The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 44

innocence indicates,-firet, "for the mutual society, help, and comfort which one ought to have of the other;" secondly, "for the procreation of children, to bo brought up in the fear nnd nmture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy no.me;" o.nd thirdly, to preserve the purity of human life ngainst the lusts of the flesh ;-the prohibition of the breach of this ordinance by adullery must involve, on its negativo side, the prohibition of all things inconsistent with these reasons, and on ite positive eide, the commnnd to fulfil all the duties and responsibilities which those reasons imply. 43. (VHL) The eighth commandment deals with another natural right of man, that of property: not, like the two preceding, directly derived from his creation, yet the immediate consequence of his own pereonal right to existence, and of the rights of the family relation.1 From these rights of man we conclude his right to o.cquire and possess euch things as pertain to the maintenance and development of life, and to use and dispose of these for the benefit of himself and of those dependent on him. This natural rig·ht of man, and the duties involved in it, the commandment recog• niscs and asserts. The whole sphere of these duties, both negative and positive, is included in one of those comprehensive and profoundly philosophical precepts of the Apostle Paul, which we find in his expositionsofrelative duties. "Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his ho.n:ds the thing "·hicb is good, that he mny have to give to him that needeth." 2 The question of the limitation of the individual right of property by the rights of the society is ono !hat specially belongs to the authority of human law, which is ordained by God for the protection of s □ ch rights. 3 The secondary laws on this s □bject, given to the nation of Israel as suitable for their peculiar circumstances, contain some important and suggestive illustrations of the extent of these rights and of the corresponding d □tifS. 44. (IX.) The right of man to receive the truth from his neighbour, and the correlative duty of man to speak the truth of his neighbour and to his neighbour, arise, so far as human interests are concerned, from the order and constitution of rnciety, the mutual relations and responsibilities of which could not be otherwise maintained. 4 St. Paul, while he describes the old man as corrupt according to the lu,$ts of deceit, and the new man as created after God in righteousness and lwliness of truth, yet expressly baees the duty on the ground of our mutual relation. "Where- fore" (he says), "putting away lying, let every man speak truth ono with another; for we are members one of another." 6 This consideration must necessarily to some extent govern the interpretation and application of the ninth commandment ; for the same principle that forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbour, would equally require us to bear true witness, even though it be to his personal injury, if the interests of man as a member of society, and the interests of social order, should be thereby benefited. T11is conclusion is obvious enough. But the question, which has been often discussed both in ancient and modern times, whether veracity is, under nll cir- cumstanceB and to all men, a duty in itsdf, and if not, what are the limitations which the ground of the duty, indicated by St. Paul, might suggest, is one of much greater difficulty, into which we !leed not enter here. 6 It must, however, be borne in ?1i.nd with regard to all the four commandments that have reference to the natural rights of man, that while those rights mark out the corresponding duties, there is for the 1 See Lorimer'a 'Constitution of L11.w,' chap. vii 3, c-h. a Ephes. iv. 28. . . _8 Cf. e.q: Ro_m.,xiii. 6,_7 •. ' Iu this a.s1,cct of "truth" 1t 1, so closely allied to "JUStlce 'that 1t IS difficult to· t,t>paratc them. See § 23 as to the pHsonificatiou of TMnei. " Epl,es. fr. 22, 25. G Sec !llozky's 'Ruling Ideas in Early Ages,' pp. 155, &c. and Notes 4-7,  INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH. xxi:i