be punished as impostors.”  In England “the last execution was at Huntingdon, in 1716;” in Scotland, at Darnock, in 1722.  The last person burned as a witch was Maria Sanger, at Wurzburg, in Bavaria, 1749 (Ibid, p. 265).  Such fruit has borne the command of God from Sinai.  It was under these circumstances that God taught that any who sacrificed to any God but himself should be “utterly destroyed” (Ex. xxii. 20).  The practical effect of this we shall presently see, in conjunction with other passages.

If we pass from these precepts, given with such special solemnity, to the other articles of the so-called Mosaic code, we shall find rules of an equally immoral character.  Lev. xxiv. 16 commands that “he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord” shall be stoned.  Lev. xxv. 44-46 directs the Hebrews to buy bondmen and bondwomen of the nations around them, “and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession,” thus sanctioning the slave-traffic.  Leviticus xxvii. 29 distinctly commands human sacrifice, forbidding the redemption of any that are “devoted of men.”  Clear as the words are, their meaning has been hotly contested, because of the stain they affix on the Mosaic code. “[Hebrew:  MOT VOMOT]” that he die.  The commentators take much trouble to soften this terrible sentence.  According to Raschi, it concerns a man condemned to death, in which case he must not be redeemed for money.  According to others, it is necessary that the person shall be devoted by public authority, and not by private vow; and the Talmud speaks of Jephthah as a fanatic for having thought that a human being could serve as a victim, as a burnt-offering; but there are too many facts which prove the existence and the execution of this barbarous law; see, besides, the paraphrase of Ben Ouziel:  [Hebrew:  KL APRShA TMVL DDYN QShVL MYTChYYB] “all anathema which shall be anathematised of the human race cannot be redeemed neither by money, by vows, nor by sacrifices, neither by prayers for mercy before God, since he is condemned to death” (Levitique, par Cahen, p. 143; ed. 1855).  Thus Jephthah devoted to the Lord “whatsoever cometh out of the doors of my house to meet me,” and, his daughter being the one who came, he “did with her according to his vow” (Judges xi. 30-40).

Kalisch, in his Commentary on the Old Testament, gives us an exhaustive essay on “Human Sacrifices among the Hebrews,” endeavouring, as far as possible, to defend his people from the charge of offering such sacrifices to Jehovah by reducing instances of it to a minimum.  He says, however:  “Yet we have at least two clear and unquestionable instances of human sacrifices offered to Jehovah.  The first is the immolation of Jephthah’s daughter.”  He then analyses the account, pointing out that it was clearly a sacrifice to Jehovah, and that Jephthah’s “intention of sacrificing his daughter was publicly known for two full months; no priest, no prophet, no elder, no magistrate interfered,