first choice which he should make, to be subsequently abandoned. But its selection, he says, will afford opportunity, and impose an obligation, for greater regularity in the services of worship, than had hitherto been observed.* To that place all offerings were to be brought; and that was to be the scene of a festive and charitable liberality, of a kind which is now first mentioned. In one respect, however, the rigor of the old rule respecting resort to the place of the national worship was to be relaxed. Some weighty reasons, at least, for the strictness of the demand, that all animals designed for food should be brought to the Tabernacle to be slaughtered, being now superseded by the change of circumstances, and others having become less urgent, through the influence of the habits of forty years, permission is given to the proprietor to slaughter them henceforward at his own home, if the place where the Tabernacle was pitched was so remote from him, that a journey to it for the purpose would be attended with inconvenience. The prohibition of the use of blood is declared to have application to this case, as well as to others, previously treated. The rule requiring that victims shall be perfect in their kind is briefly repeated. I The Pagan practice of offering the wages of prostitution as a consecrated gift is condemned as

* Deut. xii. 8, 9.

† xii. 4–7, 10– 14, 26 – 28.

xii. 17-19. For remarks on the subject here introduced, see below, pp. 454-458.

§ xii. 15, 20-22. The law in Lev. xvii. 1-7, is here repealed. See pp. 252-254, 288.—“The unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike" (22); which they could not do if the animals were presented as a sacrifice. Compare Lev. vii. 21.

|| Deut. xii. 16, 23-25. Compare Lev. xvii. 10-14, and p. 289, note *. The idea referred to at the end of that note, entered extensively into ancient forms of speech. "Purpuream vomit ille animam," says Virgil (Æneid. ix. 349).

¶ Deut. xv. 21; xvii. 1. Compare Lev. xxii. 19-25; p. 296.

an abomination in Jehovah's sight;* and the liberty of making vows, or refraining from making them, together with the obligation of fulfilling them when made, is again affirmed in the same tone with that of other passages in which the subject has been treated.†

In respect to Religious Revenues, no more is here done than to refer in the most general way to the established provision for the maintenance of the sacred order; to make a trifling addition to the priest's perquisites; and to direct, that if any Levite should be disposed to forsake his home in one of the cities of hist tribe, and devote himself to a perpetual service at the Tabernacle, he should be entitled to a like support with those of his brethren, who, from time to time, were rendering there their stated temporary service.||

The rules respecting clean and unclean animals are repeated, as they had been prescribed in the book of Leviticus. I

* Deut. xxiii. 18. Compare Lev. xix. 29. Respecting this practice of ancient idolaters, and of the Phenicians among others, see Spencer, “De Legibus" &c., lib. 2, cap. 23, § 1. Haud dubito, quin vocabulum canis de cynado [xúvaidos, quasi impudens ut canis] sit accipiendum; confer 17, At vide Bochart, "Hierozoicon," part. 1, lib. 2, cap. 56.

† xxiii 21-23. Compare Lev. xxvii. 2; Numb. xxx.; pp. 308, 397. Deut. xviii. 1, 2, 5.

§ xviii. 3, 4. "The two cheeks, and the maw," "and the first of the fleece of thy sheep," are donatives not hitherto mentioned.

xviii. 6-8. Moses dictated no arrangements respecting a succession of the Levites in the duty of serving at the Tabernacle; but of course he anticipated that they would presently be made, since, on the one hand, the Tabernacle was to be served, and, on the other, the Levites were to have their homes in forty-eight cities.

¶ xiv. 3-21; compare Lev. xi. 1-23.-There are, however, the three following slight differences between the two records. In Deut. xiv. 4, 5, as if to suggest some instances before the rule is named, a few animals falling within it are specified, of which we find nothing in Leviticus. In xiv. 13, the word, rendered in our version "glede," is added to the list in the parallel passage; a few manuscripts, however, and the Samaritan copy, omit it. The four exceptions in Lev. xi. 22, to the prohibition of "flying creeping things," do not occur in Deuteronomy; nor (with

as we have just now seen, are referred to in this,* another tithe, devoted to festive intercourse, to entertainments for friends, and charity to the needy, is here brought to view. From the manner in which this subject of a large stated yearly appropriation for social and benevolent purposes is introduced, indicating that it was already well understood, we infer (as in other cases which have come under our notice †) the existence of an ancient practice, to which some new regulations needed to be attached. It is now directed,‡ that these tithes, (or the proceeds of their sale, if distance should make their conveyance in kind too burdensome,) shall be carried to the neighbourhood of the Tabernacle, and

* Deut. xviii. 1-5. "The Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them" (2); they are to be provided for in the manner, which hath been heretofore communicated to them, and which there is no necessity now to rehearse.

† See, e. g. pp. 237, 330, 420.

Deut. xii. 6, 7, 17; xiv. 22–29. — In illustration of this distinction between the First and Second Tithes, a passage may be quoted from the apocryphal book of Tobit. "I alone," says Tobit (i. 6, 7), “went often to Jerusalem at the feasts, as it was ordained unto all the people of Israel by an everlasting decree, having the first-fruits, and tenths of increase, with that which was first shorn, and them gave I at the altar to the priests, the children of Aaron. The first tenth part of all increase, I gave to the sons of Aaron, who ministered at Jerusalem; another tenth part I sold away, and went and spent it every year at Jerusalem."-"That thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always" (Deut. xiv. 23); the effect of giving such a cheerful character to religious duties, will be favorable to devotion." At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates" (Deut. xiv. 28; compare xxvi. 12). The sense of this provision is not obvious. Selden, (" Works," Vol. III., p. 1083,) whom Lowman follows, ("Civil Government" &c., p. 119,) understands, that, on every third year, the Second Tithe was to be consumed at home, instead of being carried to Jerusalem, as on the two intervening; Rosenmüller ("Scholia," in xxvi. 12), that on every third year, there was a Third Tithe, wholly surrendered to the Levites and the poor, in which the proprietor enjoyed no share; Michaelis ("Commentary" &c., book 4, chap. 3, part 3), that against every third year the proprietor was to make an estimate of whatever he might have been prevented by any circumstances from dispensing near the Tabernacle, and then to make distribution of it at his

It is not

there be devoted to their proper purpose. formally ordained that the time for thus transporting and using them, shall be the seasons of the Festivals; but on every account it is to be presumed, that these would commonly be the seasons selected for the journey.

own home. I submit the following interpretation; viz. that "the end of three years" (Deut. xiv. 28), and "the third year, the year of tithing" (xxvi. 12), do not refer to a permanent recurrence of a period of three years, but denote the time when the first instance of tithing (afterwards to be regularly practised) should occur. It was perhaps suitable to allow as long a time as two years after the occupation of a new country, to make arrangements for its cultivation, before this part of the citizen's contribution to public objects should be demanded. Nor does the expression "within thy gates" (xiv. 28; xxvi. 12) make it necessary to understand, that on every third year these tithes were to be consumed in a different place from the two others. The phrase (though its meaning is commonly different) is not only suitable to be used concerning the collective territory of the people of Israel (compare Deut. xxiv. 14; Judges v.8), but there would be a propriety in using it in relation to a time speedily subsequent to the people's occupation of a permanent settlement, of which they had long been destitute. If I were not persuaded that this explanation is correct, I should suggest that it would deserve inquiry, had we the means to pursue it, (but our record introduces the subject as already so well understood by those whom it primarily concerned, that we have them not,) whether, in a quite different view from either which has been presented, "the third year, which is the year of tithing" (xxvi. 12), ought not to be understood as meaning, that only on every third year this second tithe was to be taken. We should then read xiv. 28, as follows; viz. "At the end of three years, thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase, even that same year, [viz. the third year, and only then, compare Ex. xii. 41,] and shalt lay it up" &c.; and verse 22 would signify; That fruit which every year thy fields produce, on every third year thou shalt tithe.In the verse immediately following that which I quoted above from Tobit, he goes on to say, "And the third [tithe] I gave to them to whom it was meet.". But this affords no corroboration of the opinion, that there was any public arrangement for a third tithe. He is here giving himself credit for a work of supererogation, (compare Luke xix. 8,) and he expressly says, that what he does in this respect, is done in conformity with the wish of a benevolent relative; 66 as Deborah my father's mother had commanded me "; not, as the Law had enjoined.

A variety of views present themselves, which my limits forbid me to pursue, respecting the influence of the regulations for Festivals and Second Tithes, upon the social relations and prosperity of the people. To a certain extent, they were Poor Laws; they brought the citizens amicably together in a great national Pic-nic; they did, not ostensibly, but only VOL. I. 58

the right of holding Hebrews as Slaves, or rather (as the arrangement was, from the first, in respect to males) as apprentices, for in no case could their involuntary servitude be prolonged beyond the period of seven years. If the Hebrew had been married before he entered upon his service, his wife became free along with him. If he had received a fellow slave in marriage, and if, when the time for his emancipation came, he was too much attached to his family and his master to wish to use his privilege, he might then, in the presence of magistrates (so as to guard against fraud on the master's part), go through a ceremony, by which he devoted himself to permanent servitude. A female slave, on the contrary, was liable to be retained permanently in that relation; but, if her master had received her with a view to espouse her to himself, or to his son, she had a right to the treatment of a wife or a daughter, or else to her freedom; she might not be transferred to any other purchaser. A later rule, recorded in Leviticus, gave the Hebrew servant his freedom in the Jubilee year, even if his seven years of service had not then expired, along with the further privilege of demanding the manumission of his family; and the emancipation of the Jubilee was at the same time extended to females, the Law declaring, that only foreigners shall be subject to be "bond-men and bond-maids for ever."* With the advantage of this preparation, the Law in Deuteronomy proceeds to make still more generous provisions. It ordains, that the right of emancipation, after six years' service, shall be extended to the female slave, and that, when manumitted, none shall be sent away destitute, so as to be exposed to want or temptation. “Thou shalt furnish him liberally," it is said, "out of thy flock,

1

* Ex. xxi. 1-11; Lev. xxv. 39 – 46. — In Ex. xxi. 8, instead of “be redeemed," the rendering should be, go free.