The unity of life in the law of the letter is a continual movement, which leads to the righteousness of faith, and, as the law of the spirit, to the righteousness of the life. On the abolition of the law in the New Testament, comp. the Comm. on Matthew, p. 109, on Romans, p. 137. Abolished as regards the severity, narrowness, and outwardness of the letter, the law is lifted up into the region where there is no limit to what is required of the spirit and rendered by it. On the three spheres of the law according to its primary outline, the ethical, the ceremonial, and the civil, as they are distinctly contrasted with one another in the brief outline, vid. the exegesis in point. In a more general form the three books are to be divided throughout according to these three spheres of the law. The first form of the law was abolished, as to its covenant validity, by the worship of the golden calf. The fact that Moses broke the tables of the law, is an eternal repudiation of image-worship, because this worship leads to idolatry, though it is not in its intention direct idolatry. The relation of the new tables of the law is perhaps this: The former prohibit the rudeness and hereditary sinfulness of the natural life; the latter prohibit, with that, apostasy also, and constitute therefore for the apostate people the discipline of a state of penitence, the penalty of a lay condition, the disciplinary excommunication. On the analysis of the law vid. p. 75. Treatises. On the decalogue vid. Danz, Encyclopädie und Methodologie, p. 210, Supplement, p. 25; Otto, Dekalogische Untersuchungen, Halle, 1857; Geffken, Ueber die verschiedenen Eintheilungen des Dekalogs, Hamburg, 1838; Stier, Die zehn Gebote in Katechismus, Barmen, 1858; the article Dekalog in Herzog's Real-encyclopädie. Here belong the discussions of this topic in the works on biblical theology, in the older works on dogmatics and ethics, and in the catechisms. On the Sabbath (or Sunday) in particular, Hengstenb., Ueber den Tag des Herrn, Berlin, 1852; Wilhelmi, Ueber Feiertagsheiligung, Halle, 1857; Danz, under Sabbath and under Sonntag; also his article Sonntagsfeier in the Supplement, p. 99. [Hessey, Sunday, Bampton Lectures for 1860; Whately, Thoughts on the Sabbath; L. Coleman, in Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. I.; John S Stone in Theol. Eclectic, Vol. IV.; Paley, Moral and Political Philosophy; Maurice, On the Sabbath, and the articles in Smith's Bible Dictionary, and Kitto's Cyclopedia.-TR.] 3. The Tabernacle. The tabernacle is not mainly the meetinghouse of the popular congregation (pi), but the dwelling-place, the palace, of its Lord; not, therefore, mainly the centre of worship, but the sanctuary of the law (). In the tabernacle the appearance of God, and with it, so to speak, Sinai, remain permanently; hence it is the place where the people are to appear before Jehovah, where they hear the testimony of His law, and bring the offering of self-surrender in prayer and reconciliation. For this reason, as already remarked, the picture of the tabernacle stands in Exodus, not in Leviticus. But The holy place where God made His appearance is originally designated only by a stone monument (Gen. xxviii. 18); then it is artistically represented by the tabernacle, which was afterwards transformed into the temple. even in the tabernacle the one place of God's revelation is developed into a gradual succession of revelations: the court; the holy place, the oblong (as an incomplete square); and the Holy of holies, as the highest form of the sanctuary, and, in its square form, a symbol of perfection. The divine law in the first stage, the court, is represented by the sacred limit, the screen of the sanctuary, the laver, the mirrors, the sacrificial death; in the second, by the seven-branched candlestick; in the third, by the ark of the law protected by the cherubim. Therewith corresponds in the first stage the altar of burnt-offering, which consumes the sacrifice in the fire; in the second, the altar of incense, over which the soul of the offering rises upwards in prayer; in the third, the lid of the ark of the covenant, the lid of expiation, of re-union with Jehovah.-The benefits which God's people obtain are, in the first stage, absolution and a simple blessing; in the second the sacerdotal communion with Jehovah at the table of shew-bread; in the third, the high-priestly vision of the glory of the Lord-the whole inuring to the benefit of the people in the threefold blessing (Num. vi. 23-26), but presupposing a threefold advance in degrees of piety: obedience and confession; prayer; joyous selfsurrender even unto death. As to the materials and the building of the tabernacle, we refer to the exegetical remarks, p. 151, to the numerous monographs, and to the archæological and lexical descriptions. As the tabernacle is, on the one hand, a type of all true temples, churches, and sanctuaries on earth, the mother of the greatest cathedrals and of the smallest chapels, so is it, on the other band, as being instituted by Jehovah, the opposite of all self-chosen forms of divine service (¿Vehovpηokeía, Col. ii. 23), idol groves, and hideous systems of worship. Among the several typical features are especially to be considered the picture of the tabernacle as seen in the mount, or the ideal plan of the building; the vocation of sacred art in the form of architecture and the art of making symbolic figures; the grand voluntary contributions of the people for the sanctuary; and the glorious festival of consecration. But as the tabernacle was the provisional adumbration of the temple of Solomon, so it was, together with it, an adumbration of the great dwelling-place of the Lord which embraces the heaven of heavens, but is not embraced by it (1 Kings viii). For works on the tabernacle vid. p. 113. SECOND DIVISION: HOMILETIC HINTS. A. GENERAL HOMILETIC REMARKS. First of all is to be noticed the fact that in the ancient church the three books of the law were made, by the help of allegorical interpretation, an important means of Christian edification. the most prominent example of this, Origen is to be named. As It was a consequence of the allegorical style of preaching, that, on the one hand, on account of the unmistakable uncertainty and caprice of its changing hues, it could not but weaken the assurance of faith, while, on the other hand, it could not but occasion a large deficiency in practical ethics resting on faith, and in the ethical exposition of Scripture. This evil effect has been especially pointed out by a pious and sober teacher of pastoral theology, Peter Roques, Le Pasteur Evangélique, Basle, 1723. He even traces the corruption of the Eastern Church largely to the moral barrenness of the fantastical allegorical style of preaching. It cannot be denied that the allegorical mode of explaining the Scriptures, derived from the Alexandrian theology, was in existence among the Christians even at the time of the origin of the N. T. Yet we must make a radical distinction between typical and allegorical interpretation of the Bible. The typology of the N. T. may here and there, especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, border on the allegorical method; but this method itself does not appear distinctly except in the extra-biblical works, e. g., in the interpretation of Abraham's 318 servants in the Epis tle of Barnabas.* Yet even at a still later point there must be distinguished among the apostolical and church fathers the typical from the allegorical treatment of the Bible. But after the allegorical method had obtained theoretically the predominance, one fact is still to be considered, to which the rigid advocates of the grammatico-historical interpretation do not do justice. For the Middle Ages the conception of the infinitely rich and profound contents of the Holy Scriptures as ideally considered could be gained only by the allegorical way. simple light had to be broken in the prism of the Middle Ages into the colors of the sevenfold sense of Scripture. The Nevertheless the homiletic use of allegory in reference to the books now under consideration was very much limited by the prevalence of the custom of observing the pericopes as well as by the saints' days; and this limitation has continued, on account of the pericopes, to affect the Lutheran church. But it was otherwise with homiletics in the Reformed church, and with the mystic edification derived from the reading of the Bible; it was not held in check by the pericopes, but rather set itself in opposition to that constraint; and that the Reformed churches were fond of Old Testament texts is accounted for by this fact in part, and not simply by their conception of the Bible as a code of laws, and by the fact that the Reformed Pietism was more fantastic than its Lutheran brother" (Diestel, Geschichte des Alten Testaments in der christlichen Kirche, p. 774). It may indeed be assumed that the allegorical style of preaching in the Reformed church was in great part provoked by the Lutheran mystics and commentators. When the homiletic use of allegorical exposition began to run into absurdities (vid. examples in Lentz), it also gradually fell into condemnation-a process which began with the time of the Reformation. That it nevertheless was able to maintain itself so long after the Reformation, and so often seemingly to become rejuvenated, was due to its connection with a mysticism which was full of life, and to its repugnance to the dryness of dogmatic formulas. more especially its life was due to a dim feeling (misconstrued, it is true) of the peculiarity of the symbolical side of the Biblical style, as opposed to the extreme orthodox and the radical tendency to reduce it all to a purely abstract literalism. But Works on the interpretation of the Scriptures. Whitby, Dissertatio de sacrarum scripturarum interpretatione, etc. London, 1714; Schuler, Geschichte der populären Schrifterklärung unter den Christen von dem Anfang des Christenthums bis auf die gegenwärtigen Zeiten. Tübingen, 1787; J. G. Rosenmüller, Historia Interpretationis librorum sacrorum in ecclesia christiana; Meyer, Geschichte der Schrifterklärung seit der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, Göttingen, 1802 (in the Introduction a condensed survey of the history of the interpretation of Scripture from the beginning of the Christian church till the 15th century); Mögelin, Die allegorische Bibelauslegung, besonders in der Predigt, historisch und didaktisch betrachtet, Nürnberg, 1844; Elster, de medii ævi theologia exegetica, Göttingen, 1855; Lentz, Geschichte der christlichen Homiletik, Brunswick, 1839; Ludwig, Ueber die praktische Auslegung der heiligen Schrift, Frankfort, 1859.-Among the general commentaries the Berleburg Bible, as an allegorizing one, especially belongs here. A very prominent allegorist was Madame Guyon (vid. the article in Herzog). Diestel, Geschichte des Alten Testaments in der christlichen Kirche.-A list of writings on hermeneutics is given in Hagenbach's EncycloSee also the article Hermepädie, p. 174 8qq. [This was thus interpreted: 318 is made up of 10 represented by the Greek letter, 8 represented by 7. and 300 represent-neutik in Herzog's Realencyclopädie; the Comm. ed by T. The first two letters in stand for Ingovs, and the last on Genesis, p. 101; Winer, Reallexicon, II., p. 115 represents the form of the cross.-TR.] B. SPECIAL HOMILETIC REMARKS ON EXODUS. of deliverance (when the mathematician has two points beyond him, he can also fix the third).— The declaration: "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," contains in fact the most decisive argument for immortality, much as it has been misunderstood (vid. Comm. on Matthew xxii. 32). The stern rebuke of the neglect of circumcision a hard problem for the Baptists. I. The Redemption and the Bringing of the For it is not true that circumcision for the Jews People to Sinai. 1. The Significance of the People of Israel, particularly of the Tribes in reference to the Kingdom of God. also a type. The rise of the people of Israel in bondage, and the redemption runuing parallel with it, A miniature picture of humanity. -Egypt in its two-fold form: a refuge of the founders of the kingdom of God, and the first anti-theocratic power. Repeated in the general history of the world.-Moses' leadership in its theocratic significance. Even Moses, the mediator of the law and of the restricted Jewish eco nomy, had to receive a preparatory training in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.-Moses and the other children, exposed and apparently lost, who have become great men in the world's his tory, especial monuments of divine Providence (Cyrus, Romulus, Christ).-The epochs of revelation and the periods of the history of revelation, or the intervals in the revelation, are carefully to be noticed. For us the epochs of revelation blend into one on account of the unity of the Bible and of Biblical history. In reality, however, they are separated by great intervals. That is: From Adam to Noah; From Noah to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; From Moses and Joshua to Samuel (only sporadically interrupted); From David to Elijah and Elisha: From that time to the Messianic prophets; From Malachi to John the Baptist and Christ. 2. Moses. In Moses' life the wisdom of the divine train ing is disclosed, and particularly in the contrast between his own impulsive effort to redeem his people and his divine calling.-The high significance of the school of solitary life in the wilderness (Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Christ; analogies: the monks even, Mohammed, Jacob Böhm, Fox the Quaker).-The burning and yet not consumed thorn-bush, an allegorical phenomenon of revelation, whose interpretation can be condemned on the ground of its being allegorical only from a misunderstanding.-The name of Jehovah could not get its specific significance was merely a national custom; it was for them, as a religious institution, the sign of the covenant, a sacrament. And, as such, a typical promise of regeneration, imposing an obligation (Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6).-Connection between God's wrath and man's death (vid. the article Zorn in Herzog's Realencyclopädie). After the miracles of the theocracy have been heralded by the name El Shaddai [God Almighty] and the birth of Israel, they now appear as the media of the redemption of Israel. By two or three features they are from the outset distinguished from magical occurrences — by natural substrata, prophetic presentiment and a symbolic representation; but they yet remain, as divine acts serving the purpose of credentials, judgment, and deliverance, forever above the sphere of the extraordinary, the wonderful. They are the new exploits of God, which come in connection with a new word, and herald a new time of salvation (vid. more on the parallel miracles in my Life of Christ). 3. Moses and Aaron. too in the kingdom of God, that the great cha The fact is often repeated in the world, and so racter is not a great orator, and the great orator not a great character. 4. Pharaoh. God's message to Pharaoh: "Let my people go, that they may serve me," has been delivered by the command of God's Spirit at many hierarchical sees and royal courts, e. g. at the court of Louis XIV.; and He will every where continue to deliver it where necessary. Pharaoh's obduracy is primarily his own fault, secondarily a judgment divinely inflicted (vid. Comm. on Romans, chaps. ix.-xi.).-The preservation of Pharaoh, who, considered by himself, would long before have been destroyed by the Egyptian plague of the pestilence, is due to his connection with the history of the people of God; the real good of the pious does not demand that their oppressors be at once destroyed, but, on the contrary, that they be preserved a while till a certain goal is reached. They are, so to speak, set up for the very purpose of glorifying in them the name of God, by the final judgment inflicted on their arrogance. If they will not glorify God's name freely, consciously and directly, then they must be instrumental in glorifying it against their will, unconsciously and indirectly (Romans ix.). Comp. the Wisdom of Solomon and Klopstock's Messiah on the condemnation of tyrants. for Israel as the name of the faithful covenant- 5. The Egyptian Plagues. The Egyptian plages are typical, living representatives of all the judgments of God in history, (1) in their complete number, ten, the number of the entire course of the world; (2) in their intermittent rhythm, ascending from the light- | est infliction to the heaviest; (3) in the miraculous augmentation of natural calamities peculiar to the earth and the country, and in the connection of these with the movements of the world of mind, the joyful testimonies of the pious, the bad conscience and horror of the godless; (4) in the correspondence between the sudden precipitation of the crises of the earth's physical history, and that of the crises of the kingdom of God; (5) in the exalted 3ymbolic form of God's deeds in sacred history. The false miracles by which the Egyptian sorcerers sought to neutralize the effect of Moses' miracles have their reflex in the most various forms even in New Testament times and in the history of the Church (2 Tim. iii. 8). So Julian instituted an anti-Christian order of preachers and similar things. So in modern times the itinerant preaching of the Gospel, the church-holidays, and religious associations have been imitated in one direction and another. But the unholy imitations can never keep pace with the holy originals.-This, too, remains true in the spiritual world, that God's plagues as such are limited entirely to the enemies of His people. The institution of the Passover-meal on the night of Egypt's terror is a type of the institution of the Lord's Supper on the momentous night of the betrayal of Christ. This lofty festival of victory in the midst of the terrors of death and of the abyss is one of the most unmistakable of God's grand thoughts of love and of peace, and would never have been conceived, still less carried out, by the selfish heart of man. 6. The Passover. In the Passover all the forms of offering are concentrated and explained. First, it takes the place of the curse-offering, the hherem, which was inflicted on the Egyptian first-born; secondly, it is a sin-offering made by the act of sprinkling the blood, by which the door is marked with the divine direction, "Pass over," for the angel of destruction; thirdly, however, it is most emphatically a peace-offering, as being the Old Testament eucharist, for which reason also the passover was slain by all the heads of houses, and eaten by all the inmates of the house; finally, it is made complete, as a burnt-offering, in the burning of all the parts which are left over from the sacred meal. On the significance of carrying away the silver and gold articles, vid. Comm. on Genesis, p. 83. In every great judicial crisis a part of the goods of this world, or of a spiritual Egypt, falls to the people of God, as, e. g., at the time of Constantine, the time of the Reformation, and other times;-not by cheating and robbery, but through mental agitation; agitated souls cast it into the hands of the representatives of the victorious spirit. 7. The Feast of Unleavened Bread. Together with the Passover is instituted the feast of unleavened bread, characterized, on the one hand, as a denunciation of the world, and, on the other, as a renunciation of worldliness, or voluntary abstinence for the sake of the Lord. This does not make leaven as such a symbol of evil (vid. Comm. on Matt. xiii. 33), but it makes the leaven which is qualified by some reference to the world (the Egyptians, the Pharisees, etc.), a symbol of the contagious and overpowering influence of participation in an injurious enjoyment. As the Passover feast obligates to a temporary festival of unleavened bread, so the Lord's Supper obligates to a permanent avoidance of ruinous associations.-Participation in the Passover is conditioned on circumcision (xii. 48); and a participation in the Lord's Supper, on the rite of baptism.-The religious education of the young has from the outset a connection with the sacraments (xiii. 14), and finds itself at once enjoined, whenever a religious congregation is formed. To guide the weak young congregation of God through the wilderness is safer than to guide them through the land of the Philistines. Here is figuratively represented the import of asceticism (xiii. 17, 18). 8. Joseph's Bones. A boundary line between the theocracy and the world is formed not only by the sacraments and feasts, but also by the consecrated burial. So the church-yard has also its ecclesiastical significance. But as the political community has a part in the bells in the tower, so also in a church-yard as God's field, and only Christian wisdom, not fanaticism, can correctly apprehend the distinction. 9. The Pillar of Cloud and Fire. As the same pillar over the sanctuary is a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, so it stands now before the host as a sacred vanguard, now behind them as a protecting rearguard separating Israel from the pursuing enemy. To this divine separation of Israel from the world, following the sacramental separations, is next added the great actual separation by means of the Red Sea. It is a double protection for the congregation of God, that not only the congregation is hidden from the pursuing worldly power, but also the frightful equipments of this power are in great part hidden from the congregation by the miraculous phenomenon of the pillar of cloud and fire. By day the pillar of cloud is more visible than the fiery pillar; by night the fire is more visible than the cloudy pillar. When one walks in the light of knowledge, he needs to be made secure by the symbolical obscurity of the mysteries of the church; when one walks through the night of temptation, he is made secure by the fiery tokens of the animating presence of the Lord.-The policy of falsehood, of selfishness, of arrogance, and of treachery, has plunged more than one Pharaoh into destruction from the earliest times down to the history of Buonaparte. 10. The Red Sea. In their extreme distress the Israelites cast themselves in view of the oppressors into the Red Sea, but do so at the bidding of God and of the rod of Moses. Here, too, the natural substratum is to be taken together with the divine deed. (Ex. xiv. 21; Ps. cvi. 9). The terrestrial crisis is united with the crisis of the kingdom of God, Moses' prophetic spirit with his symbolic miraculous verance, as soon as they begin to suffer want, they begin again to murmur. But just because the congregation is so young and so weak, Jehovah is indulgent towards them, and presents them in the wilderness of Sin with the miracu here to be anticipated, xvi. 13), and at Rephidim with water from the rock. Both facts are closely related to one another and to the foregoing passage through the Red Sea. At a later time Jehovah cannot exercise the same indulgence towards the old and more experienced company when they murmur in like manner; even Moses' subtle error is now severely punished (Num. xi. 31 sqq.; xx. 1 sqq.). Repetition in the divine training of children is no more a tautology than in the human training of them. agency. The Red Sea stands midway between the deluge (1 Pet. iii. 20) and baptism (1 Cor. x. 2). In all three cases the redemption of the new man is effected through judgment on the old; there takes place a separation, by means of which the destructible part falls a prey to real or appa-lous bread of manna (the gift of quails seems rent destruction, and the salvable part is transferred to a condition of life and salvation. The first separation constitutes a universal historical type, and in its magnitude, as the destruction of the first world (in a sense also as a sequel of the catastrophes of creation), points to the second and third separations, but also beyond them to the last great separation at the end of the world. The second separation is a theocratic typical institution, which makes the Jews Israelites; the third constitutes a symbolic and real dividing line between the church and the world, and, in so far as it is inwardly expressed and realized, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. The seeming downfall of the church of God is always succeeded by a higher rise, as the seeming triumph of the power of darkness indicates its actual overthrow. 11. The Song of Moses. 13. Amalek and Jethro. The first war of the Israelites is a war of defence against the Amalekites; but the victory depends on three forces: the people's recent experience of deliverance, Moses' intercession, and Joshua's generalship (vid. my pamphlet, Vom Krieg und vom Sieg). Amalek thus becomes The song of Moses is the first form of reli- Egypt was before (xvii. 16). But that there are a type of the anti-theocratic worldly spirit, as gious service in the church of God, proceeding two kinds of heathenism, and accordingly a twofrom the experience of the first miraculous typi-fold relation of the people of God to it, is shown cal redemption, and hence is of perpetual significance for all worship celebrating redemption and for all songs up to the last redemption at the end of the world (Rev. xv. 3). The Old Testament is acquainted with two great redemptive facts: the redemption out of the bondage in Egypt, and out of the Babylonish captivity; the New Testament proclaims the two greatest: the primal redemption accomplished by Christ, and the final one in the other world which He will accomplish at His appearing. It is noticeable that in the song of Moses the attribute of God's holiness is for the first time celebrated together with others. This indicates the early origin of the song, and particularly the period of holiness, which from this time on becomes Jehovah's most characteristic attribute; the attribute of justice, which predominates more at a later time, here appears only incidentally, as it were, in a confession of sin on Pharaoh's part. The freedom which even in the Old Testament appears in its first free form of worship, in spite of its restraints, is especially evidenced by the female choir, which Miriam leads, particularly by the instrumental music of the tambou- 14. Israel's Voluntary Assent to the Covenant with rines, and even the festive dance. What a sorry spectacle certain restrictions in the worship of the old Reformed Church present by the side of this, while yet that church professes to be of an eminently New Testament type. 12. The First Stopping-places. The first encampment of the children of Israel by the twelve fountains and under the seventy palm-trees at Elim makes, with Moses' triumphal song after the deliverance, one whole. But a preliminary goal reached in the way of salvation heralds a new contest. The great weakness of the new congregation is displayed in the fact that, in spite of those rich experiences of deli by the deportment of Jethro, Moses' father-in- Jehovah at Sinai. Thus the congregation has come to Sinai, and here the people are summoned to enter, by means of a voluntary covenant with Jehovah, into a peculiar relation to Him, to become Jehovah's people under His theocracy. Here now the sacred history itself stands clearly opposed to a series of distortions of it. In the first place, we see that the giving of the law on Sinai is not the beginning of the Old Testament; Israel, rather, came to Sinai as a typical, consecrated people, in whose rise and redemption Jehovah has provisionally fulfilled the promise given to Abraham (vid. Gal. iii. 15 sqq.). Secondly, we see that the people were by no means involuntarily |