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To these, as so many representatives, apparently, was committed the authority considered as belonging to the people, in contrast with the sacred charges of the priests and the almost equally sacred duties of the judges or elders. As time rolled on, and the popular part in the institutions of Moses was extended by wars and disorderly habits, the princes and the congregation met together more frequently, and used more regularly the powers, always moderate, that they had originally received.29

It was beyond the power of the great man whose cares we are but attempting to review, to change the characteristic qualities of his people; but it became his object, as it proved his glory, to nurture the growth from these primary seeds in such a manner as should secure the ripening and the gathering of the fruit he labored for, at last. He sought, especially, to maintain the nation in independence and peace within itself. The territory of the prom

and its Captain. II. The Families (Ewald says twelve to each Tribe), which were apparently like the Athenian Fraternities ("families of the sons of Joseph "), and which were again subdivided into bodies corresponding, possibly, with the Athenian Names (" families of the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh "). The Chiefs of the Families were called the Chief Fathers of the Families, in contradistinction to the Princes of the Tribes, who were styled the Chief Fathers of the Children of Israel; but the family chieftains are also

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ised land was ordered to be equally divided by lot, according to the number of names,30 each portion being declared beforehand to be inalienable,31 under the solemn sanction of the Almighty. But as it was in the common course of things that many should become restless or impoverished, so that the land of the father would be lost or abandoned by the son, an additional provision was made to secure the universal prosperity which Moses would have rendered perpetual. Each fiftieth year was hallowed as a Jubilee, in which the liberty denoted by the original word 32 was to be proclaimed throughout the land, in order that every one might return to his possession and his family. The old home was given back to its wilful or indigent inheritor; the parent or the child was redeemed from slavery; and they who had lived a life of despair were awakened to hope and to rejoicings. This was to insure the safety of the household; the well-being of the individual was still more carefully defended. Usury was prohibited; and the pledges for borrowed money were, in certain instances at least, to be restored at sundown of the same day on which they had been conveyed.35 Every seventh year was appointed as the Lord's Release, when the obligations of the debtor should be discharged or his bondage ended.36 Even during the time of his confinement, he was watched by the laws

30 Numbers, XXVI. 53-56.

31 Levit., XXV. 23.

32 Which name," says Josephus, "denotes liberty." Ant., III. 13. 3.

33 Levit., XXV. 10.

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34 Exodus, XXII. 25. Cf. Levit., XXV. 35-37.

35 Exod., XXII. 26.

36 Deut., XV. 1, 2.

with continual solicitude, and at the moment of his liberation, he was not left to be sent away unprovided, but the flock, the floor, and the wine-press were all commanded to be used in supplying his necessities." If slavery were contracted from other motives, if the offender were sold in punishment of crimes, or the weak and the defenceless were dragged into bonds, they were to be set free, as brethren over whom it did not befit the more fortunate to rule.39

Besides these general precautions to make disorder and revolution impossible, the laws which are to be read in almost any chapter of Deuteronomy, concerning police and health and private habits, were to the same effect as if each man of the holy nation were to be separately protected and separately governed. The penal statutes, so severe that death and horrid torture were common punishments, were devised to preserve the law, and the worship to which the law was subordinate, unalterable. "What thing soever I command you," are the words in the Scripture, as of the lawgiver, "observe to do it; thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it."40 It was meant, undoubtedly, that "the holy people unto the Lord," as the Jews were called, should be as much restrained against outbreak or vicissitude as against any tyranny or oppression.

37 Exod., XXI. 2-9.

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40 Deut., XII. 32. Read on in 38 Deut., XV. 12-15. Levit., the following chapter, to see the XXV. 39-43. same design.

39 Levit., XXV. 44-46. So ver. 17. See Jahn, Arch. Bibl., for the various causes of slavery, Sect. 169 172.

41 Deut., VII. 6. See Ewald, Alterthümer des Volkes Israel, pp. 237, 238.

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In both cases, the laws of Moses were designed to act prospectively. He laid aside his own authority, enrolled his sons amongst the inferior ranks of the priesthood, and for himself in all respects had no mind to be great in the eyes which looked up to him amongst men. But for his legislation, on which he believed the salvation of his fellow-creatures and the glory of his Creator to depend, he seemed determined to make it applicable, not only to the wants of his own age, but to the progress and the piety of his posterity.43 His laws, indeed, were for all the people," undivided and undistinguished, further than by the simple ranks and offices before described. But there was no power in the people to reject, any more than there had been knowledge amongst them to desire or spirit to claim, the institutions he gave them under God. It may be said more confidently, as a matter of faith, if not of history, that the Jews were formed to feel their utter feebleness whenever they transgressed, but that, in their better days, they were taught as a people to feel their strength, and to guard

42 1 Chron., XXIII. 14. 43 And truly Moses gave them all these precepts, being such as were observed during his own lifetime. But though he lived now in the wilderness, yet did he make provision how they might observe the same laws when they should have taken the land of Canaan." Joseph., Ant., III. 12. 3.

44 "Ye stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God; your

captains of your tribes, your elders

and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is within thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water: that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God. . . . . . Neither with you only do I make this covenant; . but with him that is not here with us this day." See the whole Chapter XXIX. of Deuteronomy.

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their independence against any merely human authority.

The life of Moses is the heart of all Hebrew history. Through him, the religion of his nation was unfolded as clearly as it was permitted to be disclosed by man; and through him, also, the power to fulfil the commands and complete the hopes of faith was supplied with abundant means of exercise in freedom. The liberty of the Jews must be measured by a separate standard from that of other people. They claimed no rights of election, and sought no offices of government; content, as they were, in the belief that the authority they obeyed was Divine, and that the priest or the prophet, on the earth, was the chosen servant of God. The circumstances, besides, of their escape from Egypt and their settlement in the promised land, were not of a kind to set their ambition free to aim at any political advantages. They were not only more than occupied with the cares of labor, warfare, and worship, but the toils and the sacrifices they beheld in the persons of their leaders were not so tempting that they would themselves desire to exchange for these the selfish and boisterous enjoyments they undoubtedly found in their humbler lives. The faith, moreover, that they professed was hostile to sedition or to revolution; and there were few who would not join with Moses in his psalm 45 to implore the glory of the Lord sooner than exalt any

45 The ninetieth in our collection is ascribed to him.

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