Chapter 65

and to secure the establishment of a monotheism without images. /2/

-- Footnote 2. xvii. 7 (cf. 2Chronicles xi. 15), xviii. 21, xix. 4, 19, 26, 29, 31, xx. 2 seq. 6, xxvi. 1, 30. With regard to the date we have to note the stern prohibition of the service of Moloch. On Lev, xvii. see above, p. 376. -- Footnote

This is quite recognisable, and forms an important point of contact with Deuteronomy. The same contact may be observed in the prohibition of certain observances of mourning (xix. 27 seq.), the calculation of Pentecost from the beginning of barley harvest (xxiii. 15), the seven days' duration of the feast of tabernacles, and the cheerful sacrificial feasts which are to accompany its observance. Add to this a similarity by no means slight in the colour of the language, e.g., in xviii. 1-5, 24-30, xix. 33-37, xx. 22 seq., xxv. 35 seq. Some of the phrases may be mentioned. "When ye are come into the land that I shall give you." "Ye shall rejoice before Jehovah." "I am Jehovah that brought you up out of the land of Egypt." "Ye shall keep my commandments and statutes and laws, to do them."

But the legislation we have here is further advanced than Deuteronomy. In the festivals the joint sacrifice of the congregation is already prominent (xxiii. 9-22). The priests are not the Levites, but the sons and brothers of Aaron, their income has grown materially, their separate holiness has reached a higher point. Stricter demands are also made on the laity for personal holiness, especially as regards continence from the sins of the flesh, and the marriage of relatives (Leviticus xviii. xx.). Marriage with an uncle's wife is forbidden (xviii. 14, xx. 20), whereas in Deuteronomy it is still legal. The work dates from a time when exile was a familiar idea: xviii. 26 seq.: "Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of those abominations; for the men that were in the land before you did these things, and the land vomited them out. Take care that the land spue not you out also as it spued out the nations that were before you." Similarly xx. 23 seq.: and in a legislative work such utterances prove more than they would in a prophecy. Now as our section departs from Deuteronomy, it approaches to Ezekiel. This is its closest relationship, and that to which attention has been most drawn. It appears in the peculiar fusion of cultus and morality, in the notion of holiness, in a somewhat materialistic sense, as the great requirement of religion, and in the fact that the demand of holiness is made to rest on the residence of the people near the sanctuary and in the holy land. /1/

-- Footnote 1. On Leviticus xxii. 24, 25, compare Kuenen's Hibbert Lectures. -- Footnote

But the affinity is still more striking in the language: many unusual phrases, and even whole sentences, from Ezekiel, are repeated in Leviticus xvii. seq. /2/

-- Footnote 2. Compare Colenso, Pentateuch and Joshua, vi. p. 3-23. Kayser, op. cit. p. 177- 179. Smend on Ezekiel, p. xxv. -- Footnote

The 10th of the 7th month is in Leviticus xxv. 9 as in Ezekiel, new-year's day, not, as in the Priestly Code, the great day of atonement. This led Graf to regard Ezekiel himself as the author of this collection of laws in Leviticus; and Colenso and Kayser followed him. But this is out of the question; notwithstanding the numerous points of contact both in linguistic and material respects, the agreement is by no means complete. Ezekiel knows no seed of Aaron, and no wine at the sacrifices (Leviticus xxiii. 13); his festival legislation shows considerable differences, and in spirit is more akin to the Priestly Code. And if he were the author he would have said something about the proper place in the cultus of the Levites and of the prince.

The corpus in question, which Klostermann called, not inappropriately, the Law of Holiness, inclines from Ezekiel towards the Priestly Code: in such pieces as xvii. xxi. xxii. it takes some closeness of attention to see the differences from the latter, though in fact they are not inconsiderable. It stands between the two, somewhat nearer, no doubt, to Ezekiel. How are we to regard this fact? Jehovist, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, are a historical series; Ezekiel, Law of Holiness, Priestly Code, must also be taken as historical steps, and this in such a way as to explain at the same time the dependence of the Law of Holiness on the Jehovist and on Deuteronomy. To assume that Ezekiel, having the Pentateuch in all other respects as we have it, had a great liking for this piece of it, and made it his model in the foundation of his style of thought and expression--such an assumption does not free us from the necessity of seeking the historical order, and of assigning his natural place in that order to Ezekiel; we cannot argue on such a mere chance. Now the question is not a complicated one, whether in the Law of Holiness we are passing from the Priestly Code to Ezekiel or from Ezekiel to the Priestly Code. The Law of Holiness underwent a last revision, which represents, not the views of Ezekiel, but those of the Priestly Code, and by means of which it is incorporated in that code. This revision has not been equally incisive in all parts. Some of its corrections and supplements are very considerable, e.g., xxiii. 1-8, 23-38; xxiv. 1-14, 23. Some of them are quite unimportant, e.g., the importation of the Ohel Moed (instead of the Mikdash or the Mishkan), xvii. 4, 6, 9, xix. 21 seq.; the trespass-offering, xix. 21 seq.; the Kodesh Kodashim, xxi. 22. Only in xxv. 8 seq. is the elimination of the additions difficult. But the fact that the last edition of the Law of Holiness proceeds from the Priestly Code, is universally acknowledged. Its importance for the literary history of Israel cannot be over-estimated. /1/

-- Footnote 1. L. Horst, in his discussion on Leviticus XVii,-XXYi, and Ezekiel (Colmar, 1881), has strikingly shown that the mechanical style of criticism in which Dillmann even surpasses his predecessor Knobel, is not equal to the problem presented by the Law of Holiness. He goes on, however, to an attempt to save, by modifying it, the old Strassburg view of Ezekiel's authorship; and as Kuenen justly remarks, he makes ship-wreck on Leviticus xxvi. (Theol. Tijdschr. 1882, p. 646). Cf. . -- Footnote

IX.II.2. The concluding oration, Leviticus xxvi. 3-46, calls for special consideration. Earlier scholars silently assumed that this piece belonged to Leviticus xvii. 1-XXVI. 2; but many critics, Noldeke for example, now regard it as an interpolation in Leviticus of a piece which from its character should be elsewhere. At any rate the oration is composed with special reference to what precedes it. If it is not taken as a peroration, such as Exodus xxiii. 30-33, Deuteronomy xxviii., its position in such a part of the Priestly Code is quite incomprehensible. It has, moreover, a palpable connection with the laws in xvii.-xxv. The _land_, and _agriculture_, have here the same significance for religion as in chaps. xix. xxiii. xxv.; the threat of vomiting out (xviii. 25 seq., xx. 22) is repeated here more circumstantially; the only statute actually named is that of the fallow of the seventh year (xxvi. 34, xxv. 1-7). The piece begins with the expression, which is so characteristic of the author of chapter xvii. seq. "If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them," and the same phrase recurs, with slight alteration, in vers. 15 and 43. The conclusion, verse 46, is, "These are the statutes and judgments and laws which Jehovah gave, to regulate the relation between Him and Israel on Mount Sinai, by Moses." This is obviously the subscription of a preceding corpus of statutes and judgments, such as we have in, xvii. 1-xxvi. 2. Mount Sinai is mentioned also in xxv. 1 as the place of revelation.

If Leviticus xxvi. is incontestably intended to form the conclusion of chaps. xvii.-xxv., it would be natural to suppose that the author of that collection was also the author of the oration. Noldeke thinks, however, that the language differs too much from that of xvii.-xxv. Yet he is obliged to acknowledge several resemblances, and these not unimportant; while some of the differences which he adduces (Bamoth, Gillulim, Hammanim, xxvi. 30) are really examples of similarity. Rare and original words may be found in the preceding chapters also. It may be that in