MOSAIC LAW, the code of laws delivered to the Israelites by Moses. This is the most remarkable system of jurisprudence ever given to the world, as well as the most ancient of which we have any distinct record. It was delivered, not to a settled nation, but to a people on their way to a settlement at that time inhabited by numerous and powerful clans, from whom, and from all other nations whatsoever, it was one of the main objects of the law to separate and distinguish them; and when they had reached the promised land, it was, with scarcely any alteration, found equally adapted to the people after they had subjugated the hostile bands by which they were surrounded, and were living in victorious peace amidst the trade and bustle, the pomp and magnificence, of a great monarchy. Nor is this all. Its decalogue, or ten commandments, has been adopted by the most enlightened nations as the moral law of human nature. These precepts, too, were not promulgated at different times according as circumstances seemed to dictate, like the Koran of a later age, but were given at once, along with the other principles of the system; which exhibits a unity of character and a singleness of purpose peculiar to itself. It must be added, that throughout the whole code there evidently appears an end and object, which, like the vital fluid meandering in our veins, imparts to the system all its freshness, life, and vigour, and which being withdrawn or accomplished, the body is left in the weakness and stillness of death.
The Mosaic or Jewish law is generally said to be comprehended in these three particulars; namely, the decalogue, or ten commandments, the judicial law, and the ordinances of divine service, or the ceremonial law. But it was certainly not so considered by the Jews themselves, nor by their lawgiver. The basis upon which the whole law rested was historical. It was this: That God had chosen the progenitor of the nation from amongst his idolatrous kinsmen, to impart to him and his posterity a knowledge of the true God, and establish them in the land to which the nation was now advancing, to be there governed by this law. The very first words of the decalogue are, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other Gods before me." And, with the eye of faith, the believing Jew could look forward to the distant future, and anticipate the time when there should "come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch grow out of his roots,"—
when a new seed should arise to serve Jehovah, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life; and in the still remoter future see a heavenly Canaan, wherein "the ransomed of the Lord" should be found gathered out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and God should be all in all.
The Hebrew community, as it existed in the time of Moses, was placed under a theocracy, in the strictest sense of that term. The fundamental principle of their law was the recognition and obeying of God as the only true God, and in particular as their sovereign; the law issued from his mouth; and the whole Jewish judges, magistrates, and officers, were merely his deputies, to announce to the people, or execute upon them, the divine promises and threatenings, with a certainty like that of the laws of nature, of which, indeed, the laws of the Hebrew commonwealth might reasonably enough be regarded as but a part.
The principal copy of the law was committed to the custody of the priests and elders,1 that is to say, the joint care of the civil and ecclesiastical powers; it was appointed to be publicly read and expounded to the people at stated solemnities, "when all Israel was assembled together;2 parents were commanded to teach and impress it upon their families and households3 and it came to be customary also to read and expound it every Sabbath-day in the synagogues.4
The great principles of the Mosaic code are piety and mercy, love to God,5 and love to man,6 and all the precepts of the law are either deductions from these two first principles, or ordinances explanatory of how their end was to be attained. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.7
Let us now consider the several parts of the law. And, first,