this calamity is reported to have really disappeared in consequence of the offering” (Ibid, p. 392).  Kalisch, in his anxiety to diminish as far as possible the evidence that human sacrifices were enjoined by the law, urges that the passage in Leviticus (xxvii. 29) merely implies that “everything so devoted shall be destroyed.  The extirpation of the men, as a rule heathen enemies in Canaan, or Hebrew idolaters, is indeed referred to a command of Jehovah, but it is not intended as a sacrifice to him” (Ibid, p. 409).  Surely this verges on quibbling, and is not even then borne out by the context.  Leviticus xxvii. deals entirely with private “singular vows,” and the “devoting” (Cherem) of “man and beast and of the field of his possession,” is not the judicial devoting to destruction of an idolatrous city or individual, but a special voluntary offering from a pious worshipper.  Besides, even if such judicial duties were “the rule,” what of the exceptions?  There are several indications of the practice of human sacrifice to Jehovah beyond the two related by Kalisch (the command to sacrifice Isaac is in itself a consecration by God of the abomination); the curious account of Aaron’s death—­whose garments are taken off and put on his son, and who thereupon dies at the top of the mount, having walked up there for that purpose, clearly indicates that he did not die a natural death (Numbers xx. 23-28).  Many think that “the fire from the Lord” which devoured Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x. 1-5) denotes the sacrifice “before the Lord” of the offending priests.  Kalisch demurs to these latter charges, and to some other additional ones, but says:  “It is, therefore, undoubted that human sacrifices were offered by the Hebrews from the earliest times up to the Babylonian period, both in honour of Jehovah and of heathen deities, not only by depraved idolaters, but sometimes even by pious servants of God; they probably ceased to be presented to Jehovah not much before they ceased to be presented at all” (Leviticus, part i., p. 396).  We cannot here omit to notice the command of God in Exodus xxii. 29, 30:  “The first-born of thy sons shalt thou give to me.  Likewise thou shalt do with thine oxen and with thy sheep,” etc.  As against this we read a command in chap. xiii. 13, “All the first-born of man among thy children thou shalt redeem.”  Here, as in many other instances, we get contradictory commands, best explained by the fact that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands.  Kalisch says:  “It is impossible to deny that the first-born sons were frequently sacrificed, not only by idolatrous Israelites, in honour of foreign gods, as Moloch and Baal, but by pious men in honour of Jehovah; but the Pentateuch, the embodiment of the more enlightened and advanced creed of the Hebrews, distinctly commanded the redemption of the first-born” (Ibid, p. 404).  Kalisch—­we may point out—­considers the Pentateuch in its present form as post Babylonian, and regards it as a reforming agent in the Jewish community.