of atonement, having been typically defiled by contact with it, was required to wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in water before coming into the camp.  Lev. 16:28.  In the case of the scape-goat, “the wilderness,” the “land not inhabited,” answered to the place without the camp where the sin-offering was burned; and the man that led him away was, in like manner, required to wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in water before reentering the camp.  Lev. 16:26.

17.  The distinctions between clean and unclean in respect to articles of food and various other particulars, had also a typical meaning.  That the regulations in regard to these matters were promotive of physical purity and health is undoubtedly true; yet we are not to consider them as simply a sanitary code.  They reached to the inner man.  Through these physical distinctions of clean and unclean God educated the people to an apprehension of the difference between moral purity and impurity.

The Levitical view of sickness and every bodily infirmity is deep and fundamental.  All is referred to sin as the primal cause.  The sufferer from leprosy and various other infirmities (Lev. chaps. 12-15) is regarded not as a sinner above other men (Luke 13:1-5), but yet as suffering in the character of a sinner.  Hence the ceremonial uncleanness of such persons, and the expiatory offerings required in the case of those who have been healed.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY.

1.  The scriptural idea of prophecy is widely removed from that of human foresight and presentiment.  It is that of a revelation made by the Holy Spirit respecting the future, always in the interest of God’s kingdom.  It is no part of the plan of prophecy to gratify vain curiosity respecting “the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power.”  Acts 1:7.  “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God”—­this is its key-note.  In its form it is carefully adapted to this great end.  Its notices of the future are interwoven with exhortations and admonitions, encouragements and warnings, promises and threatenings.  These constitute, indeed, the great bulk of the prophetical writings that have come down to us.  The subject of the interpretation of prophecy may be conveniently considered under the following heads:  prophecies relating to the near future; prophecies relating to the last days; the question of double sense; the question of literal and figurative meaning.

I. PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE NEAR FUTURE.