Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, March 3, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 12

Scripture Notes.

THE JUDICIAL OATH.

DEUT. vi, 13. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.

Swear by his name.] ‘An appeal to God is the spirit and essence of an oath, no matter whether the appeal is made by putting the hand under the thigh, as among the Patriarchs; by the water of the Ganges, as among the Hindoos; on a surat, or chapter of the Koran, as among the Mohammedans; on a Heb. pentateuch, as among the Jews; on the form of the cross, as among the Romanists; kissing the New Testament, as among Protestants in general; or making affirmation according to a prescribed form, as among the Quakers—still the oath is the same, for the appeal is made to God. On this ground, the making affirmation in a court of justice, is as perfect, as substantial, and as formal an oath, as kissing the N. T. Why, then, so many objections against taking an oath by any one particular form, when it is taken in another?—Dr. A. Clarke.

AN HONOR TO BE A CHRISTIAN.

Deut. x, 31. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.

Thy praise.] It is an eternal honor to any soul to be in friendship with God. Why are people ashamed of being thought religious? Because they know nothing of religion. He who knows his Maker may glory in his God—for without him, what has any soul but disgrace, pain, shame, and perdition! How strange is it, that those who fear God should be ashamed to own it; while sinners boldly proclaim their relationship to Satan.—Clarke.

FALSE WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

Deut. xxv, 13–16. Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have; that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.

It is observable that these too common practices are branded as “Abomination to the Lord,” equally with idolatry, adultery, and other most scandalous crimes.—Scott.

FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY.

Deut. xxvi, 9. And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.

By a little and very venial poetical exaggeration, a land which abounds with liquids, may be said to flow with them. Honey might be said literally to flow from the rock, as the wild bees are wont (so Russell) to deposit it in the clefts and hollows of the porous rocks of Palestine, as now they do in the hollows of trees in the forests of the Western U. S. Dr. Prout has clearly proved that all the chief alimentary matters employed by man may be reduced to three classes, viz., saccharine, oily, and albuminous substances, the most perfect specimens of which are respectively, sugar, butter, and white of egg.—Lond. Quart. Rev. How appropriately beautiful, in this light, do Moses’ comprehensive descriptions of Canaan’s plenty, here and elsewhere, appear?—Jenks.

DUST FOR RAIN.

Deut. xxviii, 24. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

A drought of this kind occurred in the time of Ahab. Jeremiah also laments one that was very terrible:

Jer. xiv, and it is remarkable that this formerly fertile land is at present noted for its sterility; and is so thinly inhabited as scarcely to contain a hundredth part of its ancient inhabitants, even according to the largest computation!—Scott.

From Heaven shall it come down.] In those regions, in summer, unless it rains, a vast quantity of the finest dust is raised by the wind; this pervades everything, and is not only most troublesome, but destroys the crop.—Rosenm.

BLINDNESS OF THE REBELLIOUS JEWS.

Verse 28. The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart.

In the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans this was the case, as appears from the history; but in that by Titus and the Romans, and in the subsequent conduct of the miserable relics of the Jews, their infatuation was so evident that every one who reads of their conduct must be convinced they were given up to judicial blindness and madness, or they never could have been so bent upon their own destruction. While, by their obstinate resistance to the Roman power, without the least prospect of escaping, they insured their own miseries; by their intestine rage, they became the executioners of the wrath of God upon themselves, almost saved their enemies the trouble of destroying them, and absolutely put it out of their power to preserve them.—Scott.

TERMS EXPLAINED.

Deut. vi, 1. Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it:

Here and in similar passages, the commandments seem to denote the moral law; the statutes, the ceremonial law; and the judgments, the judicial law.—Scott.