Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/539

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
LEVY, A.—LEWANIKA
519


underlying the regulations for the year of Jubilee was originally extended to persons in the earlier code. For it is difficult to harmonize the laws as to the release of Hebrew slaves with the other legislation on the same subject (Exod. xxi. 2-6; Deut. xv.), while both the secondary position which they occupy in this chapter and their more elaborate and formal character point to a later origin for vv. 35-55. Hence these verses in the main must be assigned to RP. In this connexion it is noticeable that vv. 35-38, 39-40a, 43, 47, 53, 55, which show the characteristic marks of H, bear no special relation to the year of Jubilee, but merely inculcate a more humane treatment of those Israelites who are compelled by circumstances to sell themselves either to their brethren or to strangers. It is probable, therefore, that they form no part of the original legislation of the year of Jubilee, but were incorporated at a later period. The present form of vv. 24-34 is largely due to RP, who has certainly added vv. 32-34 (cities of the Levites) and probably vv. 29-31.

Chap. xxvi. The concluding exhortation. After reiterating commands to abstain from idolatry and to observe the Sabbath, vv. 1, 2, the chapter sets forth (a) the rewards of obedience, vv. 3-13, and (b) the penalties incurred by disobedience to the preceding laws, vv. 14-46. The discourse, which is spoken throughout in the name of Yahweh, is similar in character to Exod. xxiii. 20-33 and Deut. xxviii., more especially to the latter. That it forms an integral part of H is shown both by the recurrence of the same distinctive phraseology and by the emphasis laid on the same motives. At the same time it is hardly doubtful that the original discourse has been modified and expanded by later hands, especially in the concluding paragraphs. Thus vv. 34, 35, which refer back to xxv. 2 ff., interrupt the connexion and must be assigned to the priestly redactor, while vv. 40-45 display obvious signs of interpolation. With regard to the literary relation of this chapter with Ezekiel, it must be admitted that Ezekiel presents many striking parallels, and in particular makes use, in common with chap. xxvi., of several expressions which do not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament. But there are also points of difference both as regards phraseology and subject-matter, and in view of these latter it is impossible to hold that Ezekiel was either the author or compiler of this chapter.

Chap. xxvii. On the commutation of vows and tithes. The chapter as a whole must be assigned to a later stratum of P, for while vv. 2-25 (on vows) presuppose the year of Jubilee, the section on tithes, vv. 30-33, marks a later stage of development than Num. xviii. 21 ff. (P); vv. 26-29 (on firstlings and devoted things) are supplementary restrictions to vv. 2-25.

Literature.—Commentaries: Dillmann-Ryssel, Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus (1897); Driver and White, SBOT. Leviticus (English, 1898); B. Baentsch, Exod. Lev. u. Num. (HK, 1900); Bertholet, Leviticus (KHC, 1901). Criticism: The Introductions to the Old Testament by Kuenen, Holzinger, Driver, Cornill, König and the archaeological works of Benzinger and Nowack. Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs, &c. (1899); Kayser, Das vorexilische Buch der Urgeschichte Isr. (1874); Klostermann, Zeitschrift für Luth. Theologie (1877); Horst, Lev. xvii.–xxvi. und Hezekiel (1881); Wurster, ZATW (1884); Baentsch, Das Heiligkeitsgesetz (1893); L. P. Paton, “The Relation of Lev. 20 to Lev. 17-19,” Hebraica (1894); “The Original Form of Leviticus,” JBL (1897, 1898); “The Holiness Code and Ezekiel,” Pres. and Ref. Review (1896); Carpenter, Composition of the Hexateuch (1902). Articles on Leviticus by G. F. Moore, Hastings’s Dict. Bib., and G. Harford Battersby, Ency. Bib.  (J. F. St.) 


LEVY, AMY (1861–1889), English poetess and novelist, second daughter of Lewis Levy, was born at Clapham on the 10th of November 1861, and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She showed a precocious aptitude for writing verse of exceptional merit, and in 1884 she published a volume of poems, A Minor Poet and Other Verse, some of the pieces in which had already been printed at Cambridge with the title Xantippe and Other Poems. The high level of this first publication was maintained in A London Plane Tree and Other Poems, a collection of lyrics published in 1889, in which the prevailing pessimism of the writer’s temperament was conspicuous. She had already in 1888 tried her hand at prose fiction in The Romance of a Shop, which was followed by Reuben Sachs, a powerful novel. She committed suicide on the 10th of September 1889.


LEVY, AUGUSTE MICHEL (1844–), French geologist, was born in Paris on the 7th of August 1844. He became inspector-general of mines, and director of the Geological Survey of France. He was distinguished for his researches on eruptive rocks, their microscopic structure and origin; and he early employed the polarizing microscope for the determination of minerals. In his many contributions to scientific journals he described the granulite group, and dealt with pegmatites, variolites, eurites, the ophites of the Pyrenees, the extinct volcanoes of Central France, gneisses, and the origin of crystalline schists. He wrote Structures et classification des roches éruptives (1889), but his more elaborate studies were carried on with F. Fouqué. Together they wrote on the artificial production of felspar, nepheline and other minerals, and also of meteorites, and produced Minéralogie micrographique (1879) and Synthèse des minéraux et des roches (1882). Levy also collaborated with A. Lacroix in Les Minéraux des roches (1888) and Tableau des minéraux des roches (1889).


LEVY (Fr. levée, from lever, Lat. levare, to lift, raise), the raising of money by the collection of an assessment, &c., a tax or compulsory contribution; also the collection of a body of men for military or other purposes. When all the able-bodied men of a nation are enrolled for service, the French term levée en masse, levy in mass, is frequently used.


LEWALD, FANNY (1811–1889), German author, was born at Königsberg in East Prussia on the 24th of March 1811, of Jewish parentage. When seventeen years of age she embraced Christianity, and after travelling in Germany, France and Italy, settled in 1845 at Berlin. Here, in 1854, she married the author, Adolf Wilhelm Theodor Stahr (1805–1876), and removed after his death in 1876 to Dresden, where she resided, engaged in literary work, until her death on the 5th of August 1889. Fanny Lewald is less remarkable for her writings, which are mostly sober, matter-of-fact works, though displaying considerable talent and culture, than for her championship of “women’s rights,” a question which she was practically the first German woman to take up, and for her scathing satire on the sentimentalism of the Gräfin Hahn Hahn. This authoress she ruthlessly attacked in the exquisite parody (Diogena, Roman von Iduna Gräfin H . . . . H. . . . (2nd ed., 1847). Among the best known of her novels are Klementine (1842); Prinz Louis Ferdinand (1849; 2nd ed., 1859); Das Mädchen von Hela (1860); Von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht (8 vols., 1863–1865); Benvenuto (1875), and Stella (1883; English by B. Marshall, 1884). Of her writings in defence of the emancipation of women Osterbriefe für die Frauen (1863) and Für und wider die Frauen (1870) are conspicuous. Her autobiography, Meine Lebensgeschichte (6 vols., 1861–1862), is brightly written and affords interesting glimpses of the literary life of her time.

A selection of her works was published under the title Gesammelte Schriften in 12 vols. (1870–1874). Cf. K. Frenzel, Erinnerungen und Strömungen (1890).


LEWANIKA (c. 1860–), paramount chief of the Barotse and subject tribes occupying the greater part of the upper Zambezi basin, was the twenty-second of a long line of rulers, whose founder invaded the Barotse valley about the beginning of the 17th century, and according to tradition was the son of a woman named Buya Mamboa by a god. The graves of successive ruling chiefs are to this day respected and objects of pilgrimage for purposes of ancestor worship. Lewanika was born on the upper Kabompo in troublous times, where his father—Letia, a son of a former ruler—lived in exile during the interregnum of a foreign dynasty (Makololo), which remained in possession from about 1830 to 1865, when the Makololo were practically exterminated in a night by a well-organized revolt. Once more masters of their own country, the Barotse invited Sepopa, an uncle of Lewanika, to rule over them. Eleven years of brutality and licence resulted in the tyrant’s expulsion and subsequent assassination, his place being taken by Ngwana-Wina, a nephew. Within a year abuse of power brought about this chief’s downfall (1877), and he was succeeded by Lobosi, who assumed the name of Lewanika in 1885. The early years of his reign were also stained by many acts of blood, until in 1884 the torture and murder of his own brother led to open rebellion, and it was only through extreme presence of mind that the chief escaped with his life into exile. His cousin, Akufuna or Tatela, was then proclaimed chief. It was during his brief reign that François Coillard, the eminent missionary, arrived at Lialui, the capital. The following year Lewanika, having collected his partisans, deposed the usurper and re-established his power. Ruthless revenge not unmixed with treachery characterized his return to power, but gradually the strong