23 If thou afflict them in any wise, and they me, I will surely 24 And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless..

25 If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to

22" Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fa- him as a usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon therless child. him usury.

Lev. xviii. 23; xx. 15. Num. xxv. 2, 7, 8; Deut. xiii. 1, | 2, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15; xvii. 2,3, 5; 1 Mac. ii. 24.- - Chapter xxiii. 9; Lev. xix. 33; xxv. 35; Deut. x. 19; Jer. vii. 6; Zech. vii. 10; Mal. iii. 5. Deut. x. 18; xxiv. 17; xxvii. 19; Psa. xciv. 6; Isa. i. 17, 23; x. 2; Ezek. xxii. 7; Zech. vii. 10; James

uncover, to remove a veil, to manifest, reveal, make bare or naked; and Slimecashefat is used to signify commerce with God. See Wilmet and Giggeius. The mecashshephah or witch, therefore, was probably a person who professed to reveal hidden mysteries, by commerce with God, or the invisible

world.

i. 27.- - Deut. xv. 9; xxiv. 15; Job xxxv. 9; Luke xviii. 7. Ver. 23; Job xxxiv. 28; Psa. xviii. 6; cxlv. 19; James v, 4. Job xxxi. 23; Psa. lxix. 24.- y Psalm cix. 9; Lam. v. 3. Lev. xxv. 35, 36, 37; Deut. xxiii. 19, 20; Neh. v. 7; Psa. xv. 5; Ezek. xviii. 8, 17.

proselytes to your religion, and thus their souls may be saved." In every point of view, therefore, justice, humanity, sound policy, and religion, say,

nor oppress a stranger.

Neither ver

Verse 22. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.] It is remarkable that offences against this law are not left to. the discretion of the judges to be punished; God reserves the punishment to himself, and by this he strongly shows his abhorrence of the crime. It is no common crime, and shall not be punished in a common way; the wrath of God shall wax hot against him who in any wise afflicts or wrongs a widow or a fatherless child: and we may rest assured that he who helps either does a service highly accept

From the severity of this law against witches, &c., we may see in what light these were viewed by Divine justice. They were seducers of the people from their allegiance to God, on whose judgment alone they should depend; and by impiously prying into futurity, assumed an attribute of God, the foretelling of future events, which implied in itself the grossest blasphemy, and tended to corrupt the minds of the people, by lead-able in the sight of God. ing them away from God and the revelation he had made of himself. Many of the Israelites had, no doubt, learned these curious arts from their long residence with the Egyptians; and so much were the Israelites attached to them, that we find such arts in repute among them, and various practices of this kind prevailed through the whole of the Jewish history, notwithstanding the offence was capital, and in all cases punished with death.

Verse 19. Lieth with a beast] If this most abominable crime had not been common, it nèver would have been mentioned in a sacred code of laws. It is very likely that it was an Egyptian practice; and it is certain, from an account in Sonnini's Travels, that it is practised in Egypt to the present day.

Verse 25. Neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.] neshech, from nashach, to bite, cut, or pierce with the teeth; biting usury. So the Latins call it usura vorax, devouring usury. "The increase of usury is called neshech, because it resembles the biting of a serpent; for as this is so small as scarcely to be perceptible at first, but the venom soon spreads and diffuses itself till it reaches the vitals, so the increase of usury, which at first is not perceived nor felt, at length grows so much as by degrees to devour another's substance.”—Leigh.

It is evident that what is here said must be understood of accumulated usury, or what we call compound interest only; and accordingly neshech is méntioned with and distinguished from ♫♫ tarbith and che-marbith, interest or simple interest, Lev. xxv. 36, 37; Prov. xxviii. 8; Ezek. xviii. 8, 13, 17, and xxii. 12.--Parkhurst.

Verse 20. Utterly destroyed.] The word rem denotes a thing utterly and finally separated from God and devoted to destruction, without the possibility of redemption.

Verse 21. Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him] This was not only a very humane law, but it was also the offspring of a sound policy: "Do not vex a stranger; remember ye were strangers. Do not oppress a stranger; remember ye were oppressed. Therefore do unto all men as ye would they should do to you." It was the produce of a sound policy: "Let strangers be well treated among you, and many will come to take refuge among you, and thus the strength of your country will be increased. If refugees of this kind be treated well, they will become

Perhaps usury may be more properly defined unlawful interest, receiving more for the loan of money than it is really worth, and more than the law allows. It is a wise regulation in the laws of England, that if a man be convicted of usury-taking unlawful interest, the bond or security is rendered void, and he forfeits treble the sum borrowed. Against such an oppressive practice the wisdom of God saw it essentially necessary to make a law to prevent a people, who were naturally what our Lord calls the Pharisees, pihapyvpoi, lovers of money, (Luke xvi. 14,) from oppressing each other; and who, notwithstanding the

Concerning pledges, and

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CHAP. XXII.

respect to magistrates.

26 If thou at all take thy | unto me, that I will hear; for I An. Exod. Isr. 1. neighbour's raiment to pledge, am gracious. thou shalt deliver it unto him by

Sivan.

that the sun goeth down:
27 For that is his covering only, it is his
raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep?
and it shall come to pass, when he crieth

28 d Thou shalt not revile the

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a Deut. xxiv. 6, 10, 13, 17; Job xxii. 6; xxiv. 3, 9; Proverbs xx. 16; xxii. 27; Ezek. xviii. 7, 16; Amos ii. 8. b Verse 23.9; Chap. xxxiv. 6; 2 Chron. xxx. 9; Psa. lxxxvi. 15.

law in the text, practise usury in all places of their dispersion to the present day.

Verse 29. The first of thy ripe fruits] This offering was a public acknowledgment of the bounty and goodness of God, who had given them their proper seed time, the first and the latter rain, and the appoint

From the practice of the people of God the heathens borrowed a similar one, founded on the same reason. The following passage from Censorinus, De Die Natali, is beautiful, and worthy of the deepest attention :

Illi enim (majores nostri) qui alimenta, patriam, lucem, se denique ipsos deorum dono habebant, ex omni

approbarent, quam quod deos arbitrarentur hoc indigere. Itaque cum perceperant fruges, antequam vescerentur, Diis libare instituerunt: et cum agros atque urbes, deorum munera, possiderent, partem quandam templis sacellisque, ubi eos colerent, dicavere.

Verse 26. If thou-take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge] It seems strange that any pledge should be taken which must be so speedily restored; but it ised weeks of harvest. very likely that the pledge was restored by night only, and that he who pledged it brought it back to his creditor next morning. The opinion of the rabbins is, that whatever a man needed for the support of life, he had the use of it when absolutely necessary, though it was pledged. Thus he had the use of his working tools by day, but he brought them to his creditor in | bus aliquid diis sacrabant, magis adeo, ut se gratos the evening. His hyke, which serves an Arab as a plaid does a Highlander, (see it described chap. xii. 34,) was probably the raiment here referred to it is a sort of coarse blanket, about six yards long, and five or six feet broad, which an Arab always carries with him, and on which he sleeps at night, it being his only substitute for a bed. As the fashions in the east scarcely ever change, it is very likely that the raiment of the Israelites was precisely the same with that of the modern Arabs, who live in the very same desert in which the Hebrews were when this law was given. How necessary it was to restore the hyke to a poor man before the going down of the sun, that he might have something to repose on, will appear evident from the above considerations. At the same time, the returning it daily to the creditor was a continual acknowledgment of the debt, and served instead of a written acknowledgment or bond; as we may rest assured that writing, if practised at all before the giving of the law, was not common but it is most likely that it did not exist.

Verse 28. Thou shalt not revile the gods] Most commentators believe that the word gods here means magistrates. The original is 'n Elohim, and should be understood of the true God only: Thou shalt not blaspheme or make light of [pr ̊ tekallel] God, the fountain of justice and power, nor curse the ruler of thy people, who derives his authority from God. We shall ever find that he who despises a good civil government, and is disaffected to that under which he lives, is one who has little fear of God before his eyes. The spirit of disaffection and sedition is ever opposed to the religion of the Bible. When those who have been pious get under the spirit of misrule, they infallibly get shorn of their spiritual strength, and become like salt that has lost its savour. He who can indulge himself in speaking evil of the civil ruler, will soon learn to blaspheme God. The highest authority says, Fear God: honour the king."

"Our ancestors, who held their food, their country, the light, and all that they possessed, from the bounty of the gods, consecrated to them à part of all their property, rather as a token of their gratitude, than from a conviction that the gods needed any thing. Therefore as soon as the harvest was got in, before they had tasted of the fruits, they appointed libations to be made to the gods. And as they held their fields and cities as gifts from their gods, they consecrated a certain part for temples and shrines, where they might worship them."

Pliny is express on the same point, who attests that the Romans never tasted either their new corn or wine, till the priests had offered the FIRST-FRUITS to the gods. Ac ne degustabant quidem, novas fruges aut vina, antequam sacerdotes PRIMITIAS LIBASSENT.— Hist. Nat., lib. xviii., c. 2.

Horace bears the same testimony, and shows that his countrymen offered, not only their first-fruits, but the choicest of all their fruits, to the Lares or household gods; and he shows also the wickedness of those who sent these as presents to the rich, before the gods had been thus honoured :

The first-born of oxen and sheep

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30

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Likewise shalt thou do 31 And ye shall be m holy A. M. 2513. An. Exod. Isr. 1. With thine oxen, and with thy men unto me: " neither shall An. Exod. Isr. 1 sheep seven days it shall be ye eat any flesh that is torn of with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the give it me. dogs.

k Deut. xv. 19.-
Et quodcumque mihi pomum novus educat annus,

Lev. xxii. 27.m Chap. xix. 6; Lev.xix. 2; Deut. xiv. 21.- Lev. xxii. 8; Ezek. iv. 14; xliv. 31.

Libatum agricolæ ponitur ante deo. Flava Ceres, tibi sil nostro de rure corona Spicea, quæ templi pendeat ante fores.

Eleg., lib. i., eleg. i. ver. 13.

"My grateful fruits, the earliest of the year,
Before the rural god shall daily wait.
From Ceres' gifts I'll cull each browner ear,`
And hang a wheaten wreath before her gate."
GRAINGER.

The same subject he touches again in the fifth elegy of the same book, where he specifies the different offerings made for the produce of the fields, of the flocks, and of the vine, ver. 27 :—

Illa deo sciet agricolæ pro vitibus uvam, Pro segete spicas, pro grege ferre dapem. "With pious care will load each rural shrine, For ripen'd crops a golden sheaf assign,

- Cates for my fold, rich clusters for my wine." Id. See Calmet. These quotations will naturally recall to our memory the offerings of Cain and Abel, mentioned Gen. iv. 3, 4. The rejoicings at our harvest-home are distorted remains of that gratitude which our ancestors, with all the primitive inhabitants of the earth, expressed to God with appropriate signs and ceremonies. Is it not possible to restore, in some goodly form, a custom so pure, so edifying, and so becoming? There is a laudable custom, observed by some pious people, of dedicating a new house to God by prayer, &c., which cannot be too highly commended.

Verse 30. Seven days it shall be with his dam] For the mother's health it was necessary that the young one should suck so long; and prior to this time the process of nutrition in a young animal can scarcely be

considered as completely formed. Among the Romans lambs were not considered as pure or clean before the eighth day; nor calves before the thirtieth : Pecoris fœtus die octavo purus est, bovis trigesimo. -Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. viii.

The

Verse 31. Neither shall ye eat-flesh-torn of beasts in the field] This has been supposed to be an ordinance against eating flesh cut off the animal while alive, and so the Syriac seems to have understood it. If we can credit Mr. Bruce, this is a frequent custom in Abyssinia; but human nature revolts from it. reason of the prohibition against eating the flesh of animals that had been torn, or as we term it worried in the field, appears to have been simply this: That the people might not eat the blood, which in this case must be coagulated in the flesh; and the blood, being the life of the beast, and emblematical of the blood of the covenant, was ever to be held sacred, and was prohibited from the days of Noah. See on Gen. ix. 4.

In the conclusion of this chapter we see the grand reason of all the ordinances and laws which it contains. No command was issued merely from the sovereignty of God. He gave them to the people as restraints on disorderly passions, and incentives to holiness; and hence he says, Ye shall be holy men unto me. Mere outward services could neither please him nor profit them; for from the very beginning of the world the end of the commandment was love out of a pure heart and good conscience, and faith unfeigned, 1 Tim. i. 5. And without these accompaniments no set of religious duties, however punctually performed, could be pleasing in the sight of that God who seeks truth in the inward parts, and in whose eyes the faith that worketh by love is alone valuable. A holy heart and a holy, useful life God invariably requires in all his worshippers. Reader, how standest thou in his sight?

CHAPTER XXIII.

Laws against evil-speaking, 1. Against bad company, 2. Against partiality, 3. Laws commanding acts of kindness and humanity, 4, 5. Against oppression, 6. Against unrighteous decisions, 7. Against bribery and corruption, 8. Against unkindness to strangers, 9. The ordinance concerning the Sabbatical year, 10, 11. The Sabbath a day of rest, 12. General directions concerning circumcision, &c., 13. The three annual festivals, 14. The feast of unleavened bread, 15. The feast of harvest, and the feast of ingathering, 16. All the males to appear before God thrice in a year, 17. Different ordinances-no blood to be offered with leavened bread-nó fat to be left till the next day-the first fruits to be brought to the house of God—and a kid not to be seethed in its mother's milk, 18, 19. Description of the Angel of God, who was to lead the people into the promised land, and drive out the Amorites, &c., 20-23. Idolatry to be avoided, and the images of idols destroyed, 24. Different promises to obedience, 25-27. Hornets shall be sent to drive out the Canaanites, &c., 28. The ancient inhabitants to be driven out by little and little, and the reason why, 29, 30. The boundaries of the promised land, 31. No league or covenant to be made with the ancient inhabitants, who are all to be utterly expelled, 32, 33.

THOU shalt not braise a | bear to help him, thou shalt surely false report put not thine help with him.

hand with the wicked to be an 6 Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

and shall gather in the fruits thou shalt deal with thy vine-
yard, and with thy olive-yard. An. Exod. Isr. 1.
12 Six days thou shalt do thy
work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that
thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy
handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

11 But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner