Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 22:8
When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
8. Of Protecting Roofs. Only in D. E, Exo 21:33 f., exacts from him who leaves a pit open the price of a beast fallen into it, but says nothing as to houses. D’s frequent reference to building is another sign of its later date. Neglect of this law would be punished under the laws on manslaughter and maiming. Battlement, Heb. ma‘ a eh, only here (cp. Ar. ‘ak, ‘to hinder). Roof, Heb. gag, deriv. doubtful. Cf. Syr. geg, ‘plaster’ (M’Lean Dict. of Vernac. Syriac). Blood, LXX .
ammurabi fixes penalties for unsound building involving death or damage, 229 233. In W. Asia roofs are flat, or where they are domed because timber is scarce, as in Jerusalem, flat terraces are left round the domes, so that they can be used for taking the air, private conversation, worship, etc., as in Jos 2:6, 1Sa 9:26, 2Sa 11:2 ; 2Sa 16:22, Isa 22:1, Jer 19:13, Zep 1:5, Mat 24:17, Act 10:9. In towns there is generally a stone-wall on the outside and a paling on the inside above the court. But Baldensperger says ( PEFQ, 1904, 261), ‘the roof is designated ai which means “protected,” although, as a matter of fact, it is not protected at all on the most dangerous side.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Deu 22:8
Make a battlement for thy roof.
Prudential assurance
A careful study of the tone and teaching of Deuteronomy can hardly fail to impress the reader with its profound ethical and religious spirit. What an emphasis is laid upon the unity and the uniqueness of the Godhead! What an insistence upon the love of God as the motive of all actions! Humanity, philanthropy, and benevolence are insisted upon. Forbearance, equity, and forethought underlie all regulations. The preceding precept as to the birds nest and the sitting dam are a striking example of the humanity of the Jewish law. When a man built a new house, a battlement or, as we should say, a parapet was an almost necessary protection. It would prevent accidents. Some through carelessness or foolhardiness, others through short-sightedness or a slip of the foot, might fall off; such a tumble would certainly fracture limbs, and in some cases be fatal to life. A selfish man might say, I shall always remember that there is no battlement, and keep well away from the sides. It is very unlikely that any will fall over if I leave the sides unprotected. If any accident should occur it can only be through gross carelessness. I see no reason why I should be put to this expense. The superior person might say, I will have no battlement on this roof. I have nothing but contempt for fashion. Why should I do a thing because other people do it? I will leave my roof unprotected, if only to show my superiority to the caprice and tyranny of custom. Now, the spirit of this law is recognised in all civilised communities. Private tastes and individual eccentricities are not allowed to imperil public safety or destroy public comfort. Private persons cannot build houses without public authorities approving the plans. So this precept of the Jewish law is found, in spirit at least, in our modern legislation. We are to be alive to a sense of danger, we are not to forget the duty of prudence, we are to take all reasonable precautions against injury to ourselves and others. But there is a sense in which we are builders. We found families, we make fortunes, we acquire reputations, we form friendships, we embark on undertakings, we profess moral principles, we hold religious views–in regard to all it is well for us, nay, for all Christians it is a duty, to make a battlement to their roof. Let us in imagination walk round the house.
1. First of all here is the economic wing. In the economic management of life, a battlement to the roof is a duty. We build our houses, we settle in life, we make a home for ourselves, we set up an establishment. Of course, it must bear some proportion to our means. But how many do it on such an imprudent, not to say extravagant scale, that there is nothing left for a battlement! They spend all that they have. They are the victims of expensive habits and large ideas of things. They burn incense to the demon of respectability. They sink their all in building up the roof line, and leave no margin for prudent provision against possible misfortune or untimely death. How many have brought blood upon their houses, how many have inflicted suffering on their own children and loss on others, by neglecting to build a parapet of thrift out of the materials of simplicity of taste, moderation in appetite, and prudence in management! Thrift is the very gospel that some people need, and some, too, who bear the Christian name, and aspire after a Christian reputation. What renders this a matter of really spiritual concern is that often the battlement goes unbuilt from causes that are not only irreligious but antichristian: a thirst for social distinctions, for recognition and patronage by some more highly placed than ourselves.
2. But we pass to another wing. How necessary it is for Christian people in their social life to make a battlement to the roof. The power of social influence is immense, you can hardly over-estimate it. No character can defy the subtle influences that flow in upon them from others. No man is absolutely impervious to social pressure. Therefore this is one of those points on which Christian people should exercise conscientious care and prudence. They will erect a battlement to their social life by choosing friends from those who will be a help rather than a hindrance to a godly life. In this we think not of ourselves only, but of our children. We may be able to run risks with comparative immunity, because our principles are strong and our characters fixed. We can walk on the unprotected roof with safety. But are not our children very liable to fall Surely the prime duty of Christian parents in the culture of their childrens minds and hearts, and the discipline of their habits, is to deepen in them a sense of the inviolable sanctity of goodness. The friendship of the world is enmity with God. The world puts gentility before character. It does not inquire too closely into the morals of those who have birth and wealth. If we are wise and faithful we shall rightly estimate the importance of social forces. We shall discriminate between those fighting on Christs side and those that are fighting against Him. We shall leave no one in doubt as to our affinities and alliances. We shall put up a battlement to the roof of our social life. There is a kind of separation from the world which is as impracticable as it is undesirable; there is another which is simply essential if we are to save our own souls and help to save others. A battlement to the roof of our social life fortifies the sanctity and simplicity of our homes.
3. But there is another wing to this house. It is the moral, it is the sphere of character. He who builds well and wisely, sees that the roof hero has a battlement, namely, the battlement of religion. By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. When the heart has been touched by the love of God in Christ, when the Lord Jesus Christ has been admitted to its throne, there is a defence and proof against the assaults of the evil one. It is just here that some question the need of a battlement. They are building the structure of character, they are morally sensitive, they are anxious and careful in doing what is right, but they have no religion, no personal concern for or interest in the redemption of Jesus Christ, They have builded their house, but there is not a battlement to the roof. Now, far be it from us to shut our eyes to the fact that even those who have the battlement do sometimes fall. The parapet itself may be out of repair, the stones may have fallen out and not been replaced. Now, a battlement out of repair may be more dangerous than to have none. But these cases are the exception and not the rule. There was one Judas among the twelve apostles. But what candid and fair-minded man will deny that the fear of God is the greatest of all restraints from evil? The fear of the Lord is the treasure of the godly, for He is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the throne of His glory, with exceeding joy.
4. But there is yet one other wing to the house. Here the social and religious wings join. Our religious life itself needs a battlement. Here is a word for those who are giving their heart to God, who are determining the great ends and principles that are to rule their life. When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof. Now, the Episcopalian contends that in order to be completely furnished unto all good works our religious life needs something in addition to God, the Bible, and Christ Himself, namely, the Church. We entirely agree with him. Until a man is in the Church he has not built a battlement to his house. It brings individual believers into actual and visible association with those who have taken the same holy vows and enlisted in the same holy warfare. It will be good for the Church that he shall do so, but will it not be good for him? Will he not be a stronger and better Christian if he stir up the gift of God that is in him, and add it to the totality and variety of the spiritual forces that operate in the world? Will he not be encouraged by the fellowship of others? We contend that the Church is the battlement of the religious life, not its foundation, other foundation can no man lay than hath been laid, Jesus Christ. By some it is regarded as putting a restraint and imposing a limit. So it does. The purpose of a parapet or battlement is to prevent you falling over. If your foot slips on the edge of a precipice, what you want is something to catch hold of. But remember, anything that is inconsistent in the Church member is equally so in the Christian, though he be outside the Church. If you are holding back from a duty to Christ for the sake of liberty to do things inconsistent with Church membership, you are imperilling your soul by doing them now. (R. B. Brindley.)
Battlements round the roofs
To understand the primary significance of these words, you have simply to remember two things. First, that the houses referred to were covered with flat roofs, and, secondly, that on these roofs amusements, business, conversation, and worship were frequently carried on. There is the suggestion of great principles–principles which abide.
I. What are these principles?
1. One is, the sacredness of human life. The great reason assigned in the text for the building of the balustrade round the roof was this: that thou bring not blood upon thine house. If human life were a thing of no account, no battlement would be necessary–let a man or a child fall over, what matters it? Now, that is a principle which in a general way we all recognise, but which in our commercial life is continually violated by that which calls itself the trade preeminently.
2. But another principle underlying the text is this, the inhumanity of selfishness. Observe, the builder of a house might have reasoned thus with himself: Why should I make a parapet about the roof of my house? I am in no danger of falling over, and when my friends and neighbours come to see me, let them take care of themselves. Every man for himself! Is that the principle on which society can hold together? If I am a man, nothing that is human will be alien to me. If I consult only my own safety and comfort and well-being, I am worse than a brute!
3. For another principle suggested here, closely allied to that of which I have just spoken, is, our responsibility in relation to others. If any man fell, the blood was upon the owners house. They could not say–It was the mans fault who met with the accident. He should have been more careful. He ought to have kept away from the edge of the roof. Yes, perhaps so, but that was no excuse for him who had failed to set up the balustrade.
II. Now, having set before you, in a general way, the principles underlying this text, I want to look at its teaching as it applies more particularly to the boys and girls of our homes and of the community at large. The making of the battlement is not to be an after consideration; it must be part of the original plan. The house is not complete without it. There is to be no waiting until someone has fallen over. The building of the battlement is intended to be preventive of harm from the very beginning. And is not that the line on which we work when we seek to train our boys and girls in the principles of total abstinence?
1. And will you allow me to say that one of these protections–a battlement for their safety–is the protection of the law.
2. Then another battlement to be reared about the young life of our country may perhaps be summed up in the word education.
3. But I come back to the home again, and I say that around your own household, you, father, mother, must rear the balustrade of your own example. (Josiah Flew.)
Building battlements
Many are building homes which immortal souls are filling. Are the homes made safe?
1. Our homes ought to have every moral and spiritual safeguard that Gods Word and the best experience suggests.
2. The guards are most needed where there are pleasant places, the heights from which it is so easy to fall.
3. When evil comes through neglect of these safeguards, the builders soul is stained with blood. Builder of a home, do your duty, let not the blood of dear ones stain your soul. (F. W. Lewis.)
House building
We are all builders–building character, building for eternity. The text gives an important principle–that prevention is better than cure. Better put up the barrier above, than have to pick up the mangled body from the pavement below. Better prevent the formation of bad habits than attempt their eradication later in life.
I. Notice some of the battlements which need to be reared about our soul life and about the life of society.
1. The Christian Sabbath, one of the oldest balustrades reared for mans protection. A week without a Sabbath is a year without a summer, a summer without flowers, a night without a morn.
2. Family prayer. Some are ready to talk in meeting, whose lips are dumb in prayer at home. The devoutness of heathen rebukes such prayerlessness. Pericles, before an oration, used to plead with the gods for guidance, and Scipio, before a great undertaking, went to pray in the temple of Jupiter.
3. Reverence for Gods Word. Men of real culture, though not believers, well know that all that is noblest in art, sweetest in song, and most inspiring in thought, had its source in this volume.
4. Gospel temperance. Guard the young. Keep them pure. Even the blood of Christ cannot wash out the memory of sin. It mars and pollutes the soul.
5. The all-inclusive battlement is personal faith in Jesus Christ.
II. The battlement of old was for ornament and for protection. Through the lower part an arrow could be shot, and in later years a bullet. So religion serves this double purpose. See to it that your house is thus built, and when this earthly tabernacle is taken down, you will have another, not built with bands, eternal in the heavens. (R. S. McArthur, D. D.)
Battlements
Not only is this an extraordinary instruction, it is the more extraordinary that it appears in a hook which is supposed to be devoted to spiritual revelations. But in calling it extraordinary, do we not mistake the meaning which ought to be attached to the term spiritual revelations? Are not more things spiritual than we have hitherto imagined? This instruction recognises–the social side., of human life, and that side may be taken. As in some sense representative of a Divine claim; it is not the claim of one individual only, but of society; it may be taken as representing the sum total of individuals; the larger individual–the concrete humanity. Socialism has its beneficent as well as its dangerous side. Socialism, indeed, when rightly interpreted, is never to be feared; it is only when perverted to base uses, in which self becomes the supreme idol, that socialism is to he denounced and avoided. The social influences continually operating in life limit self-will, develop the most gracious side of human nature, and purify and establish all that is noblest and truest in friendship. There are certain conditions under which an instruction such as is given in the text may excite obvious objections. Suppose, for example, that a man should plead that his neighbour calls upon him only occasionally, and should upon that circumstance raise the inquiry whether he should put up a permanent building to meet an exceptional circumstance. The inquiry would seem to be pertinent and reasonable. On the other hand, when closely looked into, it will be found that the whole scheme of human life is laid out with a view to circumstances which are called exceptional. The average temperature of the year may be mild, for most of the twelve months the wind may be low and the rain gentle; why then build a house with strong walls and heavy roofs? Our neighbour may call tomorrow–see then that the battlement be ready! But ought not men to be able to take care of themselves when they are walking on the roof without our guarding them as though they were little children? This question, too, is not without a reasonable aspect. It might even be urged into the dignity of an argument, on the pretence that if we do too much for people we may beget in them a spirit of carelessness or a spirit of dependence, leading ultimately to absolute disregard and thoughtlessness in all the relations of life. We are, however, if students of the Bible, earnestly desirous to carry out its meaning, bound to study the interests even of the weakest men. This is the very principle of Christianity. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. By thinking of one another we lay claim upon the affection and trust of neighbour and friend. We are not to reason as if this action were all upon our own side. Whilst we build our battlement for the sake of another man we must remember that that other man in building his house builds a battlement for our sake. All services of this kind are reciprocal; no man, therefore, is at liberty to stand back and decline social responsibilities: in every sense, whether accepted or rejected, no man liveth unto himself. The Christian application of this doctrine is clear. If we are so to build a house as not to endanger the men who visit us, are we at liberty to build a life which may be to others the very snare of destruction. Is there not to be a battlement around our conduct? Are our habits to be formed without reference to the social influence which they may exert? Remember that children are looking at us, and that strangers are taking account of our ways, and that we may be lured from righteousness by a licentiousness which we call liberty. Is the Christian, then, to abstain from amusements and delights which he could enjoy without personal injury lest a weaker man should be tempted to do that which would injure him? Precisely so. That is the very essence of Christian self-denial. How many life houses there are which apparently want but some two or three comparatively little things to make them wholly perfect! In one case perhaps only the battlement is wanting, in another case it may be but some sign of spiritual beauty, in another case there may be simply want of grace, courtesy, noble civility, and generous care for the interests of others. Whatever it may be, examination should be instituted, and every man should consider himself bound not only to be faithful in much, but faithful also in that which is least; and being so he will not only see that there is strength in his character but also beauty, and upon the top of the pillars which represent integrity and permanence will be the lilywork of grace, patience, humbleness, and love. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Battlements
I. God has battlemented His own house. There are high places in His house, and He does not deny His children the enjoyment of these high places, but He makes sure that they shall not be in danger there. He sets bulwarks round about them lest they should suffer evil when in a state of exaltation. God in His house has given us many high and sublime doctrines. Timid minds are afraid of these, but the highest doctrine in Scripture is safe enough because God has battlemented it. Take the doctrine of election. God has been pleased to set around that doctrine other truths which shield it from misuse. It is true He has chosen people, but by their fruit ye shall know them. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Though He has chosen His people, yet He has chosen them unto holiness; He has ordained them to be zealous for good works. Then there is the sublime truth of the final perseverance of the saints. What a noble height is that! A housetop doctrine indeed! The Lord will keep the feet of His saints. The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. It will be a great loss to us if we are unable to enjoy the comfort of this truth. There is no reason for fearing presumption through a firm conviction of the true believers safety. Mark well the battlements which God has builded around the edge of this truth! He has declared that if these shall fall away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. Take another view of the same thought. The Lord has guarded the position of His saints if endowed with wealth. Some of Gods servants are, in His providence, called to very prosperous conditions in life, and prosperity is fruitful in dangers. Yet be well assured that, if God shall call any of you to be prosperous, and place you in an eminent position, He will see to it that grace is given suitable for your station, and affliction needful for your elevation. That bodily infirmity, that want of favour with the great, that sick child, that suffering wife, that embarrassing partnership–any one of these may be the battlements which God has built around your success, lest you should be lifted up with pride, and your soul should not be upright in you. Does not this remark cast a light upon the mystery of many a painful dispensation? Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word. The like prudence is manifested by our Lord towards those whom He has seen fit to place in positions of eminent service. You may rest assured that if God honours you to win many souls, you will have many stripes to bear, and stripes you would not like to tell another of, they will be so sharp and humbling. Do not, therefore, start back from qualifying yourself for the most eminent position, or from occupying it when duty calls. He will uphold thee; on the pinnacle thou art as secure as in the valley, if Jehovah set thee there. It is the same with regard to the high places of spiritual enjoyment. Even much communion with Christ, though in itself sanctifying, may be perverted, through the folly of our flesh, into a cause of self-security. Lest a soul should be beguiled to live upon itself, and feed on its frames and feelings, and by neglect of watchfulness fall into presumptuous sins, battlements are set round about all hallowed joys, for which in eternity we shall bless the name of the Lord. Too many of the Lords servants feel as if they were always on the housetop–always afraid, always full of doubts and fears. They are fearful lest they shall after all perish, and of a thousand things besides. To such we say you shall find when your faith is weakest, when you are just about to fall, that there is a glorious battlement all around you; a glorious promise, a gentle word of the Holy Spirit shall be brought home to your soul, so that you shall not utterly despair.
II. From the fact of Divine carefulness we proceed by an easy step to the consideration that, as imitators of God, we should exercise the like tenderness; in a word, we ought to have our houses battlemented. A man who had no battlement to his house might himself fall from the roof in an unguarded moment. Those who profess to be the children of God should, for their own sakes, see that every care is used to guard themselves against the perils of this tempted life; they should see to it that their house is carefully battlemented. If any ask, How shall we do it? we reply–
1. Every man ought to examine himself carefully whether he be in the faith, lest professing too much, taking too much for granted, he fall and perish. Lest we should be, after all, hypocrites, or self-deceivers; lest, after all, we should not be born again, but should be children of nature, neatly dressed, but not the living children of God, we must prove our own selves whether we be in the faith.
2. Better still, and safer by far, go often to the Cross, as you think you went at first.
3. Battlement your soul about well with prayer. Go not out into the world to look upon the face of man till you have seen the face of God.
4. Be sure and battlement yourself about with much watchfulness, and, especially, watch most the temptation peculiar to your position and disposition.
III. As each man ought to battlement his house in a spiritual sense with regard to himself, so ought each man to carry out the rule with regard to his family. In the days of Cromwell it is said that you might have gone down Cheapside at a certain hour in the morning and you would have heard the morning hymn going up from every house all along the street, and at night if you had glanced inside each home you would have seen the family gathered, and the big Bible opened, and family devotion offered. There is no fear of this land if family prayer be maintained, but if family prayer be swept away, farewell to the strength of the Church. A man should battlement his house for his childrens sake, for his servants sake, for his own sake, by maintaining the ordinance of family prayer. We ought strictly to battlement our houses, as to many things which in this day are tolerated. I shall not come down to debate upon the absolute right or wrong of debatable amusements and customs. If professors do not stop till they are certainly in the wrong, they will stop nowhere. It is of little use to go on tilt you are over the edge of the roof, and then cry, Halt. It would be a poor affair for a house to be without a battlement, but to have a network to stop the falling person half-way down; you must stop before you get off the solid standing. There is need to draw the line somewhere, and the line had better be drawn too soon than too late.
IV. The preacher would now remind himself that this church is, as it were, his own house, and that he is bound to battlement it round about. Many come here, Sabbath after Sabbath, to hear the Gospel. Ah! but it is a dreadful thing to remember that so many people hear the Gospel, and yet perish under the sound of it. Now, what shall I say to prevent anyone falling from this blessed Gospel–falling from the house of mercy–dashing themselves from the roof of the temple to their ruin? What shall I say to you? I beseech you do not be hearers only. Be dissatisfied with yourselves unless ye be doers of the word. Rest not till you rest in Jesus. Remember, and I hope this will be another battlement, that if you hear the Gospel, and it is not blessed to you, still it has a power. If the sun of grace does not soften you as it does wax, it will harden you as the sun does clay. Do not die of thirst when the water of life is before you! Let me remind you of what the result will be of putting away the Gospel. You will soon die; you cannot live forever. The righteous enter into life eternal, but the ungodly suffer punishment everlasting. Oh, run not on in sin, lest you fall into hell! I would fain set up this battlement to stay you from a dreadful and fatal fall. Once more. Remember the love of God in Christ Jesus. He cannot bear to see you die, and He weeps over you, saying, How often would I have blessed you, and you would not! Oh, by the tears of Jesus, wept over you in effect when He wept over Jerusalem, turn to Him. Let that be a battlement to keep you from ruin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Putting up parapets
There is a most lamentable waste of power in the Christian Church; in fact, among the best elements of society. This waste arises from misdirection. The power is applied at the wrong time and in the wrong quarter. Instead of being applied in the way of prevention, which would commonly be certain, it is applied in the effort to reform and restore, which is always difficult, and often impossible. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure. This principle is happily illustrated in an ancient regulation among the Jews. The regulation was this: When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement [or parapet] for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house if any man fall from thence. No intelligent reader need be told that the roofs of Oriental houses are perfectly fiat, and that they are constantly used for promenading, for rest, for drying fruits, for sleeping, and often (as in Peters case) for religious devotions. It required but small expenditure of time and money to build the parapet. When that measure of precaution has been taken, the little children may romp there with impunity; good old grandfather may walk there, without danger of stumbling over, through dimness of vision. But if the inviting roof was left unprotected, and even a single child was pitched into the street below, what skill could restore the mangled form? This Oriental law of the parapets teaches that prevention is well-nigh certain, but cure is exceedingly difficult. Often all attempts in that direction are well nigh hopeless. The percentage of inebriates who are reformed by any method is pitiably and painfully small. Inebriate asylums do not cure one half of those who are sent there. Of the converted drunkards who are received into our churches, nearly all have had one or more temporary lapses into drinking, and every man of them is in constant danger to their dying day. Such men as Gough, and Sawyer, and McAuley are only upheld by the omnipotent grace of God. Yet all the multitudes of victims of the bottle who have gone down to darkness and their doom might have been saved by the very simple process of prevention. If one-twentieth part of the effort which is put forth in attempted reformation of the dissipated had been spent in persuading them never to drink at all, how different would have been the result! The right time to put up the parapet of total abstinence is in childhood or early youth. The right place to plant the parapet is at home and in the Sabbath school.
1. But there are other lessons taught by the Jewish battlements besides those which apply to the bottle. One lesson is that wilful neglect is as fatal as wilful crime. Not-doing is twin brother to wrong-doing. Many a father and mother have had their hearts broken by the disgraceful sins of a son; and yet the blame of the boys ruin rested on themselves. They had either set him a most pernicious example, or else they had left him to drift into bad practices unrestrained. Building battlements after our children have broken their own necks and our hearts is a sort of posthumous precaution that comes to nothing.
2. It is from the neglect of the cultured, influential classes in our towns that the terrible harvests of the streets (in the shape of thieves, rioters, and criminals) are constantly reaped. If tenement houses reek with filth and debauchery, if the young are unreached by any mission school or church, or any kind of purifying agency, what else can we expect than wholesale demoralisation among the masses? Prisons, pauperism, and gibbets are Gods assessments upon society for neglecting the children. If society fails to put up parapets, society must foot the bill. These are the very times for parapet building. The Bible furnishes plenty of good precepts with which to build parapets. The Fifth Commandment and the Eighth are peculiarly good timber. Happy is the man whose daily life is walled around with a Bible conscience. His religion is a prevention. Half of his life is not lost in attempting to cure the effects of the other half. (T. L. Cuyler.)
The duty of the strong
There is a mixture here of the temporary and the permanent. The symbol is temporary and local; but the principle symbolised is eternal and universal. When thou buildest a new house. It is not to be an afterthought; the battlements are to be in the original plan. The man is not to wait until an accident occurs and the necessity for the battlements is proved, but he is to take precautionary measures. He has to do with human life, which is too sacred to be experimented with in order to find out the percentage of probabilities. But I can imagine the selfish man saying, Nay, I will not build battlements to my house. I can walk the flat roof of my house without any danger of falling, and why should I provide for others? I am perfectly safe. The same argument is used with regard to abstinence. Erect battlements so that others may not fall over? Nay, says one, I am in no danger. I can take my glass of beer or wine, and feel perfectly safe; and why should I abstain for the sake of those who know not how to control their appetites? Now just look at that. By the law of self-preservation the man would build battlements to prevent danger to himself; as there is none for him he will not build those battlements; so that, after all, the highest impulse in that mans life is just this–self-preservation. Are you prepared to say, Nay, I will not abstain from intoxicating drinks, and thus erect a battlement, a balustrade, simply because I know I am perfectly safe myself? If there is any danger to another, and it is in your power, by your example, to erect a barrier which shall prevent the fall of another, then it is your evident duty to do it. But the cynic comes forward and says, Yes, I know it is possible for a man to fall over, but it must be through culpable neglect or very exceptional weakness, and am I to conform to such conditions? Am I to build a balustrade or abstain from intoxicating drinks merely because of the weaklings by whom I am surrounded? Am I to take account of them! Gods law does, and human law, in so far as it is Christian, does. It is the duty of the strong to deny themselves for the sake of the weak; we who are strong ought not to please ourselves Now the question is not whether you can with safety to yourself indulge in intoxicants, but whether by taking your glass you encourage another who is weaker to take his glass also, and who in due time may become a drunkard and a prey to the passion from which you are happily free . . . but there is the self-assertive man who says: I am not going to give up my liberty; it is a limitation to my personal liberty. That cry is as fallacious as it is selfish. Personal liberty must ever ran parallel with the well-being of the community. (D. Davies.)
Modern battlements
Obviously the letter of this precept applies only to the flat-roofed houses of the East. There the housetop has always been a place of resort. Rahab took the scouts to the top of her house in Jericho, where her flax was spread out, and hid them there. King David walked on the housetop at the hour of evening. Our Lord spoke to the Twelve of preaching upon the housetops. It is not improbable that even in our climate more use may hereafter be made of the housetops than heretofore. The pressure of crowded cities may lead to this. Already the plan of having recreation ground for children on the flat roof of a school house has been tried, where a playground could not otherwise be obtained; and it has been found to answer well. In any such case the need of a strong balustrade is, of course, as imperative as it was in Palestine. God requires that human life shall not be trifled with. Precaution should be taken that it be not, even through inadvertence, sacrificed. And this principle belongs peculiarly to our holy religion. Other forms of religion have breathed a cruel spirit, and a contempt for human life. We can imagine an Israelite chafing at such a command as this. Religion, he might say, is religion. Sacrifice is sacrifice. Prayer is prayer. But business also is business, and has its own necessities. May not a man build a house as he likes with his own money? But he might be answered thus: There is no such separation as you desire between piety and conduct. Religion does not consent to be shut up in tabernacle, temple, or synagogue. It must come out into the streets and highways, a witness for righteousness and love. It absolutely denies your right to build or to do anything whatever just as you like. The question is not what you choose, but what you ought to do. That God of order and of mercy who gave directions about stray sheep, an ox or ass that had fallen by the way, and even about the egos in a birds nest, did not omit to legislate against fatal accidents to men, women, and children. Now, this is our God; and what He deemed worthy of His notice, and even of His legislation in the time of Moses, is certainly not forgotten or disregarded by Him now. He will not hold any man guiltless who builds a house, whether for his own residence or to be let or sold to another, and does not in the building guard against whatever is perilous to human life. A house built, or run up with defective supports, damp walls or bad drainage, violates this law. It is a structure unsafe or pernicious for man, and therefore displeasing to God. Let the owners of house property look to it. The spirit of the enactment suggests other and wider applications. Religion has something serious to say to those who possess and those who manage mines and railways, and those who send ships to sea. Calamities will happen even in the most carefully excavated and managed mines, on the most skilfully built and regulated railways, and in the stoutest and best found ships; but when they occur through parsimony, or through recklessness, the parties who are really responsible, whether or not made answerable to human justice, incur the heavy displeasure of God. He requires that all precautions which are possible shall be taken to prevent a wanton sacrifice of life. Precaution is not an interesting word. It has not a heroic sound; but it denotes a thing that is wise and that pleases God. A dashing rescue of men out of deadly peril attracts more admiration; but he does well who prevents them from falling into the danger. Neglect of due precaution is, in fact, the mother of all sorts of mischief. No harm is intended, but a little indolence or heedlessness grudges the trouble, or parsimony grudges the expense of preventive measures; and so harm is done, which no skill can remedy. The watertight doors between the compartments of the ship are left open on the very night when she is struck, and it is too late to close them when the water rushes from stem to stern and she begins to settle down into the hungry sea. Often a man falls short in his precautionary duty through overmuch confidence in himself. He needs no parapet to protect him. It is thus that men ungenerously disregard the moral safety of others. One has what is called a strong head. Whether it be from strength or sluggishness, he can drink much wine or strong drink with apparent impunity; and on this account he laughs at abstinence. But his own son may be unable to govern himself. Far be it from us to disparage the remedial efforts that in any measure bless the world. The Gospel itself is the announcement of a Divine remedy for human sin and woe; and men act in the spirit of the Gospel when they bring cleansing and healing to those who have fallen. But what folly it is to let things go wrong in order to right them again! Surely the first duty is to prevent preventable evils. Towards such objects a good deal has been done by modern English legislation, and by the action of philanthropic societies and institutions. The influence of the Christian family, of Church, and of Sunday school ought to form a still better parapet to guard the youth of England. Is the relation to the Lord which is implied in their baptism seriously and intelligently explained to children? Are the claims of the Saviour on their love and allegiance unfolded to them? Without any premature strictness being forced upon the young, a moral parapet might be quietly and insensibly raised around them by the prayer of faith, the charm of good example, and a careful, patient training in upright speech and conduct. Alas! there are those who will, in their infatuation, leap over every such battlement and throw their lives away. But it is none the less desirable that the battlement should be there. It will save some, though not all. It is a check, though not a panacea. It gives time for reason, for conscience, for reflection, for self-respect; above all, for the grace of God, to act, and preserve men from moral self-destruction. Possibly some of you have fallen and are broken. No parapet was placed round their heedless youth, or if there was a battlement, they laughed at it and jumped over. They had taken their own way, done their own will and pleasure, ridiculed the scruples of their best friends; and let us hope they at last begin to recognise their own folly, and are bruised, and sore, and self-vexed. The mercy of God is for them. They have destroyed themselves, but in Him is their help. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Highest, is the Good Physician. He has come to heal the broken and to save the lost. (D. Fraser, D. D.)
The law of home life
I. The sacredness of human life. Of all the earthly blessings which man enjoys, he considers life the greatest. So highly does he appreciate it that he will part with all things else in order to retain it. Yet notwithstanding these facts there seems to be a growing disregard for human life.
II. The importance of family life. The Jews were a nation of homemakers and home lovers. If the family was an important institution among the Jews, it is no less important to us as a nation. No one doubts that the State is necessary to our welfare as a people. We must have laws, and we must have them executed, if we maintain a civil government. And no one doubts that the Church is necessary unto our national existence. But important as are the State and the Church, it is generally conceded that the family is more important than either. It has to do with the physical, the social, the moral, and the spiritual well-being of each member of the household. In view of the fundamental position and character of the family, arid in view of its vast importance, it becomes us more highly to appreciate it, and more earnestly to strive for its preservation and perpetuity.
III. Some safeguards which should be placed about the home. Natural instinct, parental love, and the Divine Word demand this of them.
1. One such means is good reading in the homes.
2. Another safeguard to the family is making the home pleasant: making it the happiest place on earth. Seemingly the trend of modern life is away from the home.
3. Another safeguard to the family is religious instruction. (R. L. Bachman, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. A battlement for thy roof] Houses in the East are in general built with flat roofs, and on them men walk to enjoy the fresh air, converse together, sleep, c. it was therefore necessary to have a sort of battlement or balustrade to prevent persons from falling off. If a man neglected to make a sufficient defence against such accidents, and the death of another was occasioned by it, the owner of the house must be considered in the light of a murderer.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A battlement, i.e. a fence or breastwork, because the roofs of their houses were made flat or plain, that men might walk on them. See Jdg 16:27; 1Sa 9:25; 2Sa 11:2; Neh 8:16; Mat 10:27.
Blood, i.e. the guilt of blood, by a mans fall from the top of thy house, through thy neglect of this necessary provision.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. thou shalt make a battlement forthy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fallfrom thenceThe tops of houses in ancient Judea, as in the Eaststill, were flat, being composed of branches or twigs laid acrosslarge beams, and covered with a cement of clay or strong plaster.They were surrounded by a parapet breast high. In summer the roof isa favorite resort for coolness, and accidents would frequently happenfrom persons incautiously approaching the edge and falling into thestreet or court; hence it was a wise and prudent precaution in theJewish legislator to provide that a stone balustrade or timberrailing round the roof should form an essential part of every newhouse.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
When thou buildest a new house,…. Which is to be understood of a house to dwell in, not of a granary, barn, or stable, or such like, and every house that is not four cubits square, as Maimonides observes f:
then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof; in the Talmud g it is asked, what is the meaning of, or why is it said, “thy roof?” to except synagogues and schools; the gloss upon which is, synagogues, c. do not belong to any single person, and besides are no dwelling place. A battlement, as Jarrift describes it, was a fence round the roof or, as more fully described by Kimchi h, it was an edifice made for a roof round about it, ten hands high, or more, that a person might not fall from it; so Ben Melech from him. The reason of this law was, because the roofs of houses in those countries were flat, on which they used to walk for diversion and recreation, or retire for devotion, meditation, prayer, and social conversation; such they were in the times of the Canaanites, Jos 2:6 and in the times of Saul and David, 1Sa 9:25 and in the times of the New Testament;
[See comments on Mt 10:27],
[See comments on Mt 24:17],
[See comments on Mr 2:4],
[See comments on Ac 10:9], and so in later times, and to this day. Rauwolff i, traveller in those parts, relates, that at Tripoli in Phoenicia,
“they have low houses, ill built, and flat at the top, as they are generally in the east; for they cover their houses with a flat roof or floor, so that you may walk about as far as the houses go, and the neighbours walk over the tops of their houses to visit one another; and sometimes in the summer they sleep on the top of them.”
Now to prevent falling from thence, and mischief thereby, such a battlement as before described was ordered:
that thou bring not blood upon thy house; be not the occasion of blood being shed, or contract guilt of blood through negligence of such a provision the law directs to, the guilt of manslaughter, or of shedding innocent blood in thy house, as the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem; hence the Talmudists k extend this to other things, and by this law also they suppose men are bound to guard against all dangers in any other way; as if a man had a well or pit of water in his courtyard, he ought either to put a cover over it, or to make a fence round it as high as this battlement l:
if any man fall from thence; that is, if a man walking on the roof of an house should make a slip or a false step, and stumble and reel, and so be falling, and fall from thence; which might have been prevented, even his falling from thence or to the ground, if such a battlement had been made.
f Hilchot Rotzeach, c. 11. sect. 1. g T. Bab. Cholin, fol. 136. 1. So Maimonides, ib. sect. 2. h Sepher Shorash. rad. . i Travels, par. 1. c. 2. p. 17. Ed. Ray. k T. Bab. Bava Kama, fol. 15. 2. l Maimon. Hilchot Rotzeach, c. 11. sect. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Verse 8:
Oriental houses had flat roofs, which the inhabitants often used for a variety of reasons, see Jos 2:6; 2Sa 11:2; 2Sa 18:24; Act 10:9. The precept in this text mandated that safety measures be taken to insure that none would fall from a roof and sustain injury.
“Battlement,” maaqeh, “a restraint,” or railing, in this case around the edge of the roof, to prevent anyone’s falling from the roof.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
This precept also has reference to the preservation of human life. We know that the roofs of the Jewish houses were fiat, so that they might freely walk upon them. If there were no railings round them, a fall would have been fatal; and every house would have often been a house of mourning. God, therefore, commands the edge to be fortified with battlements, or railings, or other inclosure, and accompanies the injunction with a severe denunciation; for He declares that the houses would be defiled with blood, if any one should fall from an uninclosed roof. Now, if guile were thus contracted by mere incautiousness, it hence appears how greatly He abominates deliberate cruelty; and, if it behooved everybody to be thus solicitous as to the lives of their brethren, it shows how criminal it is to injure them purposely and in enmity.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) BATTLEMENTS FOR NEW BUILDINGS (Deu. 22:8)
8 When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall from thence.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 22:8
366.
God was even interested in the design of the house, or was it another interest?
367.
Read Num. 35:33 and Gen. 9:6 and indicate how they relate to our text.
AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 22:8
8 When you build a new house, then you shall put a railing around your [flat] roof, so that no one may fall from there, and bring guilt of blood upon your house.
COMMENT 22:8
The Hebrew word for battlement (maaqeh), a restraining, holding back, is simply rendered parapet by most modern translators and lexicons. This barrier for a flat roof was more than likely a low wall in most cases, perhaps a railing (Amplified O. T.) in others.
Its purpose, of course, was protection, lest the owner be guilty, in a roundabout way, of injuring or taking the life of another. It was a mandatory safety feature for each home.
THAT THOU BRING NOT BLOOD UPON THY HOUSE (Deu. 22:8)Apparently the law of Num. 35:33, Cf. Gen. 9:6, would apply here, i.e., if the owner failed to take this precaution he would be liable for the death of any who accidentally fell from it.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(8) When thou buildest a new house.Obviously the Law refers to houses with flat roofs, upon which it was customary to walk (1Sa. 9:25-26; 2Sa. 11:2).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof The flat roofs of the eastern houses were used for so many purposes that some provision for protecting life seemed important. Some kind of a parapet was very necessary. According to the Jewish authorities it was to be two cubits in height.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Any Roof Must Have A Protecting Parapet To Prevent People From Falling ( Deu 22:8 ).
Here the idea was of thoughtfulness of the dangers we can put others in by carelessness with regard to safety. The roof would be a flat one that people would entertain on. Sometimes therefore they might be a bit tipsy. Every Israelite should be concerned for the preservation of all members of the covenant by all means, and for not defiling Yahweh’s land by spilling blood. The stress is on consideration for others.
Deu 22:8
‘ When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you do not bring blood on your house, if any man fall from there.’
In all construction concern was to be shown to ensure that it was not dangerous to others, and to make it as safe as possible. They were to be concerned for each other’s welfare. This was especially so in order to prevent the spilling of blood. Thus all Israelite houses had to have a parapet. If they did not, and a man died through their negligence then innocent blood would have been spilled and the owners would bear the guilt before God. They might even be found guilty of manslaughter.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ver. 8. Thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof The Jewish houses were flat-roofed, for the convenience of taking the air and discoursing together, or for meditation and prayer in little closets which they had there; and as they used to frequent this outer part so much, it is enjoined that a battlement be made for the roof. That thou bring not blood upon thine house, says the sacred writer; that is, “That thou be not, by thy neglect, the occasion of any person’s death.” It was on one of those flat roofs that David walked and saw Bath-sheba; and it was through one of them that the paralytic was let down before our Saviour. See Mar 2:4 on which place we shall have occasion to speak more largely concerning the mode of building in the East. Those, however, who are desirous of satisfying their curiosity, may do so, by consulting Dr. Shaw, vol. 1: p. 356. The Hebrew word, which we render battlement, is rendered by the LXX crown, ; the same word which they used in speaking of the altar, and other ornaments of the temple.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
So sacred in the sight of GOD was the shedding of blood. No doubt, in all these precepts, the grand object was, to keep in view the blood of atonement by the LORD JESUS.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Battlements
Deu 22:8
Not only is this an extraordinary instruction, it is the more extraordinary that it appears in a Book which is supposed to be devoted to spiritual revelations. But in calling it extraordinary, do we not mistake the meaning which ought to be attached to the term “spiritual revelations”? Are not more things spiritual than we have hitherto imagined? It is due to the spirit of the Bible, and indeed to the whole genius of the providence of life, to enlarge the term spiritual rather than to enlarge the word material. What if in the long run it should prove that things are in reality not material at all but intensely and eternally spiritual? It will be observed that according to this instruction man is not at liberty altogether to please himself even in the construction of a dwelling-place. What is there indeed in which a man is permitted altogether to consult himself or gratify his own desires? Self ought to have no place in human thinking. At first this may appear to be an impossibility, and indeed it is a natural impossibility, and is one of the miracles which can be wrought in human thought and life only by the spirit of the Son of God. This instruction recognises the social side of human life, and that side may be taken as in some sense representative of a divine claim; it is not the claim of one individual only, but of society; it may be taken as representing the sum-total of individuals; the larger individual the concrete humanity. Socialism has its beneficent as well as its dangerous side. Socialism indeed, when rightly interpreted, is never to be feared; it is only when perverted and prostituted to base uses, in which self becomes the supreme idol, that socialism is to be denounced and avoided. The social influences continually operating in life limit self-will, develop the most gracious side of human nature, and purify and establish all that is noblest and truest in friendship.
There are certain conditions under which an instruction such as is given in the text may excite obvious objections. Suppose, for example, that a man should plead that his neighbour calls upon him only occasionally, and should upon that circumstance raise the inquiry whether he should put up a permanent building to meet an exceptional circumstance. The inquiry would seem to be pertinent and reasonable. On the other hand, when closely looked into, it will be found that the whole scheme of human life is laid out with a view to circumstances which are called exceptional. The average temperature of the year may be mild, for most of the twelve months the wind may be low and the rain gentle; why then build a house with strong walls and heavy roofs? Could we be sure that there would be only one tempestuous day in the whole year if we did not know when that day might occur, the element of uncertainty being of great consequence in this argument we should build the house strongly in order to prepare for the advent of the stormy visitation. Thus in reality we do build our houses for exceptional circumstances. The ship-builder builds his vessels not for smooth waters and quiet days only, but for the roughest billows and the fiercest winds. He does not know when the tempest may come upon his vessel, and therefore he has prepared for it under all possible emergencies. The vessel would be absurdly too strong were it always to sail in unrippled water; but even if the navigator knew that for nine days out of ten the water would be without a ripple, and knew not on what particular day a great wind would arise to try the timbers of his ship, he would not stir an inch from port until he was sure the ship was so built as to be able in all probability to weather the most trying storm. Our neighbour may call to-morrow see then that the battlement be ready! Though his visits be uncertain, yet that very uncertainty constitutes a demand for a permanent arrangement on our part; as the uncertainty is permanent so also must be our means of meeting it. We are continually exhorted to be prepared for crises, to expect the unexpected, and be sure of the uncertain; he who is so defended for his neighbour’s sake will be found to be equal to the most sudden emergencies of life.
A man who is anxious to save himself the expense of erecting a battlement for his roof may easily suggest reasons for evading the law which is laid down in the text. He might plead that it would be time enough to build the battlement when anything like danger is in prospect. Or he might suggest that it would be time enough to consider the desirableness of building the battlement after someone had proved the inadequacy of the roof to prevent accident or injury. but all these excuses are selfish and pointless. Life is to be regulated by the doctrine that prevention is better than cure. We are not at liberty to make experiments with the lives of people, for example, seeing whether they will in reality fall off the roof which we have built. Life is too short, too valuable, to justify such experiments. He who prevents a life being lost, actually saves a life. The preventive ministries of life are not indeed so heroic and impressive in their aspects as ministries of a more affirmative kind, yet are they set down in the Book of God as most acceptable services, often requiring his own eye to discern them, and requiring his own judgment to fix their proper estimate and value. To prevent a boy becoming a drunkard is better than to save him from extreme dissipation, though it will not carry with it so imposing an appearance before the eyes of society. All workers engaged in the holy service of prevention should be sustained and encouraged in their noble work. It lacks the ostentation which elicits applause, and may indeed bring upon itself the sneer of the unreflecting, but God himself continually operates in what may be called a preventive direction, and prevention in his case is equal to an act of creation.
But ought not men to be able to take care of themselves when they are walking on the roof without our guarding them as though they were little children? This question, too, is not without a reasonable aspect. It might even be urged into the dignity of an argument, on the pretence that if we do too much for people we may beget in them a spirit of carelessness or a spirit of dependence, leading ultimately to absolute disregard and thoughtlessness in all the relations of life. We are, however, if students of the Bible earnestly desirous to carry out its meaning, bound to study the interests even of the weakest men. This is the very principle of Christianity. If eating flesh or drinking wine make my brother to offend, I will eat no more while the world standeth. “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye.” “Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.” Thus we are continually exhorted to consideration for other people. The whole house is controlled by the weakness that is within it. The sick-chamber shuts up the banqueting hall. The dying child puts an end to the intended feast. It will be found in examining all the conditions of social life that it is around the centre of weakness that solicitude, and affection, and beneficence continually revolve. The house itself may be strong, but if the battlement as a sign of grace be not above it, it is wanting in that beauty which is pleasant to the divine eye. You yourself may be able to walk upon your roof without danger; but another man may not have the same steadiness of head or firmness of foot; and it is for that other man that you are to regulate your domestic arrangements. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” By thinking of one another we lay claim upon the affection and trust of neighbour and friend. We are not to reason as if this action were all upon our own side. Whilst we build our battlement for the sake of another man we must remember that that other man in building his house builds a battlement for our sake. All services of this kind are reciprocal; no man, therefore, is at liberty to stand back and decline social responsibilities: in every sense, whether accepted or rejected, no man liveth unto himself.
The Christian application of this doctrine is clear. That Christian application we have seen in many other instances in the course of these readings. If we are so to build a house as not to endanger the men who visit us, are we at liberty to build a life which may be to others the very snare of destruction? Is there not to be a battlement around our conduct? Are our habits to be formed without reference to the social influence which they may exert? It would be a poor defence to say that we had put up our houses with excellent battlements, but had forgotten to put a battlement upon the house of our life and conduct. The house of stone is admirably built; but the house of life is practically a ruin! This would seem to be an impossibility, and in our poor thought it is such; but facts are continually showing us the bitter and disastrous ironies which men can perpetrate. Remember that children are looking at us, and that strangers are taking account of our ways, and that we may be lured from righteousness by a licentiousness which we call liberty. Is the Christian, then, to abstain from amusements and delights which he could enjoy without personal injury lest a weaker man should be tempted to do that which would injure him? Precisely so. That is the very essence of Christian self-denial. Perhaps a man may say in self-excuse, “I am so little known or of so little account that my example can do no harm to any one.” This reasoning is not to be credited with humility, but is to be charged with direct iniquity. It is to no man’s credit that as a Christian his example is of so little moment. When men make out that they have lived a long life in the world, and at the end of it must be considered as of small account, they forget that they are making out a bitter self-impeachment. If we had been more faithful to our Master in the circle in which we moved we should have been more known. Consistency always acquires a very high and wide reputation. The consistent man is remarked, and is applauded or avoided according to the moral quality of the observer. The very fact of our not being widely known as Christian men, men of living conscience, and self-sacrificing spirit, may constitute a very heavy charge against our personal fidelity.
A question kindred to inquiries which we have often raised recurs at this point: has God given directions for the building of a house and forgotten to give directions for the building of a life? Is it like him to do the little and forget the great? Is he not more careful about the tenant than about the house? He has given the most elaborate and urgent exhortations upon the matter of life-building. “With all thy getting get understanding.” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore… with all thy getting get understanding.” To know how carefully God has given instructions for the formation and development of a strong life, we may profitably peruse the book of Proverbs; added to this study will come a careful investigation of all the sayings and counsels of Jesus Christ. “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.” The specification for a well-founded, commodious, and beautiful life-house is to be found only in the Book of God. Not one detail is omitted by the divine architect. To body, soul, and spirit counsel is immediately directed. Whoever goes to the Book of God with an earnest desire to discover the way of salvation and the secret of vital growth will assuredly receive the mystery of God as a gift never withheld from the heart of the devout and diligent man. It is indeed utterly impossible to plead with truth and reason that we should be better men if we knew exactly how to live. Whatever force such a plea may have had many centuries ago, it has been utterly divested of all value since the revelation of Jesus Christ. The Son of God himself never allowed that the plan of a true life was a modern invention even of his own day. When the lawyer asked him what was to be done in order that eternal life might be inherited, Jesus Christ referred him to a life thousands of years old. God has at no time left human nature without illumination and guidance. Even in the earliest ages the way upward and heavenly was disclosed to the eyes of attentive men. Balaam exclaimed and his exclamation cannot be improved either in eloquence or in doctrine “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God?” Let us be careful not to leave the house unfinished. It is not enough to have many good rooms, and some beautiful views; we must regard the house as a whole, and consider that no house is stronger than its weakest part. It is impossible to deny that many men who make no profession of Christianity have life-houses not without strength and beauty. But they cannot be complete houses. The law of God is immediately opposed to the idea that completeness can be secured without divinity. However great the house of the wicked man, however commodious the space, however splendid the decoration, however costly the furniture, there is in it a vital defect, a weakness which the enemy will discover, and that house is doomed to fall because it is not founded upon a rock. How many life-houses there are which apparently want but some two or three comparatively little things to make them wholly perfect! In one case perhaps only the battlement is wanting, in another case it may be but some sign of spiritual beauty, in another case there may be simply want of grace, courtesy, noble civility, and generous care for the interests of others. Whatever it may be, examination should be instituted, and every man should consider himself bound not only to be faithful in much, but faithful also in that which is least; and being so he will not only see that there is strength in his character but also beauty, and upon the top of the pillars which represent integrity and permanence will be the lilywork of grace, patience, humbleness, and love.
Prayer
Almighty God, thou hast laid a great charge upon us, and in the very greatness of the charge we see thine own wisdom and grace. Behold, this sacrifice is of the Lord’s appointing: we see his hand in the arrangement and none other. The Lord who gave is the Lord who commands. We are not our own: we have nothing that we have not received; we are bought men; bought not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, a price beyond all words, all thought, yet touching the feeling with marvellous power and stirring the noblest emotions of the soul. May we answer the great demand; may we be no longer our own, even in name, or in thought, but hold ourselves at God’s bidding, ready to do all his will: to accept the law from heaven and to make thy statutes our songs in the house of our pilgrimage. We bless thee for the greatness of the claim. Thou art a great God and a great King above all gods, and thou dost ask what they never ask, and by the very fact of thy doing so thou dost show thy greatness. We would respond to thy claim: not our will, but thine, be done. Whatever we have that we most prize, we lay it down, we place it upon the altar; we say, It is not ours first, but God’s, and ours to use, enjoy, and turn to highest purpose. Thus shall we live a sweet life, full of grace and tenderness and great joy, saying, All things work together for good to them that love God. We will have no fear; no spirit of dejection shall rule us; but the joy of the Lord shall be our strength, and all our cry shall be, Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. The Lord work in us this miracle of grace by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost; subdue every rebellious thought, and bring our whole will into loving obedience and resignation. So shall our heaven begin even upon earth, and whilst yet in the house of death we shall feel the joy and the nobleness of immortality. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 22:8
8When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.
Deu 22:8 parapet for your roof A parapet (BDB 785, which in Arabic means hinder) was a protective barrier around the top of flat-roofed homes to keep people from falling. Again Israel was to think about how to protect covenant brothers, sisters, and family members!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
battlement: i.e. a low wall about three feet high running round the flat roof.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
then thou shalt: The eastern houses being built with flat roofs, which were used for various purposed, as walking, sleeping, etc., it was therefore necessary to have a sort of battlement, or balustrade, to prevent accidents, by people falling off. Exo 21:28-36, Exo 22:6, Rom 14:13, 1Co 10:32, Phi 1:10, 1Th 5:22
thy roof: 2Sa 11:2, Isa 22:1, Jer 19:13, Mat 10:27, Mar 2:4, Act 10:9
thou bring: Eze 3:18, Eze 3:20, Eze 32:2-9, Mat 18:6, Mat 18:7, Act 20:26, Act 20:27
Reciprocal: Jos 2:6 – to the roof Jdg 16:27 – the roof 1Sa 9:25 – the top 2Ki 1:2 – a lattice 2Ki 23:12 – on the top Neh 8:16 – the roof Isa 15:3 – on the Mat 24:17 – the housetop Luk 5:19 – housetop
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Deu 22:8. Thou shalt make a battlement A fence or breast-work, because the roofs of their houses were made flat, that men might walk on them. Blood The guilt of blood, by a mans fall from the top of thy house, through thy neglect of this necessary provision. The Jews say, that by the equity of this law, they are obliged, and so are we, to fence or remove every thing whereby life may be endangered, as wells, or bridges, lest if any perish through the omission, their blood be required at the hands of those who have neglected to perform so plain a duty.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
LAWS OF KINDNESS
WITH the commands we now have to consider, we leave altogether the region of strict law, and enter entirely upon that of aspiration and of feeling. Kindness, by its very nature, eludes the rude compulsion of law, properly so called. It ceases to be kindness when it loses spontaneity and freedom. Precept, therefore, not law, is the utmost that any lawgiver can give in respect to it; and this is precisely what we have in Deuteronomy, so far as it endeavors to incite men to gentleness, goodness, and courtesy to one another. The author gives his people an ideal of what they ought to be in these respects, and presses it home upon them with the heartfelt earnestness which distinguishes him. That is all; but yet, if we are to do justice to him as a lawgiver, we must consider and estimate the moral value of these precepts; for, properly speaking, they are the flower of his legal principles, and they reveal in detail, and therefore, for the average man, most impressively, the spirit in which his whole legislation was conceived. In the abstract no doubt he had told us that love-love to Yahweh-was to he the fundamental thing, and we have seen how deep and wide-reaching that announcement was. But a review of the precepts which indicate how he conceived that love to God should affect mens relations with men, will give that general principle a definiteness and a concreteness more impressive than a thousand homilies. For the conception that a relation of love is the only fit relation between man and God, could not, if it were sincerely taken up, fail to throw light upon mens true relations to each other. Consequently the great declaration of the sixth chapter was bound to re-echo in the precepts to guide conduct, giving new sanctity and breadth to all mans duty to his fellows.
Of course the risk of great failure was nigh at hand: for men may be intellectually convinced that love is the element in which life ought to be lived, and may proclaim it, who are far from being actually penetrated and filled with love, tested and increased by communion with God. As a result, much talk about love and kindly human duty has fallen with but little impulsive power upon the hearts of men. When, however, it is felt to be the expression of a present experience, such exhortation has power to move men as no other words can do. And the author of Deuteronomy was one of those who had this divinely given secret. In all parts of his book you find his words becoming winged with power, wherever love to God and man is even remotely touched upon. If our hypothesis as to the age in which he lived and wrote be correct, his must have been one of those high and rare natures which are not embittered by persecution or contemptuous neglect. Long before our Lord had spoken His decisive words on our duty to our neighbor, or St. Paul had written his great hymn to love, this man of God had been chosen to feel the truth, and had suffused his book with it, so that the only principle which can be recognized as binding together all his precepts is the central principle of the New Testament. Of course that made his ideal too high for present realization; but he gained more than he lost; for, from Jeremiah and Josiah downwards through the years, all the noblest of his people responded to him. The splendor of his thought cast reflections upon their minds, and these glowed and shone amid the meaner lights which Pharisaism kindled and cherished, till He came whose right it was to reign. Then Deuteronomys true rank was seen; for from it Christ took the answers by which He repelled Satan in the temptation, and from it, too, He took that commandment which He called the first and greatest. Of course the humanity of the book had not, in expression at least, the imperial sweep of Christian brotherhood which makes all men equal, so that for it there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither wise nor unwise, neither male nor female, neither bond nor free. But all the chosen people are included in its sympathy; and in this field, without undue interference with private life, the author sets forth by specimen cases how the fraternal feeling should manifest itself in loving, neighborly kindness.
As these laws or precepts of kindness are not systematically arranged, it will be necessary to group them, and we shall take first those in which it is prescribed that injury to others should be avoided. Of course criminal wrongs are not dealt with here. They have already been forbidden in the strictly legal portions of the book, and penalties have been attached to them. But in the region beyond law, there are many acts in which the difference between a good, and kindly, and sympathetic man, and a morose, and sullen, and unkindly one, can be even more clearly seen. In that region Deuteronomy is unmistakably on the side of sympathy. The poor, the slave, the helpless should, it teaches, be objects of special care to the true son of Israel. They should be treated, it shows, with a generous perception of the peculiar difficulties of their lot; and pressure upon them at these special points where their lot is hard should be abhorrent to every Israelite.
The first in order of the precepts which we are considering {Deu 22:8}-“When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a railing for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence”-reveals the fatherly and loving temper which it is the authors delight to attribute to Yahweh. As earthly parents guard their children from accidents and dangers, so Yahweh thinks of possible danger to the lives of His people, and calls for even minute precautions. The habit of sitting and sleeping upon the flat roofs of the houses has always been, and is now, prevalent in the East. Many accidents take place through this habit. In recent years Emin Pasha, who ruled so long at Wadelai, nearly lost his life by one; and here the house-owner is required in Yahwehs name to minimize that danger, “that he bring not blood upon his house.” The life of each one of Yahwehs people is precious to Him; therefore it is that He will have them to guard one another. This is the principle which runs through all these precepts. In the sphere of ritual and religion the Deuteronomist does not transcend Old Testament conditions. For him as for others it is the nation which is the unit. But in the region now before us he virtually goes beyond that limitation, and emphasizes the care of Yahweh for the individual, just as in the demand for love to God he had already made Israels relation to their God depend upon each mans personal attitude. The thought that the Divine care was exerted over even “such a set of paltry ill-given animalcules as himself and his nation were,” according to Carlyles phrase, does not stagger him as it staggered Frederick the Great.
In matters like these, the unsophisticated religion, of the Old Testament is most helpful to us today. We have analyzed, and refined, and dimmed all things into abstractions, God and man among the rest. The fearless simplicity of the Old Testament restores us to ourselves, and pours fresh blood into the veins of our religion. No faith in God as the living orderer of all the circumstances of our lives can be too strong or too detailed. The stronger and more definite it becomes, the nearer will it approach the truth. Only one danger can threaten us on that line, the danger of taking all our own plans and desires for the Divinely appointed path for us. But most men will by natural humility be saved from that presumption; and the glad assurance that they are wrapped about with the love of God is perhaps the greatest need of Gods people in their many skeptical and unspiritual hours.
We cannot, therefore, be surprised that, in connection with debts and pledges for payment, the same kindness in the Divine commands should be observable. As usury was forbidden in Israel, and precautions against excessive indebtedness were exceedingly elaborate, the possibilities of oppression in connection with debt in Israel were much more limited than in most ancient communities. Nevertheless there was here a region of life in which great wrongs could still be done by a harsh and unscrupulous creditor. In order that the creditor might have some security for what he had lent, it was permitted to receive and give pledges. The precepts regarding these are contained in Deu 24:6; Deu 24:10 ff; Deu 24:17, and express a considerate brotherly spirit, for which it would be hard to find a parallel either in ancient or modern times. The creditor who has taken a poor mans upper garment as a pledge is commanded, both in the Book of the Covenant and in Deuteronomy., to restore the garment to its owner in the evening, that he may sleep in it. In Palestine for much of the year the nights are cold enough, and the poor man has no covering save his ordinary clothes. To deprive him of these, therefore, is to inflict punishment upon him, whereas all that should be aimed at is the creditors security. This was peculiarly offensive to Israelite feeling, as we see from the mention in Amo 2:8 of the breach of this prescription as one of the sins for which Yahweh would not turn away Israels punishment. Further, in no case was a widows garment to be taken in pledge, nor the hand-mill used for preparing the daily flour, for that is taking “life” in pledge, as the Deuteronomist says with the feeling for the conditions of the poor mans life which he always shows.
But the crown of all this kindness is found in the beautiful tenth verse: “When thou dost lend thy neighbor any manner of loan, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge; thou shalt stand without, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring forth the pledge without unto thee.” Not only does Yahweh care for external and physical pain, He sympathizes with those deeper wrongs and pains which may hurt a mans feelings. If a pledge to satisfy the lender had to be given, scruples of delicacy on-the part of the borrower would appear to the “practical” man, as he would call himself, contemptibly misplaced. If the mans feelings were so very superfine, why did he borrow? But the author of Deuteronomy knew the heart of God better. With the fine tact of a man of God, he knew how even the well-meaning rich mans amused contempt for the poor mans few household treasures would cut like a whip, and he knew that Yahweh, who was “very pitiful and of tender mercy,” would desire no son of Israel to be exposed to it. He knew, too, how human greed might dispose the lender to seize upon the thing of greatest value in the poor house, whether its price was in excess of the loan or not. Finally, he knew how it deteriorates the poor to be dealt with in an unceremonious, tactless way even by the benevolent. And in the name and with the authority of God he forbids it. The poor mans home, the home of the man whom we desire to help especially, is to be sacred. In our dealing with him of all men the finest courtesy is to be brought into play. Just because he needs our help, we are to stand on points of ceremony with him, which we might dispense with in dealing with friends and equals. “Thou shalt stand without,” unless he asks thee to enter; and thou shalt show thereby, in a deeper way than any gifts or loans can show, that the fraternal tie is acknowledged and reverenced.
In two other precepts the same delicate regard for the finer feelings finds expression. In the fifth verse it is commanded that “When a man taketh a new wife, he shall not go out in the host, neither shall he be charged with any business: he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his wife that he hath taken.” The strangeness and loneliness which everywhere make themselves felt as a formidable drawback to a young wifes joy, and which in a polygamous family, where jealousies are bitter, must often have reached the point of being intolerable, are provided for. In Deu 25:1-3 again, which deals with the punishment of criminals by beating, it is provided that in no case shall the number of blows exceed forty, and that they shall be given in the presence of the judge. This in itself was a measure of humanity, but the reason given for the direction is greatly more humane. “Forty stripes he may give him,” says Deu 25:3; “he shall not exceed; lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.” Even in the case of the criminal care is to be taken that he be not made an object of contempt. Punishment has gone beyond its true aim when it makes a man seem vile unto his neighbors by attacking his dignity as a man; for that should be inalienable even in a criminal. A man may have all his material wants satisfied, and yet be sorely vexed and injured. God sympathizes with these hurts of the soul, and defends His people against them.
After the loving kindness of these commands, it seems almost needless to say that the smaller social wrongs which men may inflict upon each other are sternly forbidden. Often, the rich from want of thought about the life of the poor carelessly do them wrong. Such a case is that dealt with in Deu 24:14 f.: “Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers (gerim) that are in thy land within thy gates: in his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto Yahweh, and it be sin unto thee.” The same command is given in Lev 19:13, and Dillmann is probably right in regarding this as a Deuteronomic repetition of that, since there the precept forms part of a pentad of commands dealing with similar things, while here it stands alone. From early times, therefore, Yahweh had revealed Himself as considering the poor and the necessities of their position. Further, the poor man or the wayfarer was permitted to satisfy his hunger by taking fruit or grain in his hands as he passed through the fields. No one was to die of starvation if the fields were “yielding meat.” Last of all, estrangement between brethren, i.e., all Israelites, was not to free them from duties of neighborly love. If a man find a stray ox or sheep or ass, or a garment or any other lost thing, he is not to leave it where he finds it. He is to restore it to the owner; and if the owner is unknown or too far off, the finder is to keep that which he has found till it is inquired after. Then if he see his brothers, i.e., his neighbors, ass or ox fallen by the way, he must not pass by, but must help the owner to set it on its feet again. That an estranged “brother” was especially in view is shown by the fact that in the parallel passage {Exo 23:4} “thine enemys ox” and “the ass of him that hateth thee” are mentioned.
Now, we have called these precepts and provisions the flower and blossom of the Deuteronomic legislation, because they reveal in their greatest perfection that sympathy with the commonest and the innermost cares of men which is the moving impulse of it all. But they reveal more than that. They show that already in those far-off days the secret of Gods love to man had been made known. Its universality so far as Israel was concerned, its penetrative sympathy, its quality of regarding no human interest as outside its scope, its superhuman impartiality-all are here. They are not of course present in their full sweep and power, as Christ made them known. Outside of Israel there were the Gentiles, who had a share only in the “uncovenanted mercies” of God; and even among the chosen people there were the slaves and the strangers, who had a comparatively insecure relation to Him. Further, the thought of the self-sacrifice of God, though soon to have its dawning in the later chapters of Isaiah, was not as yet an appreciable element in the Israelite theology. Nevertheless the passages we have been considering throw a light upon social duty, as seen by this inspired servant of God, which puts to shame the state of the Christian mind on these subjects even now.
The great principles underlying right relations between men of different social status are, according to these precepts, courtesy and consideration. Now it is precisely the want of these which lies at the root of the bitterness which is so alarming a symptom of our social state at present. There is not, we are willing to believe, much of intentional, deliberate oppression exercised by the strong upon the weak. The injustice that is done is probably inherent in the present social system, for the character of which no one living is responsible. But one reason why reform comes so slowly, and why patience till it can come dies out among the masses of men, is that the employing classes, and those who have inherited privileges, often convey to those they employ the impression that they are beyond the pale of the courtesies which are recognized as binding between men of the same class. Often without intending it, their manner when they are approached by those they employ, their short and half-aggrieved replies, reveal to the latter that they are regarded much more as parts of the machinery, than as men who might naturally be expected to claim, and who have a right to, the recognition of their rights as men.
Of course there are excuses. There is the long tradition of subordination to arbitrary power, from which none in earlier ages of the world have been free. There is the impatience with which a governing and organizing mind listens to grievances which it sees either to be inevitable under the circumstances, or to be compensated by some corresponding privilege, which stands or falls with the thing complained of. And then there is the absence of outlook, which is the foible of the directing mind. It is set to rule and make successful a large and intricate business under given circumstances. The more effective such a mind is for practical purposes, the more thoroughly will it limit itself to working out the problem committed to it. When grievances have to be dealt with which have their root in the present circumstances, and which imply changes more or less radical in his fixed point if they are to be redressed, it is hard for the employer to persuade himself that his employees are not merely crying for the moon. If he think so, he will probably say so; and working men go away from such interviews with the feeling that it is vain to expect from employers any sympathy for their aspirations towards a better social state, which yet they cannot give up without a slur upon their manhood.
But though these are excuses for the attitude we have been describing, there can be no question that the fine and delicate courtesy which Deuteronomy prescribes is indispensable in order to avert class hostility. Courtesy cannot, of course, change our social state, and where it works badly evils that produce friction will remain. But the first condition of a successful solution of our difficulties is, that evil tempers should as far as possible be banished, and for that purpose courtesy even under provocation is the one sovereign remedy. For it means that you convey to your neighbor that you consider him in all essentials your equal. It means, too, that you are willing to recognize his rights and to respect them. Though power may be on your side, and weakness on his, that will only make it more incumbent upon you to show that mere external circumstances cannot impair your reverence for him as man. If that be sincerely felt, it opens a way, otherwise absolutely closed, to mutual confidence and mutual understanding. These once established, light on all parts of the social problem (which, be it remembered, employers and employed must solve together if it is to be solved at all) will break in upon the minds of both classes. In spite of the diversity of their immediate interests, the ultimate interest of all is the same. If contempt and suspicion were excluded, eyes which are now holden would be opened, and a common effort to reach a social state in which all men shall have the opportunity of living lives worthy of men would become possible. If all would learn to treat those of other classes with the courtesy which they constantly show to those of their own, a great step in the right direction would be taken. Men overlook much and forgive much to their fellows when these recognize their equality, and show that they attach importance to having good relations with them.
But much more is to be aimed at than that. The esteem for man as man has great conquests yet to make before even the Deuteronomic courtesy becomes common. But if these nobler manners are to come in, then the motives suggested by Deuteronomy will have to be made effective for our day. What these were it is not difficult to see. They all had their source in the authors own relations and the relations of his people to God. Each of his brethren of the chosen people was a friend of Yahweh. There was no difference between Israelite men before Him. He had brought them all, the poor and the weak, as well as the rich and the strong, out of the house of bondage; He had guided them all through the wilderness, and had appointed each household a place in His land where full communion with Him was to be had. He had thought many thoughts about them, had given them laws and statutes dictated by loving insight, so as to fill their life with the consciousness that Yahweh loved them, condescended to them, and even allowed Himself to be made to serve by their sins. Whatever else they might be, they were friends of God, and had a right to respect on that ground. And for us who are Christians all these motives have been intensified and raised to a higher power. It is not lawful for us to call any man common or unclean. It is not lawful to overwhelm and bear down the minds of others by sheer energy and power. Those “for whom Christ died” are not to be dealt with save on the worthy plane of moral and spiritual conviction. That is the law of Christ; and so long as it is broken in our labor troubles by contemptuous refusal of conference when it can be granted without compromising principle, or by slighting references to labor leaders and a refusal to meet them, when leaders of another class would be courteously met, so long will the bitterness which inevitably springs up trouble us.
It is not, however, to be supposed that only the rich can sin in this respect. The labor organizations are becoming in many places, the stronger, and so far they have learned the law of courtesy no better than their opponents. Opprobrious epithets and injurious suspicions and accusations are the stock-in-trade of some who lead the labor cause. That is as unworthy in them as it would be in others; it is not only a crime, but a blunder.
But the practice of courtesy does not end with itself. It opens the way for that consideration of the circumstances of the poor which we have found so conspicuous in Deuteronomy. As we have seen, Yahwehs precepts contemplate with the nicest care the unavoidable necessities of the poor mans life. So He stirs us to endeavor to realize the conditions of our poorer brethren, and by doing so to avoid the blunders which well-meaning people make by assuming that the conditions of their own life are the norm. There are vast varieties of circumstance in the world; and from lack of consideration those more favorably situated excite envies and hatreds the bitterness of which they cannot conceive, by simply taking it for granted that every one has the same opportunities for recreation, the same possibilities of rest. To realize clearly what life and death mean to the toiling millions of men; to see that matters which are small to those who live the materially larger and freer life of the class above them are of vital moment to the poor; to consider and allow for all such things in their dealings with them, -this is the teaching of Deuteronomy. Hence the command to pay the laborer his wages in the same day. The heart of man responds when this note is struck. In nothing is the story of Gautama the Buddha more true to the best instincts of humanity than in this, that it represents him as making his great renunciation through coming into intimate contact with the pain and misery of ordinary life. That gave him insight, and insight wrought sympathy, and sympathy transformed him from being a petty prince of Northern India into the consoler and helper of millions in all Eastern lands. Even hopeless pessimism, when born of sympathy, has an immense consoling power. Much more should the inextinguishable hope given by Christ, combined as it is with the same sympathetic insight, console men and uplift them.
But the sixteenth verse of chapter 23, reminds us that in that ancient Deuteronomic world there were sad limitations to these lofty sympathies and hopes. If intensively Deuteronomy almost reaches the Gospel, extensively it shows the whole difference between Judaism at its best and Christianity. Below the world of free-born members of the Israelite community, to whom the precepts we have hitherto been considering alone apply, there was the class of slaves, who in many respects lay beyond the region of the finer charities. The origin of slavery we need not discuss. It was a quite universal feature in all ancient communities, and was doubtless a step upwards from the custom of destroying all prisoners taken in war. Among the Hebrews it had always been customary; but in historic times it was not among them the all-important matter it was in Greek and Roman polity. Had it been so, it world have been impossible to discuss the economic ideals of Israel without taking this social feature into consideration first. But slaves were comparatively few in Israel, and the slave trade can never have been extensive, since no slave markets are mentioned in the Old Testament. Moreover the social state of the country made owners of slaves share in the slaves work, and that of itself prevented the growth of the worst abuses. But the most powerful element in making the lot of the slave tolerable was undoubtedly the just and pitiful character of the Israelite religion.
The fundamental position with regard to him was, however, the common one: he was the property of his master. He could be sold, pledged, given away as a present, and inherited, and could even be sold to foreigners. But a female slave, if taken as a subordinate wife, could not be sold, but only freed if she ceased to occupy that position. Exclusive of the Canaanites, subject to forced labor, and the Nethinim, the servants of the Sanctuary, who occupied much the same place as the servi publici in Rome, there were two classes of slaves, non-Israelites and Israelites. The ways in which a non-Israelite slave could come into Israelite hands were just what they were elsewhere. They might be prisoners of war, they might be purchased from traveling merchants, they might voluntarily have sold themselves from poverty in a strange land, or might have been sold for debt, and finally they might be children born of slaves. Their lot was of course the hardest. Yet even they were not so entirely unprotected by the law as slaves were among Greeks and Romans. They were recognized as men, having certain general human rights. The master had no right to kill; and if he maimed his slave he had to give him his freedom, according to the oldest law. {Exo 16:20 f.} The law regarding the killing of a slave has often been quoted as singularly harsh, especially that clause which says that if a slave when fatally smitten lives for some days after the blow, his death shall not be avenged, “for he is his (the masters) money.” But it ought, notwithstanding the harshness of the expression, to be judged quite otherwise. The fact that death was not immediate was taken to indicate that death was not intended, and consequently the loss of the slave was thought a sufficient punishment. But the prohibition of the deliberate murder of a slave was a humane provision which could not be paralleled in the Graeco-Roman world. Moreover these laws would not seem to have been widely called into action. The humane spirit became so general in Israel that slaves were generally well treated. In Pro 29:21 overindulgence to a slave is deprecated, as if it were a common error; and during the whole history there is no mention of evils resulting from cruel treatment of slaves, much less any record of servile insurrection. Nor is there very frequent mention even of runaway slaves. On the other hand, we read of slaves who were stewards of their masters houses; others probably were entrusted with the charge of the education of children.
In Deuteronomy we find, as we should expect, that the movement towards humanity in dealing with slaves is greatly furthered. In Deu 21:10 ff. the hardship of a womans lot when she was taken captive in war is mitigated with sympathetic insight. To modern women of the Western world the lot of such a one seems so dreadful that no mitigation of it can make any difference. The current teaching among even religious men is that rather than submit to it a woman is justified in suicide. But in antiquity the personality of woman was undeveloped, the chances of life constantly passed her from one master to another, and things intolerable now were tolerable then. Making even these allowances, however, if we look at the law of the Old Testament as being in all its provisions and ab initio Divine, it seems impossible to praise it. A law which graciously permitted a captive woman to mourn for her people for a month, and only then allowed her captor to marry her, but if he wished afterwards to get rid of her provided that he should not sell her, but should let her go whither she would, cannot be said to be in itself compassionate. But, if the customary law of the Israelite tribes, restrained and purified by the higher spirit, be regarded as the basis of Old Testament legislation, then the leaven of religion and humanity can be seen working nobly, and in a manner worthy of revelation, even in such cases as these. Long after the Christian era we see what the ordinary fate of a captive woman was, in the conduct of Khalid the “sword of the Lord,” one of the first great Mohammedan soldiers. When he had captured Malik ibn Noweira, who had resisted Islam, along with his wife, he gave orders which led to Maliks death, and the same night he married his widow. Shortly afterwards, at the battle of Yemama, he demanded the daughter of his captive, Mojda, and married her, as the Caliph wrote in reproof, “whilst the ground beneath the nuptial couch was yet moistened with the blood of twelve hundred.” Horrors like these Deuteronomy forbids. The frenzied moments of a captives first grief are respected, and some tenderness is shown to woman in a world where her lot at its best had always in it possibilities which cannot now be even thought of with equanimity. The same steady pressure to a nobler form of life is likewise seen in the Deuteronomic law dealing with the case of a foreign slave who had taken refuge in Israel. {Deu 23:15 f.} In the words, “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the slave which is escaped from his master unto thee; he shall dwell with thee, in the midst of thee, in the place which he shall choose within one of thy gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him,” we have, thus early, the same legislation which it is the peculiar boast of England to have introduced into the modern world. “Slaves cannot breathe in England,” and the moment they touch British soil in any part of the world they are free. This was the case with the land of Israel according to the Deuteronomic conception of what it ought to be.
But the highest points of privilege come to the non-Israelite slave in a way which disturbs the modern conscience, for they came by means of compulsion in religion. In contrast to the day laborer and the “Toshab” or sojourner, the slave must be of his masters religion. For a heathen, however, that was not a difficulty. His gods were gods of his land; and when he left his land and was carried into a foreign country, he had no scruple about worshipping the god of the new land. A typical case of this is found in the narrative 2Ki 17:1-41, where the immigrants whom the king of Assyria had settled in Samaria after Israel had been carried captive besought him to send some one to teach them how to worship Yahweh. This adoption of the masters religion secured equality of slave and free to a degree which could not otherwise have been attained, and brought the slaves fully within the humanity of the Hebrew law. It gave them the Sabbath. {Deu 5:14} It gave a full share in all the religions festivals and a part in the sacrificial feasts (Deu 12:12; Deu 16:2; Deu 16:14). Such slaves were, in fact, fully adopted into the family of God, and became brethren, poorer and more unfortunate, but still brethren, of their masters. They had indeed no claim to freedom, as Israelite slaves had; they were slaves in perpetuity. But their slavery was of a kind that did not degrade them beneath the condition of man.
With regard to Israelite slaves the beneficence of the law was naturally still greater. The fullest statement in regard to them is found, not in Deuteronomy, but in Lev 25:39-46; but in the main we may suppose that in its larger outlines the distinction between Israelite and non-Israelite slaves there insistent on was always acknowledged. They were not to be thrust down into the lowest depth of slavery, and they were not to be set to the lowest kinds of labor, rather to that which hired laborers were wont to do, because they were of the children of Israel, of the nation whom Yahweh had brought out of the house of bondage. Further, they had a right to emancipation every seventh year, that is to say, whenever they had served six full years they could claim freedom in the seventh. Their original property was meant to be restored to them in the Sabbatic year, and so their degradation could last only for a very limited time. In Exo 21:2 ff. we find the original provisions concerning the Israelite slave. Deuteronomy simply took these up, and modified them in certain respects. It extends all that Exodus says of the slave to the female slave also, and, in its care for and understanding of the difficulties of the poor, enacts that a slave when set free shall receive a fresh start in life from the cattle, the barn, and the winepress of the former owner. But this anticipation of discharged prisoners aid societies was too high a demand upon a faithless generation. Even Jeremiah could not get it carried out; and the probability is that none but the most spiritually minded of the Jews ever regarded it as binding law.
The leave which love of Yahweh inspired spread still more widely. It took in not only the poor and the slave, but it took account also of the lower animals. It has been often made a reproach to Christianity that it makes no such appeal on behalf of the lower creation as Buddhism does. But that reproach (like the kindred one brought by J. S. Mill, that in comparison with the Quran the New Testament is defective in not pressing civil duty) is tenable only if the New Testament be absolutely severed from the Old. Taken as the completion of the moral and religious development begun in Israel, Christianity takes up into itself all the experience, and all the teaching by example, which the Old Testament contains. It does not repeat it, because to the first Christians the Old Testament was the Divinely inspired guide. It was at first their whole Bible, and to take the New Testament by itself as an independent product is to mutilate both the Old and the New. When the Old Testament, therefore, enjoins kindness to animals we may set down all that it prescribes to the credit of Christianity. So much, at least, the latter must be held to teach; and if we consider the spirit as well as the letter of this law, there is no exaggeration in saying that it covers all the ground. Here, as in the case of slaves and the poor, the fundamental reason for kindness is relation to God. In the Yahwists narrative in Gen 2:1-25 all creatures are formed by God, and God Himself shows kindness to them. Indeed in passages like Psa 36:7, as Cheyne well remarks, there is an implication “that morally speaking there is no complete break of continuity in the scale of sentient life,” and that, as is seen by passages like Jer 21:6, and Isaiah 4:11, the mild domesticated animals “are in fact regarded as a part of the human community.” In the Decalogue the animals that labor with and for man have their share in the Sabbath rest, and the produce of the fields during the Sabbatic year {Exo 23:11 Lev 25:7} is to be for them as well as for the poor. That they were mere machines of flesh and blood, to be driven till they were worn out, and were then to be cast aside, seems never to have occurred to the Israelite mind. These helpful creatures had made a covenant with man, and had a share in the consideration which the sons of Israel were taught to have for one another. In reaching that attainment Israel had reached the only effective ground for dealing with animals, as Cheyne says, “without inhumanity and without sentimentalism.” The individual prescriptions of Deuteronomy emphasize and bring down these principles into the practical life. It is probable that the precept not to seethe a kid in its mothers milk {Deu 14:21} was, in part at least, a law of kindness, founded upon a reverential, feeling for the parental relationship even in this lower sphere. The command in Deu 22:6 is certainly so. We read there: “If a birds nest chance to be before thee in the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young; thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, but the young thou mayest take unto thyself; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.” Evidently the ground of sympathy here is the existence and the sacredness of the parental relationship. The mother bird is sacred as a mother; and length of days is promised to those who regard the sanctity of motherhood in this sphere, as it is promised to those who observe the fifth commandment of the Decalogue. Thus intimately the lower creation is drawn into the human sphere.
The only other precepts under this head are that a fallen animal is always to be lifted, {Deu 22:4} and the ox is not to be muzzled when it is treading out the corn. {Deu 25:4} These were ordinary prescriptions of humanity, but they too rest upon the sympathetic identification of the sufferings and wants of all sentient beings with those of mankind. It may be objected, however, that St. Paul denies that the last precept really was due to pity for the oxen. In 1Co 9:9, referring to it, he says, “Is it for the oxen that God careth, or saith He it altogether for our sake? Yea, for our sake it was written.” But there is no real contradiction here. It is quite impossible that a devout Jew like St. Paul did not believe that Gods “tender mercies are over all His works.” {Psa 145:9} He would have been false to all his training had he not accepted that as a fundamental axiom. His apparent denial does not refer at all to the historic fact that the precept was given because of Gods care for oxen. It only signifies that, when taken in its highest sense, it was meant to form character in men. St. Paul argues, as Alford says, “that not the oxen, but those for whom the law was given, were its objects. Every duty of humanity has for its ultimate ground, not the mere welfare of the animal concerned, but its welfare in that system of which man is the head, and therefore mans welfare.” In fact St. Paul understood the Old Testament as we have seen it demands to be understood, and places the duty of kindness to animals in its right relation to man.
In all relations, therefore, Deuteronomy insists that lifes main principle shall be love illumined by sympathy. Beginning with God and giving mans unquiet heart a firm anchorage there, it commands that all creatures about us shall be embraced in the same sympathizing tenderness. It forbids us to look upon any of them as mere instruments for our use, for all of them have ends of their own in the loving thought of God. God is for it the great unifying, harmonizing power in the world, and from a right conception of Him all right living flows. If the New Testament asks with wonder how a man who loves not his brother whom he hath seen can love God whom he hath not seen, the Old Testament teaches with equal emphasis the complementary truth that he who loves not God whom he hath not seen will never love as he ought his brother whom he hath seen. For to it Yahweh is the first and last word; and all the growth in kindness, gentleness, consideration, and goodness which can be traced in the revelation given to Israel, has its source in a conception of the Divine character which from the first was spiritual, and was moreover unique in the world.