Inserted Laws on Rites for the Dead, Foods Clean and Unclean, etc. Between two laws, which forbid to Israel, as holy to Jehovah, certain rites of mourning for the dead, Deuteronomy 14:1 f., and the eating of what has died a natural death (with an appendix against seething a kid in its mother's milk... [ Continue Reading ]
1 f. Against certain Rites for the Dead No parallel in JE; but one in H, Leviticus 19:28 _a_. 1. SONS ARE YE TO JEHOVAH _your God_ The order of the EVV. misses the emphasis. Note not merely the change to the Pl. address but its cause, the conception of individual Israelites as the sons of Jehovah:... [ Continue Reading ]
_For thou art an holy people_, etc.] Almost exactly as Deuteronomy 7:6 (_q.v._). Note also the Sg. address in contrast to the Pl. of the context. This _v_. is, therefore, probably an addition by the hand which inserted these later laws in the code of D.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing_ The same noun as _abomination_, Deuteronomy 7:25, _q.v._; a term characteristic of D. The clause being also in the Sg. in a Pl. context (to which Sam., LXX have harmonised it) may be either the original law of D on this subject cp. _every abomination_, Deute... [ Continue Reading ]
Of Clean and Unclean Beasts, Fishes and Birds Paralleled with elaborations in H, Leviticus 11:2-23 (see introductory note above p. 183; and cp. the comparative table in Driver's _Deut._157 ff.; the chief similarities and differences are noted in the notes below), and very summarily also in Leviticu... [ Continue Reading ]
_These are the beasts which ye shall eat_ Leviticus 11:2-23 has no list of clean beasts such as here follows. _ox, sheep, goat_ For the sacramental nature of the slaying and eating of domestic animals see on Deuteronomy 12:20-28. In ancient times the enjoyment of flesh by ordinary people was rare; t... [ Continue Reading ]
Seven varieties of game; LXX B gives only five: hart, gazelle, roebuck, wild-ox and giraffe (?); codd. AF, etc. add after _gazelle_, buffalo and tragelaphos. It may not be unnecessary to remark that neither to the nomads nor to the fellaḥîn is hunting sport; it is, especially to the former, a hard a... [ Continue Reading ]
There might also be eaten any beast with both of these marks: _that parteth the hoof, and hath the hoof cloven in two_ Lit. _and cleaveth a cleft of two hoofs_. The hoof must be _entirely_cloven (see below on _camel_); and _cheweth the cud_ Heb. _bringeth up the gerah_, Ar. _girrah_, so called fro... [ Continue Reading ]
_Nevertheless_ Not _raḳ_with which qualifications to laws are introduced by D (see on Deuteronomy 10:15; Deuteronomy 12:15 f.) but _"ak_, Deuteronomy 16:5; Deuteronomy 18:20, cp. Deuteronomy 12:22. _camel, hare_, ROCK-BADGER] In Leviticus 11:4-6 taken separately and each with a repetition of the for... [ Continue Reading ]
_swine ḥǎzîr_, Ar. _khanzir_; from the animal's indiscriminate feeding the flesh is liable to become the host of many parasites and therefore without care dangerous especially in warm climates. Used in heathen sacrifices, Isaiah 65:4 f., Isaiah 65:17. Nomad Arabs eat the wild boar: -only the fellaḥî... [ Continue Reading ]
On clean and unclean Fishes; Leviticus 11:9-12 substantially the same but more elaborate. On the numerous fishes of Palestine see Tristram, 162 ff. No species are here enumerated, nor in the rest of the O.T.; but, chiefly under foreign influence, specific names appear in the Talmud and Mishna. On th... [ Continue Reading ]
Of Birds, cp. Leviticus 11:13-19; only the unclean are named; of clean birds we know of the dove, quail, partridge and _barbur_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_eagle nesher_, Ar. _nisr_, THE GREAT VULTURE or griffon, _gyps fulvus_, identified by the baldness of its head and neck, Micah 1:16; from its frequency and its size -the most striking ornithological feature of Palestine" (Tr. 95 f.); worshipped among Syrians and Arabs. _gier eagle peres, the break... [ Continue Reading ]
_glede, falcon, kite ra'ah, "ayyah, dayyah_, of which the first is probably a clerical error for _da'ah_(from _da'ah, to dart_, of the eagle, Deuteronomy 28:49), _darter_or _swooper_, and the third a later variant of the same, being a gloss on the first (the LXX has only two names in the _v_.). Tri... [ Continue Reading ]
_and every raven_, etc.] _-oreb_Ar. _ghorâb_, covering all the species of the _corvidae_in Palestine of which Tristram (74 ff.) distinguishes eight; a carrion feeder with the _"agab_and _rakham_(Doughty, ii. 41, 218); that it was regarded by some tribes as sacred is seen from the use of its name as... [ Continue Reading ]
_ostrich bath hay-ya-aneh_either _daughter of greed_or _of the plain_; Arabs call it _father of the plains_; they eat the breast (Doughty, i. 132 f.). LXX, στρουθός. _night hawk taḥmas_(_violence_; Ar. _zalîm_also means both violence and ostrich). Some take it as the male ostrich. Tristram (90): th... [ Continue Reading ]
_little owl kôs_, LXX, νυκτικόραξ (?), both night-jar and screech-owl. Tristram (93): -probably" the southern little owl, _Athene glaux_, -one of the most universally distributed birds in the Holy Land." It inhabits ruins, Psalms 102:6 (7). Arabs call it -mother of ruins." _great owl yanshuph_, LXX... [ Continue Reading ]
_pelican ḳa-ath_, LXX, πελεκάν. Tristram (108) suggests the roseate pelican, _P. onocrotalus_. _vulture raḥamah_, Ar. _rakhim_, -a small white carrion eagle," migratory, and haunting the abodes of men, one of the commonest carrion birds in Arabia, -the white scavenger" (Doughty, _passim_; cp. Burto... [ Continue Reading ]
_stork ḥasîdah_. Tristram (111): white stork, _ciconia alba_; an unclean feeder (on offal, etc.), its flesh is rank. _heron "anaphah_. Tristram (109): the common heron, _ardea cinerea_: an edible bird, in Europe once highly prized at table; but feeding on, besides fish, many unclean land animals, s... [ Continue Reading ]
_all winged creeping things are unclean_ Lit. _swarming things that fly_, all winged insects. To this Leviticus 11:21 f. adds _that go upon all fours_and excepts from the rule such as have jointed legs above their feet to leap on the earth, i.e. various kinds of leaping locusts, as distinguished fro... [ Continue Reading ]
_Of all clean_ WINGED THINGS _ye may eat_ R.V. _fowl_is misleading; the term winged covers both birds and flying insects and here probably refers only to the latter. Arabs and other eastern peoples eat locusts not only in time of famine; fried or made into cakes they are considered a delicacy (Burto... [ Continue Reading ]
_Ye shall not eat of any thing which dieth of itself_ Lit. _any carcase_, anything found dead, without being slain by the finder. There is a possible case in Doughty, ii. 129; but usually when an Arab sees his camel must die, in consequence of an accident, he slays it forthwith. _thou mayest give i... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou shalt surely tithe_ Heb. _tithing thou shalt tithe_: an idiom emphasising the bare fact. _increase_ Lit. _income_(or _in-brought_), _revenue_, all the produce. _of thy seed_ Not of cereals alone, but inclusive of plantations as the next clause and _the oil and wine_of Deuteronomy 14:23 show.... [ Continue Reading ]
Of Tithes A tithe shall be taken of all the yearly produce of what is sown in the field, further defined as corn, wine and oil, and carried to the Sanctuary and eaten before God by the offerers along with the firstlings of oxen and sheep (Deuteronomy 14:22 f.); but Israelites who dwell too far from... [ Continue Reading ]
_eat before the Lord_ See on Deuteronomy 12:7. _the place which he shall choose_ Sam., LXX, _which Jehovah thy God shall choose_; see on Deuteronomy 12:5. Before this the tithe was offered at the local sanctuaries, Amos 4:4. _corn, wine, and oil_ Defining _that which cometh forth from the field_. A... [ Continue Reading ]
_and thou shalt bestow the money_ It was this law, which with other customs led to the rise of markets for cattle and other commodities in the Temple Courts with the consequent abuses, fostered by the priests for their own enrichment, which our Lord chastised. Cp. Jeremiah 6:13; Jeremiah 7:11; Jerem... [ Continue Reading ]
_the Levite within thy gates_ The rural minister, dispossessed of his allowances by the removal of the tithe from the local sanctuaries. _thou shalt not forsake him_ Not in LXX: which adds stranger, orphan, and widow, and other formulas an instance of how readily these were added by various editors... [ Continue Reading ]
_At the end of every three years_ Deuteronomy 26:12: _when thou hast finished tithing all the tithe of thine income in the third year, which is the year of tithing_. See below. _thou shalt bring forth_ That is for public or profane use as opposed to the _bringing in_of offerings designed for use in... [ Continue Reading ]
_the Levite_ because he is landless and through the abolition of the local shrines has been deprived of his means of subsistence, and of _the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow_ for they also are landless. D frequently emphasises the duty of caring for them, Deuteronomy 16:11; Deuteronomy 16:1... [ Continue Reading ]