After reading the Mishna connected with the pouring and sprinkling of the blood of the different sin-offerings, there follows this prayer : " May it please Thee, O Lord our God, and the God of our fathers, that if I am guilty of (a sin for which I ought to bring) a sin-offering, that this ritual may be acceptable before Thee as if I had brought a sin-offering."
The same prayer follows after the recital of the portion dealing with the trespass-offering, the peace- offering, and the other offerings.
From this, as well as from some other customs, we see that deep down in the consciousness of the Jewish nation the belief is rooted that sacrifices are a necessity as the ground of fellowship with the " Holy One of Israel," and at the same time there is the liturgic solemn confession of the patent fact that for these
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" many days " they are " without a sacrifice." As to the prayer that the mere recital of the command may be acceptable as if the offering was actually presented, as well might we believe that the mere reading over of a creditor's account is equal to the paying of it !
And not only is the present condition of Israel characterised as " without a sacrifice," they are also " without an image." x In the past, and until the " many days " of the Interregnum period set in, it was either the one or the other, for whenever they forsook Jehovah they always turned to idols, but now
1 The marginal reading and reference to Isa. xix. 19, 19 in the A.V. is misleading, for it leads unlearned readers to think the "image" is an emblem associated with the worship of Jehovah. S"Q!D (Mazehvah), which is from 3.2 (Nozab), is used thirty-one times in the Old Testament, and means (i) a pillar or monument; (2) a standing image or pillar devoted to idolatrous uses. In Genesis, where it is found nine times, it is used exclusively in the first sense (Gen. xxviii. 18–22, xxxi. 13, 45, 51, 52, xxxv. 14, 20) ; but from Exodus onward, from the time of the Divine appoint- ment of one sanctuary when the putting up of a Mazehvah was strictly forbidden (Lev. xxvi. i), and in all the other books of the Old Testament, excepting Isa. xix. 19, 19, where it is used in the first sense of a pillar or monument which Egypt will erect to the true God, and Exod. xxiv. 4 (where it is used of the twelve pillars of the altar which Moses built at the foot of Mount Sinai, as representing the twelve tribes of Israel), the word is always used to describe an idolatrous object or the image of an idol ; and in the prophets it is used as the emblem of Baal worship. It was for raising Mazehboth that Israel was finally carried into captivity " and they set them up Mazehboth (" images," A.V.), and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every green tree, and they burnt incense in all high places as did the nations whom the Lord carried away before them : and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger … therefore the Lord was angry with Israel and removed them out of His sight" (2 Kings xvii. 10, u, 18). That Hosea used Mazehvah as a symbol of idolatry may be seen from the only other passage in his prophecy where this word is used, namely, in chap. x. i, 2.
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it is neither the one nor the other. In Babylon Israel was finally purged of all idolatrous tendencies, and since then they have manifested the greatest abhor- rence of everything bearing the remotest resemblance to idolatry. Of course there is another kind of idolatry : there are the " idols of the heart " (Ezek. xiv. 4), which are quite as hateful in the sight of God as images of wood and stone, but with this our passage does not deal.
As a matter of fact, as far as the gross forms of idolatry are concerned, the Jews now are entirely free from it, and have been for these "many days" since the Babylonian Captivity ; and even their prejudice against Christianity is partly due to the fact that the outward aspect of it, especially in countries where the Latin and Greek Churches prevail, has led them to regard it as idolatrous an estimation which is, alas ! to a large extent justified.
III. " Without an ephod and teraphim" This is the last of the three couplets, and on this point, too, we can have no better explanation than the words of the great Jewish commentator : " Without an ephod to God, by means of which we could foretell the future as with the Urim and Thummim, and without teraphim to false gods."
In the ephod, as already stated, were set the Urim and Thummim, through which, in some mysterious way not at present fully known to us, 1 God revealed His will to Israel. At the consecration of Joshua as the suc- cessor of Moses, God commanded that he should stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of Urim before the Lord (Numb, xxvii. 21). Later on, in times of perplexity, David, for instance, had
1 See Appendix I., " Urim and Thummim," at the end of the book.
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only to say to Abiathar the priest, " Bring hither the ephod," and by its means he inquired of the Lord God of Israel, who condescended in this manner to make known His will to His servant (i Sam. xxiii. 9–12, xxx. 7, 8).
From this we see that though the ephod formed part of the high priest's outfit, it was a phase of the priesthood which reminds us of the prophetic office inasmuch as through it God spoke a prefigurement in this respect of the time when both offices shall meet in one glorious Person, through whom God was to speak His last words, and who, though the great prophet, shall also be "a priest upon His throne." In fact, on carefully analysing this remarkable prophecy, we find each of the three great Messianic offices referred to in the three pairs of contrasts which we are considering. The first speaks plainly of the " King " ; the second of " sacrifice," with which of course is bound up the idea of priesthood; and in this last we have a reference to the revealing of the mind of God, which is more properly connected with the prophetic office.
Is it accidental that just these three great offices which man needs for his relations with God are those which Israel is now " without," but which on the other hand have always been associated by the Church with Jesus Christ ? Oh, no ; it is for the very reason that they are all merged and fulfilled in Christ, that poor Christless Israel, so long as they reject Him, is deprived of the blessings which flow from them.
But at any rate, thus much even a Jew does not deny, that this prophetic word in the last couplet brings before us another patent fact. Israel now is " without an ephod." As they are without a king and a priest, so it is also the time of God's long silence, and in ignorance of the cause they continue to cry out, " Why withdrawest
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Thou Thy hand ? O God, how long shall the adversary reproach ? … We see not our signs ; there is no more any prophet, neither is there among us any that knoweth how long" (Psa. Ixxiv. 9–11). Yes, there is neither sound nor hearing, nor is there one among them who can tell what Israel ought to do.
But not only are they " without an ephod," but as in the other pairs of contrasts, so here too, they are also without that which is the direct antithesis to it, namely, the " teraphim? or speaking oracles of the heathen. 1
Apart from our passage there are only seven other scriptures in the Hebrew Bible where the teraphim are introduced, but these suffice to show that they were not only idols, the use of which is classed together by God with "witchcraft, stubbornness, and iniquity" (i Sam. xv. 23), but that they were a peculiar kind of idols, namely, those used for oracular responses. The first mention of the teraphim is in connection with Jacob's flight from Laban, in Gen. xxxi., and in the light of the other passages there seems probability in the explanation of Aben Ezra 2 that Rachel stole them in order that her father might not discover the direction of their flight by means of these oracles.
The second place where we find them is in that strange narrative about the Ephraimite Micah, and the Danite expedition to Laish in Judg. xvii. and xviii., where we get a sad and characteristic glimpse of the condition of some among the tribes in those days, " when there was no king in Israel and every man did that which was right in his own eyes." This narrative supplies an illustration of the fact that not only is
1 See Appendix II., " Dean Farrar on the Teraphim," at the end of the book.
See Aben Ezra in loc. Gesenius traces " Teraphim " to the
unused root " Toraph," which in the Syriac has the significance of " to inquire."