Israelites in consequence of their sojourn in Egypt; but they must have
learned many useful arts, and many principles of jurisprudence, and
acquired a better knowledge of agriculture. They learned to be patient
under oppression and wrong, to be frugal and industrious in their
habits, and obedient to the voice of their leaders. But unfortunately
they acquired a love of idolatrous worship, which they did not lose
until their captivity in Babylon. The golden calves of the wilderness
were another form of the worship of the sacred bulls of Memphis. They
were easily led to worship the sun under the Egyptian and Canaanitish
names. Had the children of Israel remained in the promised land, in the
early part of their history, they would probably have perished by
famine, or have been absorbed by their powerful Canaanitish neighbors.
In Egypt they were well fed, rapidly increased in number, and became a
nation to be feared even while in bondage. In the land of Canaan they
would have been only a pastoral or nomadic people, unable to defend
themselves in war, and unacquainted with the use of military weapons.
They might have been exterminated, without constant miracles and
perpetual supernatural aid,--which is not the order of Providence.
In Egypt, it is true, the Israelites lost their political independence;
but even under slavery there is much to be learned from civilized
masters. How rapid and marvellous the progress of the African races in
the Southern States in their two hundred years of bondage! When before
in the history of the world has there been such a progress among mere
barbarians, with fetichism for their native religion? Races have
advanced in every element of civilization, and in those virtues which
give permanent strength to character, under all the benumbing and
degrading influences of slavery, while nations with wealth, freedom, and
prosperity have declined and perished. The slavery of the Israelites in
Egypt may have been a blessing in disguise, from which they emerged when
they were able to take care of themselves. Moses led them out of
bondage; but Moses also incorporated in his institutions the "wisdom of
the Egyptians." He was indeed inspired to declare certain fundamental
truths, but he also taught the lessons of experience which a great
nation had acquired by two thousand years of prosperity. Who can tell,
who can measure, the civilization which the Israelites must have carried
out of Egypt, with the wealth of which they despoiled their masters?
Where else at that period could they have found such teachers? The
Persians at that time were shepherds like themselves in Canaan, the
Assyrians were hunters, and the Greeks had no historical existence. Only
the discipline of forty years in the wilderness, under Moses, was
necessary to make them a nation of conquerors, for they had already
learned the arts of agriculture, and knew how to protect themselves in
walled cities. A nomadic people were they no longer, as in the time of
Jacob, but small farmers, who had learned to irrigate their barren hills
and till their fertile valleys; and they became a powerful though
peaceful nation, unconquered by invaders for a thousand years, and
unconquerable for all time in their traditions, habits, and mental
characteristics. From one man--the patriarch Jacob--did this great
nation rise, and did not lose its national unity and independence until
from the tribe of Judah a deliverer arose who redeemed the human race.
Surely, how favored was Joseph, in being the instrument under Providence
of preserving this nation in its infancy, and placing its people in a
rich and fertile country where they could grow and multiply, and learn
principles of civilization which would make them a permanent power in
the progress of humanity!
MOSES.
1571-1451 B.C. [USHER].
HEBREW JURISPRUDENCE.
Among the great actors in the world's history must surely be presented
the man who gave the first recorded impulse to civilization, and who is
the most august character of antiquity. I think Moses and his
legislation should be considered from the standpoint of the Scriptures
rather than from that of science and criticism. It is very true that the
legislation and ritualism we have been accustomed to ascribe to Moses
are thought by many great modern critics, including Ewald, to be the
work of writers whose names are unknown, in the time of Hezekiah and
even later, as Jewish literature was developed. But I remain unconvinced
by the modern theories, plausible as they are, and weighty as is their
authority; and hence I have presented the greatest man in the history of
the Jews as our fathers regarded him, and as the Bible represents him.
Nor is there any subject which bears more directly on the elemental
principles of theological belief and practical morality, or is more
closely connected with the progress of modern religious and social
thought, than a consideration of the Mosaic writings. Whether as a "man
of God," or as a meditative sage, or as a sacred historian, or as an
inspired prophet, or as an heroic liberator and leader of a favored
nation, or as a profound and original legislator, Moses alike stands out
as a wonderful man, not to the eyes of Jews merely, but to all
enlightened nations and ages. He was evidently raised up for a
remarkable and exalted mission,--not only to deliver a debased and
superstitious people from bondage, but to impress his mind and character
upon them and upon all other nations, and to link his name with the
progress of the human race.
He arose at a great crisis, when a new dynasty reigned in Egypt,--not
friendly, as the preceding one had been, to the children of Israel; but
a dynasty which had expelled the Shepherd Kings, and looked with fear
and jealousy upon this alien race, already powerful, in sympathy with
the old régime, located in the most fertile sections of the land, and
acquainted not merely with agriculture, but with the arts of the
Egyptians,--a population of over two millions of souls; so that the
reigning monarch, probably a son of the Sesostris of the Greeks,
bitterly exclaimed to his courtiers, "The children of Israel are more
and mightier than we!" And the consequence of this jealousy was a
persecution based on the elemental principle of all persecution,--that
of fear blended with envy, carried out with remorseless severity; for in
case of war (and the new dynasty scarcely felt secure on the throne) it
was feared the Hebrews might side with enemies. So the new Pharaoh
(Rameses II., as is thought by Rawlinson) attempted to crush their
spirit by hard toils and unjust exactions. And as they still continued
to multiply, there came forth the dreadful edict that every male child
of the Hebrews should be destroyed as soon as born.
It was then that Moses, descended from a family of the tribe of Levi,
was born,--1571 B.C., according to Usher. I need not relate in detail
the beautiful story of his concealment for three months by his mother
Jochebed, his exposure in a basket of papyrus on the banks of the Nile,
his rescue by the daughter of Pharaoh, at that time regent of the
kingdom in the absence of her father,--or, as Wilberforce thinks, the
wife of the king of Lower Egypt,--his adoption by this powerful
princess, his education in the royal household among those learned
priests to whose caste even the King belonged. Moses himself, a great
master of historical composition, has in six verses told that story,
with singular pathos and beauty; yet he directly relates nothing further
of his life until, at the age of forty, he killed an Egyptian overseer
who was smiting one of his oppressed brethren, and buried him in the
sands,--thereby showing that he was indignant at injustice, or clung in
his heart to his race of slaves. But what a history might have been
written of those forty years of luxury, study, power, and honor!--since
Josephus speaks of his successful and brilliant exploits as a conqueror
of the Ethiopians. What a career did the son of the Hebrew bondwoman
probably lead in the palaces of Memphis, sitting at the monarch's table,
fêted as a conqueror, adopted as grandson and perhaps as heir, a
proficient in all the learning and arts of the most civilized nation of
the earth, enrolled in the college of priests, discoursing with the most
accomplished of his peers on the wonders of magical enchantment, the
hidden meaning of religious rites, and even the being and attributes of
a Supreme God,--the esoteric wisdom from which even a Pythagoras drew
his inspiration; possibly tasting, with generals and nobles, all the
pleasures of sin. But whether in pleasure or honor, the soul of Moses,
fortified by the maternal instructions of his early days,--for his
mother was doubtless a good as well as a brave woman,--soars beyond his
circumstances, and he seeks to avenge the wrongs of his brethren. Not
wisely, however, for he slays a government official, and is forced to
flee,--a necessity which we can hardly comprehend in view of his rank
and power, unless it revealed all at once to the astonished king his
Hebrew birth, and his dangerous sympathies with an oppressed people, the
act showing that he may have sought, in his earnest soul, to break their
intolerable bonds.
Certainly Moses aspires prematurely to be a deliverer. He is not yet
prepared for such a mighty task. He is too impulsive and inexperienced.
It must need be that he pass through a period of preparation, learn
patience, mature his knowledge, and gain moral force, which preparation
could be best made in severe contemplation; for it is in retirement and
study that great men forge the weapons which demolish principalities and
powers, and master those _principia_ which are the foundation of thrones
and empires. So he retires to the deserts of Midian, among a scattered
pastoral people, on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and is received by
Jethro, a priest of Midian, whose flocks he tends, and whose daughter
he marries.
The land of Midian, to which he fled, is not fertile like Egypt, nor
rich in unnumbered monuments of pride and splendor, with pyramids for
mausoleums, and colossal statues to perpetuate kingly memories. It is
not scented with flowers and variegated with landscapes of beauty and
fertility, but is for the most part, with here and there a patch of
verdure, a land of utter barrenness and dreariness, and, as Hamilton
paints it, "a great and terrible wilderness, where no soft features
mitigated the unbroken horror, but dark and brown ridges, red peaks like
pyramids of fire; no rounded hillocks or soft mountain curves, but
monstrous and misshapen cliffs, rising tier above tier, and serrated for
miles into rugged grandeur, and grooved by the winter torrents cutting
into the veins of the fiery rock: a land dreary and desolate, yet
sublime in its boldness and ruggedness,--a labyrinth of wild and blasted
mountains, a terrific and howling desolation."
It is here that Moses seeks safety, and finds it in the home of a
priest, where his affections may be cultivated, and where he may indulge
in lofty speculations and commune with the Elohim whom he adores;
isolated yet social, active in body but more active in mind, still fresh
in all the learning of the schools of Egypt, and wise in all the
experiences of forty years. And the result of his studies and
inspirations was, it is supposed, the book of Genesis, in which he
narrates more important events, and reveals more lofty truths than all
the historians of Greece unfolded in their collective volumes,--a marvel
of historic art, a model of composition, an immortal work of genius, the
oldest and the greatest written history of which we have record.
And surely what poetry, pathos, and eloquence, what simplicity and
beauty, what rich and varied lessons of human experience, what treasures
of moral wisdom, are revealed in that little book! How sublimely the
poet-prophet narrates the misery of the Fall, and the promised glories
of the Restoration! How concisely the historian compresses the incidents
of patriarchal life, the rise of empires, the fall of cities, the
certitudes of faith, of friendship, and of love! All that is vital in
the history of thousands of years is condensed into a few chapters,--not
dry and barren annals, but descriptions of character, and the unfolding
of emotions and sensibilities, and insight into those principles of
moral government which indicate a superintending Power, creating faith
in a world of sin, and consolation amid the wreck of matter.
Thus when forty more years are passed in study, in literary composition,
in religious meditation, and active duties, in sight of grand and barren
mountains, amid affections and simplicities,--years which must have
familiarized him with every road and cattle-drive and sheep-track, every
hill and peak, every wady and watercourse, every timber-belt and oasis
in the Sinaitic wilderness, through which his providentially trained
military instincts were to safely conduct a vast multitude,--Moses,
still strong and laborious, is fitted for his exalted mission as a
deliverer. And now he is directly called by the voice of God himself,
amid the wonders of the burning bush,--Him whom, thus far, he had, like
Abraham, adored as the Elohim, the God Almighty, but whom henceforth he
recognizes as Jehovah (Jahveh) in His special relations to the Jewish
nation, rather than as the general Deity who unites the attributes
ascribed to Him as the ruler of the universe. Moses quakes before that
awful voice out of the midst of the bush, which commissions him to
deliver his brethren. He is no longer bold, impetuous, impatient, but
timid and modest. Long study and retirement from the busy haunts of men
have made him self-distrustful. He replies to the great _I Am_, "Who am
I, that _I_ should bring forth the Children of Israel out of Egypt?
Behold, I am not eloquent; they will not believe me, nor hearken to my
voice." In spite of the miracle of the rod, Moses obeys reluctantly, and
Aaron, his elder brother, is appointed as his spokesman.
Armed with the mysterious wonder-working rod, at length Moses and Aaron,
as representatives of the Jewish people, appear in the presence of
Pharaoh, and in the name of Jehovah request permission for Israel to go
and hold a feast in the wilderness. They do not demand emancipation or
emigration, which would of course be denied. I cannot dwell on the
haughty scepticism and obdurate hardness of the King--"Who is Jehovah,
that I should obey _his_ voice?"--the renewed persecution of the
Hebrews, the successive plagues and calamities sent upon Egypt, which
the magicians could not explain, and the final extorted and unwilling
consent of Pharaoh to permit Israel to worship the God of Moses in the
wilderness, lest greater evils should befall him than the destruction of
the first-born throughout the land.
The deliverance of a nation of slaves is at last, it would seem,
miraculously effected; and then begins the third period of the life of
Moses, as the leader and governor of these superstitious, sensual,
idolatrous, degraded slaves. Then begin the real labors and trials of
Moses; for the people murmur, and are consumed with fears as soon as
they have crossed the sea, and find themselves in the wilderness. And
their unbelief and impatience are scarcely lessened by the tremendous
miracle of the submersion of the pursuing host, and all successive
miracles,--the mysterious manna, the pillar of cloud and of fire, the
smitten rock at Horeb, and the still more impressive and awful
wonders of Sinai.
The guidance of the Israelites during these forty years in the
wilderness is marked by transcendent ability on the part of Moses, and
by the most disgraceful conduct on the part of the Israelites. They are
forgetful of mercies, ungrateful, rebellious, childish in their
hankerings for a country where they had been more oppressed than Spartan
Helots, idolatrous, and superstitious. They murmur for flesh to eat;
they make golden calves to worship; they seek a new leader when Moses is
longer on the Mount than they expect. When any new danger threatens they
lay the blame on Moses; they even foolishly regret that they had not
died in Egypt.
Obviously such a people were not fit for freedom, or even for the
conquest of the promised land. They were as timid and cowardly as they
were rebellious. Even the picked men sent out to explore Canaan, with
the exception of Caleb and Joshua, reported nations of giants impossible
to subdue. A new generation must arise, disciplined by forty years'
experience, made hardy and strong by exposure and suffering. Yet what
nation, in the world's history, ever improved so much in forty years?
What ruler ever did so much for a people in a single reign? This abject
race of slaves in forty years was transformed into a nation of valiant
warriors, made subject to law and familiar with the fundamental
principles of civilization. What a marvellous change, effected by the
genius and wisdom of one man, in communion with Almighty power!
But the distinguishing labor of Moses during these forty years, by which
he linked his name with all subsequent ages, and became the greatest
benefactor of mind the world has seen until Christ, was his system of
Jurisprudence. It is this which especially demands our notice, and hence
will form the main subject of this lecture.
In reviewing the Mosaic legislation, we notice both those ordinances
which are based on immutable truth for the rule of all nations to the
end of time, and those prescribed for the peculiar situation and
exigencies of the Jews as a theocratic state, isolated from
other nations.
The moral code of Moses, by far the most important and universally
accepted, rests on the fundamental principles of theology and morality.
How lofty, how impressive, how solemn this code! How it appeals at once
to the consciousness of all minds in every age and nation, producing
convictions that no sophistry can weaken, binding the conscience with
irresistible and terrific bonds,--those immortal Ten Commandments,
engraven on the two tables of stone, and preserved in the holy and
innermost sanctuary of the Jews, yet reappearing in all their
literature, accepted and reaffirmed by Christ, entering into the
religious system of every nation that has received them, and forming the
cardinal principles of all theological belief! Yet it was by Moses that
these Commandments came. He is the first, the favored man, commissioned
by God to declare to the world, clearly and authoritatively, His supreme
power and majesty, whom alone all nations and tribes and people are to
worship to remotest generations. In it he fearfully exposes the sin of
idolatry, to which all nations are prone,--the one sin which the
Almighty visits with such dreadful penalties, since this involves, and
implies logically, rebellion against Him, the supreme ruler of the
universe, and disloyalty to Him as a personal sovereign, in whatever
form this idolatry may appear, whether in graven images of tutelary
deities, or in the worship of Nature (ever blind and indefinite), or in
the exaltation of self, in the varied search for pleasure, ambition, or
wealth, to which the debased soul bows down with grovelling instincts,
and in the pursuit of which the soul forgets its higher destiny and its
paramount obligations. Moses is the first to expose with terrific force
and solemn earnestness this universal tendency to the oblivion of the
One God amid the temptations, the pleasures, and the glories of the
world, and the certain displeasure of the universal sovereign which must
follow, as seen in the fall of empires and the misery of individuals
from his time to ours, the uniform doom of people and nations, whatever
the special form of idolatry, whenever it reaches a peculiar fulness and
development,--the ultimate law of all decline and ruin, from which there
is no escape, "for the Lord God is a jealous God, visiting the
iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation." So sacred and awful is this controlling Deity, that it is
made a cardinal sin even to utter His name in vain, in levity or
blasphemy. In order also to keep Him before the minds of men, a day is
especially appointed--one in seven--which it is the bounden duty as well
as privilege of all generations to keep with peculiar sanctity,--a day
of rest from labor as well as of adoration; an entirely new institution,
which no Pagan nation, and no other ancient nation, ever recognized.
After thus laying solemn injunctions upon all men to render supreme
allegiance to this personal God,--for we can find no better word,
although Matthew Arnold calls it "the Power which maketh for
righteousness,"--Moses presents the duties of men to each other, chiefly
those which pertain to the abstaining from injuries they are most
tempted to commit, extending to the innermost feelings of the heart, for
"thou shalt not covet anything which is thy neighbor's;" thus covering,
in a few sentences, the primal obligations of mankind to God and to
society, afterward expanded by a greater teacher into the more
comprehensive law of Love, which is to bind together mortals on earth,
as it binds together immortals in heaven.
All Christian nations have accepted these Ten Commandments, even
Mohammedan nations, as appealing to the universal conscience,--not a
mere Jewish code, but a primary law, susceptible of boundless
obligation, never to be abrogated; a direct injunction of the Almighty
to the end of time.
The Ten Commandments seem to be the foundation of the subsequent and
more minute code which Moses gave to the Jews; and it is interesting to
see how its great principles have entered, more or less, into the laws
of Christian nations from the decline of the Roman Empire, into the
Theodosian code, the laws of Charlemagne, of Ina, of Alfred, and
especially into the institutions of the Puritans, and of all other sects
and parties wherever the Bible is studied and revered. They seem to be
designed not merely for Jews, but for Gentiles also, since there is no
escape from their obligation. They may seem severe in some of their
applications, but never unjust; and as long as the world endures, the
relations between man and man are to be settled on lofty moral grounds.
An elevated morality is the professed aim of all enlightened lawgivers;
and the prosperity of nations is built upon it, for it is righteousness
which exalteth them. Culture is desirable; but the welfare of nations is
based on morals rather than on aesthetics. On this point Moses, or even
Epictetus, is a greater authority than Goethe. All the ordinances of
Moses tend to this end. They are the publication of natural
religion,--that God is a rewarder of virtuous actions, and punishes
wicked deeds. Moses, from first to last, insists imperatively on the
doctrine of personal responsibility to God, which doctrine is the
logical sequence of belief in Him as the moral governor of the world.
And in enforcing this cardinal truth he is dogmatic and dictatorial, as
a prophet and ambassador of the Most High should be.