commission to those who execute it (Ezekiel 10:2, 7); they associate with
the elders in their sympathy with the hundred and forty-four thousand
who sing the new song (Revelation 14:3), and with the Church in the
overthrow of her enemies (19:4).
They are supposed to represent mercy, as distinguished from justice,
mercy in its various instrumentalities, and especially as connected with the
throne of God, the “throne of grace.”
- LIZARD Only in Leviticus 11:30, as rendering of Hebrew letaah, so
called from its “hiding.” Supposed to be the Lacerta gecko or fan-foot
lizard, from the toes of which poison exudes. (See CHAMELEON.) - LO-AMMI not my people, a symbolical name given by God’s command
to Hosea’s second son in token of Jehovah’s rejection of his people (Hos.
1:9, 10), his treatment of them as a foreign people. This Hebrew word is
rendered by “not my people” in ver. 10; 2:23. - LOAN The Mosaic law required that when an Israelite needed to borrow,
what he asked was to be freely lent to him, and no interest was to be
charged, although interest might be taken of a foreigner (Exodus 22:25;
Deuteronomy 23:19, 20; Leviticus 25:35-38). At the end of seven years all
debts were remitted. Of a foreigner the loan might, however, be exacted. At
a later period of the Hebrew commonwealth, when commerce increased,
the practice of exacting usury or interest on loans, and of suretiship in the
commercial sense, grew up. Yet the exaction of it from a Hebrew was
regarded as discreditable (Psalm 15:5; Proverbs 6:1, 4; 11:15; 17:18; 20:16;
27:13; Jeremiah 15:10).
Limitations are prescribed by the law to the taking of a pledge from the
borrower. The outer garment in which a man slept at night, if taken in
pledge, was to be returned before sunset (Exodus 22:26, 27; Deuteronomy
24:12, 13). A widow’s garment (Deuteronomy 24:17) and a millstone (6)
could not be taken. A creditor could not enter the house to reclaim a
pledge, but must remain outside till the borrower brought it (10, 11). The
Hebrew debtor could not be retained in bondage longer than the seventh
year, or at farthest the year of jubilee (Exodus 21:2; Leviticus 25:39, 42),
but foreign sojourners were to be “bondmen for ever” (Leviticus 25:44-54).
- LOCK The Hebrews usually secured their doors by bars of wood or iron
(Isaiah 45:2; 1 Kings 4:3). These were the locks originally used, and were