Verse 23
Ye shall not make with me gods of silver - The expressions here are very remarkable. Before it was said, Ye shall have no other gods Before me, אל פני al panai, [Exo 20:3]. Here they are commanded, ye shall not make gods of silver or gold אתי itti With me, as emblems or representatives of God, in order, as might be pretended, to keep these displays of his magnificence in memory; on the contrary, he would have only an altar of earth - of plain turf, on which they should offer those sacrifices by which they should commemorate their own guilt and the necessity of an atonement to reconcile themselves to God. See Clarke's note on [Exo 20:4].
Verse 24
Thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerings - The law concerning which was shortly to be given, though sacrifices of this kind were in use from the days of Abel.
In all places where I record my name - Wherever I am worshipped, whether in the open wilderness, at the tabernacle, in the temple, the synagogues, or elsewhere, I will come unto thee and bless thee. These words are precisely the same in signification with those of our Lord, [Mat 18:20] : For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And as it was Jesus who was the angel that spoke to them in the wilderness, [Act 7:38], from the same mouth this promise in the law and that in the Gospel proceeded.
Verse 25
Thou shalt not build it of hewn stone - Because they were now in a wandering state, and had as yet no fixed residence; and therefore no time should be wasted to rear costly altars, which could not be transported with them, and which they must soon leave. Besides, they must not lavish skill or expense on the construction of an altar; the altar of itself, whether costly or mean, was nothing in the worship; it was only the place on which the victim should be laid, and their mind must be attentively fixed on that God to whom the sacrifice was offered, and on the sacrifice itself, as that appointed by the Lord to make an atonement for their sins.
Verse 26
Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar - The word altar comes from altus, high or elevated, though the Hebrew word מזבח mizbach, from זבח zabach, to slay, kill, etc., signifies merely a place for sacrifice; see [Gen 8:20]. But the heathens, who imitated the rites of the true God in their idolatrous worship, made their altars very high; whence they derived their name altaria, altars, i.e., very high or elevated places; which they built thus, partly through pride and vain glory, and partly that their gods might the better hear them. Hence also the high places or idolatrous altars so often and so severely condemned in the Holy Scriptures. The heathens made some of their altars excessively high; and some imagine that the pyramids were altars of this kind, and that the inspired writer refers to those in these prohibitions. God therefore ordered his altars to be made,
1. either of simple turf, that there might be no unnecessary expense, which, in their present circumstances, the people could not well afford; and that they might be no incentives to idolatry from their costly or curious structure; or
2. of unhewn stone, that no images of animals or of the celestial bodies might be sculptured on them, as was the case among the idolaters, and especially among the Egyptians, as several of their ancient altars which remain to the present day amply testify; which altars themselves, and the images carved on them, became in process of time incentives to idolatry, and even objects of worship.
In short, God formed every part of his worship so that every thing belonging to it might be as dissimilar as possible from that of the surrounding heathenish nations, and especially the Egyptians, from whose land they had just now departed. This seems to have been the whole design of those statutes on which many commentators have written so largely and learnedly, imagining difficulties where probably there are none. The altars of the tabernacle were of a different kind.
In this and the preceding chapter we have met with some of the most awful displays of the Divine Majesty; manifestations of justice and holiness which have no parallel, and can have none till that day arrive in which he shall appear in his glory, to judge the quick and the dead. The glory was truly terrible, and to the children of Israel insufferable; and yet how highly privileged to have God himself speaking to them from the midst of the fire, giving them statutes and judgments so righteous, so pure, so holy, and so truly excellent in their operation and their end, that they have been the admiration of all the wise and upright in all countries and ages of the world, where their voice has been heard! Mohammed defied all the poets and literati of Arabia to match the language of the Koran; and for purity, elegance, and dignity it bore away the palm, and remained unrivaled. This indeed was the only advantage which the work derived from its author; for its other excellences it was indebted to Moses and the prophets, to Christ and the apostles; as there is scarcely a pure, consistent, theological notion in it, that has not been borrowed from our sacred books. Moses calls the attention of the people, not to the language in which these Divine laws were given, though that is all that it should be, and every way worthy of its author; compressed yet perspicuous; simple yet dignified; in short, such as God should speak if he wished his creatures to comprehend; but he calls their attention to the purity, righteousness, and usefulness of the grand revelation which they had just received. For what nation, says he, is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as Jehovah our God is, in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? And that which was the sum of all excellence in the present case was this, that the God who gave these laws dwelt among his people; to him they had continual access, and from him received that power without which obedience so extensive and so holy would have been impossible; and yet not one of these laws exacted more than eternal reason, the nature and fitness of things, the prosperity of the community, and the peace and happiness of the individual, required. The Law is holy, and the Commandment is Holy, Just, and Good.
To show still more clearly the excellence and great utility of the ten commandments, and to correct some mistaken notions concerning them, it may be necessary to make a few additional observations. And
1. It is worthy of remark that there is none of these commandments, nor any part of one, which can fairly be considered as merely ceremonial. All are moral, and consequently of everlasting obligation.
2. When considered merely as to the letter, there is certainly no difficulty in the moral obedience required to them. Let every reader take them up one by one, and ask his conscience before God, which of them he is under a fatal and uncontrollable necessity to break?
3. Though by the incarnation and death of Christ all the ceremonial law which referred to him and his sacrifice is necessarily abrogated, yet, as none of these ten commandments refer to any thing properly ceremonial, therefore they are not abrogated.
4. Though Christ came into the world to redeem them who believe from the curse of the law, he did not redeem them from the necessity of walking in that newness of life which these commandments so strongly inculcate.
5. Though Christ is said to have fulfilled the law for us, yet it is nowhere intimated in the Scripture that he has so fulfilled these Ten Laws, as to exempt us from the necessity and privilege of being no idolaters, swearers, Sabbath-breakers, disobedient and cruel children, murderers, adulterers, thieves, and corrupt witnesses. All these commandments, it is true, he punctually fulfilled himself; and all these he writes on the heart of every soul redeemed by his blood.
6. Do not those who scruple not to insinuate that the proper observation of these laws is impossible in this life, and that every man since the fall does daily break them in thought, word, and deed, bear false witness against God and his truth? and do they not greatly err, not knowing the Scripture, which teaches the necessity of such obedience, nor the power of God, by which the evil principle of the heart is destroyed, and the law of purity written on the soul? If even the regenerate man, as some have unwarily asserted, does daily break these commands, these ten words, in thought, word, and deed, he may be as bad as Satan for aught we know; for Satan himself cannot transgress in more forms than these, for sin can be committed in no other way, either by bodied or disembodied spirits, than by thought, or word, or deed. Such sayings as these tend to destroy the distinction between good and evil, and leave the infidel and the believer on a par as to their moral state. The people of God should be careful how they use them.
7. It must be granted, and indeed has sufficiently appeared from the preceding exposition of these commandments, that they are not only to be understood in the letter but also in the spirit, and that therefore they may be broken in the heart while outwardly kept inviolate; yet this does not prove that a soul influenced by the grace and spirit of Christ cannot most conscientiously observe them; for the grace of the Gospel not on)y saves a man from outward but also from inward sin; for, says the heavenly messenger, his name shall be called Jesus, (i.e., Savior), because he shall save, (i.e., Deliver) his people From their sins. Therefore the weakness or corruption of human nature forms no argument here, because the blood of Christ cleanses from all unrighteousness; and he saves to the uttermost all who come unto the Father through him. It is therefore readily granted that no man unassisted and uninfluenced by the grace of Christ can keep these commandments, either in the letter or in the spirit; but he who is truly converted to God, and has Christ dwelling in his heart by faith, can, in the letter and in the spirit, do all these things, Because Christ Strengthens him - Reader, the following is a good prayer, and oftentimes thou hast said it; now learn to pray it: "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep these laws! Lord, have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee!" - Com. Service.
Introduction
Laws concerning servants. They shall serve for only seven years, [Exo 21:1], [Exo 21:2]. If a servant brought a wife to servitude with him, both should go out free on the seventh year, [Exo 21:3]. If his master had given him a wife, and she bore him children, he might go out free an the seventh year, but his wife and children must remain, as the property of the master, [Exo 21:4]. If, through love to his master, wife, and children, he did not choose to avail himself of the privilege granted by the law, of going out free on the seventh year, his ear was to be bored to the door post with an awl, as an emblem of his being attached to the family for ever, [Exo 21:5], [Exo 21:6]. Laws concerning maid-servants, betrothed to their masters or to the sons of their masters, [Exo 21:7-11]. Laws concerning battery and murder, [Exo 21:12-15]. Concerning men-stealing, [Exo 21:16]. Concerning him that curses his parents, [Exo 21:17]. Of strife between man and man, [Exo 21:18], [Exo 21:19]; between a master and his servants, [Exo 21:20], [Exo 21:21]. Of injuries done to women in pregnancy, [Exo 21:22]. The Lex Talionis, or law of like, [Exo 21:23-25]. Of injuries done to servants, by which they gain the right of freedom, [Exo 21:26], [Exo 21:27]. Laws concerning the ox which has gored men, [Exo 21:28-32]. Of the pit left uncovered, into which a man or a beast has fallen, [Exo 21:33], [Exo 21:34]. Laws concerning the ox that kills another, [Exo 21:35], [Exo 21:36].
Verse 1
Now these are the judgments - There is so much good sense, feeling, humanity, equity, and justice in the following laws, that they cannot but be admired by every intelligent reader; and they are so very plain as to require very little comment. The laws in this chapter are termed political, those in the succeeding chapter judicial, laws; and are supposed to have been delivered to Moses alone, in consequence of the request of the people, [Exo 20:19], that God should communicate his will to Moses, and that Moses should, as mediator, convey it to them.
Verse 2
If thou buy a Hebrew servant - Calmet enumerates six different ways in which a Hebrew might lose his liberty:
1. In extreme poverty they might sell their liberty. [Lev 25:39] : If thy brother be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, etc.
2. A father might sell his children. If a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant; see [Exo 21:7].
3. Insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors. My husband is dead - and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen, [2Kgs 4:1].
4. A thief, if he had not money to pay the fine laid on him by the law, was to be sold for his profit whom he had robbed. If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft; [Exo 22:3], [Exo 22:4].
5. A Hebrew was liable to be taken prisoner in war, and so sold for a slave.
6. A Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a Gentile by a Hebrew might be sold by him who ransomed him, to one of his own nation.
Six years he shall serve - It was an excellent provision in these laws, that no man could finally injure himself by any rash, foolish, or precipitate act. No man could make himself a servant or slave for more than seven years; and if he mortgaged the family inheritance, it must return to the family at the jubilee, which returned every fiftieth year.
It is supposed that the term six years is to be understood as referring to the sabbatical years; for let a man come into servitude at whatever part of the interim between two sabbatical years, he could not be detained in bondage beyond a sabbatical year; so that if he fell into bondage the third year after a sabbatical year, he had but three years to serve; if the fifth, but one. See Clarke's note on [Exo 23:11], etc. Others suppose that this privilege belonged only to the year of jubilee, beyond which no man could be detained in bondage, though he had been sold only one year before.
Verse 3
If he came in by himself - If he and his wife came in together, they were to go out together: in all respects as he entered, so should he go out. This consideration seems to have induced St. Jerome to translate the passage thus: Cum quali veste intraverat, cum tali exeat. "He shall have the same coat in going out, as he had when he came in," i.e., if he came in with a new one, he shall go out with a new one, which was perfectly just, as the former coat must have been worn out in his master's service, and not his own.
Verse 4
The wife and her children shall be her master's - It was a law among the Hebrews, that if a Hebrew had children by a Canannitish woman, those children must be considered as Canaanitish only, and might be sold and bought, and serve for ever. The law here refers to such a case only.
Verse 6
Shall bring him unto the judges - אל האלהים el haelohim, literally, to God; or, as the Septuagint have it, προς το κριτηριον Θεου, to the judgment of God; who condescended to dwell among his people; who determined all their differences till he had given them laws for all cases, and who, by his omniscience, brought to light the hidden things of dishonesty. See [Exo 22:8].
Bore his ear through with an awl - This was a ceremony sufficiently significant, as it implied,
1. That he was closely attached to that house and family.
2. That he was bound to hear all his master's orders, and to obey them punctually. Boring of the ear was an ancient custom in the east. It is referred to by Juvenal: -
Prior, inquit, ego adsum.
Cur timeam, dubitemve locum defendere? Quamvis