Lecture VII: Sinai and the Law (part 2)
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
It has been a question often debated amongst
scholars, how far the code of the Pentateuch was a
collection of earlier, later, or contemporaneous cus-
toms, under one general system. It will here suffice
to name those portions of the Law which, by direct
connection with the life of the Desert, can be traced
back to the Sinaitic period.
1. There is no express enactment of any form of
government in the Mosaic Law. But the
elders or chiefs of the tribes, who appear as
the background of the primitive constitution, are dis-
tinctly Arabian, an in part existed before the Exo-
dus, in part, at least, may be ascribed to Jethro.
The word is almost identical with the "Sheik" of
modern times, and is the same which designates the
chiefs of the Bedouin tribes of Midian. Their original
names are preserved. Together they formed a coun-
cil of seventy, of which, as it would seem, Hur was
the head. They were chosen by the people, and
dedicated by Moses. The priests were not part of
them. Through all the changes of the office, the
name still continued. From time to time it appears
in the settled period of the monarchy. On the dis-
solution of the kingdom it reasserts something of its
original importance. Out of the elders or Sheiks of
the desert thus grew the elders of the synagogues;
and out of the elders of the synagogues, — with no
change of name except that which took place in
passing from Hebrew to Greek and from Greek to
the languages of modern Europe, — the "Presbyters,"
"Prestres," and "Priests" of Christendom. That word
and that office, so limited in its present meaning, is
the direct descendant of the rudest and most primi-
tive element of the ancient Church.
2. The Encampment and its movements were pe-
culiar to the desert. Never again, after the
first settlement in Canaan, could the sight
have been conceived of the detailed arrangements
which called forth the passionate burst of Balaam's
admiration: "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,
and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" Many usages men-
tioned in connection with it must have perished at
once on their entrance into settled life. But relics
of such a state are long to be traced both in their
language and in their monuments. The very words
"camp" and "tents" remained long after they had
ceased to be literally applicable. "The tents of the
Lord" were in the precincts of the Temple. The
cry of sedition, evidently handed down from ancient
times, was, "To your tents, O Israel." "Without the
camp" was the expression applied even to the very
latest events of Jerusalem. In like manner, the na-
tional war-cries, always the oldest of national com-
positions, go back to this early state. The shout,
"Rise up, O Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered;
let them also that hate thee flee before Thee," was
incorporated into the Psalms of the monarchy; but its
first force came from the time when, morning by
morning, it was repeated as the ark was slowly and
solemnly raised on the shoulders of the Levites, and
went forth against the enemies of God in the desert.
"Arise, O Lord, into Thy resting place! Thou and the
ark of thy strength." "Give ear, O Shepherd of
Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; Thou
that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth!
Before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up
Thy strength and come and help us." Grand and
touching as is this address, taken in its application to
the latest decline of the Jewish kingdom, it is still
more so, when we see in it the reflected image of
the order of the ancient march, when the ark of God
went forth, the pillar of fire shining high above it,
surrounded by the armed Levites, its rear guarded
by the warrior tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Ma-
nasseh, the brother and the sons of Joseph, doubtless
intrusted with the embalmed remains of their mighty
ancestor.
And if from these fragments of sacred speech we
look at the actual relics of antiquity (in the literal
sense of relics), their desert lineage is still more indis-
putable.
Down to the latest times of the monarchy was pre-
served, in the innermost sanctuary of the
Temple, the ancient ark or coffer of wood, purporting
to be the same which had been made at Mount Sinai
and carried through all their wanderings. Its form,
as we have seen, possibly its religious significance,
was derived from Egypt. But its material was such
as can hardly be explained, except by the account
given of its first appearance. It is not of oak, the
usual wood of Palestine, for sacred purposes, but of
shittim or acacia, a tree of rare growth in Syria, but
the most frequent, not even excepting the palm, in
the Peninsula of Sinai.
What lay within the Ark, also of this period, shall
be mentioned hereafter. Two lesser objects of in-
terest were laid up, we know not for how long a
time, in front of it, both relics of Sinai. One was the
pot of manna. Many a perplexed controversy
on the nature of the food which sustained
the Israelites in the desert would have been spared,
could we have but caught one glance at this its
authentic perpetuation. It has been conjectured by
Reland, (and, in a matter of such obscurity, even the
conjecture of so great a scholar may be worth notice,)
that the existence of this vessel, with the handles or
ears by which it was supported, may have lent a
pretext to the strange fable already quoted from
Tacitus, that the Jewish sanctuary contained the
figure of an ass's head, in commemoration of the
events in the wilderness. Another object which lay
beside the vessel of manna was the staff or
rod of almond wood, — the sceptre of the tribe
of Levi, — sometimes borne by Moses, sometimes by
Aaron, the emblem of the ancient shepherd life, when
sceptre and crook were one and the same. The like
staff is still carried by the present chiefs of the Sina-
itic Peninsula.
But the most remarkable vestige of the nomadic
state of the nation was the Tabernacle or
Tent, which was the shelter of the Ark long
after the entrance into Canaan, and which was finally
laid aside and treasured up in the chambers of the
Temple, when the erection of that stately building
rendered its further use superfluous. The Temple it-
self was in some important respects but a permanent
and enlarged copy of the Tabernacle. The name of
the Sacred Tent was thus used for the Temple long
after it had itself been discontinued. In these its
later imitations and reminiscences, much more whilst
it stood as the one Sanctuary of the nation, it was a
constant memorial of the wandering state, in which
they received their earliest forms of architecture and
of worship. No Gothic or Byzantine style can reveal
to us more clearly the dates of the churches and
cathedrals of modern Europe, than those rough boards
of acacia wood, those coarse tent-cloths of goat's-hair
and ram-skin, dyed red after the Arabian fashion, in-
dicated the epoch of the primitive Jewish sanctuary.
Not a Druidical cromlech, like the Patriarchal Bethel,
not a fixed house like the palatial structures of Pha-
raoh or of Solomon, but a tent, distinguished only by
its larger dimensions and more costly materials from
the rest of the Israelite encampment, was "the Taber-
nacle of the Lord which Moses made in the wilder-
ness." On this simple dwelling, as of the Unseen
Chief and Ruler of the host, was lavished all the art
and treasure that the region could supply; skins of
seals or fishes, from the adjoining gulfs of the Red Sea,
linen coverings from the Egyptian spoils, to clothe
the tent as though it were itself a living object, —
almost as, at the present day, the sanctuary of Mecca
is year by year clothed and reclothed with sumptuous
velvets, the gifts of Mussulman devotion. The names
of the architects of the Temple of Solomon have
perished, but the names of the builders of the Taber-
nacle,— the first founders of Jewish architecture, the
rude beginners of Israelite, and through them of all
religious, Art, are emphatically recorded, — Bezaleel,
the grandson of the great but mysterious Hur, and
his companion Aholiab of the tribe of Dan. "See, the
Lord hath called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri,
the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and He hath
filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in
understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner
of workmanship; and to devise curious works, to
work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the
cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of
wood, to make any manner of cunning work. And
He hath put in his heart that he may teach, both
he and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe
of Dan."
3. Amidst the various elements of worship which
were to be carried on in and around the
tabernacle, the most conspicuous was, so far as we
can judge, peculiarly fitted to the mind of an Ara-
bian tribe. We may indulge in philosophical or theo-
logical speculations concerning the institution of Sacri-
fice; but, historically (and this is the only point of
view in which we are now to consider it), we cannot
overlook its adaptation to the peculiar period of the
Israelitish existence, in which we find it first de-
scribed at length. Some of the forms are identical
with those of Egypt and of India. But it is remark-
able that the institution (taken in its most general
aspect), after having perished everywhere else among
the worshippers of One God, still lingers among that
portion of the Semitic nations which more than any
other represent the condition of Israel at Sinai. Ex-
tinct almost entirely in the Jewish race itself, it is
still an important part of the worship of the Bedouin
Arabs. In the desert of Sinai itself, sacrifice is still
almost the only form which Bedouin religion takes,
at the chief sanctuary of the peninsula, the tomb of
Sheik Saleh, and on the summit of Serbal. When
Burckhardt wished to penetrate into the then inac-
cessible fastness of Petra, the pretext which afforded
him the greatest security was that of professing a
desire to sacrifice a goat at the tomb of Aaron. In
the pilgrimage to Mecca, "the sacrifices in the valley
of Muna are so numerous and so intricate, that it
is believed that none but the Prophet knew them."
Whatever difficulty we have in analyzing the feelings
of an ancient Israelite in shedding the blood of a bull
or a goat, or in wringing the neck of a pigeon be-
fore the altar, exists equally in the case of the like
rites of a modern Mussulman. Simple as we may
suppose the religion of that earliest stage of the
national life of the Israelites to have been, Sacrifice
is, by what we know of the Arabian religion, one
of the most necessary forms which it could have as-
sumed.
And as the sacrificial system was one which would
be specifically understood and felt at this early
period, so also historically did the Levitical
priesthood spring from the then existing framework
of events. The "tribe" of Levi of itself indicates the
nomad division. It has even down to this day pre-
served the recollection of that division, when all
the other like distinctions of the Jewish nation have
perished. The tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron, are
almost the only permanent signs of the personal great-
ness of Moses and his brother. The supremacy of
Israel was in later times shifted from one tribe to
another, Ephraim, Benjamin, Judah. But this is the
only period in which the leading spirits of the nation
came from the tribe of Levi; and in which, therefore,
its moral preëminence gave a ground for its ceremonial
preëminence also. Such a ground, implied doubtless
in the case of Aaron, is expressly stated in the case
of the tribe at large, when we are told that the
origin of their consecration was to be found in the
fierce zeal with which they rallied round Moses at the
time of the Golden Calf, and "slew every man his
brother, and every man his companion, and every
man his neighbour." The triple benediction, the
special function of the sacerdotal office, preserved in
the family till this day, and commemorated even in
the triple division of the fingers, and carved on the
gravestones of those who are supposed to be Aaron's
descendants, bears on its front the marks of the
primitive age, in which alone it could have orig-
inated.
4. The distinction between various kinds of food is
one which furnishes the earliest questions of
casuistry in the transition from the Jewish to
the Christian Church, and which lingers in the rem-
nants of the Jewish race to this day. It may be
difficult to account entirely for the grounds of the
distinction, but they may be traced with the greatest
probability to the peculiarities of the condition of Is-
rael at the time of the giving of the Law. The ani-
mals of which they might freely eat were those
which belonged especially to their pastoral state, —
the ox, the sheep, and the goat, to which were added
the various classes of chamois and gazelle. As we
read the detailed permission to eat every class of
what may be called the game of the wilderness, —
"the wild goat, and the roe, and the re-deer, and
the ibex, and the antelope, and the chamois," — a
new aspect is suddenly presented to us of a large
part of the life of the Israelites in the desert. It
reveals them to us as a nation of hunters; it shows
them to us, clambering over the smooth rocks, scal-
ing the rugged pinnacles of Sinai, as the Arab cha-
mois hunters of the present day, with bows and ar-
rows instead of guns. Such pursuits they could only
in a limited degree have followed in their own coun-
try. The permission, the perplexity implied in the
permission, could only have arisen in a place where
the animals in question abounded. High up on the
cliffs of Sinai the traveller still sees the herds of ga-
zelles standing out against the sky; and no image
was more constantly before the pilgrims, of whatever
age they may be, who wrote the mysterious inscrip-
tions in the Wady Mukatteb, and on the rock of
Herîmat Haggag, than the long-horned ibex. In
every form and shape and exaggeration it is there to
be seen. What makes the enumeration more exclu-
sively Arabian in its character is the omission of
the "reem," or buffalo, so frequently mentioned in
connection with the wild pastures east and north of
Palestine. In like manner the strict prohibitions may
almost all be traced either to the intention of draw-
ing some slight distinction between Israel and the
mere wanderers of the desert, as in the case of the
camel and jerboa, or to the strong recoil from Egypt,
as in the case of the leprous swine and the serpent,
in all its forms and shapes, so closely connected in
Egypt with the mystical or obscene ceremonial from
which they are now set free. We are accustomed,
in the French and Saxon names used in our language
for the various kinds of food, to trace the relative
social position of the Normans and Saxons after the
Conquest. A similar inference as to the original con-
dition of the Israelites, may, in like manner, be de-
duced from the permission or prohibition of clean
and unclean food, which must have long outlived the
practical occasion whence they derived their first
meaning and intention.
5. A whole class of law appears to be explained,
on the one hand, by the peculiar state against which
they are aimed; on the other hand, by their
high elevation above that state, indicating the
higher than merely national source from whence
they came. Of all the virtues of civilization, the one
which most incontestably follows in its train, and is
most rarely anticipated in earlier ages, is humanity.
And rare as this is everywhere in barbarous nations,
it is rarest in the East. In the East and West the
value of animal and of human life is exactly re-
versed. An Arab, who will be shocked at the notion
of shooting his horse, will have no scruple in killing
a man. And what was the fierceness of the ancient
Semitic race, especially, is apparent both from the
later Jewish history, and from that of the kindred
nations of Phœnicia and Carthage. Against this
the laws of Moses, in war, in slavery, and in the
social relations of life, stand out, as has been often
observed, in marvellous contrast. But there was one
form of ferocity, then as now, peculiar to the Bedouin
tribes, that of revenge for blood. To the fourth gen-
eration (it is the exact limit laid down both in the
Bedouin custom and in the Mosaic law), the lineal
descendant of a murdered man is to this day charged
with the duty of avenging his blood. This institu-
tion, so deeply seated in the Arab race as to have
defied the course of centuries, and the efforts of three
religions, was assumed and tolerated, like slavery,
polygamy, or any of the other ancient Asiatic usages,
which more or less lasted through the Jewish times.
But it was restrained by the establishment of
the cities of refuge. If, for the hardness of
the Bedouin heart, Moses left the Avenger of Blood
as he found him, yet, for the tenderness of heart in-
fused by a "more excellent way," he reared those
barriers against him. The common law of the desert
found itself kept in check by the statute law of Pal-
estine, and the six cities became (as far as we know
from history) rather monuments of what had been, and
of what might have been, than remedies of what was.
6. These are the most obvious instances of a direct
connection of any part of the Mosaic Law with
the code of the desert. Of the rest of the Law, there
is, for the most part, nothing which specially connects
itself with the desert life, though its general savor of
antiquity throws it back to the earliest period of
which criticism will admit. The growth of general
laws or customs out of particular occasions — as for
example the rule for the marriage of heiresses within
their own tribe arising out of the case of the daugh-
ters of Zelophehad, and the dispensation for accidental
defilement from the incident of the dead body in the
camp — is precisely the primitive stage of ancient
law which we recognize in the "Themis" or "The-
mistes of the Homeric age. "He cast a tree into
the waters, and the waters were made sweet: there
he made for them a statute and an ordinance." This
indication of the origin of the first Mosaic law at the
well of Marah, though left unexplained, is probably
a sample of the rise of many others. Again, the mode
in which the religious, civil, moral, and ceremonial
ordinances "are mingled up together, without any re-
gard to differences in their essential character," has
been well observed to be consistent only with that
early stage of thought, when law was not yet severed
from morality, nor religion from law, nor ceremony
from religion. It is, in fact, this primitive blending of
heterogeneous elements which has given rise to the pe-
culiar relations occupied by the Mosaic Law towards
the Christian Church. "No law," says Michaelis, "of
such high antiquity has, in one connected body, reached
our times, and it is, on this account alone, very re-
markable . . . . and, so long as it remains unknown,
the geneology of our existing laws may be said to
be incomplete." Beyond this general descent of all
modern laws from the code of the Jewish legislator,
it is extremely difficult to point out any principle on
which parts have been retained, and parts abolished.
The Mosaic prohibition against usury continued in force
throughout Christendom till the seventeenth century.
The Mosaic sanction of slavery is still a strong sup-
port of that institution in the Southern States of
North America. Our own marriage laws are mainly
based on the Levitical code; and the question of
Henry's divorce, which formed the occasion of the
separation of the English from the Roman Church,
turned on a minute point of Levitical casuistry. Even
in its most general aspect, the relation of the Mosaic
Law to the Gospel presents questions hardly yet
answered by History or Theology. What was the
Law of which the Psalmist spoke as that in the keep-
ing of which he found light, and life, and peace, and
comfort, and salvation? or what the Law of which
the Apostle spoke as though it were his personal
enemy, the cause of death, and the strength of sin?
What was that Law of which "not one jot or tittle
should pass away, till all was fulfilled?" or that,
which with its ordinances was "blotted out,"
"taken out of the way," "abolished"? The solution
of these problems must be sought elsewhere. It is
enough here to indicate them. They are proofs of
the remote antiquity of the code and the institution,
which could thus be personified, idealized, and applied
in senses so different. They are proofs, also, of the
freedom with which these various senses are used in
the Sacred records both of the Jewish and Christian
Churches. It was this most ancient and venerable
of all parts of the Old Dispensation, that fur-
nished the antithesis, now become almost proverbial,
between the "letter that kills," and "the spirit that
quickens."
There is one portion of the Law, however, which
remarkably illustrates most of these questions, and
which is evidently a monument of this earliest period
of the history, as well as the kernel of the whole
institution.
We read that when the Ark was carried in the
reign of Solomon to its last retreat within the
newly erected Temple, it was opened for the
first time within the memory of man, to examine its
sacred contents. It is impossible not to feel the in-
terest of the moment, when the ancient lid of acacia
wood was lifted up, and those who had heard of its
hidden wonders saw its dark interior. "There was
nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which
Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a
covenant with the children of Israel, when they came
out of Egypt." Nothing save these. We know not
their form or size. But we know the hard, imper-
ishable granite of which they must have been hewn;
we know its red hue; the style of engraving must
have been such as can be still discerned in the Des-
ert Inscriptions. These venerable fragments of the
rock of Sinai, seen then, were seen, as far as we know,
for the last time. They must have perished, or at
least disappeared, when the Ark itself perished or dis-
appeared in the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchad-
nezzar. But their contents have survived the wreck,
not only of the Ark and Temple, but of the whole
system of worship, of which they were the basis. The
Ten Commandments delivered on Mount Sinai have be-
come embedded in the heart of the religion which
has succeeded. Side by side with the Prayer of our
Lord, and with the Creed of His Church, they appear
inscribed on our churches, read from our altars, taught
to our children, as the foundation of all morality.
The form in which they were presented to Israel in
the wilderness is but of slight importance.
Yet five points may be observed, as indicat-
ing their primitive, impenetrable simplicity. First, the
number, Ten, as drawn from the most obvious form
of calculation, becomes, as if in imitation of this sa-
cred code, the form in which many of the lesser
enactments are cast. As many as six groups of this
kind may be traced in the different parts of the Pen-
tateuch. Secondly, the fact that they were on two
blocks of stone, probably of nearly equal size, and the
variations in the versions of Exodus and Deuteronomy,
almost necessarily lead to the inference that the Com-
mandments alone must have been engraven without
the reasons for their observance. Thirdly, the same
general consideration, combined with the form in which
the Commandments run, indicates that the original di-
vision of the Tables differed from that of all modern
churches. Five Commandments were in all probability
on the first, and five on the second table; amongst
those on the first would thus be included that which
now usually ranks at the head of the second, but
which then was placed amongst the general command-
ments of reverence to superiors whether divine or
human. Fourthly, unlike our modern idea of the
Commandments, but like the written rocks of the
desert, the inscriptions run over both sides: "the ta-
bles were written on both their sides; on the one
side and the other were they written." This was
probably to give the impression of their completeness.
Fifthly, they were not properly "the Ten Commandments,"
but "the Ten Words" — Decalogue. Hence the first
of them is, in the Jewish division, not a command-
ment at all.
This was the form: what was the substance of the
Ten Commandments? . . . What has the human
race gained by its adoption of what Burckhardt
called "the code of the Beni-Israel?" It is,
in one word, the declaration of the indivisible
unity of morality with religion. It was the boast of
Josephus, that whereas other legislators had made re-
ligion to be a part of virtue, Moses had made virtue
to be a part of religion. Of this, amongst all other
indications, the Ten Commandments are the most
remarkable and enduring example. Delivered with
every solemnity of which place and time could admit,
treasured up with every sanctity which Religion could
confer, within the holiest shrine of the holiest of the
holy places, — more sacred than altar of sacrifice, or
altar of incense, — they yet contain almost nothing of
local or ceremonial injunction. However sacred the
ritual with which they and the other moral laws were
surrounded, yet we have the highest authority for dis-
tinguishing between what was essential and non-essen-
tial in the Mosaic institutions, and for believing that
even the whole sacrificial system was as nothing com-
pared with the Decalogue and its enforcements. "I
spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them,
in the day that I brought them out of the land of
Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But
this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice,
and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people."
If there was in the Fourth commandment the injunc-
tion to consecrate, by unbroken rest, the seventh day
of every week, yet experience has shown how widely
adapted the principle of this observance has been to
all times and countries. Even those who most zeal-
ously repudiate the obligation of the Mosaic Law, and
dwell most forcibly on the distinction between
the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday, acknowl-
edge that no other ancient ceremony has so main-
tained its hold on the world, and that without its
antecedent support the observance of Sunday would
hardly have exercised the beneficial influence which
none deny to it. The Patriarchal rites of Circumcision
and of Sacrifice have vanished away, but the name of
the Sabbath of the Decalogue, the Sabbath of Mount
Sinai, — as if it partook of the universal spirit of the
code in which it is enshrined, — is still, as though by
a natural anomaly, revered by thousands of Gentile
Christians. If this be so even in the one exception
to the spiritual and moral character of the Decalogue,
much more is it with the remaining nine of these fun-
damental laws. "Thou shalt have none other gods but
One," "Thou shalt do no murder," "Thou shalt not
commit adultery," "Thou shalt not steal," are still as
impressive and as applicable as when first heard and
written. And if in the Second, and Fourth, and Fifth
commandments some expressions retain a local and
temporary character, yet these do but serve as proofs
of the hoary antiquity from which they have come
down to us. The words were "written by the finger
of God," but the Tables were not less surely fragments
hewn out of the rocks of Horeb. Hard, stiff, abrupt as
the cliffs from which they were taken, they remain as
the firm, unyielding basis on which all true spiritual
religion has been built up and sustained. Sinai is not
Palestine, — the Law is not the Gospel; but the Ten
Commandments, in letter and in spirit, remain to us
as a relic of that time. They represent to us, both
in fact and in idea, the granite foundation, the immova-
ble mountain on which the world is built up; without
which all theories of religion are but as shifting and
fleeting clouds; they give us the two homely fun-
damental laws, which all subsequent Revelation has
but confirmed and sanctified, — the Law of our duty
towards God, and the Law of our duty towards our
neighbor.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture VII: Sinai and the Law.
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 181-198
Posted May 28, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC
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