“Swearing is a sin that hath more malignancy in it against God, by how much the less is the temptation to it,” says Burroughs; and adds, “I verily believe that if God had never made the Third Commandment, there could never have been so many oaths in the world; but it springs from a mere malignancy of spirit in man against God because He has forbidden, for no profit can arise from the practice.” Yet, while “no profit” comes to the blasphemer, great ill and grief are thereby caused to others.
I. The historic interest of this incident. This act of blasphemy, and the judgment which it called forth on the sinner--
1. Brought out clearly that the name of the Lord was Israel’s most solemn trust.
2. Introduced the significant custom of avoiding the very use of the name of the Lord. Certainly this may admonish us against an undue freeness in the use of the august name either in pious speech or effusive prayer.
II. The heinous quality of the crime.
1. The crime defined. Blasphemy is calumny and insult against the holy God, uttered with the intention to defame Him. It not only expresses the hatred of Him in the speaker’s own heart, but aims at awakening in his hearer’s mind an equal loathing of Jehovah and all His claims. It is held up in Scripture as an assault upon the dignity and sanctity of God’s name (Psa_74:18; Isa_52:5; Rom_2:24).
2. The root of the sin. This must be traced to the vileness of the human heart, and its natural enmity to God (cf. Mat_15:19)
. It should be noticed also as being the outgrowth of folly and pride (see 2Ki_19:22; Psa_74:18). Of all sins, blasphemy is an indication of a mind mad with impiety.
3. Its great offensiveness to God and man. How hateful to God is evident from the penalties inflicted (see 5:16 and cf. Isa_65:7; Eze_20:27-32; Eze_35:11-12; Mat_12:31-32), how hurtful to man is manifest from Psa_44:15-16; Psa_74:10; Psa_74:18; Psa_74:22. They who revere “this glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy God” (Deu_28:58) are distressed at its profanation. Louis IX. of France branded swearers’ lips with a hot iron for this offence, and when some complained that the punishment was too severe, he replied, “I could wish that by searing my own lips I could banish all profanity from my realm.”
III. Facts explanatory of such blasphemous speech. The sin of profanity points to--
1. An ungoverned tongue.
2. Passionate contention and strife.
3. An unsanctified heart. (W. H. Jellie.)
Slaying the blasphemer
I. The evil resulting from connection with the ungodly, “whose father was an Egyptian”--said by the Rabbins to be the man whom Moses killed.
II. The danger arising from indulgence in passionate anger: “strove”; the blasphemy was uttered in a quarrelsome passion.
III. The blasphemy which, in this case, resulted from such indulgence. “Cursed” the holy name of Jehovah; which, the Israelites claimed, belonged to none but Israelites.
IV. The punishment which all like sin merits. (W. Wayland, B. A.)
Stoning the blasphemer
I. His person. He is said to be the son of an Egyptian by an Israelitish woman. His father was one of that mixed multitude which came out of Egypt with Israel (Exo_12:38), whom this woman married as many other women then married Egyptian men, to decline their rage and fury. For at that time the law prohibiting marriages with the heathen was not given them, and some charitably say he was a seeming proselyte; it is more probable that as his mother taught him to speak his father taught this his son to blaspheme.
II. The occasion. He was of a quarrelsome, boisterous, and passionate temper, which demonstrates the danger of mixed marriages. For children, like the conclusion of a syllogism, follow the worst part.
III. His heinous action. He both blasphemed and cursed. In the heat and height of contention, what will not graceless persons both say and do? If this man was drunk, it was with frenzy, which made him belch forth blasphemies and horrid execrations out of his black mouth, and blacker gipsy heart.
1. He blasphemed (“Nakab,” Hebrew signifies “perforate,” to bore through). Thus blasphemers do pierce and strike through the sacred and tremendous name of God. Such diabolical wretches would both “bore” His name and” gore “ His person if they could.
2. He cursed (“Kalal,” Hebrew signifies “leviter de aliquo loqui,”to vilify and scoff at). Thus he set at naught the God of Israel, against whom, it seems, his quarrel was (saith Jerome)more than against that Israelite he quarrelled with. Thus he (like those three unnatural sons, that tried their archery which could shoot nearest their father’s heart) shot his arrows at God and cursed himself. Cursing men are cursed men; such dogs come not into heaven by barking (1Co_6:9, &c.; Rev_22:15).
IV. The circumstances of his suffering. As--
1. He was apprehended as a grand malefactor, even against God Himself; impeaching the Divine honour by blasphemy and cursing out of a deep intestine malignity.
2. This capital offender is carried away to Moses, the chief magistrate, who soon committed him to custody, and probably confined him with chains and fetters; for it is improbable there could properly be any strong prisons in the wilderness, where they lived only in tents. Though Moses might have put him to death by virtue of that law against cursing father, &c. (Exo_21:17), but thecrime being very heinous against God Himself, as he used to do in other arduous cases, so in this he consults with God for a condign punishment.
3. God, the judge of all the earth, denounces his doom, “He shall be stoned”: a punishment answerable to his stony heart. Let those that teach their tongues to lie, swear, curse, and blaspheme by a daily custom, consider this severe sentence of God, and what danger hangeth over their heads every day.
4. The people stone him,
for--
1. It was a common quarrel to vindicate the contempt cast upon their common Benefactor, from whom they had their being and well-being.
2. That by executing this severity, they might be cautioned from committing the like abominable crime. Thus the reason is rendered, “That all Israel may fear” (Deu_13:11). And--
3. This was a means to pacify God, by putting away that evil (both person and thing) from among them; whereas His anger would have been incensed against them, had they permitted the blasphemer to pass unpunished. And whereas God had not as yet made a particular law against blasphemy; now upon this particular occasion a general law is here superadded for punishing blasphemers in all succeeding ages (Lev_24:15-16).
And God ordained also, that the witnesses who heard him blaspheme should lay their hands upon his head when he was to be stoned.
1. To confirm their testimony and the truth of it, that they did not, by slander, take away his innocency, nor, by murder, his life.
2. That his blood might be upon his own head, and that they were not guilty of his sin. If so--
3. It was a kind of imprecation, that they might suffer the same severity (so Deu_17:7; Deu_17:12; Deu_19:20, &c., shows).
4. This sacrifice of justice expiates wrath from the survivors. (C. Ness.)
“The name”
Itis striking to notice that in the Hebrew text it is only said that he blasphemed “The name”; what that was being left unwritten. On this omission the later Jews grounded their prohibition of the use of the word Jehovah, under almost any circumstances. “Those who utter the name of God according to its sound,” says the Talmud, “have no position in the world to come.” The priests might use it in the Temple services, but even they were not to let it cross their lips elsewhere. In the Hebrew Bible the vowels of the word Adonai, “Lord,” are placed below it, and in the Greek it is always suppressed, the word Kurios, “Lord,” being used in its place; a practice followed by the English version. Traces of this aversion to utter the Divine name occur early in the Old Testament, as where it is withheld from Jacob atPeniel, and from Mauoah. This dread of using the special name of the Deity characterisedantiquity from the earliest ages, through the belief that it expressed the awful mysteries of the Divine essence, and was too holy to be breathed. Thus the “name of God is in the angel,” who was to lead Israel through the wilderness (Exo_23:21), and the Temple was to be built for “the name” (2Sa_7:13), but in neither case is it given. Such reverence, just in itself, early led, however, to many superstitions. The knowledge of the secret name of any god or angel wasthought to convey, to him who knew it, the control of their supernatural powers. He who discovered the hidden name of the god Ea, of the Accadians, became invested with attributes higher than those of the gods. The name, in fact, was regarded as a personification of its owner, with which was indissolubly connected the possession of his essential characteristics. Thus the Romans used the word “numen” for a divinity, by a mere play on the word “nomen,” “a name.” Among the Egyptians there was a god whose name it was unlawful to utter; and it was forbidden to name or to speak of the supreme guardian divinity of Rome. Even to mention a god’s name in taking an oath was deemed irreverent. In thebook of Henock a secret magic power is ascribed to the Divine name, and “it upholds all things which are.” Men learned it through the craft of the evil angel, Kesbeel, who in heaven, before he was cast out, gained it by craft from Michael, its original guardian. Nor did the ancient world, alone, regard a name as thus potent. The Scandinavians firmly believed that if that of a fighting warrior were spoken out loud, his strength would immediately depart from him, for his name was his very essence. At this day, moreover, the true name of the Emperor of China is kept a profound secret, never to be uttered--perhaps to impress his subjects with his unapproachable elevation above common mortals. (C. Geikie, D. D.)
The sin of profanity
There is not a sin in all the catalogue that is so often peremptorily and suddenly punished in this world as the sin of profanity. There is not a city or a village but can give an illustration of a man struck down at the moment of inprecation. At New Brunswick, U.S., just before I went there as a student, this occurrence took place in front of the college. On the rail-track a man had uttered a horrible oath. He saw not that the rail-train was coming. The locomotive struck him and instantly dashed his life out. The peculiarity of the circumstance was that the physicians examining his body found hardly a bruise, except that his tongue was cut out! There was no mystery about it. He cursed God and died. In Scotland a club assembled every week for purposes of wickedness, and there was a competition as to which could use the most profane oath, and the man who succeeded was to be president of the club. The competition went on. A man uttered an oath which confounded all his comrades, and he was made president of the club. His tongue began to swell, and it protruded from the mouth, and he could not draw it in, and he died, and the physicians said, “This is the strangest thing we ever saw: we never saw any account in the books like unto it: we cannot understand it.” I understand it. He cursed God and died. At Catskill, N.Y., a group of men stood in a blacksmith’s shop during a violent thunderstorm. There came a crash of thunder and some of the men trembled. One man said, “Why, I don’t see what you are afraid of. I am not afraid to go out in front of the shop and defy the Almighty. I am not afraid of the lightning.” And he laid a wager on the subject, and he went out and shook his fist at the heavens, crying, “Strike, if you dare!” and instantly he fell under a bolt. What destroyed him? Any mystery about it? Oh, no; he cursed God and died. Oh, my brother, God will not allow this sin to go unpunished. There are styles of writing with manifold sheets, sothat a man writing on one leaf writes clear through ten, fifteen, or twenty sheets; and so every profanity we utter goes right down through the leaves of the bookof God’s remembrance. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
