year of restoration regarded as typical of the times of the Messiah, in which the discords of the world's history are to be resolved into the harmony of the Divine life. And hence Christ designates himself as the fulfiller of this prophecy (Luke 4: 21); while Heb. 4: 9, by calling the perfected Kingdom of God the Sabbath of the people of God, also refers to the type of the year of Jubilee.

Although there were great difficulties in observing the Sabbatical year, still the system was by no means impracticable, if the people were willing to sacrifice all selfish considerations to the Divine will. The omission of the ordinances, was, however, already contemplated in Lev. 26: 35, while how far they were really carried into practice in post Mosaic times does not appear. It is evident from 2 Chron. 36: 21, where it is said that the land lay desolate during the captivity seventy years to make up for its sabbath years, that the celebration of the sabbatical year had been omitted during the last centuries before the captivity. After the captivity, the people, under the influence of Nehemiah, bound themselves to the observance of the sabbatical years (Neh. 10: 31), which, being frequently mentioned by Josephus, must have been henceforth the general practice.

3. The Three Pilgrimage Feasts (§153–156).

a) The Passover (§153, 154).

§ 153. Enactments concerning the Passover.

The enactments relating to the Passover are found in Ex. 12: 1-28, 43-49: 13: 3-10; 23: 15; Lev. 23: 5-8; Num. 28: 16-25; Deut. 16; 1-8. In Ex. 12: 1-20 we have the entire law of the passover, as delivered to Moses and Aaron before the fact with which this feast was to be connected had taken place, a circumstance, the consideration of which will obviate many apparet difficulties.

During the whole of the festival nothing leavened might be eaten (Deut. 16: 3), and on the 14th of Abib or Nisan all leaven and leavened bread were cleared out of the house. In general the preparations for the repast took place on the 14th, and the repast itself, which formed the commencement of the feast of

unleavened bread, on the 15th. The whole animal was eaten that same night, not a bone of it being broken, with unleavened loaves and bitter herbs. In remembrance of what occurred at the institution of the Passover, the head of the household related the history of the deliverance of Israel during that night. The Hallel was chanted during the repast by the assembled family (Ps. 113 and 114 after the second cup and before eating the lamb, and Ps. 115-118 before the fourth cup).

§ 154. Significance of the Feast of the Passover.

The significance of the Feast of the Passover was, generally speaking, an historical one; it was celebrated in remembrance of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. In a certain aspect the feast was also the consecration of the beginning of harvest (Lev. 23: 11, 15). When we inquire into the special import of this feast, we must, first of all, decide whether the Passover transaction proper is to be regarded in the light of a sacrifice. We would answer the question in the affirmative, because the Passover is expressly exhibited in a sacrificial point of view in Ex. 12: 27 ("it is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover"), in Num. 9: 7, 13 ("to offer the oblation of the Lord in its appointed season"). So too it is said in 1 Cor. 5: 7, "For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ."

The next question is, under what class of sacrifices is the Passover to be comprised?

Hengstenberg maintains that it belongs to the class of sinofferings. "The Passover is a sin-offering in the fullest and most especial sense." Oehler maintains that the fact that it is a repast places the Passover in the class of peace-offerings; and since there can be no peace-offering without an atonement, which is effected by the sprinkling of the blood, the Passover presupposes an act of expiation effected by the application of the blood of the paschal lamb. The application of the blood to the door-posts of the house, which formed the place of sacrifice at the first passover, had the same significance as the atonement and purification of the sanctuary with the blood of the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16: 16). Oehler, however, denies

that the paschal lamb suffered death vicariously, and in this view we altogether differ with him, for in the New Testament the passover lamb is a type of Christ (1 Cor. 5: 7), whose sacrificial death secures deliverance from the wrath of God for His Church.

§ 155. b) The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost).

The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) owes its name to the fact that it was to be celebrated seven weeks after Passover. It was also known as the feast of harvest, or of first fruits. In the Pentateuch it has the significance of a harvest thanksgiving. An historical meaning was first given to this feast by the later Jews, who made it refer to the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai, which is said by the Jewish tradition to have taken place on the fiftieth day after the departure from Egypt, while Ex 19: I states quite generally that it was in the third month.

The central point of the religious celebration of this festival of one day's duration, was the offering of the two loaves of firstfruits for the whole people. As the wave sheaf at the Passover was a sign that harvest had begun, so were these wave loaves, a sign that the harvest was completed. With the offering of these loaves were combined large burnt, sin, and peace offerings (Lev. 23: 17, 18). The feast was enlivened by festal repasts, which were furnished by the free will offerings (Deut. 16: 10, 11).

§ 156. c) The Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles was kept on the seventh month (Tisri), from the fifteenth day onward and lasted seven days. To these was added an eighth, the Atsereth (probably conclusion), which undoubtedly had a reference to the close of the whole annual cycle of feasts. The historic import of the Feast of Tabernacles was to remind the people, by a seven days' dwelling in booths made of boughs, of the wandering of their fathers in the wilderness (Lev. 23: 42, 43). It was the greatest feast of rejoicing of the year, and provided with more numerous sacrifices than the others (Num. 29: 12-34). Very

splendid ceremonies were subsequently added to it, especially the daily libation of water, probably with reference to Isa. 12: 3, and the illumination of the court on the first day of the feast, customs to which perhaps the words of Christ, John 7 : 37; 8: 12, may refer.

Thus the festal half of the Israelitish ecclesiastical year coincided with the season in which the annual bounties of nature were gathered; while during the wintry half of the year, on the contray, the course of the Sabbaths and the new moons was, according to the Mosaic ritual, uninterrupted by festivals. PART II. PROPHETISM ($157—234).

First Section. The Development of the Theocracy from the Death of Joshua to the Close of the Old Testament Revelation ($ 157-193).

I. The Times of the Judges (§157—163).

1. The Disintegration of the Theocracy till the Times of Samuel (§ 157— 159).

§ 157. Course of Events. Import of the Office of Judge.

The history of the period of the Judges exhibits a constant alternation between the apostacy of the people and their consequent chastisement by the Divine power, on the one hand, and the return of the people to their God and the Divine deliverances therewith connected, on the other.

In times of oppression, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord (Judg. 3: 9, 15; 4: 3; etc.), individual men— the Judges arose, who aroused by the Spirit of Jehovah, turned back the hearts of the people to their God, revived in them the remembrance of God's dealing with them in past times, and then broke the hostile yoke under which they were suffering. The office of Judge was neither permanent nor hereditary, but purely personal. Called to a prominent position by the necessities of the times, they acted with energy in the affairs of the individual tribes at the head of which they were placed, but exercised no abiding influence upon the nation, which, on the contrary, relapsed into its former course, when its burdens were lightened or the Judge was dead (Judg. 2: 16—19).

§ 158. Religious Condition: Decline of the Theocratic Institutions.

Are we justified, in speaking of a decline of the theocratic institutions, and does the Book of Judges really presuppose a legislation and a history such as the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua attest? (Great stress has always been laid upon this point by the opponents of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.) So far as religious institutions in particular are concerned, it must be observed that it is foreign to the entire purpose of the Book of Judges to enter into the subject, and consequently the inference that institutions not mentioned therein would not have existed, is utterly unjustified. This applies equally to the Book of Joshua, which confessedly presupposes the Pentateuch. There are, however, quite sufficient data in the Book of Judges to show that although during this period and down to Samuel the injunctions and ordinances of the law were for the most part neglected, the theocratic institutions, as they are said to have existed under Moses and Joshua, are nevertheless in all essential matters presupposed.

The main question is: Does the Book of Judges know of a central sanctuary as the only authorized place of sacrifice? We answer: The national sanctuary, the tabernacle, was during the times of the Judges permanently located at Shiloh (Josh. 18: 1; 19: 51; Judg. 18: 31; 1 Sam. 1; etc.). It was there that the annual festivals were solemnized (Judg. 21: 19; 1 Sam. 1: 3), and the regular sacrificial worship was offered (1 Sam. 2: 12, 13). A second legimate tabernacle in some other locality is not once spoken of.

The fact that the Books of Judges and Samuel take but little notice of the individual sacrificial laws in the Pentateuch, is easily accounted for by the nature of their contents.

It has also been claimed that the Book of Judges knows nothing of the calling of the tribe of Levi, as appointed in the Pentateuch. On the contrary, we regard it as a prominent and remarkable fact, that the Levites appear in the Book of Judges in exactly that position which Deuteronomy assumes, when it always classes them with the strangers on account of their pov