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They were to do no unrighteousness of any kind. They were to be slow to mention an evil matter. Tale-bearing was to be frowned down. They were to nurse no hatred and practise no revenge. They were not to take advantage of weakness, or indulge in cruel sport. They were not to curse the deaf, or lay stumbling-blocks before the blind. They were to be prompt in the payment of wages, and they were to be liberal in the relief of poverty, and ready to lend to their brothers in distress, not taking usury, or even acting up to their legal rights in the matter of security. A man, for example, giving his garment in pledge for a loan, was to have it restored to him at sundown to sleep in (according to the custom of the East). It might be fetched again in the morning, but it was to be done in a considerate and gentlemanly manner. The lender was not to go rudely into a man's house and fetch the article, but was to "stand abroad" and let the borrower bring it.

In reaping the fields or vineyards, no parsimonious spirit was to be shown. There was to be no going over them a second time to pick up or gather what had been overlooked. Field and vineyard were to be left ungleaned to give the poor a chance. Moderns would think this wasteful, improvident, and unbusinesslike; but there is a better business spirit than the modern one, though we cannot see it practised till the establishment of new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

They were to honour grey hairs, and rise up before the aged. Reverence to seniors was to be carried to a high degree. Not only were father and mother to be honoured, but any man lifting his hand against, or even cursing them, was to be held guilty of a capital offence and put to death.

Sexual licence was shown no mercy. It is common to think that woman was unprotected under the law of Moses. In point of fact, it is under Gentile law that she is defenceless. It is one of the foulest blots on European civilisation that man may make sport of female honour-not only with impunity, but acquire a certain prestige by his exploits. Woman had a lower position in some points under Moses than ladies occupy in modern educated circles; but she was thoroughly protected. If a man robbed her of her chastity, he was to be put to death without remorse, or compelled to make the woman his wife. As for the adultery of married people, no satisfaction was accepted; the penalty was death.

A system of national life based upon such principles of individual action was certain to be pure and noble and holy. But, alas! the basis proved only theoretical. The law was all that could be desired-holy,

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just, and good. But Israel were forgetful and also disobedient. The law fell into disuse, and Israel became worse than the surrounding nations. God expostulated with them for a long time by the prophets : 'Oh, that my people had hearkened unto Me, and Israel had walked in My ways. I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned My hand against their enemies. But My people would not hearken to My voice. Israel would have none of Me." "Therefore

was the wrath of the Lord kindled against His people, insomuch that He abhorred His own inheritance, and He gave them into the hand of the heathen, and they that hated them ruled over them." We are permitted to look forward to the time spoken of by Moses (Deut. xxx. 2), when "Thou (Israel) shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee."

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CHAPTER XI.--THE COVENANT AT SINAI.

́T will be realised by the intelligent reader, that the various laws we have had under review were most of them communicated to Moses, on the occasion of his first visit to the summit of Mount Sinai when the ten commandments were afterwards so impressively promulgated. On coming down from the mountain, Moses rehearsed all the words of the Lord and all the judgments, "in the hearing of the people, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said we will do " (Ex. xxiv. 3). They had said this in response to the first general proposal submitted to them on their arrival from Egypt before the ten Commandments were delivered, but they were called upon, now, to make a more deliberate and formal declaration of their submission. The first was before the Lord had made known His mind; the second was after He had declared to Moses the laws by which He desired them to be guided as a nation. The second response was a full and hearty and unanimous consent on their part to do as God willed.

It was no doubt perfectly sincere for the time being. They were not only under the gratifying influence of the deliverances they had experienced, both at the Red Sea, and on the journey from thence; but they were under the powerful impression produced by the visible demonstration from the summit of Sinai of God's existence and purpose toward them, an exhibition so impressive, that all the people trembled and withdrew to a distance from the sight.

Moses having received the consent of the people, wrote all the laws which he had rehearsed to them, and later on, read what he had written. He then went through a ceremony of ratification, which is the subject of comment in the apostolic writing (Heb. ix. 19-21), as possessing a meaning which could not be obvious at the time.

Paul, remarking on the apparently accidental circumstance of Moses putting a veil upon his face at a certain stage in the transactions, tells us" that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that" which the time had come to abolish in Paul's day (2 Cor. iii. 13). It is doubtful if Moses himself understood the import of that which was enjoined. Nothing indeed is more remarkable in the Mosaic narrative than its entire silence with regard to the meaning of all that was commanded to be done. There is no attempt to convey even a

hint of concealed significance. Moses receives instruction as to what was to be done in the time then present, and he faithfully carries out those instructions without presuming to be "wise above that which is written." He made the Tabernacle according to pattern; and inducted the priests into their various services without knowing that the whole was a figure for "the time then present "--"the Holy Spirit, this signifying that the holiest (state) of all was not yet made manifest (Heb. ix. 8).

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He built an altar under the hill surrounded by twelve pillars, to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. On this altar he poured half of the blood of young oxen which had been killed by the young men (probably Levites) whom he had selected for the service. The rest of the blood he put in basins, and having read what he had written in the book, he dipped in the blood scarlet wool and hyssop, and with this sprinkled the book out of which he had read to as many of the people as were within convenient range, saying with a loud voice, “This is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you."

Paul, commenting on these things, says that "almost all things are by the law purged with blood." The reason he gives is that no covenant is of force while the testator liveth. Blood poured out is the symbol of death, and the sprinkling with this blood on altar, book and people, was an intimation that no covenant of everlasting force, could be made without the death of the men to whom it was offered. If it be asked why, the answer is, that death was due. Death had passed upon all men through Adam, and it reigned over them, although they had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression on account of "the many offences" from which no man is exempt. The multitude to whom God offered the covenant of His favour by Moses was a multitude in this position. Consequently it was not compatible with the greatness of God that any advance could be made to them without the ritual illustration and enforcement of their true position.

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This is the explanation of the fact that the first covenant was "not dedicated without blood." The Mosaic patterns were all purified thus. Blood proclaimed the infliction of death. It was an infliction of death on animals, and therefore not efficacious for final results, yet, as a shadow, it commanded assent to the principle. Blood, as the symbol of death, typically purged the death defilement. Death is always treated in the Mosaic system as a defiling thing. To touch a dead body, or a grave, or a bone, was to contract defilement. The whole congregation, as they stood there before Moses, were in the antitypically defiled state. They had not only touched death through

descent from the condemned of Eden; but they were in contact with its defiling power in their own bodies. There was therefore nothing but that which was just and seemly in the shedding of blood being made accessory to the establishment of a covenant of peace between God and them.

Paul notes that without the shedding of blood there is no remission --that is, there is no putting aside of sin with a view to friendship, without the fullest recognition of its nature and its unreserved repudiation. This is the reasonable requirement of the wisdom of God in type and antitype.

The type is before us; the antitype is in Christ. He is the altar, the book of the law, and the other things that come after. The sprinkling of the typical blood on both by Moses prefigured the operation of divine love and wisdom in Christ's own sacrifice. It was a sacrifice operative on himself first of all: for he is the beginning of the new creation, the first-fruits of the new harvest, the foundation of the new temple. He was the nucleus of a new and healthy life developed among men, for the healing of all who should become incorporate with it. As such, it was needful that he should himself be the subject of the process and the first reaper of the results. Hence the testimony that "the God of peace brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant" (Heb. xiii. 23), and that by his own blood, entering into the holy place, he obtained (middle, or self-subjective, state of the verb) eternal redemption ("for us" is interpolated) (ix. 12). The Father saved him from death for his obedience unto death (Heb. v. 7-9; Phil. ii. 8-9; Rom. v. 19).

The common view which disconnects Christ from the operation of his own sacrifice would have required that Moses should have left the altar and the book of the law unsprinkled. These were parts of what Paul terms "the patterns of things in the heavens," concerning which he remarks that it was necessary they should be purified with the sacrifices ordained. The application of this to Christ as the anti-type he makes instantly; "but (it was necessary that) the heavenly things themselves (should be purified) with better sacrifices than these " (Heb. ix. 23). The phrase "the heavenly things" is an expression covering all the high, holy and exalted things of which the Mosaic pattern was but a foreshadowing. They are all comprehended in Christ, who is the nucleus from which all will be developed, the foundation on which all will be built. The statement is therefore a declaration that it was necessary that Christ should first of all be purified with better sacrifices than the Mosaic: "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by

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