CHAPTER II.[ToC]
THE LAW BY MOSES.
God determined to deliver his enslaved people from the bondage in Egypt, and to lead them out to the land he had promised to their fathers. They had been strangers in Egypt; now they should have a land of their own. To them liberty was but a tradition; they should now be freemen. They had been a tribe; they should now be a nation.
God raised up Moses to be his special servant and the mouthpiece to declare his will. He ordered his marvelous deliverance from the river, and his training in court as a freeman. He then gave him direction to lead his people out of their slavery, and also divine authority to announce to his people the code of laws by which they were to be governed in their free state. Some of these laws were ceremonial, to conserve their religion, that they might not forget their God. Some were civil and politic, to promote the moral, intellectual and material welfare. All were in accord with the moral and religious nature of man, and with sound economic principles. All were suited to promote their highest good, and to secure them forever in their freedom and national independence.
The great basal principles of law are found in concrete form.
Human life is sacred as we find from the explicit laws for its protection. The owner of an ox was made responsible for the life taken by "an ox that was known to push with its horns."
A battlement or balustrade was required on the houses, very like our laws requiring fire escapes. The principle is the same.
The laws forbidding marriage within certain degrees of kinship have been copied into the laws of every civilized people. The laws for the preservation of social purity have never been surpassed.
The rights of property were sacred. Each had a right to his own. Theft was severely punished. "If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him."
Each must assist in the protection of the property of others; even the enemy's property must be protected. "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again."