12 Heb. be strong. 13 Heb. inheritest, or possessest them. 14 Heb. after them.

unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

|

32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

16 Chap. 4. 2. Josh. 1. 7. Prov. 30. 6. Rev. 22. 18.

Verse 2. "Destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods."-Then follows an enumeration of such places-altars, high places, groves; but it is very remarkable that, neither here nor elsewhere in the five books of Moses, is there any mention of temples. It is scarcely credible that, in this and parallel texts, temples would have been omitted if any at this time existed. It is probable that they did not, and that the passage before us specifies all the places consecrated to worship which were then known. It is certain that, in the most ancient times, people were content to consecrate to their gods altars of rough stone or turf, set up in the open fields; or else high places," the summits of hills and mountains; or the interior of thick groves planted with particular trees. Temples were of later origin; and the books of Moses afford not the least indication that in his time they existed even in Egypt, from whence other nations profess to have derived them. The tabernacle erected by the Hebrews in the wilderness was the first thing of the kind that is known. It was a kind of portable temple; and it is conjectured by some good authorities to have been the model on which other nations formed theirs, exposed as it was to the view of many nations, during the period in which the Hebrews wandered on their borders. There are some analogies of form also, which seem to sanction this conclusion-such as the resemblance of the adyta, or most sacred places, of the heathen temples to the "holy of holies" in the tabernacle. Be this as it may, all profane history-which is all of it modern compared with the Pentateuch-attests that there were no temples in the most early times; and, from the complete silence of Scripture, it is safe to infer, that such times are those now under our notice. The first temple mentioned in Scripture does not occur till, according to Hales, nearly 500 years after the exode. This was the temple of Dagon, which Samson pulled down, and concerning which we are, after all, left in doubt whether it was really a temple or a sort of theatre in which public games were exhibited. Judging from the use to which it was applied, the latter would seem the more probable opinion. The Philistines "made merry" there, and Samson "made sport" there; and although the festival was certainly in honour of Dagon, the building is not called his temple, nor even his house, but only a house. Not long after, however, we do read of the "house of Dagon" at another place (Ashdod), in which the ark of God was deposited when captured by the Philistines; and this was unquestionably a temple, and is as unquestionably the first that is mentioned in the most ancient book in the world. We are persuaded that it will be difficult to assign a much earlier date, if so early a date, to any temples. The date of their origin is confessedly most uncertain, and being so, the silence of Moses and Joshua as to any existing in Egypt or Palestine is very strong evidence as to the time when they had not begun to exist. If there had been any in Egypt, we may be almost sure that Moses would have mentioned them as infested by the frogs and other plagues which the Lord brought upon that country; but while every place is particularly specified-the house, the palace, the bed-chamber, the oven-not a word is said about temples. Still more unquestionably would the temples of the Canaanites have been mentioned in the present text, if there had been any; and there is at least a strong probability that some slight allusion to temples would have been found in the book of Joshua and the early part of Judges, if they had then been known. Upon the whole we imagine, that, up to the time of the exodus, there were no temples in Egypt, but after that they may have existed there earlier than in Palestine. We are quite aware that Herodotus assigns the origin of the magnificent temple of Vulcan to Menes, who, according to Hales, reigned more than 300 years before Abraham's visit to that country. But, to our minds, the marked silence of Moses is of more weight than the assertion of the Greek writer, who lived more than a thousand years later, and who derived his account from the priests, who, as he himself observes on other occasions, manifested a desire to impress on strangers the most extravagant ideas concerning the antiquity of their institutions.

5. "The place which the LORD your God shall choose."-That is, the place where the Lord should manifest his invisible presence in the cloud of glory over the ark. This was at various places before the foundation of the Temple, but principally at Mizpeh and Shiloh. The ultimate reference is doubtless to Jerusalem, where, when the Temple was built, God said to Solomon, " I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice." (2 Chron. vii. 12.) It is observable that the name of no place is ever mentioned in the law; and for this Maimonides and other Jewish writers assign several reasons, which seem good in themselves, but whether they are the true ones it is impossible to say. 1. Lest, if it were known, the Gentiles should seize upon it, and make war for the sake of it, when they understood its importance to the Hebrews. 2.. Lest those in whose hands it was at the time the precept was delivered, should, from ill-will, do their best to lay it waste and destroy it. 3. But principally, lest every tribe should so earnestly desire to have the place within its own lot, that such strife and dis

content might arise on the subject as had actually happened concerning the appointment to the priesthood.

15. "Kill and eat flesh in all thy gates."-See the note on Lev. xvii. 5.

"Roebuck" (3, Tzebi, dogxas, Antilope Dorcas).-This light and elegant creature, which is the "roe" in the Song of Solomon, and the gazelle of the Arabians, is very common in northern Africa and Western Asia. The gazelle is about two feet in height; the hair on the back is of a delicate fawn colour, passing into a brown band along the sides, which is suddenly interrupted by the white of the under surface of the body. The horns, which are variegated by twelve or fourteen rings, stand diverged like the horns of an antique lyre. Its beautiful form and large beaming eye are favourite objects of comparison in Oriental poetry and compliment.

22. "Even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten."-The roebuck and the hart were not animals fit to be offered in sacrifice, but they were allowed for food. The meaning of this therefore is, that whereas the Hebrews had been for

merly obliged to kill their oxen and sheep before the tabernacle, as a peace offering, and sprinkle the blood on the altars-which they had never been required to do when they killed wild animals-so now, they were to be as free from restriction in killing their domestic cattle as they had previously been with those that were wild. They might kill and eat when and wherever they pleased, with the only limitation as to the blood, which was to hold in all cases. The permission to eat the species of deer here mentioned must have been felt as a very important advantage, as well during the wandering in the desert as after the settlement in Canaan. They are frequent in the desert, particularly the antelope or gazelle, and, as Professor Paxton observes, "The lofty mountains of Syria, Amana, Lebanon, and Carmel, swarmed with these animals which, descending into the plains to graze on the cultivated fields, invited the Israelites to the healthful exercise of the chase, and supplied their tables with a species of food equally abundant and agreeable.”

23, 24. "Eat not the blood....pour it upon the earth as water."-In the note to Gen. ix. 4, there is an observation on the subject, viewing it as the interdiction of an unnatural custom: but that view alone does not perhaps adequately account for the very rigid interdictions which are repeated with so much solemnity in the books of the law, and particularly in this chapter. The former reason was general and applicable to all the sons of Noah: but others necessarily arose from the peculiarities of the Hebrew law and doctrine. The first was, that the blood of victims was consecrated to God, as an atonement for sin, and might not therefore be desecrated to common uses. (See Levit. xvii.) And another was probably to prevent the blood from being applied to any idolatrous or superstitious uses; for which reason, such blood as was not sprinkled and poured out in sacrifice was, whether in domestic or wild animals, to be poured out on the ground as water, and (Lev. xvii. 13) covered with dust. The present text seems to direct our attention more particularly to this latter reason, as the direction, not only for it to be poured out, but to be poured out "as water,” seems expressly intended to guard against any impropriety even in pouring it out. These repeated directions concerning blood are, in fact, closely connected with one of the great objects which the law always had in view, namely, the prevention of idolatry. The direction to pour it out, without at the same time directing it to be covered up, would have left an opening for the superstition which, through blood, sought an intercourse with demons or disembodied spirits, who were thought to delight in drinking up blood when poured out into a bowl or hole; and, being propitiated by it, revealed things beyond human ken to him who sought their intercourse.

"Leave the trench,

And turn thy falchion's glitt'ring edge aside,

That I may drink the blood and tell thee truth”—

said the shade of Tiresias to Ulysses. The latter had sought the regions of the dead for information as to his future course; and, being provided with a ram and ewe, he shed their blood into a trench which he had dug for the purpose: "Then swarming came

From Erebus the shades of the deceased,
And stalk'd in multitudes around the foss,
With dreadful clamours."

They were eager to drink the crimson pool," and the hero had much to do to keep them off till the one for whom it was particularly intended came. People also themselves were wont to drink blood under the notion of putting themselves in a condition to receive the communications of demons. Thus was blood employed for superstitious purposes. But the drinking of blood was also a positively idolatrous act. "Eating of blood, or rather drinking it," says Michaelis, "was quite customary among the Pagan nations of Asia, in their sacrifices to idols, and in the taking of oaths. This was, indeed, so much an Asiatic, and, in a particular manner, a Phoenician usage, that we find the Roman writers taking notice of it, as something outlandish at Rome, and peculiar to these nations; and as in the Roman persecution the Christians were obliged to burn incense, so were they, in the Persian, to eat blood. In the West the one, and in the East the other, was regarded as expressive of conversion to heathenism, because both were idolatrous practices." We thus see that the frequent interdictions did not perhaps so much arise from any particular fondness which the Israelites had for blood, as an article of food, as because, from the idolatrous usages connected with it in the neighbouring nations, they were in great danger of being led into idolatry and superstition by it.

CHAPTER XIII.

1 Enticers to idolatry, 6 how near soever unto thee, 9 are to be stoned to death. 12 Idolatrous cities are not to be spared.

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,

2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments,

and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and 'cleave unto him.

5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath 'spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

6¶ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

7 Namely, of the gods of the people which

1 Chap. 10. 20. Heb, spoken revolt against the LORD.

are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:

9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of 'bondage.

11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

12 ¶ If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,

13 Certain men, 'the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;

3 Chap. 17.7.

14 Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;

15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.

16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.

17 And there shall cleave nought of the 'cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;

18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.

Verse 9. "Thou shall surely kill him."-Not outright: but, after trial and conviction, he, as witness against him, was to cast the first stone at him, according to the law in ch. xvii. 7. The question may occur, how, as two or three witnesses were required to convict a criminal capitally (ch. xvii. 6), it was possible to convict at all a man who had enticed another "secretly," on any other evidence than the single testimony of the person enticed. To this the Rabbins answer, that the enticed person, having once heard the enticer, was, against the next interview, to place some persons in concealinent, where they could overhear what passed. The enticed was then to ask the enticer to repeat what he had said on the former occasion. And when the latter had done so, the other was to protest against it, saying, "How shall we leave our God which is in heaven, and go and serve wood and stone?" If the enticer then returned from his evil, or was even silent, the matter was allowed to drop; but if he persisted in urging the other to idolatry, the spies came forward, seized him, and took him to the magistrates, concurring with the enticed person in bearing witness against him. This is the account which the Jews give; and, whether true or not, it is not easy to see how but by some such process the legal proof of guilt could be obtained. The same authorities add, that in no other case whatever was such a process resorted to for obtaining the evidence which the law required.

16. “It shall not be built again.”—But it might, nevertheless, be made into gardens and orchards, according to the Jewish writers. The law of this chapter has been represented as cruel and unjust, and giving countenance to persecution for religious opinions. But, in so deeming it, cavillers quite lose sight of the essential peculiarities of the Hebrew constitution. "It must be manifest to every one," says T. H. Horne, "that this law commanded only such Israelites to be put to death as apostatized to idolatry, and still continued members of their own community. And as their government was a theocracy (in other words, God was the temporal king of Israel), idolatry was strictly the political crime of high treason, which in every state is justly punishable with death. It is further to be observed, that the Israelites were never commissioned to make war upon their neighbours, or exercise any violence towards any of them, in order to compel them to worship the God of Israel, nor to force them to it even after they were conquered (Deut. xx. 10); nor were they empowered to attempt thus forcibly to recover any native Israelite who should revolt to idolatry, and go to settle in a heathen country." Under these circumstances, a city that turned to idols, of course put itself into a state of rebellion against the government, and was to be treated accordingly. We do not, however, read in the historical books that this law was ever enforced against a city. Probably, as Michaelis conjectures, the rest of the Israelites, in most cases, overlooked the crime of a city that became notoriously idolatrous, from their having themselves such a strong and general hankering after the principles of that polytheism which then prevailed almost universally throughout the earth; and thus it came to pass that idolatry was not long confined to any one city, but soon overspread the whole nation. The whole of this subject is very fully considered by Michaelis, in his Commentaries,' Arts. 245-247.

4 Or, bison. Heb. asketh of thee.