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 A Lawyers Studies in Biblical Law.

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reported in the Book of Chronicles that could exercise his power to appoint another Simri, a younger son, was made chief of the became rare and exceptional, so that the children of Merari by his father; and the Deuteronomic law which provided that the chronicler states that this was an exception first born should not be disinherited or rather to the general rule that the chieftainship that his share of the patrimony should not went to the eldest born. be minimized, was probably a late step in the Among the kings it seems to have been evolution of this custom. It is only when the rule to appoint the successor to the the exercise of "a right has been restricted by any custom and has become the exception Crown irrespective of any rights of primo geniture. King David gave the Crown to rather than the rule that positive legislation his son Solomon, who so far from being the steps in to put an end to it entirely, because first born was the fourth son of David's it seems to be an anomaly, although it is a perfectly legitimate survival of an older his seventh king (I Kings, i, 34-35); Rehoboam made Abijah, the son of his beloved wife, his torical period. This fact, however, is not gen successor, although he was not the first born erally known to the people who are not (II Chronicles, xi, 18-23). These cases, and aware that the exception to the common more particularly those referring to the old practice of their own time is the true law of patriarchal times, have suggested to some former times. students the thought that there existed the There could only be one first born in the so-called junior right among the ancient He patriarchal family, although in the polyga brews, according to which the rights and mous matriarchal family there may have privileges of the patriarch descended to the been as many first born sons as there were youngest son instead of the oldest. It is pos wives. In all the genealogical lists given in sible that the earlier cases may have been sur the Bible it is the first born of the father vivals of such a right and that the law in who is known as the Bekhor (Genesis xxv, Deuteronomy was one of the steps by which 13; xxxv, 23; xxxvi, 15; xlvi, 8; Exodus vi, the junior right was destroyed. The fact 14; Numbers i, 20; xxvi, 5; I Samuel, xvii, that the later examples given in the Bible 13; II Samuel iii, 2; I Chronicles iii,i-o.; are taken from the customs of the royal fam iv. 4). After the exodus, when Moses took ily may be explained by the welf-known fact! a census of the first born of the males of the that ancient customs survive among the rul children of Israel from a month old and up ing classes long after they have been dis ward, he found that there were 22,273. This carded by the common people, and the so- fact is used by John David Michaelis, a called special privileges and prerogatives of learned scholar of the last century, in his the Crown are merely survivals of customs work, Mosaisches Recht, (Volume 2, page 84), which were anciently common to all the for the purpose of proving that the Bekhor, people, and which the conservatism and self- whenever referred to in the Bible, means interest of the royal families maintained. the first born of the father and not of the Some of the later examples, however, fully mother. His argument is ingenious and indicate that there are exceptions to the gen amusing. He says in substance that the eral rule which had been established, that the record shows that 600,000 adult males left first born was entitled to succeed to the Egypt- To this must be added at least headship of the family or the tribe or the 300,000 males under the age of twenty years, nation. those constituting the male children not in The right of the first born was established cluded in the 600,000, and this would give a gradually, as the cases in which the patriarch i total number of males of 900,000. Of these