The law of the Jubilee gave personal liberty to all bondmen. Of this, more must be said under “Hebrew servitude.” It also provided for the return of all real estate—all the lands of Canaan—to their original possessors. Lands could be alienated only till the jubilee. They were sold, if at all, subject to this law. Consequently a sale of land was only a lease for at longest forty-nine years—i. e. for the years intervening till the next jubilee. They were subject to redemption at any time—the price to be graduated by the years which the lease had to run. Houses in walled cities were redeemable only within one year from sale; but in unwalled cities, houses followed the law of land, returning with the land to their original owner at the jubilee. The houses of Levites were accounted as land.——These statutes had a twofold purpose; to afford relief to the poor; and to prevent the entire alienation of the lands of Canaan from the tribes, families, and individuals to whom they were originally given.——The question, how far these institutions—the Sabbatic year and the Jubilee—were observed in the future history of Israel is foreign from our present purpose.

VI. Crimes against reputation; (the details of the ninth commandment).

Here are stringent statutes against false accusation and false witness. Under this general head fall two distinct cases:—​(a) Testimony given to favor the guilty (Ex. 23: 1, 3);——and (b) allegations designed to condemn the innocent (Deut. 19: 16–21).

(a.) The former class (as given Ex. 23: 1, 3) forbids not merely originating (“raise”), but taking up a false report and seconding it by indorsement. It warns men not to be drawn in to help the wicked in their malicious plots to screen each other, though they be many. The cause of the poor man which you may not favor (v. 3) is certainly supposed to be a bad one. Your sympathy for him as poor must not override justice and truth.

(b.) False witness, purposed to condemn the innocent, is met by the statute (Deut. 19: 16–21). The accuser and the accused are to be brought face to face before the Lord and before the priests and the judges who are to “make diligent inquisition,” obviously hearing both parties, and if the accuser is proved to be a false witness, “Ye shall do to him as he thought to do to his brother; thine eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life; eye for eye,” etc.

Tale-bearing, i. e. tattling, retailing scandal maliciously or for a past-time, needed the force of law to abate and suppress it in those times as in most other ages. “Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people, neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor. I am the Lord” (Lev. 19: 16–18)—“Standing against the blood,” must mean—taking ground against the very life, and must not be construed to forbid truthful testimony against the real murderer. But the informer should constantly remember that his neighbor’s interests and life are too precious to be lightly tampered with. Thy neighbor may have said or done something wrong. Your duty in the case is not to scatter broadcast all you know and more than you know of his misdeeds; but first of all—“Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart,” but “love him as thyself” (v. 18); and next, “Thou shalt in anywise [by all means] rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.”——This last clause hasbeen understood in two ways:—​(a) Thou shalt not suffer the sin to lie upon him with no effort on thy part to bring him to repentance: or (b) Thou shalt not bear on thine own conscience the sin of neglecting to admonish him; i. e. thou shalt not submit to bear this sin on his account—a sin which comes of knowing his crime and of failing in your duty to save him by means of judicious and fraternal rebuke. The latter construction is best sustained by Hebrew usage of the words. See the same words, Lev. 22: 9 and Num. 18: 32, and the preposition “upon him,” in Ps. 69: 8—“For thy sake have I borne,” etc. The verb in this clause means rather to “bear” in your own person, than to “suffer” to exist in another.——The passage, so interpreted, assumes it to be your solemn duty to labor to bring your neighbor to repentance if you are cognizant of his wrong-doing, and implies that you must lie under a load of sin if you fail to do so. But do it in love (loving him even as yourself) as well as in all fidelity to his soul, as also to your own. Do this instead of going up and down to scatter this scandal among those who will do nothing to save your erring neighbor, and nothing to relieve your conscience of your responsibility in his behalf.

While this statute bears against giving information about misdeeds of minor sort, there were two crimes of such magnitude that every man was bound to testify in the proper form against them; viz. idolatry and murder. See the case of idolatry in Deut. 13: 6–14: “Neither shalt thou conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him: thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward, the hand of all the people.” (Also v. 14)——The expiation for murder by an unknown hand included this most solemn protestation: “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.” Of course, whoever might have seen was most sacredly bound to testify.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CIVIL INSTITUTES OF MOSES, CONTINUED.

VII. Hebrew Servitude.