_JUSTICE IN ISRAEL_
Among the nations of the modern world one of the most vital
distinctions is the degree in which just judgment is estimated and
provided for. Indeed, according to modern ideas, life is tolerable
only where all men are equal before the law; where all are judged
by statutes which are known, or at least may be known, by all;
where corruption or animus in a judge is as rare as it is held to
be dishonourable. But we cannot forget that in the majority of even
the more advanced countries of the world these three conditions
are not yet found, and that where they do exist they are only
recent acquirements. In the latest born, and in many respects the
most advanced of the great commonwealths, in the United States
of America, the corruption of a number of the inferior courts is
undeniable, and is tolerated with a most disappointing patience by
the people. In England Judge Jeffries is no very remote memory, and
Lord Bacon's acceptance of presents from litigants in his court has
only been made more certain by recent investigations. An absolutely
honest intention to give even-handed justice to all is, therefore,
even in England, only a recent attainment, and in no country is
the honest intention always successful in realising itself. But
if this be so among the civilised nations of the West, we may say
that in Oriental countries there has been little of systematic and
continuous effort to give even-handed justice at all. Yet nowhere
has the sinfulness and the destructiveness of corruption in judgment
been more impassionedly and more frequently set forth by the highest
authorities in religion and morals, than in the East. Tupper, our
most recent authority, in writing of _Our Indian Protectorate_,
p. 289, describes the Indian attitude to law thus: "There was not
that reverence for law which in Europe is in all probability very
largely due to the influence of the Roman law, and to the teaching
of the Roman Catholic and other Christian Churches. So far as there
was a germ out of which the respect for law ought to have grown, it
was to be found in dislike to actions plainly opposed to custom and
tradition. There was a deeply rooted and widespread conviction that
there could be no rule to which exceptions could not be made, if
agreeable to the discretion of the chief or any of his delegates.
The chief was set above the law; it did not limit his authority
by any constitution. There was no legislation for the improvement
of law. The administration of justice was extremely imperfect."
The same writer describes the result of such a state of mind in
his picture of Mahratta rule (p. 247). "There was," he says, "no
prescribed form of trial. Men were seized on slight suspicions.
Presumptions of guilt were freely made. Torture was employed to
compel confession. Prisoners for theft were often whipped at
intervals to make them discover where the stolen property was
hidden. _Ordinarily no law was referred to except in cases affecting
religion._" That there were both Hindu codes and Mohammedan codes in
existence which claimed and were believed to have Divine authority
made no difference in India. Nor does it make any in Persia
to-day.[107]
[107] See _ante_, p. 304.
Now, in coming to the consideration of the views of justice embodied
in Old Testament law, and the quality of the judiciary in ancient
Israel, we must take not Western but Eastern ideas as our standard.
Judging from that point of view, it should create no prejudice in
our minds if we find on the first glance that all men were not equal
before the ancient law of Israel; that for a considerable period,
if not during the whole political existence of Israel, there was no
very extensive written law; and that arbitrary and corrupt judgment
was only too common at all times. For none of these defects would
indicate in ancient Israel the same evils as similar defects in
nations of our time would indicate. They are rather defects in the
process of being overcome, than defects arising from feeble or
vitiated life. If there was a constant movement towards the highest
state of things, that is all we can demand or expect to find.
Now there does seem to have been that. As has been well pointed out
by Dr. Oort,[108] in the tribes which became Israel justice must
have been administered by the heads of the various bodies which went
to make these up. The household was ruled even in matters of life
and death solely by the father; the family, in the wider sense, was
judged by its own heads; the tribes by the elders of the tribes,
and there probably was no appeal from one tribunal to another. Each
tribunal was final in its own domain. It may be, also, that the
judicial function was in all these bodies exercised in the lax and
timid fashion common among Bedouin tribes to-day.[109] In all cases,
too, it is probable that in the pre-Mosaic time the standard of
judgment was customary law. Only with this very great modification
can Oort's epigrammatic description of the situation--"There was
no law, but there were givers of legal decisions"--be accepted.
So far as can be ascertained, the customs according to which men
were expected to live were perfectly well known, and within certain
narrow limits of variation were extraordinarily stable. How stable
customary law may be made, even in the midst of a society governed
in the main according to written law in its strictest sense, may
be seen in the execration which any breach of the Ulster custom
of tenant right met with, before that custom was embodied in any
statutes. And in antiquity the stringency of custom can hardly be
exaggerated. Under it, when thoroughly established, there was, in
all the cases covered by it, only this one way of acting for all,
both men and women, who were fit for society at all. Any alternative
course was probably inconceivable in the tribal stage of the
Israelites' existence.
[108] Cf. _Oud-Israël Rechtswezen_, pp. 10 ff.
[109] Cf. Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, vol. i., p. 249.
But a change would doubtless be wrought whenever the appointment
of a king took place. Then national law would appear, in embryo at
least; and at first, until custom had grown up in this region also,
it would largely be an expression of the will of the king, and of
the royal officers instructed and trained by the king. But it would
have free and unchallenged course only when it claimed authority
in matters lying outside of the family and tribal jurisdictions.
Wherever it attempted to interfere with tribal or family rights,
danger to the kingship of the most acute kind would be sure to
arise. In all probability, it was disregard of this axiomatic truth
which made Solomon's reign so burdensome to the people and tore
the kingdom asunder under Rehoboam. Ahab too fell a victim to his
disregard of it. Lastly, the introduction of elaborate written codes
of law would, if it came as the crown of such a development, depose
custom from its supremacy, though it would not abolish it; and would
substitute for it as the main element in all judicial matters the
written prescription, which is the necessary presupposition of a
fully organised judiciary of the modern type, with a regulated and
definite power of appeal.
But in the case of ancient Israel there is a distinguishing element
which has to be fitted into this ordinary scheme of progression,
and that is the Divine revelation to Moses. Taken up at the
tribal stage by the Mosaic revelation, the Israelite tribes were
touched and welded into coherence, if not quite as a nation, at
least as the people of Yahweh, so that during all the distracting
days of the Judges they kept up in essentials their social and
religious unity.[110] And with the religious union there must have
come administrative uniformity to some considerable extent. The
jurisdiction of the heads of households, of heads of families, and
of the tribal elders would be as little interfered with as possible;
but, as we have seen, all customs and rights had to be reviewed from
the point of view of the new religion, and appeal to Moses as the
prophet of it must have often been unavoidable. Just as his first
followers were continually coming to Mohammed, to ask whether this
or that ancient custom could be followed by professors of Islam, so
there must have been constant appeals to Moses. So long as he lived,
therefore, he, and after him Joshua and Moses' fellow-tribesmen
the sons of Levi, as being specially zealous for the religion of
Yahweh, must have been constantly called in to assist the customary
judges; and so the habit of appeal must have grown in Israel long
before there was any king. Thus also a common standard of judgment
would be established. That standard must necessarily have been the
law of Yahweh, _i.e._ the new Yahwistic principles and all that
might _prima facie_ be deduced from them, together with so much
of custom and tradition as had been accepted as compatible with
these principles. We have stated the reasons for holding that the
Decalogue was Mosaic, and the Book of the Covenant may be taken also
to represent what the current law in Mosaic or sub-Mosaic time was
held to be. As Oort well says (_loc. cit._), when we know that the
Hittites about the middle of the fourteenth century B.C. concluded
a treaty with Rameses II. of Egypt the terms of which were written
upon a silver plate, "why may there not also have been written
statements regarding the mutual rights and duties of the people
of a town, engraved upon stone or metal, and set forth openly for
inspection?" What he confines to mere town business and refers to
the time of the Judges, we may without risk extend to a general
fundamental law like the Decalogue, or even to the Book of the
Covenant, and date it in the time of Moses. Writing was so common an
accomplishment in Canaan before the Exodus, that such a supposition
is not in the least improbable. These written laws formed the crown
of the law of Yahweh, and by them all the rest was raised to a
higher level and transformed.
[110] Cf. Nowack, _Die sozialen Probleme in Israel_, p. 5.
As new men, new times, and new difficulties arose, the priest
became the special organ of Divine direction. It may be that the
priestly Torah was largely the result of the sacred lot; but the
questions that were put, and the manner in which they were put,
would be decided ultimately by the conception the priest had of
the truth about God. The teaching of the Decalogue would therefore
be the dominant and formative power in all that was spoken by the
priest and for Yahweh. In the disorganised state into which Israel
fell during the time of the Judges, when, as Deuteronomy takes
for granted, and as 1 Kings iii. 2 and 3 asserts, the legitimate
worship of Yahweh was carried on at many centres, the substantial
sameness of the tradition as to the history of Israel, in all the
varied forms in which we encounter it, is proof sufficient that at
each of the great sanctuaries (which were certainly in the hands
of Levitical priests) the treasure of ancient knowledge, both in
law and history, was carefully and accurately preserved.[111] New
decisions would be given, but they came through men penetrated
with the high thoughts of God, and of His people's destiny, which
Moses had so fruitfully set forth. This was the element in the life
of the people which all the higher minds strove to perpetuate,
and, being spiritual, it spiritualised and raised all accessory
things. Consequently there was, long before the kingship, what
was equivalent to a national feeling of the highest kind, and the
conception of justice and its administration corresponded to that.
[111] Oort, _Oud-Israël Rechtswezen_, p. 14.
In the Book of the Covenant, which in this matter represents so
early a period that there is no mention of "judges," only of
Pelilim,[112] _i.e._ arbitrators (Exod. xxi. 22), so that the tribal
and family heads can alone have exercised judicial functions, we
find the most solemn warnings against any legal perversion of right
to gain popularity, against yielding to the vulgar temptation to
oppress the poor, or to the subtler and, for generous minds, more
insidious temptation, to give an unjust judgment out of pity for
the poor. Israel was, moreover, to keep far from bribery, "which
blindeth them that have sight, and perverteth righteous causes." In
no way was the law to be used for criminal or oppressive purposes.
From the very first, therefore, in Israel the higher principles of
faith and life set themselves to combat _à outrance_ the tendency to
unjust judgment, which seems now, at least, quite ineradicable in
the East, save among the Bedouin.[113]
[112] A probable parallel to these may be found in the non-official
arbiters mentioned by Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, vol. i. pp. 145 and
502-3.
[113] Doughty, vol. i., p. 249.
A still higher note is struck in the repetition of the law in the
Book of Deuteronomy. In chap. i., originally part of a historic
introduction to the book proper, we read: "Hear the causes between
your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother,
and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in
judgment; ye shall hear the small and the great alike; ye shall not
be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment (_i.e._ the whole
judicial process and function) is God's; and the cause that is too
hard for you ye shall bring unto me (Moses), and I will hear it."
Yes, the judgment is God's. Just as the whole of moral duty towards
man was raised by the Decalogue to a new and more intimate relation
with God, so here justice, the fundamental necessity of a sound and
stable political state, is lifted out of the conflict of mean and
selfish motives, in which it must eventually go down, and is set on
high as a matter in which the righteous God is supremely concerned.
In this, as in all things, Israel was called to a lonely eminence of
ideal perfection by the character of the God whom they were bound
to serve. Therefore it strikes us with no surprise that justice
is insisted upon almost with passion in Deut. xvii. 20: "Justice,
justice shalt thou pursue after, that thou mayest live and possess
the land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee"; or that it is made one
of the conditions of Israel's permanence as a nation. In chap. xxiv.
17 we read, "Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of the stranger, nor
of the fatherless; nor take the widow's raiment to pledge"; in xxv.
1 and 2, "If there be a plea between men, ... then they (_i.e._ the
judges) shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked." For
any other course of conduct would bring guilt upon the nation in
the sight of Yahweh; and how jealously that was guarded against is
seen in the sacrifice and ritual imposed for the purification of
the people from the guilt of a murder the perpetrator of which was
unknown (Deut. xxi. 1-9). Unatoned for and disregarded, such a crime
brought disturbance into those relations between Israel and their
God upon which their very existence as a nation depended; and the
disregard of justice, where wrongs were committed by known persons
and were left unpunished, was of course more deadly. So the author
of Deuteronomy looked upon it; and the prophets, from the first of
them to the last, brand unjust judgment, the perverting the course
of legal justice, as the most alarming sign of national decay. The
righteous God, with whom there was no respect of persons, could not
permanently favour a people whose judges and rulers disregarded
righteousness; and when destruction actually came upon this people,
it was proclaimed to be God's doing, "because there was no truth nor
justice nor knowledge of God in the land."
Nowhere in the world, therefore, has the demand for justice been
made more central than here, and nowhere has injustice been more
passionately fought against. Nor have the sanctions binding to a
pursuit of justice been at any period more nobly or more vividly
conceived. In this main point, therefore, Israel's law stands
irreproachable--marvellously so, considering its great antiquity.
But we have still to inquire whether any really adequate provision
was made for the general and inexpensive administration of justice.
To take the latter first, law was in old Israel probably _as
cheap_ as it would be in the primitive East to-day, if bribery
were to be stopped. To advise as to the sacred law, to plead for
justice according to it, did not then, and does not now in similar
circumstances, belong to any special professional class who live by
it. The priest could be appealed to freely by all; and the heads
of fathers' houses, as well as the tribal heads, were, by the very
fact that they were such, bound to give judgment among their people,
and to appear for and take responsibility for them when they had
a cause with persons beyond the limits of the particular families
and tribes. Justice, consequently, was in ordinary circumstances
perfectly free to all.
And from a very early time earnest efforts were made to make it
equally _accessible_. At first, when the people were in one army or
train, before they came to Sinai, an overwhelming burden was laid
upon Moses. As the prophet of the new dispensation all difficulties
were brought to him. But at Jethro's suggestion, as JE tells us in
Exod. xviii. 13 ff., and as Deuteronomy repeats in chap. i. 16, he
chose men of each tribe, or took the heads of each tribe, and set
them as captains of thousands and hundreds and fifties and tens.
Not improbably this was primarily a military organisation, but to
these captains was committed also jurisdiction over those under
them. In all ordinary cases they judged them and their families in
the spirit of Yahwism, as well as commanded them; and in this way,
as has already been pointed out, the customary law was revised in
accordance with Yahwistic principles. Justice too was brought to
every man's door. The only question that suggests itself is, whether
these captain-judges were the ordinary family and tribal heads,
organised for this purpose by Moses. On the whole this would seem
to have been so, and it may well be that Jethro's suggestion had in
view the danger of ignoring them, as well as the burden which Moses'
sole judgeship laid upon him. But with the advance to the conquest
of Canaan a new situation emerged, and the probability is that more
and more, as the tribes fell into entire or semi-isolation, the
tribal organisation in its natural shape would come to the front
again. Deuteronomy, however, tells us little if anything of this. In
the main passage regarding this matter (xvii. 8-13), where provision
is made for an appeal to a central court, the legislation is
entirely for a period much later than Moses. Like the law regarding
sacrifice at one altar, the judicial provisions of Deuteronomy seem
all to be bound up with the place which Yahweh shall choose, viz.
the Solomonic Temple in Jerusalem. We may consequently conclude
that the judicial arrangements to which Deuteronomy alludes existed
only after the Israelite kingship had been for some time established
at Jerusalem. We have no distinct evidence for the existence
of a central high court in David's days; and from the story of
Absalom's rebellion we should gather that the old, simple Oriental
method still prevailed, according to which the king, like the
heads of tribes, families, etc., judged every one who came to him,
personally, at the gate of the royal city. But Samuel is said in 1
Sam. vii. 16 to have annually gone on circuit to Bethel, Gilgal,
and Mizpah. According to the school of Wellhausen, nearly the whole
of this chapter is the work of a Deuteronomic writer about the year
600. In that case, of course, it would be difficult to prove that
the arrangement attributed to Samuel was not a mere echo of what
was done in Josiah's day; though, if the Deuteronomic prescriptions
were carried out then, there would be no need for such a system. On
the other hand, if Budde and Cornill be right in tracing the chapter
back to JE, this habit of going on circuit must have been an ancient
one, possibly dating from Samuel's time. That this latter view is
the correct one is in a degree confirmed by the statement in viii.
2 that Samuel's sons were installed by him as judges in Israel, at
Beersheba. This belongs to E, and it would seem to indicate the
beginnings of such a system as Deuteronomy presupposes.
But it is only in the days of Jehoshaphat (873-849 B.C.) that an
arrangement like that in Deuteronomy is mentioned. From 2 Chron.
xix. 5 ff. we learn that "he set judges in the land throughout all
the fenced cities of Judah, city by city. Moreover in Jerusalem
did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites and of the priests, and of the
heads of the fathers' houses, for the judgment of Yahweh and for
controversies." Further, it is stated that Amariah the chief priest
was set over the judges in Jerusalem in all Yahweh's matters,
_i.e._ in all religious questions, and Zebadiah the son of Ishmael
the prince of the house of Judah in all the king's matters, _i.e._
in all secular affairs. Of course few advanced critics will admit
that the Books of Chronicles are reliable in such matters. But that
judgment is altogether too sweeping, and here we would seem to have
a well-authenticated record of what Jehoshaphat actually did.
For it will be observed, that when we take up the various notices
in regard to the administration of justice, we have a well-defined
progress from Moses to Jehoshaphat. Moses was chief judge and
committed ordinary cases to the tribal and family heads who were
chosen as military leaders, each judging his own detachment. After
passing the Jordan, the whole matter would seem to have fallen back
into the hands of the tribal heads, with the occasional help of the
heroes who delivered and judged Israel. At the end of this period
Samuel, as head of the State, went on circuit, and appointed his
sons judges in Beersheba, thus initiating a new system, which, had
it been successful, might have superseded the tribal and family
heads altogether. But it was a failure, and was not repeated. With
the rise of the kingship the courts received further organisation.
If the Chronicler can be trusted, Levites to the number of six
thousand were appointed to be judges and Shoterim. The number seems
excessive; but the appointment of Levites to act as assessors with
the tribal and other heads would be a natural expedient for a king
like David to have recourse to, if he desired to secure uniformity
of judgment, and to bring the courts under his personal influence.
The next step would naturally be that which is attributed to
Jehoshaphat, and it is precisely that which Deuteronomy points to as
being already at work in his time. We have, consequently, more than
the late authority of the Chronicler for Jehoshaphat's high court.
The probabilities of the case point so strongly to the rise of
some such judicial system about that period, that it would require
some positive proof, not mere negative suspicion, to lead us to
reject the narrative. In any case this must have been the system in
Josiah's day, and afterwards. For when Jeremiah was arraigned for
prophesying destruction to the Temple and to Jerusalem, the process
against him was conducted on similar lines to those laid down in
Deuteronomy. The princes judged, the priests (curiously enough along
with the false prophets) made the charge, _i.e._ stated that the
prophet's conduct was worthy of death, and the princes acquitted.
During the Exile it is probable that the "elders" of the people
were permitted to judge them in all ordinary cases, but we have
no certain proof that this was so. After the return from Babylon,
however, the local courts were re-established, probably in the very
form in which they appear in the New Testament (Matt. v. 22, x. 17;
Mark xiii. 9; Luke xii. 14-58).
Throughout the whole history of Israel, therefore, courts of justice
were easily accessible to every man, whether he were rich or poor.
No doubt the free, open-air, Eastern manner of administering justice
was favourable to that; but from the days of Moses onward we have
fairly conclusive proof that the leaders of the people made it their
continual care that wherever a wrong was suffered there should be
some court to which an appeal for redress could be made.
The justice aimed at in Israel was, therefore, _impartial_ and
_accessible_. We have still to inquire whether it was _merciful_ or
cruel in its infliction of punishment. Dr. Oort says it was a hard
law in this respect, but one is at a loss to see how that view can
be sustained. There is no mention of torture in connection with
legal proceedings, either in the history or in the legislation.
Nor is there any instance mentioned in which an accused person
was imprisoned until he confessed. Indeed imprisonment would not
appear to have been a legal punishment in Israel, nor in any antique
state. The idea of providing maintenance for those who had offended
against the law was one which could never have occurred to any
one in antiquity. Prisons are, of course, frequently mentioned in
Scripture; but they were used, up to the time of Ezra, only for
the safe-keeping of persons charged with crime till they could
be brought before the judges. Sometimes, as in the case of the
prophets, men were imprisoned to prevent them from stirring up the
people; but this procedure was nowhere sanctioned by law. Further,
the crimes for which the punishment prescribed in the ancient law
was death were few. Idolatry, adultery, unnatural lust, sorcery,
and murder or manslaughter, together with striking or cursing
parents and kidnapping--these were all. Considering that idolatry
and sorcery were high treason in its worst forms, so far as this
people was concerned, and that impurity threatened the family in a
much more direct and immediate fashion then than it does now, while
the people were naturally inclined to it, one must wonder that the
list of capital crimes is so short. Contrast this with Blackstone's
statement in regard to England (quoted _Ency. Brit._, iv., p. 589):
"Among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit,
no less than one hundred and sixty have been declared by Act of
Parliament to be felonies without benefit of clergy, or, in other
words, to be worthy of instant death." It is only in comparatively
recent years that the punishment of death has been practically
restricted to murder in England. Yet that is almost the case in the
ancient Jewish law; for the exceptions are such as would reappear in
England if it were more sparsely populated and manners were rougher.
In Australia, for example, highway robbery under arms and violence
to women are capital crimes, just because the country is sparsely
inhabited and the households unprotected. Nor were the modes of
death inflicted cruel. Only three--viz. impalement, and burning,
and stoning--appear to be so. But it may be believed that in the
cases contemplated by the law death in some less painful manner had
preceded the two former, as is certainly the case in Josh. vii.
15 and 25, and in Deut. xxi. 22. As for the latter, it must have
been horrible to look upon, but in all probability the criminal's
agony was rarely a prolonged one. The other method of execution,
by the sword namely, was humane enough. Dr. Oort tells us that
mutilations were common; but his proof is only this, that in the
treaty between the Hittite king and Rameses II. we read, concerning
inhabitants of Egypt who have fled to the land of the Hittites and
have been returned, "His mother shall not be put to death; he shall
not be punished in his eyes, nor on his mouth, nor on the soles of
his feet." The same provision is made for Hittite fugitives. From
this evidence of the custom of surrounding peoples, and from the
fact that the _jus talionis_ is announced in the Scriptures by the
familiar formula, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
foot for foot," Dr. Oort draws this conclusion. But he appears to
forget that the _jus talionis_ was common to almost all the peoples
of the ancient world, and is referred to in the Pentateuch, not as
a new principle, but as a custom coming down from immemorial time.
Consequently, though there must once have been a time in which it
was carried out in its literal form, that time probably was past
when the laws referring to it were written. In Rome, and probably
in other lands where this custom existed, it early gave place to
the custom of giving and receiving money payments. Most probably
this was the case in Israel, at least from the time of the Exodus.
For the new religion introduced by Moses was merciful. But these
references to the principle of retaliation tell us nothing as
to the frequency or otherwise of mutilation as a punishment. No
instance of mutilation being inflicted either as a retaliation or
as a punishment occurs in the Old Testament, and the probability
is that cases were never numerous. Apart from retaliation they are
never mentioned; and we may, I think, set it down as one of the
distinctive merits of the Israelite law that it never was betrayed
into sanctioning the cutting off of hands or feet or ears or noses
as general punishment for crime. But so far as the principle of
the _lex talionis_ was retained, its effect was wholesome. It was
a continual reminder that all free Israelites were equals in the
sight of Yahweh. And not only so, it enforced as well as asserted
equality. Any poor man mutilated by a rich man could demand the
infliction of the same wound upon his oppressor. He could reject his
excuses, and refuse his money, and bring home to him the truth that
they had equal rights and duties.
In this way this seemingly harsh law helped to lay the foundation
for our modern conception of humanity, which regards all men as
brethren. For the teaching of our Lord, which fulfilled all that
the polity and religion of ancient Israel had foreshadowed of good,
broke down the walls of partition between Jew and Gentile, and made
all men brethren by revealing to them a common Father. It surely is
strange and sad that those who specially make liberty, equality, and
fraternity their watchwords, have received so false an impression
of the religion of both the Old and New Testaments, that they pride
themselves on rejecting both. When all is said, the levelling of
barriers which the crushing weight of Roman power brought about, and
the common methods and elements of thought which the Greek conquests
had spread all over the civilised world, would never have made the
brotherhood of man the universally accepted doctrine it is. The
truths which made it credible came from the revelation given by God
to His chosen people, and its final and conclusive impulse was given
to it by the lips of Christ.
In face of that cardinal fact it is vain to point out as one of the
defects of this law that all men were not equal before it. Women
were not equal with men, nor were foreigners nor slaves equal with
freeborn Israelites; but the seed of all that later times were to
bring was already there. The principles which at the long end of the
day have abolished slavery, raised women to the equal position they
now occupy, and made peace with foreigners increasingly the desire
of all nations, had their first hold upon men given them here. In
all these directions the Mosaic law was epoch-making. In the fifth
commandment, as well as in the legislation regarding the punishment
of a rebellious son, the mother is put upon the same level as the
father. However subordinate woman's position in the larger public
life might be, within the home she was to be respected. There, in
her true domain, she was man's equal, and was acknowledged to have
an equal claim to reverence from her children.
In precisely the same way the "stranger" was freed from disability
and protected. In the earliest days, when the Israelite community
was still being formed, whole groups of strangers were received
into it and obtained full rights, as for example the Kenites and
Kenizzites. But though this was a promise of what Israel was
ultimately to be to the world, the necessities of the situation,
the need to keep intact the treasure of higher religion which
was committed to this people, compelled the adoption of a more
separatist policy. Yet "in no other nation of antiquity were
strangers received and treated with such liberality and humanity as
in Israel." They were freely afforded the protection of the law;
they were, in short, received as "a kind of half-citizens, with
definite rights and duties."[114] Further, though the ger was not
bound to all the religious practices and rites of the Israelite,
yet he was permitted, and in some cases commanded, to take part in
their religious worship. If he consented to circumcise all his house
he might even share in the Passover feast. All oppression of such
an one was also rigorously forbidden, and to a large extent the
stranger shared in the benefits conferred by the provision for the
poor of the land which the law made compulsory.
[114] Riehm, _Handwörterbuch_, Baethgen, vol. i., p. 463.
Nor was the case otherwise with slaves. Equality there was not,
and could not be; but in the provisions for the emancipation of
the Israelite slave and the introduction of penalties for undue
harshness, it began to be recognised that the slave stood, in some
degree at least, on the same level as his master--he too was a man.
Taking it as a whole, therefore, the ancient world will be searched
in vain for any legislation equal to this in the "promise and the
potency" of its fundamental ideas as to justice. Here, as nowhere
else, we can see the radical principles which should dominate in
the administration of justice laying hold upon mankind, and that
there was a living will and power behind these principles is shown
in the steady movement toward something higher which characterised
Israelite law. In the pursuit of impartiality, accessibility, and
humanity, the teachers of Israel were untiring, and the sanctions
by which they surrounded and guarded all that tended to make the
administration of justice effective in the high sense were unusually
solemn and powerful. The result has been most remarkable. All the
ages of civilised men since have been the heirs of Israel in this
matter. Roman influence and the influence of the Christian Church
have no doubt been powerful, and the manifold exigencies of life
have drawn out and made explicit much which was only implicit in the
ancient days. But the higher qualities of our modern administration
of justice can be traced back step by step to Biblical principles,
and the course of development laid bare. When that is done, it is
seen that the almost ideal purity and impartiality of the best
modern tribunals is the completion of what the Israelite law and
methods began. In this one instance at least the great Mosaic
principles have come to fruition; and from the security and peace,
the contentment and the confidence, with which impartial justice
has filled the minds of men, we can estimate how potent to cure the
ills of our social and moral state the realisation of the other
great Mosaic ideals would be. It should be a source of encouragement
to all who look for a time when "the kingdoms of this world shall
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ," that something
like the ideal of justice has so far been realised. It has no doubt
been a weary time in coming, and it has as yet but a narrow and
perhaps precarious footing in the world. But it is here, with its
healing and beneficent activity; and in that fact we may well see
a pledge that all the rest of the Divinely given ideals for the
Kingdom of God will one day be realised also. Such a consummation,
however remote it may seem to our human impatience, however devious
and winding the paths by which alone it can draw near, will come
most surely, and in our approach to the ideal in our judicial system
we may well see the firstfruits of a richer and more plentiful
harvest.