Part 7 (1/2)

Doubtless Moses previously understood the true doctrine concerning the person, mediation, and sacrifice of the Divine Mediator; but to qualify him to teach this doctrine and to enforce the duties connected with it, an exhibition was made to him of that Person in the form in which he was to make atonement by the sacrifice of himself. On the occasion of receiving instruction concerning the tabernacle, being called up into the mount, he, with Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders, saw the Elohe of Israel, in the likeness of the G.o.d-man, as appears from the allusion to his person, and what took place. ”There was under _his feet_ as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.... Upon the n.o.bles he laid not _his hand_.... They saw (_the_) Elohim, and did eat and drink.” They evidently saw his person in the form in which he was to execute the priestly office, and which was to be foreshown by the tabernacle. No man hath seen the Father. But Moses saw (_the_) Elohim, the Elohe of Israel, Jehovah, the Messenger, the G.o.d-man. On another occasion Jehovah came down and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and said, ”With Moses will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold.” Numb. i. He appeared in the form of man to Abraham, Jacob, and others, with no accompaniment of visible glory. Isaiah saw him, the King, Jehovah Zebaoth, _seated_ on a throne; Ezekiel, in the likeness of a man on a throne, John, as the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to his feet.

After this manifestation to the leaders and elders of Israel, Moses went alone into the midst of the cloud on the mount, and remained there forty days, receiving instructions for himself and the people concerning the tabernacle. ”And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering, &c.; ... and let them make me a sanctuary, that _I may dwell among them_. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.” This perfect model, by an imitation of which he was to represent the incarnate person and sacerdotal work of Christ, was shown to him in the mount. No doubt a visible pattern of the tabernacle and its instruments was shown to him. That it was not a mental vision, or a verbal description merely, by which he was instructed, is clearly indicated by the phraseology above quoted from Exod. xxv. 9: ”According to all that I show thee;” more strictly, ”According to all that I make thee to see.”

Again, after a variety of directions concerning the table for the show-bread, the candlestick, and other articles of furniture, Jehovah said to Moses, ”Look that thou make them after _their pattern_ which was showed thee in the mount.” Exod. xxv. 40, and xxvi. 30. ”Thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to _the fas.h.i.+on thereof_ which was showed thee in the mount.” And relating to the altar of burnt offerings: ”Hollow with boards shalt thou make it: as it was showed thee in the mount, so shalt thou make it.” xxvii. 8. Again, at the dedication of the tabernacle it is said, ”According unto the pattern which Jehovah had showed Moses, so he made the candlestick.” Numb. viii. 4.

This phraseology, accompanied as it is by minute verbal descriptions of the several objects, still refers to something more definite; a form, model, pattern, which he was strictly to imitate. The purposes to be answered required perfect accuracy in the copy. And hence the apostle, Heb. viii. 5, alluding to this scene, says: ”Moses was admonished of G.o.d, when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.”

This construction is confirmed by a portion of subsequent history. When Solomon was about ”to build an house for the sanctuary,” David, instructed by Divine inspiration in respect to the forms of different parts of the edifice, caused patterns or models thereof to be constructed for the guidance of his son. ”Then David gave to Solomon the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the place of the mercy-seat; and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of Jehovah, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of Elohim, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things.” 1 Chron. xxviii. In these services no discretion was left either to Moses or to Solomon. The things to be made were to be made in exact imitation of the patterns furnished.

If we suppose that Moses beheld the person of the Mediator in the likeness of man, and at the same time beheld the model of the tabernacle and its furniture, by a copy of which he was visibly to prefigure and represent the human nature and the official works of Christ, then the structure erected by him, with the throne, the altar, and all the instruments and rites of the Levitical service, will appear in the highest degree fitted to instruct the people in the great truths concerning his kingly and priestly offices. His consecration of the most holy apartment as his dwelling-place, answerable, as the place of his intercession and of his mediatorial throne to that in which he was to appear after his incarnation and ascension, will be intelligible; and the fact that there he reigned as King, dictated laws, and administered the Theocracy, and that he was on subsequent occasions soon in connection with the visible form and accompaniments of the tabernacle, by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others, and lastly by John after his ascension, will appear consistent with all that is made known to us of his mediatorial agency and visible manifestations under the primeval, patriarchal, and Mosaic dispensations. During those dispensations he as truly officiated as Mediator as after the full realization of what the tabernacle prefigured; exercised the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and dwelt personally in the holy place of the tabernacle after that was prepared, till he formally forsook and withdrew from it, prior to the destruction of the first temple. His office and relations, as civil head and ruler of the nation, implied his personal presence. That, as their civil ruler, he was King in the same sense as other kingly rulers, appears from what is said when, through unbelief and desire of a leader and judge who should be always visible, they sinfully demanded a king from among themselves, like the kings of other nations: ”Ye said, A king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your Elohe was your king.” 1 Sam.

xii. 13.

From the oracle, the cover of the mercy-seat in the holy place within the veil, as one ever present, he spoke to Moses, dictated the laws which are recorded after the erection of the tabernacle, and gave responses to the high priest on special occasions, whenever appealed to, not only during the ministry of Moses, but afterwards. And it is to be noticed that, as there were during the earlier dispensations certain localities appropriated to Divine wors.h.i.+p, where altars were erected to Jehovah and typical sacrifices offered, and Divine manifestations and revelations were vouchsafed; so, after the tabernacle was set up, and also after it was transferred to the temple, it was the place resorted to for oracular responses as well as for sacrifices of burnt offering.

On the occasion of the war with Benjamin, ”the children of Israel, and all the people, went up and came unto the house of Elohim, and wept, and sat there _before_ Jehovah, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before Jehovah. And the children of Israel inquired of Jehovah, (for the ark of the covenant of [_the_]

Elohim was there in those days, and Phinehas the son of Aaron stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle?

&c.... And Jehovah said, Go up,” &c. Judges xx. Thence, in the days of Eli, Jehovah spoke to Samuel 1 Sam. iii. See also Joshua vii. 6; 1 Chron. xxi. 30; 2 Sam. xxii. 7; Psalm xviii. 6; xxvii. 4; Isaiah lxvi.

6.

Now, the tabernacle was erected expressly to be the dwelling-place of Jehovah as Mediator, ”Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” Exod. xxv. 28, ”Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.” xxv. 21, 22. ”There I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.... And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their G.o.d, and they shall know that I am Jehovah their Elohe, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them.” xxix. 43, 45, 46. The tabernacle in the wilderness had its station in the midst of the camps; from the precincts of which all lepers were to be excluded, ”that they defile not their camps in the midst whereof I dwell.” Numb. v. 3. So no satisfaction might be taken for the life of a murderer in the land of Canaan; for blood defiled the land, and it could not be cleansed ”but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I Jehovah dwell among the children of Israel.” Numb. x.x.xv.

34. Accordingly we read that ”the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle.... The cloud of Jehovah was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.” Exod. xl. 34, 38.

All this phraseology plainly indicates the local presence of the Personal Word; as plainly as the records of his visible presence on any occasions. Various other scriptures confirm this. When king David said to Nathan, ”See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of G.o.d dwelleth within curtains,” Nathan was directed to ”Go and tell David, Thus saith Jehovah, Shalt thou build me an house to dwell in? Whereas I have not _dwelt in any house_ since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day; but have _walked in a tent and in a tabernacle_.” To this follow allusions to his dealings with David, and promises concerning the future. ”Then went king David in [_i. e._ into the tabernacle] and sat _before Jehovah_, ... and made acknowledgments, thanksgivings, and prayers to Jehovah Zebaoth, the Elohe of Israel.” 2 Sam, vii.

It is thus manifest that the tabernacle was intended as the residence of the official Person, and with reference to his official works; and being a figure of his human nature, he dwelt in it, and exercised his prophetic, regal, and priestly offices in it, as he was to do afterwards when literally incarnate. If it represented his human nature, then doubtless he dwelt in it and if he dwelt in it in any sense answerable to his subsequent dwelling in the human nature, then he dwelt in it locally and personally. The services performed there accordingly imply and confirm this view. There was a shedding of blood, the blood of the covenant, which has flowed in every age, through which remission of sin was granted. See Levit. xvii. 2; Heb. ix. 22.

No atonement could be made but by sacrificial blood-shedding; and if the shedding and sprinkling of blood in the tabernacle service prefigured the true atonement, then it referred to the incarnate Word; and if he was in any manner in the holy place, he must have dwelt there in the person and likeness in which he appeared when visible. If any Divine Person was present in the tabernacle, it must have been the Mediator in his official capacity. For to suppose it to have been the Father, is to suppose that in the Levitical services there was in the minds of the wors.h.i.+ppers no recognition of the Mediator.

Accordingly, when he visibly appeared incarnate among men, he spoke of the temple as representing his body. ”Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.... But he spake of the temple of his body.”

John ii. 19, 21. And John, describing the Messiah as he appeared visibly incarnate, says the WORD was G.o.d--was in the beginning--created all things. ”The WORD became flesh and dwelt [literally, tabernacled] among us, and we beheld his glory.” John i. See also the Epistle to the Hebrews, especially chap. viii-x., where the Mosaic tabernacle of witness, as it is called in Numbers and Acts vii., is in all its essential characteristics and objects contrasted with the person and office-work of Christ as he appeared incarnate,--”a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, [his human nature,] which the Lord pitched and not man,”--in fulfilment of the things signified and prefigured in the tabernacle of witness, ”which was a figure for the time then present.” ”But Christ being come, ... by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, ... by his own blood entered once into the holy place, [heaven as prefigured by the holy of holies within the veil,] having obtained eternal redemption for us;” _i. e._, by the offering of his own blood as an atoning sacrifice for sin, as prefigured by the sacrificial shedding of blood in the Levitical service and the patriarchal wors.h.i.+p. ”He entered not, when he offered himself a sacrifice, into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself. Nor yet did he offer himself often, as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with blood of others, but now once at the end of the Levitical economy, he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” After he had once offered himself a sacrifice for sin, he ascended, and ”sat down on the right hand of G.o.d, thenceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living [life-giving] way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of G.o.d, let us draw near with a true heart in full a.s.surance of faith.”

The foregoing observations and references show, in some degree, how Moses and his inspired successors wrote of the Messiah.

CHAPTER XIII.

Of the Chaldee Paraphrasts--Their method of designating the Personal WORD or Revealer--Occasion and Necessity of it.

He who, in the primeval dispensation, was, in his official character, distinctively announced as the Messenger Jehovah, and the Messenger Elohim, is, in the same character, no less distinctively announced, on his visible appearance incarnate, as the Word. And, taking the words, John i. 1, last clause, in the order in which they occur in the original, ”G.o.d (Elohim) was the Word,” He, in that character, is declared to be the Creator. ”All things were made by him.” ”By him”--referred to as the Son, and as the image of the invisible G.o.d, in whom we have redemption through his blood--”were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.” Col.

i. These designations and ascriptions undoubtedly identify him in respect to his person, and his official character, with Elohim, who (Gen. i.) in the beginning created the heavens and the earth.

But the designation translated Word--a term employed in the abstract for the concrete, as light for the enlightener, life for life-giver, Logos, or Word, for revealer--has a counterpart, of like personal and official significance, in the Hebrew Scriptures, which was recognized by the ancient Jewish church, and by the Chaldee paraphrasts; and which, in a Chaldee form, the latter in their paraphrases inserted in numerous instances before the Divine names, where they understood them to indicate the official delegated Person, and where the context did not necessarily convey that meaning.

”The Chaldee paraphrases,” says Prideaux, ”are translations of the Scriptures of the Old Testament made directly from the Hebrew text into the language of the Chaldeans; which language was anciently used through all a.s.syria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. These paraphrases are called _Targums_, because they were versions or translations of the Hebrew text into this language. These Targums were made for the use and instruction of the vulgar Jews, after their return from the Babylonish captivity. For although many of the better sort still retained the knowledge of the Hebrew language during that captivity, and taught it their children; and the Holy Scriptures that were delivered after that time, excepting only some parts of Daniel and Ezra, and one verse in Jeremiah, were all written therein; yet the common people, by having so long conversed with the Babylonians, learned their language and forgot their own. It happened indeed otherwise to the children of Israel in Egypt. For although they lived there above three times as long as the Babylonish captivity lasted, yet they still preserved the Hebrew language among them, and brought it back entire with them into Canaan. The reason of this was, in Egypt they all lived together in the land of Goshen; but on their being carried captive by the Babylonians, they were dispersed all over Chaldea and a.s.syria, and being there intermixed with the people of the land, had their main converse with them, and therefore were forced to learn their language, and this soon induced a disuse of their own among them; by which means it came to pa.s.s, that after their return, the common people, especially those of them who had been bred up in that captivity, understood not the Holy Scriptures in the Hebrew language, nor their posterity after them. And therefore when Ezra read the law to the people, (Neh. viii.,) he had several persons standing by him well skilled in both the Chaldee and the Hebrew languages, who interpreted to the people in Chaldee what he first read to them in Hebrew. And afterwards, when the method was established of dividing the law into fifty-four sections, and of reading one of them every week in their synagogues, (as hath been already described,) the same course of reading to the people the Hebrew text first, and then interpreting it to them in Chaldee, was still continued.

For when the reader had read one verse in Hebrew, an interpreter standing by did render it in Chaldee; and then the next verse being read in Hebrew, it was in like manner interpreted in the same language as before; and so on from verse to verse, was every verse alternatively read, first in Hebrew and then interpreted in Chaldee, to the end of the section; and this first gave occasion for the making of Chaldee versions for the help of these interpreters. And they thenceforth became necessary not only for their help in the public synagogues, but also for the help of the people at home in their families, that they might there have the Scriptures for their private reading in a language which they understood.”

After further showing how this practice was perpetuated in the public services of the synagogues, first in respect to the law, and afterwards in respect to the prophetic and other Scriptures; and that as copies of the Scriptures both for public and private use were multiplied, and the number of synagogues increased, the Chaldee version was reduced to writing, and read alternately with the Hebrew, and finally, as he supposes was done in the time of our Saviour, read without and in place of the Hebrew, he proceeds to describe the several Targums which have come down to the present time. Of these, the two which are most esteemed are those of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, and Jonathan on the Prophets, which are supposed to have been copied or essentially derived by them from the earlier and well-accredited versions, and to have been written or edited about the same time, and not long before the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Onkelos, he observes, is rather a version than a paraphrase, for it renders the Hebrew text word for word.

But Jonathan, he adds, takes on him the liberty of a paraphrast.

Of these Targums, and others of a later date, it is known that they exhibit or construe the predictions concerning the Messiah in the same way as is done by Christians. That of Onkelos in particular, which is held to be the most ancient and the purest, and from which Prideaux supposes our Saviour to have quoted in several instances, which he specifies, is remarkable in this respect. And if, as is supposed, it represents literally or substantially the version which originated under the superintendence of Ezra, when, from the long disuse of the Hebrew Scriptures and the ignorance of the people generally of their meaning, it was of the first necessity to their instruction and reformation to explain the import and reference of the Divine names and t.i.tles in the books of Moses, where the prophets and church of preceding ages understood them to designate the Personal WORD; then the frequent insertion, before the names Jehovah and Elohim, of the term _Memra_ as equivalent to Logos, is a reliable exposition and attestation of the faith of Ezra and his predecessors. And, apparently, every consideration is in favor of this view of the case. The word in question is inserted before the words Jehovah and Elohim where the creation is a.s.serted, so that the act is affirmed of the WORD, or the _Word_ Elohim, or the _Word_ Jehovah Elohim; for which no reason can be a.s.signed or justification offered, unless the personal reference was the same as that of John in ascribing the creation to the Logos. By a like insertion the giving of the law to Moses at mount Sinai is ascribed to the WORD Elohim; speaking to him face to face, to the WORD Jehovah; and in numerous other instances, where personal acts are affirmed, and where the personal reference necessarily includes the added as well as the original designation. If this was done by Ezra, then he did but add what the circ.u.mstances of his time required to the example of Moses, who sometimes referred to the delegated ONE, the personal WORD, by the single terms, Jehovah and Elohim, and at others by the compound designations, Melach Jehovah and Melach Elohim. In his case, uniformity in this respect was rendered unnecessary, and diversity intelligible, by the prevalent sentiment, knowledge, and usage of the people. On the contrary, in the other case, the ignorance and disuse of the original Hebrew, on the part of the people, rendered it necessary, first in the oral translation and exposition, and afterwards in the written versions of the sacred books, to insert, at appropriate places, a term adapted, like Logos in the Greek, to suggest, or by definition and use to receive and fix the requisite meaning as a designation.