We must make a date somewhere, and therefore we cannot do better than choose a date that can be fairly tested, and safely on this side of mythical eras,—and that is about 1500 B.C. This must appear a very safe and modest date to fall back upon. The Babylonians want us to go back 432,000 years, but to accept this assertion requires more faith than most of us possess.
For our present purpose there is nothing gained by comparing the Mosaic Law with that discovered with such infinite care and learning in the Babylonian records. The utmost that can be said is that we have startling coincidences, and an intensely interesting subject opened out. But there is no single grain of information, and that is what we are just now in search of. We feel quite distrustful of documents, especially stone ones, which give the lifetime of Alorus as extending to 36,000 years. That was before the Deluge. The Wandering Jew sinks into insignificance, and is a mere puling infant by the side of such figures as these, because the son of Alorus reigned for 46,800 years. However short the “year” was, the period of life was quite lengthy. If a year was our week, the last named patriarch was about 1,000 years old.
This is a departure somewhat from the Law as it is in our Bibles. But it will be an interesting study for some kind student to compare that Law with the echoes thereof found in Asiatic literature, even far away on the eastern shores of China. The mystery still unsolved is, “How did it get there?”
With the greatest diffidence we make the statement that the first notion of Law was in connection with sacrifice. The time may come when this can be refuted. But at present, leaving out of the question natural and unwritten Law, we find no bond but this. Sacrifice comes to us as a Law from a Superior Being. Heathen nations have recognized the efficacy of sacrifice and offerings.
Man without Law was an impossibility. No living thing can exist without some Law. Thus we look back to the first records of created living things for some Law. Science sheds a great, broad, and even scaring, light on the Law prevailing over inanimate nature. The seas and the fields obey it. But for us to make a record of Law as it made its beginning, is a task too great, and it is indeed then we feel that “fools may rush in” where better souls have had to languish in doubt.
Let us take the Law in the Bible as we can read it, and how few care to read it! There was a man once who had read the whole of the first five books through twice. Thinking there might be something to gain from such abnormal study, we propounded a few questions on this very subject. The result was a senseless repetition of verses from Leviticus. And yet, to tell the honest truth, there is very little left us to do but to quote. There is a little assistance we can give, and most thankful we are to have it in our power to do so. Let us all the time remember that the Bible Law is the sole foundation of every Law, Human and Divine, as far as we can discover. If it can be proved that the Babylonian record with its 40,000 year old kings is to be relied on, then by all means let us accept it.
We start with the sacrifice as the “companion” of the Law. No one can feel hurt by this. It is no good to any of us to ask whether Abel’s sacrifice was according to revealed Law or anterior to it. It is plain that sacrifice came to be the great medium of the Law between man and the great prevailing Law. With this allowed, all the rest is easier to grasp. The early Law among the first people seemed to have no force but in its connection with some higher Power. This Power has been now deputed to earthly sources.
The writers of the Psalms represent to us a perfect intercourse with the Deity. The question then arises, “On what grounds was this intercourse conducted?” The answer seems clearly to be on the conditions of the Laws of sacrifice. Now, by comparing the elaborate list of these contained in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible” with a very careful one in “Notes on the Hebrew Psalms,” by W. R. Burgess (1879), we can make out a clear and very useful resumé. Leaving out the great sin offerings for the whole people and for the priests, we have the following sin offerings:—
1. For any sin of ignorance. Lev. iv. A most elaborate ceremonial of sacrifice and blood sprinkling. We should like to know when the “plea of ignorance” was done away with altogether, as we believe it has no force at all in modern Law.
2. For refusal to bear witness on oath. Lev. v. This is of very great interest in the light of recent legislation as to affirmation. We have come across many people, it is needless to add grossly ignorant, who have entirely lost sight of the obvious emphasis on the word “False” in the 9th Commandment, placing the whole force on the fact of “Witness.”