_THE SABBATIC YEAR AND THE JUBILEE._
LEV. xxv. 1-55.
The system of annually recurring sabbatic times, as given in chap.
xxiii., culminated in the sabbatic seventh month. But this remarkable
system of sabbatisms extended still further, and, besides the sacred
seventh day, the seventh week, and seventh month, included also a
sabbatic seventh year; and beyond that, as the ultimate expression of
the sabbatic idea, following the seventh seven of years, came the
hallowed fiftieth year, known as the jubilee. And the law concerning
these two last-named periods is recorded in this twenty-fifth chapter
of Leviticus.
First (vv. 1-5), is given the ordinance of the sabbatic seventh year,
in the following words: "When ye come into the land which I give you,
then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt
sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather
in the fruits thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of
solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the Lord: thou shalt neither
sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of itself of
thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thy undressed vine
thou shalt not gather: it shall be a year of solemn rest for the
land."
This sacred year is thus here described as a sabbath for the land unto
the Lord,--a _shabbath shabbathon_; that is, a sabbath in a special
and eminent sense. No public religious gatherings were ordered,
however, neither was labour of every kind prohibited. It was strictly
a year of rest for the land, and for the people in so far as this was
involved in that fact. There was to be no sowing or reaping, even of
what might grow of itself; no pruning of vineyard or fruit trees, nor
gathering of their fruit. These regulations thus involved the total
suspension of agricultural labour for this entire period.
It was further ordered (vv. 6, 7) that during this year the
spontaneous produce of the land should be equally free to all, both
man and beast: "The sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for
thee, and for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant
and for thy stranger that sojourn with thee; and for thy cattle, and
for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be
for food."
That this cannot be regarded as merely a regulation of a communistic
character, designed simply to affirm the absolute equality of all men
in right to the product of the soil, is evident from the fact that the
beasts also are included in the terms of the law. The object was quite
different, as we shall shortly see.
That it should be regarded as possible for a whole people thus to live
off the spontaneous produce of self-sowed grain may seem incredible to
us who dwell in less propitious lands; and yet travellers tell us that
in the Palestine of to-day, with its rich soil and kindly climate, the
various food grains continuously propagate themselves without
cultivation; and that in Albania, also, two and three successive
harvests are sometimes reaped as the result of one sowing. So, even
apart from the special blessing from the Lord promised to them if they
would obey this command, the supply of at least the necessities of
life was possible from the spontaneous product of the sabbath of the
land. Though less than usual, it might easily be sufficient. In Deut.
xv. 1-11 it is ordered also that the seventh year should be "a year of
release" to the debtor; not indeed as regards all debts, but loans
only; nor, apparently, that even these should be released absolutely,
but that throughout the seventh year the claim of the creditor was to
be in abeyance. The regulation may naturally be regarded as consequent
upon this fundamental law regarding the sabbath of the land. The
income of the year being much less than usual, the debtor, presumably,
might often find it difficult to pay; whence this restriction on
collection of debt during this period.
The central thought of this ordinance then is this, that man's right
in the soil and its product, originally granted from God, during this
sabbatic year reverted to the Giver; who, again, by ordering that all
exclusive rights of individuals in the produce of their estates should
be suspended for this year, placed, for so long, the rich and the poor
on an absolute equality as regards means of sustenance.
THE JUBILEE.
xxv. 8-12.
"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven
times seven years; and there shall be unto thee the days of seven
sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. Then shalt thou
send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh
month; in the day of atonement shall ye send abroad the trumpet
throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year,
and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return
every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto
his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye
shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it,
nor gather the grapes in it of the undressed vines. For it is a
jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase
thereof out of the field."
The remainder of this chapter, vv. 8-55, is occupied with this
ordinance of the jubilee year; an observance absolutely without a
parallel in any nation, and which has to do with the solution of some
of the most difficult social problems, not only of that time, but also
of our own. Seven weeks of years, each terminating with the sabbatic
year of solemn rest for the land, were to be numbered, _i.e._,
forty-nine full years, of which the last was a sabbatic year,
beginning, as always, with the feast of atonement in the tenth day of
the seventh month. And then when, at its expiration, the day of
atonement came round again, at the beginning of the fiftieth year of
this reckoning, at the close, as would appear, of the solemn expiatory
ritual of the day, throughout all the land of Israel the loud trumpet
was to be sounded, proclaiming "liberty throughout the land unto all
the inhabitants thereof." The ordinance is given in vv. 8-12 above.
It appears that the liberty thus proclaimed was threefold: (1) liberty
to the man who, through the reverses of life, had become dispossessed
from his family inheritance in the land, to return to it again; (2)
liberty to every Hebrew slave, so that in the jubilee he became a free
man again; (3) the liberty of release from toil in the cultivation of
the land,--a feature, in this case, even more remarkable than in the
sabbatic year, because already one such sabbatic year had but just
closed when the jubilee year immediately succeeded.
Why this year should be called a jubilee (Heb. _yobel_) is a vexed
question, on which scholars are far from unanimous; but as it is of no
practical importance, there is no need to enter on the discussion
here. To suppose that these enactments should have originated, as the
radical critics claim, in post-exilian days, when, under the existing
social and political conditions, their observance was impossible, is
utterly absurd.[47] Not only so, but in view of the admitted neglect
even of the sabbatic year,--an ordinance certainly less difficult to
carry out in practice,--during four hundred and ninety years of
Israel's history, the supposition that the law of the jubilee should
have been first promulgated at any earlier post-Mosaic period is
scarcely less incredible.
[47] Thus Dillmann writes: "That the law (of the jubilee) in its
principal features was already issued by Moses does not admit of
demonstration to him who wills not to believe it; but that it
cannot have been in the first instance the invention of a
post-exilian scribe is certain. Only in the simpler communal
relations of the more ancient time could a law of such an ideal
character have seemed practicable; after the exile, all the
presuppositions involved in its promulgation are wanting" ("Die
Bücher Exodus und Leviticus," 2 Aufl., p. 608).
THE JUBILEE AND THE LAND.
xxv. 13-28.
"In this year of jubilee ye shall return every man unto his
possession. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buy of
thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not wrong one another: according
to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy
neighbour, and according unto the number of years of the crops he
shall sell unto thee. According to the multitude of the years
thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the
fewness of the years thou shalt diminish the price of it; for the
number of the crops doth he sell unto thee. And ye shall not
wrong one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the Lord
your God. Wherefore ye shall do My statutes, and keep My
judgments and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.
And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill,
and dwell therein in safety. And if ye shall say, What shall we
eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our
increase: then I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth
year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years. And ye
shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits, the old store;
until the ninth year, until her fruits come in, ye shall eat the
old store. And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the
land is Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in
all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for
the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his
possession, then shall his kinsman that is next unto him come,
and shall redeem that which his brother hath sold. And if a man
have no one to redeem it, and he be waxen rich and find
sufficient to redeem it; then let him count the years of the sale
thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold
it; and he shall return unto his possession. But if he be not
able to get it back for himself, then that which he hath sold
shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the
year of jubilee: and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall
return unto his possession."
The remainder of the chapter (vv. 13-55) deals with the practical
application of this law of the jubilee to various cases. In vv. 13-28
we have the application of the law to the case of property in _land_;
in vv. 29-34, to sales of _dwelling houses_; and the remaining verses
(35-55) deal with the application of this law to the institution of
_slavery_.
As regards the first matter, the transfers of right in land, these in
all cases were to be governed by the fundamental principle enounced in
ver. 23: "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is
Mine: for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me."
Thus in the theocracy there was no such thing as either private or
communal ownership in land. Just as in some lands to-day the only
owner of the land is the king, so it was in Israel; but in this case
the King was Jehovah. From this it follows, evidently, that properly
speaking, according to this law, there could be no such thing in
Israel as a sale or purchase of land. All that any man could buy or
sell was the right to its products, and that, again, only for a
limited time; for every fiftieth year the land was to revert to the
family to whom its use had been originally assigned. Hence the
regulations (vv. 14-19) regarding such transfers of the right to the
use of the land. They are all governed by the simple and equitable
principle that the price paid for the usufruct of the land was to be
exactly proportioned to the number of years which were to elapse
between the date of the sale and the reversion of the land, which
would take place in the jubilee. Thus, the price for such transfer of
right in the first year of the jubilee period would be at its maximum,
because the sale covered the right to the produce of the land for
forty-nine years; while, on the other hand, in the case of a transfer
made in the forty-eighth year, the price would have fallen to a very
small amount, as only the product of one year's cultivation remained
to be sold, and after the ensuing sabbatic year the land would revert
in the jubilee to the original holder. The command to keep in mind
this principle, and not wrong one another, is enforced (vv. 17-19) by
the injunction to do this because of the fear of God; and by the
promise that if Israel will obey this law, they shall dwell in safety,
and have abundance.
In vv. 24-28, after the declaration of the fundamental law that the
land belongs only to the Lord, and that they are to regard themselves
as simply His tenants, "sojourners with Him," a second application of
the law is made. First, it is ordered that in every case, and without
reference to the year of jubilee, every landholder who through stress
of poverty may be obliged to sell the usufruct of his land shall
retain the right to redeem it. Three cases are assumed. First (ver.
25), it is ordered that if the poor man have lost his land, and have a
kinsman who is able to redeem it, he shall do so. Secondly (ver. 26),
if he have no such kinsman, but himself become able to redeem it, it
shall be his privilege to do so. In both cases alike, "the overplus,"
_i.e._, the value of the land for the years still remaining till the
jubilee, for which the purchaser had paid, is to be restored to him,
and then the land reverts at once, without waiting for the jubilee, to
the original proprietor. The third case (ver. 28) is that of the poor
man who has no kinsman to buy back his landholding, and never becomes
able to do so himself. In such a case, the purchaser was to hold it
until the jubilee year, when the land reverted without compensation to
the family of the poor man who had transferred it. That this was
strictly equitable is self-evident, when we remember that, according
to the law previously laid down, the purchaser had only paid for the
value of the product of the land until the jubilee year; and when he
had received its produce for that time, naturally and in strict equity
his right in the land terminated.
THE JUBILEE AND DWELLING HOUSES.
xxv. 29-34.
"And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may
redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year
shall he have the right of redemption. And if it be not redeemed
within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the
walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him that bought
it, throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the
jubilee. But the houses of the villages which have no wall round
about them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country: they
may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee.
Nevertheless the cities of the Levites, the houses of the cities
of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time. And if
one of the Levites redeem [not], then the house that was sold,
and the city of his possession, shall go out in the jubilee: for
the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession
among the children of Israel. But the field of the suburbs of
their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual
possession."
In vv. 29-34 is considered the application of the jubilee ordinance to
the sale of dwelling houses: first (vv. 29-31), to such sale in case
of the people generally; secondly (vv. 32-34), to sales of houses by
the Levites. Under the former head we have first the law as regards
sales of dwelling houses in "walled cities;" to which it is ordered
that the law of reversion in the jubilee shall not apply, and for
which the right of redemption was only to hold valid for one year. The
obvious reason for exempting houses in cities from the law of
reversion is that the law has to do only with land such as may be used
in a pastoral or agricultural way for man's support. And this explains
why, on the other hand, it is next ordered (ver. 31) that in the case
of houses in unwalled villages the law of redemption and reversion in
the jubilee shall apply as well as to the land. For the inhabitants of
the villages were the herdsmen and cultivators of the soil; and the
house was regarded rightly as a necessary attachment to the land,
without which its use would not be possible. But inasmuch as God had
assigned no landholding to the Levites in the original distribution of
the land,--and apart from their houses they had no possession (ver.
33),--in order to secure them in the privilege of a permanent holding,
such as others enjoyed in their lands, it was ordered that in their
case their houses, as being their only possession in real estate,
should be treated as were the landholdings of members of the other
tribes.[48]
[48] The interpretation of ver. 33 presents a difficulty which,
if the rendering retained in the text by the Revisers be
accepted, is hard to resolve. But if we assume that a negative
has fallen out of the first clause in the received text, and
read with the Vulgate, as given in the margin of the Revised
Version, "if one of the Levites redeem _not_," all becomes
clear. In the exposition we have ventured to assume in this
instance the correctness of the Vulgate.
The relation of the jubilee law to personal rights in the land having
been thus determined and expounded, in the next place (vv. 35-55) is
considered the application of the law to slavery. Quite naturally,
this section begins (vv. 35-37) with a general injunction to assist
and deal mercifully with any brother who has become poor. "If thy
brother be waxen poor, and his hand fail with thee; then thou shalt
uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee.
Take thou no usury of him or increase; but fear thy God: that thy
brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon
usury, nor give him thy victuals for increase."
The evident object of this law is to prevent, as far as possible, that
extreme of poverty which might compel a man to sell himself in order
to live. Debt is a burden in any case, to a poor man especially; but
debt is the heavier burden when to the original debt is added the
constant payment of interest. Hence, not merely "usury" in the modern
sense of _excessive_ interest, but it is forbidden to claim or take
any interest whatever from any Hebrew debtor. On the same principle,
it is forbidden to take increase for food which may be lent to a poor
brother; as when one lets a man have twenty bushels of wheat on
condition that in due time he shall return for it twenty-two. This
command is enforced (ver. 38) by reminding them from whom they have
received what they have, and on what easy terms, as a gift; from their
covenant God, who is Himself their security that by so doing they
shall not lose: "I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out
of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God."
They need not therefore have recourse to the exaction of interest and
increase from their poor brethren in order to make a living, but are
to be merciful, even as Jehovah their God is merciful.
THE JUBILEE AND SLAVERY.
xxv. 39-55.
"And if thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself
unto thee; thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as
an hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; he
shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then shall he go
out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return
unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall
he return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out of
the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen. Thou shalt
not rule over him with rigour; but shalt fear thy God. And as for
thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have; of the
nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen
and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families
that are with you, which they have begotten in your land: and
they shall be your possession. And ye shall make them an
inheritance for your children after you, to hold for a
possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen for ever: but over
your brethren the children of Israel ye shall not rule, one over
another, with rigour. And if a stranger or sojourner with thee be
waxen rich, and thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell
himself unto the stranger or sojourner with thee, or to the stock
of the stranger's family: after that he is sold he may be
redeemed; one of his brethren may redeem him: or his uncle, or
his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto
him of his family may redeem him; or if he be waxen rich, he may
redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from
the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee:
and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of
years; according to the time of an hired servant shall he be with
him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall
give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he
was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year
of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his
years shall he give back the price of his redemption. As a
servant hired year by year shall he be with him: he shall not
rule with rigour over him in thy sight. And if he be not redeemed
by these means, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he,
and his children with him. For unto Me the children of Israel are
servants; they are My servants whom I brought forth out of the
land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God."
Even with the burdensomeness of debt lightened as above, it was yet
possible that a man might be reduced to poverty so extreme that he
should feel compelled to sell himself as a slave. Hence arises the
question of slavery, and its relation to the law of the jubilee. Under
this head two cases were possible: the first, where a man had sold
himself to a fellow-Hebrew (vv. 39-46); the second, where a man had
sold himself to a foreigner resident in the land (vv. 47-55).
With the Hebrews and all the neighbouring peoples, slavery was, and
had been from of old, a settled institution. Regarded simply as an
abstract question of morals, it might seem as if the Lord might once
for all have abolished it by an absolute prohibition; after the manner
in which many modern reformers would deal with such evils as the
liquor traffic, etc. But the Lord was wiser than many such. As has
been remarked already, in connection with the question of concubinage,
that law is not in every case the best which may be the best
intrinsically and ideally. That law is the best which can be best
enforced in the actual moral status of the people, and consequent
condition of public opinion. So the Lord did not at once prohibit
slavery; but He ordained laws which would restrict it, and modify and
ameliorate the condition of the slave wherever slavery was permitted
to exist; laws, moreover, which have had such an educational power as
to have banished slavery from the Hebrew people.
In the first place, slavery, in the unqualified sense of the word, is
allowed only in the case of non-Israelites. That it was permitted to
hold these as bondmen is explicitly declared (vv. 44-46). It is,
however, important, in order to form a correct idea of Hebrew slavery,
to observe that, according to Exod. xxi. 16, man-stealing was made a
capital offence; and the law also carefully guarded from violence and
tyranny on the part of the master the non-Israelite slave lawfully
gotten, even decreeing his emancipation from his master in extreme
cases of this kind (Exod. xxi. 20, 21, 26, 27).
With regard to the Hebrew bondman, the law recognises no property of
the master in his person; that a servant of Jehovah should be a slave
of another servant of Jehovah is denied; because they are His
servants, no other can own them (vv. 42, 55). Thus, while the case is
supposed (ver. 39) that a man through stress of poverty may sell
himself to a fellow-Hebrew as a bondservant, the sale is held as
affecting only the master's right to his service, but not to his
person. "Thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as an
hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee."
Further, it is elsewhere provided (Exod. xxi. 2) that in no case shall
such sale hold valid for a longer time than six years; in the seventh
year the man was to have the privilege of going out free for nothing.
And in this chapter is added a further alleviation of the bondage (vv.
40, 41): "He shall serve with thee unto the year of jubilee: then
shall he go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall
return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers
shall he return. For they are My servants, which I brought forth out
of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen."
That is, if it so happened that before the six years of his prescribed
service had been completed the jubilee year came in, he was to be
exempted from the obligation to service for the remainder of that
period.
The remaining verses of this part of the law (vv. 44-46) provide that
the Israelite may take to himself bondmen of "the children of the
strangers" that sojourn among them; and that to such the law of the
periodic release shall not be held to apply. Such are "bondmen for
ever." "Ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you,
to hold for a possession; of them shall ye take your bondmen for
ever."
It is to be borne in mind that even in such cases the law which
commanded the kind treatment of all the strangers in the land (xix.
33, 34) would apply; so that even where permanent slavery was allowed
it was placed under humanising restriction.
In vv. 47-55 is taken up, finally, the case where a poor Israelite
should have sold himself as a slave to a foreigner resident in the
land. In all such cases it is ordered that the owner of the man must
recognise the right of redemption. That is, it was the privilege of
the man himself, or of any of his near kindred, to buy him out of
bondage. Compensation to the owner however, enjoined in such cases
according to the number of the years remaining to the next jubilee, at
which time he would be obliged to release him (ver. 54), whether
redeemed or not. Thus we read (vv. 50-52): "He shall reckon with him
that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the
year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the
number of years; according to the time of an hired servant shall he be
with him. If there be yet many years, according unto them he shall
give back the price of his redemption out of the money that he was
bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of
jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according unto his years shall
he give back the price of his redemption. As a servant hired year by
year shall he be with him."
Furthermore, it is commanded (ver. 53) that the owner of the
Israelite, for so long time as he may remain in bondage, shall "not
rule over him with rigour;" and by the addition of the words "in thy
sight" it is intimated that God would hold the collective nation
responsible for seeing that no oppression was exercised by any alien
over any of their enslaved brethren. To which it should also be added,
finally, that the regulations for the release of the slave carefully
provided for the maintenance of the family relation. Families were not
to be parted in the emancipation of the jubilee; the man who went out
free was to take his children with him (vv. 41, 54). In the case,
however, where the wife had been given him by his master, she and her
children remained in bondage after his emancipation in the seventh
year; but of course only until she had reached her seventh year of
service. But if the slave already had his wife when he became a slave,
then she and their children went out with him in the seventh year
(Exod. xxi. 3, 4). The contrast in the spirit of these laws with that
of the institution of slavery as it formerly existed in the Southern
States of America and elsewhere in Christendom, is obvious.
These, then, were the regulations connected with the application of
the ordinance of the jubilee year to rights of property, whether in
real estate or in slaves. In respect to the cessation from the
cultivation of the soil which was enjoined for the year, the law was
essentially the same as that for the sabbatic year, except that,
apparently, the right of property in the spontaneous produce of the
land, which was in abeyance in the former case, was in so far
recognised in the latter that each man was allowed to "eat the
increase of the jubilee year out of the field" (ver. 12).
PRACTICAL OBJECTS OF THE SABBATIC YEAR AND JUBILEE LAW.
Such was this extraordinary legislation, the like of which will be
sought in vain in any other people. It is indeed true that, in some
instances, ancient lawgivers decreed that land should not be
permanently alienated, or that individuals should not hold more than a
certain amount of land. Thus, for example, the Lacedemonians were
forbidden to sell their lands, and the Dalmatians were wont to
redistribute their lands every eight years. But laws such as these
only present accidental coincidences with single features of the
jubilee year; an agreement to be accounted for by the fact that the
aim of such lawgivers was, in so far, the same as that of the Hebrew
code, that they sought thus to guard against excessive accumulations
of property in the hands of individuals, and those consequent great
inequalities in the distribution of wealth which, in all lands and
ages, and never more clearly than in our own, have been seen to be
fraught with the gravest dangers to the highest interests of society.
Beyond this single point we shall search in vain the history of any
other people for an analogy to these laws concerning the sabbatic and
the jubilee year.
What was the immediate object of this remarkable legislation? It is
not irrelevant to observe that in so far as regards the prescription
of a periodic rest to the land, agricultural science recognises that
this is an advantage, especially in places where it may be difficult
to obtain fertilisers for the soil in adequate amount. But it cannot
be supposed that this was the chief object of these ordinances, not
even in so far as they had respect to the land. We shall not err in
regarding them as intended, like all in the Levitical system, to make
Israel to be in reality, what they were called to be, a people holy,
_i.e._, fully consecrated to the Lord. The bearing of these laws on
this end is not hard to perceive.
In the first place, the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was a
most impressive lesson as to the relation of God to what men call
their property; and, in particular, as to His relation to man's
property in land. By these ordinances every Israelite was to be
reminded in a most impressive way that the land which he tilled, or on
which he fed his flocks and herds, belonged, not to himself, but to
God. Just as God taught him that his time belonged to Him, by putting
in a claim for the absolute consecration to Himself of every seventh
day, so here He reminded Israel that the land belonged to Him, by
asserting a similar claim on the land every seventh year, and twice in
a century for two years in succession.
No one will pretend that the law of the sabbatic year or the jubilee
is binding on communities now. But it is a question for our times as
to whether the basal principle regarding the relation of God to land,
and by necessary consequence the right of man regarding land, which
is fundamental to these laws, is not in its very nature of perpetual
force. Surely, there is nothing in Scripture to suggest that God's
ownership of the land was limited to the land of Palestine, or to that
land only during Israel's occupancy of it. Instead of this, Jehovah
everywhere represents Himself as having given the land to Israel, and
therefore by necessary implication as having a like right over it
while as yet the Canaanites were dwelling in it. Again, the purpose of
God's dealing with Egypt is said to be that Pharaoh might know this
same truth: that the earth (or land) was the Lord's (Exod. ix. 29);
and in Psalm xxiv. 1 it is stated, as a broad truth, without
qualification or restriction, that the earth is the Lord's, as well as
that which fills it. It is true that there is no suggestion in any of
these passages that the relation of God to the earth or to the land is
different from His relation to other property; but it is intended to
emphasise the fact that in the use of land, as of all else, we are to
regard ourselves as God's stewards, and hold and use it as in trust
from Him.
The vital relation of this great truth to the burning questions of our
day regarding the rights of men in land is self-evident. It does not
indeed determine how the land question should be dealt with in any
particular country, but it does settle it that if in these matters we
will act in the fear of God, we must keep this principle steadily
before us, that, primarily, the land belongs to the Lord, and is to be
used accordingly. How, as a matter of fact, God did order that the
land should be used, in the only instance when He has condescended
Himself to order the political government of a nation, we have already
seen, and shall presently consider more fully.
It is obvious that the natural and therefore intended effect of these
regulations, if obeyed, would have been to impose a constant and
powerful check upon man's natural covetousness and greed of gain.
Every seventh year the Hebrew was to pause in his toil for wealth, and
for one whole year he was to waive even his ordinary right to the
spontaneous produce of his fields; which year of abstinence from
sowing and reaping once in fifty years was doubled. Add to this the
strict prohibition of lending money upon interest to a fellow-Israelite,
and we can see how far-reaching and effective, if obeyed, were such
regulations likely to be in restraining that insatiate greed for
riches which ever grows the more by that which feeds it.
Yet again; the law of the sabbatic year and the jubilee was adapted to
serve also as a singularly powerful discipline in that faith toward
God which is the soul of all true religion. In this practical way
every Hebrew was to be taught that "man doth not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The lesson
is ever hard to learn, though none the less necessary. This thought is
alluded to in ver. 20, where it is supposed that a man might raise the
very natural objection to these laws, "What shall we eat the seventh
year?" To which the answer is given, with reference even to the
extreme case of the jubilee year: "I will command My blessing upon you
in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years;
until the ninth year ... ye shall eat the old store."
But probably the most prominent and important object of the
regulations in this chapter was to secure, as far as possible, the
equal distribution of wealth, by preventing excessive accumulations
either of land or of capital in the hands of a few, while the mass
should be sunk in poverty. It is certain that these laws, if carried
out, would have had a marvellous effect in this respect. As for
capital, we all know what an important factor in the production of
wealth is accumulation by interest on loans, especially when the
interest is constantly compounded. There can be no doubt of its
immense power as an instrument for at once enriching the lender and in
proportion impoverishing the borrower. But among the Israelites, to
receive interest or its equivalent was prohibited. One other chief
cause of the excessive wealth of individuals among us, as in all ages,
is the acquirement in perpetuity by individuals of a disproportionate
amount of the public land. The condition of things in the United
Kingdom is familiar to all, with its inevitable effect on the
condition of large masses of people; and in parts of the United States
there are indications of a like tendency working toward the similar
disadvantage of many small landholders and cultivators. But in Israel,
if these laws should be carried into effect, such a state of things,
so often witnessed among other nations, was made for ever impossible.
Individual ownership in the land itself was forbidden; no man was
allowed more than a leasehold right; nor could he, even by adding
largely to his leaseholds, increase his wealth indefinitely, so as to
transmit a fortune to his children, to be still further augmented by a
similar process in the next and succeeding generations; for every
fifty years the jubilee came around, and whatever leaseholds he might
have acquired from less fortunate brethren, reverted unconditionally
to the original owner or his legal heirs.
However impracticable such arrangements may seem to us under the
conditions of modern life, yet it must be confessed that in the case
of a nation just starting on its career in a new country, as was
Israel at that time, nothing could well be thought of more likely to
be effective toward securing, along with careful regard to the rights
of property, an equal distribution of wealth among the people, than
the legislation which is placed before us in this chapter.
It deserves to be specially noticed by how exact equity the laws are
distinguished. While, on the one hand, excessive accumulations, either
of capital or of land, were thus made impossible, there is here
nothing of the destructive communism advocated by many in our day.
These laws put no premium on laziness; for if a man, through indolence
or vice, was compelled to sell out his right in his land, he had no
security of obtaining it again until the jubilee; that is to say, upon
an average, during his working lifetime. On the other hand,
encouragement was given to industry, as a man who was thrifty might,
by purchase of leaseholds, materially increase his wealth and comfort
in life. And the effect on inheritance is evident. There could, on the
one hand, be no inheritance of such colossal and overgrown fortunes as
are possible in our modern states,--no blessing, certainly, in many
cases, to the heirs; and neither, on the other hand, could there be
any inheritance of hopeless and degrading poverty. A man might have
had an indolent or a vicious father, who had thus forfeited his
landholding; but while the father would doubtless suffer deserved
poverty during his active life, the young man, when the jubilee
returned, and the lost paternal inheritance reverted to him, would
have the opportunity to see whether he might not, with his father's
experience before him as a warning, do better, and retrieve the
fortunes of the family. In any case, he would not start upon the work
of life weighted, as are multitudes among us, with a crushing and
almost irremovable burden of poverty.
It is certain, no doubt, that these laws are not morally binding now;
and no less certain, probably, that failing, as they did, to secure
observance in Israel, such laws, even if enacted, could not in our day
be practically carried out any more than then. Nevertheless, so much
we may safely say, that the intention and aim of these laws as regards
the equal distribution of wealth in the community ought to be the aim
of all wise legislation now. It is certain that all good government
ought to seek in all righteous and equitable ways to prevent the
formation in the community of classes, either of the excessively rich
or of the excessively poor. Absolute equality in this respect is
doubtless unattainable, and in a world intended for purposes of moral
training and discipline were even undesirable; but extreme wealth or
extreme poverty are certainly evils to the prevention of which our
legislators may well give their minds. Only it needs also to be kept
in mind that these Hebrew laws no less distinctly teach us that this
end is to be sought only in such a way as shall neither, on the one
hand, put a premium on laziness and vice, nor, on the other, deny to
the virtuous and industrious the advantage which industry and virtue
deserve, of additional wealth, comfort, and exemption from toilsome
drudgery.
In close connection with all this it will be observed that all this
legislation, while guarding the rights of the rich, is evidently
inspired by that same merciful regard for the poor which marks the
Levitical law throughout. For in all these regulations it is assumed
that there would still be poor in the land; but the law secured to
the poor great mitigations of poverty. Every seventh year the produce
of the land was to be free alike to all; if one were poor his brother
was to uphold him; when lending him, he was not to add to the debt the
burden of interest or increase. And then there was to the poor man the
ever-present assurance, which alone would take off half the bitterness
of poverty, that through the coming of the jubilee the children at
least would have a new chance, and start life on an equality, in
respect of inheritance in land, with the sons of the richest. And when
we remember the close connection between extreme poverty and every
variety of crime, it is plain that the whole legislation is as
admirably adapted to the prevention of crime as of abject and hopeless
poverty. Well might Asaph use the words which he employs, with evident
allusion to the trumpet sound which ushered in the jubilee: "Happy the
people that know the joyful sound!" _i.e._, that have the blessed
experience of the jubilee, that supreme earthly sabbatism of the
people of God.[49]
[49] See Psalm lxxxix. 15.
Most significant and full of instruction, no less to us than to
Israel, was the ordinance that both the sabbatic and the jubilee years
should date from the day of Atonement. It was when, having completed
the solemn ritual of that day, the high priest put on again his
beautiful garments and came forth, having made atonement for all the
transgressions of Israel, that the trumpet of the jubilee was to be
sounded. Thus was Israel reminded in the most impressive manner
possible that all these social, civil, and communal blessings were
possible only on condition of reconciliation with God through atoning
blood; atonement in the highest and fullest sense, which should reach
even to the Holy of Holies, and place the blood on the very mercy-seat
of Jehovah. This is true still, though the nations have yet to learn
it. The salvation of nations, no less than that of individuals, is
conditioned by national fellowship with God, secured through the great
Atonement of the Lord. Not until the nations learn this lesson may we
expect to see the crying evils of the earth removed, or the questions
of property, of land-holding, of capital and labour, justly and
happily solved.
TYPICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SABBATIC AND JUBILEE YEARS.
But we must not forget that the sabbatic year and the year of jubilee,
following the seventh seven of years, are the two last members of a
sabbatic system of septenary periods, namely, the sabbath of the
seventh day, the feast of Pentecost, following the expiry of the
seventh week from Passover, and then the still more sacred seventh
month, with its two great feasts, and the day of atonement
intervening. But, as we have seen, we have good scriptural authority
for regarding all these as typical. Each in succession brings out
another stage or aspect of the great Messianic redemption, in a
progressive revelation historically unfolding. In all of these alike
we have been able to trace thoughts connected with the sabbatic idea,
as pointing forward to the final rest, redemption, and consummated
restoration, the sabbatism that remaineth to the people of God. To
these preceding sabbatic periods these last two are closely related.
Both alike began on the great day of atonement, in which all Israel
was to afflict their souls in penitence for sin; and on that day they
both began when the high priest came out from within the veil, where,
from the time of his offering the sin-offering, he had been hidden
from the sight of Israel for a season; and both alike were ushered in
with a trumpet blast.
We shall hardly go amiss if we see in both of these--first in the
sabbatic year, and still more clearly in the year of jubilee--a
prophetic foreshadowing in type of that final repentance of the
children of Israel in the latter days, and their consequent
re-establishment in their land, which the prophets so fully and
explicitly predict. In that day they are to return, as the prophets
bear witness, every man to the land which the Lord gave for an
inheritance to their fathers. Indeed, one might say with truth that
even the lesser restoration from Babylon was prefigured in this
ordinance; but, without doubt, its chief and supreme reference must be
to that greater restoration still in the future, of which we read, for
example, in Isa. xi. 11, when "the Lord shall set His hand again the
_second_ time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall
remain, from Assyria, and from Egypt, ... and from the islands of the
sea."
But the typical reference of these sacred years of sabbatism reaches
yet beyond what pertains to Israel alone. For not only, according to
the prophets and apostles, is there to be a restoration of Israel, but
also, as the Apostle Peter declared to the Jews (Acts iii. 19-21),
closely connected with and consequent on this, a "restoration of all
things." And it is in this great, final, and exceedingly glorious
restoration of the time of the end that we recognise the ultimate
antitype of these sabbatic seasons. When read in the light of later
predictions they appear to point forward with singular distinctness to
what, according to the Holy Word, shall be when Jesus Christ, the
heavenly High Priest, shall come forth from within the veil; when the
last trumpet shall sound, and He who was "once offered to bear the
sins of many" shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that
wait for Him, unto salvation (Heb. ix. 28).
Even in the beginning of the Pentateuch (Gen. iii. 17-19) it is
explicitly taught that because of Adam's sin, the curse of God, in
some mysterious way, fell even upon the material earthly creation. We
read that the Lord said unto Adam: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake;
in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and
thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground." It is because of sin, then, that man is
doomed to labour, toilsome and imperfectly requited by an unwilling
soil. It lies immediately before us that both the sabbatic year and
the year of jubilee, by the ordinance regarding the rest for the land,
and the special promise of sufficiency without exhausting labour,
involved for Israel a temporary suspension of the full operation of
this curse. The ordinance therefore points unmistakably in a prophetic
way to what the New Testament explicitly predicts--the coming of a day
when, with man redeemed, material nature also shall share the great
deliverance. In a word, in the sabbatic year, and in a yet higher form
in the year of jubilee, we have in symbol the wonderful truth which in
the most didactic language is formally declared by the Apostle Paul in
these words (Rom. viii. 19-22): "The earnest expectation of the
creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the
creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason
of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the
glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."
The jubilee year contained in type all this, and more. Where the
sabbatic year had typically pointed only to a coming rest of the earth
from the primeval curse, the jubilee, falling, not on a seventh, but
on an eighth year, following immediately on the sabbatic seventh,
pointed also to the permanence of this blessed condition. It is the
festival, by eminence, of the new creation, of paradise completely and
for ever restored.
Moreover, as falling in the fiftieth year, and therefore on an eighth
year of the sabbatic calendar, the jubilee was to the week of years as
the Lord's day to the week of days. Like that, it is the festival of
resurrection. This is as clearly foreshadowed in the type as the
other. For in the year of jubilee not only was the land to rest, but
every bond-slave was to be released, and to return to his inheritance
and to his family. In the light of what has preceded, and of other
revelations of Scripture, we can hardly miss of perceiving the typical
meaning of this. For what is the great event which the Apostle Paul,
in the passage just cited, associates in time with the deliverance of
the earthly creation, but "the redemption of the body," as the final
issue of the atoning work of Christ? For as yet even believers are in
bondage to death and the grave; but the day which is coming, the day
of earth's redemption, shall bring to all that are Christ's, all that
are Israelites indeed, deliverance "from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."
And as the slave who was freed in the year of jubilee therewith also
returned to his forfeited inheritance, so also shall it be in that
day. For precisely this is given us by the Holy Spirit in the New
Testament (1 Peter i. 4, 5), as another aspect of the day when the
heavenly Aaron shall come forth from the Holiest. For we are begotten
_unto an inheritance_, reserved in heaven for us, "who by the power of
God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in
the last time." Cast out through death from the inheritance of the
earth, which in the beginning was given by God to our first father,
and to his seed in him, but which was lost to him and to his children
through his sin, the great jubilee of the future shall bring us again,
every man who is in Christ by faith, into the lost inheritance,
redeemed and glorified citizens of a redeemed and glorified earth.
Hence it is that in Rev. xxii. we are shown in vision, first, the new
earth, delivered from the curse, and then the New Jerusalem, the
Church of the risen and glorified saints of God, descending from God
out of heaven, to assume possession of the purchased inheritance.
And the law adds also: "Ye shall return every man unto his family;"
which gives the last feature here prefigured of that supreme sabbatism
which remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9). It shall bring the
reunion of those who had been parted and scattered. The day of
resurrection is accordingly spoken of (2 Thess. ii. 1) as a day of
"gathering together" of all who, though one in Christ, have been
rudely parted by death. And yet more, it will be "the day of our
gathering together unto Him," even the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the
"_Goel_," the Kinsman-Redeemer of the ruined bondsmen and their lost
inheritance: "Whom not having seen, we love," but then expect to see
even as He is, and beholding Him, be like Him, and be with Him for
ever and for ever. Who should not long for the day?--the day when for
the first time, this last type of Leviticus shall pass into complete
fulfilment in the antitype; the day of "the restoration of all
things;" the day of the deliverance of the material creation from her
present bondage to corruption; the day also of the release of every
true Israelite from the bondage of death, and the eternal
establishment of all such with the Elder Brother, the First-begotten,
in the enjoyment of the inheritance of the saints in light.
"Love, rest, and home!
Sweet hope!
Lord! tarry not, but COME!"
PART III.
_CONCLUSION AND APPENDIX._
XXVI., XXVII.
1. CONCLUSION: PROMISES AND THREATENINGS: xxvi.
2. APPENDIX: CONCERNING VOWS: xxvii.
CHAPTER XXVII.
_THE PROMISES AND THREATS OF THE COVENANT._
LEV. xxvi. 1-46.
One would have expected that this chapter would have been the last in
the book of Leviticus, for it forms a natural and fitting close to the
whole law as hitherto recorded. But whatever may have been the reason
of its present literary form, the fact remains that while this chapter
is, in outward form, the conclusion of the Levitical law, another
chapter follows it in the manner of an appendix.
Chapter xxvi. opens with these words (vv. 1, 2): "Ye shall make you no
idols, neither shall ye rear you up a graven image, or a pillar,
neither shall ye place any figured stone in your land, to bow down
unto it: for I am the Lord your God. Ye shall keep My sabbaths, and
reverence My sanctuary: I am the Lord."
These verses, as they stand in the English versions as a preface to
this chapter, at first sight seem but distantly related to what
follows; and the Chaldee paraphrast and others have therefore appended
them to the preceding chapter. But with that they have even less
evident connection. The thought of the editor of this part of the
canon, however, seems to have been that the three commands which are
here repeated might be regarded as presenting a compendious summary,
in its fundamental principles, of the whole law, the promises and
threatenings attached to which immediately follow. And the more we
think upon these commands and what they involve, the more evident will
appear the fitness of their selection from the whole law to introduce
this chapter.
The commands which are here repeated are three: namely, (1) a detailed
prohibition of idolatry in the forms then chiefly prevalent; (2) an
injunction to observe God's sabbaths; and (3) to reverence His
sanctuary. Inasmuch as the various forms of idol-worship, which are
here forbidden, all involved the recognition of gods other than
Jehovah, it is plain that ver. 1 is in effect inclusive of the first
and second commandments of the decalogue. The injunction to keep God's
sabbaths, although in principle including all the sabbatic times
previously appointed, evidently refers especially to the weekly
sabbath of the fourth commandment; while the command to reverence the
sanctuary of Jehovah covers in principle the ground of the third. And
thus, in fact, these three injunctions essentially include the four
commands of the decalogue which have to do with man's duty to God, and
are thus fundamental to all other duties, both to God and man. Very
appropriately, then, are these verses given here as a brief summary of
the law to which the following promises and threatenings are annexed.
And their suitableness to that which follows is the more clear when we
remember that the weekly sabbath, in particular, is elsewhere (Exod.
xxxi. 12-17) declared to be a sign of God's covenant with Israel, to
which these promises and threats belong; and that the presence of
Jehovah's sanctuary also, which they are here charged to reverence,
was a continual visible witness among them of the special presence of
God in Israel in pursuance of that covenant.
After this pertinent summation of the most fundamental commands of the
law, the remainder of the chapter contains, first (vv. 3-13), promises
of blessing from God, in case they shall obey this law; secondly (vv.
14-39), threats of chastising judgment, in case they disobey; and,
thirdly (vv. 40-45), a prediction of their final repentance, and
promise of their gracious restoration thereupon to the favour of God,
and the everlasting endurance of God's covenant to preserve them in
existence as a nation. The chapter then closes (ver. 46) with the
declaration: "These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the
Lord made between Him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the
hand of Moses."
THE PROMISES OF THE COVENANT.
xxvi. 3-13.
"If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do
them; then I will give you rains in their season, and the land
shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield
their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and
the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat
your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will
give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall
make you afraid: and I will cause evil beasts to cease out of the
land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall
chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.
And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you
shall chase ten thousand: and your enemies shall fall before you
by the sword. And I will have respect unto you, and make you
fruitful, and multiply you; and I will establish My covenant with
you. And ye shall eat old store long kept, and ye shall bring
forth the old because of the new. And I will set My tabernacle
among you: and My soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among
you, and will be your God, and ye shall be My people. I am the
Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt,
that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bars
of your yoke, and made you go upright."
The promises of the covenant are thus to the effect that if Israel
shall keep the law, God will give them rain and fruitful seasons,
harvests so abundant that the "threshing shall reach unto the vintage,
and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time;" internal security;
deliverance from the wild beasts, which are still such a scourge in
many parts of the East; and such power and spirit, that no enemy shall
be able to stand before them, but five of them shall chase an hundred,
and an hundred chase ten thousand. Then (ver. 9) is renewed the
promise, given long before to Abraham, of a great increase in their
numbers; and thereupon, very naturally, is repeated the promise of
abundant harvests, so that notwithstanding they shall be so
multiplied, one year's harvest should not be consumed before it would
have to be removed from the granaries to make room for the new (ver.
10). And then this section ends with the assurance, which secures all
other blessings, temporal and spiritual, that God will abide among
them in His tabernacle, and will be their God, and they shall be His
people. And the fulfilment of all this is guaranteed by the person,
the purpose, and the past dealing of the Promiser; Himself, Jehovah;
His purpose, to deliver them from bondage; and His past mercy, in
breaking the bands of their yoke.
"THE VENGEANCE OF THE COVENANT."
xxvi. 14-46.
"But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these
commandments; and if ye shall reject My statutes, and if your
soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not do all My
commandments, but break My covenant; I also will do this unto
you; I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever,
that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away: and
ye shall sow your seed in vain for your enemies shall eat it. And
I will set My face against you and ye shall be smitten before
your enemies: they that hate you shall rule over you; and ye
shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not yet for
these things hearken unto me, then I will chastise you seven
times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your
power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as
brass: and your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land
shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land
yield their fruit. And if ye walk contrary unto Me, and will not
hearken unto Me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you
according to your sins. And I will send the beast of the field
among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your
cattle, and make you few in number; and your ways shall become
desolate. And if by these things ye will not be reformed unto Me,
but will walk contrary unto Me; then will I also walk contrary
unto you; and I will smite you, even I, seven times for your
sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the
vengeance of the covenant; and ye shall be gathered together
within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and
ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break
your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven,
and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and ye shall
eat, and not be satisfied. And if ye will not for all this
hearken unto Me, but walk contrary unto Me; then I will walk
contrary unto you in fury; and I also will chastise you seven
times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and
the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your
high places, and cut down your sun-images, and cast your carcases
upon the carcases of your idols; and My soul shall abhor you. And
I will make your cities a waste, and will bring your sanctuaries
unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet
odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your
enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And you
will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword
after you: and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities
shall be a waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long
as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then
shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth
desolate it shall have rest; even the rest which it had not in
your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And as for them that are
left of you I will send a faintness into their heart in the lands
of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase
them; and they shall flee, as one fleeth from the sword; and
they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble one
upon another, as it were before the sword, when none pursueth:
and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye
shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies
shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away
in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the
iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. And
they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their
fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and
also that because they have walked contrary unto Me, I also
walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of
their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and
they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I
remember My covenant with Jacob; and also My covenant with Isaac,
and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will
remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and shall
enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them; and
they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because,
even because they rejected My judgments, and their soul abhorred
My statutes. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of
their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them,
to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them: for
I am the Lord their God: but I will for their sakes remember the
covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land
of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God:
I am the Lord. These are the statutes and judgments and laws,
which the Lord made between Him and the children of Israel in
mount Sinai by the hand of Moses."
So, if Israel should not obey the commandments of the Lord, but break
that covenant which they had made with Him, when they had said unto
the Lord (Exod. xxiv. 7): "All that the Lord hath spoken will we do,
and be obedient;" then they are threatened, first in a general way
(vv. 14-17) with terrible judgments, which shall reverse, and more
than reverse, all the blessings. God will appoint over them "terror;"
disease shall ravage them, consumption and fever; their enemies shall
lay waste the land, defeat them in battle, and rule over them; and
instead of five of them chasing an hundred, they should flee when
none was pursuing (vv. 17, 18). Then follow four series of threats,
each conditioned by the supposition that through what they should have
already experienced of Jehovah's judgment, they should not repent;
each also introduced by the formula, "I will chastise (or "smite") you
seven times for your sins." In this four times repeated series of
denunciations, thus introduced, we are not to insist that numerical
precision was intended; neither can we, with some, give to the "seven
times" a numerical or temporal reference. The thought which runs
through all these denunciations, and determines the form which they
take, is this: that the judgments threatened as to follow each new
display of hardness and impenitence on the part of Israel shall be
marked by continually increasing severity; and the phrase "seven
times," by the reference to the sacred number "seven," intimates that
the vengeance should be "the vengeance of the covenant" (ver. 25), and
also the awful thoroughness and completeness with which the threatened
judgments, in case of their continued obduracy, would be inflicted.
This interpretation is sustained by the details of each section. The
first series (vv. 18-20), in which the threatenings of vv. 14-17 are
developed, adds to what had been previously threatened, the
withholding of harvest for lack of rain. He who had promised to send
the rains "in their season," if they were obedient, now declares that
if they will not hearken unto Him for the other chastisements before
denounced, He will "make their heaven as iron, and their earth as
brass." The second series threatens in addition their devastation by
wild beasts, which shall rob them of their children and their cattle;
and also, in consequence of these great judgments, with a great
diminution of their numbers. The third series (vv. 23-26) repeats,
under forms still more intense, the threats of sword, pestilence, and
famine. The staff of bread shall be broken, and when, stricken with
pestilence, they are gathered together in their cities, one oven shall
suffice ten women for their baking, and bread shall be distributed by
rations and in insufficient quantity (vv. 25, 26).
It is intimated that with these extraordinary judgments it shall
become increasingly evident that it is Jehovah who is thus dealing
with them for the breach of His covenant. This is suggested (ver. 24)
by the emphatic use of the personal pronoun in the Hebrew, only to be
rendered in English by a stress of voice; and by the declaration (ver.
25) that the sword which should be brought upon them should "execute
the vengeance of the covenant."
The same remark applies with still more emphasis to the next and last
of these sub-sections (vv. 27-39), the terrific denunciations of which
are introduced by these words, which almost seem to flash with the
fire of God's avenging wrath: "If ... ye will walk contrary unto Me;
then I will walk contrary unto you in fury (_lit._, "I will walk with
you in fury of opposition"); and I also will chastise you seven times
for your sins." All that has been threatened before is here repeated
with every circumstance which could add terror to the picture. Was
famine threatened? it shall be so awful in its severity that they
shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters. The high places
which had been the scenes of their licentious worship should be
destroyed, and the "sun-images" which they had worshipped, going after
Baal, should be cut down; and, in visible sign of the Divine wrath
and of God's holy contempt for the impotent idols for which they had
forsaken the Lord, upon the fallen idols should lie the dead corpses
of their worshippers. The sanctuaries (with special,--though, perhaps,
not exclusive,--reference, as the following words show, to the holy
places of Jehovah's tabernacle or temple) should become a desolation;
the sweet savour of their sacrifices should be rejected. The holy
people should be scattered into other lands; the land should become so
desolate that those of their enemies who should dwell in it should
themselves be astonished at its transformation. And so, while they
should be scattered in their enemies' land, the land would "enjoy her
sabbaths;"[50] _i.e._, it should thus, untilled and desolate, enjoy
the rest which Jehovah had commanded them to give the land each
seventh year, which they had not observed. Meanwhile, the condition of
the banished nation in the lands of their captivity should be most
pitiful: minished in number, those that were left alive should pine
away in their iniquities, and in the iniquity of their fathers; timid
and broken-spirited, they should flee before the sound of a broken
leaf, and the land of their enemies should "eat them up."
[50] Much has been made of this reference to the neglect of the
sabbatic years as evidence of the late composition of the
chapter; but surely in this argument there is little force. For,
even apart from any question of inspiration, the ordinance of
the sabbatic year was of such an extraordinary character, so
opposed alike to human selfishness and eagerness for gain, and
calling for such faith in God, that it would require no great
knowledge of human nature to anticipate its probable neglect,
even on natural grounds. But, even were this not so, still an
argument of this kind against the Mosaic origin of this minatory
section of the covenant can have decisive force for those only
who, for whatsoever reason, have come to disbelieve that God can
tell beforehand what free agents will do, or that, if He know,
He can impart that knowledge to His servants.
And herewith ends the second section of this remarkable prophecy.
Promising Israel the highest prosperity in the land of Canaan, if they
will keep the words of this covenant, it threatens them with
successive judgments of sword, famine, and pestilence, of continually
increasing severity, to culminate, if they yet persist in
disobedience, in their expulsion from the land for a prolonged period;
and predicts their continued existence, despite the most distressing
conditions, in the lands of their enemies, while their own land
meanwhile lies desolate and untilled without them.
The fundamental importance and instructiveness of this prophecy is
evident from the fact that all later predictions concerning the
fortunes of Israel are but its more detailed exposition and
application to successive historical conditions. Still more evident is
its profound significance when we recall to mind the fact, disputed by
none, that not only is it an epitome of all later prophecy of Holy
Scripture concerning Israel, but, no less truly, an epitome of
Israel's history. So strictly true is this that we may accurately
describe the history of that nation, from the days of Moses until now,
as but the translation of this chapter from the language of prediction
into that of history.
The facts which illustrate this statement are so familiar that one
scarcely needs to refer to them. The numerous visitations in the days
of the Judges, when again and again the people were given into the
hands of their enemies for their sins, and so often as then they
repented, were again and again delivered; the heavier judgments of
later days, first in the days of the earlier kings, and afterwards
culminating in the captivity of the ten tribes, following the siege
and capture of Samaria, 721 B.C.; and still later, the terrible siege
and capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 586 B.C., to the horrors
of which the Lamentations of Jeremiah bear most sorrowful
witness;--what were all these events, with others of lesser
importance, but an historical unfolding of this twenty-sixth chapter
of Leviticus?
And how, since Old Testament days, this prophecy has been continually
illustrated in Israel's history, is, or should be, familiar to all. As
apostasy has succeeded to apostasy, judgment has followed upon
judgment. To a Nebuchadnezzar succeeded an Antiochus Epiphanes; and,
after the Greco-Syrian judgment, then, following the supreme national
crime of the rejection and crucifixion of their promised Messiah, came
the Roman captivity, the most terrible of all; a judgment continued
even until now in the eighteen hundred years of Israel's exile from
the land of the covenant, and their scattering among the
nations,--eighteen hundred years of tragic suffering, such as no other
nation has ever known, or, knowing, has yet survived; sufferings which
are still exhibited before the eyes of all the world to-day in the
bitter experiences of the four millions of Jews in the Empire of the
Czar, and the persecutions of Anti-Shemitism in other lands.