Êxodo 20:22-26

THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT.

(22-26) In the remainder of Êxodo 20, and in the three Chapter s which follow, we have a series of laws delivered by God to Moses, immediately after the delivery of the Decalogue, which constituted the second stage of the revelation, and stood midway between the first great enunciation of abstract principles in the Ten Commandments and the ultimate minute and complicated elaboration of rules to meet all cases which fills the three Books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This intermediate revelation appears to have been at once committed to writing, and in its written shape was known as “the Book of the Covenant “ (Êxodo 24:7), and regarded with special veneration.

“The Book of the Covenant” is wanting in system and arrangement, but is not wholly unsystematic. It commences with some laws concerning the worship of God (Êxodo 20:22), proceeds from the Divine to the human, and treats in its second section (Êxodo 21:1) of “the rights of persons,” then concerns itself with “the rights of property” (Êxodo 21:33 to Êxodo 22:15), and, finally, winds up with “miscellaneous laws” (Êxodo 22:16 to Êxodo 23:19), partly on things Divine, partly on things human — the things Divine being reserved to the last, so that the end of the legislation is in close harmony with the beginning. Altogether, the enactments contained in the short space of three Chapter s are some seventy; and the “Book of the Covenant” is thus no mere tentative sketch; but a very wonderful condensation of the essence of all the more important matters which Moses afterwards put forth by Divine inspiration in the long space of nearly forty years.