But the Lord was acting in pure how the current ran. The fact of the lad being the son of a Jewish mother and of an Egyptian father afforded occasion to show that the law applied equally and impartially to the Jew and to the stranger. And his being the son of a well-known woman, Shelomith.(whose name might have suggested peacefulness to her son), daughter of Dibri, made the judgment passed on him appear the more impartial. Moses went to the Lord, while the blasphemer lay in ward. The sentence is calm and deliberate. The Lord commands that he be stoned. Every witness lays his hands on the blasphemer's head, as if to say, "Thy blood be on thyself;" and he is hurried beyond the camp, that is, beyond the place of blessing to the scene of curse -to where the sin-offering used to be burnt, probably. There he dies an awful death; and by his death leaves these warnings (ver. 15, 16) for all Israel. Even thus the sinner who despises "the name that is above every name" shall perish. The swearer, the blasphemer, the rash and irreverent, the quarrelsome and passionate, they who sin grievously under the provocation of injury, or under the ignorance and stupefaction of strong drink, belong to the class before us. So also do all those who despise and lightly esteem "that name" of Jesus. And, lo! every hand is put on their head, pointing to the fact that they themselves are to blame for their ruin! Even thus the unbelieving man perishes under the awful certainty that he is most justly doomed. Amid the crash of the shower of stones, the blasphemer's conscience louder far proclaimed to him that he deserved this doom; and, amid the flashing flames of the day of God, and the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, the unbeliev ing man who rejected "the only name given under heaven whereby we must be saved" (Acts iv. 12), shall hear the thunder of his own accusing conscience, "The Lord is righteous, and I am self-destroyed." Vers. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. surely be put to death. : "And he that killeth any man shall And he that killeth a beast shall make it good beast for beast. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbor; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death. Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God." The quarrel of Shelomith's son is still in view; and even it gives occasion to a statement of the Lord's mind. The first table requires reverence to the Lord; this has been enjoined. The second table requires kindness to our fellow-men; this is enjoined in ver. 17-21. Murder, however men may allege the excuse of passion or of drunkenness, or the like, shall be punished by death; and lesser injuries by corresponding penalties. In the case of a beast (ver. 21), the crime is not to be so judged, though in that case too, the man must make restitution ; but so precious in God's sight is the life of man, that death must ever be the penalty of murder. Stranger or fellow-countryman, the rule must apply alike to both. We see, 1. The Lord's Righteousness. His rule of equity and recompense is exhibited in judging the affairs of men. Men are taught his stern justice. 2. The Lord's grace to men. He draws a fence round their lives, for their souls' sake. As he was jealous for his own name, so is he for their safety. unto thee?" "Who is a God like Moses is now appointed to decide such quarrels by fixed rules. How differently would he feel at this time from what he did when too hastily he put himself forward in the quarrel between the Israelite and the Egyptian, and next day between the two men of Israel. Then he would have recompensed "breach for breach, tooth for tooth;" but to do so at that time was sinful in him. For he was not invested with authority; he was only giving vent to the natural feelings of righteous indignation at the sight of injustice perpetrated. Now, however, he acts as magistrate and "king in Jeshurun;" and when he enjoins "tooth for tooth, eye for eye," it is not done as the scribes enjoined (Matt. v. 38); it is not done by way of private revenge, but as representative of the Holy One of Israel. Ver. 23. "And Moses spake to the children of Israel, that they should bring forth him that had cursed out of the camp, and stone him with stones. And the children of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses." Moses came back from meeting with the Lord. He told the people that the Lord commanded the guilty man to be led forth out of the camp-away from the place where blessing fell like dew, and over which the pillar hovered, and where Jehovah dwelt, to a spot beyond the circle of the blessing, and there be stoned. Behold the wretched blasphemer led forth! His head covered, after he has cast his last look on the happy tents of Israel and his weeping, widowed mother; his hands bound, his lips quivering, his steps slow and heavy! A silent group attend him, and multitudes gaze afar off. The sentence and the principles of it have been just uttered by Moses in the name of God; and, with the conviction of his own desert plain even to himself, the man is struck to the earth and crushed to death. "Without the camp" he lies, a spectacle to angels and to men. Now, of what does that mangled and marred form emphatically speak to one that passes by? It speaks of the curse of an injured God. Each wound, left by the ponderous mass that some witness cast upon his shivering body, was an external representation of the infinite curse that cleaves to the condemned soul. And hence it is that when we see Jesus, "wounded and bruised," "his visage so marred more than any man, and his form than the sons of men," we therein see the marks of the curse having really fallen on him-the curse which our sins wreathed around him. The Father lays his hand on his holy head, as if pointing him out as guilty—but only guilty in our guilt-and every overwhelming curse is showered upon his head. "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." Never man spake like that man, and yet he seems visited with the same marks of tremendous wrath as this son of Shelomith. The wrath is equally real in both cases, while the reason is very different, in either case. The mangled body of Shelomith's son declared that the wrath due to him was poured out, and in exhausting its terrors had swept life away. Even so, the dead body of our Surety, all bruised and torn, declared to Joseph and Nicodemus as they wrapt it in the fine linen and spices, that the curse had fallen and had spent its fury on him. Oh, how they could have sung as they bore his body, his pale body, to the new hewn tomb without the gate, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us!" 19* Che Sabbatic Year, and the Year of Jubilee. MILLENNIAL TIMES. THERE REMAINETH, THEREFORE, A REST TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD."-Heb. iv. 9. THE YEAR OF MY REDEEMED IS COME."-Isaiah lxiii. 4. CHAPTER XXV. Vers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. "And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai,* saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord; thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of the harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat." As soon as they should be settled in the Promised * "In," that is, while still at the same region as when the preceding precepts were given; for Israel was a year there. Numbers x. 11, 12, says they did not remove till the second month of the second year after leaving Egypt. |