be
killed by the offerer himself.
And by this ordinance we may well be reminded, first, how Israel,--for
whose sake as a nation the antitypical Sacrifice was offered,--Israel
itself became the executioner of the Victim; and, beyond that, how, in
a deeper sense, every sinner must regard himself as truly causal of
the Saviour's death, in that, as is often truly said, our sins nailed
Christ to His cross. But whether such a reference were intended in
this law of the offering or not, the great, significant, outstanding
fact remains, that as soon as the offerer, by his laying on of the
hand, signified the transfer of the personal obligation to die for sin
from himself to the sacrificial victim, then came at once upon that
victim the penalty denounced against sin.
And the added words, "before the Lord," cast further light upon this,
in that they remind us that the killing of the victim had reference to
Jehovah, whose holy law the offerer, failing of that perfect
consecration which the burnt-offering symbolised, had failed to
glorify and honour.
THE SPRINKLING OF BLOOD.
"And Aaron's sons, the priests, shall present the blood, and
sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is at the door
of the tent of meeting" (ver. 5).
And now follows the fourth act in the ceremonial, the Sprinkling of
the Blood. The offerer's part is now done, and herewith the work of
the priest begins. Even so must we, having laid the hand of faith upon
the head of the substituted Lamb of God, now leave it to the heavenly
Priest to act in our behalf with God.
The directions to the priest as to the use of the blood vary in the
different offerings, according as the design is to give greater or
less prominence to the idea of expiation. In the sin-offering this has
the foremost place. But in the burnt-offering, as also in the
peace-offering, although the conception of atonement by blood was not
absent, it was not the dominant conception of the sacrifice. Hence,
while the sprinkling of blood by the priest could in no wise be
omitted, it took in this case a subordinate place in the ritual. It
was to be sprinkled only on the sides of the altar of burnt-offering
which stood in the outer court. We read (ver. 5): "Aaron's sons, the
priests, shall present the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about
upon the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting."
It was in this sprinkling of the blood that the atoning work was
completed. The altar had been appointed as a place of Jehovah's
special presence; it had been designated as a place where God would
come unto man to bless him. Thus, to present and sprinkle the blood
upon the altar was symbolically to present the blood unto God. And the
blood represented life,--the life of an innocent victim atoning for
the sinner, because rendered up in the stead of his life. And the
_priests_ were to sprinkle the blood. So, while to bring and present
the sacrifice of Christ, to lay the hand of faith upon His head, is
our part, with this our duty ends. To sprinkle the blood, to use the
blood God-ward for the remission of sin, this is the work alone of our
heavenly Priest. We are then to leave that with Him.
Reserving a fuller exposition of the meaning of this sprinkling of
blood for the exposition of the sin-offering, in which it was the
central act of the ritual, we pass on now to the burning of the
sacrifice, which in this offering marked the culmination of its
special symbolism.
THE SACRIFICIAL BURNING.
i. 6-9, 12, 13, 17.
"And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into its
pieces. And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the
altar, and lay wood in order upon the fire: and Aaron's sons, the
priests, shall lay the pieces, the head, and the fat, in order
upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar: but
its inwards and its legs shall he wash with water: and the priest
shall burn the whole on the altar, for a burnt offering, an
offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.... And he
shall cut it into its pieces, with its head and its fat: and the
priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire
which is upon the altar: but the inwards and the legs shall he
wash with water: and the priest shall offer the whole, and burn
it upon the altar: it is a burnt offering, an offering made by
fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.... And he shall rend it by
the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the
priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon
the fire: it is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a
sweet savour unto the Lord."
It was the distinguishing peculiarity of the burnt-offering, from
which it takes its name, that in every case the whole of it was
burned, and thus ascended heavenward in the fire and smoke of the
altar. The place of the burning, in this and other sacrifices, is
significant. The flesh of the sin-offering, when not eaten, was to be
burned in a clean place without the camp. But it was the law of the
burnt-offering that it should be wholly consumed upon the holy altar
at the door of the tent of meeting. In the directions for the burning
we need seek for no occult meaning; the most of them are evidently
intended simply as means to the end; namely, the consumption of the
offering with the utmost readiness, ease, and completeness. Hence it
must be flayed and cut into its pieces, and carefully arranged upon
the wood. The inwards and the legs must be washed with water, that
into the offering, as to be offered to the Holy One, might come
nothing extraneous, nothing corrupt and unclean.
In vv. 10-13 and 14-17 provision is made for the offering of different
victims, of the flock, or of the fowls. The reason for this permitted
variation, although not mentioned here, was doubtless the same which
is given for a similar permission in chap. v. 7, where it is ordered
that if the offerer's means suffice not for a certain offering, he may
bring one of less value. Poverty shall be no plea for not bringing a
burnt-sacrifice; to the Israelite of that time it thus set forth the
truth, that "if there first be a willing heart, it is accepted
according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not."
The variations in the prescriptions regarding the different victims to
be used in the sacrifice are but slight. The bird having been killed
by the priest (why this change it is not easy to see), its crop, with
its contents of food unassimilated, and therefore not a part of the
bird, as also the feathers, was to be cast away. It was not to be
divided, like the bullock, and the sheep or goat, simply because, with
so small a creature, it was not necessary to the speedy and entire
combustion of the offering. In each case alike, the declaration is
made that the sacrifice, thus offered and wholly burnt upon the altar,
is "an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord."
And now a question comes before us, the answer to which is vital to
the right understanding of the burnt-offering, whether in its original
or typical import. What was the significance of the burning? It has
been very often answered that the consumption of the victim by fire
symbolised the consuming wrath of Jehovah, utterly destroying the
victim which represented the sinful person of the offerer. And,
observing that the burning followed the killing and shedding of blood,
some have even gone so far as to say that the burning typified the
eternal fire of hell! But when we remember that, without doubt, the
sacrificial victim in all the Levitical offerings was a type of our
blessed Lord, we may well agree with one who justly calls this
interpretation "hideous." And yet many, who have shrunk from this,
have yet in so far held to this conception of the symbolic meaning of
the burning as to insist that it must at least have typified those
fiery sufferings in which our Lord offered up His soul for sin. They
remind us how often, in the Scripture, fire stands as the symbol of
the consuming wrath of God against sin, and hence argue that this may
justly be taken here as the symbolic meaning of the burning of the
victim on the altar.
But this interpretation is nevertheless, in every form, to be
rejected. As regards the use of fire as a symbol in Holy Scripture,
while it is true that it often represents the punitive wrath of God,
it is equally certain that it has not always this meaning. Quite as
often it is the symbol of God's purifying energy and might. Fire was
not the symbol of Jehovah's vengeance in the burning bush. When the
Lord is represented as sitting "as a refiner and a purifier of
silver," surely the thought is not of vengeance, but of purifying
mercy. We should rather say that fire, in Scripture usage, is the
symbol of the intense energy of the Divine nature, which continually
acts upon every person and on every thing, according to the nature of
each person or thing; here conserving, there destroying; now
cleansing, now consuming. The same fire which burns the wood, hay, and
stubble, purifies the gold and the silver.
Hence, while it is quite true that fire often typifies the wrath of
God punishing sin, it is certain that it cannot always symbolise this,
not even in the sacrificial ritual. For in the meal-offering of chap.
ii. it is impossible that the thought of expiation should enter since
no life is offered and no blood is shed; yet this also is presented
unto God in fire. The fire then in this case must mean something else
than the Divine wrath, and presumably must mean one thing in all the
sacrifices. And that not even in the burnt-offering can the burning of
the sacrifice symbolise the consuming wrath of God, becomes plain,
when we observe that, according to the uniform teaching of the
sacrificial ritual, atonement is already fully accomplished, prior to
the burning, in the sprinkling of the blood. That the burning, which
follows the atonement, should have any reference to Christ's expiatory
sufferings, is thus quite impossible.
We must hold, therefore, that the burning can only mean in the
burnt-offering that which alone it can signify in the meal-offering;
namely, the ascending of the offering in consecration to God, on the
one hand; and, on the other, God's gracious acceptance and
appropriation of the offering. This was impressively set forth in the
case of the burnt-offering presented when the tabernacle service was
inaugurated; when, we are told (ix. 24), the fire which consumed it
came forth from before Jehovah, lighted by no human hand, and was
thus a visible representation of God accepting and appropriating the
offering to Himself.
The symbolism of the burning thus understood, we can now perceive what
must have been the special meaning of this sacrifice. As regarded by
the believing Israelite of those days, not yet discerning clearly the
deeper truth it shadowed forth as to the great Burnt-sacrifice of the
future, it must have symbolically taught him that complete
consecration unto God is essential to right worship. There were
sacrifices having a different special import, in which, while a part
was burnt, the offerer might even himself join in eating the remaining
part, taking that for his own use. But, in the burnt-offering, nothing
was for himself: all was for God; and in the fire of the altar God
took the whole in such a way that the offering for ever passed beyond
the offerer's recall. In so far as the offerer entered into this
conception, and his inward experience corresponded to this outward
rite, it was for him an act of worship.
But to the thoughtful worshipper, one would think, it must sometimes
have occurred that, after all, it was not himself or his gift that
thus ascended in full consecration to God, but a victim appointed by
God to represent him in death on the altar. And thus it was that,
whether understood or not, the offering in its very nature pointed to
a Victim of the future, in whose person and work, as the One only
fully-consecrated Man, the burnt-offering should receive its full
explication. And this brings us to the question, What aspect of the
person and work of our Lord was herein specially typified? It cannot
be the resultant fellowship with God, as in the peace-offering; for
the sacrificial feast which set this forth was in this case wanting.
Neither can it be expiation for sin; for although this is expressly
represented here, yet it is not the chief thing. The principal thing,
in the burnt-offering, was the burning, the complete consumption of
the victim in the sacrificial fire. Hence what is represented chiefly
here, is not so much Christ representing His people in atoning death,
as Christ representing His people in perfect consecration and entire
self-surrender unto God; in a word, in perfect obedience.
Of these two things, the atoning death and the representative
obedience, we think, and with reason, much of the former; but most
Christians, though without reason, think less of the latter. And yet
how much is made of this aspect of our Lord's work in the Gospels! The
first words which we hear from His lips are to this effect, when, at
twelve years of age, He asked His mother (Luke ii. 49), "Wist ye not
that I must be (lit.) in the things of My Father?" and after His
official work began in the first cleansing of the temple, this
manifestation of His character was such as to remind His disciples
that it was written, "The zeal of Thy house shall eat me
up";--phraseology which brings the burnt-offering at once to mind.[8]
And His constant testimony concerning Himself, to which His whole life
bare witness, was in such words as these: "I came down from heaven,
not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me." In
particular, He especially regarded His atoning work in this aspect. In
the parable of the Good Shepherd (John x. 1-18), for example, after
telling us that because of His laying down His life for the sheep the
Father loved Him, and that to this end He had received from the
Father authority to lay down His life for the sheep, He then adds as
the reason of this: "This commandment have I received from My Father."
And so elsewhere (John xii. 49, 50) He says of all His words, as of
all His works: "The Father hath given Me a commandment, what I should
say, and what I should speak; ... the things therefore which I speak,
even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak." And when at last
His earthly work approaches its close, and we see Him in the agony of
Gethsemane, there He appears, above all, as the perfectly consecrated
One, offering Himself, body, soul, and spirit, as a whole
burnt-offering unto God, in those never-to-be-forgotten words (Matt.
xxvi. 39), "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." And, if any more proof
were needed, we have it in that inspired exposition (Heb. x. 5-10) of
Psalm xl. 6-8 wherein it is taught that this perfect obedience of
Christ, in full consecration, was indeed the very thing which the Holy
Ghost foresignified in the whole burnt-offerings of the law: "When He
cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest
not, but a body didst Thou prepare for Me; in whole burnt-offerings
and sacrifices for sin Thou hadst no pleasure: then said I, Lo, I am
come (in the roll of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O
God."
[8] See Psalm lxix. 9, and compare in the Hebrew such
expressions as, "the fire hath consumed the burnt-offering;" and
Deut. iv. 24, "thy God is a devouring fire," etc., in all which
the verb signifying "to eat" is idiomatically used of fire.
Thus the burnt-offering brings before us in type, for our faith,
Christ as our Saviour in virtue of His being the One wholly
surrendered to the will of the Father. Nor does this exclude, but
rather defines, the conception of Christ as our substitute and
representative. For He said that it was for our sakes that He
"sanctified," or "consecrated" Himself (John xvii. 19); and while the
New Testament represents Him as saving us by His death as an expiation
for sin, it no less explicitly holds Him forth to us as having obeyed
in our behalf, declaring (Rom. v. 19) that it is "by the obedience of
the One Man" that "many are made righteous." And, elsewhere, the same
Apostle represents the incomparable moral value of the atoning death
of the cross as consisting precisely in this fact, that it was a
supreme act of self-renouncing obedience, as it is written (Phil. ii.
6-9): "Being in the form of God, He yet counted it not a prize to be
on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a
servant, being made in the likeness of men; ... becoming obedient even
unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly
exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above every name."
And so the burnt-offering teaches us to remember that Christ has not
only died for our sins, but has also consecrated Himself for us to God
in full self-surrender in our behalf. We are therefore to plead not
only His atoning death, but also the transcendent merit of His life of
full consecration to the Father's will. To this, the words, three
times repeated concerning the burnt-offering (vv. 9, 13, 17), in this
chapter, blessedly apply: it is "an offering made by fire, of a sweet
savour," a fragrant odour, "unto the Lord." That is, this full
self-surrender of the holy Son of God unto the Father is exceedingly
delightful and acceptable unto God. And for this reason it is for us
an ever-prevailing argument for our own acceptance, and for the
gracious bestowment for Christ's sake of all that there is in Him for
us.
Only let us ever remember that we cannot argue, as in the case of the
atoning death, that as Christ died that we might not die, so He
offered Himself in full consecration unto God, that we might thus be
released from this obligation. Here the exact opposite is the truth.
For Christ Himself said in His memorable prayer, just before His
offering of Himself to death, "For their sakes I sanctify (marg.
"consecrate") Myself, _that they also might be sanctified in truth_."
And thus is brought before us the thought, that if the sin-offering
emphasised, as we shall see, the substitutionary death of Christ,
whereby He became our righteousness, the burnt-offering, as
distinctively, brings before us Christ as our sanctification, offering
Himself without spot, a whole burnt-offering to God. And as by that
one life of sinless obedience to the will of the Father He procured
our salvation by His merit, so in this respect He has also become our
one perfect Example of what consecration to God really is. A thought
this is which, with evident allusion to the burnt-offering, the
Apostle Paul brings before us, charging us (Eph. v. 2) that we "walk
in love, as Christ also loved us, and gave Himself for us, an offering
and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell."
And the law further suggests that no extreme of spiritual need can
debar any one from availing himself of our great Burnt-sacrifice. A
burnt-offering was to be received even from one who was so poor that
he could bring but a turtle-dove or a young pigeon (ver. 14). One
might, at first thought, not unnaturally say: Surely there can be
nothing in this to point to Christ; for the true Sacrifice is not
many, but one and only. And yet the very fact of this difference
allowed in the typical victims, when the reason of the allowance is
remembered, suggests the most precious truth concerning Christ, that
no spiritual poverty of the sinner need exclude him from the full
benefit of Christ's saving work. Provision is made in Him for all
those who, most truly and with most reason, feel themselves to be poor
and in need of all things. Christ, as our sanctification, is for all
who will make use of Him; for all who, feeling most deeply and
painfully their own failure in full consecration, would take Him, as
not only their sin-offering, but also their burnt-offering, both their
example and their strength, unto perfect self-surrender unto God. We
may well here recall to mind the exhortation of the Apostle to
Christian believers, expressed in language which at once reminds us of
the burnt-offering (Rom. xii. 1): "I beseech you, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
THE CONTINUAL BURNT-OFFERING.
vi. 8-13.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command Aaron and his
sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: the burnt
offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar all night unto the
morning; and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning thereon.
And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen
breeches shall he put upon his flesh; and he shall take up the
ashes whereto the fire hath consumed the burnt offering on the
altar, and he shall put them beside the altar. And he shall put
off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the
ashes without the camp unto a clean place. And the fire upon the
altar shall be kept burning thereon, it shall not go out; and the
priest shall burn wood on it every morning: and he shall lay the
burnt offering in order upon it, and shall burn thereon the fat
of the peace offerings. Fire shall be kept burning upon the altar
continually; it shall not go out."
In chap. vi. 8-13 we have a "law of the burnt-offering" specially
addressed to "Aaron and his sons," and designed to secure that the
fire of the burnt-offering should be continually ascending unto God.
In chap. i. we have the law regarding burnt-offerings brought by the
individual Israelite. But besides these it was ordered, Exod. xxix.
38-46, that every morning and evening the priest should offer a lamb
as a burnt-offering for the whole people,--an offering which primarily
symbolised the constant renewal of Israel's consecration as "a kingdom
of priests" unto the Lord. It is to this, the daily burnt-offering,
that this supplementary law of chap. vi. refers. All the regulations
are intended to provide for the uninterrupted maintenance of this
sacrificial fire; first, by the regular removal of the ashes which
would else cover and smother the fire; and, secondly, by the supply of
fuel. The removal of the ashes from the fire is a priestly function;
hence it was ordained that the priest for this service put on his
robes of office, "his linen garment and his linen breeches," and then
take up the ashes from the altar, and lay them by the side of the
altar. But as from time to time it would be necessary to remove them
from this place quite without the tent, it was ordered that he should
carry them forth "without the camp unto a clean place," that the
sanctity of all connected with Jehovah's worship might never be lost
sight of; though, as it was forbidden to wear the priestly garments
except within the tent of meeting, the priest, when this service was
performed, must "put on other garments," his ordinary, unofficial
robes. The ashes being thus removed from the altar each morning, then
the wood was put on, and the parts of the lamb laid in order upon it
to be perfectly consumed. And whenever during the day any one might
bring a peace-offering unto the Lord, on this ever-burning fire the
priest was to place also the fat, the richest part, of the offering,
and with it also the various individual burnt-offerings and
meal-offerings of each day. And thus it was arranged by the law that,
all day long, and all night long, the smoke of the burnt-offering
should be continually ascending unto the Lord.
The significance of this can hardly be missed. By this supplemental
law which thus provided for "a continual burnt-offering" to the Lord,
it was first of all signified to Israel, and to us, that the
consecration which the Lord so desires and requires from His people is
not occasional, but continuous. As the priest, representing the
nation, morning by morning cleared away the ashes which had else
covered the flame and caused it to burn dull, and both morning by
morning and evening by evening, laid a new victim on the altar, so
will God have us do. Our self-consecration is not to be occasional,
but continual and habitual. Each morning we should imitate the priest
of old, in putting away all that might dull the flame of our devotion,
and, morning by morning, when we arise, and evening by evening, when
we retire, by a solemn act of self-consecration give ourselves anew
unto the Lord. So shall the word in substance, thrice repeated, be
fulfilled in us in its deepest, truest sense: "The fire shall be kept
burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out" (vv. 9, 12,
13).
But we must not forget that in this part of the law, as in all else,
we are pointed to Christ. This ordinance of the continual
burnt-offering reminds us that Christ, as our burnt-offering,
_continually_ offers Himself to God in self-consecration in our
behalf. Very significant it is that the burnt-offering stands in
contrast in this respect with the sin-offering. We never read of a
continual sin-offering; even the great annual sin-offering of the day
of atonement, which, like the daily burnt-offering, had reference to
the nation at large, was soon finished, and once for all. And it was
so with reason; for in the nature of the case, our Lord's offering of
Himself for sin as an expiatory sacrifice was not and could not be a
continuous act. But with His presentation of Himself unto God in full
consecration of His person as our Burnt-offering, it is different.
Throughout the days of His humiliation this self-offering of Himself
to God continued; nor, indeed, can we say that it has yet ceased, or
ever can cease. For still, as the High Priest of the heavenly
sanctuary, He continually offers Himself as our Burnt-offering in
constantly renewed and constantly continued devotement of Himself to
the Father to do His will.
In this ordinance of the daily burnt-offering, ever ascending in the
fire that never went out, the idea of the burnt-sacrifice reaches its
fullest expression, the type its most perfect development. And thus
the law of the burnt-offering leaves us in the presence of this holy
vision: the greater than Aaron, in the heavenly place as our great
Representative and Mediator, morning by morning, evening by evening,
offering Himself unto the Father in the full self-devotement of His
risen life unto God, as our "continual burnt-offering." In this, let
us rejoice and be at peace.
CHAPTER IV.
_THE MEAL-OFFERING._
LEV. ii. 1-16; vi. 14-23.
The word which in the original uniformly stands for the English
"meal-offering" (A.V. "meat-offering," _i.e._, "food-offering")
primarily means simply "a present," and is often properly so
translated in the Old Testament. It is, for example, the word which is
used (Gen. xxxii. 13) when we are told how Jacob sent a present to
Esau his brother; or, later, of the gift sent by Israel to his son
Joseph in Egypt (Gen. xliii. 11); and, again (2 Sam. viii. 2), of the
gifts sent by the Moabites to David. Whenever thus used of gifts to
men, it will be found that it suggests a recognition of the dignity
and authority of the person to whom the present is made, and, in many
cases, a desire also to procure thereby his favour.
In the great majority of cases, however, the word is used of offerings
to God, and in this use one or both of these ideas can easily be
traced. In Gen. iv. 4, 5, in the account of the offerings of Cain and
Abel, the word is applied both to the bloody and the unbloody
offering; but in the Levitical law, it is only applied to the latter.
We thus find the fundamental idea of the meal-offering to be this: it
was a gift brought by the worshipper to God, in token of his
recognition of His supreme authority, and as an expression of desire
for His favour and blessing.
But although the meal-offering, like the burnt-offering, was an
offering made to God by fire, the differences between them were many
and significant. In the burnt-offering, it was always a life that was
given to God; in the meal-offering, it was never a life, but always
the products of the soil. In the burnt-offering, again, the offerer
always set apart the offering by the laying on of the hand, signifying
thus, as we have seen, a transfer of obligation to death for sin; thus
connecting with the offering, in addition to the idea of a gift to
God, that of expiation for sin, as preliminary to the offering by
fire. In the meal-offering, on the other hand, there was no laying on
of the hand, as there was no shedding of blood, so that the idea of
expiation for sin is in no way symbolised. The conception of a gift to
God, which, though dominant in the burnt-offering, is not in that the
only thing symbolised, in the meal-offering becomes the _only_ thought
the offering expresses.
It is further to be noted that not only must the meal-offering consist
of the products of the soil, but of such alone as grow, not
spontaneously, but by cultivation, and thus represent the result of
man's labour. Not only so, but this last thought is the more
emphasised, that the grain of the offering was not to be presented to
the Lord in its natural condition as harvested, but only when, by
grinding, sifting, and often, in addition, by cooking in various ways,
it has been more or less fully prepared to become the food of man. In
any case, it must, at least, be parched, as in the variety of the
offering which is last mentioned in the chapter (vv. 14-16).
With these fundamental facts before us, we can now see what must have
been the primary and distinctive significance of the meal-offering,
considered as an act of worship. As the burnt-offering represented the
consecration of the life, the person, to God, so the meal-offering
represented the consecration of the fruit of his labours.
If it be asked, why it was that when man's labours are so manifold,
and their results so diverse, the product of the cultivation of the
soil should be alone selected for this purpose, for this, several
reasons may be given. In the first place, of all the occupations of
man, the cultivation of the soil is that of by far the greatest
number, and so, in the nature of the case, must continue to be; for
the sustenance of man, so far as he is at all above the savage
condition, comes, in the last analysis, from the soil. Then, in
particular, the Israelites of those days of Moses were about to become
an agricultural nation. Most natural and suitable, then, it was that
the fruit of the activities of such a people should be symbolised by
the product of their fields. And since even those who gained their
living in other ways than by the cultivation of the ground, must needs
purchase with their earnings grain and oil, the meal-offering would,
no less for them than for others, represent the consecration to God of
the fruit of their labour.
The meal-offering is no longer an ordinance of worship, but the duty
which it signified remains in full obligation still. Not only, in
general, are we to surrender our persons without reserve to the Lord,
as in the burnt-offering, but unto Him must also be consecrated all
our works.
This is true, first of all, regarding our religious service. Each of
us is sent into the world to do a certain spiritual work among our
fellow-men. This work and all the result of it is to be offered as a
holy meal-offering to the Lord. A German writer has beautifully set
forth this significance of the meal-offering as regards Israel.
"Israel's bodily calling was the cultivation of the ground in the land
given him by Jehovah. The fruit of his calling, under the Divine
blessing, was corn and wine, his bodily food, which nourished and
sustained his bodily life. Israel's spiritual calling was to work in
the field of the kingdom of God, in the vineyard of his Lord; this
work was Israel's covenant obligation. Of this, the fruit was the
spiritual bread, the spiritual nourishment, which should sustain and
develop his spiritual life."[9] And the calling of the spiritual
Israel, which is the Church, is still the same, to labour in the field
of the kingdom of God, which is the world of men; and the result of
this work is still the same, namely, with the Divine blessing,
spiritual fruit, sustaining and developing the spiritual life of men.
And in the meal-offering we are reminded that the fruit of all our
spiritual labours is to be offered to the Lord.
[9] Kurtz, "Der Alt-testamentliche Opfercultus," p. 243.
The reminder might seem unneedful, as indeed it ought to be; but it is
not. For it is sadly possible to call Christ "Lord," and, labouring in
His field, do in His name many wonderful works, yet not really unto
Him. A minister of the Word may with steady labour drive the
ploughshare of the law, and sow continually the undoubted seed of the
Word in the Master's field; and the apparent result of his work may be
large, and even real, in the conversion of men to God, and a great
increase of Christian zeal and activity. And yet it is quite possible
that a man do this, and still do it for himself, and not for the
Lord; and when success comes, begin to rejoice in his evident skill as
a spiritual husbandman, and in the praise of man which this brings
him; and so, while thus rejoicing in the fruit of his labours, neglect
to bring of this good corn and wine which he has raised for a daily
meal-offering in consecration to the Lord. Most sad is this, and
humiliating, and yet sometimes it so comes to pass.
And so, indeed, it may be in every department of religious activity.
The present age is without its like in the wonderful variety of its
enterprise in matters benevolent and religious. On every side we see
an ever-increasing army of labourers driving their various work in the
field of the world. City Missions of every variety, Poor Committees
with their free lodgings and soup-kitchens, Young Men's Christian
Associations, Blue Ribbon Societies, the White Cross Army and the Red
Cross Army, Hospital Work, Prison Reform, and so on;--there is no
enumerating all the diverse improved methods of spiritual husbandry
around us, nor can any one rightly depreciate the intrinsic excellence
of all this, or make light of the work or of its good results. But for
all this, there are signs that many need to be reminded that all such
labour in God's field, however God may graciously make use of it, is
not necessarily labour for God; that labour for the good of men is not
therefore of necessity labour consecrated to the Lord. For can we
believe that from all this the meal-offering is always brought to Him?
The ordinance of this offering needs to be remembered by us all in
connection with these things. The fruit of all these our labours must
be offered daily in solemn consecration to the Lord.
But the teaching of the meal-offering reaches further than to what we
call religious labours. For in that it was appointed that the offering
should consist of man's daily food, Israel was reminded that God's
claim for full consecration of all our activities covers everything,
even to the very food we eat. There are many who consecrate, or think
they consecrate, their religious activities; but seem never to have
understood that the consecration of the true Israelite must cover the
secular life as well,--the labour of the hand in the field, in the
shop, the transactions of the office or on 'Change, and all their
results, as also the recreations which we are able to command, the
very food and drink which we use,--in a word, all the results and
products of our labours, even in secular things. And to bring this
idea vividly before Israel, it was ordered that the meal-offering
should consist of food, as the most common and universal visible
expression of the fruit of man's secular activities. The New Testament
has the same thought (1 Cor. x. 31): "Whether ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."
And the offering was not to consist of any food which one might choose
to bring, but of corn and oil, variously prepared. Not to speak yet of
any deeper reason for this selection, there is one which lies quite on
the surface. For these were the most common and universal articles of
the food of the people. There were articles of food, then as now,
which were only to be seen on the tables of the rich; but grain, in
some form, was and is a necessity for all. So also the oil, which was
that of the olive, was something which in that part of the world, all,
the poor no less than the rich, were wont to use continually in the
preparation of their food; even as it is used to-day in Syria, Italy,
and other countries where the olive grows abundantly. Hence it
appears that that was chosen for the offering which all, the richest
and the poorest alike, would be sure to have; with the evident intent,
that no one might be able to plead poverty as an excuse for bringing
no meal-offering to the Lord.
Thus, if this ordinance of the meal-offering taught that God's claim
for consecration covers all our activities and all their result, even
to the very food that we eat, it teaches also that this claim for
consecration covers all persons. From the statesman who administers
the affairs of an Empire to the day-labourer in the shop, or mill, or
field, all alike are hereby reminded that the Lord requires that the
work of every one shall be brought and offered to Him in holy
consecration.
And there was a further prescription, although not mentioned here in
so many words. In some offerings, barley-meal was ordered, but for
this offering the grain presented, whether parched, in the ear, or
ground into meal, must be only wheat. The reason for this, and the
lesson which it teaches, are plain. For wheat, in Israel, as still in
most lands, was the best and most valued of the grains. Israel must
not only offer unto God of the fruit of their labour, but the best
result of their labours. Not only so, but when the offering was in the
form of meal, cooked or uncooked, the best and finest must be
presented. That, in other words, must be offered which represented the
most of care and labour in its preparation, or the equivalent of this
in purchase price. Which emphasises, in a slightly different form, the
same lesson as the foregoing. Out of the fruit of our several labours
and occupations we are to set apart especially for God, not only that
which is best in itself, the finest of the wheat, but that which has
cost us the most labour. David finely represented this thought of the
meal-offering when he said, concerning the cattle for his
burnt-offerings, which Araunah the Jebusite would have him accept
without price: "I will not offer unto the Lord my God of that which
doth cost me nothing."
But in the meal-offering it was not the whole product of his labour
that the Israelite was directed to bring, but only a small part. How
could the consecration of this small part represent the consecration
of all? The answer to this question is given by the Apostle Paul, who
calls attention to the fact that in the Levitical symbolism it was
ordained that the consecration of a part should signify the
consecration of the whole. For he writes (Rom. xi. 16), "If the
first-fruit is holy, then the lump"--the whole from which the
first-fruit is taken--"is also holy;" that is, the consecration of a
part signifies and symbolically expresses the consecration of the
whole from which that part is taken. The idea is well illustrated by a
custom in India, according to which, when one visits a man of
distinction, he will offer the guest a silver coin; an act of social
etiquette which is intended to express the thought that all he has is
at the service of the guest, and is therewith offered for his use. And
so in the meal-offering. By offering to God, in this formal way, a
part of the product of his labour, the Israelite expressed a
recognition of His claim upon the whole, and professed a readiness to
place, not this part merely, but the whole, at God's service.
But in the selection of the materials, we are pointed toward a deeper
symbolism, by the injunction that in certain cases, at least,
frankincense should be added to the offering. But this was not of
man's food, neither was it, like the meal, and cakes, and oil, a
product of man's labour. Its effect, naturally, was to give a
grateful perfume to the sacrifice, that it might be, even in a
physical sense, "an odour of a sweet smell." The symbolical meaning of
incense, in which the frankincense was a chief ingredient, is very
clearly intimated in Holy Scripture. It is suggested in David's prayer
(Psalm cxli. 2): "Let my prayer be set forth as incense; the lifting
up of my hands, like the evening oblation." So, in Luke i. 10, we read
of the whole multitude of the people praying without the sanctuary,
while the priest Zacharias was offering incense within. And, finally,
in the Apocalypse, this is expressly declared to be the symbolical
significance of incense; for we read (v. 8), that the four-and-twenty
elders "fell down before the Lamb, having ... golden bowls full of
incense, which are the prayers of the saints." So then, without doubt,
we must understand it here. In that frankincense was to be added to
the meal-offering, it is signified that this offering of the fruit of
our labours to the Lord must ever be accompanied by prayer; and,
further, that our prayers, thus offered in this daily consecration,
are most pleasing to the Lord, even as the fragrance of sweet incense
unto man.
But if the frankincense, in itself, had thus a symbolical meaning, it
is not unnatural to infer the same also with regard to other elements
of the sacrifice. Nor is it, in view of the nature of the symbols,
hard to discover what that should be.
For inasmuch as that product of labour is selected for the offering,
which is the food by which men live, we are reminded that this is to
be the final aspect under which all the fruit of our labours is to be
regarded; namely, as furnishing and supplying for the need of the many
that which shall be bread to the soul. In the highest sense, indeed,
this can only be said of Him who by His work became the Bread of Life
for the world, who was at once "the Sower" and "the Corn of Wheat"
cast into the ground; and yet, in a lower sense, it is true that the
work of feeding the multitudes with the bread of life is the work of
us all; and that in all our labours and engagements we are to keep
this in mind as our supreme earthly object. Just as the products of
human labour are most diverse, and yet all are capable of being
exchanged in the market for bread for the hungry, so are we to use all
the products of our labour with this end in view, that they may be
offered to the Lord as cakes of fine meal for the spiritual sustenance
of man.
And the oil, too, which entered into every form of the meal-offering,
has in Holy Scripture a constant and invariable symbolical meaning. It
is the uniform symbol of the Holy Spirit of God. Isaiah lxi. 1 is
decisive on this point, where in prophecy the Messiah speaks thus:
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord God hath
anointed me to preach good tidings." Quite in accord with this, we
find that when Jesus reached thirty years of age,--the time for
beginning priestly service,--He was set apart for His work, not as the
Levitical priests, by anointing with symbolical oil, but by the
anointing with the Holy Ghost descending on Him at His baptism. So,
also, in the Apocalypse, the Church is symbolised by seven golden
candlesticks, or lamp-stands, supplied with oil after the manner of
that in the temple, reminding us that as the lamp can give light only
as supplied with oil, so, if the Church is to be a light in the world,
she must be continually supplied with the Spirit of God. Hence, the
injunction that the meal of the offering be kneaded with oil, and
that, of whatever form the offering be, oil should be poured upon it,
is intended, according to this usage, to teach us, that in all work
which shall be offered so as to be acceptable to God, must enter, as
an inworking and abiding agent, the life-giving Spirit of God.
It is another direction as to these meal-offerings, as also regarding
all offerings made by fire, that into them should never enter leaven
(ver. 11). The symbolical significance of this prohibition is familiar
to all. For in all leaven is a principle of decay and corruption,
which, except its continued operation be arrested betimes in our
preparation of leavened food, will soon make that in which it works
offensive to the taste. Hence, in Holy Scripture, leaven, without a
single exception, is the established symbol of spiritual corruption.
It is this, both as considered in itself, and in virtue of its power
of self-propagation in the leavened mass. Hence the Apostle Paul,
using familiar symbolism, charged the Corinthians (1 Cor. v. 7) that
they "purge out from themselves the old leaven; and that they keep
festival, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth". Thus, in this prohibition is
brought before us the lesson, that we take heed to keep out of those
works which we present to God for consumption on His altar the leaven
of wickedness in every form. The prohibition, in the same connection,
of honey (ver. 11) rests upon the same thought; namely, that honey,
like leaven, tends to promote fermentation and decay in that with
which it is mixed.
The Revised Version--in this case doubtless to be preferred to the
other--brings out a striking qualification of this universal
prohibition of leaven or honey, in these words (ver. 12): "As an
oblation of first-fruits ye shall offer them unto the Lord; but they
shall not come up for a sweet savour on the altar."
Thus, as the prohibition of leaven and honey from the meal-offering
burned by fire upon the altar reminds us that the Holy One demands
absolute freedom from all that is corrupt in the works of His people;
on the other hand, this gracious permission to offer leaven and honey
in the first-fruits (which were _not_ burned on the altar) seems
intended to remind us that, nevertheless, from the Israelite in
covenant with God through atoning blood, He is yet graciously pleased
to accept even offerings in which sinful imperfection is found, so
that only, as in the offering of first-fruits, there be the hearty
recognition of His rightful claim, before all others, to the first and
best we have.
In ver. 13 we have a last requisition as to the material of the
meal-offering: "Every oblation of thy meal-offering shalt thou season
with salt." As leaven is a principle of impermanence and decay, so
salt, on the contrary, has the power of conservation from corruption.
Accordingly, to this day, among the most diverse peoples, salt is the
recognised symbol of incorruption and unchanging perpetuity. Among the
Arabs of to-day, for example, when a compact or covenant is made
between different parties, it is the custom that each eat of salt,
which is passed around on the blade of a sword; by which act they
regard themselves as bound to be true, each to the other, even at the
peril of life. In like manner, in India and other Eastern countries,
the usual word for perfidy and breach of faith is, literally,
"unfaithfulness to the salt;" and a man will say, "Can you distrust
me? Have I not eaten of your salt?" That the symbol has this
recognised meaning in the meal-offering is plain from the words which
follow (ver. 13): "Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant
of thy God to be wanting from thy meal-offering." In the
meal-offering, as in all offerings made by fire, the thought was this:
that Jehovah and the Israelite, as it were, partake of salt together,
in token of the eternal permanence of the holy covenant of salvation
into which Israel has entered with God.
Herein we are taught, then, that by the consecration of our labours to
God we recognise the relation between the believer and his Lord, as
not occasional and temporary, but eternal and incorruptible. In all
our consecration of our works to God, we are to keep this thought in
mind: "I am a man with whom God has entered into an everlasting
covenant, 'a covenant of salt.'"
Three varieties of the meal-offering were prescribed: the first (vv.
1-3), of uncooked meal; the second (vv. 4-11), of the same fine meal
and oil, variously prepared by cooking; the third (vv. 14-16), of the
first and best ears of the new grain, simply parched in the fire. If
any special significance is to be recognised in this variety of the
offerings, it may possibly be found in this, that one form might be
suited better than another to persons of different resources. It has
been supposed that the different implements named--the oven, the
baking-pan or plate, the frying-pan--represent, respectively, what
different classes of the people might be more or less likely to have.
This thought more certainly appears in the permission even of parched
grain, which then, as still in the East, while used more or less by
all, was especially the food of the poorest of the people; such as
might even be too poor to own so much as an oven or a baking-pan.
In any case, the variety which was permitted teaches us, that whatever
form the product of our labour may take, as determined either by our
poverty or our riches, or by whatever reason, God is graciously
willing to accept it, so the oil, frankincense, and salt be not
wanting. It is our privilege, as it is our duty, to offer of it in
consecration to our redeeming Lord, though it be no more than parched
corn. The smallness or meanness of what we have to give, need not keep
us back from presenting our meal-offering.
If we have rightly understood the significance of this offering, the
ritual which is given will now easily yield us its lessons. As in the
case of the burnt-offering, the meal-offering also must be brought
unto the Lord by the offerer himself. The consecration of our works,
like the consecration of our persons, must be our own voluntary act.
Yet the offering must be delivered through the mediation of the
priest; the offerer must not presume himself to lay it on the altar.
Even so still. In this, as in all else, the Heavenly High Priest must
act in our behalf with God. We do not, by our consecration of our
works, therefore become able to dispense with His offices as Mediator
between us and God. This is the thought of many, but it is a great
mistake. No offering made to God, except in and through the appointed
Priest, can be accepted of Him.
It was next directed that the priest, having received the offering at
the hand of the worshipper, should make a twofold use of it. In the
burnt-offering the whole was to be burnt; but in the meal-offering
only a small part. The priest was to take out of the offering, in each
case, "a memorial thereof, and burn it on the altar"; and then it is
added (vv. 3-10), "that which is left of the meal offering"--which
was always much the larger part--"shall be Aaron's and his sons'." The
small part taken out by the priest for the altar was burnt with fire;
and its consumption by the fire of the altar, as in the other
offerings, symbolised God's gracious acceptance and appropriation of
the offering.
But here the question naturally arises, if the total consecration of
the worshipper and his full acceptance by God, in the case of the
burnt-offering, was signified by the burning of the whole, how is it
that, in this case, where also we must think of a consecration of the
whole, yet only a small part was offered to God in the fire of the
altar? But the difficulty is only in appearance. For, no less than in
the burnt-offering, all of the meal-offering is presented to God, and
all is no less truly accepted by Him. The difference in the two cases
is only in the use to which God puts the offering. A part of the
meal-offering is burnt on the altar as "a memorial," to signify that
God takes notice of and graciously accepts the consecrated fruit of
our labours. It is called "a memorial" in that, so to speak, it
reminded the Lord of the service and devotion of His faithful servant.
The thought is well illustrated by the words of Nehemiah (v. 19), who
said: "Think upon me, O Lord, for good, according to all that I have
done for this people;" and by the word of the angel to Cornelius (Acts
x. 4): "Thy prayers and thine alms are gone up for a memorial before
God;" for a memorial in such wise as to procure to him a gracious
visitation.
The remaining and larger portion of the meal-offering was given to the
priest, as being the servant of God in the work of His house. To this
service he was set apart from secular occupations, that he might give
himself wholly to the duties of this office. In this he must needs be
supported; and to this end it was ordained by God that a certain part
of the various offerings should be given him, as we shall see more
fully hereafter.
In striking contrast with this ordinance, which gave the largest part
of the meal-offering to the priest, is the law that of the
frankincense he must take nothing; "all" must go up to God, with the
"memorial," in the fire of the altar (vv. 2, 16). But in consistency
with the symbolism it could not be otherwise. For the frankincense was
the emblem of prayer, adoration, and praise; of this, then, the priest
must take nought for himself. The manifest lesson is one for all who
preach the Gospel. Of the incense of praise which may ascend from the
hearts of God's people, as they minister the Word, they must take none
for themselves. "Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name be the glory."
Such then was the meaning of the meal-offering. It represents the
consecration unto God by the grace of the Holy Spirit, with prayer and
praise, of all the work of our hands; an offering with salt, but
without leaven, in token of our unchanging covenant with a holy God.
And God accepts the offerings thus presented by His people, as a
savour of a sweet smell, with which He is well pleased. We have called
this consecration a duty; is it not rather a most exalted privilege?
Only let us remember, that although our consecrated offerings are
accepted, we are not accepted because of the offerings. Most
instructive it is to observe that the meal-offerings were not to be
offered alone; a bloody sacrifice, a burnt-offering or sin-offering,
must always precede. How vividly this brings before us the truth that
it is only when first our persons have been cleansed by atoning blood,
and thus and therefore consecrated unto God, that the consecration
and acceptance of our works is possible. We are not accepted because
we consecrate our works, but our consecrated works themselves are
accepted because first we have been "accepted in the Beloved" through
faith in the blood of the holy Lamb of God.
THE DAILY MEAL-OFFERING.
vi. 14-23.
"And this is the law of the meal-offering: the sons of Aaron
shall offer it before the Lord, before the altar. And he shall
take up therefrom his handful, of the fine flour of the
meal-offering and of the oil thereof, and all the frankincense
which is upon the meal-offering, and shall burn it upon the altar
for a sweet savour, as the memorial thereof, unto the Lord. And
that which is left thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: it shall
be eaten without leaven in a holy place: in the court of the tent
of meeting they shall eat it. It shall not be baken with leaven.
I have given it as their portion of My offerings made by fire; it
is most holy, as the sin-offering, and as the guilt-offering.
Every male among the children of Aaron shall eat of it, as a due
for ever throughout your generations, from the offerings of the
Lord made by fire: whosoever toucheth them shall be holy. And the
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This is the oblation of Aaron and
of his sons, which they shall offer unto the Lord in the day when
he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a
meal-offering perpetually, half of it in the morning, and half
thereof in the evening. On a baking-pan it shall be made with
oil; when it is soaked, thou shalt bring it in: in baken pieces
shalt thou offer the meal-offering for a sweet savour unto the
Lord. And the anointed priest that shall be in his stead from
among his sons shall offer it: by a statute for ever it shall be
wholly burnt unto the Lord. And every meal-offering of the priest
shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten."
As there were not only the burnt-offerings of the individual
Israelite, but also a daily burnt-offering, morning and evening,
presented by the priest as the representative of the collective
nation, so also with the meal-offering. The law concerning this daily
meal-offering is given in chap. vi. 19. The amount in this case was
prescribed, being apparently the amount regarded as a day's portion of
food--"the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour," half of which was to
be offered in the morning and half in the evening, made on a baking
pan with oil, "for a sweet savour unto the Lord." Unlike the
meal-offering of the individual, it is said, "by a statute for ever,
it shall be wholly burnt unto the Lord.... Every meal-offering of the
priest shall be wholly burnt; it shall not be eaten." This single
variation from the ordinance of chap. ii. is simply an application of
the principle which governs all the sacrifices except the
peace-offering, that he who offered any sacrifice could never himself
eat of it; and as the priest in this case was the offerer, the
symbolism required that he should himself have nothing of the
offering, as being wholly given by him to the Lord. And this
meal-offering was to be presented, not merely, as some have inferred
from ver. 20, on the day of the anointing of the high priest, but, as
is expressly said, "perpetually."
The typical meaning of the meal-offering, and, in particular, of this
daily meal-offering, which, as we learn from Exod. xxx. 39, 40, was
offered with the daily burnt-offering, is very clear. Every
meal-offering pointed to Christ in His consecration of all His works
to the Father. And as the daily burnt-offering presented by Aaron and
his sons typified our heavenly High Priest as offering His person in
daily consecration unto God in our behalf, so, in the daily
meal-offering, wholly burnt upon the altar, we see Him in like manner
offering unto God in perfect consecration, day by day, perpetually,
all His works for our acceptance. To the believer, often sorely
oppressed with the sense of the imperfection of his own consecration
of his daily works, in that because of this the Father is not
glorified by him as He should be, how exceedingly comforting this view
of Christ! For that which, at the best, we do so imperfectly and
interruptedly, He does in our behalf perfectly, and with never-failing
constancy; thus at once perfectly glorifying the Father, and also,
through the virtue of the boundless merit of this consecration,
constantly procuring for us daily grace unto the life eternal.
CHAPTER V.
_THE PEACE-OFFERING._
LEV. iii. 1-17; vii. 11-34; xix. 5-8; xxii. 21-25.
In chap. iii. is given, though not with completeness, the law of the
peace-offering. The alternative rendering of this term,
"thank-offering" (marg. R.V.), precisely expresses only one variety of
the peace-offering; and while it is probably impossible to find any
one word that shall express in a satisfactory way the whole conception
of this offering, it is not easy to find one better than the familiar
term which the Revisers have happily retained. As will be made clear
in the sequel, it was the main object of this offering, as consisting
of a sacrifice terminating in a festive sacrificial meal, to express
the conception of friendship, peace, and fellowship with God as
secured by the shedding of atoning blood.
Like the burnt-offering and the meal-offering, the peace-offering had
come down from the times before Moses. We read of it, though not
explicitly named, in Gen. xxxi. 54, on the occasion of the covenant
between Jacob and Laban, wherein they jointly took God as witness of
their covenant of friendship; and, again, in Exod. xviii. 12, where
"Jethro took a burnt-offering and sacrifices for God; and Aaron came
and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law
before God." Nor was this form of sacrifice, any more than the
burnt-offering, confined to the line of Abraham's seed. Indeed,
scarcely any religious custom has from the most remote antiquity been
more universally observed than this of a sacrifice essentially
connected with a sacrificial meal. An instance of the heathen form of
this sacrifice is even given in the Pentateuch, where we are told
(Exod. xxxii. 6) how the people, having made the golden calf,
worshipped it with peace-offerings, and sat down to eat and to drink
at the sacrificial meal which was inseparable from the peace-offering;
while in 1 Cor. x. Paul refers to like sacrificial feasts as common
among the idolaters of Corinth.
It hardly needs to be again remarked that there is nothing in such
facts as these to trouble the faith of the Christian, any more than in
the general prevalence of worship and of prayer among heathen nations.
Rather, in all these cases alike, are we to see the expression on the
part of man of a sense of need and want, especially, in this case, of
friendship and fellowship with God; and, seeing that the conception of
a sacrifice culminating in a feast was, in truth, most happily adapted
to symbolise this idea, surely it were nothing strange that God should
base the ordinances of His own worship upon such universal conceptions
and customs, correcting in them only, as we shall see, what might
directly or indirectly misrepresent truth. Where an alphabet, so to
speak, is thus already found existing, whether in letters or in
symbols, why should the Lord communicate a new and unfamiliar
symbolism, which, because new and unfamiliar, would have been, for
that reason, far less likely to be understood?
The plan of chap. iii. is very simple; and there is little in its
phraseology requiring explanation. Prescriptions are given for the
offering of peace-offerings, first, from the herd (vv. 1-5); then,
from the flock, whether of the sheep (vv. 6-11) or of the goats (vv.
12-16). After each of these three sections it is formally declared of
each offering that it is "a sweet savour," "an offering made by fire,"
or "the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord." The chapter
then closes with a prohibition, specially occasioned by the directions
for this sacrifice, of all use by Israel of fat or blood as food.
The regulations relating to the selection of the victim for the
offering differ from those for the burnt-offering in allowing a
greater liberty of choice. A female was permitted, as well as a male;
though recorded instances of the observance of the peace-offering
indicate that the male was even here preferred when obtainable. The
offering of a dove or a pigeon is not, however, mentioned as
permissible, as in the case of the burnt-offering. But this is no
exception to the rule of greater liberty of choice, since these were
excluded by the object of the offering as a sacrificial meal, for
which, obviously, a small bird would be insufficient. Ordinarily, the
victim must be without blemish; and yet, even in this matter, a larger
liberty was allowed (chap. xxii. 23) in the case of those which were
termed "free-will offerings," where it was permitted to offer even a
bullock or a lamb which might have "some part superfluous or lacking."
The latitude of choice thus allowed finds its sufficient explanation
in the fact that while the idea of representation and expiation had a
place in the peace-offering as in all bloody offerings, yet this was
subordinate to the chief intent of the sacrifice, which was to
represent the victim as food given by God to Israel in the sacrificial
meal. It is to be observed that only such defects are therefore
allowed in the victim as could not possibly affect its value as food.
And so even already, in these regulations as to the selection of the
victim, we have a hint that we have now to do with a type, in which
the dominant thought is not so much Christ, the Holy Victim, our
representative, as Christ the Lamb of God, the food of the soul,
through participation in which we have fellowship with God.
As before remarked, the ritual acts in the bloody sacrifices are, in
all, six, each of which, in the peace-offering, has its proper place.
Of these, the first four, namely, the presentation, the laying on of
the hand, the killing of the victim, and the sprinkling of the blood,
are precisely the same as in the burnt-offering, and have the same
symbolic and typical significance. In both the burnt-offering and the
peace-offering, the innocent victim typified the Lamb of God,
presented by the sinner in the act of faith to God as an atonement for
sin through substitutionary death; and the sprinkling of the blood
upon the altar signifies in this, as in the other, the application of
that blood Godward by the Divine Priest acting in our behalf, and
thereby procuring for us remission of sin, redemption through the
blood of the slain Lamb.
In the other two ceremonies, namely, the burning and the sacrificial
meal, the peace-offering stands in strong contrast with the
burnt-offering. In the burnt-offering all was burned upon the altar;
in the peace-offering all the fat, and that only. The detailed
directions which are given in the case of each class of victims are
intended simply to direct the selection of those parts of the animal
in which the fat is chiefly found. They are precisely the same for
each, except in the case of the sheep. With regard to such a victim,
the particular is added, according to King James's version, "the whole
rump;" but the Revisers have with abundant reason corrected this
translation, giving it correctly as "the fat tail entire." The change
is an instructive one, as it points to the idea which determined this
selection of all the fat for the offering by fire. For the reference
is to a special breed of sheep which is still found in Palestine,
Arabia, and North Africa. With these, the tail grows to an immense
size, sometimes weighing fifteen pounds or more, and consists almost
entirely of a rich substance, in character between fat and marrow. By
the Orientals in the regions where this variety of sheep is found it
is still esteemed as the most valuable part of the animal for food.
And thus, just as in the meal-offering the Israelite was required to
bring out of all his grain the best, and of his meal the finest, so in
the peace-offering he is required to bring the fat, and in the case of
the sheep this fat tail, as the best and richest parts, to be burnt
upon the altar to Jehovah. And the burning, as in the whole
burnt-sacrifice, was, so to speak, the visible Divine appropriation of
that which was placed upon the altar, the best of the offering, as
appointed to be "the food of God." If the symbolism, at first thought,
perplex any, we have but to remember how frequently in Scripture "fat"
and "fatness" are used as the symbol of that which is richest and
best; as, _e.g._, where the Psalmist says, "They shall be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of Thy house;" and Isaiah, "Come unto Me,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness." Thus when, in the
peace-offering, of which the larger part was intended for food, it is
ordered that the fat should be given to God in the fire of the altar,
the same lesson is taught as in the meal-offering, namely, God is
ever to be served first and with the best that we have. "All the fat
is the Lord's."
In the burnt-offering, the burning ended the ceremonial: in the nature
of the case, since all was to be burnt, the object of the sacrifice
was attained when the burning was completed. But in the case of the
peace-offering, to the burning of the fat upon the altar now followed
the culminating act of the ritual, in the eating of the sacrifice. In
this, however, we must distinguish from the eating by the offerer and
his household, the eating by the priests; of which only the
first-named properly belonged to the ceremonial of the sacrifice. The
assignment of certain parts of the sacrifice to be eaten by the
priests has the same meaning as in the meal-offering. These portions
were regarded in the law as given, not by the offerer, but by God, to
His servants the priests; that they might eat them, not as a
ceremonial act, but as their appointed sustenance from His table whom
they served. To this we shall return in a subsequent chapter, and
therefore need not dwell upon it here.
This eating of the sacrifice by the priests has thus not yet taken us
beyond the conception of the meal-offering, with a part of which they,
in like manner, by God's arrangement, were fed. Quite different,
however, is the sacrificial eating by the offerer which follows. He
had brought the appointed victim; it had been slain in his behalf; the
blood had been sprinkled for atonement on the altar; the fat had been
taken off and burned upon the altar; the thigh and breast had been
given back by God to the officiating priest; and now, last of all, the
offerer himself receives back from God, as it were, the remainder of
the flesh of the victim, that he himself might eat it before Jehovah.
The chapter before us gives no directions as to this sacrificial
eating; these are given in Deut. xii. 6, 7, 17, 18, to which passage,
in order to the full understanding of that which is most distinctive
in the peace-offering, we must refer. In the two verses last named, we
have a regulation which covers, not only the peace-offerings, but with
them all other sacrificial eatings, thus: "Thou mayest not eat within
thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the
firstlings of thy herd or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou
vowest, nor thy free-will offerings, nor the heave-offering of thy
hand: but thou shalt eat them before the Lord thy God in the place
which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy son, and thy
daughter, and my man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite
that is within thy gates; and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy
God in all that thou puttest thy hand unto."
In these directions are three particulars; the offerings were to be
eaten, by the offerer, not at his own home, but before Jehovah at the
central sanctuary; he was to include in this sacrificial feast all the
members of his family, and any Levite that might be stopping with him;
and he was to make the feast an occasion of holy joy before the Lord
in the labour of his hands. What was now the special significance of
all this? As this was the special characteristic of the
peace-offering, the answer to this question will point us to its true
significance, both for Israel in the first place, and then for us as
well, as a type of Him who was to come.
It is not hard to perceive the significance of a feast as a symbol. It
is a natural and suitable expression of friendship and fellowship. He
who gives the feast thereby shows to the guests his friendship toward
them, in inviting them to partake of the food of his house. And if, in
any case, there has been an interruption or breach of friendship, such
an invitation to a feast, and association in it of the formerly
alienated parties, is a declaration on the part of him who gives the
feast, as also of those who accept his invitation, that the breach is
healed, and that where there was enmity, is now peace.
So natural is this symbolism that, as above remarked, it has been a
custom very widely spread among heathen peoples to observe sacrificial
feasts, very like to this peace-offering of the Hebrews, wherein a
victim is first offered to some deity, and its flesh then eaten by the
offerer and his friends. Of such sacrificial feasts we read in ancient
Babylonia and Assyria, in Persia, and, in modern times, among the
Arabs, Hindoos, and Chinese, and various native races of the American
continent; always having the same symbolic intent and meaning--namely,
an expression of desire after friendship and intercommunion with the
deity thus worshipped. The existence of this custom in Old Testament
days is recognised in Isa. lxv. 11 (R.V.), where God charges the
idolatrous Israelites with preparing "a table for the god Fortune,"
and filling up "mingled wine unto (the goddess) Destiny"--certain
Babylonian (?) deities; and in the New Testament, as already remarked,
the Apostle Paul refers to the same custom among the idolatrous Greeks
of Corinth.
And because this symbolic meaning of a feast is as suitable and
natural as it is universal, we find that in the symbolism of Holy
Scripture, eating and drinking, and especially the feast, has been
appropriated by the Holy Spirit to express precisely the same ideas of
reconciliation, friendship, and intercommunion between the giver of
the feast and the guest, as in all the great heathen religions. We
meet this thought, for instance, in Psalm xxii. 5: "Thou preparest a
table before me in the presence of my enemies;" and in Psalm xxxvi. 8,
where it is said of God's people: "They shall be abundantly satisfied
with the fatness of Thy house;" and again, in the grand prophecy in
Isaiah, xxv., of the final redemption of all the long-estranged
nations, we read that when God shall destroy in Mount Zion "the veil
that is spread over all nations, and swallow up death for ever," then
"the Lord of hosts shall make unto all peoples a feast of fat things,
a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines
on the lees well refined." And in the New Testament, the symbolism is
taken up again, and used repeatedly by our Lord, as, for example, in
the parables of the Great Supper (Luke xiv. 15-24) and the Prodigal
Son (Luke xv. 23), the Marriage of the King's Son (Matt. xxii. 1-14),
concerning the blessings of redemption; and also in that ordinance of
the Holy Supper, which He has appointed to be a continual reminder of
our relation to Himself, and means for the communication of His grace,
through our symbolic eating therein of the flesh of the slain Lamb of
God.
Thus, nothing in the Levitical symbolism is better certified to us
than the meaning of the feast of the peace-offering. Employing a
symbol already familiar to the world for centuries, God ordained this
eating of the peace-offering in Israel, to be the symbolic expression
of peace and fellowship with Himself. In Israel it was to be eaten
"before the Lord," and, as well it might be, "with rejoicing."
But, just at this point, the question has been raised: How are we to
conceive of the sacrificial feast of the peace-offering? Was it a
feast offered and presented by the Israelite to God, or a feast given
by God to the Israelite? In other words, in this feast, who was
represented as host, and who as guest? Among other nations than the
Hebrews, it was the thought in such cases that the feast was given by
the worshipper to his god. This is well illustrated by an Assyrian
inscription of Esarhaddon, who, in describing his palace at Nineveh,
says: "I filled with beauties the great palace of my empire, and I
called it 'the Palace which rivals the World.' Ashur, Ishtar of
Nineveh, and the gods of Assyria, all of them, I feasted within it.
Victims, precious and beautiful, I sacrificed before them, and I
caused them to receive my gifts."
But here we come upon one of the most striking and instructive
contrasts between the heathen conception of the sacrificial feast and
the same symbolism as used in Leviticus and other Scripture. In the
heathen sacrificial feasts, it is man who feasts God; in the
peace-offering of Leviticus, it is God who feasts man. Some have
indeed denied that this is the conception of the peace-offering, but
most strangely. It is true that the offerer, in the first instance,
had brought the victim; but it seems to be forgotten by such, that
prior to the feasting he had already given the victim to God, to be
offered in expiation for sin. From that time the victim was no longer,
any part of it, his own property, but God's. God having received the
offering, now directs what use shall be made of it; a part shall be
burned upon the altar; another part He gives to the priests, His
servants; with the remaining part He now feasts the worshipper.
And as if to make this clearer yet, while Esarhaddon, for example,
gives his feast to the gods, not in their temples, but in his own
palace, as himself the host and giver of the feast, the Israelite, on
the contrary,--that he might not, like the heathen, complacently
imagine himself to be feasting God,--is directed to eat the
peace-offering, not at his own house, but at God's house. In this way
God was set forth as the host, the One who gave the feast, to whose
house the Israelite was invited, at whose table he was to eat.
Profoundly suggestive and instructive is this contrast between the
heathen custom in this offering, and the Levitical ordinance. For do
we not strike here one of the deepest points of contrast between all
of man's religion, and the Gospel of God? Man's idea always is, until
taught better by God, "I will be religious and make God my friend, by
doing something, giving something for God." God, on the contrary,
teaches us in this symbolism, as in all Scripture, the exact reverse;
that we become truly religious by taking, first of all, with
thankfulness and joy, what He has provided for us. A breach of
friendship between man and God is often implied in the heathen
rituals, as in the ritual of Leviticus; as also, in both, a desire for
its removal, and renewed fellowship with God. But in the former, man
ever seeks to attain to this intercommunion of friendship by something
that he himself will do for God. He will feast God, and thus God shall
be well pleased. But God's way is the opposite! The sacrificial feast
at which man shall have fellowship with God is provided not by man for
God, but by God for man, and is to be eaten, not in our house, but
spiritually partaken in the presence of the invisible God.
We can now perceive the teaching of the peace-offering for Israel. In
Israel, as among all the nations, was the inborn craving after
fellowship and friendship with God. The ritual of the peace-offering
taught him how it was to be obtained, and how communion might be
realised. The first thing was for him to bring and present a
divinely-appointed victim; and then, the laying of the hand upon his
head with confession of sin; then, the slaying of the victim, the
sprinkling of its blood, and the offering of its choicest parts to God
in the altar fire. Till all this was done, till in symbol expiation
had been thus made for the Israelite's sin, there could be no feast
which should speak of friendship and fellowship with God. But this
being first done, God now, in token of His free forgiveness and
restoration to favour, invites the Israelite to a joyful feast in His
own house.
What a beautiful symbol! Who can fail to appreciate its meaning when
once pointed out? Let us imagine that through some fault of ours a
dear friend has become estranged; we used to eat and drink at his
house, but there has been none of that now for a long time. We are
troubled, and perhaps seek out one who is our friend's friend and also
our friend, to whose kindly interest we entrust our case, to reconcile
to us the one we have offended. He has gone to mediate; we anxiously
await his return; but or ever he has come back again, comes an
invitation from him who was estranged, just in the old loving way,
asking that we will eat with him at his house. Any one of us would
understand this; we should be sure at once that the mediator had
healed the breach, that we were forgiven, and were welcome as of old
to all that our friend's friendship had to give.
But God is the good Friend whom we have estranged; and the Lord Jesus,
His beloved Son, and our own Friend as well, is the Mediator; and He
has healed the breach; having made expiation for our sin in offering
His own body as a sacrifice, He has ascended into heaven, there to
appear in the presence of God for us; He has not yet returned. But
meantime the message comes down from Him to all who are hungering
after peace with God: "The feast is made; and ye all are invited;
come! all things are now ready!" And this is the message of the
Gospel. It is the peace-offering translated into words. Can we
hesitate to accept the invitation? Or, if we have sent in our
acceptance, do we need to be told, as in Deuteronomy, that we are to
eat "with rejoicing."
And now we may well observe another circumstance of profound typical
significance. When the Israelite came to God's house to eat before
Jehovah, he was fed there with the flesh of the slain victim. The
flesh of that very victim whose blood had been given for him on the
altar, now becomes his food to sustain the life thus redeemed. Whether
the Israelite saw into the full meaning of this, we may easily doubt;
but it leads us on now to consider, in the clearer light of the New
Testament, the deepest significance of the peace-offering and its
ritual, as typical of our Lord and our relation to Him.
That the victim of the peace-offering, as of all the bloody offerings,
was intended to typify Christ, and that the death of that victim, in
the peace-offering, as in all the bloody offerings, foreshadowed the
death of Christ for our sins,--this needs no further proof. And so,
again, as the burning of the whole burnt-offering represented Christ
as accepted for us in virtue of His perfect consecration to the
Father, so the peace-offering, in that the fat is burned, represents
Christ as accepted for us, in that He gave to God in our behalf the
very best He had to offer. For in that incomparable sacrifice we are
to think not only of the completeness of Christ's consecration for us,
but also of the supreme excellence of that which He offered unto God
for us. All that was best in Him, reason, affection, and will, as well
as the members of His holy body,--nay, the Godhead as well as the
Manhood, in the holy mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation, He
offered for us unto the Father.
This, however, has taken us as yet but little beyond the meaning of
the burnt-offering. The closing act of the ritual, the sacrificial
eating, however, reaches in its typical significance far beyond this
or any of the bloody offerings.
First, in that he who had laid his hand upon the victim, and for whom
the blood had been sprinkled, is now invited by God to feast in His
house, upon food given by himself, the food of the sacrifice, which is
called in the ritual "the bread of God," the eating of the
peace-offering symbolically teaches us that if we have indeed
presented the Lamb of God as our peace, not only has the Priest
sprinkled for us the blood, so that our sin is pardoned, but, in token
of friendship now restored, God invites the penitent believer to sit
down at His own table,--in a word, to joyful fellowship with Himself!
Which means, if our weak faith but take it in, that the Almighty and
Most Holy God now invites us to fellowship in all the riches of His
Godhead; places all that He has at the service of the believing
sinner, redeemed by the blood of the slain Lamb. The prodigal has
returned; the Father will now feast him with the best that He has.
Fellowship with God through reconciliation by the blood of the slain
Lamb,--this then is the first thing shadowed forth in this part of
the ritual of the peace-offering. It is a sufficiently wonderful
thought, but there is truth yet more wonderful veiled under this
symbolism.
For when we ask, what then was the bread or food of God, of which He
invited him to partake who brought the peace-offering, and learn that
it was the flesh of the slain victim; here we meet a thought which
goes far beyond atonement by the shedding of blood. The same victim
whose blood was shed and sprinkled in atonement for sin is now given
by God to be the redeemed Israelite's food, by which his life shall be
sustained! Surely we cannot mistake the meaning of this. For the
victim of the altar and the food of the table are one and the same.
Even so He who offered Himself for our sins on Calvary, is now given
by God to be the food of the believer; who now thus lives by "eating
the flesh" of the slain Lamb of God. Does this imagery, at first
thought, seem strange and unnatural? So did it also seem strange to
the Jews, when in reply to our Lord's teaching they wonderingly asked
(John vi. 52), "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" And yet so
Christ spoke; and when He had first declared Himself to the Jews as
the Antitype of the manna, the true Bread sent down from heaven, He
then went on to say, in words which far transcended the meaning of
that type (John vi. 51), "The bread which I will give is My flesh, for
the life of the world." How the light begins now to flash back from
the Gospel to the Levitical law, and from this, again, back to the
Gospel! In the one we read, "Ye shall eat the flesh of your
peace-offerings before the Lord with joy;" in the other, the word of
the Lord Jesus concerning Himself (John vi. 33, 55, 57): "The bread of
God is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life unto the
world.... My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.... As
the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he
that eateth Me, he also shall live because of Me." And now the
Shekinah light of the ancient tent of meeting begins to illumine even
the sacramental table, and as we listen to the words of Jesus, "Take,
eat! this is My body which was broken for you," we are reminded of the
feast of the peace-offerings. The Israel of God is to be fed with the
flesh of the sacrificed Lamb which became their peace.
Let us hold fast then to this deepest thought of the peace-offering, a
truth too little understood even by many true believers. The very
Christ who died for our sins, if we have by faith accepted His
atonement and have been for His sake forgiven, is now given us by God
for the sustenance of our purchased life. Let us make use of Him,
daily feeding upon Him, that so we may live and grow unto the life
eternal!
But there is yet one thought more concerning this matter, which the
peace-offering, as far as was possible, shadowed forth. Although
Christ becomes the bread of God for us only through His offering of
Himself first for our sins, as our atonement, yet this is something
quite distinct from atonement. Christ became our sacrifice once for
all; the atonement is wholly a fact of the past. But Christ is now
still, and will ever continue to be unto all His people, the bread or
food of God, by eating whom they live. He was the propitiation, as the
slain victim; but, in virtue of that, He is now become the flesh of
the peace-offering. Hence He must be this, not as dead, but as living,
in the present resurrection life of His glorified humanity. Here
evidently is a fact which could not be directly symbolised in the
peace-offering without a miracle ever repeated. For Israel ate of the
victim, not as living, but as dead. It could not be otherwise. And yet
there is a regulation of the ritual (chap. vii. 15-18; xix. 6, 7)
which suggests this phase of truth as clearly as possible without a
miracle. It was ordered that none of the flesh of the peace-offering
should be allowed to remain beyond the third day; if any then was left
uneaten, it was to be burned with fire. The reason for this lies upon
the surface. It was doubtless that there might be no possible
beginning of decay; and thus it was secured that the flesh of the
victim with which God fed the accepted Israelite should be the flesh
of a victim that was not to see corruption. But does not this at once
remind us how it was written of the Antitype, "Thou wilt not suffer
Thy Holy One to see corruption"? while, moreover, the extreme limit of
time allowed further reminds us how it was precisely on the third day
that Christ rose from the dead in the incorruptible life of the
resurrection, that so He might through all time continue to be the
living bread of His people.
And thus this special regulation points us not indistinctly toward the
New Testament truth that Christ is now unto us the bread of God, not
merely as the One who died, but as the One who, living again, was not
allowed to see corruption. For so the Apostle argues (Rom. v. 11),
that "being justified by faith," and so having "peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ," our peace-offering, having been thus
"reconciled by His death, we shall now be saved by His life." And
thus, as we appropriate Christ crucified as our atonement, so by a
like faith we are to appropriate Christ risen as our life, to be for
us as the flesh of the peace-offering, our nourishment and strength by
which we live.
THE PROHIBITION OF FAT AND BLOOD.
iii. 16, 17; vii. 22-27; xvii. 10-16.
"And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of
the offering made by fire, for a sweet savour: all the fat is the
Lord's. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your
generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat
nor blood.... And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto
the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no fat, of ox, or
sheep, or goat. And the fat of that which dieth of itself, and
the fat of that which is torn of beasts, may be used for any
other service: but ye shall in no wise eat of it. For whosoever
eateth the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made
by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut
off from his people. And ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether
it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whosoever it
be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his
people.... And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or
of the strangers that sojourn among them, that eateth any manner
of blood; I will set My face against that soul that eateth blood,
and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the
flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar
to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh
atonement by reason of the life. Therefore I said unto the
children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall
any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. And whatsoever
man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that
sojourn among them, which taketh in hunting any beast or fowl
that may be eaten; he shall pour out the blood thereof, and cover
it with dust. For as to the life of all flesh, the blood thereof
is all one with the life thereof: therefore I said unto the
children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh:
for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth
it shall be cut off. And every soul that eateth that which dieth
of itself, or that which is torn of beasts, whether he be
homeborn or a stranger, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe
himself in water, and be unclean until the even: then shall he be
clean. But if he wash them not, nor bathe his flesh, then he
shall bear his iniquity."
The chapter concerning the peace-offering ends (vv. 16, 17) with these
words: "All the fat is the Lord's. It shall be a perpetual statute for
you throughout your generations, that ye shall eat neither fat nor
blood."
To this prohibition so much importance was attached that in the
supplemental "law of the peace-offering" (vii. 22-27) it is repeated
with added explanation and solemn warning, thus: "And the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye
shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat. And the
fat of the beast that dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is
torn with beasts, may be used for any other service: but ye shall in
no wise eat of it. For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast, of which
men offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that
eateth it shall be cut off from his people. And ye shall eat no manner
of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings.
Whosoever it be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from
his people."
From which it appears that this prohibition of the eating of fat
referred only to the fat of such beasts as were used for sacrifice.
With these, however, the law was absolute, whether the animal was
presented for sacrifice, or only slain for food. It held good with
regard to these animals, even when, because of the manner of their
death, they could not be used for sacrifice. In such cases, though the
fat might be used for other purposes, still it must not be used for
food.
The prohibition of the blood as food appears from xvii. 10 to have
been absolutely universal; it is said, "Whatsoever man there be of the
house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that
eateth any manner of blood, I will set My face against that soul that
eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people."
The reason for the prohibition of the eating of blood, whether in the
case of the sacrificial feasts of the peace-offerings or on other
occasions, is given (xvii. 11, 12), in these words: "For the life of
the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar
to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh
atonement by reason of the life. Therefore I said unto the children of
Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger
that sojourneth among you eat blood."
And the prohibition is then extended to include not only the blood of
animals which were used upon the altar, but also such as were taken in
hunting, thus (ver. 13): "And whatsoever man there be of the children
of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, which taketh
in hunting any beast or fowl that may be eaten, he shall pour out the
blood thereof, and cover it with dust," as something of peculiar
sanctity; and then the reason previously given is repeated with
emphasis (ver. 14): "For as to the life of all flesh, the blood
thereof is all one with the life thereof: therefore I said unto the
children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for
the life of all flesh is the blood thereof; whosoever eateth it shall
be cut off."
And since, when an animal died from natural causes, or through being
torn of a beast, the blood would be drawn from the flesh either not at
all or but imperfectly, as further guarding against the possibility of
eating blood, it is ordered (vv. 15, 16) that he who does this shall
be held unclean: "Every soul that eateth that which dieth of itself,
or that which is torn of beasts, whether he be home-born or a
stranger, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and
be unclean until the even. But if he wash them not nor bathe his
flesh, then he shall bear his iniquity."
These passages explicitly state the reason for the prohibition by God
of the use of blood for food to be the fact that, as the vehicle of
the life, it has been appointed by Him as the means of expiation for
sin upon the altar. And the reason for the prohibition of the fat is
similar; namely, its appropriation for God upon the altar, as in the
peace-offerings, the sin-offerings, and the guilt-offerings; "all the
fat is the Lord's."
Thus the Israelite, by these two prohibitions, was to be continually
reminded, so often as he partook of his daily food, of two things: by
the one, of atonement by the blood as the only ground of acceptance;
and by the other, of God's claim on the man redeemed by the blood, for
the consecration of his best. Not only so, but by the frequent
repetition, and still more by the heavy penalty attached to the
violation of these laws, he was reminded of the exceeding importance
that these two things had in the mind of God. If he eat the blood of
any animal claimed by God for the altar, he should be cut off from his
people; that is, outlawed, and cut off from all covenant privilege as
a citizen of the kingdom of God in Israel. And even though the blood
were that of the beast taken in the chase, still ceremonial
purification was required as the condition of resuming his covenant
position.
Nothing, doubtless, seems to most Christians of our day more remote
from practical religion than these regulations touching the fat and
the blood, which are brought before us with such fulness in the law of
the peace-offering and elsewhere. And yet nothing is of more
present-day importance in this law than the principles which underlie
these regulations. For as with type, so with antitype. No less
essential to the admission of the sinful man into that blessed
fellowship with a reconciled God, which the peace-offering typified,
is the recognition of the supreme sanctity of the precious sacrificial
blood of the Lamb of God; no less essential to the life of happy
communion with God, is the ready consecration of the best fruit of our
life to Him.
Surely, both of these, and especially the first, are truths for our
time. For no observing man can fail to recognise the very ominous fact
that a constantly increasing number, even of professed preachers of
the Gospel, in so many words refuse to recognise the place which
propitiatory blood has in the Gospel of Christ, and to admit its
pre-eminent sanctity as consisting in this, that it was given on the
altar to make atonement for our souls. Nor has the present generation
outgrown the need of the other reminder touching the consecration of
the best to the Lord. How many there are, comfortable, easy-going
Christians, whose principle--if one might speak in the idiom of the
Mosaic law--would rather seem to be, ever to give the lean to God, and
keep the fat, the best fruit of their life and activity, for
themselves! Such need to be most urgently and solemnly reminded that
in spirit the warning against the eating of the blood and the fat is
in full force. It was written of such as should break this law, "that
soul shall be cut off from his people." And so in the Epistle to the
Hebrews (x. 26-29) we find one of its most solemn warnings directed to
those who "count this blood of the covenant," the blood of Christ, "an
unholy (_i.e._, common) thing;" as exposed by this, their
undervaluation of the sanctity of the blood, to a "sorer punishment"
than overtook him that "set at nought Moses' law," even the
retribution of Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith
the Lord."
And so in this law of the peace-offerings, which ordains the
conditions of the holy feast of fellowship with a reconciled God, we
find these two things made fundamental in the symbolism: full
recognition of the sanctity of the blood as that which atones for the
soul; and the full consecration of the redeemed and pardoned soul to
the Lord. So was it in the symbol; and so shall it be when the
sacrificial feast shall at last receive its most complete fulfilment
in the communion of the redeemed with Christ in glory. There will be
no differences of opinion then and there, either as to the
transcendent value of that precious blood which made atonement, or as
to the full consecration which such a redemption requires from the
redeemed.
THANK-OFFERINGS, VOWS, AND FREEWILL-OFFERINGS.
vii. 11-21.
"And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace-offerings which
one shall offer unto the Lord. If he offer it for a thanksgiving,
then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened
cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil,
and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour soaked. With cakes of
leavened bread he shall offer his oblation with the sacrifice of
his peace-offerings for thanksgiving. And of it he shall offer
one out of each oblation for an heave-offering unto the Lord; it
shall be the priest's that sprinkleth the blood of the
peace-offerings. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his
peace-offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his
oblation; he shall not leave any of it until the morning. But if
the sacrifice of his oblation be a vow, or a freewill offering,
it shall be eaten on the day that he offereth his sacrifice: and
on the morrow that which remaineth of it shall be eaten: but that
which remaineth of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day
shall be burnt with fire. And if any of the flesh of the
sacrifice of his peace-offerings be eaten on the third day, it
shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that
offereth it: it shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth
of it shall bear his iniquity. And the flesh that toucheth any
unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire.
And as for the flesh, everyone that is clean shall eat thereof:
but the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of
peace-offerings, that pertain unto the Lord, having his
uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people.
And when any one shall touch any unclean thing, the uncleanness
of man, or an unclean beast, or any unclean abomination, and eat
of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, that soul shall
be cut off from his people."
According to this supplemental section on the law of the
peace-offerings, these were of three kinds; namely, "sacrifices of
thanksgiving," "vows," and "freewill-offerings." The first were
offered in token of gratitude for mercies received; as in Psalm cxvi.
16, 17, where we read: "Thou hast loosed my bonds; I will offer to
Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving." The second, like these, were
offered also in grateful return for prayer answered and mercy
received, but with the difference that they were promised before, upon
the condition of the prayer for mercy being granted. Lastly, the
freewill-offerings were those which had no special occasion, but were
merely the spontaneous expression of the love of the offerer to God,
and his desire to live in friendship and fellowship with Him. It is
apparently these freewill-offerings that we are to recognise in the
many instances recorded where the peace-offering was presented in
connection with supplication for special help and favour from God; as,
_e.g._, when (Judges xx. 26) Israel supplicated mercy from God after
their disastrous defeat in the civil war with the tribe of Benjamin;
and when David entreated the Lord (2 Sam. xxiv. 25) for the staying of
the plague in Israel.
With not only the thank-offering, but all peace-offerings, as is clear
from Numb. xv. 2-4, a full meal-offering, consisting of three kinds of
unleavened cakes, was to be offered, of each of which, one was to be
presented as a heave-offering, with the heave-shoulder of the
sacrifice, to the Lord (vii. 12). For the sacrificial feast, in which
the offerer, his family, and friends were to partake, he was also to
bring cakes of leavened bread, which, however, though eaten before God
by the offerer, might not be presented unto God for a heave-offering,
nor come upon the altar (ver. 13).
From what we have already seen, the spiritual meaning of this will be
clear. Thus in symbol the Israelite offered unto God, with his life,
the fruit of the labour of his hands, in gratitude to Him, and
expressed his happy consciousness of friendship and fellowship with
God through atonement, by feasting before Him. The leavened bread is
offered simply, as Bähr suggests, as the usual accompaniment to a
feast; though regard is still had to the fact, never once forgotten in
Holy Scripture, that leaven is nevertheless an element and symbol of
corruption; so that however the reconciled Israelite may eat his
leavened bread before God, yet it cannot be allowed to come upon the
altar of the Most Holy One.
Two slight differences appear in the ritual for the different kinds of
peace-offerings. First, in the case of the freewill-offering, a single
exception is allowed to the general rule that the victim must be
without blemish, in the permission to offer what, otherwise perfect,
might have "anything superfluous or lacking" in its parts (xxii. 23);
a circumstance which could not affect its fitness as the symbol of
spiritual food. For a vow (and, we may infer, for a thank-offering
also) such a victim, however, could not be offered; evidently because
it would seem peculiarly unsuitable, where the object of the offering
was to make in some sense a return for the always perfect and most
gracious gifts of God, that anything else than the absolutely perfect
should be offered. In the case of the thank-offering, again, an
exception is made to the general regulation permitting the eating of
the offering on the first and second days, requiring that all be eaten
on the day that it is presented, or else be burnt with fire (vii. 15).
We need seek for no spiritual meaning in this. A sufficient reason for
this special restriction in this case is probably to be found in the
consideration that as this was the most common variety of the
offering, there was the most danger that the flesh, by some oversight,
might be kept too long. The flesh of the victim offered to God, the
type of the Victim of Calvary, must on no account be allowed to see
corruption; and to this end every needed precaution must be taken,
that by no chance it shall remain unconsumed on the third day.
It is easy to connect the special characteristics of these several
varieties of the peace-offering with the great Antitype. So may we use
Him as our thank-offering; for what more fitting as an expression of
gratitude and love to God for mercies received, than renewed and
special fellowship with Him through feeding upon Christ as the slain
Lamb? So also we may thus use Christ in our vows; as when,
supplicating mercy, we promise and engage that if our prayer be heard
we will renewedly consecrate our service to the Lord, as in the
meal-offering, and anew enter into life-giving fellowship with Him
through feeding by faith on the flesh of the Lord. And it is
beautifully hinted in the permission of the use of leaven in this
feast of the peace-offering, that while the work of the believer, as
presented to God in grateful acknowledgment of His mercies, is ever
affected with the taint of his native corruption, so that it cannot
come upon the altar where satisfaction is made for sin, yet God is
graciously pleased, for the sake of the great Sacrifice, to accept
such imperfect service offered to Him, and make it in turn a blessing
to us, as we offer it in His presence, rejoicing in the work of our
hands before Him.
But there was one condition without which the Israelite could not have
communion with God in the peace-offering. He must be clean! even as
the flesh of the peace-offering must be clean also. There must be in
him nothing which should interrupt covenant fellowship with God; as
nothing in the type which should make it an unfit symbol of the
Antitype. For it was ordered (vii. 19-21), as regards every possible
occasion of uncleanness, thus: "The flesh that toucheth any unclean
thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burnt with fire. As for the
flesh, every one that is clean shall eat thereof; but the soul that
eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, that pertain
unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut
off from his people. And when any one shall touch any unclean thing,
the uncleanness of man, or an unclean beast, or any unclean
abomination, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings,
that soul shall be cut off from his people."
In such cases, he must first go and purify himself, as provided in the
law; and then, and then only, presume to come to eat before the Lord.
And so Israel was ever impressively reminded that he who would have
fellowship with God, and eat in happy fellowship with Him at His
table, must keep himself pure. So by the spirit of these commands are
we no less warned that we take not encouragement from God's grace, in
providing for us the flesh of the Lamb as our food, to be careless in
walk and life. If we will use Christ as our peace-offering, we must
keep ourselves "unspotted from the world;" must hate "even the garment
spotted by the flesh," remembering ever that it is written in the New
Testament (1 Peter i. 15, 16), with direct reference to the typical
law of Leviticus: "As He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves
also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be
holy; for I am holy."
CHAPTER VI.
_THE SIN-OFFERING._
LEV. iv. 1-35.
Both in the burnt-offering and in the peace-offering, Israel was
taught, as we are, that all consecration and all fellowship with God
must begin with, and ever depends upon, atonement made for sin. But
this was not the dominant thought in either of these offerings;
neither did the atonement, as made in these, have reference to
particular acts of sin. For such, these offerings were never
prescribed. They remind us therefore of the necessity of atonement,
not so much for what we do or fail to do, as for what we are.
But the sin even of true believers, whether then or now, is more than
sin of nature. The true Israelite was liable to be overtaken in some
overt act of sin; and for all such cases was ordained, in this section
of the law (iv. 1-v. 13), the sin-offering; an offering which should
bring out into sole and peculiar prominence the thought revealed in
other sacrifices more imperfectly, that in order to pardon of sin,
there must be expiation. There was indeed a limitation to the
application of this offering; for if a man, in those days, sinned
wilfully, presumptuously, stubbornly, or, as the phrase is, "with a
high hand," there was no provision made in the law for his
restoration to covenant standing. "He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses;" he was "cut off from his
people." But for sins of a lesser grade, such as resulted not from a
spirit of wilful rebellion against God, but were mitigated in their
guilt by various reasons, especially ignorance, rashness, or
inadvertence, God made provision, in a typical way, for their removal
by means of the atonement of the sin- and the guilt-offerings. By
means of these, accompanied also with full restitution of the wrong
done, when such restitution was possible, the guilty one might be
restored in those days to his place as an accepted citizen of the
kingdom of God.
No part of the Levitical law is more full of deep, heart-searching
truth than the law of the sin-offering. First of all, it is of
consequence to observe that the sins for which this chief atoning
sacrifice was appointed, were, for the most part, sins of ignorance.
For so runs the general statement with which this section opens (ver.
2): "If any one shall sin unwittingly, in any of the things which the
Lord hath commanded not to be done, and shall do any of them." And to
these are afterwards added sins committed through rashness, the result
rather of heat and hastiness of spirit than of deliberate purpose of
sin; as, for instance, in chap. v. 4: "Whatsoever it be that a man
shall utter rashly with an oath, and it be hid from him." Besides
these, in the same section (vv. 1-4) as also in all the cases
mentioned under the guilt-offering, and the special instance of a
wrong done to a slave-girl (xix. 21), a number of additional offences
are mentioned which all seem to have their special palliation, not
indeed in the ignorance of the sinner, but in the nature of the acts
themselves, as admitting of reparation. For all such it was also
ordained that the offender should bring a sin- (or a guilt-) offering,
and that by this, atonement being made for him, his sin might be
forgiven.
All this must have brought before Israel, and is meant to bring before
us, the absolute equity of God in dealing with His creatures. We think
often of His stern justice in that He so unfailingly takes note of
every sin. But here we may learn also to observe His equity in that He
notes no less carefully every circumstance that may palliate our sin.
We thankfully recognise in these words the spirit of Him of whom it
was said (Heb. v. 2, marg.) that in the days of His flesh He could
"reasonably bear with the ignorant;" and who said concerning those who
know not their Master's will and do it not (Luke xii. 48), that their
"stripes" shall be "few;" and who, again, with equal justice and
mercy, said of His disciples' fault in Gethsemane (Matt. xxvi. 41),
"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." We do well to
note this. For in these days we hear it often charged against the holy
religion of Christ, that it represents God as essentially and horribly
unjust in consigning all unbelievers to one and the same unvarying
punishment, the eternal lake of fire; and as thus making no difference
between those who have sinned against the utmost light and knowledge,
wilfully and inexcusably, and those who may have sinned through
ignorance, or weakness of the flesh. To such charges as these we have
simply to answer that neither in the Old Testament nor in the New is
God so revealed. We may come back to this book of Leviticus, and
declare that even in those days when law reigned, and grace and love
were less clearly revealed than now, God made a difference, a great
difference, between some sins and others; He visited, no doubt,
wilful and defiant sin with condign punishment; but, on the other
hand, no less justly than mercifully, He considered also every
circumstance which could lessen guilt, and ordained a gracious
provision for expiation and forgiveness. The God revealed in
Leviticus, like the God revealed in the Gospel, the God "with whom we
have to do," is then no hard and unreasonable tyrant, but a most just
and equitable King. He is no less the Most Just, that He is the Most
Holy; but, rather, because He is most holy, is He therefore most just.
And because God is such a God, in the New Testament also it is plainly
said that ignorance, as it extenuates guilt, shall also ensure
mitigation of penalty; and in the Old Testament, that while he who
sins presumptuously and with a high hand against God, shall "die
without mercy under two or three witnesses," on the other hand, he who
sins unwittingly, or in some sudden rash impulse, doing that of which
he afterward truly repents; or who, again, has sinned, if knowingly,
still in such a way as admits of some adequate reparation of the
wrong,--all these things shall be judged palliation of his guilt; and
if he confess his sin, and make all possible reparation for it, then,
if he present a sin- or a guilt-offering, atonement may therewith be
made, and the sinner be forgiven.
This then is the first thing which the law concerning the sin-offering
brings before us: it calls our attention to the fact that the heavenly
King and Judge of men is righteous in all His ways, and therefore will
ever make all the allowance that strict justice and righteousness
demand, for whatever may in any way palliate our guilt.
But none the less for this do we need also to heed another intensely
practical truth which the law of the sin-offering brings before us:
namely, that while ignorance or other circumstances may palliate
guilt, they do not and cannot nullify it. We may have sinned without a
suspicion that we were sinning, but here we are taught that there can
be no pardon without a sin-offering. We may have sinned through
weakness or sudden passion, but still sin is sin, and we must have a
sin-offering before we can be forgiven.
We may observe, in passing, the bearing of this teaching of the law on
the question so much discussed in our day, as to the responsibility of
the heathen for the sins which they commit through ignorance. In so
far as their ignorance is not wilful and avoidable, it doubtless
greatly diminishes their guilt; and the Lord Himself has said of such
that their stripes shall be few. And yet more than this He does not
say. Except we are prepared to cast aside the teaching alike of
Leviticus and the Gospels, it is certain that their ignorance does not
cancel their guilt. That the ignorance of any one concerning moral law
can secure his exemption from the obligation to suffer for his sin, is
not only against the teaching of all Scripture, but is also
contradicted by all that we can see about us of God's government of
the world. For when does God ever suspend the operation of physical
laws, because the man who violates them does not know that he is
breaking them? And so also, will we but open our eyes, we may see that
it is with moral law. The heathen, for example, are ignorant of many
moral laws; but do they therefore escape the terrible consequences of
their law-breaking, even in this present life, where we can see for
ourselves how God is dealing with them? And is there any reason to
think it will be different in the life hereafter?
Does it seem harsh that men should be punished even for sins of
ignorance, and pardon be impossible, even for these, without
atonement? It would not seem so, would men but think more deeply. For
beyond all question, the ignorance of men as to the fundamental law of
God, to love Him with all the heart, and our neighbour as ourselves,
which is the sum of all law, has its reason, not in any lack of light,
but in the evil heart of man, who everywhere and always, until he is
regenerated, loves self more than he loves God. The words of Christ
(John iii. 20) apply: "He that doeth evil cometh not to the light;"
not even to the light of nature.
And yet, one who should look only at this chapter might rejoin to
this, that the Israelite was only obliged to bring a sin-offering,
when afterward he came to the knowledge of his sin as sin; but, in
case he never came to that knowledge, was not then his sin passed by
without an atoning sacrifice? To this question, the ordinance which we
find in chapter xvi. is the decisive answer. For therein it was
provided that once every year a very solemn sin-offering should be
offered by the high priest, for all the multitudinous sins of Israel,
which were not atoned for in the special sin-offerings of each day.
Hence it is strictly true that no sin in Israel was ever passed over
without either penalty or shedding of blood. And so the law keeps it
ever before us that our unconsciousness of sinning does not alter the
fact of sin, or the fact of guilt, nor remove the obligation to suffer
because of sin; and that even the sin of which we are quite ignorant,
interrupts man's peace with God and harmony with him. Thus the best of
us must take as our own the words of the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. iv. 4,
R.V.): "I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified;
He that judgeth me is the Lord."
Nor does the testimony of this law end here. We are by it taught that
the guilt of sins unrecognised as sins at the time of their committal,
cannot be cancelled merely by penitent confession when they become
known. Confession must indeed be made, according to the law, as one
condition of pardon, but, besides this, the guilty man must bring his
sin-offering.
What truths can be more momentous and vital than these! Can any one
say, in the light of such a revelation, that all in this ancient law
of the sin-offering is now obsolete, and of no concern to us? For how
many there are who are resting all their hopes for the future on the
fact that they have sinned, if at all, then ignorantly; or that they
"have meant to do right;" or that they have confessed the sin when it
was known, and have been very sorry. And yet, if this law teach
anything, it teaches that this is a fatal mistake, and that such hopes
rest on a foundation of sand. If we would be forgiven, we must indeed
confess our sin and we must repent; but this is not enough. We must
have a sin-offering; we must make use of the great Sin-Offering which
that of Leviticus typified; we must tell our compassionate High Priest
how in ignorance, or in the rashness of some unholy, over-mastering
impulse, we sinned, and commit our case to Him, that He may apply the
precious blood in our behalf with God.
It is a third impressive fact, that after we include all the cases for
which the sin-offering was provided, there still remain many sins for
the forgiveness of which no provision was made. It was ordered
elsewhere, for instance (Numb. xxxv. 31-33) that no satisfaction,
should be taken for the life of a murderer. He might confess and
bewail his sin, and be never so sorry, but there was no help for him;
he must die the death. So was it also with blasphemy; so with
adultery, and with many other crimes. This exclusion of so many cases
from the merciful provision of the typical offering had a meaning. It
was intended, not only to emphasise to the conscience the aggravated
wickedness of such crimes, but also to develop in Israel the sense of
need for a more adequate provision, a better sacrifice than any the
Levitical law could offer; blood which should cleanse, not merely in a
ceremonial and sacramental way, but really and effectively; and not
only from some sins, but from all sins.
The law of the sin-offering is introduced by phraseology different
from that which is used in the case of the preceding offerings. In the
case of each of these, the language used implies that the Israelites
were familiar with the offering before its incorporation into the
Levitical sacrificial system. The sin-offering, on the other hand, is
introduced as a new thing. And such, indeed, it was. While, as we have
seen, each of the offerings before ordered had been known and used,
both by the Shemitic and the other nations, since long before the days
of Moses, before this time there is no mention anywhere, in Scripture
or out of it, of a sacrifice corresponding to the sin- or the
guilt-offering. The significance of this fact is apparent so soon as
we observe what was the distinctive conception of the sin-offering, as
contrasted with the other offerings. Without question, it was the idea
of expiation of guilt by the sacrifice of a substituted victim. This
idea, as we have seen, was indeed not absent from the other bloody
offerings; but in those its place was secondary and subordinate. In
the ritual of the sin-offering, on the contrary, this idea was brought
out into almost solitary prominence;--sin pardoned on the ground of
expiation made through the presentation to God of the blood of an
innocent victim.
The introduction of this new sacrifice, then, marked the fact that the
spiritual training of man, of Israel in particular, herewith entered
on a new stadium; which was to be distinguished by the development, in
a degree to that time without a precedent, of the sense of sin and of
guilt, and the need therefore of atonement in order to pardon. This
need had not indeed been unfelt before; but never in any ritual had it
received so full expression. Not only is the idea of expiation by the
shedding of blood almost the only thought represented in the ritual of
the offering, but in the order afterward prescribed for the different
sacrifices, the sin-offering, in all cases where others were offered,
must go before them all; before the burnt-offering, the meal-offering,
the peace-offering. So again, this new law insists upon expiation even
for those sins which have the utmost possible palliation and excuse,
in that at the time of their committal the sinner knew them not as
sins; and thus teaches that even these so fatally interrupt fellowship
with the holy God, that only such expiation can restore the broken
harmony. What a revelation was this law, of the way in which God
regards sin! and of the extremity, in consequence, of the sinner's
need!
Most instructive, too, were the circumstances under which this new
offering, with such a special purpose, embodying such a revelation of
the extent of human guilt and responsibility, was first ordained. For
its appointment followed quickly upon the tremendous revelation of
the consuming holiness of God upon Mount Sinai. It was in the light of
the holy mount, quaking and flaming with fire, that the eye of Moses
was opened to receive from God this revelation of His will, and he was
moved by the Holy Ghost to appoint for Israel, in the name of Jehovah,
an offering which should differ from all other offerings in this--that
it should hold forth to Israel, in solitary and unprecedented
prominence, this one thought, that "without shedding of blood there is
no remission of sin," not even of sins which are not known as sins at
the time of their committal.
Our own generation, and even the Church of to-day, greatly needs to
consider the significance of this fact. The spirit of our age is much
more inclined to magnify the greatness and majesty of man, than the
infinite greatness and holy majesty of God. Hence many talk lightly of
atonement, and cannot admit its necessity to the pardon of sin. But
can we doubt, with this narrative before us, that if men saw God more
clearly as He is, there would be less talk of this kind? When Moses
saw God on Mount Sinai, he came down to ordain a sin-offering even for
sins of ignorance! And nothing is more certain, as a fact of human
experience in all ages, than this, that the more clearly men have
perceived the unapproachable holiness and righteousness of God, the
more clearly they have seen that expiation of our sins, even of our
sins of ignorance, by atoning blood, is the most necessary and
fundamental of all conditions, if we will have pardon of sin and peace
with a Holy God.
Man is indeed slow to learn this lesson of the sin-offering. It is
quite too humbling and abasing to our natural, self-satisfied pride,
to be readily received. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact
that it is not until late in Israel's history that the sin-offering
is mentioned in the sacred record; while even from that first mention
till the Exile, it is mentioned only rarely. This fact is indeed often
in our day held up as evidence that the sin-offering was not of Mosaic
origin, but a priestly invention of much later days. But the fact is
quite as well accounted for by the spiritual obtuseness of Israel. The
whole narrative shows that they were a people hard of heart and slow
to learn the solemn lessons of Sinai; slow to apprehend the holiness
of God, and the profound spiritual truth set forth in the institution
of the sin-offering. And yet it was not wholly unobserved, nor did
every individual fail to learn its lessons. Nowhere in heathen
literature do we find such a profound conviction of sin, such a sense
of responsibility even for sins of ignorance, as in some of the
earliest Psalms, and the earlier prophets. The self-excusing which so
often marks the heathen confessions, finds no place in the confessions
of those Old Testament believers, brought up under the moral training
of that Sinaitic law which had the sin-offering as its supreme
expression on this subject. "Search me, O God, and try my heart; and
see if there be in me any wicked way" (Psalm cxxxix. 23, 24); "Cleanse
Thou me from secret sins" (Psalm xix. 12); "Against Thee only have I
sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight" (Psalm li. 4). Such words as
these, with many other like prayers and confessions, bear witness to
the deepening sense of sin, till at the last the sin-offering teaches,
as its own chief lesson, its own inadequacy for the removal of guilt,
in those words of the prophetic Psalm, (xl. 6) from the man who
mourned iniquities more than the hairs of his head: "Sin-offering Thou
hast not required."
But, according to the epistle to the Hebrews, we are to regard David
in these words, speaking by the Holy Ghost, as typifying Christ; for
we thus read, x. 5-10: "When He cometh into the world He saith,
Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body didst Thou
prepare for Me; in whole burnt-offerings and sin-offerings Thou hadst
no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I am come (in the roll of the book it is
written of Me) to do Thy will, O God."
Which words are then expounded thus: "Saying above, Sacrifices and
offerings, and whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou
wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are offered
according to the law); then hath He said, Lo, I am come to do Thy
will. He taketh away the first that He may establish the second. By
which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of
Jesus Christ once for all."
And so, as the deepest lesson of the sin-offering, we are taught to
see in it a type and prophecy of Christ, as the true and one eternally
effectual sin-offering for the sins of His people; who, Himself at
once High Priest and Victim, offering Himself for us, perfects us for
ever, as the old sin-offering could not, giving us therefore "boldness
to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus." May we all have
grace by faith to receive and learn this deepest lesson of this
ordinance, and thus in the law of the sin-offering discover Him who in
His person and work became the Fulfiller of this law.
GRADED RESPONSIBILITY.
iv. 3, 13, 14, 22, 23, 27, 28.
"If the anointed priest shall sin so as to bring guilt on the
people; then let him offer for his sin, which he hath sinned, a
young bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a
sin-offering.... And if the whole congregation of Israel shall
err, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they
have done any of the things which the Lord hath commanded not to
be done, and are guilty; when the sin wherein they have sinned is
known, then the assembly shall offer a young bullock for a
sin-offering, and bring it before the tent of meeting.... When a
ruler sinneth, and doeth unwittingly any one of all the things
which the Lord his God hath commanded not to be done, and is
guilty; if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, be made known to him,
he shall bring for his oblation a goat, a male without
blemish.... And if any one of the common people sin unwittingly,
in doing any of the things which the Lord hath commanded not to
be done, and be guilty; if his sin, which he hath sinned, be made
known to him, then he shall bring for his oblation a goat, a
female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned."
The law concerning the sin-offering is given in four sections, of
which the last, again, is divided into two parts, separated by the
division of the chapter. These four sections respectively treat
of--first, the law of the sin-offering for the "anointed priest" (vv.
3-12); secondly, the law for the offering for the whole congregation
(vv. 13-21); thirdly, that for a ruler (vv. 22-26); and lastly, the
law for an offering made by a private person, one of "the common
people" (iv. 27-v. 16). In this last section we have, first, the
general law (iv. 27-35), and then are added (v. 1-16) special
prescriptions having reference to various circumstances under which a
sin-offering should be offered by one of the people. Under this last
head are mentioned first, as requiring a sin-offering, in addition to
sins of ignorance or inadvertence, which only were mentioned in the
preceding chapter, also sins due to rashness or weakness (vv. 1-4);
and then are appointed, in the second place, certain variations in the
material of the offering, allowed out of regard to the various ability
of different offerers (vv. 5-16).
In the law as given in chap. iv., it is to be observed that the
selection of the victim prescribed is determined by the position of
the persons who might have occasion to present the offering. For the
whole congregation, the victim must be a bullock, the most valuable of
all; for the high priest, as the highest religious official of the
nation, and appointed also to represent them before God, it must also
be a bullock. For the civil ruler, the offering must be a he-goat--an
offering of a value less than that of the victim ordered for the high
priest, but greater than that of those which were prescribed for the
common people. For these, a variety of offerings were appointed,
according to their several ability. If possible, it must be a female
goat or lamb, or, if the worshipper could not bring that, then two
turtle doves, or two young pigeons. If too poor to bring even this
small offering, then it was appointed that, as a substitute for the
bloody offering, he might bring an offering of fine flour, without oil
or frankincense, to be burnt upon the altar.
Evidently, then, the choice of the victim was determined by two
considerations: first, the rank of the person who sinned, and,
secondly, his ability. As regards the former point, the law as to the
victim for the sin-offering was this: the higher the theocratic rank
of the sinning person might be, the more costly offering he must
bring. No one can well miss of perceiving the meaning of this. The
guilt of any sin in God's sight is proportioned to the rank and
station of the offender. What truth could be of more practical and
personal concern to all than this?
In applying this principle, the law of the sin-offering teaches,
first, that the guilt of any sin is the heaviest, when it is committed
by one who is placed in a position of religious authority. For this
graded law is headed by the case of the sin of the anointed priest,
that is, the high priest, the highest functionary in the nation.
We read (ver. 3): "If the anointed priest shall sin so as to bring
guilt on the people, then let him offer for his sin which he hath
committed, a young bullock without blemish, unto the Lord, for a
sin-offering."
That is, the high priest, although a single individual, if he sin,
must bring as large and valuable an offering as is required from the
whole congregation. For this law there are two evident reasons. The
first is found in the fact that in Israel the high priest represented
before God the entire nation. When he sinned it was as if the whole
nation sinned in him. So it is said that by his sin he "brings guilt
on the people"--a very weighty matter. And this suggests a second
reason for the costly offering that was required from him. The
consequences of the sin of one in such a high position of religious
authority must, in the nature of the case, be much more serious and
far-reaching than in the case of any other person.
And here we have another lesson as pertinent to our time as to those
days. As the high priest, so, in modern time, the bishop, minister, or
elder, is ordained as an officer in matters of religion, to act for
and with men in the things of God. For the proper administration of
this high trust, how indispensable that such a one shall take heed to
maintain unbroken fellowship with God! Any shortcoming here is sure to
impair by so much the spiritual value of his own ministrations for the
people to whom he ministers. And this evil consequence of any
unfaithfulness of his is the more certain to follow, because, of all
the members of the community, his example has the widest and most
effective influence; in whatever that example be bad or defective, it
is sure to do mischief in exact proportion to his exalted station. If
then such a one sin, the case is very grave, and his guilt
proportionately heavy.
This very momentous fact is brought before us in an impressive way in
the New Testament, where, in the epistles to the Seven Churches of
Asia (Rev. ii., iii.), it is "the angel of the church," the presiding
officer of the church in each city, who is held responsible for the
spiritual state of those committed to his charge. No wonder that the
Apostle James wrote (James iii. 1): "Be not many teachers, my
brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment." Well may
every true-hearted minister of Christ's Church tremble, as here in the
law of the sin-offering he reads how the sin of the officer of
religion may bring guilt, not only on himself, but also "on the whole
people"! Well may he cry out with the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. ii. 16):
"Who is sufficient for these things?" and, like him, beseech those to
whom he ministers, "Brethren, pray for us!"
With the sin of the high priest is ranked that of the congregation, or
the collective nation. It is written (vv. 13, 14): "If the whole
congregation of Israel shall err, and the thing be hid from the eyes
of the assembly, and they have done any one of the things which the
Lord hath commanded not to be done, and are guilty, then the assembly
shall offer a young bullock for a sin-offering."
Thus Israel was taught by this law, as we are, that responsibility
attaches not only to each individual person, but also to associations
of individuals in their corporate character, as nations, communities,
and--we may add--all Societies and Corporations, whether secular or
religious. Let us emphasise it to our own consciences, as another of
the fundamental lessons of this law: there is individual sin; there
is also such a thing as a sin by "the whole congregation." In other
words, God holds nations, communities--in a word, all associations and
combinations of men for whatever purpose, no less under obligation in
their corporate capacity to keep His law than as individuals, and will
count them guilty if they break it, even through ignorance.
Never has a generation needed this reminder more than our own. The
political and social principles which, since the French Revolution in
the end of the last century, have been, year by year, more and more
generally accepted among the nations of Christendom, are everywhere
tending to the avowed or practical denial of this most important
truth. It is a maxim ever more and more extensively accepted as almost
axiomatic in our modern democratic communities, that religion is
wholly a concern of the individual; and that a nation or community, as
such, should make no distinction between various religions as false or
true, but maintain an absolute neutrality, even between Christianity
and idolatry, or theism and atheism. It should take little thought to
see that this modern maxim stands in direct opposition to the
principle assumed in this law of the sin-offering; namely, that a
community or nation is as truly and directly responsible to God as the
individual in the nation. But this corporate responsibility the spirit
of the age squarely denies.
Not that all, indeed, in our modern so-called Christian nations have
come to this. But no one will deny that this is the mind of the
vanguard of nineteenth century liberalism in religion and politics.
Many of our political leaders in all lands make no secret of their
views on the subject. A purely secular state is everywhere held up,
and that with great plausibility and persuasiveness, as the ideal of
political government; the goal to the attainment of which all good
citizens should unite their efforts. And, indeed, in some parts of
Christendom the complete attainment of this evil ideal seems not far
away.
It is not strange, indeed, to see atheists, agnostics, and others who
deny the Christian faith, maintaining this position; but when we hear
men who call themselves Christians--in many cases, even Christian
ministers--advocating, in one form or another, governmental neutrality
in religion as the only right basis of government, one may well be
amazed. For Christians are supposed to accept the Holy Scriptures as
the law of faith and of morals, private and public; and where in all
the Scripture will any one find such an attitude of any nation or
people mentioned, but to be condemned and threatened with the judgment
of God?
Will any one venture to say that this teaching of the law of the
sin-offering was only intended, like the offering itself, for the old
Hebrews? Is it not rather the constant and most emphatic teaching of
the whole Scriptures, that God dealt with all the ancient Gentile
nations on the same principle? The history which records the overthrow
of those old nations and empires does so, even professedly, for the
express purpose of calling the attention of men in all ages to this
principle, that God deals with all nations as under obligation to
recognise Himself as King of nations, and submit in all things to His
authority. So it was in the case of Moab, of Ammon, of Nineveh, and
Babylon; in regard to each of which we are told, in so many words,
that it was because they refused to recognise this principle of
national responsibility to the one true God, which was brought before
Israel in this part of the law of the sin-offering, that the Divine
judgment came upon them in their utter national overthrow. How awfully
plain, again, is the language of the second Psalm on this same
subject, where it is precisely this national repudiation of the
supreme authority of God and of His Christ, so increasingly common in
our day, which is named as the ground of the derisive judgment of God,
and is made the occasion of exhorting all nations, not merely to
belief in God, but also to the obedient recognition of His
only-begotten Son, the Messiah, as the only possible means of escaping
the future kindling of His wrath.
No graver sign of our times could perhaps be named than just this
universal tendency in Christendom, in one way or another, to repudiate
that corporate responsibility to God which is assumed as the basis of
this part of the law of the sin-offering. There can be no worse omen
for the future of an individual than the denial of his obligations to
God and to His Son, our Saviour; and there can be no worse sign for
the future of Christendom, or of any nation in Christendom, than the
partial or entire denial of national obligation to God and to His
Christ. What it shall mean in the end, what is the future toward which
these popular modern principles are conducting the nations, is
revealed in Scripture with startling clearness, in the warning that
the world is yet to see one who shall be in a peculiar and eminent
sense "_the_ Antichrist" (1 John ii. 18); who shall deny both the
Father and Son, and be "the Lawless One," and the "Man of Sin," in
that He shall "set Himself forth as God" (2 Thess. ii. 3-8); to whom
authority will be given "over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and
nation" (Rev. xiii. 7).
The nation, then, as such, is held responsible to God! So stands the
law. And, therefore, in Israel, if the nation should sin, it was
ordained that they also, like the high priest, should bring a bullock
for a sin-offering, the most costly victim that was ever prescribed.
This was so ordained, no doubt, in part because of Israel's own
priestly station as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation," exalted
to a position of peculiar dignity and privilege before God, that they
might mediate the blessings of redemption to all nations. It was
because of this fact that, if they sinned, their guilt was peculiarly
heavy.
The principle, however, is of present-day application. Privilege is
the measure of responsibility, no less now than then, for nations as
well as for individuals. Thus national sin, on the part of the British
or American nation, or indeed with any of the so-called Christian
nations, is certainly judged by God to be a much more evil thing than
the same sin if committed, for example, by the Chinese or Turkish
nation, who have had no such degree of Gospel light and knowledge.
And the law in this case evidently also implies that sin is aggravated
in proportion to its universality. It is bad, for example, if in a
community one man commit adultery, forsaking his own wife; but it
argues a condition of things far worse when the violation of the
marriage relation becomes common; when the question can actually be
held open for discussion whether marriage, as a permanent union
between one man and one woman, be not "a failure," as debated not long
ago in a leading London paper; and when, as in many of the United
States of America and other countries of modern Christendom, laws are
enacted for the express purpose of legalising the violation of
Christ's law of marriage, and thus shielding adulterers and
adulteresses from the condign punishment their crime deserves. It is
bad, again, when individuals in a State teach doctrines subversive of
morality; but it evidently argues a far deeper depravation of morals
when a whole community unite in accepting, endowing, and upholding
such in their work.
Next in order comes the case of the civil ruler. For him it was
ordered: "When a ruler sinneth, and doeth unwittingly any of the
things which the Lord his God hath commanded not to be done, and is
guilty; if his sin, wherein he hath sinned, be made known to him, he
shall bring for his oblation a goat, a male without blemish" (ver.
22). Thus, the ruler was to bring a victim of less value than the
high-priest or the collective congregation; but it must still be of
more value than that of a private person; for his responsibility, if
less than that of the officer of religion, is distinctly greater than
that of a man in private life.
And here is a lesson for modern politicians, no less than for rulers
of the olden time in Israel. While there are many in our Parliaments
and like governing bodies in Christendom who cast their every vote
with the fear of God before their eyes, yet, if there be any truth in
the general opinion of men upon this subject, there are many in such
places who, in their voting, have before their eyes the fear of party
more than the fear of God; and who, when a question comes before them,
first of all consider, not what would the law of absolute
righteousness, the law of God, require, but how will a vote, one way
or the other, in this matter, be likely to affect their party? Such
certainly need to be emphatically reminded of this part of the law of
the sin-offering, which held the civil ruler specially responsible to
God for the execution of his trust. For so it is still; God has not
abdicated His throne in favour of the people, nor will He waive His
crown-rights out of deference to the political necessities of a party.
Nor is it only those who sin in this particular way who need the
reminder of their personal responsibility to God. All need it who
either are or may be called to places of greater or less governmental
responsibility; and it is those who are the most worthy of such trust
who will be the first to acknowledge their need of this warning. For
in all times those who have been lifted to positions of political
power have been under peculiar temptation to forget God, and become
reckless of their obligation to Him as His ministers. But under the
conditions of modern life, in many countries of Christendom, this is
true as perhaps never before. For now it has come to pass that, in
most modern communities, those who make and execute laws hold their
tenure of office at the pleasure of a motley army of voters,
Protestants and Romanists, Jews, atheists, and what not, a large part
of whom care not the least for the will of God in civil government, as
revealed in Holy Scripture. Under such conditions, the place of the
civil ruler becomes one of such special trial and temptation that we
do well to remember in our intercessions, with peculiar sympathy, all
who in such positions are seeking to serve supremely, not their party,
but their God, and so best serve their country. It is no wonder that
the temptation too often to many becomes overpowering, to silence
conscience with plausible sophistries, and to use their office to
carry out in legislation, instead of the will of God, the will of the
people, or rather, of that particular party which put them in power.
Yet the great principle affirmed in this law of the sin-offering
stands, and will stand for ever, and to it all will do well to take
heed; namely, that God will hold the civil ruler responsible, and more
heavily responsible than any private person, for any sin he may
commit, and especially for any violation of law in any matter
committed to his trust. And there is abundant reason for this. For the
powers that be are ordained of God, and in His providence are placed
in authority; not as the modern notion is, for the purpose of
executing the will of their constituents, whatever that will may be,
but rather the unchangeable will of the Most Holy God, the Ruler of
all nations, so far as revealed, concerning the civil and social
relations of men. Nor must it be forgotten that this eminent
responsibility attaches to them, not only in their official acts, but
in all their acts as individuals. No distinction is made as to the sin
for which the ruler must bring his sin-offering, whether public and
official, or private and personal. Of whatsoever kind the sin may be,
if committed by a ruler, God holds him specially responsible, as being
a ruler; and reckons the guilt of that sin, even if a private offence,
to be heavier than if it had been committed by one of the common
people. And this, for the evident reason that, as in the case of the
high priest, his exalted position gives his example double influence
and effect. Thus, in all ages and all lands, a corrupt king or
nobility have made a corrupt court; and a corrupt court or corrupt
legislators are sure to demoralise all the lower ranks of society. But
however it may be under the governments of men, under the equitable
government of the Most Holy God, high station can give no immunity to
sin. And in the day to come, when the Great Assize is set, there will
be many who in this world stood high in authority, who will learn, in
the tremendous decisions of that day, if not before, that a just God
reckoned the guilt of their sins and crimes in exact proportion to
their rank and station.
Last of all, in this chapter, comes the law of the sin-offering for
one of the common people, of which the first part is given vv. 27-35.
The victim which is appointed for those who are best able to give, a
female goat, is yet of less value than those ordered in the cases
before given; for the responsibility and guilt in the case of such is
less. The first prescription for a sin-offering by one of the common
people, is introduced by these words:--"If any one of the common
people sin unwittingly, in doing any of the things which the Lord hath
commanded not to be done, and be guilty; if his sin, which he hath
sinned, be made known to him, then he shall bring for his oblation a
goat, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned" (vv.
27, 28).
In case of his inability to bring so much as this, offerings of lesser
value are authorised in the section following (v. 5-13), to which we
shall attend hereafter.
Meanwhile it is suggestive to observe that this part of the law is
expanded more fully than any other part of the law of the
sin-offering. We are hereby reminded that if none are so high as to be
above the reach of the judgment of God, but are held in that
proportion strictly responsible for their sin; so, on the other hand,
none are of station so low that their sins shall therefore be
overlooked. The common people, in all lands, are the great majority of
the population; but no one is to imagine that, because he is a single
individual, of no importance in a multitude, he shall therefore, if he
sin, escape the Divine eye, as it were, in a crowd. Not so. We may be
of the very lowest social station; the provision in chapter v. 11
regards the case of such as might be so poor as that they could not
even buy two doves. Men may judge the doings of such poor folk of
little or no consequence; but not so God. With Him is no respect of
persons, either of rich or poor. From all alike, from the anointed
high priest, who ministers in the Holy of Holies, down to the common
people, and among these, again, from the highest down to the very
lowest, poorest, and meanest in rank, is demanded, even for a sin of
ignorance, a sin-offering for atonement.
What a solemn lesson we have herein concerning the character of God!
His omniscience, which not only notes the sin of those who are in some
conspicuous position, but also each individual sin of the lowest of
the people! His absolute equity, exactly and accurately grading
responsibility for sin committed, in each case, according to the rank
and influence of him who commits it! His infinite holiness, which
cannot pass by without expiation even the transient act or word of
rash hands or lips, not even the sin not known as sin by the sinner; a
holiness which, in a word, unchangeably and unalterably requires, from
every human being, nothing less than absolute moral perfection like
His own!
CHAPTER VII.
_THE RITUAL OF THE SIN-OFFERING._
LEV. iv. 4-35; v. 1-13; vi. 24-30.
According to the Authorised Version (v. 6, 7), it might seem that the
section, v. 1-13, referred not to the sin-offering, but to the
guilt-offering, like the latter part of the chapter; but, as suggested
in the margin of the Revised Version, in these verses we may properly
read, instead of "guilt-offering," "for his guilt." That the latter
rendering is to be preferred is clear when we observe that in vv. 6,
7, 9 this offering is called a sin-offering; that, everywhere else,
the victim for the guilt-offering is a ram; and, finally, that the
estimation of a money value for the victim, which is the most
characteristic feature of the guilt-offering, is absent from all the
offerings described in these verses. We may safely take it therefore
as certain that the marginal reading should be adopted in ver. 6, so
that it will read, "he shall bring for his guilt unto the Lord;" and
understand the section to contain a further development of the law of
the sin-offering. In the law of the preceding chapter we have the
direction for the sin-offering as graded with reference to the rank
and station of the offerer; in this section we have the law for the
sin-offering for the common people, as graded with reference to the
ability of the offerer.
The specifications (v. 1-5) indicate several cases under which one of
the common people was required to bring a sin-offering as the
condition of forgiveness. As an exhaustive list would be impossible,
those named are taken as illustrations. The instances selected are
significant as extending the class of offences for which atonement
could be made by a sin-offering, beyond the limits of sins of
inadvertence as given in the previous chapter. For however some cases
come under this head, we cannot so reckon sins of rashness (ver. 4),
and still less, the failure of the witness placed under oath to tell
the whole truth as he knows it. And herein it is graciously intimated
that it is in the heart of God to multiply His pardons; and, on
condition of the presentation of a sin-offering, to forgive also those
sins in palliation of which no such excuse as inadvertence or
ignorance can be pleaded. It is a faint foreshadowing, in the law
concerning the type, of that which should afterward be declared
concerning the great Antitype (1 John i. 7), "The blood of Jesus ...
cleanseth from all sin."
When we look now at the various prescriptions regarding the ritual of
the offering which are given in this and the foregoing chapter, it is
plain that the numerous variations from the ritual of the other
sacrifices were intended to withdraw the thought of the sinner from
all other aspects in which sacrifice might be regarded, and centre his
mind upon the one thought of sacrifice as expiating sin, through the
substitution of an innocent life for the guilty. In many particulars,
indeed, the ritual agrees with that of the sacrifices before
prescribed. The victim must be brought by the guilty person to be
offered to God by the priest; he must, as in other cases of bloody
offerings, then lay his hand on the head of the victim, and then (a
particular not mentioned in the other cases) he must confess the sin
which he has committed, and then and thus entrust the victim to the
priest, that he may apply its blood for him in atonement before God.
The priest then slays the victim, and now comes that part of the
ceremonial which by its variations from the law of other offerings is
emphasised as the most central and significant in this sacrifice.
THE SPRINKLING OF THE BLOOD.
iv. 6, 7, 16-18, 25, 30; v. 9.
"And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle
of the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of the
sanctuary. And the priest shall put of the blood upon the horns
of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the
tent of meeting; and all the blood of the bullock shall he pour
out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the
door of the tent of meeting.... And the anointed priest shall
bring of the blood of the bullock to the tent of meeting: and the
priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle it seven
times before the Lord, before the veil. And he shall put of the
blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the Lord, that
is in the tent of meeting, and all the blood shall he pour out at
the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of
the tent of meeting.... And the priest shall take of the blood of
the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of
the altar of burnt offering, and the blood thereof shall he pour
out at the base of the altar of burnt offering.... And the priest
shall take of the blood thereof with his finger, and put it upon
the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and all the blood
thereof shall he pour out at the base of the altar.... And he
shall sprinkle of the blood of the sin offering upon the side of
the altar; and the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the
base of the altar: it is a sin offering."
In the case of the burnt-offering and of the peace-offering, in which
the idea of expiation, although not absent, yet occupied a secondary
place in their ethical intent, it sufficed that the blood of the
victim, by whomsoever brought, be applied to the sides of the altar.
But in the sin-offering, the blood must not only be sprinkled on the
sides of the altar of burnt-offering, but, even in the case of the
common people, be applied to the horns of the altar, its most
conspicuous and, in a sense, most sacred part. In the case of a sin
committed by the whole congregation, even this is not enough; the
blood must be brought even into the Holy Place, be applied to the
horns of the altar of incense, and be sprinkled seven times before the
Lord before the veil which hung immediately before the mercy seat in
the Holy of Holies, the place of the Shekinah glory. And in the great
sin-offering of the high priest once a year for the sins of all the
people, yet more was required. The blood was to be taken even within
the veil, and be sprinkled on the mercy seat itself over the tables of
the broken law.
These several cases, according to the symbolism of these several parts
of the tabernacle differ, in that atoning blood is brought ever more
and more nearly into the immediate presence of God. The horns of the
altar had a sacredness above the sides; the altar of the Holy Place
before the veil, a sanctity beyond that of the altar in the outer
court; while the Most Holy Place, where stood the ark, and the
mercy-seat, was the very place of the most immediate and visible
manifestation of Jehovah, who is often described in Holy Scripture,
with reference to the ark, the mercy-seat, and the overhanging
cherubim, as the God who "dwelleth between the cherubim."
From this we may easily understand the significance of the different
prescriptions as to the blood in the case of different classes. A sin
committed by any private individual or by a ruler, was that of one who
had access only to the outer court, where stood the altar of
burnt-offering; for this reason, it is there that the blood must be
exhibited, and that on the most sacred and conspicuous spot in that
court, the horns of the altar where God meets with the people. But
when it was the anointed priest that had sinned, the case was
different. In that he had a peculiar position of nearer access to God
than others, as appointed of God to minister before Him in the Holy
Place, his sin is regarded as having defiled the Holy Place itself;
and in that Holy Place must Jehovah therefore see atoning blood ere
the priest's position before God can be re-established.
And the same principle required that also in the Holy Place must the
blood be presented for the sin of the whole congregation. For Israel
in its corporate unity was "a kingdom of priests," a priestly nation;
and the priest in the Holy Place represented the nation in that
capacity. Thus because of this priestly office of the nation, their
collective sin was regarded as defiling the Holy Place in which,
through their representatives, the priests, they ideally ministered.
Hence, as the law for the priests, so is the law for the nation. For
their corporate sin the blood must be applied, as in the case of the
priest who represented them, to the horns of the altar in the Holy
Place, whence ascended the smoke of the incense which visibly
symbolised accepted priestly intercession, and, more than this, before
the veil itself; in other words, as near to the very mercy-seat itself
as it was permitted to the priest to go; and it must be sprinkled
there, not once, nor twice, but seven times, in token of the
re-establishment, through the atoning blood, of God's covenant of
mercy, of which, throughout the Scripture, the number seven, the
number of sabbatic rest and covenant fellowship with God, is the
constant symbol.
And it is not far to seek for the spiritual thought which underlies
this part of the ritual. For the tabernacle was represented as the
earthly dwelling-place, in a sense, of God; and just as the defiling
of the house of my fellow-man may be regarded as an insult to him who
dwells in the house, so the sin of the priest and of the priestly
people is regarded as, more than that of those outside of this
relation, a special affront to the holy majesty of Jehovah, criminal
just in proportion as the defilement approaches more nearly the
innermost shrine of Jehovah's manifestation.
But though Israel is at present suspended from its priestly position
and function among the nations of the earth, the Apostle Peter (1
Peter ii. 5) reminds us that the body of Christian believers now
occupies Israel's ancient place, being now on earth the "royal
priesthood," the "holy nation." Hence this ritual solemnly reminds us
that the sin of a Christian is a far more evil thing than the sin of
others; it is as the sin of the priest, and defiles the Holy Place,
even though unwillingly committed, and thus, even more imperatively
than other sin, demands the exhibition of the atoning blood of the
Lamb of God, not now in the Holy Place, but more than that, in the
true Holiest of all, where our High Priest is now entered. And thus,
in every possible way, with this elaborate ceremonial of sprinkling of
blood does the sin-offering emphasise to our own consciences, no less
than for ancient Israel, the solemn fact affirmed in the Epistle to
the Hebrews (ix. 22), "Without shedding of blood there is no remission
of sin."
Because of this, we do well to meditate much and deeply on this
symbolism of the sin-offering, which, more than any other in the law,
has to do with the propitiation of our Lord for sin. Especially does
this use of the blood, in which the significance of the sin-offering
reached its supreme expression, claim our most reverent attention. For
the thought is inseparable from the ritual, that the blood of the
slain victim must be presented, not before the priest, or before the
offerer, but before Jehovah. Can any one mistake the evident
significance of this? Does it not luminously hold forth the thought
that atonement by sacrifice has to do, not only with man, but with
God?
There is cause enough in our day for insisting on this. Many are
teaching that the need for the shedding of blood for the remission of
sin, lies only in the nature of man; that, so far as concerns God, sin
might as well have been pardoned without it; that it is only because
man is so hard and rebellious, so stubbornly distrusts the Divine
love, that the death of the Holy Victim of Calvary became a necessity.
Nothing less than such a stupendous exhibition of the love of God
could suffice to disarm his enmity to God and win him back to loving
trust. Hence the need of the atonement. That all this is true, no one
will deny; but it is only half the truth, and the less momentous
half,--which indeed is hinted in no offering, and in the sin-offering
least of all. Such a conception of the matter as completely fails to
account for this part of the symbolic ritual of the bloody sacrifices,
as it fails to agree with other teachings of the Scriptures. If the
only need for atonement in order to pardon is in the nature of the
sinner, then why this constant insistence that the blood of the
sacrifice should always be solemnly presented, not before the sinner,
but before Jehovah? We see in this fact most unmistakably set forth,
the very solemn truth that expiation by blood as a condition of
forgiveness of sin is necessary, not merely because man is what he is,
but most of all because God is what He is. Let us then not forget that
the presentation unto God of an expiation for sin, accomplished by the
death of an appointed substitutionary victim, was in Israel made an
indispensable condition of the pardon of sin. Is this, as many urge,
against the love of God? By no means! Least of all will it so appear,
when we remember who appointed the great Sacrifice, and, above all,
who came to fulfil this type. God does not love us because atonement
has been made, but atonement has been made because the Father loved
us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
God is none the less just, that He is love; and none the less holy,
that He is merciful; and in His nature, as the Most Just and Holy One,
lies this necessity of the shedding of blood in order to the
forgiveness of sin, which is impressively symbolised in the unvarying
ordinance of the Levitical law, that as a condition of the remission
of sin, the blood of the sacrifice must be presented, not before the
sinner, but before Jehovah. To this generation of ours, with its so
exalted notions of the greatness and dignity of man, and its
correspondingly low conceptions of the ineffable greatness and majesty
of the Most Holy God, this altar truth may be most distasteful, so
greatly does it magnify the evil of sin; but just in that degree is it
necessary to the humiliation of man's proud self-complacency, that,
whether pleasing or not, this truth be faithfully held forth.
Very instructive and helpful to our faith are the allusions to this
sprinkling of blood in the New Testament. Thus, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews (xii. 24), believers are reminded that they are come "unto
the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better than that of Abel." The
meaning is plain. For we are told (Gen. iv. 10), that the blood of
Abel cried out against Cain from the ground; and that its cry for
vengeance was prevailing; for God came down, arraigned the murderer,
and visited him with instant judgment. But in these words we are told
that the sprinkled blood of the holy Victim of Calvary, sprinkled on
the heavenly altar, also has a voice, and a voice which "speaketh
better than that of Abel;" better, in that it speaks, not for
vengeance, but for pardoning mercy; better, in that it procures the
remission even of a penitent murderer's guilt; so that, "being now
justified through His blood" we may all "be saved from wrath through
Him" (Rom. v. 9). And, if we are truly Christ's, it is our blessed
comfort to remember also that we are said (1 Peter i. 2) to have been
chosen of God unto the sprinkling of this precious blood of Jesus
Christ; words which remind us, not only that the blood of a Lamb
"without blemish and without spot" has been presented unto God for us,
but also that the reason for this distinguishing mercy is found, not
in us, but in the free love of God, who chose us in Christ Jesus to
this grace.
And as in the burnt-offering, so in the sin-offering, the blood was to
be sprinkled by the priest. The teaching is the same in both cases. To
present Christ before God, laying the hand of faith upon His head as
our sin-offering, this is all we can do or are required to do. With
the sprinkling of the blood we have nothing to do. In other words, the
effective presentation of the blood before God is not to be secured by
some act of our own; it is not something to be procured through some
subjective experience, other or in addition to the faith which brings
the Victim. As in the type, so in the Antitype, the sprinkling of the
atoning blood--that is, its application God-ward as a propitiation--is
the work of our heavenly Priest. And our part in regard to it is
simply and only this, that we entrust this work to Him. He will not
disappoint us; He is appointed of God to this end, and He will see
that it is done.
In a sacrifice in which the sprinkling of the blood occupies such a
central and essential place in the symbolism, one would anticipate
that this ceremony would never be dispensed with. Very strange it thus
appears, at first sight, to find that to this law an exception was
made. For it was ordained (ver. 11) that a man so poor that "his means
suffice not" to bring even two doves or young pigeons, might bring, as
a substitute, an offering of fine flour. From this, some have hastened
to infer that the shedding of the blood, and therewith the idea of
substituted life, was not essential to the idea of reconciliation with
God; but with little reason. Most illogical and unreasonable it is to
determine a principle, not from the general rule, but from an
exception; especially when, as in this case, for the exception a
reason can be shown, which is not inconsistent with the rule. For had
no such exceptional offering been permitted in the case of the
extremely poor man, it would have followed that there would have
remained a class of persons in Israel whom God had excluded from the
provision of the sin-offering, which He had made the inseparable
condition of forgiveness. But two truths were to be set forth in the
ritual; the one, atonement by means of a life surrendered in expiation
of guilt; the other,--as in a similar way in the burnt-offering,--the
sufficiency of God's gracious provision for even the neediest of
sinners. Evidently, here was a case in which something must be
sacrificed in the symbolism. One of these truths may be perfectly set
forth; both cannot be, with equal perfectness; a choice must therefore
be made, and is made in this exceptional regulation, so as to hold up
clearly, even though at the expense of some distinctness in the other
thought of expiation, the unlimited sufficiency of God's provision of
forgiving grace.
And yet the prescriptions in this form of the offering were such as to
prevent any one from confounding it with the meal-offering, which
typified consecrated and accepted service. The oil and the
frankincense which belonged to the latter, are to be left out (ver.
11); incense, which typifies accepted prayer,--thus reminding us of
the unanswered prayer of the Holy Victim when He cried upon the cross,
"My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and oil, which typifies
the Holy Ghost,--reminding us, again, how from the soul of the Son of
God was mysteriously withdrawn in that same hour all the conscious
presence and comfort of the Holy Spirit, which withdrawment alone
could have wrung from His lips that unanswered prayer. And, again,
whereas the meal for the meal-offering had no limit fixed as to
quantity, in this case the amount is prescribed--"the tenth part of an
ephah" (ver. 11); an amount which, from the story of the manna,
appears to have represented the sustenance of one full day. Thus it
was ordained that if, in the nature of the case, this sin-offering
could not set forth the sacrifice of life by means of the shedding of
blood, it should at least point in the same direction, by requiring
that, so to speak, the support of life for one day shall be given up,
as forfeited by sin.
All the other parts of the ceremonial are in this ordinance made to
take a secondary place, or are omitted altogether. Not all of the
offering is burnt upon the altar, but only a part; that part, however,
the fat, the choicest; for the same reason as in the peace-offering.
There is, indeed, a peculiar variation in the case of the offering of
the two young pigeons, in that, of the one, the blood only was used in
the sacrifice, while the other was wholly burnt like a burnt-offering.
But for this variation the reason is evident enough in the nature of
the victims. For in the case of a small creature like a bird, the fat
would be so insignificant in quantity, and so difficult to separate
with thoroughness from the flesh, that the ordinance must needs be
varied, and a second bird be taken for the burning, as a substitute
for the separated fat of larger animals. The symbolism is not
essentially affected by the variation. What the burning of the fat
means in other offerings, that also means the burning of the second
bird in this case.
THE EATING AND THE BURNING OF THE SIN-OFFERING WITHOUT THE CAMP.
iv. 8-12, 19-21, 26, 31; v. 10, 12.
"And all the fat of the bullock of the sin offering he shall take
off from it; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat
that is upon the inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that
is upon them, which is by the loins, and the caul upon the liver,
with the kidneys, shall he take away, as it is taken off from the
ox of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall burn
them upon the altar of burnt offering. And the skin of the
bullock, and all its flesh, with its head, and with its legs, and
its inwards, and its dung, even the whole bullock shall he carry
forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are
poured out, and burn it on wood with fire: where the ashes are
poured out shall it be burnt.... And all the fat thereof shall he
take off from it, and burn it upon the altar. Thus shall he do
with the bullock; as he did with the bullock of the sin offering,
so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make atonement
for them, and they shall be forgiven. And he shall carry forth
the bullock without the camp, and burn it as he burned the first
bullock: it is the sin offering for the assembly.... And all the
fat thereof shall he burn upon the altar, as the fat of the
sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make atonement
for him as concerning his sin, and he shall be forgiven.... And
all the fat thereof shall he take away, as the fat is taken away
from off the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall
burn it upon the altar for a sweet savour unto the Lord; and the
priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven....
And he shall offer the second for a burnt offering, according to
the ordinance: and the priest shall make atonement for him as
concerning his sin which he hath sinned, and he shall be
forgiven.... And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest
shall take his handful of it as the memorial thereof, and burn it
on the altar, upon the offerings of the Lord made by fire: it is
a sin offering."
In the ritual of the sin-offering, sacrificial meal, such as that of
the peace-offering, wherein the offerer and his house, with the priest
and the Levite, partook together of the flesh of the sacrificed
victim, there was none. The eating of the flesh of the sin-offerings
by the priests, prescribed in chap. vi. 26, had, primarily, a
different intention and meaning. As set forth elsewhere (vii. 35), it
was "the anointing portion of Aaron and his sons;" an ordinance
expounded by the Apostle Paul to this effect, that (1 Cor. ix. 13)
they which wait upon the altar should "have their portion with the
altar." Yet not of all the sin-offerings might the priest thus
partake. For when he was himself the one for whom the offering was
made, whether as an individual, or as included in the congregation,
then it is plain that he for the time stood in the same position
before God as the private individual who had sinned. It was a
universal principle of the law that because of the peculiarly near and
solemn relation into which the expiatory victim had been brought to
God, it was "most holy," and therefore he for whose sin it is offered
could not eat of its flesh. Hence the general law is laid down (vi.
30): "No sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the
tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place, shall be eaten;
it shall be burnt with fire."
And yet, although, because the priests could not eat of the flesh, it
must be burnt, it could not be burnt upon the altar; not, as some have
fancied, because it was regarded as unclean, which is directly
contradicted by the statement that it is "most holy," but because so
to dispose of it would have been to confound the sin-offering with the
burnt-offering, which had, as we have seen, a specific symbolic
meaning, quite distinct from that of the sin-offering. It must be so
disposed of that nothing shall divert the mind of the worshipper from
the fact that, not sacrifice as representing full consecration, as in
the burnt-offering, but sacrifice as representing expiation, is set
forth in this offering. Hence it was ordained that the flesh of these
sin-offerings for the anointed priest, or for the congregation, which
included him, should be "burnt on wood with fire without the camp"
(iv. 11, 12, 21). And the more carefully to guard against the
possibility of confounding this burning of the flesh of the
sin-offering with the sacrificial burning of the victims on the altar,
the Hebrew uses here and in all places where this burning is referred
to, a verb wholly distinct from that which is used of the burnings on
the altar, and which, unlike that, is used of any ordinary burning of
anything for any purpose.
But this burning of the victim without the camp was not therefore
empty of all typical significance. The writer of the Epistle to the
Hebrews calls our attention to the fact that in this part of the
appointed ritual there was also that which prefigured Christ and the
circumstances of His death. For we read (Heb. xiii. 10-12), after an
exhortation to Christians to have done with the ritual observances of
Judaism regarding meats:--"We," that is, we Christian believers, "have
an altar,"--the cross upon which Jesus suffered,--"whereof they have
no right to eat which serve the tabernacle;" _i.e._, they who adhere
to the now effete Jewish tabernacle service, the unbelieving
Israelites, derive no benefit from this sacrifice of ours. "For the
bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the Holy Place by
the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp;"
the priesthood are debarred from eating them, according to the law we
have before us. And then attention is called to the fact that in this
respect Jesus fulfilled this part of the type of the sin-offering,
thus: "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with
His own blood, suffered without the camp." That is, as Alford
interprets (Comm. sub. loc.), in the circumstance that Jesus suffered
without the gate, is seen a visible adumbration of the fact that He
suffered outside the camp of legal Judaism, and thus, in that He
suffered for the sin of the whole congregation of Israel, fulfilled
the type of this sin-offering in this particular. Thus a prophecy is
discovered here which perhaps we had not else discerned, concerning
the manner of the death of the antitypical victim. He should suffer as
a victim for the sin of the whole congregation, the priestly people,
who should for that reason be debarred, in fulfilment of the type,
from that benefit of His death which had else been their privilege.
And herein was accomplished to the uttermost that surrender of His
whole being to God, in that, in carrying out that full consecration,
"He, bearing His cross went forth," not merely outside the gate of
Jerusalem,--in itself a trivial circumstance,--but, as this fitly
symbolised, outside the congregation of Israel, to suffer. In other
words, His consecration of Himself to God in self-sacrifice found its
supreme expression in this, that He voluntarily submitted to be cast
out from Israel, despised and rejected of men, even of the Israel of
God.
And so this burning of the flesh of the sin-offering of the highest
grade in two places, the fat upon the altar, in the court of the
congregation, and the rest of the victim outside the camp, set forth
prophetically the full self-surrender of the Son to the Father, as the
sin-offering, in a double aspect: in the former, emphasising simply,
as in the peace-offering, His surrender of all that was highest and
best in Him, as Son of God and Son of man, unto the Father as a
Sin-offering; in the latter, foreshowing that He should also, in a
special manner, be a sacrifice for the sin of the congregation of
Israel, and that His consecration should receive its fullest
exhibition and most complete expression in that He should die outside
the camp of legal Judaism, as an outcast from the congregation of
Israel.
Accordingly we find that this part of the type of the sin-offering was
formally accomplished when the high priest, upon Christ's confession
before the Sanhedrim of His Sonship to God, declared Him to be guilty
of blasphemy; an offence for which it had been ordered by the Lord
(Lev. xxiv. 14) that the guilty person should be taken "without the
camp" to suffer for his sin.
In the light of these marvellous correspondences between the typical
sin-offering and the self-offering of the Son of God, what a profound
meaning more and more appears in those words of Christ concerning
Moses: "He wrote of Me."
THE SANCTITY OF THE SIN-OFFERING.
vi. 24-30.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to
his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: in the
place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering
be killed before the Lord: it is most holy. The priest that
offereth it for sin shall eat it: in a holy place shall it be
eaten, in the court of the tent of meeting. Whatsoever shall
touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there is
sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash
that whereon it was sprinkled in a holy place. But the earthen
vessel wherein it is sodden shall be broken: and if it be sodden
in a brasen vessel, it shall be scoured, and rinsed in water.
Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it is most holy.
And no sin offering, whereof any of the blood is brought into the
tent of meeting to make atonement in the holy place, shall be
eaten: it shall be burnt with fire."
In chap. vi. 24-30 we have a section which is supplemental to the law
of the sin-offering, in which, with some repetition of the laws
previously given, are added certain special regulations, in fuller
exposition of the peculiar sanctity attaching to this offering. As in
the case of other offerings called "most holy," it is ordered that
only the males among the priests shall eat of it; among whom, the
officiating priest takes the precedence. Further, it is declared that
everything that touches the offering shall be regarded as "holy," that
is, as invested with the sanctity attaching to every person or thing
specially devoted to the Lord.
Then by way of application of this principle to two of the most common
cases in which it could apply, it is ordered, first (ver. 27), with
regard to any garment which should be sprinkled with the blood, "thou
shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in a holy place;" that so by
no chance should the least of the blood which had been shed for the
remission of sin, come into contact with anything unclean and unholy.
And then, again, inasmuch as the flesh which should be eaten by the
priest must needs be cooked, and the vessel used by this contact
became holy, it is commanded (ver. 28) that, if a brazen vessel, "it
shall be scoured" and "then rinsed with water;" that in no case should
a vessel in which might remain the least of the sacrificial flesh, be
used for any profane purpose, and so the holy flesh be defiled. And
because when an (unglazed) earthen vessel was used, even such scouring
and rinsing could not so cleanse it, but that something of the juices
of the holy flesh should be absorbed into its substance, therefore, in
order to preclude the possibility of its ever being used for any
common purpose it is directed (ver. 28) that it shall be broken.[10]
[10] A striking parallel to this ordinance is found in a caste
custom in North India, where the caste Hindoo, as I have often
seen, if he give you a drink of water in a vessel, will only use
an earthen vessel, which, immediately after you have drunk, he
breaks, to preclude the possibility of its accidental use
thereafter, by which ceremonial defilement might be contracted.
For the Hindoo does not regard it as possible so to cleanse a
metallic vessel as to remove the defilement thus caused; and as
he could not afford to throw it away, he will give one to drink
in the cheap earthen vessel, or else no drink at all.
By such regulations as these, it is plain that even in those days of
little light the thoughtful Israelite would be impressed with the
feeling that in the expiation of sin he came into a peculiarly near
and solemn relation to the holiness of God, even though he might not
be able to formulate his thought more exactly. In modern times,
however, strange to say, these very regulations with regard to the
sin-offering, when it has been taken as typical of Christ, have been
used as an argument against the New Testament teaching as to the
expiatory nature of His death as a true satisfaction to the holy
justice of God for the sins of men. For it is argued, that if Christ
was really, in a legal sense, regarded as a sinner, because standing
in the sinner's place, to receive in His person the wrath of God
against the sinner's sin, it could not have been ordered that the
blood and the flesh of the typical offering should be thus regarded as
of peculiar and pre-eminent holiness. Rather, we are told, should we,
for example, have read in the ritual, "No one, and, least of all, the
priests, shall eat of it; for it is most unclean." An extraordinary
argument and conclusion! For surely it is an utter misapprehension
both of the so-called "orthodox" view of the atonement, and of the New
Testament teaching on the subject, to represent it as involving the
suggestion that Christ, when for us "made sin," and suffering as our
substitute, thereby must have been for the time Himself unclean.
Surely, according to the constant use of the word, in imputation of
sin, of any sin, to any one, there is no conveyance of character; it
is only implied that such person is, for whatsoever reason, justly or
unjustly, treated as if he were guilty of that sin which is imputed to
him. Imputing falsehood to a man who is truth itself, does not make
him a liar, though it does involve treating him as if he were. Just so
it is in this case.
There is, then, in these regulations which emphasise the peculiar
holiness of the sin-offering, nothing which is inconsistent with the
strictest juridical view of the great atonement which in type it
represented. On the contrary, one can hardly think of anything which
should more effectively represent the great truth of the incomparable
holiness of the victim of Calvary, than just this strenuous insistence
that the blood and the flesh of the typical victim should be treated
as of the most peculiar sanctity. If, when we see the victim of the
sin-offering slain and its blood presented before God, we behold a
vivid representation of Christ, the Lamb of God, "made sin in our
behalf;" so when, in these regulations, we see how the flesh and blood
of the offered victim is treated as of the most pre-eminent sanctity,
we are as impressively reminded how it is written (2 Cor. v. 21) that
it was "Him who knew no sin," that God "made to be sin on our behalf."
Thus does the type, in order that nothing might be wanting in this law
of the offering, insist in every possible way on the holiness of the
great Victim who became the Antitype; and most of all in the
sin-offering, because in this, where, not consecration of the person
or the works, or the impartation and fellowship of the life of Christ,
but expiation, was the central idea of the sacrifice, there was a
special need for emphasising, in an exceptional way, this thought;
that the Victim who bore our sins, although visibly laden with the
curse of God, was none the less all the time Himself "most holy;" so
that in that unfathomable mystery of Calvary, never was He more truly
and really the well-beloved Son of the Father than when He cried out
in the extremity of His anguish as "made sin for us," "My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
How wonderfully adapted in all its details was this law of the
sin-offering, not only for the education of Israel, but, if we will
meditate upon these things, also for our own! How the truths which
underlie this law should humble us, even in proportion as they exalt
to the uttermost the ineffable majesty of the holiness of God! And, if
we will but yield to their teachings, how mightily should they
constrain us, in grateful recognition of the love of the Holy One who
was "made sin in our behalf," and of the love of the Father who sent
Him for this end, to accept Him as our Sin-offering, set forth in the
consummation of the ages, "to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself." No more are offered the sin-offerings of the law of Moses:--
"But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name,
And richer blood, than they."
If, then, the law of the Levitical sin-offering abides in force no
longer, this is not because God has changed, or because the truths
which it set forth concerning sin, and expiation, and pardon, are
obsolete, but only because the great Sin-offering which the ancient
sacrifice typified, has now appeared. God hath "taken away the first,
that He may establish the second" (Heb. x. 9). We have thus to do with
the same God as the Israelite. Now, as then, He takes account of all
our sins, even of sins committed "unwittingly;" He reckons guilt with
the same absolute impartiality and justice as then; He pardons sin, as
then, only when the sinner who seeks pardon, presents a sin-offering.
But He has now Himself provided the Lamb for this offering, and now in
infinite love invites us all, without distinction, with whatsoever
sins we may be burdened, to make free use of the all-sufficient and
most efficient blood of His well-beloved Son. Shall we risk neglecting
this Divine provision, and undertake to deal with God by-and-bye, in
the great day of judgment, on our own merits, without a sacrifice for
sin? God forbid! Rather let us go on to say in the words of that old
hymn:--
"My faith would lay her hand
On that dear Head of Thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin."
CHAPTER VIII.
_THE GUILT-OFFERING._
LEV. v. 14; vi. 7; vii. 1-7.
As in the English version, so also in the Hebrew, the special class of
sins for which the guilt-offering[11] is prescribed, is denoted by a
distinct and specific word. That word, like the English "trespass,"
its equivalent, always has reference to an invasion of the rights of
others, especially in respect of property or service. It is used, for
instance, of the sin of Achan (Josh. vii. 1), who had appropriated
spoil from Jericho, which God had commanded to be set apart for
Himself. Thus, also, the neglect of God's service, and especially the
worship of idols, is often described by this same word, as in 2 Chron.
xxviii. 22, xxix. 6, and many other places. The reason is evident; for
idolatry involved a withholding from God of those tithes and other
offerings which He claimed from Israel, and thus became, as it were,
an invasion of the Divine rights of property. The same word is even
applied to the sin of adultery (Numb. v. 12, 27), apparently from the
same point of view, inasmuch as the woman is regarded as belonging to
her husband, who has therefore in her certain sacred rights, of which
adultery is an invasion. Thus, while every "trespass" is a sin, yet
every sin is not a "trespass." There are, evidently, many sins of
which this is not a characteristic feature. But the sins for which the
guilt-offering is prescribed are in every case sins which _may_, at
least, be specially regarded under this particular point of view, to
wit, as trespasses on the rights of God or man in respect of
ownership; and this gives us the fundamental thought which
distinguishes the guilt-offering from all others, namely, that for any
invasion of the rights of another in regard to property, not only must
expiation be made, in that it is a sin, but also satisfaction, and, so
far as possible, plenary reparation of the wrong, in that the sin is
also trespass.
[11] It is to be regretted that the Revisers had not allowed in
this case the rendering "trespass-offering" to stand, as in the
Authorised Version. For, unlike the more generic term "guilt,"
our word "trespass" very precisely indicates the class of
offences for which this particular offering was ordained. It is
indeed true that the Hebrew word so rendered is quite distinct
from that rendered "trespass;" yet, in this instance, by the
attempt to represent this fact in English, more has been lost
than gained.
From this it is evident that, as contrasted with the burnt-offering,
which pre-eminently symbolised full consecration of the person, and
the peace-offering, which symbolised fellowship with God, as based
upon reconciliation by sacrifice, the guilt-offering takes its place,
in a general sense, with the sin-offering, as, like that, specially
designed to effect the reinstatement of an offender in covenant
relation with God. Thus, like the latter, and unlike the former
offerings, it was only prescribed with reference to specific instances
of failure to fulfil some particular obligation toward God or man. So
also, as the express condition of an acceptable offering, the formal
confession of such sin was particularly enjoined. And, finally, unlike
the burnt-offering, which was wholly consumed upon the altar, or the
peace-offering, of the flesh of which, with certain reservations, the
worshipper himself partook, in the case of the guilt-offering, as in
the sin-offering, the fat parts only were burnt on the altar, and the
remainder of the victim fell to the priests, to be eaten by them alone
in a holy place, as a thing "most holy." The law is given in the
following words (vii. 3-7): "He shall offer of it all the fat thereof;
the fat tail, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the two
kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the loins, and the
caul upon the liver, with the kidneys, shall he take away: and the
priest shall burn them upon the altar for an offering made by fire
unto the Lord: it is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests
shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in a holy place: it is most holy.
As is the sin offering, so is the guilt offering: there is one law for
them: the priest that maketh atonement therewith, he shall have it."
But while, in a general way, the guilt-offering was evidently
intended, like the sin-offering, to signify the removal of sin from
the conscience through sacrifice, and thus may be regarded as a
variety of the sin-offering, yet the ritual presents some striking
variations from that of the latter. These are all explicable from this
consideration, that whereas the sin-offering represented the idea of
atonement by sacrifice, regarded as an _expiation_ of guilt, the
guilt-offering represented atonement under the aspect of a
_satisfaction_ and _reparation_ for the wrong committed. Hence,
because the idea of expiation here fell somewhat into the background,
in order to give the greater prominence to that of reparation and
satisfaction, the application of the blood is only made, as in the
burnt-offering and the peace-offering, by sprinkling "on the altar (of
burnt-offering) round about" (vii. 1). Hence, again, we find that the
guilt-offering always had reference to the sin of the individual, and
never to the congregation; because it was scarcely possible that every
individual in the whole congregation should be guilty in such
instances as those for which the guilt-offering is prescribed.
Again, we have another contrast in the restriction imposed upon the
choice of the victim for the sacrifice. In the sin-offering, as we
have seen, it was ordained that the offering should be varied
according to the theocratic rank of the offender, to emphasise thereby
to the conscience gradations of guilt, as thus determined; also, it
was permitted that the offering might be varied in value according to
the ability of the offerer, in order that it might thus be signified
in symbol that it was the gracious will of God that nothing in the
personal condition of the sinner should exclude any one from the
merciful provision of the expiatory sacrifice. But it was no less
important that another aspect of the matter should be held forth,
namely, that God is no respecter of persons; and that, whatever be the
condition of the offender, the obligation to plenary satisfaction and
reparation for trespass committed, cannot be modified in any way by
the circumstances of the offender. The man who, for example, has
defrauded his neighbour, whether of a small sum or of a large estate,
abides his debtor before God, under all conceivable conditions, until
restitution is made. The obligation of full payment rests upon every
debtor, be he poor or rich, until the last farthing is discharged.
Hence, the sacrificial victim of the guilt-offering is the same,
whether for the poor man or the rich man, "a ram of the flock."
It was "a ram of the flock," because, as contrasted with the ewe or
the lamb, or the dove and the pigeon, it was a valuable offering. And
yet it is not a bullock, the most valuable offering known to the law,
because that might be hopelessly out of the reach of many a poor man.
The idea of value must be represented, and yet not so represented as
to exclude a large part of the people from the provisions of the
guilt-offering. The ram must be "without blemish," that naught may
detract from its value, as a symbol of full satisfaction for the wrong
done.
But most distinctive of all the requisitions touching the victim is
this, that, unlike all other victims for other offerings, the ram of
the guilt-offering must in each case be definitely appraised by the
priest. The phrase is (v. 15), that it must be "according to thy
estimation in silver by shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary."
This expression evidently requires, first, that the offerer's own
estimate of the value of the victim shall not be taken, but that of
the priest, as representing God in this transaction; and, secondly,
that its value shall in no case fall below a certain standard; for the
plural expression, "by shekels," implies that the value of the ram
shall not be less than two shekels. And the shekel must be of full
weight; the standard of valuation must be God's, and not man's, "the
shekel of the sanctuary."
Still more to emphasise the distinctive thought of this sacrifice,
that full satisfaction and reparation for all offences is with God the
universal and unalterable condition of forgiveness, it was further
ordered that in all cases where the trespass was of such a character
as made this possible, that which had been unjustly taken or kept
back, whether from God or man, should be restored "in full;" and not
only this, but inasmuch as by this misappropriation of what was not
his own, the offender had for the time deprived another of the use and
enjoyment of that which belonged to him, he must add to that of which
he had defrauded him "the fifth part more," a double tithe. Thus the
guilty person was not allowed to have gained even any temporary
advantage from the use for a while of that which he now restored; for
"the fifth part more" would presumably quite overbalance all
conceivable advantage or enjoyment which he might have had from his
fraud. How admirable in all this the exact justice of God! How
perfectly adapted was the guilt-offering, in all these particulars, to
educate the conscience, and to preclude any possible wrong inferences
from the allowance which was made, for other reasons, for the poor
man, in the expiatory offerings for sin!
The arrangement of the law of the guilt-offering is very simple. It is
divided into two sections, the first of which (v. 14-19) deals with
cases of trespass "in the holy things of the Lord," things which, by
the law or by an act of consecration, were regarded as belonging in a
special sense to Jehovah; the second section, on the other hand (vi.
1-7), deals with cases of trespass on the property rights of man.
The first of these, again, consists of two parts. Verses 14-16 give
the law of the guilt-offering as applied to cases in which a man,
through inadvertence or unwittingly, trespasses in the holy things of
the Lord, but in such manner that the nature and extent of the
trespass can afterward be definitely known and valued; verses 17-19
deal with cases where there has been trespass such as to burden the
conscience, and yet such as, for whatsoever reason, cannot be
precisely measured.
By "the holy things of the Lord" are intended such things as, either
by universal ordinance or by voluntary consecration, were regarded as
belonging to Jehovah, and in a special sense His property. Thus, under
this head would come the case of the man who, for instance, should
unwittingly eat the flesh of the firstling of his cattle, or the flesh
of the sin-offering, or the shew-bread; or should use his tithe, or
any part of it, for himself. Even though he did this unwittingly, yet
it none the less disturbed the man's relation to God; and therefore,
when known, in order to his reinstatement in fellowship with God, it
was necessary that he should make full restitution with a fifth part
added, and, besides this, sacrifice a ram, duly appraised, as a
guilt-offering. In that the sacrifice was prescribed over and above
the restitution, the worshipper was reminded that, in view of the
infinite majesty and holiness of God, it lies not in the power of any
creature to nullify the wrong God-ward, even by fullest restitution.
For trespass is not only trespass, but is also sin; an offence not
only against the rights of Jehovah as Owner, but also an affront to
Him as Supreme King and Lawgiver.
And yet, because the worshipper must not be allowed to lose sight of
the fact that sin is of the nature of a debt, a victim was ordered
which should especially bring to mind this aspect of the matter. For
not only among the Hebrews, but among the Arabs, the Romans and other
ancient peoples, sheep, and especially rams, were very commonly used
as a medium of payment in case of debt, and especially in paying
tribute.
Thus we read (2 Kings iii. 4), that Mesha, king of Moab, rendered unto
the king of Israel "an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand
rams, with the wool," in payment of tribute; and, at a later day,
Isaiah (xvi. 1, R.V.) delivers to Moab the mandate of Jehovah: "Send
ye the lambs for the ruler of the land ... unto the mount of the
daughter of Zion."
And so the ram having been brought and presented by the guilty person,
with confession of his fault, it was slain by the priest, like the
sin-offering. The blood, however, was not applied to the horns of the
altar of burnt-offering, still less brought into the Holy Place, as in
the case of the sin-offering; but (vii. 2) was to be sprinkled "upon
the altar round about," as in the burnt-offering. The reason of this
difference in the application of the blood, as above remarked, lies in
this, that, as in the burnt-offering, the idea of sacrifice as
symbolising expiation takes a place secondary and subordinate to
another thought; in this case, the conception of sacrifice as
representing satisfaction for trespass.
The next section (vv. 17-19) does not expressly mention sins of
trespass; for which reason some have thought that it was essentially a
repetition of the law of the sin-offering. But that it is not to be so
regarded is plain from the fact that the victim is still the same as
for the guilt-offering, and from the explicit statement (ver. 19) that
this "is a guilt-offering." The inference is natural that the
prescription still has reference to "trespass in the holy things of
the Lord;" and the class of cases intended is probably indicated by
the phrase, "though he knew it not." In the former section, the law
provided for cases in which though the trespass had been done
unwittingly, yet the offender afterward came to know of the trespass
in its precise extent, so as to give an exact basis for the
restitution ordered in such cases. But it is quite supposable that
there might be cases in which, although the offender was aware that
there had been a probable trespass, such as to burden his conscience,
he yet knew not just how much it was. The ordinance is only in so far
modified as such a case would make necessary; where there was no exact
knowledge of the amount of trespass, obviously there the law of
restitution with the added fifth could not be applied. Yet, none the
less, the man is guilty; he "bears his iniquity," that is, he is
liable to the penalty of his fault; and in order to the
re-establishment of his covenant relation with God, the ram must be
offered as a guilt-offering.
It is suggestive to observe the emphasis which is laid upon the
necessity of the guilt-offering, even in such cases. Three times,
reference is explicitly made to this fact of ignorance, as not
affecting the requirement of the guilt-offering: (ver. 17) "Though he
knew it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity;" and again
(ver. 18), with special explicitness, "The priest shall make atonement
for him concerning the thing wherein he erred unwittingly and knew it
not;" and yet again (ver. 19), "It is a guilt-offering: he is
certainly guilty before the Lord." The repetition is an urgent
reminder that in this case, as in all others, we are never to forget
that however our ignorance of a trespass at the time, or even lack of
definite knowledge regarding its nature and extent, may affect the
degree of our guilt, it cannot affect the fact of our guilt, and the
consequent necessity for satisfaction in order to acceptance with God.
* * * * *
The second section of the law of the guilt-offering (vi. 1-7) deals
with trespasses against man, as also, like trespasses against Jehovah,
requiring, in order to forgiveness from God, full restitution with the
added fifth, and the offering of the ram as a guilt-offering. Five
cases are named (vv. 2, 3,), no doubt as being common, typical
examples of sins of this character.
The first case is trespass upon a neighbour's rights in "a matter of
deposit;" where a man has entrusted something to another to keep, and
he has either sold it or unlawfully used it as if it were his own. The
second case takes in all fraud in a "bargain," as when, for example, a
man sells goods, or a piece of land, representing them to be better
than they really are, or asking a price larger than he knows an
article to be really worth. The third instance is called "robbery;" by
which we are to understand any act or process, even though it should
be under colour of legal forms, by means of which a man may manage
unjustly to get possession of the property of his neighbour, without
giving him due equivalent therefor. The fourth instance is called
"oppression" of his neighbour. The English word contains the same
image as the Hebrew word, which is used, for instance, of the
unnecessary retention of the wages of the _employé_ by the employer
(xix. 13); it may be applied to all cases in which a man takes
advantage of another's circumstances to extort from him any thing or
any service to which he has no right, or to force upon him something
which it is to the poor man's disadvantage to take. The last example
of offences to which the law of the guilt-offering applied, is the
case in which a man finds something and then denies it to the rightful
owner. The reference to false swearing which follows, as appears from
ver. 5, refers not merely to lying and perjury concerning this
last-named case, but equally to all cases in which a man may lie or
swear falsely to the pecuniary damage of his neighbour. It is
mentioned not merely as aggravating such sin, but because in swearing
touching any matter, a man appeals to God as witness to the truth of
his words; so that by swearing in these cases he represents God as a
party to his falsehood and injustice.
In all these cases, the prescription is the same as in analogous
offences in the holy things of Jehovah. First of all, the guilty man
must confess the wrong which he has done (Numb. v. 7), then
restitution must be made of all of which he has defrauded his
neighbour, together with one-fifth additional. But while this may set
him right with man, it has not yet set him right with God. He must
bring his guilt-offering unto Jehovah (vv. 6, 7); "a ram without
blemish out of the flock, according to the priest's estimation, for a
guilt offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make atonement
for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven; concerning
whatsoever he doeth so as to be guilty thereby."
And this completes the law of the guilt-offering. It was thus
prescribed for sins which involve a defrauding or injuring of another
in respect to material things, whether God or man, whether knowingly
or unwittingly. The law was one and unalterable for all; the condition
of pardon was plenary restitution for the wrong done, and the offering
of a costly sacrifice, appraised as such by the priest, the earthly
representative of God, in the shekel of the sanctuary, "a ram without
blemish out of the flock."
There are lessons from this ordinance, so plain that, even in the dim
light of those ancient days, the Israelite might discern and
understand them. And they are lessons which, because man and his ways
are the same as then, and God the same as then, are no less pertinent
to all of us to-day.
Thus we are taught by this law that God claims from man, and
especially from His own people, certain rights of property, of which
He will not allow Himself to be defrauded, even through man's
forgetfulness or inadvertence. In a later day Israel was sternly
reminded of this in the burning words of Jehovah by the prophet
Malachi (iii. 8, 9): "Will a man rob God? yet ye rob me. But ye say,
Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed
with the curse; for ye rob me, even this whole nation." Nor has God
relaxed His claim in the present dispensation. For the Apostle Paul
charges the Corinthian Christians (2 Cor. viii. 7), in the name of the
Lord, with regard to their gifts, that as they abounded in other
graces, so they should "abound in this grace also." And this is the
first lesson brought before us in the law of the guilt-offering. God
claims His tithe, His first-fruit, and the fulfilment of all vows. It
was a lesson for that time; it is no less a lesson for our time.
And the guilt-offering further reminds us that as God has rights, so
man also has rights, and that Jehovah, as the King and Judge of men,
will exact the satisfaction of those rights, and will pass over no
injury done by man to his neighbour in material things, nor forgive it
unto any man, except upon condition of the most ample material
restitution to the injured party.
Then, yet again, if the sin-offering called especially for _faith_ in
an expiatory sacrifice as the condition of the Divine forgiveness, the
guilt-offering as specifically called also for _repentance_, as a
condition of pardon, no less essential. Its unambiguous message to
every Israelite was the same as that of John the Baptist at a later
day (Matt. iii. 8, 9): "Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance: and
think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father."
The reminder is as much needed now as in the days of Moses. How
specific and practical the selection of the particular instances
mentioned as cases for the application of the inexorable law of the
guilt-offering! Let us note them again, for they are not cases
peculiar to Israel or to the fifteenth century before Christ. "If any
one ... deal falsely with his neighbour in a matter of deposit;" as,
_e.g._, in the case of moneys entrusted to a bank or railway company,
or other corporation; for there is no hint that the law did not apply
except to individuals, or that a man might be released from these
stringent obligations of righteousness whenever in some such evil
business he was associated with others; the guilt-offering must be
forthcoming, with the amplest restitution, or there is no pardon. Then
false dealing in a "bargain" is named, as involving the same
requirement; as when a man prides himself on driving "a good bargain,"
by getting something unfairly for less than its value, taking
advantage of his neighbour's straits; or by selling something for more
than its value, taking advantage of his neighbour's ignorance, or his
necessity. Then is mentioned "robbery;" by which word is covered not
merely that which goes by the name in polite circles, but all cases in
which a man takes advantage of his neighbour's distress or
helplessness, perhaps by means of some technicality of law, to "strip"
him, as the Hebrew word is, of his property of any kind. And next is
specified the man who may "have oppressed his neighbour," especially a
man or woman who serves him, as the usage of the word suggests;
grinding thus the face of the poor; paying, for instance, less for
labour than the law of righteousness and love demands, because the
poor man must have work or starve with his house. What sweeping
specifications! And all such, in all lands and all ages, are solemnly
reminded in the law of the guilt-offering that in these their sharp
practices they have to reckon not with man merely, but with God; and
that it is utterly vain for a man to hope for the forgiveness of sin
from God, offering or no offering, so long as he has in his pocket his
neighbour's money. For all such, full restoration with the added
fifth, according to the law of the theocratic kingdom, was the
unalterable condition of the Divine forgiveness; and we shall find
that this law of the theocratic kingdom will also be the law applied
in the adjudications of the great white throne.
Furthermore, in that it was particularly enjoined that in the
estimation of the value of the guilt-offering, not the shekel of the
people, often of light weight, but the full weight "shekel of the
sanctuary" was to be held the invariable standard; we, who are so apt
to ease things to our consciences by applying to our conduct the
principles of judgment current among men, are plainly taught that if
we will have our trespasses forgiven, the reparation and restitution
which we make must be measured, not by the standard of men, but by
that of God, which is absolute righteousness.
Yet again, in that in the case of all such trespasses on the rights of
God or man it was ordained that the offering, unlike other sacrifices
intended to teach other lessons, should be one and the same, whether
the offender were rich or poor; we are taught that the extent of our
moral obligations or the conditions of their equitable discharge are
not determined by a regard to our present ability to make them good.
Debt is debt by whomsoever owed. If a man have appropriated a hundred
pounds of another man's money, the moral obligation of that debt
cannot be abrogated by a bankrupt law, allowing him to compromise at
ten shillings in the pound. The law of man may indeed release him from
liability to prosecution, but no law can discharge such a man from the
unalterable obligation to pay penny for penny, farthing for farthing.
There is no bankrupt law in the kingdom of God. This, too, is
evidently a lesson quite as much needed by Gentiles and nominal
Christians in the nineteenth century after Christ, as by Hebrews in
the fifteenth century before Christ.
But the spiritual teaching of the guilt-offering is not yet exhausted.
For, like all the other offerings, it pointed to Christ. He is "the
end of the law unto righteousness" (Rom. x. 4), as regards the
guilt-offering, as in all else. As the burnt-offering prefigured
Christ the heavenly Victim, in one aspect, and the peace-offering,
Christ in another aspect, so the guilt-offering presents to our
adoring contemplation yet another view of His sacrificial work. While,
as our burnt-offering, He became our _righteousness_ in full
self-consecration; as our peace-offering, our _life_; as our
sin-offering, the _expiation_ for our sins; so, as our guilt-offering,
He made _satisfaction_ and plenary reparation in our behalf to the God
on whose inalienable rights in us, by our sins we had trespassed
without measure.
Nor is this an over-refinement of exposition. For in Isa. liii. 10,
where both the Authorised and the Revised Versions read, "shall make
his soul _an offering for sin_," the margin of the latter rightly
calls attention to the fact that in the Hebrew the word here used is
the very same which through all this Levitical law is rendered
"guilt-offering." And so we are expressly told by this evangelic
prophet, that the Holy Servant of Jehovah, the suffering Messiah, in
this His sacrificial work should make His soul "a guilt-offering." He
became Himself the complete and exhaustive realisation of all that in
sacrifice which was set forth in the Levitical guilt-offering.
A declaration this is which holds forth both the sin for which Christ
atoned, and the Sacrifice itself, in a very distinct and peculiar
light. In that Christ's sacrifice was thus a guilt-offering in the
sense of the law, we are taught that, in one aspect, our sins are
regarded by God, and should therefore be regarded by us, as debts
which are due from us to God. This is, indeed, by no means the only
aspect in which sin should be regarded; it is, for example, rebellion,
high treason, a deadly affront to the Supreme Majesty, which must be
expiated with the blood of the sin-offering. But our sins are also of
the nature of debts. That is, God has claims on us for service which
we have never met; claims for a portion of our substance which we have
often withheld, or given grudgingly, trespassing thus in "the holy
things of the Lord." Just as the servant who is set to do his master's
work, if, instead, he take that time to do his own work, is debtor to
the full value of the service of which his master is thus defrauded,
so stands the case between the sinner and God. Just as with the agent
who fails to make due returns to his principal on the moneys committed
to him for investment, using them instead for himself, so stands the
case between God and the sinner who has used his talents, not for the
Lord, but for himself, or has kept them laid up, unused, in a napkin.
Thus, in the New Testament, as the correlate of this representation of
Christ as a guilt-offering, we find sin again and again set forth as a
debt which is owed from man to God. So, in the Lord's prayer we are
taught to pray, "Forgive us our debts;" so, twice the Lord Himself in
His parables (Matt. xviii. 23-35; Luke vii. 41, 42) set forth the
relation of the sinner to God as that of the debtor to the creditor;
and concerning those on whom the tower of Siloam fell, asks (Luke
xiii. 4), "Think ye that they were sinners (_Greek_ 'debtors,') above
all that dwelt in Jerusalem?" Indeed so imbedded is this thought in
the conscience of man that it has been crystallised in our word
"ought," which is but the old preterite of "owe;" as in Tyndale's New
Testament, where we read (Luke vii. 41), "there was a certain lender,
which ought him five hundred pence." What a startling conception is
this, which forms the background to the great "guilt-offering"! Man a
debtor to God! a debtor for service each day due, but no day ever
fully and perfectly rendered! in gratitude for gifts, too often quite
forgotten, oftener only paid in scanty part! We are often burdened and
troubled greatly about our debts to men; shall we not be concerned
about the enormous and ever accumulating debt to God! Or is He an easy
creditor, who is indifferent whether these debts of ours be met or
not? So think multitudes; but this is not the representation of
Scripture, either in the Old or the New Testament. For in the law it
was required, that if a man, guilty of any of these offences for the
forgiveness of which the guilt-offering was prescribed, failed to
confess and bring the offering, and make the restitution with the
added fifth, as commanded by the law, he should be brought before the
judges, and the full penalty of law exacted, on the principle of "an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!" And in the New Testament, one of
those solemn parables of the two debtors closes with the awful words
concerning one of them who was "delivered to the tormentors," that he
should not come out of prison till he had "paid the uttermost
farthing." Not a hint is there in Holy Scripture, of forgiveness of
our debts to God, except upon the one condition of full restitution
made to Him to whom the debt is due, and therewith the sacrificial
blood of a guilt-offering. But Christ is our Guilt-Offering. He is our
Guilt-Offering, in that He Himself did that, really and fully, with
respect to all our debts as sinful men to God, which the
guilt-offering of Leviticus symbolised, but accomplished not. His soul
He made a guilt-offering for our trespasses! Isaiah's words imply that
He should make full restitution for all that of which we, as sinners,
defraud God. He did this by that perfect and incomparable service of
lowly obedience such as we should render, but have never rendered; in
which He has made full satisfaction to God for all our innumerable
debts. He has made such satisfaction, not by a convenient legal
fiction, or in a rhetorical figure, or as judged by any human
standard. Even as the ram of the guilt-offering was appraised
according to "the shekel of the sanctuary," so upon our Lord, at the
beginning of that life of sacrificial service, was solemnly passed the
Divine verdict that with this antitypical Victim of the
Guilt-Offering, God Himself was "well pleased" (Matt. iii. 17).
Not only so. For we cannot forget that according to the law, not only
the full restitution must be made, but the fifth must be added
thereto. So with our Lord. For who will not confess that Christ not
only did all that we should have done, but, in the ineffable depth of
His self-humiliation and obedience unto death, even the death of the
cross, paid therewith the added fifth of the law. Said a Jewish Rabbi
to the writer, "I have never been able to finish reading in the Gospel
the story of the Jesus of Nazareth; for it too soon brings the tears
to my eyes!" So affecting even to Jewish unbelief was this
unparalleled spectacle, the adorable Son of God making Himself a
guilt-offering, and paying, in the incomparable perfection of His holy
obedience, the added fifth in our behalf! Thus has Christ "magnified
this law" of the guilt-offering, and "made it honourable," even as He
did all law (Isa. xlii. 21).
And, as is intimated, by the formal valuation of the sacrificial ram,
in the type, even the death of Christ as the guilt-offering, in one
aspect is to be regarded as the consummating act of service in the
payment of debts Godward. Just as the sin-offering represented His
death in its passive aspect, as meeting the demands of justice against
the sinner as a rebel under sentence of death, by dying in his stead,
so, on the other hand, the guilt-offering represents that same
sacrificial death, rather in another aspect, no less clearly set forth
in the New Testament; namely, the supreme act of obedience to the will
of God, whereby He discharged "to the uttermost farthing," even with
the added fifth of the law, all the transcendent debt of service due
from man to God.
This representation of Christ's work has in all ages been an offence,
"the offence of the cross." All the more need we to insist upon it,
and never to forget, or let others forget, that Christ is expressly
declared in the Word of God to have been "a guilt-offering," in the
Levitical sense of that term; that, therefore, to speak of His death
as effecting our salvation merely through its moral influence, is to
contradict and nullify the Word of God. Well may we set this word in
Isa. liii. 10, concerning the Servant of Jehovah, against all modern
Unitarian theology, and against all Socinianising teaching; all that
would maintain any view of Christ's death which excludes or ignores
the divinely revealed fact that it was in its essential nature a
guilt-offering; and, because a guilt-offering, therefore of the nature
of the payment of a debt in behalf of those for whom He suffered.
Most blessed truth this, for all who can receive it! Christ, the Son
of God, our Guilt-Offering! Like the poor Israelite, who had defrauded
God of that which was His due, so must we do; coming before God,
confessing that wherein we have wronged Him, and bringing forth fruit
meet for repentance, we must bring and plead Christ in the glory of
His person, in all the perfection of His holy obedience, as our
Guilt-Offering. And therewith the ancient promise to the penitent
Israelite becomes ours (vi. 7), "The priest shall make atonement for
him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven; concerning whatsoever
he doeth so as to be guilty thereby."
CHAPTER IX.
_THE PRIESTS' PORTIONS._
LEV. vi. 16-18, 26; vii. 6-10, 14, 31-36.
After the law of the guilt-offering follows a section (vi. 8-vii. 38)
with regard to the offerings previously treated, but addressed
especially to the priests, as the foregoing were specially directed to
the people. Much of the contents of this section has already passed
before us, in anticipation of its order in the book, as this has
seemed necessary in order to a complete exposition of the several
offerings. An important part of the section, however, relating to the
portion of the offerings which was appointed for the priests, has been
passed by until now, and must claim our brief attention.
In the verses indicated above, it is ordered that of the
meal-offerings, the sin-offerings, and the guilt-offerings, all that
was not burnt, as also the wave-breast and the heave-shoulder of the
peace-offerings, should be for Aaron and his sons. In particular, it
is directed that the priest's portion of the sin-offering and the
guilt-offering shall be eaten by "the priest that maketh atonement
therewith" (vii. 7); and that of the meal-offerings prepared in the
oven, the frying-pan, or the baking-pan, all that is not burned upon
the altar, according to the law of chap. ii., shall be eaten by "the
priest that offereth it;" and that of every meal-offering mingled with
oil, or dry, the same part "shall all the sons of Aaron have, one as
well as another" (vii. 9, 10). Of the burnt-offering, all the flesh
being burned, the hide alone fell to the officiating priest as his
perquisite (vii. 8).
These regulations are explained in the concluding verses of the
section (vii. 35, 36) as follows, "This is the anointing-portion of
Aaron, and the anointing-portion of his sons, out of the offerings of
the Lord made by fire, in the day when he presented them to minister
unto the Lord in the priest's office; which the Lord commanded to be
given them of the children of Israel, in the day that he anointed
them. It is a due for ever throughout their generations."
Hence, it is plain that this use which was to be made of certain parts
of certain offerings does not touch the question of the consecration
of the whole to God. The whole of each offering is none the less
wholly accepted and appropriated by God, that He designates a part of
it to the maintenance of the priesthood. That even as thus used by the
priest it is used by him as something belonging to God, is indicated
by the phrase used, "it is most holy" (vi. 17); expressive words,
which in the law of the offerings always have a technical use, as
denoting those things of which only the sons of Aaron might partake,
and that only in the holy place. In the case of the meal-offering, its
peculiarly sacred character as belonging, the whole of it, exclusively
to God, is further marked by the additional injunctions that it should
be "eaten _without leaven_ in a holy place" (vi. 16); and that
whosoever touched these offerings should be holy (vi. 18); that is, he
should be as a man separated to God, under all the restrictions
(doubtless, without the privileges,) which belonged to the
priesthood, as men set apart for God's service. In the eating of their
portion of the various offerings by the priests, we are to recognise
no official act: we simply see the servants of God supported by the
bread of His table.
This last thought, which is absent in the case of no one of the
offerings,[12] is brought out with special clearness and fulness in
the ceremonial connected with the peace-offerings (vii. 28-34). In
this case, certain parts, the right thigh (or shoulder?) and the
breast, are set apart as the due of the priest. The selection of these
is determined by the principle which marks all the Levitical
legislation: God and those who represent Him are to be honoured by the
consecration of the best of everything. In the animals used upon the
altar, these were regarded as the choice parts, and are indeed
referred to as such in other Scriptures. But, in order that neither
the priest nor the people may imagine that the priest receives these
as a man from his fellow-men, but may understand that they are given
to God, and that it is from God that the priest now receives them, as
His servant, fed from His table; to this end, certain ceremonies were
ordained to be used with these parts; the breast was to be "heaved,"
the thigh was to be "waved," before the Lord. What was the meaning of
these actions?
[12] Even in the burnt-offering, the hide of the victim was
assigned to the priest (vii. 8).
The breast was to be "heaved;" that is, elevated heavenward. The
symbolic meaning of this act can scarcely be missed. By it, the priest
acknowledged his dependence upon God for the supply of this
sacrificial food, and, again, by this act consecrated it anew to Him
as the One that sitteth in the heavens.
But God is not only the One that "sitteth in the heavens;" He is the
God who has condescended also to dwell among men, and especially in
the tent of meeting in the midst of Israel. And thus, as by the
elevation of the breast heavenward, God, the Giver, was recognised as
the One enthroned in heaven, so by the "waving" of the thigh, which,
as the rabbis tell us, was a movement backward and forward, to and
from the altar, He was recognised also as Jehovah, who had
condescended from heaven to dwell in the midst of His people. Like the
"heaving," so the "waving," then, was an act of acknowledgment and
consecration to God; the former, to God, as in heaven, the God of
creation; the other, to God, as the God of the altar, the God of
redemption. And that this is the true significance of these acts is
illustrated by the fact that in the Pentateuch, in the account of the
gold and silver brought by the people for the preparation of the
tabernacle (Exod. xxxv. 22), the same word is used to describe the
presentation of these offerings which is here used of the
wave-offering.
And so in the peace-offering the principle is amply illustrated upon
which the priests received their dues. The worshippers bring their
offerings, and present them, not to the priest, but through him to
God; who, then, having used such parts as He will in the service of
the sanctuary, gives again such parts of them as He pleases to the
priests.
The lesson of these arrangements lies immediately before us. They were
intended to teach Israel, and, according to the New Testament, are
also designed to teach us, that it is the will of God that those who
give up secular occupations to devote themselves to the ministry of
His house should be supported by the free-will offerings of God's
people. Very strange indeed it is to hear a few small sects in our day
denying this. For the Apostle Paul argues at length to this effect,
and calls the attention of the Corinthians (1 Cor. ix. 13, 14) to the
fact that the principle expressed in this ordinance of the law of
Moses has not been set aside, but holds good in this dispensation.
"Know ye not that they which ... wait upon the altar have their
portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that they which
proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel." The principle plainly
covers the case of all such as give up secular callings to devote
themselves to the ministry of the Word, whether to proclaim the Gospel
in any of the great mission fields, or to exercise the pastorate of
the local church. Such are ever to be supported out of the consecrated
offerings of God's people.
To point in disparagement of modern "hireling" ministers and
missionaries, as some have done, to the case of Paul, who laboured
with his own hands, that he might not be chargeable to those to whom
he ministered, is singularly inapt, seeing that in the chapter above
referred to he expressly vindicates his right to receive of the
Corinthians his support, and in this Second Epistle to them even seems
to express a doubt (2 Cor. xii. 13) whether in refusing, as he did, to
receive support from them, he had not done them a "wrong," making them
thus "inferior to the rest of the churches," from whom, in fact, he
did receive such material aid (Phil. iv. 10, 16).
And if ever claims of this kind upon our benevolence and liberality
seem to be heavy, and if to nature the burden is sometimes irksome,
we shall do well to remember that the requirement is not of man, and
not of the Church, but of God. It comes to us with the double
authority of the Old and New Testament, of the Law and the Gospel. And
it will certainly help us all to give to these ends the more gladly,
if we keep that in mind which the Levitical law so carefully kept
before Israel, that the giving was to be regarded by them as not to
the priesthood, but to the Lord, and that in our giving outwardly to
support the ministry of God's Word, we give, really, to the Lord
Himself. And it stands written (Matt. x. 42): "Whosoever shall give to
drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, ... he
shall in no wise lose his reward."
CHAPTER X.
_THE CONSECRATION OF AARON AND HIS SONS, AND OF THE TABERNACLE._
LEV. viii. 1-36.
The second section of the book of Leviticus (viii. 1-x. 20) is
historical, and describes (viii.) the consecration of the tabernacle
and of Aaron and his sons, (ix.) their induction into the duties of
their office, and, finally (x.), the terrible judgment by which the
high sanctity of the priestly office and of the tabernacle service was
very solemnly impressed upon them and all the people.
First in order (chap. viii.) is described the ceremonial of
consecration. We read (vv. 1-4): "And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the
anointing oil, and the bullock of the sin offering, and the two rams,
and the basket of unleavened bread; and assemble thou all the
congregation at the door of the tent of meeting. And Moses did as the
Lord commanded him; and the congregation was assembled at the door of
the tent of meeting."
These words refer us back to Exod. xxviii., xxix., in which are
recorded the full directions previously given for the making of the
garments and the oil of anointing, and for the ceremonial of the
consecration of the priests. The law of offerings having been
delivered, Moses now proceeds to consecrate Aaron and his sons to the
priestly office, according to the commandment given; and to this end,
by Divine direction, he orders "all the congregation" to be assembled
"at the door of the tent of meeting." In this last statement some have
seen a sufficient reason for rejecting the whole account as fabulous,
insisting that it is palpably absurd to suppose that a congregation
numbering some millions could be assembled at the door of a single
tent! But, surely, if the words are to be taken in the ultra-literal
sense required in order to make out this difficulty, the impossibility
must have been equally evident to the supposed fabricator of the
fiction; and it is yet more absurd to suppose that he should ever have
intended his words to be pressed to such a rigid literality. Two
explanations lie before us, either of which meets the supposed
difficulty; the one, that endorsed by Dillmann,[13] that the
congregation was gathered in their appointed representatives; the
other, that which refuses to see in the words a statement that every
individual in the nation was literally "at the door," and further
reminds us that, inasmuch as the ceremonies of the consecration are
said to have continued seven days, we are not, by the terms of the
narrative, required to believe that all, in any sense, were present,
either at the very beginning or at any one time during that week. It
is not too much to say that by a captious criticism of this kind, any
narrative, however sober, might be shown to be absurd.
[13] See "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 462.
The consecration ceremonial was introduced by a solemn declaration
made by Moses to assembled Israel, that the impressive rites which
they were now about to witness, were of Divine appointment. We read
(ver. 5), "Moses said unto the congregation, This is the thing which
the Lord hath commanded to be done."
Just here we may pause to note the great emphasis which the narrative
lays upon this fact of the Divine appointment of all pertaining to
these consecration rites. Not only is this Divine ordination of all
thus declared at the beginning, but in connection with each of the
chief parts of the ceremonial the formula is repeated, "as the Lord
commanded Moses." Also, at the close of the first day's rites, Moses
twice reminds Aaron and his sons that this whole ritual, in all its
parts, is for them an ordinance of God, and is to be regarded
accordingly, upon pain of death (vv. 34, 35). And the narrative of the
chapter closes (ver. 36) with the words, "Aaron and his sons did all
the things which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses." Twelve
times in this one chapter is reference thus made to the Divine
appointment of these consecration rites.
This is full of significance and instruction. It is of the highest
importance in an apologetic way. For it is self-evident that this
twelvefold affirmation, twelve times directly contradicts the modern
theory of the late origin and human invention of the Levitical
priesthood. There is no evading of the issue which is thus placed
squarely before us. To talk of the inspiration from God, in any sense
possible to that word, of a writing containing such affirmations, so
numerous, formal, and emphatic, if the critics referred to are right,
and these affirmations are all false, is absurd. There is no such
thing as inspired falsehood.
Again, a great spiritual truth is herein brought before us, which
concerns believers in all ages. It is set forth in so many words in
Heb. v. 4, where the writer, laying down the essential conditions of
priesthood, specially mentions Divine appointment as one of these;
which he affirms as satisfied in the high-priesthood of Christ: "No
man taketh the honour unto himself, but when he is called of God, even
as was Aaron. So Christ also glorified not Himself to be made a high
priest." Fundamental to Christian faith and life is this thought:
priesthood is not of man, but of God. In particular, in all that
Christ has done and is still doing as the High Priest, in the true
holiest, He is acting under Divine appointment.
And we are hereby pointed to the truth of which some may need to be
reminded, that the work of our Lord in our behalf, and that of the
whole universe into which sin has entered, has its cause and origin in
the mind and gracious will of the Father. It was in His
incomprehensible love, who appointed the priestly office, that the
whole work of atonement, and therewith purification and full
redemption, had its mysterious origin. The thoughtful reader of the
Gospels will hardly need to be reminded how constantly our blessed
Lord, in the days of His high-priestly service upon earth, acted in
all that He did under the consciousness, often expressed, of His
appointment by the Father to this work. Thus, Aaron in the solemn
ceremonial of those days of consecration, as ever afterward, doing
"all the things which the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses," in so
doing fitly represented Him who should come afterward, who said of
Himself (John vi. 38), "I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own
will, but the will of Him that sent Me."
THE LEVITICAL PRIESTHOOD AND TABERNACLE AS TYPES.
In order to any profitable study of the following ceremonial, it is
indispensable to have distinctly before us the New Testament teaching
as to the typical significance of the priesthood and the tabernacle. A
few words on this subject, therefore, seem to be needful as
preliminary to more detailed exposition. As to the typical character
of Aaron, as high priest, the New Testament leaves us no room for
doubt. Throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is held forth as
the true and heavenly High Priest, of whom Aaron, with his successors,
was an eminent type.
As regards the other priests, while it is true that, considered in
themselves, and without reference to the high priest, each of them
also, in the performance of his daily functions in the tabernacle, was
a lesser type of Christ, as is intimated in Heb. x. 11, yet, as
contrasted with the high priest, who was ever one, while they were
many, it is plain that another typical reference must be sought for
the ordinary priesthood. What that may be is suggested to us in
several New Testament passages; as, especially, in Rev. v. 10, where
the whole body of believers, bought by the blood of the slain Lamb, is
said to have been made "unto our God a kingdom and priests;" with
which may be compared Heb. xiii. 10, where it is said, "We have an
altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle";
words which plainly assume the priesthood of all believers in Christ,
as the antitype of the priesthood of the Levitical tabernacle.[14]
[14] Especially striking in this connection is the expression
used by the Apostle Paul (Rom. xv. 16), where he speaks of
himself as "a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles,
ministering the Gospel of God;" in which last phrase, the Greek
word denotes "ministration as a priest." See R.V., margin.
As to the typical meaning of the tabernacle, which also is anointed in
the consecration ceremonial, there has been much difference of
opinion. That it was typical is declared, in so many words, in the
Epistle to the Hebrews (viii. 5), where the Levitical priests are said
to have served "that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly
things;" as also ix. 24, where we read, "Christ entered not into a
holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into
heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us." But when
we ask what then were "the heavenly things" of which the tabernacle
was "the copy and shadow," we have different answers.
Many have replied that the antitype of the tabernacle, as of the
temple, was the Church of believers; and, at first thought, with some
apparent Scriptural reason. For it is certain that Christians are
declared (1 Cor. iii. 16) to be the temple of the living God; where,
however, it is to be noted that the original word denotes, not the
temple or tabernacle in general, but the "sanctuary" or inner
shrine--the "holy of holies." More to the point is 1 Peter ii. 5,
where it is said to Christians, "Ye also, as living stones, are built
up a spiritual house." Such passages as these do certainly warrant us
in saying that the tabernacle, and especially the inner sanctuary, as
the special place of the Divine habitation and manifestation, did in
so far typify the Church.
But when we consider the tabernacle, not in itself, but in relation to
its priesthood and ministry, the explanation fails, and we fall into
confusion. As when the priests are considered, not in themselves, but
in their relation to the high priest, we are compelled to seek an
antitype different from the Antitype of the high priest, so in this
case. To identify the typical meaning of the tabernacle, considered as
a part of a whole system and order, with that of the priesthood who
serve in it, is to throw that whole typical system into confusion.
Furthermore, this cannot be harmonised with a number of New Testament
expressions with regard to the tabernacle and temple, as related to
the high priesthood of our Lord. It is hard to see, for example, how
the Church of believers could be properly described as "things in the
heavens." Moreover, we are expressly taught (Heb. ix. 24), that the
Antitype of the Holy Place into which the high priest entered every
year, with blood, was "heaven itself," "the presence of God;" and
again, His ascension to the right hand of God is described (Heb. iv.
14, R.V.), with evident allusion to the passing of the high priest
through the Holy Place into the Holiest, as a passing "_through_ the
heavens;" and also (Heb. ix. 11), as an entering into the Holy Place,
"through the greater and more perfect tabernacle." These expressions
exclude reference to the Church of Christ as the antitype of the
earthly tabernacle.
Others, again, have regarded the tabernacle as a type of the human
nature of Christ, referring in proof to John ii. 19-21, where our Lord
speaks of "the temple of His body;" and also to Heb. x. 19, 20, where
it is said that believers have access to the Holiest "by a new and
living way, which He dedicated for us through the veil, that is to
say, His flesh."
As regards the first of these passages, we should note that the
original word is, again, not the word for the temple in general, but
that which is invariably used to denote the inner sanctuary, as the
special shrine of Jehovah's presence: so that it really gives us no
warrant for affirming that the tabernacle, _as a whole_, was a type of
our Lord's humanity; nor, on that supposition, does it seem possible
to explain the meaning of the three parts into which the tabernacle
was divided. And the second passage referred to is no more to the
point. For the writer had only a little before described the
tabernacle as a "pattern of things in the heavens;" words which,
surely, could not be applied to the humanity in which our Lord
appeared in His incarnation and humiliation,--a humanity which was not
a thing "of the heavens," but of the earth. The reference to the
"flesh" of Christ, as being the veil through which He passed into the
Holiest (Heb. x. 19, 20) is merely by way of illustration, and not of
typical interpretation. The thought of the inspired writer appears to
be this: Just as, in the Levitical tabernacle, the veil must be parted
before the high priest could go into the Holiest Place, even so was it
necessary that the flesh of our Lord should be rent in order that
thus, through death, it might be possible for Him to enter into the
true holiest. The thought has been happily expressed by Delitzsch,
thus: "While He was with us here below, the weak, limit-bound, and
mortal flesh which He had assumed for our sakes hung like a curtain
between Him and the Divine sanctuary into which He would enter; and in
order to such entrance, this curtain had to be withdrawn by death,
even as the high priest had to draw aside the temple veil in order to
make his entry to the Holy of Holies."[15]
[15] "Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews," vol. ii., p.
172.
Not to review other opinions on this matter, the various expressions
used constrain us to regard the tabernacle as typifying the universe
itself, measured and appointed in all its parts by infinite wisdom, as
the abode of Him who "filleth immensity with His presence," the place
of the Divine manifestation, and the abode of His holiness. In the
outer court, where the victims were offered, we have this world of
sense in which we live, in which our Lord was offered in the sight of
all; in the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, the unseen and
heavenly worlds, through the former of which our Lord is represented
as having passed (Heb. iv. 14, ix. 11) that He might appear with His
blood in the true Holiest, where God in the innermost shrine of His
glory "covereth Himself with light as with a garment." For this
cosmical dwelling-place of the Most High God has been defiled by sin,
which, as it were, has profaned the whole sanctuary; for we read (Col.
i. 20), that not only "things upon the earth," but also "things in the
heavens," are to be "reconciled" through Christ, even "through the
blood of His cross;" and, still more explicitly, to the same effect
(Heb. ix. 23), that as the typical "copies of the things in the
heavens" needed to be cleansed with the blood of bullocks and of
goats, so "it was necessary that ... the heavenly things themselves
should be cleansed with better sacrifices than these." And so, at this
present time, Christ, as the High Priest of this cosmical tabernacle,
"not made with hands," having offered His great sacrifice for sins for
ever, is now engaged in carrying out His work of cleansing the people
of God, and the earthly and the heavenly sanctuary, to the uttermost
completion.
With these preliminary words, which have seemed essential to the
exposition of these chapters, we are now prepared to consider the
ceremonial of the consecration of the priesthood and tabernacle, and
the spiritual meaning which it was intended to convey.
THE WASHING WITH WATER.
viii. 6.
"And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with
water."
The consecration ceremonies consisted of four parts, namely, the
Washing, the Investiture, the Anointing, and the Sacrifices. Of these,
first in order was the _Washing_. We read that "Moses"--acting
throughout, we must remember, as Mediator, representing God--"brought
Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water." The meaning of this
act is so evident as not to have been called in question. Washing ever
signifies cleansing; the ceremonial cleansing of the body, therefore,
in symbol ever represents the inward purification of the spirit.
Of this usage the Biblical illustrations are very numerous. Thus, the
spiritual purification of Israel in the latter day is described (Isa.
iv. 4) by the same word as is used here, as a washing away of "the
filth of the daughters of Zion" by the Lord. So, again, in the New
Testament, we read that Christ declared unto Nicodemus that in order
to see the kingdom of God a man must be born again, "of water and the
Spirit," and in the Epistle to Titus (iii. 5) we read of a cleansing
of the Church "with the washing (_marg._, laver) of water, by the
Word," even the "washing of regeneration." The symbolism in this case,
therefore, points to cleansing from the defilement of sin as a
fundamental condition of priesthood. As regards our Lord indeed, such
cleansing was no more needed for His high priesthood than was the
sin-offering for Himself; for in His holy incarnation, though He took
our nature indeed with all the consequences and infirmities consequent
on sin He was yet "without sin." But all the more it was necessary in
the symbolism that if Aaron was to typify the sinless Christ of God he
must be cleansed with water, in type of the cleansing of human nature,
without which no man can approach to God. And in that not only Aaron,
but also his sons, the ordinary priests, were thus cleansed, we are in
the ordinance significantly pointed to the deep spiritual truth that
they who are called to be priests to God must be qualified for this
office, first of all, by the cleansing of their human nature through
the washing of regeneration, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
THE INVESTITURE.
viii. 7-9.
"And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle,
and clothed him with the robe, and put the ephod upon him, and he
girded him with the cunningly woven band of the ephod, and bound
it unto him therewith. And he placed the breastplate upon him:
and in the breastplate he put the Urim and the Thummim. And he
set the mitre upon his head: and upon the mitre, in front, did he
set the golden plate, the holy crown; as the Lord commanded
Moses."
The next ceremony of the consecration was the Investiture of Aaron
with his official, high-priestly robes, as they had been appointed of
God to be made (Exod. xxviii.). The investiture of the sons of Aaron
significantly takes place only after the anointing of the tabernacle,
and of Aaron as high priest. Of the investiture of Aaron we read in
vv. 7-9, above.
As these garments were official, we must needs regard them as
symbolical; a thought which is the more emphasised by the very minute
and special directions given by the Lord for making them. Nothing was
left to the fancy of man; all was prescribed by the Lord. The official
robes of the high priest consisted of eight pieces, four of which,
the coat, the girdle, the turban (or "mitre"), and the breeches, were,
with the exception of the turban, of white linen, and identical in
every respect with the official dress of the ordinary priests.
Four pieces more were peculiar to himself, the special insignia of his
office, and unlike the dress of the ordinary priest, were richly made
in gold and various colours, "garments for glory and for beauty."
These were: the robe of the ephod, made all of blue, with a border of
pendant pomegranates and golden bells in alternation; the ephod itself
consisting of two pieces, broidered in gold and blue, purple, scarlet,
and fine white linen, the one hanging in front, the other behind, over
the robe of the ephod, and joined on the shoulders with two onyx
stones, on which were graven the names of the twelve tribes, six on
the one shoulder and six on the other; it was girt about him with a
girdle of the same material and colours. The third was the
breast-plate, which was a double square of the same material and
colours as the ephod, within the fold of which, as it hung from his
shoulders by golden chains, was placed the Urim and the Thummim,
whatever these may have been, and upon the front of which were set
twelve precious stones, on which, severally, were engraved the names
of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. And the fourth and
last article of his attire was "the golden plate, the holy crown;" a
band of gold bound about his forehead over the turban, with blue lace,
on which were engraven the words, "Holiness to Jehovah."
This dress of the high priest represented him, in the first place, as
the appointed minister of the _tabernacle_. The number of pieces,
twice four, like the four of the common priests' attire, answered to
the four which was represented in the ground plan of the tabernacle,
quadrangular both in its form as a whole and in its several parts, the
Holy of Holies being a perfect cube; four being in Scripture
constantly the number which symbolises the universe, as created by God
and bearing witness to Him. So also the garments of the high priest
marked him as the minister of the tabernacle by their colours, also
four in number, and the same as those of the latter, namely, blue,
purple, scarlet, and white.
But the official robes of the high priest marked him, in the second
place, as the servant of _the God of the tabernacle_, whose livery he
wore. For these colours, various modifications of light, all thus had
a symbolic reference to the God of light, who made the universe of
which the Mosaic tabernacle was a type. Of these, the blue, the colour
of the overarching heaven, has been in many lands and religions
naturally regarded as the colour symbolising God, as the God of the
heaven, bowing to the earth in condescending love and self-revelation.
In like manner, we find it repeatedly recurring in the symbolic
manifestations of Jehovah in the Holy Scriptures, where it always
brings God before us with special reference to His condescending love
as entering into covenant with man, and revealing for their good His
holy law.[16] The purple, as will occur to every one, is everywhere
recognised as the colour of royalty, and therefore symbolised the
kingly exaltation and majesty of God, as the Ruler of heaven and
earth. The scarlet reminds us at once of the colour of blood, which
stands in the very foreground of the Mosaic symbolism as the symbol of
life, and thus points us to the conception of God, as the essentially
Living One, who is Himself the sole primal source of all life, whether
physical or spiritual, in the creature. No one can mistake, again, the
symbolic meaning of the white, which, not only in the Scripture, but
among all nations, has ever been the symbol of purity and holiness,
and thus represented the high priest as the minister of God, as the
Most Holy One. By this investiture, therefore, Aaron was symbolically
constituted the minister of the tabernacle, on the one hand, and of
God, on the other; and, in particular, of God as the God of
revelation, in covenant with Israel; of God as the Most High, the King
of Israel; of God as the God of life, the Giver of life in the
redemption of Israel; and, finally, of God as the Most Holy, the God
"who is light," and "with whom is no darkness at all."
[16] See, _e.g._, Exod. xxiv. 10; Ezek. i. 26.
The "robe of the ephod" was woven in one piece, and all of blue. In
that it was thus without seam, was symbolised the wholeness and
absolute integrity necessary to him who should bear the high priestly
office. In that it was made all of blue, the colour which symbolised
the God of heaven as manifesting Himself to Israel in condescending
love, in the holy law and covenant, this robe of the ephod specially
marked the high priest as the minister of Jehovah and of His revealed
law.
The ephod, which depended from the shoulders before and behind,
according to the usage of Scripture, was the garment specially
significant of rule and authority; a thought which reached full
expression in the breast-plate which was fastened to it, which
contained the Urim and Thummim, by which God's will was made known to
Israel in times of perplexity, and was called "the breast-plate of
judgment."
The ornamentation of these garments had also a symbolic meaning,
though it may not be in each instance equally clear. In that the high
priest, as thus robed, bore upon the ephod and the breast-plate of
judgment, graven on precious stones, the names of the twelve tribes of
Israel, he was marked as one who in all his high-priestly work before
and with God, presented and represented Israel. In that the names were
engraven upon precious stones was signified the exceeding preciousness
of Israel in God's sight, as His "peculiar treasure." In that, again,
they were worn upon his shoulders, Aaron was represented to Israel as
upholding and bearing them before God in the strength of his office;
in that he wore their names upon his breast, he was represented as
also bearing them upon his heart in love and affection.
The symbolic meaning of the pomegranates and golden bells, which
formed the border of the robe of the ephod, is not quite so clear. But
we may probably find a hint as to their significance in the Divine
direction as to the border of blue which every Israelite was to wear
upon the bottom of his garment (Numb. xv. 39). The purpose of this is
said to be that it might be for a continual reminder of the law: "It
shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember
all the commandments of the Lord, and do them." If then this border in
the garment of each individual member of the priestly nation was
designed symbolically to mark them as the keepers of the law of the
God of heaven, we may safely infer an analogous meaning in the similar
border to the official garment of the high priest. And if so, then we
shall perhaps not be far out of the way if in this case we follow
Jewish tradition in regarding the pomegranate, a fruit distinguished
by being filled to the full with seeds, as the symbol, _par
excellence_, of the law of commandments, the words of the living God,
as "incorruptible seed," endowed by Him with vital energy and
power.[17]
[17] Thus _e.g._, in Cant. iv. 13, where the Revised Version
reads, "Thy shoots are an orchard of pomegranates," the Jewish
paraphrast in the Chaldee Targum renders, "Thy young men are
filled with the commandments (of God) like unto pomegranates
(_sc._ with their seeds)."
As for the bells, we naturally think at once of the common use of the
bell to give a signal, and announce what one may be concerned to know.
So we read of these golden bells (Exod. xxviii. 35), "the sound
thereof shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before the
Lord ... that he die not."
These golden bells in the border of his garment, between each pair of
pomegranates, thus announced him as officially appearing before God as
the fulfiller of the law of commandments, and as, for this reason,
acceptable to God in the execution of his high-priestly functions.
As to the Urim and Thummim, "Light and Perfection," which were
apparently placed within the fold of the breast-plate of judgment, as
the tables of the law within the ark of the covenant, there has been
in all ages much debate; but what they were cannot be said to have
been certainly determined. Most probable appears the opinion that they
were two sacred lots, which on solemn occasions were used by the high
priest for determining the will of God. So much, in any case, is clear
from the Scriptures, that in some way through them the will of God as
the King of Israel was made known to the high priest, for the
direction of the nation in doubtful matters. Most fitly, therefore,
they were placed within the breast-plate of judgment, which, indeed,
may have received this name from this circumstance. The high priest,
therefore, as the bearer of the Urim and Thummim, was set forth, in
accordance with the meaning of these words, as one who in virtue of
his office received perfect enlightenment from God as to His will, in
all that concerned Israel's action.
The plate of graven gold, called the "holy crown," was bound by Moses
with a lace of blue upon the mitre of Aaron in front. The precious
metal here, as elsewhere in the official garments of the high priest,
and in the tabernacle, was symbolic of the boundless riches of the
glory of the God of Israel, whose minister the high priest was. The
special significance, however, of this holy crown, is found in the
words which appeared upon it, "Holiness to Jehovah." This was a
continual visible mark and reminder of the fact that the high priest,
in all that he was, and in all that he did, was a person in the
highest possible sense consecrated to Jehovah, the heavenly King of
Israel, whose livery he wore. And in that this golden plate with this
inscription is called his "crown," it is further suggested that in
this last-named fact is found the crowning glory and dignity of the
high priest's office. He is the minister of the God of Israel,
Jehovah, whose own supreme glory is just this, that He is holy. In the
directions given for this crown in Exod. xxviii. 36-38 it is said that
in virtue of his wearing this, or, rather, in virtue of the fact thus
set forth, "Aaron shall bear the iniquity of the holy things which the
children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall
always be upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the
Lord." That is, even Israel's consecrated things, their holiest
gifts, are yet defiled by the ever abiding sinfulness of those who
offer them; but they are nevertheless graciously accepted, as being
offered by Aaron, himself "holy to the Lord."
Such then appears to have been the symbolic meaning of these "garments
for glory and for beauty," with which Moses now robed Aaron, in token
of his investiture with the manifold dignities of the exalted office
to which God had called him. But we must not forget that we are not,
in all this, dealing merely with matters of antiquarian or
archæological interest. Nothing is plainer than the teaching of the
New Testament, that Aaron, as the high priest, not by accident, but by
Divine intention, prefigured Christ. In all the directions given
concerning his investiture with his office, and the work which, as
high priest, he had to do, the Holy Ghost intended to prefigure,
directly or indirectly, something concerning the person, office, and
work of Jesus Christ, as our heavenly High Priest, the Fulfiller of
all these types. As Aaron appears in his fourfold high-priestly
garments of four colours, which represented him as the minister, on
the one hand, of the tabernacle, and, on the other, of the God of
Israel, the Inhabitant of the tabernacle, so are we reminded how
Christ is appointed as the "Minister of the greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands" (Heb. ix. 11), the earth, the heaven,
and the heaven of heavens, to reconcile, by the offering of His blood,
"both the things which are on earth and those which are in the
heavens" (Col. i. 20). We look upon the blue robe of the ephod, and
remember how Christ is made a minister of "a better covenant, enacted
upon better promises" (Heb. viii. 6), representing, as that old
covenant did not, the fulness of the revelation of God's condescending
love and saving mercy. So also the inwoven scarlet reminds us how
Christ, again, as the great High Priest, is the minister of the God of
life, and is also Himself life and the Giver of life to all His
people. We look upon the high priest's purple and gold, and are
reminded again that Christ, the High Priest, is also invested with
regal power and dominion, all authority being given unto Him in heaven
and on earth (Matt. xxviii. 18).
Again, we look on the ephod of fine linen, inwoven with blue, and
scarlet, and purple, and gold, with its girdle, symbolising service,
and its pendant breast-plate of judgment, and are reminded how Christ
in all the relations thus pertaining to Him as High Priest, is the
Ruler and the Judge of His people, who, as the bearer of the true Urim
and Thummim, is not only Priest, and King, and Judge, but also, and in
order to the salvation of His people, their Prophet, continually
revealing unto those who seek Him, the will of God for their direction
and guidance in every emergency of life. The girdle, the symbol of
service, brings to mind, again, how in all this He is the Servant of
the Lord, serving the Father in saving us.
The symbolism of the pomegranates and the golden bells reminds us, for
the strengthening of our faith, how our exalted High Priest, who
appears before God in our behalf in the Holiest, appears there as the
great Preserver and Fulfiller of the Divine law, supremely qualified,
no less by His supreme merit than by Divine appointment, to urge our
needs with prevalence before God, His very presence in the heavenly
sanctuary vocal with sweet music. Did Aaron bear the names of the
twelve tribes of Israel on his shoulders and on his breast before God
continually? Even so does his great Antitype bear continually all His
people before God, as He executes His high-priestly office; and this,
too, not merely in a vague and general way, but tribe by tribe,
community by community, each with its peculiar case and special need;
nay, we may say even more; each individual, as such, is thus borne
continually on the shoulders and the breast of the heavenly Priest; on
His shoulders He bears them, to support them by His power; on His
heart, in tenderest love and sympathy. And so often as we are
distressed and discouraged by the consciousness of defilement still
pertaining even to the holiest of our holy things, consecration ever
imperfect at the best, we may bethink ourselves of the golden crown
which Aaron wore, and its inscription, and remember how the Lord Jesus
is in fullest reality "holy to the Lord;" so that we may take heart of
grace as, with full reason and right, we apply to Him what is said of
this crown of holiness on Aaron's brow: "The crown of holiness is ever
on His forehead, and He shall bear the iniquity of the holy things
which we shall hallow in all our holy gifts; it is always on His
forehead, that our works may be accepted before the Lord." And so we
are taught by this symbolism ever to look away from all conscious
defilement and sin to the infinite holiness of the person of the Lord
Jesus, as He continually appears before God as High Priest in our
behalf, the all-sufficient Surety for the acceptance of our persons
and of our imperfect works, for His own sake.
The investiture, as also the anointing, of the sons of Aaron, followed
the robing and anointing of Aaron. We read (ver. 13): "Moses brought
Aaron's sons, and clothed them with coats, and girded them with
girdles, and bound head-tires upon them; as the Lord commanded
Moses."
To the three articles of their attire here mentioned, must be added
the "linen breeches" (Exod. xxviii. 42, 43); so that they also, in the
several parts of their official vestments, bore the number four, the
signature of the creaturely, as represented in the tabernacle. All was
of pure white linen, signifying the holiness and righteousness of
those who should act as priests before God. So once and again in the
Apocalypse, the same symbol is used to denote the spotless holiness
and righteousness of the blood-bought saints, who are made "a kingdom
and priests" unto God; as, for instance, it is said of that same holy
body, symbolised as the bride of the Lamb, that "it was given unto her
that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the
fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints" (Rev. xix. 8).
THE ANOINTING.
viii. 10-12.
"And Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the tabernacle
and all that was therein, and sanctified them. And he sprinkled
thereof upon the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and
all its vessels, and the laver and its base, to sanctify them.
And he poured of the anointed oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed
him, to sanctify him."
Next in order came the anointing, first of the tabernacle and all that
pertained to its service, and then the anointing of Aaron.
The anointing oil was made (Exod. xxx. 22-33) with a perfume of choice
spices, their number, four, the sacred number so constantly recurring
in the tabernacle. To make or use this oil, except for the sacred
purposes of the sanctuary, was forbidden under penalty of being cut
off from the holy people. The purpose of the anointing of the
tabernacle and all within it, is declared to be its consecration
thereby to the service of Jehovah. The altar, as a place of special
sanctity, the place where God had covenanted to meet with Israel, was
anointed seven times. For the number seven, compounded of three, the
signet number of the Godhead, and four, the constant symbol of the
creaturely, is thus by eminence the sacred number, the number, in
particular, which is the sign and reminder of the covenant of
redemption; and so here it is with special meaning that the altar, as
being the place where God had specially covenanted to meet with Israel
as reconciled through the blood of atonement, should receive a
sevenfold anointing.
After this, the anointing oil was poured on the head of Aaron, to
sanctify him.
As to the meaning of this part of the symbolic service, there is
little room for doubt. The "anointing" is said to have been "to
sanctify" or set apart to the service of Jehovah him that was
anointed. And, inasmuch as oil, in the Holy Scriptures, is the
constant symbol of the Holy Spirit, it is taught hereby that
consecration is secured only through the anointing with the Holy
Ghost.
The direct typical reference of this part of the ceremonial to Christ,
will not be denied by any one for whom the Scripture any longer has
authority. For Christ Himself quoted the words we find in Isa. lxi. 1,
as fulfilled in Himself: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
because the Lord God hath anointed Me." And the Apostle Peter
afterward taught (Acts x. 38) that God had "anointed Jesus with the
Holy Ghost and with power;" while the most common title of our Lord,
as "the Messiah" or "Christ," as we all know, though often forgetful
of its meaning, simply means "the Anointed One." So every time we use
the word, we unconsciously testify to the fulfilment of this type of
the anointing of Aaron as priest, as, afterward, of the anointing of
David as king, in Him. And as the anointing of Aaron took place in the
sight of all Israel, assembled at the door of the tent of meeting, so
in the fulness of time was Jesus, in the sight of all the multitude
that waited on the baptism of John, after having been washed with
water, "to fulfil all righteousness," anointed from heaven, as "the
Holy Ghost descended in bodily form, as a dove," and abode upon him
(Luke iii. 22). And while, according to Jewish tradition, the
anointing oil was applied to the ordinary priests only in small
quantity and by the finger, on the head of Aaron it was "poured;" in
which word, as suggested in Psalm cxxxiii. 2, we are to understand a
reference to the great copiousness with which it was used. In which,
again, the type exactly corresponds to the Antitype. For while it is
true of all believers that they "have an anointing from the Holy One"
(1 John ii. 20), even as their Lord, yet of Him alone is it true that
unto Him the Spirit "was not given by measure" (John iii. 34). And by
this Divine anointing with the Holy Spirit without limit, was Jesus
sanctified and qualified for the office of High Priest for all His
people.
The anointing of the tabernacle with the same holy oil was according
to a custom long before prevalent, and however it may seem strange to
any of us now, will not have seemed strange to Israel. We read, for
instance (Gen. xxviii. 18), of the anointing of the stone at Bethel by
Jacob, by which he thus consecrated it to be a stone of remembrance of
the revelation of God to him in that place. So by this anointing, the
tabernacle, with all that it contained, was "sanctified;" that is,
consecrated that so the use of these might be made, through the power
of the Holy Ghost, a means of grace and blessing to Israel. And it was
thus anointed, and for this purpose, as being a "copy and pattern of
the heavenly things." By the ceremony is signified to us, that by the
power of the Holy Ghost, through the high-priesthood of our Lord, the
whole universe and all that is in it has been consecrated and endowed
by God with virtue, to become a means of grace and blessing to all
believers, by His grace and might who works "in all things and through
all things" to this end.
THE CONSECRATION SACRIFICES.
viii. 14-32.
"And he brought the bullock of the sin offering: and Aaron and
his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock of the sin
offering. And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it
upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and
purified the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the
altar, and sanctified it, to make atonement for it. And he took
all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul of the liver,
and the two kidneys, and their fat, and Moses burned it upon the
altar. But the bullock, and its skin, and its flesh, and its
dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as the Lord commanded
Moses. And he presented the ram of the burnt offering: and Aaron
and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram. And he
killed it: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round
about. And he cut the ram into its pieces; and Moses burnt the
head, and the pieces, and the fat. And he washed the inwards and
the legs with water; and Moses burnt the whole ram upon the
altar: it was a burnt offering for a sweet savour: it was an
offering made by fire unto the Lord; as the Lord commanded Moses.
And he presented the other ram, the ram of consecration: and
Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram. And
he slew it; and Moses took of the blood thereof, and put it upon
the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right
hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot. And he brought
Aaron's sons, and Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their
right ear, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the
great toe of their right foot: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon
the altar round about. And he took the fat, and the fat tail, and
all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul of the liver,
and the two kidneys and their fat, and the right thigh: and out
of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before the Lord, he
took one unleavened cake, and one cake of oiled bread, and one
wafer, and placed them on the fat, and upon the right thigh: and
he put the whole upon the hands of Aaron, and upon the hands of
his sons, and waved them for a wave offering before the Lord. And
Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar
upon the burnt offering: they were a consecration for a sweet
savour: it was an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And Moses
took the breast and waved it for a wave offering before the Lord:
it was Moses' portion of the ram of consecration; as the Lord
commanded Moses. And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the
blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, upon
his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his sons' garments with
him; and sanctified Aaron, his garments, and his sons, and his
sons' garments with him. And Moses said unto Aaron and to his
sons, Boil the flesh at the door of the tent of meeting: and
there eat it and the bread that is in the basket of consecration,
as I commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons shall eat it. And that
which remaineth of the flesh and of the bread shall ye burn with
fire."
The last part of the consecration ceremonial was the sacrifices. Each
of the chief sacrifices of the law were offered in order; first, a
sin-offering; then, a burnt-offering; then, a peace-offering, with
some significant variations from the ordinary ritual, adapting it to
this occasion; with which was conjoined, after the usual manner, a
meal-offering. A sin-offering was offered, first of all; there had
been a symbolical cleansing with water, but still a sin-offering is
required. It signified, what so many in these days seem to forget,
that in order to our acceptableness before God, not only is needed a
cleansing of the defilement of nature by the regeneration of the Holy
Ghost, but also expiation for the guilt of our sins. The sin-offering
was first, for the guilt of Aaron and his sons must be thus typically
removed, before their burnt-offerings and their meal- and
peace-offerings can be accepted.
The peculiarities of the offerings as rendered on this occasion are
easily explained from the circumstances of their presentation. Moses
officiates, for this time only, as specially delegated for this
occasion, inasmuch as Aaron and his sons are not yet fully inducted
into their office. The victim for the sin-offering is the costliest
ever employed: a bullock, as ordered for the sin of the anointed
priest. But the blood is not brought into the Holy Place, as in the
ritual for the offering for the high priest, because Aaron is not yet
fully inducted into his office. Nor do Aaron and his sons eat of the
flesh of the sin-offering, as ordered in the case of other
sin-offerings whose blood is not brought within the Holy Place;
obviously, because of the principle which rules throughout the law,
that he for whose sin the sin-offering is offered, must not himself
eat of the flesh; it is therefore burnt with fire, without the camp,
that it may not see corruption.
By this sin-offering, not only Aaron and his sons were cleansed, but
we read that hereby atonement was also made "for the altar;" a
mysterious type, reminding us that, in some way which we cannot as yet
fully understand, sin has affected the whole universe: in such a
sense, that not only for man himself who has sinned, is propitiation
required, but, in some sense, even for the earth itself, with the
heavens. That in expounding the meaning of this part of the ritual we
do not go beyond the Scripture is plain from such passages as Heb. ix.
23, where it is expressly said that even as the tabernacle and the
things in it were cleansed with the blood of the bullock, so was
necessary that, not merely man, but "the heavenly things themselves,"
of which the tabernacle and its belongings were the "copies," should
be cleansed with better sacrifices than these, even the offering of
Christ's own blood. So also we read in Col. i. 20, before cited, that
through Christ, even through the blood of His cross, not merely
persons, "but all _things_, whether things on the earth, or things in
the heavens," should be reconciled unto God. Mysterious words these,
no doubt; but words which teach us at least so much as this, how
profound and far-reaching is the mischief which sin has wrought, even
our sin. Not merely the sinning man must be cleansed with blood before
he can be made a priest unto God, but even nature, "made subject to
vanity" (Rom. viii. 20), for man's sin, needs the reconciling blood
before redeemed man can exercise his priesthood unto God in the
heavenly places. Evidently we have here an estimate of the evil of sin
which is incomparably higher than that which is commonly current among
men; and we shall do well to conform our estimate to that of God, who
required atonement to be made even for the earthen altar, to sanctify
it.
Reconciliation being made by the sin-offering, next in order came the
burnt-offering, symbolic, as we have seen, of the full consecration of
the person of the offerer to God; in this case of the full
consecration of Aaron and his sons to the service of God in the
priesthood. The ritual was according to the usual law, and requires no
further exposition.
The ceremonial culminated and was completed in the offering of "the
ram of consecration." The expression is, literally, "the ram of
fillings;" in which phrase there is a reference to the peculiar
ceremony described in vv. 27, 28, in which certain portions of the
victim and of the meal-offering were placed by Moses on the hands of
Aaron and his sons, and waved by them for a wave-offering; and
afterwards burnt wholly on the altar upon the burnt-offering, in token
of their full devotement to the Lord. Of these it is then added, "they
were a consecration" (_lit._ "fillings," _sc._ of hands, "were
these"). The meaning of the phrase and the action it denoted is
determined by its use in 1 Chron. xxix. 5 and 2 Chron. xxix. 31, where
it is used of the bringing of the freewill-offerings by the people for
Jehovah. The ceremonial in this case therefore signified the formal
making over of the sacrifices into the charge of Aaron and his sons,
which henceforth they were to offer; that they received them to offer
them to and for Jehovah, was symbolised by their presentation to be
waved before Jehovah, and further by their being burnt upon the altar,
as a sacrifice of sweet savour.
Another thing peculiar to this special consecration sacrifice, was the
use which was made of the blood, which (ver. 23) was put upon the tip
of Aaron's right ear, upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the
great toe of his right foot. Although the solution is not without
difficulty, we shall probably not err in regarding this as
distinctively an act of consecration, signifying that in virtue of the
sacrificial blood, Aaron and his sons were set apart to sacrificial
service. It is applied to the ear, to the hand, and the foot, and to
the most representative member in each case, to signify the
consecration of the whole body to the Lord's service in the
tabernacle; the ear is consecrated by the blood to be ever attentive
to the word of Jehovah, to receive the intimations of His will; the
hand, to be ever ready to do the Lord's work; and the foot, to run on
His service.
Another peculiarity of this offering was in the wave-offering of
Aaron and his sons. Not the breast, but the thigh, and that together
with the fat (ver. 27) was waved before the Lord; and, afterward, not
only the fat was burnt upon the altar, according to the law, but also
the thigh, which in other cases was the portion of the priest, was
burnt with the fat and the memorial of the meal-offering. The breast
was afterward waved, as the law commanded in the case of the
peace-offerings, but was given to Moses as his portion. The last
particular is easy to understand; Moses in this ceremonial stands in
the place of the officiating priest, and it is natural that he should
thus receive from the Lord his reward for his service. As for the
thigh, which, when the peace-offering was offered by one of the
people, was presented to the Lord, and then given to the officiating
priest to be eaten, obviously the law could not be applied here, as
the priests themselves were the bringers of the offering; hence the
only alternative was, as in the case of sin-offerings of the holy
place, to burn the flesh with fire upon the altar, as "the food of
Jehovah." The remainder of the flesh was to be eaten by the priests
alone as the offerers, under the regulation for the thank-offering,
except that whatever remained until the next day was to be burnt; a
direction which is explained by the fact that the sacrifice was to be
repeated for seven days, so that there could be no reason for keeping
the flesh until the third day. Last of all, it is to be noted that
whereas in the thank-offerings of the people, the offerer was allowed
to bring leavened bread for the sacrificial feast, in the feast of the
consecration of priests this was not permitted; no doubt to emphasise
the peculiar sanctity of the office to which they were inducted.
With these modifications, it is plain that the sacrifice of
consecration was essentially, not a guilt-offering, as some have
supposed, but a peace-offering. It is true that a ram was enjoined as
the victim instead of a lamb, but the correspondence here with the law
of the guilt-offering is of no significance when we observe that rams
were also enjoined or used for peace-offerings on other occasions of
exceptional dignity and sanctity, as in the peace-offerings for the
nation, mentioned in the following chapter, and the peace-offerings
for the princes of the tribes (Numb. vii.). Unlike the guilt-offering,
but after the manner of the other, the sacrifice was followed by a
sacrificial feast. That participation in this was restricted to the
priests, is sufficiently explained by the special relation of this
sacrifice to their own consecration.
Before the sacrificial feast, however, one peculiar ceremony still
remained. We read (ver. 30): "Moses took of the anointing oil, and of
the blood (of the peace-offering) which was upon the altar, and
sprinkled it upon Aaron, upon his garments, and upon his sons, and
upon his sons' garments with him; and sanctified Aaron, his garments,
and his sons, and his sons' garments with him."
This sprinkling signified that now, through the atoning blood which
had been accepted before God upon the altar, and through the
sanctifying Spirit of grace, which was symbolised by the anointing,
thus inseparably associated each with the other, they had been brought
into covenant relation with God regarding the office of the
priesthood. That this their covenant relation to God concerned them,
not merely as private persons, but in their official character, was
intimated by the sprinkling, not only of their persons, but of the
garments which were the insignia of their priestly office.
All this completed, now followed the sacrificial feast. We read that
Moses now ordered Aaron and his sons (ver. 31): "Boil the flesh at the
door of the tent of meeting: and there eat it and the bread that is in
the basket of consecration, as I commanded, saying, Aaron and his sons
shall eat it. And that which remaineth of the flesh and of the bread
shall ye burn with fire."
This sacrificial feast most fitly marked the conclusion of the rites
of consecration. Hereby it was signified, first, that by this solemn
service they were now brought into a relation of peculiarly intimate
fellowship with Jehovah, as the ministers of His house, to offer His
offerings, and to be fed at His table. It was further signified, that
strength for the duties of this office should be supplied to them by
Him whom they were to serve, in that they were to be fed of His altar.
And, finally, in that the ritual took the specific form of a
thank-offering, was thereby expressed, as was fitting, their gratitude
to God for the grace which had chosen them and set them apart to so
holy and exalted service.
These consecration services were to be repeated for seven consecutive
days, during which time they were not to leave the tent of
meeting,--obviously, that by no chance they might contract any
ceremonial defilement; so jealously must the sanctity of everything
pertaining to the service be guarded.
The commandment was (vv. 33-35): "Ye shall not go out from the door of
the tent of meeting seven days, until the days of your consecration be
fulfilled: for he shall consecrate you seven days. As hath been done
this day, so the Lord hath commanded to do, to make atonement for you.
And at the door of the tent of meeting shall ye abide day and night
seven days, and keep the charge of the Lord, that ye die not: for so
I am commanded."
By the sevenfold repetition of the consecration ceremonies was
expressed, in the most emphatic manner known to the Mosaic symbolism,
the completeness of the consecration and qualification of Aaron and
his sons for their office, and the fact also that, in virtue of this
consecration, they had come into a special covenant relation with
Jehovah concerning the priestly office.
That these consecration sacrifices by which Aaron and his sons were
set apart to the priesthood, no less than the preceding part of the
ceremonial, pointed forward to Christ and His priestly people as the
Antitype, it will be easy to see. As regards our Lord, in Heb. vii.
28, the sacred writer applies to the consecration of our Lord as high
priest the very term which the Seventy had used long before in this
chapter of Leviticus to denote this formal consecration, and
represents the consecration of the Son as the antitype of the
consecration of Aaron by the law: "the law appointeth men high
priests, having infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was after
the law, appointeth a Son, perfected for evermore."
An exception, indeed, must be made, as regards our Lord, in the case
of the sin-offering; of whom it is said (Heb. vii. 27), that He
"needeth not ... like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices,
first for His own sins." But as regards the other two sacrifices, we
can see that in their distinctive symbolical import they each bring
before us essential elements in the consecration of our Lord Jesus
Christ as High Priest. In the burnt-offering, we see Him consecrating
Himself by the complete self-surrender of Himself to the Father. In
the offering of consecrations, we see Him in the meal-offering of
unleavened bread, offering in like manner His most holy works unto the
Father; and in the sacrifice of the peace-offering, wherein Aaron ate
of the food of God's house in His presence, we see Jesus in like
manner as qualified for His high-priestly work by His admission into
terms of the most intimate fellowship with the Father, and sustained
for His work by the strength given from Him, according to His own
word: "The living Father hath sent Me, and I live because of the
Father." In the formal "filling of the hands" of Aaron with the
sacrificial material, in token of his endowment with the right to
offer sacrifices for sin for the sake of sinful men, we are reminded
how our Lord refers to the fact that He had received in like manner
authority from the Father to lay down His life for His sheep,
emphatically adding the words, (John x. 18), "This commandment have I
received of My Father."
So also was the meaning of the collateral ceremonies fully realised in
Him. If Aaron was anointed with the blood on ear, hand, and foot, by
way of signifying that the members of his body should be wholly
devoted unto God in priestly service, even so we are reminded (Heb. x.
5, 7), that "when He cometh into the world He saith, ... Sacrifice and
offering thou wouldest not, but a body didst thou prepare for Me; ...
Lo, I am come to do Thy will, O God."
And so, as Aaron was at the end of the sacrifice sprinkled with blood
and oil, in token that God had now, through the blood and the oil,
entered into a covenant of priesthood with him, so we find repeated
reference to the fact of such a solemn covenant and compact between
God and the High Priest of our profession summed up in the words of
prophecy, "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest
for ever after the order of Melchizedek."
So did this whole consecration ceremony, with the exception only of
such parts of it as had reference to the sin of Aaron, point forward
to the future investiture of the Son of God with the high-priestly
office, by God the Father, that He might act therein for our salvation
in all matters between us and God. How can any who have eyes to see
all this, as opened out for us in the New Testament, fail with fullest
joy and thankfulness to accept Christ, the Son of God, now passed into
the Holiest, as the High Priest of our profession? How naturally to
all such come the words of exhortation with which is concluded the
great argument upon Christ's high-priesthood in the Epistle to the
Hebrews (x. 19-23): "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter
into the holy place by the blood of Jesus; ... and having a great
priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in
fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our body washed with pure water: let us hold fast the confession
of our hope that it waver not; for He is faithful that promised."
But not only was Aaron thus consecrated to be high priest of the
tabernacle, but his sons also, to be priests under him in the same
service. In this also the type holds good. For when in Heb. ii. Christ
is brought before us as "the High Priest of our confession," He is
represented as saying (ver. 13), "Behold, I and the children which God
hath given me!" As Aaron had his sons appointed to perform priestly
functions under him in the earthly tabernacle, so also his great
Antitype has "sons," called to priestly office under Him in the
heavenly tabernacle. Accordingly, we find that in the New Testament,
not any caste or class in the Christian Church, but all believers, are
represented as "a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices,
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter ii. 5). To the
testimony of Peter corresponds that of John in the Apocalypse, where
in like manner believers are declared to be priests unto God, and
represented as also acting as priests of God and of Christ in the age
which is to come after "the first resurrection"[18] (Rev. xx. 6).
Hence it is plain that according to the New Testament we shall rightly
regard the consecration of the sons of Aaron as no less typical than
that of Aaron himself. It is typical of the consecration of all
believers to priesthood under Christ. It thus sets forth in symbol the
fact and the manner of our own consecration to ministrations between
lost men and God, in the age which now is and that which is to come,
in things pertaining to sin and salvation, according to the measure to
each one of the gift of Christ.
[18] Not, however, as many imagine, in behalf of those who have
in this age died in sin, but in ministrations to the living
nations in the flesh, in the age to come. We find no ground of
hope, in Holy Scripture, for the impenitent dead.
As the consecration of Aaron's sons began with the washing with pure
water, so ours with "the washing of regeneration and the renewing of
the Holy Ghost" (Titus iii. 5). As Aaron's sons, thus washed, were
then invested in white linen, clean and pure, so for the believer must
the word be fulfilled (Isa. lxi. 10): "He hath covered me with the
robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself" (marg.
"decketh as a priest"). That is, the reality of our appointment of God
unto this high dignity must be visibly attested unto men by the
righteousness of our lives. But whereas the sons of Aaron were not
clothed until first Aaron himself had been clothed and anointed, it is
signified that the robing and anointing of Christ's people follows and
depends upon the previous robing and anointing of their Head. Again,
as Aaron's sons were also anointed with the same holy oil as was
Aaron, only in lesser measure, so are believers consecrated to the
priestly office, like their Lord, by the anointing with the Holy
Ghost. The anointing of Pentecost follows and corresponds to the
anointing of the High Priest at the Jordan with one and the same
Spirit. This is another necessary consecration mark, on which the New
Testament Scriptures constantly insist. As Jesus was "anointed with
the Holy Ghost and (thereby) with power," so He Himself said to His
disciples (Acts i. 8), "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is
come upon you;" which promise being fulfilled, Paul could say (2 Cor.
i. 21), "He that ... anointed us is God;" and John (1 John ii. 20), to
all believers, "Ye have an anointing from the Holy One." And the
sacrificial symbols are also all fulfilled in the case of the Lord's
priestly people. For them, no less essential to their consecration
than the washing of the Holy Ghost, is the removal of guilt by the
great Sin-offering of Calvary; which same offering, and true Lamb of
God, has also become their burnt-offering, their meal-offering, and
their sacrifice of consecrations, as it is written (Heb. x. 10), that,
by the will of God, "we have been sanctified through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all:" and that He also is become
"our peace," in that He has expiated our sins, and also given Himself
to us as our spiritual food; that so we may derive daily strength for
the daily service in the priest's office, by feeding on the Lamb of
God, the true food of the altar, given by God for our support. Also,
as the sons of Aaron, like Aaron himself, were anointed with the blood
of the peace-offering of consecration, on the ear, the hand, and the
foot, so has the blood of the Lamb, in that it has brought us into
peace with God, set apart every true believer unto full surrender of
all the members of his body unto Him; ears, that they may be quick to
hear God's Word; hands, that they may be quick to do it; feet, that
they may only run in the way of His commandments. And finally, whereas
the solemn covenant of priesthood into which Aaron and his sons had
entered with God, was sealed and ratified by the sprinkling with the
oil and the blood, so by the unction of the Holy Spirit given to
believers, and the cleansing of the conscience by the blood, is it
witnessed and certified that they are a people called out to enter
into covenant of priestly service with the God of all the earth and
the heavens.
What searching questions as to personal experience all this raises!
What solemn thoughts throng into the mind of every thoughtful reader!
All this essential, if we are to be indeed members of that royal
priesthood, who shall reign as priests of God and of Christ? Have we
then the marks, all of them? Let us not shrink from the questions, but
probe with them the innermost depths of our hearts. Have we had the
washing of regeneration? If we think that we have had this, then let
us also remember that after the washing came the investiture in white
linen. Let us ask, Have we then put on these white garments of
righteousness? All that were washed, were also clad in white; these
were their official robes, without which they could not act as priests
unto God. And there was also an anointing. Have we, in like manner,
received the anointing with the Holy Ghost, endowing us with power and
wisdom for service? Then, the sin-offering, the burnt-offering, the
peace-offering of consecration,--has the Lamb of God been used by us
in all these various ways, as our expiation, our consecration, our
peace, and our life? And has the blood which consecrates also been
applied to ear, hand, and foot? Are we consecrated in all the members
of our bodies?
What questions these are! Truly, it is no light thing to be a
Christian; to be called and consecrated to be, with and under the
great High Priest, Jesus Christ, a "priest unto God" in this life and
in that of "the first resurrection;" to deal between God and men in
matters of salvation. Have we well understood what is our "high
calling," and what the conditions on which alone we may exercise our
ministry? To this may God give us grace, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
CHAPTER XI.
_THE INAUGURATION OF THE TABERNACLE SERVICE._
LEV. ix. 1-24.
Aaron and his sons having now been solemnly consecrated to the
priestly office by the ceremonies of seven days, their formal
assumption of their daily duties in the tabernacle was marked by a
special service suited to the august occasion, signalised at its close
by the appearance of the glory of Jehovah to assembled Israel, in
token of His sanction and approval of all that had been done. It would
appear that the daily burnt-offering and meal-offering had been indeed
offered before this, from the time that the tabernacle had been set
up; in which service, however, Moses had thus far officiated. But now
that Aaron and his sons were consecrated, it was most fitting that a
service should thus be ordered which should be a complete exhibition
of the order of sacrifice as it had now been given by the Lord, and
serve, for Aaron and his sons in all after time, as a practical model
of the manner in which the divinely-given law of sacrifice should be
carried out.
The order of the day began with a very impressive lesson of the
inadequacy of the blood of beasts to take away sin. For seven
consecutive days a bullock had been offered for Aaron and his sons,
and so far as served the typical purpose, their consecration was
complete. But still Aaron and his sons needed expiating blood; for
before they could offer the sacrifices of the day for the people, they
are ordered yet again first of all to offer a sin-offering for
themselves. We read (vv. 1, 2): "And it came to pass on the eighth
day, that Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel;
and he said unto Aaron, Take thee a bull calf for a sin offering, and
a ram for a burnt offering, without blemish, and offer them before the
Lord."
And then Aaron was commanded (vv. 3-5): "Unto the children of Israel
thou shalt speak, saying, Take ye a he-goat for a sin offering; and a
calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish, for a burnt
offering; and an ox and a ram for peace offerings, to sacrifice before
the Lord; and a meal offering mingled with oil: for to-day the Lord
appeareth unto you. And they brought that which Moses commanded before
the tent of meeting: and all the congregation drew near and stood
before the Lord."
There is little in these directions requiring explanation. Because of
the exceptional importance of the occasion, therefore, as in the
feasts of the Lord, a special sin-offering was ordered, and a
burnt-offering, besides the regular daily burnt-offering,
meal-offering, and drink-offering; and, in addition, peculiar to this
occasion, a peace-offering for the nation; which last was evidently
intended to signify that now on the basis of the sacrificial worship
and the mediation of a consecrated priesthood, Israel was privileged
to enter into fellowship with Jehovah, the Lord of the tabernacle. No
peace-offering was ordered for Aaron and his sons, as, according to
the law of the peace-offering, they would themselves take part in
that of the people. The sin-offering prescribed for the people was,
not a kid, as in King James's version, but a he-goat, which, with the
exception of the case of a sin of commission as described in chap. iv.
13, 14, appears to have been the usual victim. For the selection of
such a victim, no reason appears more probable than that assigned by
rabbinical tradition, namely, that it was intended to counteract the
tendency of the people to the worship of shaggy he-goats, referred to
in chap. xvii. 7, "They shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto
the he-goats (R.V.), after whom they go a whoring."
THE ORDER OF THE OFFERINGS.
ix. 7-21.
"And Moses said unto Aaron, Draw near unto the altar, and offer
thy sin offering, and thy burnt offering, and make atonement for
thyself, and for the people: and offer the oblation of the
people, and make atonement for them; as the Lord commanded. So
Aaron drew near unto the altar, and slew the calf of the sin
offering, which was for himself. And the sons of Aaron presented
the blood unto him: and he dipped his finger in the blood, and
put it upon the horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at
the base of the altar: but the fat, and the kidneys, and the caul
from the liver of the sin offering, he burnt upon the altar; as
the Lord commanded Moses. And the flesh and the skin he burnt
with fire without the camp. And he slew the burnt offering; and
Aaron's sons delivered unto him the blood, and he sprinkled it
upon the altar round about. And they delivered the burnt offering
unto him, piece by piece, and the head: and he burnt them upon
the altar. And he washed the inwards and the legs, and burnt them
upon the burnt offering on the altar. And he presented the
people's oblation, and took the goat of the sin offering which
was for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin, as the
first. And he presented the burnt offering, and offered it
according to the ordinance. And he presented the meal offering,
and filled his hand therefrom, and burnt it upon the altar,
besides the burnt offering of the morning. He slew also the ox
and the ram, the sacrifice of peace offerings, which was for the
people: and Aaron's sons delivered unto him the blood, and he
sprinkled it upon the altar round about, and the fat of the ox;
and of the ram, the fat tail, and that which covered the inwards,
and the kidneys, and the caul of the liver: and they put the fat
upon the breasts, and he burnt the fat upon the altar: and the
breast and the right thigh Aaron waved for a wave offering before
the Lord; as Moses commanded."
Verses 7-21 detail the way in which this commandment of Moses was
carried out in the offerings, first, for Aaron and his sons, and then
for all the people; but, as the peculiarities of these several
offerings have been already explained, they need not here detain us.
That which is new, and of profound spiritual and typical meaning, is
the _order_ of the sacrifices as here enjoined; an order, which as we
learn from many Scriptures, represented what was intended to be the
permanent and invariable law. The appointed order of the offerings was
as follows: first, whenever presented, came the sin-offering, as here;
then, the burnt-offering, with its meal-offering; and last, always,
the peace-offering, with its characteristic sacrificial feast.
The significance of this order will readily appear if we consider the
distinctive meaning of each of these offerings. The sin-offering had
for its central thought, expiation of sin by the shedding of blood;
the burnt-offering, the full surrender of the person symbolised by the
victim, to God; the meal-offering, in like manner, the consecration of
the fruit of his labours; the peace-offering, sustenance of life from
God's table, and fellowship in peace and joy with God and with one
another. And the great lesson for us now from this model tabernacle
service is this: that this order is determined by a law of the
spiritual life.
So much as this, even without clear prevision of the Antitype of all
these sacrifices, the thoughtful Israelite might have discerned; and
even though the truth thus symbolised is placed before us no more in
rite and symbol, yet it abides, and ever will abide, a truth. Man
everywhere needs fellowship with God, and cannot rest without it; to
attain such fellowship is the object of all religions which recognise
the being of a God at all. Even among the heathen, we are truly told,
there are many who are feeling after God "if haply they may find Him;"
and, among ourselves in Christian lands, and even in the external
fellowship of Christian churches, there are many who with aching
hearts are seeking after an unrealised experience of peace and
fellowship with God. And yet God is "not far from any one of us;" and
the whole Scripture represents Him as longing on His part with an
incomprehensible condescension and love after fellowship with us,
desiring to communicate to us His fulness; and still so many seek and
find not!
We need not go further than this order of the offerings, and the
spiritual truth it signifies regarding the order of grace, to discover
the secret of these spiritual failures.
The peace-offering, the sacrificial feast of fellowship with God, the
joyful banqueting on the food of His table, was always, as on this
day, in order. Before this must ever come the burnt-offering. The
ritual prescribed that the peace-offering should be burnt "upon the
burnt-offering;" the presence of the burnt-offering is thus
presupposed in every acceptable peace-offering. But what if one had
ventured to ignore this divinely-appointed order, and had offered his
peace-offering to be burnt alone; can we imagine that it would have
been accepted?
These things are a parable, and not a hard one. For the burnt-offering
with its meal-offering symbolised full consecration of the person and
the works to the Lord. Remembering this, we see that the order is not
arbitrary. For, in the nature of the case, full consecration to God
must precede fellowship with God; he who would know what it is to have
God give Himself to him, must first be ready to give himself to God.
And that God should enter into loving fellowship with any one who is
holding back from loving self-surrender is not to be expected. This is
not merely an Old Testament law, still less merely a fanciful
deduction from the Mosaic symbolism; everywhere in the New Testament
is the thought pressed upon us, no longer indeed in symbol, but in
plainest language. It is taught by precept in some of the most
familiar words of the great Teacher. There is promise, for example, of
constant supply of sufficient food and raiment, fellowship with God in
temporal things; but only on condition that "we seek first the kingdom
of God, and His righteousness," shall "all these things be added unto
us" (Matt. vi. 33). There is a promise of "a hundred-fold in this
life, and in the world to come, eternal life;" but it is prefaced by
the condition of surrender of father, mother, brethren, sisters, of
houses and lands, for the Lord's sake (Matt. xix. 29). Not, indeed,
that the actual parting with these is enjoined in every case; but,
certainly, it is intended that we shall hold all at the Lord's
disposal, possessing, but "as though we possessed not;"--this is the
least that we can take out of these words.
Full consecration of the person and the works, this then is the
condition of fellowship with God; and if so many lament the lack of
the latter, it is no doubt because of the lack of the former. We often
act strangely in this matter; half unconsciously, searching, perhaps,
every corner of our life but the right one, from looking into which by
the clear light of God's Word we instinctively shrink, conscience
softly whispering that just there is something about which we have a
lurking doubt, and which therefore, if we will be fully consecrated,
we must at once give up, till we are sure that it is right, and right
for us; and for that self-denial, that renunciation unto God, we are
not ready. Is it a wonder that, if such be our experience, we lack
that blessed, joyful fellowship with the Lord, of which some tell us?
Is it not rather the chief wonder that we should wonder at the lack,
when yet we are not ready to consecrate all, body, soul, and spirit,
with all our works, unto the Lord? Let us then remember the law of the
offerings upon this point. No Israelite could have the blessed feast
of the peace-offering, except, first, the burnt-offering and the
meal-offering, symbolising full consecration, were smoking on the
altar.
But this full consecration seems to many so exceeding hard,--nay, we
may say more, to many it is utterly impossible. A consecration of some
things, especially those for which they care little, this they can
hear of; but a consecration of _all_, that the whole may be consumed
upon the altar before and unto God, this they cannot think of. Which
means--can we escape the conclusion?--that the love of God does not
yet rule supreme. How sad! and how strange! But the law of the
offerings will again declare the secret of the strange holding back
from full consecration. For it was ordained, that wherever there was
sin in the offerer, unconfessed and unforgiven, before even the
burnt-offering must go the sin-offering, expiating sin by blood
presented on the altar before God. And here we come upon another law
of the spiritual life in all ages. If fellowship with God in peace
and joy is conditioned by the full consecration of person and service
to Him, this consecration, even as a possibility for us, is in turn
conditioned by the expiation of sin through the great Sin-offering. So
long as conscience is not satisfied that the question of sin has been
settled in grace and righteousness with God, so long it is a spiritual
impossibility that the soul should come into that experience of the
love of God, manifested through atonement, which alone can lead to
full consecration.
This truth is always of vital importance; but it is, if possible, more
important than ever to insist upon it in our day, when, more and more,
the doctrine of the expiation of sin through the blood of the Lamb of
God is denied, and that, forsooth, under the claim of superior
enlightenment. Men are well pleased to hear of a burnt-offering, so
long especially as it is made to signify no more than the
self-devotement of the offerer; but for a sin-offering, much modern
theology has no place. So soon as we begin to speak of the sacrifice
of our Lord for sin in the dialect of the ancient altar--which, it
must never be forgotten, is that of Christ and His apostles--we are
told that "it would be better for the world if the Christian doctrine
of sacrifice could be presented to men apart from the old Jewish ideas
and terms, which only serve to obscure the simplicity that is in
Christ(!)" And so men, under the pretext of magnifying the love of
God, and laying a truer basis for spiritual life, in effect deny the
supreme and incomparable manifestation of that love, that God made
"Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf" (2 Cor. v. 21).
Very different is the teaching, not merely of the law of Moses, but of
the whole New Testament; which, in all it has to say of the Christian
life as proceeding from full self-surrender, ever represents this full
consecration as inspired by the believing recognition and penitent
acceptance of Christ, not merely as the great Example of perfect
consecration, but as a sin-offering, reconciling us first of all by
His death, before He saves us by His life (Rom. v. 10). The expiation
of sin by the sin-offering, before the consecration which
burnt-offering and meal-offering typify,--this is the invariable order
in both Testaments. The Apostle Paul, in his account of his own full
consecration, is in full accord with the spiritual teaching of the
Mosaic ritual when he gives this as the order. He describes himself,
and that in terms of no undue exaggeration, as so under the constraint
of the love of Christ as to seem to some beside himself; and then he
goes on to explain the secret of this consecration, in which he had
placed himself and all he had upon God's altar, as a whole
burnt-sacrifice, as consisting just in this, that he had first
apprehended the mystery of Christ's death, as a substitution so true
and real of the sinless Victim in the place of sinful men, that it
might be said that "one died for all, therefore all died;" whence he
thus judged, "that they which live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again" (2
Cor. v. 13-15). To the same effect is the teaching of the Apostle
John. For all true consecration springs from the thankful recognition
of the love of God; and, according to this Apostle also, the Divine
love which inspires the consecration is manifest in this, that "He
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John iv. 10). The
apprehension, then, of the reality of the expiation made by the great
Sin-offering, and the believing appropriation of its virtue to the
cancelling of our guilt, this is the inseparable previous condition
of full consecration of person and work unto the Lord. It is so,
because only the apprehension of the need of expiation by the blood of
the Son of God, as the necessary condition of forgiveness, can give us
any adequate measure of the depth of our guilt and ruin, as God sees
it; and, on the other hand, only when we remember that God spared not
His only-begotten Son, but sent Him to become, through death upon the
cross, a propitiation for our sins, can we begin to have such an
estimate of the love of God and of Christ His Son as shall make full
consecration easy, or even possible.
Let us then, on no account, miss this lesson from the order of this
ritual; before the peace-offering, the burnt-offering; before the
burnt-offering, the sin-offering. Or, translating the symbolism,
perfect fellowship with God in peace and joy and life, only after
consecration; and the consecration only possible in fulness, and only
accepted of God, in any case, when the great Sin-offering has been
first believingly appropriated, according to God's ordination, as the
propitiation for our sins, for the cancelling of our guilt.
But there is yet more in this order of the offerings. For, as the New
Testament in every way teaches us, the Antitype of every offering was
Christ. As we have already seen, in the Sin-offering we have the type
of Christ as our propitiation, or expiation; in the burnt-offering, of
Christ as consecrating Himself unto God in our behalf; in the
meal-offering, as, in like manner, consecrating all His works in our
behalf; in the peace-offering, as imparting Himself to us as our life,
and thus bringing us into fellowship of peace and love and joy with
the Father.
Now this last is, in fact, the ultimate aim of salvation; rather,
indeed, we may say, it is salvation. For life in its fulness means the
cancelling of death; death spiritual, and bodily death also, in
resurrection from the dead; it means also perfect fellowship with the
living God, and this, attained, is heaven. Hence it must needs be that
the peace-offering which represents Christ as giving Himself to us as
our life, and introducing us into this blessed state, comes last.
But before this, in order, not of time, but of grace, as also of
logic, must be Christ as Sin-offering, and Christ as Burnt-offering.
And, first of all, Christ as Sin-offering. For God's way of peace puts
the cancelling of guilt, the satisfaction of His holy law and justice,
and therewith the restoration of our right relation to Him, first, and
in order to a holy life and fellowship; while man will ever put these
last, and regard the latter as the means to obtaining a right standing
with God. Hence, inasmuch as Christ, coming to save us, finds us under
a curse, the first thing in order is, and must be, the removal of that
curse of the holy wrath of God, against every one that "continueth not
in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them."
And so, first in order in the typical ritual is the sin-offering which
represents Christ as made "a curse for us," that He might thus redeem
us from the curse of the law (Gal. iii. 13).
But this is not a complete account of the work of our Lord for us in
the days of His flesh. His work indeed was one, but the Scriptures set
it forth in a twofold aspect. On the one hand, He is the Sinless One
bearing the curse for us; but also, in all His suffering for our sins,
He is also manifested as the Righteous One, making many righteous by
His obedience, even an obedience unto the death of the cross (Rom. v.
19; Phil. ii. 8). And if we ask what was the essence of this obedience
of our Lord for us, what was it, indeed, but that which is the essence
of all obedience to God, namely, full, unreserved, uninterrupted
consecration and self-surrender to the will of the Father? And as, by
His suffering, Christ endured the curse for us, so by all His
obedience and suffering in full submission to the will of God, He
became also "the Lord our righteousness." And this, as repeatedly
remarked, is the central thought of the burnt-offering and the
meal-offering,--full consecration of the person and the work to God.
In the sin-offering, then, we see Christ as our propitiation; in the
burnt-offering, we see Him rather as our righteousness; but the former
is presupposed in the latter; and apart from this, that in His death
He became the expiation of our sins, His obedience could have availed
us nothing. But given now Christ as our propitiation and also our
righteousness, the whole question of the relation of Christ's people
to God in law and righteousness is settled, and the way is now clear
for the communication of life which the peace-offering symbolised.
Thus, as by faith in Christ as the Sin-offering, our propitiation and
righteousness, we are "justified freely by grace," "apart from the
works of the law," so now the way is open, by the appropriation of
Christ as our life in the peace-offering, for our sanctification and
complete redemption. In a word, the law of the order of the offerings
teaches, symbolically and typically, exactly what, in Rom. vi. and
vii., the Apostle Paul teaches dogmatically, namely, that the order of
grace is first justification, then sanctification; but both by the
same crucified Christ, our propitiation, our righteousness, and our
life: in whom we come to have fellowship in all good and blessing
with the Father.
It is interesting to observe that after the analogy of this order of
the offerings, is the most usual order of the development of Christian
experience. For the awakened soul is usually first of all concerned
about the question of forgiveness of sin and acceptance; and hence,
most commonly, faith first apprehends Christ in this aspect, as the
One who "bare our sins in His body," by whose stripes we are healed;
and then, at a later period of experience, as the One who also, in
lowly consecration to the Father's will, obeyed for us, that we might
be made righteous through His obedience. But no one who is truly
justified by faith in Christ as our propitiation and righteousness,
can long rest with this. He very quickly finds what he had little
thought of before, that the evil nature abides even in the justified
and accepted believer; nay, more, that it has still a terrible
strength to overcome him and lead him into sin, even often when he
would not. And this prepares the believer, still in accord with the
law of the order of grace here set forth, to lay hold also on Christ
by faith as His Peace-offering, by feeding on whom we receive
spiritual strength, so that He thus, in a word, becomes our
sanctification and, at last, full redemption.
THE DOUBLE BENEDICTION.
ix. 22-24.
"And Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people, and blessed
them; and he came down from offering the sin offering, and the
burnt offering, and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went
into the tent of meeting, and came out, and blessed the people:
and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. And there
came forth fire from before the Lord, and consumed upon the
altar the burnt offering and the fat: and when all the people saw
it, they shouted, and fell on their faces."
The sacrifices having now been made, and the offerings presented in
this divinely-appointed order, by the ordained and consecrated
priesthood, two things followed: a double benediction was pronounced
upon the people, and Jehovah manifested to them His glory. We read
(ver. 22), "And Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people, and
blessed them; and he came down from offering the sin offering, and the
burnt offering, and the peace offerings."
Presumably, the form of benediction which Aaron used was that which,
according to Numb. vi. 24-27, the priests were commanded by the Lord
to use: "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make His face to
shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up His
countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." It was not an empty form;
for the Lord at that time also promised Himself to make this blessing
efficient, saying thereafter, "So shall they put My Name"--Jehovah,
the name of God in covenant,--"upon the children of Israel; and I will
bless them."
So also the Lord Jesus, just before withdrawing from the bodily sight
of His disciples after the completion of His great sacrifice, "lifted
up His hands, and blessed them;" and thereupon disappeared from their
sight, ascending into heaven. Even so was it in the typical service of
this day; for when Aaron had thus lifted up his hands and blessed the
people (ver. 23), "Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting."
The work of Aaron in the outer court had been finished, and now he
disappears from Israel's sight; for he must, in like manner, be
inducted into the priestly work within the Holy Place. He must there
be shown all those things to which, in his priestly ministrations, the
blood must be applied; and, especially, must also offer the sweet
incense at the golden altar which was before the veil which enshrined
the immediate presence of Jehovah. But this offering of incense, as
all have agreed, typifies the precious and most effective intercession
of the great Antitype; so that thus it was shown in a figure, how the
Christ of God, having finished His sacrificial work in the sight of
men, and having ascended into heaven, should there for a season abide,
hidden from human sight, making intercession for His waiting people.
After an interval--we are not told how long--Moses and Aaron again
(vv. 23, 24), "came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the
Lord appeared unto all the people. And there came forth fire from
before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and
the fat: and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on
their faces."
This second blessing by Moses and Aaron conjointly, followed Aaron's
reappearance to Israel, and marked the completion of these
inauguration services, the intercession within the veil, as well as
the sacrifices. And the revelation in a visible way of the glory of
the Lord added what now was alone required, the manifest attestation
by the Lord of the tabernacle of His approval of all that had been
done in these memorable eight days. This appearance of the Shekinah
glory was followed by a flash of fire which, in token of the Divine
appropriation of the sacrifices, consumed in an instant the
burnt-offering on the altar with the fat of the sin-offering and the
peace-offering, which had been laid upon it. We cannot follow here the
Jewish tradition, which has it that with this act the sacrificial
fire which was never to go out upon the altar, was originated. On the
contrary, as we have seen, the offerings had before this been made by
Moses, and even on this day the fire had been kindled before (ver. 10,
_et seq._). Nor is there any necessary inconsistency here; for we have
but to suppose that the burning of the sacrifices which had been
kindled by Aaron was not yet complete, when the flash from the cloud
of glory in an instant consummated the burning, teaching in a most
august and impressive manner the symbolic meaning of the burning of
the sacrifices on the altar, as signifying the acceptance and
appropriation of that which was offered, by the Lord who had commanded
all, and thereby endorsing all that had been done, as according to His
mind and will.
And even so, according to the sure Word of prophecy, our heavenly High
Priest has yet in reserve for His people a second benediction. His
first blessing upon leaving the world was followed by Pentecost; the
second, on His reappearing, shall bring in resurrection and full
salvation. And in that day, when He "shall appear a second time, apart
from sin, to them that wait for Him unto salvation" (Heb. ix. 28),
therewith shall appear the glory which on that day, long ago, appeared
to Israel; for He "shall come in the glory of His Father," and thus
shall God, the Most High and the Most Holy, testify before the
universe His gracious acceptance of the service of the true Aaron and
His "many sons," the priestly people of God, through all the Christian
ages. Thus, the services and events of that day of induction, in their
order from beginning to end, were not only a parable of the order of
grace, but also, as it were, a typical epitome of the whole work of
redemption. They are thus a prophecy that the work which began when
Christ made His soul an offering for sin, and to perfect which He is
now withdrawn from our sight for a season, shall be consummated at
last by His reappearing in glory for the final blessing of His waiting
people.
And if we look at other and subordinate aspects of this inauguration
service, we shall still find this sequel of all, no less richly
suggestive. Expiation, righteousness, fellowship in peace with God,
shall bring with it the blessing of the Lord, and finally issue in the
revelation of His glory in the sight of all who accept this great
redemption through sacrifice. And so also in the personal life. As the
trustful acceptance and use of the appointed Sin-offering leads to the
consecration of the person and the life, and as by this consecration
we come into conscious fellowship with God in joy and peace, as we
feed on the flesh of the slain Lamb, so, as the blessed result, unto
every true believer, according to the measure of his faith, this is
followed by the double benediction of the Lord; one for this life, and
a larger, for the life which is to come. The Lord blesses him, and
keeps him: the Lord makes His face to shine upon him, and is gracious
unto him: the Lord lifts up His countenance upon him, and gives him
peace, according to that word of the great High Priest: "Peace I leave
with you; My peace I give unto you" (John xiv. 27). And then, after
the present peace, is yet to follow, as the final issue of the
expiated sin, and the consecrated life, and fellowship in peace with
the God of life and love, the beholding of the glory of the Lord;
according to that high-priestly prayer of our Redeemer, "That which
Thou hast given Me, I will that, where I am, they also may be with Me:
that they may behold My glory" (John xvii. 24). Even here some know a
little of this, and find that expiated sin and full consecration are
followed here and now by bright glimpses of the glory of the Lord. But
what is now seen thus in part shall then be seen fully and face to
face. Who would not make sure of that beatific vision of the glory of
the Lord?
CHAPTER XII.
_NADAB'S AND ABIHU'S "STRANGE FIRE."_
LEV. x. 1-20.
The solemn and august ceremonies of the consecration of the priests
and the tabernacle, and the inauguration of the tabernacle service,
had a sad and terrible termination. The sacrifices of the inauguration
day had been completed, the congregation had received the priestly
benediction, the glory of Jehovah had appeared unto the people, and,
in token of His acceptance of all that had been done, consumed the
victims on the altar. This manifestation of the glory of the Lord so
affected the people--as well it might--that when they saw it, "they
shouted, and fell on their faces." It was, probably, under the
influence of the excitement of this occasion that (vv. 1, 2), "Nadab
and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put
fire therein, and laid incense thereon, and offered strange fire
before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And there came forth
fire from before the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the
Lord."
There has been no little speculation as to what it was, precisely,
which they did. Some will have it, that they lighted their incense,
not from the altar fire, but elsewhere. As to this, while it is not
easy to prove that to light the incense at the altar fire was an
invariable requirement, yet it is certain that this was commanded for
the great day of atonement (xvi. 12); and also, that when Moses
offered incense in connection with the plague which broke out upon the
rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, Moses commanded him to take
the fire for the censer from off the altar (Numb. xvi. 46); so that,
perhaps this is not unlikely to have been one element, at least, in
their offence. Others, again, have thought that their sin lay in this,
that they offered their incense at a time not commanded in the order
of worship which God had just prescribed; and this, too, may very
probably have been another element in their sin, for it is certain
that the divinely-appointed order of worship for the day had been
already completed. Yet again, others have supposed that they rashly
and without Divine warrant pressed within the veil, into the immediate
presence of the Shekinah glory of God, to offer their incense there.
For this, too, there is evidence, in the fact that the institution of
the great annual day of atonement, and the prohibition of entrance
within the veil at any other time, even to the high priest himself, is
said to have followed "after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when
they drew near before the Lord, and died" (xvi. 1, 2).
It is perfectly possible, and even likely, that all these elements
were combined in their offence. In any case, the gravamen of their sin
is expressed in these words; they offered "fire which the Lord had not
commanded them:" offered it, either in a way not commanded, or at a
time not commanded, or in a place not commanded; or, perhaps, in each
and all of these ways, offered "fire which the Lord had not
commanded." This was their sin, and one which brought instant and
terrible judgment.
It is easy enough to believe that yet they meant well in what they
did. It probably seemed to them the right thing to do. After such a
stupendous display as they had just witnessed, of the flaming glory of
Jehovah, why should they not, in token of reverence and adoration,
offer incense, even in the most immediate presence of Jehovah? And why
should such minor variations from the appointed law, as to manner, or
time, or place, matter very much, so the motive was worship? So may
they probably have reasoned, if indeed they thought at all. But,
nevertheless, this made no difference; all the same, "fire came forth
from Jehovah, and devoured them." They had been but so lately
consecrated! and--as we learn from ver. 5--their priestly robes were
on them at the time, in token of their peculiar privilege of special
nearness to God! But this, too, made no difference; "there came forth
fire from before the Lord and devoured them."
Their sin, in the form in which it was committed, can never be
repeated; but as regards its inner nature and essence, no sin has been
in all ages more common. For the essence of their sin was this, that
it was will-worship; worship in which they consulted not the revealed
will of God regarding the way in which He would be served, but their
own fancies and inclinations. The directions for worship had been, as
we have seen, exceedingly full and explicit; but they apparently
imagined that the fragrance of their incense, and its intrinsic
suitableness as a symbol of adoration and prayer, was sufficient to
excuse neglect of strict obedience to the revealed will of God
touching His own worship. Their sin was not unlike that of Saul in a
later day, who thought to excuse disobedience by the offering of
enormous sacrifices. But he was sharply reminded that "to obey is
better than sacrifice" (1 Sam. xv. 22); and the priesthood were in
like manner on this occasion very terribly taught that obedience is
also better than incense, even the incense of the sanctuary.
In all ages, men have been prone to commit this sin, and in ours as
much as any. It is true that in the present dispensation the Lord has
left more in His worship than in earlier days to the sanctified
judgment of His people, and has not minutely prescribed details for
our direction. It is true, again, that there is, and always will be,
room for some difference of judgment among good and loyal servants of
the Lord, as to how far the liberty left us extends. But we are
certainly all taught as much as this, that wherever we are not clear
that we have a Divine warrant for what we do in the worship of God, we
need to be exceeding careful, and to act with holy fear, lest
possibly, like Nadab and Abihu, we be chargeable with offering
"strange fire," which the Lord has not commanded. And when one goes
into many a church and chapel, and sees the multitude of remarkable
devices by which, as is imagined, the worship and adoration of God is
furthered, it must be confessed that it certainly seems as if the
generation of Nadab and Abihu was not yet extinct; even although a
patient God, in the mystery of His long-suffering, flashes not
instantly forth His vengeance.
This then is the first lesson of this tragic occurrence. We have to do
with a God who is very jealous; who will be worshipped as He wills, or
not at all. Nor can we complain. If God be such a Being as we are
taught in the Holy Scripture, it must be His inalienable right to
determine and prescribe how He will be served.
And it is a second lesson, scarcely less evident, that with God,
intention of good, though it palliate, cannot excuse disobedience
where He has once made known His will. No one can imagine that Nadab
and Abihu meant wrong; but for all that, for their sin they died.
Again, we are herein impressively taught that, with God, high position
confers no immunity when a man sins; least of all, high position in
the Church. On the contrary, the greater the exaltation in spiritual
honour and privilege, the more strictly will a man be held to account
for every failure to honour Him who exalted him. We have seen this
illustrated already by the law of the sin-offering; and this tragic
story illustrates the same truth again.
But the question naturally arises, How could these men, who had been
so exalted in privilege, who had even beheld the glory of the God of
Israel in the holy mount (Exod. xxiv. 1, 9, 10), have ventured upon
such a perilous experiment? The answer is probably suggested by the
warning which immediately followed their death (vv. 8, 9): "The Lord
spake unto Aaron, saying, Drink no wine nor strong drink, ... when ye
go into the tent of the meeting, that ye die not." It is certainly
distinctly hinted by these words, that it was under the excitement of
strong drink that these men so fatally sinned.
If so, then, although their sin may not be repeated in its exact form
among us, yet the fact points a very solemn warning, not only
regarding the careless use of strong drink, but, more than that,
against all religious worship and activity which is inspired by other
stimulus than by the Holy Spirit of God. Of this every age of the
Church's history has furnished sad examples. Sometimes we see it
illustrated in "revivals," even in such as may be marked by some
evidence of the presence of the Spirit of God; when injudicious
speakers seek by various methods to work up what is, after all, merely
a physical excitement of a strange, infectious kind, though too often
mistaken for the work of the Holy Spirit of God. More subtle and yet
more common is the sin of such as in preaching the Word find their
chief stimulation in the excitement of a crowded house, or the visible
signs of approbation on the part of the hearers; and perhaps sometimes
mistake the natural effect of this influence for the quickening power
of the Holy Ghost, and go on to offer before the Lord the incense of
their religious service and worship, but with "strange fire." Of this
all need to beware; and most of all, ministers of the Word.
The penalty of sin is often long delayed, but it did not lag in this
case. The strange fire in the hands of Nadab and Abihu was met by a
flash of flame that instantly withered their life; and, just as they
were, their priestly robes upon them unconsumed, their censers in
their hands, they dropped dead before the fatal bolt.
In reading this account and other similar narratives in Holy
Scripture, of the deadly outbreak of God's wrath, many have felt not a
little disquieted in mind because of the terrific severity of the
judgment, which to them seems so out of all proportion to the guilt of
the offender. And so, in many hearts, and even to many lips, the
question has perforce arisen: Is it possible to believe that in this
passage, for instance, we have a true representation of the character
of God? In answering such a question we ought always to remember,
first of all, that, apart from our imperfect knowledge, just because
we all are sinners, we are, by that fact, all more or less
disqualified and incapacitated for forming a correct and unbiassed
judgment regarding the demerit of sin. It is quite certain that every
sinful man is naturally inclined to take a lenient view of the guilt
of sin, and, by necessary consequence, of its desert in respect of
punishment. In approaching this question, here and elsewhere in God's
Word, it is imperative that we keep this fact in mind.
Again, it is not unnecessary to remark, that we must be careful and
not read into this narrative what, in fact, is not here. For it is
often assumed without evidence, that when we read in the Bible of men
being suddenly cut off by death for some special sin, we are therefore
required to believe that the temporal judgment of physical death must
have been followed, in each instance, by the judgment of the eternal
fire. But always to infer this in such cases, when, as here, nothing
of the kind is hinted in the text, is a great mistake, and introduces
a difficulty which is wholly of our own making. That sometimes, at
least, the facts are quite the opposite, is expressly certified to us
in 1 Cor. xi. 30-32, where we are told that among the Christians of
Corinth, many, because of their irreverent approach to the Holy Supper
of the Lord, slept the sleep of death; but that these judgments from
the Lord, of bodily death, instead of being necessarily intended for
their eternal destruction, were sent that they might not finally
perish. For the Apostle's words are most explicit; for it is with
reference to these cases of sickness and death of which he had spoken,
that he adds (ver. 32): "But when we are (thus) judged, we are
chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world."
What we have here before us, then, is not the question of the eternal
condemnation of Nadab and Abihu for their thoughtless, though perhaps
not so intended, profanation of God's worship,--a point on which the
narrative gives us no information,--but, simply and only, the
inflicting on them, for this sin, of the judgment of temporal death.
And if this yet seem to some undue severity, as no doubt it will,
there remain other considerations which deserve to have great weight
here. In the first place, if this reveal God as terribly severe in His
judgment, even upon what, compared with other crimes, may seem a small
sin, we have to remember that, after all, this God of the Bible, this
Jehovah of the Old Testament, is only herein revealed as in this
respect like the God whose working we see in nature and in history.
Was the God of Nadab and Abihu a severe God? Is not the God of nature
a terribly severe God? Who then is it that has so appointed the
economy of nature that even for one thoughtless indulgence by a young
man, he shall be racked with pain all his life thereafter? It is a law
of nature, one says. But what is a law of nature but the ordinary
operation of the Divine Being who made nature? So let us not forget
that the reasoning which, because of the confessed severity of this
judgment on the sons of Aaron, argues God out of the tenth of
Leviticus, and refuses to believe that this can be a revelation of His
mind and character, by parity of reasoning must go on to argue God out
of nature and out of history. But if one be not yet ready for the
latter, let him take heed how he too hastily decide on this ground
against the verity of the history and the truth of the revelation in
the case before us.
Then, again, we need to be careful that we pass not judgment before
considering all that was involved in this act of sin. We cannot look
upon the case as if the act of Nadab and Abihu had been merely a
private matter, personal to themselves alone. This it was not, and
could not be. They did what they did in their official robes;
moreover, it was a peculiarly public act: it took place before the
sanctuary, where all the people were assembled. What was the influence
of this their act, if it passed unrebuked and unpunished, likely to
be? History shows that nothing was more inbred in the nature of the
people than just this tendency to will-worship. For centuries after
this, notwithstanding many like terrible judgments, it mightily
prevailed, taking the form of numberless attempted improvements on the
arrangements of worship appointed by God, and introducing, under such
pretexts of expediency often the grossest idolatry. And although the
Babylonian judgment made an end of the idolatrous form of
will-worship, the old tendency persisted, and worked on under a new
form till, as we learn from our Lord's words in the Gospel, the people
were in His day utterly overwhelmed with "heavy burdens and grievous
to be borne," rabbinical additions to the law, attempted improvements
on Moses, under pretext of honouring Moses, all begotten of this same
inveterate spirit of will-worship. Nor are such things of little
consequence, as some seem to imagine, whether we find them among Jews
or in Christian communions. On the contrary, all will-worship, in all
its endless variety of forms, tends to confuse conscience, by
confounding with the commandments of God the practices and traditions
of men; and all history, no less of the Church than of Israel, shows
that the tendency of all such will-worship is to the subversion alike
of morality religion, occasioning, too often, total misapprehension
as to what indeed is the essence of religion well pleasing to God.
Was the sin of the priests, Nadab and Abihu, then, committed in such a
public manner, such a trifling matter after all? And when we further
remember the peculiar circumstances of the occasion,--that the whole
ceremonial of the day was designed in a special manner to instruct the
people as to the manner in which Jehovah, their King and their God,
would be worshipped,--it certainly is not so hard, after all, to see
how it was almost imperative that in the very beginning of Israel's
national history, God should give them a lesson on the sanctity of His
ordinances and His hatred of will-worship, which should be remembered
to all time.
The solemn lesson of the terrible judgment, Moses, as Prophet and
Interpreter of God's will to the people, declares in these words (ver.
3): "This is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in
them that come nigh Me, and before all the people I will be
glorified."
If God separate a people to be specially near unto Him, it is that,
admitted to such special nearness to Himself, they shall ever
reverently recognise His transcendent exaltation in holiness, and take
care that He be ever glorified in them before all men. But if any be
careless of this, God will nevertheless not be defrauded. If they will
recognise His august holiness, in the reverence of loyal service,
well; God shall thus glorify Himself in them before all. But if
otherwise, still God will be glorified in them before all people,
though now in their chastisement and in retribution. The principle is
that which is announced by Amos (iii. 2): "You only have I known of
all the families of the earth; _therefore_ I will visit upon you all
your iniquities." And when we remember that the sons of Aaron
typically represent the whole body of believers in Christ, as a
priestly people, it is plain that the warning of this judgment comes
directly home to us all. If, as Christians, we have been brought into
a relation of special nearness and privilege with God, we have to
remember that the place of privilege is, in this case, a place of
peculiar danger. If we forget the reverence and honour due to His
name, and insist on will-worship of any kind, we shall in some way
suffer for it. God may wink at the sins of others, but not at ours. He
is a God of love, and desires not our death, but that He may be
glorified in our life; but if any will not have it so, He will not be
robbed of His glory. Hence the warning of the Apostle Peter, who was
so filled with these Old Testament conceptions of God and His worship:
"It is written, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on Him
as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each
man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear" (1 Peter i. 17).
Ver. 3: "And Aaron held his peace."
For rebellion were useless; nay, it had been madness. Even the
tenderest natural affection must be silent when God smites for sin;
and in this case the sin was so manifest, and the connection therewith
of the judgment so evident, that Aaron could say nothing, though his
heart must have been breaking.
MOURNING IN SILENCE.
x. 4-7.
"And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the
uncle of Aaron, and said unto them, Draw near, carry your
brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp. So they drew
near, and carried them in their coats out of the camp; as Moses
had said. And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto
Ithamar, his sons, Let not the hair of your heads go loose,
neither rend your clothes; that ye die not, and that He be not
wroth with all the congregation: but let your brethren, the whole
house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord hath kindled.
And ye shall not go out from the door of the tent of meeting,
lest ye die: for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you. And
they did according to the word of Moses."
Even in ordinary cases, restrictions were placed upon Aaron and his
sons as regards the outward signs of mourning; but exceptions were
made in the case of the nearest relations, and, in particular, of the
death of a son, or a brother (chap. xxi. 2). In this case, however,
this permission could not be given; and they are warned that by public
expressions of grief they would not only bring death from the Lord
upon themselves, but also bring His wrath upon the whole congregation
which they represented before God. They are not indeed forbidden to
mourn in their hearts, but from all the outward and customary signs of
mourning they must abstain. And the reason for this is given; "The
anointing oil of the Lord is upon you." That is, by the anointing they
had been set apart to represent God before Israel. Hence, when God had
thus manifested His holy wrath against sin, for them to have exhibited
the public signs of mourning for this, even though the stroke of wrath
had fallen into their own family, would have been a visible
contradiction between their actions and their priestly position. To
others, indeed, these outward tokens of mourning are expressly
permitted, for they stood in no such special relation to God; their
brethren, "the whole house of Israel," might bewail the burning which
the Lord had kindled, but they, although nearest of kin to the dead,
are not permitted even to follow the slain of the Lord to the grave,
and (vv. 4, 5) the sad duty is assigned to their cousins, who bear the
dead, in their white priestly robes, just as they had fallen, out of
the camp to burial, while Aaron and his sons mourn silently within the
tent of meeting.
This has seemed hard to many, and has furnished some another
illustration of the hardness and severity of the character of God as
held up in the Pentateuch. But we shall do well to remember that in
all this we have nothing which in any respect goes beyond the very
solemn words of the tender-hearted and most compassionate Saviour, who
said, for example, "If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
... he cannot be My disciple" (Luke xiv. 26). In language such as
this, we cannot but recognise the same character as in this command
unto Aaron and his sons; and if such "hard sayings" are to be held
reason for rejecting the revelation of the character of God as given
in the Old Testament, the same logic, in the presence of similar
words, will require us also to reject the revelation of God's
character as given by Christ in the New Testament.
The teaching of both Testaments on this matter is plain. Natural
affection is right; it is indeed implanted in our hearts by the God
who made us in all our human relations. But none the less, whenever
the feelings which belong even to the nearest and tenderest earthly
relations come into conflict with absolute fealty and submission to
the will of God, and unswerving loyalty to the will of Christ, then,
hard though indeed it may be, natural affection must give way, and
mourn within the tent in the silence of a holy submission to the
Lord.
CAREFULNESS AFTER JUDGMENT.
x. 8-20.
"And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Drink no wine nor strong
drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of
meeting, that ye die not: it shall be a statute for ever
throughout your generations: and that ye may put difference
between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the
clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the
statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of
Moses. And Moses spake unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto
Ithamar, his sons that were left, Take the meal offering that
remaineth of the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and eat it
without leaven beside the altar: for it is most holy: and ye
shall eat it in a holy place, because it is thy due, and thy
sons' due, of the offerings of the Lord made by fire: for so I am
commanded. And the wave breast and the heave thigh shall ye eat
in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with
thee: for they are given as thy due, and thy sons' due, out of
the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the children of Israel.
The heave thigh and the wave breast shall they bring with the
offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering
before the Lord: and it shall be thine, and thy sons' with thee,
as a due for ever; as the Lord hath commanded. And Moses
diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it
was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and with Ithamar, the
sons of Aaron that were left, saying, Wherefore have ye not eaten
the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, seeing it is most
holy, and He hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the
congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord? Behold,
the blood of it was not brought into the sanctuary within: ye
should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded.
And Aaron spake unto Moses, Behold, this day have they offered
their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord; and
there have befallen me such things as these: and if I had eaten
the sin offering to-day, would it have been well-pleasing in the
sight of the Lord? And when Moses heard that, it was
well-pleasing in his sight."
Such a judgment as the foregoing ought to have had a good effect, and
it did. This appeared in renewed carefulness to secure the most exact
obedience hereafter in all their official duties. To this end, the
Lord Himself now laid down a law evidently designed to preclude, as
far as possible, every risk of any such fault in the priestly service
as might again bring down judgment. It is not only holiness, but
considerate and anxious love, which speaks in the next words,
addressed to Aaron (vv. 8, 9): "Drink no wine nor strong drink, thou,
nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tent of meeting, that ye
die not: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations."
And for this prohibition the reason is given (vv. 10, 11): "That ye
may put difference between the holy and the common, and between the
unclean and the clean; and that ye may teach the children of Israel
all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of
Moses."
It was not then that the use of wine was in itself sinful; for this is
taught nowhere in the Old or New Testament, and as a doctrine of
religion is characteristic, not of Judaism or Christianity, but only
of Mohammedanism, of Buddhism and other heathen religions. The ground
of this command of abstinence, as of the New Testament counsel (Rom.
xiv. 20, 21), is that of expediency. Because, in the use of wine or
strong drink, there was involved a certain risk, that by undue
indulgence the judgment might be confused or the memory weakened, so
that something might be done amiss; therefore the priests, who were
specially commissioned to teach the statutes of the Lord to Israel,
and this most of all, by their own carefulness to obey all the least
of His commandments, are here warned to abstain whenever about
engaging in their official duties. As suggested above, it is at least
very natural to infer, from the historical setting of this
prohibition, that the fatal offence of Nadab and Abihu was occasioned
by such an indulgence in wine or strong drink as made it possible for
impulse to get the better of knowledge and judgment.
But, however this may be, the lesson for us abides the same; a lesson
which each one according to his circumstances must faithfully apply to
his own case. For the Christian it is not enough that he shall abstain
from what is in its own nature always sinful; it must be the law of
our life that we abstain also from whatever may needlessly become
occasion of sin. In this we cannot, indeed, lay down a universal code
of law. Heathen reformers have done this, and their imitators in the
Church, but never Christ or His Apostles. And this with reason. For
that which for one carries with it inevitable risk of sin, is not
always fraught with the same danger to another person with a different
temperament, or even to the same person under different circumstances.
In each instance we must judge for ourselves, taking heed not to abuse
our liberty to another's harm; and also, on the other hand, being
careful how we judge others in regard to things which in their
essential nature are neither right nor wrong. But we shall be wise to
recognise the fact that it is just in such things that many Christians
do most harm, both to their own souls and to those of others. And in
regard to the drinking of wine in particular, one must be blind indeed
not to perceive it to be the fact that, whatever the reason may be,
the English-speaking peoples seem to be peculiarly susceptible to the
danger of undue indulgence in wine and strong drink. On both sides of
the Atlantic, drunkenness must be set down as one of the most
prevalent national sins.
In deciding the question of personal duty in this and like cases, all
believers are bound, as the Lord's priestly people, to remember that
He has appointed them that they should walk before Him as a separated
people, who, by their daily walk, above all, are to teach others to
"put a difference between holy and common, and unclean and clean, and
to observe all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken."
In vv. 12-15 we have a repetition of the commandments previously
given, concerning the use to be made of the meal-offering and the
peace-offering. From this it appears that Moses himself, in view of
the tragic occurrence of the day, was stirred up to charge Aaron and
his sons anew on matters on which he had already commanded them. And
with this intensified care on his part is evidently connected the
incident recorded in the verses which follow, where we read that,
having repeated the directions as to the meal-offering and the
peace-offering (vv. 16, 17), "Moses diligently sought the goat of the
sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt; and he was angry with Eleazar
and with Ithamar, the sons of Aaron that were left, saying, Wherefore
have ye not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary,
seeing it is most holy, and He hath given it you to bear the iniquity
of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord?"
It had indeed been commanded, in the case of those sin-offerings of
which the blood was brought into the holy place, that their flesh
should not be eaten; but that the flesh of all others should be eaten,
as belonging to the class of things "most holy," by the priests alone
within the Holy Place. Hence Moses continued (ver. 18): "Behold, the
blood of it was not brought into the sanctuary within: ye should
certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, as I commanded."
What had been done, as it appears, had been done with Aaron's
knowledge and sanction; for Aaron then answered in behalf of his sons
(ver. 19): "Behold, this day have they offered their sin offering and
their burnt offering before the Lord; and there have befallen me such
things as these: and if I had eaten the sin offering to-day, would it
have been well-pleasing in the sight of the Lord?"
Of which answer, the intention seems to have been this. In this day of
special exaltation and privilege, when for the first time they had
performed their solemn priestly duties, when most of all there should
have been the utmost care to please the Lord in the very smallest
things, His holy Name had been profaned by the will-worship of his
sons, and the wrath of God had broken out against them, and, in them,
against their father's house. Could it be the will of God that a house
in which was found the guilt of such a sin, should yet partake of the
most holy things of God in the sanctuary?
From this it appears that the judgment sent into the house of Aaron
had had a most wholesome spiritual effect. They had received such an
impression of their own profound sinfulness as they had never had
before. And it is very instructive to observe that they assume to
themselves a part in the sinfulness which had been shown in the sin of
Nadab and Abihu. It did not occur to Aaron or his remaining sons to
say, in the spirit of Israel in the day of our Lord, "If we had been
in their place, we would not have done so." Rather their consciences
had been so awakened to the holiness of God and their own inborn evil,
that they coupled themselves with the others as under the displeasure
of God. Was it possible, even though they personally had not sinned,
that such as they should eat that which was most holy unto God? They
had thus in the letter disobeyed the law; but because their offence
was begotten of a misapprehension, and only showed how deeply and
thoroughly they had taken to heart the lesson of the sore judgment, we
read that "when Moses heard" their explanation, "it was well pleasing
in his sight."
All this which followed the sin of Nadab and Abihu, and the judgment
which fell on them, and thus upon the whole house of Aaron, is a most
instructive illustration of the working of the chastising judgments of
the Lord, when rightly received. Its effect was to awaken the utmost
solicitude that nothing else might be found about the tabernacle
service, even through oversight, which was not according to the mind
of God; and, in those immediately stricken, to produce a very profound
sense of personal sinfulness and unworthiness before God. The New
Testament gives us a graphic description of this effect of the
chastisement of God on the believer, in the account which we have of
the result of the discipline which the Apostle Paul inflicted on the
sinning member of the Church of Corinth; concerning which he afterward
wrote to them (2 Cor. vii. 11): "Behold, this selfsame thing, that ye
were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in
you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea,
what fear, yea, what longing, yea, what zeal, yea, what avenging!"
A good test is this, which, when we have passed under the chastising
hand of God, we may well apply to ourselves: this "earnest care," this
"clearing of ourselves," this holy fear of a humbled heart,--have we
known what it means? If so, though we sorrow, we may yet rejoice that
by grace we are enabled to sorrow "after a godly sort," with "a
repentance which bringeth no regret."
CHAPTER XIII.
_THE GREAT DAY OF ATONEMENT._
LEV. xvi. 1-34.
In the first verse of chapter xvi., which ordains the ceremonial for
the great annual day of atonement, we are told that this ordinance was
delivered by the Lord to Moses "after the death of the two sons of
Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord, and died."[19] Because of
the close historical connection thus declared between this chapter and
chapter x., and also because in this ordinance the Mosaic sacrificial
worship, which has been the subject of the book thus far, finds its
culmination, it seems most satisfactory to anticipate the order of the
book by taking up at this point the exposition of this chapter, before
proceeding in chapter xi. to a wholly different subject.
[19] The interposition of chapters xi.-xv. on ceremonial
uncleanness, between chapters x. and xvi., which are so closely
connected by this historical note in xvi. 1, certainly suggests
an editorial redaction--as the phrase is--in which the latter
chapter, for whatsoever reason, has been removed from its
original context. But that such a redaction, of which we have in
the book other traces, does not of necessity affect in the
slightest degree the question of its inspiration and Divine
authority, should be self-evident.
This ordinance of the day of atonement was perhaps the most important
and characteristic in the whole Mosaic legislation. In the law of the
offerings, the most distinctive part was the law of the sin-offering;
and it was on the great annual day of atonement that the conceptions
embodied in the sin-offering obtained their most complete development.
The central place which this day occupied in the whole system of
sacred times is well illustrated in that it is often spoken of by the
rabbis, without any more precise designation, as simply "_Yomà_," "The
Day." It was "_the_ day" because, on this day, the idea of sacrificial
expiation and the consequent removal of all sin, essential to the life
of peace and fellowship with God, which was set forth imperfectly, as
regards individuals and the nation, by the daily sin-offerings,
received the highest possible symbolical expression. It is plain that
countless sins and transgressions and various defilements must yet
have escaped unrecognised as such, even by the most careful and
conscientious Israelite; and that, for this reason, they could not
have been covered by any of the daily offerings for sin. Hence, apart
from this full, solemn, typical purgation and cleansing of the
priesthood and the congregation, and the holy sanctuary, from the
uncleannesses and transgressions of the children of Israel, "even all
their sins" (ver. 16), the sacrificial system had yet fallen short of
expressing in adequate symbolism the ideal of the complete removal of
all sin. With abundant reason then do the rabbis regard it as the day
of days in the sacred year.
It is insisted by the radical criticism of our day that the general
sense of sin and need of expiation which this ordinance expresses
could not have existed in the days of Moses; and that since, moreover,
the later historical books of the Old Testament contain no reference
to the observance of the day, therefore its origin must be attributed
to the days of the restoration from Babylon, when, as such critics
suppose, the deeper sense of sin, developed by the great judgment of
the Babylonian captivity and exile, occasioned the elaboration of this
ritual.
To this one might reply that the objection rests upon an assumption
which the Christian believer cannot admit, that the ordinance was
merely a product of the human mind. But if, as our Lord constantly
taught, and as the chapter explicitly affirms, the ordinance was a
matter of Divine, supernatural revelation, then naturally we shall
expect to find in it, not man's estimate of the guilt of sin, but
God's, which in all ages is the same.
But, meeting such objectors on their own ground, we need not go into
the matter further than to refer to the high authority of Dillmann,
who declares this theory of the post-exilian origin of this
institution to be "absolutely incredible;" and in reply to the
objection that the day is not alluded to in the whole Old Testament
history, justly adds that this argument from silence would equally
forbid us to assign the origin of the ordinance to the days of the
return from Babylon, or any of the pre-Christian centuries! for "one
would then have to maintain that the festival first arose in the first
Christian century; since only out of that age do we first have any
explicit testimonies concerning it."[20]
[20] "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 525.
Again, the first verse of the chapter gives as the occasion of the
promulgation of this law, "the death of the two sons of Aaron," Nadab
and Abihu, "when they drew near before the Lord and died;" a
historical note which is perfectly natural if we have here a narrative
dating from Mosaic days, but which seems most objectless and unlikely
to have been entered, if the law were a late invention of rabbinical
forgers. On that occasion it was, as we read (v. 2), that "the Lord
said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all
times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy-seat which
is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon
the mercy-seat."
Into this place of Jehovah's most immediate earthly manifestation,
even Aaron is to come only once a year, and then only with atoning
blood, as hereinafter prescribed.
The object of the whole service of this day is represented as
atonement; expiation of sin, in the highest and fullest sense then
possible. It is said to be appointed to make atonement for Aaron and
for his house (ver. 6), for the holy place, and for the tent of
meeting (vv. 15-17); for the altar of burnt-offering in the outer
court (vv. 18, 19); and for all the congregation of Israel (vv. 20-22,
33); and this, not merely for such sins of ignorance as had been
afterward recognised and acknowledged in the ordinary sin-offerings of
each day, but for "_all_ the iniquities of the children of Israel, and
_all_ their transgressions, even all their sins:" even such as were
still unknown to all but God (ver. 21). The fact of such an ordinance
for such a purpose taught a most impressive lesson of the holiness of
God and the sinfulness of man, on the one hand, and, on the other, the
utter insufficiency of the daily offerings to cleanse from all sin.
Day by day these had been offered in each year; and yet, as we read
(Heb. ix. 8, 9), the Holy Ghost this signified by this ordinance,
"that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest;" it
was "a parable for the time now present;" teaching that the temple
sacrifices of Judaism could not "as touching the conscience, make the
worshipper perfect" (Heb. ix. 9). We may well reverse the judgment of
the critics, and say--not that the deepened sense of sin in Israel was
the cause of the day of atonement; but rather, that the solemn
observances of this day, under God, were made for many in Israel a
most effective means to deepen the conviction of sin.
The time which was ordained for this annual observance is
significant--the tenth day of the seventh month. It was appointed for
the seventh month, as the sabbatic month, in which all the related
ideas of rest in God and with God, in the enjoyment of the blessings
of a now complete redemption, received in the great feast of
tabernacles their fullest expression. It was therefore appointed for
that month, and for a day which shortly preceded this greatest of the
annual feasts, to signify in type the profound and most vital truth,
that the full joy of the sabbatic rest of man with God, and the
ingathering of the fruits of complete redemption, is only possible
upon condition of repentance and the fullest possible expiation for
sin. It was appointed for the tenth day of this month, no doubt,
because in the Scripture symbolism the number ten is the symbol of
completeness; and was fitly thus connected with a service which
signified expiation completed for the sins of the year.
* * * * *
The observances appointed for the day had regard, first, to the
people, and, secondly, to the tabernacle service. As for the former,
it was commanded (ver. 29) that they should "do no manner of work,"
observing the day as a _Sabbath Sabbathon_, "a high Sabbath," or
"Sabbath of solemn rest" (ver. 31); and, secondly, that they should
"afflict their souls" (ver. 31), namely, by solemn fasting, in
visible sign of sorrow and humiliation for sin. By which it was most
distinctly taught, that howsoever complete atonement may be, and
howsoever, in making that atonement through a sacrificial victim, the
sinner himself have no part, yet apart from his personal repentance
for his sins, that atonement shall profit him nothing; nay, it was
declared (xxiii. 29), that if any man should fail on this point, God
would cut him off from his people. The law abides as regards the
greater sacrifice of Christ; except we repent, we shall, even because
of that sacrifice, only the more terribly perish; because not even
this supreme exhibition of the holy love and justice of God has moved
us to renounce sin.
As regards the tabernacle service for the day, the order was as
follows. First, as most distinctive of the ritual of the day, only the
high-priest could officiate. The other priests, who, on other
occasions, served continually in the holy place, must on this day,
during these ceremonies, leave it to him alone; taking their place,
themselves as sinners for whom also atonement was to be made, with the
sinful congregation of their brethren. For it was ordered (ver. 17):
"There shall be no man in the tent of meeting when the high priest
goeth in to make atonement in the holy place, until he come out," and
the work of atonement be completed.
And the high priest could himself officiate only after certain
significant preparations. First (ver. 4), he must "bathe in water" his
whole person. The word used in the original is different from that
which is used of the partial washings in connection with the daily
ceremonial cleansings; and, most suggestively, the same complete
washing is required as that which was ordered in the law for the
consecration of the priesthood, and for cleansing from leprosy and
other specific defilements. Thus was expressed, in the clearest manner
possible, the thought, that the high priest, who shall be permitted to
draw near to God in the holiest place, and there prevail with Him,
must himself be wholly pure and clean.
Then, having bathed, he must robe himself in a special manner for the
service of this day. He must lay aside the bright-coloured "garments
for glory and beauty" which he wore on all other occasions, and put
on, instead, a vesture of pure, unadorned white, like that of the
ordinary priest; excepting only that for him, on this day, unlike
them, the girdle also must be white. By this substitution of these
garments for his ordinary brilliant robes was signified, not merely
the absolute purity which the white linen symbolised, but especially
also, by the absence of adornment, humiliation for sin. On this day he
was thus made in outward appearance essentially like unto the other
members of his house, for whose sin, together with his own, he was to
make atonement.
Thus washed and robed, wearing on his white turban the golden crown
inscribed "Holiness to Jehovah" (Exod. xxviii. 38), he now took (vv.
3, 5-7), as a sin-offering for himself and for his house, a bullock;
and for the congregation, "two he-goats for a sin offering;" with a
ram for himself, and one for them, for a burnt offering. The two goats
were set "before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting." The
bullock was the offering before prescribed for the sin-offering for
the high priest (iv. 3), as being the most valuable of all sacrificial
victims. For the choice of the goats many reasons have been given,
none of which seem wholly satisfactory. Both of the goats are equally
declared (ver. 5) to be "for a sin offering;" yet only one was to be
slain.
The ceremonial which followed is unique; it is without its like either
in Mosaism or in heathenism. It was ordered (ver. 8): "Aaron shall
cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot
for Azazel;" an expression to which we shall shortly return. Only the
goat on whom the lot fell for the Lord was to be slain.
The two goats remain standing before the Lord; while now Aaron kills
the sin-offering for himself and for his house (ver. 11); then enters,
first, the Holy of Holies within the veil, having taken (ver. 12) a
censer "full of coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord,"
with his hands full of incense (ver. 13), "that the cloud of the
incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony (_i.e._,
the two tables of the law within the ark), that he die not." Then
(ver. 13) he sprinkles the blood "upon the mercy-seat on the east"--by
which was signified the application of the blood God-ward, accompanied
with the fragrance of intercession, for the expiation of his own sins
and those of his house; and then "seven times, before the
mercy-seat,"--evidently, on the floor of the sanctuary, for the
symbolic cleansing of the holiest place, defiled by all the
uncleannesses of the children of Israel, in the midst of whom it
stood. Then, returning, he kills the goat of the sin-offering "for
Jehovah," and repeats the same ceremony, now in behalf of the whole
congregation, sprinkling, as before, the mercy-seat, and, seven times,
the Holy of Holies, thus making atonement for it, "because of the
uncleannesses of the children of Israel, and because of their
transgressions, even all their sins" (ver. 16). In like manner, he was
then to cleanse, by a seven-fold sprinkling, the Holy Place; and then
again going into the outer court, also the altar of burnt-offering;
this last, doubtless, as in other cases, by applying the blood to the
horns of the altar.
In all this it will be observed that the difference from the ordinary
sin-offerings and the wider reach of its symbolical virtue is found,
not in that the offering is different from or larger than others, but
in that, symbolically speaking, the blood is brought, as in no other
offering, into the most immediate presence of God; even into the
secret darkness of the Holy of Holies, where no child of Israel might
tread. For this reason did this sin-offering become, above all others,
the most perfect type of the one offering of Him, the God-Man, who
reconciled us to God by doing that in reality which was here done in
symbol, even entering with atoning blood into the very presence of
God, there to appear in our behalf.
AZAZEL.
xvi. 20-28.
"And when he hath made an end of atoning for the holy place, and
the tent of meeting, and the altar, he shall present the live
goat: and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the
live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the
children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their
sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and shall
send him away by the hand of a man that is in readiness into the
wilderness: and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities
unto a solitary land: and he shall let go the goat in the
wilderness. And Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting, and
shall put off the linen garments, which he put on when he went
into the holy place, and shall leave them there: and he shall
bathe his flesh in water in a holy place, and put on his
garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering and the
burnt offering of the people, and make atonement for himself and
for the people. And the fat of the sin offering shall he burn
upon the altar. And he that letteth go the goat for Azazel shall
wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he
shall come into the camp. And the bullock of the sin offering,
and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to
make atonement in the holy place, shall be carried forth without
the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skins, and their
flesh, and their dung. And he that burneth them shall wash his
clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall
come into the camp."
And now followed the second stage of the ceremonial, a rite of the
most singular and impressive character. The live goat, during the
former part of the ceremony, had been left standing before Jehovah,
where he had been placed after the casting of the lot (ver. 10). The
rendering of King James' version, that the goat was so placed, "to
make an atonement _with_ him," assumes a meaning to the Hebrew
preposition here which it never has. Usage demands either that which
is given in the text or the margin of the Revised Version, to make
atonement "_for_ him" or "_over_ him." But to the former the objection
seems insuperable that there is nothing in the whole rite suggesting
an atonement as made for this living goat; while, on the other hand,
if the rendering "over" be adopted from the margin, it may not
unnaturally be understood of the performance _over_ this goat of that
part of the atonement ceremonial described as follows:--
Vv. 20-22: "When he hath made an end of atoning for the holy place,
and the tent of meeting, and the altar, he shall present the live goat
... and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel,
and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put
them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of
a man that is in readiness into the wilderness: and the goat shall
bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land: and he shall
let go the goat in the wilderness." And with this ceremony the
atonement was completed. Aaron now laid aside the robes which he had
put on for this service, bathed again, and put on again his richly
coloured garments of office, came forth and offered the burnt-offering
for himself and for the people, and burnt the fat of the sin-offering
as usual on the altar (vv. 23-25), while its flesh was burned,
according to the law for such sacrifices, without the camp (ver. 27).
What was the precise significance of this part of the service, is one
of the most difficult questions which arises in the exposition of this
book; the answer to which chiefly turns upon the meaning which is
attached to the expression, "for Azazel" (O.V., "for a scapegoat").
What is the meaning of "Azazel"?
There are three fundamental facts which stand before us in this
chapter, which must find their place in any explanation which may be
adopted. 1. Both of the goats are declared to be "a sin-offering;" the
live goat, no less than the other. 2. In consistency with this, the
live goat, no less than the other, was consecrated to Jehovah, in that
he was "set alive before the Lord." 3. The function expressly ascribed
to him in the law is the complete removal of the transgressions of
Israel, symbolically transferred to him as a burden, by the laying on
of hands with confession of sin. Passing by, then, several
interpretations, which seem intrinsically irreconcilable with one or
other of these facts, or are, for other reasons, to be rejected, the
case seems to be practically narrowed down to this alternative. Either
Azazel is to be regarded as the name of an evil spirit, conceived of
as dwelling in the wilderness, or else it is to be taken as an
abstract noun, as in the margin (R.V.), signifying "removal,"
"dismissal." That the word may have this meaning is very commonly
admitted even by those who deny that meaning here; and if, with
Bähr[21] and others, we adopt it in this passage, all that follows is
quite clear. The goat "for removal" bears away all the iniquities of
Israel, which are symbolically laid upon him, into a solitary land;
that is, they are taken wholly away from the presence of God and from
the camp of His people. Thus, as the killing and sprinkling of the
blood of the first goat visibly set forth the _means_ of
reconciliation with God, through the substituted offering of an
innocent victim, so the sending away of the second goat, laden with
those sins, the expiation of which had been signified by the sacrifice
of the first, no less vividly set forth the _effect_ of that
sacrifice, in the complete removal of those expiated sins from the
holy presence of Jehovah. That this effect of atonement should have
been adequately represented by the first slain victim was impossible;
hence the necessity for the second goat, ideally identified with the
other, as jointly constituting with it one sin-offering, whose special
use it should be to represent the blessed effect of atonement. The
truth symbolised, as the goat thus bore away the sins of Israel, is
expressed in those glad words (Psalm ciii. 12), "As far as the east is
from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us;" or,
under another image, by Micah (vii. 19), "Thou wilt cast all their
sins into the depths of the sea."
[21] "Symbolik des Mosäischen Cultus," 2 Band., p. 668.
So far all seems quite clear, and this explanation, no doubt, will
always be accepted by many.
And yet there remains one serious objection to this interpretation;
namely, that the meaning we thus give this word "Azazel" is not what
we would expect from the phrase which is used regarding the casting
of the lots (ver. 8): "One lot for the Lord, and the other lot for
Azazel." These words do most naturally suggest that Azazel is the name
of a person, who is here contrasted with Jehovah; and hence it is
believed by a large number of the best expositors that the term must
be taken here as the name of an evil spirit, represented as dwelling
in the wilderness, to whom this goat, thus laden with Israel's sins,
is sent. In addition to this phraseology, it is urged, in support of
this interpretation, that even the Scripture lends apparent sanction
to the Jewish belief that demons are, in some special sense, the
inhabitants of waste and desolate places; and, in particular, that
Jewish demonology does in fact recognise a demon named Azazel, also
called Sammael. It is admitted, indeed, that the name Azazel does not
occur in the Scripture as the name of Satan or of any evil spirit;
and, moreover, that there is no evidence that the Jewish belief
concerning the existence of a demon called Azazel dates nearly so far
back as Mosaic days; and, again, that even the rabbis themselves are
not agreed on this interpretation here, many of them rejecting it,
even on traditional grounds. Still the interpretation has secured the
support of the majority of the best modern expositors, and must claim
respectful consideration.
But if Azazel indeed denotes an evil spirit to whom the second goat of
the sin-offering is thus sent, laden with the iniquities of Israel,
the question then arises: How then, on this supposition, is the
ceremony to be interpreted?
The notion of some, that we have in this rite a relic of the ancient
demon-worship, is utterly inadmissible. For this goat is expressly
said (ver. 5) to have been, equally with the goat that was slain, "a
sin-offering," and (vv. 10, 20) it is placed "before the Lord," as an
offering to Him; nor is there a hint, here or elsewhere, that this
goat was sacrificed in the wilderness to this Azazel; while, moreover,
in this very priest-code (xvii. 7-9, R.V.) this special form of
idolatry is forbidden, under the heaviest penalty.
That the goat sent to Azazel personified, by way of warning and in a
typical manner, Israel, as rejecting the great Sin-offering, and thus
laden with iniquity, and therefore delivered over to Satan, is an idea
equally untenable. For the goat, as we have seen, is regarded as
ideally one with the goat which is slain; they jointly constitute one
sin-offering. If, therefore, the slain goat represented in type Christ
as the Lamb of God, our Sin-offering, so also must this goat represent
Him as our Sin-offering. Further, the ceremonial which is performed
over him is explicitly termed an "atonement;" that is, it was an
essential part of a ritual designed to symbolise, not the condemnation
of Israel for sin, but their complete deliverance from the guilt of
their sins.
Not to speak of other explanations, more or less untenable, which have
each found their advocates, the only one which, upon this
understanding of the meaning of Azazel, the context and the analogy of
the Scripture will both admit, appears to be the following. Holy
Scripture teaches that Satan has power over man, only because of man's
sin. Because of his sin, man is judicially left by God in Satan's
power (1 John v. 19, R.V.). When as "the prince of this world" he came
to the sinless Man, Jesus Christ, he had nothing in Him, because He
was the Holy One of God; while, on the other hand, he is represented
(Heb. ii. 14) as having over men under sin "the authority of death."
In full accord with this conception, he is represented, both in the
Old and the New Testament, as the accuser of God's people. He is said
to have accused Job before God (Job i. 9-11; ii. 4, 5). When Zechariah
(iii. 1) saw Joshua the high-priest standing before the angel of
Jehovah, he saw Satan also standing at his right hand to be his
"adversary." So, again, in the Apocalypse (xii. 10) he is called "the
Accuser of our brethren, which accuseth them before our God day and
night," and who is only overcome by means of "the blood of the Lamb."
To this Evil One, then, the Accuser and Adversary of God's people in
all ages--if we assume the interpretation before us--the live goat was
symbolically sent, bearing on him the sins of Israel. But does he bear
their sins as forgiven, or as unforgiven? Surely, as forgiven; for the
sins which he symbolically carries are those very sins of the bygone
year for which expiating blood had just been offered and accepted in
the Holy of Holies. Moreover, he is sent as being ideally one with the
goat that was slain. As sent to Azazel, he therefore symbolically
announces to the Evil One that with the expiation of sin by
sacrificial blood the foundation of his power over forgiven Israel is
gone. His accusations are now no longer in place; for the whole
question of Israel's sin has been met and settled in the atoning
blood. Thus, as the acceptance of the blood of the one goat offered in
the Holiest symbolised the complete propitiation of the offended
holiness of God and His pardon of Israel's sin, so the sending of the
goat to Azazel symbolised the _effect_ of this expiation, in the
complete removal of all the penal effects of sin, through deliverance
by atonement from the power of the Adversary as the executioner of
God's wrath.
Which of these two interpretations shall be accepted must be left to
the reader: that neither is without difficulty, those who have most
studied this very obscure question will most readily admit; that
either is at least consistent with the context and with other
teachings of Scripture, should be sufficiently evident. In either
case, the symbolic intention of the first part of the ritual, with the
first goat, was to symbolise the _means_ of reconciliation with God;
namely, through the offering unto God of the life of an innocent
victim, substituted in the sinner's place: in either case alike, the
purpose of the second part of the ceremonial, with the second goat,
was to symbolise the blessed _effect_ of this expiation; either, if
the reading of the margin be taken, in the complete removal of the
expiated sin from the presence of the Holy God, or, if Azazel be taken
as a proper name, in the complete deliverance of the sinner, through
expiatory blood presented in the Holiest, from the power of Satan. If
in the former case, we think of the words already cited, "As far as
the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions
from us;" in the latter the words from the Apocalypse (xii. 10, 11)
come to mind, "The Accuser of our brethren is cast down, which
accuseth them before our God day and night. And they overcame him
because of the blood of the Lamb."
On other particulars in the ceremonial of the day we need not dwell,
as they have received their exposition in earlier chapters of the law
of the offerings. Of the burnt-offerings, indeed, which followed the
dismissal of the living goat of the sin-offering, little is said; it
is, emphatically, the sin-offering upon which, above all else, it was
designed to centre the attention of Israel on this occasion.
And so, with an injunction to the perpetual observance of this day,
this remarkable chapter closes. In it the sacrificial law of Moses
attains its supreme expression; the holiness and the grace alike of
Israel's God, their fullest revelation. For the like of the great day
of atonement, we look in vain in any other people. If every sacrifice
pointed to Christ, this most luminously of all. What the fifty-third
of Isaiah is to his Messianic prophecies, that, we may truly say, is
the sixteenth of Leviticus to the whole system of Mosaic types,--the
most consummate flower of the Messianic symbolism. All the
sin-offerings pointed to Christ, the great High Priest and Victim of
the future; but this, as we shall now see, with a distinctness found
in no other.
As the unique sin-offering of this day could only be offered by the
one high-priest, so was it intimated that the High Priest of the
future, who should indeed make an end of sin, should be one and only.
As once only in the whole year, a complete cycle of time, this great
atonement was offered, so did it point toward a sacrifice which should
indeed be "once for all" (Heb. ix. 26; x. 10); not only for the lesser
æon of the year, but for the æon of æons which is the lifetime of
humanity. In that the high-priest, who was on all other occasions
conspicuous among his sons by his bright garments made for glory and
for beauty, on this occasion laid them aside, and assumed the same
garb as his sons for whom he was to make atonement; herein was
shadowed forth the truth that it behoved the great High Priest of the
future to be "in all things made like unto His brethren" (Heb. ii.
17). When, having offered the sin-offering, Aaron disappeared from the
sight of Israel within the veil, where in the presence of the unseen
glory he offered the incense and sprinkled the blood, it was
presignified how "Christ having come a High Priest of the good things
to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made
with hands, ... nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but
through His own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place,"
even "into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us"
(Heb. ix. 11, 12, 24). And, in like manner, in that when the
sin-offering had been offered, the blood sprinkled, and his work
within the veil was ended, arrayed again in his glorious garments, he
reappeared to bless the waiting congregation; it was again foreshown
how yet that must be fulfilled which is written, that this same
Christ, "having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall
appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto
salvation" (Heb. ix. 28).
To all this yet more might be added of dispensational truth typified
by the ceremonial of this day, which we defer to the exposition of
chap. xxv., where its consideration more properly belongs. But even
were this all, what a marvellous revelation here of the Lord Jesus
Christ! The fact of these correspondences between the Levitical ritual
and the New Testament facts, let it be observed, is wholly independent
of the questions as to the date and origin of this law; and every
theory on this subject must find a place for these correspondences and
account for them. But how can any one believe that all these are
merely accidental coincidences of a post-exilian forgery with the
facts of the incarnation, and the high priestly work of Christ in
death and resurrection as set forth in the Gospels? How can they all
be adequately accounted for, except by assuming that to be true which
is expressly taught in the New Testament concerning this very ritual:
that in it the Holy Ghost presignified things that were to come; that,
therefore, the ordinance must have been, not of man, but of God; not a
mere product of the human mind, acting under the laws of a religious
evolution, but a revelation from Him unto whom "known are all His
works from the foundation of the world"?
Nor must we fail to take in the blessed truth so vividly symbolised in
the second part of the ceremonial. When the blood of the sin-offering
had been sprinkled in the Holiest, the sins of Israel were then, by
the other goat of the sin-offering, borne far away. Israel stood there
still a sinful people; but their sin, now expiated by the blood, was
before God as if it were not. So does the Holy Victim in the Antitype,
who first by His death expiated sin, then as the Living One bear away
all the believer's sins from the presence of the Holy One into a land
of forgetfulness. And so it is that, as regards acceptance with God,
the believing sinner, though still a sinner, stands as if he were
sinless; all through the great Sin-offering. To see this, to believe
in it and rest in it, is life eternal; it is joy, and peace, and rest!
IT IS THE GOSPEL!
PART II.
_THE LAW OF THE DAILY LIFE._
XI.-XV., XVII.-XXV.
SECTION 1. THE LAW CONCERNING THE CLEAN AND THE UNCLEAN: xi.-xv.
SECTION 2. THE LAW OF HOLINESS: xvii.-xxii.
SECTION 3. THE LAW CONCERNING SACRED TIMES (WITH EPISODE, xxiv.):
xxiii.-xxv.
CHAPTER XIV.
_CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS, AND DEFILEMENT BY DEAD BODIES._
_Lev._ xi. 1-47.
With chap. xi. begins a new section of this book, extending to the end
of chap. xv., of which the subject is the law concerning various
bodily defilements, and the rites appointed for their removal.
The law is given under four heads, as follows:--
I. Clean and Unclean Animals, and Defilement by Dead Bodies: chap. xi.
II. The Uncleanness of Child-birth: chap. xii.
III. The Uncleanness of Leprosy: chaps. xiii., xiv.
IV. The Uncleanness of Issues: chap. xv.
From the modern point of view this whole subject appears to many, with
no little reason, to be encompassed with peculiar difficulties. We
have become accustomed to think of religion as a thing so exclusively
of the spirit, and so completely independent of bodily conditions,
provided that these be not in their essential nature sinful, that it
is a great stumbling-block to many that God should be represented as
having given to Israel an elaborate code of laws concerning such
subjects as are treated in these five chapters of Leviticus: a
legislation which, to not a few, seems puerile and unspiritual, if not
worse. And yet, for the reverent believer in Christ, who remembers
that our blessed Lord did repeatedly refer to this book of Leviticus
as, without any exception or qualification, the Word of His Father, it
should not be hard, in view of this fact, to infer that the
difficulties which most of us have felt are presumably due to our very
imperfect knowledge of the subject. Remembering this, we shall be able
to approach this part of the law of Moses, and, in particular, this
chapter, with the spirit, not of critics, but of learners, who know as
yet but little of the mysteries of God's dealings with Israel or with
the human race.
Chap. xi. may be divided into two sections, together with a concluding
appeal and summary (vv. 41-47). The first section treats of the law of
the clean and the unclean in relation to eating (vv. 1-23). Under this
head, the animals which are permitted or forbidden are classified,
after a fashion not scientific, but purely empirical and practical,
into (1) the beasts which are upon the earth (vv. 2-8); (2) things
that are in the waters (vv. 9-12); (3) flying things,--comprising,
first, birds and flying animals like the bat (vv. 13-19); and,
secondly, insects, "winged creeping things that go upon all four" (vv.
20-23).
The second section treats of defilement by contact with the dead
bodies of these, whether unclean (vv. 24-38), or clean (vv. 39, 40).
Of the living things among the beasts that are upon the earth (vv.
2-8), those are permitted for food which both chew the cud and divide
the hoof; every animal in which either of these marks is wanting is
forbidden. Of the things which live in the waters, those only are
allowed for food which have both fins and scales; those which lack
either of these marks, such as, for example, eels, oysters, and all
the mollusca and crustacea, are forbidden (vv. 9-12). Of flying things
(vv. 13-19) which may be eaten, no special mark is given; though it is
to be noted that nearly all of those which are by name forbidden are
birds of prey, or birds reputed to be unclean in their habits. All
insects, "winged creeping things that go upon all four" (ver. 20), or
"whatsoever hath many feet," or "goeth upon the belly," as worms,
snakes, etc., are prohibited (ver. 42). Of insects, a single class,
described as those "which have legs above their feet, to leap withal
upon the earth," is excepted (vv. 21, 22): these are known to us as
the order _Saltatoria_, including, as typical examples, the cricket,
the grasshopper, and the migratory locust; all of which, it may be
noted, are clean feeders, living upon vegetable products only. It is
worthy of notice that the law of the clean and the unclean in food is
not extended, as it was in Egypt, to the vegetable kingdom.
The second section of the chapter (vv. 24-40) comprises a number of
laws relating chiefly to defilement by contact with the dead bodies of
animals. In these regulations, it is to be observed that the dead
body, even of a clean animal, except when killed in accordance with
the law, so that its blood is all drained out (xvii. 10-16), is
regarded as defiling him who touches it; while, on the other hand,
even an unclean animal is not held capable of imparting defilement by
mere contact, so long as it is living. Very minute charges are given
(vv. 29-38) concerning eight species of unclean animals, of which six
(vv. 29, 30, R.V.) appear to be different varieties of the lizard
family. Regarding these, it is ordered that not only shall the person
be held unclean who touches the dead body of one of them (ver. 31),
but also anything becomes unclean on which such a dead body may fall,
whether household utensil, or food, or drink (vv. 32-35). The
exception only is made (vv. 36-38), that fountains, or wells of water,
or dry seed for sowing, shall not be held to be by such defiled.
That which has been made unclean must be put into water, and be
unclean until the even (ver. 32); with the exception that nothing
which is made of earthenware, whether a vessel, or an oven, or a
range, could be thus cleansed; for the obvious reason that the water
could not adequately reach the interior of its porous material. It
must therefore be broken in pieces (vv. 33, 34). If a person be
defiled by any of these, he remained unclean until the even (ver. 31).
No washing is prescribed, but, from analogy, is probably to be taken
for granted.
Such is a brief summary of the law of the clean and the unclean as
contained in this chapter. To preclude adding needless difficulty to a
difficult subject, the remark made above should be specially
noted,--that so far as general marks are given by which the clean is
to be distinguished from the unclean, these marks are evidently
selected simply from a practical point of view, as of easy recognition
by the common people, for whom a more exact and scientific mode of
distinction would have been useless. We are not therefore for a moment
to think of cleanness or uncleanness as causally determined, for
instance, by the presence or absence of fins or scales, or by the
habit of chewing the cud, and the dividing of the hoof, or the absence
of these marks, as if they were themselves the ground of the cleanness
or uncleanness, in any instance. For such a fancy as this, which has
diverted some interpreters from the right line of investigation of the
subject, there is no warrant whatever in the words of the law, either
here or elsewhere.
Than this law concerning things clean and unclean nothing will seem to
many, at first, more alien to modern thought, or more inconsistent
with any intelligent view of the world and of man's relation to the
things by which he is surrounded. And, especially, that the strict
observance of this law should be connected with religion, and that,
upon what professes to be the authority of God, it should be urged on
Israel on the ground of their call to be a holy people to a holy
God,--this, to the great majority of Bible readers, certainly appears,
to say the least, most extraordinary and unaccountable. And yet the
law is here, and its observance is enforced by this very
consideration; for we read (vv. 43, 44): "Ye shall not make yourselves
abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye
make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby.
For I am the Lord your God: sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye
holy; for I am holy." And, in any case, explain the matter as we may,
many will ask, How, since the New Testament formally declares this law
concerning clean and unclean beasts to be no longer binding (Col. ii.
16, 20-23), is it possible to imagine that there should now remain
anything in this most perplexing law which should be of spiritual
profit still to a New Testament believer? To the consideration of
these questions, which so naturally arise, we now address ourselves.
First of all, in approaching this subject it is well to recall to mind
the undeniable fact, that a distinction in foods as clean and unclean,
that is, fit and unfit for man's use, has a very deep and apparently
irremovable foundation in man's nature. Even we ourselves, who
stumble at this law, recognise a distinction of this kind, and
regulate our diet accordingly; and also, in like manner, feel, more or
less, an instinctive repugnance to dead bodies. As regards diet, it is
true that when the secondary question arises as to what particular
animals shall be reckoned clean or unclean, fit or unfit for food,
nations and tribes differ among themselves, as also from the law of
Moses, in a greater or less degree; nevertheless, this does not alter
the fact that such a distinction is recognised among all nations of
culture; and that, on the other hand, in those who recognise it not,
and who eat, as some do, without discrimination, whatever chances to
come to hand,--insects, reptiles, carrion, and so on,--this revolting
indifference in the matter of food is always associated with gross
intellectual and moral degradation. Certainly these indisputable facts
should suffice to dispose of the charge of puerility, as sometimes
made against the laws of this chapter.
And not only this, but more is true. For while even among nations of
the highest culture and Christian enlightenment many animals are
eaten, as, _e.g._, the oyster, the turtle, the flesh of the horse and
the hog, which the law of Moses prohibits; on the other hand, it
remains true that, with the sole exception of creatures of the locust
tribe, the animals which are allowed for food by the Mosaic code are
reckoned suitable for food by almost the entire human family. A
notable exception to the fact is indeed furnished in the case of the
Hindoos, and also the Buddhists (who follow an Indian religion), who,
as a rule, reject all animal food, and especially, in the case of the
former, the flesh of the cow, as not to be eaten. But this exception
is quite explicable by considerations into which we cannot here enter
at length, but which do not affect the significance of the general
fact.
And, again, on the other hand, it may also be said that, as a general
rule, the appetite of the great majority of enlightened and cultivated
nations revolts against using as food the greater part of the animals
which this code prohibits. Birds of prey, for instance, and the
carnivora generally, animals having paws, and reptiles, for the most
part, by a kind of universal instinct among cultivated peoples, are
judged unfit for human food.
The bearing of these facts upon our exposition is plain. They
certainly suggest, at least, that this law of Lev. xi. may, after all,
very possibly have a deep foundation both in the nature of man and
that of the things permitted or forbidden; and they also raise the
question as to how far exceptions and divergencies from this law,
among peoples of culture, may possibly be due to a diversity in
external physical and climatic conditions, because of which that which
may be wholesome and suitable food in one place--the wilderness of
Sinai, or Palestine, for instance--may not be wholesome and suitable
in other lands, under different physical conditions. We do not yet
enter into this question, but barely call attention to it, as adapted
to check the hasty judgment of many, that such a law as this is
necessarily puerile and unworthy of God.
But while it is of no small consequence to note this agreement in the
fundamental ideas of this law with widely extended instincts and
habits of mankind, on the other hand, it is also of importance to
emphasise the contrast which it exhibits with similar codes of law
among other peoples. For while, as has just been remarked, there are
many most suggestive points of agreement between the Mosaic
distinctions of clean and unclean and those of other nations, on the
other hand, remarkable contrasts appear, even in the case of those
people with whom, like the Egyptians, the Hebrews had been most
intimately associated. In the Egyptian system of dietary law, for
instance, the distinction of clean and unclean in food was made to
apply, not only in the animal, but also in the vegetable world; and,
again, while all fishes having fins and scales are permitted as food
in the Mosaic law, no fishes whatever are permitted by the Egyptian
code. But more significant than such difference in details is the
difference in the religious conception upon which such distinctions
are based. In Egypt, for example, animals were reckoned clean or
unclean according as they were supposed to have more predominant the
character of the good Osiris or of the evil Typhon. Among the ancient
Persians, those were reckoned clean which were supposed to be the
creation of Ormazd, the good Spirit, and those unclean whose origin
was attributed to Ahriman, the evil Spirit. In India, the prohibition
of flesh as food rests on pantheistic assumptions. Not to multiply
examples, it is easy to see that, without anticipating anything here
with regard to the principle which determined the Hebrew distinctions,
it is certain that of such dualistic or pantheistic principles as are
manifested in these and other instances which might be named, there is
not a trace in the Mosaic law. How significant and profoundly
instructive is the contrast here, will only fully appear when we see
what in fact appears to have been the determining principle in the
Mosaic legislation.
But when we now seek to ascertain upon what principle certain animals
were permitted and others forbidden as food, it must be confessed that
we have before us a very difficult question, and one to which,
accordingly, very diverse answers have been given. In general, indeed,
we are expressly told that the object of this legislation, as of all
else in this book of laws, was moral and spiritual. Thus, we are told
in so many words (vv. 43-45) that Israel was to abstain from eating or
touching the unclean, on the ground that they were to be holy, because
the Lord their God was holy. But to most this only increases the
difficulty. What possible connection could there be between eating, or
abstinence from eating, animals which do not chew the cud, or fishes
which have not scales, and holiness of life?
In answer to this question, some have supposed a mystical connection
between the soul and the body, such that the former is defiled by the
food which is received and assimilated by the latter. In support of
this theory, appeal has been made to ver. 44 of this chapter, which,
in the Septuagint translation, is rendered literally: "Ye shall not
defile your souls." But, as often in Hebrew, the original expression
here is simply equivalent to our compound pronoun "yourselves," and is
therefore so translated both in the Authorised and the Revised
Versions. As for any other proof of such a mystical evil influence of
the various kinds of food prohibited in this chapter, there is simply
none at all.
Others, again, have sought the explication of these facts in the
undoubted Divine purpose of keeping Israel separate from other
nations; to secure which separation this special dietetic code, with
other laws regarding the clean and the unclean, was given them. That
these laws have practically helped to keep the children of Israel
separate from other nations, will not be denied; and we may therefore
readily admit, that inasmuch as the food of the Hebrews has differed
from that of the nations among whom they have dwelt, this separation
of the nation may therefore have been included in the purpose of God
in these regulations. However, it is to be observed that in the law
itself the separation of Israel from other nations is represented, not
as the end to be attained by the observance of these food laws, but
instead, as a fact already existing, which is given as a reason why
they should keep these laws (xx. 24, 25). Moreover, it will be found
impossible, by reference to this principle alone, to account for the
details of the laws before us. For the question is not merely why
there should have been food laws, but also why these laws should have
been such as they are? The latter question is not adequately explained
by reference to God's purpose of keeping Israel separate from the
nations.
Some, again, have held that the explanation of these laws was to be
found simply in the design of God, by these restrictions, to give
Israel a profitable moral discipline in self-restraint and control of
the bodily appetites; or to impose, in this way, certain conditions
and limitations upon their approach to Him, which should have the
effect of deepening in them the sense of awe and reverence for the
Divine majesty of God, as their King. Of this theory it may be said,
as of the last-named, that there can be no doubt that in fact these
laws did tend to secure these ends; but that yet, on the other hand,
the explanation is still inadequate, inasmuch as it only would show
why restrictions of some kind should have been ordered, and not, in
the least, why the restrictions should have been such, in detail, as
we have here.
Quite different from any of these attempted explanations is that of
many who have sought to explain the law allegorically. We are told by
such that Israel was forbidden the flesh of certain animals, because
they were regarded as typifying by their character certain sins and
vices, as, on the other hand, those which were permitted as food were
regarded as typifying certain moral virtues. Hence, it is supposed by
such that the law tended to the holiness of Israel, in that it was, so
to speak, a continual object-lesson, a perpetually acted allegory,
which should continually remind them of the duty of abstaining from
the typified sins and of practising the typified virtues. But,
assuredly, this theory cannot be carried out. Animals are in this law
prohibited as food whose symbolic meaning elsewhere in Scripture is
not always bad, but sometimes good. The lion, for example, as having
paws, is prohibited as food; and yet it is the symbol of our blessed
Lord, "the Lion of the tribe of Judah." Nor is there the slightest
evidence that the Hebrews ever attached any such allegorical
significance to the various prescriptions of this chapter as the
theory would require.
Other expositors allegorise in a different but no more satisfactory
manner. Thus a popular, and, it must be added, most spiritual and
devout expositor, sets forth the spiritual meaning of the required
conjunction of the two marks in clean animals of the chewing of the
cud and the dividing of the hoof in this wise: "The two things were
inseparable in the case of every clean animal. And, as to the
spiritual application, it is of the very last importance in a
practical point of view.... A man may profess to love and feed upon,
to study and ruminate over, the Word of God--the pasture of the soul;
but if his footprints along the pathway of life are not such as the
Word requires, he is not clean."
But it should be evident that such allegorising interpretation as this
can carry with it no authority, and sets the door wide open to the
most extravagant fancy in the exposition of Scripture.
Others, again, find the only principle which has determined the laws
concerning defilement by the dead, and the clean and unclean meats, to
be the presence in that which was reckoned unclean, of something which
is naturally repulsive to men; whether in odour, or in the food of a
creature, or its other habits of life. But while it is true that such
marks distinguish many of the creatures reckoned unclean, they are
wanting in others, and are also found in a few animals which are
nevertheless permitted. If this had been the determining principle,
surely, for example, the law which permitted for food the he-goat and
forbade the horse, would have been exactly the opposite; while, as
regards fishes and insects permitted and forbidden, it is hard to see
any evidence whatever of the influence of this principle.
Much more plausible, at first sight, and indeed much more nearly
approaching the truth, than any of the theories above criticised, is
one which has been elaborated with no little learning and ingenuity by
Sommer,[22] according to which the laws concerning the clean and the
unclean, whether in regard to food or anything else, are all grounded
in the antithesis of death and life. Death, everywhere in Holy
Scripture, is set in the closest ethical and symbolical connection
with sin. Bodily death is the wages of sin; and inasmuch as it is the
outward physical expression and result of the inner fact that sin, in
its very nature, is spiritual death, therefore the dead is always held
to be unclean; and the various laws enforcing this thought are all
intended to keep before the mind the fact that death is the visible
representation and evidence of the presence of sin, and the consequent
curse of God. Hence, also, it will follow that the selection of foods
must be governed by a reference to this principle. The carnivora, on
this principle, must be forbidden,--as they are,--because they live by
taking the life of other animals; hence, also, is explained the
exclusion of the multitudinous varieties of the insect world, as
feeding on that which is dead and corrupt. On the other hand, the
animals which chew the cud and divide the hoof are counted clean;
inasmuch as the sheep and the cattle, the chief representatives of
this class, were by every one recognised as at the furthest possible
remove from any such connection with death and corruption in their
mode of life; and hence the familiar marks which distinguish them, as
a matter merely of practical convenience, were taken as those which
must distinguish every animal lawful for food.
[22] "Biblische Abhandlungen," pp. 239-270.
But while this view has been elaborated with great ability and skill,
it yet fails to account for all the facts. It is quite overlooked that
if the reason of the prohibition of carnivorous birds and quadrupeds
is to be found in the fact that they live by the destruction of life,
the same reason should have led to the prohibition of all fishes
without exception, as in Egypt; inasmuch as those which have fins and
scales, no less than others, live by preying on other living
creatures. On the other hand, by the same principle, all insects which
derive their sustenance from the vegetable world should have been
permitted as food, instead of one order only of these.
Where so much learning and profound thought has been expended in vain,
one might well hesitate to venture anything in exposition of so
difficult a subject, and rest content, as some have, with declaring
that the whole subject is utterly inexplicable. And yet the world
advances in knowledge, and we are therefore able to approach the
subject with some advantage in this respect over earlier generations.
And in the light of the most recent investigations, we believe it
highly probable that the chief principle determining the laws of this
chapter will be found in the region of hygiene and sanitation, as
relating, in this instance, to diet, and to the treatment of that
which is dead. And this in view of the following considerations.
It is of much significance to note, in the first place, that a large
part of the animals which are forbidden as food are unclean feeders.
It is a well-ascertained fact that even the cleanest animal, if its
food be unclean, becomes dangerous to health if its flesh be eaten.
The flesh of a cow which has drunk water contaminated with typhoid
germs, if eaten, especially if insufficiently cooked, may communicate
typhoid fever to him who eats it. It is true, indeed, that not all
animals that are prohibited are unclean in their food; but the fact
remains that, on the other hand, among those which are allowed is to
be found no animal whose ordinary habits of life, especially in
respect of food, are unclean.
But, in the second place, an animal which is not unclean in its habits
may yet be dangerous for food, if it be, for any reason, specially
liable to disease. One of the greatest discoveries of modern science
is the fact that a large number of diseases to which animals are
liable are due to the presence of low forms of parasitic life. To such
diseases those which are unclean in their feeding will be especially
exposed, while none will perhaps be found wholly exempt.
Another discovery of recent times which has a no less important
bearing on the question raised by this chapter is the now ascertained
fact that many of these parasitic diseases are common to both animals
and men, and may be communicated from the former to the latter. All
are familiar with the fact that the smallpox, in a modified and mild
form, is a disease of cattle as well as of men, and we avail ourselves
of this fact in the practice of vaccination. Scarcely less familiar is
the communication of the parasitic trichinæ, which often infest the
flesh of swine, to those who eat such meat. And research is constantly
extending the number of such diseases. Turkeys, we are now told, have
the diphtheria, and may communicate it to men; men also sometimes take
from horses the loathsome disease known as the glanders. Now in the
light of such facts as these, it is plain that an ideal dietary law
would, as far as possible, exclude from human food all animals which,
under given conditions, might be especially liable to these parasitic
diseases, and which, if their flesh should be eaten, might thus become
a frequent medium of communicating them to men.
Now it is a most remarkable and significant fact that the tendency of
the most recent investigations of this subject has been to show that
the prohibitions and permissions of the Mosaic law concerning food, as
we have them in this chapter, become apparently explicable in view of
the above facts. Not to refer to other authorities, among the latest
competent testimonies on this subject is that of Dr. Noel Gueneau de
Mussy, in a paper presented to the Paris Academy of Medicine in 1885,
in which he is quoted as saying: "There is so close a connection
between the thinking being and the living organism in man, so intimate
a solidarity between moral and material interests, and the useful is
so constantly and so necessarily in harmony with the good, that these
two elements cannot be separated in hygiene.... It is this combination
which has exercised so great an influence on the preservation of the
Israelites, despite the very unfavourable external circumstances in
which they have been placed.... The idea of parasitic and infectious
maladies, which has conquered so great a position in modern pathology,
appears to have greatly occupied the mind of Moses, and to have
dominated all his hygienic rules. He excludes from Hebrew dietary
_animals particularly liable to parasites_; and as it is in the blood
that the germs or spores of infectious disease circulate, he orders
that they must be drained of their blood before serving for food."
If this professional testimony, which is accepted and endorsed by Dr.
Behrends, of London, in his remarkable paper on "Diseases caught from
Butcher's Meat,"[23] be admitted, it is evident that we need look no
further for the explanation of the minute prescriptions of these
dietary laws which we find here and elsewhere in the Pentateuch.
[23] In _The Nineteenth Century_, September, 1889.
And, it may be added, that upon this principle we may also easily
explain, in a rational way, the very minute prescriptions of the law
with regard to defilement by dead bodies. For immediately upon death
begins a process of corruption which produces compounds not only
obnoxious to the senses, but actively poisonous in character; and what
is of still more consequence to observe, in the case of all parasitic
and infectious diseases, the energy of the infection is specially
intensified when the infected person or animal dies. Hence the careful
regulations as to cleansing of those persons or things which had been
thus defiled by the dead; either by water, where practicable; or where
the thing could not be thus thoroughly cleansed, then by burning the
article with fire, the most certain of all disinfectants.
But if this be indeed the principle which underlies this law of the
clean and the unclean as here given, it will then be urged that since
the Hebrews have observed this law with strictness for centuries, they
ought to show the evidence of this in a marked immunity from sickness,
as compared with other nations, and especially from diseases of an
infectious character; and a consequent longevity superior to that of
the Gentiles who pay no attention to these laws. Now it is the fact,
and one which evidently furnishes another powerful argument for this
interpretation of these laws, that this is exactly what we see. In
this matter we are not left to guessing; the facts are before the
world, and are undisputed. Even so long ago as the days when the
plague was desolating Europe, the Jews so universally escaped
infection that, by this their exemption, the popular suspicion was
excited into fury, and they were accused of causing the fearful
mortality among their Gentile neighbours by poisoning the wells and
springs. In our own day, in the recent cholera epidemic in Italy, a
correspondent of the _Jewish Chronicle_ testifies that the Jews
enjoyed almost absolute immunity, at least from fatal attack.
Professor Hosmer says: "Throughout the entire history of Israel, the
wisdom of the ancient lawgivers in these respects has been remarkably
shown. In times of pestilence the Jews have suffered far less than
others; as regards longevity and general health, they have in every
age been noteworthy, and, at the present day, in the life-insurance
offices, the life of a Jew is said to be worth much more than that of
men of other stock."
Of the facts in the modern world which sustain these statements, Dr.
Behrends gives abundant illustration in the article referred to, such
as the following: "In Prussia, the mean duration of Jewish life
averages five years more than that of the general population. In
Furth, the average duration of Jewish life is 37, and of Christians 26
years. In Hungary, an exhaustive study of the facts shows that the
average duration of life with the Croats is 20·2, of the Germans 26·7,
but of the Jews 46·5 years, and that although the latter generally are
poor, and live under much more unfavourable sanitary conditions than
their Gentile neighbours."
In the light of such well-certified facts, the conclusion seems
certainly to be warranted, that at least one chief consideration
which, in the Divine wisdom, determined the allowance or prohibition,
as the food of Israel, of the animals named in this chapter, has been
their fitness or unfitness as diet from a hygienic point of view,
especially regarding their greater or less liability to have, and to
communicate to man, infectious, parasitic diseases.
From this position, if it be justified, we can now perceive a
secondary reference in these laws to the deeper ethical truth which,
with much reason, Sommer has so emphasised; namely, the moral
significance of the great antithesis of death to life; the former
being ever contrasted in Holy Scripture with the latter, as the
visible manifestation of the presence of sin in the world, and of the
consequent curse of God. For whatever tends to weakness or disease, by
that fact tends to death,--to that death which, according to the
Scriptures, is, for man, the penal consequence of sin. But Israel was
called to be a people redeemed from the power of death to life, a life
of full consecration to God. Hence, because redeemed from death, it
was evidently fitting that the Israelite should, so far as possible in
the flesh, keep apart from death, and all that in its nature tended,
or might specially tend, to disease and death.
It is very strange that it should have been objected to this view,
that since the law declares the reason for these regulations to have
been religious, therefore any supposed reference herein to the
principles of hygiene is by that fact excluded. For surely the
obligation so to live as to conserve and promote the highest bodily
health must be regarded, both from a natural, and a Biblical and
Christian point of view, as being no less really a religious
obligation than truthfulness or honesty. If there appear sufficient
reason for believing that the details of these laws are to be
explained by reference to hygienic considerations, surely this, so far
from contradicting the reason which is given for their observance,
helps us rather the more clearly to see how, just because Israel was
called to be the holy people of a holy God, they must needs keep this
law. For the central idea of the Levitical holiness was consecration
unto God, as the Creator and Redeemer of Israel,--consecration in the
most unreserved, fullest possible sense, for the most perfect possible
service. But the obligation to such a consecration, as the essence of
a holy character, surely carried with it, by necessary consequence,
then, as now, the obligation to maintain all the powers of mind and
body also in the highest possible perfection. That, as regards the
body, and, in no small degree, the mind as well, this involves the
duty of the preservation of health, so far as in our power; and that
this, again, is conditioned by the use of a proper diet, as one factor
of prime importance, will be denied by no one. If, then, sufficient
reason can be shown for recognising the determining influence of
hygienic considerations in the laws of this chapter concerning the
clean and the unclean, this fact will only be in the fullest harmony
with all that is said in this connection, and elsewhere in the law, as
to the relation of their observance to Israel's holiness as a
consecrated nation.
It may very possibly be asked, by way of further objection to this
interpretation of these laws: Upon this understanding of the immediate
purpose of these laws, how can we account for the selection of such
test marks of the clean and the unclean as the chewing of the cud, and
the dividing of the hoof, or having scales and fins? What can the
presence or absence of these peculiarities have to do with the greater
or less freedom from parasitic disease of the animals included or
excluded in the several classes? To which question the answer may
fairly be given, that the object of the law was not to give accurately
distributed categories of animals, scientifically arranged, according
to hygienic principles, but was purely practical; namely, to secure,
so far as possible, the observance by the whole people of such a
dietary as in the land of Palestine would, on the whole, best tend to
secure perfect bodily health. It is not affirmed that every individual
animal which by these tests may be excluded from permitted food is
therefore to be held specially liable to disease; but only that the
limitation of the diet by these test marks, as a practical measure,
would, _on the whole_, secure the greatest degree of immunity from
disease to those who kept the law.
It may be objected, again, by some who have looked into this question,
that, according to recent researches, it appears that cattle, which
occupy the foremost place in the permitted diet of the Hebrews, are
found to be especially liable to tubercular disease, and capable,
apparently, under certain conditions, of communicating it to those who
feed upon their flesh. And it has been even urged that to this source
is due a large part of the consumption which is responsible for so
large part of our mortality. To which objection two answers may be
given. First, and most important, is the observation that we have as
yet no statistics as to the prevalence of disease of this kind among
cattle in Palestine; and that, presumably, if we may argue from the
climatic conditions of its prevalence among men, it would be found far
less frequently there among cattle than in Europe and America.
Further, it must be remembered that, in the case even of clean cattle,
the law very strictly provides elsewhere that the clean animal which
is slain for food shall be absolutely free from disease; so that still
we see here, no less than elsewhere, the hygienic principles ruling
the dietary law.
It will be perhaps objected, again, that if all this be true, then,
since abstinence from unwholesome food is a moral duty, the law
concerning clean and unclean meats should be of universal and
perpetual obligation; whereas, in fact, it is explicitly abrogated in
the New Testament, and is not held to be now binding on any one. But
the abrogation of the law of Moses touching clean and unclean food can
be easily explained, in perfect accord with all that has been said as
to its nature and intent. In the first place, it is to be remembered
that it is a fundamental characteristic of the New Testament law as
contrasted with that of the Old, that on all points it leaves much
more to the liberty of the individual, allowing him to act according
to the exercise of an enlightened judgment, under the law of supreme
love to the Lord, in many matters which, in the Old Testament day,
were made a subject of specific regulation. This is true, for
instance, regarding all that relates to the public worship of God, and
also many things in the government and administration of the Church,
not to speak of other examples. This does not indeed mean that it is
of no consequence what a man or a Church may do in matters of this
kind; but it is intended thus to give the individual and the whole
Church a discipline of a higher order than is possible under a system
which prescribes a large part of the details of human action.
Subjection to these "rudiments" of the law, according to the Apostle,
belongs to a condition of religious minority (Gal. iv. 1-3), and
passes away when the individual, or the Church, so to speak, attains
majority. Precisely so it is in the case of these dietary and other
laws, which, indeed, are selected by the Apostle Paul (Col. ii. 20-22)
in illustration of this characteristic of the new dispensation. That
such matters of detail should no longer be made matter of specific
command is only what we should expect according to the analogy of the
whole system of Christian law. This is not, indeed, saying that it is
of no consequence in a religious point of view what a man eats;
whether, for instance, he eat carrion or not, though this, which was
forbidden in the Old Testament, is nowhere expressly prohibited in the
New. But still, as supplying a training of higher order, the New
Testament uniformly refrains from giving detailed commandments in
matters of this kind.
But, aside from considerations of this kind, there is a specific
reason why these laws of Moses concerning diet and defilement by dead
bodies, if hygienic in character, should not have been made, in the
New Testament, of universal obligation, however excellent they might
be. For it is to be remembered that these laws were delivered for a
people few in number, living in a small country, under certain
definite climatic conditions. But it is well known that what is
unwholesome for food in one part of the world may be, and often is,
necessary to the maintenance of health elsewhere. A class of animals
which under the climatic conditions of Palestine may be specially
liable to certain forms of parasitic disease, under different climatic
conditions may be comparatively free from them. Abstinence from fat is
commanded in the law of Moses (iii. 17), and great moderation in this
matter is necessary to health in hot climates; but, on the contrary,
to eat fat largely is necessary to life in the polar regions. From
such facts as these it would follow, of necessity, that when the
Church of God, as under the new dispensation, was now to become a
world-wide organisation, still to have insisted on a dietetic law
perfectly adapted only to Palestine would have been to defeat the
physical object, and by consequence the moral end, for which that law
was given. Under these conditions, except a special law were to be
given for each land and climate, there was and could be, if we have
before us the true conception of the ground of these regulations, no
alternative but to abrogate the law.
This exposition has been much prolonged; but not until we have before
us a definite conception as to the principle underlying these
regulations, and the relation of their observance to the holiness of
Israel, are we in a position to see and appreciate the moral and
spiritual lessons which they may still have for us. As it is, if the
conclusions to which our exposition has conducted be accepted, such
lessons lie clearly before us. While we have here a law which, as to
the letter, is confessedly abrogated, and which is supposed by the
most to be utterly removed from any present-day use for practical
instruction, it is now evident that, annulled as to the letter, it is
yet, as to the spirit and intention of it, in full force and vital
consequence to holiness of life in all ages.
In the first place, this exposition being granted, it follows, as a
present-day lesson of great moment, that the holiness which God
requires has to do with the body as well as the soul, even with such
commonplace matters as our eating and drinking. This is so, because
the body is the instrument and organ of the soul, with which it must
do all its work on earth for God, and because, as such, the body, no
less than the soul, has been redeemed unto God by the blood of His
Son. There is, therefore, no religion in neglecting the body, and
ignoring the requirements for its health, as ascetics have in all ages
imagined. Neither is there religion in pampering, and thus abusing,
the body, after the manner of the sensual in all ages. The principle
which inspires this chapter is that which is expressed in the New
Testament by the words: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31). If,
therefore, a man needlessly eats such things, or in such a manner, as
may be injurious to health, he sins, and has come short of the law of
perfect holiness. It is therefore not merely a matter of earthly
prudence to observe the laws of health in food and drink and
recreation, in a word, in all that has to do with the appetite and
desires of the body, but it is essential to holiness. We are in all
these things to seek to glorify God, not only in our souls, but also
in our bodies.
The momentous importance of this thought will the more clearly appear
when we recall to mind that, according to the law of Moses (v. 2), if
a man was defiled by any unclean thing, and neglected the cleansing
ordered by this law, even though it were through ignorance or
forgetfulness, he was held to have incurred guilt before God. For it
was therein declared that when a man defiled by contact with the dead,
or any unclean thing, should for any reason have omitted the cleansing
ordered, his covenant relation with God could only be re-established
on his presentation of a sin-offering. By parity of reasoning it
follows that the case is the same now; and that God will hold no man
guiltless who violates any of those laws which He has established in
nature as the conditions of bodily health. He who does this is guilty
of a sin which requires the application of the great atonement.
How needful it is even in our day to remind men of all this, could not
be better illustrated than by the already mentioned argument of many
expositors, that hygienic principles cannot have dominated and
determined the details of these laws, because the law declares that
they are grounded, not in hygiene, but in religion, and have to do
with holiness. As if these two were exclusive, one of the other, and
as if it made no difference in respect to holiness of character
whether a man took care to have a sound body or not!
No less needful is the lesson of this law to many who are at the
opposite extreme. For as there are those who are so taken up with the
soul and its health, that they ignore its relation to the body, and
the bearing of bodily conditions upon character; so there are others
who are so preoccupied with questions of bodily health, sanitation and
hygiene, regarded merely as prudential measures, from an earthly point
of view, that they forget that man has a soul as well as a body, and
that such questions of sanitation and hygiene only find their proper
place when it is recognised that health and perfection of the body are
not to be sought merely that man may become a more perfect animal, but
in order that thus, with a sound mind in a sound body, he may the more
perfectly serve the Lord in the life of holiness to which we are
called. Thus it appears that this forgotten law of the clean and the
unclean in food, so far from being, at the best, puerile, and for us
now certainly quite useless, still teaches us the very important
lesson that a due regard to wholeness and health of body is essential
to the right and symmetrical development of holiness of character. In
every dispensation, the law of God combines the bodily and the
spiritual in a sacred synthesis. If in the New Testament we are
directed to glorify God in our spirits, we are no less explicitly
commanded to glorify God in our bodies (1 Cor. vi. 20). And thus is
given to the laws of health the high sanction of the Divine obligation
of the moral law, as summed up in the closing words of this chapter:
"Be ye holy; for I am holy."
This law concerning things unclean, and clean and unclean animals, as
thus expounded, is also an apologetic of no small value. It has a
direct and evident bearing on the question of the Divine origin and
authority of this part of the law. For the question will at once come
up in every reflecting mind: Whence came this law? Could it have been
merely an invention of crafty Jewish priests? Or is it possible to
account for it as the product merely of the mind of Moses? It appears
to have been ordered with respect to certain facts, especially
regarding various invisible forms of noxious parasitic life, in their
bearing on the causation and propagation of disease,--facts which,
even now, are but just appearing within the horizon of modern science.
Is it probable that Moses knew about these things three thousand years
ago? Certainly, the more we study the matter, the more we must feel
that this is not to be supposed.
It is common, indeed, to explain much that seems very wise in the law
of Moses by referring to the fact that he was a highly educated man,
"instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." But it is just this
fact of his Egyptian education that makes it in the last degree
improbable that he should have derived the ideas of this law from
Egypt. Could he have taken his ideas with regard, for instance, to
defilement by the dead, from a system of education which taught the
contrary, and which, so far from regarding those who had to do with
the dead as unclean, held them especially sacred? And so with regard
to the dietetic laws: these are not the laws of Egypt; nor have we any
evidence that those were determined, like these Hebrew laws, by such
scientific facts as those to which we have referred.[24] In this day,
when, at last, men of all schools, and those with most scientific
knowledge, most of all, are joining to extol the exact wisdom of this
ancient law, a wisdom which has no parallel in like laws among other
nations, is it not in place to press this question? Whence had this
man this unique wisdom, three thousand years in advance of his times?
There are many who will feel compelled to answer, even as Holy
Scripture answers; even as Moses, according to the record, answers.
The secret of this wisdom will be found, not in the court of Pharaoh,
but in the holy tent of meeting; it is all explained if we but assume
that what is written in the first verse of this chapter is true: "The
Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron."
[24] See above, p. 290-292.
CHAPTER XV.
_OF THE UNCLEANNESS OF ISSUES._
LEV. xv. 1-33.
Inasmuch as the law concerning defilement from issues is presupposed
and referred to in that concerning the defilement of child-bearing, in
chap. xii., it will be well to consider this before the latter. For
this order there is the more reason, because, as will appear, although
the two sections are separated, in the present arrangement of the
book, by the law concerning defilement by leprosy (xiii., xiv.), they
both refer to the same general topic, and are based upon the same
moral conceptions.
The arrangement of the law in chap. xv. is very simple. Verses 2-18
deal with the cases of ceremonial defilement by issues in men; vv.
19-30, with analogous cases in women. The principle in both classes is
one and the same; the issue, whether normal or abnormal, rendered the
person affected unclean; only, when abnormal, the defilement was
regarded as more serious than in other cases, not only in a physical,
but also in a ceremonial and legal aspect. In all such cases, in
addition to the washing with water which was always required, it was
commanded that on the eighth day from the time of the cessation of the
issue, the person who had been so affected should come before the
priest and present for his cleansing a sin-offering and a
burnt-offering.
What now is the principle which underlies these regulations?
In seeking the answer to this question, we at once note the suggestive
fact that this law concerning issues takes cognisance only of such as
are connected with the sexual organisation. All others, however, in
themselves, from a merely physical point of view, equally unwholesome
or loathsome, are outside the purview of the Mosaic code. They do not
render the person affected, according to the law, ceremonially
unclean. It is therefore evident that the lawgiver must have had
before him something other than merely the physical peculiarities of
these defilements, and that, for the true meaning of this part of the
law, we must look deeper than the surface. It should also be observed
here that this characteristic of the law just mentioned, places the
law of issues under the same general category with the law (chap.
xii.) concerning the uncleanness of child-bearing, as indeed the
latter itself intimates (xii. 2). The question thus arises: Why are
these particular cases, and such as these only, regarded as
ceremonially defiling?
To see the reason of this, we must recur to facts which have already
come before us. When our first parents sinned, death was denounced
against them as the penalty of their sin. Such had been the threat:
"In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die." The death
denounced indeed affected the whole being, the spiritual as well as
the physical nature of man; but it comprehended the death of the body,
which thus became, what it still is, the most impressive manifestation
of the presence of sin in every person who dies. Hence, as we have
seen, the law kept this connection between sin and death steadily
before the mind, in that it constantly applied the principle that the
dead defiles. Not only so, but, for this reason, such things as tended
to bring death were also reckoned unclean; and thus the regulations of
the law concerning clean and unclean meats, while strictly hygienic in
character, were yet grounded in this profound ethical fact of the
connection between sin and death; had man not sinned, nothing in the
world had been able to bring in death, and all things had been clean.
For the same reason, again, leprosy, as exemplifying in a vivid and
terrible way disease as a progressive death, a living manifestation of
the presence of the curse of God, and therefore of the presence of
sin, a type of all disease, was regarded as involving ceremonial
defilement, and therefore as requiring sacrificial cleansing.
But in the curse denounced upon our first parents was yet more. It was
specially taught that the curse should affect the generative power of
the race. For we read (Gen. iii. 16): "Unto the woman He said, I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt
bring forth children." Whatever these words may precisely mean, it is
plain that they are intended to teach that, because of sin, the curse
of God fell in some mysterious way upon the sexual organisation. And
although the woman only is specifically mentioned, as being "first in
the transgression," that the curse fell also upon the same part of
man's nature is plain from the words in Gen. v. 3, where the long
mortuary record of the antediluvians is introduced by the profoundly
significant statement that Adam began the long line, with its
inheritance of death, by begetting a son "in his own likeness, after
his image." Fallen himself under the curse of death, physical and
spiritual, he therewith lost the capacity to beget a creature like
himself in his original state, in the image of God, and could only be
the means of bringing into the world a creature who was an inheritor
of physical weakness and spiritual and bodily death.
In the light of this ancient record, which must have been before the
mind of the Hebrew lawgiver, we can now see why the law concerning
unclean issues should have had special relation to that part of man's
physical organisation which has to do with the propagation of the
race. Just as death defiled, because it was a visible representation
of the presence of the curse of God, and thus of sin, as the ground of
the curse, even so was it with all the issues specified in this law.
They were regarded as making a man unclean, because they were
manifestations of the curse in a part of man's nature which, according
to the Word of God, sin has specially affected. For this reason they
fell under the same law as death. They separated the person thus
affected from the congregation, and excluded him from the public
worship of a holy God, as making him "unclean."
It is impossible now to miss the spiritual meaning of these laws
concerning issues of this class. In that these alone, out of many
others, which from a merely physical point of view are equally
offensive, were taken under the cognisance of this law, the fact was
thereby symbolically emphasised that the fountain of life in man is
defiled. To be a sinner were bad enough, if it only involved the
voluntary and habitual practice of sin. But this law of issues
testifies to us, even now, that, as God sees man's case, it is far
worse than this. The evil of sin is so deeply seated that it could lie
no deeper. The curse has in such manner fallen on our being, as that
in man and woman the powers and faculties which concern the
propagation of their kind have fallen under the blight. All that any
son of Adam can now do is to beget a son in his own physical and moral
image, an heir of death, and by nature unclean and unholy.
Sufficiently distasteful this truth is in all ages; but in none
perhaps ever more so than our own, in which it has become a
fundamental postulate of much popular theology, and of popular
politics as well, that man is naturally not bad, but good, and, on the
whole, is doing as well as under the law of evolution, and considering
his environment, can reasonably be expected. The spiritual principle
which underlies the law concerning defilement by issues, as also that
concerning the uncleanness of child-bearing, assumes the exact
opposite.
It is indeed true that similar causes of ceremonial uncleanness have
been recognised in ancient and in modern times among many other
peoples. But this is no objection to the truth of the interpretation
of the Mosaic law here given. For in so far as there is genuine
agreement, the fact may rather confirm than weaken the argument for
this view of the case, as showing that there is an ineradicable
instinct in the heart of man which connects all that directly or
indirectly has to do with the continuance of our race, in a peculiar
degree, with the ideas of uncleanness and shame. And, on the other
hand, the differences in such cases from the Mosaic law show us just
what we should expect,--a degree of moral confusion and a deadening of
the moral sense among the heathen nations, which is most significant.
As has been justly remarked, the Hindoo has one law on this subject
for the Brahman, another for others; the outcast for some deadly sin,
often of a purely frivolous nature, and a new-born child, are reckoned
equally unclean. Or,--to take the case of a people contemporary with
the Hebrews,--among the ancient Chaldeans, while these same issues
were accounted ceremonially defiling, as in the law of Moses, with
these were also reckoned in the same category, as unclean, whatsoever
was separated from the body, even to the cuttings of the hair and the
parings of the nails. Evidently, we thus have here, not likeness, but
a profound and most suggestive moral contrast between the Chaldean and
the Hebrew law. Of the profound ethical truth which vitalises and
gives deep significance to the law of Moses, we find no trace in the
other system. And it is no wonder if, indeed, the one law is, as
declared, a revelation from the holy God, and the other the work of
sinful and sin-blinded man.
It is another moral lesson which is brought before us in these laws
that, as God looks at the matter, sin pertains not only to action, but
also to being. Not only actions, from which we can abstain, but
operations of nature which we cannot help, alike defile; defile in
such a manner and degree as to require, even as voluntary acts of sin,
the cleansing of water, and the expiatory blood of a sin-offering. One
could not avoid many of the defilements mentioned in this chapter, but
that made no difference; he was unclean. For the lesser grades of
uncleanness it sufficed that one be purified by washing with water;
and a sin-offering was only required when this purification had been
neglected; but in all cases where the defilement assumed its extreme
form, the sin-offering and the burnt-offering must be brought, and be
offered for the unclean person by the priest. So is it, we are taught,
with that sin of nature which these cases symbolised; we cannot help
it, and yet the washing of regeneration and the cleansing of the blood
of Christ is required for its removal. Very impressive in its teaching
now becomes the miracle in which our Lord healed the poor woman
afflicted with the issue of blood (Mark v. 25-34), for which she had
vainly sought cure. It was a case like that covered by the law in
chap. xv. 25-27; and he who will read and consider the provisions of
that law will understand, as otherwise he could not, how great her
trial and how heavy her burden must have been. He will wonder also, as
never before, at the boldness of her faith, who, although, according
to the law, her touch should defile the Lord, yet ventured to believe
that not only should this not be so, but that the healing power which
went forth from Him should neutralise the defilement, and carry
healing virtue to the very centre of her life. Thus, if other miracles
represent our Lord as meeting the evil of sin in its various
manifestations in action, this miracle represents His healing power as
reaching to the very source and fountain of life, where it is needed
no less.
The law concerning the removal of these defilements, after all that
has preceded, will admit only of one interpretation. The washing of
water is the uniform symbol of the cleansing of the soul from
pollution by the power of the Holy Ghost; the sacrifices point to the
sacrifice of Christ, in its twofold aspect as burnt-offering and
sin-offering, as required by and availing for the removal of the
sinful defilement which, in the mind of God, attaches even to that in
human nature which is not under the control of the will. At the same
time, whereas in all these cases the sin-offering prescribed is the
smallest known to the law, it is symbolised, in full accord with the
teaching of conscience, that the gravity of the defilement, where
there has not been the active concurrence of the will, is less than
where the will has seconded nature. In all cases of prolonged
defilement from these sources, it was required that the affected
person should still be regarded as unclean for seven days after the
cessation of the infirmity, and on the eighth day came the sacrificial
cleansing. The significance of the seven as the covenant number, the
number also wherein was completed the old creation, has been already
before us: that of "the eighth" will best be considered in connection
with the provisions of chap. xii., to which we next turn our
attention.
The law of this chapter has a formal closing, in which are used these
words (ver. 31): "Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from
their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they
defile My tabernacle that is in the midst of them."
Of which the natural meaning is this, that the defilements mentioned,
as conspicuous signs of man's fallen condition, were so offensive
before a holy God, as apart from these purifications to have called
down the judgment of death on those in whom they were found. In these
words lies also the deeper spiritual thought--if we have rightly
apprehended the symbolic import of these regulations--that not only,
as in former cases mentioned under the law of offerings, do voluntary
acts of sin separate from God and if unatoned for call down His
judgment, but that even our infirmities and the involuntary motions of
sin in our nature have the same effect, and, apart from the cleansing
of the Holy Spirit and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, ensure the
final judgment of death.
CHAPTER XVI.
_THE UNCLEANNESS OF CHILD-BEARING._
LEV. xii. 1-8.
The reference in xii. 2 to the regulations given in xv. 19, as
remarked in the preceding chapter, shows us that the author of these
laws regarded the circumstances attending child-birth as falling under
the same general category, in a ceremonial and symbolic aspect, as the
law of issues. As a special case, however, the law concerning
child-birth presents some very distinctive and instructive features.
The period during which the mother was regarded as unclean, in the
full comprehension of that term, was seven days, as in the analogous
case mentioned in xv. 19, with the remarkable exception, that when she
had borne a daughter this period was doubled. At the expiration of
this period of seven days, her ceremonial uncleanness was regarded as
in so far lessened that the restrictions affecting the ordinary
relations of life, as ordered, xv. 19-23, were removed. She was not,
however, yet allowed to touch any hallowed thing or to come into the
sanctuary, until she had fulfilled, from the time of the birth of the
child, if a son, forty days; if a daughter, twice forty, or eighty
days. At the expiration of the longer period, she was to bring, as in
the law concerning the prolonged issue of blood (xv. 25-30), a
burnt-offering and a sin-offering unto the door of the tent of
meeting, wherewith the priest was to make an atonement for her; when
first she should be accounted clean, and restored to full covenant
privileges. The only difference from the similar law in chap. xv. is
in regard to the burnt-offering commanded, which was larger and more
costly,--a lamb, instead of a turtle dove, or a young pigeon. Still,
in the same spirit of gracious accommodation to the poor which was
illustrated in the general law of the sin-offering, it was ordered
(ver. 8.): "If her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take
two turtledoves, or two young pigeons; the one for a burnt offering,
and the other for a sin offering." The law then applied, according to
xv. 29, 30. A gracious provision this was, as all will remember, of
which the mother of our Lord availed herself (Luke ii. 22-24), as
being one of those who were too poor to bring a lamb for a
burnt-offering.
To the meaning of these regulations, the key is found in the same
conceptions which we have seen to underlie the law concerning issues.
In the birth of a child, the special original curse against the woman
is regarded by the law as reaching its fullest, most consummate and
significant expression. For the extreme evil of the state of sin into
which the first woman, by that first sin, brought all womanhood, is
seen most of all in this, that now woman, by means of those powers
given her for good and blessing, can bring into the world only a child
of sin. And it is, apparently, because we here see the operation of
this curse in its most conspicuous form, that the time of her enforced
separation from the tabernacle worship is prolonged to a period of
forty or eighty days.
It has been usual to speak of the time of the mother's uncleanness,
and subsequent continued exclusion from the tabernacle worship, as
being doubled in the case of the birth of a daughter; but it were,
perhaps, more accurate to regard the normal length of these periods as
being respectively fourteen and eighty days, of which the former is
double of that required in xv. 28. This normal period would then be
more properly regarded as shortened by one half in the case of a male
child, in virtue of his circumcision on the eighth day.
THE ORDINANCE OF CIRCUMCISION.
xii. 3.
"And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be
circumcised."
Although the rite of circumcision here receives a new and special
sanction, it had been appointed long before by God as the sign of His
covenant with Abraham (Gen. xvii. 10-14). Nor was circumcision,
probably, even then a new thing. That the ancient Egyptians practised
it is well known; so also did the Arabs and Phoenicians; in fact, the
custom has been very extensively observed, not only by nations with
whom the Israelites came in contact, but by others who have not had,
in historic times, connection with any civilised peoples; as, for
example, the Congo negroes, and certain Indian tribes in South
America.
The fundamental idea connected with circumcision, by most of the
peoples who have practised it, appears to have been physical
purification; indeed, the Arabs call it by the name _tatur_, which has
this precise meaning. And it deserves to be noticed that for this idea
regarding circumcision there is so much reason in fact, that high
medical authorities have attributed to it a real hygienic value,
especially in warm climates.
No one need feel any difficulty in supposing that this common
conception attached to the rite also in the minds of the Hebrews.
Rather all the more fitting it was, if there was a basis in fact for
this familiar opinion, that God should thus have taken a ceremony
already known to the surrounding peoples, and in itself of a wholesome
physical effect, and constituted it for Abraham and his seed a symbol
of an analogous spiritual fact; namely, the purification of sin at its
fountain-head, the cleansing of the evil nature with which we all are
born. It should be plain enough that it makes nothing against this as
the true interpretation of the rite, even if that be granted which
some have claimed, that it has had, in some instances, a connection
with the phallic worship so common in the East, or that it has been
regarded by some as a sacrificial ceremony. Only the more noteworthy
would it thus appear that the Hebrews should have held strictly to
that view of its significance which had a solid basis in physical
fact,--a fact, moreover, which made it a peculiarly fitting symbol of
the spiritual grace which the Biblical writers connect with it. For
that it was so regarded by them will not be disputed. In this very
book (xxvi. 41) we read of an "uncircumcised heart;" as also in
Deuteronomy, the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and other books
of Scripture.
All this, as intimating the signification of circumcision as here
enjoined, is further established by the New Testament references. Of
these the most formal is perhaps that in Col. ii. 10, 11, where we
read that believers in Christ, in virtue of their union with Him in
whom the unclean nature has been made clean, are said to be
"circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting
off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;" so that
Paul elsewhere writes to the Philippians (iii. 3): "We are the
circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ
Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."
And that God, in selecting this ancient rite to be the sign of His
covenant in the flesh of Abraham and his seed (Gen. xvii. 13), had
regard to the deep spiritual meaning which it could so naturally carry
is explicitly declared by the Apostle Paul (Rom. iv. 11), who tells us
that this sign of circumcision was "a seal of the righteousness of
faith," even the righteousness and the faith concerning which, in the
previous context, he was arguing; and which are still, for all men,
the one, the ground, and the other, the condition, of salvation. It is
truly strange that, in the presence of these plain words of the
Apostle, any should still cling to the idea that circumcision had
reference only to the covenant with Israel as a nation, and not, above
all, to this profound spiritual truth which is basal to salvation,
whether for the Jew or for the Gentile.
And so, when the Hebrew infant was circumcised, it signified for him
and for his parents these spiritual realities. It was an outward sign
and seal of the covenant of God with Abraham and with his seed, to be
a God to him and to his seed after him; and it signified further that
this covenant of God was to be carried out and made effectual only
through the putting away of the flesh, the corrupt nature with which
we are born, and of all that belongs to it, in order that, thus
circumcised with the circumcision of the heart, every child of Abraham
might indeed be an Israelite in whom there should be no guile.
And the law commands, in accord with the original command to Abraham,
that the circumcision should take place on the eighth day. This is the
more noticeable, that among other nations which practised, or still
practise, the rite, the time is different. The Egyptians, for example,
circumcised their sons between the sixth and tenth years, and the
modern Mohammedans between the twelfth and fourteenth year. What is
the significance of this eighth day?
In the first place, it is easy to see that we have in this direction a
provision of God's mercy; for if delayed beyond infancy or early
childhood, as among many other peoples, the operation is much more
serious, and may even involve some danger; while in so early infancy
it is comparatively trifling, and attended with no risk.
Further, by the administration of circumcision at the very opening of
life, it is suggested that in the Divine ideal the grace which was
signified thereby, of the cleansing of nature, was to be bestowed upon
the child, not first at a late period of life, but from its very
beginning, thus anticipating the earliest awakening of the principle
of inborn sin. It was thus signified that before ever the child knew,
or could know, the grace that was seeking to save him, he was to be
taken into covenant relation with God. So even under the strange form
of this ordinance we discover the same mind that was in Him who said
concerning infant children (Luke xviii. 16): "Suffer the little
children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the
kingdom of God." Thus we may well recollect, in passing, that,
although the law has passed away in the Levitical form, the mind of
the Lawgiver concerning the little children of His people, is still
the same.
But the question still remains, Why was the eighth day selected, and
not rather, for instance, the sixth or the seventh, which would have
no less perfectly represented these ideas? The answer is to be found
in the symbolic significance of the eighth day. As the old creation
was completed in six days, with a following Sabbath of rest, so that
six is ever the number of the old creation, as under imperfection and
sin; the eighth day, which is the first day of a new week, everywhere
in Scripture appears as the number symbolic of the new creation, in
which all things shall be restored in the great redemption through the
Second Adam. The thought finds its fullest expression in the
resurrection of Christ, as the First-born from the dead, the Beginning
and the Lord of the new creation, who in His resurrection-body
manifested the first-fruits in physical life of the new creation,
rising from the dead on the first, or, in other words, the day after
the seventh, the eighth day. This gives the key to the use of the
number eight in the Mosaic symbolism. Thus in the law of the cleansing
of the man or the woman that had an issue, the sacrifices which
effectuated their formal deliverance from the curse under which,
through the weakness of their old nature, they had suffered, were to
be offered on the eighth day (xv. 14, 29); the priestly cleansing of
the leper from the taint of his living death was also effected on the
eighth day (xiv. 10); so also the cleansing of the Nazarite who had
been defiled by the dead (Numb. vi. 10). So also the holy convocation
which closed the feast of tabernacles or ingathering--the feast which,
as we shall see, typically prefigured the great harvest of which
Christ was the First-fruits--was ordained, in like manner, for the
eighth day (xxiii. 36). With good reason, then, was circumcision
ordered for the eighth day, seeing that what it symbolically
signified was precisely this: the putting off of the flesh with which
we are born through the circumcision of Christ, and therewith the
first beginning of a new and purified nature--a change so profound and
radical, and in which the Divine efficiency is so immediately
concerned, that Paul said of it that if any man was in Christ, in
whose circumcision we are circised (Col. ii. 11), "there is a new
creation" (2 Cor. v. 17, margin, R.V.).
PURIFICATION AFTER CHILD-BIRTH.
xii. 4-8.
"And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying three and
thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the
sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled. But if
she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in
her impurity: and she shall continue in the blood of her
purifying threescore and six days. And when the days of her
purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall
bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young
pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the
tent of meeting, unto the priest: and he shall offer it before
the Lord, and make atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed
from the fountain of her blood. This is the law for her that
beareth, whether a male or a female. And if her means suffice not
for a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves, or two young
pigeons; the one for a burnt offering, and the other for a sin
offering: and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she
shall be clean."
Until the circumcision of the new-born child, on the eighth day, he
was regarded by the law as ceremonially still in a state of nature,
and therefore as symbolically unclean. For this reason, again, the
mother who had brought him into the world, and whose life was so
intimately connected with his life, was regarded as unclean also.
Unclean, under analogous circumstances, according to the law of xv.
19, she was reckoned doubly unclean in this case,--unclean because of
her issue, and unclean because of her connection with this child,
uncircumcised and unclean. But when the symbolic cleansing of the
child took place by the ordinance of circumcision, then her
uncleanness, so far as occasioned by her immediate relation to him,
came to an end. She was not indeed completely restored; for, according
to the law, in her still continuing condition, it was impossible that
she should be allowed to come into the tabernacle of the Lord, or
touch any hallowed thing; but the ordinance which admitted her child,
admitted her also again to the fellowship of the covenant people.
The longer period of forty--or, in the case of the birth of a female
child, of twice forty--days must also be explained upon symbolical
grounds. Some have indeed attempted to account for these periods, as
also for the difference in their length in the two cases, by a
reference to beliefs of the ancients with regard to the physical
condition of the mother during these periods; but such notions of the
ancients are not justified by facts; nor, especially, would they by
any means account for the greatly prolonged period of eighty days in
the case of the female child. It is possible that in the forty, and
twice forty, we may have a reference to the forty weeks during which
the life of the unborn child had been identified with that of the
mother,--a child which, it must be remembered, according to the
uniform Biblical view, was not innocent, but conceived in sin; for
each week of which connection of life, the mother suffered a judicial
exclusion of one, or, in the case of the birth of a daughter, of two
days; the time being doubled in the latter case with allusion to the
double curse which, according to Genesis, rested upon the woman, as
"first in the transgression." But, apart from this, however difficult
it may be to give a satisfactory explanation of the fact, it is
certain that throughout Scripture the number forty appears to have a
symbolic meaning; and one can usually trace in its application a
reference, more or less distinct, to the conception of trial or
testing. Thus for forty days was Moses in the mount,--a time of
testing for Israel, as for him: forty days, the spies explored the
promised land; forty years, Israel was tried in the wilderness; forty
days, abode Elijah in the wilderness; forty days, also, was our Lord
fasting in the wilderness; and forty days, again, He abode in
resurrection life upon the earth.
The forty (or eighty) days ended, the mother was now formally
reinstated in the fulness of her privileges as a daughter of Israel.
The ceremonial, as in the law of issues, consisted in the presentation
of a burnt-offering and a sin-offering, with the only variation that,
wherever possible, the burnt-offering must be a young lamb, instead of
a dove or pigeon; the reason for which variation is to be found either
in the fact that the burnt-offering was to represent not herself
alone, but also her child, or, possibly, as some have suggested, it
was because she had been so much longer excluded from the tabernacle
service than in the other case.[25]
[25] This latter reason, however, would rather appear to have
demanded, as in the case of the leper, a guilt-offering.
The teaching of this law, then, is twofold: it concerns, first, the
woman; and, secondly, the child which she bears. As regards the woman,
it emphasises the fact that, because "first in the trangression," she
is under special pains and penalties in virtue of her sex. The
capacity of motherhood, which is her crown and her glory, though still
a precious privilege, has yet been made, because of sin, an
inevitable instrument of pain, and that because of her relation to the
first sin. We are thus reminded that the specific curse denounced
against the woman, as recorded in the book of Genesis, is no dead
letter, but a fact. No doubt, the conception is one which raises
difficulties which in themselves are great, and to modern thought are
greater than ever. Nevertheless, the fact abides unaltered, that even
to this day woman is under special pains and disabilities, inseparably
connected with her power of motherhood. Modern theorists, men and
women with nineteenth-century notions concerning politics and
education, may persist in ignoring this; but the fact abides, and
cannot be got rid of by passing resolutions in a mass-meeting, or even
by Act of Parliament or Congress.
And so, as it is useless to object to facts, it is only left to object
to the Mosaic view of the facts, which connects them with sin, and, in
particular, with the first sin. Why should all the daughters of Eve
suffer because of her sin? Where is the justice in such an ordinance?
A question this is to which we cannot yet give any satisfactory
answer. But it does not follow that because in any proposition there
are difficulties which at present we are unable to solve, therefore
the proposition is false. And, further, it is important to observe
that this law, under which womanhood abides, is after all only a
special case under that law of the Divine government which is
announced in the second commandment, by which the iniquities of the
fathers are visited upon the children. It is most certainly a law
which, to our apprehension, suggests great moral difficulties, even to
the most reverent spirits; but it is no less certainly a law which
represents a conspicuous and tremendous fact, which is illustrated,
for instance, in the family of every drunkard in the world. And it is
well worth observing, that while the ceremonial law, which was
specially intended to keep this fact before the mind and the
conscience, is abrogated, the fact that woman is still under certain
Divinely imposed disabilities because of that first sin, is reaffirmed
in the New Testament, and is by apostolic authority applied in the
administration of Church government. For Paul wrote to Timothy (1 Tim.
ii. 12, 13): "I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over
a man.... For Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled hath
fallen into transgression." Modern theorists, and so-called
"reformers" in Church, State, and society, busy with their social,
governmental, and ecclesiastical novelties, would do well to heed this
apostolic reminder.
All the more beautiful, as against this dark background of mystery, is
the word of the Apostle which follows, wherein he reminds us that,
through the grace of God, even by means of those very powers of
motherhood on which the curse has so heavily fallen, has come the
redemption of the woman; so that "she shall be saved through the
childbearing, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification
with sobriety" (1 Tim. ii. 15, R.V.); seeing that "in Christ Jesus,"
in respect of the completeness and freeness of salvation, "there can
be no male and female" (Gal. iii. 28, R.V.).
But, in the second place, we may also derive abiding instruction from
this law, concerning the child which is of man begotten and of woman
born. It teaches us that not only has the curse thus fallen on the
woman, but that, because she is herself a sinful creature, she can
only bring forth another sinful creature like herself; and if a
daughter, then a daughter inheriting all her own peculiar infirmities
and disabilities. The law, as regards both mother and child,
expresses in the language of symbolism those words of David in his
penitential confession (Psalm li. 5): "Behold, I was shapen in
iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Men may
contemptuously call this "theology," or even rail at it as
"Calvinism;" but it is more than theology, more than Calvinism; it is
a _fact_, to which until this present time history has seen but one
exception, even that mysterious Son of the Virgin, who claimed,
however, to be no mere man, but the Christ, the Son of the Blessed!
And yet many, who surely can think but superficially upon the solemn
facts of life, still object to this most strenuously, that even the
new-born child should be regarded as in nature sinful and unclean.
Difficulty here we must all admit,--difficulty so great that it is
hard to overstate it--regarding the bearing of this fact on the
character of the holy and merciful God, who in the beginning made man.
And yet, surely, deeper thought must confess that herein the Mosaic
view of infant nature--a view which is assumed and taught throughout
Holy Scripture--however humbling to our natural pride, is only in
strictest accord with what the admitted principles of the most exact
science compel us to admit. For whenever, in any case, we find all
creatures of the same class doing, under all circumstances, any one
thing, we conclude that the reason for this can only lie in the nature
of such creatures, antecedent to any influence of a tendency to
imitation. If, for instance, the ox everywhere and always eats the
green thing of the earth, and not flesh, the reason, we say, is found
simply in the nature of the ox as he comes into being. So when we see
all men, everywhere, under all circumstances, as soon as ever they
come to the time of free moral choice, always choosing and committing
sin, what can we conclude--regarding this, not as a theological, but
merely as a scientific question--but that man, as he comes into the
world, must have a sinful nature? And this being so, then why must not
the law of heredity apply, according to which, by a law which knows of
no exceptions, like ever produces its like?
Least of all, then, should those object to the view of child-nature
which is represented in this law of Leviticus, who accept these
commonplaces of modern science as representing facts. Wiser it were to
turn attention to the other teaching of the law, that, notwithstanding
these sad and humiliating facts, there is provision made by God,
through the cleansing by grace of the very nature in which we are
born, and atonement for the sin which without our fault we inherit,
for a complete redemption from all the inherited corruption and guilt.
And, last of all, especially should Christian parents with joy and
thankfulness receive the manifest teaching of this law,--teaching
reaffirmed by our blessed Lord in the New Testament,--that God our
Father offers to parental faith Himself to take in hand our children,
even from the earliest beginning of their infant days, and, purifying
the fountain of their life through "a circumcision made without
hands," receive the little ones into covenant relation with Himself,
to their eternal salvation. And thus is the word of the Apostle
fulfilled: "Where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly:
that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
CHAPTER XVII.
_THE UNCLEANNESS OF LEPROSY._
LEV. xiii. 1-46.
The interpretation of this chapter presents no little difficulty. The
description of the diseases with which the law here deals is not given
in a scientific form; the point of view, as the purpose of all, is
strictly practical. As for the Hebrew word rendered "leprosy," it does
not itself give any light as to the nature of the disease thus
designated. The word simply means "a stroke," as also does the generic
term used in ver. 2 and elsewhere, and translated "plague." Inasmuch
as the Septuagint translators rendered the former term by the Greek
word "_lepra_" (whence our word "leprosy"), and as, it is said, the
old Greek physicians comprehended under that term only such scaly
cutaneous eruptions as are now known as _psoriasis_ (_vulg._,
"salt-rheum"), and for what is now known as leprosy reserved the term
"elephantiasis,"[26] it has been therefore urged by high authority
that in these chapters is no reference to the leprosy of modern
speech, but only to some disease or diseases much less serious,
either psoriasis or some other, consisting, like that, of a scaly
eruption on the skin.[27] To the above argument it is also added that
the signs which are given for the recognition of the disease intended,
are not such as we should expect if it were the modern leprosy; as,
for example, there is no mention of the insensibility of the skin,
which is so characteristic a feature of the disease, at least, in a
very common variety; moreover, we find in this chapter no allusion to
the hideous mutilation which so commonly results from leprosy.
[26] This word, it should be noted, is now popularly used to
denote a disease quite distinct from leprosy, known also as
"Barbadoes leg," which consists essentially of an elephantine
enlargement of the lower extremities.
[27] This opinion has been ably argued by Sir Risdon Bennett,
M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., in "By-paths of Bible Knowledge," vol. ix.,
"The Diseases of the Bible."
When the use of the Hebrew term rendered "leprosy" is examined, in
this law and elsewhere, it certainly seems to be used with great
definiteness to describe a disease which had as a very characteristic
feature a whitening of the skin throughout, together with other marks
common to the early stages of leprosy as given in this chapter. Only
in ver. 12 does the Hebrew word appear to be applied to a disease of a
different character, though also marked by the whitening of the skin.
As for the symptoms indicated, the undoubted absence of many
conspicuous marks of leprosy may be accounted for by the following
considerations. In the first place, with a single exception (vv.
9-11), the earliest stages of the disease are described; and,
secondly, it may reasonably be assumed that, through the desire to
ensure the earliest possible separation of a leprous man from the
congregation, signs were to be noted and acted upon, which might also
be found in other forms of skin disease. The aim of the law is that,
if possible, the man shall be removed from the camp before the
disease has assumed its most unambiguous and revolting form. As for
the omission to mention the insensibility of the skin of the leper,
this seems to be sufficiently explained when we remember that this
symptom is characteristic of only one, and that not the most fatal,
variety of the disease.
But, it has also been urged, that elsewhere in the Scripture the
so-called lepers appear as mingling with other people--as, for
example, in the case of Naaman and Gehazi--in a way which shows that
the disease was not regarded as contagious; whence it is inferred,
again, that the leprosy of which we read in the Bible cannot be the
same with the disease which is so called in our time. But, in reply to
this objection, it may be answered that even modern medical opinion
has been by no means as confident of the contagiousness of the
disease--at least, until quite recently--as were people in the middle
ages; nor, moreover, can we assume that the prevention of contagion
must have been the chief reason for the segregation of the leper,
according to the Levitical law, seeing that a like separation was
enjoined in many other cases of ceremonial uncleanness where any
thought of contagion or infection was quite impossible.
In further support of the more common opinion, which identifies the
disease chiefly referred to in this chapter with the leprosy of modern
times, the following considerations appear to be of no little weight.
In the first place, the words themselves which are applied to the
disease in these chapters and elsewhere,--_tsara'ath_ and _nega'_,
both meaning, etymologically, "a stroke," _i.e._, a stroke in some
eminent sense,[28]--while peculiarly fitting if the disease be that
which we now know as leprosy, seem very strangely chosen if, as Sir
Risdon Bennett thinks, they only designate varieties of a disease of
so little seriousness as _psoriasis_. Then, again, the words used by
Aaron to Moses (Numb. xii. 12), referring to the leprosy of Miriam,
deserve great weight here: "Let her not, I pray, be as one dead, of
whom the flesh is half consumed." These words sufficiently answer the
allegation that there is no certain reference in Scripture to the
mutilation which is so characteristic of the later stages of the
disease. It would not be easy to describe in more accurate language
the condition of the leper as the plague advances; while, on the other
hand, if the leprosy of the Bible be only such a light affection as
"salt-rheum," these words and the evident horror which they express,
are so exaggerated as to be quite unaccountable.
[28] Compare our frequent use of the word to denote paralysis.
Then, again, we cannot lose sight of the place which the disease known
in Scripture language as leprosy holds in the sight of the law. As a
matter of fact, it is singled out from a multitude of diseases as the
object of the most stringent and severe regulations, and the most
elaborate ceremonial, known to the law. Now, if the disease intended
be indeed the awful _elephantiasis Græcorum_ of modern medical
science, popularly known as leprosy, this is most natural and
reasonable; but if, on the other hand, only some such non-malignant
disease as _psoriasis_ be intended, this fact is inexplicable.
Further, the tenour of all references to the disease in the Scripture
implies that it was deemed so incurable that its removal in any case
was regarded as a special sign of the exercise of Divine power. The
reference of the Hebrew maid of Naaman to the prophet of God (2 Kings
v. 3), as one who could cure him, instead of proving that it was
thought curable--as has been strangely urged--by ordinary means,
surely proves the exact opposite. Naaman, no doubt, had exhausted
medical resources; and the hope of the maid for him is not based on
the medical skill of Elisha, but on the fact that he was a prophet of
God, and therefore able to draw on Divine power. To the same effect is
the word of the King of Israel, when he received the letter of Naaman
(2 Kings v. 7): "Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man
doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?" In full accord
with this is the appeal of our Lord (Matt. xi. 5) to His cleansing of
the lepers, as a sign of His Messiahship which He ranks for convincing
power along with the raising of the dead.
Nor is it a fatal objection to the usual understanding of this matter,
that because the Levitical law prescribes a ritual for the ceremonial
cleansing of the leper in case of his cure, therefore the disease so
called could not be one of the gravity and supposed incurability of
the true leprosy. For it is to be noted, in the first place, that there
is no intimation that recovery from the leprosy was a common occurrence,
or even that it was to be expected at all, apart from the direct power
of God; and, in the second place, that the Scriptural narrative
represents God as now and then--though very rarely--interposing for
the cure of the leper. And it may perhaps be added, that while a
recent authority writes, and with truth, that "medical skill appears
to have been more completely foiled by this than by any other malady,"
it is yet remarked that, when of the anæsthetic variety, "some
spontaneous cures are recorded."
* * * * *
The chapter before us calls for little detailed exposition. The
diagnosis of the disease by the priest is treated under four different
heads: (1) the case of a leprosy rising spontaneously (vv. 1-17, 38,
39); (2) leprosy rising out of a boil (vv. 18-24); (3) rising out of a
burn (vv. 24-28); (4) leprosy on the head or beard (vv. 29-37, 40-44).
The indications which are to be noted are described (vv. 2, 3, 24-27,
etc.) as a rising of the surface, a scab (or scale), or a bright spot
(very characteristic), the presence in the spot of hair turned white,
the disease apparently deeper than the outer or scarf skin, a
reddish-white colour of the surface, and a tendency to spread. The
presence of "raw flesh" is mentioned (ver. 10) as an indication of a
leprosy already somewhat advanced, "an old leprosy." In cases of
doubt, the suspected case is to be isolated for a period of seven or,
if need be, fourteen days, at the expiration of which the priest's
verdict is to be given, as the symptoms may then indicate.
Two cases are mentioned which the priest is not to regard as leprosy.
The first (vv. 12, 13) is that in which the plague "covers all the
skin of him that hath the plagues from his head even to his feet, as
far as appeareth to the priest," so that he "is all turned white." At
first thought, this seems quite unaccountable, seeing that leprosy
finally affects the whole body. But the solution of the difficulty is
not far to seek. For the next verse provides that, in such a case, if
"raw flesh" appear, he shall be held to be unclean. The explanation of
this provision of ver. 12 is therefore apparently this: that if an
eruption had so spread as to cover the whole body, turning it white,
and yet no raw flesh had appeared in any place, the disease could not
be true leprosy; as, if it were, then, by the time that it had so
extended, "raw flesh" would certainly have appeared somewhere. The
disease indicated by this exception was indeed well known to the
ancients, as it is also to the moderns as the "dry tetter;" which,
although an affection often of long duration, frequently disappears
spontaneously, and is never malignant.
The second case which is specified as not to be mistaken for leprosy
is mentioned in vv. 38, 39, where it is described as marked by bright
spots of a dull whiteness, but without the white hair, and other
characteristic signs of leprosy. The Hebrew word by which it is
designated is rendered in the Revised Version "tetter;" and the
disease, a non-malignant tetter or _eczema_, is still known in the
East under the same name (_bohak_) which is here used.
Verses 45, 46, give the law for him who has been by the priest
adjudged to be a leper. He must go with clothes rent, with his hair
neglected, his lip covered, crying, "Unclean! unclean!" without the
camp, and there abide alone for so long as he continues to be
afflicted with the disease. In other words, he is to assume all the
ordinary signs of mourning for the dead; he is to regard himself, and
all others are to regard him, as a dead man. As it were, he is a
continual mourner at his own funeral.
Wherein lay the reason for this law? One might answer, in general,
that the extreme loathsomeness of the disease, which made the presence
of those who had it to be abhorrent even to their nearest friends,
would of itself make it only fitting, however distressing might be the
necessity, that such persons should be excluded from every possibility
of appearing, in their revolting corruption, in the sacred and pure
precincts of the tabernacle of the holy God, as also from mingling
with His people. Many, however, have seen in the regulation only a
wise law of public hygiene. That a sanitary intent may very probably
have been included in the purpose of this law, we are by no means
inclined to deny. In earlier times, and all through the middle ages,
the disease was regarded as contagious; and lepers were accordingly
segregated, as far as practicable, from the people. In modern times,
the weight of opinion until recent years has been against this older
view; but the tendency of medical authority now appears to be to
reaffirm the older belief. The alarming increase of this horrible
disease in all parts of the world, of late, following upon a general
relaxation of those precautions against contagion which were formerly
thought necessary, certainly supports this judgment; and it may thus
be easily believed that there was just sanitary ground for the rigid
regulations of the Mosaic code. And just here it may be remarked, that
if indeed there be any degree of contagiousness, however small, in
this plague, no one who has ever seen the disease, or understands
anything of its incomparable horror and loathsomeness, will feel that
there is any force in the objections which have been taken to this
part of the Mosaic law as of inhuman harshness toward the sufferers.
Even were the risk of contagion but small, as it probably is, still,
so terrible is the disease that one would more justly say that the
only inhumanity were to allow those afflicted with it unrestricted
intercourse with their fellow-men. The truth is, that the Mosaic law
concerning the treatment of the leper, when compared with regulations
touching lepers which have prevailed among other nations, stands
contrasted with them by its comparative leniency. The Hindoo law, as
is well known, even insists that the leper ought to put himself out of
existence, requiring that he shall be buried alive.
But if there be included in these regulations a sanitary intent, this
certainly does not exhaust their significance. Rather, if this be
admitted, it only furnishes the basis, as in the case of the laws
concerning clean and unclean meats, for still more profound spiritual
teaching. For, as remarked before, it is one of the fundamental
thoughts of the Mosaic law, that death, as being the extreme visible
manifestation of the presence of sin in the race, and a sign of the
consequent holy wrath of God against sinful man, is inseparably
connected with legal uncleanness. But all disease is a forerunner of
death, an incipient dying; and is thus, no less really than actual
death, a visible manifestation of the presence and power of sin
working in the body through death. And yet it is easy to see that it
would have been quite impracticable to carry out a law that therefore
all disease should render the sick person ceremonially unclean; while,
on the other hand, it was of consequence that Israel, and we as well,
should be kept in remembrance of this connection between sin and
disease, as death beginning. What could have been more fitting, then,
than this, that the one disease which, without exaggeration, is of all
diseases the most loathsome, which is most manifestly a visible
representation of that which is in a measure true of all disease, that
it is death working in life, that disease which is, not in a merely
rhetorical sense, but in fact, a living image of death,--should be
selected from all others for the illustration of this principle: to be
to Israel and to us, a visible, perpetual, and very awful parable of
the nature and the working of sin?
And this is precisely what has been done. This explains, as sanitary
considerations alone do not, not merely the separation of the leper
from the holy people, but also the solemn symbolism which required him
to assume the appearance of one mourning for the dead; as also the
symbolism of his cleansing, which, in like manner, corresponded very
closely with that of the ritual of cleansing from defilement by the
dead. Hence, while all sickness, in a general way, is regarded in the
Holy Scriptures as a fitting symbol of sin, it has always been
recognised that, among all diseases, leprosy is this in an exceptional
and pre-eminent sense. This thought seems to have been in the mind of
David, when, after his murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathsheba,
bewailing his iniquity (Psalm li. 7), he prayed, "Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean." For the only use of the hyssop in the
law, which could be alluded to in these words, is that which is
enjoined (xiv. 4-7) in the law for the cleansing of the leper, by the
sprinkling of the man to be cleansed with blood and water with a
hyssop branch.
And thus we find that, again, this elaborate ceremonial contains, not
merely an instructive lesson in public sanitation, and practical
suggestions in hygiene for our modern times; but also lessons, far
more profound and momentous, concerning that spiritual malady with
which the whole human race is burdened,--lessons therefore of the
gravest personal consequence for every one of us.
From among all diseases, leprosy has been selected by the Holy Ghost
to stand in the law as the supreme type of sin, as seen by God! This
is the very solemn fact which is brought before us in this chapter.
Let us well consider it, and see that we receive the lesson, however
humiliating and painful, in the spirit of meekness and penitence. Let
us so study it that we shall with great earnestness and true faith
resort to the true and heavenly High Priest, who alone can cleanse us
of this sore malady. And in order to do this, we must carefully
consider what is involved in this type.
In the first place, leprosy is undoubtedly selected to be a special
type of sin, on account of its extreme _loathsomeness_. Beginning,
indeed, as an insignificant spot, "a bright place," a mere scale on
the skin, it goes on spreading, progressing ever from worse to worse,
till at last limb drops from limb, and only the hideous mutilated
remnant of what was once a man is left. A vivid picture of the
horrible reality has been given by that veteran missionary and very
accurate observer, the Rev. William Thomson, D.D., who writes thus:
"As I was approaching Jerusalem, I was startled by the sudden
apparition of a crowd of beggars, sans eyes, sans nose, sans hair,
sans everything.... They held up their handless arms, unearthly sounds
gurgled through throats without palates,--in a word, I was
horrified."[29] Too horrible is this to be repeated or thought of?
Yes! But then all the more solemnly instructive is it that the Holy
Spirit should have chosen this disease, the most loathsome of all, as
the most fatal of all, to symbolise to us the true nature of that
spiritual malady which affects us all, as it is seen by the omniscient
and most holy God.
[29] "The Land and the Book," vol. i., pp. 530, 531.
But it will very naturally be rejoined by some; Surely it were gross
exaggeration to apply this horrible symbolism to the case of many who,
although indeed sinners, unbelievers also in Christ, yet certainly
exhibit truly lovely and attractive characters. That this is true
regarding many who, according to the Scriptures, are yet unsaved,
cannot be denied. We read of one such in the Gospel,--a young man,
unsaved, who yet was such that "Jesus looking upon him loved him"
(Mark x. 21). But this fact only makes the leprosy the more fitting
symbol of sin. For another characteristic of the disease is its
_insignificant and often even imperceptible beginning_. We are told
that in the case of those who inherit the taint, it frequently remains
quite dormant in early life, only gradually appearing in later years.
How perfectly the type, in this respect, then, symbolises sin! And
surely any thoughtful man will confess that this fact makes the
presence of the infection not less alarming, but more so. No comfort
then can be rightly had from any complacent comparison of our own
characters with those of many, perhaps professing more, who are much
worse than we, as the manner of some is. No one who knew that from his
parents he had inherited the leprous taint, or in whom the leprosy as
yet appeared as only an insignificant bright spot, would comfort
himself greatly by the observation that other lepers were much worse;
and that he was, as yet, fair and goodly to look upon. Though the
leprosy were in him but just begun, that would be enough to fill him
with dismay and consternation. So should it be with regard to sin.
And it would so affect such a man the more surely, when he knew that
the disease, however slight in its beginnings, was certainly
_progressive_. This is one of the unfailing marks of the disease. It
may progress slowly, but it progresses surely. To quote again the
vivid and truthful description of the above-named writer, "It comes on
by degrees in different parts of the body: the hair falls from the
head and eyebrows; the nails loosen, decay, and drop off; joint after
joint of the fingers and toes shrinks up and slowly falls away; the
gums are absorbed, and the teeth disappear; the nose, the eyes, the
tongue, and the palate are slowly consumed; and, finally, the wretched
victim sinks into the earth and disappears."
In this respect again the fitness of the disease to stand as an
eminent type of sin is undeniable. No man can morally stand still. No
one has ever retained the innocence of childhood. Except as
counteracted by the efficient grace of the Holy Spirit in the heart,
the Word (2 Tim. iii. 13) is ever visibly fulfilled, "evil men wax
worse and worse." Sin may not develop in all with equal rapidity, but
it does progress in every natural man, outwardly or inwardly, with
equal certainty.
It is another mark of leprosy that sooner or later it _affects the
whole man_; and in this, again, appears the sad fitness of the disease
to stand as a symbol of sin. For sin is not a partial disorder,
affecting only one class of faculties, or one part of our nature. It
disorders the judgment; it obscures our moral perceptions; it either
perverts the affections, or unduly stimulates them in one direction,
while it deadens them in another; it hardens and quickens the will for
evil, while it paralyses its power for the volition of that which is
holy. And not only the Holy Scripture, but observation itself, teaches
us that sin, in many cases, also affects the body of man, weakening
its powers, and bringing in, by an inexorable law, pain, disease, and
death. Sooner or later, then, sin affects the whole man. And for that
reason, again, is leprosy set forth as its pre-eminent symbol.
It is another remarkable feature of the disease that, as it
progresses from bad to worse, the victim becomes more and more
_insensible_. This numbness or insensibility of the spots affected--in
one most common variety at least--is a constant feature. In some cases
it becomes so extreme that a knife may be thrust into the affected
limb, or the diseased flesh may be burnt with fire, and yet the leper
feels no pain. Nor is the insensibility confined to the body, but, as
the leprosy extends, the mind is affected in an analogous manner. A
recent writer says: "Though a mass of bodily corruption, at last
unable to leave his bed, the leper seems happy and contented with his
sad condition." Is anything more characteristic than this of the
malady of sin? The sin which, when first committed, costs a keen pang,
afterward, when frequently repeated, hurts not the conscience at all.
Judgments and mercies, which in earlier life affected one with
profound emotion, in later life leave the impenitent sinner as unmoved
as they found him. Hence we all recognise the fitness of the common
expression, "a seared conscience," as also of the Apostle's
description of advanced sinners as men who are "past feeling" (Eph.
iv. 19). Of this moral insensibility which sin produces, then, we are
impressively reminded when the Holy Spirit in the Word holds before us
leprosy as a type of sin.
Another element of the solemn fitness of the type is found in the
persistently _hereditary_ nature of leprosy. It may indeed sometimes
arise of itself, even as did sin in the case of certain of the holy
angels, and with our first parents; but when once it is introduced, in
the case of any person, the terrible infection descends with unfailing
certainty to all his descendants; and while, by suitable hygiene, it
is possible to alleviate its violence, and retard its development, it
is not possible to escape the terrible inheritance. Is anything more
uniformly characteristic of sin? We may raise no end of metaphysical
difficulties about the matter, and put unanswerable questions about
freedom and responsibility; but there is no denying the hard fact that
since sin first entered the race, in our first parents, not a child of
man, of human father begotten, has escaped the taint. If various
external influences, as in the case of leprosy, may, in some
instances, modify its manifestations, yet no individual, in any class
or condition of mankind, escapes the taint. The most cultivated and
the most barbarous alike, come into the world so constituted that,
quite antecedent to any act of free choice on their part, we know that
it is not more certain that they will eat than that, when they begin
to exercise freedom, they will, each and every one, use their moral
freedom wrongly,--in a word, will sin. No doubt, then, when such
prominence is given to leprosy among diseases, in the Mosaic symbolism
and elsewhere, it is with intent, among other truths, to keep before
the mind this very solemn and awful fact with regard to the sin which
it so fitly symbolises.
And, again, we find yet another analogy in the fact that, among the
ancient Hebrews, the disease was regarded as _incurable_ by human
means; and, notwithstanding occasional announcements in our day that a
remedy has been discovered for the plague, this seems to be the
verdict of the best authorities in medical science still. That in this
respect leprosy perfectly represents the sorer malady of the soul,
every one is witness. No possible effort of will or fixedness of
determination has ever availed to free a man from sin. Even the
saintliest Christian has often to confess with the Apostle Paul (Rom.
vii. 19), "The evil which I would not, that I practise." Neither is
culture, whether intellectual or religious, of any more avail. To this
all human history testifies. In our day, despite the sad lessons of
long experience, many are hoping for much from improved government,
education, and such like means; but vainly, and in the face of the
most patent facts. Legislation may indeed impose restrictions on the
more flagrant forms of sin, even as it may be of service in
restricting the devastations of leprosy, and ameliorating the
condition of lepers. But to do away with sin, and abolish crime by any
conceivable legislation, is a dream as vain as were the hope of curing
leprosy by a good law or an imperial proclamation. Even the perfect
law of God has proved inadequate for this end; the Apostle (Rom. viii.
3) reminds us that in this it has failed, and could not but fail, "in
that it was weak through the flesh." Nothing can well be of more
importance than that we should be keenly alive to this fact; that so
we may not, through our present apparently tolerable condition, or by
temporary alleviations of the trouble, be thrown off our guard, and
hope for ourselves or for the world, upon grounds which afford no just
reason for hope.
Last of all, the law of leprosy, as given in this chapter, teaches the
supreme lesson, that as with the symbolic disease of the body, so with
that of the soul, sin _shuts out from God and from the fellowship of
the holy_. As the leper was excluded from the camp of Israel and from
the tabernacle of Jehovah, so must the sinner, except cleansed, be
shut out of the Holy City, and from the glory of the heavenly temple.
What a solemnly significant parable is this exclusion of the leper
from the camp! He is thrust forth from the congregation of Israel,
wearing the insignia of mourning for the dead! Within the camp, the
multitude of them that go to the sanctuary of God, and that joyfully
keep holy day; without, the leper dwelling alone, in his incurable
corruption and never-ending mourning! And so, while we do not indeed
deny a sanitary intention in these regulations of the law, but are
rather inclined to affirm it; yet of far more consequence is it that
we heed the spiritual truth which this solemn symbolism teaches. It is
that which is written in the Apocalypse (xxi. 27; xxii. 15) concerning
the New Jerusalem: "There shall in no wise enter into it anything
unclean.... Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the
fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that
loveth and maketh a lie."
In view of all these correspondences, one need not wonder that in the
symbolism of the law leprosy holds the place which it does. For what
other disease can be named which combines in itself, as a physical
malady, so many of the most characteristic marks of the malady of the
soul? In its intrinsic loathsomeness, its insignificant beginnings,
its slow but inevitable progress, in the extent of its effects, in the
insensibility which accompanies it, in its hereditary character, in
its incurability, and, finally, in the fact that according to the law
it involved the banishment of the leper from the camp of Israel,--in
all these respects, it stands alone as a perfect type of sin; it is
sin, as it were, made visible in the flesh.
This is indeed a dark picture of man's natural state, and very many
are exceedingly loth to believe that sin can be such a very serious
matter. Indeed, the fundamental postulate of much of our
nineteenth-century thought, in matters both of politics and religion,
denies the truth of this representation, and insists, on the
contrary, that man is naturally not bad, but good; and that, on the
whole, as the ages go by, he is gradually becoming better and better.
But it is imperative that our views of sin and of humanity shall agree
with the representations held before us in the Word of God. When that
Word, not only in type, as in this chapter, but in plain language
(Jer. xvii. 9, R.V.), declares that "the heart is deceitful above all
things, and it is _desperately sick_," it must be a very perilous
thing to deny this.
It is a profoundly instructive circumstance that, according to this
typical law, the case of the supposed leper was to be judged by the
priest (vv. 2, 3, _et passim_). All turned for him upon the priest's
verdict. If he declared him clean, it was well; but if he pronounced
him unclean, it made no difference that the man did not believe it, or
that his friends did not believe it; or that he or they thought better
in any respect of his case than the priest,--out of the camp he must
go. He might plead that he was certainly not nearly in so bad a case
as some of the poor, mutilated, dying creatures outside the camp; but
that would have no weight, however true. For still he, no less really
than they, was a leper; and, until made whole, into the fellowship of
lepers he must go and abide. Even so for us all; everything turns, not
on our own opinion of ourselves, or on what other men may think of us;
but solely on the verdict of the heavenly Priest.
The picture thus set before us in the symbolism of this chapter is sad
enough; but it would be far more sad did the law not now carry forward
the symbolism into the region of redemption, in making provision for
the cleansing of the leper, and his re-admission into the fellowship
of the holy people. To this our attention is called in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER XVIII.
_THE CLEANSING OF THE LEPER._
LEV. xiv. 1-32.
The ceremonies for the restoration of the leper, when healed of his
disease, to full covenant privileges, were comprehended in two
distinct series. The first part of the ceremonial took place without
the camp, and sufficed only to terminate his condition as one
ceremonially dead, and allow of his return into the camp, and his
association, though still under restriction, with his fellow-Israelites.
The second part of the ceremonial took up his case on the eighth day
thereafter, where the former ceremonial had left him, as a member,
indeed, of the holy people, but a member still under defilement such
as debarred him from approach to the presence of Jehovah; and, by a
fourfold offering and an anointing, restored him to the full enjoyment
of all his covenant privileges before God.
This law for the cleansing of the leper certainly implies that the
disease, although incurable by human skill, yet, whether by the direct
power of God, as in several instances in Holy Scripture, or for some
cause unknown, might occasionally cease its ravages. In this case,
although the visible effects of the disease might still remain, in
mutilations and scars, yet he would be none the less a healed man.
That occasionally instances have occurred of such arrest of the
disease, is attested by competent observers, and the law before us
thus provides for the restoration of the leper in such cases to the
position from which his leprosy had excluded him.
The first part of the ceremonial (vv. 3-9) took place without the
camp; for until legally cleansed the man was in the sight of the law
still a leper, and therefore under sentence of banishment from the
congregation of Israel. Thus, as the outcast could not go to the
priest, the priest, on receiving word of his desire, went to him. For
the ceremony which was to be performed, he provided himself with two
living, clean birds, and with cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop;
also he took with him an earthen vessel filled with living
water,--_i.e._, with water from some spring or flowing stream, and
therefore presumably pure and clean. One of the birds was then killed
in such a manner that its blood was received into the vessel of water;
then the living bird and the hyssop--bound, as we are told, with the
scarlet band to the cedar-wood--were dipped into the mingled blood and
water, and by them the leper was sprinkled therewith seven times by
the priest, and was then pronounced clean; when the living bird,
stained with the blood of the bird that was killed, was allowed to fly
away. Thereupon, the leper washed his clothes, shaved off all his
hair, bathed in water, and entered the camp. This completed the first
stadium of his restoration.
Certain things about this symbolism seem very clear. First of all,
whereas the leper, afflicted, as it were, with a living death, had
become, as regards Israel, a man legally dead, the sprinkling with
blood, in virtue of which he was allowed to take his place again in
the camp as a living Israelite, symbolized the impartation of life;
and, again, inasmuch as death is defiling, the blood was mingled with
water, the uniform symbol of cleansing. The remaining symbols
emphasise thoughts closely related to these. The cedar-wood (or
juniper), which is almost incorruptible, signified that with this new
life was imparted also freedom from corruption. Scarlet, as a colour,
is the constant symbol, again, like the blood, of life and health.
What the hyssop was is still in debate; but we can at least safely say
that it was a plant supposed to have healing and purifying virtues.
So far all is clear. But what is the meaning of the slaying of the one
bird, and the loosing afterward of the other, moistened with the blood
of its fellow? Some have said that both of the birds symbolised the
leper: the one which was slain, the leper as he was,--namely, as one
dead, or under sentence of death by his plague; the other, naturally,
then, the leper as healed, who, even as the living bird is let fly
whither it will, is now set at liberty to go where he pleases. But
when we consider that it is by means of being sprinkled with the blood
of the slain bird that the leper is cleansed, it seems quite
impossible that this slain bird should typify the leper in his state
of defilement. Indeed, if this bird symbolised him as under his
disease, this supposition seems even absurd; for the blood which
cleansed must then have represented his own blood, and his blood as
diseased and unclean!
Neither is it possible that the other bird, which was set at liberty,
should represent the leper as healed, and its release, his liberation;
however plausible, at first thought, this explanation may seem. For
the very same ceremony as this with the two birds was also to be used
in the cleansing of a leprous house (vv. 50-53), where it is evident
that the loosing of the living bird could not have any such
significance; since the notion of a liberty given would be wholly
inapplicable in the case of a house. But whatever the true meaning of
the symbolism may be, it is clear that it must be one which will apply
equally well in each of the two cases, the cleansing of the leprous
house, no less than that of the leprous person.
We are therefore compelled to regard the slaying of the one bird as a
true sacrifice. No doubt there are difficulties in the way, but they
do not seem insuperable, and are, in any case, less than those which
beset other suppositions. It is true that the birds are not presented
before Jehovah in the tabernacle; but as the ceremony took place
outside the camp, and therefore at a distance from the tabernacle,
this may be explained as merely because of the necessity of the case.
It is true, again, that the choice of the bird was not limited, as in
the tabernacle sacrifices, to the turtle-dove or pigeon; but it might
easily be that when, as in this case, the sacrifice was elsewhere than
at the tabernacle, the rules for service there did not necessarily
apply. Finally and decisively, when we turn to the law for the
cleansing of the leprous house, we find that atoning virtue is
explicitly ascribed to this rite with the birds (ver. 53): "He shall
make atonement for the house."
But sacrifice is here presented in a different aspect from elsewhere
in the law. In this ceremonial the central thought is not consecration
through sacrifice, as in the burnt-offering; nor expiation of guilt
through sacrifice, as in the sin-offering; nor yet satisfaction for
trespass committed, as in the guilt-offering. It is sacrifice as
procuring for the man for whom it is offered purity and life, which is
the main thought.
But, according to vv. 52, 53, the atonement is made with both the dead
and the living bird. The special thought which is emphasised by the
use of the latter, seems to be merely the full completeness of the
work of cleansing which has been accomplished through the death of the
other bird. For the living bird was represented as ideally identified
with the bird which was slain, by being dipped in its blood; and in
that it was now loosed from its captivity, this was in token of the
fact that the bird, having now given its life to impart cleansing and
life to the leper, has fully accomplished that end.
Obviously, this explanation is one that will apply no less readily to
the cleansing of the leprous house than of the leprous person. For the
leprosy in the house signifies the working of corruption and of decay
and death in the wall of the house, in a way adapted to its nature, as
really as in the case of the person; and the ceremonial with the birds
and other material prescribed means the same with it as with the
other,--namely, the removal of the principle of corruption and
disease, and impartation of purity and wholesomeness. In both cases
the sevenfold sprinkling, as in analogous cases elsewhere in the law,
signified the completeness of the cleansing, to which nothing was
lacking, and also certified to the leper that by this impartation of
new life, and by his cleansing, he was again brought into covenant
relations with Jehovah.
With these ceremonies, the leper's cleansing was now in so far
effected that he could enter the camp; only he must first cleanse
himself and his clothes with water and shave his hair,--ceremonies
which, in their primary meaning, are most naturally explained by the
importance of an actual physical cleansing in such a case. Every
possible precaution must be taken that by no chance he bring the
contagion of his late disease into the camp. Of what special
importance in this connection, besides the washing, is the shaving of
the hair, will be apparent to all who know how peculiarly retentive is
the hair of odours and infections of every kind.
The cleansed man might now come into the camp; he is restored to his
place as a living Israelite. And yet he may not come to the
tabernacle. For even an Israelite might not come, if defiled for the
dead; and this is precisely the leper's status at this point. Though
delivered from the power of death, there is yet persisting such a
connection of his new self with his old leprous self as precludes him
from yet entering the more immediate presence of God. The reality of
this analogy will appear to any one who compares the rites which now
follow (vv. 10-20) with those appointed for the Nazarite, when defiled
by the dead (Numb. vi. 9-12).
Seven days, then, as in that case, he remains away from the
tabernacle. On the seventh day, he again shaves himself even to the
eyebrows, thus ensuring the most absolute cleanness, and washes
himself and his clothes in water. The final restoration ceremonial
took place on the eighth day,--the day symbolic of the new
creation,--when he appeared before Jehovah at the tent of meeting with
a he-lamb for a guilt-offering, and another for a sin-offering, and a
ewe-lamb for a burnt-offering; also a meal-offering of three
tenth-deals, one tenth for each sacrifice, mingled with oil, and a log
(3·32 qts.) of oil. The oil was then waved for a wave-offering before
the Lord, as also the whole lamb of the guilt-offering (an unusual
thing), and then the lamb was slain and offered after the manner of
the guilt-offering.
And now followed the most distinctive part of the ceremonial. As in
the case of the consecration of the priests was done with the blood of
the peace-offering and with the holy oil, so was it done here with the
blood of the guilt-offering and with the common oil--now by its waving
consecrated to Jehovah--which the cleansed leper had brought. The
priest anoints the man's right ear, the thumb of his right hand, and
the great toe of his right foot, first with the blood of the
guilt-offering, and then with the oil, having previously sprinkled of
the oil seven times with his finger before the Lord. The remnant of
the oil in the hand of the priest he then pours upon the cleansed
leper's head; then offers for him the sin-offering, the
burnt-offering, and the meal-offering; and therewith, at last, the
atonement is complete, and the man is restored to his full rights and
privileges as a living member of the people of the living God.
The chief significance of this ceremonial lies in the prominence given
to the guilt-offering. This is evidenced, not only by the special and
peculiar use which is made of its blood, in applying it to the leper,
but also in the fact that in the case of the poor man, while the other
offerings are diminished, there is no diminution allowed as regards
the lamb of the guilt-offering, and the log of oil. Why should the
guilt-offering have received on this occasion such a place of special
prominence? The answer has been rightly given by those who point to
the significance of the guilt-offering as representing reparation and
satisfaction for loss of service due. By the fact of the man's
leprosy, and consequent exclusion from the camp of Israel, God had
been, for the whole period of his excision, defrauded, so to speak, of
His proper dues from him in respect of service and offerings; and the
guilt-offering precisely symbolised satisfaction made for this default
in service which he had otherwise been able to render.
Nor is it a fatal objection to this understanding of the matter that,
on this principle, he also that for a long time had had an issue
should have been required, for his prolonged default of service, to
bring a guilt-offering in order to his restoration; whereas from him
no such demand was made. For the need, before the law, for the
guilt-offering lay, not in the duration of the leprosy, as such
apprehend it, but in the nature of the leprosy, as being, unlike any
other visitation, in a peculiar sense, a death in life. Even when the
man with an issue was debarred from the sanctuary, he was not, like
the leper, regarded by the law as a dead man; but was still counted
among them that were living in Israel. And if precluded for an
indefinite time from the service and worship of God at the tabernacle,
he yet, by his public submission to the demands of the law, in the
presence of all, rendered still to God the honour due from a member of
the living Israel. But in that the leper, unlike any other defiled
person, was reckoned ceremonially dead, obviously consistency in the
symbolism made it impossible to regard him as having in any sense
rendered honour or service to God so long as he continued a leper, any
more than if he had been dead and buried. Therefore he must bring a
guilt-offering, as one who had, however unavoidably, committed "a
trespass in the holy things of the Lord." And so this guilt-offering,
in the case of the leper, as in all others, represented the
satisfaction of debt; and as the reality or the amount of a debt
cannot be affected by the poverty of the debtor, the offering which
symbolised satisfaction for the debt must be the same for the poor
leper as for the rich leper.
And the application of the blood to ear, hand, and foot meant the same
as in the case of the consecration of the priests. Inducted, as one
now risen from the dead, into the number of the priestly people, he
receives the priestly consecration, devoting ear, hand, and foot to
the service of the Lord. And as it was fitting that the priests,
because brought into a relation of special nearness to God, in order
to be ministers of reconciliation to Israel, should therefore be
consecrated with the blood of the peace-offering, which specially
emphasised the realisation of reconciliation,--so the cleansed leper,
who was re-established as a living member of the priestly nation, more
especially by the blood of the guilt-offering, was therefore fittingly
represented as consecrated in virtue, and by means of that fact.
So, like the priests, he also was anointed by the priest with oil; not
indeed with the holy oil, for he was not admitted to the priestly
order; yet with common oil, sanctified by its waving before God, in
token of his consecration as a member of the priestly people.
Especially suitable in his case was this anointing, that the oil
constantly stands as a symbol of healing virtue, which in his
experience he had so wondrously received.
Remembering in all this how the leprosy stands as a pre-eminent type
of sin, in its aspect as involving death and corruption, the
application of these ceremonies to the antitypical cleansing, at least
in its chief aspects, is almost self-evident. As in all the Levitical
types, so in this case, at the very entrance on the redeemed life
stands the sacrifice of a life, and the service of a priest as
mediator between God and man. Blood must be shed if the leper is to be
admitted again into covenant standing with God; and the blood of the
sacrifice in the law ever points to the sacrifice of Christ. But that
great Sacrifice may be regarded in various aspects. Sin is a
many-sided evil, and on every side it must be met. As often repeated,
because sin as guilt requires expiation, hence the type of the
sin-offering; in that it is a defrauding of God of His just rights
from us, satisfaction is required, hence the type of the
guilt-offering; as it is absence of consecration, life for self
instead of life for God, hence the type of the burnt-offering. And yet
the manifold aspects of sin are not all enumerated. For sin, again, is
spiritual death; and, as death, it involves corruption and defilement.
It is with special reference to this fact that the work of Christ is
brought before us here. In the clean bird, slain that its blood may be
applied to the leper for cleansing, we see typified Christ, as giving
Himself, that His very life may be imparted to us for our life. In
that the blood of the bird is mingled with water, the symbol of the
Word of God, is symbolised the truth, that with the atoning blood is
ever inseparably united the purifying energy of the Holy Ghost through
the Word. Not the water without the blood, nor the blood without the
water, saves, but the blood with the water, and the water with the
blood. So it is said of Him to whom the ceremony pointed (1 John v.
6): "This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not
with the water only, but with the water and with the blood."
But the type yet lacks something for completeness; and for this reason
we have the second bird, who, when by his means the blood has been
sprinkled on the leper, and the man is now pronounced clean, is
released and flies away heavenward. What a beautiful symbol of that
other truth, without which even the atonement of the Lord were nought,
that He who died, having by that death for us procured our life, was
then released from the bonds of death, rising from the dead on the
third day, and ascending to heaven, like the freed bird, in token that
His life-giving, cleansing work was done. Thus the message which, as
the liberated bird flies carolling away, sweet as a heavenly song,
seems to fall upon the ear, is this, "Delivered up for our trespasses,
and raised for our justification" (Rom. iv. 25; see _Gr._).
But although thus and then restored to his standing as a member of the
living people of God, not yet was the cleansed leper allowed to appear
in the presence of God at the tent of meeting. There was a delay of a
week, and only then, on the eighth day, the day typical of
resurrection and new creation, does He appear before God. Is there
typical meaning in this delay? We would not be too confident. It is
quite possible that this delay of a week, before the cleansed man was
allowed to present himself for the completion of the ceremonial which
reinstated him in the plenary enjoyment of all the rights and
privileges of a child of Israel, may have been intended merely as a
precautionary rule, of which the purpose was to guard against the
possibility of infection, and the defilement of the sanctuary by his
presence, through renewed activity of the disease; while, at the same
time, it would serve as a spiritual discipline to remind the man, now
cleansed, of the extreme care and holy fear with which, after his
defilement, he should venture into the presence of the Holy One of
Israel; and thus, by analogy, it becomes a like lesson to the
spiritually cleansed in all ages.
But perhaps we may see a deeper significance in this week of delay,
and his appointed appearance before the Lord on the eighth day. If the
whole course of the leper, from the time of his infection till his
final reappearing in the presence of Jehovah at the tent of meeting,
be intended to typify the history and experience of a sinner as saved
from sin; and if the cleansing of the leper without the camp, and his
reinstatement thereupon as a member of God's Israel, represents in
type the judicial reinstatement of the cleansed sinner, through the
application of the blood and Spirit of Christ, in the number of God's
people; one can then hardly fail to recognise in the week's delay
appointed to him, before he could come into the immediate presence of
God, an adumbration of the fact that between the sinner's acceptance
and the appointed time of his appearing, finally and fully cleansed,
before the Lord, on the resurrection morning, there intervenes a
period of delay, even the whole lifetime of the believer here in the
flesh and in the disembodied state. For only thereafter does he at
last, wholly perfected, appear before God in the heavenly Zion. But
before thus appearing, the accepted man once and again had to cleanse
his garments and his person, that so he might remove everything in
which by any chance uncleanness might still lurk. Which, translated
into New Testament language, gives us the charge of the Apostle Paul
(2 Cor. vii. 1) addressed to those who had indeed received the new
life, but were still in the flesh: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all
defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of
God."
But, at last, the week of delay is ended. After its seventh day
follows an eighth, the first-day morning of a new week, the morning
typical of resurrection and therewith completed redemption, and the
leper now, completely restored, appears before God in the holy
tabernacle. Even so shall an eighth-day morning dawn for all who by
the cleansing blood have been received into the number of God's
people. And when that day comes, then, even as when the cleansed man
appeared at the tent of meeting, he presented guilt-offering,
sin-offering, and burnt-offering, as the warrant for his presence
there, and the ground of his acceptance, so shall it be in that day of
resurrection, when every one of God's once leprous but now washed and
accepted children shall appear in Zion before Him. They will all
appear there as pleading the blood, the precious blood of Christ;
Christ, at last apprehended and received by them in all His fulness,
as expiation, satisfaction, and righteousness. For so John represents
it in the apocalyptic vision of the blood-washed multitude in the
heavenly glory (Rev. vii. 14, 15): "These are they which come out of
the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. _Therefore_ are they before the throne
of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple."
And as it is written (Rom. viii. 11) that the final quickening of our
mortal bodies shall be accomplished by the Spirit of God, so the
leper, now in God's presence, receives a special anointing; a type of
the unction of the Holy Ghost in resurrection power, consecrating the
once leprous ear, hand, and foot, and therewith the whole body, now
cleansed from all defilement, to the glad service of Jehovah our God
and our Redeemer.
Such, in outline at least, appears to be the typical significance of
this ceremonial of the cleansing of the leper. Some details are
indeed still left unexplained, but, probably, the whole reason for
some of the regulations is to be found in the immediate practical
necessities of the leper's condition.
OF LEPROSY IN A GARMENT OR HOUSE.
xiii. 47-59; xiv. 33-53.
"The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be
a woollen garment, or a linen garment; whether it be in warp, or
woof; of linen, or of woollen; whether in a skin, or in any thing
made of skin; if the plague be greenish or reddish in the
garment, or in the skin, or in the warp, or in the woof, or in
any thing of skin; it is the plague of leprosy, and shall be
shewed unto the priest: and the priest shall look upon the
plague, and shut up that which hath the plague seven days: and he
shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be
spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in
the skin, whatever service skin is used for; the plague is a
fretting leprosy; it is unclean. And he shall burn the garment,
whether the warp or the woof, in woollen or in linen, or any
thing of skin, wherein the plague is: for it is a fretting
leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire. And if the priest shall
look, and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment,
either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; then
the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the
plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more: and the
priest shall look, after that the plague is washed: and, behold,
if the plague have not changed its colour, and the plague be not
spread, it is unclean; thou shalt burn it in the fire: it is a
fret, whether the bareness be within or without. And if the
priest look, and, behold, the plague be dim after the washing
thereof, then he shall rend it out of the garment, or out of the
skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof: and if it appear
still in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in
any thing of skin, it is breaking out: thou shalt burn that
wherein the plague is with fire. And the garment, either the
warp, or the woof, or whatsoever thing of skin it be, which thou
shalt wash, if the plague be departed from them, then it shall be
washed the second time, and shall be clean. This is the law of
the plague of leprosy in a garment of woollen or linen, either in
the warp, or the woof, or any thing of skin, to pronounce it
clean, or to pronounce it unclean.... And the Lord spake unto
Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When ye be come into the land of
Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the
plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; then
he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying,
There seemeth to me to be as it were a plague in the house: and
the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the
priest go in to see the plague, that all that is in the house be
not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the
house: and he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the
plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish
or reddish, and the appearance thereof be lower than the wall;
then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the
house, and shut up the house seven days: and the priest shall
come again the seventh day, and shall look: and, behold, if the
plague be spread in the walls of the house; then the priest shall
command that they take out the stones in which the plague is, and
cast them into an unclean place without the city: and he shall
cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall
pour out the mortar that they scrape off without the city into an
unclean place: and they shall take other stones, and put them in
the place of those stones; and he shall take other mortar, and
shall plaister the house. And if the plague come again, and break
out in the house, after that he hath taken out the stones, and
after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plaistered; then
the priest shall come in and look, and, behold, if the plague be
spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is
unclean. And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and
the timber thereof, and all the mortar of the house; and he shall
carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place. Moreover
he that goeth into the house all the while that it is shut up
shall be unclean until the even. And he that lieth in the house
shall wash his clothes; and he that eateth in the house shall
wash his clothes. And if the priest shall come in, and look, and,
behold, the plague hath not spread in the house, after the house
was plaistered; then the priest shall pronounce the house clean,
because the plague is healed. And he shall take to cleanse the
house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop: and he
shall kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running
water: and he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the
scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the
slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house
seven times: and he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the
bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and
with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet:
but he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open
field: so shall he make atonement for the house: and it shall be
clean."
There has been much debate as to what we are to understand by the
leprosy in the garment or in a house. Was it an affection identical in
nature with the leprosy of the body? or was it merely so called from a
certain external similarity to that plague?
However extraordinary the former supposition might once have seemed,
in the present state of medical science we are at least able to say
that there is nothing inconceivable in it. We have abundant
experimental evidence that a large number of diseases, and, not
improbably, leprosy among them, are caused by minute parasitic forms
of vegetable life; and, also, that in many cases these forms of life
may, and do, exist and multiply in various other suitable media
besides the fluids and tissues of the human body. If, as is quite
likely, leprosy be caused by some such parasitic life in the human
body, it is then evidently possible that such parasites, under
favourable conditions of heat, moisture, etc., should exist and
propagate themselves, as in other analogous cases, outside the body;
as, for instance, in cloth, or leather, or in the plaster of a house;
in which case it is plain that such garments or household implements,
or such dwellings, as might be thus infected, would be certainly
unwholesome, and presumably capable of communicating the leprosy to
the human subject. But we have not yet sufficient scientific
observation to settle the question whether this is really so; we can,
however, safely say that, in any case, the description which is here
given indicates a growth in the affected garment or house of some kind
of mould or mildew; which, as we know, is a form of life produced
under conditions which always imply an unwholesome state of the
article or house in which it appears. We also know that if such
growths be allowed to go on unchecked, they involve more or less
rapid processes of decomposition in that which is affected. Thus, even
from a merely natural point of view, one can see the high wisdom of
the Divine King of Israel in ordering that, in all such cases, the man
whose garment or house was thus affected should at once notify the
priest, who was to come and decide whether the appearance was of a
noxious and unclean kind or not, and then take action accordingly.
Whether the suspicious spot were in a house or in some article it
contained, the article or house (the latter having been previously
emptied) was first shut up for seven days (xiii. 50; xiv. 38). If in
the garment or other article affected it was found then to have
spread, it was without any further ceremony to be burnt (xiii. 51,
52). If it had not spread, it was to be washed and shut up seven days
more, at the end of which time, even though it had not spread, if the
greenish or reddish colour remained unchanged, it was still to be
adjudged unclean, and to be burned (xiii. 55). If, on the other hand,
the colour had somewhat "dimmed," the part affected was to be cut out;
when, if it spread no further, it was to be washed a second time, and
be pronounced clean (xiii. 58). If, however, after the excision of the
affected part, the spot appeared again, the article, without further
delay, was to be burned (xiii. 57).
The law, in the case of the appearing of a leprosy in a house (xiv.
33-53), was much more elaborate. As in the former case, when the
occupant of the house suspects, "as it were a plague in the house," he
is to go and tell the priest; who is, first of all, to order the
emptying of the house before he goes in, lest that which is in the
house, should it prove to be the plague, be made unclean (ver. 36).
The diagnosis reminds us of that of the leprosy in the body; greenish
or reddish streaks, in appearance "lower than the wall," _i.e._,
deep-seated (ver. 37). Where this is observed, the empty house is to
be shut up for seven days (ver. 38); and at the end of that time, if
the spot has spread, "the stones in which the plague is" are to be
taken out, the plaster scraped off the walls of the house, and all
carried out into an unclean place outside of the city, and new stones
and new plaster put in the place of the old (vv. 40-42). If, after
this, the plague yet reappear, the house is to be adjudged unclean,
and is to be wholly torn down, and all the material carried into an
unclean place without the city (vv. 44, 45). If, on the other hand,
after this renewal of the interior of the house, the spots do not
reappear, the priest "shall pronounce the house clean, because the
plague is healed" (ver. 48). But, unlike the case of the leprous
garment, this does not end the ceremonial. It is ordered that the
priest shall take to cleanse (_lit._ "to purge the house from sin")
(ver. 49) two birds, scarlet, cedar, and hyssop, which are then used
precisely as in the case of the purgation of the leprous man; and at
the end, "he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the
open field: so shall he make atonement for the house: and it shall be
clean" (vv. 50-53).
For the time then present, one can hardly fail to see in this
ceremonial, first, a merciful sanitary intent. By the observance of
these regulations not only was Israel to be saved from many sicknesses
and various evils, but was to be constantly reminded that Israel's
God, like a wise and kind Father, had a care for everything that
pertained to their welfare; not only for their persons, but also for
their dwellings, and even all the various articles of daily use. The
lesson is always in force, for God has not changed. He is not a God
who cares for the souls of men only, but for their bodies also, and
everything around them. His servants do well to remember this, and in
this imitate Him, as happily many are doing more and more. Bibles and
tracts are good, and religious exhortation; but we have here left us a
Divine warrant not to content ourselves with these things alone, but
to have a care for the clothing and the homes of those we would reach
with the Gospel. In all the large cities of Christendom it must be
confessed that the principle which underlies these laws concerning
houses and garments, is often terribly neglected. Whether the
veritable plague of leprosy be in the walls of many of our tenement
houses or not, there can be no doubt that it could not be much worse
if it were; and Christian philanthropy and legislation could scarcely
do better in many cases than vigorously to enforce the Levitical law,
tear down, re-plaster, or, in many cases, destroy from the foundation,
tenement houses, which could, with little exaggeration, be justly
described as leprous throughout.
But all which is in this law cannot be thus explained. Even the
Israelite must have looked beyond this for the meaning of the
ordinance of the two birds, the cedar, scarlet, and hyssop, and the
"atonement" for the house. He would have easily perceived that not
only leprosy in the body, but this leprosy in the garment and the
house, was a sign that both the man himself, and his whole environment
as well, was subject to death and decay; that, as already he would
have learned from the Book of Genesis, even nature was under a curse
because of man's sin; and that, as in the Divine plan, sacrificial
cleansing was required for the deliverance of man, so also it was
somehow mysteriously required for the cleansing of his earthly abode
and surroundings, in default of which purgation they must be
destroyed.
And from this to the antitypical truth prefigured by these laws it is
but a step; and a step which we take with full New Testament light to
guide us. For if the leprosy in the body visibly typified the working
of sin and death in the soul of man, then, as clearly, the leprosy in
the house must in this law be intended to symbolise the working of sin
in the material earthly creation, which is man's abode. The type thus
brings before us the truth which is set forth by the Apostle Paul in
Rom. viii. 20-22, where we are taught in express words that, not man
alone, but the whole creation also, because of sin, has come under a
"bondage of corruption." "The creation was subjected to vanity, not of
its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it.... For we know
that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until
now." This is one truth which is shadowed forth in this type.
But the type also shows us how, as Scripture elsewhere clearly
teaches, if after such partial purgation as was effected by means of
the deluge the bondage of corruption still persist, then the abode of
man must itself be destroyed; "the earth and the works that are
therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter iii. 10). Nothing less than fire
will suffice to put an end to the working in material nature of this
mysterious curse. And yet beyond the fire is redemption. For the
atonement shall avail not only for the leprous man, but for the
purifying of the leprous abode. The sprinkling of sacrificial blood
and water by means of the cedar, and hyssop, and scarlet, and the
living bird, which effected the deliverance of the leper, are used
also in the same way and for the same end, for the leprous house. And
so "according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter iii. 13); and it shall
be brought in through the virtue of atonement made by a Saviour slain,
and applied by a Saviour alive from the dead; so that, as the free
bird flies away in token of the full completion of deliverance from
the curse, so "the creation itself also shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of
God" (Rom. viii. 21).
But there was also a leprosy of the garment. If the leprosy in the
body typified the effect of sin in the soul, and the leprosy in the
house, the effect of sin in the earthly creation, which is man's home;
the leprosy of the garment can scarcely typify anything else than the
presence and effects of sin in those various relations in life which
constitute our present environment. Whenever, in any of these, we
suspect the working of sin, first of all we are to lay the case before
the heavenly Priest. And then, if He with the "eyes like a flame of
fire" (Rev. i. 14; ii. 18) declare anything unclean, then that in
which the stain is found must be without hesitation cut out and thrown
away. And if still, after this, we find the evil reappearing, then the
whole garment must go, fair and good though the most of it may still
appear. In other words, those relations and engagements in which,
despite all possible care and precaution, we find manifest sin
persistently reappearing, as if there were in them, however
inexplicably, an ineradicable tendency to evil,--these we must
resolutely put away, "hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."
The leprous garment must be burnt. For its restoration or purification
the law made no provision. For here, in the antitype, we are dealing
with earthly relationships, which have only to do with the present
life and order. "The fashion of this world passeth away" (1 Cor. vii.
31). There shall be "new heavens and a new earth," but in that new
creation the old environment shall be found no longer. The old
garments, even such as were best, shall be no longer used. The
redeemed shall walk with the King and Redeemer, clothed in the white
robes which He shall give. No more leprosy then in person, house, or
garment! For we shall be set before the presence of the Father's
glory, without blemish, in exceeding joy, "not having spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing." Wherefore "to the only God our Saviour,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power,
before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen."
CHAPTER XIX.
_OF HOLINESS IN EATING._
LEV. xvii. 1-16.
With this chapter begins another subdivision of the law. Hitherto we
have had before us only sacrificial worship and matters of merely
ceremonial law. The law of holy living contained in the following
chapters (xvii.-xx.), on the other hand, has to do for the most part
with matters rather ethical than ceremonial, and consists chiefly of
precepts designed to regulate morally the ordinary engagements and
relationships of every-day life. The fundamental thought of the four
chapters is that which is expressed, _e.g._, in xviii. 3: Israel,
redeemed by Jehovah, is called to be a holy people; and this holiness
is to be manifested in a total separation from the ways of the
heathen. This principle is enforced by various specific commands and
prohibitions, which naturally have particular regard to the special
conditions under which Israel was placed, as a holy nation consecrated
to Jehovah, the one, true God, but living in the midst of nations of
idolaters.
The whole of chapter xvii., with the exception of vv. 8, 9, has to do
with the application of this law of holy living to the use even of
lawful food. At first thought, the injunctions of the chapter might
seem to belong rather to ceremonial than to moral law; but closer
observation will show that all the injunctions here given have direct
reference to the avoidance of idolatry, especially as connected with
the preparation and use of food.
It was not enough that the true Israelite should abstain from food
prohibited by God, as in chap. xii.; he must also use that which was
permitted in a way well-pleasing to God, carefully shunning even the
appearance of any complicity with surrounding idolatry, or fellowship
with the heathen in their unholy fashions and customs. Even so for the
Christian: it is not enough that he abstain from what is expressly
forbidden; even in his use of lawful food, he must so use it that it
shall be to him a means of grace, in helping him to maintain an
uninterrupted walk with God.
In vv. 1-7 is given the law to regulate the use of such clean animals
for food as could be offered to God in sacrifice; in vv. 10-16, of
such as, although permitted for food, were not allowed for sacrifice.
The directions regarding the first class may be summed up in this: all
such animals were to be treated as peace-offerings. No private person
in Israel was to slaughter any such animal anywhere in the camp or out
of it, except at the door of the tent of meeting. Thither they were to
be brought "unto the priest," and offered for peace-offerings (ver.
5); the blood must be sprinkled on the altar of burnt-offering; the
fat parts burnt "for a sweet savour unto the Lord" (ver. 6); and then
only, the priest having first taken his appointed portions, the
remainder might now be eaten by the Israelite, as given back to him by
God, in peaceful fellowship with Him.
The law could not have been burdensome, as some might hastily imagine.
Even when obtainable, meat was probably not used as food by them so
freely as with us; and in the wilderness the lack of flesh, it will be
remembered, was so great as to have occasioned at one time a rebellion
among the people, who fretfully complained (Numb. xi. 4): "Who shall
give us flesh to eat?"
Even the uncritical reader must be able to see how manifest is the
Mosaic date of this part of Leviticus. The terms of this law suppose a
camp-life; indeed, the camp is explicitly named (ver. 3). That which
was enjoined was quite practicable under the conditions of life in the
wilderness, when, at the best, flesh was scarce, and the people dwelt
compactly together; but would have been utterly inapplicable and
impracticable at a later date, after they were settled throughout the
land of Canaan, when to have slaughtered all beasts used for food at
the central sanctuary would have been impossible. Hence we find that,
as we should expect, the modified law of Deuteronomy (xii. 15, 16,
20-24), assuming the previous existence of this earlier law,
explicitly repeals it. To suppose that forgers of a later day, as, for
instance, of the time of Josiah, or after the Babylonian exile, should
have needlessly invented a law of this kind, is an hypothesis which is
rightly characterised by Dillmann as "simply absurd."[30]
[30] "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 535.
This regulation for the wilderness days is said (vv. 5, 7) to have
been made "to the end that the children of Israel may bring their
sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field ... unto the Lord,
... and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace offerings unto the
Lord.... And they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices unto the
he-goats, after whom they go a whoring."
There can be no doubt that in the last sentence, "he-goats," as in the
Revised Version, instead of "devils," as in the Authorised, is the
right rendering. The worship referred to was still in existence in the
days of the monarchy; for it is included in the charges against
"Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin" (2 Chron. xi.
15), that "he appointed him priests, ... for the he-goats, and for the
calves which he had made." Nor can here we agree with Dillmann[31]
that in this worship of he-goats here referred to, there is "no
occasion to think of the goat-worship of Egypt." For inasmuch as we
know that the worship of the sacred bull and that of the he-goat
prevailed in Egypt in those days, and inasmuch as in Ezekiel xx. 6, 7,
15-18, repeated reference is made to Israel's having worshipped "the
idols of Egypt," one can hardly avoid combining these two facts, and
thus connecting the goat-worship to which allusion is here made, with
that which prevailed at Mendes, in Lower Egypt. This cult at that
place was accompanied with nameless revolting rites, such as give
special significance to the description of this worship (ver. 7) as "a
whoring" after the goats; and abundantly explain and justify the
severity of the penalty attached to the violation of this law (ver. 4)
in cutting off the offender from this people; all the more when we
observe the fearful persistency of this horrible goat-worship in
Israel, breaking out anew, as just remarked, some five hundred years
later, in the reign of Jeroboam.
[31] "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 537.
The words imply that the ordinary slaughter of animals for food was
often connected with some idolatrous ceremony related to this
goat-worship. What precisely it may have been, we know not; but of
such customs, connecting the preparation of the daily food with
idolatry, we have abundant illustration in the usages of the ancient
Persians, the Hindoos, and the heathen Arabs of the days before
Mohammed. The law was thus intended to cut out this every-day idolatry
by the root. With these "field-devils," as Luther renders the word,
the holy people of the Lord were to have nothing to do.
Very naturally, the requirement to present all slaughtered animals as
peace-offerings to Jehovah gives occasion to turn aside for a little
from the matter of food, which is the chief subject of the chapter, in
order to extend this principle beyond animals slaughtered for food,
and insist particularly that all burnt-offerings and sacrifices of
every kind should be sacrificed at the door of the tent of meeting,
and nowhere else. This law, we are told (ver. 8), was to be applied,
not only to the Israelites themselves, but also to "strangers" among
them; such as, _e.g._, were the Gibeonites. No idolatry, nor anything
likely to be associated with it, was to be tolerated from any one in
the holy camp.
The principle which underlies this stringent law, as also the reason
which is given for it, is of constant application in modern life.
There was nothing wrong in itself in slaying an animal in one place
more than another. It was abstractly possible--as, likely enough, many
an Israelite may have said to himself--that a man could just as really
"eat unto the Lord" if he slaughtered and ate his animal in the field,
as anywhere else. Nevertheless this was forbidden under the heaviest
penalties. It teaches us that he who will be holy must not only
abstain from that which is in itself always wrong, but must carefully
keep himself from doing even lawful or necessary things in such a way,
or under such associations and circumstances, as may outwardly
compromise his Christian standing, or which may be proved by
experience to have an almost unavoidable tendency toward sin. The
laxity in such matters which prevails in the so-called "Christian
world" argues little for the tone of spiritual life in our day in
those who indulge in it, or allow it, or apologise for it. It may be
true enough, in a sense, that as many say, there is no harm in this or
that. Perhaps not; but what if experience have shown that, though in
itself not sinful, a certain association or amusement almost always
tends to worldliness, which is a form of idolatry? Or--to use the
apostle's illustration--what if one be seen, though with no intention
of wrong, "sitting at meat in an idol's temple," and he whose
conscience is weak be thereby emboldened to do what to him is sin?
There is only one safe principle, now as in the days of Moses:
everything must be brought "before the Lord;" used as from Him and for
Him, and therefore used under such limitations and restrictions as His
wise and holy law imposes. Only so shall we be safe; only so abide in
living fellowship with God.
Very beautiful and instructive, again, was the direction that the
Israelite, in the cases specified, should make his daily food a
peace-offering. This involved a dedication of the daily food to the
Lord; and in his receiving it back again then from the hand of God,
the truth was visibly represented that our daily food is from God;
while also, in the sacrificial acts which preceded the eating, the
Israelite was continually reminded that it was upon the ground of an
accepted atonement that even these every-day mercies were received.
Such also should be, in spirit, the often neglected prayer before each
of our daily meals. It should be ever offered with the remembrance of
the precious blood which has purchased for us even the most common
mercies; and should thus sincerely recognise what, in the confusing
complexity of the second causes through which we receive our daily
food, we so easily forget: that the Lord's prayer is not a mere form
of words when we say, "Give us this day our daily bread;" but that
working behind, and in, and with, all these second causes, is the
kindly Providence of God, who, opening His hand, supplies the want of
every living thing. And so, eating in grateful, loving fellowship with
our Heavenly Father that which His bounty gives us, to His glory,
every meal shall become, as it were, a sacramental remembrance of the
Lord. We may have wondered at what we have read of the world-wide
custom of the Mohammedan, who, whenever the knife of slaughter is
lifted against a beast for food, utters his "_Bism allàh_," "In the
name of the most merciful God;" and not otherwise will regard his food
as being made _halàl_, or "lawful;" and, no doubt, in all this, as in
many a Christian's prayer, there may often be little heart. But the
thought in this ceremony is even this of Leviticus, and we do well to
make it our own, eating even our daily food "in the name of the most
merciful God," and with uplifting of the heart in thankful worship
toward Him.
But there were many beasts which, although they might not be offered
to the Lord in sacrifice, were yet "clean," and permitted to the
Israelites as food. Such, in particular, were clean animals that are
taken in the hunt or chase. In vv. 10-16 the law is given for the use
of these. It is prefaced by a very full and explicit prohibition of
the eating of blood;[32] for while, as regards the animals to be
offered to the Lord, provision was made with respect to the blood,
that it was to be sprinkled around the altar, there was the danger
that in other cases, where this was not permissible, the blood might
be used for food. Hence the prohibition against eating "any manner of
blood," on a twofold ground: first (vv. 11, 14), that the life of the
flesh is the blood; and second (ver. 11), that, for this reason, God
had chosen the blood to be the symbol of life substituted for the life
of the guilty in atoning sacrifice: "I have given it to you upon the
altar to make atonement for your souls." Hence, in order that this
relation of the blood to the forgiveness of sins might be constantly
kept before the mind, it was ordained that never should the Israelite
eat of flesh except the blood should first have been carefully drained
out. And it was to be treated with reverence, as having thus a certain
sanctity; when the beast was taken in hunting, the Israelite must
(ver. 13) "pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust;"--an
act by which the blood, the life, was symbolically returned to Him who
in the beginning said (Gen. i. 24), "Let the earth bring forth the
living creature after its kind." And because, in the case of "that
which dieth of itself," or is "torn of beasts," the blood would not be
thus carefully drained off, all such animals (ver. 15) are prohibited
as food.
[32] These verses have been partially expounded, indeed, before,
in so far as was necessary to a complete exposition of the
sin-offering; but in this context the subject is brought forward
in another relation, which renders necessary this additional
exposition.
It is profoundly instructive to observe that here, again, we come upon
declarations and a command, the deep truth and fitness of which is
only becoming clear now after three thousand years. For, as the
result of our modern discoveries with regard to the constitution of
the blood, and the exact nature of its functions, we in this day are
able to say that it is not far from a scientific statement of the
facts, when we read (ver. 14), "As to the life of all flesh, the blood
thereof is all one with the life thereof." For it is in just this
respect that the blood is most distinct from all other parts of the
body; that, whereas it conveys and mediates nourishment to all, it is
itself nourished by none; but by its myriad cells brought immediately
in contact with the digested food, directly and immediately
assimilates it to itself. We are compelled to say that as regards the
physical life of man--which alone is signified by the original term
here--it is certainly true of the blood, as of no other part of the
organism, that "the life of all flesh is the blood thereof."
And while it is true that, according to the text, a spiritual and
moral reason is given for the prohibition of the use of blood as food,
yet it is well worth noting that, as has been already remarked in
another connection, the prohibition, as we are now beginning to see,
had also a hygienic reason. For Dr. de Mussy, in his paper before the
French Academy of Medicine already referred to,[33] calls attention to
the fact that, not only did the Mosaic laws exclude from the Hebrew
dietary animals "particularly liable to parasites;" but also that "it
is in the blood," so rigidly prohibited by Moses as food, "that the
germs or spores of infectious disease circulate." Surely no one need
fear, with some expositors, lest this recognition of a sanitary intent
in these laws shall hinder the recognition of their moral and
spiritual purport, which in this chapter is so expressly taught.
Rather should this cause us the more to wonder and admire the unity
which thus appears between the demands and necessities of the physical
and the moral and spiritual life; and, in the discovery of the
marvellous adaptation of these ancient laws to the needs of both, to
find a new confirmation of our faith in God and in His revealed Word.
For thus do they appear to be laws so far beyond the wisdom of that
time, and so surely beneficent in their working, that in view of this
it should be easy to believe that it must indeed have been the Lord
God, the Maker and Preserver of all flesh, who spake all these laws
unto His servant Moses.
[33] See p. 292.
The moral and spiritual purpose of this law concerning the use of
blood was apparently twofold. In the first place, it was intended to
educate the people to a reverence for life, and purify them from that
tendency to bloodthirstiness which has so often distinguished heathen
nations, and especially those with whom Israel was to be brought in
closest contact. But secondly, and chiefly, it was intended, as in the
former part of the chapter, everywhere and always to keep before the
mind the sacredness of the blood as being the appointed means for the
expiation of sin; given by God upon the altar to make atonement for
the soul of the sinner, "by reason of the life" or soul with which it
stood in such immediate relation. Not only were they therefore to
abstain from the blood of such animals as could be offered on the
altar, but even from that of those which could not be offered. Thus
the blood was to remind them, every time that they ate flesh, of the
very solemn truth that without shedding of blood there was no
remission of sin. The Israelite must never forget this; even in the
heat and excitement of the chase, he must pause and carefully drain
the blood from the creature he had slain, and reverently cover it with
dust;--a symbolic act which should ever put him in mind of the Divine
ordinance that the blood, the life, of a guiltless victim must be
given, in order to the forgiveness of sin.
A lesson lies here for us regarding the sacredness of all that is
associated with sacred things. All that is connected with God, and
with His worship, especially all that is connected with His revelation
of Himself for our salvation, is to be treated with the most profound
reverence. Even though the blood of the deer killed in the chase could
not be used in sacrifice, yet, because it was blood, was in its
essential nature like unto that which was so used, therefore it must
be treated with a certain respect, and be always covered with earth.
It is the fashion of our age--and one which is increasing in an
alarming degree--to speak lightly of things which are closely
connected with the revelation and worship of the holy God. Against
everything of this kind the spirit of this law warns us. Nothing which
is associated in any way with what is sacred is to be spoken of or
treated irreverently, lest we thus come to think lightly of the sacred
things themselves. This irreverent treatment of holy things is a
crying evil in many parts of the English-speaking world, as also in
continental Christendom. We need to beware of it. After irreverence,
too often, by no obscure law, comes open denial of the Holy One and of
His holy Son, our Lord and Saviour. The blood of Christ, which
represented that holy life which was given on the cross for our sins,
is holy--an infinitely holy thing! And what is God's estimate of its
sanctity we may perhaps learn--looking through the symbol to that
which was symbolised--from this law; which required that all blood,
because outwardly resembling the holy blood of sacrifice, and, like
it, the seat and vehicle of life, should be treated with most careful
reverence. And it is safe to say that just those most need the lesson
taught by this command who find it the hardest to appreciate it, and
to whom its injunctions still seem regulations puerile and unworthy,
according to their fancy, of the dignity and majesty of God.
CHAPTER XX.
_THE LAW OF HOLINESS: CHASTITY._
LEV. xviii. 1-30.
Chapters xviii., xix., and xx., by a formal introduction (xviii. 1-5)
and a formal closing (xx. 22-26), are indicated as a distinct section,
very commonly known by the name, "the Law of Holiness." As this phrase
indicates, these chapters--unlike chap. xvii., which as to its
contents has a character intermediate between the ceremonial and moral
law--consist substantially of moral prohibitions and commandments
throughout. Of the three, the first two contain the prohibitions and
precepts of the law; the third (xx.), the penal sanctions by which
many of these were to be enforced.
The section opens (vv. 1, 2) with Jehovah's assertion of His absolute
supremacy, and a reminder to Israel of the fact that He had entered
into covenant relations with them: "I am the Lord your God." With
solemn emphasis the words are again repeated, ver. 4; and yet again in
ver. 5: "I am the Lord."[34] They would naturally call to mind the
scene at Sinai, with its august and appalling grandeur, attesting amid
earthquake and fire and tempest at once the being, power, and
unapproachable holiness of Him who then and there, with those
stupendous solemnities, in inexplicable condescension, took Israel
into covenant with Himself, to be to Himself "a kingdom of priests and
a holy nation." There could be no question as to the right of the God
thus revealed to impose law; no question as to the peculiar obligation
upon Israel to keep His law; no question as to His intolerance of sin,
and full power and determination, as the Holy One, to enforce whatever
He commanded. All these thoughts--thoughts of eternal moment--would be
called up in the mind of every devout Israelite, as he heard or read
this preface to the law of holiness.
[34] It deserves to be noticed that in this phrase, which recurs
with such frequency in this "Law of Holiness," the original,
with evident allusion to Exod. iii. 15; vi. 2-4, always has the
covenant name of God, commonly anglicised "Jehovah." The
retention of the term "Lord" here, as in many other places, is
much to be regretted, as seriously weakening and obscuring the
sense to the ordinary reader.
The prohibitions which we find in chap. xviii. are not given as an
exhaustive code of laws upon the subjects traversed, but rather deal
with certain gross offences against the law of chastity, which, as we
know from other sources, were horribly common at that time among the
surrounding nations. To indulgence in these crimes, Israel, as the
later history sadly shows, would be especially liable; so contagious
are evil example and corrupt associations! Hence the general scope of
the chapter is announced in this form (ver. 3): "After the doings of
the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the
doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do:
neither shall ye walk in their statutes."
Instead of this, they were (ver. 4) to do God's judgments, and keep
His statutes, to walk in them, bearing in mind whose they were. And as
a further motive it is added (ver. 5): "which if a man do, he shall
live in them;" that is, as the Chaldee paraphrast, Onkelos, rightly
interprets in the Targum, "with the life of eternity." Which
far-reaching promise is sealed by the repetition, for the third time,
of the words, "I am the Lord." That is enough; for what Jehovah
promises, that shall certainly be!
The law begins (ver. 6) with a general statement of the principle
which underlies all particular prohibitions of incest: "None of you
shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their
nakedness;" and then, for the fourth time, are iterated the words, "I
am the Lord." The prohibitions which follow require little special
explanation. As just remarked, they are directed in particular to
those breaches of the law of chastity which were most common with the
Egyptians, from the midst of whom Israel had come; and with the
Canaanites, to whose land they were going. This explains, for
instance, the fulness of detail in the prohibition of incestuous union
with a sister or half-sister (vv. 9, 11),--an iniquity very common in
Egypt, having the sanction of royal custom from the days of the
Pharaohs down to the time of the Ptolemies. The unnatural alliance of
a man with his mother, prohibited in ver. 8, of which Paul declared (1
Cor. v. 1) that in his day it did not exist among the Gentiles, was
yet the distinguishing infamy of the Medes and Persians for many
centuries. Union with an aunt, by blood or by marriage, prohibited in
vv. 12-14,--a connection less gross, and less severely to be punished
than the preceding,--seems to have been permitted even among the
Israelites themselves while in Egypt, as is plain from the case of
Amram and Jochebed (Exod. vi. 20). To the law forbidding connection
with a brother's wife (ver. 16), the later Deuteronomic law (Deut.
xxv. 5-10), made an exception, permitting that a man might marry the
widow of his deceased brother, when the latter had died without
children, and "raise up seed unto his brother." In this, however, the
law but sanctioned a custom which--as we learn from the case of Onan
(Gen. xxxviii.)--had been observed long before the days of Moses, both
by the Hebrews and other ancient nations, and, indeed, even limited
and restricted its application; with good reason providing for
exemption of the surviving brother from this duty, in cases where for
any reason it might be repugnant or impracticable.
The case of a connection with both a woman and her daughter or
granddaughter is next mentioned (ver. 17); and, with special emphasis,
is declared to be "wickedness," or "enormity."
The prohibition (ver. 18) of marriage with a sister-in-law, as is well
known, has been, and still is, the occasion of much controversy, into
which it is not necessary here to enter at length. But, whatever may
be thought for other reasons as to the lawfulness of such a union, it
truly seems quite singular that this verse should ever have been cited
as prohibiting such an alliance. No words could well be more explicit
than those which we have here, in limiting the application of the
prohibition to the life-time of the wife: "Thou shalt not take a woman
to her sister, _to be a rival to her_, to uncover her nakedness,
beside the other _in her life time_" (R.V.). The law therefore does
not touch the question for which it is so often cited, but was
evidently only intended as a restriction on prevalent polygamy.
Polygamy is ever likely to produce jealousies and heart-burnings; but
it is plain that this phase of the evil would reach its most extreme
and odious expression when the new and rival wife was a sister to the
one already married; when it would practically annul sisterly love,
and give rise to such painful and peculiarly humiliating dissensions
as we read of between the sisters Leah and Rachel. The sense of the
passage is so plain, that we are told that this interpretation "stood
its ground unchallenged from the third century B.C. to the middle of
the sixteenth century _A.D._" Whatever opinion any may hold therefore
as to the expediency, upon other grounds, of this much debated
alliance, this passage, certainly, cannot be fairly cited as
forbidding it; but is far more naturally understood as by natural
implication permitting the union, after the decease of the first wife.
The laws concerning incest therefore terminate with ver. 17; and ver.
18, according to this interpretation, must be regarded as a
restriction upon polygamous connections, as ver. 19 is upon the rights
of marriage.
It seems somewhat surprising that the question should have been
raised, even theoretically, whether the Mosaic law, as regards the
degrees of affinity prohibited in marriage, is of permanent authority.
The reasons for these prohibitions, wherever given, are as valid now
as then; for the simple reason that they are grounded fundamentally in
a matter of fact,--namely, the nature of the relation between husband
and wife, whereby they become "one flesh," implied in such phraseology
as we find in ver. 16; and also the relation of blood between members
of the same family, as in vv. 10, etc. Happily, however, whatever
theory any may have held, the Church in all ages has practically
recognised every one of these prohibitions, as binding on all persons;
and has rather been inclined to err, if at all, by extending, through
inference and analogy, the prohibited degrees even beyond the Mosaic
code. So much, however, by way of guarding against excess in such
inferential extensions of the law, we must certainly say: according to
the law itself, as further applied in chap. xxi. 1-4, and limited in
Deut. xxv. 5-10, relationship by marriage is not to be regarded as
precisely equivalent in degree of affinity to relationship by blood.
We cannot, for instance, conceive that, under any circumstances, the
prohibition of the marriage of brothers and sisters should have had
any exception; and yet, as we have seen, the marriage between brother
and sister-in-law is explicitly authorised, in the case of the
levirate marriage, and by implication allowed in other cases, by the
language of ver. 18 of this chapter.
But in these days, when there is such a manifest inclination in
Christendom, as especially in the United States and in France, to
ignore the law of God in regard to marriage and divorce, and regulate
these instead by a majority vote, it assuredly becomes peculiarly
imperative that, as Christians, we exercise a holy jealousy for the
honour of God and the sanctity of the family, and ever refuse to allow
a majority vote any authority in these matters, where it contravenes
the law of God. While we must observe caution that in these things we
lay no burden on the conscience of any, which God has not first placed
there, we must insist--all the more strenuously because of the
universal tendency to license--upon the strict observance of all that
is either explicitly taught or by necessary implication involved in
the teachings of God's Word upon this question. Nothing more
fundamentally concerns the well-being of society than the relation of
the man and the woman in the constitution of the family; and while,
unfortunately, in our modern democratic communities, the Church may
not be able always to control and determine the civil law in these
matters, she can at least utterly refuse any compromise where the
civil law ignores what God has spoken; and with unwavering firmness
deny her sanction, in any way, to any connection between a man and a
woman which is not according to the revealed will of God, as set
before us in this most holy, good, and beneficent law.
The chapter before us casts a light upon the moral condition of the
most cultivated heathen peoples in those days, among whom many of the
grossest of these incestuous connections, as already remarked, were
quite common, even among those of the highest station. There are many
in our day more or less affected with the present fashion of
admiration for the ancient (and modern) heathenisms, who would do well
to heed this light, that their blind enthusiasm might thereby be
somewhat tempered.
On the other hand, these laws show us, in a very striking contrast,
the estimate which God puts upon the maintenance of holiness, purity,
and chastity between man and woman; and His very jealous regard for
the sanctity of the family in all its various relations. Even in the
Old Testament we have hints of a reason for this, deeper than mere
expediency,--hints which receive a definite form in the clearer
teaching of the New Testament, which tells us that in the Divine plan
it is ordained that in these earthly relations man shall be the shadow
and image of God. If, as the Apostle tells us (Eph. iii. 15, R.V.),
"every family in heaven and on earth" is named from the Father; and
if, as he again teaches (Eph. v. 29-32), the relation of husband and
wife is intended to be an earthly type and symbol of the relation
between the Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, which is His
Bride,--then we cannot wonder at the exceedingly strong emphasis which
marks these prohibitions. Everything must be excluded which would be
incompatible with this holy ideal of God for man; that not only in the
constitution of his person, but in these sacred relations which belong
to his very nature, as created male and female, he should be the image
of the invisible God.
Thus, he who is a father is ever to bear in mind that in his
fatherhood he is appointed to shadow forth the ineffable mystery of
the eternal relation of the only-begotten and most holy Son to this
everlasting Father. As husband, the man is to remember that since he
who is joined to his wife becomes with her "one flesh," therefore this
union becomes, in the Divine ordination, a type and pattern of the yet
more mysterious union of life between the Son of God and the Church,
which is His Bride. As brothers and sisters, again, the children of
God are to remember that brotherly love, in its purity and unselfish
devotion, is intended of God to be a living illustration of the love
of Him who has been made of God to be "the firstborn among many
brethren" (Rom. viii. 29). And thus, with the family life pervaded
through and through by these ideas, will license and impurity be made
impossible, and, as happily now in many a Christian home, it will
appear that the family, no less truly than the Church, is appointed of
God to be a sanctuary of purity in a world impure and corrupt by
wicked works, and, no less really than the Church, to be an effective
means of Divine grace, and of preparation for the eternal life of the
heavenly kingdom, when all of God's "many sons" shall have been
brought to glory, the "many brethren" of the First-Begotten, to abide
with Him in the Father's house for ever and ever.
After the prohibition of adultery in ver. 20, we have what at first
seems like a very abrupt introduction of a totally different subject;
for ver. 21 refers, not to the seventh, but to the second, and,
therewith also, to the sixth commandment. It reads: "Thou shalt not
give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech,
neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God."
But the connection of thought is found in the historical relation of
the licentious practices prohibited in the preceding verses to
idolatry, of which this Molech-worship is named as one of the most
hideous manifestations. Some, indeed, have supposed that this
frequently recurring phrase does not designate an actual sacrifice of
the children, but only their consecration to Molech by some kind of
fire-baptism. But certainly such passages as 2 Kings xvii. 31, Jer.
vii. 31, xix. 5, distinctly require us to understand an actual
offering of the children as "burnt-offerings." They were not indeed
burnt alive, as a late and untrustworthy tradition has it, but were
first slain, as in the case of all burnt-sacrifices, and then burnt.
The unnatural cruelty of the sacrifice, even as thus made, was such,
that both here and in xx. 3 it is described as in a special sense a
"profaning" of God's holy name,--a profanation, in that it represented
Him, the Lord of love and fatherly mercy, as requiring such a cruel
and unnatural sacrifice of parental love, in the immolation of
innocent children.
The inconceivably unnatural crimes prohibited in vv. 22, 23 were in
like manner essentially connected with idolatrous worship: the former
with the worship of Astarte or Ashtoreth; the latter with the worship
of the he-goat at Mendes in Egypt, as the symbol of the generative
power in nature. What a hideous perversion of the moral sense was
involved in these crimes, as thus connected with idolatrous worship,
is illustrated strikingly by the fact that men and women, thus
prostituted to the service of false gods, were designated by the terms
_qádesh_ and _qádesháh_, "sacred," "holy"![35] No wonder that the
sacred writer brands these horrible crimes as, in a peculiar and
almost solitary sense, "abomination," "confusion."
[35] See, for example, in the Hebrew text, 1 Kings xiv. 24; Gen.
xxxviii. 21; Hosea iv. 14, _et passim_.
In these days of ours, when it has become the fashion among a certain
class of cultured writers--who would still, in many instances,
apparently desire to be called Christian--to act as the apologists of
idolatrous, and, according to Holy Scripture, false religions, the
mention of these crimes in this connection may well remind the reader
of what such seem to forget, as they certainly ignore; namely, that in
all ages, in the modern heathenism no less than in the ancient,
idolatry and gross licentiousness ever go hand in hand. Still, to-day,
even in Her Majesty's Indian Empire, is the most horrible
licentiousness practised as an office of religious worship. Nor are
such revolting perversions of the moral sense confined to the
"Maharájás" of the temples in Western India, who figured in certain
trials in Bombay a few years ago; for even the modern "reformed"
Hindooism, from which some hope so much, has not always been able to
shake itself free from the pollution of these things, as witness the
argument conducted in recent numbers of the _Árya Patriká_ of Lahore,
to justify the infamous custom known as _Niyoga_, practised to this
day in India, _e.g._, by the Panday Brahmans of Allahabad;--a practice
which is sufficiently described as being adultery arranged for, under
certain conditions, by a wife or husband, the one for the other. One
would fain charitably hope, if possible, that our modern apologists
for Oriental idolatries are unaccountably ignorant of what all history
should have taught them as to the inseparable connection between
idolatry and licentiousness. Both Egypt and Canaan, in the olden
time,--as this chapter with all contemporaneous history teaches,--and
also India in modern times, read us a very awful lesson on this
subject. Not only have these idolatries led too often to gross
licentiousness of life, but in their full development they have, again
and again, in audacious and blasphemous profanation of the most holy
God, and defiance even of the natural conscience, given to the most
horrible excesses of unbridled lust the supreme sanction of declaring
them to be religious obligations. Assuredly, in God's sight, it cannot
be a trifling thing for any man, even through ignorance, to extol, or
even apologise for, religions with which such enormities are both
logically and historically connected. And so, in these stern
prohibitions, and their heavy penal sanctions, we may find a
profitable lesson for even the cultivated intellect of the nineteenth
century!
The chapter closes with reiterated charges against indulgence in any
of these abominations. Israel is told (vv. 25, 28) that it was because
the Canaanites practised these enormities that God was about to
scourge them out of their land;--a judicial reason which, one would
think, should have some weight with those whose sympathies are so
drawn out with commiseration for the Canaanites, that they find it
impossible to believe that it can be true, as we are told in the
Pentateuch, that God ordered their extermination. Rather, in the light
of the facts, would we raise the opposite question: whether, if God
indeed be a holy and righteous Governor among the nations, He could do
anything else either in justice toward the Canaanites, or in mercy
toward those whom their horrible example would certainly in like
manner corrupt, than, in one way or another, effect the extermination
of such a people?
Israel is then solemnly warned (ver. 28) that if they,
notwithstanding, shall practise these crimes, God will not spare them
any more than He spared the Canaanites. No covenant of His with them
shall hinder the land from spueing them out in like manner. And though
the nation, as a whole, give not itself to these things, each
individual is warned (ver. 29), "Whosoever shall commit any of these
abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among
their people;" that is, shall be outlawed and shut out from all
participation in covenant mercies. And therewith this part of the law
of holiness closes, with those pregnant words, repeated now in this
chapter for the fifth time: "I am the Lord (Heb. Jehovah) your God!"
CHAPTER XXI.
_THE LAW OF HOLINESS (CONCLUDED)._
LEV. xix. 1-37.
We have in this chapter a series of precepts and prohibitions which
from internal evidence appear to have been selected by an inspired
redactor of the canon from various original documents, with the
purpose, not of presenting a complete enumeration of all moral and
ceremonial duties, but of illustrating the application in the everyday
life of the Israelite of the injunction which stands at the beginning
of the chapter (ver. 2): "Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am
holy."
Truly strange it is, in the full light of Hebrew history, to find any
one, like Kalisch, representing this conception of holiness, so
fundamental to this law, as the "ripest fruit of Hebrew culture"! For
it is insisted by such competent critics, as Dillmann, that we have
not in this chapter a late development of Hebrew thought, but
"ancient," "the most ancient" material;[36]--we shall venture to say,
dating even from the days of Moses, as is declared in ver. 1. And we
may say more. For if such be the antiquity of this law, it should be
easy even for the most superficial reader of the history to see how
immeasurably far was that horde of almost wholly uncultured fugitives
from Egyptian bondage from having attained through any culture this
Mosaic conception of holiness. For "Hebrew culture," even in its
latest maturity, has, at the best, only tended to develop more and
more the idea, not of holiness, but of legality,--a very different
thing! The ideal expressed in this command, "Ye shall be holy," must
have come, not from Israel, not even from Moses, as if originated by
him, but from the Holy God Himself, even as the chapter in its first
verse testifies.
[36] "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 550.
The position of this command at the head of the long list of precepts
which follows, is most significant and instructive. It sets before us
the object of the whole ceremonial and moral law, and, we may add, the
supreme object of the Gospel also, namely, to produce a certain type
of moral and spiritual character, a HOLY manhood; it, moreover,
precisely interprets this term, so universally misunderstood and
misapplied among all nations, as essentially consisting in a spiritual
likeness to God: "Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy."
These words evidently at once define holiness and declare the supreme
motive to the attainment and maintenance of a holy character. This
then is brought before us as the central thought in which all the
diverse precepts and prohibitions which follow find their unity; and,
accordingly, we find this keynote of the whole law echoing, as it
were, all through this chapter, in the constant refrain, repeated
herein no less than fourteen--twice seven--times: "I am the Lord (Heb.
Jehovah)!" "I am the Lord your God!"
The first division of the law of holiness which follows (vv. 3-8),
deals with two duties of fundamental importance in the social and the
religious life: the one, honour to parents; the other, reverence to
God.
If we are surprised, at first, to see this place of honour in the law
of holiness given to the fifth commandment (ver. 3), our surprise will
lessen when we remember how, taking the individual in the development
of his personal life, he learns to fear God, first of all, through
fearing and honouring his parents. In the earliest beginnings of life,
the parent--to speak with reverence--stands to his child, in a very
peculiar sense, for and in the place of God. We gain the conception of
the Father in heaven first from our experience of fatherhood on earth;
and so it may be said of this commandment, in a sense in which it
cannot be said of any other, that it is the foundation of all
religion. Alas for the child who contemns the instruction of his
father and the command of his mother! for by so doing he puts himself
out of the possibility of coming into the knowledge and experience of
the Fatherhood of God.
The principle of reverence toward God is inculcated, not here by
direct precept, but by three injunctions, obedience to which
presupposes the fear of God in the heart. These are, first (ver. 3),
the keeping of the sabbaths; the possessive, "My sabbaths," reminding
us tersely of God's claim upon the seventh part of all our time as His
time. Then is commanded the avoidance of idolatry (ver. 4); and,
lastly (vv. 5-8), a charge as to the observance of the law of the
peace-offering.
One reason seems to have determined the selection of each of these
three injunctions, namely, that Israel would be more liable to fail in
obedience to these than perhaps any other duties of the law. As for
the sabbath, this, like the law of the peace-offering, was a
positive, not a moral law; that is, it depended for its authority
primarily on the explicit ordinance of God, instead of the intuition
of the natural conscience. Hence it was certain that it would only be
kept in so far as man retained a vivid consciousness of the Divine
personality and moral authority. Moreover, as all history has shown,
the law of the sabbath rest from labour constantly comes into conflict
with man's love of gain and eager haste to make money. It is a
life-picture, true for men of every generation, when Amos (viii. 5)
brings before us the Israelites of his day as saying, in their
insatiate worldly greed, "When will the sabbath be gone, that we may
set forth wheat?" As regards the selection of the second commandment,
one can easily see that Israel's loyalty, surrounded as they were on
every side with idolaters, was to be tested with peculiar severity on
this point, whether they would indeed worship the living God alone and
without the intervention of idols.
The circumstances, as regards the peace-offering, were different; but
the same principle of choice can be discovered in this also. For among
all the various ordinances of sacrificial worship there was none in
which the requisitions of the law were more likely to be neglected;
partly because these were the most frequent of all offerings, and also
because the Israelite would often be tempted, through a short-sighted
economy and worldly thriftiness, to use the meat of the peace-offering
for food, if any remained until the third day, instead of burning it,
in such case, as the Lord commanded. Hence the reminder of the law on
this subject, teaching that he who will be holy must not seek to save
at the expense of obedience to the holy God.
The second section of this chapter (vv. 9-18) consists of five groups,
each of five precepts, all relating to duties which the law of
holiness requires from man to man, and each of them closing with the
characteristic and impressive refrain, "I am the Lord."
The first of these pentads (vv. 9, 10) requires habitual care for the
poor: we read, "Thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field,
neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest. And thou shalt
not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of
thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the
stranger."
The law covers the three chief products of their agriculture: the
grain, the product of the vine, and the fruit of the trees,--largely
olive-trees, which were often planted in the vineyard. So often as God
blessed them with the harvest, they were to remember the poor, and
also "the stranger," who according to the law could have a legal claim
to no land in Israel. Apart from the benefit to the poor, one can
readily see what an admirable discipline against man's natural
selfishness, and in loyalty to God, this regulation, faithfully
observed, must have been. Behind these commands lies the principle,
elsewhere explicitly expressed (xxv. 23), that the land which the
Israelite tilled was not his own, but the Lord's; and it is as the
Owner of the land that He thus charges them that as His tenants they
shall not regard themselves as entitled to everything that the land
produces, but bear in mind that He intends a portion of every acre of
each Israelite to be reserved for the poor. And so the labourer in the
harvest-field was continually reminded that in his husbandry he was
merely God's steward, bound to apply the product of the land, the use
of which was given him, in such a way as should please the Lord.
If the law is not in force as to the letter, let us not forget that it
is of full validity as to its spirit. God is still the God of the poor
and needy; and we are still every one, as truly as the Hebrew in those
days, the stewards of God. And the poor we have with us always;
perhaps never more than in these days, in which so great masses of
helpless humanity are crowded together in our immense cities, did the
cry of the poor and needy so ascend to heaven. And that the Apostles,
acting under Divine direction, and abolishing the letter of the
theocratic law, yet steadily maintained the spirit and intention of
that law in care for the poor, is testified with abundant fulness in
the New Testament. One of the firstfruits of Pentecost in the lives of
believers was just this, that "all that believed ... had all things
common" (Acts ii. 44, 45), so that, going even beyond the letter of
the old law, "they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them
to all, according as any man had need." And the one only charge which
the Apostles at Jerusalem gave unto Paul is reported by him in these
words (Gal. ii. 10): "Only they would that we should remember the
poor; which very thing I was also zealous to do." Let the believer
then remember this who has plenty: the corners of his fields are to be
kept for the poor, and the gleanings of his vineyards; and let the
believer also take the peculiar comfort from this law, if he is poor,
that God, his heavenly Father, has a kindly care, not merely for his
spiritual wants, but also for his temporal necessities.
The second pentad (vv. 11, 12) in the letter refers to three of the
ten commandments, but is really concerned, primarily, with stealing
and defrauding; for the lying and false swearing is here regarded only
as commonly connected with theft and fraud, because often necessary to
secure the result of a man's plunder. The pentad is in this form: "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!"
Close upon stinginess and the careless greed which neglects the poor,
with eager grasping after the last grape on the vine, follows the
active effort to get, not only the uttermost that might by any stretch
of charity be regarded as our own, but also to get something more that
belongs to our neighbour. There is thus a very close connection in
thought, as well as in position, in these two groups of precepts. And
the sequence of thought in this group suggests what is, indeed,
markedly true of stealing, but also of other sins. Sin rarely goes
alone; one sin, by almost a necessity, leads straight on to another
sin. He who steals, or deals falsely in regard to anything committed
to his trust, will most naturally be led on at once to lie about it;
and when his lie is challenged, as it is likely to be, he is impelled
by a fatal pressure to go yet further, and fortify his lie, and
consummate his sin, by appealing by an oath to the Holy God, as
witness to the truth of his lie. Thus, the sin which in the beginning
is directed only toward a fellow-man, too often causes one to sin
immediately against God, in profanation of the name of the God of
truth, by calling on Him as witness to a lie! Of this tendency of sin,
stealing is a single illustration; but let us ever remember that it is
a law of all sin that sin ever begets more sin.
This second group has dealt with injury to the neighbour in the way of
guile and fraud; the third pentad (vv. 13, 14), progressing further,
speaks of wrong committed in ways of oppression and violence. "Thou
shalt not oppress thy neighbour, nor rob him: the wages of a hired
servant shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Thou
shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind,
but thou shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord!" In these commands, again,
it is still the helpless and defenceless in whose behalf the Lord is
speaking. The words regard a man as having it in his power to press
hard upon his neighbour; as when an employer, seeing that a man must
needs have work at any price, takes advantage of his need to employ
him at less than fair wages; or as when he who holds a mortgage
against his neighbour, seeing an opportunity to possess himself of a
field or an estate for a trifle, by pressing his technical legal
rights, strips his poor debtor needlessly. No end of illustrations,
evidently, could be given out of our modern life. Man's nature is the
same now as in the days of Moses. But all dealings of this kind,
whether then or now, the law of holiness sternly prohibits.
So also with the injunction concerning the retention of wages after it
is due. I have not fulfilled the law of love toward the man or woman
whom I employ merely by paying fair wages; I must also pay promptly.
The Deuteronomic law repeats the command, and, with a peculiar touch
of sympathetic tenderness, adds the reason (xxiv. 15): "for he is
poor, and setteth his heart upon it." I must therefore give the
labourer his wages "in his day." A sin this is, of the rich
especially, and, most of all, of rich corporations, with which the
sense of personal responsibility to God is too often reduced to a
minimum. Yet it is often, no doubt, committed through sheer
thoughtlessness. Men who are themselves blessed with such abundance
that they are not seriously incommoded by a delay in receiving some
small sum, too often forget how a great part of the poor live, as the
saying is, "from hand to mouth," so that the failure to get what is
due to them at the exact time appointed is frequently a sore trial;
and, moreover, by forcing them to buy on credit instead of for cash,
of necessity increases the expense of their living, and so really robs
them of that which is their own.
The thought is still of care for the helpless, in the words concerning
the deaf and the blind, which, of course, are of perpetual force, and,
in the principle involved, reach indefinitely beyond these single
illustrations. We are not to take advantage of any man's helplessness,
and, especially, of such disabilities as he cannot help, to wrong him.
Even the common conscience of men recognises this as both wicked and
mean; and this verdict of conscience is here emphasised by the
reminder "I am the Lord,"--suggesting that the labourer who reaps the
fields, yea, the blind also and the deaf, are His creatures; and that
He, the merciful and just One, will not disown the relation, but will
plead their cause.
Each of these groups of precepts has kept the poor and the needy in a
special way, though not exclusively, before the conscience. And yet no
man is to imagine that therefore God will be partial toward the poor,
and that hence, although one may not wrong the poor, one may wrong the
rich with impunity. Many of our modern social reformers, in their zeal
for the betterment of the poor, seem to imagine that because a poor
man has rights which are too frequently ignored by the rich, and thus
often suffers grievous wrongs, therefore a rich man has no rights
which the poor man is bound to respect. The next pentad of precepts
therefore guards against any such false inference from God's special
concern for the poor, and reminds us that the absolute righteousness
of the Holy One requires that the rights of the rich be observed no
less than the rights of the poor, those of the employer no less than
those of the employed. It deals especially with this matter as it
comes up in questions requiring legal adjudication. We read (vv. 15,
16), "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not
respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty:
but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. 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!"
A plain warning lies here for an increasing class of reformers in our
day, who loudly express their special concern for the poor, but who in
their zeal for social reform and the diminishing of poverty are
forgetful of righteousness and equity. It applies, for instance, to
all who would affirm and teach with Marx that "capital is robbery;" or
who, not yet quite ready for so plain and candid words, yet would, in
any way, in order to right the wrongs of the poor, advocate
legislation involving practical confiscation of the estates of the
rich.
In close connection with the foregoing, the next precept forbids, not
precisely "tale-bearing," but "slander," as the word is elsewhere
rendered, even in the Revised Version. In the court of judgment,
slander is not to be uttered nor listened to. The clause which
follows is obscure; but means either, "Thou shalt not, by such
slanderous testimony, seek in the court of judgment thy neighbour's
life," which best suits the parallelism; or, perhaps, as the Talmud
and most modern Jewish versions interpret, "Thou shalt not stand
silent by, when thy neighbour's life is in danger in the court of
judgment, and thy testimony might save him." And then again comes in
the customary refrain, reminding the Israelite that in every court,
noting every act of judgment, and listening to every witness, is a
Judge unseen, omniscient, absolutely righteous, under whose final
review, for confirmation or reversal, shall come all earthly
decisions: "I," who thus speak, "am the Lord!"
The fifth and last pentad (vv. 17, 18) fitly closes the series, by its
five precepts, of which, three, reaching behind all such outward acts
as are required or forbidden in the foregoing, deal with the state of
the heart toward our neighbour which the law of holiness requires, as
the soul and the root of all righteousness. It closes with the
familiar words, so simple that all can understand them, so
comprehensive that in obedience to them is comprehended all morality
and righteousness toward man: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself." The verses read, "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, but thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself: I am the Lord!"
Most instructive it is to find it suggested by this order, as the best
evidence of the absence of hate, and the truest expression of love to
our neighbour, that when we see him doing wrong we shall rebuke him.
The Apostle Paul has enjoined upon Christians the same duty,
indicating also the spirit in which it is to be performed (Gal. vi.
1): "Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye which
are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness; looking to
thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Thus, if we will be holy, it is
not to be a matter of no concern to us that our neighbour does wrong,
even though that wrong do not directly affect our personal well-being.
Instead of this, we are to remember that if we rebuke him not, we
ourselves "bear sin, because of him;" that is, we ourselves, in a
degree, become guilty with him, because of that wrong-doing of his
which we sought not in any way to hinder. But although, on the one
hand, I am to rebuke the wrong-doer, even when his wrong does not
touch me personally, yet, the law adds, I am not to take into my own
hands the avenging of wrongs, even when myself injured; neither am I
to be envious and grudge any neighbour the good he may have; no, not
though he be an ill-doer and deserve it not; but be he friend or foe,
well-doer or ill-doer, I must love him as myself.
What an admirable epitome of the whole law of righteousness! a Mosaic
anticipation of the very spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. Evidently,
the same mind speaks in both alike; the law the same, the object and
aim of the law the same, both in Leviticus and in the Gospel. In this
law we hear: "Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy;" in
the Sermon on the Mount: "Ye shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father
is perfect."
The third division of this chapter (vv. 19-32) opens with a general
charge to obedience: "Ye shall keep My statutes;" very possibly,
because several of the commands which immediately follow might seem in
themselves of little consequence, and so be lightly disobeyed. The law
of ver. 19 prohibits raising hybrid animals, as, for example, mules;
the next command apparently refers to the chance, through sowing a
field with mingled seed, of giving rise to hybrid forms in the
vegetable kingdom. The last command in this verse is obscure both in
meaning and intention. It reads (R.V.), "Neither shall there come upon
thee a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together." Most probably
the reference is to different materials, interwoven in the yarn of
which the dress was made; but a difficulty still remains in the fact
that such admixture was ordered in the garments of the priests.
Perhaps the best explanation is that of Josephus, that the law here
was only intended for the laity; which, as no question of intrinsic
morality was involved, might easily have been. But when we inquire as
to the reason of these prohibitions, and especially of this last one,
it must be confessed that it is hard for us now to speak with
confidence. Most probable it appears that they were intended for an
educational purpose, to cultivate in the mind of the people the
sentiment of reverence for the order established in nature by God. For
what the world calls the order of nature is really an order appointed
by God, as the infinitely wise and perfect One; hence, as nature is
thus a manifestation of God, the Hebrew was forbidden to seek to bring
about that which is not according to nature, unnatural commixtures;
and from this point of view, the last of the three precepts appears to
be a symbolic reminder of the same duty, namely, reverence for the
order of nature, as being an order determined by God.
The law which is laid down in vv. 20-22, regarding the sin of
connection with a bond-woman betrothed to a husband, apparently refers
to such a case as is mentioned in Exod. xxi. 7, 8, where the bond-maid
is betrothed to her master, while yet, because of her condition of
bondage, the marriage has not been consummated. For the same sin in
the case of a free woman, where both were proved guilty, for each of
them the punishment was death (Deut. xxii. 23, 24). In this case,
because the woman's position, inasmuch as she was not free, was rather
that of a concubine than of a full wife, the lighter penalty of
scourging is ordered for both of the guilty persons. Also, since this
was a case of trespass as well, in which the rights of the master to
whom she was espoused were involved, a guilt-offering was in addition
required, as the condition of pardon.
It will be said, and truly, that by this law slavery and concubinage
are to a certain extent recognised by the law; and upon this fact has
been raised an objection bearing on the holiness of the law-giver,
and, by consequence, on the Divine origin and inspiration of the law.
Is it conceivable that the holy God should have given a law for the
regulation of two so evil institutions? The answer has been furnished
us, in principle, by our Lord (Matt. xix. 8), in that which He said
concerning the analogous case of the law of Moses touching divorce;
which law, He tells us, although not according to the perfect ideal of
right, was yet given "because of the hardness of men's hearts." That
is, although it was not the best law ideally, it was the best
practically, in view of the low moral tone of the people to whom it
was given. Precisely so it was in this case. Abstractly, one might say
that the case was in nothing different from the case of a free woman,
mentioned Deut. xxii. 23, 24, for which death was the appointed
punishment; but practically, in a community where slavery and
concubinage were long-settled institutions, and the moral standard was
still low, the cases were not parallel. A law which would carry with
it the moral support of the people in the one case, and which it would
thus be possible to carry into effect, would not be in like manner
supported and carried into effect in the other; so that the result of
greater strictness in theory would, in actual practice, be the removal
thereby of all restriction on license. On the other hand, by thus
appointing herein a penalty for both the guilty parties such as the
public conscience would approve, God taught the Hebrews the
fundamental lesson that a slave-girl is not regarded by God as a mere
chattel; and that if, because of the hardness of their hearts,
concubinage was tolerated for a time, still the slave-girl must not be
treated as a thing, but as a person, and indiscriminate license could
not be permitted. And thus, it is of greatest moment to observe, a
principle was introduced into the legislation, which in its ultimate
logical application would require and effect--as in due time it
has--the total abolition of the institution of slavery wherever the
authority of the living God is truly recognised.
The principle of the Divine government which is here illustrated is
one of exceeding practical importance as a model for us. We live in an
age when, everywhere in Christendom, the cry is "Reform;" and there
are many who think that if once it be proved that a thing is wrong, it
follows by necessary consequence that the immediate and unqualified
legal prohibition of that wrong, under such penalty as the wrong may
deserve, is the only thing that any Christian man has a right to
think of. And yet, according to the principle illustrated in this
legislation, this conclusion in such cases can by no means be taken
for granted. That is not always the best law practically which is the
best law abstractly. That law is the best which shall be most
effective in diminishing a given evil, under the existing moral
condition of the community; and it is often a matter of such exceeding
difficulty to determine what legislation against admitted sins and
evils, may be the most productive of good in a community whose moral
sense is dull concerning them, that it is not strange that the best of
men are often found to differ. Remembering this, we may well commend
the duty of a more charitable judgment, in such cases, than one often
hears from such radical reformers, who seem to imagine that in order
to remove an evil all that is necessary is to pass a law at once and
for ever prohibiting it; and who therefore hold up to obloquy all who
doubt as to the wisdom and duty of so doing, as the enemies of truth
and of righteousness. Moses, acting under direct instruction from the
God of supreme wisdom and of perfect holiness, was far wiser than such
well-meaning but sadly mistaken social reformers, who would fain be
wiser than God.
Next follows a law (vv. 23-25) directing that when any fruit tree is
planted, the Israelite shall not eat of its fruit for the first three
years; that the fruit of the fourth year shall be wholly consecrated
to the Lord, "for giving praise unto Jehovah;" and that only after
that, in the fifth year of its bearing, shall the husbandman himself
first eat of its fruit.
The explanation of this peculiar regulation is to be found in a
special application of the principle which rules throughout the law;
that the first-fruit, whether the first-born of man or beast, or the
first-fruits of the field, shall always be consecrated unto God. But
in this case the application of the principle is modified by the
familiar fact that the fruit of a young tree, for the first few years
of its bearing, is apt to be imperfect; it is not yet sufficiently
grown to yield its best possible product. Because of this, in those
years it could not be given to the Lord, for He must never be served
with any but the best of everything; and thus until the fruit should
reach its best, so as to be worthy of presentation to the Lord, the
Israelite was meanwhile debarred from using it. During these three
years the trees are said to be "as uncircumcised;" _i.e._, they were
to be regarded as in a condition analogous to that of the child who
has not yet been consecrated, by the act of circumcision, to the Lord.
In the fourth year, however, the trees were regarded as having now so
grown as to yield fruit in perfection; hence, the principle of the
consecration of the first-fruit now applies, and all the fourth year's
product is given to the Lord, as an offering of thankful praise to Him
whose power in nature is the secret of all growth, fruitfulness, and
increase. The last words of this law, "that it may yield unto you its
increase," evidently refer to all that precedes. Israel is to obey
this law, using nothing till first consecrated to the Lord, in order
to a blessing in these very gifts of God.
The moral teaching of this law, when it is thus read in the light of
the general principle of the consecration of the first-fruits, is very
plain. It teaches, as in all analogous cases, that God is always to be
served before ourselves; and that not grudgingly, as if an irksome tax
were to be paid to the Majesty of heaven, but in the spirit of
thanksgiving and praise to Him, as the Giver of "every good and
perfect gift." It further instructs us in this particular instance,
that the people of God are to recognise this as being true even of all
those good things which come to us under the forms of products of
nature.
The lesson is not an easy one for faith; for the constant tendency,
never stronger than in our own time, is to substitute "Nature" for the
God of nature, as if nature were a power in itself and apart from God,
immanent in all nature, the present and efficient energy in all her
manifold operations. Very fittingly, thus, do we find here again (ver.
25) the sanction affixed to this law, "I am the Lord your God!"
Jehovah, your God who redeemed you, who therefore am worthy of all
thanksgiving and praise! Jehovah, your God in covenant, who gives the
fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with joy and gladness! Jehovah,
your God, who as the Lord of Nature, and the Power in nature, am
abundantly able to fulfil the promise affixed to this command!
The next six commands are evidently grouped together as referring to
various distinctively heathenish customs, from which Israel, as a
people holy to the Lord, was to abstain. The prohibition of blood
(ver. 26) is repeated again, not, as has been said, in a stronger form
than before, but, probably, because the eating of blood was connected
with certain heathenish ceremonies, both among the Shemitic tribes and
others. The next two precepts (ver. 26) prohibit every kind of
divination and augury; practices notoriously common with the heathen
everywhere, in ancient and in modern times. The two precepts which
follow, forbidding certain fashions of trimming the hair and beard,
may appear trivial to many, but they will not seem so to any one who
will remember how common among heathen peoples has been the custom,
as in those days among the Arabs, and in our time among the Hindoos,
to trim the hair or beard in a particular way, in order thus visibly
to mark a person as of a certain religion, or as a worshipper of a
certain god. The command means that the Israelite was not only to
worship God alone, but he was not to adopt a fashion in dress which,
because commonly associated with idolatry, might thus misrepresent his
real position as a worshipper of the only living and true God.
"Cutting the flesh for the dead" (ver. 28) has been very widely
practised by heathen peoples in all ages. Such immoderate and unseemly
expressions of grief were prohibited to the Israelite, as unworthy of
a people who were in a blessed covenant relation with the God of life
and of death. Rather, recognising that death is of God's ordination,
he was to accept in patience and humility the stroke of God's hand;
not, indeed, without sorrow, but yet in meekness and quietness of
spirit, trusting in the God of life. The thought is only a less clear
expression of the New Testament word (1 Thess. iv. 13) that the
believer "sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope." Also,
probably, in this prohibition, as certainly in the next (ver. 28), it
is suggested that as the Israelite was to be distinguished from the
heathen by full consecration, not only of the soul, but also of the
body, to the Lord, he was by that fact inhibited from marring or
defacing in any way the integrity of his body.
In general, we may say, then, that the central thought which binds
this group of precepts together, is the obligation, not merely to
abstain from everything directly idolatrous, but also from all such
customs as are, in fact, rooted in or closely associated with
idolatry. On the same principle, the Christian is to beware of all
fashions and practices, even though they may be in themselves
indifferent, which yet, as a matter of fact, are specially
characteristic of the worldly and ungodly element in society. The
principle assumed in these prohibitions thus imposes upon all who
would be holy to the Lord, in all ages, a firm restriction. The
thoughtless desire of many, at any risk, to be "in the fashion," must
be unwaveringly denied. The reason which is so often given by
professing Christians for indulgence in such cases, that "all the
world does so," may often be the strongest possible reason for
declining to follow the fashion. No servant of God should ever be seen
in any part of the livery of Satan's servants. That God does not think
these "little things" always of trifling consequence, we are reminded
by the repetition here, for the tenth time in this chapter, of the
words, "I am the Lord!"
Next (ver. 29) follows the prohibition of the horrible custom, still
practised among heathen peoples, of the prostitution of a daughter by
a parent. It is here enforced by the consideration of the public weal:
"lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of
wickedness." Assuredly, that a land in which such harlotry as this, in
which all the most sacred relations of life are trampled in the mire,
would be nothing less than a land full of wickedness, is so evident as
to require no comment.
Herewith now begins the fourth and last division of this chapter (vv.
30-37), with a repetition of the injunction to keep the Sabbaths of
the Lord, and reverence His sanctuary. The emphasis on this command,
shown by its repetition in this chapter, and the very prominent place
which it occupies both in the law and the prophets, certainly suggests
that in the mind of God, reverence for the Sabbath and for the place
where God is worshipped, has much to do with the promotion of holiness
of life, and the maintenance of a high degree of domestic and social
morality. Nor is it difficult to see why this should be so. For
however the day of holy rest may be kept, and the place of Divine
worship be regarded with only an outward reverence by many, yet the
fact cannot be disputed, that the observance of a weekly sabbatic rest
from ordinary secular occupations, and the maintenance of a spirit of
reverence for sacred places or for sacred times, has, and must have, a
certain and most happy tendency to keep the God of the Sabbath and the
God of the sanctuary before the mind of men, and thus imposes an
effective check upon unrestrained godlessness and reckless excesses of
iniquity. The diverse condition of things in various parts of modern
Christendom, as related to the more or less careful observance of the
weekly religious rest, is full of both instruction and warning to any
candid mind upon this subject. There is no restraint on immorality
like the frequent remembrance of God and the spirit of reverence for
Him.
Verse 31 prohibits all inquiring of them that "have familiar spirits,"
and of "wizards," who pretend to make revelations through the help of
supernatural powers. According to 1 Sam. xxviii. 7-11, and Isa. viii.
19, the "familiar spirit" is a supposed spirit of a dead man, from
whom one professes to be able to give communications to the living.
This pretended commerce with the spirits of the dead has been common
enough in heathenism always, and it is not strange to find it
mentioned here, when Israel was to be in so intimate relations with
heathen peoples. But it is truly most extraordinary that in Christian
lands, as especially in the United States of America, and that in the
full light, religious and intellectual, of the last half of the
nineteenth century, such a prohibition should be fully as pertinent as
in Israel! For no words could more precisely describe the pretensions
of the so-called modern spiritualism, which within the last half
century has led away hundreds of thousands of deluded souls, and
those, in many cases, not from the ignorant and degraded, but from
circles which boast of more than average culture and intellectual
enlightenment. And inasmuch as experience sadly shows that even those
who profess to be disciples of Christ are in danger of being led away
by our modern wizards and traffickers with familiar spirits, it is by
no means unnecessary to observe that there is not the slightest reason
to believe that this which was rigidly forbidden by God in the
fifteenth century B.C., can now be well-pleasing to Him in the
nineteenth century A.D. And those who have most carefully watched the
moral developments of this latter-day delusion, will most appreciate
the added phrase which speaks of this as "defiling" a man.
Verse 32 enjoins reverence for the aged, and closely connects it with
the fear of God. "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."
A virtue this is which--it must be with shame confessed--although
often displayed in an illustrious manner among the heathen, in many
parts of Christendom has sadly decayed. In many lands one only needs
to travel in any crowded conveyance to observe how far it is from the
thoughts of many of the young "to rise up before the hoary head, and
honour the face of the old man." So manifest are the facts that one
hears from competent and thoughtful observers of the tendencies of our
times no lamentation more frequently than just this, for the
concurrent decay of reverence for the aged and reverence for God. No
more beautiful remarks on these words have we found than the words
quoted by Dr. H. Bonar, commenting on this verse: "Lo! the shadow of
eternity! for one cometh who is almost in eternity already. His head
and his beard, white as snow, indicate his speedy appearance before
the Ancient of Days, the hair of whose head is as pure wool."
In this last command is also, no doubt, contained the thought of the
comparative weakness and physical infirmity of the aged, which is thus
commended in a special way to our tender regard. And thus this
sentiment of kindly sympathy for all who are subject to any kind of
disability naturally prepares the way for the injunction (vv. 33, 34)
to regard "the stranger" in the midst of Israel, who was debarred from
holding land, and from many privileges, with special feelings of
good-will. "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not
do him wrong. The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you
as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye
were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
The Israelite was not to misinterpret, then, the restrictions which
the theocratic law imposed upon such. These might be no doubt
necessary for a moral reason; but, nevertheless, no man was to argue
that the law justified him in dealing hardly with aliens. So far from
this, the Israelite was to regard the stranger with the same kindly
feelings as if he were one of his own people. And it is most
instructive to observe that this particular case is made the occasion
of repeating that most perfect and comprehensive law of universal
love, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" and this the more
they were to do that they too had been "strangers in the land of
Egypt."
Last of all the injunctions in this chapter (vv. 35, 36) comes the
command to absolute righteousness in the administration of justice,
and in all matters of buying and selling; followed (ver. 37) by a
concluding charge to obedience, thus: "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. And ye
shall observe all My statutes, and all My judgments, and do them: I am
the Lord."
The ephah is named here, of course, as a standard of dry measure, and
the hin as a standard of liquid measure. These commandments are
illustrated in a graphic way by the parallel passage in Deut. xxv. 13,
14, which reads: "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;" _i.e._, one set for use in buying, and another
set for use in selling. This charge is there enforced by the same
promise to honesty in trade which is annexed to the fifth commandment,
namely, length of days; and, furthermore, by the declaration that all
who thus cheat in trade "are an abomination unto the Lord."
How much Israel needed this law all their history has shown. In the
days of Amos it was a part of his charge against the ten tribes
(viii. 5), for which the Lord declares that He will "make the land to
tremble, and every one in it to mourn," that they "make the ephah
small, and the shekel great," and "deal falsely with balances of
deceit." So also Micah, a little later, represents the Lord as calling
Judah to account for supposing that God, the Holy One, can be
satisfied with burnt-offerings and guilt-offerings; indignantly asking
(vi. 10, 11), "Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house
of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?"
But it is not Israel alone which has needed, and still needs, to hear
iterated this command, for the sin is found in every people, even in
every city, one might say in every town, in Christendom; and--we have
to say it--often with men who make a certain profession of regard for
religion. All such, however religious in certain ways, have special
need to remember that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord;"
and that holiness is now exactly what it was when the Levitical law
was given out. As, on the one side, it is inspired by reverence and
fear toward God, so, on the other hand, it requires love to the
neighbour as to one's self, and such conduct as that will secure. It
is of no account, therefore, to keep the Sabbath--in a way--and
reverence--outwardly--the sanctuary, and then on the week-day water
milk, adulterate medicines, sugars, and other foods, slip the
yard-stick in measuring, tip the balance in weighing, and buy with one
weight or measure and sell with another, "water" stocks and gamble in
"margins," as the manner of many is. God hates, and even honest
atheists despise, religion of this kind. Strange notions, truly, of
religion have men who have not yet discovered that it has to do with
just such commonplace, every-day matters as these, and have never yet
understood how certain it is that a religion which is only used on
Sundays has no holiness in it; and therefore, when the day comes, as
it is coming, that shall try every man's work as by fire, it will, in
the fierce heat of Jehovah's judgment, be shrivelled into ashes as a
spider's web in a flame, and the man and his work shall perish
together.
And herewith this chapter closes. Such is the law of holiness!
Obligatory, let us not forget, in the spirit of all its requirements,
to-day, unchanged and unchangeable, because the Holy God, whose law it
is, is Himself unchangeable. Man may be sinful, and because of sin be
weak; but there is not a hint of compromise with sin, on this account,
by any abatement of its claims. At every step of life this law
confronts us. Whether we be in the House of God, in acts of worship,
it challenges us there; or in the field, at our work, it commands us
there; in social intercourse with our fellow-men, in our business in
bank or shop, with our friends or with strangers and aliens, at home
or abroad, we are never out of the reach of its requirements. We can
no more escape from under its authority than from under the
overarching heaven! What sobering thoughts are these for sinners! What
self-humiliation should this law cause us, when we think what we are!
what intensity of aspiration, when we think of what the Holy One would
have us be, holy like Himself!
The closing words above given (ver. 37) assert the authority of the
Law-giver, and, by their reminder of the great deliverance from Egypt,
appeal, as a motive to faithful and holy obedience, to the purest
sentiment of grateful love for undeserved and distinguishing mercy.
And this is only the Old Testament form of a New Testament argument.
For we read, concerning our deliverance from a worse than Egyptian
bondage (1 Peter i. 15-19): "Like as He which called you is holy, be
ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is
written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on Him as
Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man's
work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear: knowing that ye were
redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver or gold, ... but with
precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even
the blood of Christ."
CHAPTER XXII.
_PENAL SANCTIONS._
LEV. xx. 1-27.
In no age or community has it been found sufficient, to secure
obedience, that one should appeal to the conscience of men, or depend,
as a sufficient motive, upon the natural painful consequences of
violated law. Wherever there is civil and criminal law, there, in all
cases, human government, whether in its lowest or in its most highly
developed forms, has found it necessary to declare penalties for
various crimes. It is the peculiar interest of this chapter that it
gives us certain important sections of the penal code of a people
whose government was theocratic, whose only King was the Most Holy and
Righteous God. In view of the manifold difficulties which are
inseparable from the enactment and enforcement of a just and equitable
penal code, it must be to every man who believes that Israel, in that
period of its history, was, in the most literal sense, a theocracy, a
matter of the highest civil and governmental interest to observe what
penalties for crime were ordained by infinite wisdom, goodness, and
righteousness as the law of that nation.
This penal code (vv. 1-21) is given in two sections. Of these, the
first (vv. 1-6) relates to those who give of their seed to Molech, or
who are accessory to such crime by their concealment of the fact; and
also to those who consult wizards or familiar spirits. Under this last
head also comes ver. 27, which appears to have become misplaced, as it
follows the formal conclusion of the chapter, and by its subject--the
penalty for the wizard, or him who claims to have a familiar
spirit--evidently belongs immediately after ver. 6.
The second section (vv. 9-21) enumerates, first (vv. 9-16), other
cases for which capital punishment was ordered; and then (vv. 17-21)
certain offences for which a lesser penalty is prescribed. These two
sections are separated (vv. 7, 8) by a command, in view of these
penalties, to sanctification of life, and obedience to the Lord, as
the God who has redeemed and consecrated Israel to be a nation to
Himself.
These penal sections are followed (vv. 22-26) by a general conclusion
to the whole law of holiness, as contained in these three chapters, as
also to the law concerning clean and unclean meats (xi.); which would
thus appear to have been originally connected more closely than now
with these chapters. This closing part of the section consists of an
exhortation and argument against disobedience, in walking after the
wicked customs of the Canaanitish nations; enforced by the declaration
that their impending expulsion was brought about by God in punishment
for their practice of these crimes; and, also, by the reminder that
God in His special grace had separated them to be a holy nation to
Himself, and that He was about to give them the good land of Canaan as
their possession.
It is perhaps hardly necessary to observe that the law of this chapter
does not profess to give the penal code of Israel with completeness.
Murder, for example, is not mentioned here, though death is expressly
denounced against it elsewhere (Numb. xxxv. 31). So, again, in the
Book of Exodus (xxi. 15) death is declared as the penalty for smiting
father or mother. Indeed, the chapter itself contains evidence that it
is essentially a selection of certain parts of a more extended code,
which has been nowhere preserved in its entirety.
In this chapter death is ordained as the penalty for the following
crimes: viz., giving of one's seed to Molech (vv. 2-5); professing to
be a wizard, or to have dealings with the spirits of the dead (ver.
27); adultery, incest with a mother or step-mother, a daughter-in-law
or mother-in-law (vv. 10-12, 14); and sodomy and bestiality (ver. 13).
In a single case--that of incest with a wife's mother--it is added
(ver. 14) that both the guilty parties shall be burnt with fire;
_i.e._, after the usual infliction of death by stoning. Of him who
becomes accessory by concealment to the crime of sacrifice to Molech,
it is said (ver. 5) that God Himself will set His face against that
man, and will cut off both the man himself and his family. The same
phraseology is used (ver. 6) of those who consult familiar spirits;
and the cutting off is also threatened, ver. 18. The law concerning
incest with a full- or half-sister requires (ver. 17) that this
excision shall be "in the sight of the children of their people;"
_i.e._, that the sentence shall be executed in the most public way,
thus to affix the more certainly to the crime the stigma of an
indelible ignominy and disgrace. A lesser grade of penalty is attached
to an alliance with the wife of an uncle or of a brother; in the
latter case (ver. 21) that they shall be childless, in the former
(ver. 20), that they shall die childless; that is, though they have
children, they shall all be prematurely cut off; none shall outlive
their parents. To incest with an aunt by blood no specific penalty is
affixed; it is only said that "they shall bear their iniquity,"
_i.e._, God will hold them guilty.
The chapter, directly or indirectly, casts no little light on some
most fundamental and practical questions regarding the administration
of justice in dealing with criminals.
We may learn here what, in the mind of the King of kings, is the
primary object of the punishment of criminals against society.
Certainly there is no hint in this code of law that these penalties
were specially intended for the reformation of the offender. Were this
so, we should not find the death-penalty applied with such unsparing
severity. This does not indeed mean that the reformation of the
criminal was a matter of no concern to the Lord; we know to the
contrary. But one cannot resist the conviction in reading this
chapter, as also other similar portions of the law, that in a
governmental point of view this was not the chief object of
punishment. Even where the penalty was not death, the reformation of
the guilty persons is in no way brought before us as an object of the
penal sentence. In the governmental aspect of the case, this is, at
least, so far in the background that it does not once come into view.
In our day, however, an increasing number maintain that the
death-penalty ought never to be inflicted, because, in the nature of
the case, it precludes the possibility of the criminal being reclaimed
and made a useful member of society; and so, out of regard to this and
other like humanitarian considerations, in not a few instances, the
death penalty, even for wilful murder, has been abrogated. It is thus,
to a Christian citizen, of very practical concern to observe that in
this theocratic penal code there is not so much as an allusion to the
reformation of the criminal, as one object which by means of
punishment it was intended to secure. Penalty was to be inflicted,
according to this code, without any apparent reference to its bearing
on this matter. The wisdom of the Omniscient King of Israel,
therefore, must certainly have contemplated in the punishment of crime
some object or objects of more weighty moment than this.
What those objects were, it does not seem hard to discern. First and
supreme in the intention of this law is the satisfaction of outraged
justice, and of the regal majesty of the supreme and holy God, defied;
the vindication of the holiness of the Most High against that
wickedness of men which would set at nought the Holy One and overturn
that moral order which He has established. Again and again the crime
itself is given as the reason for the penalty, inasmuch as by such
iniquity in the midst of Israel the holy sanctuary of God among them
was profaned. We read, for example, "I will cut him off ... because he
hath defiled My sanctuary, and hath profaned My holy name;" "they have
wrought confusion," _i.e._, in the moral and physical order of the
family; "their blood shall be upon them;" "they have committed
abomination; they shall surely be put to death;" "it is a shameful
thing; they shall be cut off." Such are the expressions which again
and again ring through this chapter; and they teach with unmistakable
clearness that the prime object of the Divine King of Israel in the
punishment was, not the reformation of the individual sinner, but the
satisfaction of justice and the vindication of the majesty of broken
law. And if we have no more explicit statement of the matter here, we
yet have it elsewhere; as in Numb. xxxv. 33, where we are expressly
told that the death-penalty to be visited with unrelenting severity on
the murderer is of the nature of an expiation. Very clear and solemn
are the words, "Blood, it polluteth the land: and no expiation can be
made for the land for the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood
of him that shed it."
But if this is set forth as the fundamental reason for the infliction
of the punishment, it is not represented as the only object. If, as
regards the criminal himself, the punishment is a satisfaction and
expiation to justice for his crime, on the other hand, as regards the
people, the punishment is intended for their moral good and
purification. This is expressly stated, as in ver. 14: "They shall be
burnt with fire, that there be no wickedness among you." Both of these
principles are of such a nature that they must be of perpetual
validity. The government or legislative power that loses sight of
either of them is certain to go wrong, and the people will be sure,
sooner or later, to suffer in morals by the error.
In the light we have now, it is easy to see what are the principles
according to which, in various cases, the punishments were measured
out. Evidently, in the first place, the penalty was determined, even
as equity demands, by the intrinsic heinousness of the crime. With the
possible exception of a single case, it is easy to see this. No one
will question the horrible iniquity of the sacrifice of innocent
children to Molech; or of incest with a mother, or of sodomy, or
bestiality. A second consideration which evidently had place, was the
danger involved in each crime to the moral and spiritual well-being of
the community; and, we may add, in the third place, also the degree to
which the people were likely to be exposed to the contagion of
certain crimes prevalent in the nations immediately about them.
But although these principles are manifestly so equitable and
benevolent as to be valid for all ages, Christendom seems to be
forgetting the fact. The modern penal codes vary as widely from the
Mosaic in respect of their great leniency, as those of a few centuries
ago in respect of their undiscriminating severity. In particular, the
past few generations have seen a great change with regard to the
infliction of capital punishment. Formerly, in England, for example,
death was inflicted, with intolerable injustice, for a large number of
comparatively trivial offences; the death-penalty is now restricted to
high treason and killing with malice aforethought; while in some parts
of Christendom it is already wholly abolished. In the Mosaic law,
according to this chapter and other parts of the law, it was much more
extensively inflicted, though, it may be noted in passing, always
without torture. In this chapter it is made the penalty for actual or
constructive idolatry, for sorcery, etc., for cursing father or
mother, for adultery, for the grosser degrees of incest, and for
sodomy and bestiality. To this list of capital offences the law
elsewhere adds, not only murder, but blasphemy, sabbath-breaking,
unchastity in a betrothed woman when discovered after marriage, rape,
rebellion against a priest or judge, and man-stealing.
As regards the crimes specified in this particular chapter, the
criminal law of modern Christendom does not inflict the penalty of
death in a single possible case here mentioned; and, to the mind of
many, the contrasted severity of the Mosaic code presents a grave
difficulty. And yet, if one believes, on the authority of the teaching
of Christ, that the theocratic government of Israel is not a fable,
but a historic fact, although he may still have much difficulty in
recognising the righteousness of this code, he will be slow on this
account either to renounce his faith in the Divine authority of this
chapter, or to impugn the justice of the holy King of Israel in
charging Him with undue severity; and will rather patiently await some
other solution of the problem, than the denial of the essential equity
of these laws. But there are several considerations which, for many,
will greatly lessen, if they do not wholly remove, the difficulty
which the case presents.
In the first place, as regards the punishment of idolatry with death,
we have to remember that, from a theocratic point of view, idolatry
was essentially high treason, the most formal repudiation possible of
the supreme authority of Israel's King. If, even in our modern states,
the gravity of the issues involved in high treason has led men to
believe that death is not too severe a penalty for an offence aimed
directly at the subversion of governmental order, how much more must
this be admitted when the government is not of fallible man, but of
the most holy and infallible God? And when, besides this, we recall
the atrocious cruelties and revolting impurities which were
inseparably associated with that idolatry, we shall have still less
difficulty in seeing that it was just that the worshipper of Molech
should die. And as decreeing the penalty of death for sorcery and
similar practices, it is probable that the reason for this is to be
found in the close connection of these with the prevailing idolatry.
But it is in regard to crimes against the integrity and purity of the
family that we find the most impressive contrast between this penal
code and those of modern times. Although, unhappily, adultery and,
less commonly, incest, and even, rarely, the unnatural crimes
mentioned in this chapter, are not unknown in modern Christendom, yet,
while the law of Moses punished all these with death, modern law
treats them with comparative leniency, or even refuses to regard some
forms of these offences as crimes. What then? Shall we hasten to the
conclusion that we have advanced on Moses? that this law was certainly
unjust in its severity? or is it possible that modern law is at fault,
in that it has fallen below those standards of righteousness which
rule in the kingdom of God?
One would think that by any man who believes in the Divine origin of
the theocracy only one answer could be given. Assuredly, one cannot
suppose that God judged of a crime with undue severity; and if not, is
not then Christendom, as it were, summoned by this penal code of the
theocracy--after making all due allowance for different conditions of
society--to revise its estimate of the moral gravity of these and
other offences? In these days of continually progressive relaxation of
the laws regulating the relations of the sexes, this seems indeed to
be one of the chief lessons from this chapter of Leviticus; namely,
that in God's sight sins against the seventh commandment are not the
comparative trifles which much over-charitable and easy-going morality
imagines, but crimes of the first order of heinousness. We do well to
heed this fact, that not merely unnatural crimes, such as sodomy,
bestiality, and the grosser forms of incest, but adultery, is by God
ranked in the same category as murder. Is it strange? For what are
crimes of this kind but assaults on the very being of the family?
Where there is incest or adultery, we may truly say the family is
murdered; what murder is to the individual, that, precisely, are
crimes of this class to the family. In the theocratic code these were,
therefore, made punishable with death; and, we venture to believe,
with abundant reason. Is it likely that God was too severe? or must we
not rather fear that man, ever lenient to prevailing sins, in our day
has become falsely and unmercifully merciful, kind with a most
perilous and unholy kindness?
Still harder will it be for most of us to understand why the
death-penalty should have been also affixed to cursing or smiting a
father or a mother, an extreme form of rebellion against parental
authority. We must, no doubt, bear in mind, as in all these cases,
that a rough people, like those just emancipated slaves, required a
severity of dealing which with finer natures would not be needed; and,
also, that the fact of Israel's call to be a priestly nation bearing
salvation to mankind, made every disobedience among them the graver
crime, as tending to so disastrous issues, not for Israel alone, but
for the whole race of man which Israel was appointed to bless. On an
analogous principle we justify military authority in shooting the
sentry found asleep at his post. Still, while allowing for all this,
one can hardly escape the inference that, in the sight of God,
rebellion against parents must be a more serious offence than many in
our time have been wont to imagine. And the more that we consider how
truly basal to the order of government and of society is both sexual
purity and the maintenance of a spirit of reverence and subordination
to parents, the easier we shall find it to recognise the fact that if
in this penal code there is doubtless great severity, it is yet the
severity of governmental wisdom and true paternal kindness on the part
of the high King of Israel: who governed that nation with intent,
above all, that they might become in the highest sense "a holy nation"
in the midst of an ungodly world, and so become the vehicle of
blessing to others. And God thus judged that it was better that
sinning individuals should die without mercy, than that family
government and family purity should perish, and Israel, instead of
being a blessing to the nations, should sink with them into the mire
of universal moral corruption.
And it is well to observe that this law, if severe, was most equitable
and impartial in its application. We have here, in no instance,
torture; the scourging which in one case is enjoined, is limited
elsewhere to the forty stripes save one. Neither have we
discrimination against any class, or either sex; nothing like that
detestable injustice of modern society which turns the fallen woman
into the street with pious scorn, while it often receives the betrayer
and even the adulterer--in most cases the more guilty of the two--into
"the best society." Nothing have we here, again, which could justify
by example the insistence of many, through a perverted humanity, when
a murderess is sentenced for her crime to the scaffold, her sex should
purchase a partial immunity from the penalty of crime. The Levitical
law is as impartial as its Author; even if death be the penalty, the
guilty one must die, whether man or woman.
Quite apart, then, from any question of detail, as to how far this
penal code ought to be applied under the different conditions of
modern society, this chapter of Leviticus assuredly stands as a most
impressive testimony from God against the humanitarianism of our age.
It is more and more the fashion, in some parts of Christendom, to pet
criminals; to lionize murderers and adulterers, especially if in high
social station. We have even heard of bouquets and such-like
sentimental attentions bestowed by ladies on blood-red criminals in
their cells awaiting the halter; and a maudlin pity quite too often
usurps among us the place of moral horror at crime and intense
sympathy with the holy justice and righteousness of God. But this
Divine government of old did not deal in flowers and perfumes; it
never indulged criminals, but punished them with an inexorable
righteousness. And yet this was not because Israel's King was hard and
cruel. For it was this same law which with equal kindness and equity
kept a constant eye of fatherly care upon the poor and the stranger,
and commanded the Israelite that he love even the stranger as himself.
But, none the less, the Lord God who declared Himself as merciful and
gracious and of great kindness, also herein revealed Himself,
according to His word, as one who would "by no means clear the
guilty." This fact is luminously witnessed by this penal code; and,
let us note, it is witnessed by that penal law of God which is
revealed in nature also. For this too punishes without mercy the
drunkard, for example, or the licentious man, and never diminishes one
stroke because by the full execution of penalty the sinner must suffer
often so terribly. Which is just what we should expect to find, if
indeed the God of nature is the One who spake in Leviticus.
Finally, as already suggested, this chapter gives a most weighty
testimony against the modern tendency to a relaxation of the laws
which regulate the relations of the sexes. That such a tendency is a
fact is admitted by all; by some with gratulation, by others with
regret and grave concern. French law, for instance, has explicitly
legalised various alliances which in this law God explicitly forbids,
under heavy penal sanctions, as incestuous; German legislation has
moved about as far in the same direction; and the same tendency is to
be observed, more or less, in all the English-speaking world. In some
of the United States, especially, the utmost laxity has been reached,
in laws which, under the name of divorce, legalize gross
adultery,--laws which had been a disgrace to pagan Rome. So it goes.
Where God denounced the death-penalty, man first apologises for the
crime, then lightens the penalty, then abolishes it, and at last
formally legalises the crime. This modern drift bodes no good; in the
end it can only bring disaster alike to the well-being of the family
and of the State. The maintenance of the family in its integrity and
purity is nothing less than essential to the conservation of society
and the stability of good government.
To meet this growing evil, the Church needs to come back to the full
recognition of the principles which underlie this Levitical code;
especially of the fact that marriage and the family are not merely
civil arrangements, but Divine institutions; so that God has not left
it to the caprice of a majority to settle what shall be lawful in
these matters. Where God has declared certain alliances and
connections to be criminal, we shall permit or condone them at our
peril. God rules, whether modern majorities will it or not; and we
must adopt the moral standards of the kingdom of God in our
legislation, or we shall suffer. God has declared that not merely the
material well-being of man, but _holiness_, is the moral end of
government and of life; and He will find ways to enforce His will in
this respect. "The nation that will not serve Him shall perish." All
this is not theology, merely, or ethics, but history. All history
witnesses that moral corruption and relaxed legislation, especially in
matters affecting the relations of the sexes, bring in their train
sure retribution, not in Hades, but here on earth. Let us not miss of
taking the lesson by imagining that this law was for Israel, but not
for other peoples. The contrary is affirmed in this very chapter (vv.
23, 24), where we are reminded that God visited His heavy judgments
upon the Canaanitish nations precisely for this very thing, their
doing of these things which are in this law of holiness forbidden.
Hence "the land spued them out." Our modern democracies, English,
American, French, German, or whatever they be, would do well to pause
in their progressive repudiation of the law of God in many social
questions, and heed this solemn warning. For, despite the unbelief of
multitudes, the Holy One still governs the world, and it is certain
that He will never abdicate His throne of righteousness to submit any
of His laws to the sanction of a popular vote.
CHAPTER XXIII.
_THE LAW OF PRIESTLY HOLINESS._
LEV. xxi. 1-xxii. 33.
The conception of Israel as a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, was
concretely represented in a threefold division of the people,--the
congregation, the priesthood, and the high priest. This corresponded
to the threefold division of the tabernacle into the outer court, the
holy place, and the holy of holies, each in succession more sacred
than the place preceding. So while all Israel was called to be a
priestly nation, holy to Jehovah in life and service, this sanctity
was to be represented in degrees successively higher in each of these
three divisions of the people, culminating in the person of the high
priest, who, in token of this fact, wore upon his forehead the
inscription, "HOLINESS TO JEHOVAH."
Up to this point the law of holiness has dealt only with such
obligations as bore upon all the priestly nation alike; in these two
chapters we now have the special requirements of this law in its yet
higher demands upon, first, the priests, and, secondly, the high
priest.
Abolished as to the letter, this part of the law still holds good as
to the principle which it expresses, namely, that special spiritual
privilege and honour places him to whom it is given under special
obligations to holiness of life. As contrasted with the world without,
it is not then enough that Christians should be equally correct and
moral in life with the best men of the world; though too many seem to
be living under that impression. They must be more than this; they
must be holy: God will wink at things in others which He will not deal
lightly with in them. And so, again, within the Church, those who
occupy various positions of dignity as teachers and rulers of God's
flock are just in that degree laid under the more stringent obligation
to holiness of life and walk. This most momentous lesson confronts us
at the very opening of this new section of the law, addressed
specifically to "the priests, the sons of Aaron." How much it is
needed is sufficiently and most sadly evident from the condition of
baptized Christendom to-day. Who is there that will heed it?
Priestly holiness was to be manifested, first (vv. 1-15), in regard to
earthly relations of kindred and friendship. This is illustrated under
three particulars, namely, in mourning for the dead (vv. 1-6), in
marriage (vv. 7, 8), and (ver. 9) in the maintenance of purity in the
priest's family. With regard to the first point, it is ordered that
there shall be no defilement for the dead, except in the case of the
priest's own family,--father, mother, brother, unmarried sister, son,
or daughter.[37] That is, with the exception of these cases, the
priest, though he may mourn in his heart, is to take no part in any
of those last offices which others render to the dead. This were "to
profane himself." And while the above exceptions are allowed in the
case of members of his immediate household, even in these cases he is
specially charged (ver. 5) to remember, what was indeed elsewhere
forbidden to every Israelite, that such excessive demonstrations of
grief as shaving the head, cutting the flesh, etc., were most unseemly
in a priest. These restrictions are expressly based upon the fact that
he is "a chief man among his people;" that he is holy unto God,
appointed to offer "the bread of God, the offerings made by fire." And
inasmuch as the high priest, in the highest degree of all, represents
the priestly idea, and is thus admitted into a peculiar and exclusive
intimacy of relation with God, having on him "the crown of the
anointing oil of his God," and having been consecrated to put on the
"garments for glory and for beauty," worn by none other in Israel,
with him the prohibition of all public acts of mourning is made
absolute (vv. 10-12). He may not defile himself, for instance, by even
entering the house where lies the dead body of a father or a mother!
[37] The wife is not mentioned, but that she would also be
included in the exception, in view of her being always regarded
in the law as yet nearer to her husband than father or mother,
may be safely taken for granted.
These regulations, at first thought, to many will seem hard and
unnatural. Yet this law of holiness elsewhere magnifies and guards
with most jealous care the family relation, and commands that even the
neighbour we shall love as ourselves. Hence it is certain that these
regulations cannot have been intended to condemn the natural feelings
of grief at the loss of friends, but only to place them under certain
restrictions. They were given, not to depreciate the earthly
relationships of friendship and kindred, but only to magnify the more
the dignity and significance of the priestly relation to God, as far
transcending even the most sacred relations of earth. As priest, the
son of Aaron was the servant of the Eternal God, of God the Holy and
the Living One, appointed to mediate from Him the grace of pardon and
life to those condemned to die. Hence he must never forget this
himself, nor allow others to forget it. Hence he must maintain a
special, visible separation from death, as everywhere the sign of the
presence and operation of sin and unholiness; and while he is not
forbidden to mourn, he must mourn with a visible moderation; the more
so that if his priesthood had any significance, it meant that death
for the believing and obedient Israelite was death in hope. And then,
besides all this, God had declared that He Himself would be the
portion and inheritance of the priests. For the priest therefore to
mourn, as if in losing even those nearest and dearest on earth he had
lost all, were in outward appearance to fail in witness to the
faithfulness of God to His promises, and His all-sufficiency as his
portion.
Standing here, will we but listen, we can now hear the echo of this
same law of priestly holiness from the New Testament, in such words as
these, addressed to the whole priesthood of believers: "He that loveth
father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me;" "Let those that
have wives be as though they had none, and those that weep as though
they wept not;" "Concerning them that fall asleep ... sorrow not, even
as the rest, which have no hope." As Christians, we are not forbidden
to mourn; but because a royal priesthood to the God of life, who
raised up the Lord Jesus, and ourselves looking also for the
resurrection, ever with moderation and self-restraint. Extravagant
demonstrations of sorrow, whether in dress or in prolonged separation
from the sanctuary and active service of God, as the manner of many
is, are all as contrary to the New Testament law of holiness as to
that of the Old. When bereaved, we are to call to mind the blessed
fact of our priestly relation to God, and in this we shall find a
restraint and a remedy for excessive and despairing grief. We are to
remember that the law for the High Priest is the law for all His
priestly house; like Him, they must all be perfected for the
priesthood by sufferings; so that, in that they themselves suffer,
being tried, they may be able the better to succour others that are
tried in like manner (2 Cor. i. 4; Heb. ii. 18). We are also to
remember that as priests to God, this God of eternal life and love is
Himself our satisfying portion, and with holy care take heed that by
no immoderate display of grief we even seem before men to traduce His
faithfulness and belie to unbelievers His glorious all-sufficiency.
The holiness of the priesthood was also to be represented visibly in
the marriage relation. A priest must marry no woman to whose fair fame
attaches the slightest possibility of suspicion,--no harlot, or fallen
woman,[38] or a woman divorced (ver. 7); such an alliance were
manifestly most unseemly in one "holy to his God." As in the former
instance, the high priest is still further restricted; he may not
marry a widow, but only "a virgin of his own people" (ver. 14); for
virginity is always in Holy Scripture the peculiar type of holiness.
As a reason it is added that this were to "profane his seed among his
people;" that is, it would be inevitable that by neglect of this care
the people would come to regard his seed with a diminished reverence
as the separated priests of the holy God. From observing the practice
of many who profess to be Christians, one would naturally infer that
they can never have suspected that there was anything in this part of
the law which concerns the New Testament priesthood of believers. How
often we see a young man or a young woman professing to be a disciple
of Christ, a member of Christ's royal priesthood, entering into
marriage alliance with a confessed unbeliever in Him! And yet the law
is laid down as explicitly in the New Testament as in the Old (1 Cor.
vii. 39), that marriage shall be only "in the Lord;" so that one
principle rules in both dispensations. The priestly line must, as far
as possible, be kept pure; the holy man must have a holy wife. Many,
indeed, feel this deeply and marry accordingly; but the apparent
thoughtlessness on the matter of many more is truly astonishing, and
almost incomprehensible.
[38] See margin (R.V.).
And the household of the priest were to remember the holy standing of
their father. The sin of the child of a priest was to be punished more
severely than that of the children of others; a single illustration is
given (ver. 9): "The daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by
playing the harlot, ... shall be burnt with fire."[39] And the
severity of the penalty is justified by this, that by her sin "she
profaneth her father." From which it appears that, as a principle of
the Divine judgment, if the children of believers sin, their guilt
will be judged more heavy than that of others; and that justly,
because to their sin this is added, over like sin of others, that they
thereby cast dishonour on their believing parents, and in them soil
and defame the honour of God. How little is this remembered by many
in these days of increasing insubordination even in Christian
families!
[39] That is, not burnt alive, but after execution.
The priestly holiness was to be manifested, in the second place, in
physical, bodily perfection. It is written (ver. 17): "Speak unto
Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed throughout their
generations that hath a blemish, let him not approach to offer the
bread of his God."
And then follows (vv. 18-20) a list of various cases in illustration
of this law, with the proviso (vv. 21-23) that while such a person
might not perform any priestly function, he should not be debarred
from the use of the priestly portion, whether of things "holy" or
"most holy," as his daily food. The material and bodily is ever the
type and symbol of the spiritual; hence, in this case, the spiritual
purity and perfection required of him who would draw near to God in
the priests' office must be visibly signified by his physical
perfection; else the sanctity of the tabernacle were profaned.
Moreover, the reverence due from the people toward Jehovah's sanctuary
could not well be maintained where a dwarf, for instance, or a
humpback, were ministering at the altar. And yet the Lord has for such
a heart of kindness; in kindly compassion He will not exclude them
from His table. Like Mephibosheth at the table of David, the deformed
priest may still eat at the table of God.
There is a thought here which bears on the administration of the
affairs of God's house even now. We are reminded that there are those
who, while undoubtedly members of the universal Christian priesthood,
and thus lawfully entitled to come to the table of the Lord, may yet
be properly regarded as disabled and debarred by various
circumstances, for which, in many cases, they may not be responsible,
from any eminent position in the Church.
In the almost unrestrained insistence of many in this day for
"equality," there are indications not a few of a contempt for the holy
offices ordained by Christ for His Church, which would admit an equal
right on the part of almost any who may desire it, to be allowed to
minister in the Church in holy things. But as there were dwarfed and
blinded sons of Aaron, so are there not a few Christians
who--evidently, at least, to all but themselves--are spiritually
dwarfs or deformed; subject to ineradicable and obtrusive
constitutional infirmities, such as utterly disqualify, and should
preclude, them from holding any office in the holy Church of Christ.
The presence of such in her ministry can only now, as of old, profane
the sanctuaries of the Lord.
The next section of the law of holiness for the priests (xxii. 1-16)
requires that the priests, as holy unto Jehovah, treat with most
careful reverence all those holy things which are their lawful
portion. If, in any way, any priest have incurred ceremonial
defilement,--as, for instance, by an issue, or by the dead,--he is not
to eat until he is clean (vv. 2-7). On no account must he defile
himself by eating of that which is unclean, such as that which has
died of itself, or has been torn by beasts (ver. 8), which indeed was
forbidden even to the ordinary Israelite. Furthermore, the priests are
charged that they preserve the sanctity of God's house by carefully
excluding all from participation in the priests' portion who are not
of the priestly order. The stranger or sojourner in the priest's
house, or a hired servant, must not be fed from this "bread of God;"
not even a daughter, when, having married, she has left the father's
home to form a family of her own, can be allowed to partake of it
(ver. 12). If, however (ver. 13), she be parted from her husband by
death or divorce, and have no child, and return to her father's house,
she then becomes again a member of the priestly family, and resumes
the privileges of her virginity.
All this may seem, at first, remote from any present use; and yet it
takes little thought to see that, in principle, the New Testament law
of holiness requires, under a changed form, even the same reverent use
of God's gifts, and especially of the Holy Supper of the Lord, from
every member of the Christian priesthood. It is true that in some
parts of the Church a superstitious dread is felt with regard to
approach to the Lord's Table, as if only the conscious attainment of a
very high degree of holiness could warrant one in coming. But, however
such a feeling is to be deprecated, it is certain that it is a less
serious wrong, and argues not so ill as to the spiritual condition of
a man as the easy carelessness with which multitudes partake of the
Lord's Supper, nothing disturbed, apparently, by the recollection that
they are living in the habitual practice of known sin, unconfessed,
unforsaken, and therefore unforgiven. As it was forbidden to the
priest to eat of those holy things which were his rightful portion,
with his defilement or uncleanness on him, till he should first be
cleansed, no less is it now a violation of the law of holiness for the
Christian to come to the Holy Supper having on his conscience
unconfessed and unforgiven sin. No less truly than the violation of
this ancient law is this a profanation, and who so desecrates the holy
food must bear his sin.
And as the sons of Aaron were charged by this law of holiness that
they guard the holy things from the participation of any who were not
of the priestly house, so also is the obligation on every member of
the New Testament Church, and especially on those who are in official
charge of her holy sacraments, that they be careful to debar from such
participation the unholy and profane. It is true that it is possible
to go to an extreme in this matter which is unwarranted by the Word of
God. Although participation in the Holy Supper is of right only for
the regenerate, it does not follow, as in some sections of the Church
has been imagined, that the Church is therefore required to satisfy
herself as to the undoubted regeneration of those who may apply for
membership and fellowship in this privilege. So to read the heart as
to be able to decide authoritatively on the regeneration of every
applicant for Church membership is beyond the power of any but the
Omniscient Lord, and is not required in the Word. The Apostles
received and baptized men upon their credible profession of faith and
repentance, and entered into no inquisitorial cross-examination as to
the details of the religious experience of the candidate. None the
less, however, the law of holiness requires that the Church, under
this limitation, shall to the uttermost of her power be careful that
no one unconverted and profane shall sit at the Holy Table of the
Lord. She may admit upon profession of faith and repentance, but she
certainly is bound to see to it that such profession shall be
credible; that is, such as may be reasonably believed to be sincere
and genuine. She is bound, therefore, to satisfy herself in such
cases, so far as possible to man, that the life of the applicant, at
least externally, witnesses to the genuineness of the profession. If
we are to beware of imposing false tests of Christian character, as
some have done, for instance, in the use or disuse of things
indifferent, we are, on the other hand, to see to it that we do apply
such tests as the Word warrants, and firmly exclude all such as insist
upon practices which are demonstrably, in themselves always wrong,
according to the law of God.
No man who has any just apprehension of Scriptural truth can well
doubt that we have here a lesson which is of the highest present-day
importance. When one goes out into the world and observes the
practices in which many whom we meet at the Lord's Table habitually
indulge, whether in business or in society,--the crookedness in
commercial dealings and sharp dealing in trade, the utter dissipation
in amusement, of many Church members,--a spiritual man cannot but ask,
Where is the discipline of the Lord's house? Surely, this law of
holiness applies to a multitude of such cases; and it must be said
that when such eat of the holy things, they "profane them;" and those
who, in responsible charge of the Lord's Table, are careless in this
matter, "cause them to bear the iniquity that bringeth guilt, when
they eat their holy things" (ver. 16). That word of the Lord Jesus
certainly applies in this case (Matt. xviii. 7): "It must needs be
that occasions of stumbling come; but woe to that man through whom the
occasion cometh!"
The last section of the law concerning priestly holiness (xxii. 17-33)
requires the maintenance of jealous care in the enforcement of the law
of offerings. Inasmuch as, in the nature of the case, while it rested
with the sons of Aaron to enforce this law, the obligation concerned
every offerer, this section (vv. 17-25) is addressed also (ver. 18)
"unto all the children of Israel." The first requirement concerned the
perfection of the offering; it must be (vv. 19, 20) "without
blemish." Only one qualification is allowed to this law, namely, in
the case of the free-will offering (ver. 23), in which a victim was
allowed which, otherwise perfect, had something "superfluous or
lacking in his parts." Even this relaxation of the law was not allowed
in the case of an offering brought in payment of a vow; hence Malachi
(i. 14), in allusion to this law, sharply denounces the man who
"voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing." Verse 25
provides that this law shall be enforced in the case of the foreigner,
who may wish to present an offering to Jehovah, no less than with the
Israelite.
A third requirement (ver. 27) sets a minimum limit to the age of a
sacrificial victim; it must not be less than eight days old. The
reason of this law, apart from any mystic or symbolic meaning, is
probably grounded in considerations of humanity, requiring the
avoidance of giving unnecessary suffering to the dam. A similar
intention is probably to be recognised in the additional law (ver. 28)
that the cow, or ewe, and its young should not both be killed in one
day; though it must be confessed that the matter is somewhat obscure.
Finally, the law closes (vv. 29, 30) with the repetition of the
command (vii. 15) requiring that the flesh of the sacrifice of
thanksgiving be eaten on the same day in which it is offered. The
slightest possibility of beginning corruption is to be precluded in
such cases with peculiar strictness.
This closing section of the law of holiness, which so insists that the
regulations of God's law in regard to sacrifice shall be scrupulously
observed, in its inner principle forbids all departures in matter of
worship from any express Divine appointment or command. We fully
recognise the fact that, as compared with the old dispensation, the
New Testament allows in the conduct and order of worship a far larger
liberty than then. But, in our age, the tendency, alike in politics
and in religion, is to the confounding of liberty and license. Yet
they are not the same, but are most sharply contrasted. Liberty is
freedom of action within the bounds of Divine law; license recognises
no limitation to human action, apart from enforced necessity,--no law
save man's own will and pleasure. It is therefore essential
lawlessness,[40] and therefore is sin in its most perfect and
consummate expression. But there is law in the New Testament as well
as in the Old. Because the New Testament lays down but few laws
concerning the order of Divine worship, it does not follow that these
few are of no consequence, and that men may worship in all respects
just as they choose, and equally please God.
[40] See 1 John iii. 4 and 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4, 7, 8,--passages
which, in view of this most manifest and characteristic tendency
of our times, are pregnant with very solemn warning.
To illustrate this matter. It does not follow, because the New
Testament allows large liberty as regards the details of worship, that
therefore we may look upon the use of images or pictures in connection
with worship as a matter of indifference. If told that these are
merely used as an aid to devotion,--the very argument which in all
ages has been used by all idolaters,--we reply that, be that as it
may, it is an aid which is expressly prohibited under the heaviest
penal sanctions in both Testaments. We may take another present-day
illustration, which, especially in the American Church, is of special
pertinence. One would say that it should be self-evident that no
ordinance of the Church should be more jealously guarded from human
alteration or modification than the most sacred institution of the
sacramental Supper. Surely it should be allowed that the Lord alone
should have the right to designate the symbols of His own death in
this most holy ordinance. That He chose and appointed for this purpose
bread and wine, even the fermented juice of the grape, has been
affirmed by the practically unanimous consensus of Christendom for
almost nineteen hundred years; and it is not too much to say that this
understanding of the Scripture record is sustained by the no less
unanimous judgment of truly authoritative scholarship even to-day.
Neither can it be denied that Christ ordained this use of wine in the
Holy Supper with the most perfect knowledge of the terrible evils
connected with its abuse in all ages. All this being so, how can it
but contravene this principle of the law of holiness, which insists
upon the exact observance of the appointments which the Lord has made
for His own worship, when men, in the imagined interest of "moral
reform," presume to attempt improvements in this holy ordinance of the
Lord, and substitute for the wine which He chose to make the symbol of
His precious blood, something else, of different properties, for the
use of which the whole New Testament affords no warrant? We speak with
full knowledge of the various plausible arguments which are pressed as
reasons why the Church should authorise this nineteenth-century
innovation. No doubt, in many cases, the change is urged through a
misapprehension as to the historical facts, which, however astonishing
to scholars, is at least real and sincere. But whenever any, admitting
the facts as to the original appointment, yet seriously propose, as so
often of late years, to improve on the Lord's arrangements for His own
Table, we are bold to insist that the principle which underlies this
part of the priestly law of holiness applies in full force in this
case, and cannot therefore be rightly set aside. Strange, indeed, it
is that men should unthinkingly hope to advance morality by ignoring
the primal principle of all holiness, that Christ, the Son of God, is
absolute and supreme Lord over all His people, and especially in all
that pertains to the ordering of His own house!
We have in these days great need to beseech the Lord that He may
deliver us, in all things, from that malign epidemic of religious
lawlessness which is one of the plagues of our age; and raise up a
generation who shall so understand their priestly calling as
Christians, that, no less in all that pertains to the offices of
public worship, than in their lives as individuals they shall take
heed, above all things, to walk according to the principles of this
law of priestly holiness. For, repealed although it be as to the
outward form of the letter, yet in the nature of the case, as to its
spirit and intention, it abides, and must abide, in force unto the
end. And the great argument also, with which, after the constant
manner of this law, this section closes, is also, as to its spirit,
valid still, and even of greater force in its New Testament form than
of old. For we may now justly read it in this wise: "Ye shall not
profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among My people: I am the
Lord that hallow you, _that have redeemed you by the cross_, to be
your God."
CHAPTER XXIV.
_THE SET FEASTS OF THE LORD._
LEV. xxiii. 1-44.
It is even an instinct of natural religion to observe certain set
times for special public and united worship. As we should therefore
anticipate, such observances are in this chapter enjoined as a part of
the requirement of the law of holiness for Israel.
It is of consequence to observe that the Revisers have corrected the
error of the Authorised Version, which renders two perfectly distinct
words alike as "feasts;" and have distinguished the one by the
translation, "set feasts," the other by the one word, "feasts." The
precise sense of the former word is given in the margin "appointed
seasons," and it is naturally applied to all the set times of special
religious solemnity which are ordained in this chapter. But the other
word translated "feast,"--derived from a root meaning "to dance,"
whence "feast" or "festival,"--is applied to only three of the former
six "appointed seasons," namely, the feasts of Unleavened Bread, of
Pentecost, and of Tabernacles; as intended to be, in a special degree,
seasons of gladness and festivity.
The indication of this distinction is of importance, as completely
meeting the allegation that there is in this chapter evidence of a
later development than in the account of the feasts given in Exod.
xxxiv., where the number of the "feasts," besides the weekly Sabbath,
is given as three, while here, as it is asserted, their number has
been increased to six. In reality, however, there is nothing here
which suggests a later period. For the object of the former law in
Exodus was only to name the "feasts" (_haggím_); while that of the
chapter before us is to indicate not only these,--which here, as
there, are three,--but, in addition to these, all "appointed seasons"
for "holy convocations," which, although all _mo'adim_, were not all
_haggím_.
The observance of public religious festivals has been common to all
the chief religions of the world, both ancient and modern. Very often,
though not in all cases, these have been determined by the phases of
the moon; or by the apparent motion of the sun in the heavens, as in
many instances of religious celebrations connected with the period of
the spring and autumnal equinoxes; and thus, very naturally, also with
the times of harvest and ingathering. It is at once evident that of
these appointed seasons of holy convocation, the three feasts
(_haggím_) of the Hebrews also fell at certain points in the harvest
season; and with each of these, ceremonies were observed connected
with harvest and ingathering; while two, the feast of weeks and that
of tabernacles, take alternate names, directly referring to this their
connection with the harvest; namely, the feast of firstfruits and that
of ingathering. Thus we have, first, the feast of unleavened bread,
following passover, which was distinguished by the presentation of a
sheaf of the firstfruits of the barley harvest, in the latter part of
March, or early in April; then, the feast of weeks, or firstfruits,
seven weeks later, marking the completion of the grain harvest with
the ingathering of the wheat; and, finally, the feast of tabernacles
or ingathering, in the seventh month, marking the harvesting of the
fruits, especially the oil and the wine, and therewith the completed
ingathering of the whole product of the year.
From these facts it is argued that in these Hebrew feasts we have
simply a natural development, with modifications, of the ancient and
widespread system of harvest feasts among the heathen; to which the
historical element which appears in some of them was only added as an
afterthought, in a later period of history. From this point of view,
the idea that these feasts were a matter of supernatural revelation
disappears; what religious character they have belongs originally to
the universal religion of nature.
But it is to be remarked, first, that even if we admit that in their
original character these were simply and only harvest feasts, it would
not follow that therefore their observance, with certain prescribed
ceremonies, could not have been matter of Divine revelation. There is
a religion of nature; God has not left Himself without a witness, in
that He has given men "rains and fruitful seasons," filling their
hearts with food and gladness. And, as already remarked in regard to
sacrifice, it is no part of the method of God in revelation to ignore
or reject what in this religion of nature may be true and right; but
rather to use it, and build on this foundation.
But, again, the mere fact that the feast of unleavened bread fell at
the beginning of barley harvest, and that one--though only
one--ceremony appointed for that festive week had explicit reference
to the then beginning harvest, is not sufficient to disprove the
uniform declaration of Scripture that, as observed in Israel, its
original ground was not natural, but historical; namely, in the
circumstances attending the birth of the nation in their exodus from
Egypt.
But we may say more than this. If the contrary were true, and the
introduction of the historical element was an afterthought, as
insisted by some, then we should expect to find that in accounts
belonging to successive periods, the reference to the harvest would
certainly be more prominent in the earlier, and the reference of the
feast to a historical origin more prominent in the later, accounts of
the feasts. Most singular it is then, upon this hypothesis, to find
that even accepting the analysis, _e.g._, of Wellhausen, the facts are
the exact reverse. For the only brief reference to the harvest in
connection with this feast of unleavened bread is found in this chap.
xxiii. of Leviticus, composed, it is alleged, about the time of
Ezekiel; while, on the other hand, the narrative in Exod. xii.,
regarded by all the critics of this school as the earliest account of
the origin of the feast of unleavened bread, refers only to the
historical event of the exodus, as the occasion of its institution. If
we grant the asserted difference in age of these two parts of the
Pentateuch, one would thus more naturally conclude that the historical
events were the original occasion of the institution of the festival,
and that the reference to the harvest, in the presentation of the
sheaf of firstfruits, was the later introduction into the ceremonies
of the week.
But the truth is that this naturalistic identification of these Hebrew
feasts with the harvest feasts of other nations is a mistake. In order
to make it out, it is necessary to ignore or pervert most patent
facts. These so-called harvest feasts in fact form part of an
elaborate system of sacred times,--a system which is based upon the
Sabbath, and into which the sacred number seven, the number of the
covenant, enters throughout as a formative element. The weekly
Sabbath, first of all, was the seventh day; the length of the great
festivals of unleavened bread and of tabernacles was also, in each
case, seven days. Not only so, but the entire series of sacred times
mentioned in this chapter and in chap. xxv. constitutes an ascending
series of sacred septenaries, in which the ruling thought is this:
that the seventh is holy unto the Lord, as the number symbolic of rest
and redemption; and that the eighth, as the first of a new week, is
symbolic of the new creation. Thus we have the seventh day, the weekly
Sabbath, constantly recurring, the type of each of the series; then,
counting from the feast of unleavened bread,--the first of the sacred
year,--the fiftieth day, at the end of the seventh week, is signalised
as sacred by the feast of firstfruits or of "weeks;" the seventh
month, again, is the sabbatic month, of special sanctity, containing
as it does three of the annual seasons of holy convocation,--the feast
of trumpets on its first day, the great day of atonement on the tenth,
and the last of the three great annual feasts, that of tabernacles or
ingathering, for seven days from the fifteenth day of the month.
Beyond this series of sacred festivals recurring annually, in chap.
xxv., the seventh year is appointed to be a sabbatic year of rest to
the land, and the series at last culminates at the expiration of seven
sevens of years, in the fiftieth year,--the eighth following the
seventh seven,--the great year of jubilee, the supreme year of rest,
restoration, and release. All these sacred times, differing in the
details of their observance, are alike distinguished by their
connection with the sacred number seven, by the informing presence of
the idea of the Sabbath, and therewith always a new and fuller
revelation of God as in covenant with Israel for their redemption.
Now, like to this series of sacred times, in heathenism there is
absolutely nothing. It evidently belongs to another realm of thought,
ethics, and religion. And so, while it is quite true that in the three
great feasts there was a reference to the harvest, and so to fruitful
nature, yet the fundamental, unifying idea of the system of sacred
times was not the recognition of the fruitful life of nature, as in
the heathen festivals, but of Jehovah, as the Author and Sustainer of
the life of His covenant people Israel, as also of every individual in
the nation. This, we repeat, is the one central thought in all these
sacred seasons; not the life of nature, but the life of the holy
nation, as created and sustained by a covenant God. The annual
processes of nature have indeed a place and a necessary recognition in
the system, simply because the personal God is active in all nature;
but the place of these is not primary, but secondary and subordinate.
They have a recognition because, in the first place, it is through the
bounty of God in nature that the life of man is sustained; and,
secondly, also because nature in her order is a type and shadow of
things spiritual. For in the spiritual world, whether we think of it
as made up of nations or individuals, even as in the natural, there is
a seed-time and a harvest, a time of firstfruits and a time of the joy
and rest of the full ingathering of fruit, and oil, and wine. Hence it
was most fitting that this inspired rubric, as primarily intended for
the celebration of spiritual things, should be so arranged and timed,
in all its parts, as that in each returning sacred season, visible
nature should present itself to Israel as a manifest parable and
eloquent suggestion of those spiritual verities; the more so that thus
the Israelite would be reminded that the God of the Exodus and the God
of Sinai was also the supreme Lord of nature, the God of the seed-time
and harvest, the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth,
and of all that in them is.
THE WEEKLY SABBATH.
xxiii. 1-3.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, and say unto them, The set feasts of the Lord, which
ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My set
feasts. Six days shall work be done: but on the seventh day is a
sabbath of solemn rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no
manner of work: it is a sabbath unto the Lord in all your
dwellings."
The first verse of this chapter announces the purpose of the section
as, not to give a complete calendar of sacred times or of seasons of
worship,--for the new moons and the sabbatic year and the jubilee are
not mentioned,--but to enumerate such sacred times as are to be kept
as "holy convocations." The reference in this phrase cannot be to an
assembling of the people at the central sanctuary, which is elsewhere
ordered (Exod. xxxiv. 23) only for the three feasts of passover,
weeks, and atonement; but rather, doubtless, to local gatherings for
purposes of worship, such as, at a later day, took form in the
institution of the synagogues.
The enumeration of these "set times" begins with the Sabbath (ver. 3),
as was natural; for, as we have seen, the whole series of sacred times
was sabbatic in character. The sanctity of the day is emphasised in
the strongest terms, as a _shabbath shabbathon_, a "sabbath of
sabbatism,"--a "sabbath of solemn rest," as it is rendered by the
Revisers. While on some other sacred seasons the usual occupations of
the household were permitted, on the Sabbath "no manner of work" was
to be done; not even was it lawful to gather wood or to light a fire.
For this sanctity of the Sabbath two reasons are elsewhere given. The
first of these, which is assigned in the fourth commandment, makes it
a memorial of the rest of God, when having created man in Eden, He saw
His work which He had finished, that it was very good, and rested from
all His work. As created, man was participant in this rest of God. He
was indeed to work in tilling the garden in which he had been placed;
but from such labour as involves unremunerative toil and exhaustion he
was exempt. But this sabbatic rest of the creation was interrupted by
sin; God's work, which He had declared "good," was marred; man fell
into a condition of wearying toil and unrest of body and soul, and
with him the whole creation also was "subjected to vanity" (Gen. iii.
17, 18; Rom. viii. 20). But in this state of things the God of love
could not rest; it thus involved for Him a work of new creation, which
should have for its object the complete restoration, both as regards
man and nature, of that sabbatic state of things on earth which had
been broken up by sin. And thus it came to pass that the weekly
Sabbath looked not only backward, but forward; and spoke not only of
the rest that was, but of the great sabbatism of the future, to be
brought in through a promised redemption. Hence, as a second reason
for the observance of the Sabbath, it is said (Exod. xxxi. 13) to be a
sign between God and Israel through all their generations, that they
might know that He was Jehovah which sanctified them, _i.e._, who had
set them apart for deliverance from the curse, that through them the
world might be saved.
These are thus the two sabbatic ideas; rest and redemption. They
everywhere appear, in one form or another, in all this sabbatic series
of sacred times. Some of them emphasise one phase of the rest and
redemption, and some another; the weekly Sabbath, as the unit of the
series, presents both. For in Deuteronomy (v. 15) Israel was commanded
to keep the Sabbath in commemoration of the exodus, as the time when
God undertook to bring them into His rest; a rest of which the
beginning and the pledge was their deliverance from Egyptian bondage;
a rest brought in through a redemption.[41]
[41] See the inspired comment in Heb. iv.
THE FEAST OF PASSOVER AND UNLEAVENED BREAD.
xxiii. 4-14.
"These are the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations,
which ye shall proclaim in their appointed season. In the first
month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, is the Lord's
passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast
of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye shall eat
unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy
convocation: ye shall do no servile work. But ye shall offer an
offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh
day is an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work. And the
Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel,
and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give
unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring
the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: and
he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you:
on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. And in
the day when ye wave the sheaf, ye shall offer a he-lamb without
blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And
the meal offering thereof shall be two tenth parts of an ephah of
fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the
Lord for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be
of wine, the fourth part of an hin. And ye shall eat neither
bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears, until this selfsame day,
until ye have brought the oblation of your God: it is a statute
for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings."
Verses 5-8 give the law for the first of the annual feasts, the
passover and unleavened bread. The passover lamb was to be slain and
eaten on the evening of the fourteenth day; and thereafter, for seven
days, they were all to eat unleavened bread. The first and seventh
days of unleavened bread were to be kept as an "holy convocation;" in
both of which "servile work," _i.e._, the usual occupations in the
field or in one's handicraft, were forbidden. Further than this the
restriction did not extend.
The utter impossibility of making this feast of passover also to have
been at first merely a harvest festival is best shown by the signal
failure of the many attempts to explain on this theory the name
"passover" as applied to the sacrificial victim, and the exclusion of
leaven for the whole period. Admit the statements of the Pentateuch on
this subject, and all is simple. The feast was a most suitable
commemoration by Israel of the solemn circumstances under which they
began their national life: their exemption from the plague of the
death of the first-born, through the blood of a slain victim; and
their exodus thereafter in such haste that they stopped not to leaven
their bread.
And there was a deeper spiritual meaning than this. Whereas, secured
by the sprinkling of blood, they then fed in safety on the flesh of
the victim, by which they received strength for their flight from
Egypt, the same two thoughts were thereby naturally suggested which we
have seen represented in the peace-offering; namely, friendship and
fellowship with God secured through sacrifice, and life sustained by
His bounty. And the unleavened bread, also, had more than a historic
reference; else it had sufficed to eat it only on the anniversary
night, and it had not been commanded also to put away the leaven from
their houses. For leaven is the established symbol of moral
corruption; and in that, the passover lamb having been slain, Israel
must abstain for a full septenary period of a week from every use of
leaven, it was signified in symbol that the redeemed nation must not
live by means of what is evil, but be a holy people, according to
their calling. And the inseparable connection of this with full
consecration of person and service, and with the expiation of sin, was
daily symbolised (ver. 8) by the "offerings made by fire,"
burnt-offerings, meal-offerings, and sin-offerings, "offerings made by
fire unto the Lord."
On "the morrow after the Sabbath" (ver. 15) of this sacred week, it
was ordered (ver. 10) that "the sheaf of the firstfruits of the
(barley) harvest" should be brought "unto the priest;" and (ver. 11)
that he should consecrate it unto the Lord, by the ceremony of waving
it before Him. This wave-offering of the sheaf of firstfruits was to
be accompanied (vv. 12, 13) by a burnt-offering, a meal-offering, and
a drink-offering of wine. Until all this was done (ver. 14) they were
to "eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears" of the new
harvest. By the consecration of the firstfruit is ever signified the
consecration of the whole, of which it is the first part, unto the
Lord. By this act, Israel, at the very beginning of their harvest,
solemnly consecrated the whole harvest to the Lord; and are only
permitted to use it, when they receive it thus as a gift from Him.
This ethical reference to the harvest is here expressly taught; but
still more was thereby taught in symbol.
For Israel was declared (Exod. iv. 22) to be God's first-born; that
is, in the great redemptive plan of God, which looks forward to the
final salvation of all nations, Israel ever comes historically first.
"The Jew first, and also the Greek," is the New Testament formula of
this fundamental dispensational truth. The offering unto God,
therefore, of the sheaf of firstfruits, at the very beginning of the
harvest,--in fullest harmony with the historic reference of this feast,
which commemorated Israel's deliverance from bondage and separation
from the nations, as a firstfruits of redemption,--symbolically
signified the consecration of Israel unto God as the first-born unto
Him from the nations, the beginning of the world's great harvest.
But this is not all. For in these various ceremonies of this first of
the feasts, all who acknowledge the authority of the New Testament
will recognise a yet more profound, and prophetic, spiritual meaning.
Passover and unleavened bread not only looked backward, but forward.
For the Apostle Paul writes, addressing all believers (1 Cor. v. 7,
8): "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye
are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even
Christ: wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth;"--an exposition so plain that comment is
scarcely needed. And as following upon the passover, on the morrow
after the Sabbath, the first day of the week, the sheaf of firstfruits
was presented before Jehovah, so in type is brought before us that of
which the same Apostle tells us (1 Cor. xv. 20), that Christ, in that
He rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, became "the
firstfruits of them that are asleep;" thus, for the first time,
finally and exhaustively fulfilling this type, in full accord also
with His own representation of Himself (John xii. 24) as "a grain of
wheat," which should "fall into the earth and die," and then, living
again, "bear much fruit."
THE FEAST OF PENTECOST.
xxiii. 15-21.
"And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath,
from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering;
seven sabbaths shall there be complete: even unto the morrow
after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye
shall offer a new meal offering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out
of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth parts of an
ephah: they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baken with
leaven, for firstfruits unto the Lord. And ye shall present with
the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one
young bullock, and two rams: they shall be a burnt offering unto
the Lord, with their meal offering, and their drink offerings,
even an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.
And ye shall offer one he-goat for a sin offering, and two
he-lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings.
And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits
for a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs: they
shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And ye shall make
proclamation on the selfsame day; there shall be an holy
convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work: it is a
statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your
generations."
Next in order came the feast of firstfruits, or the feast of weeks,
which, because celebrated on the fiftieth day after the presentation
of the wave-sheaf in passover week, has come to be known as Pentecost,
from the Greek numeral signifying fifty. It was ordered that the
fiftieth day after this presentation of the first sheaf of the harvest
should be kept as a day of "holy convocation," with abstinence from
all "servile work." The former festival had marked the absolute
beginning of the harvest with the first sheaf of barley; this marked
the completion of the grain harvest with the reaping of the wheat. In
the former, the sheaf was presented as it came from the field; in this
case, the offering was of the grain as prepared for food. It was
ordered (ver. 16) that on this day "a new meal offering" should be
offered. It should be brought out of their habitations and be baken
with leaven. In both particulars, it was unlike the ordinary
meal-offerings, because the offering was to represent the ordinary
food of the people. Accompanied with a sevenfold burnt-offering, and a
sin-offering, and two lambs of peace-offerings, these were to be waved
before the Lord for their acceptance, after the manner of the
wave-sheaf (vv. 18-20). On the altar they could not come, because they
were baken with leaven.
This festival, as one of the sabbatic series, celebrated the rest
after the labours of the grain harvest, a symbol of the great
sabbatism to follow that harvest which is "the end of the age" (Matt.
xiii. 39). As a consecration, it dedicated unto God the daily food of
the nation for the coming year. As passover reminded them that God was
the Creator of Israel, so herein, receiving their daily bread from
Him, they were reminded that He was also the Sustainer of Israel;
while the full accompaniment of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings
expressed their full consecration and happy state of friendship with
Jehovah, secured through the expiation of the sin-offering.
Was this feast also, like passover, prophetic? The New Testament is
scarcely less clear than in the former case. For after that Christ,
first having been slain as "our Passover," had then risen from the
dead as the "Firstfruits," fulfilling the type of the wave-sheaf on
the morning of the Sabbath, fifty days passed; "and when the day of
Pentecost was fully come," came that great outpouring of the Holy
Ghost, the conversion of three thousand out of many lands (Acts ii.),
and therewith the formation of that Church of the New Testament whose
members the Apostle James declares (i. 18) to be "a kind of
firstfruits of God's creatures." Thus, as the sheaf had typified
Christ as "the Firstborn from the dead," the presentation on the day
of Pentecost of the two wave-loaves, the product of the sheaf of
grain, no less evidently typified the presentation unto God of the
Church of the first-born, the first-fruits of Christ's death and
resurrection, as constituted on that sacred day. This then was the
complete fulfilment of the feast of weeks regarded as a redemptive
type, showing how, not only rest, but also redemption was comprehended
in the significance of the sabbatic idea. And yet, that complete
redemption was not therewith attained by that Church of the first-born
on Pentecost was presignified in that the two wave-loaves were to be
baken with leaven. The feast of unleavened bread had exhibited the
ideal of the Christian life; that of firstfruits, the imperfection of
the earthly attainment. On earth the leaven of sin still abides.
THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS.
xxiii. 23-25.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the
month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial of blowing of
trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work: and
ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord."
By a very natural association of thought, in ver. 22 the direction to
leave the gleaning of the harvest for the poor and the stranger is
repeated verbally from chap. xix. 9, 10. Thereupon we pass from the
feast of the seventh week to the solemnities of the seventh month, in
which the series of annual sabbatic seasons ended. It was thus, by
eminence, the sabbatic season of the year. Of the "set times" of this
chapter, three fell in this month, and of these, two--the day of
atonement and tabernacles--were of supreme significance: the former
being distinguished by the most august religious solemnity of the
year, the entrance of the high priest into the Holy of Holies to make
atonement for the sins of the nation; the latter marking the
completion of the ingathering of the products of the year, with the
fruit, the oil, and the wine. Of this sabbatic month, it is directed
(vv. 23-25) that the first day be kept as a _shabbathon_, "a solemn
rest," marked by abstinence from all the ordinary business of life,
and a holy convocation. The special ceremony of the day, which gave it
its name, is described as a "memorial of blowing of trumpets." This
"blowing of trumpets" was a reminder, not from Israel to God, as some
have fancied, but from God to Israel. It was an announcement from the
King of Israel to His people that the glad sabbatic month had begun,
and that the great day of atonement, and the supreme festivity of the
feast of tabernacles, was now at hand.
That the first day of this sabbatic month should be thus sanctified
was but according to the Mosaic principle that the consecration of
anything signifies the consecration unto God of the whole. "If the
firstfruit is holy, so also the lump;" in like manner, if the first
day, so is the month. Trumpets--though not the same probably as used
on this occasion--were also blown on other occasions, and, in
particular, at the time of each new moon; but, according to
tradition, these only by the priests and at the central sanctuary;
while in this feast of trumpets every one blew who would, and
throughout the whole land.
THE DAY OF ATONEMENT.
xxiii. 26-32.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Howbeit on the tenth day
of this seventh month is the day of atonement: it shall be an
holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls; and
ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And ye
shall do no manner of work in that same day: for it is a day of
atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.
For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that
same day, he shall be cut off from his people. And whatsoever
soul it be that doeth any manner of work in that same day, that
soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner
of work: it is a statute for ever throughout your generations in
all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of solemn
rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the
month at even, from even unto even, shall ye keep your sabbath."
After this festival of annunciation, followed, on the tenth day of the
month, the great annual day of atonement. This has already come before
us (chap. xiii.) in its relation to the sacrificial system, of which
the sin-offering of this day was the culmination. But this chapter
brings it before us in another aspect, namely, in its relation to the
annual septenary series of sacred seasons, the final festival of which
it preceded and introduced.
Its significance, as thus coming in this final seventh and sabbatic
month of the ecclesiastical year, lay not merely in the strictness of
the rest which was commanded (vv. 28-30) from every manner of work,
but, still more, in that it expressed in a far higher degree than any
other festival the other sabbatic idea of complete restoration
brought in through expiation for sin. This was indeed the central
thought of the whole ceremonial of the day,--the complete removal of
all those sins of the nation which stood between them and God, and
hindered complete restoration to God's favour. And while this
restoration was symbolised by the sacrifice of the sin-offering, and
its presentation and acceptance before Jehovah in the Holy of Holies;
yet, that none might hence argue from the fact of atonement to license
to sin, it was ordained (ver. 27) that the people should "afflict
their souls," namely, by fasting,[42] in token of their penitence for
the sins for which atonement was made; and the absolute necessity of
this condition of repentance in order to any benefit from the
high-priestly sacrifice and intercession was further emphasised by the
solemn threat (ver. 29): "Whatsoever soul it be that shall not be
afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from his people."
[42] Compare Isa. lviii. 3-7, Zech. vii. 5, where the necessity
of the inward sorrow for sin and turning unto God, in connection
with this fast of the seventh month, is solemnly urged upon
Israel.
These then were the lessons--lessons of transcendent moment for all
people and all ages--which were set forth in the great atonement of
the sabbatic month,--the complete removal of sin by an expiatory
offering, conditioned on the part of the worshipper by the obedience
of faith and sincere repentance for the sin, and issuing in rest and
full establishment in God's loving favour.
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.
xxiii. 33-43.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is
the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. On the
first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile
work. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the
Lord: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you;
and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord: it is
a solemn assembly; ye shall do no servile work. These are the set
feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy
convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, a
burnt offering, and a meal offering, a sacrifice, and drink
offerings, each on its own day: beside the sabbaths of the Lord,
and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all
your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the Lord. Howbeit on
the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in
the fruits of the land, ye shall keep the feast of the Lord seven
days: on the first day shall be a solemn rest, and on the eighth
day shall be a solemn rest. And ye shall take you on the first
day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs
of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice
before the Lord your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast
unto the Lord seven days in the year: it is a statute for ever in
your generations: ye shall keep it in the seventh month. Ye shall
dwell in booths seven days; all that are homeborn in Israel shall
dwell in booths: that your generations may know that I made the
children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of
the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
The sin of Israel having been thus removed, the last and the greatest
of all the feasts followed--the feast of tabernacles or ingathering.
It occupied a full week (ver. 34), from the fifteenth to the
twenty-second of the month, the first day being signalised by a holy
convocation and abstinence from all servile work (ver. 35). Two
reasons are indicated, here and elsewhere, for the observance: the
one, natural (ver. 39), the completed ingathering of the products of
the year; the other, historical (vv. 42, 43),--it was to be a memorial
of the days when Israel dwelt in booths in the wilderness. Both ideas
were represented in the direction (ver. 40) that they should take on
the first day "the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and
boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook," fitly symbolising
the product of the vine and the fruit-trees which were harvested in
this month; and, making booths of these, all were to dwell in these
tabernacles, and "rejoice before the Lord their God seven days." And
to this the historical reason is added, "that your generations may
know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I
brought them out of the land of Egypt."
No one need feel any difficulty in seeing in this a connection with
similar harvest and vintage customs among other peoples of that time.
That other nations had festivities of this kind at that time, was
surely no reason why God should not order these to be taken up into
the Mosaic law, elevated in their significance, and sanctified to
higher ends. Nothing could be more fitting than that the completion of
the ingathering of the products of the year should be celebrated as a
time of rejoicing and a thanksgiving day before Jehovah. Indeed, so
natural is such a festivity to religious minds, that--as is well
known--in the first instance, New England, and then, afterward, the
whole United States, and also the Dominion of Canada, have established
the observance of an annual "Thanksgiving Day" in the latter part of
the autumn, which is observed by public religious services, by
suspension of public business, and as a glad day of reunion of kindred
and friends. It is interesting to observe how this last feature of the
day is also mentioned in the case of this Hebrew feast, in the later
form of the law (Deut. xvi. 13-15): "After that thou hast gathered in
from thy threshing-floor and from thy winepress ... thou shalt rejoice
in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant,
and thy maidservant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the
fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates, ... and thou
shalt be altogether joyful."
The chief sentiment of the feast was thus joy and thanksgiving to God
as the Giver of all good. Yet the joy was not to be merely natural and
earthly, but spiritual; they were to rejoice (ver. 40) "before the
Lord." And the thanksgiving was not to be expressed merely in words,
but in deeds. The week, we are elsewhere told, was signalised by the
largest burnt-offerings of any of the feasts, consisting of a total of
seventy bullocks, beginning with thirteen on the first day, and
diminishing by one each day; while these again were accompanied daily
by burnt-offerings of fourteen lambs and two rams, the double of what
was enjoined even for the week of unleavened bread, with
meal-offerings and drink-offerings in proportion. Nor was this outward
ritual expression of thanksgiving enough; for their gratitude was to
be further attested by taking into their glad festivities the Levite
who had no portion, the fatherless and the widow, and even the
stranger.
It is not hard to see the connection of all this with the historical
reference to the days of their wilderness journeyings. Lest they might
forget God in nature, they were to recall to mind, by their dwelling
in booths, the days when they had no houses, and no fields nor crops,
when, notwithstanding, none the less easily the Almighty God of Israel
fed them with manna which they knew not, that He might make them to
"know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that
proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. viii. 3). There is,
indeed, no better illustration of the intention of this part of the
feast than those words with their context as they occur in
Deuteronomy.
The ceremonies of the feast of tabernacles having been completed with
the appointed seven days, there followed an eighth day,--an holy
convocation, a festival of solemn rest (vv. 36, 39). This last day of
holy solemnity and joy, to which a special name is given, is properly
to be regarded, not as a part of the feast of tabernacles merely, but
as celebrating the termination of the whole series of sabbatic times
from the first to the seventh month. No ceremonial is here enjoined
except the holy convocation, and the offering of "an offering made by
fire unto the Lord," with abstinence from all servile work.
TYPICAL MEANING OF THE FEASTS OF THE SEVENTH MONTH.
We have already seen that the earlier feasts of the year were also
prophetic; that Passover and Unleavened Bread pointed forward to
Christ, our Passover, slain for us; Pentecost, to the spiritual
ingathering of the firstfruits of the world's harvest, fifty days
after the presentation of our Lord in resurrection, as the wave-sheaf
of the firstfruits. We may therefore safely infer that these remaining
feasts of the seventh month must be typical also. But, if so, typical
of what? Two things may be safely said in this matter. The
significance of the three festivals of this seventh month must be
interpreted in harmony with what has already passed into fulfilment;
and, in the second place, inasmuch as the feast of trumpets, the day
of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles all belong to the seventh
and last month of the ecclesiastical year, they must find their
fulfilment in connection with what Scripture calls "the last times."
Keeping the first point in view, we may then safely say that if
Pentecost typified the firstfruits of the world's harvest in the
ingathering of an election from all nations, the feast of tabernacles
must then typify the completion of that harvest in a spiritual
ingathering, final and universal. Not only so, but, inasmuch as in the
antitypical fulfilment of the wave-sheaf in the resurrection of our
Lord, we were reminded that the consummation of the new creation is in
resurrection from the dead, and that in regeneration is therefore
involved resurrection, hence the feast of tabernacles, as celebrating
the absolute completion of the year's harvest, must typify also the
resurrection season, when all that are Christ's shall rise from the
dead at His coming. And, finally, whereas this means for the now
burdened earth permanent deliverance from the curse, and the beginning
of a new age thus signalised by glorious life in resurrection, in
which are enjoyed the blessed fruits of life's labours and pains for
Christ, this was shadowed forth by the ordinance that immediately upon
the seven days of tabernacles should follow a feast of the eighth day,
the first day of a new week, in celebration of the beginning season of
rest from all the labours of the field.
Most beautifully, thus regarded, does all else connected with the
feast of tabernacles correspond, as type to antitype, to the
revelation of the last things, and therein reveal its truest and
deepest spiritual significance: the joy, the reunion, the rejoicing
with son and with daughter, the fulness of gladness also for the widow
and the fatherless; and this, not only for those in Israel, but also
for the stranger, not of Israel,--for Gentile as well as Israelite was
to have part in the festivity of that day; and, again, the full
attainment of the most complete consecration, signified in the
ten-fold burnt-offering;--all finds its place here. And so now we can
see why it was that our Saviour declared (Matt. xiii. 39) that the end
of this present age should be the time of harvest; and how Paul,
looking at the future spiritual ingathering, places the ingathering of
the Gentiles (Rom. xi. 25) as one of the last things. In full accord
with this interpretation of the typical significance of this feast it
is that in Zech. xiv. we find it written that in the predicted day of
the Lord, when (ver. 5) the Lord "shall come, and all the holy ones"
with Him, and (ver. 9) "the Lord shall be King over all the earth; ...
the Lord ... one, and His name one," then (ver. 16) "every one that is
left of all the nations ... shall go up from year to year to worship
the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles;"
and, moreover, that so completely shall consecration be realised in
that day that (ver. 20) even upon the bells of the horses shall the
words be inscribed, "HOLY UNTO THE LORD!"
But before the joyful feast of tabernacles could be celebrated, the
great, sorrowful day of atonement must be kept,--a season marked, on
the one hand, by affliction of soul throughout all Israel; on the
other, by the complete putting away of the sin of the nation for the
whole year, through the presentation of the blood of the sin-offering
by the high priest, within the veil before the mercy seat. Now, if the
feast of tabernacles has been correctly interpreted, as presignifying
in symbol the completion of the great world harvest in the end of the
age, does the prophetic word reveal anything in connection with the
last things as preceding that great harvest, and, in some sense,
preparing for and ushering in that day, which should be the antitype
of the great day of atonement?
One can hardly miss of the answer. For precisely that which the
prophets and apostles both represent as the event which shall usher in
that great day of final ingathering and of blessed resurrection rest
and joy in consummated redemption, is the national repentance of
Israel, and the final cleansing of their age-long sin. In the type,
two things are conspicuous: the great sorrowing of the nation and the
great atonement putting away all Israel's sin. And two things, in like
manner, are conspicuous in the prophetic pictures of the antitype,
namely, Israel's heart-broken repentance, and the removal thereupon of
Israel's sin; their cleansing in the "fountain opened for sin and for
uncleanness." As Zechariah puts it (xii. 10, xiii. 1), "I will pour
upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the
spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto me whom
they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for
his only son;" and "in that day there shall be a fountain opened to
the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and
for uncleanness." And the relation of this cleansing of Israel to the
days of blessing which follow is most explicitly set forth by the
Apostle Paul, in these words concerning Israel (Rom. xi. 12, 15), "If
their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of
the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? If the casting away of them
is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be,
but life from the dead?"
So far, then, all seems clear. But the feast of trumpets yet remains
to be explained. Has Holy Scripture predicted anything, falling in the
period between Pentecost and the repentance of Israel, but specially
belonging to the last things, which might with reason be regarded as
the antitype of this joyful feast of trumpets? Here, again, it is not
easy to go far astray. For the essential idea of the trumpet call is
announcement, proclamation. From time to time all through the year the
trumpet-call was heard in Israel; but on this occasion it became the
feature of the day, and was universal throughout their land. And, as
we have seen, its special significance for that time was to announce
that the day of atonement and the feast of ingathering, which typified
the full consummation of the kingdom of God, were now at hand. One can
thus hardly fail to think at once of that other event which, according
to our Lord's express word (Matt. xxiv. 14), is immediately to precede
"the end," namely, the universal proclamation of the Gospel: "This
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a
testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come." As
throughout the year, from time to time, the trumpet call was heard in
Israel, but only in connection with the central sanctuary; but now in
all the land, as the chief thing in the celebration of the day which
ushered in the final sabbatic month, precisely so in the antitype. All
through the ages has the Gospel been sounded forth, but in a partial
and limited way; but at "the time of the end" the proclamation shall
become universal. And thus and then shall the feast of trumpets also,
like Passover and Pentecost, pass into complete fulfilment, and be
swiftly followed by Israel's repentance and restoration, and the
consequent reappearing, as Peter predicts (Acts iii. 19-21 R.V.), of
Israel's High Priest from within the veil, and thereupon the harvest
of the world, the resurrection of the just, and the consummation upon
earth of the glorified kingdom of God.
Of many thoughts of a practical kind which this chapter suggests, we
may perhaps well dwell especially on one. The ideal of religious life,
which these set times of the Lord kept before Israel, was a religion
of joy. Again and again is this spoken of in the accounts of these
feasts. This is true even of Passover, with which we oftener, though
mistakenly, connect thoughts of sadness and gloom. Yet Passover was a
feast of joy; it celebrated the birthday of the nation, and a
deliverance unparalleled in history. The only exception to this joyful
character in all these sacred times is found in the day of atonement;
but it is itself instructive on the same point, teaching most clearly
that in the Divine order, as in the necessity of the case, the joy in
the Lord, of which the feast of ingathering was the supreme
expression, must be preceded by and grounded in an accepted expiation
and true penitence for sin.
So it is still with the religion of the Bible: it is a religion of
joy. God does not wish us to be gloomy and sad. He desires that we
should ever be joyful before Him, and thus find by blessed experience
that "the joy of the Lord is our strength." Also, in particular, we do
well to observe further that, inasmuch as all these set times were
sabbatic seasons, joyfulness is inseparably connected with the
Biblical conception of the Sabbath. This has been too often forgotten;
and the weekly day of sabbatic rest has sometimes been made a day of
stern repression and forbidding gloom. How utterly astray are such
conceptions from the Divine ideal, we shall perhaps the more clearly
see when we call to mind the thought which appears more or less
distinctly in all these sabbatic seasons, that every Sabbath points
forward to the eternal joy of the consummated kingdom, the sabbath
rest which remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9).
CHAPTER XXV.
_THE HOLY LIGHT AND THE SHEW-BREAD: THE BLASPHEMER'S END._
LEV. xxiv. 1-23.
It is not easy to determine with confidence the association of thought
which occasioned the interposition of this chapter, with its somewhat
disconnected contents, between chap. xxiii., on the set times of holy
convocation, and chap. xxv., on the sabbatic and jubilee years, which
latter would seem most naturally to have followed the former
immediately, as relating to the same subject of sacred times. Perhaps
the best explanation of the connection with the previous chapter is
that which finds it in the reference to the olive oil for the lamps
and the meal for the shew-bread. The feast of tabernacles, directions
for which had just been given, celebrated the completed ingathering of
the harvest of the year, both of grain and of fruit; and here Israel
is told what is to be done with a certain portion of each.
THE ORDERING OF THE LIGHT IN THE HOLY PLACE.
xxiv. 1-4.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of
Israel, that they bring unto thee pure olive oil beaten for the
light, to cause a lamp to burn continually. Without the veil of
the testimony, in the tent of meeting, shall Aaron order it from
evening to morning before the Lord continually: it shall be a
statute for ever throughout your generations. He shall order the
lamps upon the pure candlestick before the Lord continually."
First (vv. 1-4) is given the direction for the ordering of the daily
light, which was to burn from evening until morning in the holy place
continually. The people themselves are to furnish the oil for the
seven-branched candlestick out of the product of their olive yards.
The oil is to be "pure," carefully cleansed from leaves and all
impurities; and "beaten," that is, not extracted by heat and pressure,
as are inferior grades, but simply by beating and macerating the
olives with water,--a process which gives the very best. The point in
these specifications is evidently this, that for this, as always, they
are to give to God's service the very best,--an eternal principle
which rules in all acceptable service to God. The oil is to come from
the people in general, so that the illuminating of the Holy Place,
although specially tended by the high priest, is yet constituted a
service in which all the children of Israel have some part. The oil
was to be used to supply the seven lamps upon the golden candlestick
which was placed on the south side of the Holy Place, without the veil
of the testimony, in the tent of meeting. This Aaron was to "order
from evening to morning before the Lord continually." According to
Exod. xxv. 31-40, this candlestick--or, more properly, lampstand--was
made of a single shaft, with three branches on either side, each with
a cup at the end like an almond blossom; so that, with that on the top
of the central shaft, it was a stand of seven lamps, in a conventional
imitation of an almond tree.
The significance of the symbol is brought clearly before us in Zech.
iv. 1-14, where the seven-branched candlestick symbolises Israel as
the congregation of God, the giver of the light of life to the world.
And yet a lamp can burn only as it is supplied with oil and trimmed
and cared for. And so in the symbol of Zechariah the prophet sees the
golden candlestick supplied with oil conveyed through two golden pipes
into which flowed the golden oil, mysteriously self-distilled from two
olive trees on either side the candlestick. And the explanation given
is this: "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit," saith the
Lord. Thus we learn that the golden seven-branched lampstand denotes
Israel, more precious than gold in God's sight, appointed of Him to be
the giver of light to the world. And yet by this requisition of oil
for the golden candlestick the nation was reminded that their power to
give light was dependent upon the supply of the heavenly grace of
God's Spirit, and the continual ministrations of the priest in the
Holy Place. And how this ordering of the light might be a symbolic act
of worship, we can at once see, when we recall the word of Jesus
(Matt. v. 14, 16): "Ye are the light of the world.... Let your light
shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your
Father which is in heaven."
How pertinent for instruction still in all its deepest teaching is
this ordinance of the lamp continually burning in the presence of the
Lord, is vividly brought before us in the Apocalypse (i. 12, 13),
where we read that seven candlesticks appeared in vision to the
Apostle John; and Christ, in His glory, robed in high-priestly
vesture, was seen walking up and down, after the manner of Aaron, in
the midst of the seven candlesticks, in care and watch of the manner
of their burning. And as to the significance of this vision, the
Apostle was expressly told (ver. 20) that the seven candlesticks were
the seven Churches of Asia,--types of the collective Church in all the
centuries. Thus, as in the language of this Levitical symbol, we are
taught that in the highest sense it is the office of the Church to
give light in darkness; but that she can only do this as the heavenly
oil is supplied, and each lamp is cared for, by the high-priestly
ministrations of her risen Lord.
THE "BREAD OF THE PRESENCE."
xxiv. 5-9.
"And thou shall take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof:
two tenth parts of an ephah shall be in one cake. And thou shalt
set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before
the Lord. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row,
that it may be to the bread for a memorial, even an offering made
by fire unto the Lord. Every sabbath day he shall set it in order
before the Lord continually; it is on the behalf of the children
of Israel, an everlasting covenant. And it shall be for Aaron and
his sons; and they shall eat it in a holy place: for it is most
holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord made by fire by a
perpetual statute."
Next follows the ordinance for the preparation and presentation of the
"shew-bread," _lit._, "bread of the Face," or "Presence," _sc._ of
God. This was to consist of twelve cakes, each to be made of two tenth
parts of an ephah of fine flour, which was to be placed in two rows or
piles, "upon the pure table" of gold that stood before the Lord, in
the Holy Place, opposite to the golden candlestick. On each pile was
to be placed (ver. 7) "pure frankincense,"--doubtless, as tradition
says, placed in the golden spoons, or little cups (Exod. xxxvii. 16).
Every sabbath (vv. 8, 9) fresh bread was to be so placed, when the old
became the food of Aaron and his sons only, as belonging to the order
of things "most holy;" the frankincense which had been its "memorial"
having been first burned, "an offering made by fire unto the Lord"
(ver. 7). Tradition adds that the bread was always unleavened; a few
have called this in question, but this has been only on theoretic
grounds, and without evidence; and when we remember how stringent was
the prohibition of leaven even in any offerings made by fire upon the
altar of the outer court, much less is it likely that it could have
been tolerated here in the Holy Place immediately before the veil.
This bread of the Presence must be regarded as in its essential nature
a perpetual meal-offering,--the meal-offering of the Holy Place, as
the others were of the outer court.[43] The material was the same,
cakes of fine flour; to this frankincense must be added as a
"memorial," as in the meal-offerings of the outer court. Such part of
the offering as was not burned, as in the case of the others, was to
be eaten by the priests only, as a thing "most holy." It differed from
those in that there were always the twelve cakes, one for each tribe;
and in that while they were repeatedly offered, this lay before the
Lord continually. The altar of burnt-offering might sometimes be empty
of the meal-offering, but the table of shew-bread, "the table of the
Presence," never.
[43] See Kurtz, "Der Alttestamentliche Opfercultus," p. 271.
In general, therefore, the meaning of the offering of the shew-bread
must be the same as that of the meal-offerings; like them it
symbolised the consecration unto the Lord of the product of the labour
of the hands, and especially of the daily food as prepared for use.
But in this, by the twelve cakes for the twelve tribes it was
emphasised that God requires, not only such consecration of service
and acknowledgment of Him from individuals, as in the law of chap.
ii., but from the nation in its collective and organised capacity;
and that not merely on such occasions as pious impulse might direct,
but continuously.
In these days, when the tendency among us is to an extreme
individualism, and therewith to an ignoring or denial of any claim of
God upon nations and communities as such, it is of great need to
insist upon this thought thus symbolised. It was not enough in God's
sight that individual Israelites should now and then offer their
meal-offerings; the Lord required a meal-offering "on behalf of the
children of Israel" _as a whole_, and of each particular tribe of the
twelve, each in its corporate capacity. There is no reason to think
that in the Divine government the principle which took this symbolical
expression is obsolete. It is not enough that individuals among us
consecrate the fruit of their labours to the Lord. The Lord requires
such consecration of every nation collectively; and of each of the
subdivisions in that nation, such as cities, towns, states, provinces,
and so on. Yet where in the wide world can we see one such consecrated
nation? Can we find one such consecrated province or state, or even
such a city or town? Where then, from this biblical and spiritual
point of view, is the ground for the religious boasting of the
Christian progress of our day which one sometimes hears? Must we not
say, "It is excluded"?
Typically, the shew-bread, like the other meal-offerings with their
frankincense, must foreshadow the work of the Messiah in holy
consecration; and, in particular, as the One in whom the ideal of
Israel was perfectly realised, and who thus represented in His person
the whole Israel of God. But the bread of the Presence represents His
holy obedience in self-consecration, not merely, as in the other
meal-offerings, presented in the outer court, in the sight of men, as
in His earthly life; but here, rather, as continually presented before
the "Face of God," in the Holy Place, where Christ appears in the
presence of God for us. And in this symbolism, which has been already
justified, we may recognise the element of truth that there is in the
view held by Bähr,[44] apparently, as by others, that the shew-bread
typified Christ Himself regarded as the bread of life to His people.
Not indeed, precisely, that Christ Himself is brought before us here,
but rather His holy obedience, continually offered unto God in the
heavenly places, in behalf of the true Israel, and as sealing and
confirming the everlasting covenant;--this is what this symbol brings
before us. And it is as we by faith appropriate Him, as thus ever
presenting His holy life to God for us, that He becomes for us the
Bread of Life.
[44] "Symbolik des Mosäischen Cultus," erster Band, pp. 428-432.
THE PENALTY OF BLASPHEMY.
xxiv. 10-23.
"And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an
Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and the son of
the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the
camp; and the son of the Israelitish woman blasphemed the Name,
and cursed: and they brought him unto Moses. And his mother's
name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.
And they put him in ward, that it might be declared unto them at
the mouth of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all
that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the
congregation stone him. And thou shalt speak unto the children of
Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin. And
he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put
to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well
the stranger, as the homeborn, when he blasphemeth the name of
the Lord, shall be put to death. And he that smiteth any man
mortally shall surely be put to death; and he that smiteth a
beast mortally shall make it good: life for life. And if a man
cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be
done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as
he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be rendered unto
him. And he that killeth a beast shall make it good: and he that
killeth a man shall be put to death. Ye shall have one manner of
law, as well for the stranger, as for the homeborn: for I am the
Lord your God. And Moses spake to the children of Israel, and
they brought forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and
stoned him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the
Lord commanded Moses."
The connection of this section with the preceding context is now
impossible to determine. Very possibly its insertion here may be due
to the occurrence here described having taken place at the time of the
delivery of the preceding laws concerning the oil for the golden
lampstand and the shew-bread. However, the purport and intention of
the narrative is very plain, namely, to record the law delivered by
the Lord for the punishment of blasphemy; and therewith also His
command that the penalty of broken law, both in this case and in
others specified, should be exacted both from native Israelites and
from foreigners alike.
The incident which was the occasion of the promulgation of these laws
was as follows. The son of an Israelitish woman by an Egyptian husband
fell into a quarrel in the camp. As often happens in such cases, the
one sin led on to another and yet graver sin; the half-caste man
"blasphemed the Name, and cursed;" whereupon he was arrested and put
into confinement until the will of the Lord might be ascertained in
his case. "The Name" is of course the name of God; the meaning is that
he used the holy name profanely in cursing. The passage, together with
ver. 16, is of special and curious as upon these two the Jews have
based their well-known belief that it is unlawful to utter the Name
which we commonly vocalise as Jehovah; whence it has followed that
wherever in the Hebrew text the Name occurs it is written with the
vowels of _Adonáy_, "Lord," to indicate to the reader that this word
was to be substituted for the proper name,--a usage which is
represented in the Septuagint by the appearance of the Greek word
_Kurios_, "Lord," in all places where the Hebrew has Jehovah (or
Yáhveh); and which, in both the authorised and revised versions, is
still maintained in the retention of "Lord" in all such cases,--a
relic of Jewish superstition which one could greatly wish that the
Revisers had banished from the English version, especially as in many
passages it totally obscures to the English reader the exact sense of
the text, wherever it turns upon the choice of this name. It is indeed
true that the word rendered "blaspheme" has the meaning "to
pronounce," as the Targumists and other Hebrew writers render it; but
that it also means simply to "revile," and in many places cannot
possibly be rendered "to pronounce," is perforce admitted even by
Jewish scholars.[45] To give it the other meaning here were so plainly
foreign to the spirit of the Old Testament, debasing reverence to
superstition, that no argument against it will be required with any
but a Jew.
[45] See, _e.g._, Rabbi Dr. J. Levy, "Chaldäisches Wörterbuch,"
zweiter Band, pp. 301, 302; and compare Numb. xxiii. 8, Prov.
xi. 26, xxiv. 24, where the same Hebrew word is used.
And this young man, in the heat of his passion, "reviled the Name."
The words "of the Lord" are not in the Hebrew; the name "Jehovah" is
thus brought before us expressively as THE NAME, _par excellence_, of
God, as revealing Himself in covenant for man's redemption.[46]
Horrified at the man's wickedness, "they brought him unto Moses;" and
"they put him in ward" (ver. 12), "that it might be declared unto them
at the mouth of the Lord" what should be done unto him. This was
necessary because the case involved two points upon which no
revelation had been made: first, as to what should be the punishment
of blasphemy; and secondly, whether the law in such cases applied to a
foreigner as well as to the native Israelite. The answer of God
decided these points. As to the first (ver. 15), "Whosoever curseth
his God shall bear his sin," _i.e._, he shall be held subject to
punishment; and (ver. 16), "He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord,
he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly
stone him." And as to the second point, it is added, "as well the
stranger, as the homeborn, when he blasphemeth the Name, shall be put
to death."
[46] _Cf._ the expression used with reference to Jesus Christ,
Phil. ii. 9 (R.V.), "the name which is above every name."
Then follows (vv. 17-21) a declaration of penalties for murder, for
killing a neighbour's beast, and for inflicting a bodily injury on
one's neighbour. These were to be settled on the principle of the _lex
talionis_, life for life, "breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth;" in the case of the beast killed, its value was to be made good
to the owner. All these laws had been previously given (Exod. xxi. 12,
23-36); but are repeated here plainly for the purpose of expressly
ordering that these laws, like that now declared for blasphemy, were
to be applied alike to the home-born and the stranger (ver. 22).
Much cavil have these laws occasioned, the more so that Christ Himself
is cited as having condemned them in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v.
38-42). But how little difficulty really exists here will appear from
the following considerations. The Jews from of old have maintained
that the law of "an eye for eye," as here given, was not intended to
authorise private and irresponsible retaliation in kind, but only
after due trial and by legal process. Moreover, even in such cases,
they have justly remarked that the law here given was not meant to be
applied always with the most exact literality; but that it was
evidently intended to permit the commutation of the penalty by such a
fine as the judges might determine. They justly argue from the
explicit prohibition of the acceptance of any such satisfaction in
commutation in the case of a murderer (Numb. xxxv. 31, 32) that this
implies the permission of it in the instances here mentioned;--a
conclusion the more necessary when it is observed that the literal
application of the law in all cases would often result in defeating
the very ends of exact justice which it was evidently intended to
secure. For instance, the loss by a one-eyed man of his only eye,
under such an interpretation, would be much more than an equivalent
for the loss of an eye which he had inflicted upon a neighbour who had
both eyes. Hence, Jewish history contains no record of the literal
application of the law in such cases; the principle is applied as
often among ourselves, in the exaction from an offender of a pecuniary
satisfaction proportioned to the degree of the disability he has
inflicted upon his neighbour. Finally, as regards the words of our
Saviour, that He did not intend His words to be taken in their utmost
stretch of literality in all cases, is plain from His own conduct when
smitten by the order of the high priest (John xviii. 23), and from the
statement that the magistrate is endowed with the sword, as a servant
of God, to be a terror to evil-doers (Rom. xiii. 4); from which it is
plain that Christ did not mean to prohibit the resort to judicial
process under all circumstances, but rather the spirit of retaliation
and litigation which sought to justify itself by a perverse appeal to
this law of "an eye for eye;"--a law which, in point of fact, was
given, as Augustine has truly observed, not "as an incitement to, but
for the mitigation of wrath."
The narrative then ends with the statement (ver. 23) that Moses
delivered this law to the children of Israel, who then, according to
the commandment of the Lord, took the blasphemer out of the camp, when
all that heard him blaspheme laid their hands upon his head, in token
that they thus devolved on him the responsibility for his own death;
and then the congregation stoned the criminal with stones that he died
(ver. 23).
The chief lesson to be learned from this incident and from the law
here given is very plain. It is the high criminality in God's sight of
all irreverent use of His holy name. To a great extent in earlier days
this was recognised by Christian governments; and in the Middle Ages
the penalty of blasphemy in many states of Christendom, as in the
Mosaic code and in many others, although not death, was yet
exceedingly severe. The present century, however, has seen a great
relaxation of law, and still more of public sentiment, in regard to
this crime,--a change which, from a Christian point of view, is a
matter for anything but gratulation. Reverence for God lies at the
very foundation of even common morality. Our modern atheism and
agnosticism may indeed deny this, and yet, from the days of the French
Revolution to the present, modern history has been presenting, in one
land and another, illustrations of the fact which are pregnant with
most solemn warning. And while no one could wish that the crime of
blasphemy should be punished with torture and cruelty, as in some
instances in the Middle Ages, yet the more deeply one thinks on this
subject in the light of the Scripture and of history, the more, if we
mistake not, will it appear that it might be far better for us, and
might argue a far more hopeful and wholesome condition of the public
sentiment than that which now exists, if still, as in Mosaic days and
sometimes in the Middle Ages, death were made the punishment for this
crime;--a crime which not only argues the extreme of depravity in the
criminal, but which, if overlooked by the State, or expiated with any
light penalty, cannot but operate most fatally by breaking down in the
public conscience that profound reverence toward God which is the most
essential condition of the maintenance of all private and public
morality.
In this point of view, not to speak of other considerations, it is not
surprising that the theocratic law here provides that blasphemy shall
be punished with death in the case of the foreigner as well as the
native Israelite. This sin, like those of murder and violence with
which it is here conjoined, is of such a kind that to every conscience
which is not hopelessly hardened, its wickedness must be manifest even
from the very light of nature. Nature itself is sufficient to teach
any one that abuse and calumny of the Supreme God, the Maker and Ruler
of the world,--a Being who, if He exist at all, must be infinitely
good,--must be a sin involving quite peculiar and exceptional guilt.
Hence, absolute equity, no less than governmental wisdom, demanded
that the law regarding blasphemy, as that with respect to the other
crimes here mentioned, should be impartially enforced upon both the
native Israelite and the foreigner.
CHAPTER XXVI.
_THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE._
LEV. xxv. 1-55.
The system of annually recurring sabbatic times, as given in chap.
xxiii., culminated in the sabbatic seventh month. But this remarkable
system of sabbatisms extended still further, and, besides the sacred
seventh day, the seventh week, and seventh month, included also a
sabbatic seventh year; and beyond that, as the ultimate expression of
the sabbatic idea, following the seventh seven of years, came the
hallowed fiftieth year, known as the jubilee. And the law concerning
these two last-named periods is recorded in this twenty-fifth chapter
of Leviticus.
First (vv. 1-5), is given the ordinance of the sabbatic seventh year,
in the following words: "When ye come into the land which I give you,
then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt
sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather
in the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of
solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the Lord: thou shalt neither
sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of itself of
thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine
thou shalt not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the
land."
This sacred year is thus here described as a sabbath for the land unto
the Lord,--a _shabbath shabbathon_; that is, a sabbath in a special
and eminent sense. No public religious gatherings were ordered,
however, neither was labour of every kind prohibited. It was strictly
a year of rest for the land, and for the people in so far as this was
involved in that fact. There was to be no sowing or reaping, even of
what might grow of itself; no pruning of vineyard or fruit trees, nor
gathering of their fruit. These regulations thus involved the total
suspension of agricultural labour for this entire period.
It was further ordered (vv. 6, 7) that during this year the
spontaneous produce of the land should be equally free to all, both
man and beast: "The sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for
thee, and for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant
and for thy stranger that sojourn with thee; and for thy cattle, and
for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be
for food."
That this cannot be regarded as merely a regulation of a communistic
character, designed simply to affirm the absolute equality of all men
in right to the product of the soil, is evident from the fact that the
beasts also are included in the terms of the law. The object was quite
different, as we shall shortly see.
That it should be regarded as possible for a whole people thus to live
off the spontaneous produce of self-sowed grain may seem incredible to
us who dwell in less propitious lands; and yet travellers tell us that
in the Palestine of to-day, with its rich soil and kindly climate, the
various food grains continuously propagate themselves without
cultivation; and that in Albania, also, two and three successive
harvests are sometimes reaped as the result of one sowing. So, even
apart from the special blessing from the Lord promised to them if they
would obey this command, the supply of at least the necessities of
life was possible from the spontaneous product of the sabbath of the
land. Though less than usual, it might easily be sufficient. In Deut.
xv. 1-11 it is ordered also that the seventh year should be "a year of
release" to the debtor; not indeed as regards all debts, but loans
only; nor, apparently, that even these should be released absolutely,
but that throughout the seventh year the claim of the creditor was to
be in abeyance. The regulation may naturally be regarded as consequent
upon this fundamental law regarding the sabbath of the land. The
income of the year being much less than usual, the debtor, presumably,
might often find it difficult to pay; whence this restriction on
collection of debt during this period.
The central thought of this ordinance then is this, that man's right
in the soil and its product, originally granted from God, during this
sabbatic year reverted to the Giver; who, again, by ordering that all
exclusive rights of individuals in the produce of their estates should
be suspended for this year, placed, for so long, the rich and the poor
on an absolute equality as regards means of sustenance.
THE JUBILEE.
xxv. 8-12.
"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven
times seven years; and there shall be unto thee the days of seven
sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. Then shalt thou
send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh
month; in the day of atonement shall ye send abroad the trumpet
throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year,
and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return
every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto
his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye
shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it,
nor gather the grapes in it of the undressed vines. For it is a
jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase
thereof out of the field."
The remainder of this chapter, vv. 8-55, is occupied with this
ordinance of the jubilee year; an observance absolutely without a
parallel in any nation, and which has to do with the solution of some
of the most difficult social problems, not only of that time, but also
of our own. Seven weeks of years, each terminating with the sabbatic
year of solemn rest for the land, were to be numbered, _i.e._,
forty-nine full years, of which the last was a sabbatic year,
beginning, as always, with the feast of atonement in the tenth day of
the seventh month. And then when, at its expiration, the day of
atonement came round again, at the beginning of the fiftieth year of
this reckoning, at the close, as would appear, of the solemn expiatory
ritual of the day, throughout all the land of Israel the loud trumpet
was to be sounded, proclaiming "liberty throughout the land unto all
the inhabitants thereof." The ordinance is given in vv. 8-12 above.
It appears that the liberty thus proclaimed was threefold: (1) liberty
to the man who, through the reverses of life, had become dispossessed
from his family inheritance in the land, to return to it again; (2)
liberty to every Hebrew slave, so that in the jubilee he became a free
man again; (3) the liberty of release from toil in the cultivation of
the land,--a feature, in this case, even more remarkable than in the
sabbatic year, because already one such sabbatic year had but just
closed when the jubilee year immediately succeeded.
Why this year should be called a jubilee (Heb. _yobel_) is a vexed
question, on which scholars are far from unanimous; but as it is of no
practical importance, there is no need to enter on the discussion
here. To suppose that these enactments should have originated, as the
radical critics claim, in post-exilian days, when, under the existing
social and political conditions, their observance was impossible, is
utterly absurd.[47] Not only so, but in view of the admitted neglect
even of the sabbatic year,--an ordinance certainly less difficult to
carry out in practice,--during four hundred and ninety years of
Israel's history, the supposition that the law of the jubilee should
have been first promulgated at any earlier post-Mosaic period is
scarcely less incredible.
[47] Thus Dillmann writes: "That the law (of the jubilee) in its
principal features was already issued by Moses does not admit of
demonstration to him who wills not to believe it; but that it
cannot have been in the first instance the invention of a
post-exilian scribe is certain. Only in the simpler communal
relations of the more ancient time could a law of such an ideal
character have seemed practicable; after the exile, all the
presuppositions involved in its promulgation are wanting" ("Die
Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 608).
THE JUBILEE AND THE LAND.
xxv. 13-28.
"In this year of jubilee ye shall return every man unto his
possession. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buy of
thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not wrong one another: according
to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy
neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the crops he
shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of the years
thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the
fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for the
number of the crops doth he sell unto thee. And ye shall not
wrong one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord
your God. Wherefore ye shall do My statutes, and keep My
judgments and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.
And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill,
and dwell therein in safety. And if ye shall say, What shall we
eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our
increase: then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth
year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years. And ye
shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits, the old store;
until the ninth year, until her fruits come in, ye shall eat the
old store. And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the
land is Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in
all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for
the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his
possession, then shall his kinsman that is next unto him come,
and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold. And if a man
have no one to redeem it, and he be waxen rich and find
sufficient to redeem it; then let him count the years of the sale
thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold
it; and he shall return unto his possession. But if he be not
able to get it back for himself, then that which he hath sold
shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the
year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall
return unto his possession."
The remainder of the chapter (vv. 13-55) deals with the practical
application of this law of the jubilee to various cases. In vv. 13-28
we have the application of the law to the case of property in _land_;
in vv. 29-34, to sales of _dwelling houses_; and the remaining verses
(35-55) deal with the application of this law to the institution of
_slavery_.
As regards the first matter, the transfers of right in land, these in
all cases were to be governed by the fundamental principle enounced in
ver. 23: "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is
Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me."
Thus in the theocracy there was no such thing as either private or
communal ownership in land. Just as in some lands to-day the only
owner of the land is the king, so it was in Israel; but in this case
the King was Jehovah. From this it follows, evidently, that properly
speaking, according to this law, there could be no such thing in
Israel as a sale or purchase of land. All that any man could buy or
sell was the right to its products, and that, again, only for a
limited time; for every fiftieth year the land was to revert to the
family to whom its use had been originally assigned. Hence the
regulations (vv. 14-19) regarding such transfers of the right to the
use of the land. They are all governed by the simple and equitable
principle that the price paid for the usufruct of the land was to be
exactly proportioned to the number of years which were to elapse
between the date of the sale and the reversion of the land, which
would take place in the jubilee. Thus, the price for such transfer of
right in the first year of the jubilee period would be at its maximum,
because the sale covered the right to the produce of the land for
forty-nine years; while, on the other hand, in the case of a transfer
made in the forty-eighth year, the price would have fallen to a very
small amount, as only the product of one year's cultivation remained
to be sold, and after the ensuing sabbatic year the land would revert
in the jubilee to the original holder. The command to keep in mind
this principle, and not wrong one another, is enforced (vv. 17-19) by
the injunction to do this because of the fear of God; and by the
promise that if Israel will obey this law, they shall dwell in safety,
and have abundance.
In vv. 24-28, after the declaration of the fundamental law that the
land belongs only to the Lord, and that they are to regard themselves
as simply His tenants, "sojourners with Him," a second application of
the law is made. First, it is ordered that in every case, and without
reference to the year of jubilee, every landholder who through stress
of poverty may be obliged to sell the usufruct of his land shall
retain the right to redeem it. Three cases are assumed. First (ver.
25), it is ordered that if the poor man have lost his land, and have a
kinsman who is able to redeem it, he shall do so. Secondly (ver. 26),
if he have no such kinsman, but himself become able to redeem it, it
shall be his privilege to do so. In both cases alike, "the overplus,"
_i.e._, the value of the land for the years still remaining till the
jubilee, for which the purchaser had paid, is to be restored to him,
and then the land reverts at once, without waiting for the jubilee, to
the original proprietor. The third case (ver. 28) is that of the poor
man who has no kinsman to buy back his landholding, and never becomes
able to do so himself. In such a case, the purchaser was to hold it
until the jubilee year, when the land reverted without compensation to
the family of the poor man who had transferred it. That this was
strictly equitable is self-evident, when we remember that, according
to the law previously laid down, the purchaser had only paid for the
value of the product of the land until the jubilee year; and when he
had received its produce for that time, naturally and in strict equity
his right in the land terminated.
THE JUBILEE AND DWELLING HOUSES.
xxv. 29-34.
"And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may
redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year
shall he have the right of redemption. And if it be not redeemed
within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the
walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him that bought
it, throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the
jubilee. But the houses of the villages which have no wall round
about them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country: they
may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee.
Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities
of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. And if
one of the Levites redeem [not], then the house that was sold,
and the city of his possession, shall go out in the jubilee: for
the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession
among the children of Israel. But the field of the suburbs of
their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual
possession."
In vv. 29-34 is considered the application of the jubilee ordinance to
the sale of dwelling houses: first (vv. 29-31), to such sale in case
of the people generally; secondly (vv. 32-34), to sales of houses by
the Levites. Under the former head we have first the law as regards
sales of dwelling houses in "walled cities;" to which it is ordered
that the law of reversion in the jubilee shall not apply, and for
which the right of redemption was only to hold valid for one year. The
obvious reason for exempting houses in cities from the law of
reversion is that the law has to do only with land such as may be used
in a pastoral or agricultural way for man's support. And this explains
why, on the other hand, it is next ordered (ver. 31) that in the case
of houses in unwalled villages the law of redemption and reversion in
the jubilee shall apply as well as to the land. For the inhabitants of
the villages were the herdsmen and cultivators of the soil; and the
house was regarded rightly as a necessary attachment to the land,
without which its use would not be possible. But inasmuch as God had
assigned no landholding to the Levites in the original distribution of
the land,--and apart from their houses they had no possession (ver.
33),--in order to secure them in the privilege of a permanent holding,
such as others enjoyed in their lands, it was ordered that in their
case their houses, as being their only possession in real estate,
should be treated as were the landholdings of members of the other
tribes.[48]
[48] The interpretation of ver. 33 presents a difficulty which,
if the rendering retained in the text by the Revisers be
accepted, is hard to resolve. But if we assume that a negative
has fallen out of the first clause in the received text, and
read with the Vulgate, as given in the margin of the Revised
Version, "if one of the Levites redeem _not_," all becomes
clear. In the exposition we have ventured to assume in this
instance the correctness of the Vulgate.
The relation of the jubilee law to personal rights in the land having
been thus determined and expounded, in the next place (vv. 35-55) is
considered the application of the law to slavery. Quite naturally,
this section begins (vv. 35-37) with a general injunction to assist
and deal mercifully with any brother who has become poor. "If thy
brother be waxen poor, and his hand fail with thee; then thou shalt
uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee.
Take thou no usury of him or increase; but fear thy God: that thy
brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon
usury, nor give him thy victuals for increase."
The evident object of this law is to prevent, as far as possible, that
extreme of poverty which might compel a man to sell himself in order
to live. Debt is a burden in any case, to a poor man especially; but
debt is the heavier burden when to the original debt is added the
constant payment of interest. Hence, not merely "usury" in the modern
sense of _excessive_ interest, but it is forbidden to claim or take
any interest whatever from any Hebrew debtor. On the same principle,
it is forbidden to take increase for food which may be lent to a poor
brother; as when one lets a man have twenty bushels of wheat on
condition that in due time he shall return for it twenty-two. This
command is enforced (ver. 38) by reminding them from whom they have
received what they have, and on what easy terms, as a gift; from their
covenant God, who is Himself their security that by so doing they
shall not lose: "I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out
of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God."
They need not therefore have recourse to the exaction of interest and
increase from their poor brethren in order to make a living, but are
to be merciful, even as Jehovah their God is merciful.
THE JUBILEE AND SLAVERY.
xxv. 39-55.
"And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself
unto thee; thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as
an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; he
shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go
out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return
unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall
he return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of
the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt
not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. And as for
thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have; of the
nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen
and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families
that are with you, which they have begotten in your land: and
they shall be your possession. And ye shall make them an
inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a
possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen for ever: but over
your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one over
another, with rigour. And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be
waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell
himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock
of the stranger's family: after that he is sold he may be
redeemed; one of his brethren may redeem him: or his uncle, or
his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto
him of his family may redeem him; or if he be waxen rich, he may
redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from
the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee:
and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of
years; according to the time of an hired servant shall he be with
him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall
give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he
was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year
of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his
years shall he give back the price of his redemption. As a
servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he shall not
rule with rigour over him in thy sight. And if he be not redeemed
by these means, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he,
and his children with him. For unto Me the children of Israel are
servants; they are My servants whom I brought forth out of the
land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
Even with the burdensomeness of debt lightened as above, it was yet
possible that a man might be reduced to poverty so extreme that he
should feel compelled to sell himself as a slave. Hence arises the
question of slavery, and its relation to the law of the jubilee. Under
this head two cases were possible: the first, where a man had sold
himself to a fellow-Hebrew (vv. 39-46); the second, where a man had
sold himself to a foreigner resident in the land (vv. 47-55).
With the Hebrews and all the neighbouring peoples, slavery was, and
had been from of old, a settled institution. Regarded simply as an
abstract question of morals, it might seem as if the Lord might once
for all have abolished it by an absolute prohibition; after the manner
in which many modern reformers would deal with such evils as the
liquor traffic, etc. But the Lord was wiser than many such. As has
been remarked already, in connection with the question of concubinage,
that law is not in every case the best which may be the best
intrinsically and ideally. That law is the best which can be best
enforced in the actual moral status of the people, and consequent
condition of public opinion. So the Lord did not at once prohibit
slavery; but He ordained laws which would restrict it, and modify and
ameliorate the condition of the slave wherever slavery was permitted
to exist; laws, moreover, which have had such an educational power as
to have banished slavery from the Hebrew people.
In the first place, slavery, in the unqualified sense of the word, is
allowed only in the case of non-Israelites. That it was permitted to
hold these as bondmen is explicitly declared (vv. 44-46). It is,
however, important, in order to form a correct idea of Hebrew slavery,
to observe that, according to Exod. xxi. 16, man-stealing was made a
capital offence; and the law also carefully guarded from violence and
tyranny on the part of the master the non-Israelite slave lawfully
gotten, even decreeing his emancipation from his master in extreme
cases of this kind (Exod. xxi. 20, 21, 26, 27).
With regard to the Hebrew bondman, the law recognises no property of
the master in his person; that a servant of Jehovah should be a slave
of another servant of Jehovah is denied; because they are His
servants, no other can own them (vv. 42, 55). Thus, while the case is
supposed (ver. 39) that a man through stress of poverty may sell
himself to a fellow-Hebrew as a bondservant, the sale is held as
affecting only the master's right to his service, but not to his
person. "Thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as an
hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee."
Further, it is elsewhere provided (Exod. xxi. 2) that in no case shall
such sale hold valid for a longer time than six years; in the seventh
year the man was to have the privilege of going out free for nothing.
And in this chapter is added a further alleviation of the bondage (vv.
40, 41): "He shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then
shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall
return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers
shall he return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out
of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen."
That is, if it so happened that before the six years of his prescribed
service had been completed the jubilee year came in, he was to be
exempted from the obligation to service for the remainder of that
period.
The remaining verses of this part of the law (vv. 44-46) provide that
the Israelite may take to himself bondmen of "the children of the
strangers" that sojourn among them; and that to such the law of the
periodic release shall not be held to apply. Such are "bondmen for
ever." "Ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you,
to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen for
ever."
It is to be borne in mind that even in such cases the law which
commanded the kind treatment of all the strangers in the land (xix.
33, 34) would apply; so that even where permanent slavery was allowed
it was placed under humanising restriction.
In vv. 47-55 is taken up, finally, the case where a poor Israelite
should have sold himself as a slave to a foreigner resident in the
land. In all such cases it is ordered that the owner of the man must
recognise the right of redemption. That is, it was the privilege of
the man himself, or of any of his near kindred, to buy him out of
bondage. Compensation to the owner however, enjoined in such cases
according to the number of the years remaining to the next jubilee, at
which time he would be obliged to release him (ver. 54), whether
redeemed or not. Thus we read (vv. 50-52): "He shall reckon with him
that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the
year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the
number of years; according to the time of an hired servant shall he be
with him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall
give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was
bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of
jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his years shall
he give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by
year shall he be with him."
Furthermore, it is commanded (ver. 53) that the owner of the
Israelite, for so long time as he may remain in bondage, shall "not
rule over him with rigour;" and by the addition of the words "in thy
sight" it is intimated that God would hold the collective nation
responsible for seeing that no oppression was exercised by any alien
over any of their enslaved brethren. To which it should also be added,
finally, that the regulations for the release of the slave carefully
provided for the maintenance of the family relation. Families were not
to be parted in the emancipation of the jubilee; the man who went out
free was to take his children with him (vv. 41, 54). In the case,
however, where the wife had been given him by his master, she and her
children remained in bondage after his emancipation in the seventh
year; but of course only until she had reached her seventh year of
service. But if the slave already had his wife when he became a slave,
then she and their children went out with him in the seventh year
(Exod. xxi. 3, 4). The contrast in the spirit of these laws with that
of the institution of slavery as it formerly existed in the Southern
States of America and elsewhere in Christendom, is obvious.
These, then, were the regulations connected with the application of
the ordinance of the jubilee year to rights of property, whether in
real estate or in slaves. In respect to the cessation from the
cultivation of the soil which was enjoined for the year, the law was
essentially the same as that for the sabbatic year, except that,
apparently, the right of property in the spontaneous produce of the
land, which was in abeyance in the former case, was in so far
recognised in the latter that each man was allowed to "eat the
increase of the jubilee year out of the field" (ver. 12).
PRACTICAL OBJECTS OF THE SABBATIC YEAR AND JUBILEE LAW.
Such was this extraordinary legislation, the like of which will be
sought in vain in any other people. It is indeed true that, in some
instances, ancient lawgivers decreed that land should not be
permanently alienated, or that individuals should not hold more than a
certain amount of land. Thus, for example, the Lacedemonians were
forbidden to sell their lands, and the Dalmatians were wont to
redistribute their lands every eight years. But laws such as these
only present accidental coincidences with single features of the
jubilee year; an agreement to be accounted for by the fact that the
aim of such lawgivers was, in so far, the same as that of the Hebrew
code, that they sought thus to guard against excessive accumulations
of property in the hands of individuals, and those consequent great
inequalities in the distribution of wealth which, in all lands and
ages, and never more clearly than in our own, have been seen to be
fraught with the gravest dangers to the highest interests of society.
Beyond this single point we shall search in vain the history of any
other people for an analogy to these laws concerning the sabbatic and
the jubilee year.
What was the immediate object of this remarkable legislation? It is
not irrelevant to observe that in so far as regards the prescription
of a periodic rest to the land, agricultural science recognises that
this is an advantage, especially in places where it may be difficult
to obtain fertilisers for the soil in adequate amount. But it cannot
be supposed that this was the chief object of these ordinances, not
even in so far as they had respect to the land. We shall not err in
regarding them as intended, like all in the Levitical system, to make
Israel to be in reality, what they were called to be, a people holy,
_i.e._, fully consecrated to the Lord. The bearing of these laws on
this end is not hard to perceive.
In the first place, the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was a
most impressive lesson as to the relation of God to what men call
their property; and, in particular, as to His relation to man's
property in land. By these ordinances every Israelite was to be
reminded in a most impressive way that the land which he tilled, or on
which he fed his flocks and herds, belonged, not to himself, but to
God. Just as God taught him that his time belonged to Him, by putting
in a claim for the absolute consecration to Himself of every seventh
day, so here He reminded Israel that the land belonged to Him, by
asserting a similar claim on the land every seventh year, and twice in
a century for two years in succession.
No one will pretend that the law of the sabbatic year or the jubilee
is binding on communities now. But it is a question for our times as
to whether the basal principle regarding the relation of God to land,
and by necessary consequence the right of man regarding land, which
is fundamental to these laws, is not in its very nature of perpetual
force. Surely, there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that God's
ownership of the land was limited to the land of Palestine, or to that
land only during Israel's occupancy of it. Instead of this, Jehovah
everywhere represents Himself as having given the land to Israel, and
therefore by necessary implication as having a like right over it
while as yet the Canaanites were dwelling in it. Again, the purpose of
God's dealing with Egypt is said to be that Pharaoh might know this
same truth: that the earth (or land) was the Lord's (Exod. ix. 29);
and in Psalm xxiv. 1 it is stated, as a broad truth, without
qualification or restriction, that the earth is the Lord's, as well as
that which fills it. It is true that there is no suggestion in any of
these passages that the relation of God to the earth or to the land is
different from His relation to other property; but it is intended to
emphasise the fact that in the use of land, as of all else, we are to
regard ourselves as God's stewards, and hold and use it as in trust
from Him.
The vital relation of this great truth to the burning questions of our
day regarding the rights of men in land is self-evident. It does not
indeed determine how the land question should be dealt with in any
particular country, but it does settle it that if in these matters we
will act in the fear of God, we must keep this principle steadily
before us, that, primarily, the land belongs to the Lord, and is to be
used accordingly. How, as a matter of fact, God did order that the
land should be used, in the only instance when He has condescended
Himself to order the political government of a nation, we have already
seen, and shall presently consider more fully.
It is obvious that the natural and therefore intended effect of these
regulations, if obeyed, would have been to impose a constant and
powerful check upon man's natural covetousness and greed of gain.
Every seventh year the Hebrew was to pause in his toil for wealth, and
for one whole year he was to waive even his ordinary right to the
spontaneous produce of his fields; which year of abstinence from
sowing and reaping once in fifty years was doubled. Add to this the
strict prohibition of lending money upon interest to a fellow-Israelite,
and we can see how far-reaching and effective, if obeyed, were such
regulations likely to be in restraining that insatiate greed for
riches which ever grows the more by that which feeds it.
Yet again; the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was adapted to
serve also as a singularly powerful discipline in that faith toward
God which is the soul of all true religion. In this practical way
every Hebrew was to be taught that "man doth not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The lesson
is ever hard to learn, though none the less necessary. This thought is
alluded to in ver. 20, where it is supposed that a man might raise the
very natural objection to these laws, "What shall we eat the seventh
year?" To which the answer is given, with reference even to the
extreme case of the jubilee year: "I will command My blessing upon you
in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years;
until the ninth year ... ye shall eat the old store."
But probably the most prominent and important object of the
regulations in this chapter was to secure, as far as possible, the
equal distribution of wealth, by preventing excessive accumulations
either of land or of capital in the hands of a few, while the mass
should be sunk in poverty. It is certain that these laws, if carried
out, would have had a marvellous effect in this respect. As for
capital, we all know what an important factor in the production of
wealth is accumulation by interest on loans, especially when the
interest is constantly compounded. There can be no doubt of its
immense power as an instrument for at once enriching the lender and in
proportion impoverishing the borrower. But among the Israelites, to
receive interest or its equivalent was prohibited. One other chief
cause of the excessive wealth of individuals among us, as in all ages,
is the acquirement in perpetuity by individuals of a disproportionate
amount of the public land. The condition of things in the United
Kingdom is familiar to all, with its inevitable effect on the
condition of large masses of people; and in parts of the United States
there are indications of a like tendency working toward the similar
disadvantage of many small landholders and cultivators. But in Israel,
if these laws should be carried into effect, such a state of things,
so often witnessed among other nations, was made for ever impossible.
Individual ownership in the land itself was forbidden; no man was
allowed more than a leasehold right; nor could he, even by adding
largely to his leaseholds, increase his wealth indefinitely, so as to
transmit a fortune to his children, to be still further augmented by a
similar process in the next and succeeding generations; for every
fifty years the jubilee came around, and whatever leaseholds he might
have acquired from less fortunate brethren, reverted unconditionally
to the original owner or his legal heirs.
However impracticable such arrangements may seem to us under the
conditions of modern life, yet it must be confessed that in the case
of a nation just starting on its career in a new country, as was
Israel at that time, nothing could well be thought of more likely to
be effective toward securing, along with careful regard to the rights
of property, an equal distribution of wealth among the people, than
the legislation which is placed before us in this chapter.
It deserves to be specially noticed by how exact equity the laws are
distinguished. While, on the one hand, excessive accumulations, either
of capital or of land, were thus made impossible, there is here
nothing of the destructive communism advocated by many in our day.
These laws put no premium on laziness; for if a man, through indolence
or vice, was compelled to sell out his right in his land, he had no
security of obtaining it again until the jubilee; that is to say, upon
an average, during his working lifetime. On the other hand,
encouragement was given to industry, as a man who was thrifty might,
by purchase of leaseholds, materially increase his wealth and comfort
in life. And the effect on inheritance is evident. There could, on the
one hand, be no inheritance of such colossal and overgrown fortunes as
are possible in our modern states,--no blessing, certainly, in many
cases, to the heirs; and neither, on the other hand, could there be
any inheritance of hopeless and degrading poverty. A man might have
had an indolent or a vicious father, who had thus forfeited his
landholding; but while the father would doubtless suffer deserved
poverty during his active life, the young man, when the jubilee
returned, and the lost paternal inheritance reverted to him, would
have the opportunity to see whether he might not, with his father's
experience before him as a warning, do better, and retrieve the
fortunes of the family. In any case, he would not start upon the work
of life weighted, as are multitudes among us, with a crushing and
almost irremovable burden of poverty.
It is certain, no doubt, that these laws are not morally binding now;
and no less certain, probably, that failing, as they did, to secure
observance in Israel, such laws, even if enacted, could not in our day
be practically carried out any more than then. Nevertheless, so much
we may safely say, that the intention and aim of these laws as regards
the equal distribution of wealth in the community ought to be the aim
of all wise legislation now. It is certain that all good government
ought to seek in all righteous and equitable ways to prevent the
formation in the community of classes, either of the excessively rich
or of the excessively poor. Absolute equality in this respect is
doubtless unattainable, and in a world intended for purposes of moral
training and discipline were even undesirable; but extreme wealth or
extreme poverty are certainly evils to the prevention of which our
legislators may well give their minds. Only it needs also to be kept
in mind that these Hebrew laws no less distinctly teach us that this
end is to be sought only in such a way as shall neither, on the one
hand, put a premium on laziness and vice, nor, on the other, deny to
the virtuous and industrious the advantage which industry and virtue
deserve, of additional wealth, comfort, and exemption from toilsome
drudgery.
In close connection with all this it will be observed that all this
legislation, while guarding the rights of the rich, is evidently
inspired by that same merciful regard for the poor which marks the
Levitical law throughout. For in all these regulations it is assumed
that there would still be poor in the land; but the law secured to
the poor great mitigations of poverty. Every seventh year the produce
of the land was to be free alike to all; if one were poor his brother
was to uphold him; when lending him, he was not to add to the debt the
burden of interest or increase. And then there was to the poor man the
ever-present assurance, which alone would take off half the bitterness
of poverty, that through the coming of the jubilee the children at
least would have a new chance, and start life on an equality, in
respect of inheritance in land, with the sons of the richest. And when
we remember the close connection between extreme poverty and every
variety of crime, it is plain that the whole legislation is as
admirably adapted to the prevention of crime as of abject and hopeless
poverty. Well might Asaph use the words which he employs, with evident
allusion to the trumpet sound which ushered in the jubilee: "Happy the
people that know the joyful sound!" _i.e._, that have the blessed
experience of the jubilee, that supreme earthly sabbatism of the
people of God.[49]
[49] See Psalm lxxxix. 15.
Most significant and full of instruction, no less to us than to
Israel, was the ordinance that both the sabbatic and the jubilee years
should date from the day of Atonement. It was when, having completed
the solemn ritual of that day, the high priest put on again his
beautiful garments and came forth, having made atonement for all the
transgressions of Israel, that the trumpet of the jubilee was to be
sounded. Thus was Israel reminded in the most impressive manner
possible that all these social, civil, and communal blessings were
possible only on condition of reconciliation with God through atoning
blood; atonement in the highest and fullest sense, which should reach
even to the Holy of Holies, and place the blood on the very mercy-seat
of Jehovah. This is true still, though the nations have yet to learn
it. The salvation of nations, no less than that of individuals, is
conditioned by national fellowship with God, secured through the great
Atonement of the Lord. Not until the nations learn this lesson may we
expect to see the crying evils of the earth removed, or the questions
of property, of land-holding, of capital and labour, justly and
happily solved.
TYPICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SABBATIC AND JUBILEE YEARS.
But we must not forget that the sabbatic year and the year of jubilee,
following the seventh seven of years, are the two last members of a
sabbatic system of septenary periods, namely, the sabbath of the
seventh day, the feast of Pentecost, following the expiry of the
seventh week from Passover, and then the still more sacred seventh
month, with its two great feasts, and the day of atonement
intervening. But, as we have seen, we have good scriptural authority
for regarding all these as typical. Each in succession brings out
another stage or aspect of the great Messianic redemption, in a
progressive revelation historically unfolding. In all of these alike
we have been able to trace thoughts connected with the sabbatic idea,
as pointing forward to the final rest, redemption, and consummated
restoration, the sabbatism that remaineth to the people of God. To
these preceding sabbatic periods these last two are closely related.
Both alike began on the great day of atonement, in which all Israel
was to afflict their souls in penitence for sin; and on that day they
both began when the high priest came out from within the veil, where,
from the time of his offering the sin-offering, he had been hidden
from the sight of Israel for a season; and both alike were ushered in
with a trumpet blast.
We shall hardly go amiss if we see in both of these--first in the
sabbatic year, and still more clearly in the year of jubilee--a
prophetic foreshadowing in type of that final repentance of the
children of Israel in the latter days, and their consequent
re-establishment in their land, which the prophets so fully and
explicitly predict. In that day they are to return, as the prophets
bear witness, every man to the land which the Lord gave for an
inheritance to their fathers. Indeed, one might say with truth that
even the lesser restoration from Babylon was prefigured in this
ordinance; but, without doubt, its chief and supreme reference must be
to that greater restoration still in the future, of which we read, for
example, in Isa. xi. 11, when "the Lord shall set His hand again the
_second_ time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall
remain, from Assyria, and from Egypt, ... and from the islands of the
sea."
But the typical reference of these sacred years of sabbatism reaches
yet beyond what pertains to Israel alone. For not only, according to
the prophets and apostles, is there to be a restoration of Israel, but
also, as the Apostle Peter declared to the Jews (Acts iii. 19-21),
closely connected with and consequent on this, a "restoration of all
things." And it is in this great, final, and exceedingly glorious
restoration of the time of the end that we recognise the ultimate
antitype of these sabbatic seasons. When read in the light of later
predictions they appear to point forward with singular distinctness to
what, according to the Holy Word, shall be when Jesus Christ, the
heavenly High Priest, shall come forth from within the veil; when the
last trumpet shall sound, and He who was "once offered to bear the
sins of many" shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that
wait for Him, unto salvation (Heb. ix. 28).
Even in the beginning of the Pentateuch (Gen. iii. 17-19) it is
explicitly taught that because of Adam's sin, the curse of God, in
some mysterious way, fell even upon the material earthly creation. We
read that the Lord said unto Adam: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake;
in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and
thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground." It is because of sin, then, that man is
doomed to labour, toilsome and imperfectly requited by an unwilling
soil. It lies immediately before us that both the sabbatic year and
the year of jubilee, by the ordinance regarding the rest for the land,
and the special promise of sufficiency without exhausting labour,
involved for Israel a temporary suspension of the full operation of
this curse. The ordinance therefore points unmistakably in a prophetic
way to what the New Testament explicitly predicts--the coming of a day
when, with man redeemed, material nature also shall share the great
deliverance. In a word, in the sabbatic year, and in a yet higher form
in the year of jubilee, we have in symbol the wonderful truth which in
the most didactic language is formally declared by the Apostle Paul in
these words (Rom. viii. 19-22): "The earnest expectation of the
creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the
creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason
of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the
glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
The jubilee year contained in type all this, and more. Where the
sabbatic year had typically pointed only to a coming rest of the earth
from the primeval curse, the jubilee, falling, not on a seventh, but
on an eighth year, following immediately on the sabbatic seventh,
pointed also to the permanence of this blessed condition. It is the
festival, by eminence, of the new creation, of paradise completely and
for ever restored.
Moreover, as falling in the fiftieth year, and therefore on an eighth
year of the sabbatic calendar, the jubilee was to the week of years as
the Lord's day to the week of days. Like that, it is the festival of
resurrection. This is as clearly foreshadowed in the type as the
other. For in the year of jubilee not only was the land to rest, but
every bond-slave was to be released, and to return to his inheritance
and to his family. In the light of what has preceded, and of other
revelations of Scripture, we can hardly miss of perceiving the typical
meaning of this. For what is the great event which the Apostle Paul,
in the passage just cited, associates in time with the deliverance of
the earthly creation, but "the redemption of the body," as the final
issue of the atoning work of Christ? For as yet even believers are in
bondage to death and the grave; but the day which is coming, the day
of earth's redemption, shall bring to all that are Christ's, all that
are Israelites indeed, deliverance "from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."
And as the slave who was freed in the year of jubilee therewith also
returned to his forfeited inheritance, so also shall it be in that
day. For precisely this is given us by the Holy Spirit in the New
Testament (1 Peter i. 4, 5), as another aspect of the day when the
heavenly Aaron shall come forth from the Holiest. For we are begotten
_unto an inheritance_, reserved in heaven for us, "who by the power of
God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in
the last time." Cast out through death from the inheritance of the
earth, which in the beginning was given by God to our first father,
and to his seed in him, but which was lost to him and to his children
through his sin, the great jubilee of the future shall bring us again,
every man who is in Christ by faith, into the lost inheritance,
redeemed and glorified citizens of a redeemed and glorified earth.
Hence it is that in Rev. xxii. we are shown in vision, first, the new
earth, delivered from the curse, and then the New Jerusalem, the
Church of the risen and glorified saints of God, descending from God
out of heaven, to assume possession of the purchased inheritance.
And the law adds also: "Ye shall return every man unto his family;"
which gives the last feature here prefigured of that supreme sabbatism
which remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9). It shall bring the
reunion of those who had been parted and scattered. The day of
resurrection is accordingly spoken of (2 Thess. ii. 1) as a day of
"gathering together" of all who, though one in Christ, have been
rudely parted by death. And yet more, it will be "the day of our
gathering together unto Him," even the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the
"_Goel_," the Kinsman-Redeemer of the ruined bondsmen and their lost
inheritance: "Whom not having seen, we love," but then expect to see
even as He is, and beholding Him, be like Him, and be with Him for
ever and for ever. Who should not long for the day?--the day when for
the first time, this last type of Leviticus shall pass into complete
fulfilment in the antitype; the day of "the restoration of all
things;" the day of the deliverance of the material creation from her
present bondage to corruption; the day also of the release of every
true Israelite from the bondage of death, and the eternal
establishment of all such with the Elder Brother, the First-begotten,
in the enjoyment of the inheritance of the saints in light.
"Love, rest, and home!
Sweet hope!
Lord! tarry not, but COME!"
PART III.
_CONCLUSION AND APPENDIX._
XXVI., XXVII.
1. CONCLUSION: PROMISES AND THREATENINGS: xxvi.
2. APPENDIX: CONCERNING VOWS: xxvii.
CHAPTER XXVII.
_THE PROMISES AND THREATS OF THE COVENANT._
LEV. xxvi. 1-46.
One would have expected that this chapter would have been the last in
the book of Leviticus, for it forms a natural and fitting close to the
whole law as hitherto recorded. But whatever may have been the reason
of its present literary form, the fact remains that while this chapter
is, in outward form, the conclusion of the Levitical law, another
chapter follows it in the manner of an appendix.
Chapter xxvi. opens with these words (vv. 1, 2): "Ye shall make you no
idols, neither shall ye rear you up a graven image, or a pillar,
neither shall ye place any figured stone in your land, to bow down
unto it: for I am the Lord your God. Ye shall keep My sabbaths, and
reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord."
These verses, as they stand in the English versions as a preface to
this chapter, at first sight seem but distantly related to what
follows; and the Chaldee paraphrast and others have therefore appended
them to the preceding chapter. But with that they have even less
evident connection. The thought of the editor of this part of the
canon, however, seems to have been that the three commands which are
here repeated might be regarded as presenting a compendious summary,
in its fundamental principles, of the whole law, the promises and
threatenings attached to which immediately follow. And the more we
think upon these commands and what they involve, the more evident will
appear the fitness of their selection from the whole law to introduce
this chapter.
The commands which are here repeated are three: namely, (1) a detailed
prohibition of idolatry in the forms then chiefly prevalent; (2) an
injunction to observe God's sabbaths; and (3) to reverence His
sanctuary. Inasmuch as the various forms of idol-worship, which are
here forbidden, all involved the recognition of gods other than
Jehovah, it is plain that ver. 1 is in effect inclusive of the first
and second commandments of the decalogue. The injunction to keep God's
sabbaths, although in principle including all the sabbatic times
previously appointed, evidently refers especially to the weekly
sabbath of the fourth commandment; while the command to reverence the
sanctuary of Jehovah covers in principle the ground of the third. And
thus, in fact, these three injunctions essentially include the four
commands of the decalogue which have to do with man's duty to God, and
are thus fundamental to all other duties, both to God and man. Very
appropriately, then, are these verses given here as a brief summary of
the law to which the following promises and threatenings are annexed.
And their suitableness to that which follows is the more clear when we
remember that the weekly sabbath, in particular, is elsewhere (Exod.
xxxi. 12-17) declared to be a sign of God's covenant with Israel, to
which these promises and threats belong; and that the presence of
Jehovah's sanctuary also, which they are here charged to reverence,
was a continual visible witness among them of the special presence of
God in Israel in pursuance of that covenant.
After this pertinent summation of the most fundamental commands of the
law, the remainder of the chapter contains, first (vv. 3-13), promises
of blessing from God, in case they shall obey this law; secondly (vv.
14-39), threats of chastising judgment, in case they disobey; and,
thirdly (vv. 40-45), a prediction of their final repentance, and
promise of their gracious restoration thereupon to the favour of God,
and the everlasting endurance of God's covenant to preserve them in
existence as a nation. The chapter then closes (ver. 46) with the
declaration: "These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the
Lord made between Him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the
hand of Moses."
THE PROMISES OF THE COVENANT.
xxvi. 3-13.
"If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do
them; then I will give you rains in their season, and the land
shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield
their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and
the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat
your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will
give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall
make you afraid: and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the
land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall
chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you
shall chase ten thousand: and your enemies shall fall before you
by the sword. And I will have respect unto you, and make you
fruitful, and multiply you; and I will establish My covenant with
you. And ye shall eat old store long kept, and ye shall bring
forth the old because of the new. And I will set My tabernacle
among you: and My soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among
you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people. I am the
Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt,
that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bars
of your yoke, and made you go upright."
The promises of the covenant are thus to the effect that if Israel
shall keep the law, God will give them rain and fruitful seasons,
harvests so abundant that the "threshing shall reach unto the vintage,
and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time;" internal security;
deliverance from the wild beasts, which are still such a scourge in
many parts of the East; and such power and spirit, that no enemy shall
be able to stand before them, but five of them shall chase an hundred,
and an hundred chase ten thousand. Then (ver. 9) is renewed the
promise, given long before to Abraham, of a great increase in their
numbers; and thereupon, very naturally, is repeated the promise of
abundant harvests, so that notwithstanding they shall be so
multiplied, one year's harvest should not be consumed before it would
have to be removed from the granaries to make room for the new (ver.
10). And then this section ends with the assurance, which secures all
other blessings, temporal and spiritual, that God will abide among
them in His tabernacle, and will be their God, and they shall be His
people. And the fulfilment of all this is guaranteed by the person,
the purpose, and the past dealing of the Promiser; Himself, Jehovah;
His purpose, to deliver them from bondage; and His past mercy, in
breaking the bands of their yoke.
"THE VENGEANCE OF THE COVENANT."
xxvi. 14-46.
"But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these
commandments; and if ye shall reject My statutes, and if your
soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not do all My
commandments, but break My covenant; I also will do this unto
you; I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever,
that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away: and
ye shall sow your seed in vain for your enemies shall eat it. And
I will set My face against you and ye shall be smitten before
your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you; and ye
shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for
these things hearken unto me, then I will chastise you seven
times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your
power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as
brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land
shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land
yield their fruit. And if ye walk contrary unto Me, and will not
hearken unto Me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you
according to your sins. And I will send the beast of the field
among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your
cattle, and make you few in number; and your ways shall become
desolate. And if by these things ye will not be reformed unto Me,
but will walk contrary unto Me; then will I also walk contrary
unto you; and I will smite you, even I, seven times for your
sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the
vengeance of the covenant; and ye shall be gathered together
within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and
ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break
your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven,
and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and ye shall
eat, and not be satisfied. And if ye will not for all this
hearken unto Me, but walk contrary unto Me; then I will walk
contrary unto you in fury; and I also will chastise you seven
times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and
the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your
high places, and cut down your sun-images, and cast your carcases
upon the carcases of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. And
I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries
unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet
odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your
enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And you
will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword
after you: and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities
shall be a waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long
as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then
shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth
desolate it shall have rest; even the rest which it had not in
your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And as for them that are
left of you I will send a faintness into their heart in the lands
of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase
them; and they shall flee, as one fleeth from the sword; and
they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble one
upon another, as it were before the sword, when none pursueth:
and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye
shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies
shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away
in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the
iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. And
they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their
fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and
also that because they have walked contrary unto Me, I also
walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of
their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and
they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I
remember My covenant with Jacob; and also My covenant with Isaac,
and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will
remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall
enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and
they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because,
even because they rejected My judgments, and their soul abhorred
My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of
their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them,
to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them: for
I am the Lord their God: but I will for their sakes remember the
covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land
of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God:
I am the Lord. These are the statutes and judgments and laws,
which the Lord made between Him and the children of Israel in
mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."
So, if Israel should not obey the commandments of the Lord, but break
that covenant which they had made with Him, when they had said unto
the Lord (Exod. xxiv. 7): "All that the Lord hath spoken will we do,
and be obedient;" then they are threatened, first in a general way
(vv. 14-17) with terrible judgments, which shall reverse, and more
than reverse, all the blessings. God will appoint over them "terror;"
disease shall ravage them, consumption and fever; their enemies shall
lay waste the land, defeat them in battle, and rule over them; and
instead of five of them chasing an hundred, they should flee when
none was pursuing (vv. 17, 18). Then follow four series of threats,
each conditioned by the supposition that through what they should have
already experienced of Jehovah's judgment, they should not repent;
each also introduced by the formula, "I will chastise (or "smite") you
seven times for your sins." In this four times repeated series of
denunciations, thus introduced, we are not to insist that numerical
precision was intended; neither can we, with some, give to the "seven
times" a numerical or temporal reference. The thought which runs
through all these denunciations, and determines the form which they
take, is this: that the judgments threatened as to follow each new
display of hardness and impenitence on the part of Israel shall be
marked by continually increasing severity; and the phrase "seven
times," by the reference to the sacred number "seven," intimates that
the vengeance should be "the vengeance of the covenant" (ver. 25), and
also the awful thoroughness and completeness with which the threatened
judgments, in case of their continued obduracy, would be inflicted.
This interpretation is sustained by the details of each section. The
first series (vv. 18-20), in which the threatenings of vv. 14-17 are
developed, adds to what had been previously threatened, the
withholding of harvest for lack of rain. He who had promised to send
the rains "in their season," if they were obedient, now declares that
if they will not hearken unto Him for the other chastisements before
denounced, He will "make their heaven as iron, and their earth as
brass." The second series threatens in addition their devastation by
wild beasts, which shall rob them of their children and their cattle;
and also, in consequence of these great judgments, with a great
diminution of their numbers. The third series (vv. 23-26) repeats,
under forms still more intense, the threats of sword, pestilence, and
famine. The staff of bread shall be broken, and when, stricken with
pestilence, they are gathered together in their cities, one oven shall
suffice ten women for their baking, and bread shall be distributed by
rations and in insufficient quantity (vv. 25, 26).
It is intimated that with these extraordinary judgments it shall
become increasingly evident that it is Jehovah who is thus dealing
with them for the breach of His covenant. This is suggested (ver. 24)
by the emphatic use of the personal pronoun in the Hebrew, only to be
rendered in English by a stress of voice; and by the declaration (ver.
25) that the sword which should be brought upon them should "execute
the vengeance of the covenant."
The same remark applies with still more emphasis to the next and last
of these sub-sections (vv. 27-39), the terrific denunciations of which
are introduced by these words, which almost seem to flash with the
fire of God's avenging wrath: "If ... ye will walk contrary unto Me;
then I will walk contrary unto you in fury (_lit._, "I will walk with
you in fury of opposition"); and I also will chastise you seven times
for your sins." All that has been threatened before is here repeated
with every circumstance which could add terror to the picture. Was
famine threatened? it shall be so awful in its severity that they
shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters. The high places
which had been the scenes of their licentious worship should be
destroyed, and the "sun-images" which they had worshipped, going after
Baal, should be cut down; and, in visible sign of the Divine wrath
and of God's holy contempt for the impotent idols for which they had
forsaken the Lord, upon the fallen idols should lie the dead corpses
of their worshippers. The sanctuaries (with special,--though, perhaps,
not exclusive,--reference, as the following words show, to the holy
places of Jehovah's tabernacle or temple) should become a desolation;
the sweet savour of their sacrifices should be rejected. The holy
people should be scattered into other lands; the land should become so
desolate that those of their enemies who should dwell in it should
themselves be astonished at its transformation. And so, while they
should be scattered in their enemies' land, the land would "enjoy her
sabbaths;"[50] _i.e._, it should thus, untilled and desolate, enjoy
the rest which Jehovah had commanded them to give the land each
seventh year, which they had not observed. Meanwhile, the condition of
the banished nation in the lands of their captivity should be most
pitiful: minished in number, those that were left alive should pine
away in their iniquities, and in the iniquity of their fathers; timid
and broken-spirited, they should flee before the sound of a broken
leaf, and the land of their enemies should "eat them up."
[50] Much has been made of this reference to the neglect of the
sabbatic years as evidence of the late composition of the
chapter; but surely in this argument there is little force. For,
even apart from any question of inspiration, the ordinance of
the sabbatic year was of such an extraordinary character, so
opposed alike to human selfishness and eagerness for gain, and
calling for such faith in God, that it would require no great
knowledge of human nature to anticipate its probable neglect,
even on natural grounds. But, even were this not so, still an
argument of this kind against the Mosaic origin of this minatory
section of the covenant can have decisive force for those only
who, for whatsoever reason, have come to disbelieve that God can
tell beforehand what free agents will do, or that, if He know,
He can impart that knowledge to His servants.
And herewith ends the second section of this remarkable prophecy.
Promising Israel the highest prosperity in the land of Canaan, if they
will keep the words of this covenant, it threatens them with
successive judgments of sword, famine, and pestilence, of continually
increasing severity, to culminate, if they yet persist in
disobedience, in their expulsion from the land for a prolonged period;
and predicts their continued existence, despite the most distressing
conditions, in the lands of their enemies, while their own land
meanwhile lies desolate and untilled without them.
The fundamental importance and instructiveness of this prophecy is
evident from the fact that all later predictions concerning the
fortunes of Israel are but its more detailed exposition and
application to successive historical conditions. Still more evident is
its profound significance when we recall to mind the fact, disputed by
none, that not only is it an epitome of all later prophecy of Holy
Scripture concerning Israel, but, no less truly, an epitome of
Israel's history. So strictly true is this that we may accurately
describe the history of that nation, from the days of Moses until now,
as but the translation of this chapter from the language of prediction
into that of history.
The facts which illustrate this statement are so familiar that one
scarcely needs to refer to them. The numerous visitations in the days
of the Judges, when again and again the people were given into the
hands of their enemies for their sins, and so often as then they
repented, were again and again delivered; the heavier judgments of
later days, first in the days of the earlier kings, and afterwards
culminating in the captivity of the ten tribes, following the siege
and capture of Samaria, 721 B.C.; and still later, the terrible siege
and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 586 B.C., to the horrors
of which the Lamentations of Jeremiah bear most sorrowful
witness;--what were all these events, with others of lesser
importance, but an historical unfolding of this twenty-sixth chapter
of Leviticus?
And how, since Old Testament days, this prophecy has been continually
illustrated in Israel's history, is, or should be, familiar to all. As
apostasy has succeeded to apostasy, judgment has followed upon
judgment. To a Nebuchadnezzar succeeded an Antiochus Epiphanes; and,
after the Greco-Syrian judgment, then, following the supreme national
crime of the rejection and crucifixion of their promised Messiah, came
the Roman captivity, the most terrible of all; a judgment continued
even until now in the eighteen hundred years of Israel's exile from
the land of the covenant, and their scattering among the
nations,--eighteen hundred years of tragic suffering, such as no other
nation has ever known, or, knowing, has yet survived; sufferings which
are still exhibited before the eyes of all the world to-day in the
bitter experiences of the four millions of Jews in the Empire of the
Czar, and the persecutions of Anti-Shemitism in other lands.
Existing, rather than living, under such conditions for centuries, as
a natural result, the Jewish people became few in number, as here
predicted; having been reduced from not less than seven or eight
millions in the days of the kingdom, to a minimum, about two hundred
years ago, of not more than three millions.[51] And, strangest of
all, throughout this time the once fertile land has lain desolate, for
the Gentiles have never settled in it in any great number; and in
place of a population of five hundred to the square mile in the days
of Solomon, we find now only a few hundred thousand miserable people,
and the most of the land, for lack of cultivation, in such a condition
that nothing can easily exceed its desolation. And when we have said
all this, and much more that might be said without exaggeration, we
have but simply testified that vv. 31-34 of this chapter have in the
fullest possible sense become historical fact. For it was written (vv.
32-34): "I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which
dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And you will I scatter among
the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land
shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then shall
the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be
in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her
sabbaths."
[51] So Basnage ("History of the Jews," London, 1700, chap.
xxviii., sec. 15) estimated it in his day. Since then, however,
their number has materially increased, and is still increasing;
a fact the significance of which has been pointed out by the
present writer in "The Jews; or, Prediction and Fulfilment" (New
York, 1883, pp. 178-83).
These facts make this chapter to be an apologetic of prime importance.
It is this, because we have here evidence of foreknowledge, and
therefore of the supernatural inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God in
the prophecy here recorded. The facts cannot be adequately explained,
either on the supposition of fortunate guessing or of accidental
coincidence. It was not indeed impossible to forecast on natural
grounds that Israel would become corrupt, or that, if so, they should
experience disaster in consequence of their moral depravation. For God
has not one law for Israel and another for other nations. Nor does
the argument rest on the details of these threatened judgments, as
consisting in the sword, famine, and pestilence; for other nations
have experienced these calamities, though, indeed, few in equal
measure with Israel; and of these one has a natural dependence on
another.
But setting aside these elements of the prophecy, as of less
apologetic significance, two particulars yet remain in which this
predicted experience has been unique, and antecedently to the event in
so high degree improbable, that we can reasonably think here neither
of shrewd human forecast nor of chance agreement of prediction and
fulfilment. The one is the predicted survival of exiled Israel as a
nation in the land of their enemies, their indestructibility
throughout centuries of unequalled suffering; the other, the
extraordinary fact that their land, so rich and fertile, which was at
that time and for centuries afterwards one of the principal highways
of the world's commerce and travel, the coveted possession of many
nations from a remote antiquity, should during the whole period of
Israel's banishment remain comparatively unoccupied and untilled.
As regards the former particular, we may search history in vain for a
similar phenomenon. Here is a people who, at their best, as compared
with many other nations, such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and
Romans, were few in number and in material resources; who now have
been scattered from their land for centuries, crushed and oppressed
always, in a degree and for a length of time never experienced by any
other people; yet never merging in the nations with whom they were
mingled, or losing in the least their peculiar racial characteristics
and distinct national identity. This, although now for a long time
matter of history, was yet, _à priori_, so improbable that all history
records no other instance of the kind; and yet all this had to be if
those words of ver. 44 were to prove true: "When they be in the land
of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them,
to destroy them utterly." With abundant reason has Professor
Christlieb referred to this fact as an unanswerable apologetic, thus:
"We point to the people of Israel as a perennial historical miracle.
The continued existence of this nation up to the present day, the
preservation of its national peculiarities throughout thousands of
years, in spite of all dispersion and oppression, remains so
unparalleled a phenomenon, that without the special providential
preparation of God, and His constant interference and protection, it
would be impossible for us to explain it. For where else is there a
people over which such judgments have passed, and yet not ended in
destruction?"[52]
[52] "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," p. 333.
No less remarkable and significant is the long-continued depopulation
of the land of Israel. For it was and is by nature a richly fertile
land; and at the time of this prediction--whether it be assigned to an
earlier or a later period--it was upon one of the chief commercial and
military routes of the world, and its possession has thus been an
object of ambition to all the dominant nations of history. Surely, one
would have expected that if Israel should be cast out of such a land,
it would at once and always be occupied by others who should cultivate
its proverbially productive soil. But it was not to be so, for it had
been otherwise written. And yet it seems as if it had scarcely been
possible that through all these later centuries of the history of
Christendom, the land could have thus lain desolate, except for the so
momentous discovery in 1497 of the Cape route to India, by which
event--which no one could in so remote days have well anticipated--the
tide of commerce with the East was turned away from Egypt, Syria, and
Palestine, to the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans; so that the land of
Israel was left, like a city made to stand solitary in a desert by the
shifting of the channel of a river; and its predicted desolation thus
went on to receive its most complete, consummate, and now
long-realised fulfilment.
So, then, stands the case. It is truly difficult to understand how one
can fairly escape the inference from these facts, namely, that they
imply in this chapter such a prescience of the future as is not
possible to man, and therefore demonstrate that the Spirit of God
must, in the deepest and truest sense, have been the author of these
predictions of the future of the chosen people and their land.
And it is of the very first importance, with reference to the
controversies of our day regarding this question, that we note the
fact that the argument is of such a nature that it is not in the least
dependent upon the date that any may have assigned to the origin of
this chapter. Even though we should, with Graf and Wellhausen,
attribute its composition to exilian or post-exilian times, it would
still remain true that the chapter contained unmistakable predictions
regarding the nation and the land; predictions which, if fulfilled, no
doubt, in a degree, in the days of the Babylonian exile and the
return, were yet to receive a fulfilment far more minute, exhaustive,
and impressive, in centuries which then were still in a far distant
future. But if this be granted, it is plain that these facts impose a
limitation upon the conclusions of criticism. That only is true
science which takes into view _all_ the facts with respect to any
phenomenon for which one seeks to account; and in this case the facts
which are to be explained by any theory, are not merely peculiarities
of style and vocabulary, etc., but also this phenomenon of a
demonstrably predictive element in the chapter; a phenomenon which
requires for its explanation the assumption of a supernatural
inspiration as one of the factors in its authorship. But if this is
so, how can we reconcile with such a Divine inspiration any theory
which makes the last statement of the chapter, that "these are the
statutes which the Lord made ... in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses,"
to be untrue, and the preceding "laws" to be thus, in plain language,
a forgery of exilian or post-exilian times?
THE PROMISED RESTORATION.
xxvi. 40-45.
"And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their
fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and
also that because they have walked contrary unto Me, I also
walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of
their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and
they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I
remember My covenant with Jacob; and also My covenant with Isaac,
and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will
remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall
enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and
they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because,
even because they rejected My judgments, and their soul abhorred
My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of
their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them,
to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them: for
I am the Lord their God: but I will for their sakes remember the
covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land
of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God:
I am the Lord."
This closing section of this extraordinary chapter yet remains to be
considered. It is the most remarkable of all, whether from a
historical or a religious point of view. It declares that even under
so extreme visitations of Divine wrath, and howsoever long Israel's
stubborn rebellion and impenitence should continue, yet the nation
should never become extinct and pass away. Very impressive are the
words (vv. 43-45) which emphasise this prediction: "The land also
shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth
desolate without them; and they shall accept[53] of the punishment of
their iniquity: because, even because they rejected My judgments, and
their soul abhorred My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in
the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I
abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with
them: for I am the Lord their God: but I will for their sakes remember
the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land
of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am
the Lord."
[53] It is the same Hebrew word which is rendered "enjoy" when
applied to the land and "accept" when applied to Israel: it
might thus be rendered "enjoy" in the latter case--"they shall
enjoy the punishment of their iniquity," when the words would
express a severe irony, a figure of which we have examples
elsewhere in the Scriptures.
As to what is included in this promise of everlasting covenant mercy,
we are told explicitly (ver. 40)[54] that as the final result of these
repeated and long-continued judgments, the children of Israel "shall
confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their
trespass which they trespassed" against the Lord. Also they will
acknowledge (ver. 41) that all these calamities have been sent upon
them by the Lord; that it is because they have walked contrary unto
Him that He has also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into
the land of their enemies. And then follows the great promise (vv. 41,
42): "If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then
accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember My
covenant with Jacob; and also My covenant with Isaac, and also My
covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land."
[54] The "if" which introduces ver. 40 in the Authorised version
has no equivalent in the Hebrew, and should therefore be
omitted, as in the revision.
These words are very full and explicit. That they have had already a
partial and inadequate fulfilment in the restoration from Babylon, and
the spiritual quickening by which it was accompanied, is not to be
denied. But one only needs to refer to the covenants to which
reference is made, and especially the covenant with Abraham, as
recorded in the book of Genesis,[55] to see that by no possibility can
that Babylonian restoration be said to have exhausted this prophecy.
Since those earlier days Israel has again forsaken the Lord, and
committed the greatest of all their national sins in the rejection and
crucifixion of the promised Messiah; and therefore, again, according
to the threat of the earlier part of this chapter, they have been cast
out of their land and scattered among the nations, and the land,
again, for centuries has been left a desolation. But for all this,
God's covenant with Israel has not lapsed, nor, as we are here
formally assured, can it ever lapse. To imagine, with some, that
because of the new dispensation of grace to the Gentiles which has
come in, therefore the promises of this covenant have become void, is
a mistake which is fatal to all right understanding of the prophetic
word. As for the spiritual blessing of true repentance and a national
turning unto God, Zechariah, after the Babylonian captivity,
represents the prediction as yet to have a larger and far more blessed
fulfilment, in a day which, beyond all controversy, has never yet
risen on the world. For it is written (Zech. xii. 8-14; xiii. 1): "In
that day ... I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and
they shall look unto Me whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn
for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness
for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn; ... all the
families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. In
that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." And that
this great promise, which implies by its very terms the previous
"piercing" of the Messiah, is still valid for the nation in the new
dispensation, is expressly testified by the Apostle Paul, who formally
teaches, with regard to Israel, that "God did not cast off His people
which He foreknew;" that "the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance;" and that therefore the days are surely coming when "all
Israel shall be saved" (Rom. xi. 2, 29, 26).
[55] See Gen. xii. 1-3; xiii. 14-17; xv. 5-21; xvii. 2-11; xxii.
15-18.
And while nothing is said in this chapter of Leviticus as to the
relation of this future repentance of Israel to the establishment of
the kingdom of God, we only speak according to the express teaching
both of the later prophets and of the apostles, when we add that we
are not to think of this covenant of God concerning Israel as of
little consequence to our faith and hope as Christians. For we are
plainly taught, with regard to the present exclusion and impenitence
of Israel (Rom. xi. 15), that "the receiving of them" again shall be
as "life from the dead;" which, again, is only what long before had
been declared in the Old Testament (Psalm cii. 13-16); that when God
shall arise and have mercy upon Zion, and the set time to have pity
upon her shall come, the nations shall fear the name of the Lord, and
all the kings of the earth His glory.
And while we may grant that the matter is in itself of less moment, it
is yet of importance to observe that the very covenant which promises
spiritual mercy to the people, as explicitly assures us (ver. 42)
that, when Israel confesses its sin, God "will remember the land" as
well as the people. All that has been said for the present and
unchangeable validity of the former part of this promise, is of
necessity true for this latter part also. To affirm the former, and on
that ground maintain the faith and expectation of the future
repentance of Israel, and yet deny the latter part of this promise,
which is no less verbally explicit, regarding the land of Israel, is
an inconsistency of interpretation which is as astonishing as it is
common. For the restoration of the scattered nation to their land is
repeatedly promised, as here, in connection with, and yet in clear
distinction from, their conversion, by both the pre- and post-exilian
prophets. And if, for reasons not hard to discover, the promise
concerning the land is not in so many words repeated in the New
Testament, its future fulfilment is yet, to say the least, distinctly
assumed in the prediction of Christ (Luke xxi. 24), that Israel,
because of their rejection of Him, should be "led captive into all the
nations, and Jerusalem be trodden down of the Gentiles,"--not for
ever, but only--"until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Surely
these words of our Lord imply that, whenever these "times of the
Gentiles" shall have run their course, their present domination over
the Holy City and the Holy Land shall end.
Nor is such a restoration of Israel to their land, with all that it
implies, inconsistent, as some have urged, with the spirit and
principles of the Gospel. Many a Gentile nation is greatly favoured of
the Lord, and, as one mark of that favour, is permitted to abide in
peace and prosperity in their own land. Why should it be any more
alien to the spirit of the Gospel that penitent Israel should be
blessed in like manner, and, upon their turning unto the Lord, also,
like many other nations, be permitted to dwell in peace and safety in
that land which lies almost empty and desolate for them until this
day? And if it be urged that, admitting this interpretation, we shall
also be obliged to admit that Israel is in the future to be exalted to
a position of pre-eminence among the nations, which, again, is
inconsistent, it is said, with the principles of the Gospel
dispensation, we must again deny this last assertion, and for a
similar reason. If not inconsistent with the Gospel that the British
nation, for example, should to-day hold a position of exceptional
eminence and world-wide influence among the nations, how can it be
inconsistent with the Gospel that Israel, when repentant before God,
should be in like manner exalted of Him to national eminence and
glory?
While in itself this question may be of little consequence, yet in
another aspect it is of no small moment that we steadfastly affirm the
permanent validity of this part of the promise of the covenant with
Israel as given in this chapter. For it is not too much to say that
the logic and the exegesis which make the promise to have become void
with regard to Israel's land, if accepted, would equally justify one
in affirming the abrogation of the promise of Israel's final
repentance, if the exigencies of any eschatological theory should seem
to require it. Either both parts of this promise in ver. 42 are still
valid, or neither is now valid; and if either is still in force, the
other is in force also. These two, the promise concerning the people,
and the promise concerning the land, stand or fall together.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
_CONCERNING VOWS._
LEV. xxvii. 1-34.
As already remarked, the book of Leviticus certainly seems, at first
sight, to be properly completed with the previous chapter; and hence
it has been not unnaturally suggested that this chapter has by some
editor been transferred, either of intention or accident, from an
earlier part of the book--as, _e.g._, after chapter XXV. The question
is one of no importance; but it is not hard to perceive a good reason
for the position of this chapter after not only the rest of the law,
but also after the words of promise and threatening which conclude and
seal its prescriptions. For what has preceded has concerned duties of
religion which were obligatory upon all Israelites; the regulations of
this chapter, on the contrary, have to do with special vows, which
were obligatory on no one, and concerning which it is expressly said
(Deut. xxiii. 22): "If thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin
in thee." To these, therefore, the promises and threats of the
covenant could not directly apply, and therefore the law which
regulates the making and keeping of vows is not unfitly made to
follow, as an appendix, the other legislation of the book.
Howsoever the making of vows be not obligatory as a necessary part of
the religious life, yet, in all ages and in all religions, a certain
instinct of the heart has often led persons, either in order to
procure something from God, or as a thank-offering for some special
favour received, or else as a spontaneous expression of love to God,
to "make a special vow." But just in proportion to the sincerity and
depth of the devout feeling which suggests such special acts of
worship and devotion, will be the desire to act in the vow, as in all
else, according to the will of God, so that the vow may be accepted of
Him. What then may one properly dedicate to God in a vow? And, again,
if by any stress of circumstances a man feels compelled to seek
release from a vow, is he at liberty to recall it? and if so, then
under what conditions? Such are the questions which in this chapter
were answered for Israel.
As for the matter of a vow, it is ruled that an Israelite might thus
consecrate unto the Lord either persons, or of the beasts of his
possession, or his dwelling, or the right in any part of his land. On
the other hand, "the firstling among beasts" (vv. 26, 27), any
"devoted thing" (vv. 28, 29), and the tithe (vv. 30-33) might not be
made the object of a special vow, for the simple reason that on
various grounds each of these belonged unto the Lord as His due
already. Under each of these special heads is given a schedule of
valuation, according to which, if a man should wish for any reason to
redeem again for his own use that which, either by prior Divine claim
or by a special vow, had been dedicated to the Lord, he might be
permitted to do so.
OF THE VOWING OF PERSONS.
xxvii. 1-8.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall accomplish a vow,
the persons shall be for the Lord by thy estimation. And thy
estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto
sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of
silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if it be a female,
then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels. And if it be from
five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation
shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten
shekels. And if it be from a month old even unto five years old,
then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver,
and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of
silver. And if it be from sixty years old and upward; if it be a
male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the
female ten shekels. But if he be poorer than thy estimation, then
he shall be set before the priest, and the priest shall value
him; according to the ability of him that vowed shall the priest
value him."
First, we have the law (vv. 2-8) concerning the vowing of persons. In
this case it does not appear that it was intended that the personal
vow should be fulfilled by the actual devotement of the service of the
person to the sanctuary. For such service abundant provision was made
by the separation of the Levites, and it can hardly be imagined that
under ordinary conditions it would be possible to find special
occupation about the sanctuary for all who might be prompted thus to
dedicate themselves by a vow to the Lord. Moreover, apart from this,
we read here of the vowing to the Lord of young children, from five
years of age down to one month, from whom tabernacle service is not to
be thought of.
The vow which dedicated the person to the Lord was therefore usually
discharged by the simple expedient of a commutation price to be paid
into the treasury of the sanctuary, as the symbolic equivalent of the
value of his self-dedication. The persons thus consecrated are said to
be "for the Lord," and this fact was to be recognised and their
special dedication to Him discharged by the payment of a certain sum
of money. The amount to be paid in each instance is fixed by the law
before us, with an evident reference to the labour value of the person
thus given to the Lord in the vow, as determined by two factors--the
sex and the age. Inasmuch as the woman is inferior in strength to the
man, she is rated lower than he is. As affected by age, persons vowed
are distributed into four classes: the lowest, from one month up to
five years; the second, from five years to twenty; the third, from
twenty to sixty; the fourth, from sixty years of age and upwards.
The law takes first (vv. 3, 4) the case of persons in the prime of
their working powers, from twenty to sixty years old, for whom the
highest commutation rate is fixed; namely, fifty shekels for the male
and thirty for a female, "after the shekel of the sanctuary," _i.e._,
of full standard weight. If younger than this, obviously the labour
value of the persons service would be less; it is therefore fixed
(ver. 5) at twenty shekels for the male and ten for the female, if the
age be from five to twenty; and if the person be over sixty, then
(ver. 7), as the feebleness of age is coming on, the rate is fifteen
shekels for the male and ten for the female.[56] In the case of a
child from one month to five years old, the rate is fixed (ver. 6) at
five, or, in a female, then at three shekels. In this last case it
will be observed that the rate for the male is the same as that
appointed (Numb. xviii. 15, 16) for the redemption of the firstborn,
"from a month old," in all cases. As in that ordinance, so here, the
payment was merely a symbolic recognition of the special claim of God
on the person, without any reference to a labour value.
[56] These commutation rates are so low that it is plain that
they could not have represented the actual value of the
individual's labour. The highest sum which is named--fifty
shekels--as the rate for a man from twenty to sixty years of
age, taking the shekel as 2s. 3·37_d._, or $·5474, would only
amount to £5 14_s._ 0-3/4_d._, or $27·375. Even from this alone
it is clear that, as stated above, the chief reference in these
figures must have been symbolic of a claim of God upon the
person, graded according to his capacity for service.
But although the sum was so small that even at the most it could not
nearly represent the actual value of the labour of such as were able
to labour, yet one can see that cases might occur when a man might be
moved to make such a vow of dedication of himself or of a child to the
Lord, while he was yet too poor to pay even such a small amount. Hence
the kindly provision (ver. 8) that if any person be poorer than this
estimation, he shall not therefore be excluded from the privilege of
self-dedication to the Lord, but "he shall be set before the priest,
and the priest shall value him; according to the ability of him that
vowed shall the priest value him."
OF THE VOWING OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
xxvii. 9-13.
"And if it be a beast, whereof men offer an oblation unto the
Lord, all that any man giveth of such unto the Lord shall be
holy. He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or
a bad for a good: and if he shall at all change beast for beast,
then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy. And
if it be any unclean beast, of which they do not offer an
oblation unto the Lord, then he shall set the beast before the
priest: and the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad:
as thou the priest valuest it, so shall it be. But if he will
indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part thereof unto
thy estimation."
This next section concerns the vowing to the Lord of domestic animals
(vv. 9-13). If the animal thus dedicated to the Lord were such as
could be used in sacrifice, then the animal itself was taken for the
sanctuary service, and the vow was unalterable and irrevocable. If,
however, the animal vowed was "any unclean beast," then the priest
(ver. 12) was to set a price upon it, according to its value; for
which, we may infer, it was to be sold and the proceeds devoted to the
sanctuary.
In this case, the person who had vowed the animal was allowed to
redeem it to himself again (ver. 13) by payment of this estimated
price and one-fifth additional, a provision which was evidently
intended to be of the nature of a fine, and to be a check upon the
making of rash vows.
OF THE VOWING OF HOUSES AND FIELDS.
xxvii. 14-25.
"And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the
Lord, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or
bad: as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. And if
he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add
the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it
shall be his. And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord part of
the field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be
according to the sowing thereof: the sowing of a homer of barley
shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver. If he sanctify his
field from the year of jubilee, according to thy estimation it
shall stand. But if he sanctify his field after the jubilee, then
the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years
that remain unto the year of jubilee, and an abatement shall be
made from thy estimation. And if he that sanctified the field
will indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the
money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him.
And if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field
to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more: but the field,
when it goeth out in the jubilee, shall be holy unto the Lord, as
a field devoted; the possession thereof shall be the priest's.
And if he sanctify unto the Lord a field which he hath bought,
which is not of the field of his possession; then the priest
shall reckon unto him the worth of thy estimation unto the year
of jubilee: and he shall give thine estimation in that day, as a
holy thing unto the Lord. In the year of jubilee the field shall
return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the
possession of the land belongeth. And all thy estimations shall
be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall
be the shekel."
The law regarding the consecration of a man's house unto the Lord by a
vow (vv. 14, 15) is very simple. The priest is to estimate its value,
without right of appeal. Apparently, the man might still live in it,
if he desired, but only as one living in a house belonging to another;
presumably, a rental was to be paid, on the basis of the priest's
estimation of value, into the sanctuary treasury. If the man wished
again to redeem it, then, as in the case of the beast that was vowed,
he must pay into the treasury the estimated value of the house, with
the addition of one-fifth.
In the case of the "sanctifying" or dedication of a field by a special
vow two cases might arise, which are dealt with in succession. The
first case (vv. 16-21) was the dedication to the Lord of a field which
belonged to the Israelite by inheritance; the second (vv. 22-24), that
of one which had come to him by purchase. In the former case, the
priest was to fix a price upon the field on the basis of fifty shekels
for so much land as would be sown with a _homer_--about eight
bushels--of barley. In case the dedication took effect from the year
of jubilee, this full price was to be paid into the Lord's treasury
for the field; but if from a later year in the cycle, then the rate
was to be diminished in proportion to the number of years of the
jubilee period which might have already passed at the date of the vow.
Inasmuch as in the case of a field which had been purchased, it was
ordered that the price of the estimation should be paid down to the
priest "in that day" (ver. 23) in which the appraisal was made, it
would appear as if, in the present case, the man was allowed to pay it
annually, a shekel for each year of the jubilee period, or by
instalments otherwise, as he might choose, as a periodic recognition
of the special claim of the Lord upon that field, in consequence of
his vow. Redemption of the field from the obligation of the vow was
permitted under the condition of the fifth added to the priest's
estimation, _e.g._ on the payment of sixty instead of fifty shekels
(ver. 19).
If, however, without having thus redeemed the field, the man who vowed
should sell it to another man, it is ordered that the field, which
otherwise would revert to him again in full right of usufruct when the
jubilee year came round, should be forfeited; so that when the jubilee
came the exclusive right of the field would henceforth belong to the
priest, as in the case of a field devoted by the ban. The intention of
this regulation is evidently penal; for the field, during the time
covered by the vow, was in a special sense the Lord's; and the man had
the use of it for himself only upon condition of a certain annual
payment; to sell it, therefore, during that time, was, in fact, from
the legal point of view, to sell property, absolute right in which he
had by his vow renounced in favour of the Lord.
The case of the dedication in a vow of a field belonging to a man, not
as a paternal inheritance, but by purchase (vv. 22-24), only differed
from the former in that, as already remarked, immediate payment in
full of the sum at which it was estimated was made obligatory; when
the jubilee year came, the field reverted to the original owner,
according to the law (xxv. 28). The reason for thus insisting on full
immediate payment, in the case of the dedication of a field acquired
by purchase, is plain, when we refer to the law (xxv. 25), according
to which the original owner had the right of redemption guaranteed to
him at any time before the jubilee. If, in the case of such a
dedicated field, any part of the amount due to the sanctuary were
still unpaid, obviously this, as a lien upon the land, would stand in
the way of such redemption. The regulation of immediate payment is
therefore intended to protect the original owner's right to redeem the
field.
Ver. 25 lays down the general principle that in all these estimations
and commutations the shekel must be "the shekel of the sanctuary,"
twenty gerahs to the shekel;--words which are not to be understood as
pointing to the existence of two distinct shekels as current, but
simply as meaning that the shekel must be of full weight, such as only
could pass current in transactions with the sanctuary.
THE "VOW" IN NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS.
Not without importance is the question whether the vow, as brought
before us here, in the sense of a voluntary promise to God of
something not due to Him by the law, has, of right, a place in New
Testament ethics and practical life. It is to be observed in
approaching this question, that the Mosaic law here simply deals with
a religious custom which it found prevailing, and while it gives it a
certain tacit sanction, yet neither here or elsewhere ever recommends
the practice; nor does the whole Old Testament represent God as
influenced by such a voluntary promise, to do something which
otherwise He would not have done. At the same time, inasmuch as the
religious impulse which prompts to the vow, howsoever liable to lead
to an abuse of the practice, may be in itself right, Moses takes the
matter in hand, as in this chapter and elsewhere, and deals with it
simply in an educational way. If a man will vow, while it is not
forbidden, he is elsewhere (Deut. xxii. 22) reminded that there is no
special merit in it; if he forbear, he is no worse a man.
Further, the evident purpose of these regulations is to teach that,
whereas it must in the nature of the case be a very serious thing to
enter into a voluntary engagement of anything to the holy God, it is
not to be done hastily and rashly; hence a check is put upon such
inconsiderate promising, by the refusal of the law to release from the
voluntary obligation, in some cases, upon any terms; and by its
refusal, in any case, to release except under the condition of a very
material fine for breach of promise. It was thus taught clearly that
if men made promises to God, they must keep them. The spirit of these
regulations has been precisely expressed by the Preacher (Eccl. v. 5,
6): "Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou
shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to
sin; neither say thou before the messenger [of God],[57] that it was
an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the
work of thine hands?" Finally, in the careful guarding of the practice
by the penalty attached also to change or substitution in a thing
vowed, or to selling that which had been vowed to God, as if it were
one's own; and, last of all, by insisting that the full-weight shekel
of the sanctuary should be made the standard in all the appraisals
involved in the vow,--the law kept steadily and uncompromisingly
before the conscience the absolute necessity of being strictly honest
with God.
[57] So certainly should we render instead of "angel," in
accordance with the suggestion of the margin (R.V.). The
reference is to the priest, as Mal. ii. 7 makes very clear: "He
[the priest] is the messenger of the Lord."
But in all this there is nothing which necessarily passes over to the
new dispensation, except the moral principles which are assumed in
these regulations. A hasty promise to God, in an inconsiderate spirit,
even of that which ought to be freely promised Him, is sin, as much
now as then; and, still more, the breaking of any promise to Him when
once made. So we may take hence to ourselves the lesson of absolute
honesty in all our dealing with God,--a lesson not less needed now
than then.
Yet this does not touch the central question: Has the vow, in the
sense above defined--namely, the promise to God of something not due
to Him in the law--a place in New Testament ethics? It is true that it
is nowhere forbidden; but as little is it approved. The reference of
our Lord (Matt. xv. 5, 6) to the abuse of the vow by the Pharisees to
justify neglect of parental claims does not imply the propriety of
vows at present; for the old dispensation was then still in force. The
vows of Paul (Acts xviii. 18; xxi. 24-26) apparently refer to the vow
of a Nazarite, and in no case present a binding example for us,
inasmuch as they are but illustrations of his frequent conformity to
Jewish usages in things involving no sin, in which he became a Jew
that he might gain the Jews. On the other hand, the New Testament
conception of Christian life and duty seems clearly to leave no room
for a voluntary promise to God of what is not due, seeing that,
through the transcendent obligation of grateful love to the Lord for
His redeeming love, there is no possible degree of devotement of self
or of one's substance which could be regarded as not already God's
due. "He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." The
vow, in the sense brought before us in this chapter, is essentially
correlated to a legal system such as the Mosaic, in which dues to God
are prescribed by rule. In New Testament ethics, as distinguished from
those of the Old, we must therefore conclude that for the vow there is
no logical place.
The question is not merely speculative and unpractical. In fact, we
here come upon one of the fundamental points of difference between
Romish and Protestant ethics. For it is the Romish doctrine that,
besides such works as are essential to a state of salvation, which are
by God made obligatory upon all, there are other works which, as Rome
regards the matter, are not commanded, but are only made matters of
Divine counsel, in order to the attainment, by means of their
observance, of a higher type of Christian life. Such works as these,
unlike the former class, because not of universal obligation, may
properly be made the subject of a vow. These are, especially, the
voluntary renunciation of all property, abstinence from marriage, and
the monastic life. But this distinction of precepts and counsels, and
the theory of vows, and of works of supererogation, which Rome has
based upon it, all Protestants have with one consent rejected, and
that with abundant reason. For not only do we fail to find any
justification for these views in the New Testament, but the history of
the Church has shown, with what should be convincing clearness, that,
howsoever we may gladly recognise in the monastic communities of
Rome, in all ages, men and women living under special vows of poverty,
obedience, and chastity, whose purity of life and motive, and sincere
devotion to the Lord, cannot be justly called in question, it is none
the less clear that, on the whole, the tendency of the system has been
toward either legalism on the one hand, or a sad licentiousness of
life on the other. In this matter of vows, as in so many things, it
has been the fatal error of the Roman Church that, under the cover of
a supposed Old Testament warrant, she has returned to "the weak and
beggarly elements" which, according to the New Testament, have only a
temporary use in the earliest childhood of religious life.
EXCLUSIONS FROM THE VOW.
xxvii. 26-33.
"Only the firstling among beasts, which is made a firstling to
the Lord, no man shall sanctify it; whether it be ox or sheep, it
is the Lord's. And if it be of an unclean beast, then he shall
ransom it according to thine estimation, and shall add unto it
the fifth part thereof: or if it be not redeemed, then it shall
be sold according to thy estimation. Notwithstanding, no devoted
thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that he hath,
whether of man or beast, or of the field of his possession, shall
be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the
Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be
ransomed; he shall surely be put to death. And all the tithe of
the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the
tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the Lord. And if a man will
redeem aught of his tithe, he shall add unto it the fifth part
thereof. And all the tithe of the herd or the flock, whatsoever
passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord. He
shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he
change it: and if he change it at all, then both it and that for
which it is changed shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed."
The remaining verses of this chapter specify three classes of property
which could not be dedicated by a special vow, namely, "the firstling
among beasts" (ver. 26); any "devoted thing" (vv. 28, 29), _i.e._,
anything which had been devoted to the Lord by the ban--as, _e.g._,
all the persons and property in the city of Jericho by Joshua (vii.
17); and, lastly, "the tithe of the land" (ver. 30). The reason for
prohibiting the vowing of any of these is in every case one and the
same; either by the law or by a previous personal act they already
belonged to the Lord. To devote them in a vow would therefore be to
vow to the Lord that over which one had no right. As for the
firstborn, the Lord had declared His everlasting claim on these at the
time of the Exodus (Exod. xiii. 12-15); to vow to give the Lord His
own, had been absurd. To the law previously given, however, concerning
the firstling of unclean beasts (Exod. xiii. 13), it is here added
that, if a man wish to redeem such a firstling, the same law shall
apply as in the redemption of what has been vowed; namely, the priest
was to appraise it, and then the man whose it had been might redeem it
by the payment of the amount thus fixed, increased by one-fifth.
THE LAW OF THE BAN.
xxvii. 28, 29.
"Notwithstanding, no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto
the Lord of all that he hath, whether of man or beast, or of the
field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted
thing is most holy unto the Lord. None devoted, which shall be
devoted of men, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to
death."
Neither could any "devoted thing" be given to the Lord by a vow, and
for the same reason--that it belonged to Him already. But it is added
that, unlike that which has been vowed, the Lord's firstlings and the
tithes, that which has been devoted may neither be sold nor redeemed.
If it be a person which is thus "devoted," "he shall surely be put to
death" (ver. 29). The reason of this law is found in the nature of the
_herem_ or ban. It devoted to the Lord only such persons and things as
were in a condition of irreformable hostility and irreconcilable
antagonism to the kingdom of God. By the ban such were turned over to
God, in order to the total nullification of their power for evil; by
destroying whatever was capable of destruction, as the persons and all
living things that belonged to them; and by devoting to the Lord's
service in the sanctuary and priesthood such of their property as,
like silver, gold, and land, was in its nature incapable of
destruction. In such devoted persons or things no man therefore was
allowed to assert any personal claim or interest, such as the right of
sale or of redemption would imply. Elsewhere the Israelite is
forbidden even to desire the silver or gold that was on the idols in
devoted cities (Deut. vii. 25), or to bring it into his house or tent,
on penalty of being himself banned or devoted like them; a threat
which was carried out in the case of Achan (Josh. vii.), who, for
appropriating a wedge of gold and a garment which had been devoted,
according to the law here and elsewhere declared, was summarily put to
death.
This is not the place to enter fully into a discussion of the very
grave questions which arise in connection with this law of the ban, in
which it is ordered that "none devoted," "whether of man or beast,"
"shall be ransomed," but "shall be surely put to death." The most
familiar instance of its application is furnished by the case of the
Canaanitish cities, which Joshua, in accordance with this law of Lev.
xxvii. 28, 29, utterly destroyed, with their inhabitants and every
living thing that was in them. There are many sincere believers in
Christ who find it almost impossible to believe that it can be true
that God commanded such a slaughter as this; and the difficulty well
deserves a brief consideration. It may not indeed be possible wholly
to remove it from every mind; but one may well call attention, in
connection with these verses, to certain considerations which should
at least suffice very greatly to relieve its stress.
In the first place, it is imperative to remember that, if we accept
the teaching of Scripture, we have before us in this history, not the
government of man, but the government of God, a true theocracy. Now it
is obvious that if even fallible men may be rightly granted power to
condemn men to death, for the sake of the public good, much more must
this right be conceded, and that without any limitation, to the
infinitely righteous and infallible King of kings, if, in accord with
the Scripture declarations, He was, literally and really, the
political Head (if we may be allowed the expression) of the
Israelitish nation. Further, if this absolute right of God in matters
of life and death be admitted, as it must be, it is plain that He may
rightly delegate the execution of His decrees to human agents. If this
right is granted to one of our fellow-men, as to a king or a
magistrate, much more to God.
Granting that the theocratic government of Israel was a historical
fact, the only question then remaining as to the right of the ban,
concerns the justice of its application in particular cases. With
regard to this, we may concede that it was quite possible that men
might sometimes apply this law without Divine authority; but we are
not required to defend such cases, if any be shown, any more than to
excuse the infliction of capital punishment in America sometimes by
lynch law. These cases furnish no argument against its infliction
after due legal process, and by legitimate governmental authority. As
to the terrible execution of this law of the ban, in the destruction
of the inhabitants of the Canaanitish cities, if the fact of the
theocratic authority be granted, it is not so difficult to justify
this as some have imagined. Nor, conversely, when the actual facts are
thoroughly known, can the truth of the statement of the Scripture that
God commanded this terrible destruction, be regarded as irreconcilable
with those moral perfections which Scripture and reason alike
attribute to the Supreme Being.
The researches and discoveries of recent years have let in a flood of
light upon the state of society prevailing among those Canaanitish
tribes at the date of their destruction; and they warrant us in saying
that in the whole history of our race it would be hard to point to any
civilized community which has sunken to such a depth of wickedness and
moral pollution. As we have already seen, the book of Leviticus gives
many dark hints of unnamable horrors among the Canaanitish races: the
fearful cruelties of the worship of Molech, and the unmentionable
impurities of the cult of Ashtoreth; the prohibition among some of
these of female chastity, requiring that all be morally
sacrificed[58]--one cannot go into these things. And when now we read
in Holy Scripture that the infinitely pure, holy, and righteous God
commanded that these utterly depraved and abandoned communities should
be extirpated from the face of the earth, is it, after all, so hard to
believe that this should be true? Nay, may we not rather with abundant
reason say that it would have been far more difficult to reconcile
with the character of God, if He had suffered them any longer to
exist?
[58] On this subject, among other authorities, see Ebrard,
"Apologetik," 2 Theil, pp. 167-90, especially p. 173.
Nor have we yet fully stated the case. For we must, in addition,
recall the fact that these corrupt communities, which by this law of
the ban were devoted to utter destruction, were in no out-of-the-way
corner of the world, but on one of its chief highways. The
Phoenicians, for instance, more than any people of that time, were the
navigators and travellers of the age; so that from Canaan as a centre
this horrible moral pestilence was inevitably carried by them hither
and thither, a worse than the "black death," to the very extremities
of the known world. Have we then so certainly good reason to call in
question the righteousness of the law which here ordains that no
person thus devoted should be ransomed, but be surely put to death?
Rather are we inclined to see in this law of the theocratic kingdom,
and its execution in Canaan--so often held up as an illustration of
the awful cruelty of the old theocratic _régime_--not only a
conspicuous vindication of the righteousness and justice of God, but a
no less illustrious manifestation of His mercy;--of His mercy, not
merely to Israel, but to the whole human race of that age, who because
of this deadly infection of moral evil had otherwise again everywhere
sunk to such unimaginable depths of depravity as to have required a
second flood for the cleansing of the world. This certainly was the
way in which the Psalmist regarded it, when (Psalm cxxxvi. 17-22) he
praised Jehovah as One who "smote great kings, and slew famous kings,
and gave their land for an heritage, even an heritage unto Israel His
servant: for HIS MERCY endureth for ever;" a thought which is again
more formally expressed (Psalm lxii. 12) in the words: "Unto Thee, O
Lord, belongeth mercy: for Thou renderest to every man according to
his work."
Nor can we leave this law of the ban without noting the very solemn
suggestion which it contains that there may be in the universe persons
who, despite the great redemption, are morally irredeemable,
hopelessly obdurate; for whom, under the government of a God
infinitely righteous and merciful, nothing remains but the execution
of the ban--the "eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his
angels" (Matt. xxv. 41); "a fierceness of fire which shall devour the
adversaries" (Heb. x. 27). And this, not merely although, but BECAUSE
God's "mercy endureth for ever."
THE LAW OF THE TITHE.
xxvi. 30-33.
"And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land,
or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's: it is holy unto the
Lord. And if a man will redeem aught of his tithe, he shall add
unto it the fifth part thereof. And all the tithe of the herd or
the flock, whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be
holy unto the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or
bad, neither shall he change it: and if he change it at all, then
both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy; it shall
not be redeemed."
Last of all these exclusions from the vow is mentioned the tithe.
"Whether of the seed of the land, or of the herd, or of the flock," it
is declared to be "holy unto the Lord;" "it is the Lord's." That
because of this it cannot be given to the Lord by a special vow,
although not formally stated, is self-evident. No man can give away
what belongs to another, or give God what He has already. In Numb.
xviii. 21 it is said that this tenth should be given "unto the
children of Levi ... for the service of the tent of meeting."
Most extraordinary is the contention of Wellhausen and others, that
since in Deuteronomy no tithe is mentioned other than of the product
of the land, therefore, because of the mention here also of a tithe of
the herd and the flock, we must infer that we have here a late
interpolation into the "priest-code," marking a time when now the
exactions of the priestly caste had been extended to the utmost limit.
This is not the place to go into the question of the relation of the
law of Deuteronomy to that which we have here; but we should rather,
with Dillmann,[59] from the same premisses argue the exact opposite,
namely, that we have here the very earliest form of the tithe law. For
that an ordinance so extending the rights of the priestly class should
have been "smuggled" into the Sinaitic laws after the days of
Nehemiah, as Wellhausen, Reuss, and Kuenen suppose, is simply
"unthinkable;"[60] while, on the other hand, when we find already in
Gen. xxviii. 22 Jacob promising unto the Lord the tenth of all that He
should give him, at a time when he was living the life of a nomad
herdsman, it is inconceivable that he should have meant "all,
_excepting_ the increase of the flocks and herds," which were his
chief possession.
[59] See "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," pp. 635-638.
[60] See "Undenkbar;" so Dillmann, _op. cit._, p. 638.
The truth is that the dedication of a tithe, in various forms, as an
acknowledgment of dependence upon and reverence to God, is one of the
most widely-spread and best-attested practices of the most remote
antiquity. We read of it among the Romans, the Greeks, the ancient
Pelasgians, the Carthaginians, and the Phoenicians; and in the
Pentateuch, in full accord with all this, we find not only Jacob, as
in the passage cited, but, at a yet earlier time, Abraham, more than
four hundred years before Moses, giving tithes to Melchizedek. The
law, in the exact form in which we have it here, is therefore in
perfect harmony with all that we know of the customs both of the
Hebrews and surrounding peoples, from a time even much earlier than
that of the Exodus.
Very naturally the reference to the tithe, as thus from of old
belonging to the Lord, and therefore incapable of being vowed, gives
occasion to other regulations respecting it. Like unclean animals,
houses, and lands which had been vowed, so also the tithe, or any part
of it, might be redeemed by the individual for his own use, upon
payment of the usual mulct of one-fifth additional to its assessed
value. So also it is further ordered, with special regard to the tithe
of the herd and the flock, "that whatsoever passeth under the rod,"
_i.e._, whatever is counted, as the manner was, by being made to pass
into or out of the fold under the herdsman's staff, "the tenth"--that
is, every tenth animal as in its turn it comes--"shall be holy to the
Lord." The owner was not to search whether the animal thus selected
was good or bad, nor change it, so as to give the Lord a poorer
animal, and keep a better one for himself; and if he broke this law,
then, as in the case of the unclean beast vowed, as the penalty he was
to forfeit to the sanctuary both the original and its attempted
substitute, and also lose the right of redemption.
A very practical question emerges just here, as to the continued
obligation of this law of the tithe. Although we hear nothing of the
tithe in the first Christian centuries, it began to be advocated in
the fourth century by Jerome, Augustine, and others, and, as is well
known, the system of ecclesiastical tithing soon became established as
the law of the Church. Although the system by no means disappeared
with the Reformation, but passed from the Roman into the Reformed
Churches, yet the modern spirit has become more and more adverse to
the mediæval system, till, with the progressive hostility in society
to all connection of the Church and the State, and in the Church the
development of a sometimes exaggerated voluntaryism, tithing as a
system seems likely to disappear altogether, as it has already from
the most of Christendom.
But in consequence of this, and the total severance of the Church from
the State, in the United States and the Dominion of Canada, the
necessity of securing adequate provision for the maintenance and
extension of the Church, is more and more directing the attention of
those concerned in the practical economics of the Church, to this
venerable institution of the tithe as the solution of many
difficulties. Among such there are many who, while quite opposed to
any enforcement of a law of tithing for the benefit of the Church by
the civil power, nevertheless earnestly maintain that the law of the
tithe, as we have it here, is of permanent obligation and binding on
the conscience of every Christian. What is the truth in the matter? In
particular, what is the teaching of the New Testament?
In attempting to settle for ourselves this question, it is to be
observed, in order to clear thinking on this subject, that in the law
of the tithe as here declared there are two elements--the one moral,
the other legal,--which should be carefully distinguished. First and
fundamental is the principle that it is our duty to set apart to God a
certain fixed proportion of our income. The other and--technically
speaking--_positive_ element in the law is that which declares that
the proportion to be given to the Lord is precisely one-tenth. Now,
of these two, the first principle is distinctly recognised and
reaffirmed in the New Testament as of continued validity in this
dispensation; while, on the other hand, as to the precise proportion
of our income to be thus set apart for the Lord, the New Testament
writers are everywhere silent.
As regards the first principle, the Apostle Paul, writing to the
Corinthians, orders that "on the first day of the week"--the day of
the primitive Christian worship--"every one" shall "lay by him in
store, as God hath prospered him." He adds that he had given the same
command also to the Churches of Galatia (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). This most
clearly gives apostolic sanction to the fundamental principle of the
tithe, namely, that a definite portion of our income should be set
apart for God. While, on the other hand, neither in this connection,
where a mention of the law of the tithe might naturally have been
expected, if it had been still binding as to the letter, nor in any
other place does either the Apostle Paul or any other New Testament
writer intimate that the Levitical law, requiring the precise
proportion of a tenth, was still in force;--a fact which is the more
noteworthy that so much is said of the duty of Christian benevolence.
To this general statement with regard to the testimony of the New
Testament on this subject, the words of our Lord to the Pharisees
(Matt. xxiii. 23), regarding their tithing of "mint and anise and
cummin"--"these ye ought to have done"--cannot be taken as an
exception, or as proving that the law is binding for this
dispensation; for the simple reason that the present dispensation had
not at that time yet begun, and those to whom He spoke were still
under the Levitical law, the authority of which He there reaffirms.
From these facts we conclude that the law of these verses, in so far
as it requires the setting apart to God of a certain definite
proportion of our income, is doubtless of continued and lasting
obligation; but that, in so far as it requires from all alike the
exact proportion of one-tenth, it is binding on the conscience no
longer.
Nor is it difficult to see why the New Testament should not lay down
this or any other precise proportion of giving to income, as a
universal law. It is only according to the characteristic usage of the
New Testament law to leave to the individual conscience very much
regarding the details of worship and conduct, which under the
Levitical law was regulated by specific rules; which the Apostle Paul
explains (Gal. iv. 1-5) by reference to the fact that the earlier
method was intended for and adapted to a lower and more immature stage
of religious development; even as a child, during his minority, is
kept under guardians and stewards, from whose authority, when he comes
of age, he is free.
But, still further, it seems to be often forgotten by those who argue
for the present and permanent obligation of this law, that it was here
for the first time formally appointed by God as a binding law, in
connection with a certain divinely instituted system of theocratic
government, which, if carried out, would, as we have seen, effectively
prevent excessive accumulations of wealth in the hands of individuals,
and thus secure for the Israelites, in a degree the world has never
seen, an equal distribution of property. In such a system it is
evident that it would be possible to exact a certain fixed and
definite proportion of income for sacred purposes, with the certainty
that the requirement would work with perfect justice and fairness to
all. But with us, social and economic conditions are so very
different, wealth is so very unequally distributed, that no such law
as that of the tithe could be made to work otherwise than unequally
and unfairly. To the very poor it must often be a heavy burden; to the
very rich, a proportion so small as to be a practical exemption.
While, for the former, the law, if insisted on, would sometimes
require a poor man to take bread out of the mouth of wife and
children, it would still leave the millionaire with thousands to spend
on needless luxuries. The latter might often more easily give
nine-tenths of his income than the former could give one-twentieth.
It is thus no surprising thing that the inspired men who laid the
foundations of the New Testament Church did not reaffirm the law of
the tithe as to the letter. And yet, on the other hand, let us not
forget that the law of the tithe, as regards the moral element of the
law, is still in force. It forbids the Christian to leave, as so
often, the amount he will give for the Lord's work, to impulse and
caprice. Statedly and conscientiously he is to "lay by him in store as
the Lord hath prospered him." If any ask how much should the
proportion be, one might say that by fair inference the tenth might
safely be taken as an _average minimum_ of giving, counting rich and
poor together. But the New Testament (2 Cor. viii. 7, 9) answers after
a different and most characteristic manner: "See that ye abound in
this grace.... For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that,
though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through
His poverty might become rich." Let there be but regular and
systematic giving to the Lord's work, under the law of a fixed
proportion of gifts to income, and under the holy inspiration of this
sacred remembrance of the grace of our Lord, and then the Lord's
treasury will never be empty, nor the Lord be robbed of His tithe.
And so hereupon the book of Leviticus closes with the formal
declaration--referring, no doubt, strictly speaking, to the
regulations of this last chapter--that "these are the commandments,
which the Lord commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount
Sinai." The words as explicitly assert Mosaic origin and authority for
these last laws of the book, as the opening words asserted the same
for the law of the offerings with which it begins. The significance of
these repeated declarations respecting the origin and authority of the
laws contained in this book has been repeatedly pointed out, and
nothing further need be added here.
To sum up all:--what the Lord, in this book of Leviticus, has said,
was not for Israel alone. The supreme lesson of this law is for men
now, for the Church of the New Testament as well. For the individual
and for the nation, HOLINESS, consisting in full consecration of body
and soul to the Lord, and separation from all that defileth, is the
Divine ideal, to the attainment of which Jew and Gentile alike are
called. And the only _way_ of its attainment is through the atoning
Sacrifice, and the mediation of the High Priest appointed of God; and
the only _evidence_ of its attainment is a joyful obedience, hearty
and unreserved, to all the commandments of God. For us all it stands
written: "YE SHALL BE HOLY; FOR I, JEHOVAH, YOUR GOD, AM HOLY."
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illustrations, taken from history, literature, and science. Some
of the lines of thought opened out by him are very original, and
we especially commend the fine sermon on 'Obscure Service and the
Infinite Outlook.'"--_Glasgow Herald._
LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Leviticus" ***
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