The Pulpit Commentary — Leviticus — Section 335

can reach the heights of wisdom without laboriously climbing the steeps of experience. They find that they are wrong. Tirue proves to each generation of men that wisdom,. whether it be that of earth or of heaven, is only gained by the discipline of life. There- are men who pass through human life end learn nothing in the passage; the folly of youth cleaves to them still. Such men must be comparatively unhonoured, receiving only the respect which is due to old age as such. But when ,;nen have gatr.ered the- fruits of a long and large experience-and especially when nien of intelligence and; piety have stored up the truth which God has been teaching them as he has led them along all the path of life-they are worthy to receive our sincerest honour, and we must know how to "rise up before the hoary head" in their case. With all and more than- all the respect we pay to the learned, we should receive men whom God has been long. teaching in his school-those who have learnt much of Jesus ChriEt. Ill THOSE WHO HAVE LAID us UNDER SPECIAL OBLIGATION. 1. Aged men who have- lived a faithful life have done this. For they have lived, not only for themselves, but for their kind. They have wrought, struggled, suffered in orJ.er that they might help- us and others to walk in the light, to enter the kingdom, to enjoy the favour of God;. and they have earned our gratitude by their faithful service. 2. Our parents have done· this also. "Ye shall fear every man his mother-, and his father." 'What benefits our parents have conferred on us, what kindnesses they have rendered us, what sacrifices they have made for us, what anxious thought and earnest prayer they have cherished and offered on our behalf,-who of us shall reckon? The debt we owe to them for all they have done for us is the heaviest of all, next to that supreme indebtedness under which we stand to God. But it is not only the obligation we have thus incurred· which demands our filial reverence; it is the fact that our .parents are- IV. THOSE WHO STAND IN A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP TO us. 1. ,ve should remember that fatherhood is the human relationship which most closely resembles and most fully reveals that in which God himself stands to us,all. Christ came to reveal the Father unto man as the Father of souls. 'l'herefore it is to be highly honoured. 2. Father- hood (parenthood, for the mother is not to be left out of our thought) in the best state of human society has received the largest share of honour. We may gather from this fact that it is a divinely implanted instinct, only absent when the race has miserably degenerated under sin. 3. Honour given to parents as such is imperatively required by God. It was a patriarchal and Jewish, as it is now a Christian, virtue. After th& injunction stand these significant words, "I nm the Lord." "Children, obey your- parents in the Lord" (Epb. vi. 1). Filial disobedience and unkindness are grievous sins in his sight. Filial love, honour, and considerateness are well-pleasing unto the Lord.-C. Vers. 9, 10, 18, 14, 33, 34.-Considerateneu. We gather from these verses- I. THAT THE FEAR OF Goo WILL SURELY LEAD TO THE LOVE OF MAN. That piety which begins and ends in acts of devotion is one that mny be reasonably suspected: it ls not of the scriptural order. '!'rue piety is in consulting the will of the heavenly Father (Matt. vii. 21), and his will is that we should love and be kind to one another (Eph. iv. 32). Philanthropy is a word which may not have its synonym in the Old Testament, but the Hebrew legislator was not ignorant of the idea, and the Hebrew people were not left without incitement to the thin.~ itself. Hence these injunctions to leave some corn in the corners or their fields, nnd the scattered rars for the reaping and gleaning of the poor (ver. 9); to lenve also some clusters of grapes which bad been over- looked for needy hands to pluck (ver. 10); to take no advantage of the weaker members of their society, the deaf aud the blin<l (ver. 14); and to show kindness to the stranger (ver. 34). II. THAT CONSIDERATENESS 18 A GRACE WHICH 18 PECULIARLY PLEASING TO Goo. 'l'he Jews were expressly enjoined to (1) show kindness to the poor (ver. 10); (2) to be cnreful of those who suffered from bodily infirmity (ver. 14); (3) to interest themselves in the stranger (vers. 33, 34). 'l'here is something particularly striking in the command- ment that they were to refrain from cursing the deaf. Even though there might be no danger of giving positive pain and exciting resentment, yet they were not to direct harsh words against o.ny one of their more unfortunate brethren. 'l'his legislation for the weak and the necessitoUB prescnta a very pleasant aspect of the Law. It also 300 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS, [CH, XIX. 1-370