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quently used in Scripture, as a token of the highest grief. Reuben was the first we read of, who, to denote his great sorrow for Joseph, rent his clothes (Gen. xxxvii. 29.); Jacob did the like (ver. 34.); and Ezra, to express the concern and uneasiness of his mind, and the apprehensions he entertained of the divine displeasure, on account of the people's unlawful marriages, is said to rend his garments and his mantle (Ezra ix. 3.); that is, both his inner and upper garment this was also an expression of indignation and holy zeal; the high-priest rent his clothes, pretending that our Saviour had spoken blasphemy. (Matt. xxvi. 65.) And so did the apostles, when the people intended to pay them divine honours. (Acts xiv. 14.)

The garments of mourning among the Jews were chiefly sackcloth and haircloth. The last sort was the usual clothing of the prophets, for they were continual penitents by profession: and therefore Zechariah speaks of the rough garments of the false prophets, which they also wore to deceive. (Zech. xiii. 4.) Jacob was the first we read of that put sackcloth on his loins, as a token of mourning for Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 34.), signifying thereby that since he had lost his beloved son, he considered himself as reduced to the meanest and lowest condition of life.

IX. A prodigious number of sumptuous and magnificent habits was in antient times regarded as a necessary and indispensable part of their treasures. Horace, speaking of Lucullus (who had pillaged Asia, and first introduced Asiatic refinements among the Romans), says, that, some persons having waited upon him to request the loan of a hundred suits out of his wardrobe for the Roman stage, he exclaimed-"A hundred suits! how is it possible for me to furnish such a number? However, I will look over them and send you what I have."-After some time, he writes a note, and tells them he had FIVE THOUSAND, to the whole or part of which they were welcome.1

This circumstance of amassing and ostentatiously displaying in wardrobes numerous and superb suits, as indispensable to the idea of wealth, and forming a principal part of the opulence of those times, will elucidate several passages of Scripture. The patriarch Job, speaking of riches in his time, says :-Though they heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay. (Job xxvii. 16.) Joseph gave his brethren changes of raiment, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. (Gen. xlv. 22.) In allusion to this custom our Lord when describing the short duration and perishing nature of earthly treasures, represents them as subject to the depredations of moth. Lay not up for yourselves TREASURES on earth where moth and rust do corrupt. (Matt. vi. 19.) The illustrious apostle of the Gentiles, when appealing to the integrity

1 Horat. Epist. lib. i. ep. 6. ver. 40-44.

2 Presenting garments is one of the modes of complimenting persons in the East. See several illustrative instances in Burder's Oriental Literature, vol. i. pp. 93, 94.

and fidelity with which he had discharged his sacred office, said-I have coveted no man's gold, or silver, or APPAREL. (Acts xx. 33.) The apostle James, likewise, (just in the same manner as the Greek and Roman writers, when they are particularising the opulence of those times) specifies gold, silver, and garments, as the constituents of riches.-Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your gold and silver is cankered, and your GARMENTS are moth-eaten. (James v. 2, 3.) It appears from Psal. xlv. 8. that the wardrobes of the East were plentifully perfumed with aromatics: and in Cant. iv. 11. the fragrant odour of the bride's garments is compared to the odour of Lebanon. With robes thus perfumed Rebecca furnished her son Jacob, when she sent him to obtain by stratagem his father's blessing. And he (Isaac) smelled the smell (or fragrance) of his raiment and blessed him, and said, See! the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed. (Gen. xxvii. 27.) In process of time, this exquisite fragrance was figuratively applied to the moral qualities of the mind; of which we have an example in the Song of Solomon, i. 3.

Like the fragrance of thine own sweet perfumes

Is thy name, a perfume poured forth.2"

1 Dr. Good has quoted the following passage from Moschus, in which the same idea occurs with singular exactness :

- του αμβροτος οδμη

Τελοθι και λειμωνος εκαινυτο λαρον αΰτμην.
Whose heavenly fragrance far exceeds
The fragrance of the breathing meads.

Idyl. B. 91

Dr. Good's Translation of Solomon's Song, p. 123.

2 Dr. Good's version.

CHAPTER III.

JEWISH CUSTOMS RELATING TO MARRIAGE.

I. Marriage accounted a Sacred Obligation by the Jews.-II. Polyoamy tolerated.-Condition of Concubines.-III. Nuptial Contract, and Espousals.-IV. Nuptial Ceremonies.-V. Divorces.

1. MARRIAGE was considered by the Jews as a matter of the strictest obligation. They understood literally and as a precept, these words uttered to our first parents, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. (Gen. i. 28.) The prospect they had, and their continual expectation of the coming of the Messiah, added great weight to this obligation. Every one lived in the hopes that this great blessing should attend their posterity; and therefore they thought themselves bound to further the expectance of him, by adding to the race of mankind, of whose seed he was to be born, and whose happiness he was to promote, by that temporal kingdom for which they looked upon his appearance.

Hence celibacy was esteemed a great reproach in Israel: for, besides that they thought none could live a single life without great danger of sin, they esteemed it a counteracting of the divine counsels in the promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. On this account it was that Jephthah's daughter deplored her virginity, because she thus deprived her father of the hopes which he might entertain from heirs procreated by her, by whom his name might survive in Israel, and consequently, of his expectation of having the Messiah to come of his seed, which was the general desire of all the Israelitish women. For the same reason also sterility was regarded among the Jews (as it is to this day among the modern Egyptians,) as one of the greatest misfortunes that could befal any woman, insomuch that to have a child, though the woman immediately died thereupon, was accounted a less affliction than to have none at all and to this purpose we may observe, that the midwife comforts Rachel in her labour (even though she knew her to be at the point of death) in these terms, fear not, for thou shalt bear this son also. (Gen. xxxv. 17.)

From this expectation proceeded their exactness in causing the brother of a husband, who died without issue, to marry the widow he

I The most importunate applicants to Dr. Richardson for medical advice, were those who consulted him on account of sterility, which in Egypt (he says) is still considered the greatest of all evils. "The unfortunate couple believe that they are bewitched, or under the curse of heaven, which they fancy the physician has the power to remove. It is in vain that he declares the insufficiency of the healing art to take away their reproach. The parties hang round, dunning and importuning him, for the love of God, to prescribe for them, that they may have children like other people. Give me children, or I die,' said the fretful Sarah to her husband; 'Give me children, or I curse you,' say the barren Egyptians to their physicians." Dr. Richardson's Travels along the Mediterranean, &c. vol. ii. p. 106.

left behind, and the disgrace that attended his refusing so to do: for as the eldest son of such a marriage became the adopted child of the deceased, that child and the posterity flowing from him, were, by a fiction of law, considered as the real offspring and heirs of the deceased brother. This explains the words of Isaiah, that seven women should take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach. (Isa. iv. 1.) This was the reason also why the Jews commonly married very young. A virgin was ordinarily married at the age of puberty, that is, twelve years complete, whence her husband is called the guide of her youth (Prov. ii. 17.), and the husband of her youth (Joel i. 8.); and the not giving of maidens in marriage is in Psal. lxxviii. 63. represented as one of the effects of the divine anger towards Israel. In like manner, among the Hindoos, the delaying of the marriage of daughters is to this day regarded as a great calamity and disgrace.1

II. From the first institution of marriage it is evident that God gave but one woman to one man and if it be a true, as it is a common observation, that there are every where more males than females born in the world, it follows that those men certainly act contrary to the laws both of God and nature, who have more than one wife at the same time. But though God, as supreme lawgiver, had a power to dispense with his own laws, and actually did so with the Jews for the more speedy peopling of the world, yet it is certain there is no such toleration under the Christian dispensation, and therefore their example is no rule at this day. The first who violated this primitive law of marriage was Lamech, who took unto him two wives. (Gen. iv. 19.) Afterwards we read that Abraham had concubines. (Gen. xxv. 6.) And his practice was followed by the other patriarchs, which at last grew to a most scandalous excess in Solomon's and Rehoboam's days. The word concubine in most Latin authors, and even with us at this day, signifies a woman, who, though she be not married to a man, yet lives with him as his wife: but in the sacred writings it is understood in another sense. There it means a lawful wife, but of a lower order and of an inferior rank to the mistress of the family; and therefore she had equal right to the marriage-bed with the chief wife (Gen. xxix. 14-16.); and her issue was reputed legitimate in opposition to bastards; but in all other respects these concubines were inferior to the primary wife: for they had no authority in the family, nor any share in household government. If they had been servants in the family, before they came to be concubines, they continued to be so afterwards, and in the same subjection to their mistress as before. The dignity of these primary wives gave their children the preference in the succession, so that the children of concubines did not inherit their father's fortune, except upon the failure of the children by these more honourable wives; and therefore it was, that the father commonly provided for the children by

1 Ward's History, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 327.

these concubines in his own lifetime, by giving them a portion of his cattle and goods, which the Scripture calls gifts. Thus Sarah was Abraham's primary wife, by whom he had Isaac, who was the heir of his wealth. But besides her, he had two concubines, namely, Hagar and Keturah; by these he had other children whom he distinguished from Isaac, for it is said he gave them gifts and sent them away while he yet lived. (Gen. xxv. 5, 6.)

In the first ages of the world, marriages between brothers and sisters were necessary, because of the small number of persons then in the world. After mankind were become numerous, such marriages were unlawful, and were prohibited under great penalties. However, the patriarchs long espoused their near relations, even after the world was greatly peopled, intending by this to avoid alliances with families corrupted by the worship of false gods; or to preserve in their own families the worship of the true God, and the maintenance of the true religion of which they were the depositories. For this reason Abraham married his sister or niece Sarah; and also sent his steward Eliezer, to fetch a wife for his son from among the daughters of his nephews; and Jacob espoused the daughters of his uncle.

III. No formalities appear to have been used by the Jews-at least none were enjoined to them by Moses,-in joining man and wife together. Mutual consent, followed by consummation, was deemed sufficient. The manner in which a daughter was demanded in marriage is described in the case of Shechem, who asked Dinah the daughter of Jacob in marriage (Gen. xxxiv. 6-12.); and the nature of the contract, together with the mode of solemnising the marriage, is described in Gen. xxiv. 50, 51. 57. 67. There was indeed a previous espousal or betrothing, which was a solemn promise of marriage, made by the man and woman each to the other, at such a distance of time as they agreed upon. This was sometimes done by writing, sometimes by the delivery of a piece of silver to the bride in presence of witnesses, as a pledge of their mutual engagements. We are informed by the Jewish writers, that kisses were given in token of the espousals, (to which custom there appears to be an allusion in Canticles i. 2.) after which the parties were reckoned as man and wife. After such espousals were made (which was generally when the parties were young) the woman continued with her parents several months, if not some years (at least till she was arrived at the age of twelve) before she was brought home, and her marriage consummated. That it was the practice to betroth the bride some time before the consummation of the marriage, is evident from Deut. xx. 7. Thus we find that Samson's wife remained with her pa

1 Dr. Gill's Comment. on Sol. Song, i. 2. The same ceremony was practised among the primitive Christians. (Bingham's Antiquities, book xxii. c. iii. sect. 6.) By the civil law, indeed, the kiss is made a ceremony in some respects, of impor tance to the validity of the nuptial contract. (Cod. Justin. lib. v. tit. 3. de Donation. ante nuptias, leg. 16.) Fry's Translation of the Canticles, p. 33.

2 The same practice obtains in the East Indies to this day. Ward's History of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 334.

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