that they were once, historically regarded, the same measure. The Hebrew pha, according to the determination we have above stated, contains exactly a cubic English foot, or the cube of three-quarters of a Hebrew cubit. An exact relation of this nature, between measures of length and measures of capacity, is at once more simple and more satisfactory, than any determination obtained by the intermediate use of the scale beam; and appears to preclude the idea that it owes its origin to mere casual coincidence. A difficulty of a different order besets the student of Hebrew measures, who seeks for information from the Authorised Version of the Bible. It is one which arises from the uncertain transliteration of Hebrew words; that is to say, from their spelling in English letters. The transformation, which gradually occurs in all languages, had proceeded to a considerable extent in Hebrew, before it was arrested by the introduction of the points by the Rabbis of Tiberias. That invention crystallised the speech of the age; and has preserved to us the pronunciation, the masoretic interpretation, and the grammar, of the fourth century A.D. These not unfrequently differ from those of the third century B.C., which again are, to some extent, preserved in the LXX. With the original language, there is good reason to believe, the discrepancy is often more serious. The current Arabic of the present day preserves, in some words, an unpointed Hebrew pronunciation, which is entirely lost in the rabbinical Hebrew. Thus the name of Ayoub, "the haunted man," is familiar in Palestine; where the Job of the English Bible, and the I2B of the LXX., would be entirely unrecognised. The bearing of this change in the pronunciation of the Hebrew language upon our present subject, is this: We find, in the Bible, references to a Jewish measure called the omer; and again, in other places, to the homer. It is very natural to confuse these two similar words; and the LXX. translators have actually done so, by the translation of each of them by the word gomor in some places, although in others they use the Persian word artaba3 for what our translators, call the homer. This measure, which in unpointed Hebrew is spelt hmr, contains one hundred of the measures which are, in the same way, spelt both omr and oimr. The former word originally meant a heap, the latter is used in the Pentateuch and in the Book of Ruth to denote the handful of the gleaner. That the measures of capacity among the Jews were occasionally tampered with for dishonest purposes may be inferred from the rebuke of the prophet Amos, "making the ephah small, and the shekel great," or, in other words, selling short measure to the poor, at full or exaggerated price. 1 Exod. xvi. 36. 2 Isa. v. 10; Ezek. xlv. 14.; Hos. iii. 2. In the tables of Hebrew measures of capacity subjoined, there will be found a representation of the actual contents of the several denominations (together with their mutual relations), expressed in definite English equivalents. These equivalents are not only as close to the truth as the information which exists on the subject will allow a writer to calculate; but are as close as the ancient measures could, in all probability, be made by the artisans of the time. And even further than this, their geometric exactitude, as compared with the linear measures, is so perfect, that there is every reason to believe that we have recovered the positive and exact standard. From what follows on the subject of weight, there seems reason to apprehend that this standard was that of the Chaldeans. Our troy weight exactly, our feet and inches exactly, and our gallon and quarter very closely, represent Hebrew measures; our ounce avoirdupois, on the other hand, is the Roman uncia. The Hebrew lebineh, or half cubit, bears precisely the same relation to the English foot, that the first Hebrew shekel bears to the troy ounce. Coincidences so exact can only be explained by a common origin, and that origin may be traced to Chaldea, by means of the Chaldean weights now in the British Museum. The slight differences that exist between the principal English and Hebrew measures of capacity are dependent on the fact, that the size of the former has been lately determined by the weight that a given measure would contain, while the size of the latter is a true measure of bulk, expressed in terms of the linear measures. We shall see, before we conclude, that the accordance between weight and capacity in the Hebrew measures is quite as close as is that between different determinations of the value of the same nominal measures in England. The measures contained in the table are the principal metrical terms that occur in Hebrew literature. It will be seen that they form only a portion of the elements of a comprehensive and organised system. In the New Testament, the first three Gospels are characterised by an exact use of the Jewish metrical terms, which is obscured by the English translation. Thus in the parable of the unjust steward (Luke xvi. 6) we read of one hundred baths of oil, and one hundred cori of wheat; being the same measures, liquid and dry, that are named in the Book of Kings (1 Kings v. 11; 1 Chron. ii. 10) in the time of Solomon. The general term, measure, which is appropriately used in many places (as in Matt. vii. 2) has been occasionally substituted for the names of specific dimensions. In the parable as to leaven, three sata of meal (that is to say, an epha), are mentioned both by Matthew and by Luke. The only foreign word of this nature that is employed by these evangelists is the modius, which in our version is translated bushel. The Roman modius held within a small fraction of the contents of the satum, and the word was therefore naturally employed during the time of the Roman procurators. It would be more properly translated by the word peck, than by bushel. The 3 Isa. v. 10. Omer is not to be found in the thirtieth edition of chonix, mentioned in the Apocalypse, is a Greek measure, Professor Eadie's Cruden's Concordance. 4 Amos viii. 5. which has no Hebrew equivalent. It held 1-454 English BY THE REV. WILLIAM MILLIGAN, D.D., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. W SACRED SEASONS (continued). E turn in this paper to the most interesting and important of all the sacred seasons of Israel, that which more than any other was bound up with the people's covenant life, which especially distinguished them from the heathen nations of the world, and which played by far the most abiding and effective part in their religious history-the weekly Sabbath. The commandment to keep it is the fourth of the Ten Commandments given amidst so many circumstances of solemnity at Sinai (Exod. xx. 8-11). Its observance is again and again enjoined in language of even more than ordinary earnestness (Exod. xxxi. 13-16; xxxv. 2, 3; Deut. v. 12). It is enforced under the threatening of death for its violation (Exod. XXXV. 2). It is spoken of as the sign of God's covenant with Israel (Exod. xxxi. 17). It is placed at the head of all other feasts (Lev. xxiii. 3), and is the standard by which they are measured (Exod. xxiii. 11, 24). The neglect of it is represented as the source of the severest Divine judgments, and its sanctification as the spring of the richest Divine mercies (Jer. xvii. 21, 22; Ezek. xx. 13, 16; Isa. lvi. 26; lviii. 13, 14). Its restoration, after disuse, was the great means of religious reform (Neh. xiii. 15—19). And, finally, we cannot forget that it was our Lord's alleged violation of this sacred day that, more almost than anything else, roused the opposition of "the Jews," and was made the plea on which they awakened the popular indignation against him (John v. 16). An institution such as this, marked out for honour by God himself, lying at the root of the highest solemnities of the faith of Israel, and intimately associated with its deepest religious feelings, can hardly fail both to be interesting in itself, and to have some fulfilment in the higher and better dispensation prefigured in all the parts of God's ancient economy. The first question that meets us in connection with the Sabbath, one closely related, as we shall hereafter see, to the inquiry with which we are more immediately And concerned, is the date of its institution. In examining into this point, we must distinguish between the conception of the day as a part of the Divine purpose, as an expression of the Divine mind, and its formal setting apart from other days as an ordinance to be positively observed by Israel. When we look at it in the latter light, we find no distinct commandment upon the point previous to that given in the Decalogue. The language of Gen. ii. 2, 3-" And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made"-undoubtedly points to a distinction drawn in the very infancy of creation between six days of the week and the seventh; while the traces of a hebdomadal division of time contained in the lives of the patriarchs favour the idea that, in one way or another, seven days were held to have in them a completeness and perfection that no other number would have possessed (Gen. viii. 10, 12; xxix. 27, 28). A commandment, however, is something much more precise and definite than this, and at least throughout the Book of Genesis we meet with none upon the point before us. It might seem that it is otherwise in the earlier part of the Book of Exodus. We are told there that among the instructions given for the gathering of the manna was the following: "And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily" (Exod. xvi. 5). This instruction was obeyed by the people, "and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses" (ver. 22). It is not said why they told him; but whether it was in complaint, or to report the faithful obedience given to the Divine command, the reply received by them was, "To-morrow is a rest, a Sabbath holy to the Lord," followed on the next morning by the injunction, Six days shall ye gather it; but on the seventh day, which is there. All the passages, however, to which we have referred have a bearing on the question with which we are now dealing. They show that, if not yet formally appointed for man, the Sabbath, whatever be its meaning, had an existence in the mind of God. Its idea was a part of the eternal verity of His nature. In it, not less than in the work of creation (Gen. ii. 2, 3), He gave utterance to what He was. He awakened the echo of it in the hearts of those who walked with Him, and were saved (Gen. viii. 10, 12); and, when He stepped in to provide miraculously for His people's wants, He did so in such a manner as to give by means of it, not a partial only, but a complete revelation of Himself (Exod. xvi. 5). It will be well to take these considerations along with us for future use. In the meantime, we remark only that the institution of the Sabbath, as a positive ordinance of God's ancient economy, is to be sought for only in the Fourth Commandment. Our second question has relation to the manner in which the Sabbath was to be observed. Three things first meet us here. The usual morning and evening offerings were doubled, two lambs with their appropriate meat and drink offerings being used that day in addition to "the continual burnt offering and his drink offering" (Numb. xxviii. 9, 10). The twelve new-baked shew-bread loaves were set out upon the table in the holy place appointed for the purpose (Lev. xxiv. 8). There was a "holy convocation" of the people (Lev. xxiii. 2, 3). All these things were evidently designed to stamp the day with a character of sacredness, and not merely with an importance higher than the other days of the week. While this, however, was the case, it can hardly be said that sacred exercises were the special object for which the day was given. That object was rest from labour, the intermission for a time of all the ordinary toils of life: "In it thou shalt not do any work;" "Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest;" "To-morrow is a rest, a Sabbath holy to the Lord, six days may work be done, but in the seventh is a Sabbath of rest holy to the Lord" (Exod. xx. 10; xxiii. 12; xxxiv. 21; xvi. 23; xxxi. 15). Passages such as these are very numerous in the Law, and they point to rest as the distinguishing characteristic We shall err, however, it appears to us, if we confine These remarks may prepare us for the next point that meets us-What was the true idea and meaning of the Sabbath institute? This idea is first of all to be sought in the view already taken by us, that the Sabbath had a relation to God himself, and that it is not to be considered merely as an arrangement for the good of Israel. It may, sometimes, no doubt, be well to point out the physical and moral benefits which it was calculated to bestow upon the people; but, in judging of the institu tion as a whole, the thought of these must always be kept entirely subordinate to the higher conceptions which it embodied. We may be confident enough that every Divine idea will result in blessings to man, and may rejoice that it will do so, but we must be careful to assign to the Divine idea itself the prominent place in our consideration. We must descend from it to the temporal benefits, not ascend from them to it. That there is such an idea thus involved in the institution of the Sabbath is clear from what we have seen, that long before it was actually introduced and made binding on Israel, it existed in relation to God himself. He had blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which He had created and made (Gen. ii. 2, 3). In giving the manna to Israel He had again brought forward this thought of His own being, and the reference of the Sabbath to what He was (Exod. xvi.). Nay, even in assigning to the institution a place in the Law, the relation thus connected with it in earlier times is taken up and confirmed-" for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day" (Exod. xx. 11). What then is this idea? Before attempting to answer the question, we must turn to two passages of the New Testament, the first of which at least is not often enough brought into connection with this matter, or, when brought, is frequently misinterpreted. The passages are John v. 17 and Heb. iv. 3, 4. In John v. 17 we have the answer given by our Lord to "the Jews," when they complained of His violating the Sabbath day by first healing the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, and then bidding him take up his bed and walk. "My Father," says the Saviour, "worketh hitherto," or until now, " and I work." It seems impossible to attach any but one meaning to this answer. Our Lord had done what in the eyes of "the Jews" was a piece of work upon the Sabbath day, and He had commanded the impotent man to do the same. In His defence against their murmurings He draws no distinction between different kinds of work, as if He would have defended Himself in the same way as on other occasions, by showing that on the Sabbath it was at all events lawful to do good (Matt. xii. 12; Mark iii. 4). No distinction of this kind indeed would have been a defence against what appears from the tenth verse of the chapter to have mainly offended the Jews, the man's carrying his bed. It could not be pleaded that that act was one either of necessity or mercy. It was not demanded by the circumstances of the case, and it had no analogy to the rescuing of a sheep which had fallen into a pit upon the Sabbath day. Nor only so. There is not a word in the narrative to lead to the thought of such a distinction. It is the whole Divine working that the Saviour has in view, a working indeed that is never for anything but good; and He says of it all, "My Father worketh until now, and I work"-that is, My Father's working and mine go on continually; we are not and cannot be interrupted by the Sabbath day; our work admits no break to it. If this be a correct interpretation of the passage, it shows that there is a sense in which the idea of constant working may be predicated of God. 66 The second passage of which we spoke was Heb. iv. 3-5: For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest." The sacred writer is engaged in exhorting the Hebrew Christians to take warning by the example of their forefathers who through unbelief fell in the wilderness, and did not enter into God's rest. He has to show, therefore, that there is such a rest still in existence, a rest for those who now receive the Gospel message in faith. He does this by bringing into close relation with each other the words of Genesis ii. 2, 3, and of Psalm xcv. 11; and, in so far as concerns our present purpose, he argues thus: -The latter text was spoken long after the former, yet it tells of a rest of God, a rest that has not come to an end, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. In other words, although God is said in Genesis to have rested on the seventh day, that rest must continue, otherwise David could not have described it in his time as a present thing. Here, therefore, the whole period that had passed away from the date of creation is set before us, under a point of view exactly the converse of that from which it was looked at by our Lord in the Gospel of St. John. In the latter it is all a period of working in the former it is all a period of rest. How are we to reconcile the two? We answer, Both ideas are to be predicated of God, and the meaning of the Sabbath in its relation to Him is that it expresses one of them. Had the Book of Genesis or the fourth commandment contained only the one statement that God made all things in six days, we should have associated with Him merely the thought of work. No more than one part of what He is would have been revealed to us. But the rest of the seventh day comes in, and immediately we see that in God there is not only the idea of work, but of rest. Not that He works at one time and rests at another. the human mode of conceiving and representing the complex truth. Both things are in Him combined. In one sense He is always working in another sense He is always resting. His work is the work of rest: His rest is the rest of work. The work is not the work of toil, but is performed in the calm majesty of repose: the rest is not the rest of idleness, but is enjoyed in the constant activity of doing good. : That is only Hence also, we imagine, the particular determination of the seventh day for rest. It is possible-we are far from contesting the truth of the supposition-that in the harmonies of nature, in the physiological or social condition of man, there may be some deep reason why a seventh day's rest should be preferable to one occurring at an interval of six or eight or ten days. At present, however, we are dealing with the thought of the Sabbath of God, as well as man, and we must seek the ground of the selection of a seventh day rather than of any other in something else. Nor is it easy to see in what else it can be sought than in this, that seven is the number of God in His relation to His people. It enfolds that idea in its completeness. Therefore, when six days express the idea of God's work, there remains only one number, the seventh, to express the idea of His rest. It is fitting, too, that the six should be chosen for work, the seventh for rest, rather than that the numbers should be reversed. Man is to imitate the Divine, and it is only imperfectly that he can do so. He must separate into parts what in God is one, and it would be fatal to all the arrangements needed for the welfare of humanity were one day only given to work and six days to rest. Such, then, being the idea of the Sabbath in its relation to God, we see also what it was to Israel. Israel was God's covenant people, His son. It was to take home to it, therefore, in the Sabbath, the idea of the Divine rest. It was to learn that a life moulded upon the idea of the life of God was not to be all toil. Life was to have also its repose, and that a repose in which God was to be imitated not only by resting, but by resting in the spirit of beneficence, when each head of its households gave rest to his sons and his daughters, his manservants and his maidservants, and his cattle. Hence also we see how naturally it happened that the Sabbath could be associated with other considerations than the rest of creation. It could be spoken of as "a sign" between God and Israel throughout all their generations (Exod. xxxi. 13), for to no other people had God so fully unfolded His character and ways, and these were largely expressed in the institution. It could be connected with the blessing of deliverance from Egypt -"and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day"-for that deliverance was the most signal manifestation of God's covenant love to Israel, the most palpable proof that He was their God, and they His people. It was thus also that the punishment of death could be annexed to the violation of the Sabbath law, for in breaking that law the covenant with God was broken. And, finally, it is thus that we can well believe, what indeed we know from different passages of Scripture to have been the fact (Hosea ii. 11; Luke xiv. 1), that Israel's Sabbath, though enforced with such a tremendous penalty, was not a day of austerity and gloom, but of hilarity and joyfulness, of all that joyfulness which neither secularises nor wearies as much as, often more than, work. The considerations now adduced throw light also upon another point often felt to be attended with considerable difficulty, that the idea of the Sabbath was in existence before the Fall. It seems at first sight as if no Sabbath could be needed by man while the ground had not yet been cursed for his sake, and labour had not yet become toil. Nor would it be easy to escape this conclusion were we to think of the institution only in reference to him. But, if it reveal a part of what God is, the difficulty disappears. Even in his state of innocence man had to work (Gen. ii. 15), and thus he learned to know God as One who worked and who required work of His creatures. That, however, was only a part of His ways. He not only worked, but rested; and if, therefore, He was to be fully known, some revelation of Him must be given in this light also. The Fall then has no necessary connection with the Sabbath's rest. That rest is a part of God's own manifestation of Himself, and it is desirable that man, whether in his estate of innocence or of sin, should know Him as He is. Such then being the idea of the Sabbath in reference to God-an idea in existence from the first, and probably in some way or another revealed, though not embodied in a commandment-it may perhaps be asked, Why should not this always have been enough? Why, at a later date, should it have been necessary to impose the Sabbath upon Israel by positive law? The answer is, Because thus only could the idea be preserved. It was indeed the peculiar function of Israel to preserve by means of positive laws ideas which would otherwise have perished. The effect of this was certainly to limit the ideas for the time, but we are not to consider the limited form as their true and adequate expression. The limita tion rather points to the illimitable, the partial conception to the complete. Had it not been for such a commandment as the fourth, the idea of God's rest and of man's rest in Him would have been lost. Human sinfulness, together with the hard pressure of life, would have made our earthly existence a round of uninterrupted endless toil. The whole course of each succeeding week would have been laid hold of for the world, and God would have been forgotten. Here, therefore, the commandment mercifully interposed, and, by demanding one day in seven for rest because God had rested, became a witness for the higher and better order of things that had once had place. It did not, however, confine the views of the people to the sanctification of the one day of which it spoke. They were even called upon, by the very ground assigned in it for keeping the one day holy, to rise to the thought of God, and in Him who knows no succession of time, to the thought of sanctification of all days. It was thus a testimony to something higher than its words expressed. It contained within it not a dead letter but a living germ, waiting for the favourable opportunity to burst its covering and to spring up, "after its kind," in primeval beauty. Thus, then, we are brought to the fulfilment under the Christian dispensation of Israel's Sabbath law. In what is that fulfilment to be found? Certainly not, we answer, in the Lord's Day of the Christian Church. We have seen that all the sacred seasons of Israel which. have passed under our notice pointed onwards not te institutions but ideas, that not one of them is fulfilled in any supposed corresponding ordinance of New Testaand ment times. It is thus also in the case before us; analogy alone might justify the conclusion, that we are not to find the fulfilment of the Jewish Sabbath in the Christian Sunday. But we are not left to analogy. We |