THE LAW OF THE PRIESTS.
Out of the peculiar relation in which Israel stood from all antiquity to
his God, out of the protection and prosperity which he had granted to
the patriarchs and their seed, out of the liberation from the oppression
of the Egyptians, which Jehovah had prepared for the Israelites with a
strong arm, out of the bestowal of Canaan, _i.e._ the promise of Jehovah
to conquer the land, which the Israelites had now possessed for
centuries, there grew up in the circles of the priests, from about the
time of Samuel, the idea of the covenant which Jehovah had made with the
patriarchs, and through them with Israel. Jehovah had assured Israel of
his protection and blessing; on the other hand, Israel had undertaken to
serve him, to obey his commands, and do his will. If Israel lives
according to the command of Jehovah, the blessing of his God will
certainly be his in the future also; the reward of true service will not
and cannot be withheld from him. The will of Jehovah which Israel has to
obey, the law of Jehovah which he has to fulfil, was contained in the
moral precepts, the rules of law, and rubrics for purification and
sacrifice, the writing down of which in the frame-work of a brief
account of the fortunes of the fathers, the slavery in Egypt, the
liberation and the conquest of Canaan, on the basis of older sketches
of separate parts, was brought to a conclusion at Hebron, in the
priestly families of the tribe of Aaron, about the first decade of
David's reign (I. 385). In this writing were laid down the views held by
the priesthood on the life pleasing to God, on the past of the nation
and the priests, and of the correct mode of worship. It was the ideal
picture of conduct in morals, law and worship which the priests strove
after, which must in any case have existed in that great period when
Jehovah spoke to the Israelites by the mouth of Moses. And, as a fact,
the foundations of the moral law, the fundamental rules of law and
customs of sacrifice, as we found above (I. 484), do go back to that
time of powerful movement of the national feeling, of lofty exaltation
of religious emotion against the dreary polytheism of Egypt.
It is doubtful, whether the families of the priests and sacrificial
servants who traced back their lineage to Levi, the son of Jacob (p.
197), and were now united by David and Solomon for service at the sacred
tabernacle, for sacrifice and attendance at the temple, had of antiquity
formed a separate tribe, which afterwards became dispersed (I. 488),--or
if this tribe first was united under the impression made by the idea of
true priesthood, which those writings denoted as an example and pattern,
and under the influence of the change introduced by the foundation of a
central-point for the worship of Israel in the tabernacle of David, and
then in the temple of Solomon, for the priestly families scattered
through the land, by means of a gradual union of the priestly families;
at all events, a position at least equal in dignity to the rest of the
tribes ought to be found for the tribe of Levi, which knew the will and
law of Jehovah, and the correct mode of sacrifice. It was not indeed
possible in Israel to give the first and most ancient place to the
tribe of the priests, as has been done in other nations where a division
of orders has crystallised into hereditary tribes. In the memory of the
nation Reuben was the first-born tribe, _i.e._ the complex of the oldest
families, the oldest element of the nation, and the importance of the
tribes derived from Joseph and the tribe of Judah in and after the
conquest of Canaan was so firmly fixed that the tribe of Levi could not
hope to contend with them successfully in the question of antiquity. But
what was wanting in rank of derivation could be made up by special
blessings given by Jehovah, and by peculiar sanctity. According to an
old conception the first-born male belonged to Jehovah. In the sketch of
the fortunes of Israel and of the law, Jehovah says to Moses, he will
accept the tribe of Levi in place of the first-born males of the people.
The number of the first-born males of one month old of all the other
tribes was taken--they reached 22,373; the number of all the men and
boys down to the age of one month in the tribe of Levi was 22,000. These
22,000 Levites Jehovah took in the place of the first-born of the
people, and the remaining 373 were ransomed from Jehovah at the price of
five shekels of silver for each person.[368] Thus the Levites were
raised by Jehovah to be the first-born tribe of Israel. Levi was the
tribe which Jehovah had selected for his service, the chosen tribe of a
chosen nation. Moses and Aaron were of this tribe, and if, instead of a
few families who stood beside Moses when he led Israel out of Egypt, and
restored the worship of the tribal deity, the whole tribe of Levi was
represented as active in his behalf, and as a supporter of Moses, the
consecration of age was not wanting to this tribe, and reverence was
naturally paid to it in return for such ancient services.
The Levites were not to busy themselves with care for their maintenance,
they were not to work for hire, or possess any property; they were to
occupy themselves exclusively with their sacred duties. Instead of
inheritance Jehovah was to be their heritage.[369] It is true that the
plan for the maintenance of the tribe of Levi, sketched in the first
text on the occasion of the division of Canaan, the 48 cities allotted
to them in the lands of the other twelve tribes (13 for the priests and
35 for the assistant Levites[370]), could never be carried out; yet
claims might be founded on it. Moreover, the necessary means for support
were supplied in other ways. The firstlings of corn, fruits, the
vintage, the olive tree, were offered by being laid on the altar. No
inconsiderable portion of other offerings was presented in the same
manner. All these gifts could be applied by the priests to their own
purposes.[371] But by far the most fruitful source of income for the
priesthood was the tithe of the produce of the fields, which was offered
according to an ancient custom to Jehovah as his share of the harvest.
The law required that a tenth of corn, and wine, and oils, and of all
other fruits, and the tenth head of all new-born domestic animals,
should be given to the priests.[372] The statements of the prophets and
the evidence of the historical books prove that the tithes were offered
as a rule, though not invariably. As the Levites who were not priests
had no share in the sacrifices, the law provided that the tithe should
go to them, but the Levites were in turn to restore a tenth part of
these tithes to the priests. Finally, the law required that a portion
of the booty taken in war should go to the Levites; that in all
numberings of the people and levies each person should pay a sum to the
temple for the ransom of his life.[373]
Only the descendants of Aaron could take part in the most important
parts of the ceremonial of sacrifice. From his twenty-fifth or thirtieth
year to his fiftieth every Levite was subject to the temple
service.[374] The law prescribed a formal dedication, with
purifications, expiations, sacrifices, and symbolical actions for the
exercise of the lower as well as the higher priesthood, for the offering
of sacrifice and the sprinkling of the blood as well as for the due
performance of the door-keeping. At the dedication of a priest these
ceremonies lasted for seven days, but the chief import of the ritual was
to denote the future priest himself as a sacrifice offered to Jehovah.
Only those might be dedicated who were free from any bodily blemish. "A
blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything
superfluous, or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, or
crook-backt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be
scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken shall not come nigh to
offer the offering of the Lord made by fire."[375]
No priest was to make baldness on his head or shave off the corners of
his beard, or make any cuttings in his flesh;[376] before the sacrifice
he might not take wine or any intoxicating drink; he was required to
devote himself to especial purity and cleanliness, and observe in a
stricter degree the laws concerning food; he might not marry a widow or
a woman divorced from her husband, still less a harlot; he was to avoid
most carefully any contact with a corpse: only in the case of his
nearest relatives was this defilement allowed. The clothing of the
priests was definitely prescribed. He must wear a robe of white linen
(byssus), woven in one piece; and this robe was held together by a
girdle of three colours, red, blue and white. The priest also wore a
band of white linen round his head, and trousers of white linen in order
that he might not discover his nakedness when he ascended the steps of
the altar.[377]
The foremost place among the consecrated priests was occupied by the
high priest. He alone had the right to enter the inner space of the
sanctuary, the cell in which stood the ark of the covenant--the other
priests could enter the outer space only; he alone could offer sacrifice
in the name of the whole people, he alone could announce the will and
oracle of Jehovah, and consecrate the priests. The ritual for the high
priest was most strict. In the belief of the Hebrews the most accurate
knowledge and the most careful circumspection was needed in order to
offer an effective sacrifice and avoid arousing the anger of Jehovah by
some omission in the rite, and if the law required of all priests that
they should devote themselves to especial purity and holiness, this
demand was made with peculiar severity upon the high priest. He might
marry only with a pure virgin of the stock of his kindred; he must keep
himself so far from all defilement that he might not touch the corpse
even of his father and his mother; he might not, on any occasion, rend
his garments in sorrow. The distinguishing garb of the high priest was a
robe of blue linen, which on the edge was adorned with pomegranates and
bells; the bells were intended, as the law says, to announce the coming
of the priest to the God who dwelt in the shrine of the temple, that
the priest might not die.[378] Over this robe the high priest wore a
short wrapper, the so-called ephod or shoulder-garment, and on his
breast in front the tablet with the holy Urim and Thummim, by means of
which he inquired of Jehovah, if the king or any one from the people
asked for an oracle. The other priests also, at least in more ancient
times, wore the ephod with the Urim and Thummim; but the ephod of the
high priest was fastened on the shoulders by two precious stones, and
the front side of his breastplate was made of twelve precious stones set
in gold, on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes. The
head-band of the high priest was distinguished from that of the other
priests by a plate of gold bearing the inscription, "Holy is Jehovah;"
he might not even uncover his head.[379]
The mode of worship was regulated by the law in a systematic manner.
Beside the Sabbath, on keeping which the law laid special stress, and
regarded it as a symbol of the relation of Israel to Jehovah, the
Israelites celebrated feasts at the new moon and the full moon,[380] and
held three great national festivals in the year. These festivals marked
in the first instance certain divisions of the natural year. Yet the
first, the festival of spring, had from ancient times a peculiar
religious significance. It has been remarked above that at the spring
festival not only were the firstlings of the harvest, the first ears of
corn, offered to the tribal God, but that also, as at the beginning of a
new season of fertility, a sin offering, the vicarious sacrifice of a
lamb, was made for the first-born which were not offered. The spring
festival was also the festival of the sparing of the first-born, the
Passah or passover of Jehovah (I. 414). The priestly ordinance, which
sought to give a definite historical cause for the customs of the
festival, and to mark the favours which Jehovah had granted to his
people, connects the old usages of this festival with the exodus from
Egypt, and we have already seen how from this point of view old
ceremonies of this festival were transformed, and new ones were added
(I. 445). As the spring festival was kept in the first month of the
Hebrew year, Nisan (March-April) (it began on the evening of the day
after the new moon, at the rise of the full moon, when the sun is in the
Ram), the exodus from Egypt was supposed to have taken place on the
morning which followed this night. The Passah continued for seven days,
in which, from the morning of the second day to the evening of the
seventh, only unleavened bread could be eaten, i.e. the firstlings of
the corn in their original form, and no business could be carried on. On
each of the seven days of the feast, according to the law, two young
bulls, a ram and seven yearling lambs were offered as a burnt offering
for Israel in the temple, and besides these a goat, as a sin offering.
The neglect of the festival, the eating of leavened bread on any of the
days, was threatened by the law with extirpation from the
community.[381] As the greater number of the tribes attained to a
settled life and agriculture, the feast of the ripe fruits or harvest
naturally rose to importance beside this festival of the earliest
fruits. Seven full weeks after the commencement of the Passah, or six
weeks after the end of it, the feast of new bread was celebrated. The
sheaves were brought, the corn trodden out, the first new meal
prepared. According to the law, each house in Israel, _i.e._, no doubt,
each which possessed land and flocks, had to bring two leavened
firstling loaves of new wheaten meal and two yearling lambs as a thank
offering. Before these were offered no one could eat bread made from the
new corn.[382] The festival of autumn, which took place in the seventh
month of the Hebrew year (September--October), from the fourteenth to
the twenty-first day of the month, was merrier and of longer duration.
It was the festival of the completion of the in-gathering, and of the
vintage, and consequently can hardly go back beyond the time of the
settlement in Canaan.[383] It was customary to erect arbours of palm
leaves, willows, and oak branches, as was indeed necessary at a time
when men were occupied in remote orchards and vineyards, and in these
the feast was kept, unless it was preferred to keep it at some important
place of sacrifice, in order to offer the thank offering there,[384] and
in this case those who came to the feast also passed the day in tents or
arbours. Like the feast of spring, the feast of tabernacles continued
for seven days. According to the law, Israel was to offer 70 bulls, 14
rams, and seven times 14 lambs at this festival as a burnt offering. To
this feast also a historical meaning was given; the tabernacles were
erected to remind Israel of the fact that he had once dwelt in tents in
the wilderness.
At these three festivals, "thrice in the year, all the males of Israel
must appear before Jehovah."[385] Such was the law of the priests. It
was the intention of the priests that the three great festivals should
be celebrated at the dwelling of Jehovah, _i.e._ at the tabernacle, and
afterwards at the temple; hence at the great festivals the Israelites
were to go to Jerusalem. But the strict carrying out of such a common
celebration was opposed to the character of the festivals themselves. We
saw that even when the sacred ark still stood at Shiloh, pilgrimages
were made thither once a year at the festival of Jehovah. After the
erection of the tabernacle and the temple this, no doubt, took place
more frequently, and the numbers were greater. Yet the object of the
priests could not be completely realised. The paschal festival was the
redemption of the separate house, of each individual family. This
meaning and object was very definitely stamped on the ritual. In a
similar manner, the feast of the beginning of harvest and of the first
fruits required celebration at home, on the plot of land, and this was
still more the case with the festival of thanksgiving for the completed
harvest.
Before the people rejoiced in the blessing of the completed harvest at
the feast of tabernacles, all misdeeds which might have defiled the year
to that time must be cancelled and removed by a special sacrifice. For
this object the law on this occasion made a requirement never demanded
at any other time. From the evening of the ninth to the evening of the
tenth day there was not only a cessation of business, but a strict fast
was kept. Every man among the people must subject himself to this
regulation, and he who transgressed it was threatened with the loss of
his life.[386] The high priest had first to cleanse himself and the
other priests, and then the dwelling of Jehovah; for even the sanctuary
might be defiled by the inadvertence of the priests. When the high
priest had bathed he must clothe himself in a coat and trousers of white
linen, with a girdle and head-band of the same material, and offer a
young bull as a sin offering. Bearing a vessel filled with the blood of
this victim, and with the censer from the altar of incense in the
interior of the sanctuary, which contained burning coals and
frankincense, the high priest went alone into the holy of holies, behind
the curtain before the ark of the covenant. Immediately on his entrance
the clouds arising from the censer must fill the chamber, that the
priest might not see the face of Jehovah over the cherubs and die. Then
the high priest sprinkled the blood from the vessel seven times towards
the ark, and when thus cleansed he turned back to the court of the
sanctuary, in which two goats stood ready for sacrifice. He cast lots
which of the two should be sacrificed to Jehovah and which to Azazel,
the evil spirit of the desert. When the lot was cast, the high priest
laid his hand on the head of the goat assigned to Azazel, confessed all
the sins and transgressions of Israel on this goat, and laid them on his
head, in order that he might carry them into the desert-land into which
the goat was driven from the sanctuary. Then the high priest slew the
other goat assigned to Jehovah, and, returning into the holy of holies,
sprinkled with his blood the ark of the covenant for the second time, in
order to purify the people. When the altar of incense, in the outer part
of the sanctuary, had been sprinkled in a similar manner, the high
priest declared that Jehovah was appeased. After a second bath he put on
his usual robes, and offered three rams as burnt offerings for himself,
the priesthood, and the nation.[387]
All sacrifices were to be offered at the tabernacle, "before the
dwelling of Jehovah;" and afterwards in like manner in the temple. The
law of the priests threatened any one with death who sacrificed
elsewhere.[388] The most essential regulations for the offering of
sacrifice are perhaps the following:--Any one who intended to bring an
offering must purify himself for several days. Wild animals could not be
offered. In the Hebrew conception the sacrifice is the surrender of a
part of a man's possessions and enjoyments. Hence only domestic
offerings could be offered, because only these are really property.
Cattle, sheep, and goats were the animals appointed for sacrifice. The
poorer people were also allowed to offer doves. Each victim must be
without blemish and healthy, and it must not be weakened and desecrated
by labour. Before the animal was killed the sacrificer laid his hand on
its head for a time; then he who offered the sacrifice, whether priest
or layman, slew the victim, but only the priest could receive the warm
blood in the sacrificial vessel. With this vessel in his hand the priest
went round the altar and sprinkled the feet, the corners, and the sides
of it with the blood of the victim. In the Hebrew conception the life of
the victim was in its blood, and thus the sprinklings which were to be
made with it form the most important part of the holy ceremony. From
ancient times the burnt offering was the most solemn kind of sacrifice.
Only male animals, and, as a rule, bulls and rams, could be offered as
burnt offerings. When they had been slain and skinned these offerings
were entirely burnt in the fire on the altar, without any part being
enjoyed by the sacrificer or the priest, as was the case in other kinds
of offerings; only the skin fell to the share of the priests. As the
burnt offering was intended to gain the favour of Jehovah, so were the
sin offerings intended to appease his anger and blot out transgressions.
For sin offerings female animals were used as a rule, as male animals
for the burnt offerings,[389] but young bulls and he-goats were also
offered as expiatory offerings for the whole people, and for oversights
or transgressions of the priests in the ritual, and for sin offerings
for princes. In sin offerings only certain parts of the entrails were
burnt, the kidneys, the liver, and other parts; and in this sacrifice
the priests sprinkled the blood on the horns of the altar; the flesh
which was not burned belonged to the priests. In thank offerings and
offerings of slaughter (so called because in these the slaying and
eating of the victim was the principal matter) only the fat was burnt,
the priests kept the breast and the right thigh,[390] the rest was eaten
by the sacrificer at a banquet with the guests whom he had invited; but
this banquet must be held at the place of sacrifice, on the same or at
any rate on the following day. Drink offerings consisted of libations of
wine, which were poured on and round the altar (libations of water are
also mentioned, though not in the law, p. 115); the food offerings in
fruits, corn, and white meal, which the priests threw into the fire of
the altar; in bread and cookery, which, drenched with oil and sprinkled
with salt and incense, was partly burned, and partly fell to the lot of
the priests. Lastly, the incense offerings consisted in the burning of
incense, which did not take place, like the other sacrifices, on the
larger altar in the court of the sanctuary, but on the small altar,
which stood in the space before the holy of holies of the tabernacle,
and afterwards of the temple.[391]
According to the law, a service was to be continually going on in the
dwelling of Jehovah. The sacred fire on the altar in the interior of the
tabernacle was never to be quenched; before the holy of holies on the
sacred table twelve unleavened loaves always lay sprinkled with salt and
incense, as a symbolical and continual offering of the twelve tribes.
Each Sabbath this bread was renewed, and the loaves when removed fell to
the priests. Before the curtain of the holy of holies the candlestick
with seven lamps was always burning, and every morning and evening the
priests of the temple were to offer a male sheep as a burnt offering at
the dwelling of Jehovah, and two sheep on the morning and evening of the
Sabbath. The high priest had also to make an offering of corn every
morning and evening.[392]
Beside the sacrifice, the law of the priests required the observance of
a whole series of regulations for purity. It is not merely bodily
cleanliness which these laws required of the Israelites, nor is it
merely a natural abhorrence of certain disgusting objects which lies at
the base of these prescriptions; it is not merely that to the simple
mind physical and moral purity appear identical, that moral evil is
conceived as a defilement of the body; nor are these regulations merely
intended to place a certain restriction on natural states and impulses.
These factors had their weight, but beside them all a certain side of
nature and of the natural life was set apart as impure and unholy. The
laws of purity among the Israelites are far less strict and
comprehensive than those of the Egyptians and the Indians; but if we
unite them with the ritual by which transgressions of these rules were
done away and made good, they form a system entering somewhat deeply
into the life of the nation.
For the laity also the law required and prescribed cleanliness of
clothing. Stuffs of two kinds might not be worn; pomegranates must be
fixed on the corners of the robe. The field and vineyard might not be
sown with two kinds of seed; nor could ox and ass be yoked together
before the plough.[393] Certain animals were unclean, and these might
not be eaten. The clean and permitted food was obtained from oxen,
sheep, goats, and in wild animals from deer, wild-goats, and gazelles,
and in fact from all animals which ruminate and have cloven feet.
Unclean are all flesh-eating animals with paws, and more especially the
camel, the swine, the hare, and the coney. Of fish, those only might be
eaten which have fins and scales; all fish resembling snakes, like eels,
might not be eaten. Most water-fowl are unclean; pigeons and quails, on
the other hand, were permitted food. All creeping things, winged or not,
with the exception of locusts, are forbidden.[394] Moreover, if the
permitted animals were not slain in the proper manner their flesh was
unclean; if it had "died of itself," or was strangled, or torn by wild
beasts,[395] the use of the blood of the animal was most strictly
forbidden, "for the life of all flesh is the blood;" even of the animals
which might be eaten the blood must be poured on the earth and covered
with earth.[396] As the eating of forbidden food made a man unclean, so
also did all sexual functions of man or woman, and all diseases
connected with these functions, including lying in child-bed. Every one
was also unclean on whose body was "a rising scab or bright spot," but
above all the white leprosy rendered the sufferer unclean.[397] Finally,
any contact with the corpse of man or beast, whether intentional or
accidental, rendered a man unclean. The house in which a man died, with
all the utensils, was unclean; any one who touched a grave or a human
bone was tainted.[398]
The priestly regulations set forth in great detail the ceremonies, the
washings and sacrifices, by which defilements were to be removed. The
unclean person must avoid the sanctuary, and even society and contact
with others, till the time of his purification, which in serious
defilements can only begin after the lapse of a certain time. In the
more grievous cases ordinary water did not suffice for the cleansing,
but from the ashes of a red cow without blemish, which was slain as a
sin offering and entirely burnt, the priest prepared a special water of
purification with cedar wood and bunches of hyssop. The reception of
healed lepers required the most careful preparations and most scrupulous
manipulations.
Among the regulations of purity is reckoned the custom of circumcision,
which was practised among the Israelites, and retained by the law. Yet
the reason for this peculiar custom, which according to the regulations
of the priests was performed on the eighth day after birth, the first
day of the second week of life,[399] seems to lie in other motives
rather than in the desire to remove a certain part of the male body
which was regarded as unclean. We saw above that according to the old
conception of the Israelites the firstborn must be ransomed from
Jehovah, that the life of all boys, if it was to be secured, must be
purchased from Jehovah (I. 414, 448). Hence, if we may follow the hint
of an obscure narrative, it is not improbable that circumcision of the
reproductive member was a vicarious blood-sacrifice for the life of the
boy. When Moses returned from the land of Midian to Egypt--so we learn
from the Ephraimitic text--"Jehovah met him in the inn, and sought to
kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of
her son, and cast it at his feet, and he departed from him."[400] To the
Israelites circumcision was a symbol of their connection with the
nation, of their covenant with Jehovah and selection by him.
The most important part of the purity of the people of Jehovah was their
maintenance of his worship, the strict severance of Israel from the
religion of their neighbours and community with them. It was now seen
what influence living and mingling with the Canaanites had exercised in
the national worship, and it was perceived what an attraction the Syrian
rites had presented for centuries to the nation, and what a power they
still had upon them. Hence even Moses was said to have given the command
to destroy the altars and images of the Canaanites, to drive out all the
Canaanites, and make neither covenant nor marriage with them.[401] The
law forbade sacrifices to Moloch under penalty of death; any one who did
so was to be stoned. Those who made offerings to other gods than Jehovah
were to be "accursed" (I. 499). Wizards were also to be stoned.[402] "Ye
shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the
corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for
the dead, nor print any mark upon you. Do not prostitute thy daughter to
cause her to play the harlot."[403] All these are commands directed
against the manners, funeral customs, and religious worship of the
Canaanites. Strangers were not to be received into the community and
people of Israel; nor could Israelites contract marriage with women who
were not Israelites; it is only the later law which allows women
captured in war to be taken into the marriage bed.[404] These are the
"misanthropical" laws of the Jews of which Tacitus speaks with such deep
aversion.
The law assigned a far-reaching religious influence to the priests. They
alone could turn the favour of Jehovah towards his people by correct and
effective sacrifices, and appease his wrath; they announced the will of
Jehovah by his oracle; in regard to diseases and leprosy, they exercised
police functions over the whole nation by means of the regulations for
cleanliness and food; they could exclude any one at their discretion
from the sacrifices and, consequently, from the community; and, in fine,
they were in possession of the skill and knowledge with which the people
were unacquainted. The priesthood arranged the chronology and the
festivals, they supervised weights and measures,[405] they knew the
history of the people in past ages, and their ancient covenant with the
God of the ancestors. From their knowledge of the ordinances of Jehovah
followed the claim which the priests made to watch over the application
of these ordinances in life, the administration of law and justice. But
at first this claim was put forward modestly. The old regulations about
the right of blood in the time-honoured observances of justice were
added to the law of ritual when this was written down (I. 385, 484);
they were modified here and there by the views of the priesthood, and in
some points essentially extended; and now, like the ordinances for the
places of sacrifice, mode of worship, and purification, they stood
opposed in many regulations to real life as ideal but hardly practicable
standards.
According to the view of the priests Jehovah was the true possessor of
the land of Israel. He had given it to his people for tenure and use.
From this conception the law derived very peculiar conclusions, which
might be of essential advantage for retaining the property of the
families in their hands, for keeping up the family and their
possessions, on which the Hebrews laid weight, and for proprietors when
in debt. To aid the debtor against the creditor, the poor against the
rich, the labourer against him who gave the work, the slave against his
master, is in other ways also the obvious object of the law.
As all work must cease on the seventh day, the day of Jehovah, so must
there be a similar cessation in the seventh year, which is therefore
called the Sabbath year. In every seventh year the Israelites were to
allow the land which Jehovah had let to them to lie fallow, in honour of
the real owner. In this year the land was not sowed, nor the vine-trees
cut, nor the wild beast driven from the field, every one must seek on
the fallow what had grown there without culture. If this Sabbath of the
seventh year was kept Jehovah would send such increase on the preceding
sixth year that there should be no want.[406] When this period of seven
fallow years had occurred seven times the circle appeared to be
complete, and from this point of view the law ordained that at such a
time everything should return to the original position. Hence, when the
seventh Sabbath year was seven times repeated (in the year of Jubilee)
not only was agriculture stopped, but all alienated property, with the
buildings and belongings, went back to the original owner or his
heirs.[407] The consequence was that properties were never really sold,
but the use of them was assigned to others, and hence, even before the
year of Jubilee, the owner could redeem his land by paying the value of
the produce which would be yielded before the year of Jubilee.
But the priests were far from being able to carry out these extended
requirements which proceeded from the sanctity of the Sabbath, and from
the conception that the land of Israel belonged to Jehovah, and every
family held their property from Jehovah himself, and which were intended
to make plain the true nature of the property of the Israelites. It was
an ideal picture which they set up, and hardly so much as an attempt was
made to carry it out. They could reckon with more certainty on obedience
to a law which ordained that no interest was to be taken from the poor,
and no poor man's mantle was to be taken in pledge.[408] Nevertheless,
the law of debt was severe. If the debtor could not pay his debt before
a fixed time the creditor was allowed to pay himself with the moveable
and fixed property of the debtor; he could sell his wife and children,
and even the debtor himself, as slaves, or use him as a slave in his own
service.
For the legal process we find in the law no more than the regulation
"that one witness shall not bear evidence against a man for his death,"
_i.e._ that one witness was not sufficient to establish a serious
charge, that "injustice shall not be done in judgment, that the person
of the small shall not be disregarded, nor the person of the great
honoured;" "according to law thou shalt judge thy neighbour."[409] For
every injury done to the person or property of another, the guilty shall
make reparation. We know already the old ordinances which require life
for life, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth (I. 485). Injury to property
and possession was to be fully compensated; even the injury done by his
beast was to be compensated by the master. Theft was merely punished by
restoring four or five times the value of the stolen goods. If the thief
could not pay this compensation he was handed over to the injured man as
a slave. But any one who steals a man in order to keep him as a slave,
or to sell him, was to be punished with death.[410] If a murder was
committed, the avenger of blood, _i.e._ the nearest relative and heir of
the murdered man, was to pursue the murderer and slay him, wherever he
met him, as soon as it was established by two persons that he was really
guilty. The law even forbade the avenger of blood to accept a ransom
instead of taking the life of the guilty, because the land was
desecrated by the blood of the murdered man, "and the land is not
cleansed from the blood spilt, save by the blood of the murderer." An
exception was allowed only when one man slew another by accident, and
without any fault of his own, and not out of hostility or hatred. In
this case the slayer was to fly into one of the six cities which were
marked out as cities of refuge.[411] From the elders of the city the
pursuing avenger of blood was to demand the delivery of the slayer, and
they were to decide whether the act was done from hatred and hostility,
or was merely an accident. If the elders decided in favour of the first
alternative, they were to give up the guilty into the hands of the
avenger of blood, that he might die. In the other case, the slayer must
remain in the city of refuge till the death of the high priest, and the
avenger was free from the guilt of bloodshed if before that time he met
him beyond the confines of the city of refuge and slew him.[412] The
regulations of the priests even went so far as to lay down a rule that
if a savage bull slew a man the bull was not only to be stoned, and not
eaten as an unclean animal, but his master also must die, or at any rate
pay a ransom, if he knew that the animal was savage, and yet did not
control him.[413]
Among the people of the East the wealthier men did not content
themselves with one wife. This custom prevailed in Israel also. The law
of the priests did not oppose a custom which had an example and
justification in the narratives of the patriarchs. The Israelites also
followed the general custom of the East, in purchasing the wife from her
father, and recompensing the father for the loss of a useful piece of
property--for the two working hands which he lost when he gave away his
daughter from his house. Thus Jacob obtained the daughters of Laban by a
service of 14 years. The price of a wife purchased for marriage from the
father seems to have been from 15 to 50 shekels of silver (36_s._ to
125_s._).[414] The conclusion of the marriage was marked by a special
festivity, after which the bride was carried by her parents into the
nuptial chamber. The prostitution of maidens in honour of the goddess of
birth, so common among the neighbouring nations, was strictly forbidden
by the book of the law. The daughter of a priest who began to prostitute
herself was to be burnt with fire, because she thus "defiled not herself
only, but also her father."[415] The man who seduced a virgin was
compelled to purchase her for his wife, and even if her father would not
give her to wife he was to pay him the usual purchase-money. Adultery
was punished by the law with even greater severity than violations of
chastity before marriage. The adulteress, together with the man who had
seduced her into a violation of the marriage bond, were to be put to
death.[416] If a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness without being
able to prove it against her a divine judgment was to decide the matter.
The priest was to lead man and wife before Jehovah. Then he was to draw
holy water in an earthen pitcher, and throw dust swept from the floor of
the dwelling of Jehovah into this, and say to the woman, "If thou hast
not offended in secret against thy husband, remain unpunished by this
water of sorrow, that bringeth the curse; but if thou hast sinned, may
this water go into thy body and cause thy thighs to rot, and may
Jehovah make thee a curse and an oath among thy people." The woman
answered, "So be it;" and when the priest had dipped in the water a
sheet written with the words of this curse, she was compelled to drink
it.[417] Thus the woman was brought to confession, or was freed from the
suspicion of her husband.
Marriages were forbidden not only with strange women, but also within
certain degrees of relationship; in which were included not only those
close degrees, to which there is a natural abhorrence, but also such as
did not exclude marriage in other nations. In this matter the law of the
priests proceeded from the sound view that marriage did not belong to a
natural connection already in existence, but was intended to found a new
relationship. Not only was marriage forbidden with a mother, with any
wife or concubine of the father, with a sister, a daughter, or
granddaughter, a widowed daughter-in-law; but also with an aunt on the
father's or mother's side, with a stepsister, or sister by marriage,
with a sister-in-law, or wife's sister so long as the wife lived.[418]
The husband purchased his wife as a chattel; hence in marriage she
continued to live in entire dependence beside her husband. The husband
could not commit adultery as against his wife; it was the right of
another husband which was injured by the seduction of the wife. It
rested with the husband to take as many wives as he chose beside his
first wife, and as many concubines from his handmaids and female slaves
as seemed good to him. The husband could put away his wife if she "found
no favour in his eyes," while the wife, on her part, could not dissolve
the marriage, or demand a separation; she possessed no legal will. Like
the wife, the children stood to the father in a relation of the most
complete dependence. Nor only did he sell his daughters for marriage, he
could give them as pledges, or even sell them as slaves, but not out of
the land;[419] and though the father was not allowed to sell the son as
a slave, he could turn him out of his house. Obedience and reverence
towards parents were impressed strongly on children, even in the
earliest regulations derived from the time of Moses. The son who curses
his father or mother, or strikes them, must be put to death.[420] The
first-born son is the heir of the house; after the death of the father
he is the head of the family, and succeeds to his rights over the
younger sons and the females. It is not clear whether the law allows any
claims to the moveable inheritance to any of the sons besides the
eldest, to whom the immoveable property passed absolutely; the sons of
concubines and slaves had no right of inheritance if there were sons in
existence by legitimate marriage. Daughters could only inherit if there
were no sons. The heiress could not marry beyond the tribe, in order
that the inheritance might at least fall to the lot of a tribesman. If
there were neither sons nor daughters, the brother of the father was the
heir, and then the uncles of the father.[421]
The law attempts to fix and ameliorate the position of day-labourers and
slaves. "The hire of the labourer shall not remain with thee till the
morrow."[422] The number of slaves appears to have been considerable.
They were partly captives taken in war, and partly strangers purchased
in the way of trade; partly Hebrews who, when detected in thieving,
could not pay the compensation, or who could not pay their debts, or
Hebrew daughters sold by their parents. The marriages of slaves
increased their number. The law required that slaves should rest on the
Sabbath day;[423] and even the oldest regulations restrict the right of
the master over the life of his slave by laying down the rule that the
slave shall be free if his master has inflicted a severe wound upon him,
and that the master must be punished if he has slain his slave.[424] The
slave who was a born Israelite might be ransomed by his kindred, if they
could pay the sum required.[425] The Hebrew slave was treated by his
master as a hired labourer, and hind.[426] When the Hebrew slave had
served six years his master was compelled to set him free without ransom
in the seventh year. A Hebrew could only remain in slavery for ever
when, after six years of service, he voluntarily declared that he wished
to remain with his master; then, as a sign that he permanently belonged
to the house of his master, his ear was pierced on the door-post with an
awl.
FOOTNOTES:
[368] Exod. xiii. 2; Numbers iii. 5-51; viii. 16.
[369] Numbers xviii. 20-26.
[370] Vol. i. 488, 502.
[371] Numbers xviii. 8-20.
[372] Levit. xxvii. 29-33.
[373] Genesis xiv. 20; xxviii. 22.
[374] Exod. xxx. 11-16; xxxviii. 25-28.
[375] Levit. xxi. 16-21.
[376] Levit. xxi. 5.
[377] Exod. xx. 26.
[378] Exod. xxviii. 31-35; xxxix. 22-27.
[379] Exod. xxviii. 4-30, 36-43.
[380] 1 Sam. xx. 5, 24, 27, and many passages in the prophets; Numbers
xxviii. 11; xxix. 6; Ewald, "Alterthuemer," s. 360.
[381] Exod. xii. 15-19; Numbers ix. 13; xxviii. 16-24.
[382] Levit. xxii. 9-21.
[383] At the division of the kingdom Jeroboam is said to have changed
this festival to the fifteenth day of the eighth month; 1 Kings xii. 33.
[384] _E. g._ 1 Sam. i. 3; 1 Kings xii. 27-32.
[385] Exod. xxiii. 13; xxxiv. 23.
[386] Levit. xxiii. 29.
[387] Levit. xvi., xxiii. 26-32.
[388] Levit. xvii. 3-5.
[389] Levit. i-vi.
[390] Levit. vii. 23-34, and in other passages.
[391] _Supr._ p. 183. Exod. xxx. 1-9.
[392] Levit. vi. 12, 13; ix. 17.
[393] Numbers xv. 38; Levit. xix. 19.
[394] Levit. xi. 1-44.
[395] Levit. xvii. 15.
[396] Levit. xvii. 14.
[397] Levit. xiii., xiv.
[398] The spoils taken in war are also to be purified; Numbers xxxi.
20-24.
[399] Levit. xii. 3. The Arabian tribes in the north of the peninsula,
who were nearly related to the Hebrews, observed this custom, and the
Phenicians also, while the Philistines did not observe it; Herod. 2,
104. In Genesis (xxi. 4; xvii. 12-14, 25) it is expressly mentioned that
Ishmael was not circumcised till his thirteenth year, but Isaac was
circumcised at the proper time, on the eighth day. This shows that
circumcision was a very ancient custom among the Israelites, and at the
same time indicates that among the Arabs the boys were not circumcised
till later years, which may have been the case in the older times among
the Hebrews also. Cf. Joshua v. 1-9; Joseph. "Antiq." 1, 12, 3.
[400] Exod. iv. 24; cf. De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," s. 282.
[401] Numbers xxxiii. 50-56; Exod. xxiii. 29 ff; xxxiv. 12-16; Vol. i.
500.
[402] Levit. xviii. 21; xx. 2, 27; Exod. xxii. 18.
[403] Levit. xix. 27-29.
[404] Deut. xxi. 11-14; cf. Numbers xii. 1.
[405] Levit. xix. 35, 36.
[406] Exod. xxiii. 10, 11; Levit. xxv. 20.
[407] Levit. xxv. 24-31.
[408] Exod. xxii. 25-27; Levit. xxv. 35-38.
[409] Numbers xxxv. 30; Levit. xix. 15.
[410] Exod. xxi. 16.
[411] Exod. xxi. 12-14; Numbers xxxv. 31; Joshua xx. 7-9.
[412] Numbers xxxv. 25-28.
[413] Exod. xxi. 28-36.
[414] Exod. xxi. 32; Hosea iii. 2; cf. Deuteron. xxii. 19, 29.
[415] Levit. xix. 29; xxi. 9.
[416] Levit. xviii. 20; xx. 10.
[417] Numbers v. 5-31.
[418] Levit. xviii.
[419] Exod. xxi. 7, 8.
[420] Exod. xxi. 17; Levit. xx. 9.
[421] Numbers xxxvi. 1-11; Tobit vii. 10; Numbers xxvii. 9.
[422] Levit. xix. 13.
[423] Exod. xx. 10.
[424] Exod. xxi. 20, 21, 26; Vol. i. 483.
[425] Levit. xxv. 47 ff.
[426] Levit. xxv. 39-41.