d to
make an "atonement;" that seven men of Saul's family were hanged "in the
hill _before the Lord_;" that then they were buried, with Saul and
Jonathan, "and, _after that_, God was intreated for the land." "It
particularly concerns us to observe that the whole matter was, in the
first instance, referred to Jehovah; that David was plainly informed of
the intention of the Gibeonites of 'hanging up' the seven persons
'before Jehovah' as an 'atonement;' that he willingly surrendered them
for that atrocity; that he evidently expected from that act a cessation
of the famine; and that this calamity is reported to have really
disappeared in consequence of the offering" (Ibid, p. 392). Kalisch, in
his anxiety to diminish as far as possible the evidence that human
sacrifices were enjoined by the law, urges that the passage in Leviticus
(xxvii. 29) merely implies that "everything so devoted shall be
destroyed. The extirpation of the men, as a rule heathen enemies in
Canaan, or Hebrew idolaters, is indeed referred to a command of Jehovah,
but it is not intended as a _sacrifice_ to him" (Ibid, p. 409). Surely
this verges on quibbling, and is not even then borne out by the context.
Leviticus xxvii. deals entirely with private "singular vows," and the
"devoting" (_Cherem_) of "man and beast and of the field of his
possession," is not the judicial devoting to destruction of an
idolatrous city or individual, but a special voluntary offering from a
pious worshipper. Besides, even if such judicial duties were "the rule,"
what of the exceptions? There are several indications of the practice of
human sacrifice to Jehovah beyond the two related by Kalisch (the
command to sacrifice Isaac is in itself a consecration by God of the
abomination); the curious account of Aaron's death--whose garments are
taken off and put on his son, and who thereupon dies at the top of the
mount, having walked up there for that purpose, clearly indicates that
he did not die a natural death (Numbers xx. 23-28). Many think that "the
fire from the Lord" which devoured Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x. 1-5) denotes
the sacrifice "before the Lord" of the offending priests. Kalisch demurs
to these latter charges, and to some other additional ones, but says:
"It is, therefore, undoubted that human sacrifices were offered by the
Hebrews from the earliest times up to the Babylonian period, both in
honour of Jehovah and of heathen deities, not only by depraved
idolaters, but someti