Mi f? BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF 1S91 i;^,.^..5..^A.u■.■&.'z■ \.2L.\m4i.l.. ICIT '357 Cornell University Library BS680.E84 B88 1909 Ethics of the Old Testament / by W.S. Br olln 3 1924 029 284 894 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029284894 SOME REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION. "Just such a book as this has been long wanted to vindicate Scottish Biblical scholarship and to aid the student of the Old Testament. "—Free Press. ' ' The work gives a broad-minded survey of the Hebrew ethic in its place in the development of morals. It deserves welcome as a well-ordered, painstaking, and valuable treatise on its subject." — Scots^nan. "An excellent work, which I have found most interesting and instructive."— Prof. Eobeet Flint, D.D. "The author has worked at the sources for himself, with a scholar's insight into their meaning and a keen sense of their place and proportion. The whole subject is gathered into one compactjand convenient volume." — Mxpository Times, Edinbuegh': T. & T. CLAEK, 38 George Street. THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ' The Old Testament will still be a New Testament to him who comea with a fresh desire of information." — Fuller. THE ETHICS THE OLD TESTAMENT BY W. S. IRUCE, M.A., D.D. AUTHOR OF "THE FORMATION OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER" "OHR HERITAOB, INDIVIDUAL, SOCIAL, RELIaiOtrS" "social ASPECTS OP CHRISTIAN MORALITY" ETC. ETC. SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED EDINBUEGH T. & T. CLAEK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1909 Printed ty Morrison & Gieb Limited, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON : SIMPRIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK : 0HAKLE3 SCRIBNER'S SONS. PREFATORY NOTE TO SECOND EDITION The demand for a new edition affords the author a welcome opportunity of briuging the book up to date. Much has been written on the Ethics of the Old Testament in these fourteen years since it was first published, to which ample reference will be found in the footnotes. Several chapters have been enlarged; and certain portions have been rewritten in deference to criticisms in British and American Journals. It is hoped that in its enlarged form the volume will be worthy of the very kind reception which it has met in this and in other lands. Banff, November 1909. CONTENTS CHAPTEE I Introductory PASES Nature of Old Testament Ethics — Witliout scientific form, yet progressive — An almost untrodden field— Gains from scientific study of Old Testa- ment — Moral difficulties — Their solution im- possible apart from general presentation of Old Testament EtMcs — Every science should be set in its own light — Different aims of Theology and Ethics of Old Testament : (1) Cok"tkast be- tween THE Ethics of Old Testament and Ethics op Pagan Antiquity — Plato — Aristotle — Absence of knowledge of sin ; (2) Funda- mental Principles of Old Testament Ethics — The Supreme Good — It is thrown forward into the future of Messianic hope — Establish- ment of a kingdom of righteousness the goal — Never an individual good, but a social one — Doctrine of Virtue — The will of God, not moral consciousness, the basis — The subjective prin- ciple a free, loving obedience . . . 1-31 CHAPTBB II The Ethical Character of the Old Testament Revelation The etliics connected with the history of Israel — A natural and theistic basis — Doctrine of evolu- X CONTENTS PAGES tion applied to Israel's religion — The Hegelian school — Theory of Graf and Wellhausen — Re- ligion merely an outcome of the Semitic genius — Ethical view of life emerges from Israel's per- sonal relationship to a holy God — Their ethical superiority over other races .... 32-40 CHAPTER III The Deteeminativb Principle op Morality THE Old Testament A positive principle in every code of morals — Foundation of virtue not found in the Old Testament in man's moral nature — Not a power- less empiricism — Hebrew morality has a re- ligious basis — Apprehension of moral law runs parallel with conception of ethical character of Jehovah — Elohim, El Shaddai, Jahveh, Adonai, merciful and gracious, but full of resentment to sin. Theophanies — God no mere cosmic force, but the living and the Holy One — This relation- ship at the foundation of the Law — Important moral results from this, shaping life and con- duct in Israel — Aid derived here from science of comparative religion — These facts constitute an ethical doctrine of God 41-61 CHAPTER IV Israel the People op God's Possession The Law based on this relationship — Separation and consecration of the nation for lofty ethical ends ^An election to service, pervaded by a social teleology — Progressive ethicising of this rela- tionship — The truth of individualism not yet acknowledged, but the family comes first in im- portance — Birth into Israelite family reckoned CONTENTS XI PAQES as entrance into kingdom of God — But within this particularism lay the kernel of a universal religion 62-73 CHAPTER V Israel's Code of Duty (1) Righteousness in the Old Testament — This not equivalent to sinlessness^Use of the word by Psalmists — The apprehension of sin not so profound and ethical as in New Testament — Rather a legal statvis than an ethical attainment indicated — ^Yet not legalism. (2) The Giving of the Law — Given through Moses and accepted by Israel — Grace as well as command in it — Two different views of its purpose — A pedagogic aspect and an aspect of grace — Primarily, the Law was a distinguishing mark of God's favour to His people ; secondarily, a commandment to check trangression — Romans vii. a bit of auto- biography — View of it in Gospels and Epistle to Hebrews . 74-93 CHAPTER VI The Law of the Ten Words Character of the Decalogue — Does it, together with the civil and ceremonial laws, constitute one legislative code ? or are there two codes ? — The Law makes no distinction within itself into per- manent and transitory precepts — The Decalogue cast in an archaic mould — Its different forms — The two Tables — Apparent gradation in its com- mands — Its preface speaks of grace . . 94-108 CHAPTER VII The First Table Our concern is with the original purport of the Commandments — Not to translate them in terms XU CONTENTS PASE3 of a Christian's duty. The First Gommandment — Obedience rested on faith, and morality on religion — Exclusion of the evils of polytheism. The Second Commandment — Proclaims God's spirituality — Danger of Israel falling into idolatry — Worship of Egypt — It prohibited also human sacrifices — Reason annexed. The Third Gommandment — The correct rendering of the words — Forbids profanity generally, and espe- cially one form of it, perjury. The Fourth Gommandment — A twofold law, commanding labour and also enjoining rest — Jewish Sabbath a day of rest. The Fifth Gommandment — Im- portance of the family in Israel opposed to modern conception of individualism . . . 109-147 CHAPTER VIII The Second Table The Sixth Commandment — Duties to our fellow- creatures — A man's life his most valued posses- sion — Capital punishment — The land counted polluted — The jus talionis — Only the highest form of each crime specified. The Seventh Gommandment — The sanctity of home — A wife regarded from the standpoint of goods — Mor- ality based on the family — Ethics of divorce — The water of jealousy — Woman in the Wisdom Literature. The Eighth Gommandment — Ethics of property — Law of inheritance — Poor-Laws. Ninth Gommandment — A man's goods and his good name — Courts of judgment — Perjury and slander. Tenth Gommandment — Rightly ends the precepts of probity — Proves the Decalogue to be not merely a criminal code — Enters the region of motive — The prohibitory form of the Law — The Decalogue not an evolution of Hebrew thought 148-190 CONTENTS Xlll CHAPTER IX Old Testament Legislation PAGES (1) In Relation to Nature— Ethical view of man's relation to the land and to cattle. (2) Legis- lation IN Respect of Man — Rights of freedom — Bondmen in Greece and Canaan — Temple servants — War captives. (3) The Mosaic Law IN Refeeence to Sanitation pa/r excellence a Sanitary Morality — Uncleanness and disease — Comparison with other nations . . . 191-208 CHAPTER X Mosaic Legislation — continued (1) Laws regarding the Poor — Provision made for all — Produce of seventh year — Kindness towards the poor and the stranger. (2) Laws concerning Women and Children — Treatment of woman a moral test of legislation — Educa- tion of children in Pentateuch and Proverbs — A high moral ideal presented. (3) Laws re- lating TO Worship — Condemnation of Moloch offerings — " As is the God, so is the religion " — Jehovah a moral Deity. (4) Laws relating to Sacrifice — Ethical meaning of offerings and atonement — Laws of purification — A moral idea at the root of all ... . . 209-227 CHAPTER XI Old Testament View of a Future Life Absence of other-worldliness a feature — Contrast with the religion of Egypt — "Book of the Dead " — Doctrine of immortality rooted in pre- cedent beliefs — The foundation of the hope laid XIV CONTENTS PAOES in communion with God here — The saints feel it must be unending — More clearly developed by prophetism — Question of future rewards and punishments^Piety brings prosperity here — Yet not unmitigated eudzenionism — Prosperity plus God's blessing the end to be sought — The principle of fitness to the stage of moral pro- gress here applicable 228-239 CHAPTER XII Advance and Development A great pedagogic intent at the centre of the move- ment — Progress the mark of Old Testament ethics — Contrast with ethnic religions^Early ethical environment of Israel — The outer miist become the inner — Morality in the Pentateuch — (1) In Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, pre-Exilic and post-Exilic Psalms — The worthlessness of the opus operatum affirmed — Do Ezekiel and Daniel encourage a legal externalism 1 — Ethical mono- theism — The golden age of protestants and reformers of Israel. (2) The Wisdom Litbra- TDHE — Proof that the rudimentary stage was passing awaj' — Finds a divine teleology at work — Its subjective principle the fear of the Lord — This the spring of all virtues — The wise man not a utilitarian 240-260 CHAPTER XIII Ethics of the Later Judaism Reactionary tendencies — Return of Ezra and re- formation of morals — Scribism and the Talmud — Synagogues and their influence — Lapse into CONTENTS XV PAOES legalism — Ethical quibbles — Germs of pliarisa- ism — Development in the Greek period — Lines of cleavage in the Asmonean period — Ethics become utilitarian 261-271 CHAPTER XIV .Moral Difficolties of Old Testament Old Testament not to be judged from the polemical platform of to-day — Laws may be given which are not absolutely perfect — May be but stages in a disciplinary process — Misunderstandings — Some general imperfections alleged : (a) Ab- sence of systematic form in ethics — Objection answered ; (5) Ethics marred by a narrow par- ticularism — Answer. Three classes of difficulties : First Class of Difficulties — Difficulties con- nected with the manner in which the character or action of God is presented — Felt in Augus- tine's time — Destruction of Canaanites — The sentence clearly a judicial one — A drastic pro- cess, but moral surgery sometimes needed — Such a war of extermination nowadays impossible — Another objection : Does God employ evil spirits as His agents ? — The question one of exegesis — Anthropomorphisms — Must not create ethical problems out of Orientalisms . . . 272-295 CHAPTER XV Second Class of Difficulties (1) The imperfect character of some numbered among Old Testament saints and heroes — The real question, Does God demand only perfect agents 1 — These men had virtues that God could make use of : Jacob — Moses — David — The Judges : Ehud and Deborah — Gideon and Sam- XVI CONTENTS PAGES son. (2) Charges of a spirit of revenge and of worldliness — The imprecatory psalms — The alleged eudaemonism of Wisdom Literature. Third Glass of Difficulties — Difficulties aris- ing from alleged moral defects of the laws — Especially as to slavery and law of the Goel — These laws wrought for freedom and righteous- ness — Concluding remarks .... 296-317 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT INTEODUCTION Ode aim in this volume is to exhibit in short compass the Ethics of the Old Testament in its historic growth and development. It is desirable that we should know what were the sources of moral activity in Israel, and what is the correct interpretation of the life that was lived under the Mosaic Law. We shall try to discover what good men in those days thought of duty, on what grounds they based obligation, and how they endeavoured to ful- fil the great end of life. The ethics of the Old Testament does not start with any abstract theory of virtue. We need not expect to find in it anything approaching scientific method. It was not given in a form that claimed perfection ; and it bears the marks of incompleteness on its face. It is a morality designed by God for a people at a rudimentary stage of reli- 2 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT gious education. Its fulfilment is to be found in a higher ethics, of which it is prophetic. It ran its race through that early dispensa- tion looking unto Jesus, in whom it blossomed into perfection, and emerged from the stage of hope into one of ever-deepening reality. But although scientific form be wanting, we shall find, as we examine the history of Israel's growth, that there is a progress from the external to the internal, from the form to the substance, of true morality. Even when, after the Exile, a serious declension from a lofty ethical attitude takes place, the lapse only helps to exhibit the deficiency of the prevalent legalism, and in reality serves a highly educative purpose. At the present time this subject is one of growing importance. Of recent years a great revival of Biblical study has taken place. The Scriptures of the Old Testament have been invested for all Christian minds with unusual interest, and therefore constitute a peculiarly inviting field of research. The richness of their material, the variety of their forms, the antiquity of their origin, and the unity in which that wonderful variety of topic and treatment is harmoniously blended, have all combined to render this study attractive. To many minds that old book is becoming a new book, standing in new relations, enriched with new contents, and filled with spiritual meaning. And at the heart of its great INTRODUCTION 6 historical movement we see a Power, not our- selves, making for morality. The ethics of -the Old and that of the New Testament are linked into a solidarity of life and interest. The historical method has helped us, as from a mountain top, to distinguish the trend of the great moral purpose which runs from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of the Kevelation of St. John. We understand more clearly the significance of St. Augus- tine's words : Novum testamentum in vetere latet : vetus e novo patet. The battle of the critics regarding the authenticity and literary features of these ancient writings is not yet ended. The grain is still upon the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and vigorous arms ply the flail. But we are confident that the inspired word will yet be victorious, and that this threshing- floor will be purchased for an altar to Jehovah (2 Sam. xxiv. 21). We have not, however, felt it necessary to the discussion of our main theme to enter into historical details or to determine anything as to the manner in which the Pentateuch was composed. It has been sufficient for our immediate purpose to be able to trace a clear development of ethical truth parallel with the growth of Revelation, and to note the well-marked stages of this advance.^ i Cf, Flint's Theism, p. 258 ; Oettli, Der gegenwdrtige Kanipf , p. 11 ; Konig, Religious History of Israel, chap. xi. ; A. B. Bruce Chief End of Revelation, p. 1 1 ff. 4 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Of such ethical progress the evidence is ample, and is but little affected by questions of historical criticism. If we should ultimately have to give up some old and revered tradi- tions that have come down to us regarding the growth of the Canon of the Old Testa- ment, yet the laying aside of these will only the more reveal the intrinsic beauty and perennial freshness of the Scriptures. The loss will prove a gain. The soil will be the better for the critics' sifting, and where weeds once stood, flowers and fruit will grow.^ One gain we have already reaped. The results of the thorough methods of study applied to these sacred writings have now been gathered up into a very helpful Biblical Theology of the Old Testament. That theo- logy has arranged the varied material in accordance with its historical development and its relative value, giving each part its proper setting in the organic whole. It has distinguished for us a theology of authors and periods, of law and prophets, of Wisdom Literature and Psalms. It has found types of doctrine in the Old Testament as clearly defined as the Petrine, Pauline, and Johannine types in the New. And by a synthetic pro- cess it has sought so to combine all these together as to present the theology of the Old Testament in a unity ; while each portion 1 Schultz, Old Testament Theology, vol. ii. p. 62. MORAL DIFFICULTIES 5 finds its due place in the advancing history of Eevelation, and conduces to its organic completeness. We mention this science because it has a very close connection with our subject. But we need scarcely add that every other part of the encyclopaedia of theology has shared in the benefit and received new life and vigour. This revived interest in the Old Testament Scriptures will certainly awaken in many minds a deeper concern in the solution of those moral difficulties that connect them- selves with that dispensation. Those difficul- ties are not few, and have brought perplexity to many a tender Christian conscience. That perplexity has been increased rather than diminished by some of the methods employed in solving them.- Deeds of very doubtful morality have been excused in a manner that could give little satisfaction to a thoughtful mind. The real difference between the old and new Covenants has been ignored or mis- understood. We are convinced that it is only in connection with a general presentation of Old Testament ethics that these difficult passages can be satisfactorily explained. The force of the argument drawn from them vanishes as soon as the course of ethical education in Israel is understood. No solu- tion of any value can be offered until we have comprehended the disciplinary 6 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT method of Revelation in the Law and the Prophets.^ It will be found impossible to explain the treachery of a Jael, or the blood- vengeance of a Gideon, or the employment, as instruments of God's revealing grace, of morally defective agents, unless we have first grasped the pedagogical purport of the Law, and apprehended the correct relation- ship of Jehovah to His people. Of old time God spake to the fathers " by divers portions and in divers manners." This was necessarily so ; for their moral training began at the very lowest stage. It was a long curriculum of education, by slow yet sure gradation,^ from those early days of ignorance, " which God winked at," up to the fulness of time when Jesus Christ appeared. And it is absolutely necessary that we should learn to judge of the conduct of these men in relation to their moral environment and the stage of ethical advancement that they had reached. If wisely and rigidly carried out, this broad principle will go far to modify, if not remove, those difficulties we have men- tioned. Individual cases may remain to be estimated on their own merits and in their historical connection. But once we have ^ Cf. Ottley, Aspects of Old Testament, p. 181 ; Montefiora's Hibbert Lectures, App. I. ; Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 235. ^ Prof. A. B. Bruce, Chief End of Revelation : " Grace sub- mitting to delay is only love consenting to be guided by wisdom," p. 112. SCRIPTTJRE AN ORGANIC WHOLE 7 grasped the unifying divine purpose that threads all the parts of the Old Testament on its one string, and have learned to regard these parts in their relation to the whole historical development, we shall not fail to see " that the justification of the Old Testa- ment method lies, not in itself at any jiarticular stage, but in its result as a whole." ^ It is a fundamental canon of literature that, before we presume to pass judgment on any literary structure, we must know it not only in its parts but in its totality. Partial views are invariably mistaken views ; partial statements always give an imperfect representation. Critics will easily find difficulties in the Old Testament that "violate every canon of con- science" if they do not make an effort to understand the method of Revelation and the divine purpose of grace that runs like a golden thread through Hebrew history from its beginning to its end.^ Let them be content to glance only at portions of it, without seek- ing to comprehend the grandeur of its propor- tions and the purity and benevolence of its aim as a whole, and it need not be to us a matter of any wonder that they should miss its true meaning. Just because they have not looked at the morality of the Old Testament in the light of the nation's strange history 1 Lta Mundi, g.. 329. 2 Cf. Kdliler, Uher Berechtigung der Kritik des Alt. Test. p. 14. 8 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT and environment, they will blunder over the incompleteness of its ethics, its rudimentary legislation, and its defective sense of indi- vidual rights. But let us first regard these Scriptures as a living organism ; ^ let us ascer- tain the genesis and the laws of the development of the ethics that they teach ; let us under- stand the determining principle out of which all originate, and to which they again yield a rich return ; let us think ourselves back to the exact circumstances of the time — and then we shall see these moral truths in their correct relation and perspective. And, in the light of the whole, we shall estimate aright the relation and significance of the various parts. Many books and pamphlets have been written on the moral difficulties of the Old Testament ; but with the exception of a few, they have dealt with them apart from the ethical principles that underlie the structure of the Old Testament Revelation, Need we, then, wonder that the solutions and explana- tions have been almost as many as the authors, and that scarcely one agrees with another ? We have spent some time in read- ing through a number of these pamphlets and books, and we have come from the study of them with the conviction that until the fundamental principles of Old Testament ethics have first been established, it is worse than useless to attempt the solution of these 1 Darmesteter, Les Prophkes cV Israel, p. 11. RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY 9 problems. They can be explained, and the justice and force of the explanation can be appreciated, only in the combined light of the progressive education of Israel and of the character of that early dispensation. We shall then see that the end is the test of a progressive revelation, and that Jehovah, in carrying out His moral purpose, was long- suffering and gracious, and content for the sake of ethical ends to " take Israel by the hand," and to lead him even as a nurse leads a child. In addition to the advantages of such a treatment, in relation to these moral problems, other benefits will be apparent. Every science is the better for being set in its own light, and having its parts distributed according to their organic connection. Christian ethics is now being cultivated apart from the theology of the New Testament, to the advantage of the science, and with enormous benefit to every student of Scripture, and every preacher of divine truth. In like manner, it will be found useful to give the ethics of the Old Testament a separate treatment. Between this science and Old Testament theology there is a more intimate relation than between New Testament theology and Christian ethics. For the latter does not confine itself to the ethical material given in the Gospels and Epistles, else it should be called the ethics of the New Testament. Its duty is to give due interpre- tation to the Christian consciousness of to-day, 10 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT as well as to that of the apostles. The spirit of Christ still dwells in Christians and brings forth the fruit of righteous character and holy living. Christian ethics is therefore " the science of the moral life determined by the Spirit of God." ^ On the other hand, the Ethics of the Old Testament is in its origin and method historical. In no sense of the word can it be called a speculative science. It springs from an historical revelation, and it must consistently pursue the historical method. We fully grant to Old Testament theology the right to deal with " the religious and the moral life of Israel as a connected whole. " ^ But in this connection the ethics can receive only a very incidental and subsidiary treatment. We believe it will be found useful to remove it from that subordinate position, and to give it a treatment by itself. It has its own ground, its own essence, and its own great end. And these can be rightly set forth only when it is exhibited in its integrity and his- torical development. The two sciences have much in common, but the aim of each will determine its method. Biblical theology deals with the objective revelation contained in the Old Testament. Ethics looks at that revelation as the rule' to which Israel must subjectively rise. The ' Eabiger, Tlieol. Ency. § 43. 2 Scliultz, Old Testament Theology, oliap. i. (T. & T. Clark's trans.) ; A. B. Bruce, op. cit. 308, 329. AN ETHICS OF HOPE 11 former will unfold that wonderful organism of divine deeds and testimonies which begins with the creation, and advances towards its completion in the Person and Work of Christ. The latter will show how Israel was to co- operate in this purpose of grace as a free agent, and how that purpose met and satisfied ethical wants. The goal of Old Testament theology is Jesus Christ, the mystery hid from ages, but revealed in the fulness of time ; the goal of ethics is the moral perfection of Israel, and, through Israel, the realisation of the world-wide kingdom of God. Hence it is that we must speak of Old Testament ethics as an ethics of hope. The full reconciliation of man with God, the total removal of the terrible discord that divides them in the Old Testa- ment, is yet to come. The perfect morality lies in the future.'^ Its complete realisation is to be found in the world-embracing kingdom of God. This contrast will be referred, to again in suceeding chapters ; but unless it be firmly grasped at the outset, the ethics of the Old Testament will be burdened with unnecessary difficulties. In Christianity alone does morality reach its perfection, since there alone man has attained to a full consciousness of sin, and has risen through redemption to moral freedom. ^ Heb. viii. 13 : " That whicli is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away." A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, p. 323. Cf . the language of Gal. iii. 23 : " Before faith came, we were being kept in ward, shut up under the law unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." 12 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT But in the Old Testament man is only a pupil, to be educated by a wholesome discipline of law into a knowledge of his sinfulness and of his need of deliverance from sin's yoke. Not yet has God Himself, the objective ground of ethics, been personally and historically re- vealed by the Incarnate Son. Not yet has the Divine Spirit written His Law upon the heart of His people. The Israelite is still conscious of an antithesis subsisting betwixt him and Jehovah, and lives only in a hope, sustained and fed by sacrifice and symbol, of a coming reconciliation. Still is his adoption into true sonship distant, though he is encour- aged in many ways to strive to realise it. The command to him is an outward thing, a yoke and a burden. If a faithful son of Abraham, he will give to it the obedience of a true servant ; but he cannot dare to rise up into the assured communion and frankness of one that is a freeborn son. He is still subject to the divine pedagogic spoken of by St. Paul in Gal. iii. 19 : "Wherefore then serveth the law ? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the pro- mise was made. ... 24. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster (tutor) to bring us to Christ."^ 1 Oehler's Old Testament Theology, § 5 (T. & T. Clark) ; Ewald's Lelire der Bibel von Goit, chap. i. ff,; Dalman, Das Alte Testament ein Wort Gottes, p. 9. ETHICS OF PAGAN ANTIQUITY 13 I. Contrast between the Ethics of the Old Testament and the Ethics of Pagan Antiquity Between the ethics of pagan antiquity and that of the Old Testament there is a diflference of the widest and most radical kind. There is no trace of gradual transition from the one to the other. That difference is first seen in the pagan conception of God and of man's ethical relationship to Him. When God is conceived of as a great nature power, it is im- possible for man to stand, in free relationship to such a deity. If God is but another name for the cosmos, which is clothed with all the attributes of deity, then personal relations with such a divinity are out of the question, and morality becomes but a calculus of pru- dential obedience and adjustment to a power greater than man. Now, as distinguished from the ethics of the Old Testament, where the relations of man to God are all-important, we find that the attention of heathendom is directed mainly, if not altogether, to man's relations to the natural world, or to the supersensible world of abstract being. But since to paganism the deity was only another name for the cosmos, or (as Plotinus would have said) for the highest kind of abstract being, the result was that the Greek and the Alexandrian never realised their personal 14 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT relationship to God. In fact they could not, from their ethical point of view, rise beyond the morality of the state, or that morality which would realise its ideal by abstraction from all that is earthly and sensuous. But where morality is merged in politics, or where the ethical life is conceived of as deliverance from the defilements of corporeal life, or as a mystical elevation to some supersensuous sphere, it is clear that no progress in ethics is possible. We need not wonder, therefore, if in Greece and Eome the sphere of morals did not stretch beyond the narrow limits of nature, and was never regarded as including anything more than national and tribal law. It follows from this that it was essentially a morality between man and man. For where man's relation to a personal God is not apprehended, anything approaching an universal ethic is impossible, and only individual virtues can be manifested. Ethics was thus deprived of its unity. An individual might be esteemed for his generosity though lacking in the counter- balancing virtue of thrift ; or the sin of un- chastity might be glossed over by the offender's patriotism. Morality became but a catalogue of separate virtues, and was deprived of that penetrating bond of union which it receives when the realm of human personalities is bound by innumerable links to the great central personality, God. Even as between man and man, this ETHICS OF PAGAN ANTIQUITY 15 morality was not unlimited. Plato could not speak of it as valid for the slaves, without whose help, notwithstanding, he believed society was unable to exist. Regarding virtue as right insight into life, as simply knowledge of a superior kind, he was con- vinced such knowledge could not be mastered by slaves. The path to virtue was conse- quently a royal road, open only to the elite of mankind — the philosophers, who were able to take high flights of thought beyond this earth's horizon into that spiritual ether where God dwelt. The cultivation of ethical truth was not for slaves and such-like ; it was the proper task and privilege of the aristocracy of talent. This is a view which contradicts the essential idea of morality, and differs toto coelo from that of the Old Testament. Plato has, no doubt, an apprehension of man being made in the image of God, since he urges his pupils to aim at likeness to God as the highest good, and affirms that mundane life should be shaped after the model of the divine ideas. -But this likeness to God is never spoken of with any assurance. And to Plato the real relation of mankind in general to God remains an uncertainty. Any bond that the philosophy of the Academy sought to weave between morality and religion was entirely dissolved by Aris- totle. According to the latter, conduct has no relation to the supramundane realm, but 16 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT only to the state. Obedience to God is out of the question, since He has no ethical relation to man. Morality springs entirely from our rational nature ; and being confined in the sphere of its action to the state, it assumes of necessity a political aspect. And hence it came about in the life of the Greeks that rehgion and morality were totally dissevered, and we find at last in that country the lament- able resultant of an irreligious morality and an immoral religion. How different all this is from the conception of ethics prevalent throughout the Old Testa- ment ! There the personal, living God is set forth as the ground of morals, and all good is absolutely referred to His will.^ Morality revolves around Him as the planets around the sun. He is the sublime prototype, the personally holy pattern after which man's life must be shaped. And He rules this world for the good of all His creatures, alike the free- man and the slave, the barbarian and the Greek. That antagonism between moral ex- istence and a non-moral fate, which was such a standing riddle to the Greek mind, finds its ready solution in the divine goodness, which is ever ruling the world and guiding it on to its future goal. The starting-point is the infinitely holy God ; and the end of it all is 1 Cf. Prof. W. R. Smith, Prophets, pp. 10-14 ; Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scriptv/re, i. p. 737 flf. On the other side, of. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, i. pp. 17-23. ETHICS OF PAGAN ANTIQUITY 17 the perfection of man living in communion with that same Divine Father, and in a life of true moral freedom.^ But the radical defect in ancient ethics is the absence of the knowledge of sin. To whatever moral height Greek philosophers attain, it is here that they all come short. When the ground principle of morals was the vov<;, it was impossible to bring the fieTavoia within the sphere of obligation, far less to feel that deep penitence which breathes in the fifty-first psalm. Pagan ethics spoke of evil ; and the problem of suffering caused by that evil lay heavily on its heart. But it thought of it as something isolated, or else as a necessity of things lying behind all human guilt. The Old Testament, on the other hand, opens with the story of man's fall from purity, and speaks of sin as originating in man's free choice. Sin is direct antagonism to the will of a holy and just God. Paganism, looking to man's relationship to the powers of nature, saw only the inevitable suffering that must ensue. But the Old Testament, looking to man's personal relationship to God, saw the foulness of his sin as it issued forth from his own guilty heart.^ It is injustice, it is un- ' Cf. Kirkpatrick, Doctrine of the Prophets, p. 175 ff. ; Jukes, Names of Ood, pp. 138-140 ; Riehni, Alt. Theologie, p. 61 ; Prof. Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 298. ^ " To the ancient Jew, man is pre-eminently an ethical being, and his speculative ability is quite secondary. Heb- raism is further unique in this respect, that it clearly sees that 18 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT merited suffering, it is evil, that is known to Greek and Latin poetry ; it is personal trans- gression, it is sin, that is the burden of the prophets of Israel.-^ Accordingly, to Plato evil seems inherent in this world of sense and corporeity, and there is no possibility of van- quishing it ; the highest good is to transcend it by a flight into the world of supersensuous ideas. But in Israel there is an expectation of deliverance from sin. A great hope is set before it of a Messiah, a Servant of God, who will break the spell of evil and will inaugurate a world-wide reign of righteousness. II. Fundamental Peinciples of Old Testament Ethics It is advisable, before entering on historical details, to present to our readers, at the begin- ning, the general characteristics of this science. Principles are apt to be lost sight of amid a multitude of details. It will give the reader a better grasp of the subject if at this point we briefly sketch the ethical view of life and of history found in the Old Testament. As was said, there is no such thing as scientific form the disorder in man's nature is deeper tliau any intellectual impotence, deeper, too, than the opposition of the appetites and the reason ; that it is a hreaeh inhis being, caused by his own self-will." W. L. Davidson, Theism and Human Nature, p. 52. Burnett Lectures. ' Of. Riehm, Einleitung in das A. T. i. p. 351 ; Ottlev, Aspects of the Old Testament, pp. 233-235. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 19 attaching to this subject. Yet it must not be supposed that it is devoid of consistency, or that a doctrine of Supreme Good does not pervade it. Unsystematic though it may seem at first, we shall discover that a great moral purpose runs through the whole of the history of Israel, and that its ethics has a distinct doctrine of Good and of Duty. Now, in the Old Testament, the Supreme Good is nothing less for Adam than the realisation of the divine image in himself Man as created and coming from the plastic hands of God is made to complete in his own nature his likeness to God. He is designed to live a free personal life in communion with his Maker, and evermore to grow up into God- likeness. Man is the masterpiece of Creation, and is therefore to have dominion over all the other creatures. He is their chorsegus and master, giving voice to their inarticulate cries, and expression to their needs. Pagan ethics usually spoke of man as mastered by nature, as its slave and victim. But the Old Testament opens with the story ol man standing with his foot over nature, and in the enjoyment of personal liberty. Adam's superiority over the animal is shown by his giving names, at God's command, to all the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven. Language is the manifestation of man's domi- nant power ; he who can name the lower 20 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT animals has by his free intelHgence risen above that sphere in which they move/ But this ideal state does not long continue. A Fall takes place, and all is changed. What was a blessing becomes a curse, and the Highest Grood is thrown forward into the far distant future of a Messianic hope. Old Testament ethics does not linger in the realm of the ideal. It at once recognises the fact that man no longer lives in a state of moral innocency, and that the capacity of virtue implies the possibility of falling from it. Sin has become an actualised fact. And so there arises on the part of man a long struggle against evil, constituting a history which we know to have been shaped by God to higher ends. The Messianic hope begins to brighten upon man's vision, and henceforward the Highest Good becomes a great world-historical goal. God now separates to Himself from surrounding peoples the man of faith and his family ; he who gives God unconditional obedience, who trusts Him implicitly, becomes the father of a nation through whom all the world is to be blessed. The Supreme Good is 1 A discussion regarding the sources or scientific value of the " Narrative of the Origins " is here irrelevant or only of secondary importance. The narrative is essentially poetical in form ; and this form was a very suitable medium for expressing the fundamental thought of true religion. Scientific interest, if it existed then at all, had an entirely subordinate place in the religious thought of an Israelite. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 21 not to be realised in any narrow particularism that would limit the divine favour to one family or one land. For a time, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, it may be so. But the ultimate goal,^ to which the whole Old Testament moves, is the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness, in which all shall share in the blessings pro- mised to the faithful patriarch ; and they shall be called Abraham's children who have Abraham's faith. As we shall afterwards see, at certain times Israel lost sight of this goal, and proved un- worthy of the divine election. But their seers and prophets ever set it before them ; they dwell upon it with much eloquence as the grand consummation of their national history. Through Law and Prophets, through Psalms and Wisdom Literature, this fundamental con- ception of the chief end of Israel's existence has a continuous, unhesitating development. The most strenuous moral effort of the nation is to be directed- to making their land God's land, to realise in their home in Palestine "a ' All Hebrew history is dominated by this jDurpose of grace, and there is too little recognition of this divine teleology in the writers of the Graf-Wellhausen school, while at the same time they frankly recognise the unique and the extraordinary in Old Testament history. But the abiding value of the Old Testament lies mainly in the fact " that it guarantees to us with absolute certainty the fact and purpose of a divine plan and way of salvation \vhich found its conclusion and fulfil- ment in the New Covenant, in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ." Kautzsch on Halle's Lecture, Du Bleibende Bedeutuiig des Alt. Test. p. 28. 22 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT symbol of the eternal home, a shadow of the Supreme Good." It is true that, in the course of this ethical education of Israel, earthly goods are spoken of in themselves as an end of man's moral effort, and as a mark of the divine approbation of obedience. The idea of the Highest Good at first is the enjoyment in Canaan of those material blessings that the heart of man de- lights in. The reward of righteous service shall be uublighted oliveyards and vineyards, springs of water and flocks of cattle, and all that can add to the material prosperity of a nation. The wife shall be as a fruitful vine, the children as olive plants ; there shall be peace in the borders, and plenty in the home, long life, and lasting posterity. But it will be found that, in the interpretation of the Cove- nant given by the prophets, this thought of the good is enriched with ethical contents, and becomes ultimately the sum of all earthly goods crowned with the blessing of fellowship with God. So that the ethics of the Old Testament cannot be charged with eudsemou- ism, nor with filling out its conception of moral good by means of utilities alone. It does allow room for these utilitarian values ; but the external blessings are of worth only when they are conjoined with the higheir blessings of God's favour and presence. The prophets indeed teach that it may yet happen that these temporal goods shall vanish. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 23 and that the very land and homestead in Israel, may be reft fj-pni the family to whoni for generations it, belonged. But amid such de- privation of earthly goods, God Himself shall become their greater treasure. Habakkuk gives voice to this conviction of a rich inherit- ance in Jehovah : — " For though the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off' from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls : yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation " (Hab. iii. 17, 18). It is to be observed that this conception of the Highest Good in Israel is never that of an individual good. The modern theory of in- dividualism, which has been one of the ruling ideas of the day, had not taken possession of the Hebrew mind. The truth of a personal immortality had not yet been brought to light. Eather that conception of collectivism, which appears to be rising on the political horizon of to-day, dominates the Old Testament. Morality is based, not upon the individual conscience, but upon the collective conscience of the nation. It is the people of Israel, and not the individual Israelite, that the prophets know as Jehovah's elect one. The servant in Isaiah to whom the blessings are promised is the nation of Israel. The Messianic thought that is embedded in this phrase is constantly 24 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT expanding throughout the Old Testament; and it tends to keep the interests of the individual out of sight. The hope of the saints was for a great national Deliverer rather than for a personal Eedeemer/ Even when in the Psalms we hear the cry of some lonely penitent heart after purity, along with it the voice of righteous indignation against God's enemies is also heard, speaking rather in national than in individual tones. Indeed, it is impossible to explain the intense yearning for vengeance on the foes of Israel, found in the Psalms, except on the ground that the writers feel they are but voicing a national sentiment. The distribution of the task of Ethics re- quires us also to notice the mode in which this Highest Good is to be realised, that is, the Old Testament doctrine of virtue. And here that doctrine assumes the very simplest form. The objective principle of Old Testament morality is just the will and the character of God, as revealed to man. The basis of Ethics is not found in the moral consciousness, since sin has defaced the image of God in man, and the human spirit requires to be awakened to its deepest needs. God speaks and man must 1 This is not inconsistent with the fact that the sense of individuality tended to grow with the growing experience of elect souls. In the Captivity, personal religion became the stay of the lonely. It was to souls capable of such yearnings that there came the hope of an undying life. Pss. xvi. 10 lix. 15. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 25 obey. The will of Jehovah is the one ethically good thing for Israel, for it is the will of the covenant God, who has chosen them to he " the people of His own possession." By divers portions and in divers manners was it revealed unto the fathers by the prophets.^ Sometimes by the giving at a critical turning-point of history of a name, which conveyed a con- ception of God's character, such as Israel at that moment pre-eminently required. Some- times by direct communications of His mind to the men of faith, whose prompt obedience had rendered them fit instruments for His use. Sometimes through neither patriarchs, nor prophets, nor godly women, but in deeds of wondrous grace and condescending love ; deeds which, when taken in their right con- nection, constituted a history that presented ^ TTokufiepas, in many parts ; for it was a process occupying many stages, in each of which the progressive continuity of revelation was affirmed. This implies that the Writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews recognises that Christianity is rooted in the preceding dispensation, and that each epoch in Israel's history was a preparation for the next. Therefore at no time in the Old Testament was the evolving purpose of God discerned in its completeness. The Old Testament supplies a rule that is ever improving on itself. nokvTpowSis, by various methods ; so we must not confound law with prophecy, nor poetry with history. Therefore literary creations may have been used as well as theophanies to teach men of God. The dramatic poem of the Book of Job is written with a lofty didactic purpose. Jehovah might condescend to an allegorical narrative to foreshadow a coming Messiah. A large latitude of interpretation is here very desirable. The Oriental and not the Occidental mind should be the standard of what is probable in the methods of Old Testament revelation. Of. Ottley, Aspects of Old Testament, p. 162. 26 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT unquestionable marks of being divinely shaped and moulded. , It must not be forgotten that Revelation is not of necessity tied down to the prophetical record, and that it may be given in the form of a national history of wondrous deliverances, no less than in the shape of a book.'^ At the heart of Israel's history, behind the many miraculous deeds wrought by Jehovah in defence of His people, lay the manifestation of His loving will and gracious purpose. The plagues sent on Egypt were designed, ncrt less to be a punishment for Pharaoh's hard-heartedness, than a revelation of God's love, and an encouragement to Moses to continue in the path of simple obedience to the divine behest. The acts no less than the words of Jehovah declared His will ; and it was this that gave these acts their special form and significance.^ And when Israel had been led out of Egypt, and found itself a nation, with need of govern- ment and worship, then did Jehovah reveal His will in that law which was not only a z/o/io? TOiv evroXasv (Eph. ii. 15), a law that both commands and demands, but was also a reve- lation of the gracious relationship in which He stood to His people. Though it was given iCf.Rothe, Zur Dogmatih, p. 78 ; Prof. Bruce, The Chief Design of Bevelation, chap. i. ; Orr, Prohlem of Old Testament, p. 63. " The whole history of Israel is dominated by the idea qf a divine purpose. Its teleological character gives unity to all the books 'vvhicli contain it. Cf. Corner, Syst. of Boot. i. p. 274 : " Israel has the idea of teleology as a kind of soul," FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 27 in flaming fire from Sinai's thundering top, and heard by Israel with awestruck counte- ,nance, yet it was a revelation of a loving will and not of an offended Sovereign Justice. "Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live ? Or hath God assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by signs, and wonders, and war, and by a mighty hand, . . . according to all that the Lord your God hath done for you in Egypt before your eyes ? " (Deut. iv. 32, 33). In that Law the Divine Will was explicitly laid down in commandments which were to regulate the order of the whole commonwealth, in all its social, religious, and political relations, and to shape the daily life of the people, so that they might always live in loving communion with God.^ On the other hand, the subjective principle of Old Testament morality is a free, loving obedience to this holy will of God. Every- where in these Scriptures is obedience, un- hesitating, implicit, trustful, commended as the primary virtue of the faithful. No analysis of man's consciousness, to find a ground for morals, is ever attempted. Has God spoken ? If so, it is enough. Or has He revealed His will by deeds and miraculous providences? 1 Ottley, op. cit. p. 75 ; Riehm, Alt. Theologie, p. 35, says : " Im alten Bunde eine Erloaung des Volkes von ausserlicher Knechtsohaft, im neuen eine Erlbsung aller einzelnen von geistlioher Knechtschaft." 28 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Then no more is needed to induce Israel to obey. Still we shall find that during the ethical progress which is made by the nation, the motives to such obedience become in- creasingly moralised, and that the obedience of the faithful servant tends to develop into the joyful communion of the loving child. This obedience to God is by the prophets enriched with new moral contents, and the fear of God is united with the love of God. The Psalms of the post- exilic period speak of the Law as an object of constant meditation and of love ; while the Wisdom Literature throughout regards it with the deepest rever- ence, and all individual action is regulated by the principles of fidelity and righteousness.^ But there was another aspect than that of grace in the Sinaitic Law. The command- ment at first was outward and positive, uncon- genial to man's inner nature. Its definite purpose, under this aspect, was to bring an indictment against the life, and to work only wrath (Rom. iv. 15). "The law came in beside, that the trespass might abound." "I had not known sin except through the law." It was a yoke, and not an inner principle at one with man's personality. Whence it is 1 " Alles eiiizeltie Handeln regelt sich nacliden Qrundsiitzen der Trene gegen diesen Zweck der Gerechtigkeit, Zuver- liissigkeit, und Giite. Das ausserliche und das kultische Handeln treten zurtick, oder ordnen sich in die Treue gegen Gottea Zweck in Israel ein." Schaltz, Studien und Kritiken, 1890, Ites Heft, S, 57. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 29 clear that the motive of the moral life at first was not love but simple compliance with the will of Jehovah, whose one desire was the good of Israel. But this obedience is to be one of faith, a trust unhesitating and un- qualified. And this obedient faith, as exhibited in such saints as Abraham, Moses, Caleb, Joshua, brings with it every Old Testament blessing, whilst its absence is equally marked in the king whose disobedience caused the Spirit of the Lord to depart from him. As simple obedience to God's command is virtue, so disobedience is sin. In the instance quoted above, Saul might have had good reasons for refusing to delay any longer. Yet Samuel has no hesitation in declaring his disobe- dience a sin of such magnitude that it would cost him his kingdom. It was rebellion against the will of God on the part of God's chief minister, and that was enough. In the strik- ing language of that prophet, " rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected thee from being king " (1 Sam. xv. 23). It follows from this that the sin of sins, in the Old Testament that which in the Decalogue is first condemned, because it cuts the very roots of obedience, is the sin of apostatising from God, and falling into idolatry.^ ^ Wellliausen and Montefiore (in his Hibbert Lectures) question the authenticity of the second commandment because 30 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT From this brief statement of the Funda- mental Principles of Old Testament Ethics it will be see that it is a preparatory Ethics. Much training had to be done by it before Israel was redeemed from the grossness of the life of Egypt, and the stubbornness of the wilderness, and converted into "vessels meet for the Master's use." It is a morality in which stages of progress can be traced through the patriarchal period, through Mosaism and prophetism ; and in which we shall find a con- stant deepening of the sense of sinfulness. It was intended to prepare the chosen people for that time when, what was lacking in the Decalogue should be supplied, and the power to make men keep God's Law should be given in the God-man Jesus Christ, " who in His true manhood presents the Law in living form, who is personal Virtue, and who for this very reason becomes also the prime source of the realisation of the End for which its observance " seems to have been unknown throughout the older period of history." But even in the time of the prophets the people lapsed again and again. And the analogy of the later times makes it quite credible that a spiritual worship was enjoined as an ideal in the Pentateuch, though it did not prevent occasional declensions to a lower standard. This account of the lapses in the Wilderness is surely much more probable than the other, tliat the second commandment is a late addition to the first kernel of the Decalogue document. The whole language of the Prophets implies that Mosaism had laid the foundations of Israel's polity in a lofty concep- tion of God's holiness as the essential element in acceptable worship. Of. A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, 212 ; Ottley, O'p. cit. p. 172. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 31 the world was made, that is, of the king- dom of God, ... in which Law, Virtue, and the Highest Good have become united and blended." ^ ^ Dorner, System of Christian Ethics, p. 53 (Clark's trans- lation). CHAPTER II The Ethical Character of the Old Testament Revelation The moral and religious teactiing of the Old Testament is given in connection with the history of God's chosen people. Israel's his- tory is more than the history of Egypt, or of Palestine. It embodies, and is meant to embody, a divine Revelation. Israel is a people selected by God for the purpose of realising in its religion the salvation of the whole race. Without any false supernatural- ism being introduced, the nation in its historic growth becomes the instrument through which is mediated to mankind a revelation of grace. Consequently the religion and the ethics of the Old Testament are always set forth in a natural form. They grow with the people's growth and strengthen with the people's strength. The divine power works at the heart of the history, yet there is nothing violently unnatural about it. The people realise that they stand in personal and moral relations to a personal and moral Deity, and ETHICS OF OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION 33 therefore the ethics of the Old Testament has both a theistic and a naturalistic basis. Before going further, it is necessary to notice here the attempt made by some critics, in adjusting the religion and morals of Israel to the modern doctrine of evolution, to derive the ethical monotheism of the Old Testament from purely natural sources. Since the time of Hegel it has been customary, in one school of philosophy, to speak of the idea of Jehovah as having sprung out of the worship of nature. The religion of Israel is represented as one of the necessary stadia in the course of the jour- ney which primeval man had to make between the religion of nature and that of spirit. It is one of the moments, just as were the reli- gions of Grreece and Rome, in the development of monotheism out of heathen polytheism. Of the three religions, indeed, it is spoken of by Hegel as being far from the highest. So far from bringing God and man into closer relations, the Old Testament religion seemed to him to make their separation more complete than ever, and to remove the G-odhead to a re- moteness of sublimity that rendered faith next to impossible. In the later Hegelian school of the left, however, there is recognition made of Judaism as an intermediate stage between the pagan religions and that of the New Testa- ment, the stage of authority and law, as con- trasted with Christianity, the stage of reason. The recent theory of Graf and Wellhausen 3 34 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT is neither so meagre nor so mistaken as these, although it is impossible to reconcile it with some positive statements made in the Old Testament, and with a number of salient facts occurring in the history. This view represents the religion of Israel, not as originating in a divine act or acts of grace, but as springing from a purely natural source. Jehovah, the God of Israel, is spoken of as if He were developed out of a family, or tribal deity. The conception of the great " I Am " is the genuine outcome, is the legitimate product, of nature worship ; ^ and no other origin is admitted. In this way the distinctive charac- teristics of Old Testament Revelation and of Israel's history are obliterated. The conscious- ness which Israel possesses, and which the prophets repeatedly express, of being called of God by acts of divine power to a special mission, is very largely ignored. And attempts are made so to accentuate the resemblances, and minimise the differences, between the religion of Israel and that of surrounding heathen nations, as that the differentia of the elect people shall no longer be visible. Everything in its history comes into it from natural sources. No theocratic element can be per- mitted to be introduced ah extra. Such an element is there ; but it, too, is a growth from a natural basis. The genius of Israel will 1 Vide Wellhausen's History of Israel, p. 433, and Kuenen's Prophets and Prophecy in Israel. ETHICS OP OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION 35 sufficiently account for what Kuenen called its ethical monotheism. But we have good reason for refusing to admit that this ethical monotheism is a natural upward growth from a previous poly- theism. So far from its being such, it was directly opposed to the ancient beliefs of the Semitic peoples. These races were unable to rise to the conception of a holy and moral Deity, exalted above nature, and with power to control it for ethical ends.^ They were content to rest in a belief in a plurality of gods governing the world of which they themselves formed an integral portion. The monotheism of Israel was entirely opposed to the idea, cherished on both political and religious grounds by the nations contemporary with the chosen people, that each people, and even each tribe, possessed its own peculiar deity, whose worship secured the return of reciprocal benefits, and laid upon them corresponding obligations. Indeed we know, from the historical record of the Old Testament, that this opinion often asserted itself with great strength among the Hebrews. It was nothing else than this that led them to those frequent lapses into idolatry, which would otherwise, in view of their unique history, be inexplicable. 1 Prof. Orr says: " While recognising higher elements in these religions, ever, however, becoming dimmer as we recede from their source, we find them one and all, in historical times, grossly, growingly, and incurably polytheistic and corrupt." Problem of Old Testament, p. 41. 36 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT But those lapses only go to prove that the natural element was all the while present in Israel, and that ethical monotheism was not the natural outcome of Semitic genius. If the religion of Israel had only nature as its basis, then the difficulty arises, How could the idea of Grod, the Holy One, who hates all sin, be developed out of nature-worship ? And if, for the moment, we admit the possibility of such a development, where are the historical facts that go to support it ? The characteristic marks of the Jehovah religion are found not in points of similarity, but in features of positive difference from the other Semitic religions. From the bare monolatry of which men like Kuenen and Stade speak, it would have been morally impossible for Israel to climb up by natural steps to the ethical monotheism of the prophets, which regards Jehovah as the only true God, and as the Ruler, not of one nation, but of the whole earth. ^ In these features of it, the religion of Israel presents points of sharpest antagonism to the beliefs of contiguous races. In its most essential and characteristic elements it is opposed to them. In their first conception of it, the character of Jehovah appeared to His people a moral character.^ From the very beginning of their ^ Vide Kuenen, Nat. Religions, pp. 113, 118; Stade, Qeschichte, Bd. i. pp. 430, 439. 2 The Book of Genesis is througliont monotheistic, Qod being Creator of the world and of man ; Who also sends the Flood on the ungodly, and Whose hand is at work in Meso- ETHICS OF OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION 37 national career, the idea of holiness was present. This central attribute, since it was not a development of the national spirit, must therefore have been revealed. The Israelite mind was ever too prone to dwell upon the mere attribute of strength in Jehovah, and to rely on this as their sure defence against their enemies. They believed the divine might was so pledged to their side that God must support their battalions, even though it were at the expense of His righteousness.^ But the prophetical teaching contradicts this popular idea, and reiterates the truth, that the very sufferings that come on the nation, come from the righteous hand of the Lord, whose hatred of sin is such that He will severely punish His own people that offend, and will rather let them be vanquished than aid them in a wrong cause. It was quite within the scope of His educative purpose to permit a national disaster, such as captivity, to befall Israel, with a view to their purification by such painful discipline, and to the strengthen- ing of their moral and spiritual fibre. This is admitted by all the best representatives of the religious consciousness in the nation. potamia and Egypt as much as in Palestine. And that book, at least in its JE parts, originated " in tlie pre-prophetic age." In the other Pentateuchal hooks there is always drawn a sharp contrast between Jehovah and the " gods of Egypt." In these books there is at the same time a deepening and purifying of the conception of God's character. 1 Cf. Lux Mundi, pp. 161, 162. 38 THE ETHICS OE THE OLD TESTAMENT The prophets invariably ascribe such a moral purpose to Jehovah. But since this contra- dicted the popular creed, and in many- instances went right against the grain of Israel, it is evident that it was the result of direct revelation from Heaven, and not a natural product of the people.^ From Israel's personal relationship to this wise and holy God emerges the ethical view of life which is common to the Old Testament. Such a view was not gained through a process of reflection on man's moral nature, but was certified to the people by much discipline, and by direct teaching on the part of God's servants. Throughout the whole history of Abraham and his descendants, this assurance of their being set apart, and called to live a moral life, asserts itself Abraham's nephew, dwelling in polluted Sodom, is conscious of his ethical superiority to its inhabitants, and his righteous soul is vexed with their filthy conversation. The feeling of intense revul- 1 Evolution rather than revelation is the guiding idea of the Critical School. If it is a God-guided evolution and not a naturalistic process, it is really a divine revelation. That Abraham and Moses believed it to be God-guided is clear ; while the very function of Prophecy v^aa to show that what looks at first like a purely naturalistic process is to believing eyes transfigured into divine guidance. And even when this controlling hand of God in history was not consciously realised by the men of the age, yet to some extent it moulded their thought and directed their acts. If we speak of evolu- tion, we must take care that we never forget the great principle that the end explains the beginning and the con- summation interprets the process. ETHICS OF OLD TESTAMENT REVELATION 39 sion to the crime produced throughout the land by the story of the Levite and his con- cubine (Judg. XX.), is a proof that the people felt they occupied a level of morality far superior to that of the Canaanitish races. In the Levitical code this finds very clear expres- sion : " After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do ; and after the doings of the land of Canaan whither I bring you, shall ye not do : neither shall ye walk in their ordinances" (Lev. xviii. 3). After detailing the crimes and immoralities which they are forbidden to commit, it con- tinues (vers. 26, 27) : " For all these abomina- tions have the men of the land done which were before you, and the land is defiled ; but ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abomina- tions : I am the Lord your God." The subject is one that might be discussed at great length. But so much we have felt bound to say as essential to the purpose of this volume. No proof, worthy of the name of evidence, has yet been adduced to show that this consciousness of Israel's personal relation to a moral Ruler, and of their ethical superiority over other races, was reached by philosophic thought, or by a train of reasoning.^ It springs out of that historic 1 If the historicity of the leading events in the life of Moses be accepted as given in what is now called the Triple Tradition of the Exodus, then it is undeniable that Israel 40 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT covenant relationship which was established by God between Himself and the people of His choice. Through this relation Israel attained to its conception of one holy and true God, a God who has His people's moral good so much at heart that, to perfect it, He will not spare them many bitter trials. received through him a revelation which implied nothing less than Ethical Monotheism. All the ritual of ceremonial in- stitutions is l)ut a scaffolding to protect this ethical core from harm. When it is said that the Prophets were "the Creators of ethical monotheism," it cannot be maintained that this was merely the result of reflection or of higher culture. This doctrine was not new to the prophets ; but it is true that they proclaimed, it with such- tremendous emphasis that it came to the nation with the force of practi- cally a new truth, and under conditions of distress that made it a most helpful doctrine to all earnest souls ; then for the first time the common people, as distinct from elect minds, grasped this truth and believed the God of Israel to be indeed a God of righteousness. But the belief had been the implicit faith of all the saints in Pentateuchal times. Cf. A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, p. 176 ; Ottley, Aspects of Old Testament, chap. vi. " The idea of Revelation cannot be regarded as a mere Hebrew conception which, translated into modern thought, means nothing but the natural operations of the mind in the sphere of religion. Such a view leaves unexplained the con- sciousness of the prophets, the contents of their prophecies, and the religious life which they manifested. . . . The O.T. conception of God is that of a Person with ethical attributes." Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 197. CHAPTEE III The Determinative Principle of Morality IN THE Old Testament In every code of morals the essential thing is to bring some quickening positive principle into vital touch with human life. If, on the one hand, the task set before us be to realise a good so transcendental that it can have no practical contact with the common life of the busy world, it may be a morality for dreamers and sentimentalists, but it is powerless to shape the life of the mass of mankind. If, on the other hand, pleasure is the sole end of life and the measure of the good, then man's moral life-task is degraded into a doctrine of prudent calculus, guided by the principle of self-love. While again, if a dualism be main- tained between matter and spirit, and the life-aim be to reach a Stoic indifference to everything but virtue, and to maintain a constant contest of the spirit with our physical nature, virtue is apt to develop into a proud self-sufficiency or into a suicidal contempt of the earthly life ; and man himself becomes the measure of all things. 42 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Among the people of God in the Old Testa- ment, religion escaped these extremes. They did not dream of making themselves the judges of virtue. The foundation of virtue was not laid in any study of man's moral nature and capacities. But in the ethical conception of God, whose character and will had been made known to them both in words and deeds of grace, they found the one grand and positive principle of all moral life} It was owing to this cause that Hebrew ethics never fell away into a powerless empiricism, or a dreamy, unpractical philosophy of virtue. And if, in the later days of the Essene asceti- cism, a form of monastic morality took pos- session of certain Jewish communities, yet this was done not from any stoical indifference or pride, but from a purely religious motive ; and the mistake was one rather regarding the meaning of religion than the rule of morality. In Israel, God Himself, the all-wise, holy, and good, is the prototype of all moral life and conduct. Though existing from eternity in complete blessedness. He is revealed as one who is willing to become the centre of the entire realm of human personalities. Of His free love and condescension He stoops down from His throne in the heavens, and deigns to dwell among His people. In spite of their ignorance and degradation, He is desirous to associate them with Himself in the carrying ^ Ex. xvii. 15 ; Judg. vi. 24 ; Ezek. xlviii. 35 ; Jer. xxiii. 6. THE PROTOTYPE OP MORAL LIFE 43 out of a great purpose of love towards the whole world. They necessarily conceive of Him as a vital moral Force, aiming at their truest good, and for the sake of this end separating them for the time being from all contiguous idolatry. As has been often re- marked, it is the personal character of Jehovah that gives to the worship of Israel its feature of separateness. He was not like the gods of Moab and Ammon. He was immanent in the world, yet transcended it. The world was not the cause but an effect of God. He was distinct from it, a Spirit freed of all corporeal matter, a spiritual Force, making for morality, and ruling in righteous- ness. All this is far away from the heathen mode of contemplating Deity. It explains also the religious character of the Hebrew morality. The religious beliefs and the ethical life of Israel are so intimately con- nected by this fundamental conception of the character of God that they cannot be separ- ated. " Here Jewish ethics joins on to theology ; but the theology itself is essenti- ally ethical."^ In this respect it does not differ from the morality of other primitive nations. In the initial stages of a nation's existence the borderland of ethics and religion is always unsettled. They coalesce at many points. It is only in later times, when ^ Professor W. L. Davidson, Theism and Human Nature, p. 53 (Burnett Lectures). 44 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT thought has strengthened and time has been given for much meditation, that the lines of demarcation are evenly drawn, and they stand apart. Other nations had also a religious ethics. But Israel alone had a clear and certain consciousness of one God, pure and holy, above the world, and not deistically shut up in it, Lord of the world of nature and of men, a spirit dwelling in freedom, supra- mundane and personal. It is therefore natural that in Israel the apprehension of moral law should run parallel with their progressive apprehension of the ethical character of Jehovah. At first this character is revealed mainly in designations or names of the Deity, by means of which an advancing series of revelations is given, and the true idea of His nature is bodied forth. Those names occur at important critical junc- tures in the history of the chosen people, and they are evidently designed to convey all the religious comfort and ethical truth that lie in the name. Kuenen points out ^ how, at every turning-point in Israel's later history, there stands a prophet who is commissioned to bring some word of God to the people. What the prophet did in later days was effected in earlier times by the giving of a new name^ representing some new ethical feature in the Divine Nature. And, let it be observed, the revelation lay not alone in the name, tJie 1 Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 231. NAMES OF GOD 45 mere ivord, hut in the adaptation of the name to the occasion that called it forth. The name set forth an aspect of the Divine Nature that met and satisfied Israel's deepest need. It was a word of cheer for their time of despondency, a word of courage for their cowardice, a revelation of grace for their worthlessness, or of forgiveness for their trans- gression. The Book of Genesis, opening with the story of the Creation, sets forth God as the One who is before and above all that He has made, the God of power and majesty. Accord- ingly, the names made use of in this Book are expressive of those features of His char- acter. In the first chapter He is Elohim, the God of power, the plural form connoting His unlimited greatness, the plural of majesty. Again, in His communings with Abraham, who amid heathen surroundings deeply felt the need of a Helper, He is El Shaddai, the all-powerful, all-sufficient One,^ who against all appearances of sense will yet make the childless patriarch (Gen. xvii. 4) the progenitor of a race as numerous as the sands of the sea- shore, and will establish him in possession of the land in which he is a stranger. By the same name He declares Himself to Jacob re- turning after many wanderings to Bethel, and ^ Of. Fred. Delitzsch, Prolegomena, 95, wlio refers the word to the Assyrian Shadu, 'mountain,' suggesting that God is " the mountain, tTie Most High," 46 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT wearied of the troubles caused by his cruel sons. " I am El Shaddai ; a nation, and a company of nations, shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins" (Gen. XXXV. 11). And so His Omnipotence shines out on the background of Jacob's weakness, and lets the perturbed patriarch kuow that God will be sufficient for all his needs. But the name by which, above all others in the Old Testament, the moral attributes and personality of God are declared, is the famous tetragrammaton, Jehovah or Yahweh. The full theological import of the name will be found very fully discussed in the various works on the theology of the Old Testament.^ What concerns us, with respect to ethics, is to point out that the name connotes moral attri- butes, and contains a strong affirmation of the self-existence of God, and consequently of His personality. The absolute Being is the most perfect of all Beings. Jehovah is "He who is " self-determined in all His acts. His is a continuous and consistent activity throughout all the changes of Hebrew history. The name was given to Moses that he might thereby carry to his brethren, enslaved in Egypt, an assurance of God's personal interest in their well-being and a promise of effective help. 1 For an account of the origin of the name, and ita bearing on Old Testament religion, vide Robertson's Early Religion of Israel, chap. xi. ; Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 199 ; Driver, ' The Tetragramniaton,' in Studia Biblica, 1885, NAMES OF GOD 47 Thus the name, revealed at this turning-point of the nation's history, spoke of the free personality of God, of His absolute independ- ence and invariable faithfulness. Here is a great advance in the ethical idea of the God- head. It is a revelation calling forth Israel's trust in and obedience to One who is a self- existent Personality, and with whom they may continually have personal (i.e. ethical) relations.^ Jehovah has a purpose of His own which He will faithfully carry out with un- erring constancy to a great ethical end. His divine activity. He says to Moses, will be made manifest in order to lead His people out of slavery into liberty, and especially into a bond of fellowship with Himself constituting a moral relationship of the most enduring kind. And when this revelation of His nature was followed by deeds of saving power, by that wonderful deliverance from Egypt in which the nation first realised its existence, and to which it never ceased to look back with triumphant assurance of God's moral intentions toward it, still more deeply was the ethical personality of God wrought into the conscious- ness of Israel. To know Jehovah, to serve ^ The Anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament suggest, first, the personality of God. He makes bare His arm : His eyes are upon His people ; He lays His hand upon His prophet. Secondly, they suggest the ethical in connection with the per'son. He grieves : He is angry, jealous, gracious : He loves. He hates. All human emotions are reflected in Jehovah. 48 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Him, and to give Him the glad response of a faithful obedience, became the aim of that people. The struggle involved an effort which braced their better nature, and ended by elevating them in the scale of morals far above surrounding nations. The ethical idea of God conveyed by means of these names is afterwards more fully de- veloped throughout the history of Israel. To the heart of the earnest Israelite He becomes known as Adonai, "my Lord," a term ex- pressive of loving confidence in a Sovereign Master. There is connected with the original signification of this word the sense of God's proprietorship in His people as well as of His sovereignty over them.^ In this was couched a strong ethical motive, which becomes in- fluential in Christian ethics, being accentuated especially in the Pauline theology. As the Apostle of the Gentiles found strong consola- tion, in the raging sea-tempest, from the vision granted him by the Lord, " Whose I am and whom I serve," so the Old Testament saint delighted to call God by the name that helped him to realise that he was both the subject and the property of his Lord. He need not fear the wicked man : he would do righteously and speak truthfully, for Adonai owned him and would take care of His own. Being His, he and his household would lack no good thing. Being His, they must also walk 1 Ex. iii, 7, V. 1, X. 3 ; Lev. xxvi. 12 ; Jer. xi. 4 and xviii, 15. A GOD OF MERCY 49 in a way that was worthy of their Lord, and that would bring no dishonour upon His name. Closely connected with this view of God's nature is that other description of Him as a God of mercy and of condescending gracious- ness/ The very fact of His making known through Moses His concern in Israel's deliver- ance, and His determination to lead them into liberty, is a proof of His condescending love. The philosopher's God is all-sufficient to Him- self and beyond emotion ; but the God of the Old Testament " delighteth in mercy " : He is " long-suffering and gracious." There is infinite moral beauty and consolation in this conception of God. He is not a heartless Jupiter, nor a frigid, relentless force, like the law of gravitation. But He comes out of the dread silences to work for His people's salva- tion and to purify their lives with His loving fellowship. Rude and uncultured as the Israelites were,^ this idea of God was brought home to their heart in those names that reveal His nature, and proved a strong factor in their moral education. They knew that He was not at rest in His own boundless perfections, ^ Ex. xxii. 27, xxxiii. 19, xxxiv. 6 ; Pa. Ixxvii. 9 ; Isa. xxx. 18 ; Amos v. 15. ' To the rude popular mind Jehovah was at first mainly a national God, giver of corn and wine ; but all the great prophets and teachers declared His ethical character and His righteous rule. Both the earlier and the canonical prophets affirm that the idolatry of the people made a breach between Jehovah and them. 1 Kings xxii. 4 50 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT but delighted to come into loving and personal relationship with His people. In that most glorious of all the theophanies, which is recorded in Ex. xxxiv., this feature of His character is emphasised : " And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth ; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty " (E.V.). The merciful side of Jehovah is here exhibited in all its fulness, while at the same time it stands alongside of His justice. Mercy is His delight, and judgment is His strange work. From the standpoint of Exodus this is a very striking statement, and is, in fact, an early anticipation of the doctrine of the Epistle to the Eomans, that "where sin abounded grace did much more abound." ^ Yet though His mercy save men from sin, He will not acquit them in it. The guilty will not be "cleared" by a love exercised at the expense of justice. The divine mercy has an element of resentment as well as of pitiful kindness. Jehovah is a just God and a Saviour : and man's justice must correspond to God's. The thought of the divine justice ^ Cf. the Old Testament Theologies of Oehler, Schultz, and Riehm on these names of God. Also Liithardt, History of Christian Ethics, § 11 (T. & T. Clark). A GOD OF MERCY 51 penetrates all the moral and religious views of the prophets. It gives them assurance that, on the one hand, God will vanquish wicked- ness and will smite it with condign punishment ; and that, ou the other hand, though the afflictions of the righteous are many, He will deliver them out of them all. It is this quality in God which, when reflected in man, draws the sharp lines of division between the righteous and the godless. It also explains the peculiarity of the righteous Israelite asking to be judged " according to his righteousness," while he prays to be kept back from pre- sumptuous sins and confesses their dominion over him ; a peculiarity that is very puzzling until the ethics of the old covenant be correctly understood. Another aspect of this justice is expressed in the theophany of Ex. xxxiv. God is one who will "visit the iniquities of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's chil- dren, upon the third and upon- the fourth generation." In His government of the world, the great law holds that as a man sows, so he shall reap. Though mercy is granted to the sinner, the mental and physical effects of his wrongdoing remain and descend. God's anger goes down to even a fourth generation with its inheritance of unrighteousness. By the grace of God good may come out of this heritage of suffering ; but all the same the truth holds that no sin stands alone, that the 52 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT influence of tlie past will be felt upon the future ; and that in the principle of heredity, the hand of a righteous ruler may be seen at work. inasmuch as Grod manifests Himself by many works of active power and unceasing operation, He is known to Israel as the living God. By this revealed feature of His charac- ter a real ethical purpose is served.-^ It is in communion with the living God, as contrasted with the dead idols of heathendom, which can do nothing for their votaries, that faithful men are to find help in every necessity. The God of the Hebrews is no mere cosmic force, a Natura naturans, with no ear to hear, no hand to help. But He is a living Spirit, a personal God, interested in His people's well- being. That this is the significance of the term is clear from the first instance in which it is used. God interferes for the preservation of Hagar's life, and she calls the well Beer-lahai-roi, i.e. the well of the living One who sees me.^ In the prophetical books and in the Psalms this name of God is much used in a way that is full of ethical import. The earnest Israelite felt his God was One he could lean upon and live by. No accumulation of the world's goods, neither cattle, nor oliveyards, nor storehouses, could be a man's life. Love ^ 1 Sam. XXV. 34 ; 2 Sam. xxii. 47 ; Jer. xxiii. 7 and 8 ; Zeph. ii. 9. " Keil differs in his interpretation. But see Oehler, vol. i. 149, op. cit. THE HOLY ONE 33 must meet love, and heart meet heart, and God must be a veritable, ethical Personality. Otherwise, in the midst of the plenty of a land flowing with milk and honey, man will be unable to accomplish his life-task. As a moral being he can serve no power that is not a living God.^ We come now to that conception of God which is peculiarly characteristic of the God of Israel, and which helped that people to attain a degree of enlightenment in religion that made them the religious teachers of their day. Jehovah is the Holy One. " Who is like unto Thee, Lord among the gods ? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness ? " Here we shall see how the apprehension of moral law in Israel runs parallel with the progressive apprehension of the divine character, and how the nature of its morality is determined by the contents of its belief Jehovah is essenti- ally the God of Holiness : and for the entire realm of human personality, as well as for Himself, holiness is the absolute law. The term is met with at the very commencement of Israel's existence as a nation, and in con- nection with their deliverance from the perils of the Red Sea. Throughout the whole Old Testament "the Holy One of Israel" is a frequent form of address. The primary mean- ing of the word seems to be unapproachableness ^ Ps. xxii. 26, xlix. 9, cxix. 144 ; Prov. iv. 4 ; Isa. xxvi. 19. 54 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT and freedom from all impurity/ To sanctify is to cleanse ; to be morally and religiously clean is to be holy. But this negative idea of separation from tohat is impure does not exhaust the meaning of the word. Had God been thought of only in His absolute transcendence, dwelling apart in infinite purity from all sinful men, this conception of His aloofness from mundane matters might have exercised its influence on the more thoughtful minds, but it could have had no ethical influence on the illiterate multitude. But in the giving of His law to Israel He oversteps the limits of this absolute transcend- ence, and makes known to His people His holy will. Thereby He raises them above the sphere of natural life into an ethical common- wealth in which He, the Holy One, dwells. "He inhabiteth the praises of Israel." He abides among them, the centre of all their moral and religious life. This relationship lies at the foundation of the Law, and forms the ground of Jehovah's claim to Israel's obedience. His will was a holy law, by which they must shape their conduct.^ He is an ever-present God, who cares for their wants and desires to rule all ^ " Holiness in this sense (of separation from impurity) is the ruling principle of the Levitical legislation, just as ethical righteousness is the supreme idea of prophecy." Professor Skinner in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 397. ^ Cf. Lev. xi. 44, and xxii.-xxvi. THE HOLY ONE 55 their life for holy ends. So that at the very foundation of the theocracy this ethical idea of God took possession of the mind of the nation, and wrought in them a sense of their high privileges and of their obligations to walk in the way of His commandments. They were bound to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests. They were the people of His inheritance, and the fundamental law of their whole existence was found in the in- junction, " Be ye holy, for I am holy." '■ This idea of G-od is not correctly represented as the outcome of the later conception of the divine character by the prophets. On the other hand, a careful examination of Amos and Hosea will show that, according to their own representation at least, they struggled, not so much to present a new idea of God, as to prevent the conception which Israel already had from being obscured and lost. They were not preachers of a new ethical monotheism, but they desired to call the people back to the old paths, and away from alliances with other races, whose religions were distinguished only by their baseness. Never do we find the prophets professing to be pioneers in the teaching of piefcy. They constantly speak as " restorers of the paths " and " repairers of the ^ Cf. Professor Eobertson Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 332 : "An ethical conception of deity formed the starting-point of Israel's religion. Holiness was declared to be at once the rule of divine action and a law for human conduct." Ottley, op. cit. p. 171. 56 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT breach" (Isa. Iviii. 12). The ideal which they set before the people is upheld on the ground that it came down from Mosaic times. " This view harmonises with the fact that the Old Testament uniformly ascribes to Moses a prophetic character"^ In that great pro- gressive religious mo^^ement which the prophets headed, the holiness of God is ever one with His abhorrence of all unrighteous conduct. It is in this connection that we find the essential contribution of Prophetism to the advancement of ethical practice in Israel.^ Prophecy contains the true interpretation of Israel's history, and shows how the concep- tions of Old Testament theology are always developed and evolved in close connection with national life. This profoundly ethical view of the divine character had important moral results. The will of this holy God was to be done on earth ; and it was to be realised in a holy nation of His own possession. It found expression in that Law which He gave to Israel, and which was not only to mould the external life of the community, but to be a symbol of the will of God in the community. It was to embrace the family and the national life, the days of work and the days of festival, the field and the temple and the tent. Everything should bear the mark and signature of holiness. It is needful to emphasise this point, in ^ Ottley, op. cit. p. 173. ^ Bruce, Apologetics, p. 212. THE CHARACTER OF JEHOVAH 57 order to show that the holiness of God was regarded by the Hebrews, not as merely one of His attributes, but as the character of God that must shape their laws and lives, and work as an ethical force in their practical everyday life. In later times the prophets thoroughly comprehended this. It was the main theme of their impassioned preaching, and became in them a burning passion for righteousness in the heart and life. In the prophecies of Ezekiel, especially in the closing chapters, the subject receives great prominence.^ We have deemed it right to treat this subject at some length, so that it may be clear that the standard of right living in Israel found its ultimate sanction in the re- vealed will and character of God. " The righteous Lord loveth righteousness," and His people every day must exhibit it. As He is, they ought to be. Their national pros- perity will depend upon their obedience to His will, or, in other words, on their right- doing. Eighteousness in Old Testament ethics is right conduct, and has not acquired the theological significance attached to it in the Pauline writings. In that sense of the word Israel must be righteous as God is righteous, and holy as God is holy. With ^ In that remarkable body of laws in Leviticus, contained in chaps, xvii.-xxvi., the whole of the commands aremarked by the distinctive character of holiness. See Driver, Introduction to Literature of Old Testament, pp. 43 and 276 ; Wellhausen, Prolegomena to History, pp. 357 and 378. 58 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT our modern enlightenment we may deem this a matter of course and a trite commonplace. We never suppose that any but a good man, a man of right conduct and integrity, could lay claim to being a religious man. But how have we come so universally to this con- clusion ? Why is this such an ethical commonplace with us? It is the result of centuries of Christian thought. But among; the ethnic religions of Moses' time no such doctrine was inculcated. No Greek enter- tained such a belief. Zeus was an adulterer ; Aphrodite was personified voluptuousness, and her worship was designed to lend a religious sanction to sensuality. Whereas Jehovah is One who has both made the world and rules it in righteousness. He is a moral Power, everywhere making for righteousness and against unrighteousness, making for holiness and against sin. In this character He was pre-eminently elevated above the deities of the pagan Semites. Their gods were their shame. They were immoral divinities, whose worship was so surrounded and bound up with everything that was foul and immodest that it was a shame to speak of them. Theirs was a religion in which "lust dwelt hard by hate," and all the moralities of life were out- raged. Moral conduct was not demanded by it ; morality formed no essential part of it. The cruelties of Moloch sacrifice were con- joined with the abominable pollutions of COMPARATIVE RELIGION 59 Asherah worship.^ Baal was the god of force and patron of military prowess, who gave his help to tyrants that worshipped him, how- ever brutally and illegally they might act. The Israelites were well acquainted with the religion of Egypt too : a religion which built up society upon the basis of its creed, and conceived of man very much as it thought of God. But in Egypt, Pharaoh was worshipped as divine, and had all godlike qualities attri- buted to him. The result was that man was regarded as having no rights of his own : he was a tool of the tyrant, and found a place among his goods and chattels. The conception of him as a free, conscious personality never entered the head of a Kameses or a Meneptah. Wherever nations are without moral duties and a moral faith, they fail to organise society for moral ends, and usually fall under some kind of unrighteous despotism. We can perceive, then, what a moment of transcendent importance to morality it was when the revelation of a holy and righteous God was made to Israel, and when all the powerful forces of religion were converted into moral forces. The Science of Comparative Religion enables us to see that the character of the deity is regulative in every religion. As the god is, so are the people. And it further shows that this highly ethical concep- ^Cf. Kijnig, Religion of Israel, chap. ix. ; Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 254. 60 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT tion of God, found in the Old Testament, must have been got by revelation, and was not the outgrowth of naturalistic development. There is no conclusive proof that this lofty- ethical monotheism was the product of the interaction of Israel's peculiar genius and environment. Such a view startles us by its assumption that Israel is the creator of the idea of Jehovah, and not the created. If so, it is very difficult to reconcile this wonderful aptitude of Israel with the fact that all other Semitic religions are notorious for their very debased conception of God. With them every god was a created being, sunk in nature's grossness — passionate, variable, lustful. In Phoenicia, where idolaters were the neigh- bours of the Jews, the gods were the vilest of the vile. Among them there was a total severance between morality and religion. The latter was not an ethical force ; and where it had influence, it operated towards criminal ends. Besides, the history of Israel shows that the nation was no exception to the tendency to degeneracy ; and against their proclivities a continual protest is maintained by the whole goodly fellowship of the prophets.^ The foregoing facts, based upon the truth of the Old Testament record, go to constitute an ethical doctrine of God which was never ' Vide Schultz, op. cit. chap. vii. ; Eobertson, Early History of Israel, pp. 168 and 242. COMPARATIVE RELIGION 61 surpassed in the world until, in the fulness of time, the manifestation of God in Christ took place. Jehovah, the Holy One, the righteous and just Ruler, is an ethical Deity ; and the revealed conception of His character and will formed the basis of a moral society in which all men had equal rights and duties ; while every fresh revelation of His nature brought to Israel a quickened sense of their obliga- tions/ 1 This argument is independent of critical views of the Pentateuch. "We may study the Pentateuch with a keen historical or archaeological interest ; but critical investiga- tions must never blind us to the fact that the law witnesses mainly to a spiritual truth, namely, that in the life of fellow- ship between God and man, moral obligation is the master fact. The central principle of the entire Levitical system is com- prehended in the words, "Ye shall be holy : for I the Lord your God am holy" (Ottley, op. cit. p. 208). "Not only did the pre-prophetic religion itself include an important ethical element, but this very element was part and parcel of the original Mosaic teaching." Montefiore, Hibbeii Lectures, p. 45. CHAPTER IV Israel the People of God's Possession It was entirely of God's grace that Israel became the depository of His Law. He who created the whole earth desired to have a people who should live in communion with Him, and be peculiarly His own. The first message, sent by God through Moses to the multitude at the base of Sinai, was this : " Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now, therefore, if you obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people." The Law is based upon this gracious relationship, and upon the providential guidance which followed it. Thus there is established between God and His people a relationship of a highly moral character. His divine love has been set upon them ; and the lofty communion into which they are called lays upon them corresponding obliga- ISRAEL god's property 63 tions, necessitating a life and conduct con- formable to their privilege. Yet it is not privilege that is put into the foreground so much as service — service of God, and there- fore service in co-operation with God.^ That they have been selected to be co-workers with Him in carrying out His great purpose of love to all mankind, is the thought that must lie at the basis of all their action, and determine it to ethical ends. They must surrender themselves without any reserve to be His humble instruments. They must become a people through whose whole public and national organisations a divine purpose may find expression, and so reveal to mankind the true character of their Covenant God. Their government is to be a divine sovereignty, and their constitution a theocracy (to use the word coined by Josephus) ^ in which God is the true Head and Source of all power. Eegard- ing every department of their life,— political, educational, ecclesiastical,- — they will receive instructions from Him, warnings in danger, and guidance in difficulty. And He will give them a Law fully expressing His will, and capable of me"eting every emergency that may arise when • duly interpreted by His com- missioned servants, the prophets. On the other hand, the people, being the special possession of Jehovah, are separated 1 Ex. vii. 16, viii. 1 ; Deut. vi. 13. ^ Contra Apionem, ii. 16, 64 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT from the rest of the nations and consecrated to a holy service. To fit them for this mission they are summoned out of Egypt, as Abraham was from Ur of the Chaldees, that they may dwell in the land set apart for them. That separated or consecrated life is not to be an easy life ; it is a separation to much hardship, to a long course of moral training in the wilder- ness ; it is an election to sufferings, to captivi- ties in Assyria and Babylon.'^ God's elect ones are not to be envied by the slothful and the languid. It entailed on them an aloofness in Palestine from the great empires on either side. Everything was devised for the purpose of maintaining them intact in this condition of holiness as God's people, God's exclusive property, that they might transmit to others the moral and religious truth that had been revealed to them. That truth was too lofty to be at once grasped by men's minds. And, accordingly, Israel was set apart to learn those lessons, so that, when they had become apt scholars in this school, they might afterwards become teachers of mankind. There was a divine intent at the heart of it all. Israel was separated from the world for a time in order to serve lofty ethical ends. This grand idea is one that inspires every one of the Old Testament writers. It is a much grander and higher conception of election ' Ex. xix. 6 ; Lev. xx. 24 ; Ezra viii. 28, x. 11 ; Jer. XV. 20. ISRAEL god's property 65 than the narrow, individualistic one, common to Calvinistic theology. It is an election to service, not to privilege, and is pervaded by a " social teleology." In later times, it is true, the prophets clothe Israel, the servant of Jehovah, with a more definitely Messianic meaning. But still the divine election of the one chosen Servant is for service and for the good of the many (Isa. liii. 5, 11). Thus there sprang up in the consciousness of Israel an assurance of their being in filial covenant relationship with God. And as they were, through many providential dealings, gradually trained to be the fit instrument of His will, and their national life became shaped by this divine purpose, they came to realise how their whole moral life must be conditioned by this fellowship with God. Their right to that fellowship was attested by two sacraments — Circumcision and the Passover, both acts of covenant consecration. The former was a "bloody sacrifice" (Ewald), a dedication of the life to God by a painful purifying of the source of life, and it had both a moral and a religious significance. Israel was to serve God, and the continuation of its life was to be clothed with holy associations ; while in the Passover the people were to regard themselves as God's peculiar property, created by His gracious act of deliverance.^ ' This is quite in keeping with the more modern view of the Passover as the Feast of the Firstborn ; the feast of the 66 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Thus as the changes and chances of life come to Israel, their moral history deepens and enlarges. Their Covenant God will guide them through the wilderness ; He will be protection in danger, and light in darkness, will give food for their hunger and water for their thirst ; and in return they will consecrate to Him their service ; and all their motives will be moralised by a holy ideal, and by the elements of love and gratitude entering into their obedience. Further, as God's people, Israel is specially called to be a nation of priests. " Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests," ^ i.e. at once a royal and priestly people. The tribe of Levi, set apart to minister in the daily sacrifice, simply formed the nation's representatives. "The consecration of the people to God receives official expression in the priesthood " (Schultz). They were bound thereby to a holy life, and to the strictest moral purity. Unclean persons should not enter their congre- gation ; but Jehovah was to dwell among them and sanctify them. Their religious institutions should all speak to them of this hallowing presence ; and by means of the laws of purification and holiness they should strive to realise the type of life thus set forth. Shepherds' offering made to recognise the truth that Jehovah is the giver of the fruitfulness of the fiock. Cf. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 86 (4th edition). ^ So the LXX translates fiaa-iKeiov UpaTevfia. In the Targum of Onkelos, " Kings and priests." ISRAEL god's property 67 On this conception of Israel as God's property and priesthood great stress is laid by the prophets and psalmists, and many ethical duties are deduced from it. They are "His people and the sheep of His pasture." They were no longer to live as if they were their own. And as the nation developed in spirituality, we find a progressive ethicising of this relationship.^ God becomes to them more truly the Holy One, and they are willing to subscribe themselves as His (Isa. xliv. 5). There was to be no reserve in their consecra- tion, no giving of ninety -nine parts and with- holding of the hundredth ; else the whole act of consecration was undone. The truth was fore- shadowed which Paul afterwards set at the head of the Christian code of morality : "Ye are not your own ; ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify God in your body." Israel was to find the dynamics of duty in this relationship to Jehovah. No calculating ethics should be theirs ; but to God who had redeemed them, and called them unto the dignity of a kingdom of priests, the flame of a sacrificial enthusiasm should ever burn. It belongs to Old Testament theology to trace at full length this steady advance, and the puri- 1 " Its fundamental significance is ethical ; for tte Covenant implied on the one side Jehovah's grace, on the other Israel's moral obedience. The sacrifices were full of spiritual symbol- ism -. they spoke of self- surrender and devotion to the will of God, of forgiveness and the blessings of divine fellowship." Ottley, op. cit. p. 252. 68 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT fication in the conception o£ tlie relations of Jehovah and His people. What it concerns us, in the interest of ethics, to note is, that the consciousness grows in Israel that they are a holy people, and that upon this basis all the ceremonial laws are made to rest. How great an advance in moral culture this implies can be estimated only by a comparison with the surrounding nations. Jehovah is a moral Deity, with a righteous will, and hating evil with the whole force of His nature. And His people must be like Him, must be His priests. His associates in His grand purpose of proclaiming and effecting the salvation of the whole world. That is an ethical ideal, accom- panied by an ethical motive, to which nothing in the religions of other Semitic peoples is found to correspond. It remained, indeed, an ideal above Israel, and exhibited its divine origin, as their failure to live up to it mani- fested their human weakness. This at least is certain. Such a people, so circumstanced and so constituted, could never have produced of themselves such a moral ideal. A newly emancipated horde of slaves, undisciplined and impatient of restraint, — this call to a life of lofty moral aims came into terrible conflict with then- lawless passions and stiff-necked stubbornness. How could that be a product of the nation which contradicts all their old feel- ings and habits ? We have only to look at the awful immorality in which the other INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS 69 nations lay weltering to see how untenable the theory is. The standard of morality at this stage was not given by Israel. It was set by Jehovah, the Supreme Lawgiver, and Himself at once the embodiment and the inspiration of all virtue and goodness. It cannot fail to be noticed that the moral necessities of the nation are more regarded than those of the individual. The family of Abraham are at first selected as the organ of salvation, and as they grow into a great nation they are regarded in all the divine dealings as a unity, or a unitary social group. The truth of individualism had to wait for full acknow- ledgment until the Christian era ; and the intense individualism of our century is utterly foreign to the spirit of the Old Testament. It is with Israel as a nation that the Covenant is finally established. If the law of worship be broken and the service of Jehovah be forsaken for that of other gods, it is as a nation that they are warned they shall be punished. Indi- viduals may thus be overlooked ; but had individual rights been placed first in the order of development, nothing less than anarchy would have taken place. In course of time, as the mission of the nation grew more clear, the responsibilities and rights of the indi- vidual received additional emphasis, and were developed into prominence.^ But at first it ^^ Of. Mozley, Euliiig Ideas in Early Ages, p. 235. Principal Caird, Philosophy of Religion, chap. iii. The growth of the sense 70 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT was with the family group that God entered into the gracious relationship of salvation : and He was content to have the basis of ethics for a time laid, not in the individual, but in the family conscience. Hence we find in the Old Testament that the family is first, and not the individual. There is no doubt that this compelled a temporary concession to customs that belonged to a very rudimentary stage of morality, and that " because of the hardness of their hearts" a laxity of divorce was permitted which the Christian law of marriage utterly condemns. No doubt, also, this threw into the background the individual's interest in a future life, and obscured the doctrine of personal immortality. But Jehovah was con- tent to gain one great moral end at a time. And on the basis of a stable, pure family life He laid the future growth of the ethical and religious influences that developed into the Christian family and the organised and per- fected social state. So it was that salvation in Israel came to a man by his birth into the family founded by Abraham. " He was a Jew who was one outwardly." He might prove unworthy of his parentage and ancestry ; yet birth into the family of an Israelite is undoubtedly in the of individual worth came with tiie spiritual experience of elect souls, as psalmists and prophets found solace in com- munion with God. Ps. xvi. 10. AN ISRAELITE BY BIRTH 71 Pentateuch reckoned as birth into the king- dom of God. His connection with covenant privileges is through his descent in the family line.^ This was far below the New Testament doctrine of entrance into God's kingdom, through the new birth of John iii. But for wise ends the Lord founded the Church in these early days upon the basis of the family, and placed it first in the order of salvation. When in this century we find many, notwith- standing our long experience of the worth of the Christian home, subordinating the family to the State, and afl&rming the collective total to be strong enough to bear the strain of the whole of our social duties, we may under- stand in some measure why God determined that during slow centuries of growth society should be broad - based upon the family life.^ This truth, thus embedded in the Hebrew consciousness, was in course of time stripped of its temporary entanglements and accretions by the lessons of history and by the prophetic teaching. It came to be seen by spiritually taught men that " they are not all Israel who are of Israel," and that there was One who was a Father to them of whom Abraham ^ Cf. Rielim, Alt. Theologie, p. 22V. It is to he observed that when Israel is called God's "Son," as in Deut. xiv. 1, Jer. iii, 19, Mai. i. 6, the term always implies corresponding religious obligations. ^ Vide Smyth's Christian Ethics, p. 442 f . ; Martensen's Ethics, vol. i. p. 202. 72 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT might be ignorant, and whom Israel might not acknowledge. The organic connection of the individual with the nation becomes part of Israel's consciousness. It is expressed throughout the Old Testament in no way more frequently than in their hostility to idolatrous races. With such they must have nothing to do : their severance from them shall be complete. They shall not intermarry with them, nor trade with them, nor have any fellowship with them. Even the social usages of these races must be shunned. The land they are to live in is given by promise, and they must abide within its limits. It is not without meaning, in connection with this particularism, that the Old Testament seems to hinge the completion of the divine kingdom on their maintaining their connection with the land of Canaan. Salvation, from the Old Testament standpoint, is restricted to those who are within the fold of Israel, and fellowship with Jehovah is impossible to the idolaters of Moab and Philistia. ' But the prophets foresee a time coming when this limit shall cease, and all nations, flocking to Mount Zion, shall make it the centre of the wide world's worship. The shell of this particularism contained the kernel of a universal religion.^ In itself it tended to foster a contempt for foreigners and a national pride that are contrary to the spirit ^ Cf. A. B. Davidson, Theology of the Old Testament, p. 60. ADMISSION OP GENTILES FORESEEN 73 of Old Testament religion. But, as we shall afterward see, many expressions that seem immoral in their bitter antagonism to the Gentile races, find their explanation in this restriction of covenant fellowship. The prophets do not speak of the heathen as hopelessly given over to punishment ; but, as a nation, Israel is undoubtedly the elect people, and only through them can the heathen world be blessed. CHAPTER V Israel's Code of Duty^ 1. Righteousness in the Old Testament From a people who had been received of grace into the fellowship of faith, Jehovah demanded the grateful response of a righteous life. Their righteousness was rooted in faith ; it recognised the grace of the divine election, and delighted to keep the divine command- ments. This righteousness is not by any ^ It is a singular fact that there is no word in the Hebrew language corresponding to the word " Duty." That word does occur in the Authorised Version and in the Revised Version. But in the first instance, Ex. xxi. 10, the phrase duty of marriage is one word in Hebrew signifying cohabita- tion. In the second instance, 2 Chron. yiii. 14, " as the duty of any day required," the word is dabwr ; " as the matters of the day demand." While in the third instance, Eccles. xii. 13, the Revised Version prints the word in italics, and the verse in Hebrew runs : " this is the whole of man." And the reason is plain. When the Jew thought of duty, his mind went back to the commandments of God and he simply said, " Jahveh commanded." For His children God's commandments are their Code of Duties. And they are not grievous but joyous, as the Psalmist looks at them. " Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my' pilgrimage," Ps. cxix. 54. RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 75 means equivalent to sinlessness ; but it keeps the Law within the heart. It loves God's statutes, and finds therein not bondage, but liberty. It recognises the inmost meaning of the Law to be the outcome and expression of God's favour ; and its supreme delight is to run in the way of His commandments with enlarged heart. The only way to blessedness is by the path of obedience. This obedience of faith lies at the foundation of the covenant with Abraham ; and it is this that invests that covenant with moral elements. In ancient Israel the deep and painful con- sciousness of sin, so characteristic of New Testament saints, is not prominent ; and the faithful expect to be recompensed according to their righteousness and the cleanness of their hands. There is, for example, in David's treatment of Saul in the wilderness a fine instance of noble generosity that moves the heart of every reader. It sounds strange to our ears to hear him say that, because he would not put forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, therefore the Lord should ren- der to him according to his righteousness and faithfulness. But there was no inconsistency in his use of the term. Some of the psalms contain what may seem to us startling pro- testations of spotless purity, as, " I will wash mine hands in innocency : so will I compass Thine altar, Lord." ^ In not a few there are ' Ps. xxvi. 6. 7G THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT professions of integrity, and prayers that God may judge the Psalmist, and vindicate his uprightness and innocence, professions and petitions which seem at first to be alien to that deeper consciousness of sinfulness which is one of the most precious gifts of Jesus Christ. " It grates upon ears, accustomed to the tone of the New Testament, that a suppliant should allege his single-eyed sim- plicity and steadfast faith as pleas with God ; and the strange tone sounds on through the whole psalm. . . . But such professions are not inconsistent with consciousness of sin, which is, in fact, often associated with them in other psalms (xxv. 20, 21 and vii. 11, 18). They do indicate a lower stage of religious development, a less keen sense of sinfulness and of sins, a less clear recognition of the worthlessness before God of all man's goodness, than belong to Christian feeling. The same language, when spoken at one stage of revela- tion, may be childlike and lowly, and be swelling arrogance and self-righteous self- ignorance if spoken at another stage." ^ It must also be observed that many of these professions of inward purity and of integrity are not so much denials of sin as asseverations that the writer's heart was honest and his intention pure. They are made by him in answer to base charges of malignant opponents. He is surrounded by evil men that will not 1 The Book of Psalms, by Dr. A. Maclaren, vol. i. p. 252. RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 77 scruple to blacken Ms good name and mis- construe his best motives. Is it to be wondered at that "the answer of a good conscience " should often spring to his lips ? Such a response is the outcome of a healthy moral feejing, and is removed by whole diameters from the Pharisaism that finds salvation in keeping the commandments, and puts the Law in the place of the merciful Father. It is perfectly consistent in the Old Testament saints to make such professions, and yet to add, in the spirit of one who came through the synagogue into the Christian Church, "Yet am I not hereby justified."^ In the New Testament we find that the ^ The Old Testament always ia treating of sin maintains the connection of the individual with the race. "I am a man of unclean lips : and I dwell among a people of unclean lips," Isa. vi. 5. Prof. A. B. Davidson, Theology of the O.T. chap, vii., say.s that "just as Achan's sin affected in God's estimate the whole camp of Israel, the sin of any individual may seem to Him to affect the whole race of mankind." He suras up the teaching of the O.T. on this question under five heads, briefly summarised here. 1. The human race is a unity. 2. As the one man Adam developed into millions, the one sin multiplied into millions of sinful acts. 3. Thus when any one sins, it is humanity that sins. But that does not take away from the other truth that the individual sinner is guilty of his individual act. The individual Adam was guilty of his sin. 4. When the race sins, the race is chastised. But the chastisement will extend over many more than are guilty. The unity which we know as humanity is held guilty of the sinful acts. 5. The judgment which falls on the individual falls on him as an individual sinner, each one being treated as part of the race and acting as part. No explanation is given in the O.T. of the rationale of this inherited corruption beyond the assumption that the race is a unity. 78 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT apprehension of personal sin becomes far more profound and ethical, in proportion as a consciousness of the inwardness of the Law's requirements is reached. It is the purpose of the pedagogy of the Law to awaken the conscience and to effect conviction of sin by holding up the divine command as a standard of righteousness. But in the Old Testament we must frankly admit that, as soon as evil- doing has been repented of and restitution made according to the Mosaic code, one may be termed a righteous man.^ Rather a legal status in Israel than an ethical attainment is implied in the term. At the same time, there is no trace of the idea that a man's salvation is due to his own righteousness. Everywhere salvation is spoken of as the direct result of the free grace and mercy of God. " The divine life bestowed through grace is received by faith alone" (Schultz). This is not, however, inconsistent with the fact that, as the prophets come on the scene, the individual consciousness of sin becomes more acute. The Exile greatly aided the deepening of this consciousness by making communion with God a more personal matter. When far away from Zion and its Temple, and in the midst of scoffing heathen, the Israelite was of necessity compelled to enter the closet and shut the door and pray to the Father in secret. The idea of the religious nation 1 Prov. xi. 3, 5, 6, 18, xii. 3. DEEPER SPIRITUALITY OF NEW DISPENSATION 79 remained : but piety became personal com- munion and the sense of sin was much quickened. The Exilic and post-Exilic Psalms contain proofs of it. Ezekiel is a prophet who intensely realises it. The Exile education is to him what Pentecost was to the Apostles of our Lord : it plays a grand role in the spiritual progress of his brethren. They have lost the large Temple where the crowded congregation helped to lift up the soul on its hymns of praise. But Jehovah Himself will be their Temple ; and in that sanctuary they shall find sin pardoned and the individual soul sanctified. " Therefore say to them, Thus saith the Lord God, Whereas I have removed them far off among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them a sanctuary for a little while." The Dispersion served its end of spiritualising worship and deepening the sense of sin. In the post-Exilic period the place of faith was taken by a legal righteousness, and fellow- ship with God was gauged by the amount of religious rites performed. The centre of true religion was transferred from a gracious and merciful God to an external legalism ; and law took the place of grace. This externalis- ing of righteousness continued in Pharisaism through the Hasmonean age until Christ's time ; and it appears in Christian ethics as a righteousness of works, in contrast with the righteousness which is by faith. 80 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT This leads us to the historic proclamation of the Law and to a consideration of its character and purpose. 2. The Giving of the Law In the Old Testament the word "law" is invariably used as meaning some mani- festation of the will of God. It is usually- called Torah, or instruction. It was regarded by the Jews as the fountainhead of all know- ledge, and as the one thing worth teaching to their children. In the New Testament it has a much wider signification. Sometimes there it refers to the Moral Law, at other times to the Ceremonial. Very often it means the teaching of the Pentateuch in contrast with the doctrine of the prophets ; while in other places it includes the whole scriptures in which the mind of God is expressed. But in the Old Testament the Law by distinction is the Law revealed from Sinai, and given to Israel through Moses the man of God. In the solitude of the sacred Mount did the Divine Presence make itself known to this chosen leader. The majestic cliff, rising like a huge altar and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur, is the very image of an adytum, an audience-chamber, wherein no din of earthly discord might interrupt the intercourse which the Almighty deigned to hold with His servant and prophet. Here ISRAELS CODE OF DUTY HI God "came down upon Sinai," and gave to Israel the most splendid gift that a nation could receive. "The delivery of the Moral Law," says Kalisch, " formed a decisive epoch in the history of the human race, and was the greatest and most important event in human history." Popularly, Moses is known as the lawgiver. But though he is called so by the Jews them- selves, they never mean to imply that he was the fons et origo of the legislation to which his name is attached. There is no doubt that his Egyptian education specially prepared him for being the inspired medium of the divine Revelation.^ But it was not out of the re- sources of his own mind that the legislative code sprang. He was but a tt/jo^j^V'???, a spokesman for God. And it was not as a legislator like Solon or Justinian that he was said to have given the Law to Israel. He was but the pen in the hand of the Almighty, communicating what he had already received. The Law was given through Moses ; but it was accepted by the people and ratified by a sacrificial offering, without which no covenant was regarded as binding. In Ex. xxiv. 3-9 we have the account of the formal ratiflca- ^ The influence of Egypt's culture could not fail to prepare Moses for his eminent post. Yet it is probable that on the whole that influence was prejudicial to the faith which the tribes had inherited from the patriarchs. Moses was a true originator, and much communion with God lay behind his originality. 6 82 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT tion of this Covenant between Jehovah and Israel. Moses first rehearsed all the words and the "judgments," i.e. the Decalogue and the whole of the statutes following, in the ears of the people, and got their formal assent. Then he wrote them down in "the Book of the Covenant," the first book actually mentioned in Holy Writ, and the nucleus around which all later legislation gathered.^ Building an altar, he caused burnt-offerings and peace-offerings to be laid upon it, to signalise the fact that it was not on legal grounds alone, but by an act of grace, that Israel was admitted to this privilege. There was grace as well as commandment in this New Covenant. No covenant of a similar character is afterwards found in the Old Testament. Of the purpose of the Law, and the end it was intended to serve, two very different views have been taken. It is common for theologians, following the lead of the inspired writings of St. Paul, and especially of the Epistle to the Galatians, to dwell entirely upon that aspect of the Law which is pro- hibitory, which presents it as a ministry of condemnation and not of righteousness, of bondage and not of freedom, as a letter that 1 Nowhere is the ethical force of Mosaism better illustrated than in this so-called Book of the Covenant, Ex. xxi.-xxiii. It is comparatively silent on all matters of ritual. But it is distinct and forcible in its ethical doctrine. Cf. Riehm, Alt. Theologie, p. 63. THE INTENT OF THE LAW 83 kills and not a spirit that gives life.^ That this was the final intent that lay beneath the Law there can Be no doubt ; and the pupil of Gamaliel had gone through a legal stage of pre-Christian experience, which has its proper place in the moral order of every sinful life still, prior to conversion. But that this peda- gogic aspect is not the only view we may take of the Law is perfectly clear from in- numerable statements in the Old Testament. The Law, as it was given at Sinai, bears upon its front gracious features. These are apt to be forgotten by such as remember only the Pharisaic exaltation of the Torah in the Has- monean Age to the position of an absolute summum honum, or simply dwell on its use as a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. The Pharisee misunderstood or ignored the normal relationship between God and man, under which the Sinaitic Law was given, a relation- ship of grace on the one side and of faith on the other, into which the principle of Pharisaic legalism can have no admission. It is a mistake to regard the Law only from the point of view of an outward command or criterion, to be used as a measuring-rod to bring home to men their deficiencies, and con- vince of sin. The Law contained the con- ditions on which God would continue to dwell in covenant fellowship with His people. Were the pedagogic intent its only purpose, it 1 2 Cor. iii. 6, 7, 9. 84 THE ETHICS OE THE OLD TESTAMENT would be difficult to understand the language of Ps. cxix., or the sentiment of the singer, "The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes . . . more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold : sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb" (Ps. xix. 8, 10). To every sincere and honest Israelite, God's statutes were capable of being translated into a song. They spoke of privilege as well as of precept. That this giving of the Law to Israel was felt to be an act of favour on God's part, and a great honour to the nation, is abundantly proved. In Deut. iv. 7 it is asked : " For what great nation is there that hath a God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is, when- soever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there that hath statutes and judg- ments so righteous as all this Law, which I set before you this day ? " . . . Ver. 32 : " For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it ? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?" Israel, therefore, understood that the giving of the Law was part of that manifesta- tion of grace by which they were to be the THE LAW 85 people of the Covenant, the people among whom Jehovah should dwell, and through whom His purpose of salvation should be mediated to mankind/ This was doubtless the primary aspect in which the Law presented itself to the chosen people. Jehovah was their King, "the strength of their help, and the sword of their excel- lency." And a King's communications with His people must be regulated in a manner that shall secure reverence for Him, and the means of exalted intercourse for them. Lived up to, this Law will ensure unbroken fellow- ship. It is a revelation of the condescending mercy of God, who, desires to associate with Himself a holy people. Its principle is ex- pressed in the words : "I am the Lord your God : ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and shall be holy ; for I am holy ; and ye shall keep My statutes to do them : for I am the Lord your God" (Lev. xi. 44, xx. 8). That the Covenant of Law rests on the Covenant of promise is clear from the fact that in the giving of the Law the initiative comes from God. We find this in the state- ment which prefaces the Decalogue : " I am ^ " The Law was given to the people in covenant. It was a rule of life, not of justification ; it was guide to the man who was already right in God's esteem. ... It is a line marked out, along which the life of the people or the person in covenant with God, and already right with God on that ground, is to unfold itself." Dr. A. B. Davidson, Theology of the Old Testament, p. 281. 86 THE EIHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt." So also, at the beginning of the Book of the Covenant, it is said : "Ye see what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself" (Ex. xix. 4). In these passages there is no mention made of Israel's desert. Outof His love God sets forth this relation- ship of grace, and establishes the conditions on which it is to be maintained. The primary feeling of a pious Hebrew towards the Law was not one of fear and un- certainty, but it was a truly joyful conscious- ness of divine favour. The Law is no heavy burden that galls the shoulders.^ It is, on the other hand, a crown of rejoicing, even a matter of boasting. It is the distinguishing mark of Jehovah's favour towards His own people. The sanctuary where the pious wor- shipper meets Him is not a place filled with the terrors of a broken commandment, but is rather like a fountain out of which flows fresh water to a thirsty soul : " So have I looked upon Thee in the sanctuary, To see Thy power and Thy glory. For Thy loving kindness is better than life, My lips shall praise Thee." (Ps. Ixiii. 2, 3.) 1 In the overthrow of the nation, finally, the mass of the people came to see this, but the nobler spirits had discerned it ages before. We must always bear in mind the differ- ence between the great body of the Hebrew people and the inner circle which responded to the teaching of the Spirit and the voice of the Prophets. Cf. Darmesteter, op. cit. p. 165 fif. Israel's relation to law 87 The variety of phrase under which this feeling finds expression in the Psalms and Prophets is very striking. It is this element which gives such a bright colour and glow- ing reality to Old Testament religion. It brightened all those joyous festivals in which they celebrated their deliverance from the house of bondage, and thanked God for His goodness in the plentiful harvests of their fruitful land. If the Law is regarded only from the stand- point of the legalist, it is entirely miscon- strued. " It is in the first instance a gift of grace. It shows the people a way of life which embraces and defines all the circum- stances of their natural life. A non-Israelite, or an unbeliever, cannot fulfil it ; but a believer will not feel its restrictions irksome." ^ So far from irksomeness being the primary thought in connection with it, the very opposite is clearly the fact. " Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound" of it. "They shall walk, Lord, in the light of Thy counten- ance." We misrepresent God's purpose and do the Hebrews an injustice when we imagine the pious members of that commonwealth ever hanging the head like a bulrush, and striving to appease their conscience, and gain salvation with tears and legal sacrifices. To them God was a Father, and Israel was " His son. His firstborn." The idea of redemption 1 Schxiltz, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 37. 88 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT through grace alone was the fundamental idea of the nation's position. This idea is placed at the head of the Decalogue. An Israelite, realising his place as one of the community redeemed by God, trusting and loving God as his nation's Eedeemer, was a just" man, and lived by faith a joyous, happy life. His re- lation to God was one entirely of grace, " a relationship which was to obtain realisation in the righteousness of faith that is in Christ" (Eom. X. 6ff. ; cf. Deut. xxx. 11-14).' But let us not forget that in the develop- ment of the moral consciousness of Israel a deepening of the sense of national failing took place. With this there came a clearer per- ception of the relation of the individual to God, and of his responsibility, as a moral integer within the nation, for its shortcomings. And then the other aspect of the Law became prominent, as the prophetic teaching ex- pounded its meaning and accentuated the individual consciousness of transgression. Then the Law was seen to be not only the gift of a gracious Lord, but a commandment intended to act as a check upon transgression. That this purpose lay in it from the first cannot be doubted. The Law was given to erect a barrier against sin, and the man that crossed the barrier must bear the penalty. Without being able to remove the inward ^ Luthardt, History of Christian Ethics (Clark's trans.), p. 45. THE PURPOSE OF THE LAW 89 stain of sin, it accentuated the evil of it, and brought home to the conscience a sense of its exceeding sinfulness. Paul's education in a school of legalism, so characterised by its objectifying of ethics, necessarily led him to dwell upon this great purpose of the law. He develops it at length in the powerful analytic of Eom. vii. Had it not been for the Law's measuring-rod, he had not known sin ; but now conscious of a deep sense of personal guilt, he utters this cry, de profun- dis, " Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of the body of this death ? " He affirms that lust should not have appeared as lust to him, had not the Decalogue, in its closing commandment, gone beyond the ex- ternal domain of precept into the inner realm of motive, and said, " Thou shalt not covet." " Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound" (Rom. v. 20). It was in this opposition between the commandment and his inward moral state that he realised the burden of that legalism which perpetually harassed his conscience, and landed him in slavery to the letter that, killed. The very existence of a commandment forbidding the sin added intensity to the desire to gratify it. Stolen waters are always sweet ; for- bidden pleasures have a spice and flavour that are not found in the ways of righteous- ness. " Sin, finding occasion, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence," says St. 90 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Paul. So far from aiding him in this awak- ened stage, the Law, bepraised by the Rabbis, only aggravated his difficulties and empha- sised his sense of helplessness. Conscience would persist in speaking of higher principles of duty, and whispering in his ears the sting- ing word " imperfection." It is an experience we all go through. Protestantism began with St. Paul, and the morality of the Old Testa- ment in him gave place to the awakened Christian consciousness. Hence it is that Romans vii. is a bit of autobiography which possesses for us undying interest. It is a prison-cell, in which we have all been con- fined. And blessed are they who through faith have been able to walk out of the dark dungeon of the seventh of Romans into the glorious light and liberty of the eighth. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who, if not St. Paul, belonged at least to the Pauline school of theology, regards the Law from a similar standpoint. If he thinks less of it as designed to lead to a clearer know- ledge of sin and to discipline the moral sense, still he feels that its purpose is to drive home the conviction of the need of a sacrifice for sin that would satisfy divine justice, and to exhibit the powerlessness of Levitical offerings to cleanse the conscience. In his view, the Law shut a man up to the hope of a Messianic Deliverer, who should offer one all-sufficient THE LAW AS A COMMAND 91 sacrifice for sin, and then sit down at the right hand of Grod. This view is confirmed by what is said of the Law in the Gospels, which, though not so directly bearing on the point in dispute, is quite consistent with the view expressed in the Epistles referred to. Our Lord affirms that it was not for the purpose of encouraging, but of restraining and discouraging, divorce that the precept regarding it was given. " Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives " (Matt, xix. 8). This was, however, but an adjustment to the level of morality at that time reached in Israel. It was not intended to be an en- couragement of the moral infirmity that led to divorce, but to be a curb upon it until they should reach and realise a principle under which such a check would not be required. In the time of Moses the people would not have understood the deeper principles laid down in Eph. v. regarding Christian mar- riage. The laws of marriage were therefore an adjustment to the rudimentary stage of Israel's morality. It was a temporary con- cession to their ethical imperfection,^ which was not intended to be permanent. Simi- larly, the law of revenge and the practice of polygamy were permitted, to the astonish- ment of many people in these days who ^ Mozley, Lectures on Old Testament, Lecture v. See also closing chapters of this volume. 92 THE ETHICS OF THE -OLD TESTAMENT cannot understand why what is condemned in the New Testament should be temporarily- tolerated in the Old. But these "practices were but concessions to moral weakness ; for education without adjustment to the pupil's stage of progress is in religion what cram- ming is in education, and so far from in- vigorating, it weakens the moral powers. The divine permission of these practices was therefore conditioned by restrictions that checked the evil necessarily inhering in the institutions, and pointed to a time when they should be entirely abrogated. Thus the Law as a command worked wrath (Rom. iv. 15). By its works no flesh living could be justified. It was good in itself; but it could not speak the word "forgiveness," nor furnish inspiration like the expulsive power of love to Christ. Its multiform ordi- nances, the categorical form of its precepts, the prohibitive character of its injunctions and social restrictions, were all adapted to show man the weakness of his efi'orts to reach a standard of moral perfection. By this lengthy and tedious process, in which the Israelite became more dissatisfied with him- self as sin became more hateful, God was educating His people to long for something more satisfactory to the conscience.^ He was 1 In the prophetic books, all the history of Israel is inter- preted from this point of view. Two chief themes occupy the mind of the prophets, God's judgments and His coming THE LAW AS A COMMAND 93 preparing the heart of man, ever too fond of trusting to its own, to accept the righteous- ness which is of faith in Jesus Christ. redemption. Bixt all their retukes alternate with promises of a future when the deepest longings of the saintly heart shall be satisfied, and the Messianic age shall bring three great spiritual blessings — viz. remission of sins, a perfect righteous- ness, and the power to do the will of God. Jer. xxxi. 31 ; Joel ii. 29 ; Mai. ii. and iii. CHAPTER VI The Law of the Ten Words At the head of the Book of the Covenant stood the Law of the Ten Words. That Law stands on a moral eminence of its own, un- rivalled for its comprehensiveness, excellency, and simplicity. These fundamental rules of religious and ethical duty were the only portion of the legislation which was directly uttered by the voice of God in the hearing of the whole people. Thereafter they were graven on the tables of stone by the finger of God, as if to signify their abiding character, and to give to them the highest and most authoritative sanction.'' They sum up in a pregnant form the duties applicable to Israel's life as a people dedicated to God. While many of the enactments of the Book of the Covenant served but a temporary purpose, and passed away with the religion of Judaism, 1 Ex. xxxiv. 28 ; Deut. x. 14. The Decalogue is called " the Testimony," to represent it as the declaration of Jehovah's mind. So the ark containing the stone tables ia named " The Ark of Jehovah's Covenant " in Deut. x. 8. Cf . art. " Law in Old Testament," Hastings' Diet, of Bible, vol. iii. 94 THE LAW OF THE TEN WORDS 95 the Decalogue has been retained unchanged in the Christian Church. The divinity of its origin and the excellency of its contents still give it a foremost place in the theology of every Christian community. There is nothing in it that is not valid for mankind. It is a universal code of morals. No compend of morality among ethnic religions can be com- pared with it. The ethical systems of Con- fucius, of Zoroaster, of Buddha, of the Greek moralists, are far behind it as a summary of human duty. In the Book of Exodus the Decalogue is called the Ten Words, a phrase which our Authorised Version renders " the Ten Com- mandments." Sometimes it is called "the Testimony," as bearing witness to the ex- pression of the Divine Will. It is by pre- eminence also called " the Covenant," although the Book of the Covenant in Exodus embraces, in addition to it, chaps, xxi.-xxiii. The question has been raised and much discussed, Does the Decalogue, together with the civil and ceremonial laws, constitute one whole legislative code for Israel ? Or, do the Ten Words stand out by themselves in marked distinction from all the other precepts, so that these must be regarded as but subsidiary direc- tions to secure its better observance ? Is it one legislative code ? or are there two codes here ? It has been urged ^ that these Ten Words 1 Fairbairn, Typology, vol. ii. p. 89 fif. 96 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT had the " singular honour conferred upon them of being properly the terms of the Covenant founded at Sinai " ; that they are expressly called " the words of the Covenant," " the words of the Lord," while the additional enactments given through Moses are called " the judgments " ; that the feast laws in particular, " so far from forming any proper addition to the terms of the Covenant, had respect primarily to the people's profession of adherence to it, and contained directions concerning the sacramental observances of the Jewish Church." That the Law of the Ten Words had a peculiar pre-eminence assigned to it we have already seen. It obtained such a position by the solemnity with which it was proclaimed by the lips of G-od ; by its own subject- matter ; possibly, too, by the symbolical character of the number of its commands, and by the fact" that its words were traced by God on stone, while the other parts were written by Moses on parchment. All these facts go to show — -what has been universally recognised in both the Jewish and the Christian Church — that the Decalogue occupies an altogether unique position.^ But, admitting this, does the law as given to Israel for a code of duty malce any distinction within itself ' Irena3us, Hair. iv. 15. 1 : " Nam Deus primo quidem per naturalia prsecepta quae ab initio infixa dedit laoininiljiis admonens eos, id est per decalogum, nihil plus ab eis ex- quisivit." Of. T. Aquinas, Summa Theologim, i. 2, qu. 100. THE LAW OJ? THE TEN WOEDS 97 between its various parts, to indicate that the one part had an inherent dignity and per- petuity above another ? To this question it seems impossible to give anything but a negative answer. In the Law itself there is no division of commands and enactments into permanent and transitory, into primary and secondary. They constitute one legal whole, and the obligation to obedience rests on one and the same principle, viz. regard for the authority of G-od.^ Some are moral, others ceremonial, others juristic. But within the Law, as given in the Pentateuch, no such formal division exists. The division has no doubt an old tradition to plead in its support ; and it has its use in making reference to different enactments more easy. Nevertheless, the Law as pro- mulgated by God is represented as one, and its every portion is to Israel authoritative. " The whole Law," says one of the most conservative of Biblical theologians, "in all its parts has the same form of absolute, unconditional command. Before the closing of the Covenant the people had still the choice whether they would bind themselves by the Law that was to be given ; but after they pledge themselves, all choice is taken away. Because of this strictly objective character of the Law, human judgment cannot be allowed to make distinctions between the individual ^ Schultz, Old Testament Theology, ii. 46. 7 98 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT precepts. Whether such distinctions are to be made can be decided only by the Law- giver, who certainly appoints a punishment more severe than for other transgressions to follow on certain moral abominations and on the transgression of sucb precepts as stand in immediate relation to the Covenant idea {e.g. circumcision, tbe Sabbath, etc.). But, so far as man is concerned, the most inconsiderable precepts fall to be viewed under the aspect of the obedience demanded for the whole Law : ' Cursed is he that fulfils not the words of this Law to do them' (Deut. xxvii. 26)."^ We shall afterwards see how, in the time of Ezra, this fact of the Law, having the form of an unconditional commandment, became a stumbling-block to Israel, and contributed with other influences to an external legalism, becoming the exclusive form of the later Rabbinical religion. Questions regarding the age of the De- calogue do not come within the scope of the'^ethics of the Old Testament. But all will admit that it is cast in an archaic mould ; and the negative form in which its commandments are addressed is in keeping with its primitive character.^ Li the in- 1 Oehler, op. cit. sec. 84. ' Otiley,op. cit. 172: "The Decalogue is especially significant in this connection : for in it we may confidently believe that we have an original monument of Mosaism. . . . Moreover, as is well known, there is a so-called second Decalogue con- tained in Ex. xxxiv. 10-28, which is one of the puzzles of THE DECALOGUE 99 fantile life of a nation, as in child life, the early part of its moral training must always consist of concrete precepts, expressed in a prohibitory form. In the first portion of a child's life it has to be kept from harm by continual prohibitions ; and the formation at that early stage of the habit of obedience to these simple prohibitory commands is essential to moral wellbeing. Thus it is thoroughly consistent with the youthful stage of the Beni-Israel, a horde of slaves newly enfran- chised and little better than children, that this fundamental code of moral and religious duty should be one, not of principles, but ol plain precepts. Children do not understand criticism. But we seem to be justified in adhering to the traditional view of the Decalogue chiefly on the ground that it is intrinsically credible. It is consistent with all that we know of Israel's subsequent history ; and it would be im- possible to explain satisfactorily the vitality and vigour dis- played in the conquest of Canaan without the supposition that the long observance of some primary laws of moral conduct had moulded the character of the nation and con- solidated its strength. On the other hand, it is scarcely conceivable that the prophets were the first ethical teachers of Israel. They never claim the position of pioneers in religion : they regard themselves as restorers of a moral and religious ideal which had been set before the people at the very outset of its history." Prof. Robertson, The Early Religion of Israel, p. 264, says : " Tbe more the pre-prophetic religion is depreciated, the more difficult will it be to account for its sudden rise to the level in which we find it in the earliest writing prophets." For a different view of a Higher Critic, see Budde, Seligion of Israel, pp. 3, 15, 59. Budde admits the spirituality of the idea of God in the Ten Words, and on that account denies their early historical origin. But he allows this view con- tradicts the uniform tradition of the Old Testament. 100 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT principles : they must at first receive simple, concrete directions as to what they shall do and not do. Truth must be accommodated to the measure of their mind ; and while they cannot comprehend the principles that lie at the basis of property, they understand the command, "Do not steal." The first stage of moral education will be full of restrictions. And the form of the Decalogue is in keeping with the stage of Israel's progress in morality. In what dialect the Decalogue was first written we can only conjecture. At the com- mencement of their wilderness journey the Hebrew tongue, as we know it, could not be supposed to exist. But Moses, who was skilled in all the learning of Egypt, must have been acquainted with the hieroglyphic style of writing. And the clay tablets of Tel-el- Amarna have shown us how very freely a literary correspondence between Egypt, Babylon, and Syria was carried on in the Babylonian script. These tablets, covered with cuneiform characters, are in all prob- ability as early as Moses' time, and they pre- suppose a wide acquaintance with the art of writing as well as the existence of scribes and of libraries.^ Two forms of the Decalogue are given, the first in Ex. xx. and the other in Deut. v. 6 S. 1 The discovery of these cuneiform tablets in 1881 has proved that in Moses' time the races of "Western Asia were as lond of literature as the Romans of the Augustan age. Of. Sayce, The Higher Criticism, chap. ii. FORMS OF THE DECALOGUE 101 The variations in the two passages are worthy of notice. In the former, the fourth com- mandment is enforced by a reference to God's resting at Creation from His work on the seventh day ; while, in the latter, the reference is to the deliverance of the people from Egypt. The other difference is in the order of the clauses of the tenth command- ment and in the verb that is used. In Deuteronomy the "wife" is put before the "house," and the change is marked by an- other verb : " Thou shalt not desire thy neighbour's wife, nor covet thy neighbour's house." These commandments are not numbered by Moses, and consequently different schemes of arrangement have been common. The most ancient of these is that found in Josephus and in the writings of Philo. It is accepted by the Greek Church and by the Reformed Churches, and is that most commonly known among English-speaking communities.^ In it ' Some puzzling critical problems emerge from a comparison of the Decalogue of Ex. xx. and Deut. v. The textual differ- ences are not few. For a comparison of them, see Driver's Literature of the O.T. p. 30, 3rd ed. On the Decalogue as a Mosaic utterance, consult A. B. Bruce, Christian Apoloqetics, p. 209; Prof. Orr, The Problem, of O.T. pp. 152-4, 1st ed. ; and Kautzsch in Hastings' Bid. of Bible, Extra Vol. p. 634. The DeuLeronomic form of the Ten Words is, as Delitzsch says, " finely rendered in the flow of hortatory oratory and not literally reproduced " (Delitzsch's Genesis, p. 30). Cf. also art. by Prof. W. P. Paterson in Hastings' Diet, of Bible, vol. i. p. 581. After all that has been said, the Decalogue has intrinsic credibility as a Mosaic utterance. 102 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT the preface is not made a commandment or part of one : but the first commandment simply forbids the worship of false deities, and the second prohibits the use of idols ; while all the prohibitions of covetousness are included under tlie last command. Among the Fathers this division is supported by Origen. The Jews, on grounds that do not appear to be very trustworthy, regard the first commandment as containing only Ex. XX. 2 : "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt." This they interpret as a command to believe in Jehovah as their God, because of His gracious deliverance of their forefathers from bondage. Then, to preserve the number ten, they include in one our first and second commandments ; and they justify this by regarding the prohibition of images as an extension of the idea of the unity of God. On the other hand, the Eoman and the Lutheran Churches reverse this order and include the first and second commandments in one ; while to preserve the number ten, they divide the last commandment into two, thus combining two separate and dividing two similar things. According to the narrative in Exodus, the commandments were written on two tables ; but we can only conjecture, since we are not told, what each table contained. The first is usually supposed to contain the laws respecting THE TABLES 0¥ THE LAW 103 our duty to Grod, and the second the laws re- specting our duty to man. Josephus divides the Decalogue into five commandments of piety {prcBcepta pietatis) and five of probity (prcecepta probitatis)} Philo makes a similar division, justifying the place of the fifth under the category of pietas, on the ground that parents are regarded as the representatives of God, and deserve honour as Spjava yevvTjaem.^ To look on parents as clothed with some portion of the authority over children which belongs to God, is a view thoroughly in keeping with all that Scripture teaches regarding them. The Koman Catholic Church refers three commandments to the first table and seven to the second ; while the Eeformed Church adopts another division, in which one table contains four and the other six commandments. The former of these arrangements has most in its favour, and the system of classification would then be: First Table 1. No other gods. 2. No image of God. 3. No dishonouring of God's name. 4. No desecration of God's day. 5. No dishonouring of God's representa- tives (parents). ' Josephus, Antiq. iii. 6. ' Philo, ii. 188. 104 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Second Table 1. No taking away of a neighbour's life. 2. No taking away of his wife — his home — his dearest good. 3. No taking away of his goods. 4. No taking away of his good name. 5. Nor even coveting of his good or his goods. ^ In these commands there is apparent a gradation or order, which we may express thus : I. Let Jehovah be reverenced and honoured in respect of — (a) His Person, (&) His Worship, (c) His Name, {d) His Day, (e) His representatives. n. Let the neighbour be protected in respect of— {a) his life, (b) his family, (c) his property, (c?) his character ; (e) and this in thought and intent as well as act. ^ Luthardt, op. cit. p. 47 ; Stade, Oesch. d. Volkes Israel, p. 510. THE TABLES OF THE LAW 105 So that the first table has reference to the worship of God, the second to the service of man.^ It will be perceived that this analysis shows a beautiful orderly progress. In the second table it advances inwardly, through deed and through word, to the very inmost motive ; while in the first table it proceeds outwardly, from the worship of the heart (second), to the reverent speech (third), and the reverent and respectful deed (fourth and fifth). Others, again, make the order proceed upon the Old Testament triology, and shape it thus : First Table— Heart, Mouth, Work. Second Table— Work, Word, Heart.^ The relation of these tables to one another has an important ethical significance. The duties which man owes to God take pre- cedence of those which he owes to his fellow- creatures. Therefore the Decalogue cannot be spoken of merely as a criminal code. It is much more than a system of jurisprudence. It is a code that rests on fundamental ethical principles, and seeks to root all morality in ^ Cf. Driver, Introduction to Literature of Old Testament, p. 37, for various reconstructions of the Ten Words. Those who wish to pursue this line of study should consult Budde, Religion of Israel, p. 33 ff. ; Wellhausen, History of Israel, pp. 432-8 ; Kuenen, Religion of Israel, p. 272 ff. ; Dillmann, Comm. pp. 184, 331. 2 Cf . " Dekalog " in Herzog's Real-Encyc. vol. iii. Note also in this connection, Ps. xxiv. 3, 4 ; art. " Decalogue " in Hastings' Did. of Bible, and Wellhausen's Gomm. p. 83. 106 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT the soil of piety. The Israelite who lived in due reverence and obedience towards God could not be without regard to the welfare of his kinsmen after the flesh. Faith in God makes possible faith in man. This is shown by our Lord's redaction of the Ten Words into the two pregnant commands, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first com- mandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hangeth the whole Law and the Prophets" (Revised Version). The Decalogue is prefaced by the words, " I am Jehovah, thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." These words contain both a doctrine for belief and a motive to obedience. That doctrine is the personality and the existence of God. Whether God is a person, or only a force devoid of all personality, is even still a subject of dispute in the schools of philosophy. Apart from such a revelation as this, the question can never be satisfactorily answered. We can hardly estimate the enormous gain that it was to Israel to have, in the very opening language of its legal code, the categorical affirmation of the personality of Jehovah. That Great Power, making for righteousness, PREFACE TO THE TEN WORDS 107 is no mere cosmic force, a historical trend, but is Jehovah, who with outstretched arms brought them salvation from bitter bondage and terrible death. He is more than even the God of their fathers, and His worship is far above ancestral worship. He has come into personal relations with them, has intervened in the course of their own history, and thus they both know His nature and His relations towards, themselves. Therefore the doctrine of God's character declared in this prologue has a high ethical value. It is so connected with their preceding history and with the subsequent commands of the Decalogue, that they cannot but feel that mercy and goodness lie at the basis of their statute law. The Giver of the Decalogue is One who rules all the forces of history for His people's good.^ It was most necessary, before the people of Israel were called upon in the first command- ^ That an ethical conception of Jehovah formed the starting-point of Israel's religion is most abundantly proved. Amid much critical divergence as to parts of the Haxateuoh, there is general agreement on this point. We do not claim for Mosaism any formal ethical system. It is enough to show that its ground-work lies in the doctrine of the Holiness of Israel's God. In this connection it is desirable to be acquainted with the group of chapters in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. containing what Klostermann in 1877 felicitously called Das Heilig-Keitsgesetz, " The Law of Holiness," a term ever since in use. In this whole section holiness, both ceremonial and moral, is a quality which must distinguish every one who worships Jehovah. Dr. Driver in Hastings' Did. of Bible, vol. iii. p. 69, discusses what he calls " the nucleus of the Law of Holiness." 108 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ment to worship, that they should know the Being to whom worship was to be rendered, and in what relation He stood to them. That is the meaning that lies beneath the declaration of the preface. We know our friends, not as metaphysical entities or abstract personalities, but by their kind deeds and comforting presence in our hours of sorrow and of pain. So Israel knew God ; and as yet they could hardly be said to know Him in any way but this. Jehovah, there- fore, does not begin by ordering them to humble themselves before His Majesty, or to bring sacrifices to His shrine, or to cleanse themselves from all pollutions and abomina- tions of Egypt. He opens His Law by reminding them that He is their Saviour, and by making an appeal to their generous nature to give Him obedience because of that loving relationship. Here the code of Hebrew ethics and the code of Christian ethics radically meet and touch each other. For it is from the same force of generous love to a Eedeemer who has first loved us that Jesus Christ looks for the power that shall be the mainspring of all Christian activity. The central and essential principle of the obedience required in both Old and New Testaments is one. CHAPTER VII First Table In discussing, under the Ethics of the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments, it is obvious that our concern is with their original meaning and purport. It is the task of others to translate them in terms of a Christian's duty, and show their practical bearing on the errors and offences that may have crept into the Church of to-day. Our aim will be to point out what the Decalogue meant for that people to whom it was origin- ally given, how it summed up their moral duty, and how each commandment embodied principles which had for them innumerable applications, and which still abide. Assuming that the ancient method of dividing these commandments, adopted by Josephus and Philo, is the correct one, and that the commandment prohibiting the use of idols should be separated from the first, which forbids the worship of other gods, we proceed to consider them seriatim. 109 110 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT The First Commandment The first commandment is, " Thou shalt have none other gods before Me." These words are a simple and distinct prohibition of the worship of any other deity but Jehovah. No rival gods shall usurp the place of the God who has been the Redeemer of Israel. With the man that bows to Baalpeor, or sacrifices to Chemosh, He will have nothing to do. He has sought only Israel's good; He commands nothing but what is for their moral well- being. He has set them free from a galling bondage, that they may have liberty to serve Him with a full surrender of their being ; and He can accept nothing less than the sole and undivided homage of their hearts. It is impossible to find monotheism ex- plicitly taught in the words of this command- ment. There can be little doubt that what the Israelites would gather from them would simply be that the worship of deities such as they knew in Egypt was forbidden to them. The words "before Me" are equivalent in meaning to " beside Me " (margin of Eevised Version), and explicitly prohibit sacrifice or honour being ofi"ered to any but Jehovah. But, upon the other hand, such worship, continued year after year, would be certain to ensure the ultimate reception of monotheism.^ ' Wellhausen in his History of Israel (p. 439 ff.) admits tlie universal character of the ethics of the Decalogue. But he CONVICTION OF ITS TRUTH GROWS 111 The prohibition of the public worship of any other deity among a rude people, and their practice of the public worship of one God, will soon result in their belief that He whom they alone worship is the true God. Besides, Israel had seen such exhibitions of Jehovah's power and such miraculous interventions of grace in their behalf, that any superstitious dread of other deities gradually vanished, and the confident conviction grew that Jehovah alone reigned in heaven and in earth. The overthrow of the Egyptians in the Eed Sea was virtually the disproof of the power of the deities which the chosen people had seen worshipped in Egypt. They had heard Jehovah's voice thundering from Horeb's peaks ; His own finger wrote down these Ten Words ; they knew their heavenly origin and divine sanction. And thus, through their ex- perience as a nation, the great spiritual truths of God's existence and oneness were rooted in their heart, before they came to be received as part of their creed. Their conviction of the truth of monotheism arose from their own history of God's loving dealings with them. Therefore to worship other gods would not only be to run counter to the teaching, as we have seen, of the introductory part of the cannot believe that the religion of Israel was of sucli an ethical character before Samuel's time, because he finds such acts as Jael's murder of Sisera and David's cruelty to prisoners of war commended. For a reply to this criticism, see Prof. Bruce's Afologeties, p. 214 ff. 112 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT Decalogue, but it would be treason against Him who had been their personal Eedeemer. It was in the great school of experience that the Israelites became such intense mono- theists. " We shall miss the keynote of the whole moral history of Israel if we fail to observe this constant reference to the historical fact with which the table of the Law begins." ^ It is in keeping also with this knowledge of God, and of His gracious relationship to His people, that in Lev. xix. the command- ments, embraced within what is known as " the Law of Holiness," are each connected with the assertion of this truth, " I am Jehovah your God." That chapter includes a number of miscellaneous laws, regulating ^the moral and religious life of the nation, and arranged in pentads, each of which closes with this doctrine like a refrain. It would seem, therefore, that the whole Law is to be received as based upon this precept, in which Israel is to regard Jehovah as their God, their only God and Eedeemer. Here, then, obedience is rested on faith in Jehovah, the one true God. Morality is based upon religion. Placed as they were among the idolatrous races of Western Asia, and but lately delivered from a land filled with the worship of a gross polytheism, Israel was to maintain a standing protest against the 1 Smyth, Old Testament Morality, p. 21. ITS MORAL POWER 113 universal tendency to worship many gods. We may deem it strange that such a command should have the position of pre-eminence in the Decalogue. But if we reflect upon the awe with which every unusual phenomenon of Nature was then regarded, and the custom among the Semite peoples, even when giving their own deity a supreme place, of permitting other deities to occupy a secondary position in their homage, we shall understand the seductive character of the practice against which this commandment binds Israel to take a stand. ^ The recognition of Jehovah as their God carried with it to Israel the plain duty of serving Him. This command lies at the root of all righteous conduct. When God is re- garded with idolatrous dread as a fetish, or with irreligious scepticism as a cosmic force, it will be found impossible to gain for the Moral Law a position of supremacy over the conscience. A system of ethics grounded on self-interest also rests on an insecure foundation. If the moral worth of life be reduced to terms of pleasure, the obligation to do justly and love mercy has been deprived of its binding power. Eeligious life is genuine only when it is moral; and moral life is healthy and strong only when it is rooted in religion. Obedience to the first commandment would secure in Israel the total exclusion of all the ^ Eiehm, Alt. Theologie, p. 83. 114 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT evils of polytheism. It would make the people shape their whole life according to the will of a righteous Governor. It would drive out the superstitious dread of nature powers, and render it impossible for them to run to magicians for help. Witchcraft, too, so common still in Africa and Asia, would cease ; for where God alone is revered, the fear of the evil eye is gone. And God would become the One Object of their worship and adoration, in whom their faith and devotion would centre. We shall afterwards see how, by the internal- ising of the Law in Deuteronomy and the prophetical teaching, the claims of this first commandment are brought home to the per- sonal life and conscience of the people, and it is shown how central is the position which this duty should occupy in a holy life.-^ The Second Commandment The first and second commandments, though forbidding offences as different in their char- acter as polytheism and idolatry, are not always in the popular mind kept apart. Yet when the language is examined, their differ- 1 Por this ethical relation of a holy god to, a holy and separated people, and for the meaning of the term, see Prof. A. B. Davidson, Theology of the O.T. pp. 144-150. It is re- markahle that never in the Levitical law or in Ezekiel is the term " righteous " applied to Jehovah. The people are righteous, but Jehovah is holy. Ezekiel uses all the terms of the ritual law as much as Jeremiah avoids them. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT 115 ence is easily perceived. The first command- ment forbids the worship of any god but One ; the second forbids the making of any image or symbol of that One God. The former pro- hibits the adoration of false deities, the latter prohibits the adoration of Jehovah by means of any form that would convey false impressions of Him.^ The first proclaims His unity, the second His spirituality. As a Spirit, Jehovah cannot have a visible representation ; and the worship offered at His shrine must be in accordance with His spiritual character. To represent Him by an image, whether in statuary or in painting, would be derogatory to His nature as a Spirit. Not that we believe this commandment condemns all products of the plastic art, as Philo maintained, but only such images as are meant to be aids or inducements to worship.^ To make a carved image of Him the object of religious reverence, is to transfer to senseless things the allegiance due to the Creator and Preserver of all ; it is to derogate from His honour, and to lower Jehovah to the level of the nature-gods of Moab and Ammon. No doubt the visible representation gives body and reality to the invisible deity ; no doubt men will persist in ^ Cf. The Speaker's Gommenta/ry, in loc. ; Ottley, op. cit. p. 217. ^ In the first temple, honoured of God, there were many exquisite carvings on the wall of trees and flowers, besides the Cherubim and the " Molten Sea " standing on pillars of oxen (1 Kings vi. 27-29). 116 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT forming some mental image of God, and will always speak, when they pray, to that. It might be deemed but a condescension to human infirmity to permit some such repre- sentation of the Creator as an aid to man's more easy apprehension of His presence in prayer. But the danger is too great ; and the help thus obtained is purchased, as experience soon showed to Israel, at too terrible a risk. Within a few hours of the giving of the Law from Sinai, the people were found heaping their jewels at Aaron's feet, and crying, " Up, make us a God which shall go before us ; for as for this Moses, we know not what has become of him." And the temptation had to be met by the fearful punishment that followed it. Nothing was too severe to counteract the craving of their hearts for a sensuous worship. Israel had but recently left a land of which the cultus exhibited an essentially grovelling tendency, and where the gods were worshipped under the debasing representation of the lower creation. Clement of Alexandria says that " the holy places of the Egyptian temples are overhung • with gilded tapestry ; but let the priests lift the corner of the gorgeous curtain, and there appears a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent. The god of the Egyptians appears : and it is a beast tumbling about on a carpet of purple." It would seem from the hieroglyphic records that the priests of Egypt had some Israel's sudden relapse 117 glimmerings of the doctrine of monotheism,^ if the interpretation of Egyptologists be correct ; but these glimmerings did not reach the mass of the people. We know that at Thebes the ram was worshipped, and the god Amon had a ram's head. In Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, it was a god represented with a goat's head and feet that received divine honours, and his shrine was the centre of the foulest orgies. At Memphis the sacred bull was the incarnation of divinity, suggesting to Aaron most probably the idea of the golden calf.^ Many of the religious festivals in honour of these idols were marked by debauchery and impure revels. It was not to be wondered at that Israel, emerging from immediate contact with such gross forms of idolatry, should carry with them a A^ery material conception of deity. It could not be that such an ignorant multitude would understand those subtle distinctions made by some devotees of art between the external symbol and the homage which is induced by it.^ It was not merely a thing of art that Aaron led Israel to worship. It was a symbol of nature's prolific power ; and its 1 On the worship of Amon in the time of Amenophis iv., see art. " Egypt " in Hastings' Diet, of Bible, vol. i., and Maspero's Etudes de Mythol. (1893), where the subject is fully treated. ^ Ebers, Durch Gosen, pp. 483, 528 ; Brugsch, Records of the Past, vol. ii. ; Herzog's Beal-Encyc, art. " Aegypten," by Lepsius (1st ed.). ^ Of. Prof. Milligan's Elijah, on Jeroboam's Institution of Idolatry. 118 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT very sensuousness was its attraction to the dancing promiscuous multitude. What is specifically forbidden in this com- mand is the adoration of images. This was the interpretation put upon the words by the Jews and by the early Christian Church up to the time when, under Constantine, heathen customs began to intrude into the Church. The sin is clearly not that of worshipping other deities (which is forbidden by the first commandment), but that of worshipping any visible image of the true God who is a Spirit. It is not said that the worshippers of Baal believed that Baal was the sun. Yet there is no doubt they did believe that some connection existed betwixt the idol and the central source of all natural life and light ; and by the law of association they came to pay to the image the homage they felt they owed to the power that rules the day. Hence it is that in the Old Testament the worship of images and of false gods is regarded as the same thing. For the image and the god get identi- fied, so that it becomes unmitigated idolatry. In addition to this, it is always found that no man can limit his conceptions of God the Spirit to an image, however lovely be the lines of the statuary, without dwarfing his thoughts of the Infinite One. It ties them down to that material model, and beyond it they will not expand. Whereas the dimmest' spiritual idea of God in a man's heart has the DANGER OF RITUALISM 119 power of an infinite expansiveness, and will grow with the advance of his mind and heart in spiritual experience. ■^ They were not to " make any image, nor bow down to it, nor serve it." This last word refers to carrying off'erings and incense to the altar of the idol, or the giving of money to maintain a priestly service at its shrine. Either act constituted idolatry, and was de- nounced and punished in Israel as an act of apostasy from Grod. The recourse to such methods renders men less willing, and also doubtless less fit, to receive spiritual revela- tions of God's character which come through His word or servants. Keligious fervour can be stimulated from beneath much more easily than from above. It is more akin to the weakness of human nature to lean upon the priest than to listen to the inspiring call of the prophet. The danger of all ritualistic excess is that it tends to exaggerate the need of itself Imagery ever leads to deterioration in worship. It is stepping on to an inclined plane which slopes down to all the grossness and sensuousness of a superstitious heathenism. The one certain result of it all is that the spiritual revelation of the unseen God to the heart and conscience becomes insipid and actually distasteful. I Of. Dean Chadwiok on Exodus, p. 296. He illustrates the point by a fine comparison between Gothic and Grecian architecture. 120 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT This commandment, in prohibiting idol worship, prohibited also human sacrifices to such idols. By this inhibition it lifted Israel immeasurably above their neighbours in a moral point of view. The idea of a holy and righteous God could not long hold possession of a people where human sacrifice was con- sidered agreeable to His will. The celebrated Eoman author, in his De rerum Natura, is an advocate of atheism and impiety, because he felt that in his day religion crushed out human life with inexorable cruelty. When man thought of God as a monster who could be satisfied with the off"erings of innocent babes, there was little in Him that a true Roman could admire. Euripides in his Iphigenia in Aulis tells how a father determined to sacrifice his daughter to appease those gods that kept the Greeks by contrary winds from reaching Troy. But the tragic poet felt that there was in this act such a transgression of justice that he affirms it woke up the utmost ire of the dread Furies to seek immediate vengeance. What debasing ideas must have associated in the mind of Agamemnon with his conception of God before he yielded to the demands of the Greek generals to immolate his daughter ! Yet the worship of the Phoenician religions, with which Israel came in contact, was fre- quently polluted by such sacrifices, in which men " offered the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul." And it would seem CHARGE OF ANTHROPOMORPHISM 121 from its later history that it required a long course of moral education to make God's people morally superior to this same degrad- ing superstition. We know how they fell back into the worship of Moloch, and how the prophets have repeatedly to denounce this offence. The reform of Josiah is marked by his " having defiled Tophet that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire " to this idol. But this second command- ment proved to them that Jehovah has no delight in human sacrifice at any shrine. He will have no child immolated at His altar. Abraham was tested in this respect ; and that object-lesson once for all taught his descend- ants that the Lord does not desire to see the father slay the child, but will Himself provide the lamb for the sacrifice.-^ This command- ment brings out the moral grandeur of the Old Testament conception of Jehovah. There is a reason attached to the command- ment. God declares "He is a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation ^ The idea that deity was quickly appeased by human sacrifice lingered for many a day in the human mind. It had in it an element of truth and noble feeling. Jehovah's treatment of Abraham was highly pedagogic, and part of the moral education of the Chosen race. The noble feeling that the worshipper should devote his very best to God was approved; while at the same time the' idea that God de- lighted in destroying human life was rejected. Of. Mozley, Muling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 255 ; Schultz, Old Testament Theology, vol. i. p. 191. 122 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them (or 'a thousand generations,' margin of Revised Version) that love Me and keep My Commandments." There are those who will say that to speak of God as moved with jealousy is to use language so anthropomorphic that His deity is practically sacrificed to His passion. There is no doubt that in the Old Testament the person of God is sometimes presented with a vividness and a sensuousness of imagination that appear to humanise the Deity. Breaches of His law arouse His " wrath " and " indignation." Lying lips are an " abomination " to Him. Besides, jealousy is a quality so universally disliked, so belittling to the man who is guilty of it, so ugly and ill-favoured, that to call a man jealous is to ruin his reputation for generosity and goodness. How then can the term be used of God without detraction ? And how can He use it of Himself ? Does it not reduce Him to the level of an Achilles ? or to that of one of the deities of the heathen Semites ? The answer will be best understood by considering the exciting cause. What God above all desires is His people's trust and love. He compares Himself to a husband, and says, " Israel, I am married unto thee." ^ Could a husband see a wife's aflfection alienated from him by some unworthy lover without experi- 1 Jer. iii. 14. Cf. Tsa. liv. 5, " Thy Maker is thy Husband " ; and Hos. ii. 2, 7. THE SECOND COMMANDMENT 123 encing the most acute agony, without feeling the most just indignation ? Would it not be wrong in him if he were not in such circum- stances jealous of another withdrawing her love ? We need not be afraid of transferring this word to God to illustrate the severe displeasure with which He regards idolatry. Jealousy, without due cause, is ungenerous and detestable ; and that is how we condemn it. But Jehovah's jealousy is not such. It is that same jealousy which rightly springs up in the bosom of every honest man whose love has been wronged. In Him there is nothing of sin mingling with the strong feeling of indignation at a love transferred to such an unworthy object as an idol. But the strong anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament, pulsing, as they do, with life and force, are more correct than " the pale, dead epithets of metaphysical theologians, who seem afraid to suggest that God is alive." ^ God is jealous of man's affection, just because He has loved him with an everlasting love. He will not permit an enemy to come between His people and Himself He cannot endure that their affections be given away to anything they would make an idol of. The ethical force of the commandment here becomes doubly strong. But the evil consequences of idolatry do not fall only on the offenders. They descend ^ Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 62. 124 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT to later generations, even to the third and fourth. They are not to be regarded merely as part of life's natural trials, for they are the reaping of a harvest of which the poisonous seed has been sown. They are inherent in the order of things, and are to be regarded therefore as ordained of God. In short, they are His judgments on the actual sins of transgressors. Sins of profligacy and intem- perance are so taken into the physical system that the principle of heredity works out in a natural way God's punishment, often in terrible disease, lifelong and defaming. And moral transgressions, violations of the laws of honour and truth, as surely poison the better springs of man's nature, and descend in weakened spiritual stamina and perverted moral sense. Can we suppose it would be otherwise with so degrading a sin as idolatry ? We have but to look at China and at Africa to see how this violation of God's law has injured these races socially and mentally as well as spiritually. But, on the whole, the balance of benefit is upon the side of the race, and the ' upward force of the law of heredity is stronger than its downward attraction. The transmission of good has outbalanced that of- evil, and the poorest beggar's child of to-day is the heir to a heritage, mental and spiritual, that lifts him high above his forefathers. For while God visits the iniquities of fathers " to four genera- tions," His mercy descends "to a thousand THE SECOND COMMANDMENT 125 generations^ of them that love Hina and keep His commandments" (margin Eevised Version). God's mercies are far wider and more lasting than His judgments. Good is more potent and persistent than evil. The children of righteous parents inherit the best of legacies. If honours and riches be not theirs, God's mercy is promised to them and to their children's children. Surely this should lead to a high moral endeavour, and to a lofty example of faithful righteous conduct. This commandment is one that reveals much of the heart of Jehovah. It is a proof that above all things else He yearns for the love and the confidence of His children. To many in Israel it may have been a matter of small concern whether or not their hearts were given to God. His claim on their allegiance and trust they might treat very lightly. This second commandment showed them that God publishes His law from no fear regarding His dignity, from no jealousy as to His honour. It is because He longs for Israel's communion, and because His love is pained most deeply by lack of responsive affection. Love must have love in return. Divine affection longs for human affection. The heart of the great Father is not at rest till it draws to itself the love of all His children. ^ Of. Deut. vii. 9 in support of this reading. The object is to contrast the long duration of mercy with the brief period of chastisement. 126 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT Tke Third Commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." This commandment has usually been sup- posed to be directed against the sin of profanity. But there is considerable doubt among scholars as to what is the true render- ing of the Hebrew words. There is an ambig- uity in the term "vain," so that the verse may be translated in two ways. " Thou shalt not use the name of God irreverently (vainly)," or " Thou shalt not use the name of God falsely," i.e. to a falsehood. Hence the commandment may be held to prohibit either an irreverent use of God's name, or a use of it for the purpose of propagating false- hood ; or it may be held as covering both oflfences, the sin of profanity and the crime of perjury. The Authorised Version follows the Septuagint (with which also the Vulgate agrees) in adopting the former. Several modern commentators are in favour of the latter, and quote our Lord's words in support of their contention : " Ye have heard that it hath been said by them (or ' to them ') of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto you, Swear not at all" (Matt. V. 33, 34). It is, however, very doubtful THE THIRD COMMANDMENT 127 whether our Lord is here quoting the words of the commandment, or is simply drawing a contrast between His own prohibition of unnecessary oaths and the forbidding of false oaths found elsewhere in the Pentateuch. There is one objection to the second render- ing of the commandment which may at first seem to have considerable weight. In dividing the Decalogue into two tables, we spoke of the first five as having to do with our duties to God, and of the second five as concerned with our obligations to man. Would not this later interpretation of the third commandment militate against the above division in so far as perjury is more a crime against our neighbour than a sin against G-od ? Besides, does not the ninth commandment cover the crime of perjury. But on due consideration of the character of that dire offence it will be seen that its awfulness consists in its being a fearful abnegation of the will and of the very existence of God. The man that can solemnly swear by God's name to an untruth practically denies the existence of the God of truth ; while, on the other hand, there is a wide difference between perjury and the detraction or simple falsehood that is con- demned in the ninth commandment. Even if the latter commandment be held to cover the bearing of false witness in a court of justice no less than slander, still the third commandment looks at the sin in the light of 128 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT an offence against God, while the other regards it in its manward aspect. It seems right for the expositor of Scripture to regard the command as one that has both a general and a specific application ; as a general prohibition of all blasphemy, and as forbidding in particular the offence of perjury. Under the Mosaic Law both these offences were visited with capital punishment, since they alike insulted the character of Jehovah and disrupted the bonds that held society together in Israel. Both sins are found to cut the roots of that mutual confidence and religious obligation without which there is no proper security for the administration of justice, and no stable foundation for the authority of government.-^ This commandment was given at a time not long subsequent to the proclamation of the name of Jehovah. That name, as we have shown, conveyed to Israel the true conception of the personality and eternity of God. It joined together the past and the future of the nation's history ; for He that was the God of Abraham would also be the Guide of the chosen people till He had accom- plished His great purpose of salvation through them. This name was given on Sinai amid such awe-inspiring circumstances that it is not to be wondered at that associations of a dreadful 1 Smyth, Christian Ethics, p. 400. SAFEGUARDS AGAINST PROFANITY 129 kind gathered round it. It was very rarely- used by the Israelites. According to an ancient tradition it was uttered but once a year, and that only by the high priest on the occasion of the great Day of Atonement. This may be an apocryphal story ; but it is certain that, induced by a superstitious awe, the Jewish readers of the Torah never pronounced the word, but substituted for it another of the names of God which had less august associations investing it. Even still in our Hebrew Bibles the vowels of the word Jehovah are not written, but those of Adonai are attached to it.^ But true reverence for the name of God cannot thus be shown. Such miserable trifling with a word might keep the letter, yet break the spirit of the command ; and it partakes more of the art of necromancy than of the reverence of faith. Possibly it induced a certain kind of fear in the minds of the Israelites to know that the dreaded name was to be pronounced by the priest upon the great day. But such a feeling is not the reverence of that love and fear which Jehovah desires. His name is equivalent to Himself, and in- ^ Among Hebrews the name expressed the nature of the person. The name of God expressed therefore His revealed character. "How excellent is Thy name in all the earth" just means " How good is God's revelation of Himself throughout the world." The use of this name seems to imply two things : (1) that Jehovah is God alone ; (2) that His aim is to reveal Himself to all mankind as Israel's God, Jehovah. 130 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT eludes all by which He reveals Himself.^ The command, therefore, forbids all indecorous conduct in those solemn acts of worship in which God promises to be specially present with His people ; all acts of sacrilege ; the irreverent use of God's names and attributes ; the colloquial employment, without due cause, of God's name in conversation, by way of adjuration or of strengthening a statement, or giving force to an asseveration. For all such acts of irreverence spring from a spirit of unbelief in a holy God, in whom we live and move and on whom we daily depend. Faith in God ever produces a reverential fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom ; and when this fear is absent true faith is not there. The surest method of escaping profanity is to labour to attain a true and lofty conception of God's character, and to live in unbroken communion with Him. He that has learned the habit of "praying without ceasing" has learned the secret of a holy life. He will not use God's name profanely ; yet it may often be upon his lips, since what is in the heart 'Jehovah is the personal name of the God of Israel. El Shaddai is the Almighiy God, and does not necessarily imply monotheism, as one Most High might exist among minor gods. But it is not easy to get at the first conceptions of God among tribes. And naturally the different names for God used by different tribes were considered as separate deities, when all these names in reality expressed the same idea. El signifies Strong One ; Bel or Baal, owner ; Adonis, lord ; Moloch, King; Bimmon, thunderer, Cf. Riehni, Alt. Theologie, p. 47. THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT 131 will find vent in the speech. Between such sincere language of the heart and the fluent talk of the shallow religionist there is a difier- ence of whole diameters. When the heart is filled with God's love the mouth will reverently show forth His praise. Of such genuinely pious souls the prophet speaks : " Then they that feared the Lord spake often one with another ; and the Lord hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day wherein I do make a peculiar treasure " ^ (Mai. iii. 16, 1^, R.V.). The Fourth Commandment "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates : for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day : wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." ^ Or, as Calvin translates it, more in accordance witli the Hebrew idiom, "they shall be My peculiar treasure in the day in which I will do it." 132 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT The annexe to this commandment carries us at once back to the order of creation. It bids God's people commemorate that order and keep the seventh day a holy day, because in it the Creator rested after the six days of creative activity. That in some sense the Sabbath was then instituted seems clear from what is said in the opening chapters of Genesis. It is true that we do not find any mention of the Sabbath as being kept by Abraham or Jacob ; but it would be unsafe to draw any large inference from such omission. There is no doubt that the institution was, if not unknown to the Egyptians, at least not observed among them during Israel's captivity in Goshen. There these slaves had toiled for centuries without knowing that sweet remis- sion of hard labour which the day of rest brings to tired body and jaded mind. If the day was known to them, then it is certain the observance of it had during their bondage fallen into desuetude. Yet the commandment speaks of it as of something which had been in existence. If the word " remember " is to be construed as a simple injunction not to forget to keep this day, one would have expected that the day should first have been constituted holy, and that the injunction to " remember" would have followed upon its institution. But when the commandment opens with the words, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," TWOFOLD CHARACTER OF THE COMMAND 133 it seems to us a perversion of the evident sense of the words to say that they were to remember that which they had previously never heard of as existing.^ It is, of course, possible that the word may have been designed to carry their minds back to what took place in Ex. xvi., when God seized the occasion of the gift of manna to mark, in the most emphatic manner, His approval of their keeping the seventh day as a day of perfect rest. But the words there employed again convey to the mind that it was rather a re-institution of the day that took place, and that at the beginning of this journey to Canaan they were thus encouraged to return to a faithful observance of what had been a custom of the patriarchs.^ Those who argue that the Sabbath was for the first time instituted in the Decalogue for- get that nothing seems to be there instituted for the first time. It is not necessary that legislation should be origination. In early and rude times it never is so. The name of God had been used and abused before the third commandment made the irreverent or fiilse use of it a crime. Worship was certainly as old as Adam's age ; and the second com- mandment seeks to regulate only what was in 1 Cf. Meinhold, Jesm und das A.T. p. 71. The history of Creation in Gen. i. is clearly written for the purpose of lead- ing up to the institution of the Sabbath as a rest-day. In this the great event of Creation issues. ^ For the evidence of the cuneiform tablets as to the Sabbath in Assyria, se& Records of the Fast, vol. iii. p. 143, 134 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT existence. A man's gear and a man's good name were valued and protected long before the eighth and ninth commandments were written down. And there is every probability that the Sabbath existed before it was enacted at Sinai. The Decalogue did not create the day. It simply said, " This day, already kept by your fathers, shall be kept holy unto the Lord, and no kind of work shall be done therein. It shall be observed in such manner as God rested after the work of Creation." In the Book of Deuteronomy the reason assigned for the keeping of the day is different from that which is given in Exodus.^ There the reference to work is absent, and the command is connected with the gracious deliverance of Israel from Egypt's bondage. This would create a sentiment of gratitude for their freedom and quiet after a period of servile toil. Both reasons would connect the Sabbath in their mind with the thought of restfulness, and make it prefigure the eternal rest and happiness of heaven. This law is a twofold one, commanding labour as well as enjoining rest. " Six days shalt thou labour " is regarded by some as a prohibition of more than six days' toil rather 1 The Sabbath expressed the thought that all our time as well as other things is God's. So that the householder granted his slaves this rest, not from our modern motive that they too might worsliip, but as part of his own dedi- cation of the day to Jehovah. Hence the Deuteronomic reference to the deliverance from Egypt. THE DAY OF REST 135 than an injunction. But it seems to us that this first part is no less imperative than the second. They who spend the week in idleness cannot know, as the worker does, the restful calm of the Sabbath day. Work is the law of God for mankind. But because the love of gain and the stress of many necessities are continually making inexorable demands that drive men into overwork, till the body be- comes a mere machine ; and in order that the back may not be broken nor the body de- formed with exhaustive toil, that the hours may not be wholly given up to the service of mammon, but some portion of them may be reserved for the needs of the spirit and for the claims of God, therefore it is enacted that the seventh day shall be a day of rest. The Lord makes the Sabbath a perpetual witness that, though inevitable hardships may be the lot of the labourer, yet it is not His pleasure that all our time should be consumed in ex- haustive toil. The day was instituted for this highly beneficent end. This law of rest was to extend to the whole family ; and indolent or cruel parents were strictly prohibited from exacting work from their sons and daughters on the Sabbath. The domestic servants or slaves were also to enjoy a period of respite from toil. So were the cattle, about whose welfare the Old Testament Law was extremely careful.'^ No ^ Cf. Ddllinger, Jew and Gentile, vol. ii. p. 346. 136 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT other religion of that time contained any such merciful provision for the beasts of burden. But though the primary purpose of this law was to ens are bodily rest, it is no less certain that it was intended that this period of quiet repose should contribute to a higher religious end. Man is a complex being, and his spirit needs rest as well as his body. The day was therefore one for mental and moral improve- ment ; it was not given for the purpose only of being spent in ignoble sloth and physical inaction ; the dedication of one day out of seven to rest was naturally followed by the institution of religious services, in which all the people were free to join. The separation of the day as a holy day soon came to be con- joined with the institution of public worship. For the conditions of man's life require that he should not only have time to rest, but also time to pray and meditate on higher things. And the nightly rest is not safficient for this duty, since it is needed to refresh the exhausted system and to give it back tone and vigour. There is need of a weekly day of rest to recuperate the jaded spirit, and lift up the soul above the worry and drudgery imposed by the conditions of a life of toil. But for the institution of the Sabbath and its rigid en- forcement in those times subsequent to Moses' day, the worship of Jehovah might have perished out of the land. The synagogues, with their weekly instruction and reading of THE COMMAND BINDING ON ALL AGES 137 the Torah, were not then built. And the worship of God might have ceased altogether in Israel but for the strict observance of this day. The Sabbath, therefore, was a bulwark of piety and a protest against all worldliness and secularism. That such a bulwark was not unnecessary, we learn from many pages of the Prophets. There were employers of labour in those times who, if they had been permitted, would have wrung seven days' work instead of six out of their poor bondsmen. They would " have bought the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes." ^ And others were so given over to the greed of gain, that in their im- patience to increase their store of wealth they asked, " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell our corn ? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ? " ^ Had not the day been enforced by the strictest sanctions, it is clear that such men would soon have combined to procure its abrogation. And how do these spiritual prophets speak of the day ? Hating ceremonialism as they did, when it was divorced from the religion of the ^ Amos viii. 6. ^ Amos viii. 5. The new moon was to be a feast day, Num. X. 10. Good Nehemiah pledged the returned exiles not " to bring ware or any victuals to sell on the Sabbath day," nor buy anything on any holy day from the people of the land, Neh. x. 31. Both the feast of the new moon and the institution of the Sabbath day were probably features in the ancient Semitic religion. Cf. Maine, Early Institu- tions; and Maine's Ancient Law, chap. v. 138 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT spirit, they reckon the keeping of the Sabbath as the mark of a spiritual man, and they tax the resources of language in enumerating the blessings that shall be his who honours it. " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day ; and call the 'Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord honourable ; and shalt honour it, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will make thee ride upon the high places of the earth ; and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father" (Isa. Iviii. 13, 14). It seems perfectly clear from the language used by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, as well as the other prophets, that they stood forth in defence of the day, not merely as a ceremonial institution and a day of physical rest, but because the rest was for man's spirit also, and because if the holiday was not also made a holy day, the spiritual rest which should be found in it would be awanting. The rest-day is profaned when no rest comes to mind and soul, as well as to wearied body. It is here that we come to understand how a formal precept, merely prescribing a certain proportion of time between rest and labour, comes to occupy a position in the heart of an ethical and religious code. It seems at first so far below the sublime principles that lie behind the other nine commandments, that THE SABBATH AN HOLY FESTIVAL 139 many, and among these some of the foremost Eeformers of the Protestant Church, have affirmed that the Sabbath belongs to the Mosaic economy, and that it passed away with the ceremonial ritual of Judaism. It is said that it is an institution promulgated for a temporary purpose, a mere arbitrary rule for Israel, and not an ethical law binding on all men. Were this the fact, the position of the com- mandment in the Decalogue would seem utterly inexplicable. The presence of such an arbitrary rule would be felt to be out of place in that grand code of moral duty. But the very fact of its being put immediately after three commands that deal with duties valid for all men in all ages, might assure us that the Eeformers who drew up the Augs- burg Confession were mistaken in affirming that " Scripture hath abolished the Sabbath." It has been well said that " the position of the commandment amid a number of moral and universal duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, not blaspheming. Some- thing more was already intimated in Cod's promise of mercy to them "that love Me." For love is chiefly the source of active obedi- ence. While fear is satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain from evil but to do good. . . . Do we say, 140 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT the spirit lias abolished the letter ; love is the rescinding of the Law ? St. Paul said the very opposite : love is the fulfilling of the Law, not its destruction. And thus he re- echoed the words of Jesus, " I am not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfil." ^ It may be said that the Jewish Sabbath was primarily and emphatically a day of rest, but that the Lord's day is a day of holy activity. But the physiological laws of our being have not changed with the change of economies. And it is a fact that where men or nations have despised the law of the Sabbath, they have invariably suffered in physical deteriora- tion. Even Christian people may, in the excess of their zeal for Grod, still break the day of rest. And if the good work done by them on that day is so exhaustive as to deprive the day of its essential character, it is a question whether they are not doing harm for the sake of accomplishing good. God is best honoured when we use the day as He meant it to be used. The banishment of the cares and worries of business, and the turning of the mind away from the secularities of the world to the holy thoughts, meditation, prayer, and worship which befit the day, are in them- selves a means of rest. We shall do most effective work for God when we so use the day as to conjoin the maximum of physical rest with the maximum of holy thought and 1 Dean Chadwiok, The Book of Exodus, p. 307. THE SABBATH AN HOLY FESTIVAL 141 Christian fellowship. The day was made to be the festival day of God's children : " This is the day the Lord hath made, we will be glad and rejoice in it." If we turn it into a day of pure inaction or of Puritanic gloom, we mistake the true principle of Sabbath- keeping, and impose a yoke where we ought to speak of a rich heritage.^ By what authority has the change from the ■seventh day to the first day of the week been made ? Our Lord Himself gave no command about this matter. Neither did the apostles, singly or in council. It seems to have been introduced by the universal consent of the early Christian Church. In the Epistles of St. Paul we have a reference made to the dis- continuance of the Jewish Sabbath, and the practice of keeping it would very probably die quite a natural death, as the Christians ceased to attend the temple service. There is no doubt, however, that on this point there was not at first consentient practice. But slowly, as was the case with the growth of the Canon of the New Testament, the Chris- tian Church ceased to make the seventh day a day of rest, and introduced instead thereof ' The Sabbath after the Exile was exalted to a higher position as a token of membership in the holy nation, and was more rigorously observed. Death became the punishment of any slight infringement. It was no longer a social, but became wholly a religious institution. Israel was then no longer a State, but a religious community ; and the representa- tive of its holiness was no longer a King, but a High Priest. 142 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT the observance of the first day of the week. Naturally that day, the memorial day of Christ's resurrection and of the descent of the Holy Ghost, became the day on which those early Christians met for communion and worship.'- They then celebrated the Lord's Supper, and instruction was given from some Gospel or Epistle. As the Church grew in numbers and zeal, they sought to increase their means of fellowship ; and in the weekly rest-day of the Old Testament they had a divine authority for fixing this proportion of rest to labour. " In the history of the Jewish Sabbath the rest came first and the worship followed ; in the history of the Christian Sunday the worship came first and the rest followed." And in establishing this first day of the week as the day of rest and worship, there is no doubt the early Church was guided by a true spiritual instinct, just as much as she was in determining the books that now compose the New Testament Canon. The Fifth Commandment " Honour thy father and thy mother : that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." 1 The obligation of the Old Testament command is not lessened but increased. This follows from the fact that re- demption through Christ is infinitely more glorious than the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt. Hengstenberg, Ueber den Tag des Herrn, p. 92. THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT 143 This commandment we include in the first table, following the classification of Josephus and Philo. This is done, as has been pre- viously said, on the ground that parents are to be regarded as representatives of God, and the respect due to Him must first of all be paid by children to their fathers and mothers. And thus it forms a link of connection between the two tables, uniting our religious and our social life. This is the only commandment that is expressed in a positive form. "Thou shalt not " here gives place to the positive precept, "Honour thy father and thy mother." It is also the only commandment to which a promise is annexed; and it is one to which every Jew attached special importance. The obligation to filial obedience and reverence is one so universally acknowledged that it is clear the parental relationship has its ultimate basis in the nature of God. Parental authority cannot be destroyed without injuring the roots of our religious life, as well as endangering the stability of the State. Among the Israelites this commandment was held to lie at the foundation of all true piety. They recognised the fact that the fear of God could not exist in the heart of the young without a certain temper of obedience ; and that God has so ordained it, that men should cultivate this disposition — first, as 144 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT children under parents, then as servants under masters, and then as subjects under State control. They perceived very clearly that the training of the young in filial duty and parental respect was the best guarantee of social order. It is worthy of note that the command includes the honouring of the mother as well as of the father. In this respect the Law was far in advance of the morality of the time. Among the nations contemporary with Israel, as we can learn from the Bible itself, women were habitually regarded as occupying a position very inferior to the other sex ; whereas, in Israel, the highest regard was always manifested for the wife and the mother. This is seen in the history of the patriarchs, where the mother has the greatest respect shown to her. The beautiful pastoral story of Euth exhibits traits of fine ethical feeling and deep regard for woman. And, in the Book of Proverbs, the picture of the virtuous woman presented in chap, xxxi., drawn in the richest colours by King Lemuel, is said to be " the oracle which his mother taught him." In Israel the family had a position which it does not occupy in modern times. Not the individual, but the household, was regarded as the unit in Old Testament legislation. As a man was honoured or disgraced, so was his family. The dreadful calamity with which EXTENT OF THIS COMMANDMENT 145 God visited Korah, Dathan, and Abiram consumed their wives and their little ones as well as themselves. The modern conception of individualism, so strongly embodied and embedded in our legislation, had not then become a ruhng idea. Indeed, the modern assertion of the liberty and rights of children would not have been understood amongst the Hebrews. All government in the household was centred in the parent. He had even the powers of life and death in his hand. He was of necessity in early times patriarch, priest, and magistrate in one. Many of these patriarchal prerogatives still obtained in the period of the Exodus, and until the settlement of the tribes in Canaan, when the nomadic life gave place to more stable conditions. This explains the apparently severe law found in Exodus, " He that smiteth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death " (Ex. xxi. 15).^ The same penalty was attached to the cursing of father or mother. During that transition time it was necessary for good order and government that such extreme powers should rest in the hands of the parent. It is a part of the circumstantial evidence in favour of the antiquity of the Decalogue, that it does not enjoin obedience to magistrates, but only speaks of the law of subordination 1 Of. Deut. xxvii. 16 ; iRrov. xx. 20. A father's benediction was coveted as a valuable Messing, and his curse was dreaded as a terrible evil ; Gen. xxvii. 4, xlix. 2. 146 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT to parental authority. The bonds of social order could not have held together had the authority of the parent been weakened. It was through the father that all those traditions came down, that were for a long time the social and religious literature of Israel. He was teacher, preacher, and governor in the family ; and. if he should forget his duty in this respect, the education of the children in divine truth would be seriously neglected. His authority, therefore, had at all costs to be maintained. One may see in this consideration a good reason for attaching to the commandment the special promise of prolonged life in the land of their inheritance. The promise attached to this precept is not personal but national. It must be construed as addressed to the nation in its collective capacity. Filial obedience would tend to make Israel's days " long upon the land," just because that virtue tends to strengthen the whole structure of society and to secure civil order. ^ Where the love of home is strong, men will eagerly shed their blood for their fathers' hearths. The fires of patriotism are 1 " On the individualistic principle, since the hurden of rearing and training children should be, as far as possible, thrown on the parents, it seems desirable that the parents' discretion in the training of the child should be left as unfettered as possible, and that Government should only intervene in a purely coercive way when the child's interests are manifestly being sacrificed." H. Sidgwick, Elements of Politics, p. 140. BLESSING ATTACHED TO OBEDIENCE 147 always kindled at the family altar. It would be difficult for a foreign foe to take its land from a people whose homes are centres of happy family life, and where parents possess the esteem and the love of their offspring. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul gives the promise in a modified form, " that it may be well with thee, that thou mayest live long on the earth" (Eph. vi. 3). This in- dividualising of the promise is quite in agree- ment with the purpose of his Epistle. It is stated by him as being consistent with God's providence that an obedient child shall have long life. As a general rule, regard for parents, the desire for their commendation, and loving attention to their wants, are associated with a kindly disposition and an honest heart ; and such a character naturally draws to itself the respect of society, and leads to a beautiful and an honoured old age ; whereas the social instincts of man and the moral order of the universe are against the man " who mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother." CHAPTER VIII The Second Table The Sixth Commandment " Thou shalt not kill." The second table, at the head of which this commandment stands, deals with our duties to our fellow-creatures, and gives to social ethics the sanction of religion. The first table concerns itself with the existence, the worship, the name, the day, and the repre- sentatives of God. Duty to God comes first, for religion must lie at the root of morality. This second table concerns itself with our neighbour, and forbids injury to his life, his family, his property, his reputation, and that even by a covetous thought no less than by an overt act. The most valuable possession which a man owns is his life, and the most appalling crime is the taking of it away. At the head of the second table, therefore, stands the com- mandment that guards the sanctity of God's best gift, and makes murder the greatest THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT 149 crime that man can perpetrate against his fellow/ The fundamental principle of this law rests upon the inherent nature of man as made in the image of God. That image stamped on man at creation is defaced and destroyed by the murderer. The Almighty is injured in the person of His creature. The life which He gave for worthy ends is suddenly cut short by violence, and God's plan is thwarted by man's perversity. It is an act of rebellion against the divine government of the world.^ It is no less an act of indignity against our fellow-men. God has " made of one blood all nations to dwell on the face of the earth," and taught men their oneness in a community of nature and of need. That being so, love and esteem are moral duties towards brethren. Hatred, which is the passion that incites to murder, is the breaking of the bonds of brotherhood. Love alone unites. The malici- ous intent that precedes the taking of life con- stitutes the one offence that must be visited with the severest penalty that the law can inflict. 1 In the Mosaic Code, singularly, no mention is made of infanticide, as if tlie crime were unknown. Yet among the Egyptians it was not uncommon, and the parent was adjudged to embrace the little corpse for three days. Of. Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt, ii. 209. 2 So very sacred was human life that the owner of an ox, known to be vicious and that gored a man, was held guilty of a capital crime, Ex. xxi. 29. The right of pronouncing whether such a death was but homicide lay with the elders, Deut. xix. 12. 150 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT The murderer in Israel was adjudged worthy of death. Only if it could be proved that intent and malice were absent might the capital punishment be converted into a penalty of less degree. But in the Book of Genesis it is explicitly stated, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." It is clear, therefore, that the general prohibition of the commandment cannot be held as excluding the infliction of the last penalty of the law. For besides the enunciation of that general principle in Genesis, the same injunction is frequently repeated in the legislation of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. A man who has committed the crime of murder has therefore forfeited his right to live. No less was it held that self-defence might justify an Israelite in killing the man who attacked him with murderous intent. And when such defence of self required the defence of one's own hearth and household against a public enemy, the exception was extended to the case of war. At the same time, the law which prohibits murder no less condemns every unjust war of revenge or aggression. That bloodshed alone is justifiable which is in defence of a nation's existence and liberties. The despotism that is built up in blood stands upon a very unstable foundation. And it must not be forgotten that the attempt to extend the kingdom of God by THE LAW OF THE GOEL 151 the sword frustrates the very end of that kingdom and ensures the condemnation of Christ, " All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." In the Mosaic legislation the punishment of death was much more widely inflicted than it is in modern times. Capital punishment was the penalty not only for murder, but for manstealing, adultery, witchcraft, idolatry, and such crimes as were contrary to nature.^ In respect of such offences, justice was administered with the strictest impartiality and with unrelenting severity. But, in the event of accidental death, a merciful provision of a very peculiar kind was made by Moses. This is known as the law of the Goel} It is clearly an adaptation of a previously existing custom which Moses already found in existence and was content to modify. Among primitive nations it had probably long been the custom for their nearest male relation to avenge the death of a murdered man. In that primitive state of society there were no public prosecutors charged with this duty ; and crime might have stalked abroad through the whole land if kinsmen had not taken it upon themselves to punish it. Moses pru- 1 Lev. XX. ; Deut. xiii. ^ Etymologically the word means "claimant," vindex, or the one who resumes a claim that may have lapsed. In Jer. xxxii. the goel has the right of pre-emption of the landed property before exposure to public sale. In the Book of Euth goel is rendered " kinsman." 152 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT dently did not abolish this custom, but he so fenced it round with restrictions as to make it satisfy the rough instinct of justice that pos- sessed the people. He appointed six cities of refuge, three on the east side of Jordan and three on the west, " that the manslayer might flee thither which should kill his neighbour unawares and hated him not in times past ; and that fleeing into one of these cities he might live" (Num. xxxv. Sflf.). These cities, however, were to give no protection to the murderer who smote his neighbour with malice, but only to such as could urge the plea of accidental homicide. "If he was not an enemy nor sought his harm, then the con- gregation should judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood." For the crime of murder no redress by compensation can under any circumstances be accepted. According to the Mosaic Law the land would thereby be held guilty of conniving at the crime. Nothing but the shed blood of the murderer can take away the pollution.^ On the other hand, the death of the high priest would seem to have made satisfaction for every accidental death happening during his lifetime. To modern minds this law of the Goel seems very primitive, and far behind the more impartial forms under which justice in these ^ Num. XXXV. llff. The vengeance of the Goel must not extend beyond the manslayer to his relatives (Deut. xxiv. 16). MURDER ACCOUNTED SACRILEGE 153 days prosecutes with slow but sure footsteps her victims. But the law was in accordance with the ideas of the age ; ^ and there is little doubt that our slower methods would not have satisfied the sense of justice that then pre- vailed. The Mosaic legislation wisely accepted what was the best possible criminal law for the time, and adapted it to existing circum- stances. The penalties which we frequently substitute for capital punishment would have seemed to the Israelites, accustomed to the operation of the jus talionis, to err by clemency ; they would have appeared a mis- carriage of justice, and would have operated injuriously on the moral sense of the nation. The Mosaic Code allowed no money fine to be substituted ; it did not even permit the altar to be a sanctuary for the murderer. There is no doubt, therefore, that the law of the Goel was the best that could be adopted at that stage of the nation's moral progress. That the injury to human life was regarded not only in the light of a crime, but also from the ethical and religious side, is proved by the singular ceremonial enacted when a man was found slain without the murderer being dis- covered. The crime was counted a defilement of God's holy land, and only a religious cere- mony could cleanse the soil polluted with the 1 The custom of blood revenge is world-wide. It is well known in Central Africa, and among Arabs. Cf. Dr. Kennedy's art. on Goel in Hastings' Bid. of Bible, vol. ii., and Prof. Robertson Smith's Beligion of the Semites, p. 33. 154 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT stain of human blood. The elders of the city found to be nearest to the scene of the tragedy had to bring a young heifer that had not known the yoke into a valley, " neither eared nor sown," and there break its neck. Then the elders and next of kin were to wash their hands over the animal, and, affirming their innocence, were to say : " Be merciful, Lord, unto Thy people Israel, whom Thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto Thy people of Israel's charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the guilt of the innocent from among you." Whatever may have been signified by the " valley neither eared nor sown," the act of washing the hands by the elders of the people clearly meant that they repudiated the crime and denied all participation in the guilt of it. There seems to have been nothing in the ceremony of the nature of a sacrifice or sin-offering. The priests who are present act only as witnesses to accredit what is done by the elders. Probably the transaction was in- tended to impress the divine command given to Noah, " Surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I require : at the hand of every beast will T require it, and at the hand of man will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed " (Gen. ix. 5, 6). The Eabbinists affirm, how- ever, that notwithstanding this ceremonial cleansing, the murderer, if apprehended, would MURDER ACCOUNTED SACRILEGE 155 suffer capital punishment, according to the terms of the Law/ The primitive character of the Decalogue is shown in nothing more clearly than in the fact that under each prohibitive command- ment it specifies only the highest form of each crime. No other kind of assault on the person is here mentioned but that which de- prives of life. In Leviticus and Deuteronomy other degrees of violence are condemned, and to each specific punishment is adjudged ; ^ while in the New Testament that defect of brotherly love which is found in many a respectable member of society, the evil malice, the bitter spite, the secret thought of revenge, are all spoken of as breaches of this sixth commandment. According to Christ, they contain the essential germ of murder. " Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment ; but I ^ Cf. Holy Bible, witli Commentary by Bishops, etc., on Deut. xxi. ; see also Sohultz, o^). cit. vol. ii. p. 50. " The punishments varied greatly. Stoning was the formal ordinary method for idolatry and adultery and blas- phemy, and the chief witness cast the first stone. Spears and darts were used at Sinai on trespassers on the holy Mount (Ex. xix.). The sword was used by the Levites against the worshippers of the golden calf, by Samuel himself on Agag, and by Elijah on the priests of Baal. Cutting asunder was in use, Matt. xxiv. 51 (8i;(07-o/x6rj/). Hanging was common, Deut. xxi. 23 ; but in this case the body must be buried the same evening. Impaling and gibbeting were also practised then. Cf. Herodotus, iii. 159 ; Layard, Nineveh and Bah. 295 n. ; Saalschutz, das Mosaische Eecht on Punishments. 156 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment." It did not escape the keen mind of John, the apostle of love, that unless the first resentful motions within our heart are sternly re- pressed, they will ultimately issue in the direful deed of blood. For " whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in hira." ^ Only a love like God's can enable a man per- fectly to keep this commandment. The Seventh Commandment " Thou shalt not commit adultery." After the law that makes life safe comes the law that protects the sanctity of the home. The sixth prohibits injury to the life of the individual ; the seventh prohibits injury to the life of the family. Throughout the Mosaic legislation the mar- riage relationship is mainly regarded from the standpoint of property.^ A man's wife is, next to his own life, his most valued possession. Nothing can be more dear to him than the peace and happiness of his home. The law ^ 1 John iii. 15. ^ It is so regarded in the parable of Nathan, 2 Sam. xii. See Schultz, oj9. cit. vol. ii. p. 51, note at foot ; and Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, 1887, vol. i. 371. The subject of Eastern Marriages is discussed with much learning in W. Robertson Smith's Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (Cambridge, 1895) ; also from a legal point of view in Jewish Law of Divorce ace. to the Bible and Talmud (London, 1897). THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT 157 that protects bhe sanctity of marriage protects the most precious of his earthly goods. It is not to be wondered at that in Israel the breach of the law of marriage was looked upon as a derogation from a husband's honour, and as a deed of violence which demanded nothing less than the stern punishment of death. Adultery ruined the peace of the home, and could not fail to reflect its sinister influence upon the family circle. No man could rule his house- hold well whose wife was guilty of infidelity. Her influence would poison the springs of home-life, and contaminate the morals of the children. Parental authority would cease, and the stability of the nation would be endangered. It would become impossible for the children to obey the fifth commandment. Disorder, confusion, misery, a life of wretched- ness, a home disrupted into atoms, — all these surely followed on the sin which is here for- bidden.^ In the Book of Genesis marriage is held to be an indissoluble tie that cannot be broken. The woman is made to be an helpmeet for man, and is regarded as having all the rights and privileges of a free personality. G-en. i. 27 1 Prostitution was held to be a heinous crime (Josephus, Ant. iv. sec. 8), and was not tolerated by the Mosaic Code, Deut. xxiii. 17. No fine was permissible, and death by stoning was the penalty, Deut. xxii. 20. Harlots were often foreigners, the "strange women" of the Book of Proverbs. Its terrible effects are vividly pictured in Prov. ii. 5 and 7. In the Book of Eevelation fornication is the type of all unholy alliances made by the Church, Rev. xvii. 19. 158 THE ETHICS OP THE OLD TESTAMENT and ii. 21-23 are the loci classici of the sexual relations, and there we find that marriage is no result of mere sensual feeling, but a God- given institution. Eve is taken from the side of Adam, and husband and wife stand to each other in the nearest relations. One woman is given to one man, and polygamy is not recog- nised. In man's ideal state monogamy is the rule. It is true that afterwards, among the Patriarchs, polygamy is permitted, and even Moses had a second wife, a Cushite woman, to the great dissatisfaction of his relations. But the concubine seems generally to have been a slave of the house. The action of Sarah, of Eachel, and Leah, goes to show that this was looked upon in a very different light from adultery. It did no violation, in their eyes, to the law of honour ; nor did it even violate the law of property, in which relationship the institution, as we have seen, is very much regarded. Under the Law, polygamy is not condemned, but its evil consequences are mitigated to a large degree by several enactments.-' The beautiful description in the Book of Proverbs of a good wife seems to imply that monogamy 1 All these are made with the evident purpose of mitigating the many evils of this custom. The slave-wife is entitled to all conjugal rights, without which she may claim her liberty, Ex. xxi. 10, 11. A female war-captive, assumed as a wife, may not be sold to slavery, Deut. xxi. 14. Again in Deut. the king is counselled not to multiply wives lest his heart turn away from God, chap. xvii. 17. The picture of the Ideal Wife in Prov. xxxi. favours monogamy, which also is supported by the teaching of the Prophets. GRADUAL DECLINE OF POLYGAMY 159 increasingly prevailed in the later days of Judaism, and the New Testament everywhere presupposes it. There is no doubt that in" Israel the wife occupied a position far superior to that which she had among primitive races in the East. At the same time, woman did not then hold the exalted place which is now given to her in Christian lands, but one essentially dependent. Yet children born in wedlock are always regarded as a blessing from the Lord, and " the fruit of the womb is His reward." And the custom, so common among the heathen, of parents doing away with the weaklings, is totally unknown to the Hebrews.^ Marriage is looked upon as the normal con- dition, and every effort was made by a father to get a wife for his son. Celibacy is spoken of as unnatural, and is to be ' avoided. The enforced virginity of Jephthah's daughter is bewailed. No greater punishment can fall on the land than that the young men should be consumed by the sword and the maidens " should not be given to marriage." Virginity is " a reproach to be taken away." From the time of the first promise of a Messiah to Eve it was the ambition of every woman in Israel to be a wife and a mother of sons, who might bring about the fulfilment of the hope of Israel. The sin here prohibited is one that was 1 Philo, De Spec. Leg, ii. 318 ; Tacitus, Hist. v. 5. 160 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT regarded withi peculiar abhorrence among the Hebrews, not only because it violated the Law of Grod, but because it tended to undermine the institution of the family. In the Old Testament the family has a peculiar weight and worth attached to it, which we who live in an age of excessive individualism can scarcely understand. Morality was based, not on the individual conscience, but on that of the family. It was through it that the Messianic hope was to be realised. This gave sanctity to motherhood, and gradually tended to giving the children of the wife a preference over those of the concubine or handmaid. In course of time the lax ideas of divorce that at first prevailed were cast aside, and the in- estimable worth of the family was recognised. Upon its wellbeing depended the moral wel- fare of the nation. Were the homes pure, then the nation was strong. Were they honeycombed with vice, then the strength of the nation was gone, and Israel would liee before their enemies. Hence adultery is re- garded as a crime of such heinousness that both offenders were put to death. No punish- ment was too severe to guard the sanctity of the home and the continuity of the family line. Under the ethics of marriage it is necessary that we should here refer to the custom of divorce as permitted in the Mosaic Code, and also to the singular law of Levirate marriage. LAW OF DIVORCE 161 The former is found in Deut. xxiv., where, however, the language of the Authorised Version has led to a misunderstanding of the passage. The first three verses of the chapter are all conditional, and the apodosis is in ver. 4. Read thus, it is clear that divorce is not in- stituted nor enjoined in this chapter, though the right of divorce is presupposed. All that is said is that if a man give his wife, for some reason or other, a bill of divorcement, and if she go and get married to another husband, and he also hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, then the first husband shall not marry her again, for "that would be an abomination before the Lord." The Law simply regulates a custom that had long been in vogue in the East, and strives to soften its harshness.^ An arbitrary repudiation was pre- vented by the necessity of making out a legal instrument, showing that the grounds of it were not the mere pleasure or spite of the husband, but that they were founded on fact and reason. What the off"ences were that were considered justifiable grounds of separa- tion is not stated ; but the Eabbis mention very trivial faults, and Josephus seems to have exceedingly lax ideas of the marriage tie.^ But the whole proceeding evidently is 1 The origin of this custom has given rise to much con- troversy. Cf . Starke, Prim. Fam. p. 160 ; 'and Hastings' Did. of Bible on Marriage, 2 Antiq. iv. 8. 23. For certain reasons see Ex. xxi. 10, hut these hold only in the case of a bondwoman. 162 THE ETHICS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT in glaring inconsistency with the Old Testa- ment conception of marriage, which admits ethically of no dissolution. Adultery works divorce indeed ; but it was one that was to be brought about summarily by death. But all divorce is in its essence adultery ; and our Lord affirms its moral impossibility. He gives us the correct spirit of the passage in Deut. xxiv., when he says that Moses suffered the Jews to put away their wives " "n-po^ rr^v