Leviticus 24:17-22 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

The holy Law of God.

These enactments, occasioned by the sin of the son of Shelomith, contain certain principles on which God founded his Law, and which he would have us introduce into our dealings and regulations now. These are—

I. THE SACREDNESS OF HUMAN LIFE . "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death" ( Leviticus 24:17 ). This is significantly repeated ( Leviticus 24:21 ) We can hardly be said to have learnt this lesson yet, after eighteen centuries of Christian legislation. Here, however, is a statute which unmistakably and emphatically asserts it.

II. EQUITY . There is to be careful discrimination in awarding penalty ( Leviticus 24:18-20 ). A man must suffer according to the injury he has done. Nothing is more destructive of the main purpose of law than undistinguishing, and therefore unrighteous, retribution, whether at the national tribunal, or in the school, or in the home; nothing more salutary than the calm, regulated equity which estimates degrees of guilt, and determines the fair penalty therefrom.

III. CONSIDERATENESS . Law is obliged to regard the general good, the welfare of the community at large, the result of action and of permission in the end and upon the whole. It therefore often bears severely on individual men. But it must not be inconsiderate. Where it can right one man that has been wronged it must do so. "He that killeth a beast, he shall restore it" ( Leviticus 24:21 ).

IV. IMPARTIALITY . ( Leviticus 24:22 .)

V. INSTRUCTIVENESS . Law should not only decide individual cases, and bring down appropriate penalty on individual transgressors; it should also, by its embodiment of Divine principles, be a most effective teacher of truth, a constant instructor in righteousness. The law of the land should be daily leading the nation to true conceptions of what is upright, moral, estimable. These few statutes contain that vital principle, the supreme value of human (as compared with animal) nature. If a man killed his fellow-man, he must die; if he killed a beast, he must restore it ( Leviticus 24:17 , Leviticus 24:18 , Leviticus 24:21 ). There are too many who

How much is a man better than a sheep? He is better by the immeasurable height of his intelligent, responsible, spiritual, immortal nature. Let us estimate our own worth, and recognize the preciousness, before God, of the meanest soul that walks by our side along the path of human life. We may add that we see here—

VI. ROOM FOR FURTHER REVELATION . Righteous law, applicable to all, vindicated by just administrators, without a trace of personal resentment, says," an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." But beside this righteous law, consistent with it while high above it, is the spirit of individual, generous forgiveness. Where duty to society does not demand it, let the spirit of retaliation, so natural to unrenewed humanity, give place to the spirit of magnanimity,—the spirit of Jesus Christ, the Great Teacher ( Matthew 5:38-41 ), the Divine Exemplar ( Luke 23:34 ).—C.