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PENTATEUCH AND CHRONICLES.

Nevertheless we are required to believe that these purer laws were a part of the original constitution and genuine enactments of Moses, and hence we are expected to assume, that idolatry regained its ascendancy towards the time of the Babylonish captivity; whereas, in point of fact, notwithstanding the efforts of the more enlightened princes, it had, down to this time, never been entirely suppressed; and it was only at this very period that the minds of men were becoming more alive to its enormities, so that the complaints of contemporary writers correspond in every point with these prohibitions of the Pentateuch1.

break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.”—Deut. vii. 5.

"And when they had left their gods there, David gave a commandment, and they were burned with fire."-1 Chron. xiv. 12.

1 Compare the following verses :—

"So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about."-Ezekiel viii. 10.

"As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty : but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein therefore have I set it far from them."-Ezekiel vii. 20.

"But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by."-Ezekiel xvi. 15.

That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them."-Ezekiel xxiii. 37.

"For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.”—Jerem. ii. 20.

"The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot."-Jerem. iii. 6.

"How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me,

Human sacrifices cannot well be disclaimed by the Hebrews, and Michaelis himself does not deny their existence1. The firstborn were to belong in all strictness to Jehovah2, and in Egypt he exercised his rights; while the Israelites, by a special compact, were allowed to redeem their offspring, some vestige of which ransom remains and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses."-Jerem. v. 7.

"Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart."-Jerem. vii. 17, 31.

'They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind......And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods."-Jerem. xix. 5, 13.

I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests."-Zeph. i. 4. and other places.

1 Law of Moses, V. 115.

2

Because all the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast."-Numb. iii. 13.

3 "And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee, that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males shall be the Lord's."-Exod. xiii. 11, 12.

"Every thing devoted in Israel shall be thine. Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the Lord, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem."--Numb. xviii. 14, 15.

even to the present day. To the same class belong the human sacrifices which were offered in performance of vows2, particularly those of Jephthah's daughter3, and of the seven descendants of Saul, whom the Gibeonites, while allied with the Hebrews, hung up as an atonement before Jehovah1. Still more to the point is the offering by Abraham3, which the most ingenious interpreters have laboured in vain to

1 See Bodenschatz, Kirchl. Verfass. der Juden (Eccles. Constitution of the Jews), iv. 81.

2 "And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain."-Deut. ii. 34.

“Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it."-Deut. xxv. 19.

"He that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire.” -Joshua vii. 15.

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And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the congregation unto the Lord? For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up to the Lord to Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely be put to death. And the children of Israel repented them for Benjamin their brother, and said, There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day.”—Judges xxi. 5, 6.

"And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people."— 1 Kings xx. 42.

3 Judges xi. Michaelis, iii. 30.

4 "Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king said, I will give them......And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest."-2 Sam. xxi. 6, 9.

5 Genesis xxii.

OFFERING BY ABRAHAM.

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explain away'; and it assumes a yet higher importance when considered in connexion with the barbarous practice of sacrificing children to the Phoenician divinity Moloch, the monstrous excrescence of a much later age, with which the Pentateuch is clearly familiar, while no passage can be cited to prove its existence beyond the time of the Babylonish captivity2. The strong aversion to human

1 See Henke's Mag. v. 63, in opposition to Hess, Geschichte der Patriarchen (History of the Patriarchs) i. 345, and Jerusalem, Betrachtungen (Reflections), ii. 243.

2 Compare the following verses :—

"And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord." -Lev. xviii. 21.

'Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death : the people of the land shall stone him with stones."-Lev. xx. 2.

“Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."-Deut. xii. 31.

'There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch."-Deut. xviii. 10.

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Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils."Psalm cvi. 37, one of the later Psalms.

Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the vallies and in the clifts of the rocks."-PseudoIsaiah lvii. 5. [Von Bohlen agrees with Gesenius, Eichhorn, Jahn and other German critics in ascribing the latter part of Isaiah, ch. 40—66, to a different author.]

“But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel."2 Kings xvi. 3.

"And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger..........And the

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IMPROVEMENT OF THE JEWS.

sacrifices which the Persians entertained may have possibly contributed to effect this result: certain it is, that after the return into Palestine the practice of these sacrifices finally disappears, together with every trace of the previously existing idolatry. Before proceeding further, we shall find it necessary to take a brief survey, in the following chapter, of what is called the Babylonish captivity, as there is much which appears to terminate abruptly at this period, and the Jews on their return enter, as it were, a totally new career. All that can be proved to be purely Hebrew in the historical and prophetical writings of the whole of this period, is the separation of Jehovah from the gods of the neighbouring tribes, his reception as the national Deity, and the progressive elevation of his attributes.

on

We find that, in the earliest times, the ark said to be of the covenant was regarded as the peculiar abode of Jehovah; this ark was merely a holy chest, like that which other nations are known to have carried with them in their expeditions, to contain what they held as most sacred1. It was

Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim." -2 Kings xvii. 17, 31.

"And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.”Jerem. vii. 31.

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Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel."-2 Chron. xxviii. 3.

"And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves."-Hosea xiii. 2.

1 See Spencer, De Legg. Ritual. Hebr. p. 1084.