Genesis, Jabal is said to be "the father of such as dwell in tents,
and have cattle;"[273] the man who started the long line of nomad
shepherds. Jubal is called "the father of all such as handle the harp
and pipe;"[274] the pioneer instrumental musician of our race. Joseph
in Egypt speaks of himself as "a father to Pharaoh,"[275] in view of
the confidence reposed in him by the ruler of the empire. "Be unto me a
father and a priest,"[276] says Micah to the young Levite, in the days
of the Judges; because a religious guide is, in the East, counted as in
a peculiar sense a representative of God.
[273] Gen. 4 : 20.
[274] Gen. 4 : 21.
[275] Gen. 45 : 8.
[276] Judg. 17 : 10.
It is not merely that the terms "father" and "mother" _may_ include
others besides human parents, but it is that no Oriental would think
of limiting those terms to that relationship. Hence this fifth
requirement of the covenant of God's people with their God, just
as it stands, is in substance: Honor those who are over you in the
Lord, as the representatives of the Lord; for the powers that be are
ordained of God,[277] and he who fails to honor them lacks in due
honor to him who has deputed them to speak and to act for himself.
And herein is affirmed a principle which is as important to us to-day
as it was to the Israelites in the days of Moses. Indeed, it may be
questioned whether any precept of the ten covenant requirements has a
more specific bearing on the peculiar needs of the American people,
than this injunction to reverence those who are in authority because
they are God's representatives in their sphere. Anarchy can have no
tolerance in the mind of a child of God; but reverence for rightful
authority has its home there.
[277] Rom. 13 : 1.
Turning from the first table of the covenant with its upward look,
to the second table with its outward look, we find that each new
requirement in its order stands for a great principle which is
applicable alike to all peoples and to all times, and which has its
basis in man's loving union with God. The first of this series, the
sixth of the ten requirements, is: "Thou shalt not kill;" or, "Thou
shalt do no murder." Here is a great deal more than an ordinance
forbidding the striking down to death of a fellow-man. Here is a call
of God to guard sacredly the life of every child of God, as that which
is dear to God. In the Oriental world, as in the primitive world
generally, blood stands for life, and life is supposed to proceed from
God and to return to God. When, therefore, an Oriental is told that he
must not take it upon himself to shed another's blood, he realizes that
that prohibition is equivalent to saying that it is not for him to
decide when a life that God has given shall be recalled to God.
This idea it is that runs through the whole system of what is popularly
known as "blood revenge" in the East. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man,"[278]
was the declaration of God as early as the days of Noah; and it is
in the line of that declaration that any man in the East who sheds
another's blood must surrender his own blood to the other's family, at
the present day--as ever since the days of Noah. Not personal revenge,
but divine equity, is the real basis of this system. Not because the
life belongs to the man, but because it belongs to God, must it be
guarded sacredly, and be accounted for--if taken away.
[278] Gen. 9 : 6.
It is on this principle that the civil magistrate, as the messenger
of God, takes the life of one who has taken another's life, in these
days of the Christian dispensation. "He beareth not the sword in vain:
for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth
evil."[279] A child of God must count sacred every life which God has
given; and except while acting as a specific messenger of God, he must
never send back a human life to God.
[279] Rom. 13 : 4.
The seventh covenanting requirement is a call to regard the family
institution as an institution of God's appointing, and to refrain from
aught that tends to its injury. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" means
a great deal more than Refrain from unchastity because of its harm to
yourself or to your neighbor. It means, Guard God's primal institution
for man, as an institution which God holds dear. At the very beginning
of the race, it was ordained of God that one man and one woman--the
twain, not the three, or the four, but the twain--should be one flesh
in loving union.[280] This institution of God's ordaining is dear to
God, and it ought to be dear to every child of his; therefore God
says to those who would be in loving compact with him, "Thou shalt
not commit adultery." Because your and my interests are made one, you
must not, you cannot, as my loving people, do aught that shall prove
injurious to the family--to the institution which I have established,
and which is dear to my heart.
[280] Gen. 2 : 24.
This, again, is not an arbitrary commandment; nor is it one for a
single period, or for a single people only. It is the enunciation of
a principle which is vital to the well-being of all peoples at all
times. It was so from the beginning, and it must be so unto the end.
The family is the unit in the State and in the Church. It must not be
ignored in the realm of society, of government, or of religion. He who
would be true to God must be true to the institution of the family. And
who shall say that we have no need of remembering this truth in our
land and day?
The eighth requirement of the covenant guards the rights of property
as within the plan and ordering of God. "Thou shalt not steal" is
announced as an article of the loving compact of God's people with
their God. Not merely because your fellow-man would object to your
taking his property from him, but because the rights of property are of
divine appointment, are you to refrain from claiming as your own that
which now belongs to another.
This idea of regarding property rights as of God's appointment is
peculiarly prevalent in the Oriental mind. The lines of tribal division
in the desert are recognized as having divine sanction; and now, as
in the days of old, it is hardly less than sacrilege to remove an
ancient landmark in the East. Tribes which are at enmity will make
raids across these border lines for purposes of plunder; but this is
in the nature of what "civilized" nations call a "military necessity."
Again, a stranger who enters a tribal domain without obtaining consent
is treated as a smuggler, and all his property is confiscated
accordingly. This, however, merely shows the primitive origin of the
"high tariff" principle. Orientals who plunder from their enemies, or
who collect impost duties from immigrants, do so in the belief that God
sanctions these habits of the ages.
When one of the Arabs of our party, in crossing the desert of Sinai,
found he had dropped a bag of meal, he went back to look for it, in
perfect confidence that it would be left untouched by others. On my
asking him if he had no fear that another Arab had carried it off, he
replied that no Arab would steal from an Arab. Dr. Edward Robinson[281]
saw a black tent hanging on a tree, where, as he was told, it had
remained a full year awaiting its owner's return; and he says that if
a loaded camel dies on the desert its owner draws a circle in the sand
about it, and leaves it without any fear that it will be disturbed in
his absence. Burckhardt[282] illustrates the estimate put by the Arabs
on stealing, by the story of an Arab father who bound his own son hand
and foot, and cast him headlong to death from a precipice, because the
son had stolen from one of his tribal fellows. Life can only be taken
at the call of God; but, according to this Oriental view, he who
violates the property rights of one of God's children forfeits his very
life to God.
[281] _Biblical Researches_, 11th ed., I., 142.
[282] _Travels in Syria and the Holy Land_, p. 475 f.
The principle underlying this estimate of the sacredness of property
rights, like every other principle enunciated in the Decalogue, is not
an outgrowth of an arbitrary commandment, but it inheres in the very
nature of God's dealings with the sons of men. What hast thou that
thou didst not receive by God's consent?[283] What has thy fellow that
he did not receive by the same permission? It is God who gives. It is
for God to take away.[284] No loving child of God will refuse to heed
the limits which his Father has assigned in the distribution of his
possessions among the children of his love. That was the way in which
the Orientals were taught to look at it. That is the way in which we
ought to view it. Anti-property communism is rebellion against God.
[283] 1 Cor. 4 : 7.
[284] Job 1 : 21.
Ninth in the list of the covenant requirements comes the summons to
hold in sacred regard the personal reputation, or good name, of every
child of God. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"
is a prohibition of slander, or of careless speech affecting the
good name of one's fellow-man. This is not, as many have supposed, a
mere injunction to truthful speech on all occasions. Lying needs no
specific prohibition in a loving compact between God and his people;
although the duty of truthfulness is inseparable from the thought
of any compact with God--who could not be God if he were to approve
untruthfulness.[285] But a disregard by man of the reputation of his
fellow-man does need to be guarded against in such a compact; therefore
its mention has a place here. A child's good name is always dear to
his father. He who loves and honors the father will not be heedless of
the reputation of the child. God is the Father of all. The good name
of every one of his children is dear to him. He who loves and honors
God will not be careless of the reputation of any one of God's dear
children. Therefore it is that, in the loving covenant of God with his
people, it is declared that love for God includes a truthful fidelity
to the good name of every child of God.
[285] Num. 23 : 19.
How the application of this principle comes home to us in our social
life as God's children! We are jealous of the good name of the members
of our own families. We are tender of the reputation of those whom we
know to be very dear to our dearest friends. But how careless we are of
the good name of those in whom we feel no special concern, or of the
reputation of those who happen to be personally disagreeable to us!
We hear and repeat the words spoken to their discredit without knowing
whether or not those words are true. By our unguarded speech or looks
we help, perhaps, to give a false impression to others concerning them.
And all the while they are God's dear children, and every spiteful or
thoughtless blow at them is a stroke at him. Is this consistent with
our claim of loving union with their God and ours?
It was in the line of this principle that our Lord Jesus gave emphasis
to his one new commandment, that those who loved him should love one
another, as being dear to him;[286] and, again, that he declared that
whoever ministered tenderly to one of his disciples should be reckoned
as ministering to himself.[287] God links himself in loving sympathy
with all his children, and he wants their welfare to be held dear by
all who hold him dear.
[286] John 13 : 34.
[287] Matt. 25 : 40.
And now we come to the tenth and last of the requirements of this
covenant. Here we find an injunction that goes deeper than those which
precede it on the second tablet of the written compact. "Thou shalt not
covet." Not only, Thou shalt not openly disregard human life, or the
family institution, or the property or the reputation of any one of
thy fellows; but, Thou shalt not want to do any of these things. Thou
shalt recognize thine own lot, and thy possessions, and the lot and the
possessions of others, as God's assignment to thee and to them; and
thou shalt be contented within the sphere which he has deemed best for
thee.
This requirement in the second table of the compact corresponds with
the third requirement in the first table. The one says that the child
of God must be sincere and unfeigned in his loving devotedness to God
as his Father; the other says that the child of God must accept in all
heartiness his Father's ordering concerning himself, in his relations
to all his brothers and sisters in the great family of God.
Here it is that we find the more spiritual teachings of the Decalogue
concerning man's obligations to his fellow-man in the loving service of
God, as they are pointed out, and emphasized in the words of Jesus, in
what we call the Sermon on the Mount.[288] Here it is that the lesson
comes home to us that it is not enough for us to refrain from actual
murder and adultery and theft and false witnessing; but that it is
inconsistent with our devotedness to God as our loving Father for us to
have a hateful thought toward one of his dear children; for us to look
longingly in the direction of another family assignment than that which
is ours in the way of God's appointment; for us to turn a wistful or
an envious thought toward any possession of another which we have no
right to seek after. And all this is not of God's arbitrary commanding,
but is in the very essence of God's loving covenanting with his chosen
people. Therefore it is that the Apostle urges Christians to keep
themselves from "fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and
covetousness, the which is _idolatry_;"[289] the indulging in which is
being untrue to God as one's covenant God.
[288] Matt. 5 : 3 to 7 : 27.
[289] Col. 3 : 5.
* * * * *
And now in the light of these disclosures of the nature and meaning
of the successive clauses of this covenant of God with his Oriental
people, let us look back upon it as a whole in its spirit and
teachings, in order that we may see what is covered by it, and wherein
its applications are for us as well as for God's people of old. God
must be recognized as God alone. No heart can love God as God, unless
that heart loves God wholly. God must be worshiped spiritually; for
spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and only as a man is lifted
above sight and sense can he be in communion with the spiritual and
the infinite. Union with God must be sincere and unfeigned; for only
by a complete and willing surrender of one's self can one's self
be merged into a holy and infinite Personality. The loving worship
of God must have its stated times, and hence, of course, its stated
places, in order to have its fitting hold on the worshiper; and the
recognition of this truth in the covenant is the authorization of all
legitimate seasons and methods of worship. God's representatives in the
family, in the State, and in the Church, are to be honored as God's
representatives; and herein is the authorization of all right forms of
human rule. These are the teachings of the first table of the covenant;
and those of the second table are like unto them.
He who loves God must love those who are God's. As the Apostle
expresses it: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he
is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
cannot love God whom he hath not seen. And [therefore] this [second]
commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother
also."[290] Every child of man is a child of God. Wayward and prodigal
son though he be, he still is one who was made in the image of God; and
his Father's heart goes out toward him unfailingly in love. Hence he
who loves the Father must guard with sacredness the life of every child
of that Father. He must honor the institution of the family, which is
the human hope of the children of that Father. He must hold dear the
property possessions and the good name of each and every child of that
Father. And in his heart there must be such love for that Father's
children as the children of his Father, that he will have no wish to do
aught that shall harm any one of them in any degree.
[290] 1 John 4 : 20, 21.
Thus it is that the spirit and substance of the entire covenant compact
stand out in those words of our Lord which lose their meaning if we
look at the Ten Commandments as ten arbitrary commandings of God. When
a certain lawyer came to Jesus with the knotty question, "Master,
which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said unto him: "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment.
And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself. On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, and the
prophets."[291] And thus it is that we are enabled to realize that
"love ... is the fulfilment of the law."[292]
[291] Matt. 22 : 36-40.
[292] Rom. 13 : 10.
The "Ten Commandments" are the law, the law of the covenant of love;
but, be it remembered, they are not the "Mosaic law." They were not
originated by Moses; nor were they done away with when the Mosaic
law was fulfilled and abrogated in Christ. They are the law of the
promptings of love; an orderly statement of the principles which rule
in a heart which is devoted to God. Their origin is in the nature of
God; and their continuance must be coexistent with the needs of the
children of God. With all our shortcomings in love, and with all our
failures in fidelity to our covenant-union with God in Christ Jesus,
just so far as we are in oneness with God by faith shall we be true to
the principles of this covenant-compact of God with his people. "God
is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth
in him."[293] "And hereby know we that we know him, if we keep his
commandments."[294]
[293] 1 John 4 : 16.
[294] 1 John 2 : 3.
INDEXES
TOPICAL INDEX
Aaron, God's covenant with, 17.
Ababde women, reference to, 99.
"Abusers of the salt," 110.
Added traces of the rite, 123-130.
"Agreement" used interchangeably with "covenant," 5.
Alexis, Grand Duke, reference to, 125.
"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," reference to, 254.
Altar and table as synonymous, 85.
"Ancient Mariner," reference to, 135.
Animal food supplies lack of salt, 38.
Antony and Cleopatra, reference to, 55.
Arabia, Bed'ween of, reference to, 110.
"Arabian Nights," reference to, 64.
Arabs: regard for salt covenant among, 29;
not accustomed to put salt on table, 29 f.;
rite of bread and salt among, 31;
John Macgregor taken prisoner by, 32 f.;
swearing by salt of, 54;
milk sometimes accepted as substitute for salt by, 62;
honesty of, 111 f., 166.
Archeology: its value compared with philology, 4.
Ark of the covenant, reference to, 145.
Armenians, supply of salt cut off, 43.
"Arrangement," used interchangeably with "covenant," 5.
Arvieux: cited, 34.
Asiatic cholera promoted by lack of salt, 46.
Asiatic Quarterly Review, reference to, 46.
Assyrian roots, gain of looking among, 4.
Assyrian: word for "salt," 76;
words translated "covenant," 6 f.
"Attic salt," synonym of life in conversation, 68.
Babe: anoint with blood, 59;
more life to a, 59.
Bancroft, H. H.: cited, 57, 95.
Band, symbol and pledge of union, 7.
Barley-meal cakes employed in sacrifice, 94.
Bartholow, Dr.: cited, 41.
Battas, in Sumatra, form of oath of, 123.
Bed'ween, conventions for covenants of, 30 f.
Bey, Durzee, reference to, 24.
Bheels, in India, reference to, 60.
Bible: references to the rite in, 17;
carried over threshold of new house, 76, 106;
estimate of treachery in, 113.
Bingham's "Antiquities:" cited, 89.
Bird Bishop, Isabella: cited, 47, 100.
Birth of child, salt at, 61.
Blackwood's Magazine, reference to, 127.
"Blood Covenant": reference to, 6, 7, 8, 9, 41, 45, 48, 53,
54, 59, 60, 62, 67, 79, 85, 86, 117, 118, 119, 120, 147.
Blood: fresh, drunk by people of Masai, 37;
salt representing, 37-50;
drained from animals slaughtered by Jews, 39;
transfusion of, 41;
use of, as food, 41;
red corpuscles of, 42 f.;
saline ingredients in, 42 f.;
anointing a new-born babe with, 59;
Kaffir new chief washed in, 60;
represented by wine, 117;
atoned for by blood, 137;
sprinkled by Moses, 148;
shedding man's, 162 f.
"Blood-licker" in Mecca, 48.
"Blood revenge" in the East, 163.
Blunt, on Book of Common Prayer: cited, 80.
Bock, Carl: cited, 61.
"Boiling water, ordeal of," 101.
Booddhists in China, customs among, 92.
Bracelet as symbol and pledge of union, 7.
Brâhmanas, reference to, 90 f.
Bread: salt as an accompaniment of, 14;
and salt, 23-34;
significance of, 79, 80;
and flesh, 119.
Bridal couple, sprinkled with salt, 128 f.
Browning, Mrs., quotation from, 55.
Buchanan, Dr., reference to, 41.
Bunge, Professor: cited, 38, 39, 123.
Burckhardt: cited, 24, 99 f., 100, 166.
Burder: cited, 31, 110, 112.
Burning Lamps, Feast of, 92 f.
Burning of salt, 99 f.
Burton: cited, 24;
quotation from, 26.
Bush's illustrations, reference to, 109.
Buxtorf: cited, 87 f.
Cadamosto, Aloisio, reference to, 69.
Cannibals, bathing body of chief in salt after death, 61.
Catacazy, Madame de, reference to, 125.
Ceres, reference to, 23.
Cattle, salt as meaning, 91.
Characteristics of a covenant, 3-10.
Chemist's use of term "salt," 39.
China: blood substitute for salt in, 38;
depriving a person of salt a mode of punishment in, 42;
customs among Booddhists in, 92.
Church, salt in dedication of a, 90.
Cicero, reference to, 68.
Circumcision as token of a covenant, 8.
Clapperton: cited, 24.
"College salting," 128.
Collitz, Professor Hermann, reference to, 50, 74.
"Compact," used interchangeably with "covenant," 5.
"Conventions," Bed'ween, 30 f.
Corpse, salt on a, in Scotland, 103.
Cosmas, reference to, 69.
Covenant: meaning of the word, 3 f.;
characteristics of a, 3-10;
etymology of, 5;
words used interchangeably with, 5;
marriage a, 7;
circumcision as token of, 8;
various kind of, 9, 13;
Bible references to, 17.
Covenanting, exchange of tokens and symbols in, 8.
Cross, sign of the, reference to, 89.
Curative powers of salt, 43 f.
Customs preceding words, 9.
Dacier, reference to, 70, 88.
Daraon, burning of salt among people of, 99.
Darius, King, directing supply from royal treasury, 20.
David, God's covenant with, 17 f.
Da Vinci's painting, reference to, 113.
Dead body, salt on breast of, 104.
Dead Sea, reference to, 58, 134.
Death: from _salts-hunger_, 42;
salt used at, 61;
or life, 133-138.
Dedication of a church, 90.
Definition, not easily reached, 5.
Delitzsch, Friedrich: cited, 7.
Denham: cited, 24.
_Dhar_, used in treaty of peace, 123.
Diab, Joseph, reference to, 28.
Discovery of salt as article of diet, 41.
Disputes settled by salt and water, 124.
Divination, salt in, 99-106.
Division of Ten Commandments, 159 f.
Doolittle: cited, 100.
Doughty: cited, 24.
Du Tott, Baron, quotation from, 27, 28.
Dyer, Thistleton: quotation from, 104;
cited, 113, 137, 138.
Eassie, W.: cited, 62.
Ebionites, salt and bread employed by, 50.
Edwards's "History of West Indies," quotation from, 60.
Egypt: salt forbidden to priests in ancient, 55;
Feast of Burning Lamps in, 92 f.;
burning salt in, 99;
Muhammadan Arabs in, 100.
Egyptian: use of salt in sacrifice, 93;
idea of wine and blood, 118;
collection of taxes, 130.
Egyptians, table an altar among, 85.
El Hejaz, Bed'ween of, reference to, 110.
Elijah, reference to, 58.
Elisha, reference to, 57.
Elizabeth, Queen, reference to, 126.
Elkesaites, bread and salt employed by, 50.
Ellis's "History of Madagascar:" cited, 8.
England, burning salt in, 101.
Esquimaux, value of blood among, 39.
Etruscan: symbolism, 93;
customs, salt in, 105.
Etymology of "covenant," 5.
Eucharist, salt in the, 89.
"Evil eye:" reference to, 100 f.;
treatment received by James Napier for, 101 f.
Evil spirits, exorcising, 99.
Exactness of definition not to be reached, 5.
Exchange of tokens and symbols as a means of covenanting, 8.
Exorcism, salt in, 99-106.
Faithlessness to salt, 109-114.
"Father," Oriental meaning of, 160.
Feast of Burning Lamps, 92 f.
Fidelity to salt, 130.
Finn, Mrs., quotation from, 32.
"Fire: salted with," 65;
salt leaping up in, 95;
salt thrown into, 100.
Fish, salt in Dead Sea in lieu of, 58.
Flesh and bread, 119.
Flies, dead, life brought to, by salt, 63.
Flood, use of blood as food forbidden after the, 41.
Floor, salt sprinkled upon, 100.
Florus, reference to, 55.
Food: salt indispensable in, 14;
use of blood as, 41.
Ford, George A.: cited, 101.
Founder of Saffaride dynasty, 27.
Fourmeaux, L.: cited, 40.
Frazer: quotation from, 110;
cited, 118 f.
"Freshman, salting a," 128.
"Friendship the Master-Passion," reference to, 9.