The law is especially embodied in the last four books of the Pentateuch. In Exodus, Leviticus, and Num- bers there is perceptible some arrangement of the va- rious precepts, although they are not brought into a system. In Deuteronomy the law or legislation con- tained in the three preceding books is repeated with slight modifications. See each of these books.
The Jews assert that, besides the written law, il"iin arDaiy, vofioQ tyypa^oc, which may be translated into other languages, and which is contained in the Penta- teuch, there was communicated to Moses on Mount Sinai an 07-al law, tlS ?"-lI5 niiri, vofioQ nypa<poc, which was subsequently written down, together with many rabbinical observations, and is contained in the twelve folio volumes which now constitute the Talmud, and which the Jews assert cannot be, or at least ought not to be, translated. See Taljiud.
The Rabbins divide the whole Mosaic law into 613 precepts, of which 248 are affirmative and 365 negative. The number of the affirmative precepts corresponds to the 248 members of which, according to rabbinical anat- omy, the whole human body consists. Tlie number of the negative precepts corresponds to the 365 days of the solar year ; or, according to the rabbinical work Brand- spieyel (which has been published in Jewish German at Cracow and in other places), the negative precepts agree in number with the 366 veins which, they say, are found in the human body. Hence their logic concludes that if on each day each member of the liuman body keeps one affirmative precept and abstains from one thing for- bidden, the whole law, and not the Decalogue alone, is ke[)t. The whole law is sometimes called by Jewish writers Theriog, which word is formed from the Hebrew letters that are employed to express the number 613, viz. 400 = n-t-200 = -l + 10 = i+3 = 5. Hence 613 = J-'-.n theriog. Women are subject to the negative precepts or prohibitions only, and not to the affirmative precepts or injunctions. This exception arises partly from their nature, and partly from their being subject to the au- thority of husbands. According to some rabbinical statements women are subject to 100 precepts only, of which 64 are negative and 36 affirmative. The number 613 corresponds also to the number of letters in the Dec- alogue. Others are inclined to find that there are 620 precepts according to the numerical value of the Avord "in3=crowi, viz., 400 = n+200 = "l + 20 = D; and oth- ers, again, observe that the numerical value of the let-
LAW OF MOSES
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LAW OF MOSES
ters il'i'iT, latv, amounts only to 611. The first in or- der of these laws is found in Gen. i, 27, 13^1 1"1S, be f miff til and multiply. The transgressor of this law is, according to l^abbi Eliezer, as wicked as a murderer. He who is still unmarried at twenty years of age is a transgressor; and the law is binding upon every man, according to Schamai, until he has two sons ^ or, accord- ing to Hillel, one son and one daughter (compare Juris Hebrceorum leges, ductu Rabbi Levi Barzelonitse, auctore J. Henrico Hottinger). See Cabala.
1. The Law with refereme to the Past History of the People. — 1. Here it is all-important, for the proper un- derstanding of the law, to remember its entire dependence on the A brahamic Covenant, and its adaptation thereto (see Gal. iii, 17-24). That covenant had a twofold char- acter. It contained the " spiritual promise" of the Mes- siah, which was given to the Jews as representatives of the whole human race, and as guardians of a treasure in which' " all families of the earth should be blessed." This Avould prepare the Jewish nation to be the centre of the iniity of all mankind. But it contained also the tem- poral promises subsidiary to the former, and requisite in order to preserve intact the nation, through which the race of man should be educated and prepared for the coming of the Redeemer. These promises were special, given distinctively to the Jews as a nation, and calcu- lated to separate them from other nations of the earth. It follows that there shoidd be in the law a correspond- ing duality of nature. There would be much in it pe- culiar to the Jews, local, special, and transitorj- ; but the fundamental principles on which it was based must be universal, because expressing the will of an unchanging God, and springing from relations to him inherent in human nature, and therefore perpetual and universal in their application.
2. The nature of this relation of the law to the prom- ise is clearly pointed out. The belief in God as the Re- deemer of man, and the hope of his manifestation as such in the person of the INIessiah, involved the belief that the spiritual power must be superior to all carnal ob- structions, and that there was in man a spiritual ele- ment which could rule his life bj- communion with a Spirit from above. But it involved also the idea of an antagonistic power of evil, from which man was to be redeemed, existing in each individual, and existing also in the world at large. The promise was the witness of the one truth, the law was the declaration of the other. It was " added because of transgressions." In the indi- vidual it stood between his better and his worse self, in the world, between the Jewish nation as the witness of the spiritual promise, and the heathendom which groaned under the power of the flesh. It was intended, by the gift of guidance and the pressure of motives, to strengthen the weakness of good, while it curbed direct- ly the power of evil. It followed inevitably that, in the individual, it assumed somewhat of a coercive, and, as between Israel and the world, somewhat of an antago- nistic and isolating character; and hence that, viewed without reference to the promise (as was the case with the later Jews"), it might actually become a hinderance to the true revelation of God, and to the mission for which the nation had been made a " chosen people."