THE LESSER LAW (continued).
Exo 23:1-19.
The twenty-third chapter begins with a series of commands bearing
upon the course of justice; but among these there is interjected
very curiously a command to bring back the stray ox or ass of an
enemy, and to help under a burden the over-weighted ass of him that
hateth thee, even "if thou wouldest forbear to help him." It is just
possible that the lawgiver, urging justice in the bearing of
testimony, interrupts himself to speak of a very different manner in
which the action may be warped by prejudice, but in which (unlike
the other) it is lawful to show not only impartiality but kindness.
The help of the cattle of one's enemy shows that in the bearing of
testimony we should not merely abstain from downright wrong. And it
is a fine example of the spirit of the New Testament, in the Old.
"Thou shalt not take up a false report" (Exo 23:1) is a precept
which reaches far. How many heedless whispers, conjectures lightly
spoken because they were amusing, yet influencing the course of
lives, and inferences uncharitably drawn, would have been still-born
if this had been remembered!
But when the scandal is already abroad, the temptation to aid its
progress is still greater. Therefore it is added, "Put not thine
hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." Whatever be the
menace or the bribe, however the course of opinion seem to be
decided, and the assent of an individual to be harmless because the
result is sure, or blameless because the responsibility lies
elsewhere, still each man is a unit, not an "item," and must act for
himself, as hereafter he must give account. Hence it results
inevitably that "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil,
neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude
to wrest judgment" (Exo 23:2). The blind impulses of a multitude are
often as misleading as the solicitations of the bad, and to aspiring
temperaments much more seductive. There is indeed a strange
magnetism in the voice of the public. Every orator knows that a
great assembly acts upon the speaker as really as he acts upon it:
its emotions are like a rush of waters to sweep him away, beyond his
intentions or his ordinary powers. Yet he is the strongest
individual there; no other has at all the same opportunity for
self-assertion, and therefore its power over others must be more
complete than over him.
This is one reason for the institution of public worship. Men
neglect the house of God because they can pray as well at home, and
encourage wanton subdivisions of the Church because they think there
is no very palpable difference between competing denominations, or
even because competition may be as useful in religion as in trade,
as if our competition with the world and the devil for souls would
not sufficiently animate us, without competing with one another. But
in acting thus they weaken the effect for good of one of the
mightiest influences which work evil among us, the influence of
association. Men are always persuading themselves that they need not
be better than their neighbours, nor ashamed of doing what every one
does. And yet no voice joins in a cry without deepening it: every
one who rushes with a crowd makes its impulse more difficult to
stem; his individuality is not lost by its partnership with a
thousand more; and he is accountable for what he contributes to the
result. He has parted with his self-control, but not with the inner
forces which he ought to have controlled.
Against this dangerous influence of the world, Christ has set the
contagion of godliness within His Church, and every avoidable
subdivision enfeebles this salutary counter-influence.
Moses warns us, therefore, of the danger of being drawn away by a
multitude to do evil; but he is thinking especially of the peril of
being tempted to "speak" amiss. Who does not know it? From the
statesman who outruns his convictions rather than break with his
party, and who cannot, amid deafening cheers, any longer hear his
conscience speak, down to the humblest who fails to confess Christ
before hostile men, and therefore by-and-by denies Him, there is not
one whose speech and silence have never been in danger of being set
to the sympathies of his own little public like a song to music.
That Moses was really thinking of this tendency to court
popularity, is plain from the next clause--"Neither shalt thou
favour a poor man in his cause" (Exo 23:3).
It is an admirable caution. Men there are who would scorn the
opposite injustice, and from whom no rich man could buy a wrongful
decision with gold or favour, but who are habitually unjust, because
they load the other scale. The beam ought to hang straight. When
justice is concerned, the poor man's friend is almost as
contemptible as his foe, and he has taken a bribe, if not in the
mean enjoyment of democratic popularity, yet in his own pride--the
fancy that he has done a magnanimous act, the attitude in which he
poses.
As in law so in literature. There once was a tendency to describe
magnanimous persons of quality, and repulsive clodhoppers and
villagers. Times have changed, and now we think it much more
ingenious and high-toned to be quite as partial and disingenuous,
reversing the cases. Neither is true, and therefore neither is
artistic. No class in society is deficient in noble qualities, or in
base ones. Nor is the man of letters at all more independent, who
flatters the democracy in a democratic age, than he who flattered
the aristocracy when they had all the prizes to bestow.
Other precepts forbid bribery, command that the soil shall rest
in the seventh year, when its spontaneous produce shall be for the
poor, and further recognise and consecrate relaxation, by
instituting (or more probably adopting into the code) the three
feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The section closes
with the words "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk" (Exo
23:19). Upon this clause much ingenuity has been expended. It makes
occult reference to some superstitious rite. It is the name for some
unduly stimulating compound. But when we remember that, just before,
the sabbatical fruit which the poor left ungleaned was expressly
reserved for the beasts of the field, that men were bidden to help
the overladen ass of their enemies, and that care is taken elsewhere
that the ox should not be muzzled when treading out grain, that the
birdnester should not take the dam with the young, and that neither
cow nor ewe should be slain on the same day with its young (Deu
25:4, Deu 22:6; Lev 22:28), the simplest meaning seems also the most
probable. Men, who have been taught respect for their fellow-men,
are also to learn a fine sensibility even in respect to the inferior
animals. Throughout all this code there is an exquisite tendency to
form a considerate, humane, delicate and high-minded nation.
It remained, to stamp upon the human conscience a deep sense of
responsibility.
PART V.--ITS SANCTIONS.
Exo 23:20-33.
This summary of Judaism being now complete, the people have to
learn what mighty issues are at stake upon their obedience. And the
transition is very striking from the simplest duty to the loftiest
privilege: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
Behold, I send an Angel before thee.... Beware of him: for My Name
is in him" (Exo 23:19-21).
We have now to ask how much this mysterious phrase involves; who
was the Angel of whom it speaks?
The question is not, How much did Israel at that moment
comprehend? For we are distinctly told that prophets were conscious
of speaking more than they understood, and searched diligently but
in vain what the spirit that was in them did signify (1Pe 1:11).
It would, in fact, be absurd to seek the New Testament doctrine
of the Logos full-blown in the Pentateuch. But it is mere prejudice,
unphilosophical and presumptuous, to shut one's eyes against any
evidence which may be forthcoming that the earliest books of
Scripture were tending towards the last conclusions of theology;
that the slender overture to the Divine oratorio indicates already
the same theme which thunders from all the chorus at the close.
It is scarcely necessary to refute the position that a mere
"messenger" is intended, because angels have not yet "appeared as
personal agents separate from God." Kalisch himself has amply
refuted his own theory. For, he says, "we are compelled ... to refer
it to Moses and his successor Joshua" (in loco). So then He
Who will not forgive their transgressions is he who prayed that if
God would not pardon them, his own name might be blotted from the
book of life. He, to whom afterwards God said "I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee" (Exo 33:19), is the same of Whom God
said "My name is in Him." This position needs no examination; but
the perplexities of those who reject the deeper interpretation is a
strong confirmation of its soundness. We have still to choose
between the promise of a created angel, and some manifestation and
interposition of God, distinguished from Jehovah and yet one with
Him. This latter view is an evident preparation for clearer
knowledge yet to come. It is enough to stamp the dispensation which
puts it forth as but provisional, and therefore bears witness to
that other dispensation which has the key to it. And it is exactly
what a Christian would expect to find somewhere in this summary of
the law.
What, then, do we read elsewhere about the Angel of Jehovah? What
do we find, especially, in these early books?
A difficulty has to be met at the very outset. The issue would be
decided offhand, if it could be shown that the Angel of this verse
is the same who is offered, as a poor substitute for their Divine
protector, in the thirty-third chapter. But no contrast can be
clearer than between the encouraging promise before us, and the
sharp menace which then plunged Israel into mourning. Here is an
Angel who must not be provoked, who will not pardon you, because "My
Name is in Him." There is an angel who will be sent because God will
not go up, ... lest He consume them (Exo 23:2-3). He is not the
Angel of God's presence, but of His absence. When the intercession
of Moses won from God a reversal of the sentence, He then said "My
Presence (My Face) shall go with thee, and I will give thee
rest,"[38] but Moses answers, not yet reassured, "If Thy Presence
(Thy Face) go not up with us, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight?... Is it not
that Thou goest with us? And the Lord said, I will do this thing
also that thou hast spoken" (Exo 23:14-17).
Moreover, Isaiah, speaking of this time, says that "In all their
affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence (His
Face) saved them" (Isa 63:9).
Thus we find that some angel is to be sent because God will not
go up: that thereupon the nation mourns, although in this
twenty-third chapter they had received as a gladdening promise, the
assurance of an Angel escort in Whom is the name of God; that in
response to prayer God promises that His Face shall accompany them,
so that it may be known that He Himself goes with them; and finally
that His Face in Exodus is the Angel of His Face in Isaiah. The
prophet at least had no doubt whether the gracious promise in the
twenty-third chapter answered, in the thirty-third chapter, to the
third verse or the fourteenth--to the menace, or to the restored
favour.
This difficulty being now converted into an evidence, we turn
back to examine other passages.
When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar, "she called the name
of Jehovah that spake unto her El Roi" (Gen 16:11, Gen 16:13). When
God tempted Abraham, "the Angel of Jehovah called unto him out of
heaven, and said, ... I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast
not withheld thy son ... from Me" (Gen 22:11-12). When a man
wrestled with Jacob, he thereupon claimed to have seen God face to
face, and called the place Peniel, the Face (Presence) of God (Gen
32:4, Gen 32:30). But Hosea tells us that "He had power with God:
yea, he had power over the Angel, ... and there He spake with us,
even Jehovah, the God of hosts" (Hos 12:3, Hos 12:5). Even earlier,
in his exile, the Angel of the Lord had appeared unto him and said,
"I am the God of Bethel ... where thou vowedst a vow unto Me." But
the vow was distinctly made to God Himself: "I will surely give the
tenth to Thee" (Genesis 31: Gen 31:11, Gen 31:13; Gen 28:20, Gen
28:22). Is it any wonder that when this patriarch blessed Joseph, he
said, "The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk,
the God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel
which hath redeemed me from all evil, (may He) bless the lads" (Gen
48:15-16)?
In Exo 3:2 the Angel of the Lord appeared out of the bush. But
presently He changes into Jehovah Himself, and announces Himself to
be Jehovah the God of their fathers (Exo 3:2, Exo 3:4, Exo 3:15). In
Exo 13:21 Jehovah went before Israel, but the next chapter tells how
"the Angel of the Lord which went before Israel removed and went
behind" (Exo 14:19); while Numbers (Num 20:16) says expressly that
"He sent an Angel and brought us out of Egypt."
By the comparison of these and many later passages (which is
nothing but the scientific process of induction, leaning not on the
weight of any single verse, but on the drift and tendency of all the
phenomena) we learn that God was already revealing Himself through a
Medium, a distinct personality whom He could send, yet not so
distinct but that His name was in Him, and He Himself was the Author
of what He did.
If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land
(Exo 23:23); and if there they continued unseduced by false
worships, He would bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their
children; He would bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He
would clear the land before them as fast as their population could
enjoy it; He would extend their boundaries yet farther, from the Red
Sea, where Solomon held Ezion Geber (1Ki 9:26), to the
Mediterranean, and from the desert where they stood to the
Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra and Thiphsah
(2Ch 8:4; 1Ki 4:24).
FOOTNOTES:
[38] Even if the rendering were accepted, "Must
My Presence (My Face) go with thee?" (Can I not be trusted without a
direct Presence?) the argument would not be affected, because Moses
presses for the favour and obtains it.