John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: November 29

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: November 29


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Principles of Human Sacrifice

2Ki_3:26-27

The victory won by the allies was followed up with vigor and with severity, until at last the king of Moab was obliged to shut himself in his strong city of Kir-Hareseth, which was soon invested by the allies. In the desperate state of his affairs, and feeling that it would be impossible for him to hold out long, the king of Moab made the bold attempt of forcing his way through the beleaguering force, at the head of a small body of seven hundred resolute men. That he chose to make the attempt upon the quarter which the king of Edom occupied, may have been either from the comparative weakness of this part, or from his having reason to suspect the Edomites were not hearty in the cause for which they fought, and would, after some decent show of resistance, allow him to pass. He was, however, disappointed; for he was repelled by the Edomites, and driven back into the city.

This seemed to king Mesha the last of his human resources, and nothing was left for him but a solemn appeal to his gods, for deliverance. The emergency was great. Not only the welfare, but the very existence of his house and nation, was at stake. He therefore conceived that the blood of bulls and goats would not suffice for the greatness of the occasion, which was such as to demand the most precious and costly offering known to Paganism—the life of a man—and that of no common man, but of him whose life was most precious to the king himself, and to the state—even the life of his own son, his eldest son, who was to have succeeded him in the throne.

This is the only positive example of human sacrifice recorded in Scripture, though there are frequent allusions to such sacrifices, as an abominable custom of idolatry, solemnly interdicted to the Israelites. There can be no question here, as to the possibly limited meaning of such phrases as “burning with fire,” and “causing to pass through the fire.” The young prince is clearly offered for “a burnt-offering” upon the wall of the city, and in the sight of the allied besiegers, who are so horror-struck, that they raise the siege and depart.

Human sacrifice was in fact very prevalent in ancient times. Various accounts of its origin have been given, but all necessarily conjectural. It seems to us, that the practice grew out of the notion, that whatever was most costly and precious must needs be most acceptable as an offering to the gods; and it being established that the life of animals was an acceptable offering, perverse ingenuity reasoned, that the life of the human creature—the noblest of creatures, and his life-blood—the most precious on earth, must be still more acceptable to heaven, still more valuable in the sight of the gods. This being the case, it further followed, that the more illustrious, the more pure or exalted, the person whose life was offered, the more proper still was the offering, and the more cogent its force in gratifying, soothing, or rendering propitious the stern powers that ruled the destinies of man. Hence the lives of the most pure, the most beautiful, the most high-born—children, virgins, and noble youths, were considered the most splendid and effectual sacrifices; although, in default of such, captives and slaves were offered, the life of the meanest human creature being of far more value than that of the noblest beast of the field. As to the precise object, it appears to us that in all, or nearly all, the cases fully known, these offerings were propitiatory at least, if not expiatory. Thus; a certain danger threatens the nation or family, or a certain calamity has been inflicted. Hence it is inferred the gods are angry, and the evil cannot be averted, or will not cease, or prosperity will not return, until they are pacified. For this end nothing must be spared; the public good requires that at all costs the angry gods must be placated, rendered propitious. The priest is supposed to possess the means of knowing what will turn their wrath away; and if he names the son or daughter of the king himself as the needful victim, it becomes his duty not only to submit to the demand, but to acquiesce in it with all the marks of cheerful obedience, lest the manifestation of natural grief should neutralize the merit of the costly and powerful offering.

That these offerings were regarded as expiatory of sins which had brought down, or which threatened the judgments of heaven, is clearly indicated by Mic_6:7—“Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” And indeed this prophet, in the context, makes it distinctly a further development of the principle of expiatory animal sacrifice. His mention of the “first-born,” perhaps glances at the very case now before us; but, indeed, when the most precious life was sought that of the first-born, as in this case, and still more of an only child, as in the case of Iphigenia, would be regarded as the most precious.

Even the wrath of man, his wicked inventions, may redound to the glory of God, and illustrate the mysteries of his grace and providence; and it has been often to us a matter of solemn thought, that in this matter, the heathen themselves, in doing this awful and forbidden thing—which God never exacted from any people, but which was abhorrent to him—did yet bear witness to the great doctrine of the Atonement, and declare the need for it. Their consciences bore witness, that the blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin—they craved some higher, some more effectual expiation, and sought it in the life of man. They could go no higher. If they could, they would have done so; for still they must have felt unsatisfied—a more precious life than any they could offer was really needed for effectual expiation: and that life the Lord himself provided when He gave his well-beloved Son to be offered up as an atonement for the sins of the world. Awfully affecting is the contemplation of the blind ways, in which the ancient heathen unknowingly expressed their consciousness of the need for some greater and higher atonement than any they had to offer.

Having alluded to the case of Iphigenia, we feel constrained to return to it, as expressed in the tragedy of Aeschylus, as it seems to embody the ancient ideas bearing on the subject. This sacrifice of the king’s only daughter was declared by the priest to be the sole means of atoning for the offence, which the angry goddess avenged by storms and adverse winds, which prevented the Argive fleet from sailing. The sacrifice was thus expiatory. The manner in which this demand was received, powerfully suggests how the hearts of men were rent by the exactions which their “dark idolatries” imposed upon them, whatever aspect of fortitude and submission they might feel it becoming to put on when the deed was consummated.

“The sons of Atreus, starting from their thrones,

Dashed to the ground their sceptres, nor withheld

The bursting tears that dew’d their warrior cheeks;

And thus exclaiming spoke the elder king:

‘O heavy, fatal doom! to disobey!

O heavy, fatal doom! my child to slay—

My child! the idol treasure of my house!

Must I, her father, all bedabbled o’er

In streaming rivers of her virgin gore,

Stand by the altar with polluted hands?

O woe! woe! woe!

Where shall I turn me?’”

But at length—

&ldquo——He bent his neck beneath the yoke

Of dire necessity, and champ’d the curb.”

And then, when all was ready, the mailed chiefs who stood around—

“Heard in silence stern

Cries that called a father’s name,

And set at naught prayers, cries, and tears,

And her sweet virgin life and blooming years.”

Then followed a solemn prayer, during which the victim sinks to the ground in a swoon; and at length, on the word being given by her father, the priests lift her up,

“And bear her to the altar dread,

Like a young fawn or mountain kid;

Then round her beauteous mouth to tie

Dumb sullen bands to stop her cry,

Lest aught of an unholy sound

Be heard to breathe those altars round,

Which on the monarch’s house might cast a deadly spell.”