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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 16, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 3.

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HEBREW AND HEATHEN LAWS.—No. 3.

By Albert H. Darrow

MR. RIDPATH rightly says that "the Hebrew laws were not produced by processes of legislation, but were proclaimed as edicts of absolute authority." But when he observes further that "there was no recognition of a right of lawmaking among the people," he should remember that he has already previously declared the Babylonians and other learned ancients to have had no capacity for lawmaking, and where there is no capacity how can there be a right to do that which could only result in disaster?
"The concept of the right of the people to produce their own laws had not yet risen upon mankind." ("History of the World," Vol. 5, pp. 302, 303.) Is it likely that any conception of such a right could dawn upon the minds of those who were unable to exercise that right with discretion?
"Israel and Judah alike were pervaded with the theocratic spirit, and the monarchical in form, yielded largely in policy and administration to the dictation of the priesthood. Otherwise, the Jewish monarchies may be regarded as absolute. They differed not much from the oriental despotisms with which the reader is familiar. There was no secular constitution by which the kings were held in check." (Id., Chapter 109.)
The last sentence sounds like a sophistical trick in logic. Why was a secular constitution necessary to hold the kings in check? Would not a religious constitution operate at least equally well in a theocratic state, especially under "the dictation of the priesthood"?
Mr. Ridpath admits that they had a constitution. He tells us on pages 299, 300 that "it was in the giving of the Decalogue as a fundamental constitution to ancient Israel that the recognition of Jehovah as the one and only King and Ruler of His people was enunciated. . . . The stone-written constitution which Moses brought from the mountain of solitude was deposited in the ark, and became the very central fact of nationality, embodying both the fundamental principles of government and the covenant between the people and the invisible King." Again, "The statutes thus came to the Hebrews in the desert." "From the Decalogue proceeded all the other statutes of the Israelitish nation."
When we remember that this Decalogue constitution was given to the Hebrew people by an "invisible King," that "from the Decalogue proceeded all the other statutes of the Israelitish nation," and that both the constitution and statutes were intended to guide both rulers and priests in administering the affairs of government, and the people in their daily conduct, did not the Hebrew code of laws answer every purpose of a secular constitution and laws? In one sense they were secular, that is, they were designed for, and adapted to, an earthly government.
The laws of Moses, given by Jehovah, furnished to Israel a code of statutes elaborately covering every civil duty and offense known to modern lawmakers, and constitute the only instance of a constitutional monarchy in ancient times. And since the Hebrew people had a right in all freedom to accept or reject the laws proposed for their adoption, and were required to and did exercise that right, were their rights or liberties infringed? Was a despotism thrust upon them? Were they, like other ancient peoples, compelled to submit to laws not of their own choosing or repugnant to them? Most certainly it was a misfortune to other nations that they did not have the same beneficent provision!
Mr. Ridpath is constrained to admit that "there was much of practical value and common sense in the rules of conduct, property laws, and special regulations among this people. Some of the legislation was unique and original. The peculiar arrangement by which the lands were assigned to the occupants under a kind of national lease subserved an admirable purpose in the economy of the state. The agrarian troubles to which nearly all the other nations of antiquity were subject, and which frequently led to civil wars and revolutions, were unknown in Israel. There never was a happier balance between feudal absolutism in the ownership of land and socialistic ownership than was the fifty-year tenure recognized by the Jewish constitution." ("History of the World," Vol., 5, p. 303.)
Upon this last quotation we have no criticism to offer, except that the "fifty-year tenure" is not mentioned by the Decalogue. Blackstone, in his commentaries, says that "upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws," and that, "if we could be as certain of the former as we are of the latter, both would have an equal authority;" but that, since we are not to conclude from the coincidence of these laws that they were ever discoverable by human reason, "they can never be put into any competition together," which is the same as to say that the scriptural revelation is the revelator and interpreter of all law, without which natural law is uncertain and variable, as manifest in all heathen statutes and customs.

DIVINE CONSOLATION.

OUR sorrow never comes in vain, The flowers are the sweetest after rain, The touch of grief but makes us strong To sing a nobler, truer song.
No random dart can dare to fly, Since One all-seeing reigns on high. He heals each wound and each distress, And closer comes the hurt to dress.
O welcome sorrow, blessed grief That brings such One to my relief; O, empty was the former bliss When I compare its joy to this.
Ascending on the road to God, I spurn not grief but kiss the rod That drives me upward to the skies Where pure rejoicing never dies.
Celestial breezes gently blow Wherever streams of sorrow flow, Nor drink we from our cup in vain, If from the draught heaven's joy we gain.
O drooping heart, arise and sing, For God Himself doth blessing bring; He closer comes to wipe our tears, And longer stays to hush our fears.