Way Into the Holiest - 24: AN ANCIENT HEBREW CUSTOM
"Sacrifice and offering you desire not, but a body you have prepared me." (HEBREWS 10.5).
In that old Hebrew world that lies now so far back in the dim twilight of the past, there were several customs, of more than transient interest, one of which claims our thought as it glistens for a moment beneath the touch of this Epistle, as a wave far out to sea, when smitten for a moment by the sunlight.
It appears that if an Israelite, through the stress of bad seasons and disappointing harvests, were to fall into deep arrears to some rich neighbouring creditor - so much so that he owed him even more than the land of his inheritance was worth - he was permitted not only to alienate his land till the year of jubilee, but to sell his own service so as to work out his debt.
It must have been a very painful thing for the peasant proprietor to say farewell to his humble home and endeared possessions, in which his forefathers had lived and thriven, and to go forth into the service of another. Very affecting must have been the farewell walk around the tiny plot, which he and his might not live to revisit.
And yet the bitterness of the separation must have been greatly mitigated and lessened by the instant freedom from anxiety which ensued. No more dark forebodings for the future, no eager questioning of how to keep the wolf from the door, no unequal struggle with the adverse seasons. All responsibility - for the payment of other creditors, for supplies of food and clothing for himself and his wife and children - from henceforth must rest on the shoulders of another.
So the appointed six years passed away, and at their close the master would call the labourer into his presence, to give him his discharge. But at that moment he might, if he chose, bind himself to that master's service forever. If he shrank from facing the storms of poverty and difficulty, if he preferred the shelter and plenty of his master's home to the struggle for existence from which he had been so happily shielded, if, above all, he loved his master, and desired not to be separated from him again, he was at liberty to say so." I love my master, I will not go out free."
Then, solemnly, and before the judges, so that the choice was deliberately ratified, his master bored his ear through with an awl to the doorpost, leaving a permanent and indelible impression of the relationship into which they had entered. "And he shall serve him forever" (Exodus 21.6).
This custom was ALLUDED TO BY THE PSALMIST (Psalm 40.6). Living amid the routine of daily, monthly, and yearly sacrifices, this saint felt deeply their inability to take away sin, and saw that the true offering to God must be of another kind. What could he do adequately to express his sense of the wonderful works and countless thoughts of God! Surely the offered sacrifice of flour or blood, the burnt-offering or sin offering could not be the highest expression of human love and devotion.
And then he bethought him of a more excellent way. He will come to God, bearing in his hand the volume of the book of his will. His heart will dote on that holy transcript of his Father's character. Yes, he will translate its precepts into prompt and loving obedience. "I delight to do your will, 0h my God. Yes, your law is within my heart." " This will please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs."
Nor is this all. Recalling the ancient usage to which we have alluded, he imagines himself repeating the vow of the Hebrew bondservant, and standing meekly and voluntarily at God's door, while his ear is bored to it forever. Henceforth he may almost cry with the Apostle, "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus." "Mine ears you have bored." "Truly I am your servant, you have loosed my bonds."
We need not wonder at the glad outburst which succeeds (verse 10). As with emphatic and repeated phrase the Psalmist avows his intention of telling the great congregation his discoveries of the love of God, we can well understand the reason of his exultation.
There is no life so free as that which has escaped all other masters in becoming the bond-slave of Jesus. There is no nature so exuberant with joy and peace unspeakable as that which has felt the stab of the awl, has been tinged with the blood of self-sacrifice for His dear sake, and has passed through the open doorway to go out nevermore. There is no rest so unutterable as that which knows no further care, since all care has been once and forever laid on Him who can alone bear the pressure of sorrow and sin, responsibility and need.
APPROPRIATED BY THE LORD JESUS. In His incarnation our blessed Lord has realised all the noblest aspirations and assertions which had ever been spoken by the lips of His most illustrious saints. The very words used by them can, therefore, be literally appropriated by Him, without exaggeration, save where they falter with the broken confessions of sin and mortal weakness.
