The Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament

by Charles Foster Kent

[Sidenote: Their historical and permanent value]

These laws represent, in many ways, the high-water mark of Old Testament legislation. Every effort is made to eliminate that which experience had proved to be imperfect in the older laws and customs. The chief aim is to protect the rights of the wronged and dependent. The appeal throughout is not to the fear of punishment—in a large number of laws no penalty is suggested—but to the individual conscience. Not merely formal worship is demanded, but a love to God so personal that it dominates the individual heart and soul and finds expression through energies completely devoted to his service. These laws required strict justice, but more than that, mercy and practical charity toward the weak and needy and afflicted. Even the toiling ox and the helpless mother-bird and her young are not beyond the kin of these wonderful laws. Under their benign influence the divine principles of the prophets began to mould directly the character and life of the Israelitish race. The man who lives in accord with their spirit and injunctions to-day finds himself on the straight and narrow way, hallowed by the feet of the Master.

IX

INFLUENCES THAT GAVE RISE TO THE PRIESTLY LAWS AND HISTORIES

[Sidenote: Influences in the exile that produced written ceremonial laws]

The Babylonian exile gave a great opportunity and incentive to the further development of written law. While the temple stood, the ceremonial rites and customs received constant illustration, and were transmitted directly from father to son in the priestly families. Hence, there was little need of writing them down. But when most of the priests were carried captive to Babylonia, as in 597 B.C., and ten years later the temple was laid in ruins and all sacrifice and ceremonial worship suddenly ceased, written records at once became indispensable, if the customs and rules of Israel's ritual were to be preserved. The integrity and future of the scattered Israelitish race also largely depended upon keeping alive their distinctive traditions. Torn from their altars, the exiled priests not only had a strong incentive, but likewise the leisure, to write. The ritualistic zeal of their Babylonian masters doubtless further inspired them. The result was, that during the Babylonian exile and the following century most of the ceremonial laws in the Old Testament appear to have been first committed to writing.

[Sidenote: Ezekiel's Code]

Even Ezekiel, the prophet of the early exile, yielded to the influence of his early priestly training and the needs of the situation. In 572 he issued the unique code found in chapters xl.-xlviii. of his prophecy. It provides for the rebuilding of the temple, and defines the duties of its different officials and the form of ritual that is to be observed. The whole is intended primarily to emphasize, through the arrangement of the sanctuary and the forms of the ceremonial, the transcendent holiness of Jehovah. Ezekiel also proclaims, through this elaborate program for the restored community, the certainty that the exiles would be allowed to return and rebuild the temple. He evidently reproduces many of the proportions and regulations of the first temple, but, with the same freedom that characterizes the authors of the Deuteronomic codes, he unhesitatingly sets aside earlier usages where something better has been revealed.

[Sidenote: Genesis and character of the Holiness Code]

Ezekiel's code was never fully adopted by the later Jews, for much of it was symbolic rather than practical; but it powerfully influenced subsequent lawmakers, and was indicative of the dominant tendency of the day. Even before he issued his code, some like-minded priest had collected and arranged an important group of laws, which appear to have been familiar to Ezekiel himself. They are found in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi., and have felicitously been designated as the Holiness Code, because they constantly emphasize the holiness of Jehovah and the necessity of the people's being holy in thought and act. In chapters xvii.-xix. most of the original laws are still arranged in the decalogue and pentad form. This strong evidence that they had been transmitted by word of mouth from a much earlier period is supported by their contents. They resemble and supplement the primitive laws of Exodus xx. 23 to xxiii. 19. Many of them probably came from the early periods of Israelitish history. Most of the laws, like those of the prophetic codes in Deuteronomy, are ethical and humane rather than ceremonial. The code, as a whole, is a remarkable combination of prophetic and priestly teaching. It marks the transition from the age of the prophets, represented by Deuteronomy, to that of the priests and ritual, represented by the priestly codes proper. Like every important early collection of laws, It also has been much supplemented by later editors; the original Holiness Code, however, may be given a date soon after the first captivity in 597 B.C.