different connections. Men say, "We are bound together by blood,"
and "We are of one blood," and "Blood is thicker than water." They
say, also, "There is blood between us," and "Spilled blood cannot be
gathered up," and "Blood is a barrier." Salt, that stands for blood,
may similarly stand for life or for death, for peace or for discord. It
is an old superstition that to put salt on another's plate is an evil
omen. Hence the couplet:
"Help me to salt,
Help me to sorrow!"
Yet even this portent of ill luck may be canceled by a repetition of
the act, helping to a second portion of salt.[252] The taking of blood
that becomes a barrier may be followed by the taking of blood as a bond
of union. Shedding of blood is atoned for by sharing of blood.
[252] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 120.
Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 104 f.
Even the spilling of salt, which is so dreaded in primitive thought,
may, it is said, be rendered harmless if the person who was guilty of
the mishap will carefully gather up the spilled salt with the blade
of a knife, and throw it over his left shoulder, with an appropriate
invocation.[253]
[253] Henderson, p. 120; Dyer, p. 104 f.; Napier, p. 139 f.
It is deemed dangerous to give away salt to a stranger; for because
salt is as blood and as life, one must be careful lest he put his blood
and his life in the power of an enemy.[254] Salt is essential to the
preservation of human life; at the same time, salt is the destruction
of human life if it be in too great quantity or proportion. Thus the
seeming contradiction is only in seeming.
[254] Henderson, p. 217.
XV
MEANS OF A MERGED LIFE
All life is from the Author and Source of life. Only as two persons
become partakers of a common life by each and both sharing in that
which is in itself life, can they become one in the all-inclusive
Life. Having life from the Source of life, they can merge their common
possession in each other, and in that common Source. Such merging in a
common life, with an appeal to and by the approval of God, or the gods,
has been the root-idea of covenanting, in one way or another, from time
immemorial, among all peoples, the world over.
In primitive thought, and in a sense in scientific fact, the blood is
the life and the life is in the blood; hence they who share in each
other's blood are sharers in a merged and common life. Covenanting
in this way with a solemn appeal to God, or to the gods, has been a
mode of sacred union from the earliest dawn of human history. Two
thus covenanting are supposed to become of one being; the one is the
other, and the two are one. Every form of sacrifice, Jewish, Egyptian,
Assyrian, or ethnic, is in its primal thought either an evidence and
a reminder of an existing covenant between the offerer and the Deity
approached, or an appeal and an outreaching for a covenant to be
consummated.[255]
[255] Compare, for example, Psa. 50 : 5, 16; Hos. 1 : 10; Rom. 9 : 26.
Salt is counted as the equivalent of blood and of life, both in
primitive thought and, in a sense, in scientific fact; therefore salt,
like blood, has been deemed a nexus of a lasting covenant, as nothing
can be which is not life or its equivalent. Only as two persons are
sharers of a common life can they be supposed to have merged their
separate identity in that dual union.
And so we find that, in the primitive world's thought, shared salt has
preciousness and power because of what it represents and of what it
symbolizes, as well as of what it is. Salt stands for and corresponds
with, and it symbolizes, blood and life. As such it represents the
supreme gift from the Supreme Giver. Because of this significance of
salt, when made use of as the means of a lasting union, the Covenant of
Salt, as a form or phase of the Blood Covenant, is a covenant fixed,
permanent, and unchangeable, enduring forever.
SUPPLEMENT
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A COVENANT OF LOVE
All of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments, given from God on
two tables, or tablets, of stone, to the people of Israel at Mount
Sinai.[256] But not all of us are accustomed to think of these Ten
Commandments as ten separate clauses of a loving covenant between
God and his chosen people, recorded on stone tablets for their
permanent preservation. Yet these witnessing tablets are repeatedly
called in the Bible "the tables of the covenant,"[257] and "tables of
testimony,"[258] not the tables of the commandments; while the chest or
casket which contained them is called "the ark of the covenant,"[259]
and "the ark of the testimony,"[260] not the ark of the commandments.
[256] Exod. 20 : 1-17; Deut. 5 : 1-22.
[257] Deut. 9 : 15.
[258] Exod. 32 : 15; 34 : 29.
[259] Num. 14 : 44; Deut. 10 : 8; 31 : 9, 25, 26; Josh. 3 : 3, 6, 8,
11, 14, 17; 4 : 7, 9, 18; 6 : 6, 8; 8 : 33; Judg. 20 : 27; 1 Sam. 4 :
3-5; 2 Sam. 15 : 24; 1 Kings 3 : 15; 6 : 19; 8 : 1, 6; 1 Chron. 15 :
25, 26, 28, 29; 16 : 6, 37; 17 : 1; 22 : 19; 28 : 2, 18; 2 Chron. 5 :
2, 7; Jer. 3 : 16.
[260] Exod. 25 : 22; 26 : 33, 34; 30 : 6, 26; 31 : 7; 39 : 35; 40 : 3,
5, 21; Num. 4 : 5; 7 : 89; Josh. 4 : 16.
There is obviously a world-wide difference between a loving covenant
that binds two parties to each other in mutual affection and fidelity,
and a series of arbitrary commandments enjoined by a sovereign upon
his subjects; between a compact of union, having its statement of
promises on the one hand and of responsibilities on the other, and an
instrument that asserts the rights of the ruler and defines the duties
of the ruled. In our estimate of the Decalogue we have made too much
of the _law_ element, and too little of the element of _love_. As a
consequence it has not been easy for us to see how it is that God's
law is love, and that love is the fulfilling of God's law. But the
Ten Commandments _are_ a simple record of God's loving covenant with
his people, and they are _not_ the arbitrary commandings of God to
his subjects. They indicate the inevitable limits within which God
and his people can be in loving union, rather than declare the limits
of dutiful obedience on the part of those who would be God's faithful
subjects. A close examination of the Decalogue will show that this is
its nature and scope.
It must be borne in mind, in our Bible reading, that the Bible was
originally written by Orientals for Orientals, and that it is to be
looked at in the light of Oriental manners and customs, and Oriental
modes of speech, in order to its fullest understanding. Hence when we
find the term "covenant," or the term "commandment," in the Bible, we
are to inquire into the Oriental meaning of that term, so that we may
know the sense in which it was employed by the Bible writers.
Now a "covenant" among Orientals is, and always has been, a sacred
compact binding two parties in loving agreement. Oriental covenants
are made in various forms and by various ceremonies. The most sacred
of all forms of covenanting in the East is by two persons commingling
their own blood, by its drinking or by its inter-transfusing, in order
that they may come into a communion of very life.[261] Two persons who
wish to become as one in a loving blood-friendship will open each a
vein in his own arm, and allow the blood to flow into a common vessel,
from which both parties will drink of the commingled blood. Or, again,
each person will open a vein in one of his hands, and the bleeding
hands will be clasped together so that the blood from the one shall
find its way into the veins of the other. Or, yet again, the two will
share together the substitute blood of a sacred animal. Usually, in
such a case, a written compact is signed by each party and given to
the other, with the stamp of the writer's blood upon it as a part of
the ceremony of covenanting; and this writing is carefully encased in
a small packet or casket, and guarded by its holder as his very life.
It is in the light of such customs as this that we are to read of the
sacred covenant entered into between God and his Oriental people.
[261] See _The Blood Covenant_.
It was at the foot of Mount Sinai that Moses came before the people of
Israel with God's proffer to them of a covenant, whereby they should
bear his name and be known as his people. "And he took the book of
the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said,
All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient."[262] Then
it was that Moses took of substitute blood and divided it into two
portions, one half to be sprinkled on the altar God-ward, and the other
half to be sprinkled on the people; and Moses said: "Behold the blood
of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these
words"--or, as the margin of the Revised Version has it, "upon all
these conditions."[263]
[262] Exod. 24 : 7.
[263] Exod. 24 : 8.
Moreover, we are told, in the Epistle to the Hebrews,[264] that Moses
sprinkled the blood upon the record, or book, of the covenant, as
well as upon the people. It was after this--after the breach and the
renewal of the covenant between Israel and God--that the stone tablets
on which the covenant itself had a permanent record were encased in
a casket, or an "ark,"[265] which was thenceforward guarded sacredly
as containing the charter of Israel's nationality, the witness, the
evidence, the testimony, of the loving covenant between God and his
people.
[264] Heb. 9 : 19.
[265] Exod. 40 : 20.
But you may ask, Did not the tables of stone bear a record of specific
commandments, rather than of articles of a covenant? And are not
the words there recorded specifically called in the Bible the "Ten
Commandments"? Look for yourselves, and see. It is true that our
English Bible speaks of the Ten Commandments recorded on these tables
of stone; but the word here translated "commandments" is more literally
to be rendered "words,"[266] as indeed it is given in the margin of the
Revised Version; and it is applicable to any declaration, injunction,
or charge, made by one to another. It is by no means to be understood
as simply an arbitrary mandate from an absolute sovereign to his
subjects. Looking at the Ten Commandments as a set of moral laws
covering man's duties to God and to his fellows, they seem strangely
defective, when we find among them no command to pray to or to praise
God, nor any command to give sympathy or assistance to man. But
when we look at them as clauses of a loving covenant, indicating the
scope and limits of relations within which a child of God's duties
God-ward and man-ward are to be exercised, we find that they are
far-reaching and all-inclusive. Looking at them as the tables of the
covenant between God and his people in the light of Oriental views of
covenanting, we can see a great deal more in the words on those tables
than when we look at them as the tables of the commandments,--in the
light of our Western ideas of commandings.
[266] Exod. 34 : 28.
A covenant involves the idea of a twofold agreement between the parties
making it. Even though God himself be one of the parties, he will not
refuse to be explicit in his words of covenanting. And so we find it
to be in the record on the tables of the covenant which were given to
Moses at Mount Sinai. We call the opening words of that record the
"Preface to the Ten Commandments;" but they are more properly God's
covenanting words with his people. "I am Jehovah thy God, which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."[267]
The very name "Jehovah" includes the idea of a covenant-making and a
covenant-keeping God. The declaration of Jehovah's eternally existing
personality as Jehovah is in itself a covenant promise, for all time
to come, to those who are his covenant people. It is as though he
were to say: "I, who was and am, and am to be, the same yesterday and
to-day, yea and forever, will be your God unfailingly. As I have given
you a loving deliverance out of Egyptian bondage, so I am ever ready to
deliver you from every evil that enthralls you."
[267] Exod. 20 : 2.
Man, when he promises for the future, needs to say, "I will do;" but
God can say nothing stronger than "I do," or than "I am." Thus the
promise of promises of Jesus to his disciples as their ever-present,
all-sustaining Lord, is, "Lo, I am with you alway;"[268] not "Lo, I
_will be_," but "Lo, I _am_." And so it is that God's covenant promise
to Israel, to be their loving, guarding, and guiding God for all time
to come, is in the words: "I am Jehovah thy God, which brought thee out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."[269] And this is
the promise of "the party of the first part," as we would say in modern
legal parlance, in this covenant between God and his people Israel.
[268] Matt. 28 : 20.
[269] Exod. 20 : 2.
Then there follow the covenant agreements of God's people, as "the
party of the second part" in this loving compact. As it is God who
prescribes or defines the terms on which this covenant is to be
made, the indication of those terms is mainly in the form of such
prohibitions as will distinguish the people of God from other peoples
about them, in the bearing of that people toward God's personality,
toward God's institutions, and toward God's representatives. This is
all that is needed in the fundamental articles of covenanting. The
details of specific duties may be defined in special enactments under
the terms of this covenant, or they may be inferred from its spirit.
The first requirement is, that this covenanting God shall be recognized
as the only God; that no other god shall be conceded a place in
God's universe. And this requirement is vital to any such covenant.
A divided heart is no heart at all. He who can see any other object
of love and devotion comparable with the one to whom he gives himself
in covenant-union, is thereby incapacitated from a covenant-union.
Therefore it is that this first word of the Ten Words of the covenant
of God's people with their God is not an arbitrary mandate, but is the
simple expression of a truth which is essential to the very existence
of the covenant as a covenant of union.
And this principle is as vitally important now as it was in the days
of Moses. The human heart is always inclined to divide itself when it
ought to be undivided. It is reluctant to be wholly and always true to
God alone. But, now as hitherto, without wholeness of heart a covenant
of union with God is an impossibility. And, indeed, the very idea of
other gods is an outgrowth of man's sense of an unfitness to be in
oneness of life with the One God,--in consequence of which man seeks
a lower divinity than the supreme God as the immediate object of his
worship.
The second requirement in this covenant of union is, that no material
image or representation of this covenanting God shall be made use of
as a help to his worship by his covenanting people; that, as a Spirit,
God shall be worshiped in spirit by his people. Here, again, is no
arbitrary mandate, but only the recognition of a vital truth. Because
God is Creator of all, no creation of God can be like God. Because God
is a Spirit, the human mind can best commune with him spiritually,
without having its conceptions of him degraded by any image or
representation--which at the best must be wholly unworthy of him.
In this second requirement, as in the first, a danger is indicated
to which the Israelites were peculiarly exposed in their day, and to
which all the people of God are exposed in any day. In the Assyrian, or
Chaldean, home of Abraham, there was practically no image worship, but
there was a belief in a plurality of gods. In the Egyptian home, from
which the Israelites had just come out, images in great variety were
the objects of worship. As the covenant people of God, the Israelites
were to refrain from the polytheism of their ancestral home in the far
East, and from the grosser idolatry of their more recent home in the
West. And so it must be with the people of God at all times; they must
worship only God, and they must worship God without any help from a
material representation of the object of their worship.
As there is still a temptation to give a divided heart to God, so there
is still a temptation to seek the help of some visible representation
or symbol of God's presence in his worship. The Christian believer does
not bow down to an idol, but many a Christian believer thinks that his
mind can be helped upward in worship by looking at some representation
of his Saviour's face, or at some symbol of his Saviour's passion. But
just because God is infinitely above all material representations and
symbols, so God can best be apprehended and discerned spiritually.
Anything coming between man's spirit and God the Spirit is a hindrance
to worship, and not a help to it. Suppose a young man were watching
from a window for his absent mother's return, with a wish to catch the
first glimpse of her approaching face. Would he be wise, or foolish, in
putting up a photograph of his mother on the window-pane before him, as
a help to bearing her in mind as he looks for her coming? As there can
be no doubt about the answer to that question, so there can be no doubt
that we can best come into spiritual communion with God by closing our
eyes to everything that can be seen with the natural eye, and opening
the eyes of our spirit to the sight of God the Spirit. This, again, is
no arbitrary requirement of God; it is in the very nature of his being
and of our own.
The third requirement of this compact is, that there shall be no
insincerity on the part of God's covenant people in their claiming
and bearing his name, as the name of their covenanting God. This
requirement is not generally understood in this light; but all the
facts in the case go to show that this is its true light. In the
Oriental world, and in the primitive world everywhere, one's name
stands for one's personality; and the right to bear one's name or even
to call on one by his personal name, is a proof of intimate relation,
if not of actual union, with him. God was now covenanting with this
people to be his people, thereby authorizing them to bear his name, and
to be known as his representatives. In the very nature of things, this
laid upon them a peculiar obligation to bear his name reverently and in
all sincerity.
It is not that God arbitrarily commanded his people to have a care in
the _speaking_ of his name, as if he were jealous of its irreverent
mention; but it is that he reminded them that the coming into the
privileges of his name was the coming into the responsibilities of that
name. It was as though Mr. Moody were taking a little street waif into
his home to train the boy as his own son, and were formally giving
to that boy the right to take and bear his name. Naturally he might
say: "Understand, now, my boy, that, wherever you go, they'll say,
'There goes a young Moody.' Now, I value my name, and I don't want it
disgraced. See to it that you take care of that name wherever you are."
So God said to his people: "Thou shalt not take"--shalt not assume,
bear, carry--"the name of the Lord thy God in vain"--insincerely,
vainly; "for the Lord will not"--cannot--"hold him guiltless that
taketh"--claimeth the privileges of--"his name in vain"--vainly,
insincerely.
This covenant obligation also is on us as it was on God's people
of old. As Christians we are baptized into the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost.[270] Wherever we go, we are counted
as members of God's family. His name is on us, and his honor is in
our keeping. Wherefore, "let every one that nameth the name of the
Lord"--claimeth it as his own name--"depart from unrighteousness;"[271]
and let him never feel that it is a light or a vain thing to bear that
name before the world.
[270] Matt. 28 : 19.
[271] 2 Tim. 2 : 19.
Thus we see that the first three of the ten requirements of the loving
covenant of God's people with their God are simply the requirements to
worship God as the only God, to worship him in unhindered spirituality,
and to worship him in all sincerity. These three fundamental
requirements seem to have been in the mind of our Lord Jesus when he
said to the woman of Samaria at the well of Jacob: "God"--the One
God--"is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and
truth."[272]
[272] John 4 : 24.
Coming to the fourth requirement of the loving covenant of God and
his people, we find it differing in form from the preceding three
requirements; differing also from the form of all but one of those
which follow it. The preceding three are in the negative form; this
is in the affirmative form, beginning with the injunction, "Remember"
(Keep in mind). Of course, there is a reason for this. The first three
requirements are in the line of obvious, if not of self-evident,
truths; the requirement of one day in seven for rest and worship
is not, however, of obvious importance. Hence this requirement is
specifically affirmed as an article of the covenant, while the others
guard against departures from primal principles of vital moment.
The "Sabbath" was a recognized institution long before the days of
Moses. Traces of its strict and sacred observance in the ancestral
home of Abraham are disclosed in the Assyrian records unearthed
in these later days. And now that the Lord, at Sinai, is drawing
away his covenant people from the sins and errors of their fathers
and neighbors, he reminds them that there is good in some of the
observances of the past, which they are not to forsake or forget.
"Remember," therefore he says, "the sabbath day to keep it holy"--as
your fathers in all their polytheism had a care to observe it of old.
Bear _that_ institution in mind, as worth your remembering.
And here again there is affirmed a principle which is for all time and
for all people. Although the reason for setting apart one day above
another for rest and worship is not on the surface of things, the
experiences of mankind, as well as the teachings of God's Word, go to
show that there is such a reason below the surface. In the long run,
man can do more work, and do it better, in six days of a week, than he
can in seven; and unless a man worships God at stated times, he is not
likely to worship him at all. So it is that God makes it a part of his
loving covenant between himself and his people, that ever and always
they shall worship him statedly, as well as worship him sincerely,
spiritually, and solely; because without this stated recognition of the
covenant, the covenant itself would be forgotten.
And now we come to the fifth of the ten covenant requirements: "Honor
thy father and thy mother." This also is in the affirmative form, and
for a very good reason. God is here declaring, as it were, that those
who are in legitimate authority are so far his representatives. He
wants it understood that while no other gods are in existence, even
in a subordinate place in the universe, he has his representatives
in various spheres of human government and rule, and they are to be
honored accordingly by his covenant people.
We are accustomed to speak of the division of the Ten Commandments into
two tables, the first comprising four requirements, and the second
six; but it will be seen that this fifth requirement belongs with the
preceding four in the group of those which look God-ward. It is as
though the one table pointed upward from ourselves, while the other
pointed outward. We are to honor those who are over us in the Lord,
not as our fellows, but as our superiors; not because of what they
are as men, but because they are, within the scope of their rule, the
representatives of our God.
By Oriental custom the terms "father" and "mother" are by no means
limited to one's natural parents, but are applicable to superiors in
years, or in wisdom, or in civil or religious station. This truth was
impressed on my mind by an incident in my journey across the desert
of Sinai. My companions in travel were two young men, neither of them
a relative of mine,--as my dragoman very well knew. When, however, in
mid-desert, we met an old Arab shaykh, through whose territory we were
to pass, my dragoman introduced me as the father of these young men.
"No, they are not my _sons_," I said to the dragoman; but his answer
was: "That's all right. Somebody must be father here." And when I found
that, according to the Arab idea, every party of travelers must have a
leader, and that the leader of a party was called its "father," I saw
that it would look better for me to be called the father of the young
men, than for one of them to be called my father.