The Deuteronomist is plainly here referring to his own times, when houses were built and vineyards planted, and has lost sight of the fact that the wars, in which the people would be engaged for some years, according to the story, would be wars of conquest.

what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, | (as we know by the cases of Uriah the and hath not yet eaten of it? &c.' Hittite and Araunah the Jebusite), nor ever meant by the writer to be carried out, but express, rather, his burning zeal against the idolatrous vices of his own countrymen in his own age, which he desired thus to brand with infamy, and to represent as worthy only of death. A people, that could practise these abominations, was only fit to be exterminated; and that would surely be the fate of Israel, if they persisted in them, according to the doom here denounced upon the nations of Canaan. 734. D.xxi.7,8.

732. D.xx.10-15.

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of

peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And, if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And, when Jehovah thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou

take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil given thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which

of thine enemies, which Jehovah thy God hath

are not of the cities of these nations.'

'And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, Jehovah, unto Thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge.'

We have instances of similar 'liturgical' formulæ in several places in Deuteronomy, e.g. xxi.7,8, xxvi.3,5-10, 13-15, xxvii. 15,16; comp. xx.2-8, xxii. 16,17, xxv.7-10. The only instance in the other books of the Pentateuch is N.vi.24-26; comp. also N.x.35,36. It may be doubted whether such formulæ were ever really in use, or intended to be used. But, in the case before us, the Deuteronomist gives another indication of the horror which he had of the shedding of 'innocent blood' (729).

It is well that we are no longer obliged to believe that the above frightful command emanated from the mouth of the Most Holy and Blessed One. This does not apply to the cities of Canaan only. But any city, which the Israelites might decide for any cause to 'fight against,' if it did not surrender on the very first summons, make an answer of peace,' and open to the foe, on the condition of becoming 'tribu"When thou goest forth to war against taries and servants,' was, according to thine enemies, and Jehovah thy God hath this injunction, to be besieged and cap-delivered them into thine hand, and thou tured, and to this end the express aid of the Almighty is promised; and then all the males, except young children, are to be put ruthlessly to death.

733. D.xx.16-18.

735. D.xxi.10-14.

hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife; then shalt thou bring her home

to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall But of the cities of these people, which remain in thine house, and bewail her father Jehovah thy God doth give thee for thine and mother a full month; and after that thou inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and that breatheth, but thou shalt utterly de- she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her stroy them, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Higo whither she will; but thou shalt not sell vites, and the Jebusites, as Jehovah thy God her at all for money, thou shalt not make hath commanded thee; that they teach you merchandise of her, because thou hast hum

not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against Jehovah your God.'

Here also it is well for us to know that these are the words of the later Deuteronomist, and that such commands were never really carried out,

bled her.'

Here also we have the manners and customs of the writer's age exhibited, and not the justice, mercy, and purity, which would have marked a command really emanating from the Divine Wisdom and Goodness. The Persian Cyrus

or the Roman Scipio, though heathens, | The parents were the only prosecutors; both taught by their lives a higher morality is taken of the case of a widower or widow must concur in the prosecution; [no notice than this, which, besides the inhumanity having a rebellious son, or of a son being involved in it, practically sanctions disobedient to one parent, and, perhaps, enconcubinage and polygamy, as do also couraged in his faults by the other, or of a rebellious and dissolute daughter, or of, perthe following words, v.15-17— haps, the most common case of all, when a

'If a man have two wives, one beloved and son has been corrupted by the example of another hated, &c.'

736. SCOTT remarks here

By taking the captive into the house, and there keeping her retired, her disposition would be discovered more easily; and, if that proved disagreeable, the passion might abate. The becoming attire and ornaments, in which she might be taken captive, being changed for the mean habit of a mourner, might tend to diminish her attractions (!); 'shaving her head' would certainly have this effect; and the words, rendered paring her nails, seem rather to mean letting them grow.' Some, however, think that she was in the interim to be instructed in the Law; and that these were external tokens of her renouncing idolatry, and embracing the religion of Israel.

The

horrid unnatural murder, as a needless pro

Only one full month' was to be al-admit both parents thus to join in prosecuting lowed for the captive maiden to bewail her parents, and, when humbled,' she was not to be sold. Probably, the practices of the times, to which the Deuteronomist is here referring, were even more unrighteous and inhuman than this; and the law, which he has here laid down, may have been designed to remedy such evils to some extent.

737. D.xxi.18-21.

'If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all Israel

shall hear and fear.'

It can hardly be believed that the above command was ever carried out, or written with a view to its being carried out, as it involves a number of inconsistencies, which will appear sufficiently upon a little consideration.

738. The following is Scorr's comment upon the passage.

This law has great wisdom and mercy couched under its apparent severity; and it could not fail of producing most salutary effects, as far as any regard was paid to it.

vicious parents, or ruined by the mismanage-
ment of weak ones;] and the elders of the
city must decide the cause. The prosecution
could not be admitted but for stubbornness
and rebellion, connected with gluttony and
drunkenness, and persisted in after rebukes
and corrections; and these vices tended
directly to ruin families and communities.
[How much more the vices or weaknesses
of the parents, who had brought up such
a child to the injury of the State!]
offender must be convicted and proved in-
corrigible, by evidence sufficient to induce
the judges to denounce the sentence, and
the men of the city to execute it. [There is
nothing to indicate that any evidence was
needed beside the simple assertion of the
parents.] Natural affection would seldom be
so overcome even by the basest crimes, as to
a son, much less to do so without sufficient
cause. And, in the very few instances, in
which hasty rage, or implacable resentment,
might induce parents to attempt such a
secution must imply, the most effectual
precautions were taken to prevent the con-
sequences. [Where is there any sign of such
precautions'?] The execution of the law
must, of course, very seldom take place;
and, if ever it did, it could not fail to ex-
cite general attention and alarm, and prove
a salutary warning to tens of thousands. Its
very existence, as far as known, would ex-
ceedingly strengthen the authority of parents,
give weight to their commands, reproofs, and
corrections, and create an additional fear of
It would
provoking their deep resentment.
fortify young men against the enticement of
bad companions, and the force of strong
temptations, and thus check the progress of
wickedness. Moreover, it would be a con-
stant admonition to parents to watch over
their children, and not improperly to in-
dulge them or withhold correction, but to
establish their authority over them while
young, to pray for them, to check the first
buddings of vice, and to set them a good
example. [It is difficult to see how such a
law as this could tend to produce this effect
on the parents. A law to punish them, for
the misconduct of their children of either
sex, might in many cases have been at once
more just and more beneficial.] This sta-
tute, therefore, so harmless and beneficial
in its operations, yet so contrary to human
policy [and the laws of natural affection],
rather proves [!] than invalidates the Divine
authority of the book in which it stands

rence to the Gracious God and Father of all. Especially, the exclusion of a bastard' to the tenth generation from the privileges of the Sanctuary, while the father, the guilty cause of his child's illegitimate birth, was not excluded, and when children by a concubine,-by one, perhaps, of many belonging to the same man, had also free access to the sacred place,—seems, to our modern sense of right and equity, most unjust.

though imagined by the Deuteronomist, | peated in the Christian Church,) cannot was ever really meant to be acted on. certainly be ascribed without irreveIt was, as SCOTT says, very harmless' in its operations, as regards any actual execution of its injunctions. But it may be that the writer intended to teach a great lesson to the people of his time and of all times, by thus insisting on the paramount dignity of the parental authority. Besides the fact that, in a profligate age, disobedience to parents' is sure to be one of the prominent signs of the general corruption, Rom.i.30, the guilt of which attaches as much to the parents them- 742. This law was evidently designed selves as to the children, the Deute- to act as a check to some extent on ronomist may have had a special pur-promiscuous fornication and adulterous pose in marking this sin as deserving connections, while polygamy and concondign punishment, inasmuch as it cubinage were allowed. But its action shadowed forth the crying sins of the would have been directly opposed to people of his time in their relations to the principles of Divine government, Almighty God. as announced by Ezekiel, xviii.20, and, indeed, by the Deuteronomist himself in another place, xxiv.16,—

740. Accordingly, we find Jeremiah continually appealing to the Fatherhood of Jehovah, and condemning in the strongest terms the disobedience of His Children, the people of Israel. Thus he complains of their

'saying to a stock, Thou art my Father, to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth,' ii.27.

And he writes:

'Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, Thou art the Guide of my youth?' iii.4.

'And I said, Thou shalt call me, My Father, and shalt not turn away from me,' iii.19. 'I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born,' xxxi.9.

And in ch.xxxv he compares the obedience of the sons of Jonadab, the son of Rechab,' with the stubborn and unruly conduct of his own children; comp. also xxxi.18-20.

'The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be

put to death for his own sin;'

whereas this law punished the child and his descendants for centuries for the sin of the parent.

743. D.xxiii.3.

'An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of Jehovah.'

The Ammonite' and Moabite' are mentioned here, in connection with the 'bastard,' &c. with manifest reference to the story of the incestuous origin of Moab and Ammon in G.xix. 30-38; and these, too, are to be excluded from the 'congregation of Jehovah' unto their tenth generation, v.3. There is, doubtless, here a refer

In this view of the case, the words of D.xxi.21 would have a great signifi-ence also to the inveterate enmity

cance,

' and all Israel shall hear and fear.'

CHAPTER XVI.
DEUT.XXIII.1-xxvI.19.

741. D.xxiii.1,2.

which existed between these nations and Israel in the writer's own time.

744. We have already quoted passages (584,586), which show that both the Moabites and Ammonites were independent and powerful communities in the days of Jeremiah; and in 2K.xxiv.2 Superstitious rules like these, e.g.-bands of each nation are spoken of as A bastard shall not enter into the con- harassing Judah, together with the gregation of Jehovah : even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the con Chaldees and Syrians, shortly after the gregation of Jehovah,'death of Josiah. We may infer that (the like to which have even been re- both these kindred peoples entertained

the same spirit of hostility towards the And, as observed above (712), the people of Jehovah, which we find ex-language of Jeremiah in ii.18,36, impressly ascribed to Moab in Jer.xlviii. plies that in the early part of his reign 26,27,42:Josiah expected friendly help from Egypt:

and smitten Judah, and

carried away captives, according to the Chronicler, 2Ch.xxviii.17. There may have been peace with them afterwards,- -at all events, at the time when the Deuteronomist was writing; and, indeed, we hear nothing of their troubling Judah any further, till they seem to have triumphed at the Fall of Jerusalem, Lam.iv.21, Ob.10-14.

"There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.

Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog (= 'reward of sodomy'), unto the House of Jehovah thy God for any

vow for even both these are abomination unto Jehovah thy God.'

The words which are here translated 'sodomite' and whore,' mean literally 'consecrated.' It appears, therefore, that the practice, which prevailed among the Aramaan tribes, of maidens and boys prostituting themselves in honour of their deities, existed also in the writer's time among the Hebrews, and was not

thought incompatible with the worship of Jehovah.

750. This no doubt arose from the idolatrous worship of Jehovah which was carried on in the 'high places;' and it accounts for the energy with which the Deuteronomist declares himself against them, and the strong effort he makes to abolish them throughout the land. Reference is most probably made to these vicious practices in the account of the sins of Israel, committed with the daughters of Moab' in N.xxv. But the older legislation, apparently, did not find it necessary to forbid these abominations, which were the growth of a more advanced state of corrupt civilisation.

751. D.xxiii.20.

'Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury: but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury.'

The law against usury, as laid down by the older writer in E.xxii.25-27, is here qualified in a way which indicates the growth of commercial intercourse in the writer's time.

752. D.xxiv.8,9.

Take heed in the plague of leprosy that thou observe diligently, and do according to all that the Priests the Levites shall teach you; as I commanded them, so ye shall obRemember what Jehovah thy God did unto Miriam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of Egypt.'

serve to do.

This is the only direct reference to the older statute-book, which we find in Deuteronomy: and here we have no longer the usual phrase, as I command thee this day.' It is plain from the above that the older document, with its laws about leprosy, &c., did remain, as we have supposed, in the keeping of the Priests, in a book that was 'before the Priests the Levites,' D.xvii. 18, and served as a kind of directory for their proceedings in all matters of this kind, and as a record from which they might instruct the people. This is in accordance with the words of the old Law, L.x.11, addressed to the Priests

And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which Jehovah hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.'

And this explains also the allusions in the Prophets to the Priests being the professed teachers of the Law. e.g.—

'The Law shall not perish from the Priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the Prophet,' Jer.xviii.18;

And they shall teach my people (the difference) between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean

and the clean,' Ez.xliv.23;
and see also Hag.ii.11-13, Mal.ii.7.
753. D.xxv.5-10.

This law, that a brother must take to wife his dead brother's widow, must in all cases, where the surviving brother was already married, not only have permitted and sanctioned, but actually encouraged, nay, even enjoined, polygamy, under the penalty of a lasting disgrace attaching to the man who refused to take this additional wife,-not to speak of the consequences of his disregarding a (supposed) Divine command. Even if unmarried, it would have been a great hardship to have had his brother's widow forced upon him, not be supposed that such a man would as his only companion for life. It cangenerally have been content with her alone, especially as polygamy was permitted. She might be old, ill-favoured, ill-tempered, sickly; and his dead brother might have left him more wives than one to be taken in this way. All these inconveniences are actually experienced among the Zulus and other South African tribes, where the same practice prevails.

754. D.xxv.17-19.

We hear nothing of the Amalekites in the history of the later kings. But in Ps.lxxxiii.7, written apparently in David's time, we find mention made of Amalek, as joined with the other neighbouring nations, Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Philistines, and the Syrians, in a grand confederacy against Israel. They may have survived as a people down to the days of the Deuteronomist, though, perhaps, they existed in his time as a small and inconsiderable tribe, dwindling away to nothing.

755. D.xxvi. 12-15. Upon this passage see (649-652).

It can scarcely be supposed that this