EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS
In the early chapters of Exodus the narrative is chiefly a combination
of J and E; the first considerable extract from P is Exod. vi. 2-vii.
13, recalling the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
announcing its approaching fulfilment, adding, as the signature of the
new epoch of the history now opening, the revelation of the name God,
Jehovah (Jahveh), which none of the patriarchs had known.
In the story of the plagues all three sources are interwoven; a
distinctive feature of P is that Aaron with his wand, under Moses'
direction, brings the plagues to pass. The announcement of the last
plague is the occasion for P to introduce the ordinance of the
Passover. The houses of the Israelites are to be marked by the blood
of the victim on the door-posts and lintel: when Jehovah passes
through the land, smiting dead all the first-born of the Egyptians, he
will "skip" the houses so protected--thus the name of the feast is
explained (Exod. xii. 1-13). To this is annexed a law for the
observance of the feast of Unleavened Bread, which in Palestine
immediately followed the Passover (xii. 14-20). With the institution
of the Passover is connected also a change in the calendar: henceforth
the month of the vernal full moon (March-April) is to be the first of
the year. It was so in the ecclesiastical calendar of later times, but
the civil New Year was, and still is, in the Autumn.
All the strands of the triple narrative lead to a holy mountain in the
desert (Sinai in P and probably in J; Horeb in E and D), the Mount of
God, represented in all as the ancient seat of Jehovah. It was on this
mountain that God appeared to Moses and bade him return to Egypt to
deliver Israel: when he had brought the people out of Egypt they
should worship at this mountain. Thither, therefore, Moses directs
their way after crossing the Red Sea. In all the sources God's
presence is manifested by cloud and fire upon the mountain, and Moses
goes to the summit to meet God (Exod. 19, J, E; xxiv. 15^b-18^a, P).
These imposing preparations portend a revelation of no common moment;
and the whole situation bids us expect the organic law of the religion
of Jehovah, the things which he requires of his worshippers.
We find, in fact, in each of the three sources at this point larger or
smaller groups of laws purporting to be delivered to Moses at the holy
mountain, and containing what may be regarded as fundamental
institutions. These bodies of law are, however, very different; the
problem of their relation to one another and to the narratives is
extremely difficult, and the parallel account of the legislation at
Horeb in Deut. 5 adds another element to the complication. If the
reader will attentively compare Exod. 20; 21-23; 24; Deut. 5; ix. 8-x.
5; and Exod. 34, he will get some impression of the nature of the
difficulties. According to Deut. v. 22, the Decalogue (Deut. v. 6-21;
Exod. xx. 1-17, with noteworthy variants) was the law written on the
two tables of stone by the hand of God which Moses dashed down and
shattered when he saw the people wantoning around the golden calf
(Exod. xxxii. 19). God proposes to reproduce the law on two new
tablets (xxxiv. 1), but the Decalogue (xxxiv. 28) written on these
tablets (xxxiv. 14-26) is wholly different from that of Exod. 20,
being not a compend of moral law, but prescriptions for the festivals
and ritual rules, whereas Deut. ix. 8-x. 5 says in so many words that
it was the Decalogue of v. 6-21 which was restored.
It is impossible to discuss these problems here. It must suffice to
say that they arise in part from the attempt to harmonize radically
different representations of what the fundamental law given at Sinai
(or Horeb) was, in part from the tendency of later times to ascribe to
the original Mosaic legislation the whole body of actual law regarded
as having a religious sanction. To the latter cause we may without
hesitation attribute, for example, the introduction of the fragmentary
remains of a Palestinian civil code in Exod. 21-22, to which other
remnants of diverse origin have been attached, as well as the great
mass of ritual and ceremonial laws which are thrust into the framework
of P.
The fundamental law of J, the basis of the original compact between
Jehovah and Israel, is preserved in Exod. xxxiv. 1-5, 10a, 14-28 (with
some manifest amplifications in vss. 15, 16, 24). When this was
combined with the story of the golden calf and the broken tables (E),
it was necessary to take it as a _renewal_ of the law, and this was
accomplished by very slight additions in vss. 1 and 4 ("like unto the
first," "that were on the first tables, which thou brakest").
What the Horeb constitution in E originally was, is less confidently
to be determined. In the form in which E was read by the authors of
Deut. 5 and of ix. 8-x. 5 (end of the seventh century or later), it
was the Decalogue _only_ (Deut. v. 22 f.); but it is not certain that
this was the oldest representation. There are other evidences that E
was revised and enlarged in the seventh century by an author who was
influenced by the prophets, particularly by Hosea; and the story of
the golden calf (with which the Decalogue narrative is closely
connected), a condemnation in advance of the Israelite worship of
Jehovah in the image of a bull, may have been introduced in this
edition, as the repudiation of the sacrifice of children to Jehovah in
the story of Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22) probably was.
In P the case is clearer. According to his theory all the ordinances
of worship were revealed at Sinai. Legitimate sacrifice presupposes
one legitimate temple and altar, a legitimate priesthood, and a
minutely prescribed ritual. In J and E the patriarchs set up altars
and offer sacrifice in many places; it is an obvious interest of the
authors, or of the local legends of holy places which they follow, to
trace the origin of the altars, sacred stones, holy trees and wells,
at Shechem or Bethel, Hebron or Beersheba, to one of the forefathers.
In P, on the contrary, the patriarchs never offer sacrifice. Until the
tabernacle was erected and God's presence filled it, until Aaron was
consecrated as priest, until the technique of the various species of
offering had been revealed by God and exemplified by Moses or Aaron,
no sacrifice could be anything but impious, like the worship of
heathen.
Accordingly, the first thing God does when Moses goes up into the
mount is to give him plans and specifications for a sacred tent--a
portable temple--with all its furniture, an altar for sacrifice in the
court before it, the vestments of the priests, and the apparatus of
the high-priestly oracle, and to reveal in detail the ritual for the
consecration of priests (Exod. 25-30). The making of the tabernacle
and all the other things necessary for the complete cultus is
described in Exod. 35-40; the consecration of the priests and the
inaugural sacrifices by Aaron in Lev. 8-9; Lev. x. 1-7 is closely
connected with cc. 8-9, and its sequel (combined with other matter) is
found in c. 16, the ritual of atonement. Lev. 8-9 is a good specimen
of the author's method. In the form of a description of the sacrifices
of consecration and the inaugural sacrifices of Aaron, he gives a
paradigm for every variety of offering.
Here was obviously a natural place to introduce laws prescribing the
ritual of these species of sacrifice and the circumstances which
demand them, and accordingly we find in Lev. 1-7 a collection of such
laws, some of them (e.g. Lev. 1 and 3) unquestionably old both in
substance and formulation, with slight adaptation to their surrounding
(e.g. "the sons of Aaron," i. 5, etc.), or with supplements to meet
new economic and social conditions, such as the burnt offering of
doves (Lev. i. 14-17, cf. vs. 2); others are younger or have been
more extensively enlarged and amended. The chapters thus represent a
growth in actual custom and corresponding rule. In c. 4 we may observe
an example of another kind of legal growth, namely, the systematic
development of principles or ideas. The scale of sin-offerings,
graduated by the social station of the sinner--the high priest, the
whole people, the prince, a common citizen--is consistently thought
out in conformity with a theory. Observe that the prince is assigned a
modest place next the bottom, below the religious community
corporately, while the priest takes his at the top. We can say with
full confidence that this elaborate ritual is not the booking of
usage, but is a product of sacerdotal theory; and, further, that so
long as kings reigned, the most high-church ecclesiastic is not likely
to have arrogated so much to himself, or, at least, to have proclaimed
his ambitions. Only in days when, under foreign governors, the high
priest was really the greatest man in the community is such a table of
precedence conceivable. Whether even then this law was actually put in
operation, may be an open question.
The position of the sacrificial laws, Lev. 1-7, explains itself, as
has been said. In many other cases, however, we see no reason why a
subject is brought in where it is. Thus, Lev. 11-15, on various forms
of uncleanness and the prescribed purifications, to which x. 10 f.
seems to be a fragmentary introduction, have no obvious association
with anything in the context, though they are introduced appropriately
enough before the general purification of the Day of Atonement, c. 16.
The laws, which read like the chapters of an exactly formulated code
of purity, have been expanded by the addition of new paragraphs (e.g.
Lev. xiv. 21-32, 33-53), and in some cases changes in the ritual may
be recognized; compare, for example, Lev. xiv. 1-8 with vss. 10-20.
Chapters 17-26 form a distinct body of law, having certain marked
peculiarities of its own, notably the frequent recurrence of the
motive of "holiness"--that is, the avoidance of things and actions
tabooed by the religion of Israel--often coupled with the appeal to
God's holiness, as in xix. 2, "Ye shall be holy, for I, Jehovah, your
God, am holy," or simply asserting his authority, "I am Jehovah." On
the other hand, much in the laws of this Holiness Book (H), as it now
stands, has close affinity to the mass of ritual and ceremonial laws
in Leviticus and Numbers. The hypothesis which seems best to explain
the phenomena is that an independent collection of laws (or rather the
remains of such a collection), characterized by the motive of
holiness, has been expanded and edited in the spirit and manner of the
priestly legislation, while some laws which were originally included
in this collection have been transposed to other contexts.
The Holiness Book closed with an earnest exhortation and warning to
observe all these laws, promising the blessing of God on obedience and
depicting in strong colours the calamities with which he will punish
defection (Lev. 26). The position and prophetic tenour of this chapter
resemble Deut. 28, and the book in its original form is apparently the
product of the same age with Deuteronomy.
The Origins (P) described in Exod. 28 f. and Lev. 8 f. the choice of
Aaron and his sons to be priests and their installation in the sacred
office. The inferior order of the ministry of the sanctuary, the
levites, is not as yet instituted. This is done in Numbers, and indeed
with a certain redundancy, for Num. 3 and 4 independently deal with
the subject, and c. 18 takes it up afresh without any allusion to a
previous appointment. Much stress is laid on the exclusive prerogative
of Aaron and his sons in the service of the altar and the ministry
"within the veil"; no levite, much less a layman, may presume to these
sacred functions on pain of death. The levites are given to Aaron and
his sons as temple slaves for the menial work of the sanctuary, in
place of the first-born Israelites of all tribes who would naturally
be dedicated to God, i.e. to the temple. Yet, as ministers of
religion, they are supported by a general tithe of the products of the
soil imposed on all the people.
The laws in Numbers present the same variety as in Leviticus. There
are old laws with modifications and enlargements, and many others
which by various signs betray a more recent origin. Num. 28-36 belong
as a whole to the latter class; cc. 28 f. exemplify that growth of the
law by the formulation of sacerdotal ideals or desiderata which has
been noted in the case of Lev. 4. It is to be observed that the
narrative of P has reached in Num. xxvii. 12-23 the end of Moses'
career; nothing is in place after it but the ascent of Mt. Abarim and
Moses' death (Deut. 34). Num. 28-36 thus stand even formally in the
place of an appendix.
The narrative of P (Origin of the Religious Institutions) and the
great mass of ritual and ceremonial laws in the three middle books of
the Pentateuch are often called collectively the Priests' Code. The
name naturally suggests to the English reader an orderly body of law,
compiled, revised, and promulgated by some authority; and, in fact,
many critics--except for the orderliness, which nobody has ventured to
affirm, and with allowance for later additions--regard the Priests'
Code as such a law book, compiled and edited by priestly scribes in
Babylonia, brought to Judæa by Ezra, with the authority of the Persian
king, to reform the many disorders that existed there, and ratified
and put in force in B.C. 444 by the magnates and the people of the
Jews. (See Ezra 7; Neh. 8-10, and below, pp. 129 ff.) Internal
evidence of such an origin and destination is, however, sought in
vain in the laws; the things that Ezra and Nehemiah were most zealous
about, especially the veto on mixed marriages, do not stand out in the
so-called Priests' Code as they do in other parts of the law, while
about a reform of the cultus in Jerusalem in conformity with a new
ritual introduced from Babylonia, the story of Ezra's doings is
significantly silent.
The phenomena we have observed in Exodus-Numbers suggest the
hypothesis, rather, that various old laws, dealing chiefly with
sacrifice and with the rules of clean and unclean--the two principal
subjects of priestly regulation--were inserted at suitable points in
the Origins of the Religious Institutions (P); these received
amendments and supplements both before and after their incorporation;
other more independent developments, whether representing actual
custom or sacerdotal aspirations, found place among or beside them;
and thus the whole Priestly stratum grew by a process of accretion
through many generations into its present inorganic magnitude. It is
antecedently probable that this process went on in Palestine, where
the ritual laws were a practical concern, rather than in the schools
of Babylonia; and only strong evidence to the contrary could overcome
this presumption.