Moral commandments have a double sanction.
They are to be obeyed
In the latter respect all Divine injunctions stand on a level. All transgressions of what is commanded are equally sin, but they are not equal sins. A man who steals is not guilty of an equally heinous sin with the man who commits murder, but he is equally guilty of sin, because both murder and theft are forbidden. All God's statutes, and all his judgments are to be observed without exception, in order to be righteous according to the righteousness of the Law. "For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the Law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them" (Romans 10:5). "This do, and ye shall live" (Luke 11:28).
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Leviticus 19:1, Leviticus 19:2, Leviticus 19:4, Leviticus 19:5, Leviticus 19:12, Leviticus 19:26-28, Leviticus 19:30-32, Leviticus 19:36, Leviticus 19:37
Religion and superstition.
It is not always easy or even possible to distinguish between religion and superstition. We may fall into the latter when we are seeking to practice the former; or we may, from undue fear of the latter, neglect the former. In this chapter the Jews were taught (and we are thereby encouraged) to avoid the one, and to perfect the other in the fear of God.
I. THE SUPERSTITION WHICH WAS TO BE SHUNNED.
1. Clearly and decisively everything that was in any way idolatrous was condemned; "turn ye not unto idols" (Leviticus 19:4).
2. All that was distinctively or closely connected with heathen worship was also forbidden: the use of enchantments, the superstitious observance of lucky or unlucky times, also superstitious cutting of the hair or of the flesh (Leviticus 19:26-28); resorting to wizards, etc. (see 1 Chronicles 10:13). There is amongst us much adoption of practices which are idle and vain, not warranted in Scripture nor founded on reason. Such things are to be deprecated and shunned, They are
II. THE RELIGION WHICH WAS TO BE CULTIVATED AND PRACTISED. The Jews were to cherish and cultivate, even as we are,
Honour to whom honor.
It is uncertain whether we shall receive the honour which is due to us. Possibly we may be denied some to which we are entitled; probably we have experienced this wrong already, in larger or smaller measure, and know the pain of heart which attends it. Let us, therefore, resolve that we will give that which is due to others. The two passages connected in the text remind us that we should pay deference to—
I. THOSE WHO CARRY THE WEIGHT OF YEARS. "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man." "Respect the burden, madam," said Napoleon, inviting a lady to move out of the way of one who was carrying a heavy weight. Those who have traveled far on the rough road of life, and are worn with many and sad experiences, on whom the privations of age are resting,—these carry a heavy weight, a burden we should respect. They are as wounded soldiers on whom the battle of life has left its scars, and these are marks of honour that demand the tribute of youth.
II. THOSE WHO HAVE ATTAINED TO WISDOM. The young are apt to think that they can reach the heights of wisdom without laboriously climbing the steeps of experience. They find that they are wrong. Time proves to each generation of men that wisdom, whether it be that of earth or of heaven, is only gained by the discipline of life. There are men who pass through human life and learn nothing in the passage; the folly of youth cleaves to them still. Such men must be comparatively unhonoured, receiving only the respect which is due to old age as such. But when men have gathered the fruits of a long and large experience—and especially when men of intelligence and piety have stored up the truth which God has been teaching them as he has led them along all the path of life—they are worthy to receive our sincerest honour, and we must know how to "rise up before the hoary head" in their case. With all and more than all the respect we pay to the learned, we should receive men whom God has been long teaching in his school—those who have learnt much of Jesus Christ.
III. THOSE WHO HAVE LAID US UNDER SPECIAL OBLIGATION.
1. Aged men who have lived a faithful life have done this. For they have lived, not only for themselves, but for their kind. They have wrought, struggled, suffered in order that they might help us and others to walk in the light, to enter the kingdom, to enjoy the favour of God; and they have earned our gratitude by their faithful service.
2. Our parents have done this also. "Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father." What benefits our parents have conferred on us, what kindnesses they have rendered us, what sacrifices they have made for us, what anxious thought and earnest prayer they have cherished and offered on our behalf,—who of us shall reckon? The debt we owe to them for all they have done for us is the heaviest of all, next to that supreme indebtedness under which we stand to God. But it is not only the obligation we have thus incurred which demands our filial reverence; it is the fact that our parents arc—
IV. THOSE WHO STAND IN A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP TO US.
1. We should remember that fatherhood is the human relationship which most closely resembles and most fully reveals that in which God himself stands to us all. Christ came to reveal the Father unto man as the Father of souls. Therefore it is to be highly honoured.
2. Fatherhood (parenthood, for the mother is not to be left out of our thought) in the best state of human society has received the largest share of honour. We may gather from this fact that it is a divinely implanted instinct, only absent when the race has miserably degenerated under sin.
3. Honour given to parents as such is imperatively required by God. It was a patriarchal and Jewish, as it is now a Christian, virtue. After the injunction stand these significant words, "I am the Lord." "Children, obey your parents in the Lord" (Ephesians 6:1). Filial disobedience and unkindness are grievous sins in his sight. Filial love, honour, and considerateness are well-pleasing unto the Lord.—C.
Considerateness.
We gather from these verse—
I. THAT THE FEAR OF GOD WILL SURELY LEAD TO THE LOVE OF MAN. That piety which begins and ends in acts of devotion is one that may be reasonably suspected: it is not of the scriptural order. True piety is in consulting the will of the heavenly Father (Matthew 7:21), and his will is that we should love and be kind to one another (Ephesians 4:32). Philanthropy is a word which may not have its synonym in the Old Testament, but the Hebrew legislator was not ignorant of the idea, and the Hebrew people were not left without incitement to the thing itself. Hence these injunctions to leave some corn in the corners of their fields, and the scattered ears for the reaping and gleaning of the poor (Leviticus 19:9); to leave also some clusters of grapes which had been overlooked for needy hands to pluck (Leviticus 19:10); to take no advantage of the weaker members of their society, the deaf and the blind (Leviticus 19:14); and to show kindness to the stranger (Leviticus 19:34).
II. THAT CONSIDERATENESS IS A GRACE WHICH IS PECULIARLY PLEASING TO GOD. The Jews were expressly enjoined to
There is something particularly striking in the commandment that they were to refrain from cursing the deaf. Even though there might be no danger of giving positive pain and exciting resentment, yet they were not to direct harsh words against any one of their more unfortunate brethren. This legislation for the weak and the necessitous presents a very pleasant aspect of the Law. It also reminds us of some truths which come home to ourselves. We may observe:
1. That power is apt to be tyrannical. The history of nations, tribes, individuals, is the history of assertion and assumption. The strong have ever shown themselves ready to take advantage of the weak. Hence the oppression and cruelty which darken the pages of human history.
2. That God would have us be just to one another. In most cases, if not in all, we can take no credit for our superior strength, and build no claim on it. In many cases, if not in most, we can impute no blame to others for their weakness: the unfortunate are not necessarily the undeserving, and we have no right to make them suffer.
3. But beyond this, God would have us be specially kind to the necessitous because they are reedy. Here are these statutes in respect of the poor, the afflicted, and the stranger. The devotional Scriptures speak more fully of this sacred duty (Psalms 41:1, Psalms 41:2; 62:13; Psalms 112:9, etc.). The prophets utter their voice still more forcibly (Isaiah 58:6-8; Ezekiel 18:7; Nehemiah 5:10-12; Jeremiah 22:16; Amos 4:1, etc.). Our Lord has, with strongest emphasis, commended to us considerateness toward the weak and helpless (Matthew 10:42; Matthew 18:6, Matthew 18:10, Matthew 18:14; Matthew 25:34-40, etc.). His apostles spoke and wrote in the same strain (Romans 12:15; 1 Corinthians 12:26, etc.). But that which, above everything, should lead us to be considerate toward the poorer and weaker members of our community is the thought that to do so is so truly and emphatically Divine. God himself has ever been acting on this gracious principle. He interposed to save the children of Israel because they were weak and afflicted. Again and again he stretched out his arm of deliverance, saving them from the strong and the mighty of the earth. On this Divine principle he deals with us all. He "knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust." "Like as a father pities his children, so he pities them that fear him." Our Saviour dealt with exquisite considerateness in all his relations to his undiscerning and unappreciative disciples; and now he is dealing with gracious forbearance toward us in all the weakness, poverty, shortcoming of our service. We are never so much like our merciful Master as when we speak and act considerately toward those who are poorer, weaker, and more helpless than ourselves.—C.
Leviticus 19:11, Leviticus 19:13, Leviticus 19:15, Leviticus 19:16, Leviticus 19:35, Leviticus 19:36
Integrity.
The Jews have always been considered a cunning and crafty race; they have been credited with a willingness to overreach in business dealings. Men would rather have transactions with others than with them, lest they should find themselves worsted in the bargain. This suspicion may be well founded; but if it be so, it ought to be remembered that it is the consequence of the long and cruel disadvantages under which they have suffered, and is not clue to anything in their own blood or to any defect in their venerable Law. From the beginning they have been as strictly charged to live honourable and upright lives before man as to engage regularly in the worship of God. They have been as much bound to integrity of conduct as to devoutness of spirit. In these few verses we find them called to—
I. INTEGRITY IN DAILY TRANSACTIONS—HONESTY. "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely" (Leviticus 19:11). "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him" (Leviticus 19:13; see Leviticus 19:35, Leviticus 19:36). Nothing could be more explicit than this, nothing more comprehensive in suggestion. No member of the Hebrew commonwealth could
The words of the Law are clear and strong, going straight to the understanding and to the conscience. Every man amongst them must have known, as every one amongst us knows well, that dishonesty is sin in the sight of God.
II. INTEGRITY IN OFFICIAL DUTY—JUSTICE. (Leviticus 19:15.) It is a pitiful thought that, in every nation, justice has been open to corruption; that men placed in honourable posts in order to do justice between man and man have either sold it to the highest bidder or surrendered and betrayed it from craven fear. God's clear word condemns such rank injustice, and his high displeasure follows the perpetrator of it. He who undertakes to judge his fellows must do so in the fear of God, and if he swerves from his integrity in his public acts, he must lay his account with heaven if not with man.
III. INTEGRITY IN WORD—TRUTH. "Ye shall not lie one to another" (Leviticus 19:11).
This, too, is a universal sin. Some nations may be more prone to it than others, The weak and the oppressed are too ready to take refuge in it; it is the resort of the feeble and the fearful But it is also used with shameful freedom and shocking unconcern, as an instrument of gain and power. God has revealed his holy hatred of it. "Ye shall not lie." "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord;" "the Lord hateth a lying tongue" (Proverbs 12:22; Proverbs 6:17). Under the gospel of Christ, we are earnestly warned against it (Ephesians 4:25; Colossians 3:9). We are reminded that it is
Love-its root and its fruit.
Two things lend a special interest to this passage.
1. It was twice quoted by our Lord (Matthew 19:19 and Matthew 22:39).
2. It shows us the Law as closer to the gospel than we are apt to think; it proves that, under the old dispensation, God was not satisfied with a mere mechanical propriety of behaviour, that he demanded rightness of feeling as well as correctness of conduct. We have—
I. THE BROAD PRINCIPLE OF GOD'S REQUIREMENT. Man is to "love his neighbour as himself" (Leviticus 19:18). No man, indeed, can
II. THE ROOT FROM WHICH THIS FEELING WILL SPRING. How can we do this? it will be asked. How can we be interested in the uninteresting; love the unamiable; go out in warm affection toward those who have in them so much that is repulsive? The answer is here, "I am the Lord." We must look at all men in their relation to God.
1. God is interested, Christ is interested in the worst of men, is seeking to save and raise them; do we not care for those for whom he cares so much?
2. They are all God's children; it may be his prodigal children, living in the far country, but still his sons and daughters, over whom he yearns.
3. The most unlovely of men are those for whom our Saviour bled, agonized, died. Can we be indifferent to them?
4. They were once not far from the kingdom, and may yet be holy citizens of the kingdom of God. When we look at our fellow-men in the light of their relation to God, to Jesus Christ, we can see that in them which shines through all that is repelling, and which attracts us to their side that we may win and bless them.
III. THE FRUITS WHICH HOLY LOVE WILL BEAR. There are two suggested in the text.
1. Forbearance; "not hating our brother in our heart," "not avenging or bearing any grudge against" him. Without the restraints and impulses of piety we are under irresistible temptation to do this. Unreasonable dislike on our brother's part, injustice, ingratitude, unkindness, inconsiderateness, features of character which are antipathetic to our own,—these things and such things as these are provocative of ill will, dislike, enmity, resentment, even revenge on our part. But if we remember and realize our brother's relation to the common Father and Saviour, we shall rise to the noble height of forbearance; we shall have the love which "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7).
2. Restoration by remonstrance, Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." Instead of nursing and nourishing our indignation, allowing our brother to go on in the wrong, and permitting ourselves to become resentful as well as indignant, we shall offer the remonstrance of affection; we shall "reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering" (2 Timothy 4:2). We shall try to win our brother back to that path of truth or righteousness which he has forsaken; so shall we "gain our brother" (Matthew 18:15), instead of "suffering sin upon him." This is the conquest of love, the crown of charity.—C.