THE BIBLE TRUE TO ITSELF A TREATISE ON THE HISTOEICAL TEUTH j OF THE OLD TESTAMENT j By a. MOODY'^TUAET, D.D. AUTHOR OF " AN EXPOSITION OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON," ETC. LONDON JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BEENEES STEEET 1884 V ^A PEEFATOEY NOTE. The Sacred Books whose Historical truth is examined in this vohime belong to the Old Testament ; and their attestation by the New is at the same time adduced as one of the best proofs of their Historical char- acter. The foundation of all our hope is in the whole Bible being true to Itself; and the sureness of this foundation the Author has in this work set himself to prove. Eecent hasty speculations emanating from within the Christian Church may not have " overthrown," but they have shaken " the faith of some " in the supreme and absolute truth of the Divine Oracles in their Legisla- tion, in their History, in their Prophecy ; and the Author trusts that the arguments he has adduced may either singly or by their cumulative force assist in removing the doubts of the perplexed, and establishing them in their most holy faith. Had these speculations been presented only by critics who deny the great verities 4 Prefatory Note. of the Christian faith, their influence would have been neither so seductive nor so widely diffused. The present volume consists of previous contributions to this great subject with considerable and important additions in nearly every portion of the work ; whilst pains have been taken to mould together the parts more nearly related to each other, and to combine the whole into one treatise. Of a subtle physical conjecture, now abandoned, it has been recorded that '' the theory was obviously forced by the inquirer on the facts, instead of being forced by the facts on the inquirer, as a true theory should be ; and may now be regarded as exploded." The description is exactly applicable to the theories framed for overturning the truth of the Bible in its Historical form ; and the same result, if not already apparent, is sure to follow in God's own time. In all generations God will vindicate His own Word, " which liveth and abideth for ever." Edinburgh, April 1884. CONTENTS. V -^ — ^ APR 3 Jo-: J. < BOOK I. The Recoxstructton of the Bible a Failure, I. The Bible true to itself, II. The Proposed Reconstruction of the Old Testament, III. The New History of the Priests and Levites, . IV. The Reconstructed Bible an evident mistake, . r.\GK 1 1 12 24 8G BOOK II. Deuteronomy : its Altered Date a Singularly Grave Error, .... I. Deuteronomy as a Book, II. Israel's Witness to Moses and to God on the Plains of ]Moab, ..... III. The Book found in the Temple, IV. The Other Side of Jordan, V. Theory of a New Code in the heart of an Old Book, VI. Israel's Service of Song, VII. The Critics' Ban on the Canaanites a treacherous Massacre, ..... VIII. The One Altar, ..... 47 47 55 62 71 86 97 110 134 VI Contents. IX. The Predicted Prophet and Predicted King, X. The Law of the Firstlings, XI. The Testimony of Joshua, XII. The Seal of the New Testament, Page 151 158 169 183 BOOK III. The Authou of the Four Specially Mosaic Books The Same Throughout, . . . .189 I. There are no Words in these Books that could not have been used by Moses, .... 189 II. These Books narrate no Facts which Moses could not have recorded, ..... 208 III. These Books contain no Eeligious Ordinance that Moses could not have instituted, . . . 217 YK . These Books embody no Civil Law that could not have been enacted by Moses, . . . 230 V. These Books exhibit no Character or Circumstances in which Moses could not have acted, . . 237 VI. These Books insert no Explanations that might not have been written or added by Moses, . . 246 BOOK IV. Moses and the Prophets Reversed into The Prophets and Moses, . . . .251 I. The Retrograde Theory of the Religion of Israel, . 251 II. The Church in all ages accepted only through Atoning Sacrifice, ...... 258 III. The Teaching of the Prophets regarding Sacrifice, . 270 IV. The Agreement of the Prophets before and after the Exile, .......* 278 Contents. vu BOOK V. The Song of Solomon : Interltnkd with a Modern Tale by the Cuitics, Page 303 The ;New Theory most objectionable as a Tale, as a Song, and as a Moral, .... 306 BOOK VI. THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. PART I. The Second Isaiah an Historical Mistake, . 312 I. The Conjecture that an Anonymous Prophet in Babylon foretold its fall, ..... 31.") II. The scrupulous Loyalty of the known Exile Prophets to the Chaldean Kings, .... .32.") III. The unsparing Denunciations of the Chaldean Kings by the Prophets in Jeiaisalem, . . . 336 IV. The Infatuation of publishing such Threatenings in Babylon, and the Culpability of publishing them Anonymously, ..... 342 part II. The Two Halves of Isaiah a Beautiful Whole, 355 I. The Modern Fiction of Two Isaiahs, . . 355 II. Isaiah's Vision in the Temple, . . . 364 III. His Characteristic Use of ' Light ' and ' Darkness ' in a Spiritual sense, ..... 374 IV. The Messenger of Light to Israel and the world, . 301 V. Images peculiar to Isaiah, .... 405 VI. The Author of the Later Prophecies not an Exile, . 415 Vn. The Infidel Argument from their alleged spuriousness, 432 VIII. Xew Testament Seal to the Authenticity of Isaiah, . 440 viii Contents. BOOK VII. Pace Several Articles on the Historical Truth of THE Scriptures, . . . . .451 I. The Fallacy of the Argument from Silence, . .451 II. The Truth of the Books of Chronicles, . . 461 III. The Fiftjr-First Psalm written by David, . . 47 1 THE BIBLE TRUE TO ITSELF. BOOK I. THE KECONSTRUCTION OF THE BIBLE A FAILUEE. CHAPTER I. THE BIBLE TEUE TO ITSELF. ''A PYRAMID EEVERSED," it has been said, "may stand upon its point, if balanced by admirable skill." In Biblical science it is the confident claim of the modern builders that they have at length succeeded in " reversing " the old and beautiful structure to which they have boldly put forth their hands, so as to make it "stand upon its point ;" and they ask the world to look upon it as now exhibited in its true form. Their " balancing," however, has not been executed with " admirable skill ;" it has been incomparably awk- ward and ill adjusted ; and in its failure they have laid their whole fabric in ruins. The attempt to turn the venerable edifice upside down has indeed been 2 The Recoiistrttctiou a failure. [bk. i. undertaken with the resources of ample learning, and sustained by indefatigable industry ; but the result is only to bring out before the eyes of all the grand old truth that " The foundation of God standeth sure." "The Bible is still the Book of books, not to one nation only, but to all mankind ; to interpret the Bible, not by our own fancies concerning it, but by loliai it says of itself, is the reasonable service of the Christian teacher" (Dean Stanley). But the truth of ''what the Bible says of itself " is, above all things, what the Church is now called to defend, and not only as assailed in other lands, but in our own. It is not merely that prophecy, miracle, and inspiration are denied ; even where these are to some extent acknowledged, the new critics deny the historical truth of the Bible as a genuine book that may be depended upon as what it appears and claims to be. Yet if what the Bible says of itself is not true, no truth it may be supposed to contain will be accepted on its authority. That " man lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God," is allowed by Bishop Colenso to be a great truth, yet not more true or more authoritative because taught in the Bible, than if found in any other book. But Jesus of Nazareth, our supreme Teacher and only Master, in using this truth to resist the tempter, does not rest upon it because it is true in itself, but because it is " written " in the divine word of truth. By other CH. l] The Bible trice to itself. 3 critics of the same class the Bible is accepted, and even extolled, as containing many moral and religious truths ; but its account of itself, of its origin, of its authors, of its dates, and of the history of its religion, is set aside as altogether untrustworthy, and even as entirely deceptive to ordinary readers. The new criti- cism does not regard the Church's interpretation of the Bible, or what is disparagingly called the traditional interpretation, as unfaithful to the Scriptures ; but it holds the Bibles oivn account of the religion of Israel to he untrue. This is distinctly announced in a most instructive statement by Professor Kuenen, to whose views, and those of Wellhausen, the newer criticism amongst ourselves seems always to be more, nearly approach- ing. The confession by our critics of the supernatural in prophecy and in miracle is a most important dis- tinction ; whilst it is the only great distinction that can be stated, and it is very far from being clearly drawn or constantly kept. In other respects the Con- tinental critics go further than ours ; but the general view of the reconstruction of the Old Testament history is the same in both, and, as we understand, is so confessedly. On the part of our critics we have the acceptance and advocacy of their criticism. The statement by Professor Kuenen for which we ask our readers' earnest attention is the following : — 4 TJie Reco7istruction a failure. [bk. i. " The Bible is in every one's hand. The critic has no other Bible tlum the public. He does not profess to have any additional documents, inaccessible to the laity, nor does he profess to find anything in his Bible that the ordinary reader cannot see. It is true that here and there he improves the common translation ; but this is the exception, not the rule. And yet he dares to form a conception of Israel's religious development totally different from that which, as any one may see, is set forth in the Old Testament, and to sketch the primitive Christianity in lines which even the acutest reader cannot recognise in the Neio" {Modern Review, July 1880, Article by Professor Kuenen). This clear statement shows, in the first place, how mistaken those are who attach an extreme import- ance to linguistic attainments in this discussion, highly to be valued as those attainments are. It has been too hastily supposed that the question of the recon- struction of the Bible depends chiefly on the researches of the highest scholarship, and can be decided only by the greatest experts in Hebrew. But this extract shows how comparatively little really depends on this element, from the very slight stress that is laid upon it even by this leader in the great innovation. If, indeed, as he confesses, the old view is the Scriptural one, it would seem that it can only be confirmed by every advance in Hebrew scholarship. The next and more important position in the passage is that, apart from the question of the super- CH. I.] The Bible trtie to itself, 5 natural, the new criticism holds the Scriptural account of Israel's religious development to be entirely errone- ous and false ; or, as Professor Kuenen puts it in his Hibbert Lectures (p. 57), " the traditional view is rooted in the Old Testament itself." Amongst us the friends of our new critics claim for them, not certainly that they have made any discovery whatever for themselves, but that through their Continental guides they have shown to us the true interpretation of the Old Testament as regards its authors, its dates, its histories, and its objects. Yet not this, but the reverse, is what the master critics claim for their own disco- veries, and nothing can be further from their thoughts than such a commendation of their labours. It is virtually allowed by them that the Church has been entirely right in its interpretation of the Bible ; and the discovery which they claim to have made is that the Bible itself is wrong. The passage just quoted does not bear that we have mistaken the religious development of Israel as set forth in the Bible ; but that criticism has at last discovered that Israel's real religious development ivas totally different from what the Bible sets it forth to have been. This is not what many of our own critics hold, but it is the meaning of the criticism which they adopt and advocate ; not its mere tendency for the future, but its avowed meaning, and the only true meaning that can be attached to it. 6 TJie Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. This " total difference" between the critical and the Scriptural account of Israel's religious development is said to be so plain that " any one may see it." The Encyclopcedia Britannica has published an ac- count of Israel's history and religious course by Well- hausen " totally different" from the Bible's own account. According to his Bible only seven small tribes of Israel came out of Egypt; Benjamin was born in Palestine afterwards ; Israel in the desert had no definite design of occupying Palestine ; and so far is it from being true that " the law was given by Moses," the Ten Commandments were not even given through him, but were developed by the captive Jews in Babylon. " In all probability their stay at Kadesh was no in- voluntary detention ; rather was it this locality they had more immediately in view in setting out. That in the outset they contemplated the conquest of the whole of Palestine proper is not historically probable, — The sons of the concubines of Jacob — Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher — manifestly do not pertain to Israel in the same sense as do those of Leah and Rachel : probably they were late arrivals and of very mixed origin. We know, besides, that Benjamin was not born until afterwards in Palestine. If this view be correct, Israel at first consisted of seven tribes. — If the legislation of the Pentateuch cease as a whole to be regarded as an authentic source of what Mosaism was, it becomes somewhat of a precarious matter to make any exception in favour of the Decalogue. It is extremely doubtful whether the actual monotheism, which Cff. I.] The Bible true to itself. 7 is undoubtedly presupposed in the universal moral precepts of the Decalogue, could have formed the foundation of a national religion. It was first developed out of the national religion at the downfall of the nation " {Encyclo- jocedia Britannica, Art. " Israel "). The Church has received the Bible as the Word of God, and has accepted its historical narratives and its religious records as infallibly true. The new critics receive those narratives and records as the accounts of writers whose knowledge and whose truthfulness they alike distrust ; but out of whose descriptions, neverthe- less, they can gather many scattered particles of truth ; and by means of these they construct what they hold to be a true account of Israel's religious course, which is quite the reverse of the representation given to us in the Holy Scriptures. The destructive critical process is avowedly as applicable to the New Testament as to the Old ; to Christ and the apostles as to Moses and the prophets. This is the Bible of the new criticism, and, however undesignedly, this must be and is the Bible that is now pressed upon us even by some critics Avho accept it as the word of God. There cannot be a greater fallacy than the argument, so often repeated, that this innovating criticism leaves entire the substance of the Bible and changes only the dates and authors of its different parts. Our feelings of respect and of kindness toward its advocates and 8 The Reconstruction a failtn-e. [bk. i. adherents will not warrant us to shut our eyes to its dancrerous or rather its destructive character ; for this conflict touches all that we hold most precious. How- ever undesignedly on their part, we cannot but main- tain that in the chief examples of their alterations the truth of the Bible is disowned and set aside : in history, by turning many of the leading historical narratives of Holy Scripture into groundless fictions ; in prophecy, by making the predictions nearly parallel with the events or actually following them ; in laws, by trans- forming divine commands, that were severely righteous in their own time and circumstances into a treacherous and murderous trampling on all law human and divine ; in morals, by degrading the heavenly communion be- tween Christ and His Church into an imaginary tale that holds out for our high example a standard far below the morals of the more intelligent heathen ; in doctrine, by postponing atoning sacrifice for sin till after the Exile, and apparently ascribing the salvation of ancient Israel to mere divine benevolence. There is no true light for us in the Scriptures except by holding with the Church in all ages that, as the Bible is true in its several parts, it is equally true in the relation of those parts to each other : a relation clearly stated in every portion of the Book from first to last. The Scriptures of the Old Testament, which for the present occupy our attention, are full of wondrous CH. I.] The Bible true to itself. 9 variety, yet marked throughout by a most characteristic unity, obvious to every reader, and always confirmed to the diligent reader of the sacred volume, who can ofier as his own the beautiful prayer of George Herbert : *' Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine, And the configurations of their glorie ; Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, But all the constellations of the storie. " " The Bible," said Dr. John Duncan, " is not a congeries of books, but a unit, with organic and vital unity ; not a lump, but an organism inspired by the Spirit of Truth and Spirit of Life : ' lively oracles.' The Old Testament is an imperfect unit ; in the New Testament all is either explanation or augmentive development. The Old Testament together with the New Testament is an organic whole : they correspond as lock and key ; as building and scaffolding ; the egg and the chicken. To understand the whole we must understand the parts, and conversely. Jesus Christ, being the corner stone, unites the prophets to the apostles." Tliis unity of the Old Testament, obvious on its surface, and acknowledged in all ages, the critics have long aimed at overturning ; and, after indefatigable labour, they offer us what is meant for a contrary unity in its stead. Except the Bible's own self-construction, or rather its construction by its divine Author, no other can be true ; and, w^iilst any true reconstruction lo The Reconst7'uction a failure. [bk. i. is impossible, the possibility of a false one may well be doubted, and most certainly has never been executed. If such a feat of critical skill is con- ceivable as the reversing and reconstructing of the Old Testament Scriptures, so that the new structure shall possess an apparent literary unity, it has yet to be commenced. To the accomplished critics who have hitherto made the hazardous attempt, and have so con- fidently presented their new Bible for the acceptance of the Church and of the world, our respectful answer, for which we shall presently give ample proof, may be expressed in these terms : " You have endeavoured to reverse the Bible, and you claim to have reconstructed it. If you could succeed you would sink it far below other books, as it now rises infinitely above them ; but your new book has not even the appearance of a reconstruction of the old. The work is unscientific in the extreme ; for it is neither a true nor a false re-forming of the Bible, but a disjointed mass without form or coherence. After breaking up the Old Bible you set before us the model according to which you propose to repiece it together ; we allow you for the time to leave out miracle, prophecy, inspiration, and to alter or delete every troublesome passage to the utmost limit of your own conscience ; and you present your remodelled Bible for our acceptance. But where is it? Your own chief CH. I.] The Bible true to itself, 1 1 elements, the institutions which you claim as the essence and the glory of your Biblical structure, are not here ; they are quite excluded, and have no place in your remodelling, so that your work of so much time and labour is only a ruinous heap. Our objection to your new edifice is not its failure to present a true recon- struction of the Bible, which we know to be impos- sible ; but its total collapse without any reconstruction at all, even a false one. You have told us how the Bible ought to be reconstructed, and your proposal is quite intelligible, but you have not succeeded even in a resemblance of its execution. Your new Bible, your completed and crowning effort of reconstruction, is so far from a success that it lies broken in two halves : on the one hand, the ancient Law of Moses, with its severe simplicity; and, on the other, the Eitual of the Second Temple, with its exquisite and won- drously mingled songs of confession, of supplication, of adoration, of thrilling narrative, and of lofty praise — two halves which have no likeness to each other, which you make no attempt even to join together, but which, with a most unaccountable confidence, you affirm to be the same. Your Bible is an undisguised and irremediable failure ; and, with your amply recognised talents, you might yourselves have been expected to withdraw it, as having no claim to recognition in Biblical science." 1 2 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. CHAPTER II. THE PKOPOSED RECONSTRUCTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Moses, the great Lawgiver of Israel, is in the new criticism no longer a real man, as the Church, both Hebrew and Christian, has in all ages believed him to be ; but an Ideal Person made up of different men, of whom Moses, the leader of Israel out of Egypt, is the first ; and a thousand years after his death Ezra, the leader of the second company of exiles out of Babylon, is the greatest and nearly the last. Between these two the advanced critics interpolate, and after them they add various unknown men in Jerusalem or in Babylon ; all of whom together, known and unknown, make up the ideal lawgiver and historian whom they call Moses. This lawgiver and historian enacts many laws, and records many events, all gravely and earnestly written as if by Moses himself at Mount Sinai or on the fields of Moab, as if legislating for living men and for their children, and as if narrating most important and sometimes very awful events in the actual history CH. II.] Reconstruction of Old Testame^it. 1 3 of Israel, whilst the whole legislation in all its parts is expressly declared to have been given by God himself to Moses. Besides Moses, who is most unwarrantably credited with having left only a few laws in writing, with others given by him orally, and Ezra, who is quite arbitrarily accused of having written many laws in the name of Moses, there is a third great writer of whose name the critics make much use, the prophet Ezekiel. Him, indeed, they can by no means fashion into their ideal figure of Moses; but they maintain the unfounded supposition that his closing prophetic vision contains a sketch of new ceremonial laws for Israel after the captivity. Yet, if so, Ezekiel is a standing witness against their scheme of Moses having been personated by subsequent priests or prophets when they had new laws to introduce ; for he openly announces all he has to write, not in the name of Moses, but in his own name from the mouth of the Lord. If it had been the mind of God that such writings should be issued under the name of Moses, we should certainly expect him to use this high authority ; for he lived in the very heart of the imaginary sanctioned usage, not long after the whole Deuteronomy of the critics had been written as if by Moses, and not long before their supposed Babylonish exiles began to make still larger additions to the Mosaic law. Against these mere 14 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. suppositions there is the known historical fact that Ezekiel, in the very midst of them, makes no recognition of such a mode of writing, but writes in his own name and not in the name of Moses. So entirely without historical support, and out of conformity with the known facts of the period, is this purely modern idea. The new critics conceive three Codes of Laws in the Mosaic books : the First in Exodus xxi.-xxiii., which they allow to have been probably given in substance by Moses ; the Second in Deuteronomy, which they hold to have been written about the time of Josiah ; the Third, the Levitical or Priestly Code, which they find scattered through Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and hold to have been written mainly during the Exile. The reconstruction of Deuteronomy, and of the prophets in their relation to Moses, as also of Isaiah and the Book of Canticles, we shall consider afterwards, and turn our attention in the first place to the new position assigned to the Levitical Code. Its origin is thus described by Professor Kuenen : " In the national assembly which is held at Jerusalem, ' in the seventh month,' the reading of the law is the pivot on which everything turns. It was to hear it that the multitude had come together. One of its precepts, which had hitherto been unknown, is carried into exe- cution with great zeal. Ezra and his brethren weary not in reading it out and explaining it; the peo]3le CH. II.] Reconstruction of Old Testanient. 1 5 pay them unflagging attention to the very end. — I have spoken of the ' promulgation ' and * introduction ' of the Mosaic laws. Our former investigations end in that. These expressions must be understood in the widest sense possible. They were not laws which had long been in existence, and which were now proclaimed afresh, and accepted by the people, after having been forgotten for a while. The priestly ordinances were made known and imposed upon the Jewish nation noio for the first time [Italics the author's]. — Armed wdth the ordinances which had been drawn up in Babylonia, Ezra goes to Judsea, there to carry them from theory into practice" {Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 231-232). So also Wellhausen writes : " Now there came to Palestine a Babylonian scribe, having the law of his God in his hand. — Ezra did not set about introducing the new law immediately on his arrival in Judaea. — The main reason appears to have been that Ezra had not the vigorous support of the local authorities ; but this was indispensably necessary to secure recognition for a new law. At last it fell to the lot of Nehemiah to be sent as Persian governor to Judaea. After he had freed the community from external pressure, the business of in- troducing the new law-book was next proceeded with. — Substantially at least Ezra's law-book must be regarded as practically identical with our Pentateuch, although many minor amendments and very considerable addi- 1 6 The Reconstruction a failtire. [bk. i. tious may have been made at a latter date " {Encyclo- pcedia Britannica, Art. '' Israel "). In like manner, Professor Eobertson Smith states that " the Pentateuch is known as the law of Moses in the age that begins with Ezra." He says further : " By many marks, and particularly by extremely well defined peculiarities of language, a Levitical document can be separated out from the Pentateuch, containing the whole mass of priestly legislation and precedents ; " and he defends his position in this manner : " We are reduced to this alternative : — either the ritual law was written down by the priests immediately after Moses gave it them, or at least in the first year of residence in Canaan, and then completely forgotten by them ; or else it was not written till long after, when the priests who forgot the law were chastised by exile ;" and then gives, reasons which he reckons " decisive" for adopting the latter conclusion, {The Old Testament in the Jevnsh CMcrch,ip^. 309, 320, 330). How large a portion of the Mosaic Books is taken from Moses by this author and by other advanced critics, and transferred to their Priestly Code, may be seen in the following instructive extract from a note in the same work, pp. 432-433 : — Noldeke gives the following determination of the licviti- cal parts of the middle books. (An asterisk means that only part of the verse is Levitical.) CH. n.] ReconstrMctio7i of Old Testament. 1 7 "Exod. 1.1-5,7, 13, 14; ii. 23*, 24, 25 ; vi. 2-13, 16-30 ; vii. 1-13, 19,20*, 22; viii. 1-3, 11*, 12-15; ix. 8-12; xi. 9, 10 ; xii. 1-23, 28, 37a, 40-51 ; xiii. 1, 2, 20 ; xiv. 1-4, 8, 9, 10*, 15-18, 21*, 22, 23, 26, 27*, 28, 29; xv. 22, 23*, 27; xvi. ; xvii. ; xix. 2a; xxiv. 15-18a; xxv. 1 — xxxi. 17 ; xxxv. — xl. " Leviticus i. 1 — xxvi. 2 ; xxv. 19-22 ; xxvi. 46 ; xxvii. "Numbers i. 1 — viii. 22 ; ix. 1 — x. 28 ; xiii. 1-1 7a, 21, 25, 26*, 32*; xiv. 1-10, 26-38; xv. ; xvi. la, 2*, 3-11, 16-22, 23, 24*, 26*, 27*, 35 ; xvii.— xix ; xx. 1*, 2-13, 22-29; xxi. 4*, 10-11 ; xxii. 1 ; xxv. 1-19 ; xxvi. l-9a, 12-58, 59*, 60-66; xxvii.; (xxx. 2-17?); xxxii. ; xxxii. 2 (3Q, 4-6, 16-32, 33*, 40; xxxiii. 1-39, 41-51, 54; xxxiv. ; xxxv. ; xxxvi. " Some pasages in this list have undergone changes, and all the Levitical laws are not of one hand and date, though they form a well-marked class. Other recent inquirers have been chiefly occupied with this further analysis of the Levitical legislation. So far as Noldeke goes, his table is generally accepted as careful and correct in essentials." Our readers have now before them the fact that what the new critics call the Priestly ritual in Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus, embracing a very large portion of these books, is held by them not to be the w^ork of the personal Moses, but of Ezra and others who belong to their ideal Moses ; and we have to consider what this theory involves, not now in its minuter details, but on its broad surface, evident to all. Eeceiving the sacred books in their natural sense, we have from the second chapter of Exodus to the last chapter of Deuteronomy, including Leviticus and B 1 8 TJie Reconstruction a failure. [bk. t. Numbers, the space of forty years, with the history of Israel and the laws given by Moses during that period. The last chapter of Deuteronomy is evidently written by another author ; that which Moses had spoken of as what " the Lord said unto me," it speaks of as what "the Lord said unto him ;" it calls Moses for the first time " the servant of the Lord ;" and it records his death. The ascription of this chapter to Joshua, or one of his successors, has sometimes been claimed as a concession to modern criticism, but it is ancient and not modern. "It is not certain," says Calvin, " who wrote this chapter ; unless we admit the probable conjecture of the ancients, that Joshua was its author. But since Eleazar the priest might have performed this ofi&ce, it will be better to leave a matter of no very great importance undecided." These four books narrate that the Ten Command- ments were spoken directly to Israel by God himself, and written by him on the tables of stone, and that all the other laws were given by Moses from the Lord to the people, either in speech or in writing, or in both. The narrative appears to have been all written by him; under God he is the centre of all the transactions that are recorded, and there is no part of the history with which he is not immediately concerned. No other man ordains any law or ordinance whatever ; and all the events in these books are recorded as having taken CH. II.] Reco7istructioii of Old Testame7it. 19 place from the banks of the Nile to the banks of the Jordan, and all the statutes as having been enacted during these forty years. To suppose that the Ten Commandments and the subsequent statutes were inwoven into a fictitious nar- rative, and presented to us under the mask of historic truth ; and that most of these subsequent statutes under the name of Moses were written by different authors during a thousand years after his death, and were clothed by them with fictitious incidents in his life, is to divest the whole of all truth and of all divine authority, and to leave us nothing that is worth up- holding. In order to make our position definite, we restrict our present study to this clearly defined period, ex- cluding all that was written by Moses regarding previous times, and confining ourselves to what he did or said or wrote during the forty years of his special commission by God to lead Israel out of Egypt to the land of promise. The question at issue is, Are the words we now possess in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy the words of Moses himself during the period of forty years ; or are they the accumulated and interpolated words of a succession of authors from Moses downward, till after the death of Ezra, but all written in the name of Moses ? The one position is that God gave Israel by Moses a great institution under 20 The Reconstrtcction a faihire. [bk. i. which Israel was to be trained, unto which the people were to be conformed, and in obedience to which the nation was to be blessed from age to age. The other position is, that the ordinances were gradually framed according to the condition and circumstances of the nation till they grew into the full system which we have now in these books. The new critics think it unlikely, and not according to ordinary natural laws, that such a system should come out in its fulness apart from a long historical process. The fact and the necessity of divine interposition we earnestly maintain ; but if this interposition is con- ceded, the whole circumstances agree with the com- plete Mosaic system having been the work of one great legislator. The nation born in a day by its deliverance from the bonds of Egypt ; the miraculous sustenance in the wilderness ; and the long training as of children under a father's patient teaching, all accord with the recorded result, tind are all in harmony with the written history and laws. The law, both in itself and in its being all addressed to one generation, is only by divine revelation ; and the revelation is confirmed by the fact that there has not been discovered in all these writings a line that is incongruous to Moses in the wilderness. It would not invalidate the argument to allow, as many hold, that certain brief parenthetic explanations may have been added, as by Ezra ; but CH. II.] ReconstrMctioii of Old Testament. 2 1 there is no need for such an allowance, and the simple position is the best, that every line in these books from Ex. ii. 11 to Deut. xxxiii. 29 is such as may have been written by Moses himself. In some parts another may have written what Moses spoke, but all may naturally have been written or spoken by him. Of Genesis also and the beginning of Exodus we fully believe him to be the author, but in them he does not write from per- sonal acquaintance ^vith the facts. On the other hand, the position taken by recent critics is that Moses was or may have been the writer of the greatest of these laws, as well as of institutions put into writing at a later period; that in the ages between Moses and Manasseh other laws may have had their origin ; that about the time of Josiah Deuteronomy was written ; that during the captivity in Babylon a new code, filling a large part of Exodus and of Numbers, and nearly the whole of Leviticus, was written, chiefly by Ezra, and supplemented by other writers after his death. The critics who take this view hold at the same time that the Scriptural writers con- stantly depict past events with a colouring of their own time, which w^ould inevitably lead them into obvious and numerous mistakes both in time and place, in the fictitious productions of a thousand years. But it is incredible and impossible that writers in the wilder- ness, in Jerusalem, in Babylon, and in Jerusalem again, 2 2 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. should have pieced ' together a great body of laws and ordinances, each man inventing and interpolating according to his own mind ; that they should all have agreed to sink their own names and to personate Moses in the wilderness, where none of them but himself had ever been; and that none of them, prophet, priest, or scribe, after one or five, or seven or ten centuries, should have written what was incongruous to Moses, in time, or place, or language, or circumstance, or character. The unity of the acts and writings of a living man through a period of forty years confirms his identity ; the unity of an ideal man through an alleged millennium of time, as if through a single life, proves that the allegation is untrue, because such a unity is impossible. If critics begin by laying down a philosophical plan of what these books of Moses ought to be ; if they believe that their successive authors did not fetter themselves by the lines of historical truth ; if they hold themselves free to assign different dates to the chapters, verses, and words, so as to make the whole conform to their own theory ; if finally they are at liberty to strike out as interpolations, to neglect as if not written, or to alter as mistakes whatever else will not work up into their preconceived system ; they may by scholarly industry, by ingenuity, and by inflex- ible perseverance make them assume to their own ch.il] Reconstruction of Old Testament. 23 minds the form which they had resolved on as their only allowable shape. But after all this has been done, there remains the insuperable difficulty that in these books, with so many authors putting their own words into the lips of Moses, the critics have really detected nothing which Moses himself might not have written. It is a sure and a grand testimony to the true Moses that his adversaries have found in him no flaw proving him to be false. It is destructive to the ideal Moses that the alleged patchwork of a thousand years is all of one ancient piece, and bears no palpable token of the hands of its various workmen, so different in character, so remote in country, and so distant in age from each other. 24 The Reconstriutioii a failure. [bk. i. CHAPTER III. THE NEW HISTORY OF THE PEIESTS AND LEVITES. In the proposed reconstruction of the Old Testament one of its main pillars is the transference of the origin of the Levites in their distinct capacity from the time of Moses to the Babylonian Exile. This alteration implies both the falseness of the Mosaic history and the post-Exile origin of the Levitical institutions. But if the distinction between the priests and Levites in the Book of Numbers was made by Moses, the theory of a post-Exile Priestly Code falls into pieces. Ezra, who is fancifully made either to write the ritual laws of Moses, or to be responsible for them, writes for us with his own pen, and clearly states that the dis- tinction between the priests and Levites did not originate in Babylon. Before, however, considering his positive testimony on the subject, we shall briefly notice — CH. III.] New History of Priests and Levites. 25 1. The argument against the antiquity of the Levites. The negative argument of the critics is that the dis- tinction between Levites and priests made by the Levitical law in Numbers is not elsewhere recognised before the Exile. But the argument from subsequent silence regarding an institution that professes to have been clearly laid down, and fully recognised in the nation, is extremely fallacious ; and in this case it is maintained only by arbitrarily refusing the testimony to " the priests and Levites " in 1 Kings viii. 4, and by denying the historical truth of the Books of Chronicles, which will afterwards fall to be considered separately. Over-against the alleged previous silence regarding the distinction, there is to be set the complete silence of the few prophetical books after the Exile, when the distinction confessedly existed : the silence of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The evidence from this last book of the Old Testament is very remarkable. The prophet Malachi not only does not recognise the existence of the two orders, but appears even to set it aside, and to regard the whole tribe of Levi as sacri- ficing priests, at a time when, according to the critics, the distinction between priests and Levites had existed for more than ninety years, and, in their theory, had been recently laid down in the supposed code of Ezra 26 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. with the severest penalties for neglecting it. The evident explanation is that from the days of Moses the distinction had been so universally acknowledged that there could be no risk of mistake in designating the priests as Levites, which they were, although the mere Levites were not priests. Of the short Book of Malachi a large portion is specially addressed to the priests. There are repeated and severe rebukes against them, as having degenerated from the first faithfulness of the priesthood ; and there is afterwards the promise of their being purified as gold by the coming of the Messiah, and their priesthood being acceptable again to the Lord as in former days ; the promise embracing New Testament times, but ex- pressed in the terms of the Old Testament. These purified priests Malachi does not designate as priests, but as " the sons of Levi." This term Ezra employs as the distinctive appellation of the Levites when he numbers the people and the priests, and finds " none of the sons of Levi/' ch. viii. 15 ; and Moses so uses it repeatedly in the great crisis of their history. " Ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi. Hear, I pray you, ye sons of Levi ; the Lord hath brought thee (Korah) near to him, and all thy brethren the sons of Levi with thee: and seek ye the priesthood also?" — Numbers xvi. 7-10. In Malachi the sanctified priests, whom he calls simply '' the sons of Levi," are CH. III.] New Histoiy of Priests and Levites. 27 to offer acceptable sacrifices on the altar, a privilege from which mere Levites were severely excluded. " A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master : if then I be a father, where is mine honour ? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, 0 lor tests, that despise my name. — And now, 0 ye priests, this commandment is for you. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge. But ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi. — He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver ; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years " — Malachi i. 6 ; ii. 1-8; iii. 3, 4. In this last passage, except for other Scriptures, it would certainly be supposed that all the sons of Levi were sacrificing priests at a time when by universal consent the two orders were distinguished in the most marked manner. Nor can it be pleaded that by '' the sons of Levi " the prophet may not mean the priests alone, but may be predicting a time when all the Levites would again be priests ; for that would imply 28 The Reconstruction -a failure. [bk. i. his welcoming the abolition of the distinction, just at the time when quite recently (according to the critics) the whole story of Korah had been inserted in the Levi- tical law to prohibit such an abolition under pain of death. Undoubtedly by " the sons of Levi " Malachi means the priests, the sons of Aaron, the son of Levi. Therefore no omission in other books of the Levites as forming a separate order, and no designation of the priests as Levites in other books, can afford any true evidence against the existence of the distinction when those books were written ; for there is no other book in the whole Bible which seems so completely to recognise only one order among the children of Levi. 2. Ezras testimony to tlicir antiquity. The affirmative evidence of the pre-Exile distinction between the priests and the Levites is clear, and deter- mines both this special question, and with it one chief part of the whole controversy. The only affirmative proof adduced by the critics is on the other side in the last portion of Ezekiel, which is of a character that cannot be used in the form of historical evidence. This section of the book is neither law nor history ; but a prophetic vision which, interpreted literally, cannot be applied to the post-Exile history of Israel, and in its spiritual interpretation has been fulfilled in part whilst CH. III.] Neiv History of Priests and Levites. 29 awaiting a far greater accomplishment. But if it were to be taken into account in this inquiry, all that it could be proved to indicate is that Ezekiel appears to use the term " Levites " for the " Priests " exactly as Malachi uses the corresponding term " sons of Levi." The most probable meaning of his language is that " the Levites \_i.e. the priests, the Levites] that are gone away far from me shall not come near unto me, ... to do the office of a priest unto me. But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary, shall come near to me to minister unto me " (xliv. 10, 13, 15), both the erring and the faithful hav- ing been Levite priests. The supposition of the critics is that in this prophecy of Ezekiel the distinction of the two orders had its origin ; that as the fruit of his vision all the sons of Levi, who were not sons of Zadok, were shut out from the priesthood and degraded to the lower rank of Levites ; that this degradation may ac- count for the small number of Levites who were willing to leave Babylon ; that the distinction was incorporated in the law of Moses by Ezra or some other priest in Babylon, not in its true form of degradation, but under the false pretenceof honour to the Levites ; and that it was first put into practical operation on the return of the exiles to Jerusalem.^ ^ For a full proof that the closing chapters of Ezekiel could never have formed an intermediate link in the institutions of Israel before 30 The Reconst7'uction a faiktre. [bk. t. Every thoughtful reader of the Bible ought to shudder at this scheme, for it turns the Scriptural account of the Levites, in Numbers viii. 6-26, not merely into a fiction, but into a base falsehood, invented to transform their supposed disgrace in Babylon into a high honour conferred on them by Moses a thousand years before ; and it makes the history in the sixteenth chapter, of the awful destruction of Korah and his two hundred and fifty men by the direct judgment of God, to be a mere fable devised in Babylon to exalt the priesthood. But the whole of this chapter could not have been made up in Babylon, because its history of Dathan and Abiram is briefly rehearsed in Deuter- onomy, which the critics acknowledge to have been written before the Exile. Very beautifully, and with a fine incidental proof of truthfulness, Moses in his abridged rehearsal makes no mention of Korah, whose children were not destroyed, and were now listening to his address, whilst the children of Dathan and Abiram had been swallowed up by the opened earth ; just as afterwards, in the 106th Psalm, there is the same omis- sion of Korah, whose sons held a high place amongst the singers in the Temple. The new critics, being con- strained to accept the narrative of Dathan and Abiram and after the Exile, we refer our readers to an article on " The relation of Ezekiel to the Levitieal Law," by Professor Gardiner, D.D., Middletown, Conn., in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, Jan. 1 883. CH. III.] New History of Priests aiid Levites. 3 1 as older than the Exile, suppose that Ezra forged the appalling history of Korah, and inserted it sometimes in a number of verses, at other times in one verse, and again in a single word, interweaving it with the older history of Dathan and Abiram. In Scotland, a few years ago, it would have been thought impossible to believe this, and at the same time to believe in the Bible ; it would have been thought quite as irreverent as to deny its inspiration. If we turn now to Ezra himself, who is unjustly accused of this astounding forgery, we find that he plainly denies that the distinction between the priests and the Levites was made by himself or by Ezekiel, or by any one else, in Babylon. The new critics hold that the sacred writers assigned fictitious dates to their laws, and clothed them with fictitious histories ; further, that their actual histories are full of mistakes when they refer to past events out of the range of their own knowledge ; and even go so far as to say that they have little regard for historical truth. " According to him (the priestly author) the difference between priests and Levites was original, was based upon the extraction of each, and had been acknowledged by Moses from the very beginning, and emphatically maintained by Jahveh in the desert, on the occasion of Korah's re- bellion. The fact that all this is entirely unhistorical does not trouble our writer. — The historical reality 32 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. t. has but little value in liis eyes. He sacrifices it with- out hesitation to his need for a minute and tangible representation of the past " (Kuenen's Religion of Israel, vol. ii. pp. 168, 158). But no believing critic will hold that an inspired writer can wilfully falsify facts within the range of his own knowledge ; and if the advanced critics hold this in the case of Ezra, they destroy the foundation of their whole structure. If Ezra is untrustworthy in things known to himself, his whole narrative, his procedure, his discipline, and his bringing up the law from Babylon, on which their whole theory hangs, must all be set aside as unworthy of credit. Ezra in his own person states that the distinction between priests and Levites existed four hundred years before the captivity, not that it originated then, but was then in existence. In the narrative of the founding of the temple in Ezra iii. 10, there is the clear testi- mony that " they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel Quite apart from any theory of our own we accept equally all the Scriptures, but because these words are not written in the first person many of the critics will not allow them to have been written by Ezra ; and against all reason they deny the authority of the words that are against their own CH. III.] New History of Priests and Levites. 33 theories, while they magnify every word that can be turned in their favour. We therefore pass on to refer to chap. viii. 15-20, which some of them hold to be given to us in Ezra's, own words. If the vision of Ezekiel in Babylon ordained for the first time the dis- tinction of the Levites from the priests, Ezra the scribe could not but be well acquainted with that recorded ordinance ; if the first practical operation of the new law was in the first exodus from Babylon, Ezra the priest must have known exiles in Babylon, both priests and Levites, who witnessed that exodus ; and if the slowness of the Levites to go up to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and with Ezra was caused by their official degradation, the fact must have been very familiar to Ezra. In so limited a community, if so great a change was first enacted in Babylon where it lay dormant, was first brought into use after the first return of the exiles to Jerusalem, and was first brought up to Jerusalem in its formal enactment amongst the laws of Moses by Ezra himself, its origin in Babylon must have been as well known to Ezra as any event in his own life. Now in Ezra the Levites are named twenty times, and always in distinction from the priests ; in the following narrative Ezra expressly distinguishes be- tween the two orders ; and he states plainly that David and his princes appointed the Nethinim as servants to c 34 The ReconstrMction a failuix. [bk. i. the Levites. "And I viewed the people, and the priests, and found there none of the sons of Levi. Then sent I for Eliezer, for Ariel, and for Elnathan, men of understanding. And I sent them with command- ment unto Iddo the chief at the place Casiphia. — And by the good hand of our God upon us they brought us a man of understanding, of the sons of Mahli, the son of Levi, the son of Israel ; and Sherebiah, with his sons and his brethren, eighteen ; and Hashabiah, and with him Jeshaiah of the sons of Merari, his brethren, and their sons, twenty ; also of the Nethinims, whom David and the ^princes had appointed for the service of the Levites, two hundred and twenty Nethinims : all of them were expressed by name" (Ezra viii. 15-20). Apart from inspiration, Ezra might have ample histori- cal records to prove that David had appointed the Nethinim for the service of the Levites. This, however, is no part of the argument, but the indisputable fact that if the distinction between the priests and the Levites was first made in Babylon, Ezra must have known it, and could never have written of the Levites as a separate order in the days of David, and have stated that this king had appointed the Nethinim for the service of the Levites. That under the name of Levites, Ezra does not include the priests, but desig- nates those whom he had just called "sons of Levi" (ver. 15), is clear from the whole connection ; in verses CH. III.] New History of Priests and Levites, 35 29 and 30 he speaks again of " the priests and the Levites ;" and in vii. 3, 24, we read of " the priests and the Levites and the Nethinims." Ezra, who most of all represents the ideal Moses of the critics, by thus expressly affirming the existence of the Levites as distinguished from the priests in the time of David, plainly denies their degradation from the priesthood in Babylon, which is the main prop of the alleged Priestly Code. 36 The Reconstructio7i a failure. [bk. i. CHAPTER IV. THE EECONSTRUCTED BIBLE AN EVIDENT MISTAKE. The first requirement in a theory is that it shall appear to answer the leading facts in the case which it professes to meet, and if it fail in this first essential it has no claim to be considered in its details. The grand objection to the theory of an ideal Moses who combines under his own name the history and institu- tions of a thousand years, is its entire incompatibility with the truth and the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures ; but, even if it were not so, we must enter a protest against this crude conjecture being entitled to the rank of a theory, because on the face of it there is neither an adequate nor an apparent meeting of the chief facts under review. It undertakes to account for the books that profess to contain the history of Israel under Moses, and the ordinances given to him by the God of Israel ; and its confident explanation is that the greater part of these ordinances was written for Israel under the Second Temple. It maintains that CH. IV.] The ^reconstructed Bible a mistake. 37 they embody, not the institutions and the ceremonial of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, but the institu- tions and the ritual of the Temple under Ezra and his successors. Now all the world knows that the Mosaic Books have not the semblance of describing the wor- ship in the Sanctuary of the restored tribes of Israel. The institutions of Moses as brought up by Ezra from Babylon leave no place for one-half of their Temple service ; and if they were written or enlarged and filled up by him for that service, then Ezra's code would expressly exclude half the ritual as it was observed in his day. 1. The Books of Moses ordain no Vocal Praise, which the Critics extol as the more important half of the Ritual in the Second Temple. Of the divine service as conducted in the Second Temple the following glowing description is given by Professor Kuenen : " In the period of the Sopherim (scribes) Temple-song and Temple-poetry were at their prime. The Psalms which we still possess have been rightly called ' the songs of the Second Temple.' Sacri- fices were killed, and part of them burnt upon the altar just as formerly. But their symbolic signification could very easily be lost sight of. On the contrary, there was no need for any one to guess at the meaning 38 The Reconstruction a father e, [bk. i. of the Temple-songs. The service itself had thus as- sumed a more spiritual character, and had been made subservient, not merely to symbolic representation, but also to the clear expression of ethic and religious thoughts. What a pure and fervent love for the sanctuary pervades some of the Psalms ! What an ardent longing inspires the poet of Psalms xlii., xliii. : 'As a heart that crieth for the water brooks, so crieth my soul for thee, 0 God;' 'Send out thy light and thy truth, let them lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill and thy habitations.' The Temple which could draw such tones from the heart must in truth have afforded pure spiritual enjoyment to the pilgrim" {Ueligion of Israel, vol. iii. pp. 23, 24). Of the place in divine worship occupied by the songs of the Second Temple Professor Eobertson Smith speaks in even higher terms : " The emotion with which the worshipper approaches the Second Temple, as recorded in the Psalter, has little to do with sacrifice, but rests rather on the fact that the whole wondrous history of Jehovah's grace to Israel is vividly and personally realised as he stands amidst the festal crowd at the ancient seat of God's throne, and adds his voice to the swelling song of praise" {Old Testmnent in the Jeiuish Church, p. 380). To the same effect Wellhausen writes : " The channel through which it was possible to import into it (worship) CH. IV.] The reconstructed Bible a mistake. 39 the expression of all kiads of feeling which were indi- vidual in their origin, was the Temple service of song, which was elaborated at this period, and soon reached an importance much higher than that of the sacrifices and other oipera ojperanda' {Encyclopcedict Britannica, Art. " Israel"). According to the statements of these critics, sacred song had now not only a highly important place in the worship of God, but formed the chief part of the Temple service; yet there is no place provided for it in the Mosaic institutions which, in their theory, were now ordained for the first time expressly for this service of the Temple ! The framework of the Levitical ritual, as we now have it, is accepted by the critics for their ideal Moses, and held by them to be complete ; having received its crowning ordinance in the solemn service of the great Day of Atonement more than a thousand and fifty years after the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. For the perfect consummation of this ritual there was every possible facility ; there was ample time to frame it in one century after another ; there was no check of con- science in attributing new ordinances to Moses, and in surrounding them with fictitious incidents in his life ; and when the ecclesiastical and civil authorities con- curred in new laws or ceremonies they could either be added in a mass like Deuteronomy, or interpolated piece by piece as in the other Mosaic books. In the 40 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. new theory this ritual was meagre and imperfect till the time of the Second Temple ; new ordinances had been suggested and ordained by Ezekiel; these were modified and greatly extended by the priests in Babylon, most of all by Ezra ; and after him they were still further supplemented in Jerusalem till they took the final form in which we now possess them. Now there can be no conclusion more certain than that when the Levitical ritual under the name of Moses was completed, the songs of the Levites in the Temple formed no part of that ritual. If they had, they could on no account have been omitted ; they were sung by ministers in the Temple divinely appointed to the office ; at the great annual feasts they formed a leading and a most attractive part of the festival ; and at the daily sacrifices in the Temple the Levites '' stood every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise at even." If we believe the Holy Scriptures the Levitical ritual for the Tabernacle was absolutely completed by Moses himself; and this magnificent service of song was by divine command added afterwards by David in pre- paration for the Temple. All this is set aside by the new critics, according to whom Ezra comes up from Babylon with more than half of the ordinances in Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus added by himself and inserted under the name of Moses. But he adds no CH. IV.] The reconstructed Bible a mistake. 41 ordinance of song ! He inserts in the law the minutest ceremonial observances ; he thinks it needful to pre- scribe how many days the cleansed leper after entering the camp is to live outside of his own tent, although camp and tent had both been removed a thousand years before the ordinance was written ; yet in his institutions he entirely omits one-half of the daily service in God 's Temple ! If the Levitical ritual was not completed till the days of Ezra, and if he framed the greater part of it to bring it into accordance both with the present wants of Israel and with their present unwritten observances, he would have assigned a most important place to praise and song, to psaltery, cymbal, and harp. But in the whole Pentateuch, in Ezra's entire code, includ- ing all subsequent additions under the name of Moses, there is not a single clause ordaining that when Israel came to be at rest in the promised land they were to praise Jehovah with songs in His sanctuary. To defend this omission of half the ritual as if designed for the preservation of archaic unity, would turn the whole into foolishness ; and all the more when we take into account that, in the judgment of the critics to whom we have referred, the omitted half was by far the principal part of the whole ritual, that in the Second Temple " the service of song reached an importance much higher than that of the sacrifices," and that " the 42 The Reconstruction a failure, [bk. i. emotion of the worshipper had little to do with sacri- fice as he added his voice to the swelling song of praise." The argument may be put in another form : The post-Exile historians, the authors of the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles (supposed to be Ezra by some of the best authorities), have all, according to the new critics, the very serious fault of painting the past in the colours of their own times, and in particular they all transfer to the earliest days of the First Temple the songs and psalteries of the Second. These authors were of the same class, and were partly the same per- sons who are alleged to have drawn up the priestly code in the middle books of Moses. The most un-ideal painter of nature has never drawn a less adorned scene than the severely real picture in these books of the camp and ordinances in the wilderness. This priestly ritual, though accommodated to the desert, is held by the critics to have been drawn up neither for the Tabernacle nor for the First Temple, but for the Second, with its swelling praise of song and cymbal and harp. Of this glorious service these writers are so full that in their histories they cannot refrain from transferring it to the First Temple, where it is now held to have been unknown ; yeb in writing a ritual for their own Temple, where it was in daily use, they can so crucify them- selves as to crush the faintest allusion to it where its CH. IV.] The reconstructed Bible a mistake. 43 introduction was essential ! In defence of their vision- ary theory the critics persuade themselves to believe in impossible men. To establish their view it must be held that the same men, or class of men, whose charac- teristic weakness according to the critics was to paint the past in the colours of the present, excelled all other men who have ever lived in drawing a historical pic- ture of scenes a thousand years old without introducing a single trace of the most outstanding institutions of their own times ! 2. The, Mosaic Books ordain Music without Song for the Sanctuary. Whilst the ritual falsely attributed to Ezra is abso- lutely silent on the worship of God in His temple with song or with harp, it is by no means silent on the sacred music with which, and with which alone, the Lord was to be praised in His Tabernacle. The accept- able praise of the Holy One in His holy place was not left to the will of man, or to observances casu- ally arising, but was expressly and most definitely ordained. Not, however, by Moses himself, according to the critics, but either by Ezra, or by an unknown priestly scribe of the Exile, writing in the name of Moses, the sacrificial praise was ordained in these very definite terms : " And the Lord spake unto Moses, 44 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. saying, Make thee two trumpets of silver ; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps. And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets ; and they shall be to you for an ordinance for ever throughout your generations. Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings ; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God : I am the Lord your God " (Numb. X. 1-10). It is inconceivable that Ezra should have written such an ordinance in Babylon, and brought it up with him as the ritual to be followed in the Temple, for he brought up Levites and singers with him to Jerusalem, and in his day there was confessedly the full service of song in the Temple. But this severe and simple institution expressly limits the whole sacrificial service to the priests, it excludes the Levites from sounding the trumpets, and allows no voice of song or sound of harp over the sacrifices. If it be pleaded that, although this ordinance w^as by no means appointed by the personal Moses, it may have been written by some unknown priest before Ezra's time, the difficulty is not lessened ; for in the critical reconstruction Ezra adopts CH. IV.] The reconstructed Bible a mistake, 45 it as part of his own ritual, and as such ordains it with authority in Israel. According to the new critics the sounding of the two silver trumpets by the priests is the entire service of praise that is allowed by the Levitical ordinances of the Second Temple ! The fictitious priest, who is supposed to have afterwards finally completed Ezra's code by adding the great ordinance of the Day of Atonement, must have lived after the songs of the Temple, according to these critics, had been in daily use for a hundred years. Yet he could have known nothing of those songs ; he could never have listened in the Temple to the cheering words, " 0 Israel, trust thou in the Lord ; He is their help and their shield : 0 House of Aaron, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield : Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord ; He is their help and their shield " — else he would never have closed the whole ritual with no permission for any sacred music except the speechless melody of the silver trumpets. The ideal Moses of the critics therefore wants one- half of their own idea ; their idea is the ritual of the Second Temple ; and their ideal Moses severely dis- owns the magnificent half of the service which morning by morning and evening by evening filled that Temple with the lofty praises of the Lord of Hosts, whose mercy endureth for ever. The ritual of 46 The Reconstruction a failure. [bk. i. the Second Temple and the ritual of the books of Moses can by no learning or talent be moulded into one. Such a theory presents no explanation of these books ; and modern ingenuity could not have invented a more misfitting key to unlock the old laws issued at Mount Sinai. The confident discovery of the critics directly contradicts their own statement of the most prominent facts in the national institutions of Israel after the Exile. It has therefore no claim to be con- sidered as a presentable theory ; for it is simply an unparalleled mistake ; and must be held to be un- worthy of a place in historical criticism. Latterly the higher criticism has taken the posi- tion that, although Psalms were sung even in the first Temple, the Psalter was chiefly designed for the Synagogue.-^ The only apparent outlet for the critics whose theory is before us is to make a bold advance in the same direction ; to retract their just and loud laudations of the Songs of the Temple ; and to maintain that as the ordinances of the Second Temple are, by their concurring judgment, embodied in the Mosaic Books, and as these distinctly exclude all vocal praise in the Sanctuary, the Church and the world and the critics themselves have all along been mistaken in believing that the melody of Psalms was ever heard in the national worship of God in Jerusalem ! 1 Presbyterian Revieio, July 1883, on Dr. Graetz on the Psalter, p. 647. BOOK 11. DEUTERONOMY : ITS ALTERED DATE A SINGULARLY GRAVE ERROR. CHAPTEE L DEUTERONOMY AS A BOOK. " This only book," said an old writer on Deuter- onomy, " was that silver brook, out of which the Lord Christ, our champion, chose all those three smooth stones wherewith He prostrated the Goliath of Hell in that sharp encounter in the wilderness." A Biblical critic, by whom the book is denied to Moses, acknowledges that the Deuteronomic lesson, " Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord," is a divine truth, whoever uttered it; and he holds it to be of equal value whether found in the Bible or else- where. But the sharpness of the sword with which our Lord thrust back the assault of the Tempter, was not found in the mere rightness of the words, but in the answer that so " it is written;" and the teachincf 48 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. of the Scriptures on their own character is not that there is truth in the Word of God, but that " His Word is truth." In this relation the most remarkable of the three answers taken from Deuteronomy by Christ, is that against the last temptation to gain the dominion of the world by falling down and worshipping its god ; we should have expected so blasphemous a proposal to apostasy to be resented and repulsed as openly contrary to all allegiance to the Supreme, and requiring no Scriptural authority to refute it ; but Christ so guides Himself by the Word of God, and prizes it so highly, that even in so clear a case He answers, " It is written." That a book devoutly used and so greatly honoured by our Lord Himself, is now held by men of note amongst us not to be in the words of Moses, in whose name it is given, is part of the darkest cloud that has brooded over the land in our day, and urgently calls for every light which can be held out to guide the minds of many who are bewildered in its mist. The present critical theory that Deuteronomy was written by an unknown Jewish prophet for the purpose of bringing the ordinances of Israel down to the times of the later kings of Judah, is so broadly contrary to the plain character and claims of the book, that the simplest statement of the case ought to be all that is needed to disprove and to discredit it. CH. I.] Deuteronomy as a Book. 49 For example, in historic facts apart from inconse- quent and remote inferences, one great national insti- tution, and only one, was ordained between the death of Moses and the captivity, — the magnificent service of song, with cymbal, psaltery, and harp, in the worship of the sanctuary ; and to this outstanding ordinance the Deuteronomic code, from first to last, makes not the slightest allusion. AVhatever, therefore, the object of its author may have been, most certainly nothing was further from his design than to bring down the institutions of the nation from Moses to the time of the later kings. Again, and most of all, in the laws of Moses there was one great command, and only one, which at that period had for ever ceased to be in force, and obedience to which would then have been transformed into the worst of crimes, the order for the destruction of the Canaanites. This obsolete order the supposed author of Deuteronomy revives with a sevenfold severity ; he repeats it in various sections and in four different chapters of his book, and allots to it a larger space than to all the Ten Commandments. Such legislation is the exact contrary to a development of the laws of Moses so as to adjust them to later times ; whilst the treachery and cruelty it would then involve should make all men shudder at imputing it to the oracles of God. Still further, one of the most attractive portions of D 50 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. the more strictly legislative part of the book is the concluding chapter of the central section, in which forms of thanksgiving are provided for Israel in pre- senting at the sanctuary annual first-fruits, and trien- nial tithes of the land promised to their fathers, and now enjoyed as their inheritance. These prayers are replete with tenderness and beauty, possessing a special fitness in times of blessing such as those of Joshua and Solomon, while suitable, as prepared by Moses, for all ordinary conditions of the nation ; because, except for their own sins, such times would have been abiding. Israel, in presenting his offerings before the Lord, recalls his national history from the hour when the father of the twelye tribes was still Jacob, just escaped from the land of Syria, and ready to perish, with his wives and children, by the hand of Esau ; and traces it through the bondage and the bless- ing in Egypt onward to the time of the worshipper, when Israel is in possession of all the land, given by oath to his fathers, and has found the fulfilment equal to the promise of " a land flowing with milk and honey : " " I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us. ... A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous : and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and CH. I.] Deuteronomy as a Book. 5 1 afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage : and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, . . . and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. ... I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me. Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy j^^ople Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey " (chap. xxvi. 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, 15). These prayers are expressly given to be used in Israel ; but at the period when the new theory holds them to have been written for national use, no words can be conceived more utterly incongruous to the past history or the present condition of the nation. So far was Israel from now possessing the whole land of promise that ten out of the twelve tribes had been disinherited for their transgressions, partly carried away captive by the King of Assyria, and partly left as " an escaped remnant " under a foreign yoke. At such a period no prophet could for the first time have composed this form of prayer for popular use in Israel ; it w^ould have been false in the lips of Judah, and only a national insult to the remnant of Ephraim, whom King Josiah, like Hezekiah before him, was earnestly en- deavouring to bring back to the sanctuary of their fathers. Before the discovery of the Book, he had gathered freewill- offerings for repairing the Temple 5 2 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. from " Manasseh and Ephraim, and from all the rem- nant of Israel" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 9). Afterwards, in coming up to Jerusalem, to worship in the sanctuary which their gifts had aided to renew, they must have been confounded when there was read in their hearing a new code of ordinances, just sanctioned by the king, in which a prominent place was given to public thanks- giving for Israel's present possession of the whole land of their inheritance. Nothing could have been better fitted to awaken the old jealousy of Ephraim against Judah, and to drive them back to their homes in indig- nation at having these hypocritical prayers thrust into their lips ; as if by lauding their constancy and their prosperity to taunt them with their national declension and degradation. No sanction to prayers, so proud and so meaningless for such a time, could ever have been given by Josiah ; on the contrary, his most seasonable words, after hearing the book of the law, w^ere these : " Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for tliem that arc left in Israel and in Judah." Should it be arbitrarily alleged that these prayers may have been old words of Moses, which had been left untouched, still, if the design of the new author was to adapt his code to present needs, and " bring it down to date ; " and if, in working out this design, he took the liberty of omitting or retaining, supplementing or altering, the words of Moses according to his own CH. I.] Deuteronomy as a Book. 53 judgment, he could most easily have either adapted the prayers to the altered state of the nation, or avoided a direct contradiction to that state. Clearly there was nothing further from the mind of the author of Deuter- onomy than such an adaptation ; and these forms of devotion designed for national use in Israel admit of only one explanation, resting on the old and unshaken ground, that both the prayers and the book in which they are embodied are the utterances of Moses. These leading examples make it evident that those who had charge of the Book that was found in the Temple, both before and after its discovery, had scrupulously refrained from adding to, or taking from the laws of Moses ; and from altering them either by the inserted sanction of Divine ordinances that were subsequent to their original enactment, or by the mitigation of severities that were for ever past, or by the remoulding of devotional forms for national use that could no longer express the national mind. At once, by what it omits and what it ordains, the Book of Deuteronomy, if of recent date, is the reverse of such an adaptation as the critics have supposed. How men of high intellect and of the amplest learning can have persuaded themselves that this unmanageable theory explains the design of the book, is harder to account for than any difficulties in the book itself; for it wants even the doubtful merit of an acute conjecture, but is an 54 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. obvious and a complete misapprehension of the char- acter and intention of the book. After others have embraced their views to their irreparable loss, and after the faith of many in the Word of God has been shaken with little hope of recovery, they may find themselves constrained to give up their present opinions as unten- able ; for their own reason in the end will surely crave a likelier theory, with some aspect of reasonableness ; but meanwhile, we must be content to defend the truth of the Scriptures with patience and in love. CH. II.] Israel's luitness to Moses and God. 55 CHAPTEE 11. Israel's witness to moses and to god on the PLAINS of MOAB. The Book of Deuteronomy was given to Israel, not only under the form of an historical record, but in the highest and most sacred form in which such a record can be written. In the Scriptures, both Old and New, God has chosen a people, or has elected men, to whom He has said, "Ye are my witnesses;" and has used them to testify with the lips, or to record with the pen what they have seen and heard. In the history of Israel, from the Eed Sea to the Jordan, it has been His good pleasure that our faith in His wondrous works should not rest on the word of Moses alone, but on the testimony of the whole nation by whom they were wit- nessed ; of the chiefs of the tribes, of the elders, of the priests, and of all the people of Israel. For the sake of this attestation, and entering anew on the ground of it into solemn covenant with their God, they were summoned together by their leader on tlie plains of 56 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. Moab ; who went over in their hearing, not all the details, but the great leading facts of the history through which they had passed, and called them to witness before the Lord in their great national assembly the truth of these events. This he did in various terms throughout his address, both in its earlier and in its later parts (chap, i v. 11, 12, 33-36; chap. xxix. 2-8), and also very fully in what is usually regarded as its legislative portion (chap. v. 23 ; chap. vi. 21, 22 ; chap, xi. 2-7). On the ground of what they had themselves seen and heard, he takes them bound by their own express consent to have the Lord for their God, and declares that the Lord owns and claims them for His people : " Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God ; and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people" (chap. xxvi. 17, 18). The great lawgiver, while afterwards intimating that this covenant is to descend to future ages (chap. xxix. 14, 15), defines with the most careful precision the one generation of Israel with whom it is now made, expressly excluding other generations, and limiting the partakers in the covenant to those who had witnessed the great works of the Lord : — *' Ye came near, and stood under the mountain ; and the mountain burned with fire, . . . and the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire (chap. iv. 11, 12). The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of CH. il] Israel's witness to Moses and God. 5 7 the midst of the fire (chap. v. 4). And know ye this day : for I speak not tvith your children which have not known, and ivhich have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God, . . . and his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, . . . and what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses and to their chariots j . . . and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, . . . how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up. . . . But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did (chap. xi. 2-7). And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them. Ye have seen all that the I^ord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt. ... Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God ; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel ; your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water : that thou shoiddest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day " (chap. xxix. 2, 10-12). Next to the hearing of the law at the foot of Mount Sinai, this covenant on the plains of Moab is the greatest national transaction in the whole history of Israel ; it is a covenant of the Lord with the witnesses of His glory on the mount, of His miracles in Egypt, and of His wondrous works in the desert ; a covenant with a divinely disciplined people, blessed and chas- tened into loyalty to their God, to whom He could say — " Thou shalt remember aU the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, . . . and he fed thee with manna, . . . that He might make thee know 58 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. that man doth not live by bread only. . . . Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years " (chap. viii. 2, 3, 4). It is the chief witness-bearing given to us of these grand events. Once and again Moses calls on them as witnesses of all they had seen and heard ; he rehearses to them the laws (now said to have been enacted seven hundred years after they were dead), which he takes them bound to obey ; on the combined grounds of the works of the Lord they had already witnessed, and of these statutes they now consented to observe, he declares that they avouched the Lord to be their God (chap. xxvL 16, 17) ; he records their testimony and their covenant in the Book of the Law of the Lord, and in their presence delivers the book to the priests to be laid up in the side of the ark (chap. xxxi. 9, 26). This is the most important historical record by eye-witnesses in the Old Testament; and if it is not believed as historically true, nothing else in the Bible can be received as true history, except on the authority of heathen historians. The Bible has given to this transaction the highest and most solemn attestation, divine and human, of which history is capable ; and if so fully attested a record is not historically true, no plea can be made good for the truth of the rest. The historical truth of the entire events recorded in Exodus and the other books must in that case be given up ; for the highest attestation CH. II.] IsraePs witness to Moses and God, 59 given in the Bible to their truth is abandoned, when the Scriptural account of that attestation is held to be fictitious. The most likely reason that could be assigned for the elaborate production of such a fictitious testimony, would be the writer's knowledge that the history of Israel was not authentic, and his desire to confirm it by the highest apparent authority ; and any author who could invent the story of the divinely and nationally attested record, would have still less scruple in inventing the historical events themselves. We are met, however, by the following answer from one of our most distinguished professors : — " There is not one historical fact of any importance in the history of redemption which the most advanced position of recent critics interferes with. The Egyptian bondage, the Exodus, the Sinaitic covenant, and the occupation of Canaan all remain ; nobody doubts them. . . . Deutero- nomy is, on any hypothesis, a repetition. It tells a second time the story told before elsewhere. What is lost, if it be not of the age of Moses, is not the truth of the story, but the contemporaneousness of the witness. — And in regard to what is most peculiar and important, the view taken by Israel of the reHgious meaning of the events of its history, the supernatural light in which it regarded them, this view is not dependent on contemporaneousness or the reverse." ^ But if Deuteronomy be not of the age of Moses, ^ Old Testament Exegesis in 1878. By Professor Davidson, Edinburgh, D.D., LL.D., p. 23. 6o Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. what we lose is not the mere contemporaneousness of the witness, but the truth of the entire stor}^, because the narrative professes to have been spoken in the presence of myriads of witneses contemporaneous with the events ; and if there was no truth in their witness- ing, we have no ground for trusting the truth of the events. If all that was done and spoken and written on the eastern bank of the Jordan is now discovered to be a mere dramatic representation, composed after many centuries, of events partly real, like the covenant at Sinai, and partly fictitious, like the covenant on the plains of Moab ; and if the trusted eye-witnesses wer€ only actors in a drama, the entire history of Moses and of Israel is for ever discredited, because it has no better evidence on which to rest. The statement that the chief facts in the history of Israel's redemption are ac- cepted by all the critics does not meet the case, for most of the critics who deny the Mosaic origin of Deutero- nomy deny even more positively the miraculous events to which Moses cites Israel as witnesses. It is not the mere history of an exodus and a covenant at Sinai, and a journey through the wilderness to the Jordan, that Moses calls on Israel to testify; but the grand miraculous events, the mighty acts of the Lord in that history, which most of these critics utterly deny ; and it is a most inadequate account of those miraculous works to say that " Israel regarded them in a super- CH. II.] IsraeVs witness to Moses and God. 6 1 natural light/' when many of them, like the earth swallowing up Dathan and Abiram, not only had " a religious meaning," but had no existence except as supernatural events occurring before their eyes. It may be added that the character of the testimony is not altered by the fact that in the wilderness " all the people that were men of war which came out of Egypt Avere consumed." Along with the two leading witnesses, Joshua and Caleb, thousands of grown men under twenty years, with youths of every age growing early into maturity in Egypt, had passed through the Bed Sea, had heard the Law at Mount Sinai, and now stood before Moses by the Jordan ; whilst all of every age, from the now aged matron who had brought their children out of Egypt to " the little ones " gathered in the great assembly, had seen more or less of the wonders of the Lord in the desert. The Book of Deuteronomy records Israel's national witnessing to the greatest events in the Old Testament history of redemption ; and on the historical truth of this record the truth of the whole Scriptural history evidently rests, for there is no other series of events in Scripture that is attested by so great a cloud of wit- nesses, and the truth of the attestation is sealed by as many witnesses as the truth of the events. 62 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. CHAPTEE III. THE BOOK FOUND IN THE TEMPLE. The Law of Moses the hook that luas found. — Accord- ing to the inspired record, the book that was found in the Temple in the reign of Josiah was either the whole Pentateuch, as seems probable, or one part of the law of Moses — " Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses," or, as in the margin, "by the hand of Moses" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14). Dr. Kennicott, in his Dissertations, takes this to mean " in the hand of Moses," and maintains that it was the lawgiver's original autograph. But, however this may be, the testimony in Chronicles is quite express that the book that was found was the Law of Moses. In the Book of Kings it is called simply " the book of the law" (2 Kings xxii. 8); but that the inspired writer means " the book of the law of Moses," he has not left open to doubt. In 2 Kings xxiii. 24, 25, he writes : " Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all CH. III.] The Book found in the Temple, 6 the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. And like unto him was there no king- before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses." Josiah performed the words of the law that were written " in the book found in the house of the Lord," and he turned to the Lord with all his might, " according to all the law of Moses ;" and it therefore must be the same book, for the critics them- selves never suppose that his reformation was regulated by another book besides the one that Hilkiah found. And again, the same inspired writer says how Amaziah, two hundred years before the finding of the book, ob- served the law of Moses by sparing the children of his father's murderers; and he expressly cites the enactment as given only in Deuteronomy : " But the children of the murderers he slew not : according unto that which is written in the hooh of the laio of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers ; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin" (2 Kings xiv. 6 ; Deut. xxiv. 16). One of the sacred historians thus expressly states that 64 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. it. the book that was found was the law of Moses, which ought of itself to be sufficient for all who duly rever- ence the Word of God ; and the other both identifies it with the law of Moses and quotes at length a statute from Deuteronomy as written in the law of Moses, and expressly recognised as such two hundred years before ; so that both agree in holding the book found in the Temple to have been the law given by Moses. Beyond the entirely accordant narratives of the two inspired authors, we know nothing of a book having been found in the Temple at all ; and there can be no doubt that if the incident had seemed to be against their views, the critics, after their wonted manner, would have discredited the entire story as not probable, and there- fore not historical, but added traditionally by later writers. They employ it, however, as the one great support of their theory ; yet, most irrationally, they believe and magnify the narrative, so far as they can interpret it in their own favour ; but otherwise they absolutely reject it, because it simply destroys their whole theory. The Bible states that a book of the law, or the book of the law, by the hand of Moses, was found in the Temple, which they deny, because Deuteronomy would then be the law of Moses. But they afiQrm, on the sole authority of the Bible, that a book was found in the Temple ; that is, they believe this fact without any ground for their belief except the very authority CH. III.] The Book found in the Temple. 65 which they disbelieve. If they had some authority outside the Bible for what they receive and for what they reject, they might have a plea of reason, although none of faith ; but there is no reason in believing the Scripture when it writes that a book was found, and in disbelieving it when it writes that it was the law of Moses that was found. So irrational in this, as in many instances, is the criticism that claims for itself the exclusive character of sound reasoning. Alleged coincidence hehoeen JosiaKs reformation and Deuteronomy. — The coincidence between the Book of Deuteronomy and Josiah's reformation, on which so much is founded by the critics, takes an extremely attenuated form when set down in its details, as we have them in the following note to The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 425 : — " The relation of his (Josiah's) reformation to Deutero- nomy may be shown thus — 2 Kings xxiii. 5^ „ 7, Q „ 10, „ 11, M 21, . 24, Compare further Wellhausen, Composition des Hexateuch." Dent. xii. 2. J, xxiii. 17, 18. fi xviii. 8. » xviii. 10. V xvii. 3. V xvi. 21, 22. >J xvi. 5. J> xviii. 11. This imposing array of coincidences suddenly disap- 66 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. pears when it is remembered that the comparison avails only when the ordinance used is peculiar both to Deuteronomy and to Josiah ; and that it proves nothing if either some other code ordained it before Deuteronomy, or some other king observed it before Josiah. Now it so happens that of all these cited cases there is not one, according to the true reading of Scripture, that is distinctive both of Deuteronomy and of Josiah, and only one according to the reversed read- ing of the critics. There are in all seven coincidences between the code and its observance, for there is no coincidence between 2 Kings xxiii. 9 and Deut. xviii. 8. Of these seven coincidences the only one that can falsely be claimed as distinctive is the prohibition in Deuteronomy to make the children pass through the fire to Molech, and Josiah's extinction of Molech's fires in Tophet ; but this is not really distinctive, for the prohibition had already been issued in Lev. xviii. 21, although the critics, without the shadow of warrant, make the Levitical code subsequent to Deuteronomy. Of the six remaining instances, Josiah's putting down of the priests of Baal and of the sun and moon implies no peculiar correspondence with Deuteronomy, for the commands in Exodus xx. 4, xxiii. 24, xxxiv. 13 are as explicit. Next, Josiah must have possessed Deuter- onomy, because "he put away the workers with familiar spirits and the wizards," and Saul also possessed CH. III.] The Book fomid in the Temple. 6"] it, hundreds of years before, for he too "put away those that had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land ;" and if Josiah's " breaking down the houses of the sodomites " is another proof that he had read Deuteronomy, then Asa also must have read it at a much earlier period, for he likewise " took away the sodomites out of the land." Further, Josiah " kept the passover " at Jerusalem after the Deuteronomic code, so did Hezekiah " keep the passover" there in obedience to the same command ; Josiah " defiled the high places," and Hezekiah " removed the high places," and the proof of reading Deuteronomy is the same for both ; and lastly, Josiah " broke in pieces the images and cut down the groves," and Hezekiah " broke the images and cut down the groves," doing the same acts by the same authority, for both are equally stated to have been guided in their reformation by the law of Moses (2 Kings xviii. 6, xxiii. 25 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14). The critics thus adduce certain acts done by a certain king which accord with the laws of a certain code, in proof that he was in possession of that code ; and nobody disputes their position. The same critics, on their own unsupported authority, confidently deny that the very same acts done by other kings afford any proof that they likewise had read those laws ; and on this combined assertion and denial of the same things they think to overthrow the historical Bible ! 68 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. The fraud imputed hy the Critics. — Of the theory that finds a new code of laws in the book found in the Temple, the only plausible form is the original one which ascribes it to a pious fraud. That the old book of the law should have been found in the recesses of the Temple was natural enough. But that a new code of laws should have been discovered there is a story that can bear telling only on the supposition that it was concealed so as to be found through those by whom it had been hidden, on purpose that it might be taken for an old book of Moses, as it evidently was by the king and all the nation who regarded it with the highest possible reverence. But such a fraud would exclude it from a place in the Holy Scriptures ; and is rejected by those amongst ourselves who deny the Mosaic origin of the book in favour of another theory, which must be regarded as both more unlikely in history, and worse in morals. To remove the insuperable difficulty of fraud, it has been held that the recent origin of the book was openly stated, and publicly recognised ; but that a Mosaic authority was claimed for its repetition of the history of Israel, and its supplementary code of laws. In that case the national assembly, to whom the book was read, concurred in an unparalleled deception on all ages to come by sanctioning its insertion in the holiest records of the nation under the revered name of Moses. That en. III.] The Book fotmd m the Temple. 69 assembly, convened by the king, consisted of " all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem, . . . the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great ; " and they" made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testi- monies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book " (2 Kings xxiii. 3). The book and the covenant to which they stood before the Lord bore this title, " These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel, on this side Jordan, in the land of Moab ; " as such Josiah and his people accepted it for themselves ; as such they transmitted it to their children ; and as such it has been received by their descendants to this day. But by the new theory the whole nation, en- gaging in these solemn transactions before the Lord, handed down to all generations of mankind a book of their own days as the work of their great lawgiver and prophet seven hundred years before. The trembling king and his humbled people listened to the astounding effrontery of the assertion, that the words read in their ears were spoken to the generation who had passed through the Eed Sea and the wilderness, and neither to their fathers before, nor to their children after (chap. v. 3 ; xi. 2) ; and, knowing that they were themselves the first assembly that had ever heard them, they consented that such a book should be laid up in the oracles of God 70 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. as addressed to Israel of old by Moses himself ! The fraud of a single false prophet deceiving the people would have been a far lighter crime ; for his would have been the sin of one man, theirs the sin of the whole nation. Such are the impossible suppositions involved in these ill-considered speculations. CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan. 7 1 CHAPTEE IV. THE OTHER SIDE OF JORDAN. It has been objected that the phrase, " on this side Jordan," in the first verse of Deuteronomy, ought to be rendered " on the other side of Jordan ; " which we quite allow, provided it can be rightly understood by the English reader. The objection was answered two centuries ago on the incontrovertible ground that the expression is used for the same side as that of the speaker as well as for the opposite ; and the character of the phrase is well brought out in the Book of Ezra as regards the river Euphrates. The King of Persia ad- dresses Tatnai, the governor on the west of the Euphrates, as "on the other side of the river," — "now therefore Tatnai, governor beyond the river;" and Tatnai designates himself governor " on the other side the river," in writing to the king, — " the copy of the letter that Tatnai, gover- nor on the other side the river, sent " (Ezra vi. 6 ; v. 6 ; iv. 10, 11, 17, 20 ; v. 3). But our translation renders it " on this side the river ;" because he is writing not of the 72 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. other but of the same side of the river as that iu which he dwells. He speaks, however, of himself, just as Moses did, as being '' on the other side of the river." The old objection to Moses using this term for the east of Jordan has been taken up by Professor Eobertson Smith : " There has been a great controversy about Deuteronomy i. 1, and other similar passages, where the land east of the Jordan is said to be across Jordan, proving that the writer lived in western Palestine. That this is the natural sense of the Hebrew word no one can doubt, but we have elaborate arguments that Hebrew was not an elastic language — that the phrase can equally mean ' on this side Jordan,' as the English version has it. The point is really of no conse- quence, for there are other phrases which prove quite unambiguously that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan " (TAe Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 323). Of all renderings of Deuteronomy i. 1 that have been suggested, the one " across Jordan," which is here adopted, is surely the least felicitous, because the translation, " These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel across Jordan," means that Moses stood on one side and Israel on the other side of the Jordan, and that the aged legislator spoke to the people across the rushing river. The argument has been adduced in a very decided CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan. 73 form by a critic whose eminence in Hebrew and thorough knowledge of the subjects he handles and habitual caution entitle his statement to the most deferential and careful consideration : — " The very first verse of Deuteronomy reads properly thus : * These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on the other side of Jordan.' Here Moses, on the supposition that he wrote this verse, names the land of Moab, where he stood, the other side of Jordan. . . . The very phrase ' the other side of Jordan ' is one which, in this day, had not arisen. It is due to the occupation of Canaan by Israel as a fact. ... It is more probable that this verse belongs to a later writer" (Professor A. B. Davidson's Old Test. Exegesis, p. 17). The use by Moses of the phrase " the other side of Jordan " is here held to be improbable ; it is positively stated to have arisen only after the occupation of Canaan ; and we take for granted that the substance of the phrase is meant, and not any slight variation, as in English we might say either " on the other side," or " at the other side." That not " this side," but " the other side of Jordan " is the literal translation, cannot be dis- puted ; but the supposition that Moses was not likely to have employed the expression is without foundation, and the statement that it arose only after the occupation of Canaan by Israel is against all evidence. In the time of Moses it appears to have been the recognised designation of the country ; and no other term is known 74 Deuteronomy : its alter^ed date. [bk. ii. by which he could have described it except the still more definite one, '' the other side of Jordan toward the sun-rising," which might hastily be taken to indicate even more strongly the position of a writer on the western side of the river. Let us look first at the meaning of the expression as in use by Israel, and then as used by Moses himself. 1. Tht meaning of the, term as in use hy Israel hefore the ^passage of the Jordan. — As regards its date the origin of the expression remains unknown, but the most natural conclusion is, that it took its rise when the patriarchs dwelt in the land of Canaan. The entire home of their sojourn, the land through which they were to walk, " in the length of it and in the breadth of it," was the land of Canaan ; and to them as well as to Israel, after their settlement under Joshua, the land of Bashan and Gilead was on the other side of Jordan. It was only after he had crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan that God said to Abraham, " Unto thy seed will I give this land ;" and in all his wide wan- derings within and without the promised inheritance, and despite of the attractiveness of the pastures in Bashan and Gilead, he never recrossed the Jordan with his herds and flocks. Isaac all his lifetime never pitched his tent east of the Jordan, and by his father's command he did not cross it even to fetch his bride to her new home. Jacob speaks as if he had counted CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan. 75 himself an exile from the central land of promise all the while that he lived on the other side of the Jordan; for on reaching its eastern bank on his return, he says, " With my staff I passed over this Jordan," or came to its further side. His son Joseph passed his youth in Canaan, and his long life in Egypt, with that of his brothers, would carry the phrase far down into the Egyptian exile. " Alongside the Jordan " has been suggested by an able critic as a suitable translation, but, although in some instances it might meet the difficulty by avoiding it, this certainly cannot be accepted either as the meaning of the phrase or as a general equivalent ; for " Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions that dwell in Samaria/' were far from dwelling " alongside the Euphrates " when they are described as living " beyond the river." In the patriarchal times, however, there is no record of the use of the term, for " the threshing-floor of Atad, which is on the other side of Jordan " (Gen. i. 10, 11), is a description by Moses and not by Joseph, and the site of Atad has been disputed. After the Exodus, when Moses writes in the 22nd chapter of Numbers (ver. 1), " The children of Israel set forward and pitched in the plains of Moab on the other side of Jordan by Jericho," our translators render it " on tliis side Jordan by Jericho ;" and their reason for taking this liberty 76 Deuteronomy : its alteixd date, [bk. ii. evidently was that to us the other side means the side opposite to the speaker or writer, while Moses was himself on the same side of Jordan which he calls the other side. The difficulty might have been rather better solved by retaining " other," by marking " this " as an insertion of their own, and by translating " The children of Israel pitched in the plains of Moab on tMs other side of Jordan by Jericho." The necessity for such a modification of the original phrase is very evident in the thirty-second chapter of the same book, where, according to the correction con- tended for, the 1 9th verse ought to have not " on this side," but " on the other side." By such a translation we should preserve the Hebrew idiom at the cost of divesting the passage of any intelligible meaning to all but one out of a hundred readers. In the clear lan- guage of our English Bible, the tribes of Gad and Keuben say to Moses on the plains of Moab, " We will not inherit with them on yonder side Jordan, or forward ; because our inheritance is fallen to us on this side Jordan eastward." But in a closely literal trans- lation of their own words these tribes say : " We will not inherit with them on the other side of Jordan, or forward ; because our inheritance is fallen to us on the other side of Jordan eastward." Here the first " other side of Jordan " is so called for the evident reason that the west bank of the river was opposite to the camp of CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan. jj Israel ; but the second " other side " is the bank on which they are encamped, and their reason for giving it such a designation must certainly have been that it was the common name of the district of country. This inconvenient employment of the appellation in the very sentence in which they had applied the same term to the opposite side of the river shows that it could not well be dispensed with by the substitution of any other name ; and that it had been so well established and was in such familiar use among the people as to overcome the otherwise serious unseasonableness of the repetition. In the 32nd verse of the same chapter, "the other side," instead of " this side," would convey a clear enough sense; but unhappily that sense would not convey the truth, but its direct contrary, for the English expression would denote the land of Canaan on the west side of the river opposite to Israel : " We will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inheritance on the other side of Jordan may be ours." If what the readers of our Bible want is not Hebrew but English, and if one of the designs of a translation is to convey the meaning of the original, and not its mere idiom, the critical emendation would in this instance amount to a serious mistranslation of the text, the meaning of which is at once distinct and true in our English Bible : 78 D enter ono7ny : its altered date. [bk. it. " We will pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inheritance. on this side Jordan may be ours ;" or " on this other side of Jordan " might be still better. In addressing these same tribes after the death of Moses he.fore Israel had crossed the Jordan^ Joshua, while recalling the words of Moses, twice over in his own words uses the term " other side " to denote its eastern bank : — " Kemember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, The Lord hath given you rest, and hath given you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan; . . . then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, . . . which Moses the Lord's servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the sunrising" (Josh. i. 13-15). If critics prefer to retain the Hebrew idiom, and to translate " the land which Moses gave you on the other side of Jordan," they must of necessity add a marginal explanation that the reader is to understand " this other side," or to bear in mind that it does oiot mean the other side from that on which Joshua was standing, but the same side, which in ordinary English is " this side." 2. The meaning of the tei^m as used hy Moses. — Limiting our inquiry, as in these preceding passages, to words spoken in the first person, and therefore not open to any suggestion of being later explanations, we CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan, 79 read in the thirty-fourth chapter of Numbers (ver. 1 3- 15):- *• And Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, This is the land which ye shall inherit by lot, which the Lord commanded to give unto the nine tribes, and to the half tribe ; for the tribe of the children of Reuben, . . . and the tribe of the children of Gad, . . the two tribes and the half tribe have received their inheritance on the other side Jordan near Jericho eastward, toward the sunrising." If these words are read apart from any preceding con- text, like the introduction to Deuteronomy, they will be accepted without hesitation as intimating that Moses is in the land of Canaan, which he is giving to the nine tribes and a half ; and that he speaks of the eastern bank of the Jordan as " the other side " from that on which he stands, whereas nothing is further from his meaning. To prevent so great a misconcep- tion our authorised translation is, " They have received their inheritance on this side" as in the introduction to Deuteronomy, and for the same reason. In the 35th chapter, again we read (ver. 9, 14) : — "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying. Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan ... ye shall give three cities on the other side of Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge." In these words the second injunction seems to be a 8o Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. il mere repetition of the first, because the land of Canaan was on " the other side of Jordan " from the camp of Israel ; and our translators, at the expense of the Hebrew idiom, have given the true meaning, ''three cities on this side Jordan, and three in the land of Canaan." Once more, in the third chapter of Deuteronomy (ver. 8), Moses says : — *' "We took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites the land that was on the other side of Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto mount Hermon." The introduction to the book informs us that in speaking these words Moses stood in the land of Moab, and here he definitely describes the neighbouring king- doms of Sihon and of Og as ''on the other side of Jordan " when speaking of them as on the same side of Jordan with Israel and himself. Evidently, this was the natural, the recognised, and apparently the only general term by which Moses could describe that eastern land; and our translators, if they would not mislead their readers, held themselves obliged to sacri- fice the Hebrew idiom for the sake of the true meaning, and to say " the land that was on this side Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto Mount Hermon." Therefore, when finally, in the opening of Deutero- nomy, Moses was describing the place where he then stood, there is no doubt that he would call it "the CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan. 8i other side of Jordan," as the name of that land by use and wont, as the name by which he was himself in the habit of calling it, and as the name by which it was known in Israel whom he was about to address. So far, indeed, is the expression from being confined to the period of Israel's history after the passage of the Jordan, recorded in Joshua, that if we include Deuter- onomy, and take into account the disparity in size of the two portions of the Old Testament, its use is rather more frequent before than after it. Its occurrence in the beginning of Deuteronomy is entirely accordant with Moses having written the introduction, as well as the rest of the book ; and the expression, which cannot be taken as an evidence either way, is not against the Mosaic authorship at all. In the end of the 4th chapter there are four addi- tional instances which we have not included, because, being in the third person, they will not be allowed by most of those who deny the introduction to Moses. But to those who accept the book as written by him they will serve to confirm his writing of the introduc- tion ; and they are all translated " on this side Jordan." " Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sunrising. These are the testimonies which Moses spake on this side Jordan ; they possessed his land and the land of Og on this side Jordan toward the sun- rising; and all the plain on this side Jordan eastward" (Deut. iv. 41, 46, 47, 49). F 8 2 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. On the subsequent use of the term we only remark that Israel, after they had crossed the river, still occa- sionally called Canaan " the other side," because oppo- site to the land they had lately left (Josh. v. 1 ; ix. 1 ; xii. 1) ; or even because opposite to the land to which they were chiefly referring at the time (Josh. xxii. 7 ; 1 Chron. xxvi. 30, 32). But, alike before and after their occupation of Canaan, " the other side of Jordan" was the proper idiomatic designation of the eastern side of the river. In the words of another, " such phrases get to be current idioms of language, wherever geographically they are used : as modern writers speak of Cisalpine Gaul, or of Ultramontane tenets, whether the speaker be in Eome, Geneva, or London." The argument may be put very briefly in another form. The plea against the first verse of Deuteronomy being the utterance of Moses is, that its terms, " These be the words which Moses spake on the other side of Jordan," indicate an author in the land of Canaan speaking of the eastern bank of the river as its " other side." But in the 8th verse of the 3rd chapter, Moses himself uses the very same phrase in the sense of " this other side" for the eastern bank on which he standi : " We took at that time the land that was on the other side of Jordan . . . this land which we possessed at that time" (ver. 12). Now, on the one hand, if Moses really speaks in the 8th verse of the 3rd chapter, there CH. IV.] The other side of y or dan. 83 is no reason to hold that he does not also speak in the 1st verse of the 1st chapter, because the language is exactly the same. But if, on the other hand, the whole is the work of a later author, the fact of his putting "the other side of Jordan" into the lips of Moses in the 3rd chapter in the sense of " this other side," is a sufficient ground for inferring that it is used in the same sense in the opening of the book ; and therefore the expression, as coming from the pen of this alleged writer, can never be proved to mean " that other side of Jordan." So far from its being improbable that Moses should have called the eastern bank of the river its " other side," there has never lived a man on earth to whom those steppes of Moab were equally " the other side of Jordan ;" and it was of all things the most natural for him to open the record of his noble dying address with the introduction : " These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on the other side Jordan in the wildej|iess." Next to the glory of his God, it had for eighty years been the one ruling desire of his life to cross the Jordan with Israel into the land of Canaan. Although Bashan and Gilead were now included in the land of promise, it appears not to have occurred to Moses that the conquest of those lands was to form part of his life-work ; and all he asked of the King of Heshbon was liberty for Israel to pass through his 84 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. borders peaceably, that they might cross the Jordan into Canaan. Israel was now about to cross it, but he was himself arrested on the banks of the river, and to his most earnest entreaty to enter " the good land " all the answer he could obtain was the privilege of seeing it with his eyes. " On the other side Jordan in the land of Moab began Moses to declare this law " was therefore the most fitly pathetic opening of the old man's dying words to his people ; marking the spot on which he stood as on the other side of the dividing river from the land in which his heart had lodged for fourscore years. Of men before or since, "the man Moses" was the one to whom most of all that final stance on the plains of Moab was " the other side of Jordan," from the earnestly coveted land of rest for the " wandering foot " of the tribes of Israel. This inquiry into a subject that has become unex- pectedly important establishes these results : That in the time of Moses " the other side of Jordan" bore very much the character of a proper name for a general designation of the land on the east of the river ; that this designation was used by speakers on the eastern side of the river quite as freely and as correctly as on its western side ; that no other general term is known by which Moses could have designated that land, and that this one he used repeatedly ; that in an introduc- tion to an address on the plains of Moab, it is the very CH. IV.] The other side of Jordan. 85 term he was certain to employ for describing the posi- tion of Israel and his own ; that the plea against the introduction to Deuteronomy having been written by Moses on the ground of its being an expression he could not have used is without foundation ; and that in these introductory verses, the only reasonable, and in the highest degree probable interpretation of the term would be thus expressed : " These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on (this) other (or further) side of Jordan, in the wilderness; on (this) other side of Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare the law." 86 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk it. CHAPTER V. THEORY OF A NEW CODE IN THE HEART OF AN OLD BOOK. In Professor Robertson Smith's explanatory state- ment on Deuteronomy, we find the following vindica- tion of his views : — " My remarks apply to the legal part of the book as it once existed apart from the history, and this separate publication is the book which I speak of as * a prophetic legislative programme/ and identify with the written law-book that guided Josiah in his reformations" (p. 9). " Josiah, as every one admits, had that law in his hand, and thereafter we find it well known to Jeremiah. Does not this seem to show that the new law was revealed sometime between Isaiah and Jeremiah, in order to give practical effect to the teaching of the former prophet and his helpers]" (p. 13.) He offers two forms of this legislative portion of Deuteronomy, a larger and a lesser, and sometimes expresses no preference for either : " The original book may have begun with the super- CH. v.] A New Code in an Old Book. 87 scription, iv. 44, or only with xii. 1. It may have ended with the peroration, xxvi. 16-19, or with the subscription, xxix. 1 " (p. 9). " I believe that the laws of Deut. xii.- xxvi. were originally published eitlier alone [the italics are ours] or with the introductory address in chaps, v.-xi. as a preface, and, perhaps, some part of xxvii., xxviii. as a conclusion" (p. 29). But when a preference is indicated, it is rather for that section of the book to which he seems to lean in the words we have marked in the following sentence : — "It is generally held by critics, and it is my own opinion, that the statement of the law in the heart of the book (that is, chaps, v. to xxvi., or rather, perhaps, only chaps, xii.-xxvi.) was once published in a separate form as a practical manual for popular use, and existed in that form for some time before it was incorporated in that great body of mingled history and law which we call the Pentateuch" (p. 8). The limitation of the theory to these fifteen chapters is also the form which may be accepted as presenting its most favourable aspect ; while the wider supposition denies to Moses so very large a portion of the book, and, as regards the main line of argument and most of its details, is so nearly equivalent to the denial of the whole, as not to call for a separate consideration, which would involve a large repetition of the same arguments. This wider theory is not at all given up, and seems to be retained in case it should be preferred in the end ; but as, by making the recent code to consist of 88 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. chapters iv. 44 to xxix. 1, it takes from Moses nearly three-fourths of what, on the face of it, pertains to him (twenty-four chapters out of thirty-three), the author- ship of the rest becomes a very small matter to all who hold the integrity of the Word of God. Whether the remaining fourth part is assigned to Moses or to another can never be a subject of importance, or even of interest, to the Church. Confining our attention, therefore, for the present, to the theory in its restriction to chapters xii. to xxvi., it is difficult to see how it has been supposed that even this narrowest limitation simplifies or improves the case ; and the interpolation of a book of fictitious historical legislation in the heart of a book of genuine history would be, in one view, even a greater corruption of the record, and more injurious to its Divine authority, than an entire book of fiction under the guise of authentic history. The verse preceding the alleged interpolation is, "Ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I (Moses) set before you this day" (chap. xi. 32) ; the opening words of the code are, " These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee" (chap. xii. 1) ; and it proceeds, " For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you" (ver. 9). In closing the code, Moses CH. v.] A New Code in an Old Book. 89 recurs to the concluding words of the previous section, and says, " This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments" (chap. xxvi. 1 6) ; and the words immediately following the code are, " And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you this day " (chap, xxvii. 1). The code is thus expressly engrafted into the narrative as given by Moses, before crossing the Jordan. But the central code itself embodies in substance iall the evils complained of in the alleged fictitious Book of Deuteronomy. It contains the worst instance of personation in the whole book, and a quite incredible utterance from the lips of an honest man, in the pre- diction by Moses of " a Prophet like unto me " (chap, xviii 15); it omits the only great enactment in Israel between Moses and Josiah, the ordinance of praise ; it enforces the obsolete ban of extermination against the original inhabitants of the land (chap. xx. 16); it pre- scribes a new form of thanksgiving by the " people Israel " for the gift and inheritance of the whole land, after ten of their twelve tribes had been disinherited (chap. xxvi. 15) ; and it formally embodies, what to many minds is the crowning scandal of the whole, the fictitious transaction of a solemn national covenant be- tween Israel and God, and between God and Israel, on the express footing of this new code, which is alleged 90 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. to have been issued seven hundred years after the death of the covenanting elders and people : " This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments : . . . Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to he thy God, . . . and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, . . . and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people" (chap. xxvi. 16, 17, 18). The limitation is thus of no value whatever in re- moving the objections to the theory, which in this restricted form is quite as fatal to the integrity and authority of the Holy Scriptures as if the whole book were held to be fictitious. But further, if the central code " alone " is accepted as one of the probable or possible forms of this theory, the story of the separate book is impossible, whether it be taken as the very book found by Hilkiah, or as already absorbed in Deuteronomy before its discovery. The only reasonable supposition is that the book at its first discovery existed in its original separate form ; but it would be an obvious and extreme mistake to identify the central code with the book that was read by Josiah, for he trembled for " all the curses written " in it against his place and people, and in the fifteen chapters of the code there is not one specific curse or judgment either on the land or on the nation. While this supposition is plainly impossible, the only other supposition, that the CH. v.] A New Code in an Old Book, 9 1 separate book had been absorbed in Deuteronomy before its discovery, would soar quite out of the region of history and criticism, creating the story of the birth, life, and death of a distinct book before there is any trace of its existence. Apart, however, from this difficulty, the conjecture that the code of chapters xii.- xxvi. either did exist, or may have once existed as a separate book, is incompatible with the history of the age, and contrary to all true criticism. The theory maintains that the code was first issued in its complete form between the death of Isaiah and the prophecies of Jeremiah. But if in this code we select a special statute, it is unaccountable that the previous law by Moses in Leviticus should have pronounced the judgment of stoning, under the severest Divine anger, against the man who made his children pass through the fire to Molech (Lev. xx. 1-5) ; and that a law, issued at a time when this sin was defiling and rapidly destroying the land, should pronounce no judgment at all against the prevalent crime, but merely give the command, " There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire " (Deut. xviii. 10). But more generally, the code itself is not a mere body of laws for the regulation of personal life ; it also enjoins the great national feasts, ordains the appoint- ment of judges in the cities and the selection of cities of 92 Deutero7iomy : its alte7'ea date. [bk. ii. refuge, commands the utter destruction of a city aposta- tising to idolatry and tlie extinction of Amalek, gives direction concerning the election of a king, and issues other ordinances that concern the whole nation, such as the proclamation to be issued on the eve of battle. Further, the code does not consist of mere dry enact- ments ; its concluding chapter, as already noted, consists mainly of forms of thanksgiving for the full possession of the land ; and the whole is intermingled with bless- ings, both personal and national. These are some of the blessings : — " Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever (chap. xii. 28). Save when there shall be no poor among you ; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. ... For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee : and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow ; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. . . . Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him (thy poor brother) : . . . be- cause that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto (chap. XV. 4, 6, 8, 10). Because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice (chap. xvi. 15). The Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments ; and to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour" (chap. xxvi. 18, 10). CH. v.] A New Code in an Old Book. 93 By the side of these national and personal promises and blessings, we have the singular and most striking fact that there is not found a single national curse or judgment or specific threatening from first to last in all these fifteen chapters. The only instance in which the thought of the Divine anger against the nation is introduced is not in the way of threatening, but of showing how the indignation may be turned aside by a righteous people, and end in a blessing, not by repent- ance, but by faithfulness. In the case of murder, with the guilt untraced, the elders of the city were to wash their hands over a slain heifer, and attest their inno- cence, and " the blood was to be forgiven them." So with an apostate city, the guilt of idolatry would have involved the whole nation in the anger of the Lord against the city ; but after the faithful execution of judgment upon it, we read — " There shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand : that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers" (chap. xiii. 17); the Lord multiplying the faithful nation, and more than compensating for the loss of the apostate city. Of national warnings there is nothing stronger than the words, " Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them" (the idolatrous nations) (chap. xii. 30). Of personal penalties for transgression 94 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. there are many ; but all of them are to be inflicted at the hand of Israel, as in the case of the idolatrous prophet or friend or city (chap, xiii.) ; and in " eye for eye, foot for foot, and hand for hand." The personal threatenings from God directly are that He will require it of the man who will not hearken to the great Prophet, and of him who fails to pay his vow ; and that it will be sin to the man who hardens his heart against his poor brother (chap, xviii. 19 ; xxiii. 21 ; xv. 9 ; xxiv. 15). This portion of Deuteronomy thus coatains the greatest national blessings on Israel coming immedi- ately from the hand of God ; some of them, and in one sense all of them, promises on the condition of obedi- ence ; but some of them also so including the implied gift of obedience as to take the form of a promise that could not fail ; and its closing chapter teaches Israel how to give thanks for their full possession of the " land flowing with milk and honey " (chap. xxvi.). At the same time, it contains no national curse or judgment or specific threatening for national disobedience ; but is all addressed as if to a faithful nation that will execute the judgments of the Lord against the man or the city that is in transgression. If the nation itself should depart from the Lord, no judgment whatever is uttered against it, while in promised blessings it is exalted above all the nations of the earth. CH. v.] A New Code zn an Old Book. 95 The Word of God in our hands makes it clear that in accordance with the Divine dealings with the nation, a legislative book of so exclusive a character could never have been given to Israel. In the days of Joshua, of David, and of Solomon these promises were in a great measure fulfilled and these blessings be- stowed, and never since ; but the book of the law that contained them abounded also in Divine threatenings and judgments and curses, both personal and national, against disobedience ; and it is a groundless conception that the portion of Deuteronomy from the 1 2th to the 26th chapters could have been published by itself to Israel, under Divine sanction, at any period of the national history. Besides, the time of that history in which this book is conjectured to have been issued is of all others the period, from the Exodus to the destruction of Jeru- salem, in which the gift of such a book of blessing would have been utterly unseasonable and deceptive ; because it is the period when the iniquity of the nation had become full, when the ten tribes had already been delivered by the Divine indignation into the hand of their enemies, and when the doom of Jerusalem was nearly, if not already, sealed. Before the time of its conjectured publication, Isaiah and Micah had uttered judgments of desolation on Jerusalem for her sins ; after it Jeremiah repeated the same denunciations; 96 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. and during it the sins of the nation had reached such a crisis that neither Manasseh's own repentance nor Josiah's reformation could avert its doom. That such a book, promising the largest national blessings, with- out one judgment against a nation sunk in corruption, should have been issued under Divine authority at such a period is incredible and impossible. The his- torical conjecture, that the central code of Deuteronomy- may have been issued by itself as a separate book " sometime hetween Isaiah arid Jeremiah " is an extreme anachronism. CH. vl] Israers service of Song. 97 CHAPTER VL Israel's service of song. Israel's Service of Song we have already considered in its relation to Ezra, in which it has the most im- portant bearing on the argument, because the songs of the Second Temple are acknowledged by all. Deuter- onomy, however, falls to be considered separately on account of the earlier date assigned to it by the critics. They will disallow the force of the present argument in so far as some of them are disposed to deny all service of Song in the First Temple, and also in so far as they set aside the historical truth of the Books of Chronicles. Yet Professor Kuenen allows the likelihood of song in the First Temple : " The origin goes further back (than the restoration) ; perhaps as far as Josiah's reformation : not only priests and Levites, but also Temple-sm^e7'5 returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and Jeshua." {Religion of Israel, vol. iii. p. 23.) The Divine institution of the service of Song by David under his own name furnishes a clear proof that G 98 D enter onomy : its altered date, [bk, ii. the highest authority in Israel could not invest a new ordinance with a Mosaic sanction ; the absence in Deuteronomy of all reference to this service proves that it was not the design of the book to bring down the institutions of Israel to the time of the later prophets ; and in a code of such a date under the sanction of Moses the omission of song would have abolished the ordinance of David. 1. The constant ascription of the great institution of vocal and instrumental praise in the Temple, not to Moses, but to David, proves that there was no power in Israel, priestly, prophetical, or regal, invested with authority to add new laws in the name of Moses. The words of the covenant which Joshua wrote in the book of the law of God were not added in the name of Moses (Josh. xxiv. 26) ; nor " the manner of the kingdom, which Samuel wrote in a book, and laid up before the Lord " (1 Sam. x. 25). It is no answer to say that the code read to Josiah might have Divine authority to that effect, when the Scripture states that this code was the law of Moses ; and the question is, what authority in Israel could make it part of that law, if it was not so in reality ? The unknown prophetic author, Hilkiah the priest, and Josiah the king are all conceived to have combined to invest it with an authority not only of Divine sanction, but equal to that of Israel's great and only lawgiver. After Moses, there is no lawgiver CH. VI.] Israel's service of Song, 99 and no added code of laws; and, with the single excep- tion of David, there is no authority ever recognised in Israel as entitled to establish any sacred institution, while the lesser authority of David is most carefully distinguished from the higher authority of Moses, which stands always alone. Beyond all question, if the Divine sanction had been given to a new code of laws, it would have been stated that the book was by the hand of its prophetic author, or of Hilkiah, or of Josiah, or of them all, just as it is said that the service of Song was by David, along with the prophet Nathan and Gad the king's seer. Yet there is not the slightest notice of such authority having been given to any of them, or to any other king or prophet, except to David and his prophetic counsellors. The supposition is therefore contrary to all Scriptural history. No mere prophet made laws for Israel, and no mere ruler, and no mere prophet and mere ruler acting together. Moses, both prophet and ruler, was the one lawgiver ; and he gave laws to Israel in the name of God, and under God in his own name, but not in the combined name of himself and Aaron. David, who added sacred ordinances, was also both prophet and ruler ; inferior to Moses, for those ordinances had the added sanction of Gad and Nathan ; although like Moses he had his institutions honoured as " by the commandment of David, the man of God." loo D enter onomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. The institution of praise was a magnificent one, for which David set apart four thousand Levites ; it was daily before the nation morning and evening in the sacrifices of the Temple, and it occupied a prominent place in the great national feasts. It was in full har- mony with Mosaic principles, for the Levitical praise with cymbal, psaltery, and harp was a development of the music of the two silver trumpets sounded by the priests over the sacrifices ; and Israel had also raised their loud song of praise at the Eed Sea, although the further development in the service of song in the sanc- tuary was entirely new. For its own sake the whole Davidic ordinance of praise deserved the highest national sanction that could be conferred on it ; and for its author's sake it had a far his/her claim to that sanction than any subsequent institution. IN^ow, in the prefatory and historical portion of his noble book, Moses had expressly said, •' Ye shall not add to the word which I (Moses) command you " (chap. iv. 2) ; not denying that God might sanction other ordinances, but commanding that nothing was ever to be added to the laws of Moses, which were to stand always in their own lofty isolation. The sup- posed author of the central code, whom we may de- nounce without malice since he possesses only an imaginary existence, has in the teeth of this imperative command the unequalled audacity to repeat the in- CH. VI.] IsraeFs service of Song. loi junction in the very act of disobeying it ; and to write " What thing soever I (Moses) command you, observe to do it ; thou shalt not add thereto " (chap. xii. 32), thus turning the Holy Word of God into foolishness. But it was by j\Ioses himself that the command was solemnly doubled, because his God would have none other to speak in his name. Accordingly, in the Holy Scriptures there is a watchful jealousy to separate the great ordinance of Praise in the most marked way from the institutions of Moses. In connection with the Tabernacle or the Temple, we have the record of the worship of praise under seven rulers of Israel, and in all of them without exception the ordinance is expressly ascribed to David ; guarding it against its being nameless, and so unauthor- ised, but equally guarding it from ever being attributed to Moses. Not only so, but in each of these instances the name of Moses is in some part of the narrative ex- pressly introduced as the author of his own laws ; the things that belong to each being carefully assigned to each. Under Jehoiada we have the following striking example of this jealous care : " Jehoiada appointed the offices of the house of the Lord by the hand of the priests the Levites, whom David had distributed in the house of the Lord, to offer the burnt offerings of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, as it luas ordained by David " I02 Deuteronomy: its altered date, [bk. ii. (2 Chron. xxiii. 18). In this connection the whole record is so instructive, that we are induced to give in order all the rulers under whom the offering of praise is recorded in connection with the sanctuary. DAVID. Moses. " And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses com- manded according to the word of the Lord" (1 Chron. xv. 15). David. "And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy" (ver. 16). SOLOMON "Then Solomon offered burnt ofiferings unto the Lord on the altar of the Lord, which he had built before the porch, even after a certain rate every day, offering according to the com- mandment of Moses" (2 Chron. viii. 12, 13). **And he appointed, accord- ing to the order of David his father, the courses of the priests to their service, and the Levites to their charges, to praise and minister before the priests, . . . for so had David the man of God commanded" (ver. 14). JOASH. " Also Jehoiada appointed the oflSces of the house of the Lord by the hand of the priests the Levites, whom David had dis- tributed in the house of the Lord, to offer the burnt offerings of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, as it was ordained by David" (2 Chron. xxiii. 18). CH. VI.] Israels service of Song. T03 HEZEKIAH. Moses. *' And they stood in their place after their manner, accord- ing to the law of Moses the man of God : the priests sprinkled the blood, which they received of the hand of the Levites" (2 Chron. xxx. 16). David. " And he set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet : for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets. . . . And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel" (2 Chron. xxix. 25, 27). JOSIAH. " So kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses" (2 Chron. xxxv. 6). " And they removed the burnt offerings, that they might give according to the divisions of the families of the people, to offer unto the Lord, as it is written in the book of Moses " (ver. 12). " Prepare yourselves by the houses of your fathers, after your courses, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son" (ver. 4). " And the singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, ac- cording to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer" (ver. 15). I04 Deuteronomy: its altered date. [bk. ii. ZERUBBABEL. Moses. " Then stood up Jeshiia . . . and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God" (Ezra iii. 2). David. " They set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel" (ver, 10). NEHEMIAH. " They clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God" (Neh. X. 29). "The chief of the Levites ... to praise and to give thanks, according to the com- mandment of David the man of God" (Neh. xii. 24). " And both the singers and the porters kept the ward of their God . . . according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son" (Neh. xii. 45). This accumulation of evidence furnishes the amplest proof of the Lord's watchful jealousy that Israel should ascribe no ordinances, however great, to His servant Moses besides those which He had himself given him to enact, with an express prohibition against adding more. Yet in these later days men rush in without a shadow of Scriptural warrant ; and, confiding in their own in- genuity, they inform us that they have discovered a OH. VI.] Israel's service of Song. 105 whole body of Mosaic laws, which were revealed inauy hundred years after his death, although they are ex- pressly assigned to Moses by Holy Scripture. 2. The absence of any allusion to the Service of Song in the Sanctuary demonstrates that it was not the design of Deuteronomy, or any section of it, to bring down the institutions of Israel to the time of Manasseh. All advancement in the Deuteronomic code, as com- pared with the preceding books, had its sufficient cause in the immediate prospect of the occupation of Canaan ; but there is not a single law or ordinance in Deuter- onomy whose time or occasion of enactment can be shown in the subsequent history. The only isolated enactment in this history is the ordinance of David, that the soldier watching in the camp should share the spoil with those who fought in the battle. The statute is so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the laws of warfare in the twentieth chapter of Deutero- nomy that it would have formed a most fitting ad- dition to that code. But the honour of Moses was so high in Israel that it was not inserted in what otherwise would have been its appropriate place, but left in its own singularity, as it never would have been if Deuteronomy had been written after its enactment. But the one great post-Mosaic ordinance in Israel was the ordinance of Praise in the Sanctuary ; and in the entire book of Deuteronomy there is not even the io6 Deuteronomy: its altered date. [bk. ii. slightest allusion to this service, while the whole. of the sixteenth chapter consists of special injunctions for the observance of the yearly feasts at " the place which the Lord shall choose." These injunctions are not laid only on men and on families, but on Israel as a nation, including very specially the Levite (ver. 11, 14) : " Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose" (ver. 16). From the days of David downward the service of Praise in the Sanctuary by cymbal, psaltery, harp, and song, for which four thousand Levites were set apart, formed one of the great charac- teristics of those annual feasts. But the writer of these laws makes no recognition of such a service. Moses, in Deuteronomy, as elsewhere, speaks of God as the object of Israel's praise (chap. x. 21) ; but no more than in the sacrificial worship of Abraham or Jacob did he appoint any ordinance of song for the service of the Sanctuary. If the book were designed as a late sup- plement to the laws of Moses, this could never have been omitted, for it is the omission of the only great ordinance that is known in history after Moses. The author of Deuteronomy repeatedly enjoins the nation to rejoice before the Lord their God ; but so far does he keep from any approach to the national service of cymbal, and harp, and song, that through- out he never calls on Israel even to praise the Lord in CH. VI.] Israel's service of Song, 107 the Sanctuary. He ordains, " Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God ; thou shalt rejoice in thy feast ; thou shalt surely rejoice" (ver. 11, 14, 15) ; and so again in the twelfth chapter (ver. 12): " Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daugh- ters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates." Praise is closely allied to religious joy ; yet in the people's thanksgiving for the harvest, which is full of praise, the term itself is not employed. All this tallies most perfectly with the laws and the worship instituted by Moses, and with the service of the Tabernacle in his own age and in the ages immediately following. Moses ordained no service of Song for the Tabernacle, for the song which he taught the people is not given for the priestly or Levitical service at the altar ; and he ordained no instrumental praise except that of the two silver trumpets over the sacrifices. Most consonantly, therefore, in commanding Israel to resort to the Sanc- tuary in their holy feasts, he does not call on them to praise the Lord, but earnestly and often exhorts them to "rejoice before the Lord." Such ordinances and injunctions could not have been written in the later days of Israel. 3. But further, the alleged prophetic code in the name of Moses, and with the Divine sanction for its claim of Mosaic authority, would have abolished the 1 08 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. service of Song in the Temple. That service had no Mosaic sanction, but only the sanction of David, which in legislation was confessedly secondary to the law of Moses. Nothing would have been simpler than, even in a single sentence, to have given the service of Praise a Mosaic sanction in Deuteronomy, but no such sanc- tion is given. The melody of the two silver trumpets will still remain, because it was sanctioned by Moses. But it is alleged that a second Moses, with all the authority of the first, supplements the original Mosaic laws, and " brings them down to date," from the days of Moses to the reign of Manasseh ; adding all that was needed for this later time, and had not been included in the earlier laws. If the service of Song was deemed worthy of Divine sanction, there could be no reason for omitting it in a code which embraces in its minuter precepts matters of incomparably less moment than this great national institution in the worship of God. Yet this second Moses returns to all the severe sim- plicity of the first, passes by this magnificent worship as if it had been permitted only for a time, and by his silence blots it from the complete code of Mosaic ordin- ances now presented to Israel. A code under the highest name of Moses, completed down to the days of Manasseh or Josiah, would admit of no institution that was not either formally embraced or in some way sanc- tioned in its statutes ; and this imaginary code of the CH. VI.] Israers service of Song. 109 critics has the glaring inconsistency of cancelling by- its silence the glorious ordinance of Praise, which it leaves with no Divine warrant either under the earlier or the later seal of Moses. But the beautiful consistency of the Word of God throughout shines all the more brightly through the efforts of its enemies and of its misjudging friends to rend it in pieces. The songs of the Sanctuary are denied to David by many critics, who, in their misconception alike of God and of man, assert it as self-evident, in the nature of things, that the murderer of Uriah could never have been the penitent writer of the 51st Psalm. Yet both the character and the songs of David have in all ages been well understood by broken hearts, because they know that " to whom much is forgiven the same loveth much." As with David, so with Moses the new critics would leave us little more than a skeleton of his character ; robbing him of most of the Divine words that were given to him as mediating between God and Israel. Still, as in all other respects, so in the light of the ordinance of Praise the words of Moses triumphantly vindicate themselves as his own ; fit for his age and for his lips, but altogether misplaced in the mouth of a prophetic legislator in the time of the later kings of Judah. no Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. CHAPTEE YIL THE critics' ban ON THE CANAANITES A TREACHEROUS MASSACRE. If other arguments were quite wanting, instead of being overwhelmingly abundant, the new date assigned to Deuteronomy is clearly proved to be false by one great fact. It imputes to the God of truth and love an earnest command for the treacherous massacre of the thousands of confiding Canaanites remaining in the land under the covenanted protection of the state. This grand difficulty is alike unanswerable and insuperable, and of itself amply sufficient for the refutation of the whole theory. In taking this ground we are far from judging what ought to be written in the Holy Scrip- tures, and we fully accept as righteous the decree as we have it in the Bible from the lips of Moses. But when critics arbitrarily alter God's Bible in one of its leading books in its author, in its place, and in its date, we indignantly repel the immoral character that would then stain the Holy Book. CH. vil] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 1 1 1 The leading characteristic of the whole book of Deuteronomy is earnestness, and this earnestness is nowhere more intense than in the laws against the Canaanites. In the words of Principal Eainy, " Every- body must feel — I would not say everybody who be- lieves in inspiration, but almost everybody that is capable of thinking — must feel, or ought to feel, that a book like this of Deuteronomy could not possibly be a fraud. The man must be a fool, though he may be a learned man, who calls this book a fraud — a book written with the intense moral heat that jpr evades every line of it!' Even those who regard the scene, the author, and the date as fictitious, hold that the laws are earnest and real, and that they are advanced with a direct and pointed application to the men of the time. Ewald says the whole speech, from the 5th to the 26th chapter, is written in one strain as the future law for Israel, and, strictly speaking, for those who lived in Jerusalem at the time of the writer. A Jewish rabbi, when asked by a Eoman emperor to explain to him the doctrine of the Hebrew Scriptures, returned the laconic reply, *' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- self ; the rest is all commentary." The answer omitted the first and greater half of the law, but expressed with force that love to man, without which there can be no true love to God. It is one of the grand indications of the Bible as the voice of heaven spoken to the earth, 112 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. that while its great object is to claim and to restore man's allegiance to God, one half of it may be said to consist in the expression of God's watchful jealousy- over every man on earth, that no other man shall wrong him in act, or word, or thought. Now, as regards man's love to man, the thoughts of men on the Book of Deuteronomy have passed through a remarkable over- turn. As an argument for its recent date, it has now become the habit to extol its great advance in culture, in humanity, in benevolence, in tenderness. But in a former age the alleged inhumanity of the book was one of the chief arguments of the Deists against the Divine origin of the Old Testament. The truth is that the author of Deuteronomy is without exception the severest writer in the Old Testament, and with the exception of Jeremiah, is perhaps the most tender, bearing in these as in other respects the likeness of the great Prophet who was to succeed him, and who is at once tender and severe above all his disciples. The strongest words of Moses can be amply justified. In Deuteronomy the Divine mercy is uttered through the lips of Moses in tender longings — " Oh that they were wise ! oh that there were such an heart in them !" and in fatherly care over all the helpless, the father- less, the widow, the stranger, the poor, the debtor, the fugitive slave. It reaches to the faint-hearted in the day of battle, and to the culprit whose stripes are not CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 1 1 3 to exceed forty, lest a brother seem vile. It extends even to the dumb animals, to the mother bird on her nest, to the ox treading out the corn. Into the hands of soldiers long disciplined in the wilderness and trained in such precepts ; a singularly noble and thoughtful army of men, of whom President Edwards has said that there is no generation in Israel of whom so much good and so little evil is recorded ; into their hands the sword of Divine vengeance is committed by God and by Moses for the entire extermination of the nations of Canaan. On their darkest sin of human sacrifice, Ewald writes in his History of Israel : — " The indigenous Canaanite human sacrifice, which was transplanted by the Phoenicians to Carthage, and there kept up to the latest times, was no sign of barbarity com- mon to uncultivated nations, but of the artificial cruelty often arising from excessive polish and over-indulgence. Amid all the changes of time, the moral corruption gener- ated by the seductive charms of such a culture is with difficulty lost in the land of its birth. An effeminacy and depravity of life, not unlike that of the Canaanites, and doubtless promoted in part by the remnant of the early inhabitants, spread to a people which, through their entire nature and laws, ought to have been most proof against it." The land was filled with every sin against God, and every vice among men, till the cup of their iniquity had become full by their burning their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods ; and the sword was unsheathed in the cause of humanity. The hope of H 114 Deuterono^ny : its altered date. [bk. ir. Israel being preserved from false religion and moral corruption depended in a great measure on the extirpa- tion of the old inhabitants of the land ; and their aged leader, himself the meekest of men, chargedjthem with a terrible earnestness to nerve themselves against all pity in carrying out the Divine decree, which bore true mercy with it as well as righteous judgment. But let us look at these injunctions in the light of their being thought and written seven hundred years after the death of Moses. It must be noted that the exterminating commands in Deuteronomy are not a rehearsal out of Exodus, but an enlarging, enforcing, and carrying out into detail the previous brief and general decree. The Deuteronomist not only adopts the original edict, but has interwoven it through his entire book of laws. Among the first of these laws he introduces it at great length in the 7th chapter — in the beginning, the middle, and the end of the chapter. He introduces it again in the 9th chapter ; he repeats it with great severity in the 20th chapter; and towards the close of the book, in the 31st chapter, he charges Israel to execute all these exterminating commands. And not only so, but he enforces the decree with words of such stern severity as prove that he was moved with an intense ardour for the instant and absolute execu- tion of the terrible ban. If Deuteronomy is not the work of Moses, it is doubtful whether Moses ever ex- CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 1 1 5 pressly commanded Israel to put the Canaanites to death by the edge of the sword. That this was his design, there is no question ; and also that under him Israel carried it out in the land of Bashan. But the words of Exodus, when the time for that dreadful work had not arrived, are far gentler and more general than those of Deuteronomy. For the most part, the execution of the sentence is spoken of as if it were to be taken into God's own hands : — " I will drive them out before you, I will cut them off', I will destroy them." It is also said, " Ye shall drive them out ;" but, if at all, they are never, except once, commanded to execute the sentence of destruction with their own hands ; and in this in- stance the command is so general, that it is impossible to determine whether it applies to the people or to their gods, and the best interpreters are divided in their opinions about it. The words in Exodus are, " Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works ; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images." If this " utter overthrow," which our translators apply to the gods, should be taken to apply to the people, it is a direct command for their destruction by the hand of Israel; but this is the only such command, and it was most natural that Moses should not enlarge on it till both the time and the place were nigh at hand. The injunctions given by the author of Deuteronomy 1 1 6 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. are of a character remarkably different in their urgency, their detail, their terribleness. The command, " Thou shalt utterly destroy them," which Exodus applies to the gods, and perhaps to their worshippers, Deuter- onomy applies to the people once and again, and adds seven new expressions of tremendous severity which, according to this theory, had never passed the lips of Moses : — " Thou shalt smite them, thou shalt kill them quickly, thine eye shall have no pity upon them, thou shalt not show mercy unto them, thou shalt con- sume them all, thou shalt save alive of them nothing that breathes, thou shalt blot out their name from under heaven." In the new theory these are the words not of Moses but of the late author of the book ; they must be the expression of his thoughts and earnest desires ; and they mean that the people of Israel under Manasseh or Josiah should arise as one man, and not only destroy the altars and images of Baal and Ash- taroth, but put to death all the Canaanites in the land, Hittite, Hivite, Jebusite, and Amorite, without mercy, and without exception. But in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah this decree was an edict for the treacherous massacre of tens or hundreds of thousands of their confiding and helpless subjects. Such a massacre was as contrary to the character of the Mosaic dispensation as to the gospel itself. God save Israel the land of Canaan on account of the sins CH. VII.] The C7'itics Ban on the Canaanites. 1 1 7 of its people ; they entered it at His command as soldiers and as open enemies ; the people had the option of leaving the country, which many of them did, but they must die if they remained; and the Israelites were strictly forbidden to make any league or covenant with them of any kind. The princes of Israel were betrayed by a false pretence into a cove- nant with the Gibeonites ; yet because Saul, after putting down the wizards and necromancers, did in his fanatical religious zeal break that covenant and slay a portion of these Amorites, the land was visited with three years of famine. At a later period a similar cove- nant was advisedly and rightly made with the whole remnant of the Canaanites when " David commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God " (1 Chron. xxii. 2) ; and " Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the numbering wherewith David his father had numbered them; and they were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred " (2 Chron. xi. 17). Who these were we are told ex- pressly : " All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which were not of the children of Israel, their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon those did 1 1 8 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. Solomon levy a tribute of bondservice unto this day " (1 Kings ix. 21, 22). After this most formal recogni- tion of them as subjects, nothing could have been more offensive to the God of Israel than the fanatical slaughter of all their descendants. How odious it must have been in His sight may be judged of by the fact that the darkest stain in the whole Bible of any crime committed by a child of God is the treacherous slaying of a man of note in one of those devoted nations. Professor Eobertson Smith has said that our Con- fession of Faith speaks nothing of the authors and the dates of the books of Scripture ; and other writers have contended that if the inspiration of a book is acknow- ledged, its author and its date are of little consequence. In the present instance the alteration of the author and the date is of this consequence — that it changes good into evil, light into darkness, a holy and most necessary severity into the obliteration of all righteousness, of all covenant keeping, and of all humanity; and inserts in God's blessed book an urgent decree for a treacherous and ruthless massacre, only to be paralleled by the massacre of St. Bartho- lomew. This is not the Bible. The Deuteronomy so often quoted by our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles is the Deuteronomy of Moses, and not the Deuteronomy of the modern critics. The external evidence, Jewish and Christian, for the CH. VII.] The Criiics Ban on the Canamiites. 1 19 Mosaic origin of the book is the same as for its inspira- tion, and the two must stand or fall together ; and the supposition that there is any internal evidence to prove its recent date would equally imply that it could not have been inspired by the God of truth and mercy. If it be replied that these words may have been copied from some old record of the sayings of Moses, that will make no material difference, because the Deuteronomist incorporates them into his new law for the men of his own generation. But let us listen to the defence that has been put forward on behalf of the exterminating edict as issued seven hundred years after the death of Moses. For this defence we refer to Professors Kuenen and Oort ; for we have not found any explanation in Ewald or in others who take the same view of Deutero- nomy. In his Religion of Israel^ Kuenen says (p. 1 4) : " The author insists that the inhabitants of the land of Canaan shall be utterly destroyed. This inhuman pre- cept, which the Deuteronomist repeats again and again, has no other motive than the fear of the seductive influence of the Canaanitish worship. It is only the fear of Israel's pollution by idolatry that leads him to pen such inhuman rules. Let it not be forgotten, moreover, that the Canaanitish tribes had no longer any substantive existence in the seventh century B.C., and that it was no longer possible to exterminate them. In 1 20 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. 11. reality, therefore, it is merely by the supposition of the ban to be enforced against them that the author attempts to deter the Israelites from idolatry." The first of these two arguments is abundantly true, if Moses was the author. His reason for issuing the dreadful ban was to save Israel from idolatry with all its vices ; as well as to execute the just doom of God on men whose cup of horrible iniquities was now full. But in the case of a late Deuteronomist zeal for the religion of Israel is no more excuse for a treacherous massacre than zeal for Popery is an excuse for the massacre of St. Bartholomew. In defence it is next pleaded that the tribes of Canaan no longer existed in Israel, and therefore could not be exterminated ; and if so it would only show the groundlessuess of the new theory. But on the contrary, so far down in the history of Israel as after their return from Babylon, five of those distinct tribes are specified by name in connection with the great sorrow of the Israelites for having intermarried with them — the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Ammonites. In the reign of Solomon, as already referred to, five tribes are named. Their children left in the land the king made bond-servants ; and of these there were numbered one hundred and fifty thousand burden-bearers and hewers, who would represent at least five hundred thousand souls. In the CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 1 2 1 reign of Josiah their number would no doubt be reduced. But if we shall suppose that there remained only a fifth part of the number taken by Solomon, there would still be left one hundred thousand ; and, whatever their number was, we know from the book of Ezra that the children of the old inhabitants not only survived in his time, but kept up their tribal distinctions, and that there was still an imminent danger of their becoming a snare to Israel. It w^as, therefore, not only possible but too easy for Israel to have carried out this ban of ex- termination against them ; in cruel treachery to have left alive of them none that breathed ; and to have blotted out their name from under heaven. These injunctions absolutely decide the date of the book, because we know most certainly, from the Bible itself, that they could not possibly have come from the God of the Bible seven hundred years after Moses ; and we know from the testimony of Christ and the apostles that Deuteronomy had a large place in their thoughts as the infallible Word of God. Professor A. B. Davidson represents not his own, but the new theory as coming to not more than this, — that the progressive legislation in Israel, having been ripened under higher guidance, was " thrown back, and represented as the creation of the great mind of the founder of the theocracy;" and he seems to regard this view as at least possible {Old Test. Exegesis, p. 23). 122 Deuteronomy: its altered date. [bk. ii. Let the conception be granted for the moment; and let it be borne in mind that the whole foundation of the theory is that the book was written for the age in which it was issued, and for the express purpose of bringing down Mosaic principles to the men of that age in a form adapted to their altered circumstances or more consonant to the gradual development of grace and truth in Divine revelation ; and let it be supposed that decrees and ordinances of such an advanced char- acter are put into the lips of Moses himself In that case, part of the ordinances may be a repetition of Mosaic laws still in force, like the Ten Command- ments ; others will of necessity be new ordinances of importance, else there could be no call for the new legislation ; but that obsolete decrees, the execution of which would in the altered circumstances be in the highest degree criminal, should be introduced into such legislation for the purpose of 'throwing it back," is utterly inconceivable and absolutely monstrous. To mingle modern and practical precepts with archaic commands to Israel to slay the people of the land without mercy, was the likeliest of all means to arouse the nation in an impulse of fanatical zeal, like Saul's against the Gibeonites, to put to the sword the thou- sands or tens of thousands of the Canaanites, who were now in the land under a covenant of life and safety ; or to embolden an unscrupulous Israelite to entrap some CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 123 faithful Uriah into a fatal snare, on the ground that the murder of a Hittite proscribed by Divine law was a most worthy deed. The whole idea of these stern decrees against the seven nations of Canaan being fictitious is most uncriti- cal ; for if reality and earnestness can be expressed by human speech, they breathe in every line of these injunctions. It is no mock encounter with the shades of men who had been dead for seven hundred years that is contemplated by the writer ; but a terrible con- flict with armed men, skilful in war, is to be waged, and no quarter given. This earnestness of the writer for the execution of his commands is so evident and unmistakable that it is fully, although reluctantly, acknowledged by critics most adverse to the Mosaic authorship of the book. " Had Moses so spoken," writes Kuenen, " with a rough and armed people before him, and the Canaanites in his immediate neighbourhood, it would have been frightful. It noiD continues to be seriously meant, and yet is much more innocent. We are now free to believe, that the sword would have fallen from the hand of the Deuterono- mist himself, if it had become necessary to carry out the doom which he had denounced. It is less difficult to murder on paper than in reality." He owns that a massacre in the days of Josiah was "seriously meant;" and, while he calls it " murder on paper," we know that the paper on which was inscribed 124 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. the order for a massacre of rarely paralleled treachery was never impressed with the seal of the God of truth and mercy. Josiah, however, had an army at his com- mand, which he led forth to fight with the Kiug of Egypt, and was himself slain in battle at Megiddo ; there were thousands of Canaanites entirely at his mercy in his own kingdom ; yet he put none of them to death, when he would certainly have slain them all if the ban against them had been first issued under his own royal seal. But in turning to the Lord with all his heart, " according to all the law of Moses," he knew well that the command to put the Canaanites to death had been ordained not by a prophetic counsellor of his own whom he was wont to obey as enjoining his present duty, but by Moses himseK seven hundred years before ; and that its execution was now no longer binding, but would have been abhorred by its author as a most atrocious crime. Professor Oort, of Leyden, is constrained to make the same admission of the earnestness of the writer to put to death the Canaanites who still remained in the land ; while his plea in palliation as regards their cities, which applies more specially to chap. xx. 16, does not at all affect the detailed denunciations against the people in the seventh chapter. The extenuation is singular enough, because if there were no such cities remaining, it is a strong argument that these critics CH. vii.] The Clonics Ban on the Canaanites, 125 have assigned a wrong date to the book. Surely, it is extreme presumption in them to assume that their lauded prophet was so devoid of understanding as to issue stringent orders for the destruction of towns which no longer existed. He says : — " In many respects the writer takes an exalted and moral attitude. It is true that he repeatedly urges the Israelites to lay the Canaanites and all other idolaters under the ban ; but in this connection it is only fair to remember that when he wrote there were no Canaanite cities in existence, so that in this resj^ect at any rate his injunctions cannot have been intended to be actually put into execution. Nevertheless, we must admit that lie dis- tinctly enjoins a massacre to the glory of God" These explanations are not so much defences of the exterminating decrees falsely imputed to the later prophets, as admissions that they are indefensible ; and these critics, not holding the inspiration of those prophets, are not called to defend them. Professor Eobertson Smith's position is different, and his ex- planation is that in " the code proper (Deut. xii.-xxvi.) the precepts to give no quarter to the Canaanites appears only as part of the law of war " with reference to their cities, not to the native inhabitants in general ; and that the introductory oration may or may not have been written by the author of the code, and in any case is not direct law" [Answer, p. 25). To this defence he has saved his readers the necessity of replying, except 126 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. by referring to his own words in wliicli he fully answers himself. (1.) In the passage from which we have taken this quotation, Dr. Smith writes : " It is very noteworthy that Ezra (ix. 11), quoting the law against such (heathen) intermarriages, . . . assigns the authorship of the pre- cept not to Moses but the prophets." According to Ezra the Mosaic precept against these marriages, in what the critic calls " the introductorj^ oration " (Deut. vii. 3), is " direct law " in the very strictest sense of the term ; for he not only accepts it for their prevention, but most rigorously enforces it for their dissolution at whatever pain to the transgressors. In what the critic distinguishes as "the code proper," there is no law against such intermarriages ; yet no precept in the whole book is enforced by Ezra at so great a sacrifice as this one in what he terms "the introductory oration;" a signal proof that the distinction, as so applied, is quite unreal. (2.) In his earlier writings Dr. Smith seems some- times to hesitate about the authorship of the first eleven chapters ; but in his Old Testament in the, Jewish Church he is both quite decided in assigning the precept against heathen intermarriages in the seventh chapter to the later prophets and not to Moses, and he repeats the statement three times in different parts of the volume. " Even Ezra (ix. 1 1) still speaks of tlie CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 127 law which forbids intermarriages with the people of Canaan as an ordinance of the prophets (phiral). Yet this is now read as a Pentateiichal law (Dent vii.) The Pentateuch is known as the Law of Moses in the age that begins with Ezra. . . In Ezra ix. 1 1 , a law of the Pentateuch is cited as an ordinance of the prophets. Mosaic law is not held to exclude post-Mosaic develop- ments.— The new laws of the Levitical code are pre- sented as ordinances of Moses. Though, when they were first promulgated, every one knew that they were not so, — though Ezra himself speaks of some of them as ordinances of the prophets" (pp. 299, 309, 310, 387). This argument from Ezra wants even the semblance of a ground, because Joshua, whom God himself calls "a man in whom is the Spirit," gives the very same warning as Moses against intermarriages with the Canaanites ; and speaks to Israel as a prophet in every sense of the term, alike in prediction and exhortation : " Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God. Else if ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you : know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes until ye perish from off 128 Deuteronomy : its altered date, bk. ii. this good land which the Lord your God hath given you" (Josh, xxiii. 11, 12, 13). There can be no doubt that Phinehas, with his burn- ing zeal against association wdth the heathen, and other like-minded men of God, must have given similar warn- ings to Israel; but Moses and Joshua of themselves amply justify the words of Ezra regarding the warnings of "God's servants the prophets." This evidence, which Dr. Smith advances so confidently and so frequently, against the Mosaic origin of Deuteronomy, is absolutely nothing ; or rather it is a very grave mistake in the critic to maintain that there is no ''plural" prophetic testimony against such marriages before the age of the later prophets. Even if he should adopt the very ex- treme view that these warnings, divinely ascribed to Joshua, were really written by the same prophetic author who enacted the law in Deuteronomy against heathen intermarriages, Ezra's own words will never prove that this w^as his opinion. He obviously believed that both Moses and Joshua were prophets, and that both of them uttered the warnings at Israel's first en- trance into Canaan. Instead of quoting the exact words of either, he gives the sense of both in his own words, and in the expression '' The land unto which ye go to possess it " he clearly assigns their utterances to the time that preceded Israel's full possession of the land. (3.) But these references to Ezra by Professor Smith CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 129 furnish a most complete answer to his own position that the ban against the Canaanites, as alleged to be pro- nounced by the later prophets, was limited to their cities as in the 20th chapter, and could not include their many families scattered through Israel. The leading command of Moses for their personal extermina- tion is contained in the 7th chapter ; and Professor Smith speaks of its prohibition of intermarriage as " no\o part of the Pentateuch " in the days of Ezra, and as issued not by Moses but " the prophets." Now the two commandments of Moses for the de- struction of the Canaanites and against intermarriage with them form part of one, chapter, of one passage in that chapter, and of one sentence in that passage, and of that sentence they form two members inseparably joined together ; so that if the command not to inter- marry with the Canaanites was ordained by the later prophets and not by Moses, the command to put them to death was likewise ordained by the same prophets, and not by Moses. The ordinance in Deut. vii. 3, " Neither shalt thou make marriages with them" has no meaning whatever except in connection with the first verse, which enumerates by name the " seven nations," and commands, *'And thou shalt make no marriages with them." But what else was Israel to do in regard to those nations besides refraining from inter- marriage ? " When the Lord thy God shall bring thee I 1 30 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou ; and when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them; neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son " (vii. 1, 2, 3). The refraining from intermarriage with the seven nations is part of one larger and inclusive ordinance the first member of which ordains their destruction, and apart from which it has no significance. If the later prophets ordained the second, they likewise or- dained the first ; if they prohibited intermarriage, they enjoined extermination. Dr. Smith, by holding that the prohibition of intermarriage was enacted as " law " by the later prophets, and by adducing it as one of his most trusted and oftenest repeated proofs of " post- Mosaic development," completely destroys his own position that the authors of the " code proper " are not to be held responsible for the law of extermination in the seventh chapter. Into such hopeless confusion must a believing: critic fall when he sets aside the his- torical truth of Scripture, CH. VII.] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. r 3 1 Surely these historical mistakes in so limited a sphere,— of holding that only one early prophet testified to Israel against intermarriage with the Canaanites, that at the time of its enactment the command to give them no quarter was not as strictly law as the command against such intermarriage, and that these two com- mandments were probably not issued by the same law- giver,— surely these repeated mistakes in plain and certain matter of fact, and the great importance of the conclusions drawn from them' warrant, or rather con- strain the learned critic's readers to receive his other statements with the greatest caution and with a most reasonable distrust. The examination of any critic's view of a single passage may often be of little consequence in a great discussion, but the whole theory of a recent Deuteronomy is quite overturned by these first three verses of its 7th chapter. With the exception of national judgments for great national sins, the trans- gression of the law against intermarriage with the Canaanites is above all other laws in the history of Israel severely visited in the time of Ezra on a large number of the people; on priests and Levites and leading men in the nation. The case is taken up " according to the law ;" and in the deep humiliation of the whole community on account of the sin the law is obeyed as a practical and most imperative command. 132 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. But this prohibition of intermarriage is absolutely meaningless when detached from the command for the extermination of the Canaanites ; for it does not state with whom Israel is forbidden to marry. The entire passage of three verses is genuine beyond all dispute : the practical nature of the law on intermarriage is acknowledged by all ; and the law of extermination, hy whomsoever written, must of necessity be of the same practical character. This incontrovertible fact com- pletely sets aside both the idea of archaic embellish- ment and the untenable notion of Bishop Colenso that the extermination is a figure ; for it might as justly be maintained that at the reproof of Ezra all Israel " wept sore and trembled " under the sense of a figurative sin, and the fear of an imaginary punishment. By all who believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures it will be acknowledged that this decree of extermination could never have been written by Divine sanction in the time of the later prophets ; and the critics who disown their inspiration cannot get rid of the insuperable difficulty that the most conscientious and earnest king, Josiah, who in their view was the first to issue the decree by royal authority and to take himself and his people bound by oath to its observance, never for a moment proposed to carry it into practical effect. These exterminating decrees occupy a leading place in the Book of Deuteronomy; in the large amount CH. yil] The Critics Ban on the Canaanites. 133 of space allotted to them, in the various sections of the book in which they are repeated, and in the peculiar earnestness with which they are enforced. If they were embodied in the heart of a book of practical laws for sombre colouring and poetic thunder only, they are the words of " a madman casting firebrands, arrows, and death, and saying, Am I not in sport ?" But even by the admission of Professor Kuenen they were ''seriously meant ;" and, if of recent date, they are contrary not only to all the laws of God, but to all the traditions of Israel, in their strict injunctions and strong incentives to a flagrant breach of covenant by the ruthless mas- sacre of myriads of the peaceful, confiding, and helpless natives of the land. The book, that under the name of law proclaims a ban replete with treachery and death, can form no part of the Word of God ; Deuter- onomy is blotted out of the Holy Scriptures, our Lord's triple seal to its Divine authority is cancelled, and the whole Bible is lost. Such is the inevitable result of a theory which handles the oracles of God with singular rashness, and entirely perverts one of the plainest books in the Bible by assign- ing to it a fanciful origin and investing it with a fictitious character in direct contradiction to its own express declarations. 134 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. n. CHAPTER YIII. THE ONE ALTAR. The evidence most relied on by Dr. Kuenen and others against the antiquity of Deuteronomy is the destruction of the high places by Josiah in obedience to the injunction of a single altar. The high places, however, had been put down by Hezekiah nearly a hundred years before ; and if his removal of them was on the same authority as Josiah's, the whole theory falls to the ground. That this was the case is clearly intimated by the inspired authors of the history, for in the reign of Josiah it is said that " Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14) ; and of Hezekiah it is said that "He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves. ... He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the Lord, and . . . kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded CH. VIII.] The One Altar, 135 Moses" (2 Kings xviii. 4-6). According to the Bible, which is our only source of information, both these kings destroyed the high places in obedience to the law of Moses. Kuenen strenuously holds that Josiah acted according to a written law falsely assigned to Moses ; but he asserts that Hezekiah acted by his own authority without any adequate written law : — "The means which he employed, the ^removing,' 'cut- ting down,' and ' breaking to pieces,' however suitable they may have been for altering the outward appearance of things in a short time, did not reach the root of the evil. In a word, but little penetration was required to foresee that these violent measures would necessarily be followed by a violent reaction; Amon's death was a blessing for the Mosaic party. . . . Hitherto they had no accurately defined programme. The codes of various ages, which were extant at the beginning of Josiah's reign, had no validity in law. The Mosaic party had to set forth their views plainly and definitely, and to prevail upon the King to carry them out. We have their programme in the book of Deuteronomy" {Religion of Israel, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6, 7, 9). The inspired historian, who ascribes Hezekiah's con- duct to reverence for the law of Moses, is thus quite set aside. Dr. Kuenen asserts, with the confidence of an eye-witness, that his procedure was by the high hand of regal power without any legal warrant ; and we are required to confide in this modern discovery as if it were a fact of genuine ancient history. On the 136 Detiterononiy : its altered date. [bk. 11. basis of so groundless a conception is built the theory of a late Deuteronomy ! But such criticism, professing to be rational, is purely arbitrary and unreasonable; and, while it claims to be historical, the creative mind of the critic is all the history on which it is founded. In no light in which it can be regarded does the Deuteronomic ordinance of a single altar indicate an origin for the book in the days of Manasseh or Josiah. The chief elements concerning it in this relation may be embraced in these considerations : The ordinance was not moral but ceremonial, and was not designed to carry its full obligation till after the building of the Temple ; the Book of Deuteronomy itself enjoins the building of another altar; the law of one altar was never enforced by any penalty, and its neglect is not recorded as entering into Josiah's fears for Jeru- salem. 1. The ordinance of one altar was ceremonial, and was to come into full effect only after the building of the Temple. Like other Mosaic institutions, its design was moral ; the one altar teaching the unity of God, and well fitted to prepare the minds of Israel for the one great Priest and the one Sacrifice. But the institution was to pass away in the time of the Gospel, and was unknown in the days of the patriarchs. The central altar in Deuteronomy corresponded to the one tabernacle and the one place for the yearly feasts, as CH. VIII.] The One Altar, 137 enjoined in Exodus. But there is a marked signi- ficance in the terms of its institution : — " When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety ; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you" (Deut. xii. 10, 11). The one altar was to be in the land of their inheri- tance when it had become their possession, when they had rest from all their enemies, and when the Lord had chosen a place for His name to dwell in. In a good measure these three conditions were fulfilled under Joshua before the eastern tribes had returned across the Jordan : Israel had inherited the promised land, their great war of conquest was finished and followed by rest, and the Lord had set His name in Shiloh. But till the reign of Solomon not one of these con- ditions had a complete fulfilment; in the days of the Judges, Israel had by no means gained possession of all the land, whilst Zion itself was only taken by David ; and the fulness of rest was not attained till Solomon could say, " But now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent" (1 Kings v. 4). It was the same with the condition of the Lord "choosing a place" for Himself. On this expression 138 Deuteronomy: its altered date. [bk. 11. great stress is laid in the enactment, and in the twelfth j and sixteenth chapters "the place which the Lord j shall choose" is repeated eight times. At the conse- ' cration of the Temple (2 Chron. vi.), Solomon says : | " The Lord God of Israel spake to my father David, ' saying, Since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build an house in, that my name i might be there ; but I have chosen Jerusalem, that my j name might be there ; " in the service of the dedi- cation Jerusalem is five times called the city or 1 place which the Lord had chosen ; and the same desig- : nation is used in other Scriptures, but never except for \ Jerusalem. The Lord " set His name in Shiloh at | the first," but is not said to have " chosen " it. This marked distinction is not a verbal one, but real ; because while Shiloh had become the place of the ; Lord's house by the presence of the ark and the Tabernacle, there is no record of its peculiar choice by { a special recognition, such as twice marked out Zion as | selected by the Lord, first by the fire from heaven consecrating Araunah's threshing-floor, and then con- \ suming the sacrifice at the dedication of the Temple, \ and also by the glory filling all the house. In the inheritance of all the land, in the perfect rest round \ about, and in the miraculous choice of the place, the \ conditions of the enactment of a single altar were all CH. vni.] The One Altar, 139 at last fulfilled, and the force of the law became complete. From this time forward, no man in the kingdom of Judah who "wholly followed the Lord" offered sacrifice elsewhere than at "the place which the Lord had chosen" in Jerusalem, and in that kingdom God never elsewhere accepted a sacrifice by fire from heaven. One design of this exclusiveness was evidently that after the sacrificial death of Christ Israel should be shut up "without a sacrifice and without an ephod," till " they shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days." After the division of the kingdom, however, Elijah, the greatest of the prophets next to Moses, offered sacri- fice on the altar of twelve unhewn stones which he built on Mount Carmel, and God answered him from heaven. This answer by fire was for the great end of proving to apostate Israel that Jehovah was God, and turning their hearts to Him again ; and He had never bound Himself by any ceremonial ordinance. But from Elijah's complaint, " They have thrown down thine altars," it appears that, during the rending of the kingdom, the godly in Israel had sacrificed on the ancient altars, and that their offerings had been ac- cepted ; for the evident reason that they were restrained by force from going up to Jerusalem. The ancient altars, as long as they were suffered to stand, had been witness for Jehovah in the midst of a nation who could 140 Deuieronomy : its altered date. [bk. 11. not bear the sight of them; for they were all, save seven thousand, bowing the knee to Baal. 2. In the Book of Deuteronomy itself there is an ex- press injunction to build a second altar on Mount Ebal for a great but temporary purpose ; an altar of stone in addition to the brazen altar before the Tabernacle. The narrative of the erection of the altar by Joshua, in obedience to this commandment, clearly proves that the legislation of Deuteronomy was given by Moses. But, quite apart from Joshua, the altar of Ebal in Deuteronomy disproves the new theory of the origin of the book, according to which one of its chief objects is the absolute injunction of a single altar in the land ; for no late prophet, with such an object in view, would have frustrated his own design by inventing a Mosaic command to build another altar besides the central altar before the ark of the covenant. This command in the days of Josiah would have been a direct encour- agement to Judah even then to build additional altars. Likewise, this altar on Ebal holds the important position of proving that the law of the single altar was never designed to set aside such temporary altars as God might expressly sanction. The command, " Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest," excludes every spot of man's selection, but forbids none that might be desig- nated by God Himself. During the whole time between CH. VKi.] The One Altar, 141 the death of Eli and the building of the Temple, includ- ing the entire judicial life of Samuel, there was no place on which, even in the more restricted sense, it could be said that " the Lord had set his name there," and no altar that could in its full meaning be called " the altar before the Lord." In all that period the ark of the Lord's presence was apart from the brazen altar and the Tabernacle ; and it was impossible to obey the enactment so long as this division remained. Other instances of the erection of separate altars by- express Divine sanction, as in the case of Gideon and of Manoah, far from being contrary to the Book of Deuteronomy, are in most perfect harmony with its injunction of a separate altar on Mount Ebal. In searching the subsequent history for contradictions to the book, the critics have overlooked the decisive fact that the supposed contradiction only brings the history into more exact conformity with the enactments in the book itself. If that history is contrary to the twelfth chapter of Deuteronomy with its one central altar, the twenty- seventh chapter of the book with its altar on Mount Ebal presents a still more startling contrariety. This simple fact of the altar on Ebal demonstrates the futility of the whole historic reasons on which the new theory is built, makes it unaccountable how it could ever have been based on such grounds, and brings us back to the position that the law in its very enacting 142 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. n. terms was never designed to take its full effect till after tlie building of the Temple, and was at no time intended to interfere with any altar erected by direct warrant from Heaven. One chief design of the law was to engrave on the heart of Israel the much needed admoni- tion, "Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest." The Book of Deuteronomy and the reformation under Josiah are both alike marked by intense earnestness. There is no book in the whole Bible more deeply marked by earnestness of command and of exhortation ; and there is no work more thoroughly characterised by zealous obedience. What the one enjoins to be done with all the heart, the other engages the whole heart in performing. The date of the writer's laws and ordin- ances makes a difference almost infinite in their design and meaning ; but no difference whatever in the fact that he is intensely earnest for the execution of his decrees. The date likewise makes no difference in the devoted earnestness of Israel's obedience ; but it makes a difference all but infinite which of the ordinances are now to be obeyed. The writer, whoever he was, is earnest in everything he writes ; and Israel is earnest in everything laid upon him to obey. If the writer was Moses, in desiring that all his in- junctions should be remembered, he designed that in part they should be received by the generation now before CH. VIII.] The One Altar, 143 him, and in part by generations yet to come. But if the writer was a later prophet, his design was to extend, or restrain, or define, or alter the laws of Moses ; but in every case expressly for the men of his own generation or others to follow them. If not Moses, he wrote all in the name of Moses, and as if in the person of Moses on the banks of Jordan ; yet all the precepts, however apparently relative to Moses or his time, have no histori- cal or personal connection with him, but are written expressly for Israel under Manasseh or Josiah. Many old laws of the personal Moses are incorporated, but the whole is moulded into one for present use in Israel. For antiquated ordinances there is no place ; all that is embodied in the book is either new or else enforced with a new sanction bringing the past down to the present. The ordinances for the king occur only in Deuteronomy, and according to the critics are entirely new, and belong exclusively to the later prophetic writers ; but they are thrown back to the age and are put into the lips of Moses, just as much as the seventh year's release of a Hebrew servant, which is repeated from the Book of Exodus. That Deuteronomy formed at least a portion of the book found in the Temple is admitted by all ; but if it was written in the days of Manasseh or Josiah, it is so far from ordaining a single altar, that it is the only book in the Bible which sanctions the erection by a King of Judah of a separate altar after the building of 1 44 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. ii. Solomon's Temple. Besides the altar in the Temple there never was given on any occasion or for any object the Divine command or sanction for another either in Judah or elsewhere under any King of Jiidah. The theory of the critics is that the book was written to reveal the mind of God through His prophets for the Divine worship, and the relative duties that were acceptable to God and incumbent on Israel at the present time. The command to rear an altar on Mount Ebal for burnt- offerings and peace-offerings is now issued for the first time ; and there is nothing to hinder its fulfilment in its main features. When Josiah was breaking down the altars at Bethel, it would have been an impressive scene to have summoned Judah and Israel to Ebal and Gerizim ; Judah and Ben- jamin could have been present in ample numbers ; representatives from all the various tribes might easily have been found ; the Levites could have read aloud the curses and the blessings of the law, and the assembled people have added their Amen. But Josiah attempts nothing of the kind. Why ? They had sworn to observe all the words of the book, and why did they omit this great ordinance ? In the book it was nearly as prominent as the ordinance of a single altar, for it occupied one whole chapter (xxvii.), besides having been previously enjoined in another (xi.) ; whilst both ordinances are equally issued in the name of CH. VIII.] The One Altar. 145 Moses on the eastern side of Jordan. The obvious reason was that king, and priest, and prophet knew and confessed that these were not new words recently written for themselves, but were old commandments ordained by Moses to their fathers, that the altar on Mount Ebal had been erected by tlieir fathers in its own right time, and that the ordinance of a single altar came down to them from their fathers. Further, what could be the motive of the prophetic author who is alleged to have composed the book in ordaining the erection of an altar on Mount Ebal ? Zeal for the one altar at Jerusalem, if not his greatest object, was at least second to none. In the words of Professor Kuenen, " The Deuteronomist confines the worship of Jehovah to ' the place which He shall choose,' to the Temple at Jerusalem. This centralisation is the means by which he proposes to extinguish idolatry, and to give undis- puted supremacy to the Jehovahism that stands before him as his ideal" (Hibhert Lectures, p. 151). If so, how could he stultify himself by expressly and most solemnly ordaining a second altar on Mount Ebal? With Moses the solution is simple, because the one altar is to stand by itself alone after Israel has rest, and the Lord has chosen his dwelling-place ; but while both Israel and the Tabernacle are moving from place to place, the commandment for a second and tem- porary altar for a special object does not even in appear- K 146 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. 11. ance contradict the final ordinance of a single altar, or involve the least inconsistency. But it is inconceivable that a prophet, filled with zeal for God's holy altar at Jerusalem, should first give manifold and strict in- junctions to Israel to sacrifice at that single altar, and then annul his own commands by expressly enjoining the erection of another altar. What possible object could the writer have for overturning all that he had written by the addition of such a command ? The injunction of one altar is made the great objection to attributing Deuteronomy to Moses ; but when taken along with the command for a second altar, it becomes an insuperable difficulty in the way of attributing it to Josiah. No prophet of the Lord could have written such a command in the days of Manasseh or Josiah, and Josiah could never have issued it. Deuteronomy, when falsely ascribed to the time of Josiah, is the only book in the whole Bible that sanctions the erection of a second altar under any of the kings of Judah ; yet the critics hold up this book, with its altered date, as the great authority for a single altar in Judah ! Is our Holy Bible to be reconstructed on such a founda- tion ; and are such critics to be intrusted with framing a new Bible for us ? 3. The law of one altar was enforced neither by penalty under the hand of man nor by threatening of the judgment of God. The connection between the CH. VIII.] The One Altar. 147 original character of the law and the record of its ob- servance or neglect in the history of Israel, instead of exhibiting an inconsistency, furnishes one of those interesting coincidences between different parts of Scripture which prove their inspiration by one great Author. Every reader of the history of the Kings is struck with the commendation of one after another in the roll of sovereigns who " did that which was right in the sight of the Lord," yet with the qualification, " howbeit the high places were not taken away ;" or more fully, " nevertheless, the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only." The inspired writers, both in Kings and Chronicles, stamp this practice with such a character as to indicate that the worshipper did not forfeit the favour or ap- proval of the Most High, although the mode of his worship was marked with censure. The ordinance of a single altar was thus placed on a more elevated level than many other laws ; and it was observed only by men who followed the Lord wholly, like Hezekiah and Josiah, and like eastern Israel returning from Shiloh in the days of Joshua. If the altar erected by these tribes on the western bank of the Jordan had been for sacrifice, their transgression would have been great, although the Temple was not built, because the place was one of their own selection, and the altar was designed as a permanent erection for those entire tribes. 1 48 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ti. But their conscience was tender, the command in Deu- teronomy was fresh in their memory, and the very object of their altar was to leave to their children a lasting witness of stone to their inalienable right to sacrifice at the one Tabernacle, or in their own words, " to do the service of the Lord before him with their burnt-offerings and sacrifices" (Josh. xxii. 27) ; so leaving also for us an incontrovertible testimony that the Deuteronomic code was written before Israel had crossed the Jordan. The historic record of the observance of this law by kings who wholly followed the Lord, yet not always by kings who were pious and sincere, quite accords with the character of the law as regards penalty or threaten- ing. The Mosaic laws were enforced by a penalty under the hand of man, as in the stoning of the nearest relative or closest friend who enticed to the worship of other gods ; or by a curse from God through the lips of men, as upon the man who caused the blind to wan- der out of the way ; or by the threatening of Divine judgment, which is understood by the Jews as not re- quiring the ruler's interference, as against the man who being clean forbore to keep the Passover and was to be cut off from among his people. But the law of a single altar is one of those ordinances in which there is neither penalty nor curse nor threatening on account of its neglect ; there is only the command, with an earnest admonition to take heed to keep it. CH. VIII.] The One Altar. 149 This absence of appointed or threatened judgment is in entire harmony with the subsequent history. There were high places to heathen gods, and high places with graven images as in Israel under Jeroboam ; the mul- tiplicity of altars tended greatly to increase such heinous offences ; and in the most corrupt times there were probably no high places without idols. "They pro- voked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images" (Ps. IxxviiL 58). But we are not aware that simple altars to Jehovah on high places are ever represented as among the direct causes of the destruction of the nation and desolation of the land ; and certainly not in either the prophetic history in Deuteronomy, or the actual history under Josiah. In Deuteronomy, when all nations shall ask, "Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land, what meaneth the heat of this great anger? then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, ... for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, . . . and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book" (chap. xxix. 24-27). The predicted cause of the judgment is the worship of other gods with all the iniquities it involved. Seven hundred years later, to Josiah trembling for the words of the book, and in- quiring at the prophetess Huldah, the answer is exactly 150 Deuteronomy: its altered date, [bk. 11. the same : " Tell ye the man that seut you to me, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah : because they have for- saken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands ; therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 23-25). In the words of the prophetess, exactly as in Deuteronomy, there is no reference what- ever to the neglect of the law of a single altar as the cause, or as one of the causes of the Lord's anger, but only to the worship of other gods. In this whole subject of the ordinance of a single altar there is not the slightest contradiction, but the most entire harmony, between the original law of Moses and the subsequent history of Israel. But the com- mand to erect an altar on Mount Ebal, if first issued in the reign of Josiah, is a most direct contradiction of the alleged leading design of the developed Moses regarding a single altar at Jerusalem. CH. IX.] The Predicted Prophet, 151 CHAPTER IX. THE PREDICTED PEOPHET AND PREDICTED KING. 1. The Predicted Prophet. " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye shall hearken." — Deut xviii. 15. (1.) This prediction in the lips of a prophet of Judah is a singularly offensive personation of Moses. — It is inconceivable that any man of God could so divest himself of his own personality, and so clothe himself with the person of Moses as to utter these words, " A Prophet like unto me;" for it is unquestionably both the individual Moses that is reported as speaking, and an individual Prophet that is predicted in his likeness. But who is it that presumes so to mix up both Moses and the Messiah with himself? The critics wdio create his existence cannot teU us his name, for if his name had been known the whole spell of the pious fraud would have dissolved. It is incredible that any man of ordi- 152 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. nary modesty, not to say truthfulness, could set himself to speak as one of "the wizards that peep and that mutter ;" and so embody himself in Moses as to utter the words, " The Lord will raise up a Prophet like unto me." If the new theory were true, Moses himself, when living on the earth, never cherished such a hope or gave forth such a prophecy ; but a daring necromancer makes him utter the prediction seven hundred years after his death ! (2.) This Prophecy in its altered date turns the great transactions on Mount Sinai into an ideal scene. — If it is not the true but an ideal Moses that utters the words, "A Prophet like unto me," then Moses himself on Mount Sinai ceases to be a living man, and becomes merely an idea ; not that the bare existence of the man Moses is set aside, but that the whole transactions at Mount Sinai, and all similarly marvellous events, either are or may be purely ideal. The words of Moses on the plains of Moab, " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet like unto me," are his dying assur- ance to Israel on the express ground of what God had said to himself forty years before on Mount Sinai, "I will raise them up a Prophet like unto thee ;" and this assur- ance is given in answer to the people's earnest desire not to hear again the voice of God Himself (Deut. xviii. 16-18). According to the new theory, this promise on Mount Sinai of the great future Prophet is purely ideal, CH. IX.] The Predicted Prophet. 153 and was given seven hundred years afterwards. Now, Deuteronomy, if it be a later revelation invested with Mosaic authority, supersedes Exodus in so far as it differs from it ; and, as the latest Mosaic revelation, it must likewise be our authoritative guide in the inter- pretation of the previous records. But if the Lord's answer to Moses in the 17th and 18th verses, that the people have well spoken in asking a mediator with God, and that He will raise up for them another prophet, is not a true but an ideal answer never given to Moses at all, then the people's request in the 16th verse must likewise be ideal, for their petition and the Divine reply are parts of one transaction. The people's prayer with- out the answer is recorded in Exodus, " Speak thou with us, and we will hear : but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (chap. xx. 19); but if, according to the latest authoritative document, this request of the people on Mount Sinai is ideal and not actual, it must be lawful or incumbent to interpret the whole scene in Exodus ideally ; and to follow the most destructive critics in holding that not even the Ten Command- ments, as we now have them, are really in the words of Moses. If the Deuteronomist was not Moses, he is him- self a Prophet greater than Moses ; and such a Prophet was impossible, except in the person of the Messiah. Professor A. B. Davidson, without directly noticing the prediction of the great Prophet, takes up the con- 154 Deuteronomy: its altered date. [bk. ii. eluding verses of the passage, and reasons against their historical authenticity by an argument that distresses us in dealing with the Holy Scriptures : — " The prophecy in Deuteronomy regarding the prophets seems directed to meet the ramifications and developments of a pseudo-prophecy — sometimes consciously false, and sometimes, perhaps, self-deceived — such as history makes us familiar with. But this pseudo-prophecy arose only side by side with true prophecy, and came to a head during the moral confusions and political perplexities of the time be- fore and after Jeremiah. We cannot help asking whether a statement from Moses about prophecy was likely to take into account and frame itself so as to meet such a peculiar condition of the national mind, the result of such distant and complicated historical movements % And this is just an instance of the kind of questions which meet us every- where in this field" {Old Test. Exegesis j p. 17). The prediction of Moses regarding the great Prophet is a signal prophecy of a very distant event and of an event quite beyond human foresight ; but his directions how to distinguish between true prophets and false axe so fitted to meet a not unlikely evil, as scarcely to come under the class of unlikely predictions. But if our acceptance of prophecy is to be squared by what its interpreters deem likely ; and if on account of the prediction of circumstances, " the result of distant and complicated historical movements," a prophecy is to be rejected as unlikely ; the truth of many of the greatest prophecies in the Bible is destroyed. CH. IX.] The Predicted King, 155 2. Tlic Predicted King. " When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me."— Deut. xvii. 14. The great Prophet like unto Moses is expressly pro- mised by the Lord as his own gift to Israel : " I will raise them up a Prophet like unto thee." It is God's own doing from first to last, irrespective of any action either good or bad on the part of Israel ; God acknow- ledged their need of a Mediator, and promised to supply the want by His own express gift. But God does not promise them a king, nor acknowledge their need of one, because He was Himself their King; yet He foresees that the time would come when Israel would desire a king ; and through Moses he gives directions to the people for the regulation of their choice and to the king for the regulation of his conduct. The people are not to go beyond their own brethren in seeking for a king, and amongst their brethren they are " in any wise to set him over them whom the Lord their God shall choose;" and the king, when divinely chosen, is to write a copy of the law of Moses, and to read in it daily. This virtually amounts to a prediction that there would be a king to reign over Israel, and that the king- dom would be sanctioned by God himself. 156 Deuteronomy: its altered date. [bk. 11. It has been contended that the prohibition against multiplying wives, multiplying horses, and multiplying silver and gold describe so exactly what Solomon did that this ordinance must have been written after his death. But there is nothing in any of these prohibitions that might not have occurred to Moses even apart from Divine inspiration ; and the notice of Egypt, to which Solomon sent for horses, was most natural to Moses in this connection, for the horses of the Pharaoh of the Exodus were for ever memorable in Israel. But whilst there is no real, ajid, it may be said, not even an apparent difficulty in this prominent passage of Deuteronomy taken by itself, it is maintained that there is an inconsistency between the ordinance of a king as laid down by Moses, and the actual appoint- ment in the days of Samuel. Yet there is no discrep- ancy whatever between the two, but the most marked resemblance ; a resemblance so marked that Samuel appears to be, as undoubtedly he was, well acquainted with Deuteronomy. In the anticipation by Moses, the people, after " dwelling " in the land of Canaan, begin to say, " I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me ;" in the history by Samuel they say, " Make us a king to judge us like all the nations " (1 Sam. viii. 5). In Deuteronomy Moses says, " Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose ;" in the history Saul is CH. IX.] The Predicted King. 157 chosen by lot out of all the tribes of Israel, and Samuel says of him, " See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen " (1 Sam. X. 24). In the history Samuel severely re- proves Israel for rejecting the Lord as their king ; they confess that they have sinned in asking a king ; and Samuel says to them : " Fear not : for the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake " (1 Sam. xii. 20, 22). The only real difficulty in the whole matter is that the people should sin in desiring a king, and that God notwithstanding should choose their king for them, and confirm the appointment with His blessing. But this difficulty in the event belongs equally to the prediction, which presupposes their discontent with the Lord as their King, and forecasts their saying, " I will set a king over me like all the nations." There is not by any means a contrariety, but a most exact correspondence between the prophecy and the history. If we may com- pare greater things with less, the difficulty of a pre- dicted blessing in connection with an unbelieving and offensive course on the part of Israel is not different from the apparent difficulty in the promise of a blessing to the world through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, whilst that death by the hands of men was itself the greatest of crimes. 158 Deuteronomy : its altered date, [bk. 11. CHAPTEE X. THE LAW OF THE FIRSTLINGS. If the objection to Deuteronomy as truly the work of Moses on the ground of its ordinance of a single altar in Israel had any reasonable foundation, no fault could be found with it as of slight importance. But this cannot be said of a crowd of small objections on the regulation of sacrifices and other matters, in which it is alleged that Deuteronomy directly contradicts the Levitical legislation ; the wonder rather being that so diligent a search finds no greater difficulties to be removed in a book of statutes so ancient, and so many of them relating to observances with which we are not practically conversant. At these minute differences we need not stumble, even if we cannot now explain them. Yet in some of the confidently alleged in- stances, the difficulty is not to reconcile the contra- diction, but to discern it; as when Moses in the wilderness absolutely enjoins the offering of every firstlinf? fit for sacrifice, and afterwards on the eve of CH. X.] The Law of the Firstlings. 159 Israel's entrance into Canaan relaxes or alters the command, if the owner should be living at a distance from the sanctuary. In other cases, it is to be remem- bered that some statutes will of necessity seem obscure if they are not read with care. Instead of entering into a number of little details, let us select out of these alleged contradictions the instance that seems to have been oftenest adduced and pressed : the acknowledged gift in Numbers xviii. 15-18 of the firstlings to the priests, and the alleged assignation of them to every Israelite in Deut. xii. 17, 18; xiv. 23; xv. 19, 20. Without disparaging the solutions that have been offered, we submit the follow- ing considerations as amply sufficient to remove any apparent difference, taking as our guide the statute in the twelfth chapter as serving to explain the others that follow. 1. The Deuteronomic code can never be clear except we bear in mind as a leading rule in its interpretation, that Moses is addressing the nation as well as its individual men, and that he often speaks to the community as if to one man : — " Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee. ... To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art. . . . Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, . . . that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee (chap, iv. 36, 38, 40). Three times in a year shall all thy males 1 60 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. appear before the Lord thy God. . . . And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place his name there (chap. xvi. 16, 11). Thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land (chap. xix. 2). Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates. . . . Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift" (chap. xvi. 18, 19). Besides personal precepts, such as the precept to help a brother whose ox had fallen in the way, there are many of these national commands in the singular number, yet passing as if into personal injunctions for children, for son and daughter. The expression, "within thy gates," does not mean that each Israelite had cities of his own ; nor was each one to appoint cities of refuge or judges, or to execute justice without bribery ; but these things were to be done in the community. So in chapter xii. 17, 18, " Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, . . . but thou must eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose," is a command to the nation and not to the individual, and defines nothing regarding the personal duties of different classes of the community. cii. X.] The Law of the Firstlings. i6i 2. The statutes in the chapter in which the com- mand concerning the firstlings first occurs, and also the subsequent passages, are written with a very special reference to the place which the Lord should "choose" in the promised land. It is evidently the special object of the whole chapter to define not the ]persons who are to offer the sacrifices or to eat of the offerings, but the place where they are to be offered and to be eaten. The persons had been exactly de- fined in Numbers xviii., and now the place is specified as the one Sanctuary in the land which the Lord would choose. This is so marked as the object of the chapter (xii. 1-28), that the expression "the place which the Lord shall choose" is repeated five several times (vers. 5, 11, 14, 18, 26), and five times more in the expressions "thither" shall ye bring them, and " there" shall ye eat. In the eighteenth of Numbers there is nothing said about " the place which the Lord shall choose," but only about the priests ministering at the Tabernacle ; and there are very precise rules laid down regarding the participation in holy things by the priests and their sons, or by all in their house, both sons and daughters. In Deuteronomy there is nothing of this kind, but there are equally strict injunctions about the place where the offerings are to be presented and to be eaten. It is therefore most reasonable to interpret the first set of laws as defining the persons, h 1 62 DeMteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii, and the second as defining the place without specifying the persons ; and to accept the command, " Thou shalt eat" as addressed to Israel, and to be interpreted in accordance with the previous statutes. 3. This interpretation of the law of firstlings is not only in itself reasonable and probable, but, as explained by the context, must be held to be absolutely certain. The critics who refuse these laws to Moses contend that we cannot reconcile the eighteenth verse of the eighteenth of Numbers, giving the firstlings to the priests, and the eighteenth verse of the twelfth of Deuteronomy, giving them (as they conceive) to every Israelite ; but they omit all notice of the much more startling contradiction in these chapters between the seventh verse in Numbers and the twenty-seventh in Deuteronomy, which completely disproves their inter- pretation of these laws. In Numbers the priest alone is to offer sacrifice on the altar, and it is death for any other, either Israelite or Levite, to intrude into this office ; but according to this new reading of the law in Deuteronomy every Israelite is to be his own priest, and positively commanded to offer his own sacrifice on the altar : — " Thou shalt off'er tliy burnt offerings, the flesh and the hlood, iipon the altar of the Lord thy God : and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy Gocl, and thou shalt eat the flesh" (Deut. xii. 27). CH. X.] The Lmu of the Firstlings. 163 The first law forbids, under pain of death, the Israelite to do that which the second law expressly commands him to do ; yet our opponents are far from holding that every Israelite was constituted a priest. But " thou shalt eat," in Deut. xii. 18, and "thou sh alt offer," in Deut xii. 27, are undoubtedly addressed to the same persons ; and if the offering must be understood, not of every Israelite, but of Israel through those already appointed for that privilege, so must also the eating. The contradiction is not in the laws themselves, but in the evidently mistaken interpretation now put upon them. 4. The same passage also cancels the favourite ob- jection of the want of distinction in Deuteronomy between the priests and the Levites, which is thus stated by Professor A. B. Davidson : — " In the Levitical books there is a sharp distinction be- tween priests and Levites. . . In Deuteronomy mention is made of priests and Levites, but the state of things is this : — Levi is the priestly tribe, all Levites may be priests, but of course all are not, and the distinction between priests and Levites is, that priests are actually officiating Levites. . . . Let any one consider the sharp distinction drawn in the middle books with the tragic histories connected with it, and then say whether it is probable that a few years after no allusion to the distinction should appear in the course of a whole book" — {Old Testament Exegesis, p. 18). We are not aware of any foundation for the state- ment that all Levites may be priests ; for evidently 1 64 Detiterono7ny : its altered date. [bk. ii. Deuteronomy xviii. 6-8 only proves that the Levite who quitted his home for the sake of the Sanctuary should be welcomed to take part in its ministrations with his brethren already there; and the frequent expression, " the priests the Levites," simply designates the priests as sons of Levi, and intimates that all the priests were Levites, but certainly not that a priest was merely an officiating Levite. Nowhere is the dis- tinction between priests and Levites more strongly marked than in the account of Hezekiah's reformation in the Second Book of Chronicles — " He brought in the priests and the Levites, . . . and said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites. . . . And the priests went into the inner part of the house, . . . and brought out all the unclean- ness that they found in the Temple of the Lord. . . . And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron. . . . And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer them on the altar of the Lord" (xxix. 4, 5, 16, 21). There are many similar expres- sions of the distinction. Yet the closing account of the Passover is in these words : " Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people" (chap, xxx. 27) ; proving that after denoting the priests as the sons of Aaron, and repeatedly making an express distinction between them and the Levites, the inspired writer could quite naturally and consistently call them " the priests the Levites." Dr. Davidson's argument, founded CH. X.] The Law of the Firstlings. 165 on its not being " probable" that the sharp distinction between priests and Levites drawn by Moses in the Levitical books would be quite omitted in Deuteronomy if he had written it, is a fair illustration of the founda- tion on which a great mass of recent criticism rests ; not only because the actual is so often different from the probable, but also because what is probable to one mind may be quite the reverse to another. To his mind the facts that Moses had previously made the lines of distinction so plain, and that the consequences of deny- ing them had been so tragic, make it improbable that in his last address to Israel he should have omitted to repeat or enforce the distinction ; although it must be remembered that he does not omit to recall to their memory the awful judgment on those who abetted the deniers of the Divine distinction (chap. xi. 6). To our mind, again, nothing seems more probable than that Moses should have regarded the clear and definite statutes he had already given on the high office of the priesthood, and their terrible vindication, as ample reasons for not repeating them. Who is to decide between us with our contrary probabilities ? and is our view of the probable or improbable any ground what- ever for originating or defending these most perilous innovations on the holy oracles of God ? But the command in Deuteronomy xii. 27 settles this whole section of the controversy, and proves that this 1 66 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. entire line of argument rests on a misconception of the character of the book. Clearly it does not belong to the design of the book to define again the distinc- tions between the different classes of the community which had been sufficiently marked already ; and it omits these distinctions with an implied reference to the Levitical books in which they had been exactly laid down. On any other supposition this statute would be fatally misleading, for it might be understood as confer- ring the priesthood on the whole people ; and according to the new interpretation this must be the meaning of the command. We look in vain through the book for any authority given to the Levite to assume the priestly office ; but interpreted by this view of its legislation, the statute not only allows, but enjoins every Israelite, each Ephraimite, and Benjamite to officiate as his own priest, and offer his own burnt- offering, " the flesh and the blood," on the altar. The interpretation is therefore absolutely wrong ; and the object of these enactments is evidently to lay these duties and confer these privi- leges on the nation of Israel, to be discharged or enjoyed by the different classes in the State, in accordance with the distinctions already laid down in the Levitical ordinances. 5. Eeturning to the law of firstlings, the contradic- tory interpretation, so far as we know, is a recent one, and most certainly it is not the ancient reading of these cii. X.] The Law of the Firstlings. 167 laws. Nehemiah was well acquainted with the law of Moses ; and he had practical as well as traditional helps for knowing it, such as we do not now possess. The Book of Deuteronomy was in his memory, or in the memory of those with whom he united in prayer, and its testimony is cited for Israel that "their feet had not swelled nor their raiment waxed old for forty years in the wilderness" (Deut. viii. 4; Neh. ix. 21). It was also in his hands, and he refers to its written command concerning the Ammonite and the Moabite, not by the unknown prophet of modern conjecture, but "in the book of Moses" (Deut. xxiii. 3 ; ISTeh. xiii. 1). But he had never discerned any change in the law regarding the firstlings ; for if he had, he would certainly have followed it. Accordingly he does not give the firstling to all the people, but expressly assigns them to the priests ; and he assigns them to the priests according to the law of Moses : — " They entered into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord, . . . and to bring the firstfruits of our ground, . . . also the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, unto the priests that minister in the house of our God " (Neh. x. 29, 35, 36). He obeys the law of Moses in Numbers by giving them 1 68 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. to the priests, and he obeys the law of Moses in Deu- teronomy by giving them to be eaten "in the place which the Lord had chosen to put His name there." The contradiction is not in the law of God, but in the imaginary discoveries of men. CH. XL] The Testimony of Joshua. 1 69 CHAPTEE XL THE TESTIMONY OF JOSHUA. The Book of Joshua is not expressly ascribed to him as its author, and it may have been written either by him or concerning him ; but it is commonly and reason- ably believed to have been written by Joshua himself, although some suppose that it may have been the work of one of " the elders that overlived him," who as comrades in his march could speak of the waters of the Jordan being dried up '-'until we were passed over" (chap. V. 11). For our present purpose, however, it is enough that it was undoubtedly written before the marriage of Solomon, for it speaks of the Canaanites dwelling in Geser "unto this day" (chap. xvi. 10), which must have been previous to Pharaoh's capture and gift of that city as a portion to his daughter (1 Kings ix. 16); and it must for a similar reason have been written before David took the fort of Zion from the Jebusites (2 Sam. v. 6, 7), whom it describes as dwelling in Jerusalem " unto this day " (chap. xv. T 70 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. 63). If, then, the Book of Joshua was not written by himself, as we believe it to have been, or by one of his elders, its date is at least earlier by several centuries than the new date assigned to Deuteronomy. But there is the amplest evidence that Joshua was written, not before, but after Deuteronomy, as an express sequel to its legislation, and a record of the historical fulfilment of its commands and its promises. It seems impossible to read the one book after the other without accepting this conclusion as at once natural on the surface of their contents, and undeniable under a closer inspection; and it appears unaccount- able to assign a recent date to Deuteronomy without making Joshua still later, and agreeing with those very advanced critics who hold that it was written either by the same author, or by another in the later days of Judah. As an imperfect substitute for the consecutive reading of the books themselves, let us select out of each some of the corresponding passages that are peculiar to these two books : — I. Deuteronomy. Joshua. "Every place whereon the "Now after the death of soles of your feet shall tread Moses, . . . the Lord spake shall be yours : from the wilder- unto Joshua, saying, . . . Every ness and Lebanon, from the place that the sole of your foot river, the river Euphrates, even shall tread upon, that have I unto the uttermost sea shall given unto you, as I said unto your coast be" (chap. xi. 24). Moses. From the wilderness CH. XI.] The Testimony of yoshtia. 171 Deuteronomy. '* There shall no man be able to stand before you (chap. xi. 25). Be strong and of a good courage : for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them ; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. The Lord . . . will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee (chap. xxxi. 7, 8). Thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left (chap, xxviii. 14). He shall read therein all the days of his life : . . . that he turn not aside from the com- mandment, to the right hand, or to the left" (chap. xvii. 19, 20), " I commanded you at that time, saying. The Lord your God hath given you this land to pos- sess it : ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the chil- dren of Israel, all that are meet for the war. But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle, . . . shall abide in your Joshua. and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. " There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life : as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee : I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage : for thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land {marg.) which I sware unto their fathers to give them. . . . Ac- cording to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee : turn not from it to the right hand or to the left. . . . This book of the law, . . . thou shalt meditate therein day and night" (chap, i.1-8). " Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, The Lord your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan ; 72 D enter onomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. Deuteronomy. cities which I have given you ; uutil the Lord have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you, and until they also possess the land which the Lord your God hath given them be- yond Jordan : and then shall ye return every man unto his pos- session, which I have given you" (chap. iii. 18, 19, 20). Joshua. but ye shall pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valour, and help them ; until the Lord hath given your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have pos- sessed the land which the Lord your God giveth them : then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it, which Moses the Lord's servant gave you on this side Jordan" (chap. i. 13, 14, 15). The entire tenor of these opening verses of the Book of Joshua agrees exactly with the Book of Deutero- nomy. The commands to Joshua to " be strong and of a good courage," and not to turn from the command- ment "to the right hand or to the left;" and the promises that "the Lord will be w^ith him," and " neither fail nor forsake him," that " no man shall be able to stand before him," and that he shall "cause the people to inherit the land," are all peculiar to Deuteronomy; and the repetition of the words of Moses out of that book is with the obvious design of making the history a sequel to the legislation. Not only so, but in Joshua the grand initial promise to Israel of the gift of " every place whereon the sole of their foot shall tread," is expressly stated to be accord- CH. XI.] The Testimony of JosJma. "^IZ ing to the saying of the Lord to Moses ; and it is only in Deuteronomy that we find this promise so graphic in its terms, and in this respect so distinct from all the other promises to the nation. This one citation de- termines the relative dates of the two books ; for the author of Joshua begins his book with the statement that the Lord had spoken these words to Moses, and therefore Deuteronomy must have been written before Joshua. In like manner, Joshua takes his address to the two tribes and a half nearly word for word from Deuteronomy, and he begins it with ascribing the words to the great lawgiver of Israel, " Eemember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you." II. Decteronomy. " Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breath eth : but shalt utterly destroy them" (chap. xx. 16, 17). " If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, . . . and thou hang him on a tree : his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day ; Joshua. "He utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded" (chap. x. 40). Neither left they any to breathe. As the Lord commanded Moses, ... so did Joshua ; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses" (chap, xi. 14, 15). " The king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide : and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree " (chap. viii. 29). 1 74 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. Deuteronomy. (for he that is hanged is ac- cursed of God) ; that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an in- heritance" (chap, xxi. 22, 23). "Caleb the son of Jephunneh ; ... to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the Lord" (chap. i. 36). ' ' There shall no man be able to stand before you : for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon" (chap. xi. 25). Joshua. He slew them, and hanged them on five trees : . . . And ... at the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees" (chap. x. 26, 27). " Moses sware, . . . Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheri- tance, and thy children's for ever, because thou hast wholly foUowed the Lord thy God" (chap. xiv. 9). " And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware . . . unto their fathers ; and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them" (chap. xxi. 43, 44). Except in Deuteronomy, it is doubtful if the people were ever expressly commanded with their own hands to destroy the Canaanites ; and it is certain that in it alone, and in its central code, the command is given in the words to " save alive nothing that breatheth," which are repeated in these exact terms as fulfilled by Joshua. The curse on him " that hangeth on a tree," so well known to us through its transformation into a blessing by the death of the Son of God in our stead, we find written only in Deuteronomy, which is full of sayings CH. XI.] The Testimony of Joshua. 175 treasured by our Lord and His apostles, and precious to the Church in all ages. As the accompanying com- mand that " his body shall not remain all night upon the tree " is peculiar to the central legislation of Deuteronomy, so its execution is recorded nowhere in the Old Testament except in the book of Joshua, in which there is thrice narrated a careful removal of the dead bodies at the setting of the sun, as part of the great record that " Joshua left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses." The narrative in Joshua of Caleb " claiming the land whereon his feet had trodden," of no man having been " able to stand before " Israel, as afterwards of their dwelling in " cities which they built not," and " eating of vineyards and oliveyards wdiich they planted not," is in the words of Deuteronomy ; and the account is given for the purpose of proving how completely and exactly all the promises by Moses had now been fulfilled to Israel. III. Deuteronomy. Joshua. "On the day when ye shall pass " Then Joshua built au altar over Jordan unto the land which unto the Lord God of Israel in the Lord thy God giveth thee, mount Ebal, as Moses the ser- thou shalt set thee up great vant of the Lord commanded stones, and plaister them with the children of Israel, as it is plaister : ... in mount Ebal. written in the book of the law . . . And there shalt thou build of Moses, an altar of whole an altar unto the Lord thy stones, over which no man bath 1 76 Deuteronomy : its alte^^ed date. [bk. ii. Deuteronomy. Joshua. God, an altar of stones : thou lift up any iron : and they shalt not lift up any iron tool oflfered thereon burnt offerings upon them. . . . And thou shalt unto the Lord, and sacrificed offer burnt offerings thereon : peace offerings. And he wrote . . . and thou shalt offer peace there upon the stones a copy of offerings. . . . And thou shalt the law of Moses, which he write upon the stones all the wrote in the presence of the words of this law very plainly" children of Israel " (chap. viii. (chap, xxvii. 2-8). 30-32). In the record of this great transaction, the writer of the Book of Joshua has the injunction in Deuteronomy before him ; he repeats its exact words, and expressly assigns it to Moses as its author. At the same time he gives what one cannot but receive as a clear and un- equivocal testimony to the fact that the Deuteronomic legislation was written by the great lawgiver himself, with the national assembly for his witnesses. "He [Joshua] wrote there upon the stones [not of the altar, for it had just been said that on it no iron was to be lifted, but on the plastered stones spoken of in Deuter- onomy] a copy of the law of Moses, which he [Moses] wrote in the presence of the children of Israel." The account of the erection of the altar in Mount Ebal by Joshua, according to the command of Moses, is so clear and full as it now stands in the Bible, that its seal to the Mosaic authorship of DeuteroDomy can scarcely be said to be controverted ; for the argument against it that appears to be confided in is the plea of CH. XL] The Testimony of Joshua . 177 interpolation. From tlie earliest ages of Christianity this plea has been resorted to in defence of views re- jected by the Church, and it can only be regarded as a confession of weakness, unless very special reasons can be adduced for the perilous expedient ; but no such reasons are given by Bleek, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, on this passage in Joshua : — " There is here a clear and even literal reference to Deut. xxvii., where all this had been ordained by Moses ; and if we compare the two, we cannot doubt that they were written down by one author, both the ordinance by Moses and the execution by Joshua, in the way it here runs. This section of the Book of Joshua (chap. viii. BO- SS) shows itself pretty clearly to be a later interpolation in the rest of the history, as the passage following (chap. ix. 1 ), ' When all the kings . . . ,' cannot from its purport relate to the section immediately preceding, but only to the capture of Ai, as is indeed clearly shown in ver. 3. The section, therefore, appears to have been inserted here by the author of Deuteronomy." 1 This would be a grave imputation against the fidelity of the supposed author, only it is light after the Deuter- onomic fiction has been imputed to him. But without even an alleged plea of difference in the Hebrew manu- scripts, mere abruptness in the narrative is an incredibly slight ground for such a supposition, because of neces- 1 Similarly, Professor Smitb, Additional A}iswer, p. 87 : ** The passage about tbe altar on Mount Ebal appears to be a late inter- polation after Deuteronomy." M 178 Deti-teronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. sity the account of this religious transaction must have occupied a parenthetic place in the history of the con- quest of the land. The altar of unhewn stones was to be erected by Israel in Mount Ebal at the earliest opportunity after the crossing of the Jordan, and their secured possession of the part of the country in which it stood ; and as the transaction itself, so the Scriptural account of it intervenes in the midst of the progressive military occupation of the country. It is their abrupt- ness and brevity that help to give their inimitable charm and unfailing interest to the Biblical narratives, alike in the Old Testament and in the New, and enable the writers to record in a natural and vivid narrative many great and instructive events in the compass of a few chapters. IV. Deuteronomy. Joshua. " If ye shall diligently keep " Take diligent heed to do the all these commandments which commandment and the law, which I command you, to do them, to Moses the servant of the Lord love the Lord your God, to walk chargedyou, to lovethe Lord your in all his ways, and to cleave God, and to walk in all his ways, unto him" (chap. xi. 22). To and to keep his commandments, walk in all his ways, and to love and to cleave unto him, and to him, and to serve the Lord thy serve him with all your heart and God with all thy heart and with allyoursoul"(chap. xxii. 5). with all thy soul" (chap. x. 12). These commands in Joshua are both quoted from Deuteronomy, and expressly stated to have been charged on Israel by Moses, thus giving the most direct CH. XL] The Testimony of yosJma. 1 79 testimony both to the antiquity of Deuteronomy and to Moses as its author. If it be argued that some parts of the passage may be gathered from the other books of Moses, the remark will apply only to individual ex- pressions, and not to the command as a whole, while other expressions, such as " walking in all his ways," are only found in Deuteronomy. Specially the expres- sion "to cleave," which is frequently used to denote close adhesion, as of the clods of earth cleaving fast together, or of the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth, is rare as applied to the Lord ; and we are not sure if it is elsewhere found in this sense, except in the utterance of David's attachment to his God, " My soul cleaveth after thee " (Ps. Ixiii. 8), and in the beautiful type of Jeremiah's girdle. It occurs twice in Joshua (xxii. 5 ; xxiii. 8), and five times in Deuteronomy (iv. 4 ; X. 20 ; xi. 22 ; xiii. 4 ; xxx. 20), and never in the other laws of Moses. But Joshua here tells the children of Israel explicitly that Moses charged them to " cUave unto the Lord," and gives thus a very dis- tinctive testimony to the laws of Deuteronomy as the word of Moses himself. V. Deuteronomy. Joshua. '*Take heed to thyself that "God forbid that we should thou offer not thy burnt offerings rebel against the Lord, and turn in every place that thou seest : this day from following the but in the place which the Lord Lord, to build an altar for burnt 1 80 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. Deuteronomy. shall clioose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee" (chap. xii. 13, 14). Joshua. offerings, for meat offerings, or for sacrifices, beside the altar of the Lord our God that is be- fore his tabernacle" (chap. xxii. 29). The cordial agreement of the twelve tribes of Israel, brought out in the striking narrative of the altar Ed, that they would neither build nor tolerate any rival to the brazen altar before the Tabernacle, presents a re- markable indication of the deep impression made on the whole nation by the fervent address of Moses on the banks of the Jordan ; and if Josiah's jealousy for the central altar is rightly taken by the critics as a proof that he had found the book of Deuteronomy, the much more notable jealousy of the entire nation for the same ordinance would be maintained by them as a still more remarkable proof of their possession of that book, except for a misleading prejudice. VI. Deuteronomy. " Take heed to yourselves, that . . . ye turn not aside, and serve other gods, and worship them ; and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, . . . and ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you" (chap. xi. 16, 17). Joshua, " When ye have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them ; then shall the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto you" (chap, xxiii. 16). CH. XI.] TJie Testimony of JosJma. i8 Deuteronomy. "When the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, ... to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not ; . . . vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not" (chap. vi. 10, 11). Joshua. * ' I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them ; of the vinej^arda and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat" (chap. xxiv. 13). *' There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel ; all came to pass" (chap, xxi. 45). These passages from the closing chapters of Joshua are all taken in substance from Deuteronomy, and in part they are quoted from it word for word. They prove that, as in the first chapter and onwards, so like- wise to the end of the book, the author of Joshua had the words of Deuteronomy in his hands or in his memory. It is specially and expressly from the words of Deuteronomy that he brings out the great conclusion which his book was written to prove, that " There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel ; all came to pass." The comparison we have thus made of passages from these two books proves that the author of the Book of Joshua had the Book of Deuteronomy before him, and wrote with a design of showing the correspondence 1 82 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. of the history with the words of Moses as there re- corded. This designed agreement involves these con- clusions : — (1.) If Joshua is an authentic history, Moses was the author of Deuteronomy. (2.) If Deuteronomy was a legislative fiction written under one of the later kings of Judah, the history of Joshua is not authentic ; but one of its designs was to throw a cloud of apparent historic truth over that fiction by a narrative embodying a fictitious fulfilment of its words. (3.) If the Book of Joshua is a fiction, even the delusive plea of literary form, as of parable or drama, cannot be offered on its behalf ; it is either a genuine history of the conquest of Canaan, or falsehood of an aggravated character. (4.) Therefore the opinion, that Deuteronomy or its legislation was written seven hundred years after Moses, involves the conclusion that the book of Joshua is not inspired ; and to believe, nevertheless, that it is inspired can have no effect in altering this conclusion, which is necessarily involved in assigning Deuteronomy to this late period. CH. xtl] The Seal of the New Testament. 183 CHAPTEE XII. THE SEAL OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 1. The frequent appeals by our Lord and His apostles to the words of Deuteronomy as Divine are so many seals to its authenticity as the writing of Moses ; because it is only by the greatest violence that its source as from God can be severed from its communi- cation to us by the hand of Moses, and if its strictly Mosaic origin is denied its Divine inspiration can never be defended. That the Jews in the time of our Lord held it as an essential part of the law of Moses is allowed by all ; and as such it is transmitted to us with the seal of the New Testament everywhere with- out the slightest intimation that a large portion of the law had no connection whatever with Moses : " The law came by Moses : We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write : They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them : Did not Moses give you the law : Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded the things concerning 184 Deriteronomy : its altered date, [bk. 11. himself: First, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people (Deut. xxxii.) ; but (afterwards) Esaias is very bold, and saith, I w^as found of them that sought me not." In the law given by Moses, Deuteronomy was included by the Jews and by the writers of the New Testament, quite as much as Exodus ; and the later of the two books would no more have been assigned by them to another author than the earlier. 2. Our Lord's testimony to Moses as the author and the writer of the Book of Deuteronomy, in answer to the inquiry of the Pharisees on the lawfulness of divorce, is clear and explicit (Mark x. 2 ; Deut. xxiv. 1). He asks what Moses commanded; and when they appeal to Deuteronomy for his sanction, He sets that sanction aside, but not at all on the ground that the book was not really the writing of Moses, which would to them have been the strongest of all argu.- ments. On the contrary, He expressly declares "he (Moses) wrote you this precept," assigning not only the giving of the law but the writing of it to Moses : and explaining the inward motive of Moses in granting the sufferance, " For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept." It is Moses in his own person, and not an ideal representation of him that is meant ; it is not God that is designed, for He is spoken of on the contrary as ordaining the original institution ; CH. XTi.] TJie Seal of tJie Nezv Testament, 185 but the man Moses under the Divine guidance. Such a testimony ought to have been revered as a Divine arrest on the new theory, and to have debarred it from spreading beyond the bounds of rationalism. 3. The martyr Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, in replying to the charge of saying that "Jesus of Nazareth shall change the customs which Moses delivered," first refers to Moses bringing Israel out of Egypt : " This Moses whom they refused, ... he brought them out ; " and then says, " This is tliat Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear" (Acts vii. 35, 36, 37); thus expressly declaring that this prediction in Deuteronomy was uttered by him who led Israel out of Egypt. The Apostle Peter, in laying the foundation of the Christian Church, cites the same great pre- diction as the utterance of Moses : " For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me ; " and the force of his argument with the Jews depends on the truth of the prophecy as coming from Moses himself. He is speaking to them in the name of One who claimed to be greater than Moses, and the apostle reasons with them on the ground that Moses had testified that such a Prophet was to be raised up in Israel, like to himself; like to him in speaking with 1 86 Detiteronomy : its alte^^ed date. [bk. ii. God face to face, in mediating between God and the people, and in giving laws to Israel with Divine authority. His argument is that Moses himself is a witness for Christ ; and to his hearers it would have been very different indeed had they been told that an unknown prophet, seven hundred years after the death of their great lawgiver, had foretold that Moses would be superseded by Jesus of Nazareth. All of us agree in believing in Deuteronomy as an undoubted portion of the inspired Scriptures, both be- cause it was received and honoured as such by the Hebrew nation, and because we have the ample testi- mony of our Lord and His apostles to its Divine authority. But some have hastily supposed that if, on the ground of such a sanction, they cordially accept it as inspired, the historical truth of its outward form is of little moment. When, however, the historical truth is once abandoned, there is no ground left on which to defend the divine authority ; and however individual men, retaining their loyalty to their Lord, may hold fast the truth for themselves, it is to be feared that the greater number will follow out consistently the path on which they have been persuaded to enter, will go on to reject the historical and prophetical truth, first of the Old Testament and then of the New, and will either roam in a dreary path with no sure light before them, or fall into the dark abyss of a hopeless unbelief. CH. XII.] The Seal of the Neiv Testament, 187 The word of the Lord is pure, and out of this trial it will come forth in all its brightness as silver out of the furnace. But, meanwhile, an unutterable calamity- may overtake us, for our children may lose the one treasure we were bound to bequeath to them ; and for long years they may wander " through dry places seek- ing rest, and finding none," before they recover their hold of the Word of Life, and regain their footing on the rock of eternal truth. The following words of warning have come to us only too seasonably from another land : — " From the scene of His temptation and conflict, in His ordinary teaching when surrounded and pressed by the cavilling Jews, from the risen Lord, and just as the opening heavens were to receive him from our sight, we have one repeated, unvarying, consistent testimony of Christ that Moses was the author of the Law. " It does not meet the case at all to say that Christ accommodated Himself to the prevalent view of His day, that He was only using popular language, adapt- ing Himself to the prejudices of His hearers ; for that involves one of two things which lie in the face of the whole Gospel, or involves both. Either that Christ was a mere man, and shared in the prejudices and ignor- ance of His age ; or that Christ lent His great name and authority to sanction and perpetuate common errors, and errors which touched the spiritual interests and t88 Deuteronomy : its altered date. [bk. ii. life of the people. Those who agree fully with Kuenen and Colenso may say that Christ was ignorant as those around Him, or at least shared in that ignorance ; and it must be confessed that this is a less abysmal depth than the supposition of moral obliquity. In either case, however, the Christ of the Gospels has disappeared. "We are shut up to this alternative. Either we must abide by the testimony of Christ, and regard Moses as the author of Deuteronomy, or we may accept the premises and conclusions of these negative critics, and thus part with our Bibles and Christ."-^ 1 Lange's Commentary on the Old Testament. Deuteronomy, p. 272. BOOK III. THE AUTHOR OF THE MOSAIC BOOKS THE SAME THROUGHOUT. CHAPTER I. THERE AKE NO WORDS IN THESE BOOKS THAT COULD NOT HAVE BEEX USED BY MOSES. The historical Moses of the Bible, the author of the four specially Mosaic books, is thoroughly consistent in all his writings ; he is the same man in them all ; in all his words, in all his record of events, in all his ordinances, in aU his laws, and in all his character. He employs no words which Moses, the brother of Aaron, could not have used, narrates no event he could not have known, frames no ordinance he could not have prescribed, writes no law he could not have issued, assumes no character in which he could not have acted, and adds no explanations which he could not have written. In this part of our subject we cannot include the argument from the mere use of different words in dif- igo The Attthor the same throughout . [bk. m. ferent books or parts of books (Old Testament in JeioisJi Church, p. 433), wliich is of far too shadowy a character to be depended on, and would serve to prove that the works of our best authors are not their own. (Mr. Stanley Leathes in Boyle Lectures for 1868, p. 283.) There are expressions in the books of Moses that are never used afterwards ; of which one of the most remarkable is in the frequent description of the end of life, first applied to Abraham, that he was " gathered unto his people," and occurring in Genesis, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but in no later books. There are also expressions common in the other books of the Bible, which never occur in the books of Moses ; such as the title " The Lord of hosts," which is so frequent afterwards, but is never used by Moses. While these books of Moses have thus their own peculiarities, there is no word or phrase found in them which Moses himself could not have used. A very sufficient proof of this statement is presented in the following passage, in which the phrases adduced by Professor Eobertson Smith must be regarded as the most decided instances that can be found of alleged terms which Moses could not have employed. After referring to the phrase " the other side of Jordan, " which we have already considered under Deuteronomy, he proceeds to make the following statement in which v/e have marked the most startling sentence : — CH. I.] No words Moses could not have used. 1 9 1 " The point (* the other side of Jordan ') is really of no consequence, for there are other phrases which prove quite unambiguously that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan. In Hebrew the common phrase for ' westward ' is ' sea- ward/ and for 'southward' 'towards the Negeb.' The word Negeb, which primarily means ' parched land/ is in Hebrew the proper name of the dry steppe district in the south of Judah. These expressions for west and south could only be formed in Palestine. Yet they are used in the Pentateuch, not only in the narrative but in the Levitical description of the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exod. xxvii.). But at Mount Sinai the sea did not lie to the west, and the Negeb was to the north. Moses could no more call the south side the Negeb side of the tabernacle than a Glasgow man coidcl say that the sun set over Edinburgh. The answer attempted to this is that the Hebrews might have adopted these phrases in patriarchal times, and never given them up in the ensuing four hundred and thirty years j but that is nonsense. When a man says ' towards the sea/ he means it. The Egyptian Arabs say seaward for northward, and so the Israelites must have done when they were in Egypt. To an Arab in Western Arabia, on the contrary, seaward means towards the Eed Sea " {Tlce Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 323). The expressions used for the South and the West iu Exodus xxvii. aud elsewhere, not only in the narrative, but in the description of the Tabernacle, the author holds to prove beyond all question that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan. If these strong assertions were true, they would take a chief place in the whole argu- ment of the book. But while we would gladly defer to the high authority of Professor Piobertson Smith in 192 The AtUhor the same throughout, [bk. hi. Hebrew, with which he is familiar in a way to which we make not the remotest claim, yet his own appeal, as well as ours, is to the Hebrew Bible. Let US look first at the more general arguments on the two phrases, and then at the special arguments on each. 1. Tlic general argument on the South mid the West. " In Hebrew," Professor Smith says, " the common phrase for ' westward' is ' seaward,' and for ' south- ward" towards the ISTegeb,'" and because these desig- nations, as he holds, could only have been formed in Palestine originally, he repudiates the idea that they could have been used by Moses for the description of the Tabernacle in the wilderness ; thus disproving, as he believes, the historical authenticity of the account given to us in Exodus. That the common Hebrew word for the west origin- ally meant the sea is allowed by all, though not that the term for the south was derived from the Desert of Judah ; but words often lose their original meaning in all languages, and it seems probable that in the days of Abraham these terms were used for the west and the south in general without any definite reference. In the promise of the land in Gen. xiii. 14, Abraham is asked first to look northward in a Hebrew term that CTT. I.] No words Moses could not have used. 193 is entirely and confessedly general ; and when he is asked next to look southward, it is probable that this term is taken like the corresponding one in a merely general sense. Then he looks eastw^ard, for which again the Hebrew term is absolutely general, rendering it in like manner probable that the corresponding westward is also general. For a striking instance of the danger of limiting the use of words to their original meaning we need only refer to page 441 of the same volume, where we find the following similar argument against the antiquity of the account of the altar of witness in Joshua xxii. : " The speeches in their present form must be late, for at ver. 28 the altar is said to be constructed on the tah- nitli, manner of huilding, of the altar before the mishJcan. Mishhan, which means the divine dwelling, is a word of the Levitical law^ and the Second Temple, and the altar in the author's mind is not the small brazen altar of the Tabernacle, which was not huilt, but the huge stone altar of the Second Temple." The argument on the Tabernacle (mishk'an) is of no value, because it takes for granted that the accounts of the Tabernacle given by Moses in Exodus, in Leviticus, Numbers, in which the term is used nearly a hundred times, were written under the Second Temple ; whereas, except in the King of Persia's letter (Ezra vii. 15), the word never occurs in the prophets or historians of that N 194 ^^^^ AtUhor the same throughout, [bk. hi. Temple, in Ezra, JSTeliemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, or Malachi. It further takes for granted that the reference to the Tabernacle {mislikan) in the Lord's address to David in 2 Sam. vii. 6, expressly distin- guishing it from the contemplated First Temple, was also written under the Second Temple. But we quote the passage for its instructive argument on what our Bible correctly translates the " pattern" of the altar before the Tabernacle; there being no more reason why a large stone altar should not be made after the model of a small brazen one, than why a stone palace should not be built after the pencilled plan of the architect. The Hebrew word translated " pattern " originally means " building," and the author, adhering to his conception that this must therefore always remain its meaning, argues that the " pattern " must have been a stone " building." To his exactly similar argument on the south and the west in Exodus it is a very sufficient answer to state that if the Hebrew tahnith (pattern) must everywhere retain its original sense of " building," then the golden tongs and snuff-dishes which were to be made " after their pattern (tabnith) in the mount" (Exodus xxv. 38-40) were to be " built " in the likeness of a stone " build- ing;" and "the form (tabnith) of an hand," in Ezekiel viii. 3, must have been "built" of stone. To such impossibilities in translation are we led by adopting CH. I.] No words Moses could not have used. 195 the author's principle of adhering to the first meaning of words. As regards the alleged foolishness of supposing that Moses in the wilderness used the terms for the south and the west which the patriarchs had employed in Canaan, it must be remembered how distinct Israel must have been kept from the Egyptians although dwelling amongst them, how ardently they clung to the promised land and all its associations, and how Egypt was for them only a place of temporary exile. Canaan was to Israel the land alike of the past and of the future ; there they had already buried their father Jacob, who had bound them by oath not to leave his body in Egypt ; and they kept the bones of Joseph to carry up with them in their exodus. There is no reason to think that in coming out of Egypt, " where they heard a language that they understood not," they spoke a different Hebrew from that of their fathers in Canaan ; and, as already noted, words once embodied in a language often retain their meaning without reference to their origin. Even if in Egypt the mass of the people had partially altered their speech, of which there is no evidence, yet in their hardest bondage they had elders over them who must have known well the hallowed words in which God had spoken to their father Abraham, " the northward, and southward, and east- 196 The Author the same throttghont. [bk. hi. ward, and westward," in the promise of the land. The same promise was repeated to Jacob at Bethel : " The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south" (Gen. xxviii. 1 3, 1 4). These w^ords were Israel's titles to the land of Canaan ; their cherished charter from the King of all the earth bestowing this portion of the earth on them; and if, therefore, in Egypt they lost any words of their forefathers' speech, we may hold it for certain that they would not let slip the memor- able words for north and south and east and west, on which all their national hopes depended. Both in Canaan and in Egypt Jacob would carefully rehearse to his sons the Lord's promise of the land in the very terms in which it had been given ; and as the promise alike to Abraham and to Jacob embodied the old Hebrew words for the south and the west, these would not fail to be perpetuated from generation to generation till they were fulfilled. For Moses himself Canaan was the promised land to which he was to lead his people Israel; the north, south, east, and west in the promise that constituted Israel's claim to the land were written on his memory and in his heart as with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond ; and when he was recording the history of CH. I.] No words Moses could not have used. 197 Israel, wherever he stood, there could be nothing so natural to him as to retain those hallowed terms, alike on account of the past and of the future, unaffected by Israel's passing exile from the land of their fathers. 2. Th: argument from the South. As regards the South, before it can be said that " at Mount Sinai the Negeb was to the north," it must first be proved that the Negeb derived its name from the dry steppe of Judah, and next that it always retained this purely local meaning, and was not used to signify the south in general. Gesenius, taking parchedness for the oriqin of the word, makes first of all its general meaning to be the south, of which he gives several examples, as in Exodus xxvii. and Psalm cxxvi. After- wards he gives two specific meanings, of which the first is the southern district of Palestine and the second is Egypt, both of which he takes merely as special appli- cations of the more general term for the south. Flirst, in his Hebrew Concordance and in his Lexicon, agrees with Gesenius in giving the south as the meaning of the Negeb, in deriving it from parchedness, and in recog- nising the Xegeb of Judah as a name originating in the general term for the south. Against such authorities the author may hold with some other Hebrew scholars that it was the dryness of the Juda^an steppe that 198 The Author the same throughoiU. [bk. hi. originated this name for the south in the land of Canaan ; but no great conclusion can be founded on so doubtful an opinion as if it were an authenticated fact. That critics should hold their different opinions on the origin of one of the Hebrew words for the south is of slight importance ; but the argument takes a graver form when it is held not merely that the Negeb was originally the Desert of Judah, but that it retained this restricted meaning exclusively, and did not come to signify the south in general. The author's affirmation on this point is so decided as to call for a detailed proof of the error. In the nature of the case many or most instances of the occurrence of the term Negeb determine nothing on its more special use, as in the designation of the southern aspect of the temple (1 Kings vii. 25), wdiich will be held to refer to the south of Judah, although the only natural reference is to the south in general. But a testing example occurs in Ezekiel xx. 46 — xxi. 5, where the prophet living in Chaldea, north of Palestine, prophesies against " Jerusalem, the holy places, and the land of Israel," under the designation of " the south " in three different Hebrew terms. One of these terms, and the only repeated one, is the Negeb ; but here it cannot possibly mean the southern steppe, for this would lower a great and leading prophecy against Jerusalem and the whole land to a mere denunciation CH. I.] No ivords Moses coicld not have used. 199 of the wilderness of J iidali. That in prophesying from a northern kingdom the prophet includes the whole land of Judffia in what he terms " the south " is evident from his description of the land itself as including " all faces from the south to the north " in the burning fire (xx. 47). The " forest of the south/' or " the forest of the south field," is the forest of the Negeb ; and the critics, both older and more recent, are agreed that it denotes Palestine and its people. Ewald takes it to refer to the trees of Lebanon, which is in the north of the land, as an image of its people. " From the north, where he is, Ezekiel must turn towards the south, that is, towards Palestine, which is more specifically desig- nated by the name ' forest of the field,' i.e. Lebanon." Keuss takes the " forest of the south " for Palestine and its inhabitants : " La foret est ici un peuple ; ce peuple habite une contree meridionale. Ezechiel vivant dans la haute Mesopotamie, le sud, pour lui, sera la Palestine. Les arbres sees et les arbres verts representent la totalite de la population, les bons et les mediants in- distinctement." Ezekiel, living in Chaldea, thus calls Palestine the Negeb, not only with no reference to the Avilderness of Judah, but so that such a reference w^ould destroy the whole meaning of his prophecy ; and he evidently so calls it because the Negeb was a common Hebrew word for the south, quite apart from any such allusion. 200 The AiUJior the same thiwughout. [bk. hi. In like manner in the Book of Daniel the Negeb is used twice in the eighth chapter for the south in gen- eral quite apart from Palestine (viii. 4, 9) ; and ten times in the eleventh chapter for the land of Egypt (xi. 5-40). " The king of the Negeb (the south) shall be strong. Tlie king's daughter of the Negeb (the south) shall come to the king of the north. Out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up . . . and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north . . . and shall also carry captive into Egypt their gods. The king of the Negeb (the south) shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land" (xi. 5-9). According to the criticism before us, the king of the south must have been some great monarch of the wil- derness of Judah, but the prophet informs us that he was king of the highly fertile land of Egypt. Because that country is in the south he is called king of the Negeb, and it might quite as well be said that the Negeb must mean the rich land of the Nile, as that it must mean the dry steppe of Judah. It is, then, most certain that the critic is in error ; and that the Hebrew word used by Moses for the south side of the Tabernacle is a general designation of the south, and would be used at Mount Sinai as freely and as correctly as in Palestine. It has been objected to this argument that the question is merely one of dates, and that it only con- CH. I.] No zuords Moses could not have ttscd. 201 cerus the time ^vllen the supposed restricted use of the term passed into a general one. But Professor Smith makes the question exclusively one of place and not of time, for he holds that Moses at Mount Sinai could no more have called the south the Negeb, than we could speak of the sun setting in the east, in which the lapse of time makes no difference. He never supposes that the term might have been used at Sinai by a later writer ; but argues that the author of Exodus, writing in Palestine, employs a word which was there quite accurate, but altogether out of place at Mount Sinai, where he had located Moses. If at the later time when the Book of Exodus is falsely supposed to have been written, the Negeb had come to signify the south in general, it would have made no difference v:lurc the book was written ; but Dr. Smith's position is that the use of the term " proves quite unambiguously that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan," and his whole argument is to show not v:lieii but v:lierc it was written. His contention is that the Negeb is exclusively and unalterably " the proper name of the dry steppe dis- trict in the south of Judah," and can therefore never signify the south except in Palestine. Although it is by Biblical Hebrew that the question must be decided, it is not irrelevant to add that in modern Hebrew the Negeb is used as a general term for the south in accordance with what the Jews must 202 The AutJior the same throitghotU. [bk. hi. regard as its ancient meaning. The Hebrew newspapers published in Lyck and in Brody, writing at the time of the Anti-Semitic outbreaks, both spoke of suf- ferings of the Jews in the " Negeb of Eussia." Had there been any doubt in the minds of the writers about the meaning of this term they could easily have used one of the other Hebrew words denoting the south. But if Professor Smith's contention were true, that the author of the Book of Exodus is in error because he forgot that there is only one Negeb, the Negeb of Judah ; then these Hebrew writers must have fallen into tlie same mistake, and they have yet to learn from Scotland that there is no such country in the world as the " Negeb of Eussia." 3. The argument from the West. If Professor Eobertson Smith's opinion on the origin of the term for the south were correct, there would be little occasion left for discussion concerning the west ; for if the dry steppe of southern Judah gave its Hebrew name to the south in general, still more readily might the name of the Mediterranean Sea become a general designation for the west. There is conclusive proof that when a Hebrew said, "towards the sea," he might simply mean the west; and not the sea. Professor Smith writes that "the cii. l] No words Aloses could not have used. 203 Egyptian Arabs say seaward for northward, and so the Israelites must have done when they were in Egypt." But the author of the Book of Exodus, writing either in Egypt or of it, and with an intimate knowledge of the country, speaks of a strong "sea- wind" (Exod. X. 19) carrying the locusts into the Eed Sea. According to this view, it must have been a " north wind," as in the present speech of the Egyptian Arabs ; but a north wind would not have carried the locusts into the Eed Sea. The Vulgate, our English Bible, Gesenius, Elirst, Keil, and Delitzsch render it a west wind. There are good critics who hold that it may be taken more widely for a sea-wind, in the sense of a wind from the north-west ; but w^e are not aware that any have ren- dered it a north wind. The evidence is not for but against the supposition that Israel in Egypt called the north wind a sea-wind ; for it seems probable that it is the west wind that is here spoken of under the old Hebrew term for the sea without any reference to the origin of the word. But there are other passages where the term has clearly no reference to the sea, that is, the IMediter- ranean or Great Sea, but simply means the West ; and in that sense it might be equally used in Palestine or anywhere else. In Canaan it is so used in Joshua XV. 12, '' and the west border was to the great sea, and the coast thereof." If Professor Smith's contention were 204 The AiUlior the same throughout, [bk. hi. right, these words would signify, " and the (great) sea border was to the great sea;" but, although he main- tains that when a man says " towards the sea, he means it," it is evident, on the contrary, that the writer does not at all refer to the sea, but simply to the west. In like manner before entering Canaan, in Numbers xxxiv. 6, Moses is commanded to say to Israel, " As for the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border ; this shall be your west border." But according to the view before us the verse must bear this im230s- sible meaning, " As for the (great) sea border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border ; this shall be your (great) sea border." Ezekiel in the same way uses the term for the west as distinouished from the sea : " The west side also shall be the great sea" (xlvii. 20). That the word is constantly used for the west is allowed by all, but Professor Smith maintains that it could be so used only as meaning the Mediterranean Sea. But in these three passages it is used not only with no reference to the Mediterranean, but with a most definite and express distinction of the term from that which is used for that sea. It is, therefore, exactly equivalent to our English term west ; and there can be no reason why Moses should not have used it in de- scribing the tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai. In both the passages which we have quoted from Numbers and from Joshua, Le Clerc translates it cii. T.] A^o zuords Moses could not Jiavc used. 205 " west," altliouoh he adheres to the original sense of the " sea " wherever it can be maintained. He is not addicted to writing " nonsense," and in his note on the first of these passages he states decidedly that the word in this place does not mean the sea, but the west (non mare sed occidentem sonat). In using habitually for the west the word that originally signified the sea, it is reasonable to suppose that its original reference to the Mediterranean was not before the mind of the Israel- ites ; and these three examples are of a testing character as proofs to this effect. If to Moses or Joshua or Ezekiel the word, in the sense in which they were employing it for the west, had suggested the idea of the Mediterranean Sea, they would certainly not have used it so as to say that the Mediterranean Sea border was the Mediterranean Sea ; but would have employed another expression for the west, such as " toward the going down of the sun," as in Joshua xxiii. 4. The manner in which they use the term implies that it was so constantly taken simply for the west as not neces- sarily to suggest the thought of the sea ; and it might therefore be used anywhere with equal propriety. The statement of Dr." Eobertson Smith, that " to an Arab in western Arabia seaward means toward the Eed Sea," has suggested the acute rejoinder that at Mount Sinai the Eed Sea is to the west {The Philosophy of the JDis^pensations). This may not be the true explana- 2o6 The Avt/ior the same throttghout. [bk. hi. tion of the term as used by Moses ; but it fairly meets the critic on his own ground, and triumphantly crushes his objection that " at Mount Sinai the sea did not lie to the west." This inquiry results in these conclusions : That there was no reason against Israel retaining in their Egyp- tian exile the words for north and south, and east and west, which their fathers used in Canaan, and most weighty reasons why they should retain them as ex- pressed in their treasured titles to the land which they had left for a time, and to which they longed to return ; that there is sufficient ground for concluding that the Palestine term for the west, originally meaning the sea, or rather in this sense the Mediterranean Sea, was also used as a general term for the west without any refer- ence to the sea at all, and specifically that Moses, Joshua, and Ezekiel use it for the west in express dis- tinction from the Mediterranean Sea ; that the term for the south, over which Professor Smith is so triumphant as referring exclusively to the southern desert of Judah, and as therefore a term that could not have passed through the lips of Moses in the wilderness, is on the contrary a well-known Hebrew word for the south in general, and quite as fitting in a description of the Tabernacle at Mount Sinai as of the Temple on Mount Zion. For the vindication of the historical truth of Exodus CH. T.] No zuords Jlloses could not Jiave itscd. 207 and the following books of Closes, the author of The Old Testament in the Jeivish Church has rendered an important service by selecting the Negeb as the most signal instance that can be found in them of a wrong Hebrew word. Although the new critical theory is not founded on language, but on the philosophy of development, the value attached by so acute a critic to his mistaken discovery shows how important the evidence of language is held to be for the sanction of the theory. Accepting these as the best examples of alleged slips in language in these books, and remembering that the writers of the Holy Scriptures are constantly charged by the new critics with depicting the past in the colours of their own times : We are asked by the same critics to believe the incredible supposition that a number of authors, historian, prophet, priest, and scribe, writing over a period of a thousand years, all put their own words into the lips of Moses as speaking either at Mount Sinai or on the banks of the Jordan ; and that, living either in Jerusalem or in Babylon, all of them succeeded so miraculously regarding both time and place, as never to have stumbled by ascribing to the great Lawgiver a single word that he could not have used. 2o8 TJie AiitJwr the same throughont, [t?k. in. CHAPTER IL THESE BOOKS NARRATE NO FACTS WHICH MOSES COULD NOT HAVE RECORDED. The most conspicuous example of a supposed error in date is presented by the old and oft repeated objection to the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy from the statements in Deuteronomy ii. 12, that "the children of Esau succeeded them (the Horims), when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead ; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them ; " and again in iv. 38, "to drive out nations from before thee, greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day." This objection, with another from Genesis, is stated in these terms in The Old Testament in the Jewish Chnrch, pp. 321, 322 :— "As a matter of fact, the Pentateuchal history was written in the land of Canaan, and if it is all by one hand it was not composed before the period of the kings. CH. II.] No facts Moses cottld not record. 209 Genesis xxxvi. 31, se^., gives a list of kings who reigned in Edom 'before there reigned a king of the children of Israel. This carries us down at least to the time of Saul ; but the probable meaning of the passage is that these kings ruled before Edom was subject to an Israelite monarch, which brings us to David at any rate. Of course this conclusion may be evaded by saying that certain verses or chapters are late additions, that the list of Edomite kings, and such references to the conquest of Canaan as are found in Deuteronomy ii. 12, iv. 38, are insertions of Ezra or another editor. This might be a fair enough thing to say if any positive proof were forth- coming that Moses wrote the mass of the Pentateuch ; but in the absence of such proof, no one has a right to call a passage the insertion of an editor without internal evi- dence that it is in a different style or breaks the context." There is no need for the supposition of a later editor as regards the statements in Deuteronomy ii. 12, and iv. 38 ; which, on the contrary, serve as proofs of the Mosaic authorship of the book, because so skilful an imitator of Moses, as the Deuteronomist is allowed by our opponents to have been, w^ould have avoided the use of expressions that might lead to searching ques- tions. In Moses himself there was no occasion to avoid them, because his own previous narrative had amply explained them. The supposed reference in these passages to "the conquest of Canaan" is an entire mistake; there is in them no mention of the conquest of central Canaan, and there is no allusion to it. In the second and third chapters there is a full 0 2IO The AutJior the sai7te throughout, [bk. m. rehearsal by Moses of tlie conquest by Israel of tlie kingdoms of Sihon king of Heshbon, and of Og king of Bashan, " nations greater and mightier " than Israel ; and the reference is to the " possession " and " inherit- ance" of their lands ''as it is this day." There is no ground whatever for the plea of a later date which the critics have founded on these expressions, as if they referred to the central land of Canaan. In Deuter- onomy ii. 31, Moses narrates regarding the king of Heshbon, "The Lord said unto me, Behold, I have begun to gim Sihon and his land before thee : begin to 2:)ossess, that thou mayest inherit his land ; " and after describing the conquest of Bashan he says of both kingdoms, " This land, which we 2^ossessed at that time . . . gave I unto the Eeubenites and to the Gadites " (iii. 1 2). And again, " They possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan " (iv. 47). Exactly similar expressions are used by Moses in the first account of these great conquests : " Israel took all these cities : and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages thereof. Thus Israel du'elt in the land of the Amorites " (Numb. xxi. 25, 31). " Og the king of Bashan went out against them. So they smote him, ... and they possessed his land" (Numb. xxi. 33, 35). The statements and expressions in Deuteronomy are exactly such as we should expect from Moses' previous statements, and in CH. II.] No facts Moses could not record. 2 1 1 connection with his expressions in the Book of Num- bers. By Israel afterwards, as well as by Moses at the time, gi'eat account is set on these first conquests and possessions. In Joshua we read, " I brought you into the land of the Amorites, . . . and I gave them into your hand that ye might ijossess their land " (xxiv. 8). In Nehemiah: ''Thou gavest them kingdoms and nations, ... so they ^possessed the land of Sihou, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan" (ix. 22). In Israel's thanksgiving in the 136th Psalm (vers. 17-22), for the Lord's wondrous works in bringing them out of Egypt into the land of promise, these earliest conquests and possessions so occupy the chief place that none others are named : " To him which smote great kings, and slew famous kings : Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og the king of Bashan, and gave their land for an heritage, even an heritage unto Israel his servant." This selected example of an ante- dated fact regard- ing the land of Israel's possession not only creates no difficulty, but presents a distinct confirmation of the identity of the historical Moses in his different books. Again, in Deut. iv. 38, " To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day I' there is likewise no difficulty, for the 212 The Author the same throughout, [bk. in. verse describes exactly the historical situation of Israel in the closing days of Moses. The words " as it is this day," could never have been added by Ezra ; for Nehemiah is so far from holding that they were then inheriting the land that he confesses they were merely servants in it, " Behold, we are servants this day ; and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers, . . . be- hold, we are servants in it" (Neh. ix. 3G). As little could these words have been written in the days of Manasseh or Josiah, for ten of the twelve tribes had then been disinherited and carried away. This passage is so far from disproving the Mosaic origin of Deuteronomy, that it stands out as a most direct contradiction and disproof of the theory that the book was written by one of the later prophets of Judah. A similar expression is used in a detail of the same conquest in Deut. iii. 14, in what at first sight appears to be a slightly difficult sense, when it is said that " Jair took all the country of Argob unto the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi ; and called them after his own name, Bashan-havoth-jair, unto this day," for the space of intervening time appears to have been only a few months. It is held by eminent Hebrew scholars that the Hebrew phrase " unto this day " is used for a much briefer interval of time than these words seem to imply with us. That its meaning is not always quite the same as ours may clearly be gathered from Deut. CH. II.] No facts Moses conld not record. 2 13 xi. 4 : " AVhat he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots ; how he made the water of the Eed Sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day!' The irreversible destruction of the army with their horses and chariots is certainly what is here intended by the expression ; and in like manner the idea of permanence appears to be what is chiefly meant in reference to the name Havoth-jair. Bat " that day" on the banks of the Jordan was a most noted period in Israel, dividing the past from the future. Jair had courageously taken those cities, as their conqueror he had called them by his own name, he had held them till that day in the face of powerful enemies, and Moses when Israel is about to cross the Jordan confirms this change of name as a permanent memorial of his con- quest, and seal of his possession. After the captivity of the ten tribes no prophet in Judah could have written in these terms, which imply that the cities of Argob stiU remained in possession of the family of Jair, after whose name they were now called. The passage is, therefore, not a confirmation, but a confuta- tion of the new theory. In like manner the destruc- tion of the horses and chariots of Egypt could never have been described as " unto this day" by any prophet after Eehoboam, under whom the King of Egypt con- quered Judah. But Moses had said to Israel leaving 2 14 The Author the same throughout, [bk. iii. Egypt, " The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever ; " and most fitly and naturally, when they are now about to enter their own land, he reminds them that the pursuing hosts have been so destroyed by the Lord that they had seen and heard of them no more " unto this day." So com- pletely does every expression fit the lips of Moses, and of none else. The accompanying argument against the antiquity of the Pentateuch from the names of the Edomite kings being given by Moses with the note that they " reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel," belongs to the Book of Genesis (xxxvi. 31), which is not now under our consideration. But there is no reason why Moses should not have made this statement. He undoubtedly anticipates a time when there would be kings in Israel in the laws for their election and guidance in Deuteronomy xvii. 14-20 ; he again anticipates the possible existence of a king in Israel in Deuteronomy xxviii. 36, when he threatens the disobedient Israel, " The Lord shall bring thee and thy king, which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known;" and in the chapter immediately preceding that which contains the list of the kinoes of Edom he records an express promise of kings to arise in Israel : " Kings shall come out of thy loins" (Genesis xxxv. 11). CH, II.] No facts Moses cottld not reco7'd. 2 1 5 To believers in the great fact of inspired prophecy there is thus no shadow of inconsistency or of anachronism in the statement made by Moses that those kings reigned in Edom " before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Another objection often adduced from the Book of Genesis is founded on the occurrence of the name Dan in the account of Abraham's pursuit of the confederate kings, as if the name should denote the city that was built five hundred years later (Gen. xiv. 16). But Josephus, who as governor of Galilee must have been acquainted with the locality, says that the Dan to which Abraham pursued Chedorlaome rwas not a town but a river ; and as it was so called in his day, it may well have borne the same name in the days of Abraham, and have formed a natural limit to the pursuit of the discom- fited army in that direction. " Abram marched hastily, and the fifth night fell upon the Assyrians near Dan, for that is the name of the other spring of Jordan" {Antiqzcities of the Jeios, book i. chap. x.). It is to be borne in mind that the examples of alleged anachronism in speaking of Israel's possessing their inheritance, although taken from Deuteronomy, are selected from the whole field that includes Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and that in both the earliest and the latest anti-Mosaic criticism they are the leading examples of alleged incongruity of date 2i6 The Antho7^ the same throughout, [bk. iii. in all these books. As these instances have been shown to be plain misapprehensions of the writer's meaning, we have before us, according to the critical theory, a series of authors throwing themselves into the person of Moses, writing their histories and their laws as if by his dictation, and never once forgetting the great his- torian whom they personated, or introducing one fact that might not have been recorded by him, although the last of these supposed imitators lived a thousand years after his death. With the new critics the most frequent of all reasons for rejecting the plain statements of the Bible is that these statements are not probable ; but nothing can be more utterly improbable than that such a succession of writers should have preserved an unbroken consistency wdth the facts and the dates of the life of IMoses. CH. III.] No rite Moses could not institute, 2 1 7 CHAPTER III. THESE BOOKS CONTAIN NO EELIGIOUS ORDINANCE THAT MOSES COULD NOT HAVE INSTITUTED. The work of Ezra in Jerusalem is held by the critics to constitute an epoch in the history of Israel, not in the true sense of moving his people to keep the original law of Moses, but of inducing them to accept a new ritual under the old authority of his name. But the whole proof of the new keeping of ritual institutions at this great historical epoch consists in Israel erecting green booths for the Feast of Tabernacles on the roofs of their houses, and in their courts, and in the courts of the Temple, and in the streets of the water gate and of the gate of Ephraim ; and this is expressly stated to have been only the revival of an old ordinance of the personal Moses, the predecessor of Joshua. This is all that can be proved to constitute the new epoch under Ezra. " Any one who reads with attention the narrative in the Book of Nehemiah must be satisfied that this work of 2i8 The Author the same throttghout, [bk. iii. Ezra's and the covenant which the people took upon them to obey the law, were of epoch-making importance to the Jewish community. It was not merely a covenant to amend certain abuses in detailed points of legal observance, for the people in their confession very distinctly state that the law had not been observed b)^ their ancestors, their nobles, or their priests up to that time (Nehemiah ix. 34), and in particular it is mentioned that the Feast of Taber- nacles had never been observed according to the laiv from the time that the Israelites occupied Canaan under Joshua — that is of course never at all (Nehemiah viii. 17)." — Old Testament in Jewish Church, p. 56. (Italics are ours.) The sins for which Israel were exiled from their land did not consist in the neglect of ceremonial observ- ances, or even of frequenting the high places after the building of the Temple ; but in serving strange gods, in worshipping graven images, in the profanation of the Sabbath, in shedding innocent blood, in slaying the prophets, in walking after their own lusts, in oppress- ing the poor. In this discussion Israel's observance or neglect of the divine ordinances forms no part of the argument on either side, except in so far as it bears on the denial of these ordinances to Moses. In the passage just quoted it is assumed that Nehemiah's confession has a special reference to ritual observances, whilst on the contrary what he chiefly confesses is their casting the Law behind their back (ver. 24), not turning from their wicked works (ver. 35), killing the prophets who testified against them CH. III.] No rite Moses coidd not mstittUe. 2 1 9 (ver. 26), and again not giving ear to the Lord's testi- mony against them by His Spirit in the prophets (ver. 30) ; it being notorious that the testimony of the pro- phets was not directed against the neglect of ritual observances. The covenant they now make is to " walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes ; " of necessity referring first of all to the weightiest matters of the law, the neglect of wliich they had just confessed. Most of the special duties they afterwards undertake were confessedly ordained before the Exile ; and since many of the Levitical institutions were not of permanent moral obligation, it was the divine command alone which taught Israel that they were right under that dispensation, and gave the war- rant for their observance. The position taken up by the critics makes Israel confess that their fathers had grievously sinned in doing not what was wrong, but what was right in the sight of God, by refraining from devising, from enacting, and from observing religious ordinances which He had never made known and never sanctioned. If in the times of the prophets Israel sinned by the neglect of the Levitical institutions, and were exiled on this account, those institutions must have been ordained before the Exile ; if again the Levitical institutions were first ordained by Ezra, Israel's peni- 2 20 The Author' the same throughout, [bk. hi. tent confession of their fathers' aggravated guilt in neglecting them would have been an act of unparalleled hypocrisy. In the light of Nehemiah's confession it is clearly impossible that Ezra could have been the author of the Levitical ordinances. In the passage now quoted the reference to the Feast of Tabernacles reverses all sound reasoning. Not at all in the penitent confession of Nehemiah, but previously, we have an account of the joyful erection of green booths at this feast, made doubly joyful because this ceremonial had been neglected for a thousand years since the death of Joshua. In the reading of the law and the observance of its ordinances the marked noting of this solitary instance of neglect clearly warrants the inference, that the people were not aware of a similar neglect in the range of other ceremonial institutions, but that they knew them to have been kept by the nation, at least under their better kings. Against all reason the contrary conclusion is drawn, that this exceptional instance is given as an example of a universal neglect of the ceremonial law. In other respects, however, this particular record is of primary importance ; but before examining it we shall look at the notices of other ordinances in the post-Exile Scriptures. 1. In tlie Book of Malachi there is no reference to any institution that did not confessedly exist cii. 111.] N'o rite Moses co7ild not institute. 22 i before the Exile. If Ezra had recently brought up the Levitical institutions from Babylon, they would certainly on the principle of the new critics have been referred to by this contemporary prophet. His prophecy is brief, but it deals largely with the priests, the temple, and the sacrifices, yet makes no allusion to any ordinance that is peculiar to the so-called priestly ritual of Ezra. In Leviticus it is ordained with great minuteness that no man that is blind or lame or blemished shall " offer the bread of his God." Malachi, while speaking much to the priests, passes this ordin- ance in silence ; but he rebukes the priests at length for presenting the blind and the lame and the sick for an offering to the Lord (i. 8-14,) which is forbidden as expressly in Deuteronomy as in Leviticus. In Malachi it is prophesied that " in every place incense shall be offered ;" but incense which is ordained in the Levitical laws is spoken of in Samuel and in Kings ; and in Ezekiel " mine oil and mine incense" are referred to more than once as pertaining to the first Temple while it is still standing. In Malachi (ii. 11) Judah is reproved because he " hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god ;" but this profane alliance is not condemned in the Levitical laws, but in the 34th of Exodus, which is not Levitical, and more largely in the Book of Deuteronomy. All these 22 2 The AutJior the same throughoict. [bk. hi. ordinances date confessedly hefore the Exile, and throughout the book there is no reference to any ordin- ance which the critics refer specially to the Exile. Such a lack of proof have they to adduce in support of their conjecture. 2. In Ezra and Nehemiah a large part of the history turns on institutions that were confessedly ordained before the Exile. Besides the booths at the Feast of Tabernacles, the only Levitical institutions that are spoken of as observed, if we have not mistaken, are the trespass- offering and the sin-offering, and the Levites' offering of a tenth of their tithe. In the previous history of Israel there is no recorded example of an offender presenting a sin-offering or a trespass-offering, whence the critics infer that these had not then been ordained. But in the entire Scriptures, Old and New, there is no record of the punishment of a thief ; it is only in the New Testament that we have the record of the forty stripes save one ; and in the case of sin- offerings and trespass-offerings there is no force in the plea that the previous historical silence proves the new- ness of these ordinances. There is no reason why Moses should not have ordained them. But the ordinances which occupy a chief place in these two books are either not exclusively Levitical, or not Levitical at all, and are confessedly previous to the Exile. The command to sanctify the Sabbath by ceas- CH. III.] No rite Moses cottld not institute. 223 ing from all work, and the civil laws against usury, and against holding a Hebrew in slavery, are allowed to have been ordained long before the captivity ; and the prohibition of intermarriage with the Canaauites, the enforcing of which occupies so large a place in the Book of Ezra, has no place at all in what has been called peculiarly the Code of Ezra, or the Levitical ritual said to have been drawn up in Babylon. And in like manner the exclusion of the Moabite and the Ammonite in the Book of Nehemiah from the house of the Lord is founded not on the alleged priestly code, but entirely on the Book of Deuteronomy. So little of even apparent argument can the new theory find for itself in these books. 3. In the post-Exile books that which regards the Feast of Tabernacles is by far the most important notice of any Levitical institution ; both because it fur- nishes the only example of a confessedly long-neglected ceremony, and because the restored observance of the omitted rite occupies so large a place in Nehemiah's narrative. Professor Smith does not maintain that the feast had not been observed, but that it had never been observed "according to the law;" and the nar- rative clearly proves that the specially forgotten rite did not originate in Babylon, but was instituted by Moses himself. The revived observance in Kehemiah viii. 13-18 2 24 ^^^^ Author the same throughout, [bk. hi. does not relate to the Feast of Tabernacles itself, but only to the people sitting under booths of green boughs during the feast, for since the days of Joshua had they not "done so" (ver. 17). This is the only part of the feast that is peculiar to the Book of Leviticus ; and it is supposed by advanced critics to have been devised in Babylon, and brought up to Jerusalem by Ezra. The feast itself is ordained as " the feast of ingathering," in what they call the original code of Moses in Exod. xxiii. 16 ; it is enjoined as " the feast of tabernacles" in Deut. xvi. 16 ; its sacrificial ritual as the feast of " the seventh month" is minutely detailed in Numbers xxix. 12-34 ; and much more briefly as " the feast of taber- nacles" in Lev. xxiii. 34-36, and with a subsequent ap- pendix in vers. 39-43 ordaining that the booths in which Israel was to dwell at the feast were to be formed of the leafy boughs of goodly trees. Tents were essential to the feast as indicated by its name, and as required for the commemoration of the tabernacles in which Israel dwelt in the desert ; but the tents of wandering Israel were not of branches green with luxuriant foliage ; and such bowers, whilst beautifully significant of the joy of harvest, could not be said to be of the essence of the festival. At the dedication of the Temple the feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of the seventh month was observed by Solomon with all Israel with great magni- ficence (1 Kings viii. 2, 65) ; and along with the Feasts CH. III.] No rite Moses cotild not institute, 225 of Passover and Pentecost it was annually observed during his reign, for it is said in 1 Kings ix. 25, that " three times in a year did Solomon offer burnt-offerings and peace-offerings ;" and in 2 Chron. viii. 13, it is ex- plained that he offered " according to the commandment of Moses three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles." The feast, however, was not merely kept, there can be no doubt that it was kept in tents, although not in booths of green branches ; for Hosea, in a passage which is usually and rightly referred to the Feast of Tabernacles, speaks of this as a recog- nised ordinance in Israel : " And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast " (Hos. xii. 9). After the Exile, before the Temple was built, the feast was kept for the seven days with the daily offerings " as it is written," but without the booths of green branches (Ezra iii. 4). At a later period, under Ezra and Nehemiah, when the people were hearing the Book of Leviticus read, they were impressed with the joyful command to take the boughs of goodly trees, of palm trees and willows of the brook, and to rejoice before the Lord their God ; and when they had made themselves booths and sat under them, there was very great gladness, " for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had P 2 26 The AtUhor the same throughout, [bk. hi. not the children of Israel done so." The freshness of this part of the ordinance contributed to the exuberance of their joy ; ninety years had elapsed since the first returned exiles had kept the feast round the altar with- out a temple ; and year by year thereafter it had doubt- less been kept by Israel. But the oldest of them had never kept it with branches of the myrtle, the pine and the palm; they so kept it now in the belief that so " had the Lord commanded by Moses" (Neh. viii. 14) ; and if Ezra had invented the festive emblems in Babylon, he would have been guilty of a cruel decep- tion on his people, and unworthy of all credit. But the inspired account states that the festival had been so kept in the days of Joshua, though never since ; and when it ascribes its institution to Moses, it must mean the personal Moses, whose successor, Joshua, kept the ordinance with all its rites, for he "left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses" (Josh. xi. 15). As the ordinance of the leafy booths be- longs neither to the critics' Mosaic Code in Exodus nor to their Deuteronomic Code which they assign to the time of Josiah, but to their Priestly Code which they suppose to have been written in Babylon, the testimony in ISTehemiah assigns this last code to Moses himself. But the expression "since the days of Joshua" has been received by Professor Kobertson Smith in a sense exactly opposite to its meaning. The clause has been CH. III.] No rite Moses coiUd not institiUe. 227 taken to mean that " neither in nor since the days of Joshua had Israel done so," and as an express denial that Joshua or any one else had ever observed the ordinance ; with the inference that it had never been instituted by Moses, for its origin is the whole subject of discussion. In our English Bible the statement that "since the days of Joshua the son of Nun . . . had not the children of Israel done so," means that they had done so in his days, but never since, and the meaning of the Hebrew is the same. The Hebrew phrase " from or since the days," sometimes, indeed, means " since the beginning of the days," as in the question put to Job, " Hast tliou commanded the morning since thy days ?" which in- cludes " in thy days," and denies that it had ever been done ; but this springs out of the connection, and is not inherent in the idiom. The phrase is used regarding Hezekiah's passover in 2 Chronicles xxx. 26 : "So there was great joy in Jerusalem : for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem." That the inspired author does not mean to exclude Solomon, but especially to note his keeping of the passover, is certain, because Solomon is the first king under whom he records the keeping of the passover (2 Chronicles viii. 13), and Hezekiah is the second ; and between these two reigns, after the division of the kingdom, there liad been no passover equal to Hezekiah's. 2 28 The Atdhor the same throMghotit. [bk. hi. In the subsequent reformation under Josiali there was one still greater, of which it is said in 2 Chronicles XXXV. 18, " And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from (or since) the days of Samuel the prophet ; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept." The same inspired writer, who states that Hezekiah's passover was the greatest since the days of Solomon, says that Josiah's was greater than Solomon's or any other king's, and could not be equalled since the days of Samuel ; and to suppose that there was no such passover kept in the time of Samuel is to rob language of all meaning. Exactly to the same effect, the account of this passover in 2 Kings xxiii. 22 states that no parallel to it could be found except by going back to the time of the judges : " Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah :" a<^' i^fjuepcov rcov Kpcrcov, koI irdo-a^i ra? rjfiepa<; /SaaiXecov. (Sept.) 'No such passover had been kept "from the days of the judges, nor all the days of the kings," making it clear beyond all doubt that the statement " since (or from) the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so," means that they had kept the Feast of Tabernacles in green booths in the days of Joshua, but never since. The learned critic, who takes this passage to prove that the feast had " never at all " been observed accord- CH. III.] No rite Moses coidd not institute. 229 ing to the law, accepts its testimony under a forced and unwarranted construction of the Hebrew phrase; and the accepted testimony in its natural, idiomatic, and only possible sense, simply overturns the theory of Leviticus having been written in Babylon and not by Moses. 230 The Author the same throughotit. [bk. hi. CHAPTEE IV. THESE BOOKS EMBODY NO CIVIL LAW THAT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ENACTED BY MOSES. Till our critics shall have shown how King Josiah could have sanctioned and issued the Deuteronomic commands for the destruction of the Canaanites, who were his own recognised subjects, all other questions on the civil laws of Moses are of a very secondary character. But whilst, as we have already proved, only the personal Moses could have issued these commands, strong statements have been made that the Mosaic books contain certain laws that are incompatible with each other, because they are fitted for quite different states of society. The best known and apparently the most important instance of a civil law which it is alleged that Moses could not have enacted is the statute that limits the judicial beating of an offender to forty stripes (Deu- teronomy XXV. 1-3) ; for the statute does not directly ordain the punishment of beating, but refers to it as CH. IV.] No law Moses cotdd not enact. 231 if already in use, and ordains that the stripes shall not exceed forty, lest " thy brother should seem vile unto thee." In Tlu Old Testament in the Jewish Church it is maintained that this was a new law of a date long subsequent to Moses ; that it implies a higher state of civilisation than existed in Israel in his day, that Moses could not have enacted it because it could not co-exist with the old law of retaliation, that the law of retalia- tion was obsolete at the date of its enactment, and that the priests afterwards re-introduced it into Leviticus. These four conclusions form a very curious tissue of reasoning and inference ; and they are so deftly woven together that, were it not in the cause of sacred truth, one would almost grudge to touch the gossamer web, because to touch it is to destroy the whole fabric. This intricate process of argument and inference is contained in the following passages, in which we have marked some of the leading thoughts : — "■ In general we see that the civil laws of Deuteronomy belong to a later stage of society than the First Legislation. For example, the law of retaliation, which has so large a range in the First Legislation, is limited in Deuteronomy xix. 16 seq., to the case of false witness. And with this goes the introduction of a neiv lyunisliment, which, in the old law, was confined to slaves. A man who injures another may be brought before the judge and sentenced to the bastinado (xxv. 1 seq). The introduction of this degrad- ing punishment in the case of freemen indicates a change of social feelincj. Amonsj the Bedouin Arabs no sheik 232 The Author the same throughout, [bk. hi. would dare to flog a man; for he would thereby bring himself under the law of retaliation \ and so it was in Israel in the old times" (pp. 266, 267). "A close study of the Levitical laws, especially in Leviticus xvii.-xxvi. shows that many ancient Torahs were worked uj), by successive processes, into the complete system as we now possess it. In Leviticus xxiv. 9 seq., for ex- ample, we find the old law of retaliation for injuries not mortal, which is already obsolete in the Deuteronomic code. The preservation of such a Torah shows that the priests did not give up their old traditional law for the written code of Deuteronomy" (p. 384). In the light of the acknowledged inspiration of the Holy Scriptures this last statement is altogether inex- plicable. The asserted limitation of the law of retalia- tion to perjury by the code of Deuteronomy becomes an untoward fact for the new theory ; for the old law being found in Leviticus would prove it to be the older book of the two. But the difficulty is got over by the discovery that the priests took their old traditional law, which had been authoritatively abolished by the latest ivritten revelation of the divine will, and inserted it in their new book of laws ; thus asserting their iude- pendence of that revelation by " not giving up their old traditional law for the written code of Deuteronomy;" a supposition which degrades the divine law of Moses into the unholy and crafty device of an ambitious priesthood. The foundation of all this critical romance is the cii. IV.] No law Moses coidd not enact. 233 alleged extinction of the original law of retaliation at the date of Deuteronomy with its written sanction of that extinction ; and to dissipate the whole there is nothing needed but the very simple, if rather tedious task of showing, what we should have thought obvious to every reader, that the original law of retaliation is expressly confirmed and enforced by the code of Deu- teronomy. It must be noted that there is here no question about the manner in w^hich the .law was executed, but simply about its unaltered obligation at the time Deuteronomy was written. On account of the enactment in Numbers xxxv. 31, that no satis- faction was to be taken for murder, learned Jews have held that even under this law the penalties for injuries not mortal were commuted at the discretion of the judge ; and it has been held by scholars of great authority that this might certainly be done if the injured man did not himself demand the literal penalty, and acquiesced in some other satisfaction. But such questions do not at all affect the period of time during which the law continued in force. The law of retaliation is found in the laws of Exodus xxi., xxiii., which were spoken by God to Moses, and were written down by Moses himself (Exodus xxiv. 4). This law (Exodus xxi. 22-25) starts from the infliction of bodily injury through strife supposed to originate in a particular case ; but its 2 34 The Aitthor the same throughout, [bk. hi. statement of retribution is fuller than anywhere else, and seems certainly designed to apply to all wilful injuries : " If any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." In Leviticus xxiv. 19, 20, the law is repeated in less detail and in quite general terms, including all such cases : " If a man cause a blemish in his neighbour, as he hath done, so shall it be done to him ; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth ; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again." In Deuteronomy xix. 16-21, this is made the basis of further legislation, and is extended from the case of the man who wounds his neighbour with his hand to the false witness who strikes only wdth his tongue, but whose perjury if undetected would have inflicted the wound by the award of the judge : " If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong ; then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days ; and the judges shall make diligent inquisition : and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testi- fied falsely against his brother ; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother ; so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. And CH. IV.] No law Moses could not enact. 235 those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. And thine eye shall not pity ; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." In this statute the detailed retaliation, " life for life, eye for eye," has an evident reference to the still fuller detail in Exodus ; the command, " ye shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother," plainly refers to the Levitical words, " as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him;" and the injunction to the judge, " thine eye shall not pity," is evidently added as a warning against leniency on account of the injury having only been intended and not inflicted. Now in this Deuteronomic code the witness who has falsely sworn against a man to the loss of his eye or his tooth, if his false oath had been accredited, is to forfeit his own eye or his own tooth for the perjury ; " Ye shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother." But when the falsely accused man, if found guilty, would have lost his eye or his tooth, for what imputed crime would he have suffered this penalty ? According to the law of Moses, or accord- ing to any supposed traditional law of which there is any trace in the Scriptures, he could not have been sentenced to this punishment for theft or for any other crime whatever save the one of putting out his 236 The Attthor the same throughout, [bk. hi. brother's eye or his brother's tooth. Therefore the law of retaliation is of necessity recognised in the Deu- teronomic Code as in full force, and is made the express basis of extending the same penalties to the crime of perjury. If the law had become olsolete or been limited to the case of false ivitness, the enactment as against perjury was a dead letter ; for the perjured man would not have forfeited his own eye or his own tooth if the man whom he accused was not liable to forfeit his for the imputed crime of putting out his neighbour's eye or his neighbour's tooth. In the light of the certain fact that the Book of Deuteronomy thus expressly confirms and enforces the original law of retaliation, what becomes of the asser- tion that it was obsolete when this book was written ; of the assertion that Deuteronomy belongs to a later civilisation than the law of retaliation ; of the assertion that because by its written act against perjury the old law of retaliation was definitely set aside in Deuter- onomy, the priests of the Exile " worked it up " again into the Book of Leviticus ; and finally of the asser- tion that the law of retaliation and the Deuteronomic penalty of forty stripes could not be in force at the same time ? CH. v.] A^o character tmsuitable to Moses. 237 CHAPTER Y. THESE BOOKS EXHIBIT NO CHARACTER OR CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH MOSES COULD NOT HAVE ACTED. The oldest are likewise the newest objections that have been taken to the manner of writing in these books ; it has been and is alleged to be unnatural that an author should write his own history in the third person. The substance of these objections is given in the following extract from Tlie Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 320, 321 : — " What he (Moses) writes is distinguished from the mass of the text, and he himself is habitually spoken of in the third person. It is common to explain this as a literary artifice analogous to that adopted by Caesar in his Commentaries. But it is a strong thing to suppose that so artificial a way of writing is as old as Moses, and belongs to the earliest age of Hebrew authorship. One asks for proof that any Hebrew ever wrote of himself in the third person, and particularly, that Moses could write such a verse as Numbers xii. 3, * the man Moses was very meek above all men living.' " 238 The Atitho7' the same throughout, [bk. hi. Before the rise of recent modern criticism one of the objections against Moses, as the author of Deuteronomy, was taken from this immaterial circumstance that he speaks of himself as Moses, whence the inference w^as drawn that the book was written of him and not by him — " non a Most, sed de Mose." Afterwards, at the close of last century in his Age of Reason, Thomas Paine, who believed indeed in God as his Creator and Judge, but had a fierce hatred to the Bible (except the Book of Job and the Nineteenth Psalm, which he' highly extols), in seeking to disprove the authenticity of Deuteronomy, as of the other books, took up at some length this objection to Moses writing of himself in the third person. He supposes the book to have been written three or four hundred years after the death of Moses, and represents the author as composing it after the manner of a drama, and introducing Moses once and again as a speaker. With the natural vigour of his intellect, not strained by critical studies, he held it as certain^ that if he could disprove its antiquity and Mosaic authority, all its claim to inspiration would be gone. That the third person was used by Moses himself is clear from his summary of Israel's journeyings near the end of the Book of Numbers. In the beginning of the thirty-third chapter we read : " These are the journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of CH. v.] No character unsuitable to Moses. 239 Moses and Aaron ; and Moses v'vote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord : and these are their journeys according to their goings out" (vers. 1, 2). Then follow the exact words of Moses, which he wrote by the command of God (ver. 3). But he does not write as we might have expected, " And loe departed from Eameses in the first month," but " And tluy departed," and so throughout the chapter ; speaking of the progress of the nation as "their goings/' and not as "ours," although all the while he was himself their leader. But to modern ears, as well as to ancient, if we mistake not, the form which the Hebrew lawgiver has adopted in his introduction to the noble record of the nation's history and teaching and laws is preferable to any other. " These are the words which I spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness" would even to us have been neither so good nor so natural a title for his great work as the one which he has himself preferred : " These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness." The other instances follow naturally in the same form. That the writer of a nation's history, with which his own is inseparably bound up, should speak of himself in the third person need not seem artificial even to us ; and the usage was w^ell known in ancient times, although it may occur comparatively seldom, for the 240 The AtitJwr the same throtighout. [bk. hi. obvious reason that historians for the most part narrate the acts of others and not their own. The familiar and very important example of Caesar's Gom- mentaries is acknowledged by Professor Smith as an instance of a narrative in which the narrator so speaks of himself; but exception is taken to the lateness of the date, and to the circumstance that the writer is not a Hebrew. That this is far, however, from the earliest date of such a mode of writing has been amply proved; and amongst secular historians it was used by Greek and Eoman and Jew. Three hundred and fifty years before Csesar, Xenophon in his Expeditio7i of Gyrus constantly speaks of himself as Xenophon, just as Moses speaks of himself; and also, like Moses, he narrates his own words in the first person. Proof, however, is asked, " that any Hebrew ever wrote of himself in the third person." In the New Testa- ment our blessed Lord so speaks of himself in John iii. 13-18, and elsewhere; so does the disciple whom Jesus loved ; and in the Old Testament Ezra says, " Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, . . . and at the evening sacrifice ... I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God. . . . Now when Ezra had prayed . . . then Ezra arose . . . and Ezra the priest stood up " (Ezra ix. 1, 5 ; X. 1, 5, 10 ; and in vii. 6, 11, 27, 28 ; viii. 1). In later times, Josephus in his history of the Jewish war CH. v.] No charactei' ttnsiii table to Moses. 241 constantly writes of himself in the third person, and gives his own words in the first, using this form of writing quite as much as Moses did. The following is a single instance out of many, and in it this author, so familiarly known, furnishes a very definite reply to the demand for a Hebrew writing in this manner : " Upon this, Josephus declared to them what Caesar had given him in charpje, and this in the Hebrew lanauaoe. But the tyrant cast reproaches upon Josephus. In answer to which Josephus said — Take notice, that I who make this exhortation to thee ; I who am a Jeiv, do make this promise to thee" (Antiquities of the Jens, book vi. chap. 2). It is said by Professor Kobertson Smith to be " a strong thing to suppose that so artificial a way of writing is as old as Moses, and belongs to the earliest age of Hebrew authorship." A studied form of speech either in poetry or in prose may in one sense be called " artificial ;" but the earliest record of authorship ex- tant in Hebrew is found in the poetic address of Lamech to his two wives ; and if what is primitive is natural, then so far as literary evidence avails it must be held to be the most natural way for an author to speak of himself in the third person. It is the only form of set speech that has survived the w^aters of the Deluge, and so claims a higher antiquity than any other. Q 242 The Aitthoi' the same throughout, [bk. hi. " And Lamech said unto his wives : " * Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice ; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech : For I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sev^enfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold' " (Gen. iv. 23, 24). Lamech lived two thousand years before the Hebrew lawgiver. The prophet Balaam was " as old as Moses," and he likewise speaks of himself in the third person : " And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he took up his parable, and said : Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said : He hath said, wdiicli heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open" (Numb. xxiv. 2, 3, i). Between three and four hundred years later, but still at an early period of Israel's history, Samuel speaks of himself in the third person : '' The Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you ou.t of the hand of your enemies " (1 Sam. xii. 11). So likewise David in his dying words speaks of himself ; and knowing his own high calling, as Moses knows his, he is lifted far above the fear of a shallow criticism that might charge him with self-exaltation : " Now these be the last words of David : David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on CH. v.] No character unszittadle to Moses. 243 high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said " (2 Sam. xxiii. 1). In ancient times, therefore, whether we look within the lange of the sacred Scriptures or beyond it, this mode of writing was not singular ; and having been used both in the very earliest times, and by some of the greatest writers and the best known authors of antiquity, it can never discredit the writings of Moses, as if they w^ere not really his own. The old objection against Moses writing of liimself as " very meek above all the men that were upon the face of the earth " (Numb. xii. 3), wdiich Thomas Paine says is to " render him truly ridiculous and absurd," rests on not taking into account the circumstances of tlie case together with the peculiarly high calling of Moses, who faithfully narrates for all generations the Lord's dealingjs with himself and with Israel, and re- cords his own faults and theirs. In this record the murmuriniT;s of his own nearest relatives and Miriam's stroke of leprosy cannot be omitted; and if this judgment is to be accounted for, the case must be impartially stated. When a man's character and motives are assailed, as with Job, David, and Paul, he is justified in vindicating himself; and Moses speaks of himself as the meekest of men, in reference to the accusation by Aaron and Miriam that he had usurped authority which belonged equally to them. This meek- 244 The Atithor the same throughout, [bk. hi. ness was contrary to his own natural character ; was acqiured through divine training in a retirement of forty years ; and had so thoroughly imbued him, that he insisted with the Lord to choose any man except him- self for Israel's deliverance out of Egypt on which his heart was so intently set. The record of this meekness serves the threefold end of explaining the unjustifiable- ness of the attack against him, his own singular silence under it, and the Lord's remarkable interposition on his behalf; whilst the accompanying record of the words of the great God, as distinguishing Moses from all other prophets by speaking to him " mouth to mouth," is in reality much more exalting to him than the testi- mony of his being the humblest among sinful men. Alike in his meekness toward men and in his near- ness to God, Moses is honoured to bear a real although partial likeness to the Lord Jesus Clirist. Not in self- vindication but in His own infinite condescension, the Son of God proclaims " I am meek and lowly," and in a way which Moses could no more have adopted than he could have said, " Come unto me, and I will give you rest." Of characteristic meekness Jesus speaks, for He was sent to speak the words of eternal life ; of characteristic, though immeasurably inferior meekness, Moses writes, for his great commission was to write the words that were spoken to him, with the record of what he passed through ; and Christ strongly marks CH. v.] No character tmstntadle to Moses. 245 this distinction which is now so groundlessly denied to Moses : " Had ye believed Moses, ye would have be- lieved me : for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his ivritings, how shall ye believe my %i:ordsV' (John v. 46, 47.) If such objections to Moses speaking of himself in the third person, and in defence of his own conduct, are the chief examples that have been discovered of alleged inconsistency, we can safely affirm that these four books contain no circumstances and exhibit no character in which he might not suitably have acted. 246 The Author the sa7ue throughout, [bk. hi. CHAPTEE VI. THESE BOOKS INSERT NO EXPLANATIONS THAT MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN OR ADDED BY MOSES. The golden Omer filled with Manna to be kept for Israel's coming " generations that they might see the bread wherewith the Lord fed them in the wilderness" gave occasion to one of the simplest of all the paren- thetic additions in the Pentateuch, when to his account of the transaction Moses added the explanation, " Now an omer is the tenth of an ephah." Critics of high authority, who acknowledge and maintain the genuine- ness of the books of Moses, regard it as undoubted that this parenthesis must have been inserted long after his day, because it seems needless and unnatural for Moses to explain to Israel the size of a measure that was in daily use at Mount Sinai. It thus affords one of the most testing examples of the position that there is no necessity and no reason for ascribing such explanations to Ezra or to any other except Moses himself. The Hebrew word '' omer" signifies either a measure CH. VI.] No explanation Moses might not make. 247 or a sheaf; and is used as a measure at Mount Sinai, but never afterwards. In Exodus xvi. 18 the manna is *' meted with an omer ; " and when Israel is still at Mount Sinai the "sheaf of the firstfruits" in Lev. xiii.-10 is by some recent critics translated " an omer of the first- fruits," whilst the lexicons render it a sheaf as in our own and in the ancient versions. Afterwards the term is used in Job xxiv. 10 for the sheaf taken from the hungry ; in Deut. xxiv. 1 9 for the sheaf forgotten in the harvest-field ; in Euth ii. 7 for the sheaves amongst which the stranger was allowed to glean ; and in a slightly different form for the sheaves on the cart in Amos, for the sheaves on the floor in Micah, and for the sheaf with the torch of fire in Zechariah. But while the '' omer " as a sheaf thus continues even after the Exile, it never reappears as a measure after Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, however, " the tenth of an ephah," or " a tenth," was used as an equivalent term for the "omer" (Lev. v. 11). There were thus two different names for the same measure, as well as two different meanings for the same word. It was therefore quite natural for the sake of avoiding confusion that in pro- cess of time the " omer " should come to be limited to what the critics regard as its original meaning of a sheaf; and likewise that the only designation of the measure should come to be the tenth of an ephah. 248 The Attthor the same throughout . [bk. hi. Sucli a process might take place in mucli less than forty years ; and on the plains of Moab we are not sur- prised to find only the tenth of an ephah used for the measure (Numb, xxviii. 5), and the omer used for the sheaf alone (Deut. xxiv. 19). This parenthetic note was not written at Mount Sinai, but when Israel was already " on the borders of the land of Canaan ;" and when the first generation who called the measure with which they meted the manna at Mount Sinai an omer were all gone except Joshua and Caleb. It was therefore most natural for Moses, in receiving his directions about the omer of manna to be laid up in the golden pot for the time to come and to be kept in Israel " for their generations/' to add the explanation, " Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah." It is not added to inform the present or future fjenerations of Israel that there are ten omers in an ephah, but rather to indicate that '' the omer " is the same measure as what had now come to be more com- monly called "the tenth of an ephah ;" and the exact meaning of the Hebrew words we take to be " Now an omer is the same as the tenth of an ephah." While this information appears to have been re- quisite for the generation of Israel who were born in the wilderness, as well as for the future generation, for whom also it was written, and was therefore most naturally furnished by Moses, it has likewise to be CH. VI.] No explanation Moses might not make, 249 noted that this minute specification regarding every thing that pertained to the Sanctuary was laid upon him as on none of his successors ; and therefore we conclude not only that this parenthetic explanation could have been adduced by Moses, but that whilst it might possibly have been inserted by Ezra, the hand of Moses himself was of all others both the fittest and the likeliest to have written it. If, however, this result is brought out in an instance where the hand of a subsequent editor might reasonably be allowed without affecting the genuineness of the Mosaic books, the case is much stronger in other ex- amples of supposed additions, which will for the most part be found to be incapable of being assigned to any other author than Moses himself. The inspired author of these four books frequently calls himself Moses ; and even " writers like De Wette and others, who are most opposed to the traditional view, are forced to admit that the author of the four last books of the Pentateuch wished at least to be taken for Moses " (Professor Patton). And by the sum of the combined evidence that has been adduced, it is clearly proved that the writer of these four books employs no words which Moses, the brother of Aaron, could not have used, narrates no facts which he could not have known, prescribes no religious rites and enacts no civil laws which he could not have ordained, 250 The Attt/ior the same throughout, [bk. hi. appears in no character in which he could not have acted, and adds no explanations which he could not have written. In the life and writings of a single man this thorough consistency affords the strongest proof of identity; whilst it exhibits a unity that is simply impossible in an ideal character, personated by a succession of writers through a period of a thousand years. BOOK IV. MOSES AND THE PKOPHETS EEVEESED INTO THE PROPHETS AND. MOSES. CHAPTER I. THE EETROGRADE THEORY OF THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. The aim of the new critics is to present the develop- ment of the religion of Israel in what appears to them the only natural and living way ; but the progress of that religion as they have sketched it is in all its great departments most unlike to reality and life. They seem to conceive that their Biblical theory bears a resemblance to the theory of evolution in the material world; but the scientific evolution is from worse to better, and their Biblical evolution from better to worse. Its latter end is in every way worse than its beginning. The weakness of the evolution theory, apart from its inconsistency with Scripture, is tliat the mental plan of the theorist has no counterpart in the products of nature, else the fact of the egg opening into the chicken would not be given as an instance and a proof of evolution ; yet 2=^2 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. it agrees in so far with the mind of the Creator, who has stamped on His work a progress from lower to higher in His own way of creation and not by self- development. But in this new Biblical development the beautiful, harmonious, progressive work of the God of Israel is recklessly set aside ; whilst the critics set up in its stead a degenerate and deformed creation of their own, very much as if the men of science were to set the ape in a more advanced position than man in the scale of being. The critical development of the Old Testament is retrograde in all its aspects ; in morals, in the rites of worship, and in the substance of religion. In morals, Isaiah in his beautiful picture of the reign of Israel's Messiah has prophesied that " righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" (Isaiah xi. 5, 6, 9). The prophets who succeed him are held by the new critics to have written the Book of Deuteronomy : King Josiah, who is so highly extoUed in the Scriptural record, takes the nation solemnly bound to execute all its commands ; and one of the strictest and most earnestly enforced of these commands is the newly proclaimed order to turn God's holy mountain into a field of blood by the merciless and CH. I.] Retrograde theory of Israel's religion. 253 treacherous slaughter of all the remnant of the Canaau- ites who have lived for four hundred years under the covenanted protection of the State ! This, by the new- theory, is the Scriptural development of morals in Israel ; confessedly according to some of the critics, and neces- sarily for them all according to the terms of the theory. Israel's development of public vjorslii]) in the Sanc- tuary is not rendered by the new theory equally re- volting, but it is equally retrograde for hundreds of years. The Temple had resounded morning and evening and at the solemn feasts with the praises of the Lord in the lofty Psalms of David ; but the critics maintain that the ritual of the Second Temple is found in the Levitical institutions of Moses ; and these limit the praises of the Sanctuary to the speechless music of two silver trumpets sounded by the priests. For them- selves they will not accept this conclusion ; but it is directly, and not inferentially involved in their posi- tion, and they must either accept it or abandon a theoiy which includes so great a collapse in the worship of the Sanctuary. Their imagined progress in the substcince of religion goes equally backward in placing the Prophets before the books of Moses. If the Levitical books, contrary to the Scriptural order, are placed historically subsequent to the Prophets, the whole divine plan of Israel's religious growth is reversed and becomes utterly incongruous. 2 54 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. The tree is uprooted ; and too many have been disposed to approve the skill of the gravediggers who have buried its fruitful branches in the earth and exhibited its roots floating in the air to render it life-like and natural. The prophet Jeremiah lamenting the ingratitude and continual apostasy of Israel is commissioned by the Lord to promise them a New Covenant, founded on the free forgiveness of sins, and promising the immediate knowledge of God and His law written in the heart. The ISTew Covenant obviously refers to the times of the Messiah, and our blessed Lord appropriates it to Himself in the sacramental words, " This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." But according to the present critics, this New Cove- nant must of necessity be the Levitical covenant under Ezra, when sacrifice was, by their theory, for the first time divinely commanded and made the condition of the forgiveness of sins. When, according to them, the institutions of the Second Temple, culminating in the Day of Atonement, provided a sacrificial ritual for the pardon of sins, what was the amount of religious progress ? The Lord had led Israel through His Prophet to look forward to a great spiritual redemp- tion, a free pardon, an immediate divine teaching, and the law written, not on tables of stone, but in the cii. l] Retrograde theory of IsraeFs religion. 255 heart. According to the Scripture the time of this promise was evidently distant : and it was most con- sistent with the promise that the Mosaic institutions, which were about to be suspended, shoukl be restored and maintained till the coming of the Messiah and the fulfilment of the promise. But it was a sad mockery of such hopes, if Israel was now to be brought for the first time under the yoke of multiplied and burden- some ceremonies, which were confessedly very hard to be borne. The covenant that was to be abolished by the in- troduction of the New Covenant promised through Jeremiah was the covenant made with Israel after coming " out of the land of Egypt " (Jer. xxxi. 32). That was confessedly the same covenant that remained in the time of Jeremiah. It was to be abolished by the introduction of a better covenant, not at all of types and ceremonies, but of free forgiveness and of divine inward teaching. The existing covenant ac- cording to Jeremiah included the law written on stones, along with " burnt- offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-offerings, and incense " (Jer. xvii. 26), for it is expressly opposed to the Xew Covenant with the law written in the heart. By the express testimony of the Epistle to the Hebrews (viii. ix.) the old covenant spoken of by Jeremiah embraced the annual expiation for sins, and the whole ritual of which it is said that 256 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. " Almost all things are by the law purged with blood ; and without shedding of blood is no remission " (Heb. ix. 22). It was the same covenant as it existed in the times of Moses, of Jeremiah, and of Ezra that was to be abolished by the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ. Isaiah had said of Him, " The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all ;" and the Lord had said through Isaiah, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, and cry unto her that her iniquity is pardoned," and had said, " In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and I will give thee for a covenant of the people." This New Covenant of light and liberty and pardon was expressly promised by the mouth of Jeremiah ; the expectations of believing Israel were guided to it in the great future ; and it would have been a strange reversing of the development of religion in Israel if after the glorious light that had shone for them in the pages of the prophets, their first experience of a New Covenant had been in the form of new, complicated, burdensome ceremonies which, in the words of St. Peter for himself and others, pressed as " a yoke upon the neck, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." As in morals, and in the praise of the Sanctuary, so in the substance of religion the critics' development of Israel's progress by way of rendering it natural and probable is only a degradation from the opening cii. I.] Retrograde theory of Israel's religion. 257 light and liberty of the Prophetic Period to the severe yoke of Mosaic times ; not handed down from the days of old, but imposed for the first time in the latter end of the Mosaic dispensation, when the Sun of righteous- ness was preparing to rise with healing in His wings. " He hath made everything beautiful in his time." In its divinely appointed time the law of Moses shone with its own severe beauty ; and again in its tempo- rary renewal when, in preparation for the Messiah, the command was given to Israel, " Eemember ye the law of Moses my servant which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judg- ments." But the laws of Moses lose all their fitness and their beauty when they are displaced from their own original position as the foundation of the building, and lifted over the Psalms of David and the prophecies of Isaiah as the crowning ornament of the divine edifice. The massive severity which so fits them for the divine foundation is changed into a deformity when they are transformed by man's device into the highest pinnacles of the old Temple. 258 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. CHAPTEE 11. THE CHUKCH IN ALL AGES ACCEPTED ONLY THROUGH ATONING SACRIFICE. On this vitally important subject we have the following statements by Professor Eobertson Smith, in which we have marked some of the expressions : — " Jehovah, they [the prophets] say, has not enjoined sacrifice. This does not imply that He has never accepted sacrifice, or that ritual service is absolutely wrong. But it is at best mere form, which does not j)urchase any favour from Jehovah, and might be given up without offence. Under the Old Testament the forgiveness of sin is not an abstract doctrine, but a thing of actual experience. . . . The difference between Jehovah and the Gods of the nations is that He does not require sacrifice, but only to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. . . . Jehovah's anger is felt in national calamity, forgiveness is realised in the removal of chastisement. . . . There is no metaphysic in this conception, it sim2)hj accepts the analogy of anger and forgiveness in human life. . . . According to the prophets, this law of chastisement and forgiveness CH. II.] Ato7iing Sacrifice. 259 works directly without the intervention of any ritual sacra- ment. According to the prophets, Jehovah asks only a penitent heart, and desires no sacrifice ; according to the ritual law, He desires a penitent heart approaching Him in certain sacrificial sacraments. ... It [the ritual law] comes into full force onhj at the dose of the prophetic j^eriod in the reformation of Ezra. . . In Ezekiel, and still more in the Levitical legislation, the element of atonement takes a foremost place " (The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 288, 298, 302, 303, 304, 381). These startling assertions are directly contrary to the great truth that the forgiveness of sins has in all ages been granted by God and accepted by man only through the blood of Atonement, from Abel down to Ezra quite as truly as from Ezra down to Christ. If the Levitical ritual were accepted as instituted by Moses at Mount Sinai, there would be no question of the divine appointment of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin under that dispensation ; but the refusal of the ceremonial law to Moses is accompanied by the denial of pardon through sacrifice, either under Moses or in the previous history of the Church from the beginning of the world. " The law was given by Ezra" is the new interpretation or rather contradiction of the old divine words, " The law was given by Moses." Let us, therefore, look first at the earlier history before the prophets, and then at the position taken by the prophets. 26o Moses and the Pi'ophets reversed, [bk. iv. The Character of Sacrifice heforc the time of the Prophets, The Sacrifice on AraunaKs threshing -floor. Before what is called the prophetical period one of the severest national calamities that ever befe]l Israel was in the plague that followed David's numbering of the people ; a judgment that came directly from the hand of God without any human intervention. It came upon the people through the transgression of their king, but there were, doubtless, national sins provoking the judgment on the nation. For this example of God's manner of dealing with Israel, we are not depen- dent on the noble books of Chronicles, the testimony of which is so irreverently and so unwarrantably denied by the new critics ; but we have the narrative also in the 24th chapter of Second Samuel. David's heart smites him after he had persisted in numbering the people, the prophet Gad brings him only a choice of judgments for the transgression, and David repents very bitterly, confesses that he has sinned greatly and done very foolishly, and entreats the Lord to take away the iniquity of His servant. When the angel of the Lord has already stretched out his hand to smite Jerusalem, he is arrested at the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite ; the king and the elders of CH. II.] Sacrifice before Prophetic Period. 261 Israel clothed with sackcloth fall 011 their faces ; and David renews his penitent confession that he has sinned and done wickedly, and prays that the hand of the Lord may no more smite his people, but may be turned against himself and against his father's house. Now if it be true that at this period of Israel's history, God's dealing with them is simply according to " the analogy of anger and forgiveness in human life," and that " Jehovah asks only a penitent heart and desires no sacrifice," one of two things would have followed this most sincere and heart-broken repentance ; either an extension of the trial to work a deeper penitence, or an immediate pardon without the intervention of any sacrificial atonement. And, further, if it were true that sacrifice was not by divine command, it would have been left to David's own choice to offer it or not as he thought best. God wills to grant a prompt forgiveness to the penitent ; but He will not grant it to mere repentance, nor does He leave it to David himself to have re- course to the only true refuge from the divine anger. Through the prophet Gad the Lord commands David, " Go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing- floor of Araunah the Jebusite. And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded ... to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague 262 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. may be stayed from the people." Then " David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt- offerings and peace-offerings. So the Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel." Peace-offerings were not only thank-offerings for peace bestowed, but sacrifices for the purpose of reconciliation and procuring peace ; and these burnt-offerings were not expressions either of homage or of self-dedication to the Lord, but expiatory sacrifices for the removal both of the sins and of the judgment they had pro- voked. In the whole Levitical ritual there is no sacrifice more certainly by divine command than these burnt- offerings on Araunah's threshing-floor ; and there is none more expressly offered for the expiation of sin. Further, this special spot on earth where atoning sacrifice for sin was offered by divine command, and visibly accepted by fire from heaven, was the chosen site for the Temple of the Lord. The altar of expia- tion, where sin was forgiven and judgment arrested, attracted the dwelling-place of the Lord to itself; and Solomon's supplication for forgiveness to Israel was that it might be granted in answer to prayer offered towards that place, intimating that all prayer was to be accepted through the sacrifices on that altar. In this leading example it is clear that both before and during the First Temple sin was to be forgiven only through sacrifice ; and that expiation was not confined CH. II.] Sacrifice before Prophetic Period. 263 to the sin-offering and the trespass-offering, but was inherent as the chief element in the character of the burnt- offering ; however homage and self-dedication might often be combined with it along with gratitude and joy for the divine acceptance. The atoning effect of the burnt-offering is expressly declared in Leviticus i. 4, where it is set forth as its chief desicjn and fruit on behalf of the offerer : " He shall put his hand on the head of the burnt- offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him." The same ex- piatory character of burnt- offerings is clearly brought out, both at the beginning and at the end of the Book of Job. In the first chapter Job offers burnt-offerings for each of his sons, which were purely expiatory; " for Job said. It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts ; " and in the last chapter God commands Job's three friends to take seven bullocks and seven rams and " offer up for themselves a burnt- offering," because " they had not spoken of God the thing that was right," these being expressly ex- piatory sacrifices for their sin, and not gifts of homage to the Most High. Cain's rejected Meat-offering. — In the whole AVord of God there is no example of the acceptance of a meat- offering by itself apart from the shedding of blood ; for the Levitical meat-offerings were consecrated by the morning and evening burnt- offerings, and a memorial 264 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. of tliem was consumed on the altar of burnt-offering. Although the morning sacrifice is sufficient for our present argument, Kuenen doubts if in the evening service there was anything more than a meat-offering before the time of Ezra or during it {Relirjion of Israel, chap, ix., note 1). Yet while the Hebrew word for "offering," which is used in the Levitical ordinances for meat-offerings in distinction from slain offerings, is sometimes used for the evening sacrifice, it is also used for the morning sacrifice (2 Kings iii. 20). And both in the beginning and in the end of the Old Testament it is used for purely a bleeding sacrifice ; in Abel's accepted " offering " of choice firstlings from his flock (Gen. iv. 4), and in the corrupt " offering " of the torn and the lame that is censured by Malachi (i. 13). When the yearly sheaf of the firstfruits is waved before the Lord, a lamb without blemish is to be offered for a burnt-offering ; and the basket of firstfruits is to be set down before the altar of burnt-offering. In all the ages one meat-offering alone, of Cain's fruits of the ground, is presented to God without any atoning blood to cleanse the offerer from his sins ; and it is openly rejected by some evident token, as of fire, visible to both the brothers, and marking the divine acceptance of the offering by the younger brother, and the refusal of the elder brother's offering. Notwith- standing the expression of homage, of dependence, and CH. II.] Sacrifice before Prophetic Period. 265 of gratitude that was made by Cain's offering, the iin- removed sin of the offerer still " lay at his door ; " and ever since no other worshipper with a holier life or heart has ever been accepted with a similar offering, or has dared to present it. " By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain," offering not merely with a better faith, but offering a better sacrifice as the fruit of his faith. ISTo worshipper of the true God was ever openly rejected for the want of inward faith, however severely the want of truth in the heart is de- nounced and threatened. The Publican in the Temple has faith and is justified, but the Pharisee, worshipping the true God in His Temple, is not openly, though righteously, rejected for the lack of grace in his heart. Undoubtedly the outward rejection of Cain's offering was because the character of the offering, as if from a worshipper that needed only repentance and thanks- giving but no atoning sacrifice, was highly offensive to the holy God. Noah's Sacrifices and the Paschal Lamh. — After the destruction of the old world for its abounding iniquity, the first act of Noah on descending from the ark is to rear an altar and offer burnt -offerings of "every clean beast and of every clean fowl ; " the smoke of these slain sacrifices ascends as " a sweet savour " to heaven ; the Lord blesses the earth, and there is no Cain stand- ing by to present a proud meat-offering for himself, 266 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. and then to shed the blood of the accepted offerer of atoning sacrifices. Many ages after, in " the sacrifice of the Lord's passover," the ransom through atoning blood is fully brought out in all the firstborn of Israel saved from death by the sprinkled blood of the Paschal lamb. But this sprinkling the new critics ascribe to their Babylonian code. Ahraham's arrested Sacrifice. — Between Noah and Moses there is a notable sacrificial transaction in the life of the great father of the faithful, who is most solemnly commanded by God to offer his only son for a burnt-offering. The question, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord ; shall I give my firstborn for my transgression ?" places such a sacrifice in the only light in which it ever could suggest itself to a thought- ful man, or in which it could be ordained to man by God ; and out of all the generations of mankind there was only one father to whom the holy God did com- mand such a sacrifice, and one father who obeyed the command with an enlightened conscience. In every other case of the kind God says, " I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind that they should do this abomination " (Jeremiah xxxii. 35). God's own words were express, " At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man : whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ;" and it was only by express revelation from CH. il] Sacrifice before Prophetic Period. 267 Himself that au exception was made, even witli the power that fathers had in ancient times over their sons. In such a sacrifice there was no element of thanksgiving ; nor was there any lawful homage or self-surrender except on the ground that man's life was forfeited by sin, and that he could have acceptance with God only by the sacrifice of another life instead of his own. There was indeed in Abraham the greatest possible self-surrender, for which he is highly com- mended by the Lord ; but his act was not the mere surrender of his only son, but giving him for a burnt- offering to God. Abraham knew the rejection of Cain's meat-offering, and the acceptance of Noah's sacrifices and his own ; in which life was given for life, and the worshipper confessed his own desert of death for sin. But he knew how unequal the substitution w^as ; he knew^ the majesty of the holy God, and both the guilt and the greatness of man beside all else on the earth ; and while he laid the wood in order on his altars and offered his sacrifices from the herd and from the flock, the thought must have often occurred to him that " Lebanon was not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a burnt- offering." And now God tried him whether he would offer a nobler sacrifice, and com- manded him to lay his only son on the altar. If the requisition had merely been one of self- surrender, it might apparently have been met by 268 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. Abraham giving up his own life, and such a sacrifice would not have affected the fulfilment of the promises of the land and the blessing to his seed. But as in Abel's sacrifice and as in Abraham's former burnt-offer- ings, so in this burnt- offering the chief element was Abraham's own acceptance with God. Afterwards in the accepted offering of the ram on the altar there was no gift and no surrender on the part of Abraham, but a sacrifice provided by God Himself through which He accepted Abraham by the shedding of blood. So in the sacrifice of Isaac the chief element was " the first- born given for his transgression ; " and Abraham does not reckon it too great a ransom for his acceptance with God and the remission of his sins. He does not even plead for a withdrawal or a mitigation of the command. He who pleaded so tenderly and so boldly for the merciful averting of the righteous doom of Sodom, now presents no prayer for himself or for his son, but sub- missively obeys the sovereign command of his God. But Abraham was the only man on earth to whom such a command was given, and by him it was intelligently obeyed. The divine promise was express to Isaac, and through Isaac for all the nations of the earth ; but the promised Seed through whom the nations were to be blessed was Himself to be given up by His heavenly Father to death that so he might become the life of the world. If He had CH. il] Sac7^ifice before Prophetic Period. 269 remained among the dead, the promise would have failed ; but Jesus said, " Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again." It pleased God to give Abraham some fore- sight of Christ's day afar off that made him glad ; and this in all likelihood in connection with the offering of Isaac. Abraham had already believed God for the birth of Isaac against all earthly hope ; and now with still stronger faith he believes God again for his resur- rection from the dead. To him alone of all men God gives the command to slay his son, because He has pledged Himself to a great promise through the life of that son ; and therefore the promise must bring him to life again. He alone of all men can put forth his hand to slay his son ; because he knows that after the in- conceivable lacerating of a father's heart for three days under his son's sentence of death, and after the last and sorest wound in the fatal stroke, God will give him back his slain son in life and joy ; and so he says to his young men, " Abide ye here, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and we will come again to you." 2 70 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. CHAPTEK III. THE TEACHING OF THE PEOPHETS REGARDING SACRIFICE. It was constantly pleaded in the discussions regard- ing Deuteronomy that the difference was one of mere date and authorship, and that nothing was really lost by accepting the views of the new critics. But it is now seen that by changing the dates and the authors, the critics are turning the Word of God upside down, putting the first last and the last first, and virtually destroying the doctrine of redemption ; for if the prophets preached forgiveness without sacrifice, it is not easy to see why salvation should not still be granted on the same terms. On this part of the subject, with the extreme literalisms it has developed, we submit the following considerations : — 1. Tlic Prophets reprove Israel for offering many Sacrifices and negleeting Moral Duties. The whole teaching of the prophets is the same as our Lord's when he commands the offerer to leave his CH. III.] The Prophets Teaching on Sacrifice. 2 7 1 gift before the altar till he has repented of his offence against his brother ; and the same as the constant teaching that in naming the name of Christ we must depart from iniquity, while it is only the ransom of His blood that redeems us from our sins. The apostle John writes, " In this the children of God are mani fjf,. and the children of the devil : whosoever doeth nou ^ righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother ;" and we might as well say that this moral difference is all the distinction he allows between man and man, without reference to the death of Jesus Christ, as that tlie prophets set aside expiation through sacrifice, when they insist so much on moral duties. The character of the prophetic teaching is the same as that which is clearly brought out in the 50th Psalm. The Lord gathers together his saints " who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice," and this is at the foundation of all ; He then says that it is not in the multitude of sacrifices that He delights, but in prayer and thanksgiving ; and at the same time He intimates the essential inefficacy of the sacrifice of bulls and goats : " Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ?" Next the Lord speaks to the wicked, who is partaker with the thief and the adulterer, and asks, " What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?" That covenant through sacrifice was not designed for 272 Moses and the Prophets 7^eversed. [bk. iv. the thief and the adulterer continuing in impenitence and sin. This 50th Psalm, with whatever date may be as- signed' to it, quite disproves the theory that sacrifice was noj^^^equired under the First Temple, and that it was imanded under the second. If, as we believe, the x'salm belongs to Asaph in the time of David, it repre- sents (ver. 5) those only as accepted by God who have made a covenant with Him by sacrifice {i.e. slain sacrifice), whic^i was therefore positively required. *If again it is held to have been written under the Second Temple, none of the previous prophets employ language stronger, if equally strong, in the apparent rejection of all sacrifice : " I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of the folds . . . Offer unto God thanksgiving" (vers. 9, 14). This single Psalm completely subverts the whole theory : for it seems afterwards to forbid the sacrifices, which at first it has expressly required ; it forbids them positively to the wicked ; and it discourages their excessive multiplica- tion and confiding in them as if they were in them- selves meritorious. 2. The BiUc must he acceptecl in its oivn order. If we accept the Bible at all we must receive it in its own order and manner, else we are making another CH. III.] The Prophets Teaching on Saci'ificc. 273 Bible for ourselves ; and in building on this new Bible of our own we are founding on that for the existence of which no book in the Bible and no part of any book gives any warrant. The Bible puts the law of Moses many hundreds of years before the prophets, and repre- \ sents the prophets as speaking to a nation who had for / many centuries been living under that law. The new critics by placing the prophets several hundred years before the law violently pervert, corrupt, and destroy their whole teaching. In the Levitical books the critics allow that the w^hole law and ritual are given as in the time and by the authority of Moses at Mount Sinai. That is the testimony of these books ; the critics try to prove that the form must be fictitious and the testi- mony consequently false or useless; but they allow that this is its unvarying form. It is therefore the whole testimony that these books give of themselves ; and as far as testimony is concerned, any evidence against their Mosaic origin must come from other sources. As regards the internal evidence we trust we have clearly shown that it proves them to be genuine. Next in importance to the testimony of the Levitical books themselves is the testimony of their alleged authors ; of the men who are supposed by the critics to have written these books, amongst whom the chief and the only known writer is Ezra. The returned exiles being gathered together as one man in the street s S^ 2 74 Moses and the Prophets revei^sed, [bk. iv. before the water gate, '' spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring fhe hook of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel" (Nehemiah viii. 1). He reads the book to the people, they listen with intense earnest- ness, they prepare to keep the Feast of Tabernacles with a fulness of ceremonial which they find written in the law of Moses, but which had not been observed since the days of Joshua ; during the seven days of the feast they read daily in the law, and after its close they assemble with fasting and in sackcloth to confess their sins and the sins of their fathers. In this confession, after rehearsing the Lord's dealings with Israel from Abraham onwards, they say : — *' Thou earnest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments : and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and com- mandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant." After referring to their sins and chastisements, they address God in these amongst other words : " Many times didst thou deliver them ; and testifiedst against them, that thou mightest hring them again unto thy law : yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments : therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands. Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us ; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly : neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto CH. III.] The Prophets Teaching on Sacrifice. 275 thy commandments and thy testimonies, and because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it ; and our princes, Levites, and priests, seal unto it. — And the rest of the people clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to ivalh in GocVs law, ivhich ivas given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes" (Nehemiah ix. x.). Nothing can be more evident than that the book read by Ezra was represented to the people as the law of Moses, that it was the law for the neglect of which their fathers had been cast out of their land, and that it was the broken law of Moses which they now covenant to keep. In their very full prayer there is not a word of thanksgiving for a new law, and a new way of the forgiveness of sins through commanded sacrifice ; but the entire prayer proceeds upon the old lines of thankfulness for the statutes given to IMoses, and grief for their fathers having cast his law behind their backs. What had first humbled and rent the people's hearts was their breach of the law against heathen marriages, a law confessedly enacted before the Exile; and the transgressors offered trespass- offerings, not as if observing any new ordinance, but as an acknowledged duty, and as a provision for the expiation of this sin. What had afterwards moved the people to mourn and weep was not the revelation of new sacrificial ordinances for the cleansing of sin. 276 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. but a careful reading of the law given at Sinai. In the attentive hearing of Ezra's Book, the only new dis- covery the people made was of the long- omitted Mosaic ordinance of green booths at the Feast of Tabernacles, which came upon them with a glad surprise, and was observed by them with exuberant joy. And this is the solitary and singular stone which the critics have, or indeed by no means have, whereon to build the vast fabric of their new Babylonian Code of atoning sacrifices for sin ! To suppose that the law of Moses read to Israel by Ezra was a Levitical Code drawn up by the priests in Babylon is to degrade his noble work and words into an organised scheme of the basest hypocrisy ; or rather it " is to transform the whole narrative of Ezra and Nehemiah into a mere fiction, and so to leave the new critics without a straw where- with to form their bricks. If we accept the Bible in its own order of the Levitical law, with its numerous sacrifices, having preceded the prophets by many centuries, the whole language of the prophets is most natural; and the passages objected to simply prove that the prophets spoke to the men of their own times, and against the sins that prevailed in those times without enjoining ordinances that were already kept with even an ex- cessive observance. To put the outward for the inward, to make religious ceremonies a substitute for CH. III.] The Prophets Teaching on Sacrifice. 277 reverence toward God and rectitude toward men, has been a prevailing sin in all ages, and never more than in ancient Israel. In denying the prediction of distant events, the new critics insist on it as a great principle that the prophets always speak to the men and to the circumstances of their own times. But in this argument on sacrifice they forget their own principle of interpretation, and argue that those faithful men were indifferent to sacrifice, because they refrain from reproving their fellow-citizens for sins of which they were not guilty, and from enjoining duties which they were already observing to excess. 278 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. CHAPTER IV. THE AGREEMENT OF THE PROPHETS BEFORE AND AFTER THE EXILE. 1. The prophets after the Exile agreeing with those hefore it. Haggai exhorts the restored exiles to rebuild the Temple ; and at its dedication they offer sin-offerings as well as other sacrifices, for the First Temple had been destroyed for the sins of the nation. They " offered at the dedication of this house of God an hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs ; and, for a sin-offering for all Israel, twelve he-goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem ; as it is written (i.e. not the courses, but the service) in the book of Moses" (Ezra vi. 17, 18). The prophet Haggai, who urged them to prosecute the work which they had now completed, was well ac- CH. IV.] The Prophets after the Exile. 2 79 quainted with any rites that could have been ordained in Babylon ; such as a new positive law of sacrifice, and the alleged new thousjht and new institution of sacrificial offerings for the expiation of sin. According to the critical theory his attitude toward sacrifices ought to be exactly the reverse of that of the former prophets, who so often seem to speak against them ; and under this new dispensation he must plead earnestly and entirely in their favour. But in the whole Bible there cannot be found a prophet who says less on their behalf, for he has not even a single word to commend them ; and there is no prophet who more severely condemns them as then offered by Israel, because while they brought their sacrifices to the holy altar they built their own houses and neglected to build the house of the Lord. " Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said. It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord ; and so is every work of their hands ; and that loliicli they offer there is unclean " (Hag. ii. 13, 14). It is alleged that before the captivity God dealt with Israel simply as a father with his children with- out reference to sacrifice, and that He manifested His approbation by outward blessings, and His displeasure 2 8o Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. by chastisements. Now this is just what may seem to be done through the prophet Haggai, after the pro- phet Ezekiel according to the critics had given an express command for multiplied sacrifices, and for the sacrificial atonement for sin. Jeremiah denounces severely the impenitent offerers of sacrifice (vi. 20 ; vii. 3, 4). Speaking to the men of his own time, it would have been quite out of place in him to take the words of Haggai, and exhort them to attend to the Temple of the Lord, for their excessive trust in the Temple was one of their chief sins ; and he commands them to amend their doings, and so they should dwell in the land. He does not, however, limit the promised blessing to the possession of the land ; and is so very far from making light of sacrifices, that he expressly promises them in great abundance if they would keep God's holy law (xvii. 24-26). The prophet Haggai, on the contrary, while condemning the inconsistent offerers of sacrifice as severely as Jeremiah, and exhort- ing the people to consider their ways, introduces no promises of accepted sacrifice over against the sacrifices which he had condemned ; but promises the blessing of the Lord on " the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree." There could not be a clearer refutation of the crude theory of this new criticism. The prophet before, and the prophet after the captivity, alike condemn the CH. IV.] The Prophets after the Exile. 28 1 sacrificial offerings of clisobedient worshippers. But before the Exile there is promised to obedience the express blessing of accepted sacrifice ; and after it the promise that is expressed is only the gracious removal of chastisement ; exactly reversing the alleged attitude of the worshipper under the First and Second Temples, while both were in reality accepted equally through sacrificial expiation. Zechariali was, like the prophet Haggai, acquainted with the divine injunction of sacrifice, and with the sacrificial expiation of sin, if these ordinances were first given to Israel through Ezekiel in Babylon ; and if there were any truth in this allegation, we should most certainly find him urging on the restored exiles the new divine command, and commending to them this new and most precious privilege for the forgive- ness of sins. But in the whole fourteen chapters of Zechariah there is no enforcing of such a command, and no reference whatever to such a privilege. The six last chapters are not allowed by the new critics to belong to Zechariah at all ; and these chapters, which they date before the captivity, are the only part of the book in which there is the remotest allusion to sacrifice of any kind or for any purpose. In these chapters there are two references to sacrifice ; the first is in the declaration, " By the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water ;" 282 Moses a7td the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. and this blood of the covenant, in so far as it is to be taken in its literal sense, must be that of Israel's ancient covenant under Moses and of the Paschal lamb, because there was no sacrifice in the exodus from Babylon. The only other reference to sacrifice is in the words, " Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of Hosts : and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein" (Zech. xiv. 21) ; in which there is neither an express command for sacrifice, nor any promise of expiation by means of it. For the forgiveness of sin, the eyes of Israel are in this book directed quite away from the blood of calves and of goats to the great Shepherd that was to be smitten for the sheep ; to Him who has by themselves been pierced, and to " the fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." Not at all to the alleged newly ordained trespass- offerings and sin-offerings does the prophet urge Israel to look for pardon, but to this new and everlasting fountain for the cleansing of all sin. The first eight chapters of these prophecies, which alone these critics allow to have been written after the Exile, are of a most remarkable character as regards this controversy ; because they are so far from com- manding sacrifice and extolling sin-offerings, that they contain no single allusion to sacrifice or offerings of any cii. IV.] The Prophets afte^^ the Exile. 28 kind. They speak gloriously of the forgiveness of sins, but it is through the Lord's servant, " The Branch ; " and not by daily atoning sacrifices, but by " the removal of the iniquity of the land in one day." So far is the post- Exile prophet from commending a new sacrificial ritual unknown to the pre -Exile prophets, that he takes his whole stand on tluir icords, and strives with the utmost earnestness to bring the people to their injunctions of moral duties. The only difference be- tween his exhortations and those of the earlier prophets is the noteworthy one, that the post-Exile prophet speaks less of man's duties toward God, and limits himself more to the duties betw^een man and man. " The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you. Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings. Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in pro- sperity 1 — The word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother : and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor ; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former prophets : there- 284 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. fore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. — Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord of hosts, and I repented not : so again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah : fear ye not. These are the things that ye shall do ; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and ijeace in your gates : and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour ; and love no false oath : for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord" (Zech. i. vii. viii.). In so doing while building the Temple, there would be, as of old, " the removal of chastisement." " The seed shall be prosperous, the vine shall give her fruit, the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew." Mcdachi, however, is cited by Professor Smith as a great support of the new ritual system ; and it is said that " the first proof of Israel's sin is to him neglect of the sacrificial ritual." But, on the contrary, Malachi makes no reference to any rite or law that was not confessedly instituted before the Exile, and be even seems quite to ignore the distinction alleged to have been so new between the priests and the Levites. He predicts the glorious coming of " the Lord to his Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant ; " but he makes no reference whatever to the forgiveness of sins through sacrifice. This was the constant design of all CH. IV.] The Prophets after the Exile. 285 slain offerings, and did not need to be expressed, because " almost all things were by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood was no remission." But so far is Malachi from expressing this abiding thought which required no utterance, that more than in any of the pre-Exile prophecies his words might be mistaken to countenance the view of the critics that sacrifices were not for expiation, but were gifts and expressions of homage such as were presented by sub- jects to their rulers. The Levitical law can have no such sense, and its sacrifices are acknowledged by all to be expressly ordained for the expiation of sins ; yet soon after the critics' imaginary introduction of the new Levitical ritual in Jerusalem, Malachi is so far from helping them, that he most of all the prophets might be falsely supposed to take for granted that sacri- fices had no connection with the pardon of sins, but were mere expressions of homage to the Lord as their King. " If ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil ? offer it now unto thy governor ; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person ? saith the Lord of hosts. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing : for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts " (Mai. i. 8, 14). These words, if they had been 2 86 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. uttered three hundred years earlier, would have been taken as a clear proof against the expiatory character of pre-Exile sacrifice ; but they occur when the ex- piatory ritual according to the critics was in daily use. It is pleaded that Malachi urges tithes — " Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse," whilst Amos makes them of no account ; but obviously because in the days of Malachi the people " robbed God in tithes and offerings " by keeping them back, while in the days of Amos " they come to Bethel to transgress ; at Gilgal they multiply transgression, and bring their sacrifices every morning, and their tithes after three years " (Amos iv. 4). Each prophet speaks to the sins of his own time. 2. The Fr&pliets hefore the Exile agreeing ivitJi those after it. Isaiah, amongst the earlier prophets, takes a leading place in the condemnation of hypocritical sacrifices : " To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord : I am full of the burnt-offer- ings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts ; and when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear ; your hands are full of blood " (Isa. i. 11, 15). But why should Malachi not reprove Israel for insulting the Lord by offering to Him the lame and the blind in CH. IV.] The Prophets before the Exile. 287 sacrifice ? or wliy should Isaiali reprove tliem for bringing the torn and the sick, when they were offer- ing w^ithoiit stint the choicest of their rams and the best of their fatted calves on the altar of the Lord ? Is the uncompromising faithfulness of each to the men of his own generation a contradiction in the prophets ? does it prove a difference of dispensation before and after the Exile ? does it not simply prove the fidelity of both to their God ? If Isaiah is to be held as condemning sacrifice, he must equally be held as for- bidding prayer ; for they are both rejected in the same sentence and for the same reason, because the hands of the offerer and the hands of the suppliant were stained with blood. " Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is an abomination unto me ; and when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you ; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood " (Isa. i. 13, 15). Does Solomon condemn sacrifice when he says that " the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord "? Does he condemn prayer when he says that " he that turneth aw^ay his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination"? Does he condemn the plough when he says that. " the ploughing of the wicked is sin " ? No more does Isaiah condemn sacri- fice when he says, " Bring no more vain oblations ; your hands are full of blood." 288 Moses and the Prophets reversed. [bk. iv. Jeremiah finds the nation still more deeply sunk in the hypocritical worship of Jehovah than they were in the time of Isaiah ; he denounces their hypocrisy in no measured terms, and sometimes uses startling language in bringing out the old truth announced to Saul by Samuel that " to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of lambs." His principle, how- ever, is altogether the same, or rather it could not be different, for it is not the prophets that speak for them- selves, but " God who spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets." In the name of the Lord he addresses Israel, taking the whole world to witness against them, " Hear, 0 earth : Behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country ? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me" (Jer. vi. 19, 20). The prophet is so far from setting aside sacrifice by these and many similar denunciations of hypocritical worship, that he expressly promises to Israel a multitude of accepted sacrifices if only they will be obedient to the law of the Lord : "And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, . . . they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from CH. IV.] The P^'ophets before the Exile. 289 the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt- offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord" (Jer. xvii. 24, 26). The strongest statement, however, that is made by Jeremiah is in the 22nd verse of the 7th chapter, because it does not refer to hypocritical worshippers, but to the nation at large : " I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt- offerings or sacrifices : but this thing commanded I t]iem, saying. Obey my voice, and I w^ill be your God, and ye shall be my people." But however startling these words may seem to us, they are not at all stronger than the expressions in the ,50th Psalm addressed by the Lord to his saints, " who had made a covenant with him by sacrifice," to whom yet he says, " I wdll take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy fold ;" and they amount only to the accept- ableness of obedience and the rejection of multiplied sacrifices as in themselves meritorious. The circum- stances in which these words were spoken ^vere of a very marked character. The people were " trusting in lying words, saying. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these ; " and the prophets were commanded to stand in the gate of T 290 J/oses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. the Temple, and to say to them as they crowded into its courts : " Behold, ye trust in lying words, that can- not profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not ; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations ? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes \ " (Jer. vii. 8, 9, 10.) Then afterwards the Lord says, " I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices " (ver. 22). Such expres- sions are to be interpreted both by their own connec- tion and in conjunction with other Scriptures ; just as our Lord's words, *' Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer the other also,"' are to be taken along with his own demand, when He was himself smitten on the cheek by an officer of the high priest. • If I have spoken well, why smitest thou me ? '' But there is in this case a further and most impor- tant explanation in the character of the Ten Command- ments written on the tables of testimony when the Lord broucjht Israel out of Eevpt. Israel was brought out of Egypt through the blood of the Paschal Lamb before the proclamation of the law on Mount Sinai ; and after it ''Moses took the blood of calves and of goats, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, CH. IV.] TJie Prophets before the Exile. 291 saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto yon" (Heb. ix. 19, 20). But the offering to God of slain beasts was not of everlasting obligation like the precepts of the law; these offerings were only types of a better Sacrifice ; and when they had answered their end in foreshadowing it they were to pass for ever away, as no more of any value and no longer accept- able in any sense. Redemption is written in the stone tables of the Old Covenant, a redemption typical as well as literal ; an accomplished redemption that could not be misunderstood. In this law from Mount Sinai, whilst redemption is in the foreground, there is no reference to sacrifice ; there is no first or second com- mandment, " Thou shalt offer a lamb for a burnt-offer- ing," for in those eternal laws this transient type has no place. Of all such ordinances it is true that " to obey is better than sacrifice," whilst it is in no sense true that obedience is better than the ** One Sacrifice for sins by which Christ hath perfected for ever all them that are sanctified." The prophet's words thus embody a great and glorious truth when through him the Lord says : " I spake not unto your fatherS; nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning bumt-otferings or sacri- fices." It would have been a new light to the Jewish nation, if after they had crucified the Lord of Glory 292 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. they had understood their own prophet when he ex- plained to them that the perpetual law of the Ten Commandihents made no mention of sacrifices as if they were also to be perpetual ; even as it would have been everlasting life to them, if they had understood the divine promise made through him that the cove- nant from Mount Sinai, in so far as it rested on their own obedience, was now to be superseded by the New Covenant of the law written on the heart and the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amos writes in the bold and abrupt style generally characteristic of the prophets ; and if his words are to be interpreted by the narrow and literalistic method now introduced they become unintelligible. Simi- larly, the prophet Ezekiel says to Jerusalem, "Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan : thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite." According to the new mode of interpretation, these words will afford a positive proof that the more ancient Scriptures are mistaken in narrating that Israel's ances- tors migrated from beyond the Eiver, and that Abraham was the father and Sarah the mother of the nation. The truth must really have been, as stated by the pro- phet, that Israel had its origin in the land of Canaan and was descended from its native inhabitants ; that the father of this self- exalted people belonged to one of its seven nations, and was an Amorite ; and that CH. IV.] The Prophets before the Exile. 293 their mother belonged to another of those hated tribes, and was one of the daughters of Heth ! The Hebrew mind and the new criticism seem to be too different in character to be intelligible to each other; for Amos (v. 25) is said "expressly" to deny that Israel offered any sacrifice to God in the wilder- ness, a statement which we should have hoped that we had misinterpreted, except for its repetition : '' Sacrifice is not necessary to acceptable religion. Amos proves God's indifference to ritual by reminding the people that they offered no sacrifice and offerings to Him during those forty years of wandering which he else- where cites as a special proof of Jehovah's covenant grace" {The Old Testament in the Jewish Churchy pp. 287, 238). Exactly the same form of speech which Amos employs is used by the prophet Zechariah, when the elders of Judah inquire if they shall continue to fast in the fifth month. Most certainly they both had so fasted, and their fast in its outward form had been unto the Lord. But the Lord's answer by the prophet is, " When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me ?" (Zechariah vii. 5.) In the self-same form of speech as about those seventy years in Babylon, does Amos ask about the forty years in the desert : " Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offer- ings in the wilderness forty years, 0 house of Israel?" 294 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. The meaning of the Lord's words by Zechariah is added, " And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves ?" and the meaning of the words of Amos is that they did assuredly offer sacrifices to God during those forty years, but that in most of the people it was not with a true and single and earnest heart towards himself alone. The reproof of Israel through Amos regarding those forty years is in perfect agreement with the reproof by Moses at their close : " The Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness" (Deut. xxix. 4). "Domino obtulerant ; sed neque illi soli, neque semper, neque corde perfecto et lubenti" (Bengel). Again, the critic states truly that Amos cites the forty years' wandering in the wilderness " as a special proof of Jehovah's covenant grace." But in this new mode of interpreting the prophets there is no testimony whatever to covenant grace in the words, "I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite" (Amos ii. 10) ; because in this way of view- ing it the same prophet expressly denies that there was any grace at all in this providential guidance, and affirms that in it God had done no more for Israel than he had done for the heathen nations around them. CH. IV.] The Prophets before the Exile. 295 "Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir ?" (ix. 7.) In the whole Bible there is no stronger apparent denial of the fact, the necessity, or the acceptableness of sacrifice, than there is in these words the apparent denial of all cove- nant grace in the exodus of Israel from Egypt. It is the same high tone that breathes in the burning words of Isaiah : " Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom ; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah." But our lot has fallen in a critical age, and we seem to be losing the power of sympathy with the bolder and freer thoughts of former men. Ezehiel stands between the prophets before and the prophets after the Exile ; and, apart from his closing typical vision, his position as regards sacrifice is exactly the same as theirs, thus filling up the whole line of prophetic teaching. In that final vision the trespass- offering and sin-offering bear no aspect of new institu- tions, but are introduced as if they were recognised ordinances just as the burnt-offering confessedly was ; the first notice of them being in these terms : " And ill the porch of the gate were two tables on this side, and two tables on that side, to slay thereon the burnt- offering, and the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering" (Ezekiel xl. 39). In the great body of Ezekiel's pro- 296 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. pliecies, not expressed in the language of vision, his reference to sacrificial rites is the same as in the other prophets. 1. Like Jeremiah he bids Israel in the Lord's name to cease from offering sacrifices to Him if they will not cease from sacrificing to idols (xxiii. 39 ; XX. 39) : " When they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it. — Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me : but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols." 2. Like Jeremiah he proclaims the great acceptableness to the Lord of sacrificial offerings from an obedient and single-hearted people (xx. 40) : " In mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve me : there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things." 3. The prophet does not definitely express the connection of pardon with sacrifice, al- though the pardon of sin is at the very foundation of the promised acceptance of Israel's sacrifices. But on the one hand pardon is promised to the penitent sinner : " If he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right ; none of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him" (xxxiii. 14, 16) ; and on the other hand the cleansing and the forgiveness of sin are CH. IV.] The Prophets before the Exile. 297 represented as coming not by the blood of slain beasts, but through an atonement provided directly by God Himself and reaching the inmost conscience (xxxvi. 25-26) : " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you; a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." 4. This promise of inward cleansing by sprink- ling with clean water clearly proves that the Levitical law was not introduced by Ezra, but was well known both to Ezekiel and to the exiles for whom he wrote, to whom otherwise the expression would have been unintelligible. It plainly refers either to the command given to Moses for the Levites in Numbers viii. 7, '•' Thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse them : Sprinkle water of purifying upon them;" or more pro- bably to the ashes of the red heifer mingled in running water for sprinkling all who were unclean by touching the dead (Numbers xix.). The spiritual promise of the prophet as clearly refers to a ritual ordinance taken in its spiritual sense as David's prayer, " Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean," which the critics so un- warrantably deny to David, who in their account could not have known a law that was introduced by Ezra. In Ezekiel the sprinkling with the cleansing water of the old Levitical rite is taken in a spiritual sense, and clearly overturns the theory of the new critics. If it 298 Moses and the Prophets i^eversed. [bk. iv. be said that Ezekiel's promise might have reference to Ezra's future ritual, this is plainly to reverse the divine order and to put the spirit first and the letter after- wards. Yet even so the argument fails, because ac- cording to the critics Ezekiel sketched his own new code of ritual laws in considerable detail, and if the " sprinkling with clean water'' had not referred to the ancient rites of Moses but to his own future code he could not have failed to introduce it in his alleged ritual. But in his great vision there are abundant spiritual waters flowing from the threshold of the Sanctuary to give life and beauty, but no ceremonial sprinkling of water on the unclean. The certain in- ference is that the prophet, who was himself a priest, refers to the Levitical ordinances given by Moses at Mount Sinai ; and that this reference quite sets aside the most uncritical conjecture of these ordinances having originated in Babylon. 3. The Proiohcts preparing Israel for the Great Sacrifice. By the prophets, as by the Psalms, it is always to be borne in mind that the Lord was preparing Israel for the Great Sacrifice by whicli all the Levitical sacrifices were to be abolished, and of which they were all only types and shadows. This great element in CH. IV.] The Prophets befoi'e the Exile, 299 the prophetic writings serves to explain any more difficult expressions, taken in connection with the bold abruptness of the prophetic style. The modern Jews find fault with what they regard as the excessive meekness taught in the Sermon on the Mount, as in the words, " Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." But our blessed Lord Himself explains His own teaching when He was smitten on the cheek, and when He asked, " If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou me?" In answer to inquiring Israel, Micah says concisely, " The Lord hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " The prophet does not say that no more than these is required, but that no more is required "of thee," because the Lord Himself had "shown man what was good." Israel asked of the prophet, " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?" Then he proposes two questions for which he requires no answer from the prophet, because he answers them for himself. The first question is, " Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old?" and he answers it by saying that the blood of beasts, however many, can never satisfy for the sin of man, and cannot be really acceptable to the great God : 300 Moses and the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. " Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" the question being the strongest form of denial. He then makes a second inquiry, and suggests a nobler sacrifice : " Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression ? " and answers again as he had done before by a striking statement of the unfitness and inadequacy of the ransom, which would only be " the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul." After these self-answered inquiries, the prophet addresses the inquirer in the words, " He hath showed thee, 0 man, what is good." Now what is " the good" which the Lord had shown to Israel ? — not doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly, which the Lord requires of men ; but the good foreshadowed by the burnt- offerings, which God Himself provides and reveals, and which had been so brought out to Israel by Micah's older contemporary, the great national prophet, Isaiah : " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good'" (Isa. Iv. 1, 2). This good is in the sure mercies of David, given as " a witness and leader to the people," the same as " the servant whom the Lord upheld," whom " it pleased the Lord to bruise," on whom " the Lord laid the iniquity of us all," whose soul He " made an CH. IV.] The Prophets before the Exile, 301 offering for sin/' and through whose coming sacrifice the prophet proclaimed, " Comfort ye my people, cry unto Jerusalem that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." If this suggested connection between the words of Micah and of Isaiah seem too remote, there is no doubt of the meaning of Isaiah's own words. While he declares that " Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a burnt- offering," he pro- claims a free pardon to Israel, because on His righteous Servant " the Lord hath laid the iniquities of us all, and made his soul an offering for sin." The argument is not weakened by the extremely unhistorical conception that the last half of Isaiah was written in Babylon, and published a few years before tlie restoration; transforming these calm and noble prophecies into the denunciations of an unprincipled fanatic, whose anonymous woes against Babylon were sure to have brought swift destruction on the whole nation of the Jews. But if it were so, and if Ezekiel was the first to ordain sacrifice for the expiation of sin, this supposed anonymous prophet succeeding him must have known and followed up this great divine announcement. Yet in the latter half of Isaiah, although there is the typical acceptance of the " rams of Nebaioth on the altar," the express promise of the pardon of sin is not through sacrificial rites, but for 302 Moses a7id the Prophets reversed, [bk. iv. the sake of Him who was " wounded for our transgres- sions and bruised for our iniquities." The close connection between the dispensation of typical sacrifices and the one Great Atonement is beautifully brought out in Isaiah's early vision in the Temple, when " his iniquity is taken away, and his sin purged," not by a literal sin-offering of rams or goats, but by a live coal brought by an angelic messenger from off the altar ; indicating that there must be blood to cleanse from the altar of the Lord, but of another character than that of slain beasts, and of a heavenly efficacy to cleanse the conscience from sin. Note. — In the post-Exile prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, the only reference we have found to any Levitical law assigned by the critics to the time of the Exile is the prophet Haggai's refer- ence to defilement by a dead body. The remarkable silence of these prophets on the alleged new institutions of the priestly code cannot be accounted for on their own principles. BOOK V. THE SONG OF SOLOMON : INTERLINED WITH A MODERN TALE BY THE CRITICS. As the monks of the middle ages took the old parch- ments on which the works of the classics were inscribed and wrote on them the legends of the saints, so the modern critics have taken the ancient Song of Solomon and have written between its lines a fanciful romance of their own ; ingenious like other tales, but spun throughout from their own fertile fancy without any- visible clew in the song itself. Formerly the marriage of Solomon to Pharaoh's daughter was conceived by most of the critics to be the literal subject of the song; a conception hurtful in many respects, and easily disproved, but in itself quite consistent with morality and often made the basis of a spiritual interpretation. Latterly Pharaoh's daughter has vanished from the scene like a vision of the night, and no longer claims a single scholar to plead her for- saken cause. 304 The Song of Solomon. [bk. v. In the explanation of the Song the progress of critical knowledge has unhappily been attended by a degeneracy in sound exegesis ; and there has been invented in Germany and overlaid upon the book a tale of a singu- larly objectionable character, which has been to some extent accepted in this country even where its imme- diate rejection might have been expected. That the interpretation is purely literal and incapable of any higher use is the least of its defects. But while it assigns to Solomon a part utterly degrading and re- volting as a subject for sacred song, the morality of its lauded heroine is far beneath the standard of heathen virtue. That the tale has no religious element the new critics profess and maintain, and from their point of view it is enough if they can claim for it a high moral character. But they seem not to have perceived that their tale is as void of morality as of religion ; and that its moral is not merely negative, but holds out an example not to be admired or imitated, but wholly condemned and avoided. Their imaginary narrative represents in the daughter of one of Israel's peasants great strength of character in the intenseness of her pre- occupied affection and the immovable persistence of her will ; but mingled with no element of conscience, or sense of duty, or fear of God. It represents her as listening to the allurements of the King of Israel " to forsake the guide of her youth and forget the covenant BK. y.] The Modern Tale of the Critics. 305 of her God " with not the faintest expression of indig- nation, or abhorrence, or even of aversion ; but with only a most decided and determined preference for her espoused shepherd. This supposed shepherd calls her repeatedly his "spouse" (chap. iv. 8-12), which means either his married wife or his betrothed bride ; and in Israel the two relations were the same in law, as ordained in Deuteronomy xxii. 23, 24, and as recog- nised in the case of the Virgin Mary, when the angel says to Joseph, " Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife." This story originated in the last century in Ger- many; and the design of the book, as stated by Dr. Ginsburg, is " to record an example of virtue in a young woman w^ho encountered and conquered the greatest temptations, and was eventually rewarded." After being betrothed to a young shepherd, she is sup- posed to have been seen by King Solomon; who was fascinated by her beauty, and endeavoured by every varied allurement to win her affections to liimself, but in vain. To the same effect Dr. Samuel Davidson says, " The scope and design of the Song are to depict the heroine of wedded love in humble life. The virtue of faithful affection tried by a severe test is com- mended. An innocent shepherdess, true to her bridal lover, resists the greatest monarch, and is sent to her home unscathed." With a substantial agreement, there y 3o6 The Song of Solomon. [bk. v. are two slight differences between these interpreters : Dr. Ginsburg regarding the narrative as real, and Dr. Davidson looking on it as fictitious ; and the first believ- ing the Slmlamite to have been merely betrothed, and the second holding her to have been newly married. Dr. Davidson writes : " The word rendered s'pouse, in our version is properly so translated. It has but two senses — viz., hride and daughter-in-law. [So also Gesenius.] Dr. Ginsburg is mistaken in thinking that it only means hctrothcd. It denotes a neicly -married woman, as the Shulamite was." Although the modern Jews employ the term (kallctJi) for hetrothed, and their obituaries occasionally notice the death of a young man lamented by- father, mother, and hallah, there can be little doubt that Dr. Davidson is right regarding Bib- lical usage. That distinction, however, makes no difference as respects the morality of the tale, because the betrothed maiden and the married wife under the Jewish law came under the same obligations to fidelity. This theory is most objectionable in all its aspects — as a tale, as a song, and as a moral. As a Tcde, resting on the most arbitrary and fanciful suppositions, it is the invention of an odious calumny against an eminent name. It stains the memory of Solomon with a crime for which there is not a shred of proof, which was never heard of till nearly three thou- sand years after his death, and which must be held as Biv. v.] The Modern Tale of the Critics. 307 clearly contradicted by the Word of God. The crime was not perpetrated, but Solomon's alleged guilt was not the less. The maiden of the modern story was betrothed to a shepherd, and according to Jewish law could be separated from her husband only by a writing of divorce. In her case Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb would have come home to Solomon with all its original force; and although he could screen himself and his victim from being publicly stoned to death according to the law of Moses, it was only by the death of the injured husband that he could secure his own life against the sword of the avenger. He has him- self warned others in the strongest terms against both the sin and the danger (Prov. vi. 32-33). The Bible never conceals the sins of its leading characters. Of the great sins for which his God chastised Solomon we have a full record ; and if adultery had been one of them, it would have been marked with the deepest brand. But there is not the slightest hint of so dark a crime in all his history ; it is a culpable licence to blacken his memory with so foul a stain ; and thoughtful men should refrain from constituting themselves accusers of the dead without a vestige of evidence on which to found the slander. As a Song, this theory turns the simplest words into evil. The address in the first chapter, " We will make thee borders of gold, with studs of silver," has been 3o8 The Song of Solomon. [bk. v. interpreted, both literally and allegorically, of the offer of a royal crown; but in the new theory, the crown be- comes a bribe held out to break the vows of espousal and contract a criminal marriage with the king. So, throughout the book the things that are pure, and lovely, and of good report, are changed into a cloak for the darkest designs. In the case of Solomon's falsely im- puted guilt, the spirit of the world puts its song into his lips, painting the hideousness of vice with the colour of choicest words. In the case of David, the Spirit of God has given him a song, and its burden is, " I confess my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." Such also to this day would have been the Song of Solomon, if the modern tale of his guilt had been true. As a Moral, the boasted high moral of the tale sets entirely aside all true morality, for the maiden's fancied conquest over the allurements of royalty is marked by an entire want of moral principle. The whole tale is unworthy of Biblical criticism, for it is far below the level of heathen morals ; and no ancient Israelite, im- bued with the principles of the law of Moses, could ever have conceived or composed it as an example of lofty virtue, or of a character worthy of any admiration. The moral obliquity of the tale may be illustrated by supposing that, after this northern maiden had been inveigled into Solomon's palace, she had been accosted by a false friend among the ladies of the court, and BK. v.] The Modern Tale of the Critics. 309 tempted to the theft of a beautiful bracelet belonging to Pharaoh's daughter ; and that she had resisted the temptation, not by the quick repulse of an indignant conscience, responding to the command " Thou shalt not steal," but by looking at the simple armlet on her own wrist, and preferring her lover's gift to all the jewels in the palace. Such a sentiment would be supremely noble in its own place ; but it is a worthless substitute for conscience, and if it reigns in the absence of moral principle it becomes itself degraded. Yet this and nothing better is the highest virtue of the heroine of the tale ; she overcomes purely by firmness of will and by the strcDgth of a pre-occupied affection, but she is under no dominion of conscience or sense of obligation to the divine law. Once and again she is supposed to charge the ladies of the court not to persuade her to transfer her affections to the king ; but from first to last through- out the Canticles there is not a breath of righteous anger, or the slightest startling of an offended con- science, against his pressing offers of an adulterous marriage. If any prophet in Israel had composed the tale, the first words that sounded in the ears of Solomon w^ould have been, " Thou art but a dead man ; for the woman thou hast taken into thine house is another man's wife." If a true daughter of Israel had been its heroine her first outcry would have been, " How shall 3 1 o The Song of Solomon. [bk. v. I do this great wickedness and sin against God ?" and the conclusion of the whole would have run thus : " The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee ; the virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee, she hath laughed thee to scorn." But in the modern German story of the critics the selected example of the highest conjugal virtue in humble life is guided by a moral standard so low that a high-minded Eoman spouse would have counted it an insult to have been made the heroine of such a tale. This never was the morality of the Hebrews in any period of their history ; it is altogether unlike the morals of the Bible, from Genesis to Eevelation ; and such a narrative never could have been either inspired or allowed by the same authority as the Commandments on Sinai and the Ser- mon on the Mount. How different from all this is the Song of Solomon, accepted as a high and holy allegory by the Hebrew nation, by the Christian Church from its earlier cen- turies downwards, and by the Protestant Churches of the Eeformation ! In the Bible Christ and His Church are the Bridegroom and the Bride from the day of her espousals in the wilderness of Sinai till the final hour when the marriage of the Lamb shall have come ; and, however the world may deride them, these songs of Zion have cheered and supported her in all her path, as she has " come up from the wilderness leaning on her BK. v.] The Modern Tale of the Critics. 3 1 1 Beloved ; " and they will continue to sustain and gladden her till she hears the voice, " Behold, the Bridegroom Cometh ! " and " they that are ready go in with Him to the marriage." If we shall ever give them up as the holy communings of Christ and His Church, ours will henceforth be a false claim to be the heir of that Church of Scotland,- to whom they were songs in the night through all the noblest periods of her eventful and fruitful history. In some of our Old English Bibles the Song of Solomon is interlined with red, brightly illuminating the black-letter page, and interspersing it with rays of spiritual light : " The voice of the Patriarchs speaking of Christ, the voice of the Church chosen out of the heathen, the voice of the Synagogue marvelling in itself at the Church." But who would interline with red the tale of the modern critics ? BOOK Vl. THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. PAET I. THE SECOND ISAIAH OF THE CRITICS AN HISTORICAL MISTAKE. The prediction of the fall of Babylon is the great and the only great objection to the genuineness of the second half of Isaiah ; because a prophecy so de- finite and so circumstantial a hundred and seventy years before the event is held by some modern critics to be impossible and by others to be in the highest degree improbable. They receive these later prophecies as written by an unknown prophet in Babylon. By a striking provision of the great Author of the Holy Scriptures the same prediction of the fall of Babylon supplies the clearest scientic proofs, at once historical, moral, and rational, that the book which contains this great prophecy could not have been written by any Hebrew prophet in Babylon at any period of the Exile. PT. I.] A Second Isaiah a7t historical mistake. 3 1 3 The predicted fall of Babylon has been complete. The restoration of " The Golden City, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," with its hundred gates of solid brass, with its walls three hundred and fifty feet in height and more than eighty in breadth, with its temple and tower of Belus, with its magnificent palace and marvellous gardens, was designed by Alexander the Great ; but the attempt was suddenly arrested by his death, and its desolate site has for long ages been the habitation of the " wild beast of the desert, and of doleful creatures." The chief interest of the extreme contrast between the past and the present of Babylon lies in the prophecies that foretold its doom as the great enemy of Israel, and the grand centre of ancient heathenism wdth its idolatry, sensuality, and cruelty. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah concur in these predictions, but we confine our attention to the earlier prophet. Isaiah's prophecies have been received and valued by the Jewish nation and the Christian Church as amongst the greatest predictions in the Hebrew Scrip- tures, and the most remarkable attestations to the truth of the Word of the Lord, which endureth for ever ; and their well-known author, living in Jerusalem, has been honoured as bearinor the hidiest name in the roll of the o o Hebrew prophets. But for nearly a hundred years the truth of the received date and author has been disputed by the school of critics which claims to be specially 314^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. scientific. Their conjecture is that the writer of the prophecies is anonymous, that the date is toward the close of the Exile, and the place in Babylon, in the city or the province or the kingdom. It will be our endeavour to show that this conjec- ture, which is founded on no historical fact, is contrary to the Scriptures ; is inconsistent with the known history of the period ; is incompatible with obedience to the divine command ; implies a quite incredible dis- regard for their own lives on the part of the exiles ; and rests on a moral contradiction by supposing a good man capable of exposing the elders and people of Israel to a certain and cruel death by concealing his own name whilst he issues threats of destruction against the King of Babylon, who holds them in his grasp. CH. I.] Conjectural Anonyniotis Prediction. 3 [ 5 CHAPTER I. THE CONJECTURE THAT AN ANONYMOUS PKOPHET IN BABYLON FORETOLD ITS FALL. In this part of our subject we shall notice, first, the origin and nature of the conjecture, and next the con- jecture itself. 1. Our present argument is neither with blasphemers, like Thomas Paine, who speaks of Isaiah and Jeremiah as "impostors and liars," nor with extreme rationalists, who hold their prophecies to be " predictions after the event ; " but with critics who believe that the fall of Babylon was really predicted, but not by the prophets named in the Bible. Of these critics there are two classes, both of whom are embraced in our argument, for both more or less deny that Scriptural prophecy includes the detailed prediction of distant events. The critics of one class hold that the foresight, although limited, is directly due to divine inspiration ; and the others hold that it is a quickened perception of approaching events, through a deep moral persuasion 3 1 6 .4 Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vr. of God's righteous government combined with intel- lectual power. As regards personal belief, we gladly acknowledge the great difference between the recog- nition and the denial of divine inspiration in the predictions; but in other respects these critics may be regarded as belonging to one class, for their views of prophecy nearly agree. There is no sound reason for limiting to purely Messianic prophecies the great Scriptural rule of prophetic interpretation that the prophets " searched what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow; unto whom it was revealed that, not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you." The dif- ferent principle now maintained, though partially true, is combined witli destructive error. It is held by many that the great truth of a divine deliverance for men is embodied more or less clearly in all the Scriptures ; but that Scriptural prophecy takes its rise in the circumstances, the sins, and the wants of the time ; that it is addressed to the men of the existing generation ; and that, while predicting the sure conse- quences of right and wrong, it does not embrace the details of distant and complicated events. This principle of interpretation, as applied by the CH. i] Conjectural Anonymous Prediction. 3 1 7 critics, goes far to overthrow the most important prophecies in the Scriptures. The dates and authors of nearly all the great prophecies in the Old Testament are altered so as to change their character completely. Prophecy is assigned to a time so near to its fulfilment, that the critic who accepts and the critic who denies its supernatural character may be very nearly or quite agreed regarding its date, its author, and all the circumstances in which it was delivered ; while one ascribes its origin to Divine inspiration, and the other to the highest human sagacity. They are of one accord in refusing to it so distant a date as would be accepted by all as the proof of a foresight altogether and con- spicuously supernatural. The Exile theory of the prophecies against Babylon lies near the source of what is called modern thoufjht in Biblical researches. It took an early place as a great historical conjecture for the overthrow of what are now slighted as traditional opinions; and has nearly ceased to be discussed by the school of higher critics, being held by them as proved. It is, therefore, one of the fairest of all questions by which to test the value of the conclusions at which the new Biblical criticism has arrived, in so far as it would alter the authors and dates of the books of the Old Testament. Biblical criticism is of the highest value in its own sphere ; it has urgent and daily increasing claims on 3 18 ^ Seco7idIsaiah an historical mistake, [bk. yi. all of us in the ministry, and on all our students ; and the Church is deeply indebted to the able scholars who have made it the business of their lives. But when it leaves its proper ground, and roams into historical con- jecture, it is apt to be irrational in the extreme, and to become as thoroughly unscientific as it is evidently un- historical. The severe and minute study of Biblical critics is not favourable to the reasoning powers, because its almost irrepressible tendency is to hang very weighty conclusions on very slender threads ; and although a study so laborious might be expected to work as a check on the excesses of fancy, few classes of men are more liable to be carried away with groundless specula- tions. They appear as if they held that whatever is not supernatural may therefore be natural and probable ; and in their zeal to avoid the miraculous they are apt to frame supposititious histories, with little respect for historical likelihood, and with no regard whatever for the barrier of moral impossibility. The mistake of a single author poring over a subject till he starts some impossible theory out of it, is a snare into which any writer may fall ; but criticism is discredited when such theories are adopted and made their own by a school of critics. The well-known prophets in Babylon, who ventured at an early period of the Exile to foretell a speedy restoration for Israel, brought upon themselves a pain- CH. I.] Conjechcral Anonymo7is Prediction. 319 ful death at the hands of the haughty king, who effectu- ally intercepted the expected return in their own case by burning them in tlie fire — a favourite form of punishment with the Chaldean monarch. This prompt severity made a deep and lasting impression on tlie minds of the captives ; and ought to have had weight enough with modern critics to dissuade them from finding for the great Scriptural prophecies against Babylon a later but equally Babylonian origin, which would certainly have added a second fiery roll of sufferers near the close of the captivity. But the predictions of Jeremiah against Babylon were written nearly seventy years and those of Isaiah at least one hundred and seventy before the great event. Prophecies at once so distant and so detailed many critics hold to be impossible, and others regard them as in the highest degree improbable ; and they have con- ceived for them this unknown Babylonian source, which they present to us as a reasonable and likely origin for these writin<^s. It is most reasonable to believe that He who " knoweth the end from the beginning " should have inspired His chosen prophets to foretell clearly and at large the ruin of Babylon one or two centuries before its fall. The prediction of its capture by Cyrus more than a century before his birth cannot be regarded as at all so marvellous as the central institution of Israel, 320 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Eeceiving the Bible as the Word of God, our stand is on the ground that its prophecies are to be received as altogether true, however distant their indicated time, and however improbable the predicted event. But when critics reject the Scriptural dates and authors of great pro- phecies, we are entitled to demand that their own account of their date and authorship shall be within the limits of what is historically probable and morally possible ; and if the origin assigned by them is shown to be impossible, then even on their own ground they have laboured in vain to overthrow the received date and authorship. 2. In stating more fully the conjecture itself, we notice first the prediction of the fall of Babylon as given in Isaiah, and then as it is altered by the critics. (1.) The fall of Bctbylon as ]3reclicted in Isaiah. " The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see. " Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah" (Isaiah xiii. 1, 19). " Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground" (Isaiah xxi. 9). " Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground : there is no throne. . . . Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans : for thou slialt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms" (Isaiah xlvii. 1, 5). CH. I.] Conjectural Anonytnous Prediction. 321 (2 .) The authors and dates of the predictions as altered hy the modern critics. In the dates assigned to these prophecies there is a general and pretty close agreement among the scien- tific critics, if we omit those who regard some of them as written after the taking of the city, or those who take the prophecy in the twenty-first chapter, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen," to be the description of an eye- witness who wrote it down while the capture was pro- gressing to its completion. Excluding such extremes the general date usually assigned is in the last decade of the Exile ; and the specific date of each of the prophecies is sometimes conjectured with great minute- ness, ranging from several years before to very close upon the event. As regards the authors of these prophecies, the general opinion of the critics is that no name whatever can be attaclied to them. In his translation of the Prophets, Professor Pieuss of Strasbourg has several sections which he entitles " Anonymes." Under this title he classes about thirty-six chapters, or more than the half of the prophecies of Isaiah. Ewald, and other critics of the same school, hold similar views. Tlie prophecies with which we are at present more imme- diately concerned are those against Babylon in the thirteenth, fourteenth, twenty-first, and last twenty- X 2,2 2 A Seco7id Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vr. seven chapters of Isaiah, all of which they hold to be anonymous, and to have been written near the close of the Exile after Cyrus had begun his career of conquest. Tlie ascription of these predictions to a prophet in Babylon shortly before its fall is a suggestion that calls for no critical knowledge or acuteness, and would most readily occur to any reader who was disposed to question the magnitude of prophecy. But criticism ought not to have accepted the conjecture without thoroughly sifting its soundness and its value. The conception that the writer of these prophecies is unknown, and that he lived in Babylon, directly contradicts the Scriptures. The latter half of Isaiah equally with the first is assigned to that prophet in the Old Testament, and is constantly cited under his name in the New ; and the prophecies in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters are not only included in the Book of Isaiah, but are expressly entitled, '' The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see." So likewise the prophecy in the fiftieth and fifty- first chapters of Jeremiah is introduced in the first verse with the words, " The word that the Lord spake against Babylon, and against the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet." After the close of the prophecy we read, " So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon." Four times CH. I.] Conjectural Anonymous Prediction, 323 this prophecy is expressly ascribed to Jeremiah, and not merely in the title, but in the narrative ; but not- withstanding the clear testimony of Scripture, Kuenen, Keuss, and other critics, some with more and others with less hesitation, ascribe it to an anonymous exile in Babylon. Ewald calls it " the earliest example of a piece written in the name of one of Israel's older prophets ;" and Professor Oort, taking the same ground, writes with profane boldness, as if he had been in Babylon and had seen it all : "One of the exiles com- posed an elaborate oracle on the humiliation which the Chaldean gods and Babylon itself would endure because Nebuchadnezzar had shattered Israel. The writer put this prediction into the mouth of Jeremiah, and declared that this man of God wrote it during the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign." This view makes the whole prophecy a deliberate forgery, and not only worthless but detestable. More reverent critics satisfy themselves with calling the writer anonymous ; an affir- mation directly contrary to the Bible, which states repeatedly that the writer was Jeremiah. A recog- nition of that prophet as the author is incompatible with any theory that would limit such predictions to nearly approaching events. But to call the prophecy anonymous is a misapplication of language, for its author could not be named either more expressly or more fully ; and if it w^as not written by Jeremiah, the 324^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. circumstantial narrative of its origin and history can- not have been a mistake, but is a deliberate falsehood embodied in the sacred writings. For the existence of anonymous prophets, either one or several, in Babylon during the Exile there is not the faintest trace of historical proof, either as regards the prophets themselves, or as regards the effect of their writings on the people at the time, or on the memories of the nation. Confessedly there is no such evidence outside the Bible ; and the Bible itself gives no ground and leaves no room for the supposition. The Scrip- tural prophecies against Babylon, far from being name- less, are expressly assigned to two of the greatest names in the roll of the prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah ; and there is not the slightest intimation of the exist- ence of a single anonymous prophet in Babylon. At the beginning of the Exile there were false prophets there ; and their names are not only recorded, but were handed down with a note of infamy in the lips of the exiles. In the period of Exile there lived two great prophets in Babylon, Ezekiel and Daniel, one in the city, and the other in the kingdom ; their names are attached to their prophecies, and have come down to us among the great prophets of Scripture. Of anony- mous prophets in Babylon, either one or more, either true or false. Scripture acknowledges none. CH. II.] Loyalty of the Exile Prophets. 325 CHAPTER 11. THE SCRUPULOUS LOYALTY OF THE KNOWN EXILE PROPHETS TO THE CHALDEAN KINGS. When we are asked to believe in supposititious prophets of whom we have no record in Scripture and no tradition out of it, our first recourse is to the known prophets of the period, that by comparing them together we may ascertain if the new conception is consistent with history and in so far worthy of consideration, or if it is a hasty and crude idea with no verisimilitude to commend it. Now, in striking contrast to the character and con- duct of the fictitious prophets of the critics, one of the most deeply marked features of the historical prophets in Babylon is their fidelity to the Chaldean kings. The exiles in Babylon and the prophets who lived amongst them found themselves placed under a very peculiar dispensation of Divine Providence. They were exiled not only from their own land, but from the house of their God and His consecrated dwelling in the earth ; 2,26 A Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. and although the holy Temple was now lying desolate, its stones were dear to them, not merely for the memo- ries of the past, but for the hopes of the future, when it should be raised again from its ruins. Daniel in Babylon prayed with his windows open towards Jeru- salem. The captives of Judah had from the beginning of their exile the divine promise of a sure return to their own land after the lapse of seventy years ; and they refused to sing in the land of their bondage the joyful songs of the Lord's house, counting it better for their tongue to cleave to the roof of their mouth than for them to forget Jerusalem. It was the Lord's will that they should never reckon themselves at home in Babylon ; but always remain strangers, even as the followers of Christ are now pilgrims in the earth, looking for their own city in the better country above. But while the Jews were, therefore, never to inter- mingle and unite with the Chaldeans, they were expressly commanded by Jeremiah to " seek the peace" of Babylon, to give their sons and their daughters in marriage, to build houses and dwell in them, to plant gardens and eat the fruit of them, in that vast city within whose walls the reaper " handled the sickle in the time of harvest." They were to be in all respects peaceful, dutiful, and loyal subjects of the kingdom in which they were captives; not to conspire against en. II.] Loyalty of the Exile PropJiets. 327 it or make efforts for its overthrow, but to promote its welfare and pray for its safety. (Jer. xxix.) This double attitude of intense affection for their own land and of true loyalty to the land of their exile was very peculiar ; yet the ordained duty to both was plain and unmistakable, and its fulfilment is clearly brought out in the exiles with whose history we are best acquainted, Daniel and his three companions, and the prophet Ezekiel. 1. Tlie Book of Daniel. — The historical truth of this book is denied by most of the critics who hold that the prophecies of Isaiah against Babylon are not authentic, and to any argument derived from it they will attach no weight ; but for those who duly rever- ence all the Holy Scriptures, it is interesting to note the beautiful consistency and harmony of the whole. The three friends of Daniel in exile accept of high offices in the government of the Chaldean kingdom. Against these noble youths, who are set over the province of Babylon, their enemies can bring no charge of unfaithfulness or disloyalty, and they can only accuse them of supreme devotion to the living God. In Daniel the most steadfast fidelity to his God and his country is combined with the most faithful loyalty to the King of Babylon. In his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the " great image," the fine gold is followed by the silver, which is " another 32 S A Second Isaiah a7i historical mistake, [bk. vi. kingdom inferior " to his own, but there is no intima- tion of violence in the transition. When he is called to interpret the King's second dream of the tree " whose height reached unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth," which was to be hewn down, yet so as to leave it to revive again from its roots, Daniel " was astonied for one hour, and his thoughts troubled him." When he is pressed to utter his mind he opens the interpretation of the divine judgment that is to fall upon the self-exalted monarch with the dutiful and kindly preface : " My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies ; " and concludes it with a respectful counsel of repentance, "if it might be a lengthening of thy tranquillit}^" In the latter half of Daniel, in the seventh and eighth chapters, there is the record of two visions which the prophet saw in the reign of Belshazzar, after Cyrus had entered on his course. The terms of the first vision are more general. In the second there is an express mention of the ]\Iedian and Persian dominion, and likewise of the Grecian ; but throughout the prophecy there is the most marked reserve re- garding Babylon, which is never named nor its capture referred to, although its conquest occupies the fore- ground of the whole scene. The rough Grecian goat smites the two-horned ram of Media and Persia ; in cii. 11.] Loyalty of the Exile Prophets. 329 the reality that two-horned ram smites Babylon ; but in the vision it is only represented generally as con- quering with resistless power, " pushing westward, and northward, and southward." It is not likely that Belshazzar ever saw the record of this vision ; but it was written by divine inspiration under his dominion, and it is marked by a most cautious and singular silence regarding the destruction of his kingdom, on which the whole vision is founded. In their silence regarding the conquest of Babylon these prophecies of Daniel furnish a noteworthy proof of the historical position of the prophet. If the prophecies had been written after the events, there could have been no motive for the writer's singular silence respecting the fate of Babylon ; and its remarkable capture would certainly have occupied the first place in the historic picture. There is no reasonable accounting for this extraordinary reserve except by the genuineness of the Book of Daniel. At Belshazzar's feast, while the revelry is resounding tlirough the palace, the enemy is already stealing into the city by the bed of the river ; but even in that last night of the Chaldean kingdom, it is at the King's command, and not from his own impulse, that Daniel interprets the mysterious handwriting on the wall. He boldly reproves the King for the sins that had provoked the Most High to stretcli out the hand that 330 y^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake > [bk. vi. wrote his doom over against the candlestick that lighted the banquet hall ; but he neither invokes the divine vengeance on Babylon, nor afterwards refuses the high honours with which the King proceeds to invest him. In the sequel, when the Chaldean dominion has been quite overthrown, and when he understands by the sacred books that the time has come for the restoration of Zion, he obeys the Lord's command by Jeremiah : " Then shall ye go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you, and I will turn away your captivity ; " and he sets himself to seek God by prayer and supplication for the desired deliverance. But he uses no other means except prayer when God's full time had come ; and during the whole Chaldean dominion he never denounces the government under which he lived, and which he served for seventy years. 2. The Book of Ezehiel. — The other Babylonian prophet, Ezekiel, is acknowledged by all the critics, however extreme, as one of the exiles ; and of all the exiles the prophet on the banks of the Chebar was best entitled to claim toleration in foretelling the fall of the power under which he dwelt, because in the earlier years of his own captivity he had faithfully warned his countrymen that Jerusalem would be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans. But as well after the taking of the holy city as before it, we CH. II.] Loyalty of the Exile Prophets. 331 find in him the very same attitude as in Daniel toward Israel and toward Babylon ; of ardent attachment to his land and to his people, and of the most perfect loyalty to the government under which he lives as a captive. The delicate handling of prophetic truth, as affecting this double relation, is brought out in a most remark- able manner in the thirty-sixth chapter of his pro- phecies. The prophet has uttered his oracles against the heathen nations, against Moab and Ammon, against Tyre and Sidon, against Philistia, Edom, and Egypt. Babylon alone has been omitted, and it may be said not unnaturally hitherto, because Babylon is the in- strument of divine judgment against these seven nations. But the prophecy in the thirty-sixth chapter is for the land of Israel, which is now desolate, and has been laid waste for years under the destroying sway of Babylon. This prophecy contains a promise of a new lieart and other promises for Israel, that stretch onward past our own time ; but its predictions are very specific on the return of the people, the rebuilding of the cities, and the restoration of the wastes : " The enemy hath said against you. Aha, even the ancient high places are our's in possession. . . . But ye, 0 mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel ; for they are at hand to come. . . . And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your 2,3^ ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. fathers" (vers. 2, 8, 28). For this end the one great and essential event is the breaking of the yoke of Babylon, to set Israel at liberty to return to his own land ; yet the prophet, speaking as he is moved by the Holy Ghost, never speaks of Babylon, but carefully avoids the mention of the name, even when referring to the enemies from whom Israel is to be delivered : " Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their pos- session. ... I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land" (vers. 5, 24). Idumea and Egypt, and all heathen countries to- gether, did not stand in the way of Israel's restoration like Babylon alone, whose iron yoke it was that must be broken to set Israel free ; and, apart from the im- mediate moving of the Holy Spirit, no motives can be assigned for the very remarkable, and it would almost have seemed impossible omission, except obedience to the divine command to pray for the peace of that city, with desire for the safety of his countrymen by not provoking the anger of the King who held them in his grasp. It is the Lord Himself who speaks through the lips of the prophet, and his mind is one; to deliver Israel into the power of Babylon, to subject them as loyal subjects under that dominion, and to save them CH. II.] Loyalty of the Exile Prophets. 333 in the end by His own right arm alone in answer to their prayers. So Ezekiel concludes his prophecy with the words : " I will yet for tliis be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Ewald, however, supposes that the 38th and 39th chapters of Ezekiel describes the fall of Babylon under the appellation of Gog, who is to " go up to the land of unwalled villages" and " fall upon the mountains of Israel." So strange a theory can be accounted for only by supposing that, as Ezekiel announces so fully both the judgments on the other heathen nations and the restoration of Israel, the want of all reference to Babylon must have seemed to the critic quite inex- plicable. If the truth of this fancy were conceivable, and if it ^vere possible that the prophet could have recourse to such a disguise, and could so reverse the whole picture for the sake of secrecy, it would only bring out the more broadly the completeness of the contrast between an absolutely extreme caution in the real prophets of the Exile and the utter recklessness of the imaginary prophets of the higher criticism. The invocations of divine vengeance on Babylon, which conclude the 137th Psalm, form no excep- tion to the submissive attitude enjoined on the exiles and accepted by them, because the Psalm was evidently written after the release of the captives. Their complaint, if uttered in Babylon, would have been, 334 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. " We sit liere by the rivers and weep," instead of " By the rivers of Babylon, tlie,T(^ we sat down." In answer also to tlieir spoilers, they might have refused to sing their sacred songs in a strange land ; but they could never have so terribly denounced their oppressors to their face without having their words silenced in their own blood. Still more, this Psalm of " mingled tears and fire " was emphatically above most other Psalms " a song of Zion," replete with tenderest love to Zion and Jerusalem ; and if the daughter of Zion had taken her unstrung harp from the willows to sing this song even in the deepest solitudes of the rivers of Babylon, she would during its whole utterance have done that to which the words flow- ing from her lips declared that she could never consent. Eegarding the predicted destruction of Babylon, it is to be noted that the city was not destroyed when it was taken by Cyrus ; and as before the Exile, so now imme- diately after it, the still unfulfilled judgments are pro- phetically announced against Babylon (Isa. xiii. 18 ; Ps. cxxxvii. 8).-^ 1 " There can be no douht whatever as to the time when this Psalm was written. It expresses the feelings of an exile who has but just returned from the land of his captivity : the spoiler has been in his home, his vines and his fig trees have been cut down, the house of his God is a heap of ruins. He takes his harp, the harp which he could not string at the bidding of his conquerors by the waters of Babylon." — Perowne, *' That the Psalm was sung after the return from Babylon is evi- dent from the words in ver, 1-.3, ' we sat, we wept,' It was at the second capture by Darius Hystaspes, eighteen years after the first, CH. II.] Loyalty of the Exile Prophets. 335 Along with Dauiel and Ezekiel there were two other prophets in the Exile ; who began, indeed, to prophesy only after the close of the captivity, but one of whom, Haggai, has been reasonably supposed to have seen " the glory of the first house," while the other, Zechariah, was also living in Babylon. If the latter half of Isaiah was written there, one of them might have been the author, so far as the time is concerned, and his name would have given authority to the predictions. Yet the writing of both is so different from Isaiah, that no critic assigns it to either. The evidence from these two prophets thus agrees with that of the other two, and is quite against an Exile origin for Isaiah. The imaginary discovery by the critics of an Exile prophet in Babylon, who wrote like the prince of the prophets in Jerusalem, or rather tlieir fanciful supposi- tion in the failure of any discovery, is thus proved to be contrary to all the historical facts of the period. There is no likelihood that the Babylonian Exile pro- duced any prophet like Isaiah ; and there is ample proof that if such a prophet had been raised up, it w^ould have been no part of his divine commission to denounce the King of Babylon, but only to speak of Israel's restoration like the exiled prophet Ezekiel. that Babylon's hundred gates were laid waste and her lofty walls prostrated ; it is this properly that formed the first and the last destruction. The divine retributive righteousness is taught, pre- cisely as here, by our Lord in Matt. vii. 2 : ' With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.' " — Hengstenbekg. 336 ^ Second Isaiah an histoincal mistake . [bk. vi. CHAPTER III. THE UNSPARING DENUNCIATIONS OF THE CHALDEAN KINGS BY THE PROPHETS IN JERUSALEM. Side by side with tlie historical prophets of the Exile, Daniel and Ezekiel, let us look at the prophecies in Jerusalem which the critics on their own exclusive authority allege to have been published in Babylon. It is impossible to conceive a greater contrast than we find between the true and the fictitious predictions of the Exile ; between the prophecies actually given by the God of Israel to His exiled servants, and the older prophecies arbitrarily assigned to them by the critics ; the assiduous avoiding of offence to the rulers in the first, and the severe and accumulated denunciation of those rulers in the second. These prophecies in addressing Babylon and its King contain no suppliant appeals for mercy to the captives, and no calm remonstrance with the great monarch in whose power they are. In accosting Israel they summon them by no call to aid in their own CH. III.] Prophetic threatenings in J ej^icsaleni. y^^ rescue by taking arms against their oppressors, or by otherwise helping their deliverers. Except for the comforting assurance of the bright day of Israel's return, they are without any sufficient object in the Exile ; and that assurance had been already given to Israel, not by an anonymous writer, but by the well- accredited prophet Ezekiel. But they denounce in the strongest terms the cruelty, oppression, and wickedness of the King of Babylon ; they foretell for him a degradation as vile as his throne is now exalted ; they predict the overthrow of the city and the destruction of its fondly cherished gods ; they exhort tlie exiles to flee from within its walls after its capture ; they name the conqueror as approaching with his resistless arms ; they portray the faintheartedness of the Chaldean soldiers, and they call on the hostile forces to prepare for the assault of the city, which they triumph over as if already fallen, Isaiah prophesies : " Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt : and they shall be afraid : pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them. . . . Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver ; and as for gold, they shall not delisfht in it. Tlieir bows also shall dash the young men to pieces. . . . And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrali. How y 33^^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. hath tlie oppressor ceased ! the golden city ceased I The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked. ... He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke. . . . The worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee" (Isaiah xiii. 7, 8, 17, 19, xiv. 4, 5, 6, 11). " Go up, 0 Elam : besiege, 0 Media ; . . . Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground " (Isa. xxi. 2, 9). " Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him ; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates. . . . Bel boweth down, ISTebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle. . . . Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon. ... Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans : for thou shalt no more be called. The lady of kingdoms. . . . Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth ; say ye. The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob " (Isaiah xlv. 1 ; xlvi. 1 ; xlvii. 1, 5 ; xlviii. 20). In like manner Jeremiah : " Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about : all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows : for she hath sinned against the Lord. . . . How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken ! how is Babylon cir. Ill] Prophetic threatenings in yeriisalem. 339 become a desolation among the nations ! . . . The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of his temple. . . . Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes. . . . The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight. . . . One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end. . . . For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor, it is time to thresh her ; yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come. . . . The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say ; and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say" (Jer. 1. 14, 23, 28; li. 28, 30, 31, 33, 35). Now, we know certainly that prophecies against Babylon of a similar character were written in Jeru- salem before the Exile by the prophet Habakkuk ; and his prophecy is acknowledged to have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem even by critics, like Dr. Samuel Davidson, who disallow the more distant prophecies of Isaiah and the more detailed predictions of Jeremiah. He foretells the desolation of Judaea by the Chaldeans : " Lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the 340 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs ; . . . they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat ; . . . they shall gather the captivity as the sand ; . . . they shall deride every strong hold ; for they shall heap dust, and take it " (Hab. i. 6-10). The prophet next comforts his own people : '' Art thou not from everlasting, 0 Lord my God, mine Holy One ? we shall not die " (ver. 1 2). Then he severely denounces the King of Babylon : " Who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people : Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his ! how long ? . . . Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them ? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee" (Hab. ii. 5-8). We have thus, on the one hand, a recognised prophet in Jerusalem denouncing and threatening the King of Babylon for devastating Judaea, and " devouring the man that is more righteous than he " (Hab. i. 13) ; and, on the other hand, we have two known prophets in Babylon respecting the divine command to " seek the peace of the city," and carefully avoiding to announce its certain doom before it has come. The history. CH. III.] Prophetic threatenings in y o'usaleni, 341 therefore, of both periods is quite against the con- jecture of the critics. It is clearly in favour of the prophets in Jerusalem foretelling woe to Babylon and its king ; and it is decidedly against any prophet in Babylon issuing such a prediction. ,42 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. CHAPTER IV. THE INFATUATION OF PUBLISHING SUCH THREATENINGS IN BABYLON, AND THE CULPABILITY OF PUBLISHING THEM ANONYMOUSLY. " Like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire." — Jer. xxix. 22. It is maintained by the scientific critics that the latter half of Isaiah, with its prophecies against Babylon, can be understood in " a natural and living Avay " only by assigning them to the period of the Exile ; and on similar grounds it might be held that the fifty-third chapter, with its natural and vivid de- scription of the Messiah's sufferings, must have been written after the day of Pentecost. P>ut it is only on a hasty glance at the surface of the history that it could be supposed that such publications were life-like and natural in the position of the exiles. On the con- trary, every consideration of reason proves — CH. IV.] Th^xateiiings in Babylon Incredible. 343 1. The infatuation of publishing such prophecies in Babylon. Let us look at the first of the short prophecies in Isaiah against Babylon, of which Ewald says that " these small pieces proceeded from Babel itself," and that " being rapidly produced and sent into the world as fly-sheets, they were published without any name attached ; " and which amongst ourselves are in like manner spoken of as " anonymous broadsides." The prophecy in the thirteenth and fourteenth cliapters of Isaiah has forty-five verses ; and only two of these foretell the restoration of Israel (xiv. 1, 2), while the rest consists of woes against Babylon, its city, its citizens, and especially its King. There is every utter- ance that can wound his pride, awaken his fear, and arouse his anger, with the constant avowal that the prophecy is by the God of Israel and for Israel's sake : " Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them. . . . I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. . . . For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel " (chaps, xiii. 17 ; xiv. 22, 1). A feeble colony of captive foreigners cast contempt on the majesty of the King. They accuse him of cruelty and wickedness, and they summon his enemies 344 -^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. to take his city, and to slay himself, his children, and his subjects. They publish their prophecies as fly- leaves or broadsides, writing them on an open page, and circulating them among the exiles. Although they attach no personal signatures, they speak in the name of Israel and of his God ; and only for Israel's sake do they invoke and predict the terrible doom of Babylon, its sovereign, and its people. No helpless community of captives, that was not bereft of reason, would have allowed such a writing to be circulated amongst them ; and in their exile they seem to have still had their elders over them with some authority. The mildest of monarchs would not have suffered it for an instant ; and if the King of Babylon was as proud and as cruel as he is pictured in these prophecies, no Jew in Babylon could have hoped to escape with his life. If the Chaldean ruler could not arrest the hostile march of the conqueror of other nations, he could easily exterminate avowed traitors witliin his own city and kingdom ; he could quench in their own blood their bright prophecies for Zion ; and their threatenings against him he would in all likelihood fulfil upon themselves, and leave to Israel " neither name nor remnant, neither son nor nephew." This note on the first of the alleged anonymous pro- phecies applies in substance to them all (Isa. xiii. xiv. ; xxi. 1, 10; xl. to Ixvii.). There is, indeed, abun- cir. IV.] Threatenings in Babylon Incredible. 345 dant consolation to Israel in the latter half of Isaiah, but it denounces Babylon and its King, and exults triumphantly in their destruction. Nothing can ex- plain the suicidal madness that is imputed to the captives in issuing such threats ; for with all their loncrincr to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild tlie Temple, and with all the hardships which many might suffer, they were not as a people driven to despair. They dwelt in their own houses, ate the fruit of their own gardens, worshipped their own God by the river sides, and when they were set at liberty many of them were not prepared to leave the comforts of their foreign home, and return to the desolate land of their fathers. As a people, they had no cause to rush on self-destruc- tion by circulating such threats against their rulers. In the same predictions and solemn denunciations from the Lord in the prophecies of Isaiah nearly two hundred years before, the case is entirely different. Consolation was treasured there for Israel, and there the God of Israel made the express prediction of remote events the proof to Israel and to the world that he is the God of the whole earth, and that He knoweth tlie end from the beginning. An ancient prophecy, forming part of a series of older books, and quietly kept amongst a foreign people, might easily escape either the curiosity or the jealousy of a proud race of kings. The later prophecy of Jeremiah bears a special 34^^ Second Isaiah a7i historical mistake, [bk. vi. character from the symbolical act of siDking it in the Euphrates, so like that prophet's method of teaching, and so unlike the publication of an open broadsheet. The casting of the stone into the river would of itself sufficiently symbolise the overwhelming of Babylon, but the submerging of the prophetic book was certainly to intimate that its burden was not to be divulged in Babylon till its fulfilment. There was nothing in the whole transaction at all inconsistent with the injunc- tion sent to the captives to build houses in Babylon and to seek its peace. The prophet would certainly retain a copy for himself, and the witnesses who heard it read on the banks of the river would remember its substance, and communicate it to their brethren and to their children. If it became known to Nebuchad- nezzar, that King had a high esteem for Jeremiah, to whose predictions of his own singular prosperity he owed so much ; nothing in the prophecy affected him- self personally, for the greater part of seventy years was to intervene before its fulfilment ; and there was little fear of his resenting what he had every cause to respect as a divinely inspired prophecy of the fall of his kingdom at a period that was still remote. In the prophecies of Isaiah against Babylon, and in their lasting fulfilment, we see even at the present day the greatness, majesty, and power of the God of nations, the wonders of His providence, the sovereignty of His CH. IV.] Threatenings in Babylon Incredible. 347 dominion, His omnipotent ordering and omniscient foresight of all events, with the exercise of His riglit to speak to kings and to kingdoms according to their character and their deserts. But if, in direct contradic- tion alike to the Old Testament and the New, such prophecies are held to have been published in Babylon toward the close of the Exile, they are characterised by an infatuation which, in all historical likelihood, could only have resulted in the extirpation of the Jewish people by '' the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation," at a crisis in their history, when apprehension of danger must have a2;2fravated their bitterness and hastened their revenge. Ewald's peculiar theory that the latter half of Isaiah was not written in Babylon like the shorter prophecies but in Egypt makes no material difference in our argu- ment. His view is interestim^ in so far as he is in- clined to take it by his acceptance of the undoubted and important fact that the author of the latter portion of the book writes from a 'position outside of Babylon and not as one of its exiles. The briefer predictions are full of the severest denunciations against the Chaldean Kin Of, and these he holds to have been w^ritten in the imperial city. Like them, the longer prophecies are written in the Hebrew language, and are addressed to the Jews in Babylon, to wdiom they must have been sent, if they were not to remain wdthout any purpose 34^^ Second Isaiah an historical vtistake. [bk. vi. or use. If they were circulated without a name amongst the Babylonian Jews with the permission of their elders, the Chaldeans must have treated them as a national production, while the distant author would escape the dangers in which he recklessly involved his captive people. But the general opinion of the modern critics is given by Dr. Samuel Davidson, who says that the Deutero-Isaiah was one of the exiles, and lived in Babylon. 2. The cid'pahility of puUishing these threats anonymously. It is a strangely misjudging conception of the critics that anonymous prophecies could bring to the Jewish captives any assurance of their deliverance. By the prophets of hope at the beginning of the Exile many of them had been deceived ; and the slaying of these prophets "before their eyes" had left on the mind of the nation a warning not soon to be effaced against being elated and seduced by professedly prophetic promises of a speedy return to their own land. In their position, therefore, it was above all things essential that a prophet of restoration should produce the surest credentials of his divine mission ; and evidently no such assurance could ever be given by means of an unsigned fly-leaf. If the prophecies of the taking of CH. IV.] Threatenings in Babylon Incredible, 349 Babylon had never been written by Isaiah and Jeremiah, it was a dangerous snare for Israel to believe, on the assurance of an anonymous "pamphlet of the day" (Ewald), that the Persian king was their appointed deliverer. By thoughtful men amongst the captives the unsealed manifesto would have been rejected as the device of an impostor, and denounced with the olden exile curse on the false sons of Kolaiah and Maaseiah. But it was impossible in the position of the exiles for any good man to have written such predictions without attaching his name. The prophets in Babylon at the beginning of the Exile foretold a speedy return of Israel to Zion ; and their verbal predictions were far less likely to have come to the knowledge of the King than written tracts. They were false in their prophecies, and infamous in their lives ; but they can hardly be held more guilty than the fictitious prophets of the modern critics. Ahab, the son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah, the son of Maaseiah, did not publish their prophecies on anonymous broadsheets to shield them- selves and leave others to die for their misdeeds. They avowed their own hopes of Israel's return, as well as encouraged their fellows in exile ; as martyrs to a falsehood they sacrificed their lives ; and they left their names for a curse to be taken up by all Israel against any who should follow them in Babylon with similar false predictions : " The Lord make thee like 350 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. Zedekiah and like Aliab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire" (Jer. xxix. 22). The Jews in Babylon had therefore a very special and memorable warning of the doom that awaited the prophets who should issue predictions of Israel's restora- tion by the breaking of Babylon's yoke ; and the man who added denunciations against the King might ex- pect his furnace to be heated " seven times more than it was wont to be heated." Ezekiel's case, as we have seen, was exceptional, because he had for many years counselled the submission of the Jews to the Chaldeans, and foretold the successful career of the Chaldean monarch ; but in predicting the restoration of Israel, he has not a word of reproach or of threat for Babylon, or even of deliverance from its yoke. In these circum- stances, if any later prophet of consolation had arisen among the captives, he would have scrupulously re- frained from denouncing their present rulers, both from the command of God through Jeremiah and from the dangers it involved for Israel. But the prophecies in Isaiah xiii., xiv., are full of such denunciations; and Isaiah xl. to Ixvi. calls Cyrus by name as the conqueror of Babylon, and exults over her fall : " Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon ; sit on the ground : there is no throne, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans ; . . . for thou hast trusted in thy wicked- ness ; thou hast said, None seeth me" (xlvii. 1, 10). CH. IV.] Threatenings hi Babylon Incredible. 351 To publish larger predictions without the prophet's name, or to circulate the lesser ones as anonymous fly- sheets, would have been an act highly culpable. The author knew well that, if an exterminating decree did not go forth at once against the whole nation, his saving of his own life by the cowardly concealment of his name would create a search for every Jew in Babylon who could have been the writer, to be followed by a dreadful death for all on whom suspicion might rest. The most ordinary chance of such an issue would have made every good man shrink from the thought of such concealment. But the circumstances of the exiles, in the well remembered example of the fatal history of the previous prophets in Babylon, and in the present jealousy of the Chaldean rulers awakened by the vic- torious arms of Cyrus, must have left no doubt of the execution of the severest measures. In so critical a case we may well believe that no Jew in all the nation would be found capable of such an act ; and nothing can be more certain than that such writings could never have had the divine sanction, or have been the laudable work of holy men. One of the great positions of the leaders of modern thought in Biblical criticism, — one in which they are generally agreed in the midst of other discordances, — the ascription of the prophecies against Babylon to anony- mous prophets during the Exile, is thus proved to be 352 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk. vi. impossible. To hold that these prophets were insph^ed, or were righteous men, and that they published these prophecies anonymously, is to adopt both halves of a plain contradiction. There is no outlet from this con- clusion. If these alleged prophets were men worthy of the highest honour, which the critics not only allow but earnestly maintain, it w^as clearly impossible that they could have issued their prophecies as anonymous publications in the Babylonian Exile. The worst of the nation would not readily have stained their hands with such a transaction as the view of the critics, unde- signedly but necessarily, imputes to the noblest of all the prophets, the author of the latter part of Isaiah, whose words have been a solace and a light to the Church for thousands of years. To call the writer truly "great" is to deny that he was "anonymous;" and to call him "anonymous" is to deny that he w^as " o'reat." If he was not Isaiah, we know nothiDsj of him except by the writings which have made his memory immortal as one of the greatest and best and most patriotic of men ; and if he \vas not Isaiah, these very writings by being anonymous degrade him to the lowest level. The prophet sent of old to Nineveh takes his life in his hand, walks through the broad streets of the city, cries aloud, " Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be over- thrown ;" the proud Assyrians repent, and their city CH. IV.] Threatenings in Babylon Incredible. :i:io is spared. In the great city by which Nineveh was outrivalled and. dethroned, the prophets created by the modern critics are said to publish their oracular burdens : " Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground ;" " Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about : all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows : for she hath sinned against the Lord." Babylon remains proud, sensual, impenitent ; and for the prophets who have predicted her doom, there is nothing left but the burning furnace that consumed the seers who preceded them. But beneath the mask of their anonymous fly-leaves they lie safely hid ; and in cold blood they look on their friends and brethren exposed on their account to certain death at the hands of the haughty and justly offended King. Such must have been the prophets whom the new critics first create and then commend with their liighest lauda- tions ; whom they ask us to admire, and for whom Isaiah and Jeremiah are to be cast behind our backs. The criticism that calls itself scientific confidently refuses to own as genuine the sublime oracles of Isaiah against Babylon, because it conceives either that all supernatural prediction is impossible, or that predictions so distant from the event, although not impossible, are highly improbable. We hold that God, to whom all the future is known, can reveal it to men ; and w^e firmly z 354 ^ Second Isaiah an historical mistake, [bk vi. believe in the " sure word of prophecy" as we have it in the Bible, however far beyond mere human foresight. In holding these prophecies to be genuine we are not chargeable with a blind and bigoted adherence to an effete tradition. But, on the contrary, when we are asked by the critics to give up the genuineness of the larger and nobler half of the prophecies of Isaiah, because they contain those marvellous predictions against Babylon which remain in their striking fulfil- ment at this hour, and to assign them to anonymous prophets in the Exile, we are called to sacrifice not merely faith, but reason, and history, and sound criti- cism for a crude and impossible conjecture. cir. I.] The Alodcni Fiction of Tzuo Isaia/is. 355 PAET II. THE TWO HALVES OF ISAIAH A BEAUTIFUL WHOLE. CHAPTEK I. THE MODERN FICTIOX OF TWO ISAIAHS. " With the evidence before us, we cannot think the remark of Sir E. Strachej'- unjustly severe : that, when he thought of the attempted disintegration, he was irresistibly reminded of the tradition, that Isaiah was sawn asunder by those who misunder- stood and denied his real office and powers," — Spcalccr^s Commen- tary. The partition of the Book of Isaiah by modern critics is the rending asunder of a great Prophet with a strongly marked individuality ; and the severance, which destroys the value of the book itself, is injurious to the truth and authority of the whole sacred volume. These two positions, and more especially the first, it is the design of the following pages to prove. First of all, however, we have to note the progress of disbelief in the unity of Isaiah ; and to state that the mere want of the repetition of liis name over the 35^ Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vl second series of prophecies is no evidence against the unity of the whole. 1 . Tlu progress of disbelief in the one Isaiah. — Among the books of the Bible the authenticity of which is disputed by modern criticism, one of the first w^as the latter half of Isaiah, consisting of the twenty-seven chapters from the fortieth, " Comfort ye my people," to the end of the book ; than which there is nothing in the Old Testament Scriptures more highly to be prized or more vigilantly to be guarded. These prophecies are known and allowed to have been received for more than two thousand years as the authentic writings of Isaiah, whose name they bear. To this day no other name has been associated with them; and their claim to a place in the canonical Scriptures is not disputed. But many critics now hold that they were not written either by the pen or in the time of the well-known prophet under whose name they stand in the roll of the Holy Scriptures; and having no clew to any other author, they have given to the writer the designation first of the False or Pseudo-Isaiah, and now more commonly of the Second Isaiah, from the association of his writings with those of the genuine prophet, and from their acknowledged resemblance. The author of these later prophecies has also, by w^ay of honour, received the appellation of the " Great CH, I.] The Modern Fiction of Tivo Isaiahs. 357 Unnamed," as if the praise of greatness from human lips could ever compensate the loss of degrading the noblest of God's prophets into a man nameless and unknown. The same spirit of witticism has de- graded the fifty-first Psalm into the utterance of an unknown penitent, whose anonymous confession of the guilt of blood is of necessity insincere. The Psalm is not prophetic, and the denial of its author and its date affects chiefly its own value ; but the ascription of the half of Isaiah to a writer in Babylon subverts the truth both of the prophecies themselves, and of the Bible in which they are incorporated. So long as this view was chiefly confined to foreign theologians, there was no call in duty or in wisdom to carry it out of the limited circle of the critics into a wider field. But in our own country it has recently been elevated into a publicity that cannot be over- looked ; its advocates speak of this modern fiction as an established truth ; and the subject has come to demand a careful examination, not only by professed scholars, but by the intelligent reader of the English Bible. The article " Bible " in the Encyclopccdia Britannica seems to regard it as finally settled, past all room for inquir}^ that the author of the second half of Isaiah was an anonymous prophet in Babylon during the Exile. "Prophecy," it says, "lays hold of the ideal elements of the theocratic conception, and depicts the 358 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful zvhole. [bk. vi. way in which, by God's grace, they shall be actually realised in a Messianic age, and in a nation purified by judgment and mercy. But in all this the prophet starts from present sin, present needs, present historical situations. There is no reason to think that a prophet ever received a revelation which was not spoken directly and pointedly to his own time. . . . When the principle is admitted other applications follow, mainly in the Book of Isaiah, where the anonymous chapters, xl.-lxvi., cannot be understood in a natural and living way, except by looking at them from the historical standpoint of the Exile. ... In the period of Exile more than one anonymous prophet raised his voice ; for not only the ' Great Unnamed ' of Isaiah, chaps, xl.-lxvi., but the authors of other Babylonian prophecies are probably to be assigned to this time." Another article from the British and Foreign Evan- gelical Revieiv, by one of the ablest and most influential of our professors, expresses no decided judgment, but intimates the writer's permanent impression against Isaiah being the author of these prophecies. Some of the latter portions of the article are expressly written in defence of liberty of opinion on subjects of Biblical criticism ; and in these the reader must keep in mind the distinction between what the writer holds for himself to be true, or probable, or possible, and the freedom which he claims for others. But here the CH. l] The Modern Fiction of Tiuo Isaiahs. 359 writer is reviewing Nagelsbach's " Isaiah," in which the genuineness of the later prophecies is maintained ; and he gives us his own impressions against their authenticity in these terms : " The merest glance into the vocabulary (of Nagelsbach) will show how large the number of words is that are peculiar to the second half of the book. -^ But it is not words so much as the peculiar use of them, and not individual terms at all so much as phrases or combinations of terms, and not even this so much as the peculiar articulation of sentences and the movement of the whole discourse, by which an impression is produced, so unlike the im- pression produced by the earlier portions of the book. It is quite possible to subject this impression to the crucible and dissolve it, reasoning it away bit by bit, and then to assert that the testimony of style is worth nothing. Any impression which is produced by the combined force of many elements can be disposed of in this way. But when the tide of logic recedes, the impression remains as distinct as ever" {Old Testament 1 How little the use of different words in two compositions can prove two different authors is strikingly brought out by Mr. Stanley Leathes in the following conclusion from a comparison of three of Milton's poems : — " Milton must have used for ' II Pen- seroso ' 450 words not in ' L'Allegi'o,' and for ' Lycidas ' 590 not in ' L' Allegro.' He must have used for * Lycidas ' some 585 words not in ' n Penseroso,' and more than 660 not occurring in both together."— 5o?/?(e Lectures for 1868, p. 283. 360 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. Exegesis in 1878, by Professor A. B. Davidson, p. 3). But by a similar train of reasoning the critics of five centuries hence will find "in the words, the phrases, the peculiar articulation of sentences, and the move- ment of the whole discourse " an easy and triumphant proof, that there must have been a second Thomas Chalmers, because the author of the " Sermons " could not have written the " Daily Bible Eeadings." The learned authors of both the articles quoted hold the inspired truth of the second half of Isaiah as fully as of the first, or of any other book in the Bible ; and the entire incompatibility of its Babylonian origin with the truth and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures is not immediately evident to many who have no sympathy with the theory. Even Scriptural students, who hold fast the Deuteronomy of Moses, and shrink with abhorrence from the ascription of either the whole or the half of that book to an unknown author, seem to look without alarm on a similar and equally fatal treat- ment of the prophet Isaiah. 2. The ivant of the repetition of Isaiah's name over the second section of the hook no evidence against its unity. — One element that is held to render it allowable to assign these later prophecies to another author is the historical break in the middle of the book, after which the name of Isaiah is not repeated. But they are not the less bound up with the earlier prophecies under the CH. l] The Modern Fiction of Tiuo Isaiahs. 361 name of Isaiah ; and they were so received by the Jewish nation, and by our Lord's apostles. The repeti- tion of the name ^YOuld not have been accepted as a material element in the evidence ; for the critics, who refuse the later chapters to Isaiah because of the pro- phecies against Babylon, deny at the same time that he is the author of those earlier chapters which likewise predict its fall. Professor Alexander calls '' the impos- sibility of inspiration, or prophetic foresight, the funda- mental principle of the higher critics;" and he says, " to this, as the original, the chief, and I had almost said the only ground of the rejection of these later chapters, we are still brought back from every survey of the arguments by which it is defended." These critics except from the authentic writings of Isaiah such prophecies against Babylon as that in chapter xxi. 1-10 under the title of the " Burden of the Desert of the Sea," which they hold to have been written in Babylon not long before its fall, although included in the first, and what they reckon the only genuine half of his prophecies. With equal decision they deny the authenticity of the great prophecy iu the 13th and 14th chapters, which is expressly entitled " The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see."^ The special prefixing of Isaiah's 1 The genuineness of this prophecy is set aside in Rosenmiiller's SclioUa, Ewald's Prophets of the Old Testament, Bleek's Introduction 362 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. name to his later prophecies would, therefore, have been of no account with the higher critics, and would have availed nothing to secure their acceptance of these prophecies as genuine^ so long as they embodied in a definite form the distant doom of Babylon. For this or other reasons most of these critics not only refuse to Isaiah the twenty-seven chapters, xl.-lxvi., but they also eliminate nearly nine chapters from the earlier pro- phecies— chapters xiii., xiv. 1-23, xxi. 1-10, xxiv.-xxvii., XXXV., xxxvi. — making thirty- six chapters altogether; the larger half of the book, which they hold to have been written, most of them in Babylon before its cap- ture by Cyrus, others perhaps soon after, and all of them nearly two hundred years after the death of Isaiah. It is only just to Professor Davidson to add that his criticism makes no reference to these earlier pro- phecies ; and also that, as regards the second section of the book, he expresses no opinion on its date or its place of writing. But if readers are once persuaded to embrace the negative half of the theory, that it was not written by Isaiah, they will at the same time natu- rally accept its other half, that it was written in Babylon toward the close of the Exile. For nearly a century the latter half of Isaiah has to the Old Testament, Dr. Samuel Davidson's Introduction to the Old Testament, and we apprehend that we must regard it as apparently included by Professor Robertson Smith in the " other Babylonian prophecies which are probably to be assigned to this time" (of the Exile). CH. I.] The Modern Fiction of Two Isaiahs. 363 been one of the chief battle-fields between faith and unbelief ; and the question is vital to the supernatural character of the entire Bible. If the prophet Isaiah was himself the author of the later prophecies under his name, rationalism has no footing; because the desolation of Zion, the exile of Israel in Babylon, the overthrow of that great city by Cyrus, and the libera- tion of the captives, are all clearly predicted by him between one and two centuries before those successive and complicated events. But if these prophecies were written by an exiled Israelite in Babylon, our whole Scriptural ground is undermined ; for in that case the change of their date transforms the predictions into a series of false prophecies of the most extreme character, to which both the Old and the New Testaments have affixed their seals. In this whole inquiry it is to be kept in mind that, Isaiah having been attested and received as the author of the later prophecies alike by the Synagogue and the Church, the burden of proof rests on those who dispute his title. The two series of prophecies might have been written by the same author without either an evident connection or a marked resemblance between them. In that case, the witness of the Old and New Testaments must of itself have been accepted as amply sufficient evidence to Isaiah as the author of both ; but if the in- ternal proofs of unity are also clear and full they form a valuable addition in corroboration of that evidence. 364 Isaiah : its halves a deautifocl whole, [bk. vi. CHAPTER II. isaiah's yisiox in the temple. " 111 the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. " Above it stood the seraphims : each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. " And one cried unto another, and said, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, IS THE LORD OF HOSTS : THE WHOLE EARTH IS FULL OF HIS GLORY. " And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. " Then said I, Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. " Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar : " And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips ; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, WHOM SHALL I SEND, AND WHO WILL GO FOR US ? Then said I, Here am I ; send me. "And he said. Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. " Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with CH. II.] IsaiaJis Vision in the Temple. 365 their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. " Then said I, Lord, how long ? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, " And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. " But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten : as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves : so the holy seed shall be the sub- stance thereof." — Isaiah vi. As the chief key to Isaiah's prophecies, we naturally turn to the sixth chapter, in the year of the death of his leprous king, with its account of his great vision and of his own prophetic commission. The vision is transcend- ently bright and glorious ; the commission is a dark and singular contrast to the vision ; but the Divine thoughts in both are brought out in the later prophecies even more fully than in the earlier. It has been disputed at what period of the pro- phet's ministry there was given to him this revelation of the Divine glory. Over-against the obviously un- tenable view taken by some critics that it contains an account at the close of his life of his sad disappoint- ment in his prophetic labours, others have held the view that its proper place is at the beginning of the book, as constituting his first call to the prophetic office. But there is no valid ground for conceiving that the vision is not found in its right position ; for the bright- 366 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. ness of the revealed glory, the depth of the discovered sin, and the darkness of the intrusted message, might all be better borne after some experience in the pro- phetic ministry than at its very beginning. For a right understanding of Isaiah's prophecies, it is important to mark the highly spiritual character of this whole revelation. A desolating outward judgment on the people is predicted at the close as the fruit of their sins. But in the discovery of the Divine glory, it is the holiness of the Lord that is revealed : the pro- phet's overwhelming abasement is not by the effulgence of awful majesty, but by the light of holiness giving a new revelation of his own and his people's sinfulness ; and the primary judgment on his people for their sins is blindness of heart, not national desolation. The closinoj of their eves and shuttinoj of their ears are purely spiritual, and it is for this moral judgment alone that the prophet asks, " How long " it is to last ; although the desolation of the land and people, which is the certain fruit of the moral blindness, becomes afterwards the measure of its duration. The spiritual closing of the eye and shutting of the ear are not peculiar to Isaiah, for Moses had said of old, " The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day ;" but Isaiah's use of these terms is highly characteristic of all his writings. CH. II.] IsaiaJis Vision in the Temple. 367 While it is essential to remember the markedly spiritual character of the vision in the temple, as a safeguard against an excessive interpretation of the prophecies by outward conditions and events, there is also to be noted the singular difference, or rather the extreme contrast, between the earlier and latter half of the vision. This will be taken up with more advantage in a future chapter ; meanwhile we only remark, that the continuous depression and deep dark- ness that follow the joyful light and lofty elevation cannot well be explained except by a designed void that is afterwards to be filled up, so as to return again to the great opening Light. Let us look now at the General correspondence hehvcen the vision in the Teni])le ami the later ^prophecies. In the opening of the angelic song, the first host of the seraphim ascribe holiness to the Lord in a thrice repeated tribute of praise, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts ;" and, in a marked accordance with the angel's anthem, the attribute of holiness is ascribed to the Lord in a special manner through the whole book of Isaiah. " The Holy One of Israel " is the charac- teristic title given to the Most High in both sections of the prophecies. In all the rest of the Bible this peculiar title is found only five or six times ; but it occurs twenty-five times in Isaiah, twelve times in the first half and thirteen times in the second. Delitzsch 368 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. reckons the number greater, and says : " It occurs twenty-nine times, twelve times in chapters i.-xxxix. and seventeen times in chapters xl.-lxvi. As Luzzetto has well observed, ' The prophet, as if with a presenti- ment that the authenticity of the second part of his book would be disputed, has stamped both parts with this name of God, " The Holy One of Israel," as if with his own seal.' " The glory of the Lord in Isaiah is the glory of re- demption, rather than of creation, and He who sits on the throne in the Temple is the Son of God in the form of the Son of Man, for " Esaias saw His glory, and spake of him" (John xii. 41). The Lord had already sworn by Himself to Moses, " As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord" (Num. xiv. 21) ; and David had turned the promise into a prayer, " Let the whole earth be filled with his glory" (Ps. Ixxii. 1 9). Isaiah afterwards interprets the char- acter of this fulness when he predicts that " The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (chap. xi. 9) ; Habakkuk com- bines Moses and Isaiah, " The earth shall be filled with the hnoiulcdge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (chap. ii. 14) ; and the Apostle Paul adds another kindred term, " The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. iv. 6). There can be no doubt that it is the same glory of the CH. II.] IsaiaJis Vision in the Temple. 369 Lord in rccUm^tio'ii that is extolled by the answering host of angels in the hearing of Isaiah for his instruction and joy ; and that in the full assurance of the bright future, they sing of that glory as if already flooding the earth, " The whole earth is full of His glory." This prophetic vision has its exact counterpart in the open- ing of the second portion of the book, " The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together" (chap. xl. 5). The same Divine glory filling all the earth occupies a leading place in the later chap- ters : " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee ; and the Gentiles shall come to thy light ; all nations and tongues shall come and see my glory'' (chaps. Ix. 1, 3 ; Ixvi 18). In contrast to the Divine glory, the prophet includes the whole nation, king and people, in his own confes- sion of leprous sin — " I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a loeople of unclean li-ps" (ver. 5) ; and in the later prophecies all are in like manner included in the similar confessions : "All we like sheep have gone astray ; we are all as an iindcaii tiling'' (chaps, liii. 6; Ixiv. 6). In the vision his own lips are quickly cleansed, and " liis iniquity taken aivay!' yet with no message of cleansing for his leprous people ; but in his second prophecies, in which he is commissioned to say of the Messiah that " the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," he opens his 2 A 370 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. new message with tidings of joy for them, "Comfort ye my people ; cry unto Jerusalem that licr iniqiiity is pardoned" (chap. xl. 1, 2.) After the cleansing of his lips, there is the prophet's willing offer to be the Lord's messenger, which is met by the dark and unexpected message to " shut the eyes and the ears" of Israel (ver. 10). This commission he often recalls in the later chapters, as in the words, " He hath shut their eyes that they cannot see" (chap, xliv. 18) ; in the address, " Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind" (chap. xlii. 18) ; and in many other passages that will be noted afterwards, for this whole subject forms one of the leading features of the book. The accom- panying judgment to close their hearts "lest they understand with their hearts" is recalled in the later words, "He hath shut their hearts that they cannot understand" (chap. xliv. 18); and again in the tender pleading, " 0 Lord, why hast thou hardened our heart from thy fear ? " (chap. Ixiii. 1 7.) The aggravation of the sentence, " Until the cities he ivasted ivithout inhabitant" (ver. 11) is predicted in similar terms in the later prophecies as fulfilled : " The holy cities are a wilderness, . . . and all our pleasant things are laid ivaste" (chap. Ixiv. 10, 11). The further decree, " Until the land be utterly desolate, and there be a gresit forsaking in the midst of the land," is re- moved in the same express terms by the bright promise CH. II.] IsaiaJi s Vision in the Temple. 3 7 1 toward the end of the book, '' Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken ; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate " (chap. Ixii. 4). Finally, there is, in the vision, a closing limitation of the judgment set forth under an image taken from the finest of the forest trees : " But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten \i.e. ' it shall be eaten again '], as a teil tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves [' to which a root-trunk remaineth after the felling,' Eivalcl], so the holy seed shall he the suhstance thereof ^ The imperial power of the world, the proud Assyrian, is to fall hopelessly like the cedar which, when once cut down, never springs from the root again (chap. x. 34) ; but Israel, like the oak, is to sprout anew from the root in the revival of the nation, and especially in the person of the Messiah (chap. xi. 1). In like manner, near the end of the later prophecies, there is the same limitation of the affliction under a similar image from the finest of the fruit trees : " As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not ; for a blessing is in it : so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacoh, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains " (chap. Ixv. 8, 9). Even this slight sketch of the manifold coincidence between Isaiah's early vision and the later prophecies '^']2 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. gives good reason to infer that they were written by himself. Apart from what is personal to the prophet, the vision in the Temple consists of three great pro- phecies : The earth, as well as the Temple, to be filled with the glory of the Lord ; the eyes and ears of Israel to be closed ; and the land and people to be laid desolate, but with the promise of ultimate recovery. Correspondingly among the leading subjects of the later prophecies there is. The glory of the Lord filling Mount Zion and enlightening all the nations ; the opening of the eyes and ears of Israel ; the desolation of the people and the land, and their restoration. In the brief prophetic summary there is no naming of Babylon, but there is of the desolation of which it is the instrument; there is no naming of Cyrus as the restorer, but there is of Israel's sprouting again as from the root of the oak after the felling of the tree ; there is no specification of the Gentile nations, but there is the promise of the entire earth to be filled with the glory of the Lord ; and while there is no designation of the Eighteous Servant who is to bring in the light of that glory, there is the unanswered inquiry for that Messenger, for Isaiah's dark message is evidently not the final answer to the great question, " Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? " It is not yet made known to the prophet that the " Light of Israel " is Himself to be also the lowly minister and messenger CH. II.] Isaiah's Vision in the Temple. i']'^ of the light that is to fill the earth with the glory of the Lord. In the light of this vision, however, the Lord's Suffering Servant in the later prophecies is no discor- dant element ; but is one of the great connecting links between the two series of predictions. In the New Testament, the vision of Israel's closed eyes and shut ears has its great fulfilment in their rejection of Jesus Christ ; but it is the same in Isaiah's own pro- phecies. It is emphatically the Eighteous Servant who is " seen indeed, but not perceived," and is " heard indeed, but not understood." It is of Him that the prophet exclaims, " Who hath believed our report ? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ?" He is " wounded for their transgressions," but Israel " esteems him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;" the " chastisement of their peace is upon him," but " when they see him, there is no beauty that they should de- sire him." While, therefore, in the vision the suffering Servant of the Lord is not yet revealed, it is expressly regarding that Servant that the prophet afterwards brings out the great fulfilment of his own dark com- mission to Israel, and thus moulds the two sections of his book into one. 74 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. CHAPTEE III. HIS CHARACTERISTIC USE OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS, AND THEIR COGNATE TERMS IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE. " The people tliat walked in darkness have seen a great light" (ix. 2). "Arise, shine ; for thy light is come" (Ix. 1). " In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness " (xxix. 18). " Hear, ye deaf ; and look, ye blind, that ye may see" (xlii. 18). In proceeding to make a fuller inquiry into the genuineness of the second half of Isaiah, we select the special line of proof that presents itself in the figures and the figurative language with which the book abounds. In comparing the thoughts and words of the first section of these prophecies with the second for the purpose of proving that the author of both is one, we desire reverently to remember that Isaiah belonged to the fellowship of the " Holy men of God, w^ho spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" and that the prophet does not merely speak the mind CH. iTi.] Use of 'Light' and 'Darkness! 375 of the Lord, but the Lord Himself speaks to us through His servant. Yet the same God over all, who speaks through the Hebrew tongue of the prophet Isaiah and through the Greek of the apostle Paul, uses likewise the individual minds of each according to His own will, and speaks through the thoughts of their hearts, as well as through the words of their lips. The words of the Lord once revealed to His servants are engraven on their memories as with the point of a diamond, with a depth and a clearness that cannot be eflaced ; and they are recalled by His Holy Spirit in His subsequent revelations through their ministry. Our Lord seals St. Peter's great confession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," with the words, " On this rock I will build my church ;" and His ser- vant in his teaching does not forget to testify to the Eock on which the Church is built : " To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." Again, Christ charges him, " Peed my sheep ;" and the apostle, in remember- ing the charge itself, recalls the figure under which it had been given, and transmits to his successors in the ministry the admonition, " Feed the flock of God, and when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory." In comparing, therefore, the words and thoughts of Isaiah's first prophecies with the last, 37^ Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. we are only bringing out in his case the manner in which the Lord has ever spoken by His servants the prophets, both in using their separate minds, and in recalling to their memory the thoughts which He has once imparted to them by His Spirit. The various corresponding images in the two sections of Isaiah, give a manifold and unanswerable testimony to the unity of the book ; a testimony that can be transferred into every tongue, and understood by every reader. But we defer the consideration of these more distinct images, and shall take first the kindred subject of the prophet's use of figurative language. The images in the two sections, as perfect counterparts of each other, prove the book to be one ; but as detached pictures, they are less fitted to impart at the same time to each half a unity of its own. But the very sub- stance of the book that underlies it all is embodied in the prophet's figurative terms ; and these fit the two portions into one whole like the halves of a tally care- fully notched into each other. In the large discussion on the unity of Isaiah, there has been an elaborate and fruitful examination of his words and phrases. But there seems not to have been taken into the account the most distinctive element in his language, as indicative of a characteristic line of thought, his use of light and darkness, with their cog- nate terms, in a moral and spiritual sense. This use, CH. III.] Use of Light' and 'Darkness' ^ill although not peculiar to Isaiah, is characteristic of his writings, but of no other Old Testament author ; in the New Testament it is characteristic of the apostle John, with whom, however, it takes far less varied forms. Following this clew, let us compare the two halves of the book, first as regards the light, and then the dark- ness ; and afterwards as regards the Lord's Eighteous Servant, by whom the light is revealed and the dark- ness removed. I. Isaialis use of " Lighf' in a moral and spiritual sense. 1. Looking at it in the first half of the prophecies, we note that in reading the later chapters of the book the most abiding impression is of a light on Mount Zion, illuminating the whole earth with its glory. " If ever ' that good time coming,' for which we all of us long, was painted with energy and magnificence, it is in these chapters ; it is impossible to read them Avithout catching its glow." But this is also the subject of its oioening prophecy. If we take the view of most expositors, and receive the first chapter as a general introduction, we find the second chapter opening the whole series of prophecies with the great announcement, that " In the last days the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of tlie 3 7^ Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it" (ver. 2). The same prediction is found in Micah, and through several verses the two prophets use the same words in describing the attractive scene. But when they leave the words that belong to both, Micah says, " We will walk in the name of the Lord ;" but Isaiah says, " Let us walk in the liglit of the Lord;" and this use of liglit in a moral and spiritual sense marks the book throughout. It is not unfrequent in the Psalms, but very rare in the prophets, although light in the sense of joy and prosperity is common everywhere. In the fifth chapter Isaiah explains his meaning of liglit : " Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for dark- ness" (ver. 20). In the leading vision of the sixth chapter, as already noticed, the prophetic song of the seraphim, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory," anticipates the light of the glory of the Lord filling the whole earth in the latter day ; and in the eleventh chapter the prophet, in describing the holy mountain in this latter day, with its centre in the Root of Jesse, " whose rest shall be glorious" (onarg. glory), explains the glory that is to fill the whole earth as " the earth being full of the Jaioivledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." In the ninth chapter spiritual darkness is foretold, and spiritual light promised to those who are under it, cii. III.] Use of 'Light' and 'Darkness! 379 in the great prediction quoted in the beginning of the Gospel : " To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. . . . The people that walked in dark- ness have seen a great liglit : they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shiued" (chaps, viii. 20 ; ix. 2) and in the tenth chapter the Lord of Hosts is called " The Light of Israel." In the middle of the first half of the prophecies, a number of chapters are occupied with special burdens laid on various Gentile nations, in which are less to be expected such references to the final light of the earth. But further on, in this first half of the book, we have a singularly glorious prophecy of light for Israel and for the wliole world in the promise : " The Lord of hosts will destroy in this mountain the face of the cover- ing cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations" (chap. xxv. 1)} ^ The prophecy of chapters xxiv.-xxvii. is one of those of which the Isaian authorship has been disputed by many of the critics ; but they are not at all of one mind on the time or place of its utterance. "In this case, as in others," says Alexander, "each writer first determines upon general grounds the age of tbe pro- duction, and then confirms it by internal proofs. If it has not the usual characteristics of the author, it is therefore spurious ; if it has, it is evidently an imitation." But Rosenmiiller, who goes so far as to say that chapter xxi. 1-10 must have been written after the taking of Babylon by an eye-witness of the events, maintaius in the second edition of his Scholia (although not in the first), 380 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. Finally, in these first prophecies the light of the Lord is first described as so bright as to darken the sun and the moon : " The moon sludl he confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, . . . and before his ancients gloriously" (chap, xxiv. 23). Afterwards, but still in the first section, this image is singularly reversed, for the lights of heaven, instead of being eclipsed by the brighter glory of the Lord, are intensified sevenfold : " The light of the moon shall he as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall he sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound" (chap. XXX. 26). 2. Turning now to the second half of the prophecies, we have at their commencement the same light of the Lord irradiating Mount Zion, and filling all the earth. " The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together" (chap. xl. 5). Further on, in the forty-second chapter, " I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles" (ver. G) ; and again, " I will make darkness light before them" (ver. 16) ; and in the forty-ninth, " I will also give thee for a light to that chapters xxiv.-xxvii. were written by Isaiah. As regards the use of "light" and ** darkness," with their cognate terms, in a spiritual sense in both halves of the book, the argument would not be materially affected by the transference of all the disputed chapters to the latter half. CH. III.] Use of 'Light' and 'Darkjiess.' 381 the Gentiles ; . . . that thou mayest say to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves" (ver. 6, 9) ; and in the fifty-first, (ver. 4), " A law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people [the nations]." In the sixtieth chapter the final light of Zion is described at length: "Arise, shine; ioi i\\y light \b> come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the bright- ness of thy rising" (vers. 1, 3). In another connection, St. Paul has said that " Esaias is very bold ;" and in this large illustration of Zion's glory, the prophet takes up again the singular double idea of the light of the Lord first extinguishing and then enhancing the natural lights of heaven, which he had formerly given in two separate prophecies, and boldly reproduces it in two successive sentences. Yet here, as elsewhere, we have a partial change of image, for instead of a sun-like moon and a sevenfold sun, we have now a sun that never sets, and a moon that never wanes : " The s?m shall he no more thy light by day ; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee : but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." Then immediately the reverse : " Thy sun shall no more go down ; neither shall thy moon ivithdraio itself : for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory" (chap. Ix. 19, 20). 382 Isaiah : its halves a beatitifttl whole, [bk. vi. In the last chapter, in the closing scene of all, we read : " It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues ; and they shall come, and see my glory. And they shall bring all your brethren to my holy mountain Jerusalem" (chap. Ixvi. 18, 20) ; and so the circle is complete, and the end of the book is the exact fulfil- ment of its first opening prophecy that "All nations shall flow unto it, and many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob 1 0 house of Jacob ! come ye, and let us walk in the liglit of the Lord." All this is not mere resemblance ; it is unity. II. His use of ''Barhness'^ in a moral and spiritual sense. In the vision in the Temple, the seer's bright hope of the light of the Lord filling the earth with glory is suddenly clouded by the intervention of a deep dark- ness under his own ministration, for there is laid on him the burden — " Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes" (chap. vi. 9, 10) ; the people, it has been justly said, shutting their own eyes sinfully, the Lord shutting them judicially, and the prophet shutting them ministerially. This dark message he accepts in childlike submission, but CH. III.] Use of 'Light and 'Darkness' 383 asks with the promptness of an almost unparalleled grace, " Lord, how long ? " Holding fast the Divine assurance of the light in Zion filling all the earth, he earnestly inquires how long the darkness is to inter- vene. This guilty blindness, its removal by the Messiah bearing His people's sins, and the advent of the pro- mised light, are leading subjects of His message to Israel throughout the book. The various judgments on the kingdoms of the world, in which these subjects have little or no place, are subordinate to this great redemption. Israel's own captivity and deliverance, while occupying a large place in the prophecies, are also secondary to the spiritual darkness and light, which alone are included in the prophet's inquiry, " How long ? " The moral darkness is pictured in both parts of the book under a startling variety of imagery and of figura- tive terms. It is the darkness of Night, the darkness of Prison, the darkness of a dense Mist, the darkness of a thick Veil, the darkness of a Book to a man who cannot read, and of a Sealed Book to one who can, the darkness of Closed Eyes, the darkness of Blindness, the darkness of Drunkenness, the darkness of Sleep, and the darkness of Death. The closing of the eyes and the hardening of the heart, that are threatened in the sixth chapter, are in the second part predicted as fulfilled : " He hath shut 384 Isaiah : its halves a beautiftcl whole, [bk. vi. their eyes that they cannot see, and their hearts that they cannot understand " (chap. xliv. 1 8.) The torpor of sleep, or spiritual death, which in the Old Testament occurs only in Isaiah, is in the first part, "The Lord hath poured upon you the spirit of deep sleep ; " and in the second, " His watchmen are ignorant; sleeping, loving to slumber" (chaps, xxix. 10; Ivi. 10). In the first a woe is denounced on those who trust in the delusion of a false light : *' Woe unto them that put darkness for light, and light for darkness;" and in the second there is the denunciation of a similar woe : " Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks : walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow" (chaps, v. 20; L. 11). The stupefaction of sin is in the first, " They are drunken, but not with wine;" in the second the stupefaction of sorrow as the judgment on sin, " Thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine " (chaps, xxix. 9 ; li. 21). In the first there is the darkness of spiritual night ; and in the second the similar darkness of the prisoner's cell (chaps, ix. 2 ; xlix. 9). In the first the mental darkness is the covering of a close veil; and in the second it is the covering of a thick mist (chaps, xxv. 7 ; Ix. 2). CH. III.] Use of 'Light' and 'Darkness! 385 But instead of following out these various resem- blances, let us examine the t\yo leading ideas of Uincl- ncss and deafness in connection with the prophet's great message to Israel. 1. The SinritualUj Blind. — In the Old Testament outside of Isaiah, those whose mental vision is closed are never designated the hlincl, except w^e so take the expression in one of the last of the Psalms, " The Lord openeth the eje^ of the blind" (Ps. cxlvi. 8), which seems to include figurative as well as literal blindness. This passage, however, cannot designate inward blind- ness in its leading New Testament sense conveyed in the words, " Ye fools and blind," and " Thou knowest not that thou art blind." But it may probably embrace the secondary sense of conscious and help- less darkness,^ for the blind are here associated with other objects of compassion, the famished, the prisoners, the strangers, the fatherless, and the widows. The same may perhaps be allow^ed of the prediction in the thirty-fifth of Isaiah, ver. 5, " Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened ; " which certainly refers in the first instance to the spiritually blind, but is taken literally by some interpreters, and may include both senses. But the promise in the 18th verse of the twenty-ninth 1 '* Persons in the darkness of misery, Ps. cxlvi. 8." — Gesenius. 2 B 386 Isaiah : its lialves a beautifttl whole, [bk. vl chapter, " In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of tlu hlincl shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness," refers evidently and by general consent to the morally blind as its primary meaning ; -^ and there is nothing to indicate any other application. " The people that are now blind and deaf, so far as the word of Jehovah is concerned, are changed into a people with open ears and seeing eyes " (Delitzsch). The reference is to the sin and judgment described in the preceding verses, "the spirit of deep sleep poured on Israel, and their eyes closed," so that " the vision of all had become to them as the words of a book that is sealed" (vers. 10, 11) ; and the promise is that the morally deaf Israel shall hear, and the self- blinded Israel shall read the words of this book. The deafness and the blindness in this passage are as purely spiritual as the closing of the eyes and the shutting of the ears of Israel in the prophet's great vision, or as in the Lord's commission to the apostle of the Gentiles — " I send thee to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God ;" but as unquestionably, and with the general concurrence of interpreters, the commands in the forty-second chapter, ver, 1 8, " Hear, ye deaf ; and look, ye blind, that ye may see ;" and in the forty-third, 1 " Metaph. de ceecitate animi. — Persons in the darkness of ignorance. — Isaiah xxix. 18 ; xhi. 18, 19; xliii. S.^'—Gesenins. CH. III.] Use of 'Lig/if and 'Darkness.' 387 ver. 8, " Bring forth the deaf people that have ears, and the blind that have eyes," belong also to the morally blind, and to them alone. Altogether in the second sec- tion of Isaiah, the term "blind" is used not less than eight times in a figurative sense in such expressions as these : " I have called thee to open the blind eyes ; I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not ; who is blind but my servant ; his watchmen are blind " (chaps, xlii. 7, 16, 19 ; Ivi. 9). The opening of the eyes of the blind is never in the Old Testament ascribed to the Messiah, except in the Book of Isaiah. Except in the Book of Isaiah there is in the entire Old Testament only a single instance in which the designation "blind" is used in a manner that may include a fisjurative sense, and no instance whatever in which it means proud and wilful blindness. In Isaiah this singular and absolutely peculiar use of the term is neither accidental nor isolated ; but in both halves of this book stands in evident and immediate connection with his mission to close the eyes and shut the ears of Israel. The question why Isaiah so uses the word in a sense peculiar to himself, finds a simple answer in his divine message. But the question why, out of thirty-nine books in the Old Testament, this book alone so uses the term in both its sections, can be answered only by admitting that both halves of Isaiah were written by himself. 388 Isaiah : its halves a beautiftil whole, [bk. vi. 2. The Spiritually Deaf. — The same conclusion is brought out even more remarkably in Isaiah's use of the cognate designation of " the deaf I' who are so invariably associated with the blind. Isaiah's figurative use of this term in both halves of his book stands absolutely and conspicuously alone in the entire Bible. Christ unstopped the ears of the deaf; He gave it as a token of His being the Messiah, " the blind receive their sight, and the deaf hear ; " and this bodily healing was evidently employed by Him as a sign of opening the inward ear. But He used the term " deaf " only for the outward defect. The ear of man closed to the voice of God is common to all the Scriptures ; yet such men are never called deaf either in the Old Testament or the ISTew, except in Isaiah.^ In the N'ew Testament men in spiritual darkness are often spoken of as blind ; but the dull hearers of the AYord are never designed as the deaf, and the unlocking of the doors of the heart is never called the opening of deaf ears. This is singularly 1 Sclileusner's Lexicon of the New Testament contains a careful examination of the Greek word for d€((f, and gives its different shades of meaning, as in the " dumb and deaf spirit " (Mark ix. 25), which it explains to mean a spirit causing deafness ; but it adduces no figurative or moral sense whatever of the term in the New Testament. In the " Thesaurus " of Gesenius the reference for the Hebrew word in a moral sense is only to Isaiah xxix. 18 ; xlii. 18, 19 ; xliii. 8 ; and in his Lexicon he explains it to mean " Those who refuse to hear the prophets and obey the law." CH. III.] Use of 'Lighf and 'Da7'kness! 389 reserved for that prophet alone on whom was laid the burden of announcing the judicial closing of the ears of rebellious Israel. In predicting the great redemption in his earlier prophecies he is privileged to foretell that " In that day the r^t'^/ shall hear the words of the book" (chap. xxix. 18), which refers expressly to moral deaf- ness ; and again, " Then the ears of tlic deaf shall be unstopped," which may include the outward with the inward hearing (chap. xxxv. 5). The author of the later prophecies uses the word quite as clearly in its spiritual sense, and in a still more striking manner. The same Isaiah who had been sent to stop the ears of Israel has already been privileged to predict the recalling of the judgment by foretelling that " the deaf" should hear the words of the book ; and he is now inspired to bring near the future as if already present, to repeat his own designation of Israel, and to make the grand announcement, " Hear, ye deaf' (chap. xlii. 18). Afterwards he advances a step further, and calls on those deaf hearers of the Lord's voice to come into light and joy : " Bring forth tlie deaf that have ears" (chap, xliii. 8). No prophet had ever so spoken of the "deaf" before ; to this day none has ever so spoken of them again ; and a form of speech so altogether singular must have come from one speaker in both prophecies. The identity is not in word merely, but in thought ; it is not in a matter of a casual 390 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. or secondary kind, but springs directly from the root of Isaiah's divine message in his great vision in the Temple ; and can be ascribed only to an identity of origin in the mind of one author. Isaiah alone of all the prophets in Israel receives a commission to close their eyes and to shut their ears ; and Isaiah alone of all calls them, for their proud ignorance of God, both blind and deaf, no other Hebrew writer speaking of them as either the one or the other. The connection is at once evident and close between the prophet's commission and his use of these two designations ; they are used in the later prophecies exactly in the same manner as in the earlier ; and in these as in the first, they bear the impress of the lips that were touched with the holy fire of the man who saw the bright vision for Israel, with their own eyes closed to the beauty of the Lord, and their ears shut to the " good tidings of great joy." CH. IV.] The Messenger of Light. 391 CHAPTEE IV. THE MESSENGER OF LIGHT TO ISRAEL AND THE WORLD. " Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ?" (vi. 8.) " The Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent Me" (xlviii. 16). " He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations" (xxv. 7). " Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. ... I the Lord have called thee, . . . and will give thee ... for a light of the Gentiles ; to open the blind eyes " (xlii. 1, 6, 7). 1. Isaiah! s dark message. — In the Lord's dealings of old with His servants the prophets, there are few of so very peculiar a character as the transaction recorded by Isaiah in his vision in the Temple. The contrast between its opening light and its closing darkness is so great, the transition so sudden from the loftiest ecstasy to the deepest woe, that one of the most eminent critics on Isaiah regards the latter half as a subsequent un- folding of the vision to the prophet. (Cheyne's Pro- phecies of Isaiah) But the rapid transition would be impossible only if the thoughts were self- originated in 392 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. yi. the prophet's mind, not when they are given from above ; and the whole scene is evidently one both in place and in time. Yet it is in striking contrast to the Lord's ordinary dealing with His servants, for He is able to raise them out of the depth of sorrow into songs of joy ; but Isaiah could only say, " Thou hast lifted me up, and cast me dowm." For the explanation of the dark close of the vision, the angelic song of the " Earth being full of the glory of the Lord," must have been understood by Isaiah as foretelling the glory of the latter day, in exact accord- ance with his own first prophecy of " the mountain of the Lord's house exalted above the hills, and all nations flowing: unto it," and the house of Israel invited to " walk in the light of the Lord " (chap. ii. 2, 5). It is only by his having so understood the angels' song that we can explain his meek and prompt reply to the dark message committed to him, when he inquires, " How Ions: ? " It is their assurance that the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord that emboldens him to ask how long the eyes of Israel are to be closed to that glory. The purpose of the Lord, as previously made known to himself, and now gloriously revealed by the seraphic hosts, is to fill the whole \vorld of Jew and Gentile with His own glory ; and when the Lord asks whom He w411 send and who will go, the object of the inquiry evidently is for a fit messenger to CH. IV.] The Messenger of Light, 393 convey the light that is to fill all the earth. One of those ano^els of lio^ht niiejht seem the fittest for such an office ; but when none of them makes offer of his services, the prophet with his leprous lips now cleansed, and with his heart kindled with love to God and to men, offers himself, " Here am I, Lord, send me." His offer is to be sent as the messenger of light to the children of Israel and to the sons of men ; and while he accepts the message of darkness by not refus- ing it, he expresses no formal acceptance because he does not understand that this was the object of the Lord's desire for a messenger; but he humbly asks " how long " the darkness is to last, and by implication " how soon " he is to be intrusted with the message of promised light. The Lord's answer intimates the long continuance of the darkness, with an ultimate resurrec- tion out of it ; but is absolutely silent as to committing to the prophet the great message of light for the world. Let us not forget, that the prophet's meekness in obeying the Lord under this rarely paralleled disap- pointment was amply recompensed by the consolations he has been enabled to minister in his later prophecies to a multitude out of every kindred and tongue, whom no man can number, in all ages of the world ; by his wondrous description of the " Man of Sorrows ; " and by his bright foretelling of the Lord's Elect as the light of all nations. 394 Isaiah : its halves a beatitiftil zvhole. [bk. vi. 2. Messiah the Prince in the first prophecies, and the same in the second. — In the vision tlie Lord's inquiry for a messenger to fill the earth with light remains unanswered. The question is double : for before the inquiry, Who is willing to go, there is the greater in- quiry, Who is he whom the Lord will choose for His messenger ? Whom shall I send ? This is a question which none can answer but the Lord Himself It is the Lord overheard by the prophet taking counsel with Himself, and asking on whom His own choice will rest. Whom will He select ? The Man of the Lord's election to bring light to the earth, in the capacity of a servant or messenger, is not stated in the first series of prophecies. In these prophecies the light that is to enlighten Israel and the world is expressly connected with the incarnation of the Eternal Word : " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light : . . . For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : . . . his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (chap. ix. 2-6). And so after- wards, " A king shall reign in righteousness. . . . And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken" (chap, xxxii. 1, 3). This Deliverer in whom the " great light " is to shine, who is to break the yoke of the oppressor, is the same who had been called the child Immanuel, who is to CH. IV.] The Messenger of Light. 395 be a ruler on the throne of David, a prince and a king ; but never designated as a servant or as a messenger to bring forth the promised light. In these first pro- phecies there is no connection indicated between this Prince of Peace, this Immanuel, and the Lord's in- quiry. Whom shall I send ? Nor is there any clear intimation of the Messiah taking the form of a servant ; although it is stated that when He is to spring from the royal house of Israel, it is not from the family flourishing in its strength, but cut down to the earth, and a branch springing out of its root, and that not in David the king, but simply in Jesse (chap. xi. 1) ; and also that the Messiah is to be for '' a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel," and "for a sign and wonder" (chap. viii. 14, 18). In other respects the promised Messiah is represented in His greatness, honour, and power, and not in His humilia- tion. In respect of dignity, the Messiah in the later pro- phecies is evidently the same as in the first. In the first His birth from a Virgin mother is predicted, and His name is to be called Immanuel; in the second He says, "The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name" (chaps, vii. 14 ; xlix. 1). In the first the people say, " Unto us a son is given : the government shall be upon his shoulder : . . . his name shall be 39^ Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. called the Prince of Peace ; " in the second the Lord says, " Behold, I have given him for a Leader (or prince) and commander to the peojole " (chaps, ix. 6 ; Iv. 4). In the first it is promised, " The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him ; " in the second the Lord says, "I have put my Spirit upon him;" and he announces, " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me " (chaps, xi. 2 ; xlii. 1 ; Ixi. 1). In the first His name is " Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God ; " in the second He is to be " exalted and extolled, and be very high," (chaps, ix. 6; lii. 13). In the first, "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end ; " in the second, kings are to be dumb before him, and the " isles shall wait for his law " (chaps, ix. 7; lii. 15; xlii. 4). In the first. His throne is to be established " with judgment and with justice ; " in the second He is to " establish the earth," and to " set judgment in the earth" (chaps, ix. 7; xlix. 8; xlii. 4). In both "the meek of the earth" are the special objects of His care (chaps, xi. 4 ; Ixi. 1). 3. Messiah, the Lord's Servant, sent to reveal the promised light. The honoured Messiah is clearly the same in both halves of the prophecies ; but one of the chief arguments adduced against their unity is that in the first series He is neither called a servant, nor subjected to suffering. But the later prophecies are supposed to have been written by Isaiah fifty years CH. IV.] TJie Messeno^er of Light. 397 after the vision in the Temple ; and it is in accordance with our Lord's dealing with His apostles that the prophet should first have seen His glory, and after- wards have entered into His sufferino-s. This is o strikingly brought out in the title of "Prince of Peace " in the first prophecies, and the price at which the title is purchased in the second : " The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed." The designation Servant of the Lord, given to the Messiah in the second series, is one of high lionour, and as such is given to Abraham, Moses, David; it also belongs to the Messiah as subjected to suffering and humiliation. But it is a strongly corroborative proof of the unity of the book that, whether exalted or humbled, He is the Lord's Servant and Messenoer to bring in the light, and to remove the darkness. " Jacob, who is termed the servant of Jcliovah, is called sometimes the elect, chosen of God (Isa. xli. 8 ; xlv. 4) ; sometimes ambassador and friend (chap. xlii. 1 9) ; and so in the plural, ambassadors (chap. xliv. 26). But in all the passages respecting the Serrant of God in the chapters of the last part of Isaiah (xlii. 1-7 ; xlix. 1-9 ; 1. 4-10; lii. 13; liii. 12), He is represented as the intimate Friend and Ambassador of God, as aided by the Divine Spirit, and as about to restore the tribes of Israel and become the teacher of other nations" 39^ Isaiah : its halves a beautiftil whole, [bk. vi. {Gesenius). Now it is this Servant, this Friend, this Ambassador of God, on whom God's choice has rested to bring forth the promised light, and to remove the darkness of Israel and the earth. It is He in whom we find, not in the first, but in the second prophecies, God's own answer to His inquiry, "Whom shall I send?" God Himself brings Him forth with the most solemn attestation both of His own choice, and of the end for which this Servant is chosen and sent : " Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth ; . . . I will give thee for a covenant of the people (Israel), for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes" (chap. xlii. 1, 6, 7). This honoured Servant is sent for the express purpose, at once of revealing the light promised in the angelic prophecy, and of removing the Uindness predicted in Isaiah's own mission. It is He alone, and not Isaiah, wlio caUs Himself the Sent of the Lord. His own words on earth are a constant answer to the question, " Whom shall I send ? " There is nothing to which He oftener refers than His being sent " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. . . . The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." So in the later pro- phecies of Isaiah he says, " The Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me : The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; because ... he hath se7it me ... to pro- CH. IV.] The Messenger of Light. 399 claim . . . the opening of the prison to them that are bound "^ (chaps, xlviii. 16; Ixi. 1); and in announc- ing His mission in the Gospel, " He hath sent me . . . to preach recovering of sight to the hliiul " (Luke iv. 18). 4. His emhassy of light involves darkness for Himself. — While this chosen Ambassador and Servant of the Lord stands in the place of highest honour, His embassy and service are unto the deepest humiliation. On earth, when He had taken on Himself the form of a servant, He speaks of it as a service unto death for His people : " The Son of man came not to be min- istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." So in Isaiah, "Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins," as if the Lord Himself were reduced to servitude in bearing our sins ; and the Messiah is not only the honoured Servant of the Lord, but is spoken of as the despised servant of men, as " Him whom man despiseth, whom the nation abhor- reth, a servant of rulers " (chap. xlix. 7). Isaiah is sent on a dark mission to others, and he refuses not ; but the Messiah is sent on a mission fiUed 1 Or, ** the opening of the eyes : " Delitzsch says, that as the Hebrew word " is never used to signify the opening of a room, but is always applied to the opening of the eyes, except in chapter xlii. 20, where it is used for the opening of the ears, we adhere to the strict usage of the language, if we understand by it the opening up of the eyes (as contrasted with the dense darkness of the prison)." 400 Isaiah : its halves a beatitiftil whole, [bk. vi. with suffering, darkness, and death to Himself; and from this mission of inconceivable sorrow He turns not aside. In contrast to Israel with closed ears, He says of Him- self, " The Lord God hath opened mine ears," his ears ever open to every word of His Father ; just as in con- trast to the prophet with his lips unclean, He is spoken of as the " righteous Servant," with lips that need no cleansing, because " there was no deceit in his mouth." But with His ears open to the message and command of the Lord, that command is that " He shall give his back to the smiters ;" He hears the mission, and says, " I was not rebellious, neither turned away back : I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair " (chap. L. 5, 6). But the predicted suffering of the Lord's Messenger brings out, in a remarkable manner, the liglit and the darkness that run as a continuous thread through all the thoughts given to Isaiah, first and last, concerning the glory of the latter day. In the forty-second chap- ter, the Lord's chosen Messenger is sent " to open the blind eyes " (ver. 7) ; the Lord then takes the humble blind by the hand : " I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not ; I will make darkness light before them" (ver. 16); ^ and, presently. He speaks the creative ^ The same distinction between the proud and humble blind is made by our Lord in the Gospel of St. John (chap. ix. 39, 41). He had repeatedly called the Pharisees *' blind," and "blind leaders of CH. IV.] The Messenger of Light, 401 word that turns their darkness into light : '' Hear, ye deaf ; and look, ye blind, that ye may see" (ver. 18). A wondrous spectacle now meets their opening eyes. The Messenger of the Covenant, likened afterwards to the sheep that is dumb before her shearers, is now described under a kindred affection as deaf, just as the two are combined in the Psalms : " I, as a deaf man, heard not ; and I was as a dumb man, that openeth not his mouth." When Pilate marvelled at the silence of Jesus, he not only asked him, " Speakest thou not ? " but " Hearest thou not ? " and the suffering Servant, described in the fifty-third chapter as dumb, is in the forty-second represented as deaf. In the process of recovery, Israel has already passed from the blindness of self-reliant light into the humility of helpless dark- ness ; his designation as blind is no longer a brand of evil, but a recognition of good ; and instead of the land being " forsaken " on account of the people's blindness, they are assured that because they are blind the Lord will " not forsake them." In this use of the term, more than half the way has been traversed toward the further transition from the gracious blindness of a penitent people, to the self-denying blindness of the Lord's Ser- vant, when He takes on Himself the guilt of their blind- the blind ;" yet He says here, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin ;" si inscitiam vestram agnosccretis — Schleusner ; if they acknowledged their blindness, it would be removed. 2 C 402 Isaiah : its halves a beatitifttl whole, [bk. yi. ness of heart. The eyes of Israel are turned to blind- ness and deafness of an unparalleled character, when compared with which all other must be reckoned light. There is One on whom all the iniquities of ran- somed Israel are laid ; to whom the guilt of all their blindness and deafness is so transferred, that He alone is now accounted blind and deaf in Israel ; none amongst them blind hut the Lord's Servant, none deaf as the Lord's Messenger. (" Ccccus est atque surdus imputative") Israel is now called to look on their Messiah blindfolded and buffeted for their sakes as a pretended seer, and enduring quietly their cruel mock- eries as if He observed them not. In the beginninsf of the chapter the Lord says to Israel, " Behold my ser- vant, whom I uphold ; " then to his Servant in the seventh verse, " I will give thee to open the blind eyes;" then in the sixteenth, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not ; I will make darkness light before them ; " then to Israel in the eighteenth : "Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. 'Who is blind, but my servant ? or deaf, as my messen- ger that I sent ? [or, " whom I send," or " will send ? "] ^ who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant ? Seeing many things, but thou observest not ; opening the ears [^, e. the ears of the deaf], but he ^ So Alexander, Delitzsch, Henderson, Cheyne, Nagelsbach, Arnold, Speaker's Commentary. cir. IV.] The Messenger of Light. 403 heareth not. The Lord is well pleased for his right- eousness* sake ; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable" (chap. xlii. 18-21).^ In the forty-third chapter, there follows the consum- mation of all the prophet's longings in the Lord's com- mand : " Bring forth the hlind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears," that is, the blind that now have eyes, and the deaf that now have ears ; and after- wards, in the final annunciation : " This people have I formed for myself ; they shall shew forth my praise " (chap, xliii. 8-21). In the vision in the Temple there is the great pro- mise of the earth to be filled with the glory of the Lord ; and the great requirement of a Messenger chosen, sent, and willing to bring in the light of that glory. 1 Henderson, and Xagelsbach, and the 8peaker''s Commentary interpret these verses of the Messiah ; and every other interpreta- tion does great ^dolence to the description of the Lord's Servant, his Messenger, the Perfect One, as well as to His magnifying of the law. Henderson says that "nowhere in Scripture is Israel spoken of as the Lord's messenger." " Seeing many things, and not observing," or noticing, is quite different from " seeing and not perceiving." In Scripture " opening the ear" is seldom, if ever, spoken of the hearer ; it is almost always " inclining the ear ;" and to open one's own ear and yet not to hear would seem to be a direct contradic- tion. " Opening the ears" must therefore be understood of the ears of the deaf. We desire it to be noted that the interpretation of this passage, whether as applied to the Messiah or to Israel, makes no difference whatever in the argument of our previous chapter for the unity of the book ; because the critics who apply it to Israel receive it as a picture of their extreme moral blindness and deafness. 404 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. Isaiah is willing, but for this great work he is not accepted. In the New Testament Christ is Himself the "Light of the world;" and at the same time the chosen, sent, and willing Servant and Messenger of the Father to reveal the light. Isaiah never speaks of himself as either chosen or sent for this end ; but in his later prophecies he brings forward the Messiah reveal- ing Himself, and saying of the Lord, " In the shadow of his hand hath he hid me : ... in his quiver hath he hid me" (chap. xlix. 2) ; announced by the Father to be His Elect, attested by himself as Sent ; willing to go so as not even to "hide his face from shame and spitting ;" and not failing till He has become " a light to the Gentiles, salvation unto the end of the earth." Piegarding the Lord's righteous Servant, one note more may be added. The discovery in the Temple is of a leprous king, a leprous prophet, and a leprous people, all of unclean lips ; and when, in the later pro- phecies, the Lord lays on Him the iniquity of all, He bears the guilt of the moral leprosy. " He was wounded for our transgressions, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God ; " the same stroke falling on Him as fell on Uzziah when " the Lord had smitten him ; " or, as in one of our old Bibles — " We helden him as lep- rous" (quasi leprosum, Vulg). So truly do the later prophecies fill up the earlier; and so evidently is it Isaiah himself and none other that describes the Lord's righteous Servant. CH. v.] Images peculiai^ to Isaiah. 405 CHAPTER V. IMAGES PECULIAE TO ISAIAH. " The covering is narrower than that he can wrap himself in it (xxviii. 20). " They cover with a covering, but not of my Spirit " (xxx. 1). " They weave a web without my Spirit'" (Ewald's Isaiah, do). " They weave the spider's web ; their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works" (lix. 5, 6). The same agreement that pervades the substance of the book in both its halves is found in a variety of other forms, which demand less of our attention as they have been noted by not a few authors. Corresponding thoughts and expressions in the two portions will occur to every reader ; as when, in the first, it is said, " The Lord who hideth his face from the house of Jacob ;" and in the second, " Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, 0 God of Israel" (chaps, viii. 17; xlv. 15). Or again, in the first, " Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for him, ... we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation ;" and in the second, '' They that wait upon 4o6 Isaiah : its halves a deautiftil zuhole. [bk. vi. the Lord shall renew their strength" (chaps, xxv. 9 ; xl. 31). But, adhering to the line we have mainly followed in the prophet's figurative language, let us now look at some of the detached images with which the book abounds, as showing a very striking agreement between the two series of prophecies ; an agreement which is evidently not accidental, is too natural to be the result of a designed imitation, and in some instances can only have been the fruit of one mind. In the first section we have the threatening, " Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth ;" and in the second we have its confessed fulfilment, "We all do fade as a leaf " (chap. i. 30 ; Ixiv. 6). In the first section there is the judgment, " Ye shall be as a garden that hath no water;" in the second its promised removal, " Thou shalt be as a watered garden" (chaps, i. 30 ; Iviii. 9). In the first section the Lord asks, " Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith ? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?" In the second He declares, " Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work ; and I have created the waster to destroy" (chaps, x. 15 ; liv. 16). In the first section it is prophesied of the Messiah that " There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of CH. v.] Images peculiar to Isaiah. 407 Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots;" m the second the prophet complains that his report is not believed, " For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground " (chaps, xi. 1 ; liii. 2). In the first section the clay magnifies itself against the potter, " Your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay : for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not?" in the second the clay humbles itself in the potter's hand, '' But now, 0 Lord, we are the clay, and thou our potter ; and we all are the work of thy hand " (chaps, xxix. 16 ; Ixiv. 8). In the first section the gracious promise of life for all people is set forth as a " Feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees;" in the second there is an earnest invitation to all men to partake of this feast, " Come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price; eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness" (chaps, xxv. 6 ; Iv. 1, 2). Among these corresponding images there are five IKculiar to the Book of Isaiah, being found nowhere else either in the Old Testament or the New. With most of these beautiful figures we are so familiar that we forget that we meet with them only in the pages of Isaiah. 1. In the first half the hour of the nation's extremity is set forth under the image of a Heljylcss Birth : " The children are come to the birth, and there is not strength 4o8 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. to bring forth." In the second, the Lord's very present help in the time of need is promised by recalling the image, " Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth, saith the Lord?" (chaps, xxxvii. 3 ; Ixvi. 9.) The image occurs first in the words of Hezekiah, but it is Isaiah who records them ; they were addressed to him by the King in such a season of extremity as could not fail to engrave them on his heart; and no words of his own prophecies would be more surely recalled to his memory by the Holy Spirit. 2. In the first section the relation of the Lord to His people, as their honour, ornament, and praise, is set forth under the image of a Croivn and Diadem : " The Lord of Hosts shall be for a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty unto the residue of his people." In the second this idea is not copied in the way of repetition ; but we have what is more striking, the converse of the relation in His people being a praise and beautiful ornament to the Lord expressed by the same image and in the same words, " Thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God " (chaps, xxviii. 3 ; Ixii. 3). The image of a crown is very frequent in the Scriptures. The virtuous woman is a crown to her husband ; children's children are a crown to old men ; the converts of the apostle Paul are his hope and joy and crown ; and on the head of our Lord are many crowns. Yet Isaiah Cii. v.] Images pecicliar to Isaiah. 409 aloue in all the Holy Writings calls the Lord a crown and a diadem for His people, and His people a crown and a diadem for the Lord. 3. In the first half of Isaiah the Lord's constant keeping and seasonable saving of Jerusalem is con- densed into the promise of salvation in the abstract, of Salvation itself for its Walls — " Salvation wdll God appoint for walls and bulwarks." In the second half this remarkable promise is not reiterated as from the mouth of the Lord ; but there is the assured prediction of its vivid apprehension and cordial appropriation by Israel : " Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation and thy gates Praise" (chaps, xxvi. 1 ; Ix. 18). 4. But the fullest of the images peculiar to Isaiah is his early and beautiful picture of the Wolf and the Lamb in the latter day, when " the 'svolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox," which he reproduces towards the end in the pre- diction tlmt '' the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock ;" while he changes the " child playing on the hole of the asp" into " dust shall be the serpent's meat," (chaps, xi. 6, 9 ; Ixv. 25). Elsewhere the lion and the wolf are the emblems of ferocity, the ox and the lamb of gentleness. But, except in Isaiah, neither in the Old Testament nor in the New is the one transformed into the other ; not, indeed, that the wolf's outer clothing of fur is changed 4 1 o Isaiah : its halves a beautifid whole, [bk. vi. into the wool of the fleece, but his inborn savageness into the meekness of the lamb. By the advocates of a second Isaiah the second pas- sage is held to be merely a quotation from the first, and to prove nothing more than acquaintance with his writings. Of itself this familiar acquaintance, which is everywhere so apparent, has a most important bearing on the honesty and the inspiration of the alleged anonymous imitator of Isaiah ; but the later prophecies present an interesting and curious proof that the image is not employed by a nameless copyist, bub by Isaiah himself. As with the wolf and the lamb, so the brier and the thorn are recognised Scrip- tural emblems of the wicked ; and trees of beauty, fragrance, or fruit, of the righteous. But just as with the wolf and the lamb, so with the Brier and the Myrtle, the substitution of the one for the other, or their transformation, is quite peculiar to Isaiah : " Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree" (chap. Iv. 13). These words bear a direct reference to the judgment in the earlier prophecies against " the Lord's vineyard, the house of Israel and the men of Judah, his pleasant plant," on which were to " come up briers and thorns ; " and they announce the reversal of that judgment. But this figure of a holy trans- formation is closely akin to that of the wolf becoming CH. v.] Images peculiar' to Isaiah. 411 a lamb ; and from the same root in the prophet's mind there have sprung, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the twin images in his later writings. The emblems themselves are familiar in the other Scriptures ; but no other writer in the whole Bible either originates or repeats the idea of the Lord trans- forming the fierceness of the lion into the gentleness of the ox, or the sharpness of the brier into the soft- ness of the myrtle. The author of the later prophecies stands quite alone in thinking Isaiah's thoughts on the peacefulness of the earth's latter day ; and these thoughts form a beautiful link in the full chain of evidence that he is no other than Isaiah. 5. The image of Righteousness as ct Robe brings out a striking example of the same kind in the two sections of the prophecies. In one of the later chapters of Isaiah the figure is brought out with great beauty in the song of praise : "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God ; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bride- groom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels" (chap. Ixi. 10). But the same figure had already been employed by the patriarch Job : " I put on righteousness, and it clothed me ; my judgment was as a robe and a diadem ; " and it occurs in various forms in other Scriptures, as in the 4 1 2 Isaiah : its halves a beaictiful whole, [bk. vi. " clothing of humility," and in " the fine linen, the righteousness of the saints." The image is far from being peculiar to Isaiah, but its very frequency discloses more clearly his marked singularity ; for he not only extols the Divine right- eousness as a beautiful and ample robe for man, but brings out the converse of the picture, and brands self- deceit in both halves of his prophecy as too scanty a garment to cover him. It is a curious distinction of the prophet's writings, that in the other sixty-five books of the Bible the image of unrighteousness or self-righteousness as an insufficient Raiment for man is never employed ; while he makes a striking use of it in both sections of his book, yet in such a form that the second has evidently not copied it from the first. In the first half the sin is " Under falsehood have they hid themselves," and the instructive image for the too common cloak of self-deceit is that, " The covering is narrower than that a man can wrap himself in it" (chap, xxviii. 15, 20) ; which is referred to again in the words, " They cover with a covering, but not of my spirit," or as Ewald translates, " They weave a web without my spirit," (chap. xxx. 1). In the second half the sin is the same, " They trust in vanity, and speak lies," and the image of the scanty garment the same. But the kind of garment is quite different : " They weave the spider's web, . . . their webs shall not CH. v.] Images peculiar to Isaiah, 413 become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works ;" the narrow coverlet rising into the more complete image of the self-spun, puny, and fragile web of the spider, which its weaver chooses rather than the robe of righteousness, and the garments of salvation (chap. lix. 4, 5). It would be a strange and incredible coincidence that no succeeding writer in the Bible should have taken up Isaiah's image of the Narrow Coverlet; and that a second Isaiah had re- peated this very special thought under the new and independent image of the Spider's Web in a form more beautiful and perfect than the original ; a false Isaiah more strikingly genuine than the true. The numerous corresponding images in the two halves of the prophetic book, and especially those which are peculiar to Isaiah, The Helpless Birth, the Crown and Diadem, the Walls of Salvation, the Wolf and the Lamb, and the Narrow Covering, show a marked and varied agreement between the two portions for which we can find no natural explanation, except in their owning a common author. These remarkable ideas in the prophecies of Isaiah, being neither origin- ated by any previous writer in the Old Testament, nor adopted by any subsequent writer in the Old Testa- ment or the New, serve to stamp on the book the seal of one author with his individual and peculiar cast of thought. 414 Isaiah: its halves a deatUiful whole, [bk. vi. The various jjvoofs of unity. — The examination of the unity of the Book of Isaiah in this and the preceding chapters has been nearly confined to a single line of evidence. But even in this restricted range, the proofs of unity are at once so visible on the surface and so deep in the substance of the book ; and they are so numerous, so various, and so concurrent, as to leave no room for doubt that the whole is one. An assiduous author might become the double of another by a skil- ful repetition of his ideas. But he cannot by any art fashion himself into his second half; he cannot engraft his own conceptions into the other's mind by com- pleting his deepest thoughts ; and so fit them in, and fill all up as if only one thinker had conceived the whole. cii. YT.] The Prophet not an Exile. 4 1 5 CHAPTER VI. THE AUTHOR OF THE LATER PROPHECIES NOT AN EXILE. " Then he [that is, Israel] remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? . . . Look down from heaven, and behold. . . . Thy holy cities are a wilderness, our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire" (Ixiii. 11, 15 ; Ixiv. 10, 11). The unity of Isaiah has been amply proved by eminent critics on grounds in great part different from those that we have chiefly taken; all the arguments concur in strengthening the whole evidence ; and from the proofs we have adduced, apart from all others, we must hold the unity of the book to be conclusively proved. It is held, however, that the author of the later prophecies could not have been Isaiah, but must have been one of the exiles of Babylon, on the grounds of his language, of his taking the position of an exile, and of his specific predictions regarding Cyrus. 1. The style and diction do not^rove the author to have 41 6 Isaiah : its halves a beatUiftd whole, [bk. vi. hcen one. of the exiles, — Fifty years at least are supposed to have intervened between the vision in the Temple and the later prophecies, which may well account for some difference of style. In his answers on Deutero- nomy Professor Eobertson Smith says that " arguments from style are admittedly difficult and often precari- ous;" and in his article on the "Bible" his opinion of the recentness of the last half of Isaiah is founded, not on its language, but on the position that these chapters " cannot be understood in a natural and living way, except by looking at them from the historical stand- point of the Exile." Bleek in like manner acknow- ledges that " the character of the language as a criterion of date has always something very uncertain in it;" whilst he (and also Ewald) holds that one whole chap- ter in the middle of the second half of the book must have been written before the Exile, and "perhaps by Isaiah himself" (chaps. Ivi. 9 ; Ivii. 11). Professor A. B. Davidson founds his argument on the style of the later prophecies ; but at the same time it is difficult, irrespectively of style, to reconcile their genuineness with his general view of the character of Scriptural prophecy. " We observe," he says, " that a prophecy springs out of or directs itself to meet the circumstances of its time ; and when we find a pro- phecy, crowded with circumstances, referred to a time when the circumstances did not exist, w^e are com- CH. vl] The Prophet not an Exile. 4 1 7 pelled to inquire into the truth of such a reference " {Old Testament Exegesis, p. 1 6). Dr. Samuel Davidson, who is decided and very strenuous against the Isaian authorship, urges the originality and the flow of the thoughts, but may be said to give up the argument of language. He says, " That the Deutero-Isaiah could write good and fine Hebrew even in Babylon shows an original and inde- pendent genius. There is not enough evidence in the style and diction [of these prophecies] to show their later origin than Isaiah ; yet enough to show the inde- pendent genius of a prophet soaring far above his own age, and not detracting from the value of his ideas by investing them with an inferior garb." This is an acknowledgment that the " style and diction " are worthy both of Isaiah himself and of his age, and ' soar far above ' the period of the Exile. All else is of little weight; for thoughts both new in themselves, and running in a more copious flow, may follow after the earlier writings of any author, but much more of a prophet continuing to receive fresh revelations from Heaven. On the other hand, the strength of the argument on the ground of language in favour of the genuineness of the later prophecies will appear from the following valuable extract ; which refers, indeed, to the thirteenth chapter in the first instance, but includes also the pro- 2 D 41 8 Isaiah: its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. phecies against Babylon that are in the second section of the hook : — " Chapters xiii. to xiv. 23 contain an entire prophecy respecting the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. So particular is this prophecy, and so exactly do its specifications tally with the circum- stances connected with the fall of the Chaldean mon- archy, that EosenmuUer, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Gesenius, Hitzig, and others, maintain it to be the production of some writer who lived during the captivity, when the hostility of the Medes and the splendid successes of Cyrus inspired the Jews with the conviction that their oppressor would soon be subdued ; or who lived after the return from Babylon, and consequently wrote after the events had taken place. Because human sagacity could not by any possibility have anticipated by nearly two hundred years the particular events in question, it follows, according to them, that the author must have flourished about the time they took place, if not indeed after they had happened. " The remarks of Michaelis, who lived to witness the commencement of the infidel attacks that have been made upon this portion of the Book of Isaiah, are too valuable to be omitted. Adverting to the views just noticed, he observes : ' Those who have read Isaiah in Hebrew will not easily entertain such ideas. His style is so elegant, so magnificent, and so different from CH. yl] The Prophet not an Exile. 419 anything written about the time of the termination of the Babylonish captivity ; it is likewise so exempt from foreign words, whicli we so frequently meet with in the later writers, that to suppose his prophecies to have been concocted in the first year of Cyrus must appear just as improbable as the hypothesis of Harduin, which he could not prevail upon the world to adopt, that the most beautiful of tlie Odes of Horace were the productions of barbarous monks in the Middle Ages. In the Babylonish captivity the grace and magnificence of the Hebrew language were entirely lost. The pro- phecies of Isaiah, on the contrary, are, next to Job and the odes of Moses, the most splendid Hebrew monu- ments in existence — a quality which is more obvious on perusing the original than it can possibly be made in auy translation. Besides, the prophecies of Isaiah against Babylon are completely in the style of his other prophecies, all of which it will not be maintained are supposititious, and, indeed, may be said to form, with little abatement, the most splendid portions of his book.' " — (Henderson on Isaiah.) Mr. Arnold, who holds that the later prophecies were written in Babylon, says of the whole book : " The Hebrew language and genius, it is admitted by common consent, are seen in the Book of Isaiah at their per- fection." There is, indeed, a great array of modern criticism 420 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful zvhole. [bk. vi. against the genuineness of these later prophecies ; but, beyond all doubt, it is the predictive element in these writings that is the great leading difficulty with the critics, and outweighs all other considerations. In the words of Dean Payne Smith, " Eemove that great stum- bling-block of the higher criticism, the fact of predic- tion, and everything is in favour of their authenticity." We may well give the linguists their own high place, and thankfully acknowledge the great value of their services in Biblical researches, their great acuteness, and their indefatigable industry. But skill in languages, in history, in philosophy, or in a criticism that claims to combine them all, cannot be assigned the first place in forming a sound judgment on the character and the truth of prophecy. If the most accomplished scholars and the subtlest philosophers in the world should all be infidels, it would only prove the truth of the Scrip- ture that " not many wise are called ;" the true Church of Christ will never surrender her own high position and commit herself into the hands of mere critics ; and believing critics will be the first to acknowledge that for the formation of a sound judgment either on miracles or on prophecy criticism occupies only a secondary place. But there has been no want of critical research on the part of those who have maintained the integrity of Isaiah. The later prophecies have been carefully CH. VI.] The Prophet not an Exile. 421 examined on critical grounds, and their authenticity abundantly proved by scholars of high standing, amongst whom we have been indebted tp Hengstenberg, De- litzsch, Keil, Nagelsbach, Henderson, Alexander, Payne Smith, Urwick, and Stanley Leathes. 2. The Prophet never sjJeaJcs of himself as an exile. — It is often stated that the author of the later prophecies speaks as from the position and in the circumstances of one of the exiles in Babylon, and that he could not therefore have been Isaiah. Among the critics there is one noted exception to this conclusion, not regarding the date, but the place of the writing, to which j\Ir. Arnold refers in these words : " One series of chapters Ewald insists we shall believe was written in Egypt not Babylon, because Persia is called in it the north, and Persia is north to Egypt, not to Babylon. How strange that it never occurred to him, before thus making a certainty where there can be none, that Persia is north to Zion ; and that for the Jewish exile in Babylon, Zion, the centre of his thouglits, may well also have been the centre of his geography ! " But, in that case, the argument will apply with still more force to one whose dwelling, as well as his heart, was in Zion; although it seems rather to be that Cyrus, combining Media and Persia, is said to come both from the north and from the east. But it is the date and not the place of the pro- 42 2 Isaiah : its halves a beautiftd whole, [bk. vi. phecies that is chiefly important ; and the argument against the real Isaiah is put by Dean Stanley in this form : " All the allusions suppose that Jerusalem (not, is to be, but) has been already destroyed, and that Cyrus and his conquests are (not merely foreshadowed in some distant future, but) already well known. — Micah speaks of the captivity as still to come, Tsaiah as already far advanced " {Jewisli Church, Part ii. p. 583). It is, however, quite in accordance with Isaiah's usage to express the future in the past of prophetic certainty. The great description of the Messiah's rejection by men and affliction by God in Isaiah lii. 13 to liii. 12 contemplates his sufferings and death as if already accomplished ; yet the forty-second chapter, which has the very same opening, " Behold my ser- vant," speaks distinctly of his appearance and work as in the future : " He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street " (ver. 2). On the other hand, Micah predicts the birth of the Messiah in the future : " Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel " (chap. v. 2). But Isaiah foretells the very same future event as if it had been fulfilled : " Unto ua a child is born, unto us a son is given " (chap. ix. 6) ; speaking of this promised Child as if already born in the earth. CH. VI.] The Prophet not an Exile, 423 Nothing, therefore, can be more natural than to find Isaiah in his later prophecies using the same prophetic past for events which Micah describes in the future. Micah foretells, " They shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek" (chap. v. 1) ; and Isaiah casts the same far future event into the past, and says, '' I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair" (chap. L. 6). Our Lord finds no difficulty in Isaiah having used the prophetic past in a description of Himself in the distant future, when He reads in the synagogue, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted." He says to the people, " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears," in, their own time and in His own person, and not in the time of Isaiah ; although the Messiah is introduced as if He had already been anointed, and sent in the pro- phet's own day. But whilst the prophet vividly anticipates the distant future, and speaks of it as already present, he never represents himself as sharing in the Exile at Babylon. In addressing Israel as if " in the last decade of the captivity," he does not include himself as a partaker in their joyful deliverance. The form of his exhortation is not, " Let us go forth of Babylon ;" but, '' Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans" (chap, xlviii. 424 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. 20). Once, in addressing Babylon, he speaks of the Lord as " our Eedeemer ; " but, in accosting the proud oppressor, this is no more than the natural language of any prophet who glories in the Lord as the Eedeemer of Israel in all generations : " Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon ; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. ... As for our Eedeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel" (chap, xlvii. 1-4). The large confession of sin in the fifty- third chapter, "All we like sheep have gone astray," embraces the whole nation, prophet and people, for the past, the present, and the future ; but it has no more reference to the people of the Exile than to any other generation of .Israel, and it will certainly be adopted with its greatest fitness by the penitent Israel of the future, when they shall confess, " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afilicted." So, likewise, the con- fession and affliction in chapter lix. 10-15, " We stumble at noon- day as in the night. . . . For our transgressions are multiplied before thee : for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter," may apply to many times of chastening, either in the prophet's own day, or in subsequent ages, but has a much more natural reference to Jerusalem than to Babylon. But there is one remarkable description toward the CH. VI.] The Prophet not an Exile. 425 close of the book, in the sixty-fourth chapter, wliich like the Lamentations of Jeremiah speaks expressly of the ruins of Zion, and seems at first sight to number the prophet himself among the mourners. There are reverent students of Scripture who have no difficulty about prophecy embracing either the distant in time, or the minute in circumstance, but are startled at this special form of prediction, as if not according to the analogy of the Scriptures. In the fifty -third chapter, however, the prophet casts himself into the far distant future when he writes, " We hid as it were our faces from him : he ^vas despised, and we esteemed him not ;" and there is nothing at which to stumble if he does the same in the sixty-fourth chapter in the touching appeal to the God of Israel : " Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire : and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, 0 Lord ? wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore?" (vers. 10-12.) To those who doubt that prophecy can be at once distant and specific, these words are of necessity a stumblinsj-block, which we make no effort to take out of their way, because it is immovable. But there are others who rely with simple faith on the truth of pro- phecy, but to whom it seems that such a form of writing 426 Isaiah : its halves a beautifttl whole, [bk. vi. is a description of an actual event, and not of a distant future. This conception arises from entirely mistaking the character of the complaint and the supplication, as if the writer were uttering a prayer for his own condi- tion, as well as for his people, in these desolations of Zion. The truth is, that these words are so far from proving that the writer is one of the exiles in Babylon, that they clearly intimate the contrary. The verses quoted are not spoken by the prophet in his own per- son, or as if he were one of the suppliants who utter them ; but they are expressly put by him into the mouth of Israel for themselves, after the manner of Isaiah in his earlier prophecies, " In that day thou shalt say" (chap. xii. 1). If the prophet dwelt in Babylon, we should have expected him to introduce a prayer written for his com- panions in exile, with words like these, " Come and let us return to the Lord, for He hath smitten, and He will heal us." But the preface to the prayer is in the following manner, chap. Ixiii. 10 : " They rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit : therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them. Then he [that is, Israel^] remembered the days of old, Moses, and ^ So Vitringa, Rosenmuller, Delitzsch, Nitgelsbach, Cheyne. Alexander says : " The modern writers are agreed that the first clause (of ver. 1 1 ) describes the repentance of the people, and that the second gives their very words." CH. VI.] The Prophet not an Exile. 427 his people, saying, Where is he that brought theui up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock ? . . . Look down from heaven, and behold. . . . Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire." The introduction speaks historically, as from the prophetic position of a narrator of Israel's future repentance, and plainly intimates that the prayer w^as written for Israel by one who was not himself under their calamities ; and the passage, therefore, does not weaken, but clearly confirms the unity of the book as written by Isaiah. Our conclusion is : That the author of these later prophecies never puts himself, even prophetically, in the position of an exile. 3. The naming of Cyrus, several ages he/ore his hirth, ivas not a more remarkahlc proyhecy for the exiles than other j^Tophecies of Isaiah are to 21s. (1.) The way in wdiich the name of Cyrus is intro- duced in the prophecy is evidently designed to prepare the reader to expect a prediction of an unusual char- acter. It is after a repeated assurance of the Lord's power to reveal the future, and a repeated challenge to the idols and the idolaters to make it known : '' Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods. . . . Who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people ? and the things that are coming, and 428 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful ivhole. [bk. vi. shall come, let them shew unto them. . . . Thus saith the Lord, that frustratetli the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad ; that confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers ; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited ; that saith to the deep. Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers : that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall per- form all my pleasure ; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid" (chaps, xli. 23 ; xliv. 7, 24-28). The whole connection is fitted for the introduction of a prophecy of a most remarkable character ; of a prophecy much more signal than a prediction that a conqueror, whose name was already famous, would sooner or later extend his conquests to Babylon and liberate his captives. (2.) Amongst other prophecies of Isaiah, the predic- tion of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the desola- tion of Babylon in the first series, and of our Lord's suffering in the second, must be accounted as great as the calling of Cyrus by name. Of the very first chapter of the book we can see no natural explanation except that of Mr. Stanley Leathes, who refers its picture of desolation to the conquest of the land by Nebuchadnezzar : " Your country is deso- late, your cities are burned with fire : and the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the CH. yl] The Prophet not an Exile. 429 Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah" (ver. 7-9). As it seems to us, the prophet Isaiah in these words places himself amidst the future ruins of his country much more expressly than in any of his later prophecies. In like manner, the burden of Babylon in the thir- teenth chapter sets forth its desolation with a definiteness that is quite equal to the prophetic naming of Cyrus: " Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to genera- tion" (vers. 19, 20). This is well brought out in the following extract from Michaelis by Henderson : "The prophecy is of such a character that it could not have been forged in the year in which Cyrus took Babylon ; for though Babylon was conquered, it was not clestroyed, but continued to be a large and powerful city : was chosen by Alexander the Great as his residence, and thus would almost have become the capital of the world, if that monarch had not abandoned himself to intoxica- tion, to which he fell a victim. But it is predicted in this chapter that the place where Babylon stood should be converted into a complete desert — a prophecy which received its fulfilment, indeed, but not till after the birth of Christ ; for it was only by slow degrees that 43 o Isaiah : its halves a beatUiftil whole, [bk. vi. it reached the point of degradation to which it is now reduced." The " Great Passional," in the fifty-third chapter, is certainly a far more minute and specific description of our blessed Lord in the history of His sufferings, more distant in point of time, and more wonderful in every way than the foretelling of the Persian monarch byname ; and we question if there are many interpreters who stumble at the name of Cyrus in the forty-fourth chapter, without stumbling also at the description of Christ and Him crucified in the fifty- third. It is indeed one of the sore and dangerous wounds with which the faith of many is assailed through the denial of the later prophecies to Isaiah, that the same degenerate form of prophetic inter- pretation, which will not allow it to embrace distant, complicated, and specific events, transforms this fifty- third chapter by referring it primarily to an idealised Israel, and applies it only in a secondary sense to Jesus Christ as the highest embodiment of that ideal. In the words of Dr. Samuel Davidson, " God did not see fit to bestow upon the prophets the gift of looking at the distant future with its historical details — idealised Israel suffering for others to bring them to repentance and faith in Jehovah, is the seer's high theme in lii. 1 3 to liii." The " chastisement of our peace" resting on ideal- ised Israel, and " the iniquity of us all laid" on it ! What an atonement, what a ransom, what a hope for men ! CH. VI.] The Prophet not an Exile. 431 Views of the Servant of the Lord in the fifty-third of Isaiah, too nearly akin to these, have threatened to obtain a footing amongst ourselves. They are the certain fruit of the prophetic theory that the distant and complicated future is beyond the sphere of Scrip- tural prophecy. If they should be cherished, and make progress, their sure result will be the prevalence of rationalism, with the blight of its spiritual and moral death. 432 Isaiah : its halves a beautijid zvhole. [bk. vi. CHAPTER VII. THE INFIDEL ARGUMENT AGAINST THE BIBLE FKOM THE ALLEGED SPURIOUSNESS OF ISAIAH'S LATER PROPHECIES. ] " A very glaring instance occurs in the book ascribed to Isaiah, \ ... I do not suppose that the compilers of the Bible made these | books, but rather that they picked up some loose anonymous essays, j and put them together under the names of such authors as best j suited their purpose. They have encouraged the imposition, which j is next to inventing it, for it was impossible but Hi£,y must have I observed iV — Paine's Acje of Reason. I The genuineness of the later prophecies under the ' name of Isaiah may appear to some to belong to a class ! of subjects that must be left to the discussion of critics ; and they may hold it to be enough for themselves to believe these prophecies to be true and divinely in- ; spired, whatever their date and whoever their author. j But on the least reflection all will own that the truth ' of prophecy depends altogether on its date, that a pro- i phecy after the event is false, that the date and the ! author are very closely connected, and that prophecy , CH. vii.] Infidel Argument against the Bible. 433 under a wrong name may be no true prediction but a most heinous fraud. The genuineness of the prophecies of Isaiah, last as well as first, is a matter of the greatest concern to every believer in the Bible. The allegation of a Babylonian origin to the prophecies against Babylon destroys, first, the truthfulness of their author ; next, the faithfulness of the original compilers of the pro- phetic records ; and lastly, the testimony of our Lord and His apostles. 1. To hold that the cmthor was not Isaiah is of necessity to maJce him a false ^ro])het. — Some critics maintain that he was a great prophet in Babylon, who by divine inspiration foretold its overthrow by Cyrus when in the midst of his career, before any human sagacity could have foreseen it ; and in this, or some other form, it is held that he was a true prophet. But this gratuitous supposition is clearly impossible, because no inspired prophet would have adopted the demonstrably fraudulent course of this alleged author. (1.) If the author was not Isaiah, he must have copied and completed Isaiah's work with a studious and deep design. The suggestion of an innocent, because unconscious, imitation is very wide of the evident truth. The writer of the verse (li. 11), "The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion ; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head : they 2 E 434 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. shall obtain gladness and joy ; and sorrow and mourn- ing shall flee away," could not but have intentionally repeated the verse (xxxv. 10), "The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away;" and although the new critics deny that either of these verses was written by Isaiah, the reference is scarcely less plain in many of the passages we have noted as connecting the last prophecies with the first. The command, " Hear, ye deaf ; and look, ye blind, that ye may see," in chap xlii. 1 8, is not an imitation either conscious or unconscious, but an express and evidently designed repeal of the contrary command in chap. vi. 10, " Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears ;" and in many other instances in the later prophecies there is an intentional and careful carrying out of the thoughts in the earlier prophecies. When the writer has done this, and withheld his name, his object seems to have been the fraudulent one of passing off his prophecies for those of Isaiah nearly two hundred years before. (2.) If it should be conceded that the imitation was really undesigned, as many maintain, it can be denied by none that the unknown author shows his familiarity with every shade of Isaiah's thoughts, even in their most peculiar elements. No counterpart of Isaiah can cii. Yii.] Infidel A rgnnient against the Bible. 435 be made out of any of the otlier prophets ; the second Isaiah stands quite alone in his peculiar and manifold resemblance to the first. Granting that he wrote with- out a fraudulent design, it is plainly impossible that he could be ignorant of the great likeness of what he had written to the writings of Isaiah. He knew better than any of ns how thoroughly Isaiah's leading thoughts had pervaded his own book ; and he must have been well aware that if he published it without his name it would inevitably pass for the work of Isaiah, as it has done for thousands of years. This difficulty is insuperable, for no man could so imitate another without being aware of what he had done. The prophets before the Exile, Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, and others, had either prefixed their own names to their works, or had given them to responsible men who did it for them. If this author had done so, we should have his name at the present day. For his departure from the sanctioned usage no reason can be assigned, except a fraudulent design to have his own prophecies taken for Isaiah's, and to gain for his nation the credit of having long foretold the great events that were passing before his eyes. No conceivable reason for withholding his name could have had any force with an honest writer, who knew the fraud involved in the anonymous publication ; for he could easily have suppressed his book, if he could not publish his name. 436 Isaiah: its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. If the author was a captive in Babylon, his plan for magnifying the religion of Israel by means of false pro- phecies at the expense of all truth and godliness, has been executed with unrivalled skill and followed with unparalleled success. But the divine seer, who has been revered as Isaiah in his last and noblest utterances, can never sink into an anonymous impostor concealing himself beneath Isaiah's mantle. While the world lasts, he will be honoured by the Church of Christ, as foremost among the prophets, with his name as well known as his words have been prized. 2. If the author was not Isaiah, the good faith of the heei^ers of the sacred records has no defence against the infidel. The allegation that these prophecies were not Isaiah's involves such unfaithfulness in the trusted com- pilers of the Bible, in the holy men who had the charge of Israel's sacred books, as would shake all our confid- ence in the Old Testament Scriptures. By the author of the Age of Reason, the case is put in this manner : — " The compilers of the Bible mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with each other, which alone is sufficient to destroy the authenticity of any compilation. A very glaring instance of this occurs , in the book ascribed to Isaiah : the latter part of the forty-fourth chapter and the beginning of the forty-fifth, so far from having been written by Isaiah, could only CH. VII.] I tijidel Argument against the Bible. 437 have been written by some person who lived at least a hundred and fifty years after Isaiah was dead. I do not suppose that the compilers of the Bible made these books ; but rather that they picked up some loose anony- mous essays and put them together under the names of such authors as best suited their purpose. They have encouraged the imposition, which is next to inventing it, for it was impossible but they must have observed it." On Old Testament prophecy he says : " According to the modern meaning of the word prophet and pro- phesying, it signifies foretelling events to a great dis- tance of time; but according to the Old Testament the prophesying of the seer, and afterwards of the prophet, so far as the meaning of the word seer was incorporated into that of the prophet, had reference only to the things of the time then passing, or very closely connected with it ; such as the events of a battle they were going to engage in, or of a journey, or of any enterprise they were going to undertake, or of any circumstance then pending, or of any difficulty they were then in ; all of which had immediate reference to themselves, and not to any distant future time." These views, so like much modern criticism, led Thomas Paine, quite apart from any linguistic studies, to reject the prophecies of Isaiah against Babylon as spurious. With his own repudiation of all prophecy, he regarded it as impossible that the compilers of the Bible could them- 438 Isaiah : its halves a beautiftU whole, [bk. vi. selves have believed in sucli predictions of the distant future; and he held that they must have lent them- selves to an imposition in aJB&xing them to the genuine writings of Isaiah. Whether the second section of the book is lauded by Ewald as the work of the " Great Unnamed/' or bluntly called by Thomas Paine " a loose anonymous essay," if the compilers of the Scriptures attached it to Isaiah without knowing definitely whose it was ; or if, as has been suggested, their only reason was its likeness to Isaiah ; they cannot be acquitted of taking part in an imposition, because with this likeness its annexation to Isaiah could not fail to insure its acceptance by coming generations as the authentic writing of the great pro- phet. The idea of some critics that they affixed the false Isaiah to the true by a mistake or an oversight is plainly indefensible ; for the difference this annexation makes is so obvious and so vast, that there can be no denial of Paine's clear position that " they must have observed it" In that case his argument is unanswerable, that we can have no confidence whatever in the authen- ticity of any of those ancient Scriptures. On the ground either of the rationalists, or of the believing critics who deny to Isaiah his later pro- X^hecies, we have no answer to the Aye of Reason, and are helpless in the hands of the infidel. We are not, therefore, shut up to unbelief; but for our sure CH. VII.] Infidel A rgtcment against the Bible. 439 aud only defence we are absolutely shut up to faith. We must, as little children, believe that even in this so regularly revolving world, its Creator could consistently with His plan and His work foretell Cyrus by name as the deliverer of Israel from Babylon several ages before Jerusalem was destroyed^ and another long stretch of years before Israel's captives were redeemed. If we refrain from settino- limits of man's devisinq: to the prophetic revelation of the future in the Holy Scriptures, we can have no difficulty in accepting a definite prophecy of the remotest and most complicated events ; or in receiving it as most true and certain from the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures, confirmed by the clearest evidence in the book itself, that these last prophecies were \mtten by Isaiah, and were annexed to the first by the prophet's own hand. 440 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. CHAPTER VIII. THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BOUND UP WITH THE AUTHENTICITY OF ISAIAH. " Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradi- tion."—Mark vii. 13. " Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God." — 1 Cor. xv. 15. Let us turn now to tliese later prophecies as accepted in tlie New Testament. In this case there is no place for an argument advanced in other instances, that our Lord and His apostles have merely refrained from altering the current title of a prophetic book which had given rise to a harmless belief that the whole was written by the prophet whose name it bore. In the present instance the common belief was so far from harmless that it accepted and perpetuated a false tra- dition, fatal to the truth of all Old Testament prophecy ; yet this universal belief in these prophecies as Isaiah's was not repudiated, and must by Jew and Gentile alike have been looked upon as sanctioned under the new dispensation. CH. VIII.] Ahw Testament Seal to Isaiah. 44 1 1. IsraeVs belief in Isaiah sanctioned hy our Lord and His Apostles. — The herald who announces Christ's coming proclaims it in these words : " This is He that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness : prepare ye the way of the Lord ; make his paths straight." The words are quoted in each of the four Gospels, and in three of them as the words of Esaias the prophet. In the synagogue of Nazareth, when the book of Isaiah is handed to our Lord, He receives it as Isaiah's; and when He reads out of it, He selects not one of the Messianic passages in the first half of the book, but one from the second, and sets His seal to it as con- tainins: His own divine commission : " There was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. . . . And he began to say unto them. This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears " (Luke iv. 17, 18, 21). The apostle John states that the unbelief of the Jews fulfilled the saying " of Esaias the prophet which he spake. Lord, who hath believed our report?" and he traces the connection between this later prophecy and the earlier one of the Temple in these words : " There- fore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again. He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their 44- Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vl heart/' intimating that both prophecies were uttered by the same Isaiah (John xii. 38, 39, 40). If it was not a book but a living man who " saw his glory " in the Temple, it was the same living Isaiah who said also, " Who hath believed our report ?" The apostle Paul, in the ninth of Eomans (ver. 27, 29), quotes a passage from the earlier prophecies which he prefaces with the prophet's name : " Esaias also crieth concerning^ Israel, Thouoh the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved" (Isa. x. 27) ; and marks a second quotation as a previous passage of the same prophet : " As Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha" (Isa. i. 9). After several quotations from the same prophet, but without the name, the apostle repeats his name in two quotations from the later pro- phecies (Eom. X. 16, 20, 21) : " But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report ? — But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not" (Isa. Ixv. 1, 2). Undoubtedly he believes for himself, and expects his readers to believe that these verses were written by the same personal Isaiah who wrote the first prophecies, for he introduces them in a similar and even more specific manner with the words, " Esaias saith," and " Esaias is very bold, and saith." CH. Yiii.] Neiu Testament Seal to Isaiah. 443 Evidently both these great apostles had no hesita- tion in believing for themselves that the later prophecies were as certainly written by Isaiah as the earlier ; and, beyond all controversy, they had no desire to shake this universal belief in the minds of their Jewish readers, and no difficulty in now making the Gentiles partakers in the same belief. Altogether, the Book of the prophet Isaiah is quoted oftener in the New Testament than any other book of the Old Testament Scriptures, and the later prophecies much oftener than the first, proving their great import- ance. " This prophet," says Mr. Arnold, " is of all the Old Testament writers the one far most quoted in the New ; moreover, it is in the last twenty- seven chapters that the greatest interest is reached, insomuch that out of the thirty-four passages from him which Gesenius brings together as quoted in the New Testament, there are twenty-one from these last chapters, against only thirteen from the rest of the book." In all these quotations it will at least be admitted by all, that there is never the slightest hint that is fitted to weaken the firm faith of Jewish readers in those prophecies as the genuine writings of Isaiah ; and therefore they must have been received by the Gentile converts as his with the same entire confidence as the earlier prophecies, on the broad warrant of apostolic sanction. 444 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. At the time of Christ's appearance the fame of the Hebrew Scriptures was spreading through the world ; many throughout the Eoman Empire were embracing the religion of Israel; and Eoman centurions were numbered with the believers in Moses and the pro- phets. After the death of Christ, when the Gospel was preached to every creature under heaven, the apostles undertook a new responsibility of the most momentous kind in the dissemination of the Old Testament Scriptures ; which on the assurance of their word the Gentile nations welcomed as the truth of God. In the Book for which Christ gave the in- junction, " Search the Scriptures," and of which the apostles testified, " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," the prophecy in the thirteenth and fourteenth of Isaiah, which gives so remarkable a prediction of the taking of Babylon by the Medes and of the restora- tion of Israel, was expressly declared to be Isaiah's; and all these later prophecies were placed as if they were Isaiah's. So had they been received by the Church and nation of the Jews; so were they now given by the apostles of the Christian Church to the Gentiles ; and not only without any warning of mistake, but with every appearance of being certified as such by the divine seal under the new dispensation. 2. The cdleged falseness of Isaiah would falsify the vjhole Mw Testament. — Against making void the Word cii. VIII.] New Testament Seal to Isaiah. 445 of God by the tradition of men Christ spoke severely, even when the integrity of the Word itself had been scrupulously conserved. It can never, therefore, be held that He would select for public reading in the synagogue that portion of one of the sacred books which had been so grossly corrupted by human device, or most culpable error, as to uproot the whole principles of Scriptural truth and faithfulness ; and found His own divine commission on it without any protest against the fatal corruption. The roll was put into His hands as the Book of.^he prophet Isaiah; and as from the Book of Isaiah He read His own commission at once to the audience then present, and to the whole world in all coming generations. But in this book, according to the Exile theory, we have an astoundingly false tradi- tion inserted in the heart of the Bible, altering the date of great predictions by nearly two hundred years, and thus directly turning the truth of God into the greatest lie. If this new theory were true, it would involve the blasphemous supposition that our Lord and His apostles had transmitted to the faith of the Church in all ages a series of prophecies denouncing in the strongest terms the falsehoods of the heathen gods ; yet them- selves containing falsehoods more definite, daring, and extreme than could easily be found in the dark oracles of the heathen. These predictions, which by this theory were really written in Babylon after the events were in 44^ Isaiah : its halves a beautiful zvhole, [bk. yi. progress, were thus sanctioned as having been written about two hundred years before by the Prophet Isaiah, when there was no prospect of Jerusalem being taken by the Babylonians, much less of Babylon itself being taken by the Persians. One of the chief elements in these prophecies is the frequency and fulness of their appeal to the test of divine prophecy in the event following the prediction. Repeated challenges are offered to the false prophets and the false gods to name a past event which they had foretold, or a future one which they will now fore- tell :— " Let them shew the former things, what they be ; or declare us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come hereafter, tliat ice may know that ye are gods'' (chap. xli. 22, 23). In contrast to these dumb idols, the God of Israel undertakes to declare the future, and specifically the deliverance of His people out of Babylon by Cyrus : " Thus saith the Lord, that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maJceth diviners mad; that confirmeth the Avord of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers ; that saith of Cyrus, He is my shep- herd, and shall perform all my pleasure : even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple. Thy foundation shall be laid. . . . Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things CH. VIII.] Neiu Testament Seal to Isaiah. 447 tlmt arc not yet cloiu, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure : calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country" (chaps, xliv. 24-26, 28 ; xlvi. 10, 11). Similar declarations are frequent; and they were sure to occupy a large place in the thoughts of Israel, as relating to events of the first magnitude in their history. The national belief is brought out by Josephus, who says that Isaiah was distinguished for the trutli of his prophecies, and wrote them down that they might be proved by the events; and he makes special notice of the prediction of Cyrus by name, as the deliverer of Israel, at a distance of time which he reckons 210 years [Jewish Antiquities, book x. chap. 2 ; xi. 1). These prophecies could not escape the earnest attention of the apostles, and the subject requires no criticism to unravel it ; for the fishermen of Galilee were quite as capable as Gesenius or Ewald of understanding the difference between a writing during the Exile in Babylon, and a prophecy in the time and by the mouth of Isaiah. No man was more alive than the apostle Paul to the sin of making himself a false witness for God, as he would have been if he had given to the Gentile Christians pro- phecies of the time of the Exile bearing the name of Isaiah. Believing critics, who doubt or deny the genuineness ] 44 8 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. of the latter half of Isaiah, seem to think that they retain all that is essential when they acknowledge 1 the author as a true prophet. Now, a prophet among the exiles, well known to his people, might indeed \ greatly comfort them, in their "present need and .; present historical situation," by naming the already | successful soldier Cyrus as their own future deliverer, before any of themselves had conceived such a hope. \ But in such a prediction, although divinely inspired, there was no testimony to the heathen. There was nothing to frustrate the soothsayer, to madden the \ diviner; for they would themselves have taken the risk of even more unlikely forecastings of the future, knowing that if their guesses failed they would be forgotten, and that if they were verified, the event ' would confirm the people's faith in their gods. The ; modern infidel makes no objection to such a prophecy, i either by the heathen or by the Jew. The case is \ completely altered by accepting as Isaiah's the pre- , dictions regarding Cyrus; by holding that the exiles took these prophecies with his name in them from ; Jerusalem to Babylon, and read them there in the handwriting of ages long past. No unbeliever will tolerate for a moment the claim of such predictions. ! But the entire authority both of the Old Testament \ and the New is responsible for them ; and the whole i Bible rests on their truth. i cii. viii.] N'czl) Testajuent Seal to Isaiah. 449 As some meu, with a partial desire to receive the Gospel, regret that Christ should have rested the evidence of His divine mission on His miracles, so they may stumble at the God of Israel giving these prophecies as a testing proof that it is He who is the God of the sea and the dry land, and at our Lord and His apostles accepting this prophetic test, and transmitting it to us as pertaining to the Scriptures of truth. But we must acknowledge God as He is pleased to reveal Himself to men. If the class of critics who own a general Messianic expectation and prediction in Israel, but hold as a first principle of criticism the denial of the prophetic foresight of events, definite, complicated, and distant, are to be accepted by us as the true interpreters of Scripture, we must give up the Bible as the very Word of God. But if w^e fully accept its divine authority, then, however great their scholarship, their acuteness, and in some cases their genius, we must resolutely reject the claim of such critics either to interpret or to define the Word of God for us ; and must hold them as lacking some of the first and most essential qualifications for rightly handling the Holy Scriptures. The universal Church of Christ acknowledges only one Isaiah. If the Church in our land shall depart from this good confession, and shall teach that the latter lialf of these prophecies either was or may have been 2 F 450 Isaiah : its halves a beautiful whole, [bk. vi. written nearly two hundred years after the first by an unknown prophet in Babylon, we shall have taken a dangerous step in that dark path of disbelief in the truth of the Holy Scriptures, which leads at last to the rejection of all that is revealed by Divine authority. Our Lord teaches us that Abraham could say of Israel, " They have Moses and the prophets " for their rich heritage. But if the genuineness of the Book of Deuteronomy is given up, we have no longer Moses either in his fulness or in his truth ; and if the noblest half of Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets, is held to be unauthentic, we have the prophets no longer. The foundation of the law and the prophets is gone from beneath our feet ; the foundation of the apostles will be rejected next ; and last of all Jesus Christ, the Chief Corner Stone, will again be disallowed by the builders, and will become " a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." BOOK VII. SEVERAL ARTICLES ON THE HISTORICAL TRUTH OF THE SCRIPTURES. CHAPTER I. THE FALLACY OF THE ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE. The utter weakness of the inference against the in- stitutions of Moses from some of them being so little noticed afterwards, on which the critics lay so much stress, may be illustrated by the silence in the history of Josiah on the annual observance of the great fes- tivals, and by the silence of a great part of Scripture on the Day of Atonement and on the rite of Circum- cision.-^ 1 That allusions to Levitical institutions are in fact very numer- ous in the historical books is well illustrated by their frequency in the history of Elijah and Elisha, as shown by Professor Green in the British and ForeUjn Evangelical Review for Ai)ril 1883. In these two narratives alone he adduces more than thirty examples from the two Books of Kings. 452 Historical truth of the Scriptttres, [bk. vii. I. The, Silence regarding the Annual Feasts in the History of Josiah. The marked silence regarding the annual observance of Israel's three great feasts in the outstanding history of King Josiah offers one of the best tests of the theory that the silence of the Scriptural historians regarding the great national institutions implies that the insti- tutions were unknown to these historians. 1. Critics of all shades of opinion are agreed that Josiah had the Book of Deuteronomy before him. 2. The sixteenth chapter of that book strictly enjoins on Israel the yearly observance of the three great national feasts ; the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles ; and the greater part of the chapter is devoted to these three ordin- ances. 3. According to the testimony of both Kings and Chronicles Josiah kept the whole law of Moses with all his heart, and the Book of Kings ascribes to him a fervour of zeal surpassing all other sovereigns in Israel. 4. There can therefore be no doubt that he observed those feasts annually, as is recorded of Solomon in both these histories (1 Kings xviii. 25 ; 2 Ghron. viii. 13) ; otherwise he could not have been honoured with such a testimony. CH. I.] Fallacy of the aro-mncnt from Silence. 453 5. But in the copious narratives of Josiah's life there is no record of his liaving kept any of those feasts except a single passover ; and that appears to be re- corded because this passover in the eighteenth year of his reign was kept with singular zeal and extraordinary fulness by himself and by his people. In the nine years preceding, and in the twenty-one years that followed there is no record of any other passover ; and in his entire reign of thirty- one years, during which the people " departed not from following the Lord," there is an absolute silence regarding both the Feast of Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles. 6. From this latter fact the liigher critics would most certainly have inferred that Josiah had never observed either of these two feasts at all, and that neither of them had been ordained till after his time. But by the consent of all, and according to their own leading pleas, he heard these ordinances read by Shaphan the scribe from the book found in the Temple ; he rehearsed them himself in the ears of the people in reading "all the words of the book that was found"; and he solemnly bound both himself and the people to observe them by covenanting " to perform the words that were written in this book" (2 Kings xxiii. 2,3). This great instance shows how easily the inference from silence becomes false and misleading in the ex- 454 Historical truth of the Scriptttres. [bk. vii. treme ; it serves well to indicate the habitual manner of writing used by the inspired historians ; and it proves that the whole argument from silence rests on a foundation of sand. II. The Silence regarding the Day of Atonement. By far the most remarkable example of silence regarding a great national institution in Israel is the absolute historical silence of the Old Testament on the Great Day of Atonement; most remarkable in its completeness, for otherwise the want af reference to Circumcision in the greater part of the Old Testament is scarcely less remarkable. The Day of Atonement is ordained in Exodus xxx. 10 ; its extremely solemn ritual is minutely prescribed in Leviticus xvi., where also it is stated to have been observed by Aaron ; and it is again enjoined in Leviticus xxiii. with severe threatenings for its neglect. It was the one ordained fast under the law of Moses ; it was regarded by Israel as the most notable day in all the year, and was called distinctively The Day ; and it has so remained in all generations to the present time, when the solemn fast, which was only an accompaniment of its great sacri- ficial and atoning rites, is all that is left of its ritual observance. Yet beyond the Levitical books the keeping of the Day of Atonement is never historically CH. I.] Fallacy of the argument from Silence. 455 noted, either before or after the Exile, nor can it be proved to be alluded to in the prophets. Although " the solemn meeting " in Isaiah i. 1 3 has also been rendered " the day of restraint," is translated by " fasting " in the Septuagint, and has been taken by some commentators to refer to the great annual fast in Israel, the term is used for other solemn convoca- tions, and cannot be adduced in the way of proof. This absolute silence in all the pre-Exile history, including the histories in the Chronicles, which are often so specific regarding sacrificial institutions, would certainly prove nothing in any case. It would, how- ever, be far more of the nature of an argument against Moses than all that is adduced by the critics, provided there were a record of Israel keeping this institution under Ezra; for the sin-offering and the trespass- offering were neither daily nor annual institutions of the nation, and there is nothing remarkable in their observance being noticed after the Exile, when indi- vidual transgressions were rigorously examined, and the nation itself was just emerging out of great national judgments for their sins. But in the Day of Atone- ment the silence is the same throughout the entire Old Testament. The want of any reference to it under Ezra leads some of the critics on their own principles to hold that it must be of later date ; and that Ezra came up from Babylon with his great Code wanting 45 6 Historical trttth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. the institution that constitutes the centre of the whole Levitical system, and sanctifies all the rest, or as Kuenen calls it, "the crown or the keystone of the whole priestly system/' Professor Eobertson Smith holds that in the post-Exile narrative the Day of Atonement is even expressly excluded : " In the great convocation of Nehemiah viii.-x., where we have a record of proceedings from the first day of the seventh month onwards to the twenty-fourth, there is no men- tion of the day of expiation on the tenth, which thus appears as the very last stone in the ritual edifice " (p. 377). This is an evident mistake ; for on the contrary there is no record whatever of what the people did between the second day and the fifteenth, except that in the course of these days they prepared the booths of green branches for the fifteenth ; as they must still do, while scrupulously observing the tenth as the Day of Atonement. Ezra is thus held to have come up from Babylon without even the central ordinance of the Day of Atonement ; and all that he can be proved, not to have originated, but to have revived, is the beautiful Mosaic ceremonial of green booths at the Feast of Tabernacles. But as regards the actual keeping of The Day, the New Testament is almost as silent as the Old. Malachi closes the Old Testament without presenting any evi- dence regarding it ; and the account of its ceremonies cii. I.] Fallacy of the argitment from Silence, 457 in the ninth of Hebrews, with the reference to the camp in the thirteenth, attests its annual observance, but bears no testimony to its observance on any specified year. The description is not properly of the Temple, but of the Tabernacle with the Ark of the Covenant, and the golden pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that budded. The only other reference to the Day of Atonement in the New Testament is the narrative of Paul leaving the Fair Havens " when sailing w^as now dangerous, because the fast was now already past." This is an altogether incidental allusion pertaining to navigation and not to religion ; but it is a most conspicuous proof of the notableness of the Day, showing that it was commonly taken by the Jews to mark a great turning- point in the season of the year. Elsewdiere in the entire New Testament, in the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles, there is no reference whatever to such an institution in Israel, although it held so prominent a place in the calendar of the year. The Feasts of the Passover, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles are fully noticed, and important events and great teachings are recorded in connection with each of them; but from the beginning to the end of the New Testament, as of the Old, there is not the slightest notice of the actual observance of the Day of Atonement or of any event that occurred in connection with its observance. This is the more remarkable because in the seventh chapter of 45 S Historical trttth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. John it is said that the " Feast of Tabernacles was at hand/' and that when the brethren of our Lord ques- tioned Him about His going up to the feast, He answered, " I go not yet up unto this feast." Only four days intervened between the Day of Atonement on the 10th, and the Feast of Tabernacles on the 1 5th of the month, and when that feast was "at hand" the time must have been quite close on the Day of Atonement. But there is no allusion to the observance of such a day, while there cannot be the least doubt that both Jesus and his brethren, either just before or just after this conversation, were carefully observing it along with the whole nation. So worthless and so misleading is this w^hole argument from silence. III. The Silence regarding Circnmcision. In the case of Circumcision, if the argument of the new criticism were valid, it would prove that this great national ordinance was abolished on the return of the first exiles to Jerusalem. In the whole pro- fessedly post-Exile literature there is not the slightest allusion to circumcision, literal or spiritual ; either in the histories of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, or in the prophecies of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. If silence disproves existence, this great national ordinance was CH. I.] Fallacy of the aj^gtiment fro7n Silence. 459 abolished before the foundation of the Second Temple. But in the greater part of the Old Testament, it is never spoken of. In the Books of Numbers, Kings, and Second Chronicles, in Daniel, and the twelve minor prophets, in the post-Exile histories, in the whole Book of Psalms, in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and other books, it is never referred to. In all these the ordinance by which every child in Israel was received into the national covenant is passed over as if it had never been known. In the remaining books, Isaiah omits it entirely in the first half of his prophecies, and in the second half he names it only once, and apparently in a spiritual sense ; whilst in Deuteronomy the circum- cision of the heart alone is promised and commanded, as it might be where there is no literal circumcision. To circumcision on the eighth day there is less histori- cal reference in the Old Testament than in the New, in which we have a record of the circumcision of the holy Child Jesus, of John the Baptist, and of Paul on the eighth day ; whilst in the Old Testament, with its detailed accounts of the birth and infancy of so many eminent men, only Isaac's circumcision on the eighth day is recorded. The evident reason of the silence of so much of Scripture on this great national ordinance is just the universal practice of the rite, there being therefore neither need to enforce nor cause to record its observance ; and the omitted notice of this central 460 Historical triith of the Scriphuxs. [bk. vii. iustitution sufficiently explains all similar omissions in the case of other institutions. Note. — In speaking of the ordinance of Circumcision not being referred to in the minor prophets we ought perhaps to have excepted Habakkuk ii. 16. In noting Isaac's as the only Old Testament instance of Circumcision on the eiglith day, we have not overlooked the son of Zipporah, whose case makes all the more marked the usual omission of all notice of the ordinance, because it is recorded only on account of the previous neglect, whilst no mention is made of the circumcision of his elder brother, in whom the ordinance had doubtless been observed on the eighth day. CH. il] The Truth of tJie Books of Chronicles. 46 CHAPTEE IL THE TEUTH OF THE BOOKS OF CHROXICLES. If the Books of Chronicles were accepted by critics as true histories, there would be little room for doubt- ing the genuineness of the Books of Moses, because they assert the antiquity of the distinction between the priests and the Levites, the Levitical ministry of song, and other facts the denial of which lies at the founda- tion of the theory of the new criticism. Amongst our- selves, not the inspiration of these books, but their historical truth, is denied ; and although not inten- tionally, yet really, their truthfulness is likewise set aside. The inspired author not once but frequently makes historical statements corresponding to the fact which he narrates in 2 Chronicles viii. 14, that Solomon " appointed, according to the order of David his father, the courses of the priests to their service, and the Levites to their charges, to praise and minister before the priests." According to the new critics this distinc- tion of priests and Levites, and the ordinance of Levi- 462 Historical trtith of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. tical praise were not made till more than four hundred years later ; and such of them as desire to vindicate the honesty of the writer, plead for him that he naturally gave to ancient ordinances the colouring of those ordinances as observed in his own time, just, as is said, we unavoidably do ourselves. But if these critics are right, the author both here and often elsewhere is not colouring a fact, but inventing one; for he expressly attributes to David and Solomon ordinances which according to the critics they never enacted and could not have conceived, which he did not find in the ancient documents from which he professes to extract his history, and which he did not insert as a mistake but invented as a falsehood. It is evident that to attribute such a character to these histories is quite to set aside their Divine inspiration. In a history professedly taken from contemporary documents there is no reason why we should not have a real account of events as they occurred, and an exact representation of ordinances as they existed in former times. The description of the priests depositing the ark in the most holy place concludes with the statement, " And there it is unto this day ; " which is not the language of the Chronicler, who wrote after the destruc- tion of the Temple, but of the contemporary writer who gives the descrijjtion of the Temple ; the inspired author of the Chronicles making frequent references to CH. II.] The Truth of the Books of Chronicles. 463 the national or other documents, from which he derives his accounts. For a moment it seems plausible to main- tain that an author writing five hundred years after the reign of David cannot be expected to give so true an account of its events as one living nearer to the time. But it is obvious that if a later writer takes his facts from contemporary documents, and often in the words of those documents, the history may be much more ac- curate than if written by another living in the generation next to the events treated of, but without the essential aid of contemporaneous records. Apart from Divine in- spiration the Books of Chronicles may evidently be quite as accurate as the earlier Books of Samuel or Kimjs. King AhijaKs Speech. — The following passage from Professor Robertson Smith's Old Testament in the Jewish Church is a fair example of the criticism by which the historical authority of these books is sought to be set aside ; all the more fair because the instance is given as " one of the clearest proof s" against the historical accuracy of the Chronicles : — " The speeches in Chronicles are not literal reports. They are freely composed without strict reference to the exact historical situation. — Thus in Abijah's speech on the field of battle (2 Chron. xiii. 4 seri. ), the King is made to say that Jeroboam's rebelHon took place when Rehoboam was a mere lad and tender-hearted, and had not courage to with- stand the rebels. The mere lad, accordinsr to 1 Kiiiirs xiv. 21, was forty-one years old. Abijah then proceeds to boast of the regular Temple service conducted according to the 464 HistoiHcal ti^tUh of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. Levitical law. But the service described is that of the Second Temple, for the King speaks of the golden candle- stick as one of its elements . In Solomon's Temple there stood not one golden candlestick in front of the adyton (oracle, i. e. Holy of Holies), but ten (1 Kings vii. 49). Again, the morning and evening burnt-offerings are mentioned. But there is a great concurrence of evidence that the even- ing offering was purely cereal in the First Temple, or indeed in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. — This speech is one of the clearest proofs that the Chronicler's descriptions of ordin- ances are taken from the usage of his own time" (p. 421). The unworthy imputation of this speech having been composed by the historian is a most groundless assump- tion, because lie expressly informs us that not only the acts but the "sayings" of Abijah were put on record by the contemporary prophet Iddo, and that this record still existed : "And the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo" (2 Chron. xiii. 22) ; giving every reason to believe that the speech is in the words of Abijah himself, and that the report of it is in the writing of a contemporary prophet who knew the historical situation as it cannot now be known to any modern critic. 1. As regards Kehoboam's age some reverent ex- positors have supposed that an error may have crept into the text ; but the ground here taken is that the historian either ignorantly or carelessly puts into Abijah's lips an erroneous description of his father's years at his accession : " The king is made to say that CH. II.] The trict/i of the Books of Chronicles. 465 . . . Eelioboam was a mere lad — the mere lad, according to 1 Kings xiv. 21, was forty-one years old." It is most unjust to state that this was his age according to the Book of Kings, because it leaves the impression that the author of the Chronicles overlooks this fact, or he would not have called him a mere lad ; when, on the contrary, he expressly states that " Eehoboam was one and forty years when he began to reign" (2 Chron. xii. 13). The historian knew the King's age; and Abijah must be supposed to have known the usage of his own language when he calls his father " young " at his ac- cession. The " young man Absalom" was not a mere lad when his head was caught in the boughs of the great oak ; and the " young man" Joshua was more than forty-one years old when he tarried in the Tabernacle (Exod. xxxiii. 11) ; but Absalom was young as compared with his father David, Joshua was young as compared with Moses, and Eehoboam was young as compared with Solomon. But the accepted authority of the Book of Kings, as well as the rejected authority of Chronicles, speaks of Eehoboam as "young" at his accession, for they both state that he took counsel " with the young men that were grown up with him ; " and although the word " young " is not the same as that used by Abijah, it is one equally if not more expressive of tender age, and is used for the infant boys whom Pharaoh ordered to 2 G 466 Historical truth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. be cast into tlie Nile, and for the child Moses in the ark of bulrushes. The Book of Kings, therefore, may quite as justly as Abijah be accused of making Eehoboam a mere lad at his succession ; and this depreciation of the Book of Chronicles is as groundless as it is reprehensible. 2. But in the passage we have quoted it is asserted, next, that " The service described is that of the Second Temple," and the author is charged with either ignor- ance or forgetfulness of the fact that in Solomon's Temple there were ten golden candlesticks and not one. That the author was well acquainted with this fact is certain, for he states first that David " gave of gold by weight for the candlesticks of gold, by weight for every candlestick " (1 Chron. xxviii. 14, 15); and next that Solomon " made ten candlesticks of gold according to their form, and set them in the Temple, five on the right hand, and five on the left " (2 Chron. iv. 7). It is a very bold, not to say presumptuous position to maintain that the inspired author entirely forgot these explicit statements which he had made only a few chapters before; and there are two facts either of which will sufficiently explain Abijah's reference to one golden candlestick. First, When the ark of Moses with its own cheru- bims was placed within the holy oracle of the Temple with its larger new cherubims, it is said both in Kings CH. II.] The truth of the Books of Chronicles, 467 and Chronicles that the priests and the Levites brought up " all the holy vessels that were in the Tabernacle ;" and amongst the chief of these vessels were the table of shew-bread and the golden candlestick.-^ This ori- ginal candlestick was therefore taken into the Temple, and it might naturally have been regarded with special veneration and been used for lighting the Temple. But with the grudge against Solomon borne by Jeroboam and his people, it was much wiser in Abijah to make his appeal to Israel on the ground of Judah still preserving the institutions of Moses, than to make any reference peculiar to Solomon. He is so far from " describing the service of the Second Temple " that he makes no reference to the songs of the Levites which formed so great a part of that service. This speech, constructed with the greatest skill, refers neither to the songs in the First Temple nor to any- 1 Among the golden vessels of the Temple that were desecrated in the revelry of Belshazzar's feast, and amidst the other lights in the banc[i;et hall, may " The Candlestick," over against which ran the handwriting on the wall, not have been the one great Candlestick of transcendent beauty that lighted the Tabernacle in the wilderness ? The "Candlesticks" of the Temple were taken to Babylon (Jeremiah Hi. 19), but the vessels that were removed were of silver as well as of gold, and there were silver candlesticks as well as golden (1 Chronicles xxviii. 15). If the golden candle- sticks were removed by Shishak they might have been renewed by Hezekiah or some other king, and in any case the one that had been fashioned under Moses may have always been distinguished for its grandeur and its value as well as for its antiquity. 468 Historical truth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. thing in that Temple except what pertained to the Tabernacle ; the priests, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, the burnt- sacrifices and the sweet incense, the table of shew-bread and the golden candlestick, and afterwards the silver trumpets of the priests. The author of the Chronicles so delights in the praises of the Temple, that if he had composed the speech for Abijah he would scarcely have omitted these praises in describing the Levites " waiting upon their busi- ness." Another explanation has been offered on the ground that the lamps of only one candlestick may have been lighted each evening ; and this explanation is countenanced by the expression in 1 Kings vii. 48, " the table of gold, whereupon the shew-bread was," as if they w^ere to use only one at a time of the ten golden tables. In any case this passage in the Book of Kings speaks of one table, and proves that the same form of speech is a groundless charge against Abijah, or rather against the inspired author of the Chronicles. l^ext, we all know that there were ten candlesticks in Solomon's Temple when he built it, although the critic refuses this knowledge or the remembrance of it to the inspired writer, who repeatedly and with careful particularity records the fact ; but it is not now known how many golden candlesticks were in the Temple when Abijah addressed the hostile tribes of Israel. It will be accepted on the testimony of the Book of Kings CH. II.] The truth of the Books of Chronicles. 469 that " Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jeru- salem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord;" and it cannot be affirmed that the Egyptian conqueror left those ten golden candlesticks. They might naturally have shared the fate of the treasures of the Temple, and only one have been left in the reign of Abijah. 3. It is maintained that Abijah's speech must have been written under the Second Temple because " the morning and evening burnt-offering are mentioned, but there is a great concurrence of evidence that the evening offering was purely cereal in the First Temple." Kuenen regards the earliness of the evening burnt- offering as open to doubt ; but in the instances he adduces the argument must chiefly turn on the mean- ing of the word " offering " in Hebrew, which these critics would confine to the " meat-offering." But in that case it has already been show^n that Abel's offerinof of the firstlinsfs of the flock, and Israel's "offering" of the "torn and the lame" in the days of Malachi must have been " purely cereal." If then the speech of Abijah is " one of the clearest proofs" that the histories in the Chronicles are not accurate, but are coloured by later times, the proof breaks entirely down; and these books remain to us as fully inspired and as exactly true, as they have always been valued in the Church as amongst the 470 Historical truth of the Scriptm^es. [bk. vii. richest, the most instructive, and the most edifying portions of the Old Testament Scriptures. Further, if this speech of Abijah is certainly authen- tic, and if there is no reason to doubt that it is taken from the Book of Iddo the seer (2 Chron. xiii. 22), who prophesied against Jeroboam (2 Chron. ix. 29), and wrote the acts of Eehoboam (2 Chron. xii. 15), we have in it a very strong testimony that within twenty years of the death of Solomon it was held to be of the first importance in Judah, that it could be affirmed in proof of adherence to the old ordinances of Jehovah, that " the priests which minister unto the Lord are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their busi- ness ; " and we have in these words a clear refutation of the theory of the new critics. ciT. III.] The Fifty -First Psalm. 471 CHAPTER III. THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM WRITTEN BY DAVID. That the title of the Fifty-first Psalin is genuine and that the name of David is inscribed on the Psalm throughout, and written as legibly in its confessions and hopes as in its title, has been the undoubting faith of the Hebrew nation and the Christian Church for thousands of years. After the Ten Commandments and the Fifty- third of Isaiah, there is, perhaps, no other portion of the Hebrew Scriptures that for these three thousand years has yielded richer fruit unto eternal life ; and if it is now plucked by the roots from its historic ground, its leaf will be green no longer, and it will have lost for ever more than half its fruit. During all these ages the history of David has been shedding its light on every line of the Psalm, and has entered deeply and inseparably into the conviction, the comfort, and the salvation it has ministered to myriads of the re- deemed. Bv the words of the Psalm the historical 472 Historical truth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. essence of bis repentance has been woven tbrougb the life of kindred spirits in every nation and tongue ; and if the Church of the future is robbed of this priceless treasure in its historic setting, the ages to come will be sadly impoverished as compared with the ages past. The latest effort to sever the Fifty-first Psalm from the name and history of David will be read with a pain- ful surprise ; both on account of its extreme character and of the eminent and influential name under which it is issued, without responsible concurrence yet not with- out a certain shelter of recommendation. The author is one of the contributors to the Commentary on the, Old Testament edited by Bishop Ellicott, and his sug- gested theory is that the Psalm was written during the Exile as a national confession of sin. The sever- ance of the Psalm from the person and life of David obscures its light and teaching throughout, even when it is attributed to some individual penitent. But this extremely advanced theory strips it of all personality ; turns it into a prayer composed for. others and only shared in by its unknown author ; and for the millions of individual penitents who now use it in the assured belief that it came from the heart of a man of like passions with themselves, it becomes only a general prayer for a whole nation. The commentator suggests it as probable that the Psalm may not have been " originally, directly, and exclusively the expression cii. III.] The Fifty- First Psalui. 473 of an individual's repentance, but rather the voice of the people of Israel deploring during the Exile, its ancient errors and sins — the only conclusion which completely explains verse 4." The writer's argument for its being a Psalm of the Exile is founded partly on the two last verses, which will fall to be considered afterward ; and his argument for its being not a personal but a national confession is founded on the words of the fourth verse. If the personality of an author can be expressed in language, it is brought out beyond all dispute in this Psalm with its varied personal references introduced in sixteen out of the nineteen verses of the prayer. To national trans- gression or apostasy there is not the slightest reference throughout. The holy resolution : " Then will I teach transgressors thy ways ; and sinners shall be converted unto thee," in the lips of Israel as a nation could refer only to the heathen ; and would be expressed as in the Sixty- seventh Psalm, " God be merciful unto us, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." The mental peculiarity that can recognise a merely national origin for one of the most intensely personal of all the Psalms finds a singularly mistaken proof of its position in the fourth verse, the commentary on which reads thus : " 4. Against thee, thee only. Tliis can refer to nothing but a breacli of the covenant relation bv the 474 Historical h'lUh of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. nation at large. An individual would have felt his guilt against the nation or other individuals, as well as against Jehovah." This is well answered in the words of Hengstenberg : " How must David have trembled, how must he have been seized with shame and grief, when he referred everything up to God, — in Urias saw only the image of God, the Holy One who deeply resented that injury, the gracious and compassionate One, to whom he owed such infinitely rich benefits." It is hard to understand how an acute and learned critic could conceive that the difficulty of this confession as regards David is in the least degree removed by transferring it to the nation. If David could not say " Against thee only have I sinned " because he had been guilty of adultery and murder, then for the very same reasons these words could not have been used by exiled Israel in Babylon. Like David they had been guilty of falsehood, of adultery, and of shedding innocent blood, and it was notoriously for these sins as well as for idolatry that they had been sent out of their land. " Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal ; and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations ? Therefore I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim " (Jer. vii. 9, 10, U, 15). The shedding of innocent blood in the murder of cif. in.] The Fijty- First Psalm. 475 Uriah was very far from David's only sin, but it filled up the cup of his iniquity in the whole transaction re- ferred to in the title of the Psalm, and was itself the most aggravated sin of all. But the crowning sin of Israel that caused the nation to be carried captive was likewise the shedding of innocent blood. " They have built the high places of Topliet, wdiich is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire ; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore the land shall be desolate " (Jer. vii. 31, 32, 34). The crowning sin of the Canaanites for which they had been cut off from their land is noted in these words : " When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee. . . Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by fol- lowing them, . . for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods ; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods " (Deut. xii. 29, 30, 31). In reference to their crimes it is written of Israel that " Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jeru- salem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel " (2 Chron. xxxiii. 9) : making his own son to pass through the fire to Moloch, and leading Israel to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, tiU the cup of their iniquity was full, and their destruction could no 476 Historical ti'tith of the Scriptures, [bk.vii. longer be averted. " Surely at the comniandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Mauasseh, according to all that he did ; and also for the innocent blood that he shed : for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon " (2 Kings xxiv. 3, 4). How such a nation can be supposed not to have been guilty of sin against " individuals " is incompre- hensible. The only ground on which this idea can be maintained is that the children whom Israel sacrificed to Moloch were part of the nation itself ; and on such a plea the mother who had burned her child in the fire might plead that she had only sinned against the Lord, and not against her child because it was her own. It is no light matter to seek to turn this penitential prayer so prized by the Church in all ages from its deep personal thoughts into a merely national and general confession ; it is a serious error to found this conjecture on an argument utterly inconsistent with the Scriptural accounts of the causes of the national Exile ; and it is deeply to be regretted that a view at once so erroneous and so hurtful should be published under so high a sanction. The common Exile theory of the Psalm, which ascribes it to an individual penitent praying for himself, we shall have occasion to con- sider afterward ; and of this latest conception, w^hicli is more like a critic's dream than a responsible exposition CH. Ill,] The Fifty -First Psalm, 477 of Scripture, we should not have taken such notice, except for its being embodied in an important and influential Commentary for English readers, where most of all such crude speculations ought to have found no place. In the following pages we propose to take up these points : The rejection of the titles of this and other Psalms, the alleged unfitness of David to have written the Psalm, the proof from its contents of its only possible author, and the objections to this authorship. I. Tlu rejected Titles of the Fifty-first and other Psalms. It was the ancient belief of Jews and Christians that the titles are as old as the Psalms, either written by their authors, or, at least, not added at some later date ; and this tradition is confirmed by the facts that some of the latest Psalms, as the song of those who wept by the rivers of Babylon, want the titles, and that the musical notes in the titles are so old that from a remote date the clew to their meaning has been lost. On the subject of these inscriptions, it is well remarked by Delitzsch, that " the custom which has gained ground since the last decade of the past cen- tury, of rejecting what has been historically handed down, has at present grown into a despicable habit of 478 Historical trtith of the Scriphtres. [bk. vii. forming a decision too hastily, which, in any other department of literature, where the judgment is not so warped by the drift of the inquiry, would be regarded as folly." The full and explicit title of the Fifty-first Psalm defines both its author and its occasion, and so long as the inscriptions were held in reverence there was no room for dispute; but Professor Eobertson Smith speaks of them in these terms : " There is no reason to believe that any title is as old as the Psalm to which it is prefixed, and some of the titles are certainly wrong ; for example, the author of the elegy on Saul and Jonathan could not possibly have written Psalm Ixxxvi., which is a mere cento of reminiscences from other poems" {Encyclo;pcBclia Britannica, Art. " Bible "). Some distinguished critics, like Bleek, have modestly expressed a doubt about the authorship of the Eighty- sixth Psalm, and if such had been the spirit of this criticism, the rejection of its brief title might have been left without remark. But in all of us critical study ought surely not to be dissevered from modesty and reverence in judging the Word of the great God. Men by living long become aware that in widely different circumstances, separated by a long interval of time, a difference of thought and style goes a very little way to prove that the man cannot possibly be the same ; and they learn that while deep trials, like those in the CH. III.] The Fifty- First Psalm. 479 Eighty-sixth Psalm, are often fruitful in fresh ideas, they also tend to throw the soul back either on its former thoughts or on the thoughts of others. Even He who spake as never man spake did not utter new words of His own in the darkest crisis of His suffer- ings, but betook Himself to the reminiscence of the well-known words of David. Yet the prayer in the eleventh verse, " Unite my heart to fear Thy name ; I will praise Thee with all my heart," instead of being a repetition out of other poems, we had taken to be without a parallel in all the Hebrew Songs. " Knit my heart into one, make my heart a unit, that I may praise Thee with my whole heart," presents a thought of quite singular significance and beauty. This peti- tion, in its rarity and in its intenseness, most charac- teristically fits the lips of him who could say, " I love the Lord," with more depth of meaning than any other man ; and no man in Israel was so likely to have thought and uttered it as he who had so thoroughly sounded the depths of human affection, and had sung of it so exquisitely in his lament over Jonathan. Learned critics and men of poetic taste, as well as the devout reader of the Psalm, have been irresistibly arrested by the exquisite beauty of the prayer, " Uni cor meum," and they would ask with no little interest out of what older poem a thought that had seemed to them so new has now been found to be a reminiscence. 480 HistoiHcal truth of the Scinptures. [bk. vii. There is no call, however, for any earnest conten- tion about the origin of this Psalm ; but the case is very different as regards both the Fifty-first and some other Psalms on whose Davidic authorship we find the following statement in the same article by Dr. Eobertson Smith : " The assertion that no Psalm is certainly David's is hypersceptical, and few remains of ancient literature have an authorship so w^ell attested as the eighteenth, or even as the seventh Psalm. These, along with the indubitably Davidic poems in the Book of Samuel, give a sufficiently clear image of a very unique genius, and make the ascription of several other poems to David extremely probable." The critic maintains that one Psalm was decidedly written by David, or even two, the eighteenth and the seventh, and that the ascription of several others to him is extremely probable. Then the sixteenth, which the title ascribes to David, was either not written, or, at least, was not certainly written by him. Yet the apostle Peter, in interpreting the Psalm by the inspira- tion of the Holy Spirit, says that the same David whose sepulchre might still be seen at Jerusalem, spoke in that Psalm of Christ, concerning whom God had sworn to him that He would raise him up of the fruit of his loins. But if David did not write the Psalm, this entire statement is, not designedly, yet most directly, false ; for in that case the writer of the Psalm never CH. III.] The Fifty- First Psalm. 48 1 received any promise that the Messiah should be his son, and he was never entombed in David's sepulchre ; and if these Pentecostal words are not to be believed there can be no faith attached to the apostle's state- ment that it was the risen Christ who poured out the Spirit on that day. The apostle Paul founds exactly the same argument on this Psalm in Acts xiii. 36 ; and if we deny its authorship by David, we must hold not only that both the great apostles to Jew and to Gentile were mistaken in the fact regarding David, but that in building the two walls of the Church on the crucified and risen Christ as the one Stone laid in Zion, they both alto- gether erred in their selected Scriptural proof of His resurrection. In a case still stronger, the 110th Psalm, with its Davidic title, is regarded either as certainly not David's, or as not certainly his. Yet our Lord Himself declares most explicitly that it was David, the ancestor of the Messiah, who spoke in that Psalm, and He gives it out as a matter for earnest inquiry how the writer of the Psalm could have Christ at once for his son and for his Lord. No evasion can get rid of the conclusion that Christ knew the Psalm to be written by David, for He says, " David himself saith in the Book of Psalms, ' The Lord said unto my Lord. . . .' David therefore calleth him Lord, how is he then his son?" It cannot be 2 H 482 Historical truth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. pleaded that Jesus speaks thus merely to stop the mouths of His adversaries in their asking entangling questions, for it is Christ Himself who selects and pro- poses the question. The supposition that David may not be the author of the Psalm, however otherwise it may appear to those who hold it, cannot be freed from involving the blasphemy that the whole statement may be untrue, and the whole argument delusive. The denial or the doubt of the Davidic titles of these two Psalms is a much graver matter than setting aside the title of the Fifty-first, because, however unde- signedly, it does most directly impugn the inspiration of the Apostles and the infallibility of our Lord ; but it serves at the same time to show both how little value is to be attached to the rejection of other titles, and how headlong is the course of such criticism. II. Tlie alleged unfitness of David to have luritten - the Psalm. The arguments against the authorship of the Fifty- first Psalm by David, derived from its contents, are far from being formidable ; and if there are difiSculties let them be reverently stated. But when we come to judgments on the fitness of inspired prophets to write what the Spirit of God has given them, we are treading on very sacred ground, where no man could guide our CH. III.] The Fifty First Psalm. 483 steps without being himself inspired; and it must be con- fessed that hitherto the forwardness of critics to " meddle with things too high for us " has usually been in propor- tion as their writings fail to give evidence of their fitness for such spiritual criticism. According to Professor Kuenen, " The least elevated and least pure conception of David's religion approaches the nearest to the trutli. His ideas of Jehovah are in harmony with the spirit of his still half-barbarous age ; and it is only when the- literature of the age of David has been relegated to later times, that the accounts relating to him become altogether comprehensible." He therefore, " abandons the hopeless attempt of uniting into one person the poet of the Psalms with the David of history," and David is set aside as incapable of conceiving the high spiritual thoughts of the Psalms, which are all held to be the products of much later and more developed times. But Kuenen begins his Religion of Israel with denying a divine origin or authority for the Bible more than for the Koran, sets aside any inspiration except what flows from what he designates the "all-embracing activity of God's spirit in humanity," rejects all miracles, all supernatural prophecy, and ends his third volume with extolling "the most excellent individu- ality of Jesus" and " liberal Christianity with its openly avowed Unitarianism." All these views our own new critics would strongly repudiate ; and we earnestly wish 484 Historical truth of the Scriptwes, [bk. vii. we could add that tliey also reject his theory of develop- ment, and his most irrational method of constructing history, not by inquiring what its facts are, but by imagining what they ought to have been. The unfitness of David for writing the rift3^-first Psalm is stated byDr.Eobertson Smith very generally : — " This current of productive psalmody runs apparently from David down to the Exile, losing in the course of centuries something of its original freshness and fire, but gaining a more chastened pathos and a wider range of spiritual sympathy. Psalm Fifty- one, obviously composed during the desolation of the Temple, marks, perhaps, the last phase of this development." Accord- ing to this theory, it took more than four hundred years from David's time to develop the chastened pathos and the wide spiritual sympathy of the Fifty-first Psalm. But no pathos can surpass the lament over Absalom ; chastening of spirit has very rarely exceeded the words, ''Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him ;" and there is no wider range of spiritual sympathy in the Fifty-first Psalm than in the words of the Sixteenth, '' The excellent of the earth, in whom is all my delight ;" and of the Hundred and Tenth, " Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." But the critic's estimate of David, as unfit to have written the Fifty-first Psalm, will come out more dis- tinctly by comparing it with his estimate of Moses, of CH. III.] The Fifty-First Psalm. 485 whose unfitness to have written Deuteronomy he speaks most definitely, and with an alarming decision : — " The whole theological standpoint of the book agrees exactly w4tli the period of prophetic literature, and gives the highest and most spiritual view of the law to which our Lord Himself directly attaches His teaching, and which cannot be placed at the beginning of the theo- cratic development without making the whole history unintelligible." As to this writer the whole history of Israel becomes unintelligible if Moses is supposed to be capable of the highly spiritual view of the law given in Deuteronomy, which he holds not to liave been attained till the prophetic period, or about the eighth century before Christ ; — so to Professor Kuenen the life of Abraham is not true history, because its standpoint is as high and spiritual as that of the same period. "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," he says, "are not only servants of Jehovah, but are also not inferior to the prophets of the eighth century before Christ in pure- ness of religious insight and inward spiritual piety .... this representation is utterly without foundation in history." This rejection of the narrative of Abra- ham's life and character by Kuenen is founded on exactly the same ground as the rejection of Moses as the author of Deuteronomy by the writer in the Ency- dopccdia, because their reception would in both cases make them equal to tliC prophets of the eightli century ; 486 Historical tritth of the Scripttires, [bk. vii. the patriarchal narrative is set aside because the " pure- ness of its religious insight and its inward spiritual piety" are so high, and the Deuteronomy of Moses is refused because it " gives the highest and most spiritual view of the law ;" and beyond all doubt, if we accept Professor Smith's view of Moses, we must still more accept Professor Kuenen's view of Abraham. If Deu- teronomy is too high a book for the prophet to have written, Abraham's is too high a history for the patri- arch to have lived ; and his spiritual elevation is according to this theory of development the more incredible of the two, because he lived in a still ruder age, and was removed from the highly developed pro- phetic period by no less than twelve hundred years. But if Deuteronomy is too high for Moses, what of Exodus ? Is it not likewise too high ? Most certainly. The subtle German criticism of the past generation went the length of maintaining, as Wellhausen now does, not only that many things in Exodus could not have been written by Moses ; but that the " Ten Words" them- selves could never have entered his mind, because some of the views, both of God and of man, both of divinity and morality, are the highest of which the human intel- lect is capable, and could not have been conceived in so barbarous an age. " I am Jehovah, thy God : Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," in the opening of the Commandments, gives the highest, most CH. III.] The Fifty -First Psalm, 487 abstract, and most spiritual view of God which the mind of man can conceive ; and at their close, " Thou slialt not covet " gives the noblest and most refined view of morals. It has, therefore, been held that it makes history unintelligible to suppose thoughts so sublime to have originated in so early and rude an age ; and on the principles of the Encyclopceclia this conclusion is unquestionably right. There is nothing loftier in Deuteronomy than these first and last words of the Ten Commandments. The apostle Paul, who loves to quote Deuteronomy and to reason from its texts, had in his own personal history found nothing in its noble chap- ters, through which the Spirit disclosed to him a higher or more spiritual view of the law than the words in Exodus, "Thou shalt not covet;" and if Moses, as inspired by the Holy Spirit, is judged to have been incapable of writing Deuteronomy on account of the spirituality of its views, he may also be held to have been incapable of intelligently ministering the Ten Commandments. And where is this to end ? In its reasonable results, and practical tendency, it can have only one termination — the rejection of all that is supernatural in the Bible. 488 Historical tr2ith of the Scriphtres. [bk. vii. III. The contents of the Psalm the proof of its only possible Author. The school of theology which appropriates to itself the name of scientific, which is distinguished by acute- ness and by industry, and some of whose writers, like Ewald, have cast their speculations in an attractive form, is at the same time marked by this characteristic and most unscientific feature, that while they agree in rejecting, as contrary to science, whatever in the Bible is at first sight improbable, each writer substitutes some theory of his own, or oftener of some one else, without taking account of the tenfold greater improbabilities with which it is burdened. Taking up the Psalm as if it bore no title, and as if we had no clew to its history, what we find is this : Its circumstances and sentiments are so peculiar and distinguishing, that they are not known to have been combined in the history and character of any man but one in the whole human race. They are such as pro- bably never were combined in any other, and as cer- tainly could not have been found in any Israelite during the desolation of the Temple. One deeply cut feature stamps the Psalm as widely different from every other, and places it quite alone in the Psalter. It is the start- ling fact that the Psalm is The Confession of a Murderer. To such a confession nothing elsewhere in the Psalms CH. III.] The Fifty-First Psalm. 489 bears the least resemblance ; and a guilt so appalling must form the burden of the prayer throughout, although it is late in the Psalm before the supplicant has the courage to name the dreadful act, just as in the opening sentence of his prayer he does not utter the word " transgressions" till he has most touchingly appealed to God for pity in every form, in His mercy, in His loving-kindness, in the multitude of His tender mercies. AVhile he laments inward sin, and acknowledges not only one but many transgressions, the " sin that is ever before him" must be most of all the dark red stain of murder ; from which at last expressly, and with intense earnest- ness, he implores to be redeemed, and which in his petition he seems purposely to brand with the strong Hebrew word for blood used for the death of Abel. It is not a prayer for the purifying of the heart, but a loud cry for deliverance, for rescue from guilt and con- demnation : (Erue me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae) " Deliver me from hlood- guiltiness, 0 God, thou God of my scdvation." Springing out of this radical distinction, there is the entire and very marked absence of a class of pleas for pity taken from the side of the suppliant that are common in the other penitential Psalms. There is the acknowledged transgression, the broken heart, and the closed lips ; but the penitent presents no plea for mercy on the f]jround of the hatred of his enemies, or of his 490 Historical truth of the Scriptures, [bk vii. own sincerity, or even from his calling, or trusting, or waiting on the Lord. -^ The confession brings to light a very remarkable history, one far out of the common current of daily events, and quite contrary to the long downward course of an ungodly man ending in violence and bloodshed, 1 Blood-guiltiness. — It lias been attempted to attach a vaguer meaning to the term "blood," and to take it for guilt and punish- ment. But Hengstenberg says that the only passage on which stress has been laid is Isaiah, eh. iv. 4 ; and that its literal mean- ing is clear from ch. i. 15-21. A more plausible idea would be to attach to the expression the sense of natural pollution from Ezek. ch. xvi. 6, 9. But it would be quite inadmissible to attach to so common an expression a sense so rare and peculiar unless the con- text made it clear, as in Ezekiel ; and the petition itself plainly disproves such a meaning, because it is not, as in the prophet, " washing " from blood that is referred to by the Psalmist, but he asks to be *' delivered," to be " snatched or plucked from danger " (Gesen.), as being under condemnation ; Sept. 'PDo-at /ze e^ alfxaruv ; Vulg., Libera me a sanguinibus ; Pagnin., Erue me de sanguinibus ; Cler., Libera me a credis crimine. Neither could the apostle Paul's use of the term, in the words "I am pure from the blood of all men," however helpful in a secondary sense to all who have charge over the souls of others, be its primary meaning here, without the connection making it un- mistakably clear ; and the confession is evidently not of mere neglect, but of the gravest actual transgression. As a prayer for more general use, the confession of blood-guilti- ness, along with prayer for the imputation of divine righteousness, would come home to thousands of Jews at Pentecost ; it will yet be offered by the children of those who cried, ' ' His blood be on us and on our children ; " and is now very intelligible to the man who is looking on Him whom he has pierced by sin and by un- belief. CH. III.] The Fifty-First Psalm. 49 1 and followed by dark remorse. The life of the sup- pliant has been a course of the highest spiritual expe- rience of which man is capable, in the sense of God's presence, in the light of His face, in the indwelling of His Spirit, and in the joy of His salvation. This heaven- ward walk has been succeeded by a terrible fall, by inward foolishness, by the losing of a clean heart, by deviation from the truth, finally and fearfully by stain- ing his hands with innocent blood. His sin against man is of a rarely paralleled guilt, yet he speaks of it as committed against God alone, and says that he will accept of His judgment as just if He shall condemn him, indicating that there is no man above him in the commonwealth to call him to account for his crime. To God he makes his deeply ashamed and most humbly penitent confession, yet not with the remorse of un- believing guilt, but with the faith and hope of a child craving restoration to a Father's favour, and with intense desire for the omnipotent creation within him of truth, of wisdom, and of holiness ; for there is a constant and beautiful mingling through the Psalm of prayer for pardon and for purity. Along with his confession he would present a sacrifice in the Sanctuary, but the Holy One desires it not at his hands, or, as it has been translated, would not accept it ; and no priest dare offer a sacrifice for the sin of murder. This present exclusion from the altar shuts him up to two distinct 492 Historical truth of the Snnptttres. [bk. vii. sacrifices of another kind. One is the spiritual sacrifice of his own broken heart ; the other is the atoning cleansing of his conscience, as if with the hyssop dipped in blood ordained for the cleansing of the leper ; and the prayer, "Wash me throughly," may refer to the sevenfold sprinkling of the leper with blood. But the cleansing he asks is not by human hands, but by a directly divine washing that will make him whiter than snow. To Christians there are two deep mysteries in the Psalm, not in its words as shone upon to us in the New Testament, but as they were breathed from the heart, and uttered by the lips of a Jew : the prayer just quoted, " Purge me with hyssop," and the correspond- ing purpose, " I will sing aloud of thy righteousness." In the heart sprinkled from an evil conscience by the blood of Christ, and in Christ made of God unto us righteousness, both expressions are clear and full to us ; but what did they mean in the miud of the Jew whose prayer, given him by the Holy Spirit, fits us so much better than any we could frame for ourselves ? Un- doubtedly the two expressions are quite kindred in meaning : " I was shapen in iniquity ; purge me with hyssop, and I shall be whiter than snow : I acknow- ledge my transgressions ; deliver me from blood-guilti- ness, and I shall sing aloud of thy righteousness." The acquittal of a murderer is mercy, not justice ; but as it CH. III.] The Fifty-First Psalm. 493 is elsewhere, " Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity," so it must be here, " Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness." The not imputing of his own iniquity, and the imput- ing of divine righteousness must here be the subject of his song ; and it is emphatically righteousness without works, for it is righteousness counted to a self- condemned and broken-hearted murderer. Whatever w^e now find in the words that he could not discern, he seems to have seen with an eye almost clearer than ours that the divine sprinkling would make his crimson stain whiter than snow ; and he knew not doubtfully, but assuredly, that God's righteousness freely made his ow^n would so acquit him from the gailt of blood, that he would not merely celebrate His mercy, but extol His righteousness, and that with no faltering voice, but with his loudest song of praise. In the closing petition of this deeply personal repent- ance, the suppliant seems to intimate that he holds a public and representative position, that his sin might therefore be expected to injure the community, and he appends an earnest prayer for the welfare of Israel. He also looks forward in faith to a season when Israel would offer abundant and acceptable sacrifices, from wdiich he had himself been excluded for a time ; and although he would not offer a personal sacrifice for a crime for which there was no expiation under the law, 494 Historical trttth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. yet after that shall have been on other grounds forgiven he will join with Israel in their sacrifices, both of expi- ation and of thanksgiving. One of the most note- worthy features in the whole case remains to be added in the singular fact that this penitential song, contain- ing a confession of the darkest crime of which man can be guilty, is publicly received, and embodied in the songs of the Sanctuary. All this agrees minutely with the history of David, of his high place in the divine favour, of his deep fall, and of his Psalms holding the first rank in the service of God notwithstanding his great transgression. Such a history will fit no other known man that ever lived, and no unknown exile in Babylon. If the penitent's prayer for building the walls of Jerusalem (not, how- ever, for rebuilding them) must be taken in the letter, and must on that account be held to prove him to be an exile, his prayer for cleansing with hyssop must likewise be interpreted literally, and when so taken it will prove, on the contrary, that he could not have been absent from the land of accepted sacrifice. But the writer of the Psalm was a murderer, and if he had been one of the exiles he would have forfeited his life by his crime ; or if he had contrived to escape the just penalty of the law, he would have been fain to keep silence both about his former grace and his recent guilt. If, on the one hand, this private criminal had read his confession ciL III.] The Fifty -First Psalm. 495 openly, it would have been nailed to the tree on which himself was hung. And if, on the other hand, while still a fugitive from justice, he had written an unsigned confession, full of professions of piety, is it conceivable that it would have been allotted a place in the holy songs of God's Sanctuary ? Most men who have once had to do with a murderers religious utterances are apt to be careful how they confide in them a second time. Our trust, indeed, is secured by Scriptural authority in the case of the penitent thief; but his brief petition is very different from a whole Psalm, and it came not from the pen of a hidden fugitive, but from the lips of one who died in the sight of all men, with his name and his crime written over his cross. This example gives no w^arrant whatever for supposing that such a place in the Church as belongs to the writer of this Psalm either has been, or ever could be, allotted to an unknown criminal. It is accorded to David only for his singularly high position in Israel, in providence, in grace, and in prophetic inspiration. All his history, previous and subsequent, is thoroughly known to us ; this divinely imparted knowledge is essential to secure our confidence in his penitential confession ; and as the fruit of it, all generations have had the fullest reliance on the truth of every line of his matchless prayer. But, further, it is hard to see what meaning can be attached in the Exile theory to the words, " Else would 49^ Historical trttth of the Scrip Hires, [bk. vii. I give it ; " because when taken along with the last verse of the Psalm, their only natural meaning in the lips of an exile is that he can offer no acceptable sacri- fice while the Temple is in ruins. But if he has been guilty of bloodshed his words are hypocritical, because he knows that although the altar had stood, it would have rejected any sacrifice for his heinous crime. IV. Ohjcctions to the Davidic origin of tlie Psalm. To the view now given of the Psalm it is objected that its confession of sin as against God alone may mean that to God alone is every sinner finally respon- sible, that all our sins against men are mainly against God Himself, whose creatures or children we are, and that by Him alone can any sin be forgiven. This sense w^e earnestly hold to be included, and expressly intended ; but that the Psalmist was likewise outwardly responsible to no man we take to be part of its full and natural meaning. As regards God not desiring or accepting sacrifice, it is contended that the reference, as in the Fortieth Psalm, is to the inefi&cacy of the sacrificial blood of beasts. But it seems impossible to bring this interpretation into harmony with the con- cluding joyful commendation of prospective sacrifices, not of another, but of the very same kind ; which is quite consistent with the view we have taken of the CH. III.] The Fifty -First Psalm. 497 Psalmist's present exclusion from the altar. It is also pleaded that if he referred to such exclusion he would have written " sin-offering ; " but " sacrifice " is a gene- ral term for an offering with blood, and may surely include the sin-offering. There seems, however, no cause for the penitent specifying either the sin or the trespass- offering, as if he could conceive that his offences might possibly, but did not really, come under the special provisions for such sacrifices. His double transgressions of adultery and murder twice demanded, not the blood of beasts, but his own blood; the murderer was to be dragged even from God's altar and slain ; and as in presenting the sin-offering the priest was made cognisant of the nature of the offence, it was scarcely necessary to state that he would not accept it. But every sacrifice, and very markedly the burnt- offering which he names, made expiation for the sins of the offerer, who transferred them to the victim by laying his hand on its head, that it might make atone- ment for him ; and for the sin of Job's three friends, the ordered expiation was a large burnt- offering. If without making public his carefully concealed guilt, the King had approached the altar with a princely burnt-offering, the priest would certainly not have refused to present his sacrifice ; and to God alone he would have acknowled(]jed the sins for which he souoht expiation. But David knew that in expiation for his 2 I 49 8 Histo^Hcal truth of the Scriptures, [bk. vii. double crime God would accept of no sacrifice that he could bring to the altar, and that nothing but a higher sprinkling could make atonement for him, although after his reconciliation he would be accepted in joining with Israel in their righteous offerings. Some critics have objected that David had already- received the Divine pardon through the lips of the prophet Nathan, and had therefore no need to ask it, as is done in this Psalm. But that ^vas only the formal assurance of forgiveness through a messenger, and could never have satisfied David's soul. He must receive the Divine pardon directly from God Himself, with the light of His countenance, and the inward seal and sense of reconciliation in his own heart. The great central feature of the Psalm remains unassailable, and not open to dispute, the confession of murder. This acknowledgment can neither be set aside nor explained away; and the confession of a crime that inexorably demanded the life of the criminal has been proved to be quite incompatible with the publicly accepted Psalm of an exile. As regards the public petitions in the last two verses, it was most natural for David in his prayer to think of Israel whom he had so dishonoured and so endangered by his crime. His own death by the hand either of God or of an avenger of blood would have been a great calamity to the nation ; and the sword CH. III.] The Fifty -First Psalm, 499 threatened by Nathan the prophet against his house could not but involve serious evil to all Israel. He asks therefore that the Lord may do good to Zion, and that he will build the walls of Jerusalem. When, at a later period, the angel of the Lord threatens " to destroy Jerusalem," his intellect is not so material as to suggest the thought that the destruction of the city means the overthrow of its stone and lime ; but he sees only his people's danger, and pleads for them, " These sheep, what have they done ? " So here, if it were necessary, the second petition, " Build thou the walls of Jerusalem," might most naturally be taken as only another form of the first, " Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion." At the same time, although it has sometimes been unaccountably overlooked, it is quite certain that the walls, both of Jerusalem and of Zion, were still un- finished at David's death, and the breaches in both at the date of his confession must often have engaged his earnest thoughts. As soon as David occupied Jerusalem he gave himself assiduously to the building of its walls ; and Josephus assigns it as a chief reason of the vast strength of those walls, that "David and Solomon and the kings following were very zealous about this work." Selecting his own dwelling in the citadel of Zion, " he built round about from ^lillo and inward ; he built the city round about, even from Millo round about," and 500 Historical truth of the Scrtplures. [bk. vii. under him " Joab repaired the rest of the city" (2 Sam. V. 9 ; 1 Chron. xi. 8). Millo is understood to have been part of the citadel of Zion, and to Zion also the site of the Temple on Moriah was reckoned to belong. But none of these great works were completed till the reign of Solomon, who " closed the breaches of the city of David, built Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem round about" (1 Kings iii. 1 ; ix. 15 ; xi. 27). And with the still open breaches of Zion before his eyes, and the unfinished walls of Jerusalem, and his begun accumulations of gold, silver, brass, iron, and marble for the Temple, it was the most natural of all prayers on the lips of David, " Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion, build thou the walls of Jerusalem, then shalt thou be pleased with sacrifices of righteousness." On another account it was most fit that in asking the forgiveness of his sin he should also entreat that God would build His own house in Jerusalem ; for he could not but reflect that if the blood of righteous war had before unfitted him for erecting an habitation for the God of peace, the dark stain of innocent blood had now made him much more unmeet for such an honour, and he would therefore the more earnestly ask that God would build a house for Himself. And when from these closing verses the desolation of the Temple is so confidently assigned for the Psalm, it is to be noted that there was no time before the Exile when prayer could CH. III.] The Fifty-First Psalm. 501 have been offered for the building of the Temple, except during the latter period of David's reign. Ten years earlier it had not been contemplated, but at the time of his great transgression the Temple, though not in ruins, might almost be said to be lying unbuilt. During the period of his unconfessed guilt the outward work might have been interrupted, or else, for the quieting of his troubled conscience, might have been prosecuted with the greater diligence ; but now, when the soul is returning to its God, his personal confession is sure to be followed by the springing up of a renewed and intense desire for the accomplishment of the great work which had for some years been the chief object of his life. With apparent reference to this portion of his article, Professor Eobertson Smith speaks elsewhere of the "new results of scholarly criticism affecting the authorship of a favourite Psalm." But the subject requires the exercise of judgment rather than of scholarship, because the theory is very apt to present itself to the mind of any reader ; and the results of the German criticism, even of one cast, scarcely appear to be so entirely in favour of his view as his remark may seem to imply. In our own country Dr. Samuel Davidson, and some others before him, take the Exile theory of the Psalm, which will occur at first sight to all who are prepared to set aside the title ; not a few 502 Historical truth of the Scripttires. [bk. vii. German critics are of the same miud ; and Professor Kuenen is not prepared to ascribe any of the Psalms to David. On the other hand, the accordance of the older commentators in ascribing the Psalm to David needs no proof. It may be mentioned that Le Clerc takes, in substance, the view already given of the connection between the divine rejection of sacrifices in the sixteenth verse, and their acceptance in the nine- teenth ; on which he says that a careful study of the Psalm will lead to the conclusion that God, having sanctioned no legal expiation of any kind for the sins of adultery and murder, would utterly refuse a burnt- offering presented with that view ; but that after He had, on quite other than legal grounds, granted a full pardon for those offences. He would then accept David alonpj with Israel in brins^inor sacrifices both of atone- \ ment and of thank-offering. Amongst recent critics, I Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Kiel, and Perowne maintain i the truth of the historic title of the Psalm, and their ■ orthodoxy is no good reason for setting aside their criticism. Bleek, whose criticism is often destruc- tive enough, has no hesitation whatever in assigning the Psalm to David, with the exception of the last two verses, which he supposes to have been added after- wards to render it more suitable for the Sanctuary ser- vice ; a needless supposition, and unsupported by any historical proof, but infinitely more probable tlian tlie CH. III.] The Fifty -First Psalm. 503 ascription of the Psalm to a Babylonian captive. Bishop Colenso, who has so little reverence for autho- rity, accepts it all as David's from first to last. As cited by Hengstenberg, Ewald, for whom no theory is too bold, while not allowing the Psalm to be David's, holds that it was composed before the captivity, and must have been written by a king. No supposed authorship of the Psalm agrees with its contents, except the old one founded on its historic title, and in harmony with every line throughout; for. in the words of a dis- tinguished critic, " We swim in mid- air so long as we do not perceive the reference to the discourse of Nathan." The Psalms of David have for many generations been loved and honoured in Scotland as by few lands on earth, and it will be sad indeed if we shall see him robbed of the brightest jewel in his crown. Shall we still attach credit to the darkest passage in his history ; and will his new critics, leaving his memory stained with his sin, snatch from him the penitential song given him by his God in tenderest love to accompany and turn into richest fruit the story of his crime ? Over- against his bitter sorrow, in which he must often have wished that his right hand had forgot her cunning ere he wrote and sent by the hands of his faithful soldier the blackest letter in all history, " Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him that he may be smitten and die," the God whom he 504 Historical tr2tth of the Smphtres. [bk. vii. loved so ardently put into his hand the pen of a ready- writer to record this wondrous prayer as a song of saving health for all nations : and shall we witness his open and sublime repentance degraded into the anony- mous, and therefore hollow, confession of a hidden criminal ? Let us turn from the crude imagination to the noblest spectacle ever seen among the ransomed sons of men, to the royal penitent laying aside his robes to humble himself in sackcloth before his people and his God ; and delivering to the " Chief Musician " this song of a broken spirit reaching alike into the depths of sin in the heart of man, and the depths of mercy in the heart of God. Let us love and admire the man who, when his throne has become a pillory at which the arrows of envenomed scorn are shot from a thou- sand blaspheming tongues, rises above all his shame before men in the grief of his shame before his beloved and dishonoured God ; forgets every eye that looks on him save One ; and smiting on his breast prays aloud before all his people, " Hide Thy face from my sin." 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