of these, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons are prescribed; and if not equal to so much as this, the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour. The trespass-offering in sacrilege was to be a ram without blemish; in sins of ignorance, and those done wittingly, the same. This is followed by a description of the ceremonies to be observed in the holocaust or burnt-offering, the meat-offering, and in the offering at the consecration of a priest. In like manner, the rites connected with the sin-offering, the trespassoffering, and the peace-offering are detailed. Fat and blood are forbidden to be eaten. The priest's portion in the peace-offering is afterwards described. The wave-breast and heave-shoulder are assigned to him. The eighth chapter describes the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, in presence of the elders and principal men of the congregation who represented all the tribes. The solemnities and forms of the sacrificial ritual performed by Moses on this occasion, and continued throughout a week, are described in the twenty-ninth and fortieth chapters of Exodus. On the eighth day, the first after the consecration of Aaron and his sons, Moses calls on Aaron to execute his pontifical functions in the presence of the elders and a large body of the people. Accordingly the latter, under Moses's direction, offered a young calf and a ram as a sin-offering and burnt-offering respectively, for himself. On behalf of the people, he brought a sin-offering of a goat, a burnt-offering of a yearling calf and lamb, a bullock and ram for peace-offerings, and a meat-offering mingled with oil. After all had been done in the manner already prescribed, Moses and Aaron blessed the people; and a miraculous fire sent forth from the divine presence consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat. The tenth chapter relates the tragical fate of Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's two eldest sons. It is said that they offered strange fire before the Lord, and were therefore miraculously consumed. Instead of filling their censers with coals from the altar where a supernatural fire had been kindled and was continually kept burning, they filled their vessels with common fire. Such was the crime laid to their charge. It has also been supposed, with some probability, that they were in a state of intoxication, because a prohibition to the priests of the use of wine or strong drink when engaged in the functions of their office is immediately subjoined, in the ninth and tenth verses. It may be also that they encroached upon the functions of the high priest; for some think that the expression "offered before the Lord" means. that they advanced into the most holy place, and presumed to present incense before the Shechinah, thus invading Aaron's prerogative. The severity of the punishment was called for, both because of the persons and the time. The ceremonial was

commencing. If therefore any of its regulations might be violated, and that too by the ministry, its sanctity would disappear in the eyes of the people. The system needed to be protected at the present juncture from desecration and dishonour. Aaron and his sons are forbidden to adopt the usual signs of mourning,; after which follows the prohibition of wine to the priests while engaged in their sacerdotal functions. And as the goat of the sin-offering, instead of being partly consumed and partly reserved for use, had been entirely consumed, Moses Jemonstrated with Eleazar and Ithamar on the neglect. But Aaron makes his affliction his excuse for not feasting, and Moses is content. The eleventh chapter treats of the distinction of animals into clean and unclean. All that is meant by these epithets can hardly be reduced to usual and not usual for food, as if we ourselves made a similar distinction in using the flesh of some animals and rejecting that of others, though not expressing it in the same words. The design of the enactments relating to different beasts as proper for food or not, falls under a general head which we shall consider hereafter. At present, without stating the fundamental idea at the basis of all the regulations respecting cleanness, it is apparent that the effect of these enactments respecting different beasts as proper for food or otherwise, must have been to keep the Hebrews apart from other nations; that as a distinct people they might be preserved from idolatry. If certain articles of food common among other races were interdicted, the effect would be to break up social intercourse between them; by which means the Jews would not be in so much danger of learning their barbarous customs and falling into their superstitions. Thus the separation of meats into clean and unclean was most salutary to a monotheistic people, set apart as the chosen depositaries of the knowledge of God, and exposed on every side to polytheistic tribes.

Whether Moses was influenced by dietetical considerations is uncertain, though not wholly improbable. Some kinds of flesh have a tendency to produce certain diseases; and therefore a regard to health prompts to their rejection. Michaelis remarks, that we should not seek for a dietetical reason in all the prohibitions since some of the unclean animals were wholesome.

Intellectual and typical reasons for these laws must be rejected. Some ascribe to the eating of certain animals a peculiar influence on the disposition. Thus the flesh of the swine is supposed to promote sensuality and grossness of temperament. But if there be such an influence, of which the proof is by no means sufficient, it is so slight as to be no just cause of

1 Commentaries on the laws of Moses translated by Smith, vol. iii. pp. 230, 231.

prohibiting certain kinds of animal food. The typical considerations adduced by Bush are fanciful. According to him the unclean beasts symbolised the depraved Gentiles; the clean ones the upright and obedient Israelites.1

From impurities of food the writer passes to impurities of person. Accordingly the twelfth chapter is occupied with laws respecting the purification of women after child-birth. Such an one was unclean forty days, if she had borne a son, and eighty days if a daughter; immediately after which she had to present at the tabernacle a burnt-offering and a sin-offering. The thirteenth chapter treats of the leprosy; for distinguishing which minute rules are given. If a person had any mark in his skin which resembled the incipient symptoms of leprosy, he was required to present himself before the priest for inspection. Should the priest think that there was ground for apprehension, the individual was to be shut up seven days to afford time for a more accurate judgment, and then to be re-examined. If the priest saw no change in the symptoms, the period of separation was prolonged over seven days; and if at the expiration of that time no material alteration had occurred, he was to be pronounced clean. But if after all the leprosy lurked in the system, the scab spreading in the skin, the priest was to give his verdict of unclean. The leper pronounced unclean was to dwell alone without the camp, to wear tattered clothes, go abroad with his head bare, with a covering on the upper lip and cry, "Unclean, unclean." The chapter concludes with the leprosy of clothes. What is meant by that term applied to garments is now generally understood to be unsoundness in the materials, shewing itself much in the same way as leprosy in the skin. The law of the purification of the leper follows. The priest was to go forth to him at the borders of the camp; and if the leper were healed, he was to take two healthy clean birds, with cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop; one of them was to be killed over an earthen vessel filled with fresh water; whereas the living bird with the cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop were to be dipped in the bloody water, which was to be sprinkled seven times over the leper. After having shaved off all his hair and washed, he was allowed to come into the camp, the living bird being at the same time let loose. But he was not permitted to go into his own tent for seven days; at the end of which time the recovered leper was to present various offerings and perform different ceremonies, in order that his purification might be complete. In the case of poor lepers, the offerings were less costly and abundant. The number and

1 Notes on Leviticus, page 95.

complexity of the ceremonies relating to leprosy shew a wise precaution to guard as much as possible against a disease so pestilential, and to allay the uneasiness of the people. But in addition to sanitary considerations, it was doubtless intended to symbolise the pollution of sin.

The

We have next the laws relating to the detection and cleansing of leprosy in houses, an expression which should be figuratively explained as in the case of garments. It is a saline efflorescence which corrodes and consumes the walls of houses, and is called salt-petre by the Germans. The stones on which it appears give a damp and unhealthy taint to the atmosphere of the apartment, and require to be entirely removed. symptoms are declared to be green or red spots. When any appearance of this sort took place, the owner of the house was commanded to report the case to the priest, who, in the first place, required that all the furniture should be removed, that nothing might impede a right examination. Having inspected the house, the priest closed it for a week; and if on the seventh day he found that the leprous infection had spread in the walls, he was to order the removal of the affected stones, and to cause the whole house to be scraped and plastered afresh. Should no other stones have the mural incrustation, the house was pronounced clean, and the same ceremony performed which made part of the ritual in the case of the leper. But if notwithstanding all the precautions taken, the taint of leprosy still manifested itself, the building was to be thrown down, and the materials cast away into an unclean place. Any one going into the house under these circumstances incurred defilement during the rest of the day. He that ventured to eat or lodge in it was required to wash his clothes. The utility of these regulations respecting the cleanliness and soundness of houses is obvious. They would contribute not only to the health of the inmates, but to the stability of the dwellings themselves in consequence of a careful selection of materials, and ultimately to the saving of labour and expense. The fifteenth chapter treats of various personal uncleannesses and their purifications. Gonorrhoea is mentioned as rendering a man unclean; and then the rites are prescribed by which he is purified. The impurities of women in certain states are also described, with the cleansing of them. The sixteenth chapter is properly a continuation of the tenth, the intervening five chapters having interrupted the narrative. It refers to the

annual day of atonement, and is therefore supplementary to Ex. xxx. 10. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the high priest having bathed and put on the holy garments, was to offer for himself a bullock for a sin-offering. He then went to the

two kids of the goats intended for the congregation, cast lots for them, and offered that on which the one lot fell as a sacrifice for the people, while the other was let loose into the wilderness after the high priest had laid his hand upon its head and confessed over it the sins of the people. Having laid aside his white vestments and assumed his splendid robes, he offered a ram for himself and another for the people. The day was regarded as a solemn sabbath wholly devoted to religious services of the strictest kind. It was the only legla fast. The seventeenth chapter contains four enactments, the first two relating to the killing of animals for food at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, where they were to be dealt with as peaceofferings, the blood and fat being applied as in such sacrifices, and the rest being eaten by the offerer. The third refers to abstinence from blood; and the fourth to abstinence from the flesh of animals dying of themselves or torn. The eighteenth chapter treats of chastity and its violations; warning the Israelites against the incestuous and vile practices in which neighbouring nations indulged. The general law of incest is announced in the sixth verse; and then incest is forbidden with one's own mother, with a step-mother, with a sister, with a granddaughter, with a half sister by the father's side, with a paternal aunt, a maternal aunt, with a paternal uncle's wife, with a brother's wife, with a step-daughter or a grand-daughter, with a wife's sister during the life of the wife. Other forms of sexual commerce and sodomy are forbidden, followed by gencral dissuasives. The nineteenth chapter contains various laws which had been given before, besides some new ones. Some are moral, as reverence of parents, the prohibition of idolatry, stealing, lying, false swearing, and defrauding, perversion of justice, tale bearing, hatred, uncharitableness, revenge, the enjoining of just measures, weights, and balances, the prohibiting of prostitution at idol temples, a generous liberal spirit towards the poor in leaving gleanings for them, abstinence from intercourse with a bondmaid betrothed; others are ceremonial, such as peace-offerings, the sabbath, the eating of blood, and various superstitious observances; others are judicial, as against mixtures in cattle, seed, and garments, relative to the fruit of trees, etc. Spencer has shewn that several of these enactments refer to heathen practices and customs, such as cutting the flesh and tattooing (verse 28); linsey-woolsey garments, which were the dress of the Zabian priests at their devotions, etc.

The twentieth chapter specifies the punishments annexed to transgression of the laws contained in the two preceding

1 De Legibus Hebraeorum, vol. i. p. 530, ed. Lipsiae, 1705.