Scripture Notes | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 24, 1867

Scripture Notes.

BATHING OFTEN.

Ex. xxix, 4. And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt wash them with water.

Shalt wash them.] A popular medical writer remarks: ‘When the saline and animal elements left by the perspiration, are not duly removed by washing or bathing, they at last obstruct the pores and irritate the skin, [deranging the animal functions, and of course, affecting the mind and heart.] And it is apparently for this reason, that, in the eastern and warmer countries, where perspiration is very copious, ablution and bathing have assumed the rank and importance of religious observances. The warm, tepid, cold, or shower bath, [according to the vigor of the constitution,] as a means of preserving health, ought to be in as common use as a change of apparel, for it is equally a measure of necessary cleanliness. When we consider the importance of the exhalation performed by the skin, the extent to which ablution and bathing of every description are neglected in charitable institutions, in seminaries for the young, and even by many persons who consider themselves as patterns of cleanliness, is almost incredible.’—Combe, on Health and Mental Education. Can we doubt that such personal cleanliness, so necessary to having ‘a sound mind in a sound body,’ is still ‘a religious duty?’—Jenks.

TO THE FOURTH GENERATION.

Ex. xxxiv, 7. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Boothroyd translates, “Keeping mercy to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and acquitting even him who is not innocent, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third or to the fourth generation only.” This translation is considered most correct, by persons best acquainted with Hebrew. Poole argues at considerable length in support of a version the same in effect, “in destroying, He will not utterly destroy,” which agrees with Moses’ prayer, xxxiii, 19, and the Hebrew. The English translators, it will be seen, have supplied the word “guilty.” HENRY abr.—Visiting &c.] Notes xx, 5.—Jenks.

WHY GOD IS CALLED JEALOUS.

VERSE 14. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

Whose name is Jealous.] The idols of the nations were not characterized as jealous; at least, in any great degree. They were not supposed to be offended, by their worshipers paying occasional or even stated worship to [local, or] other deities, provided the number and value of the sacrifices offered to them, were not diminished. Hence arose what has been called an intercommunity of the worshipers of different idols with each other; who scrupled not to worship the gods of other nations, especially when among them. But this, Jehovah, the one living and true God, would not endure. Hence, conscientious Israelites, were universally counted bigots.—Scott.

THE TWO LAWS.

VERSE 27. And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

Moses wrote in a book the judicial and ceremonial precepts, that he had received: but God himself wrote the ten commandments, the substance of the moral law, on the tables of stone. (Note 28.) This difference strongly marked the permanency and perpetual obligation of the moral law, and the inferior importance and temporary obligation of the ceremonial institutions; and even of the judicial law, except as coincident with the moral. Thus the national covenant was renewed on the same terms as before.—Scott.