The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 54

that the judges, representing the congregation, determined respecting one who hnd taken refuge, aecording to the evidence of witneseee,1 what the punishment should be. Adultery, c,en when the women was only betrothed, was punished by the denth of both offenders. Since the most precious poeseeeion of man is hie own personal liberty, death was tlie punishment for stealing a man and either selling him or keeping him in bondage. Thefts generally were punished by restitution of either four or five times the value of the thing stolen ; but a burglar breaking into a house nt night might be slain ·with impunity. False witness was punished according to the lea: talionis, the principle of which was also laid down in the law as that on which all coses of personal injury should be punished: " life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." 1 Thie to us now may seem a rude and barbarous principle of justice ; but it must be borne in mind that it is the natural and original idea of justice between man and man. The le:c wl:ionis was recognised in the twelve tables of Rome, and it was expressed in later Roman law in almost the same terms ns in the law of Moses. Cicero accepts the general principle as the true basis of penal law, "Noxi~ pcena par csto." 8 Of the necessity for the adaptation of these secondary laws to the actual moral condition of the people to whom they were given we shall speak presently; but there is another consideration which, from a religious point of view, has yet greater weight; namely, that it was essential to the purpose for which Divine law was given, that the severity, exactness, and in.flexible impartiality of the justice of God should be exhibited in that law, and that, under this economy, his people should be taught this lesson, as children are, by a discipline suited to their age. We may ask, however, can a law of this nature be part of that law of which love is the ful- filment? Did not Christ expressly reject this law of retaliation as unsuitable for his disciples, end bid them, on the contrary, return good for evil? Yet he came "not to destroy but to fulfil the law," nnd we have seen (§ 32) that justice and charity are notLing else than opposite poles of the same principle, nnd Divine law necessarily involves both. The Scribes and Pharisees, whose false interpretations of God's law Christ condemned, altogether forgot, as many Christians do to the present day, that the "sanction" or penalty of a law ie not for the guidance of-our conduct and feeling towards others, but to direct those who are the representatives of God's justice on earth. To the personal conscience it ie notliing more than a warning of the evil and guilt of the sin. In this particular case, that which the law commands us is that we blwuld do unto others as we would that they should do unto us ; the penalty for dis- e,bedience, which it belongs not to us to execute, but to God by tbose to whom he commits this office, e:xactly corresponds with the command ; that is, it requires that whatever injury we do to others shall be "measured" out with perfect exactness "to us again." Our Lord, while he rejects the false interpretation of the law, osserte the principle of equal-handed justice on which it ie founded, as a necessary and invio- lable principle in God's government.' And without the distinct recognition of God's justice, charity is a barren sentiment. The soul that has not a deep conviction of the exact and inviolable justice of God, can have no real, or at least no profound sense of his love; and, therefore, no sufficient foundation for that love to his neighbour \\hich alone fullils the law. In fact, these severe penal laws are nothing else than the expression of God's rigliteoue condemnation of him who does not love hie neigh, Lour as himself. 1 Of. Numb. mv. 12. 2 Exod. xxi. 23-25; Levtt. xxiv. 20; Dcut. xix. 21, • Sl>e note, § 47, supra. ' Cf. Matt. vii. 2 with ver. 7,  1wrno1>uc:tr10~ TO TltE PENTATJWCI!. :.tli