The Typology of Scripture

By Patrick Fairbairn
Published by Smith & English, 1854

BOOK THIRD.

CHAPTER III.

SECTION EIGHTH.

P. 365-398

SPECIAL RITES AND INSTITUTIONS CHIEFLY CONNECTED WITH SACRIFICE-- THE RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT---THE TRIAL AND OFFERING OF JEALOUSY--PURGATION FROM AN UNCERTAIN MURDER ORDINANCE OF THE RED HEIFER---THE LEPROSY AND ITS TREATMENT---DEFILEMENTS AND PURIFICATIONS- CONNECTED WITH CORPOREAL ISSUES AND CHILDBIRTH THE NAZARITE, AND HIS OFFERINGS -- DISTINCTIONS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN FOOD.

The subjects which, we bring together in this section, are of a somewhat peculiar and miscellaneous nature, though they have also certain points in common. We mean to introduce, respecting them, only so much as may be necessary for the explanation of what more particularly belongs to each, as the more general principles they embodied and illustrated have already been fully considered. The remarks to be submitted must, therefore, be taken in connection with what goes before respecting the greater and more important sacrificial institutions, and pre-suppose an acquaintance with it.

THE RATIFICATION OF THE COVENANT.

The account given of this solemn transaction is referred to in the epistle to the Hebrews (ch. ix. 18-22), with an especial respect to the use then made of the sacrificial blood, and for the purpose of proving, that as the inferior and temporary covenant then ratified, required the shedding of animal blood, blood of a far higher and more precious kind must have been required to seal the everlasting covenant brought in by Christ. The whole ceremony stood thus: Moses had on the previous clay read the law of the ten commandments, "the words of the Lord," in the audience of the people, with the few precepts and judgments that had been privately communicated to him after their promulgation; then, on the following morning, he caused an altar to be built under the hill, and twelve stones erected beside it, to represent the twelve tribes of the congregation; certain young men, appointed priests for the occasion, were next sent to kill oxen for burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and the blood of these slain victims being received in basins, Moses divided it into two parts --the one of which he sprinkled on the altar, thereby making atonement for their sins, and so rendering them ceremonially fit for being taken into a covenant of peace with God; and with the other half--after having again read the terms of the covenant, and obtained anew from the people a promise of obedience,--he sprinkled the people themselves and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words." It is added in the epistle to the Hebrews, that the book of the covenant was also sprinkled; which, we presume, must have been done with the first half of the blood, and with somewhat of the same meaning and design with which the mercy-seat, that was afterwards placed over the tables of the covenant, was annually sprinkled in the Most Holy Place.

The grand peculiarity in this service was manifestly the division of the blood between Jehovah and the people, and the sprinkling of the latter with the portion appropriated to them. We found something similar in the consecration of Aaron, whose extremities were touched with the blood of the ram of consecration. But the action here differed in various respects from the other, and was directed to the special purpose of giving a palpable exhibition of the oneness that now subsisted between the two parties of the covenant. Naturally they stood quite apart from each other. Sin had formed an awful gulph between them. But God having first accepted in their behalf the blood of atonement, by that portion which was sprinkled on the altar, they were brought into a capacity of union and fellowship with him; and then, when they had solemnly declared their adherence to the terms on which this agreement was to be maintained, and which simply contained a revelation of God's purposes of righteousness in regard to them, the agreement was formally cemented by the sprinkling of the other part of the blood upon them. Thus they shared part and part with God; the pure and innocent life he provided and accepted in their behalf became (symbolically) theirs; a vital and hallowed bond united the two into one; God's life was their life; God's table their table; and as a farther sign of this conjunction of feeling and interest., they partook of the meat of the peace- offerings, which formed the second kind of sacrifices presented.

The wonted and necessary imperfections of course marred the completeness of this service; and in Christ alone and his kingdom is a reality to be found, such as the necessities of the case and the demands of God's righteousness properly required. Here, too, the parties are naturally far asunder, the members of the covenant being all by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And that the covenant of reconciliation and peace might be established on a solid, satisfactory, and permanent basis, there must not only be the shedding of blood, but that blood must be such as both parties have a common interest in--such as might be truly called the blood of reconciliation---blood flowing from the heart of One, who was equally the seed of God and the seed of the woman. Such, in the strictest sense, was the blood of Jesus; and in it, therefore, we discern the real, the only real bond of peace, and sure foundation of an everlasting covenant between man and God. He, whose conscience is sprinkled with this, is thereby made partaker of a divine nature; he is received into the participation of the life of God, and is consecrated for evermore to live in the divine communion, and in obedience to the divine will. As the Father is in Christ, so Christ is in him, and he in Christ; and nothing in privilege is wanting for his being admitted into nearest connection with the Godhead, or to enable him to bring forth such fruits of righteousness, as are required of the possessors of such a dignity.

But a question may here, perhaps, suggest itself in respect to the covenant itself, which was ratified between God and Israel in the manner we have noticed. For if the terms of that covenant were, as we formerly endeavoured to shew, specially and peculiarly the law of the ten commandments, and if this law is equally binding on the church now as a permanent rule of duty, how should it have been taken as the distinctive covenant or bond of agreement with Israel? Was not this, after all, to place Israel simply on a footing with men universally? And does it not appear something like an incongruity, to ratify such a covenant by such symbolical and shadowy services? There would, undoubtedly, be room for such questions, if this covenant were entirely isolated from what went before, or came after--if not taken in connection with the relation out of which properly it grew, and with the ordinances and institutions by which it was necessarily followed up. On the one hand, the covenant was prescribed by God as having redeemed his people from a state of bondage, and conferred on them a title to an inheritance of blessing, thereby pledging himself to give whatever was essentially needed, to aid them in striving after conformity to its requirements of duty. But while these requirements of necessity pointed to the great lines of religious and moral duty binding on the church in every age--for God's own character of holiness being perpetually the same, he could not then take his people bound to live according to other principles of duty than are always obligatory -- while, therefore, they necessarily possessed that broad and general character, still, in the peculiar circumstances in which Israel stood, many things, on the other hand, necessarily came along with what properly constituted the terms of the covenant, and which were of a merely national, shadowy, and temporary kind. The redemption they had obtained was itself but a shadow of a greater one to come, and so also was the inheritance to which they were appointed. No adequate provision was yet made for the higher wants of their nature; and though, even in that lower territory, on which God was avowedly acting for them and openly revealing himself to them, he could not but exact from them a faithful endeavour after conformity to his law of holiness, as the condition of their abiding fellowship with him, yet the ostensible provision for securing this was also manifestly inadequate, and could only be regarded as temporary. So that the covenant on every hand stood related to the symbolical and typical, though itself neither the one nor the other. As it grew out of relations having a typical bearing, so it of necessity brought with it ordinances and institutions which had a typical character; "it had (appended to it, or bound up with it) ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary" (Heb. ix. 1.) These could not be dispensed with, during the continuance of that covenant; and the members of the covenant were bound to observe them, so long as the covenant Itself in that temporary form, lasted. The new covenant, however, can dispense with them, because it brings directly into view the things that belong to salvation in its higher interests, and ultimate realities. The inheritance now held out in prospect is the final portion of the redeemed, and the redemption that provides for their entrance into it is replete with all that their necessities require, It is, therefore, a better covenant, both because established upon better promises, and furnished with ampler resources for carrying its objects to a successful accomplishment. Yet, in respect to fundamental principles and leading aims, both covenants are at one; a people established in sacred union with God, and bound up to holiness that they may experience the blessedness of such a union---this is the paramount object of the one covenant as well as of the other.

THE TRIAL AND OFFERING OF JEALOUSY.

The prescribed ritual upon this subject, recorded in Numb. v. 11-31, is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the Mosaic code; and we introduce it here because it can only be rightly understood, when it is viewed in relation to the covenant-engagement between God and Israel. The national covenant had its parallel In every family of Israel, in the marriage-tie that bound together man and wife. This relation, so important generally for the welfare of individuals and the prosperity of states, was chosen as an expressive image of that in which the whole people stood to God; and on the understood connection between the two, Moses represents in another place (Numb. xv. 39), as the later prophets constantly do, the people's unfaithfulness to the covenant as a committing of whoredom toward God. It was, therefore, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Mosaic legislation, that the strongest enactments should be made respecting this domestic relation, that the behaviour of man and wife to each other throughout the families of Israel might present a faithful image of the behaviour Israel should maintain toward God, or if otherwise, that exemplary judgment might be inflicted. This was the more appropriate under the Mosaic dispensation, as it was in connection with the propagation of a pure and holy seed, that the covenant was to reach its great end of blessing the world. So that to bring corruption and defilement into the marriage-bed, was to pollute the very channel of covenant-blessing; and in the most offensive manner violate the obligation to purity imposed in the fundamental ordinance of circumcision. Adultery, therefore, if fully ascertained, must be punished with death (Lev. xx. 10), as a practice subversive of the whole design of the theocratic constitution. And not only must ascertained guilt in this respect be so dealt with, but even strong suspicions of guilt must be furnished with an opportunity of bringing the matter by solemn appeal to God, since guilt of this description, more than any other, is apt to escape detection by arts of concealment, and particularly in the case of the woman, has many facilities of doing so. It is also on the woman that most depends for the preservation of the honour and integrity of families, and hence of greater moment that incipient tendencies in the wrong direction should in her case be met by wholesome checks.

It was on this account that the ritual respecting the trial and offering of jealousy was prescribed. The terms of the ritual itself imply, and the understanding of the Jews we know actually was, that the rite was to be put in force only when very strong grounds of suspicion existed in regard to the fidelity of the wife. But when suspicion of such a kind arose, the man was ordained to go with his wife to the sanctuary, and appear before the priest. They were to take with them, as a corban or meat-offering, the tenth part of an ephah of barley-meal, but without the usual accompaniments of oil and frankincense. The priest was then to take holy water ---whence derived, it is not said, but most probably water from the laver is meant, and so the Chaldee paraphrast expressly renders it. This water the priest was to put into an earthen vessel, and mingle it with some particles of dust from the floor of the sanctuary. He was then to uncover the woman's' head, and administer a solemn oath to her--she meanwhile holding in her hand the corban, and he in his the vessel of water, which is now called "the bitter water that causeth the curse." The oath was to run thus: "If no man have lain with thee, and if thou has not gone aside unto uncleanness under thy husband (so it should be rendered, meaning, while under the law and authority of thy husband), be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse. But if thou hast gone aside under thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee, while under thy husband, the Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, by the Lord making thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; and this water that causeth the curse, shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot." To this the woman was to say, Amen, amen; and the priest proceeding meanwhile on the supposition of the woman's innocence, was then to blot out the words of the curse with the bitter water, and afterwards to wave the offering of barley flour before the Lord, burning a portion of it on the altar;--which done, he was to close the ceremony by giving the woman the remainder of the water to drink.

The most important part of the rite, undoubtedly, was the oath of purification. The spirit of the whole may be said to concentrate itself there. And, in accordance with the character generally of the Mosaic economy--a character that attached to the little as well as the great, to the individual as well as the general things belonging to it--the oath took the form of the lex talionis; on the one side, announcing exemption from punishment, if there was freedom from guilt; and on the other, denouncing and imprecating, when guilt had been incurred, a visitation of evil corresponding to the iniquity committed--viz. corruption and unfruitfulness in those parts of the body, which had been prostituted to purposes of impurity. The draught of water was added merely for the purpose of giving increased force and solemnity to the curse, and supplying a kind of representative agency for certifying its execution. It was called bitter, partly because the very subjection to such a humiliating service rendered it a bitter draught, and also, because it was to be regarded as (representatively) the bearer of the Lord's righteous jealousy against sin, and his readiness to be avenged of it; hence also, the water itself was to be holy water, the more plainly to denote, its connection with God; and to be mingled with dust, the dust of God's sanctuary, in token of its being employed by God with reference to a curse, and to shew, that the person who really deserved it was justly doomed to share in the original curse of the serpent (Gen. iii. 14, comp. Ps. Ixxii. 9. Mic. vii. 17.) Of course, the actual infliction of the curse depended upon the will and power of God, whose interference was at the time so solemnly invoked, and the action proceeded on the belief of a particular providence extending to individual cases, such as would truly distinguish between the righteous and the wicked. But the whole Mosaic economy was founded upon this assumption, and justly--since that God, without whom a sparrow falleth not to the ground, could not fail to make his presence and his power felt among the people, upon whom he more peculiarly put his name; nor refuse to make his appointed ordinances of vital efficacy, when they were employed in the way and for the purposes to which he had destined them. From not being acquainted with the whole of the circumstances, the principle might often appear to men involved in difficulty as regarded its uniform application. But that it was, especially then, and, with certain modifications, is still, a principle in the divine government, no believer in Scripture can reasonably doubt.

The other and subordinate things in the ceremonial--such as the use of an earthen vessel to contain the water, the appointment of barley-meal for an offering, without oil or incense, and the uncovering of the woman's head--admit of an easy explanation. The two former, being the cheapest things of their respective kinds, were marks of abasement, and were intended to convey the impression, that every woman should regard herself as humbled, on whose account they had to be employed. The impression was deepened by the absence of oil, the symbol of the Spirit, and of incense, the symbol of acceptable prayer. By the uncovering of the head, this was still more strikingly signified, as it deprived the woman of the distinctive sign of her chastity, and reduced her to the condition of one who had either to confess her guilt, or of one on trial to establish her innocence. The only parts of the transaction that are attended with real difficulty, are those which concern the presentation of the corban of barley-meal. Many both defective and erroneous views have been given of what relates to these; but without referring more particularly to them, we simply state our substantial concurrence with the view of Kurtz (Mosaische Opfer, p. 326), who has placed the matter, we think, in its proper light. This offering, which in v. 25, is called "the jealousy offering," is also in v. 15, called expressly the woman's offering. And that it is to be identified with her, rather than with the man, is plain also from the circumstance, that she was appointed, during the administration of the oath, to hold this in her hands. Nor can we justly understand more by the direction in v. 15, to the man to bring it, than that, as the whole property of the family belonged to him, he should be required to furnish out of his means what was necessary for the occasion. And as the woman was obliged to go with him to the sanctuary for this service, whenever the spirit of jealousy so far took possession of his mind, the offering, though more properly hers, might with perfect propriety be also called the offering of jealousy--being itself the offspring of the spirit of jealousy in the husband. The woman, as was stated, during the more important part of the ceremony, held the offering in her hands, while the priest held in his the water of the curse. The priest, then, appears as the representative and advocate of the man who holds his wife guilty, and, as such, fitly places himself before her with the symbol and pledge of the curse. The woman, on the other hand, maintaining her innocence, as fitly stands before him with the symbol of her innocence, the meat-offering, which was an image of good works, and hence could only be rendered by those who were in a full state of acceptance with God. As soon as the curse was pronounced, and the woman had responded her double Amen, then the articles changed hands. The priest received from the woman her meat-offering, waved and presented it to God, whose it is to try the reins; so that, if he found it a true symbol of her innocence, he might give her to know in her experience, that "the curse causeless should not come." The woman, on her part, received from the priest the water of the curse, and drank it; so that, if it were a true symbol of her guilt, it might be like the pouring out of the Lord's indignation in her innermost parts. Thus the matter was left in the hands of Him who is the searcher of hearts. If there was guilt before Him, then the offering was a remembrancer of iniquity; but if not, it would be a memorial of innocence, and a call to defend the just from false accusations of guilt. The whole service, viewed in respect to individuals, was fitted to convey a deep impression of the jealous care with which the holy eye of God watched over even the most secret violations of the marriage-vow, and the certainty with which he would avenge them. And viewed more generally, as an image of things pertaining to the entire commonwealth of Israel, it proclaimed in the ears of all the necessity of an unswerving and faithful adherence to covenant-engagements with God, otherwise the curse of indelible shame, degradation, and misery would inevitably befal them.

PURIFICATION FROM AN UNCERTAIN MURDER.

The rite appointed to be observed in this case so far resembles the preceding one, that they both alike had respect, not to the actual, but only to the possible guilt of the persons concerned. They differed, however, in the probable estimate that was formed of the relation of the parties to the hypothetical charge. The presumption in the last case was against the accused, here it is rather in their favour and so the rite in the one seemed more especially framed for bringing home the charge of iniquity, and in the other for purging it away. The rite in this case, however, should not be termed, as it is in the heading of our English bibles, and as it is also very commonly treated by divines, the expiation of an uncertain murder; for there is no proper atonement prescribed. The law is given in Deut. xxi. 1--9, and is shortly this:--When a dead body was found in the field, in circumstances fitted to give rise to the suspicion of the person having come to a violent end, while yet no trace could be discovered of the murderer, it was then to be presumed, that the guilt attached to the nearest city, either by the murderer having come from it, or from his having found concealment in it. That city, therefore, had a certain indefinite charge of guilt lying upon it--indefinite as to the parties really concerned in the charge, but most definite and particular as regards the greatness of the crime involved in it, and the treatment due to the perpetrator. For deliberate murder the law provided no expiation. Even for the infliction of death, not deliberately, but by some fortuitous and unintentional stroke, it did not appoint any rite of expiation, but only a way of escape, by means of a partial exile. Here, therefore, where the question is respecting a murder, the prescribed ritual cannot contemplate a work of expiation. Nor is the language employed fitted to convey that idea. The elders of the city were enjoined to go down into a valley with a stream in it, bringing with them a heifer which had never been yoked, and there strike off its head by the neck. Then in presence of the priests, the representatives and ministers of God, they were to wash their hands over the carcase of the slain heifer in token of their innocence, and to say, "Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge. And (it is added) the blood shall be forgiven them."

The forgiveness here meant was evidently forgiveness in the more general sense--the guilt in question would not be laid to the charge of the elders of the city, and the punishment due on account of it not inflicted upon them. They were personally cleared from the guilt, but the guilt itself was not atoned; there was a purgation, but not an expiation. And, accordingly, none of the usual sacrificial terms are applied to the transaction with the heifer. It is not called an oblation, a sacrifice, a sin or trespass-offering; nor was there any sprinkling of its blood upon the altar; and even the mode of killing it was different from that followed in all the proper sacrifices, not by the shedding of the blood, but by the lopping off of the head. Indeed, the process was merely a symbolical action of judgment and acquittal before the priests, not as ministers of worship, but as officers of justice. The heifer, young and unaccustomed to the yoke, therefore chargeable with no blame, was yet subjected to a violent death--a palpable representative of the case of the person whose life had been wantonly and murderously taken away. The carcase of this slain heifer is placed before the elders, and over it, as if it were the very carcase of the slain man, they wash their hands, and solemnly declare their innocence respecting the violent death that had been inflicted on him. The priests, sitting as judges, receive the declaration as satisfactory, and hold the city absolved of guilt. The washing of the hands in water was merely to give additional solemnity to this declaration, and exhibited symbolically what was presently afterwards announced in words. Hence, among other allusions to this part of the rite, the declaration of the Psalmist, "I will wash mine hands in innocence'"' (Ps. xxvi. 6); and the action of Pilate, when wishing to establish his innocence respecting the death of Jesus, though it cannot be considered as done with any allusion to the part here performed by the elders over the body of the heifer, yet serves to show how natural it was in the circumstances, according to the customs of antiquity. The leading object of the rite was to impress upon the people a sense of God's hatred of deeds of violence and blood, and make known the certainty with which he would make inquisition concerning such deeds, if they were allowed to proceed in the land. It was one of the fences thrown around the second table of the law; and if performed on all suitable occasions, must have powerfully tended to cherish sentiments of humanity in the minds of the covenant-people, and promote feelings of love between man and man.

ORDINANCE OF THE RED HEIFER.

The ordinance regarding the Red Heifer (described in Numb. xix.), had respect to actual defilements, though only of a particular kind, and to the means of purification from them. The defilements in question were such as arose from personal contact with the dead, such as the touching of a dead body, or dwelling in a tent where death had entered, or lighting on the bone of a dead man, or having to do with a grave in which a corpse had been deposited. In such cases a bodily uncleanness was contracted, which lasted seven days, and even then could not be removed but by a very peculiar element of cleansing, viz. the application of the ashes, mixed with water, of the body of a heifer, red-coloured, without blemish, unaccustomed to the yoke, burnt without the camp, and with cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet cast into the midst of the burning.

In regard, first, to the occasion of this very peculiar service, it will readily be understood, that, in accordance with the general nature of the symbolical institutions, the body stands as the representative and image of the soul, and its defilement and cleansing for actual guilt and spiritual purification. This, indeed, was clearly indicated in the ordinance being called "a purification for sin" (ver. 9). But it is the soul, not the body, which is properly chargeable with sin; and the whole, therefore, of what is here described, was evidently intended to serve merely as the shell and outward representation of inward and spiritual realities. Divine truths and lessons were embodied in it for all times and ages. For, what according to the uniform language of scripture, is death? It is the direful wages of sin---the visible, earthly recompense, with which God visits transgression; and being in itself the end and consummation of all natural evils, the state from which flesh naturally and most of all shrinks with instinctive abhorrence, it is the proper image of sin, both as regards its universal prevalence and its inherent loathsomeness. This may be said of death only in the aspect it carries to men's natural state and feelings; and much more may the same be affirmed of it when viewed in connection with the Most High. It stands in utter contrariety to his blessed and glorious nature. For, it is his to have life in himself, and to be even so inseparably connected with the powers and elements of life, that no corruption can dwell in his presence. But death is the very essence of corruption; it is therefore most abhorrent to his nature, and has been appointed as the proper doom of sin, the sign and evidence of sin's exceeding sinfulness.

This is the painful truth which lies at the foundation of the whole of this rite about the Red Heifer. It is a rite which presents in bold relief what was one grand design of the law's observances, the bringing of sin to remembrance, and teaching the necessity of men's being purified from its pollution. It is true there was no actual sin in simply touching a dead body, or being in the place where such a body lay. In the case of ordinary persons it was even a matter of duty to defile one's self in connection with the death of near relatives. But as the corporeal relations were here made the signs and interpreters of the spiritual, there was, in such cases, the coming, on the part of the living body, into contact with what bore on it the awful mark and impress of sin--a breathing of the polluted atmosphere of corruption, most alien to the region, full of incorruptible and blessed life, where Jehovah has his peculiar dwelling. Therefore, in a symbolical religion like the Mosaic, the neighbourhood or touch of a dead body, was most fitly regarded as forming an interruption to the intercourse between God and his people--as placing them in a condition of external unfitness for approaching the sanctuary of his presence and glory, or even for having freedom to go out and in among the living in Jerusalem. That sin, which is the bitter well-spring of death, is utterly at variance with the soul's peace and fellowship with God--that it should, therefore, be most carefully watched against and shunned--that on finding his conscience defiled with its pollution, the sinner should regard himself as incapacitated for holding intercourse with heaven, or performing any wrork of righteousness, and should betake himself without delay to the appointed means of purification,--these are the important and salutary truths which the Lord sought continually to impress upon the people by means of the bodily defilements in question, and the channel provided for obtaining purification.

In regard now to the purifying apparatus, there are certainly some points connected with it, which it is scarcely possible to explain quite satisfactorily, and which probably refer to customs or notions too familiar and prevalent in the age of Moses to have then appeared at all strange or arbitrary. But the leading features of the ordinance would present, we conceive, little difficulty, were it not that the whole has been viewed in a somewhat mistaken light. Recent, as well as former, writers have generally gone on the supposition that the ideas concerning sin, and atonement or cleansing, are here represented in a peculiarly intense form, and that from this point of view everything must be explained. We regard the occasion as pointing rather in the opposite direction. It was not an ordinance strictly speaking for sin, but for a sort of incidental, corporeal connection with the effect and fruit of sin--the means of purification not from personal transgression, but from a merely external contact with the consequence of transgression--a symbolical ordinance of cleansing for what, in itself, was only a symbolical defilement. Directly, therefore, and properly it is the flesh and not the spirit that is concerned; and we might certainly expect a marked inferiority in various respects between this ordinance, and such ordinances as were for deliverance from personal transgression. This is precisely what we find. The victim appointed was a female, while in all the proper sin-offerings for the congregation, a male, an ox, was required. And of this victim no part came upon the altar; even the blood was only sprinkled before the tabernacle of the congregation, and that, not by the high-priest, but only by the son of the high-priest; and while the carcase was burnt entire without the camp, not even the skin or the dung was removed from it. From the respect the offering had to bodily defilements, the priest and the other persons engaged in the work, contracted a similar defilement, and had to wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water. That the ashes were regarded as in themselves clean, is obvious from a clean person being required to gather them up and put them in a clean place; as also from their being the appointed means of purification. For this it was necessary that living or running water should be poured upon them; and then during the seven days that the defilement from contact with the dead lasted, the persons or articles requiring it were twice sprinkled, first on the third, then on the seventh day; after which the restraint was taken off, as to fellowship with the camp. The mixture of the ashes strengthened the cleansing property of the water, not, however (as Bahr thinks), by rendering it a sort of wash,--if that had been all, common ashes might have served the purpose---but rather from their connection with the sin-offering, through which the curse of death was taken away. And the bearing of the whole on Christian times, with respect to the higher work of Christ, is so plainly and distinctly intimated in the epistle to the Hebrews, that there is no need for any further comment: "If the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!" Whoever looks with this view to the ordinance, will see in it the perfect purity and completeness of Christ's character, the corrupt and loathsome nature of that for which he died, the efficacy, and alone efficacy of his blood, so that he who has not this applied to his conscience must inevitably perish.

[We have taken little or no notice of some of the peculiarities connected with this ordinance, which have given rise to much discussion, but have, as yet, ended in no satisfactory result. The female sex of the victim (sufficiently accounted for, we trust, above), has been thought by Bahr to point to Eve, or the female sex generally, as the mother of life among men, and others have produced equally fanciful reasons. The colour was by the Jewish doctors accounted of such difficult interpretation, that they conceived the wisdom of Solomon to have been inadequate to the discovery of it. With Bahr it is the colour of blood, life: with Hengstenberg of sin, &c. And the latter recently, as well as many others in former times, have found an allusion in it to the Egyptian notion, that the evil god Typhon was of red colour, and the practice prevalent in Egypt of sacrificing red bullocks to him. Only, that the rite here might savour somewhat less of heathenism, not a bullock, but an heifer, was required, to discountenance the idolatrous veneration paid in Egypt to the cow. We deem it quite unnecessary to enter upon any exposure of such fanciful notions. It was more likely, we conceive, that the colour should bear a respect to the body or flesh of man, for which immediately the offering was presented. Man's body having been taken from the ground, he was called Adam (***), and it is the same word, only differently pointed, so as to make it sound edom, which signified red--probably because the kind of redness denoted was a sort of ground or earth-colour. Without searching for any more recondite reasons, one can easily perceive a propriety in this particular victim being of such a colour, as it had more especially to represent and stand for the bodies of the people. However, no particular stress should be laid upon the circumstance. The burning along with the victim of cedar-wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, has also given rise to a great variety of suppositions. The cedar from its loftiness, and the hyssop from its smallness, have been regarded by Hengstenberg (Egypt and Books of Moses, and again in Commen. on Ps. li. 7) as emblems, the one of the divine majesty, and the other of the divine condescension. But the supposition is quite arbitrary, and has nothing properly to support it in Scripture. Besides, it could scarcely be the lofty cedar, which was meant to be used in the ordinance, for such were not to be found in the desert; it must rather have been some species of juniper. (See Bib. Cyclop, art. Eres.) The hyssop, it would appear, was anciently thought to possess some sort of medicinal or abstergent properties, and on that account probably was so much used in purifications. It appears to have been generally used among the Hebrews in sprinklings, along with some portion of scarlet wool. (Comp. Ex. xii. 22; Lev. xiv. 6, 7; Ps. li. 7; Heb. ix. 19). It is quite possible that notions and customs regarding these articles, of which now no certain information is to be had, may have led to their use on such occasions as the present. It would seem, however, from what is said in the case of the leper (Lev. xiv. 6, 7), that their use was merely to apply the cleansing or purifying element--the scarlet and hyssop being probably attached to a stick of cedar. On this account a portion of each was here burnt along with the carcase of the heifer, as the whole together were to furnish the means of purification. But it is needless to pursue the matter farther, as certainty is unattainable, and little comparatively depends on it for a general understanding of the purport and design of the ordinance.]

THE LEPROSY AND ITS PURIFICATION.

The case of the leper, with its appointed means of purification, stood in a very close relation to the one just considered, and the lessons taught in each are to a considerable extent the same. As disease generally is the fruit and evidence of sin, every form of disease might have been held to be polluting, and to have required separate purifications. This, however, would have rendered the ceremonial observances an intolerable burden. One disease, therefore, was chosen in particular, and that such an one as might fitly be regarded at the head of all diseases, the most affecting symbol of sin. This disease, that of leprosy, is described with much minuteness by Moses (Lev. xiii., xiv.), and various marks are given to distinguish it from others, which, though somewhat resembling it, yet did not possess its inveterate and virulent character. It began in the formation of certain spots upon the skin, small at first, but gradually increasing in dimensions; at their first appearance of a reddish colour, but by and by presenting a white, scaly shining aspect, attended by little pain, but incapable of being healed by any known remedy. Slowly, yet regularly, the spots continued to increase, till the whole body came to be overspread with them, and assumed the appearance of a white, dry, diseased, unwholesome scurf. But the corruption extended inwardly while it spread outwardly, and affected even the bones and marrow; the joints became first relaxed, then dislocated; fingers, toes, and even limbs dropt off; and the body at length fell to pieces, a loathsome mass of dissolution and decay. Such is the description of the disease given in Scripture, taken in connection with what is known of certain bodily disorders which still go by the name of leprosy. It was disease manifesting itself peculiarly in the form of corruption--a sort of living death.

Persons on whom any apparent symptoms were found of this disease, were ordered to go to the priests for inspection; and if it was ascertained to be real leprosy, then the diseased was removed into a separate apartment, and shut out of the camp, or the city, as a person politically dead. So rigidly was this regulation enforced, that even Miriam, the sister of Moses, could not obtain exemption from it; nor at a later period king Azariah, since we are told, that from the time he was smitten with leprosy to the day of his death, "he dwelt in a several house" (2 Kings xv. 5)---literally, a house of emancipation, as one discharged from the ordinary service and occupations of the Lord's people. Even in the kingdom of Samaria, where the divine laws were by no means so strictly observed, the history presents to our view lepers dwelling in a separate house before the gate, which they were not permitted to leave even during the straitness of a siege. (2 Kings vii. xiii.) And that there was a place or hill set apart for such in Jerusalem, and called by their name, may be inferred from Jer. xxxi. 38, where mention is made of the hill Gareb, which means, the hill of the leprous.

Besides this careful separation of the leper, he was to carry about with him every mark of sorrow and distress, going with rent clothes, with bare and uncovered head, with a bandage on the chin or lip, and when he saw any one approaching, was to give timely warning of his condition by crying out, "Unclean, unclean!" Why, we naturally ask, all this in the case only of leprosy? It could not be simply because it was a severe and dangerous disease, for no other disease was ordered to have such signs of grief attached to it, nor did they give occasion to uncleanness, excepting the disorders connected with generation and birth--presently to be noticed. Neither could such singular precautions and painful treatment have been employed here on account of the infectious character of the disease, as if the great object were to prevent it spreading around. For, had that been all, several of the things prescribed would have been needless aggravations of the distress, such as the rent clothes, bare head, and covered chin; and, besides, the diseases which go by the name of leprosy, and which are understood to possess the same general character, though hereditary, are now known not to be infectious; while the really infectious diseases, such as fevers, or the plague, have no place whatever in the law, either as regards uncleanness or purification.

The only adequate reason that can be assigned for the manner in which leprosy was thus viewed and treated, was its fitness to serve as a symbol of sin, and of the treatment those who indulge in sin might expect at the hand of God. It was the visible sign and expression upon the living, of what God thought and felt upon the subject. Hence, when he manifested his righteous severity toward particular persons, and testified his displeasure against their sins by the infliction of a bodily disease, it was in the visitation of leprosy that the judgment commonly took effect, as in the case of Miriam, Uzziah, and Gehazi. Hence, also, Moses warned the people against incurring such a plague (Deut. xxiv. 9); and when David besought the infliction of God's judgment upon the house of Joab, leprosy was one of the forms in which he wished it might appear. (2 Sam. iii. 29). So general was the feeling in this respect, that the leprous were proverbially called the smitten, i. e. the smitten of God, and from the Messiah being described in Isaiah as so smitten, certain Jewish interpreters inferred that he would be afflicted with leprosy. (Hengst., Christol. on Isaiah liii. 4). Now, viewing the disease thus, as a kind of visible copy or image of sin, judicially inflicted by the immediate hand of God on the living body of the sinner, it is not difficult to understand how the leper especially should have been regarded as an object of defilement, as theocratically dead, until he was recovered and purified. He bore upon him the impress and mark of iniquity, the begun and spreading corruption of death, the appalling seal of Heaven's condemnation. He was a sort of death in life, a walking sepulchre (Spencer, "sepulchrum ambulans"), unfit while in such a state to draw near to the local habitation of God, or to have a place among the living in Jerusalem. And his exiled and separate condition, his disfigured dress, and lamentable appearance, while they proclaimed the sadness of his case, bore striking testimony at the same time to the holiness of God, and solemnly warned all who saw him to beware how they should offend against Him. But these things are written also for our learning, and the malady with its attendant evils, though no longer visible to the bodily eye, speaks still to the ear of faith. It tells us of the insidious and growing nature of sin, spreading, if not arrested by the merciful interposition of God, from small beginnings to an universal corruption--of the inevitable exclusion which it brings when indulged in, from the fellowship of God, and the society of the blessed--of the deplorable and unhappy condition of those who are still subject to its sway--and of the competency of divine grace alone to bring deliverance from the evil.

The purification of the leper had three distinctly marked stages. The first of these bore respect to his reception into the visible community of Israel, the next to his participation in their sacred character, and the last to his full re-establishment in the favour and fellowship of God. When God was pleased to recover him from the leprosy, and the priest pronounced him whole, before he was permitted to leave his isolated position outside the camp or city, two living clean birds were to be taken for him; the one of which was then to be killed over a vessel of living or fresh water, so that the blood might intermingle with the water, and the other, after being dipt in this blood-water, was let loose into the open field. That the two birds were properly only one offering, like the two goats on the day of atonement, and that they represented the leper in his two different states, is clear as day. The death of the one imaged the doom that lay upon him on account of his impurity, and which was only prevented from taking full effect upon him by the special intervention of divine goodness. The dipping of the other bird in the blood of the former one, mingled with water, accompanied with the sprinkling of its blood on the leper himself, this represented his participation in the life that had been accepted for him--a life, as imaged in the other bird, of enlargement and freedom. As partaker in this new life, he saw in that bird's dismissal, to fly wherever it pleased among the other fowls of heaven, his own liberty to enter into the society of living men, and move freely up and down among them. But in token of his actual participation in the whole, and his being now separated from his uncleanness, he must wash his clothes and his flesh also, even shave his hair, that every remnant of his impurity might appear to be removed, and nothing be left to mar the freedom of his intercourse with his fellow-men.

In all this, however, there was no proper atonement, and though the ban was so far removed that the leper was now regarded as a living man, and could enter into the society of other living men, he was by no means admitted to the privileges of a member of God's covenant. He had to remain for an entire week out of his own dwelling. Then for his restoration to the full standing of an Israelite, he had to bring a lamb for a tresspass-offering, another for a sin-offering, and another still for a burnt-offering, with the usual meat-offering, and a log of oil. The lamb for the trespass-offering and the log of oil were for his consecration--the second stage of the process; and for this purpose they were first waved before the Lord. Then with a portion of the blood of the trespass-offering, the priest sprinkled his right ear, the thumb of his right hand, the great toe of his right foot, repeating the same action afterwards with the oil, and pouring also some upon his head. This action with the blood and oil was much the same with that observed in the consecration of the priesthood; but differed, in that the blood used on this occasion was that of a trespass-offering, whereas the blood used on the other was that of a peace-offering. The service still farther differed, in that here the consecration came first, whereas as in the case of Aaron the sin and burnt-offering preceded it. The differences, however, are such as naturally arose out of the peculiar situation of the restored leper. As a man under the ban of God and the doom of death, he had lost his place in the kingdom of priests---the Lord's consecrated family. By a special act of consecration he must be received again into the number of this family, before he can be admitted to take any part in the usual services of the congregation. And the blood by which this was chiefly done, was most appropriately taken from the blood of a trespass or guilt-offering, because having forfeited his life to God, there was here, according to the general nature of such an offering, the payment of the required ransom, the (symbolical) discharge of the debt; so that he was at one and the same time installed as the Lord's freeman, and consecrated for his service. The consecration of Aaron, on the other hand, was that of one who already belonged to the kingdom of priests, and only required an immediate sanctification for the peculiar and distinguished office to which he was to be raised. It, therefore, came last, and the blood used was fitly taken of the peace-offering. But when the recovered leper had been thus far restored--his feet standing within the sacred community of God's people, his head and members anointed with the holy oil of divine refreshment and gladness, he was now permitted and required to consummate the process by bringing a sin-offering, a burnt-offering, and a meat-offering, that his access to God's sanctuary, and his fellowship with God himself, might be properly established. What could more impressively bespeak the arduous and solemn nature of the work, by which the outcast, polluted and doomed sinner regains an interest in the kingdom and blessing of God! The blood and Spirit of Christ, appropriated by a sincere repentance and a living faith, this, but this, alone can accomplish the restoration. Till that is done, there is only exclusion from the family of God, and alienation from the life that is in him. But that truly done, the child of death lives again, he that was lost is again found. [1]

DEFILEMENTS AND PURIFICATIONS CONNECTED WITH CORPOREAL ISSUES AND THE PROPAGATION OF SEED.

A considerable variety of prescriptions exist in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, relating to these defilements and purifications; but, for obvious reasons, we refrain from going into particulars, and content ourselves with giving their general scope and design. The laws upon the subject are to be found chiefly in the 12th and the 15th ch. of Leviticus, the one relating to the uncleanness arising from the giving birth to children, and the other to that arising from issues in the organs therewith connected. The impurities of this class were all more or less directly connected with the production of life. And it may seem strange, at first sight, that production and birth, as well as disease and death, should have been marked in the law as the occasions of defilement. It would be not only strange, but inexplicable, were it not for the doctrine of the fall, and the inherent depravity of nature growing out of it. By reason of this the powers of human life are tainted with corruption, and all that pertains to the production of life, as well as to its cessation, appears enveloped in the garments of impurity. That the whole was viewed in this strictly moral light, and not in relation to natural health or cleanliness, is evident--not only from the predominantly ethical character of the whole legislation of Moses, but also from the kind of purifications prescribed, in which atonement is spoken of as being made in behalf of the parties concerned (Lev. xil. 6, xv. 30); and also from the references made to the cases under consideration in other parts of Scripture---as in Ezek. xxxvl 17, Lam. i. 17--which point to them as defilements in a moral respect. There is no possibility of obtaining a satisfactory view of the subject, or accounting for the place assigned such things in the symbolical ritual of Moses, excepting on the ground of that moral taint, which was believed to pervade all the powers and productions of human nature, and thus regarding them as an external embodiment of the truth uttered by the Psalmist, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps. ii. 5.) Some of the Hebrew doctors themselves have virtually expressed this idea, as in the following quotation produced from one of them by Ainsworth on Lev. xii. 4, "No sin-offering is brought but only for sin; and it seemeth unto me, that there is a mystery in this matter, concerning the sin of the old serpent"---the sin, namely, introduced by the temptation of the old serpent, and in immediate connection with the moral weakness of the woman.

Indeed, it is by a reference to that original act of transgression that we can most easily explain, both the general nature of the legal prescriptions respecting defilements and purifications of this sort, and some of the more striking peculiarities belonging to them. In what took place in that fundamental transaction an image was presented of what was to be ever afterwards occurring. The woman having taken the leading part in the transaction, she was made to reap in her natural destiny most largely of its bitter fruits; and that especially in respect to child-bearing: "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." No doubt, the evil originating in the fall was to cleave to the nature, and appear in the condition of each portion of the human family; but in the female portion the signs of it were to be most apparent, and particularly in connection with the bearing of children. This one fact, prominently written in God's word, and perpetually exemplified in history, sufficiently accounts for the peculiar stress laid on the case of the female in the regulations of the law. The occasions that called for purification on the other side, were comparatively rare; but in hers they were of constant recurrence. And hence also, partly at least, is to be explained the difference in regard to the continuance of the period of her uncleanness, when the birth was a female child, as compared with what it was at the birth of a male. In the one case a term of seven days only of total separation from the usual business and intercourse of life, and three and thirty more from the sanctuary; but in the other a term of fourteen days of total separation, and sixty-six more from the sanctuary. It was not from any physical diversity in the cases, as regards the mother herself, that the two periods in the latter case were exactly the double of those in the former; but because it was the birth of one of that sex, with which the signs of corruption in this respect were more peculiarly connected. Partly, we say, on this account, not wholly; for the express mention of circumcision in the case of the male child (ch. xii. v. 3), seems plainly intended to ascribe to that circumstance a portion of the difference. The first stage of the mother's cleansing terminated with the circumcision of her son. On the eighth day he had the corruption of his fleshly nature (symbolically) removed, and stood, as it were, by himself, as the mother also by herself. The terms of separation, therefore, were fitly shortened, so as to make the one only a full week, and the other a full month. But in the case of a female child there was no ordinance to distinguish so precisely between the mother and her offspring; and as if there were a prolonged connection in what occasioned the defilement, so there was for her a prolonged period of separation from social life, and access to the sanctuary. Together with the other circumstances referred to, this is enough to account for the seeming anomaly; and serves also to render more obviously and conclusively certain the reference in the whole matter to moral considerations.

There is no necessity for enlarging on the prescribed means of purification. They were such, both in the case of men and women, as to bear distinct reference to guilt, and to renewed surrender to the Lord's service. A sin-offering, as well as a burnt-offering was necessary. But to render the way of pardon and acceptance open to all, turtle-doves or pigeons were allowed to be substituted for the more expensive offerings.

THE NAZARITE AND HIS OFFERINGS,

The institution of the Nazarite vow is introduced without any explanation (Numb. vi), either as to the manner or the reason of its original appointment; and some have hence inferred that its origin is to be sought in Egypt, and only its proper regulation to be ascribed to Moses. But no traces of it have been found among the antiquities of Egypt, nor could it properly exist there. The ISTazarite was to be a living type and image of holiness, he was to be in his person and habits a symbol of sincere consecration and devotedness to the Lord, It was no mere ascetical institution, as if the outward bonds and restraints, the self-denials in meat and drink, were in themselves well-pleasing to the Lord, Such a spirit was as foreign to Judaism as it is to Christianity. The Nazarite was an acted, symbolical lesson in a religious and moral respect; and the outward observances to which he was bound, were merely intended to exhibit to the bodily eye the separation from every thing sinful and impure required of the Lord's servants.

The import of the name, Nazarite, is simply the separate one, and the vow he took--in all ordinary cases, voluntarily took--upon him, is said to have been (v. 2.) "for separating to the Lord." What was implied in this separation? There must have been, unquestionably, a withdrawing from one class of things as unbefitting, that there might be the more free and devoted application to another class, as proper and becoming. And we shall best understand what both were by glancing at the requirements of the vow.

The first was an entire abstinence from all strong drink; from whatever was made of grapes--from grapes themselves, whether moist or dried, from everything belonging to the vine. There can be no doubt that it was the intoxicating property of the fruit of the vine, which formed the ground of this prohibition; for special stress is laid upon the strength of the drink; and as the vine in Eastern countries was the chief source of such drink (although other ingredients, it would seem, were sometimes added to increase the strength) not only wine itself, but the fruit of the vine in every shape, even in forms without any intoxicating tendency, was interdicted--that the separation might be the more marked and complete. A like abstinence was imposed upon the priests when engaged in sacred ministrations (Lev. x. 8). Like the ministering priest, the Nazarite was peculiarly separated to the Lord, and in his drink, not less than other things, he was to be an embodied lesson, regarding the manner in which the divine service was to be performed. This service---such was the import of that part of the Nazarite institution--requires a withdrawal and separation from whatever unfits for active spiritual employment---from everything which stupifies and benumbs the powers of a divine life, and disposes the heart for carnal pleasure and excitement, rather than for sacred duty. There must, indeed, be a careful and becoming reserve in regard to the means and occasions of a literal intoxication but not in respect to these alone. The more inward and engrossing love of money--the eager pursuit after worldly aggrandizement--or the delights of a soft and luxurious ease, may as thoroughly intoxicate the brain, and incapacitate the soul for spiritual employment as the more grovelling vice of indulgence to excess in liquor. From all such, therefore, the true servant of God is here warned to abstain, and admonished to keep his vessel, in soul and body, as holiness to the Lord.

The next thing exacted of the Nazarite was to leave his hair unshorn. And this was so different from the prevailing custom, yet so strictly enjoined upon him, that it might be regarded as the peculiar badge of his condition. Hence, if by accidentally coming into contact with any unclean object, his vow was broken, he had to shave his head and enter anew on his course of service. So also, when the period of the vow was expired, his hair was cropt and burned as a sacred thing upon the altar. Thus he was said to bear "the consecration (literally the separation, the distinctive mark, the crown) of his God upon his head." The words readily suggest to us those of the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. xi. 10, and the appointment itself is best illustrated by a reference to the idea there expressed. Speaking of the propriety of the woman wearing long hair, as given to her by nature for a modest covering, and a token of subjection to her husband, the Apostle adds, that "for this reason she must have power upon her head;" i. e. (taking the sign for the thing signified, as circumcision for the covenant, Gen. xvii. 10), she must wear long hair, covering her head, as a symbol of the power under which she stands, a sign of her subjection to the authority of the man. For the same reason, because the hair did not cover the face, a veil was added, to complete the sign of subjection. But the man, on the other hand, having no earthly superior, and being in his manly freedom and dignity the image of the glory of God, should have his face unveiled, and his hair cropt; hence, it was counted even a shame, a renouncing of the proper standing of a man, a mark of effeminate weakness and degeneracy for men, like Absalom, to cultivate long tresses. But the Nazarite, who gave himself up by a solemn vow of consecration to God, and who should therefore ever feel the authority and the power of his God upon him, most fitly wore his hair long, as the badge of his entire and willing subjection to the law of his God. By the wearing of this badge he taught the church then, and the church, indeed, of all times, that the natural power and authority of man, which in nature is so apt to run out into self-will, stubbornness, and pride, must in grace yield itself up to the direction and supremacy of Jehovah. The true child of God has renounced all claim to the control and mastery of his own condition. He feels he is not his own, but bought with a price, and, therefore, bound to glorify God with his body and spirit, which are his. [2]

The only other restriction laid upon the Nazarite, of a special kind, was in regard to contracting defilement from the dead; for, like the priest, he was discharged from entering into the chamber of death and mourning for his nearest relatives. Separated for God, in whose presence death and corruption can have no place, the Nazarite must ever be found in the habitations and the society of the living. He must have no fellowship with what bore so distinctly impressed on it the curse and wages of sin. But this sin itself is, in the sphere of the spiritual life, what death is in the natural. It is the corruption and death of the soul. And as the Nazarite was here also an embodied lesson regarding things spiritual and divine, he was a living epistle, that might be known and read of all men, warning them to resist temptation, and flee from sin--teaching them that, if they would live to God, they must walk circumspectly, and strive to keep themselves unspotted from the world.

Such persons in Israel must have been eminently useful, if raised up in sufficient number, and going with fidelity and zeal through the fulfilment of their vow, in keeping alive upon men's consciences the holy character of God's service, and stimulating them to engage in it. The Nazarites are hence mentioned by Amos along with prophets, as among the chosen instruments whom God provided for the good of his people, in proof of his covenant-faithfulness and love: "And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites" (ii. 11). They were a kind of inferior priesthood in the land--by their manner of life, as the priests, by the duties of their office, acting the part of symbolical lights and teachers to Israel. And the institution was farther honoured by being connected with three of the most eminent servants of God--Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist--on whom the vow was imposed from their very birth, to shew that they were destined to some special and important work of God. This destination to a high and peculiar service, in connection with the Nazarite vow, still more clearly indicated its symbolical character; the more so, as the end of the institution appears to be always the more fully realized, the higher the individual's calling, and the more entirely he consecrated himself to its fulfilment. Of the three Nazarites referred to, Samson was unquestionably the least, because in him the spiritual separation and surrender to the Lord was most imperfect; he did not resist the temptation to which his singular gift of corporeal strength exposed him, of trusting too much to self; and the gift, when exercised, led him to act chiefly on the lower and merely physical territory. Though in one respect a remarkable witness of the wonderful things which God could do even on that territory by a single instrument of working, he yet proved in another a sad monument of the inefficacy of such instruments to regenerate and save Israel. A far higher manifestation of divine power and goodness developed itself in Samuel, by whom, more than all the other judges, the cause of God was revived; and a higher yet again in John the Baptist. But highest and greatest of all was Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the idea of the Nazarite rises to its grand and consummate realization--although in this, as in other things, the outward symbol was dropt, as no longer needed. In him alone has one been found who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," light of light, perfect even as the Father is perfect, so that, without the least flaw of sin or failing of weakness, he executed immeasurably the mightiest undertaking that ever was committed to the charge of a messenger of Heaven.

The offerings prescribed for the Nazarite, refer to two points in his history--to his contracting defilement, whereby the vow was broken, and to the period of its fulfilment. In the first case he had to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, having, like the leper, contracted a debt in the reckoning of God, by which he became liable to judgment, and so requiring to be discharged from this bond, before anything could be accepted at his hands. One pigeon, or turtle-dove, for a sin-offering, and another for a burnt-offering, had also to be brought, that he might enter anew on his vow, as from the starting-point of full peace and fellowship with God; and the time past being all lost, his hair had to be cut or shaved, to mark the entirely new commencement. Then, when his period of consecration was finished, he had to bring a whole round of offerings--a sin-offering, in token that, however carefully he might have kept himself for the Lord, sin had still mingled itself with his service, and that he was far from having anything to boast of before God--a burnt-offering, to indicate his desire that not only the sins of the past might be blotted out, but that the imperfection of his obedience to the will of God might be supplemented by a more full, an entire surrender; lastly, a peace-offering, with various kinds of bread and drink-offerings (including wine, of which he also now partook), to manifest that he ceased from his peculiar state of consecration, and entered upon the more ordinary path of dutiful obedience, in settled friendship and near communion with God.

DISTINCTIONS OF CLEAN AND UNCLEAN IN FOOD.

The distinctions made in the Mosiac law, regarding food, are quite analogous in their nature to some of the prescriptions already noticed under the preceding heads, and stand also in several respects very closely related to the sacrificial institutions. From this latter respect, certain portions of all animals were forbidden to be used as food--the blood, the fat that covered the inwards, probably also these inwards themselves, and the tail of the sheep, which, in the Syrian sheep is a mass of fat. These were the parts which were set apart in sacrifice for the altar of the Lord, and were hence regarded as too sacred for common use (Lev. iii. 17, xvii. 11). Why such parts in particular were devoted to the altar, has already been considered.--With the exception of the parts just mentioned, the bodies of all creatures, that could be used in sacrifice, were considered as clean and given for food. More, indeed, than these; for the permission extended to all animals that at once, chew the cud and divide the hoof, comprising chiefly the ox, sheep, goat, and deer species--to such fish as have both fins and scales--and in regard to fowls, though no general rule is given, but only individuals are mentioned, yet it would appear that such as feed on grain or grass were allowed. All others, such as birds of prey, feeding on other birds or carrion, or fish, or insects, serpents, and creeping things, fishes without scales or fins, and animals that do not both divide the hoof and chew the cud, were accounted unclean, and expressly forbidden. [3]

Now, in thinking of what was thus prohibited and allowed in respect to food, we can see at a glance, that the restrictions could not have been issued for the purpose properly of forming a check upon the gratification of the palate. The articles permitted, include, with very few exceptions, all that the most refined and civilized nations still choose for their food. And whether from a certain natural correspondence between the bodily taste, and the kinds of meat in question, or from these possessing the qualities best adapted for food and nourishment, or perhaps from both together, it is at least manifest, that the restrictions under which the Israelites were here laid, imposed upon them no heavy burden; and that practically they were allowed to eat nearly all that it was desirable or proper for them to consume. [4]

Some commentators have rested the whole matter upon this ground; and have thought that the prohibition to use other kinds of flesh was sufficiently accounted for, by those allowed being the most easy of digestion, the fullest of nourishment, the best adapted to prevent disease, and promote a healthful state of body. In these respects the kinds permitted were certainly of the highest order; but this is the whole that can be said, as some of those prohibited were not absolutely either distasteful or unhealthy. And it was a proof of the divine wisdom and goodness in this part of the legal arrangements, that the articles appointed for food were among the best which the earth affords. But higher grounds than this must have entered into the distinction; otherwise, the line of demarcation would not have been drawn as between clean and unclean, but rather as between wholesome and unwholesome. That the different species permitted were pronounced clean, this evidently brought them within the territory of religion--defilement, excision, death was the consequence of trespassing the appointed landmarks (Lev. xi. 43-47). The law respecting the two classes is made to rest, in the passage referred to, upon the same footing with all the rights and institutions of Judaism, viz., the holiness of God, demanding a corresponding holiness on the part of his people. So that the outward distinctions could only have been intended to be observed as symbolical of something inward and spiritual. Of what, then, symbolical?

If we look to the Jewish doctors for the answer, we shall certainly find, that they understood by the unclean animals different sorts of people, with whom the Jews were to have no communion, as between brethren---such as the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Romans, &c. And we can readily perceive how the restrictions in question would, in point of fact, operate to prevent any free and friendly intercourse at meals; for at the table of a heathen, not only might the eye of a Jew be offended by seeing articles served up for food, which his law taught him to regard as abominations, but he would scarcely feel at liberty to taste of others, lest in the preparation the flesh had not been carefully separated from the blood and fat. Practically, there can be no doubt, the distinctions as to clean and unclean, lawful and unlawful in food, did, to a great degree, cut off the Jews from social intercourse in meat and drink from the rest of the world. But if we ask, why the forbidden articles of diet should have represented idolatrous nations, rather than any other sources of defilement within the land of Israel itself? or what fitness there was in the particular things prohibited for food, to stand as images of the persons or things to be shunned in the daily intercourse of life? We shall look in vain for any satisfaction to the Jewish doctors, nor is it it possible to find this by treading in their footsteps.

We must look somewhat deeper; and if we do, the leading principles, at least, of the distinction, will be found intelligible enough, and in perfect accordance with the general spirit of the Mosaic economy. The body requires food; and as in all its relations, the body was made to image relations of a higher and more important nature, so, in particular, the manner it was dealt with in respect to food, must be of a kind fitted to represent what concerned the proper sustenance and enjoyment of the soul. The food, therefore, could not be everything that might come in the way, capable of being turned into an article of diet; for in a fallen world the soul that would be in health and prosper, must continually exercise itself to a choosing between the evil and the good. Hence, to present a shadow of this in the lower province of the bodily life, there must here also be an evil and a good--a permitted and a forbidden--a class of things to be taken as lawful and proper, and another class to be rejected as abominable. It must also be God's own word, which should regulate the distinction, which should single out and sanctify certain kinds of food from the animal creation (within which alone the distinction could properly be drawn), for the comfortable support of the body. But in doing this, the word of God did not act capriciously or without regard to the natural constitution or fitting order of things; and while it prescribed with an absolute authority what should or should not be eaten, it selected in each department for man's use the highest of its kind--whatever it was best and most agreeable to its nature to partake of. But in choosing out such things, in the sphere of the bodily life, putting on them a stamp of sacredness, that they might be adapted to the use of a consecrated people, and commanding them to look upon all that lay beyond as common and unclean, what was it but to make the things of that lower sphere speak as a kind of elbow monitor in regard to the higher? to bring perpetually to the remembrance of the covenant-people, that they must restrain and regulate the dispositions of their nature, and that, surrounded as they were on every hand with the means and occasions of evil, they must be ever directed by a spiritual taste, formed after the pattern of the law of God? It said--it says still, for though the outward ordinance is gone, its spiritual meaning remains--Child of God, thou must put a bridle in thy mouth, and a rein upon the neck of thy lust; thy path must be chosen with the most careful discrimination, and a holy reserve maintained in thy intercourse with the objects and beings around thee. For the world has a thousand channels through which to pour in upon thee its pollution, and separate between thy soul and God. Let his word, therefore, in all things be thy directory; make the precepts of his mouth thy choice; and since "evil communications corrupt good manners," set a watch upon thy companionships as well as thy doings--go not in the way of sinners, nor be desirous to eat of their dainties, for righteousness has no part with unrighteousness, and the companion of fools shall be destroyed.

Taking this view of the ordinance, we get at once at the root of the matter, and have no need to search for recondite and fanciful reasons in the scales and fins, or the chewing of the cud, arid the dividing of the hoof. Neither do we need to stop at the merely external, and, in part, arbitrary distinction between one nation and another; for we have here a principle which comprehends that and much more within its bosom. We see also how completely the Jews of our Lord's time erred regarding this ordinance, from their carnal sense and want of spiritual insight. They erred here, as in other things, by resting in the mere outward distinction--as if God cared with what sort of flesh the body was sustained! or as if the holiness he was mainly in quest of, depended upon the things which ministered to men's corporeal necessities! Gross and carnal in their ideas, they knew not that God is a spirit, who, in all his ordinances, deals with men as spiritual beings, and seeks to form them to the love and practice of what is morally good. Christ, therefore, sharply rebuked their folly, and declared with the utmost plainness, that defilement in the eye of God is a disease and corruption of the heart, and that not the kind of food which enters into the body, but the kind of thoughts and affections which come out of the soul, is what properly renders men clean or unclean. This obviously implied that the outward distinction was from the first appointed only for the sake of the spiritual instruction it was fitted to convey. It implied, further, that the outward, as no longer needed, and as now rather tending to mislead, was about to vanish away, that the spiritual and eternal alone might remain. And the vision shortly after unfolded to St Peter, with the direction immediately following, to go and open the door of faith to the Gentiles, as in God's sight on a footing with those who had eaten nothing common or unclean, made it manifest to all, that as at first the outward symbol had been established for the sake of the spiritual reality, so again for the sake of that reality, which could now be better secured otherwise, the symbol was finally and for ever abolished.

By looking back upon this ancient ordinance, the follower of Christ may be taught to remember: 1. That he is constantly in danger of contracting spiritual defilement, through the love of improper objects, or entering into unhallowed alliances. 2. That he is therefore bound to exercise himself to watchfulness, and to practise self-denial, apart from which the graces of religion can never grow and flourish in the world. 3. But that still, so far from loosing by this restraint and discipline of his nature, he is a gainer in everything essential to his real happiness and well-being. The Lord withholds nothing that is good; and the enjoyments he does interdict are only such dangerous and hurtful gratifications, as never fail to bring with them a painful recompense of evil.

Notes

1. We have said nothing of what is called the leprosy of clothes and houses, for nothing certain is known of the thing itself--although Michaelis speaks dogmatically enough about both; Tbe whole of what he says upon the leprosy is a good specimen of the thoroughly earthly tone of the author's mind; and if Moses had looked no higher than he represents him to have done, he would certainly have been little entitled to be regarded as a messenger of Heaven. The leprosy in garments and houses was evidently considered and treated as an image of that in man; and on that account alone was purification or destruction ordered. See Hengstenberg's Christol. on Jer. xxxi. 38; Baumgarten on Lev. xii. xiii.

2. We deem this by much the most natural and appropriate view of the Nazarite's long hair. It is not a new one, but may be found (though only, indeed, as one among other reasons), in Ainsworth, and later commentators; last and best in Baumgarten Comm. on Numb. vi. It also renders the best explanation of the loss of power in Samson, flowing from his allowing his hair to be shorn--for this, viewed in the light presented above, betokened the breaking of his allegiance to his God, ceasing to make God's arm his dependence, and God's will his rule.--The idea of Hengstenberg, Egypt, and Books of Moses, p. 190, that the long hair was a sign of the Nazarite's withdrawing from the world to give himself to the Lord, separating from the world's habits and business, is not sufficiently grounded; more especially, as it does not appear that the Nazarite vow bound men actually to cease from worldly employments. The idea of Bahr, that the hair of men corresponds to the grass of the earth, the blossoms and leaves of trees, and thus imaged the spiritual blossoms and productions of men, the fruits of holiness--is too fanciful and far-fetched to commend itself to any one.

3. There is very considerable difficulty in making out the precise species of birds interdicted. Several of the modern names given to them, are given merely on the authority of the rabbinical writers, which is not greatly to be depended on. There are twenty in all named; and even as given in our English Bibles, they are, with scarcely an exception, such as are in modern times thought unfit as articles of diet.

4. The kind of flesh that seems principally to form an exception is pork, which is now in common use, and yet was forbidden food to the Israelites. Indeed, it was regarded as so peculiarly forbidden, that it was sometimes put as the representative of whatever is most foul and abominable (Isa. Ixv. 4, Ixvi. 3, 17.) But though in common use now, it is still esteemed an inferior sort of butcher-meat, and chiefly consumed by persons in humble life. And the special dislike to it among the Israelites probably arose in part from their connection with Egypt, where, though once a year every house sacrificed a pig to Osiris, yet the animal itself was accounted unclean, and the swineherds formed an inferior race, with whom the other tribes would not intermarry, and who were not permitted even to enter the temples of the gods; see Heeren, Afr. ii. p. 148; Wilkinson, i. 239, iii. 34, iv. 46. The filthy habits of the sow also rendered it a very natural and fitting image of what is impure. Reference to this is expressly made in Prov. xxvi. 11, 2 Pet. ii. 22.