In the 17th verse of the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, Moses commanded that “every male among the little ones, and every woman who had known a man,” should be killed, even after they had been taken to the Israelitish camp; and that none should be reserved for slaves, except female children, of whom, it appears, there were thirty-two thousand. The booty taken in this war, was distributed by Moses, in conformity to the especial direction of God himself, as follows:—(Verse 25,) “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (verse 26,) Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation, (verse 28,) and levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the PERSONS, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep: (verse 29,) Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, for a heave-offering of the Lord. (Verse 30,) And of the children of Israel’s half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty of the PERSONS, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them to the Levites which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord. (Verse 31,) And Moses and Eleazar did as the Lord commanded Moses.”
Houbigant, in his commentary upon this chapter, has given us the following
| Sheep | 675,000 | To the ” | Soldiers People | 337,500 337,500 | To the ” | Lord Levites | 675 6,750 | |
| Beeves | 72,000 | To the ” | Soldiers People | 36,000 36,000 | To the ” | Lord Levites | 72 720 | |
| Asses | 61,000 | To the ” | Soldiers People | 30,500 30,500 | To the ” | Lord Levites | 61 610 | |
| Persons | 32,000 | To the ” | Soldiers People | 16,000 16,000 | To the ” | Lord Levites | 32 320 |
This table has been adopted by Dr. Adam Clark in his Commentary, to which he adds—
“In this table the booty is equally divided between the people and the soldiers; a five-hundredth part being given to the Lord, and a fiftieth part to the Levites.” And this learned divine, in his commentary on the 28th verse, says—“And levy a tribute unto the Lord, one soul of five hundred, &c. * * * The persons to be employed in the Lord’s service, under the Levites: the cattle either for sacrifice or for the use of the Levites. (Verse 30.) Some monsters have supposed that one out of every five hundred of the captives was offered in sacrifice to the Lord! But this is abominable. When God chose to have the life of a man, he took it in the way of justice, as in the case of the Midianites above; but never in the way of sacrifice.”
In the 29th verse, we learn that the Lord’s portion was to be given to Eleazar the priest, “for a heave-offering of the Lord.” The word heave-offering is rendered from the word תְּר֥ווּמַ֖תtĕrwûmat terūmath, from the root רוּםrûm rūm, which means a lifting up, exalting, elevation of rank, while the form here used means a gift, a contribution, associated with the idea of being lifted up, exalted, elevated to a higher condition. Hence, when the priest presented a heave-offering, he moved his censer upwards, in a perpendicular line, with the view to intimate the elevating tendency resulting from the relation of the person offering, the thing offered, and the one to whom it is offered; whereas, in a wave-offering, he moved his censer in a horizontal line, intimating a relation of steadfastness and unchangeability. Because the cross is represented by perpendicular and horizontal lines, some early commentators have imagined that the heave and wave-offerings were typical of the cross of Christ. The word “heave,” as here used, is purely Saxon; heafan, to lift, to raise, to move upward. We may well say to heave up; but it is bad Saxon to say heave down. From this same Saxon word comes our word heaven, on account of the notion of its lofty location, and the elevating influence of the acts of him who shall reach it; each act which makes us nearer heaven may not inappropriately be considered a heave-offering to the Lord. The corollary is, that if God had regarded the making these children slaves a sin,—since sin always deteriorates and degrades, the reverse of elevation or lifting up,—he never could have ordered any of them to be given to him as a heave-offering.
We trust to establish the point that the enslavement of such people as we find the African hordes now to be, to those who have a more correct knowledge of God and his laws,—of those most wicked Midianites, to those to whom God had most especially revealed himself,—must, so long as the laws of God operate, have an elevating influence upon those so enslaved. Thus we shall perceive that the Hebrew word translated into our old Saxon heave-offering was the most appropriate, and significant of the facts of the case, that could be expressed by language.
Our received version of this chapter, which is a good translation of the original, contains no word by which we directly express the idea of slavery: so is it in the original. But we trust the readers of either will not be found so awry as not to perceive that the idea and facts are as fully and substantially developed as though those terms were used in each.
In the most of languages, an idea, and facts in relation to it, may be and are often expressed without the use of the name of the idea, and sometimes of the facts. The Greek is well deemed a most particular and definite language. In Thucydides, liber vii. caput 87, this sentence occurs: ἔπειτα πλην Αθὴναιῶν, καὶ εἴτινες Σικελιωτῶν ἤ Ἰταλιωτῶν ξυνεστρατευσαν, τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπέδοντο. Here, there is no word expressing the idea of slavery. Literally, it is: “Then, except the Athenians, and some of the Sicilians or Italians, who had engaged in the war, all others were sold.” Yet Dr. Smith, the rector of Holy Trinity Church, in Chester, England, who lived at an age beyond the reach of prejudice or argument on the subject of slavery, (he was born in 1711,) has correctly translated the passage thus: “But, after this term, all but the Athenians, and such of the Sicilians and Italians as had joined with them in the invasion, were sold out for slaves.” Smith’s Thucyd. p. 285.
And permit us further to inquire how the assertion of Mr. Barnes, page 117, that, “in the laws of Moses there is but one way mentioned by which a foreigner could be made a slave; that is, by purchase, Lev. xxv. 44; and it is remarkable that the Hebrews were not permitted to make slaves of the captives taken in the war”—will compare with Deut. xx. 10–16: