nor the likeness of any thing c. The Second Principle That God's Nature is invisible is contained in this Second Commandment Being the Ground of this Prohibition to make any Image of him Which the best of the Heathen forbad also for this very reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Because it is impossible to conceive God otherwise but by the Mind alone as Plutarch reports the sence of Numa among the Romans And we find the same as plainly said by Antisthenes among the Greeks in Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is not seen by the Eyes nor is like to any thing and therefore none can learn any thing of him by an Image Nor could the Vulgar I am apt to think have been kept so long and so generally as they were to the worship of them if it had not been by bold Fictions that some of them were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faln down from Heaven and that all of them were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Divine Things and full of a Divine Communication as Jamblichus speaks And to make them more reverenced while some of them were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conspicuous to all the People others were kept secret in the inmost part of their Temple as having hidden in them a Symbolical Presence of God as Proclus speaks upon Timaeus Which Ezek Spanhemius justly thinks was done in imitation of what Moses saith concerning God's Presence upon the Mercy-Seat in the Holy of Holies Observationes in Callimachum p. 586 c. See upon these three Verses my Annotations on XX Exod. 4 5 6. Verse 11 Ver. 11. Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain c. This contains the Third Principle before-mentioned that God takes Notice of all things even of our Thoughts and governs all our Affairs For it is the Foundation of an Oath that God knows our very Hearts and is Witness to our Meaning as well as our Words and will if we swear falsly punish us for it Which is an acknowledgment also both of the Justice and the Power of God See upon XX Exod. 7. Ver. 12. Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctifie it They were to keep it in Memory that they might sanctifie it as it is XX Exod. 8. see there And it was sanctified Verse 12 or set apart for special Ends and Purposes that they might give to the blessed God the seventh part of the Week as Abarbinel speaks upon these Words and might learn the Divine Law together with the Kabalah or Traditional Exposition of the Words and mark well the Niceties of it For which he quotes a Saying out of the Gemara of the Hierusalem Talmud Sabbaths and Feasts were not given but to learn the Law upon them Which is the reason he saith of another Speech of theirs in their Midrasch or Allegorical Exposition upon Exodus That the Sabbath weigheth against all the Commandments Because it was a principal means to make them known and observed There is not much said indeed in express Words concerning this End of the Rest of the Sabbath But common Reason told the Jews it could not be intended meerly as a Day of Ease from Labour but for the solemn Service of God and Instruction in their Duty to him As the LORD thy God commanded thee At Marah say the Jews commonly where he gave them a Statute and an Ordinance See XV Exod. 25. But one of them saith better At Marah it was designed and at Sinai it was commanded But they do not look back far enough for the Original of this Commandment For there being two Things in this Day the Rest of it and the Religion the Rest of it was in Remembrance of their Deliverance out of Egypt and the Overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea which compleated their Deliverance immediately after which they kept their first Sabbatical Rest The Religion was in Remembrance of the Creation of the World and so this Day had been observed from the beginning by the Patriarchs tho' we find no mention made of their Resting And that may possibly be the meaning of these Words As the LORD thy God commanded thee That is immediately after he had finished the Creation of the World Verse 13 Ver. 13. Six Days shalt thou labour and do all thy Work See upon XX Exod. 9. Verse 14 Ver. 14. But the Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God in it thou shalt not do any Work c. The reason why they might not do any Work on this Day is given in the XX Exod. 11. which is wholly omitted here because Moses had another Reason to add for the Inforcement of this Precept And refers them in the foregoing Words v. 12. As the LORD thy God hath commanded thee to what he had said in the Book of Genesis and Exodus where he had set down the Reason which God himself gave with his own Mouth for the Religious Observation of this Day because in Six Days the LORD made Heaven and Earth c. So that this Commandment was designed to establish the Fourth Principle I mentioned that God is the Maker of all Things To preserve the Memory and Sence of which as the Author of the Answer Ad Orthodoxos observes LXIX this Rest was instituted to be observed with a more than ordinary Sanctity It being of such great moment that the first Sabbath-breaker was punished with Death because the voluntary Violation of it contained in it a Denial that the World was created by God That thy Man-servant and thy Maid-servant may rest as well as thou Mercy towards Men as well as Piety towards God was a Reason for the observation of this Sabbatical Rest Ver. 15. And remember that thou wast a Servant in Verse 15 the Land of Egypt and that the LORD thy God brought thee from thence c. therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath-Sabbath-day This is a new Ground for the observation of the Sabbath because God had given them rest from their hard Labour in Egypt Which obliged them to keep that Seventh Day which God appointed at the giving of Manna being the Day on which he overthrew Pharaoh in the Red Sea as the Memory of the Creation of the World obliged them to keep one Day in seven So our Mr. Mede hath explained it See my Annotations on XIV Exod. 30. And Maimonides hath something to the same purpose in his More Nevochim P. II. Cap. XXXI See upon XX Exod. 11. Ver. 16. Honour thy Father and thy Mother as the Verse 16 LORD thy God hath commanded thee In the Twentieth of Exodus v. 12. See there To which I shall here add That the Laws of Solon made those Children infamous who did not afford Sustenance to their Parents and provide them an Habitation And by the ancient Law of Athens he that reproached his Parents was disinherited if he struck them his Hand was cut off if he left them unburied he lost their Estate and was banished his
elsewhere by the illustrious Examples of Darius Xerxes and the Athenians in Sicily Verse 10 Ver. 10. If there be among you any man that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth to him by night This seems to be only one Instance of Uncleanness from which they were to keep themselves carefully though it was no moral Impurity nor a voluntary Pollution By which it was easie for them to understand how watchful they were to be over themselves in all other Cases especially such as had an inward turpitude in them Then he shall go abroad out of the Camp There is no such thing required before in XV Levit. 16. where the same Pollution is mentioned The reason I suppose was that he speaks there of what hapned to them in their own Houses where they had private Chambers into which they might retire and keep themselves from defiling others But here of those that were abroad in the Army where it was hard to keep their fellow Soldiers from touching them without removing out of the Camp He shall not come within the Camp This some understand particularly Drusius of not coming within the Camp of God and of the Levites that is to the Tabernacle but it seems to be an Exclusion of him from the whole Camp of Israel as I have expounded it Verse 11 Ver. 11. But it shall be when evening cometh on he shall wash himself with water and when the Sun is down he shall come into the Camp again See XV Levit. 16. The end of all this as Maimonides observes More Nevochim P. III. Cap. LXL was that every Man might have this fixed in his mind that their Camp ought to be as the Sanctuary of God into which every one knows no Man might enter in his Uncleanness and not like the Camps of the Gentiles in which all manner of Corruption Filthiness Rapines Thefts and other Wickednesses were freely committed Ver. 12. Thou shalt have a place also without the Camp Verse 12 whither thou shalt go forth abroad A place distant from all Company where they might ease themselves as it is explained in the next Verse For natural Honesty directed all Men on such occasions to seek privacy and it tended as all Cleanliness doth to the preservation of Health which was one reason of ordering them to find a place without the Camp that there might be no offensive smell among them And hereby as Maimonides observes they were distinguished from brute Beasts which commonly ease themselves any where and before any body But besides all this Moses himself gives us the principal reason of this Command peculiarly respecting the Israelites v. 14. Verse 13 Ver. 13. Thou shalt have a paddle An Instrument wherewith to digg up the Ground and cover it again Epiphanius Haeres LXXVII calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Iron Paddle Vpon thy weapon Their Sword I suppose And it shall be when thou wilt ease thy self abroad It was not in their choice when they would do this but when their needs required yet the Jews will have it that they were to accustom themselves to do this business in the Morning as soon as they were up Thus the Jews at this day as Leo Modena tells us in his History of them Part I. Chap. VI. afterwards washing their Hands that they may go clean to their Prayers Thou shalt dig therewith A hole in the ground And shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee That there might be no appearance nor scent of it remaining This is still practised by the Carribians among whom there is never any such thing as Ordure seen So the Authors of the History of the Carriby Islands tell us Book II. Chap. XIV Where they observe also out of Busbequius that the Turks use the same Cleanliness in their Camps making an hole with a piece of Iron wherein they bury their Excrements And in this matter the Essens were extreamly superstitious for as Josephus relates they would not ease themselves at all on the Sabbath day because they lookt upon it as a labour to dig in the earth and Excrements not fit to be seen on that day Ver. 14. For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy Camp At this time the Ark which was the Token of the Divine Presence was settled in the midst of their Camp and whithersoever they moved Verse 14 was carried along with them two Standards going before and two following and the Ark between them in the midst as appears from the Tenth of Numbers It is likely also that it was carried in after times in the midst of them when they went to War as some think it was when they went against the Midianites XXXI Numb 6. and when they encompassed Jericho Now this Presence of God among them was the reason why no Uncleanness though in it self natural might be found in their Camp but out of reverence to the Divine Majesty which dwelt between the Cherubims over the Ark be removed afar off And by such Actions as these Maimonides well observes God intended to strengthen and confirm the Faith of the Soldiers that God dwelling among them would go along with them and fight for them against their Enemies as it here follows More Nevochim P. III. Cap. XLI And thus Abarbinel discourses upon these words The Camps of the Israelites ought to be holy having a special Providence of God among them For they do not make War by meer Humane Power and Courage but by the Power of God and of his Spirit on which they depend for deliverance from all evil and victory over their Enemies c. To deliver thee and to give up thine enemies before thee This is the constant sense of this Phrase Of God's being in the midst of them to defend protect and deliver them from all evil as I observed before See VII Deut. 21. III Josh 10. XLVI Psal 6. III Zachar. 15. Now this Cleanliness being commanded with respect to the Divine Presence which dwelt among them the Jews are strangely mistaken in using such Superstitions as they do in every place when they have no such Presence of the Divine Majesty in the midst of them See Schickard in Mischpat Hammelech Cap. V. Theorem XVIII p. 144 c. Therefore shall thy Camp be holy Free from all manner of Defilements though they be only of this sort That he see no unclean thing in thee In these words saith Maimonides in the place before-named he deters them from Fornication which is far worse than the fore-mentioned Uncleanness but too common among the Soldiers when they are absent from their own homes And therefore that he might keep them from such Impurities he commands them such Actions he means covering their Ordure as might call to their minds the glorious Majesty of God which dwelt among them But though the Hebrew word which we here translate unclean thing properly signifies nakedness and all those impure Mixtures mentioned in the Eighteenth of Leviticus and
II Lament 20. IV. 10. But never so exactly fulfilled as in the last siege by the Romans when a noble Woman which fully answers to this Prophecy such Persons being very delicate did the very same as Josephus relates in his Book of the Jewish War Lib. VII Cap. VIII A most unnatural fact as he observes which was never committed either by Greek or Barbarian and which he would not have related because it might seem incredible if there had not been many Witnesses of it besides himself Verse 57 Ver. 57. And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet Toward her new-born Babe which is wont to be welcomed into the World with great joy but in this siege dispatcht out of it to asswage the rage of their hunger In the Hebrew as we take notice in the Margin the word we translate young one properly signifies the after-birth And so the LXX translate it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which makes this passage most plain that their hunger should make them so unnatural as first to eat the After-birth which came from them and then the Child which was wrapped in it And towards her children which she shall bear The rest of their Children whose cries for Food they had no way to stop but by killing them and making them their own Food So it follows in the next words For she shall eat them for want of all things Having nothing else left to eat For they had devoured not only the leather of their Girdles and their Shoes and which covered their Shields but the very stale Dung of Oxen and such things as the most sordid of all living Creatures would not eat See Josephus Lib. III. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. XVI Lib. VII Cap. VII Secretly It was not done secretly for any other reason but least any body should have a share with them and so make their hunger return the sooner And yet it was a hard matter to conceal what they had done of this kind for the seditious People presently smelling there had been something boild got into the House when she had eaten one half of her Child and found the other half which she had left till another time of which she invited them to eat In the siege and straitness These two words which are used here and v. 53. and 55. may both relate to the grievous Miseries they should endure when they were besieged v. 52. and may be translated in the pressure and straits wherewith thine Enemies c. Wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in thy gates We have not such an account of their distress in other Cities as we have of what they suffered in Jerusalem where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an innumerable multitude perished by Famine as Josephus tells us L. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. VII and ineffable Calamities thereupon hapned For in every House where the least shadow of Food appeared a War immediately began and the dearest Relations fell to blows snatching away from each other the miserable Supports of Life Nor would they let those that were dying expire quietly not believing what they affirmed when they told them they had no Food in their Houses but the Cut-throats came and searcht their very Bosoms as they lay drawing their last breath whether they had not there hid some Food Verse 58 Ver. 58. If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this Law which are written in this Book Among which those words are most remarkable XVIII 15 18 19. A Prophet shall the LORD thy God raise up unto thee like unto me unto him shall ye hearken c. Whosoever will not hearken unto the words which he shall speak in my Name I will require it of him That thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful Name the LORD THY GOD. That is fear the great LORD of Heaven and Earth and their special Benefactor who is most glorious in himself and to be most humbly reverenced by us For the Name of God is God himself from whence it is that he is sometimes called HASCHEM the Name XXIV Lev. 11. This shows the reason why Moses repeats this Name the LORD THY GOD so often as he doth in the Preface to this Book Chapt. VI VII VIII IX c. In some of which there is scarce a Verse wherein we do not meet with these words and it is sometimes repeated no less than three times in one and the same Verse XII 18. XVI 15. that God might be in all their Thoughts and the fear of him might possess their Hearts Ver. 59. Then the LORD If they still persisted Verse 59 in their Infidelity and Disobedience after Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed and such unheard of Calamities as they had suffered during the siege of that place he threatens to bring upon them more astonishing Judgments Will make thy plagues wonderful and the plagues of thy seed even great plagues and of long continuance Though their great Plagues under Vespasian by Famine Sword and Pestilence had lessened their numbers exceedingly yet by the time of Trajan and Adrian they had like Traitors taken for a while from the Rack to use Dr. Jackson's words recovered strength enough to be put to greater torture For then they were made a Spectacle to the World of the Divine Vengeance again which they brought upon themselves by their Rebellion and show'd therein their natural strength by their grievous lingring pains in dying For not only in Mesopotamia and in Cyprus but especially in Cyrene and throughout all Egypt they broke out into such outrages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if they had been possessed with some fierce and seditious Spirit as Eusebius speaks Lib. IV. Eccles Hist Cap. II. whereupon Marcius Turbo was sent against them and setting upon them both by Sea and Land with Horse and Foot made a vast destruction of them See Dion Lib. LXVIII and Xiphilinus who describe their slaughter to have been so great that now was fulfilled as the forenamed Dr. Jackson thinks what Moses foretold in this place The LORD will make thy plagues wonderful great plagues and of long continuance And indeed Eusebius saith in the forenamed place that Turbo destroyed many thousands of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in many battles and in no small time the War being protracted a great while to compleat their destruction And the application of this Prophecy to this Time may be confirmed by a strange Relation which we meet withal in their own Books For in the Hierusalem Talmud one of their Doctors tells us That when Trajan came upon them with his Army they were reading these very words of the Law v. 49. the LORD shall bring a Nation against thee from far from the ends of the earth c. which he understanding having askt them what they were doing he cried out Here is the man pointing to himself who am come five days sooner than I intended And immediately compassing them about with his Legions slew them
all Then he went to their Wives and offered them Mercy if they would submit themselves But they replyed What thou hast done to the ground do to the stubble So he dispatcht them also and shed so much Blood that it ran into the Sea as far as Cyprus At this time so he concludes his Story the Horn of Israel was cut off from Israel never to be restored into its place till the Son of David come This passage I find alledged by Joh. Benedictus Carpzovius out of Massec Sanhedr in explication of another matter in Schickard's Mischpat Hammelek Cap. III. Theor. X. p. 199. And sore sicknesses and of long continuance Such as Gonorhaea's Leprosies and burning Fevers as the Author of the old Nitzacon set forth by J. Wagenseil explains it p. 131. Ver. 60. Moreover he shall bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt which thou wast afraid of and they Verse 60 shall cleave unto thee The same Diseases he foretells should infest them in and after their destruction by the Romans which had done formerly under the Chaldaeans and other Oppressors v. 27. What these Diseases were Pet. Cunaeus Lib. II. de Republ. Jud. Cap. ult hath expressed in these words Vitiligines psorasque tetra ulcera c. Leprosies Itches Botches and foul stinking Ulcers the greatest Physicians have anciently ascribed to the Egyptians and Syrians as Plagues proper to those Nations unto which Diseases he observes the Jews were strangely obnoxious Ver. 61. Also every sickness and every plague which Verse 61 is not written in the Book of this Law them will the LORD bring upon thee until thou be destroyed It had been too long to have set down all the Diseases and Calamities that Mankind are subject to but he tells them they should not escape any one of them though very numerous and be afflicted with them till their destruction was compleated For they were of such long continuance as was said before and pursued them so closely whithersoever they went that they are no longer a Nation but a scattered forlorn People abandon'd and forsaken by him that formerly protected them Of this they themselves are so sensible that they have confessed the truth of this part of the Prophecy in these latter Ages For Solomon ben Virgoe having related in the fiftieth Section of his Book called Schebet Jehuda how they were transported out of Palestine into Spain and so miserably handled that not one of a thousand remained and then how they were destroyed in Germany and France where of innumerable Multitudes equal to the number which came out of Egypt scarce Five thousand survived that Calamity and what he himself saw in Castile and Portugal where they suffered such things as cannot be expressed nor conceived by Famine by Depredations by Transportations and by being sold for Slaves or drowned in the Sea he thus at last concludes his sad Story that they who fled to avoid that dreadful Tempest in Castile found the truth of this Oracle Every sickness and plague which is not written in the Book of this Law shall the LORD bring upon thee till thou be destroyed Verse 62 Ver. 62. And ye shall be left few in number whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude The multitude of the Jews killed in the Wars was equal to the number of living Men in Israel in the time of King David For Josephus saith That in the siege of Jerusalem there were destroyed by Pestilence Famine and other ways Eleven hundred thousand besides above Ninety thousand carried Captive For they being come from all Countries to keep the Passover the whole Nation as his words are Lib. VII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. XVII were shut up here by a fate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in a close Prison or rather driven thither as Dr. Jackson speaks into a Slaughter-house after they had been foild by the Romans in the Field And yet after this they recovered strength as I observed before meerly to be more tormented and miserably destroyed For in the reign of Adrian who succeeded the Emperour Trajan they shook the Roman Empire by their rebellious Commotions as Dion who lived not long after relates in his History Lib. LXIX which moved Adrian to exercise the greater Severity upon them in their punishment there being slain of them in Battles and Skirmishes Five hundred and eighty thousand besides a vast number consumed by Famine and Sicknesses and Fire during the time of this lingring War which Julius Severus a famous Commander sent for on purpose out of Britain designedly protracted to a great length not being willing to try it out in the Field in one Battle with a desperate Multitude And now as Moses foretold they were left few in number For Dion as if he had intended to expound these words saith that Severus so beset and attacked them separately in several Parties that very few of them escaped fifty of their strongest Fortresses being utterly razed and nine hundred eighty and five of their most noble and populous Towns sackt and consumed by fire with the slaughter of the forementioned number Insomuch that as his words are all Judaea was in a manner laid waste and left as a Desert This we may truly call the last Conflict of this Nation with Death and Destruction in their own Land out of which they were now almost totally expelled Because thou wouldst not obey the voice of the LORD thy God Who had spoken to them by that great Prophet his Eternal WORD promised in the eighteenth Chapter of this Book v. 15 c. but they would not hearken to him For which Cause he gave them up to listen unto false Christs whom they followed to their destruction Particularly Barchocheba who in the time of Adrian took upon him the Title of their King and set up his Throne at Bitter in the Tribe of Benjamin which the Jews had made their cheaf Seat after the Destruction of Jerusalem and had in it as they pretend four hundred Synagogues Here the Romans made such a slaughter of them when they took it that the Jews themselves cannot find Expressions tragical enough to represent it Twice as many they tell us perished now as came out of Egypt great Rivers ran with the Blood of the slain which say some of them carried great Rocks along with it in the stream With these and many other such like hyperbolical Speeches they themselves exaggerate their Calamities as many have observed out of Juchasin and Gittin particularly Const L'Empereur in his Annotations on Jacchiades XI Dan. 34. But though now they were left few in number in Judaea yet in other Countries where they were dispersed they multiplied again that God's Plagues might continue to be multiplied upon them and this Prophecy more perfectly fulfilled For some Ages after this An. 1009. they had so incensed Christian People against them by bringing the Persians upon them who destroyed the Churches dedicated to our Saviour at Jerusalem that it