The Section, or Part, on holy days and seasons comprises chs. xxiii.-xxv. Ch. xxiii. The sacred days on which holy convocations are to be held. Ch. xxiv, Parenthetical. On the oil for the lamps, and the shewbread, and on blasphemy. Ch. xx:v. The sabbatical year and tho jubilee. § 5. Final E.chortatiOff. Many of the laws in the Book of Leviticus are without the sanction of any penalty. They are commanded, and therefore they ought to be obeyed. In place of a regular code of penalties for individual transgressions, and in addition to the penalties already declared, Moses pronounces blessing and cursing on the nation at large, according as it obeys or disobeys the Law. The rewards and punishments of a future life have no place here, as nations have no future existence. Twice in the Book of Deuteronomy Moses intro- duces similar exhortations ( chs. xi., xxviii.). As a matter of history, we find that as long as the nation was, as such, loyal to Jehovah, it prospered, 0,nd that when it fell away from him the evils here denounced overtook it. The exhortation is contained in eh. x.xvi. § 6. Appendix-Vow,. The subject of vows is not introduced into the body of the book, because it was not the purpose of the legislation to institute them or to oncow·ago them. At the conclusion a short treatise is added, giving no special approbation of them, but regulating them, if made, and appointing a scalo of redemption or commutation. . This appendix occupies the last chapter-eh. xxvii.-being attachecl to the rest by a final declaration that it bel<mgs to the Sinaitic legislation. 2. AUTHORSHIP AND DATE. The question of authorship does not properly arise on this book. What- ever may be said of Genesis and Deuteronomy, the second, third, and fourth of the books of Moses stand or fall together, nor is there any- thing in the Book of Leviticus to separate it in respect to authenticity from Exodus which precedes, and Numbers which follows it. There is only one passage in it which can be regarded as seeming to indicate an author of later date than Moses. This is the following passage: "That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you" ( eh. xviii. 28). It has been argued with some plausibility that, as Canaan had not spued out its inhabitants till after the death of Moses, these words must have been written by some one who lived later than Moses. But an examination of the context takes away all the force of this argument. The eighteenth chapter is directed against in- cestuous marriages and lusts; and, after the lawgiver has endecl his prohibitions, he proceeds: "Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the vlil mTRODUOTION TO
land it.self vomiteth out her inhabitant.a. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgment.s, and eball not oommit any of these abomina- tions; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojoumeth among you: (for all these abominations have the men of the land done 1
which were before you, and the land is defiled;) that the land spue not yoU: out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." In this passage, the words translated" vomiteth" ~nd "spued" are in the same tense. It is that tense which is ordinarily called a pel'feot. But this so-called perfect does not necessarily indicate a past time. Indeed, the Hebrew tenses do not, as such, express time, but only (when in the active voice) action. We must look to the oontext in order to discover the time in which the act takes place, took place, or will take place. In the passage before us the words, "I cast out," in ver. 24 are expressed by a. participle, "used of that which is certainly and speedily coming to paee •• (Keil), meaning, "I am casting out;" and by a law of the Hebrew language, as this participle and the rest of the context indicate present time, the two verbs under consideration must indicate present time also. Even if we were compelled to translate the two words as perfects, there would be nothing impossible or unnatural in God's saying to Moses, and to the children of Israel through him, that the land "has vomited,'' or "has spued out," the nations of Canaan, the act being regarded as in the Divine mind done, because determined on and in the course of immediate aooom- plishment. Or, still again, the land might be said to "have spued out" the nations of Canaan in relation to the time when it should epue out the degenerate Israelites. Putting aside this passage, so easily explained, there is nothing in the whole book which is incompatible with the authorship and the date of Moses. This being so, the fact that it has come down to us as the work of Moses, and that it by implication profeeeee itself to be the work of Moses, and that its character and language are, so far as we can judge, such as would be in accordance with a work of Moses, leave the hypothesis of the authorship of Moses as certain, on the score of internal evidence, as any such hypothesis can be. Nor is there wanting any external evidence which could be expected to exist. The Book of Joshua recognizes the existence of " the Book of the Law of Moses " ( J oah. xxii. 6 ; of. i. 8 ; viii. 31-35). In the Book of Judges there is an apparent reference to Lev. xxvi. 16, 17, in eh. ii. 15 (" Whithereoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them "); and in oh. iii. 4 we find mention of "the command- ments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses." In the Book of Judges, " the sacred character of the Levites, their dispersion among the several tribes, the settlement of the high priesthood in the family of Aaron, the existence of the ark of the covenant, the power of inquiring of God and obtaining answers, the irrevocability of & vow, the distinguishing mark of ciroumoision, the distinction between THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. ix