418 A SHORT VIEW OF SCRIPTURE HISTORY. Note, in our Saviour's time they wrotesentences of the law on parchment, and put them on their foreheads and their gar- ments : these were called phylacteries ; Mat. xxiii. 5. 10. Q. What are some of their special laws about houses and lands? A. That every seventh year the land should rest from plowing and sowing, and God promised to give them food enough in the sixth for the three years. And every fiftieth year, which is the year of jubilee, all houses and lands that were sold should return to their former possessions, except houses in walled towns ; Lev. xxv. 2-17, 20, 21, 30-34. Note, Every seventh year in which the fields were not to be tilled, was called a Sabbath, or a sabbatical year : and after seven sabbatical years, that is, forty nine years, was the year of jubi- lee in the fiftieth ; though some have supposed the ,jubilee to be the forty ninth year itself, that so two sabbatical years might not come together : for in the jubilee it is plain there was to be no ploughingnor sowing, nor reaping, nor vintage ; Lev. xxv. 11. 11. Q. What were some special Jewish laws about corn and husbandry ? A. They were forbid to plough with an ox and an ass together ; to sow their fields with seeds of different kinds: or to make clean riddance of their harvest 'either of the' field or of the trees, for the gleanings were to be left for the poor ; Deut. xxii. 9, 10, 11. Lev. xix. 9, 10, 19. And any travellers might eat their fill of grapes or corn in a field or a vine- yard, but might carry none away ; Deut. xxiii. 24, 25. 12. Q. What weresome of their peculiar laws about money, goods and cattle ? A. They might lend money upon usury to a stranger, but not to an Israelite. That a thief should restore double for whatsoever thing he has stolen; but if he stole cattle, and killed or sold them, he must pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep ; Exod. xxii. 22. Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. Exod. xxii. 1 -9. Bu't if he has nothing to pay, the thief shall be sold for his theft ; Verse 3. 13. Q. What special laws related to beasts and birds ? A. They were forbid to muzzle the mouth of the ox that trod out the corn, that so he might eat some while he was treading it : nor when they toók a bird's nest in the field with eggs or young ones, were theypermitted to take the dam with them ; Deut. xxv. 4. and xxii. 6, 7. 14. Q. What laws were given them about the first-born ? A. The first-born of man and beasts were devoted or given to God as well as the first-fruits of the trees and of the field ; Exod. xxii: 29, 30. Numb. xviii. 12, 13. Note, The first-born of men were redeemed by the Le- vites : the first-born of beasts were to be sacrificed, or some way put to death, if not redeemed; Exod. xii. 2, 12, 13, 15. Num. iii. 41. 15. Q. What were the ,laws about the maintenance of the
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