disanointed king, now in his utter desolation to change words once more with the friend and counsellor of his youth, and if he must hear his doom, to hear it from no other lips but his.”1 With this solemn transaction, so mysterious in its partial revelations that we may say in the words of Hooker, our safest eloquence is our silence," we take our leave of one of the most truly great of the characters of the Old Testament. Samuel the Prophet of the Lord, beloved of his Lord, established a

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1 Trench, Shipwrecks of Faith, p. 47.

kingdom, and anointed princes over his people. By the Law of the Lord he judged the congregation by his faithfulness he was found a true prophet, and by his word he was known to be faithful in vision. He destroyed the rulers of the Tyrians, and all the princes of the Philistines. Before his long sleep he made protestation in the sight of the Lord and his anointed .. and no man did accuse him. And after his death he prophesied and shewed the king his end, and lift up his voice in prophesy to blot out the wickedness of the people" (Ecclus. xlvi. 13—20).

FIRST PART.

THE SINS OF THE PRIESTS.
CHAP. I. 6 TO CHAP. II. 9.

N the brief preface of this book, the love of God for Israel has been affirmed and demonstrated; in the first section Jehovah proceeds to demonstrate that His love had awakened in Israel no vital response of love-no, not even from the priests, who were devoted to His service by the vows of their ordination. These vows they had shamelessly broken. They had suffered the Temple to fall into disrepair. Most of the priests, Levites, singers, and porters of the Sanctuary had abandoned the undefended city of Jerusalem, and had to be "sought out" from the plains and villages in which they thought themselves less exposed to danger. Those who remained in the Temple or its vicinity performed their service in a perfunctory spirit, despising the very altar at which they rendered their hireling ministrations. Nay, even the high priest himself had desecrated the Temple by assigning a great chamber" in it to the use of Tobiah the Ammonite, with whom he had allied himself, although Moses had decreed that "the Ammonite should not come into the congregation of God for ever." This scene of disorder, indifference, profanation, is painted from the outside in the Book of Nehemiah: now we are to see it painted from the inside by Malachi.

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In order that he may bring home to the conscience of the priests the solemn charge He is about to allege against them, Jehovah commences His address to them with a maxim of universal acceptance, a maxim from which, therefore, they could not withhold their assent. The maxim, or proverb, is,

"A son honoureth his father,

And a servant his master."

But if this trite maxim of human morality be true, how are they, priests who have despised the name of Jehovah, and polluted His altar, to escape the charge that they have not honoured their Father, nor reverenced their Master

1 Neh. xii. 27-29; xiii, 4, 5.

and Lord? They answer as usual with the sceptical "but," questioning the fact, since they cannot impugn either the maxim or the inference: "But wherein have we despised Thy name? And wherewith have we polluted Thee ?" And the objection is met with the argument, that they have presented to God-their Father as men, as priests their Master-offerings which they would not have dared to carry into the divan of Nehemiah; sour and corrupt bread, instead of the fresh wholesome loaves they were bound to bring every week; beasts which, so far from being without spot or blemish, were blind and lame and diseased (chap. i. 6, 7).

Now the implied reproach of this argument gains force so soon as we remember that the whole Mosaic ritual was based on the assumption that God dwelt among His people like an Oriental monarch among his subjects. The Temple was His palace; the altar His table; the priests were His ministers; the sacrifices were the offerings they presented when they entered His presence, and the food with which His table was supplied. And if an earthly monarch was "the father" and "the lord" of his subjects, and was attended with scrupulous devotion by his courtiers, how much more might the Divine King claim to be honoured by His subjects, the people of Israel, and to be had in reverence by His heriditary courtiers and ministers, the sons of Aaron, who stood before His throne and ate of His table? That they should neglect His service, and bring His authority into contempt, was treason and base ingratitude. To enter the presence of a prince with a present of that which was mean and defective was a gross insult; no Oriental would be guilty of it who did not feel that he was strong enough to revolt, or that the power of his prince was declining and about to pass away. But the power of Jehovah was not on the decline. He was a great King, and His 66 name should be great among the nations." It was He who had roused up the Chaldeans against Judah and the Persians against the Chaldeans; He who had given the Hebrews into captivity and redeemed them from captivity; He who had inflicted woes so calamitous on the Edomites, and would inflict on them woes still more calamitous. Already, the very heathen were

beginning to recognise Him as "the God of heaven ". Cyrus and his Persians, to wit; and ere long He would make Himself great "from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof," and "in every place incense should be burned to His name, and a pure sacrifice be offered" Him. For His ministers to offend and insult Him now would be simply to decree their own misery, and to banish themselves from the wider empire He was about to win (vs. 8-11).

Thus far-viz., to the close of verse 11-the sense of the argument runs clear save at one point. The 9th verse is not only involved and elliptical in expression, but its very tone is dubious. There is no real difficulty, however, in ascertaining the sense of the words. What they mean is this. First, Jehovah, speaking in the name of the people, bids the priests seek the face of God, "that He may have pity on us." Then in the next line He charges them, the priests, with having originated the insulting practice of presenting worthless sacrifices on the Divine altar, and of having caused all the disasters by which that offence was rebuked-" From your hand hath come this." And, finally, He demands of them whether, if their governor would not accord them a gracious reception when they offered him that which was lame and sick, they can hope that He will give a gracious reception to those whom they commend to Him, when both they themselves, and the suppliants whose suit they urge, have insulted Him with maimed and defective rites-" Will he accept persons for your sake?"

A few of the commentators read this verse as a grave and earnest summons to repentance and supplication; but most of them, and those the ablest, pronounce it an ironical appeal covering an implied menace. And surely, if we study the context, we cannot doubt that the tone of the passage is ironical. There is a threatening tone of irony in verse 8-"Offer the lame and the sick to thy governor! will he be gracious to thee, and accept thy person?" and that tone is continued in verse 9—“Come now, with your maimed sacrifices to Jehovah, and seek His favour for the clients you have caused to sin! will He be gracious to thee, and accept of them for your sake?" And the same tone is still maintained in the opening clauses of verse 10, in which the mercenary spirit of the priests is held up to scorn. While they did not scruple to offer base and worthless gifts to Jehovah, they would not offer even such sacrifices as these, nay, they would not so much as shut a gate, or kindle a fire, in the Temple, unless they were paid for it. Their ministry was as mercenary in motive as it was careless and insulting in manner. So at least I read these clauses, though there is good authority for another reading, viz. :

"O that there were one among you who would close the gates, That ye might not kindle a fire on mine altar to no purpose

Read thus, the words contain a sigh of weariness and disgust, a wish that the Temple might be shut against the hirelings who profaned it, and that its maimed and defective rites might come to an end. But, however we read these lines, whether as a satire or as a sigh, there

is no doubt that the tone of the Divine Speaker grows grave and indignant in the next lines:

"I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of Hosts, Neither will I accept any offering at your hand." The charge against the priests is resumed in verses 12 and 13, in which we have another graphic picture of their listless and perfunctory ministry. As we study it, we see them lounging about the Temple courts, desecrating the name of the Lord by the insolent contempt with which they bring stolen and lame and sick beasts for sacrifice, finding the service an intolerable burden which ought to be their honour and pride, snuffing at the pollutions they themselves have laid on the altar, despising the sacrifices which they themselves have rendered despicable, and crying as they went about their ministry, "What a weariness it is!" Such a picture gives us a far clearer insight into the moral and religious condition of the Hebrews of this time than the facts chronicled in the Book of Nehemiah, and helps us to realise the utter debasement from which that brave and disinterested governor attempted to raise them.

For it was "like priest, like people." When the ministers of the altar treated it with supercilious contempt, how should the people honour it ? They did not honour it. They took the priestly infection only too readily, and showed their contempt for the altar which the priests despised by bringing to it illegal offerings and sacrifices. Malachi gives us two instances of such contemptuous and fraudulent violations of the law, and leaves us to infer the rest from these (ver. 14). He gives, as his first instance, that of the cheat who offers a female on the false pretence that he has no male in his flocks or herds; and, as his second, that of the liar who, under stress of danger or desire, vows a pure, and then, when the peril is past or the desire gratified, offers an impure or blemished beast. Once more Jehovah affirms that He is no dethroned prince, and rules no waning empire; but that He is a great King, with a growing Name among the nations.

If the people, and above all the priests, despise and dishonour Him whom even the foreigner and the heathen are beginning to respect, they cannot hope to escape condign punishment. Nor will they escape it. Jehovah will repay their contempt for Him by exposing them to the last extremities of ignominy. If they do not repent, if they do not give glory to His Name, He will convert their priestly benedictions into curses, as indeed He has done already; He will "rebuke their arm”—i.e., Ho will render them incapable of their official duties, the arm being the instrument and symbol of active labour. He will make them as the refuse of the festal sacrifices, and cause them to be swept out of the Temple with it (chap. ii. 1-3).

These verses present no difficulty, and therefore we need not linger over them; but they probably contain an historical allusion, which, as it has not been pointed out before, it may be well to indicate. In the Book of Nehemiah' we read that, on the day on which the priests and

1 Chap. xiii. 1, 2.

people were separated from the "outlandish women they had married, they read from the Book of Moses in the audience of the people that "the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the Congregation of God for ever, because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them that he should curse them; howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing." In all likelihood Malachi was present when these words were read. They may have made a deep impression on him, as they certainly did on the people at large, even inducing them to send away "the strange women" for whose sake they had divorced their Hebrew wives. And it may be that we hear an echo of these words in the threatening of chap. ii., ver. 2. That of old God had turned a curse into a blessing, may have suggested the menace that He would now turn a blessing into a curse. It is the more probable because Malachi lingers on the expression, and repeats it in various forms, as though striving to make the allusion clearer.

"I will send the curse against you
And will curse your blessings;

Yea, I have cursed them one by one."

In any case, the correspondence in thought and word between the chronicle of Nehemiah and the prophecy of Malachi is not without interest.

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At this point in the argument, the Divine Speaker changes His voice." Incensed by their contempt, He had threatened the priests that He would render them contemptible, and change their benedictions into a curse; but now He passes from threatening to appeal, and speaks in mercy, not in wrath. He had brought a charge against them, a charge full of menace; now He shows the gracious intention of the charge, and endeavours to shame them into amendment, by placing before them a picture of the true priest, a picture so pure and lovely that surely no minister of the altar could, or can, look upon it without compunction and self-reproach. “Ye shall know that I have sent this charge to you," O insolent and faithless priests, in order that-that I may dismiss you from my service and condemn you to everlasting infamy? no, but—“ that my covenant with Levi may remain" (ver. 4), that you may recover the true priestly spirit, keep your vows, and continue in my service.

This "covenant with Levi," like the blessing turned into a curse, carries our thoughts back to the days of Balaam. For when Balaam saw that Jehovah was turning His curse into a blessing, he commanded that the wanton daughters of Moab should be sent into the camp of Israel, to wile the men of Israel to "the sacrifices of their gods." It was when this artifice had succeeded, and "Israel was joined unto Baal-peor," so that the anger of the Lord was kindled, that the grandson of Aaron, by a bold act of fidelity, stayed the plague before which "twenty and four thousand" had already fallen.1 For his zeal, God entered into a solemn covenant with him, saying to Moses, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the

1 Numb. xxv. 6-15.

son of Aaron the priest, hath turned away my wrath
from the children of Israel, by (showing) my zeal among
them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in
my jealousy.
Wherefore say—

"Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace,
And he shall have it, and his seed after him,
The covenant of an everlasting priest bood,
Because he was zealous for his God,

And made an atonement for the children of Israel."

This, beyond a doubt, is the ancient Scripture which Malachi had in his mind when he represented Jehovah as saying of Levi-Levi standing for the whole priestly tribe

"My covenant of life and peace was with him, And I gave them [i.e., life and peace] to him, For the fear which he showed for me, And the awe in which he stood of my name." But though the Prophet casts this backward look on the fidelity and zeal of Phinehas, on which he bases the priestly covenant, we must not suppose, indeed we cannot suppose that, in the verses which follow (vs. 6, 7), he is simply describing Phinehas, or any of his successors in the priestly office:

"The law of truth was in his mouth,

And no iniquity was found in his lips;
He walked with me in peace and integrity,
Aud brought back many from guilt.
For the priest's lips should preserve knowledge,
And men seek the law at his mouth,

up

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Because he is the messenger of Jehovah of Hosts." The lines of character are too large and fair to be those of mortal man. It is the ideal priest whom the prophet has in his mind, the archetype to which every true priest will seek to be conformed, not any single member of the priesthood-as indeed he himself intimates by using the tribal name "Levi" in verse 4, instead of the personal name Phinehas," and by employing the abstract term the priest" in verse 7. The true priest, then, is one with whom, for his holy fear and self-devoting zeal, God has made a covenant of life and peace-that is, of being and of well-being, for all the blessings that make up human welfare were summed for the Hebrew in one word-peace. "The law of truth"-the truths which have their root in the Divine law—is the staple of his instructions; it is ever in his mouth; and no iniquity"-i.e., no sinister perversion of truth, inspired by self-interest or class-interest -is "found in his lips." He walks" with God in a happy consent and progress; for "how can two walk together except they be agreed?" And to walk is not only to move, but to move onward and forward. Not only does he walk with God, he walks with Him "in integrity and peace:" two lines of advance are specially marked out for him-the generous uprightness, which saves his teaching from sinister perversions, rules his personal conduct, so that he is drawn aside by no selfish or impure motive; and, moreover, he possesses himself ever more fully of all the blessings which conduce to peace or well-being. And thus, by his own pure happy life, no less than by his wholesome and unperverted doctrine, he“ brings back many from guilt," convincing the sinful of the mistake they have made, and leading them, through repentance, to that way of life

and

and peace in which he himself is advancing. Nor in all this does he do more than is required of him by his vocation. For whose "lips should preserve knowledge," a knowledge of the Divine Will as revealed in the law of truth, if not his at whose mouth, as at its native home, men seek that law, "because he is the angel or messenger of the Lord of hosts ?"

The priests of Malachi's time not only fell short of this pure and lofty ideal-all have done that, save only the great High Priest of our Confession-but they openly and insolently renounced and reversed it. Instead of keeping the way of integrity in their personal conduct, they had “departed from the way" (ver. 8). Instead of shedding light on the path of peace by their instructions, they had cast stumbling-blocks before the feet of those who were striving to keep it, and turned them aside, "making many to stumble at the law" in place of smoothing the way for them. And thus they had "corrupted the covenant with Levi;" Jehovah no longer holds Himself bound by it, since they no longer breathe the fidelity and zeal to which it was granted. As they have forsaken His ways, and have driven others to forsake them by their injustice and greed, He will make them as base and despicable in the sight of all the people as His service and covenant have become in their sight unless, indeed, they should repent and amend, "observe His ways" and "give glory to His Name” (ver. 9).

Thus ends the section on the priests and their sins. They are convicted of their guilt. They are menaced with retribution. They are shown what they ought to be, and invited to repent and mend. And as the picture of the ideal priest is the most beautiful passage of this section, so also it is the most suggestive: and that, not simply because, since we are all priests unto God by the grace of Christ, it teaches us what manner of men we ought to be, but also because it illustrates the high moral tone of the Hebrew prophets. We conceive of the Mosaic dispensation as mainly a ritual, "a carnal commandment," a system of outward observances. So also the Hebrews themselves conceived of it in the main. But the psalmist and prophets had worthier

conceptions of the law that came by Moses, conceptions which made it a meet symbol of, and preparation for, the grace and truth which came in Christ. When they speak of the meaning and essence of sacrifice, they do not represent Jehovah as requiring bullocks and rams. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. They represent Him as speaking with a large scorn of the oblations and offerings that were laid on His altar. What He required was an obedient will, a contrite spirit, a thankful heart; that men should do justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with Him. And when they speak of the true priest, it is not his ceremonial exactness in the service of the altar which they hold up to admiration, but his truth, his integrity, his wisdom as a teacher, the moral sweetness of his personal character. And it really is very fine to observe with what native ease Malachi rises into this higher region of thought. While dwelling on the sins of the priests, he moves in the lower, the ceremonial, element; he insists on the maimed rites and blemished sacrifices, on the perfunctory and contemptuous spirit with which they lounged through the service of the Temple. But no sooner does he attempt to frame a conception of what the true priest should be, than all that is forgotten; we hear no more of altar and sacrifice: his thoughts are riveted on the moral aspects of the priestly vocation-how holy a man, how wise a teacher, how careful and friendly a guide, the priest should be. When we are thinking only to hear that the sons of Levi are to offer clean and perfect instead of blemished and polluted sacrifices, to delight in the ministrations of the Sanctuary instead of despising them, as much to our surprise as pleasure he places before us a lofty spiritual ideal of character and service well-nigh, if not altogether, beyond the reach of mortal powers he pronounces an eulogium on Levi which we should hardly dare to inscribe, as an epitaph, on the tomb of the holiest saint, or even on that of an inspired apostle

"The law of truth was in his mouth,
And no iniquity was found in his lips;
He walked with me in peace and integrity,
And brought back many from guilt.”

HE question of measures of weight is intimately connected with that of measures of value, from the fact that the latter, amongst civilised nations, are nothing else than definite weights of gold, silver, or copper, of distinct purity or alloy. We shall speak of coin, with reference to its stamp and denomination, in a separate chapter; but it is impossible to do justice to the subject of ancient weights without reference to their monetary value.

The unit of weight amongst the Hebrews, which it is most convenient to consider as regulating the entire

system, is the shekel. This word originally meant weight; and the verb "to shekel" signifies first to weigh, and then, in a secondary sense, to pay. But in the course of the history of the Jews, from the time of Moses down to that of Maimonides, considerable differences occur in the use of the word shekel. It has one meaning as a unit of weight, and another as one of value; or as a weight and as a coin. It represents different weights, as well as different values, in gold and in silver; and it represents, after the Captivity, a unit larger by one sixth than was the case under the First Temple. And yet further, the word, when

occurring on the coinage, does not (at all events in some cases) denote definite weight at all, but simply "money." Extreme obscurity hangs over the subject of the Hebrew system of weights and of coins. It is, however, an obscurity which is inexcusable. There is reliable information to be found in Hebrew literature; and the coins and weights which are at the present time in the British Museum are sufficient to allow of the confir mation and explanation of the Rabbinical learning.

ear.

Under the kings of the house of David, as we learn from the work of Maimonides on the annual tribute,1 the Jewish silver shekel had the weight of 320 averagesized grains of barley, taken from the middle of the The barleycorn, which is the natural basis of our own, as well as of the Chaldean, system of long measure, we thus find to be taken also as the standard of weight. We have seen that the measurements of the foundations of the Temple at Jerusalem 2 prove that the Jewish cubit is symmetrical with the English foot, or, in other words, that the barleycorn is identical in the two systems. The same is the case with the unit of weight. We can verify this statement by actually weighing such barleycorns as are described. They will be found identical with the grains of troy weight. Moreover the Babylonian weights so very nearly coincide with the statement of Maimonides, when we come to a very large number of grains, that we are on safe and firm ground in asserting that the barleycorn of the Hebrew writers is substantially identical with the troy grain. We have to note a further and a very beautiful coincidence. The shekel of 320 grains troy contains exactly 100 carats, diamond weight.

The highest denomination of weight was the talent. As to this, we obtain the definite information, from the collation of two verses 3 in the Pentateuch, that it contained 3,000 shekels. This weight is equal to 960,000 grains, or 1663 pounds troy. The best preserved bronze Assyrian talent in the British Museum is stated by Mr. Madden to weigh 959,040 grains troy. So close an approximation-bearing in mind the fact that the weights recovered are 2,700 years old-is most remarkable; and proves the permanence of the system of troy weight, as well as its derivation from, or close accordance with, the ancient Chaldean system.

With regard to the denomination of the maneh or mina, which is intermediate between the shekel and the talent, it must be approached with more hesitation, as several different weights are expressed by this word. The learned Buxtorff states that there were two manehs; the one of them being double of the other. It is probable that the word rather implies in its original sense a ratio or place in a system than a definite quantity. In inquiring into a complex and highly detailed system such as that of Hebrew weights, which includes a number of terms, and descends to

1 Constitutiones de Siclis, cap. 1, § 2.

2 See plans Nos. 23 and 27 of series issued by Palestine Exploration Fund.

3 Exod. xxxviii. 25, 26.

4 History of Jewish Coinage, p. 267.

5 Lexicon Hebraicam et Chaldaicum, sub voce D;

minute fractions, of which we have no examples in this country, sentences must be regarded rather than individual words, in order to ascertain the value of a term. Thus, if we regard a maneh as consisting of 50 shekels, which is one determination, the half of that would be a maneh of 50 bekas, or half shekels. This is not an imaginary illustration. Maimonides states that when the second or sela coinage was introduced, although the Temple tax was still the half of the ordinary silver unit of currency-being raised from 160 to 192 grains of silver-the new shekel was often called the sela or selang, and the half sela, or sela beka, was called a shekel.

There is a passage in Ezekiel' which in the Hebrew is extremely obscure, but which evidently refers to the alteration in the weight of the shekel, and to the exist ence of more than one maneh.

Besides the maneh of 50, and that of 25, shekels as terms of weight, the same word appears to be used, in case of money told by tale, to mean a hundred. A comparison of the two accounts given of the golden spears and targets which were made by King Solomon for the use of the Temple guard, shows that 100 aurei or gold pieces were called a mina. The word shekel has been improperly introduced into the translation of that passage.

The idea has found favour with eminent writers that different systems of weight existed at the same time, for different purposes, but under the same name. The reasons which have been adduced for applying this theory to the Hebrew weights do not, however, establish the existence of such an anomaly, with regard to the expressions used in the Bible. Assuming, first, that an aureus weighed a shekel, and thus that the gold mina of King Solomon, before referred to, was the equivalent of 100 shekels weight of gold; and, secondly, that reliance is to be placed on a not very perspicuous passage of Josephus,' to the effect that 100 minæ go to the kichares, which the Greeks call the talent, Mr. Poole 10 has arrived at a gold talent of the enormous weight of 229 lb. troy, which would coin eleven thousand sovereigns, and which is between 26 and 27 per cent. heavier than the silver talent. At the same time, in opposition to the general tendency of exchange, to denote the more precious metals by smaller aliquot divisions than the ruder minerals, this writer has propounded a brass talent of only 1,500 shekels, or the half of the established talent of Hebrew and Babylonian weight. This latter determination is cer tainly wrong; as the same passage which affords the data for the weight of the silver talent, shows that the talent of brass did not contain a smaller number of shekels than that of silver. The brass collected for the Tabernacle is stated in the Hebrew at 70 talents and 2,400 shekels, and in the LXX. (in the Alexandrine Codex) at 370 talents and 2,400 shekels.

The passages in the Bible which refer to the gold