SECTION CXLI. LEVITICUS XXIV. TITLE.-The Daily Prayer, and the Lord's Day Service, must be added to the observance of the Fasts and Festivals which commemorate the principal events of Christianity. A state of peace and prosperity is too often the period of the greatest spiritual danger. The punishment of death is inflicted upon the blasphemy, which was a crime unknown to Israel so long as its outward danger from Egypt continued. The causes of the blasphemy. INTRODUCTION.-Though the observance of the Fasts and Festivals of the Church which were commanded, as we read in the last Section, to the children of Israel, and especially the Festivals of the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, constantly maintained among the Israelites the knowledge of the principal events in their religious history, yet their devotion to God, and their communion with God, could only be upheld by their daily worship and their weekly service. So it must be with the Christian. There are many, O how many! who call themselves Christians, who commemorate with delight and joy, at the holy Festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the three great events which principally concern the soul of man,—the Birth, and the Resurrection of the Mediator, with the influence of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of men; who never, never, from the end of one year to another, pray daily for the Birth of Christ in the soul, for the resurrection of the soul from the spiritual death of sin, and for the spiritual life within, which is imparted by the Spirit of God. To impress this great truth on the universal family of God, whether among the people of Israel of old or among the Christian inheritors of their privileges (for they are all one family), Moses was directed to conclude his instructions respecting the observance of the great Festivals which we considered in the last Section, with the renewal of the command that the lamps in the sanctuary should burn every day continually; and that the shew-bread should be weekly renewed. The lamps burnt continually before the Holy of holies, which typified Heaven, in the holy place, which typified the Church on earth, to remind the family of God that they daily and hourly live before Heaven and in the holy Church; and (ver. 1—4) each cake of the shew-bread was not only to be made of two tenth deals of two omers of flour (the quantity which each Israelite gathered of the manna in the wilderness for the supply of the Sabbath, to remind the people [ver. 5] of the mercy of God), but it was to be set on a table with the frankincense, which represented prayer; and it was to be eaten by the priests in the holy place on the Sabbath-day, to represent the communion of the Saints in the presence of God, in His holy Church on earth. And both these ordinances were said to be continually (ver. 4) and for ever, by a perpetual statute (ver. 9); that is, though the ceremonial law of types and shadows be done away, yet, the VOL. II. PART VI. M m objects of those types and shadows being moral and spiritual, their purport is of upon In the present Section, we read that the people of Israel at this time were still encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai. All pressing, immediate danger, either from the armies of Egypt or from the Arabian or other tribes around them, seems to have passed away. The Church of Israel, then, may be said to have been now in a state of comparative repose and peace. Up to this time we have no account of any disrespect or irreverence to the name of the God of Israel. Blasphemy was unknown among the twelve tribes. They had been delivered from Egypt by the "mighty hand and the stretched-out arm." They had called the Lord in their distress, and the God of Israel had heard them. It is true, they had murmured against Moses in the course of their wanderings, and in their hearts had often rebelled against the God of their mercies. The mixed multitude, however, which went up with them out of Egypt, seem to have been the chief transgressors, even in this most indefensible failure of their faith. Whether they were so or not, however, we do not read of the crime of blasphemy. A state of repose and peace to the Church seems to have brought upon the people a greater danger than that of any temporal calamity. Pharaoh is said (Exod. v. 2) to have exclaimed, in reply to the mission of the Jewish lawgiver, "Who is the Lord, who is Jehovah, that I should send away Israel? I know not the Lord; neither will I send away Israel." This was blasphemy (), but it was the blasphemy of a patriarchal prince who, with his nation, had forgotten the revealed Creator, and become a heathen.-We now read of blasphemy for the first time in Israel; hitherto it seems to have been a crime unknown to the tribes. An Israelitish woman (ver. 10, 11), we read, of the tribe of Dan, had married an Egyptian. Under what circumstances the marriage between an Israelite and an Egyptian had taken place, we are not informed. They must have been married, however, during the time when the Israelitish people had ceased to be in favour with the Egyptian kings, and probably, therefore, when they were disliked by the majority of the Egyptian people; for the persecution of the Israelites under the dynasty of the kings " who knew not Joseph" seems to have continued for some years. There is, therefore, no very great improbability in the Jewish tradition, that the father of the blasphemer had murdered, If so, during the persecution in Egypt, the husband of the Israelitish woman. Shelomith, such was her name (ver. 11), may have married the Egyptian through fear of her own life; or she might have married him through indifference to the law of Jehovah, even if the tradition be untrue. In either case, she had not married as the spirit of the law of God required. This woman was of the tribe of Dan. Her son, by the Egyptian, is said, by another Jewish tradition, to have desired a place and station among the Danites, in the right of his mother. The question is said to have been brought before the judges of the tribe. His suit was rejected; this rejection is said by the Jews to have been the cause of his blasphemy: whether this was so or not, we cannot say. Two things only are recorded of the blasphemer; first, that he "went out among the children of Israel," and secondly, that he "strove with an Israelite in the camp, and blasphemed the name and cursed;" that is, he blasphemed and cursed in the course of his striving. Much difficulty has been felt by all the commentators respecting the meaning of the expression, he "went out," and respecting the cause of the blasphemy which followed his contention. After a careful consideration of the original, I am led to believe that, as the Scripture affords the best canon of interpretation for itself, we should interpret the expression, "he went forth," in the same sense in which it is elsewhere used under similar circumstances. The camp of Israel was in the manifested presence of Jehovah. When Cain murdered his brother, he was in the place where God manifested His presence. When Cain left the worship of God, and the religious services of his family, to go into a far region, away from the manifested presence of God, it is said (Gen. iv. 16), "He went out from the presence of the Lord." The same Hebrew word (NY) is used here; and I interpret it to signify, that the son of the Egyptian father and Danite mother, being weary of the service of Jehovah, embraced the earliest opportunity afforded him by the cessation of the warlike proceedings of the Egyptians, to go out from the tents of Israel, to return to the worship, the idolatry, the luxuries, and the connexions of his father's family in Egypt. In attempting to do this, he offended the Israelite who strove with him, and who reminded him of the miracles, the mercies, and the judgments of Jehovah. In the course of the controversy, the son of Shelomith blasphemed and cursed the name which the Israelite hallowed and reverenced; and the people, as the narrative goes on to relate, apprehended and imprisoned the blasphemer, who was put to death by public execution, when the will of the Lord had been ascertained respecting the nature of his punishment. Other laws were passed to remove in the camp, for the time, at least, any distinction between the children of Israel and the strangers of the mixed multitude still sojourning among them. As the God of Israel was God the Creator, the obedience, which the Creator requires, rests, in many instances, upon the same sanctions, and is therefore of universal obligation, even when the will of the Creator has not been made known by revelation. Blasphemy against the Creator is a crime, as well as blasphemy against a revealed Redeemer. Let us hope that the situation of the camps of Israel at this moment was the type of that happy period when every one of the mixed multitude who has blasphemed the name of Jehovah, having been removed from the Church, not, indeed, by the terrors of the public law, but by the persuading influences of the Spirit of God, the Universal Church, the true Israel, shall serve God in all godliness, and truth, and peace. LEVITICUS XXIV. BEFORE CHRIST 1490. a Exod. 27. 20, 21. + Heb. to cause to ascend. 1 And the LORD spake | Israel by an everlasting CHRIST unto Moses, saying, covenant. 1490. and Matt. 12.4. Luke 6. 4. Mark 2. 26. Exod. 29. 33. ch. 8. 3. & 21. 22. 2 a Command the chil- 9 And fit shall be Aa- 1 Sam. 21.6. dren of Israel, that they ron's and his sons'; bring unto thee pure oil they shall eat it in the olive beaten for the light, holy place for it is most to cause the lamps to holy unto him of the offerburn continually. ings of the LORD made by 3 Without the vail of fire by a perpetual statute. the testimony, in the ta- 10 And the son of an bernacle of the congrega- Israelitish woman, whose tion, shall Aaron order it father was an Egyptian, from the evening unto the went out among the chilmorning before the LORD dren of Israel: and this continually it shall be a son of the Israelitish wostatute for ever in your man and a man of Isgenerations. rael strove together in the camp; b 4 He shall order the Exod. 31. 8. lamps upon the pure candlestick before the LORD continually. & 39. 37. c Exod. 25. 30. 11 And the Israelitish woman's son h blasphemed ver. 16. the name of the LORD, and cursed. And they i Job 1.5, 11. brought him unto Moses: 22. & 2. 5, 9, 10. Isai. 8. 21. 5 ¶ And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth (and his mother's name Exod. 18. deals shall be in one cake. was Shelomith, the daugh6 And thou shalt set ter of Dibri, of the tribe them in two rows, six on of Dan:) d d 1 Kings 7. a row, upon the pure 48. & 13. 11. Hebr. 9. 2. 22, 26. 2 Chron. 4. 19. table before the LORD. in ward, that the mind ↑ Heb. to ex7 And thou shalt put of the LORD might be them accord pure frankincense upon shewed them. each row, that it may be 13 And the LORD spake on the bread for a me- unto Moses, saying, morial, even an offering 14 Bring forth him that made by fire unto the hath cursed without the LORD. camp; and let all that Exod. 18. 15, 16. Numb. 27. 5. B & 36. 5, 6. & 17. 7. 8 Every sabbath he heard him "lay their hands Deut. 13.9. shall set it in order before upon his head, and let the LORD continually, being all the congregation stone taken from the children of him. BEFORE CHRIST 1490. 15 And thou shalt speak CHRIST 1490. 20 Breach for breach, BEFORE unto the children of Israel, eye for eye, tooth for saying, Whosoever curseth tooth: as he hath caused ch. 5. 1. & his God shall bear his a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him 20. 17. Numb. 9. 13. P 1 Kings 21. 10, 13. Mark 3. 28. sin. 16 And he that P blas- again. 33. ver. 18. Ps. 74. 10, 18. phemeth the name of the 21 And he that killeth Exod. 21. Matt. 12.31. LORD, he shall surely be a beast, he shall restore put to death, and all the it: "and he that killeth ver. 17. congregation shall certainly a man, he shall be put stone him as well the to death. stranger, as he that is 22 Ye shall have one Exod. 12. born in the land, when manner of law, as well ch. 19. 34. he blasphemeth the name for the stranger, as for Numb. 15. of the LORD, shall be put one of your own country: for I am the LORD your • Exod. 21. Numb. 35. 31. 12. +Heb. smiteth the life of a man. I ver. 21. • Exod. 21. 24. 23 And Moses spake 19 And if a man cause S Deut. 19. 21. bour; as he hath done, as the LORD commanded so shall it be done to him; Moses. Matt. 5. 38. & 7.2. 49. 16. y ver 14. PRAYER. LET US PRAY, that we not only offer the heart to God on all the great occasions when we commemorate the Birth, and Resurrection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church, but that we remember these and all other events which concern us in our daily prayers, and in our weekly services; that we never turn back in heart to the Egypt of this world; that we never blaspheme or curse, in thought, or word, the name of God; and that we abide all our life long in the unity of the Church of the visible and spiritual Israel. ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, who hast revealed to us Thine immortal though sinful creatures the way to please Thee in this world, and the certainty of our existence beyond the grave; and who hast given to us a Saviour and a Mediator, through whom we may have confidence and boldness to approach Thee, with our supplications and prayers; hear us, we humbly beseech Thee, and grant that we, who believe in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to teach us, and to die for us, may receive this holy faith as the conviction of a truth, which shall enable us to conquer the evil of our hearts, the power of the world, and all the force of temptation. When we commemorate, on the holy Festival of Thy Church, the Birth of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, may we not only then rejoice that Thou hast given us Thine only-begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, but may we ever be so mindful of the spirit of Thy Law, which commanded the perpetual burning of the lamps in the tabernacle of the Congregation, that we, being Thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be |