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  THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE

  EDITED BY THE REV.

  W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.

  _Editor of "The Expositor"_

  THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY

  BY

  ANDREW HARPER, B.D.

  NEW YORK
  A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
  51 EAST TENTH STREET
  1895




  THE

  BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY


  BY THE REV.

  ANDREW HARPER, B.D.


  PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, ORMOND COLLEGE
  WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE


  NEW YORK
  A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
  51 EAST TENTH STREET
  1895




  Dedicated to

  REV. A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D.

  NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH

  IN VERY GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE

  OF

  INSTRUCTION AND IMPULSE

  IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES




PREFACE.


An adequate exposition of Deuteronomy requires the discussion of
many topics. The author has endeavoured to keep these various claims
in view: at the same time the limits of the volume have dictated
selection and compression. In particular, a chapter on miracle
in the Old Testament has been wholly omitted. That topic cannot
be said to have a peculiar or exclusive relation to Deuteronomy.
Yet the writer would have wished to include in the volume a
reasoned statement of the grounds on which he owns and asserts the
supernatural in Old Testament history; all the more because he
admits critical views which have sometimes been associated, and
still oftener supposed to be associated, with rationalistic views
generally. For the present this discussion is postponed. In some
instances, also, the writer has been obliged to content himself
with statements on critical questions more brief than he could have
desired; but it is hoped that enough has been said to explain the
position assumed, and to make clear the main lines of argument.

The task of adjusting the matter to the space would have been easier
if it had seemed legitimate to omit the critical and archæological
questions on the one hand, or, on the other, to leave untouched the
bearing of the thoughts and Laws of Deuteronomy on the religious
history of the race, and on the dangers and duties of our own
age. But an exposition of Deuteronomy must endeavour to open the
appropriate outlooks in all these directions.

Owing to the author's distance from London the work of passing the
book through the press has necessarily been left wholly to others.
It is hoped that oversights which may have arisen from this cause
will be pardoned.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I

                                                          PAGE
  THE AUTHORSHIP AND AGE OF DEUTERONOMY                      1

  CHAPTER II

  THE HISTORIC SETTING OF DEUTERONOMY                       37

  CHAPTER III

  THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT                                     48
  DEUT. i.-iii.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE DECALOGUE--ITS FORM                                   60
  DEUT. v. 1-21.

  CHAPTER V

  THE DECALOGUE--ITS SUBSTANCE                              73

  CHAPTER VI

  THE MEDIATORSHIP OF MOSES                                106
  DEUT. v. 22-33.

  CHAPTER VII

  LOVE TO GOD THE LAW OF LIFE                              116
  DEUT. vi. 4, 5.

  CHAPTER VIII

  EDUCATION--MOSAIC VIEW                                   146
  DEUT. vi. 6-25.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE BAN                                                  168
  DEUT. vii.

  CHAPTER X

  THE BAN IN MODERN LIFE                                   184

  CHAPTER XI

  THE BREAD OF THE SOUL                                    202
  DEUT. viii.

  CHAPTER XII

  ISRAEL'S ELECTION, AND MOTIVES FOR FAITHFULNESS          218
  DEUT. ix.-xi.

  CHAPTER XIII

  LAW AND RELIGION                                         239
  DEUT. xii.-xxvi.

  CHAPTER XIV

  LAWS OF SACRIFICE                                        253
  DEUT. xii.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE RELATION OF OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICE TO CHRISTIANITY  267

  CHAPTER XVI

  LAWS AGAINST IDOLATROUS ACTS AND CUSTOMS                 277
  DEUT. xiii., xiv.

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE SPEAKERS FOR GOD--I. THE KING                        295
  DEUT. xvii. 14-20

  CHAPTER XVIII

  SPEAKERS FOR GOD--II. THE PRIEST                         308
  DEUT. xviii. 1-8

  CHAPTER XIX

  SPEAKERS FOR GOD--III. THE PROPHET                       334
  DEUT. xviii. 9-22

  CHAPTER XX

  THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF ISRAELITE LIFE                   355

  CHAPTER XXI

  JUSTICE IN ISRAEL                                        377

  CHAPTER XXII

  LAWS OF PURITY (CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE)                   396

  CHAPTER XXIII

  LAWS OF KINDNESS                                         411

  CHAPTER XXIV

  MOSES' FAREWELL SPEECHES                                 433
  DEUT. iv. 1-40, xxvii.-xxx.

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE SONG AND BLESSING OF MOSES                           452
  DEUT. xxxii., xxxiii.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  MOSES' CHARACTER AND DEATH                               471




CHAPTER I

_THE AUTHORSHIP AND AGE OF DEUTERONOMY_


In approaching a book so spiritually great as Deuteronomy, it might
seem superfluous to allude to the critical questions which have
been raised concerning it. On any supposition as to origin and
authorship, its spiritual elevation and the moral impulse it gives
are always there; and it might consequently seem sufficient to
expound and illustrate the text as we have it. Minute and vexatious
inquiry into details, such as any adequate treatment of the critical
question demands, tends to draw away the mind, in a disastrous way,
from the spiritual and moral purpose of the book. That however is
precisely what the expositor has to elucidate and apply; and so it
might seem to be an error in method to enter upon extraneous matters
such as those with which criticism has mainly to do.

On the other hand, this has to be taken into account. The truth
about the composition of a book, about the authorities it is founded
on, about the times in which and the circumstances under which it
was composed, if it be attainable, often throws a very welcome
light upon the meaning. It clears up obscurities, removes chances
of error, and often, when two or three possible paths have opened
before us, it shuts us up to the right one. But if that is the case
when no special conflict of opinion has arisen, it is much more so
when a revolution of opinion concerning the whole religious life of
a nation has been caused by the critical view of a book adopted
by able men. Now that is plainly the case here. Deuteronomy has
been the key of the position, the centre of the conflict, in the
battle which has been waged so hotly as to the growth of religion in
Israel. The attack upon the views hitherto generally held within the
Church in regard to that matter has rested more upon the character
and date of Deuteronomy than upon anything else. Consequently every
part of the book has been the object of intense and microscopic
scrutiny, and there is scarcely a cardinal point in it which must
not be regarded differently, according as we accept or reject the
strictly Mosaic origin of the book as a whole, or even of the legal
portions. The difference is probably never absolutely fundamental.
On either supposition, as we have said, the spiritual and moral
teaching remains the same; but the mind is apt to be clouded with
harassing doubt as to many important points, until clear views on
the critical question have been attained. This is felt more or less
acutely by all readers of the Old Testament who are touched by
recent debates, and they expect that any new exposition shall help
them to a clearer view. Many will even demand that some effort in
that direction should be made; and, as we think, they rightly demand
it.

But there is still another reason for dealing with the questions
gathering round the authorship and age of our book, and it is
decisive. The debate concerning the critical views of the Old
Testament has reached a stage at which it is no longer confined to
the professed teachers and students of the Old Testament. It has
filtered down, through magazines first, and then through newspapers,
into the public mind, and opinions are becoming current concerning
the results of criticism which are so partial and ill-informed that
they cannot but produce evil results of a formidable kind in the
near future. By those who are sceptically inclined, as well as by
those who cling most closely to the teaching of the Churches, it
is loudly proclaimed that the acceptance of the critical view--viz.
that the Levitical law, as a written code, came into existence
after the Exile, and that Deuteronomy, written in the royal period
of Israelite history, occupies a middle position between the
first legislation (Exod. xx.-xxiii.) and this latest--destroys
the character of the Old Testament as a record of Revelation, and
undermines Christianity itself. The former class rejoice that this
should be so, and think their scepticism is thereby justified.
The latter, on the contrary, reject the critical conclusions with
vehemence. They have found God through the Scripture, and, resting
upon this experience, they turn away from theories which they
believe to be in direct conflict with it. To write an exposition
of Deuteronomy therefore, without correcting the false impression
that the critical view as to its age, etc., is incompatible with
faith in a Divine revelation, would be to miss one of the great
opportunities which fall to writers on the Old Testament in our day.
Questions regarding the age, authorship, and literary form of the
books of Scripture cannot ultimately be so decided as to nullify the
testimony borne to them by the experience of so many generations of
Christian men and women. Whatever makes itself ultimately credible
to the human mind in regard to such matters, will always be capable
of being held along with a belief in the manifestation of Himself
which God has given in the history and literature of Israel. But
nothing will make that fact so readily apprehensible, nothing will
make it stand out so clearly, as an exposition of a book like
Deuteronomy, which takes account of all that seems established in
the critical view. Even the most extreme critical positions, when
separated from the totally irrelevant assumption (which too often
accompanies them) that miracle is unhistorical, are compatible with
a real faith in Revelation and Inspiration. It is not the fact
of Revelation, but the common conception of its method, which is
challenged by the critical theories. We shall therefore only try
to meet a clamant need of our time, if we take with us into the
explanation of the Deuteronomic teaching a definite conclusion as to
the authorship, age, and literary character of the book.

As regards authorship, the ordinary opinion still is that
Deuteronomy was written by Moses. This was the view handed over to
Christianity in pre-critical ages by the Jews, and accepted as the
natural one. But if the Mosaic authorship of the whole contents of
the other books of the Pentateuch is now given up, much more should
it be given up in the case of Deuteronomy. For Deuteronomy does not
even claim to be written by Moses. It is not merely that in it Moses
is often spoken of in the third person; that, if it were carried
out consistently, as it is, for instance, in Cæsar's Commentaries,
would be compatible with Mosaic authorship. But what we find is
that the author, "whenever he speaks himself, purports to give a
description in the third person of what Moses did or said,"[1] while
Moses, when he speaks, always uses the first person. The book,
consequently, falls naturally into two portions: the subsidiary,
introductory framework of statement, in which Moses is always spoken
of in the third person, together with the historical portions; and
the utterances of Moses himself, which these introduce and hold
together, and in which Moses always uses the first person.[2] Again,
wherever the expression "beyond Jordan" is used in the portions
where the author speaks for himself, it signifies the land of
Moab.[3] Wherever, on the contrary, Moses is introduced speaking in
the first person, "beyond Jordan" denotes the land of Israel.[4]
The only exception is iii. 8, where at the beginning of a long
archæological note, which cannot have originally formed part of the
speech of Moses, and consequently must be a comment of the writer,
or of a later editor of Deuteronomy, "beyond Jordan" signifies the
land of Moab. If, consequently, the book be taken at its word, there
can be no doubt that it professes to be an account of what Moses did
and said on a certain day in the land of Moab, before his death,
written by another person, who lived to the west of the Jordan.
The author must consequently have lived after Moses' day; and he
has taken pains by his use of language to distinguish himself from
Moses in a most unmistakable way. It is no doubt possible, though
not probable, that Moses might have written of himself in the third
person in the connecting passages, and in the first person in the
remainder of his book: but that he should have made the anxious
distinction we have seen as to the phrase "beyond Jordan" does not
seem possible.

  [1] Driver, _Introduction_, 5th Ed., p. 84.

  [2] Cf. Deut. i. 1-5, iv. 41-43, iv. 44, v. 1, xxvii. 1, 9-11, xxix.
  1, xxxi. 1-30.

  [3] Cf. Deut. i. 1, 5, iv. 41, 46, 47, 49.

  [4] iii. 20, 25, and xi. 30.

But if our book, as we have it, is not by Moses, but is an account
by another person of what Moses did and said on a certain occasion,
that fact has a very important bearing upon the speeches reported
as Mosaic. For the style of the whole book up to the end of the
twenty-eighth chapter is, for all practical purposes, one. The parts
where the author speaks, and the parts where Moses speaks, are all
alike in style, and that style is in all respects different from
the style of the speeches attributed to Moses in other parts of the
Pentateuch. Consequently we cannot accept the speeches and laws as
being in the very words of Moses. They may contain the exact ideas
of Moses, but these have manifestly passed through the mind and
clothed themselves in the vocabulary of the author of Deuteronomy.
Even Delitzsch is quite decisive on this point.[5] In the tenth
of his _Pentateuch Kritische Studien_, after distinguishing the
Deuteronomist from Moses, he continues thus: "The addresses are
freely reproduced, and he who reproduces them is the same who also
contributed the historical framework and the historical details
between the addresses. The same colouring, though in a less degree,
may also be remarked in the repetition of the law in chapters
xii.-xxvi. to which the book owes its name. All the component parts
of Deuteronomy, not excepting the legal prescriptions, are woven
through and through with the favourite phrases of the Deuteronomist."

  [5] Cf. _Pentateuch Kritische Studien_ in Luthardt's _Zeitschrift_,
  1880.

Under these circumstances, the question immediately suggests itself
to what degree this representation of Moses' legislation can be
regarded as purely and unmixedly Mosaic. Was this legislation
given in the main or entirely by Moses, and, if it was so given,
may there not be mingled with what he gave inferences drawn by the
author in whose style the book is written, and adaptations demanded
by the exigencies of his later times? A full discussion of this
point would, of course, be out of the question here, and it would,
moreover, be superfluous. In Dr. Driver's article on "Deuteronomy"
in Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, and in his _Introduction to
Hebrew Literature_, detailed discussions will be found. All that is
necessary here is that one or two large and salient aspects of the
question should be looked at.

In the first place, it is important to know whether the author of
Deuteronomy can have been a contemporary of Moses, or a younger
contemporary of his contemporaries. If he were, the relation between
the speeches and legislation in his book and that which Moses
actually uttered would be similar to that between the speeches of
Christ reported by St. John in his Gospel and the actual words
of our Lord. They might, in fact, be taken to be in all respects
a reliable, though not a verbal, representation of what Moses
actually said or commanded. If, on the contrary, it should be
proved, either from the character of the legislation itself, or from
the evidence we have as to the date of the authorities whom the
Deuteronomist quotes, and upon whom he relies, that he must have
lived centuries later, then any such confidence would be materially
weakened. Now there can be no doubt, to take the last point first,
that Deuteronomy, taken as a legal code, though not wanting in laws
which have been first formulated by its author, is mainly intended
to be a repetition and a reinforcement of what we find in the Book
of the Covenant (Exod. xx.-xxiii.). The result of Driver's careful
tabulation of the subjects dealt with in the two codes is "that the
laws in JE,[6] viz. Exod. xx.-xxiii. (repeated partially in xxxiv.
10-26) and the kindred section xiii. 3-16, _form the foundations
of the Deuteronomic legislation_. This is evident as well from
the numerous verbal coincidences as from the fact that nearly the
whole ground covered by Exod. xx.-xxiii. is included in it; almost
the only exception being the special compensations to be paid for
various injuries (Exod. xxi. 18, xxii. 15), which would be less
necessary in a manual intended for the people." This is also the
conclusion of other scholars, and indeed is plainly demanded by the
facts. It is, moreover, what may be called the Biblical hypothesis,
for Moses is supposed to have been renewing the covenant made at
Horeb, and repeating its conditions.

  [6] It is scarcely necessary to remind readers that, from the point
  of view of the critics, J signifies one of the constituent documents
  of the Pentateuch which uses the name Yahweh for God. Its date
  is about 850 B.C. E is that document which uses the name Elohim,
  and may be dated about the same period as J. D is the author of
  Deuteronomy, who wrote, it is supposed, in the reign of Manasseh,
  perhaps about 670 B.C. P is the Priestly document, which Dillmann
  dates before Deuteronomy, but which most critics think was brought
  substantially into its present shape by Ezra. The portions of the
  Pentateuch assigned to these various documents will be found in
  Driver's _Introduction_.

But in the present condition of our knowledge, the fact of
Deuteronomy's dependence upon the Book of the Covenant brings into
view unexpected consequences. It is true, certainly, that the laws
of the latter code existed before they were incorporated in the
text where we now find them. Consequently no verbal coincidences
would give us the assurance that the Deuteronomist had before him
the actual book in which these laws have come down to us. But a
conclusion may be reached in another way. A comparison of the
historical portions of Deuteronomy with the corresponding narrative
in the previous four books of our Bible shows that for his history
also the author of Deuteronomy relies upon these earlier narratives,
and that he must have had portions at least of them before him in
the same text as we have now. The verbal coincidences tabulated in
Driver, pp. 75 f., as well as the general and exact agreement in the
events recorded in Deuteronomy with those recorded in the earlier
books, show that the author has not only drawn his information from
the same sources as those of the earlier books, but that he must
have had before him at least that section which contains the laws.

Now, as it happens, in the course of the analysis of the Pentateuch
it has come to be all but universally acknowledged that Exod.
xx.-xxiii. form part of a document which can be traced, dovetailed
into others, from Genesis to Joshua, and perhaps beyond it. This
document has been called by Wellhausen the Jehovist document, and
in all critical books it is referred to as JE, as being made up of
two sections, one of which uses Yahweh for the Divine name, and
the other Elohim. The only generally known scholar who denies
the existence of JE is Professor Green, of Princeton in America,
who, rightly enough, sees that the Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch cannot be held, if these separate component documents are
acknowledged. But the separate existence and character of JE may be
regarded as demonstrated, and also that it has been interwoven with
another narrative, largely parallel, but which deals of preference
with priestly matters, and has consequently been called the Priest
codex, or P. Together these make up the first four books of the
Pentateuch; and the remarkable thing is that, both as regards law
and history, Deuteronomy is dependent upon JE. "Throughout the
parallels just tabulated," says Driver,[7] "(as well as in the
others occurring in the book), not the allusions only, but the
words cited, will be found, all but uniformly, to be in JE, not in
P. An important conclusion follows from this fact. Inasmuch as, in
our existing Pentateuch, JE and P repeatedly cross one another,
the constant absence of any reference to P can only be reasonably
explained by one supposition, viz. that when Deuteronomy was
composed JE and P were not yet united into a single work, and JE
alone formed the basis of Deuteronomy." And this is not Driver's
conclusion only. Dillmann, who argues with splendid ability against
Wellhausen for the dating of P in the ninth century B.C. instead
of after the Exile, and consequently considers that it was in
existence before Deuteronomy, still holds that in general JE is
the Deuteronomist's authority both for law and history, contenting
himself with affirming that D shows undoubted acquaintance with
laws, etc., known _to us_ only in P. Clearly, therefore, Deuteronomy
must have been written after JE had been made public, or at least
after J and E had been written.

  [7] Driver, _Introduction_, p. 76.

The question therefore arises, what is their date? An answer can be
gradually approached in this way. As JE reappear as an element in
the Book of Joshua,[8] and contribute to it an account of Joshua's
death and burial, they cannot have been written by him, nor before
his death. That is the first fixed point. Then we may proceed a
step further. In various parts of JE there occur phrases which
cannot all be later glosses, and which imply that the land, when the
writer lived, had long ceased to be in possession of the Canaanites,
if some of them do not even presuppose a time when the original
inhabitants had been absorbed into Israel, as Solomon attempted to
absorb them by making them slaves of the State. Such passages are
Gen. xii. 6, "And the Canaanite was then in the land"; Gen. xiii.
7, "Moreover the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelled then in the
land"; Gen. xl. 15, in which Joseph says of himself, "I was stolen
away out of the land of the Hebrews," a name which the country could
not have acquired till some little time at least after the conquest.
Further, in Numbers xxxii. 41, which belongs to J or E, probably
the latter, we have an account of the rise of the name Hawwoth
Jair. Now in Judges x. 3-5 we are informed that the Jair from whom
the Hawwoth Jair had their name was a judge in Israel after the
time of Abimelech, who made new conquests for his tribe east of the
Jordan. Unless, therefore, the unlikely hypothesis be accepted that
both the district bearing this name in Judges and its conqueror are
other than those mentioned in Numbers, the verse brings down JE at
least to the period of Abimelech, which Kautzsch in his _View of the
History of the Israelites_, appended to his translation of the Old
Testament, states as about 1120 B.C., _i.e._ two hundred years after
the Exodus.

  [8] Josh. xxiv. 30.

The next step is suggested by Gen. xxxvi. 31-39, a passage from JE
in which a list of Edomite kings is given with this heading: "These
are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned
any king over the children of Israel." That sentence clearly cannot
have been written before kings arose in Israel; consequently JE must
be later than the days of Saul, and probably than David, since the
Israelite kingship appears to the author's mind here as a firmly
established institution. The author of Deuteronomy must have lived
and written at a still later date, and we are thus gradually brought
down to the time of Solomon, or perhaps even later.

And the literary indications of date confirm this conclusion. For
instance, two books are quoted occasionally in JE as authorities,
which must consequently have existed before that work--the Book
of the Wars of Yahweh (Numb. xxi. 14, 15), and the Book of Yashar
(Josh. x. 12 f.). The former has indeed been declared by Geiger
to be the product of false punctuation; but soberer critics have
accepted it and date it in Solomon's day. However that may be, there
can be no doubt that the latter actually existed, and was probably
a collection of songs, since from it the verses describing the
standing still of the sun and moon are quoted. But we learn from
2 Sam. i. 18 that David's beautiful lament for Saul and Jonathan
was contained in this book, and was quoted from it by the sacred
historian. The book must therefore have been compiled, or at least
completed, after David's lament. As it was manifestly a compilation,
and the poems it contained may have been of very various ages, much
stress in our search for dates cannot be laid upon it. It is still
of some weight, however, that this post-Davidic book is quoted by
JE; so far as it goes, that fact confirms the conclusion arrived at
from other indications.

In the same way, the linguistic indications, though not of
themselves conclusive, point towards the same period. It is,
of course, true that we are as yet far from having a general
agreement as to the history of the Hebrew language. That can only
be established along with the history of the Hebrew literature
and the Hebrew people; and perhaps we never shall be able to fix
any definite stages in the growth and decay of the language.
Nevertheless no careful reader of JE will deny what Professor Driver
says regarding them: "Both belong to the golden period of Hebrew
literature. They resemble the best parts of Judges and Samuel
(much of which cannot be greatly later than David's own time); but
whether they are actually earlier or later than these, the language
and style do not enable us to say. There is at least no _archaic_
flavour perceptible in the style of JE."[9] That is an admirably
balanced judgment, and we may rely upon the indication it gives
as an additional confirmation of what we have already seen to be
probable.

  [9] _Introduction_, p. 117.

It is impossible that these various lines of inquiry should
converge, as they have done, towards the early centuries of the
kingship as the date of JE, if Moses had written Deuteronomy, in
which JE is drawn upon at every moment. We may consequently dismiss
that view finally, and admit that the author of Deuteronomy cannot
well have written before the middle of the kingly period. But we
have still to inquire what the character of the Mosaic speeches
and the Mosaic writings given in Deuteronomy is in that case. Had
the author lived and written near the time of Moses, we might, as
has been said, have accepted them as the Church generally accepts
the Johannine speeches of Christ. But if the Deuteronomist wrote
four, or five, or six centuries after Moses, what are we to say?
In one view it must be granted that his account may be as accurate
as if it had been written within fifty years of Moses' death. For
an author of our own day, by keeping close to original written
authorities, and strenuously endeavouring to keep out of his mind
any information he may have as to later times, may reproduce with
marvellous correctness the actual state of things, as regards law
and other departments of public life, which existed in England,
say, five hundred years ago. Similarly the author of Deuteronomy
_may_ have handed on to us, without flaw or defect, the information
as to Moses' sayings and doings in the plains of Moab which he had
received from the written accounts of Moses' contemporaries. He may
have done so; but when we consider that his authorities may have
been in part not much earlier than his own time, that the critical
sifting of history was then unknown, and finally and most important
of all, that the Deuteronomist has hortatory much more than purely
historical aims, we cannot evade the question whether a good deal
that is here set down to Moses may not turn out to be additions
to and deductions from the original Mosaic germs of law, made by
inspired law-givers and prophets who took up and carried on Moses'
work. Many assert that this is so, and we must face and try to
settle the question they raise.

The theory held by those who most strenuously deny this assertion is
that all the laws in the Pentateuch are Mosaic in the strict sense,
that the codes were given by Moses in the order in which they now
stand in the Pentateuch, and that they were enacted with all their
modifications in a period of not more than forty years, all of which
was spent in the desert. In order to ascertain whether this view is
tenable, we shall take one or two of the more important matters,
such as the place of worship, the agents of worship, and the support
of the cultus; and we shall compare the provisions of the various
codes in order to see whether they can be supposed to belong to so
short a period, or to have been all enacted by one man.

Let us take first the place of worship. The three codes--that called
the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xx.-xxiii.), that contained in
Leviticus and Numbers and called the Levitical code, and that in
Deuteronomy--all contain directions about this. In the first the
prescriptions are (Exod. xx. 24): "An altar of earth shalt thou make
to Me, and thou shalt sacrifice upon it thy burnt offerings and
thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thy oxen. In every place where
I cause My name to be remembered I will come unto and bless thee."
In the Levitical law "the altar" is to be of Shittim or acacia
wood overlaid with copper, and the place for it is to be in the
court of the Tabernacle. There all sacrifices are to be offered,
and thither every slaughtered animal is to be brought (Lev. xvii.
1 ff.), and this is to be a statute for ever unto them throughout
their generations. In Deuteronomy again (chap. xii.) it is enacted
that all sacrifices are to be brought "unto the place which Yahweh
your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there,"
and ver. 21, "If the place which Yahweh thy God hath chosen to
put His name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of
thy herd and of thy flock" and eat them as game was eaten without
bringing it to the Sanctuary. But Moses is not represented as
ordering this law to be introduced immediately. It is only when they
go over Jordan and dwell in the land which Yahweh their God giveth
them, and when He giveth them rest from all their enemies round
about so that they dwell in safety, that they are to do this. Nay,
according to ver. 20 the new order is to be fully introduced only
when Yahweh their God shall enlarge their border as He had promised,
_i.e._ when their boundaries should be (xi. 24) the wilderness on
the south and Lebanon on the north, the Euphrates on the east and
the Mediterranean on the west. Now these boundaries were attained
only in David's day, and the rest from all their enemies round
about was, as Dillmann says, given as a matter of fact only in the
times of David and Solomon (cf. 2 Sam. vii. 11 and 1 Kings v. 18),
notwithstanding Josh. xxi. 42. Consequently the Temple at Jerusalem
must have been the place referred to. This is distinctly the view
of 1 Kings iii. 3 and viii. 16. The latter passage is peculiarly
emphatic. Solomon says, at the dedication of the Temple, "Since the
day that I brought forth My people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no
city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house that My name
might be therein." The Deuteronomic view consequently is that the
law requiring sacrifice at _one_ sole altar was intended by Moses to
be enforced only after the Temple at Jerusalem had been built.

These are the provisions of the three codes. Can they have been
the successive ordinances of a man legislating under the influence
of Divine inspiration within a period of less than forty years?
Let us see. The first legislation was given at Sinai, in the third
month after the Exodus: the Levitical legislation on the matter was
given about nine months later when the Tabernacle was finished, and
during that time they had not removed from Sinai: thirty-eight years
afterwards the Deuteronomic code was given in the plains of Moab.
Let us look at the character of the legislation given first of all
at Sinai. The meaning of the decisive phrase, "In every place where
I cause My name to be remembered I will come unto thee and bless
thee," has been much discussed; yet taken as it stands, without
reference to laws which on any supposition are later, it cannot
mean that sacrifices were to be offered only at one central shrine.
It specially provides for sacrifices being offered at different
places, but restricts them to places which Yahweh Himself has
chosen. At every such place He promises to come to them and bless
them. So much, men of all schools admit; difference of opinion
arises only as to whether these places are meant to be successive,
or whether they may be simultaneous. The view of those who accept
all the legislation of the Pentateuch as Mosaic in the strict sense
is that the places could only be successive, since otherwise the
words would imply that originally worship at one altar was not
prescribed. Delitzsch, for example, maintains that these words imply
necessarily only this, that the place of sacrifice would, in the
course of time, be altered by Divine appointment, and he declares
that to be their meaning. Others, again, suppose that the command
was meant only to justify worship at the various places where the
Tabernacle was called to halt on the people's journeyings, whether
in the wilderness or in Palestine. Now it cannot be denied that
only on some such interpretation can Exodus be brought into harmony
with Leviticus, and that undoubtedly has influenced, and rightly
so, the scholars who take this view. If it were tenable it would
be by far the most satisfactory interpretation. But it can hardly
be considered tenable if we look at the time at which this law was
given. There was as yet no other law, and this was given as soon as
the people came to Mount Sinai. The law in Leviticus was not on any
supposition given till nine months later. Now, if Exod. xx. 24 was
meant for immediate use only, and was superseded by the Levitical
law after so short a time, it is difficult to understand why it was
given, and still more difficult to conceive why it was preserved. In
any case it cannot have been understood to command worship at only
one place. It could have no other sense than that the people, so
long as they were at Sinai, were to sacrifice only at Sinai where
Yahweh had revealed Himself, or at other places in the neighbourhood
which He should sanctify, or had sanctified, by revealing His
presence at them. At any such place, if there He had once revealed
Himself, He would continue to meet them. Without the colour thrown
upon them by succeeding laws, that is surely the only meaning that
_could_ be put upon the words, and so understood they undoubtedly
authorise sacrifice at two or more places simultaneously. If, on
the other hand, this law was meant more for the future than the
present, as some of the laws in the Book of the Covenant undoubtedly
were, it must have been intended to be in force concurrently with
Lev. i. f. But if so, the "places" it refers to cannot be the mere
halting-places on the wilderness journey. No doubt these were
determined by Yahweh, and the tabernacle was set up at places He
may be said to have chosen, but the places themselves were of no
consequence at all. The Divine presence is declared to be always in
the Tabernacle. That was certainly a place where Yahweh caused His
name to be remembered, and without further inquiry about place, the
men of Israel knew that He would always meet them and bless them
in sacrifice there. The different character of the altar in the
Book of the Covenant too, a mere heap of earth or unhewn stone, and
that in the Tabernacle, made of acacia wood overlaid with copper,
corroborates the view that the altar aimed at in Exod. xxiv. is not
the Tabernacle altar. The only coherent view, on the supposition
of the concurrence of the two laws, is therefore that while, as a
rule, sacrifice was to be offered at the Tabernacle, yet if the
people came to any place where Yahweh had caused His name to be
remembered, sacrifice might be offered there on an altar of earth
or unhewn stone, as well as at the Tabernacle. Either way therefore
there is permission to worship at more than one place. But then the
difficulty is that Leviticus appears to denounce upon pain of being
"cut off from the people" absolutely every sacrifice not offered at
the Tabernacle.

Now if so far matters have been far from clear on the traditional
supposition of the date and order of these codes, a glance at
Deuteronomy will produce absolute confusion in every mind. As we
have seen, Deuteronomy represents Moses as restricting sacrifice
most rigorously to one altar after the building of the Temple at
Jerusalem, but virtually declaring that worship at various shrines
was to be blameless until that time. We have also seen that that is
the view taken by the author of the Book of Kings. Now this might
be regarded as a temporary relaxation of the law, intended to meet
the difficult circumstances of a period of war and conquest, were
it not for one thing. That is, that Moses in Deut. xii. 8, after
prescribing worship at one altar, adds, "Ye shall not do after all
that _we_ do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own
eyes," and as if to render mistake as to the meaning impossible, in
ver. 13 he explains ver. 8 thus: "Take heed to thyself that thou
offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest."
Notwithstanding the efforts of conservative scholars like Keil and
Bredenkamp to explain ver. 8 as a reference to the intermissions in,
_e.g._, the daily sacrifice, brought about by the desert wanderings,
or to the arbitrariness and illegality of the generation which
had brought judgment upon themselves by refusal to obey Yahweh in
attacking Canaan, it still seems impossible to accept that view. Of
course if we knew that Moses was the giver of all these laws, these
words would have to be explained away in some such fashion. But
if they are approached by an inquirer seeking to discover whether
they all are Mosaic, sound exegesis demands that they should be
taken as Dillmann and others take them. In the plain sense of words
Moses here admits that, up till the time at which he is speaking,
sacrifices were offered wherever men chose, and that he had
participated in the practice. And observe, he does not refer to the
Levitical law. He does not say this conduct of ours is a sin which
we must repent of and turn from at once. He calmly permits this
state of things to continue after Israel is in Canaan, and looks
forward with equanimity to its continuance till the Temple shall
be erected in Jerusalem. With this passage before us we ask, Can
this be the same inspired legislator who thirty-eight years before
compelled sacrifice at one central altar on pain of death?

The traditional hypothesis being thus encompassed with difficulties,
students of the Old Testament have sought another which would
correspond better with all the data. Relying upon the fact that the
author of Deuteronomy founds his book almost entirely on JE, and
that if he knows some of the laws and some of the facts mentioned
in P only, there are no proofs that he knew that book as we have
it, they put it aside in this matter also. Immediately, when that
is done, light breaks in upon our problem. If we take Exod. xxiv.
20 in the natural sense given to it above, sacrifice at various
altars was permitted from Sinai onwards, the only limitation
being that there should have been, at the place chosen, authentic
proof of a theophany or some other manifestation of the Divine
presence. That is the state of things out of which Moses speaks in
Deuteronomy. It will be noticed, however, that there is a slight
contradiction of Exod. xx. 24. The Moses of Deuteronomy speaks as
if every man's arbitrary choice had been his only guide. Probably,
however, with his mind full of the stringent unity he desires to
see, he speaks hyperbolically of the looseness of the former law,
and means nothing else than the practice prescribed by it. In all
ways this view is supported by the history. From the patriarchs
till the time of Samuel, the practice was to sacrifice at various
altars.[10] Consequently, according to both the Book of the
Covenant and Deuteronomy, and according to the history, the worship
of Yahweh at sacred places throughout the land was legal, until the
Temple was erected at Jerusalem. The centralisation of worship was,
consequently, a new thing when the division of the kingdoms took
place, and was not an express law till Deuteronomy. If that book
was not written till perhaps Hezekiah's day, the fact will account
as nothing else will do for Elijah's words (1 Kings xix. 10), "The
children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine
altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword." Even in the presence
of Yahweh he, without rebuke, calls the altars in the Northern
Kingdom His.

  [10] Cf. for the passages on which this statement is founded
  Driver's _Introduction_, p. 80, and note in small print.

The first attempt we know of to centralise worship was made by
Hezekiah; a second and more strenuous attempt was made under Josiah,
but the work was not actually accomplished till after the Return
from the Captivity. All the facts taken together suggest that the
movement towards centralisation was an age-long development. At
first all holy places might be sacrificed at, though a certain
primacy belonged to a central sanctuary, and this may have been
stamped by Moses with approval. When the Solomonic Temple was
built the primacy began to take the form of a claim for exclusive
validity. The experiences in both kingdoms strengthened that
claim, by showing that if Yahwism was to be kept pure the worship
at the High Places must be abolished. The inspired writer of
Deuteronomy then completed Moses' work by embodying that which had
been always a tendency of the Mosaic system, and had now become
a necessity, in his revisal of the Mosaic legislation. This was
adopted by the nation under Josiah, and the Priest Codex must in
that case represent a later stage of the development, when the
centralisation was neither a tendency nor a demand, but a realised
fact. Such a process accounts much better for the facts than the
traditional belief; and though it is not free from difficulties it
at least releases us from the confusion of mind which the ordinary
supposition forces upon us.

The inquiry as to the agents of the cultus need not detain us so
long. In the Book of the Covenant no priests are mentioned at
all. The person addressed, the "thou" of these chapters, which is
either the individual Israelite or the whole community, has been
held by some to indicate that the individual offerer was the only
agent in sacrifice. But that is to press the word too far. Even
in Leviticus, while the whole people are addressed, the actions
enjoined or prohibited are such as are done by "any man of them,"
and in Deut. xii. 13 we have precisely the same expression, "Take
heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every
place that thou seest," used at a time when there was undeniably a
priestly tribe and even the High Places had a regular priesthood.
But while in Exod. xx.-xxiii. there is no evidence to show whether
a priesthood existed, in the previous chapter (xix. 22, 24) priests
who "come near to Yahweh" are twice mentioned. This would be a
fact of the first importance were it not that the words occur in
a passage which is admitted to be in its present shape the work
of the later editor. Dillmann maintains, and with good reason,
that he has inserted and adapted here a fragment of J. If so then
J may have held the view that there were priests before Sinai was
reached, but under the circumstances we cannot be certain that the
mention of them may not be an anachronism introduced by the later
hand. In favour of the view that it is so is the fact that in the
account given by JE of the ratification of the Covenant between
Yahweh and the people (Exod. xxiv. 1 ff.), Moses erected an altar
and then "sent the young men of the children of Israel which
offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto
Yahweh." He himself however performed the specially priestly act
of sprinkling the blood upon the altar. Had there been priests or
Levites accustomed to perform priestly functions, we should have
expected them to act, instead of "the young men of the children
of Israel." But, on the other hand, we must not omit to notice
that the Levites occupy in all these transactions, as narrated
by JE, a very prominent position. Dillmann,[11] as we have seen,
separating J and E, considers that the passages in which priests
before the Sinaitic legislation are spoken of belong to J, and adds:
"Indeed, it appears from Exod. iv. 14, 'Is not Aaron the Levite thy
brother?' and xxiv. 1, 9, that for him even then the Levites were
the priestly persons." To these passages Driver adds Exod. xviii.
12: "And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, 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." Further, Nadab
and Abihu are Levites, nay, sons of Aaron, and in Exod. xxiv. 1 and
9 they go with Moses, Aaron, and the seventy elders as the complete
representation of the people, and Moses, himself a Levite, performs
all the greater priestly acts.[12] Moreover JE knows of the ark, and
speaks frequently of the "tent of meeting" (Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff.;
Numb. xi. 24 f., xii. 4 ff. and Deut. xxxi. 14 ff.). But a very
notable thing in connection with the inquiry as to the performers of
priestly duties appears in Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff., where E's account
of the "tent of meeting" is given. When Moses turned again into the
camp "his minister (_mesharetho_) Joshua, the son of Nun, a young
man, departed not out of the tent," yet Joshua was an Ephraimite (1
Chron. vii. 22-27). In Exod. xxxii. 29, however, the same authority
describes the consecration of the Levites to the priesthood, after
the apostasy of the golden calf.

  [11] Dillmann, _Exodus and Leviticus_, p. 199.

  [12] Josh. iii. 14-17 and _passim_.

In Deuteronomy, on the contrary, the priests are very prominent;
they are called, however, the Levitical priests, or priests simply,
but never sons of Aaron. The whole tribe of Levi is regarded as
priestly in some sense. They constitute, in fact, a clerical order,
though there are clear indications of ranks, of men being assigned
to special duties. Curiously enough, the tribe thus highly honoured
is spoken of as being notoriously and all but universally poor. No
sacrifice can legitimately be offered without them; and, though the
question of the place of sacrifice has not yet been finally settled,
the position of the Levitical priests as sacrificers is so entirely
established that it is regarded as needing neither assertion nor
justification. Nay, in one passage, Deut. x. 6--which there is
no valid reason, except the wish to get rid of its contents, for
supposing to belong to another authority than D[13]--the hereditary
succession to the chief place among the priesthood is assigned to
the family of Aaron. In xviii. 5 also the hereditary character
of the priesthood is asserted in the words, "For Yahweh thy God
hath chosen him--_i.e._ the priest--out of all thy tribes, to
stand to minister in the name of Yahweh, _him and his sons for
ever_." As for the body of the Levites, their position is somewhat
ill-defined. On the authority of xviii. 6 ff. many claim that at
the date of Deuteronomy every Levite was, at least potentially, a
priest, that in fact Levite and priest were synonymous. But, as
will appear in the exposition of the verses referred to, that is a
very questionable proposition. Nevertheless it cannot be denied
that in Deuteronomy the line between priests and Levites is a very
indistinct one; there is _prima facie_ reason to believe that it
could be passed, and the gap between the two is certainly not nearly
so wide as it appears to be in the undeniably post-exilic literature.

 [13] Driver, _Introduction_, p. 145; Oettli, _Deuteronomy_, p. 7;
  Kuenen, _H.K.O._, p. 113.

In the Priest Codex again, the priesthood is confined exclusively
to the house of Aaron, with the high priest at their head. The
Levites have no possible way of entrance into the priesthood. They
are Yahweh's gift to the priests, and are confined most strictly to
the duty of waiting upon these in the ministration of the Sanctuary.
They have none but the most subordinate share in the sacrifices;
they are shut out from the holy places of the Tabernacle; and they
have assigned to them cities in which they may dwell together when
they are not on duty at the Sanctuary. There is no word there of
Levites being poor, and altogether the position of the tribe is,
through the priests, much more dignified and prosperous in a worldly
sense than we found it to be in Deuteronomy.

Now, taking all these data together, we find here, just as we did in
the previous section, that the Levitical law is a disturbing element
between Exodus and Deuteronomy. If we take it out of the way, J, E,
and D harmonise well enough. The main difference is that the latter
shows the same fundamental conditions as we find in the former,
only consolidated and developed by time, but by a longer time than
forty years. In fact D makes explicit that importance of the Levites
which is only hinted at and foreshadowed in JE. They have come to
be the only authorised agents of sacrifice; they have a hereditary
headship in the house of Aaron; various orders and degrees must be
held to exist (cf. Deut. xviii. 1 ff.). Compared with this state
of things, the Levitical arrangements of P, supposed to have been
given thirty-eight years before, are very different. In every
respect they are more definite, more detailed, and show a much more
differentiated organisation than those sketched in Deuteronomy.
These latter indicate a state of matters which would suit admirably
as an embryonic stage of the full-grown Levitical system, and which
can hardly be fitted into their place otherwise.

It is suggested, in reply, that allusions in Deuteronomy _imply_
the existence of a system of a much more elaborate kind than any
that we could construct from the explicit statements of the book,
and that is certainly true. But no reasonable interpretation of
these allusions can lead us to a system identical with that in P.
Nor can Deuteronomy's use of the name Levites (though undoubtedly
it has been pressed by some too far) be held to be consistent with
the public recognition of the "great gulf fixed" in P between the
Aaronic priests and the Levites as a body. Nor will the fact that
Deuteronomy is the people's book, and is consequently not called
upon to go into technical details, cover the difference. Indeed
nothing will, short of recognising the fact that, as publicly
acknowledged organisations, the tribe of Levi in P and the tribe of
Levi in D are different, and that the state of things in D's day
is earlier than that in P. If this is not so, then the Levitical
legislation, conceived as given by Moses, must be held to have
proved impracticable, and Deuteronomy must then be regarded as an
abrogation of it for the time.

And the same conclusions suggest themselves if we look more closely
into the curious fact that Deuteronomy always speaks of the Levites
as poor. Some have supposed that this poverty is the result of
the centralisation of the cultus which the author demands, and
that the constant insistence that the Levite shall be invited to
all sacrificial feasts, along with the widow and the orphan, and
other helpless classes, is a provision against the poverty to be
brought upon them by the abolition of the High Places. But that
is not so. We know the manner of the Deuteronomist when he is
providing for contingencies arising from the new state of things he
wishes to bring about, and it is quite different from his manner
here. Clearly, the Levites were poor before the suppression of the
High Places, and were so, as Deuteronomy tells us, from the fact
that they had no inheritance in the land. But that poverty is not
consistent with their whole position as sketched in the Levitical
legislation. There we have the Levites launched as a regularly
organised priestly corporation, endowed with ample revenues, and
ruled and represented by a high priest of the family of Aaron,
clothed with powers almost royal, surrounded by a priestly nobility
of his own family and by a bodyguard of tribesmen entirely at his
disposal. Such a body never has remained chronically and notoriously
poor. In the wilderness they would not be so in contrast with
others, for all were poor, and there was nothing to hinder the
Levites having cattle as the other tribes had, and being on the same
level as they. In the promised land, instead of becoming poor, they
would at once enter upon the enjoyment of their various tithes and
dues, and would moreover have such a share in the booty of Canaan
as would more than make up at first for their want of a heritage.
The priests were to receive one five-hundredth part of the army's
half, and the Levites the fiftieth share of the people's half (Numb.
xxxi. 28 ff.). Gradually, too, they would be put in possession of
the priestly cities. Evidently, therefore, if the Levites were ever
poor, it cannot have been till some time after Israel had been
settled in the land, and then only if P's laws and organisations of
the tribe were not enforced.

Deuteronomy supports the same argument. Since want of a heritage
was the cause of the Levites' poverty, they cannot have been
_exceptionally_ poor in the wilderness. Nor can they have been poor
during the time of the conquest; for even if the Levitical law was
in force and the tribe was then wholly organised for the priesthood,
they must have shared in the fighting and the spoil. But if the
order of legislation, as we maintain, was (1) Exodus xx.-xxiii., (2)
Deuteronomy, (3) the Priest Codex, then as the booty from war ceased
to be a source of income, the Levites as a body remaining nomads,
while the other tribes became agricultural, would necessarily become
poor in comparison with their fellow-countrymen. It is out of that
state of things the Deuteronomist speaks.[14]

  [14] See further in exposition of chapter xvii; xviii.

The same conclusions follow when the regulations are examined
which bear upon the support of the priestly tribe. The outstanding
matters in this department are tithes and firstlings. Space will not
admit of a full discussion of these topics; but if the reader will
compare, in regard to tithes, Numb. xviii. 21-24 and Lev. xxvii. 30,
32, with Deut. xii. 17, and in regard to firstlings Numb. xviii.
18 with Deut. xii. 6, 17 f., and xv. 19 f., he will see that the
application of tithes and of firstlings according to Deuteronomy
is quite different from that in the Levitical legislation. The
difference is such as will not comport with the hypothesis of a
single legislator and a consistent legislation. Expedients with a
view to solve the difficulty have been suggested by Keil and others;
but each of those expedients is burdened with specific difficulties
of its own.

The inevitable conclusion from all this would seem to be that in the
Deuteronomic as in the Levitical laws we have not the legislation of
Moses or of his age alone. The roots of all the legislative codes
are Mosaic, but in all save perhaps the Book of the Covenant the
trunk and branches are of much later growth. The authors of them are
not careful to distinguish what came from Moses himself from that
which had been developed out of it under the influence of the same
inspiration. In both D and P there were Mosaic elements, and in both
there are laws not given by him. To disentangle these completely now
is impossible, and it is probably best for expository purposes to
take the codes as giving what the Mosaic legislation had become at
the time of the writer. What we have in Deuteronomy therefore cannot
be better described than in Driver's words (_Introduction_, p. 85),
as "the prophetic re-formulation and adaptation to new needs of an
older legislation." Its relations to the other codes are as the same
critic states (p. 71): "It is an _expansion_ of that in JE (Exod.
xx.-xxiii.); it is, in several features, _parallel_ to that in Lev.
xvii.-xxvi.; it contains _allusions_ to laws such as those codified
in some parts of P, while from those contained in other parts of P
it differs widely." And the state of things in which these various
codes originated is more and more coming to be conceived in the
manner stated by Dr. A. B. Davidson.[15] "It is evident," he says,
"that two streams of thought, both issuing from a fountain as high
up as the very origin of the nation, ran side by side down the whole
history of the people, the prophetic and the priestly. In the one
Jehovah is a moral ruler, a righteous king and judge, who punishes
iniquity judicially or forgives sins freely of His mercy. In the
other He is a Person dwelling among His people in a house, a Holy
Being or Nature, sensitive to every uncleanness in all that is near
Him, and requiring its removal by lustrations and atonement. Those
cherishing the latter circle of conceptions might be as zealous for
the Lord of Hosts as the prophets. And the developments of the
national history would extend their conceptions and lead to the
amplification of practices embodying them, just as they extended the
conceptions of the prophets. A growth of priestly ideas is quite
as probable as a growth of prophetic ideas. That the streams ran
apart is no evidence that they were not equally ancient and always
contemporaneous, for we see Jeremiah and Ezekiel both flourishing
in one age. At one point in the history the prophetic stream was
swelled by an inflow from the priestly, as is seen in Deuteronomy,
and from the Restoration downwards both streams appear to coalesce."

  [15] _Ezekiel_, Introduction, p. liv. f.

The actual date of Deuteronomy still remains to be settled. Already
it has been brought down to post-Solomonic days. How much later
must it probably be put? The book must have been written before
the eighteenth year of Josiah, 621 B.C., for the Book of the Law
which was then found in the Temple was undoubtedly not the whole
Pentateuch, but approximately Deut. i.-xxvi. But it can hardly have
been produced in Josiah's reign, because it would never have been
permitted to drop out of sight had it been known to that pious king
and the reforming high priest Hilkiah. On the other hand, it can
hardly have been written or known before Hezekiah's reforms, for
otherwise it would have been made the basis of them, as it was made
the basis of Josiah's. Probably, therefore, we may date it between
Hezekiah and Josiah. Indeed we may with great likelihood affirm, as
Robertson Smith suggests, that it was the need of guidance caused by
Hezekiah's reforms which suggested and called out this book.[16]

  [16] _Additional Answer to the Libel_, p. 80.

But, say some, if the body of the book is not Mosaic, then this
is nothing else but forgery, and no forged or even pseudonymous
book can be inspired! Others again, most gratuitously, suppose
that Hilkiah found the book only because he had forged it and put
it where it was found. But there is neither need nor room for such
suppositions; and our effort must be to conceive to ourselves the
means by which such a book could come into existence, and be found
as it was, without fraud on the part of any one.

To modern, and especially Western notions, it seems difficult to
conceive any legitimate process by which a book of comparatively
modern date could be attributed, so far as its main part is
concerned, to Moses, and published as Mosaic. But if we take
into account the character of Deuteronomy as only an extension
and adaptation of the Book of the Covenant set in a framework of
affectionate exhortation, and that all men then believed that
the Book of the Covenant was Mosaic, we can see better how such
action might be considered legitimate. Even on modern and Western
principles we can see that; but at that early time and in the East,
literary methods and literary ideas were so different from ours
that there may have been customs which made the publication of a
book in this way not only natural but right. An example from modern
India will make this clear. Among the sacred books of the Hindus
one of the most famous is the _Laws of Manu_. This is a collection
of religious, moral, and ceremonial laws much like the Book of
Leviticus. It is generally admitted that it was not the work of any
one man, but of a school of legal writers and lawgivers who lived
at very various times, each of whom, with a clear conscience and as
a matter of course, adapted the works of his predecessors to the
need of his own day. And this practice, together with the belief in
its legitimacy, survives to this day. In his _Early Law and Custom_
(p. 161) Sir Henry Maine tells us that "A gentleman in a high
official position in India has a native friend who has devoted his
life to preparing a new Book of Manu. He does not, however, expect
or care that it should be put in force by any agency so ignoble as
a British-Indian Legislature, deriving its powers from an Act of
Parliament not a century old. He waits till there arises a king
in India who will serve God and take the law from the new 'Manu'
when he sits in his Court of Justice." There is here no question of
fraud. This Indian gentleman considers that his book _is_ the Book
of Manu, and would be amazed if any one should question its identity
because he had edited it; and he supposes that the king he looks
for, if he should come in his day, would accept and act upon it as
a Divine authority. So strangely different are Eastern notions from
those of the West. It is legitimate to suppose that _this_ Eastern
book originated in something of the same fashion. In the evil days
of persecution, when all the prophetic spokesmen were cut off,
and when the priests were occupying the chief position among the
supporters of pure religion, some pious man, inspired, but not with
the prophetic inspiration, set himself, like this modern Hindu, to
re-write and adapt the legislation which he believed to be Mosaic
to the needs of his own day. Altering the fundamental points as
little as might be, he developed it to meet the evils which were
threatening the Mosaic religion; and he inspired it with the passion
for righteousness and the love of God which had already thrilled the
hearts of faithful men in Israel through the ministry of the great
prophets. Hoping for the coming of a king who should serve God and
judge Israel out of this new Book of Moses, but while the darkness
still clouded the future, he died, committing his book to some
temple chamber where he might hope that it would be discovered when
God's set time should come. In such a supposition there is perhaps
something to shock the conventional theories of our time. But, so
far as can be seen, there is nothing to shock any open-minded man
who knows how widely ancient and Eastern thought differs from modern
and Western thought. It is certain that at this day Eastern men of
the highest character and of the most burning zeal for religion
would act in this manner without a qualm of conscience. We may
well believe, therefore, that in ancient days it was the same. If
so, this was a literary method which inspiration might well use;
and the supposition that Deuteronomy was so produced is certainly
more consistent with its history and character than any other. It
explains how it so exactly met the needs of the time and summed up
all its aspirations; and it gives to its claim of inspiration a
new support by laying bare the circumstances of its birth and its
psychological presuppositions.

But it may still be asked, what are we to think of the Mosaic
speeches, which, as has been seen, contain, to say the least, much
non-Mosaic matter? The answer probably is that in these, as in the
laws, the author relies upon earlier documents. From the appearance
in the codes of laws which would have little or no meaning if
originated in the time of the Deuteronomist, it has rightly been
concluded that there are very ancient and Mosaic elements in them.
So, in the speeches there are references and allusions that suggest
an ancient tradition of a final address of Moses, and perhaps a
written account of its general purport, in which even a hope that
the worship might be centralised may have been contained.[17] This
the author has adapted to his purpose of inciting his contemporaries
to be faithful to the Mosaic teaching, and has woven into it
all that later experience could suggest as effective ground of
exhortation. So much as that all ancient historians would have
done, and some moderns would do, without the faintest intention to
deceive, or any feeling of guilt; and so much may probably have
been done here. Delitzsch,[18] Robertson Smith,[19] and Driver[20]
are all at one as to this, and in the proofs they produce of the
necessity of accepting this view. In the words of Driver, "It is
the uniform practice of the Biblical historians in both the Old and
New Testaments to represent their characters as speaking in words
and phrases which cannot have been those actually used, but which
they themselves select and frame for them." The speeches of David
in Samuel and Chronicles serve for examples. In Samuel he speaks in
the language of Samuel, in Chronicles in the language of Chronicles.
"In some of these cases," Driver continues, "the authors no doubt
had information as to what was actually said on the occasions in
question, which they recast in their own words, only preserving,
perhaps, a few characteristic expressions; in other cases, they
merely gave articulate expression to the thoughts and feelings which
it was presumed that the persons in question would have entertained.
In the Deuteronomic speeches both these characteristic methods have
probably been employed, and we must just accept the inspired record
for what it reveals itself to be, setting aside, with the inevitable
sighs, our own _à priori_ assumptions of what it ought to be."

  [17] Cf. Driver, art. "Deuteronomy," Smith's _Dictionary_, p. 770.

  [18] _Pentateuch Kritische Studien_, X.

  [19] _Answer to the Form of Libel_, p. 34. Note: where Arnold and
  Masson's _Life of Milton_ are referred to.

  [20] Art. "Deuteronomy," Smith's _Bible Dict._, pp. 769 ff.

These then are the conclusions regarding Deuteronomy on which the
exposition offered here will rest. They have been reached after a
careful consideration of the evidence on both sides, and are stated
here not altogether without regret. For, as Robertson Smith has
well said,[21] "to the ordinary believer the Bible is precious as
the practical rule of faith and life in which God still speaks
directly to his heart. No criticism can be otherwise than hurtful to
faith if it shakes the confidence with which the simple Christian
turns to his Bible, assured that he can receive every message which
it brings to his soul as a message from God Himself." Now, though
it can be demonstrated that the view of Scripture which permits
of such conclusions as those stated above is quite compatible
with this believing confidence, there can be little doubt that
Christian people will for a time find great difficulty in accepting
this assurance. The transition from the old view of inspiration,
so complete, comprehensible, and effective as it is, to the newer
and less definite doctrine, cannot fail to be trying, and the
introduction of it here cannot but be a disturbing influence which
it would have been greatly preferable to avoid.

  [21] _Answer_, pp. 41 f.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that to the minds of the
working ministry and of their earnest fellow-labourers, who come
into constant contact with the actual needs of men, the change
should be unwelcome. But it cannot now, in my judgment, be avoided.
Even the best and most scholarly work of those who still hold the
traditional view does not convince. Rather it is their writings,
more even than those on the modern side, which make it clear that
the traditional view can no longer be held. These writers admit
the facts upon which their opponents' case rests, and then explain
them all away, harmonising everything by a crowd of hypotheses,
often scholarly, generally acute, but almost always such as can
be accepted only if we know beforehand that the view they support
is true. But far too many hypotheses are needed. Each case has
to be set right by a special effort of the imagination; while
the new view has this great advantage, that it makes room for
all the facts, by a hypothesis, suggested not by one difficulty,
but by almost all the discrepancies and difficulties which are
encountered. And, after all, this view does not move men away from
the central truth of inspiration, even as it was conceived by the
last generation. Apart from any care for averting errors in detail
which can be ascribed to Divine wisdom according to the old view
or the new, the central thing in both surely is the revelation of
God Himself. It was always God that was held to be revealed, and
this the advocates of the newer view insist upon most strenuously.
They hold that chosen men, the wisest, best, most truthful of
their respective generations, those who travailed most in thought,
received exceptional impressions of the Divine nature. They saw
God, and their whole being bore the impress henceforth of this
illumination. In every word and act the light they had received
found expression for itself. They did not receive this revelation in
mere propositions about God, which had to be carefully repeated with
minute verbal accuracy. They saw, and their natures were in their
degree uplifted, changed, and harmonised with the Divine. They could
no more be false in speaking of what they had thus experienced, than
a sincere and tender nature can be false in speech or thought about
death, when it once has found its love frustrated and overborne by
that dread messenger of God. The impression in both cases is true as
it is final, and it will triumphantly convey itself to others with
substantial and effective truth, whatever the man's knowledge or
ignorance otherwise may be. When a man has received an impression,
or a sight of God which has shaken his very soul, will it be lost
in its essential parts because in the speech in which he utters
it he shows ignorance of science, or accepts as simply true the
historic knowledge of his day? The thing is impossible. The light
that is within him must shine out, even though the medium through
which it shines be here and there blackened by imperfection. In the
fundamental point, therefore, the old school of critics and the
new are entirely at one. On the basis of this essential harmony it
should be possible for each to speak to the other for edification.
This is what has been attempted here; and if those who hold by the
Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy will tolerate the opposite view,
they will find that in dealing with the Scriptures as a revelation
of God, and as an infallible guide in all that concerns religious
and moral truth, there is no difference. To make the sacred word
living and powerful as an instrument of spiritual regeneration is
our common effort; and our common hope must be that, if in anything
we have been led into error, the mistake may be discovered and
removed, before it has wrought evil in the Church of God.




CHAPTER II

_THE HISTORIC SETTING OF DEUTERONOMY_


Whatever may be the date of the first publication of Deuteronomy,
there can be no doubt that it was accepted by Josiah and the people
of his time with an energy and thoroughness of which we find
no previous example. Its main lessons were learnt and put into
practice by them, and from that period the religious conceptions
of Deuteronomy dominated and formed the Hebrew mind in a manner of
which we have no earlier trace. For practical purposes, therefore,
we may say that this was the Deuteronomic period. The book gathered
up and embodied the higher strivings of that time; and to understand
it thoroughly we need to know the history of which it was, in part
at least, the outcome. Indeed, on any supposition as to age and
authorship, a study of the history of Judah from the end of the
eighth century B.C. to the end of the seventh is indispensable if we
would adequately understand our book, for that was the time when the
book is seen entering as a living force into the history of Israel.

Unfortunately, however, there are few periods of Israelite history
as to which we have less of reliable information. During much of
the period the main currents of the national life ran contrary to
all better influences, and in such epochs the compilers of the Book
of Kings took no interest. For the most part they were content
to "look and pass," gathering up the results of such times of
declension in a few condemnatory words. It is only when the nation
is on the upward slope that they enter into details. They wrote at
a time when the purpose of God in their national life was becoming
clear, and the splendour of it possessed them so that nothing else
but the increase of this purpose seemed worthy of any intenser
contemplation. Victories and defeats, successes and failures, and
last of all the tremendous catastrophe of the Exile, had taught them
this discernment; and they pressed forward so eagerly to record
the deeds and thoughts of those who had learned the secret of
Yahweh that they had eyes for nothing else. Consequently the eighty
years after the fall of Samaria, which for our purpose would be so
extremely instructive, are passed over in all our sources, almost
without mention. But there are some facts and events of which we
can be entirely sure; and from these it is possible to conceive in
outline the way in which things must have shaped themselves in these
eventful years.

Brought about as it had been by the appeal of Ahaz to the king of
Assyria for help against the continual aggressions of Syria and
Israel, the fall of Samaria must have come to the king and people
of Judah as a relief. Their enemy had fallen, and they would
henceforth be free from the anxiety and harassment which Israel's
enmity had caused. But those must have been blind indeed with whom
this feeling was permanent. Very soon it must have become apparent
to all thoughtful men in Judah that, if they had been freed from
the worrying and exasperating enmity of their kindred, their very
success had brought them into the presence of a much more serious
foe. With Assyria on their immediate frontier, settled in the lands
both of Damascus and Samaria, they must have felt themselves exposed
to chances and dangers they had never hitherto had to face. Under
the old conditions, except during comparatively short periods when
there was actual war between the two kingdoms, Israel had stood
between Judah and any danger from the North. But now the people of
the Southern Kingdom were summoned from "the safe glad rear to the
dreadful van." Henceforth no patriot could fail to be haunted by
fear of that ambitious and conquering Assyrian nation. The whole of
Hezekiah's reign was filled with more or less convulsive efforts
to maintain the independence of Judah. These were giving but faint
promise of success, when the great deliverance of Jerusalem foretold
by Isaiah gave the king a breathing space, and raised the highest
hopes in the minds of his people. It seemed for a little quite
possible that the ancient independence of Israel might be restored.
To many it seemed that the Messianic times were at hand; faith in
Yahweh carried all before it. But Hezekiah died not long after; and
in the succeeding reigns of Manasseh and Amon the whole temper and
policy of Israel underwent a most serious and reactionary change.

The causes of this are not far to seek. During the greater part
of Hezekiah's reign Isaiah had received only moderate support.
According to his own vision of his future work, he was to preach
without success; he was to say, "Hear ye indeed, but understand
not; and see ye, but perceive not"; and, so far as the mass of
the people were concerned, that prevision was justified. Only the
astounding success with which his opposition to the Assyrians had
been crowned had turned the tide of popular opinion in his favour.
It was probably, therefore, only then that Hezekiah's reforms were
instituted. They had been too short a time in force at his death to
have sent out their roots into the national life. But that was not
all. One of the most characteristic points in all prophecy was that
the _time_ when the full Messianic Kingdom should appear was never
clearly defined. Neither the Prophet nor his hearers knew when it
would be. It loomed always as a bright but vague background to the
deliverance which lay immediately before them; and in almost every
case neither speaker nor hearers had any conception of the long and
weary way which divided those sunlit mountain peaks from the dark
and threatening pass which they were approaching. Now the literal
interpretation of Isaiah's prophecies with regard to the deliverance
from Assyria had inevitably led the mass of the people to believe
that the raising of the siege of Jerusalem would mean the immediate
destruction of Assyria, and the advent of the Messianic day of
peace and glory for Israel. But the facts completely falsified that
expectation. Instead of being destroyed Assyria only grew more
powerful, and instead of the Messianic time there was only the old
position of vassalage to Assyria. So men grew weary, and said then
as they have said so often since, "All things are as they have been
from the beginning, and where is the promise of His coming?" The
true-hearted said it with sadness; and the false-hearted, saying it
in mockery and unbelief, fell back upon the old heathenish test, and
said, "The gods of Assyria are stronger than Yahweh, and we must
give them a place in our adoration." With the bulk of the people
this required no really great change in their point of view. They
had believed in Yahweh and agreed to purify His worship, because He
had proved Himself stronger than Sennacherib and his gods; and now
when, in the long run, Assyria was triumphing, they must have seemed
to themselves only to be following the teachings of experience in
giving the host of heaven equal honour with their own ancestral
God. The reaction, therefore, was more in the outward expression
than in principle, and we can easily understand how it was so swift
and so universal. Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, had probably opposed
his father's policy, as the heir-apparent has so often opposed the
policy of the reigning monarch; and if, as many suppose, Hezekiah
lived for sixteen years after the destruction of Sennacherib's host,
Manasseh came to the throne just when men's minds were most weary
with hope deferred, and when the Assyrian success was about to reach
its highest point before its final fall.

Accordingly Manasseh would seem to have undone at once all that his
father and Isaiah had accomplished. Nay, he went further in the
introduction of idolatry than any even of the idolatrous kings who
had preceded him. In the Book of Kings the charges made against
him are three:--1st, that he introduced the worship of the host of
heaven according to the Assyrian ritual; 2nd, that he took part in
the Moloch-worship; and 3rd, that he restored the old semi-Canaanite
worship which it had been Isaiah's most strenuous effort to root
out. And this policy, evil as it was in the eyes of all who cared
for the higher destinies of Israel, had at once great and striking
external success. For it meant complete submission to Assyria, a
willing vassalage from which even the wish for independence had
disappeared. The heart of the old Israelite independence had been
faith in Yahweh and confidence in Israel's calling as His people.
Even so late as Isaiah's day it had been faith in Yahweh which had
kept Hezekiah steady in his opposition to apparently overwhelming
force. But now Manasseh and the people who supported him exalted
the gods of Assyria as an even surer refuge than Yahweh had been.
Having made that admission, there was nothing left for them but to
humble themselves under the mighty hand of the great king and his
great gods. And this Israel under Manasseh did most thoroughly. As
Stade has strikingly said, "The Temple of the one God of Israel
became a Pantheon." The feeble attempts which Ahaz had made in
the same direction were utterly swept out of men's memory by the
completeness of Manasseh's apostasy. With this degradation of
the religious faith there also came, naturally, an intellectual
degradation. Superstition, baser even than idolatry, seized upon
the minds of men, and illegitimate efforts to pry into the future
or to influence the destinies of men by magic and incantations
became part of the popular fashion of the day. The old religion of
Israel had sternly set itself against all such debasing practices.
Alone amid the religions of the ancient world, it had relentlessly
refused the help of necromancy and magic generally. But the barrier
the religion of Yahweh had erected fell at once when its purity
and uniqueness had been sacrificed, and Manasseh gave himself up
to "practise augury and to use enchantments, and to deal with them
that had familiar spirits and with wizards." And to superstition he
also added cruelty. Not content with his signal victory over all
the best impulses of the past, not content with the applause of the
multitude who gladly followed him to do evil, he endeavoured to
force those whose work he had destroyed to bow before the gods they
both hated and despised. We know too little of the circumstances of
the time to be sure of his motives, but his action may have been
founded upon a craven fear that if he did not suppress the voices of
those who spoke for freedom, he might be visited with the anger of
the Assyrian king. Or it may have been that feeling, so powerfully
expressed in Browning's poem "Instans Tyrannus," which makes a
tyrant feel that all his life is made bitter to him if there remain
within his power one free man whom he cannot bend to his will. In
any case it is certain that he attacked the prophetic party with
sanguinary fury. Though he had the gods of the great battalions on
his side, he was dimly afraid of the power of ideas; and, so far
as faithful men were concerned, he instituted a "reign of terror."
According to the graphic statement of the historian, "he filled
Jerusalem with innocent blood from lip to lip," and for the time at
least was able to silence righteousness so far as public utterance
was concerned. There is a tradition that even Isaiah fell a victim
to his fury, being sawn asunder between two planks at his command.
It is perhaps not likely that Isaiah had survived so long. But,
beyond all doubt, many suffered for their faithfulness to God;
and it seems probable that the wonderful picture of the Suffering
Servant in the Deutero-Isaiah owes much of its colour to the
pathetic and painful memories of this evil time.

All this apostasy brought with it worldly success. Manasseh reigned
long, and under him the land had peace. Assyria _could_ have no
quarrel with a people and a king who anticipated its very desire
by eager submission. Peace brought material prosperity. The land
was so naturally fertile that it always grew rich when war was
kept from its borders. We may surmise, too, that a kind of bastard
culture became popular when the Jewish mind had opened to it, for
good and evil, a world of myth and song and legend which, if known
before, had until now been barred from complete and triumphant
entrance by faith in a living God. Once only would Manasseh appear
to have asserted himself, and, according to the Book of Chronicles,
he was taken prisoner in Jerusalem by the master he had served so
well, and learned to know in the bitterness of a Babylonian prison
that sycophancy does not always lead to safety. And the wisdom he
learned went further even than that. At the end of his life he
appears to have wished to undo, at least in some measure, the evil
he had laboured throughout his reign to establish and make strong.
But he found that to be impossible; and if his repentance was deep
and sincere he must have learned how severely the heavenly powers
can punish, by opening a man's eyes to the evil he has done when
it cannot be undone. Nor did his late repentance affect his son,
for under Amon all things continued in their previous evil course.
Indeed the prevailing idolatry had rooted itself so firmly that
even in the early years of Josiah, when the prophetic influence was
beginning to reappear, it still retained its hold with unshaken
power.

But what of the prophetic party during those evil days? Precipitated
from power in an instant at Hezekiah's death, it had at once become
feeble and obscure. Its leading supporters, we may well believe,
had to seek safety in hiding or in flight; and after some of its
chief speakers had been cut off, the once dominant party had to
take the position of persecuted remnants for whom all public work
was impossible. Under such circumstances what could these faithful
men do? They could only wait and pray, and prepare for that better
day of whose return their faith in Yahweh would not suffer them to
despair.

From the position afterwards taken up by the high priest, it would
seem probable that the Temple clergy were in full sympathy with the
prophetic movement. We need not suppose that that sympathy arose
wholly from the tendency of prophetic thought and effort towards the
suppression of the High Places. We should probably do the better
spirits among the priesthood grievous wrong if we thought that
their personal interest was their main motive in supporting even
that reform. Notwithstanding the earlier prophets' denunciation of
the priests as a class, there can be little doubt that they had
advanced, with the better classes of their nation generally, in
their appreciation of spiritual religion. And we may well believe
that the sight of the havoc which the now degraded worship at the
High Places was working in the popular mind made them earnest in
their endeavours to restore the true faith. Privileged as they
were, they would naturally be sheltered from the full fury of the
persecution. Consequently, when the time came for the supporters
of true religion to take their place in public life again, it was
natural and inevitable that the priests should be at their head.
The fact, too, that Josiah at his accession was a child, for whose
guardian no fitter person could be found than the chief priest, gave
the future into their hands. But they did not move prematurely. So
long as Josiah was a minor they contented themselves with instilling
their principles into the mind of the king. In outward political
life, so far as we can ascertain, they did not interfere at all, and
the ground was moved away from beneath the feet of the idolatrous
party, while they thought themselves firmly established. In Josiah's
eighteenth year the results of this quiet preparation appeared. In
that year Hilkiah, the high priest, told Shaphan the scribe that
he had found "the Book of the Law" in the Temple. That this was
Deuteronomy, if not altogether, yet practically, as we have it
now, there can be but little doubt; and it immediately became the
text-book of religion for all that remained of Israel.

Now it is obvious that the whole hopes of the religious party would
naturally be fixed upon it. They would turn to it as eagerly as
the Reformers turned to the Bible, after it had been rediscovered
by Luther at Erfurt. For obviously, if the people could be got to
acknowledge the law, the axe would be laid at the root of every evil
which they deplored. The High Places would be destroyed; the primacy
of the Temple at Jerusalem would be secured; and the prophetic
teaching, with its insistence upon judgment and the love of God as
the essentials of true worship, would, for the first time, become
the dominant influence in civil and religious life. Never since
Israel was a nation had the condition of the people called so
loudly for the enforcement of such a law, and now for the first time
was there hope that it might be actually enforced. The character
of the evils that afflicted the nation, the history of the last
half-century, and the teachings of the great canonical prophets had
all converged, as it were, to this one point, and we can understand
how all who strove for the higher life of Israel would strive
that Deuteronomy, whether ancient or modern, should be neglected
no longer. The result was that the whole power of the State was
thrown into the struggle against idolatry and the half-heathen
Bamoth-worship. The prophets and the priests joined hands to spread
the principles of the true religion, as voiced by Deuteronomy.
Professor Cheyne, in his _Jeremiah_, conjectures, with considerable
likelihood, that the break in that prophet's activity which occurred
at this time is to be accounted for by the zeal with which he
devoted himself to Deuteronomic propaganda throughout the land. In
any case, for the moment the purer worship obtained a completer
victory than ever before. Unfortunately it came too late and proved
too evanescent. But in the inward sphere, the Deuteronomic view of
religion as having its centre in love to God, the tender, thoughtful
evangelical spirit which distinguishes the whole outlook of its
author, laid hold upon all the higher minds that came after it. To
Jeremiah and to St. Paul alike, it, _par excellence_, represented
the law of God. Produced, or at any rate first prized, at a time
when Israel had fallen very low, when evil was triumphant and good
persecuted, it recommended and exemplified a cheerful courage, born
of faith in the high destiny of Israel and the truth of God. That,
more than anything else, helped to bear the ark of the Church over
the tumultuous centuries which separated those two great servants of
God, and when Christ appeared it was seen that this book, more than
any in the Old Testament save perhaps the Psalms, had anticipated
His cardinal teachings regarding the attitude of man to God and
of man to man. The conflicts and needs of the seventh century
B.C., which are so clearly reflected in it, gave inspiration the
opportunity it needed to reveal that inner secret of God's Kingdom.
Out of defeat and disaster this revelation came, and through times
of defeat and backsliding it proved its Divine origin by keeping
steadfast and calm those who specially waited for the coming of the
Messiah.




CHAPTER III

_THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT_

DEUT. i.-iii.


After these preliminary discussions we now enter upon the
exposition. With the exception of the first two verses of chapter
i., concerning which there is a doubt whether they do not belong
to Numbers, these three chapters stand out as the first section of
our book. Examination shows that they form a separate and distinct
whole, not continued in chapter iv.; but there has been a great
diversity of opinion as to their authorship and the intention with
which they have been placed here. The vocabulary and the style so
resemble those of the main parts of the book, that they cannot
be entirely separated from them; yet, at the same time, it seems
unlikely that the original author of the main trunk of Deuteronomy
can have begun his book with this introductory speech from Moses,
followed it up with another Mosaic speech, still introductory, in
chapter iv., and in chapter v. begun yet another introductory speech
running through seven chapters, before he comes to the statutes
and judgments which are announced at the very beginning. The
current supposition about these chapters, therefore, is that they
are the work of a Deuteronomist, a man formed under the influence
of Deuteronomy and filled with its spirit, but not the author of
the book. This seems to account for the resemblances, and would
also explain to some extent the existence of such a superfluous
prologue. But the hypothesis is, nevertheless, not entirely
satisfactory. The resemblances are closer than we should expect
in the work of different authors; and one feels that the supposed
Deuteronomist must have been less sensitive in a literary sense than
we have any right to suppose him if he did not feel the incongruity
of such a speech in this place. Professor Dillmann has made a very
acute suggestion, which meets the whole difficulty in a more natural
way. Feeling that the style and language were in all essentials one
with those of the central Deuteronomy, he seeks for some explanation
which would permit him to assign this section to the author of the
book himself. He suggests that as originally written this was a
historical introduction leading up to the central code of laws;
a historical preface, in fact, which the author of Deuteronomy
naturally prefixed to his book. _Ex hypothesi_ he had not the
previous books, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, before him as we
have them. These now form a historical introduction to Deuteronomy
of a very minute and elaborate kind; but he had to embody in his
own book all of the past history of his people that he wished to
emphasise. But when the editor who arranged the Pentateuch as we now
have it inserted Deuteronomy in its present place, he found that he
had a double historical preface, that in the previous books and this
in Deuteronomy itself. As reverence forbade the rejection of these
chapters, he took refuge in the expedient of turning the originally
impersonal narrative into a speech of Moses; which he could all the
more blamelessly do as the probability is that the whole book was
regarded in his time as the work of Moses. This hypothesis, if it
can be accepted, certainly accounts for all the phenomena presented
by these chapters--the similarity of language, the archæological
notes in the speech, and the historic colour in the statements
regarding Edom, for example, which corresponds to early feeling,
not to post-exilic thought at all. It has besides the merit of
reducing the number of anonymous writers to be taken account of in
the Pentateuch, a most desirable thing in itself. Lastly, it gives
us in Deuteronomy a compact whole more complete in all its parts
than almost any other portion of the Old Testament, certainly more
so than any of the books containing legislation.

Moreover, that the Deuteronomic reinforcement and expansion of
the Mosaic legislation, as contained in the Book of the Covenant,
should begin with such a history of Yahweh's dealings with His
people, is entirely characteristic of Old Testament Revelation. In
the main and primarily, what the Old Testament writers give us is
a history of how God wrought, how He dealt with the people He had
chosen. In the view of the Hebrew writers, God's first and main
revelation of Himself is always in conduct. He showed Himself good
and merciful and gentle to His people, and then, having so shown
Himself, He has an acknowledged right to claim their obedience. As
St. Paul has so powerfully pointed out, the law was secondary, not
primary. Grace, the free love and choice of God, was always the
beginning of true relations with Him, and only after that had been
known and accepted does He look for the true life which His law is
to regulate. Naturally, therefore, when the author of Deuteronomy
is about to press upon Israel the law in its expanded form, to call
them back from many aberrations, to summon them to a reformation and
new establishment of the whole framework of their lives, he turns
back to remind them of what their past had been. Law, therefore,
is only a secondary deposit of Revelation. If we are true to the
Biblical point of view we shall not look for the Divine voice only,
or even chiefly, in the legal portions of the Scripture. God's
full revelation of Himself will be seen in the process and the
completion of that age-long movement, which was begun when Israel
first became a nation by receiving Yahweh as their God, and which
ended with the life and death of Him who summed up in Himself all
that Israel was called, but failed, to be.

That is the ruling thought in Scripture about Revelation. God
reveals Himself in history; and by the persistent thoroughness with
which the Scriptural writers grasp this thought, the unique and
effective character of the Biblical Revelation is largely accounted
for. Other nations, no doubt, looked back at times upon what their
gods had done for them, and those who spoke for these gods may often
have claimed obedience and service from their people on the ground
of past favour and under threats of its withdrawal. But earlier than
any other people which has affected the higher races of mankind,
Israel conceived of God as a moral power with a will and purpose
which embraced mankind. Further, in the belief which appears in
their earliest records, that through them the nations were to be
blessed, and that in the future One was coming who would in Himself
bring about the realisation of Israel's destiny, they were provided
with a philosophy of history, with a conception which was fitted to
draw into organic connection with itself all the various fortunes of
Israel and of the nations.

Of course, at first much that was involved in their view was
not present to any mind. It was the very merit of the germinal
revelation made through Moses that it had in it powers of growth and
expansion. In no other way could it be a true revelation of God, a
revelation which should have in it the fulness, the flexibility,
the aloofness from mere local and temporary peculiarities, which
would secure its fitness for universal mankind. Any revelation that
consists only of words, of ideas even, must, to be received, have
some kind of relation to the minds that are to receive it. If the
words and ideas are revealed, as they must be, at a given place and
a given time, they must be in such a relation to that place and
time that at some period of the world's history they will be found
inadequate, needing expansion, which does not come naturally, and
then they have to be laid aside as insufficient. But a revelation
which consists in acts, which reveals God in intimate, age-long,
constant dealings with mankind, is so many-sided, so varied, so
closely moulded to the actual and universal needs of man, that it
embraces all the fundamental exigencies of human life, and must
always continue to cover human experience. From it men may draw off
systems of doctrines, which may concentrate the revelation for a
particular generation, or for a series of generations, and make it
more potently active in these circumstances. But unless the system
be kept constantly in touch with the revelation as given in the
history, it must become inadequate, false in part, and must one day
vanish away.

The revelation then in life is the only possible form for a real
revelation of God; and that the writers of the Old Testament in
their circumstances and in their time felt and asserted this, is in
itself so very great a merit, that it is almost of itself sufficient
to justify any claims they may make to special inspiration. The
greatest of them saw God at work in the world, and had experience
of His influence in themselves, so that they had their eyes opened
to His actions as other men had not. The least of them, again, had
been placed at the true point of view for estimating aright the
significance of the ordinary action of the Divine Providence, and
for tracing the lines of Divine action where they were to other
men invisible, or at least obscure. And in the records they have
left us they have been entirely true to that supremely important
point of view. All they deal with in the history is the moral and
spiritual effects of God's dealing; and the great interests, as the
world reckons them, of war and conquest, of commerce and art, are
referred to only briefly and often only in the way of allusion.
To many moderns this is an offence, which they avenge by speaking
contemptuously of the mental endowment of the Biblical writers as
historians. On the contrary, that these should have kept their
eyes fixed only upon that which concerned the religious life of
their people, that they should have kept firm hold of the truth
that it was there the central importance of the people lay, and
that they have given us the material for the formation of that
great conception of supernatural revelation by history in which God
Himself moves as a factor, is a merit so great that even if it were
only a brilliant fancy they might surely be pardoned for ignoring
other things. But if, as is the truth, they were tracing the central
stream of God's redemptive action in the world, were laying open to
our view the steps by which the unapproachably lofty conception of
God was built up, which their nation alone has won for the human
race, then it can hardly seem a fault that nothing else appealed
to them. They have given God to those who were blindly groping for
Him, and they have established the standard by which all historic
estimates of even modern life are ultimately to be measured.

For though there were in the history of that particular nation,
and in the line of preparation for Christ, special miraculous
manifestations of God's power and love, which do not now occur,
yet no judgment of the course of history is worth anything, even
to-day, which does not occupy essentially the Biblical position.
Ultimately the thing to be considered is, what hath God wrought? If
that be ignored, then the stable and instructive element in history
has been kept out of sight, and the mind loses itself hopelessly
amid the weltering chaos of second causes. Froude, in his _History
of England_, has noted this, and declares that in the period he
deals with it was the religious men who alone had any true insight
into the tendency of things. They measured all things, almost too
crudely, by the Biblical standard; but so essentially true and
fundamental does that show itself to be, that their judgment so
formed has proved to be the only sound one. This is what we should
expect if God's power and righteousness are the great factors in
the drama which the history of man and of the world unfolds to us.
That being so, the suicidal folly of the policy of any Church or
party which shuts the Bible away from popular use is manifest. It is
nothing short of a blinding of the people's eyes, and a shutting of
their ears to warning voices which the providential government of
the world, when viewed on a large scale, never fails to utter. It
renders sound political judgment the prerogative only of the few,
and sets them among a people who will turn to any charlatans rather
than believe their voice.

It was natural and it was inevitable, therefore, that the author
of Deuteronomy, standing, as he did, on the threshold of a great
crisis in the history of Israel, should turn the thoughts of his
people back to the history of the past. To him the great figure in
the history of Israel in those trying and eventful years during
which they wandered between Horeb, Kadesh-Barnea, and the country of
the Arnon, is Yahweh their God. He is behind all their movements,
impelling and inciting them to go on and enjoy the good land He
had promised to their fathers. He went before them and fought for
them. He bare them in the wilderness, as a man doth bear his son. He
watched over them and guided their footsteps in cloud and fire by
day and night. Moreover all the nations by whom they passed had been
led by Him and assigned their places, and only those nations whom
Yahweh chose had been given into Israel's hand. In the internal
affairs of the community, too, He had asserted Himself. They were
Yahweh's people, and all their national action was to be according
to His righteous character. Especially was the administration of
justice to be pure and impartial, yielding to neither fear nor
favour because the "judgment is God's." And how had they responded
to all this loving favour on the part of God? At the first hint of
serious conflict they shrank back in fear. Notwithstanding that the
land which God had given them was a good and fruitful country, and
notwithstanding the promises of Divine help, they refused to incur
the necessary toils and risks of the conquest. Every difficulty they
might encounter was exaggerated by them; their very deliverance from
Egypt, which they had been wont to consider "their crowning mercy,"
became to their faithless cowardice an evidence of hatred for them
on the part of God.

To men in such a state of mind conquest was impossible; and though,
in a spasmodic revulsion from their abject cowardice, they made an
attack upon the people they were to dispossess, it ended, as it
could not but end, in their defeat and rout. They were condemned to
forty years of wandering, and it was only after all that generation
was dead that Israel was again permitted to approach the land of
promise. But Yahweh had been faithful to them, and when the time was
come He opened the way for their advance and gave them the victory
and the land. For His love was patient, and always made a way to
bless them, even through their sins.

That was the picture the Deuteronomist spread out before the eyes
of his countrymen, to the intent that they might know the love of
God, and might see that safety lay for them in a willing yielding
of themselves to that love. The disastrous results of their wayward
and faint-hearted shrinking from this Divine calling is the only
direct threat he uses but in the passage there is another warning,
all the more impressive that it is vague and shadowy. God is to the
Deuteronomist the universal ruler of the world. The nations are
raised up and cast down according to His will, and until He wills
it they cannot be dispossessed. But He had willed that fate for
many, and at every step of Israel's progress they come upon traces
of vanished peoples whom for their sins He had suffered others to
destroy. The Emim in Moab, the Zamzummim in Ammon, the Horites in
Seir, and the Avvims in Philistia, had all been destroyed before
the people who now occupied these lands, and the whole background
of the narrative is one of judgment, where mercy had been of no
avail. The sword of the Lord is dimly seen in the archæological
notes which are so frequent in this section of our book and thus
the final touch is given to the picture of the past which is here
drawn to be an impulse for the future. While all the foreground
represents only God's love and patience overcoming man's rebellion,
the background is, like the path of the great pilgrim caravans which
year by year make their slow and toilsome way to Mohammedan holy
places, strewn with the remains of predecessors in the same path.
With stern, menacing finger this great teacher of Israel points to
these evidences that the Divine love and patience may be, and have
been, outworn, and seems to re-echo in an even more impressive way
the language of Isaiah: "The anger of Yahweh was kindled (against
these peoples), and He stretched forth His hand (against them) and
smote (them); and the hills did tremble, and (their) carcases were
as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is
not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still." Without a
word of direct rebuke he opens his people's eyes to see that shadowy
outstretched hand. Behind all the turmoil of the world there is a
presence and a power which supports all who seek good, but which
is sternly set against all evil, ready, when the moment comes, "to
strike once and strike no more."

Yet another glimpse is given us in these chapters of God's manner of
dealing with men. We have seen how He guides and rules His chosen
ones. We have seen how He punishes those who have set themselves
against the Divine law. And in chapter ii. 30 we are told how
men become hardened in their sin, so as to render destruction
inevitable. Of Sihon, king of Heshbon, who would not let the
Israelites pass by him, the writer says: "Yahweh thy God hardened
his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him
into thy hand, as appeareth this day." But he does not mean by these
expressions to lay upon God the causation of Sihon's obstinacy,
so as to make the man a mere helpless victim. His thought rather
is, that as God rules all, so to Him must be ultimately traced
all that happens in the world. In some sense all acts, whether
good or bad, all agencies, whether beneficent or destructive, have
their source in and their power from Him. But nevertheless men
have moral responsibility for their acts, and are fully and justly
conscious of ill desert. Consequently that hardening of spirit or
of heart, which at one moment may be attributed solely to God,
may at another be ascribed solely to the evil determination of
man. The most instructive instance of this is to be found in the
history of Pharaoh, when he was commanded to let Israel go. In that
narrative, from Exodus iv. to xi., there is repeated interchange
of expression. Now it is Yahweh hardened Pharaoh's heart; now, as
in viii. 15 and 32, Pharaoh hardened his own heart; and, again,
Pharaoh's heart was hardened. In each case the same thing is meant,
and the varying expressions correspond only to a difference of
standpoint. When Yahweh foretells that the signs He authorises
Moses to show will fail of their effect, it is always "Yahweh will
harden Pharaoh's heart," since the main point in contemplation is
His government of the world. If, on the other hand, it is the sinful
obstinacy of Pharaoh which is prominent in the passage, we have the
self-determination of Pharaoh alone set before us. But it is to be
noted, and this is indeed the cardinal fact, that Yahweh never is
said to harden the heart of a good man, or a man set mainly upon
righteousness. It is always those who are guilty of palpable wrongs
and acts of evil-doing upon whom God thus works.

Now we know that the author of Deuteronomy had two at least of
the ancient historical narratives before him which are combined
in Exod. iv.-xi., and he takes up their thinking. Expressed in
modern language, the thought is this. When men are found following
their own will in defiance of all law and all the restraints of
righteousness, that is manifestly not the first stage in their moral
declension. This obstinacy in evil is the result and the wages of
former evil deeds, beginning perhaps only with careless laxity, but
gathering strength and virulence with every wilful sin. Until near
the end of a completed growth in wickedness no man deliberately
says, "Evil, be thou my good." Nevertheless each act of sin involves
a step towards that, and the sinner in this manner hardens himself
against all warning. Like the sins which work this obduracy, this
hardening is the sinner's own act. The ruin which falls upon his
moral nature is his own work. That is the inexorable result of the
moral order of the universe, and from it no exception is possible.
But if so, God too has been active in all such catastrophes. He
has so framed and ordered the world that indulgence in evil must
harden in evil. This it was which the Israelite religious mind saw
and dwelt upon, as well as upon man's share in the dread process
of moral decay. We also do well to take heed to this aspect of
the truth. When we do, we have solved the Scriptural difficulty
regarding the Divine hardening of man's heart. It is simply the
ancient formula for what every mind that is ethically trained
recognises in the world to-day. Those who recognise themselves as
children of God, and acknowledge the obligations of His law, are
dealt with in the way of discipline with infinite love and patience.
Those who definitely set themselves against the moral order of the
world which God has established are broken in pieces and destroyed.
Between these two classes there are the morally undetermined,
who ultimately turn either to the right hand or to the left. The
process by which these pass on to be numbered among the rebellious
is pictured in Scripture with extraordinary moral insight. The
only difference from a present-day description of it is, that here
God is kept constantly present to the mind as the chief factor in
the development of the soul. To-day, even those who believe in God
are apt to forget Him in tracing His laws of action. But that is
an error of the first magnitude. It darkens the hope of man; for
without a sure promise of Divine help there is no certainty of
moral victory either for the race or the individual. It narrows our
view of the awful sweep of sin; for unless we see that sin affects
even the Ruler of the universe, and defies His unchanging law, its
results are limited to the evil that we do our fellow-men, which,
as we see it, is of little importance. Further, it degrades moral
law to a mere arbitrary dictum of power, or to an opinion founded
upon man's purblind experience. The acknowledgment of God, on the
contrary, makes morality the very essence of the Divine nature, and
the unchangeable rule for the life of man.




CHAPTER IV

_THE DECALOGUE--ITS FORM_

DEUT. v. 1-21.


As the fourth chapter belongs to the speech which concludes the
legislative portion of Deuteronomy both in contents and language
(see Chapter XXIII.), we shall pass on now to the fifth chapter,
which begins with a recital of the Decalogue. As has already
been pointed out, the main trunk of the Book of Deuteronomy is a
repetition and expansion of the Law of the Covenant contained in
Exod. xx.-xxiii.[22] Now, both in Exodus and Deuteronomy, before
the more general and detailed legislation, we have the Decalogue,
or the Ten Words, as it is called, in substantially the same form;
and the question immediately arises as to the age at which this
beautifully systematised and organised code of fundamental laws
came into existence. Whatever its origin, it is an exceedingly
remarkable document. It touches the fundamental principles of
religious and moral life with so sure a hand that at this hour,
for even the most civilised nations, it sums up the moral code,
and that so effectively that no change or extension of it has ever
been proposed. That being its character, it becomes a question of
exceeding interest to decide whether it can justly be referred to
so early a time as the days of Moses. In both the passages where
it occurs it is represented as having been given to the people
at Horeb by Yahweh Himself, and it is made the earliest and most
fundamental part of the covenant between Him and Israel. It would
accordingly seem as if a claim were made for it as a specially
early and specially sacred law. Now, much as critics have denied,
there have been found very few who deny that in the main some such
law as this must have been given to Israel in Moses' day. Even
Kuenen admits as much as that in his _History of the Religion of
Israel_. The only commandment of the ten he has difficulty in
accepting is the second, which forbids the making of any graven
image for worship. That, he thinks, cannot have been in the original
Decalogue, not because of any peculiarity of language, or because
of any incoherency in composition, but simply because he cannot
believe that at that early day the religion of Yahweh could have
been so spiritual as to demand the prohibition of images. But his
reasons are extremely inadequate; more especially as he admits
that the Ark was the Mosaic Sanctuary, and that in it there was no
image, as there was none in the Temple at Jerusalem. That Yahweh
was worshipped under the form of a calf at Horeb, and afterwards
in Northern Israel at Bethel and elsewhere, proves nothing. A law
does not forthwith extinguish that against which it is directed,
for idolatry continued even after Deuteronomy was accepted as the
law. Moreover, if, as Kuenen thinks, calf-worship had existed in
Israel before Moses, it was not unnatural that it took centuries
before the higher view superseded the lower. Even by Christianity
the ancient superstitions and religious practices of heathenism
were not thoroughly overcome for centuries. Indeed in many places
they have not yet been entirely suppressed. Nor does Wellhausen[23]
make a better case for a late Decalogue. His hesitation about it
is most remarkable, and the reasons he gives for tending to think
it may be late are singularly unsatisfactory. His first reason is
that "according to Exodus xxxiv. the commandments which stood upon
the two tables were quite different." He relies on the words in
ver. 28 of that chapter--"And he (Moses) was there with the Lord
forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink
water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the
ten words"--taking them to imply that the immediately preceding
commandments, which are of the same ritual character with those
which follow the Decalogue in Exodus xx., are here called the ten
words. But it is not necessary to take the passage so. According to
ver. 1 it was Yahweh who was to write the words on the tables, and
we cannot suppose that so flagrant a contradiction should occur in
a single chapter as that here it should be said that Moses wrote
the tables. Yahweh, who is mentioned in the previous verse, must
therefore be the subject of _wayyikhtobh_ (ver. 28), and the ten
words consequently are different from the words (up to ver. 27)
which Yahweh commanded Moses to write, somewhere, but not on the
tables. Besides, every one who attempts to make ten words of the
commands before ver. 27 brings out a different result, and that of
itself, as Dillmann says, is sufficient to show that the second
Decalogue in chapter xxxiv. is entirely fanciful. Wellhausen's
second reason is this: "The prohibition of images was quite unknown
during the other period: Moses himself is said to have made a brazen
serpent, which down to Hezekiah's time continued to be worshipped
as an image of Jehovah." But the Decalogue does not prohibit the
making of every image; it prohibits the making of images for
worship. Therefore Moses might quite well have made a figure of a
serpent, even though he wrote the Decalogue, if it was not meant
for worship. But there is nothing said to lead us to believe that
the serpent was regarded as an image of Yahweh. Indeed the very
contrary is asserted; and if Israel in later times made a bad use
of this ancient relic of a great deliverance, Moses can hardly be
held responsible for that. In the third place, Wellhausen says:
"The essentially and necessarily national character of the older
phases of the religion of Yahweh completely disappears in the
quite universal code of morals which is given in the Decalogue as
the fundamental law of Israel; but the entire series of religious
personalities throughout the period of the Judges and Kings--from
Deborah, who praised Jael's treacherous act of murder, to David,
who treated his prisoners of war with the utmost cruelty--make it
very difficult to believe that the religion of Israel was from the
outset one of a specifically moral character." Surely this is very
feeble criticism. On the same grounds we might declare, because
of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or on account of Napoleon's
reported poisoning of his own wounded at Acre, that Christianity
was not a religion of a "specifically moral character" at this
present moment. Surely the facts that people never live at the
level of their ideals, and that the lifting of a nation's life is a
process which is as slow as the raising of the level of the delta
of the Nile, should be too familiar to permit any one to be misled
by difficulties of this kind. Nor is his last ground in any degree
more convincing. "It is extremely doubtful," he says, "whether the
actual monotheism which is undoubtedly presupposed in the universal
moral precepts of the Decalogue could have formed the foundation
of a national religion. It was first developed out of the national
religion at the downfall of the nation." The obvious reply is that
this is a _petitio principii_. The whole debate in regard to this
question is whether Moses was a monotheist, or at least the founder
of a religion which was implicitly monotheistic from the beginning;
and the date of the Decalogue is interesting mainly because of
the light it would throw upon that question. To decide this date
therefore by the assertion that, being monotheistic, the Decalogue
cannot be Mosaic, is to assume the very thing in dispute. Wellhausen
himself, elsewhere (p. 434), seems to favour the opposite view. In
speaking of what Moses did for Israel he says that through "the
Torah," in the sense of decisions given by lot from the Ark, "he
gave a definite positive expression to their sense of nationality
and their idea of God. Yahweh was not merely the God of Israel; as
such He was the God at once of Law and of Justice, the basis, the
informing principle, and the implied postulate of their national
consciousness"; and again (p. 438), "As God of the nation Yahweh
became the God of Justice and of Right; as God of Justice and
Right, He came to be thought of as the highest, and at last as the
only power in heaven and earth." In the Mosaic conception of God,
therefore, Wellhausen himself being witness, there lay implicitly,
perhaps even explicitly, the conception of Yahweh as "the only power
in heaven and earth." In that case, is it reasonable to put the
Decalogue late, because being moral it is universal, and so implies
monotheism?

  [22] See this brought out in detail in Robertson Smith, _Old
  Testament in Jewish Church_, p. 431.

  [23] Wellhausen, _Prolegomena_, p. 439.

But there is still other, and perhaps stronger evidence, that the
universality of the Decalogue is no indication of a late date. On
the contrary it would seem, from Professor Muirhead's account of
the Roman _fas_, that universality in legal precept may be a mark
of very primitive laws. Speaking of Rome in its earliest stages
of growth, when the circumstances of the people in very many
respects resembled those of the Hebrews in Mosaic times,[24] he
says: "We look in vain for, and it would be absurd to expect, any
definite system of law in those early times. What passed for it
was a composite of _fas_, _jus_, and _boni mores_, whose several
limits and characteristics it is extremely difficult to define."
He then proceeds to describe _fas_: "By _fas_ was understood the
will of the gods, the laws given by Heaven for men on earth, much
of it regulative of ceremonial, but a by no means insignificant
part embodying rules of conduct. It appears to have had a wider
range than _jus_. There were few of its commands, prohibitions, or
precepts that were addressed to men as citizens of any particular
state; _all mankind came within its scope_. It forbade that a war
should be undertaken without the prescribed fetial ceremonial,
and required that faith should be kept with even an enemy--when a
promise had been made to him under sanction of an oath. It enjoined
hospitality to foreigners, because the stranger guest was presumed,
equally with his entertainer, to be an object of solicitude to
a higher power. It punished murder, for it was the taking of a
God-given life; the sale of a wife by her husband, for she had
become his partner in all things human and Divine; the lifting of
a hand against a parent, for it was subversive of the first bond
of society and religion, the reverence due by a child to those to
whom he owed his existence; incestuous connections, for they defiled
the altar; the false oath, and the broken vow, for they were an
insult to the divinities invoked," etc. In fact, the Roman _fas_
had much the same character as the Decalogue and the legislation
of the first code (Exod. xx.-xxiii.). Consequently those who have
thought that all early legislation must be concrete, narrow,
particularistic, bounded at widest by the direct needs of the men
making up the clan, tribe, or petty nationality, are wrong. The
early history of law shows that, along with that, there is also a
demand for some expression of the laws of life seen from the point
of view of man's relation to God. That fact greatly strengthens the
case for the early date of the Decalogue. For practically it is
the Hebrew _fas_. If it has a higher tone and a wider sweep, if it
provides a framework into which human duty can, even now, without
undue stretching of it, be securely fitted, that is only what we
should expect, if God was working in the history and development
of this nation as nowhere else in the world. In short, the history
of primitive Roman law shows that, without inspiration, a feeble
wavering step would have been taken to the development of a code of
moral duty, within the scope of which all mankind should come. With
inspiration, surely this effort would also be made, and made with a
success not elsewhere attained.

  [24] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xx., p. 670.

In none of the reasons which have been advanced, therefore, is there
anything to set against the Biblical statement that the ten words
were older and more sacred than any other portion of the Israelite
legislation, and that they were Mosaic in origin. The universal
hesitation shown by the greater among the most advanced critics in
definitely removing the Decalogue from the foundations of Israel's
history, although its presence there is so great an embarrassment to
them, lets us see how strong the case for the Mosaic origin is, and
assures us that the evidence is all in favour of this view.

But if it be Mosaic, at first sight the conclusion would seem to
be that the form of the Decalogue given in Exodus is the more
ancient, and that the text in Deuteronomy is a later and somewhat
extended version of that. Closer examination, however, tends to
suggest that the original ten words, in their Mosaic form, differed
from any of the texts we have, and that of these the Exodus text
in its present form is later than that in Deuteronomy. The great
difference in length between the two halves of the Decalogue
suggests the probability that originally all the commandments were
short, and much the same in style and character as the last half,
"Thou shalt not steal," and so on. Further, when the reasons and
inducements given for the observance of the longer commands are set
aside, just such short commands are left to us as we find in the
second table. Lastly, differences between the versions in Exodus
and Deuteronomy occur in almost every case in those parts of the
text which may be regarded as appendices. In fact there are only
two variations in the proper text of the commands. In the fourth,
we have in Exodus "Remember the Sabbath day," while in Deuteronomy
we have "Observe the Sabbath day"; but the meaning is the same in
both cases. In the tenth, in Exodus the command is "Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour's house"; and the "house" is explained by the
succeeding clause, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor
his manservant," etc., to mean "household" in its widest sense.
In Deuteronomy the old meaning of "house" as household and goods
has fallen out of use, and the component parts of the neighbour's
household possessions are named, beginning with his wife. Then
follows the "house" in its narrow meaning, as the mere dwelling,
grouped along with the slaves and cattle, and with _tithawweh_
substituted in Hebrew for _tachmodh_. Fundamentally therefore the
two recensions are the same. Even in the reasons and explanations
there is only one really important variation. In Exod. xx. 11 the
reason for the observance of the fourth commandment is stated thus:
"For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea and all that
in them is, and rested the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the
Sabbath day, and hallowed it." In Deuteronomy, on the other hand,
that reason is omitted, and in its place we find this: "And thou
shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and
Yahweh thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand, and by a
stretched out arm; therefore Yahweh thy God commanded thee to keep
the Sabbath." Now if the reference to the creation had formed part
of the original text of the Decalogue in the days of the author
of Deuteronomy, if he had that before him as actually spoken by
Yahweh, it is difficult to believe that he would have left it out
and substituted another reason in its stead. He would have no object
in doing so, for he could have added his own reason after that given
in Exodus, had he so desired. It is likely, therefore, that in the
original text no reason appeared; that Deuteronomy first added a
reason; while ver. 11 in Exod. xx. was probably inserted there from
a combination of Exod. xxxi. 17 _b_ and Gen. ii. 2 _b_,--"For in
six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He
rested and was refreshed"; "and He rested on the seventh day from
all His work which He had made." Both these texts belong to P and
differ in style altogether from JE, with whose language all the rest
of the setting of the Decalogue corresponds. On these suppositions
Exod. xx. 11 would necessarily be the latest part of the two texts.
Originally, therefore, the Mosaic commands probably ran thus:--

     "I am Yahweh thy God, which brought thee out of the land of
     Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

     "I. Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me.

     "II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

     "III. Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain.

     "IV. Remember (_or_ Keep) the day of rest to sanctify it.

     "V. Honour thy father and thy mother.

     "VI. Thou shalt not kill.

     "VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

     "VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

     "IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

     "X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house."

In that shape they contain everything that is fundamentally
important, and exhibit the foundations of the Mosaic religion and
polity in an entirely satisfactory and credible form.

But, before passing on to consider the substance of the Decalogue,
it will be worth our while to consider what the full significance
of these differing recensions of the Decalogue is. In both places
the words are quoted directly as having been spoken by Yahweh to
the people, and they are introduced by the quoting word "saying."
Now if we do not wish to square what we read with any theory, the
slight divergences between the two recensions need not trouble us,
for we have the substance of what was said, and in the main the
very words, and that is really all we need to be assured of. But
if, on the contrary, we are going to insist that, this being part
of an inspired book, every word must be pressed with the accuracy
of a masoretic scribe, then we are brought into inextricable
difficulties. It cannot be true that at Horeb Yahweh said two
different things on this special occasion. One or both of these
accounts must be inaccurate, in the pedantic sense of accuracy,
and yet both have the same claim to be inspired. In fact both
_are_ inspired; it is the theory of inspiration which demands for
revelation this kind of accuracy that must go to the wall.

It will be seen that this instance is very instructive as to the
method of the ancient Hebrews in dealing with legislation which
was firmly held to be Mosaic, or even directly Divine. If we are
right in holding that originally the ten words were, as we have
supposed, limited to definite short commands, this example teaches
us that where there could be no question of deceit, or even an
object for deceiving, additions calculated to meet the needs and
defects of the particular period at which the laws are written down,
are inserted without any hint that they did not form part of the
original document. If this has been done, even to the extent we have
seen reason to infer, in a small, carefully ordered, and specially
ancient and sacred code, how much more freely may we expect the same
thing to have been done in the looser and more fluid regulations of
the large political and ceremonial codes, which on any supposition
were posterior, and much less fundamental and sacred. That there is
for _us_ something disappointing, and even slightly questionable, in
such action is really nothing to the purpose. We have to learn from
the actual facts of revelation how revelation may be, or perhaps
even must be, conveyed; and we cannot too soon learn the lesson
that to a singular degree, and in many other directions than their
notions of accuracy, the ancient mind differs from the modern mind,
and that at any period there is a great gulf to be crossed before a
Western mind can get into any intimate and sure _rapport_ with an
Eastern mind.

One other thing is noteworthy. Wellhausen has already been quoted
as to the quite universal and moral character of the Decalogue;
and his view, that a code so free from merely local and ceremonial
provisions can hardly be Mosaic, has been discussed. But, while
rejecting his conclusion, we must adhere to his premisses. By
emphasising the universal nature of the ten commandments, and by
showing that they preceded the ceremonial law by many centuries,
the critical school have cut away the ground from under the
semi-antinomian views once so prevalent, and always so popular,
with those who call themselves advanced thinkers. It is now no
longer possible to maintain that the Decalogue was part of a purely
Jewish law, binding only upon Jews and passing away at the advent
of Christianity as the ceremonial law did. Of course this view was
never really taken seriously in reference to murder or theft; but
it has always been a strong point with those who have wished to
secularise the Sunday. Now if the advanced critical position be in
any degree true, then the ten commandments stand quite separate
from the ceremonial law, have nothing in common with it, and are
handed down to us in a document written before the conception even
of a binding ceremonial law had dawned upon the mind of any man in
Israel. Nor is there anything ceremonial or Jewish in the command,
Remember _or_ Observe the rest-day to keep it holy. In the reasons
given in Exodus and Deuteronomy we have the two principles which
make this a moral and universal command--the necessity for rest,
and the necessity of an opportunity to cultivate the spiritual
nature. Nothing indeed is said about worship; but it lies in the
nature of the case that if secular work was rigorously forbidden,
mere slothful abstinence from activity cannot have been all that
was meant. Worship, and instruction in the things of the higher
life, must certainly have been practised in such a nation as Israel
on such a day; and we may therefore say that they were intended by
this commandment. Understood in that way, the fourth commandment
shows a delicate perception of the conditions of the higher life,
which surpasses even the prohibition of covetousness in the tenth.
In the words of a working man who was advocating its observance,
"It gives God a chance"; that is, it gives man the leisure to
attend to God. But the moral point of view which it implies is so
high, and so difficult of attainment, that it is only now that the
nations of Europe are awaking to the inestimable moral benefits of
the Sabbath they have despised. Because of this difficulty too,
many who think themselves to be leaders in the path of improvement,
and are esteemed by others to be so, are never weary of trying to
weaken the moral consciousness of the people, until they can steal
this benefit away, on the ground that Sabbath-keeping is a mere
ceremonial observance. So far from being that, it is a moral duty
of the highest type; and the danger in which it seems at times to
stand is due mainly to the fact that to appreciate it needs a far
more trained and sincere conscience than most of us can bring to the
consideration of it.




CHAPTER V

_THE DECALOGUE--ITS SUBSTANCE_


That the Decalogue in any of its forms must have been the work of
one mind, and that a very great and powerful mind, will be evident
on the most cursory inspection. We have not here, as we have in
other parts of Scripture, fragments of legislation supplementary to
a large body of customary law, fragments which, because of their
intrinsic importance or the necessities of a particular time, have
been written down. We have here an extraordinarily successful
attempt to bring within a definite small compass the fundamental
laws of social and individual life. The wonder of it does not lie
in the individual precepts. All of them, or almost all of them, can
be paralleled in the legislation of other peoples, as indeed could
not fail to be the case if the _fundamental_ laws of society and
of individual conduct were aimed at. These must be obeyed, more or
less, in every society that survives. It is the wisdom with which
the selection has been made; it is the sureness of hand which has
picked out just those things which were central, and has laid aside
as irrelevant everything local, temporary, and purely ceremonial;
it is the relation in which the whole is placed to God,--these give
this small code its distinction. In these respects it is like the
Lord's Prayer. It is vain for men to point out this petition of that
unique prayer as occurring here, that other as occurring there,
and a third as found in yet another place. Even if every single
petition contained in it could be unearthed somewhere, it would
still remain as unique as ever; for where can you find a prayer
which, like it, groups the fundamental cries of humanity to God in
such short space and with so sure a touch, and brings them all into
such deep connection with the Fatherhood of God? In both cases, in
the prayer and in the Decalogue alike, we must recognise that the
grouping is the work of one mind; and in both we must recognise also
that, whatever were the natural and human powers of the mind that
wrought the code and prayer respectively, the main element in the
success that has attended their work is the extraordinary degree in
which they were illumined by the Divine Spirit. But where, between
the time of Moses and the time when Deuteronomy first laid hold
upon the life of the nation, are we to look for a legislator of
this pre-eminence? So far as we know the history, there is no name
that would occur to us. So far as can be seen, Moses alone has been
marked out for us in the history of his people as equal to, and
likely to undertake, such a task. Everything, therefore, concurs to
the conclusion that in the Decalogue we have the first, the most
sacred, and the fundamental law in Israel. Here Moses spoke for God;
and whatever additions to his original ten words later times may
have made, they have not obscured or overlaid what must be ascribed
to him. He may not have been the author of much that bears his name,
for unquestionably there were developments later than his time which
were called Mosaic because they were a continuation and adaptation
of his work; but we are justified in believing that here we have the
first law he gave to Israel; and in it we should be able to see the
really germinal principles of the religion he taught.

Now, manifestly, a religion which spoke its first word in the ten
commandments, even in their simplest form, must have been in
its very heart and core moral. It must always have been a heresy
therefore, a denial of the fundamental Mosaic conception, to place
ritual observance _per se_ above moral and religious conduct, as
a means of approach to Yahweh. On any reading of the commandments
only the third and fourth (two out of ten) refer to matters of
mere worship; and even these may more correctly be taken to refer
primarily to the moral aspects of the cultus. All the rest deal with
fundamental relations to God and man. Consequently the prophets
who, after the manner of Amos and Hosea, denounce the prevailing
belief that Yahweh's help could be secured for Israel, whatever
its moral state, by offerings and sacrifices, were not teaching
a new doctrine, first discovered by themselves. They were simply
reasserting the fundamental principles of the Mosaic religion.
Reverence and righteousness--these from the first were the twin
pillars upon which it rested. Before ever the ceremonial law, even
in its most rudimentary form, had been given, these were emphasised
in the strongest way as the requirements of Yahweh; and the people
whom the prophets reproved, instead of being the representatives of
the ancient Yahwistic faith, had rejected it. Whether the popular
view was a falling away from a truer view which had once been
popular, or whether it represented a heathen tendency which remained
in Israel from pre-Mosaic times and had not even in the days of Amos
been overcome, it seems undeniable that it was entirely contrary
to the fundamental principles of Yahwism as given by Moses. Even
by the latest narrators, those who brought our Pentateuch into its
present shape, and who were, it is supposed, completely under the
influence of ceremonial Judaism, the primarily moral character of
Yahweh's religion was acknowledged by the place they gave to the
ten commandments. They alone are handed down as spoken by Yahweh
Himself, and as having preceded all other commands; and the terrors
of Sinai, the thunder and the earthquake, are made more intimately
the accompaniments of this law than of any other. Unquestionably
the mind of Israel always was, that here, and not in the ceremonial
law, was the centre of gravity of Yahwism. In the view of that
fact it is somewhat hard to understand how so many writers of our
times, who admit the Decalogue to have been Mosaic, or at any rate
pre-prophetic, yet deny the prevailingly moral character of the
early religion of Israel. When this law was once promulgated, the
old naturalism in which Israel, like other ancient races, had been
entangled was repudiated, and the relation between Yahweh and His
people was declared to be one which rested upon moral conduct in the
widest sense of that term. And the ground of this fact is plainly
declared here to be the character of Yahweh: "I am the Lord thy God,
that brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage." He was their deliverer, He had a right to command them,
and His commands revealed His nature to His people.

The first four commandments show that Yahweh was already conceived
as a spiritual being, removed by a whole heaven from the gods of the
Canaanite nations by whom Israel was surrounded. These were mere
representatives of the powers of nature. As such they were regarded
as existing in pairs, each god having his female counterpart; and
their acts had all the indifference to moral considerations which
nature in its processes shows. They dwelt in mountain tops, in
trees, in rude stones, or in obelisks, and they were worshipped
by rites so sanguinary and licentious that Canaanite worship bore
everywhere a darker stain than even nature-worship elsewhere had
disclosed. In contrast to all this the Yahweh of the Decalogue
is "alone," in solitary and unapproachable separation. Amid all
the unbridled speculation that has been let loose on this subject,
no one, I think, has ever ventured to join with Him any name of
a goddess, and He sternly repudiates the worship of any other
god besides Him. Now, though there is nothing said of monotheism
here, _i.e._ of the doctrine that no god but one exists, yet, in
contrast to the hospitality which distinguished and distinguishes
nature-worship in all its forms, Yahweh here claims from His people
worship of the most exclusive kind. Besides Him they were to have no
object of worship. He, in His unapproachable separateness, had alone
a claim upon their reverence. Further, in contrast to the gods who
dwelt in trees and stones and pillars, and who could be represented
by symbols of that kind, Yahweh sternly forbade the making of any
image to represent Him. Thereby He declared Himself spiritual, in so
far as He claimed that no visible thing could adequately represent
Him. In contrast to the ethnic religions in general, even that of
Zarathushtra, the noblest of all, where only the natural element of
fire was taken to be the god or his symbol, this fundamental command
asserts the supersensuous nature of the Deity, thereby rising at one
step clear above all naturalism.

So great is the step indeed, that Kuenen and others, who cannot
escape the evidence for the antiquity of the other commandments,
insist that this at least cannot be pre-prophetic, since we have
such numerous proofs of the worship of Yahweh by images, down at
least to the time of Josiah's reform. But, by all but Stade, it is
admitted that there was at Shiloh under Eli, and at Jerusalem under
David and Solomon, no visible representation of Deity. Now the
same writers who tell us this everywhere represent the worship of
Yahweh by images as existing among the people. According to their
view, the nation had a continual and hereditary tendency to slip
into image-worship, or to maintain it as pre-Mosaic custom. And it
is quite certain that up even to the Captivity, and after, when,
according to even the very boldest negative view, this command had
been long known, image-worship, not only of Yahweh, but also of
false gods and of the host of heaven, was largely prevalent. Only
the Captivity, with its hardships and trials, brought Israel to
see that image-worship was incompatible with any true belief in
Yahweh. Undeniably, therefore, the existence of an authoritative
prohibition does not necessarily produce obedience; and the Biblical
view that the Decalogue is Israel's earliest law proves to be the
more reasonable, as well as the better authenticated of the two.
If, after the command beyond all doubt existed in Israel, it needed
the calamities of Israel's last days, and the hardships and griefs
of the Exile, to get it completely observed, and if in Jerusalem
and at Shiloh in the pre-prophetic time Yahweh was worshipped
without images, there can hardly be a doubt that this command must
have existed in the earliest period. For no religion is to be
judged by the actual practice of the multitude. The true criterion
is its highest point; and the imageless worship of Jerusalem is
much more difficult to understand if the second commandment was
not acknowledged previously in Israel, than it would be if the
Decalogue, essentially as we now have it, was acknowledged in the
days before the kingship at least.[25]

  [25] Granting that the commandment did not exist, one asks, _What_
  was it in Yahwism which determined the Jerusalem Sanctuary to be
  imageless?

The arguments advanced by Kuenen and Wellhausen for a contrary
view, beyond those we have just been considering, rest on an undue
extension of the prohibition to make any likeness of anything.
They adduce the brazen serpent of Moses, and the Cherubim, and the
brazen bulls that bore the brazen laver in the court of the Temple
at Jerusalem, and the ornaments of that building, as a proof that
even in Jerusalem this commandment cannot have been known. But, as
we have seen, the original command prohibited only the making of a
_pesel_, _i.e._ of an image for worship. The making of likenesses
of men and animals for mere purposes of art and adornment was never
included; and the whole objection falls to the ground unless it be
asserted that the bulls under the basin were actually worshipped by
those who came into the Temple!

The supersensuous nature of Yahweh must, therefore, be taken to be a
fundamental part of the Mosaic religion. But besides being solitary
and supersensuous, Yahweh was declared by Moses, perhaps by His
very name, to be not only mighty, but helpful. The preface to the
whole series of commandments is, "I am Yahweh thy God, who brought
thee forth out of the land of Egypt." Now of all the derivations of
Yahweh, that which most nearly commands universal acceptance is its
derivation from _hayah_, to be. And the probabilities are all in
favour of the view that it does not imply mere timeless existence,
as the translation of the explanation in Exodus[26] has led many to
believe. That is a purely philosophical idea entirely outside of
morality, and it can hardly be that the introduction to this moral
code, which announces the author of it, should contain no moral
reference. If the name be from Qal, and be connected with _ehyeh_,
then it means, as Dillmann says (_Exodus and Leviticus_, p. 35),
that He will be what He has been, and the name involves a reference
to all that the God of Israel has been in the past. Such He will
be in the future, for He is what He is, without variableness or
shadow of turning. If, on the other hand, it be from Hiphil, it will
mean "He who causes to be," the creator. In either case there is a
clear rise above the ordinary Semitic names for God, Baal, Molech,
Milkom, which all express mere lordship. No doubt Yahweh was also
called Baal, or Lord, just as we find Him in the Psalms addressed as
"my King and my God"; but the specially Mosaic name, the personal
name of the God of Israel, does undoubtedly imply quite another
quality in God. It is the Helper who has revealed Himself to Israel
who here speaks. Hence the addition, "who brought thee out of the
land of Egypt." It is as a Saviour that Yahweh addresses His people.
By His very name He lifts all the commands He gives out of the
region of mere might, or the still lower region of gratification at
offerings and precious things bestowed, into the region of gratitude
and love.

  [26] iii. 14.

Further, by issuing this code under the name of Yahweh Moses claimed
for Him a moral character. Whether the Hebrew word for holy,
_qādhōsh_, implied more in those days than mere separateness, may
be doubted; but it is impossible that the idea which we now connect
with the word "holy" should not have been held to be congruous
to, and expressive of, the nature of Yahweh. Here morality in its
initial and fundamental stages is set forth as an expression of His
will. And similarly, righteousness must also be an attribute of His,
for justice between man and man is made to be His demand upon men.
He Himself, therefore, must be faithful as well as holy, and His
emancipation from the clinging chain of mere naturalism was thereby
completed. The Yahweh of the Decalogue is therefore absolutely
alone. He is supersensuous. He is the Helper and Saviour, and He is
holy and true. These are His fundamental qualities. Such qualities
may be supposed to be present only in their elements, even to the
mind of Moses himself: yet the fundamental germinal point was there:
and all that has grown out of it may be justly put to the credit of
this first revelation.

A moment's thought will show how the teaching that Yahweh alone was
to be worshipped broke away from the main stream of Semitic belief,
and prepared the way for the ultimate prevalence of the belief that
God was one. That He was supersensuous, so that He could not rightly
or adequately be represented by any likeness of anything in heaven
or earth or sea, left no possible outlet for thought about Him,
save in the direction that He was a Spirit. In essence consequently
the spirituality of God was thereby secured. Still more important
perhaps was the conception of Yahweh as the Helper and Deliverer,
the Saviour of His people; for this at once suggested the thought
that the true bond between God and man was not mere necessity, nor
mere dependence upon resistless power, but love--love to a Divine
Helper who revealed Himself in gracious acts and providences,
and who longed after and cared for His people with a perfectly
undeserved affection. Lastly, His holiness and faithfulness, His
righteousness in fact, held implicit in it His supremacy and
universality. As Wellhausen has said, "As God of justice and right,
Yahweh came to be thought of as the highest, and at last as the only
power in heaven and earth." Whether that last stage was present to
the mind of Moses, or of any who received the commandments in the
first place, is of merely secondary importance. At the very least,
the way which must necessarily lead to that stage was opened here,
and the mind of man entered upon the path to a pure monotheism, a
monotheism which separated God from the world, and referred to His
will all that happened in the world of created things. God is One,
God is a Spirit, God is Love, and God rules over all--these are
the attributes of Yahweh as the Decalogue sets them forth; and in
principle the whole higher life of humanity was secured by the great
synthesis.

Like all beginnings, this was an achievement of the highest kind.
Nowhere but in the soul of one Divinely enlightened man could such
a revelation have made itself known; and the solitude of a lonely
shepherd's life, following upon the stir and training of a high
place in the cultured society of Egypt, gave precisely the kind
of environment which would prepare the soul to hear the voice by
which God spoke. For we are not to suppose that this revelation
came to Moses without any effort or preparation on his part. God
does not reveal His highest to the slothful or the debased. Even
when He speaks from Sinai in thunder and in flame, it is only the
man who has been exercising himself in these great matters who can
understand and remember. All the people had been terrified by the
Divine Presence, but they forgot the law immediately and fell back
into idolatry. It was Moses who retained it and brought it back to
them again. His personality was the organ of the Divine will; and
in this law which he promulgated Moses laid the foundation of all
that now forms the most cherished heritage of men. The central thing
in religion is the character of God. Contrary to the prevailing
feeling, which makes many say that they know nothing of God, but are
sure of their duty to man, history teaches that, in the end, man's
thought of God is the decisive thing. Everything else shapes itself
according to that; and by taking the first great steps, which broke
through the limits of mere naturalism, Moses laid the foundation of
all that was to come. There was here the promise and the potency
of all higher life: love and holiness had their way prepared, so
that they should one day become supreme in man's conception of the
highest life: the confused halting between the material and the
spiritual, which can be traced in the very highest conceptions of
merely natural religions, was in principle done away. And what was
here gained was never lost again. Even though the multitude never
really grasped all that Moses had proclaimed Yahweh to be; and
though it should be proved, which is as yet by no means the case,
that even David thought of Him as limited in power and claims by the
extent of the land which Israel inhabited; and though, as a matter
of fact, the full-orbed universality which the ten commandments
implicitly held in them was not attained under the old covenant at
all; yet these ten words remained always an incitement to higher
thoughts. No advance made in religion or morals by the chosen people
ever superseded them. Even when Christ came, He came not to destroy
but to fulfil. The highest reach of even His thoughts as regards
God could be brought easily and naturally under the terms of this
fundamental revelation to Israel.

The remaining commands, those which deal with the relations of men
to each other, are naturally introduced by the fifth commandment,
which, while it deals with human relations, deals with those which
most nearly resemble the relations between God and man. Reverence
for God, the deliverer and forgiver of men, is the sum of the
commandments which precede; and here we have inculcated reverence
for those who are, under God, the source of life, upon whose love
and care all, at their entrance into life, are so absolutely
dependent. Love is not commanded; because in such relations it is
natural, and moreover it cannot be produced at will. But reverence
is; and from the place of the command, manifestly what is required
is something of that same awful respect which is due to Yahweh
Himself. The power which parents had over their children in Israel
was extensive, though much less so than that possessed, for example,
by Roman parents. A father could sell his daughters to be espoused
as subordinate wives;[27] he could disallow any vows a daughter
might wish to take upon her;[28] and both parents could bring an
incorrigibly rebellious son to the elders of the city[29] and have
him stoned publicly to death. But, according to Moses, the main
restraining forces in the home should be love and reverence, guarded
only by the solemn sanction of death to the openly irreverent, just
as reverence for Yahweh was guarded.

  [27] Exod. xxi. 7.

  [28] Numb. xxx. 6.

  [29] Deut. xxi. 8.

There was here nothing of the sordid view, repudiated so
energetically by Jewish scholars like Kalisch,[30] that we ought
"to weigh and measure filial affection after the degree of
enjoyed benefits." No; to this law "the relation between parents
and children is holy, religious, godly, not of a purely human
character"; and it is a mere profanation to regard it as we in
modern times too often do. In our mad pursuit after complete
individual liberty we have fallen back into a moral region which it
was the almost universal merit of the ancient civilisations to have
left behind them. It is true, certainly, that there were reasons for
this advance then which we could not now recognise without falling
back from our own attainments in other directions; but it was the
saving salt of the ancient civilisations that the parents in a
household were surrounded with an atmosphere of reverence, which
made transgressions against them as rare as they were considered
horrible. The modern freedom may in favourable circumstances
produce more intimate and sympathetic intercourse between parents
and children; but in the average household it has lowered the
whole tone of family life; and it threatens sooner or later, if
the ancient feeling cannot be restored, to destroy the family, the
very keystone of our religion and civilisation. This commandment
is not conditioned on the question whether parents have been more
or less successful in giving their children what they desire, or
whether they have been wise and unselfish in their dealing with
their children. As parents they have a claim upon their respect,
their tenderness, their observance, which can be neglected only at
the children's peril. Even the average parent gives quite endless
thought and care to his children, and almost unconsciously falls
into the habit of living for them. That brings with it for the
children an indelible obligation; and along with the new and wiser
freedom which is permitted in the modern home, this reverence should
grow, just as the love and reverence for God on the part of those
who have been made the free children of God through Christ ought far
to exceed that to which the best of the Old Testament saints could
attain.

  [30] Kalisch, _Exodus_, p. 364:--yet taught in all Victorian State
  schools under the vicious system at present admitted.

Want of reverence for parents is, in the Decalogue, made almost one
with want of reverence toward God, and, in the case of this human
duty alone, there is a promise annexed to its observance. The duty
runs so deep into the very core of human life, that its fulfilment
brings wholesomeness to the moral nature; this health spreads into
the merely physical constitution, and long life becomes the reward.
But apart from the quietude of heart and the power of self-restraint
which so great a duty rightly fulfilled brings with it, we must
also suppose that in a special manner the blessing of God does
rest upon dutiful children. Even in the modern world, amid all its
complexity, and though in numberless instances it may seem to have
been falsified, this promise verifies itself on the large scale.
In the less complex life of early Israel we may well believe that
its verification was even more strikingly seen. In both ancient
and modern times, moreover, the human conscience has leaped up
to justify the belief that of all the sins committed without the
body this is the most heinous, and that there does rest upon it
in a peculiar manner the wrath of Almighty God. It is a blasphemy
against love in its earliest manifestations to the soul, and only by
answering love with love and reverence can there be any fulfilling
of the law.

After the fifth, the commandments deal with the purely human
relations; but in coming down from the duties which men owe to God,
this law escapes the sordidness which seems to creep over the laws
of other nations, when they have to deal with the rights and duties
of men. The human rights are taken up rather into their relation
to God, and cease to be mere matters of bargain and arrangement.
They are viewed entirely from the religious and moral standpoint.
For example, the destruction of human life, which in most cases
was in ancient times dealt with by private law, and was punished
by fines or money payments, is here regarded solely as a sin, an
act forbidden by God. The will of a holy God is the source of these
prohibitions, however much the idea of property may extend in them
beyond the limits which to us now seem fitting. They begin with the
protection of a man's life, the highest of his possessions. Next,
they prohibit any injury to him through his wife, who next to his
life is most dear to him. Then property in our modern sense is
protected; and lastly, rising out of the merely physical region, the
ninth commandment prohibits any attack upon a man's civil standing
or honour by false witness concerning him in the courts of justice.
To that crime Easterns are prone to a degree which Westerns, whom
Rome has trained to reverence for law, can hardly realise. In India,
at this hour, false witnesses can be purchased in the open market
at a trifling price; and under native government the whole forces
of civil justice become instruments of the most remediless and
exasperating tyranny. So long as the law has not spoken its last
word _against_ the innocent, there is hope of remedy; justice may
at last assert itself. But when, either by corrupt witnesses or by
a corrupt judge, the law itself inflicts the wrong, then redress
is impossible, and we have the oppression which drives a wise man
mad. Both murder and robbery, moreover, may be perpetrated by false
swearing; and the trust, the confidence that social life demands, is
utterly destroyed by it.

But it is in the tenth commandment especially that this code soars
most completely away beyond others. In four short words the whole
region of neighbourly duty, so far as acts are concerned, has been
covered, and with that other codes have been content. But the laws
of Yahweh must cover more than that. Out of the heart proceed all
these acts which have been forbidden, and Yahweh takes knowledge
of its thoughts and intents. The covetous desire, the grasping
after that which we cannot lawfully have, that, too, is absolutely
forbidden. It has been pointed out that the first commandment also
deals with the thoughts. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,"
separated from the prohibition of idol-worship, can refer only to
the inward adoration or submission of the heart. And in this last
commandment also it is the evil desire, the lust which "bringeth
forth sin," which is condemned. In its beginning and ending,
therefore, this code transcends the limits ordinarily fixed for
law; it leads the mind to a view of the depth and breadth of the
evil that has to be coped with, which the other precepts, taken
by themselves and understood in their merely literal sense, would
scarcely suggest.

This fact should guard us against the common fallacy that Moses and
the people of his day could not have understood these commandments
in any sense except the barely literal one. In the first and tenth
commandments there is involved the whole teaching of our Lord that
he that hateth his brother is a murderer. The evil thought that
first stirs the evil desire is here placed on the same interdicted
level as the evil deed; and though until our Lord had spoken none
had seen all that was implied, yet here too He was only fulfilling,
bringing to perfection, that which the law as given by Moses had
first outlined. With this in view, it seems difficult to justify
that interpretation of the commandments which refuses all depth
of meaning to them. The initial and final references to the inner
thoughts of men, the delicate moral perception which puts so
unerring a finger on the sources of sin, show that such literalism
is out of place. No interpretation can do this law justice which
treats it superficially; and instead of feeling safest when we find
least in these commandments, we should welcome from them all the
correction and reproof which a reasonable exegesis will sustain.

Some of those who adopt the other view do so in the interests of
the authenticity of the commandments. They say, We must be careful
not to put into them any idea which transcends what was possible
in the days of Moses; otherwise we must agree with those who bring
down the date of these marvellous ten words to the middle of the
seventh century B.C. But there is much ground for distrusting modern
judgments as to what men can have thought and felt in earlier and
ruder stages of society. So long as the _naïve_ interpretation
of the state of man before the fall prevailed, which Milton has
made so widely popular, the tendency was to exaggerate the early
man's moral and spiritual attainments. Now, when the most degraded
savages are taken as the truest representatives of primitive man,
the temptation is to minimise both unduly. How often have we been
told, for example, that the Australian is the lowest of mankind,
and that he has no other idea of a spiritual world than that when
he dies he will "jump up" a white man! Yet Mr. A. W. Howitt,[31]
an unexceptionable authority, as having himself been "initiated"
among the Australian blacks, tells us that they give religious and
moral instruction to their boys when they receive the privileges
of manhood. His words are: "The teachings of the initiation are in
a series of 'moral lessons,' pantomimically displayed in a manner
intended to be so impressive as to be indelible. There is clearly a
belief in a Great Spirit, or rather an anthropomorphic Supernatural
Being, the 'Master of all,' whose abode is above the sky, and to
whom are attributed powers of omnipotence and omnipresence, or,
at any rate, the power 'to do anything and to go anywhere.' The
exhibition of his image to the novices, and the magic dances round
it, approach very near to idol-worship. The wizards who profess to
communicate with him, and to be the mediums of communication between
him and his tribe, are not far removed from an organised priesthood.
To his direct ordinance are attributed the spiritual and moral laws
of the community. Although there is no worship of Daramülun, as, for
instance, by prayer, yet there is clearly an invocation of him by
name, and a belief that certain acts please while others displease
him." To most it would have seemed absurd to attribute religious
ideas of such a kind to a people in the social and moral condition
of the Australian aborigines. Yet here we have the testimony of a
perfectly competent and reliable witness, who, moreover, has no
personal bias in favour of theologic notions, to prove that even in
their present state their theology is of this comparatively advanced
kind.

  [31] _Journal Anthropological Institute_, May 1884, p. 28.

Many critics like Stade, and even Kuenen, would deny to Israel in
the days of Moses any conception of Yahweh which would equal the
Australian conception of Daramülun! Not to speak of the "regrettable
vivacities" of Renan in regard to Yahweh, Kuenen would deny to the
Mosaic Yahweh the title of Lord of all; he would deny to Him the
power "to go anywhere and to do anything," binding Him strictly to
His tribe and His land; he would make His priests little more than
the Australian wizards; and purely moral laws like the Decalogue
Wellhausen would remove to a late date mainly because such laws
transcend the limits of the thought and knowledge of the Mosaic
time. But can any one believe that Israel in the Mosaic time had
lower beliefs than those of the Australian aborigines? In every
other respect they had left far behind them the social state and the
merely embryonic culture of the Australian tribes. Moses himself is
an irrefragable proof of that. No such man as he could have arisen
among a people in the state of the Australians. Even the fact that
the Hebrews had lived in Egypt, and had been compelled to do forced
labour for a long series of years, would of itself have raised them
to a higher stage of culture. Moreover they built houses, and owned
sheep and cattle, and must have known at least the rudiments of
agriculture. Indeed Deut. xi. 10 asserts this, and the testimony of
travellers as to the habits of the tribes in the wilderness of the
wanderings now confirms it. Further, they had been in contact with
Egyptian religion, and they had been surrounded by cults having more
or less relation to the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia. Under
such circumstances, even apart from all revelation, it could not be
assumed that their religious ideas must needs correspond to modern
notions of the low type of primitive religions. On the contrary,
nothing but the clearest proof that their religious conceptions
were so surprisingly low should induce us to believe it. On any
supposition, they had in the Mosaic time the first germs of what
is now universally admitted to be the highest form of religion. Can
we believe that only 1300 years B.C., in the full light of history,
coming out of a land where the religion of the people had been
systematised and elaborated, not for centuries, but for millenniums,
and only 600 years before the monotheistic prophets, a people at
such a stage of civilisation as the Hebrews can have had cruder
notions of Deity than the Wiraijuri and Wolgal tribes of New South
Wales![32] It may have been so; but before we take it to have been
so, we have a right to demand evidence of a stringent kind, evidence
which leaves us no way of escape from a conclusion so improbable.

  [32] See Page Renouf, _Hibbert Lectures_.

Moreover the acceptance of the view now opposed does not get rid
of the necessity for supernatural enlightenment in Israel. It only
transfers it from an earlier to a later time. For if the knowledge
of Israel in Moses' day was below the Wolgal standard, then it
would seem inexplicable that the ethical monotheism of the prophets
should have grown out of it by any merely natural process. If there
were no inspiration before the prophets, though they believed and
asserted there was, then their own inspiration only becomes the
more marvellous. It is not needful to deny that the Hebrew tribes
may at some time have passed through the low stage of religious
belief of which these writers speak. But they err conspicuously in
regarding every trace of animistic and fetichistic worship which can
be unearthed in the language, the ceremonies, and the habits of the
Hebrews at the Exodus, as evidence of the highest beliefs of the
people at that time. As a matter of fact, these were probably mere
survivals of a state of thought and feeling then either superseded
or in the process of being so. Besides, the mass of any people
always lag far behind the thoughts and aspirations of the highest
thinkers of their nation; and if we admit inspiration at all as a
factor in the religious development of Israel, the distance between
what Moses taught and believed himself, and what he could get the
mass of the people to believe and practise, must have been still
greater. If he gave the people the ten commandments, he must have
been far above them, and dogmatic assertions as to what he can have
thought and believed ought to be abandoned.

Granting, however, that all we have found in the Decalogue's
conception of Yahweh was present to the mind of Moses, and granting
that the commands which deal with the relations of men to each
other are not mere isolated prohibitions, but are founded upon
moral principles which were understood even then to have much
wider implications, there still remains a gap between the widest
meaning that early time could put into them, and that which Luther's
Catechism, or the Catechism of the Westminster Divines, for example,
asserts. The question therefore arises whether these wider and more
detailed explanations, which make the Decalogue cover the whole
field of the moral and religious life, are legitimate, and if so,
on what principle can they be justified? The reply would seem to
be that they are legitimate, and that the ten words did contain
much more than Moses or any of his nation for many centuries after
him understood. For any fruitful thought, any thought which really
penetrates the heart of things, must have in it wider implications
than the first thinker of it can have conceived. If by any means a
man has had insight to see the central fact of any domain of thought
and life, its applications will not be limited to the comparatively
few cases to which he may apply it. He will generally be content
to deduce from his discovery just those conclusions which in
his circumstances and in his day are practically useful and are
most clamorously demanded. But those who come after, pressed by
new needs, challenged by new experiences, and enlightened by new
thoughts in related regions, will assuredly find that more was
involved in that first step than any one had seen. The scope of the
fruitful principle will thus inevitably widen with the course of
things, and inferences undreamed of by those who first enunciated
the principle will be securely drawn from it by later generations.
Now if that be true in regard to truths discovered by the unassisted
intellect of man, how much more true will it be of thoughts which
have first been revealed to man under the influence of inspiration?
Behind the human mind which received them and applied them to the
circumstances which then had to be dealt with, there is always the
infinite mind which sees that

                    "Far-off Divine event
    To which the whole creation moves."

The Divine purpose of the revelation must be the true measure of the
thoughts revealed, and the Divine purpose can best be learned by
studying the results as they have actually evolved themselves in the
course of ages. Consequently, while the fundamental point in sound
interpretation of a book such as the Bible is to ascertain _first_
what the statements made therein signified to those who heard them
first, the second point is not to shut the mind to the wider and
more extensive applications of them which the thought and experience
of men, taught by the course of history, have been induced, or even
compelled, to make. Both the narrower and the wider meanings are
there, and were meant to be found there. No exposition which ignores
either can be adequate.

That all works of God are to be dealt with in this way is
beautifully demonstrated by Ruskin (_Fors Clavigera_, Vol. I.,
Letter V.). In criticising the statement of a botanist that "there
is no such thing as a flower," after admitting that in a certain
sense the lecturer was right, he goes on to say: "But in the deepest
sense of all, he was to the extremity of wrongness wrong; for
leaf and root and fruit exist, all of them, only--that there may
be flowers. He disregarded the life and passion of the creature,
which were its essence. Had he looked for these, he would have
recognised that in the thought of nature herself, there is, in a
plant, nothing else but flowers." That means, of course, that the
final perfection of a development is the real and final meaning of
it all. Now any thought given by God in this special manner which we
call "inspiration" has in it a manifold and varied life, and an end
in view, which God alone foresees. It works like leaven, it grows
like a seed. It is supremely living and powerful; and though it may
have begun its life, like the mustard seed, in a small and lowly
sphere, it casts out branches on all sides till its entire allotted
space is filled. So in the Decalogue; the central chord in all the
matters dealt with has been touched with Divine skill, and all that
has further to be revealed or learned on that matter must lie in the
line of the first announcement.

It is not, therefore, an illegitimate extension of the meaning
of the first commandment to say that it teaches monotheism, nor
of the second that it teaches the spirituality of God, nor of
the seventh that it forbids all sensuality in thought or word or
deed. It is true that probably only the separateness of God was
originally seen to be asserted in the first, and the words may
possibly have been understood to mean that the "other gods" referred
to had some kind of actual life. The second, too, may have seemed
to be fulfilled when no earthly thing that was made by man was
taken to represent Yahweh. Lastly, those who say that nothing is
forbidden in the seventh commandment but literal adultery have much
to say for themselves. In a polygamous society concubinage always
exists. The absence of the more flagrant of what in monogamous
societies are called social evils does not in the least imply the
superior morality, such as many who wish to disparage our Christian
civilisation have ascribed, for instance, to Mohammedans. The
degraded class of women who are the reproach and the despair of our
large towns are not so frequent in those societies, because all
women are degraded to nearer their level than in monogamous lands.
Both lust and vice are more prevalent: and they are so because the
whole level of thought and feeling in regard to such matters is much
lower than with us.

Now, undoubtedly, ancient Israel was no exception to this rule.
In it, as a polygamous nation, there was a licence in regard to
sexual relations with women who were neither married nor betrothed
which would be impossible now in any Christian community. It may
be, therefore, that only the married woman was specially protected
by this law. But in none of these cases did the more rudimentary
conception of the scope of the commandments last. By imperceptible
steps the sweep of them widened, until finally the last consequences
were deduced from them, and they were seen to cover the whole sphere
of human duty. It may have been a long step from the prohibition
to put other gods along with Yahweh to St. Paul's decisive word
"An idol is nothing in the world," but the one was from the first
involved in the other. Between "Thou shalt not make unto thee a
graven image" and our Lord's declaration "God is a Spirit, and
must be worshipped in spirit and in truth," there lies a long and
toilsome upward movement; but the first was the gate into the path
which must end in the second. Similarly, the commandment which
affirmed so strongly the sacredness of the family, by hedging round
the house-mother with this special defence held implicit in it all
that rare and lovely purity which the best type of Christian women
exhibit. The principles upon which the initial prohibitions were
founded were true to fact and to the nature both of God and man.
They were, therefore, never found at fault in the advancing stages
of human experience; and the meaning which a modern congregation
of Christians finds in these solemn "words," when they are read
before them, is as truly and justly their meaning as the more meagre
interpretation which alone ancient Israel could put upon them.

How gradually, and how naturally, the advancing thoughts and changed
circumstances of Israel affected the Decalogue may be seen most
clearly in the differences between its form as originally given, and
as it is set forth in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. If the original
form of these commandments was what we have indicated (p. 69),
they corresponded entirely to the circumstances of the wilderness.
There is no reference in them which presupposes any other social
background than that of a people dwelling together according to
families, possessing property, and worshipping Yahweh. None of the
commandments involves a social state different from that. But when
Israel had entered upon its heritage, and had become possessed of
the oxen and asses which were needed in agricultural labour and in
settled life, this stage of their progress was reflected in the
reasons and inducements which were added to the original commands.
In the fourth and tenth commandments of Exodus we have consequently
the essential commandments of the earlier day adapted to a new
state of things, _i.e._ to a settled agricultural life. Then,
even as between the Exodus and Deuteronomic texts, a progress is
perceptible. The reasons for keeping the Sabbath which these two
recensions give are different, as we have seen, and it is probable
that the reason given in Deuteronomy was first. To the people in the
wilderness came the bare Divine command that this one day was to be
sacred to Yahweh. In both Exodus and Deuteronomy we have additions,
going into details which show that when these versions were prepared
Israel had ceased to be nomadic and had become agricultural. In
Deuteronomy we find that the importance and usefulness of this
command from a humane point of view had been recognised, and one
at least of the grounds upon which it should be held a point of
morality to keep it is set forth in the words "that thy manservant
and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou." Finally, if the
critical views be correct, in Exodus we have the motive for the
observance of the Sabbath raised to the universal and eternal, by
being brought into connection with the creative activity of God.

If the progression now traced out be real, then we have in it a
classical instance of the manner in which Divine commands were
given and dealt with in Israel. Given in the most general form at
first, they inevitably open the way for progress, and as thought
and experience grow in volume and rise in quality, so does the
understanding of the law as given expand. Under the influence of
this expansion addition after addition is made, till the final form
is reached; and the whole is then set forth as having been spoken by
Yahweh and given by Moses when the command was first promulgated.
In such cases literary proprietorship was never in question. Each
addition was sanctioned by revelation, and those by whom it came
were never thought of. It would seem, indeed, that nothing but
modern sceptical views as to the reality of revelation, the feeling
that all this movement to a higher faith was merely natural, and
that the hand of God was not in it, could have suggested to the
ancient Hebrew writers the wish to hand on the names of those by
whom such changes were made. Yahweh spoke at the beginning, Moses
mediated between the people and Yahweh, and the law thus mediated
was in all forms equally Mosaic, and in all forms equally Divine.

One other thing remains to be noticed, and that is the prevailingly
negative form of the commandments. Of the ten only the fourth and
fifth are in the affirmative. All the others are prohibitions, and
we who have been taught by Christianity to put emphasis upon the
positive aspects of duty as the really important aspects of it,
may not improbably feel chilled and repelled by a moral code which
so definitely and prevailingly forbids. But the cause of this is
plain. A code like that of the Twelve Tables published in early Rome
is only occasionally negative, because it rises to no great height
in its demands, and is intent only upon ordering the life of the
citizens in their outward conduct. But this code, which seeks to
raise the whole of life into the sacredness of a continual service
of God and man, must forbid, because the first condition of such a
life is the renunciation and the restriction of self. Benevolent
dreamers and theorists of all ages, and men of the world whose
moral standard is merely the attainment of the average man, have
denied the evil tendency in man's nature. They have asserted that
man is born good; but the facts of experience are entirely against
them. Whenever a serious effort has been made to raise man to any
conspicuous height of moral goodness, it has been found necessary
to forbid him to follow the bent of his nature. "Thou shalt not"
has been the prevailing formula; and in this sense original sin has
always been witnessed to in the world. Hence the Old Testament, in
which the most strenuous conflict for goodness which the world in
those ages knew was being carried on, could not fail, in every part
of it, to proclaim that man is not born good. However late we may be
compelled to put the writing of the story of the fall as it stands
in Genesis, there can be no question that it represents the view of
the Old Testament at all times. Man is fallen; he is not what he
ought to be, and the evil taint is handed on from one generation
to another. Every generation, therefore, is called, by prophet and
priest and lawgiver alike, to the conflict against the natural man.

The truth is that all along the leaders of Israel had a quite
overawing sense of the moral greatness of Yahweh and of the
stringency of His demands upon them. "Be ye holy, for I am holy,"
was His demand; and so among this people, as among no other, the
sense of sin was heightened, till it embittered life to all who
seriously took to heart the religion they professed. This feeling
sought relief in expiatory sacrifices, like the sin offering and
the guilt offering; but in vain. It then led to Pharisaic hedging
of the law, to seeking a positive precept for every moment of time,
to binding upon men's consciences the most minute and burdensome
prescriptions, as a means of making them what they must be if they
were to meet the Divine requirements. But that too failed. It became
a slavery so intolerable that, when St. Paul received the power of
a new life, his predominant feeling was that for the first time he
knew what liberty meant. He was set free from both the bondage of
sin and the bondage of ritual.

To the religious man of the Old Testament life was a conflict
against evil tendencies, a conflict in which defeat was only too
frequent, but from which there was no discharge. It was fitting,
therefore, that at the very beginning of Israel's history, as the
people of God, this stern prohibition of the rougher manifestations
of the natural man should stand.

But it is characteristic of the Old Testament that it states
the fundamental fact, without any of the over-refinements and
exaggerations by which later doctrinal developments have discredited
it. There is no appearance here, or anywhere in the Old Testament,
of the Lutheran exaggeration that man is by nature impotent to all
good, as a stock or a stone is. Keeping close to the testimony of
the universal conscience, the Decalogue, and the Old Testament
generally, speaks to men as those who can be otherwise if they
will. There is, further, a robust assertion of righteous intention
and righteous act on the part of those whose minds are set to be
faithful to God. This may have been partly due to a blunter feeling
in regard to sin, and a less highly developed conscience, but it
was mainly a healthy assertion of facts which ought not to be
ignored. Yet, with all that, original sin was too plain a fact ever
to be denied by the healthy-minded saints of the Old Testament.
Fundamentally, they held that human nature needed to be restrained,
its innate lawlessness needed to be curbed, before it could be made
acceptable to God.

Among the heathen nations that was not so. Take the Greeks, for
instance, as the highest among them. Their watchword in morals was
not repression, but harmonious development. Every impulse of human
nature was right, and had the protection of a deity peculiarly its
own. Restraint, such as the Israelite felt to be his first need,
would have been regarded as mutilation by the Greek, for he was
dominated by no higher ideal than that of a fully developed man.
There was no vision of unattainable holiness hovering always before
his mind, as there was before the mind of the Israelite. God had
not revealed Himself to him in power and unalloyed purity, with a
background of infinite wisdom and omnipotence, so that unearthly
love and goodness were seen to be guiding and ruling the world. As
a consequence, the calling and destiny of man were conceived by the
Greeks in a far less soaring fashion than by Israel. To put the
difference in a few words, man, harmoniously developed in all his
powers and passions and faculties, with nothing excessive about him,
was made God by the Greeks; whereas in Israel God was brought down
into human life to bear man's burden and to supply the strength
needed that man might become like God in truth and mercy and
purity. It is of course true that both conceived of God under human
categories. They could not conceive God save by attributing to Him
that which they looked upon as highest in man. It is also true that
the higher natures in both nations, starting thus differently, did
in much approach each other. Still, the immense difference remains,
that the impulse in the one case was given from the earth by dreams
of human perfection, in the other it came from above through men who
had seen God. The Greeks had seen only the glory of man; Israel had
seen the glory of God.

The result was that human nature as it is seemed to the one much
more worthy of respect and much less seriously compromised than it
did to the other. Comparing man as he is, only with man as he easily
might be, the Greeks took a much less serious view of his state than
the Hebrews, who compared him with God as He had revealed Himself.
The former never attained any clear conception of sin, and regarded
it as a passing weakness which could without much trouble be
overcome. The latter saw that it was a radical and now innate want
of harmony with God, which could only be cured by a new life being
breathed into man from above. And when Europe became Christian,
this difference made itself felt in very widespread religious and
theological divergences. In the South and among the Latin races the
less strenuous view of human disabilities--the view which naturally
grew out of the heathen conception of man as, on the whole, born
good, with no very arduous moral heights to scale--has prevailed,
and in those regions the Pelagian form of doctrine has mastered the
Christian Church. But the Teutonic races have, in this matter, shown
a remarkable affinity with the Hebrew mind and teaching. The deeper
and more tragic view of the state of man has commended itself to
the Teutonic mind, and the depth of the moral taint in the natural
man has been estimated according to the Biblical standard. It is
not only theologians among the Northern races who have been thus
affected. The higher imaginative literature of England gives the
same impression; and in our own day Browning, our greatest poet, has
emphasised his acceptance of the Augustinian view of human nature
by making its teaching as to original sin a proof of the truth of
Christianity.[33] At the end of his poem "Gold Hair: a Story of
Pornic," in which he tells how a girl of angelic beauty, and of
angelic purity of nature as was supposed, is found after her death
to have sold her soul to the most gruesome avarice, he says:--

    "The candid incline to surmise of late
    That the Christian faith may be false, I find;
    For our Essays and Reviews' debate
    Begins to tell on the public mind,
    And Colenso's words have weight:

    I still, to suppose it true, for my part,
    See reasons and reasons; this, to begin:
    'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart
    At the head of a lie--taught original sin,
    The corruption of man's heart."

  [33] Browning's _Poetical Works_, vol. vi., p. 69.

But the Pagan view always reasserts itself; and modern Hellenists
especially, in their admiration of the grace which does undoubtedly
go with such conceptions of goodness as the Greeks could attain, are
apt to look askance at the harshness and strenuousness which they
find in the Old Testament. For the most pathetic and pure of the
Greek conceptions of the gods are those which, like Demeter, embody
mother's love or some other natural glory of humanity. Being thus
natural, they are set before us by the Greek imagination with an
unconstrained and graceful beauty which makes goodness appeal to the
æsthetic sense. To do this seems to many the supreme achievement.
Without this they hold that Christianity would fail to meet the
requirements of the modern heart and mind, for to interest "taste"
on the side of goodness is, apparently, better than to let men feel
the compulsion of duty. Reasoning on such premisses, they claim
that Greek religion gave to Christianity its completion and its
crown. This is the claim advanced by Dyer in his _Gods of Greece_
(p. 19). "The Greek poets and philosophers," he says, "are among
our intellectual progenitors, and therefore the religion of to-day
has requirements which include all that the noblest Greeks could
dream of, requirements which the aspirations of Israel alone could
not satisfy. Our complex life had need, not only of a supreme God
of power, universal and irresistible, of a jealous God beside whom
there was no other God, but also of a God of love and grace and
purity. To these ideal qualities, present in the Diviner godhead
of the Gospels, the evolution of Greek mythology brought much
that satisfies our hearts." The best answer to that is to read
Deuteronomy. The Hebrews had no need to borrow "a God of love and
grace and purity" from Greek mythology. Centuries before they came
in contact with Greeks, their inspired men had painted the love
and grace and purity of God in the most attractive colours. Nor
did they ever need to unlearn the belief that Yahweh was merely
a supreme God of power. In the course of our exposition we shall
have occasion to see that the worship of mere power was superseded
by the religion of Yahweh from the first, and that the author of
Deuteronomy gives his whole strength to demonstrate that the God of
Israel is a "God of love and grace and purity." But perhaps "grace"
means to Mr. Dyer "gracefulness." In that case we would deny that
"the Diviner godhead of the Gospels," as revealed in Jesus Christ,
had that æsthetic quality either. There is no word of an appeal
to the sense of the artistically beautiful in anything recorded
of Him; but neither in the Old Testament nor the New is there any
want of moral beauty in the representation given of God. Moral
beauty alone has a central place in religion; and when beauty that
appeals to the senses intrudes into religion, it becomes a source of
weakness rather than of strength. There may be a few people who can
trust to their taste to keep them firm in the pursuit of goodness,
but the bulk of men have always needed, and will always need, the
severer compulsion of duty. They need an objective standard; they
need a God, the embodiment and enforcer of all that duty demands of
them; and when they bend themselves to the yoke of obligation thus
imposed, they enter into a world of heavenly beauty which seizes and
enraptures the soul. The mere æsthetic beauty of Greek mythology
pales, for the more earnest races of mankind at least, before this
Diviner loveliness, and it is the special gift of the Hebrew as well
as of the Teutonic races to be sensitive to it, just as they fall
behind others in æsthetic sensitiveness. Wordsworth felt this, and
has expressed it inimitably in his "Ode to Duty"--

    "Stern Lawgiver! yet Thou dost wear
    The Godhead's most benignant grace
    Nor know we anything so fair
    As is the smile upon Thy face."

That expresses the Hebrew feeling also. Drawn upwards by the
infinite and unchangeable love and goodness of Yahweh, the Hebrews
felt the clog of their innate sinfulness as no other race has done.
The stern "thou shalt nots" of the Decalogue consequently found an
echo in their hearts. Won by the beauty of holiness, they gladly
welcomed the discipline of the Divine law, and by doing so they
established human goodness on a foundation immeasurably more stable
than any the gracefulness of Greek imaginations could hope to lay.




CHAPTER VI

_THE MEDIATORSHIP OF MOSES_

DEUT. v. 22-33


After the ten commandments, Deuteronomy, like Exodus, next indicates
that for all of legislation, exhortation, and advice that follows,
Moses was to be the mediator between God and the people. He is
represented as Yahweh's prophet or speaker in all that succeeds; the
Decalogue alone is set forth as the direct Divine command. Evidently
a great distinction is here notified, and what it exactly was may
be best explained by reference to the history of Roman law. In the
earliest times that consisted of _Fas_, _Jus_, and _Jus moribus
constitutum_. In Chapter IV. Professor Muirhead's description of fas
has been given at length, so that we need not repeat it here. The
point to remember is that it consisted of universal precepts such
as the Decalogue contains, given direct by God. _Jus_ again was,
according to Breal, the Divine will declared by human agency, and it
occupied much the position which law does in civilised states now.
Finally, _jus moribus constitutum_, or _boni mores_, was customary
law, which had a twofold function. "It was (1) a restraint upon
the law, condemning, though it could not prevent, the ruthless and
unnecessary exercise of legal right. (2) It was a supplement to
law (_jus_), requiring things law did not, _e.g._ dutiful service,
respect and obedience, chastity, fidelity to engagements, etc." Now
it is a striking fact that, though there can be no question of
imitation here, the legislation of Deuteronomy falls naturally into
these very divisions; and that fact of itself gives strong support
to the belief that here in Israel, as there in Rome, we have the
recorded facts of the earliest efforts at the regulation of national
life. The _fas_, then, corresponds to the Decalogue. The _jus_ runs
exactly parallel with the laws in the strict sense of the term,
those which Moses received from Yahweh and afterwards promulgated.
Lastly, the _boni mores_ are represented in Deuteronomy by those
beautiful precepts which limited the exercise of legal right, and,
going far beyond law, demanded of Israel that they should make good
their claim to be Yahweh's people by justice, charity, and purity.

To some it may seem that we do no service to Scripture by insisting
upon such a parallel. They will feel as if thereby the unique
character of the religion of Israel as a revealed religion were
obscured, if not obliterated. But nothing can be imagined which
could confirm us in belief of the substantial accuracy of what we
find narrated of early times in Scripture, more than the discovery
that, without any possibility of collusion, the earliest records
of civilisation elsewhere give us precisely the same account of
the forms in which law first makes its appearance. Surely we
ought now to have learned this lesson at least, that it is no
disparagement to a Divinely given system of law and religion, that
its growth and development run in the same channels as the growth
and development of similar systems which have none of the marks of
a Divine origin. Revelation always seizes upon mind as it is, and
makes that a sufficient and effective channel for itself. However it
is to be explained, it is true that Divine action generally seeks
to hide itself in the ordinary course of human things as quickly
as possible. It is only at the moment of contact, or at the moment
when it has burst forth in some flower of more than earthly grace
and loveliness, or when it has overturned and overturned until that
state of things which has a right to endure has been attained, that
the Divine force reveals itself. For the most part it sinks into the
general sum of forces that are making for the progress of humanity,
and clothes itself gladly in the uniform of other beneficent but
natural influences. Consequently it ought to be a welcome fact that
so close a parallel exists between the origins of Roman law and
the origins of Hebrew law. The one great gain already mentioned,
that it explains the early appearance of the Decalogue, and shows
that some such laws would naturally be among the primary laws of
Israel, would be sufficient to justify that view; while in addition
the distinctions from the early laws of Rome help us to classify in
clear broad masses the somewhat disordered series of Deuteronomic
laws.

On one point only does the parallel seem questionable. If we
followed it alone as our guide, we should have to set down the
mediatorship of Moses, as a mere part of the method, as belonging
to the formal side only of the great revelation. In other words, we
should have to ask whether the statement we have in Deut. v. 22-30
is only an emotional and pictorial way of setting forth the fact
that, following and supplementing the elementary and Divinely given
Hebrew _fas_, there was also a Divinely given but humanly mediated
_jus_. But clearly it means much more than that. By the earlier
prophets, and generally in all earlier delineations of him, Moses
is regarded as a prophet who had more direct and continuous access
to the Divine presence than any other prophet of Israel. Moreover
he had always been represented from the earliest times as standing
between Yahweh and His people, holding on to the one and refusing
to let the other go. In the great scene, taken from the earliest
constituents of the Pentateuch and narrated in Exod. xxxii., we see
him anticipating by centuries the wonderful picture of the Servant
of God in Isa. liii., and by a still more amazing stretch of time,
that Divinest wish of St. Paul, that he himself might be accursed
even from Christ for his brethren's sake. He thus stood between
Yahweh and His people both as the organ of Revelation and as the
self-forgetting intercessor, who suffered for sins not his own, as
well as for sins which his connection with his nation had brought
upon him; who, instead of repining, was willing to be blotted out of
God's book if that could benefit his people.

This representation of Moses is not accidental. It is in complete
accord with a characteristic of Israelite literature from beginning
to end. In the earliest historical records we find that the chief
heroes of the nation are mediators, standing for God in the face of
evil men, and pleading with God for men when they are broken and
penitent, or even when they are only terrified and restrained by
the terror of the Lord. At the beginning of the national history
we see the noble figure of Abraham in an agony of supplication and
entreaty before God on behalf of the cities of the plain. At the
end of it, we see the Christ, the supreme "mediator between God and
man," pouring out His soul unto death for men "while they were yet
sinners," dying, the just for the unjust, taking upon Himself the
responsibility for the sin of man, and refusing to let him wander
away into permanent separation from God. And all between is in
accord with this. For it is not Moses only who is regarded as having
a mediatorial office. The very people itself is set, by the promise
given to Abraham, in the same position. As early at least as the
eighth century it was put before Israel, that their calling was not
for their own sakes only, but that in them all nations of the earth
might be blessed. And at their highest moments the prophets and
teachers of Israel always recognised this as their nation's part.
Even when they were being scattered among the heathen, it was that
they might be the means of bringing the knowledge of Yahweh to the
nations. From end to end of Scripture, therefore, this conception
is wrought into the very fibre of its utterances. It is of the
essence of the Biblical conception of God that He should work among
men by mediators. In no other way could the primary Divine message
be set forth than by the prophetic voice; in no other way than by
the intercession and the suffering of those most in harmony with
the Divine will could any effective hold upon God be given to His
people. Only by those who thus proved that they had seen Yahweh
could His character be expressed. Further, it was in this way that
Moses and the prophets, the rulers and the saints of Israel, were
types of Christ. They were not mere puppets set forth in certain
crises of Israel's history to go through a certain career, live a
certain life, and pass into and out of a number of scenes, in order
that they might afford us, upon whom the end of the world has come,
pictorial proofs that all things in this history were pressing
towards and converging upon Christ. That would be a very artificial
way of conceiving the matter. No, each of these types was a real
man, with real tasks of his own to accomplish in the world. Not
only were they all real men, they were the leading men of their
various times. They bore the burden of their day more than others;
they were the special organs of Divine power and grace; and their
lives were spent in giving impulse and direction to the movements of
their people's life towards the strange, unlooked-for consummation
appointed for it. They were types of Christ, they gave promise of
Him, not because of mere arbitrary appointment or selection, but
because they did in their day, in a lower degree and at an earlier
stage, the very same work that He did. Further, the whole nation
was a type of Christ in so far as it was true to its calling at all.
It was the prophet and the priest among nations. It spread abroad
the knowledge of Him, and it died at last as a nation that life
might be given to the world. Both Israel and all the men who truly
represented it were partakers in the labours and in the sufferings
of Christ beforehand, just as Christians are said to fill up the
measure of His sufferings now. The mediatorial character of Moses,
therefore, was essential. It is no merely formal thing, nor an
afterthought. He would have been no fit founder of the mediatorial
nation had he not been a mediator himself, for not otherwise could
he have helped to realise the Abrahamic promise.

But there is another subsidiary reason why a mediator was necessary
to Israel at this stage. Behind all that Moses taught his people lay
necessarily the ancient popular religion of the Hebrews. Now, except
in so far as it may have been changed in Egypt, that was in its
main features the same as the religion of the other nomadic tribes
of Semitic stock, for the Abrahamic faith was, clearly, known but
to few. But the names given to their deities by these people--such
as Baal, Adhonai, Milcom, etc.--"all expressed submission to the
irresistible power revealing itself in nature," just as "Islam,"
which means "submission," indicates that Mohammedanism is a
mere perpetuation of this view.[34] Consequently the Israelite
people were unable to conceive God save as a devouring presence,
before which no man could live. The Mosaic view was, in itself,
immeasurably higher, and, besides that, it opened up the path to
attainments then inconceivable. Moses therefore had to stand alone
in his new relation to God, while the people cowered away in
terror, dominated entirely by the lower conception. They could not
stand where he stood. They were unable to believe that power was not
Yahweh's only attribute; while Moses had had revealed to him, in
germ at least, that God was "merciful and gracious, longsuffering
and slow to anger," and that a life passed in His presence was the
ideal life for man. Both the Yahwistic narrative in Exodus and the
repetition of it in Deuteronomy give the same representation of the
events at Sinai, and indicate quite clearly that, while the old
relation to God was in itself good so far, it was to be superseded
by that higher relation in which Moses stood. That is the meaning of
the words in Deut. v. 28, 29: "And Yahweh said unto me, I have heard
the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken unto
thee; they have well said all that they have spoken. Oh that there
were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My
commandments, always, that it might be well with them and with their
children for ever!" The parallel passage in Exodus is xx. 20: "And
Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you,
and that His fear may be before you, that ye sin not." In both, the
standpoint of fear is approved as relatively good and wholesome.
It was well that the people should have this awestruck fear of the
Divine, for it would act as a deterrent from sin. But it was not
sufficient. It was only the starting-point for the attainments which
Yahweh by Moses, and in Moses, was about to call and incite them to.
Moses therefore had to stand between Israel and Yahweh in this too,
that he had entered into and lived in relations with his God which
they were as yet unable either to conceive or to endure.

  [34] Cf. Schultz, _Alttestamentliche Theologie_, p. 92.

It is well to add, also, that in giving approval of this kind to
fear as a religious motive these early teachers were entirely in
accord with the final development of Israelite religion in the
New Testament. The modern view that any appeal to fear in religion
or morality is degrading would have been simply unintelligible to
the Biblical writers. Even now, the whole fabric of society, the
state with its officials and the law with its penalties, are a
continual protest against it in the realm of practical morality.
In truth the conflict raised about this matter in modern times is
simply a conflict between superfine theories and facts. Now the Old
Testament is throughout supremely true to the facts of human nature
and human experience. It is practically a transcript of them as seen
in the light of revelation. In a time, therefore, when in morals
and religion physical fact is being allowed to override or pervert
psychical fact, the Old Testament view is peculiarly wholesome. It
helps to restore the balance and to keep man's thoughts sane.

Another point on which this narrative of Deuteronomy corrects and
restores that which the tendency of modern thought has perverted
is an even more important one. We have seen that the Old Testament
view, as stated here, and as it is interwoven with the central
fibres of the Old Testament conception, is that all men who are
called to the task of permanently raising the level of human life
and thought must give not only their light to, but their life
for, those whom they seek to win for God. They must ask nothing
from mankind but ever widening opportunities for service and
self-sacrifice. But in our modern day this has been precisely
reversed, and men like Goethe and Schopenhauer, and even Carlyle,
have demanded that mankind should yield service to them, and then,
by the furtherance and development they thereby attain, they
promise to work out the deliverance of men from superstition and
unreality and the bondage of ignorance. Goethe in this matter is
typical. He preached and practised in the most uncompromising manner
the doctrine of self-development. He thought that he could serve
humanity in no way so well as by making every one he met, and all
the experiences he encountered, minister to his own intellectual
growth. Instead of saying with Moses, "Blot me out of Thy book," but
spare these dim idolatrous masses, he would have said, "Let them all
perish, and let me become the origin of a wiser, more intellectual,
more self-restrained race than they." He consequently pursued his
own ends relentlessly from his early years, and attained results
so immense that almost every domain of thought, speculation, and
science is now under some debt to him. But for all purposes of
inspiring moral and spiritual enthusiasm he is practically useless.
His selfishness, however high its kind, accomplished its work and
left him cold, unapproachable, isolated. This want of love for
men made him the accurate critic of human nature, but left him
blind in great degree and hopeless altogether in regard to those
possibilities of better things which are never wholly wanting to it.
The result is that, notwithstanding his heroic powers, his influence
is to-day rather a minus quantity in the spiritual and moral life.
No one who has not warmth from other sources pouring in upon him
can have much communion with Goethe without losing vitality, and in
his presence the Divine passion of self-sacrificing love looks out
of place, or even slightly absurd. His power is fascinating, but
it freezes all the sources of the nobler spiritual emotions, and
ultimately must tend to the impoverishing of human nature and the
lowering of the level of human life. No; men are not to be reached
so if it is wished to raise them to their highest powers, and all
experience proves that the New Testament was right in summing up the
teaching of the Old by the words, "He that saveth his life shall
lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it."

    "That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
    Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
    If you loved only what were worth your love,
    Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you;
    Make the low nature better by your throes!
    Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!"[35]

  [35] Browning, "James Lee's Wife," VII.




CHAPTER VII

_LOVE TO GOD THE LAW OF LIFE_

DEUT. vi. 4, 5


In these verses we approach "the commandments, the statutes, and
the judgments" which it was to be Moses' duty to communicate to
the people, _i.e._ the second great division of the teaching and
guidance received at Sinai. But though we approach them we do not
come to them for a number of chapters yet. We reach them only in
chapter xii., which begins with almost the same words as chapter vi.
What lies between is a new exhortation, very similar in tone and
subject to that into which chapters i-iii. have been transformed.

To some readers in our day this repetition, and the renewed
postponement of the main subject of the book, have seemed to
justify the introduction of a new author here. They are scornfully
impatient of the repetition and delay, especially those of them who
have themselves a rapid, dashing style; and they declare that the
writer of the laws, etc., from chapter xii. onwards cannot have
been the writer of these long double introductions. _They_ would
not have written so; consequently no one else, however different
his circumstances, his objects, and his style may be, can have
written so. It is true, they admit, that the style, the grammar, the
vocabulary are all exactly those of the purely legal chapters, but
that matters not. Their irritation with this delay is decisive; and
so they introduce us, entirely on the strength of it, to another
Deuteronomist, second or third or fourth--who knows? But all this is
too purely subjective to meet with general acceptance, and we may
without difficulty decide that the linguistic unity of the book,
when chapters vi. to xii. are compared with what we find after xii.,
is sufficient to settle the question of authorship.

But we have now to consider the possible reasons for this second
long introduction. The first introduction has been satisfactorily
explained in a former chapter; this second one can, I think, quite
as easily be accounted for. The object of the book is in itself
a sufficient explanation. To modern critical students of the Old
Testament the laws are the main interest of Deuteronomy. They are
the material they need for their reconstruction of the history of
Israel, and they feel as if all besides, though it may contain
beautiful thoughts, were irrelevant. But that was not the writer's
point of view at all. For him it was not the main thing to introduce
new laws. He was conscious rather of a desire to bring old laws,
well known to his fellow-countrymen, but neglected by them, into
force again. Anything new in his version of them was consequently
only such an adaptation of them to the new circumstances of his
time as would tend to secure their observance. Even if Moses were
the author of the book this would be true; but if a prophetic man
in Manasseh's day was the author, we can see how naturally and
exclusively that view would fill his mind. He had fallen upon evil
times. The best that had been attained in regard to spiritual
religion had been deliberately abandoned and trodden under foot.
Those who sympathised with pure religion could only hope that a
time would come when Hezekiah's work would be taken up again. If
Deuteronomy was written in preparation for that time, the legal
additions necessary to ward off the evils which had been so nearly
fatal to Yahwism would seem to the author much less important than
they appear to us to be. His object was to retrieve what had been
lost, to rouse the dead minds of his countrymen, to illustrate that
on which the higher life of the nation depended, and to throw light
upon it from all the sources of what then was modern thought. His
mind was full of the high teaching of the prophets. He was steeped
in the history of his people, which was then receiving, or was soon
to receive, its all but final touches. He was intensely anxious that
in the later time for which he was writing all men should see how
Providence had spoken for the Mosaic law and religion, and what the
great principles were which had always underlain it, and which had
now at last been made entirely explicit.

Under these circumstances, it was not merely natural that the author
of Deuteronomy should dwell with insistence upon the hortatory part
of his book; it was necessary. He could not feel Wellhausen's haste
to approach his restatement of the law. To him the exhortation was,
in fact, the important thing. Every day he lived he must have seen
that it was not want of knowledge that misled his contemporaries.
He must have groaned too often under the weight of the indifference
even of the well disposed not to be aware that that was the great
hindrance to the restoration of the better thoughts and ways of
Hezekiah's day.

He had learned by bitter experience, what every man who is in
earnest about inducing masses of men to take a step backward
or forward to a higher life always learns, that nothing can be
accomplished till a fire has been kindled in the hearts of men which
will not let them rest. To this task the author of Deuteronomy
devotes himself. And whatever impatient theorists of to-day may
say, he succeeds amazingly. His exhortation touches men from one end
of the world to the other, even to this day, by its affectionate
impressiveness. His exhibition of the principles underlying the
law is so true that, when our Lord was asked, "Which is the first
commandment of all?" He answered from this chapter of Deuteronomy:
"The first of all the commandments is this, The Lord our God is
one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. The second is
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none
other commandment greater than these." Now these are precisely the
truths Deuteronomy exhibits in these prefatory chapters, and it
is by them that the after-treatment of the law is permeated. The
author of Deuteronomy by announcing these truths brought the Old
Testament faith as near to the level of the New Testament faith as
was possible; and we may well believe that he saw his work in its
true relative proportions. The hortatory chapters are really the
most original part of the book, and exhibit what was most permanent
in it. The mere fact that the author lingers over it, therefore, is
entirely inadequate to justify us in admitting a later hand. Indeed,
if criticism is to retain the respect of reasonable men, it will
have to be more sparing than it has hitherto been with the "later
hand"; to introduce it here under the circumstances is nothing short
of a blunder.

In our verses, therefore, we have to deal with the main point of our
book. Coming immediately after the Decalogue, these words render
explicit the principle of the first table of that law. In them our
author is making it clear that all he has to say of worship, and of
the relation of Israel to Yahweh, is merely an application of this
principle, or a statement of means by which a life at the level
of love to God may be made possible or secured. This section,
therefore, forms the bridge which connects the Decalogue with the
legal enactments which follow; and it is on all accounts worthy of
very special attention. Our Lord's quotation of it as the supreme
statement of the Divine law, in its Godward aspect, would in itself
be an overwhelmingly special reason for thorough study of it, and
would justify us in expecting to find it one of the deepest things
in Scripture.

The translation of the first clause presents difficulties. The
Authorised Version gives us, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is
one Lord," but that can no longer be accepted, since it rests upon
the Jewish substitution of Adhonai for Yahweh. Taking this view of
the construction, it should be rendered, "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh
our God is one Yahweh"; and this is the meaning which most recent
authorities--_e.g._ Knobel, Keil, and Dillmann--put upon it. But
equally good authorities--such as Ewald and Oehler--render, "Yahweh
our God--Yahweh is one." This is unobjectionable grammatically.
Still another translation, "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God,
Yahweh alone," has been received by the most recent and most
scholarly German translation of the Scripture, that edited by
Kautzsch. But the objection that in that case _l'bhaddo_, not
_'echādh_, should have been used, seems conclusive against it.
The two others come very much to the same thing in the end,
and were it not for the time at which Deuteronomy was written,
Ewald's translations would be the simpler and more acceptable.
But the first--"Yahweh our God is one Yahweh"--exactly meets the
circumstances of that time, and moreover emphasises that in Israel's
God which the writer of Deuteronomy was most anxious to establish.
As against the prevailing tendency of the time, he not only denies
polytheism, or, as Dillmann puts it, asserts the concrete fact that
the true God cannot be resolved in the polytheistic manner into
various kinds and shades of deity, like the Baalim, but he also
prohibits the amalgamation or partial identification of Him with
other gods. Though very little is told us concerning Manasseh's
idolatry, we know enough to feel assured that it was in this fashion
he justified his introduction of Assyrian deities into the Temple
worship. Moloch, for example, must in some way have been identified
with Yahweh, since the sacrifices of children in Tophet are declared
by Jeremiah to have been to Yahweh. Further, the worship at the
High Places had led, doubtless, to belief in a multitude of local
Yahwehs, who in some obscure way were yet regarded as one, just as
the multitudinous shrines of the Virgin in Romanist lands lead to
the adoration of our Lady of Lourdes, our Lady of Étaples, and so
on, though the Church knows only one Virgin Mother. This incipient
and unconscious polytheism it was our author's purpose to root
out by his law of one altar; and it seems congruous, therefore,
that he should sum up the first table of the Decalogue in such a
way as to bring out its opposition to this great evil. Of course
the oneness of deity as such is involved in what he says; but the
aspect of this truth which is specially put forward here is that
Yahweh, being God, is one Yahweh, with no partners, nor even with
variations that practically destroy unity. No proposition could
have been framed more precisely and exactly to contradict the
general opinion of Manasseh and his followers regarding religion;
and in it the watchword of monotheism was spoken. Since it was
uttered, this has been the rallying point of monotheistic religion,
both among Jews and Mohammedans. For "there is no God but God" is
precisely the counterpart of "Yahweh is one Yahweh"; and from one
end of the civilised world to the other this strenuous confession
of faith has been heard, both as the tumultuous battle-shout of
victorious armies, and as the stubborn and immovable assertion of
the despised, and scattered, and persecuted people to whom it was
first revealed. Even to-day, though in the hands of both Jews and
Mohammedans it has been hardened into a dogma which has stripped
the Mosaic conception of Yahweh of those elements which gave it
possibilities of tenderness and expansion, it still has power over
the minds of men. Even in such hands, it incites missionary effort,
and it appeals to the heart at some stages of civilisation as no
other creed does. It makes men, nay, even civilised men, of the wild
fetich-worshipping African; but for want of what follows in our
context it leaves them stranded--at a higher level, it is true, but
stranded nevertheless--without possibilities of advance, and exposed
to that terrible decay in their moral and spiritual conceptions
which sooner or later asserts itself in every Mohammedan community.

Israel was saved from the same spiritual disease by the great
words which succeed the assertion of Yahweh's oneness. The writer
of Deuteronomy did not desire to set forth this declaration as an
abstract statement of ultimate truth about God. He makes it the
basis of a quite new, a quite original demand upon his countrymen.
Because Yahweh thy God is one Yahweh, "thou shalt love Yahweh thy
God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might." To us, who have inherited all that was attained by Israel
in their long and eventful history as a nation, and especially in
its disastrous close, it may have become a commonplace that God
demands the love of His people. But if so, we must make an effort
to shake off the dull yoke of custom and familiarity. If we do, we
shall see that it was an extraordinarily original thing which the
Deuteronomist here declares. In the whole of the Old Testament there
are, outside of Deuteronomy, thirteen passages in which the _love_
of men to Yahweh is spoken of. They are Exod. xx. 6; Josh. xxii. 5,
xxiii. 11; Judges v. 31; 1 Kings iii. 3; Neh. i. 5; Psalms xviii.
2, xxxi. 24, xci. 14, xcvii. 10, cxvi. 1, cxlv. 20; and Dan. ix.
4. Now of these the verses from Nehemiah and Daniel are manifestly
later than Deuteronomy, and of the Psalms only the eighteenth can
with any confidence be assigned to a time earlier than the seventh
century B.C. All the others may with great probability be assigned
at earliest to the times of Jeremiah and the post-exilic period.
Three of the passages from the historic books again--Josh. xxii. 5,
xxiii. 11; 1 Kings iii. 3--are attributed, on grounds largely apart
from the use of this expression, to the Deuteronomic editor, _i.e._
the writer who went over the historical books about 600 B.C., and
made slight additions here and there, easily recognisable by their
differing in tone and feeling from the surrounding context. Indeed
Josh. xxii. 5 is a palpable quotation from Deuteronomy itself.

Of the thirteen passages, therefore, only three--Exod. xx. 6,
Judges v. 31, and Psalm xviii. 2--belong to the time previous
to Deuteronomy, and in all three the mention of love to God is
only allusive, and, as it were, by the way. Before Deuteronomy,
consequently, there is little more than the mere occurrence of the
word. There is nothing of the bold and decisive demand for love to
the one God as the root and ground of all true relations with Him
which Deuteronomy makes. At most, there is the hint of a possibility
which might be realised in the future; of love to God as the
permanent element in the life of man there is no indication; and
it is this which the author of Deuteronomy means, and nothing less
than this. He makes this demand for love the main element of his
teaching. He returns to it again and again, so that there are almost
as many passages bearing on this in Deuteronomy as in the whole Old
Testament besides; and the particularity and emphasis with which he
dwells upon it are immeasurably greater. Only in the New Testament
do we find anything quite parallel to what he gives us; and there
we find his view taken up and expanded, till love to God flashes
upon us from almost every page as the test of all sincerity and the
guarantee of all success in the Christian life.

To proclaim this truth was indeed a great achievement; and when we
remember the abject fear with which Israel had originally regarded
Yahweh, it will appear still more remarkable that the book embodying
this should have been adopted by the whole people with enthusiasm,
and that with it should begin the Canon of Holy Scripture; for
Deuteronomy, as all now recognise, was the first book which became
canonical. I have said that the conception was an extraordinarily
original one, and have pointed out that it had not been traceable to
any extent previously in Israel's religious books or its religious
men. It will appear still more original, I think, if we consider
what a growth in moral and spiritual stature separates the Israel of
Moses' day and that of Josiah's; what the attitude of other nations
to their gods was in contrast to this; and, lastly, what it involves
and implies, as regards the nature of both God and man.

As we have already seen, the earlier narratives represent the men
to whom Moses spoke as acknowledging that they could not, as yet at
any rate, bear to remain in the presence of Yahweh. Between their
God and them, therefore, there could be no relation of love properly
so called. There was reverence, awe, and chiefly fear, tempered
by the belief that Yahweh as their God was on their side. He had
proved it by delivering them from the oppressions of Egypt, and they
acknowledged Him and were jealous for His honour and submissive to
His commands. So far as the record goes, that would seem to have
been their religious state. Progress from that state of mind to
a higher, to a demand for direct personal relations between each
individual Israelite and Yahweh, was not easy. It was hindered by
the fact that Israel as a whole, and not the individual, was for a
long time regarded as the subject of religion. That, of course, was
no hindrance to the development of the thought that Yahweh loved
Israel; but so long as that conception dominated religious thought
in Israel, so long was it impossible to think of individual love and
trust as the element in which each faithful man should live.

But the love of Yahweh was declared, century after century, by
prophet and priest and psalmist, to be set upon His people, and
so the way for this demand for love on man's part was opened.
Man's relations with God began to grow more intimate. The distance
lessened, as the use of the words "them that love Me" in the song
of Deborah and the Davidic word in Psalm xviii., "I love thee,
Yahweh my rock," clearly show. Hosea next took up the strain, and
intensified and heightened it in a wonderful manner, but the nation
failed to respond adequately. In the later prophets the love and
grace and longsuffering of Yahweh and His ceaseless efforts on
behalf of Israel are continually made the ground of exhortations,
entreaties, and reproaches; but, as a whole, the people still did
not respond. We may be sure, however, that an ever increasing
minority were affected by the clearness and intensity of the
prophetic testimony. To this minority, the Israel within Israel,
the remnant that was to return from exile and become the seed of a
people that should be all righteous, the love of Yahweh tended to
become His main characteristic. That love sustained their hopes; and
though the awe and reverence which were due to His holiness, and the
fear called forth by His power, still predominated, there grew up in
their hearts a multitude of thoughts and expectations tending more
and more to the love of God.

As yet it was only a timid reaching out towards Him, a hope and
longing which could hardly justify itself. Yet it was robust
enough not to be killed by disappointment, by hope deferred, or
even by crushing misfortune; and in the furnace of affliction it
became stronger and more pure. And in the heart of the author
of Deuteronomy it grew certain of itself, and soared up with an
eagerness that would not be denied. Then, as always where God is the
object of it, love that dares was justified; and out of its restless
and timid longings it came to the "place of rest imperturbable,
where love is not forsaken if itself forsaketh not."[36] From
knowledge, confirmed by the answering love and inspiration of God,
and impelled consciously by Him, he then in this book made and
reiterated his great demand. All spiritual men found in it the word
they had needed. They responded to it eagerly when the book was
published; and their enthusiasm carried even the torpid and careless
masses with them for a time. The nation, with the king at their
head, accepted the legislation of which this love to God was the
underlying principle, and so far as public and corporate action can
go, Israel adopted the deepest principle of spiritual life as their
own.

  [36] Augustine's _Confessions_, p. 64.

Of course with the mass this assent had little depth; but in the
hearts of the true men in Israel the joy and assurance of their
great discovery, that Yahweh their God was open to, nay, desired and
commanded, their most fervent affection, soon produced its fruit.
From the fragments of the earliest legislation which have come down
to us, it is obvious that the Mosaic principles had led to a most
unwonted consideration for the poor. In later days, though the
ingrained tendency to oppression, which those who have power in the
East seem quite unable to resist, did its evil work in both Israel
and Judah, there were never wanting prophetic voices to denounce
such villainy in the spirit of these laws. The public conscience was
thereby kept alive, and the ideal of justice and mercy, especially
to the helpless, became a distinguishing mark of Israelite religion.
But it was in the minds of those who had learned the Deuteronomist's
great lesson, and had taken example by him, that the love which came
from God, and had just been answered back by man overflowed in a
stream of blessing to man's "neighbours." Deuteronomy had uttered
the first and great commandment; but it is in the Law of Holiness,
that complex of ancient laws brought together by the author of P,
and found now mainly in Lev. xvii.-xxvi., that we find the second
word, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."[37] If we ask,
Who is my neighbour? we find that not even those beyond Israel are
excluded, for in Lev. xix. 34 we read, "The stranger that sojourneth
with you shall be unto you as the homeborn among you, and thou shalt
love him as thyself." The idea still needed the expansion which it
received from our Lord Himself in the parable of the Good Samaritan;
but it is only one step from these passages to the New Testament.

  [37] Lev. xix. 18, 34.

From the standpoint of mere fear, then, to the standpoint of love
which casteth out fear, even the masses of Israel were lifted, in
thought at least, by the love and teaching of God. And the process
by which Israel was led to this height has proved ever since to
be the only possible way to such an attainment. It began in the
free favour of God, it was continued by the answer of love on the
part of man, and these antecedents had as their consequence the
proclamation of that law of liberty--for self-renouncing love is
liberty--"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Without the
first, the second was impossible; and the last without the other
two would have been only a satire upon the incurable selfishness of
man. It is worthy of remark, at least, that only on the critical
theory of the Old Testament is each of these steps in the moral
and religious education of Israel found in its right place, with
its right antecedents; only when taken so do the teachers who were
inspired to make each of these attainments find circumstances
suited to their message, and a soil in which the germs they were
commissioned to plant could live.

But great as is the contrast between the Israel of Moses' day and
that of Josiah's, it is not so great as the contrast between the
religion of Israel in the Deuteronomic period and the religion of
the neighbouring nations. Among them, at our date 650 B.C., there
was, so far as we know them, no suggestion of personal love to God
as an effective part of religion. In the chapters on the Decalogue
the main ideas of the Canaanites in regard to religion have been
described, so that they need not be repeated here. I shall add
only what E. Meyer says of their gods: "With advancing culture the
cultus loses its old simplicity and homeliness. A fixed ritual was
developed--founded upon old hereditary tradition. And here the
gloomier conception became the ruling one, and its consequences
were inexorably deduced. The great gods, even the protecting gods
of the tribe or the town, are capricious and in general hostile to
man--possibly to some degree because of the mythological conception
of Baal as sun-god--and they demand sacrifices of blood that they
may be appeased. In order that evil may be warded off from those
with whom they are angry, another human being must be offered to
them as a substitute in propitiatory sacrifice--nay, they demand
the sacrifice of the firstborn, the best-loved son. If the community
be threatened with the wrath of the deity, then the prince or the
nobility as a whole must offer up their children on its behalf."[38]
This also is the view of Robertson Smith,[39] who considers that
while in their origin the Semitic religions involved kindly
relations and continual intercourse between the gods and their
worshippers, these gradually disappeared as political misfortune
began to fall upon the smaller Semitic peoples. Their gods were
angry and in the vain hope of appeasing them men had recourse to the
direst sacrifices. Hints concerning these had survived from times
of savagery; and to the diseased minds of these terror-stricken
peoples the more ancient and more horrible a sacrifice was the
more powerful did it seem. At this time, therefore, the course
of the Canaanite religions was away from love to their gods. The
decay of nationality brought despair, and the frantic efforts of
despair, into the religion of the Canaanite peoples; but to Israel
it brought this higher demand for more intimate union with their
God. Whatever elements tending towards love the Canaanite religions
originally may have had, they had either been mingled with the
corrupting sensuality which seems inseparable from the worship of
female deities, or had been limited to the mere superficial good
understanding which their participation in the same common life
established between the people and their gods. Their union was
largely independent of moral considerations on either side. But
in Israel there had grown up quite a different state of things.
The union between Yahweh and His people had from the days of the
Decalogue taken a moral turn; and gradually it had become clear
that to have Abraham for their father and Yahweh for their God
would profit them little, if they did not stand in right moral
relations and in moral sympathy with Him. Now, in Deuteronomy, that
fundamentally right conception of the relation between God and man
received its crown in Yahweh's claim to the love of His people. No
contrast could be greater than that which common misfortune and
a common national ruin produced between the surrounding Semitic
peoples and Israel.

  [38] _Geschichte des Alterthums_, p. 249.

  [39] _Religion of the Semites_, p. 330.

But besides the small kingdoms which immediately surrounded
Palestine, Israel had for neighbours the two great empires of Egypt
and Assyria. She was exposed therefore to influence from them in
even a greater degree. Long before the Exodus, the land which Israel
came afterwards to occupy had been the meeting-place of Babylonian
and Egyptian power and culture. In the fifteenth century B.C. it
was under the suzerainty if not the direct sovereignty of Egypt;
but its whole culture and literature, for it must have had books,
as the name Kirjath-Sepher (Book-town) shows, was Babylonian.
Throughout Israel's history, moreover, Assyrian and Egyptian manners
and ways of thought were pressed upon the people; and we cannot
doubt that in regard to religion also their influence was felt. But
at this period, as in the Canaanite religions, so also in those of
Assyria and Egypt, the tendency was altogether different from what
Deuteronomy shows it to have been in Israel.

In regard to Egypt this is somewhat difficult to prove, for the
Egyptian religion is so complicated, so varied, and so ancient,
that men who have studied it despair of tracing any progress in
it. A kind of monotheism, polytheism, fetichism, animism, and
nature-worship such as we find in the Vedas, have in turn been
regarded as its primitive state; but as a matter of fact all these
systems of religious thought and feeling are represented in the
earliest records, and they remained constant elements of it till the
end.[40] Whatever had once formed part of it, Egyptian religion
clung to with extraordinary tenacity. As time went on, however, the
accent was shifted from one element to the other, and after the
times of the XIXth dynasty, _i.e._ after the time of the Exodus,
it began to decay. A systematised pantheism, of which sun-worship
was the central element, was elaborated by the priests; the moral
element which had been prominent in the days when the picture of the
judgment of the soul after death was so popular in Thebes retired
more into the background, and the purely magical element became
the principal one. Instead of moral goodness and the fulfilment of
duty being the main support of the soul in its dread and lonely
journeys in the "world of the Western sky," knowledge of the proper
formulas became the chief hope, and the machinations of evil demons
the main danger. In the royal tombs at Thebes the walls of the long
galleries are covered with representations of these demons, and the
accompanying writing gives directions as to the proper formulas by
knowledge of which deliverance can be secured. This, of course,
confined the benefits of religion, so far as they related to the
life to come, to the educated, and the wealthy. For these secret
spells were hard to obtain, and had to be purchased at a high price.
As Wiedemann says, "Still more important than in this world was the
knowledge of the correct magical words and formulas in the other
world. No door opened here if its name was not known, no dæmon let
the dead pass in if he did not address him in the proper fashion, no
god came to his help so long as his proper title was not given him,
no food could be procured so long as the exactly prescribed words
were not uttered."[41] The people were therefore thrown back upon
the ancient popular faith, which needed gods only for practical
life, and honoured them only because they were mighty.[42] Some
of them were believed to be friendly; but others were malevolent
deities who would destroy mankind if they did not mollify them by
magic, or render them harmless by the greater power of the good
gods. Consequently Set, the unconquerable evil demon, was worshipped
with zeal in many places. With him there were numerous demons, "the
enemies," "the evil ones," which lie in wait for individuals, and
threaten their life and weal. The main thing, therefore, was to
bring the correct sacrifices, to use such formulas and perform such
acts as would render the gods gracious and turn away evil. Moreover
the whole of nature was full of spirits, as it is to the African of
to-day, and in the mystic texts of the Book of the Dead, there is
constant mention made of the "mysterious beings whose names, whose
ceremonials are not known," which thirst for blood, which bring
death, which go about as devouring flame, as well as of others which
do good. At all times this element existed in Egypt; but precisely
at this time, in the reign of Psamtik, Brugsch[43] declares that
new force was given to it, and on the monuments there appear, along
with the "great gods," monstrous forms of demons and genii. In fact
the higher religion had become pantheistic, and consequently less
rigidly moral. Magic had been taken up into it for the life beyond
the grave, and became the only resource of the people in this life.
Fear, therefore, necessarily became the ruling religious motive, and
instead of growing toward love of God, men in Egypt at this time
were turning more decisively than ever away from it.

  [40] Cf. Wiedemann, _Religion der alten Aegypter_, p. 3.

  [41] Wiedemann, p. 1, 35.

  [42] Cf. Meyer, p. 71.

  [43] _Egypt under the Pharaohs_, Brodick's edition p. 423.

Of the Assyrian religion and its influence it is also difficult
to speak in this connection, for notwithstanding the amount of
translation that has been done, not much has come to light in regard
to the personal religion of the Assyrians. On the whole it seems
to be established that in its main features the religion of both
Babylon and Assyria remained what the non-Semitic inhabitants of
Akkad had made it. Originally it had consisted entirely of a spirit
and demon worship not one whit more advanced than the religion
of the South Sea islanders to-day. As such it was in the main a
religion of fear. Though some spirits were good, the bulk were
evil, and all were capricious. Men were consequently all their
lifetime subject to bondage, and love as a religious emotion was
impossible. When the Semites came at a later time into the country
their star-worship was amalgamated with this mere Shamanism of the
Akkadians. In the new faith thus evolved the great gods of the
Semites were arranged in a hierarchy, and the spirits, both good
and evil, were subordinated to them. But even the great gods remain
within the sphere of nature, and have in full measure the defects
and limitations of nature-gods everywhere.[44] They are not entirely
beneficent powers, nor are they even moral beings. Some have
special delight in blood and destruction, while the cruel Semitic
child-sacrifice was practised in honour of others. Again, their
displeasure has no necessary or even general connection with sin.
Their wrath is generally the outcome of mere arbitrary whim. Indeed
it may be doubted whether the conception of sin or of moral guilt
ever had a secure footing in this religion. It certainly had none in
the terror-struck hymn to the seven evil spirits who are described
thus:--

    "Seven (are) they, seven (are) they.
    Male they (are) not, female they (are) not;
    Moreover the deep is their pathway.
    Wife they have not, child is not born to them.
    Law (and) order they know not,
    Prayer and supplication hear they not.
    Wicked (are) they, wicked (are) they."[45]

  [44] Meyer, p. 117.

  [45] Sayce, _Babylonian Literature_, p. 36. Both poems here referred
  to are pre-Assyrian, being found as translations in the library of
  Assurbanipal. But Assyrian religion made no progress; it seems to
  have remained always dependent on Babylonian, even in details.

There is here an accent of genuine terror, which involved not love,
but hatred. Even in what Sayce calls a "Penitential Psalm," and
which he compares to the Biblical Psalms, there is nothing of the
gratitude to God as a deliverer from sin which in Israel was the
chief factor in producing the response to Yahweh's demand for the
love of man. Morally, it contains nothing higher than is contained
in the hymn of the spirits. The transgressions which are so
pathetically lamented, and from the punishment of which deliverance
is so earnestly sought, are purely ceremonial and involuntary. The
author of the prayer conceives that he has to do with a god whose
wrath is a capricious thing, coming upon men they know not why. So
conceived God cannot be loved. It is entirely in accord with this
that in the great flood epic no reason is given for the destruction
of mankind save the caprice of Bel.[46] The few expressions quoted
by Sayce from a hymn to the sun-god--such as this, "Merciful God,
that liftest up the fallen, that supportest the weak.... Like a
wife, thou submittest thyself, cheerful and kindly.... Men far
and wide bow before thee and rejoice"--cannot avail to subvert
a conclusion so firmly fixed. These are simply the ordinary
expressions which the mere physical pleasure of the sunlight brings
to the lips of sun-worshippers of all ages and of all climes.
At best they could only be taken as germs out of which a loving
relation between God and man might have been developed. But though
they were ancient they never were developed. At the end as at the
beginning the Assyrio-Babylonian religion moves on so low a level,
even in its more innocent aspects, that a development like that in
Deuteronomy is absolutely impossible. In its worse aspects Assyrian
religion was unspeakable. The worship of Ishtar at Nineveh outdid
everything known in the ancient world for lust and cruelty.

  [46] Meyer, p. 178. Cf. however Sayce, _The Higher Criticism and
  the Monuments_, p. 114. Sayce maintains that the Assyrian epic
  attributes the flood to the moral guilt of men. But that is by
  no means proved, for it is more than doubtful whether sin to the
  Assyrian was not always mainly a ceremonial matter.

On this side too, therefore, we find no parallel to Israel's new
outgrowth of higher religion. Comparison only makes it stand out
more boldly in its splendid originality; and we are left with the
fruitful question, "What was the root of the astonishing difference
between Yahweh and every other god whom Israel had heard of?"
Precisely at this time and under the same circumstances, the ethnic
religions around Israel were developing away from any higher
elements they had contained, and were thereby, as we know now,
hastening to extinction. Under the inspired prophetic influence,
Israel's religion turned the loss of the nation into gain; it rose
by the darkness of national misfortune into a nobler phase than any
it had previously known.

But perhaps the crowning merit of this demand for love of God is
the emphasis it lays upon personality in both God and man, and the
high level at which it conceives their mutual relations. From the
first, of course, the personal element was always very strongly
present in the Israelite conception of God. Indeed personality was
the dominating idea among all the smaller nations which surrounded
Israel. The national god was conceived of mainly as a greater and
more powerful man, full of the energetic self-assertion without
which it would be impossible for any man to reign over an Eastern
community. The Moabite stone shows this, for in it Chemosh is as
sharply defined a person as Mesha himself. The Canaanite gods,
therefore, might be wanting in moral character; their existence
was doubtless thought of in a limited and wholly carnal manner;
but there never was, apparently, the least tendency to obscure the
sharp lines of their individuality. In Israel, _a fortiori_, such
a tendency did not exist; and that a writer of Matthew Arnold's
ability should have persuaded himself, and tried to persuade others,
that under the name of Yahweh Israel understood anything so vague
as his "stream of tendency which makes for righteousness," is
only another instance of the extraordinarily blinding effects of
a preconceived idea. So far from Yahweh being conceived in that
manner, it would be much easier to prove that, whatever aberrations
in the direction of making God merely "a non-natural man" may be
charged upon Christianity, they have been founded almost exclusively
upon Old Testament examples and Old Testament texts. If there was
defect in the Old Testament conception of God, it was, and could
not but be, in the direction of drawing Him down too much into the
limits of human personality.

But though the gods were always thought of by the Canaanites as
personal, their character was not conceived as morally high. Moral
character in Chemosh, Moloch, or Baal was not of much importance,
and their relations with their peoples were never conditioned by
moral conduct. How deeply ingrained this view was in Palestine
is seen in the persistency with which even Yahweh's relation to
His people was viewed in this light. Only the continual outcry of
the prophets against it prevented this idea becoming permanently
dominant even in Israel. Nay, it often deceived would-be prophets.
Clinging to the idea of the national God, and forgetting altogether
the ethical character of Yahweh, without, perhaps, conscious
insincerity, they prophesied peace to the wicked, and so came to
swell the ranks of the false prophets. But from very early times
another thought was cherished by Israel's representative men in
regard to their relations with God. Yahweh was righteous, and
demanded righteousness in His people. Oblations were vain if offered
as a substitute for this. All the prophets reach their greatest
heights of sublimity in preaching this ethically noble doctrine;
and the love to God which Deuteronomy demands is to be exhibited in
reverent obedience to moral law.

Moreover, that God should seek or even need the love of man threw
other light on the Old Testament religion. If, without revelation,
Israel had widened its mental horizon so as to conceive Yahweh as
Lord of the world, it may be questioned whether it could have kept
clear of the gulf of pantheism. But by the manifestation of God
in their special history, the Israelites had been taught to rise
step by step to the higher levels, without losing their conception
of Yahweh as the living, personal, active friend of their people.
Moreover they had been early taught, as we have seen, that the deep
design of all that was wrought for them was the good of all men. The
love of God was seen pressing forward to its glorious and beneficent
ends; and both by ascribing such far-reaching plans to Yahweh, and
by affirming His interest in the fate of men, Israel's conception
of the Divine personality was raised alike in significance and
power; for anything more personal than love planning and working
towards the happiness of its objects cannot be conceived. But the
crown was set upon the Divine personality by the claim to the love
of man. This signified that to the Divine mind the individual man
was not hid from God by his nation, that he was not for Him a mere
specimen of a genus. Rather each man has to God a special worth, a
special character, which, impelled by His free personal love, He
seeks to draw to Himself. At every step each man has near him "the
great Companion," who desires to give Himself to him. Nay, more,
it implies that God seeks and needs an answering love; so that
Browning's daring declaration, put into the mouth of God when the
song of the boy Theocrite is no more heard, "I miss My little human
praise," is simple truth.[47]

  [47] Browning's Poems, "The Boy and the Angel."

But if the demand illustrates and illuminates the personality of
God, it throws out in a still more decisive manner the personality
of man. In a rough sense, of course, there never could have been any
doubt of that. But children have to grow into full self-determining
personality, and savages never attain it. Both are at the mercy
of caprice, or of the needs of the moment, to which they answer
so helplessly that in general no consistent course of conduct
can be expected of them. That can be secured only by rigorous
self-determination. But the power of self-determination does not
come at once, nor is acquired without strenuous and continued
effort; it is, in fact, a power which in any full measure is
possessed only by the civilised man. Now the Israelites were not
highly civilised when they left Egypt. They were still at the stage
when the tribe overshadowed and absorbed the individual, as it does
to-day among the South Sea islanders. The progress of the prophetic
thought towards the demand for personal love has already been
traced. Here we must trace the steps by which the personal element
in each individual was strengthened in Israel, till it was fit to
respond to the Divine demand.

The high calling of the people reacted on the individual Israelites.
They saw that in many respects the nations around them were inferior
to them. Much that was tolerated or even respected among them was an
abomination to Israel; and every Israelite felt that the honour of
his people must not be dragged in the dust by him, as it would be
if he permitted himself to sink to the heathen level. Further, the
laws regarding even ceremonial holiness which in germ certainly, and
probably in considerable extension also, existed from the earliest
time, made him feel that the sanctity of the nation depended upon
the care and scrupulosity of the individual. And then there were
the individual spiritual needs, which could not be suppressed and
would not be denied. Though one sees so little explicit provision
for restoration of individual character in early Yahwism, yet in
the course of time--who can doubt it?--the personal religious needs
of so many individual men would necessarily frame for themselves
some outlet. Building upon the analogy of the relation established
between Yahweh and Israel, they would hope for the satisfaction
of their individual needs through the infinite mercy of God. The
Psalms, such of them as can fairly be placed in the pre-Deuteronomic
time, bear witness to this; and those written after that time show a
hopefulness, and a faith in the reality of individual communion with
God which show that such communion was not then a new discovery.

In all these ways the religious life of the individual was being
cultivated and strengthened; but this demand made in Deuteronomy
lifts that indirect refreshment of soul, for which the cultus and
the covenants made no special provision, into a recognised position,
nay, into the central position in Israelite religion. The word,
"Thou shalt love Yahweh thy God," confirmed and justified all these
persistent efforts after individual life in God, and brought them
out into the large place which belongs to aspirations that have at
last been authorised. By a touch, the inspired writer transformed
the pious hopes of those who had been the chosen among the chosen
people into certainties. Each man was henceforth to have his own
direct relation to God as well as the nation; and the national hope,
which had hitherto been first, was now to depend for its realisation
upon the fulfilment of the special and private hope. Thus the old
relation was entirely reversed by Deuteronomy. Instead of the
individual holding "definite place in regard to Yahweh only through
his citizenship," now the nation has its place and its future
secured only by the personal love of each citizen to God. For that
is obviously what the demand here made really means. Again and again
the inspired writer returns to it; and his persistent endeavour is
to connect all else that his book contains--warning, exhortation,
legislation--with this as the foundation and starting-point. Here,
as elsewhere, we can trace the roots of the new covenant which
Jeremiah and Ezekiel saw afar off and rejoiced at, and which our
blessed Lord has realised for us. The individual religious life
is for the first time fully recognised for what ever since it has
been seen to be, the first condition of any attempt to realise the
kingdom of God in the life of a nation.

And not only thus does our text emphasise individuality. Love with
all the heart, and all the mind, and all the soul is possible only
to a fully developed personality; for, as Rothe says, "We love only
in the measure in which personality is developed in us. Even God can
love only in so far as He is personal."[48] Or, as Julius Muller
says in his _Doctrine of Sin_, "The association of personal beings
in love, while it involves the most perfect distinction of the I
and Thou, proves itself to be the highest form of unity."[49] Unless
other counteracting circumstances come in, therefore, the more
highly developed individuality is, the more entirely human beings
are determined from within, the more entirely will union among men
depend upon free and deliberate choice, and the more perfect will it
be. In being called to love God men are dealt with as those who have
attained to complete self-determination, who have come to completed
manhood in the moral life. For all that could mix love with alloy,
mere sensuous sympathy, and the insistent appeal of that which is
materially present, are wanting here. Here nothing is involved but
the free outgoing of the heart to that which is best and highest;
nothing but loyalty to that vision of Good which, amid all the ruin
sin has wrought in human nature, dominates us so that "we needs must
love the highest when we see it." The very demand is a promise and a
prophecy of completed moral and religious liberty to the individual
soul. It rests upon the assurance that men have at last been
trained to walk alone, that the support of social life and external
ordinances has become less necessary than it was, and that one day
a new and living way of access to the Father will bring every soul
into daily intercourse with the source of all spiritual life.

  [48] _Theol., Ethik_ i., p. 515.

  [49] _Doctrine of Sin_, vol. i., p. 114.

But this demand, in affirming personality of so high a kind, also
re-created duty. Under the national dispensation the individual
man was a _servant_. To a large extent he knew not what his Lord
did, and he ruled his life by the commands he received without
understanding, or perhaps caring to understand, their ultimate
ground and aim. Much too of what he thus laid upon himself was mere
ancient custom, which had been a protection to national and moral
life in early days, but which had survived, or was on the point of
surviving, its usefulness. Now, however, that man was called upon to
love God with all his heart and mind and soul, the step was taken
which was to end in his becoming the consciously free _son_ of God.
For to love in this fashion means, on the one hand, a willingness
to enter into communion with God and to seek that communion; and on
the other it implies a throwing open of the soul to receive the love
which God so persistently has pressed upon men. In such a relation
slavery, blind or constrained obedience, disappears, and the motives
of right action become the purest and most powerful that man can
know.

In the first place, selfishness dies out. Those to whom God has
given Himself have no more to seek. They have reached the dwelling
"of peace imperturbable," and know that they are secure. Nothing
that they do can win more for them; and they do those things that
please God with the free, uncalculating, ungrudging forgetfulness
of self, which distinguishes those fortunate children who have
grown up into a perfect filial love. Of course it was only the
elect in Israel who in any great degree realised this ideal. But
even those who neglected it had for a moment been illuminated by
it; and the record of it remained to kindle the nobler hearts of
every generation. Even the legalism of later days could not obscure
it. In the case of many it bore up and transfigured the dry details
of Judaism, so that even amid such surroundings the souls of men
were kept alive. The later Psalms prove this beyond dispute, and
the advanced view which brings the bulk of the Psalter down to
the post-exilic period only emphasises the more this aspect of
pre-Christian Judaism. In Christianity of course the ideal was
made infinitely more accessible: and it received in the Pauline
doctrine, the Evangelical doctrine, of Justification by Faith a
form, which more than any other human teaching has made unselfish
devotion to God a common aim. It would hardly be too much to say
that those philosophical and religious systems which have preached
the unworthiness of looking for a reward of well-doing, which have
striven to set up the doing of good for its own sake as the only
morality worthy of the name, have failed, just because they would
not begin with the love of God. To Christianity, especially to
Evangelical Christianity, they have assumed to speak from above
downwards; but it alone has the secret they strove in vain to
learn. Men justified by faith have peace with God, and do good with
passionate fervour without hope or possibility of further reward,
just because of their love and gratitude to God, who is the source
of all good. This plan has succeeded, and no other has; for to teach
men on any other terms to disregard reward is simply to ask them to
breathe in a vacuum.

In the second place, those who rose to the height of this calling
had duty not only deepened but extended. It was natural that
they should not seek to throw off the obligations of worship and
morality as they had been handed down by their ancestors. Only an
authoritative voice which they were separated from by centuries
could say, "It hath been said by them of old time, ... but _I_
say unto you"; and men would be disposed rather to fulfil old
obligations with new zeal, while they added to them the new duties
which their widened horizon had brought into view. It is true that
in course of time the Pharisaic spirit laid hold of the Jews, and
that by it they were led back into a slavery which quite surpassed
the half-conscious bondage of their earlier time. It is one of
the mysteries of human nature that it is only the few who can
live for any time at a high level, and hold the balance between
extremes. The many cannot choose but follow those few; and the
dumb, half-reluctant, half-fascinated way in which they are drawn
after them is a most pathetic thing to see. But too often they
avenge themselves for the pressure put upon them, by taking up the
teaching they receive in a perverted or mutilated form, dropping
unawares the very soul of it, and suiting it to the average man.
When that is done the bread from heaven becomes a stone; the message
of liberty is turned into a summons to the prison house; and the
darkness becomes of that opaque sort which is found only where the
light within men is darkness. That tragedy was enacted in Judaism
as rarely elsewhere. The free service of sons was exchanged for
the timorous, anxious scrupulosity of the formalist. How could men
love a God whom they pictured as inexorable in claiming the mint
and cummin of ceremonial worship, and as making life a burden for
all who had a conscience? They could not, and they did not. Most
substituted a merely formal compliance with the externalities of
worship for the love to God and man which was the presupposition
of the true Israelite's life, and the mass of the nation fell away
from true faith. Strangely enough, therefore, the strength of men's
love for God, and of their belief in His love, gave an impulse to
the legalistic Pharisaism which our Lord denounced as the acme of
loveless irreligion.

But it was not so perverted in all. There always was an Israel
within Israel that refused to let go the truths they had learned,
and kept up the succession of men inspired by the free spirit of
God. Even among the Pharisees there were such--witness St. Paul--men
who, though they were entangled in the formalism of their time,
found it at last a pedagogue to bring them unto Christ. We must
believe therefore that at the beginning the attainment marked by
the demands of Deuteronomy and the Law of Holiness existed and
was carried over into the daily life. As the national limits of
religion were broken down, the word "neighbour" received an ever
wider definition in Israel. At first only a man's fellow-tribesman
or fellow-countryman was included; then the stranger; later, as in
Jonah's picture of the conduct of the sailors, it was hinted that
even among the heathen brethren might be found. Finally, in our
Lord's parable of the Good Samaritan the last barrier was broken
down. But it needed all St. Paul's lifework, and the first and
most desperate inner conflict Christianity had to live through, to
initiate men into anything like the full meaning of what Christ
had taught. Then it was seen that as there was but one Father in
heaven, so there was but one family on earth. Then too, though the
merely ceremonial duties by which the Jew had been bound ceased to
be binding on Christians, the sphere for the practice of moral duty
was immensely widened. Indeed, had it not been for the free, joyous
spirit with which they were inspired by Christ, they must have
shrunk from the immensity of their obligation. For not only were
men's neighbours infinitely more numerous now, but their relations
with them became vastly more complicated. To meet all possible
cases that might arise in the great and elaborate civilisations
Christianity had to face and save, our Lord deepened the meaning of
the commandments; and so far from Christians being free from the
obligation to law, immeasurably more was demanded of them. To them
first was the full sweep of moral obligation revealed, for they
first had reached the full moral stature of men in Jesus Christ.




CHAPTER VIII

_EDUCATION--MOSAIC VIEW_

DEUT. vi. 6-25


Those great verses, Deut. vi. 4, 5, form the central truth of the
book. Everything else in it proceeds from and is informed by them,
and they are dwelt upon and enforced with a clear perception of
their radical importance. There is something of the joy of discovery
in the way in which the unity of Yahweh and exclusive love to Him
are insisted upon, not only in verses 6-25 of this chapter, but in
xi. 13-20. The same strongly worded demand to lay to heart Yahweh's
command to love Him and Him only, and to teach it strenuously to
their children--to make it "a sign upon their hand," and "as a
frontlet between their eyes"--is found in both passages. It is
worthy of remark also that nearly the same words are found in Exod.
xiii. 9, 16. Presumably on account of this, some have ascribed that
section of Exodus to the author of Deuteronomy. But both Dillmann
and Driver ascribe these passages to J and E, and with good reason.
Indeed, apart from the purely literary grounds for thinking that
these formulas were first used by the earlier writers and were
copied by the author of Deuteronomy, another line of argument points
in the same direction. In Exodus the thing to be remembered and
taught to the children was the meaning and origin of the Passover
and the consecration of the firstborn, _i.e._ the meaning and origin
of some of their ritual institutions. Here in Deuteronomy, on the
contrary, that which is to be written on the heart and taught to
the children is moral and spiritual truth about God, and love to
God. Now the probable explanation of this likeness and difference
is, not that the author of Deuteronomy, after using this insistive
phrase only of high spiritual truths in his own book, inserted it in
Exodus with regard to mere institutions of the cultus; rather, the
writers of Exodus had used it of that which was important in their
day, and the Deuteronomist borrowed it from them to emphasise his
own most cherished revelation. In the earlier stages of a religious
movement, the establishment of institutions which shall embody and
perpetuate religious truth, is one of the first necessities. It has
become a commonplace of Christian defence, for example, that Baptism
and the Lord's Supper were made the most successful vehicles for
conveying fundamental Christian truth, and that the celebration of
these two rites from the first days even until now is one of the
most convincing proofs of the continuity of Christianity. Naturally,
therefore, the establishment of the Passover was specially marked
out as the _palladium_ of Israelite religion in the earlier days.
But in the time after Isaiah, when Deuteronomy was written, the
institutions needed no longer such insistence. They had indeed
become so important to the people that the mere observance of them
threatened to become a substitute for religious and even moral
feeling. The Deuteronomist's great message was, consequently, a
reiteration of the prophetic truths as to the supremacy of the
spiritual; and for the object of the warm exhortation of the earlier
writings he substituted the proclamation of Yahweh's oneness, and
of His demand for His people's love. This seems a reasonable and
probable explanation of the facts as we find them. If true, it is a
proof that the need of ritual institutions, and the danger of unduly
exalting them, was not peculiar to post-exilic times. In principle
the temptation was always present; and as living faith rose and
fell it came into operation, or was held in abeyance, throughout
the whole of Israel's history. Hence the mention of this kind of
formalism or the denunciation of it must be very cautiously used as
a criterion by which to date any Scriptural writings.

It is therefore with a full consciousness of its fundamental
importance that the author of Deuteronomy follows the great passage
chapter vi. 4, 5, with this solemn and inspiring exhortation. It
is from no mere itch for religious improvement of the occasion
that he presses home his message thus. Nor is it love for the mere
repetition of an ancient formula of exhortation that dictates its
use. He knew and understood the work of Moses, and felt that the
moulding power in Israel's life as a nation, the unifying element
in it, had been the religion of Yahweh. Whatever else may have
been called in question, it has never been doubted that the salt
which kept the political and social life of the people from rotting
through many centuries was the always advancing knowledge of God.
At each great crisis of Israel's history the religion of Yahweh
had met the demands for direction, for inspiration, for uplifting
which were made upon it. With Protean versatility it had adapted
itself to every new condition. In all circumstances it had provided
a lamp for the feet and a light for the path of the faithful; and
in meeting the needs of generation after generation it had revealed
elements of strength and consolation which, without the commentary
of experience, could never have been brought out. Now the author
of Deuteronomy felt that in these short sentences the high-water
mark of Israelite religion so far had been reached, and that in
renewing the work of Moses, and adapting it to his own time, the
principles here enunciated must be the main burden of his message.
Further progress depended, he obviously felt, upon the absorption
and assimilation of these truths by his people, and he felt he must
provide for the perpetuation of them in that better time he was
preparing for. This he did by providing for the religious education
of the young. Whatever else Israel had gained it had been careful
to hand on from generation to generation. The land flowing with
milk and honey was still in the possession of the descendants of
the first conquerors. The literature, the science, the wisdom that
the fathers had gathered, had been carefully passed down to the
children; and a precious deposit of enriching experience in the form
of history had reached to the elect even among the common people,
as the example of Amos shows. But the most valuable heritage of
Israel was that continually growing deposit of religious truth which
had been the life-blood of its master spirits. From generation to
generation the noblest men in the nation, those most sensitive to
the touch of the Divine, had been casting soundings into the great
deep of the hidden purposes of God. With sore travail of both mind
and spirit, they had found solutions of the great problems which no
living soul can escape. These were no doubt more or less partial,
but they were sufficient for their day, and were always in the line
of the final answer. As the sum of experience widened, the scope of
the solutions widened also, and in the course of Providence these
issued in a conception of God which elsewhere was never approached.
This of all national treasures was the most priceless, and to
preserve and hand on this was simply to keep the national soul
alive. Compared with this, every other heritage from the past was
as nothing; and so, with a simple directness which must amaze the
legislators of modern states, the inspired lawgiver arranged for a
religious education.

To him, as to all ancient lawgivers, a commonwealth without religion
was simply inconceivable, and the hampering, confusing, and confused
difficulties of to-day lay far beyond his horizon. Parents must
take over this great heritage and lay it deeply to heart. They must
then make it the subject of their common talk. They must write
the profound words which summed it up upon the doorposts of their
houses. They must let it fill their minds at their down-sitting
and their uprising, and while they walked by the way. Further, as
the crown of their work, they were to teach it diligently to their
children, already accustomed by their parents' continual interest to
regard this as the worthiest object of human thought. But though the
parents were to be the chief instructors of children in religion,
the State or the community was also to do its part. As the private
citizen was to write, "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh;
and thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy might," on the posts of his door, so
the representatives of the community were to write them upon the
town or village gates. In those early days schools were unknown,
as State-regulated schools are still unknown in all purely Eastern
countries. Consequently there was no sphere for the State in the
direct religious teaching of the young. But so far as it could act,
the State was to act. It was to commit itself to the religious
principles that underlay the life of the people, and to proclaim
them with the utmost publicity. It was to secure that none should
be ignorant of them, so far as proclamation by writing in the most
public place could secure knowledge, for on this the very existence
of the State depended.

But the religious instruction was not to be limited to the
reiteration of these great sentences; in that case they would have
become a mere form of words. In the last verses of the chapter, vv.
20-25, we find a model of the kind of explanatory comment which
was to be given in addition: "When thy son asketh thee in time to
come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and
the judgments, which Yahweh our God hath commanded you? then thou
shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in the land of
Egypt; and Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand,"
and so on. That means that the _history_ of Yahweh's dealings
with His people was to be taught, to show the reasonableness of
the Divine commands, to exhibit the love-compelling character of
God. And this was entirely in accord with the Biblical conception
of God. Neither here nor elsewhere in the Old Testament are there
any abstract definitions of His character, His spirituality, His
omnipresence, or His omnipotence. Nor is there anywhere any argument
to prove His existence. All that is postulated, presupposed, as that
which all men believe, except those who have wilfully perverted
themselves. But the existence of God with all these great and
necessary attributes is undoubtedly implied in what is narrated of
Yahweh's dealings with His people. As we have seen, too, the very
name of Yahweh implies that His nature should not be limited by any
definition. He was what He would prove Himself to be, and throughout
the Old Testament the _gesta Dei_ through and for the Israelites,
and the prophetic promises made in Yahweh's name, represented all
that was known of God. This gave a peculiarly healthy and robust
tone to Old Testament piety. The subjective, introspective element
which in modern times is so apt to take the upper hand, was kept
in due subordination by making history the main nourishment of
religious thought. In constant contact with external fact, Israelite
piety was simple, sincere, and practical; and men's thoughts being
turned away from themselves to the Divine action in the world, they
were less touched by the disease of self-consciousness than modern
believers in God. In every sphere of human life, too, they looked
for God, and traced the working of His hand. The later distinction
between the sacred and secular parts of life, which has been often
pushed to disastrous extremes, was to them unknown. For these among
many other reasons, the Old Testament must always remain of vital
importance to the Church of God. It can fall into neglect only when
the religious life is becoming unhealthy and one-sided.

Further, its qualities especially fit it for use in the education
of children. In many respects a child's mind resembles the mind of
a primitive people. It has the same love of concrete examples, the
same incapacity to appreciate abstract ideas, and it has the same
susceptibility to such reasoning as this: God has been very loving
and gracious to men, especially to our forefathers, and we are
therefore bound to love Him and to obey Him with reverence and fear.
To the children of a primitive people such teaching would therefore
be doubly suitable; but the Deuteronomist's anxiety in regard to
it has been justified by its results in times no longer primitive.
Through ages of persecution and oppression, often amid a social
environment of the worst sort, there has been little or no wavering
in the fundamental points of Jewish faith. Scattered and peeled,
slaughtered and decimated, as they have been through blood-stained
centuries, this nation have held fast to their religion. Not even
the fact that, through their refusal to accept their Messiah when
He came, the most tender, the most expansive, the most highly
spiritual elements of the Old Testament religion have escaped them,
has been able to neutralise the benefit of the truth they have so
tenaciously held. Of non-Christian nations they stand by far the
highest; and among the orthodox Jews who still keep firm to the
national traditions, and teach the ancient Scriptures diligently to
their children, there is often seen a piety and a confidence in God,
a submission and a hopefulness which put to shame many who profess
to have hope in Christ. Even in our day, when agnosticism and denial
of the supernatural is eating into Judaism more than into almost any
other creed,[50] a book like Friedländer's _The Jewish Religion_
gives us a very favourable idea of the spirit and teachings of
orthodox Judaism. And its main stay is, and always has been, the
religious training of the young. "In obedience to the precept 'Thou
shalt speak of them,' _i.e._ of 'the words which I command thee this
day,'"says Friedländer, "'when thou liest down and when thou risest
up,' three sections of the law are read daily, in the morning and
in the evening, viz. (1) Deut. vi. 4-9, beginning 'Hear'; (2) Deut.
xi. 13-21, beginning 'And it shall be if ye diligently hearken'; (3)
Numb. xv. 37-41, beginning 'And the Lord said.' The first section
teaches the unity of God, and our duty to love this one God with all
our heart, to make His word the subject of our constant meditation
and to instil it into the heart of the young. The second section
contains the lesson of reward and punishment, that our success
depends on our obedience to the will of God. This important truth
must constantly be kept before our eyes, and before the eyes of our
children. The third section contains the commandments of Tsitsith,
the object of which is to remind us of God's precepts." To-day,
therefore, as so many centuries ago, these great words are uttered
daily in the ears of all pious Jews, and they are as potent to keep
them steady to their faith now as they were then. For in most cases
where a drift towards the fashionable agnosticism of the day or to
atheistic materialism is observable among Jews, it will be found to
have been preceded either by neglect or formalism in regard to this
fundamental matter. Briefly, without this teaching they cease to
be Jews; with it they remain steadfast as a rock. Uprooted as they
are from their country, their national coherence endures and seems
likely to endure till their set time has come. So triumphantly has
the enforcement of religious education vindicated itself in the case
of God's ancient people.

  [50] _Jewish Quarterly Review_, October 1888, p. 55, where Professor
  Schechter finds himself compelled to discuss the question whether a
  man may be a good Jew and yet deny the existence of God.

In the remaining verses of the chapter, vv. 10-19, we have a warning
against neglect and forgetfulness of their God, and an indication of
the circumstances under which it would be most difficult to remain
true to Him. These are uttered entirely from the Mosaic standpoint,
and are among the passages which it is most difficult to reconcile
with the later authorship; for there would appear to be no motive
for the later writer to go back upon the exceptional circumstances
of the early days in Canaan. His object must have been to warn and
guide and instruct the people of _his_ time in the face of their
difficulties and temptations, to adapt Mosaic legislation and Mosaic
teaching to the needs of his own day. Now on any supposition he must
have written when all conquest on Israel's part had long ceased. It
is most probable too that in his day the prosperity of his people
was on the wane. They were not looking forward to a time of special
temptation from riches; rather they were dreading expatriation and
decay. Consequently this reference to the ease with which they
became rich by occupying the cities and villages and farms of those
they had conquered is quite out of place, unless we are to regard
the author as a skilled and artistic writer who deliberately set
himself to reproduce in all respects the mind and thoughts of a man
of an earlier day, as Thackeray, for instance, does in his _Henry
Esmond_. But that is not credible; and the explanation is that given
in Chapter I., that the addresses here attributed to Moses are free
reproductions of earlier traditions or narratives concerning what
Moses actually said. If we know anything about Moses at all, it is
in the highest degree probable that he left his people some parting
charge. He longed to pass the Jordan with them. He could not fail
to see that an immense revolution in their habits and manner of
life was certain to occur when they entered the promised land. That
must have appeared to him fraught with varied dangers, and words of
warning and instructions would rush even unbidden to his lips.

There can be no doubt, at any rate, that this passage is true to
human nature in regarding the sudden acquirement of great and
goodly cities which they did not build, and houses full of good
things which they filled not, and cisterns hewn out which they did
not hew, vineyards and olive trees which they did not plant, as a
great temptation to forgetfulness of God. At all times prosperity,
especially if it come suddenly, and without being won by previous
toil and self-denial, has tended to deteriorate character. When
men have no changes or vicissitudes, then they fear not God. It
is for help in trouble when the help of man is vain, or for a
deliverance in danger, that average men most readily turn to God.
But when they feel fairly safe, when they have raised themselves,
as they think, "beyond all storms of chance," when they have built
up between themselves and poverty or failure a wall of wealth and
power, then the impulse that drives them upward ceases to act. It
becomes strangely pleasant, and it seems safe, to get rid of the
strain of living at the highest attainable level, and with a sigh
of relief men stretch themselves out to rest and to enjoy. These
are the average men; but there are some in every age, the elect, who
have had the love of God shed abroad in their hearts, who have had
such real and intimate communion with God that separation from Him
would turn all other joys into mockery. They cannot yield to this
temptation as most do, and in the midst of wealth and comfort keep
alive their aspirations. In Israel these two classes existed; and to
the former, _i.e._ to the great bulk of both rulers and people, the
stimulus administered by the conquest to the material side of their
nature must have been potent indeed.

It is here implied that the Israelite people when they entered
Canaan had some moral education to lose. Whether that could be so is
the question asked by many critics, and their answer is an emphatic
No. They were, say they, a rude, desert people, without settled
habits of life, without knowledge of agriculture, and possessed
of a religion which in all outward respects was scarcely, if at
all, higher than that of the surrounding nations. What happened
to them in Canaan, therefore, was not a lapse, but a rise. They
advanced from being a wandering pastoral people to become settled
agriculturists. They gained knowledge of the arts of life by their
contact with the Canaanites, and they lost little or nothing in
religion; for they were themselves only image-worshippers and
looked upon Yahweh as on a level with the Canaanite Baals. But if
the Decalogue belongs, in any form, to that early time, and if the
character of Moses be in any degree historical, then, of course,
this mode of view is false. Then Israel worshipped a spiritual
God, who was the guardian of morals; and there was in the mind
of their leader and legislator a light which illuminated every
sphere of life, both private and national. Consequently there
could be a falling away from a higher level of religious life, as
the Scriptures consistently say there was. Without perhaps having
understood and made their own the fundamental truths of Yahwism,
the people had had their whole social and political life remodelled
in accordance with its principles. They had, moreover, had time to
learn something of its inner meaning, and in forty years we may
well believe that the more spiritually minded among them had become
imbued with the higher religious spirit. Add to that the union,
the movement, the excitement of a successful advance, crowned by
conquest, and we have all the elements of a revived religious and
national life among Eastern people.

Similar causes have produced precisely similar effects since. In
important respects the origin of Mohammedanism repeats the same
story. A semi-nomadic people, divided into clans and tribes, related
by blood but never united, were unified by a great religious idea
vastly in advance of any they had hitherto known. The religious
reformer who proclaimed this truth, and those who belonged to the
inner circle of his friends and counsellors, were turned from many
evils, and exhibited a moral force and enthusiasm corresponding, in
some degree at least, to the sublimity of the religious doctrine
they had embraced. The masses, on their part, received and submitted
to a revised and improved scheme of social life. Then they moved
forward to conquest, and in their first days not only trampled down
opposition, but deserved to do so, for in most respects they were
superior to the ignorant and degraded Christians they overthrew.
They came out of the desert, and were at first soldiers only. But
in a generation or two they largely settled to purely agricultural
life, as landowners for whom the native population laboured; and
they gained in knowledge of the arts of life from the more civilised
peoples they conquered. But in religious and moral character
imitations of the conquered peoples involved, for the conquerors, a
loss. And soon they did lose. The violence accompanying successful
war produced arrogance and injustice; the immense wealth thrown
into their hands so suddenly gave rise to luxury and greed. Within
twenty-five years from the flight of Mohammed from Mecca, relaxation
of manners manifested itself. Sensuality and drunkenness were rife;
with Ali's death the Caliphate passed into the hands of Muawia,
the leader of the still half-heathen part of the Koreish; and
the secular indifferent portion of Mohammed's followers ruled in
Islam.[51]

  [51] For an illustration of the way in which land-hunger and the
  rush to satisfy it operates on men, see the account of "The Invasion
  of Oklahoma" (a territory lately thrown open to occupation in the
  United States), _Spectator_, April 27th, 1889.

Allowing all that can be allowed for exceptional influences in
Israel, we may well believe that the circumstances of the first
invaders were such as would strain the influence of the higher
religion upon the nation. And after the conquest and settlement
the strain would necessarily be greater still. Whatever drawbacks
warfare may have, it at least keeps men active and hardy, but the
rest of a conqueror after warfare is a temptation to luxury and
corruption which has been very rarely resisted. Even to-day, when
men enter upon new and vacant lands, and that without war and under
Christian influences, the plenty which the first immigrants soon
gather about them proves adverse to higher thought. In America in
its earlier days, and in new American territories and Australia now,
our civilisation at that stage always takes a materialistic turn.
Every man may hope to become rich, the resources of the country
are so great and those who are to share them are so few. In order
to develop them, all concerned must give their time and thoughts
to the work, and must become absorbed in it. The result is that,
though the religious instinct asserts itself in sufficient strength
to lead to the building of churches and schools, and men are too
busy to be much influenced by theoretical unbelief, yet the pulse
of religion beats feebly and low. The feeling spreads, under many
disguises it is true, but still it spreads, that a man's life does
"consist in the abundance of the things which he possesseth"; and
the heroic element of Christianity, the impulse to self-sacrifice,
falls into the background. The result is a social life respectable
enough, save that the social blots due to self-indulgence are a good
deal more conspicuous than they should be; a very high average of
general comfort, with its necessary drawback of a self-satisfied
and somewhat ignoble contentment; and a religious life that prides
itself mainly in avoiding the falsehood of extremes. In such
an atmosphere true and living religion has great difficulty in
asserting itself. Each individual is drawn away from the region
of higher thought more powerfully than in the older lands where
ambitions are for most men less plausible; and so the struggle to
keep the soul sensitive to spiritual influences is more hard. As
for the national life, public affairs in those circumstances tend
to be ruled simply by the standard of immediate expediency, and
strenuousness of principle or practice tends to be regarded as an
impossible ideal.

To all this Israel was exposed, and to more. There are doubts as to
the extent of their conquests when they settled down; but there are
none that when they did so they still had heathen Canaanites among
them. Throughout almost the whole country the population was mixed,
and constant intercourse with the conquered peoples was unavoidable.
At first these were either Israel's teachers in many of the arts of
settled life, or they must have carried on the work of agriculture
for their Israelite lords. Moreover many of the sacred places
of the land, the sanctuaries which from time immemorial had been
resorted to for worship, were either taken over by the Israelites or
were left in Canaanite hands. In either case they opened a way for
malign influences upon the purer faith. Gradually, too, the tribal
feeling asserted itself. The tribal heads regained the position they
had held before the domination of Moses and his successor, just as
the tribal heads of the Arabs asserted themselves after the death of
Mohammed and his immediate successors, and plunged into fratricidal
war with the companions of their prophet. The only difference was
that, while the circumstances of the Arabs compelled them to retain
a supreme head, the circumstances of the Israelites permitted them
to fall back into the tribal isolation from which they had emerged.
The national life was broken up, the religious life followed in
the same path, until, as the Book of Judges graphically says in
narrating how Micah set up an Ephod and Teraphim for himself and
made his son a priest, "every man did that which was right in his
own eyes." With a people so recently won for a higher faith, there
could not but follow a recrudescence of heathen or semi-heathen
beliefs and practices.

To sum up, given a great truth revealed to one man, which, though
accepted by a nation, is only half understood by the bulk of them,
and given also a great national deliverance and expansion brought
about by the same leader, you have there the elements of a great
enthusiasm with the seeds of its own decay within it. Such a nation,
especially if plied with external temptation, will fall back, not
into its first state certainly, but into a condition much below
its highest level, so soon as the leader and those who had really
comprehended the new truth are removed to a distance or are dead.

In the case of Mohammedanism this was instinctively felt. We find
the Governor of Bassorah writing thus to Omar, the third Khalif:
"Thou must strengthen my hands with a company of the Companions
of the Prophet, for verily they are as salt in the midst of the
people."[52] The same thing is expressly asserted of Israel also
by the later editor in Josh. xxiv. 31: "And Israel served the
Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that
outlived Joshua, and had known all the work of the Lord, that
He had wrought for Israel." It would almost seem as if Semitic
peoples were specially liable to such oscillations, if Palgrave's
account of the people of Nejed before the rise of the Wahabbis in
the middle of last century can be trusted. "Almost every trace of
Islam," he says,[53] "had long since vanished from Nejed, where the
worship of the Djann, under the spreading foliage of large trees,
or in the cavernous recesses of Djebel Toweyk, along with the
invocation of the dead and sacrifices at their tombs, was blended
with remnants of old Sabæan superstition. The Coran was unread, the
five daily prayers forgotten, and no one cared where Mecca lay,
east or west, north or south; tithes, ablutions, and pilgrimages
were things unheard of."[54] If that was the state of things in a
country exposed to no extraneous influences after a thousand years
of Islam, we may well believe that the state of Israel in the time
of the Judges was a fall from a better state religiously as well
as politically. Looking to the future, Moses might well foresee
the danger; and looking back the author of Deuteronomy would have
reasons, many of them now unknown, for knowing that what was feared
had occurred.

  [52] _The Caliphate_, by Sir William Muir, p. 185.

  [53] _Central and Eastern Arabia_, vol. i., p. 373.

  [54] This shows how precarious the fundamental principle of much
  new criticism is. The non-observance of rites laid down as Divine
  commands, and the appearance of ancient superstitions such as the
  worship of the dead at any period, are held sufficient in the
  history of Israel to prove that monotheism did not then exist, and
  that ancestor-worship was then the prevailing cult. If applied to
  Islam that principle would lead to utterly false conclusions. Is
  there any reason for thinking that it may not give similar results
  when applied to the history of Israel?

It is striking to see that both know but one security against such
lapses in the life of a nation, and that is education. Nowadays we
are inclined to ask if this was not a delusion on their part. The
boundless faith in education as a moral, religious, and national
restorative which filled men's minds in the early part of this
century, has given place to disquieting questions as to whether
it can do anything so high. Many begin to doubt whether it does
more than restrain men from the worst crimes, by pointing out
their consequences. And in the case of ordinary secular education
that doubt is only too well founded. But it was not mere secular
education the Old Testament relied on. Reading, writing, and
arithmetic, valuable as these are as gateways to knowledge, were
not in its view at all. What it was felt necessary to do was to
keep alive an ideal view of life; and that was done by pouring
into the young the history of their people, with the best that
their highest minds had learned and thought of God. The demand
is that parents shall first of all give themselves up to the
love of God, without any reserve, and then that they shall teach
this diligently to their children as the substance of the Divine
demand upon _them_. Evidently by the words, "Thou shalt talk of
them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by
the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up," it is
meant that the truth about God and the thought of God should be a
subject on which conversation naturally turned, and to which it
gladly returned continually. Words about these things were to
flow from a genuine delighted interest in them, which made speech
a necessity and a joy. Further, parents were to meet the _naïve_
and questioning curiosity of their children as to the meaning of
religious and moral ordinances of their people, with grave and
extended teaching as to the work of God among them in the past.
They were to point out, vv. 21-25, all the grace of God, and to
show them that the statutes, which to young and undisciplined minds
might seem a heavy burden, were really God's crowning mercy: they
marked out the lines upon which alone good could come to man: they
were the directions of a loving guide anxious to keep their feet
from paths of destruction, "for their good always." Such education
as this might prove adequate to overcome even stronger temptations
than those to which Israel was exposed. For see what it means. It
means that all the garnered religious thought and emotion of past
generations, which the experiences of life and the felt presence
of God in them had borne in upon the deepest minds of Israel, was
to be made the bounding horizon for the opening mind of every
Israelite child. When the child looked beyond the desires of its
physical nature, it was to see this great sight, this panorama of
the grace of Yahweh. To compensate for the restrictions which the
Decalogue puts upon the natural impulses, Yahweh was to be held up
to every child as an object of love, no desire after which could be
excessive. Love to Yahweh, drawn out by what He had shown Himself to
be, was to turn the energies of the young soul outward, away from
self, and direct them to God, who works and is the sum of all good.
Obviously those upon whom such education had its perfect work would
never be fettered by the material aspects of things. Their horizon
could never be so darkened that the twilight gods worshipped by the
Canaanites should seem to them more than dim and vanishing shadows.
Every evil, incident to their circumstances as conquerors, would
fall innocuous at their feet.

The instrument put into the hands of Israel was, viewed ideally,
quite adequate for the work it had to do. But the history of Israel
shows that the effort to keep Yahweh continually present to the mind
of the people failed; and the question arises, why did it fail? If,
as we have every reason to believe, the main tendencies of human
nature then were what they are now, the first cause of failure
would be with the parents. Many, probably the most of them, would
observe to do all that Moses commanded, but they would do it without
themselves keeping alive their spiritual life. Wherever that was the
case, though the prayers should be scrupulously rehearsed, though
the religious talk should be increasing, though the instruction
about the past should be exact and regular, the highest results of
it all would cease to appear. The best that would be done would be
to keep alive knowledge of what the fathers had told them. The worst
would be to render the child's mind so familiar with all aspects
of the truth, and with all the phases of religious emotion, that
throughout life this would always seem a region already explored,
and in which no water for the thirsty soul had been found.

But in the children, too, there would be fatal hindrances. One
would almost expect, _a priori_, that when one generation had won
in trial and hardship and conquest a fund of moral and spiritual
wisdom, their children would be able to take it to themselves,
and would start from the point their fathers had attained. But in
experience that is not found to be so. The fathers may have gained
a sane and strong manhood through the training and teaching of
Divine Providence, but their children do not start from the level
their fathers have gained. They begin with the same passions, and
evil tendencies, and illusions, as their fathers began with, and
against these they have to wage continual war. Above all, each soul
for itself must take the great step by which it turns from evil to
good. No rise in the general level of life will ever enable men to
dispense with that. The will must determine itself morally by a free
choice, and the Divine grace must play its part, before that union
with God which is the heart of all religion can be brought about.
No mechanical keeping up of good habits or fairer forms of social
life can do much at this crucial point; and so each generation finds
that there is no discharge in the war to which it is committed. As
in all wars, many fall; sometimes the battle goes sorely against
the kingdom of God, and the majority fall. The strength and beauty
of a whole generation turns to the world and away from God, and the
labours and prayers of faithful men and women who have taught them
seem to be in vain.

The method of warding off evil by even high religious education
is consequently very imperfect and uncertain in its action.
Nevertheless this relative uncertainty is bound up with the very
nature of moral influence and moral agency. Professor Huxley, in
a famous passage of one of his addresses, says that if any being
would offer to wind him up like a clock, so that he should always
do what is right, and think what is true, he would close with the
offer, and make no mourning about his moral freedom. Probably this
was only a vehement way of expressing a desire for righteousness in
deed, and truth in thought, somewhat pathetic in such a man. But if
we are to take it literally, it is a singularly unwise declaration.
The longing which gives pathos to the professor's words would on
his hypothesis be a lunacy; for in the realm of morals mechanical
compulsion has no meaning. Even God must give room to His creature,
that he may exercise the spiritual freedom with which he is
endowed. Even God, we may say without irreverence, must sometimes
fail in that which He seeks to accomplish, in the field of moral
life. Philosophically speaking, perhaps, this statement cannot be
defended. But it is not the Absolute of Philosophy which can touch
the hearts and draw the love of men. It is the living, personal God,
of whom we gain our best working conception by boldly transferring
to Him the highest categories predicable of our humanity. He is,
doubtless, much more than we; but we can only ascribe to Him our
own best and highest. When we have done that we have approached Him
as near as we can ever do. The Scriptural writers, therefore, have
no pedantic scruples in their speech about God. They constantly
represent Him as pleading with men, desiring to influence them, and
yet sometimes as being driven back defeated by the obstinate sin of
man. The Bible is full of the failures of God in this sense; and
God's greatest failure, that which forms the burden and inspires
the pathos of the bulk of the Old Testament, is His failure with
His chosen people. They _would_ not be saved, they _would_ not be
faithful; and God had to accomplish His work of planting the true
and spiritual religion in the world by means of a mere remnant of
faithful men chosen from a faithless multitude.

But though this plan failed miserably in one way, in the way of
gaining the bulk of the people, it succeeded in another. As has
just been said, _the_ purpose of God was in any case accomplished.
But even apart from that, the religious education that was given
was of immense importance. It raised the level of life for all;
like the Nile mud in the inundation, it fertilised the whole field
of this people's life. It kept an ideal, too, before men, without
which they would have fallen even lower than they did. And it lay
in the minds of even the worst, ready to be changed into something
higher; for without previous intellectual acquaintance with the
facts, the deeper knowledge was impossible. Moreover the ordinary
civil morality of the people rested upon it. Without their religion
and the facts on which it was based, the moral code had no hold
upon them, and could have none. That had grown up in one complex
tangle with religion; it had received its highest inspiration from
the conception of God handed down from the fathers; and apart from
that it would have fallen into an incoherent mass of customs unable
to justify or account for their existence. In every community the
same principle holds. Hence whatever the theory of the relation
of the State to religion which may prevail, no State can, without
much harm, ignore the religion of the people. It may sometimes even
be wise and right for a government to introduce or to encourage
a higher religion at the expense of a lower. But it can never be
either wise or right to be inadvertent of religion altogether. In
accordance with this precept, the rulers of Israel never were so.
They not only encouraged parents to be strenuous, as this passage
demands of them, but on more than one occasion they made definite
provision for the religious instruction of the people. In a formal
sense that grew into a habit which even yet has not lost its hold;
and hence, as we have seen, the Jews have been kept true in an
unexampled manner to their racial and religious characteristics.




CHAPTER IX

_THE BAN_

DEUT. vii.


As in the previous chapter we have had the Mosaic and Deuteronomic
statement of the internal and spiritual means of defending the
Israelite character and faith from the temptations which the
conquest in Canaan would bring with it, in this we have strenuous
provision made against the same evil by external means. The mind
first was to be fortified against the temptation to fall away; then
the external pressure from the example of the peoples they were
to conquer was to be minimised by the practice of the ban. The
first five verses, and the last two deal emphatically with that,
as also does ver. 16, and what lies between is a statement of the
grounds upon which a strict execution of this dreadful measure was
demanded. These, as is usual in Deuteronomy, are dealt with somewhat
discursively; but the command as to the ban, coming as it does
at the beginning, middle, and end, gives this chapter unity, and
suggests that it should be treated under this head as a whole. There
are besides other passages which can most conveniently be discussed
in connection with chapter vii. These are the historic statements
as to the ban having been laid upon the cities of Sihon (Deut. ii.
34) and Og (Deut. iii. 6); the provision for the extirpation of
idolatrous persons and communities (Deut. xiii. 15); and lastly,
that portion of the law of war which treats of the variations in the
execution of the ban which circumstances might demand (Deut. xx.
13-18). These passages, taken together, give an almost exhaustive
statement in regard to the nature and limitations of the Cherem,
or ban, in ancient Israel, a statement much more complete than is
elsewhere to be found; and they consequently suggest, if they do not
demand, a complete investigation of the whole matter.

It is quite clear that the Cherem, or ban, by which a person or
thing, or even a whole people and their property, were devoted to
a god, was not a specially Mosaic ordinance, for it is a custom
known to many half-civilised and some highly civilised nations.
In Livy's account of early Rome we read that Tarquinius, after
defeating the Sabines, burned the spoils of the enemy in a huge
heap, in accordance with a vow to Vulcan, made before advancing into
the Sabine country. The same custom is alluded to in Vergil, _Æn._
viii. 562, and Cæsar, _B.G._ vi. 17, tells us a similar thing of the
Gauls. The Mexican custom of sacrificing all prisoners of war to
the god of war was of the same kind. But the most complete example
of the ban in the Hebrew sense, occurring among a foreign people,
is to be found in the Moabite stone which Mesha, king of Moab,
erected in the ninth century B.C., _i.e._ in the days of Ahab. Of
course Moab and Israel were related peoples, and it might in itself
be possible that Moab during its subjection to Israel had adopted
the ban from Israel. But that is highly improbable, considering how
widespread this custom is, and how deeply its roots are fixed in
human nature. Rather we should take the Moabite ban as an example of
its usual form among the Semitic peoples. "And Chemosh said to me,
Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I went by night and fought against
it from the break of morn until noon, and took it and killed
them all, seven thousand men and boys, and women and girls and
maid-servants, for I had devoted it to 'Ashtor-Chemosh'; and I took
thence the vessels" (so Renan) "of Yahweh, and I dragged them before
Chemosh."[55] The ordinary Semitic word for the ban is _Cherem_. It
denotes a thing separated from or prohibited to common use, and no
doubt it indicated originally merely that which was given over to
the gods, separated for their exclusive use for ever. In this way it
was distinguished from that which was "sanctified" to Yahweh, for
that could be redeemed; devoted things could not.

  [55] Driver, _Notes on Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, p. 101,
  note.

In the ancient laws repeated in Lev. xxvii. 28, 29, two classes
of devoted things seem to be referred to. First of all, we have
the things which an individual may devote to God, "whether of man
or beast, or of the field of his possession." The provision made
in regard to them is that they shall not be sold or redeemed, but
shall become in the highest degree sacred to Yahweh. Men so devoted,
therefore, became perpetual slaves at the holy places, and other
kinds of property fell to the priests. In the next verse, 29, we
read, "None devoted which shall be devoted of" (_i.e._ from among)
"men shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death," but that
must refer to some other class of men devoted to Yahweh. It is
inconceivable that in Israel individuals could at their own will
devote slaves or children to death. Moreover, if every man devoted
must be killed, the provision of Numb. xviii. 14, according to which
everything devoted in Israel is to be Aaron's, could not be carried
out. Further, there is a difference in expression in the two verses:
in 28 we have things "devoted to Yahweh," in 29 we have simply men
"devoted."[56] There can be little doubt, therefore, that we have
in ver. 29 the case of men condemned for some act for which the
punishment prescribed by the law was the ban (as in Exod. xxii. 19,
"He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto Yahweh only shall be
put to the ban"), or which some legal tribunal considered worthy
of that punishment. In such cases, the object of the ban being
something offensive, something which called out the Divine wrath and
abhorrence, this "devotion" to God meant utter destruction. Just
as _anathēma_, a thing set up in a temple as a votive offering,
became _anathĕma_, an accursed thing, and as _sacer_, originally
meaning sacred, came to mean devoted to destruction, so _Cherem_,
among the Semites, came to have the meaning of a thing devoted to
destruction by the wrath of the national gods. From ancient days it
had been in use, and in Israel it continued to be practised, but
with a new moral and religious purpose which antiquity could know
nothing of. No more conspicuous instance of that transformation
of ancient customs of a doubtful or even evil kind by the spirit
of the religion of Yahweh, which is one of the most remarkable
characteristics of the history of Israel, can be conceived than this
use of the ban for higher ends.

  [56] Cf. Dillmann, _Exodus and Leviticus_, p. 634.

As the fundamental idea of the _Cherem_ was the devoting of objects
to a god, it is manifest that the whole inner significance of the
institution would vary with the conception of the Deity. Among the
worshippers of cruel and sanguinary gods, such as the gods of the
heathen Semites were, the ends which this practice was used to
promote would naturally be cruel and sanguinary. Moreover, where
it was thought that the gods could be bought over by acceptable
sacrifices, where they were conceived of as non-moral beings,
whose reasons for favour or anger were equally capricious and
unfathomable, it was inevitable that the _Cherem_ should be mainly
used to bribe these gods to favour and help their peoples. Where
victory seemed easy and within the power of the nation, the spoil
and the inhabitants of a conquered city or country would be taken
by the conquerors for their own use. Where, on the other hand,
victory was difficult and doubtful, an effort would be made to win
the favour of the god, and wring success from him by promising him
all the spoil. The slaughter of the captives would be considered
the highest gratification such sanguinary gods could receive, while
their pride would be held to be gratified by the utter destruction
of the seat of the worship of other gods. Obviously it was in this
way that the Gauls and Germans worked this institution; and the
probability is that the heathen Semites would view the whole matter
from an even lower standpoint. But to true worshippers of Yahweh
such thoughts must have grown abhorrent. From the moment when their
God became the centre and the norm of moral life to Israel, acts
which had no scope but the gratification of a thirst for blood, or
of a petty jealous pride, could not be thought acceptable to Him.
Every institution and custom, therefore, which had no moral element
in it, had either to be swept away, or moralised in the spirit of
the purer faith. Now the ban was not abolished in Israel; but it
was moralised, and turned into a potent and terrible weapon for the
preservation and advancement of true religion.

By the Divine appointment the national life of Israel was bound up
with the foundation and progress of true religion. It was in this
people that the seeds of the highest religion were to be planted,
and it was by means of it that all the nations of the earth were
to be blessed. But as the chief means to this end was to be the
higher ethical and religious character of the nation as such, the
preservation of that from depravation and decay became the main
anxiety of the prophets and priests and law-givers of Israel. Just
as in modern days the preservation and defence of the State is
reckoned in every country the supreme law which overrides every
other consideration, so in Israel the preservation of the higher
life was regarded. Rude and half-civilised as Israel was at the
beginning of its career, the Divinely revealed religion had made
men conscious of that which gave this people its unique value both
to God and men. They recognised that its glory and strength lay in
its thought of God, and in the character which this impressed upon
the corporate life, as well as on the life of each individual. As we
have seen, this bred in them a consciousness of a higher calling,
of a higher obligation resting on them than upon others. They
consequently felt the necessity of guarding their special character,
and used the ban as their great weapon to ward off the contagion
of evil, and to give this character room to develop itself. Its
tremendous, even cruel, power was directed in Israel to this end;
it was from this point of view alone that it had value in the eyes
of the fully enlightened man of Israel. Stade in his history (vol.
i., p. 490) holds that this distinction did not exist, that the
Israelite view differed in little, if anything, from that of their
heathen kinsmen, and that the ban resulted from a vow intended to
gratify Yahweh and win His favour by giving Him the booty. But
it is undeniable that in the earliest statement in regard to it
(Exod. xx.) there is a distinct legislative provision that the ban
should be proclaimed and executed irrespective of any vow; and in
the later, but still early, notices of it in Joshua, Judges, and 1
Samuel the command to execute it comes in every case from Yahweh.
In Deuteronomy, again, the ethical purpose of the ban is always
insisted upon, most emphatically perhaps in chap. xx. 17 ff., where
the _Cherem_ is laid down as a regular practice in war against the
heathen inhabitants of Canaan: "But thou shalt utterly destroy them,
... that they teach you not to do after all their abominations,
which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against
Yahweh your God." Whatever hints or appearances there may be in
the Scripture narratives that the lower view still clung to some
minds are not to be taken as indicating the normal and recognised
view. They were, like much else of a similar kind, mere survivals,
becoming more and more shadowy as the history advances, and at last
entirely vanishing away. The new and higher thought which Moses
planted was the rising and prevailing element in the Israelite
consciousness. The lower thought was a decaying reminiscence of
the state of things which the Mosaic revelation had wounded to the
death, but which was slow in dying.

In Israel, therefore, the ban was, on the principles of the higher
religion, legitimate only where the object was to preserve that
religion when gravely endangered. If any object could justify a
measure so cruel and sweeping as the ban, this could, and this
is the only ground upon which the Scriptures defend it. That the
danger was grave and imminent, when Israel entered Canaan, cannot be
doubted. As we have seen, the Israelite tribes were far from being
of one blood or of one faith. There was a huge mixed multitude along
with them; and even among those who had unquestioned title to be
reckoned among Israelites, many were gross, carnal, and slavish in
their conceptions of things. They had not learned thoroughly nor
assimilated the lessons they had been taught. Only the elect among
them had done that; and the danger from contact with races, superior
in culture, and religiously not so far below the position occupied
by the multitude of Israel, was extreme. The nation was born in a
day, but it had been educated only for a generation; it was raw and
ignorant in all that concerned the Yahwistic faith. In fact it was
precisely in the condition in which spiritual disease could be most
easily contracted and would be most deadly. The new religion had not
been securely organised; the customs and habits of the people still
needed to be moulded by it, and could not, consequently, act as the
stay and support of religion as they did at later times. Further,
the people were at the critical moment when they were passing from
one stage of social life to another. At such moments there is
immense danger to the health and character of a nation, for there is
no unity of ideal present to every mind. That which they are moving
away from has not ceased to exert its influence, and that _to_
which they are moving has not asserted itself with all its power.
At such crises in the career of peoples emerging from barbarism,
even physical disease is apt to be deadlier and more prevalent
than it is among either civilised or entirely savage men. The old
Semitic heathenism had not been entirely overcome, and the new and
higher religion had not succeeded in establishing full dominion.
Contact with the Canaanites in almost any shape would under such
circumstances be like the introduction of a contagious disease, and
at almost any price it had to be avoided. The customs of the world
at that time, and of the Semitic nations in particular, offered this
terribly effective weapon of the "ban," and for this higher purpose
it was accepted; and it was enforced with a stringency which nothing
would justify short of the fact that life or death to the great hope
of mankind was involved in it.

But it may be and should be asked, Would any circumstances justify
Christian men, or a Christian nation, in entering upon a war of
extermination now? and if not, how can a war of extermination
against the Canaanities have been sanctioned by God? In answer to
the first question, it must be said that, while circumstances can be
conceived under which the extermination of a race would certainly
be carried out by nations called Christian, it is hardly possible
to imagine Christian men taking part in such a massacre. Even the
supposed command of God could not induce them to do so.[57] It would
be so contrary to all that they have learned of God's will, both
as regards themselves and others, that they would hesitate. Almost
certainly they would decide that they were bound to be faithful to
what God had revealed of Himself; they would feel that He could not
wish to blunt their moral sense and undo what He had done for them,
and they would put aside the command as a temptation. But the case
with the Israelites was altogether different. The question is not,
how could God destroy a whole people? Were it only that, there would
be little difficulty. Everywhere in His action through nature God
is ruthless enough against sin. Vice and sin are every day bringing
men and women and innocent children to death, and to suffering
worse than death. For that every believer in God holds the Divine
law responsible. And when the Divine command was laid upon the
Israelites to do, more speedily, and in a more awe-inspiring way,
what Canaanite vices were already doing, there can be no difficulty
except in so far as the effect upon the Israelites is concerned.
It is by death, inflicted as the punishment of vice, and sparing
neither woman nor child, that nations have, as a rule, been blotted
out; and, except to the confused thinker, so far as the Divine
action is concerned there is no difference between such cases and
this of the Canaanites. The real question is, Can a living, personal
God deliberately set to men a task which can only lower them in the
scale of humanity--brutalise them, in fact? No, is of course the
only possible answer; therefore a supposed Divine command coming
to us to do such things would rightly be suspected. We could not,
we feel sure, be called upon by God to slay the innocent with the
guilty, to overwhelm in one common punishment individual beings who
have each of them an inalienable claim to justice at our hands. But
the Israelites had not and could not have the feeling we have on
the subject. The feeling for the individual did not exist in early
times. The clan, the tribe, the nation was everything, and the
individual nothing. Consequently there was not existent in the world
that keen feeling in regard to individual rights, which dominates us
so completely that we can with difficulty conceive any other view.
In this world the early Israelite scarcely perceived the individual
man, and beyond this world he knew of no certain career for him.
He consequently dealt with him only as part of his clan or tribe.
His tribe suffered for him and he for his tribe, and in early penal
law the two could hardly be separated. Indeed it may almost be said
that, when the individual suffered for his own sin, the satisfaction
felt by the wronged was rather due to the tribe having suffered so
much loss in the individual's death than to the retribution which
fell upon him. Moreover war was the constant employment of all, and
death by violence the most common of all forms of death. Manners and
feelings were both rude, and the pains as well as the pleasures of
civilised and Christian men lay largely beyond their horizon. There
was consequently no danger of doing violence to nobler feelings or
of leaving a sting in the conscience by calling such men to such
work. The stage of moral development they had reached did not forbid
it, and the work therefore might be given them of God.

  [57] Mozley's _Lectures on the Old Testament_, p. 102.

But the grounds for the action were immeasurably raised. Instead
of being left on the heathen level, "the usage was utilised so as
to harmonise with the principles of their religion, and to satisfy
its needs. It became a mode of secluding and rendering harmless
anything which peculiarly imperilled the religious life of either
an individual or the community, such objects being withdrawn from
society at large, and presented to the sanctuary, which had power,
if needful, to authorise their destruction."[58] The Deuteronomic
command is not given shamefacedly. The interests at stake are too
great for that. Israel is utterly to smite the Canaanite nations,
to put them to the ban, to make no covenant with them nor to
intermarry with them. "Thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break
down their altars, and dash in pieces their obelisks, and hew down
their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire." There is a
fierce, curt energy about the words which impresses the reader with
the vigour needed to defend the true religion. The danger was seen
to be great, and this tremendous weapon of the ban was to be wielded
with unsparing rigour, if Israel was to be true to its highest
call. "For," ver. 6 goes on to say, "thou art a holy people unto
Yahweh thy God; Yahweh thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar
people unto Himself, out of all peoples that are upon the face of
the earth." They were the elect of God; they were a holy people,
a people separated unto their God, and the Divine blessing was to
come upon all nations through them if they remained true. Their
separateness must therefore be maintained. As a people marked out
by the love of God, they could not share in the common life of the
world as it then was. They could not lift the Canaanites to their
level by mingling with them. So they would only obscure, nay, in
so far as this rigorous command was not carried out, they did all
but fatally obscure, the higher elements of national and personal
life which they had received. They were too recently converted to
be the people of Yahweh, too weak in their own faith, to be able
to do anything but stand in this austere and repellent attitude
towards the world. Centuries passed before they could relax without
danger. It may even be said that until the coming of our Lord they
dared not take up any other than this separatist position, though
as the ages passed and the prophetic influence grew, the yearning
after a gathering in of the Gentiles, and the promise of it in the
Messianic day, became more markedly prominent. Only when men could
look forward to being made perfect in Jesus Christ did they receive
the command to go unreservedly out into the world, for only then had
they an anchor which no storm in the world could drag.

  [58] Driver, _Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, p.
  101.

But we must be careful not to exaggerate the separation called for
here. It does not authorise anything like the fierce, intolerant
thirst for conquest and domination which was the very keynote of
Islam.[59] In Deut. ii. 5, 6, 19, the lands of Edom, Moab, and Ammon
are said to be Yahweh's gift to these peoples in the same way as
Canaan was to Israel. Nor did the law ever authorise the bitter
and contemptuous feeling with which Pharisaic Israelites often
regarded all men beyond the pale of Judaism. There was no general
prohibition against friendly intercourse with other peoples. It was
against those only, whose presence in Canaan would have frustrated
the establishment of the theocracy, and whose influence would have
been destructive of it when established, that the "ban" was decreed.
When war arose between Israel and cities farther off than those of
Canaan, they were not to be put to the "ban." Though they were to be
hardly treated according to our ideas, they were to suffer only the
fate of cities stormed in those days, for the danger of corruption
was proportionately diminished (Deut. xx. 17) by their distance.
The right of other peoples to their lands was to be respected, and
friendly intercourse might be entered on with them. But the right
of Israel to the free and unhindered development to which it had
been called by Yahweh was the supreme law. The suspicion of danger
to that was to make things otherwise harmless, or even useful, to be
abhorred. If men are to live nearer to God than others, they must
sacrifice much to the higher call.

  [59] Riehm, _Old Testament Theology_, p. 98.

To press home this, to induce Israel to respond to this demand, to
convince them anew of their obligation to go any length to keep
their position as a people holy to Yahweh, our chapter urges a
variety of reasons. The first (vv. 7-11) is that the history and
grounds of their election exhibit the character of Yahweh in such a
way as to heighten their sense of their privileges and the danger
of losing them. He had chosen them, only because of His own love to
them; and having chosen them and sworn to their fathers, He is true
to His covenant. He brought them out of the house of bondage, and
has led them until now. In Yahweh they had a spiritual ideal, whose
characteristics were love and faithfulness. But though He loves He
can be wrathful, and though He has made a covenant with Israel,
it must be fulfilled in accordance with righteousness. In dealing
with such a God they must beware of thinking that their election
is irrespective of moral conditions, or that His love is mere good
nature. He can and does smite the enemies of good, for anger is
always possible where love is. It is only with good nature that
anger is not compatible, just as warm and self-sacrificing affection
also is. Those who turn away from Him, therefore, He requites
immediately to their face, as surely as "He keepeth covenant and
mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments." All the
blessed and intimate relations which He has opened up with them, and
in which their safety and their glory lie, can be dissolved by sin.
They are, therefore, to strike fiercely at temptation, to regard
neither their own lives nor the lives of others when that has to be
put out of the way, to smite and spare not, for the very love of God.

A second reason why they should obey the Divine commands, as in
other matters, so in this terrible thing, is this. If they be
willing and obedient, then God will bless them in temporal ways as
well as with spiritual blessings. Even for their earthly prosperity
a loyal attitude to Yahweh would prove decisive. "Thou shalt be
blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female
barren among you, or among your cattle. And Yahweh will take away
from thee all sickness, and He will put none of the evil diseases
of Egypt which thou knowest upon thee; but will lay them upon all
them that hate thee." The same promises are renewed in more detail
and with greater emphasis in the speech contained in chapters
xxviii. and xxix. There the significance of such a view, and the
difficulties involved in it for us, will be fully discussed. Here it
will be sufficient to note that the profit of obedience is brought
in to induce Israel to enforce the "ban" most rigorously.

The last verses of our chapter, vv. 17-26, set before Israel a third
incitement and encouragement. Yahweh, who had proved His might
and His favour for them by His mighty deeds in Egypt, would be
among them, to make them stronger than their mightiest foes (ver.
21): "Thou shalt not be affrighted at them, for Yahweh thy God is
in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible." The previous
inducements to obey Yahweh their God and be true to Him were founded
on His character and on His acts. He was merciful; but He could be
terrible, and He would reward the faithful with prosperity. Now His
people are encouraged to go forward because His presence will go
with them. In the conflicts which obedience to Him would provoke,
He would be with them to sustain them, whatever stress might come
upon them. Step by step they would drive out those very peoples whom
they had dreaded so when the spies brought back their report of the
land. The terror of their God would fall upon all these nations. A
great God and a terrible He would prove Himself to be, and with Him
in their midst they might go forth boldly to execute the ban upon
the Canaanites. The sins and vices of these peoples had brought this
upon them; their horrible worship left an indelible stain wherever
its shadow fell. Israel, led and directed by Yahweh Himself, was to
fall upon them as the scourge of God.

Notwithstanding the Divine urgency, the command to destroy the
Canaanites and their idols was not carried out. After a victory
or two the enemy began to submit. Glad to be rid of the toils of
war, Israel settled down among the people of the land. All central
control would seem to have disappeared. The Canaanite worship and
the Canaanite customs attracted and fascinated the people, and
enemy after enemy broke in upon them and triumphed over them. The
half-idolatrous masses were led away into depraved forms of worship,
and for a time it looked as if the work of Moses would be utterly
undone. Had the purer faith he taught them not been revived, Israel
would probably not have survived the period of the Judges. As it
was, they just survived; but by their lapse the leavening of the
whole of the nation with the pure principles of Yahweh-worship had
been stopped. Instead of being cured, the idolatrous inclinations
they had brought with them from the pre-Mosaic time had been revived
and strengthened. Multitudes, while calling Yahweh their God, had
sunk almost to the Canaanite level in their worship, and during the
whole period of their existence as a nation Israel as a whole never
again rose clear of half-heathen conceptions of their God. The
prophets taught and threatened them in vain, until at last ruin fell
upon them and the Divine threats of punishment were fulfilled.




CHAPTER X

_THE BAN IN MODERN LIFE_


In our modern time this practice of the ban has, of course, become
antiquated and impossible. The _Cherem_, or ban, of the modern
synagogue is a different thing, based upon different motives, and is
directed to the same ends as Christian excommunication. But though
the thing has ceased, the principles underlying it, and the view of
life which it implies, are of perpetual validity. These belong to
the essential truths of religion, and especially need to be recalled
in a time like ours, when men tend everywhere to a feeble, lax, and
cosmopolitan view of Christianity. As we have seen, the fundamental
principle of the _Cherem_ was that, however precious, however
sacred, however useful and helpful in ordinary circumstances a thing
might be, whenever it became dangerous to the higher life it should
at once be given up to Yahweh. The lives of human beings, even
though they were men's dearest and nearest, should be sacrificed;
the richest works of art, the weapons of war, and the wealth which
would have adorned life and made it easy, were equally to be given
up to Him, that He might seclude them and render them harmless to
men's highest interests. Neighbourliness to the Canaanites was
absolutely forbidden, and the Church of the Old Testament was
commanded to take up a position of hostility, or at best of armed
neutrality, to all the pleasures, interests, and concerns of the
peoples who surrounded them. Now the prevailing modern view is
that not only the ban itself, but these principles have become
obsolete. Notwithstanding that the Church of the New Testament is
the bearer of the higher interests of humanity, we are taught that
when it is least definite in its direction ἄas to conduct, when it
is most tolerant of the practices of the world, then it is most
true to its original conception. We are told that an indulgent
Church is what is wanted; rigour and religion are now supposed to be
finally divorced in all enlightened minds. This view is not often
categorically expressed, but it underlies all fashionable religion,
and has its apostles in the golden youth who forward enlightenment
by playing tennis on Sundays. Because of it too, Puritan has become
a name of scorn, and careless self-gratification a mark of cultured
Christianity. Not only asceticism, but ἄσκησις has been discredited,
and the moral tone of society has perceptibly fallen in consequence.
In wide circles both within and without the Church it seems to be
held that pain is the only intolerable evil, and in legislation as
well as in literature that idea has been registering itself.

For much of this progress, as some call it, no reasoned
justification has been attempted, but it has been defended in part
by the allegation that the circumstances which make the "ban"
necessary to the very life of the ancient people of God have passed
away, now that social and political life has been Christianised.
Even those who are outside the Church in Christian lands are no
longer living at a moral and spiritual level so much below that
of the Church. They are not heathen idolaters, whose moral and
religious ideas are contagiously corrupting, and nothing but
Pharisaism of the worst type, it is said, can justify the Church
in taking up a position to society in any degree like that which
was imposed upon ancient Israel. Now it cannot be denied that
there is truth here, and in so far as the Christian Church or
individual Christians have taken up precisely the same position to
those without as is implied in the Old Testament ban, they are not
to be defended. Modern society, as at present constituted, is not
corrupting like that of Canaan. No one in a modern Christian state
has been brought up in an atmosphere of heathenism, and what an
incredible difference that involves only those who know heathenism
well can appreciate. If spiritual life is neither understood
nor believed in by all, yet the rules of morals are the same in
every mind, and these rules are the product of Christianity. As a
consequence, the Church is not endangered in the same way and to
the same degree by contact with the world as in the ancient days.
Indeed to the Israelite of the post-Mosaic time our "world," which
some sects at least would absolutely ignore and shut out, would
seem a very definite and legitimate part of the Church. The Jewish
Church was certainly to a very large extent made up of precisely
such elements, while those who were to be put to the ban were far
more remote than any citizens of a modern state, except a portion of
the criminal class. Further, those not actively Christian are, on
account of this community of moral sentiments, open to appeal from
the Church as the heathen Canaanites were not. In English-speaking
lands, while there are multitudes indifferent to Christianity, most
acknowledge the obligation of the Christian motives. In nations at
least nominally Christian, therefore, both because the danger of
corruption is greatly less, and because the world is more accessible
to the leaven of Christian life, no Church can, or dare, without
incurring terrible loss and responsibility, withdraw from or show
a merely hostile front to the world. The sects which do so live an
invalid life. Their virtues take on the sickly look of all "fugitive
and cloistered virtue." Their doctrines become full of the "idols
of the cave," and they cease to have any perception of the real
needs of men.

Nevertheless the austere spirit inculcated in this chapter must be
kept alive, if the Church is to be the spiritual leader of humanity,
for strenuousness is the great want of modern life. Dr. Pearson,
whose book on _National Life and Character_ has lately expounded the
theory that the Church, "being too inexorable in its ideal to admit
of compromises with human frailty, is precisely on this account
unfitted for governing fallible men and women," i.e. governing them
in the political sense, has elsewhere stated his view of the remedy
for one of the great evils of modern life.[60] "The disproportionate
growth of the distributing classes, as compared with the producing,
is due, I believe, to two moral causes--the love of amusement and
the passion for speculation. Men flock out of healthy country lives
in farms or mines into our great cities, because they like to be
near the theatre and the racecourse, or because they hope to grow
rich suddenly by some form of gambling. The cure for a taint of
this kind is not economical but religious, and can only be found,
I am convinced, in a return to the masculine asceticism that has
distinguished the best days of history, Puritan or Republican." This
is emphatically true of Australia, where and of which the words were
first spoken; and masculine asceticism of the Puritan type would
cure many another evil there besides these. But the same thing is
true everywhere; and if religion is to cure slackness in social or
political life, how much more must it cultivate this austere spirit
for itself! The function of the Church is not to govern the world;
it seeks rather to inspire the world. It should lead the advance
to a higher, more ennobling life, and should exhibit that in its
own collective action and in the kind of character it produces.
Its greatest gift to the world should be itself, and it is useful
only when it is true to its own _ethos_ and spirit. To keep that
unimpaired must therefore be its first duty, and to fulfil that duty
it must keep rigorously back from everything which, in relation to
its own existing state, would be likely to lower the power of its
peculiar life. The State must often compromise with human frailty.
Often there will be before the legislator and the statesman only
a choice between two evils, or at least two undesirable courses,
unless a worse thing is to be tolerated. The Church, on the other
hand, should keep close to the ideal as it sees it. Its reason for
existence is that it may hold up the ideal to men, and exhibit it
as far as that may be. Compromise in regard to that is impossible
for the Church, for that would be nothing else than disloyalty to
its own essential principle. The spirit, therefore, that inspired
the "ban" must always be living and powerful in the Church. Whatever
is dangerous to the special Christian life must cease to exist for
Christians. It should be laid at the feet of their Divine Head, that
He may seclude it from His people and render it innocuous. Many
things that are harmless or even useful at a lower level of life
must be refused a place by the Christian. Gratifications that cannot
but seem good to others must be refused by him; for he seeks to be
in the forefront of the battle against evil, to be the pioneer to a
more whole-hearted spiritual life.

  [60] _The Social Movements of the Age_, by Professor Pearson,
  Melbourne Church Congress, 1882.

But that does not imply that we should seek to renew the various
imperfect and external devices by which past times sought to attain
this exceedingly desirable end. Experience has taught the folly
and futility of sumptuary laws, for example. Their only effect
was to do violence to the inwardness which belongs of necessity
to spiritual life. They externalised and depraved morality, and
finally defeated themselves. Nor would the later Puritanism, with
its rigidity as regards dress and deportment, and its narrow and
limited view of life, help us much more. It began doubtless with
the right principle; but it sought to bind all to its observances,
whether they cared for the spirit of them or not; and it showed a
measureless intemperance in regard to the things which it declared
hostile to the life of faith. In that form it has been charged with
"isolation from human history, human enjoyment, and all the manifold
play and variety of human character." For a short time, however,
Puritanism did strike the golden mean in this matter, and probably
we could not in this present connection find a better example for
modern days than in the Puritanism of Spenser, of Colonel Hutchinson
(one of the regicides so called), and of Milton. Their united lives
covered the heroic period of Puritanism, and taken in their order
they represent very fairly its rise, its best estate, and its
tendencies towards harsh extremes, when as yet it was but a tendency.

Spenser, born in the "spacious times of great Elizabeth," was
politically and nationally a Puritan, and in aim and ideal, at
least, was so in his stern view of life and religion.[61] His
attachment to Lord Grey of Wilton, that personally kind yet
absolutely ruthless executor of the English "ban" against the
untamable Irish, and his defence of his policy, show the one;
while his _Fairy Queen_, with its representation of religion as
"the foundation of all nobleness in man" and its dwelling upon
man's victory over himself, reveals the other. But he had in him
also elements belonging to that strangely mingled world in which
he lived, and which came from an entirely different source. He
had the Elizabethan enthusiasm for beauty, the large delight in
life as such even where its moral quality was questionable, and
the artist's sensitiveness and adaptability in a very high degree.
These diverse elements were never fully interfused in him. Amid
all the gracious beauty of his work, there is the trace of discord
and the mark of conflict; and at times perhaps his life fell into
courses which spoke little of self-control. But his face was always
in the main turned upwards. In the main, too, his life corresponded
with his aspirations. He combined his poetic gift, his love of
men and human life, with a faithfulness to his ideal of conduct
which, if not always perfect, was sincere, and was, too, as we may
hope, ultimately victorious. The Puritan in him had not entire
victory over the worldling, but it had the mastery; and the very
imperfection of the victory kept the character in sympathy with the
whole of life.

  [61] Vide Church's _Spenser_, p. 16.

In Colonel Hutchinson,[62] as depicted in that stately and tender
panegyric which speaks to us across more than two centuries
so pathetically of his wife's almost adoring love, we see the
Puritan character in its fullest and most balanced form. We do
not, of course, mean that his mind had the imaginative power of
Spenser's, or his character the force of Milton's; but partly from
circumstances, partly by singular grace of nature, his character
possessed a stability and an equilibrium which had not come when
Spenser lived, and which was beginning to go in the evil days upon
which Milton fell. At the root of all his virtues his wife sets
"that which was the head and spring of them all, his Christianity."
"By Christianity," she says, "I intend that universal habit of
grace which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God,
whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the Divine will and
love, and all its actions designed to the obedience and glory of its
Maker." He had been trained in a Puritan home, and though when he
went out into the world he had to face quite the average temptations
of a rich and well-born youth, he fled all youthful lusts. But he
did not retire from the world. "He could dance admirably well,
but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of it; he
had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had a great
love to music, and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he
played masterly; he had an exact ear, and judgment in other music;
he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used them for his
exercise; he had great judgment in painting, graving, sculpture,
and all liberal arts, and had many curiosities of value in all
kinds. He took much pleasure in improvement of grounds, in planting
groves and walks and fruit-trees, in opening springs and making
fishponds. Of country recreations he loved none but hawking, and
in that was very eager, and much delighted for the time he used
it." Hutchinson was no ascetic, therefore, in the wrong sense, but
lived in and enjoyed the world as a man should. But perhaps his
greatest divergence from the lower Puritanism lay in this, that
"everything that it was necessary for him to do he did with delight,
free and unconstrained." Moreover, though he adopted strong Puritan
opinions in theology, "he hated persecution for religion, and was
always a champion for all religious people against all their great
oppressors. Nevertheless self-restraint was the law of his life, and
he many times forbore things lawful and delightful to him, rather
than he would give any one occasion of scandal." In public affairs
he took the courageous part of a man who sought nothing for himself,
and was moved only by his hatred of wrong to leave the prosperity
and peace of his home-life. He became a member of the Court which
tried the King against his will, but signed the warrant for his
death, simply because he conceived it to be his duty. When the
Restoration came and he was challenged for his conduct, scorning the
subterfuges of some who declared they signed under compulsion, he
quietly accepted the responsibility for his acts. This led to his
death in the flower of his age, through imprisonment in the Tower;
but he never flinched, "having made up his accounts with life and
death, and fixed his purpose to entertain both honourably." From
the beginning of his life to the end there was a consistent sanity,
which is rare at any time, and was especially rare in those days.
His loyalty to God kept him austerely aloof from unworthiness, while
it seemed to add zest to the sinless joys which came in his way.
Above all, it never suffered him to forget that the true Christian
temper and character was the pearl of price which all else he had
might lawfully be sacrificed to purchase.

  [62] _Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson_, by his wife.

In the character of Milton we find the same essential elements, the
same purity in youth, which, with his beauty, won for him the name
of the Lady of his College; the same courage and public spirit in
manhood; the same love of music and of culture. After his University
career he retired to his father's house, and read all Greek and
Latin literature, as well as Italian, and studied Hebrew and some
other Oriental languages. All the culture of his time, therefore,
was absorbed by him, and his mind and speech were shot through and
through with the brilliant colours of the history and romance of
many climes. Almost no kind of beauty failed to appeal to him, but
the austerity of his views of life kept him from being enslaved by
it. In his earlier works even, he caught in a surprising way all the
glow, and splendour, and poetic fervour of the English Renaissance;
but he joined with it the sternest and most uncompromising
Puritan morality, not only in theory and desire like Spenser,
but in the hard practice of actual life. When the idea of duty
comes to dominate a man, the grace and impetuosity of youth, the
overmastering love of beauty, and the appreciation of the mere joy
of living are apt to die away, and the poetic fire burns low. But it
was not so with Milton. To the end of his life he remained a true
Elizabethan, but an Elizabethan who had always kept himself free
from the chains of sensual vice, and had never stained his purity
of soul. That fact makes him unique almost in English history, and
has everywhere added a touch of the sublime to all that his works
have of beauty. "His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:" and we
may entirely believe what he tells us of himself when he returned
from his European travels: "In all the places in which vice meets
with so little discouragement, and is protected with so little
shame, I never once turned from the path of integrity and virtue,
and perpetually reflected that, though my conduct might escape the
notice of men, it could not elude the inspection of God." Like the
true Puritan he was, Milton not only overcame evil in himself, but
he thought his own life and health a cheap price to pay for the
overthrow of evil wherever he saw it. When the civil war broke out,
he returned at once from his travels, to help to right the wrongs
of his country. In the service of the Government he sacrificed his
poetic gift, his leisure for twenty years, and finally his sight, to
the task of defending England from her enemies. But he did not stop
there. His severity became excessive, at times almost vindictive.
When he wrote prose he scarcely ever wrote without having an enemy
to crush, and much that he uttered in this vein cannot possibly be
approved. His pamphlets are unfair to a degree which shows that
his mind had lost balance in the turmoil of the great struggle,
so that he approached at moments the narrower Puritanism. But he
still proved himself too great for that, and emerged anew as a
great and lofty spirit, held down very little by earthly bonds, and
strenuously set against evil as a true servant of God.

Now the temper of Puritanism such as this of these old English
worthies is precisely what Christians need most to cultivate in
these days. They must be animated by the spirit which refuses to
touch, and refers to God, whatever proves hostile to life in God;
but they must also combine with this aloofness a sympathetic hold
on ordinary life. It is easy on the one hand to solve all problems
by cutting oneself off from any relation with the world, lest
the inner life should suffer. It is also easy to let the inner
life take care of itself, and to float blithely on with all the
currents of life which are not deadly sins. But it is not easy to
keep the mind and life open to all the great life-streams which
tend to deepen and enrich human nature, and yet to stand firm in
self-control, determined that nothing which drags down the soul
shall be permitted to fascinate or overpower. To this task Christian
men and the Christian Church seem at present to be specially called.
It is admitted on all hands that the ordinary Puritanism became
too intolerant of all except spiritual interests; so that it could
not, without infinite loss, have been accepted as the guide for all
life. But hence what was good in it has been rejected along with the
bad; and it needs to be restored, if a weak, self-indulgent temper,
which resents hardship or even discipline, is not to gain the upper
hand. In social life especially this is needful, otherwise so much
debate would never have been expended on the question of amusements.
On the face of it, a Christianity which can go with the world in
all those of its amusements which are not actually forbidden by the
moral law must be a low type of Christianity. It can be conscious
of no special character which it has to preserve, of no special
voice which it has to utter in the antiphony of created things.
Whatever others allow themselves, therefore, the vigilant Christian
must see to it that he does nothing which will destroy his special
contribution to the world he lives in. It is precisely by that
that he is the salt of the earth; and if the salt have lost its
savour wherewith will you season it? No price is too great for the
preservation of this savour, and in reference to the care of it each
man must ultimately be a law unto himself. No one else can really
tell where his weakness lies. No one else can know what the effect
of this or that recreation upon that weakness is.

When men lose spiritual touch with their own character they are
apt to throw themselves back for guidance in such matters upon
the general opinion of the Christian community, or the tradition
of the elders. In doing so they are in danger of losing sincerity
in a mass of formalism. But if a vivid apprehension of the need
of individuality in the regulation of life is maintained, the
formulated Christian objection to certain customs or certain
amusements may be a most useful substitute for painful experience
of our own. Some such amusements may have been banned in the
past without sufficient reason; or they may have been excluded
only because of the special openness to temptation of a certain
community; or they may have so changed their character that they do
not now deserve the ban which was laid upon them once justly enough.
Any plea, therefore, for the revisal or abolition of standing
conventions on such grounds must be listened to and judged. But,
on the whole, these standing prohibitions of the Church represent
accumulated experience, and all young people especially will do
wisely not to break away from them. What the mass of Christians in
the past have found hurtful to the Christian character will in most
cases be hurtful still. For if it can be said of the secular world
in all matters of experience that "this wise world is mainly right,"
it may surely be said also of the Christian community. In our time
there is a quite justifiable distrust of conventionality in morals
and in religion; but it should not be forgotten that conventions
are not open to the same objection. They represent, on the whole,
merely the registered results of actual experience, and they may be
estimated and followed in an entirely free spirit. It is not wise,
therefore, to revolt against them indiscriminately, merely because
they may be used cruelly against others, or may be taken as a
substitute for a moral nature by oneself. Thackeray in his constant
railing at the judgment of the world seems to make this mistake.
He is never weary in pointing out how unjust the broad general
judgments of the world are to specially selected individuals. Harry
Warrington in _The Virginians_, for instance, though innocent,
lives in a manner and with associates which the world has generally
found to indicate intolerable moral laxity; and because the world
was wrong in thinking that to be true in his case which would
have been true in ninety-five out of a hundred similar cases, the
moralist rails at the evil-hearted judgments of the world. But "this
wise world is mainly right," and its rough and indiscriminating
judgments fit the average case. They are part of the great sanitary
provision which society makes for its own preservation. And the case
is precisely similar with the conventions of the religious life.
They too are in the main sanitary precautions, which a conscience
thoroughly alive and a strong intelligence may make superfluous,
but which for the unformed, the half-ignorant, the less original
natures, in a word, for average men and women, are absolutely
necessary. Spontaneity and freedom are admirable qualities in
morals and religion. They are even the conditions of the highest
kinds of moral and religious life, and the necessary presuppositions
of health and progress. But something is due to stability as well;
and a world of original and spontaneous moralists, trusting only to
their own "genial sense" of truth, would be a maddening chaos. In
other words, conventions if used unconventionally, if not exalted
into absolute moral laws disobedience to which excludes from
reputable society, if taken simply as indications of the paths in
which least danger to the higher life has been found to lie, are
guides for which men may well be thankful.

In the world of thought too, as well as in the world of action,
a wise austerity of self-control is absolutely necessary. The
prevailing theory is that every one, young men more especially,
should read on all sides on all questions, and that they should
know and sympathise with all modes of thought. This is advocated
in the supposed interests of freedom from external domination and
from internal prejudice. But in a great number of cases the result
does not follow. Such catholicity of taste does produce a curious
_dilettante_ interest in lines of thought, but as a rule it weakens
interest in truth as such. It delivers from the domination of a
Church or other historic authority; but only, in most cases, to
hand over the supposed freeman to the narrower domination of the
thinker or school by which he happens to be most impressed. For
it is vain and impotent to suppose that in regard to morals and
religion every mind is able to find its way by free thought, when in
regard to bodily health, or even in questions of finance, the free
thought of the amateur is acknowledged to end usually in confusion.
Those only can usefully expose their minds to all the various
currents of modern thought who have a clear footing of their own.
Whatever that may be, it gives them a point on which to stand,
and a vantage-ground from which they can gather up what widens or
corrects their view. But to leave the land altogether, and commit
oneself to the currents, is to render any after-landing all but
impossible. With regard to the books read, the lines of thought
followed, and the associations formed, the Christian must exercise
self-denial and self-examination. Whatever is manifestly detrimental
to his best life, whatever he feels to be likely to taint the purity
of his mind or lower his spiritual vitality, should be put under
the "ban," should be resolutely avoided in all ordinary cases. Of
course modes of thought that deserve to be weighed may be found
mingled with such elements; also views of life which have a truth
and importance of their own, though their setting is corrupt. But it
is not every one's business to extricate and discuss these. Those
who are called to it will have to do it; and in doing it as a duty
they may expect to be kept from the lurking contagion. Every one
else who investigates them runs a risk which he was not called upon
to run. The average Christian should, therefore, note all that tends
to stunt or deprave him spiritually, and should avoid it. It is not
manliness but folly which makes men read filthy literature because
of its style, or sceptical literature because of its ability, when
they are not called upon to do so, and when they have not fortified
themselves by the purity of the Scriptures and the power of prayer.
To make such literature or such modes of thought our staple mental
food, or to make the writers or admirers of such books our intimate
friends, is to sap our own best convictions and to disregard our
high calling.

Lastly, however common it may be for men to sit down in selfish
isolation and devote themselves to their own interests, even though
these be spiritual, in the face of remediable evils, that is not
the Christian manner of acting. Of the great Puritans we mentioned,
Spenser endured hardness in that terrible Irish war which the men of
Elizabeth's day regarded as the war of good against evil; Hutchinson
fought for and died in the cause of political and religious freedom;
and Milton devoted his life and health to the same cause. All of
them, the two latter especially, might have kept out of it all,
in the peace and comfort of private life; but they judged that
the destruction of evil was their first duty. At the trumpet call
they willingly took their side, and prepared to give their lives,
if necessary, for the righteous cause. Now it is not enough for
us to avoid evil any more than it was for them. Though personal
influence and example are undoubtedly among the most potent weapons
in the warfare for the Kingdom of God, there must be, besides
these, the power and the will to put public evils under the ban.
Whatever institution or custom or law is ungodly, whatever in our
social life is manifestly unjust, should stir the Christian Church
to revolt against it, and should fill the heart of the individual
Christian with an undying energy of hatred. It is not meant that
the Christian Churches as such should transform themselves into
political societies or social clubs. To do that would simply be
to abdicate their only real functions. But they should be the
sources of such teaching as will turn men's thoughts towards social
justice and political righteousness, and should prepare them for
the sacrifice which any great improvement in the social state must
demand of some. Further, every individual Christian should feel
that his responsibility for the condition of his brethren, those
of his own nation, is very great and direct; that to discharge
municipal and political duty with conscientious care is a primary
obligation. Only so can the power be gained to "ban" the bad laws,
the unjust practices, the evil social customs, which disfigure our
civilisation, which degrade and defraud the poor.

A militant Puritanism here is not only a necessity for further
social progress, but it is also a necessity for the full exhibition
of the power and the essential sympathies of Christianity. For
want of it the working classes in their movement upward have not
only been alienated from the Churches, but they have learned to
demand of their leaders that they shall "countenance the poor man
in his cause." They are tempted to require their leaders to share
not only their common principles, but their prejudices; and they
often look with suspicion upon those who insist upon applying the
plumb-line of justice to the demands of the poor as well as to the
claims of the rich. The whole popular movement suffers, for it is
degraded from its true position. From being a demand for justice,
it becomes a scramble for power--power too which, when gained, is
sometimes used as selfishly and tyrannically by its new possessors
as it sometimes was by those who previously exercised it. Into all
branches of public life there is needed an infusion of a new and
higher spirit. We want men who hate evil and will destroy it where
they can, who seek nothing for themselves, who feel strongly that
the kind of life the poor in civilised countries live is intolerably
hard, and are prepared to suffer, if by any means they may improve
it. But we want at the same time a type of reformer who, by his hold
upon a power lying beyond this world, is kept steady to justice even
where the poor are concerned, who, though he passionately longs for
a better life for them, does not make more food, more leisure, more
amusement, his highest aim. Men are needed who think more nobly of
their brethren than that: men, on the one hand, who know that the
Christian character and the Christian virtues may exist under the
hardest conditions, and that the Christian Church exists mainly to
brighten and rob of its degradation the otherwise cheerless life of
the multitude; but, on the other, who recognise that our present
social state is fatal in many ways to moral and spiritual progress
for the mass of men, and must be in some way recast.

All this means the entrance into public life of Christian men of the
highest type. Such men the Christian community must supply to the
State in great numbers, if the higher characteristics of our people
are not to be lost. Through a long and eventful history, by the
manifold training afforded by religion and experience, the English
nation has become strong, patient, hopeful, and self-reliant, with
an instinct for justice and a hatred of violence which cannot easily
be paralleled. It has, too, retained a faith in and respect for
religion which many other nations seem to have lost. That character
is its highest achievement, and its decay would be deplorable.
Christianity is specially called to help to preserve it, by bringing
to its aid the power of its own special character, with its great
spiritual resources. The sources of its life are hid, and must be
kept pure; the power of its life must be made manifest in actual
union with the higher elements in the national character for mutual
defence. Above all, Christianity must not, timidly or sluggishly,
draw upon itself the curse of Meroz by not coming to the help of the
Lord against the mighty. Nor can it permit the immediate interests
of the respectable to blind or hold it back. That which is best
in its own nature demands all this; and in seeking to answer that
demand the Churches will attain to a quite new life and power. The
Lord their God will be in the midst of them, and they will feel it;
for they will then have made themselves channels for the Divine
purity and power.




CHAPTER XI

_THE BREAD OF THE SOUL_

DEUT. viii.


In the chapters which follow, viz. viii., ix., and x. 1-11, we have
an appeal to history as a motive for fulfilling the fundamental duty
of loving God and keeping His commandments. In its main points it is
substantially the same appeal which is made in chapters i.-iii., is,
in fact, a continuation of it. Its main characteristics, therefore,
have already been dealt with; but there are details here which
deserve more minute study. Coming after Yahweh's great demand for
the love of His people, the references to the Divine action in the
past assume a deeper and more affectionate character than when they
were mere general exhortations to obedience and submission. They
become inducements to the highest efforts of love; and the first
appeal is naturally made to the gracious and fatherly dealing of
Yahweh with His people in their journey through the wilderness.
Of all the traditions or reminiscences of Israel, this of the
wilderness was the most constantly present to the popular mind, and
it is always referred to as the most certain, the most impressive,
and the most touching of all Israel's historic experiences. Yet
Stade and others push the whole episode aside, saying, if any
Israelites came out of Egypt, we do not know who they were. Such
a mode of dealing with clear, coherent, and in themselves not
improbable historical memories, is too arbitrary to have much
effect, and the wilderness journey remains, and is likely to
remain, one of the indubitable facts which modern critical research
has established rather than shaken.

To this, then, our author turns, and he deals with it in a somewhat
unusual way. As we have seen, the prevalent notion that piety and
righteousness are rewarded with material prosperity is firmly
rooted in his mind. But he did not feel himself limited to that as
the solitary right way of regarding the providence of God. Men's
minds are never quite so simple and direct in their action as many
students and critics are tempted to suppose. Every great conception
which holds the minds of men produces its effects, even from the
first moment it is grasped, by _all_ that is in it. Implications
and developments which are made explicit, or are called out into
visibility, only by the friction of new environments, have been
there from the beginning; and minds have been secretly moulded by
them though they were not conscious of them. Hard and fast lines,
then, are not to be drawn between the stages of a great development,
so that one should say that before such and such a moment, when a
new aspect of the old truth has emerged into consciousness, that
aspect was not effective in any wise. The outburst of waters from
a reservoir is indubitable evidence of steady persistent pressure
from within in that direction before the overflow. Similarly, in the
region of thought and feeling the emergence of a new aspect of truth
is of itself a proof that the holders of the root conception were
already swayed in that direction.

The history of Christianity affords proof of this. It is a
commonplace to-day that the world is only beginning to do justice
to some aspects of the teaching of our Lord. But the teaching,
always present, always exerted its influence, and was felt before
it could be explained. In the Old Testament development the same
thing was most emphatically true. Individual responsibility to God
was not, so far as we can now see, distinctly present in Israelite
religious thought till the time of Jeremiah, but it would be
absurd to say that any mind that accepted the religion of Yahweh
had ever been without that feeling. So with the doctrine of God's
providence over men: we are not to say that before the Book of Job
the explanation of suffering as testing discipline had been entirely
hid from Israel, by the view that material prosperity and adversity
were regulated in the main according to moral and religious life.
Consequently, notwithstanding previous strong assertions of the
latter view which we find in Deuteronomy, we need not be in the
least surprised to find that here the hardships of the wilderness
journey are regarded, not as a punishment for Israel's sins, but
simply as a trial or test to see what their heart was towards Him.
This is essentially the point of view of the Book of Job, the only
difference being that here it is applied to the nation, there to the
individual. But our chapter rises even above that, for the first
verses of it plainly teach that the experiences of the wilderness
were made to be what they were, in order that the people might
learn to know the spiritual forces of the world to be the essential
forces, and that they might be induced to throw themselves back upon
them as that which is alone enduring. In the words of ver. 3, they
were taught by this training that man does not live by bread alone,
but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God.

These two then, that hardship was testing discipline for Israel,
and that it was also intended to be the means of revealing spirit
as the supreme force even in the material world, are the main
lessons of the eighth chapter. Of these the last is by far the
most important. Casting back his eye upon the past, the author of
Deuteronomy teaches that the trials and the victories, the wonders
and the terrors of their wilderness time were meant to humble
them, to empty them of their own conceits, and to make them know
beyond all doubting that God alone was their portion, and that apart
from Him they had no certainty of continuance in the future and no
sustainment in the present. "All the commandment which I command
thee this day shall ye observe to do, _that ye may live_," is the
fundamental note, and the physical needs and trials of the time are
cited as an object-lesson to that effect. "He humbled thee, and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou knewest
not; that He might make thee to know that man doth not live by bread
alone, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of Yahweh
doth man live." Of course the first reference of the "everything
that proceedeth" is to the creative word of Yahweh. The meaning is
that the sending of the manna was proof that the ordinary means of
living, _i.e._ bread, could be dispensed with when Yahweh chose to
make use of His creative power. Many commentators think that this
exhausts the meaning of the passage, and they regard our Lord's use
of these words in the Temptation as limited in the same fashion.
But both here and in the New Testament more must be intended. Here
we have the statement in the first verse that Israel is to keep the
commandments, which certainly are a part of "all that proceeds" from
the mouth of God, that they may _live_. This implies that the mere
possession of material sustenance is not enough for even earthly
life. Impalpable spiritual elements must be mingled with "bread" if
life is not to decay. This, our chapter goes on to say, would be
plain to them if they would carefully consider God's dealing with
them in the wilderness, for the sending of the manna was meant to
emphasise and bring home to them that very truth. It was meant, in
short, to convey a double lesson--the direct one above referred to,
and the more remote but deeper one which had been asserted in the
first verse.

In the Temptation narrative the same deeper meaning is surely
implied. The temptation suggested to Jesus was that He should use
the miraculous powers given to Him for special purposes to make
stones into bread for Himself. Now that would have been precisely
an instance of the literal primary meaning of our passage; it would
have been a case of supplying the absence of bread by the use of the
creative word of God. To meet that temptation and to put it aside
our Lord uses these words: "It is written, Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God." Thereupon He was no more importuned to supply the place of
bread by a creative word. The implication is that the life of the
Son of God found sustenance in spiritual strength derived from His
Father. In other words, the passage is really parallel to John iv.
31 ff: "In the mean while the disciples prayed Him, saying, Rabbi,
eat. But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not. The
disciples therefore said one to another, Hath any man brought Him to
eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that
sent Me, and to accomplish His work." Understanding it thus, the
Temptation passage is entirely in accord with that from which it is
quoted, if the first and third verses be taken together. Both teach
that abundance of material resources, all that visibly sustains the
material life, is not sufficient for the life of such a creature
as man. Not only his inner life, but his outer life, is dependent
for its permanence upon the inflow of spiritual sustenance from the
spiritual God. For animals, bread might be enough; but man holds of
both the spiritual and the material as animals do not. It is not
mere mythical dreaming when man is said to be made in the image of
God; it expresses the essential fact of his being. Consequently,
without inbreathings from the spiritual, even his physical life
pines and dies. But how wonderful is this insight in a writer so
ancient, belonging to so obscure a people as the Jews! How can we
account for it? There was nothing in their character or destiny as
a people to explain it, apart from the supernatural link that binds
them and their thoughts at all times to the coming Christ, and draws
them, notwithstanding all aberrations, even when they know it not,
towards Him.

How great an attainment it is we may see, if we reflect for a moment
upon the state of Christian Europe at the present day. Nowhere
among the masses of the most cultured nations is this deeply simple
truth accepted by the vast majority of men. Nowhere do we find that
history has succeeded in bringing it home to the conscience as a
commonplace. The rich or well-to-do cling to riches, the means of
material enjoyment, as if their life did consist in the abundance
of things they possess. They strive and struggle for them with an
industry, a forethought, a perseverance, which would be justified
only if man could live by bread alone. That is largely the condition
of those who have bread in abundance or hope to gain it abundantly.
With those who do not have it the case is perhaps even worse. Worn
and fretted by the hopeless struggle against poverty, driven wild
by the exigencies of a daily life so near starvation point that a
strike, a fall in prices, a month's sickness, bring them face to
face with misery, the toiling masses in Europe have turned with a
kind of wolfish impatience upon those who talk of God to them, and
demand "bread." As a German Socialist mother said publicly some
years ago, "He has never given me a mouthful of bread, or means to
gain it: what have I to do with your God?" Their only hope for the
future is that they may eat and be full; and of this they have made
a political and religious ideal which is attracting the European
working classes with most portentous power.

In all countries men are passionately asserting that man _can_ live
by bread alone, and that he will. For this dreadful creed increasing
numbers are prepared to sacrifice all that humanity thought it had
gained, and shut their ears to any who warn them that, if they had
all they seek, earth might be still more of a Pandemonium than they
think it at present. But they have much excuse. They have never
had wealth so as to know how very little it can do for the deepest
needs of men; and their faith in it, their belief that if they were
assured of a comfortable maintenance all would be right with the
world, is pathetic in its simplicity. Yet the secret that is hid
to-day from the mass of men was known among the small Israelite
people two thousand five hundred years ago. Since then it has formed
the very keynote of the teaching of our Lord; but save by the
generations of Christians who have found in it the key to much of
the riddle of the world it has been learned by nobody.

Yet history has never wearied in proclaiming the same truth. Israel
as we have seen, had verified it in the history of the pre-Canaanite
races whose disappearance is recorded in the first section of our
book, and in the doom which was impending over the Canaanites. But
to our wider experience, enriched by the changes of more than two
thousand years, and by the still more striking vicissitudes of
ancient days revealed by archæology, the fact that intelligence of
the highest kind, practical skill, and the courage of conquerors
cannot secure "life," is only more impressively brought home.
If we go back to the pre-Semitic empire of Mesopotamia, to what
is called the Akkadian time, we find that, before the days of
Abraham, a great civilisation had arisen, flourished for more than
one thousand years, and then decayed so utterly that the very
language in which its records were written had to be dealt with
by the Semites, who inherited the former culture, as we deal with
Latin. Yet these early people had made a most astonishing advance
into the ocean of unknown truth. They had invented writing; they
had elaborate systems of law and social life; they had in other
directions made remarkable discoveries in science, especially in
mathematical and astronomical science, and had built great cities in
which the refinement and art of modern times was in many directions
anticipated. In all ways they stood far higher above neighbouring
peoples than any civilised nation of Europe stands now in comparison
with its neighbours. But if they were at all inclined to put their
trust in the immortality of science, if they ever valued themselves,
as we do, on the strength of the advances they had made, time
has had them in derision. Very much of what they knew had to be
rediscovered painfully in later times. Their very name perished out
of the earth; and it has been discovered now to make them an object
of abiding interest only to the few who make ethnology their study.
Neither material wealth and comfort nor assiduous culture of the
mind could save them. For their religion and morals were, amid all
this material success, of the lowest type. They heard little of
what issues from the mouth of God in the specially Divine sphere of
morality, and did not give heed to that little, and they perished.
For man does not live by bread alone, but by that also, and neglect
of it is fatal.

It may be said that they flourished for more than a thousand years,
and neglect of the Divine word, if it be a poison, must (as Fénélon
said of coffee) be a very slow one, so far as nations are concerned.
But it has always been a snare to men to mistake the Divine patience
for Divine indifference and inaction. The movement, though to us
creatures of a day it seems slow, is as continuous, as crushing,
and as relentless as the movement of a glacier. "The mills of God
grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small," and all along the
ages they have thrown out the crushed and scattered fragments of
the powers that were deaf to the Divine voice. So persistently has
this appeared that it would by this time have passed beyond the
region of faith into that of sight, were it not always possible to
ignore the moral cause and substitute for it something mechanical
and secondary. The great world-empires of Egypt and Assyria passed
away, primarily owing to neglect of the higher life. Secondarily,
no doubt, the ebbs and flows of their power, and their final
extinction, were influenced by the course of the Indian trade; and
many wise men think they do well to stop there. But in truth we
do not solve the difficulty by resting in this secondary cause;
we only shift it a step backwards. For the question immediately
arises, Why did the trade change its course from Assyria to Egypt,
and back again from Egypt to Assyria? Why did a rivulet of it flow
through the land of Israel in Solomon's day and afterwards cease?
The answer must be that it was when the character of these various
nations rose in vigour by foresight and moral self-restraint that
they drew to themselves this source of power. They "lived," in fact,
by giving heed to some word of God. Nor does the history of Greek
supremacy in Europe and Asia, or the rise and fall of the Roman
Empire, contradict that view. The modern historian, whatever his
faith or unfaith may be, is driven to find the motive power which
wrought in these stupendous movements in the moral and spiritual
sphere. This transforms history from being merely secular into a
Bible, as Mommsen finely says,[63] "And if she cannot any more than
the Bible hinder the fool from misunderstanding and the devil from
quoting her, she too will be able to bear with and to requite them
both." She utters her voice in the streets, and in the end makes her
meaning clear. For she gives us ever new examples.

  [63] _History of Rome_, vol. iv., Part II., p. 467.

Probably her grandest object-lesson at present is the wasting
and paralysis that is slowly withering up all Mohammedan states.
Where they have been left to themselves, as in Morocco and Persia,
depopulation and the break-up of society has come upon them, and
where Muslim populations are really prospering it is under the
influence of Christian Powers. And the reason is plain. Islam is
a revolt from, and a rejection of, the higher principles of life
contained in Christianity, and a return to Judaism. But the Judaism
to which it returned had already lost its finest bloom. All that was
left to it of tenderness or power of expansion Islam rejected, and
of the driest husks of Old Testament religion it made its sole food.
Naturally and necessarily, therefore, it has been found inadequate.
It cannot permanently live under present conditions, and it is
capable of no renewal. Here and there, especially in India, attempts
to break out of the prison house which this system builds around
its votaries are being made, but in the opinion of experts like
Mr. Sell[64] they cannot succeed. "Such a movement," he tells us,
"may elevate individuals and purify the family life of many, but it
will, like all reform movements of the past, have very little real
effect on Islam as a polity and as a religion." If he be right, we
learn from a Mohammedan whom he quotes, the Naual Mulisin-ul-Mulk,
what alone can be looked for. "To me it seems," he says, "that as a
nation and a religion we are dying out; our day is past, and we have
little hope of the future." More conspicuously and deliberately
perhaps than any one did Mohammed choose to go back from the best
light that shone in the world of his day. Some at least of his
contemporaries knew what a spiritual religion meant. He was guilty,
therefore, of the "great refusal"; and his work, great as it was,
seems to some even of his own disciples to be hastening to its end.
Material success, bread in all senses, the kingdoms founded by him
and his successors had in abundance, and still might have. But man
cannot live by that alone, and the absence of the higher element has
taken even that away.

  [64] _Contemporary Review_, August 1893 p. 293.

In Christendom, too, the same lesson is being taught. Of all
European countries France perhaps is that where the corroding
power of materialistic thought has been most severely felt. Yet
few countries are so rich in material wealth, and if bread was
all that "life" demanded, no country should be so full of it. But
it is in no sense so. Even its intellectual life is drooping, and
its population, if not decreasing, is standing still. This, all
serious writers deplore; and the dawn of what may perhaps be a new
era is seen in the earnestness with which the sources of this evil
are sought out and discussed. Men like the Vicomte de Vogüé[65]
depict the new generation as weary of negations, sick of the
material positivism of their immediate predecessors, disgusted with
"realism," which, as another recent writer defines it, "in thought
is mere provincialism, in affection absolute egoism, in politics the
deification of brute force; in the higher grades of society tyranny;
in the lower, unbridled licence." And the only cure is faith and
moral idealism. "Society can apply to itself to-day," says De Vogüé,
"the beautiful image of Plotinus; it resembles those travellers
lost in the night, seated in silence on the shore of the sea,
waiting for the sun to rise above the billows." In Germany similar
conditions have produced similar though much mitigated results. Yet
even there, Lange, the historian of materialism, tells us that there
runs through all our modern culture a tendency to materialism, which
carries away every one who has not found somewhere a sure anchor.
"The ideal has no currency; all that cannot prove its claim on the
basis of natural science and history is condemned to destruction,
though a thousand joys and refreshments of the masses depend upon
it." He concludes by saying that "ideas and sacrifices may still
save our civilisation, and change the path of destructive revolution
into a path of beneficent reforms." Through all history, then, and
loudest in our own day, the cry of our passage goes up; and where
the path marked out by the faith of Israel, and carried to its goal
by Jesus Christ, has been forsaken, the peoples are resting in
hungry expectation. Words from the mouth of God can alone save them;
and if the Churches cannot make them hear, and no new voice brings
it home to them, there would seem to be nothing before them but a
slower or quicker descent into death.

  [65] "_Heures d'Histoire._"

But it may be that the nations are deaf to the Churches' voice
because these have not learned thoroughly that life for them too
is conditioned in the same fashion. They can live truly, fully,
triumphantly only when they take up and absorb "everything that
issues from the mouth of God." All Christians must admit this;
but most proceed at once to annul what they have stated by the
limitations of meaning they impose upon it. An older generation
vehemently affirmed this faith, meaning by it every word and letter
which Scripture contained. We do not find fault with what they
assert, for the first necessity of spiritual life is the study and
love of the Holy Scriptures. No one who knows what the higher life
in Christ is, needs to be told that the very bread of life is in
the Bible. Neglect it, or, what is perhaps worse, study it only
from the scientific and intellectual point of view, and life will
slowly ebb away from you, and your religion will bring you none of
the joy of living. Bring your thoughts, your hopes, your fears,
and your aspirations into daily contact with it, and you will feel
a vigour in your spiritual nature which will make you "lords over
circumstance." Every part of it contributes to this effect when it
is properly understood, for experience proves the vanity of the
attempt to distinguish between the Bible and the word of God. As it
stands, wrought into one whole by labours the strenuousness, the
multiplicity, the skill, and the religious spirit of which we are
only now coming to understand, it is the word of God; it has issued
from His mouth, and from it, searched out and understood, the most
satisfying "bread" of the soul must come. Only by use of it can the
Christian soul live. But though the Bible is the word of God _par
excellence_, it is not the only word that issues from the mouth of
God to man. Because the Church has often too much refused to listen
to any other word of God, those who are without are "sitting looking
out over the sea towards the west for the rising of the sun which
is behind them." For if it is death to the spirit to turn away from
Scripture, it means sickness and disease to refuse to learn the
other lessons which are set for us by the God of truth. All true
science must contain a revelation of Him, for it is an exposition
of the manner of His working. History too is a Bible, which has
been confirming with trumpet tongue the truths of Scripture as we
have seen. Nay, it is a commentary upon the special revelation
given to us through Israel, set for our study by the Author of
that revelation. Further, we may say that the progress of our
Christian centuries has shown us heights and depths of wisdom in the
revelation mankind has received in Christ which, without its light,
we should not have known.

The spirit of Christ in regard to slavery, for instance, was made
manifest fully only in our day. The true relations of men to each
other, as conceived by our blessed Lord, are evidently about to be
forced home upon the world by the turmoils, the strikes, and the
outrages, by the wild demands, and the wilder hopes which are the
characteristic of our epoch. In the future, too, there must lie
experiences which will make manifest to men the brand which the
spirit of Christ puts upon war, with its savagery and its folly.
These are only noteworthy instances of the explanation of revelation
by the developments of the Divine purpose in the world. But in
countless ways the same process is going on, and the Church which
refuses to regard it is preparing a decay of its own life. For man
lives by _every_ word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and
every such word missed means a loss of vitality. The Christian
Church, therefore, if it is to be true to its calling, should be
seriously watchful lest any Divinely sent experience should be lost
to it. It cannot be indifferent, much less hostile, to discoveries
in physical science; it cannot ignore any fact or lesson which
history reveals; it cannot sit apart from social experiments, as if
holding no form of creed in such things, without seriously impairing
its chances of life. For all these things are pregnant with most
precious indications of the mind of God, and to turn from them is
to sit in darkness and the shadow of death. In the most subtle
and multifarious way, the inner spiritual life of man is being
modified by the discoveries of scientists, historians, philologists,
archæologists, and critics, and by the new attention which is being
given to the foundations of society and social life. All the truth
that is in these discoveries issues from the mouth of God. They too
are a Bible, as Mommsen says, and if the Christian Church cannot
"hinder the fool from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting
them," it can itself listen with open ear to these teachings, and
work them into coherent unity with the great spiritual Revelation.
This is the perennial task which awaits the Church at every stage of
its career, for on no other terms can it live a healthy life.

Here we find the answer to timid Christians who address petulant
complaints to those who are called to attempt this work. If, say
they, these new thoughts are not essential to faith, if in the forms
to which we have been accustomed the essence of true religion has
been preserved, why do you disturb the minds of believers by outside
questions? The reply is that we dare not refuse the teaching which
God is sending us in these ways. To refuse light is to blaspheme
light. Though we might save our generation some trouble by turning
our back upon this light, though we might even save some from
manifest shipwreck of faith, we should pay for that by sacrificing
all the future, and by rendering faith impossible perhaps for
greater multitudes of our successors.

Yet this does not imply that the Church is to be driven about by
every wind of doctrine. Some men of science demand, apparently, that
every new discovery, in its first crude form, should be at once
adopted by the Church, and that all the inferences unfavourable
to received views of religion, which occur to men accustomed to
think only truths that can be demonstrated by experiment, should
be registered in its teachings. But such a demand is mere folly.
The Church has in its possession a body of truth which, if not
verifiable by experiment, has been verified by experience as no
other body of truth has been. Even its enemies being judges, no
other system of a moral or spiritual kind has risen above the
horizon which can for a moment be compared with Christianity as
the guide of men for life and death.[66] Through all changes of
secular thought, and amid all the lessons which the world has taught
the Church, the fundamental doctrines have remained in essence
the same, and by them the whole life of man, social, political,
and scientific, has ultimately been guided. Immense practical
interests have therefore been committed to the Church's keeping,
the interests primarily of the poor and the obscure. She ought
never to be tempted, consequently, to think that she is moving
and acting in a vacuum, or manage her affairs after the manner of
a debating society. It is no doubt a fault to move too slowly;
but in circumstances like that of the Church, it can never be so
destructive to the best interests of mankind as to move with wanton
instability. Her true attitude must be to prohibit no lines of
inquiry, to open her mind seriously to all the demonstrated truths
of science with gladness, to be tolerant of all loyal effort to
reform Christian thought in accordance with the new light, when
that has become at all possible. For her true food is everything
that issues from the mouth of God; and only when she receives with
gratitude her daily bread in this way also, can her life be as
vigorous and as elevated as it ought to be.

  [66] Cf. Lange, _Geschichte des Materialismus_, vol. ii., pp. 510,
  528.




CHAPTER XII

_ISRAEL'S ELECTION, AND MOTIVES FOR FAITHFULNESS_

DEUT. ix-xi.


The remaining chapters of this special introduction to the statement
of the actual laws beginning with chapter xii., contain also an
earnest insistence upon other motives why Israel should remain true
to the covenant of Yahweh. They are urged to this, not only because
life both spiritual and physical depended upon it, as was shown
in the trials of the wilderness, but they are also to lay it to
heart that in the conquests which assuredly await them, it will be
Yahweh alone to whom they will owe them. The spies had declared, and
the people had accepted their report, that these peoples were far
mightier than they, and that no one could stand before the children
of Anak. But the victory over them would show that Yahweh had been
among them like a consuming fire, before which the Canaanite power
would wither as brushwood in the flame.

Under these circumstances the thought would obviously lie near that,
as they had been defeated and driven back in their first attempt
upon Canaan because of their unrighteousness and unbelief, so they
would conquer now because of their righteousness and obedience.
But this thought is sternly repressed. The fundamental doctrine
which is here insisted on is that Israel's consciousness of being
the people of God must at the same time be a consciousness of
complete dependence upon Him. If His gifts were ultimately to be
the reward of human righteousness, then obviously that feeling of
complete dependence could not be established. They are to move
so completely in the shadow of God that they are to see in their
successes only the carrying out of the Divine purposes. Instead
of feeling fiercely contemptuous of the Canaanites they destroy,
because they stand on a moral and spiritual height which gives them
a right to triumph, the Israelites are to feel that, while it is
for wickedness that the Canaanite people are to be punished, they
themselves had not been free from wickedness of an aggravated kind.
Their different treatment, therefore, rests upon the fact that
they are to be Yahweh's chosen instruments. In the patriarchs he
chose them to become the means, the vehicle, by which salvation and
blessing were to be brought to all nations. While, therefore, the
evil that comes upon the peoples they are to conquer is deserved,
the good they themselves are to receive is equally undeserved. That
which alone accounts for the difference is the faithfulness of God
to the promises He made for the sake of His purposes. He needs an
instrument through which to bless mankind. He has chosen Israel
for this purpose, partly doubtless because of some qualities, not
necessarily spiritual or moral, which they have come to have, and
partly because of their historical position in the world. These
taken together make them at this precise moment in the history of
the world's development the fittest instruments to carry out the
Divine purpose of love to mankind. And they are elected, made to
enter into more constant and intimate communion with God than other
nations, on that account. In the words of Rothe, "God chooses or
elects at each historical moment from the totality of the sinful
race of mankind that nation by whose enrolment among the positive
forces which are to develop the kingdom of God the greatest possible
advance towards the complete realisation of it may be attained,
under the historical circumstances of that moment." Whether that
completely covers the individual election of St. Paul, as Rothe
thinks, or not, it certainly precisely expresses the national
election of the Old Testament, and exhausts the meaning of our
passage. Israelite particularism had universality of the highest
kind as its background, and here the latter comes most insistently
to its rights.

It was not only the election of Israel to be a peculiar people
which depended upon the wise and loving purpose of God; the
providences which befell them also had that as their source. To
fit them for their mission, and to give them a place wherein they
could develop the germs of higher faith and nobler morality which
they had received, Yahweh gave them victory over those greater
nations, and planted them in their place. This, and this only,
was the reason of their success; and with scathing irony the
author of Deuteronomy stamps under his feet (ix. 7 ff.) any claim
to superior righteousness on their part. He points back to their
continuous rebellions during the forty years in the wilderness.
From the beginning to the end of their journey towards the promised
land, they are told, they have been rebellious and stiff-necked
and unprofitable. They have broken their covenant with their God.
They have caused Moses to break the tables of stone containing the
fundamental conditions of the covenant, because their conduct had
made it plain that they had not seriously bound themselves to it.
But the mercy of God had been with them. Notwithstanding their sin,
Yahweh had been turned to mercy by the prayer of Moses (vv. 25 ff.),
and had repented of His design to destroy them. A new covenant was
entered into with them (chap. x.) by means of the second tables,
which contained the same commands as were engraven on the first. The
renewal, moreover, was ratified by the separation of the tribe of
Levi (x. 8 ff.) to be the specially priestly tribe, "to bear the Ark
of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister
unto Him and to bless in His name." From beginning to end it was
always Yahweh, and again Yahweh, who had chosen and loved and cared
for them. It was He who had forgiven and strengthened them; but
always for reasons which reached far beyond, or even excluded, any
merit on their part.

The grounds of Moses' successful intercession for them (ix. 25 ff.)
are notable in this connection. They have no reference at all to
the needs, or hopes, or expectations of the people. These are all
brushed aside, as being of no moment after such unfaithfulness as
theirs had been. The great object before his mind is represented
to be Yahweh's glory. If this stiff-necked people perish, then
the greatness of God will be obscured and His purposes will be
misunderstood. Men will certainly think, either that Yahweh,
Israel's God, attempted to do what He was not able to do, or that
He was wroth with His people, and drew them out into the wilderness
to slay them there. It is God's purpose with them, God's purpose
for the world through them, which alone gives them importance.
Were it not for that, they would be as little worth saving as they
have deserved to be saved. For his people, and, we may be sure,
for himself, Moses recognises no true worth save in so far as he
or they were useful in carrying out Divine purposes of good to the
world. Nor is the absence of any plea on Israel's behalf, that it is
miserable or unhappy, due merely to a desire to keep the rebellious
people in the background for the moment, and to appeal only to the
Divine self-love for a pardon which would, on the merits of the
case, be refused. It is the God of the whole earth, before whom "the
inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers," who is appealed to;
a God removed far above the petty motives of self-interested men,
and set upon the one great purpose of establishing a kingdom of God
upon the earth into which all nations might come. If His glory is
appealed to, that is only because it is the glory of the highest
good both for the individual and for the world. If fear lest doubt
should be cast upon His power is put forward as a reason for His
having mercy, that is because to doubt His power is to doubt the
supremacy of goodness. If the Divine promise to the patriarchs is
set forth here, it is because that promise was the assurance of the
Divine interest in and Divine love of the world.

Under such circumstances it would need a very narrow-hearted
literalism, such as only very "liberal" theologians and critics
could favour, to reduce this appeal to a mere attempt to flatter
Yahweh into good-humour. It really embodies all that can be said
in justification of our looking for answers to prayer at all; and
rightly understood it limits the field of the answer as strictly as
the expressed or implied limitations of the New Testament, viz. that
effectual prayer can only be for things according to the will of
God. Moreover it expresses an entirely natural attitude towards God.
Before Him, the sum of all perfections, the loving and omniscient
and omnipresent God, what is man that he should assert himself in
any wise? When the height and the depth, the sublimity and the
comprehensiveness of the Divine purpose is considered, how can a
man do aught save fall upon his face in utter self-forgetfulness,
immeasurably better even than self-contempt? The best and holiest
of mankind have always felt this most; and the habit of measuring
their attainments by the faithfulness and knowledge, the virtue and
power which is in God, has impressed some of the greatest minds and
purest souls with such humility, that to men without insight it
has seemed mere affectation. But the pity, the condescension, the
love of Christ has so brought God down into our human life, that
we are apt at times to lose our awe of God as seen in Him. Were we
children of the spirit we should not fall into that sin. We cannot,
consequently, be too frequently or too sharply recalled to the more
austere and remote standpoint of the Old Testament. For many even
of the most pious it would be well if they could receive and keep a
more just impression of their own worthlessness and nullity before
God.

In the section from the twelfth verse of chapter x. to the end of
chapter xi. the hortatory introduction is summed up in a final
review of all the motives to and the results of obedience and love
to God. The fundamental exhortation as to love to God is once more
repeated; only here fear is joined with love and precedes it; but
the necessity of love to God is expanded and dwelt upon, as at
the beginning, with a zeal that never wearies. The Deuteronomist
illustrates and enforces it with old reasons and new, always
speaking with the same pleading and heartfelt earnestness. He does
not fear the tedium of repetition, nor the accusation of moving
in a narrow round of ideas. Evidently in the evil time when he
wrote this love towards God had come to be his own support and his
consolation; and it had been revealed to him as the source of a
power, a sweetness, and a righteousness which could alone bring the
nation into communion with God. In affecting words resembling very
closely the noble exhortation in Micah vi., "He hath showed thee,
O man, what is good; and what doth Yahweh require of thee, but to
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"
he teaches much the same doctrine as his contemporary: "And now,
Israel, what doth Yahweh thy God require of thee, but to fear Yahweh
thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve
Yahweh thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the
commandments of Yahweh and His statutes which I command thee this
day for thy good?"[67]

  [67] Chap. x. 12.

In spirit these passages seem identical; but it is held by many
writers on the Old Testament that they are not so, that they
represent, in fact, opposite poles of the faith and life of Israel.
Micah is supposed by Duhm, for instance, to mean by his threefold
demand that justice between man and man, love and kindliness
and mercy towards others, and humble intercourse with God are,
in _distinction from sacrifice_, true religion and undefiled.
Robertson Smith also considers that these verses in Micah contain
a repudiation of sacrifice. In Deuteronomy, on the contrary, fear
and love of God and walking in His ways are placed first, but they
are joined with a demand for the heartfelt service of God and
the keeping of His statutes as about to be set forth. Now these
certainly include ritual and sacrifice. The one passage, written
by a prophet, excludes sacrifice as binding and acceptable service
of God; the other, written perhaps by a priest, certainly by a
man upon whom no prophetic lessons of the past had been lost,
includes it. To use the words of Robertson Smith in discussing
the requisites of forgiveness in the Old Testament, "According
to the prophets Yahweh asks only a penitent heart and desires no
sacrifice; according to the ritual law, He desires a penitent heart
approaching Him in certain sacrificial sacraments."[68] The author
of Deuteronomy teaches the second view; the author of Micah chap.
vi., who is probably his contemporary, teaches the former. How is
such divergence accounted for? The answer generally made is that
Deuteronomy was the product of a close alliance between priests
and prophets. A common hatred of Manasseh's idolatry and a common
oppression had brought them together as never perhaps before. With
one heart and mind they wrought in secret for the better day which
they saw approaching, and Deuteronomy was a reissue of the ancient
Mosaic law adapted to the prophetic teaching. It represented a
compromise between, or an amalgamation of, two entirely distinct
positions.

  [68] _Old Testament in Jewish Church_, 2nd edition, p. 308.

But even on this view it would follow that from the time of Josiah,
when Deuteronomy was accepted as the completest expression of
the will of God, the doctrine that ritual and sacrifice as well
as penitence were essential things in true religion was known,
and not only known but accepted as the orthodox opinion. Putting
aside, then, the question whether sacrifice was acknowledged by the
prophets before this or not, they must have accepted it from this
point onward, unless they denied to Deuteronomy the authority which
it claimed and which the nation conceded to it. Jeremiah clearly
must have assented to it, for his style and his thought have been so
closely moulded on this book that some have thought he may have been
its author. In any case he did not repudiate its authority; and all
the prophets who followed him must have known of this view, and also
that it had been sanctioned by that book which was made the first
Jewish Bible.

We have here, at all events, the keynote of the supremacy of moral
duty over Divine commands concerning ritual which distinguishes
the prophetic teaching in Micah and elsewhere, joined with the
enforcement of ritual observances. But there are few purely
prophetic passages which raise the higher demand so high as it is
raised here.

To love and fear God are anew declared to be man's supreme duties,
and the author presses these home by arguments of various kinds.
Again he returns to the election of Israel by Yahweh, without
merit of theirs; and to bring home to them how much this means, the
Deuteronomist exhibits the greatness of their God, His might, His
justice, and His mercy, which, great as it is to His chosen people,
is not confined to them, but extends to the stranger also. This most
gracious One they are to serve by deeds, to Him they are to cleave,
and they are to swear by Him only, that is, they are solemnly to
acknowledge Him to be their God in return for His undeserved favour.
For their very existence as a nation is a wonder of His power, since
they were only a handful when they went down to Egypt, and now were
"as the stars of heaven for multitude."

Then once more, in chapter xi., he repeats his one haunting thought
that love is to be the source of all worthy fulfilment of the law;
and he endeavours to shed abroad this love to God in their hearts
by reminding them once more of all the marvels of their deliverance
from Egypt, and of their wilderness journey. Their God had delivered
them first, then chastised them for their sins, and had trained them
for the new life that awaited them in the land promised to their
fathers.

Even in the security of the land they were to find themselves not
less dependent upon God than before. Rather their dependence would
be more striking and more impressive than in Egypt. As we have
seen repeatedly, this inspired writer belonged in many respects
to the childhood of the world, and the people he addressed were
primitive in their ideas. Yet his thoughts of God in their highest
flight were so essentially true and deep, that even to-day we
can go back upon them for edification and inspiration. But here
we have an appeal based upon a distinction which to-day should
have almost entirely lost its meaning. The Deuteronomist yields
quite simply and unreservedly to the feeling that the regular,
unvarying processes of nature are less Divine, or at least are less
immediately significant of the Divine presence, than those which
cannot be foreseen, which vary, and which defy human analysis. For
he here contrasts Egypt and Canaan, in both of which he represents
Israel as having been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and speaks
as if in the former all depended upon human industry and ingenuity,
and might be counted upon irrespective of moral conduct, while in
the latter all would depend upon Divine favour and a right attitude
towards God. It is quite true that in preceding chapters he has been
teaching that, even for worldly material success, the higher life is
necessary, that man nowhere lives by bread alone; and that we may
assuredly assume is his deepest, his ultimate thought. But he has
a practical end in view at this moment. He wishes to persuade his
people, and he appeals to what both he and they felt, though in the
last resort it might hardly perhaps be justified. In Egypt, he says,
your agricultural success was certain if only you were industrious.
The great river, of which the land itself is the gift, came down in
flood year after year, and you had only to store and to guide its
waters to ensure you a certain return for your labour. You had not
to look to uncertain rains, but could by diligence always secure
a sufficiency of the life-giving element. In Canaan it will not
be so. It "drinketh water only of the rain of heaven." God's eye
has to be upon it continually to keep it fertile, and the sense of
dependence upon Him will force itself upon you more constantly and
powerfully in consequence. They could hope to prosper only if they
never forgot, never put away His exhortations out of their sight.
Otherwise, he says, the life-giving showers will not fall in their
due season. Your land will not yield its fruits, and "ye shall
perish quickly off the good land which Yahweh giveth you."

Now what are we to say of this appeal? There can be no doubt
that the Divine omnipotence was really, in the Deuteronomist's
view as well as in ours, as irresistible in Egypt as in Canaan.
Fundamentally, no doubt, life or death, prosperity or adversity,
were as much in the hand of God in the one case as in the other; and
the Deuteronomist, at least, had no doubt that rebellion against
God could and would destroy Egypt's prosperity as much as Canaan's.
But he felt that somehow there was a tenderer and more intimate
communion of love between Yahweh and His people under the one set
of circumstances than under the other. We are not entitled to
impute to him a questionable distinction which modern minds are apt
to make, viz. that where long experience has taught men to regard
the course of providence as fixed, there the sphere of prayer for
material benefit ends, and that only in the region where the Divine
action in nature seems to us more spontaneous, and less capable of
being foreseen, can prayer be heartily, because hopefully, made.
But the feeling that suggests that was certainly in his mind. He
felt the difference between the fixed conditions of life in Egypt
and the more variable conditions in Canaan, to be much the same as
the difference between the circumstances of a son receiving a fixed
yearly allowance from his father, in an independent and perhaps
distant home, and those of a son in his father's house, who receives
his portion day by day as the result and evidence of an ever-present
affection. Both are equally dependent upon the father's love, and
both should theoretically be equally filled with loving gratitude.
But as a fact, the latter would be more likely to be so, and would
be held more guilty if he were not so. Upon that actual fact the
Deuteronomist takes his stand. As they were now to enter into
Yahweh's land, His chosen dwelling-place, he sees in the different
material conditions of the new country that which should make the
union between Yahweh and His people more intimate and more secure,
and He presses home upon them the greater shame of ingratitude, if
under such circumstances they should forget God and His laws.

Finally (xi. 22-25) he promises them the victorious extension of
their dominion if they will love Yahweh and keep His laws. From
Lebanon to the southern wilderness, from the Euphrates to the
western sea, they should rule, if they would cleave unto their God.
At no time was this promise fulfilled save in the days of David
and Solomon. For only then had Lebanon and the wilderness, the
Euphrates and the sea, been the boundaries of Israel. This must,
then, be regarded as the time of Israel's greatest faithfulness.
But it is striking that it is in Josiah's day, after the adoption
of Deuteronomy as the national law, that we meet with a conscious
effort to realise this condition of things once more. There would
seem to be little doubt that the good king took an equally literal
view of what the book commanded and of what it promised. He
inaugurated a period of complete external compliance with the law,
and like the young and inexperienced man he was, he regarded that
as the fulfilment of its requirements, and looked for a similar
instantaneous fulfilment of the promises. Bit by bit he had absorbed
the ancient territory of the Northern Kingdom; and in the decay of
the Assyrian power he saw the opportunity for the enlargement of his
dominion to the limit here defined. He consequently went out against
Pharaoh Necho in the full confidence that he would be victorious.
But if the Divine promise and its conditions were taken up too
superficially by him, Divine providence soon and terribly corrected
the error. The defeat and death of Josiah revealed that the
reformation had not been real and deep enough, and that the nation
was not faithful enough to make such triumph possible. Indeed, so
far as we can see, the time for any true fulfilment of Israel's
calling in that fashion had then passed by. The harvest was past,
and Israel was not saved, and could not now be saved, for it was in
its deepest heart unfaithful.

It may be questioned by some, of course, whether an Israel faithful
even in the highest degree could at any time have kept possession
of so wide a dominion in the face of the great empires of Assyria
and Egypt. These were rich, and had a far larger command both
of territory and men: how then could the Israelites ever have
maintained themselves in face of them? But the question is how to
measure the power of the higher ideas they held. It is not force
but truth that rules the world; and absolutely no limit can be set
to the possibilities which open out to a free, morally robust, and
faithful people, who have become possessed of higher spiritual ideas
than the peoples that surround them. Even in this sceptical modern
day the transformation as regards physical strength which takes
place when certain classes of Hindus become either Mohammedans or
Christians is so startling and so rapid that it appears almost a
miracle. As regards courage, too, it is even more rapid and equally
remarkable. The great majority of the struggles of nations are
fought out on the level of mere physical force and for material
ends, and the strongest and richest wins: but whenever a people
possessed of higher ideas and absolutely faithful to them does
appear, the opposing power, however great it may be in wealth
and numbers, is whirled away in fragments as by a tornado, or it
dissolves like ice before the sun. What Israel might have been,
therefore, had it been penetrated by the principles of the higher
religion, and been passionately true to it, can in no way be judged
by that which it actually was. Among the untried possibilities
which it was too unfaithful to realise, the possession of such an
empire as Deuteronomy promises would seem to be one of the least.

Our chapter sums up what precedes with the declaration on the part
of Yahweh, "See, I am setting before you this day a blessing and a
curse," according as they might obey or disobey the Divine command.
It is stated, in short, that the whole future of the people is to
be determined by their attitude to Yahweh and the commands He has
given them. In these two words "blessing" and "curse," as Dillmann
observes, He sets before them the greatness of the decision they are
called upon to make. Just as at the end of chapter iii. the vision
of Yahweh's stretched-out hand, which has strewn the world with the
wrecks and fragments of destroyed nations, is relied on to prepare
the people for contemplating their own calling, so here the gain or
loss which would follow their decision is solemnly set before them.
By Dillmann and others it is supposed that vv. 29 and 31, which
instruct the people to "lay the blessing upon Mount Gerizim and the
curse upon Mount Ebal," have been transferred by the later editor
from chapter xxvii., where they would come in very fittingly after
ver. 3. But whether that be so or not, they are evidently so far in
place here that they add to the solemnity with which the fate of the
nation in the future is insisted upon. Their "choice is brief and
yet endless"; it can be made in a moment, but in its consequence it
will endure.

But here a difficulty arises. Dr. Driver in his _Introduction_ says
of this hortatory section of our book that its teaching is that
"duties are not to be performed from secondary motives, such as fear
or dread of consequences; they are to be the spontaneous outcome of
a heart from which every taint of worldliness has been removed, and
which is penetrated by an all-absorbing sense of personal devotion
to God." Yet in these later chapters we have had little else but
appeals to the gratitude and hopes and fears of Israel. Chapters
viii. to xi. are wholly taken up with incitements to love and obey
God, because He has been immeasurably good to them, never letting
their ingratitude overcome His lovingkindness; because they are
wholly dependent upon Him for prosperity and the fertility of their
land; and because evil will come upon them if they do not. That
would seem to be the opposite of what Driver has declared to be the
informing spirit and the fundamental teaching of Deuteronomy.

Yet his view is the true one. Even if the Deuteronomist had added
these lower motives to attract and gain over those who were not
so open to the higher, that would not deprive him of the glory of
having set forth disinterested love as the really impelling power
in true religion. We are not required to lower our esteem of that
achievement, even if, like the reasonable and wise teacher he is, he
boldly uses every motive that actually influences men, whether it
should do so or not, to win them to the higher life. But it is not
necessary to suppose that he does so. His demand is that men shall
love Yahweh their God with all their heart and strength, and to
win them to that he sets forth what their God has revealed Himself
to be. Men cannot love one whom they do not know; they cannot
love one who has not proved himself lovable to them. As his whole
effort is to get men to love God, and show their love by obedience
to His expressed will, the Deuteronomist brings to mind all His
loving thoughts and acts towards them, and so continually keeps
his appeal at the highest level. He does not ask men to serve God
because it will be profitable to them, but because they love God;
and he endeavours to make them love God by reciting all His love and
friendliness and patience to His people, and by pointing out the
evil which His love is seeking to ward off. The plea is not the
ignoble one that they must serve Yahweh for what they can gain by
it, but that they should love Yahweh for His love and graciousness,
and that out of this love continual obedience should flow as a
necessary result. That is his central position; and if he points
out the necessary results of a refusal to turn to God in this way,
he does not thereby set forth slavish fear or calculating prudence
as in themselves religious motives. They are only natural and
reasonable means of turning men to view the other side. He uses them
to bring the people to a pause, during which he may win them by the
love of God. That is always the true appeal; and Christianity when
it is at its finest can do nothing but follow in this path. Having
before his mind the results of evil conduct, he does urge men to
escape from the wrath that may rest upon them. But the only means so
to escape is to yield to the love of God. No self-restraint dictated
by fear of consequences, no turning from evil because of the lions
that are seen in the path, satisfies the demand of either Old
Testament or New Testament religion. Both raise the truly religious
life above that into the region of self-devoting love; and they both
deny spiritual validity to all acts, however good they may be in
themselves, which do not follow love as its free and uncalculating
expression. Yet they both deal with men as rational beings who can
estimate the results of their acts, and warn them of the death which
must be the end of every other way of supposed salvation. In this
manner they keep the path between extremes, ignoring neither the
inner heart of religion nor winding themselves too high for sinful
men.

How hard it is to keep to this reasonable but spiritual view is seen
by popular aberrations both within and without the Church. At times
in the history of the Church Christian teachers have allowed their
minds to be so dominated by the terror of judgment that judgment
has seemed to the world to be the sole burden of their message. As a
reaction from that again, other teachers have arisen who put forward
the love of God in such a one-sided way as to empty it of all its
severe but glorious sublimity; as if, like Mohammed, they believed
God was minded mainly "to make religion easy" unto men. Outside the
Church the same discord prevails. Some secular writers praise those
religions which declare that a man's fate is decided at the judgment
by the balance of merit over demerit in his acts; while others mock
at any judgment, and commit themselves with a light heart to the
half-amused tolerance of the Divine good-nature. But the teaching
which combines both elements can alone sustain and bear up a worthy
spiritual life. To rely upon terror only, is to ignore the very
essence of true religion and the better elements in the nature of
man; for that _will_ not be dominated by fear alone. To think of
the Divine love as a lazy, self-indulgent laxity, is to degrade the
Divine nature, and to forget that the possibility of wrath is bound
up in all love that is worthy of the name.

One other point is worthy of remark. In these chapters, which
deal with the history of God's chosen people in their relations
with Him, there come out the very elements which distinguish the
personal religion of St. Paul. The beginning and end of it all is
the free grace of God. God elected His people that they might be
His instrument for blessing the world, not because of any goodness
in them, for they were perverse and rebellious, but because He had
so determined and had promised to the fathers. He had delivered
them from the bondage of Egypt by His mighty power, and dwelt among
them thenceforth as among no other people. He gave them a land to
dwell in, and there as in His own house He watched and tended them,
and strove to lead them upwards to the height of their calling
as the people of God by demanding of them faith and love. It is a
very enlightening remark of Robertson Smith's that the deliverance
out of Egypt was to Israel in the Old Testament what conversion is
to the individual Christian according to the New Testament. Taking
that as our starting-point, we see that the thought of Deuteronomy
is precisely the thought of Romans. It is said, and truly enough,
that the Pauline theology was a direct transcript of Paul's own
experience; but we see from this that he did not need to form the
moulds for his own fundamental thoughts. Long before him the author
of Deuteronomy had formed these, and they must have been familiar
to every instructed Jew. But the recognition of this is not a loss
but a gain. If St. Paul had founded a theory of the universal action
of God upon the soul only on the grounds of his own very peculiar
experience, it might be argued that the basis of his teaching had
been too personal to permit us to feel sure that his view was
really as exhaustive as he thought. We see, however, that what he
experienced the Deuteronomist had long before traced in the history
of his people; and most probably he would not have traced it with
so firm a hand had he not himself had experience of a similar kind
in his personal relations with God. This method of conceiving the
relation of God to the higher life of man, therefore, is stated
by the Scriptures as normal. The free grace of God is the source
and the sustainer of all spiritual life, whether in individuals or
communities. Ultimately, behind all the successful or unsuccessful
efforts of the human heart and will, we are taught to see the great
Giver, waiting to be gracious, willing that all men should be saved,
but acting with the strangest reserves and limitations, choosing
Israel among the nations, and even within Israel choosing _the_
Israel in whom alone the promises can be realised. Made to serve by
human sin, He waits upon the caprices of the wills He has created.
He does not force them; but with compassionate patience He builds
up His Holy Temple of such living stones as offer themselves, and
"without haste as without rest" prepares for the consummation of His
work in the redemption of a people that shall be all prophets, a
kingdom of priests, a holy nation unto whom all nations shall join
themselves when they see that God is in them of a truth. That is
the Old Testament conception of the source, and guarantee, and goal
of all spiritual life in the world, and St. Paul's view is merely
a more mature and definite form of the same thing. And wherever
spiritual life has manifested itself with unusual power, the same
consciousness of utter unworthiness on the part of man, and entire
dependence upon the grace and favour of God, has also manifested
itself. The intellectual difficulties connected with this view,
great as they are, have never suppressed it; the pride of man and
his faith in himself have not been able permanently to obscure it.
The greater men are, the more entirely do they dread any approach to
that self-exaltation which puts away as unnecessary the Divine hand
stretched out to them. As Dean Church points out,[69] "not Hebrew
prophets only, but the heathen poets of Greece looked with peculiar
and profound alarm upon the haughty self-sufficiency of men."
Nothing can, they think, ward off evil from the man who makes the
mistake of supposing, even when carrying out the Divine will, that
he needs only his own strength of brain and will and arm to succeed,
that he is accountable to no one for the character which he permits
success to build up within him.

  [69] _Cathedral Sermons_, p. 26.

Even the agnostic of to-day, as represented by Professor Huxley,
cannot do without some modicum of "grace" in his conception of
man's relation to the powers of nature, though to admit this is to
run a rift of inconsistency through his whole system of thought.
"Suppose," he says in his _Lay Sermons_, "it were perfectly certain
that the life and future of every one of us would, one day or other,
depend on his winning or losing a game at chess.... The chessboard
is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the
rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on
the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always
fair, just, patient. But we know to our cost that he never overlooks
a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man
who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that overflowing
generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength, and one
who plays ill is checkmated without haste, but without remorse. My
metaphor will remind you of the famous picture in which the Evil
One is depicted playing a game of chess with man for his soul.
Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong
angel, playing, as we say, for love, and who would rather lose than
win, and I should accept it as the image of human life." Even in a
world without God, therefore, the facts of life suggest "justice,"
"patience," "generosity," and a pity which "would rather lose than
win." With all the inexorable rigour and hardness of man's lot there
is mingled something that suggests "grace" in the power that rules
the world; and from the Deuteronomist to St. Paul, from Augustine
to Calvin and Professor Huxley, the resolutely thorough thinkers
have found, in the last analysis, these two elements, the rigour of
law and the election of grace, working together in the moulding of
mankind.

The statement of these facts in Deuteronomy is as thorough as any
that succeeded it. The rigour of law could not be more precisely
and pathetically declared than in this insistence on the blessing
or the curse which must inevitably follow right choice or wrong.
But the tenderness of grace could not be more attractively displayed
than in this picture of Yahweh's dealings with Israel. Love never
faileth here, no more than elsewhere. It persists, notwithstanding
stiff-necked rebellion, and in spite of coarse materialism of
nature. Even a childish fickleness, more utterly trying than any
other weakness or defect, cannot wear it out. But inexorable
blessing or curse is blended with it, and helps to work out the
final result for Israel and mankind. That is the manner of the
government of God, according to the Scriptures. History in its long
course as known to us now confirms the view; and the author of
Deuteronomy, in thus blending love and law together in the end of
this great exhortation, has rested the obligation to obedience on a
foundation which cannot be moved.




CHAPTER XIII

_LAW AND RELIGION_

DEUT. xii.-xxvi.


With this section (chapters xii.-xxvi.) we have at length reached
the legislation to which all that has gone before is, in form at
least, a prelude. But in its general outline this code, if it can
be so called, has a very unexpected character. When we speak of a
code of laws in modern days, what we mean is a series of statutes,
carefully arranged under suitable heads, dealing with the rights
and duties of the people, and providing remedies for all possible
wrongs. Then behind these laws there is the executive power of
the Government, pledged to enforce them, and ready to punish any
breaches of them which may be committed. In most cases, too,
definite penalties are appointed for any disregard or transgression
of them. Each word has been carefully selected, and it is understood
that the very letter of the laws is to be binding. Every one tried
by them knows that the exact terms of the laws are to be pressed
against him, and that the thing aimed at is a rigorous, literal
enforcement of every detail. Tried by such a conception, this
Deuteronomic legislation looks very extraordinary and unintelligible.

In the first place, there is very little of orderly sequence in
it. Some large sections of it have a consecutive character; but
there is no perceptible order in the succession of these sections,
and there has been very little attempt to group the individual
precepts under related heads. Moreover in many sections there is no
mention of a penalty for disobedience, nor is there any machinery
for enforcing the prescriptions of the code. There is, too, much in
it that seems rather to be good advice, or direction for leading
a righteous life, a life becoming an Israelite and a servant of
Yahweh, than law. For instance, such a prescription as this, "If
there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of
thy gates, in thy land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee, thou shalt
not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother,"
can in no sense be treated as a law, in the hard technical sense of
that word. It stands exactly on a level with the exhortations of the
New Testament, _e.g._ "Be not wise in your own conceits," "Render
to no man evil for evil," and rather sets up an ideal of conduct
which is to be striven after than establishes a law which must be
complied with. There is no punishment prescribed for disobedience.
All that follows if a man do harden his heart against his poor
brother is the sting of conscience, which brings home to him that he
is not living according to the will of God. In almost every respect,
therefore, this Deuteronomic code differs from a modern code, and in
dealing with it we must largely dismiss the ideas which naturally
occur to us when we speak of a code of laws. Our conception of that
is, clearly, not valid for these ancient codes; and we need not be
surprised if we find that they will not bear being pressed home
in all their details, as modern codes must be, and are meant to
be. Great practical difficulties have arisen in India, Sir Henry
Maine assures us, from applying the ideas of Western lawyers to
the ancient and sacred codes of the East. He says that the effect
of a procedure under which all the disputes of a community must
be referred to regular law-courts is to stereotype ascertained
usages, and to treat the oracular precepts of a sacred book as
texts and precedents that must be enforced. The consequence is that
vague and elastic social ordinances, which have hitherto varied
according to the needs of the people, become fixed and immutable,
and an Asiatic society finds itself arrested and, so to speak,
imprisoned unexpectedly within its own formulas. Inconsistencies
and contradictions, which were never perceived when these laws
were worked by Easterns, who had a kind of instinctive perception
of their true nature, became glaring and troublesome under Western
rule, and much unintentional wrong has resulted. May it not be
that the same thing has happened in the domain of literature in
connection with these ancient Hebrew laws? Discrepancies, small and
great, have been the commonplace of Pentateuch criticism for many
years past, and on them very far-reaching theories have been built.
It may easily be that some of these are the result rather of our
failure to take into account the elastic nature of Asiatic law, and
that a less strained application of modern notions would have led to
a more reasonable interpretation.

But granting that ordinary ancient law is not to be taken in our
rigorous modern sense, yet the fact that what we are dealing with
here is Divine law may seem to some to imply that in all its details
it was meant to be fulfilled to the letter. If not, then in what
sense is it inspired, and how can we be justified in regarding it
as Divinely given? The reply to that is, of course, simply this,
that inspiration makes free use of all forms of expression which
are common and permissible at the time and place at which it utters
itself. From all we know of the Divine methods of acting in the
world, we have no right to suppose that in giving inspired laws
God would create entirely new and different forms for Himself. On
the contrary, legislation in ancient Israel, though Divine in its
source, would naturally take the ordinary forms of ancient law.
Moreover in this case it could hardly have been otherwise. As has
already been pointed out, a large part of the Mosaic legislation
must have been adopted from the customs of the various tribes who
were welded into one by Moses. It cannot be conceived that the laws
against stealing, for example, the penalties for murder, or the
prescriptions for sacrifice, can have been first introduced by the
great Lawgiver. He made much ancient customary law to be part and
parcel of the Yahwistic legislation by simply taking it over. If so,
then all that he added would naturally, as to form, be moulded on
what he found pre-existing. Consequently we may apply to this law,
whether Divinely revealed or adopted, the same tests and methods
of interpretation as we should apply to any other body of ancient
Eastern law.

Now of ancient Eastern codes the laws of Manu are the nearest
approach to the Mosaic codes, and their character is thus stated by
themselves (chap. i., ver. 107): "In this work the sacred law has
been fully stated, as well as the good and bad qualities of human
actions and the immemorial rule of conduct to be followed by all."
That means that in the code are to be found ritual laws, general
moral precepts, and a large infusion of immemorial customs. And its
history, as elicited by criticism, has very interesting hints to
give us as to the probable course of legal development in primitive
nations. It is sometimes said that the results of the criticism
of the Old Testament, if true, present us with a literature which
has gone through vicissitudes and editorial processes for which
literary history elsewhere affords absolutely no parallel. However
that may be as regards the historical and prophetical books, it is
not true with regard to the legal portions of the Pentateuch. The
very same processes are followed in Professor Buhler's Introduction
to his translation of the _Laws of Manu_, forming Vol. XXV. of
_The Sacred Books of the East_, as are followed in the critical
commentaries on the Old Testament law codes. Pages lxvii. _seq._ of
Buhler's Introduction read exactly like an extract from Kuenen or
Dillmann; and the analysis of the text, with its resultant list of
interpolations, runs as much into detail as any similar analysis
in the Old Testament can do. Moreover the conjectures as to the
growth of Manu's code are, in many places, parallel to the critical
theories of the growth of the Mosaic codes. The foundation of Manu
is, in the last resort, threefold--the teaching of the Vedas, the
decisions of those acquainted with the law, and the customs of
virtuous Aryas. At a later time the teachers of the Vedic schools
gathered up the more important of these precepts, decisions, and
customs into manuals for the use of their pupils, written at first
in aphoristic prose, and later in verse. These, however, were not
systematic codes at all. As the name given them implies, they were
strings of maxims or aphorisms. Later, these were set forth as
binding upon all, and were revised into the form of which the _Laws
of Manu_ is the finest specimen.

In Israel the process would appear to have been similar, though much
simpler. It was similar; for though there are radical differences
between the Aryan and the Semitic mind which must not be overlooked,
the former being more systematic and fond of logical arrangement
than the latter, a great many of the things which are common to
Moses and Manu are quite independent of race, and are due to the
fact that both legislations were to regulate the lives of men at
the same stage of social advancement. But Manu was much later than
Moses. Indeed, as we now have them, the laws of Manu are as late as
the post-Ezraite Judaic code, and in temper and tone these two codes
very nearly resemble each other. Consequently the earlier codes
of the Pentateuch are simpler than Manu. When Israel left Egypt,
custom must have been almost alone the guide of life. Moses' task
was to promulgate and force home his fundamental truths; in this
view he must adopt and remodel the customary law so as to make it
innocuous to the higher principles he introduced, or even to make it
a vehicle for the popularising of them. So far as he made codes, he
would make them with that end. Consequently he would take up mainly
such prominent points as were most capable of being, or which most
urgently needed to be, moralised, leaving all the rest to custom
where it was harmless. This is the reason, too, most probably,
why the earlier codes are so short and so unsystematic. They are
selections which needed special attention, not complete codes
covering the whole of life. In fact the form and contents of all the
Old Testament codes can be accounted for only on this supposition.
As the codes lengthen, they do so simply by taking up, in a modified
or unmodified form, so much more of the custom; and under the
pressure of Yahwistic ideas these selected codes became more and
more weighted with spiritual significance and power.

That would seem to have been the process by which the inspired
legislators of Israel did their work; and if it be so, some of
the variations which are now taken to be certain indications
of different ages and circumstances may simply represent local
varieties of the same custom. Custom tends always to vary with the
locality within certain narrow limits. It would be quite in accord
with the general character of ancient customary law to believe
that, provided the law was on the whole observed, there would be no
inclination to insist upon excluding small local variations; and
equally so that in a collection like the Pentateuch the custom of
one locality should appear in one place, that of another in another.
In that case, to insist that a certain sacrifice, for example,
shall always consist of the same number of animals, and that any
variation means a new and later legislation on the subject, is
only to make a mistake. The discrepancy is made important only by
applying modern English views of law to ancient law. Professor A. B.
Davidson has shown in the Introduction to his _Ezekiel_ (p. liii.)
that this latter was probably Ezekiel's view. "On any hypothesis
of priority," he says, "the differences in details between him
(_i.e._ Ezekiel) and the law (_i.e._ P) may be easiest explained by
supposing that, while the sacrifices in general and the ideas which
they expressed were fixed and current, the particulars, such as the
kind of victims and the number of them, the precise quantity of
meal, oil, and the like, were held non-essential and alterable when
a change would better express the idea." The same principle would
apply to the differences between Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, _e.g._ the
omission of the feast of weeks and of the law of the offering of the
firstlings of the flock. If so, then obviously Ezekiel must have
thought that the previous ritual law was not meant to be as binding
as we make it.

But, as has already been remarked, this law was elastic in more
important matters; often, even when it seems to legislate, it is
only setting up ideals of conduct. Before we leave this subject an
example should be given, and the law of war may serve, especially if
we compare it with the corresponding section of Manu. The provisions
in Deuteronomy chap. xx. according to which on the eve of a battle
the officers should proclaim to the army that any man who had built
a new house and had not dedicated it, or who had planted a vineyard
and had not yet used the fruit of it, or who had betrothed a wife
and not yet taken her, or who was afraid, should retire from the
danger, as also the provisions that forbid the destruction of
fruit-trees belonging to a besieged city, cannot have been meant
as absolute laws. Yet that is no ground for supposing that they
could have been introduced only after Israel, having ceased to
be a sovereign state, waged no war, and that consequently they
are interpolations in the original Deuteronomy. For the similar
provisions of the laws of Manu were given while kings reigned, and
were addressed to men constantly engaged in war. Yet this is what we
find: "When he (the king) fights with his foes in battle, let him
not strike with weapons concealed (in wood), nor with (such as are)
barbed, poisoned, or the points of which are blowing with fire. Let
him not strike one who (in flight) has climbed on an eminence, nor a
eunuch, nor one who joins the palms of his hands (in supplication),
nor one (who flees) with flying hair, nor one who sits down, nor
one who says 'I am thine,' nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost
his coat of mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is disarmed,
nor one who looks on without taking part in the fight, nor one who
is fighting with another foe, nor one whose weapons are broken,
nor one afflicted (with sorrow), nor one who has been grievously
wounded, nor one who is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight;
but in all these cases let him remember the duty (of honourable
warriors)." With an exact and unremitting obligation to observe
these precepts war would be impossible, and we may be sure that in
neither case were they meant in that sense. They simply set forth
the conduct which a chivalrous soldier would desire to follow, and
would on fitting occasions actually follow; but by no means what
he must do, or else break with his religion. Only by hypotheses
like these can the form and the character of such laws be properly
explained, and if we keep them constantly in mind, some at least of
the difficulties which result from a comparison of the law and the
histories may be mitigated.

Such being the character of the Deuteronomic code, the question
has been raised whether its introduction and acceptance by Josiah
was not a falling away from the spirituality of ancient religion.
Many modern writers, supported by St. Paul's _dicta_ concerning
the law, say that it was. Indeed the very mention of law seems to
depress writers on religion in these days, and Deuteronomy appears
to be to them a name of fear. But whatever tendencies of modern
thinking may have brought this about, it is nevertheless true that
experience embodied in custom and law is the kindly nurse, not the
deadly enemy, of moral and spiritual life. Without law a nation
would be absolutely helpless; and it is inconceivable that at any
stage of Israel's history they were without this guide and support.
As we have seen, they never were. First they had customary law; then
along with that short special codes, _e.g._ the Book of the Covenant
and the Deuteronomic code; and even when the whole Pentateuchal
law as we have it had been elaborated, a good deal must still have
been left to custom. Consequently there was nothing so startling
and revolutionary in the introduction of Deuteronomy as many have
combined to represent. Indeed it is difficult to see how it altered
anything in this respect. Of all forms of law, customary law is
perhaps that which demands and receives most unswerving obedience.
Under it, therefore, the pressure of law was heavier than it could
be in any other form. It does not appear how the fact that those
observing it did not think of that which they obeyed as law, but
simply custom, altered the essential nature of their relation to
it. They were guided by ordinances which did not express their own
inward conviction, and were not a product of their own thought.
They obeyed ordinances from without, and these ought therefore
to have had the same effect upon the moral and spiritual life as
written laws. For they cannot be said to have regulated only civil
life. Religious life (even if the Book of the Covenant be Mosaic
or sub-Mosaic, as I believe; much more if it be post-Davidic,
as many say) must have been largely regulated by the customs of
Israel. If law then be in its own nature, as the antinomians tell
us, destructive of spontaneity and progress, if it necessarily
externalises religion, then there would have been as little room for
the religion of the prophets before Deuteronomy as after it.

But, as a matter of fact, no falling off in spirituality took place
after Deuteronomy. Wellhausen says that with law freedom came to
an end, and this was the death of prophecy. But he can support his
thesis only by denying the name of prophet to all the prophets after
Jeremiah. It is difficult to see the basis of such a distinction. It
is judged by this, if by nothing else--that it compels Wellhausen
to deny that the author of Second Isaiah is a prophet. That he
wrote anonymously is held to prove that he felt this himself. Now a
view so extraordinarily superficial has no root, and every reader
of that most touching and sublime of all the Old Testament books
will simply stand amazed at the depth of the critical prejudice
which could dictate such a judgment. If the post-Deuteronomic
prophets are not prophets, then there are no prophets at all, and
the whole discussion becomes a useless logomachy. But even if
Ezekiel and Second Isaiah and the rest are not prophets, they are
at least full of spiritual life and power, so that the decay of
spiritual religion which the adoption of Deuteronomy is supposed
to have brought about must be considered purely imaginary on that
ground also. And this contention is strengthened by the theories
of the critical school themselves. If the bulk of the Psalms, as
all critics incline to believe, or all of them, as some say, are
post-exilic, then the first centuries of the post-exilic period must
have been the most spiritually minded epoch in Israelite history.
The depth of religious feeling exhibited in the Psalms, and the
comprehension of the inwardness of man's true relation to God by
which they are penetrated, are the exact contrary of the externality
and superficiality which the introduction of written law is said to
have produced. So long as the Psalms were being written religious
life must have been vigorous and healthy, and to date the beginnings
of Pharisaic externalism from Josiah's day must consequently be an
error.

After what has been said it is scarcely necessary to discuss Duhm's
views of the opposition between prophecy and Deuteronomy. It will be
sufficient to ask how the latter can have turned against prophecy,
when it is in its essence an embodiment of prophetic principles in
law, and was introduced and supported by prophets. But, it may be
said, after all prophecy did decay, and ultimately die, and that too
during the period after Deuteronomy. Is there not in that admitted
fact a presumption that this law did work against prophecy? If so,
then it is more than met by the fact that the decay of spiritual
religion became noticeable only some centuries after this, and
that the immediate effect of Deuteronomy was rather to deepen and
intensify religion, and to keep it alive amid all the vicissitudes
of the Captivity and Return. Moreover the break-up of the national
life was sufficient to account for the slow decay and final
cessation of prophecy. From the first, prophecy had been concerned
with the building up of a nation which should be faithful to Yahweh.
Its main function had been to interpret and to foretell the great
movements and crises of national life--to read God's purpose in
the great world-movements and to proclaim it. With Israel's death
as a nation the field of prophecy became gradually circumscribed,
and ultimately its voice ceased. Consequently, though in the main
the final cessation of prophecy was connected with the rise of
externalism in religion and with the great decay of spiritual life
in the two or three centuries before Christ, the destruction of the
nation would account for the feebleness of prophecy during a period
when the inner spiritual life was flourishing as it flourished after
Deuteronomy. Moreover, as religion became more inward and personal,
prophecy, in the Old Testament sense, had less place. Though in New
Testament times spiritual life and spiritual originality and power
were more present than at any time in the world's history, prophecy
did not revive. In the whole New Testament there is not one purely
prophetic book save the Revelation, and that is apocalyptic more
than simply prophetic; and though there was an order of prophets in
the early Church, if they had any special function other than that
of preachers their office soon died out. If then the denationalising
of religion and its growth in individualism and inwardness in New
Testament times prevented the revival of prophecy, we may surely
gather that the same things, and not the introduction of written
law, brought it to an end in the Old Testament.

Nor does St. Paul's judgment as to the meaning and use of law,
in Galatians, when rightly understood, contradict this. No doubt
he seems to say that the Mosaic law by its very nature as law is
incompatible with grace, that it necessarily stands out of relation
to faith, and that its principle is a purely external one, so much
wages for so much work. Further, he clearly regards it as having
been interpolated into the history of Israel between the promises
given to Abraham and the fulfilment of them in the redemption by
Christ, and as having served only to increase sin and to drive men
thus to Christ. But when he says this he is replying mainly to the
Pharisaic view of the law which was represented by the Judaizers,
and finds himself all the more at home in refuting it that it was
his own view before he became a Christian. According to that view,
the whole law, both the moral and ceremonial provisions of it, was
necessary to obtain moral righteousness, and the mere doing of the
legally prescribed things gave a claim to the promised reward. So
interpreted, law had all the evil qualities he states, and stood
in absolute hostility to grace and faith, the great Christian
principles. The only difficulty is that St. Paul does not say, as we
should expect him to do, that originally the law was not meant to
be so regarded. He seems to admit by his silence that the Pharisaic
view of the law was the right one. But if he does, he cannot have
meant to include Deuteronomy. For there law is made to have its root
and ground in grace. It is given to Israel as a token of the free
love of God, and it is a law of life which, if kept, would make
them a peculiar people unto God. Further, love to God is to be the
motive from which all obedience springs, so that this law is bound
up with both grace and faith. But the probability is that St. Paul
admits the Pharisaic view only because it is that view with which
alone he has to contend in the case in hand. For in Romans vii. he
gives us quite another conception of the Mosaic law.[70] There he is
thinking of it mainly from an ethical point of view, and he regards
it as full of the Spirit of God, as a norm of moral life which not
only continues to be valid in Christianity, but which finds in the
Christian life the very fulfilment which it was intended to have.
It presses home too the moral ideal upon the man with extraordinary
power, and marks and emphasises the terrible divergence between
his aspirations and his actual performance. This is a much higher
office than that which he assigns to law in Galatians; and hence
one gathers that he is not speaking in Galatians exhaustively and
conclusively, but is condemning rather a way of regarding the Mosaic
law with which he had once sympathised than that law in its own
essential character. In its moral aspects, as represented by the
Decalogue, the law is of eternal obligation. From it comes the light
which brings to the Christian that moral unrest and dissatisfaction
which is one of God's Divinest gifts to His people. In this aspect,
the law is holy and just and good: instead of favouring the critical
view St. Paul leaves it without any fragment of real support.

  [70] Ritschl's _Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung_, vol. ii., pp. 311 ff.

Our conclusion is, therefore, that the antinomianism, which makes
the acknowledgment of Deuteronomy by Josiah and his people the
turning-point for the worse in the religious history of Israel,
is unfounded. The nation had always been under law, and previous
to Deuteronomy under even written law. This code was not in any
previously unheard-of way made the law of the kingdom. Its very
contents are conclusive against that view, for it contains much
that could not be enforced by the State. Instead of trying to do by
external means that which the persuasions of the prophets had failed
to do, Josiah and his people did just what they would have had to
do, when they became convinced that the prophetic principles ought
to be carried out. They made an agreement to follow these Divine
commands, these God-given principles, in actual life. But there is
no hint that they regarded Deuteronomy as the sum of the Divine
ordinances for the life of men. Indeed there are many references
to other Divine laws; and the priestly oracle remained, after
Deuteronomy as before it, a source of Divine guidance. Deuteronomy
therefore did not destroy prophecy; the post-exilic Psalms are proof
that it did not destroy spiritual life: and the Pauline view of the
law, in at least one series of passages, coincides entirely with the
view that law stated as it is stated in Deuteronomy may be one of
the mightiest influences to mould, and enrich, and deepen, moral and
spiritual life.




CHAPTER XIV

_LAWS OF SACRIFICE_

DEUT. xii.


It is a characteristic of all the earlier codes of law--the Book of
the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Code, and the Law of Holiness--that
at the head of the series of laws which they contain there should
be a law of sacrifice. Probably, too, each of the three had, as
first section of all, the Decalogue. The Book of the Covenant and
Deuteronomy undeniably have it so, and the earlier element which
forms the basis of Lev. xvii.-xxvi. not improbably had originally
the same form. If so, we may assume that the order of the precepts
has in a measure been determined by the order of the commandments.
On this account the laws for the cultus would naturally come first.
For just as the first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other
god before Me," and the second forbids all idolatrous images,
so the laws begin with provisions meant in the main to ward off
idolatry. Israel's great calling was to receive and to spread the
truth concerning God. That was the centre of the sacred deposit of
Divine and revealed truth committed to that nation; and it is most
instructive to see how, not only in historical statements, but even
in the form in which early Israelite legislation is handed down to
us, the Decalogue dominates all the details of it. It formulated
in as concrete a shape as was possible the Divine demand that
Israelites should love God and their neighbour, and _therefore_ the
legislative provisions and statutes begin with ordinances dealing
with sacrifice.

To us in modern times it may seem almost bathos to connect such an
antecedent with such a consequent; but it seems so, only because
we have difficulty in apprehending the meaning and importance of
sacrifice in primitive religion. For sacrifice had in Israel a
meaning and importance of its own, and a present value at every
period, which in no way depended upon its typical or prophetic
value as pointing forward to the sacrifice of Christ. It supplied
the religious needs of men even apart from the clearness of their
knowledge about its ultimate purpose. Sacrifice, especially in
its simplest meaning, was in heathenism absolutely essential as a
means of approach to God. To come before a great _man_ without a
gift was in ancient days an outrage. It was therefore inevitable
that men should approach their gods in the same manner. Sacrificial
gifts expressed the dependent's joy in a gracious lord, and also
the homage and reverence due from a subject to a king. Further, as
all good things were regarded as the gifts of the gods to their
worshippers, the sacrifices conveyed thanks for good gifts received,
and joined the gods and their worshippers by a common participation
in the Divine gift which connected them as eaters at the same
table. But sacrifices had a higher reach of expression even than
that. As they were brought to the gods they were the symbols of the
self-devotion of the offerer to the service of his god; and where
there was need of propitiation because of offence consciously given,
or offence felt by the deity for unknown reasons, these gifts took
on in some measure a reconciling or propitiatory quality.

Now the Old Testament sacrifices had in them, unquestionably, all
these elements: but as Yahweh was high above all heathen deities in
moral character, they also took on a depth and intensity of meaning
which they could never have on the soil of heathen religious
conceptions. Along this line of sacrificial ritual, therefore,
all the spiritual emotions of Israel flowed; and to hold that
sacrifice had no real place in the religion of Yahweh would be
almost equivalent to saying that neither love, nor penitence, nor
prayer, had any real place in it either. All these found utterance
in sacrifice and along with it; and it has yet to be shown that they
had any regular and acceptable utterance otherwise. To regulate
sacrifice and keep it pure must, therefore, have been one chief
means of guarding against the degradation of Yahweh to the level of
the gods of the heathen.

But there is another and very important reason for it. Both in the
days when Moses parted from his people, and also in the time of
Manasseh, the people stood confronted by very special danger just at
this point.

At the earlier period they were about to enter upon intimate contact
with the Canaanites, their superiors in culture and in all the arts
of civilised life, but corrupted to the core. Further, the Canaanite
corruption was focussed in their religious rites and worship, and
evil could not fail to follow if the people suffered themselves to
be drawn into any participation in it. For if Professor Robertson
Smith be right, the central point of ancient sacrifice was the
communion between the god and his worshippers in the sacrificial
feast. They became of one kin with each other and with the god, and
this close relationship made the communication of spiritual and
moral infection almost a certainty.

In Manasseh's day again it was natural that legislation on the
same subject, and warnings of even a more solemn kind, should be
repeated. A prophetic lawgiver writing at that date had before him,
not only the possibility of evil, but actual experience of it. The
laws and warnings of the earlier code had been defied and neglected.
The faith of the chosen people had been miserably perverted by
contact with the Canaanites; the whole history of prophecy had
been a struggle against corrupt and insincere worship; and now the
monstrous sacrifices to Moloch and the invasion of Assyrian idolatry
had degraded Yahweh and destroyed His people, so that scarce any
hope of recovery remained. In bracing himself for one more struggle
with this desperate corruption, the Deuteronomist naturally repeated
in deeper tones the Mosaic warnings. The command utterly to uproot
and trample under foot the symbols and instruments of Canaanite
worship, he brings, from the less prominent place it occupies in the
Book of the Covenant, to the first place in his own code. To break
with that and all other forms of idolatry, utterly and decisively,
had come to be the first condition of any upward movement. The
degrading and defiling bondage to idolatry into which his people had
fallen must end. With trumpet tongue he calls upon them to break
down the Canaanite altars, dash in pieces their obelisks, and burn
their Asherim with fire.

To some moderns it may seem that such excessive energy might, with
better effect, have been expended upon the denunciation of moral
evils, such as cruelty and lust and oppression, rather than of
idolatry. We have grown so accustomed to the distinctions drawn
by the Church of Rome, and in later times by the neo-classicists,
between worshipping God through an image or a picture, or in any
natural object or natural force, and the actual worship of the image
or picture or natural object itself, that we have sophisticated our
minds. But the author of Deuteronomy knew by bitter experience that
such subtle, and, in great part, sophistical distinctions had no
application to his people and his time. Their worst immoralities
were, he knew well, rooted in their idol-worship. For idolatry
in any form binds all that is highest in man to the sphere of
nature, _i.e._ of moral indifference. Just as a conception of God
which rigorously separated Him from nature, which made His will
the supreme impelling force in the world, and which conceived His
essential attributes to be entirely ethical, was the fountain of
the higher life in Israel, so a lapse into idolatry of any kind
was the negation of it all. No doubt some moral life would have
remained in Israel, even if the lapse had become universal. But,
even at its best, this natural morality of self-preservation has no
future and no goal. It does not lead the van of human progress; it
merely comes after, to ratify the results of it. Only when social
morality is taken up into a wider sphere than its own,--only when
it is conceived as the path by which man can co-operate with a
sublime purpose lying beyond himself,--can it maintain itself as
the inspiration of human life, impelling to progress and guiding
it.[71] Now, so far as history teaches, this energy of moral life
has been attained only where the conception of God which makes
moral perfection to be His essential nature has been accepted and
cherished. But no natural religion can rise to that; hence idolatry
must always be destructive of ethical religion. It must destroy
faith in the moral character of God.

  [71] Cf. Riehm, _Old Testament Theology_, p. 25.

Further, it must destroy the moral character of man. In the last
resort all idolaters are equally acceptable to their god, if
only they bring the prescribed gifts and accurately perform the
prescribed ceremonies. The lewd and the chaste, the cruel and
the merciful, the revengeful and the forgiving, are all equally
accepted when they sacrifice. Non-moral or positively immoral gods
can care nothing about such differences. Of this fact and its
results no man acquainted with the history of Israel could doubt.
The main zeal of the prophets was at all times directed against
those who were steeped in moral evil, but were zealous in all that
concerned sacrifice, and against the amazing folly of a people who
thought to bind the living God to their cause and their interests
by mere bribes, in the shape of thousands of bullocks and ten
thousand rivers of oil. This conception was bound up essentially
with idolatry. But the evil of it was intensified in the Semitic
idolatries with which Israel specially defiled itself. Their cruelty
and obscenity were unspeakable. Now by Israel's idolatry Yahweh was
made to appear tolerant of Moloch and Baal, as if they were equals.
Every quality which the Mosaic revelation had set forth as essential
to the character of Yahweh--His purity, His mercy, His truth--was
outraged by the society which His worshippers in Manasseh's days had
thrust upon Him. No reform, then, had the least chance of stability
till the axe was laid at the root of this wide-spreading upas tree.

Deuteronomy, therefore, grapples first and grapples thoroughly with
the evil, and strikes it a blow from which it was never to recover.
The inspired writer repeats with new energy the old decrees of utter
destruction against the Canaanite sanctuaries; for though these were
for the most part no longer in Canaanite hands, the High Places
still existed; and the principle of that old prohibition was more
clamant for recognition and realisation than it had ever been in the
history of Israel before.

Then he goes on to proclaim the new law, that no sacrifice should
any longer be offered save at the one central sanctuary chosen by
Yahweh. There is no such provision in the Book of the Covenant, and
there is no hint in the legislation of Deuteronomy that its author
knew of the Tabernacle and its sole right as a place of sacrifice.
From beginning to end of the code he never mentions the Tabernacle
nor the sacrifices there; and in the very terms in which he
permits the slaughter of animals for food in vv. 15, 16, and 20-25,
though he obviously repeals a custom which has been embodied in the
Priestly Code as a law (Lev. xvii. 3 ff.), he makes no reference
to that passage. Consequently this at least may be said, that he
may quite conceivably have been ignorant of Lev. xvii. 3 ff. In
ignorance of it, he might write as he has done; and if not ignorant,
it would be much more natural to refer to it. When we add to this
negative testimony the positive testimony of verses 8 and 13, which
we have already discussed in Chapter I., there would seem to be
little room for doubt that the priestly law on this subject was not
before the writer of Deuteronomy. Consequently we are justified in
regarding this as the first written law actually promulgated on this
subject. Hezekiah had attempted the same reform; but he had, so far
as we know, neither published nor referred to any law commanding it,
and his work was entirely undone. The Deuteronomist, more convinced
than he that this step was absolutely necessary to complete the
Mosaic legislation on idolatry, and filled with the same inspiration
of the Almighty, completed it; and though a reaction followed
Josiah's enforcement of this law also, its existence saved the life
of the nation. Its principles kept the nation holy, _i.e._ separate
to their God, during the Exile, and at the return they were dominant
in the formation of the "congregation."

Certainly there is no lack of earnestness in the way in which
these principles are urged. With that love of repetition which
is a distinguishing mark of this writer, he expresses the
commandment first positively, then negatively. Then he brings in
the consequential alteration in the law regarding the slaughtering
of animals for food. Again he returns to the command, explaining,
enlarging, insisting, and concludes with a reiteration of the
permission to slaughter. Efforts, of course, have been made to
show that this repetition is due to the amalgamation here of no
fewer than seven separate documents! But little heed need be given
to such fantastic attempts. It is, once for all, a habit of this
writer's mind to shrink from no monotony of this kind. There is
not one important idea in his book which he does not repeat again
and again; and where repetition is so constant a feature, and
where the language and thought is so consistent as it is here, it
is worse than useless to assert separate documents. The writer's
earnestness is sufficient explanation. He saw plainly that, so long
as the provincial High Places existed and were popular, it would
be impossible to secure purity of worship. The heathen conceptions
of the Canaanites clung about their ancient sanctuaries, and,
like the mists from a fever swamp, infected everything that came
near. Inspection sufficiently minute and constant to be of use
was impracticable; there remained nothing but to decree their
abandonment. When the whole worship of the people was centred at
Jerusalem, corruption of the idolatrous kind would, it was hoped,
be impossible. There, a pious king could watch over it; there,
the Temple priesthood had attained to worthier ideas in regard to
sacrifice and the fulfilment of the law than the priests elsewhere.
Josiah accordingly rigorously enforced this new law.

Such a change, aimed solely at religious ends, did not stop there.
In many ways it affected the social life of the people; in vv. 15,
16, and 20, 24, the author meets one hardship connected with the
new law, by allowing men to slay for food at a distance from the
altar. According to ancient custom, no flesh could be eaten by
any Israelite, save when the fat and the blood had been presented
at the altar. During the wilderness journey there would be little
difficulty regarding this. In the desert very little meat is eaten;
and so long as life was nomadic there would be no hardship in
demanding that those who wished to make sacrificial feasts should
wander towards the central place of worship rather than from it.
It has been disputed whether there was in those days a tabernacle
such as the Priestly Code describes; but there certainly was,
according to the earliest documents, a tent in which Yahweh revealed
Himself and gave responses. As we have seen, there must have been
sacrifice in connection with it; and though worship at other places
where Yahweh had made His name to be remembered was permitted,
this sanctuary in the camp must have had a certain pre-eminence. A
tendency, but according to the words of Deuteronomy nothing stronger
than a tendency, must have shown itself to make this the main place
of worship.

When the people crossed the Jordan into the land promised to the
fathers, and had abandoned the nomadic life, great difficulty must
have arisen. For those at a distance from the place where the
Tabernacle was set up, the eating of meat and the enjoyment of
sacrificial feasts would, by this ancient customary law, have been
rendered impossible, if the attendance at one sanctuary had been
obligatory. Only if men could come to local sanctuaries, each in his
own neighbourhood, could the religious character of the festivals at
which meat was eaten be preserved. The nature of men's occupations,
now that they had become settled agriculturists, and the dangers
from the Canaanites so long as they were not entirely subdued and
absorbed, alike forbade such long and frequent journeys to a central
sanctuary. The conquest must consequently at once have checked any
tendency to centralisation that may have existed; and there is
reason to believe that the acceptance of the Canaanite High Places
as sanctuaries of Yahweh was in great part caused by the demands
of this ancient law concerning the "zebhach." In any case it must
have helped to overcome any scruples that may have existed. But when
the Tabernacle and Ark were brought to Zion, and still more when
the Temple was built, the centripetal tendency, never altogether
dead, must have revived. For there was peace throughout the land and
beyond it. No danger from the Canaanites existed; and the political
centralisation which Solomon aimed at, and actually carried out,
as well as the superior magnificence of the Solomonic Temple and
its priests, must have attracted to Jerusalem the thoughts and the
reverence of the whole people. What Deuteronomy now makes law may
have then first arisen as a demand of the Jerusalem priests. At all
events, the very existence of the Temple must have been a menace to
the High Places; and we may be sure that among the motives which led
the ten tribes to reject the Davidic house, jealousy for the local
sanctuaries must have been prominent.

But the separation of the ten tribes would only strengthen the claim
of the Temple on Zion to be for Judah the one true place of worship.
The territory ruled from Jerusalem was now so small that resort to
the central sanctuary was comparatively easy. The glorious memories
of the Davidic and Solomonic time would centre round Jerusalem. Any
local sanctuaries would be entirely dwarfed and overshadowed by
the splendour and the, at least comparative, purity of the worship
there. Priests of local altars too must inevitably have sunk in
the popular estimation, and even in their own, to a secondary and
subordinate position, as compared with the carefully organised and
strictly graded Jerusalem priests. Even without a positive command,
therefore, the people of Judah must have been gradually growing
into the habit of seeking Yahweh at Jerusalem on all more solemn
religious occasions; and though the High Places might exist,
their repute in the Southern Kingdom must have been decreasing. Of
course if a command was given in the Mosaic time which had been
neglected, the tendencies here traced must have been stronger
and more definite than we have depicted them. When the prophetic
teachings of Isaiah which proclaimed Jerusalem to be "Ariel," the
"sacrificial hearth," or "the hearth of God," were so wondrously
confirmed by the destruction of Sennacherib's host before the city,
the unique position of Zion must have been secured; and after that
only those who were set upon idolatry can have had much interest
in the High Places. Hezekiah's effort to abolish these latter is
quite intelligible in these circumstances; and we may feel assured
that, as Wellhausen says,[72] "The Jewish royal temple had early
overshadowed the other sanctuaries, and in the course of the seventh
century they were extinct or verging on extinction."

  [72] Wellhausen, _History_, p. 420.

Along with this there must have grown up a measure of laxity in
regard to the provision that all slaughtering for food should take
place at the sanctuary. Many would doubtless go to Zion, many would
continue to resort to the High Places, and a number, from a mere
halting between two opinions, would probably take their "zebhachim"
to neither. Consequently the law before us would by no means be so
revolutionary as Duhm, for instance, pictures it. He says: "I do
not know if in the whole history of the world a law can be pointed
to which was so fitted to change a whole people in its innermost
nature and in its outward appearance, at one stroke, as this was.
The Catholic Church even has never by all her laws succeeded in
anything in the least like it." But we have seen evidence of a very
strong and continuous pressure to this point, at least in Judah.
History during centuries had justified and intensified it; so
that in all probability the true worshippers of Yahweh found in
the new law not so much a revolution as a ratification of their
already ancient practice. To idolaters, of course, its adoption
must have meant a cessation of their idolatry; but the change in
the people and in their life would, though extensive, be only such
as any ordinary reform would produce. Duhm overlooks altogether
the very small territory which the law affected. A long day's walk
would bring men from Jericho, from Hebron, from the borders of the
Philistine country, and from Shechem and Samaria to Jerusalem. If
Deuteronomy made a revolution, it must have been confined within the
modest limits of substituting a whole for a half-day's journey to
the Sanctuary.

Moreover it is a mistake to say that sacrifice at one central
sanctuary "took religion away from the people," as Duhm says. If
spiritual religion be meant, it ultimately brought religion more
vitally home to them. For when the priestly system was fully carried
out, the demands of household religion were met, as the post-exilic
Psalms show, by the adoption of the practice of household prayer
without reference to sacrifice, and finally by the institution
of the synagogue. A more spiritual method of approach to God was
substituted for a less spiritual in the remote places and in
the homes of the people. And the public worship even gained. It
became deeper, and more penetrated with a sense of the necessity
of deliverance from sin. It is true, of course, that in the end
Pharisaic legalism perverted the new forms of worship, as heathen
externalism had perverted the old. But in neither case was the
perversion a necessity. In both it was simply a manifestation of
the materialistic tendency which dogs the footsteps of even the
most spiritual religion, when it has to realise itself in the life
of man. It is enough for the justification of the whole movement
led by Josiah to say that it held the Judæan exiles together; that
it kept alive in their hearts, as nothing else did, their faith in
God and in their future; and that on their return it gave them the
form which their institutions could most profitably take. Further,
under the forms of religious and social life which this movement
generated, the true, heartfelt piety which the prophets so mourned
the want of became more common than ever it had been before.

The establishment of the central altar as the only one was the main
object of this law; but there is much to be learned from the very
terms in which this is expressed. They breathe the same love for man
and sympathy with the poor which forms one of the most attractive
characteristics of our book. The gracious bonds of family affection,
the kindly feeling that should unite masters and servants, the
helpfulness which ought to distinguish the conduct of the rich to
the poor, and above all the cheerful enjoyment of the results of
honest labour, are to be preserved and sanctified even in the ritual
of sacrifice. "Thou shalt rejoice before Yahweh in all that thou
puttest thine hand unto," is here the motto, if we may so speak, of
religious service. That, indeed, is to be made the opportunity for
the discharge of all humane and brotherly duties; and the religious
life is at its highest when the worshipper rejoices himself, and
shares and sheds abroad his joy upon others. The love of God is
here most intimately blended with love of the brethren. Masters
and servants, slaves and free, the high and the low, are to be
reminded of their equal standing in the sight of God, by their
common participation in the sacrificial meals; and the poorest are
to be permitted an equal enjoyment of the luxuries of the rich in
these solemn approaches to Yahweh. The Deuteronomist here reaches
the highest stage of religious life, in that he shows himself in
nowise afraid of human joy. As we have seen, he knows the value
of austerity in religion. He is well enough aware that war against
evil is not made with rose-water. But then he is equally far from
the extreme of suspecting all affection not directly turned to God,
of regarding natural gladness as a ruinous snare to the soul. This
finely balanced, this just attitude to all aspects of life, is a
most notable thing at this epoch in the history of the world, and
considering the circumstances of the time it is little short of
a marvel. It is true, of course, that the religion of Israel was
always finely human. It could run into excesses, and was marked by
many imperfections; but asceticism, the doctrine which holds pain
and self-denial to be in themselves good, when it did intrude into
Israel, always came from without. Nevertheless the heartiness and
thoroughness with which all gracious human feelings and all kindly
human relations are here taken up into religion is remarkable, even
in the Old Testament. More, perhaps, than anything else in this
book, it shows the sweetening and wholesome effect of demanding
supreme love to God as man's first duty. "If any man come to Me
and hate not his father and mother," says Christ, "he cannot be My
disciple,"[73] and many purblind critics have found this to be a
hard saying. But all who know men know, that when God in Christ is
made so much the supreme object of love that even the most sacred
human obligations seem to be disregarded in comparison, the human
affection so thrust into the background is only made richer far than
it otherwise could be.

  [73] Luke xiv. 26.




CHAPTER XV

_THE RELATION OF OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICE TO CHRISTIANITY_


But it may be asked, What is the relation of this Divinely
sanctioned ritual law of sacrifice to our religion in its present
phase? To that question various answers are being returned, and
indeed it may be said that on this point almost all the main
differences of Christians turn. The Church of Rome maintains in
essence the sacerdotal view of the later Old Testament times, though
in a spiritualised Christian shape, and to this the High Anglican
view is a more or less pronounced return. The Protestant Churches,
on the other hand, regard priests and sacrifices as anachronisms
since the death of Christ. In that, for the most part, they regard
the significance of sacrifice as being summed up and completed; and
the present dispensation is for them the realisation in embryo of
that which Old Testament saints looked forward to--a people of God,
every true member of which is both priest and prophet, _i.e._ has
free and unrestricted access to God, and is authorised and required
to speak in His name. The interest of Protestant Christians,
therefore, in priesthood and sacrifice in the Old Testament
sense, though very great and enduring, has no connection with the
continuation of sacrifice. They look upon the Old Testament ritual
as wholly obsolete now. It was simply a stage in the religious
development of the chosen people, and as such it has no claim to be
continued among Christians.

By a curious allegorical process, however, some devout Protestants
keep alive their interest in Old Testament ritual by finding in
it an elaborate symbolism covering the whole field of evangelical
theology. But this revivification of the old law is too arbitrary
and subjective, as well as too improbable, to have an abiding place
in Christianity. It is, moreover, useless for the guidance of life;
for all that is thus ingeniously put into the Levitical ordinances
is found more clearly and directly expressed elsewhere. The amount
of religious symbolism in the earlier stages of Israelite religion
is small, and very simple and direct. Even in the most elaborate
parts of the Levitical legislation, _e.g._ in the directions
regarding the Tabernacle, the purposely allegorical element is kept
within comparatively narrow limits; and we may boldly say that the
mind which delights in finding spiritual mysteries in every detail
of the sacrificial ritual is Rabbinical rather than Christian. On
the other hand we need not enter upon a discussion of the view held
by "Modern" or Broad Church theologians and by Unitarians, that
sacrifice was merely a heathen form taken over into Mosaism, that
it had no special significance there, and that the ideas connected
with it have absolutely no place in enlightened Christian theology.
The Christianity which attaches no sacrificial signification to the
death of Christ has, so far as I know, never shown itself to be a
type of religion able to create a future, and it is only with types
of Christianity that do and can live we have to do. Our question
here therefore is limited to this, Which of the two types of view,
the Roman Catholic or the Protestant, is truest to the Old Testament
teaching?

Externally, perhaps, the evidence seems to favour the Roman
Catholic position; for the prophets either directly say, or imply,
that sacrifice shall be restored with new purity and power in the
Messianic time. This is so patent a fact that it led Edward Irving
to say that it was the Old Testament economy that should abide,
and that of the New Testament which should pass away. But the
inner progress and development of Old Testament religion is quite
as decisively on the other side. As we have seen, Old Testament
piety had at the beginning almost no recognised expression save in
connection with sacrifice, and the Exile first trained the people
to faithfulness to God without it, sowing the seed of a religious
life largely separate from the sacrificial ritual. Then the
ordinance demanding sacrifice at one central altar, which, though
introduced by Deuteronomy, was made the exclusive law only by the
post-exilic community, furthered the growth of these germs, so that
they produced the synagogue system. This completed the severance
of the ordinary daily religion of the bulk of the people from
sacrificial ritual, so far as that was attained within the limits
of Judaism, and prepared the way for Pauline Christianity, in which
all allegiance to ritual Judaism is cast off. Now, as between the
external and internal evidence, there can be little doubt that the
latter has by far the greater weight, especially as the external
evidence can, perfectly well, be read in a different sense. The Old
Testament promises that sacrifice should be restored may be held
to have been fulfilled by the sacrificial death of Christ, which
completed and filled up all that had gone before. In that case the
evidence that sacrifice and ritual are now obsolete for Christians
is left standing alone, and the Protestant view is justified.

And the case for this view is strengthened immeasurably by observing
that the modern sacerdotalism has taken up as essential what was
the main vice of sacrificial worship in the old economy. That was,
as we have seen, the tendency to rest on the mere performance of
the external rite, without reference to the disposition of the
heart or even to conduct. Rivers of oil and hecatombs of victims
were thought sufficient to meet all possible demands on God's part,
and against this the polemic of the prophets is unceasing. Now in
almost all modern sacerdotalism the doctrine of the efficacy of
sacraments duly administered, apart from right dispositions in
either him who administers them or in him who receives them, has
been affirmed. It is not now, as it was in the "old time," an evil
tendency which had to be assiduously fought against, but which
could not be overcome. It is openly incorporated in the orthodox
teaching, and is distinctly provided for in the ideal of Christian
worship. That marks a considerable falling away from the prophetic
ideal: it can hardly be regarded as the appointed end of that great
religious movement which the prophets dominated and directed for so
long. The teaching of Deuteronomy certainly is, that wherever mere
external acts are supposed to have power to secure entrance into the
spiritual world of life and peace, there the character of God is
misconceived and religion degraded. What it demands is the inward
and spiritual allegiance of faithful men to God. What it depicts as
the essence of religious life is a set of the whole nature Godward,
as deep and irresistible as the set of the tides--

    "Such a tide as moving seems asleep,
        Too full for sound and foam."

Under no sacerdotal system can that view be unreservedly accepted,
and therein lies the condemnation of every such system. So far as it
is allowed to prevail, the force of the prophetic polemic has to be
ignored or evaded, and in greater or less degree the same spiritual
decay which the prophets mourned over in Israel must appear.

But it is not only where trust in the mere _opus operatum_ is
theoretically justified that it makes its baleful presence felt. It
may surreptitiously creep in where the door is theoretically shut
against it. The tendency is very deep-seated in human nature; and
many evangelical preachers, who repudiate all sacramentarianism, and
throw the full emphasis of Christian religious life upon grace and
faith, yet bring back again in subtler shape that very thing which
they have rejected. For example, instead of the reception of the
sacrament at the hands of ordained ministers, a man's acceptance
with God is sometimes made to depend upon a declaration of belief
that Christ has died for him, or that he has been redeemed and saved
by Christ. Wherever such statements are forced upon men, there is
a tendency to assume that a decisive step in the spiritual life is
taken by the mere utterance of them. The motives which actuate the
utterer are taken for granted; the existence of such a set of the
spiritual nature to God as Deuteronomy demands is supposed to be
proved by the mere spoken words; and men who cannot or will not say
such things glibly are unchurched without mercy. What is that but
the _opus operatum_ in its most offensive shape? But in whatever
shape it appears, the Deuteronomic demand for love to God, with the
heart and soul and strength, as essential to all true spiritual
service and sacrifice, condemns it. Love to God and men are the main
things in true religion. All else is subordinate and secondary.
Sacrifice and ritual without these are dead forms. That is the
Deuteronomic teaching, and by it, once for all, the true relation of
the cultus to the life is fixed.

Nevertheless the priestly and sacrificial system of the Old
Testament has even for Christians a present importance, for it is
an adumbration of that which was to be done in the death of Christ.
It has an unspeakable value, when rightly used, as an object-lesson
in the elements which are essential to a right approach to a Holy
God on the part of sinful men. Even in heathenism there were such
foreshadowings; and nothing is more fitted to exalt our views of the
Divine wisdom than to trace, as we can now do, the ways in which
man's seekings after God, even beyond the bounds of the chosen
people, took forms that were afterwards absorbed and justified in
the redeeming work of our Blessed Lord. For example, Professor
Robertson Smith says of certain ancient heathen piacular sacrifices,
"The dreadful sacrifice is performed, not with savage joy, but with
awful sorrow, and in the mystic sacrifices the deity himself suffers
with and for the sins of his people and lives again in their new
life." Now if we admit that he is not unduly importing into these
sacrifices ideas which are really foreign to them, surely awe is the
only adequate emotion wherewith a believer in Christ can meet such a
strange prophecy, in the lowest religion, of that which is deepest
in the highest.[74] The sacrificial system in general was founded,
in part at least, on belief in the possibility and desirability of
communion with God. In the sacrificial feasts this was supposed to
be attained, and the essential religious needs of mankind found
expression in much of the ritual. If the death of the god, and his
returning to life again in his people found a prominent place in
piacular sacrifices in various lands, that suggests that in some
dim way even heathen men had learned that sin cannot be removed and
forgiven without cost to God as well as to man, and that communion
in suffering as well as in joy is a necessary element of life with
God. The human heart, Divinely biassed, asserted itself in effort
after such association with Deity, and in the feeling that sin was
that element in life which it would make the highest demand upon the
Divine love to set effectively aside.

  [74] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xxi., p. 138.

But if such preparation for the fulness of the time was going on in
heathenism, if the mind and heart of man, driven forward by Divinely
ordered experience and its own needs, could produce such forecasts
in the ritual of heathen religion, we surely must admit that the
religious ritual in Israel had an even more intimate connection with
that which was to come. For we claim that in guiding the destinies
of Israel God was, in an exceptional manner, revealing Himself,
that among them He established the true religion, unfolded it in
their history, and prepared as nowhere else for the advent of Him
who should make real and objective the union of God and man. Here
consequently, if anywhere, we should expect to find the permanent
factors in religion recognised even in the forms of worship, and
the less permanent allowed to fall away. We should also expect the
ritual of the cultus to grow in depth of meaning with time, and that
it would more and more recognise the moral and spiritual elements
in life. Finally, we should expect that it would be the parent of
conceptions rising above and beyond itself, and more fully consonant
with the revelation given by Christ than anything in heathenism.

Now all these expectations would seem to have been fulfilled; and
it is reasonable to assume that those sacrificial ideas which
corresponded to the deepened consciousness of sin, and synchronised
apparently with the decay of Israel's political independence, are
rightly applied to the elucidation of the meaning of Christ's death.
Of course mistakes may be and have been made in the application of
this principle; the most common being that of forcing every detail
of the imperfect and temporary provision into the interpretation of
the perfect and eternal. Sometimes, too, the significance of the
life and coming of Christ are obscured by a too exclusive attention
to His sacrificial death. But the principle in itself must be sound,
if Christianity is in any sense to be regarded as the completion
and full development of the Old Testament religion. Besides the
immediate significance of sacrifice which the worshippers perceived
and by which they were edified, there was another significance
which belonged to it as a step in the long progress which had been
marked out for this people in the Divine purpose. Regarded from that
standpoint, the sacrifices, and the ritual connected with them, had
a meaning for the future also, were in fact typical of the final
sacrifice which would need to be offered only once for all. How
much of this was understood by the men of ancient Israel we have no
means of knowing. Some, doubtless, had a faint perception of it; but
at its clearest it was probably more a dissatisfaction with what
they had, leading them to look for some better sacrifice, than any
more definite understanding. But what they only dimly guessed was,
as we can now see, the inner meaning of all; and it is perfectly
legitimate to use both the provisional and the perfected revelations
to explain each other. On these grounds the New Testament freely
makes use of the ancient ritual to bring out the full significance
of the sacrifice of Christ.

No doubt a different view has to be reckoned with. Many say that
the whole of this typical reference is a begging of the question.
In the infancy of mankind sacrifice was a natural way of expressing
adoration and of seeking the favour of the gods. In the heathen
world it reached its highest manifestation in those piacular
sacrifices of which Robertson Smith speaks, but which nevertheless
were merely an outgrowth of Totemism. In Israel sacrifice was taken
up by the religion of Yahweh and embodied in it. The spiritual
forces which were at work in that nation used it as a means whereby
to express themselves; and when Christ came to complete the
revelation, His purely ethical and spiritual work was unavoidably
expressed in sacrificial terms. But that is no guarantee that
the essential thing in the work of Christ was sacrifice. On the
contrary, the sacrificial language used about it is of no real
importance. It is simply the natural and unavoidable form of
expression, in that place and at that time, for any spiritual
deliverance. In short, had there been really nothing sacrificial in
the death of Christ, the religious meaning and significance of it
would have been expressed in sacrificial language, for no other was
available. Consequently the presence of such language in the New
Testament does not prove that the sacrificial meaning belongs to
its main and permanent significance. The sacrificial idea, on this
view of things, belongs, both in Israel and in heathenism, to the
elements which Christianity superseded and did away with; and it is
consequently an anachronism to bring it in to explain and elucidate
anything done or taught under this new dispensation.

But such a view is singularly narrow, and unjust to the past. It
surely is more honouring to both God and man to suppose that the
capital religious ideas of the race, those ideas which have been
everywhere present and have been seen to deepen and refine with
every advance man has made, have permanent value. Moreover, on any
view, it is probable that in them the essential religious needs of
human nature have found expression. If so, we should expect that
they would in the end be met, and that the perfect religion, when it
did come, would not ignore but satisfy the demand which the nature
of man and the providence of God had originated and combined to
strengthen. Further, it is the very essence of the Scriptural view
of Christ that He perfected and carried to their highest power all
the essential features in the religious constitution of Israel. He
_was_ indeed the true Israel, and all Israel's tasks fell to Him.
As Prophet, Priest, and Messianic King alike, He excelled all His
predecessors, who were what they were only because they had, in
their degree, done part of the work which He was to come to finish.
Apart from the religion of the Old Testament, therefore, Christ
is unintelligible, and that, in turn, without Him, has neither a
progress nor a goal. Belief in a Divine direction of the world
would in itself be sufficient to forbid the separation of one from
the other. If so, it will follow that the sacrificial idea is
essential to the interpretation of our Lord's work. That idea grew
in complexity with the growth of the higher religion. It was at
its deepest when religious thought and feeling had done its most
perfect work; and on every principle of evolution we should expect
that, instead of disappearing at the next stage, it would, though
transformed, be more influential than ever. It is so if Christ's
death is regarded from the point of view of sacrifice; whereas,
if that is laid aside like a worn-out garment, it can never have
been anything anywhere but an excrescence and a superstition. That
has not been so; the essential ideas connected with sacrifice, and
forgiveness by means of it, were lessons Divinely taught in the
childhood of the world, to prepare men to understand the Divinest
mystery of history when it should be manifested to the world.




CHAPTER XVI

_LAWS AGAINST IDOLATROUS ACTS AND CUSTOMS_

DEUT. xiii., xiv.


Having thus set forth the law which was to crown and complete the
long resistance of faithful Israel to idolatry, our author goes on
to prohibit and to decree punishment for any action likely to lead
to the worship of false gods. He absolutely forbids any inquiry into
the religions of the Canaanites. "Take heed to thyself that thou
inquire not after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve
their gods? even so will I do likewise." All that was acceptable to
Yahweh was included in the law of Israel, and beyond that they were
on no account to go in their worship. "What thing soever I command
you, that shall ye observe to do: thou shalt not add thereto nor
diminish from it." But it should be observed that the inquiry here
forbidden has nothing in common with the scientific inquiries of
Comparative Religion in our time. Curiosity of that kind, supported
by the motive of discovering how religion had grown, was unknown
at that early age of the world, probably everywhere, certainly in
Israel. The only curiosity powerful enough to result in action then
was that which tried to learn how the ritual might be made more
potent in its influence over Yahweh by gathering attractive features
from every known religion. That was one of the distinguishing
characteristics of Manasseh's reign. The Canaanite religions, the
religions of Egypt and Assyria, were all laid under contribution;
and wherever there was a feature which promised additional power
with God or the gods, that was eagerly adopted. Israel had lost
faith in Yahweh, owing to the successes of Assyria. In unbelieving
terror men were wildly grasping at any means of safety. They
worshipped Yahweh, lest He should do them harm, but they joined with
Him the gods of their foes, to secure if possible their favour also.
Inquiry into other religions, with the intent of adopting something
from them which would make either Yahweh or the strange gods, or
both, propitious to them, was rife. Like the heathen population
who had been transported by Assyria into the territory of the ten
tribes, men "feared Yahweh, and served their graven images." All
that is here sternly condemned, and Judah is taught to look only
to the Divine commands for effective means of approach to their
God. The prohibition, therefore, does not import mere fanatical
opposition to knowledge. It is a necessary practical measure of
defence against idolatry; and only those can disapprove of it who
are incapable of estimating the value which the true religion in
its Old Testament shape had and has for the world. To preserve that
was the high and unique calling of Israel. Any narrowness, real or
supposed, which this great task imposed upon that people, is amply
compensated for by their guardianship of the spiritual life of
mankind.

But if inquiry into lower religions was forbidden, there could be
nothing but the sternest condemnation for those who had inquired,
and then endeavoured to seduce the chosen people. Deuteronomy,
therefore, takes three typical cases--first, seduction by one who
was respected because of high religious office, then seduction by
one who had influence because of close bonds of natural affection,
and lastly that of a community which would be likely to have
influence by force of numbers--and gives inexorably stern directions
how such evil is to be met. There can be little doubt that the
cases are not imaginary. In the evil days which the Deuteronomist
had fallen upon they were probably of frequent occurrence, and they
are, consequently, provided against as real and present evils.
Naturally the writer takes the most difficult case first. If an
Israelite prophet, with all his religious prestige as a confidant of
Yahweh, and still more with the prestige of successful prediction in
his favour, shall attempt to lead men to join other gods to Yahweh
in their worship--for that and not rejection of Yahweh for the
exclusive service of strange gods is almost certainly meant--then
they were not to listen to him. They were to fall back upon the
original principle of the Mosaic teaching as it was restated in
Deuteronomy, that Yahweh alone was to be their God. Some lynx-eyed
critics have discovered here the cloven hoof of legalism. They think
they see here the free spirit of prophecy, to which untrammelled
initiative was the very breath of life, subjected to the bondage
of written law, and so doomed to death. But probably such a mood
is unnecessarily elegiac. It is not to written law that prophecy
is subjected here. It is the actual life-principle of Yahwism in
its simplest form which prophecy is required to respect; that is,
ultimately, it is called upon simply to respect itself. Its own
existence depended upon faithfulness to Yahweh. If it had a mission
at all, it was to proclaim Him and to declare His character. If it
had a distinction which severed it from mere heathen soothsaying, it
was that it had been raised by the inspiration of Yahweh into the
region of "the true, the good, the eternal," and its whole power
lay in its keeping open the communication with that region. It is
therefore only the law of its own inner being to which prophecy is
here bound; and the people are instructed that, whatever reputation
or even supernatural power it might have attained to, it was to
be obeyed only when true to itself and to the faith. Nothing was
to make men stagger from that foundation. Not even the working
of miracles was to mislead the people, for only on the plane of
Yahweh's revelation had even miracle any worth. This is the sound
and wholesome doctrine of true prophecy, and other utterances on the
subject in our book must be taken in conjunction with it. Religious
faithfulness, not foretelling, is the essence of it, and by that the
prophet is to be inexorably judged. If any prophet, therefore, leads
men to strange gods, his character and his powers only make him more
dangerous and his punishment more inexorable. "That prophet, or that
dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death." He comes under the ban.
"So shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee."

Similarly, when family ties and family affection are perverted to
be instruments of seduction, they are to be disregarded, just as
religious reputation and miraculous power were to be set aside. If
a brother, or a son, or a daughter, or a wife, or a friend, shall
secretly entice a man to "serve other gods," then he shall not
only not yield, but he must slay the tempter. It is characteristic
of the Deuteronomist that, by the qualifications of the various
relationships he mentions, he should show his sympathy and his
insight into the depths of both family affection and friendship.
"Thy brother, the son of thy mother," "the wife of thy bosom," "the
friend which is as thine own soul," even these, near as they are to
thee, must be sacrificed if they are false to Israel and to Israel's
God. Nay more, "Thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be upon
him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people,
and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die." Upon him, too,
the ban shall be laid.

Nor, finally, shall their multitude shield those who suffered
themselves to be perverted. If a city should have been led away by
sons of Belial, i.e. by worthless men, to worship strange gods, then
the whole city was to be put to the ban. It was to be immediately
stormed, every living creature put to death, and all the spoil
of it burnt "unto Yahweh their God"; and the ruins were to be a
"mound for ever"--that is, a place accursed. Only on these terms
could Yahweh be turned away from the fierceness of His anger at
such treason and unfaithfulness among His people. The Canaanites
had been condemned to death that their idolatries and vices might
not corrupt the spiritual faith of Israel. There was no other way,
if the treasure which had been committed to this nation was to be
preserved. As Robertson Smith has said, "Experience shows that
primitive religious beliefs are practically indestructible except
by the destruction of the race in which they are engrained." But if
so, it was perhaps even more necessary that idolaters within Israel
should be also extirpated. We may think the punishment harsh; and
our modern doctrines concerning toleration can by no ingenuity be
brought into harmony with it. But the times were fierce, and men
were not easily restrained. In more civilised communities excessive
severity in punishment defeats itself, for it enlists sympathy on
the side of the criminal. But among a people like the Hebrews,
probably severity succeeded where mercy would have been flouted.
In India our administrators have had to confess that the horrible
recklessness and severity of punishment in the Mahratta states of
the old type suppressed crime as the infinitely more just and better
organised but milder British police organisations could not then
do. "Probably the success of barbarous methods of repressing crime
is best explained by their origin in and close connection with a
primitive state of society. Because punishments were inhuman, they
struck terror where no other motive would deter from crime."[75] In
other and Scriptural words, the hardness of men's hearts made such
harshness unavoidable.

  [75] Tupper, _Our Indian Protectorate_, p. 248.

Taking the whole of this thirteenth chapter into consideration,
therefore, we see how high and severe were the demands which
Old Testament religion, as taught in Deuteronomy, made upon its
votaries. It presupposes on the part of the people an insight
into the fundamentally spiritual nature of their faith entirely
unobscured by ritual and sacrifice. They were expected to pass
beyond the teachings of accredited spiritual guides, beyond even the
evidence of supernatural power, and to test all by the moral and
spiritual truth, once delivered to them by prophet and by miracle,
and now a secure possession. Spiritual truth received and lived by
is thus set above everything else as the test and the judge of all.
Other things were merely ladders by which men had been brought to
the truth in religion. Once there, nothing should move them; and
any further guidance which purported to come from even the heavenly
places was to be tried and accepted, only if it corroborated the
fundamental truths already received and attested by experience in
actual life. Loyalty to ascertained truth, that is, is greater than
loyalty to teachers, or to that which seems to be supernatural; and
the chief power for which a prophet is to be reverenced is not that
by which he gives a true forecast of the future, but that which
impels him to speak the truth about God.

Even at this day, and for believers in Christ, after all the
teaching and experience of eighteen Christian centuries, this is a
high, almost an unattainable, standard to set up. Even to-day it
is thought an advanced position that miracles as a security for
truth are subordinate and inferior to the light of the truth itself
as exhibited in the lives of faithful men. Yet that is precisely
what the Deuteronomist teaches. He has no doubt about miracles.
He regards them as being Divinely sent, even when they might be
made use of to mislead; but he calls upon his people to disregard
them if they seem to point towards unfaithfulness to God. Their
supreme trust is to be that Yahweh cannot deny Himself. If he seem
to do so by giving the sanction of miracle to teaching which denies
Him, that is only to prove men, to know whether they love Yahweh
their God with all their heart and with all their soul. The inner
certainty of those who have had communion with Yahweh is to override
everything else. "Whosoever loves God with a pure heart," says
Calvin, "is armed with the invincible power of the Divine Spirit,
that he should not be ensnared by falsehoods."[76] This has always
been the confidence of religious reformers who have had real power.
Luther, for example, took his stand upon the New Testament and his
own personal experience; and by what he _knew_ of God he judged all
that the most venerable tradition, and the authority of the Church,
and the examples of saintly men claimed to set forth as binding upon
him. "Here stand I: I can do no other: God help me." He felt that
he had hold of the heart of the revelation of God as it was made in
Christ, and he rejected, without scruple, whatever in itself or in
its results contradicted or obscured that. Inspired and upheld by
this consciousness, he faced a hostile world and a raging Church
with equanimity. It is always so that abuses have been removed and
innovations that are hurtful warded off in the Church of God.

  [76] _Commentary on Pentateuch_, vol. i., p. 448.

But there is a difficulty here. As against the historical examples
which show how much good may be wrought by this unshaken mind
when accompanied by adequate insight, many, perhaps even more,
instances can be adduced where unbending assertion of individual
conviction has led to fanaticism and irreligion; or, as has even
more frequently been the case, has blinded men's eyes, and made them
resist with immovable obstinacy teachings on which the future of
religion depended. On the altar of uncompromising fidelity to the
letter of the faith delivered to them, men in all ages have offered
up love and gentleness and fairness, and that open mind to which
alone God can speak. How then can they be sure, when they disregard
their teachers and defy even signs from heaven, that they are really
only holding up the banner of faith in an evil day, and are not
hardening themselves against God? The answer is that, since the
matter concerns the spiritual life, there are no clear, mechanical
dividing lines which can be pointed out and respected. Nothing but
spiritual insight can teach a man what the absolutely essential and
the less essential elements of religion are. Nothing else can give
him that power of distinguishing great things from small which here
is of such cardinal importance. Probably the nearest approach to
effective guidance may be found in this principle, that when all
points in a man's faith are to him equally important, when he frets
as much in regard to divergence from his own religious practices as
in regard to denial of the faith altogether, he must certainly be
wrong. Such a temper must necessarily resist all change; and since
progress is as much a law in the religious life as in any other, it
must be found at times fighting against God. Otherwise, stagnation
would be the test of truth, and the principles of the Christian
faith would be branded as so shallow and so easily exhausted, that
their whole significance could be seized and set forth at once by
the generation which heard the apostles. That was far from being the
case. The post-apostolic Church, for instance, did not understand
St. Paul. It turned rather to the simpler ideas of the mass of
Christians, and elaborated its doctrines almost entirely on that
basis. During the centuries since then many lessons of unspeakable
value have been learned by the Christian world. The Church has been
enriched by the thoughts and teachings of multitudes of men of
genius. The providential chances and changes of all these centuries
have immensely widened and deepened Christian experience. Stagnation
consequently cannot be made the test of Christian truth. We must
be open to new light on the meaning of Divine revelation, or we
fail altogether, as the Israelites would have done had they refused
to accept the teaching of any prophet after the first. This much
may, however, be said on the affirmative side, that when a man has
thoughtfully and prayerfully decided that the central element of
his faith is attacked, he cannot but resist, and if he is faithful
he will resist in the spirit of the passage we are discussing. His
assertion of his individual conviction, even if it be mistaken,
will do little harm. Time will be in favour of the truth. But
mistake will be rare, indeed, when men are taught to assert in
this manner only the things by which the soul lives, when only the
actual channels of communion with God are thus defended to the
uttermost. These any thoughtful patient man who looks for and yields
to the guidance of the Holy Spirit of Christ will almost infallibly
recognise, and by these he will take his stand, for he can do no
other.

But precautions against idolatry are not exhausted by the war
declared upon men who might attempt to lead the Israelite into evil.
Besides insidious human enemies, there were also insidious customs
originating in heathenism, and still redolent of idolatry even
when they were severed from any overt connection with it. Ancient
rituals, ancient superstitions, hateful remnants of bloodthirsty
pagan rites, were being revived in the Deuteronomist's day on every
hand, because faith in the higher religion that had superseded
them had been shaken. Like streams from hidden reservoirs suddenly
reopened, idolatrous and magical practices were overflowing the
land, and were finding in popular customs, harmless in better days,
channels for their return into the life of those who had formerly
risen above them.

Some of these were more hurtful than others, and two are singled
out at the beginning of chapter xiv. as those which a people holy
unto Yahweh must specially avoid: "Ye shall not cut yourselves,
nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead." The grounds
for avoiding these practices are first given, and we may probably
assume that they are the grounds also for the other enactments which
follow. They are these: "Ye are the children of Yahweh your God,"
and "Thou art a holy people unto Yahweh thy God, and Yahweh hath
chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, out of all peoples
that are upon the face of the earth." The last of these reasons is
common to the Exodus code with Deuteronomy, and comes even more
prominently into view in the Levitical law. Just as Yahweh alone was
to be their God, they alone were to be Yahweh's people, and they
were to be holy to Him, _i.e._ were to separate themselves to Him;
for in its earliest meaning to be holy is simply to be separate
to Yahweh. This whole dispensation of law, that is, was meant to
separate the people of Israel from the idolatrous world, and in
this separation we have the key to much that would otherwise be
hard to comprehend. Looked at from the point of view of revelation,
petty details about tonsure, about clean and unclean animals, and
so on, seem incredibly unworthy; and many have said to themselves,
How can the God of the whole earth have really been the author of
laws dealing with such trivialities? But when we regard these as
provisions intended to secure the separation of the chosen people,
they assume quite another aspect. Then we see that they had to be
framed in contrast to the idolatries of the surrounding nations, and
are not meant to have further spiritual or moral significance.

But the first reason given is a higher and more important one, which
occurs here for the first time in Deuteronomy: "Ye are the children
of Yahweh your God." In heathen lands such a title of honour was
common, because physically most worshippers of false gods were
regarded as their children. But in Israel, where such physical
sonship would have been rejected with horror as impairing the Divine
holiness, the spiritual sonship was asserted of the individual
much more slowly. In Yahweh's command to Moses to threaten Pharaoh
with the death of his firstborn son, and in Hosea xi. 1, Israel
collectively is called Yahweh's firstborn and His son. In Hosea
i. 10 it is prophesied that in the Messianic time, "in the place
where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, it shall be said
unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." But here for the
first time this high title is bestowed upon the actual individual
Israelites. It was perhaps implied in the Deuteronomist's view of
God's fatherly treatment of the nation in the desert, and still more
in his demand for the love of the individual heart. Yet only here
is it brought plainly forth as a ground for the regulation of life
according to Yahweh's commands. Each son of Israel is also a son
of God; and by none of his acts or habits should he bring disgrace
upon his spiritual Father. Likeness to God is expected and demanded
of him. It is his function in the world to represent Him, to give
expression to the Divine character in all his ways. This is the
Israelite's high calling, and the religious application of _noblesse
oblige_ to such matters as follow, gives a dignity and importance
to all of them such as in their own nature they could hardly claim.

"Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your
eyes for the dead." Israel was not to express grief for the dead
in these ways, first because that was the custom of other nations,
and secondly still more because the origin and meaning of such
rites was idolatrous, and as such altogether unworthy of Yahweh's
sons. "Both," says Robertson Smith, "occur not only in mourning,
but in the worship of the gods, and belong to the sphere of
heathen superstition."[77] Elsewhere he explains the cutting of
themselves to be the making of a blood covenant with the dead, just
as the priests of Baal in their worship tried to get their god to
come to their help by making a covenant of blood with him at his
altar.[78] This naturally tended to bring in the superstitions of
necromancy, and opened the way also for the worship of the dead.
Many traces of its previous existence among the Israelite tribes
are to be found in the Scriptures; and the probability is that as
ancestor-worship ruled the life and shaped the thoughts of Greeks
and Romans till Christianity appeared, so Yahwism alone had broken
its power over Israel. But such superstitions die hard, and in the
general recrudescence of almost forgotten forms of heathenism at
this time, this cult may very well have been reasserting itself. As
for the shaving of the front part of the head, that had a precisely
similar import. "It had exactly the same sense as the offering of
the mourner's blood."[79] "When the hair of the living is deposited
with the dead, and the hair of the dead remains with the living, a
permanent bond of connection unites the two."

  [77] _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_, p. 366.

  [78] _Religion of the Semites_, p. 304.

  [79] _Ibid._, p. 306.

The prohibition as food of the animals and birds called "unclean"
was another measure obviously of the same nature as the prohibition
of heathen mourning practices; but in its details it is more
difficult to explain. Probably, however, it was a more potent
instrument of separation than any other. In India to-day the gulf
between the flesh-eater and the orthodox vegetarian Hindu is utterly
impassable; and in the east of Europe and in Palestine, where the
Jewish restrictions as to food are still regarded, the orthodox
Jew is separated from all Gentiles as by a wall. In travelling he
never appears at meals with his fellow-travellers. All the food he
requires he carries with him in a basket; and at every place where
he stops it is the duty of the Jewish community to supply him with
proper food, that he may not be tempted to defile himself with
anything unclean. But it is very difficult for us now to bring the
individual prohibitions under one head, and it seems impossible to
explain them from any one point of view.

Some of the animals and birds prohibited were probably, then,
animals eaten in connection with idolatrous feasts by the
neighbouring heathen. Isa. lxv. 4 shows that swine's flesh was eaten
at sacrificial meals by idolaters, and from the expression "broth
of abominable things is in their vessels" it is clear that the
flesh of other animals was so used. All these would necessarily be
prohibited to Israel; but beyond a few, such as the swine, which was
sacrificed to Tammuz or Adonis, and the mouse and the wild ass, we
have no means of knowing what they were. That this is a _vera causa_
of such prohibitions is shown by the facts mentioned by Professor
Robertson Smith, that "Simeon Stylites forbade his Saracen converts
to eat the flesh of the camel, which was the chief element in the
sacrificial meals of the Arabs, and our own prejudice against the
use of horse-flesh is a relic of an old ecclesiastical prohibition
framed at the time when the eating of such food was an act of
worship to Odin." The very ancient and stringent prohibition of
blood as an article of diet is probably to be accounted for in this
way also. Blood was eaten at heathen sacrificial feasts; without
other reason that would be sufficient. These are the general lines
which must have determined the list of clean animals in the view of
the lawgiver, since he brings them in under the head of idolatry and
under the two general grounds we have discussed (p. 289, _supra_).

Jewish writers, however, especially since Maimonides, have regarded
these prohibitions as aiming primarily at sanitary ends, and as a
proof of their efficacy have adduced the unusually high average
health of the Jews, and their almost complete exemption from certain
classes of disease. No such point of view is suggested in the
Scriptures themselves, for it would surely be rather farfetched to
class possible disease as an infringement of the holiness demanded
of Israel, or as a thing unworthy of Yahweh's sons. Nevertheless a
general view of the list of clean animals here given would support
the idea that sanitary considerations also had _something_ to do
with the classification. The practical effect of the rule laid down
is to exclude all the _carnivora_ among quadrupeds, and so far as
we can interpret the nomenclature, the _raptores_ among birds.[80]
"Amongst fish, those which were allowed contain unquestionably
the most wholesome varieties." Further, the nations of antiquity
which developed such categories of clean and unclean animals
seem in the main to have taken the same line. The ground of this
probably is the natural disgust with which unclean feeders are
always regarded. Animals and birds especially which feed, or may
be supposed to feed, on carrion, are everywhere disliked, and as
a rule they are unsuitable for food. Grass-eating animals, on the
other hand, are always regarded as clean. Scaleless fish, too, are
generally more or less slimy to the touch, and with them reptiles
are altogether forbidden. All this seems to show that a natural
sentiment of disgust, for whatever reason felt, was active in the
selection of the animals marked unclean by men of every race.
The pre-Mosaic customary law on this subject would, of course,
have this characteristic in common with similar laws of primitive
nations. When the worship of Yahweh was introduced, most of this
would be taken over, only such modifications being introduced as
the higher religion demanded. In some main elements, therefore,
the Mosaic law on this subject would be a repetition of what is
to be found elsewhere. Hence a general tendency to health may be
expected; for besides the guidance which healthy disgust would give,
a long experience must also have been registered in such laws. The
influence of them in promoting health has recently been acknowledged
by the _Lancet_; and though that reason for observing them is not
mentioned in Scripture, we may view it as a proof that the Jewish
legislators were under an influence which brought them, perhaps even
when they knew it not, into relation with what was wholesome in the
practices and customs of their place and time.

  [80] Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, vol. iii. p. 1589.

Beyond these three reasons for the laws regarding food, all is
the wildest speculation. If other reasons underlie these laws, we
cannot now ascertain what they were. For a time it was the custom to
ascribe the Jewish laws to Persian influence, though from the nature
of the case such laws must have been part of the heritage of Israel
from pre-Mosaic time. Even to-day Jewish writers ascribe them to the
evil effect which bad food has upon the soul, either by infecting
it with the characteristics of the unclean beasts, or by rendering
it impenetrable to good influences.[81] But, as usual, it is the
allegorical interpreters who carry off the palm. Animals that chew
the cud were to be eaten, because they symbolised those who "read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest" the Divine law: those which divide
the hoof are examples of those who distinguish between good and bad
actions; and in the ostrich one interpreter finds an analogue to the
bad commentators who pervert the words of Holy Scripture.

  [81] Dillmann, _Deuteronomy_, p. 483.

Hitherto in chapter xiv. we have been dealing with material to which
a parallel can be found only in the small code of laws contained
in Lev. xvii.-xxvi., commonly called the Law of Holiness, and in
the Priestly Code.[82] But the two remaining directions regarding
food, which are contained in the twenty-first verse are parallel to
prohibitions in the Law of the Covenant. The first, "Ye shall not
eat of anything that dieth of itself ... for thou art an holy people
unto Yahweh thy God," is parallel to Exod. xxii. 31. "And ye shall
be holy men unto Me: therefore ye shall not eat any flesh that is
torn of beasts in the field," and to Lev. xvii. 15, "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 evening." The
ground for prohibiting such food, was, of course, that the blood was
in it. But there is a divergence between the parallel laws, which is
seen clearly when we take into account the destination of the flesh
of the animal so dying. In Exodus it is said, "To the dogs shall ye
cast it." In Deuteronomy the command is, "To the stranger within
thy gates ye shall give it, and he shall eat of it, or ye may sell
it unto a foreigner." In Leviticus it is taken for granted that an
Israelite and also a stranger may eat either of the _nebhelah_, that
which dieth of itself, or the _terephah_, that which is torn; and if
either do so it is prescribed only that he should wash, and should
be unclean until the evening.

  [82] This, of course, does not show that P must have been known to
  D, but it proves that as regards material P and D have drawn from
  the same source, and that older documents, or customs at least,
  underlie both.

Here, therefore, we have one of the cases in which the traditional
hypothesis--that the Law of the Covenant was given at Sinai when
Israel arrived there, the laws of the Priestly Code probably not
many weeks after, and the code of Deuteronomy only thirty-eight or
thirty-nine years later, but before the laws had come fully into
effect by the occupation of Canaan--raises a difficulty. Why should
the Sinaitic law say that _terephah_ is not to be eaten by any one,
but cast to the dogs, and the Levitical law in so short a time after
make the eating of that and _nebhelah_ mere cause of subordinate
uncleanness to both Israelite and stranger, while Deuteronomy
permits the Israelite either to give the _nebhelah_ to the stranger
that he may eat it, or to make it an article of traffic with the
foreigner? Keil's explanation is certainly feasible, that in Exodus
we have the law, in Leviticus the provision for accidental, or
perhaps wilful, disobedience of it under the pressure of hunger,
while in Deuteronomy we have a permission to sell, lest on the plea
of waste the law might be ignored. But the position of the "_gēr_,"
or stranger, is not accounted for. In Leviticus he is bound to the
worship of Yahweh, and can no more eat _nebhelah_ or _terephah_ than
the native Israelite can, while in Deuteronomy he is on a lower
stage than the Israelite as regards ceremonial cleanness, and much
on the same level as the _nokhri_, the foreigner, who in Deuteronomy
is dealt with as an inferior, not bound to the same scrupulosity
as the Israelite (Deut. xv. 3, 23, 29). There does not appear to
be any explanation of such a change in less than forty years;
more especially as the moment at which the change would on that
hypothesis be made was precisely the moment when the stranger was
about for the first time to become an important element in Israelite
life. If, on the other hand, the order of the codes be Exodus,
Deuteronomy, Leviticus, then the Exodus law, which does not consider
the stranger, would suit the earliest stage of Israel's history,
when the stranger would generally be a spy. Later, he crept into
Israelite life, and gradually received more and more consideration;
especially in the days of Solomon, when the Chronicler estimates
the number of the strangers at over a hundred and fifty thousand.
But he was not recognised at that stage as fully bound to all
an Israelite's duties, or as possessed of all an Israelite's
privileges, and that is precisely the position he occupies in
Deuteronomy. In the Priestly Code, however, at a time when the
stranger had practically become a proselyte, the ideal Kingdom of
God includes the "stranger," and gives him a position which differs
little from that of the homeborn. That would make these different
laws answer to different periods of Israel's history, and would
coincide with what has been otherwise found to be the order of
Israel's legal development.

The second prohibition, which runs parallel to what we find in
Exodus, is the somewhat enigmatical one that a kid should not be
sodden in its mother's milk. What it was in this act which made it
seem necessary to issue such a command cannot now be ascertained
with any certainty. Most probably it was connected in some way with
heathen ceremonies, perhaps at a harvest feast; for, as we have
seen, it is a ruling motive throughout all this section that the
Israelites should reject everything which among their neighbours was
connected with idolatry.




CHAPTER XVII

_THE SPEAKERS FOR GOD--I. THE KING_

DEUT. xvii. 14-20


In approaching the main section of the legislation it will be
necessary, in accordance with the expository character of the
series to which this volume belongs, to abandon the consecutive
character of the comment. It would lead us too far into archæology
to discuss the meaning and origin of all the legal provisions which
follow. Moreover nothing short of an extensive commentary would
do them justice, and for our purpose we must endeavour to group
the prescriptions of the code, and discuss them so. As it stands
there is no arrangement traceable. So utterly without order is it,
that it can hardly be thought that it is in the exact shape in
which it left its author's hands. Transpositions and misplacements
must, one thinks, have taken place to some extent. We are thus
left free to make our own arrangements, and it would appear most
fitting to discuss the code under the five heads of National Life,
Economic Life, and three fundamental qualities of a healthy national
life--Purity, Justice, and the Treatment of the Poor. Every phase
of the laws which remain for discussion can easily be brought under
these heads, and this chapter will discuss the first of them, the
organisation of the national life.

It is a striking instance of the accuracy of the national memory
that there is a clear and conscious testimony to the fact that for
long there was no king in Israel. Had the later historians been at
the mercy of a tradition so deeply influenced by later times as it
pleases some critics to suppose, it would seem inexplicable that
Moses should not have been represented as a king, and especially
that the conquest should not have been represented as a king's work.
Evidently there was a perfectly clear national consciousness of
the earlier circumstances of the nation, and it presents us with
an outline of the original constitution which is very simple and
credible. According to this the tribes whom Moses led were ruled
in the main by their own sheikhs or elders. Under these again were
the clans or fathers' houses similarly governed; and lastly, there
were the families in the wider sense, made up of the individual
households and governed by their heads. So far as can be gathered,
Moses did not interfere with this fundamental organisation at all.
He added to it only his own supremacy, as the mediator and means of
communication between Yahweh and His people. As such, his decision
was final in all matters too difficult for the sheikhs and judges.
But the fundamental point never lost sight of was that Yahweh alone
was their ruler, their legislator, their leader in war, and the doer
of justice among His people. From the very first moment of Israel's
national existence therefore, from the moment that it passed the
Red Sea, Yahweh was acknowledged as King, and Moses was simply His
representative. That is the cardinal fact in this nation's life,
and amid all the difficulties and changes of its later history
that was always held to. Even when kings were appointed, they were
regarded only as the viceroys of Yahweh. In this way the whole of
the national affairs received a religious colour; and those who look
at them from a religious standpoint have a justification which would
have been less manifest under other circumstances.

It is, therefore, no delusion of later times which finds in
Israelite institutions a deep religious meaning. Nor is the
persistence with which the Scriptural historians regard only the
religious aspects of national life to be laid as a fault to their
charge. It is nothing to the purpose to say that the bulk of the
people had no thoughts of that kind, that the whole fabric of the
national institutions appeared to them in a different light. We have
no right to lower the meaning of things to the gross materialism of
the populace. One would almost think, to hear some Old Testament
critics speak, that in this most ideal realm of religion we can be
safe from illusion only when ideal points of view are abandoned,
that only in the commonest light of common day have we any security
that we are not deceiving ourselves. But most of these same men
would resent it bitterly if that standard were applied to the
history of the lands they themselves love. What Englishman would
think that Great Britain's career and destiny were rightly estimated
if imperial sentiment and humanitarian aims were thrust aside in
favour of purely material considerations? Why then should it be
supposed that the views and opinions of the multitude are the only
safe criterion to be applied to the institutions of God's ancient
people?

In truth, there is no reason why we should think so. The Divine
kingship made it impossible that the higher minds should be content
with the low aims of the opportunists of their day, whether these
were of the multitude or not. Even the entrance into Canaan,
which to the mass of the people was, in the first place, a mere
acquisition of territory and wealth, was idealised for the leaders
of the people by the thought that it was the land promised by
Yahweh to their fathers, the land in which they should live in
communion with Him. Generally, it may be said that the desire for
communion with God was the impelling and formative power in Israel.
The thoughts of even the dullest and most earthly were touched by
that ideal at times; and no leader, whether royal, or priestly, or
prophetic, ever really succeeded among this people who did not keep
that persistently in view as the true goal of his efforts. Moreover
this gave its depth of meaning to the whole movement of history in
Israel. Every triumph and defeat, every lapse and every reform had,
owing to this direction of the people's efforts, a significance far
beyond itself. These were not merely incidents in the history of
an obscure people; they were the pulsations and movements of the
world's advance to the full revelation of God. All that would have
been wholly national or tribal in the institutions and arrangements
of an ordinary people was in Israel lifted up into the religious
sphere; and the orders of men who spoke for the invisible King--the
earthly king, the priest, and the prophet--became naturally the
organs of the national life.

The king's position was entirely dependent upon Yahweh. He was
to be chosen by Yahweh, he was to act for Yahweh, and no king
could rightly fill his place in Israel who was not loyal to that
conception. It is in this sense that David was the man after God's
own heart. He, in contrast to Saul and to many of the later kings,
accepted with entire loyalty, notwithstanding his great natural
powers, the position of viceroy for Yahweh. It is, therefore,
an essential truth which underlies the Scriptural judgment that
the kings who made themselves, or attempted to make themselves,
independent of Yahweh, were false to Israel and to their true
calling. And this is why Samuel, when the people demanded a king,
regarded the movement with stern disapproval, and why he received
an oracle denouncing the movement as a falling away from Yahweh.
For, in the first place, the motive for the people's request, their
desire to be like other nations, was in itself a rejection of their
God. It repudiated, in part at least, the position of Israel as His
peculiar people, and implied that an earthly king would do more for
them than Yahweh had done; whereas if they had been faithful and
united enough in spirit they would have found victory easy. In the
second, the request in itself was a confession of unfitness for
their high national calling; it was a confession of failure under
the conditions which had been Divinely appointed for them. Not only
in the eyes of the Biblical historian therefore, but as a plain
matter of fact, the demand was an expression of dissatisfaction on
the people's part with their invisible King. They needed something
less spiritual than Yahweh's invisible presence and the prophetic
word to guide them. But since they had declared themselves thus
unfaithful, Yahweh had to deal with them at that level, and granted
their request as a concession to their unbelief and hardness of
heart.

That is the representation of the Books of Samuel; and the absence
of any similar law from the codes before Deuteronomy confirms the
view that the earthly kingship was not an essential part of the
polity of Israel, but a mere episode. Nowhere in legislation save
here in Deuteronomy is the king ever mentioned, and nowhere, not
even here, is any provision made for his maintenance. No civil taxes
are appointed by any law, while the most ample provision is made for
the presentation direct to Yahweh, as Lord paramount, of tithes and
firstfruits.

The history and the law alike agree therefore in regarding the
kingship as somewhat of an excrescence upon the national polity;
and this law, where alone the king's existence is recognised,
confines itself strictly to securing the theocratic character
of the constitution. He must be chosen by Yahweh; he must be a
born worshipper of Yahweh, not a foreigner; and he must rule in
accordance with the law given by Yahweh. Further, the ideal
Israelite king must be on his guard against the grossly voluptuous
luxury which Oriental sovereigns have never been able to resist,
either in ancient or modern times; and also against the lust for war
and conquest which was the ruling passion of Assyrian and Egyptian
kings. Evidently too the ideal king of Israel was, like Bedouin
sheikhs now, expected to be rich, able to maintain his state out
of his own revenues. The tribute paid by subject peoples, together
with the booty taken in war and the profits of trade, were his only
legitimate sources of income beyond his own wealth. Every other
exaction was more or less of an oppression. He had no right to make
any claims upon the land, for that was held direct of Yahweh. Nor
were there any regular taxes, so far as the Old Testament informs
us. The only approach to that would appear to be that the presents
with which his subjects voluntarily approached the king were
sometimes and by some rulers made permanent demands; at least that
would seem to be the meaning of the somewhat obscure statement in
1 Sam. xvii. 25 that King Saul would reward the slayer of Goliath
by making "his father's house free in Israel." Some kind of regular
exaction from which the victorious champion's family should be free
must here be referred to; but it would not be safe, in the absence
of all other evidence, to suppose that regular taxes in the modern
sense are referred to. More probably something of the nature of the
"benevolences" which Edward IV. introduced into England as a source
of revenue is meant. If a popular and powerful king of Israel was in
want of money, he could always secure it by ordering those able to
afford handsome presents to appear yearly before him with such gifts
as a loyal subject should offer. For the convenience of all parties
an indication of how much would be expected might be made, and then
he would have what to all intents and purposes would be a tax.
Along with this he might also enforce the _corvée_; but such things
were always regarded as excesses of despotic power. That Samuel in
his _mishpat hammelekh_ (1 Sam. viii. 15) warns the people that the
king would demand of them a tithe of their cereal crops and of the
fruit of their vineyards and of their sheep, does not contradict
this reading of the passage in 1 Sam. xvii. For though chapter
viii. belongs to the later portion of 1 Samuel and may therefore
represent what the kings had actually claimed, yet it in no way
endorses such demands. On the contrary, it indicates that such
exactions would bring the people into slavery to the king by the
phrase "And ye shall be to him for slaves." All that is mentioned
there, consequently, is part of the evil the kingship would bring
with it, and cannot in any way be regarded as a legal provision for
the maintenance of royalty.

It is not probable, therefore, that in these prescriptions the
author of Deuteronomy is repeating a more ancient law. No such
law has come down to us. Dillmann supposes the provision that the
king should always be an Israelite to be ancient; and indeed at
first sight it is difficult to see why such a provision should be
introduced for the first time in the last days of the Southern
Kingdom, where the kingship had so long been confined, not only to
Israelites, but to the Davidic line. But Jer. xxxii. 21--"Their
potentate shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed
from the midst of them"--shows that, whatever the cause might be,
there was in the first years of the sixth century a longing for a
native king similar to that here expressed. In any case, as the
obvious intention here is to make entire submission to Yahweh the
condition of any legitimate kingship, it was only consistent to
require expressly that the king should be one of Yahweh's people.
That motive would be quite sufficient to account for raising what
had been the invariable practice into a formulated law; and no other
of the prescriptions need have been ancient. On the other hand,
the curious phrase "Only he shall not multiply horses to himself,
nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should
multiply horses; forasmuch as Yahweh hath said unto you, Ye shall
henceforth return no more that way," can hardly belong to the
Mosaic time. There was no doubt then much danger that the people
should wish to return to Egypt; but that a king should cause them
to return for horses, is too much of a subordinate detail to have
been portion of a Mosaic prophecy. If, as is most probable, the
phrase condemns the sending of Israelites into Egypt to buy horses
and chariots, it can have been written only after Solomon's days.
Before that time Israel, as an almost exclusively mountain people,
regarded horses and chariots with dislike, and usually destroyed
them when they fell into their hands. With the extension of their
power over the plains and the growth of a lust for conquest, they
sought after chariots eagerly. To procure them they entered into
alliances with Egypt which the prophets denounced, and which brought
to the nation nothing but evil. It was natural, therefore, that
the Deuteronomist should specially mention this detail, and should
support it by reference to a Divine promise, which does not appear
in our Bible, but which probably was found in either the Yahwistic
or the Elohistic narrative.

But whether the whole is Deuteronomic or not, there can be no
question that the command that the king shall have "a copy of this
law" prepared for him and shall read constantly therein is so;
and perhaps of all the prescriptions this is the most important.
In purely Eastern states there is no legislature at all, and the
greater part of the criminal jurisdiction especially is carried
on without any reference to fixed law save in cases affecting
religion. This was the case in the Mahratta states in India so long
as they were independent. The ruler and the officers he appointed
administered justice, solely according to custom and their own
notions of rectitude, "without advertence to any law except the
popular notions of customary law."[83] Now in Israel the state of
things was entirely similar, save in so far as the fundamental
principles of Yahwistic religion had been formulated. In all other
respects customary law ruled everything. But it was the religious
influence that gave its highest and best developments to the life
of Israel. It was this, too, which brought to such early maturity
in Israel the principles of justice, mercy, and freedom. Elsewhere
these were of exceedingly slow growth. In Israel, the influence
of the lofty religious ideas implanted in the nation by Moses did
for them what the influence of the higher political and social
ideas of the governing Englishmen are said to do, under favourable
circumstances, for the Indian peoples. Without disturbing the
general harmony which must subsist between all parts of the organism
of the State if the nation's life is to be healthy, and without
putting it out of relation with its surroundings, that influence
has been, and is still, moving the more backward Indian societies
along the natural paths of human progress at a greatly accelerated
speed.[84] In a similar way the Israelite people was moved by the
Mosaic influence, in its aspirations at least, with an elsewhere
unexampled speed and certainty, towards an ideal of national life
which no nation since has even endeavoured to realise. But whenever
the kings threw off the yoke of Yahweh and plunged into idolatry,
then the evils of despotic Oriental rule made their appearance
unchecked. These evils have been enumerated in the following words
by one well acquainted with Oriental states: "Cruelty, superstition,
callous indifference to the security of the weaker and poorer
classes, avarice, corruption, disorder in all public affairs, and
open brigandage." With the exception perhaps of the last, these are
precisely the sins which the prophets are continually denouncing.
Long before Hezekiah they were rampant, especially in the Northern
Kingdom, and in the evil days between Hezekiah and Josiah, when we
suppose Deuteronomy to have been written, they were indulged in
without shame or compunction.

  [83] Tupper, _Our Indian Protectorate_, pp. 248, 249.

  [84] _Ibid._, p. 321.

The result was that an inarticulate cry, like that we hear to-day
from Persia in the articulate form of newspaper articles, must have
filled the hearts of all righteous men and the multitude of the
oppressed. What it would be we may learn from the following extract
from a letter written from Persia to the _Kamin_, _i.e._ "Law," a
Persian newspaper published in London, and translated by Arminius
Vambéry in the _Deutsche Rundschau_ for October 1893: "Oh, brothers,
behold how deeply we have sunk into the sea of ignominy and shame.
Tyranny, famine, disease, poverty, calamity, decay of character, and
all the misery in the world has overflowed our country. The cause
of all this misfortune lies in this, that we have no laws; only in
this, that our conscienceless and foolish great ones have wilfully
and purposely rejected, trodden under foot, and destroyed the laws
of the sacred code.... We are men, and would have laws! It is not
new laws we ask for, but we desire that our secular and spiritual
heads should assemble and press for the enforcement of the holy laws
of the sacred code. Therefore we ask of you this one thing, that you
should proclaim: 'We are men, and would have laws.'" The East is so
perennially the same, that the two thousand five hundred years which
separate that pathetic cry from the prayers of the true Israel in
Manasseh's and Amon's days make no radical difference. The situation
was the same, and the need was the same. Hence came this prophetic
and priestly redaction of the Law of the Covenant. "They were men,
and would have laws." They sought to be freed from the greed, the
cruelty, and the lawlessness of their rulers; and having produced
their revised code, they wished to secure that it should not
disappear from memory, as the more ancient law had been suffered to
do. It must be kept continually before the king's mind. "It shall be
with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that
he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, to keep all the words of this
law and these statutes to do them." In this way it was thought that
future "great ones" would be prevented from "rejecting, treading
under foot, and destroying the laws of the sacred code."

But the king of Israel was not only to be a law-abiding and a
law-enforcing king. He was to learn from this new law even a deeper
lesson. He was to read daily in the law, "that his heart might not
be lifted up above his brethren." Oriental despots either openly
claim that they are of higher and purer blood than their subjects,
or they deal with these latter as if they had nothing in common with
them. In the laws of Manu it is said, "Even an infant king must not
be despised, (from an idea) that he is a (mere) mortal; for he is
a great deity in human form." It was not to be so in Israel. His
subjects were the Israelite king's "brethren." They all stood in
the same relation to their God. All equally had shared Yahweh's
favour in being delivered from the bondage of Egypt. Each had the
same rights, the same privileges, the same claims to justice and
consideration as the king himself had. That, this law was to teach
the king; and when he had learned the lesson, it is taken for
granted that the root from which the other evils spring would be
destroyed.

Such, then, the ruler of Israel was to be. He was to feel, first
of all his responsibility to God. Then he was to deny himself to
the lust of conquest, to the voluptuous pleasures of the flesh, to
the most devouring lust of all, the love of money. Last of all, and
above all, he was to acknowledge his equality with the poorest of
the people in the sight of God. Could there be even yet a nobler
ideal set before the kings of the world than this? The reign of only
one king of Israel, Josiah, promised its realisation. That seemed,
indeed, to be "the fair beginning of a time." But it was not so;
it proved to be only an afterglow, a mere prelude to the night.
None of his successors made even an attempt to imitate him, and
the destruction of the Jewish State put an end to all hope of the
appearance of the Yahwistic king in Israel. Elsewhere, before the
coming of Christ, he did not appear. Since Christ's coming, here
and there, at rare intervals, such rulers have been found. But in
the East perhaps the only rulers who can be said to have made any
attempt in this direction are the best of the great uncrowned kings
of India, the British viceroys.

Such, for example, was Lord Lawrence's aim, and his reward. From the
beginning to the end of his Indian career he lived a pure and simple
life, laboured with untiring energy for the good of the people,
and kept in his mind, as his aspirations for his Punjaub peasantry
show, the Old Testament ideal of both ruler and ruled. He was, too,
entirely free from the lust of conquest, as some Indian viceroys
have not perhaps been; and he did all his work under a solemn sense
of responsibility to God. To a large extent, the Biblical ideal made
him what he was as a ruler, and the life and power of that ideal
now, in such men, sufficiently show the truth of the prophetic and
priestly insight which is embodied here. Many who have disregarded
these rules have done great things for the world; but we are only
the more sure, after two thousand five hundred years, that on these
lines alone can the ruler attain his highest and purest eminence.
All the aspirations of men to-day are towards a state of things in
which rulers, whether they be any longer kings or no, shall stand on
a level of brotherhood with their subjects, and shall set the good
of the ruled before them as their sole aim. All men are dreaming
now of a future in which personal ambition shall have little scope,
in which none will be for himself or for a party, but "all will
be for the State." If ever that good dream be realised, rulers of
the Deuteronomic type will be universal; and the depth of wisdom
embodied in the laws of this small and obscure Oriental people, so
many ages ago, will be manifested in a general political and social
happiness such as has never yet been seen, on any large scale at
least, in the history of men.




CHAPTER XVIII

_SPEAKERS FOR GOD.--II. THE PRIEST_

DEUT. xviii. 1-8


The priesthood naturally follows the kingship in the regulations
regarding the position of the governing classes. But it was an
older and much more radical constituent in the polity of Israel
than we have seen the kingship to be. Originally, the priests were
the normal and regular exponents of Yahweh's will. They received
and gave forth to the people oracles from Him, and they were the
fountain of moral and spiritual guidance. The Torah of the priests,
which on the older view was the Pentateuch as we have it, or its
substance at least, which Moses had put into their hands, is much
more probably now regarded as the guidance given by means of the
sacred lot and the Urim and Thummim. Because of their special
nearness to and intimacy with God, the priests were in contact with
the Divine will and could receive special Divine guidance; and
in days when the voice of prophecy was dumb, or in matters which
it left untouched, the priestly Torah, or direction, was the one
authorised Divine voice. But this was not the only function of
the priests. Sacrificial worship was a more fundamental function.
Wellhausen and his school indeed seem inclined to deny that as
priests of Yahweh they had any Divinely ordered connection with
sacrifice. But the truer view is that their power to give Torah to
Israel depended entirely upon their being the custodians of the
places where Yahweh had caused His name to be remembered. The
theory was that, as they approached Him with sacrifices in His
sanctuaries, they consequently could speak for Him; so that the
guarding of His shrines, and the offering of the people's sacrifices
there were their first duties. In fact they were the mediators
between Yahweh and Israel. Yahweh was King, but He was invisible,
and the priests were His visible earthly representatives. The dues,
which in a merely secular state would have gone to the king, as
rent for the lands held of him, were employed for their appointed
uses by the priests, as the servants and representatives of the
heavenly King who had bestowed the land upon Israel and allotted
to each family its portion. Occupying a middle position, then,
between the two parties to the Covenant by which Israel had become
Yahweh's chosen people, they spoke for the people when they appeared
before Yahweh, and for Him when they came forth to the people. They
were, as we have said, the oldest and most important of the ruling
classes, and must have been from early times a special order set
apart for the service of Israel's God.

The main passages in Deuteronomy which bear upon the position
and character of the priesthood and of the tribe of Levi are the
following. In chaps. xviii. 1-8, x. 6-9, and xxvii. 9-14 the
strictly priestly functions of the tribe of Levi are dealt with;
in xvii. 9 ff. xix. 17, the judicial functions; in xxi. 1-5 their
function in connection with sanitary matters is referred to. Besides
these there are the various injunctions to invite the Levites to
the sacrificial feasts, because they have no inheritance, and a
number of references to the priesthood as a well-known body, the
constitution and duties of which did not need special treatment.
These last are of themselves sufficient to prove beyond question
that in dealing with the priests and Levites the author of this book
writes from out of the midst of a long established system. He does
not legislate for the introduction of priests, neither does he refer
to a priestly system recently elaborated by himself, and only now
coming into operation. He does not tell us how priests are to be
appointed, nor from whom, nor with what ceremonies of consecration
they are to be inducted into their office. In fact the writer speaks
of what concerns the priests and Levites in a manner which makes
it certain that in his day there were, and had long been, Levites
who were priests, and Levites of whom it may at least be said that
they were probably nothing more than subordinates in regard to
religious duty. In a word, while presupposing an established system
of priestly and Levitical service, he nowhere attempts to give any
clear or complete view of that system. His whole mind is turned
towards the people. It is about their duties and their rights he
is anxious, about their duties perhaps more than their rights; and
he touches upon matters connected with others than the people only
in a cursory way. In this matter, especially, he clearly needs to
be supplemented by information drawn from other sources, and his
every word about it shows that he is not introducing or referring to
anything new. Any modifications he makes are plainly stated and are
limited to a few special points.

The chief passage for our purpose is, however, xviii. 1-8, where we
have the agents of the cultus defined, and directions for the dues
to be given them. In ver. 1 these agents are clearly said to be
the whole tribe of Levi; for the phrase "The priests, the Levites,
the whole tribe of Levi," cannot mean the priests and the Levites
who together make up the whole tribe of Levi. Notwithstanding the
arguments of Keil and Curtiss and other ingenious scholars, the
unprejudiced mind must, I think, accept Dillmann's rendering, "The
Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi," the latter clause
standing in apposition to the former. In that case Deuteronomy must
be held to regard every Levite as in some sense priestly. This
view is confirmed by x. 8 f., where distinctly priestly duties are
assigned to the "tribe of Levi." Some indeed assert that this verse
was written by a later editor, but valid reasons for the assertion
are somewhat difficult to find.[85] Neither Kuenen nor Oettli nor
Dillmann find any. We may, then, accept it as Deuteronomic since
critics of such various leanings do so. To quote Dillmann, "Beyond
question, therefore, the tribe as a whole appears here as called to
sacred, especially priestly service; only it does not follow from
that that every individual member of the tribe could exercise these
functions at his pleasure, without there being any organisation and
gradation among these servants of God." No, that does not follow;
and this very passage (Deut. xviii. 1-8) shows that it does not,
for it makes a very clear distinction. In vv. 3 ff. the dues of the
priest are dealt with, while in vv. 6 ff. those of the Levite in one
special case are provided for. As if to emphasise the distinction
between them, the priest in ver. 3 is not called "Levitical," as he
is in other passages.

  [85] Kuenen, _H. K. O._, Eerste Deel, p. 113.

Further, the verses concerning the Levite also emphasise the
distinction; for few will be able to adopt the view that here in vv.
6 ff. every Levite who chooses is authorised to become a priest, by
the mere process of presenting himself at the central sanctuary.
The author of Deuteronomy must have known, better probably than any
one now considering this matter, that the priests in the central
sanctuary would never consent to divide their privileges and their
income with every member of their tribe who might choose to come
up to Jerusalem. Indeed, if they had received each and every one,
the crowd would have been an embarrassment instead of a help.
As a matter of fact, when the Deuteronomic reform came to be put
in practice, this free admission of every Levite to the service
of the Jerusalem Temple was not adopted, and it is _prima facie_
improbable that the author of it can have meant his provision in
that sense. The meaning seems to be that, as only those Levites who
were employed in the central sanctuary could be _de facto_ priests,
those living in the country were not priests in the same sense;
and the regulation made is that if any Levite came up to Jerusalem
and was received into the ranks of the Temple Levites, _i.e._ the
sacrificial priests, he should receive the same dues as the others
performing the same work did. But though no conditions of admission
to the Temple service are mentioned, obviously there must have
been some conditions, some division of labour, some organisation
involving gradations in rank, and perhaps also some limitation as to
time in the case of such voluntary service as is here dealt with.
For, as Dillmann points out, it is not said that the service of
every Temple Levite is the same; numbers of them may have had no
higher work than the Levites under the laws of the Priest Codex.

Moreover the other functions assigned to the priests confirm the
argument, and prove that in the time of Deuteronomy distinctions of
rank among the Levites must have been firmly established. They had
a place in the public justiciary, even in the supreme court, "in
the place which Yahweh their God" had chosen (Deut. xvii. 9, xix.
17). Not only so, the law concerning a man found slain in chap.
xxi., vv. 1-5, implies that there were in the cities throughout
the land priests, the sons of Levi, whom "Yahweh thy God hath
chosen to minister unto Him and to bless in the name of Yahweh, and
according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke
be." Now it cannot possibly have been the intention of the author
of Deuteronomy that every member of the tribe of Levi should have
equal power to decide such matters. If in his view every Levite was
a priest, then we should have this impossible state of affairs, that
the highest courts for judicial process should be in the hands of
a class which was more largely indebted to the generosity of the
rich for its maintenance than any other in the country. It seems
plain therefore that every Levite could not exercise _full_ priestly
functions because of his birth. Clearly, if any Levite might become
a priest it was only in the same sense in which every Napoleonic
soldier was said to carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack.[86]

  [86] The same conclusion must be come to in connection with the
  sanitary duties of the priesthood as laid down, or rather as alluded
  to, in Deut. xxiv. 8, 9. This implies that the Levitical priests had
  special duties in connection with such matters, duties which, if not
  precisely the same as those laid down in the Law of Leprosy (Lev.
  xiii., xiv.), must have nearly resembled them. Semi-medical skill
  must have been necessary for the satisfactory discharge of these
  duties, and we must suppose that the priests who discharged them
  were selected from the tribe of Levi on some principle either of
  special proved knowledge and fitness, or on the ground of hereditary
  devotion to such work.

Finally, in this passage (ver. 5), by the words "him and his sons
for ever," which refer back to "the priest," a hereditary character
of the priesthood is asserted. This phrase is remarkably parallel
to that so frequently used by P, "Aaron and his sons"; and though
we are not told in what family or families the priesthood was
hereditary, it must have been so in some. But in x. 6, 7, the family
of Aaron is mentioned by the Deuteronomist as having hereditary
right to the priesthood at the central shrine. There can therefore
be no doubt that in the time of the author of Deuteronomy priesthood
was hereditary, perhaps in several families, but certainly in the
family of Aaron.

The remaining point in these verses of chap. xviii. is the dues.
As the whole tribe had no land, so the whole tribe had a share in
the dues paid by the people to their Divine King. In vv. 3 ff. we
have a statement of what these were. The whole tribe of Levi are
to eat "the offerings of Yahweh made by fire, and His inheritance.
And they shall have no inheritance among their brethren: Yahweh is
their inheritance, as He hath spoken unto them." The only place
in Scripture in which such a promise is given is Numb. xviii. 20,
24, so that these passages, if not referred to by the author of
Deuteronomy, must be founded upon a tradition already old in his
time. As the servants of Yahweh, the Levites were to be wholly
Yahweh's care; as His representatives, they were to use for the
supply of their needs all such portions of the offerings made to Him
by fire as were not to be consumed on the altar. Their remaining
provision was to be "His," _i.e._ Yahweh's, "inheritance," or rather
"portion," or that which belongs to Him. Now Yahweh's "portion"
consisted of all the other sacred dues (besides the sacrifices)
which should be paid to Yahweh, such as the tithes, the firstlings,
and the firstfruits. On these the whole tribe of Levi was to live,
and so be free to give their time to the special business of the
sanctuary, and to related duties, in so far as they were called upon.

But there were to be distinctions. In vv. 3-5 we have a special
statement of what was to be paid by the people to the priests,
_i.e._ the sacrificing priests. Of every animal offered in
sacrifice, except those offered as whole burnt-offerings, they
were to receive "the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw," all
choice pieces. Further, they were to receive the "firstfruits of
corn, wine, oil, and the first of the fleece of the sheep." For the
priests of one sanctuary these would be quite provision enough,
though the word translated "firstfruits," _rēshith_, is very
indefinite, and probably meant much or little, according as the
donor was liberal or churlish. But how does this agree with that
which is bestowed upon the priests according to the Priest Codex? In
the passage corresponding to this (Lev. vii. 31-34) the wave breast
and the heave thigh are the portions which are to be bestowed upon
"Aaron the priest and his sons, as a due for ever from the children
of Israel"; and where the firstfruits are dealt with (Numb. xviii.
12 ff.) "the first of the fleece of the sheep" is not mentioned.
That is an addition made by the author of Deuteronomy; but what of
"the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw"? Are they a substitute
for the "wave breast and the heave thigh," or are they an addition?
If we hold that the laws in the Pentateuch were all given by Moses
in the wilderness, and in the order in which they stand, it will
be most natural to think that what we have here is meant to be
an addition to what Numbers prescribes. But if it is established
that Deuteronomy is a distinct work, written at a different period
from the other books of the Pentateuch, then, though there is not
sufficient evidence to justify a dogmatic decision on either side,
the weight of probability is in favour of the supposition that the
Deuteronomic provision is a substitute, or at least an alternative,
for what we have in Numbers. The fact that the prescription in
Numbers is not repeated makes for that view, as well as the fact
that Deuteronomy does not as a rule tend to increase the burdens on
the people. Keil's view, that Deuteronomy and Numbers are dealing
with quite different sacrifices, will hardly stand examination. He
thinks that the feasts at which the firstlings, turned into money,
and the third-year tithes were eaten, are referred to here, while
in Numbers it is the ordinary peace-offerings which are dealt with.
But the postponed firstlings were eaten at the sanctuary, and would
consequently come under the head of ordinary sacrifices; and the
third-year tithes were eaten in the local centres, so that the
bringing of the priestly portions would be as difficult in this
case as in the case of the slaughterings for ordinary meals, which
Keil, partly for that reason, thinks cannot be referred to here. On
the whole, the best opinion seems to be that Deuteronomy has here
different prescriptions from those in Numbers, and that probably
there is a considerable interval of time between the two.

In vv. 6-8 the Levite as distinguished from the priest is dealt
with, though by no means fully. Only in one respect are special
regulations given. When such an one came to do duty at the central
sanctuary, he was to receive his share of the sacrifices with the
rest.

In Chapter I. the main outlines of the Deuteronomic system of
priestly arrangements have been placed alongside those of the Book
of the Covenant and JE, and those of P, with a view to decide
whether they could all have been the work of one lawgiver's life.
Here they must be compared in order that we may ascertain whether a
view of the development of the priestly tribe which will do justice
to these various documents and their provisions can be suggested.

Some schools of critics offer the hypothesis that there was no
special priesthood till late in the time of the kings. From the
beginning, they say, the head of each household was the family
priest, and secular men, such as the kings, and men of other
tribes than the Levites, could be and were priests, and offered
sacrifice even at Jerusalem. With Deuteronomy the tribe of Levi was
established as the priestly tribe, and only after the Exile was
priesthood restricted to the sons of Aaron. But this scheme does
justice to one set of passages only at the expense of another. It
accounts for all that is anomalous in the history, and pushes aside
the main and consistent affirmation of all our authorities, that
from the earliest days the tribe of Levi had a special connection
with sacred things and a special position in Israel. To what
straits its advocates are reduced may be seen in the fact that
Wellhausen has to declare that there were two tribes of Levi, one
purely secular that was all but destroyed in an attack upon Shechem,
and which afterwards disappeared, and a later ecclesiastical and
somewhat factitious tribe, or caste, which "towards the end of the
monarchy arose out of the separate priestly families of Judah."[87]
A more improbable suggestion than that can hardly be conceived.

  [87] _History of Israel_, p. 145.

But historical analogy, the favourite weapon of these very critics,
also condemns it. Let us look at the growth of the priesthood
in other ancient nations. In small and isolated communities the
head of the household was generally the family priest, and in all
probability this was the case in the various separate tribes of
which Israel was composed; at least it was so in the households
of the patriarchs. But, in communities formed by amalgamation
of different tribes--and according to modern ideas Israel was
so formed--there was almost always superinduced upon that more
primitive state of things another and different arrangement. In
antiquity no bond could hold together tribes or families conscious
of different descent, save the bond of religion. Consequently,
whenever such an amalgamation took place, the very first thing which
had to be done was to establish religious rites common to the whole
new community, which of course were not the care of the heads of
households as such. Each separate section of the composite body
kept up, no doubt, the family rites; but there had to be a common
worship, and of course a special priesthood, for the new community.
This is sufficiently attested for the Greeks and Romans by De
Coulanges, who in his _La Cité Antique_ gathers together such a mass
of authorities in regard to this matter that few will be inclined
to dispute his conclusion. On page 146 he says: "Several tribes
might unite, on condition that the worship of each was respected.
When such an alliance was entered into, the city or state came into
existence. It is of little importance to inquire into the causes
which induced several tribes to unite; what is certain is that the
bond of the new association was again a religion. The tribes which
grouped themselves to form a state never failed to light a sacred
fire, and to set up a common religion." But the family and tribal
rites continued to exist as _sacra privata_, just as the central
government dominated but did not destroy the family and tribal
governments.[88]

  [88] Cf. also Muirhead, article "Roman Law," in _Ency. Brit._, vol.
  xx. p. 669, 2nd col., and Ramsay, _Church in Roman Empire_, p. 190.

It may be objected that these customs are proved only for the
Aryan races, and that, though proved for them, they form no valid
analogy for Semitic peoples. But besides the fact that part of the
statements we have quoted are obviously true of Israel, we have a
guarantee that the principle enunciated is also valid for it. The
whole process traced in the religious progress of the Aryan nations
is based upon the worship of ancestors. Now one of the critical
discoveries is that ancestor-worship was a part of the religion of
the tribes which afterwards united to form the Israelite nation.
Some, like Stade, tell us that that was the early religion of Israel
itself. In that form the theory is, I think, to be rejected; but
there would seem to be little doubt that, before the birth of the
nation, ancestor-worship was much practised by the Hebrew tribes. If
so, we may quite safely take over the analogy we have established,
and believe that when Moses united the tribes into a nation, the
religion of Yahweh was the absolutely necessary connecting link
which bound them together. For though the tribes were related,
and are represented as the descendants of Abraham, they must have
varied considerably from each other in religious beliefs and usages.
By Moses these variations were extinguished, as far as that was
possible, by the establishment of an exclusive Yahweh-worship as the
national cult; and to carry on this, not the heads of households,
but a priesthood that represented the nation, must have been
selected. But if so, who would most naturally be selected for this
duty? A sentence from De Coulanges will show that in this case
the tribe of Levi would almost necessarily be chosen. Speaking of
cases in which a composite state relieved itself of the trouble of
inventing a new worship by adopting the special god of one of the
component tribes, he says: "But when a family consented to share its
god in this fashion it reserved for itself at least the priesthood."
Now if that was the case in Israel, the priesthood of the tribe of
Levi would at once become a necessity. Whether Yahweh had been ever
known to the other tribes or not, there can be little doubt that the
knowledge of Him which made them a nation and started them on their
unique career of spiritual discovery came from the Mosaic tribe, and
family.

The God whom the family worshipped became the God of the
confederacy, and they would be the natural guardians of His
sanctuary. This would not in the least involve special sanctity and
meekness on the part of the tribe, as some insist. They would remain
a tribe, like the others; but their leading men would discharge the
functions of priests for the confederated nation. It is difficult,
indeed, to see why any one else should have been thought of: most
likely the arrangement was made as a thing of course.

But if there was such a common worship, there must have been
a sanctuary for it, and at it the Levitic priests must have
discharged their functions. Now though the Tabernacle, as P knows
it, is not spoken of either in JE or in Deuteronomy, a "tent of
meeting" at which Jehovah revealed Himself to Moses and to which
the people went to seek Yahweh (Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff.) is known to
all our authorities. Further, Wellhausen himself says, "If Moses
did anything at all he certainly founded the sanctuary at Qadesh
and the Torah there, which the priests of the ark carried on after
him," so that even he recognises the necessity we have pointed out.
From the days of Moses onwards, therefore, there must have been
special priests of Yahweh, a special Yahwistic sanctuary, ritual
with a special sacrifice presented to Yahweh, and lastly a central
oracle, which is precisely what the passages explained away by
Wellhausen assert. But of course at that early time, even if the
ultimate purpose was to have an exclusively Levitical priesthood,
concessions to the old state of things would have to be made. The
Passover was left in the hands of the household priest, and in other
ways probably he would be considered. The old order would insist
on surviving, and the rigour of the later arrangements cannot then
have been attained. In other respects we know that it was so; and we
may well believe that the priesthood of the individual householder
and of the rulers was tolerated, and as far as possible regulated,
so as to offer no public scandal to the religion of Yahweh. So,
among the Homeric Greeks special hereditary priesthoods coexisted
with a political priesthood of the head of the State, and with the
household priesthood.[89]

  [89] Rägelsbach, _Homerische Theologie_, p. 198.

The laxity on these points ascribed to Moses is, however, less
than has been supposed. At Mount Sinai he certainly did appoint
the "young men of the children of Israel"[90] to slaughter the
beasts for sacrifice; but he reserved for himself, a Levite, the
sprinkling of the blood on the altar.[91] He also made Joshua
his servant, an Ephraimite, the keeper of the sanctuary; but even
under the Levitical law, a priest's slave was reckoned to be of his
household and could eat of the holy things. These were not very
great laxities, and there is nothing in them to make us suppose that
a regular priesthood did not exist from Sinai. Moreover, that a
special place should be assigned to Aaron and his sons was natural.
He was the brother of Moses, and would be the natural representative
of the tribe, since Moses was removed from it as being leader of
all. Everything therefore concurs to confirm the Biblical view that
the Levitic priesthood had its origin at Sinai, and that at the
chief sanctuary and oracle the chief place in the priesthood fell
to Aaron and his sons. Worship at other sanctuaries was permitted,
and there the heads of households may have performed priestly
functions, or in later times in Canaan some other Levitic families;
but that there was a central sanctuary in the hands of Levitic
priests, among whom the family of Aaron had a chief place, is what
the circumstances, the historical data we have, and all historical
analogy alike demand.

  [90] Exod. xxiv. 5.

  [91] Exod. xxxiii. 11.

For the discharge of their sacred functions certain dues were
doubtless assigned to the priests, and the Levites sharing in
the subordinate duties of the sanctuary would share also in the
emoluments. In other respects Levi in the wilderness would differ
in nothing from other tribes. But in preparation for the arrival in
Canaan, it was decreed that Levi should "have no part or inheritance
in Israel." Yahweh was to be their inheritance.

The point to notice here is that this tribe was to retain the
nomadic life when the other tribes became agricultural. The
reason for it is plain. That ancient manner of life was looked
upon as superior in a religious aspect to the agricultural life.
In the first place, the ancestral life of Israel had been of
that kind. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been heads of nomadic
families or tribes; and the pure and peaceful religious life, the
intimate communion with God which they enjoyed, always dominated
the imagination of the pious Israelite. Moreover the fundamental
revelation had come to Moses when he was a shepherd in the waste.
Further, the life of the shepherd is necessarily less continuously
busy than that of the agriculturist; it has, therefore, more scope
in it for contemplation; and in many countries and at various times
shepherds have been a specially thoughtful, as well as a specially
pious class. But, perhaps the chief reason was that the shepherd
life was not only simple and frugal in itself, but it was also
by its very conditions free from some of the greatest dangers to
which the religious life of the Israelite in Canaan was exposed.
When the bulk of the people adopted the settled life, they were
not only thrown among the Canaanites, but they went to school them
in all that concerned elaborate agriculture. This necessarily
made the intercourse and connection between the two peoples
extremely intimate, and was fruitful in evil results. From this the
semi-nomadic portions of the people were to a great extent free, and
they would seem to have been regarded as the guardians of a higher
life and a purer tradition than others. They represented to the
popular mind the Israel of ancient days, which had known nothing of
the vices of cities, and in which the pure uncorrupted religion of
Yahweh had held exclusive sway.

A remarkable narrative of the Old Testament establishes this. When
Jehu was engaged in his sanguinary suppression of the house of Ahab,
and the Baal-worship which they had introduced, we read in 2 Kings
x. 15 ff. that he lighted on Jonadab the son of Rechab coming to
meet him. This Jonadab was the chief of the Rechabites, a nomadic
clan, who were bound by oath to drink no wine, nor to build houses,
nor sow seed, nor plant vineyards, and to dwell in tents all their
days (Jer. xxxv. 6, 7). This was clearly intended as a protest
against the prevailing corruption of manners, and was founded on a
special zeal for the uncorrupted religion of Yahweh. Recognising
Jonadab's position as a champion of true religion, Jehu anxiously
seeks his approval and co-operation. He says, "Is thine heart right,
as my heart is with thy heart?" And Jonadab answered, "It is." "If
it be," said Jehu, "give me thine hand." And he gave him his hand,
and he took him up to him into the chariot. And he said, "Come with
me, and see my zeal for Yahweh." At a much later time, Jeremiah, at
the Divine command, used the faithfulness of these nomads to the
ordinances of their chiefs to put to shame the unfaithfulness of
Israel to Yahweh's ordinances; and promises (Jer. xxxv. 19) that
because of it "Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never want a man to
stand before Yahweh," _i.e._ as His servant. The Nazarites, again,
were in some measure an indication of the same thing. Their rigorous
abstinence from the fruit of the vine (the special sign and gift
of a settled life in a country like Palestine) was their great
distinguishing mark, as persons peculiarly set apart to the service
of God. Something analogous is seen in that other desert faith,
Mohammedanism. When the great reformer, Abd-el-Wahab, attempted to
bring back Islam to its primitive power, he fell back largely upon
the simplicity of the desert life, though he did not insist upon the
abandonment of agriculture and fixed habitations.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the priestly tribe was kept
to the nomadic life by the ordinance that they should not have
a portion in the distribution of the Canaanite territory. But
according to the narrative of the attack upon Shechem by Levi and
Simeon, and the verses in the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix.)
dealing with these tribes, the course of history reinforced this
command. Whether the treachery at Shechem occurred, as the Genesis
narrative places it, before the Exodus, when Israel was only a
family, or was an incident in the history of the two tribes after
Canaan had been invaded, as many critics think,[92] the significance
of it is that because of an historical exhibition of fierce and
intolerant zeal on the part of Levi and Simeon, which the other
tribes would not defend, their settlement in that part of the land
was rendered difficult, if not impossible. Hence Simeon had to seek
other settlements, while Levi fell back to the position assigned
to it by its priestly character. It is not a valid exception to
this view--which reconciles the two statements that Levi had no
inheritance with the other tribes because of its specially near
relation to Yahweh, and also because of its cruel treachery at
Shechem--that a priestly tribe is likely to have been not more, but
rather less, fierce than the others. That would entirely depend
upon the cause or occasion which called out the fierceness. In all
that concerned religion Levi would naturally be more inclined to
extreme measures than the other tribes, and in this case the higher
morality, secured by the separateness of Israel, might easily appear
to be at stake.[93] It is, therefore, quite credible that the
excessive vengeance taken should have been planned mainly by Levi,
and that the resulting hatred should have broken up Simeon, and
driven back Levi with emphasis to its higher call.

 [92] Cf. Kittel's _Geschichte der Hebräër_, II., p. 63.

  [93] Cf. Exod. xxxii. 15-20.

In any case there never was again any doubt that the Levites were
to be excluded from the number of land-owning tribes. Even in the
legislation regarding the forty-eight priestly cities this principle
asserts itself. The keeping of sheep and cattle on the pastures,
which were the only lands attached to these cities, was to be the
Levites' only secular occupation, and they were neither to own
nor work agricultural land. But to compensate for any hardship
this arrangement might bring with it, the Levites, as the special
servants of Yahweh, were to have Him for their inheritance, _i.e._
as we have seen, the dues coming to Yahweh were to become the
property of the Levites in great part. I say in great part, because
the gift to the Levites exclusively of a tithe of the income of the
people is thought by many to be only a late provision.

After Canaan had been conquered, the state of things in connection
with the priesthood would be something like this. The tent with
the ark would be the principal sanctuary, served by a hereditary
Levitic priesthood, at the head of which would be a descendant of
Aaron. The tribe of Levi, being nomadic, would probably encamp in
the neighbourhood of the central sanctuary in part, and recruits for
the priestly work would be taken occasionally from them, while other
sections would gravitate to the neighbourhood of other sanctuaries.
As we see from the story of Micah in Judges, it was considered
desirable to have a Levite for priest everywhere, and consequently
there would arise at all the High Places Levitic priesthoods,
most probably in part hereditary. But notwithstanding their dues,
the bulk of the tribe, being nomads, would be looked upon by the
agricultural population as poor, just as the Bedouin, in Palestine
now are, comparatively speaking, very poor. This state of things
would correspond entirely with what Deuteronomy tells us; and after
that legislation the position of the Levites as a priestly body
would be more assured than ever. In the post-exilic period all
that had been regulated by practice in earlier days found written
expression. Differentiation of function was minutely carried out.
The priesthood was confined rigorously to the Aaronic house, and
the other Levites were given to them as attendants. In this way
the whole Levitic system was introduced, and with the exclusive
altar came the exclusive priesthood. So far as I can see, it is
only by some such hypothesis that justice can be done to _all_ the
statements of Scripture; and considering the elastic nature of Old
Testament law, there is nothing improbable in it. In any case there
is an amount of evidence of various kinds for the Mosaic origin of
the Levitic, and even the Aaronic priesthood, which no proof of
irregularities can overturn.

In the Divinely sanctioned arrangements of the Old Testament Church,
therefore, the existence of a body of ecclesiastical persons,
having little share in the ordinary pursuits of their neighbours,
and dependent upon their clerical duties for a large part of their
maintenance, was deemed necessary to secure the continuity of
worship and religious belief. As has been already pointed out, the
priesthood was necessarily more conservative than progressive. As
an institution, it was suited rather to gather up and perpetuate
the results of religious movements otherwise originated, than to
originate them itself. But in that sphere it was an absolutely
necessary element in the life of Israel. Difficult as it was to
permeate the people with the truths of revealed religion, it would
have been impossible without the services of the priestly tribe.
Wherever they went they were a visible embodiment of the demand
for faithfulness to Yahweh, and, with all their aberrations, they
probably lived at a higher spiritual level than the average layman.
As has been well said, though Malachi had much reason to complain
of the priests in his own day, his estimate of what Levi had been
in the past is no exaggeration (ii. 6): "The law of truth was in
his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked
with Me in peace and uprightness, and did turn many away from
iniquity." But such a body as the Levites could not have been kept
thus spiritually alive, unless the members of it had lived somewhat
aloof from the strifes and envies of the market-place, and this they
could not have done had they not lived by their sacred function.
The prophets, under the power and impulse of new truth adapted
to their own time, did not need this protection; consequently
some of them were called from ordinary secular work--from the
plough, like Elisha, or from the midst of the rich and highborn
inhabitants of Jerusalem, like Isaiah. If one may so say, they were
men of religious genius; while the bulk of the priests and Levites
must always have been commonplace men in comparison. Yet even of
the prophets a number were trained in the nomadic life; others
were priests who were shut off also from agriculture. Clearly,
therefore, some measure of separation from the full pulsing life
of the world was, even in the most favourable circumstances,
helpful in developing religious character. For the ordinary average
ecclesiastic it was indispensable; and that he should exist, and
should live at as high a level as possible, was as much a condition
of Israel's discharge of her great mission, as that the voice of
the prophet should be heard at all the great turning-points of her
career.

The modern tendency in Old Testament study is to depreciate the
priest and to exalt the prophet, just as in ecclesiastical life we
tend to make much of those who are or give themselves out to be
religious reformers and thinkers, and to make little of the ordinary
parish or congregational ministry. But the good done by the latter
is, and must be, for each individual generation more than that
done by the former. No one can estimate too highly the conserving
and elevating effect of a faithful high-minded spiritual minister.
Often without genius either intellectual or religious, without much
speculative power, with so firm a hold of the old truth, which has
been their own guiding star, that they cannot readily see the
good in anything new, such men, when faithful to the light they
have, are the stable, restful, immediately effective element in all
Church life. And such a body can be best spiritualised by being
separated somewhat from the stress and strain of competition in the
race of life. Being what they are, the necessity of taking their
full part in the business of the world would inevitably secularise
them, to the great and lasting damage of all spiritual interests.
For though to modern students of Old Testament religion, who are
interested most in its growth and progress towards its consummation
in Christianity, the prophet is by far the most interesting figure,
to the ancient people itself it must have seemed that the priests
and Levites, if they in any degree deserved Malachi's eulogy, were
the entirely indispensable element in their religious life. They
gave the daily bread of religion to the people. They embodied
the principles which came to them from prophetic inspiration in
ceremonies and institutions; they treasured up whatever had been
gained, and kept the people nurtured in it and admonished by it. In
short, they prepared the soil and cultivated the roots from which
alone the consummate flower of prophecy could spring; and when the
voice of prophecy was dying away they brought the piety of the
average Israelite to the highest point it ever reached.

In modern times the necessity for such a body of special churchmen
is challenged from two opposite sides. There is, on the one hand,
the body of over-spiritualised believers who abhor organisation,
and the machinery of organisation, as if it were an intolerable
evil. Conscious very often of quick spiritual impulse and vivid
life in themselves, they fret against the slow movements of large
bodies of men; they separate themselves from all the organised
Churches and reject a regular ministry. All the Lord's people
are now, under the Christian dispensation, priests and prophets,
they say, and a separate paid ministry in sacred things they
refuse to hear of. For spiritual nourishment they rely solely
upon the prophetic gifts of their members, and are satisfied that
thus they are preparing the way for the universal prevalence of a
higher form of Church life. But, so far as can be judged, their
experiment has not prospered, nor is it likely to do so. For these
separatist Christians have found that spiritual life, like other
kinds of life, cannot express itself without an organism. That
implies organisation; and though they do with less of it than other
Christians, still they are often driven into arrangements which
really bring back the regular ministry with its separate position;
and in other respects they are saved from the inconveniences they
have fled from, only by their want of success. If their system
ever became general, it would necessarily drift into organisation,
for only at that price can any coherent, continuous, and lasting
effect be produced. Unfettered by the dull, the critical, and the
judicious, the impulsive and enthusiastic would always be outrunning
the possibilities of the present time. In the interests of the
best, they would be continually ignoring or destroying the good. To
prevent that, a special body of religious men set apart for sacred
services, and freed from the rough struggle for existence so far
as a maintenance from funds devoted to religious purposes can free
them, is one of the best provisions known. Where in the mass they
are really religious men, they secure that the pressure upward,
which the Church exerts upon the lives of its own members and upon
the community in general, shall be effective to the highest degree
then possible, and shall be exerted in the directions in which such
pressure will most fully answer to the needs and aspirations of the
time. Where, on the contrary, the mass of them are secularised,
they no doubt are a power for evil; but the contrast between their
profession and their practice in that case is so shocking, that
unless they be supported by the "dead hand" of endowments with no
living spiritual demand behind them, they soon sink by their own
weight, to give place to a better type. And even when they are thus
supported, though unfaithful, their calling in name at least remains
spiritual, and sooner than the other elements in the nation they are
apt to be stirred by breathings of a new life.

The other objectors to the regular ministry are those, in the press
and elsewhere, who demand of all ministers that they should be
prophets, or inspired religious geniuses, and, because they are
not, deny their right to exist. According to this view every sermon
that is not a new revelation is a failure, every minister of the
sanctuary who is not a discoverer in religion is a pretender, every
one who only exemplifies and lives by the power of the Gospel, as
it was last formulated so as to lay hold upon the popular mind, is
an obscurantist. But no reasonable man really believes this. Such
reproaches are merely the penalty which must be paid for claiming
so high a calling as that of an ambassador for Christ. No man can
quite adequately fill such a position; and the bulk of ministers
of Christ know better than others how much below their ideal their
real service is. But this also is true, that, take them all in
all, no class of men are doing anything like so much as Christian
ministers throughout the world are doing to keep up the standard of
morals and to keep alive faith in that which is spiritual. We have
no right to complain that in their sphere they are conservative of
that which has been handed on to them. They have tried and proved
that teaching; they know that wherever it secures a foothold it
lifts men up to God, and they are naturally doubtful whether new and
untried teaching will do as much. They have pressing upon them,
too, as others have not, the interest of individual men and women
whom they see and know, men and women who for the most part, and so
far as they can see, are accessible to spiritual impulse only on
lines with which they are familiar; and they dread the diversion
of their thoughts from their real spiritual interests, to matters
which, for them at least, must remain largely intellectual and
speculative. No doubt it would be well if all pastors could, as the
most highly endowed do, look beyond that narrower field; could take
account of the movements which are drifting men into new positions,
from which the old landmarks cannot be seen and consequently exert
no influence; and could endeavour to rethink their Christianity
from new points of view, which may be about to become the orthodoxy
of the next generation. But no ministry will ever be a ministry
of prophets. It may even be doubted whether such a ministry could
be borne if it ever should arise. Under it one might fear that
spiritual repose and spiritual growth would alike be impossible for
the average man, in his breathless race after teachers each of whom
was always catching sight of new lights. The mass of men need, first
of all, teachers who have firmly seized the common truth by which
the Church of their day lives, who live conspicuously nearer the
Christian ideal, as generally conceived, than others do, who devote
themselves in sincerity and self-sacrifice to the work of making the
things that are most surely believed among Christians a common and
abiding possession. Such men need never be ashamed of themselves
or of their calling. Theirs is the foundation work, so far as any
attempt to realise the Kingdom of God on earth is concerned; for
without the general acceptance of the truth attained which they
bring about, no further attainment would be possible. The very
environment out of which alone the prophet could be developed would
be wanting, and stagnation and death would certainly and necessarily
follow.

One other thing remains to be said. Though we have taken these
significant words of ver. 2--"And they shall have no inheritance
among their brethren: Yahweh is their inheritance, as He hath
spoken unto them"--in their first and most obvious reference, it
is not to be supposed that that meaning has exhausted all that the
words conveyed to ancient Israel. The perpetuation of the nomadic
form of life among the Levites, and the bestowal of tithes and
sacrificial meats upon them, was undoubtedly the first purpose of
this command. But it had, even for ancient Israel, a more spiritual
meaning. Just as in the promise of Canaan as a dwelling-place the
spiritual Israelite never regarded _merely_ the gift of wealth and
the prospect of comfort,--Canaan was always for them Yahweh's land,
the land where they would specially live near Him and find the joy
of His presence,--so in this case the spiritual gift, of which the
material was only an expression, is the main thing. To have Yahweh
for their heritage can never have meant _only_ so much money and
provisions, so much leisure and opportunity for contemplation,
to any true son of Levi. Otherwise it is inexplicable how the
words used to indicate this very earthly thing should have become
so acceptable a formula for the deepest spiritual experience of
Christian men. It meant also a spiritual bond between Yahweh and
His servants--a special nearness on their part, and a special
condescension on His. To the other tribes Yahweh had given His land,
to them He had given Himself as a heritage; and though doubtless any
unspiritual son of Levi must have thought the tangible advantages of
a fertile farm more attractive than visionary nearness to God, the
spiritual among the Levites must have felt that they had received
the really good part, which no hostile invasion, no oppression of
the rich, could ever take away. Their ordinary life-work brought
them more into contact with sacred things than others. The goodness,
the mercy, the love of God were, or at least ought to have been,
clearer to them than to their brethren; and the joy of doing good
to men for God's sake, the rapture of contemplation which possessed
them when they were privileged to see the face of God, must have
made all the coarser benefits of the earthly heritage seem worse
than nothing and vanity. Of course there was the danger that
familiarity with religious things should dull instead of quickening
the insight; and many passages in the Old Testament show that this
danger was not always escaped. But often, and for long periods, it
must have been warded off; and then the superiority of God's gift of
Himself must have been manifest, not only to the chosen tribe, but
to all Israel. For the nature of man is too intrinsically noble ever
to be quite satisfied with the world, and the riches and comforts
of the world, for its inheritance. At no time has man ever failed
to do homage to spiritual gifts. Even to-day, in spheres outside of
religion, there are multitudes of men and women who would put aside
without a sigh any wealth the world could give, if it were offered
as a substitute for their delight in poetry, or for their power
to rethink and re-enjoy the ideas of those whose "thoughts have
wandered through eternity." And the power to follow and to yield
oneself up to the thoughts of the Eternal God Himself is a reward
far above these. To the faithful servant of God at all times and in
all lands that joy has been open, for God Himself has been their
heritage; and though in ancient Israel the beauty of "Yahweh their
God" was not quite unveiled, yet we know from the Psalms that many
penetrated even then to the inner glory where God meets His chosen,
and there, though having nothing, yet found that in Him they had
all.




CHAPTER XIX

_SPEAKERS FOR GOD--III. THE PROPHET_

DEUT. xviii. 9-22


The third of the Divine voices to this nation was the prophet.
Just as in the other Semitic nations round about Israel there were
kings and priests and soothsayers, there were to be in Israel kings
and priests and prophets; and the first two orders having been
discussed, there remains for consideration the prophet, in so far
at least as he was to be the substitute for the soothsayer. That
this parallel was in the mind of the writer, and that he probably
intended only to deal with certain aspects of the prophetic office,
is witnessed by the fact that he introduces what he has to say
regarding the prophet by a stern and detailed denunciation of any
dealings with soothsayers and wizards. In the earlier codes the
same denunciation is found, but the catalogue of names for those
who practised such arts is nowhere so extensive as it is here. In
the Book of the Covenant the _mekhashsheph_, or magician, alone
is mentioned (Exod. xxii. 17); while the peculiar code which is
contained in the last chapters of Leviticus,[94] mentions only five
varieties of sorcerers. The Deuteronomic list of eight is thus the
most complete; and Dillmann may be right in regarding it as also the
latest. But the special indignation of the writer of Deuteronomy
against these forms of superstition would be quite sufficient to
account for his elaborate detail. If he lived in the days of
Manasseh, he would have before his eyes the passing of children
through the fire to Moloch. That was connected with soothsaying
and was the crowning horror of Israel's idolatry. The author of
Deuteronomy might, therefore, well be more passionate and detailed
in his denunciations than others, whether earlier or later.

  [94] Only two in any one law; Lev. xviii. 21, xix. 26, 31, xx. 6, 27.

Nor let any one imagine that in this he was wrong and unenlightened.
Whether we believe in the occasional appearance of abnormal powers
of the soothsaying kind or not, it is evident that in every nation's
life there has been a time in which faith in the existence of such
powers was universal, and in which the moral and spiritual life of
men has been threatened in the gravest way by the proceedings of
those who claimed to possess them. At this hour the witch-doctor,
with his cruelties and frauds, is the incubus that rests upon all
the semi-civilised or wholly uncivilised peoples of Africa. Even
British justice has to lay hands upon him in New Guinea, as the
following extract from a Melbourne newspaper will show: "Divination
by means of evil spirits is practised to such an extent and with
such evil effects by the natives of New Guinea that the Native
Regulation Board of British New Guinea has found it necessary
to make an ordinance forbidding it. The regulation opens with
the statement, 'White men know that sorcery is only deceit, but
the lies of the sorcerer frighten many people; the deceit of the
sorcerer should be stopped.' It then proceeds to point out that it
is forbidden for any person to practise or to pretend to practise
sorcery, or for any person to threaten any other person with
sorcery, whether practised by himself or any one else. Any one found
guilty of sorcery may be sentenced by a European magistrate to three
months' imprisonment, or by a native magistrate to three days'
imprisonment, and he will be compelled to work in prison without
payment." Through the sorcerer attempts at advance to a higher life
are in our own day being rendered futile; at his instigation the
darkest crimes are committed; and because of him and the beliefs he
inculcates men are kept all their lives subject to bondage. So also
of old. The ancient soothsayer might be an impostor in everything,
but he was none the less dangerous for that. To what depths of
wickedness his practices can bring men is seen in the horrors of
the secret cult of the negroes of Hayti. Even when soothsaying and
magic were connected with higher religions than the fetichism of the
Haytian negro, they were still detrimental in no ordinary degree. No
worthy conception of God could grow up where these were dominant,
and toleration of them was utterly impossible for the religion of
Yahweh.

The justice of the punishment of death decreed against wizards
and witches in Scripture was, therefore, quite independent of the
reality of the powers such persons claimed. They professed and were
believed to have them, and thus they acquired an influence which
was fatal to any real belief in a moral and spiritual government
of the world. They must therefore be an "abomination" to Yahweh;
and as, in any case, by the very fact that they were soothsayers
and diviners they practised low forms of idolatry, those who sought
them must share the condemnation of the idolater in Israel. In the
earlier days of the sacred history there was no enemy so subtle,
so insidious, so difficult to meet as magic and soothsaying.
Only by actual prohibition, on pain of death, could the case be
adequately met; and under these circumstances there is no need for
us to apologise for the Old Testament law, "Thou shalt not suffer
a witch to live" (Exod. xxii. 17). What is aimed at here is the
profession on the part of any woman that she had and used these
supernatural powers. This was a crime against Israel's higher life.
The punishment of it had no resemblance to the judicial cruelties
perpetrated in comparatively modern times, when the charge of being
a witch became a weapon against people, who for the most part were
guilty only of being helpless and lonely.

But it is characteristic of the large outlook of Deuteronomy that
not only is the evil protested against; the universal human need
which underlay it is acknowledged and supplied. Behind all the
terrible aberrations of heathen soothsaying and divination the
author saw hunger for a revelation of the will and purpose of
God. That was worthy of sympathy, however inadequate and evil the
substitutes elaborated for the really Divine means of enlightenment
were. So he promises that the real need will be supplied by God's
holy prophets. Nothing that savoured of ignorance or misapprehension
of God's spirituality, or of unfaithfulness to Yahweh, could be
tolerated; for Israel's God would supply all their need by a prophet
from the midst of them, of their brethren, like unto Moses, in whose
mouth Yahweh would put His words, and who should speak unto them all
that He should command him. This is the broadest and most general
legitimation of the prophet, as a special organ of revelation in
Israel, that the Scripture contains. By it he is made one of the
regularly constituted channels of Divine influence for his people.
For it is evidently not one single individual, such as the Messiah,
who is here foretold. That has been the interpretation received from
the earlier Jews, and cherished in the Church up till quite modern
times. But as Keil rightly says, the fact that this promise is set
against any supposed need to have recourse to diviners and wizards,
is in itself sufficient proof that the prophetic order is meant.
It was not only in the far-off Messianic time that Israel was to
find in this Divinely sent prophet that knowledge of God's will
and purposes which it needed. Israel of all times, tempted by the
customs of its heathen neighbours to go to the diviners, was to have
in Yahweh's prophet a continual deliverance from the temptation.
That implies that this _Nabhi_, or prophet like unto Moses, was to
be continually recurring, at every turn and crisis of this nation's
career.

Further, the direction in the end of the passage for testing the
prophets, whether they were really sent of God or not, confirms
this view. It would be singularly out of place in a promise which
referred to the Messiah in an exclusive and primary fashion.
He would never need testing of this sort, for He was to be the
realisation and embodiment of Israel's highest aspirations. But if
the passage means to give the prophets a place among the national
organs of intercourse with Yahweh alongside of the priests, the
necessity of distinguishing these true and Divinely given prophets
from pretenders was urgent. The context, both before and after the
promise, seems, therefore, to be decisively in favour of the general
reference; and the phrases "like unto me," "like unto thee," _i.e._
Moses, when carefully examined, instead of weakening that inference,
strengthen it. They are not used here as the similar phrase is used
in Deut. xxxiv. 10: "And there hath not arisen a prophet since in
Israel like unto Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face." There the
closeness of Moses' approach to Yahweh is the point in hand, and it
is clearly stated that in that regard Moses was more favoured than
any who had succeeded him. But here the comparison is between Moses
and the prophets, in so far as mediation between Yahweh and His
people was concerned. At Israel's own wish Moses had been appointed
to hear the Divine voice. Israel had said "Let me not hear again the
voice of Yahweh my God, neither let me see this great fire any more,
that I die not." The prophet here promised was to be like Moses
in that respect, but there is nothing to assert that he would be
equal to Moses in power and dignity. On all grounds, therefore, the
reference to the line of prophets is to be maintained.

Still, the interpretation thus reached does not exclude--it
distinctly includes--the Messianic reference. If the passage
promises that at all moments of difficulty and crisis in Israel's
history, the will of God would be made known by a Divinely sent
prophet, that would be specially true of the last and greatest
crisis, the birth of the new time which the Messiah was to
inaugurate. Whatever fulfilment the promise might receive previously
to that, it could not be perfectly fulfilled without the advent
of Him whose office it was to close up the history of the present
world, and bring all things by a safe transition into the new
Messianic world. That was the greatest crisis; and necessarily
the prophet who spoke for Yahweh in it must be the crown of the
long line of prophets. There is still a higher sense in which this
promise has reference to the Messiah. He was to sum up and realise
in Himself all the possibilities of Israel. Now they were the
prophetic nation, the people who were to reveal God to mankind; and
when they proved prevailingly false to their higher calling, the
hopes of all who remained faithful turned to that "true" Israel
which alone would inherit the promises. At one period, just before
and in the Exile, the prophetic order would appear to have been
looked upon as the Israel within Israel, to whom it would fall to
accomplish the great things to which the seed of Abraham had been
called. But the author of Second Isaiah, despairing even of them,
saw that the destiny of Israel would be accomplished by one great
Servant of Yahweh, who should outshine all other prophets, as He
would surpass all other Israelite priests and Davidic kings. As
the crown and embodiment of all that the prophets had aspired
to be, the Messiah alone completely fulfilled this promise, and
consequently the Messianic reference is organically one with the
primary reference. They are so intimately interwoven that nothing
but violence can separate them; and thus we gain a deeper insight
into the wide reach of the Divine purposes, and the organic unity of
the Divine action in the world. These form a far better guarantee
for the recognition of Messianic prophecy here than the supposed
direct and exclusive reference did. By not grasping too desperately
at the view which more strikingly involves the supernatural, we have
received back with "full measure pressed down and running over" the
assurance that God was really speaking here, and that this, like all
the promises of the Old Testament when rightly understood, is yea
and amen in Christ.

But for our present purpose the primary reference of this passage
to the prophetic line is even more important than the secondary but
most vital reference to the Messiah. For it sets forth prophecy
as the most potent instrument for the growth and furtherance of
the religion of Israel. The prophet is here declared to be the
successor of Moses, to be the inspired declarer of the Divine will
to His people in cases which did not come within the sphere or the
competency of the priest. The latter was, as we have seen, bound to
work within the limits and on the basis of the revelation given by
Moses. He was to carry out into execution what had been commanded,
to keep alive in the hearts of the people the knowledge of their
God as Moses had given it, to give "Torah" from the sanctuary in
accordance with its principles. But here a nobler office is assigned
to the prophet. He is to enlarge and develop the work of Moses.
The Mosaic revelation is here viewed as fundamental and normative,
but, in contrast to the views of later Judaism, as by no means
complete. For the completion of it the prophet is here declared to
be the Divinely chosen instrument, and he is consequently assigned a
higher position in the purpose of God than either king or priest. He
is raised far above the diviners by having his calling lifted into
the moral sphere; and he excels both the other organs of national
life in that, while they are largely bound by the past, he is called
of God to initiate new and higher stages in the life of the chosen
people. The ascending steps of the revelation begun by Moses were to
be in his hands, and through him God was to reveal Himself in ever
fuller measure.

Viewed thus, the prophetic order in Israel has a quite unique
character. It is a provision for religious progress such as had no
parallel elsewhere in the world; and this public acknowledgment
of its Divine right is almost more remarkable. Wherever elsewhere
in the world religion has been supposed to be Divinely given
through one man, though modifications have indeed been made in
later times, yet they have never been anticipated and provided for
beforehand. Save in the case of Mohammedanism, which borrowed its
idea of the office of the prophet from Judaism, there has never
been a deliberate admission that God had yet higher things to
reveal concerning Himself, still less has provision been made for
the coming of that which was new to fulfil the old. And in modern
times the revealer of new aspects of truth finds nowhere a welcome.
Instead of being received as a messenger of God, even in the
Christian Church he has always to face neglect, often persecution,
and only if he be unusually fortunate does he live to see his
message received. But in Israel, even in such ancient days as those
we are dealing with, the progressive nature of God's Revelation of
Himself was acknowledged, the reception of new truth was legitimised
and looked for, and the highest place in the earthly kingdom of
God was reserved for those whom God had enlightened by it. It is
true of course that the nation as a whole never acted in accordance
with this teaching. They did not obey the command given here, "Unto
him shall ye hearken," and reiterated still more solemnly in the
words, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken
unto My words, which he shall speak in My name, I will require of
him." The prophets for the most part spoke to their contemporaries
in vain. Where they were not neglected they were persecuted, and
many sealed their testimony with their blood. But the thought that
Yahweh was educating His people step by step, and that at all times
in their history He would have further revelations of Himself to
make, is familiar to this writer. Therefore he welcomes the thought
of advance in this region of things, and here solemnly enrols those
who are to be the instruments of it among the ruling powers of the
nation.

Now in religious thought this is quite unparalleled. Tenacious
conservatism, based on the conviction that full truth has already
been attained, has always been the mark of religious thinking.
That a religious teacher should be able to see that the light of
revelation, like the natural light, must come gradually, broadening
by degrees into perfect day, and that he himself was standing only
in the morning twilight, is a thing so remarkable that one is at a
loss to account for it, save on the ground of the special nature of
prophetic enlightenment. It was part of the office of the prophets
to foresee and foretell the future. Smend is certainly in the right,
as against those who have been teaching that the prophet was merely
a preacher of genius, when he says that "in Amos and his successors
prophecy is the starting-point of their whole discourse and action,"
and that "all new knowledge which they preach comes to them from the
action of Yahweh which they foretell.... Consequently the greatness
of a prophet is to be gathered from the measure in which he foresees
the future."[95] This statement gives us the truth that lies between
the two other extremes; for according to it the prophet proclaims
and preaches religious truth, but he does so on the basis of what he
perceives that God is about to do in the future. In other words, he
proclaims new truth on the ground of the revelation God is about to
make of Himself, which he is inspired to foresee and to interpret.
His business is neither all foreseeing nor all teaching; it is
teaching grounded upon foresight. Consequently it was impossible
for the prophet to believe that change in religion was in itself
evil. He _knew_ to the contrary. Only change which should remove
men from the Divinely given basis of the faith was evil; and such
change, whatever credentials might accompany it, even though they
might be miraculous, every faithful Israelite had been already
warned most sternly to reject (Deut. xiii. 5). But when the impulse
to advance came from Yahweh's manifestation of Himself, change was
not only good, it was the indispensable test of faithfulness. They
were not the true followers of Isaiah who, on the ground of his
prophecy that Zion, as Yahweh's dwelling-place, should be delivered
from destruction, rejected the prophecy of Jeremiah that Zion would
fall before the Chaldeans. The really faithful men were those who
had taken to heart the lessons Yahweh had set for His people in the
century that lay between these two prophets; who saw that the time
when the deliverance of Zion was necessary to the safety of the true
religion was past, and that now the capture of Zion was necessary
to its true development. And that is not a solitary case; it is an
example of what was normal in the religious history of this people.

  [95] _Lehrbuch der Alt-Testamentlichen Religion's Geschichte_, pp.
  169 ff.

This did not escape the quick eye of John Stuart Mill. He says
the religion of Israel "gave existence to an inestimably precious
unorganised institution--the order (if it may be so termed) of
prophets.... Religion, consequently, was not there, what it has
been in so many other places, a consecration of all that was once
established, and a barrier against further improvement." There
always was the movement of pulsing life within it, and under the
Divine guidance that movement was always upward. At some times
it was comparatively shallow and slow, at others it was a deep
and rushing tide. But it was always moving in directions which
led straight to the great consummation of itself in the coming of
Christ, who gathered up into His own life all the varied streams of
revelation, and crowned and fulfilled them all. At no point in the
progress from Moses to the Messiah do we touch rounded and completed
truth; nor, according to the teaching of Scripture in this passage,
were we meant to do so. The faithful among Israel had as their
watchword the _disio_ and _pace_ of Dante. They saw before them a
world of Divine "peace," which they knew lay still in the future,
and the "desire" and yearning of their souls were always directed
towards it. With inextinguishable hope they marched onward with
uplifted faces, to which light reflected from that future gave at
times a radiant gladness; and always they kept an open ear for those
who saw what God was about to do at each turning of the way.

But granting that religion was thus progressive before men were
spoken unto "by the Son," can we say or believe that, now that He
has spoken, progress in this way is still possible? At first sight
it would seem necessary to answer that question in the negative. The
progressive revelation of God has come to its perfection in Jesus
Christ; what then remains to us but to cling to that? Are we not
bound to make resistance to progress, to any new view in religion,
our first duty? Many act and speak as if that were the only possible
course consistent with faithfulness. But we must distinguish. The
revelation of God has, according to our Christian faith, reached not
only its highest actual point, but also its highest possible point
in Christ. God can do nothing more for His vineyard than He has
done. As a manifestation of God, revelation is completed and closed
in Christ. For it is impossible to manifest God to men more fully
than in a man who reveals God in every thought and word and act.

But it is quite otherwise with the interpretation of the
manifestation. In the earlier days this was provided for by
a special inspiration of God, which made the holy men of old
infallible in their interpretation of the revelation received up to
their day, and that continued till the establishment of the Church.
Since then the Holy Spirit is to be the guide of faithful men into
all truth. Now in the way of interpreting Christ and His message
progress is as much open to us as it was to Israel. A complete
revelation of God must necessarily, at any given time up till the
consummation of all things, contain in it a residuum of significance
which, at that point of their experience, mankind has not felt the
need of, nor has had the capacity to understand. As the world grows
older, however, new outlooks, new environments, new circumstances
continually appear, and they all insist upon being dealt with by
the Church. In order to deal with them adequately and worthily, a
faithful Church must turn to Christ to see what God would have it
do; and if Christ be what we take Him to be, there will issue from
Him a light, unseen or unnoticed before, to meet the hitherto unfelt
need. Moreover, while our Lord Jesus Christ reveals God completely
as the God of Redemption, and throws light upon all God's relations
to man, a light which needs and admits of no supplementary addition,
there are other aspects of the Divine character which He does not
so entirely reveal. For example, God's relations to the world of
nature, which are now being unveiled in a most striking manner, are
dealt with comparatively rarely in the Gospels. Are we to shut our
eyes to these as of no importance, and to allow them no influence
upon our thoughts? Surely that cannot be demanded of us; for, to
speak plainly, it is impossible. No one can remain unmoved when God
and man are revealing themselves in the wondrous panorama of the
world's life.

Even those who most profess to do so in no case take their stand
simply and solely upon the truths believed and held by the first
Christians. All of them have adopted later developments as part of
their indefeasible treasure. Some go back to the theology of the
great Evangelical Revival only; some to the Reformation; some to the
pre-Reformation Scholastics; others to the first five centuries. But
whatever the point may be at which they take up Christian theology,
they take up, along with the original creed of the first believers,
some truths or doctrines which emerged and were accepted at a later
date. Themselves being judges, therefore, additions to the primitive
deposit of faith have to be admitted; and it is a purely arbitrary
proceeding on their part to say that now we have attained to all
truth, and stolid conservatism is henceforth the only faithful
attitude. No, we have still a living God and a living Church, and a
multifarious and wonderful world to deal with. Interaction of these
cannot be avoided, nor can it occur without new truth being evolved.
To have ears and not to hear, to have eyes and not to see, must be
as offensive to God now as it was in Old Testament times. Though we
have now no inspired prophets to foresee and interpret, we have in
all our Churches men whose ears are better attuned to the celestial
harmony than others, whose eyes have a keener and surer insight
into what God the Lord would speak; and we ought to hear them, to
see at least whether they can make their position good. To reject
their teaching, only because some element or aspect of it is new,
is to deny the guiding providence of God, to turn our back upon the
rich stores of instruction which the facts of history, both secular
and religious, are fitted to impart. That can never be a Christian
duty. Even if it were possible it would be futile. The light will be
received by the younger, the fresher and less stereotyped natures in
all the Churches; and those who refuse it, in holding obstinately
and with exclusive devotion to what they have, will find it shrink
and shrivel in their hand. Only in the rush and conflict, only amid
the impulses and the powers which are moving in the world, can a
healthy religion breathe. Doubtless new teaching will come to _us_
in ways congruous to the completed Revelation of our Redeeming
God; but it will come; and it should be welcomed as gladly as the
teaching of the prophets was welcomed by faithful men in Israel. If
it be not, then the Divine threat will apply in this case as fully
as in the other: "Whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he
shall speak in My name, I will require it of him."

Many say now, and at all times many have said, to those who had
caught glimpses of some new lesson God was desiring to teach: "You
admit that souls have been renewed and character built up and
spiritual life preserved without this new teaching. Why then can
you not let us alone? In your pursuit of the best you may destroy
the good; and no harm can happen if you keep the improved faith to
yourself." But they have forgotten Yahweh's solemn "Whosoever will
not hearken, I will require it of him." If we refuse to hear when
the Lord hath spoken, evil must come of it. Indeed, though the evils
of heresy may be more dramatically and strikingly manifest, those
of stagnation and a refusal to learn may be much more destructive
of the common faith. For refusal to acknowledge truth has far wider
issues than the loss of any particular truth. It indicates and
reinforces an attitude of soul which, if persisted in, will allow
the Church that adopts it to drift slowly away from living contact
with the minds of men. So drifting, it shrinks into a _coterie_, and
its every activity becomes infected with the curse of futility.

On both sides, therefore, there is danger for us, as there was for
the Old Testament Church; and we turn with quickened interest to the
test, the criterion, by which Deuteronomy would have the prophets
tried. It puts the very question which the line of thought we have
been pursuing could not fail to suggest: "How shall we know the
word which Yahweh hath not spoken?" If a prophet spoke in the name
of other gods he was to die; that had already been determined in
the thirteenth chapter, and it is repeated here. But the prophet
who should speak a word presumptuously in the name of Yahweh, which
He had not commanded, was to be in the same condemnation. It was,
therefore, of the last importance that there should be means of
detecting when this last evil occurred. The test is this: "When a
prophet speaketh in the name of Yahweh, if the thing follow not,
nor come to pass, that is the thing which Yahweh hath not spoken."
The strange notions of Duhm and others in regard to this have been
already dealt with (_vide_ pp. 248 f.). There, too, it has been
shown that the prophecy here spoken of must have been prophecy in
its narrower sense, prophecy dealing with promises of _immediate_
judgment and deliverance. Furthermore, this is set forth here as a
test applicable to prophets in all ages of the history of Israel. It
lies, too, in the nature of the case that it must always have been
the popular test. The announcement of things to come before they
came was made, at least partially, with the view of impressing the
populace, and of gaining their confidence and attention. They must
consequently have been continually on the alert to apply this test,
and all that is here done is to acknowledge it in the fullest manner
as a right and Divinely approved criterion.

But the way in which it ought to be applied is best exemplified by
Jeremiah's own method of applying it, which, as Dr. Edersheim[96]
has pointed out, is to be found in the twenty-eighth chapter of
that prophet's book. There we read of Jeremiah's conflict with
"Hananiah the son of Azzur the prophet," in the beginning of the
reign of Zedekiah. Just previously Nebuchadnezzar had carried away
Jeconiah the king of Judah, with all the treasures of the house of
Yahweh and the strength of the people. Jeremiah had prophesied that
they would not return; nay, he had foretold a further calamity,
viz. that Nebuchadnezzar would come again and would take away
the people and the vessels of the house which still remained. In
opposition to that, Hananiah declared, as a word of Yahweh, "Within
two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels
of Yahweh's house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away
from this place, and carried them to Babylon; and I will bring
again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah,
with all the captives of Judah that went to Babylon, saith Yahweh."
Jeremiah's conduct under these circumstances is noteworthy. He
did not immediately denounce his rival as prophesying falsely. He
seems to have thought that possibly he might have a true word from
Yahweh, since, as we see in the Book of Jonah, the most positive
prophecies were conditional, and Jeremiah would seem to have thought
it possible that personal repentance was about to bring upon the
captive king and people a blessing, instead of the evil he had
foreseen. He consequently expressed a fervent wish that Hananiah's
prophecy might come true, but reminded his rival that the causes of
the evil prophecies of himself and previous prophets were far wider
than the ground which the personal repentance of the captives could
cover. Because of that he evidently felt the gravest doubt about
Hananiah; but he disposes of the matter by saying, "The prophet
which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come
to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that Yahweh hath truly
sent him." Only afterwards, when he had himself received a special
revelation concerning Hananiah, did he denounce him as an impostor
and a false prophet.

  [96] _Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah_, p. 150.

The whole narrative is of extreme importance, for it shows us how
the prophets themselves regarded their own supernatural powers, and
how they used the tests supplied in Deuteronomy. In the first place,
they asked how the new word of Yahweh stood in regard to the older
words which He had certainly spoken. If there was any possible way
in which the new and the old could be reconciled, they gave the
new the benefit of the doubt, and left the decision to the event.
Obviously had there been no way of reconciling Hananiah's prophecy
with the mass of contrary prophecy which had gone before, Jeremiah
would have denounced him under the law of Deut. xiii. 5 as leading
away from Yahweh. As it was, he fell back upon the test in this
twenty-eighth chapter, and would have maintained an attitude of
watchful neutrality until the event had justified or condemned his
rival, had not Yahweh Himself settled the question.

For our own day and in our different circumstances the tests are
radically the same, though, as prophecy is extinct in the Church,
they must to some extent act differently. The New Testament parallel
to the criterion in Deut. xiii. 5 is to be found in 1 John iv.
1, 2, and 3: "Prove the spirits, whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye
the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit which confesseth
not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist,
whereof ye have heard that it cometh." Under the Christian
dispensation to deny "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" is
the same as it was to say under the earlier dispensation "Let us
go after other gods," so completely do God and Christ coincide in
our most holy faith. In each case the ultimate test of prophecy is
to be the fundamental principle of the faith. Whatever credentials
teachers who deny that may bring, they are to be unhesitatingly
rejected. They belong to the world, that scheme and fabric of
things which rejects allegiance to the Spirit of God. Least of all
is popularity with the world as distinguished from the Church, or
with the worldly portion of the Church, to stand in the way of its
rejection. That is only the natural consequence of its being "of
the world." Within the Church no quarter is to be shown to such
teaching, for it really carries with it the absolute negation of the
faith.

But what of erroneous teaching which acknowledges that "Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh"? To it the Old Testament parallel is
the utterance of the prophet who "speaketh in the name of Yahweh,
and the thing followeth not nor comes to pass." According to Old
Testament precept and example, that was to be left to the judgment
of time. In our day a corresponding course must be found. The case
supposed is that of teaching believed to be erroneous, but neither
fundamentally subversive of Christianity nor destructive of the
special principles of a Church. If so, earnest opposition by those
who hold the opposite view, and adequate discussion, are the true
way of meeting the case. For the rest, the final decision should be
left to experience. In time, even subsidiary error of this kind,
if important, will manifest itself by weakening spiritual life in
those who hold it; they will gradually dwindle in numbers and their
influence in the Church will die away. They begin by promising
renewed strength and insight in spiritual things, renewed energy in
the spiritual life. If that "follow not nor come to pass," when due
time has been given for any such development, then that is the thing
which the Lord hath not spoken, and it should be dealt with as the
fundamental heresy is to be dealt with. But probably by that time it
will have judged itself, and will need no judgment of men at all.

These then were the connecting links between Yahweh and His people,
and the organs by which the life of the Israelite nation was guided:
the Kingship, the Priesthood, and the Prophetic Order. The first
gave visibility to the Divine rule, and stability to national
and social life; the second secured the stability of religion,
and built up the moral life of the nation on the basis of Mosaic
law; the third secured progress and averted stagnation, both in
religion and in social and individual morals. In fact, order and
progress, the two things Positivist thinkers have set forth as
those which can alone secure health to a community, are provided
for here with a directness and success which it would be difficult
to parallel elsewhere. When we remember how small, how obscure,
and how uncivilised the people was to whom this scheme of things
was given, and how little their surroundings or circumstances were
calculated to suggest such far-reaching provisions, we see that
the source of it all was the Revelation of the Divine character
given by Moses. Yahweh as revealed through him did not permit His
worshippers to believe that they could, at one moment, receive all
that was to be known about Him. They were taught to found their
conduct and their polity upon what they did know, and to be eagerly
on the watch for that which might be revealed at new crises of their
history. Now that teaching finds its most complete expression in
the laws concerning the three institutions we have been reviewing.
Behind all healthy national life and all stable institutions there
was, so had this people learned, the power and the righteousness of
Almighty God. In His eagerness to draw near to men, He had changed
the priest, the king, the prophet from being, as they were among
the heathen, merely political and religious officials appointed
for purely earthly ends, into channels of communication with
Him. Through them there were poured into the life of this nation
wholesome and varied streams of Divine grace and enlightenment,
and a just balance between conservatism and reform in religion was
admirably secured. Consequently, amid all drawbacks, the Israelites
became an instrument of the finest power for good in the hands of
their Almighty King; and even when their outward glory faded, they
were inwardly renewed and pressed onward age after age. "Without
hasting and without resting," the purpose of God was realised in
their history, guided by these three organs of their national life.
Each contributed its share in preparing for the fulness of the
time when He came who was the Salvation of God, and each supplied
elements of the most essential kind to the mingled expectation which
was so marvellously satisfied by the life and work of Christ. They
wrought together in the fullest harmony, moreover, though they were
not always conscious of doing so. For they all moved at the bidding
of the still small voice wherewith God speaks most effectively to
the souls of men. Because of this their purposes took a wider sweep
than they knew, their hopes received wings which carried them far
away beyond the horizon of Old Testament time; and, starting from
the remotest points, all the streams of the national life converged,
till, at the close of the Old Testament time, they were running in
such directions that they could not fail in little space to meet.
It was therefore no surprise to the faithful in Israel when, at the
beginning of the New Testament, they were found to have met in Jesus
the Christ. Once that point was reached, the whole former history,
which was now lying completed before the eyes of all, could be
fully appreciated. Everything in the past seemed to speak of Him.
If, in that first burst of joyous surprise, Messianic references of
the most definite kind were found where we now can see only faint
hints and adumbrations, we need not wonder. So much more had been
spoken of Him than they had thought, it would have been strange had
they not swung a little to the opposite extreme. But that need not
hinder us from acknowledging that the history of Israel, viewed
from their standpoint, was and is the most conspicuous, the most
convincing, the most inspiring proof of the Divine action in the
world. The finger of God was so manifestly _here_, harmonising,
directing, impelling, that the evidence for Divine guidance in much
more obscure regions becomes irresistible. With this history before
us we can believe that it was not only in those far-off days, and in
that little corner of Asia that God was active for the production of
good. Now and here, as well as then and there, there are Divine and
guiding forces at work in the world; and the only safe politics, the
only truly prosperous peoples, are those in which rulers and priests
and prophets are secured, to whom the secret of God is open.




CHAPTER XX

_THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF ISRAELITE LIFE_


It has often and justly been said that the life of Israel is so
entirely founded on the grace and favour of God that no distinction
is made between the secular and the religious laws. Whatever their
origin may have been, whether they had been part of the tribal
constitution before Moses' day or not, they were all regarded as
Divinely given. They had been accepted as fit building stones for
the great edifice of that national life in which God was to reveal
Himself to all mankind, and behind them all was the same Divine
authority. That being so, it is not wonderful, in times like these,
when the air is full of plans and theories for the reconstruction
of society in the interest of the toiling masses of men, that
believers in the Scriptures should turn with hope to the legislation
of the Old Testament. In the present state of things the material
conditions of life are far more deadening and demoralising for the
multitude in civilised countries than they are in many uncivilised
lands. That this should be so is intolerable to all who think and
feel; and men turn with hope to a scene where God is teaching and
training men, not merely in regard to their individual life, as
in the New Testament, but also in regard to national life. It is
seen, too, that the tone and feeling of these laws are sympathetic
for the poor as no other code has ever been; and many maintain
that, if we would only return to the provisions of these laws, the
social crisis which is as yet only in its beginning, and which
threatens to darken and overshadow all lands, would be at once and
wholly averted. Men consequently are diligently inquiring what the
land tenure of ancient Israel was, what its trade laws were, how
the poor were dealt with, and how and to what extent pauperism was
averted or provided for. Many say, If God has spoken in and by this
people, so that their first steps in religion and morals have been
the starting-point for the highest life of humanity, may we not
expect that their first steps in political and social life will
have the same abiding value, if rightly understood? Now the main
thing in regard to which the economical arrangements of a nation are
important is land. In modern times there may be some exceptionally
situated communities, such as the British people, among whom
commerce and manufactures are more important than agriculture; but
in ancient times no such case could arise. In every community the
land and the land tenure were the fundamentally important things.

Now the fundamental thing concerning it was that Yahweh, being
the King of Israel, who had formed and was guiding this people as
His instrument for saving the world, and who had bestowed their
country upon them, was regarded as the sole owner of the soil. It
is not necessary to quote texts to prove this, since it is the
fundamental assumption throughout the Old Testament Scriptures that
the Israelite title to their land was the gift of Yahweh. He had
promised it to the fathers. He had driven out the Canaanite nations
before Israel. He had by His mighty hand and His stretched-out arm
established His chosen people in the place which He had chosen, and
He had granted them the use and enjoyment of it so long as they
proved faithful to Him. Consequently, in a quite real and palpable
sense, there was no owner of land in Israel save Yahweh. And this
thought was not without practical consequences of great moment. It
was not a mere religious sentiment, it was a hard and palpable fact,
that Yahweh ruled. Absolute proprietorship could never be built up
on that basis, and never as a matter of fact, was acknowledged in
Israel. All were tenants, who held their places only so long as
they obeyed the statutes of Yahweh. The sale in perpetuity of that
which had been portioned out to tribes and families was consequently
entirely prohibited. As against other nations, indeed, Israel was
to possess this land, so that no heathen could be permitted to
buy and possess even a scrap of it; but as against Yahweh and the
purposes for which He had chosen Israel, all were equally strangers
and sojourners, practically tenants at will, who could neither give
nor take their holdings as if they were absolutely theirs. Yet,
relatively, the land was given to the community as a whole, and
according to Joshua xiii. 7 sqq. (a passage generally assigned to
the Deuteronomic editor) it was parcelled out by lot to the various
tribes just before Joshua's death, according to their respective
numbers.[97] Then within the tribal domain the families in the wider
sense had their portion, and within these family domains again the
individual households. In this way the Israelite tenure of land
occupies a middle point between the theories of Socialism, and the
high doctrine of private property in land which declares that the
individual owner can do what he will with his own. The nation as
a whole claimed rights over all the land, but it did not attempt
to manage the public estate for the common good. It delegated its
powers to the tribes. But not even they undertook the burdens
of proprietorship. Under them the families undertook a general
superintendence; but the true proprietary rights, the cultivation
of the soil, and the drawing of profit from it, subject only to
deductions made by the larger bodies, the families, the tribes,
and the nation, were exercised only by individuals. The nation
took care that none of its territory should be sold to foreigners,
lest the national inheritance should be diminished, and the tribes
did the same for the tribal heritage, as we see from the narrative
concerning the daughters of Zelophehad. It was only within limits
therefore, that the individual proprietor was free; and though the
rights of property were respected, the corresponding duties of
property were set forth with irresistible clearness. The community,
in fact, never abandoned its claims upon the common heritage, any
more than Israel's Divine King did, and consequently the field
within which proprietary rights were exercised was more restricted
here than in any modern state.

  [97] Cf. Numb. xxvi. 53-55 from P and Josh. xvii. 14 ff. from JE.

Further, besides the prohibition of absolute sale which flowed from
the recognition of Yahweh's ownership, and the limitations which
tribal and family claims involved, there were distinct provisions
in which the national ownership under Yahweh was plainly asserted.
For example, it is enacted in Deut. xxiii. 24--"When thou comest
into thy neighbour's vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill
at thine own pleasure; but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel.
When thou comest into thy neighbour's standing corn, then thou
mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a
sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn." Allied to these were the
provisions (Lev. xix. 9 ff., xxiii. 10) concerning gleaning, and not
reaping the corners of the field. It will be observed that, though
these latter may be discounted as intended for the relief of the
poor alone, the former provision was for all, and that consequently
it may be regarded as an undoubted assertion of the common
ownership, or common _usufruct_, which, though latent, was always
held to be a fact. In other ways also the same hint is given. The
provisions for letting the land lie fallow in the seventh year and
in the jubilee year, and for securing the use of what grew in the
field for all who chose to take it, were interferences with the
free-will of the individual owners or occupiers, which find their
justification only in the fact that the general ownership was never
suffered entirely to fall into the background.

To sum up then this system aimed at securing the advantages both of
the socialist view and of the individualistic view, while avoiding
the evils of both. Private enterprise was encouraged, by the
individual being guaranteed possession of his land against any other
individual; while public spirit and a regard for general interests
were promoted by the restrictions which limited the private
ownership. Further, and more important still, the whole relation
of the nation and of the individual to the land was raised out of
the merely sordid region of material gain into the spiritual and
moral region, by the principle that Yahweh their God alone had full
proprietary rights over the soil. All were "sojourners" with Him.
He had promised this land to their fathers as the place wherein He
should specially reveal Himself to them. Here, communion with Him
was to be established, and to each household there had been assigned
by Yahweh a special portion of it, which it would be equally a
sin and an unspeakable loss to part with. Compulsion alone could
justify such a surrender; and the completed legislation, whatever
its date, and even if it remained always an unrealised ideal, shows
how determined the effort was to secure the perpetuity of the tenure
in the original hands. The ideal of Israelite life was consequently
that the land should remain in the hands of the hereditary owners,
and that the main support of all the people should be agricultural
labour.[98]

  [98] The questions connected with the jubilee year are numerous and
  intricate, and it may be for ever impossible, from lack of data,
  to decide at what period in Israelite history it originated, or
  whether it was ever actually observed; but it undoubtedly expressed
  the spirit of the Israelite legislation and customary law at all
  times. It is the natural culmination of tendencies and ideas which
  were always present. That it is not mentioned in Deuteronomy at
  all is surprising, if it had been previously to Manasseh's day
  embodied either in custom or in law; yet, on the other hand, there
  are references in Ezekiel and other exilic books which are almost
  unintelligible except on the supposition that the jubilee year was
  a perfectly well-known institution (cf. Jer. xxxiv. 8 ff.; Ezek.
  vii. 12 f.; Ezek. xlvi. 16 ff.; Isa. lxi. 1 ff.). It is referred to
  in a merely allusive way, which implies that every hearer or reader
  of the prophetic warnings would know at once the full scope and
  meaning of the reference. Now, had the jubilee year been unknown
  before the Exile, had it been introduced by the author of Lev. xxv.
  just before Ezekiel, no such assumption could have been made. It
  would, therefore, seem necessary to suppose that the ordinance for
  a jubilee year must have existed in pre-exilic time; for, strange
  as Deuteronomy's silence in regard to it is, the _argumentum e
  silentio_ cannot weigh against indications of a positive kind, were
  they even fainter than those we have in regard to this matter.

The hypothesis that this was the case is strengthened to a certainty
by the manner in which commerce, one of the other main sources of
wealth, is dealt with in the Israelite law. There is but little
sympathy expressed with it, and some of the regulations issued are
such as to render trade on any very large scale within Palestine
itself impossible. From the use of the word "Canaanite" in the Old
Testament (cf. Job xli. 6; Prov. xxxi. 24; Zeph. i. 11; Ezek. xvii.
4, and Isa. xxiii. 8) it is clear that, even in the later periods
of Israelite history, the merchants were so prevailingly Canaanites
that the two words are synonymous. Nay, more; there can be no doubt
that the commercial career was looked down upon. Even as early as
the prophet Hosea the Canaanite name is connected with false weights
and vulgar commercial cheating (Hos. xii. 7), and it is looked upon
as a last degradation that Ephraim should take delight in similar
pursuits. In all that we read of merchants in the Old Testament we
seem to hear the expression of a feeling that commerce, with its
necessary wanderings, its temptations to dishonesty, its constant
contact with heathen peoples, was an occupation that was unworthy
of a son of Israel. Even Solomon's success as a royal merchant
would not seem to have overcome this feeling, nor did the later
commercial successes of kings like Jehoshaphat. In fact the ordinary
Israelite had the home-staying farmer's contempt and suspicion of
these far-wandering commercial people, so much more nimble-witted
than himself, who were therefore to be regarded with half-admiring
wariness.

But the very sinews of extensive commerce were cut by the law
against the taking of interest from a brother Israelite.[99]
Without credit, or the lending of money, or what is called sleeping
partnership (and all these are bound up with receiving interest), it
is impossible to have extensive trade. Without them every merchant
would have to limit his operations to cash transactions and to his
own immediate capital, and the great combinations which especially
bring wealth would be impossible. Now we do not need at present to
discuss the wisdom of prohibiting the taking of interest, nor the
still more debated question whether that ancient prohibition would
be wise or advantageous now. It is enough for our purpose that usury
in its literal sense was actually forbidden among Israelites, and
that they were thus shut out from the developed commercial life of
the surrounding nations. As a result trade remained in a merely
embryonic condition.

  [99] Cf. Kübel, _Die sociale und wirthschaftliche Gesetzgebung des
  Alten Testaments_ p. 47.

But in still other ways the Sinaitic legislation interfered with
its development. The inculcation of ceremonial purity, especially
in food, and the effort to make Israel a peculiar people unto
Yahweh, which distinguishes even the earlier forms of the law, made
intercourse with foreigners and living abroad, always difficult,
and under some circumstances impossible. Consequently all the
legislation that can possibly be considered commercial was of a very
rudimentary character. From every point of view it is clear that
ancient Israel was not a commercial people, and that the Divine law
was intended to restrain them from commercial pursuits. They could
not have been the holy and peculiar people they were meant to be,
had they become a nation of traffickers.

With regard to manufacturing industries the case was not essentially
different. Such pursuits were, it is true, more honoured than
commerce was, for skill in all arts, whether agricultural or
industrial, was regarded as a special gift of the Almighty. But so
far as the records go, there is no evidence that a manufacturing
industry existed, beyond what the very limited needs of the nation
itself demanded. From the fact that, according to Prov. xxxi. 24,
which was probably written late in the history of Israel, the
manufacturing of linen garments for sale and of girdles for the
Canaanites was the business of the thrifty and virtuous housewife,
we may gather that systematic wholesale manufacture of such things
was unknown. Probably the case was not otherwise in regard to all
branches of industry. There are no traces of trade castes, nor
of manufacturing towns; so that the manufacturing industries, so
far as they existed, had no other place than that of handmaids to
agriculture, by which the nation really lived.

According to the Old Testament, then, the ideal state of things for
a people like Israel was that every household should be settled upon
the land, that permanent eviction from or even alienation of the
holdings should be impossible, and that the whole population should
have a common interest in agriculture, that most honourable and
fundamental of all human pursuits. There were, of course, some men
in Israel more prominent than others, and some richer, but there
was to be no impassable barrier between classes such as we find in
Eastern countries where caste prevails, or in Western countries
where the aristocratic principle has drawn a deep dividing line
between those of "good" blood and all others. So far as is known,
there were no class barriers to intermarriage. From the highest
to the lowest, all were servants of Yahweh, and were consequently
equal. The conditions of the land tenure were such that it was
impossible, if they were respected, that large estates should
accumulate in the hands of individuals, and a landless proletariate
could not arise. The very rich and the very poor were alike
legislated out of existence, and a sufficient provision for all
was that which was aimed at. By the cycle of Sabbatic periods (the
weekly Sabbath, the Sabbatic year, and the year of jubilee) ample
rest for the land and its inhabitants was secured; and in the limits
set upon the period for which a Hebrew slave might be retained, in
the release, whatever that was, which the seventh year brought to
the debtor, and in the restoration of land to the impoverished owner
in the year of jubilee, such a series of breakwaters were erected
against the inrushing flood of pauperism, that, had they been
maintained, the world would have seen for the first time a fairly
civilised community in which even moderate ill-desert in a man could
not bring irretrievable ruin upon his posterity. The prodigal was
hindered from selling his heritage; he could only sell the use of
it for a number of years. He could not ruin himself by borrowing
at extravagant rates of interest, for no one was tempted to lend
him, and usury was forbidden. He might indeed run into debt and be
sold into slavery along with his family, but that could only be for
a few years, and then they all resumed their former position. In
this very land where the fact, Divinely impressed upon human life,
that the sins of the fathers were visited on the children was most
unflinchingly taught, the most elaborate precautions were taken
to mitigate the severity of this necessary law. From the first
the ideal was that there should be no son or daughter of Israel
oppressed or impoverished permanently; and whatever the stages of
advance in Israelite law may have been, and whatever the date of
particular ordinances may be, there is an admirable consistency
of aim throughout. Even should it be proved that the Sabbatic
ordinances remained mere generous aspirations, which never entered
into the practical life of the people at all, that fact would only
emphasise the earnestness and persistency with which the inspired
legislators pursued their generous aim. No change in circumstances
turned them aside. The glitter of the wealth acquired by Solomon and
other kings by commerce never seduced them. No ideal but that early
one of every man sitting under his own vine and his own fig-tree,
with none to make him afraid, which is witnessed to before the Exile
(Micah iv. 4), in the Exile (1 Kings iv. 25), and after the Exile
(Zech. iii. 10), was ever cherished by them; and the whole economic
legislation is entirely consistent with what we know of the earliest
time. And the deepest roots of it all were religious. The Biblical
writers have no doubt at all that the ideal economic state can be
reached only by a people attuned by religion to self-sacrifice,
to pity, and to justice. In this they differ radically from the
socialists or semi-socialists of to-day. These imagine that man
needs only a favourable environment to become good; whereas the
Scriptural writers know that to use well the best environment
is a task which, more than anything, puts strain upon the moral
and spiritual nature. For to deal in a supremely wise fashion
with great opportunities is the part only of a nature perfectly
moralised. Consequently all the social laws of Israel are made to
have their root in the relation of the people to their God.

There was only one power that could secure that this admirable
machinery would move, and keep it moving. That was the love and fear
of God. The conduct prescribed was the conduct befitting the _true_
Israelite, the man who was faithful in all his ways. The laws marked
out the paths wherein he should walk if he willed to do God's will.
They were, therefore, ideal in all their highest prescriptions, and
could never become real except where the true religion had had its
perfect work. In that respect the Sermon on the Mount resembles the
Israelite law. It presupposes a completely Christian society, just
as the old law presupposes a completely Yahwistic society, _i.e._
a society made up of men who made devotion to their God the chief
motive of their lives. In such a community there would have been
no difficulty in entirely realising the state of things aimed at
here, just as in a community penetrated by the love of Christ the
Sermon on the Mount would be not only practicable but natural. But
without that supreme motive much that the enactments of both the Old
Testament and the New demand must remain mere aspiration. Just in
proportion as Israel was true to Yahweh was the law realised, and
the demands of the law always acted as a spur to the better part of
the people to enter into fuller sympathy and communion with Him in
order that they might respond to them. The law and the religion of
the people acted and reacted upon one another, but the greater of
these two elements was religion.

It was not wonderful, therefore, that to a large extent this
legislation failed, as men measure failure. The religious state
of the nation never was what it should have been; and the law,
though it was held to be Divine, was never wholly observed. In
the Northern Kingdom, by the time of the Syrian wars, the old
constitution of Israel had broken up. The hardy yeomanry had been
ruined and dispersed. Their lands had been seized or bought by
the rich, and every law that had been made to ensure restoration
was habitually disregarded. As Robertson Smith states it,[100]:
"The unhappy Syrian wars sapped the strength of the country, and
gradually destroyed the old peasant proprietors who were the best
hope of the nation. The gap between the many poor and the few rich
became wider and wider. The landless classes were ground down by
usury and oppression, for in that state of society the landless man
had no career in trade, and was at the mercy of the landholding
capitalist." And in Judah the state of things, though not so bad,
was similar. In the days of Zedekiah we know that Hebrew slaves were
held for life, instead of being released in the seventh year.[101]
The properties of those compelled to sell were never returned to the
owners, and all the laws that were meant to secure the welfare and
prosperity of the masses of Israel were contemptuously disregarded.
In short, the worst features of a purely competitive civilisation,
with materialism eating into its soul, became glaringly manifest.
All the canonical prophets without exception denounce the vices and
tyrannies of the rich.[102] As far as can be learned, moreover,
the year of release and the Sabbatic year were not regularly or
generally observed, while the jubilee year would seem never to have
been kept after the Exile. The laws regarding taking interest were
also evaded.[103]

  [100] _Prophets of Israel_, p. 88.

  [101] Cf. Jer. xxxiv. 8 ff.

  [102] Cf. Amos ii. 6 ff.

  [103] Neh. v. 1 seq.

Nevertheless it would be a great error to suppose that these
Divinely given social laws should be branded as a failure. They
were not lived up to, and it is not improbable that the corruption
of the people's life was in a degree intensified by the reaction
from so high an ideal. But the axiom which is current now in all
the newspapers, that laws too far above the general level of the
national conscience cannot be enforced, and becoming a dead letter
tend to produce lawlessness, does not apply to such codes as those
of Israel. These, as has more than once been pointed out, were not
of the same character as our legal codes are. Among us, laws are
meant to be observed with minute and careful diligence, and any
breach of them is punished by the courts, which, on the whole, can
be easily set in motion. Ancient religious codes are never of that
kind. They do contain laws of that character, but the bulk of the
provisions are not laws which the executive is to enforce, but
ideals of conduct which the true worshipper of God ought to strive
to attain to. It is, therefore, of their very essence that they
should be far above the average national conscience. Nations whose
ideals soar no higher than the possible attainment of the average
man as he is, have virtually no ideals at all, and are cut off from
all enduring upward impulses. Those, on the contrary, who have a
vision of the perfect life, are certain to be both humbler, and at
the same time more sure to persist in the painful path of moral
discipline. As "a man's reach should exceed his grasp," so also
should a nation's; and though it is almost always forgotten, it is
precisely Israel's glory that she set up for herself and exhibited
to the world an ideal of brotherhood, of love to God and man, to
which she could not attain. Great as the practical failure in Israel
was, therefore, no fault can be found in the legislation. It moulded
the characters of men who were sensitive to the influences coming
from God, so that they became fit instruments of inspiration; and it
made their lives examples of the highest virtue that the ancient
world knew. Further, it gave shape to the hopes and aspirations
of the people, especially where it was not realised. The year of
jubilee, for example, is the groundwork of that great and affecting
promise contained in Isa. lxi: "The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is
upon me, because Yahweh hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto
the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim
liberty (_deror_) to the captives, and the opening of the prison
to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of Yahweh
and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn."
That which was unattainable here, amid the greeds and lusts of an
unspiritual generation, gave colour to the Messianic future; and men
were taught to look and wait for a kingdom of God in which a peace
and truth that could not as yet be reached would be the certain
possession of all.

When we turn to modern times and modern circumstances, it is not
easy to see how this ancient law can be applicable to them. In the
first place, much of it was made binding upon Israel only because
of its peculiar character as the people to whom the true religion
was revealed. As custodians of that, they were justified in keeping
up walls of partition between themselves and the world, which if
universally accepted would only be hurtful to the highest interests
of mankind. On the contrary, the development of the true religion
having been completed by the coming of Christ, it is the duty of
those nations which enjoy the light to spread abroad the "good news"
of God which they have received, and to exhibit its power among all
the nations of the earth. The highest and most Divine call which
can now come to any people must, therefore, be radically different
in some chief aspects from that of Israel. In the second place, the
civilisation and culture of the great nations of to-day are far
more complicated than any ancient civilisation ever was, and the
general level is fixed by an action and reaction extending over the
whole civilised world. No successes can be achieved, no blunders can
be committed, in any part of the world which do not affect almost
immediately the farthest ends of the earth. Moreover the intimate
and universal correlation of interest makes interference with any
part of the complicated whole an exceedingly perilous matter. Any
proposal that this law, as being Divinely given, ought in its
economic aspect to be made universally binding, should therefore
be met by a demand for a careful inquiry into possible differences
between ancient life and modern, which might make guidance Divinely
given to the one inapplicable to the other. It is not necessarily
true that because Israel by Divine command established every
household upon the soil, forbade interest, and did nothing to
encourage trade and manufactures, we should do these things. Take,
for instance, the case of interest. In our day, and in civilisations
of a high type, lending money to a person not in distress at all,
but who sees an opportunity of making-enough by the use of borrowed
money to pay the interest and make a profit, is often a most
praiseworthy and charitable act.

But if the Israelite legislation in regard to interest cannot justly
be taken as a law for all time, still less can any great modern
state neglect or discourage commerce and manufactures. The merely
embryonic character of commercial legislation, and the contempt for
the merchant which did in ancient days exist, would be exceedingly
out of place now. There is no career more honourable than that
of the merchant of our day when he carries on his business in a
high-minded fashion, nor is there any member of the community whose
calling is more beneficent than his. So long as he looks for gain
to himself in ways which, taken on the great scale, bring benefit
both to producer and consumer, his activity is purely beneficial.
There is absolutely no reason why commercial life should not be
as honest, as sound, as much in accord with the mind of God, in
itself, as any other manner of life. For in many ways it has been
a civilising agent of the highest power. Of course, if the charges
brought against merchants by Ruskin, for example, who seizes upon
and believes every story which involves charges of fraud against
modern commerce, were true; if it were impossible, as he says it
is, for an honest man to prosper in trade, then we might have some
ground for condemning this branch of human activity. But happily
only a confirmed and incorrigible pessimist can believe that. In
our time some of the noblest men of whom we have any knowledge have
been merchants, and among no class has so much princely generosity
been exhibited. If mercantile help had been withdrawn from the poor,
if the time, the money, the organising skill which merchants have
freely expended upon charities were suddenly to fail them, the case
against our modern civilisation would be indefinitely stronger than
it is. Moreover the immense expansion of credit which is at once
the glory and the danger of modern commerce, is itself a proof that
such wholesale condemnation as we have spoken of is unwarrantable.
The bulk of commerce must, after all, be fairly sound, otherwise it
could not continue and spread as it does. And, as against the evils
which affect it in common with all human activities, we must put
the fact that it brings the produce of all lands to the door even
of the poor, and by the constant contact between nations which it
causes it is influencing the thought as well as the lives of men.
Human brotherhood is being furthered by it, slowly, it is true, but
surely, and the barriers which separate the nations are being sapped
by its influence. These are indispensable services for the future
progress of mankind, and make commerce now as much the necessary
handmaid of the highest life as it would have been a hindrance to
it in the case of the chosen people, before they had assimilated
the truths of which they were to be the bearers to the world. That
commerce, and trade in general, need to be purified goes without
saying. That it may, of late years, have deteriorated, as the
general decay of faith and the pursuit of luxury have weakened the
sanctions of morality, is not improbable. But in itself it is not
only a legitimate human activity; it is also an admirable instrument
for bringing home to the consciences of men the truth that they are
all their brothers' keepers. It presses home as nothing else could
do the great truth proclaimed by St. Paul in regard to the Church,
as true also of the world, that if one member suffers all the body
suffers with it. Every day through this channel men are receiving
lessons, which they cannot choose but hear, to the effect that no
permanent benefit can come from the loss and suffering of men in any
part of the world; that peace and righteousness and good faith are
things which have supreme value even in the mercantile sense; and
that, conversely, the merchant's pursuit of wealth, if carried on in
accord with the fundamental truths of morality, inevitably becomes a
potent factor in that advance to a worldwide knowledge of the Lord,
which gleamed before the eyes of prophets and seers as the

        "Far-off Divine event,
    To which the whole creation moves."

But if we cannot make the Old Testament our law in regard to
commerce, we must ask whether the legislation in regard to land
has for us any binding force? Viewing it with this question in our
minds, I think we must be struck by one fact, this namely, that
the universal possession of land which was provided for in Israel
and so anxiously maintained is the only provision known against
the growth of a wage-earning class largely, if not entirely, at
the mercy of the employer. In Greece and Rome the population at
first were all settled on their own lands, and it was only when
by money-lending the small properties were bought up and turned
into huge farms, worked by farm-bailiffs and slaves, that misery
began to invade all parts of the social fabric. In mediæval and
feudal England, on the other hand, and indeed wherever the feudal
system existed, the cultivators, even when they were serfs, had
an inalienable right to the land. They could not be evicted if
they rendered certain not very burdensome services to the lord.
"As long as these dues were satisfied, it is plain the tenant was
secure from dispossession," says Professor Thorold Rogers (_Six
Centuries_, etc., p. 44). But in time that system was broken down;
and ever since, until within the last half-century, the course of
things with the labouring classes in England has been one long
descent. So long as the people were attached to the soil, and so
long as all alike practised agriculture, as in Palestine under the
Mosaic law, Englishmen lived in rough plenty, and were for the
most part content. The fifteenth century was the golden age of
mediæval agriculture; but a change for the worse came in with the
seventeenth, and it continued.[104]

  [104] _Contemp. Rev._, 1880, April, p. 681.

Two measures--the introduction of competitive rents with its
corollary, eviction, and the enclosure of the common lands--worked
gradually on until they have entirely divorced the workman from
the soil, and Professor Cairnes[105] has told us clearly what
that means. "In a contest between vast bodies of people so
circumstanced and the owners of the soil the negotiation could
have but one issue, that of transferring to the owners of the
soil the whole produce, _minus_ what was sufficient to maintain
in the lowest state of existence the race of cultivators. This is
what has happened wherever the owners of the soil, discarding all
considerations but those dictated by self-interest, have really
availed themselves of the full strength of their position. It is
what has happened under rapacious governments in Asia; it is what
has happened under rapacious landlords in Ireland; it is what now
happens under the bourgeois proprietors of Flanders; it is, in
short, the inevitable result which cannot but happen in the great
majority of all societies now existing on earth where land is
given up to be dealt with on commercial principles unqualified by
public opinion, custom, or law." The result is that the labourers
have only their daily wages to depend upon. "They have no means
of productive home industry; they have not even a home from which
they cannot be ejected at any moment on failure to pay the weekly
rent; they have no land, garden, or domestic animals, the produce of
which might support them till fresh work could be obtained."[106]
We need not wonder that this question of the occupancy of land as
the only visible remedy for the hideous social state of the most
highly civilised nations of the world is gradually becoming _the_
question of our time. A great reaction against the purely commercial
theory of land tenure has taken place. The land legislation in
Ireland has been based on the doctrines that the nation cannot
permit absolute property in land, and that there is no hope for any
permanent improvement in the condition of the poor until labourers
have land of their own. Now these are precisely the principles of
the Scriptural land legislation. Under it landlords with absolute
rights over land were impossible, and the rise of a proletariate
at the mercy of the capitalist was also impossible. It is not so
strange, therefore, as it might at first sight appear that the
demands of advanced land reformers, as they are voiced in Mr.
Wallace's book (p. 192), are, _mutatis mutandis_, identical with the
provisions of the Israelite law. He demands (1) that landlordism
shall be superseded by occupying ownership; (2) that the tenure of
the holders of land must be made secure and permanent; (3) that
arrangements must be made by which every British subject may secure
a portion of land for personal occupation at its fair agricultural
value; and (4) that in order that these conditions be rendered
permanent sub-letting must be absolutely prohibited, and mortgages
strictly limited. This essential oneness of view in the modern land
reformer and in the ancient law is all the more remarkable that, so
far as can be gathered from his book, Mr. Wallace has never regarded
the Old Testament from this point of view. He never quotes it, and
is apparently quite unconscious that the plan which experience of
present evils, and acute and disinterested reflection on them, has
suggested to him, was set forth thousands of years ago as the only
righteous one.

  [105] _Essays on Political Economy_, p. 201.

  [106] Wallace, _Land Nationalisation_, p. 16.

But this is not by any means the end of the matter. Even if
the social reformers of our day could restore society to the
conditions set forth so emphatically and so long ago in Israel,
history proves that nothing more than a temporary improvement
might be accomplished. In Israel, as we have seen, with the decay
of religion came the decay of this righteous social state. Human
selfishness then shook off the curb of religion, and gave itself
without restraint to the oppression of the poor. Have we any reason
to believe that now human selfishness would do less? There appears
little ground to think so; and though we may believe that without
the acceptance of Deuteronomic principles in modern life we cannot
restrain the growth of poverty, even with Deuteronomic principles
embodied in our laws nothing will be done if the people turn their
backs upon religion, make selfish enjoyment their highest good, and
the comforts and pleasures of a merely material life their only
heart-warming aspiration. In that fact we have an indication of the
true functions of the Church and of religious teachers in the social
and political life of our time and of times to come. As individuals,
religious men should certainly be found always among the advocates
of all laws and plans which tend to justice and mercy, and to the
raising of the toilers everywhere to a higher standard of living.
Further, at no time should the Church be found committed to a purely
conservative policy, of retaining things as they are. The undeniable
facts as to the condition of the poor are so utterly unjustifiable,
that to leave things as they are is to fall into the treason of
despair in regard to the future of our race, and into scarcely
veiled disbelief of the essential truth of Christianity. No Church
whose heart has not been corrupted by worldliness can think for a
moment that the present state of things in all highly civilised
communities is even tolerable. It cannot last, and it ought not to
last; the Church that timidly supports it, lest worst things should
come, is named and known thereby for recreant to Christ and to the
highest hopes of His Gospel. But, on the other hand, it is only in
very exceptional circumstances, and for short intervals, that the
Churches and their ministers can ever be called upon to make the
external, material condition of the people their first and chief
care. They have a place of their own to fill, a function of their
own to discharge; and upon their efficiency and diligence in these
the stability and permanence of all that politicians and publicists
can accomplish ultimately depends. They must keep alive and nourish
the religious life, as that life has been shaped and constituted
by our Lord Jesus Christ. Their province is to witness, in season
and out of season, for a life of purity and love, for the Divine
and ideal sides of things, for the necessity, for man's highest
well-being, of a life hid with Christ in God. If they do not keep up
this testimony, no others will; and if it be dropped out of sight,
then the social agony and struggle, the patriotic and humanitarian
strivings of all the reformers, will lack their final sanction.
Men will inevitably come to think that man's life does consist in
the abundance of the things that he possesses, the leisure, the
amusement, the culture which by combining material resources he may
attain to. But it is to deny and denounce that view that the Church
exists in the world. It was to lift men out of it, to set them above
it for ever, that Christ died. It is finally only by abandoning it
that the highest social condition can be reached and made permanent
for the multitudes of men. In no way therefore can the Church so
dangerously betray the cause of the poor and the oppressed as by
plunging into the heat of the social and political struggle. She
has to witness to higher things than that involves, and her silence
in the ideal region which would certainly follow her devotion to
material interests, however unselfish, would be but ill compensated
for by any imaginable success she might attain.




CHAPTER XXI

_JUSTICE IN ISRAEL_


Among the nations of the modern world one of the most vital
distinctions is the degree in which just judgment is estimated and
provided for. Indeed, according to modern ideas, life is tolerable
only where all men are equal before the law; where all are judged
by statutes which are known, or at least may be known, by all;
where corruption or animus in a judge is as rare as it is held to
be dishonourable. But we cannot forget that in the majority of even
the more advanced countries of the world these three conditions
are not yet found, and that where they do exist they are only
recent acquirements. In the latest born, and in many respects the
most advanced of the great commonwealths, in the United States
of America, the corruption of a number of the inferior courts is
undeniable, and is tolerated with a most disappointing patience by
the people. In England Judge Jeffries is no very remote memory, and
Lord Bacon's acceptance of presents from litigants in his court has
only been made more certain by recent investigations. An absolutely
honest intention to give even-handed justice to all is, therefore,
even in England, only a recent attainment, and in no country is
the honest intention always successful in realising itself. But
if this be so among the civilised nations of the West, we may say
that in Oriental countries there has been little of systematic and
continuous effort to give even-handed justice at all. Yet nowhere
has the sinfulness and the destructiveness of corruption in judgment
been more impassionedly and more frequently set forth by the highest
authorities in religion and morals, than in the East. Tupper, our
most recent authority, in writing of _Our Indian Protectorate_,
p. 289, describes the Indian attitude to law thus: "There was not
that reverence for law which in Europe is in all probability very
largely due to the influence of the Roman law, and to the teaching
of the Roman Catholic and other Christian Churches. So far as there
was a germ out of which the respect for law ought to have grown, it
was to be found in dislike to actions plainly opposed to custom and
tradition. There was a deeply rooted and widespread conviction that
there could be no rule to which exceptions could not be made, if
agreeable to the discretion of the chief or any of his delegates.
The chief was set above the law; it did not limit his authority
by any constitution. There was no legislation for the improvement
of law. The administration of justice was extremely imperfect."
The same writer describes the result of such a state of mind in
his picture of Mahratta rule (p. 247). "There was," he says, "no
prescribed form of trial. Men were seized on slight suspicions.
Presumptions of guilt were freely made. Torture was employed to
compel confession. Prisoners for theft were often whipped at
intervals to make them discover where the stolen property was
hidden. _Ordinarily no law was referred to except in cases affecting
religion._" That there were both Hindu codes and Mohammedan codes in
existence which claimed and were believed to have Divine authority
made no difference in India. Nor does it make any in Persia
to-day.[107]

  [107] See _ante_, p. 304.

Now, in coming to the consideration of the views of justice embodied
in Old Testament law, and the quality of the judiciary in ancient
Israel, we must take not Western but Eastern ideas as our standard.
Judging from that point of view, it should create no prejudice in
our minds if we find on the first glance that all men were not equal
before the ancient law of Israel; that for a considerable period,
if not during the whole political existence of Israel, there was no
very extensive written law; and that arbitrary and corrupt judgment
was only too common at all times. For none of these defects would
indicate in ancient Israel the same evils as similar defects in
nations of our time would indicate. They are rather defects in the
process of being overcome, than defects arising from feeble or
vitiated life. If there was a constant movement towards the highest
state of things, that is all we can demand or expect to find.

Now there does seem to have been that. As has been well pointed out
by Dr. Oort,[108] in the tribes which became Israel justice must
have been administered by the heads of the various bodies which went
to make these up. The household was ruled even in matters of life
and death solely by the father; the family, in the wider sense, was
judged by its own heads; the tribes by the elders of the tribes,
and there probably was no appeal from one tribunal to another. Each
tribunal was final in its own domain. It may be, also, that the
judicial function was in all these bodies exercised in the lax and
timid fashion common among Bedouin tribes to-day.[109] In all cases,
too, it is probable that in the pre-Mosaic time the standard of
judgment was customary law. Only with this very great modification
can Oort's epigrammatic description of the situation--"There was
no law, but there were givers of legal decisions"--be accepted.
So far as can be ascertained, the customs according to which men
were expected to live were perfectly well known, and within certain
narrow limits of variation were extraordinarily stable. How stable
customary law may be made, even in the midst of a society governed
in the main according to written law in its strictest sense, may
be seen in the execration which any breach of the Ulster custom
of tenant right met with, before that custom was embodied in any
statutes. And in antiquity the stringency of custom can hardly be
exaggerated. Under it, when thoroughly established, there was, in
all the cases covered by it, only this one way of acting for all,
both men and women, who were fit for society at all. Any alternative
course was probably inconceivable in the tribal stage of the
Israelites' existence.

  [108] Cf. _Oud-Israël Rechtswezen_, pp. 10 ff.

  [109] Cf. Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, vol. i., p. 249.

But a change would doubtless be wrought whenever the appointment
of a king took place. Then national law would appear, in embryo at
least; and at first, until custom had grown up in this region also,
it would largely be an expression of the will of the king, and of
the royal officers instructed and trained by the king. But it would
have free and unchallenged course only when it claimed authority
in matters lying outside of the family and tribal jurisdictions.
Wherever it attempted to interfere with tribal or family rights,
danger to the kingship of the most acute kind would be sure to
arise. In all probability, it was disregard of this axiomatic truth
which made Solomon's reign so burdensome to the people and tore
the kingdom asunder under Rehoboam. Ahab too fell a victim to his
disregard of it. Lastly, the introduction of elaborate written codes
of law would, if it came as the crown of such a development, depose
custom from its supremacy, though it would not abolish it; and would
substitute for it as the main element in all judicial matters the
written prescription, which is the necessary presupposition of a
fully organised judiciary of the modern type, with a regulated and
definite power of appeal.

But in the case of ancient Israel there is a distinguishing element
which has to be fitted into this ordinary scheme of progression,
and that is the Divine revelation to Moses. Taken up at the
tribal stage by the Mosaic revelation, the Israelite tribes were
touched and welded into coherence, if not quite as a nation, at
least as the people of Yahweh, so that during all the distracting
days of the Judges they kept up in essentials their social and
religious unity.[110] And with the religious union there must have
come administrative uniformity to some considerable extent. The
jurisdiction of the heads of households, of heads of families, and
of the tribal elders would be as little interfered with as possible;
but, as we have seen, all customs and rights had to be reviewed from
the point of view of the new religion, and appeal to Moses as the
prophet of it must have often been unavoidable. Just as his first
followers were continually coming to Mohammed, to ask whether this
or that ancient custom could be followed by professors of Islam, so
there must have been constant appeals to Moses. So long as he lived,
therefore, he, and after him Joshua and Moses' fellow-tribesmen
the sons of Levi, as being specially zealous for the religion of
Yahweh, must have been constantly called in to assist the customary
judges; and so the habit of appeal must have grown in Israel long
before there was any king. Thus also a common standard of judgment
would be established. That standard must necessarily have been the
law of Yahweh, _i.e._ the new Yahwistic principles and all that
might _prima facie_ be deduced from them, together with so much
of custom and tradition as had been accepted as compatible with
these principles. We have stated the reasons for holding that the
Decalogue was Mosaic, and the Book of the Covenant may be taken also
to represent what the current law in Mosaic or sub-Mosaic time was
held to be. As Oort well says (_loc. cit._), when we know that the
Hittites about the middle of the fourteenth century B.C. concluded
a treaty with Rameses II. of Egypt the terms of which were written
upon a silver plate, "why may there not also have been written
statements regarding the mutual rights and duties of the people
of a town, engraved upon stone or metal, and set forth openly for
inspection?" What he confines to mere town business and refers to
the time of the Judges, we may without risk extend to a general
fundamental law like the Decalogue, or even to the Book of the
Covenant, and date it in the time of Moses. Writing was so common an
accomplishment in Canaan before the Exodus, that such a supposition
is not in the least improbable. These written laws formed the crown
of the law of Yahweh, and by them all the rest was raised to a
higher level and transformed.

  [110] Cf. Nowack, _Die sozialen Probleme in Israel_, p. 5.

As new men, new times, and new difficulties arose, the priest
became the special organ of Divine direction. It may be that the
priestly Torah was largely the result of the sacred lot; but the
questions that were put, and the manner in which they were put,
would be decided ultimately by the conception the priest had of
the truth about God. The teaching of the Decalogue would therefore
be the dominant and formative power in all that was spoken by the
priest and for Yahweh. In the disorganised state into which Israel
fell during the time of the Judges, when, as Deuteronomy takes
for granted, and as 1 Kings iii. 2 and 3 asserts, the legitimate
worship of Yahweh was carried on at many centres, the substantial
sameness of the tradition as to the history of Israel, in all the
varied forms in which we encounter it, is proof sufficient that at
each of the great sanctuaries (which were certainly in the hands
of Levitical priests) the treasure of ancient knowledge, both in
law and history, was carefully and accurately preserved.[111] New
decisions would be given, but they came through men penetrated
with the high thoughts of God, and of His people's destiny, which
Moses had so fruitfully set forth. This was the element in the life
of the people which all the higher minds strove to perpetuate,
and, being spiritual, it spiritualised and raised all accessory
things. Consequently there was, long before the kingship, what
was equivalent to a national feeling of the highest kind, and the
conception of justice and its administration corresponded to that.

  [111] Oort, _Oud-Israël Rechtswezen_, p. 14.

In the Book of the Covenant, which in this matter represents so
early a period that there is no mention of "judges," only of
Pelilim,[112] _i.e._ arbitrators (Exod. xxi. 22), so that the tribal
and family heads can alone have exercised judicial functions, we
find the most solemn warnings against any legal perversion of right
to gain popularity, against yielding to the vulgar temptation to
oppress the poor, or to the subtler and, for generous minds, more
insidious temptation, to give an unjust judgment out of pity for
the poor. Israel was, moreover, to keep far from bribery, "which
blindeth them that have sight, and perverteth righteous causes." In
no way was the law to be used for criminal or oppressive purposes.
From the very first, therefore, in Israel the higher principles of
faith and life set themselves to combat _à outrance_ the tendency to
unjust judgment, which seems now, at least, quite ineradicable in
the East, save among the Bedouin.[113]

  [112] A probable parallel to these may be found in the non-official
  arbiters mentioned by Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, vol. i. pp. 145 and
  502-3.

  [113] Doughty, vol. i., p. 249.

A still higher note is struck in the repetition of the law in the
Book of Deuteronomy. In chap. i., originally part of a historic
introduction to the book proper, we read: "Hear the causes between
your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother,
and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in
judgment; ye shall hear the small and the great alike; ye shall not
be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment (_i.e._ the whole
judicial process and function) is God's; and the cause that is too
hard for you ye shall bring unto me (Moses), and I will hear it."
Yes, the judgment is God's. Just as the whole of moral duty towards
man was raised by the Decalogue to a new and more intimate relation
with God, so here justice, the fundamental necessity of a sound and
stable political state, is lifted out of the conflict of mean and
selfish motives, in which it must eventually go down, and is set on
high as a matter in which the righteous God is supremely concerned.
In this, as in all things, Israel was called to a lonely eminence of
ideal perfection by the character of the God whom they were bound
to serve. Therefore it strikes us with no surprise that justice
is insisted upon almost with passion in Deut. xvii. 20: "Justice,
justice shalt thou pursue after, that thou mayest live and possess
the land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee"; or that it is made one
of the conditions of Israel's permanence as a nation. In chap. xxiv.
17 we read, "Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of the stranger, nor
of the fatherless; nor take the widow's raiment to pledge"; in xxv.
1 and 2, "If there be a plea between men, ... then they (_i.e._ the
judges) shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked." For
any other course of conduct would bring guilt upon the nation in
the sight of Yahweh; and how jealously that was guarded against is
seen in the sacrifice and ritual imposed for the purification of
the people from the guilt of a murder the perpetrator of which was
unknown (Deut. xxi. 1-9). Unatoned for and disregarded, such a crime
brought disturbance into those relations between Israel and their
God upon which their very existence as a nation depended; and the
disregard of justice, where wrongs were committed by known persons
and were left unpunished, was of course more deadly. So the author
of Deuteronomy looked upon it; and the prophets, from the first of
them to the last, brand unjust judgment, the perverting the course
of legal justice, as the most alarming sign of national decay. The
righteous God, with whom there was no respect of persons, could not
permanently favour a people whose judges and rulers disregarded
righteousness; and when destruction actually came upon this people,
it was proclaimed to be God's doing, "because there was no truth nor
justice nor knowledge of God in the land."

Nowhere in the world, therefore, has the demand for justice been
made more central than here, and nowhere has injustice been more
passionately fought against. Nor have the sanctions binding to a
pursuit of justice been at any period more nobly or more vividly
conceived. In this main point, therefore, Israel's law stands
irreproachable--marvellously so, considering its great antiquity.
But we have still to inquire whether any really adequate provision
was made for the general and inexpensive administration of justice.
To take the latter first, law was in old Israel probably _as
cheap_ as it would be in the primitive East to-day, if bribery
were to be stopped. To advise as to the sacred law, to plead for
justice according to it, did not then, and does not now in similar
circumstances, belong to any special professional class who live by
it. The priest could be appealed to freely by all; and the heads
of fathers' houses, as well as the tribal heads, were, by the very
fact that they were such, bound to give judgment among their people,
and to appear for and take responsibility for them when they had
a cause with persons beyond the limits of the particular families
and tribes. Justice, consequently, was in ordinary circumstances
perfectly free to all.

And from a very early time earnest efforts were made to make it
equally _accessible_. At first, when the people were in one army or
train, before they came to Sinai, an overwhelming burden was laid
upon Moses. As the prophet of the new dispensation all difficulties
were brought to him. But at Jethro's suggestion, as JE tells us in
Exod. xviii. 13 ff., and as Deuteronomy repeats in chap. i. 16, he
chose men of each tribe, or took the heads of each tribe, and set
them as captains of thousands and hundreds and fifties and tens.
Not improbably this was primarily a military organisation, but to
these captains was committed also jurisdiction over those under
them. In all ordinary cases they judged them and their families in
the spirit of Yahwism, as well as commanded them; and in this way,
as has already been pointed out, the customary law was revised in
accordance with Yahwistic principles. Justice too was brought to
every man's door. The only question that suggests itself is, whether
these captain-judges were the ordinary family and tribal heads,
organised for this purpose by Moses. On the whole this would seem
to have been so, and it may well be that Jethro's suggestion had in
view the danger of ignoring them, as well as the burden which Moses'
sole judgeship laid upon him. But with the advance to the conquest
of Canaan a new situation emerged, and the probability is that more
and more, as the tribes fell into entire or semi-isolation, the
tribal organisation in its natural shape would come to the front
again. Deuteronomy, however, tells us little if anything of this. In
the main passage regarding this matter (xvii. 8-13), where provision
is made for an appeal to a central court, the legislation is
entirely for a period much later than Moses. Like the law regarding
sacrifice at one altar, the judicial provisions of Deuteronomy seem
all to be bound up with the place which Yahweh shall choose, viz.
the Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem. We may consequently conclude
that the judicial arrangements to which Deuteronomy alludes existed
only after the Israelite kingship had been for some time established
at Jerusalem. We have no distinct evidence for the existence
of a central high court in David's days; and from the story of
Absalom's rebellion we should gather that the old, simple Oriental
method still prevailed, according to which the king, like the
heads of tribes, families, etc., judged every one who came to him,
personally, at the gate of the royal city. But Samuel is said in 1
Sam. vii. 16 to have annually gone on circuit to Bethel, Gilgal,
and Mizpah. According to the school of Wellhausen, nearly the whole
of this chapter is the work of a Deuteronomic writer about the year
600. In that case, of course, it would be difficult to prove that
the arrangement attributed to Samuel was not a mere echo of what
was done in Josiah's day; though, if the Deuteronomic prescriptions
were carried out then, there would be no need for such a system. On
the other hand, if Budde and Cornill be right in tracing the chapter
back to JE, this habit of going on circuit must have been an ancient
one, possibly dating from Samuel's time. That this latter view is
the correct one is in a degree confirmed by the statement in viii.
2 that Samuel's sons were installed by him as judges in Israel, at
Beersheba. This belongs to E, and it would seem to indicate the
beginnings of such a system as Deuteronomy presupposes.

But it is only in the days of Jehoshaphat (873-849 B.C.) that an
arrangement like that in Deuteronomy is mentioned. From 2 Chron.
xix. 5 ff. we learn that "he set judges in the land throughout all
the fenced cities of Judah, city by city. Moreover in Jerusalem
did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites and of the priests, and of the
heads of the fathers' houses, for the judgment of Yahweh and for
controversies." Further, it is stated that Amariah the chief priest
was set over the judges in Jerusalem in all Yahweh's matters,
_i.e._ in all religious questions, and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael
the prince of the house of Judah in all the king's matters, _i.e._
in all secular affairs. Of course few advanced critics will admit
that the Books of Chronicles are reliable in such matters. But that
judgment is altogether too sweeping, and here we would seem to have
a well-authenticated record of what Jehoshaphat actually did.

For it will be observed, that when we take up the various notices
in regard to the administration of justice, we have a well-defined
progress from Moses to Jehoshaphat. Moses was chief judge and
committed ordinary cases to the tribal and family heads who were
chosen as military leaders, each judging his own detachment. After
passing the Jordan, the whole matter would seem to have fallen back
into the hands of the tribal heads, with the occasional help of the
heroes who delivered and judged Israel. At the end of this period
Samuel, as head of the State, went on circuit, and appointed his
sons judges in Beersheba, thus initiating a new system, which, had
it been successful, might have superseded the tribal and family
heads altogether. But it was a failure, and was not repeated. With
the rise of the kingship the courts received further organisation.
If the Chronicler can be trusted, Levites to the number of six
thousand were appointed to be judges and Shoterim. The number seems
excessive; but the appointment of Levites to act as assessors with
the tribal and other heads would be a natural expedient for a king
like David to have recourse to, if he desired to secure uniformity
of judgment, and to bring the courts under his personal influence.
The next step would naturally be that which is attributed to
Jehoshaphat, and it is precisely that which Deuteronomy points to as
being already at work in his time. We have, consequently, more than
the late authority of the Chronicler for Jehoshaphat's high court.
The probabilities of the case point so strongly to the rise of
some such judicial system about that period, that it would require
some positive proof, not mere negative suspicion, to lead us to
reject the narrative. In any case this must have been the system in
Josiah's day, and afterwards. For when Jeremiah was arraigned for
prophesying destruction to the Temple and to Jerusalem, the process
against him was conducted on similar lines to those laid down in
Deuteronomy. The princes judged, the priests (curiously enough along
with the false prophets) made the charge, _i.e._ stated that the
prophet's conduct was worthy of death, and the princes acquitted.
During the Exile it is probable that the "elders" of the people
were permitted to judge them in all ordinary cases, but we have
no certain proof that this was so. After the return from Babylon,
however, the local courts were re-established, probably in the very
form in which they appear in the New Testament (Matt. v. 22, x. 17;
Mark xiii. 9; Luke xii. 14-58).

Throughout the whole history of Israel, therefore, courts of justice
were easily accessible to every man, whether he were rich or poor.
No doubt the free, open-air, Eastern manner of administering justice
was favourable to that; but from the days of Moses onward we have
fairly conclusive proof that the leaders of the people made it their
continual care that wherever a wrong was suffered there should be
some court to which an appeal for redress could be made.

The justice aimed at in Israel was, therefore, _impartial_ and
_accessible_. We have still to inquire whether it was _merciful_ or
cruel in its infliction of punishment. Dr. Oort says it was a hard
law in this respect, but one is at a loss to see how that view can
be sustained. There is no mention of torture in connection with
legal proceedings, either in the history or in the legislation.
Nor is there any instance mentioned in which an accused person
was imprisoned until he confessed. Indeed imprisonment would not
appear to have been a legal punishment in Israel, nor in any antique
state. The idea of providing maintenance for those who had offended
against the law was one which could never have occurred to any
one in antiquity. Prisons are, of course, frequently mentioned in
Scripture; but they were used, up to the time of Ezra, only for
the safe-keeping of persons charged with crime till they could
be brought before the judges. Sometimes, as in the case of the
prophets, men were imprisoned to prevent them from stirring up the
people; but this procedure was nowhere sanctioned by law. Further,
the crimes for which the punishment prescribed in the ancient law
was death were few. Idolatry, adultery, unnatural lust, sorcery,
and murder or manslaughter, together with striking or cursing
parents and kidnapping--these were all. Considering that idolatry
and sorcery were high treason in its worst forms, so far as this
people was concerned, and that impurity threatened the family in a
much more direct and immediate fashion then than it does now, while
the people were naturally inclined to it, one must wonder that the
list of capital crimes is so short. Contrast this with Blackstone's
statement in regard to England (quoted _Ency. Brit._, iv., p. 589):
"Among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit,
no less than one hundred and sixty have been declared by Act of
Parliament to be felonies without benefit of clergy, or, in other
words, to be worthy of instant death." It is only in comparatively
recent years that the punishment of death has been practically
restricted to murder in England. Yet that is almost the case in the
ancient Jewish law; for the exceptions are such as would reappear in
England if it were more sparsely populated and manners were rougher.
In Australia, for example, highway robbery under arms and violence
to women are capital crimes, just because the country is sparsely
inhabited and the households unprotected. Nor were the modes of
death inflicted cruel. Only three--viz. impalement, and burning,
and stoning--appear to be so. But it may be believed that in the
cases contemplated by the law death in some less painful manner had
preceded the two former, as is certainly the case in Josh. vii.
15 and 25, and in Deut. xxi. 22. As for the latter, it must have
been horrible to look upon, but in all probability the criminal's
agony was rarely a prolonged one. The other method of execution,
by the sword namely, was humane enough. Dr. Oort tells us that
mutilations were common; but his proof is only this, that in the
treaty between the Hittite king and Rameses II. we read, concerning
inhabitants of Egypt who have fled to the land of the Hittites and
have been returned, "His mother shall not be put to death; he shall
not be punished in his eyes, nor on his mouth, nor on the soles of
his feet." The same provision is made for Hittite fugitives. From
this evidence of the custom of surrounding peoples, and from the
fact that the _jus talionis_ is announced in the Scriptures by the
familiar formula, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
foot for foot," Dr. Oort draws this conclusion. But he appears to
forget that the _jus talionis_ was common to almost all the peoples
of the ancient world, and is referred to in the Pentateuch, not as
a new principle, but as a custom coming down from immemorial time.
Consequently, though there must once have been a time in which it
was carried out in its literal form, that time probably was past
when the laws referring to it were written. In Rome, and probably
in other lands where this custom existed, it early gave place to
the custom of giving and receiving money payments. Most probably
this was the case in Israel, at least from the time of the Exodus.
For the new religion introduced by Moses was merciful. But these
references to the principle of retaliation tell us nothing as
to the frequency or otherwise of mutilation as a punishment. No
instance of mutilation being inflicted either as a retaliation or
as a punishment occurs in the Old Testament, and the probability
is that cases were never numerous. Apart from retaliation they are
never mentioned; and we may, I think, set it down as one of the
distinctive merits of the Israelite law that it never was betrayed
into sanctioning the cutting off of hands or feet or ears or noses
as general punishment for crime. But so far as the principle of
the _lex talionis_ was retained, its effect was wholesome. It was
a continual reminder that all free Israelites were equals in the
sight of Yahweh. And not only so, it enforced as well as asserted
equality. Any poor man mutilated by a rich man could demand the
infliction of the same wound upon his oppressor. He could reject his
excuses, and refuse his money, and bring home to him the truth that
they had equal rights and duties.

In this way this seemingly harsh law helped to lay the foundation
for our modern conception of humanity, which regards all men as
brethren. For the teaching of our Lord, which fulfilled all that
the polity and religion of ancient Israel had foreshadowed of good,
broke down the walls of partition between Jew and Gentile, and made
all men brethren by revealing to them a common Father. It surely is
strange and sad that those who specially make liberty, equality, and
fraternity their watchwords, have received so false an impression
of the religion of both the Old and New Testaments, that they pride
themselves on rejecting both. When all is said, the levelling of
barriers which the crushing weight of Roman power brought about, and
the common methods and elements of thought which the Greek conquests
had spread all over the civilised world, would never have made the
brotherhood of man the universally accepted doctrine it is. The
truths which made it credible came from the revelation given by God
to His chosen people, and its final and conclusive impulse was given
to it by the lips of Christ.

In face of that cardinal fact it is vain to point out as one of the
defects of this law that all men were not equal before it. Women
were not equal with men, nor were foreigners nor slaves equal with
freeborn Israelites; but the seed of all that later times were to
bring was already there. The principles which at the long end of the
day have abolished slavery, raised women to the equal position they
now occupy, and made peace with foreigners increasingly the desire
of all nations, had their first hold upon men given them here. In
all these directions the Mosaic law was epoch-making. In the fifth
commandment, as well as in the legislation regarding the punishment
of a rebellious son, the mother is put upon the same level as the
father. However subordinate woman's position in the larger public
life might be, within the home she was to be respected. There, in
her true domain, she was man's equal, and was acknowledged to have
an equal claim to reverence from her children.

In precisely the same way the "stranger" was freed from disability
and protected. In the earliest days, when the Israelite community
was still being formed, whole groups of strangers were received
into it and obtained full rights, as for example the Kenites and
Kenizzites. But though this was a promise of what Israel was
ultimately to be to the world, the necessities of the situation,
the need to keep intact the treasure of higher religion which
was committed to this people, compelled the adoption of a more
separatist policy. Yet "in no other nation of antiquity were
strangers received and treated with such liberality and humanity as
in Israel." They were freely afforded the protection of the law;
they were, in short, received as "a kind of half-citizens, with
definite rights and duties."[114] Further, though the ger was not
bound to all the religious practices and rites of the Israelite,
yet he was permitted, and in some cases commanded, to take part in
their religious worship. If he consented to circumcise all his house
he might even share in the Passover feast. All oppression of such
an one was also rigorously forbidden, and to a large extent the
stranger shared in the benefits conferred by the provision for the
poor of the land which the law made compulsory.

  [114] Riehm, _Handwörterbuch_, Baethgen, vol. i., p. 463.

Nor was the case otherwise with slaves. Equality there was not,
and could not be; but in the provisions for the emancipation of
the Israelite slave and the introduction of penalties for undue
harshness, it began to be recognised that the slave stood, in some
degree at least, on the same level as his master--he too was a man.

Taking it as a whole, therefore, the ancient world will be searched
in vain for any legislation equal to this in the "promise and the
potency" of its fundamental ideas as to justice. Here, as nowhere
else, we can see the radical principles which should dominate in
the administration of justice laying hold upon mankind, and that
there was a living will and power behind these principles is shown
in the steady movement toward something higher which characterised
Israelite law. In the pursuit of impartiality, accessibility, and
humanity, the teachers of Israel were untiring, and the sanctions
by which they surrounded and guarded all that tended to make the
administration of justice effective in the high sense were unusually
solemn and powerful. The result has been most remarkable. All the
ages of civilised men since have been the heirs of Israel in this
matter. Roman influence and the influence of the Christian Church
have no doubt been powerful, and the manifold exigencies of life
have drawn out and made explicit much which was only implicit in the
ancient days. But the higher qualities of our modern administration
of justice can be traced back step by step to Biblical principles,
and the course of development laid bare. When that is done, it is
seen that the almost ideal purity and impartiality of the best
modern tribunals is the completion of what the Israelite law and
methods began. In this one instance at least the great Mosaic
principles have come to fruition; and from the security and peace,
the contentment and the confidence, with which impartial justice
has filled the minds of men, we can estimate how potent to cure the
ills of our social and moral state the realisation of the other
great Mosaic ideals would be. It should be a source of encouragement
to all who look for a time when "the kingdoms of this world shall
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ," that something
like the ideal of justice has so far been realised. It has no doubt
been a weary time in coming, and it has as yet but a narrow and
perhaps precarious footing in the world. But it is here, with its
healing and beneficent activity; and in that fact we may well see
a pledge that all the rest of the Divinely given ideals for the
Kingdom of God will one day be realised also. Such a consummation,
however remote it may seem to our human impatience, however devious
and winding the paths by which alone it can draw near, will come
most surely, and in our approach to the ideal in our judicial system
we may well see the firstfruits of a richer and more plentiful
harvest.




CHAPTER XXII

_LAWS OF PURITY (CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE)_


In dealing with the ten commandments it has been already shown
that, though these great statements of religious and moral truth
were to some extent inadequate as expressions of the highest life,
they yet contained the living germs of all that has followed. But
we cannot suppose that the reality of Israelite life from the first
corresponded with them. They contained much that only the experience
and teaching of ages could fully bring to light; therefore we cannot
expect that the actual laws in regard to the relations of the sexes
and the virtue of chastity should stand upon the same high level as
the Decalogue. The former represent the reality, this the ultimate
ideal of Israelite law on these subjects. But neither is unimportant
in forming an estimate of the value of the revelation given to
Israel, and of the moral condition of early Israel itself, nor can
either be justly viewed altogether alone. The actual law at any
moment in the history of Israel must be regarded as inspired and
upborne by the ideal set forth in the ten commandments. But it must,
at the same time, be a very incomplete realisation of these, and
its various stages will be best regarded as instalments of advance
towards that comparative perfection.

In regard to the relations of the sexes and the virtue of purity
this must be peculiarly the case. For though chastity has been
safeguarded by almost all nations up to a certain low point, it
has never been really cherished by any naturalistic system. Nor has
it ever been favoured by mere humanism.[115] Consequently there is
no point of morals in regard to which man has more conspicuously
failed to work out the merely animal impulse from his nature than in
this. And yet, for all the higher ends of life, as well as for the
prosperity and vigour of mankind, purity in the sexual relations is
entirely vital. One great cause of the decay of nations, nay, even
of civilisations, has been the abandonment of this virtue. This was
the main cause of the destruction of the Canaanites. It may even be
said to have been the cause of the wreck of the whole ancient world.
We should consequently measure what the Mosaic influence did for
purity of life, not by comparing early Israelite laws with what has
been accomplished by Christianity, but with the condition of the
Semitic peoples surrounding Israel, in and after the Mosaic times.

  [115] Cf. Renan, _Philosophic Dialogues_, iii. p. 26: "La nature
  a intérêt à ce que la femme soit chaste et à ce que l'homme ne le
  soit pas trop. De là un ensemble d'opinions qui couvre d'infamie la
  femme non chaste, et frappe presque de ridicule l'homme chaste. Et
  l'opinion quand elle est profonde, obstinée, c'est la nature même."

What that was we know. Their religions, far from discouraging sexual
immorality, made it a part of their holiest rites. Both men and
women gave themselves up to natural and unnatural lusts, in honour
of their gods. To the north, and south, and east, and west of
Israel these practices prevailed, and as a natural result the moral
fabric of these nations' life fell into utter ruin. In private life
adultery, and the still more degrading sin of Sodom were common.
The man had a right to indiscriminate divorce and remarriage, and
marriage connections now reckoned incestuous, such as those between
brother and sister, were entirely approved. In all these points
Israel as a nation was without reproach. The higher teaching
this people had received in respect to the character of God, and
it may be some reminiscence of Egyptian custom, which was in some
respects purer than that of the Semitic peoples, raised them to a
higher level. Yet in the main the early Israelite view of women was
fundamentally the uncivilised one.

But at all periods of Israelite history, even the earliest, women
had asserted their personality. In the eye of the law they might
be the chattels of their male relatives, but as a fact they were
dealt with as persons, with many personal rights. They had no
independent position in the community, it is true. They could take
no part in a festival so important as the Passover, nor were they
free to make vows without the consent of their husbands. In other
ways also social restraints were laid upon them. Nevertheless their
position in early Israel was much higher than it is in the East
to-day, and their liberty was in no wise unreasonably abridged.
In David's day women could appear in public to converse with men
without scandal.[116] They also took part in religious festivals
and processions, giving life to them by beating their timbrels, by
singing, and by dancing.[117] They could be present also at all
ordinary sacrifices and at sacrificial feasts; and, as we see in
the case of Deborah and others, they could occupy a high, almost a
supreme, position as prophetesses. In the main, too, the relations
between husband and wife were loving and respectful, and in Israel's
best days, when the people still remained landed yeomanry, the wife,
by her industry within the house, supplemented and completed her
husband's labour in the fields. The Israelite woman was consequently
a very important person in the community, whatever her status in law
might be; and if she had not the full rights which are now granted
to her sex in Western and Christian lands, her position was for the
times a noble and independent one. That all this was so was largely
due to the improvements which Mosaism wrought on the basis of that
ancient Semitic custom which we sketched at the beginning of this
chapter, and with which it seems natural to suppose the Israelite
tribes had also begun.

  [116] Cf. 1 Sam. xxv. 18 ff; 2 Sam. xiv. 1 ff.

  [117] Cf. Exod. xv. and 1 Sam. xviii. 6 f.

Bearing these preliminary considerations in mind, we now go on to
consider the actual legislation in regard to the relations of the
sexes. But here we must once more recall the fact that, in regard
to all matters vitally affecting the community, there had always
been a custom, and even before written law appears that custom had
been adopted and modified in Yahwism by Moses himself. That this was
actually the case here is rendered highly probable by the history
of legislation in this matter. In the Book of the Covenant there
is no mention of sexual sin, save in one passage (Exod. xxii. 16),
where the penalty for seduction of a virgin who is not betrothed
is that the seducer shall offer a "_mohar_" for her, and marry her
without possibility of divorce, if her father consent. If he will
not, then the "_mohar_" is forfeited to the father nevertheless, as
compensation for the degradation of his daughter. But it is obvious
that there must have been laws or customs regulating marriage other
than this, for without them there could have been no such crime as
is here punished. Obviously, also, there must have been laws or
customs of divorce. But of what these laws of marriage and divorce
were Exodus gives us no hint. Deuteronomy, the next code, which on
the critical hypothesis arose at a much later time as a revision
of the Book of the Covenant, contains much more, _i.e._ it draws
out of the obscurity of unwritten custom a more extensive series
of provisions in regard to purity. The Law of Holiness then adds
largely to Deuteronomy, and with it the main points of the law of
purity have attained to written expression. But the influence of the
higher standard set in the Decalogue also makes itself felt,--not
in the law so much as in the historic books and the prophets--and
our task now is to trace out first the legal development, then the
prophetical, and to show how the whole movement culminated and was
crowned in the teaching of Christ.

Beginning then with Deuteronomy, we find that the chastity of women
was surrounded by ample safeguards. Religious prostitution was
absolutely prohibited (Deut. xxiii. 18). Further, if any violence
was done to a woman who had been betrothed, the punishment of the
wrong was death; if done to a woman who was not betrothed, the wrong
was atoned for by payment of fifty shekels of silver to her father,
and by offering marriage without possibility of divorce. If marriage
was refused, then the fifty shekels was retained by the father in
consideration of the wrong done him. When the woman was a sharer in
the guilt the punishment in all cases was death; while pre-nuptial
unchastity, when discovered after marriage, was punished, as
adultery also was, with the same severity.[118] In women who were
free, therefore, purity was demanded in Israel as strenuously as
it ever has been anywhere, though in man the only limit to sexual
indulgence was the demand, that in seeking it he should not infringe
upon the father's property in his daughter, or the husband's in his
wife or his betrothed bride.

  [118] Chap. xxii. 13-18.

Admittedly the original underlying motive for this moral severity
was a low one, the mere proprietary rights of the father or
husband. But it would be a mistake to suppose that purely ethical
and religious motives had no place in establishing the customs
or enactments which we find in Deuteronomy. With the lapse of
time higher motives entwined themselves with the coarse strand of
personal proprietary interest, which had originally, though perhaps
never alone, been the line of limitation. Gradually there grew up a
standard of higher purity; and when Deuteronomy was written, though
the original line was still clearly visible, it was justified by
appeals to a moral sense which reached far beyond the original
motives of the customary law. The continually recurring burden of
Deuteronomy in dealing with these matters is that to work "folly
in Israel" is a crime for which only the severest punishment can
atone. To "extinguish the evil from Israel," and to put away such
things as were "abominations to Yahweh their God," are the great
reasons on which the writer of Deuteronomy founds the claim for
obedience in these cases. Obviously, therefore, by his time, under
the teaching of the religion of Yahweh, Israel had risen to a moral
height which took account of graver interests than the rights of
property in legislating for female purity. The cases included in
the law had been determined by considerations of that kind; but the
sanctions by which the commands were buttressed had entirely changed
their character. The holiness of God and the dignity of man, the
consideration of what alone was worthy of a "son of Israel," have
taken the place of the coarser sanctions. In this way a possibility
of unlimited moral progress was secured, since the cause of purity
was indissolubly bound to the general and irresistible advance of
religious and moral enlightenment in the chosen people.

Moreover the personality of the woman was acknowledged in the
entire acquittal of the betrothed woman who had been exposed to
outrage in the country, where her cries could bring no help. In the
earliest times most probably the punishment of death would have
been inflicted equally in that case, since the husband's property
had been deteriorated to such a degree as to make it unworthy of
him. But in the Deuteronomic provision quite other things are drawn
into the estimate. The moral guilt of the person concerned is now
the decisive consideration. The woman has ceased to be a mere
chattel, and the full claims of her personality are in the way to
be recognised. These were great advances, and for these it is vain
to seek for other causes than the persistent upward pressure of the
Mosaic religion. The moral superiority of Israel at the time of the
conquest over the much more cultured Canaanites, as also over the
nomadic tribes to which they were more nearly related, is due, as
Stade says, ultimately to their religion; and no reader of the Old
Testament, in our time at least, can fail to see that their moral
progress in the land they conquered depended entirely upon the same
cause. At the Deuteronomic epoch purity had already been placed upon
a worthy basis, as a moral achievement of the first importance, and
impurity had taken its proper place as a degrading sin. But much
still remained to be done before these principles could be extended
into all domains of life equally.

How far they had penetrated in early times may perhaps best be seen
in the Deuteronomic references to divorce. Before Deuteronomy there
is no law of divorce, nor indeed is there any after it. We may
perhaps even say that there is in it not so much the statement of a
law of divorce, as a reference to custom which the writer wishes to
correct or reinforce in one particular respect only. Notwithstanding
the Jewish view, therefore, which finds in Deut. xxiv. 1-4 a divorce
law, we must adduce the passage as a new and striking proof of what
we have all along asserted, that neither Deuteronomy nor any other
of the legal codes can be taken as complete statements of what was
legally permitted or forbidden in Israel. Behind all of them there
is a vast mass of unwritten customary law, and divorce was doubtless
always determined by it. That this was the case will be seen at once
if the passage we are now concerned with be rightly translated. It
runs thus: "When a man taketh a wife and marrieth her, and it shall
be (if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found in her
some unseemly thing) that he writeth her a bill of divorcement, and
giveth it into her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, and she
go forth out of his house and goeth and becometh the wife of another
man, and if the latter husband also hate her, and write her a bill
of divorcement, and give it in her hand and send her out of his
house, or if the latter husband die who took her to him to wife,
then her former husband who sent her away may not take her again to
be his wife after that she has permitted herself to be defiled."
All the passage provides for, therefore, is that a divorced woman
shall not be remarried to the divorcing man after she has been
married again, even though she be separated from her second husband
by divorce or death. There is consequently no law of divorce here
stated. There is merely a reference to a general law or custom by
which divorce was permitted for "any unseemly thing," and according
to which a chief wife at any rate could be divorced only by a "bill
of divorcement," and not by mere word of mouth, as is common in
many Eastern lands to-day. Mosaic influence may have procured this
last slight increase in rigour, and Deuteronomy certainly adds
three other restrictions, viz. that after remarriage a woman cannot
be again married to her first husband, and that pre-nuptial wrong
done to a woman by her husband, or a false accusation by him after
marriage, takes away his right of divorce altogether. But the woman
has no right of divorce at all, so firmly fixed throughout all Old
Testament time was the belief in the inferiority of women. On the
whole, therefore, divorce in Israel remained, after the law had
dealt with it, much on the level to which the tribal customs had
brought it. So far as the legislation dealt with it, it tended to
restriction; but when all is said it remains true that the Israelite
_law_ of divorce was in the main much what it would have been had
there been no revelation. But the _spirit_ of the religion of Yahweh
was against laxity in this matter, and this more rigorous feeling
finds expression in the evident distaste for the remarriage of a
divorced woman which is expressed in Deut. xxiv. 4. Remarriage is
not forbidden; but the woman who remarries is spoken of as one who
has "let herself be defiled." No such expression could have been
used, had not remarriage after divorce been looked upon as something
which detracted from perfect feminine purity. The legislator
evidently regarded it as the higher way for a divorced woman to
remain unmarried so long at least as the divorcing husband lived. If
she remained so, the possibility of reunion was always kept open,
and the law evidently looked upon the ultimate annulment of the
divorce as the course which was most consonant with the ideal of
marriage.

It is thus clearly seen how our Lord's statement (Matt. xix.
8)--"Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to
put away your wives, but from the beginning it hath not been so"--is
true.

And when we leave the law and come to history and prophecy, we
find this view to have been a prevalent one from early times.
In one of the earliest connected historical narratives, that of
J (Gen. ii. 24), the union of husband and wife is said to be so
peculiarly intimate that it makes them one body, so that separation
is equivalent to mutilation. And the prophets remain true to this
conception of marriage, as the one which fitted best into their
deeper and loftier views of morality. From Hosea onwards[119] they
represent the indissoluble bond between Yahweh and His people as a
marriage relation, founded on free choice and unchangeable love.
The possibility of divorce is no doubt often admitted, and the
conduct of Israel is represented as justifying that course. But the
prophetic message always is that the love of God will never permit
Him to put away His people; and the people are often addressed as
faithless and faint-hearted, because they yield to the temptation
of believing that He has cast them off (Isa. l. 1). Evidently,
therefore, the prophetic ideal of marriage was that it should be
indissoluble, that it should be founded upon free mutual love,
and that such a love should make it impossible for either husband
or wife to give the other up, however desperate the errors of the
guilty one might have been.

  [119] Hosea ii. 19.

Perhaps the finest expression of this view occurs in Isa. liv., in
the exhortation addressed to exiled Israel and beginning "Sing, O
barren, thou that didst not bear." There the ideal Israel is urged
to lay aside all her fears with this assurance: "For thy Maker is
thine husband; Yahweh of Hosts is His name: and thy Redeemer, the
Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall He be called.
For Yahweh hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in
spirit; how can a wife of youth be rejected? saith thy God." The
full meaning of this last touching question has been well brought
out by Prof. Cheyne (_Isaiah_, ii., p. 55): "Even many an earthly
husband (how much more then Yahweh!) cannot bear to see the misery
of his divorced wife, and therefore at length recalls her; and when
his wife is one who has been wooed and won in youth, how impossible
is it for her to be absolutely dismissed." The rising tide of
prophetic feeling on this subject culminates in the pathetic scene
depicted by Malachi, who in chap. ii. 12 ff. reproves his people
for their cruel and frivolous use of divorce. Drawn away by love of
idolatrous women, they had divorced their Hebrew wives; and these in
their misery crowded the Temple, covering the altar of Yahweh with
"tears and weeping and sobbing," till He could endure it no more. He
had been witness of the covenant made between each of these men and
the wife of his youth; yet they had broken this Divinely sanctioned
bond. He therefore warns them to take heed, "for Yahweh the God of
Israel saith, I hate putting away, and him who covers his garment
with violence." The Rabbinic interpreters, not being minded to give
up the privilege of divorce, have wrested these words into "for
Yahweh the God of Israel saith, If he hate her put her away." But,
so wrested, the words bring down the whole context in one ruin. They
are intelligible only if they denounce divorce, and in this sense
they must undoubtedly be taken.

There remains for consideration, however, a marriage which the
Deuteronomist permits, which seems to run counter to all the finer
feelings and instincts of his later time. It is dealt with in chap.
xxv. 5-10, and is notable because it is a clear breach of the
definite rule that a man should not marry his deceased brother's
wife. But it will be obvious at once that the permission of this
marriage stands upon quite a different footing from the prohibition.
It is permitted only in a special case for definite ends; and while
the sanction of the prohibition is the infliction of childlessness
(Lev. xx. 21), the man who refuses to enter upon marriage with his
deceased brother's wife is punished only by being put to shame by
her before the elders of his city. We have not here, therefore,
a law in the strict sense. It is only a recognition of a very
ancient custom which is not yet abolished, though evidently public
feeling was beginning to make light of the obligation. Its place
in the twenty-fifth chapter, away from the marriage laws (which
are given in xxi. 10 ff., xxii. 13 ff., and xxiv. 1-4), and among
duties of kindness, seems to hint this, and we may consequently
take the law as a concession. That the custom was ancient in the
time of Deuteronomy may be gathered from the fact that in Hebrew
there is a special technical term, _yibbēm_, for entering on such
a marriage. The probability is, indeed, that levirate marriage was
a pre-Mosaic custom connected with ancestor-worship. It certainly
is practised by many other races, _e.g._ the Hindus and Persians,
whose religions can be traced to that source. Under that system,
it was necessary that the male line of descent should be kept up
in order that the ancestral sacrifices might be continued, and to
bear the expense of this the property of the brother dying childless
was jealously preserved. In India, at present, both purposes are
served by adoption, either by the childless man or by the widow.
In earlier times, when fatherhood was to a large extent a merely
juridical relationship,[120] when, that is to say, it was a common
thing for a man to accept as his son any child born of women under
his control, whether he were the father or not, the same end was
also attained by this marriage.[121] Originating in this way, the
practice was carried over into the Israelite social life when it
changed its form, and the motives for it were then brought into
line with the new and higher religion. The motive of keeping alive
the name and memory of the childless man was substituted for that
of securing the continuance of his worship; and the purpose of
securing the permanence of property, landed property especially,
in each household, was substituted for that of supplying means for
the sacrifice. Later, the motive connected with the transmission
of property possibly became the main one. For, since the levirate
marriage came in, according to the strict wording of our passage,
whenever a man died without a son, whether he had daughters or
not, this marriage would seem to have been an alternative means of
keeping the property in the family to that of letting the daughters
inherit.[122] But the spirit of the higher religion, as well as
a more advanced civilisation, was unfavourable to it. The custom
evidently was withering when Deuteronomy was written, though in
Judaism it was not disallowed till post-Talmudic times.

  [120] _The Primitive Family_, Starcke, p. 141.

  [121] Indeed in India it was not only the widow of the childless man
  who might bear him a son whose real father was a near relation, but
  his childless wife also.--Maine, _Early Law_, p. 102.

  [122] That the latter course may in some cases have been unpopular
  with the sonless man's nearest kin is clear, since under it
  the inheritance must be divided, and it might pass to remoter
  connections, though not beyond the tribe. The nearer relations
  would, therefore, probably prefer that their brother's property
  should be kept intact and be transmitted with his name, and this
  ancient custom, sanctioned and modified by Mosaism, would give them
  that choice.

The impression, therefore, which the laws and customs regulating the
relations of men and women in Israel give to the candid student must
be pronounced to be a strangely mixed one. It would probably not be
too much to say that it is at first a deeply disappointing one. We
have been accustomed to fill all the Old Testament utterances on
this subject with the suffused light of Gospel precept and example,
till we have lost sight of the lower elements undeniably present in
the Old Testament laws and ideas concerning purity. But that is no
longer possible. Whether of enmity or of zeal for the truth, these
less worthy elements have been dragged forth into the broad light of
day, and in that light we are called upon to readjust our thoughts
so as to accept and account for them. Evidently at the beginning the
Israelite tribes accepted the uncivilised idea of woman. On that
as a basis, however, customs and laws regarding chastity, marriage
and divorce were adopted, which transcended and passed beyond that
fundamental idea. The moral complicity of woman, or her innocence,
in cases where her chastity had been attacked, came to be taken into
account. Polygamy, though never forbidden, received grievous wounds
from prophets and others of the sacred writers; and as marriage
with one became more and more the ideal, the higher teachers of the
people kept the indissolubleness of marriage before the public mind,
till Malachi denounced divorce in Yahweh's name. In regard to the
bars to marriage there was little change, probably, from the days
of Moses; but the old family rules were reinforced by a deep and
delicate regard for even the less palpable affections and relations
which grew up in the home.

The final attainment, therefore, was great and worthy enough; but
the cruder and less refined ideas, which had been inherited from
pre-Mosaic custom, always make themselves felt, and have even
dominated some of the laws. They dominated, even more, the practice
of the people and the theory of the scribes; so that on the very eve
of His coming who was to proclaim decisively the indissolubility
of marriage, the great Jewish schools were wrangling whether mere
caprice, or some immodesty only, could justify divorce. Nevertheless
the Decalogue, with its deep and broad command, culminating in
prohibition even of inward evil desire, had always had its own
influence. The teachings of the prophets, which breathe passionate
hatred of impurity, had taught all men of good-will in Israel
that the wrath of God surely burned against it. But the stamp of
imperfection was upon Old Testament teaching here as elsewhere. Like
the Messianic hope, like the future of Israel, like all Israel's
greatest destinies, the promise of a higher life in this respect was
darkened by the inconsistencies of general practice; and uncertainty
prevailed as to the direction in which men were to look for the
harmonious development of the higher potencies which were making
their presence felt. It was in them rather than in the law, in the
ideals rather than in the practice of the people, that the hidden
power was silently doing its regenerating work. The religion of
Yahweh in its central content, surrounded all laws and institutions
with an atmosphere which challenged and furthered growth of every
wholesome kind. The axe and hammer of the legislative builder was
rarely heard at work; but in the silence which seems to some so
barren, there slowly grew a fabric of moral and spiritual ideas and
aspirations, which needed only the coming of Christ to make it the
permanent home of all morally earnest souls.

With Him all that the past generations "had willed, or hoped, or
dreamed of good" came actually to exist. He made what had been
aspiration only the basis of an actual Kingdom of God. As one of its
primary moral foundations He laid down the radical indissolubility
of marriage, and made visible to all men the breadth of the law
given in the Decalogue by forbidding even wandering desires. In
doing this He completely surpassed all Old Testament teaching, and
set up a standard which Christian communities as such have held to
hitherto, but which from lack of elevation and earnestness they
seem inclined in these days to let slip. That such a standard was
ever set up was the work of a Divine revelation of a perfectly
unique kind, working through long ages of upward movement. Humanity
has been dragged upwards to it most unwillingly. Men have found
difficulty in living at that height, and nothing is easier than to
throw away all the gain of these many centuries. All that is needed
is a plunge or two downwards. But if ever these plunges are taken,
the long, slow effort upwards will only have to be begun again, if
family life is to be firmly established, and purity is to become a
permanent possession of men.




CHAPTER XXIII

_LAWS OF KINDNESS_


With the commands we now have to consider, we leave altogether the
region of strict law, and enter entirely upon that of aspiration
and of feeling. Kindness, by its very nature, eludes the rude
compulsion of law, properly so called. It ceases to be kindness when
it loses spontaneity and freedom. Precept, therefore, not law, is
the utmost that any lawgiver can give in respect to it; and this is
precisely what we have in Deuteronomy, so far as it endeavours to
incite men to gentleness, goodness, and courtesy to one another.
The author gives his people an ideal of what they ought to be in
these respects, and presses it home upon them with the heartfelt
earnestness which distinguishes him. That is all; but yet, if we are
to do justice to him as a lawgiver, we must consider and estimate
the moral value of these precepts; for, properly speaking, they are
the flower of his legal principles, and they reveal in detail, and
therefore, for the average man, most impressively, the spirit in
which his whole legislation was conceived. In the abstract no doubt
he had told us that love--love to Yahweh--was to be the fundamental
thing, and we have seen how deep and wide-reaching that announcement
was. But a review of the precepts which indicate how he conceived
that love to God should affect men's relations with men, will give
that general principle a definiteness and a concreteness more
impressive than a thousand homilies. For the conception that a
relation of love is the only fit relation between man and God, could
not, if it were sincerely taken up, fail to throw light upon men's
true relations to each other. Consequently the great declaration
of the sixth chapter was bound to re-echo in the precepts to guide
conduct, giving new sanctity and breadth to all man's duty to his
fellows.

Of course the risk of great failure was nigh at hand: for men may
be intellectually convinced that love is the element in which life
ought to be lived, and may proclaim it, who are far from being
actually penetrated and filled with love, tested and increased by
communion with God. As a result, much talk about love and kindly
human duty has fallen with but little impulsive power upon the
hearts of men. When, however, it is felt to be the expression of a
present experience, such exhortation has power to move men as no
other words can do. And the author of Deuteronomy was one of those
who had this divinely given secret. In all parts of his book you
find his words becoming winged with power, wherever love to God and
man is even remotely touched upon. If our hypothesis as to the age
in which he lived and wrote be correct, his must have been one of
those high and rare natures which are not embittered by persecution
or contemptuous neglect. Long before our Lord had spoken His
decisive words on our duty to our neighbour, or St. Paul had written
his great hymn to love, this man of God had been chosen to feel the
truth, and had suffused his book with it, so that the only principle
which can be recognised as binding together all his precepts is the
central principle of the New Testament. Of course that made his
ideal too high for present realisation; but he gained more than he
lost; for, from Jeremiah and Josiah downwards through the years, all
the noblest of his people responded to him. The splendour of his
thought cast reflections upon their minds, and these glowed and
shone amid the meaner lights which Pharisaism kindled and cherished,
till He came whose right it was to reign. Then Deuteronomy's true
rank was seen; for from it Christ took the answers by which He
repelled Satan in the temptation, and from it, too, He took that
commandment which He called the first and greatest. Of course the
humanity of the book had not, in expression at least, the imperial
sweep of Christian brotherhood which makes all men equal, so that
for it there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither wise nor unwise,
neither male nor female, neither bond nor free. But _all_ the chosen
people are included in its sympathy; and in this field, without
undue interference with private life, the author sets forth by
specimen cases how the fraternal feeling should manifest itself in
loving, neighbourly kindness.

As these laws or precepts of kindness are not systematically
arranged, it will be necessary to group them, and we shall take
first those in which it is prescribed that injury to others should
be avoided. Of course criminal wrongs are not dealt with here. They
have already been forbidden in the strictly legal portions of the
book, and penalties have been attached to them. But in the region
beyond law, there are many acts in which the difference between a
good, and kindly, and sympathetic man, and a morose, and sullen,
and unkindly one, can be even more clearly seen. In that region
Deuteronomy is unmistakably on the side of sympathy. The poor, the
slave, the helpless should, it teaches, be objects of special care
to the true son of Israel. They should be treated, it shows, with a
generous perception of the peculiar difficulties of their lot; and
pressure upon them at these special points where their lot is hard
should be abhorrent to every Israelite.

The first in order of the precepts which we are considering (chap.
xxii. v. 8)--"When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make
a railing for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house,
if any man fall from thence"--reveals the fatherly and loving
temper which it is the author's delight to attribute to Yahweh. As
earthly parents guard their children from accidents and dangers,
so Yahweh thinks of possible danger to the lives of His people,
and calls for even minute precautions. The habit of sitting and
sleeping upon the flat roofs of the houses has always been, and is
now, prevalent in the East. Many accidents take place through this
habit. In recent years Emin Pasha, who ruled so long at Wadelai,
nearly lost his life by one; and here the house-owner is required in
Yahweh's name to minimise that danger, "that he bring not blood upon
his house." The life of each one of Yahweh's people is precious to
Him; therefore it is that He will have them to guard one another.
This is the principle which runs through all these precepts. In the
sphere of ritual and religion the Deuteronomist does not transcend
Old Testament conditions. For him as for others it is the nation
which is the unit. But in the region now before us he virtually goes
beyond that limitation, and emphasises the care of Yahweh for the
individual, just as in the demand for love to God he had already
made Israel's relation to their God depend upon each man's personal
attitude. The thought that the Divine care was exerted over even
"such a set of paltry ill-given animalcules as himself and his
nation were," according to Carlyle's phrase, does not stagger him as
it staggered Frederick the Great.

In matters like these, the unsophisticated religion of the Old
Testament is most helpful to us to-day. We have analysed, and
refined, and dimmed all things into abstractions, God and man among
the rest. The fearless simplicity of the Old Testament restores us
to ourselves, and pours fresh blood into the veins of our religion.
No faith in God as the living orderer of all the circumstances of
our lives can be too strong or too detailed. The stronger and more
definite it becomes, the nearer will it approach the truth. Only one
danger can threaten us on that line, the danger of taking all our
own plans and desires for the Divinely appointed path for us. But
most men will by natural humility be saved from that presumption;
and the glad assurance that they are wrapped about with the love
of God is perhaps the greatest need of God's people in their many
sceptical and unspiritual hours.

We cannot, therefore, be surprised that, in connection with
debts and pledges for payment, the same kindness in the Divine
commands should be observable. As usury was forbidden in Israel,
and precautions against excessive indebtedness were exceedingly
elaborate, the possibilities of oppression in connection with debt
in Israel were much more limited than in most ancient communities.
Nevertheless there was here a region of life in which great wrongs
could still be done by a harsh and unscrupulous creditor. In order
that the creditor might have some security for what he had lent, it
was permitted to receive and give pledges. The precepts regarding
these are contained in chap, xxiv., vv. 6, 10 ff. and 17, and
express a considerate brotherly spirit, for which it would be hard
to find a parallel either in ancient or modern times. The creditor
who has taken a poor man's upper garment as a pledge is commanded,
both in the Book of the Covenant and in Deuteronomy, to restore
the garment to its owner in the evening, that he may sleep in it.
In Palestine for much of the year the nights are cold enough, and
the poor man has no covering save his ordinary clothes. To deprive
him of these, therefore, is to inflict punishment upon him, whereas
all that should be aimed at is the creditor's security. This was
peculiarly offensive to Israelite feeling, as we see from the
mention in Amos ii. 8 of the breach of this prescription as one of
the sins for which Yahweh would not turn away Israel's punishment.
Further, in no case was a widow's garment to be taken in pledge, nor
the handmill used for preparing the daily flour, for that is taking
"life" in pledge, as the Deuteronomist says with the feeling for the
conditions of the poor man's life which he always shows.

But the crown of all this kindness is found in the beautiful tenth
verse: "When thou dost lend thy neighbour any manner of loan, thou
shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge thou shalt stand
without, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring forth the
pledge without unto thee." Not only does Yahweh care for external
and physical pain, He sympathises with those deeper wrongs and
pains which may hurt a man's feelings. If a pledge to satisfy the
lender had to be given, scruples of delicacy on the part of the
borrower would appear to the "practical" man, as he would call
himself, contemptibly misplaced. If the man's feelings were so very
superfine, why did he borrow? But the author of Deuteronomy knew the
heart of God better. With the fine tact of a man of God, he knew how
even the well-meaning rich man's amused contempt for the poor man's
few household treasures, would cut like a whip, and he knew that
Yahweh, who was "very pitiful and of tender mercy," would desire no
son of Israel to be exposed to it. He knew, too, how human greed
might dispose the lender to seize upon the thing of greatest value
in the poor house, whether its price was in excess of the loan or
not. Finally, he knew how it deteriorates the poor to be dealt with
in an unceremonious, tactless way even by the benevolent. And in the
name and with the authority of God he forbids it. The poor man's
home, the home of the man whom we desire to help especially, is to
be sacred. In our dealing with him of all men the finest courtesy
is to be brought into play. Just because he needs our help, we are
to stand on points of ceremony with him, which we might dispense
with in dealing with friends and equals. "Thou shalt stand without,"
unless he asks thee to enter; and thou shalt show thereby, in a
deeper way than any gifts or loans can show, that the fraternal tie
is acknowledged and reverenced.

In two other precepts the same delicate regard for the finer
feelings finds expression. In the fifth verse it is commanded that
"When a man taketh a new wife, he shall not go out in the host,
neither shall he be charged with any business: he shall be free
at home one year, and shall cheer his wife that he hath taken."
The strangeness and loneliness which everywhere make themselves
felt as a formidable drawback to a young wife's joy, and which in
a polygamous family, where jealousies are bitter, must often have
reached the point of being intolerable, are provided for. In chap.
xxv. 1-3 again, which deals with the punishment of criminals by
beating, it is provided that in no case shall the number of blows
exceed forty, and that they shall be given in the presence of the
judge. This in itself was a measure of humanity, but the reason
given for the direction is greatly more humane. "Forty stripes he
may give him," says ver. 3; "he shall not exceed; lest, if he should
exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother
should seem vile unto thee." Even in the case of the criminal
care is to be taken that he be not made an object of contempt.
Punishment has gone beyond its true aim when it makes a man seem
vile unto his neighbours by attacking his dignity as a man; for that
should be inalienable even in a criminal. A man may have all his
material wants satisfied, and yet be sorely vexed and injured. God
sympathises with these hurts of the soul, and defends His people
against them.

After the lovingkindness of these commands, it seems almost
needless to say that the smaller social wrongs which men may inflict
upon each other are sternly forbidden. Often, the rich from want
of thought about the life of the poor carelessly do them wrong.
Such a case is that dealt within chap. xxiv. 14 f.: "Thou shalt not
oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of
thy brethren, or of thy strangers (_gerim_) that are in thy land
within thy gates: in his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither
shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart
upon it: lest he cry against thee unto Yahweh, and it be sin unto
thee." The same command is given in Lev. xix. 13, and Dillmann is
probably right in regarding this as a Deuteronomic repetition of
that, since there the precept forms part of a pentade of commands
dealing with similar things, while here it stands alone. From early
times, therefore, Yahweh had revealed Himself as considering the
poor and the necessities of their position. Further, the poor man
or the wayfarer was permitted to satisfy his hunger by taking fruit
or grain in his hands as he passed through the fields. No one was
to die of starvation if the fields were "yielding meat." Last of
all, estrangement between brethren, _i.e._ all Israelites, was not
to free them from duties of neighbourly love. If a man find a stray
ox or sheep or ass, or a garment or any other lost thing, he is not
to leave it where he finds it. He is to restore it to the owner;
and if the owner is unknown or too far off, the finder is to keep
that which he has found till it is inquired after. Then if he see
his brother's, _i.e._ his neighbour's, ass or ox fallen by the way,
he must not pass by, but must help the owner to set it on its feet
again. That an estranged "brother" was especially in view is shown
by the fact that in the parallel passage (Exod. xxiii. 4) "thine
enemy's ox" and "the ass of him that hateth thee" are mentioned.

Now, we have called these precepts and provisions the flower and
blossom of the Deuteronomic legislation, because they reveal in
their greatest perfection that sympathy with the commonest and
the innermost cares of men which is the moving impulse of it all.
But they reveal more than that. They show that already in those
far-off days the secret of God's love to man had been made known.
Its universality so far as Israel was concerned, its penetrative
sympathy, its quality of regarding no human interest as outside
its scope, its superhuman impartiality--all are here. They are not
of course present in their full sweep and power, as Christ made
them known. Outside of Israel there were the Gentiles, who had a
share only in the "uncovenanted mercies" of God; and even among
the chosen people there were the slaves and the strangers, who had
a comparatively insecure relation to Him. Further, the thought of
the self-sacrifice of God, though soon to have its dawning in the
later chapters of Isaiah, was not as yet an appreciable element
in the Israelite theology. Nevertheless the passages we have been
considering throw a light upon social duty, as seen by this inspired
servant of God, which puts to shame the state of the Christian mind
on these subjects even now.

The great principles underlying right relations between men of
different social status are, according to these precepts, courtesy
and consideration. Now it is precisely the want of these which
lies at the root of the bitterness which is so alarming a symptom
of our social state at present. There is not, we are willing to
believe, much of intentional, deliberate oppression exercised by
the strong upon the weak. The injustice that is done is probably
inherent in the present social system, for the character of which
no one living is responsible. But one reason why reform comes so
slowly, and why patience till it can come dies out among the masses
of men, is that the employing classes, and those who have inherited
privileges, often convey to those they employ the impression that
they are beyond the pale of the courtesies which are recognised as
binding between men of the same class. Often without intending it,
their manner when they are approached by those they employ, their
short and half-aggrieved replies, reveal to the latter that they
are regarded much more as parts of the machinery, than as men who
might naturally be expected to claim, and who have a right to, the
recognition of their rights as men.

Of course there are excuses. There is the long tradition of
subordination to arbitrary power, from which none in earlier ages
of the world have been free. There is the impatience with which
a governing and organising mind listens to grievances which it
sees either to be inevitable under the circumstances, or to be
compensated by some corresponding privilege, which stands or falls
with the thing complained of. And then there is the absence of
outlook, which is the foible of the directing mind. It is set to
rule and make successful a large and intricate business under given
circumstances. The more effective such a mind is for practical
purposes, the more thoroughly will it limit itself to working out
the problem committed to it. When grievances have to be dealt with
which have their root in the present circumstances, and which imply
changes more or less radical in his fixed point if they are to be
redressed, it is hard for the employer to persuade himself that his
employees are not merely crying for the moon. If he think so, he
will probably say so; and working men go away from such interviews
with the feeling that it is vain to expect from employers any
sympathy for their aspirations towards a better social state, which
yet they cannot give up without a slur upon their manhood.

But though these are excuses for the attitude we have been
describing, there can be no question that the fine and delicate
courtesy which Deuteronomy prescribes is indispensable in order
to avert class hostility. Courtesy cannot, of course, change our
social state, and where it works badly evils that produce friction
will remain. But the first condition of a successful solution of
our difficulties is, that evil tempers should as far as possible
be banished, and for that purpose courtesy even under provocation
is the one sovereign remedy. For it means that you convey to your
neighbour that you consider him in all essentials your equal.
It means, too, that you are willing to recognise his rights and
to respect them. Though power may be on your side, and weakness
on his, that will only make it more incumbent upon you to show
that mere external circumstances cannot impair your reverence for
him as man. If that be sincerely felt, it opens a way, otherwise
absolutely closed, to mutual confidence and mutual understanding.
These once established, light on all parts of the social problem
(which, be it remembered, employers and employed must solve together
if it is to be solved at all) will break in upon the minds of both
classes. In spite of the diversity of their immediate interests,
the ultimate interest of all is the same. If contempt and suspicion
were excluded, eyes which are now holden would be opened, and a
common effort to reach a social state in which all men shall have
the opportunity of living lives worthy of men would become possible.
If all would learn to treat those of other classes with the courtesy
which they constantly show to those of their own, a great step in
the right direction would be taken. Men overlook much and forgive
much to their fellows when these recognise their equality, and show
that they attach importance to having good relations with them.

But much more is to be aimed at than that. The esteem for man as
man has great conquests yet to make before even the Deuteronomic
courtesy becomes common. But if these nobler manners are to come
in, then the motives suggested by Deuteronomy will have to be made
effective for our day. What these were it is not difficult to see.
They all had their source in the author's own relations and the
relations of his people to God. Each of his brethren of the chosen
people was a friend of Yahweh. There was no difference between
Israelite men before Him. He had brought them all, the poor and
the weak, as well as the rich and the strong, out of the house of
bondage; He had guided them all through the wilderness, and had
appointed each household a place in His land where full communion
with Him was to be had. He had thought many thoughts about them,
had given them laws and statutes dictated by loving insight, so as
to fill their life with the consciousness that Yahweh loved them,
condescended to them, and even allowed Himself to be made to serve
by their sins. Whatever else they might be, they were friends of
God, and had a right to respect on that ground. And for us who are
Christians all these motives have been intensified and raised to
a higher power. It is not lawful for us to call any man common or
unclean. It is not lawful to overwhelm and bear down the minds of
others by sheer energy and power. Those "for whom Christ died" are
not to be dealt with save on the worthy plane of moral and spiritual
conviction. That is the law of Christ; and so long as it is broken
in our labour troubles by contemptuous refusal of conference when
it can be granted without compromising principle, or by slighting
references to labour leaders and a refusal to meet them, when
leaders of another class would be courteously met, so long will the
bitterness which inevitably springs up trouble us.

It is not, however, to be supposed that only the rich can sin in
this respect. The labour organisations are becoming in many places,
the stronger,[123] and so far they have learned the law of courtesy
no better than their opponents. Opprobrious epithets and injurious
suspicions and accusations are the stock-in-trade of some who lead
the labour cause. That is as unworthy in them as it would be in
others; it is not only a crime, but a blunder.

  [123] Especially in some of the Southern Colonies in one of which
  this exposition is written.

But the practice of courtesy does not end with itself. It opens
the way for that consideration of the circumstances of the poor
which we have found so conspicuous in Deuteronomy. As we have seen,
Yahweh's precepts contemplate with the nicest care the unavoidable
necessities of the poor man's life. So He stirs us to endeavour
to realise the conditions of our poorer brethren, and by doing so
to avoid the blunders which well-meaning people make by assuming
that the conditions of their own life are the norm. There are
vast varieties of circumstance in the world; and from lack of
consideration those more favourably situated excite envies and
hatreds the bitterness of which they cannot conceive, by simply
taking it for granted that every one has the same opportunities for
recreation, the same possibilities of rest. To realise clearly what
life and death mean to the toiling millions of men; to see that
matters which are small to those who live the materially larger and
freer life of the class above them are of vital moment to the poor;
to consider and allow for all such things in their dealings with
them,--this is the teaching of Deuteronomy. Hence the command to pay
the labourer his wages in the same day. The heart of man responds
when this note is struck. In nothing is the story of Gautama the
Buddha more true to the best instincts of humanity than in this,
that it represents him as making his great renunciation through
coming into intimate contact with the pain and misery of ordinary
life.[124] That gave him insight, and insight wrought sympathy, and
sympathy transformed him from being a petty prince of Northern India
into the consoler and helper of millions in all Eastern lands. Even
hopeless pessimism, when born of sympathy, has an immense consoling
power. Much more should the inextinguishable hope given by Christ,
combined as it is with the same sympathetic insight, console men and
uplift them.

  [124] _Buddhism_, by T. W. Rhys Davids, p. 29.

But the sixteenth verse of chap. xxiii. reminds us that in that
ancient Deuteronomic world there were sad limitations to these lofty
sympathies and hopes. If intensively Deuteronomy almost reaches the
Gospel, extensively it shows the whole difference between Judaism
at its best and Christianity. Below the world of free-born members
of the Israelite community, to whom the precepts we have hitherto
been considering alone apply, there was the class of slaves, who
in many respects lay beyond the region of the finer charities. The
origin of slavery we need not discuss. It was a quite universal
feature in all ancient communities, and was doubtless a step upwards
from the custom of destroying all prisoners taken in war. Among the
Hebrews it had always been customary; but in historic times it was
not among them the all-important matter it was in Greek and Roman
polity. Had it been so, it would have been impossible to discuss the
economic ideals of Israel without taking this social feature into
consideration first. But slaves were comparatively few in Israel,
and the slave trade can never have been extensive, since no slave
markets are mentioned in the Old Testament. Moreover the social
state of the country made owners of slaves share in the slaves'
work, and that of itself prevented the growth of the worst abuses.
But the most powerful element in making the lot of the slave
tolerable was undoubtedly the just and pitiful character of the
Israelite religion.

The fundamental position with regard to him was, however, the common
one: he was the property of his master. He could be sold, pledged,
given away as a present, and inherited, and could even be sold to
foreigners. But a female slave, if taken as a subordinate wife,
could not be sold, but only freed if she ceased to occupy that
position. Exclusive of the Canaanites, subject to forced labour,
and the Nethinim, the servants of the Sanctuary, who occupied
much the same place as the _servi publici_ in Rome, there were
two classes of slaves, non-Israelites and Israelites. The ways in
which a non-Israelite slave could come into Israelite hands were
just what they were elsewhere. They might be prisoners of war,
they might be purchased from travelling merchants, they might
voluntarily have sold themselves from poverty in a strange land, or
might have been sold for debt, and finally they might be children
born of slaves. Their lot was of course the hardest. Yet even they
were not so entirely unprotected by the law as slaves were among
Greeks and Romans. They were recognised as men, having certain
general human rights. The master had no right to kill; and if he
maimed his slave he had to give him his freedom, according to the
oldest law (Exod. xvi. 20 f.). The law regarding the killing of a
slave has often been quoted as singularly harsh, especially that
clause which says that if a slave when fatally smitten lives for
some days after the blow, his death shall not be avenged, "for he
is his (the master's) money." But it ought, notwithstanding the
harshness of the expression, to be judged quite otherwise. The fact
that death was not immediate was taken to indicate that death was
not intended, and consequently the loss of the slave was thought a
sufficient punishment. But the prohibition of the deliberate murder
of a slave was a humane provision which could not be paralleled in
the Græco-Roman world. Moreover these laws would not seem to have
been widely called into action. The humane spirit became so general
in Israel that slaves were generally well treated. In Prov. xxix.
21 over-indulgence to a slave is deprecated, as if it were a common
error; and during the whole history there is no mention of evils
resulting from cruel treatment of slaves, much less any record
of servile insurrection. Nor is there very frequent mention even
of runaway slaves. On the other hand, we read of slaves who were
stewards of their masters' houses; others probably were entrusted
with the charge of the education of children.

In Deuteronomy we find, as we should expect, that the movement
towards humanity in dealing with slaves is greatly furthered. In
chap. xxi. 10 ff. the hardship of a woman's lot when she was taken
captive in war is mitigated with sympathetic insight. To modern
women of the Western world the lot of such an one seems so dreadful
that no mitigation of it can make any difference. The current
teaching among even religious men is that rather than submit to it
a woman is justified in suicide. But in antiquity the personality
of woman was undeveloped, the chances of life constantly passed
her from one master to another, and things intolerable now were
tolerable then. Making even these allowances, however, if we look
at the law of the Old Testament as being in all its provisions and
_ab initio_ Divine, it seems impossible to praise it. A law which
graciously permitted a captive woman to mourn for her people for
a month, and only then allowed her captor to marry her, but if he
wished afterwards to get rid of her provided that he should not sell
her, but should let her go whither she would, cannot be said to be
in itself compassionate. But, if the customary law of the Israelite
tribes, restrained and purified by the higher spirit, be regarded as
the basis of Old Testament legislation, then the leaven of religion
and humanity can be seen working nobly, and in a manner worthy of
revelation, even in such cases as these. Long after the Christian
era we see what the ordinary fate of a captive woman was, in the
conduct of Khalid the "sword of the Lord," one of the first great
Mohammedan soldiers. When he had captured Malik ibn Noweira, who had
resisted Islam, along with his wife, he gave orders which led to
Malik's death, and the same night he married his widow.[125] Shortly
afterwards, at the battle of Yemama, he demanded the daughter of
his captive Mojda, and married her, as the Caliph wrote in reproof,
"whilst the ground beneath the nuptial couch was yet moistened
with the blood of twelve hundred." Horrors like these Deuteronomy
forbids. The frenzied moments of a captive's first grief are
respected, and some tenderness is shown to woman in a world where
her lot at its best had always in it possibilities which cannot now
be even thought of with equanimity. The same steady pressure to a
nobler form of life is likewise seen in the Deuteronomic law dealing
with the case of a foreign slave who had taken refuge in Israel
(Deut. xxiii. 15 f.). In the words, "Thou shalt not deliver unto
his master the slave which is escaped from his master unto thee; he
shall dwell with thee, in the midst of thee, in the place which he
shall choose within one of thy gates, where it liketh him best; thou
shalt not oppress him," we have, thus early, the same legislation
which it is the peculiar boast of England to have introduced into
the modern world. "Slaves cannot breathe in England," and the
moment they touch British soil in any part of the world they are
free. This was the case with the land of Israel according to the
Deuteronomic conception of what it ought to be.

  [125] Sir W. Muir, _Caliphate_, pp. 26 and 33.

But the highest points of privilege come to the non-Israelite slave
in a way which disturbs the modern conscience, for they came by
means of compulsion in religion. In contrast to the day labourer
and the "Toshab" or sojourner, the slave _must_ be of his master's
religion. For a heathen, however, that was not a difficulty. His
gods were gods of his land; and when he left his land and was
carried into a foreign country, he had no scruple about worshipping
the god of the new land. A typical case of this is found in the
narrative 2 Kings xvii., where the immigrants whom the king of
Assyria had settled in Samaria after Israel had been carried captive
besought him to send some one to teach them how to worship Yahweh.
This adoption of the master's religion secured equality of slave and
free to a degree which could not otherwise have been attained, and
brought the slaves fully within the humanity of the Hebrew law. It
gave them the Sabbath (chap. v. 14). It gave a full share in all the
religious festivals and a part in the sacrificial feasts (Deut. xii.
12 and xvi. 11, 14). Such slaves were, in fact, fully adopted into
the family of God, and became brethren, poorer and more unfortunate,
but still brethren of their masters. They had indeed no claim to
freedom, as Israelite slaves had; they were slaves in perpetuity.
But their slavery was of a kind that did not degrade them beneath
the condition of man.

With regard to Israelite slaves the beneficence of the law was
naturally still greater. The fullest statement in regard to them
is found, not in Deuteronomy, but in Lev. xxv. 39-46; but in the
main we may suppose that in its larger outlines the distinction
between Israelite and non-Israelite slaves there insisted on was
always acknowledged. They were not to be thrust down into the
lowest depth of slavery, and they were not to be set to the lowest
kinds of labour, rather to that which hired labourers were wont
to do, because they were of the children of Israel, of the nation
whom Yahweh had brought out of the house of bondage. Further, they
had a right to emancipation every seventh year, that is to say,
whenever they had served six full years they could claim freedom in
the seventh. Their original property was meant to be restored to
them in the Sabbatic year, and so their degradation could last only
for a very limited time. In Exod. xxi. 2 ff. we find the original
provisions concerning the Israelite slave. Deuteronomy simply took
these up, and modified them in certain respects. It extends all
that Exodus says of the slave to the female slave also, and, in its
care for and understanding of the difficulties of the poor, enacts
that a slave when set free shall receive a fresh start in life from
the cattle, the barn, and the winepress of the former owner. But
this anticipation of discharged prisoners' aid societies was too
high a demand upon a faithless generation. Even Jeremiah could not
get it carried out; and the probability is that none but the most
spiritually minded of the Jews ever regarded it as binding law.

The love which love of Yahweh inspired spread still more widely. It
took in not only the poor and the slave, but it took account also of
the lower animals. It has been often made a reproach to Christianity
that it makes no such appeal on behalf of the lower creation as
Buddhism does. But that reproach (like the kindred one brought by
J. S. Mill, that in comparison with the Qur'an the New Testament
is defective in not pressing civil duty) is tenable only if the
New Testament be absolutely severed from the Old. Taken as the
completion of the moral and religious development begun in Israel,
Christianity takes up into itself all the experience, and all the
teaching by example, which the Old Testament contains. It does not
repeat it, because to the first Christians the Old Testament was
the Divinely inspired guide. It was at first their whole Bible,
and to take the New Testament by itself as an independent product
is to mutilate both the Old and the New. When the Old Testament,
therefore, enjoins kindness to animals we may set down all that
it prescribes to the credit of Christianity. So much, at least,
the latter must be held to teach; and if we consider the spirit as
well as the letter of this law, there is no exaggeration in saying
that it covers all the ground. Here, as in the case of slaves and
the poor, the fundamental reason for kindness is relation to God.
In the Yahwist's narrative in Gen. ii. all creatures are formed by
God, and God Himself shows kindness to them. Indeed in passages like
Psalm xxxvi. 7, as Cheyne well remarks, there is an implication
"that morally speaking there is no complete break of continuity in
the scale of sentient life," and that, as is seen by passages like
Jer. xxi. 6, and Isa. iv. 11, the mild domesticated animals "are in
fact regarded as a part of the human community." In the Decalogue
the animals that labour with and for man have their share in the
Sabbath rest, and the produce of the fields during the Sabbatic year
(Exod. xxiii. 11; Lev. xxv. 7) is to be for them as well as for the
poor. That they were mere machines of flesh and blood, to be driven
till they were worn out, and were then to be cast aside, seems never
to have occurred to the Israelite mind. These helpful creatures
had made a covenant with man, and had a share in the consideration
which the sons of Israel were taught to have for one another. In
reaching that attainment Israel had reached the only effective
ground for dealing with animals, as Cheyne says, "without inhumanity
and without sentimentalism." The individual prescriptions of
Deuteronomy emphasise and bring down these principles into the
practical life. It is probable that the precept not to seethe a kid
in its mother's milk (Deut. xiv. 21) was, in part at least, a law
of kindness, founded upon a reverential feeling for the parental
relationship even in this lower sphere. The command in Deut. xxii.
6 is certainly so. We read there: "If a bird's nest chance to be
before thee in the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young
ones or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs,
thou shalt not take the dam with the young; thou shalt in any wise
let the dam go, but the young thou mayest take unto thyself; that
it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days."
Evidently the ground of sympathy here is the existence and the
sacredness of the parental relationship. The mother bird is sacred
as a mother; and length of days is promised to those who regard the
sanctity of motherhood in this sphere, as it is promised to those
who observe the fifth commandment of the Decalogue. Thus intimately
the lower creation is drawn into the human sphere.

The only other precepts under this head are that a fallen animal is
always to be lifted (Deut. xxii. 4), and the ox is not to be muzzled
when it is treading out the corn (Deut. xxv. 4). These were ordinary
prescriptions of humanity, but they too rest upon the sympathetic
identification of the sufferings and wants of all sentient beings
with those of mankind. It may be objected, however, that St. Paul
denies that the last precept really was due to pity for the oxen. In
1 Cor. ix. 9, referring to it, he says, "Is it for the oxen that God
careth, or saith He it altogether for our sake? Yea, for our sake it
was written." But there is no real contradiction here. It is quite
impossible that a devout Jew like St. Paul did not believe that
God's "tender mercies are over all His works" (Psalm cxlv. 9). He
would have been false to all his training had he not accepted that
as a fundamental axiom. His apparent denial does not refer at all to
the historic fact that the precept _was_ given because of God's care
for oxen. It only signifies that, when taken in its highest sense,
it was meant to form character in _men_. St. Paul argues, as Alford
says, "that not the oxen, but those for whom the law was given, were
its objects. Every duty of _humanity_ has for its ultimate ground,
not the mere welfare of the animal concerned, but its welfare in
that system of which man is the head, and therefore man's welfare."
In fact St. Paul understood the Old Testament as we have seen it
demands to be understood, and places the duty of kindness to animals
in its right relation to man.

In all relations, therefore, Deuteronomy insists that life's main
principle shall be love illumined by sympathy. Beginning with
God and giving man's unquiet heart a firm anchorage there, it
commands that all creatures about us shall be embraced in the same
sympathising tenderness. It forbids us to look upon any of them as
mere instruments for our use, for all of them have ends of their
own in the loving thought of God. God is for it the great unifying,
harmonising power in the world, and from a right conception of Him
all right living flows. If the New Testament asks with wonder how a
man who loves not his brother whom he hath seen can love God whom
he hath not seen, the Old Testament teaches with equal emphasis the
complementary truth that he who loves not God whom he hath not seen
will never love as he ought his brother whom he hath seen. For to it
Yahweh is the first and last word; and all the growth in kindness,
gentleness, consideration, and goodness which can be traced in
the revelation given to Israel, has its source in a conception of
the Divine character which from the first was spiritual, and was
moreover unique in the world.




CHAPTER XXIV

_MOSES' FAREWELL SPEECHES_

DEUT. iv. 1-40, xxvii.-xxx.


With the twenty-sixth chapter the entirely homogeneous central
portion of the Book of Deuteronomy ends, and it concludes it most
worthily. It prescribes two ceremonies which are meant to give
solemn expression to the feeling of thankfulness which the love of
God, manifested in so many laws and precepts, covering the commonest
details of life, should have made the predominant feeling. The first
is the utterance of what we have called the "liturgy of gratitude"
at the time of the feast of firstfruits; and the second is the
solemn dedication of the third year's tithe to the poor and the
fatherless, and the disclaimer of any misuse of it. Further notice
of either after what has already been said in reference to them
would be superfluous. The closing verses (16-19) of the chapter are
a solemn reminder that all these transactions with God had bound
the people to Yahweh in a covenant. "Thou hast avouched Yahweh this
day to be thy God" and, "Yahweh hath avouched thee this day to be a
peculiar people ('_am segūllāh_) unto Himself." By this they were
bound to keep Yahweh's statutes and judgments, and do them with
all their heart and with all their soul, while He, on His part,
undertakes on these terms to set them "high above all nations which
He hath made in praise, and in name, and in honour," and to make
them a holy people unto Himself.

But the original Deuteronomy as read to King Josiah cannot have
ended with chapter xxvi., for the thing that awed him most was
the threat of evil and desolation which were to follow the
non-observance of this covenant. Now though there are indications of
such dangers in the first twenty-six chapters of Deuteronomy, yet
threats are not, so far, a prominent part of this book. The book
as read must consequently have contained some additional chapters,
which, in part at least, must have contained threats. Now this is
what we have in our Biblical Deuteronomy. But in chapters xxvii. and
xxviii. there are reduplications which can hardly have formed part
of the original author's work. An examination of these has led every
one who admits composite authorship in the Pentateuch to see that
from chapter xxvii. onwards the original work has been broken up
and dovetailed again with the works of JE and P; so that component
parts of the first four books of the Hexateuch appear along with
elements which the author of Deuteronomy has supplied. We have,
in fact, before us, from this point, the work of the editor who
fitted Deuteronomy into the framework of the Pentateuch; and it is
of importance, from an expository point of view even, to endeavour
to restore Deuteronomy to its original form, and to follow out the
traces of it that are left.

As we have said, we must look for the threats and promises which
undoubtedly formed part of it. These are contained in chapters
xxvii. and xxviii. But a careful reader will feel at once that
chapter xxvii. disturbs the connection, and that xxviii. should
follow xxvi. In chapter xxvii., vv. 9 and 10 alone seem necessary
to give a transition to chapter xxviii.; and if all the rest were
omitted we should have exactly what the narrative in Kings would
lead us to expect, a coherent, natural sequence of blessings and
curses, which should follow faithfulness to the covenant, or
unfaithfulness. The rest of chapter xxvii. is not consistent either
with itself or with Josh. viii. 30, where the accomplishment of
that which is commanded here is recorded. In vv. 1-3 Moses and the
elders command the people to set up great stones and plaister them
with plaister and write upon them all the words of this law, on
the day when they shall pass over Jordan, that they may go in unto
the land. In ver. 4 it is said that these stones are to be set up
in Mount Ebal, and there an altar of unhewn stones is to be built,
and sacrifices offered, "and thou shalt write upon the stones very
plainly." From the position of this last clause and the mention of
Mount Ebal, the course of events would be quite different from that
which vv. 1-3 suggest. The stones were, according to the verses 4
ff., to be set up in Mount Ebal; out of these an altar of unhewn
stones was to be built; and on them the law was to be inscribed, and
this is what Joshua says was done. But if we take all the verses,
1-8, together, we can reconcile them only by the hypothesis that
the stones were set up as soon as Jordan was crossed, plaistered,
and inscribed with the law; that afterwards they were removed to
Mount Ebal and built into an altar "of unhewn stone," upon which
sacrifices were offered. But that surely is in the highest degree
improbable; and since we know that in other cases two narratives
have been combined in the sacred text, that would seem the most
probable solution here. Verses 4-8 will in that case be a later
insertion, probably from J. In the same connection vv. 15-26 contain
a list of crimes which are visited with a curse and no blessings;
this cannot be the proclamation of blessing and cursing which is
here required. Further, this list must be by a different author,
for it affixes curses to some crimes which are not mentioned in
Deuteronomy, and omits such sins as idolatry, which are continually
mentioned there. This section must consequently have been inserted
here by some later hand. It must probably have been later even than
the time of the writer of Josh. viii. 33 ff., since the arrangement
as reported there differs from what is prescribed here. Moreover, as
there is nothing new in these sections, and all they say is repeated
substantially in chapter xxviii., we may give our attention wholly
to chapter xxviii. 1-68, as being the original proclamation of
blessing and curse.

But other entanglements follow. Chapters xxix. and xxx. manifestly
contained an adieu on the part of Moses, who turns finally to the
people with an affecting and solemn speech of farewell. That appears
in chapters xxix. and xxx. But for many reasons it is impossible to
believe that these chapters as they stand are the original speech of
Deuteronomy.[126] The language is in large part different, and there
are references to the Book of the Law as being already written out
(chap. xxix. 19 f. 26, and chap. xxx. 10). It is probably therefore
an editor's rewriting of the original speech, and from the fact
that "it contains many points of contact with Jeremiah in thoughts
and words," it is probably to be dated in the Exile. But there is
another noticeable thing in connection with it. It has a remarkable
resemblance in these and other respects to chapter iv. 1-40. That
passage can hardly have originally followed chapters i.-iii., if as
is most probable these were at first an historic introduction to
Deuteronomy. The hortative character of iv. 1-40 shows that it must
have been placed where it is by a reviser. But the language, though
not altogether that of Deuteronomy, is like it, and the thought is
also Deuteronomic. Probably the passage must have been transferred
from some other part of Deuteronomy and adapted by the editor. A
clue to its true place may perhaps be found in ver. 8, where "all
this law" is spoken of as if it were already given, and in ver. 5,
where we read, "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments."
These passages imply that the law of Deuteronomy had been given,
and in that case chapter iv. must belong to a closing speech. We
probably shall not be in error, therefore, in thinking that chapters
iv. 1-40 and xxix. and xxx. are all founded on an original farewell
speech which stood in Deuteronomy after the blessing and the curse.

  [126] Cf. Dillmann, _Deuteronomy_, pp. 178 ff.

But it may be asked, if that be so, why did an editor make these
changes? The answer is to be found in two passages in chapters xxxi.
and xxxii. which cannot be harmonised as they stand. In xxxi. 19 we
are told that Yahweh commanded Moses to write "this song" and teach
it to the children of Israel, "that this song may be a witness for
Me against the children of Israel," and ver. 22, "So Moses wrote
this song." But in vv. 28 f. we read that "Moses said, Assemble unto
me all the elders of the tribes and your officers, that I may speak
these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness
against them." Obviously "these words" are different from "this
song," and are meant for a different purpose. The same ambiguity
occurs at the end of the song in vv. 44 ff., where we first read
of Moses ending "this song," and in the next verse we read, "And
Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel." Now
what has become of "_these words_"? In all probability they were the
substance of chapters iv. and xxix. and xxx., and were separated
and amplified, because the editor who fitted Deuteronomy into the
Pentateuch took over the song in chapter xxxii., as well as those
passages of xxxi. and xxxii. that speak of this song, from JE. He
accepted them as a fitting conclusion for the career of Moses, and
transferred the original speech, which we suppose to have been
the last great utterance of the original Deuteronomy, putting the
main part of it immediately before the song, but taking parts out
of it to form a hortatory ending (such as the other Moses' speeches
have) to that first one which he had formed out of the historic
introduction. This may seem a very complicated process and an
unlikely one; but after the foundation had been built by Dillmann,
Westphal has elaborated the whole matter with such luminous force
that it seems hardly possible to doubt that the facts can be
accounted for only in this way. By piecing together iv., xxx., and
xxxi. he produces a speech so thoroughly coherent and consistent
that the mere reading of it becomes the most cogent proof of the
substantial truth of his argument.[127]

  [127] Le _Deuteronome_ (Toulouse, 1891), pp. 62-75. The order in
  which he disposes of the verses is as follows: Deut. xxxi. 24-29,
  xxix. 1-15, iv. 1, 2, xxix. 16-21, iv. 3-30, xxix. 22-28, iv. 30,
  31, xxx. 1-10, iv. 32-40, xxx. 11-20, xxxii. 45-47. If before this
  we place xxxi. 1-13, we shall probably have the original sequence
  fully restored.

An analysis of it will show this, (1) There is the introduction; up
till now the people have understood neither the commands nor the
love of Yahweh (xxix. 1-9). (2) There is the explanation of the
Covenant (xxix. 10-15); (3) A command to observe the Covenant (iv.
1, 2); (4) Warning against individual transgression, which will be
punished by the destruction of the rebel (xxix. 16-21, iv. 3, 4);
(5) Warning against collective transgression, which will be punished
by the ruin of the people (iv. 5-26). The author, from this point
regarding the transgression as an accomplished fact, announces:
(6) The dispersion and exile of the people (iv. 27, 28); (7) The
impression produced on future generations by the horror of this
dispersion (xxix. 22-28); (8) The conversion of the exiles to God
(iv. 30, 31); (9) Their return to the land of their fathers xxx.
(1-10). (10) In conclusion, it is stated that the power of Yahweh
to sustain the faith of His people and to save them is guaranteed
by the past (iv. 32-40); and there is no reason therefore that the
people should shrink from obeying the commandment prescribed to
them. It is a matter of will. Life and death are before them; let
them choose (xxx. 11-20).

The analysis of the remaining chapters is not difficult. Chapter
xxxi., vv. 14-23 and 30, form the introduction to the song, chapter
xxxii., vv. 1-43, just as ver. 44 is the conclusion of it. Both
introduction and song are extracted probably from J and E. Verses
48-52 are after P. Then follows the blessing of Moses, chapter
xxxiii. Finally, chapter xxxiv. contains an account of Moses' death
and a final eulogy of him, in which all the sources JE, P, and D
have been called into requisition. The threefold cord which runs
through the other books of the Pentateuch was untwisted to receive
Deuteronomy, and has been re-twisted so as to bind the Pentateuch
into one coherent whole. That is the result of the microscopic
examination which the text as it stands has undergone, and we may
pretty certainly accept it as correct. But we should not lose
sight of the fact that, as the book is now arranged, it has a
notable coherence of its own, and the impression of unity which it
conveys is in itself a result of great literary skill. Not only
has the editor combined Deuteronomy into the other narratives most
successfully, but he has done so not only without falsifying, but so
as to confirm and enhance the impression which the original book was
meant to convey.

We turn now to the substance of the two speeches--the proclamation
of the blessing and the curse, and the great farewell address. As we
have seen, the first is contained in chapter xxviii. If any evidence
were now needed that this chapter was written later than the Mosaic
time, it might be found in the space given to the curses, and the
much heavier emphasis laid upon them than upon the blessings. Not
that Moses might not have prophetically foretold Israel's disregard
of warnings. But if the heights to which Israel was actually to
rise had been before the author's mind as still future, instead of
being wrapped in the mists of the past, he could not but have dwelt
more equally upon both sides of the picture. Whatever supernatural
gifts a prophet might have, he was still and in all things a man.
He was subject to moods like others, and the determination of these
depended upon his surroundings. He was not kept by the power of God
beyond the shadows which the clouds in his sky might cast; and we
may safely say that if the curses which are to follow disobedience
are elaborated and dwelt upon much more than the blessings which
are to reward obedience, it is because the author lived at a time
of unfaithfulness and revolt. Obviously his contemporaries were
going far in the evil way, and he warns them with intense and eager
earnestness against the dangers they are so recklessly incurring.

But after all we have seen of the spirituality of the Deuteronomic
teaching, and its insistence upon love as the true bond between
men and God and the true motive to all right action, it is perhaps
disappointing to some to find how entirely these promises and
threats have their centre in the material world. Probably nowhere
else will the truth of Bacon's famous saying that "Prosperity is the
blessing of the Old Testament" be more conspicuously seen than here.
If Israel be faithful she is promised productivity, riches, success
in war. Even when it is promised that she shall be established by
Yahweh as a holy people unto Himself, the meaning seems to be that
the people shall be separated from others by these earthly favours,
rather than that they shall have the moral and spiritual qualities
which the word "holy" now connotes. Other nations shall fear Israel
because of the Divine favour. Israel shall be raised above them all.
If it become unfaithful, on the other hand, it is to be visited
with pestilence, consumption, fever, inflammation, sword, blasting,
mildew. The earth is to be iron beneath them, and the heaven above
them brass. Instead of rain they are to have dust; they are to be
visited with more than Egyptian plagues. Their minds are to refuse
to serve them; they are to be defeated in war; their country is to
be overrun by marauders; their wives and children, their cattle
and their crops, are to fall into the enemy's hands. Locusts and
all known pests are to fall upon their fields; and they themselves
are to be carried away captive, after having endured the worst
horrors of siege, and been compelled by hunger to devour their own
children. And in exile they shall be an astonishment, a proverb, and
a by-word, and shall be ruled by oppressive aliens. Worst of all,
they shall there lose hope in God and "shall serve other gods, even
wood and stone." Their lives shall hang in doubt before them. In the
morning they shall say, "Would God it were evening," and at even
they shall say, "Would God it were morning." All the deliverance
Yahweh had wrought for them by bringing them out of Egypt would be
undone, and once more they should go back into Egyptian bondage.

All that is materialistic enough; but there is no need to make
apology for Deuteronomy, nevertheless. The prophet has taught the
higher law; he has rooted all human duty, both to God and man, in
love to God, and now he tries to enlist man's natural fear and hope
as allies of his highest principle. How justifiable that is we have
already seen in Chapter XII., pp. 231 ff.

But a more serious question is raised when it is asked, does
Nature, in definite sober truth, lend itself, in the manner implied
throughout this chapter, to the support of religious and moral
fidelity? At a time when imaginative literature is largely devoting
itself to an angry or querulous denial of any righteous force
working for the unfortunate and the faithful,[128] there can be
no question what the popular answer to such a question would be.
But from the ranks of literature itself we may summon testimony on
the other side. Mr. Hall Caine, in his address at the Edinburgh
Philosophical Institution, maintains in a wider and more general
way the essence of the Deuteronomic thesis when he says, "I count
him the greatest genius who touches the magnetic and Divine chord
in humanity which is always waiting to vibrate to the sublime hope
of recompense; I count him the greatest man who teaches men that
the world is ruled in righteousness." And his justification of
that position is too admirable not to be quoted: "Life is made up
of a multitude of fragments, a sea of many currents, often coming
into collision and throwing up breakers. We look around and see
wrong-doing victorious, and right-doing in the dust; the evil man
growing rich and dying in his bed, the good man becoming poor and
dying in the street; and our hearts sink and we say, What is God
doing after all in this world of His children? But our days are
few, our view is limited, we cannot watch the event long enough
to see the end which Providence sees." "It is the very province
of imaginative genius," he goes on to say, "to see that which the
common mind cannot see, to offer to it at least suggestions of how
these triumphs of unrighteousness may be accounted for in accordance
with the law that righteousness rules in the world." We would go
further. It is one of the main purposes of inspiration to go beyond
even imaginative genius, to point out in history not only how right
may perhaps ultimately triumph, but how it has been in reality and
must be victorious. For it will not do to shut off the world of
material things from the working of this great and universal law.
Owing to the narrow fanaticism of science, modern men have become
sceptical, not only of miracle, but even of the fundamental truth
that righteousness is profitable for the life that now is, that in
following righteousness men are co-operating with the deepest law
of the universe. But it remains a truth for all that. It is written
deep in the heart of man; and in more wavering lines perhaps, but
still most legibly, it is written on the face of things. With the
limitations of his time and place, this is what the Deuteronomist
preaches. Doubtless he has not faced, as Job does, the whole of the
problem; still less has he attained to the final insight exhibited
in the New Testament, that temporal gifts may be curses in disguise,
that the highest region of recompense is in the eternal life, in
the domain of things which are invisible but eternal. He does not
yet _know_, though he has perhaps a presentiment of it, that being
completely stripped of all earthly good may be the path to the
highest victory--the victory which makes men more than conquerors
through Christ. Nevertheless he is, making these allowances, right,
and the moderns are wrong. In many ways obedience to spiritual
inspirations does bring worldly prosperity. The absence of moral
and spiritual faithfulness does affect even the fruitfulness of
the soil, the fecundity of animals, the prevalence of disease, the
stability of ordered life and success in war. This was visible to
the ancient world generally in a dim way; but by the inspired men
of the Old Covenant it was clearly seen, for they were enlightened
for the very purpose of seeing the hand of God where others saw it
not. But they never thought of tracing out the chain of intermediate
causes by which such results were connected with men's spiritual
state. They saw the facts, they recognised the truth, and they
threw themselves back at once upon the will of God as the sufficient
explanation.

  [128] Cf. Recent fiction, _e.g. The African Farm_, _Tess of the
  D'Urbevilles_, _The Heavenly Twins_.

We, on the other hand, have been so diligent in tracing out the
immediately preceding links of natural causation that, for the most
part, we have been fatigued before we reached God. We consequently
have lost view of Him; and it is wholesome for us to be brought
sharply into contact with the ancient Oriental mind as we are here,
in order that we may be forced to go the whole way back to Him. For
the fact is that much of that very process of decay and destruction
from moral causes is going on before us in countries like Turkey
and Morocco, where social righteousness is all but unknown, and
private morality is low. A truly modern mind scorns the idea that
the fertility of the soil can be affected by immorality. Yet there
is the whole of Mesopotamia to show that misgovernment can make a
garden into a desert. Where teeming populations once covered the
country with fruitful gardens and luxurious cities, there is now
in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates a few handfuls of people,
and all the fertility of the country has disappeared. Irrigation
channels which made all things live have been choked up and have
been gradually filled with drifting sand, and one of the most
populous and fertile countries of the world has become a desert.
In Palestine the same thing may be seen. Under Turkish domination
the character of the soil has been entirely changed. In many
places where in ancient days the hills were terraced to the top
the sweeping rains have had their way, and the very soil has been
carried off, leaving only rocks to blister in the pitiless sun. Even
in the less likely sphere of animal fecundity modern science shows
that peace and good government and righteous order are causes of
extraordinary power. And the movements which are going on around us
at this day in the elevation and depression of nations and races
have a visible connection with fidelity or lack of fidelity to known
principles of order and justice. This can be said without concealing
how scanty and partial in most cases such attainments are.
Prevailing principles can be discerned in the providence which rules
the world. And these are of such a kind that the connection which
obedience to the highest known rules of life has with fertility,
success and prosperity, is constant and intimate. It is, too, far
wider reaching than at first sight would seem possible. To this
extent, even modern knowledge justifies these blessings and curses
of Deuteronomy.

But it may be asked, Is this all the Old Testament means by such
threats and promises? Does it recognise any even self-imposed
limitations to the direct action of Divine power? Most probably
it does not. Though always keeping clear of Pantheism, the Old
Testament is so filled and possessed by the Divine Presence that
all second causes are ignored, and the action of God upon nature
was conceived, as it could not fail to be, on the analogy of a
workman using tools. Now that the methods of Divine action in nature
have been studied in the light of science, they have been found to
be more fixed and regular than was supposed. The extent of their
operation, too, has been found to be immeasurably wider, and the
purposes which have to be cared for at every moment are now seen
to be infinitely various. As a result, human thought has fallen
back discouraged, and takes refuge more and more in a conception of
nature which practically deifies it, or at least entirely separates
it from any intimate relation to the will of God. It is even denied
that there is any purpose in the world at all, or any goal, and
to chance or fate all the vicissitudes of life and the mechanical
changes of nature are attributed. But though we must recognise, as
the Old Testament does not, that ordinary Divine action flows out in
perfectly well-defined channels, and is so stable in its movement
that results in the sphere of physical nature may be predicted with
certainty; and though we see, as was not seen in ancient days, that
even God does not always approach His ends by direct and short-cut
paths,--these considerations only make the Old Testament view more
inspiring and more healthful for us. We may gather from it the
inference that if the fertility of a land, the frequency of disease,
and success in war are so powerfully affected by the moral and
spiritual quality of a people, it is very likely that in subtler and
less palpable ways the same influences produce similar effects, even
in regions where they cannot be traced. If so, whatever allowance
may be required for the inevitable simplicity of Old Testament
conceptions on this subject, however much we miss the limitations
we have learned to regard as necessary, the Deuteronomic view as
to the effects of moral and spiritual declension upon the material
fortunes of a people is much nearer the truth than our timorous
and hesitating half-belief. To find these effects emphasised and
affirmed as they are here, therefore, acts as a much needed tonic
in our spiritual life. Coming too from a man who possessed, if ever
man did, Divinely inspired insight into the process of the world
and the ideal of human life, these promises and warnings bring God
near. They dissipate the mists which obscure the workings of God's
Providence, and keep before us aspects of truth which it is the
present tendency of thought to ignore too much. They declare in
accents which carry conviction that, even in material things, the
Lord reigneth; and for that the world has reason to be supremely
glad.

Certainly Christians now know that prosperity in material things is
by no means God's best gift. That great principle must be held to
firmly, as well as the legitimacy of the vivid hopes and fears of
Old Testament times regarding the material rewards of right-doing.
In many ways the new principle must overrule and modify for us
those hopes and fears. But with this limitation we are justified
in occupying the Deuteronomic standpoint and in repeating the
Deuteronomic warnings. For to its very core the world is God's; and
those who find His working everywhere are those whose eyes have been
opened to the inmost truth of things.

With regard to the farewell speech contained in chapters xxix.
and xxx. and the related parts of chapter iv. and chapter xxxi.
there is not much to be said. Taken as a whole, it develops the
promises and threats of the previous chapters, and repeats again
with affectionate hortatory purpose much of the history. But there
is not a great deal that is new; most of the underlying principles
of the address have been already dealt with. Taken according to the
reconstruction of the speech and its reinsertion in its original
framework, the course of things would seem to have been this. After
the threats and promises had been concluded, Moses, carrying on the
injunction of iii. 28, addressed (chapter xxxii. 8) all the people
and appointed Joshua to be his successor; then he wrote out "this
law," and produced it before the priests and elders of the people,
with the instruction that at the end of every seven years, at the
feast of release, in the feast of tabernacles, it should be read
before all Israel, men, women, and children (chapter xxxi., w.
9-13). Then he gave the book to the Levites, that they might "lay
it up" by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh their God,
that it might be there for a witness against them when they became
unfaithful, as he foresaw they would. He next summons all Israel
to him, and delivers the farewell address contained in chapters
iv., xxix., and xxx., an outline of which has already been given
(p. 438), according to Westphal's recombination. This would seem to
indicate that Moses himself inaugurated the custom of reading the
law and giving instruction to all the people, which he prescribed
for the feast of tabernacles in the year of release. After the law
had been given he addressed the whole people in this farewell speech.

But though on the whole there is no need for detailed exposition
here, there are one or two things which ought to be noticed,
things which express the spirit of Deuteronomy so directly and
so sincerely that they can be identified as forming part of the
original Deuteronomic speech. One of these is unquestionably xxx.
11-20. At the end of the farewell address a return is made to the
core of the whole Deuteronomic teaching: "Thou shalt love Yahweh
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might." This was announced with unique emphasis at the beginning; it
has lain behind all the special commands which have been insisted
upon since; and now it emerges again into view as the conclusion of
the whole matter. For beyond doubt this, and not the whole series
of legal precepts, is what is meant by "this commandment" in verse
11. Both before it, in the sixth and tenth verses, and after it, in
the sixteenth and twentieth verses, this precept is repeated and
insisted on as the Divine command. Had the individual commands or
the whole mass of them together been meant, the phrase used would
have been different. It would have been that in ver. 10, where they
are called "His commandments and His statutes which are written in
this book of the law," or something analogous. No, it is the central
command of love to God, without which all external obedience is
vain, which is the theme of this last great paragraph; and a clear
perception of this will carry us through both the obscurities of
it, and the difficulties of St. Paul's application of it in the
Romans.

Of this then the author of Deuteronomy says: "It is not too hard
for thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou
shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto
us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it? Neither is it beyond
the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us,
and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it? But
the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart,
that thou mayest do it." That is to say, there is no mystery or
difficulty about this commandment of love. Neither have you to go
to the uttermost parts of the sea to hear it, nor need you search
into the mysteries of heaven. It has been brought near to you by all
the mercy and forgiveness and kindness of Yahweh; it has been made
known to you now by my mouth, even in its pettiest applications. But
that is not all; it is graven on your own heart, which leaps up in
glad response to this demand, and in answer to the manifestation of
God's love for you. It is really the fundamental principle of your
own nature that is appealed to. You should clearly feel that life in
the love of God and man is the only fit life for you who are made in
the image of God. If you do, then the fulfilment of all the Divine
precepts will be easy, and your lives will lighten more and more
unto the perfect day.

Now, for an Oriental of the pre-Christian era such teaching is
most marvellous. How marvellous it is Christians perhaps find it
difficult to see. In point of fact, many have denied that Old
Testament teaching ever had this character. Misled by the doctrines
of Islam, the great Semitic religion of to-day, many assert that
the religion of ancient Israel called upon men to submit to mere
power in submitting to God. But the appeal of our text to the
heart of man shows that this is an error. No such appeal has ever
been made to Mohammedans. Their state of mind in regard to God is
represented by the remark of a recent traveller in Persia. Speaking
of the Persian Babis, who may be described roughly as an heretical
sect whose minds have been formed by Mohammedanism, he says: "They
seemed to have no conception of absolute good, or absolute truth;
to them good was merely what God chose to ordain, and truth what
He chose to reveal, so that they could not understand how any one
could attempt to test the truth of a religion by an ethical and
moral standard."[129] Now that is precisely the opposite of the
Deuteronomic attitude. Israel is encouraged and incited to right
action by having it pointed out that not only experience, not only
Divinely given statutes and judgments, but the very nature of man
itself guarantees the truth of this supreme law of love. The law
laid upon men is nothing strange to, or incongruous with, their own
better selves. It is the very thing which their hearts have cried
out for; when it is proclaimed the higher nature in man recognises
it and bows before it. It is not received because of fear, nor is it
bowed before because it is backed by power which can smite men to
the dust. No; even in its ruins human nature is nobler than that;
and Deuteronomy everywhere teaches with burning conviction that God
is too ethical and spiritual in nature to accept the submission of a
slave.

  [129] _A Year Among the Persians_, E. G. Browne, p. 406.

This reading of our passage is plainly that which St. Paul takes in
Rom. x. 5 and 6. He perceives, what so many fail to do, that the
spirit and scope of the Deuteronomic teaching are different from
that of the purely legal sections of the Pentateuch. Paul therefore
quotes the Pentateuch as having already made the distinction
between works and faith which he wishes to emphasise, and as having
distinctly given preference to the latter. Leviticus, keeps men
at the level of the worker for wages, while Deuteronomy in this
passage, by making love to God the essence of all true observance
of the law, raises them almost to the level of sons. And just as
in those ancient days the highest manifestations of God had not to
be laboured for and sought by impotent strivings, but had plainly
been made known to them and had found an echo in their hearts, so
now the highest revelation had been brought near to men in Christ,
and had found a similar response. They did not need to seek it in
heaven, for it had been brought to earth in the Incarnation. They
did not need to descend into the abyss, for all that was needed had
been brought thence by Christ at His resurrection. And in the New
Testament as in the Old, the simplicity of the entrance into true
relations with God is emphasised. Love and faith are the fundamental
conditions. From them obedience will naturally issue, since "to
faith all things are possible, and to love all things are easy."




CHAPTER XXV

_THE SONG AND BLESSING OF MOSES_

(A). THE SONG OF MOSES

DEUT. xxxii.


Critics have debated the date, authorship, and history of this song.
For the present purpose it is sufficient, perhaps, to refer to the
statement on these points in the note below.[130]

  [130] The song is described, in the narrative framework, as
  delivered through Moses to the children of Israel. On the other
  hand, internal evidence points to a date after the establishment
  of the monarchy--when the days of Moses and the events of the
  wilderness were old, when the fruits of the land were gifts of
  God in present use, and when ingratitude and rebellion had become
  conspicuous, so that judgment was impending. Either, then, Moses
  took his stand, in the spirit, at a point of time long subsequent
  to his own death, adapted the song to its circumstances, and spoke
  not to his own generation but to one much later; or a later prophet
  must be the writer. The objection to the former view is supported
  by arguments drawn from various features in the language and the
  allusions of the song, which are asserted to be indicative of the
  later origin. On the detail of these we cannot dwell. But the
  most interesting part of the argument is the position that the
  transference of the prophetic consciousness to a remote future
  period, in order to give hope and guidance to a generation not the
  prophet's own, is too improbable to be admitted.

  Such a process is now generally regarded as not impossible indeed,
  but unheard of in the history of prophecy. The examination of the
  prophets of the Old Testament has convinced students that the
  prophet's vision starts from his own time, and is primarily for
  the comfort and warning of his contemporaries. His words may have
  a more remote reference, but must have the nearer one. Hence Isa.
  xl.-lxvi. is now ascribed to a prophet or prophets of the Exile. The
  principle is really the same as that which determines the authorship
  of Deut. xxxiv. 5-12. No one now holds the view of some Jews, that
  Moses by the spirit of prophecy wrote this himself. Yet if Moses
  could in a poem address his people as sinning and suffering through
  rebellions induced by their prosperity in Canaan, which they had
  not entered when he died, one might as well believe him to describe
  his own decease. In both cases we have to suppose the mind of Moses
  transported to a period when he had been removed by death, that he
  might look back upon and speak of events which when he wrote were
  still future. Now in both cases a reason is lacking. Every one
  accepts the view that since Joshua or Eleazar was there to write the
  account of Moses' death, it is unlikely the lawgiver should have
  been inspired to write it himself. Just so, since Yahweh inspired
  new prophets at every crisis of His people's history, it seems
  unlikely that the spirit of Moses should be transferred to, and made
  at home in, the circumstances of a distant generation, in order
  to deliver to it a message which could have been made known by a
  prophet to whom the time was present. Neither Kamphausen nor Oettli
  nor Dillmann nor the English expositors who accept the non-Mosaic
  authorship of the song have any doubt as to the supernatural
  character of prophecy. They found upon observations as to the manner
  of Old Testament prophecy, which ought to regulate interpretation.

  According to critical views the ascription to Moses of the reception
  and delivery of this song was taken by the Deuteronomist from JE.
  Kautzsch supposes that an editor to whom the song was known as
  passing under the name of Moses may have inserted it. Dillmann
  suggests grounds for believing that several prayers and poems
  ascribed to Moses (including Psalm xc.) were in circulation in
  prophetic circles in the Northern Kingdom, and that this one of
  them was inserted here as its appropriate place. The case would be
  parallel to the ascription of various later Psalms to David. Compare
  also the discussions as to the song of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii.

  The view that a mistake as to the Mosaic authorship, for which the
  writers of JE were not responsible, was handed on in perfect good
  faith, is compatible with the doctrine of inspiration as held by
  representatives of the orthodox Evangelical school in Germany, and
  by the newer Evangelicals in England. Cf. Oettli, _Deuteronomy_, p.
  22, and Sanday's _Bampton Lecture_.

But in discussing the meaning and contents of the song the
differences referred to cause no difficulties. On any supposition
the time and circumstances, whether assumed as present, or actually
and really present to the prophet's mind, can clearly be identified
as not earlier than those of the Syrian wars. Accepted as dealing
with that time, this poem takes its place among the Psalms of that
period. Its subject is a very common one in Scripture: the goodness
of Yahweh to His people, and their unfaithfulness to Him; His grief
at their rebellion; His punishment of them by heathen oppressors;
and His turning in love to them, along with His destruction of
the nations who had prematurely triumphed over the people of God.
Practically this is the burden of all the prophecies, as indeed
it may be said to be the burden of the whole Book of Deuteronomy
itself. Here it is stated and elaborated with great poetic skill;
but in the main, the essential thought, there is little that has not
already been elucidated.

As regards form the poem is among the finest specimens of Hebrew
literary art which the Old Testament contains. Every verse contains
at least two parallel clauses of three words or word-complexes each,
and the parallelism in the great majority of instances is of the
"Synonymous" kind; that is to say, "the second line enforces the
thought of the first by repeating, and as it were _echoing_ it in a
varied form."[131] But into this as a foundation there is wrought a
great deal of pleasing variation. The two-clause verses are varied
by single instances or couplets or triplets of four-clause verses;
while in two cases, at the emphatic end of sections, in vv. 14 and
39, the rare five-clause verse is found. Further, the synonymous
parallelism is relieved by occasional appearances of the "synthetic"
parallelism, in which "the second line contains neither a repetition
nor a contrast to the thought of the first, but in different ways
supplements and completes it,"[132] _e.g._ vv. 8, 19, and 27.

  [131] Cf. Driver's _Introduction_, 5th edition, p. 340.

  [132] Cf. Driver, _cit. loc._

The contents of the song are in every way worthy of the origin
assigned to it, and higher praise than that it is impossible to
conceive. Beginning with a fine exordium calling upon heaven and
earth to give ear, the inspired poet expresses the hope that his
teaching may fall with refreshing and fertilising power upon the
hearts of men, for he is about to proclaim the name of Yahweh, to
whom all greatness is to be ascribed. In vv. 4 ff. the character and
dealings of Yahweh are set over against those of the people:--

    "The Rock! His deeds are perfect,
    For all His ways are judgment;
    A God of faithfulness and without falsity,
    Just and upright is He."

They, on the contrary, were perverse and crooked; and, acting
corruptly, they requited all Yahweh's benefits with rebellion. To
win them from that perverseness, he calls upon his people to look
back upon the whole course of God's dealings with them. Even before
Israel had appeared among the nations, Yahweh had taken thought for
His people. When He assigned their lands to the various nations
of the world He had always before Him the provision that must be
made for the children of Israel, and had left a space for them from
which none but Yahweh could ever drive them out. For He had the same
need of and delight in His people as the nations had in the lands
assigned to them, the lot of their inheritance. And not only had He
thus prepared a place for Israel from the beginning, but He had led
him through the wilderness, through "the waste, the howling desert."

    "He compassed him about, He cared for him,
    He kept him as the apple of His eye."

To depict the Divine care worthily, he ventures upon a simile of a
specially tender kind, rare in the Old Testament, but to which our
Lord's comparison of His own brooding affection for Jerusalem to
that of a "hen gathering her chickens under her wing" is parallel.

    "As an eagle stirs up her nest,
    Flutters above her young;
    He, Yahweh, spread abroad His wings, He took him,
    He bore him upon His pinions."

All the hardship and the toil were of God's appointment to drive
His beloved people upwards and onwards. Whatever they might think
or believe now, it was Yahweh alone, without companion or ally, who
had done this for them, borne them up through it, and had bestowed
upon them all the luxury of the goodly land once promised to their
fathers. Even from the rocks He had given them honey, and the rocky
soil had produced the olive tree. They had, too, all the luxuries of
a pastoral people in abundance, and the wheat and foaming wine which
were the finest products of agriculture.

In every way their God had blessed them. They had all the prosperity
which a complete fulfilment of the will of God could have brought,
but the result of it all was unfaithfulness and rejection of Him.
Jeshurun, the upright people, as the sacred singer in bitter irony
calls Israel, waxed fat and wanton. Instead of being drawn to God
by His benefits, they had been puffed up with conceit concerning
their own power and discernment. Full of these, they had mingled
idolatrous rites with their worship of Yahweh. He had suffered them
to reap the results of their own unfaithfulness in defeat at the
hands of their foes.

Instead of seeking the cause of their ill-success in themselves,
they had found it in the weakness of their God. All the victories
Yahweh had given them over foes whose strength they had feared were
forgotten, and they "despised the Rock of their salvation." They had
adopted new and upstart deities whom their fathers had never heard
of, who as they had come up in a day might disappear in a day, and
neglected the Rock who begat them.

Yahweh on His part saw all this, and scorned His people and their
doings. In a vivid imaginative picture the poet represents Him as
resolving to hide His face from them, to see what their end would
be. Without the shining of God's countenance there could be but
one issue for a people who were so faithless and perverse. He will
recompense them for their doings.

    "They made Me jealous with a no-God,
    They vexed Me with their vain idols,
    And I will make them jealous with a no-people,
    With a foolish nation will I vex them."

For the fire of Divine wrath is kindled against them. It burns in
Yahweh with an all-consuming power, and fills the universe even to
the lowest depths of Sheol. Upon this sinful people it is about to
burst forth; Yahweh will exhaust all His arrows upon them. By famine
and drought; by disease and the rage of wild beasts, and of "the
crawlers of the dust"; by giving them up to their enemies, and by
overwhelming them with terror. He will destroy this people, "the
young man and the virgin, the suckling and the man of grey hairs"
alike. Nothing could save them, save Yahweh's respect for His own
name.

    "I had said, I shall blow them away,
    I shall make their memory to cease from among men:
    Were it not that I feared vexation from the enemy,
    Lest their adversaries should misdeem,
    Lest they should say, _Our_ hand is exalted,
    And Yahweh hath not done all this."

Nothing but that stood between them and utter destruction, for
as a nation they had no capacity for receiving and profiting by
instruction. If they had been wise they would have known that there
was but a step between them and death; they would have seen that
their deeds had separated them from Yahweh, and could have but one
issue. Their frequent and shameful defeats should have taught them
that, for

    "How could one chase a thousand,
    And two put to flight ten thousand,
    Were it not that their Rock had sold them,
    And that Yahweh had delivered them up?"

There was no possible explanation of Israel's defeats but this;
for neither in the gods of the heathen nor in the heathen nations
themselves was there anything to account for them. Their gods were
not comparable to the Rock of Israel; even Israel's enemies knew
as much as that. Israel might forget and doubt Yahweh's power, but
those who had been smitten before Him in Israel's happier days knew
that He was above all their gods. Nor was the explanation to be
sought in the heathen nations themselves. For they were not vines of
Yahweh's planting, but shoots from the vine of Sodom, tainted by the
soil of Gomorrah. They were, perhaps, in race, of the old Canaanite
stock; in any case they were morally and spiritually related to
them, and their acts were such as brought death and destruction
with them. In themselves, consequently, they could not have been
strong enough to discomfit the people of God as they were doing,
nor could they have been helped to that by any favour of His. Only
the determination of Yahweh to chastise His people could explain
Israel's unhappy fate in war.

But Yahweh's purpose was only to chastise. He was in no way finally
forgetful of His chosen, nor of the ineradicable evil of their
enemies' nature. The inner character of men and things is always
present to Him, and their deeds are laid up with Him as that which
must be dealt with, for it is one of the glories of Deity to sweep
evil away and to restore anything that has good at its heart.
Recompense is God's great function in the world, and evil, however
strong it may be, and however long it may triumph, must one day be
dealt with by Him. It is laid up and sealed

    "Against the day of vengeance and of recompense,
    Against the time when their foot shall slip;
    For the day of their calamity is at hand,
    And hastening are the things prepared for them."

Without that, justice could never be done to the people of God; and
justice should be done to them when they had been brought to the
verge of extinction, when, according to the antique Hebrew phrase,
there "was none fettered or set free," none left under or over age.
Then when all but the worst had come, Yahweh would demand, "Where
are their gods, with whom they took refuge, and who have eaten
the fat of their sacrifices, and drunk the wine of their drink
offerings?" He will challenge them to arise and help in this last
disastrous state of their votaries.

But there will be no response, and it will be made clear beyond all
doubting that Yahweh alone is God. He will declare Himself, saying:--

    "See now that I, I, am He,
    And there is no god with Me:
    _I_ kill, and _I_ make alive;
    I wound, and I heal:
    And there is none that delivereth out of My hand."

In that great day of Yahweh's manifested glory He will stand forth
in the fulness of avenging power. Before the universe He will pledge
Himself by the most solemn oath to bring down the pride of His
enemies. In a death-dealing judgment, such as is seen only when the
evil elements in the world have brought about a mere carnival of
wickedness, and only universal death can cleanse, He will recompense
upon evil-doers the evil they have wrought, and to a renovated world
bring peace. There are few finer or more impressive imaginative
passages in Scripture than this:--

    "For I lift up My hand to heaven,
    And say, (As) I live for ever,
    If I whet My gleaming sword,
    And My hand take hold on judgment,
    I will take vengeance upon Mine enemies,
    And I will recompense them that hate Me.
    I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood,
    And My sword shall devour flesh,
    With the blood of the slain and the captives,
    From the chief of the leaders of the enemy."

With this great vision of judgment the poet leaves his people. For
them the first necessity evidently was that they should be assured
that Yahweh reigned, that evil could not ultimately prosper. With
their whole horizon dominated and illumined by this tremendous
figure of the ever living and avenging God, their faith in the moral
government of the world and in the ultimate deliverance of their
nation would be restored.

The poem closes with a stanza in which the seer and singer calls
upon the nations to rejoice because of Yahweh's people. The
deliverance worked for them will be so great and so memorable that
even the heathen who see it must rejoice. They will see His justice
and His faithfulness, and will gain new confidence in the stability
and the moral character of the forces which rule the world.


(B) THE BLESSING OF MOSES

DEUT. xxxiii.

Besides the farewell speeches and the farewell song, we have in this
chapter yet another closing utterance attributed to Moses. Here, as
in the case of the song, we relegate critical matters to the note
below.[133]

  [133] The blessing of Moses was certainly not written by the author
  of Deuteronomy: the vocabulary and the style are different from his.
  Nor probably was the poem inserted here by him, but rather by the
  final editor of the Pentateuch who is believed to have brought these
  closing chapters into their present shape (cf. Chap. XXIV.). The
  authority on which he relied may have been E.

As to the authorship of the blessing, Volck and Keil ascribe it
to Moses. The great majority of recent students regard it, at all
events in its present form, as post-Mosaic, on grounds drawn from
features in the poem, and from the principles of prophetic exegesis
referred to in the note (p. 452). Opinions differ much as to the
date to be assigned, varying from the time of David to that of
Jeroboam II. The general assumption is that the blessing is the
work of a Northern Israelite; and the feeling for the tribes of
Levi and Judah which it embodies is the chief indication on which
a conjecture can be hazarded. That would agree with a date later
than Solomon and not later than Jehoshaphat--a period when many in
the Northern Kingdom still looked with reverence to the sanctuary
at Jerusalem, and when the Northern Levites still resented the
intrusion by Jeroboam of a mixed multitude into the priesthood.

As to form, and partly as to contents, the blessing of Moses is
modelled on the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix). One conspicuous
difference is the introduction into that before us of a prose
heading before most of the sections, analogous to the headings
which appear in Arabic poetry (as the _Hamasa_) before each
quatrain or longer poem. There is no ground for treating these as
later insertions, nor for separating other portions, as some have
proposed, as later than the main composition.

We must notice in the first place the remarkable difference in tone
and outlook between the blessing and the song of Moses. In the
latter evil-doing and approaching judgment are the burden; here the
outward and inward condition of Israel leaves little to be desired.
Satisfaction is breathed in every line, for both temporally and
spiritually the state of the people is almost ideally happy. Nowhere
is there a shadow; even on the horizon there is scarcely a cloud.
Now even an optimist would need a background of actual prosperity to
draw such a picture of idyllic happiness for any nation, and we may
therefore conclude that the poem has in view one of the few halcyon
periods of Israel, before social wrongs had ruined the yeomen
farmers, or war and conquest had corrupted the powerful. The nation
is as yet faithful to Yahweh, and possesses in peace the land which
He had given them to inherit.

The central part of the poem is of course the ten blessings promised
to the various tribes, but these are preceded by an introduction
(vv. 2-5), in which the formation of the people is traced to
Yahweh's revelation of Himself and His coming forth as their King.
They are followed also by a concluding section (vv. 26-29), in
which the God of Jeshurun is declared to be incomparable, and His
people are depicted as supremely happy under His protecting care.
The language is in parts obscure, and though the general scope is
always plain, yet there are verses the meaning of which can only be
conjectured. This is especially the case in the introduction. Of the
five lines of ver. 2, the fourth and fifth as they stand are hardly
intelligible; the fifth indeed is not intelligible at all. In ver.
3 again, while the first and second clauses are fairly clear, the
third and fourth are as they stand untranslatable. But the general
signification of the introductory verses (2-5) is that the Divine
revelation of Himself which Yahweh bestowed upon His people as He
came with them from Sinai, Paran, and Seir through the wilderness,
and the establishment of the covenant which made Yahweh Israel's
King, together with the bestowal of an inheritance upon them, is
the foundation and beginning of that happiness which is to be
described. It is all traced back to the "dawning" of God upon them,
His "shining out" upon them from Sinai, and Seir, and Paran. These
are named simply as the most prominent points in that region whence
the people came out into Canaan, and where the great revelation
had been bestowed. God had risen like the sun and had shed forth
light upon them there, so that they walked no more in darkness. The
sight of God was, on this view, the great and fundamental fact in
the history of the chosen people. They, like all who have seen that
great sight, were henceforth separate from others, with different
duties and obligations, with hopes and desires and joys unknown to
all beside. And the ground of this condescension on the part of God
was His love for His people. He loved them, and the saints among
them were upheld by Him. By Moses He gave them a law, which was to
hold from generation to generation; and He had crowned His gifts to
them by becoming their King when the heads of the people entered
into covenant with Him.

Then follow the blessings, beginning with good wishes for Reuben
as the firstborn. But the tribe is not highly favoured. It is
however less severely dealt with than in Jacob's blessing. There
instability and obscurity are foretold of it. Here it would seem as
if the fortunes of the tribe were at the lowest ebb, and a wish is
expressed that it may not be suffered to die out. From the earliest
times the tribe of Reuben seems to have been tending to decay. At
the first census taken under Moses the number of Reubenites capable
of bearing arms was 46,500 men (Numb. i. 21), at the second 43,730
(Numb. xxvi. 7). Both passages are from P, and consequently this
decadence of the tribe must have been present to that author's
mind. In David's day they had still possession of part of their
heritage, but even then their best estate was past. They had allowed
many Moabites to remain in the territory they conquered. These
most certainly caused trouble and gained the upper hand in places,
until before the days of Mesa, king of Moab, as we learn from his
inscription,[134] a great part of the cities formerly Reubenite
were in Moabite or Gadite hands. In Isaiah xv. and xvi. again,
Heshbon and Elealeh, cities still Reubenite in Mesa's day, appear
as Moabite, so that the bulk of the territory assigned to the tribe
must have been lost.[135] This record confirms the view that the
blessing was written between Rehoboam and Jehoshaphat, and throws
light upon our verse:--

    "May Reuben live, and not die,
    So that his men be few."

  [134] Dillmann, _Deuteronomy_, p. 420.

  [135] Baethgen's Riehm, _Handwörterbuch_, p. 1321.

The blessing of Judah follows, but in contrast with the great
destiny foretold for this tribe in Jacob's blessing what is here
said is strangely short and unenthusiastic:--

    "Hear, O Yahweh, Judah's voice,
    And bring him to his people;
    With his hands has he striven for it (his people);
    And a help against his enemies be thou."

Some whose opinions we are bound to respect, as Oettli, think
this refers merely to Judah's being appointed to lead the van of
the invasion, as in Judges i. 1 and xx. 8. In that case we should
have to conceive that on some occasion Judah was absent leading
the conquest, and got into dangerous circumstances, which are here
referred to. But it would seem that any such temporary danger could
hardly have a place here. In all the other blessings permanent
conditions only are regarded; and the sole historical fact we
really know that would explain this reference is the division of
the kingdom. But, it may be said, all critics agree that the author
of the blessing is a Northern Israelite: now we cannot suppose a
Northern man to speak in this way of Judah, for it was the ten
tribes that revolted from the house of David, not Judah from them.
We must remember, however, that though that is how Scripture, which
in this matter represents the Southern view, regards the matter,
the Northern Israelites could look at the separation from another
standpoint. To those even who were favourable to the Davidic house,
and regretted the folly of Rehoboam, it might seem that Judah had
first broken away from the kingdom as united under Saul; and the
revolt under Jeroboam would appear to be only a resumption of the
older state of things, from which Judah had again separated itself.
What circumstance can be referred to in the request to hear Judah's
voice cannot now be ascertained; but it is not at all unlikely
that some indication of a wish for reunion, perhaps expressed in
some public prayer, may have been given in the first period of the
separation. The rest of the verse would fit this hypothesis as well
as it fits the other, and I think with the light we at present have
we must hold the reference to be as suggested.

With the eighth verse the blessing of Levi (one of the two most
heartfelt and sympathetic) begins. In it Yahweh is addressed thus:--

    "Thy Urim and thy Thummim be to the men (_i.e._ tribe) of thy
        devoted one (_i.e._ Moses or Aaron),
    Whom thou didst prove at Massah,
    With whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah."

In the last lines the relative pronoun is ambiguous, as it may refer
either to "men," for which in Hebrew we have the collective singular
'_ish_, or to "thy devoted one." The last is the more probable; but
in either case there is a superficial discrepancy here between the
historical books and this statement. In Exod. xvii. 1-7, as well as
in Deuteronomy itself, it is the people who strove with Moses and
proved or tempted Yahweh. On this account some would have us believe
that a different account of the events at Massah and Meribah was
in this writer's mind. But that is the result of a mere itch for
discovering discrepancies. It lies in the very nature of the case
that there should be another side to it. The beginning was with
the people; but just as the wandering in the wilderness is said to
have been meant by God to prove Israel, so this insubordination of
the people was meant to prove Moses or Aaron, and their failure
to stand the proof made Yahweh strive with them. The verse, then,
founds Levi's claim to possess the chief oracle and to instruct
Israel first of all upon their connection with Moses or Aaron, or
both, since they had been exceptionally tried and had proved their
devotion. The next verse, then, goes on to found it also on the
faithfulness of the Levites, when they were called upon by Moses
(Exod. xxxii. 26-29) to punish the people for their worship of the
golden calf. In vv. 27 and 29 of that chapter we find the same
phrases,

    9 "Who (_i.e._ the tribe) said unto his father and to his mother,
      I have not seen him;
      Who recognised not his brother, and would know nought of his son;
      For they kept Thy commandment,
      And kept guard over Thy covenant."

Being such--

    10 "Let them teach Jacob Thy judgments,
       And Israel Thy Torah;
       Let them put incense in Thy nostrils,
       And whole burnt-offerings upon Thine altars."

Here we have the whole priestly duties assigned to the Levites. They
are to perform judicial functions; to give Torah, or instruction,
by means of the Urim and Thummim and otherwise; to offer incense
in the Holy Place, and sacrifices in the court of the Temple. As
early as this, therefore (on any supposition we need regard, long
before Deuteronomy), we find the Levites fully established as
the priestly tribe. Before the earliest writing prophets this was
so--a fact of the greatest importance for the history of Israelite
religion. The remaining verse beseeches Yahweh to accept the work of
Levi's hands, and to smite down his enemies. Evidently when this was
written special enmity was being shown to this tribe; and, as has
been said already, the religious proceedings of Jeroboam I. would be
sufficient to call forth such a cry to Yahweh.

In ver. 12 the tribe of Benjamin is dealt with, and it is depicted
as specially blessed by the Divine favour and the Divine presence.
Yahweh covers him all the day long, and dwells between his
shoulders. There can hardly be a doubt that the reference is to the
situation of the Temple at Jerusalem, on the hill of Zion, towards
the loftier boundary of Benjamin's territory.

Verses 13-17 contain the blessing of Joseph, _i.e._ of the two
tribes Ephraim and Manasseh.

    13 "Blessed of Yahweh be his land
       By the precious things of heaven from above,
       By the deep which crouches beneath;

    14 "By the precious things of the sun,
       And the precious things of the moons;

    15 "And by the (precious things of the) tops of the ancient mountains
       And by the precious things of the everlasting hills;

    16 "And by the precious things of the earth and its fulness.
       And may the good-will of Him that dwelt in the bush
       Come upon Joseph's head,
       And upon the top of the head of the crowned among his brethren.

    17 "May the firstborn of his ox be glorious;
       And the horns thereof like the horns of the wild-ox;
       With them may he gore the peoples, even all the earth's ends
           together.
       These (_i.e._ thus blessed) are the myriads of Ephraim,
       And these the thousands of Manasseh."

Supreme fertility is to be his, and the favour of Yahweh is to
rest upon him as the kingly tribe in Israel. The curious phrase
at the beginning of the seventeenth verse has been supposed to be
a reference to some individual, Joshua, Jeroboam II., or to the
Ephraimite kings as a whole. But the subject of the blessing is
the Josephite tribes, and there seems to be no good reason why the
reference should be changed here. It cannot, therefore, refer to
less than a whole tribe, and as according to Gen. xlviii. 14 Ephraim
received the blessing of the firstborn, it must be Ephraim which is
Joseph's firstborn ox. This view is confirmed by the last clause of
the verse, in which the myriads of Ephraim are spoken of, and only
the thousands of Manasseh. Obviously this must refer to times like
those of Omri, when the Israelite kingship was in its first youthful
energy, and was extending conquest on every hand.

The benedictions which remain are addressed to Zebulun, Issachar,
Gad, Dan, Naphtali, and Asher. They need little comment beyond close
translation.

    18 "And of Zebulun he said,
       Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out;
       And, Issachar, in thy tents.

    19 "They shall call the peoples unto the mountain;
       They shall offer sacrifices of righteousness:
       For they shall suck the abundance of the seas,
       And the hidden treasures of the sand."

The territory of Zebulun stretched from the Sea of Galilee to the
Mediterranean, probably quite down to the sea near Akko, in any case
near enough to give it an active share in the sea traffic. Issachar,
whose tribal land was the plain of Esdraelon, also shares in it; but
the contrast between "thy going out" and "thy tents" implies that
Zebulun took the more active part in the traffic. The reference in
verse 19, clauses _a_ and _b_, is obscure. As the Septuagint reads
"they shall destroy" instead of "unto the mountain," the text may be
corrupt. It may perhaps be an allusion to the sacrificial feasts at
inaugurated fairs to which surrounding peoples were called, as Stade
suggests.

    20 "And of Gad he said,
       Blessed be the enlarger of Gad:
       He dwelleth as a lioness,
       And teareth the arm, yea, the crown of the head.

    21 "And he looked out the first part for himself,
       Because there a (tribal) ruler's portion lay ready;
       And he came with the heads of the people,
       He executed the justice of Yahweh,
       And His judgments in company with Israel."

At this time Gad was in possession of a wide territory, and was
famed for courage and success in war. His foresight in choosing the
first of the conquered land as a worthy tribal portion is praised,
and his faithfulness in carrying out his bargain to accompany the
nation in its attack on the west Jordan land.

    22 "And of Dan he said,
       Dan is a lion's whelp,
       Leaping forth from Bashan."

This does not mean that Dan's territory was Bashan, but only that
his attack was as fierce and unexpected as that of a lion leaping
forth from the crevices and caves of the rocks in Bashan.

    23 "And of Naphtali he said,
       O Naphtali, sated with favour,
       And full of the blessing of Yahweh:
       Possess thou the sea and the south."

The soil in the territory of Naphtali was specially fruitful, in the
region of Huleh and on the shore of the Sea of Gennesaret. These are
the sea and the hot south part which the tribe is called upon to
take as a possession, and because of which the favour of Yahweh and
His blessing specially rested upon it.

    24 "And of Asher he said,
       Blessed above children be Asher;
       May he be the favoured of his brethren,
       And dip his feet in oil.

    25 "Iron and brass (be) thy bars;
       And as thy days (so may) thy strength (be)."

The last line is extremely doubtful. The word translated "thy
strength" is really not known, and that meaning probably implies
another reading; "thy bars" in the previous line is also doubtful.
The reference to oil probably implies that the olive tree was
specially fruitful, in the country inhabited by Asher, but why he
should be specially favoured of his brethren can now hardly be
conjectured.

In the concluding verses we have an exaltation of Israel's God and
of His people. Speaking out of the time when Israel had driven
out its enemies and was in full and undisturbed possession of its
heritage (ver. 28), the poet declares to Jeshurun how incomparable
God is. He rides upon the heaven to bring help to them, and He comes
in the clouds with majesty. The God of old time is Israel's refuge
or dwelling, covering him from above, and beneath, _i.e._ on the
earth. His everlasting arms bear His people up in their weariness,
and shelter them there against all foes. He has proved this by
thrusting out before them, and by commanding them to destroy, their
enemies.

    28 "And so Israel came to dwell in safety,
       The fountain of Jacob alone,
       In a land of corn and wine;
       Yea, His heavens drop down dew.

    29 "Happy art thou, O Israel:
       Who is like unto thee?
       A people saved by Yahweh,
       The shield of thy help
       And the sword of thy majesty!
       Thine enemies shall feign friendship to thee;
       And thou shalt tread upon their high places."




CHAPTER XXVI

_MOSES' CHARACTER AND DEATH_


It has been often said, and it has even become a principle of
the critical school, that the historical notices in the earlier
documents of the Old Testament represent nothing but the ideas
current at the time when they were written. Whether they depict
an Abraham, a Jacob, or a Moses, all they really tell us is the
kind of character which at such times was held to be heroic. In
this way the value of the historic parts of Deuteronomy have been
called in question, and we have been told that all we can gather
from them about Moses is the kind of character which the pious, in
the age of Manasseh, would feel justified in attributing to their
great religious hero. But it is manifestly unfair to estimate the
statements of men who write in good faith, as if they were only
projecting their own desires and prejudices upon a past which is
absolutely dark. It may be true that such writers might be unwilling
to narrate stories concerning the great men of the past which were
inconsistent with the esteem in which they were held; but it is much
more certain that their narratives will represent the tradition and
the current knowledge of their time regarding the heroes of their
race. Unless this be true, no reliance could be placed upon anything
but absolutely contemporary documents; even these would be open to
suspicion, if the human mind were so lawless as to have no scruple
in filling up all gaps in its knowledge by imaginations. We must
protest, therefore, against the notion that what J and E and D tell
us concerning the life and character of Moses must be discounted in
any effort we make to represent to ourselves the life and thought of
that great leader of Israel. They tell us much more than what was
thought fitting for a leader of the people in the ninth and eighth
and seventh centuries B.C. They tell us what was _believed_ in those
times about Moses; and much of what was believed about him must have
rested upon good authority, upon entirely reliable tradition, or
upon previous written narratives concerning him.

Up till recently it was held, by men as eminent even as Reuss,
that writing was unknown in the days of Moses, and that for long
afterwards oral tradition alone could be a source of knowledge of
the past. But recent discoveries have shown that this is an entire
mistake. Long before Moses writing was a common accomplishment in
Canaan; and it seems almost ridiculous to suppose that the man
who left his mark so indelibly upon this nation should have been
ignorant of an art with which every master of a village or two
was thoroughly conversant. Moreover the fact that the same root
(_k-t-b_) occurs in every Semitic tongue with the meaning "to
write," would seem to indicate that before their separation from
one another the art of writing was known to all the Semitic tribes.
The new facts enormously strengthen that probability, and make the
arguments advanced by those who hold the opposite view look even
absurd. But if writing were known and practised in Moses' day in
Canaan, it would be marvellous if many of the great events of the
early days had not been recorded. It would be still more marvellous
if the comparatively late writings, which alone we have at our
disposal had not embodied and absorbed much older documents.

But for still another reason the critical dictum must be held to be
false. Applied in other fields and in regard to other times, this
same principle would deprive us of almost every character which has
been considered the glory of humanity. Zarathustra and Buddha have
alike been sacrificed to this prejudice, and there are men living
who say that we know so little about our Lord Jesus Christ that it
is doubtful whether He ever existed. A method which produces such
results _must_ be false. The great source of progress and reform has
always been some man possessed by an idea or a principle. Even in
our own days, when the press and the facilities for communication
have given general tendencies a power to realise themselves which
they never had in the world's history before, great men are the
moving factors in all great changes. In earlier ages this was still
more the case. It is an utterly unjustifiable scepticism which
makes men contradict the grateful recollection of mankind, in
regard to those who have raised and comforted humanity. Through all
obscurities and confusions we can reach that Indian Prince for whom
the sight of human misery embittered his own brilliant and enjoyable
life. We refuse to give up Zarathustra, though his story is more
obscure and entangled than that of almost any other great leader
of mankind. Especially in a history like that of Israel, which
purports to have been guided in a special manner by revelations of
the will of God, the individual man filled with God's spirit is
quite indispensable. Even if mythical elements in the story could
be proved, that would not shake our faith in the existence of
Moses; for as Steinthal, who holds the very "advanced" opinion that
solar myths have strayed into the history of Moses, wisely says, it
is quite as possible to distinguish between the mythical and the
historical Moses as it is to distinguish between the historical
Charlemagne and the mythical. Because of the general reliability
of tradition regarding great men therefore, and because also of
the proofs we have that writing was common before Moses' day, we
need not burden ourselves with the assumption or the fear that the
Deuteronomic character of Moses may be unreliable.

But in endeavouring to set forth this conception of the character
of Moses, we cannot confine ourselves to what appears in this book.
It is generally acknowledged that the author had at least the
Yahwist and the Elohist documents in their entirety before him, and
regarded them with respect, not to say reverence. Consequently we
must believe that he accepted what they said of Moses as true. The
only document in the Pentateuch that he may not have known in any
shape was the Priest Codex, but that makes no attempt to depict the
inner or outer life of Moses. All the personal life and colour in
the Biblical narrative belongs to the other sources. For a personal
estimate, therefore, we lose little by excluding P. Only one other
cause of suspicion in regard to the historical parts of Deuteronomy
_could_ arise. If it, comparatively modern as it is, contained much
that was new, if it revealed aspects of character for which no
authority was quoted, and of which there was no trace in the earlier
narratives, there might be reasonable doubt whether these new
details were the product of imagination. But there is very little
more in Deuteronomy than there is in the historical parts of the
other books, though the older narratives are repeated with a vivid
and insistive pathos which almost seems to make them new.

Combining then what the Deuteronomist himself says with what the
Yahwist and Elohist documents contain, we find that the claim
usually made for Moses, that he was the founder of an entirely new
religion, is not sustained. Again and again it is asserted that
Yahweh had been the God of their fathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob--so that Moses was simply the renewer of a higher faith
which for a time had been corrupted. Some have even asserted that
there had been all down the ages to Moses the memory of a primeval
revelation. But if there ever was such a thing, we learn from
Josh. xxiv. 2, a verse acknowledged to be from the Elohist, that
that "fair beginning of a time" had been entirely eclipsed, for
Terah, the father of Abraham, had served other gods beyond the
flood. Abraham, therefore, rather than Moses, is regarded as the
founder of the religion of Yahweh. Whether the word Yahweh (Exod.
vi. 3) was known or not makes little difference, for all our four
authorities teach that Moses' work was the revival of faith in
that which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had believed. But the bulk of
the people would appear to have been ignorant regarding the God
of their fathers; and probably the conception which Deuteronomy
shares with J and E is that in Moses' day Yahweh was the special
God of a small circle, perhaps of the tribe of Levi, among whom
a more spiritual conception of God than was common among their
countrymen had either been retained, or had arisen anew. Probably
then we ought to conceive the circumstances of Moses' early life
somewhat in this way. A number of Semitic tribes, more or less
nearly related to each other and to Edom and Moab, had settled in
Egypt as semi-agricultural nomads. At first they were tolerated;
but they were now being worn down and oppressed by forced labour of
the most brutal sort. Either a tribe or a clan among them had the
germs of a purer conception of God, and in this tribe or clan Moses,
the deliverer of his people, was born. Providentially he escaped
the death which awaited all Israelite boys in those days, and grew
up in the camp of the enemies of his people. By this means he
received all the culture that the best of the oppressors had, while
the tie to Israel was neither obscured nor weakened in his mind.
At the court of Pharaoh he could not fail to acquire some notions
of state-craft, and he must have seen that the first step towards
anything great for his people must be their union and consolidation.
But his earliest effort on their behalf showed that he had not
really considered and weighed the magnitude of his task. Killing
an Egyptian oppressor might conceivably have served as a signal
for revolt. But in point of fact it frustrated any plans Moses
might have had for the good of his people, and drove him into the
wilderness. Here the germs of various thoughts which education and
experience of life had deposited in his mind had time to develop and
grow. According to the narrative, it was only at the end of his long
sojourn in Midian that he had direct revelation from God. But amid
the wide and awful solitudes of that wilderness land, as General
Gordon said of himself in the kindred solitudes of the Soudan,
he learned himself and God. Whatever deposits of higher faith he
had received from his family, no doubt the long, silent broodings
inseparable from a shepherd's life had increased and vivified it.
Every possible aspect of it must have been reckoned with, all its
consequences explored; and his great and solitary soul, we may be
sure, had many a time let down soundings into the deeps which were,
as yet, dark to him. And then--for it is to souls that have yearned
after Him in the travail of intellectual and spiritual longing
that God gives His great and splendid revelations--Yahweh revealed
Himself in the flame of the bush, and gave him the final assurance
and the first impulse for his life's work. It is a touch of reality
in the narrative which can hardly be mistaken, that it represents
Moses as shrinking from the responsibility which his call must lay
upon him. Behind the few and simple objections in the narrative, we
must picture to ourselves a whole world of thoughts and feelings
into which the call of God had brought tumult and confusion. One
would need to be a dry-as-dust pedant not to see here, as in the
case of Isaiah's call, the triumphant issue of a long conflict and
the decisive moment of a victory over self, which had had already
many stages of defeat and only partial success. It is perennially
true to human nature and to the Divine dealings with human nature,
that help from on high comes to establish and touch to finer issues
that which the true man has striven for with all his powers.

Enlightened and assured by this great revelation of God, Moses left
the quiet of the desert to undertake an extraordinarily difficult
task. He had to weld jealous tribes into a nation; he had to
rouse men whose courage had been broken by slavery and cruelty to
undertake a dangerous revolt; and he had to prepare for the march of
a whole population, burdened with invalids and infants, the feeble
and the old, through a country which even to-day tries all but the
strongest. These things had to be done; and the mere fact that they
were accomplished would be inexplicable, without the domination of
a great personality inspired by great ideas of a religious kind.
For, in antiquity, the only bond able to hold incongruous elements
together in one nationality was religion. With the people whom
Moses had to lead the necessity would be the same, or even greater.
But the political work which must have preceded any common action
likewise demanded a great personality. Though no doubt a common
misery might silence jealousies and make men eager to listen to any
promises of deliverance, yet many troublesome negotiations must have
been carried through successfully before these sentences could have
been written with truth: "And Moses and Aaron went and gathered
together all the elders of the children of Israel, and the people
believed, and bowed their heads and worshipped."

Many conjectures have been hazarded as to what the centre of Moses'
message at this time really was. Some, like Stade, bring it down
to this, that Yahweh was the God of Israel. Others add to this
somewhat meagre statement another equally meagre, that Israel was
the people of Yahweh. But unless the character of Yahweh had been
previously expounded to the people, there seems little in these
two declarations to excite any enthusiasm or to kindle faith. The
mere fact of inducing the tribes to put all other gods aside is
insufficient to account for any of the results that followed, if to
Moses Yahweh had remained simply a tribal God, of the same type as
the gods of the Canaanites. On the other hand, if he had risen to
the conception of God as a spirit, of Yahweh as the only living God,
as the inspirer and defender of moral life, or even if he had made
any large approach to these conceptions, it is easy to understand
how the hearts of the mass of the people were stirred and filled,
even though things so high were not, by the generality, thoroughly
understood or long retained. But the hearts of all the chosen, the
spiritually elect, would be moved by them as the leaves are moved
by the wind. These, with Moses at their head, formed a nucleus
which bore the people on through all their trials and dangers, and
gradually leavened the mass to some extent with the same spirit.

Even after this had been accomplished, the main work remained to
be done. We cannot agree indeed with many writers who seem to
think that the whole life of the Israelite people was started anew
by Moses. That would involve that every regulation for the most
trivial detail of ordinary life was directly revealed, and that
Moses made a _tabula rasa_ of their minds, rubbing out all previous
laws and customs, and writing a God-given constitution in their
place. Obviously, that could hardly be; but still a task very
different, yet almost as difficult, remained for Moses after his
first success. His final aim was to make a virtually new nation
out of the Hebrew tribes; and their whole constitution and habits
had, consequently, to be revised from the new religious standpoint.
He and the nation alike had inherited a past, and it was no part of
his mission to delete that. Reforms, to be stable, must have a root
in the habits and thoughts of the people whom they concern. Moses
would, consequently, uproot nothing that could be spared; he would
plant nothing anew which was already flourishing, and was compatible
with the new and dominant ideas he had introduced. A great mass
of the laws and customs of the Hebrews must have been good, and
suitable to the stage of moral advancement they had reached before
Moses came to them. Any measure of civilised life involves so much
as that. Another great mass, while lying outside of the religious
sphere, must have been at least compatible with Yahwism. All laws
and customs coming under these two categories, Moses would naturally
adopt as part of the legislation of the new nation, and would stamp
them with his approval as being in accord with the religion of
Yahweh. They would thus acquire the same authority as if they were
entirely new, given for the first time by the Divinely inspired
lawgiver.

But besides these two classes of laws and customs there must have
been a number which were so bound up with the lower religion that
they could not be adopted. They would either be obstructive of the
new ideas, or they would be positively hostile to them; for on any
supposition heathenism of various sorts was largely mingled with the
religion of the Israelite people before their deliverance, and even
after it. To sift these out, and to replace them by others more in
accord with the will of Yahweh as now revealed, must have been the
chief work of the lawgiver. In that more or less protracted period
before Israel came to Sinai, during which Moses burdened himself
with judging the people personally, he must have been doing this
work. His reflections in the wilderness had doubtless prepared
him for it. In a mind like his, the fruitful principles received
by the inspiration of the Almighty could not be merely passively
held. Like St. Paul in his Arabian sojourn, we must believe that
Moses in Midian would work out the results of these principles in
many directions; and when he led Israel forth, he must have been
clearly conscious of changes that were indispensable. But it needed
close every-day contact with the life of the people to bring out
all the incompatibilities which he would have to remove. Every day
unexpected complications would arise; and the people at any rate, if
Moses himself be supposed to be raised by his inspiration above the
needs of experience, would be able to receive the instruction they
needed only in concrete examples, here a little and there a little.
When they came to "seek Yahweh" in any matter which perplexed them,
Moses gave them Yahweh's mind on the subject; and each decision
tended to purify and render innocuous to their higher life some
department of public or private affairs. Every day at that early
time must have been a day of instruction how to apply the principles
of the higher faith just revived. The better minds among the chiefs
were thereby trained to an appreciation of the new point of view;
and when Jethro suggested that the burden of this work should be
divided, quite a sufficient number were found prepared to carry it
on. After this it must have gone on with tenfold speed, and we may
believe that when Sinai was reached the preliminaries on the human
side to the great revelation had been thoroughly elaborated. The
Divine presence had been with Moses day by day, judging, deciding,
inspiring in all their individual concerns as well as in their
common affairs. But that would only bring out more clearly the
extent of the reformation that remained to be wrought; doubtless
too it had revealed the dulness of heart in regard to the Divine
which has always characterised the mass of men. The need for a more
complete revelation, a more extended and detailed legislation on the
new basis, must have been greatly felt. In the great scene at Sinai,
a scene so strange and awe-inspiring that to the latest days of
Israel the memory of it thrilled every Israelite heart and exalted
every Israelite imagination, this need was adequately met.

In connection with it Moses rose to new heights of intimacy with the
Divine. What he had already done was ratified, and in the Decalogue
the great lines of moral and social life were marked out for the
people. But the most remarkable thing to us, in the narrative of
the circle of events which made the mountain of the law for ever
memorable, is the sublimity attributed to the character of Moses.
From the day when he smote the Egyptian, at every glimpse we have
of him we find him always advancing in power of character. The
shepherd of Midian is nobler, less self-assertive, more overawed by
communion with God, than the son of Pharaoh's daughter, noble as he
was. Again, the religious reformer, the popular leader, who needs
the very insistence of God to make him lead, who speaks for God
with such courageous majesty, who teaches, inspires, and manages a
turbulent nation with such conspicuous patience, self-repression,
and success, is greatly more impressive than the Moses of Midianite
days. But it is here, at Sinai, that his rank among the leaders of
men is fixed for ever. To the people of that time God was above
all things terrible; and when they came to the mount and found
that "there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon
the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud," they
could only tremble. Their very fear made it impossible for them to
understand what God desired to reveal concerning Himself. But in
Moses love had cast out fear. Even to him, doubtless, the darkness
was terrible, because it expressed only too well the mystery which
enwrapped the end of the Divine purposes of which he alone had seen
the beginnings; even his mind must have been clouded thick with
doubts as to whither Yahweh was leading him and his people; yet he
went boldly forth to seek God, venturing all upon that errand.

In previous perplexities the narrative represents Moses as calling
instantly upon Yahweh; but now, when experience had taught him the
formidable nature of his task, when difficulties had increased
upon him, when his perplexities of all kinds must have been simply
overwhelming, he heard the voice of Yahweh calling him to Himself.
Straightway he went into solitary communion with Him; and when he
passed with satisfied heart from that communion, he brought with him
those immortal words of the Decalogue which, amid all changes since,
have been acknowledged to be the true foundation for moral and
spiritual life. He brought too a commission authorising him to give
laws and judgments to his people in accord with what he had heard
and seen on the mount. However we are to understand the details of
the narrative therefore, its meaning is that at this time, and under
these circumstances, Moses attained his maximum of inspiration as a
seer or prophet, and from that time onward stood in a more intimate
relation to God than any of the prophets and saints of Israel who
came after him. He had found God; and from where he stood with God
he saw the paths of religious and political progress plainly marked
out.

Henceforth he was competent to guide the nation he had made as he
had not yet been, and with his power to help them his eagerness to
do so grew. Twice during this great crisis of his life the people
broke away into evil, and national death was threatened. But with
passionate supplications for their pardon he threw himself down
between God and them. At precisely the moment when his communion
with God was most complete, he rose to the loving recklessness of
desiring that if they were to be destroyed he might perish with
them. Strangely enough, though the author of Deuteronomy had this
before him, he does not mention it. It cannot have struck even him
as the crowning point of Moses' career, as it does us. Even in
his day the fitness, nay, the necessity, of this self-sacrificing
spirit as the fruit of deeper knowledge of God, was not yet felt;
much less could it have been felt in the days of the earlier
historians. There must, therefore, be reliable information here as
to what Moses actually did. Such love as this was not part of the
Israelite ideal at the time of our narrative, and from nothing but
knowledge of the fact could it have been attributed to Moses. We
may rank this enthusiasm of love, therefore, as a reliable trait
in his character. But if it be so, how far must he in his highest
moments have transcended his contemporaries, and even the best
of his successors, in knowledge of the inmost nature of God! His
thought was so far above them that it remained fruitless for many
centuries. Jeremiah's life and death first prepared the way for its
appreciation, but only in the character of the Servant of Yahweh in
Second Isaiah is it surpassed. Now if in this deepest part of true
religion Moses possessed such exceptional spiritual insight, it is
vain to attempt to show that his conception of God was so low, and
his aim for man so limited, as modern theorists suppose. The truth
must lie rather with those who, like Dr. A. B. Davidson,[136] see in
him "a profoundly reverential ancient mind with thoughts of God so
broad that mankind has added little to them. Nothing in the way of
sublimity of view would be incongruous with such a character, while
nothing could be more grotesque than to shut it up within the limits
of the gross conceptions of the mass of the people. He was their
guiding star, not their fellow, in all that concerned God, and his
religious conceptions were by a whole heaven removed from theirs.
The entire tragedy of his life just consisted in this, that he had
to strive with a turbulent and gainsaying people, had to bear with
them and train them, had to be content with scarcely perceptible
advances, where his strenuous guidance and his patient love should
have kindled them to _run_ in the way of God's commandments. But
though their progress was lamentably slow, he gave them an impulse
they were never to lose. Under the inspiration of the Almighty he so
fixed their fundamental ideas about God that they never henceforth
could get free of his spiritual company. In all their progress
afterwards they felt the impress of his mind, moulding and shaping
them even when they knew it not, and through them he started in the
world that redemptive work of God which manifested its highest power
in Jesus Christ."

  [136] "Moses' God," _British Weekly_, February 2, 1893.

From this point onward the idea of Moses that Deuteronomy gives
us is that of a great popular leader, meeting with extraordinary
calmness all the crises of government, and guiding his people with
unwavering steadfastness. Without power, except that which his
relation to God and the choice of the people gave him, without
any official title, he simply dominated the Israelites as long as
he lived. And the secret of his success is plainly told us in the
narrative. He would not move a single step without Divine guidance
(Exod. xxxiii. 12): "And Moses said unto the Lord, See, Thou sayest
unto me, Bring up this people: but Thou hast not let me know whom
Thou wilt send with me." (Ver. 14) "And He said, Must I go in person
with thee and bring thee to thy place of rest? And Moses said,
If Thou dost not go with us in person, then rather lead us not
away hence." That can only mean that he laid aside self-will, that
he put away personal sensitiveness, that he had learned to feel
himself unsafe when vanity or self-regard asserted themselves in his
decisions, that he sought continually that detachment of view which
absolute devotion to the Highest always gives. It means also that he
knew how dark and dull his own vision was, that clouds and darkness
would always be about him, and that it would be impossible for him
to choose his path, unless he knew what the Divine plan for his
people was. And all that is narrated of him afterward shows that his
prayer was granted. His patience under trial has been handed down
to us as a marvel. Though his brother and sister rebelled against
him, he won them again entirely to himself. Though a faction among
the people rose against his authority under Dathan and Abiram, his
power was not even shaken. Amid all the perversity and childish
fickleness of Israel he kept them true to their choice of the
desert, "that great and terrible wilderness," as against Egypt with
the flesh-pots. He kept alive their faith in the promise of Yahweh
to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, and what was more
and greater than that, their faith in Him as their Redeemer. By his
intercourse with Yahweh he was upheld from falling away from his own
ideals, as so many leaders of nations have done, or from despairing
of them.

The complaints and perversities of the people did however force him
into sin; and perhaps we may take it that the outbreak of petulance
when he smote the rock was only one instance of some general decay
of character on that side, or perhaps one should rather say, of some
general falling away from the self-restraint which had distinguished
him. It seems strange that this one failure should have been
punished in him, by exclusion from the land he had so steadfastly
believed in, the land which most of those who actually entered it
would never have seen but for him. And it is pathetic to find him
among that great company of martyrs for the public good, those who
in order to serve their people have neglected their own characters.
Under the stress of public work and the pressure of the stupidity
and greed of those whom they have sought to guide, many leaders of
men have been tempted, and have yielded to the temptation, to forget
the demands of their better nature. But whatever their services
to the world, such unfaithfulness does not pass unpunished. They
have to bear the penalty, whosoever they be; and Moses was no more
an exception than Cromwell or Savonarola was, to mention only
some of the nobler examples. He had been courageous when others
had faltered. He had been pre-eminently just; for in founding the
judicial system of Israel he had guarded alike against the tyranny
of the great and against unjust favour to the small. He had laid
a firm hand upon the education of youth, determined that the best
inheritance of their people, the knowledge of the laws of Yahweh and
of His providences, should not be lost to them. He had cleared their
religion in principle of all that was unworthy of Yahweh, and he
had by resolute valour, and by uncompromising sternness to enemies,
brought his great task to a successful issue. But the reward of it
all, the entrance into the land he had virtually won for his people,
was denied to him. It is one of the laws of the Divine government of
the world, that with those to whom God specially draws near He is
more rigorous than with others. Amos clearly saw and proclaimed this
principle (Amos iii. 2). "Hear this word that Yahweh hath spoken
against you, children of Israel," he says; "You only have I known of
all the families of the earth: _therefore_ I will visit upon you
all your iniquities." The pathetic picture of the aged lawgiver,
judge, and prophet, beseeching God in vain that he might share in
the joy which was freely bestowed upon so many less known and less
worthy than he, pushes home that strenuous teaching. For his sin
he died with his last earnest wish unfulfilled, and it was sadly
longing eyes that death's finger touched. We remember also that, so
far as we can judge, he had no certain hope of a future life other
than the shadowy existence of Hades. "Though he slay me yet will I
trust him" had a much more tragic meaning for Old Testament saints
than it can ever have for us, for whom Christ has brought life and
immortality to light. Yet, with a so much heavier burden, and with
so much less of gracious support, they played their high part.
That solitary figure on the mountain-top, about to die with the
fulfilment of his passionate last wish denied him by his God, must
shame us into silence when we fret because our hopes have perished.
All those nations which have had that figure on their horizon have
been permanently enriched in nature by it. In a thousand ways it has
shot forth instructions; but, above all, it has made men worthy in
their own eyes; for it has been a continuous reminder that God can
and ought to be served unfalteringly, even when the reward we wish
is denied us, and when every other consolation is dim.

But the question may now arise, Is not this character of Moses
which the author of Deuteronomy partly had before him and partly
helped to elaborate, too exalted to be reliable? Can we suppose
that a man in Moses' day and circumstances could actually have
entertained such thoughts, and have possessed such a character as
we have been depicting? In essentials it would appear to be quite
possible. Putting aside all distracting questions about details,
and remembering that it is a mere superstition to suppose that the
wants and appliances of civilisation are necessary to loftiness
of character and depth of thought, where is there anything in the
situation of Moses which should make this view of him incredible?
No doubt there was a rudeness in his surroundings which must
necessarily have affected his nature; and the forms of his thinking
in that early, though by no means primitive, time must have differed
greatly from ours. Moreover, as an instrument for scientific inquiry
and for the verification of facts, the human mind must have been
greatly less effective then than it is to-day. But none of these
things have much influence upon a man's capacity to receive a new
and inspiring revelation as to God. Otherwise no child could be a
Christian. As regards the rudeness of his surroundings, we must not
consciously or unconsciously degrade him to the level of a modern
Bedouin. Among the host he led, some doubtless were at that level;
but the bulk of Israel must have been above it; and Moses himself,
from his circumstances and his natural endowment, must have stood
side by side with the most cultured men of his time. Whatever
ignorance or error in science he may have been capable of, and
however rude, according to our ideas, his manner of life, there was
nothing in these to shut him out from spiritual truth. That which
Prof. Henry Morley has finally said of Dante[137] must have been
true, _mutatis mutandis_, of a man like Moses. "Dante's knowledge is
the knowledge of his time," but "if spiritual truth only came from
right and perfect knowledge, this would have been a world of dead
souls from the first to now, for future centuries in looking back at
us will wonder at the little faulty knowledge that we think so much.
But let the _known_ be what it may, the true soul rises from it to a
sense of the Divine mysteries of wisdom and love. Dante's knowledge
may be full of ignorance, and so is ours. But he fills it as he can
with the spirit of God." In the East this is even more conspicuously
true, even to this day. What an Israelite under similar conditions
might be is seen in the prophet Amos. His external condition was
of the poorest--a gatherer of sycamore fruit must have been poor
even for the East--yet he knew accurately the history, not only of
his own people, but of the surrounding nations, and brooded on the
purpose of God in regard to his own people and the world, till he
became a fit recipient of prophetic inspirations. But indeed the
whole history of Christianity is a demonstration of this truth. From
the first days, when "not many mighty, not many noble were being
called," when it was specially the message to listening slaves, the
religion of Christ has had its greatest triumphs among the "poor
of the world, rich in faith," but in nothing else. These have not
only believed it, but they have lived it, and amid the meanest and
rudest surroundings, with the most limited outlook, have built up
characters often of even resplendent virtue. Whatever primitiveness
we may fairly ascribe, therefore, to the life and surroundings of
Moses, that is no reason why we should think it incredible that
he had received lofty spiritual truth from God. If he did such
things for Israel as we have seen, if, as almost all admit, he
actually made a nation, and planted the seeds of a religion of which
Christianity is the natural complement and crown, then the view
that he had a greatly higher idea of God than those about him is
not only credible but necessary. If his teaching concerning Yahweh
had amounted only to this, that He was the only God Israel was to
worship, and that they were to be solely His people, then on such a
basis nothing more than the ordinary heathen civilisations of the
Semitic people could have been built. But if he had the thought of
God which is embodied in the Decalogue, that could bring with it
everything in the character of Moses that seems too high for those
early days. The knowledge of God as a spiritual and moral being
could not fail to moralise and spiritualise the man. The lofty
conception of human duty, the submission to the will of God, the
passionate love for his nation which made personal loss nothing to
Moses, may well have been evoked by the great truth which formed his
prophetic revelation.

  [137] _Convito of Dante_, Morley's _Universal Library_,
  Introduction, pp. 6 ff.

But the narrative itself, considered merely as a history, is of
such a nature as to give confidence that it rests upon some record
of an actual life. Ideal sketches of great men (setting aside
the products of modern fictive art) are much more uniform and
superficially coherent than this character of Moses. The purpose
of the writer either to exalt or to decry carries all before it,
and we get from such a source pictures of character so consistent
that they cannot possibly be true. Here, however, we have nothing
of that kind. Rashnesses and weaknesses are narrated, and even
Moses' good qualities are manifested in unexpected ways in response
to unexpected evils in the people. The mere fact, also, that his
grave was unknown is indicative of truth. Though it would be absurd
to say that wherever we have the graves of great men pointed out,
there we have a mythical story, it is nevertheless true that in the
case of every name or character which has come largely under the
influence of the myth-making spirit, the grave has been made much
of. The Arabian imagination here seems to be typical of the Semitic
imagination; and in all Moslem lands the graves of the prophets and
saints of the Old Testament are pointed out with great reverence,
even, or perhaps we should say especially, if they be eighty feet
long. Though a well-authenticated tomb of Moses, therefore, would
have been a proof of his real existence and life among men, the
absence of any is a stronger proof of the sobriety and truth of
the narrative. That with the goal in sight, and with his great
work about to come to fruition, he should have turned away into
the solitude of the mountains to die, is so very unlikely to occur
to the mind of the writer of an ideal life of an ideal leader,
that only some tradition of this as a fact can account for it. The
unexpectedness of such an end to a hero's career is the strongest
evidence of its truth.

The result of all the indications is that the story of Moses, as
the author of Deuteronomy knew it, rests upon authentic information
handed down somehow, probably in written documents, from the
earliest time. Apart from the question of inspiration, therefore,
we may rest upon it as reliable in all essentials. Only in him, and
the revelation he received, have we an adequate cause for the great
upheaval of religious feeling which shaped and characterised all the
after-history of Israel.

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Transcriber's note:

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