PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Leviticus
Kellogg, Samuel H. (Samuel Henry) · 176,791 words · 253 reading sections
_The Law Of Holiness (Concluded)._
Last of all the injunctions in this chapter (vv. 35, 36) comes the command to absolute righteousness in the administration of justice, and in all matters of buying and selling; followed (ver. 37) by a concluding charge to obedience, thus: "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measur…
832 wordsSECTION 182_Penal Sanctions._
The closing words above given (ver. 37) assert the authority of the Law-giver, and, by their reminder of the great deliverance from Egypt, appeal, as a motive to faithful and holy obedience, to the purest sentiment of grateful love for undeserved and distinguishing mercy. And this is only the Old Testament form of a Ne…
731 wordsSECTION 183_Penal Sanctions._
In this chapter death is ordained as the penalty for the following crimes: viz., giving of one's seed to Molech (vv. 2-5); professing to be a wizard, or to have dealings with the spirits of the dead (ver. 27); adultery, incest with a mother or step-mother, a daughter-in-law or mother-in-law (vv. 10-12, 14); and sodomy …
655 wordsSECTION 184_Penal Sanctions._
What those objects were, it does not seem hard to discern. First and supreme in the intention of this law is the satisfaction of outraged justice, and of the regal majesty of the supreme and holy God, defied; the vindication of the holiness of the Most High against that wickedness of men which would set at nought the H…
787 wordsSECTION 185_Penal Sanctions._
As regards the crimes specified in this particular chapter, the criminal law of modern Christendom does not inflict the penalty of death in a single possible case here mentioned; and, to the mind of many, the contrasted severity of the Mosaic code presents a grave difficulty. And yet, if one believes, on the authority …
750 wordsSECTION 186_Penal Sanctions._
Still harder will it be for most of us to understand why the death-penalty should have been also affixed to cursing or smiting a father or a mother, an extreme form of rebellion against parental authority. We must, no doubt, bear in mind, as in all these cases, that a rough people, like those just emancipated slaves, r…
798 wordsSECTION 187_Penal Sanctions._
Finally, as already suggested, this chapter gives a most weighty testimony against the modern tendency to a relaxation of the laws which regulate the relations of the sexes. That such a tendency is a fact is admitted by all; by some with gratulation, by others with regret and grave concern. French law, for instance, ha…
548 wordsSECTION 188_The Law Of Priestly Holiness._
LEV. xxi. 1-xxii. 33. The conception of Israel as a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, was concretely represented in a threefold division of the people,--the congregation, the priesthood, and the high priest. This corresponded to the threefold division of the tabernacle into the outer court, the holy place, and the ho…
681 wordsSECTION 189_The Law Of Priestly Holiness._
[37] The wife is not mentioned, but that she would also be included in the exception, in view of her being always regarded in the law as yet nearer to her husband than father or mother, may be safely taken for granted. These regulations, at first thought, to many will seem hard and unnatural. Yet this law of holine…
931 wordsSECTION 190_The Law Of Priestly Holiness._
[38] See margin (R.V.). And the household of the priest were to remember the holy standing of their father. The sin of the child of a priest was to be punished more severely than that of the children of others; a single illustration is given (ver. 9): "The daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the …
826 wordsSECTION 191_The Law Of Priestly Holiness._
All this may seem, at first, remote from any present use; and yet it takes little thought to see that, in principle, the New Testament law of holiness requires, under a changed form, even the same reverent use of God's gifts, and especially of the Holy Supper of the Lord, from every member of the Christian priesthood. …
821 wordsSECTION 192_The Law Of Priestly Holiness._
The last section of the law concerning priestly holiness (xxii. 17-33) requires the maintenance of jealous care in the enforcement of the law of offerings. Inasmuch as, in the nature of the case, while it rested with the sons of Aaron to enforce this law, the obligation concerned every offerer, this section (vv. 17-25)…
1,085 wordsSECTION 193_The Set Feasts Of The Lord._
We have in these days great need to beseech the Lord that He may deliver us, in all things, from that malign epidemic of religious lawlessness which is one of the plagues of our age; and raise up a generation who shall so understand their priestly calling as Christians, that, no less in all that pertains to the offices…
755 wordsSECTION 194_The Set Feasts Of The Lord._
From these facts it is argued that in these Hebrew feasts we have simply a natural development, with modifications, of the ancient and widespread system of harvest feasts among the heathen; to which the historical element which appears in some of them was only added as an afterthought, in a later period of history. Fro…
916 wordsSECTION 195_The Set Feasts Of The Lord._
Now, like to this series of sacred times, in heathenism there is absolutely nothing. It evidently belongs to another realm of thought, ethics, and religion. And so, while it is quite true that in the three great feasts there was a reference to the harvest, and so to fruitful nature, yet the fundamental, unifying idea o…
368 wordsSECTION 196The Weekly Sabbath.
xxiii. 1-3. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, The set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My set feasts. Six days shall work be done: but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, an holy convocation; …
693 wordsSECTION 197The Feast Of Passover And Unleavened Bread.
[41] See the inspired comment in Heb. iv. xxiii. 4-14. "These are the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their appointed season. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, is the Lord's passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast o…
718 wordsSECTION 198The Feast Of Passover And Unleavened Bread.
On "the morrow after the Sabbath" (ver. 15) of this sacred week, it was ordered (ver. 10) that "the sheaf of the firstfruits of the (barley) harvest" should be brought "unto the priest;" and (ver. 11) that he should consecrate it unto the Lord, by the ceremony of waving it before Him. This wave-offering of the sheaf of…
528 wordsSECTION 199The Feast Of Pentecost.
xxiii. 15-21. "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall there be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meal offering unto the Lord. Ye shal…
832 wordsSECTION 200The Feast Of Trumpets.
xxiii. 23-25. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work: and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unt…
432 wordsSECTION 201The Day Of Atonement.
xxiii. 26-32. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Howbeit on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And ye shall do no manner of work in that same day: for…
569 wordsSECTION 202The Feast Of Tabernacles.
xxiii. 33-43. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord. On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work. Seven days ye shall offer an offering mad…
797 wordsSECTION 203The Feast Of Tabernacles.
The chief sentiment of the feast was thus joy and thanksgiving to God as the Giver of all good. Yet the joy was not to be merely natural and earthly, but spiritual; they were to rejoice (ver. 40) "before the Lord." And the thanksgiving was not to be expressed merely in words, but in deeds. The week, we are elsewhere to…
398 wordsSECTION 204Typical Meaning Of The Feasts Of The Seventh Month.
We have already seen that the earlier feasts of the year were also prophetic; that Passover and Unleavened Bread pointed forward to Christ, our Passover, slain for us; Pentecost, to the spiritual ingathering of the firstfruits of the world's harvest, fifty days after the presentation of our Lord in resurrection, as the…
659 wordsSECTION 205Typical Meaning Of The Feasts Of The Seventh Month.
But before the joyful feast of tabernacles could be celebrated, the great, sorrowful day of atonement must be kept,--a season marked, on the one hand, by affliction of soul throughout all Israel; on the other, by the complete putting away of the sin of the nation for the whole year, through the presentation of the bloo…
762 wordsSECTION 206Typical Meaning Of The Feasts Of The Seventh Month.
Of many thoughts of a practical kind which this chapter suggests, we may perhaps well dwell especially on one. The ideal of religious life, which these set times of the Lord kept before Israel, was a religion of joy. Again and again is this spoken of in the accounts of these feasts. This is true even of Passover, with …
330 wordsSECTION 207The Ordering Of The Light In The Holy Place.
LEV. xxiv. 1-23. It is not easy to determine with confidence the association of thought which occasioned the interposition of this chapter, with its somewhat disconnected contents, between chap. xxiii., on the set times of holy convocation, and chap. xxv., on the sabbatic and jubilee years, which latter would seem mos…
735 wordsSECTION 208The "Bread Of The Presence."
How pertinent for instruction still in all its deepest teaching is this ordinance of the lamp continually burning in the presence of the Lord, is vividly brought before us in the Apocalypse (i. 12, 13), where we read that seven candlesticks appeared in vision to the Apostle John; and Christ, in His glory, robed in high…
674 wordsSECTION 209The "Bread Of The Presence."
[43] See Kurtz, "Der Alttestamentliche Opfercultus," p. 271. In general, therefore, the meaning of the offering of the shew-bread must be the same as that of the meal-offerings; like them it symbolised the consecration unto the Lord of the product of the labour of the hands, and especially of the daily food as prepare…
567 wordsSECTION 210The Penalty Of Blasphemy.
xxiv. 10-23. "And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and the son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp; and the son of the Israelitish woman blasphemed the Name, and cursed: and they brought him unto Moses. And hi…
794 wordsSECTION 211The Penalty Of Blasphemy.
[45] See, _e.g._, Rabbi Dr. J. Levy, "Chaldäisches Wörterbuch," zweiter Band, pp. 301, 302; and compare Numb. xxiii. 8, Prov. xi. 26, xxiv. 24, where the same Hebrew word is used. And this young man, in the heat of his passion, "reviled the Name." The words "of the Lord" are not in the Hebrew; the name "Jehovah" is …
806 wordsSECTION 212The Penalty Of Blasphemy.
The narrative then ends with the statement (ver. 23) that Moses delivered this law to the children of Israel, who then, according to the commandment of the Lord, took the blasphemer out of the camp, when all that heard him blaspheme laid their hands upon his head, in token that they thus devolved on him the responsibil…
563 wordsSECTION 213_The Sabbatic Year And The Jubilee._
LEV. xxv. 1-55. The system of annually recurring sabbatic times, as given in chap. xxiii., culminated in the sabbatic seventh month. But this remarkable system of sabbatisms extended still further, and, besides the sacred seventh day, the seventh week, and seventh month, included also a sabbatic seventh year; and beyo…
689 wordsSECTION 214The Jubilee.
The central thought of this ordinance then is this, that man's right in the soil and its product, originally granted from God, during this sabbatic year reverted to the Giver; who, again, by ordering that all exclusive rights of individuals in the produce of their estates should be suspended for this year, placed, for …
714 wordsSECTION 215The Jubilee And The Land.
xxv. 13-28. "In this year of jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. And if thou sell aught unto thy neighbour, or buy of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not wrong one another: according to the number of years after the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, and according unto the number of years o…
840 wordsSECTION 216The Jubilee And The Land.
In vv. 24-28, after the declaration of the fundamental law that the land belongs only to the Lord, and that they are to regard themselves as simply His tenants, "sojourners with Him," a second application of the law is made. First, it is ordered that in every case, and without reference to the year of jubilee, every la…
303 wordsSECTION 217The Jubilee And Dwelling Houses.
xxv. 29-34. "And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; for a full year shall he have the right of redemption. And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity …
681 wordsSECTION 218The Jubilee And Slavery.
The evident object of this law is to prevent, as far as possible, that extreme of poverty which might compel a man to sell himself in order to live. Debt is a burden in any case, to a poor man especially; but debt is the heavier burden when to the original debt is added the constant payment of interest. Hence, not mere…
728 wordsSECTION 219The Jubilee And Slavery.
Even with the burdensomeness of debt lightened as above, it was yet possible that a man might be reduced to poverty so extreme that he should feel compelled to sell himself as a slave. Hence arises the question of slavery, and its relation to the law of the jubilee. Under this head two cases were possible: the first, w…
706 wordsSECTION 220The Jubilee And Slavery.
It is to be borne in mind that even in such cases the law which commanded the kind treatment of all the strangers in the land (xix. 33, 34) would apply; so that even where permanent slavery was allowed it was placed under humanising restriction. In vv. 47-55 is taken up, finally, the case where a poor Israelite should…
602 wordsSECTION 221Practical Objects Of The Sabbatic Year And Jubilee Law.
Such was this extraordinary legislation, the like of which will be sought in vain in any other people. It is indeed true that, in some instances, ancient lawgivers decreed that land should not be permanently alienated, or that individuals should not hold more than a certain amount of land. Thus, for example, the Lacede…
727 wordsSECTION 222Practical Objects Of The Sabbatic Year And Jubilee Law.
The vital relation of this great truth to the burning questions of our day regarding the rights of men in land is self-evident. It does not indeed determine how the land question should be dealt with in any particular country, but it does settle it that if in these matters we will act in the fear of God, we must keep t…
727 wordsSECTION 223Practical Objects Of The Sabbatic Year And Jubilee Law.
However impracticable such arrangements may seem to us under the conditions of modern life, yet it must be confessed that in the case of a nation just starting on its career in a new country, as was Israel at that time, nothing could well be thought of more likely to be effective toward securing, along with careful reg…
836 wordsSECTION 224Typical Significance Of The Sabbatic And Jubilee Years.
[49] See Psalm lxxxix. 15. Most significant and full of instruction, no less to us than to Israel, was the ordinance that both the sabbatic and the jubilee years should date from the day of Atonement. It was when, having completed the solemn ritual of that day, the high priest put on again his beautiful garments and c…
756 wordsSECTION 225Typical Significance Of The Sabbatic And Jubilee Years.
Even in the beginning of the Pentateuch (Gen. iii. 17-19) it is explicitly taught that because of Adam's sin, the curse of God, in some mysterious way, fell even upon the material earthly creation. We read that the Lord said unto Adam: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy…
805 wordsSECTION 226Xxvi., Xxvii.
And the law adds also: "Ye shall return every man unto his family;" which gives the last feature here prefigured of that supreme sabbatism which remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9). It shall bring the reunion of those who had been parted and scattered. The day of resurrection is accordingly spoken of (2 Thess.…
251 wordsSECTION 227_The Promises And Threats Of The Covenant._
LEV. xxvi. 1-46. One would have expected that this chapter would have been the last in the book of Leviticus, for it forms a natural and fitting close to the whole law as hitherto recorded. But whatever may have been the reason of its present literary form, the fact remains that while this chapter is, in outward form,…
635 wordsSECTION 228The Promises Of The Covenant.
xxvi. 3-13. "If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will give you rains in their season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: an…
496 wordsSECTION 229"The Vengeance Of The Covenant."
xxvi. 14-46. "But if ye will not hearken unto Me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall reject My statutes, and if your soul abhor My judgments, so that ye will not do all My commandments, but break My covenant; I also will do this unto you; I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fe…
943 wordsSECTION 230"The Vengeance Of The Covenant."
So, if Israel should not obey the commandments of the Lord, but break that covenant which they had made with Him, when they had said unto the Lord (Exod. xxiv. 7): "All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient;" then they are threatened, first in a general way (vv. 14-17) with terrible judgments, which sha…
899 wordsSECTION 231"The Vengeance Of The Covenant."
[50] Much has been made of this reference to the neglect of the sabbatic years as evidence of the late composition of the chapter; but surely in this argument there is little force. For, even apart from any question of inspiration, the ordinance of the sabbatic year was of such an extraordinary character, so oppos…
892 wordsSECTION 232"The Vengeance Of The Covenant."
[51] So Basnage ("History of the Jews," London, 1700, chap. xxviii., sec. 15) estimated it in his day. Since then, however, their number has materially increased, and is still increasing; a fact the significance of which has been pointed out by the present writer in "The Jews; or, Prediction and Fulfilment" (New Y…
846 wordsSECTION 233"The Vengeance Of The Covenant."
So, then, stands the case. It is truly difficult to understand how one can fairly escape the inference from these facts, namely, that they imply in this chapter such a prescience of the future as is not possible to man, and therefore demonstrate that the Spirit of God must, in the deepest and truest sense, have been th…
360 wordsSECTION 234The Promised Restoration.
xxvi. 40-45. "And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against Me, and also that because they have walked contrary unto Me, I also walked contrary unto them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart b…
1,095 wordsSECTION 235The Promised Restoration.
[55] See Gen. xii. 1-3; xiii. 14-17; xv. 5-21; xvii. 2-11; xxii. 15-18. And while nothing is said in this chapter of Leviticus as to the relation of this future repentance of Israel to the establishment of the kingdom of God, we only speak according to the express teaching both of the later prophets and of the apostl…
675 wordsSECTION 236_Concerning Vows._
While in itself this question may be of little consequence, yet in another aspect it is of no small moment that we steadfastly affirm the permanent validity of this part of the promise of the covenant with Israel as given in this chapter. For it is not too much to say that the logic and the exegesis which make the prom…
666 wordsSECTION 237Of The Vowing Of Persons.
xxvii. 1-8. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall accomplish a vow, the persons shall be for the Lord by thy estimation. And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fif…
738 wordsSECTION 238Of The Vowing Of Domestic Animals.
[56] These commutation rates are so low that it is plain that they could not have represented the actual value of the individual's labour. The highest sum which is named--fifty shekels--as the rate for a man from twenty to sixty years of age, taking the shekel as 2s. 3·37_d._, or $·5474, would only amount to £5 14…
512 wordsSECTION 239Of The Vowing Of Houses And Fields.
xxvii. 14-25. "And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the Lord, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad: as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto…
746 wordsSECTION 240Of The Vowing Of Houses And Fields.
If, however, without having thus redeemed the field, the man who vowed should sell it to another man, it is ordered that the field, which otherwise would revert to him again in full right of usufruct when the jubilee year came round, should be forfeited; so that when the jubilee came the exclusive right of the field wo…
394 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.