The Pentateuch, in Its Progressive Revelations of God to Men

by Henry Cowles

The fourth command—the law of the Sabbath—has been already treated somewhat fully in connection with the original institution of the Sabbath in Eden. I must dissent entirely from those critics who deny the existence of any Sabbath law prior to Sinai. To “bless the seventh day and sanctify it” (as said in Gen. 2: 3) has no meaning if it do not mean that God required the day to be one of rest from labor—a day of holytime, devoted to other than ordinary uses.——Fully in harmony with this construction of these words is the allusion to the Sabbath in the history of the manna (Ex. 16: 22–30), and also the form of the precept here (Ex. 20: 8), which is not precisely—Thou shalt do all thy work during six days, but none on the seventh;—but it is this: “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” The implied injunction of the words spoken in Eden was—make it a holy day. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy: now, therefore, remember that original injunction. To remember a previous day made holy, must surely imply a precept setting it apart as holy time.

As given here the law of the Sabbath is expanded into its legitimate details. The prohibition of labor is applied to children, to servants, to cattle and to strangers. Then the reason for the command, essentially as given in Eden, is reiterated; “For in six days the Lord made heaven, earth, sea, and all creatures; but rested on the seventh day; therefore he blessed and hallowed this Sabbath-day.” Noticeably, the statement following “therefore,” uses the same Hebrew verbs—“bless,” and “sanctify” [or “hallow”] which are used Gen. 2: 3.——It seems plainly implied that God places before men his own example of creative work during six day-periods and of rest from this work on the seventh as a reason or motive for their observance of the Sabbath—one day of rest after six of toil. A secondary consideration is doubtless that by this arrangement the Sabbath would be perpetually suggestive of man’s relation to God as his Infinite Creator and Father. The linking of the Sabbath to God’s creative work and rest would naturally make that work a fact ever present to human thought—blending its influence with the sacredness and with all the employments of this holy day. Man desists from labor. Why? Because God did. After what labor? That of making the heavens and the earth and man. Therefore let man remember God as his Creator and render him the homage of obedience and the homage of adoration, gratitude and praise. Thus the historic origin of the precept became suggestive of the thoughts, the words, and the divine worship appropriate to this holy day.

It is scarcely in place here to discuss the Christianchange from the seventh to the first day of the week, further than to remark that a similar suggestive influence came in as the purpose and object—the choice of the day suggesting the resurrection of Christ. The original reference to God as Creator need not be practically lost: but we may practically gain a second group of suggestive and most vital truths—those which cluster round the resurrection of our Lord.

V. The fifth command consecrates its strength to the family relation. Addressed to children it requires them to honor their father and their mother, and makes obedience the condition of long life and prosperity in the land of their promised inheritance. As read in Ex. 20: 12 the command specifies only long life, but as repeated in Deut. 5: 16, “that it may go well with thee”—is added. General prosperity is however involved and implied in length of days.——Obviously this honor carries with it obedience as well as due respect. Such honor is vital to the happiness and the value of the family relation. Without it no foundation can ever be laid for a useful and worthy after-life. It should not be overlooked that the earliest training of the infant mind Godward should begin with cultivating the honor and obedience due to father and mother. Through all the earliest developments of the infant and youthful mind, the parent is to the child in the place of God. The same qualities of character, the same obedience, respect, and deference, which God requires toward himself are to be first implanted and developed in the mind toward the human parent. Failing of their due development in this antecedent relation, they are almost certain never to be developed toward God: a fatal defect in character is fastened upon the child; a cast of mind is determined which but too surely ends in hopeless ruin.——It is noticeable that this very association of ideas, uniting the homage due to parentage and years with the honor due to God appears in the Mosaic law (Lev. 19: 32); “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man; and fear thy God: I am the Lord.”

VI. The next four precepts are a series beginning with the most vital, designed to protect the rights of person and life; of chastity; of property; and of reputation. The precepts forbid murder, adultery, theft,false witness, or defamation. The prohibition of murder must be construed broadly enough to forbid personal injuries on the one hand; and on the other all those passions—hate, malice prepense—which naturally lead on toward violence and murder.——The prohibition of adultery in like manner forbids not only all illicit sexual connection, but even unchaste desire (Matt. 5: 27, 28). So the prohibition of theft devolves the duty of caring for our neighbor’s property so far as the law of loving our neighbor as ourself would require. It is not enough that we do not take his property and appropriate it to our own use. We must protect his right to his property as he should ours. In like manner the law forbidding the bearing of false witness against our neighbor involves the duty of protecting and cherishing his reputation. We may never forget that our neighbor’s good name is a treasure to him which we not only must not steal away, but must so far as in us lies guard and defend as if his good were worth as much as our own. The one comprehensive principle which embraces all these points of law toward our neighbor and determines their true interpretation is given in the law of Moses as well as in the law of Christ—“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev. 19: 34 and Matt. 22: 39 and 19: 19). As to this passage from Moses it should be noted that in terms it speaks not precisely of one’s neighbor but of the stranger—one toward whom you are wont to think your obligations less than toward any other human being; for he is not a brother born of the same father—not a relative of the same tribe—not a citizen of the same commonwealth or nationality; but an alien, a foreigner, a stranger toward whom you recognize no other relation than that of a fellow-being of human kind. Of such an one the law holds—“The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God”—and I enjoin upon you this all-embracing love for the lowest of human kind.

It should be carefully noted that although this group of four commands (6–9) in each case specifies the extreme form of the sin, the law by no means limits its prohibition to this extreme form. Killing is the extremeof personal violence; adultery (strictly the crime of the married) is the most aggravated form of unchastity; theft is more than simply being reckless of your neighbor’s property; and false witness naturally contemplates a case in court—public, formal, and of most grave and momentous consequences;—yet in each and every one of these prohibitions it behooves us to remember that God looks at the heart; that the spirit is more than the letter; that the law which specifies the extreme form of a special sin forbids with its full force all the lower grades and all the less flagrant and revolting forms of the same sin. We wrong ourselves most fearfully when we labor to ease our conscience by limiting the prohibitions of God’s law to the extreme forms of sin which may be named in the statute. It is always our highest wisdom to deal very honestly with our own conscience as before God in the construction and application of his law.

The tenth and last commandment is peculiar, as compared with all others of the second table, in this point—that it specifies no external act whatever but lays its prohibition directly upon the heart. “Thou shalt not covet”—shalt not allow thyself to desire in such a way as might tempt thee to try to obtain—thy neighbor’s house, wife, servants, cattle, or any thing that he has. This law aims to forestall temptation. It strikes at the root of such sins as theft and adultery by forbidding any such desire as might move you toward the sin. It may be regarded as shielding both of the two parties; the one who might commit the sin, and the one against whom the sin might be committed. It throws its shield over him who might otherwise be tempted, and it also becomes in so far a safeguard around him who holds treasures which lustful eyes might covet.

Let us not omit to notice that it was this precept which opened the spiritual eye of Paul and gave him a new view of the breadth and true significance of God’s law. “I had not known sin, (said he) but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7: 7). His Pharisaic training (we may suppose) had been scrupulous over the tenth part of the mint and anise and cummin—had taken even ostentatious care of the external matters of the law; but, alas! had left the heart out. Here at the closeof the law of Sinai—last among the precepts that treat of duty to our neighbor—stands one which puts its finger squarely upon the heart. It says—“Thou shalt not covet.” It not only suggests that God looks within the soul of man for sin, but it demands that every man shall look there too and put his own restraining hand directly upon those rising desires which, indulged, would push him into overt sin. Moreover, this one precept may be supposed to have suggested to the mind of Paul that the whole law of God must be construed on this heart-principle—that every precept it contains goes beyond the letter to the spirit—pushes its demand deeper than the outward act, even to the inner thought, passion, and purpose of the soul. This view put the law of God in a new light—we might even say—revealed a new law to his soul. It gave him a new field for self-examination; brought up new sins never seen or dreamed of before, and at once demolished hopes of favor before God and of salvation on which he had perilously leaned through all his Pharisaic life.——“Thy commandment” (said one of the Psalmists) “is exceeding broad” (Ps. 119: 96). We are not to think of all the Old Testament saints as Pharisees. Let us rather hope that many of them read in the law of Sinai the law of love, and adjusted to it, not the outward life only but the very heart as well.

Progress in the Revelation of God to Man.

The first twenty chapters of Exodus cover a period eminently rich in point of progress in revealing God to the race.——More fully than ever before God manifested those special elements of his character which are unfolded in the new name Jehovah—I am that I Am (Ex. 3: 14). He had given promises before; then he came forth to fulfill them. He had talked with the patriarchs about faith, and had sought to inspire it in their souls. In these great deeds for his people he gave them demonstrations of his eternal faithfulness—a basis on which their faith might rest, and also the faith of every child of his through all the future ages. God came exceedingly near to his afflicted people in Egypt, and never missed any opportunity of suggesting and impressing the idea that these tender testimonies of his love werein proof of his fidelity to promise—were the very acts which his covenant with Abraham involved and called for—called for of their covenant God not in vain.