On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt/Chapter 11

by Henry Martyn Field

 

CHAPTER XI.

 

THEOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY,

Perhaps it does not often occur to readers of the Old Testament, that there is much likeness between the Hebrew Commonwealth and the American Republic. There are more differences than resemblances: at least the differences are more marked. Governments change with time and place, with the age and the country, with manners and customs, with modes of life and degrees of civilization. Yet at the bottom there is one radical principle that divides a republic from a monarchy or an aristocracy: it is the natural equality of men — that "all men are born free and equal" — which is as fully recognized in the laws of Moses as in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed the principle is carried further in the Hebrew Commonwealth than in ours: for not only was there equality before the laws, but the laws aimed to produce equality of condition in one point, and that a vital one — the tenure of land — of which even the poorest could not be deprived, so that in this respect the Hebrew Commonwealth approached more nearly to a pure democracy.

Of course the political rights of the people did not extend to the choice of a ruler, nor did it to the making of the laws. As there was no King but God, it was the theory of the state that the laws emanated directly from the Almighty, and His commands could not be submitted to a vote. No clamorous populace debated with the Deity. The Israelites had only to hear and to obey. In this sense the government was not a popular, but an absolute one.

But how could absolutism be consistent with equality? There is no contradiction between the two, and indeed, in some respects, no form of government is so favorable to equality as a theocracy. Encroachments upon popular liberty, and the oppression of the people, do not come from the head of the state so often as from an aristocratic class, which is arrogant and tyrannical. But in a theocracy the very exaltation of the sovereign places all subjects on the same level. God alone is great, and in His presence there is no place for human pride. Divine majesty overawes human littleness, and instead of a favored few being lifted up above their fellows, there is a general feeling of lowliness and humility in the sight of God, in which lies the very spirit and essence of equality.

As the Hebrew Law recognized no natural distinctions among the people, neither did it create any artificial distinctions. There was no hereditary class which had special rights; there was no nobility exempted from burdens laid on the poor, and from punishments inflicted on the peasantry. Whatever political power was permitted to the Hebrews, belonged to the people as a whole. No man was raised above another; and if in the making of the laws the people had no voice, yet in the administration of them they had full power, for they elected their own rulers. Moses found soon after he left Egypt that he could not administer justice in person to a whole nation. "How can I myself alone," he asked, "bear your burden, and your cumbrance, and your strife?" He therefore directed the tribes to choose out of their number their wisest men, whom he would make judges to decide every common cause, reserving to himself only the more important questions. Here was a system of popular elections, which is one of the first elements of a republican or democratic state.

There was a close connection between the civil and the military constitution of the Hebrews. The same men who were captains of thousands and captains of hundreds in war, were magistrates in time of peace.

In every Oriental State the point of greatest weakness is the administration of justice. Those who have lived long in the East testify that there is no such thing as justice; that no cadi, sitting in the place of judgment, ever pretends to such exceptional virtue as to be above receiving bribes. The utmost that can be expected is the hypocrisy which is the homage of vice to virtue, and even this is seldom rendered, for where bribery is universal, no one is constrained by shame to conceal it.

Against this terrible demoralization no rock can stand but that of the Divine authority. In the administration of justice a theocracy is an ideal government, for it is Divinity enthroned on earth as in heaven; and no other form of government enforces justice in a manner so absolute and peremptory. In the eyes of the Hebrew Lawgiver, the civil tribunal was as sacred as the Holy of Holies. The office of the judge was as truly authorized, and his duty as solemnly enjoined, as that of the priest. "The judgment is God's," said Moses, and he who gave a false judgment disregarded the authority of Him whose nature is justice and truth. The judgment-seat was a holy place, which no private malice might profane. Evidence was received with religious care. Oaths were administered to give solemnity to the testimony.^[1] Then the judge, standing in the place of God, was to pronounce equitably, whatever might be the rank of the contending parties: "Ye shall not respect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's."^[2] He recognized no distinctions; all were alike to Him. The judge was to know no difference. He was not to be biased even by sympathy for the poor: "Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause."^[3] "Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."^[4] Magistrates were not allowed to accept a gift, for fear of bribery: "Thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous."^[5]

To make the administration of justice august and venerable, the higher magistracy was committed to old men, whose white hairs and silver beards gave dignity to the judicial tribunal. They were called the elders of the congregation. After the Israelites reached Canaan, and were settled in towns and cities, this council of the ancients always sat at the gate of the city, which was the place of public resort. Here they received the homage of the people as they went forth to work in the fields, or returned at evening to lodge within the walls. When they appeared abroad, they rode on white asses, as the mollahs, or men of the law, in Persia, do to this day, and the heads of families returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. The authority of these magistrates was sacred. No one might rebel against their decisions, nor even speak of them with disrespect: "Thou shalt not curse the ruler of thy people."

In vindicating the wisdom of such a "Department of Justice," it is not necessary to limit our comparison to Oriental states; we may extend it to all states, ancient and modern, the most powerful and the most civilized. Where can we find a machinery of law that is more perfect? The organization was very simple; it was patriarchal in form. And yet with laws that were plain and intelligible, administered by men whose age and character commanded universal reverence, what could be more admirably framed to secure that which is declared to be one of the great ends of our republican government, "to establish justice," than this simple economy of the Hebrew Commonwealth?

But now we come to a point in which it not only equalled, but far surpassed, our American Republic in securing absolute equality. In the Hebrew state not only did all classes enjoy the same liberty, and have the same rights — not only were all equal before the law, having the same claim to justice and protection — but the Hebrew polity aimed to secure among the people a general equality of property and of condition.

On the conquest of Canaan, it was divided into twelve parts, which were assigned by lot to the different tribes. Thus the Hebrew state was a confederacy of twelve small provinces, like the Swiss cantons. The territory of each was then subdivided, so that a portion of land was assigned to every family. This was a military division of the country. A share in the soil might be considered as a reward of every soldier who had fought for the Promised Land. But in the eye of the great Lawgiver, it was designed to have the most important political effects.

First of all, it settled the country. It gave to every man a fixed and permanent home. For forty years the Israelites had lived in a camp. They had contracted the roving habits of all wandering tribes. Now an army was to be transformed into a nation. The cottage was to take the place of the tent, and the pruning-hook of the spear. All this Moses secured by one simple law. Instead of introducing a feudal system, dividing the conquered country to military chiefs, for whom the people should labor as serfs, he gave the land to all. Each tribe was marched to its new possession, every family entered on its humble estate, and Israel began its national existence. This determined the occupations of the people. By planting every father of a family upon a plot of ground which he was to cultivate, Moses formed a nation of farmers — the best citizens for a free Commonwealth. The miracle was as great as if immense hordes of wandering Bedaween were instantly transformed into quiet husbandmen.

In modern political economy it is considered necessary to the prosperity of a nation that it should have a varied industry, employing a part of its people in manufactures and in commerce. But Moses founded a state almost wholly upon agriculture. Manufactures he did not encourage. Doubtless the Israelites, while in Egypt, had acquired skill in mechanic arts, as they showed in working gold and tapestry for the Tabernacle. But the Hebrew Lawgiver took no pains to cherish this branch of industry, and it is probable that the arts afterwards sunk into the hands of slaves.

Nor did he introduce commerce. There was an inland trade which sufficed for the simple wants of the people. Their festivals, besides their religious design, probably served as annual fairs. The caravans, which passed from Asia to Africa, carried down their products to Egypt. But of navigation they knew nothing. Though Palestine lay at the head of the Mediterranean, in the best maritime position in the world, scarcely a bark ventured from the coast before the time of Solomon. Zebulon and Naphtali dwelt by the sea; yet nothing is said of the excellence of their ports and harbors. The attraction of Palestine was its fitness for agriculture: "The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and figtrees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive and honey."^[6]

This aversion to commerce Moses may have derived from the Egyptians, who had a horror of the sea. But he had other reasons for it, and his policy in this respect is another proof of his profound political sagacity. Commerce promotes intercourse with foreign nations, which for the best reasons he wished to discourage. By dispersing abroad the citizens of a State, it weakens the tie which binds them to their country. A nation that does not live at home, quickly loses its nationality. Of this the Jews at this day are the best possible proof. Scattered in all countries, they are equally ready to lend their money to Christian or Turk, and to fight for or against any people or cause. Agriculture, on the other hand, keeping all the inhabitants at home, promotes patriotism and attachment to the national religion. Farmers are the strength of a state, for they are generally both peaceful citizens and brave warriors. A small state is never so invincible as when all its citizens are independent freeholders. Then every man has an interest rooted in the soil. He fights for his country because he fights for his home.

Commerce, too, would introduce foreign luxury, which would corrupt the simplicity of a democratic state. True, it might make the Hebrews rich. But it was not the object of Moses to make his people opulent, but free, contented, and happy. He aimed not to erect a splendid monarchy, like that of Egypt or Assyria, but to found a simple and religious Commonwealth. By confining the Hebrews to rural occupations, he preserved a Spartan frugality and economy, the most proper to a free state. He preserved a general equality among the people. Even to the humblest was secured his little home-lot, so that, however poor, he would still feel that he was on the same plane with his neighbors, working in the same fields, performing the same labor, and entitled to the same respect.

But this simplicity and equality could not long have remained, since large estates would begin to swallow up the smaller, but for another law, that the land was inalienable. In Egypt the soil belonged to the king, of whom the people received it as tenants. So the Divine Ruler reserved to himself the title to the new country which the Israelites were to enter: "The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."^[7] A man could sell the produce of his farm, or make over the income of an estate for a term of years; but the land itself was the gift of God to his-family, and remained in it from generation to generation.

Political writers may object to this as an agrarian law. But its effect was most happy. It prevented the accumulation of great estates. It checked the ambition of the chiefs. It formed a barrier to the influx of foreign luxury, and to those civil discords which always spring from great Inequalities of social condition. The disregard of this law at a later period was one of the causes which hastened the ruin of the state. "Woe unto them," said the prophet, "that lay field to field till there be no place, that they may be left alone in the midst of the earth!"

But at the beginning the Hebrew state presented the remarkable spectacle of two millions and a half of people, all equal in rank, and very nearly so in condition. This fact is the more surprising when contrasted with the monstrous mequalities which prevailed in other Oriental countries. Indeed, a parallel to this it would not be possible to find in the most democratic modern state.

By this equal distribution of the landed property of the nation, the law furnished the strongest barrier against pauperism. Still, in the best regulated society, inequality of conditions must arise. Special enactments, therefore, were added to protect the poor from oppression, and to soften the hardships of their lot. The laborer, who depended on his daily wages, was to be paid promptly: "The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning."^[8] Certain property was sacred: "No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone to pledge; for he taketh a man's life."^[9]

If, by a series of calamities, a man had become impoverished, his more prosperous neighbors were enjoined to lend him money; and although this was not a statute, to the violation of which was annexed a legal penalty, it was a rule which could not be disregarded without a degree of infamy, such as would attach to an Arab chief, who should violate the laws of hospitality. Thus did the Hebrew law enjoin a mutual helpfulness that is the best guard against inequalities of condition.

The humanity of the Hebrew code is further seen in its mitigation of slavery. This was a legal institution of Egypt, out of which they had just come. They themselves had been slaves. Their ancestors, the patriarchs, had held slaves. Abraham had over three hundred servants born in his house.^[10] The relation of master and slave they still recognized. But by how many limitations was this state of bondage alleviated! No man could be subjected to slavery by violence. Man-stealing was punished with death.^[11] The more common causes of servitude were theft or debt. A robber might be sold to expiate his crime; or a man overwhelmed with debt, might sell himself to pay it; that is, he might bind himself to service for a term of years. Still, he could hold property, and the moment he acquired the means, might purchase back his freedom, or he might be redeemed by his nearest kinsman.^[12] If his master treated him with cruelty; if he beat him so as to cause injury, the servant recovered his freedom as indemnity.^[13] At the longest, his servitude came to an end in six years. He then recovered his freedom as a natural right: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing."^[14] A Hebrew slave was, therefore, merely a laborer hired for six years. Nor did the law permit the faithful servant to go forth in naked poverty, and with the abject feeling of a slave still clinging to him. He was to be loaded with presents by his late master — sheep, oil, fruits, and wine — to enable him to begin housekeeping.^[15] Thus for a Hebrew there was no such thing as hopeless bondage. The people were not to feel the degradation of being slaves. God claimed them as His own, and as such they were not to be made bondmen.^[16] Every fiftieth year was a jubilee, a year of universal emancipation. Then "liberty was proclaimed throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof."^[17]This was the time of the restitution of all things. Though a man had sold himself as a slave, his right in the land was not alienated. It now returned to him free of encumbrance. At the year of jubilee all debts were extinguished. His native plot of ground, on which he played in childhood, was restored to him in his old age. Again he cultivated the paternal acres. He was not only a free man, but a holder of property.

It is true these rights were limited to slaves of Hebrew descent. The Canaanites were considered as captives in war, whose lives had been spared by the conquerors. The Gibeonites employed artifice to obtain this hard condition, that they might remain in the land as a servile race. A stranger, therefore, might be a servant forever. But even these foreign Helots had many rights. They, as well as the Hebrews, enjoyed the rest of the Sabbath.^[18] They shared the general rejoicing on the great festivals. To certain feasts they were especially to be invited.^[19] Thus the hearts of the bondmen were lightened in the midst of their toil. They were always to be treated with humanity and kindness. In fact, they lived in the houses of their masters more as hired servants than as slaves. They were the family domestics, and were often the objects of extreme attachment and confidence. Says Michaelis: "The condition of slaves among the Hebrews was not merely tolerable, but often extremely comfortable."

That the sympathies of the law were with the oppressed against the oppressor, appears from the singular injunction that a foreign slave, who fled to a Hebrew for protection, should not be given up: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee." ^[20] No Fugitive Slave Law remanded the terror-stricken fugitive to an angry and infuriated master, and to a condition more hopeless than before.

Contrast this mild servitude with the iron bondage which crushed the servile class in other ancient nations: "Among the Romans slaves were held — pro nullis — pro mortuis — pro quadrupedibus — as no men — as dead men — as beasts; nay, were in a much worse state than any cattle whatever. They had no head in the state, no name, no tribe or register. They were not capable of being injured, nor could they take by purchase or descent; they had no heirs, and could make no will. Exclusive of what was called their peculium, whatever they acquired was their master's; they could neither plead, nor be pleaded, but were entirely excluded from all civil concerns; were not entitled to the rights of matrimony, and therefore had no relief in case of adultery; nor were they proper subjects of cognation or affinity. They might be sold, transferred, or pawned, like other goods or personal estate; for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed."^[21]

Can there be a greater contrast between the laws of different states than that between the Roman law and the Hebrew law in regard to slaves? And yet Rome was the most powerful empire on the earth, and claimed to be highly civilized. But which code leans more to barbarism? Which is instinct with the spirit of a new and better civilization? Moses was the first to recognize slaves as human beings. No matter how low the slave might be in the scale of rank — how abject his condition — he was a MAN. We boast of this doctrine of equality as if it were a modern discovery, and popular assemblies applaud, or sing in chorus, the noble line of Burns,

"A man's a man for a' that,"

forgetting that the fine sentiment of the poet was a recognized truth and a principle of law more than thirty centuries before he was born. Indeed no other state, ancient or modern, not Scotland or Switzerland, answered more fully to the poet's dream of simplicity and equality than that which was planted on the Judean hills. A state which respected manhood and womanhood, and in which labor was honorable, and agricultural labor above all the most honored of human pursuits, was the very one in which the free-hearted Scot might have

"Walked in glory and in joy
Behind his plough along the mountain side."

Such was the democracy of theocracy — a democracy not merely joined with theocracy in a forced and unnatural union — an alliance of two systems which were by nature hostile, and ready to fly apart; but a union in which one sprang out of the other. Men were equal because God was their Ruler — a Ruler so high that before Him there was neither great nor small, but all stood on the same level.

But the Hebrew Law did not stop with equality: it inculcated fraternity. A man was not only a man, he was a brother. That Law contains some of the most beautiful provisions ever recorded in any legislation, not only for the cold administration of justice, but for the exercise of humanity. The spirit of the Hebrew Law was broader than race, or country, or kindred. What liberality, for example, in its treatment of foreigners! In the Exodus of the Israelites; in their migration from the Delta to the Desert; in their long wanderings through the wilderness; and in their approaches to the Holy Land — they came in contact with other tribes and nations. With these they were often at war; but after the war there were great numbers of persons of foreign birth settled among them, and unless guarded by special enactments, they were liable to be objects of hatred and persecution. Among the ancients generally a foreigner had no rights in any country but his own. In some languages the very word "stranger" was synonymous with enemy. Against all these race hatreds Moses set up this command, "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger" — which he enforced upon the Israelites by the touching remembrance of their own bitter experience — "for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."^[22] Perhaps indeed he thought of himself — how he had once fled to this land of Midian, and been a wanderer among these mountains; and remembering his own days of loneliness and exile, he bade them regard with pitying tenderness those who were strangers, as he had been.

But not only were foreigners to be tolerated; they were to receive the fullest protection: "Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for one of your own country."^[23] If they chose to be naturalized, they became entitled to all the privileges of Hebrews.

Still further, all were required to render acts of neighborly kindness, which would be considered too minute to be specified in modern law. Whoever saw an ox going astray, was required to return it to the owner. The chief property of the husbandman, next to his land, was his cattle. And thus the Law saved to him his most valuable possession.

In several requirements, we discern a pity for the brute creation. Long before modern refinement of feeling organized societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, Moses recognized dumb beasts as having a claim to be defended from injury. If one saw the ass even of an enemy lying under its burden, he was to lift it up.^[24] Birds' nests were protected from wanton destruction.^[25] Even the semblance of an unnatural act was forbidden: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk."^[26] This may appear an over-refinement of legislation; but it shows the delicacy of feeling of the Lawgiver — that he shrank even from the appearance of barbarity. Thus he strove to extinguish the spirit of cruelty. If these enactments seem trifling, they at least indicate the strong instinct of humanity which framed these ancient statutes.

But perhaps the most beautiful provision of the Law was for the poor. When the land was rejoicing at the time of the vintage, they were not forgotten: "When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvests. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger."^[27] If the reaper dropped a sheaf in the field, he might not return to take it. Whatever olives hung on the bough, or clusters on the vine, after the first gathering, were the property of "the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow."^[28] Under the shelter of this law came many a Ruth, gleaning the handfuls of golden corn to carry home to her mother, who was thus saved from utter destitution. By these means the Law kept the poor from sinking to the extreme point of misery. It prevented that hopeless poverty which forces the Irish peasant to emigrate. It kept them in the country. At the same time, by throwing in their path these wayside gifts, it saved them from theft or vagabondage. As a proof of its successful operation, it is a curious fact that, in the five books of Moses, such a class as beggars is not once mentioned! The tradition of caring for those of their own kindred, remains to this day; and it is an honorable boast that among the swarms of beggars that throng the streets of the Old World or the New, one almost never finds a Jew!

In these humane provisions may be traced the germ of those asylums and hospitals for the relief of human misery which now cover the civilized world.

The Law also took under its care all whom death had deprived of their natural protectors: "Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child." They were sacred by misfortune. God would punish cruelty to them: "If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless."^[29]

This last provision strikes me the more from its contrast with what I have observed in another country of Asia, which boasts of a religion derived from the remotest antiquity, and inspired with a Divine wisdom. Only six years since I was in India, where, among other things that opened my eyes, I learned that the condition of widows had been made hardly more tolerable by the abolition of the suttee; that when a husband died, his widow was looked upon as one accursed, whose only act of dignity was to throw herself upon his funeral pile, and let her ashes mingle with his. If she dared to live, she was subjected to sufferings and humiliations, even from her own nearest kindred, from which death itself were a relief. From that inhumanity of the Hindoo, which extinguishes even the promptings of nature, I turn to the Hebrew lawgiver, and find him looking after the poorest and the weakest, the loneliest and the most suffering, of the daughters of Israel, that he may protect those who had lost their natural protectors; and that, speaking in the name of the Highest, he warned any who would do them wrong, that their wives should be doomed to widowhood and their children to orphanage! Thus the Hebrew Law took the poor and the weak under its special protection. If a man had any physical infirmity; if he were blind or deaf, that, instead of exposing him to be mocked at, furnished the strongest claim to sympathy and tenderness. "Thou shalt not curse the deaf" [even though he cannot hear it,] "nor put a stumbling-block before the blind" [even though he cannot see it].^[30] It is a beautiful trait of some savage tribes that they regard as sacred the persons of the insane. They do not dare to irritate the mind that has been troubled by a mysterious visitation of God. So under the Hebrew Law, death, sorrow, widowhood, orphanage, all threw a shield of protection over the desolate and the unhappy. By this spirit of humanity infused into the relations of life, all the members of the community — the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak — were united in fellowship and fraternity. One sacred tie bound them still closer: not only were they of the same race and nation, but they had an equal share in the same religious inheritance; all were fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.

Thus did the Hebrew Commonwealth contain in itself the two principles of theocracy and democracy in perfect union — a union in which there was the greatest freedom consistent with order, and a degree of equality hardly to be found in any other ancient or modern state. And I make bold to affirm that there is not, that there never has been, and never will be, any true liberty which does not receive its inspiration from the same source. Not that modern governments are to adopt the theocratic form, but that the spirit which recognizes God as the Supreme Ruler of nations as well as of individuals, which inspires loyalty and obedience to Him, is the only spirit which consists with liberty. No free state can keep its liberty which has not God as its Protector. Men cannot protect themselves; they need to be protected against themselves. Man is by nature selfish, and if invested with unlimited power, he is by nature a tyrant. Men are the oppressors of men, and there is nothing against which society and individuals need to be protected so much as "man's inhumanity to man."

Let the student of history make a special study of the History of Liberty, and see how all spasmodic attempts like those of the French Revolution have perished ignominiously, because there was no power in mere liberty to restrain the natural passions of men. The Paris Commune may placard the walls of the city with the high-sounding words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; yet what do these amount to, so long as there is nothing in the hearts of the people to check the universal selfishness? The catchwords of modern democracy will be powerless among a people who believe in nothing, and care for nothing, but themselves. They may disguise their selfishness in political phrases, as in forms of politeness; yet they will be the same as before — just as unscrupulous of the rights of others, just as eager to grasp everything for themselves. Experiments at self-government by such a people have but little promise of success. Liberty soon runs into license; a spirit of lawlessness ends in anarchy, and anarchy at last is drowned in blood. Human selfishness is a force so explosive that it shatters all the limitations that can be put round it, to compress and confine it, save only a military despotism, in which such experiments at liberty generally end.

For all these ills of society there is but one effectual cure. Religion alone restrains men on the one hand, and inspires them on the other; and without that, as the vital element working in the state, there can never be true liberty. It is God alone "whose service is perfect freedom"; who is the Creator of all men, and before whom all are equal; and looking up to whom in humble love and trust, men feel that they are children of one Father, and are bound heart to heart in universal brotherhood.

 

1. Lev. v. 1.
2. Deut. i. 17.
3. Ex. xxiii. 3.
4. Lev. xix. 15.
5. Ex. xxiii. 8.
6. Deut. viii. 7, 8.
7. Lev. xxv. 23.
8. Lev. xix. 13; Deut. xxiv. 15.
9. Deut. xxiv. 6, 10-12.
10. Gen. xiv. 14.
11. Ex. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 7.
12. Lev. xxv. 49.
13. Ex. xxi. 26, 27.
14. Ex. xxi. 2.
15. Deut. xv. 13-15.
16. Lev. xxv. 42.
17. Lev. xxv. 10.
18. Ex. xx. 10.
19. Deut. xii. 18, and xvi. 11.
20. Deut. xxiii. 15.
21. Horne's Introduction. American edition. Yol. II., p. 166. Note.
22. Ex. xxiii. 9.
23. Lev. xxiv. 22.
24. Ex. xxiii. 4, 5.
25. Deut. xxii. 6.
26. Ex. xxiii. 19.
27. Lev. xix. 9, 10.
28. Deut. xxiv. 19-21.
29. Ex. xxii. 22-24.
30. Lev. xix. 14.