Words could not more plainly assert that the lives of the firstborn of Israel were forfeited, that they were bought back by the substitution of another creature, which died instead, and that the transaction answered to the Passover (“thou shalt cause to pass over unto the Lord”). Presently the tribe of Levi was taken “instead of all the firstborn of the children of Israel.” But since there were two hundred and seventy-three of such firstborn children over and above the number of the Levites, it became necessary to “redeem” these; and this was actually done by a cash payment of five shekels apiece. Of this payment the same phrase is used: it is “redemption-money”—the money wherewith the odd number of them is redeemed (Num. iii. 44–51). The question at present is not whether modern taste approves of all this, or resents it: we are simply inquiring whether an ancient Jew was taught to think of the lamb as offered in his stead. And now let it be observed that this idea has sunk deep into all the literature of Palestine. The Jews are not so much the beloved of Jehovah as His redeemed—“Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed” (1 Chron. xvii. 21). In fresh troubles the prayer is, “Redeem Israel, O Lord” (Ps. xxv. 22), and the same word is often used where we have ignored the allusion and rendered it “_Deliver_ me because of mine enemies ... _deliver_ me from the oppression of men” (Ps. lxix. 18, cxix. 134). And the future troubles are to end in a deliverance of the same kind: “The _ransomed_ of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion” (Isa. xxxv. 10, li. 11); and at the last “I will _ransom_ them from the power of the grave” (Hos. xiii. 14). In all these places, the word is the same as in this narrative. It is not too much to say that if modern theology were not affected by this ancient problem, if we regarded the creed of the Hebrews simply as we look at the mythologies of other peoples, there would be no more doubt that the early Jews believed in propitiatory sacrifice than that Phœnicians did. We should simply admire the purity, the absence of cruel and degrading accessories, with which this most perilous and yet humbling and admonitory doctrine was held in Israel.