The seventh, eighth, ninth, A. M. 2513. EXODUS. 14 Thou shalt not commit An. Exod. Isr. 1. adultery. Sivan. 15 Thou shalt not steal. 16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. - Lev. xix. 11; " Deut. v. 18; Matt. v. 27.Matt. xix. 18; Rom. xiii. 9; 1 Thess. iv. 6. Deut. v. 20; xix. 16; Matt. xix. 18. Deut. v. 19; 4. All bad dispositions which lead men to wish evil to, murderer. 5. All want of charity to the helpless and the sixth commandment. THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 6. All riot Against adultery and uncleanness. Verse 14. Thou shalt not commit adultery.] Adultery, as defined by our laws, is of two kinds; double, when between two married persons; single, when one of the parties is married, the other single. One principal part of the criminality of adultery consists in its injustice. 1. It robs a man of his right by taking from him the affection of his wife. 2. It does him a wrong by fathering on him and obliging him to maintain as his own a spurious offspring-a child which is not his. The act itself, and every thing leading to the act, is prohibited by this commandment; for our Lord says, Even he who looks on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And not only adultery (the unlawful commerce between two married persons) is forbidden here, but also fornication and all kinds of mental and sensual uncleanness. All impure books, songs, paintings, &c., and tenth commandments. A. M. 2513. Sivan. 17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not An. Exod. Isr. 1. covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. * Deut. v. 21; Mic. ii. 2; Hab. ii. 9; Luke xii. 15; Acts xx. 33; Rom. vii. 7; xiii. 9; Eph. v. 3, 5; Heb. xiii. 5.- Job xxxi. 9; Prov. vi. 29; Jer. v. 8; Matt. v. 28. THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. Against stealing and dishonesty. Verse 15. Thou shalt not steal.] All rapine and theft are forbidden by this precept; as well national and commercial wrongs as petty larceny, highway robberies, and private stealing even the taking advantage of a seller's or buyer's ignorance, to give the one less and make the other pay more for a commodity than its worth, is a breach of this sacred law. All withholding of rights and doing of wrongs are against the spirit of it. But the word is principally applicable to clandestine stealing, though it may undoubtedly include all political injustice and private wrongs. quently all kidnapping, crimping, and slave-dealing are prohibited here, whether practised by individuals or by the state. Crimes are not lessened in their demerit by the number, or political importance of those who commit them. A state that enacts bad laws is as criminal before God as the individual who breaks good ones. And conse It has been supposed that under the eighth commandment, injuries done to character, the depriving a 'man of his reputation or good name, are included; hence those words of one of our poets:— Good name in man or woman But he that filches from me my good name, THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. Against false testimony, perjury, &c. Verse 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness, &c.] Not only false oaths, to deprive a man of his life or of his right, are here prohibited, but all whispering, tale-bearing, slander, and calumny; in a word, whatwhich tend to inflame and debauch the mind, are ever is deposed as a truth, which is false in fact, and against this law, as well as another species of impurity, tends to injure another in his goods, person, or characfor the account of which the reader is referred to the ter, is against the spirit and letter of this law. SupThat fornication notes on Gen. xxxviii. at the end. was included under this command we may gather from pressing the truth when known, by which a person St. Matthew, xv. 19, where our Saviour expresses the may be defrauded of his property or his good name, or lie under injuries or disabilities which a discovery of sense of the different commandments by a word for the truth would have prevented, is also a crime against each, and mentions them in the order in which they this law. He who bears a false testimony against or stand; but when he comes to the seventh he uses two belies even the devil himself, comes under the curse words, μoixεial, Tорvɛiai, to express its meaning, and of this law, because his testimony is false. By the then goes on to the eighth, &c. ; thus evidently showterm neighbour any human being is intended, whether ing that fornication was understood to be comprehended he rank among our enemies or friends. under the command, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." As to the word adultery, adulterium, it has probably been derived from the words ad alterius torum, to another's bed; for it is going to the bed of another man that constitutes the act and the crime. Adultery often means idolatry in the worship of God. THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. Against covetousness. Verse 17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house-wife, &c.] Covet signifies to desire or long after, in order to enjoy as a property the person or A. M. 2513. CHAP. XX. 18 And all the people a They are not to make false gods A. M. 2513. saw 21 And the people stood afar off, An. Exod. Isr. 1. the thunderings, and the light- and Moses drew near unto the An. Exod. Isr. 1 nings, and the noise of the trum-thick darkness, where God was. Sivan. Sivan. C е 19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not for God is come to prove you, and 8 that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 2 Heb. xii. 18.- Rev. i. 10, 12.- b Ch. xix. 18.— Deut. v. 27; xviii. 16; Gal. iii. 19, 20; Heb. xii. 19.- d Deut. v. 25. 1 Sam. xii. 20; Isa. xli. 10, 13.- Gen. xxii. 1; Deut. xiii. 3. - Deut. iv. 10; vi. 2; x. 12; xvii. 13, 19; xix. 20; xxviii. 22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you i from heaven. 23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold. 24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offer ings, and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and 58; Prov. iii. 7; xvi. 6; Isa. viii. 13. Chap. xix. 16; Deut v. 5; 1 Kings viii. 12. Deut. iv. 36; Neh. ix. 13.-k Chap. xxxii. 1, 2, 4; 1 Sam. v. 4, 5; 2 Kings xvii. 33; Ezek. xx. 39 xliii-8; Dan. v. 4, 23; Zeph. i. 5; 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15, 16. Lev. i. 2. h thing coveted. He breaks this command who by any that ye sin not—that, through the love and reverence means endeavours to deprive a man of his house or ye feel to your Maker and Sovereign, ye may abstain farm by taking them over his head, as it is expressed from every appearance of evil, lest you should forfeit in some countries; who lusts after his neighbour's that love which is to you better than life. He who wife, and endeavours to ingratiate himself into her fears in the first sense can neither love nor obey; he affections, and to lessen her husband in her esteem; who fears not in the latter sense is sure to fall under and who endeavours to possess himself of the servants, the first temptation that may occur. Blessed is the cattle, &c., of another in any clandestine or unjustifia-man who thus feareth always. ble manner. "This is a most excellent moral precept, the observance of which will prevent all publie crimes; for he who feels the force of the law that prohibits the inordinate desire of any thing that is the property of another, can never make a breach in the peace of society by an act of wrong to any of even its feeblest members." Verse 18. And all the people saw the thunderings, &c.] They had witnessed all these awful things before, (see chap. xix. 16,) but here they seem to have been repeated; probably at the end of each command, there was a peal of thunder, a blast of the trumpet, and a gleam of lightning, to impress their hearts the more deeply with a due sense of the Divine Majesty, of the holiness of the law which was now delivered, and of the fearful consequences of disobedience. This had the desired effect; the people were impressed with a deep religious fear and a terror of God's judgments; acknowledged themselves perfectly satisfied with the discoveries God had made of himself; and requested that Moses might be constituted the mediator between God and them, as they were not able to bear these tremendous discoveries of the Divine Majesty. "Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die;" ver. 19. This teaches us the absolute necessity of that great Mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, as no man can come unto the Father but by him. Verse 22. I have talked with you from heaven.] Though God manifested himself by the fire, the lightning, the earthquake, the thick darkness, &c., yet the ten words, or commandments were probably uttered from the higher regions of the air, which would be an additional proof to the people that there was no imposture in this case; for though strange appearances and voices might be counterfeited on earth, as was often, no doubt, done by the magicians of Egypt; yet it would be utterly impossible to represent a voice, in a long continued series of instruction, as proceeding from heaven itself, or the higher regions of the atmosphere. This, with the earthquake and repeated thunders, (see on verse 18,) would put the reality of this whole procedure beyond all doubt; and this enabled Moses, Deut. v. 26, to make such an appeal to the people on a fact incontrovertible and of infinite importance, that God had indeed talked with them face to face. Verse 23. Ye shall not make with me gods of silver] The expressions here are very remarkable. Before it was said, Ye shall have no other gods BEFORE me, y al panai, ver. 3. Here they are commanded, ye shall not make gods of silver or gold nitti WITH me, as emblems or representatives of God, in order, as might be pretended, to keep these displays of his magnificence in memory; on the contrary, he would have only an altar of earth—of plain turf, on which they should offer those sacrifices by which they should commemorate their own guilt and the necessity of an atonement to reconcile themselves to God. See the note on verse 4. Verse 20. And Moses said—Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces] The maxim contained in this verse is, Fear not, that ye may fear-do not fear with such a fear as brings consternation into the soul, and pro-ings] duces nothing but terror and confusion; but fear with that fear which reverence and filial affection inspire, Verse 24. Thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerThe law concerning which was shortly to be given, though sacrifices of this kind were in use from the days of Abel. General directions for A. M. 2513. Sivan. thine oxen in all m places, where | for if thou lift up thy tool upon An. Exod. Isr, 1, I record my name, I will come it, thou hast polluted it. unto thee, and I will " bless thee. 25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not P build it of hewn stone; m Deut. xii, 5, 11, 21; xiv. 23; xvi. 6, 11; xxvi. 2; 1 Kings viii. 43; ix. 3; 2 Chron. vi. 6; vii. 16; xii. 13; Ezra vi. 12; Neh. i. 9; Psa. lxxiv. 7; Jer. vii. 10, 12. In all places where I record my name] Wherever I am worshipped, whether in the open wilderness, at the tabernacle, in the temple, the synagogues, or elsewhere, I will come unto thee and bless thee. These words are precisely the same in signification with those of our Lord, Matt. xviii. 20: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And as it was JESUS who was the angel that spoke to them in the wilderness, Acts vii. 38, from the same mouth this promise in the law and that in the Gospel proceeded. Verse 25. Thou shalt not build it of hewn stone] Because they were now in a wandering state, and had as yet no fixed residence; and therefore no time should be wasted to rear costly altars, which could not be transported with them, and which they must soon leave. Besides, they must not lavish skill or expense on the construction of an altar; the altar of itself, whether costly or mean, was nothing in the worship; it was only the place on which the victim should be laid, and their mind must be attentively fixed on that God to whom the sacrifice was offered, and on the sacrifice itself, as that appointed by the Lord to make an atonement for their sins. Verse 26. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar] The word altar comes from altus, high or elevated, though the Hebrew word na mizbach, from na zabach, to slay, kill, &c., signifies merely a place for sacrifice; see Gen, viii. 20. But the heathens, who imitated the rites of the true God in their idolatrous worship, made their altars very high; whence they derived their name altaria, altars, i. e., very high or elevated places; which they built thus, partly through pride and vain glory, and partly that their gods might the better hear them. Hence also the high places or idolatrous altars so often and so severely condemned in the Holy Scriptures. The heathens made some of their altars excessively high; and some imagine that the pyramids were altars of this kind, and that the inspired writer refers to those in these prohibitions. God therefore ordered his altars to be made, 1. either of simple turf, that there might be no unnecessary expense, which, in their present circumstances, the people could not well afford; and that they might be no incentives to idolatry from their costly or curious structure; or 2. of unhewn stone, that no images of animals or of the celestial bodies might be sculptured on them, as was the case among the idolaters, and especially among the Egyptians, as several of their ancient altars which remain to the present day amply testify; which altars themselves, and the images carved on them, became in process of time incentives to idolatry, and even objects of worship. In short, God formed every part of his worship so that every 26 Neither shalt thou go up A. M. 2513. by steps unto mine altar, ¶ that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. "Gen. xii. 2; Deut. vii. 13.- o Deut. xxvii. 5; Josh. viii. 31; 1 Mac. iv. 47,P Heb. build them with hewing; Deut. xxvii. 5, 6. Lev. x. 3; Psa. lxxxix. 7; Heb. xii. 28, 29. thing belonging to it might be as dissimilar as possible from that of the surrounding heathenish nations, and especially the Egyptians, from whose land they had just now departed. This seems to have been the whole design of those statutes on which many commentators have written so largely and learnedly, imagining difficulties where probably there are none. The altars of the tabernacle were of a different kind. In this and the preceding chapter we have met with some of the most awful displays of the Divine Majesty; manifestations of justice and holiness which have no parallel, and can have none till that day arrive in which he shall appear in his glory, to judge the quick and the dead. The glory was truly terrible, and to the children of Israel insufferable; and yet how highly privileged to have God himself speaking to them from the midst of the fire, giving them statutes and judg. ments so righteous, so pure, so holy, and so truly excellent in their operation and their end, that they have been the admiration of all the wise and upright in all countries and ages of the world, where their voice has been heard! Mohammed defied all the poets and literati of Arabia to match the language of the Koran; and for purity, elegance, and dignity it bore away the palm, and remained unrivalled. This indeed was the only advantage which the work derived from its author; for its other excellences it was indebted to Moses and the prophets, to Christ and the apostles; as there is scarcely a pure, consistent, theologic notion in it, that has not been borrowed from our sacred books. Moses calls the attention of the people, not to the language in which these Divine laws were given, though that is all that it should be, and every way worthy of its author; compressed yet perspicuous; simple yet dignified; in short, such as God should speak if he wished his creatures to comprehend; but he calls their attention to the purity, righteousness, and usefulness of the grand revelation which they had just received. For what nation, says he, is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as Jehovah our God is, in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? And that which was the sum of all excellence in the present case was this, that the GOD who gave these laws dwelt among his people; to him they had continual access, and from him received that power without which obedience so extensive and so holy would have been impossible; and yet not one of these laws exacted more than eternal reason, the nature and fitness of things, the prosperity of the community, and the peace and happiness of the individual, required. The LAW is holy, and the COMMANDMENT is HOLY, JUST, and GOOD, To show still more clearly the excellence and great, purity written on the soul? utility of the ten commandments, and to correct some mistaken notions concerning them, it may be necessary to make a few additional observations. And 1. It is worthy of remark that there is none of these commandments, nor any part of one, which can fairly be considered as merely ceremonial. All are moral, and consequently of everlasting obligation. 2. When considered merely as to the letter, there is certainly no difficulty in the moral obedience required to them. Let every reader take them up one by one, and ask his conscience before God, which of them he is under a fatal and uncontrollable necessity to break? 3. Though by the incarnation and death of Christ all the ceremonial law which referred to him and his sacrifice is necessarily abrogated, yet, as none of these ten commandments refer to any thing properly ceremonial, therefore they are not abrogated. 4. Though Christ came into the world to redeem them who believe from the curse of the law, he did not redeem them from the necessity of walking in that newness of life which these commandments so strongly inculcate. 5. Though Christ is said to have fulfilled the law for us, yet it is nowhere intimated in the Scripture that he has so fulfilled these TEN LAWS, as to exempt us from the necessity and privilege of being no idolaters, swearers, Sabbath-breakers, disobedient and cruel children, murderers, adulterers, thieves, and corrupt witnesses. All these commandments, it is true, he punctually fulfilled himself; and all these he writes on the heart of every soul redeemed by his blood. 6. Do not those who scruple not to insinuate that the proper observation of these laws is impossible in this life, and that every man since the fall does daily break them in thought, word, and deed, bear false witness against God and his truth and do they not greatly err, not knowing the Scripture, which teaches the necessity of such obedience, nor the power of God, by which the evil principle of the heart is destroyed, and the law of preceding chapter. If even the regenerate man, as some have unwarily asserted, does daily break these commands, these ten words, in thought, word, and deed, he may be as bad as Satan for aught we know; for Satan himself cannot transgress in more forms than these, for sin can be committed in no other way, either by bodied or disembodied spirits, than by thought, or word, or deed. Such sayings as these tend to destroy the distinction between good and evil, and leave the infidel and the believer on a par as to their moral state. The people of God should be careful how they use them. 7. It must be granted, and indeed has sufficiently appeared from the preceding exposition of these commandments, that they are not only to be understood in the letter but also in the spirit, and that therefore they may be broken in the heart while outwardly kept inviolate; yet this does not prove that a soul influenced by the grace and spirit of Christ cannot most conscientiously observe them; for the grace of the Gospel not only saves a man from outward but also from inward sin; for, says the heavenly messenger, his name shall be called Jesus, (i. e., Saviour,) because he shall save, (i. e., Deliver) his people FROM their sins. Therefore the weakness or corruption of human nature forms no argument here, because the blood of Christ cleanses from all unrighteousness; and he saves to the uttermost all who come unto the Father through him. It is therefore readily granted that no man unassisted and uninfluenced by the grace of Christ can keep these commandments, either in the letter or in the spirit; but he who is truly converted to God, and has Christ dwelling in his heart by faith, can, in the letter and in the spirit, do all these things, BECAUSE CHRIST STRENGTHENS him.— Reader, the following is a good prayer, and oftentimes thou hast said it; now learn to pray it: "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep these laws! Lord, have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee!"-Com. Service, CHAPTER XXI. Laws concerning servants. They shall serve for only seven years, 1, 2. If a servant brought a wife to servitude with him, both should go out free on the seventh year, 3. If his master had given him a wife, and she bore him children, he might go out free on the seventh year, but his wife and children must remain, as the property of the master, 4. If, through love to his master, wife, and children, he did not choose to avail himself of the privilege granted by the law, of going out free on the seventh year, his ear was to be bored to the door post with an awl, as an emblem of his being attached to the family for ever, 5, 6. Laws concerning maid-servants, betrothed to their masters or to the sons of their masters, 7-11. Laws concerning battery and murder, 12-15. Concerning men-stealing, 16. Concerning him that curses his parents, 17. Of strife between man and man, 18, 19; between a master and his servants, 20, 21. Of injuries done to women in pregnancy, 22. The LEX TALIONIS, or law of like for like, 23-25. Of injuries done to servants, by which they gain the right of freedom, 26, 27. Laws concerning the ox which has gored men, 28-32. Of the pit left uncovered, into which a man or a beast has fallen, 33, 34. Laws concerning the ox that kills another, 35, 36, 3 407 Laws concerning servants. EXODUS. Ceremony of boring the ear A. M. 2513. B. C. 1491. A. M. 2513, NOW these are the judgments wife and her children shall be which thou shalt set before her master's, and he shall go An. Exod. Isr. 1. out by himself. B. C. 1491. An. Exod. Isr, 1, Sivan. them. 2 If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. с 3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the a Chap. xxiv. 3, 4; Deut. iv. 14; vi. 1.Deut. xv. 12; Jer. xxxiv. 14.- Sivan. 5 d And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: 6 Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for ever. b Lev. xxv, 39, 40, 41; d Deut. xv. 16, 17.Heb. with his body. NOTES ON CHAP. XXI. Verse 1. Now these are the judgments] There is so much good sense, feeling, humanity, equity, and justice in the following laws, that they cannot but be admired by every intelligent reader; and they are so very plain as to require very little comment. The laws in this chapter are termed political, those in the succeeding chapter judicial, laws; and are supposed to have been delivered to Moses alone, in consequence of the request of the people, chap. xx. 19, that God should communicate his will to Moses, and that Moses should, as mediator, convey it to them. Verse 2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant] Calmet enumerates six different ways in which a Hebrew might lose his liberty: 1. In extreme poverty they might sell their liberty. Lev. xxv. 39: If thy brother be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, &c. 2. A father might sell his children. If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant; see ver. 7. 3. Insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors. My husband is dead-and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen, 2 Kings iv. 1. 4. A thief, if he had not money to pay the fine laid on him by the law, was to be sold for his profit whom he had robbed. If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft; chap. xxii. 3, 4. 5. A Hebrew was liable to be taken prisoner in war, and so sold for a slave. 6. A Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a Gentile by a Hebrew might be sold by him who ransomed him, to one of his own nation. Six years he shall serve] It was an excellent provision in these laws, that no man could finally injure himself by any rash, foolish, or precipitate act. No man could make himself a servant or slave for more than seven years; and if he mortgaged the family inheritance, it must return to the family at the jubilee, which returned every fiftieth year. in bondage, though he had been sold only one year before. Verse 3. If he came in by himself] If he and his wife came in together, they were to go out together: in all respects as he entered, so should he go out. This consideration seems to have induced St. Jerome to translate the passage thus: Cum quali veste intraverat, cum tali exeat. "He shall have the same coat in going out, as he had when he came in ;" i. e., if he came in with a new one, he shall go out with a new one, which was perfectly just, as the former coat must have been worn out in his master's service, and not his own. Verse 4. The wife and her children shall be her master's] It was a law among the Hebrews, that if a Hebrew had children by a Canaanitish woman, those children must be considered as Canaanitish only, and might be sold and bought, and serve for ever. The law here refers to such a case only. Verse 6. Shall bring him unto the judges] D'nan el haelohim, literally, to God; or, as the Septuagint have it, poç To xpiтnpiov Ocov, to the judgment of God; who condescended to dwell among his people; who determined all their differences till he had given them laws for all cases, and who, by his omniscience, brought to light the hidden things of dishonesty. See chap. xxii. 8. Bore his ear through with an awl] This was a ceremony sufficiently significant, as it implied, 1. That he was closely attached to that house and family. 2. That he was bound to hear all his master's orders, and to obey them punctually. Boring of the ear was an ancient custom in the east. It is referred to by Juvenal: Prior, inquit, ego adsum. Cur timeam, dubitemve locum defendere? quamvis Natus ad Euphraten, MOLLES quod in AURE FENESTRÆ Arguerint, licet ipse negem. Sat. i. 102. "First come, first served, he cries; and I, in spite of your great lordships, will maintain my right: Though born a slave, though my torn EARS are BORED, 'Tis not the birth, 'tis money makes the lord." DRYDEN. It is supposed that the term six years is to be understood as referring to the sabbatical years; for let a man come into servitude at whatever part of the interim between two sabbatical years, he could not be detained in bondage beyond a sabbatical year; so that if he fell into bondage the third year after a sabbatical Calmet quotes a saying from Petronius as attesting year, he had but three years to serve; if the fifth, the same thing; and one from Cicero, in which he but one. See on chap. xxiii. 11, &c. Others sup- rallies a Libyan who pretended he did not hear him : pose that this privilege belonged only to the year"It is not," said he, "because your ears are not sufof jubilee, beyond which no man could be detained ficiently bored;" alluding to his having been a slave. |