"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.

In Numbers v. 12-31 we find the command to practise the brutal and
superstitious custom of the ordeal, the endorsement of the whole ordeal
system of the Middle Ages. Deuteronomy xiii. is entirely devoted to
commands of murder, and is the indulgence given beforehand to every
persecuting priest. The prophet whom God uses to prove his people, is to
be put to death for being God's instrument; anyone who tries to turn
people aside from God is to be stoned, and the hand of the nearest and
dearest is to be "first upon him to put him to death;" any city which
becomes idolatrous is to be destroyed, the inhabitants and the cattle