《Lange’s Commentary on the HolyScriptures–Exodus (Vol. 1)》(Johann P. Lange)
Commentator
Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer).
Introduction
EXODUS
OR
THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES
______
BY
JOHN PETER LANGE, D. D.
Professor Of Theology In The University Of Bonn
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Translated By
CHARLES M. MEAD, PH. D.
Professor Of The Hebrew Language And Literature In The Theological
Seminary At Andover, Mass.
VOLUME II. OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
EXODUS AND LEVITICUS
PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR
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Dr. Lange’s Commentary on Exodus,, Leviticus, and Numbers was not published till1874. Dr. Schroeder’s Deuteronomy was issued in1868.
The two corresponding English volumes were begun several years ago. The present volume contains:—
1. A general and special Introduction to Exodus,, Leviticus, and Numbers. It unfolds Dr. Lange’s original and ingenious view of the organic unity and trilogy of the three Middle Books of the Pentateuch and their typical import. The translation is by Rev. Howard Osgood, D. D, Professor in Rochester, N. Y.
2. The Commentary on Exodus by Dr. Lange, translated, with many additions, by Rev. C. M. Mead, Ph. D, Professor in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass. The Textual and Grammatical notes, some of which are very elaborate (e. g., pp72–75), belong wholly to the American Edition, there being no corresponding part in the German of Lange. The “Doctrinal” and “Homiletical,” which in the German edition are put together at the end of Numbers, have been appended to the Commentary proper.
3. The Commentary on Leviticus by Rev. Frederic Gardiner, D. D, Professor in the Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn. This part differs in one respect from most of the series. It was already far advanced before the commentary of Lange appeared, and it then seemed best to complete it on the plan begun, incorporating into it as much as possible of the German work of Lange. For the general structure and arrangement of this commentary, therefore, Dr. Gardiner is responsible; but the greater part of Lange, including every thing of importance, and especially every thing in which there is any difference of opinion, has been translated and included in the work. Nearly the whole of Lange’s “Homiletical,” and a large part of his “Doctrinal,” have been distributed to the several chapters to which they pertain. Every thing from Lange is carefully indicated by his name and by quotation marks; all matter not so indicated is by the translator, and is not marked by his initials, except in the case of remarks introduced into the midst of quotations from Lange. A large part of the translation was prepared by Rev. Henry Ferguson, of Exeter, N. H.
The Commentary on Numbers and Deuteronomy will appear in a separate volume early in autumn. The remaining parts of the Old Testament division are also fast approaching completion.
PHILIP SCHAFF
Union Theol. Seminary, New York,
April 28th, 1876.
The
THREE MIDDLE BOOKS OF THE PENTATEUCH
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A. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
OF THE THREE MIDDLE BOOKS OF THE LAW CONSIDERED
AS A WHOLE.
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§ 1. The Relation Of The Three Middle Books Of The Pentateuch To The Whole Pentateuch
While the Pentateuch describes the Law of the Lord in its whole compass as the symbolical, typical, fundamental law of the kingdom of God, its universal basis stated in Genesis, and its universal purpose in Deuteronomy, it appears to be the unique character of the three middle books to set forth this law as the law of Israel strictly considered. They are the fixed, written, literal law of God for this people historically bounded and defined. But since this people should not live egotistically for itself, but be a blessing of the nations, and also a type of the nations to be brought into the kingdom of God, its law is not merely a law for the Israelites. Throughout it has a typical meaning as far as its ordinances and shadows indicate the principles of spiritual life and the divine regulations for all the nations of the kingdom of God, for all Christian nations. Israel is the type of Christian nationalities. Israel’s law is the type of Christian theocratic systems in their ethical, ecclesiastical and political regulations.
It is therefore both one-sided and erroneous to mistake either the national and directly popular meaning of the Mosaic law in earliest times or the Judaizing and superficiality concerning this law in the Rationalistic era. This last view Rationalism has held equally with the Pharisees. Paul had this in view in his opposition to mere legality. The law of the three middle books is literally and particularly the law of the people of Israel; but this people Israel is essentially a type of the people of the kingdom of God; not only of God’s people in general, but also of national institutions, of Christian nationalities. The significance of Israel in respect to Christian nationalities has been excellently set forth by Pastor Bräm of Neukirchen. Concerning the significance of nationalities in the Christian Church, comp. my Vermischte Schriften, New Series11, p185, and W. Hoffmann, Deutschland, 1870, Vol2.
We may consider the special religion of the patriarchs as the subjective religion of the individual conscience led by divine grace, as a walk before and with God directed by special instruction from God and by complete obedience of faith. But now commences the predominantly objective form of religion in which the people of Israel, as an individual, are led by an external social code of laws and by mysterious external tokens of God. The patriarchal religion as compared with the Mosaic is more subjective, which gives it a gleam of New Testament or of Protestant evangelical freedom and joy ( Galatians 3), as we see portrayed in the life of the Sethites: whilst the religion of Moses is that of promise contained in the training of the people, and therefore the external law and symbols are chiefly employed; as in a similar manner in the Middle Ages Christendom served for the elementary training of the nations. But on the other side a great progress is shown, in that now for the first time a whole nation is made the people of God, instead of a holy family living by themselves, and in that the simple word of God and the simple covenant of circumcision unfold into a complete code of laws and an organization of worship and of society. It is also an exceedingly important fact that Deuteronomy again points out the spirituality of the law, or throws a bridge over to the prophetic era—a fact frequently mistaken. Comp. Gen. Introd. p49.
§ 2. The Particular Relation Of The Three Middle Books To Genesis
According to the preceding, it is not correct to speak of Genesis as the introduction to the following books. According to that view, the Old Testament was designed as a particular and national Bible for the Jews. It is rather the archives of the foundation of the universal and indestructible kingdom and people of God, whose coming is prefigured by the typical people of God, Israel, and by the typical kingdom of God, the theocracy. For it is the high destination of Israel that in becoming the representative of the concentration or contraction of God’s kingdom in process of development, it should prepare and bring about the expansion or enlargement of the real and complete kingdom of God as it is promised in the blessing of Abraham ( Genesis 12:3), but especially in the second part of the prophet Isaiah Isaiah 43:21 f.). Yet the catholicism of Genesis tends to this typical speciality by defining narrower circles for the Messianic promise. The first circle is the universe itself in the significant religious contrast, heaven and earth. The second circle is the earth, Adam with his race. The third circle is the nobler line of Adam in the Sethites in contrast to the line of Cain. The fourth circle is the family of Noah baptized with the water of the flood and divided into the pious and blessed family of Shem and the humanitarian and blessed people of Japhet. Then the distinctive genealogical speciality is begun by the setting apart of Abraham. His posterity is ennobled by a series of exclusions; Ishmael, the children of Keturah and Esau, are shut out from the consecrated circle of Israel. Indeed within this circle great distinctions are indicated, though in the three books the tribes of Judah and Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) stand far behind that of Levi. Thus Genesis, which in its catholicism is one with the loftier Genesis, the Apocalypse, ends with the foundation of the Jewish nationality, with the seed-corn of the typical people of God in the house of Jacob.
The three middle books in relation to Genesis are the record of the first typical fulfillment of the divine promise which was given to Israel, and through Israel to mankind ( Genesis 15:13-14). They inform us how a people of God grew out of the holy family, a people born amid the travail of oppression and tyranny in Egypt. This people, consecrated to God, come out through the typical redemption, which first makes them a people, and which is based upon the fact that the Almighty God (El Shaddai) appears under the name Jehovah, and proves Himself Jehovah. For in the revelation of God as Jehovah, as the covenant God who ever remains the same, and ever glorifies Himself by His faithfulness, there inhere two very diverse Revelation, since by the first it was not proved that he would continue to return. As in geometry we must have two separate points in order to determine the distance of a third point, so in the region of faith we must have two indications of salvation in order to conclude assuredly that the covenant-God will continue to return. In this way for the first time the name Jehovah obtained its full significance, though it was known in earlier times in connection with the prevailing name El Shaddai: just as at the Reformation the word “justification” was invested with a new meaning, though it had been known before. On this redemption the theocracy ( Exodus 19) was founded, and appeared not in abstract forms, but in concrete, historical characteristics, in ethical, ecclesiastical and political laws. This code of laws was a boundary separating Israel from all other peoples, placing them in strongest contrast to other peoples, making them particularly the executioner of the Canaanites, who had come to ruin through the practice of unnatural lust. By this Israel would have become actually, according to the idea of the Pharisees, “odium generis humani,” had they not been predestined to be educated as the teacher of the peoples and as the mediator of their salvation.
§ 3. The Particular Relation Of The Three Middle Books To Deuteronomy
Doubt has been expressed whether the man Moses who, in the spirit of the severe jurist, issued the code of laws contained in the three middle books, could also be the author of the essential parts of Deuteronomy. Doubts of this sort appear to pre-suppose that a law-giver should make his own ideals, his loftiest thought a code for his people. But very false conceptions of the best legislation lie at the foundation of this view. A wise lawgiver will approve himself by the manner and mode in which he accommodates his loftiest views of right to the culture or want of culture of his people. Moses therefore might have given a law to his people corresponding to their culture as he found it, by mere external form, the very letter of the law, and the enlargement of the bald form by picturesque representations of a ceremonial worship which appealed to the senses and thought, not less than by a strong organization of the whole people. All this Moses might have done in the character of a Jewish Solon. But his giving an ethical, ecclesiastical and civil national law which was throughout a transparent representation, the symbol and type of the kingdom of God, proved him to be a prophet led and illumined by the Spirit of God.
Throughout his whole course Moses had been educated equally as a Jewish specialist of his times and as a catholic embracing all future humanity. As the adopted child of the daughter of a Pharaoh, he was educated in all the wisdom of Egypt, the most renowned centre of human culture of that time, and he also became familiar among the sons of the desert, the Midianites, with a noble patriarchal house. But as he was a true spiritual heir of Abraham, his personal experiences formed the basis for the catholic enlightenment imparted to him.
But as a prophet of Jehovah it could not be hidden from Moses, that with the institution of the covenant-religion in the forms of the external law, there was danger that the majority of his people might go astray in the mere letter of the law and in seeking righteousness by works. This danger of misunderstanding his law he met by bringing out in the second law, in Deuteronomy, the germs of spirituality which lay in the first law, and thereby opened a way from the isolation of Israel by its code to the spiritual catholicity which was to be developed in the prophets. Such a transition is unmistakably shown in the original portions of Deuteronomy which we distinguish from the final compilation. We are not called to treat of this compilation, or to offer any review of treatises upon it (e.g. Kleinert’s Treatise, Das Deuteronomium und der Deuteronomiker).
In the first place, there is throughout Deuteronomy a solemn prophetic tone. Then there is the historical account of the miraculous leading of Israel in the light of Jehovah’s grace, who pardoned the transgressions of the people, and even made Moses a typical substitute for the sins of the people ( Deuteronomy 3:26-27). Israel and the law do not appear here in the lightning-flame of Sinai; Israel is the glorious people among the nations ( Deuteronomy 4:7), and the fiery law by which Jehovah made Himself known to Israel is comprised in the words: “Yea, he loved the people” ( Deuteronomy 33:3). Respecting the form of the revelation on Sinai, not the terrors at the giving of the law are recalled, but the fact that Israel heard only the words of God; they did not see His form, in order that the danger of making images of God might be averted ( Deuteronomy 4:15). Thus decidedly were the people directed in the way of spiritual worship. The command against image worship in its length and breadth becomes a long-continued, positive demand for spirituality in religion. In the repetition of the ten commandments ( Deuteronomy 5), in the tenth, the wife is placed before the house, and the critics have greatly troubled themselves with the question whether this position ( Deuteronomy 5:21) or the reverse in the decalogue ( Deuteronomy 20:17) is the right one. This alternative would make no essential change; for in Exodus the lawgiver speaks, but in Deuteronomy the prophet who interprets the law. According to the law the wife is part of the house and the property of the man; according to her spiritual relations, she is above the house. By the law of the Sabbath (its importance as regards worship in Leviticus must be distinguished from its ethical value, Deuteronomy 20) the principle of humanity, which was stated in the first sketch of the civil law ( Leviticus 23:12), is further developed ( Deuteronomy 5:14-15). Especially remarkable is the expansion of the first commandment in the declaration: Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might ( Deuteronomy 6:5). The covenant-sign of circumcision is here referred to the circumcision of the heart, regeneration ( Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:6).
In Leviticus, after the curse and the blessing, come a few words of promise of the restoration of Israel ( Leviticus 26); but here how greatly is that promise expanded in prophecy ( Deuteronomy 30)! This prophetic tendency in Deuteronomy is not obscured by the severe enactments against the Canaanites ( Leviticus 7); they are rather, on the one side, moderated ( Leviticus 7:22), and, on the other side, the reason for them is given ( Leviticus 7:22). If more is said in this book of the Levites than of the priests, it is a proof not of the exaltation, but of the lessening of the priesthood, a step towards the general priesthood. To these are added the laws of a genuine humanity in the laws of war ( Leviticus 20) and also in various commands touching forbearance and morality. And finally the solemnity of the song and of the blessing of Moses. The grand antithesis between the song and the blessing makes these chapters the flower of Deuteronomy: in the song the curse referred to culminates; in the blessing, the promise. As Genesis from a universal basis converges to the particularity of the three middle books, so Deuteronomy diverges in the direction of catholicity. This shows that the particularity of the three books is economical and temporary, and that a golden thread of spiritual significance, of symbolical, typical suggestion runs through the whole law.