The necessity for laws on this point at once discriminating, wise, and stringent, will be sufficiently obvious when we consider (1.) The strength of the passion to be controlled—constitutionally common to all ages of the world:——(2.) The sacredness of the marriage relation and the inestimable value of moral purity in all human society—also common to all ages of the world’s history:——(3.) (Peculiar to the earlier ages) the necessity of defining the limits of consanguinity within which marriage should be prohibited, and all sexual connection sternly forbidden. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that the race having sprung from a single pair and the world having been repeopled a second time from one family, those primitive examples may have sent down for many generations a certain looseness which called for special restraint and a carefully defining law:——(4.) The crimes of Sodom, their polluting influence in so good a family as that of Lot; the low morals of Egyptian life; some sad manifestations in the early history of Jacob’s family; the horrible contagion of Moab and Midian when the tribes of Israel came socially near them;—these and kindred facts will be readily recalled as in point to show the necessity of vigorous legislation in the Mosaic code to counteract these untoward influences of their antecedent life and of surrounding society.——The thoughtful student of the Mosaic code as expanding and applying the seventh commandment will be painfully impressed with the disadvantages under which it labored by reason of the toleration of polygamy, concubinage, and domestic servitude. In some points the law bore with special severity upon woman as compared with man—a sort of imperfection which was simply an inevitable result of tolerating those ancient evils.——It scarcely need be suggested that the value of this part of the Mosaic code as a definite model for Christian legislationis greatly lessened by this class of facts. Woman’s place in society then was by no means that which the genius of Christianity has given her. Unquestionably this code alleviated her condition as compared with what it had been, and brought to her relief as large a boon of blessing as the genius of the age would bear.
In view, partly of the difficulty of treating this subject with minute detail in a way to make its discussion really useful, and partly of its inferior value in some points as an example, for reasons above indicated, I shall excuse myself from any minute and extended presentation of these laws.
In general: The laws accord ample space to the condemnation of the unnatural crimes of sodomy and bestiality (Lev. 18 and 20, and Deut. 23: 17, 18, and 27: 21): also to incest, which for historic reasons needed to be thoroughly and stringently defined (Lev. 18 and 19 and 20): to adultery proper; to the case of a suspected wife (Num. 5: 11–31);—to seduction and rape; aggravated whoredom in the form of public prostitution; of prostitution to an idol; of impurity in a priest’s daughter; in a woman betrothed, etc., etc.——The study of these laws would impress pure-minded readers with a sense of the great pains taken to lift up and regenerate a sadly low and debased condition of social morals on these points; and also with a sense of special difficulty arising from the fact that society was quite too low to bear the introduction and enforcement of the Christian law of marriage as against concubinage, polygamy, and the debasement inseparable from even modified slavery. We shall rise from the careful study of this department of the Hebrew code with gratitude for the wisdom and goodness which attempted so much, yet with a deeper gratitude that a purer and higher code came to mankind through the law of Christ and the spirit of an enlightened Christian age.
V. Statutes Protecting Rights of Property; (Expanding the Eighth Command).
In Ex. 22: 1–15, 25–28, and 23: 4, 5, we have the earliest instalment of statutes on this point. Thestaple penalty for theft was restitution, yet varying widely in amount to meet the peculiarities of the case. In pastoral life cattle were specially exposed; therefore the law ordained that if the thief had killed the animal or sold it, he must restore—of oxen five for one; of sheep, four. But if the animal was found alive in his hand, the restitution was only double—two for one. The law made the charitable supposition that the thief might yet repent and bring back the stolen property, and purposely favored this result. On the other hand the selling or destruction of the animal would indicate a fixed purpose to have the avails of it, and also to render detection more difficult—both of which purposes the law punished sharply.——It may well be noted that restitution was a telling, stinging penalty, touching the sensibilities of the thief in a very tender point. The indolent or unprincipled man who thought to live upon his neighbor’s toil, would find stealing very unprofitable. The law had the more grip in those times because if a man tried to put his property out of his hands to evade the demand for restitution, or were in fact too poor to restore four or five fold, there was always the last resort—the law could take him for a slave (“servant”) and make him work it out.——This was one of the incidental benefits of a hard system: it could be applied so as to make the penalties for theft very effectually stringent.
The law punished trespass upon another’s property and want of care for its due protection—on which points, subsequent, statutes reaffirm and expand what we first find in Ex. 22. (See Deut. 22: 1–4.)
While the law was vigorous, not to say severe, against criminal theft, it was yet exceedingly lenient towards the unfortunate and innocent poor, e. g.,
(1.) It gave permission to eat another’s property for the supply of present want. The specifications are—The grapes of thy neighbor’s vineyard; and his standing corn. Thou mayest eat grapes, but not put one in thy vessel; mayest pluck the heads of grain in thy hand, but never move thy sickle against thy neighbor’s grain (Deut. 23: 24, 25).
(2.) It regulated thoughtfully and compassionately the whole subject of pledges, i. e. securities for the paymentof debt. As first announced (Ex. 22: 26, 27), it provided that if the poor man’s garment were taken in pledge, it must certainly be restored to him by sundown, because it was his bed-covering for the night; and God would surely hear the poor man’s cry if he were compelled to lay himself down to sleep with no covering.——As subsequently revised or enlarged (Deut. 24: 6, 10–13, 17), the statute peremptorily forbade taking the upper or the nether millstone in pledge, because no oriental family could subsist without these. It also forbade the creditor to go in to the poor man’s house to get his pledge lest he fix his covetous eye on something there, but required him to wait patiently outside for the poor man to bring it out—a provision which manifests a specially delicate regard for the feelings of the poor. He was not obliged to expose his deep poverty, nor to disclose all he had to the greedy gaze of his more wealthy neighbor.——The law also forbade the taking of a widow’s raiment in pledge.