Especially is the humanitarian advance shown in the provisions of the code which relate to the poor, the debtor, and the bondsman. We meet here some of the most humane regulations to be found in any of the codes of antiquity. Social morality is almost made to consist in consideration for the poor: “If there be among you a poor man ... thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him”—so the law enjoins—“and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need.”[379] Things that were necessities to the poor man were not to be taken as security for a loan: “No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge.”[380] If a garment be taken as security, this must be returned before night, in order that the man may sleep in his own raiment.[381] The widow’s raiment must not be taken in pledge at all.[382] The wages of the poor and needy must be promptly paid: “At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it.”[383]
The law goes even further in its humane endeavor to prevent the oppression of the needy. The loaning of money in ancient times was in general a very different thing from similar money transactions in this commercial and industrial age of ours. Those seeking loans were the very poor, who were forced to borrow to meet domestic necessities. Under such conditions the taking of interest would naturally be denounced, and those who did so would come to be regarded as extortioners, and robbers of the poor. Hence the prohibition, “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; ... unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury.”[384]
This legislation, well adapted to the times and the conditions of the society for which it was enacted, became centuries later, through its adoption and attempted enforcement by the medieval Church, a source of grave mischief. It constituted a heavy drag for centuries upon the industrial development of European civilization.
The same spirit of tenderness toward the portionless and needy is shown in the provision concerning the ingathering of the harvest: “When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.”[385] This tender consideration for the poor speaks from one of the most beautiful of Bible pictures—that of the Moabitess Ruth gleaning in the fields after the reapers, who “let fall some of the handfuls of purpose for her.”[386]
The social conscience awakening in Israel, to which the above regulations and commandments bear witness, finds further expression in the provisions of the code effecting ameliorations in the lot of the unfortunate bondsman. The master is enjoined to see that the Sabbath is observed by his slave as well as by himself and his family, and the reason assigned is the humanitarian one—“that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.”[387] And a limitation was set to the time that a person could be held in bondage: “And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.”[388] Furthermore, the law is solicitous respecting the welfare of the bondsman even after emancipation: “And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.”[389]
To these ameliorative measures effect is sought to be given through a revival of memories of the past. The masters are enjoined to be compassionate to their bondsmen because they themselves had been worn and bruised in bondage: “Remember,” says the lawgiver, “that ye were bondsmen in the land of Egypt.”[390]
2. The Morality of the Prophets of the Exile
The effects of the Captivity upon the moral evolution in Israel
We have reached now a turning point in the moral history of Israel. Speaking of the effects of the Exile upon the inner life of Israel, Renan uses these words: “Twice it was the fate of Israel to owe its salvation to that which is the ruin of others, and to be recalled by the crushing of its earthly hopes to a sense of its great duties toward humanity.”
The mission of Israel, her duty toward humanity, was, as we have said, to interpret life in ethical terms. As the story of the exilic and the postexilic period unfolds, we shall see how the sad experiences of the Exile purified and deepened the moral consciousness of Israel, and prepared her for the great part she was destined to play in the moral education of mankind.