The History of Antiquity Volume Iii Part 15

The old law gave the rules of blood-right, and family-right, and in addition canons on the rights of the person, and the protection of property. In the new law the main object was to secure the carrying out and application of these rules of justice in the practice of the tribunal. For this object a definite influence of the priests on the tribunal was required. In principle the Book declares, that "every sentence shall be given after the decision of the priests and Levites,"[448] for practice it is contented to prescribe, that judges and overseers were to be placed at all the gates; and then adds: "If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment between blood and blood, and between plea and plea, and stroke and stroke in the gates, then thou shalt arise and get thee to the place which Jehovah shall choose (the temple), and come to the priests and Levites and the judge, who shall be there, and do according to the sentence which they p.r.o.nounce for thee." The man who will not listen to the priest who stands there to minister before Jehovah is to be put to death.[449]

In the judicial process the new law lays emphasis on the rule that only the testimony of two or three witnesses is to be sufficient,[450] and that the testimony is to be strictly proved. The judges are to inquire, and "if the witness is a false witness, and has spoken falsely against his brother, ye shall do to him as he thought to do to his brother."[451] Like the old law, the new warns the judge to "have no respect of persons," and adds that he is to take no gift, that he is never to give crooked judgments; least of all, in the case of widows and orphans. "Cursed is he that perverteth the judgment of the fatherless and widow."[452]

In the canons of law, as in the regulations about the t.i.thes, the new code makes changes only with a view to the carrying out of the law in practice. It goes decidedly beyond the old in the regulations, inst.i.tuted even in the old law, for the diminution of the severity of the law of debt, and in regard for the oppressed and poor (II. 221). The arrangements about the years of Sabbath and of Jubilee are dropped as impracticable in the new law, and are reduced to the much simpler rule, that in every seventh year, i.e. in the year of Sabbath, an "acquitment is to be made," i.e. every unpaid loan, made before this year, is to be cancelled, with the income upon it. Feeling the evil consequences which might spring from this regulation, the Book of the Law at the same time gives warning that no one is to be misled into refusing loans to the poor from the fear that he could not count on repayment after the year of acquitment.[453] The older law requires, as has been already remarked, that in lending to the poor no interest should be taken;[454]

the new law went further: interest is not to be taken from any Israelite, but only from strangers (_i.e._ Phenician merchants).[455]

But here also it is added, that no one for this reason "is to harden his heart, and close his hand before his poor brother; thou shalt lend to him on a pledge (_i.e._ on sufficient security), what is requisite for his need, and Jehovah will bless thee in all the work of thy hands."[456] Thus in Israel money was, in fact, only lent on pledge. The old law forbids to take the cloak of the poor in pledge;[457] the new law forbids the creditor, who demands his loan, to enter the house in order to choose a pledge for himself, and lays down the rule that the man who lends money is to wait outside till the debtor brings a pledge.

The mill and the mill-stone (as indispensable to every household), and the garment of the widow, are not to be demanded.[458]

The new law repeatedly gives command that the debtor, who from inability to pay has become the slave of his creditor (II. 221), is not to be called upon to perform the duties of a slave, but is rather to be kept in the house as a hired servant and a serf. It requires that all slaves should partic.i.p.ate, not only in the rest of the Sabbath, but in the enjoyment of the festivals of harvest and vintage. It repeats the command to liberate Hebrew slaves in the seventh year, and adds: "And when thou sendest him away free, thou shalt not let him go empty; thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress. Remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and that Jehovah thy G.o.d redeemed thee." Runaway slaves, who had escaped into another community, were not to be delivered up again to their master, according to the new code.[459]

The old law gave command: "The hire of the day labourer shall not remain with thee till the morning" (II. 225). The new law requires that it shall be paid before sunset: "for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it."[460] The poor, the widow and the orphan in the land, are not to be oppressed; they must be supported before the court, and the hand opened towards them. At the harvest there is to be no gleaning. The scattered ears are not to be gathered any more than the fallen berries in the vineyard. "Hast thou forgotten a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not return to take it; this sheaf shall be, like the gleanings, for the stranger, the widow and the orphan."[461] Strictly as the new law maintained the exclusiveness of Israel towards the neighbours (p. 221), it is equally emphatic in taking the part of the individual unprotected stranger who dwells in Israel. "Cursed is he who perverts the judgment of the stranger."[462] The law forbids the mocking of afflicted persons owing to infirmities of body; the dumb man is not to be reviled, nor a stumblingblock to be placed in the way of the blind; the man is accursed who causes a blind man to go out of his way.[463] A man shall not see the ox or sheep of his brother go astray without leading it back, or keeping it, if the owner is unknown to him; and the same shall be done with all lost property.[464] Only the young ones are to be taken from the nest of the bird, and not the mother with them.[465] Fruit trees are to be spared even in the land of an enemy.[466] The mouth of the thras.h.i.+ng-ox is not to be tied, and even animals must rest on the Sabbath.[467]

When king Josiah had read this book before the a.s.sembly of the elders and the people in the house of Jehovah (p. 213), he vowed that he "would turn after Jehovah, and keep his ordinances and commands, and fulfil with all his heart and soul the words of the covenant written in the book." "And all the people entered into the covenant." The king went vigorously to work to destroy the altars, statues, and symbols of foreign rites which remained in Jerusalem, in the neighbourhood, and the whole country, from the time of Mana.s.ses and a yet earlier date. The image of Astarte (p. 209) was removed from the temple, and burnt on the brook Kidron; the altars on the roof of the king's palace, which Ahaz had made, as well as those which Mana.s.ses had set up in the court of the temple, were torn down; the place for offering burnt-offerings to Moloch in the valley of Ben Hinnom; the altars of Milcom and Camus, which since Solomon's time had existed on the high places near Jerusalem (II. 195), were purified, "that no one should any more make his son or his daughter to pa.s.s through the fire." All the vessels of the wors.h.i.+p of Baal and the star-G.o.ds were removed, and the houses of the male wors.h.i.+ppers thrown down. When the king proceeded to put an end to the ancient wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah on the heights, he found greater resistance than in the removal of these foreign rites and their priests. He commanded all the priests of the cities of Judah to come to Jerusalem, and purified the high places "from Geba to Beersheba," even the places at Bethel which Jeroboam II. had set up, against which Amos and Hosea had declaimed.[468] The priests who did not obey, and continued to sacrifice at the old places of sacrifice, and on the high places, he caused to be slain as sacrifices at the altars which they refused to desert. Then the Pa.s.sover was celebrated according to the regulations of the law, "as never before under the kings of Israel and Judah," and tradition proudly declares of Josiah "that before him there arose no king like unto him, nor after him."[469]

FOOTNOTES:

[417] Above, p. 157, 162 ff.

[418] 2 Kings xxi. 3-16; xxiii. 4-14, 26; xxiv. 3. Jer. ii. 30; vii. 31; viii. 2, 19; xv. 4; xix. 4, 5.

[419] 2 Kings xxii. 3-20; Deut. x.x.xi. 9-13. The less weight will be given to the somewhat circ.u.mstantial account of the discovery given in Chronicles as compared with the Books of Kings because the details are only a development of what Hilkiah says to Zaphan.

[420] Deut. iv. 32.

[421] Deut. x. 14, 17.

[422] Deut. x. 18.

[423] Deut. v. 9.

[424] Deut. iv. 15.

[425] Deut. x.x.xi. 27.

[426] Deut. xxviii. 12.

[427] Deut. xxviii. 15; cf. iv. 27.

[428] Deut. x.x.x. 1-10.

[429] Deut. iv. 32-34.

[430] Deut. vii. 7, 8.

[431] Deut. x. 14, 15; iv. 37.

[432] Deut. x.x.x. 11-14.

[433] Deut. x. 16.

[434] Deut. iv. 29.

[435] Deut. xix. 9; x. 12.

[436] Deut. xiii. 3; xi. 1; cf. vi. 4-6.

[437] Deut. xii.; xvi. 16.

[438] Deut. xv. 19, 20; iv. 22-29; xxvi. 12-15.

[439] Deut. xii. 6, 11, 17; xiv. 27-29.

[440] Deut. xviii. 6-8.

[441] Deut. xx. 10-17.

[442] Deut. vii. 1-4.

[443] Deut. xvii. 2-7.

[444] Deut. xiii. 1-5.

[445] Deut. xiii. 6-11.

[446] Deut. xiii. 12-17. Cf. Exod. xxii. 18, 20.

[447] Deut. xvii. 14-20.

[448] Deut. xxi. 5.

[449] Deut. xvi. 8-12; xix. 17; xxv. 13.

[450] Deut. xvii. 4, 6; xix. 15.

[451] Deut. xix. 19.

[452] Deut. xvi. 19; xxvii. 19.

[453] Deut. xv.

[454] Vol. II. p. 220.

[455] Deut. xv. 6; xxiii. 20; xxviii. 12.

[456] Deut. xv. 7-11.

[457] Vol. II. p. 220.