^ The distinction, that in the case of all the other sacrifices the (one) hand is ordered to be laid upon the victim, whilst here hoth hands are ordered to belaid upon the goat, does not constitute an essential difference, as Ho/- mann supposes; but the laying on of both hands rendered the act more solemn and expressive, in harmony with the solemnity of the whole proceeding.
There is not the slightest idea of presenting a sacrifice to Azazel. This goat was a sin-offering, only so far as it was laden with the sins of the people to carry them away into the desert; and in this respect alone is there a resemblance between the two goats and the two birds used in the purification of the leper (chap. xiv. 4 sqq.), of which the one to be set free was bathed in the blood of the one that was killed. In both cases the reason for making use of two animals is to be found purely in the physical impossibility of combining all the features, that had to be set forth in the sin-offering, in one single animal.
Vers. 23-28. After the living goat had been sent away, Aaron was to go into the tabernacle, i.e, the holy place of the dwelling, and there take off his white clothes and lay them down, i.e. put them away, because they were only to be worn in the performance of the expiatory ritual of this day, and then bathe his body in the holy place, i.e. in the court, in the laver between the altar and the door of the dwelling, probably because the act of laying the sins upon the goat rendered him unclean. He was then to put on his clothes, i.e. the coloured state-dress of the high priest, and to offer in this the burnt-offerings, for an atonement for himself and the nation (see chap. i. 4), and to burn the fat portions of the sin-offerings upon the altar. — Vers. 26 sqq. The man who took the goat into the desert, and those who burned the two sin-offerings outside the camp (see at chap. iv. 11, 21), had also to wash their clothes and bathe their bodies before they returned to the camp, because they had been defiled by the animals laden with sin.
Vers. 29-34. General directions for the yearly celebration of the day of atonement. — It was to be kept on the tenth day of the seventh month, as an " everlasting statute" (see at Ex. xii. 14). On that day the Israelites were to " afflict their souls,'* i.e, to fast, according to chap, xxiii. 32, from the evening of the 9th till the evening of the 10th day. Every kind of work was to be suspended as on the Sabbath (Ex. xx. 10), by both natives and foreigners (see Ex. xii. 49), because this day was a high Sabbath (Ex. xxxi. 15). Both fasting and sabbatical rest are enjoined again in chap, xxiii. 27 sqq. and Num. xxix. 7, on pain of death. The fasting commanded for this day, the only fasting prescribed in the law, is most intimately connected with the signification of the feast of atonement. If the general atonement made on this day was not to pass into a dead formal service, the people must necessarily enter in spirit into the signification of the act of expiation, prepare their souls for it with penitential feelings, and manifest this penitential state by abstinence from the ordinary enjoyments of life. To " ajfflict (bow, humble) the soul^^ by restraining the earthly appetites, which have their seat in the soul, is the early Mosaic expression for fasting (D^V). The latter word came first of all into use in the time of the Judges (Judg. XX. 26; 1 Sam. vii. 6; cf. Ps. xxxv. 13: "I afflicted my soul with fasting"). " By bowing his soul the Israelite was to place himself in an inwajd relation to the sacrifice, whose soul was given for his soul; and by this state of mind, answering to the outward proceedings of the day, he was to appropriate the fruit of it to himself, namely, the reconciliation of his soul, which passed through the animal's death" (Baumgarten). — Vers. 32 sqq. In the future, the priest who was anointed and set apart for the duty of the priesthood in his father's stead, i.e. the existing high priest, was to perform the act of expiation in the manner prescribed, and that " once a year." The yearly repetition of the general atonement showed that the sacrifices of the law were not sufficient to make the servant of God perfect according to his own conscience. And this imperfection of the expiation, made with the blood of bullocks and goats, could not fail to awaken a longing f(5r the perfect sacrifice of the' eternal High Priest, who has obtained eternal redemption by entering once, through His own blood, into the holiest of all (Heb. ix. 7-12). And just as this was effected negatively, so by the fact that the high priest entered on this day into the holiest of all, as the representative of the whole congregation, and there, before the throne of God, completed its reconciliation with Him, was the necessity exhibited in a positive manner for the true reconciliation of man, and his introduction into a perfect and abiding fellowship with Him, and the eventual realization of this by the blood of the Son of God, our eternal High Priest and Mediator, prophetically foreshadowed. The closing words in ver. 34, " and he (i.e. Aaron, to whom Moses was to communicate the instructions of God concerning the feast of atonement, ver. 2) did as the Lord commanded Moses," are anticipatory in their character, like Ex. xii. 50. For the law in question could not be carried out till the seventh month of the current year, that is to say, as we find from a comparison of Num. x. 11 with Ex. xl. 17, not till after the departure of Isniel from Sinai.
The contents of these four chapters have been very fittingly summed up by Baumgarten in the following heading: " Israel is not to walk in the way of the heathen and of the Canaanites, but in the ordinances of Jehovah," as all the commandments contained in them relate to holiness of life.
Chap. xvii. Holiness of Food. — The Israelites were not to slauirhter domestic animals as food either within or outside the camp, but before the door of the tabernacle, and as slainofferings, that the blood and fat might be offered to Jehovah. They were not to sacrifice any more to field-devils (vers. 3-7), and were to offer all their burnt-offerings or slain-offerings before the door of the tabernacle (vers. 8 and 9); and they were not to eat either blood or carrion (vers. 10-16). These laws are not intended simply as supplements to the food laws in chap. xi.; but they place the eating of food on the part of the Israelites in the closest relation with their calling as the holy nation of Jehovah, on the one hand to oppose an effectual barrier to the inclination of the people to idolatrous sacrificial meals, on the other hand to give a consecrated character to the food of the people in harmony with their calling, that it might be received with thanksgiving and sanctified with prayer (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5). — Vers. 1, 2. The directions are given to " Aaron and his sons, and all the children of Israel," because they were not only binding upon the nation generally, but upon the priesthood also; whereas the instructions in chap, xviii.-xx. are addressed to " the children of Israel," or " the whole congregation" (chap.
xviii. 2, xix. 2, xx. 2), just as special laws are laid down for the priests in chap. xx. and xxi. with reference to the circumstances mentioned there.
Vers. 3-7. Whoever of the house of Israel slaughtered an ox, sheep, or goat, either within or outside the camp, without bringing the animal to the tabernacle, to offer a sacrifice therefrom to the Lord, '' blood was to be recJconed to him;" that is to say, as the following expression, " he hath shed blood," shows, such slaughtering was to be reckoned as the shedding of blood, or blood-guiltiness, and punished with extermination (see Gen. xvii. 14). The severity of this prohibition required some explanation, and this is given in the reason assigned in vers. 5-7, viz. " that the Israelites may bring their slain-offerings, which they slay in the open field, before the door of the tabernacle, as peace-offerings to Jehovah," and " no more offer their sacrifices to the '^''T^^j after whom they go a whoring" (ver. 7). This reason presupposes that the custom of dedicating the slain animals as sacrifices to some deity, to which a portion of them was offered, was then widely spread among the Israelites. It had probably been adopted from the Egyptians; though this is not expressly stated by ancient writers: Herodotus (i. 132) and Strabo (xv. 732) simply mentioning it as a Persian custom, whilst the law book of Manu ascribes it to the Indians. To root out this idolatrous custom from among the Israelites, they were commanded to slay every animal before the tabernacle, as a sacrificial gift to Jehovah, and to bring the slain-offerings, which they would have slain in the open field, to the priest at the tabernacle, as shelamim (praise-offerings and thank-offerings), that he might sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and burn the fat as a sweet-smelling savour for Jehovah (see chap. iii. 2—5). " The face of the field'^ (ver. 5, as in chap. xiv. 7, 53): the open field, in distinction from the enclosed space of the court of Jehovah's dwelling. " The altar of JehovaK^ is spoken of in ver. 6 instead of " the altar''^ only (chap. i. 5, xi. 15, etc.), on account of the contract drawn between it and the altars upon which they offered sacrifice to Seirim. ^''TW, literally goats, is here used to signify da^mones (^Vulg.), " field-devils" (Luther), demons, like the DHC^ in Deut. xxxii. 17, who were supposed to inhabit the desert (Isa. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14), and whose pernicious influence they sought to avert by sacrifices. TJie Israelites had brouglit this superstition, and the idolatry to whicli it gave rise, from Egypt. The Seirim were the gods whom the IsraeHtes worshipped and went a whoring after in Egypt (Josh. xxiv. 14; Ezek. XX. 7, xxiii. 3, 8, 19, 21, 27). Both the thing and the name were derived from the Egyptians, who worshipped goats as gods (JosepJnis c. A p. 2, 7), particuhirly Pariy who was represented in the form of a goat, a personification of the male and fertilizing principle in nature, whom they called Mendes and reckoned among the eight leading gods, and to whom tliey had built a splendid and celebrated temple in Thmuis, the capital of the Mendesian Nomos in Lower -Egypt, and erected statues in the temples in all directions (cf. Herod. 2, 42, 46; StrahOj xvii. 802; Dlod. Sic, i. 18). The expression " a statute for ever" refers to the principle of the law, that sacrifices were to be offered to Jehovah alone, and not to the law that every animal was to be slain before tl e tabernacle, which was afterwards repealed by Moses, when they were about to enter Canaan, where it could no longer be carried out (Deut. xii. 15).
Vers. 8-16. To this there are appended three laws, which are kindred in their nature, and which were binding not only upon the Israehtes, but also upon the foreigners who dwelt iii the midst of them. — Vers. 8, 9 contain the command, that whoever offered a burnt-off^^nng or slain-offering, and did not bring it to the tabernacle to prepare it for Jehovah there, was to be exterminated; a command which involved the prohibition of sacrifice in any other place whatever, and was given, as the further extension of this law in Deut. xii. clearly proves, for the purpose of suppressing the disposition to offer sacrifice to other gods, as well as in other places. In vers. 10-14 the prohibition of the eating of blood is repeated, and ordered to be observed on pain of extermination; it is also extended to the strangers in Israel; and after a more precise explanation of the reason for the law, is supplemented by instruc+ions for the disposal of the blood of edible game. God threatens that He will inflict the punishment Himself, because the eating of blood was a transgression of the law which might easily escape the notice of the authorities. " To set one's face against;" i.e. to judge. The reason for the command in ver. LI, " For the soul of the flesh (the soul which gives life to the flesh) is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls," is not a double one, viz. (1) because tlie blood contained the soul of the animal, and (2) because God had set apart the blood, as the medium of expiation for the human soul, for the altar, i.e, to be sprinkled upon the altar. The first reason simply forms the foundation for the second: God appointed the blood for the altar, as containing the soul of the animal, to be the medium of expiation for the souls of men, and therefore prohibited its being used as food. " For the blood it expiates bi/ virtue of the soul," not " the soul" itself. ^ with ">S3 has only a local or instrumental signification (chap. vi. 23, xvi. 17, 27; also vii. T; Ex. xxix. 33; Num. v. 8). Accordingly, it was not the blood as such, but the blood as the vehicle of the soul, which possessed expiatory virtue; because the animal soul was offered to God upon the altar as a substitute for the human soul. Hence every bleeding sacrifice had an expiatory force, though without being an expiatory sacrifice in the strict sense of the word. — Yer. 13. The blood also of such hunted game as was edible, whether bird or beast, was not to be eaten either by the Israelite or stranger, but to be poured out and covered with earth. In Deut. xii. 16 and 24, where the command to slay all the domestic animals at the tabernacle as slain-offerings is repealed, this is extended to such domestic animals as were slaughtered for food; their blood also was not to be eaten, but to be poured upon the earth " like water," i^. not quasi rem profanam et nullo ritu sacro (Bosenmiiller, etc.), but like water which is poured upon the earth, sucked in by it, and thus given back to the womb of the earth, from which God had caused the animals to come forth at their creation (Gen. i. 24). Hence pouring it out upon the earth like water was substantially the same as pouring it out and covering it with earth (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 7, 8); and the purpose of the command was to prevent the desecration of the vehicle of the soulish life^ which was sanctified as the medium of expiation. — Ver. 14. '^ For as for the soul of all flesh... its blood makes out its soul:" i.e. " this is the case with the soul of all flesh, that it is its blood which makes out its soul." iK^D^n is to be taken as a predicate in its meaning, introduced with beth essentiale. It is only as so understood, that the clause supplies a reason at all in harmony with the context. Because the distinguishing characteristic of the blood was, that it was the soul of the being when living in the flesh; therefore it was not to be eaten in the case of any animal: and even in the case of animals that were not proper for sacrifice, it was to be allowed to run out upon the ground, and then covered with earth, or, so to speak, buried.^ — -Lastly (vers. 15, IG), the prohibition against eating " that which died" (xi. 39, 40), or " that which was torn" (Ex. xxii. 30), is renewed and supplemented by the law, that whoever, either of the natives or of foreigners, should eat the flesh of that which had. fallen (died a natural death), or had been torn in pieces by wild beasts (sc. thoughtlessly or in ignorance; cf. chap. v. 2), and neglected the legal purification afterwards, was to bear his iniquity (chap. v. 1). Of course the flesh intended is that of animals which were clean, and therefore allowable as food, when properly slaughtered, and which became unclean simply from the fact, that when they had died a natural death, or had been torn to pieces by wild beasts, the blood remained in the flesh, or did not flow out in a proper manner. According to Ex. xxii. 30, the ^733 (that which had fallen) was to be thrown to the dogs; but in Deut. xiv. 21 permission is given either to sell it or give it to a stranger OT alien, to prevent the plea that it was a pity that such a 'thing should be entirely wasted, and so the more effectually to secure the observance of the command, that it was not to be eaten by an Israelite.
prohibition of incest and similar sensual abominations is introduced with a general w^arning as to the licentious customs of the Egyptians and Canaanites, and an exhortation to walk in the
^ On the truth which lay at the foundation of this idea of the unity of the soul and blood, which others of the ancients shared with the Hebrews, particularly the ea^ly Greek philosophers, see DelitzscWs bibl. Psychol, pp.
242 sqq. " It seems at first sight to be founded upon no other reason, than that a sudden diminution of the quantity of the blood is sure to cause death. But this phenomenon rests upon the still deeper ground, that all the activity of the body, especially that of the nervous and muscular systems, is dependent upon the circulation of the blood; for if the flow of blood is stopped from any part of the body, all its activity ceases immediately; a sensitive part loses all sensation in a very few minutes, and muscular action is entirely suspended.... The blood is really the basis of the physical life; and so far the soul, as the vital principle of the body, is preeminently in the blood" (p. 245).
judgments and ordinances of Jehovah (vers. 2-5), and is brought to a close with a threatening allusion to the consequences of all such defilements (vers. 24-30). — Vers. 1-5. Bj the words, "I am Jehovah your God," which are placed at the head and repeated at the close (ver. 30), the observance of the command is enforced upon the people as a covenant obligation, and urged upon them most strongly by the promise, that through the observance of the ordinances and judgments of Jehovah they should live (ver. 5). — Yer. 5. " The man who does them (the ordinances of Jehovah) shall live (gain true life) through them^^ (see at Ex. i. 16 and Gen. iii. 22).
Vers. 6-18. The laws against incest are introduced in ver. 6 with the general prohibition, descriptive of the nature of this sin, " None of you shall approach ^">^^ "iK:i^'"73"7S to any flesh of his flesh, to uncover nakedness." The difference between '^^^ flesh, and "^^^ flesh, is involved in obscurity, as both words are used in connection with edible flesh (see the Lexicons). " Flesh of his flesh " is a flesh that is of his own flesh, belongs to the same flesh as himself (Gen. ii. 24), and is applied to a bloodrelation, blood^relationship being called '^1^^ (or flesh-kindred) in Hebrew (yer. 17). Sexual intercourse is called uncovering the nakedness of another (Ezek. xvi. 36, xxiii. 18). The prohibition relates to both married and unmarried intercourse, though the reference is chiefly to the former (see ver. 18, chap. xx. 14, 17, 21). Intercourse is forbidden (1) with a mother, (2) with a step-mother, (3) with a sister or half-sister, (4) with a granddaughter, the daughter of either son or daughter, (5) with the daughter of a step-mother, (6) with an aunt^ the sister of either father or mother, (7) with the wife of an uncle on the father's side, (8) with a daughter-in-law, (9) with a sister-in-law, or brother's wife, (10) with a woman and her daughter, or a woman and her granddaughter, and (11) with two sisters at the same time. No special reference is made to sexual intercourse with (a) a daughter, (b) a full sister, (c) a mother-in-law; the last, however, which is mentioned in Deut. xxvii. 23 as an accursed crime, is included here in No. 10, and the second in No. 3, w^hilst the first, like parricide in Ex. xxi. 15, is not expressly noticed, simply because the crime was regarded as one that never could occur. Those mentioned under Nos. 1, 2, 3, 8, and 10 were to be followed by the death or extermination of the criminals (chap.
XX. 11, 12, 14, 17), on account of tlieir being accursed crimes (Deut. xxiii. 1, xxvii. 20, 22, 23). On the other hand, the only threat held out in the case of the connection mentioned under Nos. 6, 7, and 9, was that those who committed such crimes should bear their iniquity, or die childless (chap. xx. 19-21). The cases noticed under Nos. 4 and 5 are passed over in chap. XX., though they no doubt belonged to the crimes which were to be punished with death, and No. 11, for which no punishment was fixed, because the wrong had been already pointed out in ver. 18.^
The enumeration of the different cases commences in ver. 7 very appropriately with the prohibition of incest with a mother. Sexual connection with a mother is called "uncovering the nakedness of father and mother." As husband and wife are one flesh (Gen. ii. 24), the nakedness of the husband is uncovered in that of his wife, or, as it is described in Deut. xxii. 30, xxvii. 20, the wing, {,e. the edge, of the bedclothes of the father's be^.^ as the husband spreads his bedclothes over his wife as well as himself (Ruth iii. 9). For, strictly speaking, npj; n?^ is only used with reference to the wife; but in the dishonouring of his wife the honour of the husband is violated
^ The marriage laws and customs were much more lax among the Gentiles. With the Egyptians it was lawful to marry sisters and half-sisters (Diod. Sic. i. 27), and the licentiousness of the women was very great 'among them (see at Gen. xxxix. 6 sqq.). With the Persians marriage was allowed with mother, daughter, and sister (Clem. Al. strom. iii. p. 431; Eusebii prsep. ev. vi. 10); and this is also said to have been the case with the Medians, Indians, and Ethiopians, as well as with the Assyrians (Jerome adv. Jovin. ii. 7; Lucian, Sacriff. 5); whereas the Greeks and Romans abhorred such marriages, and the Athenians and Spartans only permitted marriages with half-sisters (cf. Selden de jure nat. et gent. v. 11, pp. 619 sqq.). The ancient Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, were very strict in this respect, and would not allow of marriage with a mother, daughter, or aunt on either the father's or mother's side, or with two sisters at the same time. The only cases on record of marriage between brothers and sisters are among the Arabs of Marbat (Seetzen^ ZacWs Mon. Corresp. Oct. 1809). This custom Mohammed raised into a law, and extended it to nieces, nurses, fostersisters, etc. (Koran^ Sure iv. 20 sqq.).
Elaborate commentaries upon this chapter are to be found in Michaelis Ahhandl. iiber die Ehegesetze Mosis, and his Mos. Recht; also in SaalscTiutz Mos. Recht. See also my Archdologie ii. p. 108. For the rabbinical laws and those of the Talmud, see Selden uxor ehr. lib. 1, c. 1 sqq., and SaalschUtz ut sup.
also, and his bed defiled, Gen. xlix. 4. It is wrong, therefore, to interpret the verse, as Jonathan and Clericus do, as relating to car»^al intercourse between a daughter and father. Not only is this at variance with the circumstance that all these laws are intended for the man alone, and addressed expressly to him, but also with ver. 8, where the nakedness of the father's wife is distinctly called the father's shame.— Yer. 8. Intercourse with a father's wife, Le, with a step-mother, is forbidden as uncovering the father's nakedness; since a father's wife stood in bloodrelationship only to the son whose mother she was. But for the father's sake her nakedness was to be inaccessible to the sdn, and uncovering it was to be punished with death as incest (chap. XX. 11; Deut. xxvii. 20). By the "father's wife" we are probably to understand not merely his full lawful wife, but his concubine also, since the father's bed was defiled in the latter case no less than in the former (Gen. xlix. 4), and an accursed crime was committed, the punishment of which was death. At all events, it cannot be inferred from chap. xix. 20-22 and Ex. x^i. 9, as Knohel supposes, that a milder punishment was inflicted in this case. — Ver. 9. By the sister, the daughter of father or mother, we are to understand only the step- or half-sister, who had either the same father or the same mother as the brother had. The clause, " whether horn at home or horn ahroad^^ does not refer to legitimate or illegitimate birth, but is to be taken as a more precise definition of the words, daughter of thy father or of thy mother, and understood, as Lud, de Dieu supposes, as referring to the half-sister " of the first marriage, whether the father's daughter left by a deceased wife, or the mother's daughter left by a deceased husband," so that the person marrying her would be a son by a second marriage. Sexual intercourse with a half-sister is described as ^Dn in chap. xx. 17, and threatened with extermination. This word generally signifies sparing love, favour, grace; but here, as in Prov. xiv. 34, it means dishonour, shame, from the Piel ^sn^ to dishonour. — Yer. 10. The prohibition of marriage with a granddaughter, whether the daughter of a son or daughter, is explained in the words, " for they are thy nakedness," the meaning of whicn is, that as they were directly descended from the grandfather, carnal intercourse with them would' be equivalent to dishonouring his own flesh and blood. — Yer. 11. " The daughter of thy father s wife
{i.e. thy step-mother), bom to thy father^'' is the half-sister by a second marriage; and the prohibition refers to the son by a first marriage, whereas ver. 9 treats of the son by a second marriage. The notion that the man's own mother is also included, and that the prohibition includes marriage with a full sister, is at variance with the usage of the expression "thy father's wife." — Vers. ]2 and 13. Marriage or conjugal intercourse with the Sister of either father or mother {i.e. with either the paternal or maternal aunt) was prohibited, because she was the blood-relation of the father or mother. "^KK^^ib'a "iXC' (ver. 6, as in chap. xx. 19, xxi. 2, Num. xxvii. 11), hence »TJ^.^, blood-relationship (ver. 17). — Ver. 14. So, again, with the wife of the father s brother, because the nakedness of the uncle was thereby uacovered. The threat held out in chap. xx. 19 and 20 against the alliances prohibited in vers. 12-14, is that the persons concerned should bear their iniquity or sin, i.e. should suffer punishment in consequence (see at chap. V. 1); and in the last case it is stated that they should die childless. From this it is obvious that sexual connection with the sister of either father or mother was not to be punished with death by the magistrate, but would be punished with disease by God Himself. — Ver. 15. Sexual connection with a daughter-in-law, a son's wife, is called ^5^ in chap. xx. 12, and threatened w^ith death to both the parties concerned.?5^j from P/3 to mix, to confuse, signifies a sinful mixing up or confusing of the divine ordinances by unnatural unchastity, like the lying of a woman with a beast, which is the only other connection in which the word occurs (ver. 23). — Ver. 16. Marriage with a brother's wife was a sin against the brother's nakedness, a sexual defilement, which God would punish with barrenness. This prohibition, however, only refers to cases in which the deceased brother had left children; for if he had died childless, the brother not only might, but was required to marry his sister-inlaw (Deut. XXV. 5). — Ver. 17. Marriage with a woman and her daughter, whether both together or in succession, is described in Deut. xxvii. 20 as an accursed lying with the mother-in-law; whereas here it is the relation to the step-daughter which is primarily referred to, as we may see from the parallel prohibition, which is added, against taking the daughter of her son or daughter, i.e» the granddaughter-in-law. Both of these were crimes against blood-relationship which were to be punished with death in the case of both parties (chap. xx. 14), because they were "wickedness," nK)T, lit invention, design, here appHed to the crime of licentiousness and whoredom (chap. xix. 29; Judg. XX. 6; Job xxxi. 11.) — Ver. 18. Lastly, it was forbidden to take a wife to her sister (f^ vV upon her, as in Gen. xxviii. 9, xxxi. 50) in her life-time, that is to say, to marry two sister? at the same time, "J^Vr " to pack together, to uncover their nakedness,'' Le, to pack both together into one marriage bond, and so place the sisters in carnal union through their common husband, and disturb the sisterly relation, as the marriage with two sisters that was forced upon Jacob had evidently done. No punishment is fixed for the marriage with two sisters; and, of course, after the death of the first wife a man was at liberty to marry her sister.
Vers. 19-23. Prohibition of other kinds of unchastity and of unnatural crimes. — Yer. 19 prohibits intercourse with a woman during her uncleanness. ^^"^^ ^"^^ signifies the uncleanness of a woman's hemorrhage, whether menstruation or ^fter childbirth, which is called in chap. xii. 7, xx. 18, the fountain of bleeding. The guilty persons were both of them to be cut off from their nation according to chap. xx. 18, i.e, to be punished with death. — Ver. 20. " To a neighbour's wife thou shalt not give ^J^?3^ thy pouring as seed " {i.e. make her pregnant), " to defile thyself with her," viz. by the emissio seminis (chap. xv. 16, 17), a defilement which was to be punished as adultery by tlie stoning to death of both parties (chap. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22, cf. John ix. 5). — Ver. 21. To bodily unchastity there is appended a prohibition of spiritual whoredom. " Thou shalt not give of thy seed to cause to pass through (sc. the fire; Deut. xviii. 10) for MolochJ^ 'H^^l' is constantly written with the article: it is rendered by the LXX. ap')(cov both here and in chap. xx. 2 sqq., but o Mo\6^ ^aaiXeiK; in other places (2 Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. xxxii. 35). Moloch was an old Canaanitish idol, called by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians Melkarth, Baal-melech, Malcom, and other such names, and related to Baal, a sun-god worshipped, like Kronos and Saturn, by the sacrifice of children. It was represented by a brazen statue, which was hollow and capable of being heated, and formed with a bull's head, and arms stretched out to receive the children to be sacrificed. From the time of Ahaz children were slain at Jerusalem in the valley of Ben-HInnom, and then sacrificed by being laid in the heated arms and burned (Ezek. xvi. 20, 21, xx. 31; Jer. xxxii. 35; 2 Kings xxiii. 10, xvi. 3, xvii. 17, xxi. 6, cf. Ps. evi. 37, 38). Now although this offering of children in the valley of Ben- Illnnoni is called a "slaughtering" by Ezekiel (chap. xvi. 21), and a "burning through (in the) fire" -by Jeremiali (chap. vii. 31), and although, in the times of the later kings, children were actually given up to Moloch and burned as slain-offerings, even among the Israelites; it by no means follows from this, that " passing through to Moloch," or " passing through the fire," or "passing through the fire to Moloch" (2 Kings xxiii. 10), signified slaughtering and burning with fire, though this has been almost unanimously assumed sijice the time of Clericus, But according to the unanimous explanation of the Rabbins, fathers, and earlier theplogians, " causing to pass through the fire " denoted primarily going through the fire without burning, a februation, or purification through fire, by which tne children were consecrated to Moloch; a kind of fire-baptism, which preceded the sacrificing, and was performed, particularly in olden time, without actual sacrificing, or slaying and burning. For februation was practised among the most different nations without being connected with human sacrifices; and, like most of the idolatrous rites of the heathen, no doubt the worship of Moloch assumed different forms at different times and among different nations. If the Israelites had really sacrificed their children to Moloch, i.e. had slain and burned them, before the time of Ahaz, the burning would certainly have been mentioned before; for Solomon had built a high place upon the mountain to the east of Jerusalem for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon, to please his foreign wives (1 Kings xi. 7: see the Art. Moloch in Herzog^s CycL). This idolatrous worship was to be punished with death by stoning, as a desecration of the name of Jehovah, and a defiling of His sanctuary (chap. xx. 3), i.e. as a practical contempt of the manifestations of the grace of the living God (chap. xx. 2, 3). — Vers. 22, 23. Lastly, it was forbidden to "lie with mankind as with womankind," Le, to commit the crime of pcederastia, that sin of Sodom (Gen. xix. 5), to which the whole of the heathen were more or less addicted (Rom. i. 27), and from which even the Israelites did not keep themselves free (Judg. xLx. 22 sqq.); or to "lie with any beast."
" Into 110 beast shalt thou give thine emission of seed,... and a woman shall not place herself before a beast to lie down thereto." V^] = K?l " to lie," is the term used particularly to denote a crime of this description (chap. xx. 13 and 15, 16, cf. Ex. xxii. 18). Lying with animals was connected in Egypt with the worship of the goat; at Mendes especially, where the women lay down before he-goats (Herodotus, 2, 46; Strabo, 17, p. 802). Aelian (nut, an, vii. 19) relates an account of the crime being also committed with a dog in Rome; and according to Sonninij R. 11, p. 330, in modern Egypt men are said to lie even with female crocodiles.
Vers. 24-30. In the concluding exhortation God pointed expressly to the fact, that the nations which He was driving out before the Israelites (the participle n?ro is used of that which is certainly and speedily coming to pass) had defiled the land by such abominations as those, that He had visited their iniquity and the land had spat out its inhabitants, and warned the Israelites to beware of these abominations, that the land might not spit them out as it had the Canaanites before them. The pret. ^\>'^\ (ver. 25) and ^^\> (ver. 28) are prophetic (cf. chap. xx. 22, 23), and the expression is poetical. Tlie land is personified as a living creature, which violently rejects food that it dislikes. "Hoc enim tropo vult sigiiijicare Scriptura enormitatem criininuirtj quod scilicet ipsce creaturce irrationales suo creatori semper obedientes et pro illo pugnantes detestentur peccatores tales eosque terra quasi evomat, cum illi expelluntur ab ea " (C, a Lap.).
Man. — However manifold the commandments, which are grouped together rather according to a loose association of ideas than according to any logical arrangement, they are all linked together by the common purpose expressed in ver. 2 in the words, " Ye shall be holi/, for I am lidly, Jeliovali your GodP The absence of any strictly logical arrangement is to be explained chiefly from the nature of the object, and the great variety of circumstances occurring in life which no casuistry can fully exhaust, so that any attempt to throw light upon these relations must consist more or less of the description of a series of concrete events. — Vers. 2-8. The commandment in ver. 2, "to be holy as God is holy," expresses on the one hand the principle upon which all the different commandments that follow were based, and on the other hand the goal which the Israelites were to keep before them as the nation of Jehovah. — Ver. 3. The first thing required is reverence towards parents and the observance of the Lord's Sabbaths, — tlie two leading pillars of the moral government, and of social well-being. To fear father and mother answers to the honour commanded in the decalogue to be paid to parents; and in the observance of the Sabbaths the labour connected with a social calling is sanctified to the Lord God. — Ver. 4 embraces the first two commandments of the decalogue: viz. not to turn to idols to worship them (Deut. xxxi. 18, 20), nor to make molten gods (see at Ex. xxxiv. 17). The gods beside Jehovah are called elilim, i.e. nothings, from their true nature. — Vers. 5-8. True fidelity to Jehovah was to be shown, so far as sacrifice, the leading form of divine worship, was concerned, in the fact, that the holiness of the sacrificial flesh was strictly preserved in the sacrificial meals, and none of the flesh of the peace-offerings eaten on the third day. To this end the command in chap. vii. 15-18 is emphatically repeated, and transgressors are threatened with extermination. On the singular ^^] in ver. 8, see at Gen. xxvii. 29, and for the expression " shall be cut off," Gen. xvii. 14.
Vers. 9-18. Laws concerning the conduct towards one's neighbour, which should flow from unselfish love, especially with regard to the poor and distressed. — Vers. 9, 10. In reaping the field, " thou shalt not finish to reap the edge of thy field," i.e, not reap the field to the extreme edge; " neither shalt thou hold a gathering up (gleaning) of thy harvest," i.e. not gather together the ears left upon the field in the reaping. In the vineyard and olive-plantation, also, they were not to have any gleaning, or gather up what was strewn about (peret signifies the grapes and olives that had fallen off), but to leave them for the distressed and the foreigner, that he might also share in the harvest and gathering. D^S, lit. a noble plantation, generally signifies a vineyard; but it is also applied to an oliveplantation (Judg. XV. 5), and here it is to be understood of both. For when this command is repeated in Deut. xxiv. 20, 21, both vineyards and olive-plantations are mentioned. When the olives had been gathered by being knocked off with sticks, the custom of shaking the boughs C^^^) to get at those olives which could not be reached with the sticks was expressly forbidden, in the interest of the strangers, orphans, and widows, as well as gleaning after the vintage. The command with regard to the cornharvest is repeated again in the law for the feast of Weeks or Harvest Feast (chap, xxiii. 20); and in Dent. xxiv. 19 it is extended, quite in the spirit of our law, so far as to forbid fetching a sheaf that had been overlooked in the field, and to order it to be left for the needy. (Compare with this Deut. xxiii. ^2 5, 26.) — Vers. 11 sqq. The Israelites were not to steal (Ex. xx. 15); nor to deny, viz. anything entrusted to them or found (chap. v. 21 sqq.); nor to lie to a neighbour, i.e. with regard to property or goods, for the purpose of overreaching and cheating him; nor to swear by the name of Jehovah to lie and defraud, and so profane the name of God (see Ex. xx. 7, 16); nor to oppress and rob a neighbour (cf. chap. v. 21), by the unjust abstraction or detention of what belonged to him or was due to him, — for example, they were not to keep the wages of a day-labourer over night, but to pay him every day before sunset (Deut. xxiv. 14, 15). — Ver. 14. They were not to do an injury to an infirm person: neither to ridicule or curse the deaf, who could not hear the ridicule or curse, and therefore could not defend himself (Ps. xxxviii. 15); nor " to put a stumblingblock before the blind," i.e. to put anything in his way over which he might stumble and fall (compare Deut. xxvii. 18, where a curse is pronounced upon the man who should lead the blind astray). But they were to " fear before God," who hears, and sees, and will punish every act of wrong (cf. ver. 32, xxv. 17, 36, 43). — Ver. 15. In judgment, i.e. in the administration of justice, they were to do no unrighteousness: neither to respect the person of the poor (Trpoacoirov Xafi^dveLv, to do anything out of regard to a person, used in a good sense in Gen. xix. 21, in a bad sense here, namely, to act partially from unmanly pity); nor to adorn the person of the great (i.e. powerful, distinguished, exalted), i.e. to favour him in a judicial decision (see at Ex. xxiii. 3). — Ver. 16. They were not to go about as calumniators among their countrymen, to bring their neighbour to destruction (Ezek. xxii. 9); nor to set themselves against the blood of a neighbour, i.e. to seek his life. 7^^"] does not mean calumny, but, according to its formation, a calumniator {Ewald, § 149^). — Ver. 17. They were not to cherish hatred in their hearts towards their brother, but to admonish a neighbour, i.e. to tell him openly what they had against him, and reprove him for his conduct, just as Christ teaches His disciples in Matt, xviii. 15-17, and " not to load a Bin upon themselves." xpn Ivy Kb: does not mean to have to bear, or atone for a sin on his account (^OnJcelos, Kiiobel, etc.), but, as in chap. xxii. 9, Num. xviii. 32, to bring sin upon one's self, which one then has to bear, or atone for; so also in Num. xviii. 2'2, Non riNb, from which the meaning " to bear," i.e. atone for sin, or suffer its consequences, was first derived. — Ver. 18. Lastly, they were not to avenge themselves, or bear malice against the sons of their nation (their countrymen), but to love their neighbour as themselves. "^^J to watch for (Song of Sol. i. G, viii. 11, 12), hence (=TTjp6Lv) to cherish a design upon a person, or bear him malice (Ps. ciii. 9; Jer. iii. 5, 12; Nahum i. 2).
Vers. 19-32. The words, " Ye shall keep My statutes," open the second series of commandments, which make it a duty on the part of the people of God to keep the physical and moral order of the world sacred. This series begins in ver. 19 with the commandment not to mix the things which are separated in the creation of God. " Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed, or put on a garment of mixed stuff." ^J^fr'y from Kp3 separation, signifies duce res diversi generis^ heterogenecp, and is a substantive in the accusative, giving a more precise definition. TJtDytJ' is in apposition to ^]^^r ^J|> and according to Deut. xxii. 11 refers to cloth or a garment woven of wool and flax, to a mixed fabric therefore. The etymology is obscure, and the rendering given by the LXX., KifiSrjXov, i.e. forged, not genuine, is probably merely a conjecture based upon the context. The word is probably derived from the Egyptian; although the attempt to explain it from the Coptic has not been so far satisfactory. In Deut. xxii. 9-11, instead of the field, the vineyard is mentioned, as that which they were not to sow with things of two kinds, i.e. so that a mixed produce should arise; and the threat is added, " that thy fulness (full fruit, Ex. xxii. 28), the seed, and the produce of the vineyard (i.e. the corn and wine grown upon the vineyard) may not become holy" (cf. chap, xxvii. 10, 21), i.e. fall to the sanctuary for its servants. It is also forbidden to plough with an ox and ass together, i.e. to yoke them to the same plough. By these laws the observance of the natural order and separation of things is made a duty binding upon the Israelites, the people of Jehovah, as a divine ordinance founded in the creation itself (Gen. i. 11, 12, 21, 24, 25). All the symbolical, mystical, moral, and utilitarian reasons that have been supposed to lie at the foundation of these commands, are foreign to the spirit of the law. And with regard to the observance of them, the statement of Joseplius and the Rabbins, that the dress of the priests, as well as the tapestries and curtains of the tabernacle, consisted of wool and linen, is founded upon the assumption, which cannot be established, that W, /Svcrcro9, is a term applied to linen. The mules frequently mentioned, e.g, in 2 Sam. xiii. 29, xviii. 9, 1 Kings i. 33, may have been imported from abroad, as we may conclude from 1 Kings X. 25. — Yers. 20-22. Even the personal rights of slaves were to be upheld; and a maid, though a slave, was not to be degraded to the condition of personal property. If any one lay with a woman who was a slave and betrothed to a man, but neither redeemed nor emancipated, the punishment of death was not to be inflicted, as in the case of adultery (chap. xx. 10), or the seduction of a free virgin who was betrothed (Deut. xxii. 23 sqq.), because she was not set free; but scourging was to be inflicted, and the guilty person was also to bring a trespassoffering for the expiation of his sin against God (see at chap. V. 15 sqq.). ^iD'injj from ^lin carper e^ lit. plucked, i,e. set apart, betrothed to a man, not abandoned or despised. H'HDn redeemed, n^pn emancipation without purchase, — the two ways in which a slave could obtain her freedom. ^"IJ^^^ air. \ey., from "ii>^3 to examine (chap. xiii. 36), lit. investigation, then punishment, chastisement. This referred to both parties, as is evident from the expression, '^ they shall not be put to death;" though it is not more precisely defined. According to the Mishnah, Kerith. ii. 4, the punishment of the woman consisted of forty stripes. — Vers. 23-25. The garden-fruit was also to be sanctified to the Lord. When the Israelites had planted all kinds of fruit-trees in the land of Canaan, they were to treat the fruit of every tree as uncircumcised for the first three years, i.e. not to eat it, as being uncircumcised. The singular suffix in St\t\V refers to i'3, and the verb T\V is a denom. from ^T\V. to make into a foreskin, to treat as uncircumcised, i.e. to throw away as unclean or un- eatable. The reason for this command is not to be sought for in the fact, that in the first three years fruit-trees bear only a little fruit, and that somewliat insipid, and that if the blossom or fruit is broken off the first year, the trees will bear all the more plentifully afterwards (Aben Esra, Clericiis, J. D. Mich.), though this end would no doubt be thereby attained; but it rests rather upon ethical grounds. Israel was to treat the fruits of horticulture with the most careful regard as a gift of God, and sanctify the enjoyment of them by a thank-offering. In the fourth year the whole of the fruit was to be a holiness of praise for Jehovah, i.e. to be offered to the Lord as a holy sacrificial gift, in praise and thanksgiving for the blessing which He had bestowed upon the fruit-trees. This offering falls into the category of first-fruits, and was no doubt given up entirely to the Lord for the servants of the altar; although the expression whpT} nb'V (Judg. ix. 27) seems to point to sacrificial meals of the first-fruits, that had already been reaped: and this is the way in which Joseplius has explained the command (^Ant. iv. 8, 19). For (ver. 25) they were not to eat the fruits till the fifth year, " to add (increase) its produce to you," viz. by the blessing of God, not by breaking off the fruits that might set in the first years.
Vers. 26-32. The Israelites were to abstain from all unnatural, idolatrous, and heathenish conduct. — Yer. 2Q. " Ye shall not eat upon blood" (pV as in Ex. xii. 8, referring to the basis of the eating), i.e. no flesh of which blood still lay at the foundation, w^iich was not entirely cleansed from blood (cf. 1 Sam. xiv. 32). These words were not a mere repetition of the law against eating blood (chap. xvii. 10), but a strengthening of the law. Not only were they to eat no blood, but no flesh to which any blood adhered. They were also " to practise no kind of incantations." tJ'n:: from K^n: to whisper (see Gen. xliv. 5), or, according to some, a denom. verb from K^n: a serpent; literally, to prophesy from observing snakes, then to prophesy from auguries generally,' avgurari. ]p)V a denom, verb, not from ]^V a cloud, with the signification to prophesy from the motion of the clouds, of which there is not the slightest historical trace in Hebrew; but, as the Rabbins maintain, from ]]V an eye, literally, to ogle, then to bewitch with an evil eye. — Yer. 27. " Ye shall not round the border of your head:^^ i.e. not cut the hair in a circle from one temple to the other, as some of the Arab tribes did, according to Herodotus (3, 8), in honour of their god ^OpoToXj whom he identifies with the Dionysos of the Greeks. In Jer. ix. 25, xxv. 23, xlix. 32, the persons who did this are called ^^5Q ''>*^^P, round-cropped, from their peculiar tonsure. " Neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy heard^'' sc. by cutting it off (cf. chap. xxi. 5), which Fliny reports some of the Arabs to have done, harba abraditur, p^^op^^rgitam in superiore labroy alas et hcec intonsa^ whereas the modern Arabs either wear a short moustache, or shave off the beard altogether (^Niebuhr, Arab. p. G8). — Ver. 28. " Ye shall not make cuttings on your fiesh (body) on account of a soul, i.e. a dead person (t^'SJ = np V)^\^ chap. xxi. 11, Num. vi. 6, or np^ Pent. xiv. 1; so again in chap. xxii. 4, Num. v. 2, ix. 6, 7, 10), nor make engraven (or branded) luriting upon yoiLrselves^ Two prohibitions of an unnatural disfigurement of the body. The first refers to passionate outbursts of mourning, common among the excitable nations of the East, particularly in the southern parts, and to the custom of scratching the arms, hands, and face (Deut. xiv. 1), which is said to have prevailed among the Babylonians and Armenians (Cyrop. iii. 1, 13, iii. 3, 67), the Scythians {Herod. 4, 71), and even the ancient Komans (cf. M. Geier de Ebrceor. luctu, c. 10), and to be still practised by the Arabs {Arvieux Beduinen, p. 153), the Persians {Morier Zweite Reise, p. 189), and the Abyssinians of the present day, and which apparently held its ground among the Israelites notwithstanding the prohibition (cf. Jer. xvi. 6, xli. 5, xlvii. 5), — as well as to the custom, which is also forbidden in chap. xxi. 5 and Deut. xiv. 1, of cutting off the hair of the head and beard (cf. Isa. iii. 24, xxii. 12; Micah i. 1(3; Amos viii. 10; Ezek. vii. 18). It cannot be inferred from the words of Plutarch, quoted by Spencer, hoKovvTe<^ ^(apL^eaOai rot? TereXevKrj- KQGiv, that the heathen associated with this custom the idea of making an expiation to the dead. The prohibition of i^i^ViP H^hs, scriptio stigmatisj writing.corroded or branded (see Ges. thes. pp. 1207-8), i.e. of tattooing, — a custom not only very common among the savage tribes, but still met with in Arabia (Arvieux Beduinen, p. 155; Burckhardt Beduinen, pp. 40, 41) and in Egypt among both men and women of the lower orders (Lane, Manners and Customs i. pp. 25, 35, iii. p. 169), — had no reference to idolatrous usages, but was intended to inculcate upon the Israelites a proper reverence for God's creation. — Ver. 29. " Do not prostitute' thy daughter ^ to cause her to he a lohore, lest the land fall to ichoredorriy and the land become full of xnce " (zimmah: see chap, xviii. 17). The reference is not to spiritual whoredom or idolatry (Ex. xxxiv. 16), but to flesldy whoredom, the word zimmah being only used in this connection. If a father caused his daughter to become a prostitute, immorality would soon become predominant, and the land (the population of the land) fall away to whoredom. — \er. 30. The exhortation now returns to the chief point, the observance of the Lord's Sabbaths and reverence for His sanctuary, which end^race the true method of divine worship as laid down in the ritual commandments. When the Lord's day is kept holy, and a holy reverence for the Lord's sanctuary lives in the heart, not only are many sins avoided, but-social and domestic life is pervaded by the fear of God and characterized by chasteness and propriety. — Ver. 31. True fear of God, however, awakens confidence in the Lord and His guidance, and excludes all superstitious and idolatrous ways and methods of discovering the future. This thought prepares the way for the warning against turning to familiar spirits, or seeking after wizards. nit< denotes a departed spirit, who was called up to make disclosures with regard to the future, hence a familiar spirit, spiritum malum qui certis artihus eliciehatur iit evocaret mortuorum manes, qui prcedicarent quoe ah eis petehantur (Cler.), This is the meaning in Isa. xxix. 4, as well as here and in chap. xx. 6, as is evident from chap. xx. 27, "a man or woman in whom is an o&," and from 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, 8, haalath ob, " a woman with such a spirit." The name was then applied to the necromantist himself, by whom the departed were called up (1 Sam. xxviii. 3; 2 Kings xxiii. 24). The word is connected with o6, a skin. ''^Vl^., the knowing, so to speak, " clever man " (Si/mm. yvcoarrjf;, Aq. <yvcopL(jTij<;), is only found in connection with oh, and denotes unquestionably a person acquainted with necromancy, or a conjurer who devoted himself to the invocation of spirits. (For further remarks, see at 1 Sam. xxviii. 7 sqq.). — Ver. 32. This series concludes with the moral precept, " Before a hoary head thou shall rise up {sc, with reverence. Job xxix. 8), and the countenance (the person) of the old man thou shalt honour and fear before thy God^ God is honoured in the old man, and for this reason reverence for age is required. This
Virtue was cultivated even by the heathen, e.g the Egyptians {Herod. 2, 80), the Spartans (Plutarch), and the ancient Romans (GeliiuSj ii. 15). It is still found in the East {Lane, Sitten und Gebr. ii. p. 121).
Vers. 33-37. A few commandments are added of a judicial character. — Vers. 33, 34. The Israelite was not only not to oppress the foreigner in his land (as had already been commanded in Ex. xxii. 20 and xxiii. 9), but to treat him as a native, and love him as himself. — Vers. 35, 36. As a universal rule, they were to do no wrong in judgm.ent (the administration of justice, ver. 15), or in social intercourse and trade with weights and measures of length and capacity; but to keep just scales, weights, and measures. On ephali and hin, see at Ex. xvi. 36 and xxix. 40. In the renewal of this command in Deut. xxv. 13-16, it is forbidden to carry "stone and stone " in the bag, i.e. two kinds of stones (namely, for weights), large and small; or to keep two kinds of measures, a large one for buying and a small one for selling; and full (unadulterated) and just weight and measure are laid down as an obligation. This was a command, the breach of which was frequently condemned (Prov. xvi. 11, xx. 10, 23; Amos viii. 5; Micah vi. 10, cf. Ezek. xlv^ 10).— Ver. 37. Concluding exhortation, summing up all the rest.
Chap. XX. Punishments fok the Vices and Crimes prohibited IN chap. XVIII. AND XIX. — The list commences with idolatry and soothsaying, which were to be followed by extermination, as a practical apostasy from Jehovah, and a manifest breach of the covenant. — Ver. 2. Whoever, whether an Israelite or a foreigner in Israel, dedicated of his seed (children) to Moloch (see chap, xviii. 21), was to be put to death. The people of the land were to stone him. i^J^S D^^, lapide ohruercy is synonymous with ^ipD^ lit. lapidem jacere: this was the usual punishment appointed in the law for cases in which death was inflicted, either as the result of a judicial sentence, or by the national community. — Ver. 3. By this punishment the nation only carried out the will of Jehovah; for He would cut off such a man (see at chap. xvii. 10 and xviii. 21) for having defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah and desecrated the name of Jehovah, not because he had brousht the sacrifice to Moloch into the sanctuary of Jehovah^ as Movers supposes, but in the same sense in which all the sins of Israel defiled, the sanctuary in their midst (chap. xv. 31, xvi. 16). — Vers. 4,* 5. If the people, however (the peopje of the land), should hide their eyes from him (on the dacjesh in D^'Vn and ^D'^pV] see the note on p. 307), from an unscrupulous indifference or a secret approval of his sin, the Lord would direct His face against him and his family, and cut him off with all that went a whoring after him. — Ver. 6. He would also do the same to every soul that turned to familiar spirits and necromantists (chap. xix. 31, cf. Ex. xxii. 17), "to go a whoring after them," i^. to make himself guilty of idolatry by so doing, such practices being always closejy connected with idolatry. — Vers. 7, 8. For the Israelites were to sanctify themselves, i.e. to keep themselves pure from all idolatrous abominations, to be holy because Jehovah was holy (chap. xi. 44, xix. 2), and to keep the statutes of their God who sanctified them (Ex. xxxi. 13).
Vers. 9-18. Whoever cursed father or mother was to be punished with death (chap. xix. 3); "Azs blood would he upon him." The cursing of parents was a capital crime (see at chap, xvii. 4, and for the plural VD^ Ex. xxii. 1 and Gen. iv. 10), which was to return upon the doer of it, according to Gen. ix. 6. The same punishment was to be inflicted upon adultery (ver. 10, cf. chap, xviii. 20), carnal intercourse with a father's wife (ver. 11, cf. chap, xviii. 7, 8) or with a daughter-in-law (ver. 12, cf. chap, xviii. 17), sodomy (ver. 13, cf. chap, xviii. 22), sexual intercourse with a mother and her daughter, in which case the punishment was to be heightened by the burning of the criminals when put to death (ver. 14, cf. chap, xviii. 17), lying with a beast (vers. 15, 16, cf. chap, xviii. 23), sexual intercourse with a half-sister (ver. 17, cf. chap, xviii. 9 and 11), and lying with a menstruous woman (ver. 18, cf. chap, xviii. 19). The punishment of death, which was to be inflicted in all these cases upon both the criminals, and also upon the beast that had been abused (vers. 15, 16), was to be by stoning, according to vers. 2, 27, and Deut. xxii. 21 sqq.; and by the burning (ver. 14) we are not to understand death by fire, or burning alive, but, as we may clearly see from Josh. vii. 15 and 25, burning the corpse after death. This was also the case in chap. xxi. 9 and Gen. xxxviii. 24.
Vers. 19-21. No civil punishment, on the other hand, to be inflicted by the magistrate or by the community generally, was ordered to follow marriage with an aunt, the sister of father or, mother (ver. 19, cf. chap, xviii. 12, 13), with an uncle's wife (ver. 20, cf. chap, xviii. 4), or with a sister-in-law, a brother's wife (ver. 21, cf. chap, xviii. 16). In all these cases the threat is simply held out, " they shall bear their iniquity," and (according to vers. 20, 21) " die childless;" that is to say, God would reserve the punishment to Himself (see at chap, xviii. 14). In the list of punishments no reference is made to intercourse with a mother (chap, xviii. 7) or a granddaughter (chap, xviii. 10), as it was taken for granted that the punishment of death would be inflicted in such cases as these; just as marriage with a daughter or a full sister is passed over in the prohibitions in chap, xviii.
Vers. 22-27. The list of punishments concludes, like the prohibitions in chap, xviii. 24 sqq., with exhortations to observe the commandments and judgments of the Lord, and to avoid such abominations (on ver. 22 cf. chap, xviii. 3-5, 26, 28, 30; and on ver. 23 cf. chap, xviii. 3 and 24). The reason assigned for the exhortations is, that Jehovah was about to give them for a possession the fruitful land, whose inhabitants He had driven out because of their abominations, and that Jehovah was their God, who had separated Israel from the nations. For tliis reason (ver. 25) they were also to sever (make distinctions) between clean and unclean cattle and birds, and not make their souls ({,e. their persons) abominable through unclean animals, with which the earth swarmed, and which God had " separated to make unclean^^ i.e. had prohibited them from eating or touching when dead, because they defiled (see chap. xi.). For (ver. 26) they were to be holy, because Jehovah their God was holy, who had severed them from the nations, to belong to Him, i.e, to be the nation of His possession (see Ex. xix. 4-6). — Ver. 27. But because Israel was called to be the holy nation of Jehovah, every one, either man or woman, in whom there was a heathenish spirit of soothsaying, was to be put to death, viz. stoned (cf. chap. xix. 31), to prevent defilement by idolatrous abominations.
HOLINESS OF THE PRIESTS, OF THE HOLY GIFTS, AND OF SACRIFICES. — CHAP. XXI. AND XXII.
Chap. xxi. The Sanctification of the Priests. — As the whole nation was to strive after sanctification in all the duties of life, on account of its calling as a nation of God, the priests, whom Jehovah had chosen out of the whole nation to be the custodians of His sanctuary, and had sanctified to that end, were above all to prove themselves the sanctified servants of the Lord in their domestic life and the duties of their calling. (1) They were not to defile themselves by touching the dead or by signs of mourning (vers. 1-6 and 10-12); (2) they were to contract and maintain a spotless marriage (vers. 7-9 and 13-15); and (3) those members of the priesthood who had any bodily failings were to keep away from the duties of the priests' office (vers. 16-24).
Vers. 1-6. The priest was not to defile himself on account of a soul, i.e. a dead person (rtephesh, as in chap. xix. 28), among his countrymen, unless it were of his kindred, who stood near to him (i.e. in the closest relation to him), formed part of the same family with him (cf. ver. 3), such as his mother, father, son, daui^hter, brother, or a sister who was still livinfj with him as ii virgin and was not betrothed to a husband (cf. Ezek. xliv. 25). As every corpse not only defiled the persons who touched it, bat also the tent or dwelling in which the person had died (Num. xix. 11, 14); in the case of death among members of the family or household, defilement was not to be avoided on the part of the priest as the head of the family. It was therefore allowable for him to defile himself on account of such persons as these, and even to take part in their burial. The words of ver. 4 are obscure: ''He shall not defile himself '^'"^'^'^'^V'^j i.e. as lord (pater-familias) among his countrymen, to desecrate himself;" and the early translators have wandered in uncertainty among different renderings. In all probability 7^3 denotes the master of the house or husband. But, for all that, the explanation given by Knphel and others, " as a husband he shall not defile himself on the death of his wife, his mother-in-law and daughterin-law, by taking part in their burial," is decidedly to be rejected. For, apart from the unwarrantable introduction of the motherin-law and daughter-in-law, there is sufficient to prevent our thinking of defilement on the death of a ^^ife, in the fact that the wife is included in the "kin that is near unto him" in ver. 2, though not in the way that many Rabbins suppose, who maintain that "iSK^ signifies wife, but implicite^ the wife not being expressly mentioned, because man and wife form one flesh (Gen.
ii. 24), and the wife stands nearer to the husband than father and mother, son and daughter, or brother and sister. Nothing is proved by appealing to the statement made by Plutarch^ that the priests of the Komans were not allowed to defile themselves by touching the corpses of their wives; inasmuch as there is no trace of this custom to be found among the Israelites, and the Rabbins, for this very reason, suppose the death of an illegitimate wife to be intended. The correct interpretation of the words can only be arrived at by considering the relation of the fourth verse to what precedes and follows. As vers. 16-3 stand in a very close relation to vers. 5 and 6, — the defilement on account of a dead person being more particularly explained in the latter, or rather, strictly speaking, greater force being given to the prohibition, — it is natural to regard ver. 4 as standing in a similar relation to ver. 7, and to understand it as a general)rohibition, which is still more clearly expounded in vers. 7 and). The priest was not to defile himself as a husband and the j lead of a household, either by marrying a wife of immoral or { mbiguous reputation, or by training his children carelessly, so as to desecrate himself, i.e. profane the holiness of his rank and office by either one or the other (cf. vers. 9 and 15). — In ver. 5 desecration is forbidden in the event of a death occurring. He was not to shave a bald place upon his head. According to the Chethib <^n"^p'! is to be pointed with n— attached, and the Keri in"ip^ is a grammatical alteration to suit the plural suffix in D^i<"i3j which is obviously to be rejected on account of the parallel ^n^^^ ^ DJPt nfc<Ql. In both of the clauses there is a constructio ad sensurrij the prohibition which is addressed to individuals being applicable to the whole: upon their head shall no one shave a bald place, namely, in front above the forehead, " between the eyes" (Deut. xiv. 1). We may infer from the context that reference is made to a customary mode of mourning for the dead; and this is placed beyond all doubt by Deut. xiv. 1, where it is forbidden to all tlie Israelites " for the dead." According to Herodotus, 2, 36, the priests in Egypt were shaven, whereas in other places they wore their hair long. In other nations it was customary for those who were more immediately concerned to shave their heads as a sign of mourning; but the Egyptians let their hair grow both upon their head and chin when any of their relations were dead, whereas they shaved at other times. The two other outward signs of mourning mentioned, uamely, cutting off the edge of the beard and making incisions in the body, have ah'eady been forbidden in chap. xix. 27, 28, and the latter is repeated in Deut. xiv. 1. The reason for the prohibition is given in ver. 6, — " they shall he holy unto their God" and therefore not disfigure their head and body by signs of passionate grief, aijd so pi^ofane the name of their God when they offer the firings of Jehovah; that is to say, when they serve and approach the God who has manifested Himself to His people as the Holy One. On the epithet applied to the sacrifices, " the food of God," see at chap. iii. 11 and 16.
Vers. 7-9. Their marriage and their domestic life were also to be in keeping with their holy calling. They were not to marry a whore (i.e, a public prostitute), or a fallen woman, or a woman put away (divorced) from her husband^ that is to say, any person of notoriously immoral life, for this would be irreconcilable with the holiness of the priesthood, but (as may be seen from this in comparison with ver. 14) only a virgin or widow of irreproachable character. She need not be an Israelite, but might be the daughter of a stranger living among the Israelites; only she must not be an idolater or a Canaanite, for the Israelites were all forbidden to marry such a woman (Ex. xxxiv. 16; Deut. vii. 3). — Ver. 8. '' Thou shalt sanctify him therefore,^^ that is to say, not merely " respect his holy dignity " (Knobel), but take care that he did not desecrate his office by a marriage so polluted. The Israelites as a nation are addressed in the persons of their chiefs. The second clause of the verse, ''he shall be holy unto thee^^ contains the same thought. The repetition strengthens the exhortation. The reason assigned for the first clause is the same as in ver. 6; and that for the second, the same as in chap. xx. 8, 26, Ex. xxxi. 13, etc. — Ver. 9. The priest's family was also to lead a blameless life. If a priest's daughter began to play the whore, she profaned her father, and was to be burned, i.e, to be stoned and then burned (see chap. XX. 14). 1^3 *^^^, a man who is a priest, a priest-man.
Vers. 10-15. The high priest was to maintain a spotless purity in a higher degree still. He, whose head had been anointed with oil, and who had been sanctified to put on the holy clothes (scje chap. viii. 7—12 and vii. 37), was not to go with his hair flying loose when a death had taken place, nor to rend his clothes (see chap. x. 6), nor to go in.to any dead body ^r\D nb^SJ souls of a departed one, i.e. dead persons); he was not to defile himself (cf. ver. 2) on account of his father and mother (i*e. when they were dead), nor to go out of the sanctuary /^mem nempe causa (^Ros.), to give way to his grief or attend the funeral. We are not to understand by this, however, that the sanctuary was to be his constant abode, as Bdhr and Baumgarten maintain (cf. chap. X. 7). ''Neither shall he profane the sanctuary of his God,^^ sc. by any defilement of his person which he could and ought to avoid; ''for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him^^ (cf. chap. x. 7), and defilement was incompatible with this. "iTp. does not mean the diadem of the high priest here, as in Ex. xxix. 6, xxxix. 30, but consecration (see at Num. vi. 7). — Vers. 13, 14. He was only to marry a woman in her virginity, not a widow, a woman put away, or a fallen woman, a whore (H^iT without a copulative is in apposition to HpSti a fallen mv], who was to be the same to him as a whore), but " a virgin of his own people," that is to say, only an Israelitish woman. — Ver. 15. "Neither shall he profane his seed (posterity) among his people^^ sc. by contracting a marriage that was not in keeping with the holiness of his rank.
Vers. 16-24. Directions for the sons (descendants) of Aaron who were afflicted with bodily imperfections. As the spiritual nature of a man is reflected in his bodily form, only a faultless condition of body could correspond to the holiness of the priest; just as the Greeks and Romans required, for the very same reason, that the priests should be okoKKrjpoi, integri corporis (Plato de legg, 0, 759; Seneca excerpt, controv. 4, 2; Plutarch qucest. rom. 73). Ccmsequently none of the descendants of Aaron, " according to their generations," i.e. in all future generations (see Ex. xii. 14), who had any blemish (mumy /zw/x-o?, bodily fault) were to a])proach the vail, i.e. enter the holy place, or draw near to the altar (in the court) to offer the food of Jehovah, viz. the sacrifices. No blind man, or lame man, or charum, KoXo^opiv (from Ko\oP6^ and pLv\ naso mutilus (LXX.), i.e. one who had sustained any mutilation, especially in the face, on the nose, ears, lips, or eyes, not merely one who had a flat or stunted nose; or V^i^^ lit. stretched out, i.e. one who had anything beyond what was normal, an ill-formed bodily member th'^refore; so that a man who had more than ten fingers and ten toes might be so regarded (2 Sam. xxl. 20). — Yer. 19. Whoever had a fracture in his foot or hand. — Yer. 20. 1311 a Immp-backed man. P"^, lit. crushed to powder, fine: as distinguished from the former, it signified one who had an unnaturally thin or withered body or member, not merely consumptive or wasted away, fej^i i^^ya mixed, i.e. spotted in his eye, one who had a white speck in his eye (^Oiik., Vulg.j Saad.), not blear-eyed (LXX.). ^'JS, which occurs nowhere else except in chap. xxii. 22 and Deut. xxviii. 27, signifies, according to the ancient versions, the itch; and nsp^, which only occurs here and in chap. xxii. 22, the ringworm (LXX., Targ.j etc.). "i]^^ ^'^"'Pj crushed in the stones, one who had crushed or softened stones; for in Isa. xxxviii. 21, the only other place where n^D occurs, it signifies, not to rub to pieces, but to squeeze out, to lay in a squeezed or liquid form upon the wound: the Sept. rendering is ^ovop'^i^y having only one stone. Others understand the word as signifying ruptured (Vulg.j Saad.)y or with swollen testicles {Juda hen KarisJi). All that is certain is, that we are not to think of castration of any kind (cf. Deut. xxiii. 2), and that there is not sufficient ground for altering the text into ni"}p extension. — Yer. 22. Pei*sons afflicted in the manner described might eat the bread of their God, however, the sacrificial gifts, the most holy and the holy, i.e. the w^ve-offerings, the first-fruits, the firstlings, tithes and things laid under a ban (Num. xviii. 11-19 and 26-29), — that is to say, they might eat them like the rest of the priests; but they were ^ot allowed to perform any priestly duty, that they might not desecrate the sanctuary of the Lord (ver. 23, cf. ver.,12). — Yer. 24. Moses communicated these instructions to Aaron and his sons.
Chap. xxii. Yers. 1-16. Eeverence for Things sanctified.— The law on this matter was, (1) that no priest who had become unclean was to touch or eat them (vers. 2-9), and (2) that no one was to eat them who was not a member of a priestly family (vers. 10-16). — Yer. 2. Aaron and his sons were to keep away from the holy gifts of the children of Israel, which they consecrated to Jehovah, that they might not profane the holy name of Jehovah by defiling them. "^T^n with |p to keep away, separate one's self from anything, i.e. not to regard or treat them as on a par with unconsecrated things. The words, " which they sanctify to Me,^ are a supplementary apposition, added as a more precise definition of the " holy things of the children of Israel;" as the expression ^Hioly things" was applied to the holy objects universally, including the furniture of the tabernacle. Here, however, the reference Is solely to the holy offerings or gifts, which were not placed upon the altar, but presented to the Lord as heave-offerings and wave-offerings, and assigned by Him to the priests as the servants of His house, for their maintenance (Num. xviii. 11-19, 26-29). None of the descendants of Aaron were to approach these gifts, which were set apart for them, — i.e. to touch them either for the purpose of eating, or making them ready for eating, — whilst any uncleanness was upon them, on pain of extermination. — Yers. 4, 5. No leper was to touch them (see chap. xlii. 2), or person with gonorrhoea (chap. xv. 2), until he was clean; no one who had touched a person defiled by a corpse (chap. xix. 28; Num. xix. 22), or whose seed had gone from him (chap. xv. 16, 18); and no one who had touched an unclean creeping animal, or an unclean man. irixpp?b?j as In chap. v. 3, a closer definition of)p NDtp"* "iK^Xj " who Is unclean to him with regard to (on account of) any uncleanness which he may have." — Yers. 6, 7. ^' A soul which touches it,^ i.e. any son of Aaron, who had touched either an unclean person or thing, was to be unclean till the evening, and then bathe his body; after sunset, i.e. when the day was over, he became clean, and could eat of the sanctified things, for they were his food. — Yer. 8. In this connection the command given to all the Israelites, not to eat anything that had fallen down dead or been torn in pieces (chap. xvli. 15, 16), is repeated with special reference to the priests. (On ver. 9, see chap. vili. 35, xviii. 30, and xix. 17.) ^'^.•'f"]''^ " because they have defiled It (the sanctified thing)." — Yers. 10-16. No stranger was to eat a sanctified thing. "1J Is in general the non-priest, then any person who was not fully Incorporated into a priestly family, e.g. a visitor or day-labourer (cf. Ex. xii. 49), who were neither of them members of his family. — Yer, 11. On the other hand, slaves bought for money, or born In the house, became members of his family and lived upon his bread; they were therefore allowed to eat of that which was sanctified along with him, since the slaves were, in fact, formally Incorporated into the nation by circumcision (Gen. xvil. 12, 13). — Yers. 12, 13. So again the daughter of a priest, if she became a widow, or was put away by her husband, and returned cliildless to her fatlier's liouse, and became a member of his family again, just as in the days of her youth, might eat of the holy things. But if she had any children, then after the death of her husband, or after her divorce, she formed with them a family of her own, which could not be incorporated into the priesthood, of course always supposing that her husband was not a priest. — Ver. 14. But if any one (i.e. any layman) should eat unawares of that which was sanctified, he was to bring it, i.e. an equivalent for it, with the addition of a fifth as a compensation for the priest; like a man who had sinned by unfaithfulness in relation to that which was sanctified (chap. v. 16). — In the concluding exhortation in vers. 15 and 16, the subject to vpn) (profane) and ^5<''E'n (bear) is indefinite, and the passage to be rendered thus: " They are not to profane the sanctified gifts of the children of Israel^ what they heave for the Lord (namely, by letting laymen eat of them), and are to cause them (the laymen) who do this unawares to hear a trespass-sin (by imposing the compensation mentioned in ver. 14), if they eat their (the priests') sanctified gifts. ^* Understood in this way, both verses furnish a fitting conclusion to the section vers. 10 -14. On the other hand, according to the traditional interpretation of these verses, the priesthood is regarded as the subject of the first verb, and a negative supplied before the second. Both of these are arbitrary and quite indefensible, because vers. 10-14 do not refer to the priests but to laymen, and in the latter case w^e should expect ^[^7^ ^^'^^ ^^\ (cf. ver. 9) instead of the unusual CDHiX ^^5'''^^.
Vers. 17-33. Acceptable Sacrifices. — Vers. 18-20. Every sacrifice offered to the Lord by an Israelite of foreigner, in consequence of a vow or as a freewill-offering (cf. chap. vii. 16), was to be faultless and a male, " for good pleasure to the offerer " (cf. i. 3), i.e. to secure for him the good pleasure of God. An animal with a fault would not be acceptable. — Yers. 21, 22. Ever}^ peace-offering was also to be faultless, whether brought " to fulfil a special (important) vow " (cf. Num. xv. 3, 8: i^pB^ from K^Q to be great, distinguished, wonderful), or as a freewill gift; that is to say, it was to be free from such faults as blindness, or a broken limb (from lameness therefore: Deut. XV. 21), or cutting (i.e. mutilation, answering to D^"in chap. xxi.
18), or an abscess (^.^?!, from p^ to flow, probably a flowing suppurating abscess). — Ver. 23. As a voluntary peace-offering they might ' indeed offer an ox or sheep that was ^^p\>\ V^'^^y "stretched out and drawn together," i.e, with the whole body or certain limbs either too large or too small;^ but such an animal could not be acceptable as a votive offering. — Ver. 24. Castrated animals were not to be sacrificed, nor in fact to be kept in the land at all. '^'^V^ compressus, OXc/Sla^;, an animal with the stones crushed; n^ri3 contusiis, OXaala^^ with them beaten to pieces; P^n: avulsus, airdBcov, with them twisted off; SVr\3- excisus, TOfjiia<; or eKTOfiLa^^ with them cut off. In all these different ways was the operation performed' among the ancients (cf. Aristot. hist, an, ix. 37, 3; Colum, vi. 26, vii. 11; Pallad, vi. 7). " And in your land ye shall not make," sc, ^^^ W?? i-e. castrated animals, that is to say, "not castrate animals." This explanation, which is the one given by Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 40) and all the Rabbins, is required by the expression " in your land," which does not at all suit the interpretation adopted by Clericus and Knohel, who understand by nbv the preparation of sacrifices, for sacrifices were never prepared outside the land. The castration of animals is a mutilation of God's creation, and the prohibition of it was based upon the same principle as that of mixing heterogeneous things in chap. xix. 19. — Yer. 25. Again, the Israelites were not to accept any one of all these, i.e, the faulty animals described, as sacrifice from a foreigner. " For their corruption is in them/^ i.e. something corrupt, a fault, adheres to them; so that such offerings could not procure good pleasure towards them. — In vers. 26-30 three laws are given of a similar character. — Ver. 27. A young ox, sheep, or goat was to be seven days under its mother, and could only be sacrificed from the eighth day onwards, according to the rule laid down in Ex. xxii. 29 with regard to the first-born. The reason for this was, that the young animal had not attained to a mature afid self-sustained life durinfji: the first week of its existence.^
^ In explanation of these words Knobel very properly remarks, that with the Greeks the sacrificial animal, was required to be a,(pi\yic {Pollux i. 1, 26), upon which Hesychius observes, f/^vin tt'Ksoux^uu f^vjTi ^iuv n tqv (ju(/,ocrog.
2 For this reason the following rule was also laid down by the Romans: Suis foetus sacrijicio die quinto purus est^ pecoris die octavo^ bovis ' tricesimo iPlin. h. n. 8, 51).
This maturity was not reached till after the lapse of a week, that period of time sanctified by the creation. There is no rule laid down in the law respecting the age up to which an animal was admissible in sacrifice. Bullocks, i.e. steers or young oxen of more than a year old, are frequently mentioned and prescribed for the festal sacrifices (for the young ox of less than a year old is called ^^V; chap. ix. 3), viz. as hurnt-offerings in chap, xxiii. 18, Num. vil. 15, 21, 27, 33, 39 sqq., viii. 8, xv. 24, xxviii. 11, 19, 27, xxix. 2, 8, and as sin-offerings in chap. iv. 3, 14, xvi. 3; — sheep (lambs) of one year old are also prescribed as burnt-off^erings in chap. ix. 3, xii. 6, xxiii. 12, Ex. xxix. 38, Num. vi. 14, vii. 17, 21, 27, 33, 39 sqq., xxviii. 3, 9, 19, 27, xxix. 2, 8, 13, 17 sqq., as peace-offerings in Num. vii. 17, 23, xxix. 35 sqq., and as trespass-off'erings in Num. vi. 12; also a yearling ewe as a sin-offering in chap. xiv. 10 and Num. vi. 14, and a yearling goat in Num. xv. 27. They generally brought older oxen or bullocks for peace-offerings (Num. vii. 17, xxiii. 29 sqq.), and sometimes as burnt-offerings. In Judg. vi. 25 an ox of seven years old is said to have been brought as a burntoffering; and there can be no doubt tliat the goats and rams presented as sin-offerings and trespass-offerings were more than a year old. — Yer. 28. The command not to kill an ox or sheep at the same time as its young is related to the law in Ex. xxiii. 19 and Deut. xxii. 6, 7, and was intended to lay it down as a duty on the part of the Israelites to keep sacred the relation which God had established between parent and offspring. — In vers. 29, 30, the command to eat the flesh of the animal on the day on which it was offered (chap. vii. 15, xix. 5, 6) is repeated with special reference to the praise-offering. — Vers. 31-33. Conchiding exhortation, as in chap, xviii. 29, xix. 37. (On ver. 32, cf. chap, xviii. 21 and xi. 44, 45.)
This chapter does not contain a " calendar of feasts," or a summary and completion of the directions previously given in a scattered form concerning the festal times of Israel, but simply a list of those festal days and periods of the year at which holy meetings were to be held. This is most clearly stated in the heading (ver. 2): " the festal times of Jehovah, which ye shall call out as holy meetings^ these are they^ My feastSj^ i.e. those whicli are to be regarded as My feasts, sanctified to Me. The festal seasons and days were called "feasts of Jehovah," times appointed and fixed by Jehovah (see Gen. i. 14), not because the feasts belonged to fixed times regulated by the course of the moon {Knohel)^ but because Jehovah had appointed them as days, or times, which were to be sanctified to Him. Hence the expression is not only used with reference to the Sabbath, the new moon, and the other yearly feasts; but in Num. xxviii. 2 and xxix. 39 it is extended so as to include the times of the daily morning and evening sacrifice. (On the " holy convocation " see Ex. xii. 16.)
Ver. 3. At the head of these moadim stood the Sabhathy as the day which God had already sanctified as a day of rest for His people, by His own rest on the seventh creation-day (Gen. ii. 3, cf. Ex. XX. 8-11). On jinn^* nn^', see at Ex. xxxi. 15 and xvi. 33. As a weekly returning day of rest, the observance of which had its foundation in the creative work of God, the Sabbath was distinguished from the yearly feasts, in which Israel commemorated the facts connected with its elevation into a people of God, and which were generally called " feasts of Jehovah" in the stricter sense, and as such were distinguished from the Sabbath (vers. 37, 38; Isa. i. 13, 14; 1 Chron. xxiii. 31; 2 Chron. xxxi. 3; Neh. x. 34). This distinction is pointed out in the heading, " these are the feasts of JehovaJi^ (ver. 4).^ In Num. xxviii. 11 the feast of new moon follows the Sabbath; but this is passed over here, because the new moon was not to be observed either with sabbatical rest or a holy meeting.
Vers. 4-14. Ver. 4 contains the special heading for the yearly feasts. Ci'iyiDB at their appointed time. — Vers. ^-^, The leading directions for the Passover and feast of Mazzoth are
^ Partly on account of this repetition, and partly because of the supposed discrepancy observable in the fact, that holy meetings are not prescribed for the Sabbath in the list of festal sacrifices in Num. xxviii. and xxix., Hupfeld and Knohel maintain that the words of vers. 2 and 3, from nin"' to
DDTlhtJ'iD, notwithstanding their Elohistic expression, were not written by the Elohist, but are an interpolation of the later editor. The repetition of the heading, however, cannot prove anything at all with the constant repetitions that occur in the so-called Elohistic groundwork, especially as it can be fully explained by the reason mentioned in the text. And the pretended discrepancy rests upon the perfectly arbitrary assumption, that Num.
repeated from Ex. xii. G, 11, 15-20. r^l2V rirx^p, occupation of a work, signifies labour at some definite occupation, e.g. the building of the tabernacle, Ex. xxxv. 24, xxxvi. i. 3; hence occupation in connection with trade or one's social calling, such as agriculture, handicraft, and so forth; whilst 1^9 t^ ^^ ^^^^ Performance of any kind of work, e.n. kindlino; fire for cookinrr food (Ex. xxxv. 2, 3). On the Sabbath and the day of atonement every kind of civil work was prohibited, even to the kindling of fire for the purpose of cooking (vers. 3, 30, 31, cf. Ex. XX. 10, xxxi. 14, xxxv. 2, 3; Deut. v. 14 and Lev. xvi. 29; Num. xxix. 7); on the other feast-days with a holy convocation, only servile work (vers. 7, 8, 21, 25, 35, 36, cf. Ex. xii. 16, and the explanation in vol. i., and JNTum. xxviii. 18, 25, 26, xxix. 1, 12, 35). To this there is appended a fresh regulation in vers. 9-14, with the repetition of the introductory clause, " And the Lord spake,"" etc. When the Israelites had come into the land to be given them by the Lord, and had reaped the harvest, they were to bring a sheaf as first-fruits of their harvest to the priest, that he might wave it before Jehovah on the day after the Sabbath, i.e. after the first day of Mazzoth. According to Josephus and Philo, it was a sheaf of barley; but this is not expressly commanded, because it would be taken for gi'anted in Canaan, where the harvest began with the barley. In the warmer parts of Palestine the barley ripens about the middle of April, and is reaped in April or the beginning of May, whereas the wheat ripens two or three weeks later (Seetzen; Robinsons Pal. ii. 263, 278). The priest was to wave the sheaf before Jehovah, i.e. to present it symbolically to Jehovah by the ceremony of waving, without burning any of it upon the altar. The rabbinical rule, viz. to dry ^ portion of the ears by the fire, xxviii. and xxix. contain a complete codex of all the laws relating to all the feasts. How totally this assumption is at variance with the calendar of feasts, is clear enough from the fact, that no rule is laid down there for the observance of the Sabbath, with the exception of the sacrifices to be offered upon it, and that even rest from labour is not commanded. Moreover Knobel is wrong in identifying the " holy convocation" with a journey to the sanctuary, whereas appearance at the tabernacle to hold the holy convocations (for worship) was not regarded as necessary either in the law itself or according to the later orthodox custom, but, on the contrary, holy meetings for edification were held on the Sabbath in every place in the land, and it was out of this that the synagogues arose.
and then, after rubbing them out, to burn them on the altar, was an ordinance of the later scribes, who knew not the law, and was based upon chap. il. 14. For the law in chap. ii. 14 refers to the offerings of first-fruits made by priva.te persons, which are treated of in Num. xviii. 12, 13, and Deut. xxvi. 2 sqq. The sheaf of first-fruits, on the other hand, w^hich was to be offered before Jehovah as a wave-offering in the name of the congregation, corresponded to the two wave-loaves which were leavened and then baked, and were to be presented to the Lord as firstfruits (ver. 17). As no portion of these wave-loaves was burned upon the altar, because nothing leavened was to be placed upon it (chap. ii. 11), but they were assigned entirely to the priests, we have only to assume that the same application was intended by the law in the case of the sheaf of first-fruits, since the text only prescribes the waving, and does not contain a word about roasting, rubbing, or burning the grains upon the altar. ^1^^ nii^n (the morrow after the Sabbath) signifies the next day after the first day of the feast of Mazzoth, i.e, the 16th Abib (^Nisan\ not the day of the Sabbath which fell in the seven days' feast of Mazzoth, as the Bgethoseans supposed, still less the 22d of Nisan, or the day after the conclusion of the seven days' feast, which always closed w^ith a Sabbath, as Hitzig imagines.^ The
^ The view advocated by the Bsethoseans, which has been lately supported by W. Schultz, is refuted not only, by Josh. v. 11, but by the definite article used, n3ti^*n, which points back to one of the feast-days already mentioned, and still more decisively by the circumstance, that according to ver. 15 the seven weeks, at the close of which the feast of Pentecost was to be kept, were to be reckoned from this Sabbath; and if the Sabbath was not fixed, but might fall upon any day of the seven days' feast of Mazzoth, and therefore as much as five or six days after the Passover, the feast of Passover itself would be forced out of the fundamental position which it occupied in the series of annual festivals (cf. Ranke^ Pentateuch ii. 108). Hitzig^s hypothesis has been revived by Hiipfeld and Knohel^ without any notice of the conclusive refutation given to it by Bohr and Wieseler; only Knobel makes "the Sabbath" not the concluding but the opening Sabbath of the feast of Passover, on the ground that '' otherwise the festal sheaf would not have been offered till the 22d of the month, and therefore would have come post festumy But this hypothesis, which renders it necessary that the commencement of the ecclesiastical year should always be assigned to a Saturday (Sabbath), in order to gain weekly Sabbaths for the 14th and 21st of the month, as the opening and close of the feast of Passover, gives such a form to the Jewish year as would involve its invariably closing with a broken week; a hypothesis which is not only incapable of demonstration,
^' Sabbath" Joes not mean the seventh day of the week, but the day of rest, although tlie weekly Sabbath was always the seventh or last day of the week; hence not only the seventh day of the week (Ex. xxxi. 15, etc.), but the day of atonement (the tenth of the seventh month), is called " Sahhatli^^^ and ^' Shahhath shahhathon' (ver. 32, chap. xvi. 31). As a day of rest, on which no laborious work was to be performed (ver. 8), the first day of the feast of Mazzotli is called " Sahbaihy^ irrespectively of the day of the week upon which it fell; and " the morrow after (lie Sahhatli^^ is equivalent to " the morrow after the Passover" mentioned in Josh. v. 11, where "Passover" signifies the day at the beginning of which the paschal meal was held, i.e. the first day of unleavened bread, which commenced on the evening of the 14th, in other words, the 15th Abib. By offering the sheaf of first-fruits of the harvest, the Israelites were to consecrate their daily bread -to the Lord their God, and practically to acknowledge that they owed the blessing of the harvest to the grace of God. They were not to eat any bread or roasted grains of the new corn till they had presented the offering of their God (ver. 14). This offering was fixed for the second day of the feast of the Passover, that the connection between the harvest and the Passover might be kept in subordination to the leading idea of the Passover itself (see at Ex. xii. 15 sqq.). But but, from tlie holiness attached to the Jewish division of weeks, is a priori improbable, and in fact inconceivable. The Mosaic law, which gave such sanctity to the division of tim^ into weeks, as founded upon the history of creation, by the institution of the observance of the Sabbath, that it raised the Sabbath into the groundwork of a magnificent festal cycle, could not possibly have made such an arrangement with regard to the time for the observance of the Passover, as would involve almost invariably the mutilation of the last week of the year, and an interruption of the old and sacred weekly cycle with the Sabbath festival at its close. The arguments by which so forced a hypothesis is defended, must be very conclusive indeed, to meet with any acceptance. But neither Hitzig nor his followers have been able to adduce any such arguments as these. Besides the word " Sabbath" and Josh. v. 11, which prove nothing at all, the only other argument adduced by Knohel is, that " it is impossible to see why precisely the second day of the azyma, when the people went about their ordinary duties, and there was no meeting at the sanctuary, should have been distinguished by the sacrificial gift which was the peculiar characteristic of the feast," — an argument based upon the fallacious principle, that anything for which I can see no reason, cannot possibly have occurred.
as the sheaf was not burned upon the altar, but only presented symbolically to the Lord by waving, and then handed over to the priests, an altar-gift had to be connected with it, — namely, a yearling sheep as a burnt-offering, a meat-offering of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, and a drink-offering of a quarter of a bin of wine, — to give expression to the obligation and willingness of the congregation not only to enjoy their earthly food, but to strengthen all the members of their body for growth in holiness and diligence in good works. The burntoffering, for which a yearling lamb was prescribed, as in fact for all the regular festal sacrifices, was of course in addition to the burnt-offerings prescribed in Num. xxvili. 19, 20, for every feastday. The meat-offering, however, was not to consist of onetenth of an ephah of fine flour, as on other occasions (Ex. xxix. 40; Num. xxviii. 9, 13, etc.), but of two-tenths, that the offering of corn at the harvest-feast might be a more plentiful one than usual.
Vers. 15-22. The law for the special observance of the feast of Harvest (Ex. xxiii. 16) is added here without any fresh introductory formula, to show at the very outset the close connection between the two feasts. Seven whole weeks, or fifty days, were to be reckoned from the day of the offering of the sheaf, and then the day of first-fruits (Num. xxviii. 26) ov feast of TF^^A:s (Ex. xxxiv. 22; Deut. xvi. 10) was to be celebrated. From this reckoning the feast received the name of Pentecost (f] TrevrrjKoaTT], Acts ii. 1). That nins^ (ver. 15) signifies weeks, like ni^^nj^ in Deut. xvi. 9, and ra ad/Sfiara in the Gospels (e.g. Matt, xxviii. 1), is evident from the predicate rib'^pn, " complete," which would be quite unsuitable if Sabbath-days were intended, as a long period might be reckoned by half weeks instead of whole, but certainly not by half Sabbath-days. Consequently " the morrow after the seventh Sabbath" (ver. 16) is the day after the seventh week, not after the seventh Sabbath. On this day, i.e. fifty days after the first day of Mazzoth, Israel was to offer a new meat-offering to the Lord, i.e. made of the fruit of the new harvest (chap. xxvi. 10), ^'wave-loaves" from its dwellings, two of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour baked leavened, like the bread which served for their daily food, " as first-fruits unto the Lord," and of the wheat-harvest (Ex. xxxiv. 22), which fell in the second half of May and the first weeks of June {Robinson^ Palestine), and therefore was finished as a whole by the feast of Weeks. The loaves differed from all the other meat-offerings, being made of leavened dough, because in them their daily bread was offered to the Lord, who had blessed the harvest, as a thank-offering for Ilis blessing. They were therefore only given to the Lord symbolically b}^ waving, and were then to belong to the priests (ver. 20). The injunction " out of your habitations" is not to be understood, as Calvin and others suppose, as signifying that every householder was to present two such loaves; it simply expresses the idea, that they were to be loaves made for the daily food of a household, and not prepared expressly for holy purposes.— -Vers. 18, 19. In addition to the loaves, they were to offer seven yearling lambs, one young bullock, and two rams, as burntofferings, together with their (the appropriate) meat and drinkofferings, one he-goat as a sin-offering, and two yearling lambs as peace-offerings. — Yer. 20. " The priest shall ivave them (the two lambs of the peace-offerings), together with the loaves of the Jirst-fruits^ as a ivave-offering before Jehovah; with the two lambs (the two just mentioned), the^/ (the loaves) shall be holy to Jehovah for the priest." In the case of the peace-offerings of private individuals, the flesh belonged for the most part to the offerer; but here, in the case of a thank-offering presented by the congregation, it was set apart for the priest. The circumstance, that not only was a much more bountiful burnt-offering prescribed than in the offerings of the dedicatory sheaf at the commencement of harvest (ver. 12), but a sin-offering and peaceoffering also, is to be attributed to the meaning of the festival itself, as a feast of thanksgiving for the rich blessing of God that had just been gathered in. The sin-offering was to excite the feeling and consciousness of sin on the part of the congregation of Israel, that whilst eating their daily leavened bread they might not serve the leaven of their old nature, but seek and implore from the Lord their God the forgiveness and cleansing away of their sin. Through the increased burnt-offering they were to give practical expression to their gratitude for. the blessing of harvest, by a strengthened consecration and sanctlfication of all the members of the whole man to the service of the Lord; whilst through the peace-offering they entered into that fellowship of peace with the Lord to which they w^ere called, and which they were eventually to enjoy through His blessing in their promised inheritance. In this way the whole of the year s harvest was placed under the gracious blessing of the Lord by the sanctification of its commencement and its close; and the enjoyment of their daily food was also sanctified thereby. For the sake of this inward connection, the laws concerning the wavesheaf and wave-loaves are bound together into one whole; and by this connection, which was established by reckoning the time for the feast of Weeks from the day of the dedication of the sheaf, the two feasts were linked together into an internal unity. The Jews recognised this unity from the very earliest times, and called the feast of Pentecost Azerefh (Greek, 'AaapOd), because it was the close of the seven weeks (see at ver. 36: JosepJms, Ant. iii. 10).^ — Ver. 21. On this day a holy meeting was to be held, and laborious work to be suspended, just as on the first and seventh days of Mazzoth This was to be maintained as a statute for ever (see ver. 14). It was not sufficient, however, to thank the Lord for the blessing of harvest by a feast of thanksgiving to the Lord, but they were not to forget the poor and distressed when gathering in their harvest. To indicate this, the law laid down in chap. xix. 9, 10 is repeated in ver. 22.
Vers. 23-25. On the first day of the seventh month there was to be sJiahhathon, rest, i.e. a day of rest (see Ex. xvi. 23), a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation, the suspension of laborious work, and the offering of a firing for Jehovah, which are still more minutely described in the calendar of festal sacrifices in Num. xxix. 2-6. nynn, a joyful noise, from jnn to make a noise, is used in ver. 24 for "i^V^ nynn^ a blast of trumpets. On this day the sliophar was to be blown, a blast of trumpets to be appointed for a memorial before Jehovah (Num. X. 10), i.e. to call the congregation into remembrance before Jehovah, that He might turn towards it His favour and grace (see at Ex. xxviii. 12, 29, xxx. 16); and from this the feast-day is called the day of the trumpet-blast (Num. xxix. 1). Shopliar, a trumpet, was a large horn which produced a dull, far-reaching tone. Buccina pastoralis est et cornu recurvo efficitur, unde et proprie hehraice sophar, grwce /ceparlvr] appellatur {Jerome on