Leviticus 23:23-44 - Homilies By J.a. Macdonald

The hebdomad.

Seven in Scripture is a very remarkable number. In the text it is repeated in so many forms that it forces itself upon our attention.

I. HEBDOMADS ARE CONSPICUOUS IN THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE LAW .

1 . They appear in the week of days.

2 . They appear again in the week of months.

3 . They appear again in the week of years.

II. HEBDOMADS ARE CONSPICUOUS IN THE CHRONOLOGY OF PROPHECY .

1 . The days of the week are taken as prophetic.

2 . Dispensations are measured by weeks of times.

III. HEBDOMADS ARE NOT WITHOUT FOUNDATION IN NATURE .

1 . They are not very obviously marked in the heavens.

2 . Yet they have a foundation in nature.

(1) It is now well known that changes in animals are regulated by weeks. Dr. Laycock, summing up what he had advanced on this subject in a series of remarkable papers, says, "The facts I have briefly glanced at are general facts, and cannot happen day after day in so many millions of animals of every kind from larva or ovum of a minute insect up to man at definite periods, from a mere chance or coincidence; and although temperature, food, domestication, and other modifying circumstances may and do interrupt the regularity with which the various processes I have alluded to are conducted, yet upon the whole it is, I think, impossible to come to any less general conclusion than this. That in animals changes occur every three and a half, seven, fourteen, twenty-one, or twenty-eight days, or at some definite number of weeks".

From this interesting subject we learn:

1 . That prophecy is from God.

2 . That the God of nature is the God of providence.

3 . That religion should be interwoven with secular concerns.—J.A.M.