Hebrew Literature Part 65

363 There are reckoned six degrees of uncleanness: The father of fathers, the fathers, the first, second, third, and fourth children of defilement. There are altogether twenty-nine fathers of uncleanness, of which eleven arise from contact with a dead body.

364 A city about fifteen miles from Jerusalem.

365 Toward Jerusalem.

366 This decision refers to the case of a dealer whose wine or flour might become legally defiled by contact with the common people.

367 The Tosephta relates, that when the Pharisees were baptizing the candlestick, the Sadducees used to mock them by saying, they were baptizing the sun.

368 The Jewish year is composed of twelve lunar months. It is adapted to the solar year by the use of an intercalary month called Veaddar-the additional Addar. Every nineteen years there are seven occasions on which this embolismic month must be introduced to prevent the various feasts revolving over the four seasons of the year, like the Moslem fast of Ramadhan. Formerly the Sanhedrin arranged this intercalary month to suit the harvest, so that if it were late, the wave sheaf and other observances should still be kept according to their proper dates. When, however, the Sanhedrin was suppressed by the Emperor Constantine, Hillel II of Tiberias ruled that an intercalary month of twenty-nine days should be added in the 3d, 6th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 17th, and 19th years of the Metonic Cycle.

This decision has since remained the Jewish standard for reckoning time.

369 Deut. xxi. 4.

370 Deut. xx. 5, 9.

371 Lev. xix. 24.

372 Deut. xiv. 22-25.

373 Exod. xxi. 29.

374 Num. xi. 17.

375 Num. x.x.xv. 24, 25. A congregation, or "minyan," must not be less than ten men. If there be 10,000 women they cannot form a minyan.

The Lord Jesus more mercifully promises His presence to "two or three gathered together." Matt. xviii. 20.

376 Num. xiv. 27.

377 Exod. xxiii. 2.

378 Exod. xxiii. 2.

379 The Great Sanhedrin could whip a high-priest for certain offences, and afterward restore him to his office.

380 Deut. xxv. 9.

381 Lev. xxi. 12.

382 2 Sam. iii. 35.

383 2 Sam. xii. 8.

384 2 Sam. iii. 31.

385 Deut. xvii. 19.

386 Deut. xvii. 15.

387 Lev. xix. 16.

388 Prov. xi. 13.

389 Lev. xxiv. 22.

390 This rule was violated in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ. Matt.

xxvi. xxvii.; Mark xiv.; Luke xxii. xxiii.; John xix.

391 Gen. iv. 10.

392 Lev. v. 1.

393 Prov. xi. 10.

394 Before executing a criminal, a quant.i.ty of frankincense in a cup of wine was given to him to stupefy him and render him insensible to pain. The compa.s.sionate ladies of Jerusalem generally provided this draught at their own cost. This custom was in obedience to Prov.

x.x.xi. 6, "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts."

395 Lev. xxiv. 14.

396 Josh. vii. 19, 20, 25

397 Deut. xvii. 7.

398 Deut. xxi. 23.

399 This supposes a man sorrowful, because he is obliged to punish his own son.

_ 400 I.e._, the Divine Presence. The luminous cloud of glory in the Holy of Holies.

401 The words in the original, "Baal Aob," are supposed by some to denote a ventriloquist from "Aob," meaning a "bottle" or "stomach."

"Aob" seems, however, much more likely to be allied to the Coptic word for "a serpent" or "Python." Acts xvi. 16.

402 Matt. xxvi. 65.

403 The image of Molech was made of bra.s.s. It was hollow within and heated with fire outside. It stood in the valley of Hinnom without the walls of Jerusalem. Kimchi says the image of Molech contained seven chapels. These chapels are supposed by some to represent the seven planets. In the first chapel flowers were offered; in the second, turtle doves or young pigeons; in the third, lambs; in the fourth, rams; in the fifth, calves; in the sixth, oxen; "but whosoever offered his son, they opened to him the seventh chapel."

The face of Molech was like the face of a calf, and the image stretched forth its hands "as a man who opens his hands to receive something of his neighbor." "They kindled the image with fire, and the priests took the babe and put it into the hands of Molech, and the babe gave up the ghost." They called it Tophet; because they made a noise with drums ("tophim"), that the father might not hear the screams of his child and have pity upon him. And they called it Hinnom, because the child roared ("menahem") in his anguish. Others say it was called Hinnom, because the priests used to say, "May it profit thee-may it be sweet to thee."

404 Cutting off is generally supposed to have extended to the family as well as the guilty person. It seems to have included the future as well as the present life.

405 Deut. xxi. 18.

406 Deut. xxi. 20.

407 Prov. xxiii. 20.

408 Deut. xxi. 19, 20.

_ 409 I.e._, they are saved from crime by immediately depriving them of life. This summary mode of procedure was called "the rebel's beating." It was a kind of lynch law inflicted by the people at once. John viii. 59.