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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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On , the Mosaic Injunction , Exod . xxiii . 19 . Parkwood , 1826 . Le ^ es etiam , Judaics praecipue , penitus intellect ® et in media quasi lace positt e , voluptate now levi perpendunt iagenii capaces homines . Spencer , de Legibus Hebrceorum .
THE injunction , " Thou slialt not seethe a kid in his mother ' s milk /' Exod . xxiii . 19 , is thrice repeated by Moses in the plainest terms , yet no law in the Pentateuch has been more frequently misinterpreted in divers
commentaries . It imports a simple prohibition of the heathen custom , * to seethe a kid or Iamb in his mother ' s milk . " In translating this text the Septuagint invariably adopted the word » "U gadi , though in other passages of Scripture they used the
Greek equivalent of kid . Homer m the Iliad is apt to introduce lambs and iids together in the same sentence : Philo , in assigning a reason for this statute , remarks on the inhumanity of the act , to dress for food or sacrifice a lamb or kid boiled in
the milk of its dam . But since it appears conformable with the ritual of Gentile antiquity to dress in their mothers' milk both lambs and kids , in preference to other animals , for victims served up at the altar , the inference seems obvious , that this law
was primarily enacted to the end of suppressing among the Jews any latent propensity to indulge themselves in this idolatrous ceremony . The oabians are reported to have practised the superstitious mode of seething a kid in his mother ' s milk at the season
° } leathering into the storehouse the fruits of harvest , or of the vintage , their corn , wine and oil ; when in the form of a rnagic charm they were wont to sprinkle the fruit trees , fields ^ d gardens with the milk in which the kid was boiled , in order to promote at the decline of autumn the
renewal of fertility in the spring- of the following- year . This interpretation of the Pagan rite prohibited in the Mosaic institutes , was entertained by Jews of the highest celebrity for ^ curate res earch and profound eru-Uioa in the sacred volume , Maiuioawica and Abarbanel .
fi * l jj lllstriou 8 Bochart has speda and r efuted the erroneous views
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of different commentators respecting the intention of this command . It is worthy of observation that this interdiction is immediately conjoined with the heavenly mandate concerning the celebration of the feast of tabernacles Why was this singular enactment so apposite to the annual usage that
prevailed among the ancients at the close of harvest , to hold a festival in honour of the rural deities , unless it referred to a species of superstition adapted to conciliate their good-will and implore their benign influences
on their pastures , plantations , cornfields and vine and olive groves ? Horace alludes to this custom as prevalent among the people of Italy during the rustic simplicity of primitive times :
Agricolae prisci , fortes , parvoqne beati , Condita post frumenta , levanies tempore festo Corpus , et ipsutn animum . - — ¦¦ Silvanum lacte piabant . Epist . Lib . ii . Ep . i . v . 139 .
Behold the rude forefathers of the soil , Content with little , their reward of toil , The harvest o ' er 3 in scenes of festive ease , Their Sylvan deity with milk appease .
Ovid has likewise a distich ( Fast * Lib . iv . ver . 742 ) describing the festive tribute offered to Pales or Pomona , to whom , it appears , an oblation of warm milk ( tepido lacte ) was presented . A modern author attributes a similar custom to the Africans
on the coast of Guinea , who are addicted to certain relics of the superstitions that abounded in Syria , in Italy and Greece . The rite forbidden in the text must be allowed to assume a character
both unnatural and cruel , arid utterly incompatible with the dictates of maternal affection , when the fond mother is compelled to yield that milk which originally flows as the stream of life and nourishment to her tender
offspring , to be thus perverted into the means of its destruction . In regard to the effect produced by the condemnation of this ceremony , it is well known that the Jews , ancient and
modern , revolted from its atrocity with abhorrence , and abstained from violating this prohibition with the most scrupulous and religious anxiety . To this law the Codex Samaritanus has subjoined an extraordinary para-
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On the Mosaic Injunction , Exod . xxiiu 19 , 581
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v . xxi , 4 r
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1826, page 581, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2553/page/9/
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