Vers. 9-22. The Gift of Prophecy. — The Levitical priests, as the stated guardians and promoters of the law, had to conduct all the affairs of Israel with the Lord, not only instructing the people out of the law concerning the will of God, but sustaining and promoting the living fellowship with the Lord both of individuals and of the whole congregation, by the offering of sacrifices and service at the altar. But if the covenant fellowship with Himself and His grace, in which Jehovah had placed Israel as His people of possession, was to be manifested and preserved as a living reality amidst all changes in the political development of the nation and in the circumstances of private life, it would not do for the revelations from God to cease with the giving of the law and the death of Moses. For, as Schultz observes, '"• however the revelation of the law might aim at completeness, and even have regard to the more remote circumstances of the future, as, for example, where the king is referred to; yet in the transition from extraordinary circumstances into a more settled condition, which it foretells in chap. xvii. 14, and which actually took place under Samuel when the nation grew older (chap. iv. 25), and in the decline and apostasy which certainly awaited it according to chap. xxxi. 16-29, wdien false prophets should arise, by whom they were in danger of being led astray (chap. xiii. 2 and xviii. 20), as w^ell as in the restoration which would follow after the infliction of punishment (chap. iv. 29, 30, xxx. 1 sqq); in all these great changes which awaited Israel from inward necessity, the revelation of the will of the Lord which they possessed in the law would nevertheless be insufficient." The priesthood, with its ordinances, would not suffice for that. As the promise of direct communications from God through the Urim and Tliummim of the high priest was restricted to the single circumstance of the right of the whole congregation being endangered, and did not extend to the satisfaction of the religious necessities of individuals, it could afford no godly satisfaction to that desire for supernatural knowledge which arose at times in the hearts of individuals, and for which the heathen oracles made such ample provision in ungodly ways. If Israel therefore was to be preserved in faithfulness towards God, and attain the end of its calling as the congregation of the Lord, it was necessary that the Lord should make known His counsel and will at the proper time through the medium of prophets, and bestow upon it in sure prophetic words what the heathen nations endeavoured to discover and secure by means of augury and soothsaying. This is the point of view from which Moses promises the sending of prophets in vers. 15-18, and lays down in vers. 19-22 the criteria for distinguishing between true and false prophets, as we may clearly see from the fact that in vers. 9-14 he introduces this promise with a warning against resorting to heathen augury, soothsaying, and witchcraft.
Vers. 9 sqq. When Israel came into the land of Canaan, it was " not to learn to do like the abominations of these nations*' (the Canaanites or heathen). There was not to be found in it any who caused his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, i.e. any worshipper of Moloch (see at Lev. xviii. 21), or one who practised soothsaying (see at Num. xxiii. 23), or a wizard (see at Lev. xix. 26), or a snake-charmer (see at Lev. xix. 26), or a conjurer, or one who pronounced a ban (p^U l^h^ probably referring to the custom of binding or banning by magical knots), a necromancer and wise man (see at Lev. xix. 31), or one who asked the dead, i^. who sought oracles from the dead. Moses groups together all the words which the language contained for the different modes of exploring the future and discovering the will of God, for the purpose of forbidding every description of soothsaying, and places the prohibition of Moloch-worship at the head, to show the inward connection between soothsaying and idolatry, possibly because februation, or passing children through the fire in the worship of Moloch, was more intimately conijected with soothsaying and magic than any other description of idolatry. — Ver. 12. Whoever did this was an abomination to the Lord, and it was because of this abomination that He rooted out the Canaanites before Israel (cf. Lev. xviii. 24 sqq.). — Vers. 13 and 14. Israel, on the other hand, was to be blameless with Jehovah (Di^, in its intercourse with the Lord). Though the heathen whom they exterminated before them hearkened to conjurers and soothsayers, Jehovah their God had not allowed anything of the kind to them. nriK") is placed first as a nominative absolute, for the sake of emphasis: " but thou, so far as thou art concerned, not so." |3, thus, just so, such things (cf. Ex. x. 14). |n3, to grant, to allow (as in Gen. xx. 6, etc.). — Ver. 15. "-4 prophet out of the midst of thee, out of thy brethren^ as I am, will Jehovah thy God raise up to thee; to him shall ye hearhenr When Moses thus attaches to the prohibition against hearkening to soothsayers and practising soothsaying, the promise that Jehovah would raise up a prophet, etc., and contrasts what the Lord would do for His people \vith what He did not allow, it is perfectly evident from this simple connection alone, apart from the further context o^ the passage, in which Moses treats of the temporal and spiritual rulers of Israel (chap. xvii. and xviii.), that the promise neither relates to one particular prophet, nor directly and exclusively to the Messiah, but treats of the sending of prophets generally. And this is also confirmed by what follows with reference to true and false prophets, which presupposes the rise of a plurality of prophets, and shows most incontrovertibly that it is not one prophet only, nor the Messiah exclusively, who is promised here. It by no means follows from the use of the singular, " a prophet," that Moses is speaking of one particular prophet only; but the idea expressed is this, that at any time when the people stood in need of a mediator with God like Moses, God would invariably send a prophet. The words, " out of the midst of thee, of thy brethren," imply that there would be no necessity for Israel to turn to heathen soothsayers or prophets, but that it would find the men within itself who would make known the word of the Lord. The expression, " like unto me," is explained by what follows in vers. 16-18 with regard to the circumstances, under which the Lord had given the promise that He would send a prophet. It was at Sinai; when the people were filled with mortal alarm, after hearing the ten words which God addressed to them out of the fire, and entreated Moses to act as mediator between the Lord and themselves, that God might not speak directly to them any more. At that time the Lord gave the promise that He would raise up a prophet, and put His words into his mouth, that he might speak to the people all that the Lord commanded (cf. chap. v. 20 sqq.). The promised prophet, therefore, was to resemble Moses in this respect, that he would act as mediator between Jehovah and the people, and make known the words or the will of the Lord. Consequently the meaning contained in the expression " like unto me" was not that the future prophet would resemble Moses in all respects, — a meaning which has been introduced into it through an unwarrantable use of Num. xii. 6-8, Deut. xxxiv. 10, and Heb. iii. 2, 5, for the purpose of proving the direct application of the promise to the Messiah alone, to the exclusion of the prophets of the Old Testament.
If the resemblance of the future prophet to Moses, expressed in the words " like unto me," be understood as indicating the precise form in which God revealed Himself to Moses, speaking with him mouth to mouth, and not in a dream or vision, a discrepancy is introduced between this expression and the words which follow in ver. 18, "I will put My words in his mouth; " since this expresses not the particular mode in which Moses received the revelations from God, in contrast with the rest of the prophets, but simply that form of divine communication or inspiration which was common to all the prophets (vid, Jer. i. 9, v. 14).
But whilst we are obliged to give up the direct and exclusive reference of this promise to the Messiah, which was the prevailing opinion in the early Church, and has been revived by Kurtz, Auherlen, and Tholuck, as not in accordance with the context or the words themselves, we cannot, on the other hand, agree with v, Hofmann, Baur, and Knobel, in restricting the passage to the Old Testament prophets, to the exclusion of the Messiah. There is no warrant for this limitation of the word " prophet," since the expectation of the Messiah was not unknown to Moses and the Israel of his time, but was actually expressed in the promise of the seed of the woman, and Jacob's prophecy concerning Shiloh; so that 0, v. Gerlach is perfectly right in observing, that " this is a prediction of Christ as the true Prophet, precisely like that of the seed of the woman in Gen. iii. 15." The occasion, also, on which Moses received the promise of the " prophet" from the Lord, which he here communicated to the people, — namely, when the people desired a mediator between themselves and the Lord at Sinai, and this desire on their part was pleasing to the Lord, — shows that the promise should be understood in the full sense of the words, without any limitation whatever; that is to say, that Christ, in whom the prophetic character culminated and was completed, is to be included. Even Ewald admits, that " the prophet like unto Moses, whom God would raise up out of Israel and for Israel, can only be the true prophet generally;" and Baur also allows, that " historical exposition will not mistake the anticipatory reference of this expression to Christ, which is involved in the expectation that, in the future completion of the plan of salvation, the prophetic gift would form an essential element." And lastly, the comparison instituted between the promised prophet and Moses, compels us to regard the words as referring to the Messiah. The words, " like unto me," " like unto thee," no more warrant us in excluding the Messiah on the one hand, than in excluding the Old Testament prophets on the other, since it is unquestionably affirmed that the prophet of the future would be as perfectly equal to his calling as Moses was to his/ — that He would carry out the mediation between the Lord and the people in the manner and the power of Moses. In this respect not one of the Old Testament prophets was fully equal to Moses, as is distinctly stated in chap, xxxiv. 10. All the prophets of the Old Testament stood within the sphere of the economy of the law, which was founded through the mediatorial office of Moses; and even in their predictions of the future, they simply continued to build upon the foundation which was laid by Moses, and therefore prophesied of the coming of the servant of the Lord, who, as the Prophet of all prophets, would restore Jacob, and carry out the law and right of the Lord to the nations, even to the end of the world (Isa. xlii., xlix., 1., Ixi.). This prophecy, therefore, is very properly referred to Jesus Christ in the New Testament, as having been fulfilled in Him. Not only had Philip this passage in his mind when he said to Nathanael, " We have found Him of whom Moses in the law did write, Jesus of Nazareth," whilst Stephen saw the promise of the prophet like unto Moses fulfilled in Christ (Acts vii. 37); but Peter also expressly quotes it in Acts iii. 22, 23, as referring to Christ; and even the Lord applies it to Himself in John v. 45-47, when He says to the Jews, " Moses, in whom ye trust, will accuse you; for if ye believed Moses, ye would also believe Me: for Moses wrote of Me." In John xii. 48-50, again, the reference to vers. 18 and 19 of this chapter is quite unmistakeable; and in the words, " hear ye Him," which were uttered from the cloud at the transfiguration of Jesus (Matt. xvii. 5), the expression in ver. 15, " unto Him shall ye hearken," is used verbatim with reference to Christ. Even the Samaritans founded their expectation of the Messiah (John iv. 25) upon these words of Moses.^
Vers. 16-22. With this assurance the Lord had fully granted the request of the people, " according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God;" and Israel, therefore, was all the more bound to hearken to the prophets, whom God would raise up from the midst of itself, and not to resort to heathen soothsayers. (On the
^ Let any one paraphrase the passage thus: " A prophet inferior indeed to me, but yet the channel of divine revelations," and he will soon feel how unsuitable it is" (Hengstenherg).
^ On the history of the exposition of this passage, see Hengstenherg^ s Christology.
fact itself, comp. chap. v. 20 sqq. with Ex. xx. 15-17.) " In the day of the assernbli/" as in chap. ix. 10, x. 4. — The instructions as to their behaviour towards the prophets are given by Moses (vers. 19, 20) in the name of the Lord, for the purpose of enforcing obedience with all the greater emphasis. Whoever did not hearken to the words of the prophet who spoke in the name of the Lord, of him the Lord would require it, Le. visit the disobedience with punishment (cf. Ps. x. 4, 13). On the other hand, the prophet who spoke in the name of the Lord what the Lord had not commanded him, i.e. proclaimed the thoughts of his own heart as divine revelations (cf. Num. xvi. 28), should die, like the prophet who spoke in the name of other gods. With np^^ the predicate is introduced in the form of an apodosis. — Vers. 21, 22. The false prophet was to be discovered by the fact, that the word proclaimed by him did not follow or come to pass, i.e. that his prophecy was not fulfilled. Of him they were not to -be afraid. By this injunction the occurrence of what had been predicted is made the criterion of true prophecy, and not signs and wonders, which false prophets could also perform (cf. chap. xiii. 2 sqq.).
Laws concerning the Cities of Refuge ^ the Sacredness of Landmarks y and the Punishment of False Witnesses. — Chap. xix.
After laying down the most important features in the national constitution, Moses glances at the manifold circumstances of civil and family life, and notices in this and the two following chapters the different ways in which the lives of individuals might be endangered, for the purpose of awakening in the minds of the people a holy reverence for human life.
Vers. 1-13. The laws concerning the cities of refuge for UNINTENTIONAL MANSLAYERS are not a mere repetition of the laws given in Num. xxxv. 9-34, but rather an admonition to carry out those laws, with special reference to the future extension of the boundaries of the land. — Vers. 1—7. As Moses had already set apart the cities of refuge for the land on the east of the Jordan (chap, iv. 41 sqq.), he is speaking here simply of the land on the west, which Israel was to take possession of before long; and supplements the instructions in Num. xxxv. 14, with directions to maintain the roads to the cities of refuge which were to be set apart in Canaan itself, and to divide the land into three parts, viz. for the purpose of setting apart these cities, so that one city might be chosen for the purpose in every third of the land. For further remarks upon this point, as well as with regard to the use of these cities (vers. 4-7), see at Num. xxxv. 11 sqq. — In vers. 8-10 there follow the fresh instructions, that if the Lord should extend the borders of Israel, according to His promise given to the patriarchs, and should give them the whole land from the Nile to the Euphrates, according to Gen. XV. 18, they were to add three other cities of refuge to these three, for the purpose of preventing the shedding of innocent blood. The three new cities of refuge cannot be the three appointed in Num. xxxv. 14 for the land on this side of the Jordan, nor the three mentioned in ver. 7 on the other side of Jordan, as Knohel and others suppose. Nor can we adopt Hengstenberg's view, that the three new ones are the same as the three mentioned in vers. 2 and 7, since they are expressly distinguished from " these three." The meaning is altogether a different one. The circumstances supposed by Moses never existed, since the Israelites did not fulfil the conditions laid down in ver. 9, viz. that they should keep the law faithfully, and love the Lord their God (cf. chap. iv. 6, vi. 5, etc.). The extension of the power of Israel to the Euphrates under David and Solomon, did not bring the land as far as this river into their actual possession, since the conquered kingdoms of Aram were still inhabited by the Aramaeans, who, though conquered, were only rendered tributary. And the Tyrians and Phoenicians, who belonged to the Canaanitish population, were not even attacked by David. — Ver. 10. Innocent blood would be shed if the unintentional manslayer was not protected against the avenger of blood, by the erection of cities of refuge in every part of the land. If Israel neglected this duty, it would bring blood-guiltiness upon itself (" and so blood be upon thee^^)y because it had not done what was requisite to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. — Vers. 11-13. But whatever care was to be taken by means of free cities to prevent the shedding of blood, the cities of refuge were not to be asyla for criminals who were deserving of death, nor to afford protection to those who had slain a neighbour out of hatred. If such murderers should flee to the free city, the elders (magistrates) of his own town were to fetch him out, and deliver him up to the avenger of blood, that he might die. The law laid down in Num. xxxv. 16-21 is here still more minutely defined; but this does not transfer to the elders the duty of instituting a judicial inquiry, and deciding the matter, as Riehm follow*s Vater -and De Wette in maintaining, for the purpose of proving that there is a discrepancy between Deuteronomy and the previous legislation. They are simply commanded to perform the duty devolving upon them as magistrates and administrators of local affairs. (On ver. 13, see chap. xiii. 8 and 5.)
Ver. 14. The prohibition against removing a neighbour's LANDMARK, which his ancestors had placed, is inserted here, not because landmarks were of special importance in relation to the free cities, and the removal of them might possibly be fatal to the unintentional manslayer (as Clericus ^nd JRosenmuller assume), for the general terms of the prohibition are at variance with this, viz. " thy neighbour's landmark," and " in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit in the land;" but on account of the close connection in which a man's possession as the means of his support stood to the life of the man himself, " because property by which life is supported participates in the sacredness of life itself, just as in chap. XX. 19, 20, sparing the fruit-trees is mentioned in connection with the men who were to be spared" (Schultz), A curse was to be pronounced upon the remover of landmarks, according to chap, xxvii. 17, just as upon one who cursed his father, who led a blind man astray, or perverted the rights of orphans and widows (cf. Hos. V, 10; Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10). Landmarks were regarded as sacred among other nations also; by the Romans, for example, they were held to be so sacred, that whoever removed them was to be put to death.
secure life and property against false accusations, Moses lays down the law in ver. 15, that one witness only was not " to rise up against any one with reference to any crime or sin, with every sin that one commits" (i.e. to appear before a court of justice, or be accepted as sufficient), but everything was to be established upon the testimony of two or three witnesses. The rule laid down in chap. xvii. 6 and Num. XXXV. 30 for capital crimes, is raised hereby into a law of general application (see at Num. xxxv. 30). Dip (in ver. 15^), to stand, i.e. to acquire legal force. — But as it was not always possible to bring forward two or three witnesses, and the statement of one witness could not well be disregarded, in vers. 16-18 Moses refers accusations of this kind to the higher tribunal at the sanctuary for investigation and decision, and appoints the same punishment for a false witness, which would have fallen upon the person accused, if he had been convicted of the crime with which he was charged. mo in rii3V7, " to testify against his departure^^ sc. from the law of God, not merely falling away into idolatry (chap. xiii. 6), but any kind of crime, as we may gather from ver. 19, which would be visited with capital punishment. — Ver. 17. The two men between whom the dispute lay, the accused and the witness, were to come before Jehovah, viz. before the priests and judges who should be in those days, — namely, at the place of the sanctuary, where Jehovah dwelt among His people (cf. chap. xvii. 9), and not before the local courts, as Knohel supposes. These judges were to investigate the case most thoroughly (cf. chap. xiii. 15); and if the witness had spoken lies, they were to do to him as he thought to do to his brother. The words from " behold " to " Ms brother " are parenthetical circumstantial clauses: " And^ behold, is the tvitness a false vntnesS) has he spoken a lie against his brother? Ye shall do,^ etc. D^T, generally to meditate evil. On ver. 20, see chap. xiii. 12. — Ver. 21. The lex talionis was to be applied without reserve (see at Ex. xxi. 23; Lev. xxiv. 20). According to Diod, Sic. (i. 77), the same law existed in Egypt with reference to false accusers.
The instructions in this chapter have reference to the wars which Israel might wage in future against non-Canaanitish nations (vers. 15 sqq.), and enjoin it as a duty upon the people of God to spare as much as possible the lives of their own soldiers and also of their enemies. All wars against their enemies, even though they were superior to them in resources, were to be entered upon by them without fear in reliance upon the might of their God; and they were therefore to exempt from military service not only those who had just entered into new social relations, and had not enjoyed the pleasures of them, but also the timid and fainthearted (vers. 1-9). Moreover, whenever they besieged hostile towns, they were to offer peace to their enemies, excepting only the Canaanites; and even if it were not accepted, they were to let the defenceless (viz. women and children) live, and not to destroy the fruit-trees before the fortifications (vers. 10-20).
Vers. 1-9. Instructions relating to Military Service. — If the Israelites went out to battle against their foes, and saw horses and chariots, a people more numerous than they were, they were not to be afraid, because Jehovah their God was with them. Horses and chariots constituted the principal strength of the enemies round about Israel; not of the Egyptians only (Ex. xiv. 7), and of the Canaanites and Philistines (Josh. xvii. 16; Judg. iv. 3,
1 Sam. xiil. 5), but of the Syrians also (2 Sam. viii. 4; 1 Cliron. xviii. 4, xix. 18; cf. Ps. xx. 8). — Vers. 2-4. If they were thus drawing near to war, i.e. arranging themselves for war for the purpose of being mustered and marching in order into the battle (not just as the battle was commencing), the priest was to address the warriors, and infuse courage into them by pointing to the help of the Lord. " The priest " is not the high priest, but the priest who accompanied the army, like Phinehas in the war against the Midianites (Num. xxxi. 6; cf. 1 Sam. iv. 4, 11, 2 Chron. xiii. 12), whom the Rabbins call '"i^Cr^L^ (!'^^ (the anointed of the battle), and raise to the highest dignity next to the high priest, no doubt simply upon the ground of Num. xxxi. 6 (see LundiuSyjud. Heiligth. p. 523). — Vers. 5-9. Moreover, the shoterim, whose duty it was, as the keepers of the genealogical tables, to appoint the men who were bound to serve, were to release such of the men who had been summoned to the war as had entered into domestic relations, which would make it a harder thing for them to be exposed to death than for any of the others: for example, any man who had built a new house and had not yet consecrated it, or had planted a vineyard and not yet eaten any of the fruit of it, or was betrothed to a wife and had not yet married her, — that such persons might not die before they had enjoyed the fruits of what they had done. " Who is the man, who^^ i.e. whoever, every man who. " Consecrated the housey^ viz. by taking possession and dwelling in it; entrance into the house was probably connected with a hospitable entertainment. According to Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 41), the enjoyment of them was to last a year (according to the analogy of chap. xxiv. 5). The Rabbins elaborated special ceremonies, among which Jonathan in his Targum describes the fastening of slips with sentences out of the law written upon them to the door-posts, as being the most important (see at chap. vi. 9: for further details, see Selden, de Synedriis 1. iii. c. 14, 15). Cerem is hardly to be restricted to vineyards, but applied to olive-plantations as well (see at Lev. xix. 10). ^pHj to make common, is to be explained from the fact, that when fruit-trees were planted (Lev. xix. 23 sqq.), or vines set (Judg. xix. 24), the fruit was not to be eaten for the first three years, and that of the fourth year was to be consecrated to the Lord; and it was only the fruit that was gathered in the fifth year which could be applied by the owner to his own use, — in other words, could be made common. The command to send away from the armv to his own home a man who was betrothed but had not yet taken his wife, is extended still further in chap. xxiv. 5, where it is stated that a newly married man was to be exempt for a whole year from military service and other public burdens. The intention of these instructions was neither to send away all persons who were unwilling to go into the war, and thus avoid the danger of their interfering with the readiness and courage of the rest of the army in prospect of the battle, nor to spare the lives of those persons to whom life was especially dear; but rather to avoid depriving any member of the covenant nation of his enjoyment of the good things of this life bestowed upon him by the Lord. — Ver. 8. The first intention only existed in the case of the timid (the soft-hearted or despondent). D?3^ fc<P"i, that the heart of thy brethren " may not flow away,^ i.e. may not become despondent (as in Gen. xvii. 15, etc.). — Ver. 9. When this was finished, the shoterim were to appoint captains at the head of the people (of war), ^PB^ to inspect, to muster, then to give the oversight, to set a person over anything (Num. iii. 10, iv. 27). The meaning "to lead the command" (Schultz) cannot be sustained; and if " captains of the armies'* were the subject, and reference were made to the commanders in the war, the article would not be omitted. If the shoterim had to raise men for the war and organize the army, the division of the men into hosts (zebaoth) and the appointment of the leaders would also form part of the duties of their office.
Vers. 10-20. Instructions concerning Sieges. — Vers. 10, 11. On advancing against a town to attack it, they were "^o call to it for peace" i.e. to summon it to make a peaceable surrender and submission (cf. Judg. xxi. 13). "7/" it answered peace," i.e. returned an answer conducing to peace, and ^^ opened" (sc. its gates), the whole of its inhabitants were to become tributary to Israel, and serve it; consequentl}^ even those who were armed were not to be put to death, for Israel was not to shed blood unnecessarily. Dp does not mean feudal service, but a feudal slave (see at Ex. i. 11). — Vers. 12, 13. If the hostile town, however, did not make peace, but prepared for war, the Israelites were to besiege it; and if Jehovah gave it into their hands, they were to slay all the men in it without reserve (" with the edge of the sword," see at Gen. xxxiv. 20); but the women and children and all that was in the city, all its sj)oil, they were to take as prey for themselves, and to consume (eat) the spoil, i.e. to make use of it for their own maintenance. — Vers. 15-18. It was in this way that Israel was to act with towns that were far off; but not with the towns of the Canaanites (" tJiese nations "), which Jehovah gave them for an inheritance. In these no soul was to be left alive; but these nations were to be laid under the ban, i.e, altogether exterminated, that they might not teach the Israelites their abominations and sins (cf. chap. vii. 1-4, xii. 31). nD^*J"P3, lit. every breath, i.e. everything living, by which, however, human beings alone are to be understood (comp. Josh. X. 40, xi. 11, with chap. xi. 14). — Vers. 19, 20. When they besieged a town a long time to conquer it, they were not to destroy its trees, to swing the axe upon them. That we are to understand by nvv the fruit-trees in the environs and gardens of the town, is evident from the motive appended: "/or of them (^3^p refers to yv as a collective) thou eatesty and thou shalt not hew them downJ^ The meaning is: thou mayest suppress and destroy the men, but not the trees which supply thee with food. " For is the tree of the field a man, that it should come into siege before thee?" This is evidently the only suitable interpretation of the difficult words nn^n y^ ^"l^v* ""^j ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ which has been expressed by all the older commentators, though in different ways. But it is one which can only be sustained grammatically by adopting the view propounded by Clencus and others: viz. by pointing the noun Cinsn with n interrog., instead of ^^^'}, and taking D^iJ as the object, which its position in the sentence fully warrants (cf. Ewald, § 324, b. and 306, b.). The Masoretic punctuation is founded upon the explanation given by Aben Ezra, "Man is a tree of the field, i.e. lives upon and is fed by the fruits of the trees," which Schultz expresses in this way, " Man is bound up with the tree of the field, i.e. has his life in, or from, the tree of the field," — an explanation, however, which cannot be defended by appealing to chap. xxiv. 6, Eccl. xii. 13, Ezek. xii. 10, as these three passages are of a different kind. In no way whatever can Q'J^f'^ be taken as the subject of the sentence, as this would not give any rational meaning. And if it were rendered as the object, in such sense as this, The tree of the field is a tiling or affair of man, it would hardly have the article. — Ver. 20. " Only the trees which thou knoicest that they are not trees of eating {i.e. do not bear edible fruits), mayest thou hciv down, and build a rampart against the town till it come dowUy^ i.e. fall down from its eminence. For T?) as a})plled to the falling or sinking of lofty fortifications, see chap, xxviii. 52, Isa. xxxii. 19. "^iVD, compressing or forcing down; hence, as applied to towns, i^vpa Ki3j to come into siege, i.e. to be besieged (vcr. 19; 2 Kings xxiv. 10, XXV. 2). In ver. 20 it is used to denote the object, viz. the means of hemming in a town, i.e. the besieging rampart (cf. Ezek. iv. 2).
Expiation of an uncertain Murder. Treatment of a Wife who had been taken captive. Right of the First-born. Punishment of a refractory Son. Burial of a Man who had been hanged. — Chap. xxi.
The reason for grouping together these five laws, which are apparently so different from one another, as well as for attaching them to the previous regulations, is to be found in the desire to bring out distinctly the sacredness of life and of personal rights from every point of view, and impress it upon the covenant nation.
Vers. 1-9. Expiation of a Murder committed by an UNKNOWN Hand. — Vers. 1 and 2. If any one was found lying in a field in the land of Israel (i'Si fallen, then lying, Judg. iii. 25, iv. 22), having been put to death without its being known who had killed him ('13^ ini^ ^, a circumstantial clause, attached without a copula, see Ewald, § 341, b. 3), the elders and judges, sc. of the neighbouring towns, — the former as representatives of the communities, the latter as administrators of right, — were to go out and measure to the towns which lay round about the slain man, i.e. measure the distance of the body from the towns that were lying round about, to ascertain first of all which was the nearest town. — Vers. 3, 4. This nearest town was then required to expiate the blood-guiltiness, not only because the suspicion of the crime or of participation in the crime fell soonest upon it, but because the guilt connected with the shedding of innocent blood rested as a burden upon it before all others. To this end the elders were to take a heifer (young cow), with which no work had ever been done, and which had not yet drawn in the yoke, i.e. whose vital force had not been diminished by labour (see at Num. xix. 2), and bring it down into a brook-valley with water constantly flowing, and there break its neck. The expression, " it shall be that the czVy," is more fully defined by " the elders of the city shall taker The elders were to perform the act of expiation in the name of the city. As the murderer was not to be found, an animal was to be put to death in his stead, and suffer the punishment of the murderer. The slaying of the animal was not an expiatory sacrifice, and consequently there was no slaughtering and sprinkling of the blood; but, as the mode of death, viz. breaking the neck (yid. Ex. xiii. 13), clearly shows, it was a symbolical infliction of the punishment that should have been borne by the murderer, upon the animal which was substituted for him. To be able to tnke the ^ullt upon itself and bear it, the animal was to be in tlie full and undiminished possession of its vital powers. The slaying was to take place in a I^^^ ''C^, a valley with water constantly flowing through it, which was not worked (cultivated) and sown. This regulation as to the locality in which the act of expiation was to be performed was probably founded upon the idea, that the water of the brook-valley would suck in the blood and clean it away, and that the blood sucked in by the earth would not be brought to light again by the ploughing and working of the soil. — Ver. 5. The priests were to come near during this transaction; i.e. some priests from the nearest Levitical town were to be present at it, not to conduct the affair, but as those whom Jehovah had chosen to serve Him and to bless in His name (cf. chap, xviii. 5), and according to whose mouth (words) every dispute and every stroke happened (cf. chap. xvii. 8), i.e. simply as those who were authorized by the Lord, and as the representatives of the divine right, to receive the explanation and petition of the elders, and acknowledge the legal validity of the act. — Vers. 6-8. The elders of the town were to w^ash their hands over the slain heifer, i.e. to cleanse themselves by this symbolical act from the suspicion of any guilt on the part of the inhabitants of the town in the murder that had been committed (cf. Ps. xxvi. 6, Ixxiii. 13; Matt, xxvil. 24), and then answer (to the charge involved in what had taken place), and say, " Our hands have not shed this blood (on the singular "^9^?^) see Ewald, § 317, a.), and our eyes have not seen^^ (sc. the shedding of blood), i.e. we have neither any part in the crime nor any knowledge of it: '^ grant forgiveness (lit. ^cover up,' viz. the blood-guiltiness) to Thy people... and give not innocent blood in the midst of Thy people Israel^^ i.e. lay not upon us the innocent blood that has been shed by imputation and punishment. " And the blood shall be forgiven them" i.e. the bloodshed or murder shall not be imputed to them. On ^^S??, a mixed form from the Niphal and Hithpael, see Ges. § 55, and Ewaldj § 132, c. — Yer. 9. In this w^ay Israel was to wipe away the innocent blood (the bloodshed) from its midst (cf. Num. xxxv. 33). If the murderer were discovered afterwards, of course the punishment of death which had been inflicted vicariously upon the animal, simply because the criminal himself could not be found, would still fall upon him.
Vers. 10-14. Treatment of a Wife who had been a Prisoner of War. — If an Israelite saw among the captives, who had been brought away in a war against foreign nations, a woman of beautiful figure, and loved her, and took her as his wife, he was to allow her a month's time in his house, to bewail her separation from her home and kindred, and accustom herself to her new condition of life, before he married her. What is said here does not apply to the wars with the* Canaanites, who were to be cut off (vid. chap. vii. 3), but, as a comparison of the introductory words in ver. 1 with chap. xx. 1 clearly shows, to the wars which Israel would carry on with surrounding nations after the conquest of Canaan. "•IK^ and n^^K^, the captivity, for the captives. — Vers. 12, 13. When the woman was taken home to the house of the man who had loved her, she was to shave her head, and make, i.e. cut, her nails (cf. 2 Sam. xix. 25),-^both customary signs of purification (on this signification of the cutting of the hair, see Lev. xiv. 8 and Num. viii. 7), reception into the fellowship of the covenant nation. This is perfectly obvious in her laying aside her prisoner s clothes. After putting off the signs of captivity, she was to sit (dwell) in the house, and bewail her father and mother for a month, i.e. console herself for her separation from her parents, whom she had lost, that she might be able to forget her people and her father's house (Ps. xlv. 11), and give herself up henceforth in love to her husband with an undivided heart. The intention of these laws was not to protect the woman against any outbreak of rude passion on the part of the man, but rather to give her time and leisure to loosen herself inwardly from the natural fellowship of her nation and kindred, and to acquire affection towards the fellowship of the people of God, into which she had entered against her will, that her heart might cherish love to the God of Israel, who had given her favour in the eyes of her master, and had taken from her the misery and reproach of slavery. By her master becoming her husband, she entered into the rights of a daughter of Israel, who had been sold by her father to a man to be his wife (Ex. xxi. 7 sqq.). If after this her husband should find no pleasure in her, he was to let her go J^f S.^^, i.e. at her free will, and not sell her for money (cf. Ex. xxi. 8). " Thou 'shall not put constraint upon her, because thou hast humbled her.'' "i^y^n, which only occurs again in chap. xxiv. 7, probably signifies to throw oneself upon a person, to practise violence towards him (cf. Ges. thes. p. 1046).
Vers. 15-17. The Right of the First-born. — Whilst the |)roviou8 hnv was intendoil to protect tlie slave taken in war against the caprice of her Israelitlsh master, the hiw wlilcli follows is directed against the abuse of paternal authority in favour of a favourite wife. If a man had two wives, of whom one was beloved and the other hated, — as was the case, for example, with Jacob, — and had sons by both his wives, but the first-born by the wife he hated, lie was not, when dividing his property as their inheritance, to make the son of the wife he loved the first-born, i.e. was not to give him the inheritance of the first-born, but was to treat the son of the hated wife, who was really the first-born son, as such, and to give him a double share of all his possession. "i33, to make or institute as first-born. '1^1 |3 ''.^2"?^, over (by) the face of, i.e. opposite to the first-born son of the hated, when he was present; in other words, "during his lifetime" (cf. Gen. xi. 28). ">^3^, to regard as that which he is, the rightful first-))orn. The inheritance of the first-born consisted in "a mouth of two'' {i.e. a mouthful, portion, share of two) of all that was by him, all that he possessed. Consequently the first-born inherited twice as much as any of the other sons. '^ Beginning of his strength " (as in Gen. xlix. 3). This right of primogeniture did not originate with Moses, but was simply secured by him against arbitrary invasion. It was founded, no doubt, upon hereditary tradition; just as we find in many other nations, that certain privileges are secured to the first-born sons above those born afterwards.
Vers. 18-21. Punishment of a refractory Son. — The laws upon this point aim not only at the defence, but also at the limitation, of parental authority. If any one's son was unmanageable and refractory, not hearkening to the voice of his parents, even when they chastised him, his father and mother were to take him and lead him out to the elders of the town into the gate of the place. The elders are not regarded here as judges in the strict sense of the word, but as magistrates, who had to uphold the parental authority, and administer the local police. The gate of the town was the forum, w^here the public affairs of the place were discussed (cf. chap. xxii. 15, XXV. 7); as it is in the present day in Syria (Seetzen, R. ii. p. 88), and among the Moors (Host, Nachrichten v. Marokkos, p. 239). — Yer. 20. Here they were to accuse the son as being unmanageable, refractory, disobedient, as " a glutton and a drunkard." These last accusations show the reason for the unmanageableness and refractoriness.— Ver. 21. In consequence of this accusation, all the men of the town were to stone him, so that he died. By this the right was taken away from the parents of putting an incorrigible son to death (cf. Prov. xix. 18), whilst at the same time the parental authority was fully preserved. Nothing is said about any evidence of the charge brought by the parents, or about any judicial inquiry generally. " In such a case the charge was a proof in itself. For if the heart of a father and mother could be brought to such a point as to give up their child to the judge before the community of the nation, everything would have been done that a judge would need to know " (^Scknell, d, isr, Becht, p. 11). — On ver. 216, cf. chap. xiii. 6 and 12.
Vers. 22 and 23. Burial of those who had been hanged. — If there was a sin upon a man, n"ip tOQ^b, Ut, a right of death, i,e. a capital crime (cf. chap, xix. 6 and xxii. 26), and he was put to death, and they hanged him upon a tree (wood), his body was not to remain upon the wood over night, but they were to bury him on the same day upon which he was hanged; ''for the hanged man is a curse of God,^^ and they were not to defile the land which Jehovah gave for an inheritance. The hanging, not of criminals who were to. be put to death, but of those who had been executed with the sword, was an intensification of the punishment of death (see at Num. xxv. 4), inasmuch as the body was thereby exposed to peculiar kinds of abominations. Moses commanded the burial of those who had been hanged upon the day of their execution, — that is to say, as we may see from the application of this law in Josh. viii. 29, X. 26, 27, before sunset, — because the hanged man, being a curse of God, defiled the land. The land was defiled not only by vices and crimes (cf. Lev. xviii. 24, 28; Num. xxxv. 34), but also by the exposure to view of criminals who had been punished with death, and thus had been smitten by the curse of God, inasmuch as their shameful deeds were thereby publicly exposed to view. We are not to think of any bodily defilement of the land through the decomposition consequent upon death, as J. D. Mich, and Sommer suppose; so that there is no ground for speaking of any discrepancy between this and the old law. — (On the application of this law to Christ, see Gal. iii» 13.) — This regulation is appended very loosely to what precedes. The link of connection is contained in the thought, that with the punishment of the wicked the recollection of their crimes was also to be removed.
The Duty to love ones Neighbour; and Warning against a Violation of the Natural Order of Things, Instructions to sanctify the Marriage State, — Chap. xxii.
Going deeper and deeper into the manifold relations of the national life, Moses first of all explains in vers. 1-12 the attitude of an Israelite, on the one hand, towards a neighbour; and, on the other hand, towards the natural classification and arrangement of things, and shows how love should rule in the midst of all these relations. The different relations brought under consideration are selected rather by way of examples, and therefore follow one another without any link of connection, for the purpose of exhibiting the truth in certain concrete cases, and showing how the covenant people were to hold all the arrangements of God sacred, whether in nature or in social life.
Yers. 1-12. In vers. 1-4 Moses shows, by a still further expansion of Ex. xxiii. 4, 5, how the property of a neighbour was to be regarded and preserved. If any man saw an ox or a sheep of his brother's (fellow-countryman) going astray, he w^as not to draw back from it, but to bring it back to his brother; and if the owner lived at a distance, or was unknown, he was to take it into his own house or farm, till he came to seek it. He was also to do the same with an ass or any other property that another had lost. — Ver. 4. A fallen animal belonging to another he was also to help up (as in Ex. xxiii. 5: except that in this case, instead of a brother generally, an enemy or hater is mentioned). — Yer. 5. As the property of a neighbour was to be sacred in the estimation of an Israelite, so also the divine distinction of the sexes, which was kept sacred in civil life by the clothing peculiar to each sex, was to be not less but even more sacredly observed. " There shall not he maris things upon a woman, and a man shall not put on a woman s clothes^ y^ does not signify clothing merely, nor arms only, but includes every kind of domestic and other utensils (as in Ex. xxii. 6; Lev. xi. 32, xiii. 49). The immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness, or to oppose idolatrous practices (the proofs which Spencer has adduced of the existence of such usages among heathen nations are very far-fetched); but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman, and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction — such even, for example, as the emancipation of a woman — was unnatural, and therefore an abomination in the sight of God. — Vers. 6, 7. The affectionate relation of parents to their young, which God had estabhshed even in the animal world, was also to be kept just as sacred. If any one found a bird's nest by the road upon a tree, or upon the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting upon them, he was not to take the mother with the young ones, but to let the mother fly, and only take the young. 5<T^ for nnp^^ as in Ex. v. 3. The command is related to the one in Lev. xxii. 28 and Ex. xxiii. 19, and is placed upon a par with the commandment relating to parents, by the fact that obedience is urged upon the people by the same promise in both instances {vid. chap. v. 16; Ex. xx. 12). — Yer. 8. Still less were they to expose human life to danger through carelessness. " If thou build a new house, make a rim (maakeli) — i.e. a balustrade— to thy roof, that thou bring not blood-guiltiness upon thy house, if any one fall from it^ The roofs of the Israelitish houses were flat, as they mostly are in the East, so that the inhabitants often lived upon them (Josh. ii. 6; 2 Sam. xi. 2; Matt. x. 27). — In vers. 9—11, there follow several prohibitions against mixing together the things which are separated in God's creation, consisting partly of a verbal repetition of Lev. xix. 19 (see the explanation of this passage).— To this there is appended in ver. 12 the law concerning the tassels upon the hem of the upper garment (Num. xv. 37 sqq.), which were to remind the Israelites of their calling, to walk before the Lord in faithful fulfilment of the commandments of God (see the commentary upon this passage).
Vers. 13-29. Laws of Chastity and Marriage. — Higher and still holier than the order of nature stands the moral order of marriage, upon which the well-being not only of domestic life, but also of the civil commonwealth of nations, depends. Marriage must be founded upon fidelity and chastity on the part of those who are married. To foster this, and secure it against outbreaks of malice and evil lust, was the design and object of the laws which follow. The first (vers. 13-21) relates to the chastity of a woman on entering into* the married state, which might be called in question by her husband, either from malice or with justice. The former case is that which Moses treats of first of all. If a man took a wife, and came to her, and hated her, i.e. turned against her after gratifying his carnal desires (like Amnon, for example, 2 Sam. xiii. 15), and in order to get rid of her again, attributed " deeds or things of words " to her, i.e. things which give occasion for words or talk, and
SO brought an evil name upon her, saying, that on coming to her he did not find virginity in her. D^^DIij virginity, here the signs of it, viz., according to ver. 17, the marks of a first intercourse upon the bed-clothes or dress. — Vers. 15 sqq. In such a case the parents of the young woman ("iVsn for H'jyan^ as in Gen. xxiv. 14, 28, according to the earliest usage of the books of Moses, a virgin, then also a young woman, e.g. Ruth ii. 6, iv. 12) were to bring the matter before the elders of the town into the gate (the judicial forum; see chap. xxi. 19), and establish the chastity and innocence of their daughter by spreading the bed-clothes before them. It was not necessary to this end that the parents should have taken possession of the spotted bed-clothes directly after the marriage night, as is customarily done by the Bedouins and the lower classes of the Moslem in Egypt and Syria (cf. Niehuhr^ Beschr, v. Arab. pp. 35 sqq.; ArvieuXy merhw. Nachr, iii. p. 258; Burckhardt, Beduinen, p. 214, etc.). It was sufficient that the cloth should be kept, in case such a proof might be required. — Vers. 18 sqq. The elders, as the magistrates of the place, were then to send for the man who had so calumniated his young wife, and to chastise him pE^, as in chap, xxi. 18, used to denote bodily chastisement, though the limitation of the number of strokes to forty save one, may have been a later institution of the schools); and in addition to this they were to impose a fine upon him of 100 shekels of silver, which he was to pay to the father of the young wife for his malicious calumniation of an Israelitish maiden, — twice as much as the seducer of a virgin was to pay to her father for the reproach brought upon him by the humiliation of his daughter (ver. 29); and lastly, they were to deprive the man of the right of divorce from his wife. — Vers. 20, 21. In the other case, however, if the man's words were true, and the girl had not been found to be a virgin, the elders were to bring her out before the door of her father's house, and the men of the town were to stone her to death, because she had committed a folly in Israel (cf. Gen. xxxiv. 7), to commit fornication in her father's house. The punishment of death was to be inflicted upon her, not so much because she had committed fornication, as because notwithstanding this she had allowed a man to marry her as a spotless virgin, and possibly even after her betrothal had gone with another man (cf. vers. 23, 24). There is no ground for thinking of unnatural wantonness, as Knohel does. — Ver. 22. If any one lay with a married woman, they were both of them to be put to death as adulterers (cf. Lev. XX. 10).
Vers. 23-29. In connection with the seduction of a virgin ("lyj, puella, a marriageable girl; I^^nilj virgo immaculataj a virgin), two, or really three, cases are distinguished; viz. (1) whether she was betrothed (vers. 23-27), or not betrothed (vers. 28, 29); (2) if she were betrothed, whether it was (a) in the town (vers. 23, 24) or (b) in the open field (vers. 25—27) that she had been violated by a man. — Yers. 23, 24. If a betrothed virgin had allowed a man to have intercourse with her (i.e. one who was not her bridegroom), they were both of them, the man and the girl, to be led out to the gate of the town, and stoned that they might die: the girl, because she had not cried in the city, i.e. had not called for help, and consequently was to be regarded as consenting to the deed; the man, because he had humbled his neighbour's wife. The betrothed woman was placed in this respect upon a par with a married woman, and in fact is expressly called a wife in ver. 24. Betrothal was the first step towards marriage, even if it was not a solemn act attested by witnesses. Written agreements of marriage were not introduced till a later period (Tobit vii. 14; Tr. Ketuboth i. 2). — Vers. 25-27. If, on the other hand, a man met a betrothed girl in the field, and laid hold of her and lay with her, the man alone was to die, and nothing was to be done to the girl. " There is in the damsel no death-sin (i.e. no sin to be punished with death); but as when a man riseth against his neighbour and slayeth him, even so is this matter.^'' In the open field the girl had called for help, but no one had helped her. It was therefore a forcible rape. — Yers. 28, 29. The last case: if a virgin was not betrothed, and a man seized her and lay with her, and they were found, i.e. discovered or convicted of their deed, the man was to pay the father of the girl fifty shekels of silver, for the reproach brought upon him and his house, and to marry the girl whom he had humbled, without ever being able to divorce her. This case is similar to the one mentioned in Ex. xxii. 15, 16. The omission to mention the possibility of the father refusing to give him his daughter for a wife, makes no essential difference. It is assumed as self-evident here, that such a right was possessed by the father.
Yer. 30 (or chap, xxiii. 1). This verse, in which the prohibition of incest is renewed by a repetition of the first provision in the earlier law (Lev. xviii. 7, 8), is no doubt much better adapted to form the close of the laws of chastity and marriage, than the introduction to the laws which follow concerning the right of citizenship in the congregation of the Lord.
Regulations as to the Right of Citizenship in the Congregation of the
From the sanctification of the house and the domestic relation, to which the laws of marriage and chastity in the previous chapter pointed, Moses proceeds to instructions concerning the sanctification of their union as a congregation: he gives directions as to the exclusion of certain persons from the congregation of the Lord, and the reception of others into it (vers. 1-8); as to the preservation of the purity of the camp in time of w^ar (vers. 9-14); as to the reception of foreign slaves into the land, and the removal of licentious persons out of it (vers. 15-18); and lastly, as to certain duties of citizenship (19-25).
Vers. 1-8. The Right of Citizenship in the Congregation OF the Lord. — Yer. 1. Into the con^rrefration of the Lord there was not to come, i.e. not to be received, any person who w^as mutilated in his sexual member. nii'n-inVBj literally wounded by crushing, i.e. mutilated in this way; Vulg. eunuchus attritis vel amputatis testiculis. Not only animals (see at Lev. xxii. 24), but men also, were castrated in this way.. *^^^^ ^^ii^ was one whose sexual member was cut off; Vulg. abscisso veretro. According to Mishnah Jebam. vi. 2, " contusus n2'n est omnis, cujus testiculi vulnerati sunt, vel certe unus eorum; exsectus (rili3), cujus memhrum virile prcecisum est.", In the modern East, emasculation is generally performed in this way (see Tournefort, Reise. ii. p. 259, and Burckhardt, Nubien, pp. 450, 451). The reason for the exclusion of emasculated persons from the congregation of Jehovah, i.e. not merely from office (^officio et publico magistratUj Luth.) and from marriage with an Israelitish woman (Fag., C. a Lap., and others), but from admission into the covenant fellowship of Israel with the Lord, is to be found in the mutilation of the nature of man as created by God, which w^as irreconcilable with the character of the people of God. Nature is not destroyed by grace, but sanctified and transformed. This law, however, was one of the ordinances intended for the period of infancy, and has lost its significance with the spread of the kingdom of God over all the nations of the earth (Isa. Ivi. 4). — Ver. 2. So also with the 7!P^j i-^' riot persons begotten out of wedlock, illegitimate children generally (LXX., Vulg.), but, according to the Talmud and the Rabbins, those who were begotten in incest or adultery (cf. Ges. thes. p. 781). The etymology of the word is obscure. The only other place in which it occurs is Zech. ix. 6; and it is neither contracted from D^D and "^T (according to the Talmud^ and Hitzig on Zech. ix. 6), nor from ^\ W^ (Geiger Urschr, p. 52), but in all probability is to be derived from a root "^TD, synonymous with the Arabic word " to be corrupt, or foul." The additional clause, " not even in the tenth generations^ precludes all possibility of their ever being received. Ten is the number of complete exclusion. In ver. 3, therefore, "/or ever^^ is added. The reason is the same as in the case of mutilated persons, namely, their springing from a connection opposed to the divine order of the creation.— Vers. 3—6. Also no Ammonite or Moabite was to be received, not even in the tenth generation; not, however, because their forefathers were begotten in incest (Gen. xix. 30 sqq.), as Knohel supposes, but on account of the hostility they had manifested to the establishment of the kingdom of God. Not only had they failed to give Israel a hospitable reception on its journey (see at chap. ii. 29), but they (viz. the king of the Moabites) had even hired Balaam to curse Israel. In this way they had brought upon themselves the curse which falls upon all those who curse Israel, according to the infallible word of God (Gen. xii. 3), the truth of which even Balaam was obliged to attest in the presence of Balak (Num. xxiv. 9); although out of love to Israel the Lord turned the curse of Balaam into a blessing (of. Num. xxii.-xxiv.). For this reason Israel was never to seek their w^elfare and prosperity, i.e. to make this an object of its care (" to seek," as in Jer. xxix. 7); not indeed from personal hatred, for the purpose of repaying evil with evil, since this neither induced Moses to publish the prohibition, nor instigated Ezra when he put the law in force, by compelling the separation of all Ammonitish, Moabitish, and Canaanitish wives from the newly established congregation in Jerusalem (Ezra ix. 12). How far Moses was from being influenced by such motives of personal or national revenge is evident, apart from the prohibition in chap, ii. 9 and 19 against making war upon the Moabites and Ammonites, from the command which follows in vers. 8 and 9 with reference to the Edomites and Egyptians. These nations had also manifested hostility to the Israelites. Edom had come against them when they desired to march peaceably through his land (Num. xx. 18 sqq.), and the Pharaohs of Egypt had heavily oppressed them. Nevertheless, Israel was to keep the bond of kindred sacred (" he is thy brother"), and not to forget in the case of the Egyptians the benefits derived from their sojourn in their land. Their children might come into the congregation of the Lord in the third generation, i.e. the great-grandchildren of Edomites or Egyptians, who had lived as strangers in Israel (see at Ex. xx. 5). Such persons might be incorporated into the covenant nation by circumcision.
Vers. 9-14. Preservation of the Purity of the Camp in Time of War. — The bodily appearance of the people was also to correspond to the sacredness of Israel as the congregation of the Lord, especially when they gathered in hosts around their God. '• When thou marchest out as a camp against thine enemies^ beware of every evil thing. ^^ What is meant by an " evil thing " is stated in vers. 10-13, viz. uncleanness, and uncleanliness of the body. — Vers. 10, 11. The person who had become unclean through a nightly occurrence, was to go out of the camp and remain there till he had cleansed himself in the evening. On the journey through the desert, none but those who were affected with uncleanness of a longer duration were to be removed from the camp (Num. v. 2); but ^vhen they were encamped, this law was to apply to even lighter difilements. — Vers. 12, 13. The camp of war was also not to be defiled with the dirt of excrements. Outside the camp there was to be a space or place ('^J, as in Num. ii. 17) for the necessities of nature, and among their implements they were to have a spade, with which they were to dig when they sate down, and then cover it up again. *Tnjj generally a plug, here a tool for sticking in, i.e. for digging into the ground. — Yer. 14. For the camp was to be (to be kept) holy, because Jehovah walked in the midst of it, in order that He might not see " nakedness of a thing" i.e. anything to be ashamed of (see at chap. xxiv. 1) in the people, " and turn away from thee^ There was nothing shameful in the excrement itself; but the want of reverence, which the people would display through not removing it, would offend the Lord and drive Him out of the camp of Israel.
Vers. 15-18. Toleration and Non-toleration in the Congregation of the Lord. — Vers. 15, 16. A slave who had escaped from his master to Israel was not to be given up, but to be allowed to dwell in the land, wherever he might choose, and not to be oppressed. Tho reference is to a slave who had fled to them from a foreign country, on account of the harsh treatment which he had received from his heathen master. The plural D''^"^^< denotes the rule. — Vers. 17, 18. On the other hand, male and female prostitutes of Israelitish descent were not to be tolerated; i.e. it was not to be allowed, that either a male or female among the Israelites should give himself up to prostitution as an act of religious worship. The exclusion of foreign prostitutes was involved in the command to root out the Canaanites. tTiij and "^^i? were persons who prostituted themselves in the worship of the Canaanitish Astarte (see at Gen. xxxviii. 21). — " The wages of a prostitute and the money of dogs shall not come into the house of the Lord on account of (7, for the more remote cause, Ewald, § 217) any vow; for even both these (viz. even the prostitute and dog, not merely their dishonourable gains) are abomination unto the Lord thy God^ " The hire of a whore" is what the kedeshah was paid for giving herself up. "The price of a dog " is not the price paid for the sale of a dog {Bochart, Spencer^ Iken, Baumgarten, etc.), but is a figurative expression used to denote the gains of the kadesh, who was called Kivatho^ by the Greeks, and received his name from the dog-like manner in which the male kadesh debased himself (see Rev. xxii. 15, where the unc ean are distinctly called "dogs").
Vers. 19-25. Different Theocratic Eights of Citizenship.— Yers. 19, 20. Of his brother (i.e, his countryman), the Israelite was not to take interest for money, food, or anything else that he lent to him; but only of strangers (non-Israelites: cf. Ex. xxii. 24 and Lev. xxv. 36, 37). — Yers. 21-23. Yows vowed to the Lord were to be fulfilled without delay; but omitting to vow was not a sin. (On vows themselves, see at Lev. xxvii. and Num. xxx. 2 sqq.) nnn^ is an accusative defining the meaning more fully: in free will, spontaneously. — Yers. 24, 25. In the vineyard and cornfield of a neighbour they might eat at pleasure to still their hunger, but they were not to put anything into a vessel, or swing a sickle upon another's corn, that is to say, carry away any store of grapes or ears of corn. ^^?^3, according to thy desire, or appetite (cf. chap. xiv. 26). '^ Pluck the ears:^^ cf. Matt. xii. 1; Luke vi. 1. — The right of hungry persons, when passing through a field, to pluck ears of corn, and rub out the graihs and eat, is still recognised among the Arabs (yid, Rob. Pal. ii. 192).
On Divorce. Warnings against want of Affection or Injustice.-^
Yers. 1-5 contain two laws concerning the relation of a man to his wife. The first (vers. 1-4) has reference to divorce. In these verses, however, divorce is not established as a right ] all that is done is, that in case of a divorce a reunion with the divorced wife is forbidden, if in the meantime she had married another man, even though the second husband had also put her away, or had died. The four verses form a period, in which vers. 1-3 are the clauses of the protasis, which describe the n\atter treated about; and ver. 4 contains the apodosis, with the law concerning the point in question. If a man married a wife, and he put her away with a letter of divorce, because she did not please him any longer, and the divorced woman married another man, and he either put her away in the same manner or died, the first husband could not take her as his wife again. The putting away (divorce) of a wife with a letter of divorce, which the husband gave to the wife whom he put away, is assumed as a custom founded upon tradition. This tradition left the question of divorce entirely at the will of the husband: " if the wife does not find favour in his eyes {i.e. does not please him), because he has found in her something shamefuV^ (chap, xxiii. 15). nj")3;j nakedness, shame, disgrace (Isa. xx. 4; 1 Sam. XX. 30); in connection with "15"^, the shame of a thing, i.e. a shameful thing (LXX. d(T')(ri{xov irpa^fia; Vulg. aliquam fostiditatem). The meaning of this expression as a ground of divorce was disputed even among the Rabbins. HilleVs school interpret it in the widest and most lax manner possible, according to the explanation of the Pharisees in Matt. xix. 3, "for every cause." They no doubt followed the rendering of OnJcelos, DjriQ ^T-^V.y the transgression of a thing; but this is contrary to the use of the word nny^ to which the interpretation given by Shammai adhered more strictly. His explanation of "ij'n niiy is ^^rem impudicam, lihidinem^ lasciviam, impudicitiam." Adultery, to which some of the Rabbins would restrict the expression, is certainly not to be thought of, because this was to be punished with death.^ ^^""l? "'r??, jSt/BXiov airoaTaalov, sl letter of divorce; riri''13y hewing off, cutting off, sc. from the man, with whom the wife was to be one flesh (Gen. ii. 24). The custom of giving letters of divorce was probably adopted by the Israelites in Egypt, where the practice of writing had already found its way into all the relations of life.^ The law that the first husband could not take his divorced wife back again, if she had
2 The rabbinical rules on the grounds of divorce and the letter of divorce, according to MaimonideSy have been collected by Surenhusius, ad Mislin. tr.
married another husband in the meantime, even supposing that the second husband was dead, would necessarily put a check upon frivolous divorces. Moses could not entirely abolish the traditional custom, if only " because of the hardness of the people's hearts "' (Matt. xix. 8). The thought, therefore, of the impossibility of reunion with the first husband, after the wife had contracted a second marriage, would put some restraint upon a frivolous rupture of the marriage tie: it would have this effect, that whilst, on the one hand, the man would reflect when inducements to divorce his wife presented themselves, and would recall a rash act if it had been performed, before the wife he had put away had married another husband; on the other hand, the wife would yield more readily to the will of her husband, and seek to avoid furnishing him with an inducement for divorce. But this effect would be still more readily produced by the reason assigned by Moses, namely, that the divorced woman was defiled (nj^DtpHj Hothpael, as in Num. i. 47) by her marriage with a second, husband. The second marriage of a woman who had been divorced is designated by Moses a defilement of the woman, primarily no doubt with reference to the fact that the emissio seminis in sexual intercourse rendered unclean, though not merely in the sense of such a defilement as was removed in the evening by simple washing, but as a moral defilement, i.e. blemishing, desecration of the sexual communion which was sanctified by marriage, in the same sense in which adultery is called a defilement in Lev. xviii. 20 and Num. V. 13, 14. Thus the second marriage of a divorced woman was placed implicite upon a par with adultery, and some approach made towards the teaching of Christ concerning marriage: " Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery" (Matt. v. 32). — But if the second marriage of a divorced woman was a moral defilement, of course the wife could not marry the first again even after the death of her second husband, not only because such a reunion would lower the dignity of the woman, and the woman would appear too much like property, which could be disposed of at one time and reclaimed at another (Schultz), but because the defilement of the wife would be thereby repeated, and even increased, as the moral defilement which the divorced wife acquired through the second marriage was not removed by a divorce from the second husband, nor yet by his death. Such defilement was
Gittin, c. 1 (T. iii. pp. 322 sq. of the Mishnah of Sur.), where different specimens of letters of divorce are given; the latter also in Light/oot^ I.e.
an abomination before Jehovah, by which they would cause the land to sin, Le, stain it with sin, as much as by the sins of incest and unnatural licentiousness (Lev. xviii. 25).
Attached to this law, which is intended to prevent a frivolous severance of the marriage tie, there is another in ver. 5, which was of a more positive character, and adapted to fortify the marriage bond. The newly married man was not required to perform military service for a whole year; " and there shall not come (anything) upon him with regard to any -matter^ The meaning of this last clause is to be found in what follows: ^^ Free shall he he for his house for a year" i.e, they shall put no public burdens upon him, that he may devote himself entirely to his newly established domestic relations, and be able to gladden his wife (compare chap. XX. 7).
Vers. 6-9. Various Prohibitions. — Ver. 6. " A^o man shall take in pledge the handmill arid millstone, for he (who does this) is pawning life" ^]U^., the handmill; 33"!^ Ut, the runner, i.e. the upper millstone. Neither the whole mill nor the upper millstone was to be asked for as a pledge, by which the mill would be rendered useless, since the handmill was indispensable for preparing the daily food for the house; so that whoever took them away injured life itself, by withdrawing what was indispensable to the preservation of life. The mill is mentioned as one specimen of articles of this kind, like the clothing in Ex. xxii. 25, 26, which served the poor man as bed-clothes also. Breaches of this commandment are reproved in Amos ii. 8; Job xxii. 6; Prov. xx. 16, xxii. 27, xxvii. 13. — Ver. 7. Repetition of the law against manstealing (Ex. xxi. 16). — Vers. 8, 9. The command, " Take heed by the plague of leprosy to observe diligently and to do according to all that the priests teach thee" etc., does not mean, that when they saw signs of leprosy they were to be upon their guard, to observe everything that the priests directed them, as Knobel and many others suppose. For, in the first place, the reference to the punishment of Miriam with leprosy is by no means appropriate to such a thought as this, since Miriam did not act in opposition to the priests after she had been smitten with leprosy, but brought leprosy upon herself as a punishment, by her rebellion against Moses (Num. xii. 10 sqq.). And in the second place, this view cannot be reconciled with V^}^ "'??^'?> since "^^^'? with ^, either to be upon one's guard against (before) anything (2 Sam. xx. 10), or when taken in connection with fi^S33, to beware by the soul, i.e. for the sake of the worth of the soul (Jer. xvii. 21). The thought here, therefore, is, " Be on thy guard because of the plague of leprosy," i.e, that thou dost not get it, have to bear it, as the reward for thy rebellion against what the priests teach according to the commandment of the Lord. " Watch diligently, that thou do not incur the plague of leprosy" (Vulgate); or, " that thou do not sin, so as to be punished with leprosy" (J, H, Michaelis),
Vers. 10-15. Warning against oppressing the Poor. — Vers. 10, 11. If a loan of ^ny kind was lent to a neighbour, the lender was not to go into his house to pledge (take) a pledge, but was to let the borrower bring the pledge out. The meaning is, that they were to leave it to the borrower to give a pledge, and not compel him to give up something as a pledge that might be indispensable to him. — Vers. 12, 13. And if the man was in distress (^^y), the lender was not to lie (sleep) upon his pledge, since the poor man had very often nothin^g but his upper garment, in which he slept, to give as a pledge. This was to be returned to him in the evening. (A repetition of Ex. xxii; 25, 26.) On the expression, " it shall be righteousness unto thee," see chap. vi. 25. — Vers. 14, 15. They were not to oppress a poor and distressed labourer, by withholding his wages. This command is repeaited here from Lev. xix. 13, with special reference to the distress of the poor man. '' And to it (his wages) he lifts up his soul:'' i.e. he feels a longing for it. " Lifts up his soul:" as in Ps. xxiv. 4; Hos. iv. 8; Jer. xxii. 27. On ver. 15^, see chap. xv. 9 and Jas. v. 4.
Vers. 16-18. Warning against Injustice. — Ver. 16. Fathers were not to be put to death upon (along with) their sons, nor sons upon (along with) their fathers, i.e. they were not to suffer the punishment of death with them for crimes in which they had no share; but every one was to be punished simply for his own sin. This command was important, to prevent an unwarrantable and abusive application of the law which is manifest in the movements of divine justice to the criminal jurisprudence of the land (Ex. xx. 5), since it was a common thing among heathen nations — e.g. the Persians, Macedonians, and others — for the children and families of criminals to be also put to death (cf. Esther ix. 13, 14; Herod, iii. 19; Ammian Marcell. xxiii. 6; Curtius, vi. 11, 20, etc.). An example of the carrying out of this law is to be found in 2 Kings xiv. 6, 2 Chron. xxv. 4. In vers. 17, 18, the law against perverting the right of strangers, orphans, and widows, is repeated from Ex. xxii. 20, 21, and xxiii. 9; and an addition is made, namely, that they were not to take a widow's raiment in pledge (cf. Lev. xix. 33, 34). — Vers. 19-22. Directions to allow strangers, widows, and orphans to glean in time of harvest (as in Lev. xix. 9, 10, andxxiii. 22). The reason is given in ver. 22, viz. the same as in ver. 18 and chap. xv. 15.
Laws relating to Corporal Punishment; Levirate Marriages; and Just Weights and Measures. — Chap. xx^'.
Vers. 1-3. Corporal Punishment. — The rule respecting the corporal punishment to be inflicted upon a guilty man is introduced in ver. 1 with the general law, that in a dispute between two men the court was to give right to the man who was right, and to pronounce the guilty man guilty (cf. Ex. xxii. 8 and xxiii. 7). — Ver. 2. If the guilty man was sentenced to stripes, he was to receive his punishment in the presence of the judge, and not more than forty stripes, that he might not become contemptible in the eyes of the people. nisn |3j son of stripes, i.e, a man liable to stripes, like son (child) of death, in 1 Sam. xx. 31. " According to the need of his crime in number^'' i.e. as many stripes as his crime deserved. — Yer. 3. " Forty shall ye heat him, and not add" i.e. at most forty stripes, and not more. The strokes were administered with a stick upon the back (Prov. X. 13, xix. 29, xxvi. 3, etc.). This was the Egyptian mode of whipping, as we may see depicted upon the monuments, when the culprits lie flat upon the ground, and being held fast by the hands and feet, receive their strokes in the presence of the judge (vid. Wilkinson, ii. p. 11, and Eosellini, ii. 3, p. 274, 78). The number forty was not to be exceeded, because a larger number of strokes with a stick would not only endanger health and life, but disgrace the man: " that thy brother do not become contemptible in thine eyes." If he had deserved a severer punishment, he was to be executed. In Turkey the punishments inflicted are much more severe, viz. from fifty to a hundred lashes with a whip; and they are at the same time inhuman (see v. Tornauw, Moslem. jRecht, p. 234). The number, forty, was probably chosen with reference to its symbolical significance, which it had derived from Gen. vii. 12 onwards, as the full measure of judgment. The Rabbins fixed the number at forty save one (vid. 2 Cor. xi. 24), from a scrupulous fear of transgressing the letter of the law, in case a mistake should be made in the counting; yet they felt no conscientious scruples about using a whip of twisted thongs instead of a stick (vid. tract. Mace. iii. 12; Buoctorf, Synag. Jud. pp. 522-3; and Lundius,Jud. Ileiligth. p. 472). — Ver. 4. The command not to put a muzzle upon the ox when threshing, is no doubt proverbial in its nature, and even in the context before us is not intended to apply merely literally to an ox employed in threshing, but to be understood in the general sense in which the Apostle Paul uses it in 1 Cor. ix. 9 and 1 Tim. v. 18, viz. that a labourer was not to be deprived of his wages. As the mode of threshing presupposed here — namely, with oxen yoked together, and driven to and fro over the corn that had been strewn upon the floor, that they might kick out the grains with their hoofs — has been retained to the present day in the East, so has also the custom of leaving the animals employed in threshing without a muzzle (yid, Hoest, Marokos, p. 129; Wellst, Arahien, i. p. 194; Robinson^ Pal. ii. pp. 206-7, iii. p. 6), although the Mosaic injunctions are not so strictly observed by the Christians as by the Mohammedans (Robinson, ii. p. 207).
Yers. 5-10. On Levirate Marriages. — Vers. 5, 6. If brothers lived together, and one of them died childless, the wife of the deceased was not to be married outside (Le. away from the family) to a strange man (one not belonging to her kindred); her brother-in-law was to come to her and take her for his wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her. ^3^, denom. from DIJ, a brother-in-law, husband's brother, lit, to act the brother-inlaw, i.e. perform the duty of a brother-in-law, which consisted in his marrying his deceased brother's widow, and begetting a son or children with her, the first-born of whom was " to stand upon the name of his deceased brother," i.e. be placed in the family of the deceased, and be recognised as the heir of his property, that his name (the name of the man who had died childless) might not be wiped out or vanish out of Israel. The provision, "without having a son" (ben), has been correctly interpreted by the LXX., Vulg., Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 23), and the Rabbins^ as signifying childless (having no seed. Matt. xxii. 25); for if the deceased had simply a daughter, according to Num. xxvii. 4 sqq., the perpetuation of his house and name was to be ensured through her. The obligation of a brother-in-law's marriage only existed in cases where the brothers had lived together, i.e, in one and the same place, not necessarily in one house or with a common domestic establishment and home {yid. Gen. xiii. 6, xxxvi. 7). — This custom of a brotherin-law's (Levirate) marriage, which is met with in different nations, and was an old traditional custom among the Israelites (see at Gen. xxxviii. 8 sqq.), had its natural roots in the desire inherent in man, who Is formed for immortality, and connected with the hitherto undeveloped belief in an eternal life, to secure a continued personal existence for himself and immortality for his name, through the perpetuation of his family and in the life of the son who took his place. This desire was not suppressed in Israel by divine revelation, but rather increased, inasmuch as the promises given to the patriarchs were bound up with the preservation and propagation of their seed and name. The promise given to Abraham for his seed would of necessity not only raise the begetting of children in the religious views of the Israelites Into a work desired by God and well-pleasing to Him, but would also give this significance to the traditional custom of preserving the name and family by the substitution of a marriage of duty, that they would thereby secure to themselves and their family a share in the blessing of promise. Moses therefore recognised this custom as perfectly justifiable; but he sought to restrain it within such limits, that it should not present any impediment to the sanctification of marriage aimed at by the law. He took away the compulsory character, which it hitherto possessed, by prescribing in vers. 7 sqq., that if the surviving brother refused to marry his widowed sister-in-law, she was to bring the matter into the gate before the elders of the town (yid. chap. xxi. 19), i.e. before the magistrates; and if the brother-in-law still persisted in his refusal, she was to take his shoe from off his foot and spit in his face, with these words: " So let it he done to the man who does not build up his brothers housed The taking off of the shoe was an ancient custom in Israel, adopted, according to Ruth iv. 7, in cases of redemption and exchange, for the purpose of confirming commercial transactions. The usage arose from the fact, that when any one took possession of landed property he did so by treading upon the soil, and asserting his right of possession by standing upon it in his shoes. In this way the taking off of the shoe and handing it to another became a symbol of the renunciation of a man's position and property, — a symbol which was also common among the Indians and the ancient Germans (see my Archdologie, ii. p. QQ). But the custom was an ignominious one in such a case as this, w^hen the shoe was publicly taken off the foot of the brother-in-law by the widow whom he refused to marry. He was thus deprived of the position which he ought to have occupied in relation to her and to his deceased brother, or to his paternal house; and the disgrace involved in this was still further heightened by the fact that his sister-in-law spat in his face. This is the meaning of the words (cf. Num. xii. 14), and not merely spit on the ground before his eyes, as Saalschatz and others as well as the Talmudists {tr, Jeham, xii. 6) render it, for the purpose of diminishing the disgrace. " Build up Ms brother s liouse^^ i.e. lay the foundation of a family or posterity for him (cf. Gen. xvi. 2). — In addition to this, the unwilling brother-in-law was to receive a name of ridicule in Israel: '^ House of the shoe taken off^^ (''Vsn ybv}^ taken off as to his shoe; cf. Ewald, § 288, 5.), i.e. of the barefooted man, equivalent to "the miserable fellow;" for it was only in miserable circumstances that the Hebrews went barefoot (yid. Isa. xx. 2, 3; Micah i. 8; 2 Sam. XV. 30). If the brother-in-law bore this reproach upon himself and his house, he was released from his duty as a brother-in-law. By these regulations the brother-in-law's marriage was no doubt recognised as a duty of affection towards his deceased brother, but it was not made a command, the neglect of which would involve guilt and punishment. Within these limits the brother-in-law's marriage might co-exist with the prohibition of marriage with a brother's wife; "whereas, if the deceased brother had a son or children, such a marriage was forbidden as prejudicial to the fraternal relation. In cases where the deceased was childless, it was commanded as a duty of affection for the building up of the brother's house, and the preservation of his family and name. By the former prohibition, the house (family) of the brother was kept in its integrity, whilst by the latter command its permanent duration was secured. In both cases the deceased brother was honoured, and the fraternal affection preserved as the moral foundation of his house " (yid. my Archdologie, pp. 64, 65).
Vers. 11 and 12. "But in order that the great independence which is here accorded to a childless widow in relation to her brother-in-law, might not be interpreted as a false freedom granted to the female sex" (Baumgarten), the law is added immediately afterwards, that a woman whose husband was quarrelling with another, and who should come to his assistance by laying hold of the secret parts of the man who was striking her husband, should have her hand cut off.
Vers. 13-19. The duty of integrity in trade is once more enforced in vers. 13-16 (as in Lev. xix. 35, 36). ^^ Storie and stone,^ i.e. two kinds of stones for weighing (cf. Ps. xii. 3), viz. large ones for buying and small ones for selling. On the promise in ver. 15b, see chap. iv. 26, v. 16; ver. 16a, as in chap. xxii. 5, xviii. 12, etc. In the concluding words, ver. 166, "a// that do unrighteously/" Moses sums up all breaches of the law. — Vers. 17—19. But whilst the Israelites were to make love the guiding principle of their conduct in their dealings with a neighbour, and even with strangers and foes, this love was not to degenerate into weakness or indifference towards open ungodliness. To impress this truth upon the people, Moses concludes the discourse on the law by reminding them of the crafty enmity manifested towards them by Amalek on their march out of Egypt, and with the command to root out the Amalekites (cf. Ex. xvii. 9-16). This heathen nation had come against Israel on its journey, viz. at Rephidim in Horeb, and had attacked its rear: ''All the enfeebled behind thee, whilst thou wast faint and ivearifj without fearing God^ ^jJt) ^ii- to tail, hence to attack or destroy the rear of an army or of a travelling people (cf. Josh. x. 19). For this reason, when the Lord should have given Israel rest in the land of its inheritance, it was to root out the remembrance of Amalek under heaven. (On the execution of this command, see 1 Sam. XV.) " 7Vwu shalt not forget it;" an emphatic enforcement of the " remember" in ver. 17.
To the exposition of the commandments and rights of Israel Moses adds, in closing, another ordinance respecting those gifts, which were most intimately connected with social and domestic life, viz. the first-fruits and second tithes, for the purpose of giving the proper consecration to the attitude of the nation towards its Lord and God.
Vers. 1-11. Of the first of the fruit of the ground, which was presented from the land received from the Lord, the Israelite was to take a portion (n^^K'^o with jp partitive), and bring it in a basket to the place of the sanctuary, and give it to the priest who should be there, with the words, " / have made known to-day to the Lord thy God, that I have come into the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us^^ upon which the priest should take the basket and put it down before the altar of Jehovah (vers. 1-4). From the partitive rT'^'fc^nD we cannot infer, as Schultz supposes, that the first-fruits were not to be all delivered at the sanctuary, any more than this can be inferred from Ex. xxiii. 19 (see the explanation of this passage). All that is implied is, that, for the purpose described afterwards, it was not necessary to put all the offerings of first-fruits into a basket and set them down before the altar. t<J^
(vers. 2, 4, and chap, xxviii. 5, 17) is a basket of wicker-work, and not, as Knobel maintains, the Deuteronomist's word for HJ^^V (Ex. xvi. 33). " The priest'*^ is not the high priest, but the priest who had to attend to the altar-service and receive the sacrificial gifts. — The words, " I have to-day made known to the Lord thy God," refer to the practical confession which was made by the presentation of the first-fruits. The fruit was the tangible proof that they were in possession of the land, and the presentation of the first of this fruit the practical confession that they were indebted to the Lord for the land. This confession the offerer was also to embody in a prayer of thanksgiving, after the basket had been received by the priest, in which he confessed that he and his people owed their existence and welfare to the grace of God, manifested in the miraculous redemption of Israel out of the oppression of Egypt and their guidance into Canaan. — Yer. 5. ''3St n^k ''l^l^5y " a lost (perishing) Aramoean was my father^ (not the Aramaean, Laharij wanted to destroy my father, Jacob, as the Chald,, Arab,, Luther, and others render it). *l?i< signifies not only going astray, wandering, but perishing, in danger of perishing, as in Job xxix. 13, Prov. xxxi. 6, etc. Jacob is referred to, for it was he who went down to Egypt in few men. He is mentioned as the tribe-father of the nation, because the nation was directly descended from his sons, and also derived its name of Israel from him. Jacob is called an Aramaean, not only because of his long sojourn in Aramsea (Gen. xxix.-xxxi.), but also because he got his wives and children there (cf. Hos. xii. 13); and the relatives of the patriarchs had accompanied Abraham from Chaldaea to Mesopotamia (Aram; see Gen. xi. 30). ^V^ ^^Pr^, consisting of few men (^, the so-called beth essejit,, as in chap. x. 22, Ex. vi. 3, etc.; vid. Ewald, § 299, q.). Compare Gen. xxxiv. 30, where Jacob himself describes his family as " few in number." On the number in the family that migrated into Egypt, reckoned at seventy souls, see the explanation at Gen. xlvi. 27. On the multiplication in Egypt into a great and strong people, see Ex. i. 7, 9; and on the oppression endured there, Ex. i. 11-22, and ii. 23 sqq. — The guidance out of Egypt amidst great signs (ver. 8), as in chap. iv. 34. — Ver. 10. " So shalt thou set it down (the basket with the first-fruits) befqre Jehovah^ These words are not to be understood, as Clericus, Knobel, and others suppose, in direct opposition to vers. 4 and 5, as implying that the offerer had held the basket in his hand during the prayer, but simply as a remark which closes the instriictions. — Ver. 11. Rejoicing in all the good, etc., points to the joy connected with the sacrificial meal, which followed the act of worship (as in chap. xii. 12). The presentation of the first-fruits took place, no doubt, on their pilgrimages to the sanctuary at the three yearly festivals (chap, xvi.); but it is quite without ground that Riehm restricts these words to the sacrificial meals to be prepared from the tithes, as if they had been the only sacrificial meals (see at chap, xviii. 3).
Vers. 12-15. The delivery of the tithes, like the presentation of the first-fruits, was also to be sanctified by prayer before the Lord. It is true that only a prayer after taking the second tithe in the third year is commanded here; but that is simply because this tithe was appropriated everywhere throughout the land to festal meals for the poor and destitute (chap. xiv. 28), when prayer before the Lord would not follow per analogiam from the previous injunction concerning the presentation of first-fruits, as it would in the case of the tithes with which sacrificial meals were prepared at the sanctuary (chap. xiv. 22 sqq.). ^^^fl is the infinitive Hiphil for ^^Vrh, as in Neh. x. 39 (on this form, vid, Ges. § 53, 3 Anm. 2 and 7, and £w, § 131, b. and 244, 5.). " Saying before the Lord" does not denote prayer in the sanctuary (at the tabernacle), but, as in Gen. xxvii. 7, simply prayer before God the omnipresent One, who is enthroned in heaven (ver. 15), and blesses His people from above from His holy habitation. The declaration of having fulfilled the commandments of God refers primarily to the directions concerning the tithes, and was such a rendering of an account as springs from the consciousness that a man very easily transgresses the commandments of God, and has nothing in common with the blindness of pharisaic self-righteousness. " / have cleaned out the holy out of my house i"^^ the holy is that which is sanctified to God, that which belongs to the Lord and His servants, as in Lev. xxi. 22. "iVii signifies not only to remove, but to clean out, wipe out. That which was sanctified to God appeared as a debt, which was to be wiped out of a man's house {Schultz), — Yer. 14. " / have not eaten thereof in my sorrow.^^ '^^^y from l^.ij, tribulation, distress, signifies here in all probability mourning, and judging from what follows, mourning for the dead, equivalent to " in a mourning condition," i.e. in a state of legal (Levitical) uncleanness; so that ''^t<3 really corresponded to the ^^9^ which follows, except that t<^D includes every kind of legal uncleanness. " 1 have removed nothing thereof as unclean,^^ i.e. while in the state of an unclean person. Not only not eaten of any, but not removed any of it from the house, carried it away in an unclean state, in which they were forbidden to touch the holy gifts (Lev. xxii. 3). " And not yiven (any) of it on account of the dead^ This most probably refers to the custom of sending provisions into a house of mourning, to prepare meals for the mourners (2 Sam. ^iii. 25; Jer. xvi. 7; Hos. ix. 4; Tobit iv. 17). A house of mourning, with its inhabitants, was regarded as unclean; consequently nothing could be carried into it of that which was sanctified. There is no good ground for thinking of idolatrous customs, or of any special superstition attached to the bread of mourning; nor is there any ground for understanding the words as referring to the later Jewish custom of putting provisions into the grave along with the corpse, to which the Septuagint rendering, ovk eScoKU dir' avT&v TO) TeOvrjKOTL, points. (On ver. 15, see Isa. Ixiii. 15.)
Vers. 16-19. At the close of his discourse, Moses sums up the whole in the earnest admonition that Israel would give the Lord its God occasion to fulfil the promised glorification of His people, by keeping His commandments with all their heart and soul. — Ver. 16. On this day the Lord commanded Israel to keep these laws and rights with all the heart and all the soul (cf. chap. vi. 5, x. 12 sqq.). There are two important points contained in this (vers. 17 sqq.). The acceptance of the laws laid before them on the part of the Israelites involved a practical declaration that the nation would accept Jehovah as its God, and walk in His way (ver. 17); and the giving of the law on the part of the Lord was a practical confirmation of His promise that Israel should be His people of possession, which He would glorify above all nations (vers. 18, 19). " Thouhast let the Lord say to-day to he thy God,^ i.e. hast given Him occasion to say to thee that He will be thy God, manifest Himself to thee as thy God. " And to walk in His ways, and to keep His laws^^ etc., for " and that thou wouldst walk in His ways, and keep His laws." The acceptance of Jehovah as its God involved eo ipso a willingness to walk in His ways. — Vers. 18, 19. At the s"^me time, Jehovah had caused the people to be told that they were His treasured people of possession, as He had said in Ex. xix. 5, 6; and that if they kept all His commandments. He would set them highest above all nations whom He had created, '^ for praise, and for a name, and for glory," i.e. make them an object of praise, and renown, and glorification of God, the Lord and Creator of Israel, among all nations {yid, Jer. xxxiii. 9 and xiii. 11; Zeph. iii. 19, 20). " And that it should become a holy people unto the Lord" as He had already said in Ex. xix. 6. The sanctification of Israel was the design and end of its divine election, and would be accomplished in the glory to which the people of God were to be exalted (see the commentary on Ex. xix. 5, 6). The Hiphil "^"'PJ^'J, which is only found here, has no other meaning than this, " to cause a person to say," or "give him occasion to say;" and this* is perfectly appropriate here, whereas the other meaning suggested, " to exalt," has no tenable support either in the paraphrastic rendering of these verses in the ancient versions, or in the Hithpael in Ps. xciv. 4, and moreover is altogether unsuitable in ver. 17.
The conclusion of the covenant in the land of Moab, as the last address in this section (chap. xxix. and xxx.) is called in the heading (chap, xxviii. 69) and in the introduction (chap. xxix. 9 sqq.), i.e, the renewal of the covenant concluded at Horeb, commences with instructions to set up the law in a solemn manner in the land of Canaan after crossing over the Jordan (chap, xxvii.). After this there follows an elaborate exposition of the blessings and curses which would come upon the people according to their attitude towards the law (chap, xxviii.). And lastly, Moses places the whole nation with a solemn address before the face of the Lord, and sets before it once more the blessing and the curse in powerful and alarming words, with the exhortation to choose the blessing and life (chap. xxix. and xxx.).
The instructions upon this point are divisible into two: viz. (a) to set up large stones covered with lime upon Mount Ebal, after crossing into Canaan, and to build an altar there for the presentation of burnt-offerings and slain-offerings, and to write the law upon these stones (vers. 1-8); and (Z>) to proclaim the blessing and curse of the law upon Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (vers. 11-26). These two instructions are bound together by the command to observe the law (vers. 9 and 10), in which the internal or essential connection of the two is manifested externally also. The fulfilment of these directions after the entrance of Israel into Canaan is described in Josh. viii. 30-35. The act itself had a symbolical meaning. The writing of the law upon stones, which were erected on a mountain in the midst of the land, with the solemn proclamation of blessings and curses, was a practical acknowledgment of the law of the Lord on the part of Israel, — a substantial declaration that they would make the law the rule and standard of their life and conduct in the land which the Lord had given them for an inheritance.
Vers. 1—10. The command in ver. 1 to keep the whole law ("ibK^, inf, ahs. for the imperative, as in Ex. xiii. 3, etc.), with which the instructions that follow are introduced, indicates at the very outset the purpose for which the law written upon stones was to be set up in Canaan, namely, as a public testimony that tlie Israehtes who were entering into Canaan possessed in the law their rule and source of life. The command itself is given by Moses, together with the elders, because the latter had to see to the execution of it after Moses* death; on the other hand, the priests are mentioned along with Moses in ver. 9, because it was their special duty to superintend the fulfilment of the commands of God. — Vers. 2 and 3 contain the general instructions; vers. 4-8, more minute details. In the appointment of the time, " on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan into the land^^ etc., the word " day " must not be pressed, but is to be understood in a broader sense, as signifying the time when Israel should have entered the land and taken possession of it. The stones to be set up were to be covered with lime, or gypsum (whether sid signifies lime or gypsum cannot be determined), and all the words of the law were to be written upon them. The writing, therefore, was not to be- cut into the stones and then covered with lime (as J, D, Mich., Eos,), but to be inscribed upon the plaistered stones, as was the custom in Egypt, where the walls of buildings, and even monumental stones, which they were about to paint with figures and hieroglyphics, were first of all covered with a coating of lime or gypsum, and then the figures painted upon this (see the testimonies of Minutoli, Heeren, Prohesch in Hengstenherg' s Dissertations, i. 433, and Egypt and the- Books of Moses, p. 90). The object of this writing was not to hand down the law in this manner to posterity without alteration, but, as has already been stated, simply to set forth a public acknowledgment of the law on the part of the people, first of all for the sake of the generation which took possession of the land, and for posterity, only so far as this act was recorded in the book of Joshua and thus trans-