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Deuteronomy Chapter
Sixteen
Deuteronomy 16
Chapter Contents
The yearly feasts. (1-17) Of judges, Groves and images
forbidden. (18-22)
Commentary on Deuteronomy 16:1-17
(Read Deuteronomy 16:1-17)
The laws for the three yearly feasts are here repeated;
that of the Passover, that of the Pentecost, that of Tabernacles; and the
general law concerning the people's attendance. Never should a believer forget
his low estate of guilt and misery, his deliverance, and the price it cost the
Redeemer; that gratitude and joy in the Lord may be mingled with sorrow for
sin, and patience under the tribulations in his way to the kingdom of heaven.
They must rejoice in their receivings from God, and in their returns of service
and sacrifice to him; our duty must be our delight, as well as our enjoyment.
If those who were under the law must rejoice before God, much more we that are
under the grace of the gospel; which makes it our duty to rejoice evermore, to
rejoice in the Lord always. When we rejoice in God ourselves, we should do what
we can to assist others also to rejoice in him, by comforting the mourners, and
supplying those who are in want. All who make God their joy, may rejoice in
hope, for He is faithful that has promised.
Commentary on Deuteronomy 16:18-22
(Read Deuteronomy 16:18-22)
Care is taken for the due administration of justice. All
personal regards must be laid aside, so that right is done to all, and wrong to
none. Care is taken to prevent following the idolatrous customs of the heathen.
Nothing belies God more, or tends more to corrupt the minds of men, than
representing and worshipping, by an image, that God, who is an almighty and
eternal Spirit, present every where. Alas! even in gospel days, and under a
better dispensation, established upon better promises, there is a tendency to
set up idols, under one form or another, in the human heart.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Deuteronomy》
Deuteronomy 16
Verse 1
[1]
Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in
the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night.
Observe the month of Abib — Or of new fruits, which answers to part of March and part of April, and
was by a special order from God made the beginning of their year, in
remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt.
By night — In
the night Pharaoh was forced to give them leave to depart, and accordingly they
made preparation for their departure, and in the morning they perfected the
work.
Verse 2
[2] Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the LORD thy God, of the
flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to place his name
there.
The passover —
That is, the feast of the passover, and so the place may be rendered, thou
shalt therefore observe the feast of the passover unto the Lord thy God, with
sheep, and with oxen, as is prescribed, Numbers 28:18, etc.
Verse 3
[3] Thou
shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread
therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land
of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out
of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.
With it —
Or, in it, that is, during the time of the feast of the passover.
Bread of affliction —
Bread which is not usual nor pleasant, to put thee in mind both of thy miseries
endured in Egypt; and of thy hasty coming out of it, which allowed thee no time
to leaven or prepare thy bread.
Verse 4
[4] And
there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days;
neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first
day at even, remain all night until the morning.
Any of the flesh —
That is, of the passover properly so called.
Verse 5
[5] Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the
LORD thy God giveth thee:
Of thy gates —
That is, of thy cities.
Verse 6
[6] But
at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there
thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the
season that thou camest forth out of Egypt.
There —
Namely, in the court of the tabernacle or temple. This he prescribed, partly that
this great work might be done with more solemnity in such manner as God
required; partly, because it was not only a sacrament, but also a sacrifice,
and because here was the sprinkling of blood, which is the essential part of a
sacrifice; and partly to design the place where Christ, the true passover or
lamb of God, was to be slain.
At the season —
About the time you were preparing yourselves for it.
Verse 7
[7] And
thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose:
and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents.
In the morning —
The morning after the seventh day.
Thy tents —
That is, thy dwellings, which he calls tents, as respecting their present
state, and to put them in mind afterwards when they were settled in better
habitations, that there was a time when they dwelt in tents.
Verse 8
[8] Six
days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn
assembly to the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work therein.
Six days —
Namely, besides the first day, on which the passover was killed.
Verse 9
[9]
Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from
such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.
To put the sickle —
That is, to reap thy corn, thy barley, when the first-fruits were offered.
Verse 10
[10] And
thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a
freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the LORD thy God,
according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee:
Of weeks — Of
pentecost.
Thou shalt give —
Over and besides what was appointed.
Verse 17
[17]
Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy
God which he hath given thee.
Thou shalt rejoice — In
God and the effects of his favour, praising him with a glad heart.
Verse 18
[18]
Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the LORD thy
God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with
just judgment.
Judges —
Chief magistrates to examine and determine causes and differences.
Officers —
Who were subordinate to the other to bring causes and persons before him, to
acquaint people with the sentence of the judges, and to execute their sentence.
Thy gates —
Thy cities, which he here calls gates, because there were seats of judgment
set. Pursuant to this law, in every town which contained above an hundred and
twenty families, there was a court of twenty three judges; in the smaller
towns, a court of three judges.
Verse 19
[19] Thou
shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift:
for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the
righteous.
Wrest judgment —
Not give an unjust sentence.
A gift doth blind the eyes — Biasseth his mind, that he cannot discern between right and wrong.
The words —
That is the sentence, of those judges who are used to do righteous things, it
makes them give wrong judgment.
Verse 20
[20] That
which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit
the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
That which is altogether just — Heb. righteousness, righteousness, that is, nothing but righteousness in
all causes and times, and to all persons equally.
Verse 21
[21] Thou
shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy
God, which thou shalt make thee.
Thou shalt not plant — Because this was the practice of idolaters, and might be an occasion of
reviving idolatry.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Deuteronomy》
16 Chapter 16
Verses 9-12
Keep the feast of weeks.
The Feast of Pentecost
(a Harvest Thanksgiving sermon):--
I. The sacred
character of the harvest. Indicated by time appointed for it--fiftieth day
after Passover. As God hallowed the seventh day, so He hallowed the harvest
fields of the world.
II. The great
trouble God took to impress His people with the significance and meaning of
common things. We walk along streets of gold, set with jewels, as though they
were granite cubes. In the hand of Him who saw the kingdom of God everywhere
and in everything, a grain of corn contained in its suggestiveness the deepest
mysteries of the kingdom.
III. This feast was
a providential mirror in which to see again all the way in which the Lord their
God had led them. Happy, thrice happy, is the man who, in the land of plenty,
has a wilderness history on which to look back. There is nothing more sublime
to the mariner in the haven of rest than the conflicts with the tempests in
mid-ocean through which he passed.
IV. This feast was
a new bond of brotherhood forged in the fires of the ever-new and never-ceasing
love of God. They were to call the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and
the widow. Plenty in some natures petrifies, but this is not its legitimate
effect. It should enlarge the heart, and broaden and deepen the sympathies of a
man.
V. This feast was
to be a time of great moral and spiritual rectification on the part of the
people. Repentance. Thanksgiving. (H. Simon, Ph. D.)
Harvest home a national festival
Harvest to the Jews was an event of great and general interest. It
was the occasion of one of their grand national festivals. This feast was
called by different names--the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Harvest, and the
Feast of First-fruits. From commencement to close, their harvest festivities
included seven weeks.
I. The harvest
home was a season for national gratitude. What they offered conferred no favour
on God, it was His own; but it expressed the sense of their obligation and the
depth of their gratitude. Three things are necessary to the very existence of
gratitude towards the giver.
1. That the gift should be felt to be valuable.
2. A belief that the favour is benevolently bestowed.
3. A consciousness that the favour is undeserved.
II. The harvest
home is a season for national rejoicing. Where there is gratitude, there is
joy, will be joy; gratitude is praise, and praise is heaven. The revelation of
the Creator in the harvest field may well make human hearts exult. The God of
the harvest there appears, mercifully considerate of the wants of His
creatures; as a loving Father, with a bountiful hand, furnishing the table with
abundant supplies for His children. There He appears punctual to the fulfilment
of His promise. There He appears rewarding human labour.
III. The harvest
home is a season for national philanthropy (see Deuteronomy 24:19-21).
1. Where God gives liberally, He demands liberality.
2. The liberality demanded is to be shown to the poor. God has
planted the poor amongst all peoples, in order that the benevolence of the rich
may have scope for development. (Homilist.)
Rejoice before the Lord
thy God.
Thanksgiving Day
I. We may be
thankful for this day of thanksgiving, on account of its happy religious
influence. It is a day which, in all its appropriate exercises and enjoyments,
presents to us our life as a blessing, and our God as a Benefactor; the seasons
as a circle of elemental adaptations to our comfort, and the Regulator of the
seasons as the Almighty Being who takes care for our varied good; the course of
our rolling days, as a series of lessons and opportunities, and the Everlasting
and Uncreated One as the Friend who crowns our days with His loving kindness.
Thus a great deal is done every year, by a common and hearty expression of
thankfulness, to break up, or at least to modify the alliance brought about by
several causes in many minds, between religion and great strictness and
gloominess. We find that “it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord; yea,
a joyful and a pleasant thing it is to be thankful”; for when we dwell on the
causes of thankfulness, our gratitude must needs flow naturally and
spontaneously out of our bosoms, and go to swell the general stream of praise
and gladness which spreads over the land. And we find that it is not at all
inconsistent with thankfulness to God for the bounties of His providence, that
we should enjoy those bounties freely and honestly and smilingly.
II. We have reason
to rejoice in our feast, on account of its happy domestic influence. The day is
peculiarly a domestic day; a day for the reunion of families. The houses of the
land are glad on this day.
III. Our festival is
to be honoured, on account of its happy political influence. If it exerts a
happy influence on our religions sentiments and on our domestic relations, it
cannot but act with a benign power on those relations which hold us all
together in one community. A genial nationality is fostered by that mingling
together of prayers, and common interests, and pleasant hospitalities, which
occurs on this day. And so far as our nationality is brought about in this
manner, there is nothing repulsive or exclusive in it. (F. W. P. Greenwood,
D. D.)
Verses 13-15
Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that
thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine.
Harvest home
The Feast of Tabernacles was the harvest home of Israel. Where is
the antitype of the festival of Tabernacles? The vision of the “great multitude
which no man could number” is a vision throughout of a heavenly Feast of
Tabernacles; the harvest home of the Church triumphant.
I. These festivals
are occasions of hospitality and of reunion. A selfish life is an unchristian
life. A man might possibly remember God in solitude, a monastery has ere now
fostered devotion: but there is one virtue which cannot be practised in
seclusion--charity; the Gospel virtue--without which we are nothing. The very
exertion which it costs some men to come out is salutary. If some are made
frivolous by the love of society, some are made selfish by isolation from their
kind.
II. Two things were
especially required of the Israelites when they assembled for their three
annual feasts: first, that they should not appear before the lord empty;
secondly, that children and servants, the Levite and the stranger, the
fatherless and widow, should be allowed to rejoice with them. The feast only
becomes a blessing when it remembers God, and remembers man.
III. The law of God
was read over, once in seven years, to the assembled Israelites at their Feast
of Tabernacles. If there be a time when we remember duty, surely it should be
when our hands are full of gifts. A time of feasting, nay, a time of
prosperity, nay, a time of unmarked, of average sufficiency, brings its own
peculiar risk of practical ungodliness.
IV. Yet we
recognise in this festival the comforting side of true religion. God’s voice
never comes to make us miserable. If it condemns, it is that we may rise out of
condemnation into a state altogether joyous. A harvest home is a glimpse of the
love and of the peace and of the joy of the Gospel.
V. It is also a
memento of the place of thankfulness in the Gospel. Is there any test so
condemning as that which touches us on the point of gratitude? Who really gives
God thanks for life, for health, for motion, for speech, for reason? Well may
we have one day in the year set apart for the work of simple praise.
VI. Recognise in
this celebration the identification of the God of nature and providence with
the God of revelation and of the Gospel. The things that are seen become a very
sign and sacrament of the things that are not seen. The harvest of the natural
world indicates to us, by its marvellous yet now familiar phenomena, the
working of the same power which alone can melt the heart of stone, and impress
upon a trifling soul the realities of a life and a home in heaven. VII.
Finally, let the service which gives thanks for an earthly harvest carry your
thoughts to that great “reaping after sowing,” which is before every one of us,
in the resurrection of the body and in the eternity which is yet beyond (Matthew 13:39; Galatians 6:7-8). God grant us all a
place in that ingathering, the close of a world’s labour, the inauguration of a
heavenly rest! (Dean Vaughan.)
Verse 14-15
Set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose.
Christ our Brother and our King
What I desire now to lay before you is the counsel of God in
Christ, which is set forth to us in these words. What is contained in them is
that we are to have a king over us, and that this king is to be our brother; by
which is expressed the reigning of love. It is exceedingly important that we be
taught to feel that our place is that of being reigned over--that it does not
belong to us to be independent or to be our own masters; and again, that the
control under which we are to be is one which is to govern us through the
heart--that the obedience which is to be rendered is to be the obedience of the
will--not an outward obedience, an obedience in word or in action, but an
inward obedience, an obedience in our will. To this end it is needful that, in
obeying, we should have that confidence in him whom we obey, and that
understanding of the principle of his government, and that consenting to it,
which will carry our hearts along with his requirements; and this our God has
considered in giving us a brother to reign over us. When it is here said that
God will not give us a king who is not our brother, that we are not in any wise
to have a stranger to reign over us, we are taught the great truth, which is
the foundation of our religion, that Christ took our very nature and became in
very truth our very Brother, so that there is nothing in the whole of our human
nature with which He has not personal acquaintance. The knowledge which our
Creator has of us, as our Creator, is a knowledge that we cannot comprehend.
But when we see Christ having our nature, then we see how He should have this
knowledge of us. We might have felt as if God were a stranger--we might have
said to ourselves, How very different are His circumstances from ours: He is
the Creator of all things--He is independent--He is not at the mercy of any
outward thing, and therefore He can have no sympathy with us--He cannot know
what our situation is--this language we might have held, in our ignorance of
God, were not God revealed in Christ as our Brother. God says thou mayest not
set a stranger over thee which is not thy brother; and He says also, “I am the
Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other god before Me.” And thus when our God
says that we shall have no stranger to reign over us, and yet that He will
reign over us, He teaches us that He is not a stranger--that there is no lack
of interest and sympathy in His heart with all the evil of our state. I shall
now occupy your attention with the acquaintance and sympathy with our condition
which Christ has as our Brother. He has, in truth, no sympathy with man in his
natural state, while He has a perfect understanding of our natural condition.
He knows thoroughly the flesh which we have, but has no sympathy whatever with
our feelings in sowing to it. But, considered as regenerate persons, contending
with the flesh, then we are in the condition in which Christ not only knows our
state but has perfect, sympathy with it. It is of much importance that you
should see where Christ’s sympathy begins; that it is in our experience as
living in the Spirit. What is the principle of our being judged by our equals?
It is not needful that they should have any fellowship in that respecting which
they are to judge--that they should have themselves transgressed; but that they
be in a condition fairly to estimate the circumstances of those upon whom they
sit in judgment, because they are their own. The acquaintance which Christ has
with us, as our Brother, while it does not justify us in holding that He has
any sympathy with the workings of the carnal heart, justifies us in holding
that He is deeply alive to the evil of being under the power of the carnal
heart--that He knows what it is, with such a knowledge as enables Him fully to
estimate what an awful condition it is to be sowing to the flesh. Now this in
our Lord is a source of exceeding great comfort. To show what comfort it is, I
just press on you that, as truly as the will of Christ was opposed to sin in
His own flesh, so truly is it opposed to sin in our flesh, because there is but
one flesh--that Christ as truly wills my sanctification as He willed His
own--as truly wills that I should be holy, in this body of sin and death, as He
willed Himself to be holy in it. Now while this is a Source of exceeding great
comfort, when we consider that it is the strength of Christ that is to give us
the victory, it is also a source of exceeding great self-reproach, because it
shows us how we have grieved Christ. For what must it be to Him to see in the members
of His body that rebellion against the Father which He never had in Himself,
while He has in Him all that is needful for us, and is longing to impart it all
to us, that He should see us choosing to live in the flesh--choosing to live in
sin, rather than to receive out of that full provision for holiness which we
have in Him! And while we consider Christ’s understanding of our condition, for
comfort in our conflict with sin, and for self-reproach in the consciousness of
sinning, let us consider how His being our Brother prepares Him for being our
Judge. There is ever a voice in the flesh offering to excuse sin. There is ever
proceeding from the Lord a voice condemning sin--a voice declaring that sin is
altogether a thing that need not be; and I beseech you consider what an entire
putting down it is of all unbelief that Christ was holy in our nature. The will
that Christ has as to us, in our condition of sowing to the flesh, is a holy
will that we should be holy; but it is also the will of love--of love to us. It
is exceedingly important that we should never lose sight of this, that the
person is not forgotten. It is not the sin simply that is considered by Christ,
but the person who sins. Just as it is with a good man who has a son that is a
prodigal. Inasmuch as he is a righteous man, the exhibition of evil in his son
is a source of pain to him; but inasmuch as he is his son, it is a peculiar
source of pain to him, seeing that he has an interest in the person apart from
the character altogether, and that this interest is not destroyed by the evil
of the character, but that both work on him jointly. Christ’s having a personal
tie to us, as well as an acquaintance with our condition, is a part of the
revelation of God which is in Him; and is that first part of the truth
concerning our God which addresses itself to our desire of salvation; and is
therefore to be kept in the foreground, that men, convinced of God’s interest
in them, may give heed to the things that the Lord has what it expresses still
further. First, there is actual sympathy for us in Christ our Brother. In this
word “sympathy” there is contained the idea of a person--the idea of one being
feeling along with another being: and so knowing Christ’s sympathy, and ever
turning to it, we learn personal communion with God, which is that which His
heart longs for; for His heart has not the fulfilment of its desire for us, but
in our having this personal communion with Him. Oh, be very jealous of reposing
your hearts in any other bosom than that of God; be very jealous of telling
your grief to any other ear than God. Oh, be very jealous for Christ, that He
should have the confidential trust of every heart. But Christ’s sympathy in our
conflict is the sympathy of one who can succour us. This is a part of what
properly belongs to His character as King. It belongs to His character as King
to be strong in us, to supply our need and sustain our weakness. I would,
therefore, now consider what we are taught in this Brother’s being a King. Why
is it not enough to tell us that He is our Brother? Why must we have a King?
Now, this word “king,” taken along with the word “brother,” is, to my mind,
what is expressed in God’s being a Father, and brings out to us the necessity
that there is for our being in a subordinate place, learning the will of
another, and receiving that will to be our will. Our service, to be a right
service, must be a free-will service; but still, in announcing His will, God
announces it as King. In short, the sceptre is held out, and we are called to
bow to it; and the love is revealed in order that the heart may bow to that
sceptre; but it is as a sceptre that it is held out. Now, in Christ as King,
there is the provision for strength, as well as the provision for authority.
Our King is one who has power, not merely to be used against us if we refuse
Him to reign over us, but to be used for us in our submitting to Him. He is a
King to minister to our need, to supply the wants of the poor and needy. The
true king is one in respect of whom we have nothing, but to whom we are
altogether debtors. And this Brother, who is to be our King, we do not see
rightly as King if we see him merely as exercising a control without us. We
must see Him as the fountain of power within us; one who is to act in us by His
might in the conflict with that evil with which we are contending, in assurance
of His sympathy. This is the influence of the knowledge that He is King, that
it makes His sympathy strength, as that of one of whom we know that He has
strength for us. There is another blessedness besides that of conscious
dependence on God which is connected with realising the Kingship of Christ,
that thus, and thus alone, can we, as intelligent beings, meditating on the
wide universe, have peace as to its government. Unless we had the omniscience
of God we could not have the peace of God directly; but we may have the peace
of God, without the omniscience of God, indirectly: that is, we may have the
peace of God through the knowledge of God, and confiding, in regard to what we know
not, in the character of Him whom we know to be King. In this way there is
blessedness in having a Brother as a King, in respect of ourselves and in
respect of all things; for it is when we see the Lamb in the midst of the
throne, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of
God--it is then that we can have perfect peace about all things, because then
we see the character of Him who governs, and can say that all must be well. But
what I am so desirous that you should seek to realise is the sweetness of being
reigned over--the blessedness of having to do with a King; and that it is not
the sympathy of the Brother, as reconciling to the condition of being reigned
over, that you are to learn, but that while learning the character of the King
in the Brother you are to learn that being reigned over is itself a
blessedness. (J. M. Campbell.)
Verse 16-17
Three times in a year.
The command respecting festivals
We are informed by ancient writers that the Egyptians kept many
stated festivals and religious assemblies in honour to the gods, and that they
held no less than six every year at different places. It is probable that this
custom was of great antiquity, and observed when Israel dwelt in Egypt.
Therefore, when Moses went to Pharaoh, and asked leave for the Hebrews to
celebrate a feast to the Lord, the Egyptians could not say that it was an
unreasonable request, since they accounted it a duty to do the like. This opens
to us one reason for which these festivals were appointed in the law, namely,
in compliance with the inclinations of the people, who doubtless were desirous
to have their feasts and assemblies, as well as the Egyptians with whom they
had dwelt.
I. The work or
action enjoined--to appear before the Lord. God condescended to take upon Him
the government of the Jewish nation, and is here represented as their King; and
they, as dutiful subjects, and required to come and salute Him, and present
themselves before Him at certain times. The same respect which other nations
showed to their princes, the Jews were to show to God, as He was their King.
Thus far it was a civil or political duty. But as their King was also the
Almighty, to appear before Him was a religious duty; it was to serve and
worship Him in a public manner; and herein this law is moral, universal, and
everlasting.
II. The persons who
were to appear at these solemn feasts. “All thy males shall appear before the
Lord.” These words are to be understood not as excluding the females from being
present at these assemblies, but as giving them leave of absence, and
intimating that it might sometimes be more proper for them to stay at home. The
reasons for which the females had an exemption from this solemn duty seem to
have been these first, the weakness of the sex, not so fit to bear the fatigue
of these frequent journeys; secondly, the care of their children and families,
which could not be thus wholly abandoned; and, thirdly, the dangers to which
they would be exposed in such a numerous and mixed assembly. The Egyptians,
when they repaired to the feasts, sailed together upon the river Nile in large
companies, men and women, and many indecencies were committed, which this law
seems to have been intended to prevent. Thus were they excused from these
religious journeys when it was inconvenient. But at other times, and on other
occasions, they frequented the places appointed for instruction and for the
worship of God; as we may conclude from such examples as are recorded in
Scripture, and from that piety and gratitude which are usually more observable
in them than in the other sex.
III. The place where
the men were to appear--in the place which the Lord shall choose, namely, in
the place where the ark and the tabernacle of God should be, which at the first
was at Shiloh, in the country of Samaria and tribe of Ephraim, and afterwards
at Jerusalem in the tribe of Judah, where David erected a tabernacle, and
Solomon built a magnificent temple. One reason for which these festivals were
appointed, and appointed at one place, was to keep up peace and friendship and
unity, both in Church and State. Nothing is more likely to conduce to this end
than a religious association and intercourse, and a participation of the same
sacred rites.
IV. The time when
the Jews were to meet together--it was thrice in the year; in the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles. From
these religious institutions it may he observed that the hallowing unto God
more days in the week than one is not, as some have fancied, against the design
and meaning of the Fourth Commandment. For by these three solemn feasts, which
were each of them of a week’s continuance at least, it is manifest that “Six
days thou shalt labour” was no commandment, but expressed only an ordinary
permission of working; and to think that God would contradict His own law by a
contrary ordinance is inconceivable. As, therefore, when He commanded the Jews
to give Him the tenth part of their increase, He forbade not free-will
offerings; so, when He enjoined them to keep holy one day in seven, this
hindered not but that they might hallow unto Him other days even of the six.
Hence it is concluded that the Christian Church hath likewise a power to set
apart days for the more solemn service of God. But this should be done
sparingly, discreetly, and cautiously; it should rather be recommended than
required, and never without manifest reasons.
V. A particular
duty required of all the people when they came to worship God at these feasts,
namely, not to appear empty. It was a custom in those parts of the world when
subjects came before their king, to make him a present; and even a little
fruit, or a single flower, was favourably accepted from one who was not in
circumstances to offer more. The Jews were commanded to bring a present; not a
burnt offering or a sacrifice by fire; for these, though at the same time they
were also required, yet were of another nature, and for another end; but a
heave offering, a freewill offering, which was a tribute of thankfulness to
God, and likewise an acknowledgment of His supreme lordship and dominion over
all. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
They shall not appear
before the Lord empty.
The law of gifts in the Pentateuch
Empty in one sense, empty of blessing, none of us can appear
before the Lord, or our prayer has mocked Him, and our praise. Crowned with His
goodness, you have come up hither; crown His goodness in return with praise.
I. A leading
feature, the leading feature of the Old Testament revelation is, that life and
all that crowns it--its crown of blessings--is the gift of a living intelligent
Being, and comes to us bearing the seal of His love, The Jews were separated to
this end, that God’s methods and purposes with all men might be laid bare; that
for once the Hand might be clearly manifest which is busy about every life.
II. The motive
which is pleaded for all the noblest human effort is God’s example. God has
done thus and thus for you: “Go ye and do likewise” for your fellow men. It is
the plea which is constantly urged in the Old Testament, which we accuse of low
and material views, both of man and of God. It is the highest witness to man’s
essential God-likeness which can be conceived. Man’s nature only finds free,
that is joyful play, when it is doing God-like things, when it is striving to
think, will, and act like God. The only complete form of man’s life is the life
which is also Divine.
III. The
exhortations of the Scripture are amply sustained by our own experience of
life. There is no joy that fills man’s heart which is comparable with that
which he shares with God. He who does a deed purely unselfish, who yields free
play to the most generous, heavenly impulses.
IV. Part of this
God-like duty finds expression in the text. “none shall appear before the Lord
empty.” The Lord has filled you with good; you are “fearfully and wonderfully
made,” and in fearful and wonderful harmony with the world. Your organs,
exquisitely fashioned, and all the beauty and splendour of the creation, form a
concord which at once expresses God’s loving kindness, and is to you a fountain
of intense delight. And there is an inner harmony which He is striving to
develop by uniting your heart to fear His name, which will make this great
universe a Father’s house, and the awful future all eternal home. Help God, for
His great mercy’s sake, to help the world.
V. Another great
thought of the Old Testament is the help which it is in man’s power to render
to God. His ends can never be reached without us, in the way in which His
wisdom has ordered the world. He might have ruled as a despot; He has chosen to
seek rather to rule--as the Bishop of Argyll has happily phrased it as a
constitutional king. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Is giving a help or a hindrance
I. Every
individual is addressed.
1. All have been blessed; all are under obligations to recognise this
fact by giving. Everyone should help. It is the mites that make the great
aggregations.
2. Giving in accordance with God’s command is husbanding--it is
investing. Said a great millionaire when asked, “Where can I safely invest my
money?” “Give to God’s cause, where I have put uncounted thousands, and I find
that the interest due is always promptly paid, and the investment is perfectly
safe. I shall meet it beyond the river, laid up in heaven, and shall enjoy it
forever.”
II. This command
requires us to give as necessity requires and according to blessings received.
Give, because you have received. Bless, because you have been blessed. Love,
because you have been loved. Help, because you have been helped. Be liberal,
because you thus glorify your Benefactor. The great giver is a great gatherer.
He gathers love, power, influence, and revels in the smile of God. (J. D.
Fulton, D. D.)
An offering of gratitude
One day an Indian asked Bishop Whipple to give him two one-dollar
bills for a two-dollar note. The Bishop asked, “Why?” He said, “One dollar for
me to give to Jesus, and one dollar for my wife to give.” The Bishop asked him
if it was all the money he had. He said, “Yes.” The Bishop was about to tell
him, “It is too much,” when an Indian clergyman who was standing by whispered,
“It might be too much for a white man to give, but not too much for an Indian
who has this year heard for the first time of the love of Jesus.”
Giving according to conscience
A minister was about to leave his own congregation for the purpose
of visiting London, on what was by no means a pleasant errand--to beg on behalf
of his place of worship. Previous to his departure he called together the
principal persons connected with his charge, and said to them, “Now, I shall be
asked whether we have conscientiously done all that we can for the removal of
the debt. What answer am I to give? Brother So-and-so, can you in conscience
say that you have given all you can?” “Why, sir,” he replied, “if you come to
conscience, I don’t know that I can.” The same question he put to a second, and
a third, and so on, and similar answers were returned, until the whole sum
required was subscribed, and there was no longer any need for their pastor to
wear out his soul in going to London on any such unpleasant excursion. (Christian
Age.)
Thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift.
Equality before the law
I. Some facts and
tendencies in legal administration.
1. The sentence pronounced against a poor man is often very heavy,
and that against a rich man very light. In New Jersey a poor man was sentenced
to five years of hard labour in prison for stealing a ham; in the same court a
rich banker, who had ruined two banks and stolen the money of hundreds of
people, received the same sentence.
2. After conviction rich convicts receive favours. In the case just
cited the poor man and the rich man went to the same prison. But the poor man
was put at hard labour; the rich man was made clerk in the prison library.
3. Rich men have an unfair advantage over poor men when brought to
trial. The big fee that hires the eloquent pleader “buys out the law.”
4. Even judges are sometimes corrupt.
5. Juries are accused of taking bribes.
II. The perils of
these forms of injustice.
1. They threaten the property and lives of the poor.
2. They weaken the spirit of obedience (Numbers 22:23).
3. They develop the communistic spirit of destruction.
4. We are all unsafe when one poor wretch is unsafe only because he
lacks money or friends.
III. The remedies
for existing evils.
1. More and better teaching, in home, school, and church, on God’s
law of equality.
2. Wiser conversation on such matters when citizens meet together. It
is dangerous and unpatriotic to treat the miscarriage of justice as a jest.
3. A sound public opinion should be cultivated by press, pulpit, and
platform.
4. Our social power may be used to condemn a triumph over the law.
5. Seek to associate in all minds the idea of obedience to God with
that of just judgment. (Homiletic Monthly.)
An upright judge
Judge Sewall, of Massachusetts, went into a hatter’s shop in order
to purchase a pair of shoe brushes. The master of the shop presented him with a
couple. “What is your price?” said the judge. “If they will answer your
purpose,” replied the other, “you may have them and welcome.” The judge, upon
hearing this, laid them down, and bowing, was leaving the shop; upon which the
hatter said to him, “Pray, sir, your honour has forgotten the principal object
of your visit.” “By no means,” answered the judge; “if you please to set a
price, I am ready to purchase; but ever since it has fallen to my lot to occupy
a seat on the bench, I have studiously avoided receiving to the value of a
single copper, lest at some future period of my life it might have some kind of
influence in determining my judgment.”
The acceptance of bribes discouraged
In the Soudan, he said, he had £6000 a year, as Governor, but he
brought nothing out of the country when he returned to England. He spent his
income in adding to the insufficient salaries of the officials, to keep them
from accepting bribes, and thus to secure justice for the people at large. (Memoir
of General Gordon.)
Verse 20
That which is altogether Just shalt thou follow.
Justice the decorum of the character of judges
(preached at the Assizes):--The duties which are incumbent upon us
may be very properly divided into two classes--such as are incumbent upon all
men, and such as are incumbent upon particular ranks of men.
I. Justice is
immediately connected with the end of that office which magistrates, judges,
and rulers bear. The exercise of justice itself is the proximate means of
answering the purposes of government and judgment. One of the principal ways in
which other virtues promote these purposes is by contributing to the steady and
vigorous exercise of incorruptible justice. Injustice, directly and of itself,
defeats these purposes, and is in every instance absolutely inconsistent with
them. Other vices obstruct them sometimes very strongly, but always more
remotely and indirectly, often by preparing the way to injustice.
II. Rulers and
judges have, from their office, opportunity for many exertions of justice wholly
peculiar to themselves. On this account also justice may be considered as in a
special manner the virtue of their character and station. The poor man, who
cannot himself resist the oppression of the great; the peaceable man, who is
harassed by the encroachments of the man of violence; the orphan, whose rights
are invaded by him that hath no bowels, claim the protection of the judge, and
can obtain redress only by brining their cause under his cognisance.
Differences arising from the ignorance or the self-partiality of persons well
disposed can be determined only by the superior knowledge and unbiassed justice
of the judge. When individuals are injured or the public disturbed by crimes,
it is to the integrity of the judge that they must look up for help. How
extensive, then, is the sphere of public justice which is peculiar to the ruler
and the judge! In every instance of public justice he must make conscience of
doing what is right, else he forfeits the character of a just and honest man,
in the very same way as another person would forfeit it by being convicted of a
transgression of private justice.
III. Justice may be
considered as in a peculiar manner belonging to rulers, judges, and magistrates
because they are under peculiar obligations to it. Every act of injustice
brings positive hurt on the person who is affected by it; but an unjust
judgment hurts with the cutting aggravations of its being done under form of
law, and of its impeaching the person whom it injures, as if he had been
injurious. Private persons are connected only with a few, and therefore only a
few can be hurt by their injustice; but the injustice of a judge is of more
extensive consequence, it hurts all who are subject to his jurisdiction.
Private injustice may be checked or redressed by the righteousness of the
judge; but if the judge be unrighteous, by whom shall his injustice be
restrained? (Alex. Gerard, D. D.)
Civil justice
That which the air is in the elementary world, the sun in the
celestial, the soul in the intelligible, justice is the same in the civil. It
is the air which all afflicted desire to breathe; the sun which dispelleth all
clouds; the soul which giveth life to all things. The unhappiness is, it is
more found on the paper of writers than in the manners of the living. To be
just is to be all that which an honest man may be, since justice is to give
everyone what appertaineth to him. (N. Caussin.)
Justice in small things
Nouschirvan, the Persian king, having been hunting, and desirous
of eating some of the venison in the field, several of his attendants went to a
neighbouring village, and took away a quantity of salt to season it. The king
suspecting how they had acted, ordered that they should immediately go and pay
for it; then turning to his attendants, he said, “This is a small matter in
itself, but a great one as it regards me: for a king ought ever to be just,
because he is an example to his subjects; and if he swerves in trifles, they
will become dissolute. If I cannot make all my people just in the smallest
things, I can, at least, show them it is possible to be so.”
Thou shalt not plant thee a grove.
Idolatry forbidden
I. Idolatry is
enticing. This on many accounts.
1. By its prevalence. In some form or other it is the most popular
religion in the world. Men bow down to the idols of luxury, ambition, pleasure,
and avarice. “For all people will walk everyone in the name of his god” (Micah 4:5).
2. By its use. We naturally forsake God and cling to sin. Evil
inclination leads to wrong choice, and men choose darkness rather than light.
II. Idolatry is
treason against God. God is the sum of all moral qualities, the proprietor of
all resources, and the giver of all existences. What more rational than to
worship Him? Nothing belies God nor degrades man like the worship of images and
statues.
III. Idolatry must
be utterly forsakes. We must neither join the worshippers nor sanction the
worship. Plant no grove of trees, for truth loves light and reproves darkness.
(J. Wolfendale.)
Neither shalt thou set up
any image.
Images forbidden
Thus imagery is forbidden--even religious imitation and attempted reproduction
of things Divine and inexpressible. We are prone to do something to show our
handiwork in God’s sanctuary; it pleases us to try to add something to the
circle; it delights us to run one rim of gilt around the refined gold which
burns with the image and superscription of God. We are told not to interfere;
we must keep our hands off everything. We must learn to stand still; sometimes
to do everything by doing nothing; and we must learn to rebuke our inventive
faculty and become learned in the utterance of simple prayer. God will have His
altar untouched: He will have human attention undistracted by any human
devices. The altar is to stand alone in its simple dignity--most adorned when
unadorned. There must be no attempt to link true religion and false religion,
inspired worship and idolatrous worship, groves humanly planted and altars
Divinely built. The Lord will have a time for Himself, and place for Himself, a
gift for Himself, an altar for Himself. Why for Himself? Because He is the
Lord, and because He means to train the human mind and heart without
distraction towards the highest sublimity of law. Who will not set up his
reason against the altar, and delight because his religion is rational?--as
well hold up a candle to the sun, because all fire is of the same quality;
because there is but one fire in the universe, and that is God. The sun says,
Thou shalt not light a candle in my presence. We do it, but the candle is
literally of no service in the presence of the midday sun. Jesus Christ is the
Light of the world--the Sun of the great firmament of the soul--and He alone
can light the space that is to be illumined. Who will not throw the little
flower of self-approval upon the altar, saying, I am not as other men: I fast,
I pay tithes, I do not practise extortion: I am not as the publicans are? The
Lord has forbidden all groves and all images and all distractions. Only one man
is permitted near the altar; only one soul is heard in heaven. His name?--the
broken-hearted sinner! (J. Parker, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》