1 A connection between the feast of Pentecost and the giving of the law, which Maimonides (a.d. tl205) was the first to discover, is not only foreign to the Mosaic law, but to the whole of the Jewish antiquity; and even Aharbanel expressly denies it.
IJos. y. 8).^ The seventh inontli of the year, hke the seventh clay of the week, was consecrated as a Sabbat li or sabbatical month, by a holy convocation and the suspension of labour, which were to distinguish the first day of the seventh month from the beginning of the other months or the other new moon days throughout the year. For the whole month was sanctified in the first day, as the beginning or head of the montli; and by the sabbatical observance of the commencement, the whole course of the month was raised to a Sabbath. This was enjoined, not merely because it was the seventh month, but because the seventh month was to secure to the congregation the complete atonement for all its sins, and the wiping away of all the uncleannesses wdiich separated it from its God, viz. on the day of atonement, which fell within this month, and to bring it a foretaste of the blessedness of life in fellowship with the Lord, viz. in the feast of Tabernacles, which commenced five days afterwards. This significant character of the seventh month was indicated by the trumpet-blast, by which the congregation presented the memorial of itself loudly and strongly before Jehovah on the first day of the month, that He might bestow upon them the promised blessings of His grace, for the realization of His covenant. The trumpet-blast on this day was a prelude of the trumpet-blast with which the commencement of the year of jubilee was proclaimed to the whole nation, on the day of atonement of every seventh sabbatical year, that great year of grace under the old covenant (chap. xxv. 9); just as the seventh month in general formed the link between the weekly Sabbath and the sabbatical and jubilee years, and corresponded as a Sabbath month to the year of jubilee rather than the sabbatical year, which had its prelude in the weekly Sabbath-day.
Vers. 26-32. On the tenth day of the seventh month the day of atonement was to be observed by a holy meeting, by fast-
^ The word ny^"in is also used in Num. x. 5, 6 to denote the blowing with the silver trumpets; but there seems to be no ground for supposing these trumpets to be intended here^ not only because of the analogy between the seventh day of the new moon as a jubilee day and the jubilee year (chap, xxv. 9, 10), but also because the silver trumpets are assigned to a different purpose in Num. x. 2-10, and their use is restricted to the blowing at the offering of the burnt-offerings on the feast-days and new moons. To this we have to add the Jewish tradition, which favours with perfect unanimity the practice of blowing with horns (the horns of animals).
ing from the evening of the ninth till the evening of the tenth, by resting from all work on pain of death, and with sacrifices, of which the great expiatory sacrifice peculiar to this day had already been appointed in chap, xvi., and the general festal sacrifices are described in Num. xxix. 8-11. (For fuller particulars, see at chap, xvi.) By the restrictive "n^, the observance of the day of atonement is represented a priori as a peculiar one. The "H^ refers less to " the tenth day," than to the leading directions respecting this feast: " only on the tenth of this seventh month... there shall be a holy meeting to you, and ye shaH afflict your souls," etc. — Ver. 32. " Ye shall rest your rest," i.e. observe the rest that is binding upon you from all laborious work.
Yers. 33-43. On the fifteenth of the same month the feast of Tabernacles was to be kept to the Lord for seven days: on the first day with a holy meeting and rest from all laborious work, and for seven days with sacrifices, as appointed for every day in Num. xxix. 13-33. Moreover, on the eighth day, i.e. the 22d of the month, the closing feast was to be observed in the same manner as on the first day (vers. 34-36). The name, " feast of Tabernacles" (booths), is to be explained from the fact, that the Israelites were to dwell in booths made of bouo-hs for the seven days that this festival lasted (ver. 42). ri'^vy, which is used in ver. 36 and Num. xxix. 35 for the eighth day, which terminated the feast of Tabernacles, and in Deut. xvi. 8 for the seventh day of the feast of Mazzoth, signifies the solemn close of a feast of several days, clausula festi, from "ivy to shut in, or close (Gen. xvi. 2; Deut. xi. 17, etc.), not a coagendo, congregando populo ad festum, nor a cohibitione laboris, ab interdicto opere^ because the w^ord is only applied to the last day of the feasts of Mazzoth and Tabernacles, and not to the first, although this was also kept with a national assembly and suspension of work. But as these clausulce festi were holidays with a holy convocation and suspension of work, it was very natural that the word should be transferred at a later period to feasts generally, on which the people suspended work and met for worship and edification (Joel i. 14; Isa. i. 13; 2 Kings x. 20). The azereth, as the eighth day, did not strictly belong to the feast of Tabernacles, which was only to last seven days; and it was distinguished, moreover, from these seven days by a smaller number of offerings (Num. xxix. 35 sqq.). TIio cl<;lit]i day was rather the solemn close of the whole circle of yearly feasts, and therefore was appended to the close of the last of these feasts as the eighth day of the feast itself (see at Num. xxviii. seq.).— With ver. 3() the enumeration of all the yearly feasts on which lioly meetings were to be convened is brought to an end. This is stated in the concluding formula (vers. 37, 38), which answers to the heading in ver. 4, in which the Sabbaths are excepted, as they simply belonged to the moadlm in the more general sense of the word. In this concluding formula, therefore, there is no indication that vers. 2 and 3 and vers. 39-43 are hiter additions to the original list of feasts which were to be kept with a meeting for worship. 'i:i1 nnpni? (to offer, etc.) is not dependent upon " holy convocations," but upon the main idea, " feasts of Jehovah." Jehovah had appointed moadim, fixed periods in the year, for His congregation to offer sacrifices; not as if no sacrifices could be or were to be offered except at these feasts, but to remind His people, through these fixed days, of their duty to approach the Lord with sacrifices, n^s is defined by the enumeration of four principal kinds of sacrifice, — burnt-offerings, meat-offerings, slain (i.e. peace-) offerings, and drink-offerings. '2 nv "in"!: " everi/ day those appointed for it^' as in Ex. v. 13. — Ver. 38. " Beside the Sabbaths:" i.e. the Sabbath sacrifices (see Num. xxviii. 9, 10), and the gifts and offerings, which formed no integral part of the keeping of the feasts and Sabbaths, but might be offered on those days. ni^riD, gifts, include all the dedicatory offerings, which were presented to the Lord without being intended to be burned upon the altar; such, for example, as the dedicatory gifts of the tribe-princes (Num. vii.), the firstlings and tithes, and other so-called heave-offerings (Num. xviii. 11, 29). By the " vows" and ^i^^^, ^'freewill-offerings,'' we are to understand not only the votive and freewill slain or peaceofferings, but burnt-offerings also, and meat-offerings, which were offered in consequence of a vow, or from spontaneous impulse (see Judg. xi. 31, where Jephthah vows a burnt-offering).— In vers. 39 sqq. there follows a fuller description of the observance of the last feast of the year, for which the title, " feast of Tabernacles" (ver. 34), had prepared the way, as the feast had already been mentioned briefly in Ex. xxiii. 16 and xxxiv. 22 as " feast of Ingathering," though hitherto no rule had been laid down concerning the peculiar manner In which it was to be observed. In connection with this epithet in Exodus, it is described again in ver. 39, as in vers. 35, 36, as a seven days' feast, with sabbatical rest on the first and eighth day; and in vers. 40 sqq. the following rule is given for its observance: " Take to you fruit of ornamental trees, palm-branches, and boughs of trees with thick foliage, and willows of the brook, and rejoice before the Lord your God seven days, every native in Israel." If we observe that there are only three kinds of boughs that are connected together by the copula (yav) in ver. 40, and that it is wanting before '^H nb^^ there can hardly be any doubt that "^*^n Ylf ''']3 Is the generic term,, and that the three'names which follow specify the particular kinds of boughs. By " the fruit," therefore, we understand the shoots and branches of the trees, as well as the blossom and fruit that grew out of them. "I'ljn yv, " t7'ees of ornament;" we are not to understand by these only such trees as the orange and citron, which were placed in gardens for ornament rather than use, as the Chald, and Syr. indicate, although these trees grow in the gardens of Palestine [Rob., Pal. i. 327, ill. 420). The expression is a more general one, and includes myrtles, which were great favourites with the ancients, on account of their beauty and the fragrant odour which they diffused, olive-trees, palms, and other trees, which were used as booths in Ezra's time (Neh. viii. 15). In the words, " Take fruit of ornamental trees," it is not expressly stated, it is true, that this fruit was to be used, like the palm-branches, for constructing booths; but this is certainly implied in the context: " Take... and rejoice... and keep a feast... in the booths shall ye dwells nbD^l with the article is equivalent to " in the booths which ye have constructed from the branches mentioned" (cf. Ges, § 109, 3). It was in this sense that the law was understood and carried out in the time of Ezra (Neh. viii. 15 sqq.).^
^ Even in the time o^ tLe Maccabees, on the other hand (cf. 2 Mace. x. 6, 7), the feast of the Purification of the Temple was celebrated by the Jews after the manner of the Tabernacles (xarot o>cy\vu^u.Tuv rpoTrov); so that they offered songs of praise, holding (£;)^o:/T£g-, carrying?) leafy poles {^vpaovg^ not branches of ivy, cf. Grimm, ad I.e.) and beautiful branches, also palms; and in the time of Christ it was the custom to have sticks or poles (staves) of palm-trees and citron-trees (^dvpaovc, sk (poivUav x,oci xnpecou: Josephus, Ant. xiii. 13, 5), or to carry in the hand a branch of myrtle and willow bound round with wool, with palms at the top and an apple of the 'jnpaia.
Tlie leading character of the feast of Tabernacles, which is indicated at the outset by the emphatic "ijX (ver. 39, see at ver. 27), was to consist in " joy before the Lord." As a " feast," i.e, a feast of joy (^n^ from i^n — iin^ denoting the circular motion of the dance, 1 Sam. xxx. 16), it was to be kept for seven days; so that Israel " should be only rejoicing," and give itself up entirely to joy (Deut. xvi. 15). Now, although the motive assigned in Deut. is this: " for God will bless thee (Israel) in all thine increase, and in all the work of thine hands;" and although the feast, as a " feast of ingathering," was a feast of thanksgiving for the gathering in of the produce of the land, " the produce of the floor and wine-press;" and the blessing they had received in the harvested fruits, the oil and wine, which contributed even more to the enjoyment of life than the bread that was needed for daily food, furnished in a very high degree the occasion and stimulus to the utterance of grateful joy: the orio'in and true simiification of the feast of Tabernacles are not to be sought for in this natural allusion to the blessing of tne harvest, but the dwelling in booths was the principal point in the feast; and this was instituted as a law for all future time (ver. 41), that succeeding generations might know that Jehovah had caused the children of Israel to dwell in booths when He led them out of Egypt (ver. 43). "^^P, a booth or hut, is not to be confounded with i'^^^ a tent, but comes from "Jl^D teajuit, and signifies casciy umhraculum ex frondihus ramisque consertum (Ges. thes. s. v,), serving as a defence both against the heat of the sun, and also against wind and rain (Ps. xxxi. 21; Isa. iv. 6; Jonah iv. 5). Their dwelling in booths was by no means intended, as JBdIir supposes, to bring before the minds of the people the unsettled wandering life of the desert, and remind
(peach or pomegranate?) upon it (jiipiaiavriv f/,vpaiv7ig x,oti Irixg cvv x,pxhyi (t/QiviKoc; TiTiTrof/if^iyYiv^ rov /u.ti'Kov rov r^g Uspaiocg 'Trpoaovrog). This custom, which was still further developed in the Talmud, where a bunch made of palm, myrtle, and willow boughs is ordered to be carried in the right hand, and a citron or orange in the left, has no foundation in the law: it sprang rather out of an imitation of the Greek harvest-feast of the Pyanepsia and Bacchus festivals, from which the words dvpaoi and upeatavy] were borrowed by Josephus^ and had been tacked on by the scribes to the text of the Bible (ver. 40) in the best way they could. See Bdhr^ Symbol, ii. p. 625, and the innumerable trivial laws in MisTina Succa and Succa Codex talm. bahyl. sive de tahernaculorum festo ed. Dachs. Utr. 1726, 4.
them of the trouble endured there, for the recollection of privation and want can never be an occasion of joy; but it was to place vividly before the eyes of the future generations of Israel a memorial of the grace, care, and protection which God afforded to His people in the great and terrible wilderness (Deut. viii. 15). Whether the Israelites, in their journey through the wilderness, not only used the tents which they had taken with them (cf. chap. xiv. 8; Ex. xvi. 16, xviii. 7, xxxiii. 8 sqq.; Num. xvi. 26 sqq., xxiv. 5, etc.), but erected booths of branches and bushes in those places of encampment where they remained for a considerable time, as the Bedouins still do sometimes in the peninsula of Sinai (^Burckhardt, Si/rien, p. 858), or not; at all events, the shielding and protecting presence of the Lord in the pillar of cloud and fire was, in the words of the prophet, " a booth (tabernacle) for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain" (Isa. iv. 6) in the barren wilderness, to those who had just been redeemed out of Egypt. Moreover, the booths used at this feast were not made of miserable shrubs of the desert, but of branches of fruit-trees, palms and thickly covered trees, the produce of the good and glorious land into which God had brought them (Deut. viii. 7 sqq.); and in this respect they presented a living picture of the plenteous fulness of blessing with which the Lord had enriched His people. This fulness of blessing was to be called to mind by their dwelling in booths; in order that, in the land " wherein they ate bread without scarceness and lacked nothing, where they built goodly houses and dwelt therein; where their herds and flocks, their silver and their gold, and all that they had, multiplied" (Deut. viii. 9, 12, 13), they might not say in their hearts, " My power, and the might of mine hand, hath gotten me this wealth," but might remember that Jehovah was their God, who gave them power to get wealth (vers. 17, 18), that so their heart might not " be lifted up and forget Jehovah their God, who had led them out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage." If, therefore, the foliage of the booths pointed to the glorious possessions of the inheritance, which the Lord had prepared for His redeemed people in Canaan, yet the natural allusion of the feast, which was superadded to the historical, and subordinate to it, — viz. to the plentiful harvest of rich and beau- tlful fruits, which they luiJ gathered in from this inheritance, and could now enjoy in peace after the toil of cultivating the land was over, — would necessarily raise their hearts to still higher joy through their gratitude to the Lord and Giver of all, and make this feast a striking figure of the blessedness of the people of God when resting from their labours. — Ver. 44. Communication of these laws to the people.
Vers. 1-9. The directions concerning the oil for the holy candlestick (vers. 1-4) and the preparation of the shew-hread (vers. 5-9) lose the appearance of an interpolation, when we consider and rightly understand on the one hand the manner in which the two are introduced in ver. 2, and on the other their significance in relation to the worship of God. The introductory formula, " Command the children of Israel that they fetch (bring)," shows that the command relates to an offering on the part of the congregation, a sacrificial gift, with which Israel was to serve the Lord continually. This service consisted in the fact, that in the oil of the lamps of the seven-branched candlestick, which burned before Jehovah, the nation of Israel manifested itself as a congregation which caused its light to shine in the darkness of this world; and that in the shew-bread it offered the fruits of its labour in the field of the kingdom of God, as a spiritual sacrifice to Jehovah. The offering of oil, therefore, for the preparation of the candlestick, and that of fine flour for making the loaves to be placed before Jehovah, formed part of the service in which Israel sanctified its life and labour to the Lord its God, not only at the appointed festal periods, but every day; and the law is very appropriately appended to the sanctification of the Sabbaths and feast-days, prescribed in chap, xxiii. The first instructions in vers. 2-4 are a verbal repetition of Ex. xxvii. 20, 21, and have been explained already. Their execution by Aaron is recorded at Num. viii. 1-4; and the candlestick itself was set in order by Moses at the consecration of the tabernacle (Ex. xl. 25). — Vers.. 5-9. The preparation of the shew-bread and the use to be made of it are described here for the first time; though it had already been offered by the congregation at the consecration of the tabernacle, and placed by Moses upon the table (Ex. xxxix. 36, xl. 23). Twelve cakes (challoth, ii. 4) were to be made of fine flour, of two-tenths of an ephah each, and placed in two rows, six in each row, upon the golden table before Jehovah (Ex. xxv. 23 sqq.). Pure incense was then to be added to each row, which was to be (to serve) as a memorial (azcarah, see chap. ii. 2), as a firing for Jehovah. pV jHi to give upon, to add to, does not force us to the conclusion that the incense was to be spread upon the cakes; but is easily reconcilable with the Jewish tradition (Josephus, Ant. iii. 10, 7; Mishnah, Menach. xi. 7, 8), that the incense was placed in golden saucers with each row of bread. The number twelve corresponded to the number of the twelve tribes of Israel. The arrangement of the loaves in rows of six each was in accordance with the shape of the table, just like the division of the names of the twelve tribes upon the two precious stones on Aaron's shoulder-dress (Ex. xxviii. 10). By the presentation or preparation of them from the fine flour px'esented by the congregation, and still more by the addition of incense, which was burned upon the altar every Sabbath on the removal of the loaves as azcarah, i.e. as a practical memento of the congregation before God,, the laying out of these loaves assumed the form of a bloodless sacrifice, in which the congregation brought the fruit of its life and labour before the face of the Lord, and presented itself to its God as a nation diligent in sanctification to good works. If the shew-bread was a mincJiah, or meat-offering, and even a most holy one, which only the priests were allowed to eat in the holy place (ver. 9, cf. chap. ii. 3 and vi. 9, 10), it must naturally have been unleavened, as the unanimous testimony of the Jewish tradition afiirms it to have been. And if as a rule no meat-offering could be leavened, and of the loaves of first-fruits prepared for the feast of Pentecost, which were actually leavened, none was allowed to be placed upon the altar (chap. ii. 11, 12, vi. 10); still less could leavened bread be brought into the sanctuary before Jehovah. The only ground, therefore, on which Knohel can maintain that those loaves were leavened, is on the supposition that they were intended to represent the daily bread, which could no more fail in the house of Jehovah than in any other w^ell-appointed house (see JBdJir, Symholik i. p. 410). The process of laying these loaves before Jehovah con-
THE THIRD BOOK OF MOSEjS.
tluuully was to be " an everlasting covenant " (ver. 8), i.e. a pledge or sign of the everlasting covenant, just as circumcision, as the covenant in the flesh, was to be an everlasting covenant (Gen. xvii. 13).
Vers. 10-23. The account of the punishment of a Blasphemer is introduced in the midst of the laws, less because " it brings out to view by a clear example the administration of the divine law in Israel, and also introduces and furnishes the reason for several important laws " {Baumgarten)j than because the historical occurrence itself took place at the time wdien the laws relating to sanctification of life before the Lord were given, whilst the punishment denounced against the blasphemer exhibited in a practical form, as a warning to the whole nation, the sanctification of the Lord in the despisers of His name. The circumstances were the following: — The son of an Israelitish woman named Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan, and of an Egyptian whom the Israelitish woman had married, went out into the midst of the children of Israel, i.e. went out of his tent or place of encampment among the Israelites. As the son of an Egyptian, he belonged to the foreigners who had gone out with Israel (Ex. xii. 38), and who probably had their tents somewhere apart from those of the Israelites, who were encamped according to their tribes (Num. ii. 2). Having got into a quarrel with an Israelite, this man scoffed at the name (of Jehovah) and cursed. The cause of the quarrel is not given, and cannot be determined. 2i?J: to bore, hollow out, then to sting, metaphorically to separate, fix (Gen. xxx. 28), hence to designate (Num. i. 17, etc.), and to prick in malam partem^ to taunt, i.e, to blaspheme^ curse^ = '^'^vl Num. xxiii. 11, 25, etc. That the word is used here in a bad sense, is evident from the expression " and cursed," and from the whole context of vers. 15 and 16. The Jews, on the other hand, have taken the word ^i?^ in this passage from time immemorial in the sense of eTTovofid^ecv (LXX.), and founded upon it the well-known law, against even uttering the name Jehovah (see particularly ver. 16). " The name " Kar e|. is the name " Jehovah " (cf. ver. 16), in which God manifested His nature. It was this passage that gave rise to the custom, so prevalent among the Rabbins, of using the expression " name," or " the name," for Dominusy or
Deus (see Buxtorf, lex. talmud. pp. 2432 sqq.). The blasphemer was brought before Moses and then put into confinement, " to determine for them (such blasphemers) according to the mouth (command) of Jehovah^ C^l?: to separate, distinguish, then to determine exactly, which is the sense both here and in Num. XV. 34, where it occurs in a similar connection. — Yers. 13-16. Jehovah ordered the blasphemer to be taken out of the camp, and the witnesses to lay their hands upon his head, and the whole congregation to stone him; and published at the same time the general law, that whoever cursed his God should bear (i.e, atone for) his sin (cf. Ex. xxii. 27), and whoever blasphemed the name of Jehovah should be stoned, the native as well as the foreigner. By laying (resting, cf. i. 4) their hands upon the head of the blasphemer, the hearers or witnesses were to throw off from themselves the blasphemy which they had heard, and return it upon the head of the blasphemer, for him to expiate. The washing of hands in Deut. xxi. 6 is analogous; but the reference made by Knohel to Deut. xvii. 7, where the witnesses are commanded to turn their hand against an idolater who had been condemned to death, i.e. to stone him, is out of place. — Vers. 17-22. The decision asked for from God concerning the crime of the blasphemer, who was the son of an Egyptian, and therefore not a member of the confTrre^ation of Jehovah, furnished the occasion for God to repeat those laws respecting murder or personal injury inflicted upon a man, which had hitherto been given for the Israelites alone (Ex. xxi. 12 sqq.), and to proclaim their validity in the case of the foreigner also (vers. 17, 21, 22). To these there are appended the kindred commandments concerning the killing of cattle (vers. 18, 21, 22), which had not been given, it is true, expressis verbis, but were contained implicite in the rights of Israel (Ex. xxi. 33 sqq.), and ore also extended to foreigners. D"]i< ^^^^ n^n^ to smite the seal of a man, i.e. to put him to death; — the expression " soul of a beast," in ver. 18, is to be understood in the- same sense. — Ver. 19. " Cause a hlemish^^ i.e. inflict a bodily injury. This is still further defined in the cases mentioned {breach, eye, tooth), in which punishment was to be inflicted according to the jus talionis (see at Ex. xxi. 23 sqq.). — Ver. 23. After these laws had been issued, the punishment was inflicted upon the blasphemer.
SANCTIFICATION OF THE POSSESSION OF LAND BY THE SABBATICAL AND JUBILEE YEAKS. — CHAP. XXV.
The law for the sabbatical and jubilee years brings to a close the laws given to Moses by Jehovah upon Mount Sinai. This is shown by the words of the heading (vei*. 1), which point back to Ex. xxxiv. 32, and bind together into an inward unity the whole round of laws that!Moses received from God upon the mountain, and then gradually announced to the people. The same words are repeated, not only in Lev. vii. 38 at the close of the laws of sacrifice, but also at chap. xxvi. 46, at the close of the promises and threats which follow the law for the sabbatic.ll and jubilee years, and lastly, at chap, xxvii. 34, after the supplementary law concerning vows. The institution of the jubilee years corresponds to the institution of the day of atonement (chap. xvi.). Just as all the sins and uncleannesses of the whole congregation, which had remained unatoned for and uncleansed in the course of the year, were to be wiped away by the all-embracing expiation of the yearly recurring day of atonement, and an undisturbed relation to be restored between Jehovah and His people; so, by the appointment of the year of jubilee, the disturbance and confusion of the divinely appointed relations, which had been introduced in the course of time throucrh the inconstancy of all human or earthly things, were to be removed by the appointment of the year of jubilee, and the kingdom of Israel to be brought back to its original condition. The next chapter (chap, xxvi.) bears the same relation to the giving of the law upon Sinai as Ex. xxiii. 20-33 to the covenant rights in Ex. XX. 22-xxiii. 19.
Vers. 2-7. The Sabbatical Year. — When Israel had come into the land which the Lord gave to it, it was to sanctify it to the Lord by the observance of a Sabbath. As the nation at large, with its labourers and beasts of burden, was to keep a Sabbath or day of rest every seventh day of the week, so the land which they tilled was to rest (to keep, ri3^ T]2^ as in chap, xxiii. 32) a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years they were to sow the field and cut the vineyard, i.e. cultivate the corn-fields, vineyards, and olive-yards (Ex. xxiii. 11: see the remarks on cerem at chap. xix. 10), and gather in their produce; but in the seventh year the land was to keep a Sabbath of rest (^Sabbath sabbathon, Ex. xxxi. 15), a Sabbath consecrated to the Lord (see Ex. xx. 10); and in this year the land was neither to be tilled nor reaped (cf. Ex. xxiii. 10, 11). l^J in Kal applies only to the cutting of grapes, and so also in Niphal, Isa. v. 6; hence zemorahj a vine-branch (Num. xiii. 23), and mazmerahy a pruning-knife (Isa. ii. 4, etc.).^ The omission of sowing and reaping presupposed that the sabbatical year commenced with the civil year, in the autumn of the sixth year of labour, and not with the ecclesiastical year, on the first of Abib (Nisan), and that it lasted till the autumn of the seventh year, when the cultivation of the land would commence again with the preparation of the ground and the sowing of the seed for the eighth year; and with this the command to proclaim the jubilee year on " the tenth day of the seventh month " throughout all the land (ver. 9), and the calculation in vers. 21, 22, fully agree. — Ver. 5. '' That which has fallen out (been shaken out) of thy harvest (i.e, the corn which had grown from the grains of the previous harvest that had fallen out) thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thine uncut thou shalt not gather^ "(''T^, the Nazarite, who let his hair grow freely without cutting it (Num. vi. 5), is used figuratively, both here and in ver. 11, to denote a vine not pruned, since by being left to put forth all its productive power it was consecrated to the Lord. The Koman poets employ a similar figure, and speak of the viridis coma of the vine {Tibull. i. 7, 34; Propert. ii. 15, 12). — Vers. 6, 7. ^ And the Sabbath of the land {i,e. the produce of the sabbatical year or year of rest, whatever grew that year without cultivation) shall be to you for food, for thee and thy servant,... and for the beasts that are in thy land shall all its produce be for food^ The meaning is, that what grew of itself was not to be reaped by the owner of the land, but that masters and servants, labourers and visitors, cattle and game, were to eat thereof away from the field (cf. ver. 12). The produce arising without tilling or sowing was to be a common good for man and beast. According to Ex. xxiii. 11, it was to belong to the poor and needy; but the owner was not forbidden to par-
^ The meaning to sing and play, which is peculiar to the Picl^ and is derived from zamar^ to hum, has hardly anything to do with this. At all events the connection has not yet been shown to be a probable one. See Hup/eld^ Ps. iv. pp. 421-2, note.
take of it also, so that there can be no discrepancy discovered between this passage and the verse before us. The produce referred to would be by no means inconsiderable, particularly if there had not been a careful gleaning after the harvest, or the corn had become over- ripe. In the fertile portions of Palestine, especially in the plain of Jezreel and on the table-land of Galilee, as well as in other parts, large quantities of wheat and other cereals are still self-sown from the ripe ears, the overflowing of which is not gathered by any of the inhabitants of the land. Straho gives a similar account of Albania, viz. that in many parts a field once sown will bear fruit twice and even three times, the first yield being as much as fifty- fold. The intention of this law was not so much to secure the physical recreation of both the land and people, however useful and necessary this might be for men, animals, and land in this sublunary world; but the land was to keep Sabbath to the Lord in the seventh year. In the sabbatical year the land, which the Lord had given to His people, was to observe a period of holy rest and refreshment to its Lord and God, just as the congregation did on the Sabbath-day; and the hand of man was to be withheld from the fields and fi'uit-gardens from working them, that they might yield their produce for his use. The earth was to be saved from the hand of man exhausting its power for earthly purposes as his own property, and to enjoy the holy rest with which God had blessed the earth and all its productions after the creation. From this, Israel, as the nation of God, was to learn, on the one hand, that although the earth was created for man, it was not merely created for him to draw out its powers for his own use, but also to be holy to tlie Lord, and participate in His blessed rest; and on the other hand, that the great purpose for which the congregation of the Lord existed, did not consist in the uninterrupted tilling of the earth, connected with bitter labour in the sweat of his brow (Gen. iii. 17, 19), but in the peaceful enjoyment of the fruits of the earth, which the Lord their God had given them, and would give them still without the labour of their hands, if they strove to keep His covenant and satisfy themselves with Ilis grace. This intention of the sabbatical year comes out still more plainly in the year of jubilee, in which the idea of the sanctification of the wdiole land as the Lord's property is still more strongly expressed, and whose inward connection with the sabbatical year is indicated by the fact that the time for observing it was regulated by the sabbatical years (ver. 8).
Yers. 8-55. The la\v for the Year of Jubilee refers first of all to its observance (vers. 8-12), and secondly to its effects (a) upon the possession of property (vers. 13-34), and (b) upon the personal freedom of the Israelites (vers. 35—55). — Yers. 8- 12. Keeping the year of jubilee. Yers. 8, 9. Seven Sabbaths of years — i.e. year- Sabbaths or sabbatical years, or seven times seven years, the time of seven year-Sabbaths, that is to say, 49 years — they were to count, and then at the expiration of that time to cause the trumpet of jubilee to go (sound) through the whole land on the tenth of the seventh month, i.e, the day of atonement, to proclaim the entrance of the year of jubilee. This mode of announcement was closely connected with the idea of the year itself. The blowing of trumpets, or blast of the farsounding horn (sJiophaVj see at chap, xxiii. 24), was the signal of the descent of the Lord upon Sinai, to raise Israel to be His people, to receive them into His covenant, to unite them to Himself, and bless them through His covenant of grace (Ex, xix. 13, 16, 19, XX. 18). Just as the people w^ere to come up to the mountain at the sounding of the ^^V, or the voice of the shophar, to commemorate its union with the Lord, so at the expiration of the seventh sabbatical year the trumpet-blast was to announce to the covenant nation the gracious presence of its God, and the coming of the year which was to bring " liberty throughout the land to all that dwelt therein " (ver. 10), — deliverance from bondage (vers. 40 sqq.), return to their property and family (vers. 10, 13), and release from the bitter labour of cultivating the land (vers. 11, 12). This year of grace was proclaimed and began w^ith the day of atonement of every seventh sabbatical year, to show that it was only with the full forgiveness of sins that the blessed liberty of the children of God could pqssibly commence. This grand year of grace was to return after seven times seven years; i.e., as is expressly stated in ver. 10, every fiftieth year was to be sanctified as a year of jubilee. By this regulation of the time, the view held by H. Jehuda, and the chronologists and antiquarian* who have followed him, that every seventh sabbatical year, i.e. the 49th year, was to be kept as tlie year of jubilee, is proved to be at variance with the text, and the fiftieth year is shown to be the year of rest, in which tlie sabbatical idea attained its fullest realization, and reached its earthly temporal close. — Ver. 10. The words, "Ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," are more closely defined by the two clauses commencing with ^5^^ ^^V in vers. 10 and 11. "A trumpet-blast shall it be to you, that ye return every one to his own possession, and every one to his family:", a still further explanation is given in vers. 23-34 and 39-55. This was to be the fruit or effect of the blast, i.e. of the year commencing with the blast, and hence the year was called " the year of liberty," or free year, in Ezek. xlvi. 17. ^^)\ from py to flow with a rushing noise, does not mean jubilation or the time of jubilation {Ges.j Kji.j and others); but wherever it is not applied to the year of jubilee, it signifies only the loud blast of a trumpet (Ex, xix. 13; Josh. vi. 5). This meaning also applies here in vers. lOh, 11 and 12; whilst in vers. 15, 28, 30, 31, 33, xxvii. 18, and Num. xxxvi. 4, it is used as an abbreviated expression for ri:tJ^?|?^"', the year of the trumpet-blast. — Vers. 11, 12. The other effect of the fiftieth year proclaimed with the trumpet-blast consisted in the fact that the Israelites were not to sow or reap, just as in the sabbatical year (see vers. 4, 5). "For it is p^'\\" i.e. not "jubilation or time of jubilation," but "the time or year of the trumpet-blast, it shall be holy to you," i.e. a sabbatical time, which is to be holy to you like the day of the trumpetblast (vers. 23, 24).
Vers. 13-34. One of the effects of the year of freedom is mentioned here, viz. the return of every man to his own possession; and the way is prepared for it by a warning against overreaching in the sale of land, and the assignment of a reason for this. — Vers. 14-17. In the purchase and sale of pieces of land no one was to oppress another, i.e. to overreach him by false statements as to its value and produce, njin applies specially to the oppression of foreigners (chap. xix. 33; Ex. xxii. 20), of slaves (Deut. xxiii. 17), of the poor, widows, and orphans (Jer. xxii. 3; Ezek. xviii. 8) in civil matters, by overreaching them or taking their property away. The ^»/. abs, niJJ: as in Gen. xli. 43. The singular suffix in ^n''py is to be understood distributively of a particular Israelite. — Vers. 15, 16. The purchase and sale were to be regulated by the number of years that had elapsed since the year of jubilee, so that they were only to sell the produce of the yearly revenues up to the next jubilee year, and make the price higher or lower according to the larger or smaller number of the years. — ^Yers. 17 sqq. Overreaching and oppression God would avenge; they were therefore to fear before Him. On the other hand, if they kept His commandments and judgments, He would take care that they should dwell in the land in safety {secure, free from anxiety), and be satisfied with the abundance of its produce. In this way vers. 18-22 fit on exceedingly well to what precedes.^ — Vers. 20 sqq. Jehovah would preserve them from want, without their sowing or reaping. He would bestow His blessing upon them in the sixth year, so that it should bear the produce of three (p^'^ for ^^^V as in Gen. xxxiii. 11); and when they sowed in the eighth year, they should eat the produce of the old year up to the ninth year, that is to say, till the harvest of that year. It is quite evident from vers. 21 and 22, according to which the sixth year was to produce enough for three years, and the sowing for the ninth was to take place in the eighth, that not only the year of jubilee, but the sabbatical year also, commenced in the autumn, when they first began to sow for the coming year; so that the sowing was suspended from the autumn of the sixth year till the autumn of the seventh, and even till the autumn of the eighth, whenever the jubilee year came round, in which case both sowing and reaping were omitted for two years in succession, and consequently the produce of the sixth year, which was harvested in the seventh month of that year, must have sufficed for three years, not merely till the sowing in the autumn of the
^ To prove that this verse is an interpolation made by the Jehovist into the Elohistic writings, Knohel is obliged to resort to two groundless assumptions: viz. (1) to regard vers. 23 and 24, which belong to what follows (vers. 25 sqq.) and lay down the general rule respecting the possession and redemption of land, as belonging to what precedes and connected with vers. 14-17; and (2) to explain vers. 18-22 in the most arbitrary manner, as a supplementary clause relating to the sabbatical year^ whereas the promise that the sixth year should yield produce enough for three years (vers. 21, 22) shows as clearly as possible that they treat of the year of jubilee together with the seventh sabbatical year which preceded it, and in ver. 20 the seventh year is mentioned simply as the beginning of the two years' Sabbath which the land was to keep without either sowing or reaping.
cightli or fiftieth year, but, till the harvest of the ninth or fiftyfirst year, as the Talmud and Rabbins of every age have understood the law.
Vers. 23-28. What was already implied in the laws relating to the purchase and sale of the year's produce (vers. 15, IG), namely, that the land could not be alienated, is here clearly expressed; and at the same time the rule is laid down, showing how a man, wlio had been compelled by poverty to sell his patrimony, was to recover possession of it by redemption. In the first place, ver. 23 contains the general rule, " the land shall not be sold rirT'D^v" (lit. to annihilation), i.e. so as to vanish away from, or be for ever lost to, the seller. For " the land belongs to Jehovah:'''' the Israelites, to whom He would give it (ver. 2), were not actual owners or full possessors, so that they could do what they pleased with it, but " strangers and sojourners with Jehovah" in His land. Consequently (ver. 24) throughout th<i whole of the land of their possession they were to grant npXJi release, redemption to the land. There were three ways in whicli this^ould be done. The first case (ver. 25) was this: if a brother became poor and sold his property, his nearest redeemer was to come and release what his brother had sold, i.e. buy it back from the purchaser and restore it to its former possessor. The nearest redeemer was the relative upon whom this obligation rested according to the series mentioned in vers. 48, 49. — The second case (vers. 26, 27) was this: if any one had no redeemer, either because there were no relatives upon whom the obligation rested, or because they were all too poor, and he had earned and acquired sufficient to redeem it, he was to calculate the years of purchase, and return the surplus to the man who had bought it, i.e. as much as he had paid for the years that still remained up to the next year of jubilee, that so he might come into possession of it again. As the purchaser had only paid the amount of the annual iiarvests till the next year of jubilee, all that he could demand back was as much as he had paid for the years that still remained. — Yer. 28. The third case was this: if a man had not earned as much as was required to make compensation for the recovery of the land, what he had sold was to remain in the possession of the buyer till the year of jubilee, and then it was to " go out," i.e. to become free again, so that the impoverished seller could enter into possession without compensation. The buyer lost nothing by this, for he had fully recovered all that he paid for the annual harvests up to the year of jubilee, from the amount which those harvests yielded. Through these legal regulations every purchase of land became simply a lease for a term of years.
Yers. 29-34. Alienation and redemption of houses, — Vers. 29, 30. On the sale of a dwelling-house in a wall-town (a town surrounded by a wall) there was to be redemption till the completion of the year of its purchase. ^''P^, " days (i.e. a definite period) shall its redemption be;" that is to say, the right of redemption or repurchase should be retained. If it was not redeemed within the year, it remained to the buyer for ever for his descendants, and did not go out free in the year of jubilee. D|J to arise for a possession, i.e. to become a fixed standing possession, as in Gen. xxiii. 17. ^ ^'^^^ for ^^ "^t^^5 as in chap.::i. 21 (see at Ex. xxi. 8). This law is founded upon the asi umption, that the houses in unwalled towns are not so closely ( onnected with the ownership of the land, as that the -alienation c f the houses would alter the portion originally assigned to each family for a possession. Having been built by men, they belonged to their owners in full possession, whether they had received them just as they were at the conquest of the land, or had erected them for themselves. This last point of view, however, was altogether a subordinate one; for in the case of "the houses of the villages" {i.e. farm-buildings and villages, see Josh. xiii. 23, etc.), which had no walls round them, it was not taken into consideration at all. — Ver. 31. Such houses as these were to be reckoned as part of the land, and to be treated as landed property, with regard to redemption and restoration at the year of jubilee.^— Ver. 32. On the other hand, so far as the Levitical towns, viz. the houses of the Levites in the towns belonging to them, were concerned, there was to be eternal redemption for the Levites; that is to say, when they were parted with, the right of repurchase was never lost. Ci!jiV (eternal) is to be understood as a contrast to the year allowed in the case of other houses (vers. 29, 30). — Yer. 33. "And whoever (if any one) redeems, i.e. buys, of the Levites, the house that is sold and (indeed in) the town of his possession is to go out free in the year of jubilee; for the houses of the Levitical towns are their (the Levites') possession among the children of Israel."
The meaning Is this; If any one bought a Levite*s house in one of the Levitlcal towns, the house he had bought was to revert to the Levite without compensation in the year of jubilee. The difficulty connected with the first clause is removed, if we understand the word ^^^\ (to redeem, i.e, to buy back), as the Rabbins do, in the sense of njfj to bui/, acquire. The use of ^5<3 for nji^ may be explained from the fact, that when the land was divided, the Levites did not receive either an inheritance in the land, or even the towns appointed for them to dwell in as their own property. The Levitical towns were allotted to the different tribes in which they were situated, with the simple obligation to set apart a certain number of dwelling-houses for the Levites, together with pasture-ground for their cattle in the precincts of the towns (cf. Num. xxxv. 1 sqq. and my Commentary on Joshua, p. 453 translation). If a non-Levite, therefore, bought a Levite's house, it was in reality a repurchase of property belonging to his tribe, or the redemption of what the tribe had relinquished to the Levites as their dwelling and for their necessities.^ The words 'nx "i"'yi are an explanatory apposition — " and that in the town of his possession," — and do not mean " whatever he had sold of his house-property or anything else in his town," for the Levites had no other property in the town besides the houses, but " the house which he had sold, namely, in the town of his possession." This implies that the right of reversion was only to apply to the houses ceded to the Levites in their own towns, and not to houses which they had acquired in other towns either by purchase or inheritance. The singular ^■•n is used after a subject in the plural, because the copula agrees with the object (see Eivaldj § 319c). As the Levites were to have no hereditary property in the land except the
^ This is the way m which it is correctly explained by Hiskuni: Utitur script.ura verbo redimendi non emendi^ quia quidquid Levitx vendunt ex Israelitarum haerediiate est^ non ex ipsorum hxreditate. Nam ecce non habent partes in terra, unde omnis qui accipit aut emit ah illis est acsi redimeret, quoniam ecce initio ipsius possessio fuit. On the other hand, the proposal made by Ewald, Knobel, etc., after the example of the Vulgate, to supply j<7 before 7i<3'» is not only an unnecessary conjecture, but is utterly uusuit- able, inasmuch as the words "if one of the Levites does not redeem it" would restrict the right to the Levites without any perceptible reason; just as if a blood-relation on the female side, belonging to any other tribe, might not have done this.
houses in the towns appointed for them, it was necessary that the possession of their houses should be secured to them for all time, if they were not to fall behind the other tribes. — Yer. 34. The field of the pasture-ground of the Levitical towns was not to be sold. Beside the houses, the Levites were also to receive cn^p pasturage for their flocks (from ^na to drive, to drive out the cattle) round about these cities (Num. xxxv. 2, 3). These meadows were not to be saleable, and not even to be let till the year of jubilee; because, if they were sold, the Levites would have nothing left upon which to feed their cattle.
Vers. 35-55. The second effect of the jubilee year, viz. the return of an Israelite^ who had become a slava^ to liberty and to his family J is also introduced with an exhortation to support an impoverished brother (vers. 35-38), and preserve to him his personal freedom. — Ver. 35. " If thy brother (countryman, or member of the same tribe) becomes poor, and his hand trembles by thee, thou shalt lay hold of him;" i.e. if he is no longer able to sustain himself alone, thou shalt take him by the arm to help him out of his misfortune. " Let him live with thee as a stranger and sojourner." ""HJ introduces the apodosis (see Ges. § 126, note 1). — Vers. 36 sqq. If he borrowed money, they were not to demand interest; or if food, they were not to demand any addition, any larger quantity, when it was returned (cf. Ex. xxii. 24; Deut. xxiii. 20, 21), from fear of God, who had redeemed Israel out of bondage, to give them the land of Canaan. In ver. 37 ""HI is an abbreviation of ""nv which onlv occurs here. — From ver. 39 onwards there follow the laws relating to the bondage of the Israelite, w^ho had been obliged to sell himself from poverty. Vers. 39-46 relate to his service in bondage to an (other) Israelite. The man to w^hom he had sold himself as servant was not to have slave-labour performed by him (Ex. i. 14), but to keep him as a day-labourer and sojourner, and let him serve with him till the year of jubilee. He was then to go out free with his children, and return to his family and the possession of his fathers (his patrimony). This regulation is a supplement to the laws relating to the rights of Israel (Ex. xxi. 2-6), though without a contradiction arising, as Knobel maintains, between the different rules laid down. In Ex. xxi. nothing at all is determined respecting the treatment of an Israelitish servant; it is simply stated that in the seventh year of his service he was to recover his liberty. This limit is not mentioned here, because the chapter before us simply treats of the influence of the year of jubilee upon the bondage of the Israelites. On this point it is decided, that the year of jubilee was to bring freedom even to the Israelite who had been brought into slavery by his poverty, — of course only to the man who was still in slavery when it commenced and had not served seven full years, provided, that is to say, that he had not renounced his claim to be set free at the end of his seven years' service, according to Ex. xxi. 5, 6. We have no right to expect this exception to be expressly mentioned here, because it did not interfere with the idea of the year of jubilee. For whoever voluntarily renounced the claim to be set free, whether because the year of jubilee was still so far off that he did not expect to live to see it, or because he had found a better lot with his master than he could secure for himself in a state of freedom, had thereby made a voluntary renunciation of the liberty which the year of jubilee might have brought to him (see OeJilers art. in Herzog^s CycL, where the different views on this subject are given). — Vers. 42, 43. Because the Israelites were servants of Jehovah, who had redeemed them out of Pharaoh's bondage and adopted them as His people (Ex. xix. 5, xviii. 10, etc.), they were not to be sold " a selling of slaves," i.e. not to be sold into actual slavery, and no one of them was to rule over another with severity (ver. 43, cf. Ex. i. 13, 14). " Through this principle slavery was completely abolished, so far as the people of the theocracy were concerned" (^Oeliler). — Yers. 44 sqq. As the Israelites could only hold in slavery servants and m^id-servants whom they had bought of foreign nations, or foreigners who had settled in the land, these they might leave as an inheritance to their children, and " through them they might work," i.e. have slave-labour performed, but not through their brethren the children of Israel (ver. 46, cf. ver. 43). — Vers. 47—55. The servitude of an Israelite to a settler who had come to the possession of property, or a non-Israelite dwelling in the land, was to be redeemable at any time. If an Israelite had sold himself because of poverty to a foreign settler (2^in n^, to distinguish the non- Israelitish sojourner from the Israelltish, ver. 35), or to a stock of a foreigner, then one of his brethren, or his uncle, or his uncle's son or some one of his kindred, was to redeem him; or if he came into the possession of property, he was to redeem himself. When this was done, the time was to be calculated from the year of purchase to the year of jubilee, and " the money of his purchase was to be according to the number of the years," i.e* the price at which he had sold himself was to be distributed over the number of years that he would have to serve to the year of jubilee; and " according to the days of a day-labourer shall he be with him," i.e. the time that he had worked was to be estimated as that of a day-labourer, and be put to the credit of the man to be redeemed. — Yers. 51, 52. According as there were few or many years to the year of jubilee would the redemption-money to be paid be little or much. ti^W2 T\)2^ much in years: Hi^T neuter, and? as in Gen. vii. 21, viii. 17 etc. I'TSp according to the measure of the same. — Ver. 53. During the time of service the buyer was to keep him as a day-labourer year by year, i.e. as a labourer engaged for a term of years, and not rule over him with severe oppression. " In thine eyes^^ i.e. BO that thou (the nation addressed) seest it. — Ver. 54. If he were not redeemed by these (the relations mentioned in vers. 48, 49), he was to go out free in the year of jubilee along with his- children, i.e. to be liberated without compensation. For (ver. 55) he was not k) remain in bondage, because the Israelites were the servants of Jehovah (cf. ver. 42).
But although, through these arrangements, the year of jubilee helped every Israelite, who had fallen into poverty and slavery, to the recovery of his property and personal freedom, and thus the whole community was restored to its original condition as appointed by God, through the return of all the landed property that had been alienated in the course of years to its original proprietor; the restoration of the theocratical state to its original condition was not the highest or ultimate object of the year of jubilee. The observance of sabbatical rest throughout the whole land, and by the whole nation, formed part of the liberty which it was to bring to the land and its inhabitants. In the year of jubilee, as in the sabbatical year, the land of Jehovah was to enjoy holy rest, and the nation of Jehovah to be set free from the bitter labour of cultivating the soil, and to live and refresh itself in blessed rest with the blessing which had been given to it by the Lord its God. In this way the year of jubilee became to the poor, oppressed, and suffering, in fact to the whole nation, a year of festivity and grace, which not only brought redemption to the captives and deliverance to the poor out of their distresses, but release to the whole congregation of the Lord from the bitter labour of this world; a time of refreshing, in which all oppression was to cease, and every member of the covenant nation find his redeemer in the Lord, who brought every one back to his own property and home. Because Jehovah had brought the children of Israel out of Egypt to give them the land of Canaan, where they were to live as His servants and serve Him, in the year of jubilee the nation and land of Jehovah were to celebrate a year of holy rest and refreshing before the Lord, and in this celebration to receive a foretaste of the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, which were to be brought to all men by One anointed with the Spirit of the Lord, who would come to preach the Gospel to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring liberty to the captives and the opening of the prisons to them that were bound, to proclaim to all that mourn a year of grace from the Lord (Isa. Ixi. 1-3; Luke iv. 17—21); and who will come again from heaven in the times of the restitution of all things to complete the airoKardcrraai^ Ty^ ^aaiKela^; rod Qeov, to glorify the whole creation into a kingdom of God, to restore everything that has been destroyed by sin from the beginning of the world, to abolish all the slavery of sin, establish the true liberty of the children of God, emancipate every creature from the bondage of vanity, under which it sighs on account of the sin of man, and introduce all His chosen into the kingdom of peace and everlasting blessedness, which was prepared for their inheritance before the foundation of the world (Acts iii. 19, 20; Rom. viii. 19 sqq.; Matt. xxv. 34; Col. i. 12; 1 Pet i. 4).
Just as the book of the covenant, the kernel containing the fundamental principles of the covenant fellowship, which the Lord established with the children of Israel whom He had adopted as His nation, and the rule of life for the covenant nation (Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. 19), concluded with promises and threats (Ex. xxiii. 20-33); so the giving of the law at Sinai, as the unfolding of the inner, spiritual side of the whole of the covenant constitution, closes in this chapter with an elaborate unfolding of the blessing which would be secured by a faithful observance of the laws, and the curse which would follow the transgression of them. But whilst the former promises and threats (Ex. xxiii.) related to the conquest of the promised land of Canaan, the promises in this chapter refer to the blessings which w^ere to be bestowed upon Israel when the land was in their possession (vers. 3-13), and the threats to the judgments with which the Lord would visit His disobedient people in their inheritance, and in fact drive them out and scatter them among the heathen (vers. 14-39). When this had been done, then, as is still further proclaimed with a prophetic look into the distant future, would they feel remorse, acknowledge their sin to the Lord, and be once more received into favour by Him, the eternally faithful covenant God (vers. 40-45).^ The blessing
^ When modern critics, who are carried away by naturalism, maintain that Moses was not the author of these exhortations and warnings, because of their prophetic contents, and assign them to the times of the kings, the end of the eighth, or beginning of the seventh century (see Ewald^ Gesch. i. 166), they have not considered, in their antipathy to any supernatural revelations from God in the Old Testament, that even apart from any higher illumination, the fundamental idea of these promises and threats must have presented itself to the mind of the lawgiver Moses. It required but a very little knowledge of the nature of the human heart, and a clear insight into the spiritual and ethical character of the law, to enable him to foresee that the earthly-minded, unholy nation would not fulfil the solemn demand of the law that their whole life should be sanctified to the Lord God, that they would transgress in many ways, and rebel against God and His holy laws, and therefore that in any case times of fidelity and the corresponding blessing would alternate with times of unfaithfulness and the corresponding curse, but that, for all that, at the end the grace of God would obtain the victory over the severely punished and deeply humbled nation, ahd bring the work of salvation to a glorious close. It is true, the concrete character of this chapter cannot be fully explained in this way, but it furnishes the clue to the psychological interpretation of the conception of this prophetic discourse, and shows us the subjective points of contact for the divine revelation which Moses has announced to us here. For, as Auberlen observes, " there is a marvellous and grand display of the greatness of God in the fact, that He holds out before the people, whom He has just delivered from the hands of the heathen and gathered round Himself, the prospect of being scattered again among the heathen, and that, even before the land ia taken by the Israelites, He predicts its return to desolation. These words could only be spoken by One who has the future really before His mind, who sees through the whole depth of sin, and who can destroy His own and curse of the law were impressed upon the liearts of the people in a still more comprehensive manner at the close of the whole law (Deut. xxviii.-xxx.), and on the threshold of the promised land. Vers. 1 and 2 form the introduction; and the essence of the whole law, the observance of which will bring a rich blessing, and the transgression of it severe judgments, is summed up in two leading commandments, and placed at the head of the blessing and curse which were to be proclaimed. Ye shall not make to you elilim, nugatory gods, and set up carved images and standing images for worship, but worship Jehovah your God with the observance of His Sabbaths, and fear before His sanctuary. The prohibition of elilim, according to chap. xix. 4, calls to mind the fundamental law of the decalogue (Ex. xx. 3, 4, cf. chap. xxi. 23, Ex. xxiii. 24, 25). To pesel (cf. Ex. xx. 4) and mazzehah (cf. Ex. xxiii. 24), which were not to be set up, there is added the command not to put fT'lii^^D jliNl^ " figure-stones," in the land, to worship over (by) them. The " figure-stone " is a stone formed into a figure, and idol of stone, not merely a stone with an inscription or with hieroglyphical figures; it is synonymous with ri^3K^D in Num. xxxiii. 52, and consequently we are to understand hy pesel the wooden idol as in Isa. xliv. 15, etc. The construction of '">]nn^'n with ^V may be explained on the ground that the worshipper of a stone image placed upon the ground rises above it (for?V in this sense, see Gen. xviii. 2). — In ver. 3 the true way to serve God is urged upon the Israelites once more, in words copied verbally from chap. xix. 30.
Vers. 3-13. The Blessing of Fidelity to the Law. — Vers. 3-5. If the Israelites walked in the commandments of the Lord (for the expression see chap, xviii. 3 sqq.), the Lord would give fruitfulness to their land, that they should have bread to the full. "/ will give you rain-showers in season^ The allusion here is to the showers which fall at the two rainy seasons, and work, and yet attain His end. But so much the more adorable and marvellous is the grace, which nevertheless begins its work among such sinners, and is certain of victory notwithstanding all retarding and opposing difficulties." The peculiar character of this revelation, which must deeply have affected Moses, will explain the peculiarities observable in the style, viz. the heaping up of unusual words and modes of expression, several of which never occur again in the Old Testament, whilst others are only used by the prophets who followed the Pentateuch in their style.
upon which the fruitfulness of Palestine depends, viz. the early and latter rain (Deut. xi. 14). The former of these occurs after the autumnal equinox, at the time of the winter-sowing of wheat and barley, in the latter half of October or beginning of November. It generally falls in heavy showers in November and December, and then after that only at long intervals, and not so heavily. The latter, or so-called latter rain, falls in March before the beginning of the harvest of the winter crops, at the time of sowing the summer seed, and lasts only a few days, in some years only a few hours (see Robinson, Pal, ii. pp. 97 sqq.). — On vers. 5, 6, see chap. xxv. 18, 19. — ^Vers. 6-8. The Lord would give peace in the land, and cause the beasts of prey which endanger life to vanish out of the land, and suffer no war to come over it, but would put to flight before the Israelites the enemies who attacked them, and cause them to fall into their sword, y^f, to lie without being frightened up by any one, is a figure used to denote the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of life, and taken from the resting of a flock in good pasture-ground (Isa. xiv. 30) exposed to no attacks from either wild beasts or men. T^'^O'? is generally applied to the frightening of men by a hostile attack (Micah iv. 4; Jer. xxx. 10 v Ezek. xxxix. 26; Job xi. 19); but it is also applied to the frightening of flocks and animals (Isa. xvii. 2; Deut. xxviii. 26; Jer. vii. 33, etc.). nyi njn: an evil animal^ for a beast of prey, as in Gen. xxxvii. 20. " Swordy' as the principal weapon applied, is used for war. The pursuing of the enemy relates to neighbouring tribes, who would make war upon the Israelites, ^yf^ i'?^ does not mean to be felled by the sword {Knohel), but to fall into the sword. The words, " five of you shall put a hundred to flight, and a hundred ten thousand,'* are a proverbial expression for the most victorious superiority of Israel over their enemies. It is repeated in the opposite sense and in an intensified form in Deut. xxxii. 30 and Isa. xxx. 17. — Ver. 9. Mbreover the Lord would bestow His covenant blessing upon them without intermission. h\^ n3a signifies a sympathizing and gracious regard (Ps. xxv. 16, Ixix. 17). The multiplication and fruitfulness of the nation were a constant fulfilment of the covenant promise (Gen. xvii. 4-6) and an establishment of the covenant (Gen. xvii. 7); not merely the preservation of it, but the continual realization of the covenant grace, by which the covenant itself was carried on furtlier and further towards its completion. This was the real purpose of the blessing, to which all earthly good, as the pledge of the constant abode of God in the midst of His people, simply served as the foundation. — Ver. 10. Notwithstanding their numerous increase, they would suffer no want of food. " Ye shall eat that which has become old, and bring out old for new." Multlplicaho vos et multlplicaho simul annoliam vestram, adeo ut illam prce multitudine et copia ahsumere non possitisj sed illam diutissime servare adeoque abjicere cogaminiy novarum frugum suavitate et copia superveniente (C a Lap.). N'^yin vetustum triticum ex horreo et vinum ex cella promere (Calvin). — ^Ver. 11. "I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not despise you." |3t^^P, applied to the dwelling of God among His people in the sanctuary, involves the idea of satisfied repose. — Yer. 12. God's walking in the midst of Israel does not refer to His accompanying and leading the people on their journeyings, but denotes the walking of God in the midst of His people in Canaan itself, whereby He would continually manifest Himself to the nation as its God and make them a people of possession, bringing them into closer and closer fellowship with Himself, and giving them all the saving blessings of His covenant of grace. — Yer. 13. For He was their God, who had brought them out of the land of the Egyptians, ttiat they might no longer be servants to them, and had broken the bands of their yokes and made them go upright, ^'y nbb? lit. the poles of the yoke (cf. Ezek. xxxiv. 27), i.e. the poles which are laid upon the necks of beasts of burden (Jer. xxvii. 2) as a yoke, to bend their necks and harness them for work. It was with the burden of such a yoke that Egypt had pressed down the Israelites, so that they could no longer walk upright, till God by breaking the yoke helped them to walk upright again. As the yoke is a figurative description of severe oppression, so going upright is a figurative description of emancipation from bondage. ri^*DDip, lit. a substantive, an upright position; here it is an adverb (cf. Ges. § 100, 2).
Yers. 14-33. The Curse for Contempt of the Law. — The following judgments are threatened, not for single breaches of the law, but for contempt of all the laws, amounting to inward contempt of the divine commandments and a breach of the covenant (vers. 14, 15), — for presumptuous and obstinate rebellion, therefore, against God and His commandments. For this, severe judgments are announced, which were to be carried to their uttermost in a fourfold series, if the hardening were obstinately continued. If Israel acted in opposition to the Lord in the manner stated. He would act towards them as follows (vers. 16, 17): He would appoint over them Hpna terror — a general notion, which is afterwards particularized as consisting of diseases, sowing without enjoying the fruit, defeat in war, and flight before their enemies. Two kinds of disease are mentioned by which life is destroyed: consumption and burning, i.e. burning fever, TTvpero^;, fehris, which cause the eyes (the light of this life) to disappear, and the soul (the life itself) to pine away; whereas in Ex. xxiii. 25, xv. 26, preservation from diseases is promised for obedience to the law. Of these diseases, consumption is at present very rare in Palestine and Syria, though it occurs in more elevated regions; but burning fever is one of the standing diseases. To these there would be added the invasion of the land by enemies, so that they would labour in vain and sow their seed to no purpose, for their enemies would consume the produce, as actually was the case (e.g. Judg. vi. 3, 4j. — Yer. 17. Yea, the Lord w^ould turn His face against them, so that they would be beaten by their enemies, and be so thoroughly humbled in consequence, that they w^ould flee when no man pursued (cf. ver. 36).
But if these punishments did not answer their purpose, and bring Israel back to fidelity to its God, the Lord would punish the disobedient nation still more severely, and chasten the rebellious for their sin, not simply only, but sevenfold. This He would do, so long as Israel persevered in obstinate resistance, and to this end He would multiply His judgments by degrees. This graduated advance of the judgments of God is so depicted in the following passage, that four times in succession new and multiplied punishments are announced; (1) utter barrenness in their land, — that is to say, one heavier punishment (vers. 18-20); (2) the extermination of their cattle by beasts of prey, and childlessness, — two punishments (vers. 21, 22); (3) war, plague, and famine, — tJiree punishments (vers. 23-26); (4) the destruction of all idolatrous abominations, the overthrow of their towns and holy places, the devastation of the land, and the dispersion of the people among the heathen, — four punishments which would bring the Israelites to the verge of destruction (vers. 27-33). In this way would the Lord punish the stiffneckedness of Plis people. — These divine threats embrace the whole of Israel's future. But the series of judgments mentioned is not to be understood historically, as a prediction of the temporal succession of the different punishments, but as an ideal account of the judgments of God, unfolding themselves with inward necessity in a manner answering to the progressive development of the sin. As the nation would not resist the Lord continually, but times of disobedience and apostasy would alternate with times of obedience and faithfulness, so the judgments of God would alternate with His blessings; and as the opposition would not increase in uniform progress, sometimes becoming weaker and then at other times gaining greater force again, so the punishments would not multiply continuously, but correspond in every case to the amount of the sin, and only burst in upon the incorrigible race in all the intensity foretold, when ungodliness gained the upper hand.
Vers. 18-20. First stage of the aggravated judgments. — If they did not hearken Hpx ny^ " up to these " (the punishments named in vers. 16, 17), that is to say, if they persisted in their disobedience even when the judgments reached to this height, God would add a sevenfold chastisement on account of their sins, would punish them seven times more severely, and break down their strong pride by fearful drought. Seven, as the number of perfection in the works of God, denotes the strengthening of the chastisement, even to the height of its full measure (cf. Prov. xxiv. 16). TV pi<|!, lit. the eminence or pride of strength, includes everything upon which a nation rests its might; then the pride and haughtiness which rely upon earthly might and its auxiliaries (Ex. xxx. 6, 18, xxxiii. 2^); here it signifies the pride of a nation, puffed up by the fruitfulness and rich produce of its land. God would make their heaven (the sky of their land) like iron and their earth like brass, i.e. as hard and dry as metal, so that not a drop of rain and dew w^ould fall from heaven to moisten the earth, and not a plant could grow out of the earth (cf. Deut. xxviii. 23); and when the land was cultivated, the people would exhaust their strength for nought. D^JJ, consiimi.
Yers 21, 22. The second stage. — But if the people's resistance amounted to a hostile rebellion against God, He would smite them sevenfold for their sin by sending beasts of prey and childlessness. By beasts of prey He would destroy their cattle, and by barrenness He would make the nation so small that the ways would be deserted, that high roads would cease because there would be no traveller upon them on account of the depopulation of the land (Isa. xxxiii. 8; Zeph. iii. 6), and the few inhabitants who still remained would be afraid to venture because of tlie wild beasts (Ezek. xiv. 15). ^V "'li;^ "nPi^ ("^o go a meeting with a person^'' i.e. to meet a person in a hostile manner, to fight against him) only occurs here in vers. 21 and 23, and is strengthened in vers. 24, 27, 28, 40, 41 into ^V ''")^2 "H^n, to engage in a hostile encounter with a person. V^^ n3D, a sevenfold blow. ^'According to yow sins,''* i.e. answering to them sevenfold. In ver. 22 the first clause corresponds to the third, and the second to the fourth, so that Nos. 3 and 4 contain the effects of Nos. 1 and 2.
Vers. 23-26. The third stage. — But if they would not be chastened by these punishments, and still rose up in hostility to the Lord, He would also engage in a hostile encounter with them, and punish them sevenfold with war, plague, and hunger. — Ver. 25. He would bring over them " the sword avenging {Le. executing) the covenant vengeance." The " covenant vengeance** was punishment inflicted for a breach of the covenant, the severity of which corresponded to the greatness of the covenant blessings forfeited by a faithless apostasy. If they retreated to their towns (fortified places) from the sword of the enemy, the Lord would send a plague over them there, and give those who were spared by the plague into the power of the foe. He would also " break in pieces the staff of bread,** and compel them by the force of famine to submit to the foe. The means of sustenance should become so scarce, that ten women could bake their bread in a single oven, whereas in ordinary times every woman would require an oven for herself; and they would have to eat the bread which they brought home by weight, i.e. not as much as every one pleased, but in rations weighed out so scantily, that those who ate would not be satisfied, and would only be able to sustain their life in the most miserable way. Calamities such as these burst upon Israel and Judah more than once when their fortified towns were besieged, particularly
In the later times of the kings, e.g. upon Samaria in the reign of Joram (2 Kings vi. 25 sqq.), and upon Jerusalem through the invasions of the Chaldeans (of. Isa. iii. 1, Jer. xiv. 18, Ezek. iv. 16, V. 12).
Vers. 27-33. Fourth and severest stage. — If they should still persist in their opposition, God would chastise them with wrathhi\ meeting, yea, punish them so severely in His wrath, that they would he compelled to eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, i.e. to slay their own children and eat them in the extremity of their hunger, — a fact which literally occurred in Samaria in the period of the Syrians (2 Kings vi. 28, 29), and in Jerusalem iu that of the Chaldeans (Lam. ii. 20, iv. 10), and in the Roman war of extermination under Titus (Josephus bell, jud. V. 10, 3) in the most appalling manner. Eating the flesh of their own children is mentioned first, as indicating the extremity of the misery and wretchedness in which the people would perish; and after this, the judgment, b;^ which the nation would be brought to this extremity, is more minutely described in its four principal features: viz. (1) the destruction of all idolatrous abominations (ver. 30); (2) the overthrow of the towns and sanctuaries (ver. 31); (3) the devastation of the land, to the amazement of the enemies who dwelt therein (ver. 32); and (4) the dispersion of the people among the heathen (ver. 33). The " high places" are altars erected upon heights and mountains in the land, upon which sacrifices were offered both to Jehovah in an unlawful way and also to heathen deities. ^''^^']j sun-pillars, are idols of the Canaanitish nature-worship, either simple pillars dedicated to Baal, or idolatrous statues of the sun-god (cf. Movers Phonizier i. pp. 343 sqq.). " And I give your carcases upon the carcases of your idolsJ^ ^Y^-lj lit- clods, from ^^3 to roll, a contemptuous expression for idols. With the idols the idolaters also were to perish, and defile with their corpses the images, which had also become corpses as it were, through their overthrow and destruction. For the further execution of this threat, see Ezek. vi. 4 sqq. This will be your lot, for ^' My soul rejects you." By virtue of the inward character of His holy nature, Jehovah must abhor and reject the sinner. — Yer. 31. Their towns and their sanctuaries He would destroy, because He took no pleasure in their sacrificial worship. D"'^pp are the holy things of the worship of Jehovah, the tabernacle and temple, with their altars and the rest of their holy furniture, as in Ps. Ixviii. 36, Ixxiv. 7. nh^J nn (chap. i. 9) is the odour of the sacrifice; and nn^ to smell, an anthropomorphic designation of divine satisfaction (cf. Amos v. 21, Isa. xi. 3). — Vers. 32, 33. The land was to become a wilderness, so that even the enemies who dwelt therein would be terrified in consequence (cf. Jer. xviii. 16, xix. 8); and the Israelites would be scattered among the heathen, because Jehovah would draw out His sword behind them, i.e. drive them away with a drawn sword, and scatter them to all the winds of heaven (cf. Ezek. v. 2, 12, xii. 14).
and 35. The land would then enjoy and keep its Sabbaths, so long as it was desolate, and Israel was in the land of its foes. riD^n ""D^ pbj during the whole period of its devastation, "^^^n, inf. Hophal with the suffix, in which the mappik is wanting, as in Ex. ii. 3 (cf. JEwald, § 131g). nri to have satisfaction:• with 3 and an accusative it signifies to take delight, take pleasure, in anything, e.g. in rest after the day's work is done (Job xiv. 6); here also to enjoy rest (not " to pay its debt:" Ges., Kn.). The keeping of the Sabbath was not a performance binding upon the land, nor had the land been in fault because the Sabbath was not kept. As the earth groans under the pressure of the sin of men, so does it rejoice in deliverance from this pressure, and participation in the blessed rest of the whole creation. 'Ii1 '^m m nhm: the land " will rest (keep) what it has not rested on your Sabbaths and whilst you dwelt in it;" i.e. it will make up the rest which you did not give it on your Sabbaths (daily and yearly). It is evident from this, that the keeping of the Sabbaths and sabbatical years was suspended when the apostasy of the nation increased, — a result which could be clearly foreseen in consequence of the inward dislike of a sinner to the commandments of the holv God, and which is described in 2 Chron. xxvi. 31 as having actually occurred. — Vers. 36-38. So far as the nation was concerned, those who were left when the kingdom was overthrown would find no rest in the land of their enemies, but would perish among the heathen for their own and their fathers' iniquities, till they confessed their, sins and bent their uncircumcised hearts under the righteousness of the divine punishments. D33 D^*iKK^*3n (nominative abs.): " as for those who are left in (as in chap. v. 9), i.e. of, you," who have not perished in the destruction of the kingdom and dispersion of the people, God will bring despair into their heart in the lands of your enemies, that the sound ("^ voice") of a moving leaf will hunt them to flee as before the sword, so that they will fall in their anxious flight, and stumble one over another, though no one is pursuing. The cltt. Xey. T}p from ^10, related to niD and P"]0 to rub, rub to pieces, signifies that inward anguish, fear, and despair, which rend the heart and destroy the life, BeiXiUy pavor (LXX., Yulg.), what is described in Deut. xxviii. 65 in even stronger terms as " a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." There should hot be to them riD^prij standi et resistendi facultas (Rosenmitller), standing before the enemy; but they should perish among the nations. " The land of their enemies will eat them up," sc. by their falling under the pressure of the circumstances in which they were placed (cf. Num. xiii. 32; Ezek. xxxvi. 13). — Ver. 39. But those who still remained under this oppression would pine away in their iniquities (}?^\ lit, to rot, moulder away), and " also in the iniquities of their fathers with them." D^K refers to T\)y\V " which are with them," which they <:arry with them and must atone for (see at Ex. XX. 5). — Vers. 40-43. In this state of pining.away under their enemies, they would confess to themselves their own and their fathers' sins, i.e, would make the discovery that their sufferings were a punishment from God for their sins, and acknowledge that they were suffering what they had deserved, through their unfaithfulness to their God and rebellion against Him, for which He had been obliged to set Himself in hostility to them, and bring them into the land of their enemies; or rather their un».Ircumcised hearts would then humble themselves, and they would look with satisfaction upon this fruit of their sin. The construction is the following: WDp (ver. 42) corresponds to ^'^)^\^ (ver. 40) as the apodosis; so that, according to the more strictly logical cbnnection, which is customary in our language, we may unite vers. 40, 41 in one period with ver. 42. " If they shall confess their iniquity... or rather their uncircumcised heart shall humble itself... I will remember My covenant." With Q^VP^ a parenthetical clause is introduced into the main sentence explanatory of the iniquity, and reaches as far as " into the land of their enemies." With
^33^ ^^"^^^ " or if, etc./' the main sentence is resumed, ^i?, " or rather" (as in 1 Sam. xxix. 3), bringing out the humiliation of the heart as the most important result to which the confession of sin ought to deepen itself. The heart is called " uncircumcised" as being unsanctified, and not susceptible to the manifestations of divine grace. Dj'iyTlX ^Vn^ evZoKrjcrovaL Ta<; afiapTia^ avrcov (LXX.), they will take pleasure, rejoice in their misdeeds, ue. in the consequences and results of them — that their misdeeds have so deeply humbled them, and brought them to the knowledge of the corruption into which they have fallen: a bold and, so to speak, paradoxical expression for their complete change of heart, which we may render thus: " they will enjoy their misdeeds," as nyj may be rendered in the same way in ver. 43 also.^ But where punishment bears such fruit, God looks upon the sinner with favour again. When Israel had gone so far, He would remember His covenant with the fathers ("My covenant with Jacob," ^pV\ ^n'*"]^: the suffix is attached to the governing noun, as in chap. vi. 3, because the noun governed, being a proper name, could not take the suffix), and remember the land (including its inhabitants), which, as is repeated again in ver. 43, would be left by them (become desolate) and enjoy its Sabbaths whilst it was waste (depopulated) from (Le. away from, without) them; and they would enjoy their iniquity, because they had despised the judgments of the Lord, and their soul had rejected His statutes. — Yer. 44. "And yet, even with regard to this, when they shall be in the land of their enemies, have I not despised them." That is to say, if it shall have come even so far as that they are in the land of their enemies (the words ^^^^^D5 stand first in an absolute sense, and are strengthened or intensified by n^l and more fully explained by '1i^ Dnvrill), I have not rejected them, to destroy them and break My covenant with them. For I am Jehovah their God, who, as the absolutely exist-
^ Luther has translated py in this sense, " punishment of iniquity," and observes in the marginal notes, — " (Pleasure), i.e. just as they had pleasure in their sins and felt disgust at My laws, so they would 'now take pleasure in their punishment and say, ' We have just what we deserve. This is what we have to thank our cursed sin for. It is just, 0 God, quite just.' And these are thoughts and words of earnest repentance, hating itself from the bottom of the heart, and crying out. Shame upon me, what have I done? This pleases God, so that He becomes gracious once more."
ing and unchangeably faithful One, keeps His promises and does not repent of His calling (Rom. xi. 29). — Ver. 45. He would therefore remember the covenant with the forefathers, whom He had brought out of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be a God to them; and He would renew the covenant with the fathers to them (the descendants), to gather them again out of the heathen, and adopt them again as His nation (cf. Deut. XXX. 3-5). In this way the judgment would eventually turn to a blessing, if they would bend in true repentance under the mighty hand of their God.
Ver* 46 contains the close of the entire book, or rather of the whole of the covenant legislation from Ex. xxv. onwards, although the expression " in Mount Sinai" points back primarily to Lev. xxv. 1.
The directions concerning vows follow the express termination of the Sinaitic lawgiving (chap. xxvi. 46), as an appendix to it, because vows formed no integral part of the covenant laws, but were a freewill expression of piety common to almost all nations, and belonged to the modes of worship current in all religions, which were not demanded and might be omitted altogether, and which really lay outside the law, though it was necessary to bring them into harmony with the demands of the law upon Israel. Making a vow, therefore, or dedicating anything to the Lord by vowing, was not commanded, but Was presupposed as a manifestation of reverence for God, sanctified by ancient tradition, and was simply regulated according to the principle laid down in Deut. xxiii. 22-24, that it was not a sin to refrain from vowing, but that every vow, when once it had been made, was to be conscientiously and inviolably kept (cf. Prov. XX. 25, Eccl. v. 3—5), and the neglect to keep it to be atoned for with a sin-offering (chap. v. 4). — The objects of a vow might be persons (vers. 2-8), cattle (vers. 9-13), houses (vers. 14, 15), and land (vers. 16-25), all of which might be redeemed with the exception of sacrificial animals; but not the first-born (ver. 26), nor persons and things dedicated to the Lord by the ban (vers. 28, 29), nor tithes (vers. 30-33), because all of these were to be handed over to the Lord according to the law, and therefore could not be redeemed. This followed from the very idea of the vow. For a vow was a promise made by any one to dedicate and give his own person, or a portion of his property, to the Lord for averting some danger and distress, or for bringing to his possession some desired earthly good. — Besides ordinary vowing or promising to give, there was also vowing away, or the vow of renunciation, as is evident from Num. XXX. The chapter before us treats only of ordinary vowing, and gives directions for redeeming the thing vowed, in which it is presupposed that everything vowed to the Lord would fall to His sanctuary as corban, an offering (Mark vii. 11); and therefore, that when it was redeemed, the money would also be paid to His sanctuary. — (On the vow, see my Archceologie, § 96; Oehler in Herzogs Cycl.)
Vers. 2-8. The vowing of persons. — "If any one make a special vow, souls shall be to the Lord according to thy valuation." *17.?. ^r?*? does not mean to dedicate or >set apart a vow, but to make a special vow (see at chap. xxii. 21). The words ^3")y3j " according to thy (Moses') valuation," it is more simple to regard as an apodosis, so as to supply to njlT'p the substantive verb ^^V.i?^, than as a fuller description of the protasis, in which case the apodosis would follow in ver. 3, and the verb ^'''^i?^ would have to be supplied. But whatever may be the conclusion adopted, in any case this thought is expressed in the words, that souls, Le* persons, were to be vowed to the Lord according to Moses' valuation, i.e. according to the price fixed by Moses, This implies clearly enough, that whenever a person was vowed, redemption was to follow according to the valuation. Otherwise what was the object of valuing them? Valuation supposes either redemption o^ purchase. But in the case of men {i.e. Israelites) there could be no purchasing as slaves, and therefore the object of the valuing could only have been for the purpose of redeeming, buying off the person vowed to the Lord, and the fulfilment of tLj vow could only have consisted in the payment into the sanctuary of the price fixed by the law.^ — ^Vers.
* Saalschutz adopts this explanation in common with the Mishnah. Oehler is wrong in citing 1 Sam. ii. 11, 22, 28 as a proof of the opposite. For the dedication of Samuel did not consist of a simple vow, but waa a dedication as a Nazarite for the whole of his life, and Samuel was thereby vowed to service at the sanctuary, whereas the law says nothing about.
3-7. This was to be, for persons between twenty and tlilrty years of age, 50 sliekels for a man and 30 for a woman; for a boy between 5 and 20, 20 shekels, for a girl of the same age 10 shekels; for a male child from a month to five years 5 sliekels, for a female of the same age 3 shekels; for an old man above sixty 15 sliekels, for an old woman of that age 10; the whole to be in shekels of the sanctuary (see at Ex. xxx. 15). The valuation price was regulated, therefore, according to capacity and vigour of life, and the female sex, as the weaker vessel (1 Pet. iii. 7), w^as only appraised at half the amount of the male. — Ver. 8. But if the person making the vow was " poor before thy valuation," i.e. too poor to be able to pay the valuation price fixed by the law, he was to be brought before the priest, who would value him according to the measure of what his hand could raise (see chap. v. 11), i.e, what he was able to pay. This regulation, which made it poss^'ble for the poor man to vow his own person to the Lord, presupposed that the person vowed would have to be redeemed. For otherwise a person of this kind would only need to dedicate himself to the sanctuary, with all his power for work, to fulfil his vow completely.
Vers. 9-13. When animals were vowed, of the cattle that were usually offered in sacrifice, everything that was given to Jehovah of these (i.e. dedicated to Him by vowing) was to be holy and not changed, i.e. exchanged, a good animal for a bad, or a bad one for a good. But if such an exchange should be made, the animal first dedicated and the one substituted were both to be holy (vers. 9, 10). The expression " it shall be holy" unquestionably implies that an animal of this kind could not be redeemed; but if it was free from faults, it was offered in sacrifice: if, however, it was not fit for sacrifice on account of some blemish, it fell to the portion of the priests for their maintenance like the first-born of cattle (cf. ver. 33). — Vers. 11, 12. Ev^ry unclean beast, however, — an ass for example, — which could not be offered in sacrifice, was to be placed before the priest for him attachment to the sanctuary in the case of the simple vowing of persons. But because redemption in the case of persons was not left to the pleasure or free-will of the person making the vow as in the case of material property, no addition is made to the valuation price as though for a merely possible circumstance.
to value it " between good and bad," i.e, neither very high as if it were good, nor very low as if it were bad, but at a medium price; and it was to be according to this valuation, i.e. to be worth the value placed upon it (P^lI ^3lj^3 according to thy, the priest's, valuation), namely, when sold for the good of the sanctuary and its servants. — Ver. 13. But if the person vowing wanted to redeem it, he was to add a fifth above the valuation price, as a kind of compensation for taking back the animal he had vowed (cf. chap. v. 16).
Vers. 14 and 15. When a house was vowed, the same rules applied as in the case of unclean cattle. KnoheVs supposition, that the person making the vow was to pay the valuation price if he did not wish to redeem the house, is quite a groundless supposition. The house that was not redeemed was sold, of course, for the good of the sanctuary.
Yers. 16-25. With regard to the vowing of land^ a difference was made between a field inherited and one that had been purchased.— Ver. 16. If any one sanctified to the Lord "of the field of his possession," i.e. a portion of his hereditary property, the valuation was to be made according to the measure of the seed sown; and an omer of barley was to be appraised at fifty shekels, so that a field sown with an omer of barley would be valued at fifty shekels. As an omer was equal to ten ephahs (Ezek. xlv. 11), and, according to the calculation made by Thenius, held about 225 lbs., the fifty shekels cannot have been the average value of the yearly produce of such a field, but must be understood, as it was by the Rabbins, as the value of the produce of a complete jubilee period of 49 or 50 years; so that whoever wished to redeem the field had to pay, according to Mishnah, Erachin vii. 1, a shekel and a fifth p^r annum. — ^Yers. 17, 18. If he sanctified his field from the year of jubilee, i.e. immediately after the expiration of that year, it was to " stand according to thy valuation," i.e. no alteration was to be made in the valuation. But if it took place after the year of jubilee, i.e. some time or some years after, the priest was to estimate the value according to the number of years to the next year of jubilee, and ''it shall be abated from thy valuation,^ sc. prceteriturn tempusy the time that has elapsed since the year of jubilee. Hence, for example, if the field was vowed ten years after the year of jubilee, the man who wished to redeem it had only forty shekels to j^y for the forty years remaining up to the next year of jubilee, or, with the addition of the fifth, 48 shekels. The valuation was necessary in both cases, for the hereditary field was inalienable, and reverted to the original owner or his heirs in the year of jubilee without compensation (cf. ver. 21 and chap. XXV. 13, 23 sqq.); so that, strictly speaking, it was not the field itself, but the produce of its harvests up to the next year of jubilee, that was vowed, whether the person making the vow left it to the sanctuary in natura till the year of jubilee, or wished to redeem it again by paying the valuation price. In the latter case, however, he had to put a fifth over and above the valuation price (ver. 19, like vers. 13 and 15), that it might be left to him. — Vers. 20, 21. In case he did not redeem it, however, namely, before the commencement of the next year of jubilee, or sold it to another man, i.e, to a man not belonging to his family, he could no longer redeem it; but on its going out, i.e. becoming free in the year of jubilee (see chap. 'xxv. 28), it was to be holy to the Lord, like a field under the ban (see ver. 28), and to fall to the priests as their property. Hinc colligere est, redimendum fuisse ante Jubilceum consecratum agrurriy nisi quis vellet eum plane ahalienari (Clericus). According to the distinct^words of the text (observe the correspondence of ^^\ • • • C^KI), the field, that had been vowed, fell to the sanctuary in the jubilee year not only when the owner had sold it in the meantime, but also w^hen he had not previously redeemed it. The reason for selling the field at a time when he had vowed it to the sanctuary, need not be sought for in caprice and dishonesty, as it is by Knobel. If the field was vowed in this sense, that it was not handed over to the sanctuary (the priesthood) to be cultivated, but remained in the hands of the proprietor, so that every year he paid to the sanctuary simply the valuation price, — and this may have been the rule, as the priests whose duties lay at the sanctuary could not busy themselves about the cultivation of the field, but w^ould be obliged either to sell the piece of land at once, or farm it, — the owner might sell the field up to the year of jubilee, to be saved the trouble of cultivating it, and the purchaser could not only live upon what it yielded over and above the price to be paid every year to the sanctuary, but might possibly realize something more. In such a case the fault of:he seller, for which he had to make atonement by tha forfeiture of his field to the sanctuary in the year. of, jubilee, consisted simply in the fact that he had looked upon the land which he vowed to the Jjord as though it were his own property, still and entirely at his own disposal, and therefore had allowed himself to violate the rights of the Lord by the sale of his land. At any rate, it is quite inadmissible to supply a different subject to "I3D from that of the parallel p^^], viz. the priest. — Vers. 22-24. If on the other hand any one dedicated to the Lord a " field of his purchase," i.e. a field that had been bought and did not belong to his patrimony, he was to give the amount of the valuation as estimated by the priest up to the year of jubilee " on that day," i.e. immediately, and all at once. This regulation warrants the conclusion, that on the dedication of hereditary fields, the amount was not paid all at once, but year by year. In the year of jubilee the field that had been vowed, if a field acquired by purchase, did not revert to the buyer, but to the hereditary owner from whom it had been bought, according to the law in chap. xxv. 23-28. — Ver. 25. All valuations were to be made according to the shekel of the sanctuary.
Vers. 26-29. What belonged to the Lord by law could not be dedicated to Him by a vow, especially the first-born of clean cattle (cf. Ex. xiii. 1, 2). The first-born of unclean animals were to be redeemed according to the valuation of the priest, with the addition of a fifth; and if this was not done, it was to be sold at the estimated value. By this regulation the earlier law, which commanded that an ass should either be redeemed with a sheep or else be put to death (Ex. xiii. 13, xxxiv. 20), was modified in favour of the revenues of the sanctuary and its servants. — Vers. 28, 29. Moreover, nothing put under the ban, nothing that a man had devoted (banned) to the Lord of his property, of man, beast, or the field of his possession, was to be sold or redeemed, because it w^as most holy (see at chap. ii. 3). The man laid under the ban was to be put; to death. According to the w^ords of ver. 28, the individual Israelite was quite at liberty to ban, not only his cattle and field, but also men who belonged to him, that is to say, slaves and children. C]''"}nn signifies to dedicate something to the Lord in an unredeemable manner, as cherem, i.e. ban, or banned. D"in (to devote, or ban), judging from the cognate words in the Arabic, signifying prohiberey vetare^ illicitum facer e, illicitum^ sacrum^ has the primary signi-