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the redeemed first-born; also Deuteronomy 6: 4-9, 13-22, with its injunction to entire and unswerving fidelity, in the covenant thus memorialized.

The incalculable importance of the symbolism of the phylacteries, in the estimation of the Lord's people, has been recognized, as a fact, by both Jewish and Christian scholars, even after their primary meaning has been lost sight of-through a strange dropping out of sight of the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, so familiar in the land of Egypt and in the earlier and later homes of the Hebrews. The Rabbis even held that God himself, as the other party in this bloodcovenant, wore the phylacteries, as its token and memorial. Among other passages in support of this, they cited Isaiah 49: 16: "Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands"; and Isaiah 62: 8: "The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength." Farrar, referring to this claim of the Rabbis, says, "it may have had some mystic meaning ";" and certainly the claim corresponds singularly with the thought and with the customs of the rite of blood-covenanting. To this day many of the Syrian Arabs swear, as a final and a most sacred oath, by their own blood-as their own

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1See references to Zohar, Pt. II., Fol. 2, by Farrar, in SmithHackett's Bible Dictionary, Art. "Frontlets."

2 Smith-Hackett's Bib. Dict., Art. "Frontlets."

THE UPLIFTED ARM.

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life;1 and in making the covenant of blood-friendship they draw the blood from the upper arm, because, as they explain it, the arm is their strength. The cry of the Egyptian soul to his god, in his resting on the covenant of blood, was, Give me your arm; I am made as ye." It is not strange, therefore, that those who had the combined traditions of Egypt and of Syria should see a suggestion of the covenant of blood-friendship in the inspired assurance: "The

Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength." It is by no means improbable, indeed, that the universal custom of lifting up the arm to God in a solemn oath was a suggestion of swear

1 On this point I have the emphatic testimony of intelligent native Syrians. "As I live, saith the Lord"-or more literally, "I, living, saith the Lord." "For when God made promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself"-by his life. (Comp. Isa. 49: 18; Jer. 22: 24; Ezek. 5: 11; Heb. 6: 13.)

2 This also I am assured of, by native Syrians. One who had resided in both Syria and Upper Egypt told me, that in Syria, in the rite of blood-friendship, the blood is taken from the arm as the symbol of strength; while in portions of Africa where the legs are counted stronger than the arms, through the training of the people as runners rather than as burden-bearers, the leg supplies the blood for this rite. (See reference to Stanley and Mirambo's celebration of this rite at pages 18-20, supra.) See page 79, supra.

See e. g. Gen. 14: 22; Dan. 12: 7. "It is an interesting fact, that many of the images of the gods of the heathen have the right hand lifted up." (Robert's Orient. Ill. of Scrip., p. 20.)

ing by one's blood, by proffering it in its strength, as in the inviolable covenant of sacred friendship with God. So, again, in the "striking hands" as a form of sacred covenanting1; the clasping of hands, in blood.

The Egyptian amulet of blood-friendship was red, as representing the blood of the gods. The Egyptian word for "red," sometimes stood for "blood." The sacred directions in the Book of the Dead were written in red; hence follows our word "rubrics." The Rabbis say that, when persecution forbade the wearing of the phylacteries with safety, a red thread might be substituted for this token of the covenant with the Lord.1 It was a red thread which Joshua gave to Rahab as a token of her covenant relations with the people of the Lord. The red thread, in China, to-day, as has been already shown, binds the double cup, from which the bride and bridegroom drink their covenant draught of "wedding wine"; as if in symbolism of the covenant of blood. And it is a red thread which in India, to-day, is used to bind a sacred amulet around the arm or the neck. Among the American Indians,

1 See Prov. 6: 1; 11: 15 (margin); 22: 24-26.

2 See page 47, supra.

3 See Lepsius's exemplar of the Todtenbuch; also Birch, in Bunsen's Egypt's Place, V., 125.

See Farrar's article on "Frontlets," in Smith-Hackett's Bib. Dic. 5 Joshua 2: 18-20. 6 See pages 93 f., supra.

See Robert's Orient. Ill. of Scrip., p. 20.

SAUL'S EMBLEMS OF ROYALTY.

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scarlet, or red," is the color which stands for sacrifices, or for sacrificial blood, in all their picture painting; and the shrine, or tunkan, which continues to have its devotees, “is painted red, as a sign of active [or living] worship." The same is true of the shrines in India; 2 the color red shows that worship is still living there; red continues to stand for blood.

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The two covenant tokens of blood-friendship with God-circumcision and the phylacteries—are, by the Rabbis, closely linked in their relative importance. Not every Israelite is a Jew," they say, "except he has two witnesses-the sign of circumcision and phylacteries"; the sign given to Abraham, and the sign given to Moses.•

3

In the narration of King Saul's death, as given in 2 Samuel 1: 1-16, the young Amalekite, who reports Saul's death to David, says: "I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm [the emblems of his royalty], and have brought them hither unto my lord." The Rabbis, in their paraphrasing of this passage,1 claim that it was the phylactery, "the frontlet" (totephta) rather than a "bracelet," which was on the arm of King Saul: as if the king of the

1 Lynd's Hist. of Dakotas, p. 81.

2 Bayard Taylor's India, China, and Japan, p. 52.
3 See Home and Syn. of Mod. Jew, p. 5.

4 See Targum, in Buxtorf's Biblia Rabbinica, in loco.

covenant-people of Jehovah would not fail to be without the token of Jehovah's covenant with that people.

So firmly fixed was the idea of the appropriateness and the binding force of these tokens of the covenant, that their use, in one form or another, was continued by Christians, until the custom was denounced by representative theologians and by a Church Council. In the Catacombs of Rome, there have been found

small caskets of gold, or other metal, for containing a portion of the Gospels, generally part of the first chapter of John [with its covenant promises to all who believe on the true Paschal Lamb], which were worn on the neck," as in imitation of the Jewish phylacteries. These covenant tokens were condemned by Irenæus, Augustine, Chrysostom, and by the Council of Laodicea, as a relic of heathenism. 1

6. THE BLOOD COVENANT AT SINAI.

When rescued Israel had reached Mount Sinai, and a new era for the descendants of Abraham was entered upon, by the issue of the divinely given charter of a separate nationality, the covenant of bloodfriendship between the Lord and the seed of the Lord's friend was once more recognized and celebrated. "And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the peo1 See Jones's Credulities Past and Present, p. 188.

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