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THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 JEWISH CHUECH 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE SEMITES : 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 Second Edition. Revised and enlarged by the Author. 
 Demy Svo, cloth. Price ijs. jiet. 
 
 THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. 
 
 New Edition, with Introduction and Notes by the 
 
 Rev. T. K. Cheyne, D.D. , Oriel Professor of the Interpretation 
 
 of Holy Scripture at Oxford. 
 
 Post Svo, cloth. Price los. 6d. 
 
THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 IN THE 
 
 JEWISH CHURCH 
 
 A COURSE OF LECTURES ON BIBLICAL CRITICISM 
 
 V 
 
 By W. ROBERTSON SMITH 
 
 SECOND EDITION REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 
 1895 
 
First Edition in Crown Svo, published April 1881. 
 
 Reprinted in May and Septeviber 1881. 
 
 Second Edition, revised and enlarged, in Detny Zvo, published April 1892. 
 
 Reprinted in June 1895. 
 
AMPLISSIMO • THEOLOQORVM • ARGENTINENSIVM . ORDINI 
 
 QVORVM • MVNERE 
 
 AD . GRADVM • DOCTORIS • THEOLOQIAE • PROVECTVS • EST 
 
 HVNC • LIBRVM • SACRVM ■ ESSE 
 
 VOLVIT • AVCTOR 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 In republishing these Lectures, eleven years after their first 
 appearance, I have had to consider what to emend, what to 
 omit, and what to add. First, then, a careful revision of the 
 whole volume has enabled me to correct a certain number of 
 errors, and to make many statements more precise. In the 
 second place, I have pruned away some redundancies more 
 proper to oral delivery than to a printed book ; and I have 
 also removed from the " Notes and Illustrations " some things 
 which seemed to be superfluous. As I was resolved to make 
 no change on the general plan of the book, I at first hoped 
 that these omissions would give me space for all necessary 
 additions ; for though much good work has been done within 
 the last decade on special problems of Old Testament Criticism, 
 there are not many points where these special researches affect 
 the general arguments and broad results which I desired to 
 set forth. But on mature consideration I came to see that in 
 one direction the book might be profitably enlarged without 
 a fundamental change of plan ; it was desirable to give a 
 fuller account of what the critics have to say about the narra- 
 tive of the Old Testament Books. I have, therefore, made 
 large additions to the part of Lecture V. that treats of the 
 historical books, and, in consequence, have thrown the whole 
 discussion of the Canon into Lecture VI. To the narrative 
 
vm PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 of the Hexateucli I have devoted a supplementary Lecture 
 (XIII.). Further, I have rewritten the greater part of the 
 Lecture on the Psalter (VII.), incorporating the main con- 
 clusions of my article on this subject in the ninth edition of 
 the Uncydopoedia Britannica. I have also made considerable 
 changes on Lecture XL, and at several other places I have 
 introduced additional arguments and illustrations. Thus the 
 book has grown till, in spite of omissions, it contains about 
 one-third more matter than the first edition ; and so it now 
 appears with a larger page, and with most of the notes placed 
 under the text, instead of being relegated to the end of the 
 volume. Of the few " Additional Notes " which still stand 
 after the text, those marked B, C, and E, except the last 
 paragraph of B, are taken from the first edition ; the others 
 are new, and contain some observations which, I hope, may 
 be of interest to Hebrew scholars, as well as to the larger 
 class of readers for whom the book is mainly intended. 
 
 W. EOBERTSON SMITH. 
 
 Christ's College, Cambridge, 
 Sis; March 1892. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION 
 
 The Twelve Lectures now laid before the public had their 
 origin in a temporary victory of the opponents of progressive 
 Biblical Science in Scotland, which has withdrawn me during 
 the past winter from the ordinary work of my Chau" in 
 Aberdeen, and in the invitation of some six hundred promi- 
 nent Free Churchmen in Edinburgh and Glasgow, who 
 deemed it better that the Scottish public should have an 
 opportunity of understanding the position of the newer 
 Criticism than that they should condemn it unheard. The 
 Lectures were delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow during 
 the first three months of the present year, and the average 
 attendance on the course in the two cities was not less than 
 eighteen hundred. The sustained interest with which this 
 large audience followed the attempt to lay before them an 
 outline of the problems, the methods, and the results of Old 
 Testament Criticism is sufficient proof that they did not find 
 modern Biblical Science the repulsive and unreal thing which 
 it is often represented to be. The Lectures are printed 
 mainly from shorthand reports taken in Glasgow, and as 
 nearly as possible in the form in which they were delivered 
 in Edinburgh after final revision. I have striven to make 
 my exposition essentially popular in the legitimate sense of 
 that word — that is, to present a continuous argument, resting 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 at every point on valid historical evidence, and so framed 
 that it can be followed by the ordinary English reader who 
 is familiar with the Bible and accustomed to consecutive 
 thought. There are some critical processes which cannot 
 be explained without constant use of the Hebrew Text ; but 
 I have tried to make all the main parts of the discussion 
 independent of reference to these. Of course it is not 
 possible for any sound argument to adopt in every case 
 the renderings of the English Version. In important 
 passages I have indicated the necessary corrections ; but in 
 general it is to be understood that, while I cite all texts by 
 the English chapters and verses, I argue from the Hebrew. 
 
 The appended notes are designed to complete and illus- 
 trate the details of the argument, and to make the book 
 more useful to students by supplying hints for further study. 
 I have made no attempt to give complete references to the 
 modern literature of the subject. Indeed, as the Lectures 
 have been written, delivered, and printed in three months, 
 it was impossible for me to reconsult all the books which 
 have influenced my views, and acknowledge my indebtedness 
 to each. My effort has been to give a lucid view of the 
 critical argument as it stands in my own mind, and to 
 support it in every part from the text of Scripture or 
 other original sources. It is of the first importance that 
 the reader should realise that Biblical Criticism is not the 
 invention of modern scholars, but the legitimate interpreta- 
 tion of historical facts. I have tried, therefore, to keep the 
 facts always in the foreground, and, when they are derived 
 from ancient books not in every one's hands, I have either 
 given full citations, or made careful reference to the original 
 authorities. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION XI 
 
 The great value of historical criticism is that it makes 
 the Old Testament more real to us. Christianity can never 
 separate itself from its historical basis on the Eeligion of 
 Israel ; the revelation of God in Christ cannot be divorced 
 from the earlier revelation on which our Lord built. In all 
 true religion the new rests upon the old. No one, then, to 
 whom Christianity is a reality can safely acquiesce in an 
 unreal conception of the Old Testament history ; and in an 
 age when all are interested in historical research, no apolo- 
 getic can prevent thoughtful minds from drifting away from 
 faith if the historical study of the Old Covenant is condemned 
 by the Church and left in the hands of unbelievers. 
 
 The current treatment of the Old Testament has produced 
 a widespread uneasy suspicion that this history cannot bear 
 to be tested like other ancient histories. The old method of 
 explaining difficulties and reconciling apparent contradictions 
 would no longer be tolerated in dealing with other books, 
 and men ask themselves whether our Christian faith, the 
 most precious gift of truth which God has given us, can 
 safely base its defence on arguments that bring no sense of 
 reality to the mind. Yet the history of Israel, when rightly 
 studied, is the most real and vivid of all - histories, and the 
 proofs of God's working among His people of old may still 
 be made, what they were in time past, one of the strongest 
 evidences of Christianity. It was no blind chance, and no 
 mere human wisdom, that shaped the growth of Israel's 
 religion, and finally stamped it in these forms, now so strange 
 to us, which preserved the living seed of the Divine word 
 till the fulness of the time when He was manifested who 
 transformed the religion of Israel into a religion for all 
 mankind. 
 
XU PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 The increasing influence of critical views among earnest 
 students of the Bible is not to be explained on the Manichean 
 theory that new views commend themselves to mankind in 
 proportion as they ignore God. The living God is as present 
 in the critical construction of the history as in that to which 
 tradition has wedded us. Criticism is a reality and a force 
 because it unfolds a living and consistent picture of the Old 
 Dispensation; it is itself a living thing, which plants its 
 foot upon realities, and, like Dante among the shades, proves 
 its life by moving what it touches. 
 
 "Cosi non soglion fare i pie de' morti." 
 
 W. EOBEETSON SMITH. 
 
 Aberdeen, ith April 1881. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTUEE I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Criticism and the Theology of the Reformation . . 1 
 
 LECTUEE II 
 Christian Interpretation and Jewish Tradition . .21 
 
 LECTUEE III 
 
 The Scribes ....... 42 
 
 LECTUEE IV 
 
 The Septuaqint . . . . . .73 
 
 LECTUEE V 
 
 The Septuaqint (continued) — The Composition of Biblical 
 
 Books . . . . • . .108 
 
 LECTUEE YI 
 
 The History of the Canon . . , . .149 
 
 LECTUEE VII 
 The Psalter • « • • • .188 
 
XIV CONTENTS 
 
 LECTUEE VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Traditional Theory op the Old Testament History . 226 
 
 LECTURE IX 
 
 The Law and the History of Israel before the Exile . 254 
 
 LECTURE X 
 
 The Prophets ...,., 278 
 
 LECTURE XI 
 
 The Pentateuch : The First Legislation . . . 309 
 
 LECTURE XII 
 
 The Deuteronomic Code and the Levitical Law . . 346 
 
 LECTURE XIII 
 
 The Narrative of the Hexateuch .... 388 
 
 /d 
 
 Additional Notes — 
 
 A. The Text of 1 Sam. xvii. . . . .431 
 
 B. Hebrew Fragments preserved in the Septuagint . 433 
 
 C. Sources of Psalm Ixxxvi. .... 435 
 
 D. Maccabee Psalms in Books I. -III. of the Psalter . 437 
 
 E. The Fifty-first Psalm . . . .440 
 
 F. The Development of the Eitual System between Ezekiel 
 
 and Ezra ...... 442 
 
 Index of Passages discussed . . ■ . .451 
 
 General Index . . . . . . 453 
 
LECTUEE I 
 
 CRITICISM AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE REFOEMATION 
 
 I HAVE undertaken to deliver a course of lectures to you, 
 not with a polemical purpose, but in answer to a request for 
 information. I am not here to defend my private opinion on 
 any disputed question, but to expound as well as I can the 
 elements of a well-established department of historical study. 
 Biblical criticism is a branch of historical science ; and I 
 hope to convince you as we proceed that it is a legitimate 
 and necessary science, which must continue to draw the 
 attention of all who go deep into the Bible and the religion 
 of the Bible, if there is any Biblical science at all. 
 
 It would be affectation to ignore the fact that in saying 
 so much I at once enter upon ground ot controversy. The 
 science of Biblical Criticism has not escaped the fate of every 
 science which takes topics of general human interest for its 
 subject matter, and advances theories destructive of current 
 views upon things with which every one is familiar and in 
 which every one has some practical concern. It would argue 
 indifference rather than enlightenment, if the great mass of 
 Bible-readers, to whom scientific points of view for the study 
 of Scripture are wholly unfamiliar, could adjust themselves 
 to a new line of investigation into tlie history of the Bible 
 
GODS WORD AND 
 
 without passing through a crisis of anxious thought not far 
 removed from distress and alarm. 
 
 The deepest practical convictions of our lives are seldom 
 formulated with precision. They have been learned by ex- 
 perience rather than by logic, and we are content if we can 
 give them an expression accurate enough to meet our daily 
 wants. And so when we have to bring these convictions to 
 bear on some new question, the formula which has sufi&ced us 
 hitherto is very apt to lead us astray. For in rough practical 
 formulas, in the working rules, if I may so call them, of our 
 daily spiritual life, the essential is constantly mixed up with 
 what is unimportant or even incorrect. "We store our 
 treasures of conviction in earthen vessels, and the broken 
 pipkin of an obsolete formula often acquires for us the value 
 of the treasure which it enshrines. 
 
 The persuasion that in the Bible God Himself speaks 
 words of love and life to the soul is the essence of the 
 Christian's conviction as to the truth and authority of 
 Scripture. This persuasion is not, and cannot be, derived 
 from external testimony. No tradition as to the worth of 
 Scripture, no assurance transmitted from our fathers, or 
 from any who in past time heard God's revealing voice, 
 can make the revelation to which they bear witness a 
 personal voice of God to us. The element of personal con- 
 viction, which lifts faith out of the region of probable 
 evidence into the sphere of divine certainty, is given only 
 by the Holy Spirit still bearing witness in and with the 
 Word. But then the Word to which this spiritual testimony 
 applies is a written word, which has a history, which has to 
 be read and explained like other ancient books. How we 
 read and explain the Bible depends in great measure on 
 human teaching. The Bible itself is God's book, but the 
 Bible as read and understood by any man or school of men is 
 God's book 2^lus a very large element of human interpretation. 
 
LECT. I MAN S INTERPRETATION 3 
 
 In our ordinary Bible-reading these two things, the divine 
 book and the human understanding of the book, are not kept 
 sharply apart. We are aware that some passages are obscure, 
 and we do not claim divine certitude for the interpretation 
 that we put on them. But we are apt to forget that the 
 influence of human and traditional interpretation goes much 
 further than a few obscure passages. Our general views of 
 the Bible history, our way of looking, not merely at passages, 
 but at whole books, are coloured by things which we have 
 learned from men, and which have no claim to rest on the 
 self-evidencing divine Word. This we forget, and so, taking 
 God's witness to His Word to be a witness to our whole con- 
 ception of the Word, we claim divine authority for opinions 
 which lie within the sphere of ordinary reason, and which 
 can be proved or disproved by the ordinary laws of historical 
 evidence. We assume that, because our reading of Scripture 
 is sufficiently correct to allow us to find in it the God of 
 redemption speaking words of grace to our soul, those who 
 seek some other view of the historical aspects of Scripture 
 are trying to eliminate the God of grace from His own 
 book. 
 
 A large part of Bible-readers never come through the 
 mental discipline which is necessary to cure prejudices of 
 this kind, or, in other words, are never forced by the neces- 
 sities of their intellectual and spiritual life to distinguish 
 between the accidental and the essential, the human con- 
 jectures and the divine truth, which are wrapped up together 
 in current interpretations of Scripture. But those who are 
 called in providence to systematic and scholarly study of the 
 Bible inevitably come face to face with facts which compel 
 them to draw distinctions that, to a practical reader, may 
 seem superfluous. 
 
 Consider what systematic and scholarly study involves in 
 contradistinction to the ordinary practical use of the Bible. 
 
VALUE AND DEFECTS 
 
 Ordinary Bible-reading is eclectic and devotional. A detached 
 passage is taken up, and attention is concentrated on the 
 immediate edification which can be derived from it. Very 
 often the profit which the Bible -reader derives from his 
 morning or evening portion lies mainly in a single word of 
 divine love coming straight home to the heart. And in 
 general the real fruit of such Bible-reading lies less in any 
 addition to one's store of systematic knowledge than in the 
 privilege of withdrawing for a moment from the thoughts 
 and cares of the world, to enter into a pure and holy atmo- 
 sphere, where the God of love and redemption reveals Himself 
 to the heart, and where the simplest believer can place him- 
 self by the side of the psalmist, the prophet, or the apostle, 
 in that inner sanctuary where no sound is heard but the 
 gracious accents of divine promise and the sweet response of 
 assured and humble faith. Far be it from me to undervalue 
 such use of Scripture. It is by this power of touching the 
 heart and lifting the soul into converse with heaven that the 
 Bible approves itself the pure and perfect Word of God, a 
 lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path of every Chris- 
 tian. But, on the other hand, a study which is exclusively 
 practical and devotional is necessarily imperfect. There are 
 many things in Scripture which do not lend themselves to an 
 immediate practical purpose, and which in fact are as good as 
 shut out from the circle of ordinary Bible-reading. I know 
 that good people often try to hide this fact from themselves 
 by hooking on some sort of lesson to passages which they do 
 not understand, or which do not directly touch any spiritual 
 chord. There is very respectable precedent for this course, 
 which in fact is nothing else than the method of tropical 
 exegesis that reigned supreme in the Old Catholic and 
 Mediaeval Church. The ancient fathers laid down the prin- 
 ciple that everything in Scripture which, taken in its natural 
 sense, appears unedifying must be made edifying by some 
 
OF ORDINARY BIBLE-READING 
 
 method of typical or figurative application.-^ In principle 
 this is no longer admitted in the Protestant Churches (unless 
 perhaps for the Song of Solomon), but in practice we still get 
 over many difficulties by tacking on a lesson which is not 
 really taken out of the difficult passage, but read into it from 
 some other part of Scripture. People satisfy themselves in 
 this way, but they do not solve the difficulty. Let us be 
 frank with ourselves, and admit that there are many things 
 in Scripture in which unsystematic and merely devotional 
 reading finds no profit. Such parts of the Bible as the 
 genealogies in Chronicles, the description of Solomon's temple, 
 a considerable portion of Ezekiel, and not a few of the details 
 of ritual in the Pentateuch, do not serve an immediate devo- 
 tional purpose, and are really blank pages except to system- 
 atical and critical study. And for a different reason the 
 same thing is true of many passages of the prophetical and 
 poetical books, where the language is so obscure, and the 
 train of thought so difficult to grasp, that even the best 
 scholars, with every help which philology can offer, will not 
 venture to affirm that they possess a certain interpretation. 
 Difficulties of tliis sort are not confined to a few corners of 
 the Bible. They run through the whole volume, and force 
 themselves on the attention of every one who desires to 
 understand any book of the Bible as a whole. 
 
 And so we are brought to this issue. We may, if we 
 please, confine our study of Scripture to what is immediately 
 edifying, skimming lightly over all pages which do not serve 
 a direct purpose of devotion, and ignoring every difficulty 
 
 ^ According to Origen, Princip. Bk. iv. p. 173, the literal sense of Scrij^ture 
 is often impossible, absurd, or immoral, — and this designedly, lest, cleaving to 
 the letter alone, men should remain at a distance from the dogmata, and learn 
 nothing worthy of God. Augustine in his hermeneutical treatise, Be Dodrina 
 Christiana (Bk. iii. c. 10), teaches that "Whatever has no proper bearing on 
 the rule of life or the verity of faith must be recognised as figurative. " A good 
 example of the practical application of these principles will be found in the 
 preface to Jerome's Commentary on Hosea, 
 
THE BIBLE AND 
 
 which does not yield to the faculty of practical insight, the 
 power of spiritual sympathy with the mind of the Spirit, 
 which the thoughtful Christian necessarily acquires in the 
 habitual exercise of bringing Scripture to bear on the daily 
 needs of his own life. This use of Scripture is full of personal 
 profit, and raises no intellectual difficulties. But it does not 
 do justice to the whole Word of God. It is limited for every 
 individual by the limitations of his own religious experience. 
 Eeading the Bible in this way, a man comes to a very per- 
 sonal appreciation of so much of God's truth as is in im- 
 mediate contact with the range of his own life. But he is 
 sure to miss many truths which belong to another range of 
 experience, and to read into the inspired page things from 
 his own experience which involve human error. No man's 
 inner life is so large, so perfectly developed, in a word so 
 normal, that it can be used as a measure of the fulness of the 
 Bible. The Church, therefore, which aims at an all-sided 
 and catholic view, cannot be content with so much of truth 
 as has practically approved itself to one man, or any number 
 of men, all fallible and imperfect. What she desires to obtain 
 is the sum of all those views of divine truth which are 
 embodied in the experience of the inspired writers. She 
 must try to get the whole meaning of every prophet, psalmist, 
 or apostle, — not by the rough-and-ready method of culling 
 from a chapter as many truths as at once commend them- 
 selves to a Christian heart, but by taking up each piece of 
 Biblical authorship as a whole, realising the position of the 
 writer, and following out the progress of his thought in its 
 minutest details. And in this process the Church, or the 
 trained theologian labouring in the service of the Church, 
 must not be discouraged by finding much that seems strange, 
 foreign to current experience, or, at first sight, positively 
 unedifying. It will not do to make our notions the measure 
 of God's dealings with His people of old. The systematic 
 
LECT. I THE EEFORMATION 7 
 
 student must first, and above all, do justice to his text. 
 When he has done this, the practical use will follow of itself. 
 
 Up to the time of the Eeformation the only kind of 
 theological study which was thought worthy of serious atten- 
 tion was the study of dogma. People's daily spiritual life 
 was supposed to be nourished, not by Scripture, but by the 
 Sacraments. The experimental use of Scripture, so dear to 
 Protestants, was not recognised as one of the main purposes* 
 for which God has given us the Bible. The use of the Bible 
 was to furnish proof texts for the theologians of the Church, 
 and the doctrines of the Church as expressed in the Creeds 
 were the necessary and sufficient object of faith. The believer 
 had indeed need of Christ as well as of a creed, but Christ 
 was held forth to him, not in the Bible, but in the Mass. 
 The Bible was the source of theological knowledge as to the 
 mysterious doctrine of revelation, but the Sacraments were 
 the means of grace. 
 
 The Eeformation changed all this, and brought the Bible 
 to the front as a living means of grace. How did it do so ? 
 Not, as is sometimes superficially imagined, by placing the in- 
 fallible Bible in room of the infallible Church, but by a change 
 in the whole conception of faith, of the plan and purpose 
 of revelation, and of the operation of the means of grace. 
 
 Saving faith, says Luther, is not an intellectual assent to 
 a system of doctrine superior to reason, but a personal trust 
 on God in Christ, the appropriation of God's personal word 
 and promise of redeeming love. God's grace is the mani- 
 festation of His redeeming love, and the means of grace are 
 the means which He adopts to bring His word of love to our 
 ears and to our hearts. All means of grace, all sacraments, 
 have value only in so far as they bring to us a personal 
 Word, that Word which is contained in the gospel and 
 incarnate in our Lord. The supreme value of the Bible does 
 not lie in the fact that it is the ultimate source of theology. 
 
8 Luther's view 
 
 but in the fact that it contains the whole message of God's 
 love, that it is the personal message of that love to me, not 
 doctrine but promise, not the display of God's metaphysical 
 essence, but of His redeeming purpose ; in a word, of Him- 
 self as my God. Filled with this new light as to the mean- 
 ing of Scripture, Luther displays profound contempt for the 
 grubbing theologians who treated the Bible as a mere store- 
 house of proof texts, dealing with it, as he says of Tetzel, 
 " like a sow with a bag of oats." The Bible is a living thing. 
 The Middle Ages had no eye for anything but doctrinal 
 mysteries, and where these were lacking saw only, as Luther 
 complained, bare dead histories "which had simply taken 
 place and concerned men no more." Nay, say the Eeformers. 
 This history is the story of God's dealings with his people of 
 old. The heart of love which He opened to them, is still a 
 heart of love to us. The great pre-eminence of the Bible 
 history is that in it God speaks — speaks not in the language 
 of doctrine but of personal grace, which we have a right to 
 take home to us now, just as it was taken by His ancient 
 people.-^ 
 
 In a word, the Bible is a book of Experimental Eeligion, 
 in which the converse of God with His people is depicted in 
 all its stages up to the full and abiding manifestation of 
 saving love in the person of Jesus Christ, God has no mess- 
 age to the believing soul which the Bible does not set forth, 
 and set forth not in bare formulas but in living and experi- 
 mental form, by giving the actual history of the need which 
 the message supplies, and by showing how holy men of old 
 received the message as a light to their own darkness, a 
 comfort and a stay to their own souls. And so, to appro- 
 
 ^ See, in particular, the first part of the Frciheit eines Christcnmenschcn, 
 and the preface to Luther's German Bible. On Tetzel see Frciheit des Sermons 
 vovi Ahlass {Werke, ed. L'mischer, vol. xxvii. p. 13). Compare Calvin's 
 Institutio, Bk. iii. chap. 2 — " The Word itself, however it be conveyed to us, 
 is like a mirror in which faith beholds God." 
 
OF THE BIBLE 
 
 priate the divine message for our wants, we need no help of 
 ecclesiastical tradition, no authoritative Churchly exegesis. 
 All that we need is to put ourselves by the side of the 
 psalmist, the prophet, or the apostle, to enter by spiritual sym- 
 pathy into his experience, to feel our sin and need as he felt 
 them, and to take home to us, as he took them, the gracious 
 words of divine love. This it is which makes the Bible per- 
 spicuous and precious to every one who is taught of the Spirit. 
 The history of the Reformation shows that these views 
 fell upon the Church with all the force of a new discovery. 
 It was nothing less than the resurrection of the living Word, 
 buried for so many ages under the dust of a false interpreta- 
 tion. Now we all acknowledge the debt which we owe to 
 the Ep.fnrmprs in this matter. We are agreed that to them 
 we owe our upeu Uible ; but we do not always understand 
 what this gift means. We are apt to think and speak as if 
 the Reformation had given us the Bible by removing arti- 
 ficial restrictions on its translation and circulation among the 
 laity. There is a measure of truth in this view. But, on the 
 other hand, there were translations in the vulgar tongues 
 long before Luther. The Bible was never wholly withdrawn 
 from the laity, and the preaching of the Word was the 
 characteristic office of the Friars, and the great source of 
 that popular influence which they strained to the uttermost 
 against the Reformation. The real im23ortance of Luther's 
 work was not that he put the Bible into the hands of the 
 laity, but that he vindicated for the Word a new use and a 
 living interest which made it impossible that it should not 
 be read by them. We are not disciples of the Reformation 
 merely because we have the Bible in our hands, and appeal 
 to it as the supreme judge. Luther's opponents appealed to 
 the Bible as confidently as he did. But they did not under- 
 stand the Bible as he did. To them it was a book revealing 
 abstract doctrines. To him it was the record of God's words 
 
10 THE BIBLE AND 
 
 and deeds of love to the saints of old, and of the answer of 
 their inmost heart to God. This conception changes the 
 whole perspective of Biblical study, and, unless our studies are 
 conformed to it, we are not the children of the Reformation. 
 
 The Bible, according to the Eeformation view, is a history 
 — the history of the work of redemption from the fall of man 
 to the ascension of the risen Saviour and the mission of the 
 Spirit by which the Church still lives. But the history is 
 not a mere chronicle of supernatural deeds and revelations. 
 It is the inner history of the converse of God with man that 
 gives the Bible its peculiar worth. The story of God's grace 
 is expounded to us by psalmists, prophets, and apostles, as 
 they realised it in their own lives. For the progress of 
 Eevelation was not determined arbitrarily. No man can 
 learn anything aright about God and His love, unless the 
 new truth come home to his heart and grow into his life. 
 What is still true of our appropriation of revealed truth was 
 true also of its first communication. Inspired men were able 
 to receive and set down new truths of revelation as a sure 
 rule for our guidance, because these truths took hold of them 
 with a personal grasp, and supplied heartfelt needs. Thus 
 the record of revelation becomes, so to speak, the autobio- 
 graphy of the Church — the story of a converse with God, in 
 which the saints of old actually lived. 
 
 Accordingly, the first business of the Eeformation theo- 
 logian is not to crystallise Bible truths into doctrines, but to 
 follow, in all its phases, the manifold inner history of the 
 religious life which the Bible unfolds. It is his business to 
 study every word of Scripture, not merely by grammar and 
 logic, but in its relation to the life of the writer, and the 
 actual circumstances in which God's Word came to him. 
 Only in this way can we hope to realise the whole rich 
 personal meaning of the Word of grace. For God never spoke 
 a word to any soul that was not exactly fitted to the occasion 
 
LECT. I THE REFORMATION 1 1 
 
 and tlie man. Separate it from this context, and it is no 
 longer the same perfect Word. 
 
 The great goodness of God to us, in His gift of the Bible, 
 appears very specially in the copious materials which He has 
 supplied for our assistance in this task of historical exegesis. 
 There are large passages in the Bible, especially in the Old 
 Testament, which, taken apart from the rest of the book, would 
 appear quite deficient in spiritual instruction. Crude ration- 
 alism often proposes to throw these aside as mere lumber, 
 forming no integral part of the record of revelation. And, on 
 the other hand, a narrowly timid faith sometimes insists that 
 such passages, even in their isolation, must be prized as highly 
 as the Psalms or the Sermon on the Mount. Both these views 
 are wrong, and both err in the same way, by forgetting that 
 a Bible which shall enable us to follow the inner life of the 
 course of Eevelation must contain, not only words of grace 
 and answers of faith, but as much of the ordinary history, the 
 everyday life, and the current thoughts of the people to whom 
 Eevelation came, as will enable us to enter into their circum- 
 stances, and receive the Word as they received it. From this 
 point of view we can recognise the hand of a wise Providence 
 in the circumstance that the Old Testament contains, in far 
 larger proportion than the New, matter of historical and 
 archaeological interest, which does not serve a direct purpose 
 of edification. For, in the study of the New Testament, we 
 are assisted in the work of historical interpretation by a large 
 contemporary literature of profane origin, whereas we have 
 almost no contemporary helps for the study of Hebrew 
 antiquity, beyond the books which were received into the 
 Jewish Canon.-^ 
 
 ^ The Old Testament writers possessed Hebrew sources now lost, such as 
 the Book of the Wars of Jehovah, the Book of Jashar, and the Annals of 
 the Kings of Israel and Judah. (See below, Lectures Y. and XI.) But 
 Josephus, and other profane historians, whose writings are still extant, had no 
 
12 THE HUMAN SIDE 
 
 The kind of Bible study which I have indicated is followed 
 more or less instinctively by every intelligent reader. Every 
 Christian takes home words of promise, of comfort, or of 
 warning, by putting himself in the place of the first hearers 
 of the Word, and uses the Bible devotionally by borrowing 
 the answer spoken by the faith of apostles or psalmists. And 
 the diligent reader soon learns that the profit of these exer- 
 cises is proportioned to the accuracy with which he can com- 
 pare his situations and needs with those underlying the text 
 which he appropriates. But the systematic study of Scripture 
 must rise above the merely instinctive use of sound principles. 
 To get from the Bible all the instruction which it is capable 
 of yielding, we must apprehend the true method of study in 
 its full range and scope, obtain a clear grasp of the principles 
 involved, and apply them systematically with the best help 
 that scholarship supplies. Let us consider how this is to be 
 done. 
 
 In the Bible, God and man meet together, and hold such 
 converse as is the abiding pattern and rule of all religious 
 experience. In this simple fact lies the key to all those 
 puzzles about the divine and human side of the Bible with 
 which people are so much exercised. "We hear many speak 
 of the human side of the Bible as if there were something 
 dangerous about it, as if it ought to be kept out of sight lest 
 it tempt us to forget that the Bible is the Word of God. And 
 there is a widespread feeling that, though the Bible no doubt 
 
 authentic Hebrew sources for the canonical history, except those preserved in 
 the Bible. 
 
 It is only in quite recent times that the lack of contemporary books 
 illustrative of the Old Testament period has been partly supplied by the 
 discovery and decipherment of the monumental inscriptions of Palestine (the 
 Moabite stone, the inscription of Siloam, the Phceuician inscriptions) and the 
 cuneiform records of Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia. Valuable as these 
 new sources are, they touch only individual parts of the Biblical record. The 
 Egyptian monuments, again, from which so much was hoped, have hitherto 
 given little help for Bible history. 
 
OF THE BIBLE 
 
 has a liuman side, a safe and edifying exegesis must confine 
 itself to the divine side. This point of view is a survival of 
 the mediaeval exegesis which buried the true sense of Scrip- 
 ture. Of course, as long as you hold that the whole worth of 
 Kevelation lies in abstract doctrines, supernaturally communi- 
 cated to the intellect and not to the heart, the idea that there 
 is a human life in the Bible is purely disturbing. But if the 
 Bible sets forth the personal converse of God with man, it is 
 absolutely essential to look at the human side. The prophets 
 and psalmists were not mere impassive channels through 
 whose lips or pens God poured forth an abstract doctrine. 
 He spoke not only through them, but to them and in them. 
 They had an intelligent share in the Divine converse with 
 them; and we can no more understand the Divine Word 
 without taking them into account than we can understand a 
 human conversation without taking account of both inter- 
 locutors. To try to suppress the human side of the Bible, in 
 the interests of the purity of the Divine Word, is as great a 
 folly as to think that a father's talk with his child can be 
 best reported by leaving out everything which the child said, 
 thought, and felt. 
 
 The first condition of a sound understanding of Scripture 
 is to give full recognition to the human side, to master the 
 whole situation and character and feelings of each human 
 interlocutor who has a part in the drama of Revelation. 
 Nay, the, ivhole hicsiness of scholarly exegesis lies with this human 
 side. All that earthly study and research can do for the 
 reader of Scripture is to put him in the position of the man 
 to whose heart God first spoke. What is more than this lies 
 beyond our wisdom. It is only the Spirit of God that can 
 make the Word a living word to our hearts, as it was a living 
 word to him who first received it. This is the truth which 
 the Westminster Confession expresses when it teaches, in 
 harmony with all the Reformed Symbols, that our full per- 
 
14 THE HISTORICAL 
 
 suasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine 
 authority of Scripture is from the inward work of the Holy 
 Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. 
 
 And here, as we at once perceive, the argument reaches a 
 practical issue. We not only see that the principles of the 
 Eeformation demand a systematic study of Scripture upon 
 lines of research which were foreign to the Church before the 
 Eeformation ; but we are able to fix the method by which 
 such study must be carried on. It is our duty as Protestants 
 to interpret Scripture historically. The Bible itself has a 
 history. It was not written at one time, or by a single pen. 
 It comprises a number of books and pieces given to the 
 Church by many instrumentalities and at various times. It 
 is our business to separate these elements from one another, 
 to examine them one by one, and to comprehend each piece 
 in the sense which it had for the first writer, and in its rela- 
 tion to the needs of God's people at the time when it was 
 written. In proportion as we succeed in this task, the mind 
 of the Eevealer in each of His many communications with 
 mankind will become clear to us. We shall be able to follow 
 His gracious converse with His people of old from point to 
 point. Instead of appropriating at random so much of the 
 Word as is at once perspicuous, or guessing darkly at the 
 sense of things obscure, we shall learn to understand God's 
 teaching in its natural connection. By this means we shall 
 be saved from arbitrariness in our interpretations. For of this 
 we may be assured, that there was nothing arbitrary in God's 
 plan of revelation. He spoke to the prophets of old, as the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, " in many parts and in many 
 ways." There was variety in the method of His revelation ; 
 and each individual oracle, taken by itself, was partial and 
 incomplete. But none of these things was without its reason. 
 The method of revelation was a method of education. God 
 spake to Israel as one speaks to tender weanlings (Isa. xxviii. 
 
LECT. I STUDY OF SCRIPTURE 15 
 
 9), giving precept after precept, line upon line, here a little 
 and there a little. He followed this course that each precept, 
 as He gave it, might be understood, and lay a moral responsi- 
 bility on those who received it (ver. 13) ; and if our study 
 follows close in the lines of the divine teaching, we too, 
 receiving the Word like little children, shall be in the right 
 way to understand it in all its progress, and in all the mani- 
 fold richness of its meaning. But to do so, I again repeat, 
 we must put ourselves alongside of the first hearers. What 
 was clear and plain enough to the obedient heart then is not 
 necessarily clear and plain to us now, if we receive it in a 
 different attitude. God's word was delivered in the language 
 of men, and is not exempt from the necessary laws and limit- 
 ations of human speech. Now it is a law of all speech, and 
 especially of all speech upon personal matters, that the speaker 
 must express himself to the understanding of his hearer, pre- 
 supposing in him a certain preparation, a certain mental 
 attitude, a certain degree of familiarity with and interest in 
 the subject. When a third person strikes into a conversation, 
 he cannot follow it unless, as the familiar phrase has it, he 
 knows where they are. So it is with the Bible. And here 
 historical study comes in. The mind of God is unchangeable. 
 His purpose of love is invariable from first to last. The 
 manifold variety of Scripture, the changing aspects of Bible 
 truth, depend on no change in Him, but wholly on the vary- 
 ing circumstances and needs of the men who received the 
 Revelation. It is with their life and feelings that we must 
 get into sympathy, in order to understand what God spoke 
 to them. We must read the Bible as the record of the 
 history of grace, and as itself a part of the history. And this 
 we must do with all patience, not weary though our study 
 does not at each moment yield an immediate fruit of practical 
 edification, if only it conducts us on the sure road to edifica- 
 tion by carrying us along the actual path trodden by God's 
 
16 OBJECTS AND METHOD lect. i 
 
 people of old ; if, opening to us their needs, tlieir hopes, their 
 trials, even their errors and sins, it enables our ears to receive 
 the same voice which they heard behind them, saying, " This 
 is the way; walk ye in it" (Isa. xxx. 21). It is the glory of 
 the Bible that it invites and satisfies such study, — that its 
 manifold contents, the vast variety of its topics, the extra- 
 ordinary diversities of its structure and style, constitute an 
 inexhaustible mine of the richest historical interest, in which 
 generation after generation can labour, always bringing forth 
 some new thing, and with each new discovery coming closer 
 to a fall understanding of the supreme wisdom and love of 
 Him who speaks in all Scripture. 
 
 And now let us come to the point. In sketching the 
 principles and aims of a truly Protestant study of Scripture 
 I have not used the word criticism, but I have been describ- 
 ing the thing. Historical criticism may be defined without 
 special reference to the Bible, for it is applicable, and is daily 
 applied without dispute, to every ancient literature and every 
 ancient history. The critical study of ancient documents 
 means nothing else than the careful sifting of their origin and 
 meaning in the light of history. The first principle of 
 criticism is that every book bears the stamp of the time and 
 circumstances in which it was produced. An ancient book 
 is, so to speak, a fragment of ancient life ; and to understand 
 it aright we must treat it as a living thing, as a bit of the 
 life of the author and his time, which we shall not fully 
 understand without putting ourselves back into the age in 
 which it was written. People talk much of destructive 
 criticism, as if the critic's one delight were to prove that 
 things which men have long believed are not true, and that 
 books were not written by the authors whose names they 
 bear. But the true critic has for his business, not to destroy, 
 but to build up. The critic is an interpreter, but one who 
 has a larger view of his task than the man of mere grammars 
 
LECT. I OF SOUND CRITICISM 17 
 
 and dictionaries, — one who is not content to reproduce the 
 words of his author, but strives to enter into sympathy with 
 his thoughts, and to understand the thoughts as part of the 
 life of the thinker and of his time. In this process the 
 occasional destruction of some traditional opinion is a mere 
 incident. 
 
 Ancient books coming down to us from a period many 
 centuries before the invention of printing have necessarily 
 undergone many vicissitudes. Some of them are preserved 
 only in imperfect copies made by an ignorant scribe of the 
 dark ages. Others have been disfigured by editors, who 
 mixed up foreign matter with the original text. Very often 
 an important book fell altogether out of sight for a long time, 
 and when it came to light again all knowledge of its origin 
 was gone ; for old books did not generally have title-pages 
 and prefaces. And, when such a nameless roll was again 
 brought into notice, some half-informed reader or transcriber 
 was not unlikely to give it a new title of his own devising, 
 which was handed down thereafter as if it had been original. 
 Or again, the true meaning and purpose of a book often 
 became obscure in the lapse of centuries, and led to false 
 interpretations. Once more, antiquity has handed down to 
 us many writings which are sheer forgeries, like some of the 
 Apocryphal books, or the Sibylline oracles, or those famous 
 Epistles of Phalaris which formed the subject of Bentley's 
 great critical essay. In all such cases the historical critic 
 must destroy the received view, in order to establish the 
 truth. He must review doubtful titles, purge out interpola- 
 tions, expose forgeries ; but he does so only to manifest the 
 truth, and exhibit the genuine remains of antiquity in their 
 real character. A book that is really old and really valuable 
 has nothing to fear from the critic, whose labours can only 
 put its worth in a clearer light, and establish its authority on 
 a surer basis. 
 
PROTESTANT AND CRITICAL 
 
 In a word, it is the business of the critic to trace back 
 the steps by which any ancient book has been transmitted to 
 us, to find where it came from and who wrote it, to examine 
 the occasion of its composition, and search out every link 
 that connects it with the history of the ancient world and 
 with the personal life of the author. 
 
 This is exactly what Protestant principles direct us to do 
 with the several parts of the Bible. We have to go back 
 step by step, and retrace the history of the sacred volume up 
 to the first origin of each separate writing which it contains. 
 In doing this we must use every light that can be brought 
 to bear on the subject. Every fact is welcome, whether it 
 come from Jewish tradition, or from a comparison of old 
 MSS. and versions, or from an examination of the several 
 books with one another and of each book in its own inner 
 structure. It is not needful in starting to lay down any 
 fixed rules of procedure. The ordinary laws of evidence and 
 cood sense must be our guides. For the transmission of the 
 Bible is not due to a continued miracle, but to a watchful 
 Providence ruling the ordinary means by which all ancient 
 books have been handed down. And finally, when we have 
 worked our way back through the long centuries which 
 separate us from the age of Eevelation, we must, as we have 
 already seen, study each writing and make it speak for itself 
 on the common principles of sound exegesis. There is no 
 discordance between the religious and the scholarly 
 methods of study. They lead to the same goal; and the 
 more closely our study fulfils the demands of historical 
 scholarship, the more fully will it correspond with our 
 religious needs. 
 
 I know what is said in answer to aU this. We have no 
 objection, say the opponents of Biblical criticism, to any 
 amount of liistorical study, but it is not legitimate historical 
 study that has produced the current results of Biblical 
 
LECT. I METHODS IDENTICAL 1 9 
 
 criticism. These results, say they, are based on the 
 rationalistic assumption that the supernatural is impossible, 
 and that everything in the Bible which asserts the existence 
 of a real personal communication of God with man is 
 necessarily untrue. My answer to this objection is very 
 simple. We have not got to results yet ; I am only laying 
 down a method, and a method, as we have seen, whicli is in 
 full accordance with, and imperatively prescribed by, the 
 Eeformation doctrine of the Word of God. We are agreed, 
 it appears, that the method is a true one. Let us go forward 
 and apply it ; and if in the application you find me calling 
 in a rationalistic principle, if you can show at any step in my 
 argument that I assume the impossibility of the supernatural, 
 or reject plain facts in the interests of rationalistic theories, 
 I will frankly confess that I am in the wrong. But, on the 
 other hand, you must remember that all truth is one, that the 
 God who gave us the Bible has also given us faculties of 
 reason and gifts of scholarship with which to study the 
 Bible, and that the true meaning of Scripture is not to be 
 measured by preconceived notions, but determined as the 
 result of legitimate research. Only of this I am sure at the 
 outset, that the Bible does speak to the heart of man in words 
 that can only come from God — that no historical research 
 can deprive me of this conviction, or make less precious the 
 divine utterances that speak straight to the heart. For the 
 language of these words is so clear that no readjustment of 
 their historical setting can conceivably change the substance 
 of them. Historical study may throw a new light on the 
 circumstances in which they were first heard or written. In 
 that there can only be gain. But the plain, central, heartfelt 
 truths that speak for themselves and rest on their own inde- 
 feasible worth will assuredly remain to us. 'No amount of 
 change in the background of a picture can make white black 
 or black white, though by restoring the right background 
 
20 BIBLICAL STUDY 
 
 where it has been destroyed the harmony and balance of the 
 whole composition may be immeasurably improved. 
 
 So it is with the Bible. The supreme truths which speak 
 to every believing heart, the way of salvation which is the 
 same in all ages, the clear voice of God's love so tender and 
 personal and simple that a child can understand it — these 
 are things which must abide with us, and prove themselves 
 mighty from age to age apart from all scientific study. But 
 those who love the truth will not shrink from any toil that 
 can help us to a fuller insight into all its details and all its 
 setting ; and those whose faith is firmly fixed on the things 
 that cannot be moved will not doubt that every new advance 
 in Biblical study must in the end make God's great scheme 
 of grace appear in fuller beauty and glory. 
 
LECTUEE II 
 
 CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION AND JEWISH TRADITION 
 
 At our last meeting, I endeavoured to convey to you a general 
 conception of the methods and objects of Biblical criticism, 
 and to show that the very same rules for the prosecution of 
 this branch of Biblical study may be derived either from the 
 general principles of historical science or from the theological 
 principles of the Protestant Eeformation. We ended by see- 
 ing that it was the duty of criticism to start with the Bible as 
 it has been delivered to us, and as it now is in our hands, and 
 to endeavour to trace back the history of its transmission, and 
 of the vicissitudes through which it has passed, up to the time 
 of the original authors, so that we may be able to take an 
 historical view of the origin of each individual writing of the 
 Old Testament, and of the meaning which it had to those who 
 first received it and to him who first wrote it. 
 
 For this purpose, in speaking to a general audience, it is 
 necessary for me to begin with the English Bible. The Eng- 
 lish Bible which we are accustomed to use gives us the Old 
 Testament as it was understood by Protestant scholars at the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century. It is not necessary 
 for our present purpose that I should dwell upon the minor 
 differences which separate the Version of 1611 from other 
 versions made about the same period or a little earlier. 
 Speaking broadly, it is sufficient to say that the Authorised 
 
22 EXEGESIS OF THE 
 
 Version represents in a very admirable manner the under- 
 standing of the Old Testament which had been attained by 
 Protestant scholarship at the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century. We are now to look back and inquire what are 
 the links connecting our English Bible with the original 
 autographs of the sacred writers. 
 
 The Protestant versions, of which our Bible is one, were 
 products of the Eeformation. To a certain extent they were 
 products of the controversy with the Church of Eome. In 
 other words, there were at that time two main views current 
 in Europe, and among the scholars of Europe, as to the proper 
 way of dealing with the Bible — as to the canon of Scripture, 
 the authentic text, and the method of interpretation. The 
 Pre-Eeformation exegesis, with which the Protestants had to 
 contend, was the natural descendant of the exegesis of the 
 Old Catholic Church, as it was formed in opposition to the 
 heretics, as far back in part as the second century after 
 Christ. At the time of Luther, as we have already seen, 
 there was no dispute between Protestants and Catholics as to 
 the authority of Scripture ; both parties admitted that autho- 
 rity to be supreme, but they were divided on the question of 
 the true meaning of Scripture. According to the Old Church, 
 on which the Catholic party rested, the Bible was not clear 
 and intelligible by its own light like an ordinary book. It 
 was taken for granted that the use of the Bible lies in those 
 doctrines higher than reason, those noetic truths, as they were 
 called, of a divine philosophy, which it contains. But the 
 earliest fathers of the Catholic Church already saw quite 
 clearly that the supposed abstract and noetic truths did not 
 lie on the surface of Scripture. To an ordinary reader the 
 Bible appears something quite different from a body of 
 supernatural mysteries and abstract philosophic doctrines. 
 This observation was made by the Catholic fathers, but it 
 did not lead them, nor did it lead the Gnostic heretics, with 
 
LECT. II OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH 23 
 
 whom they Were engaged in controversy, to anticipate the 
 great discovery of the Eeformation, and to see that the real 
 meaning of the Bible must be its natural meaning. On the 
 contrary, the orthodox and the Gnostics alike continued to 
 look in the Bible for mysteries concealed under the plain text 
 of Scripture — mysteries which could only be reached by some 
 form of allegorical interpretation. Of course, the allegorical 
 exegesis yielded to every party exactly those principles which 
 that party desired ; and so the controversy between the 
 Gnostics and the Catholic Church could not be decided on 
 the ground of the Bible alone, which both sides interpreted 
 in an equally arbitrary manner. To tell the truth, it would 
 have been very difficult indeed for Christian theologians in 
 those days to reach a sound and satisfactory exegesis, con- 
 ducted upon principles which we could now accept. Very 
 few theologians in the churches of the Gentiles possessed the 
 linguistic knowledge necessary to understand the original text 
 of the Old Testament. Hebrew scholars were few and far 
 between, and the Doctors of the Church were habitually 
 dependent upon the Alexandrian Greek translation, called 
 the Septuagint or Version of the Seventy. To this transla- 
 tion we shall have to advert at greater length by and by. 
 At present it is enough to say that it was a version composed 
 in Egypt and current among the Jews of Alexandria a con- 
 siderable time before the Christian era, and that it spread 
 contemporaneously with the preaching of the Gospel through 
 all parts of Christendom where Greek was understood. In 
 many parts of the Old Testament this translation was very 
 obscure and really did not yield clear sense to any natural 
 method of exegesis. But indeed, apart from the disadvantage 
 of being thrown back upon the Septuagint, the Christians 
 could not have hoped to understand the Old Testament better 
 than their Jewish contemporaries. Even if they had set 
 themselves to study the original text, they would have 
 
24 EASTERN EXEGESIS lect. ii 
 
 required to take their whole knowledge of the Hebrew Bible 
 from the Jews, who were the only masters that could then 
 have instructed them in the language ; and in fact, while the 
 "Western churches were mainly dependent on the Septuagint, 
 and struck out an independent line of interpretation on the 
 basis of that version, the exegesis of the Oriental churches 
 continued to be largely guided by the teaching of the 
 Synagogue. In Syria and beyond the river Euphrates, the 
 Bible was interpreted by Christian scholars who spoke Syriac 
 — a language akin to Hebrew — upon the methods of the 
 Jewish schools ; but by this time the Jews themselves had 
 fallen into an abyss of artificial Eabbinical interpretation, 
 from which little true light could be derived for the under- 
 standing of Scripture. The influence of the Jewish interpret- 
 ation which ruled in the East can be traced, not only in the 
 old Syriac translation called the Peshito (or Peshitta), but in 
 the writings of later Syriac divines. In the Homilies of 
 Aphraates, for example, which belong to the first half of the 
 fourth century, we find clear evidence that the Biblical train- 
 ing and exegetical methods of the author, who, living in the 
 far East, was not a Greek scholar, were largely derived from 
 the Jewish doctors ; and the operation of the same influences 
 can be followed far down into the Middle Ages. 
 
 Accordingly, in the absence of a satisfactory and scientific 
 interpretation, the conflict of opinions between the orthodox 
 and the heretics was decided on another principle. The 
 apostles, it was said, had received the mysteries of divine 
 truth from our Lord, and had committed them in plain and 
 living words to the apostolic churches. This is a point to 
 which the ancient fathers constantly recur. The written 
 
 ^ See, especially, the Arabic catena on Genesis published by Professor 
 Lagarde in \\is Matcrialien zur Kritik und Geschichte des Pentatcuchs (Leipzig, 
 1867) from a Carshunic MS. of the sixteenth century. This compilation of a 
 Syriac scribe is full of Jewish traditions, and even in form, as the editor 
 observes, is quite of the character of a Jewish Midrash. 
 
THE VULGATE 25 
 
 word, they say, is necessarily ambiguous and difficult, but 
 the spoken word of the apostles was clear and transparent. 
 In the apostolic churches, then, the sum of true doctrine has 
 been handed down in an accurate form ; and the consent of 
 the apostolic churches as to the mysteries of faith forms the 
 rule of sound exegesis. Any interpretation of Scripture, say 
 the fathers, is necessarily false if it differs from the ecclesiastical 
 canon — that is, from the received doctrinal testimony of 
 the great apostolic churches, such as Corinth, Eome, and 
 Alexandria, in which the teaching of the apostles still lived 
 as it had been handed down by oral tradition.-^ 
 
 Such were the principles of exegesis to which the Catholic 
 Church adhered up to the time of the Eeformation. New 
 elements were added from time to time to the body of 
 ecclesiastical tradition, and in particular a very great change 
 took place with regard to the received edition of the Old 
 Testament. When the theory of the ecclesiastical canon was 
 first formed, the churches of Europe read either the Greek 
 translation of the Septuagint or a Latin text formed from the 
 Septuagint ; but about the year 400 A.D., Jerome, a man of 
 unusual learning for that age, who had studied under Jewish 
 teachers, made a new version direct from the Hebrew, which 
 was greatly assailed at the time as a dangerous innovation, 
 but by and by came to be accepted in the Latin churches as 
 the authentic and received edition of the Bible. When I say 
 that Jerome's version was received by the Western churches, 
 
 ^ On the JRegula Fidei, and its connection with the ambiguity of the 
 allegorical interpretation, so keenly felt in controversy with heretics, compare 
 Diestel, Gcschichtc des alten Testaments in dcr Christlichen Kirche, p. 38 
 (Irenseus, Tertullian), p. 85 (Augustine). The principle is clearly laid down by 
 Origeu : " Many think that they have the mind of Christ, and not a few differ 
 from the opinions of the earlier Christians ; but the preaching of the Church, 
 handed down in regular succession from the Apostles, still abides, and is 
 present in the Church. Therefore, the only truth to be believed is that which 
 in no point departs from ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition." {rrincip., 
 Pracf. § 2. ) 
 
26 THE VULGATE 
 
 it is proper to observe that it was not received in all its purity, 
 and that the text of this Vulgate or received version (the 
 word vidgate means " currently received "), as it actually 
 existed in the Middle Ages and at the time of the Eeforma- 
 tion, was considerably modified by things which had been 
 carried over from the older Latin translations taken from the 
 Greek. Still, the Western Church supposed itself to receive 
 the version of Jerome as the authoritative and vulgate version, 
 and this new Vulgate replaced the old Vulgate, the Greek 
 Septuagint translation made by the Jews in Egypt before the 
 time of Christ. 
 
 The Eeformers, who were well read in church history, 
 sometimes met their opponents by pointing out that the 
 ecclesiastical tradition on which the Catholics relied as the 
 proper norm or rule of interpretation had itself undergone 
 change in the course -of centuries, and they often appealed 
 with success to the earliest fathers against those views of 
 truth which were current in their own times. But Luther's 
 fundamental conception of revelation made it impossible for 
 the Protestants to submit their understanding of the Bible 
 even to the earliest and purest form of the ecclesiastical 
 canon. The ecclesiastical canon — the standard of doctrinal 
 interpretation based on the supposed consent of the apostolic 
 churches — had, as we have seen, been first invented in order 
 to get over the ambiguities of the allegorical method of 
 interpretation. When Luther taught the people that the 
 Bible can be understood like any other book, that the true 
 meaning of its words is the natural sense which appeals to 
 ordinary Christian intelligence, it was plain that for him this 
 whole method of ecclesiastical tradition as the rule of exegesis 
 no longer had any meaning or value. 
 
 The Church of Eome, after the Eeformation began, took 
 up a definite and formal battle-ground against Protestantism 
 in the Decrees of the Council of Trent. The positions laid 
 
LECT. II THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 27 
 
 down by the Doctors of Trent in opposition to the movement 
 headed by Luther were these : — 
 
 I. The supreme rule of faith and life is contained in the 
 written books and the unwritten traditions of Christ and his 
 Apostles, dictated by the Holy Spirit and handed down by 
 continual succession in the Catholic Church. 
 
 II. The canonical books are those books in all their parts 
 which are read in the Catholic Church and contained in the 
 Latin Vulgate version, the authenticity of which is accepted 
 as sufficiently proved by its long use in the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 III. The interpretation of Scripture must be conformed 
 to the tenets of Holy Mother Church and the unanimous 
 consent of the Fathers. 
 
 The Eeformers traversed all these three positions ; for 
 they denied the validity of unwritten tradition ; they refused 
 to admit the authority of the Vulgate, and appealed to the 
 original text; and finally, they denied the existence and still 
 more the authority of the consent of the Fathers, and ad- 
 mitted no principle for the interpretation of the Bible that 
 would not be sound if applied to another book. They af&rmed 
 that the reader has a right to form his own private judgment 
 on the sense of Scripture ; by which, of course, they did not 
 mean that one man's judgment is as good as another's, but 
 only that the sense of a controverted passage must be decided 
 by argument and not by authority. The one rule of exposi- 
 tion which they laid down as possessing authority for the 
 Church was that in a disputed point of doctrine the sense of 
 an obscure passage must be ruled by passages which are more 
 plain. And this, as you will easily observe, is, strictly speak- 
 ing, not a rule of interpretation but a principle of theology. 
 It rather tells us which passage we are to choose for the 
 proof or disproof of any doctrine than helps us to get the 
 exact sense of a disputed text. All that it really means is 
 
28 AUTHORITY OF THE lect. ii 
 
 this — " Form your doctrines from plain texts, and do not be 
 led astray from the teaching of plain passages by a meaning 
 which some one may extort from an obscure one." So far as 
 the principle is exegetical, it simply means that an all-wise 
 Author — for to the Eeformers God is the author of all Scrip- 
 ture — cannot contradict Himself. 
 
 I need not say more upon the first and third positions of 
 the Council of Trent ; but the second position, as to the 
 claims of the standard Vulgate edition, is a point which 
 requires more attention. In making the Vulgate the standard 
 edition, the Council of Trent implied two things : — (1) that 
 the Vulgate contains all the canonical books in their true 
 text; and (2) that the translation, if not perfect, is exempt 
 from errors affecting doctrine. The Eoman Catholics, of 
 course, did not mean to assert that in every particular the 
 Vulgate edition represents the exact text and meaning of the 
 original writers. In justice to them, we must say that for 
 their contention that was not necessary, because all along 
 what they wished to get at was not the meaning of the 
 original writers, but the body of doctrine which had the seal 
 of the authority of the Church ; and therefore, from their 
 point of view, the authenticity of the text of the Vulgate was 
 sufficiently proved by the fact that the infallible Church had 
 long used that text without finding any ground of complaint 
 against it; and the authority of the translation, in like 
 manner, was sufficiently supported by the fact that theo- 
 logians had always been able to deduce from it the received' 
 doctrines of the Church. That, no doubt, was what they 
 meant. Nevertheless, the two theses which they laid down 
 were very curiously at variance with what Jerome, the 
 author of the Vulgate version, had once and again said about 
 the value of his own labours. They affirmed that the Vulgate 
 contained all the canonical books and none else, and that it 
 contained those books in the true text. Jerome, on the con- 
 
LATIN VULGATE 29 
 
 traiy, in that prologue to part of his translation which is 
 generally called the Prologus galeatus, regards all books as 
 apocryphal which he did not translate directly from the 
 Hebrew ; and, following this rule, he excludes from the 
 canon, that is, from the number of books that possess authority 
 in matters of doctrine, the Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 
 Judith, Tobit, Baruch, and also the two books of the Macca- 
 bees, although he had seen the first of these in Hebrew. The 
 Council of Trent accepts all these books as canonical, and 
 also certain additions to Daniel and Esther which are not 
 found in the Hebrew text.^ 
 
 The second position of the Doctors of Trent also reads 
 curiously in the light of Jerome's own remarks. According 
 to the Council of Trent, the whole translation of Jerome is 
 accurate for all purposes of doctrine, but Jerome in his pre- 
 faces makes a very different claim for himself. What he 
 says is this : " If you observe my version to vary from the 
 
 1 Prologus galeatus. — " This prologue may fit all the books which we have 
 translated from the Hebrew. Books outside of these are apocryphal. There- 
 fore the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, the book of Jesus son of Sirach, Judith, 
 Tobit, aud The Shepherd are not canonical. The first book of Maccabees I 
 found in Hebrew, the second is Greek, as may be proved from its very idiom. " 
 
 Praef. in Jeremiam. — "We have passed by the book of Baruch, Jeremiah's 
 amanuensis, which the Hebrews neither read nor possess." 
 
 Praef. in Librtwi Esther. — "The Book of Esther has unquestionably been 
 vitiated by various translators. I have translated it word for word as it 
 stands in the Hebrew archives." 
 
 Praef. in Danielem. — "The story of Susanna, the Song of the Three 
 Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon are not found in the Hebrew 
 Daniel ; but as they are current throughout the world we have added them at 
 the end, marking them with an obelus, lest the ignorant should fancy us to 
 have excised a great part of the volume," Jerome adds an interesting account 
 of arguments against the additions to Daniel, which he had heard from a 
 Jewish doctor, leaving the decision to his readers. 
 
 Of the Apocryphal books contained in the English Authorised version of 
 1611, three are not accepted as canonical by the Church of Rome, viz. First 
 and Second Esdras (otherwise called Third and Fourth Esdras), and the 
 Prayer of Manasseh. The canonicity of the additions to Esther and Daniel is 
 rightly held by Bellarmin to be implied in the decree of Trent which accepts 
 the books of the Old Testament, "cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ecclesia 
 catholica legi consueverunt." {Controv. I. De Verho Dei, Lib. i. capp. 7, 9.) 
 
;0 JEROME AND 
 
 Greek or Latin copies in your hands, ask the most trust- 
 worthy Jew you can find, and see if he does not agree with 
 me." ^ Once and again Jerome claims this, and only this, for 
 his version, that it agrees with the best Jewish tradition ; in 
 other words, Jerome sought to correct the current Bibles of 
 his day according to the Hebrew text, as the Jews of his 
 time received it, and to give an interpretation on a level 
 with the best Jewish scholarship. He did this partly by 
 the aid of earlier translations from the Hebrew into the 
 Greek (Aquila, Theodotion, but especially Symmachus) made 
 after the time of Christ, and more in accordance than -the 
 Septuagint with the later Eabbinical scholarship ; ^ and 
 partly by the help of learned Jews. On one occasion, he tells 
 us, he brought a famous Eabbi from Tiberias to instruct him. 
 At another time he brought a Jewish scholar from Lydda ; 
 and in particular he speaks of one called Bar Anina, a teacher 
 who came to him by night for fear of his co-religionists, 
 while the translator resided in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.^ 
 
 ' The quotation is from the Prologus galeatus. Compare the preface to 
 Chronicles addressed to Domnio and Rogatianus. 
 
 ^ The version of Aquila, a Jewish proselyte and disciple of the famous 
 Rabbi Akiba, was made expressly in the interests of Jewish exegesis, and 
 reproduced with scrupulous accuracy the received text of the second 
 Christian century. Symmachus and Theodotion followed later, but still in the 
 second century. The former, according to Eusebius and Jerome, was an 
 Ebionite, one of the sect of Jewish Christians who still held to the observance 
 of the law, like the opponents of Paul. It is uncertain whether Theodotion 
 was an Ebionite (Jerome), or a proselyte (Irenseus). Aquila, says Jerome, 
 sought to reproduce the Hebrew word for word ; Symmachus aimed at a clear 
 expression of the sense ; while Theodotion rather sought to give a revised 
 edition not very divergent from the Greek of the Septuagint. These versions 
 were arranged in parallel columns in the Hexapla of Origen, composed in the 
 first half of the third century. The fragments of them which remain in Greek 
 MSS. of the Septuagint, in the Patristic literature, or in the Syriac transla- 
 tion of the fifth column of the Hexapla made by Paul of Telia, in Alexandria, 
 617 A.D., are collected in Dr. Field's edition, Origenis Hexaplorum quae 
 supersunt (Oxford, 1867-75). 
 
 ^ Praef. in Lihrum Job. — "To understand this book I procured, at no 
 small cost, a doctor from Lydda, who was deemed to hold the first place 
 among the Hebrews." 
 
HIS TEACHERS 31 
 
 In their earlier controversies with the Eoman Catholics, 
 the Protestants simply fell back upon these facts, quoting 
 Jerome against the Council of Trent, as is done, for example, 
 in the sixth of the Articles of the Church of England.^ They 
 quoted Jerome, and therefore adopted his definition that all 
 books which were not extant in Hebrew and admitted to the 
 canon of the Jews in the day of Jerome are apocryphal and 
 not to be cited in proof of a disjDuted doctrine. Beyond that 
 they did not care to press the question of the canon. There 
 were differences among themselves as to the value of the 
 Apocrypha on the one hand, and as to the canonicity of 
 Esther and some other books of the old canon upon the other. 
 But it was enough for the Protestants in controversy with 
 Eome to be able to refuse a proof text drawn from the 
 Apocryphal books, upon the plain ground that the authority 
 of these books was challenged even by many of the fathers. 
 Thus Calvin, in his Antidote to the Council of Trent, is 
 willing to leave the question of the canon open, contenting 
 himself with the observation that the intrinsic qualities of 
 the Apocryphal books display a manifest inferiority to the 
 canonical writings.^ 
 
 Praef. in Chron. ad D. et R. — "When your letters reached me, asking a 
 Latin version of Chronicles, I got a doctor of Tiberias, in high esteem among 
 the Hebrews, and with him collated everything, as the proverb goes, from the 
 crown of the head to the tip of the nails. Thus confirmed, I have ventured 
 to comply with your request." Bar Anina is named in Epist. 84. Jerome 
 never gained such a knowledge of Hebrew as gave him confidence to dispense 
 with the aid of the Jews. 
 
 ^ The passage quoted in Art. VI. is from Pracf. in lihros Salomonis. — "As 
 the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not 
 receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so let her read these two books 
 [Ecclesiasticus and the "Wisdom of Solomon] for the edification of the laity, 
 but not to confirm the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines." 
 
 2 "On their promiscuous acceptance of all books into the Canon, I will 
 say no more than that herein they depart from the consensus of the early 
 Church. For it is known what Jerome reports as the common judgment of 
 the ancients. ... I am not aware, however, that the decree of Trent agrees 
 with the third CEcumenical Council, which Augustine follows in his book De 
 Dodrina Christiana. But as Augustine testifies that all were not agreed upon 
 
32 HEBREW LEARNING lect. ii 
 
 On the question of the true interpretation of Scripture 
 they had much more to say. The revival of letters in the 
 fifteenth century had raised a keen interest in ancient lan- 
 guages, and scholars who had mastered Greek as well as 
 Latin were ambitious to add to their knowledge a third 
 learned tongue, viz. the Hebrew, At first this ambition 
 met with many difficulties. The original text of the Old 
 Testament was preserved only among the scholars of the 
 Synagogue. It was impossible to learn Hebrew except from 
 Jewish teachers ; and orthodox Jews refused to teach men 
 who were not of their own faith. Gradually, however, these 
 obstacles were surmounted. Towards the close of the fifteenth 
 century, Hebrew Bibles began to be printed, and some know- 
 ledge of the Hebrew tongue became disseminated to a con- 
 siderable extent ; and at length, in the year 1506, John 
 Eeuchlin, the great supporter of Hebrew studies north of the 
 Alps, put forth in Latin his Rudiments of the Hebrew lan- 
 guage. This Latin work, which was something of the nature 
 of both grammar and dictionary, was almost entirely taken 
 from the Hebrew manuals of the famous Jewish scholar and 
 lexicographer, Eabbi David Kimhi, who flourished about the 
 year 1200 a.d. As soon as Christians were furnished in this 
 way with text-books, the new learning spread rapidly. It 
 ran over Europe just at the time when the Reformation was 
 spreading, and the Eeformers, always keenly alive to the best 
 and most modern learning of their time, read the Old Testa- 
 ment in the original Hebrew, and often found occasion to 
 differ from Jerome's version. Observe, they agreed with 
 Jerome in principle. They, like him, aimed only at render- 
 ing the text as the best Hebrew scholars would do, and to 
 them, as to him, the standard of scholarship was that of the 
 
 the matter in his time, let this point be left open. But if arguments are to 
 be drawn from the books themselves, there are many proofs, besides their 
 idiom, that they ought to take a lower place than the fathers of Trent award 
 to them," etc. Compare the statement, Institut. iv. 9, § 14. 
 
LECT. II OF THE REFORMERS 33 
 
 most learned Jews. But when Jerome wrote, there was 
 no such thing in existence as a Hebrew grammar and dic- 
 tionary ; there were no written commentaries to which a 
 Christian scholar had access. The Reformers had the text- 
 book of Eeuchlin, the grammar and lexicon of Kimhi, the 
 commentaries of many Eabbins of the Middle Ages, with 
 other helps denied to Jerome, and therefore they knew that 
 their new learning put them in a position to criticise his 
 work. Often, indeed, they undervalued Jerome's labours, 
 and this ultimately led to controversies between Protestants 
 and Catholics, which were fruitful of instruction to both 
 sides. But, on the whole, the Eeforming scholars did know 
 Hebrew better than Jerome, and their versions, including our 
 English Bible, approached much more nearly than his to the 
 ideal common to both, — which was to give the sense of the 
 Old Testament as it was understood by the best Jewish 
 scholars. Of course, the Jewish authorities themselves some- 
 times differed from one another. In such cases, the Pro- 
 testants leant sometimes on one authority, sometimes on 
 another. Luther was much influenced (through Nicolaus de 
 Lyra) by the commentaries of E. Solomon of Troyes, gener- 
 ally called Eashi, who died 1105 a.d. Our Bible is mainly 
 guided by the grammar and lexicon of the later scholar, 
 E, David Kimhi of Narbonne, who has already been men- 
 tioned as the author of the most current text-books of the 
 Hebrew language. But the point which I wish you to 
 observe is that the Eeformers and their successors, up to the 
 time when all our Protestant versions were fixed, were in the 
 hands of the Eabbins in all matters of Hebrew scholarship. 
 Their object in the sixteenth century, like Jerome's in the 
 fourth, was simply to give to the vulgar the fruit of the best 
 Jewish learning, applied to the translation of the Scriptures 
 received among the Jews. 
 
 It may be asked why the Eeformers stopped here. But 
 
 3 
 
34 SCHOLARSHIP OF THE lect. ii 
 
 the answer is clear enough. They went as far as the scholar- 
 ship of the age would carry them. All sound Hebrew 
 learning then resided with the Jewish doctors, and so the 
 Protestant scholars became their disciples. 
 
 But it would be absurd to suppose that the men who 
 refused to accept the authority of Christian tradition as to the 
 number of books in the canon, the best text of the Old Testa- 
 ment, or the principles upon which that text is to be trans- 
 lated, adopted it as a principle of faith that the Jewish tradi- 
 tion upon all these points is final. Luther again and again 
 showed that he submitted to no such authority ; and if the 
 Eeformers and their first successors practically accepted the 
 results of Jewish scholarship upon all these questions, they 
 did so merely because these results were in accordance with 
 the best lights then attainable. It was left for a later gener- 
 ation, which had lost the courage of the first Eeformers 
 because it had lost much of their clear insight into divine 
 things, to substitute an authoritative Jewish tradition for the 
 authoritative tradition of the Catholic Church — to swear by 
 the Jewish canon and the Massoretic text as the Eomanists 
 swore by the Tridentine canon and the Vulgate text. The 
 Eeformers had too much reverence for God's Word to subject 
 it to the bondage of any tradition. They would gladly have 
 accepted any further light of learning, carrying them back 
 behind the time of Eabbinical Judaism to the first ages of 
 the Old Testament writings. 
 
 Scholarship moved onwards, and as research was carried 
 farther it gradually became plain that it was possible for 
 Biblical students, with the material still preserved to them, 
 to get behind the Jewish Eabbins, upon whom our translators 
 were still dependent, and to draw from the sacred stream at 
 a point nearer its source. I have now to explain how this 
 was seen to be the case. 
 
 From the time when the Old Testament was written, 
 
JEWISH RABBINS 35 
 
 down to the sixteenth century, there was no continuous 
 tradition of sound Hebrew learning except among the Jews. 
 The little that Christians knew about the Old Testament at 
 first hand had always come from the Eabbins. Among the 
 Jews, on the contrary, there was a continuous scholarly tradi- 
 tion. The knowledge of Hebrew and the most received ways 
 of explaining the Old Testament were handed down from 
 generation to generation along with the original text. I ask 
 you to understand precisely what this means. Before the 
 time of Christ, the Jews had already ceased to speak Hebrew. 
 In the New Testament, no doubt, we read once and again of 
 the Hebrew tongue as spoken and understood by the people 
 of Palestine ; but the vernacular of the Palestinian Jews in 
 the first century was a dialect as unlike to that of the 
 Bible as German is to English — a different language, although 
 a kindred one. This language is called Hebrew because it 
 was spoken by the Hebrews, just as the Spanish Jews in 
 Constantinople at the present day call their Spanish jargon 
 Hebrew. It was a form of Western Aramaic, which the 
 Jews had gradually substituted for the tongue of their ances- 
 tors, after their return from captivity, when they found them- 
 selves a small handful living in the midst of nations who 
 spoke Aramaic, and with whom they had constant dealings. 
 In those days Aramaic was the language of business and of 
 government in the countries between the Euphrates and the 
 Mediterranean, just as English is in the Highlands of Scot- 
 land, and so the Jews forgot their own tongue for it, as the 
 Scottish Celts are now forgetting Gaelic for English. This 
 process had already gone on to a great extent before the latest 
 books of the Old Testament were completed.^ Such writers 
 
 1 On the assumption that the Aramaic part of Daniel was written in 
 Chaldfea by Daniel himself, the Biblical Aramaic used to be called Chaldee, 
 and it was supposed that the Jews forgot their old tongue and learned that of 
 Chaldsea during the Captivity. It is now known that this opinion is alto- 
 gether false. The Aramaic dialect of the Jews in Palestine, of which the 
 
36 SCHOLARSHIP OF THE lect. ii 
 
 as the authors of Chronicles and Ecclesiastes still use the old 
 language of Israel for literary purposes, but in a way which 
 shows that their thoughts often ran not in Hebrew but in 
 Aramaic. They use Aramaic words and idioms which would 
 have puzzled Moses and David, and in some of the later Old 
 Testament books, in Ezra and in Daniel, although not in 
 those parts of the former book whicli are autobiographical 
 and written by Ezra himself, there actually are inserted in 
 the Hebrew long Aramaic passages. Before the time of 
 Christ, people who were not scholars had ceased to under- 
 stand Hebrew altogether;^ and in the synagogue, when the 
 Bible was read, a Meturgeman, as he was called, that is, a 
 " dragoman," or qualified translator, had to rise and give the 
 sense of the passage in the vulgar dialect. The Pentateuch 
 was read verse by verse, or in lessons from the Prophets 
 three verses were read together, and then the Meturgeman 
 rose, and did not read, but give orally in Aramaic the sense 
 of the original.^ The old Hebrew, then, was by this time a 
 
 so-called Chaldee parts of Ezra and Daniel are the oldest monuments, is not 
 Babylonian, but Western in character, as appears unmistakably by compari- 
 son with the Aramaic monuments of other districts west of the Euphrates. 
 Peculiarities, for example, which used to be characterised as Hebraisms, 
 reappear on the Palmyrene and Nabatsean inscriptions. The Jews, therefore, 
 lost their Hebrew, and learned Aramaic in Palestine after the return. They 
 certainly still spoke Hebrew in the time of Nehemiah, whose indignation 
 against the contamination of the Jewish speech by the dialect of Ashdod 
 (Nell. .xiii. 24) is quite unintelligible on any other supposition. Compare for 
 the whole subject Nbldeke's article, Semitic Languages, in the ninth edition 
 of the EncyclojKcdia Britannica. 
 
 ^ See the evidence of this from the Rabbinical literature in Zunz's Gottes- 
 dienstliche Vortriige der Juden, p. 7 (Berlin, 1832). Our Lord upon the cross 
 quoted Ps. xxii. in a Targum. 
 
 ^ Mishna, Megilla, iv. 4. — "He who reads in the Pentateuch must not 
 read to the Meturgeman more than one verse, and in the prophets three 
 verses. If each verse is a paragraph, they are read one by one. The reader 
 may skip in the prophets, but not in the law. How long may he spend in 
 searching for another passage ? So long as the Meturgeman goes on speaking. " 
 The practice of oral translation into Aramaic led ultimately to the formation of 
 written Targums or Aramaic paraphrases ; but these were long discouraged by 
 the Scribes. 
 
JEWISH EABBTXS 37 
 
 learned language, acquired not in common life but from a 
 teacher. In order to learn it, the young Jew had to go to 
 school, but he had no grammar or lexicon, or other written 
 help, to assist him. Everything was done by oral instruction, 
 and by dint of sheer memory, without any scientific principle. 
 In the first place, the pupil had to learn to read. In our 
 Hebrew Bibles now, the pronunciation of each word is 
 exactly represented. This is done by a double notation. 
 The letters proper are the consonants, and the vowels are 
 indicated by small marks placed above or below the line of 
 the consonants. These small marks are a late invention. 
 They did not exist in the time of Christ, or even four hundred 
 years after the Christian era, at the time of Jerome.-^ Before 
 this invention the proper pronunciation of each difficult word 
 had to be acquired from a master. When a pupil had learned 
 to read a phrase correctly, he was taught the meaning of the 
 words, and by such exercises, combined with the practice of 
 constantly speaking Hebrew, which was kept up in the Jewish 
 schools, as the practice of speaking Latin used to be kept up 
 
 ^ The structure of the Semitic languages makes it much easier to dispense 
 with the vowels than an English reader might suppose. The chief difficulty 
 lay with vowels, or still more with diphthongs, at the end of a word, and was 
 met at a very early date by the use of weak consonants to indicate cognate 
 vowel-sounds {e.g. W=au, u ; Y = ai, i). Such vowel-consonants are found 
 even on the stone of Mesha, and have been adopted in various measure, not 
 only in Hebrew, but in Syriac and Arabic. But in all these languages the 
 plan of marking every vowel-sound by points above or below the line came 
 in comparatively late, was developed slowly, and never extended to all books. 
 The testimonies of the Talmudists and of Jerome are quite express to show 
 that at their time the true vocalisation of ambiguous words was known only 
 by oral teaching. Jerome, for example, says that in Hab. iii. 5 the Hebrew 
 has only D, B, and R, without any vowel, which maybe read either as dabar, 
 "word," or debcr, "plague." A supjiosed interest of orthodoxy long led good 
 scholars like the Buxtorfs to fight for the antiquity and authority of the 
 points. There is now no question on the subject ; for MSS. brought from 
 Southern Russia and Arabia, containing a different notation for the vowels, 
 prove that our present system is not only comparatively recent, but is the 
 outcome of a gradual process, in which several methods were tried in diff"erent 
 parts of the Jewish world. The rolls read in the synagogue are still un- 
 pointed, a relic of the old condition of all MSS. Compare Lect. III. p. 58 sq. 
 
38 SCHOLAHSHIP OF THE lect. ii 
 
 in our grammar schools, the pupil gradually learned to under- 
 stand the sacred texts and at the same time acquired a 
 certain practical fluency in speaking or writing a degraded 
 form of Hebrew, with many barbarous words and still more 
 barbarous constructions, such as are certain to creep into any 
 language which is dead in ordinary life and yet is daily used 
 by teachers and learners, not as a mere philological exercise 
 but as a vehicle of practical instruction in law, theology, and 
 the like. The Jews themselves recognised the difference 
 between this pedantic jargon and the language of their 
 ancient books. The language of the Bible was called "the 
 holy tongue," while the Hebrew spoken in the schools was 
 called " the language of the wise." We have many volumes 
 of the composition of these scholars, chiefly legal works, with 
 some old midrashim, as they are called, or sermonising com- 
 mentaries on Scripture. These books no doubt are Hebrew 
 in a certain sense, but they are as unlike to the Biblical 
 Hebrew as a lawyer's deed is to a page of Cicero. The men 
 who wrote such a jargon could not have any delicate percep- 
 tion for the niceties of the old classical language, especially 
 as it is written in the most ancient books ; and when they 
 came to a difficult passage they could only guess at the sense, 
 unless they possessed an interpretation of the hard text, and 
 the hard words it contained, handed down to them from some 
 older scholar. 
 
 Now let me ask you once more to realise precisely how 
 these scribes, at and before the time of Christ, proceeded in 
 dealing with the Bible. They had nothing before them but 
 the bare consonantal text, so that the same words might often 
 be read and interpreted in two different ways. A familiar 
 example of this is given in Heb. xi. 21, where we read of 
 Jacob leaning upon the top of his " staff ; " but when we turn 
 to the Hebrew Bible, as it is now printed (Genesis xlvii. 31), 
 we there find nothing about the " staff ; " we find the " bed." 
 
JEWISH RABBINS 39 
 
 Well, the Hebrew for "the bed" is " HaMmiTtaH," while 
 the Hebrew for "the staff" is " HaMmaTteH." The con- 
 sonants in these two words are the same; the vowels are 
 different ; but the consonants only were written, and doubled 
 consonants were written only once, so that all that appeared 
 in MSS. was HMTH. Thus it was quite possible for one 
 person to read the word as " bed," as the translators of our 
 English Bible did, following the reading of the Hebrew 
 scribes, and for the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, on 
 the other hand, to understand it as a " staff," following the 
 interpretation of the Greek Septuagint. 
 
 Beyond the bare text, which in this way was often 
 ambiguous, tlie scribes had no guide but oral teaching. They 
 had no rules of grammar to go by ; the kind of Hebrew 
 which they themselves wrote often admitted grammatical 
 constructions which the old language forbade, and when they 
 came to an obsolete word or idiom, they depended on their 
 masters to give them the pronunciation and the sense. Now, 
 beyond doubt, the Jewish scholars were most exact and re- 
 tentive learners, and their teachers spared no pains to teach 
 them all that they knew. We in the West have little idea of 
 the precision with which an Eastern pupil even now can take 
 up and remember the minutest details of a lesson, reproducing 
 them years afterwards in the exact words of his master. But 
 memory, even when cultivated as it is cultivated in the 
 schools of the East, is at best fallible ; and even if we could 
 suppose that the whole of the Bible had been taught word 
 by word in the schools, in unbroken succession from the day 
 on which each book was first written, it would still have 
 required a continued miracle to preserve all these lessons 
 perfectly, and without writing, through long generations. 
 But in point of fact the traditional teaching of the Jews was 
 neither complete, nor continuous from the first, nor uniform. 
 
 It was not complete ; that is, there never was an authori- 
 
40 TRADITIONAL EXEGESIS lect. ii 
 
 tative interpretation of the whole Bible. It was not continuous ; 
 that is, many interpretations, which attained general currency 
 and authority, had not been received by unbroken tradition 
 from the time when the passage was first written, or even 
 from the time when Hebrew became a dead language, but 
 were mere figments of the Eabbins devised out of their own 
 heads. And finally, the Eabbinical tradition was not uniform ; 
 that is, the interpretation and even the reading of individual 
 texts was often a subject of controversy in the schools of the 
 Scribes, and at different times we find different interpreta- 
 tions in the ascendant. The proof of these propositions lies 
 partly in the records of Jewish learning still preserved in the 
 Rabbinical literature ; partly it lies in the translations and 
 interpretations made at various times by Jewish scholars or 
 under their guidance. 
 
 So long as the transmission and interpretation of the 
 Bible were left to the unregulated labours of individual 
 scholars or copyists, it is plain that individual theories and 
 individual errors would have some influence on the work. The 
 Bible had to be copied by the pen. Let us suppose then that 
 the copyist, without any special instruction or guide, simply 
 sat down to make a transcript, probably writing from dicta- 
 tion, of a roll which he had bought or borrowed. In the 
 first place, he was almost certain to make some slips, either 
 of the pen or of the ear ; but besides this, in all probability 
 the volume before him would contain slips of the previous 
 copyist. "Was he to copy these mistakes exactly as they 
 stood, and so perpetuate the error, or would he not in very 
 many cases think himself able to detect and correct the slips 
 of his predecessor ? If he took the latter course, it was very 
 possible for him to overrate his own capacity and introduce 
 a new mistake. And so bit by bit, if there were no control, 
 if each scribe acted independently, and without the assistance 
 of a regular school, errors were sure to be multiplied, and the 
 
OF THE JEWS 41 
 
 text would be certain to present many variations. Thus we 
 know that even in recent times the Gaelic version of the Old 
 Testament contains certain alterations upon the original text 
 made in order to remove seeming contradictions. Much more 
 were such changes to be anticipated in ancient times, when 
 there was a far less developed sense of responsibility with 
 regard to the exact verbal transcription of old texts. A 
 uniform and scrupulous tradition, watching over the reading 
 and the meaning of the text in all parts of the Jewish world, 
 could only be transmitted by a regular school of learned 
 doctors, or, as the Jewish records call them. Scribes, in Hebrew 
 Soplierim or men of the book — men who were professionally 
 occupied with the book of the law. 
 
 We are all familiar with the Scribes, or professed Biblical 
 scholars, as they appear in the New Testament. They were 
 not merely, or primarily, verbal scholars, but, above all things, 
 practical lawyers and theologians, who used their linguistic 
 knowledge to support their own doctrines and principles. 
 Their principles at that epoch, as we know, were those of the 
 Pharisees ; in fact, the Pharisees were nothing else than the 
 party of the Scribes, in opposition to the Sadducees or aristo- 
 cratic party, whose heads were the higher priestly nobility. 
 To the Pharisees, or party of the Scribes, belonged the great 
 mass of Jewish scholars who were not closely associated with 
 the higher ranks of the priesthood, together with many who, 
 without being scholars, were eager to obey the law as the 
 Scribes interpreted it. The Scribes were the men who had 
 in their hands the transmission and interpretation of the Old 
 Testament ; and our next task, in endeavouring to understand 
 the steps by which the Old Testament has been handed down 
 to us, must be to obtain a clear vision of their methods and 
 objects, and of the work which they actually did upon the 
 text of the Bible. This subject will occupy our attention 
 in the next Lecture. 
 
LECTUEE III 
 
 THE SCRIBES- 
 
 The subject with wliicli we are to be occupied to-day is tbe 
 part that was played by the Scribes in the preservation and 
 transmission of the Old Testament. At the close of last 
 Lecture we looked for a moment at the Scribes as they appear 
 in the New Testament in association with the Pharisees. At 
 that time, as one sees from the Gospels and the Acts, they 
 constituted a party long established, and exercising a great 
 and recognised influence in the Jewish state. In fact they 
 can be traced back as far as the later times of the Old Testa- 
 ment. Their father is Ezra, " the Scribe," as he is called -par 
 excellence, who came from Babylon to Judaea with the law of 
 God in his hand (Ezra vii. 14), and with a heart " prepared 
 to study the law of the Lord, to do it, and to teach in Israel 
 
 ^ For the history of the period covered by this Lecture the best and most 
 complete book is Schiirer, Gesch. des Jiidischen Volkes ini Zeitalter Jesu 
 Christi, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1886, 1890 (also in an English translation), where a 
 full account of the literature of the subject will be found. More popular and 
 very useful is "W. D. Morrison, The Jews under Roman Rule, in the "Story 
 of the Nations" Series (2d ed., London, 1891). "VVellhausen's monograjjh, 
 Die Pharisder und die Sadducder (Greifswald, 1874), and the later chapters 
 of Kuenen's Religion of Israel (Eng. trans., vol. iii., London, 1875), may also 
 be specially recommended to the student ; and among works by Jewish 
 anthoTS, J. 'DerenhoMTg, Sssai sur I'histoire . . . de la PaIesti')ie(Ta.vis,1867). 
 The oldest and most important traditions about the early Scribes are found in 
 the Mishnic treatise Aboth, which has been edited, with an English version 
 and notes, by Dr. C. Taylor [Sarjings of the Jewish Fathers, Cambridge, 1S77), 
 and with German notes by Prof. H. Strack (Leipzig, 1882). 
 
EZRA THE SCRIBE 43 
 
 statutes and judgments " (Ezra vii, 10). Ezra accomplished 
 this task, not immediately, but with ultimate and complete 
 success. He did so with the support of the Persian king, 
 and with the active assistance of Nehemiah, who had been 
 sent by Artaxerxes as governor of Jerusalem. At a great 
 public meeting convened by Nehemiah, of which we read an 
 account in chapters viii. to x. of the book which bears his 
 name, the Law was openly read before the people at the 
 Feast of Tabernacles, and, with confession and penitence, the 
 Jews entered into a national covenant to make that law 
 henceforth the rule of their lives. Now I do not ask at pre- 
 sent what were the relations of the people to the Law before 
 the time of Ezra. That question must come up afterwards ; 
 but any one who reads with attention the narrative in the 
 book of Nehemia.h must be satisfied that this work of Ezra, 
 and the covenant which the people took upon them to obey 
 the Law, were of epoch-making importance for 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 by their ancestors, their rulers, or their priests, 
 up to that time (Neb. ix. 34) ; and in particular it is men- 
 tioned that the Feast of Tabernacles had never been observed 
 with the ceremonial prescribed in the Law from the time that 
 the Israelites occupied Canaan under Joshua (Neh. viii. 17). 
 Accordingly this covenant must be regarded as a critical 
 epoch in the history of the community of Israel. From that 
 time forward, with the assistance and under the approval of 
 the Persian king, the Law — that is, the Pentateuch or Torah, 
 as we now have it, for there can be no doubt that the Law 
 which was in Ezra's hands was practically identical with our 
 present Hebrew Pentateuch — became the religious and muni- 
 cipal code of Israel. Now the Pentateuch, viewed as a code, 
 is such a book as imperatively calls for a class of trained 
 
44 WORK OF THE SCRIBES lect. hi 
 
 lawyers to be its interpreters. I do not ask at present 
 whether, as most critics suppose, there are real contradictions 
 between the laws given in different parts of the five books of 
 Moses. At all events, it is a familiar fact that those who 
 maintain that all the Pentateuchal laws can be reconciled, 
 differ very much among themselves as to the precise method 
 of reconciliation. In such an ambiguity of the Law it is 
 manifest that the Scribes had an indispensable function as 
 guides of the people to that interpretation which was in 
 actual use in the practical administration of the code. Accord- 
 ingly, by and by, in the time of the Chronicler (1 Chron. ii. 
 55), we find them organised in regular " families," or, as we 
 should now say, " guilds," an institution quite in accordance 
 with the whole spirit of the East, which forms a guild or trades- 
 union of every class possessing special technical knowledge. 
 
 We see, then, that before the close of the Old Testament 
 Canon the Scribes not only existed, continuing the work of 
 Ezra, but that they existed in the form of guilds or regular 
 societies. What were their objects ? There can be no doubt 
 that from the first the objects of the Scribes were not philo- 
 logical and literary, but practical. Ezra's object was so. He 
 came to make the Law the practical rule of Israel's life, and 
 so it was still in later ages. The wisdom of the Scribes 
 consisted of two parts, which in Jewish terminology were 
 respectively called "Halacha" and " Haggada." "Halacha" 
 was legal teaching, systematised legal precept ; while " Hag- 
 gada " was doctrinal and practical admonition, mingled with 
 parable and legend. But of these two parts the " Halacha," 
 — that is, the system of rules applying the Pentateuchal law 
 to every case of practice and every detail of life, — was always 
 the chief thing. The difference between the learned theologian 
 and the unlearned vulgar lay in knowledge of the Law. You 
 remember what the Pharisees say in John vii. 49 — "This 
 people, which knoweth not the law, are cursed." The Law 
 
LECT. Ill HALACHA AND HAGGADA 45 
 
 was the ideal of the Scribes. Their theory of the history of 
 Israel was this : — In time past Israel had been chastised by 
 God's wrath ; the cause of this chastisement was that the 
 people had neglected the Law. Forgetting the Law, Israel 
 had passed and was still passing through many tribulations, 
 and was subjected to the yoke of a foreign power. What 
 was the duty of the Jews in this condition of things ? Ac- 
 cording to the Scribes, it was not to engage in any political 
 scheme whatever for throwing off the foreign yoke, but to 
 establish the Law in their own midst, — to apply themselves, 
 not only to obey the whole Torah, particularly in its cere- 
 monial precepts, but so to develop these precepts that they 
 might embrace every minute detail of life. Then, when by 
 this means Israel had become a law-obeying nation in the 
 fullest sense of the word, Jehovah Himself, in His righteous- 
 ness, would intervene, miraculously remove the scourge, and 
 establish the glory of His law-fulfilling people. These were 
 the principles of the Scribes and the Pharisees, the principles 
 spoken of by Paul in writing to the Eomans, when he tells 
 us that Israel followed after a law of righteousness without 
 attaining to it ; that they, being ignorant of God's righteous- 
 ness, and going about to establish their own, did not submit 
 themselves to the righteousness of God (Eom. ix. 31, x. 3). 
 
 All that the Scribes did for the transmission, preservation, 
 and interpretation of the Old Testament, was guided by their 
 legal aims. In the first instance, they were not scholars, not 
 preachers, but " lawyers " (vo^ilkol), as they are often called 
 in the New Testament. In their juridical decisions they were 
 guided partly by study of the Pentateuch, but partly also by 
 observation of the actual legal usages of their time, by those 
 views of the Law which were practically acknowledged, for 
 example, in the ceremonial of the temple and the priesthood. 
 There was thus, in the wisdom of the Scribes, an element of 
 use and wont, — an element of common law, which of course 
 
46 THE SCRIBES AND 
 
 existed in Jerusalem, as in every other living community, 
 side by side with the codified written law ; and this element 
 of common law, or use and wont, was the source of the theory 
 of legal tradition familiar to all of us from allusions in the 
 New Testament. According to this theory, Moses himself 
 had delivered to Israel an oral law along with the written 
 Torah. The oral law was as old as the Pentateuch, and had 
 come down in authentic form through the prophets to Ezra. 
 The conception of an oral law, as old and venerable as the 
 written law, necessarily influenced the Scribes in all their 
 interpretations of Scripture. It introduced into their hand- 
 ling of Scripture an element of uncertainty and falsity, upon 
 which Jesus Himself, as you will remember, put His finger, 
 with that unfailing insight of His into the unsound parts of 
 the religious state of His time. Through their theory of tho 
 traditional law the Scribes were led into many a departure 
 from the spirit, and even from the letter of the written Word 
 (Matt, xil 1-8, XV. 1-20, xxiii.). 
 
 To the Scribes, then, the whole law, written and oral, was 
 of equal practical authority. What they really sought to 
 preserve intact, and hand down as binding for Israel, was not 
 so much the written text of the Pentateuch as their own rules, 
 — partly derived from the Pentateuch, but partly, as we have 
 seen, from other sources, — which they honestly believed to be 
 equally an expression of the mind of the Eevealer, even in 
 cases where they had no basis in Scripture, or only the basis 
 of some very strained interpretation. Now, you can readily 
 conceive that the traditional interpretation of the law could 
 not be stationary. In fact, we know that it was not so. The 
 subject has been gone into with great care by Jewish scholars, 
 who are more interested than we are in the traditional law ; 
 and they have been able to prove, from their own books and 
 written records of the legal traditions, that the law underwent, 
 from century to century, not a few changes. This was no 
 
THE ORAL LAW 47 
 
 more than natural. So long as a nation has a national life, 
 lives and develops new practical necessities, there must also 
 from time to time be changes in the law and its application. 
 In part, then, the growth of the traditional law was owing to 
 changes and new necessities of the national life. It would 
 doubtless, from this source alone, have grown and changed 
 very much more, but for the fact that during the centuries 
 between Ezra and Christ the Jews were almost continuously 
 under foreign domination, so that they had not perfect free- 
 dom of civil or even religious development. At the same 
 time, they always retained a certain amount of municipal inde- 
 pendence ; and so long as the municipal life remained active, 
 the law necessarily underwent modifications from time to time. 
 
 But there was another reason for continual changes in 
 the traditional law. The party headed by the Scribes, which 
 finally developed into the sect of the Pharisees, were so 
 carried away with the idea that God's blessing on Israel and 
 the removal of all national calamity depended on a punctilious 
 observance of the minutest legal ordinances, that they deemed 
 it necessary to make, as they put it, " a hedge round the Law" 
 — in other words, to fence in the life of the Israelite with new 
 precepts of their own devising, at every point where the 
 boundary line between the legal and the illegal appeared to 
 be indistinctly marked. There was therefore a constant 
 tendency to add new and more complicated precepts of 
 conduct, and especially of ceremonial observance, to those 
 already prescribed in the Pentateuch and in the oldest form 
 of tradition, so that it might be impossible for a man, if he 
 held by all traditional rules, to come even within sight of a 
 possible breach of the Law. 
 
 The legal system thus developed had not at first the 
 weight of an authoritative legislation ; for the Scribes and 
 Pharisees were not the governing class in Judsea. The rulers 
 of the nation in its internal matters were the priestly aristo- 
 
48 THE SCRIBES AND THE lect. hi 
 
 cracy, with the high priest at their head as a sort of hereditary 
 prince over Israel. And in the decay of the Greek power 
 in Syria, when the Jews were able for a time to assert their 
 political independence, the Hasmonean or Maccabee priest- 
 princes were the actual sovereigns of Judsea (142-37 B.C.) 
 Nevertheless the great Eabbins of the party of Scribes were 
 men whose legal ability gained for them a commanding 
 position and influence ; the mass of the Pharisees, by their 
 claim of special sanctity and special legality, also acquired 
 great weight with the common people ; and in consequence 
 of this the authority of the party ultimately became so great 
 that, as we learn from Josephus, the priestly aristocracy, who 
 were the civil as well as the religious heads of the Jews, and 
 who themselves were no more inclined than any other aristo- 
 cracy to make changes that were not for their own personal 
 profit, yet found themselves compelled by the pressure of 
 public opinion to defer in almost every instance to the 
 doctrines of the Scribes.^ The municipal and legal ad- 
 
 1 Josephus, Antiquities, xiii. 10, § 6. — "The Sadducees had only the well- 
 to-do classes on their side. The populace would not follow them ; but the 
 Pharisees had the multitude as auxiliaries." Ibid, xviii. 1, § 4 : "The Sad- 
 ducees are the men of highest rank, but they effect as good as nothing, for in 
 affairs of government they are compelled against their will to follow the dicta 
 of the Pharisees, as the masses would otherwise refuse to tolerate them." 
 
 The best account of the relative position of the Scribes and the governing 
 class at different periods is given in Wellhausen's monograph on the Pharisees 
 and Sadducees cited above. See also Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees, 
 commonly called the Psalms of Solojiion (Cambridge, 1891). On the position 
 of the two parties in the Sanhedrin, Kuenen's essay Over de samenstelling van 
 het Sanhedrin, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Amsterdam, 1866, 
 is conclusive. On this topic, and on the whole meaning of the antithesis of 
 the Pharisees and Sadducees, older scholars went astray by following too 
 closely the unhistorical views of later Jewish tradition. When Judaism had 
 ceased to have a national existence, and was merely a religious sect, the 
 schoolmen naturally became its heads ; and the tradition assumed that it had 
 always been so, and that the whole history of the nation was made up of such 
 theological and legal controversies as engrossed the attention of later times. 
 (See Taylor's Sayings of the Fathers, Excursus III.). This view bears its 
 condemnation on its face. Before the fall of the state the party of the Scribes 
 was opposed, not to another theological sect, but to the aristocracy, which 
 
LECT. Ill PRIESTLY ARISTOCRACY 49 
 
 ministration took place by means of councils bearing the 
 name of Synedria or Sanliedrin. There was a central council 
 with judicial and administrative authority — the Great Sanhe- 
 drin in Jerusalem — and there were local councils in provincial 
 towns. These councils were mainly occupied by Sadducees, 
 or men of the aristocratic party ; but ultimately the Scribes, 
 as trained lawyers, gained a considerable proportion of seats 
 in them ; and during the latter time of the Maccabees under 
 Queen Salome, and still more after the fall of the Hasmonean 
 dynasty, when it was the policy of Herod the Great to crush 
 the old nobility and play off the Pharisees against them, the 
 influence of the Scribes in the national councils of justice 
 came greatly to outweigh that of the aristocratic Sadducees. 
 In this way, as you will observe, the interpreters of the law 
 gained a very important place in the practical life of Israel ; 
 and they continued active, developing and applying their 
 peculiar system, until the overthrow of the city by Titus in 
 the year A.D. 70. When the Temple was destroyed and the 
 Jewish nationality crushed, a great part of the public ordin- 
 ances decreed by the Scribes necessarily fell into desuetude ; 
 but private and personal observances of ceremonial righteous- 
 had its centre in the high priesthood, and pursued practical objects of political 
 and social aggrandisement on very different lines from those of scholastic 
 controversy. That the Sadducees are the party headed by the chief priests, 
 and the Pharisees the party of the Scribes, is plain from the New Testament, 
 especially from Acts v. 17. The higher priesthood was in spirit a very secular 
 nobility, more interested in war and diplomacy than in the service of the 
 Temple. The theological tenets of the Sadducees, as they appear in the New 
 Testament and Josephus, had a purely political basis. They detested the 
 doctrine of the Resurrection and the fatalism of the Pharisees, because these 
 opinions were employed by their adversaries to thwart their political aims. 
 The aristocracy suffered a great loss of position by the subjection to a foreign 
 power of the nation which they had ruled in the early Hasmonean period, 
 when the high priest was a great prince. But the Pharisees discouraged all 
 rebellion. Israel's business was only to seek after the righteousness of the 
 law. The redemption of the nation would follow in due time, without man's 
 interference. The resurrection would compensate those who had suffered in 
 this life, and the hope of this reward made it superfluous for them to seek a 
 present deliverance. 
 
 4 
 
50 THE WRITTEN LAW lect. hi 
 
 ness were still insisted upon, and in one sense the Scribes 
 became more influential than ever ; for those parts of the law 
 which could still be put in force were the only remaining 
 expression of national spirit, and the doctors of the law were 
 accepted as the natural leaders of all loyal Jews. Now for 
 the first time Judaism and Pharisaism became identical ; for 
 Pharisaism alone, with its strict code of ceremonial observ- 
 ance, made it possible for the Jew to remain a Jew when the 
 state had perished and the Temple lay in ruins. But at the 
 same time the legal system ceased to be subject to the play 
 of those living forces which during the ages of national or 
 municipal independence had continually modified its details. 
 Further development became impossible, or was limited to a 
 much narrower range ; and after the last desperate struggle 
 of the Jews for liberty under Hadrian, 132 to 135 A.D., the 
 Scribes, no longer able to find a practical outlet for their 
 influence in the guidance of the state, devoted themselves to 
 systematising and writing down the traditional law in the 
 stage which it had then reached. This systematisation took 
 shape in the collection which is called the Mishna, which was 
 completed by Eabbi Judah the Holy about 200 a.d.-' 
 
 1 The word Jfw7i?ia means "instruction," literally "repetition," "inculca- 
 tion." Frona tlie same root in Aramaic form the doctors of the Mishna bear 
 the name of Tannd, teacher (repeater). After the close of the Mishna the 
 collection and interpretation of tradition was carried on by a new succession 
 of scholars whose contributions make up the Gemara ("decision," " doctrine"), 
 a vast and desultory commentary on the Mishna. There are two Gemaras, 
 one Palestinian, the other Babylonian, and each of these rests on a new 
 recension of the Mishnic text. The Palestinian Mishua was long supposed to 
 be lost, but has recently been printed by Lowe from a Cambridge MS. (Cam- 
 bridge, 1883). The name for a doctor of the Gemara is Am6ra, speaker. 
 Mishna and Gemara together make up the Talmud. The Babylonian Gemara 
 was not completed till the sixth centurj^ of our era. 
 
 The whole Mishna was published, with a Latin translation and notes, hy 
 G. Surenhusius, in 6 vols, folio (Amsterdam, 1698-1703). There is a German 
 translation by Rabe (1760-1763), and another printed in Hebrew letters by 
 Jost (Berlin, 1882-1834). There is no complete English version, but eighteen 
 treatises, still important for the daily life of the Jews, were translated by 
 Raphall and De Sola (London, 1845). Another selection is given by Dr. 
 
LECT. Ill AND THE HALACHA 5 1 
 
 I have directed your attention to the history of the tradi- 
 tional law because its transmission is inseparably bound up 
 with the transmission of the text of the Bible. As we have 
 seen, the whole law, written and oral, was one in the estima- 
 tion of the Scribes. The early versions and the early Jewish 
 commentaries show us that the interpretation of the Penta- 
 teuch was guided by legal much rather than by philological 
 principles. The Bible was understood by the helj) of the 
 Halacha quite as much as the Halacha was based upon the 
 Bible ; and so, as the traditional law underwent many changes, 
 these reacted upon the interpretation and even to a certain 
 extent upon the reading of the text of the Pentateuch. Let 
 me take an example of this from what we find in the Bible 
 itself. In ISTeh, x. 32 [33] we read that the people made a 
 law for themselves, charging themselves with a yearly poll- 
 tax of one-third of a shekel for the service of the Temple. In 
 the time of Christ this tribute of one-third of a shekel had 
 been increased to half a shekel (didrachma ; Matt. xvii. 24) ; 
 and the impost which in the time of Nehemiah was a tax 
 voluntarily taken upon themselves by the people without any 
 written warranty was in this later time supposed to be based 
 upon Exodus xxx. 12-16. This view of the matter, indeed, 
 is already taken by the Chronicler ; for he speaks of a yearly 
 Mosaic impost for the maintenance of the Temple (2 Chron. 
 xxiv. 5, 6), and therefore even in his time the law of Exodus 
 must have been held to be the basis of the poll-tax. Yet 
 that tax was a new tax ; it was first devised in the time of 
 Nehemiah ; and it is only an afterthought of the Scribes to 
 base it upon the Pentateuch.^ This example illustrates one 
 
 Barclay, the late Bishop of Jerusalem, in his work, The Talmud (London, 
 1878). See further the article Mishxa, by Di'. Schiller-Szinessy, in the uintli 
 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 ^ For the purpose in hand it is not necessary to carry the argument 
 further. But it may be observed that on the facts we must make a choice be- 
 tween two alternatives. Either Exod. xxx. is simply the historical record of an 
 
52 TALMUDIC AND 
 
 LECT. Ill 
 
 way in which the conception of the law changed in the hands 
 of the Scribes. In other cases they actually took it upon 
 themselves to alter Pentateuchal laws. For example, the 
 tithes were transferred from the Levites to the priests, and 
 the use of the liturgy prescribed in Deuteronomy xxvi. 12-15 
 on occasion of the tithing, which was not suitable after that 
 change had been made, was abolished by John Hyrcanus, 
 the Hasmonean prince and high priest.-^ These are but single 
 examples out of many which might be adduced, but they are 
 enough to show that so long as the development of the oral 
 law was running its course, the written law was treated by 
 the Scribes with a certain measure of freedom. 
 
 Their real interest, I repeat, lay not in the sacred text 
 itself, but in the practical system based upon it. That comes 
 out very forcibly in repeated passages of the Eabbinical 
 writings, in which the study of Scripture is spoken of almost 
 contemptuously, as something far inferior to the study of the 
 traditional legislative system. 
 
 ISTow, people often think of the Jews as entirely absorbed, 
 from the very first, in the exact grammatical study and literal 
 preservation of the written Word. Had this been so, they 
 could never have devised so many expositions which are 
 
 impost once levied by Moses for a special purpose (and so it is taken in Exod. 
 xxxviii. 21-31), in -wliich case we see that it was not made the ground of a 
 permanent ordinance till after the time of Nehemiah ; or, on the other hand, 
 Exod. XXX. 11 sqq. is meant as a general ordinance for future ages, in which 
 case the passage cannot have been written till after Xehemiah's time. In 
 support of the latter view see Kuenen, Onderzoek, 2d ed., I. i. § 15, note 30. 
 The point will be touched on again in Lecture XII. 
 
 ^ Mishna, Maaser Sheni, v. 15 (ed. Surenh., vol. i. p. 287), and Sola, ix. 
 10, with Wagenseil's note in Surenh., iii. 296. This is the earlier and un- 
 doubtedly the historical account, but the Gemara tries to establish the change 
 on a better footing by ascribing it to Ezra, who thus punished the Levites for 
 refusing to return from Babylon — an account which is in flat contradiction 
 with Nehem. x. 37 [38]. See "Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 172 sq. On the 
 change in the law of redemption, introduced by Hillel, which is another 
 example in point, see Derenbourg, Essai (Paris, 1867), p. 188. Compare also 
 Zunz, Gottesdienstlkhe Vortrdge der Judcn, pp. 11, 45 (Berlin, 1832). 
 
LECT. Ill MEDL^VAL EXEGESIS 53 
 
 plainly against the idiom of the Hebrew language, but which 
 flowed naturally and easily from the legal positions then 
 current. The early Scribes had neither the inclination nor 
 the philological qualifications for exact scholarly study, and 
 when they did lay weight upon some verbal nicety of the 
 sacred Text, they did so in the interest of their legal theories, 
 and upon principles to which we can assign no value. No 
 doubt the Scribes and their successors in the Talmudic times 
 (200 to 600 A.D.) must themselves have been often aware that 
 the meanings which they forced upon texts, in order to carry 
 out their legal system, were not natural and idiomatic render- 
 ings. But this did not greatly trouble them, for it was to 
 them an axiom that the oral and the written laws were one 
 system, and therefore they were bound to harmonise the two 
 at any sacrifice of the rules of language. The objections to 
 such an arbitrary exegesis did not come to be strongly felt 
 till long after the Talmudic period, when a new school of 
 Jewish scholars arose, who had grammatical and scientific 
 knowledge, mainly derived from the learning of the Arabs. 
 When in the Middle Ages these Eabbins introduced a stricter 
 system of grammatical interpretation, it came to be felt that 
 the Talmudic way of dealing with Scripture was often forced 
 and unnatural, and so it was found necessary to draw a sharp 
 distinction between the traditional Talmudic interpretation 
 of any text, which continued to have the value of an indis- 
 putable legal authority, and the grammatical interpretation 
 or P'shat, representing that exact and natural sense of the 
 passage which more modern study had enabled men to deter- 
 mine with sharpness and precision. 
 
 The medieval Eabbins concentrated their attention on the 
 plain grammatical sense of Scripture, and their best doctors, 
 who were the masters of our Protestant translators, rose much 
 above the Talmudical exegesis, although they never altogether 
 shook off the false principle that a good sense must be got 
 
 i 
 
54 THE SCRIBES AND THE lect. hi 
 
 out of everything, and that if it cannot be got out of the text 
 by the rules of grammar, these rules must give way. Even 
 our own Bible, which rests almost entirely upon the better 
 or grammatical school of Jewish interpretation, does, in some 
 passages, show traces of the Talmudical weakness of deter- 
 mining to harmonise things, and get over difficulties, even at 
 the expense of strict grammar ; but this false tendency was 
 confined within narrow limits ; and, on the whole, the influ- 
 ence of the Talmudists was almost completely conquered in 
 the Protestant versions, although it is still felt in the harmon- 
 istic exegesis of the anti-critical school.^ 
 
 A much more serious question is raised by the considera- 
 tion that although we are able to correct the interpretation of 
 the ancient Scribes, we have the text of the Hebrew Old 
 Testament as they gave it to us ; and we must therefore 
 inquire whether they were in a position to hand down to us 
 the best possible text. Let me illustrate the significance of 
 this question, by referring to the history of the text of the 
 New Testament. The books of the New Testament circulated 
 in manuscript copies, and it is by a comparison of such old 
 codices as still remain to us that scholars adjust the printed 
 texts of their modern editions. The comparison shows that 
 
 ^ The point in which the exegesis of the Medieval Jews (and of King 
 James's translators) was most defective was that they always assumed it to be 
 possible to interpret what lay before them, and would not recognise that many 
 difficulties aiise from corruption of the text. In a book of profane antiquity, 
 a passage that cannot be construed grammatically is at once assumed to be 
 corrupt, and a remedy is sought from MSS. or conjecture. The Jews, and 
 until recently the great majority of Christian scholars, refused to admit this 
 principle for the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint proves the existence of 
 corruptions in the Hebrew text, and often supplies the correction. But many 
 corruptions are older than the Septuagint version, and can be dealt with only 
 by conjectural emendation. The English reader may form a fair idea of the 
 state of the Old Testament text, and of what has been done by modern 
 scholarship to correct it, from the notes of Professors Cheyne and Driver in 
 the Variorum Bihlc, 3d ed., 1889 (Eyre and Spottiswoode). 
 
 Examples of the few cases where the Authorised Version has been misled 
 by dogmatical or historical prepossessions will come before us in the course of 
 these Lectures. 
 
LECT. Ill TEXT OF THE BIBLE 55 
 
 the old copies often differ in their readings. Some of the 
 variations are mere slips of the transcriber, which any Greek 
 scholar can correct as readily as one corrects a slip made in 
 writing a letter ; but others are more serious. Those of you 
 who have not access to the Greek Testament, will find suf- 
 ficient examples either in the small English New Testament 
 published by Tischendorf in 1869, which gives the readings 
 of three ancient MSS., or in that very convenient book, Eyre 
 and Spottiswoode's Variorum Bible, which, on the whole, is 
 the best edition of the English version for any one who wishes 
 to look below the surface. Now if you consult such collec- 
 tions of various readings as are given in these works, you 
 will find that, in various MSS., words, clauses, and sentences 
 are inserted or omitted, and sometimes the insertions change 
 the whole meaning of a passage. In one or two instances a 
 complete paragraph appears in some copies, and is left out in 
 others. The titles in particular offer great variations. The 
 oldest MSS. do not prefix the name of Paul to the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, and they do not put the words " at Ephesus," 
 into the first verse of the first chapter of Ephesians. Such 
 changes as these show that the copyists of these times did 
 not proceed exactly like law clerks copying a deed. They 
 made additions from parallel passages, they wrote things upon 
 the margin which afterwards got into the text ; and, when 
 copying from a rubbed or blotted page, they sometimes had 
 to make a guess at a word. In these and other ways mistakes 
 came in and were perpetuated ; and it takes the best scholar- 
 ship, combined with an acuteness developed by long practice, 
 to determine the true reading in each case, and to eliminate 
 all corruptions. 
 
 Of course, the old Christian scholars were quite aware that 
 such variations existed among copies, and in later times they 
 did their best to correct the text, and reduce it to uniformity ; 
 and so we find that, while the oldest MSS. of the New Testa- 
 
56 AGE OF THE CURRENT lect. hi 
 
 ment show great variations, the later MSS. present a very 
 uniform text, so that from them alone we could not guess how 
 great was the range of readings current in the early Church. 
 Yet no one will affirm that the shape which the New Testa- 
 ment ultimately took in the hands of the scholars of Antioch 
 and Constantinople, is as near to the first hand of the Apostles 
 as the text which a good modern editor is able to make by 
 comparing the oldest copies. The mere fact that a particular 
 form of the text got the upper hand, and became generally 
 accepted in later times, does not prove it to be the best form 
 of the text, i.e. the most exact transcript of the very words 
 that were written by the apostles and evangelists. To the 
 critical editor the variations of early copies are far more 
 significant than the artificial uniformity of late manuscripts. 
 
 Now as regards the Old Testament, we certainly find a 
 great uniformity among copies. All MSS. of the Hebrew 
 Bible represent one and the same text. There are slight 
 variations, but these are, almost without exception, mere slips, 
 such as might have been made even by a careful copyist, and 
 do not affect the general state of the text. The text, there- 
 fore, was already fixed by the beginning of the tenth century 
 after Christ, which is the age of the oldest MS. of undisputed 
 date. But a comparison of the ancient translations carries us 
 much further back. We may say that the text of the Hebrew 
 Old Testament which we now have is the same as lay before 
 Jerome 400 years after Christ ; the same as underlies certain 
 translations into Aramaic called Targums, which took shape 
 in Babylonia about the third century after Christ ; indeed the 
 same text as was received by the Jews early in the second 
 century, when the Mishna was being formed, and when the 
 Jewish proselyte Aquila made his translation into Greek. I 
 do not affirm that there were no various readings in the copies 
 of the second or even of the fourth century, but the variations 
 were slight and easily controlled, and such as would have 
 
HEBREW TEXT 57 
 
 occurred in manuscripts carefully transcribed from one stand- 
 ard copy.^ 
 
 The Jews, in fact, from the time when their national life 
 was finally extinguished, and their whole soul concentrated 
 upon the preservation of the monuments of the past, devoted 
 the most strict and punctilious attention to the exact trans- 
 mission of the received text, down to the smallest peculiarity 
 of spelling, and even to certain irregularities of writing. Let me 
 explain this last point. We find that when the standard manu- 
 script had a letter too big, or a letter too small, the copies made 
 from it imitated even this, so that letters of an unusual size 
 appear in the same place in every Hebrew Bible. Nay, the 
 scrupulousness of the transcribers went still further. In old 
 MSS., when a copyist had omitted a letter, and when the error 
 was detected, as the copy was revised, the reviser inserted the 
 missing letter above the line, as we should now do with a 
 caret. If, on the other hand, the reviser found that any super- 
 fluous letter had been inserted, he cancelled it by pricking a 
 dot above it. Now, when such corrections occurred in the 
 standard MS. from which our Hebrew Bibles are all copied, 
 the error and the correction were copied together, so that you 
 will find, even in printed Bibles (for the system has been 
 carried into the printed text), letters suspended above the 
 line to show that they had been inserted with a card, and 
 letters " pointed " with a dot over them to show that they 
 form no proper part of the text.^ It is plain that such a 
 
 ^ In the last century great hopes were entertained of the results to be 
 derived from a collation of Hebrew MSS. The collections of Kennicott (1776- 
 1780) and De Rossi (1784-1788) showed that all MSS. substantially represent 
 one test, and, so far as the consonants are concerned, recent discoveries have 
 not led to any new result. On the text that lay before the Talmudic doctors 
 compare Strack, Prolegomena Critica in Vehcs Testamentum Hehraicwm 
 (Leipzig, 1873). On Aquila see supra, p. 30, note 2 ; infra, p. 64. On the 
 Targums see Sclmrer, i. 115, and infra, p. 64, note 1. 
 
 ^ That all copies of the Hebrew text belong to a single recension, and 
 come from a common source, was stated by Rosenmiiller in 1834 (see Stade's 
 Zeitschrift, 1884, p. 303). In 1853 J. Olshausen, in his commentary on the 
 
58 MASSORETS AND 
 
 system of mechanical transmission could not have been 
 carried out with precision if copying had been left to unin- 
 structed persons, Tlie work of preserving and transmitting 
 the received text became the specialty of a guild of technic- 
 ally trained scholars, called the Massorets, in Hebrew Baale 
 hammassoretli, or " possessors of tradition," that is, of tradition 
 as to the proper way of writing and reading the Bible. The 
 work of the Massorets extended over centuries, and they 
 collected many orthographical rules and great lists of 
 peculiarities of writing to be observed in passages where any 
 error was to be feared, which are still preserved either as 
 marginal notes and appendices to MSS. of the Bible, or in 
 separate works. But, what was of more consequence, the 
 scholars of the period after the close of the Talmud — that is, 
 after the sixth Christian century, or thereby — devoted them- 
 selves to preserving not only the exact writing of the received 
 consonantal text, but the exact pronunciation and even the 
 musical cadence proper to every word of the sacred text, 
 according to the rules of the synagogal chanting. This was 
 effected by means of a system of vowel points and musical 
 accents, consisting of small dots and apices attached to the 
 consonants of the Hebrew Bible. The idea of introducing 
 
 Psalms, p. 17 sq., argiied that there must have been, at least as far back as 
 the first ages of Christianity, an official recension of the text, extremely 
 similar to that of the Massorets, and that this text Avas not critical, but formed 
 by slavishly copying a single MS. , which in many places was in very imper- 
 fect condition. In his notes on Ps. Ixxx. 14, 16 (comp. also that on Ps. xxvii. 
 13), he applies this view to explain the so-called "extraordinary points." In 
 1863, independently of Olshausen, whose observations seem to have attracted 
 little notice, Lagarde in his Anmerkungen zur GriecMschen Uebersetzung 
 der Proverbien again maintained the origin of all Hebrew MSS. from one 
 archetype, using the extraordinary points to prove his thesis. Olshausen had 
 explained the extraordinary points from the assumption of a single archetype, 
 but to him the evidence for the latter lay in comparison of the versions and 
 in the observation that all our authorities agree even in the most palpable 
 mistakes. The doctrine of the single archetype has been accepted by Nbldeke 
 (whose remarks in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, 1873, p. 444 sqq., are worthy of 
 notice), and by other scholars. I know of no attempt to refute the argu- 
 ments on which it rests. 
 
PUNCTUATORS 59 
 
 such vowel points, wliicli were still unknown in the time of 
 Jerome, appears to have been borrowed from the Syrian 
 Christians, and was developed in different directions among 
 the Palestinian and the Babylonian Jews. The Palestinian 
 system ultimately prevailed and is followed in all printed 
 Bibles. The form of the pointed text which after ages 
 received as authoritative was fixed in the tenth century by 
 a certain Aaron, son of Moses, son of Asher, generally known 
 as Ben Asher, whose ancestors for five previous generations 
 were famous as NoJcdanim, or " punctuators." But even the 
 first of this family, Asher " the elder," rested on the labours of 
 earlier scholars. Some recent writers are disposed to think 
 that the use of written vowel points and accents may have 
 begun even in the sixth century — at all events the system 
 must have been pretty fully worked out before 800 a.d.^ 
 
 A remarkable feature in the work of the Massorets is that 
 in certain cases they direct the reader to substitute another 
 word for that which he finds written in the consonantal text. 
 In such cases the vowel points attached to the word that is 
 to be suppressed in reading are not its own vowels but those 
 proper to the word to be substituted for it. The latter word 
 is placed in the margin with the note 'P {i.e. Keri, "read 
 thou," or Kcre, " read "). The word in the text which is not 
 to be uttered is called Kethib (" written "). These marginal 
 readings are of various kinds ; in a great part of them the 
 difference between text and margin turns upon points of a 
 purely formal character, such as varieties of orthography, 
 pronunciation, or grammatical form; others are designed to 
 soften expressions which it was thought indecorous to read 
 aloud ; while a small proportion of them make a change in 
 the sense, and are either critical conjectures or readings 
 
 ^ See as regards Ben Asher, Baer and Strack, Dikduke Hateamim (Leipzig, 
 1879), p. ix. sqq., and compare Z. D. M. G. Jahreshericlit for 1879, p. 124 ; also, 
 for the musical accents, Wickes's i7ci?-eii> ^cce?i<iia<zon (Oxford, 1881), p. \sqq. 
 
60 KERT AND KETHIB lect. hi 
 
 which must once have stood in the text itself. There is no 
 reason to think that in these matters the Massorets departed 
 from their office as conservators of old tradition ; their one 
 object was to secure that the whole Bible should be written 
 according to the standard consonantal text and read accord- 
 ing to the traditional use of the Synagogue service. It 
 appears, therefore, that up to the time of the Massorets a 
 certain small number of real variants to the written text still 
 survived in the oral tradition of the Synagogue, and that the 
 respect paid to the written text, great as it was, was not held 
 to demand the suppression of these oral variants. In fact, 
 the tradition of the right interpretation of Scripture, of which 
 the rules of reading formed an integral part, ran, to a certain 
 extent, a distinct course from the tradition of the consonantal 
 text. The Targums, which are the chief monument of 
 exegetical tradition before the work of the Massorets, gener- 
 ally agree with the Keri against the Kethib. 
 
 These facts are not without importance as a corrective to 
 the exaggerated views sometimes put forth as to the certainty 
 of every letter of the Hebrew Text. But on the other hand, 
 it must not be forgotten that all the real variants of the 
 Targum and of the Massoretic notes amount to very little. 
 A few words, or rather a few letters, were still in dispute 
 among the traditional authorities, but the substance of the 
 text was already fixed. There are many passages in the 
 Hebrew Bible which cannot be translated as they stand, and 
 where the text is undoubtedly corrupt. In a few such cases, 
 where the corruption does not lie very deep, the marginal 
 Keri or the Targum supplies the necessary correction ; but 
 for the most part the margin is silent, and the Targum, with 
 all other versions and authorities later than the first Christian 
 century, had exactly the same reading as the received Hebrew 
 text. For good or for evil they all follow a single archetype, 
 and vary from one another only in points so minute as seldom 
 
LECT. Ill SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH 61 
 
 to affect the sense. But this uniformity in the tradition of 
 the text does not reach hack beyond the time of the Apostles. 
 On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that in earher 
 ages Hebrew MSS. differed as much as MSS. of the New 
 Testament, or more. We shall have to look at the proof of 
 this in some detail by and by. For the present, it is enough 
 to point out some of the chief sources of the evidence. The 
 Samaritans, as well as the Jews, have preserved the Hebrew 
 Pentateuch, writing it in a peculiar character. ISTow tlie 
 copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which they received from 
 the Jews for the first time about 430 B.C., differ very consider- 
 ably from our received Hebrew text. One or two of the 
 variations are corruptions wilfully introduced in favour of 
 the schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim ; but others have no 
 polemical significance, affecting such points as the ages 
 assigned to the patriarchs.-^ Then, again, the old Greek 
 version, the Alexandrian version of the Septuagint, which, in 
 
 ^ Up to the time of Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem, there was still 
 a party, even among the priests, which entertained friendly relations with the 
 Samaritans, cemented by marriages. Nehemiah broke up this party ; and an 
 unnamed priest, who was Sanballat's son-in-law, was driven into exile. This 
 priest, who would naturally flee to his father-in-law, is plainly identical with 
 the priest Manasseh, son-in-law of Sanballat, of whom Josephus {Antiq. xi. 8) 
 relates that he fled from Jerusalem to Samaria, and founded the schismatic 
 temple on Mount Gerizim, with a rival hierarchy and ritual. The account of 
 Josephus is confused in chronology and untrustworthy in detail ; but the 
 main fact agrees with the Biblical narrative, and it is clear that the establish- 
 ment of the rival temple was a natural consequence of the final defeat of the 
 Samaritans in their persistent efforts to establish relations with the Jewish 
 priesthood and secure admission to the temple at Jerusalem. This determines 
 the age of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritans cannot have got the 
 law before the Exile through the priest of the high place at Samaria mentioned 
 in 2 Kings xvii. 28. For the worship of Jehovah, as practised at Samaria 
 before the fall of the Northern Kingdom, was remote from the ordinances of 
 the law, and up to the time when the books of Kings were written the 
 Samaritans worshipped images, and did not observe the laws of the Pentateuch 
 (2 Kings xvii. 34, 41). The Pentateuch, therefore, was introduced as their 
 religious code at a later date ; and this can only have happened in connection 
 with the ritual and priesthood which they received from Jerusalem through 
 the fugitive priest banished by Nehemiali. 
 
62 ANCIENT VARIATIONS lect. hi 
 
 part at least, was written before the middle of the third century 
 B.C., contains many various readings, sometimes omitting 
 large passages, or making considerable insertions ; sometimes 
 changing the order of chapters and verses; sometimes pre- 
 senting only minor variations, more similar to those with 
 which we are familiar in Greek MSS. Nay, even among 
 learned Jews who read Hebrew, the text was not fixed up to 
 the first century of our era. For the Booh of Jubilees, a 
 Hebrew work which was written apparently but a few years 
 before the fall of the Temple, agrees with the Samaritan 
 Pentateuch in some of the numbers in the patriarchal 
 chronology, and in other readings.-^ 
 
 Now, observe the point to which we are thus brought. 
 After the fall of the Jewish state, when the Scribes ceased to 
 be an active party in a living commonwealth, and became more 
 and more pure scholars, gathering up and codifying all the 
 fragments of national literature and national life that remained 
 to them, we find the text of the Old Testament carefully con- 
 formed to a single archetype. But we cannot trace this text 
 back through the centuries when the nation had still a life of 
 its own. Nay, we can be sure that in these earlier centuries 
 copies of the Bible circulated, and were freely read even by 
 learned men like the author of the Book of Jubilees, which had 
 great and notable variations of text, not inferior in extent to 
 those still existing in New Testament MSS. In later times 
 every trace of these varying copies disappears. They must 
 have been suppressed, or gradually superseded by a deliberate 
 effort, which has been happily compared by Professor Noldeke 
 to the action of the Caliph Othman in destroying all copies 
 of the Koran which diverged from the standard text that he 
 had adopted. There can be no question who were the instru- 
 
 ^ On the Book of Jubilees, see especiallj' H. Ronsch, Das B uch der Juhilden 
 (Leipzig, 1874), and Schurer, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 677 sqq. On the various 
 readings of the book, Ronsch, pp. 196, 514. 
 
LECT. Ill IN THE HEBREW TEXT 63 
 
 ments in this work. The Scribes alone possessed the neces- 
 sary influence to give one text or one standard MS. a position 
 of such supreme authority. Moreover, we are able to explain 
 how it came about that the fixiug of a standard text took 
 place about the Apostolic age, or rather a little later than 
 that date, and not at any earlier time. We have already 
 glanced at the political causes which made the power of the 
 Scribes greater in the time of Herod than it had ever been 
 before. The doctors of the Law wielded a great authority, 
 and were naturally eager to consolidate their legal system. 
 In earlier times the oral and written law went independently 
 side by side, and each stood on its own footing. Therefore, 
 variations in the text did not seriously affect any practical 
 question. But under Eabbi Hillel, a contemporary of Herod 
 the Great, and the grandfather of the Gamaliel who is 
 mentioned in the fifth chapter of Acts, a great change took 
 place. It w^as the ambition of Hillel to devise a system of 
 interpretation by which every traditional custom could be 
 connected with some text from the Pentateuch, no matter in 
 how arbitrary a way. This system was taken up and perfected 
 by his successors, especially by Eabbi Akiba, who was a 
 prominent figure in the revolt against Hadrian.^ The new 
 
 1 On Hillel aud his school, see especially Dereubourg, op. cit. chap. xi. ; 
 and on the development of his system by E. Ishmael and R. Akiba, ihid. 
 chap, xxiii. "Akiba adopted, not only the seven rules of Hillel, but the 
 thirteen of Ishmael ; even the latter did not suffice him in placing all the 
 halachoth, or decisions of the Rabbins, under the shield of the word of the 
 Pentateuch. His system of interpretation does not recognise the limits estab- 
 lished by the usage of the language, and respected by Ishmael ; every word 
 which is not absolutely indispensable to express the intention of tlie legislator, 
 or the logical relations of the sentences of a law and their parts, is designed to 
 enlarge or restrict the sphere of the law, to introduce into it the additions of 
 tradition, or exclude what tradition excludes. No particle or conjunction, be 
 it augmentative or restrictive, escapes tliis singular method of exegesis." 
 Thus the Hebrew prefix eth, which marks the definite accusative, agi-ees in 
 form with the preposition with. Hence, when Deut. x. 20 says, "Thou shalt 
 fear eiA- Jehovah thy God," Akiba interprets, "Thou shalt fear the doctors of 
 the law along ivith Jehovah." So Aquila, the disciple of Akiba, translates 
 
64 FORMATION OF A 
 
 method of exegesis laid weight upon the smallest word, and 
 sometimes even upon mere letters of Scripture; so that it 
 became a matter of great importance to the new school of 
 Eabbins to fix on an authoritative text. We have seen that 
 when this text was fixed, the discordant copies must have 
 been rigorously suppressed. The evidence for this is only 
 circumstantial, but it is quite sufficient. There is no other 
 explanation which will account for the facts, and the con- 
 clusion is confirmed by what took place among the Greek- 
 speaking Jews with reference to their Greek Bible. The 
 Bible of the Greek -speaking Jews, the Septuagint, had 
 formerly enjoyed very great honour even in Palestine, and is 
 most respectfully spoken of by the ancient Palestinian tradi- 
 tion ; but it did not suit the newer school of interpretation, 
 it did not correspond with the received text, and was not 
 literal enough to fit the new methods of Eabbinic interpreta- 
 tion, wh;le the Christians, on the contrary, found it a con- 
 venient instrument in their discussions with the Jews. 
 Therefore it fell into disrepute, and early in the second 
 century, just at the time when, as we have seen, the new 
 text of the Old Testament had been fixed, we find the Sep- 
 tuagint superseded among the Greek-speaking Jews by a 
 new translation, slavishly literal in character, made by a 
 Jewish proselyte of the name of Aquila, who was a disciple 
 of the Eabbi Akiba, and studiously followed his exegetical 
 methods.-^ 
 
 the mark of the accusative by avv. See Field, Proleg. p. xxii. Compare on 
 the whole subject Schiirer, op. cit. vol. ii. § 25. 
 
 •^ The progress of the stricter exegesis, and its influence on the treatment 
 of the text, may also be traced in the history of the Targiims or Aramaic 
 paraphrases. Targuni means originally the oral interj^retation of the Meturge- 
 man in the synagogue {supra, p. 36). The Meturgemanim did not keep close 
 to their text, but added paraphrastic expositions, practical applications, poetical 
 and romantic embellishments. But there was a restraint on individual 
 liberty of exegesis. The translators formed a guild of scholars, and their 
 interpretations gradually assumed a fixed type. By and by the current 
 form of the Targum was committed to writing ; but there was no fixed 
 
LECT. Ill FIXED HEBREW TEXT 65 
 
 It was then the Scribes that chose for us the Hebrew text 
 which we have now got. But were they in a position to 
 choose the very best text, to produce a critical edition which 
 could justly be accepted as the standard, so that we lose 
 nothing by the suppression of all divergent copies ? Well, 
 this at least we can say : that if they fixed for us a satisfactory 
 text, the Scribes did not do so in virtue of any great critical 
 skill which they possessed in comparing MSS. and selecting 
 the best readings. They worked from a false point of view. 
 Their objects were legal, not philological. Their defective 
 philology, their bad system of interpretation, made them bad 
 critics ; for it is the first rule of criticism that a good critic 
 must be a good interpreter of the thoughts of his author. 
 This judgment is fully borne out by the accounts given in 
 the Talmudical books of certain small and sporadic attempts 
 made by the Scribes to exercise something like criticism upon 
 the text. For example, we read of three MSS. preserved in 
 the Court of the Temple, each of which had one reading 
 which the other MSS. did not share. The Scribes, we are 
 told, rejected in each case the reading which had only one 
 
 edition, and those Palestinian Targums which have come down to us 
 belong to various recensions, and contain elements added late in the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 This style of interpretation, in which the text was freely handled, and the 
 exposition of the law did not stand on the level of the new science of Akiba 
 and his associates, fell into disfavour with the dominant schools, just as the 
 Sejituagint did. The Targum is severely censured in the Eabbiuical writings ; 
 and at length the orthodox party took the matter into their own hands, and 
 framed a literal Targum, which, however, did not reach its final shape till the 
 third Christian century, when the chief seat of Jewish learning had been 
 moved to Baliylonia. The Babylonian Targum to the Pentateuch is called 
 the Targum of Onkelos, i.e. the Targum in the style of Aquila (Akylas). 
 The corresponding Targum to the Prophets bears the name of Jonathan. As 
 Jonathan is the Hebrew equivalent of Theodotion, this perhaps means only 
 the Targum in the style of Theodotion. At any rate these Targums are not 
 the ])rivate enterprise of individual scholars, but express the official exegesis 
 of their age. The Targums to the Hagiographa have not an official character. 
 Conip. Geiger, Urschrift u. Uebersetzungen (Breslau, 1857), p. 163 sqq., p. 451 
 sqq. 
 
 5 
 
66 TEXTUAL LABOURS 
 
 copy for it and two against it.'^ Now, every critic knows 
 
 that to accept or reject a reading merely according to the 
 
 number of MSS. for or against it is a method which, if 
 
 applied on a larger scale, would lead to a bad text. But 
 
 further there is some evidence, though it cannot be said to be 
 
 unambiguous, that the Scribes made certain changes in the 
 
 text, apparently without manuscript authority, in order to 
 
 remove expressions which seemed irreverent or indecorous. 
 
 We have seen that in later times, after the received text 
 
 was fixed, the Jewish scholars permitted themselves, in such 
 
 cases, to make a change in the reading though not in the 
 
 writing; but in earlier times, it would seem, the rule was 
 
 not quite so strict. There is a series of passages in which, 
 
 according to Jewish tradition, the expressions now found in 
 
 the text depart from the form of words which ought to be 
 
 used to convey the sense that was really in the mind of the 
 
 sacred writers. These are referred to as the eighteen Tikhuni 
 
 Sopherim (corrections or determination of the Scribes). Thus 
 
 in Job vii. 20, where the present text reads, " I am a burden 
 
 to myself," the tradition explains that the expression ought 
 
 to have been, " I am a burden upon thee," i.e. upon Jehovah. 
 
 Again in Genesis xviii. 22, where our version says, " Abraham 
 
 stood yet before the Lord," tradition says that this stands in 
 
 place of " The Lord stood yet before Abraham." And again, 
 
 in Habakkuk i 12, where our version and the present 
 
 Hebrew text read, " Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah 
 
 my God, my Holy One ? We shall not die," the tradition 
 
 tells us that the expression should have been, " Thou canst 
 
 not die," which was changed because it seemed irreverent to 
 
 mention the idea of God dying, even in order to negative it. 
 
 It is sometimes maintained by Jewish scholars that the 
 
 1 Geiger, Urschrift, p. 232 ; Mas. Sdpherim, vi. 4. A copy of the Law 
 was carried away by Titus among tlie spoils of the Temple ; Josephus, B. J. 
 vii. 5, § 5. 
 
OF THE SCEIBES 67 
 
 tradition as to these TikhHTiA Sopherhn does not imply any- 
 tampering with the text on the part of the Scribes, but only 
 that the sacred writers themselves disguised their thought by 
 refusing to use expressions which they thought unseemly ; 
 but it is highly improbable that this was the original meaning 
 of the tradition, and quite certain that the more explicit 
 traditional accounts can have no other meaning than that the 
 first Scribes, the so-called men of the Great Synagogue, cor- 
 rected the text, and made it what we now read. It may 
 indeed be doubted whether the details of the tradition are of 
 any critical value. In most of the passages in question the 
 Septuagint agrees with our present text, and the internal 
 evidence is on the same side ; while in some cases, as 2 Sam. 
 XX. 1, where the original expression is said to have been 
 " every man to his gods " instead of " his tents," the supposed 
 older reading is manifestly absurd. On the other hand, in 
 1 Sam. iii. 13, where a Tikkun is registered upon the expres- 
 sion " his sons made themselves vile " [Rev. V. : " did bring a 
 curse on themselves "], there is plainly something wrong, and 
 the Septuagint, with the change of a single letter in the 
 Hebrew, produces the good sense "did revile God," which 
 agrees with the Jewish tradition. On the whole, therefore, 
 we are entitled to conclude that the Eabbins had some vague 
 inaccurate knowledge of old MS. readings which departed 
 from the received text. And what is more important, the 
 tradition implies a recognition of the fact that the early 
 guardians of the text did not hesitate to make small changes 
 in order to remove expressions which they thought unedify- 
 ing.-^ Beyond doubt, such changes were made in a good 
 many cases of which no record has been retained. For 
 
 ^ The oldest list of the TiTckAne Sopherivi is in the Mechilta, a work of the 
 second century, and contains only eleven passages. See also Geiger, op. cit. 
 p. 309, and the full list in Ochla w'ochla, ed. Frensdorff, No. 168 (Hannover, 
 1864). On the value of this tradition comp. Noldeke in Gott. Gel. Anz., 1S69, 
 p. 2001 sq. 
 
68 EARLY CHANGES 
 
 example, in our text of the books of Samuel, Saul's son and 
 successor is called Ishbosheth, but in 1 Chronicles viii. 33, 
 ix. 39, he is called Eshbaal. Eshbaal means " Baal's man," 
 a proper name of a well-known Semitic type, precisely similar 
 to such Arabic names as Imrau-1-Cais, " the man of the god 
 Cais." We must not, however, fancy that a son of Saul 
 could be named after the Tyrian or Canaanite Baal. The 
 word Baal is not the proper name of one deity, but an 
 appellative noun meaning lord or owner, which the tribes of 
 the Northern Semites applied each to their own chief divinity. 
 In earlier times it appears that the Israelites did not scruple 
 to give this honorific title to their national God Jehovah. 
 Thus the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, which were 
 worshipped under the supposition that they represented 
 Jehovah, were called Baalim by their devotees ; and Hosea, 
 when he prophesies the purification of Israel's religion, makes 
 it a main point that the people shall no longer call Jehovah 
 their Baal (Hosea ii. 16, 17 ; comp. xiii. 1, 2). This prophecy 
 shows that in Hosea's time the use of the word was felt to be 
 dangerous to true religion ; and indeed there is no question 
 that the mass of the people were apt to confound the true 
 God with the false Baalim of Canaan, the local divinities or 
 lords of individual tribes, towns, or sanctuaries. And so in 
 process of time scrupulous Israelites not only desisted from 
 applying the title of Baal to Jehovah, but taking literally the 
 precept of Exod. xxiii. 13, "Make no mention of the name of 
 other gods," they were wont, when they had occasion to refer 
 to a false deity, to call him not Baal but Bosheth, "the 
 shameful thing," as a euphemism for the hated name. The 
 substitution of " Ishbosheth " for " Eshbaal," and other cases 
 of the same kind, such as Mephibosheth for Meribaal (man of 
 Baal), are therefore simply due to the scruples of copyists or 
 readers who could not bring themselves to write or utter the 
 hated word even in a compound proper name. Of course no 
 
IN THE TEXT 69 
 
 man, and certainly no king, ever bore so absurd a name as 
 " The man of the shameful thing," and as Chronicles still 
 preserves the true form, we may be pretty certain that the 
 change in the name in the book of Samuel was made after 
 he wrote, and is a veritable " correction of the Scribes/* 
 
 These, then, are specimens of the changes which we can 
 still prove to have been made by early editors, and they are 
 enough to show that these guardians of the text were not 
 sound critics. Fortunately for us, they did not pretend to 
 make criticism their main business. It would have been a 
 very unfortunate thing for us indeed, if we had been left to 
 depend upon a text of the Hebrew Bible which the Scribes 
 had made to suit their own views. There can be no doubt, 
 however, that the standard copy which they ultimately 
 selected, to the exclusion of all others, owed this distinction 
 not to any critical labour which had been spent upon it, but 
 to some external circumstance that gave it a special reputa- 
 tion. Indeed, the fact, already referred to, that the very errors 
 and corrections and accidental peculiarities of the manuscript 
 were kept just as they stood, shows that it must have been 
 invested with a peculiar sanctity ; if indeed the meaning of 
 the so-called extraordinary points — that is, of those suspended 
 and dotted letters, and the like — had not already been for- 
 gotten when it was chosen to be the archetype of all future 
 copies. 
 
 Now, if the Scribes were not the men to make a critical 
 text, it is plain that they were also not in a position to choose, 
 upon scientific principles, the very best extant manuscript ; 
 but it is very probable that they selected an old and well- 
 written copy, possibly one of those which were preserved in 
 the Court of the Temple. Between this copy and the original 
 autographs of the Sacred Writers there must have been many 
 a link. It may have been an old manuscript, but it was not 
 an exorbitantly old one. Of that there are two proofs. In 
 
VO THE ARCHETYPE OF lect. m 
 
 the first place, it was certainly written in Aramaic characters, 
 not very different from the " square " or " Assyrian " letters 
 used in our modern Hebrew Bibles; but in old times the 
 Hebrews used the quite different character usually called 
 Phoenician. According to Jewish tradition, which is disposed 
 to ascribe everything to Ezra which it has not the assurance 
 to refer to Moses, the change on the character in which the 
 sacred books were written was introduced by Ezra ; but we 
 know that this is a mistake, for the Samaritans, who acquired 
 the Pentateuch after Ezra's publication of the Law, received 
 it in the old Phoenician letter, which they retain in a cor- 
 rupted form down to the present day. It is most improbable 
 that the Jews adopted the Aramaic character for Biblical 
 MSS. before the third century B.C., and that therefore would 
 be the earliest possible date for the archetype of our present 
 Hebrew copies,-^ Another proof that the copy was not ex- 
 traordinarily old lies in the spelling. In Hebrew, as in 
 other languages, the rules of spelling varied in the course of 
 centuries, and as we have a genuine specimen of old Hebrew 
 
 1 Tables of the forms of the Semitic alphabet at various times, by the 
 eminent calligrapher and palaeographer, Prof. Euting of Strassburg, are 
 appended to the English translation of Bickell's Hebrew Grmnmar (1877), 
 and to the latest edition of Kantzsch-Gesenins, Eehr. Ch'ammatik (1889). 
 Fuller tables by the same skilful hand are in Clnvolson's Corpus Inscr. Heh. 
 (Petersburg, UBil), &nA Syrisch-nestor. Grabinschriften (Petersburg, 1890); the 
 last also separately, Tabula Scripturce Aramaicce (Strassburg, 1890). On the 
 history of the Hebrew alphabet see Wright, Lectures on the Comp. Grammar of 
 the Sem. Languages (Cambridge, 1890), p. 35 sqq.; Driver, Notes on Samuel 
 (Oxford, 1890), Introduction ; and comp. the plates in the Oriental Series of the 
 Palseographical Society. The old character must still have been generally 
 understood when the first Jewish coins were struck (141 B.C.) ; for though 
 conservatism may explain its retention on later coins, an obsolete letter would 
 not have been chosen by Simon when he struck Hebrew money for the first 
 time. On the other hand, the expressions in Matt. v. 18 imply that in the 
 time of our Lord the Aramaic script was used ; for in the old character Yod 
 ("jot") was not a very small letter. Indeed, it seems to be pretty well made 
 out that parts, at least, of the Septuagint were translated from MSS. in the 
 Aramaic character. See VoUers in Stade's Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 230 sqq., and 
 the literature there cited. 
 
LECT. Ill OUR HEBREW BIBLES 71 
 
 spelling in the inscription of Siloah (eighth century B.C.), and 
 also possess a long Moabite inscription of still earlier date 
 and many Phoenician inscriptions of different periods, evi- 
 dence is not lacking to decide which of two orthographies is 
 the older. Now, it can be proved that the copies which lay 
 before the translators of the Septuagint in the third, and per- 
 haps in the second, century B.C., often had an older style of 
 spelling than existed in the archetype of our present Hebrew 
 Bibles. It does not follow of necessity that in all respects 
 these older MSS. were better and nearer to the original text ; 
 but certainly the facts which we have been developing give 
 a new importance to the circumstance that the MSS. of the 
 LXX. often contained readings very different from those of 
 our Hebrew Bibles, even to the extent of omitting or insert- 
 ing passages of considerable length. 
 
 In this connection there is yet another point worth notice. 
 In these times Hebrew books were costly and cumbrous, 
 written on huge rolls of leather, not even on the later and 
 more convenient parchment. Copies therefore were not very 
 numerous, and, being much handled, were apt to get worn 
 and indistinct. For not only was leather an indifferent 
 surface to write on, but the ink was of a kind that could 
 be washed off, a prejudice existing against the use of a 
 mordant.^ No single copy, therefore, however excellent, was 
 likely to remain long in good readable condition throughout. 
 And we have seen that collation of several copies, by which 
 
 ^ That the old Hebrew ink could be washed off appears from Numb. v. 
 23, Exod. xxxii. 33. From the former passage is derived the Rabbinic 
 objection to the use of a mordant in ink. See Sopherim, i. 5, 6, and the notes 
 in Miiller's edition (Leipzig, 1878) ; Mishna, Sota, ii. 4, and Wagenseil's Com- 
 mentary (Surenh., iii. p. 206 sq.) The Jews laid no value on old copies, 
 but in later times prized certain MSS. as specially correct. A copy in which 
 a line had become obliterated, or which was otherwise considerably defective, 
 was cast aside into the Geniza or lumber-room {Suphp.7-ivi, iii. 9). There was 
 a difference of opinion as to touching-up faded letters {ibid. 8, and Aliiller's 
 note). Compare Harkavy in jl/em. de VAcad. de S. Petershourg, xxiv. p. 57. 
 
72 ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES lect. hi 
 
 defects might have been supplied, was practised to but a 
 small extent. Often indeed it must have been difficult to 
 get manuscripts to collate, and once at least the whole 
 number of Bibles existing in Palestine was reduced to very 
 narrow limits. For Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.) caused 
 all copies of the Law, and seemingly of the other sacred books, 
 to be torn up and burnt, and made it a capital offence to 
 possess a Pentateuch (1 Mac. i. 56, 57 ; Josephus, Ant. xii. 5, 
 § 4). The text of books preserved only in manuscript might 
 very readily suffer in passing through such a crisis, and it is 
 most providential that before this time, the Law and other 
 books of the Old Testament had been translated into Greek 
 and were current in regions where Antiochus had no sway. 
 This Greek version, called the Septuagint, of which the 
 greater part is older than the time of Antiochus, still exists, 
 and supplies, as we shall see in the next Lecture, the most 
 valuable evidence for the early state of the Old Testament 
 text. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 THE SEPTUAGINT 
 
 We have passed under review the vicissitudes of the Hebrew 
 Text, as far back as the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. We 
 have found that all our MSS. go back to one archetype. But 
 the archetype was not formed by a critical process which we 
 can accept as conclusive. It was not so ancient but that a 
 long interval lay between it and the first hand of the Biblical 
 authors ; and the comparative paucity of books in those early 
 times, combined with the imperfect materials used in writing, 
 and the deliberate attempt of Antiochus to annihilate the 
 Hebrew Bible, exposed the text to so many dangers that it 
 cannot but appear a most welcome and providential circum- 
 stance that the Greek translation, derived from MSS. of 
 which some at least were presumably older than the arche- 
 type of our present Hebrew copies, and preserved in countries 
 beyond the dominions of Antiochus, offers an independent 
 witness to the early state of the Biblical books, vindicating 
 
 - On the subject of this Lecture compare, in general, Wellhausen's article 
 Septuagint {Enc. Brit., 9th ed.). The two books which have perhaps done 
 most to exemplify the right method of using the Septuagint for criticism of 
 the Hebrew text are Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur Griechischen Ueberscizung der 
 Proverhien (Leipzig, 1863) ; "Wellhausen, Der Text der Bilcher Samuelis (Gott., 
 1871). For English students the best practical introduction to the critical 
 use of the LXX. is Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel 
 (Oxford, 1890). On the relation of the Septuagint to the Palestinian tradi- 
 tion compare Geiger, op. cit., and Frankel, Ueber den Einfluss der paldstin- 
 ischen Exegese auf die Alexandrinische Hermeneutik (Leipzig, 1851). 
 
V4 VALUE OF THE 
 
 the substantial accuracy of the transmission of these records ; 
 while, at the same time, it displays a text not yet fixed in 
 every point of detail, exhibits a series of important various 
 readings, and sometimes indicates the existence of corruptions 
 in the received Hebrew recension — corruptions which it not 
 seldom enables us to remove, restoring the first hand of the 
 sacred authors. 
 
 Nevertheless, there have been many scholars who altogether 
 reject this use of the Septuagint. One of the latest represent- 
 atives of this party is Keil, from whose Introdiiction (Eng. 
 trans., vol. ii. p. 306) I quote the following sentences : — 
 
 " The numerous and strongly marked deviations [of the Septuagint] 
 from the Massoretic text have arisen partly at a later time, out of the 
 carelessness and caprice of transcribers. But in so far as they existed 
 originally, almost in a mass they are explained by the uncritical and 
 wanton passion for emendation, which led the translators to alter the 
 original text (by omissions, additions, and transpositions) where they 
 misunderstood it in consequence of their own defective knowledge of 
 the language, or where they supposed it to be unsuitable or incorrect 
 for historical, chronological, dogmatic, or other reasons ; or which, at 
 least, led them to render it inexactly, according to their own notions 
 and their uncertain conjectures." 
 
 If this judgment were sound, we should be deprived at 
 one blow of the most ancient witness to the state of the text ; 
 and certainly, at one time, the opinion advocated by Keil 
 was generally current among Protestant scholars. We have 
 glanced, in a previous Lecture {supra, p. 32), at the reasons 
 which led the early Protestants to place themselves, on points 
 of Hebrew scholarship, almost without reserve in the hands 
 of the Jews. Accepting the received Hebrew text as trans- 
 mitted in the Jewish schools, they naturally viewed with 
 distrust the very different text of the Septuagint. However, 
 the question of the real value of the Greek version was stirred 
 early in the seventeenth century, mainly by two French 
 scholars, one of whom was a Catholic, Jean Morin (Morinus), 
 
LECT. IV SEPTUAGINT VERSION 75 
 
 priest of the Oratory, the other a Protestant, Louis Cappelle 
 (Cappelliis). 
 
 The controversy raised by the publication of the Exercita- 
 tiones Bibliccc of Morinus (Paris, 1633-1660) was unduly pro- 
 longed by the introduction of dogmatic considerations which 
 should have had no place in a scholarly argument as to the 
 history of the Biblical text. These considerations lost much 
 of their force when all parties were compelled to admit the 
 value of the various readings of MSS. and versions for the 
 study of the New Testament ; and, since theological prejudice 
 was overcome, it has gradually become clear to the vast 
 majority of conscientious students that the Septuagint is 
 really of the greatest value as a witness to the early history 
 of the text. 
 
 It is very difficult to convey, in a popular manner, a 
 sufficiently clear idea of the arguments by which this position 
 is established. Even the few remarks which I shall make 
 may, I fear, seem to you somewhat tedious ; but I must ask 
 your attention for them, because it is of no slight consequence 
 to know whether, in this, the oldest, version, we have or have 
 not a valuable testimony to the way in which the Old Testa- 
 ment has been transmitted, an independent basis for a rational 
 and well-argued belief as to the state of the Hebrew text. 
 
 In judging of the Septuagint translation, we must not put 
 ourselves on the standpoint of a translator in these days. 
 We must begin by realising to ourselves the facts brought 
 out in Lecture IL, that Jewish scholars, before the time of 
 Christ, had no grammar and no dictionary; that all their 
 knowledge of the language was acquired by oral teaching; 
 that their exegesis of difficult passages was necessarily tradi- 
 tional ; and that, where tradition failed them, they had for 
 their guidance only that kind of practical knowledge of the 
 language v/hich they got by the constant habit of reading the 
 sacred text, and speaking some kind of Hebrew among them- 
 
76 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. iv 
 
 selves in the schools. We must also remember that, when 
 the Septuagint was composed, the Hebrew language was 
 either dead or dying, and that the mother-tongue of the 
 translators was either Greek or Aramaic. Hence we must 
 not be surprised to find that, when tradition was silent, the 
 Septuagint translators made many mistakes. If they came 
 to a difficult passage, say of a prophet, of which no traditional 
 interpretation had been handed down in the schools, or which 
 contained words the meanings of which had not been taught 
 them by their masters, they could do nothing better than 
 make a guess — sometimes guided by analogies and similar 
 words in Aramaic — sometimes by other considerations. The 
 vahie of the translation does not lie in the sense which they 
 put upon such passages, but in the evidence that we can find 
 as to what Hebrew words lay in the MSS. before them. 
 
 Apart from the inherent defects of scholarship derived 
 entirely from tradition, we find that the Septuagint some- 
 times varies from the older text for reasons which are at once 
 intelligible when we understand the general principles of the 
 Scribes at the time. We have already seen, for example, that 
 the Scribes in Palestine did not hesitate occasionally to make 
 a dogmatic correction, removing from the writing, or at least 
 from the reading, of Scripture some expression which they 
 thought it indecorous to pronounce in public. In like manner 
 we find that the translators of the Septuagint sometimes 
 changed a phrase which they thought likely to be misunder- 
 stood, or to be used to establish some false doctrine. Thus, 
 in the Hebrew text of Exodus xxiv. 10, we read that the 
 elders who went up towards Sinai with Moses " saw the God 
 of Israel." This anthropomorphic expression, it was felt, 
 could not be rendered literally without lending some coun- 
 tenance to the false idea that the spiritual God can be seen 
 by the bodily eyes of men, and offering an apparent contra- 
 diction to Exodus xxxiii. 20. The Septuagint therefore changes 
 
LECT. IV THE SEPTUAGINT VERSION 77 
 
 it, and says, " They saw the place where the God of Israel 
 had stood." One change on the text, made by the Septuagint 
 in deference to an early and widespread Jewish scruple, is 
 followed even in the English Bible. The ancient proper 
 name of the God of Israel, which we are accustomed to write as 
 Jehovah, is habitually suppressed by the Greek translators, 
 the word 6 Kvpto^ (A. Y. the Lokd) taking its place. This 
 agrees with the usage of the Hebrew-speaking Jews, who in 
 reading substituted Adonai (the Lord), or, in certain cases, 
 Elohim (God), for the " ineffable name." So strictly was this 
 rule carried out that the true pronunciation of the name was 
 ultimately forgotten among the Jews ; though several early 
 Christian writers had still access to authentic information on 
 the subject. From their testimony, and from a comparison 
 of the many old Hebrew proper names which are compounded 
 with the sacred name, we can still make out that the true 
 pronunciation is laliivL The vulgar form Jehovah is of very 
 modern origin, and arises from a quite arbitrary combination 
 of the true consonants with the vowel points which the 
 Massorets set against the word in all passages where they 
 meant it to be read Adonai and not Elohim. Unhappily, 
 this spurious form is now too deeply rooted among us to be 
 displaced, at least in popular usage. 
 
 Again, we have already seen that the interpretation of 
 the Scribes was largely guided by the Halacha, that is, by 
 oral tradition ultimately based upon the common law and 
 habitual usage of the sanctuary and of Jerusalem. The same 
 influence of the Halacha is found in the Septuagint transla- 
 tion. Thus, in Lev. xxiv. 7, where the Hebrew text bids 
 frankincense be placed on the shewbread, the Septuagint 
 makes it " frankincense and salt," because salt, as well as 
 frankincense, was used in the actual ritual of their period. 
 
 Such deviations of the Septuagint as these need not 
 seriously embarrass the critic. He recognises the causes from 
 
78 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. iv 
 
 which they came. He is able, approximately, to estimate 
 their extent by what he knows of Palestinian tradition, and 
 he is not likely, in a case of this sort, to be misled into the 
 supposition that the Septuagint had a different text from the 
 Hebrew. Once more, we find that the translators allowed 
 themselves certain liberties which were also used by copyists 
 of the time. Their object was to give the thing with perfect 
 clearness as they understood it. Consequently they some- 
 times changed a " he " into " David " or " Solomon," naming 
 the person alluded to ; and they had no scruple in adding a 
 word or two to complete the sense of an obscure sentence, or 
 supply what appeared to be an ellipsis. Even our extant 
 Hebrew MSS. indicate a tendency to make additions of this 
 description. The original and nervous style of early Hebrew 
 prose was no longer appreciated, and a diffuse smoothness, 
 with constant repetition of standing phrases and elaborate 
 expansion of the most trifling incidents, was the classical 
 ideal of composition. The copyist or translator seldom 
 omitted anything save by accident ; but he was often tempted 
 by his notions of style to venture on an expansion of the 
 text. Let me take a single example. In passages in the Old 
 Testament where we read of some one eating, a compas- 
 sionate editor, as a recent critic humorously puts it, was pretty 
 sure to intervene and give him also something to drink. 
 Sometimes we find the longer reading in the Septuagint, 
 sometimes in the Hebrew text. In 1 Samuel i. 9 the Hebrew 
 tells us that Hannah rose up after she had eaten in Shiloh 
 and after she had drunk, but the Septuagint has only the 
 shorter reading, "After she had eaten." Conversely, in 
 2 Samuel xii. 21, where the Hebrew text says only, 
 " Thou didst rise and eat bread," the Septuagint presents 
 the fuller text, "Thou didst rise and eat bread, and 
 drink." In cases of this sort, the shorter text is obviously 
 the ori<?inal. 
 
\ 
 
 LECT. IV THE SEPTUAGINT VERSION 79 ^ 
 
 For our present purpose these three classes of variations 
 do not come into account. First of all we must put aside the 
 cases where, having the present Hebrew text before them, 
 the translators failed to understand it, simply because they 
 had no tradition to guide them. We must not say that they 
 were ignorant or capricious, because they were not able to 
 make a good grammatical translation of a difficult passage at 
 a time when such a thing as grammar or lexicon did not 
 exist even in Palestine. In the next place, we must put on 
 one side the cases where the interpretation was influenced by 
 exegetical considerations derived from the dogmatic theology 
 of the time or from the traditional law. And, thirdly, we 
 can attach no great importance to those variations in which, 
 without changing the sense, the translator, or perhaps a 
 copyist before him, gave a slight turn to an expression to 
 remove ambiguity, or to gain the diffuse fulness which he 
 loved. 
 
 But after making every allowance for these cases a large 
 class of passages remains, in which the Septuagint presents 
 important variations from the Massoretic text. The test by 
 which the value of these variations can be determined is the 
 method of retranslation. A faithful translation from Hebrew 
 into an idiom so different as the Greek — especially such a 
 translation as the Septuagint, the work of men who had no 
 great command of Greek style — cannot fail to retain the 
 stamp of the original language. It will be comparatively 
 easy to put it back into idiomatic Hebrew, and even the 
 mistakes of the translator will often point clearly to the 
 words of the original which he had before him. But where 
 the translator capriciously departs from his original, the 
 work of retranslation will at once become more difficult. 
 For the capricious translator is one who substitutes his own 
 thought for that of the author, and what he thinks in Greek 
 — even in lumbering Jewish Greek — will not so naturally 
 
80 VARIOUS READINGS leot. iv 
 
 lend itself to retroversion into the Hebrew idiom. The test 
 of retranslation gives a very favourable impression of the 
 fidelity of the Alexandrian version. With a little practice 
 one can often put back whole chapters of the Septuagint into 
 Hebrew, reproducing the original text almost word for word. 
 The translation is not of equal merit throughout, and it is 
 plain that the different parts of the Bible were rendered by 
 men of unequal capacity ; but in general, and under the 
 limitations already indicated, it is safe to say that the trans- 
 lators were competent scholars as scholarship then went, and 
 that they did their work faithfully and in no arbitrary way. 
 Now as we proceed with the work of retranslation, and when 
 all has gone on smoothly for perhaps a whole chapter, in 
 which we find no considerable deflection from the present 
 Hebrew, we suddenly come to something which the practised 
 hand has no difficulty in putting back into Hebrew, which 
 indeed is full of such characteristic Hebrew idiom that it is 
 impossible to ascribe it to the caprice of a translator thinking 
 in Greek, but which, nevertheless, diverges from the Massoretic 
 text. In such cases we can be morally certain that a various 
 reading existed in the Hebrew MS. from which the Septuagint 
 was derived. Nay, in some passages, the moral certainty 
 becomes demonstrative, for we find that the translator 
 stumbled on a word which he was unable to render into 
 Greek, and that he contented himself with transcribing it in 
 Greek letters. A Hebrew word thus bodily transferred to 
 the pages of the Septuagint, and yet differing from what we 
 now read in our Hebrew Bibles, constitutes a various reading 
 which cannot be explained away. An example of this is 
 found in 1 Sam, xx., in the account of the arrangement made 
 between Jonathan and David to determine the real state of 
 Saul's disposition towards the latter. In the Hebrew text 
 (ver. 19) Jonathan directs David to be in hiding "by the 
 stone Ezel ;" and at verse 41, when the plan agreed on has 
 
OF THE SEPTUAGINT 
 
 been carried out, David at a given signal emerges " from 
 beside the Negeb." The ISTegeb is a district in the south of 
 Judsea, remote from the city of Saul, in the neighbourhood of 
 which the events of our chapter took place ; and the attempt 
 of the English version to smooth away the difficulty is not 
 satisfactory either in point of grammar or of sense. But the 
 Septuagint makes the whole thing clear. At verse 19 the 
 Greek reads " beside yonder Ergab," and at verse 41 " David 
 arose from the Ergab." Ergah is the transcription in Greek 
 of a rare Hebrew word signifying a cairn or rude monument 
 of stone, which does not occur elsewhere except as a proper 
 name (Argob). The translators transliterated the word 
 because they did not understand it, and the reading of 
 the Massoretic text, which involves no considerable 
 change in the letters of the Hebrew, probably arose from 
 similar lack of knowledge on the part of Palestinian 
 copyists. 
 
 The various readings of the Septuagint are not always so 
 happy as in this case ; but in selecting some further examples, 
 it will be most instructive for us to confine ourselves to 
 passages where the Greek gives a better reading than the 
 Hebrew, and where its superiority can be made tolerably 
 manifest even in an English rendering. It must, however, 
 be remembered that complete proof that the corruption lies 
 on the side of the Hebrew and not of the Greek can be 
 offered only to those who understand these languages. Our 
 first example shall be 1 Sam. xiv. 18. 
 
 J- - Hebrew. 
 
 And Saul said to Ahiah, Bring 
 hither the ark of God. For the 
 ark of God was on that day and 
 [not as E. V. with] the children 
 of Israel. 
 
 Septuagint. 
 And Saul said to Ahiah, Bring 
 hither the ei^hod, for he bare the 
 ephod on that day before Israel. 
 
 The Authorised Version smooths away one difficulty of 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 VARIOUS EEADINGS 
 
 the Hebrew text at the expense of grammar. But there are 
 other difficulties behind. The ark was then at Gibeah of 
 Kirjath-jearim (1 Sam. vii. 1 ; 2 Sam. vi. 3), quite a different 
 place from Gibeah of Benjamin ; and its priest was not 
 Ahiah, but Eleazar ben Abinadab. Besides, Saul's object 
 was to seek an oracle, and this was done, not by means of 
 the ark, but by the sacred lot connected with the ephod of 
 the priest (1 Sam. xxiii. 6, 9). This is what the Septuagint 
 actually brings out, and there can be no doubt that it pre- 
 serves the right reading. The changes on the Hebrew letters 
 required to get the one reading out of the other are far less 
 considerable than one would imagine from the English. 
 
 Another example is the death of Ishbosheth (2 Sam. iv. 
 5, 6, 7) :— 
 
 Hebrew. 
 [The assassins] came to the 
 house of Ishbosheth in the hottest 
 part of the day, while he was 
 taking his midday siesta. (6) 
 And hither they came into the 
 midst of the house fetching wheat, 
 and smote him in the flank, and 
 Rechab and Baanah his brother 
 escaped. (7) And they came into 
 the house as he lay on his bed, 
 . . . and smote him and slew him, 
 etc. 
 
 Septuagint. 
 They came to the house of 
 Ishbosheth in the hottest part of 
 the day, while he was taking his 
 midday siesta. And lo, the woman 
 who kept the door of the house 
 was cleaning wheat, and she slum- 
 bered and slept, and the brothers 
 Rechab and Baanah passed in un- 
 observed and came into the house 
 as Ishbosheth lay on his bed, etc. 
 
 In the Hebrew there is a meaningless repetition in 
 verse 7 of what has already been fully explained in the two 
 preceding verses. The Septuagint text gives a clear and pro- 
 gressive narrative, and one which no " capricious translator " 
 could have derived out of his own head. As in the previous 
 case, the two readings are very like one another when written 
 in the Hebrew. 
 
 Another reading, long ago appealed to by Dathe as one 
 which no man familiar with the style of the translator could 
 
OF THE SEPTUAGINT 
 
 83 
 
 credit him with inventing, is found in Ahithojjhel's advice to 
 Absalom (2 Sam. xvii. 3) : — 
 
 Hebrew. 
 I will bring back all the people 
 to thee. Like the return of the 
 whole is the man whom thou 
 seekest. All the people shall 
 have peace. 
 
 Septuagint. 
 I will make all the people turn 
 to thee as a bride turneth to her 
 husband. Thou seekest the life 
 of but one man, and all the people 
 shall have peace. 
 
 The cumbrousness of the Hebrew text is manifest. The 
 Septuagint, on the contrary, introduces a graceful simile, 
 thoroughly natural in the picturesque and poetically-coloured 
 language of ancient Israel, but wholly unlike the style of the 
 prosaic age when the translator worked. 
 
 The Books of Samuel, from which these examples are 
 selected, are, on the whole, the part of the Old Testament in 
 which the value of the Septuagint is most manifest and most 
 generally recognised. The Hebrew text has many obscurities 
 which can only be explained as due to faulty transmission, 
 and the variations of the Septuagint are numerous and often 
 good. In the Pentateuch, on the other hand, the Septuagint 
 seldom departs far from the Hebrew text, and its variations 
 seldom give a better reading. This is just what we should 
 expect, for from a very early date the Law was read in the 
 synagogues every Sabbath day (Acts xv. 21) in regular 
 course, the whole being gone through in a cycle of three 
 years. The Jews thus became so familiar with the words of 
 the Pentateuch that copyists were in great measure secured 
 from important errors of transcription ; and it is also reason- 
 able to suppose that the rolls written for the synagogue were 
 transcribed with special care long before the fuU development 
 of the elaborate precautions which were ultimately devised to 
 exclude errors from all the sacred books. Sections from the 
 prophetic books were also read in the synagogue (Acts xiii. 15), 
 but not in a complete and systematic manner. At the time 
 
84 ORIGIN OF 
 
 of Christ, indeed, it would seem that the reader had a certain 
 freedom of choice in the prophetic lessons (Luke iv. 17). 
 Such books as Samuel, again, had little place in the syna- 
 gogue service, while the interest of the narrative caused 
 them to be largely read in private. But private study gave 
 no such guarantee against the introduction of various readings 
 as was afforded by use in public worship. Private readers 
 must no doubt have often been content to purchase or tran- 
 scribe indifferent copies, and a student might not hesitate to 
 make on his own copy notes or small additions to facilitate 
 the sense, or even to add a paragraph which he had derived 
 from another source, a procedure of which we shall find 
 examples by and by. Under such circumstances, and in the 
 absence of official supervision, the multiplication of copies 
 opened an easy door to the multiplication of errors ; which 
 might, no doubt, have been again eliminated by a critical 
 collation, but might very easily become permanent when, as 
 we have seen, a single copy, without critical revision, acquired 
 the position of the standard manuscript, to which all new 
 transcripts were to be conformed. 
 
 In general, then, we must conclude, first, that many 
 various readings once existed in MSS. of the Old Testament 
 which have totally disappeared from the extant Hebrew 
 copies ; and, further, that the range and distribution of these 
 variations were in part connected with the fact that all books 
 of the Old Testament had hot an equal place in the official 
 service of the synagogue. But the force of these observations 
 is sometimes met by an argument directed to depreciate the 
 value of the Septuagint variations. It is not denied that 
 the MSS. which lay before the Greek translators contained 
 various readings ; but it is urged that these MSS. were pre- 
 sumably of Egyptian origin, and that the Jews of Egypt had 
 probably to content themselves with inferior copies, trans- 
 mitted and multiplied by the hands of scholars who were 
 
THE SEPTUAGINT 85 
 
 neither so learned nor so scrupulous as the Scribes of 
 Jerusalem, Upon this view we are invited to look upon the 
 Septuagint as the witness to a corrupt Egyptian recension of 
 the text, the various readings in which deserve little atten- 
 tion, and afford no evidence that Palestinian MSS. did not 
 agree even at an early period with the present Massoretic text. 
 
 We have already seen that this view is at any rate ex- 
 aggerated, for we have had cases before us in which no sober 
 critic will hesitate to prefer the so-called Egyptian reading. 
 But further it is to be observed that the whole theory of a 
 uniform Palestinian recension is a pure hypothesis. There is 
 not a particle of evidence that there was a uniform Palestinian 
 text in the sense in which our present Hebrew Bibles are 
 uniform — or, in other words, to the exclusion even of such 
 variations and corruptions as are found in MSS. of the New 
 Testament — before the first century of our era. Nay, as we 
 have seen, the author of the Booh of Jubilees, a Palestinian 
 scholar of the first century, used a Hebrew Bible which often 
 agreed with the Septuagint or the Samaritan recension against 
 the Massoretic text (supra, p. 62). 
 
 But let us look at the history of the Greek translation, 
 and see what ground of fact there is for supposing that it was 
 made from inferior copies, and could pass muster only in a 
 land of inferior scholarship. The account of the origin of the 
 Septuagint version of the Law which was current in the time 
 of Christ, and may be read in Josephus and Eusebius, is full 
 of fabulous embellishments, designed to establish the authority 
 of the version as miraculously composed under divine inspira- 
 tion. The source of these fables is an epistle purporting to be 
 written by one Aristeas, a courtier in Alexandria under Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus (283-247 B.c.).^ This epistle is a forgery, but the 
 
 ^ Critical edition of the text of the letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, by M. 
 Schmidt, in Merx's Archiv, i. 241 sq. (Halle, 1870). It is unnecessary to 
 sketch its contents, for which the English reader may turn to the translations 
 of Eusebius and Josephus. What basis of truth underlies the fables depends 
 
86 HELLENISTS AND 
 
 author seems to have linked on his fabulous stories to some 
 element of current tradition ; and there is other evidence that 
 in the second century B.C. the uniform tradition of the Jews 
 in Egypt was to the effect that the Greek Pentateuch was 
 written for Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, to be placed in the 
 royal library collected by Demetrius Phalereus. This tradi- 
 tion is not wholly improbable, and at all events the date to 
 which it leads us has generally commended itself to the 
 judgment of scholars ; it is confirmed by the fact that the 
 fragments of the Jew, Demetrius, who wrote a Greek history 
 of the kings of Judsea under Ptolemy IV. (222-205 B.C.), 
 betray acquaintance with the Septuagint Pentateuch. The 
 other books were translated later, but they probably followed 
 pretty fast. The author of the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, 
 who wrote in Egypt about 130 B.C., speaks of the law, the 
 prophets, and the other books of the fathers, as current in 
 Greek in his time. The Septuagint version, then, was made 
 in Egypt under the Ptolemies. Under these princes the 
 Jewish colony in Egypt was not a poor or oppressed body ; 
 it was very numerous, very influential. Jews held important 
 posts in the kingdom, and formed a large element in the 
 population of Alexandria. Their wealth was so great that 
 they were able to make frequent pilgrimages and send many 
 rich gifts to the Temple at Jerusalem. They stood, therefore, 
 on an excellent footing with the authorities of the nation in 
 Palestine, and there is not the slightest evidence that they 
 were regarded as heretics, using an inferior Bible, or in 
 any way falling short of all the requisites of true Judaism. 
 There was, indeed, a schismatic temple in Egypt, at Leonto- 
 polis ; but that temple, so far as we can gather, by no means 
 attracted to it the service and the worship of the greater part 
 
 mainly on the genuineness of the fragments of Aristobuhis. See on the one 
 side Wellhausen-Bleek, § 279, on the other Kuenen's Religion of Israel, note 
 1 to chap. xi. For Demetrius see Schiirer, op. cit. voh ii. p. 730, and for 
 Aristobulus, ibid. p. 760 ; see also ibid. p. 697 sqq., p. 819 sqq. 
 
PALEST TNIANS 87 
 
 of the Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt. Their hearts still 
 turned towards Jerusalem, and their intercourse with Pales- 
 tine was too familiar and frequent to suffer them to fall into 
 the position of an isolated and ignorant sect. 
 
 All this makes it highly improbable that the Jews of 
 Egypt would have contented themselves with a translation 
 below the standard of Palestine, or that they would have 
 found any difficulty in procuring manuscripts of the approved 
 official recension, if such a recension had then existed. But 
 the argument may be carried further. In the time of Christ 
 there were many Hellenistic Jews resident in Jerusalem, 
 with synagogues of their own, where the Greek version was 
 necessarily in regular use. We find these Hellenists in Acts 
 vi., living on the best terms with the religious authorities of 
 the capital. Hellenists and Hebrews, the Septuagint and the 
 original text, met in Jerusalem without schism or controversy. 
 Yet many of the Palestinian scholars were familiar with 
 Greek, and Paul cannot have been the only man born in the 
 Hellenistic dispersion, and accustomed from infancy to the 
 Greek version, who afterwards studied under Palestinian 
 doctors, and became equally familiar with the Hebrew text. 
 The divergences of the Septuagint must have been patent 
 to all Jerusalem. Yet we find no attempt to condemn 
 and suppress this version till the second century, when 
 the rise of the new school of exegesis, and the consequent 
 introduction of a fixed official text, were followed by the 
 discrediting of the old Greek Bible in favour of the new 
 translation by Aquila. On the contrary, early Eabbinical 
 tradition expressly recognises the Greek version as legiti- 
 mate. In some passages of the Jewish books mention is 
 made of thirteen places in which those who " wrote for 
 Ptolemy " departed from the Hebrew text. But these 
 changes, which are similar in character to the "corrections 
 of the Scribes" spoken of in the last Lecture, are not 
 
JEWISH ESTIMATE 
 
 repreliended ; and in one form of the tradition they are 
 even said to have been made by divine inspiration. The 
 account of these thirteen passages contains mistakes which 
 show that the tradition was written down after the Septu- 
 agint had ceased to be a familiar book in Palestine. It 
 is remarkable that the graver variations of the Egyptian 
 text are passed over in absolute silence, and had apparently 
 fallen into oblivion. But the tradition recalls a time when 
 Hebrew scholars knew the Greek version well, and noted 
 its variations in a spirit of friendly tolerance. These facts 
 are entirely inconsistent with the idea that the Egyptian 
 text was viewed as corrupt. To the older Jewish tradition 
 its variations appeared, not in the light of deviations from 
 an acknowledged standard, but as features fairly within 
 the limits of a faithful transmission or interpretation of 
 the text.^ And so the comparison of the Septuagint with 
 the Hebrew Bible not merely furnishes us with fresh critical 
 material for the text of individual passages, but supplies 
 a measure of the limits of variation which were tolerated 
 
 ^ Compare Morinus, Exercitatio viii. In Mishua, Megilla, i. 8, we read, 
 " The Scriptures may be written in every tongue. R. Simeon b. Gamaliel 
 says they did not suffer the Scriptures to be written except in Greek." On 
 tills the Gemara observes, " R. Judah said, that when our Rabbins permitted 
 writing in Greek, they did so only for the Torah, and hence arose the transla- 
 tion made for King Ptolemy," etc. So Josephus, though an orthodox Pharisee, 
 makes use of the LXX., even where it departs from the Hebrew (1 Esdras). 
 The thirteen variations are given in the Gemara, ut supra, and in Sopherim, i. 
 9. In botli places God is said to have guided the seventy-two translators, so 
 that, writing separately, all gave one sense. Side by side with this favour- 
 able estimate, Soph. i. 8, following the glosses on Megillath Ta'anith, gives 
 the later hostile tradition, which it supposes to refer to a different version. 
 "That day was a hard day for Israel — like the day wlien they made the 
 golden calf," because the Torah could not be adequately translated. See 
 further, on the gradual growth of the prejudice against the Greek translation, 
 !\Iuller's note, op. cit. p. 11. Jerome, following the text supplied by Jewish 
 tradition, will have it that the LXX. translators purposely concealed from 
 Ptolemy the mysteries of faith, especially the prophecies referring to the 
 advent of Christ. See Quo&st. in Gen. p. 2 (ed. Lagarde, 1SG8), and Pracf. 
 in Pent. 
 
LECT. IV OF THE SEPTUAGINT 89 
 
 two huudred years after Ezra, when the version was first 
 written, and indeed from that time downwards until the 
 apostolic age. For in the times of the New Testament the 
 Greek and Hebrew Bibles were current side by side; and 
 men like the apostles, who knew both languages, used 
 either text indifferently, or even quoted the Old Testament 
 from memory, as Paul often does, with a laxness surprising 
 to the reader who judges by a modern rule, but very natural 
 in the condition of the text which we have just characterised. 
 It may be observed in passing that these considerations re- 
 move a great part of the difficulties which are commonly felt 
 to attach to the citations of the Old Testament in the New. 
 
 When we say that the readings of the Septuagint afford a 
 fair measure of the limits of variation in the early history of 
 the text, it is by no means implied that the Greek version, 
 taken as a whole, is as valuable as the Hebrew text. A 
 translation can never supply the j)lace of a manuscript. There 
 is always an allowance to be made for errors and licences of 
 interpretation, and the allowance is necessarily large in the 
 case of the Septuagint, which was the first attempt at a trans- 
 lation of the Bible, and perhaps the first considerable transla- 
 tion ever made. Thus, even if we possessed the Septuagint 
 in its original form it would be necessary to use it with great 
 caution as an instrument of textual criticism. But in reality 
 this use of the Septuagint is made greatly more difficult and 
 uncertain by many corruptions which it underwent in the 
 course of transmission. The Greek text was in a deplorable 
 state even in the days of Origen, in the first half of the third 
 Christian century. In his Hexaplar Bible, in which the 
 Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the later Greek versions were 
 arranged in parallel columns, Origen made a notable attempt 
 to purify the text, and indicate its variations from the Hebrew. 
 But the use made of Origen's labours by later generations 
 rather increased the mischief, and in the present day it is an 
 
90 TEXTUAL AND 
 
 affair of the most delicate scholarship to make profitable use 
 of the Alexandrian version for the confirmation or emenda- 
 tion of the Hebrew. The work has often fallen into incom- 
 petent hands, and their rashness is a chief reason why cautious 
 scholars are still apt to look with unjustifiable indifference 
 on what, after all, is our oldest witness to the history of the 
 text of the Old Testament. 
 
 For our present purpose it is not necessary that I should 
 conduct you over the delicate ground which cannot be safely 
 trodden save by the most experienced scholarship. My object 
 will be attained if I succeed in conveying to you by a few 
 plain examples a just conception of the methods of the 
 ancient copyists as they stand revealed to us in the broader 
 differences between the Hebrew and the Septuagint. It will 
 conduce to clearness if I indicate at the outset the conclusions 
 to which these differences appear to point, and the proof of 
 which will be specially contemplated in the details which I 
 shall presently set before you. I shall endeavour to show 
 that the comparison of the Hebrew and Greek texts carries 
 us beyond the sphere of mere verbal variations, with which 
 textual criticism is generally busied, and introduces us to a 
 series of questions affecting the composition, the editing, and 
 the collection of the sacred books. This class of questions 
 forms the special subject of the branch of critical science 
 which is usually distinguished from the verbal criticism of 
 the text by the name of Higher or Historical Criticism. The 
 value of textual criticism is now admitted on all hands. 
 The first collections of various readings for the New Testa- 
 ment excited great alarm, but it was soon seen to be absurd 
 to quarrel with facts. Various readings were actually found 
 in MSS., and it was necessary to make the best of them. But 
 while textual criticism admittedly deals with facts, the higher 
 criticism is often supposed to have no other basis than the 
 subjective fancies and arbitrary hypotheses of scholars. When 
 
HIGHER CRITICISM 91 
 
 critics maintain that some Old Testament writings, tradi- 
 tionally ascribed to a single hand, are really of composite 
 origin, and that many of the Hebrew books have gone through 
 successive redactions — or, in other words, have been edited 
 and re-edited in different ages, receiving some addition or 
 modification at the hand of each editor — it is often supposed 
 that these are mere idle theories unsupported by evidence. 
 Here it is that the Septuagint comes in to justify the critics. 
 The variations of the Greek and Hebrew text reveal to us a 
 time when the functions of copyist and editor shaded into 
 one another by imperceptible degrees. They not only prove 
 that Old Testament books were subjected to such processes 
 of successive editing as critics maintain, but that the work of 
 redaction went on to so late a date that editorial changes are 
 found in the present Hebrew text which did not exist in the 
 MSS. of the Greek translators. The details of the evidence 
 will make my meaning more clear, but in general what I 
 desire to impress upon you is this. The evidence of the 
 Septuagint proves that early copyists had a very different view 
 of their responsibility from that which we might be apt to 
 ascribe to them. They were not reckless or indifferent to 
 the truth. They copied the Old Testament books knowing 
 them to be sacred books, and they were zealous to preserve 
 them as writings of Divine authority. But their sense of 
 responsibility to the Divine word regarded the meaning 
 rather than the form, and they had not that highly-developed 
 sense of the importance of preserving every word and every 
 letter of the original hand of the author which seems natural 
 to us. When we look at the matter carefully, we observe 
 that the difference between them and us lies, not in any 
 religious principle, but in the literary ideas of those ancient 
 times. From our point of view a book is the property of the 
 author. You may buy a copy of it, but you do not thereby 
 acquire a literary property in the work, or a right to tamper 
 
92 METHODS OF 
 
 with the style and alter the words of the author even to make 
 his sense more distinct. But this idea was too subtle for 
 those ancient times. The man who had bought or copied a 
 book held it to be his own for every purpose. He valued it 
 for its contents, and therefore would not disfigure these by 
 arbitrary changes. But, if he could make it more convenient 
 for use by adding a note here, putting in a word there, or 
 incorporating additional matter derived from another source, 
 he had no hesitation in doing so. In short, every ancient 
 scholar who copied or annotated a book for his own use was 
 very much in the position of a modern editor, with the differ- 
 ence that at that time there was no system of footnotes, 
 brackets, and explanatory prefaces, by which the insertions 
 could be distinguished from the original text. 
 
 In setting before you some examples of the evidence 
 which enables us to prove this thesis, I shall begin with the 
 question of the titles which are prefixed to some parts of the 
 Old Testament. And here it is proper to explain that the 
 general titles prefixed to the several books in the English 
 Bible, such as " The First Book of Moses called Genesis," 
 " The Book of the Prophet Isaiah," and so forth, are no part 
 of the Hebrew text. Even the shorter titles of the same kind 
 found in our common printed Hebrew Bibles lack manuscript 
 authority. The only titles that form an integral part of the 
 textual tradition are those which appear in the English Bible 
 in the body of the text itself — such titles, for example, as 
 are contained in Proverbs i. 1, x. 1, xxv. 1, or in Isaiah i. 1, 
 xiii. 1, etc. etc. This being understood, it immediately 
 appears that a large proportion of the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment are anonymous. The Pentateuch, for example, bears 
 no author's name on its front, although certain things in the 
 course of the narrative are said to have been written down 
 by Moses. All the historical books are anonymous, with the 
 single exception of one of the latest of them, the memoirs of 
 
EARLY COPYISTS 93 
 
 Nehemiah, in which the author's name is prefixed to the first 
 chapter. This fact is characteristic. Why do the authors 
 not give tlieir names ? Because the literary public was in- 
 terested in the substance of the history, but was not concerned 
 to know who had written it. 
 
 To give this observation its just weight, we must remem- 
 ber that most of the historical books are not contemporary 
 memoirs, written from personal observation, but compila- 
 tions, extending over long periods, for which tlie authors 
 must have drawn largely from earlier sources, or from oral 
 tradition. Moreover, the frequent changes of style and other 
 marks of composite authorship which occur in these histories 
 prove that the work of compilation largely consisted in 
 piecing together long quotations from older books. In such 
 circumstances a modest compiler might very well prefer to 
 remain anonymous ; but then, according to modern ideas of 
 the way in which literary work should be done, he ought to 
 have given full and careful indications of the sources from 
 which he drew. In the Book of Kings reference is habitually 
 made, for certain particulars in the political history of each 
 reign, to the official chronicles of the sovereigns of Judah 
 and Israel, and in 2 Sam. i. 18 a poem of David is quoted 
 from the Book of Jashar, which is also cited in Josh. x. 13. 
 But for the mass of the narrative of the Earlier Prophets 
 (Joshua — Kings) the compilers give no indication of the 
 sources from which they worked. In short, the whole his- 
 torical literature of Israel before the Exile is written by and 
 for men whose interest in the story of the nation was not 
 combined with any interest in the hands by which the story had 
 been first set forth, or from time to time reshaped. To these 
 ages a book was a book, to be taken or rejected on its internal 
 merits, without regard to the personality that lay behind it. 
 
 And this feeling was not confined to historical books. 
 No ancient poem excites in the modern mind a more eager 
 
94 ANCIENT BOOKS 
 
 curiosity as to the personality of the author than the wonder- 
 ful Book of Job. We can understand that hymns like some 
 of the Psalms, which speak the common feelings of all pious 
 minds, are appropriately left anonymous. But the Book of 
 Job is an individual creation, as clearly stamped with the 
 impress of a great personality as the prophecies of Isaiah. 
 And yet the author is nameless and unknown. 
 
 The only part of the older Hebrew literature in which 
 the rule of anonymity does not prevail is the prophetical 
 books. And the reason for this is obvious. Most of the pro- 
 phets — to say all would be to prejudge a question that must 
 come before us presently — were preachers first of all, and 
 writers only in the second instance. Their books are not 
 products of the closet, but summaries of a course of public 
 activity, in which the personality of the preacher could not 
 be separated from his words. And so their books make no 
 exception to the rule that in old Israel a man could not 
 make himself known and perpetuate his name by literary 
 labours. If a man was already prominent in the eyes of 
 his contemporaries, and wrote, as he spoke, with the weight of 
 a public character, he had a reason to put his name to his 
 books, and others had a reason for remembering what he had 
 written ; but not otherwise. Even in the Book of Psalms the 
 only names that occur in the titles are those of famous his- 
 torical characters — Moses, David, Solomon ; and possibly, for 
 here the individual reference of the names is doubtful, those 
 of the founders and ancestors of Temple choirs — Asaph, 
 Heman, Ethan. 
 
 After the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the Church 
 took the place of the State, and the scribes succeeded to the 
 empty seat of the prophets, all this began to change. A great 
 part of the spiritual and intellectual energy of the Jews was 
 turned into purely literary channels; and ultimately, after 
 the decline of the Hasmonean power, the men of books 
 
LECT. IV OFTEN ANONYMOUS 95 
 
 became the acknowledged leaders of national life, and letters 
 the recognised means of public distinction. To the doctors 
 of the Law, who knew no other greatness than that of learn- 
 ing, all the heroes of ancient Israel, even the rude warrior 
 Joab, appeared in the character of book-men and students. 
 To this point of view the anonymity of the old literature was 
 a great stumbling-block. It seemed obvious to the Eabbins 
 that the leaders of the ancient nation must have been, above 
 all things, the authors of the national literature, and they 
 proceeded with much confidence to assign the composition of 
 the nameless books to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and so forth. 
 Even Adam, Melchizedek, and Abraham were not excluded 
 from literary honours, each of them being credited with the 
 authorship of a psalm.-^ 
 
 In the times of the Talmud, when these strange conjec- 
 tures took final shape, and were admitted into the body of 
 authoritative Jewish tradition, the text of the Bible was 
 already rigidly fixed, so that no attempt could be made to 
 embody them in titles prefixed to the several books. But the 
 tendency that culminates in the Talmudic legends is much 
 older than the Talmud itself, and no one, I imagine, will be 
 prepared to affirm on general grounds that the Jews of the 
 last pre-Christian centuries either lacked curiosity as to the 
 authorship of their sacred books, or were prepared to restrain 
 their curiosity within the limits prescribed by the rules of 
 evidence. But in these ages, as we have already seen, the 
 Biblical text was still in a more or less fluid state, and we 
 dare not say a 'priori that the introduction of a title based on 
 conjecture would have seemed to exceed the licence allowed 
 to a copyist. We know that such conjectural titles found 
 a place in manuscripts of the New Testament, where, for 
 example, many copies prefix the name of Paul to the Epistle 
 
 ^ See the famous passage, B&1& Bdthra, 14, b, quoted at length by 
 Driver, Ititroduction, p. xxxii. sq. 
 
96 TITLES OF 
 
 to the Hebrews, though it is certain that the oldest manu- 
 scripts left it anonymous. Whether something of the same 
 sort took place in copies of the Old Testament is a question 
 not to be answered on general grounds, but only on the 
 evidence of facts; and the Septuagint supplies us with 
 facts that are to the point. 
 
 The part of the Old Testament in which the system of 
 titles has been carried out most fully is the Book of Psalms. 
 The titles to the Psalms are to a large extent directions for 
 their liturgical performance in the service of the Temple 
 music ; but they also contain the names of men — David, 
 the Sons of Korah, and so forth. Are we to suppose that 
 there is no title of a psalm in the Hebrew Bible which 
 does not go back to the author of the psalm, or at least 
 to a time when his name was known from contemporary 
 evidence ? Let us consult the Septuagint, and what do 
 we find ? We find, in the first place, that the Septuagint 
 has the words "of" or "to David" in a number of psalms 
 where the Hebrew has no author's name (Psalms xxxiii. 
 xliii. Ixvii. Ixxi. xci. xciii. to xcix. civ.-^ cxxxvii.) ; and, 
 conversely, it omits the name of David from four, and the 
 name of Solomon from one, of the Psalms of Degrees (Psalms 
 cxxii. cxxiv. cxxxi. cxxxiii. cxxvii.).^ Now the large number 
 of cases in which the Septuagint inserts the name of David 
 is evidence of a tendency to ascribe to him an ever-increasing 
 
 ^ In Ps. civ., according to the Syro-Hexaplar, Aquila has "of David," so 
 that these words may have stood in his Hebrew copy. 
 
 ^ Strack, in a review of the first edition of these Lectures {Thcol. Literatur- 
 hlatt, 1882, No. 41), takes the objection that the Sinaitic MS. has the name 
 of David in the four Psahns of Degrees cited by me, and that the evidence of 
 the Vatican MS. is lacking owing to a lacuna. But no one who knows the 
 elements of textual criticism will set the evidence of the Sinaitic Codex against 
 the overwhelming mass of MSS. on the other side, even though it is reinforced 
 in the case of two of the four psalms by the Memphitic version. The materials 
 given in Field's Hexapla show clearly that we have here to do with Hexaplar 
 additions, i.e. with words added by Origen from the Hebrew, and originally 
 marked as additions by an asterisk, which Sin. has dropped. 
 
THE PSALMS 97 
 
 number of psalms. That tendency, we know, went on, till at 
 length it became a common opinion that he was the author 
 of the whole Psalter. We cannot therefore suppose that the 
 Greek version, or the Hebrew MSS. on which it rested, would 
 omit the name of David in any case where it had once stood ; 
 and the conclusion is inevitable that at least in four cases our 
 Hebrew Bibles have the name of David where it has no right 
 to be, and that the insertion was made by a copyist after the 
 time when the text of the Septuagint branched off. But if 
 this be so, it is impossible to maintain on principle that the 
 titles of the Psalms are throughout authoritative : and if 
 there is no principle involved, it is not only legitimate, but 
 an absolute duty, to test every title by comparing it with the 
 internal evidence supplied by the poem itself. I shall have 
 occasion to return to this subject in Lecture VII. 
 
 Similar variations, leading to similar conclusions, are 
 found in other parts of the Old Testament, and even in 
 the prophetical books. In Jer. xxvii. 1 the Hebrew has 
 a title which the Septuagint omits, and which every one 
 can see to be a mere accidental repetition of the title of 
 chap. xxvi. For the prophecy which the title ascribes to 
 the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim is addressed in 
 the most explicit way to Zedekiah, king of Judah (verses 
 3, 12). So again the Septuagint omits the name of Jeremiah 
 in the title to the prophecy against Babylon (chaps. 1. li.), 
 which, for other reasons, modern critics generally ascribe 
 to a later prophet. Here, it is true, chap. li. 59-64 may seem 
 to be a subscription establishing the traditional authorship. 
 But a note at the end of the chapter in the Hebrew expressly 
 says that the words of Jeremiah end with "they shall be 
 weary," — the close of verse 58. This note is the real subscrip- 
 tion to the prophecy, and it is also omitted by the Septuagint.^ 
 
 ^ It is argued by those who ascribe chaps. 1. li. to Jeremiah, that the 
 expression " all these words " in chap. li. 60 necessarily refers to the context 
 
 7 
 
98 TITLES IN THE 
 
 As a detailed survey of the prophetical writings does not 
 fall within the plan of these Lectures I will take the oppor- 
 tunity, before passing from the subject, to make some further 
 remarks on the titles of the prophetic books, going beyond 
 the indications to be derived from the Septuagint. You are 
 aware that according to the traditionally received opinion 
 there is not in these books any such thing as an anonymous 
 prophecy : the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel con- 
 tain prophecies by these three men alone, and in like manner 
 the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, which in Hebrew is 
 reckoned as one book, contains prophecies by the Twelve who 
 are named in the titles and by no other hand. Modern critics 
 reject this opinion, and maintain that various prophecies, such 
 as chaps. xl.-lxvi. of the Book of Isaiah, chaps. 1. li. of the 
 Book of Jeremiah, and some parts of Micah and Zechariah, are 
 not the composition of the prophets to whose works they are 
 traditionally reckoned. It is not argued that these pieces are 
 spurious works palmed off under a false name. They are ac- 
 cepted as genuine writings of true prophets, but it is main- 
 tained that their style and other characters, above all the 
 historical situation which they presuppose, show that they 
 are not the work of the hand and age to which current 
 tradition refers them. Thus in the case of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. 
 it is pointed out that the prophet addresses his words of 
 consolation and exhortation to Israel in its Babylonian 
 exile. This exile is to him the present situation, not an 
 event foreseen in the far prophetic future, and therefore, 
 it is argued, the prophecy must have been written in the 
 days of the Captivity. It is not disputed on any hand that 
 the custom of the prophets is to speak to the needs and 
 
 immediately preceding. But the order of Jeremiah's prophecies is greatly 
 disturbed {infra, p. 109 sq.). No one-will argue that " these words " in chap, 
 xlv. 1 refer to chap. xliv. ; yet the argument is as good in the one case as in 
 the other. Compare Budde, " Ueber die Capitel L. und LI. des Buches 
 Jeremia" in Jahrhh. f. D. Theol. vol. xxiii. p. 428 sq., p. 529 sq. 
 
PROPHETIC BOOKS 99 
 
 actual situation of their contemporaries. However far their 
 visions reach into the future, they take their start from the 
 present. Had they failed to do this their word could not 
 have been the direct message of God to their own con- 
 temporaries. Accordingly it is admitted by those who still 
 argue for Isaiah as the author of Isa. xl.-lxvi. that that great 
 prophet in his later years must have been supernaturally 
 transported out of his own historical surroundings, and set, 
 as it were, in vision, in the midst of the community of the 
 Captivity, that he might write a word of prophetic exhortation, 
 not for his own contemporaries but for the future generation 
 of Babylonian exiles. To make this theory plausible it 
 must further be maintained that the prophecy so written re- 
 mained a sealed book for a hundred and fifty years ; for it is 
 manifest that subsequent prophets, like Jeremiah, who were 
 very familiar with other parts of Isaiah's teaching, had no 
 acquaintance with this wonderful revelation. Surely there 
 is a difficulty here which is not the creation of scepticism, 
 but must be felt by every thoughtful reader. There is a 
 method in Eevelation as much as in Nature, and the first law 
 of that method, which no careful student of Scripture can fail 
 to grasp, is that God's Eevelation of Himself is unfolded 
 gradually, in constant contact with the needs of religious life. 
 Every word of God is spoken for all time, but every word 
 none the less was first spoken to a present necessity of God'e 
 people. The great mass of the prophecies are obviously con- 
 formed to this rule, and the burden of proof lies with those 
 who ask us to recognise an exception to it. In the case 
 before us we are asked to admit an exception of the most 
 startling kind, in spite of the fact that the chapters in 
 question are very different in style and language from the 
 undisputed writings of Isaiah, and in spite of the fact that 
 for a hundred and fifty years the teaching of the prophets 
 who continued Isaiah's work remained uninfluenced by what. 
 
100 THE BOOK 
 
 on the traditional view, was the crowning achievement of 
 Isaiah's ministry. The defenders of tradition make no 
 serious attempt to remove these difficulties.-^ They seek 
 to cut the discussion short by two arguments — (1) that the 
 synagogue and the Church agree in ascribing the chapters 
 to Isaiah ; and (2) that if they are not by Isaiah it is 
 impossible to explain how they could have been admitted 
 into his book. (See Keil, Introduction, Eng. trans., i. 331.) 
 
 ISTow as regards the testimony of the synagogue and the 
 Ch'urch it is true that Ecclus. xlviii. 24 (27) already cites 
 Isa. xl. 1 as the words of Isaiah, and from this it may be taken 
 as probable that five hundred yetirs after the death of Isaiah, 
 when the son of Sirach wrote {circa 200 B.C.), the whole Book 
 of Isaiah was assumed to be by a single hand. But on what 
 authority was this assumed ? The son of Sirach had no other 
 written sources for the literary history of the Bible than those 
 we still possess, and it is plain, therefore, that the opinion of 
 his time simply rested on the fact that the disputed prophecies 
 already stood in the same book with the unquestioned writ- 
 ings of Isaiah, and were held to be covered by the general title 
 in Isa. i. 1. Thus the two arguments reduce themselves to 
 one, the supposed incredibility that a writing not by Isftiah 
 could have been included in Isaiah's book. Let us understand 
 what this argument means. In ancient times a book meant a 
 separate roll or volume, and the Jewish division of the pro- 
 phetic writings into four books means that they were usually 
 comprised in four volumes, of which the Book of Isaiah was 
 one, as we see from Luke iv. 17. But these volumes were 
 
 ^ Some trifling and totally inadequate attempts have been made to mini- 
 mise the differences of style, and a few passages have been pointed out in 
 which there are points of contact, rather in expression than in thought, 
 between Isa. xl. sqq. and prophets who lived between Isaiah and the Exile. 
 None of these coincidences has any force as proving the priority of the great 
 anonymous prophecy, and none of these petty arguments touches the broad 
 and decisive fact that Jeremiah and his compeers are totally uninfluenced by 
 the leading ideas of Isa. xl.-lxvi. 
 
LECT. IV 
 
 OF ISAIAH 101 
 
 not constructed on the principle that each writer should have 
 a separate roll for himself, for the twelve minor prophets 
 formed a single book. Why then should it be inconceivable 
 that a separate prophecy, too short to make a volume by itself, 
 should have been placed at the end of Isaiah's volume, which, 
 without this appendix, would have been very much shorter 
 than the other three prophetic books ? You may object that 
 if this had been done the collector would at least have been 
 careful to mark off the true Isaiah from the addition. But 
 this assumption is not warranted. It may be taken as 
 certain that a prophecy composed in the Exile, when the 
 Jews were scattered and had no public life, was never 
 preached, but circulated from the first in writing, passing 
 privately from hand to hand. Under these circumstances 
 the author was not likely to put his name to his book, and 
 the collector of the present Book of Isaiah, who received it 
 without a title, would transmit it in the same way. It is true 
 that by so doing he left it possible for readers to draw a false 
 inference as to the authorship ; but every one who has handled 
 Eastern manuscripts knows that scribes constantly copy out 
 several works into one volume without taking the precautions 
 necessary to prevent an anonymous piece from being ascribed 
 to the author of the work to which it is attached. To prevent 
 mistakes of this sort it is necessary that every piece which 
 bears an author's name should be furnished not only w'ith 
 a title but with a subscription marking the point at which 
 it ends. But in the prophetic books subscriptions are the 
 exception not the rule ; the only formal one, which professes 
 to say where the words of a particular prophet end, is Jer. 
 li. 64, and this, as we have already seen, is absent from the 
 Septuagiut, and presumably formed no part of the original 
 text. We have no right, therefore, to expect a formal indica- 
 tion of the point at which the actual words of Isaiah end ; 
 but in point of fact the main part of the book is very clearly 
 
102 ZECHARIAH IX. -XIV. lect. iv 
 
 separated from the Babylonian chapters by the historical 
 section, chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix. Apart from the psalm of 
 Hezekiah, these chapters are found also with slight variations 
 in the Book of Kings, and the nature of the variations proves 
 (as you may see in detail by consulting Prof. Driver's Intro- 
 duction) that the text of Kings is the original, and that the 
 narrative of Isaiah is extracted from that book. These 
 extracts form an appendix, which cannot have been added 
 to the volume of Isaiah's prophecies till the time of the 
 Captivity at the earliest, and Isaiah xl.-lxvi. constitutes a 
 second and still later addition. 
 
 As another instance of the futility of the arguments from 
 authority that are used to cut short critical discussion as to 
 the authorship of prophetical pieces, I may take the case of 
 Zechariah ix.-xiv. On what authority are these declared to 
 form part of the Book of Zechariah ? In the Hebrew Bible 
 there is no such book. There is not even a general title to 
 the section of the fourth prophetic volume in which these 
 chapters stand ; for the titles in Zech. i. 1, vii. 1, refer only 
 to single prophecies of Zechariah delivered at .particular 
 dates. At chapter ix. we have an entirely separate prophecy 
 with a separate title, in which Zechariah is not named, a 
 different historical situation, and a quite different style and 
 manner. Further, we must remember that the volume of 
 Minor Prophets is a miscellaneous collection, not even 
 arranged on chronological principles (since, for example, 
 Hosea precedes Amos), but gathering up all the remains 
 of prophetic literature that were not already comprised in 
 the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Under these 
 circumstances there is absolutely no inference to be drawn 
 from the fact that the anonymous prophecies, Zech. ix.-xiv., 
 stand immediately after others that bear Zechariah's name. 
 The later Jews ascribed them to Zechariah, but that is no 
 evidence for us ; for they did so on exactly the same absurd 
 
LECT. IV JEREMIAH XXVII. 103 
 
 priuciple on which, in the days of Origen, they ascribed all 
 anonymous psalms to the author of the nearest preceding 
 psalm that bears a title.-^ 
 
 I now return to the Septuagint, and propose to call your 
 attention to an example of editorial redaction, involving a 
 series of changes running through the whole structure of a 
 passage. For this purpose I select the twenty -seventh 
 chapter of Jeremiah, the Hebrew title of which has already 
 been shown to be an editorial insertion. "We are now to see 
 that the hand of an editor has been at work all through the 
 chapter. Let me say at the outset that the example is a some- 
 what unusual one. There are not many parts of the Old 
 Testament where the variations of the Greek and Hebrew 
 are so extensive as in Jeremiah ; but it is necessary to choose 
 a well-marked case in order to convey a distinct conception 
 of the limits of editorial interference. To facilitate com- 
 parison, I print a translation of.ithe Hebrew text, putting 
 everything in italics which is omitted by the Septuagint. 
 The Greek has some other slight variations, which are 
 not of consequence for our present purpose. The essential 
 difference between the two texts is that the Hebrew, with- 
 out omitting anything that is in the Greek, has a number of 
 additional clauses and sentences. 
 
 In the reign of King Zedekiah a congress of ambassadors 
 from the neighbouring nations was held at Jerusalem, to 
 concert a rising against Nebuchadnezzar. The prophets and 
 diviners encouraged this scheme ; but Jeremiah was com- 
 manded by the Lord to protest against it, and declare that 
 the empire of Nebuchadnezzar had been conferred on him by 
 
 ^ See for the rule as to the anonymous psalms, Origen, ii. 514 sq., Rue ; 
 Jerome, Ep. cxl. ad Cypr. That the same principle was applied to the 
 Psalter and the Book of the Minor Prophets is not a mere conjecture, but 
 appears from Jerome's Praef. in XII. Proph. and the Preface to his Commentary 
 on Malachi. In the case of the prophets, the principle was applied to settle 
 the chronology ; where the title gives no date the prophecy was delivered in 
 the reigns of the kings mentioned in the next preceding dated title. 
 
104 TEXT OF LECT. IV 
 
 Jehovah's decree, and that it was vain to rebel. The pro- 
 phetic message delivered in the name of the God of Israel 
 
 ran thus : — 
 
 Jer. xxvii. 5. — I have made tlie earth, the man and the beast which 
 are upon the face of the earth, by my great power and outstretched arm, 
 and give it to whom I please. (6.) And now I have given all these 
 lands [LXX. the earth] into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. . . . (7.) 
 And all nations shall serve him and his son and his son's son, till the time 
 of his land come also, and mighty nations arid great kings make him their 
 servant. (8.) And the nation and kingdom which will not serve him, 
 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and put their neck under the yoke of 
 the king of Babylon, will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, 
 and with famine, ajid xoith pestilence, till I have consumed them by his 
 hand. (9.) Therefore hearken ye not to your prophets, . . . which 
 say ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. (10.) For they prophesy 
 lies to you to remove you from your land, and that I should drive you 
 out and ye should perish. . . . 
 
 (12.) And to Zedekiah, king of Judah, I spake with all these 
 words, saying, Bring your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, 
 and serve him and his people, and live. (13.) Why will ye die, thou 
 and thy people, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, as the Lord 
 hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon ? 
 (14.) Therefore hearken not imto the words of the prophets who speak unto 
 you, saying, Serve not the king of Babylon ; for they [emphatic] prophesy 
 lies unto you. (15.) For I have not sent them, saith the Lord, and 
 they prophesy lies in my name. . . . 
 
 (16.) And to the priests and to all this people [LXX. to all the 
 people and the priests] I spake saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hearken 
 not to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, Behold 
 the vessels of the house of the Lord shall be brought back from 
 Babylon oioiu quickly, for they prophesy a lie unto you. (17.) Hearken 
 not unto them [LXX. I have not sent them], serve the king of Babylon, 
 and live ; wherefore should this city be laid waste ? (1 8.) But if they are 
 prophets, and if the word of the Lord is with them, let them intercede 
 with the Lord of Hosts [LXX. with me], that the vessels which are left 
 in the house of the Lord, and the house of the king of Judah, and in 
 Jerusalem, come not to Babylon. (19.) For thus saith the Lord of 
 Hosts concerning the pillars and the sea and the bases, and the rest of the 
 vessels left in this city, (20) Which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon 
 took not when he carried Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah 
 captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and 
 Jerusalem; (21.) For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, con- 
 cerning the vessels left in the house of God, and in the house of the king of 
 Judah and Jerusalem; (22.) They shall be taken to Babylon, and 
 there shall they be unto the day that I visit them, saith the Lord ; then 
 xoill I bring them up and restore them to this place. 
 
JEREMIAH XXVII. 105 
 
 Througliout these verses the general effect of the omissions 
 of the Septuagint is to make the style simpler, more natural, 
 and more forcible. At verses 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, the additional 
 matter of the Massoretic text is mere expansion of ideas fully 
 expressed in the shorter recension ; and at verse 14 the omis- 
 sions of the Septuagint give the proper oratorical value to 
 the emphatic " they " of the original, which the prophet, in 
 genuine Hebrew style, must have spoken with a gesture 
 pointing to the false prophets who stood before the king. It 
 is not to be thought that a later copyist added nerve and 
 force to the prophecy by pruning the prolixities of the 
 original text. Jeremiah is no mean orator and author, and 
 the prolixities are much more in the wearisome style of the 
 later Jewish literature. 
 
 But in some parts the two recensions differ in meaning as 
 well as lano'uagje. At verse 7 the Hebrew text inserts in the 
 midst of Jeremiah's exhortation to submission a prophecy 
 that the Babylonians shall be punished in the third genera- 
 tion. No doubt Jeremiah does elsewhere predict the fall of 
 Babylon and the restoration of Israel. He had done so at an 
 earlier date (xxv. 11-13). But is it natural that he should 
 turn aside to introduce such a prediction here, in the very 
 midst of a solemn admonition on which it has no direct 
 bearing ? And is this a thing which a copyist would be 
 tempted to omit ? Much rather was it natural for a later 
 scribe to introduce it. Again, at verse 16, the Hebrew text 
 modifies the prediction of the restoration of the sacred vessels 
 made by the false prophets, by the insertion of the words 
 "now quickly." There was no motive for the omission of 
 these words, if they are original. But a later scribe, reflect- 
 ing on the fact that the sacred vessels were restored by Cyrus, 
 might well insert the qualification " now quickly " to deprive 
 the false prophets of any claim to have spoken truly after 
 all. In reality it does not need these words to prove them 
 
106 TEXT OF LECT. rv 
 
 liars ; for their prediction, taken in the context, plainly 
 meant that the alliance should defeat Nebuchadnezzar and 
 recover the spoil. But the words stand or fall with the 
 prediction put into Jeremiah's mouth, in verse 22, that the 
 vessels of the temple and the palace, including the brazen 
 pillars, sea, and bases, should be taken indeed to Babylon, 
 but be brought back again in the day of visitation. This is 
 plainly the spurious insertion of a thoughtless copyist, who 
 had his eye on chapter lii. 17. For it is true that the pillars, 
 the sea, and the bases were carried to Babylon, but they 
 were not and could not have been brought back. These 
 huge masses could not have been transported entire across 
 the mountains and deserts that separated Judsea from Babylon. 
 And so we are expressly told in chapter lii. that they were 
 broken up and carried off as old brass, fit only for the melting- 
 pot. Jeremiah and his hearers knew well that they could 
 not reach Babylon in any other form, and in his mouth the 
 prediction which we read in the Hebrew text would have 
 been not only false, but palpably absurd. That such a pre- 
 diction now stands in the text only proves what the thought- 
 lessness of copyists was capable of, and makes the reading of 
 the Septuagint absolutely certain. 
 
 We conclude, then, from a plain argument of physical 
 impossibility, that Jeremiah did not predict the restoration 
 of the spoils of the Temple. And by this result we remove 
 a serious inconsistency from his religious teaching. For the 
 restoration to which Jeremiah constantly looks is not the 
 re-establishment of the old ritual, but the bringing in of a 
 spiritual covenant when God's law shall be written on the 
 hearts of the people (chap. xxxi.). ISTo prophet thinks more 
 lightly of the service of the Temple (chap. vii.). He denies 
 that God gave a law of sacrifice to the people when they left 
 Egypt. They may eat their burnt-offerings as well as the 
 other sacrifices, and God- will not condemn them (vii. 21, 22). 
 
JEREMIAH XXVII. 107 
 
 Even the ark of the covenant is in his eyes an obsolete 
 symbol, which in the day of Israel's conversion shall not be 
 missed and not be remade (iii. 16, R V., marg.). To the false 
 prophets and the people who followed them, the ark, the 
 temple, the holy vessels, were all in all. To Jeremiah they 
 were less than nothing, and their restoration was no part of his 
 hope of salvation.^ 
 
 ^ There is one passage in Jeremiah, as we read it which appears incon- 
 sistent with the view I have ventured to take of the prophet's attitude to the 
 temporary elements of the Old Testament ritual. In Jer. xxxiii. 14-26 it is 
 predicted that the Levitical priesthood and its sacrifices shall be perpetual as 
 the succession of day and night. This passage is also wanting in the Septua- 
 gint. No reason can be suggested for its omission ; for we know from Philo 
 that even those Jews of Alexandria who sat most loosely to the ceremonial 
 law regarded the Temple and its service as an essential element in religion 
 {De Migr. Ahra. cap. xvi.). If taken literally, the eternity of Levitical 
 sacrifices, as expressed in xxxiii. 18, seems quite inconsistent with all else in 
 Jeremiah's prophecies. Taken typically, the verse only fits the sacrifice of 
 the mass, to which Roman Catholic expositors refer it ; for the sacrifices are 
 to be ofi"ered continually in all time. 
 
LECTUEE V 
 
 THE SEPTUAGINT {continued) — THE COMPOSITION OF 
 BIBLICAL BOOKS 
 
 In the last lecture we began to examine those features of the 
 Septuagint which bear witness to the kind of labour that was 
 spent on the text by ancient editors. We have seen how 
 redactors or copyists sometimes added titles to anonymous 
 pieces, and how by a series of small editorial changes, running 
 from verse to verse through a chapter, the form and even the 
 meaning of an important passage were sometimes consider- 
 ably modified. 
 
 We now come to another part of the subject, in which I 
 propose to use the variations between the Greek and Hebrew 
 text to throw light on the structure of the books of the Bible. 
 The main point which I desire to enforce in this Lecture is 
 that certain books which we have been wont to look upon as 
 continuous unities are really composite in character. Some 
 evidence to this effect, especially as regards the prophetic 
 books, has already come before us when we looked at the 
 question of titles. To-day we have to deal with another 
 branch of evidence, drawn from the transpositions of the Sep- 
 tuagint, the entire omission of certain sections, and so forth. 
 I hope to be able to handle these evidences in a way that 
 will not only confirm the results at which we have already 
 arrived, but will give us valuable insight into deeper critical 
 questions, especially as regards the historical books. 
 
LECT. V TRANSPOSITIONS OF LXX. 109 
 
 I begin with the transpositions of the Septuagint text, and 
 choose as my first example the chapters comprising Jeremiah's 
 prophecies against the heathen nations. In our Bibles, and 
 in the Hebrew Bible, these prophecies occupy chapters xlvi. 
 to li. In the Septuagint they follow the 13th verse of the 
 twenty-fifth chapter, and appear in a different order. In the 
 Hebrew the sequence is Egypt, Philistines, Moab, Ammon, 
 Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam, Babylon. The 
 Septuagint sequence is Elam, Egypt, Babylon, Philistines, 
 Edom, Ammon, Kedar and Hazor, Damascus, Moab. Can we 
 then assume that in this case the translator of the Septuagint 
 version, having before him a fixed and certain order of all 
 Jeremiah's oracles, took the liberty to shift the prophecies 
 against the nations through one another, and to put them in 
 an entirely different part of the book ? From what we have 
 seen already as to the general way in which these translators 
 acted, such an assumption is highly improbable. Eather we 
 are to suppose that in their copy these prophecies already 
 occupied a different place from what they hold in the Hebrew 
 Bible. 
 
 What does that lead us to conclude ? Variations in the 
 order of the individual pieces may very well happen in 
 collected editions of writings originally published separately, 
 but not in a single book of one author. And that is just 
 what the facts lead us otherwise to suppose, for we know 
 that Jeremiah's prophecies were not all written down at one 
 time, or in the order in which they now stand. We learn 
 from chap, xxxvi. that a record of the first twenty-three years 
 of his prophetic ministry was dictated by the prophet to 
 Baruch in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. But this bock does 
 not correspond with the first part of the present Book of 
 Jeremiah, in which prophecies later than the reign of Jehoiakim 
 — such as chap. xxiv. — precede others which must have stood 
 in the original collection (chap. xxvi.). Jeremiah's book. 
 
110 VARIATIONS OF 
 
 then, as we have it, is not a continuous record of his pro- 
 phecies, which he himself kept constantly posted up to date, 
 but a compilation made up from several prophetic writings 
 originally published separately. In this compilation the 
 natural order is not always observed, for it is plain that 
 chap, xlv., containing a brief prophecy addressed to Baruch, 
 "when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of 
 Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim " (ver. 1), must 
 originally have stood at the close of the collection spoken of 
 in chap, xxxvi. It is easy, then, to understand that, when 
 several distinct books of Jeremiah's words and deeds were 
 brought together into one volume, there might be variations 
 of order in different copies of the collection, just as modern 
 editions of the collected works of one author frequently differ 
 in arrangement. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether this group of prophecies 
 appears just as they were first published, either in the Septua- 
 gint or in the Hebrew. The order of the individual pro- 
 phecies seems to be more suitable in the Hebrew and English 
 texts ; for chap. xxv. 15 sq. contains a sort of brief summary 
 or general conspectus of Jeremiah's prophecies against the 
 nations, and here the order agrees very closely with that in 
 our present Hebrew text as against the Septuagint ; but then, 
 on the other hand, the summary of Jeremiah's prophecies 
 against the nations is found in the twenty -fifth chapter, 
 whereas in our present edition the details under this general 
 sketch begin at chap. xlvi. Much more natural in this 
 respect is the arrangement of the Septuagint, placing all the 
 details in immediate juxtaposition with the general summary; 
 so that here we seem to have a case in which neither edition 
 of Jeremiah's prophecies is thoroughly satisfactory and in 
 good order. But the general conclusion is that the trans- 
 positions give us a key to the way in which the book came 
 together, showing that it was not all written and published 
 
ARRANGEMENT 111 
 
 in continuous unity by Jeremiah himself, but has the 
 character of a collected edition of several writings originally 
 distinct. We observe, also, that the compilers did not 
 execute their work with perfect skill and judgment ; and so it 
 would plainly be unreasonable to call every critic a rationalist 
 who ventures to judge, on internal or other evidence, that 
 the collection may possibly contain some chapters, such as 1. 
 and li., which are not from the hand of Jeremiah at all. 
 
 Another example of the important inferences that may be 
 drawn from the transpositions of the Septuagint occurs in 
 the Book of Proverbs. I presume that many of us have been 
 accustomed to think of the Proverbs as a single composition, 
 written from first to last by Solomon. But here again we 
 find such transpositions as indicate that the book is not so 
 nmch one continuous writing as a collected edition of various 
 proverbial books and tracts. For example, the first fourteen 
 verses of Proverbs xxx., containing the words of Agur, are 
 placed in the Septuagint collection after the 22d verse of 
 chap. xxiv. Then immediately upon that follows chap. xxiv. 
 23-34, a little section which in the Hebrew has a separate 
 title, — "These also are [words] of the wise." After that 
 comes chap. xxx. 15-xxxi. 9. Then comes the collection of 
 "proverbs of Solomon" copied out by the men of King 
 Hezekiah (xxv.-xxix.) ; and the book closes with the descrip- 
 tion of the virtuous woman (xxxi. 10-31). It is natural to 
 explain the fact that these several small collections of pro- 
 verbs are grouped in such different order in the Septuagint 
 and in the Hebrew respectively by the hypothesis that they 
 originally existed as separate books ; for in that case, when 
 they came to be collected into one volume, differences of 
 order might readily arise, which could hardly have happened 
 if the whole had been the original composition of Solomon 
 alone. And indeed the existence of such separate collections 
 is more than an hypothesis, as the sub-titles of the book 
 
112 COMPOSITION OF lect. v 
 
 show. For after the general title, chap, i. 1-6, and a long 
 section, not proverbial in form, containing poetical admoni- 
 tions in praise of wisdom, morality, and religion (chap. i. 7- 
 ix. 18), we come on a collection of proverbs or aphorisms 
 extending from chap. x. 1 to chap. xxii. 16, and headed (in 
 the Hebrew) " Proverbs of Solomon." This again is followed 
 by a collection of "Words of the wise" (chap. xxii. 17- 
 xxiv. 22), with a preface of its own (chap. xxii. 17-21). Then 
 comes the second collection of words of the wise already 
 referred to, and then again the second collection of Proverbs 
 of Solomon, copied out by the "Men of Hezekiah." The men 
 of Hezekiah's time, we see, had written materials before them. 
 And the corpus of proverbs which they formed from these 
 must once have existed side by side with the great collection 
 of Proverbs of Solomon in chaps, x. sqq., and in an independent 
 form. Por the title runs : " These also are the proverbs of 
 Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah copied out." The word 
 " also " shows that this title was written when two separate 
 collections of Salomonic Proverbs were brought for the first 
 time into one volume. In like manner the title in chap, 
 xxiv. 23 : " These also are [words] of the wise," shows that 
 the preceding collection of Words of the Wise once stood by 
 itself without the appendix in xxiv. 23 sqq.^ from which, in 
 fact, it is separated in the Septuagint.-^ 
 
 ^ That the two Salomonic collections were formed independently, and not 
 by the same hand, appears most clearly from the many cases in which the 
 same proverb appears in both (see the Introduction to Delitzsch's Com- 
 mentary, § 3). Even these parts of the book, therefore, were not collected by 
 Solomon himself, and the title in chap. i. 1 is not from his hand, but was 
 added by some collector or editor. Hence there is no reason to suppose that 
 Solomon is the author of chaps, i.-ix. any more than of the "Words of the 
 Wise." The whole book bears the name of Solomon's Proverbs, because the 
 two great Salomonic collections are the leading element in it. Compare on 
 the whole subject Professor A. B. Davidson's article Proverbs in the 9th ed. 
 of the Encydopcedia Britannica ; Professor Cheyne's Joh and Solomon (London, 
 1887) ; and Professor Driver's Introduction to the 0. T. (Edinburgh, 1891). 
 There are close analogies between the composition of the Book of Proverbs 
 and that of the Psalter. See Lecture VII. 
 
LECT. V THE HISTORICAL BOOKS 113 
 
 Let us now pass on to the historical books. In these the 
 questions of composition are more complicated, because a 
 historian whose object is to produce a continuous narrative, 
 covering a long period, by the aid of a series of older histories 
 or memories, has it open to him to deal with these materials 
 in various ways. He may content himself with choosing one 
 good narrative for each section of the history, transcribing or 
 abridging it, and adding little of his own except at the points 
 where he passes from one source to another. Or while mainly 
 following this plan, he may from time to time insert supple- 
 mentary matter taken from other sources. Or, on the other 
 hand, if he has before him several histories of the same 
 period, he may frame from them a combined narrative. And 
 in this case he may either recast the whole story in his own 
 words as modern historians do, or he may take short extracts 
 from his several sources and piece them together in a sort of 
 mosaic, so that the language, style, and colour of each of the 
 sources are still largely preserved, though the old fragments 
 are reset in a new pattern and frame. 
 
 Even from the English Bible an attentive reader may 
 satisfy himself that the history of the Hebrew kings is not a 
 homogeneous literary composition like Macaulay's History of 
 England. Many minor marks of variety in language and 
 style that are very apparent in the Hebrew necessarily dis- 
 appear in translation ; but the broader characteristics of style 
 and literary treatment survive, and these are so different in 
 different parts of the narrative as to leave no doubt that the 
 compiler used a number of sources and followed them closely, 
 retaining in great measure the very words of his predecessors. 
 Sometimes a single source is followed without interruption 
 for a number of chapters, as in the so-called " court history " of 
 David, 2 Sam, ix.-xx. Eead this whole section continuously, 
 and while your mind is still under the impression, look back 
 to chap. viii. You pass in a moment from a narrative full of 
 
114 THE COURT HISTORY leot. v 
 
 life and colour to a bare chronicle of public affairs, mainly- 
 foreign wars. Note further that to a certain extent both 
 narratives cover the same ground ; both speak of David's 
 wars with the Syrians. But the particulars given are not 
 the same, and the choice of particulars shows that the authors 
 of the two accounts had different interests. The writer of 
 the longer history is a student of human nature, who has 
 taken David and his court as his field of observation, and 
 loves to dwell on every incident, however trivial, that illus- 
 trates character. But he has no cjreat interest in foreign 
 wars ; many of David's campaigns he passes over altogether, 
 and his mention of the Syrian campaigns seems to be due to 
 their connection with the war with Ammon, which — throuoh 
 the matter of Uriah — had a very special bearing on David's 
 personal history. The other account is wholly interested in 
 the public glories of David's reign, and, brief as it is, finds 
 room for particulars about rich booty and tributes of volun- 
 tary homage to which the court history never alludes. 
 
 Now pass on to 1 Kings i. ii. You cannot, I think, fail 
 to realise that here we are again in the hands of the court 
 historian. The style, the manner, the character of the pictur- 
 esque details is the same, and the main thread of the narra- 
 tive is still that which forms the thread of most personal 
 histories of an Eastern court — intrigues about the succession. 
 Lastly, note that the two great extracts from the court 
 history are separated by 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv., a series of appen- 
 dices of very various content, all of which hang quite loose 
 from one another and from the continuous well-knit narrative 
 which they interrupt. 
 
 I have begun with a very simple example of the incor- 
 poration of an older document in the Bible history, and one 
 that raises no questions to alarm the most timid faith. I 
 now pass on to a case one degree more complex, in which, 
 however, we are not wholly dependent on internal evidence. 
 
LECT. V OF DAVID 115 
 
 but get some assistance from the Greek version. Many of 
 you have probably observed the way in which the history of 
 the sovereigns of Judah and Israel is arranged in the Book 
 of Kings, Here the narrative is concerned with the affairs of 
 two monarchies, and has to pass backwards and forwards 
 from the one to the other. The plan on which this is 
 effected is to take up each king, whether of Judah or of 
 Ephraim, in the order of his accession to the throne, and 
 follow his reign to the end. For example, after the history of 
 Asa of Judah we have the story of all the northern kings, 
 from Nadab to Ahab, who came to the throne in Asa's life- 
 time, and then the narrative goes back to Jehoshaphat of 
 Judah, who came to the throne in the fourth year of Ahab. 
 For the better execution of this plan the history of each 
 reign is, so to speak, framed in and kept apart by an intro- 
 duction and conclusion of stereotyped form (2 Kings xiii. 1) : 
 " In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah 
 king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign 
 over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years." . . . 
 (ver. 8) '* Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, . . . are they 
 not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of 
 Israel ? And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers ; and they 
 buried him in Samaria : and Joash his son reigned in his 
 stead." For the kings of Judah the formula is slightly fuller 
 but of the same type. 
 
 These set formulas constitute a chronological framework 
 binding the whole narrative together. But the details within 
 the framework do not form a continuous story, and are plainly 
 not all written by one hand or on a uniform plan. One 
 reign is full of strildng episodes and picturesque incident, 
 another is comparatively barren in detail and style, and 
 sometimes we find sections that are distinguished not only 
 by variety of style and phrase but by marked peculiarities of 
 grammatical form. On closer examination we observe that 
 
116 THE BOOKS 
 
 each reign is furnished with a brief epitome of affairs, a mere 
 enumeration of important events, combined with a moral 
 judgment on the king. For some reigns we have nothing 
 more than this meagre epitome ; but even where the story is 
 filled out by long and interesting narratives the epitome is 
 not lacking. It forms, along with the chronological frame- 
 work, a uniform feature in the history, and appears to be 
 based on the royal chronicles or official records of the two 
 kingdoms, to which reference is regularly made at the close 
 of each reign. That the epitome is all by one hand is evident 
 from the precise similarity in tone and language which marks 
 all its moral judgments on the kings. On the other hand, 
 the longer and richer narratives show great variety of tone 
 and style, and in many cases it is clear from the nature of 
 their contents that they cannot be derived from the royal 
 chronicles. The sympathetic account of Elijah's work, for 
 example, cannot have been recorded in the annals of his 
 enemy Ahab. The compiler of the Book of Kings, therefore, 
 must have had access to unofficial as well as to official 
 sources. From the former he abstracted the brief notices 
 that make up the skeleton of his work, but the living flesh 
 and blood of the history he supplied by long extracts from 
 narratives of a more popular and interesting kind. 
 
 There is no reason to doubt that most of these extracts 
 were selected and worked in by the compiler of the epitome, 
 who may therefore be properly called the main author of the 
 Book of Kings. But the book did not leave his hands in 
 absolutely fixed and final form. Many of the episodes are so 
 loosely attached to the surrounding context that they might 
 be moved to another place without inconvenience. In the 
 Septuagint not a few passages are transposed, and sometimes 
 with advantage to the reader. For example, the story of 
 Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings xxi.) stands in the Greek before 
 chap. XX., so that the narrative of Ahab's Syrian wars is made 
 
OF KINGS 117 
 
 continuous. Again, in the history of King Solomon, which 
 is largely made up of disjointed anecdotes and notices, the 
 Greek order differs enormously from the Hebrew. And here 
 we find also variations in the substance of the narrative, an 
 omission here and an insertion there, to warn us that, in a 
 book so loosely constructed that its parts can be freely moved 
 about, we must also be prepared to find unauthorised addi- 
 tions creeping into the text. This last point is of too much 
 consequence to be passed over without further illustration ; 
 and perhaps the best example for our purpose is found in the 
 history of Jeroboam. The Greek, as commonly read, gives 
 two distinct accounts of Jeroboam's elevation to the throne. 
 One account agrees substantially with the Hebrew, supplying 
 only a few various readings. Some of these are improve- 
 ments, and enable us to emend the Hebrew text, so as to remove 
 the discrepancy which every reader must observe between 
 1 Kings xii. 2, 3, 12, and verse 20. In the English version 
 the emendations may be thus effected. Place xii. 2 before 
 xii. 1, so as to make Jeroboam hear of Solomon's death, 
 not of the congress at Shechem, and change the last words 
 (by altering one letter in the Hebrew) into " Then Jero- 
 boam returned from Egypt." In verse 3 omit the whole 
 first part down to " came," leaving only " And they spake 
 before Eehoboam, saying." In verse 12 omit the words " Jero- 
 boam and." The whole is then in accord with verse 20, which 
 implies that Jeroboam (though within reach, and probably 
 acting as a secret instigator of the rebel leaders) was not 
 present at Shechem. 
 
 This first account is common to the Hebrew and all Greek 
 copies. The second Greek account, which comes in after chap. 
 xii. 24 in many copies, goes again over the whole ground of 
 chap. xi. 26 to xii. 24, and partly in the very same words. 
 But the arrangement is different, and so are some of the 
 leading incidents. Jeroboam (as the first account also hints) 
 
118 THE HISTORY 
 
 was engaged in a plot against Solomon before he fled to 
 Egypt. On Solomon's death he returned to his native city, 
 fortified by a marriage with an Egyptian princess, and put 
 himself at the head of Ephraim. Then he convened the 
 congress at Shechem, which issued in the revolt of all the 
 northern tribes. But the most serious difference between 
 the two accounts lies in the action ascribed to the prophets 
 Ahijah and Shemaiah. In the Hebrew the promise of king- 
 ship over ten tribes was given to Jeroboam by Ahijah at 
 Jerusalem in the time of Solomon. In the second Greek 
 account there is nothing of this, but a similar prophecy, with 
 the same symbolism of the torn mantle, is put into the mouth 
 of Shemaiah at the congress at Shechem. 
 
 The two Greek accounts of how Jeroboam became king 
 cannot possibly have stood from the first in the same volume. 
 They are alternative versions of a single story, and though 
 both of them evidently rest on Hebrew originals, they repre- 
 sent two distinct recensions of the Hebrew text. Thus it 
 appears that, when the two versions were made, the Hebrew 
 text was still so little fixed that one copy could ascribe to 
 Shemaiah, at Shechem, in the days of Eehoboam, what 
 another copy ascribed to Ahijah, at Jerusalem, in the days of 
 Solomon. It is certain that one or other account must be 
 wrong ; but it is probable that neither account forms any 
 part of the original history. If the original compiler of the 
 Book of Kings had related the story of Ahijah's tearing his 
 garment into twelve pieces, and giving ten to Jeroboam in 
 promise of sovereignty, it is hard to believe that a later 
 copyist would have ventured to suppress this narrative and 
 substitute another entirely different ; and, further, when we 
 look at Ahijah's prophecy, as it is given in 1 Kings xi. 29-39, 
 we cannot but feel that it fits badly into the context. At 
 verses 26, 27 we are promised an account of a rebellion of 
 Jeroboam against Solomon ; and verse 40, which relates that 
 
OF JEROBOAM 119 
 
 Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam, seems to imply that some 
 overt act of rebellion really took place. But the intervening 
 verses tell only of Ahijah's prophecy, which, as we are ex- 
 pressly told, was a private communication to Jeroboam of 
 which no third party could know anything. 
 
 To all this you may object that one form of the Greek 
 bears out the Hebrew text, and that it is unfair to build 
 on the second Greek version, which may be a quite recent 
 interpolation. But it is certain that the second as well as 
 the first Greek is translated from the Hebrew, and therefore 
 deserves some consideration. And, further, it is noteworthy 
 that where Ahijah is again mentioned in the Hebrew in 
 chap, xiv., the Septuagint shows a blank.-^ This, indeed, 
 seems to be due to a transposition ; for a shorter form of 
 the prophecy of Ahijah to Jeroboam's wife still occurs in 
 the second Greek, in an imjjossible place, wedged into the 
 account of the events that preceded the congress of Shechem. 
 But while the Hebrew of chap. xiv. distinctly refers to 
 Ahijah's earlier prophecy to Jeroboam, this Greek version 
 introduces him as anew personage who has not been heard of 
 before. How can we then escape the inference that both 
 parts of the story of Ahijah represent a fluctuating and 
 uncertain element in the text, which cannot be accepted with 
 confidence as part of old and genuine historical tradition ? 
 
 Now I cannot but suppose that to some of you the idea 
 that a whole narrative could be interpolated into the Hebrew 
 text must appear both startling and extravagant. And if 
 the case with which we have been dealing stood alone, one 
 would hesitate to build on it. But there are other cases of 
 the same kind, where the presence of an interpolation forces 
 itself on our notice by manifest inconsistencies in the Hebrew 
 text, and where the variations of the Septuagint serve not to 
 create the difficulty, but to remove it. One of the most 
 
 ^ In some coyues the blank is supplied from Aquila's version. 
 
120 DAVID AND 
 
 familiar and striking of these is the story of David and 
 Goliath (1 Sam. xvii.), which, as it appears in our English 
 Bible, presents inextricable difficulties. In chap. xvi. 14 sqq. 
 we are told how David is introduced to the court of Saul, 
 and becomes a favourite with the king. Then suddenly we 
 have in chap. xvii. the account of a campaign, and find that 
 David, although he was Saul's armour-bearer, did not follow 
 him to the field. This is singular enough, and it is not made 
 more intelligible by xvii. 15, which explains that David 
 used to go to and fro from Saul's court to feed his father's 
 sheep at Bethlehem (see E. V. ; the translation of A. V. is 
 inaccurate). Presently David is sent by his father on a 
 message to the camp to carry supplies to his brothers. He 
 is also entrusted with a small gift to the captain of their 
 thousand, i.e. of the local regiment of militia to which they 
 belong ; but he has no such gift for Saul, and does not even 
 present himself at headquarters to salute the king. And, 
 further, when he reaches the camp, his brethren treat him 
 with a degree of petulance not likely to be displayed even 
 by elder brothers to a youth who already stood well at couit. 
 But, in fact, it appears from the close of the chapter that 
 David is utterly unknown at court, neither Saul nor Abner 
 having ever heard of him before. But in the Septuagint 
 version xvii. 12-31, 41, 50, and also the verses from xvii. 55 
 to xviii. 5 inclusive, are omitted, and when these are removed 
 we get a far more consistent account of the matter. We 
 find David in the camp (xvii. 54) and close to the person of 
 Saul (ver. 32), just as we should expect from chap. xvi. 
 When all are afraid to face the Philistine champion, he 
 volunteers to accept the challenge, and so springs at once 
 from the position of a mere apprentice in arms to that of a 
 celebrated warrior. On the other liand, if we take the verses 
 omitted in the Septuagint and read them consecutively, we 
 cannot fail to observe that they are fragments of an independ- 
 
LECT. V GOLIATH 121 
 
 eut account wliicli gives a different turn to the whole story. 
 According to this account David was still an unknown 
 shepherd lad when his father sent him to the camp with 
 provisions for his brethren and he volunteered to fight the 
 Philistine. After the victory he was retained at court, and 
 Jonathan, Mnth impulsive generosity, at once received him as 
 his bosom friend. It is needless to insist that this account 
 is inconsistent with that which the text of the LXX. offers, 
 and that the slight attempt to reconcile the two which is 
 made in xvii. 1 5 is totally inadequate. There are only two 
 alternatives before us. Either we must recognise that the 
 LXX. has preserved the true text, and that the additions of 
 the Hebrew are interpolations, fragments of some lost history 
 of David, which have got into the Hebrew text by accident, 
 or else we must suppose that the shorter text is due to a 
 deliberate omission ; that is to say, the translators, or some 
 Hebrew scribe before their time, may have felt the difficulties 
 that encumbered the longer text, and deliberately left out a 
 number of verses in order to make the narrative run more 
 smoothly. But it is difficult to believe that simple omis- 
 sions, made without changing a word of what was left, could 
 produce a complete and consecutive narrative. It is obvious 
 that verse 32 follows on verse 11 much more smoothly than 
 verse 12 does. And it is still more remarkable that verses 
 12-31 are quite complete in themselves, as far as they go. 
 They take nothing for granted that has been already men- 
 tioned in verses 1-11, but tell all about the campaign, the 
 champion, and so forth, over again, in a way perfectly natural 
 in an independent story, but not natural if the whole chapter, 
 as it stands in the Hebrew, was originally a continuous narra- 
 tive. Note also that xvii. 1-11 are plainly part of a his- 
 tory of public affairs ; it is Saul and the children of Israel 
 that occupy the foreground of the narrative. But as plainly 
 verses 12-31 are part of a biography of David; he is the 
 
122 HISTORY OF 
 
 central figure whose movements are followed, and public affairs, 
 the campaign, the champion, the king's promise to the victor, 
 are all brought in at the point where they touch him. Thus 
 the champion comes up and is introduced to us by name, 
 while David is talking with his brethren, and the king's 
 promise is first referred to in a conversation with David. 
 Moreover, that promise itself is sufficient to show that the 
 narrative of verses 12-31 is a fragment foreign to the main 
 narrative of the Book of Samuel ; for though David did ulti- 
 mately marry the king's daughter, he did not receive her 
 hand as a reward for slaying the Philistine, but for quite 
 different services, as we shall see presently. On the whole, 
 therefore, we must conclude that the verses lacking in the 
 Septuagint are not arbitrarily omitted. They are interpola- 
 tions in the Hebrew text, extracts from a lost biography of 
 David, which some ancient reader must have inserted in his 
 copy of the Book of Samuel. At first, we may suppose, they 
 stood in the margin, and finally, like so many other marginal 
 glosses on ancient books, they got into the text ; but they 
 were not found in the text that lay before the Septuagint 
 translators.^ 
 
 Another excellent example of the critical value of the 
 Septuagint may be found in the account of the gradual 
 progress of Saul's hostility to David (1 Sam. xviii.). When 
 the women came out to meet the victorious Israelites and 
 praised David above Saul — 
 
 1 Sam. xviii. 8. — Saul was very wroth and the saying displeased him 
 [LXX. Saul], and lie said, They have ascribed unto David myriads, 
 and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what can h. have more 
 hut the kingdom ? (9.) And Saul eyed David from that day, and forward. 
 (10, 11.) Next day Saul casts a javelin at David. (12.) And Saul was 
 afraid of David, because the Lord was with him and was departed from 
 Saul. ( 1 3.) And Saul removed him from his person, and made him 
 his captain over a thousand, and he went out and in before the people. 
 (14.j And David was successful in all that he undertook, and the Lord 
 
 ^ For further remarks on this passage see additional Note A. 
 
DAVID AND SAUL 123 
 
 was with him. (15.) And when Saul saw that he was so successful, he 
 dreaded him. (16.) But all Israel loved David, because he went out 
 and came in before them. (17-19.) Saul promises Merab to David, but 
 disajjpoints him. (20-27.) Michal falls in love with David, and Saul 
 avails himself of this opportunity to put him on a dangerous enterprise 
 in the hope that he will fall. David, however, succeeds, and marries 
 Michal.i (28.) And when Saul saw, aiid knew that the Lord was with 
 David, and that Michal the daughter of Saul (LXX. all Israel) loved 
 him, (29) he came to fear David still more, and hated David continually. 
 (30.) Thereafter David again distinguishes himself in war. (xix. 1.) 
 Saul proposes to his son and servants to kill David. 
 
 The words and verses quoted or summarised in italics are 
 omitted in the Septuagint. Without them the progress of tlie 
 narrative is perspicuous and consistent. Saul's jealousy is 
 first roused by the praises bestowed on David, and he can 
 no longer bear to have him constantly attached to his person. 
 Without an open breach of relations, he removes him from 
 court by giving him an important post. David's conduct, 
 and the popularity he acquires in his new and more in- 
 dependent position, intensify Saul's former fears into a 
 fixed dread. But there is still no overt act of hostility 
 on the king's part; he hopes to lead David to destruction 
 by stimulating his ambition to a desperate enterprise; and 
 it is only when this policy fails, and David returns to court 
 a universal favourite, with the new importance conferred by 
 his alliance with the royal family, that Saul's fears wholly 
 conquer his scruples, and he plans the assassination of his 
 son-in-law. The three stages of this growing hostility are 
 marked by the rising strength of the phrases in verses 12, 
 15, 29. The additions of the Hebrew text destroy the 
 psychological truth of the narrative. Here Saul's fears 
 reach the highest pitch as soon as his jealousy is first 
 aroused, and on the very next day he attempts to slay 
 David with his own hand. In the original narrative this 
 attempt comes much later, and is accepted by David as a 
 
 ^ The words in 21 and 26, which refer to the incident of Merab, are not in 
 the LXX. 
 
124 GREEK TEXT OF 
 
 warning to flee at once (xix. 10). The other additions are 
 equally inappropriate, and the episode of Merab is particu- 
 larly unintelligible. It seems to hang together with xvii. 
 25, that is, with the interpolated part of the story of 
 Goliath ; and in 2 Sam. xxi. 8, Michal, not Merab, appears 
 as the mother of Adriel's children. In that passage the 
 English version has attempted to remove the difficulty by 
 making Michal only the foster-mother, but the Hebrew will 
 not bear such a sense. 
 
 Here, then, we have another case where all probability 
 is in favour of the Greek text, and a fresh example of 
 the principle alluded to in the last Lecture, that, where 
 there are two recensions of a passage, the shorter version 
 is in most cases to be recognised as that which is nearest 
 to the hand of the original author. Sometimes, indeed, 
 we meet with an insertion which is valuable because de- 
 rived from an ancient source, such as the quotation from 
 the Book of Jashar, preserved in the Septuagint of 1 
 Kings viii. 53. But seldom indeed did a copyist, unless 
 by sheer oversight, omit anything from the copy that lay 
 before him.-^ 
 
 A remarkable case of variations between the Hebrew and 
 the Greek is found, where we should least expect it, within 
 the Pentateuch itself The translation of the Law is the 
 oldest part of the Septuagint, and in the eyes of the Jews 
 was much the most important. And as a rule the variations 
 are here confined within narrow limits, the text being already 
 better fixed than in the historical books. But there is one 
 considerable section, Exod. xxxv.-xl., where extraordinary 
 variations appear in the Greek, some verses being omitted 
 altogether, while others are transposed and knocked about 
 with a freedom very unlike the usual manner of the 
 translators of the Pentateuch. The details of the varia- 
 
 ^ See further, on this subject, additional Note B. 
 
LECT. V EXODUS XXXV. -XL. 125 
 
 tions need not be recounted here ; they are fully exhibited 
 in tabular form in Kuenen's Onderzoek, 2d ed., vol. i. p. 77, 
 and in Driver's Introduction, p. 37 sq. The variations 
 prove either that the text of this section of the Pentateuch 
 was not yet fixed in the third century before Christ, or 
 that the translator did not feel himself bound to treat it 
 with the same reverence as the rest of the Law. But 
 indeed there are strong reasons for suspecting that the 
 Greek version of these chapters is not by the same hand 
 as the rest of the Book of Exodus, various Hebrew words 
 being represented by other Greek equivalents than those 
 used in the earlier chapters. And thus it seems possible 
 that this whole section was lacking in the copy that lay 
 before the first translator of the Law. It is true that the 
 chapters are not very essential, since they simply describe, 
 almost in the same words, the execution of the directions 
 about the tabernacle and its furniture already given in 
 chaps, xxv.-xxxi. Most modern critics hold chaps, xxxv.- 
 xl. for a late addition to the text, and see in the variations 
 between the Hebrew and the Greek proof that the form 
 of the addition underwent changes, and was not finally 
 fixed in all copies when the Septuagint version was made. 
 In favour of this view several considerations may be ad- 
 duced which it would carry us too far to consider here. 
 But in any case those who hold that the whole Pentateuch 
 dates from the time of Moses, and that the Septuagint 
 translators had to deal with a text that had been fixed 
 and sacred for a thousand years, have a hard nut to 
 crack in the wholly exceptional freedom with which the 
 Greek version treats this part of the sacrosanct Torah. 
 
 These examples must suffice as indications of what may 
 be learned from the Septuagint with regard to the way in 
 which the Biblical books were originally compiled, and 
 the changes which the text underwent at the hand of 
 
126 EARLIEST HISTORY legt. v 
 
 later editors. There is yet another important matter — the 
 history of the Old Testament Canon — which may be most 
 conveniently approached by comparing the Hebrew and 
 Greek Bibles, but this subject I propose to defer to 
 another Lecture. The lessons which we have already 
 learned from the Septuagint have applications of a far- 
 reaching kind that have not yet been considered, and to 
 which we may profitably turn our attention before we pass 
 on to a new topic. 
 
 The variations between the Hebrew and the Greek give 
 us a practical insight into the kind of changes to which 
 the Old Testament text was exposed in the course of 
 transmission, and the kind of work which compilers and 
 editors did in the way of retouching the text, rearranging 
 its component parts, and introducing new matter. But, 
 after all, the Hebrew text only represents one manuscript 
 and the Septuagint another. By direct comparison of the 
 two we learn broadly how great the variations between copies 
 still were in the third century B.C. or later, and we get also a 
 general and most instructive insight into the cause of these 
 differences. But two copies are not enough to give us a full 
 knowledge of all the variations that were still found in MSS. 
 at the time when the Septuagint version was made ; much 
 less are they enough to enable us to determine all the vicis- 
 situdes through which each book had passed in earlier ages. 
 It is to be presumed that the same causes which make the 
 Septuagint so different from the Hebrew had always been at 
 work in the transmission of the text ; and we have no right 
 to suppose that, in all passages which they affected, one or 
 other of the two copies before us must have preserved the 
 original hand of the first author. In some cases the Hebrew 
 text is evidently better than the Greek, in others the converse 
 is true ; but both give us a text which has passed through 
 the hands of many editors and copyists, who dealt very freely 
 
OF THE TEXT 127 
 
 with the materials before them, and sometimes added matter 
 of doubtful authority, derived from inferior sources. Now 
 the genealogy of manuscripts is like the genealogy of men ; 
 the copy used by the Septuagint and the copy represented by 
 our Hebrew Bible are cousins, and to judge by their general 
 resemblance not very distant cousins. At all events, as 
 cousins they have a common ancestor, or as critics would say, 
 a common archetype, a manuscript from which both texts 
 have descended through successive generations of copies and 
 copies of copies. It is not probable that this archetype was 
 separated by many generations from the time of the Septu- 
 agint translators ; it would be a very bold thing to suppose 
 that for any part of the Old Testament the two recensions 
 had branched off before the time of Ezra. To any changes 
 that may have been made on the text before the date of 
 the common archetype the comparison of the Greek and the 
 Hebrew can afford no clue ; yet the older books must have 
 been copied and recopied many times before that archetype 
 was written, and every time they were copied there was at 
 any rate a possibility that changes would creep into the text 
 — changes of the same general kind as now separate the two 
 extant recensions. To the way in which the text was treated in 
 the earliest times, hefore the date of the common archetype of the 
 Greek and Hehrew, we have no clue except internal evidcTice. 
 " Very good," says the conservative school ; " and that being 
 so, there is an end of the matter. For internal evidence is 
 notoriously uncertain and delusive, and so our best course is 
 quietly to acquiesce in what we have received by tradition." 
 This is a convenient counsel, and appeals to the indolence that 
 forms a part of every man's nature, even though he be bound 
 by the most sacred vows, and by the responsibility of high 
 cfi&ce in the churches, to give the strength of his life to the 
 study of divine truth. To such men, above all others, a short 
 and easy argument, which can be learned and repeated in an 
 
128 INTERNAL 
 
 armchair, and which serves the double purpose of furnishing 
 a plausible reply to suspicious innovations and dispensing 
 the man who uses it from making a fresh and laborious study 
 of the Bible, comes either as a godsend or as a temptation of 
 the flesh. I leave it to the consciences of those dignitaries 
 and leaders of the English and Scottish churches who have 
 refused and still refuse to study the modern criticism, to 
 determine whether their lofty indifference to matters that have 
 been to every diligent student of the Scriptures the cause of 
 great searchings of heart, is indeed a fruit of surer faith and 
 truer insight than is given to those who bear the burden and 
 heat of the day in the field of Biblical study ; but to plain 
 men, who desire to know the truth and are willing to look it 
 in the face, I cannot think that an airy contempt for all 
 internal evidence will be apt to commend itself in the view of 
 the facts that have already come before us. You propose (do 
 you ?) to acquiesce in the received tradition and to ask no 
 questions as to the history of the Biblical books beyond the 
 point for which you have a direct witness in the divergence 
 of the Greek and Hebrew texts. That would be very well if 
 the comparison of these two texts had taught you that, as far 
 back as the third century before Christ, editors and copyists 
 scrupulously abstained from touching a letter of the books 
 they received as holy. But we have learned the very opposite 
 of this. We know that changes were made as far back as we 
 can follow the history of the text by external evidence. To 
 shut our eyes to the probability that similar changes were 
 made before that time, and to do this under the name of faith, 
 is to confound faith with agnosticism. Those of us who do 
 care to know the truth for its own sake, and not simply as 
 much of the truth as is consistent with going on smoothly in 
 our old ruts, will surely remember that in all other branches 
 of ancient history internal evidence has a recognised value, 
 that for many points in the history of the Biblical records no 
 
EVIDENCE 129 
 
 other evidence is attainable, and that to reject it for this 
 history while it is accepted for all others is to place the study 
 of the Bible at a disadvantage, which in the long run can 
 only end in its entire exclusion from the field of sober 
 historical research. 
 
 The test of all this lies in the application. And to bring 
 the matter to an issue in brief compass I will not occupy your 
 time on minor matters. It would be easy to show that the 
 common archetype of the Greek and Hebrew texts already 
 contained verbal corruptions, that the text was already in 
 some instances contaminated by glosses, and so forth. But 
 these things are comparatively trivial. We have seen that 
 in later manuscripts variations occurred of a far more serious 
 type. In the story of Goliath, as we read it in Hebrew and 
 in English, two narratives are mixed up together which differ 
 in essential particulars. The one is not a mere supplement 
 to the other, but if one is true the other must be regarded 
 as containing serious errors. In that case, and in the similar 
 case of the history of David's estrangement from Saul, we still 
 have direct evidence from the Greek that one of the two 
 inconsistent stories has inferior authority and came into the 
 text at a late date. Let us ask whether there is convincing 
 internal evidence that in like manner some passages which 
 are older than the common archetype, and appear both in the 
 Greek and in the Hebrew, are nevertheless of no better autho- 
 rity than the interpolated story of David and Goliath. 
 
 To reduce this inquiry to the simplest form I will separate 
 it as far as may be from all questions as to how and when 
 discrepant accounts of the same event came into the text, and 
 will simply address myself to prove that the Bible does in 
 certain cases give two accounts of the same series of occur- 
 rences, and that both accounts cannot be followed. The cases 
 in point may again be divided into two classes. 
 
 (1.) Those in which the two accounts are still quite sepa- 
 
 9 
 
130 DISCREPANT 
 
 rate, so that we liave no more to do than to put the one 
 against the other. 
 
 (2.) Cases where the present context of the narrative 
 already presents an attempt to reconcile two accounts origin- 
 ally distinct and discordant, by working the two (or parts of 
 them) into a consecutive story. The first class of cases is 
 obviously the easiest to deal with, and I propose, therefore, 
 to begin with examples drawn from it. 
 
 (1.) A very simple case is the twofold explanation of the 
 proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" (1 Sam. x. 12 ; 
 ibid. xix. 24). The same proverb cannot have two origins, 
 but nothing is commoner than to find two traditions about 
 the origin of a single saying. The compiler of the Book of 
 Samuel had two such traditions before him, and thought it 
 best to insert both, without deciding which deserved the pre- 
 ference. And here it may be noticed further that 1 Sam. xix. 
 24 is inconsistent with 1 Sam. xv. 35, which tells us that 
 Samuel never saw Saul after the death of Agag. The Eng- 
 lish Version departs from its usual fidelity when it softens 
 this absolute statement and writes that " Samuel came no 
 more to see Saul." 
 
 An example on a larger scale is supplied by the two 
 accounts of the conquest of Canaan, and especially of southern 
 Canaan. According to Joshua x. the conquest of all southern 
 Canaan from Gibeon to Kadesh-barnea was effected in a single 
 campaign, undertaken by Joshua in person at the head of the 
 united forces of all Israel, immediately after the defeat of the 
 five kings before Gibeon. The conquest was complete, for the 
 enemy was exterminated, not a soul being left alive. But 
 according to Judges i. the land of Judah was conquered not 
 by all Israel under Joshua, but by Judah and Simeon alone. 
 As the narrative now stands we learn from Judges i. 1 that 
 the separate campaign of Judah and Simeon took place after 
 the death of Joshua. Yet the events of the campaign in- 
 
NARRATIVES 131 
 
 eluded the taking of Hebron and Debir, which, according to 
 the other account, had been already taken by Joshua, and 
 their inhabitants utterly destroyed. The difference in details 
 is insuperable ; but still more important is the fundamental 
 difference between the two accounts as regards the whole 
 method of the conquest. In Judges i. (with which agree 
 certain isolated passages of Joshua that stand out very clearly 
 from the surrounding narrative) the conquest of Canaan is 
 represented as a very gradual process, carried out by each 
 tribe fighting for its own hand ; whereas the Book of Joshua 
 depicts a series of great campaigns in which all Israel fought 
 as a united host, with the result that the Canaanites were 
 swept out of existence through the greater part of the 
 country, and their vacant lands divided by lot among the 
 tribes. It is impossible that both these accounts can be 
 correct. If Joshua had merely overrun the country, the 
 serious work of driving out the Canaanites and occupying 
 their land might have remained for the next generation ; but 
 the account in Joshua excludes any such view, and says in 
 the strongest way that the Canaanites were exterminated, and 
 their lands occupied peaceably. (See especially Josh. x. xi. 
 and xxi. 43-45.) 
 
 Plainly we have here two accounts of the conquest, which 
 were originally quite distinct and have been united only in 
 the most artificial manner by the note of time (" and it came 
 to pass after the death of Joshua"), which has been inserted 
 by a later hand in Judges i. 1. Of the two accounts that in 
 Judges is the plain historical version, while the other has this 
 characteristic mark of a later and less authoritative narrative, 
 that it gathers up all the details of slow conquest and local 
 struggle in one comprehensive picture with a single hero m 
 the foreground. In precisely the same way the later accounts 
 of the establishment of the Saxons in England extend the 
 sphere of Hengest's original conquests far beyond the narrow 
 
132 DEATH OF SISERA lect. T 
 
 region to which they are confined by older and more authentic 
 tradition. 
 
 As a last example under this head I will take the case of 
 the death of Sisera, for which we have a prose narrative in 
 Judges iv. and the statements of a contemporary poem in 
 Judges V. In the prose narrative Jael kills Sisera in his sleep 
 by hammering a wooden tent-peg into his forehead — an ex- 
 traordinary proceeding, for the peg must have been held with 
 one hand and hammered with the other, which is not a likely 
 way to drive a blunt tent-peg through and through a man's 
 skull without awakening him. But in the poem we read — 
 
 " He asked water, and she gave him milk ; 
 She brought forth sour milk in an amjale bowl." 
 
 Then, while Sisera, still standing, buried his face in the bowl, 
 and for the moment could not watch her actions — 
 
 " She put her hand to the peg, 
 And her right hand to the workmen's hammer ; 
 And she hammered Sisera, she broke his head, 
 And crushed and pierced his temples. 
 Between her feet he sank down, he fell, he lay : 
 Between her feet he sank down, he fell : 
 Where he sank, there he fell overcome." 
 
 All this is perfectly plain if we note that, according to the 
 manner of Hebrew parallelism, " she put her hand to the peg " 
 or pin, i.e. the handle of the hammer, means the same thing 
 as " and her right hand to the hammer," The act by which 
 Jael gained such renown was not the murder of a sleeping 
 man, but the use of a daring stratagem which gave her a 
 momentary chance to deliver a courageous blow. But the 
 word " peg " suggested a tent-peg, and so the later prose story 
 took it, and thereby misunderstood the whole thing. 
 
 (2.) I now pass to a more complicated class of cases, 
 where two independent accounts have been woven together 
 by a later editor so that it requires some dissection to 
 
TAKING OF AT 
 
 separate them. The most important series of such cases 
 is found in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, and 
 will engage our attention in some detail at a later point 
 in our course. For the present I will cite only one simple 
 instance from this portion of the history, viz. the account 
 of the taking of Ai given in Joshua viii. The capture of 
 this city was effected by stratagem, Joshua and the main 
 body of the host of Israel drawing the enemy away from 
 their city by a feigned retreat, so that it was left an easy 
 prey to an ambush that lay concealed on the west side 
 of the town. But of the setting of this ambush we have 
 two inconsistent accounts. According to verse 3 the ambush 
 consisted of thirty thousand men, and was sent out from 
 Gilgal by night to take up its post behind Ai, while 
 Joshua and the mass of the host did not leave Gilgal till 
 the following morning (verses 9, 10). But in verse 12 
 the ambush consists of but five thousand men, and is not 
 sent from Gilgal, but detached from the main army after 
 Joshua has taken up his position in front of Ai. These 
 are two versions of the same occurrence, for in both accounts 
 the place of ambush is the same, viz. the west side of the 
 city between Bethel and Ai, and the subsequent verses speak 
 only of one ambush. We conclude, therefore, that the editor 
 used, and to some extent fused together, two separate ac- 
 counts of the taking of Ai ; and this conclusion is confirmed 
 when we observe that verses 20 and 21 also tell the same 
 thing twice over with slight variations of detail and ex- 
 pression such as would naturally occur in two independent 
 stories. 
 
 In the books that follow Joshua, cases where two narra- 
 tives are worked together to form a mosaic of small fragments 
 become less frequent, but something of the kind can still be 
 traced in parts of the Book of Samuel, especially in the history 
 of Saul, where, as we have already seen, the Septuagint some- 
 
134 DOUBLETS IN THE 
 
 times helps us to dissect out late additions to the story. There 
 are other doublets (double versions) of passages in Saul's 
 history which are common to the Hebrew and the Greek, and 
 can be recognised only by internal evidence. Such, for 
 example, are the two accounts of Saul's rejection by Samuel 
 at Gilgal, of which one is found in 1 Sam. xv. and the other 
 from 1 Sam. xiii. 7 (second half) to ver. 15 (first half), a passage 
 to which chap. x. 8 must once have formed the introduction. 
 Any one who reads chap. xv. with care must see that the 
 writer of this narrative knew nothing of an earlier rejection 
 of Saul. And further, the Gilgal episode in chap. xiii. gives 
 no reasonable sense. Saul had waited for Samuel the full 
 time appointed ; it was a matter of urgency to delay military 
 operations no longer, and according to ancient usage the war 
 had to be opened with religious ceremonies. What was the 
 crime of performing these without Samuel's presence ? There 
 is not a word in the story to imply that no one but Samuel 
 could do acceptable sacrifice, or that the king's offence lay in 
 an encroachment on the prerogatives of the priesthood. The 
 sin, if there was a sin, lay in Saul's presuming to begin a 
 necessary war without Samuel's express orders. But it is 
 plain from the whole history that the kings of Israel never 
 were mere puppets in the hands of the prophets, and that the 
 prophets never claimed the right to make them so. The 
 story is unhistorical, and nothing more than an early and 
 unauthorised interpolation, as appears from the fact that both 
 xiii. 7 6-15 a, and the associated verse, x. 8, dislocate the context 
 of the passages in which they are inserted.^ Here we have 
 two versions of a passage in Saul's history which have been 
 allowed to stand side by side without any attempt to work 
 them into unity. But in the history of Saul's appointment 
 
 1 See Wellhausen, Composition (1889), p. 247 sq. ; Budde, RicUer und 
 Samuel, p. 191 sqq. The mention of Gilgal in 1 Sam. xiii. 4 seems to have 
 been added along with the greater interpolation, for Gilgal is an impossible 
 rendezvous for an army gathering to meet a Philistine invasion. 
 
HISTORY OF SAUL 135 
 
 as king, where there are also two accounts, each is broken up 
 and passages of the one are intercalated in the other. Tliis 
 may be shown by a table as follows — ^ 
 
 Acct. A, 1 Sam. ix., x. 1-16. xi. 1-11. xi. 15. 
 
 Acct. B, 1 Sam. viii. x. 1-24 (25-27?). (xi. 12, 13 ?). 
 
 Editor. (X. 25-27?). (xi. 12, 13?). xi. 14. 
 
 The main clues to this analysis are two. In the fir.st 
 place, the status of Samuel is different in chaps, viii. and ix. ; 
 in the former he is the acknowledged judge of all Israel, in 
 the latter he is a seer of great local reputation, but hardly 
 known outside of his own district. In the second place, 
 chap. xi. presents Saul to us as still a private person. The 
 messengers from Jabesh do not come specially to seek him, 
 and he acts by no public authority, but on his own initiative 
 under the impulse of the Divine Spirit. But in chap. ix. he 
 has already been made king amidst the acclamations of the 
 whole nation. Other points of difference I leave you to note 
 for yourselves ; the best justification of the analysis is to 
 sketch the two stories, and show that each is complete in 
 itself. 
 
 According to the older story (A) the establishment of the 
 kingship in Israel was not of man's seeking but of God. 
 The Hebrews were hard pressed by the Philistines and other 
 foes, against whom they could make no head for want of 
 organisation and a recognised captain. Only one man in 
 Israel, the seer Samuel, who in this narrative appears as 
 little known beyond his own district, saw by divine revela- 
 tion that the remedy lay in the appointment of a king, and 
 was guided to recognise the leader of Israel in a young man, 
 the son of a Benjamite noble, who came to consult him on a 
 trivial affair of lost asses. Seizing his opportunity, Samuel 
 took Saul aside and anointed him king in the name of 
 Jehovah, commanding him to return home and await an 
 
 ^ I borrow the plan of this table from Driver's tables of the analysis of the 
 Hexateuch. 
 
136 HOW SAUL LECT. V 
 
 occasion to prove his vocation by deeds : " Do as thy hand 
 shall jfind; for God is with thee." Saul obeyed the com- 
 mand, and silently returned to the daily work of his father's 
 estate; but God had changed his heart; Samuel's words 
 burned within him, and his neighbours, though they knew 
 not the cause, saw that he was a different man from what 
 he had been. A month later (1 Sam. x. 27, Sept. ; see the 
 margin of E. V.) the opportunity of action arrived. Jabesh- 
 gilead was threatened by Nahash the Ammonite, and the 
 messengers whom the Gileadites sent through the land to 
 demand succour were everywhere received with tears of 
 helpless sympathy. "But the Spirit of God came upon 
 Saul when he heard these things, and his wrath was kindled 
 greatly. And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in 
 pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by 
 the hands of messengers, and said, Whoso cometh not forth 
 after Saul [and after Samuel], so shall it be done unto his 
 oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell upon the people, and 
 they came out as one man." Nahash was defeated, the 
 Israelites knew that they had found a leader, and with one 
 consent they went to Gilgal and made Saul king before 
 the Lord. 
 
 In the second account (B) all this vivid concrete picture 
 disappears, and we find in its place a meagre skeleton of 
 narrative only just sufficient to support an exposition, in the 
 form of speeches, of the author's judgment upon the Hebrew 
 kingship as an institution not strictly compatible with the 
 ideal of Jehovah's sovereignty in Israel. In this narrative 
 Samuel appears as the recognised head and supreme judge 
 of all Israel. In his old age, when he has delegated part of 
 his functions to his sons and they prove corrupt judges, the 
 people insist on the appointment of a king. Samuel re- 
 monstrates, but is divinely instructed to grant their wish, 
 after warning them that to seek a human king is to depart 
 
BECAME KING 137 
 
 from Jehovah, and that they will repent too late of their 
 disobedience, when they experience the heavy hand of 
 despotism. But as they persist in their wish a solemn 
 convocation is called at Mizpeh, and appeal is made to the 
 sacred lot to determine the tribe, the family, and the man on 
 whom Jehovah's choice falls. When the lot falls on Saul he 
 is nowhere to be found, till a second oracle reveals that he is 
 hidden among the baggage. " And they ran and fetched him 
 thence : and when he stood among the people, he was higher 
 than any of the people from his shoulders and upward. And 
 Samuel said to all the people. See ye him whom the Lord 
 hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people ? 
 And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king." 
 
 It is not so easy, nor is it necessary for our present 
 purpose, to follow the double thread of the narrative farther. 
 All critics agree that the immediate sequel of the first account 
 is found in chaps, xiii. xiv., while, on the other hand, chaps, 
 xii. and xv. stand in close connection with the second account. 
 Further, xi. 14, which speaks of renewing the kingdom, is 
 an editorial addition designed to harmonise the two narratives 
 by suggesting that Saul was crowned twice. But it is not 
 quite clear whether x. 25-27, xi. 12, 13, are also editorial 
 additions (Budde) or fragments of the second narrative. On 
 the latter view we must, I think, suppose that that narrative 
 contained an account of the war with Nahash in a different 
 form, associating Samuel with the campaign, and making 
 Saul act at the head of the valiant men whose hearts God 
 had touched (x. 26). It is unreasonable to expect to attain 
 certainty on such minor points ; nor do they affect the broad 
 lines of our analysis and the broad contrast between the first 
 account, in which the events unfold themselves naturally, so 
 that the Divine Spirit in Samuel and Saul guides the action 
 of human forces without suppressing or distorting them, and 
 the second account, in which the supernatural element is far 
 
138 CHARACTERISTICS OF lfxt. v 
 
 more mechanical, and, if I may venture to use such a word, 
 unreal. In saying this I do not mean that the second account 
 is a deliberate fiction ; the incident of Saul's hiding in the 
 baggage is evidently traditional, and indeed has close parallels 
 in Arabian folk-lore.-^ But the two traditions cannot both 
 be equally genuine, and there can be no doubt which is the 
 older and better one. In the second account we already 
 see the distorting influence on historical tradition of that 
 mechanical conception of Jehovah's rule in Israel which 
 prevailed more and more among the later Jews, and ulti- 
 mately destroyed all feeling for historical reality, and at the 
 same time all true insight into the methods of divine 
 governance. 
 
 According to the prophets and apostles God's government 
 in Israel differs from His government of the rest of the world 
 in so far as Israel had greater privileges and greater responsi- 
 bilities (Amos iii. 2, ix. 7, 8 ; Acts xvii. 30 ; Kom. ii. 12) ; a 
 thesis which by no means involves, but rather implicitly 
 excludes, the notion that the boundaries of Canaan formed 
 a magic circle, within which the ordinary laws of Providence 
 were suspended, and the sequence of well-doing and pros- 
 perity, sin and punishment, was determined by a special and 
 immediate operation of divine sovereignty. But it requires 
 insight and faith to see the hand of God in the ordinary 
 processes of history, whereas extraordinary coincidences 
 between conduct and fortune are fitted to impress the dullest 
 minds. Hence, when the religious lesson of any part of 
 history has been impressed on the popular mind, there is 
 
 ^ See the story about Mohammed in Ibn Hisham, p. 116, and that about 
 Mosailima in Ibn Sa'd, ed. Wellhausen, No. 101. These stories may be 
 influenced by the Bible, but it is remarkable that both of them bring out the 
 point of the incident more clearly than the passage of Samuel expi-esses it. 
 The man who stays behind with the baggage is the youngest or obscurest of 
 the company. Saul remained there because " he was little in his own sight " 
 (1 Sam. XV. 17). Compare the similar incidents in the story of David, 
 1 Sam. xvi. 11, xvii. 28. 
 
LECT. V LATER NAEEATIVES 139 
 
 always a tendency to reshape the story in such a way as to 
 bring the point out sharply and drop all details that have 
 not a direct religious significance. There are a hundred 
 examples of this in modern history : the story of the Armada, 
 for example, is habitually told in a way that accentuates the 
 providential interposition which preserved English Protest- 
 antism — " afflavit Deus et dissipati sunt," as the commemo- 
 rative medal has it — by laying too little weight on the action 
 of human forces in which God's providence was not less truly, 
 though it was less strikingly, present. The history of the 
 Old Testament, taken as a whole, forms so remarkable a chain 
 of evidence establishing the truth of what the prophets had 
 taught as to the laws of God's government on earth, that we 
 cannot be surprised to find that in the circles influenced by 
 prophetic ideas all parts of the historical tradition came to 
 be studied mainly in the spirit of religious pragmatism. 
 That is to say, religious students of the past times of the 
 nation concentrated their attention in an increasing degree, 
 and ultimately in an exclusive way, on the explanation of 
 events by religious considerations. The effect of this, 
 especially after the establishment of the post-exile theocracy, 
 was that the parts and incidents of the history which did 
 not admit of a direct religious interpretation fell out of sight, 
 and that the story of Israel's past ultimately resolved itself 
 into a mechanical sequence of sin and punishment, obedience 
 and prosperity. The point of view which Jesus condemns in 
 Luke xiii. 1-4, in speaking of the Galileans whose blood 
 Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, is that from which 
 later Judaism looks at the whole sacred history, with the 
 result that the manifold variety of God's workings among 
 men shrivels up into a tedious repetition of lifeless formulas. 
 That this is true as regards the Eabbinical literature no 
 one will attempt to deny; but the example that has come 
 before us leads us to consider whether, in a less degree, 
 
140 THE BOOK OF 
 
 something of the same tendency may not have to be allowed 
 for in interpreting parts of the Bible. 
 
 The chief case in point, upon which critics have come to 
 a very definite conclusion, is that of the Chronicles as com- 
 pared with the Book of Kings. Our traditional education, 
 and our hereditary way of looking at the Bible, incline us 
 to suppose that all books of the Old Testament are of equal 
 value as historical authorities; and that, when Kings and 
 Chronicles appear to differ, it is as legitimate to read the older 
 history in the light of the newer as vice versd. In dealing 
 with sources for profane history, however, we should never 
 dream of putting books of such different age on the same 
 footing ; the Book of Kings was substantially complete before 
 the Exile, in the early years of the sixth century B.C., while 
 the Chronicler gives genealogies that go down at least six 
 generations after Zerubbabel, and probably reach to con- 
 temporaries of Alexander the Great.-^ This is an interval of 
 at least two hundred and fifty years; and it must also be 
 remembered that the Book of Kings is largely made up of 
 verbal extracts from much older sources, and for many purposes 
 may be treated as having the practical value of a contem- 
 porary history. Hence, according to the ordinary laws of 
 research, the Book of Kings is a source of the first class, and 
 the Chronicles have a very secondary value. It is the rule 
 of all historical study to begin with the records that stand 
 
 •^ The genealogy of the descendants of Zerubbabel in 1 Chron. iii. 19 sqq. 
 is somewhat confused, but it seems to be impossible by any fair treatment of 
 the text to get less than six generations (Hananiah, Shechaniah, Shemaiah, 
 Neariah, Elioenai, Hodaiah and his brethren). The text of the Septuagint 
 gives eleven generations, and this may be the true reading, for it removes the 
 obscurity that attaches to the Hebrew text by the very slight correction, four 
 times reading 1J3 for ""JD, and once adding 132 before "'JIT (at the end of 
 verse 21). But further it is almost certain tliat Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah 
 once formed a single book {infra, p. 182 sq.), and in Nehemiah we have mention 
 of Darius Codomannus and of Jaddua, who was high priest at the time of the 
 Macedonian conquest (Neh. xii. 22). See further Driver, Introduction, 
 p. 486, p. 511 sq. 
 
CHRONICLES 141 
 
 nearest to the events recorded and are written under the 
 living impress of the life of the time described. Manj 
 features of old Hebrew custom, which are reflected in lively 
 form in the Former Prophets, were obsolete long before the 
 time of the Chronicler, and could not be revived except by 
 archaeological research. The whole life of the old kingdom 
 was buried and forgotten ; Israel was no longer a nation, but 
 a cburch. No theory of inspiration, save the theory of the 
 Koran, which boasts that its fabulous legends were super- 
 naturally conveyed to Mohammed without the use of docu- 
 ments or tradition, can affirm that a history written under 
 these conditions is a primary source for the study of the 
 ancient kingdom.^ It is manifest that the Chronicler, writ- 
 ing at a time when the institutions of Ezra had universal 
 currency, had no personal knowledge of the greatly different 
 praxis of Israel before the Exile, and that the general picture 
 which he gives of the life and worship of the Hebrews under 
 the old monarchy cannot have the same value for us as the 
 records of the Book of Kings. These considerations alone are 
 sufficient to condemn the use made of the Chronicles by a 
 certain school of theologians, who, finding that the narrative 
 of that book comes closer to their own traditional ideas than 
 the record of the ancient histories, seek to explain away 
 everything in the latter which the younger historian does not 
 homologate. The Book of Kings, for example, contains a 
 mass of evidence that the best monarchs of Judah before the 
 Captivity countenanced practices inconsistent with the Penta- 
 teuchal Law. Thus we are told in 1 Kings xv. 14, xxii. 43, 
 that Asa and Jehoshaphat did not abolish the high places. 
 The Chronicler, on the contrary, says that they did abolish 
 them (2 Chron. xiv. 5, xvii. 6) — a flat contradiction. There 
 
 1 Mohammed boasts of his fabulous version of the story of Joseph, tliat 
 he had it by direct revelation, not having known it before (Sura xii. 3). The 
 Bible historians never made such a claim, which to thinking minds is one of 
 the clearest proofs of Mohammed's imposture. 
 
142 THE BOOK OF 
 
 is an end to historical study if in sucli a case we accept the 
 later account against the earlier; for it is evident that the 
 Chronicler, writing at a time when every one was agreed in 
 rejecting high places as idolatrous, was unable to conceive 
 that good kings could have tolerated theni.-^ We shall see, 
 however, in Lecture VIII., that a mass of concurrent evidence, 
 derived from the prophets as well as the historical books, 
 shows that there was no feeling against the high places even 
 in the most enlightened circles in Israel till long after the 
 time of Asa and Jehoshaphat. 
 
 The cases where the Chronicler flatly contradicts the 
 Book of Kings are pretty numerous ; but there is not one of 
 them where an impartial historical judgment will decide in 
 favour of the later account. It is true that the Chronicler 
 had access to some old sources now lost, especially for the 
 genealogical lists which form a considerable part of his 
 work.^ But for the history proper, his one genuine source 
 was the series of the Former Prophets, the Books of Samuel 
 and especially of Kings. These books he read in manuscripts 
 which occasionally preserved a good reading that has been 
 corrupted in the Massoretic text {supra, p. 68), but where 
 he adds to the narrative of Kings or departs from it, his 
 variations are never such as to inspire confidence. In large 
 measure these variations are simply due to the fact that, 
 as we have already seen in the example of the high places, 
 he takes it for granted that the religious institutions of his 
 own time must have existed in the same form in old Israel. 
 Hence he assumes that the Levitical organisation of his own 
 
 ^ That here the Chronicler is arbitrarily changing the record appears 
 incidentally from 2 Chron. xv. 17, xx. 33, where he is inconsiderate enough 
 to copy the opposite statement of 1 Kings in connection with some other 
 particulars which he has occasion to transfer from that book to his own. 
 
 - The genealogies are not all of equal value, but the great historical im- 
 portance of some of them has been demonstrated by Wellhausen in his 
 Habilitatiouschrift, I)e Gentibus et Familiis Judacis, Gott, 1870. Only a 
 summary of the results is reproduced in his Prolegomena. 
 
CHRONICLES 143 
 
 time, and especially the three choirs of singers, were estab- 
 lished by David. Of all this the old history has not a word, 
 and the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah show that even after 
 the restoration, a much simpler system was in force, and 
 was only gradually elaborated into the form described in 
 Chronicles (infra, Lecture VIL). But, indeed, the text of 
 Chronicles contains distinct internal evidence that the author 
 is really describing later institutions, although he brings his 
 description into the life of David. The gates, etc., mentioned 
 in 1 Chron. xxvi. presuppose the existence of a temple, and 
 as the gate Barbar bears a Bersian name, it is clear that he is 
 thinking of the second Temple.-^ And this case does not 
 stand alone. In 2 Chron. xiii. 10 sqq. Abijah boasts against 
 Jeroboam of the superior legitimacy of the ritual of Jerusalem, 
 which was conducted according to all the rules of the Law. 
 But the ritual described is that of the second Temple, for 
 reference is made to the golden candlestick. In Solomon's 
 Temple there was not one golden candlestick in front of the 
 oracle, but ten (1 Kings vii. 49). Burther, Abijah speaks of 
 the morning and evening holocausts. But there is a great 
 concurrence of evidence that the evening sacrifice of the 
 first Temple was not a holocaust, but a cereal oblation 
 (1 Kings xviii. 36, Heh. ; 2 Kings xvi. 15 ; Ezra ix. 4, Heh.)} 
 
 1 A curious point, remarked by Ewald (Lehrhuch, § 274 b), and more 
 clearly brought out by Wellbausen, is that six heads of the choir of the 
 guild of Heniau bear the names — (1) I have given great (2) and lofty help 
 (3) to him that sat in distress ; (4) I have spoken (5) a superabundance of 
 (6) prophecies (1 Chron. xxv. 4). As actual names of men, in the time of 
 David, these designations ai'e impossible. But the words seem to form an 
 anthem in which six choirs of singers may well have had parts, and these 
 may have received names from their parts. In like manner Jeduthun, which, 
 if the description of the Temple music is literal history of David's time, must 
 be the name of a chief singer, is really, as we see from the titles of the Psalms, 
 a nmsical term. 
 
 * Cp. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, chap. ix. note 1. Note also, as 
 characteristic of the freedom used with facts in the speeches in Chronicles, 
 that in 2 Chron. xiii. 7 Abijah says that Jeroboam's rebellion took place 
 when Rehoboam was a lad and soft-hearted, and could not pluck up courage 
 
144 THE BOOK OF 
 
 So again, in 2 Cliron. v. 4, the ark is borne by Levites, accord- 
 ing to the rule of the Levitical law ; but the parallel passage 
 of 1 Kings viii. 3 says that it was borne by the priests, and 
 the latter statement is in accordance with Deut. xxxi., and 
 with all the references to the carrying of the ark in the pre- 
 exilic histories (Josh. iii. 3, vi. 6, viii. 33 ; 2 Sam. xv. 
 24, 29). Once more, in 2 Kings xi., Jehoiada's assistants in 
 the revolution which cost Athaliah her life are the foreign 
 bodyguard, which we know to have been employed in the 
 sanctuary up to the time of Ezekiel {infra, p. 262). But 
 in 2 Chron. xxiii. the Carians and the footguards are replaced 
 by the Levites, in accordance with the rule of the second 
 Temple, which did not allow aliens to approach so near to the 
 holy things. 
 
 These examples are enough to show that the Chi-onicler 
 is no authority in any point that touches difference of usage 
 between his own time and that of the old monarchy ; but 
 further, he does not hesitate to make material changes in the 
 tenor of narratives that do not agree with his doctrine of 
 the uniformity of religious institutions before and after the 
 Exile. Of this one example must suffice. In 2 Kings xxiii. 
 Josiah's action against the high places is represented as 
 taking place in the eighteenth year of his reign, as the imme- 
 diate result of his repentance on hearing the words of the 
 Law found in the Temple, and in pursuance of the covenant 
 of reformation made on that occasion. But in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 
 the reformation begins in Josiah's twelfth year, that is, as 
 soon as he emerged from his minority.-^ Josiah was a good 
 
 to withstand the rebels. But according to 1 Kings xiv. 21 the "lad" was 
 forty-one years old, and he certainly did not lose his kingdom for softness of 
 heart. 
 
 ^ Josiah came to the throne when he was eight years old, so that in his 
 twelfth year he would be nineteen years old. He began to seek God, says the 
 Chronicler, in the eighth year of his reign, i.e. at the age of fifteen. Accord- 
 ing to the Mishna {Aboth, v. 21) a boy should begin to learn Talmud at 
 fifteen, marry at eighteen, and pursue business at twenty. 
 
CHRONICLES 145 
 
 king, and therefore the Chronicler felt that there must be a 
 mistake in the account which made him wield an independ- 
 ent sceptre for many years before he touched the idolatrous 
 abuses of his land. That the result of this is to put the 
 solemn repentance and covenant of reformation ten years 
 after the reformation itself is an inconsistency which seems 
 never to have struck him. 
 
 The tendency to construct history according to a mechan- 
 ical rule, which we meet with in this example, is only one side 
 of the general tendency of later Judaism, already characterised, 
 to sacrifice all interest in the veritable facts of sacred history 
 to a mechanical conception of God's government of the world 
 at large, and of Israel in particular. Another side shows 
 itself in the Book of Chronicles in the constant endeavour to 
 make the divine retribution act immediately, after the fashion 
 of the falling of the tower of Siloam. This is sometimes 
 spoken of as a moralising tendency, and the name is not 
 amiss if we make it clear to ourselves that it is moralising of 
 a different kind from what we find in the prophets. To 
 prophets like Amos and Isaiah, the retributive justice of God 
 is manifest in the general course of history. The fall of the 
 Hebrew nation is the fruit of sin and rebellion against 
 Jehovah's moral commands ; but God's justice is mingled 
 with long-suffering, and the prophets do not for a moment 
 suppose that every sin is promptly punished, and that tem- 
 porary good fortune is always the reward of righteousness. 
 But a very large part of the novel additions made in the 
 Chronicles to the old history is meant to show that in Israel 
 retribution followed immediately on good or bad conduct, 
 and especially on obedience or disobedience to prophetic 
 warnings. Some good remarks on this head, with a list of 
 illustrative passages, will be found in Driver's Introduction, 
 p. 494; I must here content myseK with one or two con- 
 spicuous examples out of many. 
 
146 HISTORICAL VALUE lect. v 
 
 In 1 Kings xxii. 48 we read that Jehoshaphat built 
 Tarshish ships (i.e. such great ships as the Phoenicians used 
 in their trade with southern Spain) at Ezion-geber for the 
 South Arabian gold trade ; but the ships were wrecked before 
 starting. For this the Chronicler seeks a religious reason ; 
 and, as 1 Kings goes on to say that, after the disaster, Ahaziah 
 of Israel offered to join Jehoshaphat in a fresh enterprise, and 
 the latter declined, we are told in 2 Chron, xx. 37 that the 
 king of Israel was partner in the ships that were wrecked, 
 and that Jehoshaphat was warned by a prophet of the certain 
 failure of an undertaking in which he was associated with 
 the wicked Ahaziah. That this is a mere pragmatical in- 
 ference from the story in Kings, and does not rest on some 
 good independent source, is confirmed by the fact that the 
 Chronicler misunderstands the words of 1 Kings, and changes 
 " Tarshish ships " into " ships to go to Tarshish," as if ships 
 for the Mediterranean trade could possibly be built on the 
 Gulf of Akaba in the Eed Sea! On the other hand, in 
 2 Ivings iii., we read of a war with Moab, in which Jehosha- 
 phat was associated with the wicked house of Ahab, and 
 came off scatheless. In Chronicles this war is entirely 
 omitted, and in its place we have a war of Jehoshaphat alone 
 against Moab, Ammon, and Edom, in which the Jewish king, 
 having begun the campaign with suitable prayer and praise, 
 has no further task than to spoil the dead of the enemy who 
 have fallen by one another's hands. The idea of this easy 
 victory is taken from the story of the real war with Moab 
 (2 Kings iii. 21 sq.), where we learn that the Moabites fell into 
 a trap by imagining that their enemies of Israel, Judah, and 
 Edom had quarrelled and destroyed one another. Let me 
 ask you, taking this hint with you, to read 2 Kings iii. and 
 2 Chron. xx. carefully through, and consider the difference 
 between the old and the new conception of the supernatural 
 in Israel's history. In reading the old account observe that 
 
OF CHRONICLES 147 
 
 verses 16, 17, 20 describe the way iu which the underground 
 water descending from the Edomite mountains can still be 
 obtained, by digging water pits, in the Wady el-Ahsa (" A'alley 
 of water pits "), on the southern frontier of Moab, which was 
 the scene of the events in question.-^ 
 
 In Chronicles the kings undergo alternate good and bad 
 fortune, according to their conduct immediately before. Eeho- 
 boam is first good and strong, then he forsakes the Law, and 
 Shishak invades the land ; then he repents, and the rest of his 
 reign is prosperous. And so it goes with all his successors. 
 According to 1 Kings xv. 14 Asa's heart was perfect with 
 the Lord all his days. But in his old age he had a disease 
 in his feet (1 Kings xv. 23). Accordingly the Chronicler 
 tells us that for three years before this misfortune (2 Chron. 
 xvi. 1, 12) he had done several wicked things, one of which, 
 his alliance with Damascus, is also recounted in Kings, but 
 without the slightest hint that there was anything in it dis- 
 pleasing to God. To bring this incident into the place that 
 fits his theodicea, the Chronicler has to change the chronology 
 of Baasha's reign (2 Chron. xvi. 1 compared with 1 Kings 
 XV. 33). Similarly the misfortunes of Jehoash, Amaziah, 
 Azariah are all explained by sins of which the old history 
 knows nothing, and Pharaoh Necho himself is made a pro- 
 phet, that the defeat and death of Josiah may be due to 
 disobedience to revelation (2 Chron. xxxv. 21, 22), while, on 
 the other hand, the wicked Manasseh is converted into a 
 penitent to justify Ins long reign. All this is exactly in 
 the style of the Jewish Midrash; it is not history but 
 Haggada, moralising romance attaching to historical names 
 
 ^ See Wellhausen, Composition, p. 287, with Wetzstein in Delitzsch, Genesis, 
 ed. 4, p. 567 as there cited. Cp. further Doughty, Travels, i 26 sq., and for 
 the kind of bottom, yiekling water under the sand, implied in the name el- 
 Ahsa (el-Hisa, el-Hisy), Yacut, i. 148 ; Zohair, ed. Landberg, p. 95 ; Ibn 
 Hisham, Slra, p. 71, 1. 9. The point of the miracle lies in the copiousness of 
 the supply obtained by the use of ordinary means. 
 
148 CHRONICLES 
 
 and events. And the Chronicler himself gives the name of 
 Midrash (E. V. " story ") to two of the sources from which he 
 drew (2 Chron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27), so that there is really no 
 mystery as to the nature of his work when it departs from 
 the old canonical histories. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on this topic, because the 
 practice of using the Chronicles as if they had the same his- 
 torical value as the older books has done more than any other 
 one cause to prevent a right understanding of the Old Testa- 
 ment and of the Old Dispensation. To admit what I think 
 has been proved in the previous pages involves a serious 
 shock to received ideas of the equal authority of the whole 
 Hebrew Canon ; but if the thing is true — and the proofs that 
 it is true may be greatly added to — the consequences must 
 be faced. Moreover, we shall see in the next Lecture that 
 the difficulty as to admitting the truth which is supposed to 
 arise from the history of the Canon is really imaginary, and 
 that no sacred authority binding on the Christian conscience 
 fixes the precise limits of the Canon, and excludes all 
 criticism of its contents. 
 
LECTUEE VI 
 
 THE HISTOEY OF THE CANON 
 
 In this Lecture I propose to discuss the main points in the 
 history of the Old Testament Canon ; inquiring what books 
 were accepted by the Jews as Sacred Scriptures ; at what 
 date the list of canonical books was closed ; and on what 
 principles the list was formed.^ Here I would again ask you 
 to begin by comparing the Hebrew Bible with the Greek, 
 
 The Hebrew Bible has twenty-four books, arranged in 
 three great sections — the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagio- 
 grapha. The first section consists of the Pentateuch, or, as 
 the Hebrews call it, the "Eive-Eifths of the Law." The 
 second section has two subdivisions — (a) The old histories, 
 which were believed to have prophets for their authors, and 
 are called the " Earlier Prophets," or, more exactly, the 
 " Former Prophets " ; and (&) the prophetic books proper, 
 which are called the " Latter Prophets." In these designa- 
 tions, the words " Former " and " Latter " cannot refer to the 
 date of composition, but must be taken to indicate the order 
 of the books in the canonical collection. Each subdivision 
 of the Prophets contains four books ; for the Hebrews count 
 
 ^ On the subject of this Lecture see especially the excellent little book of 
 Professor G. "Wildeboer of Groningen {Die Entstchung des Alttestamentlichen 
 Kanons, ed. 2, Gotha, 1891). Many points of detail to which it was impossible 
 to refer in the present volume are lucidly discussed by Dr. AVildeboer, and by 
 my friend Prof. Ryle, whose Canon of the 0. T. (London, 1892) reaches me as 
 these sheets are passing through the press. 
 
150 TWENTY-FOUR BOOKS lect. yi 
 
 but one book of Samuel and one of Kings, and the Twelve 
 Minor Prophets are reckoned as one book. The third section 
 of the Hebrew Bible consists of what are called the Hagio- 
 grapha, or " Kethiibim," that is [sacred] writings. At the head 
 of these stand three poetical books — Psalms, Proverbs, and 
 Job. Then come the five small books of Canticles, Euth, 
 Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, which the Hebrews 
 name the Megilloth, or " rolls." They have this name because 
 they alone among the Hagiographa were used on certain 
 annual occasions in the service of the synagogue, and for this 
 purpose were written each in a separate volume. Last of all, 
 at the end of the Hebrew Bible, stand Daniel, Ezra with 
 Nehemiah (forming a single book), and the Chronicles, also 
 forming a single book. As the contents of these books are 
 historical and prophetical, we should naturally have expected 
 to find them in the section of Prophets. The reason why 
 they hold a lower place will fall to be examined later. This 
 number of twenty-four books, and the division into the Law, 
 the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, were perfectly fixed dur- 
 ing the Talmudic period, that is, from the third to the sixth 
 century of our era.^ The order in each division was to some 
 extent variable.- The number of twenty-four books seems 
 
 1 The scheme of the Hebrew Canon may be put thus : — 
 
 I. The five-fifths of the Law . . .... 5 
 
 II. The Prophets- 
 Earlier Prophets : Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kuigs . . .4 
 Later Prophets : Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Twelve . . 4 
 III. Hagiographa or KetHbim — 
 
 Poetical Books : Psalms, Proverbs, Job ... . .3 
 
 The Megilloth : Canticles, Ruth, Lameu., Eccles., Esther . . 5 
 
 Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles .... 3 
 
 24 
 
 2 The fundamental passage in the Babylonian Gemara, Bdhd Bdthra, fF. 14, 
 15, says, "The order of the prophets is Joshua and Judges, Samuel and 
 Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Isaiah and the Twelve. Hosea is the first 
 because it is written, 'the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea' 
 (Hos. i. 2). . . . But, because his prophecy is written along with the latest 
 prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, he is counted with them. Isaiah 
 is earlier than Jeremiah and Ezekiel. . . . But because Kings ends with 
 
LECT. VI OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 151 
 
 to be found in the Second (or Fourth) Book of Esdras, 
 towards the close of the first Christian century.-^ 
 
 Another division into twenty-two books is adopted in the 
 earliest extant list of the contents of the Hebrew Bible, that 
 given by Josephus in his first book against Apion, chap. viii. 
 This scheme was still well known in the time of Jerome, who 
 prefers to reckon twenty-two books, joining Euth to Judges, 
 and Lamentations to Jeremiali ; although he also mentions 
 the Talmudic enumeration of twenty-four books, and a third 
 scheme which reckons twenty-seven, dividing Samuel, Kings, 
 Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah, as is done in our modern 
 Bibles, and separating Jeremiah from Lamentations. It is 
 proper to observe that the scheme of twenty-two books is 
 conformed to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. 
 Jerome draws a parallel between this arrangement and the 
 alphabetical acrostics in the Psalms, Lamentations, and Pro- 
 verbs xxxi. 9-31, and there can be little doubt that it is 
 artificial. ISTor is there any clear evidence that it had an 
 established place in Palestinian tradition.^ 
 
 destruction and Jeremiah is all destruction, while Ezekiel beginning with de- 
 struction ends in consolation and Isaiah is all consolation, destruction is 
 joined to destruction and consolation to consolation. The order of the 
 Hagiographa is Ruth and Psalms and Job and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
 Canticles, and Lamentations, Daniel and Esther, Ezra and Chronicles." 
 Compare Miiller's note on Sopherim, iii. 5. Isaiah follows Ezekiel in some 
 MSS. (Lagarde, Symmida, i. 142), and the order of the Hagiographa varies 
 considerably ; com p. Driver, Introcl. p. xxviii., and Ryle, pp. 229, 281. 
 
 1 Even after Professor Bensly's researches the Latin text of 4 Esdras 
 xiv. 44, 46 remains obscure. Nor is the evidence of the Oriental versions quite 
 unambiguous. But on the whole it can hardly be doubted that the original 
 text spoke of ninety-four books, of which seventy were esoteric, leaving 
 twenty-four published and canonical books. (See infra, p. 168.) 
 
 ^ See the three enumerations in Jerome, Frol. Galeat. His order for 
 the Hagiographa is Job, David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Daniel, 
 Chronicles, Ezra, Esther. On the Canon of Josephus see below, p. 164 and note. 
 I agree with Wikleboer that it is very doubtful whether the division into 
 twenty-two books ever had an established place in Palestine. Jerome himself 
 in his preface to Daniel says that the Jews reckon five books of the Law, eight 
 Prophets, and eleven Hagiographa ; the testimony of Origen, ap. Eus. H. E. 
 vi. 25, is plainly not an unmixed reflex of Palestinian tradition, since it 
 
152 CANON OF THE lect. vi 
 
 It is often taken for granted that the list of Old Testa- 
 ment books was quite fixed in Palestine at the time of 
 our Lord, and that the Bible acknowledged by Jesus was pre- 
 cisely identical with our own. But it must be remembered 
 that we have no list of the sacred books earlier than the 
 time of Josephus, who wrote at the very end of the first 
 century. Before this date the nearest approach to a cata- 
 logue is the panegyric on the famous men of Israel in Eccle- 
 siasticus xliv.-l., in which authors are expressly included. 
 The writer takes up the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor 
 Prophets in order. He also mentions the psalms of David, 
 and the songs proverbs and parables of Solomon. Daniel 
 and Esther are passed over in silence, and Nehemiah is 
 mentioned without Ezra. ISTeither Philo nor the New Testa- 
 ment enables us to make up a complete list of Old Testament 
 books, for there are some of the Hagiographa (Esther, Canticles, 
 Ecclesiastes) which are quoted neither by the apostles nor by 
 their Alexandrian contemporary. On the other hand, there 
 is no reason to believe that any books were received in Pales- 
 tine at the time of Christ which have now fallen out of the 
 Canon. 
 
 When we turn to the Septuagint we find, in the first 
 place, a very different arrangement of the books. There is 
 no division into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa; but the 
 
 includes not only Lamentations but the Epistle of Jeremiah in the Book of 
 Jeremiah ; and no weight can be laid on Epiphanius, De Mens, et Pond. 4 
 (ed. Lagarde, p. 156), whose division into four pentateuchs and two odd 
 books stands quite by itself. Finally, the statement that the Book of Jubilees 
 reckoned twenty-two books is not borne out by the extant (Ethiopic) text, but 
 rests on a doubtful inference from Syncellus (p. 5, Bonn ed. ) and Cedrenus (p. 9, 
 Bonn ed.), where the citation from the Leptogenesis (Book of Jubilees) may 
 refer only to the parallel between the twenty-two works of creation and the 
 twenty-two generations from Adam to Jacob (against Ronsch, Buch der Jub. 
 (1874), p. 527 sq.) As Josephus does not follow the Hebrew division or arrange- 
 ment of the books, it is not safe, when the other authorities thus break 
 down, to assume that he had Hebrew authority for the number twenty-two. 
 
LECT. VI ALEXANDRIAN JEWS 153 
 
 Law and the historical books come first, the poetical and 
 didactic books follow, and the prophets stand at the end as 
 in our English Bibles. But there is another difference. 
 j\ISS. and editions of the Septuagint contain, interspersed 
 through the books of the Hebrew Canon, certain additional 
 writings which we call Apocrypha. The Apocrypha of the 
 Septuagint are not precisely identical wdth those given in the 
 English Authorised Version. The apocalyptic book called 
 Second (or Fourth) Esdras is not extant in Greek. The 
 Prayer oi Manasseh is not in all copies of the Septuagint, but 
 is found in the collection of hymns or Canticles which some 
 ]\ISS. append to the Psalms. All our MSS. of the LXX. are 
 of Christian origin, and these Canticles comprise the Magni- 
 ficat and other JSTew Testament hymns. On the other hand, 
 the Septuagint reckons four books of Maccabees, while the 
 English Apocrypha have only two. 
 
 The additional books contained in the Septuagint may be 
 divided into three classes : — 
 
 I. Books translated from the Hebrew. Of these 1 Macca- 
 bees and Ecclesiasticus were still extant in Hebrew in the time 
 of Jerome, and the Books of Tobit and Judith were translated 
 or corrected by him from Aramaic copies. Baruch, in his 
 day, was no longer current among the Hebrews. 
 
 IT. Books originally composed in Greek by Hellenistic 
 Jews, such as the Second Book of Maccabees, the principal 
 part of which is an epitome of a larger work by Jason of 
 Cyrene, and the Wisdom of Solomon, which, though it pro- 
 fesses to be the work of the Hebrew monarch, is plainly the 
 production of an Alexandrian Jew trained in the philosophy 
 of his time. 
 
 HI. Books based on translations from the canonical 
 books, but expanded and embellished with arbitrary and 
 fabulous additions. In the Greek Book of Esther the " Addi- 
 tions " given in the English Apocrypha form an integral part 
 
154 CANON OF THE 
 
 of the text. Similarly, the Septuagint Daniel embodies 
 Susanna, the Song of the Three Children, and Bel and the 
 Dragon ; but these are perhaps later additions to the Greek 
 version. 1 Esdras is based on extracts from Chronicles, Ezra, 
 and Nehemiah, but treats the text freely, and adds the 
 fabulous history of Zerubbabel. 
 
 The style of literature to which this third class of Apo- 
 crypha belongs was also known in Palestine ; and we still 
 possess many Eabbinical books of similar character, contain- 
 ing popular reproductions of the canonical books interwoven 
 with fabulous additions. This kind of literature is a branch 
 of the IMidrash, or treatment of the sacred books for purposes 
 of popular edification. It seems to have had its origin in the 
 Synagogue, where the early Meturgemans and preachers did 
 not confine themselves to a faithful reproduction of Bible 
 teaching, but added all manner of Haggada, ethical and 
 fabulous, according to the taste of the time. But in Pales- 
 tine the Haggadic Midrash was usually kept distinct from 
 the text, and handed down either orally or in separate books. 
 In Alexandria, on the contrary, the Jews seem to have been 
 content, in certain instances, to receive books through a 
 Midrash instead of an exact version, or to admit Midrashic 
 additions to the text. 
 
 Prom the fact that the Apocrypha stand side by side with 
 the canonical books in the MSS. and editions of the Septua- 
 gint, some have leaped to the conclusion that the Canon of 
 the Alexandrian Jews contained all these books, or, in other 
 words, that they were recognised in Alexandria as being 
 divine and inspired in the same sense as the Law, the 
 Prophets, and the Psalms. There are, however, several 
 reasons which should make us hesitate to draw such an infer- 
 ence. In the first place, we observe that the number of 
 Apocryphal books is not identical in all copies, and that some 
 of the books are found in two recensions with very consider- 
 
LECT. VI ALEXANDRIAN JEWS 155 
 
 able variations of form.-^ This in itself is a strong reason for 
 doubting the existence of a fixed Alexandrian Canon. In 
 the second place, all our manuscripts of the Septuagiut are of 
 Christian origin. The presence of an Apocryphon in a Chris- 
 tian MS. shows that it had a certain measure of recognition 
 in the Church, but does not prove that full canonical authority 
 was ascribed to it in the Synagogue. Again, in the third 
 place, the books must have been current one by one before 
 they were collected into a single volume. We learn from 
 the prologue to Ecclesiasticus and the subscription to the 
 Apocryphal Book of Esther that some of them at least were 
 translated by private enterprise without having any official 
 sanction. Whatever position, then, they ultimately attained, 
 they were not translated as part of an authoiitative Canon. 
 And finally, Philo, the greatest of Jewish Hellenists, w^ho 
 flourished in the time of our Lord, knew the Apocrypha 
 indeed, for he seems sometimes to borrow the turn of a phrase 
 from them, but he never quotes from them, much less uses 
 them for the proof of doctrine as he habitually uses most of 
 the books in our Old Testament. There are, then, sufficient 
 reasons for hesitating to believe that the Alexandrian Jews 
 received all these books as authoritative, in the same sense as 
 the Law and the Prophets. But, on the other hand, we are 
 bound to explain how such books ever came to stand so 
 closely associated with the canonical books as they do in our 
 Greek copies. If the line of demarcation between canonical 
 and uncanonical books had been sharply fixed, it is hard to 
 see how they could have got into the Septuagint at all. And 
 how did it come to pass that certain of the Hagiographa were 
 not used in Alexandria in their canonical form, but only in 
 the shape of Haggadic reproductions ? These phenomena 
 
 ^ Two Greek recensions of Esther and Tobit exist. See for the former 
 book Lagarde's edition of the Septuagint (Gott., 1SS3), where the two recen- 
 sions are printed on opposite pages, and for Tobit, Swete's edition, where the 
 recension of the Sinaiticus stands under the text of the Vaticauus. 
 
156 CHARACTEEISTICS OF lect. vi 
 
 point to a time when the idea of canonicity was not yet fixed, 
 and when certain books, even of the Hebrew Canon, were only 
 pushing their way gradually towards universal recognition. 
 In Alexandria, for example, the Book of Esther cannot have 
 been accepted as beyond dispute ; for instead of a proper 
 translation we find only a Midrash, circulating in two varying 
 recensions, and not claiming by its subscription to be more 
 than a private book brought to Alexandria in the fourth year 
 of Ptolemy and Cleopatra by one Dositheos, who called him- 
 self a priest. 
 
 These facts force us to inquire upon what principles the 
 Jews separated the sacred writings from ordinary books. 
 But, before doing this, let me ask you to look at the Apocrypha 
 as they appear to us in the light of history. All the books 
 of the Apocrypha are comparatively modern. There is none 
 of them, on the most favourable computation, which can be 
 supposed to be older than the latest years of the Persian 
 empire. They belong, therefore, to the age when the last 
 sreat relitjious movement of the Old Testament under Ezra 
 had passed away — when prophecy had died out, and the 
 nation had settled down to live under the Law, looking for 
 guidance in religion, not to a continuance of new revelation, 
 but to the written Word, and to the interpretations of the 
 Scribes. To place these books on the same footing with the 
 Law and the Prophets is quite impossible to the historical 
 student. They belong to a new literature which rose in 
 Judaea after the cessation of prophetic originality, when the 
 law and the tradition were all in all, when there was no man 
 to speak with authority truths that he had received direct 
 from God, but the whole intellect of Israel was either con- 
 centrated on the development of legal Halacha, or, in men of 
 more poetical imagination, exercised itself in restating and 
 illustrating the old principles of religion in ethical poetry, 
 like that of Ecclesiasticus, or in romance and fable of a re- 
 
THE APOCRYPHA 157 
 
 liglous complexion, like the Books of Judith and Tobit. 
 Halacha, Midrash, and Haggada became the forms of all 
 literary effort ; or if any man tried a bolder flight, and sought 
 for his work a place of higher authority, he did so by assum- 
 ing the name of some ancient wortliy. This last class of 
 pseudepigraphic works, as they are called, consists largely of 
 pseudoprophetic books in apocalyptic form, like 2 (4) Esdras.^ 
 It is plain, then, on broad historical considerations, 
 without entering into any matters of theological dispute, as 
 to the nature of inspiration and so forth, that there is a dis- 
 tinct line of demarcation between the Apocrypha and the 
 books which record the progress of Israel's religion during 
 the ages when prophets and righteous men still looked for 
 their guidance in times of religious need not to a written book 
 and its scholastic interpreters, but to a fresh word of revela- 
 tion. But how far was this understood by those who separ- 
 ated out the books of our Hebrew Bible as canonical, and 
 
 ^ The line between the old literature and the new cannot be drawn with 
 chronological precision. The characteristic mark of canonical literature is 
 that it is the record of the progress of fresh truths of revelation, and of the 
 immediate reflection of these truths in the believing heart. The Psalms are, 
 in part, considerably later than Ezra, but they record the inner side of the 
 history of his work of refoi-mation, and show us the nature of the faith with 
 which Israel apprehended the Law and its institutes. This is a necessary 
 and most precious element of the Old Testament record, and it would be 
 arbitrary to attempt to fix a point of time at which this part of Old Testa- 
 ment Scripture must necessarily have closed. But the direct language of 
 faith held by the psalmists is intrinsically different from such artificial reflec- 
 tion on the law, in the manner of the schools, as is found in Ecclesiasticus. 
 The diS'erence can be felt rather than defined, and a certain margin of un- 
 certainty must attach to every determination of the limits of what is 
 canonical. But, on the whole, the instinct that guided the formation of the 
 Hebrew Canon was sound, because the theories of the schools affected onlj- 
 certain outlying books, while the mass of the collection established itself in 
 the hearts of all the faithful in successive generations, under historical circum- 
 stances of a sifting kind. The religious struggle under the Maccabees, 
 which threw the people of God upon the Scriptures for comfort when the 
 outward order of the theocracy was broken, doubtless was for the later books 
 of the Canon a period of proof such as the Captivity was for the older 
 literature. 
 
158 JEWISH VIEW 
 
 rejected all others ? The Jews had a dim sort of conscious- 
 ness after the time of Ezra that the age of revelation was 
 past, and that the age of tradition had begun. The feeling 
 that new revelation had almost ceased is found even in the 
 latest prophecies of the Old Testament. In Zechariah xiii. 
 the prophet predicts the near approach of a time when every- 
 one who calls himself a prophet, and puts on a prophet's 
 garment, shall be at once recognised as a deceiver, and his 
 own father and mother shall be the first to denounce the 
 imposture. And, in the last verse of the prophetic books of 
 the Old Testament, Malachi does not look forward to a con- 
 stant succession of prophets, such as is foretold in Deutero- 
 nomy. He sees no hope for the corrupt state of his times, 
 except that the old prophet Elijah shall return to bring back 
 the hearts of the fathers with their children, and the hearts 
 of the children with their fathers, lest God come and smite 
 the earth with a curse. As time rolled on, the feeling that 
 there was no new revelation among the people became still 
 more strong. In 1 Maccabees ix. 27 we read that "there 
 was great sorrow in Israel, such as there had not been since 
 the days that prophets ceased to appear among them ; " and, 
 according to Josephus, the strict succession of prophets ended in 
 the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The Scribes thoroughly 
 sympathised with this view. Even when they made innova- 
 tions, they always professed to do so as mere interpreters, 
 claiming nothing more than to restore, to expound, or to fence 
 in, the law given by Moses. Their position is aptly described 
 in the phrase of the New Testament, where Jesus is said to 
 teach " as one having authority, and not as the scribes." But, 
 while the Jews had a general feeling that the age of revela- 
 tion was past, they had no such clear perception of the reason 
 of the change as we can have in the light of the New Testa- 
 ment ; they did not see, as we can do, that no further develop- 
 ment of spiritual religion was possible w^ithout breaking 
 
OF EEVELATION 159 
 
 through the legal forms and national limitations of Judaism ; 
 and they continued to look, not for a new revelation super- 
 seding the old covenant, but for the reappearance of prophets 
 working in the service of the law and its ritual. In 1 Macca- 
 bees iv. 46 they put aside the stones of the polluted altar, not 
 knowing what to do with them, but waiting till a prophet 
 shall arise in Israel to tell it ; and again (chap. xiv. 41), they 
 agree to make Simon high priest until such time as a true 
 prophet shall appear. The revival of prophecy was still 
 looked for, but the idea of the function of prophecy was 
 narrowed to things of no moment. Malachi had looked for 
 a prophet to bring back to God the hearts of fathers and 
 children alike ; in the days of the Maccabees the true nature 
 of prophecy had been so far forgotten that it was thought 
 that the business of a prophet was to tell what should be 
 done with the stones of a polluted altar, or which family was 
 to hold the dignity of the high priesthood. Where the mean- 
 ing of prophecy was so little understood, it is not surprising 
 that a sporadic reappearance of prophets was not thought 
 impossible. Josephus, in a curious passage of his Jcivish 
 War, says that John Hyrcanus was the only man who united 
 in his person the three highest distinctions, being at once 
 the ruler of his nation, and high priest, and gifted with 
 prophecy ; " for the Divinity so conversed with him that he 
 was cognisant of all things that were to come " {B. J. Bk. i. 
 chap. ii. 8; compare the similar expressions of John xi. 51). 
 jMoreover, although the Scribes in general did not consider that 
 they had the spirit of revelation, we find the author of Ecclesi- 
 asticus (chap. xxiv. 31, 32) claiming for his book an almost 
 prophetic authority : " I will yet make instruction to shine 
 as the morning, and will send forth her light afar off. I will 
 pour forth doctrine as prophecy, and leave it unto eternal 
 generations" (comp. i. 30, li. 13 sq.). The author is fully 
 conscious that his whole wisdom is derived from the study of 
 
160 JEWISH VIEW 
 
 the law (xxiv. 30). He does not pretend that he or other 
 scholars are the vehicles of new truths of revelation (chaps. 
 xxxviii. xxxix.) ; but he is evidently not conscious that this 
 circumstance constitutes an absolute difference between the 
 teaching which, by his own admission, was nothing more than 
 an enforcement of the principles of the law of Moses, and the 
 old creative prophecy of Isaiah or Jeremiah. This unclear- 
 ness of view rested upon an error which not only was fatal to 
 the Jews, but has continued to exercise a pernicious influence 
 even on Christian theology down to our own day. The Jews, 
 as we have already seen, identified religion with the Law, and 
 the Law with the words of Moses. 
 
 All revelation was held to be comprised in the Torah. 
 According to the Son of Sirach, the sacred Wisdom, created 
 before the world and enduring to all eternity, which is 
 established in Sion and bears sway in Jerusalem, the all- 
 sufficient food of man's spiritual life, is identical with the 
 book of the Covenant of God most High, the Law enjoined 
 by Moses (Ecclesiasticus xxiv.). The secrets of this law are 
 infinite, and all man's wisdom is a stream derived from this 
 unfailing source. This doctrine of the pre -existent and 
 eternal Law, comprising within itself the sum of all wisdom 
 and all possible revelation, runs through the whole Jewish 
 literature. It is brought out in a very interesting way in the 
 old Jewish commentaries on Deut. xxx. 12: — "The law is 
 not in the heavens." "Say not," says the commentary, 
 "another Moses shall arise and bring another law from 
 heaven : there is no law left in heaven ; " that is, according 
 to the position of the Jews, the law of Moses contained the 
 whole revelation of God's goodness and grace which had been 
 given or which ever could be given.^ 
 
 ^ Midrash Rahha, p. 529 (Leipzig, 1864). For the law as everlasting, see 
 Banich, iv. 1. The pre-existence of the law (Ecclus. xxiv. 9) follows from 
 its being identified with wisdom as described in Prov. viii. Compare further 
 Weber, AUsynagogale Theologie, p. 18 sq. The Rabbinical theory of revela- 
 
LECT. VI OF REVELATION 161 
 
 AVhat place, then, was left for the Prophets, the Psalms, 
 and the other books ? They were inspired and authoritative 
 interpretations and applications of the law of Moses, and 
 nothing more. They were, tlierefore, simply the links in 
 tradition between the time of Moses and the time of Ezra 
 and the Scribes. And so clearly was this the Jewish notion, 
 that the same word — Kahbala, doctrine traditionally received 
 — is applied indifferently to all the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment except the Pentateuch, and to the oral tradition of the 
 Scribes. The Pentateuch alone is Mihra, " reading," or, as we 
 should call it, " Scripture." The Prophets, the Psalms, and 
 the rest of the old Testament, in common with the oral tradi- 
 tion of the Scribes, are mere Kabbala or traditional doctrine. 
 From these premisses it necessarily follows that the other books 
 are inferior to the Law. This consequence was drawn with full 
 logical stringency. The Law and the Prophets were not written 
 on the same roll, and, in accordance with a legal principle which 
 forbade a less holy thing to be purchased with the price of one 
 more holy, the Mishna directs that a copy of the other books 
 may no more be bought with the price of a Pentateuch than 
 part of a street may be bought with the price of a synagogue.^ 
 I need not interrupt the argument to prove at length that 
 this is a view which cannot be received by any Christian. It 
 was refuted, once for all, by the apostle Paul when he pointed 
 out, in answer to the Pharisees of his time, that the permanent 
 value of all revelation lies, not in Law, but in Gospel. Now, 
 it is certain that the prophetical books are far richer than the 
 
 tion has exercised an influence on history far beyond the limits of the Jewish 
 community through its adoption in Islam. 
 
 ■^ On the term Kabbala see Zunz, Gottesdmistliche Vortriige, p. 44, where 
 the evidence from Jewish authorities is carefully collected. Compare Weber, 
 op. cit. p. 79 sq. Mishna, Mecjilla, iii. 1 : "If the men of a town sell a 
 Torah they may not buy with its price the other books of Scripture ; if they 
 sell Scriptures they may not buy a cloth to wrap round the Torah ; if they 
 sell such a cloth they may not buy an ark for synagogue rolls ; if they sell an 
 ark they may not buy a synagogue ; nor if they sell a synagogue may they 
 buy a street " (an open ground for devotion ; cp. Matt. vi. 5). 
 
 II 
 
162 CONSTITUTION OF 
 
 Law in evangelical elements. They contain a much fuller 
 declaration of those spiritual truths which constitute the per- 
 manent value of the Old Testament Eevelation, and a much 
 clearer adumbration of the New and Spiritual Covenant under 
 which we now live. There is more of Christ in the Prophets 
 and the Psalms than in the Pentateuch, with its legal ordin- 
 ances and temporary precepts adapted to the hardness of the 
 people's hearts ; and therefore no Christian can for a moment 
 consent to accept that view of the pre-eminence of the Law 
 which was to the Jews the foundation of their official doctrine 
 of the Canon. What, then, is the inference from these facts ? 
 We found, in Lecture II., that the early Protestants, for reasons 
 very intelligible at their time, were content simply to accept 
 the Canon as it came to them through the hands of the Jews. 
 But it appears that, in defining the number and limits of the 
 sacred books, the Jewish doctors started with a false idea of 
 the test and measure of sacredness. Their tradition, therefore, 
 does not conclusively determine the question of the Canon ; 
 and we cannot permanently acquiesce in it without subjecting 
 their conclusions to a fresh examination by sounder tests. 
 
 Before we proceed to examine in detail the definitions of 
 the Eabbins on this matter, let me say at once that the part 
 played by the Scribes and their erroneous theories in deter- 
 mining the compass of the Hebrew Scriptures was after all 
 very limited. A Canon, deliberately framed on the principles 
 of the Scribes and Pharisees, could hardly have been satis- 
 factory ; but in reality the essential elements in the Canon 
 were not determined by of&cial authority. The mass of the 
 Old Testament books gained their canonical position because 
 they commended themselves in practice to the experience of 
 the Old Testament Church and the spiritual discernment of 
 the godly in Israel. For the religious life of Israel was truer 
 than the teaching of the Pharisees. The Old Testament reli- 
 gion was the religion of revelation ; and the highest spiritual 
 
LECT. VI THE JEWISH CANON 163 
 
 truths then known did not dwell in the Jewish people with- 
 out producing, in practical life, a higher type of religious 
 experience, and a truer insight into spiritual things, than was 
 embodied in the doctrines of the Scribes. Wheu the Jewish 
 doctors first concerned themselves with the preparation of an 
 authoritative list of sacred books, most of the Old Testament 
 books had already established themselves in the hearts of the 
 faithful with an authority that could neither be shaken nor 
 confirmed by the decisions of the schools. The controversy 
 as to the limits of the Canon was confined to a few outlying 
 books which, by reason of their contents or of their history, 
 were less universally read and valued than the Prophets and 
 the Psalms. In the ultimate decision as to the canonicity of 
 these books the authority and theories of the Scribes played 
 an important part ; but for the rest of the Old Testament the 
 Scribes did nothing more than accept established facts, bringing 
 them into conformity with their theories by hypotheses as to the 
 prophetic authorship of anonymous books and other arbitrary 
 assumptions of which we shall find examples as we proceed. 
 
 In looking more narrowly at the constitution of the Jewish 
 Canon we may begin by recurring to the account of the matter 
 given by Josephus towards the close of the first century. There 
 is little doubt that the twenty-two books of Josephus are those 
 of our present Hebrew Canon ; but the force of this evidence 
 is disguised by the controversial purpose of the writer, which 
 leads him to put his facts in a false light. The aim of Jose- 
 phus in his work against Apion is to vindicate the antiquity 
 of the Hebrew nation, and the credibility of its history as 
 recorded in his own Archceology. In this connection he 
 maintains that the Oriental nations kept official annals long 
 before the Greeks, and that the Jews in particular charged 
 their chief priests and prophets with the duty of preserving 
 a regular record of contemporary affairs, not permitting any 
 private person to meddle in the matter. This official record 
 
164 THE CANON 
 
 is contained in the twenty-two books of the Old Testament. 
 The older history, communicated by revelation, is found in the 
 Pentateuch along with the legal code. The other books, with 
 the exception of four containing hymns and precepts of life, 
 which may be identified with the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesi- 
 astes, and the Song of Solomon, are made to figure as a 
 continuous history written by an unbroken succession of 
 prophets, each of whom recorded the events of his own time, 
 down to the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when the suc- 
 cession of prophets failed, and the sacred annals stopped short. -^ 
 As Josephus places Ezra and Nehemiah under Xerxes, and 
 identifies his son Artaxerxes with the Ahasuerus of Esther, 
 he no doubt views Esther as the latest canonical book. The 
 number of thirteen prophetico-historical books from Joshua 
 to Esther is made up by reckoning Job as a history, and con- 
 joining Piuth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah, in 
 the manner mentioned by Jerome. As the Song of Solomon 
 figures as a didactic book, it must have been taken allegorically.^ 
 According to Josephus, the close of the Canon is distinctly 
 
 ^ Josephus, Contra Apio7i. lib. I. cap. vii. sq. (§§ 37-41, Niese ; cp. Eus. 
 S. E. iii. 10). — "Not every one was permitted to write the national records, 
 nor is there any discrepancy in the things written ; but the prophets alone 
 learned the earliest and most ancient events by inspiration from God, and 
 wrote down the events of their own times plainly as they occurred. And so 
 we have not myriads of discordant and contradictory books, but only two-and- 
 twenty, containing the record of all time, and rightly believed in [as divine : 
 Eus,']. And of these five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws, and 
 the tradition from the creation of mankind down to his death. But from the 
 death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who succeeded 
 Xerxes, the prophets that followed Moses compiled the history of their 
 own times in thirteen books. The other four contain hymns to God and 
 precepts of life for men. But from Artaxerxes to our times all events 
 have indeed been written down ; but these later books are not deemed 
 worthy of the same credit, because the exact succession of prophets was 
 wanting." 
 
 ^ The allegorical interpretation of Canticles, Israel being identified with the 
 spouse, first appears in 2 (4) Esdras, v. 24, 26 ; vii. 26, and may very well 
 have been known to Josephus. It is, however, right to say that some 
 scholars doubt whether Ecclesiastes and Canticles were included in the Canon 
 of Josephus. So still Lagarde, Mitthcilungen, iv. (1891), p. 345. 
 
OF JOSEPHUS 165 
 
 marked by the cessation of the succession of prophets in the 
 time of Artaxerxes. On this view there never was or could 
 be any discussion as to the number and limits of the canonical 
 collection, which had from first to last an official character. 
 Each new book was written by a man of acknowledged 
 authority, and was added to the collection precisely as a 
 new page would be added to the royal annals of an Eastern 
 kingdom. It is plain that this view is not in accordance with 
 facts. The older prophets were not official historiographers 
 working in harmony witli the priests for the regular con- 
 tinuance of a series of Temple annals ; they were often in 
 opposition to the sacred as well as the civil authorities of 
 their nation. Jeremiah, for example, was persecuted and put 
 in the stocks by Pashur the son of Immer, priest and chief 
 governor of the Temple. Again, it is clear that there was no 
 regular and unbroken series of sacred annals officially kept up 
 from the time of Moses onwards. In the time of Josiah, the 
 Law, unexpectedly found in the house of the Lord, appears as 
 a thing that had been lost and long forgotten. Even a glance 
 at the books of the Old Testament is enough to refute the 
 idea of a regular succession of prophetic writers, each taking 
 up the history just where the last had left it. In fact, 
 Josephus in this statement simply gives a turn, for his own 
 polemical purposes, to that theory of tradition which was 
 current among the Pharisees of his time and is clearly ex- 
 pressed at the beginning of the treatise of the Mishna called 
 PirM Aboth. In it we read that " Moses received the Torah 
 from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, Joshua delivered it to 
 the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the 
 men of the Great Synagogue," from whom it passed in turn to 
 the Zugoth, as the Hebrews called them, — that is, the pairs of 
 great doctors who, in successive generations, formed the heads 
 of the Scribes. This whole doctrine of the succession of 
 tradition is a dogmatical theory, not an historical fact ; and 
 
166 HOMOLOGUMENA 
 
 in like manner Josephus's account of the Canon is a theory, 
 and a theory inconsistent with the fact that we find no com- 
 plete formal catalogue of Scriptures in earlier writers like the 
 son of Sirach, who, enumerating the literary worthies of his 
 nation, had every motive to give a complete list, if he had 
 been in a position to do so ; inconsistent also with the fact 
 that questions as to the canonicity of certain books were still 
 undecided within the lifetime of Josephus himself. 
 
 But the clearest evidence that the notion of canonicity 
 was not fully established till long after the time of Arta- 
 xerxes lies in the Septuagint. The facts that have come 
 before us are not to be explained by saying that there was 
 one fixed Canon in Palestine and another in Alexandria. 
 That would imply such a schism between the Hellenistic 
 and Palestinian Jews, between the Jews who spoke Greek 
 and those who read Hebrew, as certainly did not exist, and 
 would assign to the Apocrypha an authority among the 
 former which there is no reason to believe they ever 
 possessed. The true inference from the fact is, that the 
 Canon of the Old Testament was of gradual formation, that 
 some books now accepted had long a doubtful position, while 
 others were for a time admitted to a measure of reputation 
 which made the line of demarcation between them and the 
 canonical books uncertain and fluctuating. In short, we 
 must suppose a time when the Old Testament Canon was 
 passing through the same kind of history through which we 
 know the New Testament Canon to have passed. In the 
 early ages of the Christian Church we find the books of the 
 New Testament divided into the so-called Homologumena, or 
 books universally acknowledged, and the Antilegomena, or 
 books acknowledged in some parts of the Church but spoken 
 against in others. The Homologumena included those books 
 which, either from their very nature or from their early and 
 wide circulation, never could be questioned — books of ad- 
 
LECT. VI AXD ANTILEGOMENA 167 
 
 mitted and undoubted apostolic authority, sucli as the 
 Gospels and the great Epistles of Paul. The Antilcgomcna 
 consisted of other books, some of which are now in our New 
 Testament, but which for some reason were not from the 
 first broadly circulated over the whole Church. Along with 
 these, there were other books, not now held canonical, which 
 in some parts of the Church were read in public worship, 
 and received a certain amount of reverence. The history of 
 the Canon unfolds the gradual process by which the number 
 of Antilegomena was narrowed; either by the Church, 
 through all its length and breadth, coming to be persuaded 
 that some book not at first undisputed was yet worthy to 
 be universally received as apostolic, or, conversely, by the 
 spread of the conviction that other books, which for a time 
 had been used in certain churches, were not fit to be put on 
 a level with the Gospels and the great Epistles. We must 
 suppose that a similar process took place with regard to the 
 books of the Old Testament. About many of them there 
 could be no dispute. Others were Antilegomena — books 
 spoken against — and the number of such Antilcgomcna, 
 which were neither fully acknowledged nor absolutely re- 
 jected, was naturally a fluctuating quantity up to a com- 
 paratively late date, when such a measure of practical 
 agreement had been reached as to which books were really 
 of sacred authority, that the theological heads of the nation 
 could, without difficulty, cut short further discussion, and 
 establish an authoritative list of Scriptures. The reason 
 why a greater number of books of disputed position is 
 preserved in Greek than in Hebrew is that the Eabbins 
 of Palestine, from the close of the first century, when the 
 Canon was definitely fixed, sedulously suppressed all Apo- 
 crypha, and made it a sin to read them. 
 
 This account of the origin of the Canon is natural in itself 
 and agrees with all the facts, especially with the circumstance 
 
168 EZRA AND THE CANON lect. vi 
 
 that the canonicity of certain books was a moot-point among 
 Jewish theologians till after the fall of the Temple. This 
 fact gave no trouble to the Jews, who accepted the decision 
 of E. Akiba and his compeers as of undisputed authority. 
 But Christian theology could not give weight to Eabbinical 
 tradition, and it is thus very natural that many attempts 
 have been made to prove that an authoritative Canon was 
 fixed in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, while the last 
 prophets still lived. 
 
 Among the ancient fatliers it was a current opinion that 
 Ezra himself rewrote by inspiration the whole Old Testament, 
 which had been destroyed or injured at the time of the 
 Captivity. The source of this opinion is a fable in 2 (4) 
 Esdras xiv. Esdras, according to this story, prayed for the 
 Holy Spirit that he might rewrite the law that had been 
 burned. His prayer was granted; and, retiring for forty 
 days, with five scribes to write to his dictation, he produced 
 ninety-four (?) books. " And when the forty days were com- 
 pleted, the Most High spake, saying. Publish the first books 
 which thou hast written, that the worthy and the unworthy 
 may read them; but conserve the last seventy, and deliver 
 them to the wise men of thy people." To understand what 
 this means, we must remember that this Book of Esdras pro- 
 fesses to be a genuine prophecy of Ezra the scribe. The 
 author was aware that when he produced his book, which 
 was not written till near the close of the first Christian 
 century, it would be necessary to meet the objection that it 
 had never been known before. Accordingly he and other 
 forgers of the same period fell back on the assertion that 
 certain of the sacred writings had always been esoteric books, 
 confined to a privileged circle. The whole fable is directed 
 to this end, and is plainly unworthy of the slightest attention. 
 We have no right to rationalise it, as some have done, and 
 read it as a testimony that Ezra may at least have collected 
 
LECT. VI THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE 169 
 
 and edited the Old Testament, But no doubt the currency 
 which Fourth Esdras long enjoyed helped to fix the im- 
 pression on men's minds that in some shape Ezra had a part 
 in settling the Canon, and drove them to seek arguments for 
 this view in other quarters. 
 
 Accordingly we find that a new form of the theory started 
 up in the sixteenth century, and gained almost undisputed 
 currency in the Protestant Churches. According to this view, 
 the Canon was completed by a body of men known as the 
 Great Synagogue. The Great Synagogue plays a considerable 
 part in Jewish tradition ; it is represented as a permanent 
 council, under the presidency of Ezra, wielding supreme 
 authority over the Jewish nation ; and a variety of functions 
 are ascribed to it. But the tradition never said that the 
 Great Synagogue fixed the Canon. That opinion, current as 
 it once was, is a mere conjecture of Elias Levita, a Jewish 
 scholar contemporary with Luther. Not only so, but we 
 now know that the whole idea that there ever Avas a body 
 called the Great Synagogue holding rule in the Jewish 
 nation is pure fiction. It has been proved in the clearest 
 manner that the origin of the legend of the Great Synagogue 
 lies in the account given in Neh. viii.-x. of the great convoca- 
 tion which met at Jerusalem and subscribed the covenant 
 to observe the law. It was therefore a meeting, and not a 
 permanent authority. It met once for all, and everything 
 that is told about it, except what we read in Nehemiah, is 
 pure fable of the later Jews.-^ 
 
 ^ On the legend of the Great Synagogue, Kuenen's essay Over de 3fannen 
 der Groote Synagoge, in the proceedings of the Royal Society of Amsterdam, 
 1876, is conclusive. An abstract of the results in Wellhausen-Bleek, § 274. 
 Kuenen follows the arguments of scholars of last century, and especially 
 Rau's Diatribe de Synagoga Magna (Utrecht, 1725) ; but he completes their 
 refutation of the Rabbinical fables by utilising and placing in its true light 
 the important observations of Krochmal, as to the connection between the 
 Great Synagogue and the Convocation of Neh. viii.-x., which, in the hands 
 of Jewish scholars, had only led to fresh confusion. See, for example, Graetz 
 {Kohelet, Anh. i. Leipzig, 1871) for a model of confused reasoning on the Great 
 
170 NEHEMIAH 
 
 Two, then, of the traditions which seem to refer the whole 
 
 Canon to Ezra and his time break down ; but a third, found 
 
 in 2 Maccabees, has received more attention in recent times, 
 
 and has frequently been supposed, even by cautious scholars, 
 
 to indicate at least the first steps towards the collection of 
 
 the Prophets and the Hagiographa : — 
 
 " 2 Mac. ii. 13. — The same things [according to another reading, these 
 things] were related in the records, and in the memoirs of Nehemiah, 
 and how, founding a library, he collected the [writings] about the kings 
 and prophets, and the [writings] of David, and letters of kings concern- 
 ing sacred offerings. (14.) In like manner Judas collected all the books 
 that had been scattered in consequence of the war that came on us, and 
 we have them by us ; of which if ye have need, send men to fetch 
 them." 
 
 This passage stands in a spurious epistle, professedly 
 addressed to the Jews in Alexandria by the Palestinian 
 Jews. The epistle is full of fabulous details, which claim to 
 be taken from written sources. If this claim is not pure 
 fiction, the sources must have been apocryphal. The 
 Memoirs of Nehemiah, to which our passage appeals, are 
 one of these worthless sources, containing, as we are expressly 
 
 Synagogue and the Canon. Krochmal's discovery that the Great Synagogue 
 and the Great Convocation are identical rests on the clearest evidence. See 
 especially the Midrash to Kuth. ' ' What did the men of the Great Synagogue 
 do ? They wrote a book and spread it out in the court of the temple. And 
 at dawn of day they rose and found it sealed. This is what is written in 
 Neh. ix. 38 " (Leipzig ed. of 1865, p. 77). According to the tradition of the 
 Talmud, Bdbd Bdthra, id supra, the men of the Great Synagogue wrote 
 Ezekiel, the Minor Prophets, Daniel, and Esther ; and Ezra wrote his own 
 book and part of the genealogies of Chronicles. This has nothing to do with 
 the Canon ; it merely expresses an opinion as to the date of these books. 
 Further, the Ahoth of Rahhi Nathan (a post-Talmudic book) says that the 
 Great Synagogue arose and explained Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes, 
 which had previously been thought apocryphal. Such is the traditional basis 
 for the famous conjecture of Elias Levita in his Massoreth ham7nassoreth 
 (Venice, 1538), which took such a hold of public opinion that Hottinger, in 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, could say : " Hitherto it has been an 
 unquestioned axiom among the Jews and Christians alike, that the Canon of 
 the Old Testament was fixed, once and for all, with Divine authority, by 
 Ezra and the men of the Great Synagogue" (Thes. Phil., Zurich, 1649, 
 p. 112). At p. 110 he says that this is only doubted by those quibus pro 
 cerel/ro fungus est. 
 
AND THE CANON 171 
 
 told, the same fables, and therefore altogether unworthy of 
 credence. But, in fact, the transparent object of the passage 
 is to palm off upon the reader a whole collection of forgeries, 
 by making out that the author and his friends in Palestine 
 possess, and are willing to communicate, a number of valuable 
 and sacred books not known in Egypt. Literary forgery had 
 an incredible attraction for a certain class of writers in those 
 ages. It was practised by the Hellenistic Jews as a regular 
 trade, and it is in the interests of this fraudulent business 
 that our author introduces the story about Nehemiah and his 
 library. Even if Nehemiah did collect a library, which is 
 likely enough, as he could not but desire to possess the books 
 of the ancient prophets, that after all was a very different 
 thing from forming an authoritative Canon. 
 
 Scholars have sometimes been so busy trying to gather a 
 grain of truth out of these fabulous traditions, that they have 
 forgotten to open their eyes and simply look at the Bible 
 itself for a plain and categorical account of what Ezra and 
 Nehemiah actually did for the Canon of Scripture, From 
 iSTeh. viii.-x. we learn that Ezra did establish a Canon, that 
 is, that he did lead his people to accept a written and sacred 
 code as the absolute rule of faith and life ; but the Canon of 
 Ezra was the Pentateuch. The people entered into a cove- 
 nant to keep the Law of Moses, which Ezra brought with 
 him from Babylon (Ezra vii. 14). That was the establish- 
 ment of the Pentateuch as the canonical and authoritative 
 book of the Jews, and that is the position which it holds 
 ever afterwards. So we have seen that to the author of 
 Ecclesiasticus the Pentateuch, and no larger Canon, is the 
 book of the Covenant of God most high, and the source of all 
 sacred wisdom ; while, to all Jewish theology, the Pentateuch 
 stands higher than the other books in sanctity, and is viewed 
 as containing within itself the whole compass of jDossible 
 revelation. In the strictest sense of the word the Torah is 
 
172 CANONICAL AUTHORITY lect. vi 
 
 not merely the Canon of Ezra, but remained the Canon of 
 the Jews ever after, all other books being tested by their 
 conformity with its contents. 
 
 That does not mean that the Divine authority of the 
 Prophets was not recognised at the time of Ezra. Un- 
 doubtedly it was recognised, but it was not felt to be 
 necessary to collect the prophetic books into one authori- 
 tative volume with the Law. Indeed, Ezra and Nehemiah 
 could not have undertaken to make a fixed and closed 
 collection of the Prophets, unless they had known that no 
 other prophets were to rise after their time ; and we have 
 no reason to believe that they had such knowledge, which 
 could only have come to them by special revelation. The 
 other sacred books, after the time of Ezra, continued to be 
 read and to stand each on its own authority, just as the 
 books of the apostles did in the times of early Christianity. 
 To us this may seem highly inconvenient. We are accus- 
 tomed to regard the Bible as one book, and it seems to us 
 an awkward thing that there should not have been a fixed 
 volume comprising all sacred writings. The Jews, I appre- 
 hend, could not share these feelings. The use of a fixed 
 Canon is either for the convenience of private reading, or 
 for the limitation of public ecclesiastical lessons, or for the 
 determination of appeals in matter of doctrine. And in none 
 of these points did the Jews stand on the same ground with 
 us. In these days the Bible was not a book, but a whole 
 library. The Law was not written on the same skins as the 
 Prophets, and each prophetical book, as we learn from Luke 
 iv. 17, might form a volume by itself. In one passage of the 
 Talmud, a volume containing all the Prophets is mentioned 
 as a singularity. Very few persons, it may be presumed, 
 could possess all the Biblical books, or even dream of having 
 them in a collected form.^ 
 
 ^ In the Talmudic times it was matter of controversy whether it was 
 
LECT. VI OF THE PENTATEUCH 173 
 
 Then, again, no part of the canonical books, except the 
 Pentateuch, was systematically read through in the Syna- 
 gogue. The Pentateuch was read through every three years. 
 Lessons from the prophetical books were added at an early 
 date, but up to the time of the Mishna this was not done on 
 a fixed system, while the Hagiographa had no place in the 
 Synagogue lessons until a comparatively late period, when 
 the Book of Esther, and still later the other four Megilloth, 
 came to be used on certain annual occasions.-^ And, finally, 
 in matters of doctrine, the appeal to the Prophets or Hagio- 
 grapha was not sharply distinguished from appeal to the oral 
 law. Both alike were parts of the Kablala, the traditional 
 and authoritative interpretation of the Pentateuch, which 
 stood as the supreme standard above both. 
 
 It is true that the whole doctrine of oral tradition arose 
 gradually and after the time of Ezra. But the one-sided 
 legalism on which it rests could never have been developed 
 if the books of the prophets had been officially recognised, 
 from the time of Ezra downwards, as a part of public 
 revelation, co-ordinate and equally fundamental with the law 
 
 legitimate to write the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa in a single 
 book. Some went so far as to say that each book of Scripture must form a 
 separate volume. See Sophcrim, iii. 1, and Miiller's note. It appears that 
 the old and predominant custom was in favour of separation. Boethos, 
 whose copy of the eight prophets in one volume is referred to in Bdbd Bdthra 
 and Sdpherim, iii. 5, lived about the close of the second Christian century. 
 Some doctors denied that his copy contained all the books "joined into one." 
 Sophcrim, iii. 6, allows all the books to be united in inferior copies written 
 on the material called diphthera, but not in synagogue rolls ; a compromise 
 pointing to the gradual introduction in post-Talmudic times of the plan of 
 treating the Bible as one volume. 
 
 ^ For the want of system in the public lessons from the Prophets in early 
 times, see Luke iv. 17, and supra, p. 36, note 2. According to Sdpherim, xiv. 
 18, Esther was read at the feast of Purim, Canticles at the Passover, Ruth at 
 Pentecost. The reading of Lamentations is mentioned, ibid, xviii. 4. It is 
 noteworthy that there is still no mention of the use of Ecclesiastes in the 
 Synagogue. Compare further Zunz, 0}% cit. p. 6. The Jews of Nehardea in 
 Babylonia used to read lessons from the Hagiographa in the Sabbath afternoon 
 service, B. Shabbath, f. 116 b. 
 
174 THE PROPHETS 
 
 of Moses. The Prophets, in truth, with the other remains of 
 the old sacred literature, were mainly regarded as books of 
 private edification. While the Law was directly addressed 
 to all Israel in all ages, the other sacred writings had a 
 private origin, or were addressed to special necessities. Up 
 to the time of the Exile, the godly of Israel looked for 
 guidance to the living prophetic word in their midst, and the 
 study of written prophecies or histories, which, according to 
 many indications, was largely practised in the circles where 
 the living prophets had most influence, was rather a supple- 
 ment to the spoken word than a substitute for it. But in 
 the time of the Exile, when the national existence with 
 which the ancient religion of Israel was so closely inter- 
 twined was hopelessly shattered, when the voice of the 
 prophets was stilled, and the public services of the sanctuary 
 no longer called the devout together, the whole continuance 
 of the spiritual faith rested upon the remembrance that the 
 prophets of the Lord had foreseen the catastrophe, and had 
 shown how to reconcile it with undiminished trust in 
 Jehovah, the God of Israel. The written word acquired a 
 fresh significance for the religious life, and the books of the 
 prophets, with those records of the ancient history which 
 were either already framed in the mould of prophetic thought, 
 or were cast in that mould by editors of the time of the 
 Exile, became the main support of the faithful, who felt, as 
 they had never felt before, that the words of Jehovah were 
 pure words, silver sevenfold tried, a sure treasure in every 
 time of need. 
 
 The frequent allusions to the earlier prophets in the 
 writings of Zechariah show how deep a hold their words 
 had taken of the hearts of the godly in Israel ; but the very 
 profundity of this influence, belonging as it did to the sphere 
 of personal religion rather than the public order of the 
 theocracy, made it less necessary to stamp the prophetic 
 
TN THE CANON 175 
 
 series with the seal of public canonicity. These books had 
 no need to be brought from Babylon with the approval of a 
 royal rescript, or laid before the nation by the authority of 
 a Tirshatha. The only form of public recognition which was 
 wanting, and which followed in due course, was the practice 
 of reading from the Prophets in the public worship of the 
 synagogue. It required no more formal process than the 
 natural use made of this ancient literature, to bring it little 
 by little into the shape of a fixed collection, though, as we 
 have seen in the example of Jeremiah, there was no standard 
 edition up to a comparatively late date. In the time of 
 Daniel we already find the prophetic literature referred to 
 under the name of " the books " or Scriptures (Dan. ix. 2). 
 The English version unfortunately omits the article, and loses 
 the force of the phrase. 
 
 The ultimate form of the prophetic collection is contained 
 in the Former and Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, of 
 which only the second group consists mainly of prophecies, 
 while the first is made up of historical books. We have 
 seen that by the Jews the name of " Former Prophets " was 
 justified by the unhistorical assumption that the old historical 
 books were written by a succession of prophets. But I appre- 
 hend that the association of histories and prophecies in one 
 collection is older than the designation Former and Latter 
 Prophets, and rested on a correct perception (instinctive 
 rather than critical) that the histories formed a necessary 
 part of the record of the prophets' work. Without the 
 histories the prophetical books proper would be almost un- 
 intelligible. And further, though there is no reason to think 
 that the mass of the histories was actually written by the 
 hand of prophets, they were certainly written, or at least 
 edited and brought into their present form, by men who 
 stood under the influence of the great prophets and sought 
 to interpret the vicissitudes of Israel's fortunes in accordance 
 
176 THE PSALTER 
 
 with the laws of God's governance which the prophets had 
 laid down. There was therefore good reason for placing the 
 old histories in the same collection with the written words of 
 the prophets. The authority of this collection, which was 
 inextricably interlaced with the profoundest experiences of 
 the spiritual life of Israel, was practically never disputed, 
 and its influence on the personal religion of the nation was 
 doubtless in inverse ratio to the preference assigned to the 
 Pentateuch as the public and official code of Ezra's theo- 
 cracy.^ 
 
 Equally undisputed was the position of the Psalter, the 
 hymn-book of the second Temple. The Psalter, as we shall 
 see in a future Lecture, has a complicated history, and, along 
 with elements of great antiquity, contains many pieces of a 
 date long subsequent to the Exile, or even to Ezra. In its 
 finished form the collection is clearly later than the prophe- 
 tical writings. But no part of the Old Testament appeals 
 more directly to the believing heart, and none bears a clearer 
 impress of inspiration in the individual poems, and of divine 
 guidance in their collection. That the book containing the 
 subjective utterance of Israel's faith, the answer of the 
 
 ^ The only prophetic book as to which any dispute seems to have occurred 
 was Ezekiel. The beginning of this book — the picture of the Merkaba, or 
 chariot of Jehovah's glory (1 Chron. xxviii. 18) — has always been viewed as a 
 great mystery in Jewish theology, and is the basis of the Kahhala or esoteric 
 theosophy of the Rabbins. The closing chapters were equally puzzling, because 
 they give a system of law and ritual divergent in many points from the 
 Pentateuch. Compare Jerome's Ep. to Paulinits : — " The beginning and end 
 of Ezekiel are involved in obscurities, and among the Hebrews these parts, 
 and the exordium of Genesis, must not be read by a man under thirty." 
 Hence, in the apostolic age, a question was raised as to the value of the book ; 
 for, of course, nothing could be accepted that contradicted the Torah. We 
 read in the Talmud {Hagiga, 13 a) that " but for Hananiah, son of Hezekiah, 
 they would have suppressed the Book of Ezekiel, because its words contradict 
 those of the Torah. What did he do? They brought up to him three 
 hundred measures of oil, and he sat down and explained it." Derenbourg, 
 op. cit. p. 296, with Graetz, Geschichte, vol. iii. p. 561, is disposed to hold 
 that the scholar who reconciled Ezekiel with the Pentateuch at such an 
 expenditure of midnight oil was really Eleazar, the son of Hananiah. 
 
IN THE CANON 177 
 
 believing heart to the word of revelation, continued to grow 
 after the prophetic voice was still, and the written law had 
 displaced the living word, was natural and necessary. In 
 the Psalter we see how the ordinances of the new theocracy 
 established themselves in the hearts of the people, as well as 
 in the external order of the community at Jerusalem, and the 
 spiritual aspects of the Law which escaped the legal subtilty 
 of the Scribes are developed in such Psalms as the 119th, 
 with an immediate force of personal conviction which has 
 supplied a pattern of devotion to all following ages. 
 
 Thus three great masses of sacred literature, comprising 
 those elements which were most immediately practical under 
 the old dispensation, and make up the chief permanent value 
 of the Old Testament for the Christian Church, took shape 
 and attained to undisputed authority on broad grounds of 
 history, and through processes of experimental verification 
 which made it unnecessary to seek complicated theological 
 arguments to justify their place in the Canon. The Law, the 
 Prophets, and the Psalms were inseparably linked with the 
 very existence of the Old Testament Church. Their autho- 
 rity was not derived from the schools of the Scribes, and 
 needed no sanction from them. And, though the spirit of 
 legalism might mistake the true connection and relative im- 
 portance of the Law and the other books, no Pharisaism was 
 able to undermine the influence of those evangelical and 
 eternal truths which kept true spirituality alive in Israel, 
 while the official theology was absorbed in exclusive devotion 
 to the temporary ordinances of the Law. 
 
 The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms are the substance 
 and centre of the Old Testament, on which the new dispensa- 
 tion builds, and to which our Lord Himself appeals as the 
 witness of the Old Covenant to the New. The exegesis 
 which insists, against every rule of language, that the Psalms 
 in Luke xxiv. 44 mean the Hagiographa as a whole misses 
 
 12 
 
178 THE COLLECTION 
 
 the point of our Lord's appeal to the preceding history of 
 revelation, and forgets that Ecclesiastes, Canticles, and Esther 
 are not once referred to in the Few Testament, and were still 
 antilegomena in the apostolic age. 
 
 The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, form an intel- 
 ligible classification, in which each element has a distinctive 
 character. And this is still the case if we add to the Psalter 
 the other two poetical Books of Job and Proverbs, which stand 
 beside the Psalms in our Hebrew Bibles. But the collection 
 of the Hagiographa, as a whole, is not homogeneous. "Why 
 does not Daniel stand among the later prophets, Ezra and 
 Chronicles among the historical books ? Why is it that the 
 Hagiographa were not read in the synagogue ? With regard 
 to the Psalms this is intelligible. They had their original 
 place, not in the synagogue, but in the Temple service. So, 
 too, the Books of Job and Proverbs, which belong to the 
 philosophy of the Hebrews, and were specially adapted for 
 private study, might seem less suitable for public reading — 
 Job, in particular, requiring to be studied as a whole if one is 
 to grasp its true sense. But this explanation does not cover 
 the whole Hagiographa. Their position can only be explained 
 by the lateness of their origin, or the lateness of their recog- 
 nition as authoritative Scriptures. The miscellaneous col- 
 lection of Hagiographa appended to the three great poetical 
 books is the region of the Old Testament antilegomena, and 
 in them we no longer stand on the ground of undisputed 
 authority acknowledged by our Lord, and rooted in the very 
 essence of the Old Testament dispensation. 
 
 The oldest explicit reference to a third section of sacred 
 books is found in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, written in 
 Egypt about 130 B.C. The author speaks of "the many and 
 great things given to us through the Law and the Prophets, 
 and the others who followed after them " ; and again, of " the 
 Law and the Prophets, and the other books of the fathers," as 
 
OF HAGIOGRAPHA 179 
 
 the study of his grandfather and other Israelites, who aimed 
 at a life conformed to the Law. 
 
 When the other books of the fathers are said to have been 
 written by those who followed after the prophets, the sense 
 may either be that their authors were later in time, or that 
 they were subordinate companions of the prophets. In either 
 case the author plainly regards these books as in some sense 
 secondary to the prophetic writings ; nor does it appear that 
 in his time there w^as a distinct and definite name for this 
 collection, or perhaps that there was a formal collection at all. 
 The overplus of God-given literature, after the Law and the 
 Prophets are deducted, is an inheritance from the fathers. 
 We must not infer from this statement that all ancient books 
 not comprised in the Law and the prophets were accepted 
 without criticism as a gift of God, and formed a third class of 
 sacred literature. The author of Chronicles had still access 
 to older books which are now lost ; and the Book of Ecclesi- 
 astes, xii. 11 sq., warns its readers against the futility of much 
 of the literature of the time, and admonishes them to confine 
 their attention to the words of the wise, the teachings of the 
 masters of assemblies, i.e. the sages met in council, the 
 experienced " circle of elders," praised in Ecclesiasticus vi. 34. 
 There were many books in those days which claimed to be 
 the work of ancient worthies, and such of them as we still 
 possess display a very different spirit and merit from the 
 acknowledged Hagiographa. There must have been a sifting 
 process applied to this huge mass of literature, and the 
 Hagiographa are the result. But it is not so easy to explain 
 how this sifting took place and led to the collection which we 
 now receive. 
 
 One thing is clear. The very separation of the Hagio- 
 grapha from the books of cognate character which stand in 
 the second section of the Hebrew Canon proves that the 
 third collection was formed after the second had been closed. 
 
180 THE COLLECTION 
 
 And since the prophetic collection was itself a gradual forma- 
 tion, fixed not by external authority but by silent consent, 
 this brings the collection of the Hagiographa down long after 
 the time of Ezra. With this it agrees that some of the books 
 of the Hagiographa did not originate till the very end of the 
 Persian period at earliest. The genealogies in Chronicles 
 and Nehemiah give direct proof of this fact, and the Book of 
 Ecclesiastes can hardly be dated before the Chronicles ; while 
 even the most conservative critics now begin to admit that 
 Daniel did not exist (at least in its present form) till the time 
 of the Maccabees. Neither Esther nor Daniel, nor indeed 
 Ezra, is alluded to in the list of worthies in Ecclesiasticus. 
 
 The determination of the collection of the Hagiographa 
 must therefore have taken place at an epoch when the 
 tradition of the Scribes was in full force, and we cannot 
 assert that their false theories had no influence on the work. 
 If they had a share in determining the collection, we can tell 
 with tolerable certainty what principles they acted on. For 
 to them all sacred writings outside the Torah were placed on 
 one footing with the oral law. In substance there was no 
 difference between written books and oral tradition. Both 
 alike were divine and authoritative expositions of the law. 
 There was traditional Halacha expanding and applying legal 
 precepts, but there was also traditional Haggada, recognised 
 as a rule of faith and life, and embracing doctrinal topics, 
 practical exhortation, embellishments and fabulous develop- 
 ments of Bible narratives.^ The difference between these 
 traditions and the sacred books lay only in the form. Tradi- 
 tion was viewed as essentially adapted for oral communication. 
 Every attempt to reduce it to writing was long discouraged 
 by the Scribes. It was a common possession of the learned, 
 
 1 It is sometimes said that tlie Haggada had no sacred authoritJ^ So 
 Zunz, op. cit. p. 42 ; Deutsch's Remains, p. 17 ; but compare, on the other 
 hand, Weber, op. cit. p. 94 sq. Certain Haggadoth share with the Halacha 
 the name of Midda, rule of faith and life. 
 
LECT. VI OF HAGIOGRAPHA 181 
 
 which no man had a right to appropriate and fix hy putting 
 it in a book of his own. The authority of tradition did not 
 lie with the man who uttered it, but in the source from which 
 it had come down ; and any tradition not universally current 
 and acknowledged as of old authority had to be authenticated 
 by evidence that he who used it had heard it from an older 
 scholar, wdiose reputation for fidelity was a guarantee that he 
 in turn had received it from a sure source. The same test 
 would doubtless be applied to a written book. Books ad- 
 mittedly new had no authority. Nothing could be accepted 
 unless it had the stamp of general currency, or was authenti- 
 cated by the name of an ancient author dating from the 
 period antecedent to the Scribes. All this, as we see from 
 the pseudepigraphic books, offered a great temptation to 
 forgery, but it offered also a certain security that doubtful 
 books would not be admitted till they had passed the test of 
 such imperfect criticism as the Scribes could apply. And, 
 besides all this, the ultimate criterion to which every book 
 was subjected lay in the supreme standard of the Law. 
 Nothing was holy which did not agree with the teaching of 
 the Pentateuch. 
 
 For some of the Hagiographa the test of old currency was 
 plainly conclusive. It does not appear that the Book of Job 
 was ever challenged, and the vague notices of a discussion 
 about the Proverbs that are found in Jewish books are not 
 of a kind to command credence.^ The same thing holds 
 good of the Lamentations, which in all probability were 
 ascribed to Jeremiah as early as the time of the Chronicler.^ 
 
 ^ Ahoth of R. Nathan, c. 1. — " At first they said that Proverbs, Canticles, 
 and Ecclesiastes are apocryphah They said they were parabolic writings, and 
 not of the Hagiographa . . . till the men of the Great Synagogue came and 
 explained them." Cp. B. Shalhath 30 h ; Eyle, p. 194 sq. 
 
 ^ " In 2 Cliron. xxxv. 25 we read that Jeremiah pronounced a dirge over 
 Josiah, and that the death of Josiah was still referred to according to stated 
 usage in the dirges used by singing men and women in the author's day, 
 and collected in a volume of Kindth — the ordinary Jewish name of our book. 
 
182 THE HAGIOGEAPHA lect. vi 
 
 Euth, again, is treated by Joseplius as an appendix to Judges, 
 and though this reckoning cannot be shown to have had 
 Palestinian authority, there is no reason to doubt that the 
 book was generally accepted as a valuable supplement to the 
 history of the period of the Judges. The case of the other 
 books is not so clear, and for all of them (except Daniel, 
 whose case is peculiar) we have evidence that their position 
 was long disputed, and only gradually secured. 
 
 The book of Ezra-Nehemiah has a special value for the 
 history of the Old Covenant, and contains information 
 absolutely indispensable, embodying contemporary records of 
 the close of the productive period of Israel's history. Yet 
 we find that the Alexandrian Jews were once content to 
 receive it in the form of a Midrash (1 Esdras of the LXX., 
 3 Esdras of the English Apocrypha), with many fabulous 
 additions and a text arbitrarily mangled. The Chronicles, 
 according to all appearance, were once one book with Ezra 
 and Nehemiah, from which they have been so rudely torn 
 that 2 Chronicles now ends in the middle of a verse, which 
 reappears complete at the beginning of Ezra. But the 
 Chronicles now stand after Ezra-ISTehemiah, as if it were an 
 afterthought to admit them to equal authority. When the 
 Greek Book of Esdras was composed of extracts from Chroni- 
 cles, as well as from Ezra and Nehemiah, the three books 
 
 Josephus says that the dirge of Jeremiah on this occasion was extant in his 
 daj's (Ant. x. 5. 1), and no doubt means by this the canonical Lamentations. 
 Jerome on Zech. xii. 11 understands the passage of Chronicles in the same 
 sense ; but modem writers have generally assumed that, as our book was 
 certainly written after the fall of Jerusalem, the dirges alluded to in Chronicles 
 must be a separate collection. This, however, is far from clear. The Kinuth 
 of the Chronicler had, according to his statement, acquired a fixed and statu- 
 tory place in Israel, and were connected with the name of a prophet. In 
 other words, they were canonical as far as any book outside the Pentateuch 
 could be so called in that age. Moreover, the allusion to the king, the 
 anointed of Jehovah, in Lam. iv. 20, though it really applies to Zedekiah, 
 speaks of him with a warmth of sympathy which later ages would not feel for 
 any king after Josiah." — Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., art. Lamentations, following 
 Nijldeke, Alttestamentlichc Literatur (1868), p. 144. 
 
IN THE CANON 183 
 
 were probably still read as one work.-^ From these facts it is 
 reasonable to infer that in spite of their close agreement with 
 the conceptions of the Scribes, it was long held to be doubtful 
 whether the Chronicles deserved a place among the Scriptures 
 or should be relegated to a lower sphere. The first decision 
 must have been to accept only that part of the book which 
 embodied the autobiographies of Ezra and Nehemiah. 
 
 For Daniel, the facts point to late origin rather than late 
 admission. Daniel is not mentioned among the worthies in 
 Ecclesiasticus, and had his book been known in old times it 
 would surely have stood with the prophets. 
 
 The authority of the Book of Esther, which is not used by 
 Philo or the New Testament, is necessarily connected with 
 the diffusion of the feast of Purim. Now, the book contains 
 two ordinances on this head — the observance of the feast 
 proper (Esther ix. 22), and the celebration of a memorial fast 
 preceding it (Esther ix. 31). According to Jewish usage, the 
 fast falls on the 13th of Adar. But this was the day when 
 Judas Maccabseus defeated and slew Mcanor in the battle of 
 Bethhoron, and was kept as a joyful anniversary in Palestine 
 from that time onward (1 Mac. vii. 48). The day of Nicanor 
 is still placed among the anniversaries on which fasting is 
 forbidden m the Megillath Taantth, after the death of 
 Trajan. In Palestine, therefore, at the time of our Lord, the 
 fast of Purim was not observed, and it may well be doubted 
 whether even the subsequent feast was universally acknow- 
 ledged. The Palestinian Talmud still contains traditions 
 of opposition to its introduction ; wliile the other Talmud 
 {B. Megill. 7 a, Sank. 100 a) names certain eminent Piabbins 
 who denied that Esther " defiles the hands," i.e. is canonical. 
 
 1 The most palpable argument for the original unity of Chronicles, Ezra, 
 and Nehemiah is that mentioned in the text. But further, the parts of Ezra- 
 Neheniiah -which are not extracts from documents in the hands of the editor 
 display all the characteristic peculiarities of the Chronicles in style, language, 
 and manner of thought. See Driver, Intivdudion, chap. xii. 
 
184 CLOSE OF THE 
 
 And, again, it is a notable circumstance that the book is so 
 freely handled in the two Greek recensions of the text. 
 
 The Book of Esther was not undisputed in the early Chris- 
 tian Church ; and, according to Eusebius, Melito, Bishop of 
 Sardis in the third quarter of the second century, journeyed 
 to Palestine to ascertain the Jewish Canon of his time, and 
 brought back a list, from which Esther was excluded.^ 
 
 The last stage in the history of the Jewish Canon is most 
 clearly exhibited in the case of Ecclesiastes and the Song of 
 Solomon, which were still controverted up to the very end of 
 the first Christian century. In earlier times, as we have 
 seen, no urgent necessity was felt to determine the precise 
 compass of the sacred books. But in the apostolic age more 
 than one circumstance called for a definite decision on the 
 subject of the Canon. The school of Hillel, with its new and 
 more powerful exegetical methods, directed to find a Scrip- 
 ture proof for every tradition, was naturally busied with the 
 compass, as well as the text, of the ancient Scriptures. E. 
 Akiba, a rigid spirit averse to all compromise, would admit 
 no middle class between sacred books and books which it 
 was a sin to read. " Those who read the outside books have 
 no part in the life to come." ^ Such books were to be buried 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. Lib. iv. cap. 26. It is certainly very liard to 
 understand what Jewish authorities could omit Esther at so late a date, but 
 tlie statement of Eusebius is precise. In the fourth century Athanasius and 
 Gregory of Naziauzus still omit Esther from the Canon. The ordinance of 
 the fast of Purim (Esther ix. 31), which we see not to have been observed in 
 Palestine in the time of Christ, is lacking in the Greek text of Esther, and in 
 Josephus, Ant. xi. 6. 13, where, however, we are told that the feast was 
 celebrated by the Jews throughout the world. On the origin of the feast of 
 Purim, see Lagarde, Purim (Gott., 1887 ; Abhandlungai of the Gottingen 
 Academy, vol. xxxiv.), who connects it with the Persian Furdigan, and 
 Zimmern in Stade's Zeitschrift f. AT. TV. (1891), p. 157 sqq., who argues for 
 a connection with the Babylonian New Year Feast. That the observance of 
 Purim began not in Palestine, but in the Eastern Dispersion, is probable 
 almost to certainty. On the Megillath Ta'anith, or list of days on which the 
 Jews are forbidden to fast, consult Derenbourg, p. 439 sq. 
 
 2 Mishna, Sanhedrin, xi. 1 (ed. Suren., vol. iv. p. 259). — "All Israelites 
 have a share in the world to come, except those who deny the resurrection of 
 
JEWISH CANON 185 
 
 — thrust away in the rubbish -room to which condemned 
 synagogue rolls were relegated. But the immediately practical 
 call for a precise definition of the compass of the sacred books 
 arose from the circumstance that this question came to be 
 necessarily associated with a point of ritual observance. The 
 Eabbins, always jealous for the ceremonial sanctity of sacred 
 things, were concerned to preserve copies of the Scriptures 
 from being lightly handled or used for common purposes. 
 They therefore devised, in accordance with their principle of 
 hedging in the law, a Halacha to the effect that the sacred 
 books communicate ceremonial uncleanness to hands that 
 touch them, or to food with which they are brought in contact. 
 This ordinance was well devised for the object in view, for it 
 secured that such books should be kept in a place by them- 
 selves, and not lightly handled. But it now became abso- 
 lutely necessary to know which books defile the hands. The 
 Mishna contains a special treatise on " hands " {ladaim), and 
 here we find authentic information on the controversies to 
 which the ordinance gave rise. Two books were involved. 
 The schools of Shammai and Hillel were divided as to 
 Ecclesiastes. But there was also discussion as to the Song 
 of Solomon, and both points came up for decision at 
 a great assembly held in lamnia {ca. 90 A.D. ?), where E. 
 Akiba took a commanding place. Some of the doctors must 
 have hinted that the canonicity of Canticles was a moot-point. 
 But Akiba struck in with his wonted energy, and silenced all 
 dispute. " God forbid ! " he cried. " No one in Israel has 
 ever doubted that the Song of Solomon defiles the hands. 
 For no day in the history of the world is worth the day when 
 
 the dead, those who say that the Torah is not from God, and the Epicureans. 
 R. Akiba adds those who read in outside books, and him who whispers over 
 a wound the words of Exod. xv. 26," — a kind of charm, the sin of which, 
 according to the commentators, lay in the fact that these sacred words were 
 pronounced after spitting over the sore. Compare on the " outside books " 
 Geiger, p. 200 sq. 
 
186 CLOSE OF THE 
 
 the Song of Solomon was given to Israel. For all tlie Hagio- 
 grapha are holy, but the Song of Solomon is a holy of the 
 holies. If there has been any dispute, it referred only to 
 Ecclesiastes," -^ 
 
 In the characteristic manner of theological partisanship, 
 Akiba speaks with most confident decision on the points 
 where he knew his case to be weakest. So far was it from 
 being true that no one had ever doubted the canonicity of 
 Canticles that he himself had to hurl an anathema at those 
 who sang the Song of Solomon with quavering voice in the 
 banqueting house as if it were a common lay. The same 
 tendency to cover the historical weakness of the position of 
 disputed books by energetic protestations of their superla- 
 tive worth appears in what the Palestinian Talmud relates of 
 the opinions of the Doctors as to the roll of Esther. While 
 some Eabbins, appealing to Deuteronomy v. 22, maintained 
 
 ^ Mi.shna, ladaim, iii. 5. — "All the Holy Scriptures defile the hands: 
 the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Judah says, The 
 Song of Solomon defiles the hands, and Ecclesiastes is disputed. E. Jose 
 says, Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands, and the Song of Solomon is dis- 
 puted. R. Simeon says, Ecclesiastes belongs to the light things of the 
 school of Shammai, and the heavy things of the school of Hillel [i.e. on this 
 point the school of Shammai is less strict]. R. Simeon, son of Azzai, says, I 
 received it as a tradition from the seventy-two elders on the day when they 
 enthroned R. Eliezer, son of Azariah [as President of the Beth Din at lamnia, 
 which became the seat of the heads of the Scribes after the fall of Jerusalem], 
 that the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Akiba said, 
 God forbid ! No one in Israel has ever doubted that the Song of Solomon 
 defiles the hands. For no day in the history of the world is worth the day 
 when the Song of Solomon was given to Israel. For all the Hagiographa are 
 holy, but the Song of Solomon is a holy of the holies. If there has been any 
 dispute, it referred only to Ecclesiastes. ... So they disputed, and so they 
 decided." 
 
 Eduioth, V. 3. — "Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands according to the 
 school of Shammai, but does so according to the school of Hillel." 
 
 For the disputes as to Ecclesiastes, compare also Jerome on chap. xii. 13, 
 14. "The Hebrews say that this book, which calls all God's creatures vain, 
 and prefers meat, drink, and passing delights to all else, might seem worthy 
 to disappear with other lost works of Solomon ; but that it merits canonical 
 authority, because it sums up the whole argument in the precept to fear God 
 and do His commandment." 
 
JEWISH CANON 187 
 
 that a day must come when the Hagiographa and the Prophets 
 would become obsolete, and only the Law remain ; nay, says 
 Eabbi Simeon, Esther and the Halachoth can never become 
 obsolete (Esther ix. 28).-^ 
 
 In speaking of these Old Testament Antilegomcna I have 
 confined myself to a simple statement of facts that are not 
 open to dispute. It is matter of fact that the position of 
 several books was still subject of controversy in the apostolic 
 age, and was not finally determined till after the fall of the 
 Temple and the Jewish state. Before that date the Hagio- 
 grapha did not form a closed collection with an undisputed 
 list of contents, and therefore the general testimony of Christ 
 and the Apostles to the Old Testament Scriptures cannot be 
 used as certainly including books like Esther, Canticles, and 
 Ecclesiastes, which were still disj)uted among the orthodox 
 Jews in the apostolic age, and to which the New Testament 
 never makes reference. These books have been delivered to 
 us ; they have their use and value, which are to be ascer- 
 tained by a frank and reverent study of the texts themselves; 
 but those who insist on placing them on the same footing 
 with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, to which our 
 Lord bears direct testimony, and so make the whole doctrine 
 of the Canon depend on its weakest part, sacrifice the true 
 strength of the evidence on which the Old Testament is 
 received by Christians, and commit the same fault with Akiba 
 and his fellow Eabbins, who bore down the voice of free 
 inquiry with anathemas instead of argument. 
 
 ^ Akiba's anathema in Tosef. Sanhedrin, c. 12 ; R. Simeon's utterance in 
 Talmud Jer. Megilla, i. 5 (Krotoschin ed. of 1866, f. 70 b). 
 
LECTUEE VII 
 
 THE PSALTER 
 
 Up to this point we have been occupied with general dis- 
 cussions as to the transmission of the Old Testament among 
 the Jews, and the collection of its books into a sacred Canon. 
 In the remaining part of our course we must deal with the 
 origin of individual books; and as it is impossible in six 
 Lectures to go over the whole field of the Old Testament 
 literature, I shall confine myself to the discussion of some 
 cardinal problems referring to the three great central masses 
 of the Old Testament, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. 
 The present Lecture will deal with the Book of Psalms. 
 
 The Psalter, as we have it, unquestionably contains 
 Psalms of the Exile and the new Jerusalem. It is also 
 generally held to contain Psalms of the period of David, thus 
 embracing within its compass poems extending over a range 
 of some five hundred years. How did such a collection come 
 together? How was it formed, and how were the earlier 
 Psalms preserved up to the date when they were embodied 
 in our present Psalter? 
 
 In discussing this question, let us begin by looking at the 
 nature and objects of the Psalter. The Book of Psalms is a 
 collection of religious and devotional poetry. It is made up 
 mainly of prayers and songs of praise, with a certain number 
 of didactic pieces. But it is not a collection of all the religious 
 
THE PSALTEK 189 
 
 poetry of Israel. That is manifest from the circumstance 
 that, with one exception (2 Sam. xxii. = Psalm xviii.), the 
 poems preserved in the old historical books are not repeated 
 in the Psalter. Nor, again, was the collection formed with 
 an historical object. It is true that there are some titles 
 which contain historical notes, but on the other hand there 
 are many Psalms whose contents naturally suggest an inquiry . 
 as to the historical situation in which they were composed, but 
 where we have no title or hint of any sort to answer that 
 question. Again, although the Psalms represent a great range 
 of personal religious experience, it is to be noticed that they 
 avoid such situations and expressions as are of too unique a 
 character to be used in the devotion of other believers. The 
 feelings expressed in the Psalter are mainly such as can be 
 shared by every devout soul, if not in every circumstance, 
 yet at least in circumstances which frequently recur in human 
 life. Some of the Psalms are manifestly written from the 
 first with a general devotional purpose, as prayers or praises 
 which can be used in any mouth. In others, again, the poet 
 seems to speak, not in his private person, but in the name of 
 the people of God as a whole ; and even the Psalms more 
 directly individual in occasion have so much catholicity of 
 sentiment that they have served with the other hymns of the 
 Psalter as a manual of devotion for the Church in all ages of 
 both dispensations.-^ 
 
 1 Some recent writers go so far as to maintain that in all (or almost all) 
 the Psalms, the speaker is Israel, the church-nation personified, so that the 
 "I" and "me" of the Psalms throughout mean "we," "us," the community 
 of God's grace and worship. So especially Smend in Stade's Zeitschrift, viii. 
 49 sqq. (1888). Few will be disposed to go so far as Smend ; but the view 
 that many Psalms are spoken in the name of the community is no novelty, 
 and can hardly be disputed. There is, of course, room for much difference of 
 opinion as to the limits within which this method of interpreting the "I" 
 and "me" of the Psalms is to be applied. Driver, Introduction, p. 366 sq., 
 would confine it to a few Psalms, while Cheyne (whose remarks on the bear- 
 ing of the question on the use of the Psalter in the Christian Church will 
 repay perusal) gives it a much larger range. {Origin of the Psalter, 1891, 
 Lecture VI.) 
 
190 THE PSALTER 
 
 The Psalms, then, are a collection of religious poetry, 
 chosen with a special view to the edification of the Old Testa- 
 ment Church. But further, the purpose immediately con- 
 templated in the collection is not the private edification of 
 the individual Israelite, but the public worship of the Old 
 Testament Church in the Temple, and necessarily (since 
 some of the Psalms are later than the Exile), in the second 
 Temple. This appears most clearly in the latter part of the 
 book, where we meet with many Psalms obviously composed 
 from the first for liturgical use. Some are doxologies ; others 
 are largely made up of extracts from earlier Psalms, in a way 
 very natural in a liturgical manual of devotion, but not so 
 natural in a poet merely composing a hymn for his personal 
 use. The liturgical element is specially prominent in those 
 Psalms (from civ. onwards) which begin or end with the 
 phrase Hallelujah, " Praise ye the Lord." This phrase con- 
 nects the Hallelujah Psalms with the part of the Temple 
 service called the hallel, which denotes a jubilant song of 
 praise executed to the accompaniment of Levitical music, 
 and the blare of the priestly trumpets (1 Chron. xvi. 4 sqq., 
 XXV. 3 ; 2 Chron. v. 12 sc[., xxix. 27-30). By the later Jews 
 the term hallel is mainly applied to Psalms cxiii.-cxviii., 
 which were sung at the great annual feasts, at the encaenia 
 (the feast spoken of in John x. 22), and at the new moons. 
 Again, throughout the Psalms, the Temple, Zion, the Holy 
 City, are kept in the foreground. Once more, the same 
 destination appears in the titles. The musical titles are full 
 of technical terms which occur again in the Book of Chroni- 
 cles in descriptions of the Levitical Psalmody of the Temple. 
 The proper names in the titles have a similar reference. The 
 sons of Korah were a guild of Temple musicians ; Asaph was 
 the father and patron of a similar guild ; Heman and Ethan 
 are named in the Chronicles as Temple singers of the time of 
 David. Finally, the very name of the Psalter in the Hebrew 
 
AS A HYMNAL 191 
 
 Bible leads to the same conclusion. The Psalms are called 
 Tehillim, hymns, from the same root as Hallelujah, and with 
 the same allusion to the Temple service of praise.^ 
 
 The fact that the Psalter is a hymnal at once elucidates 
 some important features in the book, and suggests certain 
 rules for its profitable use and study. The liturgical character 
 of the Psalms explains their universality, and justifies the 
 large use made of them in the Christian Church. As a 
 liturgical collection, the Psalter expresses the feelings and 
 hopes, the faith, the prayers and the praises of the Old Testa- 
 ment Church, their sense of sin, and their joyful apprehen- 
 sion of God's salvation. These are the subjective elements 
 of religion, the answer of the believing heart to God. And 
 precisely in these elements the religion of all ages is much 
 alike. The New Testament revelation made a great change 
 in the objective elements of religion. Old ideas and forms 
 passed away, and new things took their place ; but through 
 all this growth of the objective side of revelation, the devotion 
 of the faithful heart to God remains essentially one and the 
 same. Our faith, our sense of sin, our trust upon God and 
 His salvation, the language of our prayers and praises, are 
 still one with those of the Old Testament Church. It is true 
 that not a little of the colouring of the Psalms is derived 
 from the ritual and order of the old dispensation, and has 
 now become antiquated ; but practical religion does not refuse 
 
 ^ The later Jews were not completely informed as to the liturgical use of 
 the Psalter in the Temple services. There is even some uncertainty as to 
 what parts of the Hallelujah Psalms are included in the Hallel, presumably 
 because several selections from this part of the Psalter were used. Of the daily 
 Psalms, sung at the morning sacrifice, the following list, which has every 
 appearance of authenticity, is given in the Mishna Tamid, vii. 4 (Surenh., 
 V. 10) : Sunday, Ps. 24 ; Monday, Ps. 48 ; Tuesday, Ps. 82 ; Wednesday, 
 Ps. 94 ; Thursday, Ps. 81 ; Friday, Ps. 93 ; Sabbath, Ps. 92. Ps. 92 is 
 assigned to the Sabbath in the title, and the titles in the Septuagint also 
 confirm the statements of the Mishna, except as regards Pss. 81 and 82, the 
 former of which must originally have been written for some great feast (see 
 verse 3 [Heb. 4]). According to tradition it was sung at the Feast of 
 Trumpets fNumb. xxix. 1), as well as at the ordinary Thursday service. 
 
192 THE PSALTER 
 
 those bonds of connection with the past. The believing soul 
 is never anxious to separate its own spiritual life from the 
 spiritual life of the fathers. Eather does it cling with special 
 affection to the links that unite it to the Church of the Old 
 Testament; and the forms which, in their literal sense, are 
 now antiquated, become to us an additional group of figures 
 in the rich poetic imagery of the Hebrew hymnal. 
 
 But the Psalter and the Old Testament in general are to 
 us not merely books of devotion, but sources of study for the 
 better knowledge of the whole course of God's revelation. It 
 is a law of all science that, to know a thing thoroughly, we 
 must know it in its genesis and in its growth. To under- 
 stand the ways of God with man, and the whole meaning of 
 His plan of salvation, it is necessary to go back and see His 
 work in its beginnings, examining the rudimentary stages of 
 the process of revelation ; and for this the Psalms are invalu- 
 able, for they give us the first answer of the believing heart 
 to God under a dispensation where the objective elements of 
 revelation were far less fully developed, and where spiritual 
 processes were in many respects more naive and childlike. 
 While the simple Christian can always take up the Psalm- 
 book and use it for devotion, appropriating those elements 
 which remain the same in all ages, those who are called upon 
 to study the Bible systematically, and who desire to learn all 
 that can be learned from it, will also look at the Psalms from 
 another point of view. Recognising the fact that many of 
 them have an historical occasion, and that they express the 
 life of a particular stage of the Old Testament Church, they 
 will endeavour to study the history of the collection, and 
 ascertain what can be learned of the epoch and situation in 
 which each Psalm w^as written. 
 
 In entering upon this study, it is highly important to 
 carry with us the fact that the Psalms are preserved to us, 
 not in an historical collection, but in a hymn-book specially 
 
AS A HYMNAL 193 
 
 adapted for the use of the second Temple. The plan of a hymn- 
 book does not secure that every poem shall be given exactly 
 as it was written by the first author. The practical object of 
 the collection makes it legitimate and perhaps necessary that 
 there should be such adaptations and alterations as may secure 
 a larger scope of practical utility in ordinary services. 
 
 In a book which contains Psalms spreading over a period 
 of perhaps five hundred years, such a period as that 
 which separates Chaucer from Tennyson, or Dante from 
 Manzoni, changes of this kind could hardly be avoided ; and 
 so in fact we find not a few variations in the text and indica- 
 tions of the hand of an editor retouching the original poems. 
 Between Psalm xviii. and 2' Samuel xxii. there are some 
 seventy variations not merely orthographical. The Psalter 
 itself repeats certain poems with changes. Psalm liii, is a 
 copy of Ps. xiv. with variations of text ; Psalm Ixx. repeats 
 Ps. xl. 13-17 ; Ps. cviii. is verses 7-11 of Ps. Ivii., followed 
 by Ps. Ix. 5-12. Another clear sign that we have not every 
 Psalm in its original text lies in the alphabetical acrostics, 
 Psalms ix.-x. xxv. xxxiv. xxxvii. cxi. cxii. cxix. cxlv., in 
 which the initial letters of successive half verses, verses, or 
 larger stanzas make up the alphabet. It is of the nature of 
 an acrostic to be perfect. An acrostic poem which misses 
 some letter or puts it in a false place is a failure ; and there- 
 fore, when we find that some of these acrostics are now 
 incomplete, we must conclude that the text has suffered. In 
 some cases it is still easy to suggest the slight change neces- 
 sary to restore the original scheme. Elsewhere, as in the 
 beautiful acrostic now reckoned as two Psalms (ix. and x.), 
 the corruption in the text, or possibly the intentional change 
 made to adapt the poem for public worship, is so considerable 
 that the original form cannot be recovered.^ 
 
 ^ Another case where one Psalm has been made two is xlii. -xliii., where, 
 by taking the words " my God " from the beginning of xlii. 6 to the end of 
 
 13 
 
194 DIVISIONS OF 
 
 In general, then, we conclude that the oldest text of a 
 sacred lyric is not always preserved in the Psalter. And so, 
 again, we must not suppose that the notes of authors' names 
 in a hymn-book have the same weight as the statements of 
 an historical book. In a liturgical collection the author's 
 name is of little consequence, and the editors who altered the 
 text of a poem cannot be assumed a priori to have taken 
 absolute care to preserve a correct record of its origin. But 
 to this subject we shall recur presently. 
 
 Let us now look at the collection somewhat more closely ; 
 and, in the first place, let us take note of the traditional 
 division of the Psalter into five smaller books, each terminat- 
 ing with a doxology. In most modern Hebrew Bibles, and 
 also in the English Eevised Version, the five books are 
 marked off by short titles, which are not found in most manu- 
 scripts, are devoid of Massoretic authority, and are rightly 
 absent from the Authorised Version. But the division itself 
 rests on an ancient Jewish tradition which was already 
 known to Hippolytus at the beginning of the third Christian 
 century. Mediaeval Jewish opinion, following the Midrash 
 on Psalm i., ascribed the partition to David, and the majority 
 of modern scholars regard the terminal doxologies (which are 
 also found in the Septuagint) as sufficient evidence that a 
 fivefold arrangement of the Psalter, presumably on the 
 model of the Pentateuch, was actually designed by the col- 
 lector of the book.^ Before we discuss how far this opinion 
 
 the previous verse, and making a single change in the division of the words, 
 we get a poem of three stanzas, with an identical refrain to each. Conversely 
 Ps. cxliv. 12 sq(i. seems to have no connection with the poem (verses 1-11) to 
 which it is now attached. 
 
 ^ The witness of Hippolytus is found in the Greek (ed. Lag., p. 193 ; 
 closely followed by Epiphanius, Be Mens, et Pond. § 5 ; see Lagarde, Sym- 
 micta, ii. 157), in a passage of which the genuineness has been questioned ; 
 but the same doubt does not attach to the Syriac form of Hippolytus's testi- 
 mony (Lagarde, Analeda Syriaca, 1858, p. 86). The Greek speaks of a 
 division into five books {j3Lp\La), the Syriac of five parts or sections [menaivdthe). 
 The latter expression agrees best with Jerome's statement in the Prologus 
 
THE PSALTER 195 
 
 is sound it will be convenient to present a table showing 
 the scheme of the traditional division : — 
 
 Book I. Psalms 1-41. — All ascribed to David, except 1, 2, 10 [whicli 
 is part of 9], 33 [ascribed to David in the LXX.] Doxology — 
 Blessed be Jeliovab, God of Israel, from everlasting and to ever- 
 lasting. Amen and Amen. 
 
 Book II. Psalms 42-72. — 42-49, Korahite [43 being part of 42] ; 50, 
 Asaph ; 51-71, David, except 66, 67, 71, which are anonymous ; 
 72, Solomon. Doxology — Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of 
 Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things. And blessed be His 
 name of glory for ever : and let the whole earth be filled with 
 His glory. Amen and Amen. Subscription — The prayers of 
 David the son of Jesse are ended. 
 
 Book III. Psalms 73-89.-73-83, Asaph; 84, 85, 87, 88, Korahite; 
 86, David ; 88, Heman ; 89, Ethan. Doxology — Blessed be 
 Jehovah for ever. Amen and Amen. 
 
 Book IV. Psalms 90-106.— 90, Moses; 101, 103, David; the rest 
 anonymous. Doxology — Blessed be Jehovah, God of Israel, from 
 everlasting and to everlasting. And let all the people say, Amen : 
 Hallelujah. 
 
 Galcatus, "David, quem quiuque incisioiiibus et uno volumine compre- 
 hendunt " \scil. Hebraei]. In the Preface to his Psalt. iuxta Hehraeos Jerome 
 refuses to allow the expression "five books," which some used. For the 
 Jewish recognition of the fivefold partition of the Psalter most writers refer 
 only to the later Midrash on the Psalms, from whicli Kimclii draws in the 
 Preface to his Commentary. But there is much older Jewish evidence to 
 confirm that of the Christian authorities. Mr. Scliechter refers me to B. 
 Kiddilshin, 33 a, where R. Simeon, son of Rabbi, says, complaining of a pupil, 
 "I taught him two-fifths of the Book of Psalms, and he did not rise up before 
 me (out of respect when 1 entered the place where he was seated)." The 
 expression "fifths" is commonly used of the books of the Pentateuch, but it 
 occurs also in J. Megillah, ii. 4, in connection with the Book of Esther 
 (Miiller, S62}herim, p. 34), and is not a sufficient justification for speaking of 
 five books (D''"lSD) of the Psalms. In Sdpherim, ii. 4, where a blank of four 
 lines is prescribed between each book of the Torah, and a blank of three 
 lines between each of the twelve Minor Prophets, nothing is said of the 
 sections of the Psalter. There are, however, traces of a later rule by which 
 two lines are to be left between each section of the Psalms ; but the rule is 
 very imperfectly followed in MSS. The first Massoretic Bible (that of Jacob 
 b. Chayyim) notes the commencement of Bks. 2, 3, 4, 5 in the margiu, or in 
 vacant spaces in the text, in smaller characters (''3CJ' "ISD and so forth), and 
 similar titles are found in some MSS. 
 
 We learn from Hippolytus and Jerome that the doxologies, or rather the 
 double Amen of the doxologies, furnished the argument for the fivefold 
 division. In Ps. cvi. 48 Jerome appears to have read a double yivoLTo in the 
 Greek (as many MSS. do), and also (against the present Massoretic text) a 
 double JOX in the Hebrew. (See the critical apparatus in Lagarde's edition.) 
 
196 DIVISIONS OF 
 
 Book V. Psalms 107-150.— 108-110, 122,^ 124,1 131,1 133,i 138-145, 
 David; 127,1 Solomon ; 120-134, Pilgrimage songs. The book 
 closes with a group of doxological Psalms, but there is no such 
 special doxology as in the previous books. 
 
 The first three cloxologies plainly form no part of the 
 Psalms to which they are attached, but mark the end of each 
 book after the pious fashion, not uncommon in Eastern litera- 
 ture, to close the composition or transcription of a volume 
 with a brief prayer or words of praise. In Psalm cvi. the 
 case is different. For here we find a liturgical direction that 
 all the people shall say, " Amen, Hallelujah," which seems to 
 imply that this doxology was actually sung at the close of 
 the Psalm. And so it is taken in 1 Chron, xvi., where the 
 Psalm is quoted. For here (ver. 36) the imperatives are 
 changed to perfects, "and all the people said, Amen, and 
 praised the Lord." 
 
 This essential difference in character between the three 
 first doxologies and the fourth appears to be fatal to the 
 theory that the collector of the whole Psalter disposed his 
 work in five sections, and added a doxology to each. Nor 
 can this theory be mended by joining Books IV. and V., and 
 supposing the collector to have aimed at a fourfold division. 
 For it is not conceivable that, after writing formal doxologies 
 to three sections of his work, the collector would have left 
 the close of the whole Psalter unprovided with a similar 
 formula. "We conclude, therefore, that the three first doxolo- 
 gies are older than the final collection ; and, as they evidently 
 mark actual subdivisions in the Psalm-book, it naturally 
 occurs to us to inquire whether these subdivisions are not 
 the boundaries of earlier collections, of which the first three 
 books of our present Psalter are made up.^ 
 
 1 Not so in LXX. 
 
 - An illustration of the way in which the limits of an older collection may 
 be revealed by the retention of the doxological subscription is supplied by the 
 Diwan of the Hodhalite poets. At the close of the 236th poem (according to 
 
THE PSALTER 197 
 
 A closer examination confirms this conjecture. The first 
 book, Psalms i.-xli., is all Davidic, every Psalm bearing the 
 title of David except Psalms i. ii. x. xxxiii. Now Psalm i. 
 is clearly a preface to the collection. But in Talmudic times 
 Psalm ii. was reckoned as forming one section with Psalm i., 
 and so it is actually cited as the first Psalm in the correct 
 text of Acts xiii. 33. Again, Psalm x. is the second part of 
 the acrostic Psalm ix., and Psalm xxxiii. is certainly a late 
 piece, and probably came into this part of the Psalter after- 
 wards. The first book, therefore, is a formal collection of 
 Psalms ascribed to David. So, again, in the second book, the 
 Psalms ascribed to David stand apart from the Korahite and 
 Asaphic Psalms, and form a connected group, though they 
 include some anonymous pieces, and also one hymn (Psalm 
 Ixxii.), which is entitled "of Solomon," but was perhaps 
 viewed, as our version takes it, as a prayer of David for his 
 son. In Book III. only Psalm Ixxxvi. bears the name of 
 David, and this title is unquestionably a mistake, for the 
 Psalm is a mere cento of reminiscences from older parts of 
 Scripture, and the prayer in verse 11, " Unite my heart to 
 fear thy name," is based on the promise (Jer. xxxii. 39), " I 
 will give them one heart ... to fear me continually." It is 
 the law of the religious life that prayer is based on promise, 
 and not conversely.^ It cannot be accident that has thus 
 disposed the Davidic Psalms of Books I.-III. in two groups. 
 But if the final collector had gathered these poems together 
 for the first time, he would surely have made one group, not 
 two. Nor can he have added the subscription to Psalm 
 Ixxii., " The prayers of David are ended," unless, indeed, we 
 suppose that the titles ascribing Psalms of the fourth and 
 fifth books to David are all additions of later copyists after 
 
 Wellhausen's enumeration) occurs the subscription, tamma hddhd walilldhi 
 'l-hamdu, etc., showing that the collection once ended at this point. 
 ^ See additional Note C. 
 
198 THE ELOHISTIC 
 
 the collection was closed. We conclude, then, that the first 
 book once existed as a separate collection, and that the sub- 
 scription to Psalm Ixxii., with the doxology, marks the close 
 of another once separate collection of Davidic Psalms. 
 
 Another evidence that the first three books of the Psalter 
 contain collections formed by more than one editor, lies in 
 the names of God. Books I. IV. and V, of the Psalter use 
 the names of God in the same way as most other parts of the 
 Old Testament, where Jehovah is the prevailing term, and 
 other names, such as Elohim (God), occur less frequently. 
 But in the greater part of Books 11. and III. (Psalms xlii.- 
 Ixxxiii.) the name of Jehovah is rare, and Elohim takes its 
 place even where the substitute reads very awkwardly. 
 For example, a common Old Testament phrase is " Jehovah 
 my God," "Jehovah thy God," based upon Exodus xx. 2, 
 where, in the preface to the Ten Commandments, we have, " I 
 am Jehovah thy God." Some later writers seem to have 
 avoided the name Jehovah, in accordance with a tendency 
 which ultimately became so prevalent among the Jews that 
 they now never pronounce the word Jehovah (lahwe), but 
 read Adonai (Lord) in its place (supra, p. 77). Such writers 
 do not use the phrase " Jehovah my God," but simply say, 
 " my God." In the Elohim Psalms, however, and nowhere 
 else in the Old Testament, we find the peculiar phrase " God 
 my God," with Elohim in place of Jehovah. And so, even 
 in Psalm 1. 7, where the words of Exodus xx. 2 are actually 
 quoted, we read " I am God thy God." Clearly this is no 
 accident. Tlie Psalms in which the name Elohim is habitu- 
 ally used instead of Jehovah hang together. And, when we 
 look more closely at the matter, we see that they not only 
 hang together, but that the phenomenon of the names of God 
 is due, not to the original authors of the Psalms, but to the 
 collector himself; for some of these Elohim Psalms occur 
 also in the earlier Jehovistic part of the Psalter. Psalm liii. 
 
COLLECTION" 199 
 
 is identical with Psalm xiv. ; Psalm Ixx, with part of Psalm 
 xl. ; and here, among other variations of text, we find Jehovah 
 six times changed to Elohim, and only one converse change. 
 That is a clear proof that the Elohim Psalms have been 
 formed by an editor who, for some reason, preferred to sup- 
 press, as far as possible, the name Jehovah. 
 
 Now let us look a little more closely at this Elohistic 
 collection. It forms the main part of the second and third 
 Psalm-books. The Psalms that remain look like an appendix, 
 containing some supplementary Korahite Psalms, and one 
 Psalm ascribed to David, which we have seen to be late, and 
 which may fairly be judged to be no part of the original 
 Davidic collections. If we set the appendix on one side, we 
 find in Books II. and III. a single Elohistic collection with a 
 well-marked editorial peculiarity running through it. This 
 Elohistic Psalm-book consists of two kinds of elements. It 
 contains, in the first place, Levitical Psalms — that is, Psalms 
 ascribed to Levitical choirs, the sons of Korah and Asaph ; 
 and, further, a collection of Davidic Psalms, marked off as a 
 distinct section by the subscription at the end of Psalm Ixxii. 
 and the accompanying doxology. As now arranged, the 
 Davidic collection is wedged in between two masses of Levi- 
 tical Psalms, and even separates the Asaphic Psalm 1. from 
 the body of the Asaphic collection. Psalms Ixxiii.-lxxxiii. It 
 is not probable that this was the original order, for if we 
 simply take Psalms xlii.-l., and lift them into the place be- 
 tween Psalms Ixxii. and Ixxiii., we get a complete and natural 
 arrangement. We thus have a book containing, first, a 
 collection of Davidic Psalms with a subscription, and then 
 two collections of Levitical Psalms, the first Korahitic and 
 the last Asaphic. We may fairly accept this as the older 
 arrangement, which possibly was changed by the final col- 
 lector in order that he might show by a distinct mark that the 
 two Davidic collections in his M^ork were originally separate. 
 
200 STRUCTURE OF 
 
 Perhaps, also, he may have been influenced by the fact that 
 Psalms 1. and li. are both suitable for the service of sacrifices 
 of praise. Such is the account it seems reasonable to give of 
 Books 11. and III. 
 
 We come next to Books IV. and V. They also are really 
 one book, for the doxology of Psalm cvi. belongs to the Psalm, 
 and there is no clear mark of difference in subject, character, 
 or editorial treatment in the Psalms which precede and follow 
 it. But, taken as a unity, Books IV. and V. are marked by a 
 liturgical character more predominant than in the other books. 
 They are also of later collection than the Elohistic Psalm- 
 book, for Psalm cviii. is made up of two Elohim Psalms (Ivii. 
 7-11, Ix. 5-12), retaining the predominant use of Elohim, al- 
 though the other Psalms of the last two books are Jehovistic. 
 As the Elohim Psalms got their peculiar use of the names of 
 God from the collector, and not from their authors, we may 
 safely affirm that Books 11. and III. existed in their collected 
 form before Psalm cviii. was composed. 
 
 Thus the five books of the Psalms reduce themselves to 
 three collections (with subdivisions in the case of the second), 
 which may be thus exhibited in tabular form : — 
 
 First Collection 
 
 (Bk. I.) David Pss. 1-41 
 
 Doxology 
 
 Second Collection 
 (Bks. IT. and III.) 
 
 Part i. David Pss. 51-72 ^ 
 
 Doxology and Subscription f ELOHIM 
 
 Part ii. a. Korah Pss. 42-49 [ Psalms 
 
 b. Asaph Pss. 50, 73-83 ) 
 
 Appendix. Miscellaneous Ps. 84-89 
 
 Doxology 
 
 Tliird Collection 
 (Bks. IV. and V.) Mainly Anonymous Ps. 90-150 
 
LECT. VII 
 
 THE PSALTER 201 
 
 In accordance with these results we can distingvush the 
 following steps in the redaction : — 
 
 (a) The formation of the first Davidic collection with a closing 
 
 doxology (1-41). 
 (6) The formation of the second Davidic collection, with doxology 
 
 and subscription (51-72). 
 (c) The formation of a twofold Levitical collection (42-49 ; 60, 
 
 73-83). 
 {d) An Elohistic I'edaction and combination of (6) and (c). 
 (e) The addition to {d) of a non-Elohistic supplement and doxology 
 
 (84-89). 
 (/) The formation of the Third Collection (90-149). 
 
 Finally, the anonymous Psalms i. and ii. may have been 
 prefixed after the whole Psalter was completed. 
 
 A process of collection which involves so many stages 
 must plainly have taken a considerable time, and the 
 question arises whether we can fix a limit for its beginning 
 and end, or can assign a date for any particular stages of 
 the process. 
 
 An inferior limit for the final form of the collection is 
 given by the Septuagint translation. But the traditions 
 examined in Lecture IV., which fix the middle of the third 
 century B.C. as the probable date of the Greek translation of 
 the Law, tell us nothing about the translation of the Hagio- 
 grapha. We know, however, from the prologue to Ecclesi- 
 asticus that certain Hagiographa, and doubtless, therefore, the 
 Psalter, were current in Egypt in a Greek version about 130 
 B.C. or a little later. And the Greek Psalter, though it adds 
 one apocryphal Psalm at the end, is essentially the same as 
 the Hebrew ; there is nothing to suggest that the Greek was 
 first translated from a less complete Psalter and afterwards 
 extended to agree with the received Hebrew. It is therefore 
 reasonable to hold that the Hebrew Psalter was completed 
 and recognised as an authoritative collection long enough 
 before 130 b.c. to allow of its passing to the Hellenistic Jews 
 
202 THE TITLES 
 
 of Alexandria. There does not appear to be any unambiguous 
 external evidence to carry the close of the collection farther 
 back than this. For though 1 Chron. xvi. and 2 Chron. vi. 41, 
 42, contain a series of passages from Psalms of the Third Col- 
 lection (Pss. xcvi. cv. cvi. cxxxii.), there is no proof that the 
 Chroniclerreadthesehymns in their place in the present Psalter, 
 or even that in his days Ps. cvi. existed in its present form. 
 
 In this scarcity of external evidence we are thrown back 
 on internal indications, and above all on the evidence of the 
 titles. But here you must permit me to draw a distinction. We 
 have already seen {supra, p. 95 sqq) that there are variations 
 between the Greek and Hebrew tradition of the titles, and 
 that there was among the later Jews a marked tendency to 
 attach known and famous names to anonymous pieces. The 
 titles, therefore, viewed as evidence to the authorship of 
 individual Psalms, are not to be accepted without reserve. 
 But the use which I now propose to make of them is of 
 another kind. Except in the Third Collection, where ano- 
 nymity is the rule, authors' names occurring only spora- 
 dically, and in the appendix to the Second Collection, which 
 has a miscellaneous character, the titles run in series and 
 correspond very closely with the limits of the old collections 
 of Psalms of which the present Psalter is made up. It is 
 plain that such connected series of titles have quite a 
 different value from the scattered titles in the last division 
 of the Psalter. They form a system, and cannot be looked 
 upon as the arbitrary conjectures of successive copyists. 
 To doubt that the consecutive Psalms xlii.-xlix., each of which 
 bears a title assigning; it to the sons of Korah, or the Psalms 
 Ixxiii.-lxxxiii., which are similarly assigned to Asaph, hang 
 together, would be irrational scepticism. By far the most 
 probable view is that each of the groups, with the addition 
 in the case of the Asaphic Psalms of the now disjoined 
 Psalm 1., once formed separate hymn-books, bearing a general 
 
OF THE PSALMS 203 
 
 title, which in the one case was "of the sons of Korah," 
 and in the other "of Asaph." When these small hymn- 
 books were merged in a larger collection it would obviously 
 be convenient to repeat the title before each Psalm. Apart 
 from its general plausibility, this conjecture derives strong 
 support from the series of fifteen Psalms, cxx.-cxxxiv., which 
 bear in the Authorised Version the title of Songs of Degrees. 
 According to the Mishna {Middotli, ii. 5) and other Jewish 
 traditions, these Psalms were sung by the Levites, at the 
 Peast of Tabernacles, on the fifteen steps or degrees that 
 led from the women's to the men's court of the Temple. 
 But when we read the Psalms themselves, we see that 
 originally they must have been sung not by Levites but 
 by the laymen who came up to Jerusalem at the great 
 feasts; and the word which Jewish tradition renders by 
 "degree" or "step" ought rather to be translated "going 
 up " to Jerusalem (cf. the Hebrew of Ezra vii. 9), so that 
 the Songs of Degrees ought rather to be called " Pilgrimage 
 Songs." But now the curious thing is that, according to 
 the laws of Hebrew grammar, the title prefixed to each 
 of these hymns must be translated not " a song of Pilgrim- 
 age," but "the songs of Pilgrimage." In other words, each 
 title is properly the collective title of the whole fifteen 
 Psalms, which must once have formed a separate hymnal 
 for the use of pilgrims ; and when the collection was taken 
 into the greater Psalter, this general title was set at the 
 head of each of the hymns. 
 
 I take it, then, the Asaph and Korah Psalms were at one 
 time the hymn-books of two Levitical choirs or guilds. In 
 all probability the titles tell us no more than this ; they do 
 not name the authors of the Psalms, but they refer us to 
 a period when the Temple psalmody was in the hands of 
 two hereditary choirs, which, after the fashion of ancient 
 Eastern guilds, called themselves sons of Asaph and of 
 
204 THE GUILDS OF 
 
 Korah respectively. Now in the time of the Chronicler, 
 who (as we have seen in Lecture V.) describes the ordin- 
 ances of his own time in what he tells us about the 
 Temple music, there were not two Levitical guilds but 
 three, named not after Asaph and Korah, but after Asaph, 
 Heman, and Ethan (1 Chron. vi. 31 sqq.), or Asaph, Heman, 
 and Jeduthun (1 Chron. xxv. 1). These three guilds were 
 reckoned to the three great Levitical houses of Gershon, 
 Kohath, and Merari, and the genealogy of Heman was 
 traced to Kohath through Korah. But in the time of the 
 Chronicler the name of Korahites designated a guild not 
 of singers but of porters (1 Chron. ix. 19, xxvi. 1, 19). 
 The Chronicler assumes that this organisation of the singers 
 dated from David ; but in reality it was quite modern. 
 At the time of the first return from the Exile "singers" 
 and " sons of Asaph " were equivalent terms (Ezra ii. 41 ; 
 Neh. vii. 44), and the singers were distinct from the 
 Levites. This distinction seems still to have been recog- 
 nised nearly a century later, in the days of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah (Ezra x. 23, 24 ; Neh. vii. 1, 73, etc.). But by 
 this time the distinction had lost the greater part of its 
 meaning; for at the dedication of Nehemiah's wall (Neh. 
 xii. 27, 28) the musical service was divided between the 
 Levites and the "sons of the singers," i.e. the Asaphites. 
 From this there is only a step to the order of the Elohistic 
 Psalm - book, where there are two guilds of singers, the 
 Asaphites and the sons of Korah.^ But the first unam- 
 
 ^ The oldest attempt to incorporate the Asaphites with the Levites seems 
 to be found in the priestly part of the Pentateuch, where Abiasaph, " the father 
 of Asaph," or in other words, the eponym of the Asaphite guild, is made one of 
 the three sons of Korah (Exod. vi. 24). In the ultimate system of Levitical 
 organisation Asaph belongs not to Korah and Kohath but to Gershon 
 (1 Chron. vi.). In Ezra and Nehemiah the singers, like the porters and the 
 Nethinim, are habitually named after the Levites, as an inferior class of 
 Temple ministers. In the time of the Chronicler this inferiority has disap- 
 peared, and ultimately, in the last days of the Temple, the singers claimed. 
 
TEMPLE SINGERS 205 
 
 biguous appearance of three guilds of singers is found in 
 Neh. xii. 24, in a passage which does not belong to Nehe- 
 miah's memoirs, and refers to the time of Darius Codomannus 
 and of Jaddua, the high priest contemporary with Alexander 
 the Great.^ The legitimate inference from these facts 
 appears to be that the Asaphic and Korahitic Psalms were 
 collected for use in the Temple service between the time 
 of Nehemiah and the fall of the Persian empire, or, speaking 
 broadly, in the second century after the return from Babylon 
 {circa 430-330 B.C.). It is quite possible that the formation 
 of the Elohistic Psalter, in which the two Levitical hymn- 
 books are fused together with a non -Levitical book (the 
 second Davidic collection), may be connected with the re- 
 modelling of the singers in three choirs ; at any rate, the 
 appendix with which the Second Collection closes already 
 presupposes the new order, for Heman and Ethan are men- 
 tioned in the titles of Pss. Ixxxviii. Ixxxix. 
 
 The contents of the Korah and Asaph Psalms agree well, 
 on the whole, with these conclusions. We must bear in 
 mind that a Psalm may have been written long before it was 
 taken into one of the Temple hymn-books, and that two 
 Levitical Psalms, liii. and Ixx., actually repeat, in Elohistic 
 form, pieces that appear also in the First Collection. But 
 the very fact that there was an older collection, and that only 
 two pieces in it reappear in the Second Collection, makes it 
 probable that most of the Levitical Psalms belong to the 
 period of the two choirs, i.e. to the time between Ezra's 
 
 and obtained from Agrippa II., the privilege of wearing garments of priestly 
 linen (Jos. Antt. xx. 9, § 6). 
 
 ^ The threefold division of singers appears in the Hebrew^ text of Neh. xi. 
 17, in a list which is not part of Nehemiah's memoirs, but is probably older 
 than chap. xii. 22-26. But the Septuagint does not give the triple division, 
 and the mention of Jeduthun as a man instead of a musical term is not in 
 favour of the Hebrew form of the text. The term sons of Korah, as designat- 
 ing a guild of singers, was evidently obsolete in the Chronicler's time, but was 
 still used in the Midrashic source of 2 Chron. xx. 19 ; cf. verse 14, where the 
 sons of Asaph are also mentioned. 
 
206 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. vii 
 
 reformation and the Greek Conquest of Asia. And tliis 
 presumption is in accord with the general character of the 
 Psalms in question. One of the most remarkable features 
 common to the Asaph and Korah Psalms is that they contain 
 little or no recognition of present national sin, — though they 
 confess the sins of Israel in the past — but are exercised with 
 the observation that prosperity does not follow righteousness 
 either in the case of the individual (xlix., Ixxiii.) or in that 
 of the nation, which suffers notwithstanding its loyalty to 
 God, or even on account thereof. Now problems about 
 God's righteousness as it appears in his dealings with in- 
 dividual men first emerge in the Books of Jeremiah and 
 Ezekiel, while the confident assertion of national righteous- 
 ness is a characteristic mark of pious Judaism from the time 
 of Ezra downwards, when the Pentateuchal Law was practi- 
 cally enforced, but not earlier. Malachi, Ezra, and ISTehemiah, 
 like Haggai and Zechariah, are still far from holding that the 
 national sins of Israel lie all in the past.^ It was only after 
 the great reformation of 444 B.C. that the pious Israelite 
 could say, what is said in Psalm xliv. and practically repeated 
 elsewhere, that the people, in spite of their afflictions, have 
 not forgotten God or been false to his covenant, that they are 
 persecuted not because of their sins but for God's sake and 
 because of their adherence to Him. 
 
 Thus far the contents of the Levitical Psalms are entirely 
 consistent with the conclusion as to the date of their collection 
 indicated by the titles. The mass of these Psalms cannot be 
 earlier than the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when Israel first 
 became a law-abiding people. But when we seek to fix an 
 
 ^ In Ezekiel's time the people complained that they were punished for the 
 sins of their fathers (Ezek. xviii.), and in Malachi's days the complaint was 
 heard that it was vain to serve God, and that there was no profit in observing 
 his ordinances (Mai. iii. 14). But both Ezekiel and Malachi refuse to admit 
 that their contemporaries were innocent sufferers, and so take up quite a dif- 
 ferent standpoint from the Levitical Psalms. 
 
LECT. VII THE LEVITICAL PSALMS 207 
 
 inferior limit for the collection there is more difficulty in 
 bringing the evidence of the contents into harmony with the 
 titles. A considerable number of these Psalms (xliv. Ixxiv. 
 Ixxix. Ixxx.) point to an historical situation which can be 
 very definitely realised. They are post-exile in their whole 
 tone, and belong to a time when prophecy had ceased and the 
 synagogue worship was fully established (Ixxiv. 8, 9). But 
 the Jews are no longer the obedient slaves of Persia ; there 
 has been a national rising, and armies have gone out to battle. 
 Yet God has not gone forth with them ; the heathen have been 
 victorious ; blood has flowed like water round Jerusalem ; the 
 Temple has been defiled ; and these disasters assume the 
 character of a religious persecution. These details would fit 
 the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, to which, indeed. Psalm 
 Ixxiv. is referred (as a prophecy) in 1 Mac. vii. 16 sq. But 
 against this reference there is the objection that if these 
 Psalms are of the age of the Maccabees they can have been 
 no original part of the Elohistic Psalter. And even if we 
 suppose, what is not absolutely inconceivable, that three or 
 four pieces were inserted among the Levitical hymns at a 
 later date, there is still the difficulty that these Psalms are 
 written in a time of deepest dejection, and yet are Psalms of 
 the Temple choirs. Now when the Temple was reopened for 
 worship after its profanation by Antiochus the Jews were 
 victorious, and a much more joyous tone was appropriate. 
 On the whole, therefore, though many of the best modern 
 writers on the Psalter accept a Maccabee date at least for 
 Pss. xliv. Ixxiv. Ixxix., I feel a difficulty in admitting that 
 any of these pieces is later than the Persian period. Our 
 records of the history of the Jews in the last century of 
 Persian rule are very scanty; but we know that under 
 Artaxerxes Ochus (circa 350 B.C.) there was a widespread 
 rebellion in Phoenicia and other western parts of the empire, 
 which was put down with great severity. And in this 
 
208 PSALMS OF THE 
 
 rebellion the Jews had a part, for many of them were led 
 captive by the Persian king and planted in Hyrcania on 
 the shores of the Caspian. That the rising of the Jews 
 against Ochus took a religious character, like all the later 
 rebellions against Greece and Eome, is highly probable ; 
 indeed it is impossible that the leaders could have had any 
 other programme than the establishment of a theocracy. 
 The desecration of the Temple referred to in Psalm Ixxiv. is 
 in accordance with the usual practice of the Persians towards 
 the sanctuaries of their enemies ; and there is some inde- 
 pendent evidence that in the reign of Ochus the sanctity of 
 the Temple was violated by the Persians, and humiliating 
 conditions attached to the worship there.-^ 
 
 Let us next consider the Third Collection (Bks. IV. and 
 v.). We have seen that this collection was formed after the 
 Elohistic redaction of the Second Collection [supra, p. 200), so 
 that if our argument up to this point is sound the last part 
 of the Psalter must be thrown into the Greek period, and 
 probably not the earliest part thereof. This conclusion is 
 borne out by a variety of indications. First of all, the 
 language of some of the Psalms points to a very late date 
 indeed. Even in the time of Nehemiah the speech of the 
 Jews was in danger of being corrupted by the dialects of 
 their neighbours (Neh. xiii. 24), but the restorers of the law 
 fought against this tendency with vigour and with so much 
 success that very tolerable Hebrew — coloured by Aramaic 
 influences, but still real Hebrew — was written at least a 
 century later. But in Ps. cxxxix. the language is not merely 
 coloured by Aramaic, it is a jargon of Hebrew and Aramaic 
 mixed together; which in a hymn accepted for use in the 
 Temple shows the Hebrew speech to have reached the last 
 stage of decay. 
 
 Another notable feature in the Third Collection is the 
 
 ^ See additional Note D. 
 
LECT. VII THIRD COLLECTION 209 
 
 entire disappearance of the musical titles " upon Neginoth," 
 "upon Sheminith," and so forth, which are so frequent in the 
 earlier collections. That is to say, the old technical terms of 
 the Temple music have fallen out of use, presumably because 
 they were already unintelligible, as they were to the Septua- 
 gint translators. This implies a revolution in the national 
 music, and is probably connected with that influence of 
 Hellenic culture which from the time of the Macedonian 
 conquest began to work such changes in the whole civilisation 
 and art of the East. 
 
 A curious and interesting feature in the musical titles in 
 the earlier half of the Psalter is that many of them indicate 
 the tune to which the Psalm was set, by quoting phrases like 
 Aijeleth [hash-]shahar, or Jonath elem rechokim, which are 
 evidently the names of familiar songs. -^ Of the song which 
 gave the title Al-taschith, "Destroy not," a trace is still 
 preserved in Isa. Ixv. 8. "When the new wine is found in 
 the cluster," says the prophet, " men say, ' Destroy it not, for a 
 blessing is in it.' " These words in the Hebrew have a distinct 
 lyric rhythm. They are the first line of one of the vintage 
 songs so often alluded to in Scripture. And so we learn that 
 the early religious melody of Israel had a popular origin, and 
 was closely connected with the old joyous life of the nation. 
 In the time when the last books of the Psalter were composed, 
 the Temple music had passed into another phase, and had 
 differentiated itself from the melodies of the people, just as 
 we should no longer think of using as church music the 
 popular airs to which Psalms and hymns were set in Scotland 
 at the time of the Eeformation. 
 
 ^ Similarly the ancient Syrian hymn-writers prefix to their compositions 
 such musical titles as "To the tune of {^al qdld dh') ' I will open my mouth 
 with knowledge.'" See the hymns of Ephrsem passim. The same usage is 
 found in the fragments of Palestinian hymnology published by Land, 
 Anecdota Syriaca, iv. Ill sqq., but here "to the tune of" is expressed by the 
 preposition 'al alone. The titles of the Hebrew Psalms also use the simple 
 preposition 'al, but even this is sometimes omitted. 
 
 14 
 
210 PSALMS OF THE 
 
 Turning, now, to the contents of Books IV. and V., we ob- 
 serve that the general tone of large parts of this collection is 
 much more cheerful than that of the Elohistic Psalm-book. 
 It begins with a Psalm (xc.) ascribed in the title to Moses, 
 and seemingly designed to express feelings appropriate to a 
 situation analogous to that of the Israelites when, after 
 the weary march through the wilderness, they stood on the 
 borders of the promised land. It looks back on a time of 
 great trouble and forward to a brighter future. In some 
 of the following Psalms there are still references to deeds 
 of oppression and violence, but more generally Israel appears 
 as happy under the law with such a happiness as it did enjoy 
 under the Ptolemies during the third century B.C. The problems 
 of divine justice are no longer burning questions ; the right- 
 eousness of God is seen in the peaceful felicity of the pious 
 (xci. xcii., etc.). Israel, indeed, is still scattered and not 
 triumphant over the heathen, but even in the dispersion the 
 Jews are under a mild rule (cvi. 46), and the commercial 
 activity of the nation has begun to develop beyond the seas 
 (cvii. 23 sq.). The whole situation and vein of piety here 
 are strikingly parallel to those shown in Ecclesiasticus, 
 which dates from the close of the Ptolemaic sovereignty 
 in Palestine. 
 
 But some of the Psalms carry us beyond this peaceful 
 period to a time of struggle and victory. In Ps. cxviii. 
 Israel, led by the house of Aaron — this is a notable point — 
 has emerged triumphant from a desj)erate conflict and cele- 
 brates at the Temple a great day of rejoicing for the unhoped- 
 for victory ; in Ps. cxlix. the saints are pictured with the 
 praises of God in their throat and a sharp sword in their 
 hands to take vengeance on the heathen, to bind their kings 
 and nobles, and exercise against them the judgment written 
 in prophecy. Such an enthusiasm of militant piety, plainly 
 based on actual successes of Israel and the house of Aaron, 
 
GREEK PERIOD 211 
 
 can only be referred to the first victories of the Maccabees, 
 culminating in the purification of the Temple in 165 B.C. 
 This restoration of worship in the national sanctuary, 
 under circumstances that inspired religious feeliags very 
 different from those of any other generation since the return 
 from Babylon, might most naturally be followed by an ex- 
 tension of the Temple psalmody ; it certainly was followed 
 by some liturgical innovations, for the solemn service of 
 dedication on the twenty-fifth day of Chisleu was made the 
 pattern of a new annual feast (that mentioned in John x. 
 22). Now in 1 jMac. iv. 54 we learn that the dedication was 
 celebrated with hymns and music. In later times the Psalms 
 for the encaenia or feast of dedication embraced Ps. xxx. and 
 tlie hallel Pss. cxiii.-cxviii. There is no reason to doubt that 
 these were the very Psalms sung in 165 B.C., for in the title 
 of Ps. xxx. the words "the song for the dedication of the 
 house," which are a somewhat awkward insertion in the 
 original title, are found also in the LXX., and therefore are 
 probable evidence of the liturgical use of the Psalm in the 
 very first years of the feast. But no collection of old Psalms 
 could fully suffice for such an occasion, and there is every 
 reason to think that the hallel, which especially in its closing 
 part contains allusions that fit no other time so well, was 
 first arranged for the same ceremony. The course of the 
 subsequent history makes it very intelligible that the Psalter 
 was finally closed, as we have seen from the date of the 
 Greek version that it must have been, within a few years at 
 most after this great event.^ Prom the time of Hyrcanus 
 downwards the ideal of the princely high priests became 
 more and more divergent from the ideal of the pious in 
 Israel, and in the Psalter of Solomon (about 50 B.C.) we see 
 
 ^ The final redaction may have taken place under Simon ; compare the 
 closing series of Hallelujah Psalms (cxlvi.-cl.) with 1 Mac. xiii. 50 sqq. The 
 title of Ps. cxlv. "a Davidic Tehilla," is probably meant to cover all the 
 Psalms that follow and designate them as one great canticle. 
 
212 COMPLETION OF 
 
 religious poetry turned against the lords of the Temple and 
 its worship. 
 
 We are thus led by a concurrence of arguments to assign 
 the collection of Psalms xc.-cl. and the completion of the 
 whole Psalter to the early years of Maccabee sovereignty. 
 It by no means follows that all the Psalms in the last great 
 section of the Psalter were written in the Greek period ; for 
 the composition of a poem and its introduction into the 
 Temple liturgy do not necessarily go together except in the 
 case of hymns written with a direct liturgical purpose. In 
 the fifteen Pilgrimage Songs already referred to we have a 
 case in point. All these songs are plainly later than the 
 Captivity, but some of them are surely older than the close 
 of the Elohistic Psalm-book, and the simple reason why they 
 are not included in it is that they were hymns of the laity, 
 describing the emotions of the pilgrim when his feet stood 
 within the gates of Jerusalem, when he looked forth on the 
 encircling hills, when he felt how good it was to be camping 
 side by side with his brethren on the slopes of Zion (cxxxiii.),^ 
 when a sense of Jehovah's forgiving grace and the certainty 
 of redemption for Israel triumphed over all the evils of the 
 present and filled his soul with humble and patient hope. 
 
 When I say that the fifteen Pilgrimage Psalms are all 
 later than the Captivity, I do not forget that the Hebrew 
 titles ascribe four of them to David and one to Solomon. But 
 these titles are lacking in the Septuagint, although the general 
 
 1 The point of Ps. cxxxiii. is misi3ed in all the commentaries I have looked 
 at. The good and pleasant thing (ver. 1) is that those who are brethren also 
 (D3) dwell together, i.e. not that they live in harmony, but that, in the solemn 
 feast which has brought them together to Zion, the scattered brethren of one 
 faith enjoy the privilege of being near one another. The following verses 
 describe the scene under a figure. The long lines of the houses of 
 Jerusalem, and the tents of the pilgrims, flow down the slopes of the Temple 
 hill even to the base, like the oil on Aaron's garments — a blessed sight. Nay, 
 tliis gathering of all the piety of Israel is as if the fertilising dews of great 
 Hermon were all concentrated on the little hill of Zion. 
 
THE PSALTER 213 
 
 tendency of that version is to give David more Psalms than 
 bear his name in the Hebrew (supra,'p. 96). In Psalm cxxii. 
 the title seems to have been suggested by verse 5, and from 
 the English version one would at least conclude that the 
 Psalm was written under the Davidic dynasty. But the true 
 translation in verses 4, 5, is " whither the tribes went up," and 
 " for there were set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the 
 house of David." To the Psalmist, therefore, the Davidic 
 dynasty is a thing of the past. Better attested, because found 
 in the Greek as well as the Hebrew, are the titles which 
 assign Ps. xc. to Moses and Pss. ci. ciii. cviii.-cx. cxxxviii.- 
 cxlv. to David. But where did the last collectors of the 
 Psalter find such very ancient pieces, which had been passed 
 over by all previous collectors, and what criterion was there 
 to establish their genuineness ? The Psalms ascribed to 
 David in the earlier parts of the Psalter form well-marked 
 groups bearing internal evidence that they once formed 
 separate collections. But in the Third Collection and in the 
 appendix to the Elohistic Psalm-book authors' names occur 
 only sporadically, and there is no evidence that the titles 
 were taken over along with the Psalms from some older book. 
 No canon of literary criticism can assign value to an attesta- 
 tion which first appears so many centuries after the supposed 
 date of the poems, especially when it is confronted by facts 
 so conclusive as that Ps. cviii. is made up of extracts from Pss. 
 Ivii. and Ix. ; that in Ps. cxliv. 10 the singer expressly distin- 
 guishes himself from David (" thou . . . that didst save David 
 from the hurtful sword, save me "), and that Psalm cxxxix. is 
 marked by its language as one of the latest pieces in the 
 whole book. The only possible question for the critic is 
 whether all these titles rest on editorial conjecture, or whether 
 some of the Psalms exemplify the habit, so common in later 
 Jewish literature, of writing in the name of ancient worthies. 
 In the case of Ps. xc. at least it seems probable that the 
 
214 THE DAVIDIC 
 
 Psalmist designs to speak, dramatically, in the name of 
 Moses. 
 
 We have now seen that for the later stages in the history 
 of the Psalter there is an amount of circumstantial evidence 
 pointing to conclusions of a pretty definite kind. The 
 approximate dates which their contents suggest for the collec- 
 tion of the Elohistic Psalm-book and of Books IV. and Y. con- 
 firm one another and are in harmony with such indications 
 as we obtain from external sources. But, in order to advance 
 from the conclusions already reached to a view of the history 
 of the Psalter as a whole, we have still to consider the two 
 great groups of Psalms ascribed to David in Books I. and II. 
 Both these groups appear once to have formed separate 
 collections and to have been ascribed to David in their 
 separate form ; for in Book I. every Psalm, except the intro- 
 ductory poems i. and ii. and the late Ps. xxxiii., which may 
 have been added as a liturgical sequel to Ps. xxxii., beai's the 
 title " of David," and in like manner the group Pss. li.-lxxii. 
 is essentially a Davidic hymn-book, which has been taken 
 over as a whole into the Elohistic Psalter, even the subscrip- 
 tion Ixxii. 20 not being omitted. Moreover, the collectors of 
 Books I.-III. knew of no Davidic Psalms outside of these two 
 collections ; for Ps. Ixxxvi., in the appendix to the Elohistic 
 collection, is merely a cento of quotations from Davidic pieces 
 with a verse or two from Exodus and Jeremiah. These two 
 groups, therefore, represented to the collectors the oldest 
 tradition of Hebrew psalmody ; they are either really Davidic 
 or they passed as such. This fact is important; but its 
 weight may readily be over-estimated, for the Levitical 
 Psalms comprise poems of the last half-century of the Persian 
 empire, and the final collection of Books II. and III. may fall 
 a good deal later. Thus the tradition as to the authorship of 
 the second Davidic Collection comes to us, not exactly from 
 the time of the Chronicler, but certainly from the time when 
 
COLLECTIONS 215 
 
 the view of Hebrew history which he expresses was in the 
 course of formation. And that view — which to some extent 
 appears in the historical Psalms of the Elohistic Psalter-' — 
 implies such incapacity to understand the difference between 
 old Israel and later Judaism as to make almost anything 
 possible in the way of the ascription of comparatively modern 
 pieces to ancient worthies. It is true that the collectors of 
 the Elohistic Psalm-book did not invent the titles and sub- 
 scrif)tion of the group ot Davidic Psalms which they included 
 in their work ; but evidence that these titles are older than 
 the beginning of the Greek period, and that the Elohistic 
 collectors accepted them as genuine, goes but a very little 
 way towards proving that they really are derived by con- 
 tinuous tradition from the time of David himself. As regards 
 the first Davidic Collection, the evidence carries us a little 
 farther back. That collection is not touched by the Elohistic 
 redaction (the habitual substitution of Eloliim for laliwS) 
 which the second Davidic Collection has undergone. Now the 
 formation of the Elohistic Psalter must have been an official 
 act directed to the consolidation of the liturgical material used 
 in the Temple services ; and if it left the First Collection 
 untouched the reason presumably was that this collection 
 already had a fixed liturgical position which could not be 
 meddled with. In other words, Pss. i.-xli. form the oldest 
 extant Temple hymn-book, while there is no evidence that 
 Pss. li.-lxxii. had a fixed liturgical position before the last 
 years of the Persian Empire. 
 
 At this point I think that we may simplify the argument 
 by dropping for a moment the question of the Davidic Collec- 
 
 ^ In Ps. Ixxviii. the final rejection of the house of Joseph is co-ordinated 
 with the fall of the sanctuary of Shiloh and the rise of Zion and the Davidic 
 house in a way that comes very close to the Chronicler's attitude to the 
 northern kingdom. We have already seen {supra, p. 205, note) that one of the 
 Midrashim drawn on by the Chronicler seems to have been written at the 
 time when the singers were still divided into Asaphites and Korahites 
 (2 Chron. xx. 14, 19). 
 
216 TITLES OF 
 
 tions as wholes and looking at individual Psalms. Our 
 estimate of the value of the tradition which ascribes whole 
 groups of Psalms to David must necessarily be lowered if we 
 find individual Psalms bearing David's name which cannot 
 possibly be his. And this is undoubtedly the case as regards 
 both the Davidic Collections ; for not only are many of the 
 titles certainly wrong, but they are wrong in such a way as 
 to prove that they date from an age to which David was 
 merely the abstract psalmist, and which had no idea what- 
 ever of the historical conditions of his time. For example, 
 Pss. XX. xxi. are not spoken by a king but addressed to a 
 king by his people; Pss. v. xxvii. allude to the Temple 
 (which did not exist in David's time), and the author of the 
 latter Psalm desires to live there continually. Even in the 
 older Davidic Psalm-book there is a whole series of hymns 
 in which the writer identifies himself with the poor and 
 needy, the righteous people of God suffering in silence at the 
 hands of the wicked, without other hope than patiently to 
 wait for the interposition of Jehovah (Pss. xii. xxv. xxxvii. 
 xxxviii. etc.). Nothing can be farther removed than this 
 from any possible situation in the life of the David of the 
 Books of Samuel. Most of these Psalms are referred by the 
 defenders of the titles to the time when David was pursued 
 by Saul. But it is quite unhistorical to represent Saul as a 
 man who persecuted and spoiled all the quiet and godly souls 
 in Israel ; and David and his friends were never helpless 
 sufferers— the quiet or timid in the land (xxxv. 20), dumb 
 amidst all oppression (xxxviii. 13, 14). And such a Psalm 
 as xxxvii., where the Psalmist calls himself an old man, 
 must, on the traditional view, be spoken by David late in his 
 prosperous reign ; yet here we have the same situation — the 
 wicked rampant, the righteous suffering in silence, as if 
 David were not a king who sat on his throne doing justice 
 and judgment to all his people (2 Sam. viii. 15). If Psalms 
 
DAVIDIC PSALMS 217 
 
 ix. X. xxxvii, represent the state of things in the time of 
 David, the Books of Samuel are the most partial of histories, 
 and the reign of the sou of Jesse was not the golden age 
 whicli it appeared to all subsequent generations. The case 
 is still clearer in the second Davidic Collection, especially 
 where we have in the titles definite notes as to the historical 
 occasion on which the poems are supposed to have been 
 written. To refer Ps. lii. to Doeg, Ps. liv. to the Ziphites, 
 Ps. lix. to David when watched in his house by Saul, implies 
 an absolute lack of the very elements of historical judgment. 
 Even the bare names of the old liistory were no longer 
 correctly known when Abimelech (the Philistine king in the 
 stories of Abraham and Isaac) could be substituted in the 
 title of Ps. xxxiv. for Achish, king of Gath. In a word, the 
 ascription of these two collections to David has none of the 
 characters of a genuine historical tradition.-^ 
 
 Against the certainty that all the Psalms ascribed to 
 David in Books I.-III. cannot really be his, and that the 
 historical notes ascribing particular Psalms to special events 
 in his life are often grotesquely impossible, we have still to 
 set the fact that tlie name of David was attached to the 
 oldest collection of hymns used in the Temple. The facts 
 that have come before us are sufficient to disprove the idea 
 
 ^ Psalm lii. is said to refer to Doeg. It actually speaks of a rich and 
 powerful man, an enemy of the righteous in Israel, whom God will lay low, 
 whilst the psalmist is like a green olive tree in the house of God, whose mercy 
 is his constant siijjport. Psalm liv. is said to be spoken against the Ziphites. 
 In reality it speaks of strangers and tyrants, standing Old Testament names 
 for foreign oppressors. In Psalm Iv. the singer lives among foes in a city 
 whose walls they occupy with their patrols, exercising constant violence 
 within the town, from which the psalmist would gladly escape to the desert. 
 The enemy is in alliance Mith one who had once been an associate of the 
 psalmist, and joined with him in the service of the sacred feasts. Hence the 
 Psalm is often applied to Ahithophel ; but the whole situation is as different 
 as possible. In Psalm lix. we are asked to lind a Psalm composed by David 
 when he was watched in his house by Saul. In reality the singer speaks of 
 heathen foes encircling the city, i.e. Jerusalem, whom God is prayed to cast 
 down, that His power may be manifest over all the earth. 
 
218 PSALMODY BEFORE lect. vii 
 
 that even in the First Collection every Psalm ascribed to 
 David was really his. But the example of the fifteen 
 Pilgrimage Songs has made it probable to us that when these 
 Davidic Collections existed separately the name of David may 
 not have been attached to every Psalm, and that the titles, as 
 we now have them, may have been drawn from a general title 
 which originally stood at the head of the whole collection. 
 And just as the whole Book of Proverbs, though it contains 
 elements of various dates, now appears as the Proverbs of 
 Solomon, it is conceivable that the titles " Psalms of David," 
 prefixed to Pss. i.-xli. li.-lxxii., originally stood in front of 
 collections consisting of Psalms of David and other hymns. 
 And so it may be argued that though the titles taken one by 
 one are of deficient authority, their combined evidence is 
 strong enough to prove that in both Davidic Collections, or at 
 any rate in the first, there is a substantial element that really 
 goes back to David. This is a contention worth examining ; 
 whereas those who argue for more than this are already put 
 out of court by the evidence before us. But it is evident that 
 the force of the presumption that a substantial number of 
 Psalms are from David's pen must in great measure depend 
 on the date at which the First Collection was brought together. 
 We have seen reason to believe that Pss. i.-xli. are the oldest 
 part of the Temple liturgy ; but can we suppose that the 
 oldest Temple liturgy was collected before the Exile and used 
 in the worship of the first Temple ? To answer this ques- 
 tion I must begin by bringing together the scanty notices 
 that have reached us as to religious music and hymns in the 
 old kingdom. 
 
 We have it in evidence that music and song accompanied 
 the worship of the great sanctuaries of northern Israel in the 
 eighth century B.C. (Amos v. 23), but from the context it 
 appears probable that the musicians were not officers of the 
 Temple but rather the worshippers at large (compare Amos 
 
THE CAPTIVITY 219 
 
 vi, 5). So it certainly was in the days of David (2 Sam. 
 vi. 5), and even of Isaiah (xxx, 29) ; the same thing is implied 
 in the song of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 20) ; and in Lam. ii. 7 
 the noise within the sanctuary on a feast-day affords a simile 
 for the shouts of the victorious Chaldeans, which suggests 
 the untrained efforts of the congregation rather than the dis- 
 ciplined music of a Temple choir. The allusion to "chambers 
 of singers " in Ezek. xl. 44 is omitted in the Septuagint, 
 and this is justified by the context ; so that the first certain 
 allusion to a class of singers among the sacred ministers 
 is at the return from Babylon (Ezra ii. 41). The way in 
 which these singers, the sons of Asaph, are spoken of may be 
 taken as evidence that there was a guild of Temple singers 
 before the Exile ; but if they had been very conspicuous we 
 should have heard more of them. The historical books are 
 fond of varying the narrative by the insertion of lyrical 
 pieces, and one or two of these — the " passover song " (Exod. 
 XV.) and perhaps the song from the Book of Jashar ascribed 
 to Solomon (supra, p. 124) — look as if they were sung in the 
 first Temple; but they are not found in the Psalter, and, 
 conversely, no piece from the Psalter is used to illustrate the 
 life of David except Ps. xviii., and it occurs in a section 
 which interrupts the original sequence of the history (infra, 
 p. 222). These facts seem to indicate that even Book I. of 
 the Psalter did not exist during the Exile, when the editing of 
 the historical books was completed, and that in psalmody as 
 in other matters the ritual of the second Temple was com- 
 pletely reconstructed. Indeed the radical change in the 
 religious life of the nation caused by the Captivity could not 
 fail to influence the psalmody of the sanctuary more than 
 any other part of the worship ; the Book of Lamentations 
 marks an era of profound importance in the religious poetry 
 of Israel, and no collection formed before these dirges were 
 first sung could have been an adequate hymn-book for the 
 
220 ORIGIN OF THE 
 
 second Temple. In point of fact tlie notes struck in the 
 Lamentations and in Isa. xl.-lxvi. meet our ears again in not 
 a few Psalms of Book I., e.g. Pss. xxii. xxv., wliere the closing 
 prayer for the redemption of Israel in a verse additional to 
 the acrostic perhaps gives, as Lagarde suggests, the character- 
 istic post-exile name Pedaiah as that of the author ; Ps. 
 xxxi., with many points of resemblance to Jeremiah ; Pss. 
 xxxiv. XXXV., where the " servant of Jehovah " is the same 
 collective idea as in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. ; and Pss. xxxviii. xli. 
 The key to many of these Psalms is that the singer is not an 
 individual but, as in Lam. iii., the true people of God repre- 
 sented as one person ; and only in this way can we do justice 
 to expressions which have always been a stumbling-block to 
 those wdio regard David as the author. But, at the same 
 time, other Psalms of the collection treat the problems of 
 individual religion in the line of thought first opened by 
 Jeremiah. Such a Psalm is xxxix., and above all Ps. xvi. 
 Other pieces, indeed, may well be earlier. When we com- 
 pare Ps. viii. with Job vii. 17, 18, we can hardly doubt that 
 the Psalm lay before the writer who gave its expressions so 
 bitter a turn in the anguish of his soul, and Pss. xx. xxi. 
 plainly belong to the old kingdom. But on the whole it is 
 not the pre-exilic pieces that give the tone to ■ the collection ; 
 whatever the date of this or that individual poem, the collec- 
 tion as a whole — whether by selection or authorship — is 
 adapted to express a religious life of which the exile is the 
 presupposition. Only in this way can we understand the 
 conflict and triumph of spiritual faith, habitually represented 
 as the faith of a poor and struggling baud, living in the midst 
 of oppressors and with no strength or help but the con- 
 sciousness of loyalty to Jehovah, which is the fundamental 
 note of the whole book. 
 
 The contents of the First Collection suggest a doubt 
 whether it was originally put together by the Temple ministers, 
 
LECT. VII FIRST COLLECTION 221 
 
 whose liymn-book it ultimately became. The singers and 
 Levites were ill provided for, and consequently irregular in 
 their attendance at the Temple, till the time of Nehemiah, 
 who made it his business to settle the revenues of the clergy 
 in such a way as to make regular service possible. With 
 regular service a formal liturgy would be required, and in 
 the absence of direct evidence it may be conjectured that the 
 adoption of the first part of the Psalter for this purpose took 
 place in connection with the other far-reaching reforms of 
 Ezra and Nehemiah, which first gave a stable character to 
 the community of the second Temple. In any case these 
 Psalms, full as they are of spiritual elements which can never 
 cease to be the model of true worship, are the necessary com- 
 plement of the law as published by Ezra, and must be always 
 taken along with it by those who would understand what 
 Judaism in its early days really was, and how it prepared the 
 way for the gospel. 
 
 The second Davidic Collection, which begins with a Psalm 
 of the Exile (Ps. li. ;-^ see the last two verses), contains some 
 pieces which carry us down to a date decidedly later than that 
 of Nehemiah. Thus Ps. Ixviii. 27 represents the worshipping 
 congregation as drawn partly from the neighbourhood of 
 Jerusalem and partly from the colony of Galilee. In several 
 Psalms of this collection, as in the Levitical Psalms with 
 which it is coupled, we see that the Jews have again begun 
 to feel themselves a nation and not a mere municipality, 
 though they are still passing through bitter struggles ; and 
 side by side with this there is a development of Messianic 
 hope, which in Ps. Ixxii. takes a sweep as wide as the vision 
 of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. All these marks carry us down for this, as- 
 for the other parts of the Elohistic Psalter, to the last days 
 of the Achsemenian empire, when the great revolt of the 
 West broke the tradition of passive obedience to the Persian, 
 
 ^ See additional Note E. 
 
222 DAVIDS PLACE IN 
 
 Several points indicate that this collection was not originally 
 formed as part of the Temple liturgy. The title, as preserved 
 in the subscription of Psalm Ixxii. 20, was not " Psalms " but 
 " Prayers of David." Again, while the Levitical Psalms were 
 sung in the name of righteous Israel, of which, according to 
 the theory of the second Temple, the priests and Levites 
 were the special holy representatives, the Davidic Psalms 
 contain touching utterances of contrition and confession (Pss. 
 li. Ixv.). And while there are direct references to the Temple 
 service, these are often made from the standpoint, not of the 
 ministers of the sanctuary, but of the laity who came up to 
 join in the solemn feasts or appear before the altar to fulfil 
 their vows (Pss. liv. 6, Iv. 14, Ixvi. 13, etc.). Moreover, the 
 didactic element so prominent in the Levitical Psalms is not 
 found here. 
 
 When we have learned that the two Davidic Collections 
 are in the main the utterance of Israel's faith in the time of 
 the second Temple, the question whether some at least of the 
 older poems are really David's becomes more curious than 
 important. There is no Psalm which we can assign to him 
 with absolute certainty and use to throw light on his character 
 or on any special event in his life. One Psalm indeed (xviii.) 
 is ascribed to David not only by the title but in 2 Sam. xxii., 
 and if this attestation formed part of the ancient and excellent 
 tradition from which the greater part of the narrative of 
 2 Samuel is derived there would be every reason to accept it 
 as conclusive. But we have already seen {supra, p. 114) that 
 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv. is an appendix, of various contents, which 
 breaks the original continuity of the court history. Origin- 
 ally Samuel and Kings were a single history, and 1 Kings i. 
 followed directly on 2 Sam. xx. The appendix which now 
 breaks the connection must have been inserted after the 
 history was divided into two books, not earlier than the 
 Captivity, and possibly a good deal later; and so this evidence 
 
LECT. VII HEBREW PSALMODY 223 
 
 does not help us to prove that any Psalm was assigned to 
 David by ancient and continuous tradition. 
 
 On the whole, then, it cannot be made out that the oldest 
 Psalm-book bore the name of David because it was mainly 
 from his hand, or even because it contained a substantial 
 number of hymns written by him. And on the other hand, 
 there is evidence that the association of David's name with the 
 Temple psalmody originally referred to the music and execu- 
 tion rather than to the hymns themselves. In the memoirs 
 of Nehemiah we do not read of Psalms of David, but we 
 learn that the singers used the musical instruments of David 
 the man of God (jSTeh. xii. 36). So, too, the expression " the 
 sweet psalmist of Israel," in 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, refers in the 
 Hebrew not to the composition of psalms but to musical 
 execution. Though the old histories do not speak of David 
 as a Psalm-writer they dwell on his musical skill, and 2 Sam. 
 vi. 5, 14, tells how he danced and played before the ark as it 
 was brought up with joy to Jerusalem. Dancing, music, and 
 song are in early times the united expression of lyrical inspira- 
 tion, and the sacred melodies were still conjoined with dances at 
 the time of the latest Psalms (cxlix. 3, cl. 4). We have every 
 right, therefore, to conclude that the talents of Israel's most 
 gifted singer were not withheld from the service of Jehovah, 
 which King David placed high above all considerations of 
 royal dignity (2 Sam. vi. 21). On the other hand, a curious 
 passage of the Book of Amos (vi. 5), " they devise for them- 
 selves instruments of music like David," makes David the 
 chosen model of the dilettanti nobles of Samaria, who lay 
 stretched on beds of ivory, anointed with the choicest per- 
 fumes, and mingling music with their cups in the familiar 
 fashion of Oriental luxury. These two views of David as a 
 musician are not irreconcilable if we remember that in old 
 Israel religion was not separated from ordinary life, and that 
 the gladness of the believinc^ heart found natural utterance 
 
224 David's place in lect. vn 
 
 in sportful forms of unconstrained mirth. At a much later 
 date, as we have seen, chants for the Temple service were 
 borrowed from the joyous songs of the vintage, and so it was 
 possible that David should give the pattern alike for the 
 melodies of the sanctuary and for the worldly airs of the 
 nobles of Samaria. The sacred music of Israel was of popular 
 origin, and long retained its popular type, and of this music 
 David was taken to be father and great master. The oldest 
 psalmody of the second Temple was still based on the ancient 
 popular or Davidic model, and this seems to be the real reason 
 why the oldest Psalm-book came to be known as " David's." 
 The same name was afterwards extended to the other lay 
 collection of " Prayers of David," while the collections that 
 were formed from the first for use in the Temple were simply 
 named from the Levitical choirs, or in later times bore no 
 distinctive title. 
 
 The conclusion of this long and complicated investiga- 
 tion takes from us one use of the Psalter which has been 
 a favourite exercise for pious imaginations. It is no longer 
 possible to treat the psalms as a record of David's spiritual 
 life through all the steps of his chequered career. But if we 
 lose an imaginary autobiography of one Old Testament saint, 
 we gain in its place something far truer and far richer in 
 religious lessons ; a lively image of the experience of the Old 
 Testament Church set forth by the mouth of many witnesses, 
 and extending through the vicissitudes of a long history. 
 There is nothing in this change to impoverish the devotional 
 use of the Psalms ; for even a life like David's is a small 
 thing compared with the life of a whole nation, and of such a 
 nation as Israel. It is a vain apprehension which shrinks 
 from applying criticism to the history of the Psalter out of 
 fear lest the use of edification should suffer ; for what can be 
 less edifying than to force an application to David's life upon 
 a psalm that clearly bespeaks for itself a different origin? 
 
LECT. VII HEBREW PSALMODY 225 
 
 No sober commentator is now found to maintain the tradi- 
 tional titles in their integrity ; and it is puerile to try to 
 conserve the traditional position by throwing this and that 
 title overboard, instead of frankly facing the whole critical 
 problem and refusing to be content till we have got a clear 
 insight into the whole history of the Psalter, and a solid 
 basis for its application not merely to purposes of personal 
 devotion but to the systematic study of the ancient dis- 
 pensation. 
 
 15 
 
LECTUEE Ylll 
 
 THE TRADITIONAL THEORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY ^ 
 
 The Book of Psalms has furnished us with an example of 
 what can be learned by critical study in a subject of limited 
 compass, which can be profitably discussed without any wide 
 digression into general questions of Old Testament history. 
 The criticism of the Prophets and the Law opens a much 
 larger field, and brings us face to face with fundamental 
 problems. 
 
 We know, as a matter of historical fact, that the Penta- 
 teuch, as a whole, was put into operation as the rule of Israel's 
 life at the reformation of Ezra, with a completeness which 
 had never been aimed at from the days of the conquest 
 
 ^ On the subject of this and the following Lectures the most important 
 book is AVellhausen's Gcschichte Israels (Erster Band, Berlin, 1878). The 
 later editions appeared under the title of Prolegomena zur Gesch. Israels 
 (1883, 1888) ; Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1885. The view set forth in this volume, 
 which makes the Priestly Legislation the latest stage in the development of 
 the Law, is often called Wellhausenianism, but this designation is illegitimate, 
 and conveys the false impression that the account of the Pentateuch with 
 which Wellhausen's name is associated is a revolutionary novelty which casts 
 aside all the labours of earlier critics. In point of fact Wellhausen had many 
 forerunners even in Germany (George, Vatke, Reuss, Graf, etc. ) ; while in 
 Holland the lines of a sound historical criticism of the Pentateuch had been 
 firmly traced by the master hand of Kueuen, and the results for the history of 
 the religion of Israel had been set forth in his Godsdienst van Israel (Haarlem, 
 1869-70). But it was reserved for Wellhausen to develop the whole argu- 
 ment with such a combination of critical power and historical insight as bore 
 down all opposition. Even Dillmann, who still maintains the pre-exilic origin 
 of the main body of the Priestly Code, defends this view only on the assump- 
 
LECT. VIII THE PENTATEUCH 227 
 
 of Canaan (supra, p, 43). From this time onwards the Penta- 
 teuch, in its ceremonial as well as its moral precepts, was the 
 acknowledged standard of Israel's righteousness (Neh. xiii. ; 
 Ecclus. xlv. ; 1 Mac, ]JC-ssini ; Acts xv. 5). According to the 
 theory of the later Jews, which has passed into current Chris- 
 tian theology, it had always been so. The whole law of the 
 Pentateuch was given in the wilderness, or on the plains of 
 jNIoab, and Moses conveyed to the Israelites, before they 
 entered Canaan, everything that it was necessary for them to 
 know as a revelation from God, and even a complete system 
 of civil laws for the use of ordinary life. The law was a rule 
 of absolute validity, and the keeping of it was the whole of 
 Israel's religion. No religion could be acceptable to God 
 which was not conformed to the legal ordinances. On this 
 theory the ceremonial part of the law must always have been 
 the prominent and most characteristic feature of the Old 
 Covenant. In the Levitical legislation, the feasts, the sacri- 
 ficial ritual, the ordinances of ceremonial purity, are always 
 in the foreground as the necessary forms in which alone the 
 inner side of religion, love to God and man, can find accept- 
 able expression. Not that religion is made up of mere forms. 
 
 tion tliat the work was an ideal or theoretical sketch, from a priestly point 
 of view, of a system of ordinances for the Hebrew theocracy based on Mosaic 
 principles and modiiied by the conditions of the author's time. "As such 
 it had a purely private character, and possessed no authority as law " {Num., 
 Deut., undJos., 1886, p. 667). 
 
 The most complete introduction to the Pentateuch on the lines of the 
 newer criticism is Kuenen's Historisch-Kritiseh Ondcrzoek, 2d ed., vol. i. The 
 first part of this volume, embracing the Hexateuch, was published in 1884, 
 and has been translated into English (London, 1886). A shorter book, 
 learned, sober, and lucid, which contains all that most students can require, 
 is Professor Driver's Introduction to the Lit. of the 0. T. (Edinburgh, 1891). It 
 ought to be added that the new criticism does not reject the work that had 
 been done by older scholars, but completes it. Those scholars were mainly 
 busied in separating, by linguistic and literary criteria, the several sources of 
 the Pentateuch ; and this work retains its full value. The weak point in the 
 old criticism was that it failed to give the results of literary analysis their 
 proper historical setting. 
 
228 THEORY OF THE 
 
 LECT. VIII 
 
 but everything in religion is reduced to rule and has some 
 fixed ceremonial expression. There is no room for religious 
 spontaneity. 
 
 According to this theory, it is not possible to distinguish 
 between ceremonial and moral precepts of the law, as if the 
 observance of the latter might excuse irregularity in the 
 former. The object of God's covenant with Israel was to 
 maintain a close and constant bond between Jehovah and His 
 people, different in kind from the relations of mankind in 
 general to their Creator. Israel was chosen to be a holy 
 people. Now, according to the Pentateuch, holiness is not 
 exclusively a moral thing. It has special relation to the 
 observances of ritual worship and ceremonial purity. " Ye 
 shall distinguish between clean beasts and unclean, and not 
 make yourselves abominable by any beast, fowl, etc., which I 
 have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy 
 unto me : for I Jehovah am holy, and have severed you from 
 the nations to be mine " (Lev. xx. 25, 26). If a sacrifice is 
 eaten on the third day, " it is abominable ; it shall not be 
 accepted. He that eateth it shall bear his guilt, for he hath 
 profaned Jehovah's holy thing : that soul shall be cut off from 
 his people " (Lev. xix. 8). " That which dieth of itself, or is 
 torn of beasts, no priest may eat to defile himself therewith. 
 I am Jehovah ; and they shall keep my ordinance and not 
 take sin on themselves by profaning it and die therein. I 
 Jehovah do sanctify them" (Lev. xxii. 8, 9). No stronger 
 words than these could be found to denounce the gravest 
 moral turpitude. 
 
 The whole system is directed to the maintenance of holi- 
 ness in Israel, as the condition of the benefits which Jehovah 
 promises to bestow on his people in the land of Canaan. And 
 therefore every infringement of law, be it merely in some 
 point of ceremony which we might be disposed to think 
 indifferent, demands an atonement, that the relation of God 
 
LECT. viii CEREMONIAL LAW 229 
 
 to His people may not be disturbed. To provide such atone- 
 ment is the great object of the priestly ritual which cul- 
 minates in the annual ceremony of the day of expiation. 
 Atonement implies sacrifice, the blood or life of an offering 
 presented on the altar before God. "It is the blood that 
 atones by the life that is in it" (Lev. xvii. 11 ; Hebrews ix. 
 22). But the principle of holiness demands that the sacri- 
 ficial act itself, and the altar on which the blood is offered, 
 be hedged round by strict ritual precautions. At the altar, 
 Jehovah, in His awful and inaccessible holiness, meets with 
 the people, which is imperfectly holy and stands in need of 
 constant forgiveness. There is danger in such a meeting. 
 Only the priests, who live under rules of intensified cere- 
 monial purity, and have received a peculiar consecration 
 from Jehovah Himself, are permitted to touch the holy 
 things, and it is they who bear the sins of Israel before God 
 to make atonement for them (Lev, x. 17). Between them 
 and Israel at large is a second cordon of holy ministers, the 
 Levites. It is death for any but a priest to touch the altar, 
 and an undue approach of ordinary persons to the sanctuary 
 brings wrath on Israel (Num. i. 53). Accordingly, sacrifice, 
 atonement, and forgiveness of sin are absolutely dependent 
 on the hierarchy and its service. The mass of the people 
 have no direct access to their God in the sanctuary. The 
 maintenance of the Old Testament covenant depends on the 
 priestly mediation, and above all on that one annual day of 
 expiation when the high priest enters the Holy of Holies and 
 " cleanses the people that they may be clean from all their 
 sins before Jehovah" (Lev. xvi, 30). The whole system, you 
 perceive, is strictly knit together. The details are necessary 
 to the object aimed at. The intermission of any part of the 
 ceremonial scheme involves an accumulation of unforgiven 
 sin, with the consequence of divine wrath on the nation and 
 the withdrawal of God's favour. 
 
230 THEORY OF THE lect. viii 
 
 To complete this sketch of the theory of the Pentateuch it 
 is only necessary to add that the hierarchy has no dispensing 
 power. If a man sins, he has recourse to the sacramental 
 sacrifice appointed for his case. The priest makes atonement 
 for him, and he is forgiven. But knowingly and obstinately 
 to depart from any ordinance is to sin against God with a 
 high hand, and for this there is no forgiveness. " He hath 
 despised the word of the Lord and broken his command- 
 ment: that soul shall be cut off in his guilt" (Num. xv. 
 30, 31). 
 
 Such is the system of the law as contained particularly 
 in the middle books of the Pentateuch, and practically 
 accepted from the days of Ezra. It is not strange that the 
 later Jews should have received it as the sum of all revela- 
 tion, for manifestly it is a complete theory of the religious 
 life. Its aim is to provide everything that man requires to 
 live acceptably with God, the necessary measure of access to 
 Jehovah, the necessary atonement for all sin, and the neces- 
 sary channel for the conveyance of God's blessing to man. 
 It is, I repeat, a complete theory of the religious life, to 
 w^hich nothing can be added without an entire change of 
 dispensation. Accordingly, the Jewish view of the law as 
 complete, and the summary of aU revelation, has passed into 
 Christian theology, with only this modification, that, whereas 
 the Jews think of the dispensation of the law as final, and 
 the atonement which it offers as sufficient, we have learned 
 to regard the dispensation as temporary and its atonement 
 as typical, prefiguring the atonement of Christ. But this 
 modification of the Jewish view of the Torah does not dimi- 
 nish the essential importance of the law for the life of the 
 old dispensation. The ceremonies were not less necessary 
 because they were typical ; for they are still to be regarded 
 as divinely appointed means of grace, to which alone God 
 had attached the promise of blessing. 
 
LECT. VIII CEREMONIAL LAW 231 
 
 Now, as soon as we lay down the position tliat the system 
 of the ceremonial law, embracing, as it does, the whole life of 
 every Jew, was completed and prescribed as an authoritative 
 code for Israel before the conquest of Canaan, we have an 
 absolute rule for measuring the whole future history of the 
 nation, and the whole significance of subsequent revelation 
 under the Old Testament, 
 
 On the one hand, the religious history of Israel can be 
 nothing else than the history of the nation's obedience or 
 disobedience to the law. Nothing could be added to the law 
 and nothing taken from it till the time of fulfilment, when 
 the type should pass away and be replaced by the living 
 reality of the manifestation of Christ Jesus. So long as 
 the old dispensation lasted, the law remained an absolute 
 standard. The Israelite had no right to draw a distinction 
 between the spirit and the letter of the law. The sacrifices 
 and other typical ordinances might not be of the essence of 
 religion. But obedience to God's word undoubtedly was so, 
 and that word had in the most emphatic manner enjoined 
 the sacrifices and other ceremonies, and made the forgiveness 
 of Israel's sins to depend on them. The priestly atonement 
 was a necessary part of God's covenant. " The priest shall 
 make atonement for him, and he shaU be forgiven." To 
 neglect these means of grace is, according to the Pentateuch, 
 nothing less than the sin committed with a high hand, for 
 which there is no forgiveness. 
 
 Again, on the other hand, the position that the whole 
 legal system was revealed to Israel at the very beginning of 
 its national existence strictly limits our conception of the 
 function and significance of subsequent revelation. The 
 prophets had no power to abrogate any part of the law, to 
 dispense with Mosaic ordinances, or institute new means of 
 grace, other methods of approach to God in lieu of the 
 hierarchical sacraments. For the Old Testament way of 
 
232 TRADITIONAL THEORY lect. viii 
 
 atonement is set forth in the Pentateuch as adequate and 
 efficient. According to Christian theology, its efficiency as a 
 typical system was conditional on the future bringing in of a 
 perfect atonement in Christ. But for that very reason it 
 was not to be tampered with until Christ came. The pro- 
 phets, like the law itself, could only point to a future atone- 
 ment ; they were not themselves saviours, and could do 
 nothing to diminish the need for the temporary provisions of 
 the hierarchical system ; and, as a matter of fact, the prophets 
 did not abolish the Pentateuch or any part of the Levitical 
 system. Nay, it is just as their work closes that we find the 
 Pentateuchal code solemnly advanced, in the reformation of 
 Ezra, to a position of public authority which it had never 
 held before. 
 
 Hence the traditional view of the Pentateuch necessarily 
 regards the prophets as ministers and exponents of the law. 
 Their business was to enforce the observance of the law on 
 Israel and to recall the people from backsliding to a strict 
 conformity with its precepts. According to the Jewish view, 
 this makes their work less necessary and eternal than the 
 law. Christian theologians avoid this inference, but they do 
 so by laying stress on the fact that the reference to a future 
 and perfect atonement, which lay implicitly in the typical 
 ordinances of the ceremonial law, was unfolded by the pro- 
 phets in the clear language of evangelical prediction. We 
 have been taught to view the prophets as exponents of the 
 spiritual elements of the law, who showed the people that its 
 precepts were not mere forms but veiled declarations of the 
 spiritual truths of a future dispensation which was the true 
 substance of the shadows of the old ritual. This theory of 
 the work of the prophets is much more profound than that 
 of the Eabbins. But it implies, as necessarily as the Jewish 
 view, that the prophets were constantly intent on enforcing 
 the observance of the ceremonial as well as the moral pre- 
 
LECT. vnr OF THE WORK OF THE PROPHETS 233 
 
 cepts of the Pentateuch. Neglect of the ritual law was all 
 the more culpable when the spiritual meaning of its precepts 
 was made plain. 
 
 I think that it will be admitted that in this sketch I have 
 correctly indicated the theory of the Old Testament dispensa- 
 tion which orthodox theologians derive from the traditional 
 view as to the date of the Pentateuch. I ask you to observe 
 that it is essentially the Eabbinical view supplemented by a 
 theory of typology ; but I also ask you to observe that it is 
 perfectly logical and consistent in all its parts. It is, so far 
 as one can see, the only theory which can be built on the 
 premisses. It has only one fault. The standard which it 
 applies to the history of Israel is not that of the contem- 
 porary historical records, and the account which it gives of 
 the work of the prophets is not consistent with the writings 
 of the prophets themselves. 
 
 This may seem a strong statement, but it is not lightly 
 made, and it expresses no mere personal opinion, but the 
 growing conviction of an overwhelming weight of the most 
 earnest and sober scholarship. The discrepancy between the 
 traditional view of the Pentateuch and the plain statements 
 of the historical books and the Prophets is so marked and so 
 fundamental that it can be made clear to every reader of 
 Scripture. It is this fact which compels us, in the interests 
 of practical theology — nay, even in the interests of Christian 
 apologetic — to go into questions of Pentateuch criticism. For 
 if the received view which assigns the whole Pentateuch 
 to Moses is inconsistent with the concordant testimony of 
 the Earlier and Later Prophets, we are brought into this 
 dilemma : — Either the Old Testament is not the record of a 
 self-consistent scheme of revelation, of one great and con- 
 tinuous work of a revealing and redeeming God, or else the 
 current view of the origin of the Pentateuch must be given 
 up. Here it is that criticism comes in to solve a problem 
 
234 THE LAW AND THE lect. viii 
 
 which in its origin is not merely critical, but springs of neces- 
 sity from the very attempt to understand the Old Testament 
 dispensation as a whole. For the contradiction which cannot 
 be resolved on traditional assumptions is at once removed 
 when the critic points out within the Pentateuch itself clear 
 marks that the whole law was not written at one time, and that 
 the several documents of which it is composed represent suc- 
 cessive developments of the fundamental principles laid down 
 by Moses, successive redactions of the sacred law of Israel 
 corresponding to the very same stages in the progress of 
 revelation which are clearly marked in the history and the 
 prophetic literature. Thus the apparent discordance between 
 the several parts of the Old Testament record is removed, and 
 we are able to see a consistent divine purpose ruling the 
 whole dispensation of the Old Covenant, and harmoniously 
 displayed in every part of the sacred record. To develop this 
 argument in its essential features, fitting the several parts of 
 the record into their proper setting in the history of revela- 
 tion, is the object which I propose for our discussion of the 
 Law and the Prophets. Of the critical or constructive part 
 of the argument I can give only the main outlines, for many 
 details in the analysis of the Pentateuch turn on nice ques- 
 tions of Hebrew scholarship. But the results are broad and 
 intelligible, and possess that evidence of historical consistency 
 on which the results of special scholarship are habitually 
 accepted by the mass of intelligent men in other branches of 
 historical inquiry. 
 
 Such, then, is the plan of our investigation ; and, first of 
 all, let us compare the evidence of the Bible history with the 
 traditional theory already sketched. In working out this 
 part of the subject I shall confine your attention in the first 
 instance to the books earlier than the time of Ezra, and in 
 particular to the histories in the Earlier Prophets, from 
 Judges to Second Kings. I exclude the Book of Joslma 
 
HISTORICAL BOOKS 235 
 
 because it in all its parts hangs closely together with the 
 Pentateuch, The difficulties which it presents are identical 
 with those of the Books of Moses, and can only be explained 
 in connection with the critical analysis of the law. And, on 
 the other hand, I exclude the narrative of Chronicles for 
 reasons which have been suflSciently explained at the close 
 of Lecture V. The tendency of the Chronicler to assume 
 that the institutions of his own age existed under the old 
 kingdom makes his narrative useless for the purpose now in 
 hand, where we are expressly concerned with the differences 
 between ancient and modern usage. Let me observe, how- 
 ever, that the proposal to test the traditional theory of the 
 Pentateuch by the old historical books is one which no fair 
 controversialist can refuse, even if he has not made up his 
 mind as to the value of the testimony of the Chrouicler; for, 
 in all historical questions, the ultimate appeal is to contem- 
 porary sources, or to those sources which approach most 
 nearly to the character of contemporary witnesses. 
 
 Every reader of the Old Testament history is familiar 
 with the fact that from the days of the Judges down to 
 the Exile the law was never strictly enforced in Israel. The 
 history is a record of constant rebellion and shortcomings, 
 and the attempts at reformation made from time to time 
 were comparatively few and never thoroughly carried out. 
 The deflections of the nation from the standard of the 
 Pentateuch come out most clearly in the sphere of wor- 
 ship. In the time of the Judges the religious condition 
 of the nation was admittedly one of anarchy. The leaders 
 of the nation, divinely -appointed deliverers like Gideon 
 and Jephthah, who were zealous in Jehovah's cause, were 
 as far from the Pentateuchal standard of righteousness as 
 the mass of the people. Gideon erects a sanctuary at 
 Ophrah, with a golden ephod — apparently a kind of image 
 — which became a great centre of illegal worship (Jud. 
 
236 THE LAW AND THE lect. viii 
 
 viii. 24 sqq.) ; Jephthah offers his own daughter to Jehovah ; 
 the Lord departs from Samson, not when he marries a 
 daughter of the uncircumcised, but when his Nazarite locks 
 are shorn. 
 
 The revival under Samuel, Saul, and David was marked 
 by great zeal for Jehovah, but brought no reform in matters 
 of glaring departure from the law. Samuel sacrifices on 
 many high places, Saul builds altars, David and his son 
 Solomon permit the worship at the high places to con- 
 tinue, and the historian recognises this as legitimate 
 because the Temple was not yet built (1 Kings iii, 2-4). 
 In ^tTorthern Israel this state of things was never changed. 
 The high places were an established feature in the king- 
 dom of Ephraim, and Elijah himself declares that the 
 destruction of the altars of Jehovah — all illegitimate ac- 
 cording to the Pentateuch — is a breach of Jehovah's covenant 
 (1 Kings xix. 10). In the Southern Kingdom it was not 
 otherwise. It is recorded of the best kings before Hezekiah 
 that the high places were not removed by them ; and in 
 the eighth century B.C. the prophets describe the worship 
 of Ephraim and Judah in terms practically identical. Even 
 the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah were imperfectly carried 
 through ; and important points of ritual, such as the due 
 observance of the Eeast of Tabernacles, were still neglected 
 (Neh. viii. 17). These facts are not disputed. The question 
 is how we are to interpret them. 
 
 The prophets and the historical books agree in represent- 
 ing the history of Israel as a long record of disobedience to 
 Jehovah, of which captivity was the just punishment. But 
 the precise nature of Israel's sin is often misunderstood. We 
 are accustomed to speak of it as idolatry, as the worship of 
 false gods in place of Jehovah ; and in a certain sense this 
 corresponds with the language of the sacred books. In the 
 judgment of the prophets of the eighth century the mass of 
 
LECT. VIII HISTORICAL BOOKS 237 
 
 the Israelites, not merely in the Northern Kingdom but 
 equally in Judah, had rebelled against Jehovah, and did 
 not pay Him worship in any true sense. But that was 
 far from being the opinion of the false worshippers them- 
 selves. They were not in conscious rebellion against Jehovah 
 and His covenant. On the contrary, their religion was based 
 on two principles, one of which is the fundamental principle 
 of Old Testament revelation, while the second is the principle 
 that underlies the whole system of ritual ordinance in the 
 Pentateuch. The first principle in the popular religion of 
 Israel, acknowledged by the false worshippers as well as by 
 the prophets, was that Jehovah is Israel's God, and that 
 Israel is the people of Jehovah in a distinctive sense. And 
 with this went a second principle, that Israel is bound to do 
 homage to its God in sacrifice, and to serve Him diligently 
 and assiduously according to an established ritual. 
 
 Let me explain this point more fully. There is no doubt 
 that the worship of heathen deities, such as the Tyrian Baal 
 or the Sidonian Astarte, and the local gods and goddesses of 
 lesser Canaanite sanctuaries, was not unknown in ancient 
 Israel. Solomon and Ahab even went so far as to erect 
 temples to foreign gods (1 Kings xi. 4 sqq. compared with 
 2 Kings xxiii. 13 ; 1 Kings xvi. 32) out of complaisance 
 to their foreign wives; and though these shrines seem to 
 have been primarily designed for the convenience of the 
 heathen princesses and their countrymen resident in the 
 land of Israel, they were not exclusively frequented by 
 foreigners. But as a rule, an Israelite who bowed the knee 
 to a strange god did not suppose that in so doing he was 
 renouncing his allegiance to Jehovah as his national God 
 and the chief object of his homage. Even Ahab, of whose 
 Baal-worship we hear so much, never proposed to give up 
 the God of Israel for the god of Tyre. The state religion 
 was still Jehovah-worship, and it was Jehovah's prophets 
 
238 Israel's worship lect. vm 
 
 that were consulted in affairs of state (1 Kings xxii.). More- 
 over, the foreign worship introduced by Ahab had only a 
 temporary vogue. The mass of the people soon came to 
 regard it, with the prophets Elijah and Elisha, as an 
 apostasy from Jehovah, who would tolerate no rival within 
 his land ; and in Jehu's revolution the alien temple was 
 destroyed and its worshippers ruthlessly put to death. 
 Most certainly, then, the national disobedience with which 
 the prophets charge their countrymen was not denial that 
 Jehovah is Israel's God, with a paramount claim to the 
 service and worship of the nation. On the contrary, the 
 prophets represent their contemporaries as full of zeal for 
 Jehovah, and confident that they have secured His help 
 by their great assiduity in His service (Amos iv. 4 sq., v. 
 18 sq. ; Hosea vi, ; Isa. i. 11 sq. ; Micah iii. 11 ; Jer. vii.). 
 
 To obtain a precise conception of what this means, we 
 must look more closely at the notion of worship under 
 the Old Testament dispensation. To us worship is a 
 spiritual thing. We lift up our hearts and voices to God 
 in the closet, the family, or the church, persuaded that 
 God, who is spirit, will receive in every place the worship 
 of spirit and truth. But this is strictly a New Testament 
 conception, announced as a new thing by Jesus to the 
 Samaritan woman, who raised a question as to the dis- 
 puted prerogative of Zion or Gerizim as the place of 
 acceptable worship. Under the New Covenant neither 
 Zion nor Gerizim is the mount of God. Under the Old 
 Testament it was otherwise. Access to God — even to 
 the spiritual God — was limited by local conditions. There 
 is no worship without access to the deity before whom 
 the worshipper draws nigh to express his homage. We 
 can draw near to God in every act of prayer in the 
 heavenly sanctuary, through the new and living way which 
 Jesus has consecrated in His blood. But the Old Testament 
 
LECT. VIII UNDER THE KINGS 239 
 
 worshipper sought access to God in an earthly sanctuary 
 which was for him, as it were, the meeting-place of heaven 
 and earth. Such holy points of contact with the divine 
 presence were locally fixed, and their mark was the altar, 
 where the worshipper presented his homage, not in purely 
 spiritual utterance, but in the material form of an altar 
 gift. The promise of blessing, or, as we should now call 
 it, of answer to prayer, is in the Old Testament strictly 
 attached to the local sanctuary. "In every place where I 
 set the memorial of my name, I will come unto thee and 
 bless thee" (Exod. xx. 24). Every visible act of worship 
 is subjected to this condition. In the mouth of Saul, 
 " to make supplication to Jehovah " is a synonym for 
 doing sacrifice (1 Sam. xiii. 12). To David, * banishment 
 from the land of Israel and its sanctuaries is a command 
 to serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19 ; compare Deut. 
 xxviii. 36, 64). And the worship of the sanctuary impera- 
 tively demands the tokens of material homage, the gift 
 without which no Oriental would approach even an earthly 
 covirt. "None shall appear before me empty" {Exod. 
 xxiii. 15). Prayer without approach to the sanctuary is 
 not recognised as part of the " service of Jehovah " ; and 
 for him who is at a distance from the holy place, a vow, 
 such as Absalom made at Geshur in Syria (2 Sam. xv. 8), 
 is the natural surrogate for the interrupted service of the 
 altar. The essence of a vow is a promise to do sacrifice 
 or other offering at the sanctuary (Deut. xii. 6 ; Lev. xxvii. ; 
 1 Sam. i. 21 ; compare Gen. xxviii. 20 sq). 
 
 This conception of the nature of divine worship is the 
 basis alike of the Pentateuchal law and of the popular 
 religion of Israel described in the historical books and 
 condemned by the prophets. The sanctuary of Jehovah, 
 the altar and the altar gifts, the sacrifices and the solemn 
 feasts, the tithes and the free-will offerings, were never 
 
240 Israel's worship lect. vm 
 
 treated with indifference (Amos iv. 4, viii. 5 ; Hosea viii. 
 13 ; Isa. i. 11 sq. ; Jer. vii.). On the contrary, the charge 
 which the prophets constantly hurl against the people is 
 that they are wholly absorbed in affairs of worship and 
 ritual service, and think themselves to have secured 
 Jehovah's favour by the zeal of their external devotion, 
 without the practice of justice, mercy, and moral obedience. 
 
 The condition of religious affairs in Northern Israel is 
 clearly described by the prophets Amos and Hosea. These 
 prophets arose under the dynasty of Jehu, the ally of 
 Elisha and the destroyer of Baal -worship, a dynasty in 
 which the very names of the kings denote devotion to 
 the service of Jehovah. Jehovah was worshipped in many 
 sanctuaries and in forms full of irregularity from the 
 standpoint of the Pentateuch. There were images of 
 Jehovah under the form of a calf or steer in Bethel and 
 Dan, and probably elsewhere. The order of the local 
 sanctuaries, and the religious feasts celebrated at them, 
 had much in common with the idolatry of the Canaanites. 
 Indeed many of the high places were old Canaanite 
 "sanctuaries. JSTevertheless these sanctuaries and their wor- 
 ship were viewed as the fixed and normal provision for 
 / the maintenance of living relations between Israel and 
 [ Jehovah. Hosea predicts a time of judgment when this 
 service shall be suppressed. "The children of Israel shall 
 sit many days without sacrifice and without maggela, 
 without ephod and teraphim." This language expresses 
 the entire destruction of the religious order of the nation, 
 a period of isolation from all access to Jehovah, like the 
 isolation of a faithful spouse whom her husband keeps shut 
 up, not admitting her to the privileges of marriage (Hos. iii.).^ 
 
 1 The English version of Hosea iii. does not clearly express the prophet's 
 thought. Hosea's wife had deserted him for a stranger. But though she is 
 thus "in love with a paramour, and unfaithful," his love follows her, and he 
 buys her back out of the servile condition into which she appears to have 
 
LECT. vni UNDER THE KINGS 241 
 
 It appears, then, that sacrifice and maggeha, ephod and tera- ■ 
 phim, were recognised as the necessary forms and instruments 
 of the worship of Jehovah. They were all old traditional 
 forms, not the invention of modern will - worship. The 
 mag^eba, or consecrated stone, so often named in the Old 
 Testament where our version unfortunately renders " image," 
 is as old as the time of Jacob, who set up and consecrated 
 the memorial stone that marked Bethel as a sanctuary. It 
 was the necessary mark of every high place, Canaanite as 
 well as Hebrew, and is condemned in the Pentateuchal laws 
 against the high places along with the associated symbol of 
 the sacred tree or pole (ashera, E. V. grove), which was also 
 a feature in the patriarchal sanctuaries. (The oak of Moreh, 
 Gen. xii. 6, 7 ; the tamarisk of Beersheba, Gen. xxi. 33 ; Gen. 
 xxxi. 45, 54; Gen. xxxiii. 20, with xxxv. 4; Jos. xxiv. 26; 
 Hos. iv. 13.) The ephod is also ancient. It must have been 
 something very different from the ephod of the high priest, 
 but is to be compared with the ephods of Gideon and Micah 
 (Judges viii. 27, xvii. 5), and with that in the sanctuary of 
 Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 9). Finally, teraphim are a means of 
 divination (Ezek. xxi. 21 ; Zech. x. 2) as old as the time of 
 Jacob, and were found in Micah's sanctuary and David's 
 house (1 Sam. xix. 13 ; E. V. image)} 
 
 It appears, then, that the national worship of Jehovah, 
 under the dynasty of Jehu, was conducted under traditional 
 
 fallen. She is brought back from shame and servitude, but not to the 
 privileges of a wife. She must sit alone by her husband, reserved for him, 
 but not yet restored to the relations of wedlock. So Jehovah will deal with 
 Israel, when by destroying the state and the ordinances of worship He breaks 
 off all intercoiarse, not only between Israel and the Baalim, but between 
 Israel and Himself. 
 
 1 On the ephod, see Vatke, Bibl. Theologie (1835), p. 267 sq. ; Studer on 
 Judges viii. 27. The passages where teraphim are mentioned in the Hebrew 
 but not in the English version are. Gen. xxxi. 19, 34, 35 ; 1 Sara. xv. 23, 
 xix. 13, 16 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 24 ; Zech. x. 2. Compare, as to their nature, 
 Spencer, De Legibus Eitualihus Hchrceorum, Lib. iii. c. 3, § 2 sq. On the 
 ma(;geba and ashera see my Religion of the Semites, vol. 1. (1889), Lect. 5. 
 
 i6 
 
242 HEBREW WORSHIP lect. viii 
 
 forms which had a fixed character aud general recognition. 
 These forms were ancient. There is no reason to think that 
 the worship of the northern shrines had undergone serious 
 modifications since the days of the Judges. The sanctuaries 
 themselves were of ancient and, in great part, of patriarchal 
 consecration. Beersheba, Gilgal, Bethel, Shechem, Mizpah, 
 were places of the most venerable sanctity, acknowledged by 
 Samuel and earlier worthies. Of the sanctuary at Dan we 
 know the whole origin and history. It was founded by the 
 Danites who carried off Micah's Levite and holy things ; and 
 the family of the Levite, who was himself a grandson of 
 Moses, continued in office through the age of David and 
 Samuel down to the Captivity (Jud. xviii. 30). It was a 
 sanctuary of purely Israelite origin, originally instituted by 
 Micah for the service of Jehovah, and equipped with every 
 regard to the provision of an acceptable service. " Now I 
 know," said Micah, " that Jehovah will do me good, since I 
 have got the Levite as my priest." This trait indicates an 
 interest in correct ritual which never died out. In truth, 
 ritual is never deemed unimportant in a religion so little 
 spiritual as that of the mass of Israel. All worships that 
 contain heathenish elements are traditional, and nothing is 
 more foreign to them than the arbitrary introduction of forms 
 for which there is no precedent of usage. 
 
 That this traditional service and ritual was not Levitically 
 correct needs no proof. Let us rather consider the features 
 which mark it as unspiritual and led the prophets to condemn 
 it as displeasing to God. 
 
 In the first place, we observe that though Jehovah was 
 worshipped with assiduity, and worshipped as the national 
 God of Israel, there was no clear conception of the funda- 
 mental difference between Him and the gods of the nations. 
 This appears particularly in the current use of images, like 
 the golden calves, which were supposed to be representations 
 
LECT. Yiii UNDER THE KINGS 243 
 
 or symbols of Jehovah. But, indeed, the whole service is 
 represented by the prophets as gross, sensual, and uuM^orthy 
 of a spiritual deity (Amos ii. 7, 8 ; Hosea iv. 13, 14). WeT 
 know that many features in the worship of the high places 
 were practically identical with the abominations of the 
 Canaanites, and gave no expression to the difference between 
 Jehovah and the false gods. Thus it came about that the 
 Israelites fell into what is called syncretism in religion. 
 They were unable sharply to distinguish between the local 
 worship of Jehovah and the worship of the Canaanite 
 Baalim. The god of the local sanctuary was adored as 
 Jehovah, but a local Jehovah was practically a local Baal. 
 This confusion of thought may be best illustrated from the 
 Madonna - worship of Eoman Catholic shrines. Every 
 Madonna is a representation of the one Virgin ; but practi- 
 cally each Virgin has its own merits and its own devotees, 
 so that the service of these .shrines is almost indistinguishable 
 from polytheism, of which, indeed, it is often an historical 
 continuation. In Phoenicia one still sees grottoes of the 
 Virgin INIary which are old shrines of Astarte, bearing 
 the symbols of the ancient worship of Canaan. So it was 
 in those days. The worship of the one Jehovah, who was 
 Himself addressed in old times by the title of Baal or Lord 
 (swpra, p. 68), practically fell into a worship of a multitude 
 of local Baalim, so that a prophet like Hosea can say that 
 the Israelites, though still imagining themselves to be serving 
 the national God, and acknowledging His benefits, have really 
 turned from Him to deities that are no gods. 
 
 In this way another fault came in. The people, whose 
 worship of Jehovah was hardly to be distinguished from a 
 gross polytheism, could not be fundamentally averse to 
 worship other gods side by side with the national deity. 
 Thus the service of Astarte, Tammuz, or other deities 
 that could not even in popular conception be identified with 
 
244 HEBREW WORSHIP lect. viii 
 
 Jehovah, obtained a certain currency, at least in sections of 
 the nation. This worship was always secondary, and was 
 put down from time to time in movements of reformation 
 which left the high places of Jehovah untouched (1 Sam. 
 vii. 3 ; 1 Kings xv. 12 sq. ; 2 Kings x. 28, 29, xi. 18). 
 
 This sketch of the popular religion of Israel is mainly 
 drawn from the Northern Kingdom. But it is clear from the 
 facts enumerated that it was not a mere innovation due to 
 the schism of Jeroboam. Jeroboam, no doubt, lent a certain 
 6clat to the service of the royal sanctuaries, and the golden 
 calves gave a very different conception of Jehovah from that 
 which was symbolised by the ark on Zion. But the elements 
 of the whole worship were traditional, and were already 
 current in the age of the Judges. Gideon's golden ephod 
 and the graven image at Dan prove that even image-worship 
 was no innovation of Jeroboam. And it is certain that the 
 worship of the Judsean sanctuaries was not essentially differ- 
 ent from that of the northern shrines. The high places 
 flourished undisturbed from generation to generation. The 
 land was full of idols (Isa. ii.). Jerusalem appears to Micah 
 as the centre of a corrupt Judsean worship, which he parallels 
 with the corrupt worship of Samaria (Micah i. 5, iii. 12, v. 11 
 sq., vi. 16). 
 
 Where, then, did this traditional worship, so largely diffused 
 through the mass of Israel, have its origin, and what is its 
 historical relation to the laws of the Pentateuch ? No doubt 
 many of its corrupt features may be explained by the in- 
 fluence of the Canaanites ; and from the absolute standard of 
 spiritual religion applied by the prophets it might even be 
 said that Israel had forsaken Jehovah for the Baalim. But 
 from the standpoint of the worshippers it was not so. They 
 still believed themselves loyal to Jehovah. Their great 
 sanctuaries were patriarchal holy places like Bethel and 
 Beersheba, or purely Hebrew foundations like Dan. With 
 
LECT. VIII UNDER THE KINGS 245 
 
 all its corruptions, their worship had a specifically national 
 character. Jehovah never was a Canaanite God, and the 
 roots of the popular religion, as we have already seen, were 
 that acknowledgment of Jehovah as Israel's God, and of the 
 duty of national service to Him, which is equally the basis 
 of Mosaic orthodoxy,^ These are principles which lie behind 
 the first beginnings of Canaanite influence. But in the 
 Pentateuch these principles are embodied in a ritual alto- 
 gether diverse in system and theory, as well as in detail, 
 from the traditional ritual of the high places. The latter 
 service is not merely a corrupt copy of the Mosaic system, 
 with elements borrowed from the Canaan ites. In the Levi- 
 tical ritual the essentials of Jehovah-worship are put in a 
 form which made no accommodation to heathenism possible, 
 which left no middle ground between the pure worship of 
 Jehovah, as maintained by the Aaronic priesthood in the one 
 sanctuary, and a deliberate rejection of Israel's God for the 
 idols of the heathen. 
 
 To understand this point we must observe that according 
 to the Levitical system God is absolutely inaccessible to man, 
 except in the priestly ritual of the central sanctuary. Con- 
 troversial writers on the law of the one sanctuary have often 
 been led to overlook this point by confining their attention 
 to the law of the sanctuary in Deuteronomy, which speaks of 
 
 ^ After the conclusive remarks of Kuenen {Godsdienst, i. 398 sq.) it is un- 
 necessary to spend words on the theory, which still crops up from time to 
 time, that the Hebrews borrowed the worship of Jehovah (or lahwh, as the 
 name should rather be pronounced) from the Canaauites. Further, the judg- 
 ment pronounced by Baudissin in 1876 {Studien, vol. i. No. 3), and confirmed 
 by Kuenen in 1882 {Hihhert Lectures, p. 311), still holds its ground ; there 
 is no valid evidence that a god bearing the name of lahwe (or some equivalent 
 form such as lahu) was known to any other Semitic people. See further on 
 this point and on other questions connected with the name a paper by 
 Professor Driver in Stiidia Bihlica, i. (Oxford, 1885). The statement of 
 Professor Sayce, Fresh Light (1890), p. 63, that the form laliwe or Yahveh, 
 as it is often written, is incompatible with the form Yahu (-iahu, -iah) which 
 appears in proper names [e.g. Hiskiyahu, the Hezekiah of our Bibles], is due 
 to haste or to ignorance. 
 
246 THE LEVITICAL 
 
 the choice of one place in Canaan where Jehovah will set 
 His name as a practical safeguard against participation in 
 the worship of Canaanite high places. But if the whole 
 Pentateuch is one Mosaic system, the law of Deuteronomy 
 must be viewed in the light of the legislation of the Middle 
 Books. Here the theory of the one sanctuary is worked out 
 on a basis independent of the question of heathen shrines. 
 According to the Old Testament, worship is a tryst between 
 man and God in the sanctuary, and tlie question of the 
 legitimate sanctuary is the question of the place where 
 Jehovah has promised to hold tryst with His people, and 
 the conditions which He lays down for this meeting. The 
 fundamental promise of the Levitical legislation is Exod. 
 xxix. 42 sq. The place of tryst is the Tent of Tryst or 
 Meeting, incorrectly rendered in the Authorised Version, 
 " The tabernacle of the congregation." " There will I hold 
 tryst with the children of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by 
 my glory. And I will sanctify the tent of meeting and the 
 altar, and I will sanctify Aaron and his sons to do priestly 
 service to me. And I will dwell in the midst of the children 
 of Israel, and will be their God." The tent of meeting is 
 God's mislikan, His dwelling-place, which He sets in the 
 midst of Israel (Lev. xxvi. 11). The first condition of divine 
 blessing in Lev. xxvi. is reverence for the Sabbath and the 
 sanctuary, and the total rejection of idols and of the maggeha 
 which was the mark of the high places. There is no local 
 point of contact between heaven and earth, no place where 
 man can find a present God to receive his worship, save this 
 one tent of meeting, where the ark with the Cherubim is the 
 abiding symbol that God is in the midst of Israel, and the 
 altar stands at the door of the tabernacle as the legitimate 
 place of Israel's gifts. This sanctuary with its altar is the 
 centre of Israel's holiness. It is so holy that it is hedged 
 round by a double cordon of sacred ministers. For the 
 
LECT. VIII 
 
 SANCTUARY 247 
 
 presence of Jehovah is a terrible thing, destructive to sinful 
 man. The Old Testament symbol of Jehovah's manifestation 
 to His people is the lightning flash from behind the thunder 
 cloud, fire involved in smoke, an awful and devouring bright- 
 ness consuming all that is not holy. Therefore the dreadful 
 spot where His holiness dwells may never be approached 
 without atoning ritual and strict precautions of ceremonial 
 sanctity provided for the priests, and for none other. Even 
 the Levites may not touch either ark or altar, lest both they 
 and the priests die (Num. xviii. 3). Still less dare the laity 
 draw near to the tabernacle (Num. xvii. 13 [28]). It is only 
 the sons of Aaron who, by their special consecration, can bear 
 with impunity " the guilt of the sanctuary " (xviii. 1) ; and 
 so every sacred offering of the Israelite, every gift which 
 expresses the people's homage, must pass through their hand 
 and pay toll to them (Num. xviii. 8 sq.). Thus the access of 
 the ordinary Israelite to God is very restricted. He can only 
 stand afar off while the priest approaches Jehovah as his 
 mediator, and brings back a word of blessing. And even 
 this mediate access to God is confined to his visits to the 
 central sanctuary. The stated intercourse of God with His 
 people is not the concern of the whole people, but of the 
 priests, who are constantly before God, offering up on behalf 
 of the nation the unbroken service of the continual daily 
 oblations. This is a great limitation of the freedom of 
 worship. But it is no arbitrary restriction. On the Levi- 
 tical theory, the imperfection of the ordinary holiness of 
 Israel leaves no alternative open. For the holiness of God 
 is fatal to him who dares to come near His dwelling-place. 
 
 On this theory the ritual of the sanctuary is no artificial 
 system devised to glorify one holy place above others, but the 
 necessary scheme of precaution for every local approach to 
 God. Other sanctuaries are not simply less holy, places of 
 less solemn tryst with Jehovah ; they are places where His 
 
248 ALL SLAUGHTER 
 
 holiness is not revealed, and therefore are not, and cannot be, 
 sanctuaries of Jehovah at all. If Jehovah were to meet with 
 man in a second sanctuary, the same consequences of in- 
 violable holiness would assert themselves, and the new holy 
 place would again require to be fenced in with equal ritual 
 precautions. In the very nature of the covenant, there is 
 but one altar and one priesthood through which the God of 
 Israel can be approached. 
 
 The popular religion of Israel, with its many sanctuaries, 
 proceeds on a theory diametrically opposite. Opportunity 
 of access to Jehovah is near to every Israelite, and every 
 occasion of life that calls on the individual, the clan, or the 
 village, to look Godwards is a summons to the altar. In the 
 family every feast was an eucharistic sacrifice. In affairs of 
 public life it was not otherwise. The very phrases in Hebrew 
 (^ for " making a covenant " or " inaugurating war " point to the 
 sacrificial observances that accompanied such acts. The 
 earlier history relates scarcely one event of importance that 
 was not transacted at a holy place. The local sanctuaries 
 were the centres of all Hebrew life. How little of the 
 history would remain if Shechem and Bethel, the two 
 Mizpahs and Ophra, Gilgal, Eamah, and Gibeon, Hebron, 
 Bethlehem, and Beersheba, Kedesh and Mahanaira, Tabor and 
 Carmel, were blotted out of the pages of the Old Testament.^ 
 
 ^ In some of these cases, evidence that the place was a sanctuary may be 
 demanded. Kedesh is proved to be so by its very name, with which it 
 agrees that it was a Levitical city and a consecrated asylum. Accordingly it 
 formed the rendezvous of Zebulon and Naphtali under Barak and Deborah. 
 Mahanaim was the place of a theophany, from which it had its name. It 
 was also a Levitical city, and Cant. vi. 13 alludes to the "dance of 
 Mahanaim," which was probably such a festal dance as took place at Shiloh 
 (Jud. xxi. 21). As a holy place the town was the seat of Ishbosheth's king- 
 dom, and the headquarters of David's host during the revolt of Absalom. 
 Tabor, on the frontiers of Zebulon and Issachar, seems to be the mountain 
 alluded to in Deut. xxxiii. 18, 19, as the sanctuary of these tribes, and it 
 appears along with Mizpah, as a seat of degenerate priests, in Hos. v. 1. The 
 northern Mizpah is identical with Ramoth Gilead and with the sanctuary of 
 Jacob (Gen. xxxi. 45 sq.). 
 
IS SACRIFICE 249 
 
 This different and freer conception of the means of access 
 to God, the desire which it embodies to realise Jehovah's 
 ]3resence in acts of worship, not at rare intervals only but in 
 every concern of life, cannot be viewed as a mere heathenish 
 corruption of the Levitical system. This fact comes out most 
 clearly in the point which brings out the contrast of the two 
 systems in its completest form. 
 
 In the traditional popular Jehovah-worship, to slay an ox 
 or a sheep for food was a sacrificial act, and the flesh of the 
 victim was not lawful food unless the blood or life had been 
 poured out before Jehovah. The currency of this view is 
 presupposed in the Pentateuchal legislation. Thus in Lev. 
 xvii. it appears as a perpetual statute that no domestic animal 
 can be lawfully slain for food, unless it be presented as a 
 peace-offering before the central sanctuary, and its blood 
 sprinkled on the altar. One has no right to slay an animal 
 on other conditions. The life, which lies in the blood, comes 
 from God and belongs to Him. The man who does not 
 recognise this fact, but eats the flesh with the blood, " hath 
 shed blood, and shall be cut off from his people" (ver. 4; 
 comp. Gen. ix. 4). In Deuteronomy this principle is pre- 
 supposed, but relaxed by a formal statute. Those who do not 
 live beside the sanctuary may eat flesh without a sacrificial 
 act, if they simply pour out the blood upon the ground (Deut. 
 xii. 20 sq.). The old rule, it would seem, might still hold 
 good for every animal slain within reach of the holy place. 
 Now, under the conditions of Eastern life, beef and mutton 
 are not everyday food. In Canaan, as among the Arabs at 
 this day, milk is the usual diet (Prov. xxvii. 26, 27 ; Jud. iv. 
 19). The slaughter of a victim for food marks a festal occa- 
 sion, and the old Hebrew principle modified in Deuteronomy 
 means that all feasts are religious, that sacred occasions and 
 occasions of natural joy and festivity are identical.^ Under 
 
 ^ Except at a feast, or to entertain a guest, or in sacrifice before a local 
 
250 EVERY FEAST 
 
 the full Levitical system this principle was obsolete, or at 
 least could assert itself only in the vicinity of the sanctuary, 
 and in connection with the three great festive gatherings at 
 Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. But in 
 the actual history of the nation the principle was not yet 
 obsolete. Thus in 1 Sam. xiv., when the people, in their fierce 
 hunger after the battle of Michmash, fly on the spoil and, 
 slaying beasts on the ground, eat them with the blood — i.e. as 
 we see from Lev. xvii., without offering the blood to Jehovah 
 — Saul rebukes their transgression, erects a rude altar in the 
 form of a great stone, and orders the people to kill their 
 victims there. A feast and a sacrifice are still identical in 
 the Book of Proverbs, which speaks the ordinary language of 
 the people. Compare Prov. xv. 17 with xvii. 1, and note the 
 inducement offered to the foolish young man in chap. vii. 14. 
 In Hosea ii. 11 all mirth is represented as connected with 
 religious ceremonies. But the most conclusive passage is 
 Hosea ix. 3 sq., where the prophet predicts that in the Exile 
 all the food of the people shall be unclean, because sacrifice 
 cannot be performed beyond the land of Israel. They shall 
 eat, as it were, the unclean bread of mourners, " because their 
 necessary food shall not be presented in the house of Jehovah." 
 In other words, all animal food not presented at the altar is 
 unclean ; the whole life of the people becomes unclean when 
 they leave the land of Jehovah to dwell in an " unclean land " 
 (Amos vii. 17). We see from this usage how closely the 
 practice of sacrifice in every corner of the land was inter- 
 shrine, the Bedouin tastes no meat but the flesh of the gazelle or other game. 
 This throws light on Deut. xii. 16, 22, which shows that in old Israel game 
 was the only meat not eaten sacrificially. That flesh was not eaten every 
 day even by wealthy people appears very clearly from Nathan's parable and 
 from the Book of Ruth. The wealthy man, like the Arab sheikh, ate the 
 same fare as his workmen. According to MI Nodes (Calcutta edition, ii. 
 276), eating flesh is one of the three elements of high enjoyment. 
 
 The rule that all legitimate slaughter is sacrificial is not confined to old 
 Israel. Distinct traces of the same view survived in Arabia down to the time 
 of Mohammed ; see Wellhausen, Arab. Heidenthum, p. 114. 
 
tECT. VIII 
 
 A SACKIFICE 251 
 
 woven with the whole life of the nation, and how absolute 
 was the contrast between the traditional conception of sacri- 
 ficial intercourse between Jehovah and His people and that 
 which is expressed in the Levitical law. But we see also 
 that the popular conception is not a new thing superadded to 
 the Levitical system from a foreign source, but an old tradi- 
 tional principle of Jehovah -worship prior to the law of 
 Deuteronomy. When did this principle take root in the 
 nation ? Not surely in the forty years of wandering, when, 
 according to the express testimony of Amos v. 25, sacrifices 
 and offerings were not presented to Jehovah. 
 
 But let this pass in the meantime. We are not now 
 concerned to trace the history of the ordinances of worship 
 in Israel, but only to establish a clear conception of the 
 essential difference between the old popular worship and the 
 finished Levitical system. The very foundation of revealed 
 religion is the truth that man does not first seek and find 
 God, but that God in His gracious condescension seeks out 
 man, and gives him such an approach to Himself as man 
 could not enjoy without the antecedent act of divine self- 
 communication. The characteristic mark of each dispensa- 
 tion of revealed religion lies in the provision which it makes 
 for the acceptable approach of the worshipper to his God. 
 Under the Levitical dispensation all approach to God is 
 limited to the central sanctuary, and passes of necessity 
 through the channel of the priestly mediation of the sons of 
 Aaron. The worshipping subject is, strictly speaking, the 
 nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is 
 discharged on behalf of the nation by the priests of God's 
 choice. The religion of the individual rests on this basis. It 
 is only the maintenance of the representative national service 
 of the sanctuary which gives to every Israelite the assurance 
 that he stands under the protection of the national covenant 
 with Jehovah, and enables him to enjoy a measure of such 
 
252 THE PSALMS AND lect. viii 
 
 personal spiritual fellowsliip with God as can never be lack- 
 ing in true religion. But the faith with which the Israelite 
 rested on God's redeeming love had little direct opportunity 
 to express itself in visible acts of homage. The sanctuary 
 was seldom accessible, and in daily life the Hebrew believer 
 could only follow with an inward longing and spiritual 
 sympathy the national homage which continually ascended 
 on behalf of himself and all the people of God in the stated 
 ritual of the Temple. Hence that eager thirst for participa- 
 tion in the services of the sanctuary which is expressed in 
 
 ! Psalms like the forty-second : " My soul thirsteth for God the 
 living God ; when shall I come and appear before the face of 
 God ? " " Send forth thy light and thy truth ; let them guide 
 me ; let them bring me to thy holy mountain, even unto thy 
 dwelling-place." This thirst, seldom satiated, which fills the 
 Psalter with expressions of passionate fervour in describing 
 the joys of access to God's house, was an inseparable feature 
 of the Levitical system. After the Exile, the necessity for 
 more frequent acts of overt religion was partly supplied by 
 the synagogues ; but these, in so far as they provided a sort 
 of worship without sacrifice, were already an indication that 
 the dispensation was inadequate and must pass away. All 
 
 I these experiences are in the strongest contrast to the popular 
 religious life before the Captivity. Then the people found 
 Jehovah, and rejoiced before Him, in every corner of the 
 land, and on every occasion of life. 
 
 This contrast within the Old Testament dispensation pre- 
 sents no difficulty if we can affirm that the popular religion was 
 altogether false, that it gave no true access to Jehovah, and 
 must be set on one side in describing the genuine religious 
 life of Israel. But it is a very different thing if we find that 
 the true believers of ancient Israel — prophets like Samuel, 
 righteous men like David — placed themselves on the stand- 
 point of the local sanctuaries, and framed their own lives on 
 
LECT. VIII THE SANCTUARY 253 
 
 the assumption that God is indeed to be found in service 
 non-LeviticaL If the whole Pentateuchal system is really as 
 old as Moses, the popular worship has none of the marks of a 
 religion of revelation ; it sought access to God in services to 
 which He had attached no promise. And yet we shall find, 1 
 in the next Lecture, that for long centuries after Moses, all 1 
 the true religion of Israel moved in forms which departed \ 
 from the first axioms of Levitical service, and rested on the 
 belief that Jehovah may be acceptably worshipped under the 
 popular system, if only the corruptions of that system are 
 guarded against. It was not on the basis of the Pentateuchal 
 theory of worship that God's grace ruled in Israel during the 
 age of the Judges and the Kings, and it was not on that basis 
 that the prophets taught. 
 
LEOTUEE IX 
 
 THE LAW AND THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL BEFORE 
 THE EXILE 
 
 In the last Lecture I tried to exhibit to you the outlines of 
 the popular worship of the mass of Israel in the period before 
 the Captivity, as sketched in the Books of Kings and in the 
 contemporary prophets. In drawing this sketch I directed 
 your attention particularly to two points. On the one hand, 
 the popular religion has a basis in common with the Penta- 
 teuchal system : both alike acknowledge Jehovah as the God 
 of Israel, who brought His people out of the land of Egypt ; 
 both recognise that Israel's homage and worship are due to 
 Jehovah, and that the felicity of the people in the land of 
 Canaan is dependent on His favour. But along with this we 
 found that between the popular worship and the system 
 of the Pentateuch there is a remarkable contrast. In the 
 Levitical system access to God is only to be attained through 
 the mediation of the Aaronic priests at the central sanctuary. 
 The whole worship of Israel is narrowed to the sanctuary of 
 the ark, and there the priests of God's consecration conduct 
 that representative service which is in some sense the worship 
 of the whole people. The ordinary Israelite meets with God 
 in the sanctuary only on special occasions, and during the 
 great part of his life must be content to stand afar off, follow- 
 ing with distant sympathy that continual service which is 
 
EECAPITULATION 255 
 
 going on for him at Jerusalem in the hands of the Temple 
 priests. In the popular religion, on the contrary, the need of 
 constant access to God is present to every Israelite. Oppor- 
 tunities of worship exist in every corner of the land ; and 
 every occasion of importance, whether for the life of the 
 individual or for the family, village, or clan, is celebrated by 
 some sacrificial rite at the local sanctuary. We saw, further, 
 that, as these two types of religion are separated by a funda- 
 mental difference, so also it is impossible to suppose that the 
 popular worship is merely a corruption of the Levitical theory 
 under the influence of Canaanite idolatry. It is indeed very 
 natural to suppose that the system of the Law, the distance 
 that it constitutes between Jehovah and the ordinary worship- 
 per, was too abstract for the mass of Israel. It may well be 
 thought that the mass of the people in those days could not 
 be satisfied with the kind of representative worship conducted 
 on their behalf in the one sanctuary, and that they felt a 
 desire to come themselves into immediate contact with the 
 Deity in personal acts of service embodied in sacrifice. But 
 if the Levitical theory was the starting-point it is pretty clear 
 that this would rather lead the unspiritual part of Israel to 
 worship other gods side by side with Jehovah, local and 
 inferior deities, just as in the Eoman Catholic Church the 
 distance between God and the ordinary layman leads the 
 mass of the people to approach the saints and address them- 
 selves to them as more accessible helpers. But that is not 
 what we find in Israel. We do not find that a sense of the 
 inaccessibility of Jehovah, as represented in the system of 
 the Pentateuch, led Israel for the most part to serve other 
 gods, although that also happened in special circumstances. 
 They held that Jehovah Himself could be approached and 
 acceptably worshipped at a multitude of sanctuaries not 
 acknowledged in the system of the Law, and at which, accord- 
 ing to that system, God had given no promise whatever to 
 
256 THE REFORMATION lect. ix 
 
 meet with His people. It can hardly be questioned that the 
 idea of meeting with Jehovah at the local sanctuaries and of 
 doing acceptable service to Him there had survived from a 
 time previous to the enactment of the law of the middle books 
 of the Pentateuch. This is confirmed by the fact that the 
 lineaments of the popular religion as displayed in the historical 
 books have much that is akin to the worship of the patriarchs, 
 and in particular that many of the sanctuaries of Israel were 
 venerated as patriarchal shrines. 
 
 Nevertheless, if Moses left the whole Levitical system as 
 a public code, specially entrusted to the priests and leaders of 
 the nation, that code must have influenced at least the dite of 
 Israel. Its provisions must have been kept alive at the central 
 sanctuary, and, in particular, the revealing God, who does not 
 contradict Himself, must have based upon the law His further 
 communications to the people, and His judgment upon their 
 sins spoken through His prophets. He cannot have stamped 
 with His approval a popular system entirely ignoring the 
 fundamental conditions of His intercourse with Israel. And 
 the history must bear traces of this. God's word does not 
 return unto Him void without accomplishing that which He 
 pleaseth, and succeeding in the thing whereto He sends it 
 (Isa. Iv. 11). 
 
 Now it is certain that the first sustained and thorough 
 attempt to put down the popular worship, and establish an 
 order of religion conformed to the written law, was under 
 King Josiah. An essay in the same direction had been made 
 by Hezekiah at the close of the eighth century B.C. (2 Kings 
 xviii. 4, 22). Of the details of Hezekiah's reformation we 
 know little. It was followed by a violent and bloody reaction 
 under his successor Manasseh, and in Josiah's time the whole 
 work had to be done again from the beginning. Hezekiah 
 evidently acted in harmony with Isaiah and his fellow- 
 prophets ; but neither in the history nor in their writings is 
 
OF JOSIAH 257 
 
 anything said of the written law as the rule and standard of 
 reformation. In the case of Josiah it was otherwise. The 
 reformation in his eighteenth year (621 B.C.) was based on 
 the Book of the Law found in the Temple, and was carried 
 out in pursuance of a solemn covenant to obey the law, made 
 by the king and the people in the house of Jehovah. This 
 is an act strictly parallel to the later covenant and reforma- 
 tion under Ezra. But it did not amount, like Ezra's reforma- 
 tion, to a complete establishment of the whole ritual system 
 of the Pentateuch. The Book of Nehemiah expressly says 
 as much with respect to the Feast of Tabernacles. And the 
 same fact comes out in regard to the order of the priestly 
 ministrations at the Temple. For, while Josiah put to death 
 the priests of the high places of Ephraim, he brought the 
 priests of the Judsean high places to Jerusalem, where they 
 were not allowed to minister at the altar, but " ate unleavened 
 bread in the midst of their brethren" (2 Kings xxiii. 8, 9). 
 The reference here is to the unleavened bread of the Temple 
 oblations, which, on the Levitical law, was given to the sons 
 of Aaron, to be eaten in the court of the sanctuary (Lev. vi. 
 14-18 ; Num. xviii. 9). It appears, then, that the priests of 
 the local high places were recognised as brethren of the 
 Temple priests, and admitted to a share in the sacred dues, 
 though not to full altar privileges. This was unquestionably 
 a grave Levitical irregularity, for, though it appears from 
 Ezek. xliv. 10 sqq. that the priests of the high places were 
 Levites, it is not for a moment to be supposed that they were 
 all sons of Aaron (compare Neh. vii. 63 sq.). This point 
 will come up again along with other indications that the 
 worship in the Temple at Jerusalem was not established by 
 Josiah in full conformity with the Levitical system. All 
 that I ask you to carry with you at present is that Josiah's 
 reformation, although based upon the Book, and explicitly 
 taking it as the standard, did not go the whole length of that 
 
 17 
 
258 JOSIAH'S reformation lect. IX 
 
 Pentateuchal system which we now possess. In truth, when 
 we compare the reformation of Josiah, as set forth in Second 
 Kings, with what is written in the Pentateuch, we observe 
 that everything that Josiah acted upon is found written in 
 one or other part of Deuteronomy, So far as the history 
 goes, there is no proof that his " Book of the Covenant " was 
 anything more than the law of Deuteronomy, which, in its 
 very form, appears to have once been a separate vohime.^ 
 
 No one can read 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. without observing 
 how entirely novel was the order of things which Josiah 
 introduced. Before the Book of the Law was read to him, 
 Josiah was interested in holy things, and engaged in the work 
 of restoring the Temple. But the necessity for a thorough 
 overturn of the popular sanctuaries came on him as a thing 
 entirely new. It is plain, too, that he had to consider 
 established privileges and a certain legitimate status on the 
 part of the priests of the high places. There was in Judaea a 
 
 ^ Critics distinguish in Deuteronomy the legislative code (chaps, xii.- 
 xxvi. ) and the framework, which appears to contain pieces by more than one 
 hand. As the book now stands the laws are preceded by two introductory 
 discourses, Deut. i. 1-iv. 43, Deut. v.-xi. To the second of these is prefixed 
 a title, chap. iv. 44-49, which is evidently meant to cover the code of chaps, 
 xii.-xxvi., while again the verses xxvi. 16-19 form a sort of subscription or 
 colophon to the code. In all probability, therefore, the code once stood, 
 along with the second introduction, in a separate book corresponding to Deut. 
 iv. 44-xxvi. 19, to which Kuenen would add, as a sort of appendix from the 
 hand of the original author, xxvii. 9, 10, ch. xxviii. {Onderzock, i. Ill, 122). 
 There is no evidence that Josiah had more than this book, and it is by no 
 means certain that the code, when it fell into his hands, was already pro- 
 vided with the pareuetic introduction and appendices ; see Wellhausen, Com- 
 position (18S9), p. 189 sqq., p. 352. Even the Fathers identify the book 
 found in the Temple with Deuteronomy. So Jerome, Adv. Jovin. i. 5 ; 
 Chrysostom, Horn, in 3Iat. ix. p. 135 B. The relation of Josiah's reformation 
 to Deuteronomy may be shown thus : — 
 
 2 Killers xxiii. 3-6 .... Deut. xii. 2. 
 
 7 . . . 
 
 j^euL 
 
 All. i. 
 
 xxiii. 17, 18 
 
 , 9 . 
 
 )) 
 
 xviii. 6-8. 
 
 10 
 
 » 
 
 xviii. 10. 
 
 11 . . . 
 
 » 
 
 xvii. 3. 
 
 14 
 
 » 
 
 xvi. 21, 22. 
 
 21 
 
 »> 
 
 xvi. 5. 
 
 24 
 
 •• >» 
 
 xviii. 11. 
 
LECT. IX AND DEUTEEONOMY 259 
 
 class of irregular priests called Chemarim, instituted by royal 
 authority (A. V. idolatrous priests, 2 Kings xxiii. 5), whom he 
 simply put down. But the priests of the popular high places 
 were recognised priests of Jehovah, and, instead of being 
 punished as apostates, they received support and a certain 
 status in the Temple (xxiii. 9). We now see the full signi- 
 ficance of the toleration of the high places by the earlier 
 kings of Judah. They were not known to be any breach of 
 the religious constitution of Israel. Even the Temple priests 
 knew of no ordinance condemning them. The high places 
 were not interfered with by King Jehoash when his conduct 
 was entirely directed by the high priest Jehoiada (2 Kings 
 xii. 2, 3). Yet Jehoiada had every motive for suppressing 
 the local sanctuaries, which diminished the dues of the cen- 
 tral altar, and he could hardly have failed to move in this 
 direction if he had had the law at his back. 
 
 These facts do not mean, merely, that the law was dis- 
 obeyed. They imply that the complete system of the Penta- 
 teuch was not known in the period of the kings of Judah, 
 even as the theoretical constitution of Israel. No one, even 
 among those most interested, shows the least consciousness 
 that the Temple and its priesthood have an exclusive claim 
 on all the worship of Israel. And the local worship, which 
 proceeds on a diametrically opposite theory, is acknowledged 
 as a part of the established ordinances of the land. 
 
 Here, then, the question rises, Was the founding of the 
 Temple on Zion undertaken as part of an attempt to give 
 practical force to the Levitical system ? Was this, at least, 
 an effort to displace the traditional religion and establish the 
 ordinances of the Pentateuch ? The whole life of Solomon 
 answers this question in the negative. His royal state, of 
 which the Temple and its service were a part, was never 
 conformed to the law. He not only did not abolish the local 
 sanctuaries, but built new shrines, which stood till the time 
 
260 THE FOREIGN GUARDS lect. ix 
 
 of Josiah, for the gods of the foreign wives whom, like his 
 father David (2 Sam. iii, 3), he married against the Penta- 
 teuchal law (1 Kings xi. ; 2 Kings xxiii. 13). And when the 
 Book of Deuteronomy describes what a king of Israel must 
 not be, it reproduces line for line the features of the court 
 of Solomon (Deut. xvii. 16 sq.). Even the ordinances of 
 Solomon's Temple were not Levitically correct. The two 
 brazen pillars which stood at the porch (1 Kings vii. 21) 
 were not different from the forbidden maggeha, or from the 
 twin pillars that stood in front of Phcenician and Syrian 
 sanctuaries ; -^ and 1 Kings ix. 25 can hardly bear any other 
 sense than that the king officiated at the altar in person 
 three times a year. That implies an entire neglect, on his 
 part, of the strict law of separation between the legitimate 
 priesthood and laymen ; but the same disregard of the exclu- 
 sive sanctity of the Temple priesthood, and of that twofold 
 cordon of Aaronites and Levites which the law demands to 
 protect the Temple from profanation, reappears in later times, 
 and indeed was a standing feature in the whole history of 
 Solomon's Temple. The prophet Ezekiel, writing after the 
 reforms of King Josiah, and alluding to the way in which the 
 Temple service was carried on in his own time, complains 
 that uncircumcised foreigners were appointed as keepers of 
 Jehovah's charge in His sanctuary (Ezek. xliv. 6 sq.)."^ Who 
 
 ^ Two huge pillars stood in the propylcca of the temple of Hierapolis 
 (Lueian, De Syria Dea, chap. 16, 28), and in front of the temple at Paphos, 
 of which we have representations on coins (see Rel. of the Semites, p. 468). 
 Similarly Strabo (iii. 5. 5) tells us that in the temple of Gades there 
 were brazen columns eight cubits high. The context shows that here also a 
 pair of columns is meant. 
 
 2 This passage is so important that I give it in a translation, slightly cor- 
 rected after the versions in verses 7, 8. The corrections are obvious, and 
 have been made also by Smend {Der Projihct Ezechiel erMdrt, Leipzig, 1880). 
 
 Ezek. xliv. 6. house of Israel ! Have done with all your abomina- 
 tions, (7) in that ye bring in foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh to 
 be in my sanctuary, polluting my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and 
 the blood ; and so ye break my covenant in addition to all your abominations, 
 (8) and keep not the charge of my holy things, but appoint them as keepers 
 
IN THE TEMPLE 261 
 
 were these foreigners, uncircumcised in flesh and uncircum- 
 cised in heart, by whom the sanctity of the Temple was 
 habitually profaned ? The history still provides details which 
 go far to answer this question. 
 
 There was one important body of foreigners in the service 
 of the kings of Judah from the time of David downwards, 
 viz. the Philistine bodyguard (2 Sam. xv. 18 ; 2 Kings i. 38). 
 These foreign soldiers were a sort of janissaries attached to 
 the person of the sovereign, after the common fashion of 
 Eastern monarchs, who deem themselves most secure when 
 surrounded by a band of followers uninfluenced by family 
 connections with the people of the land. The constitution of 
 the bodyguard appears to have remained unchanged to the 
 fall of the Judsean state. The prophet Zephaniah, writing 
 under King Josiah, still speaks of men connected with the 
 court, who were clad in foreign garb and leaped over the 
 threshold. To leap over the threshold of the sanctuary is a 
 Philistine custom (1 Sam. v. 5) ; and when the prophet adds 
 that these Philistines of the court fill their master's house 
 
 of my charge in my sanctuary. Therefore, (9) thus saith the Lord, No 
 foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh shall enter my sanctuary — no 
 foreigner whatever, who is among the children of Israel. (10) But the 
 Levites, because they departed from me when Israel went astray, when they 
 went astray from me after their idols, even they shall bear their guilt, (11) 
 and be ministers in my sanctuary, officers at the gates of the house, and 
 ministers of the house ; it is they who shall kill the burnt-offering and the 
 sacrifice for the people, and it is they who shall stand before them to minister 
 unto them. (12) Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and 
 were a stumbling-block of guilt to the house of Israel, therefore I swear con- 
 cerning them, saith the Lord God, that they shall bear their guilt, (13) and 
 shall not draw near to me to do the office of a priest to me, or to touch any 
 of my holy things — the most holy things ; but they shall bear their shame 
 and their abominations which they have done. (14) And I will make them 
 keepers of the charge of the house for all the service thereof, and for all that 
 is to be done about it. (15) But the Levite priests, the sons of Zadok, who 
 kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from 
 me — they shall come near unto me to minister unto me, and they shall stand 
 before me to ofi"er unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God. They 
 shall enter into my sanctuary and ajiproach my table, ministering unto me, 
 and keep my charge. 
 
262 UNCIRCUMCISED FOREIGNERS lect. ix 
 
 with violence and fraud, we recognise the familiar characters 
 of Oriental janissaries (Zeph. i, 8, 9). 
 
 The foreign guards, whom we thus see to have continued 
 to the days of Zephaniah, had duties in the Temple identical 
 with those of Ezekiel's uncircumcised foreigners. For the 
 guard accompanied the king when he visited the sanctuary 
 (1 Kings xiv. 28), and the Temple gate leading to the palace 
 was called "the gate of the foot-guards" (2 Kings xi. 19). 
 Nay, so intimate was the connection between the Temple and 
 the palace that the royal bodyguard were also the Temple 
 guards, going in and out in courses every week (2 Kings xi. 
 4 sqq.y It was the centurions of the guard who aided Jehoiada 
 in setting King Jehoash on the throne ; and 2 Kings xi. 11, 
 14, pictures the coronation of the young king while he stood 
 by a pillar, " according to custom," surrounded by the foreign 
 bodyguard, who formed a circle about the altar and the front 
 of the shrine, in the holiest part of the Temple court (com- 
 pare Joel ii. 17).-^ Thus it appears that as long as Solomon's 
 
 ^ In 2 Sam. xv. IS the foreign guards consist of the Cherethites, the 
 Pelethites, and the Gittites, or men of Gath. More commonly we read of 
 the Cherethites and the Pelethites, but in 2 Sam. xx. 23 the Kethlh has "the 
 Garite and the Pelethite." The Carites reappear in 2 Kings xi. 4 (Hebrew 
 and R. V. ) as forming part of the guard at the coronation of King Jehoash. 
 The Cherethites lived on the southern border of Canaan (1 Sam. xxx. 14), 
 and seem to have been reckoned as Philistines (Zeph. ii. 5 ; Ezek. xxv. 16) ; 
 this name and that of the Carites have been plausibly conjectured to indicate 
 that the Philistines, who were immigrants into Canaan from Caphtor (Amos 
 ix. 7), which seems to be a place over the sea (Jer. xlvii. 4, R. V.), were 
 originally connected with Crete and Caria. Pelethite is probably a mere 
 variation of the name Philistine. 
 
 There is, I think, good ground for supposing that the slaughtering of 
 sacrifices, which Ezekiel expressly assigns in future to the Levites, was 
 formerly the work of the guards. It was the king who provided the ordi- 
 nary Temple sacrifices (2 Chron. viii. 13, xxxi. 3 ; Ezek. xlv. 17), and there 
 can be little doubt that the animals killed for the royal table were usually 
 offered as peace offerings at the Temple (Deut. xii. 21). In Saul's time, at 
 least, an unclean person could not sit at the royal table, which implies that 
 the food was sacrificial (1 Sam. xx. 26 ; Lev. vii. 20 ; Deut. xii. 22). Now 
 the Hebrew name for "captain of the guard" is "chief slaughterer" {rab 
 liatlahhdcMm) — an expression which, so far as one can judge from Syriac and 
 Arabic as well as Hebrew, can only mean slaughterer of cattle (comp. HQDD 
 
IN THE TEMPLE 263 
 
 Temple stood, and even after the reforms of Josiah, the func- 
 tion of keeping the ward of the sanctuary, which by Levitical 
 law is strictly confined to the house of Levi, on pain of 
 death to the stranger who comes near (Num. iii. 38), devolved 
 upon uncircumcised foreigners, who, according to the law, 
 ought never to have been permitted to set foot within the 
 courts of the Temple. From this fact the inference is inevit- 
 able, that under the first Temple the principles of Levitical ,, 
 sanctity were never recognised or enforced. Even the high 
 priests had no conception of the fundamental importance 
 which the middle books of the Pentateuch attach to the 
 concentric circles of ritual holiness around and within the 
 sanctuary, an importance to be measured by the consideration 
 that the atoning ritual on which Jehovah's forgiving grace 
 depends presupposes the accurate observance of every legal 
 precaution against profanation of the holy things. This being 
 so, we cannot be surprised to find that the priests of the 
 Temple were equally neglectful, or rather equally ignorant, of 
 the correct system of atoning ordinances, which forms the 
 very centre of the Levitical Law, and to which all other 
 ordinances of sanctity are subservient. The Levitical sin 
 offering and the trespass offering are not once mentioned 
 before the Captivity.^ On the other hand, we read of an 
 established custom in the time of the high priest Jehoiada 
 that sin money and trespass money were given to the priests 
 (2 Kings xii. 16 ; comp. Hosea iv. 8, Amos ii. 8). This 
 usage, from a Levitical point of view, can be regarded as 
 
 in a Carthaginian inscription C. /. ,S'. No. 175, 1, and H^D, ibid. 237, 5 ; 
 238, 2, etc.). So the bodyguard were also the royal butchers, an occupation 
 not deemed unworthy of warriors in early times. Eurip. Eledra, 815 ; 
 Odys. A. 108. In Lev. i. 5, 6 it is assumed that every man kills his own 
 sacrifice, and so still in the Arabian desert every person knows how to kill 
 and dress a sheep. 
 
 ^ In the older books the atoning function of sacrifice is not attached to a 
 particular class of oblation, but belongs to all offerings, to zebach and viincha 
 (1 Sam. iii. 14, xxvi. 19), and still more to the whole burnt offering (Micah 
 iv. 6, 7 ; comp. 1 Sam. vii. 9, Job i. 5). 
 
264 CEREMONIAL OF 
 
 nothing but a gross case of simony, the secularising for the 
 advantage of the priests of one of the most holy and sacred 
 ordinances of the Levitical system. Yet this we find fixed 
 and established, not in a time of national declension, but in 
 the days of the reforming king and high priest who extirpated 
 the worship of Baal. 
 
 In truth, the first Temple had not that ideal position 
 which the law assigns to the central sanctuary. It did not 
 profess to be the one lawful centre of all worship, and its 
 pre-eminence was not wholly due to the ark, but lay very 
 much in the circumstance that it was the sanctuary of the 
 kings of Judah, as Bethel, according to Amos vii, 13, was a 
 royal chapel of the monarchs of Ephraim. The Temple was 
 the king's shrine ; therefore his bodyguard were its natural 
 servants, and the sovereign exercised a control over all its 
 ordinances, such as the Levitical legislation does not con- 
 template and could not approve. We find that King Jehoash 
 introduced changes into the destination of the Temple revenues. 
 In his earlier years the rule was that the priests received 
 pecuniary dues and gifts of various kinds so different from 
 those detailed in the Pentateuch, that it is impossible for us 
 to explain each one; but, such as they were, the priests 
 appropriated them subject to an obligation to maintain the 
 fabric of the Temple. King Jehoash, however, found that 
 while the priests pocketed their dues nothing was done for 
 the repair of the Temple, and he therefore ordained that all 
 moneys brought into the Temple should be paid over for the 
 repairs of the house, with the exception of the trespass and 
 sin money, which remained the perquisite of the priests. 
 Such interference with the sacred dues is inconceivable under 
 the Levitical system, which strictly regulates the destination 
 of every offering. 
 
 But, indeed, the kings of Judah regarded the treasury of 
 the Temple as a sort of reserve fund available for political 
 
LECT. IX THE FIPvST TEMPLE 265 
 
 purposes, and Asa and Hezekiah drew upon this source when 
 their own treasury was exhausted (1 Kings xv. 18 ; 2 Kings 
 xviii. 15). 
 
 With this picture before us, we are no longer surprised to 
 find that the priest Urijah, or Uriah, whom the prophet Isaiah 
 took with him as a faithful witness to record (Isa, viii. 2), 
 co-operated with King Ahaz in substituting a new altar, on 
 a pattern sent from Damascus, for the old brazen altar of 
 Solomon, and in general allowed the king to regulate the 
 altar service as he pleased (2 Kings xvi. 10 sq.). The brazen 
 altar, which, according to the Book of Numbers, even the 
 Levites could not touch without danger of death, was reserved 
 for the king to inquire by. 
 
 The force of these facts lies in the circumstance that they 
 cannot be explained as mere occasional deviations from Levi- 
 tical orthodoxy. The admission of uncircumcised strangers 
 as ministers in the sanctuary is no breach of a spiritual pre- 
 cept which the hard heart of Israel was unable to follow, 
 but of a ceremonial ordinance adapted to the imperfect and 
 unspiritual state of the nation. An interest in correct ritual 
 is found in the least spiritual religions, and there is ample 
 proof that it was not lacking in Israel, even in the barbarous 
 times of the Judges. The system of ceremonial sanctity was 
 calculated to give such eclat to the Temple and its priesthood 
 that there was every motive for maintaining it in force if it 
 was known at alL But in reality it was violated in every 
 point. All the divergences from Levitical ritual lie in the 
 same direction. The sharp line of distinction between lay- 
 men's privileges and priestly functions laid down in the Law 
 has its rationale in the theory and practice of atonement. In 
 the Temple we find irregular atonements, a lack of precise 
 grades of holiness, incomplete recognition of the priestly 
 prerogative, subordination of the priesthood to the palace 
 carried so far that Abiathar is deposed from the priesthood, 
 
266 WORSHIP AND EITUAL lect. ix 
 
 and Zadok, who was not of the old priestly family of Shiloh, 
 set in his place, by a mere fiat of King Solomon.-^ And, along 
 wnth this want of clear definition in the inner circles of cere- 
 monial holiness, we naturally find that the exclusive sanc- 
 tity of the nation was not understood in a Levitical sense ; 
 for not only Solomon but David himself intermarried with 
 heathen nations. Nay, Absalom, the son of a Syrian princess, 
 was the recognised heir to the throne, which implies that his 
 mother was regarded as David's principal wife. All these 
 facts hang together ; they show that the priests of the 
 Temple, and righteous kings like David, were as ignorant of 
 the Levitical theory of sanctity as the mass of the vulgar and 
 the unrighteous kings. 
 
 The Temple of Solomon never stood forth, in contrast to 
 the popular high places, as the seat of the Levitical system, 
 holding up in their purity the typical ordinances of atone- 
 ment which the popular worship ignored. The very features 
 which separate the religion of the ritual law from the tradi- 
 tional worship of the high places are those which the guardians 
 of the Temple systematically ignored. 
 
 Let us now go back beyond the age of Solomon to the 
 
 ' According to 1 Sam. ii. 27-36 the whole claa or "father's house" of 
 Eli, the family which received God's revelation in Egypt with a promise of 
 everlasting priesthood, is to lose its prerogative and sink to an inferior posi- 
 tion, in which its survivors shall be glad to crouch before the new high priest 
 for a place in one of the inferior priestly guilds which may yield them a 
 livelihood. As 1 Kings ii. 27 regards this prophecy as fulfilled in the substi- 
 tution of Zadok for Abiathar, it is plain that the former did not belong to 
 the high-priestly family chosen in the wilderness. That his genealogy is 
 traced to Aaron and Eleazar in 1 Chron. vi. 50 sq. does not disprove this, 
 for among all Semites membership of a guild is figured as sonship. Thus in 
 the time of the Chronicles sons of Eleazar and Ithamar respectivelj' would 
 mean no more than the higher and lower guilds of priests. The common 
 theory that the house of Eli was not in the original line of Eleazar and 
 Phinehas is inconsistent with Num. xxv. 13 compared with 1 Sam. ii. 30. 
 The Chronicler places Ahimelech son of Abiathar in the lower priesthood of 
 Ithamar (1 Chron. xxiv. 3, 6), but Abiathar himself is not connected with 
 Ithamar by a genealogical line. The deposition of the father reduces the son 
 to the lower guild. 
 
LECT. IX UNDER THE JUDGES 267 
 
 period of the Judges, and the age of national revival which 
 followed under Samuel, Saul, and David. "We need not again 
 dwell on the fact that the whole religion of the time of the 
 Judges was Levitically false. Even the divinely chosen 
 leaders of the nation knew not the law (supra, p. 235 sq.). 
 What is important for our argument is to observe that 
 breaches of the law were not confined to times of rebellion 
 against Jehovah. From the standpoint of the Pentateuchal 
 ritual, Israel's repentance was itself illegal in form. Acts of 
 true worship, which Jehovah accepted as the tokens of a 
 penitent heart and answered by deeds of deliverance, were 
 habitually associated with illegal sanctuaries. At Bochim 
 the people wept at God's rebuke and sacrificed to the Lord 
 (Judges ii. 5). Deborah and Barak opened their campaign 
 at the sanctuary of Ivedesh. Jehovah Himself commanded 
 Gideon to build an altar and do sacrifice at Ophrah, and this 
 sanctuary still existed in the days of the historian (Judges 
 vi. 24). Jephthah spake all his words " before the Lord " at 
 Mizpah or Eamoth Gilead, the ancient sanctuary of Jacob, 
 when he went forth in the spirit of the Lord to overthrow 
 the Ammonites (Judges xi. 11, 29 ; Gen. xxxi. 45 sqq.),aiid his 
 vow before the campaign was a vow to do sacrifice in Mizpah. 
 We are accustomed to speak of the sacrifices of Gideon 
 and Manoah as exceptional, and, no doubt, they were so if 
 our standard is the law of the Pentateuch. But in that case 
 all true religion in that period was exceptional ; for all God's 
 acts of grace mentioned in the Book of Judges, all His calls 
 to repentance, and all the ways in which He appears from 
 time to time to support His people, and to show Himself their 
 living God, ready to forgive in spite of their disobedience, are 
 connected with this same local worship. The call to repent- 
 ance is never a call to put aside the local sanctuaries and 
 worship only before the ark at Shiloh. On the contrary, the 
 narrator assumes, without question, the standpoint of the 
 
268 WORSHIP AND EITUAL lect. ix 
 
 popular religion, and never breathes a doubt that Jehovah 
 was acceptably worshipped in the local shrines. In truth, no 
 other judgment on the case was possible ; for through all this 
 period Jehovah's gracious dealings with His people expressed 
 His acceptance of the local worship in unambiguous language. 
 If the Pentateuchal programme of worship and the rules which 
 it lays down for the administration of the dispensation of 
 grace existed in these days, they were at least absolutely 
 suspended. It was not according to the Law that Jehovah 
 administered His grace to Israel during the period of the 
 Judges. 
 
 Nevertheless the fundamental requisites for a practical 
 observance of the Pentateuchal worship existed in those 
 days. The ark was settled at Shiloh; a legitimate priest- 
 hood ministered before it. There is no question that the 
 house of Eli were the ancient priesthood of the ark. It 
 was to the clan, or father's house, of Eli, according to 1 Sam. 
 ii. 27 sq., that Jehovah appeared in Egypt, choosing him 
 as His priest from all the tribes of Israel. The priesthood 
 was legitimate,' and so was the sanctuary of Shiloh, which 
 Jeremiah calls Jehovah's place, where He set His name at 
 the first (Jer. vii. 12). Here therefore, if anywhere in Israel, 
 the law must have had its seat ; and the worship of Shiloh 
 must have preserved a memorial of the Mosaic ritual. 
 
 We have an amount of detailed information as to the 
 ritual of Shiloh which shows the importance attached to 
 points of ceremonial religion. Shiloh was visited by pilgrims 
 from the surrounding country of Ephraim, not three times a 
 year according to the Pentateuchal law, but at an annual 
 feast. This appears to have been a vintage feast, like the 
 Pentateuchal Eeast of Tabernacles, for it was accompanied 
 by dances in the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), and, according 
 to the correct rendering of 1 Sam. i. 20, 21, it took place 
 when the new year came in, that is, at the close of the 
 
LECT. IX UNDER THE JUDGES 269 
 
 agricultural year, which ended with the ingathering of the 
 vintage (Exod. xxxiv. 22). It had not a strictly national 
 character, for in Judges xxi. 19 it appears to be only locally 
 known, and to have the character of a village festival. Indeed 
 a quite similar vintage feast was observed at the Canaanite 
 city of Shechem (Judges ix. 27)} 
 
 There was, however, a regular sacrifice performed by each 
 worshipper in addition to any vow he might have made (1 
 Sam. i. 21), and the proper due to be paid to the priests on 
 these offerings was an important question. The great offence 
 of Eli's sons was that they "knew not Jehovah and the 
 priests' dues from the people." They made irregular ex- 
 actions, and, in particular, would not burn the fat of the 
 sacrifice till they had secured a portion of uncooked meat (1 
 Sam. ii. 12 sq. E. V., marg.). Under the Levitical ordinance 
 this claim was perfectly regular ; the worshipper handed over 
 the priest's portion of the flesh along with the fat, and part of 
 the altar ceremony was to wave it before Jehovah (Lev. vii. 
 30 sq., X. 15). But at Shiloh the claim was viewed as illegal 
 and highly wicked. It caused men to abhor Jehovah's offer- 
 ing, and the greed which Eli's sons displayed in this matter is 
 given as the ground of the prophetic rejection of the whole 
 clan of priests of Shiloh (1 Sam. ii. 17, 29). 
 
 The importance attached to these details shows how essen- 
 tial to the religion of those days was the observance of all 
 points of established ritual. But the ritual was not that of 
 
 '■ 1 Sam. i. 20, 21. "When the new year came round, Hannah con- 
 ceived and bare a son, and named him . . . and Elkanah went up with his 
 whole household to sacrifice to Jehovah the yearly sacrifice and his vow." 
 The date of the new year belongs to the last of this series of events. Com- 
 pare Wellhausen, Prolegomena, pp. 95, 109, and Driver's notes on the passage. 
 The autumn feast was also the great feast at Jerusalem (1 Kings viii. 2), 
 and in the Northern Kingdom (1 Kings xii. 32). 
 
 In Judges ix. 27 read, "They trode the grapes and made MllMim (a 
 sacred offering in praise of God from the fruits of the earth, Lev. xix. 24), 
 and went into the house of their god and feasted," etc. 
 
270 RITUAL OF THE 
 
 the Levitical law. Nay, when we look at the worship of 
 Shiloh more closely, we find glaring departures from the very 
 principles of the Pentateuchal sanctuary. The ark stood, not 
 in the tabernacle, but in a Temple with doorposts and folding- 
 doors, which were thrown open during the day (1 Sam, i. 9, 
 iii. 15). In the evening a lamp burned in the Temple (1 Sam. 
 iii. 3), but contrary to the Levitical prescription (Exod. xxvii. 
 21 ; Lev. xxiv. 3) the light was not kept up all night, but was 
 allowed to go out after the ministers of the Temple lay down 
 to sleep. Access to the Temple was not guarded on rules of 
 Levitical sanctity. According to 1 Sam. iii. 3, Samuel, as a 
 servant of the sanctuary who had special charge of the doors 
 (ver. 15), actually slept " in the temple of Jehovah where 
 the ark of God was." To our English translators this state- 
 ment seemed so incredible, that they have ventured to change 
 the sense against the rules of the language. One can hardly 
 wonder at them ; for, according to the Law, the place of the 
 ark could be entered only by the high priest once a year, and 
 with special atoning services. And, to make the thing more 
 surprising, Samuel was not of priestly family. His father 
 was an Ephrathite or Ephraimite (1 Sam. i. 1, E. V.), and he 
 himself came to the Temple by a vow of his mother to dedicate 
 him to Jehovah. By the Pentateuchal law such a vow could 
 not make Samuel a priest. But here it is taken for granted 
 that he becomes a priest at once. As a child he ministers 
 before Jehovah, wearing the ephod which the law confines to 
 the high priest, and not only this, but the high priestly mantle 
 {me'tl, A. V. coat, 1 Sam. ii. 18, 19). And priest as well as 
 prophet Samuel continued all his life, sacrificing habitually 
 at a variety of sanctuaries. These irregularities are suf- 
 ficiently startling. They profane the holy ordinances, which, 
 under the Law, are essential to the legitimate sanctuary. 
 And, above all, it is noteworthy that the service of the great 
 day of expiation could not have been legitimately performed 
 
LECT. IX TEMPLE AT SHILOH 27l 
 
 ill the Temple of Shiloh, where there was no awful seclusion of 
 the ark in an inner adyton, veiled from every eye, and inac- 
 cessible on ordinary occasions to every foot. These things 
 strike at the root of the Levitical system of access to God. 
 But of them the prophet who came to Eli has nothing to 
 say. He confines himself to the extortions of the younger 
 priests. 
 
 The Law was as little known in Shiloh as among the mass 
 of the people, and the legitimate priesthood, the successors of 
 Moses and Aaron, are not judged by God according to the 
 standard of the Law. Where, then, during this time was the 
 written priestly Torah preserved ? If it lay neglected in some 
 corner of the sanctuary, who rescued it when the Philistines 
 destroyed the Temple after the battle of Ebenezer ? Was it 
 carried to Nob by the priests, who knew it not, or was it 
 rescued by Samuel, who, in all his work of reformation, 
 never attempted to make its precepts the rule of religious 
 life? 
 
 The capture of the ark, the fall of Shiloh, and the exten- 
 sion of the Philistine power into the heart of Mount Ephraim, 
 were followed by the great national revival successively headed 
 by Samuel, Saul, and David. The revival of patriotism went 
 hand in hand with zeal for the service of Jehovah. In this 
 fresh zeal for religion, affairs of ritual and worship were not 
 neglected. Saul, who aimed at the destruction of necromancy, 
 was also keenly alive to the sin of eating flesh with the blood 
 (1 Sam. xiv. 33) ; the ceremonially unclean might not sit at 
 his table (1 Sam. xx. 26) ; and there are other proofs that 
 ritual observances were viewed as highly important (1 Sam. 
 xxi. 4 sg. ; 2 Sam. xi. 4), though the details agree but ill with 
 the Levitical ordinances. The religious patriotism of the period 
 finds its main expression in frequent acts of sacrifice. On every 
 occasion of national importance the people assemble and do 
 service at some local sanctuary, as at INIizpah (1 Sam. vii. 6, 
 
272 RITUAL IN THE DAYS lect. ix 
 
 9), or at Gilgal (x. 8, xi. 15, xiii. 4, 9, etc.). The seats of 
 authority are sanctuaries, Eamah, Bethel, Gilgal (vii. 16, 17 ; 
 comp. x. 3), Beersheba (viii. 2 ; comp. Amos v. 5, viii. 14), 
 Hebron (2 Sam. ii. 1, xv. 12). Saul builds altars (1 Sam. xiv. 
 35) ; Samuel can make a dangerous visit most colourably by 
 visiting a local sanctuary like Bethlehem, with an offering in 
 his hand (1 Sam. xvi.) ; and in some of these places there are 
 annual sacrificial feasts (1 Sam. xx. 6). At the same time the 
 ark is settled on the hill (Gibeah) at Kirjath-jearim, where 
 Eleazar ben Abinadab M-as consecrated its priest (1 Sam. vii. 
 1). The priests of the house of Eli were at Nob, where there 
 was a regular sanctuary with shewbread, and no less than 
 eighty-five priests wearing a linen ephod (1 Sam. xxii. 18). 
 
 It is quite certain that Samuel, with all his zeal for 
 Jehovah, made no attempt to bring back this scattered 
 worship to forms of legal orthodoxy. He continued to 
 sacrifice at a variety of shrines; and his yearly circuit to 
 Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, returning to Eamah, involved 
 the recognition of all these altars (1 Sam. vii. 16 ; comp. 
 X. 3, xi. 15, vii. 6, 9, ix. 12). 
 
 In explanation of this it is generally argued that the age 
 was one of religious interregnum, and that Jehovah had not 
 designated a new seat of worship to succeed the ruined 
 sanctuary of Shiloh. This argument might have some 
 weight if the law of the one sanctuary and the one priest- 
 hood rested only on the Book of Deuteronomy, wdiich puts 
 the case as if the introduction of a strictly unified cultus was 
 to be deferred till the peaceful occupation of Palestine was 
 completed (Deut. xii. 8 sq.). But in the Levitical legislation 
 the unification of cultus is not attached to a fixed place in the 
 land of Israel, but to the movable sanctuary of the ark and to 
 the priesthood of the house of Aaron. All the law of sacri- 
 ficial observances is given in connection with this sanctuary, 
 and on the usual view of the Pentateuch was already put into 
 
OF SAMUEL 27; 
 
 force before tlie Israelites had gained a fixed habitation. In 
 the days of Samuel the ark and the legitimate priesthood still 
 existed. They were separated, indeed, — the one at Kirjath- 
 jearim, the other at Nob. But they might easily have been 
 reunited ; for the distance between these towns is only a fore- 
 noon's w^alk. Both lay in that part of the land which was 
 most secure from Philistine invasion, and formed the centre 
 of Saul's authority. For the Philistines generally attacked 
 the central mountain district of Canaan from Aphek in the 
 northern part of the plain of Sharon. The roads leading from 
 this district into the country of Joseph are much easier than 
 the routes farther south that lead directly to the land of 
 Benjamin ; and hence Saul's country was the rallying ground 
 of Hebrew independence. Yet it is just in this narrow dis- 
 trict, which a man might walk across in a day, that we find 
 a scattered worship, and no attempt to concentrate it on the 
 part of Samuel and Saul. There was no plea of necessity to 
 excuse this if Samuel knew the Levitical law. Why should 
 he go from town to town making sacrifice in local high places 
 from which the sanctuary of Nob was actually visible ? The 
 Law does not require such tribute at the hands of individuals. 
 Except at the great pilgrimage feasts the private Israelite is 
 not called upon to bring any other sacrifice than the trespass 
 or sin offering when he has committed some offence. But 
 Samuel's sacrifices were not sin offerings ; they were mere 
 peace offerings, the material of sacrificial feasts which under 
 the law had no urgency (1 Sam. ix. xvi.). What was urgent 
 on the Levitical theory was to re-establish the stated burnt 
 offering and the due atoning ritual before the ark in the 
 hands of the legitimate priesthood and on the pattern of the 
 service in the wilderness. But in place of doing this Samuel 
 falls in with the local worship as it had been practised by the 
 mass of the people while Shiloh still stood. He deserts the 
 legal ritual for a service which, on the usual theory, was mere 
 
 i8 
 
274 WORSHIP AND EITUAL lect. ix 
 
 will-worship. The truth plainly is that Samuel did not know 
 of a systematic and exclusive system of sacrificial ritual con- 
 fined to the sanctuary of the ark. He did not know a model 
 of sacred service earlier than the choice of Shiloh, which could 
 serve the people when Shiloh was destroyed. His whole 
 conduct is inexplicable unless, with the prophet Jeremiah, he 
 did not recognise the Levitical law of stated sacrifice as part 
 of the divine ordinances given in the time of Moses (Jer, vii. 
 22, " I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them in 
 the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, con- 
 cerning burnt offerings and sacrifices"). Grant with Jeremiah 
 that sacrifice is a free expression of Israel's homage, which 
 Jehovah had not yet regulated by law, and at once the 
 conduct of Samuel is clear, and Jehovah's acceptance of his 
 service intelligible. 
 
 At length, in the reign of David, the old elements of the 
 central worship were reunited. The ark was brought up from 
 Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem, and Abiathar, the representative 
 of the house of Eli, was there as priest. Israel was again a 
 united people, and there was no obstacle to the complete 
 restitution of the Levitical cultus, had it been recognised 
 as the only true expression of Israel's service. But still 
 we find no attempt to restore the one sanctuary and the 
 exclusive privilege of the one priesthood. According to 
 the Law, the consecration of the priesthood is not of man 
 but of God, and Jehovah alone can designate the priest 
 who shall acceptably approach Him. The popular religion 
 has another view. To offer sacrifice is the privilege of 
 every Israelite. Saul though a layman had done so, and 
 if his sacrifice at Gilgal was a sin, the offence lay not in 
 the presumption of one who was not of tlie house of Aaron, 
 but in the impatience which had moved without waiting 
 for the promised presence of the propliet (1 Sam. xiii. 8 
 sq. ; comp. xiv. 35). The priest, therefore, was the people's 
 
UNDER DAVID 275 
 
 delegate ; his consecratiou was from them not from Jehovah 
 (Judges xvii. 5, 12 ; 1 Sam. vii. 1). lu this respect David 
 was not more orthodox than Saul When he brought up 
 the ark to Jerusalem he wore the priestly ephod, offered 
 sacrifices in person, and, to make it quite clear that in 
 all this he assumed a priestly function, he blessed the 
 people as a priest in the name of Jehovah (2 Sam. vi. 14, 
 18). Nor were these irregularities exceptional , in 2 Sam. 
 viii, 18 we read that David's sons were priests. This 
 statement, so incredible on the traditional theory, has led 
 our English version, following the Jewish tradition of the 
 Targum, to change the sense, and substitute "chief rulers" 
 for priests. But the Hebrew word means priests, and can 
 mean nothing else. Equally irregular was David's relation 
 to the high places. His kingdom was first fixed at the 
 sanctuary of Hebron, and long after the ark was brought 
 up to Jerusalem he allowed Absalom to visit Hebron in 
 payment of a sacrificial vow (2 Sam. xv. 8, 12). But in 
 fact the Book of Kings expressly recognises the worship 
 of the high places as legitimate up to the time when the 
 Temple was built (1 Kings iii. 2 sq.). The author or final 
 editor of the history, who carries the narrative down to 
 the Captivity, occupied the standpoint of Josiah's refor- 
 mation. He knew how experience had shown the many 
 high places to be a constant temptation to practical 
 heathenism ; and though he is aware that de facto the 
 best kings tolerated the local shrines for centuries after 
 the Temple was built, he holds that the sanctuary of Zion 
 ought to have superseded all other altars. But before the 
 Temple the high places were in his judgment legitimate. 
 This again is intelligible enough if he was guided by the 
 law of Deuteronomy, and understood the one sanctuary of 
 Deuteronomy to be none other than the Temple of Jerusalem. 
 But it is not consistent with the traditional view of the 
 
276 THE LAW UNKNOWN lect. ix 
 
 Levitical legislation as a system completed and enforced 
 from the days of the wilderness in a form dependent only 
 on the existence of the Aaronic priesthood and the ark. 
 And so we actually find that the author of Chronicles, 
 who stands on the basis of the Levitical legislation and 
 the system of Ezra's reformation, refuses to accept the 
 simple explanation that the high places were necessary 
 before the Temple, and assumes that in David's time the 
 only sanctuary strictly legitimate was Gibeon, at which 
 he supposes the tabernacle and the brazen altar to have 
 stood (1 Chron. xvi. 39 sq., xxi. 29 sq. ; 2 Chron. i. 3 
 sq.). Of all this the author of Kings knows nothing. 
 From his point of view the worship of the high places 
 had a place and provisional legitimacy of its own without 
 reference to the ark or the brazen altar.^ 
 
 The result of this survey is that, through the whole 
 period from the Judges to Ezekiel, the Law in its finished 
 system and fundamental theories was never the rule of 
 Israel's worship, and its observance was never the con- 
 dition of the experience of Jehovah's grace. Although 
 many individual points of ritual resembled the ordinances 
 of the Law, the Levitical tradition as a whole had as 
 little force in the central sanctuary as with the mass of 
 the people. The contrast between true and false worship 
 is not the contrast between the Levitical and the popular 
 systems. The freedom of sacrifice which is the basis of 
 the popular worship is equally the basis of the faith of 
 Samuel, David, and Elijah. The reformers of Israel strove 
 
 1 Some other examples of irregularities in the ritual of Israel before the 
 Captivity have been noticed above, p. 143 sq., in the discussion of the 
 narrative of Chronicles (morning and evening sacrifice ; carrying of the ark). 
 To these one more may be added here. Under the Law the Levites and 
 priests had a right of common round their cities, but this pasture ground 
 was inalienable (Lev. xxv. 34), so that 1 Kings ii. 26, Jer. xxxii. 7, where 
 priests own and sell fields, are irregular. 
 
IN OLD ISRAEL 277 
 
 against the constant lapses of the nation into syncretism 
 or the worship of foreign gods, but they did not do so on 
 the ground of the Levitical theory of Israel's absolute 
 separation from the nations or of a unique holiness radi- 
 ating from the one sanctuary and descending in widening 
 circles through priests and Levites to the ordinary Israelite. 
 The history itself does not accept the Levitical standard. 
 It accords legitimacy to the popular sanctuaries before 
 the foundation of the Temple, and represents Jehovah as 
 accepting the offerings made at them. With the founda- 
 tion of the Temple the historian regards the local worship 
 as superseded, but he does so from the practical point of 
 view that the worship there was in later times of heathenish 
 character (2 Kings xvii.). Nowhere does the condemnation^ 
 of the popular religion rest on the original consecration of 
 the tabernacle, the brazen altar, and the Aaronic priesthood, 
 as the exclusive channels of veritable intercourse between 
 Jehovah and Israel. 
 
 A dim consciousness of this witness of history is pre- 
 served in the fantastic tradition that the Law was lost, and 
 was restored by Ezra. In truth the people of Jehovah never 
 lived under the Law, and the dispensation of Divine grace 
 never followed its pattern, till Israel had ceased to be a 
 nation. The history of Israel refuses to be measured by the 
 traditional theory as to the origin and function of the Penta- 
 teuch. In the next Lecture we must inquire whether the 
 prophets confirm or modify this result. 
 
LECTURE X 
 
 THE PEOPHETS 
 
 A SPECIAL object of the finished Peiitateuchal system, as 
 enforced among the Jews from the days of Ezra, was to make 
 the people of Jehovah visibly different from the surrounding 
 nations. The principle of holiness was a principle of separa- 
 tion, and the ceremonial ordinances of holiness, wdiether in 
 daily life or in the inner circles of the Temple worship, were 
 so many visible and tangible fences set up to divide Israel, 
 and Israel's religion, from the surrounding Gentiles and their 
 religion. Artificial as this system may appear, the history 
 proves that it was necessary. The small community of the 
 new Jerusalem was under constant temptations to mingle 
 with the "people of the land." Intermarriages, such as 
 Ezra and JSTehemiah suppressed by a supreme effort, opened 
 a constant door to heathen ideas and heathen morality. 
 The religion of Jehovah could not be preserved intact with- 
 out isolating the people of Jehovah from their neighbours, 
 and this again could only be done through a highly developed 
 system of national customs and usages, enlisting in the service 
 of religious purity the force of habit, and the natural con- 
 servatism of Eastern peoples in all matters of daily routine. 
 Long before the time of Christ the ceremonial observances 
 had so grown into the life of the Jews that national pride, 
 inborn prejudice, a disgust at foreign habits sucked in with 
 
LECT. X JUDAISM AFTER EZRA 279 
 
 his mother's milk, made the Israelite a peculiar person, 
 naturally averse to contact with the surrounding Gentiles, 
 and quite insensible to the temptations which had drawn 
 his ancestors into continual apostasy. The hatred of the 
 human race, which, to foreign observers, seemed the national 
 characteristic of the Jews under the Eoman Empire, was 
 a fault precisely opposite to the facility with which the 
 Israelites, before the Captivity, had mingled with the 
 heathen and served their gods. This change was un- 
 doubtedly due to the discipline of the Law, the strict 
 pedagogue, as St. Paul represents it, charged to watch the 
 steps of the child not yet fit for liberty. Without the 
 Law the Jews would have been absorbed in the nations, 
 just as the Ten Tribes were absorbed and disappeared in 
 their captivity. 
 
 But we have seen in the last two Lectures that this legal 
 discipline of ceremonial holiness was not enforced in Israel 
 before Josiah, nor, indeed, in all its fulness, at any time 
 before Ezra. The ordinary life of Israel was not guarded 
 against admixture with the nations. David married the 
 Princess Maacali of Geshur ; Solomon took many strange 
 wives ; Jehoram, in his good father's lifetime, wedded the 
 half-heathen Athaliah; and people of lower estate were not 
 more concerned to keep themselves apart from the Gentiles. 
 Great sections of the nation were indeed of mixed blood. 
 The population of Southern Judah was of half- Arab origin, 
 and several of the clans in this district bear names which 
 indicate their original affinity with Midian or Edom ; ^ while 
 
 ■^ See Wellhausen, De Gentlbus et Familiis Judceorum (Gbttingen, 1870). 
 The Jerahmeelites and Calibbites of the Judaean Negeb (the southern steppes ; 
 ^. V. " the south ") were not fully identified with Judah proper in the time 
 of David (1 Sam. xxvii. 10, xxx. 14) ; see also Josh. xv. 13, where Caleb 
 receives a lot "among the children of Judah." Caleb, therefore, tlie eponym 
 of the Calibbites, was not a Judsean by blood ; he was, in fact, a Kenizzite 
 (Josh. xiv. 6). Now the Kenizzites (or Kenaz) are one of the clans of Edora 
 (Gen. xxxvi. 15, 42). 
 
280 ISKAEL THE PEOPLE lect. x 
 
 we know that in the time of the Judges, and later, many- 
 cities, like Shechem, had still a Canaanite population which 
 was not exterminated, and must therefore have been gradually 
 absorbed among the Israelites. This free intermixture of 
 races shows an entire absence of the spirit of religious ex- 
 clusiveness which was fostered in later Judaism under the 
 discipline of the Law. And it could hardly have taken place 
 if there had been a wide difference between the social ordin- 
 ances of the Hebrews and their neighbours. But in fact we 
 find in old Israel traces of various social customs inconsistent 
 with the Pentateuchal law, and precisely identical with the 
 usages of the heathen Semites. Marriage with a half-sister, 
 a known practice of the Phoenicians and other Semites, had 
 the precedent of Abraham in its favour, was not thought 
 inadmissible in the time of David (2 Sam. xiii. 13), and was 
 still a current practice in the days of Ezekiel (xxii. 11). I 
 choose this instance as peculiarly striking, but it is not an 
 isolated case. Another example, not less remarkable, will 
 come before us in Lecture XTI. {infra, p. 369).-^ In short, 
 neither the religious nor the social system of the nation was 
 as yet consolidated on distinctive principles. I am now 
 speaking of practice, not of theory, and I apprehend that 
 even those who maintain that the whole Pentateuch was 
 then extant as a theoretical system must admit that before 
 the Exile the pedagogic ordinances of that system were not 
 the practical instrument by which the distinctive relation of 
 Israel to Jehovah was preserved, and the people hindered 
 from sinking altogether into Canaanite heatlienism. 
 
 It was through an instrumentality of a very different kind 
 that Israel, with all its backslidings, was prevented from 
 wholly forgetting its vocation as the people of Jehovah, that 
 a spark of higher faith was kept alive in all times of national 
 
 ^ For the subject here touched on see in general an essay on Animal- 
 ivorship, etc., in the Journal of Philology, ix. 75 sq., and especially my 
 KiTiship and Marriage in Early Arabia (Cambridge, 1885). 
 
OF JEHOVAH 281 
 
 declension, and the basis laid for that final work of reforma- 
 tion which at length made Israel the people of the Law not 
 only in name but in reality. That instrumentality was the 
 word of the prophets. 
 
 The conception that in Jehovah Israel has a national God 
 and Father, with a special claim on its worship, is not in 
 itself a thing peculiar to revealed religion. Other Semitic 
 tribes had their tribal gods. Moab is the people of Chemosh, 
 and the members of the nation are called sons and daughters 
 of the national deity even in the Israelite lay, Numbers xxi. 
 29 (compare Malachi ii. 11). All religion was tribal or 
 national. " Thy people," says Euth, " shall be my people, and 
 thy God my God" (Euth i. 16). "Hath any nation changed 
 its god?" asks Jeremiah (ii. 11). Jehovah Himself, accord- 
 ing to Deut. iv. 19, has appointed the heavenly host and other 
 false deities to the heathen nations, while conversely He is 
 Himself the " portion of Jacob " (Jer. x. 16 ; comp. Deut. xxix. 
 26). In the early times, to be an Israelite and to be a 
 worshipper of Jehovah is the same thing. To be banished 
 from the land of Israel, the inheritance of Jehovah, is to be 
 driven to serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). 
 
 These are ideas common to all Semitic religions. But in 
 Semitic heathenism the relation between a nation and its god 
 is natural. It does not rest on choice either on the nation's 
 part or on the part of the deity. The god, it would appear, 
 was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first 
 father of his people. At any rate, the god and the worship- 
 pers formed a natural unity, which was also bound up with 
 tlie land they occupied. It was deemed necessary for settlers 
 in a country to " know the manner of the god of the land " 
 (2 Kings xvii. 26). The dissolution of the nation destroys 
 the national religion, and dethrones the national deity. The 
 god can no more exist without his people than the nation 
 without its god. 
 
282 RELIGION OF 
 
 Tlie mass of the Israelites hardly seem to have risen above 
 this conception. The Pentateuch knows the nation well 
 enough to take it for granted that in their banishment from 
 " the land of Jehovah," where He can no longer be approached 
 in the sanctuaries of the popular worship, they will serve 
 other gods, wood and stone (Deut. xxviii. 36 ; comp. Hosea 
 ix.). Nay, it is plain that a great part of Israel imagined, like 
 their heathen neighbours, that Jehovah had need of them as 
 much as they had need of Him, that their worship and service 
 could not be indifferent to Him, that He must, by a natural 
 necessity, exert His power against their enemies and save His 
 sanctuaries from profanation. This indeed was the constant 
 contention of the prophets who opposed Micah and Jeremiah 
 (Micah iii. 11 ; Jer. vii. 4 sq., xxvii. 1 sq.) ; and from their 
 point of view the captivity of Judah was the final and hope- 
 less collapse of the religion of Jehovah. The religion of the 
 true prophets was very different. They saw Jehovah's hand 
 even in the fall of the state. The Assyrian and the Baby- 
 lonian were His servants (Isa. x. 5 sq. ; Jer. xxvii. 6), and the 
 catastrophe which overwhelmed the land of Israel, and proved 
 that the popular religion was a lie, was to the spiritual faith 
 the clearest proof that Jehovah is not only Israel's God, but 
 the Lord of the whole earth. As the death and resurrection 
 of our Saviour are the supreme proof of the spiritual truths of 
 Christianity, so the death of the old Hebrew state and the 
 resurrection of the religion of Jehovah, in a form independent 
 of the old national life, is the supreme proof that the religion 
 of the Old Testament is no mere natural variety of Semitic 
 monolatry, but a dispensation of the true and eternal religion 
 of the spiritual God. The prophets who foresaw the cata- 
 strophe without alarm and without loss of faith stood on a 
 foundation diverse from that of natural religion. They were 
 the organs of a spiritual revelation, who had stood, as they 
 themselves say, in the secret council of Jehovah (Amos iii. 
 
LECT. X THE PEOPHETS 283 
 
 7 ; Jer. xxiii. 18, 22), and knew the law of His working, and 
 the goal to which He was guiding His people. It was not the 
 law of ordinances, but the living prophetic word in the midst 
 of Israel, that separated the religion of Jehovah from the 
 religion of Baal or Chemosh, and gave it that vitality which 
 survived the overthrow of the ancient state and the banish- 
 ment of Jehovah's people from His land. 
 
 The characteristic mark of a true prophet is that he has 
 stood in the secret council of Jehovah, and speaks the words 
 which he has heard from His mouth. " The Lord Jehovah," 
 says Amos, " will not do anything without revealing his secret 
 to his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will 
 not fear? The Lord Jehovah hath spoken, who can but 
 prophesy ? " But the prophets do not claim universal fore- 
 knowledge. The secret of Jehovah is the secret of His 
 relations to Israel. " The secret of Jehovah belongs to them 
 that fear him, and he will make them know his covenant " 
 (Psalm XXV. 14). " If they have stood in my secret council, 
 let them proclaim my words to my people, that they may 
 return from their evil way " (Jer. xxiii. 22). The word secret 
 or privy council (sod) is that used of a man's intimate 
 personal circle. The prophets stand in this circle. They are 
 in sympathy with Jehovah's heart and will, their knowledge 
 of His counsel is no mere intellectual gift but a moral thing. 
 They are not diviners but intimates of Jehovah. Balaam, in 
 spite of his predictions, is not in the Old Testament called a 
 prophet. He is only a soothsayer (Josh. xiii. 22). 
 
 Why has Jehovah a circle of intimates within Israel, 
 confidants of His moral purpose and acquainted with what 
 He is about to do ? The prophets themselves supply a clear 
 answer to this question. There are personal relations between 
 Jehovah and His people, analogous to those of human friend- 
 ship and love. " When Israel was a child I loved him, and 
 called my son out of Egypt. ... I taught Ephraim to go, 
 
284 PROPHETIC AND HEATHEN lect. x 
 
 holding tliem by their arms. ... I drew them with human 
 bands, with cords of love " (Hosea xi. 1). " You alone have 
 I known," says Jehovah through Amos, " of all the families 
 of the earth " (Amos iii. 2). This relation between Jehovah 
 and Israel is not a mere natural unintelligent and physically 
 indissoluble bond such as unites Moab to Chemosh. It rests 
 on free love and gracious choice. As Ezekiel xvi. 6 puts it, 
 Jehovah saw and pitied Jerusalem, when she lay as an infant 
 cast forth to die, and said unto her. Live. The relation is 
 moral and personal, and receives moral and personal expres- 
 sion. Jehovah guides His people by His word, and admits 
 them to the knowledge of His ways. But He does not speak 
 directly to every Israelite (Deut. xviii. 15 sg.). The organs of 
 His loving and personal intercourse with the people of His 
 choice are the prophets. " By a prophet Jehovah brought 
 Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved" 
 (Hosea xii. 13). " I brought you up from the land of Egypt, 
 and led you in the wilderness forty years to possess the land 
 of the Amorites. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, 
 and of your young men for Nazavites " (Amos ii. 10, 11). The 
 prophets, you perceive, regard their function as an essential 
 element in the national religion. It is they who keep alive 
 the constant intercourse of love between Jehovah and His 
 people which distinguishes the house of Jacob from all other 
 nations ; it is their work which makes Israel's religion a 
 moral and spiritual religion. 
 
 To understand this point we must remember that in the 
 Old Testament the distinctive features of the religion of 
 Jehovah are habitually represented in contrast to the religion 
 of the heathen nations. It is taken for granted that the 
 religion of the nations does in a certain sense address itself to 
 man's legitimate needs. The religion of Israel would not be 
 the all-sufficient thing it is, if Israel did not find in Jehovah 
 the true supply of those wants for which other nations turn 
 
LECT. X RELIGION CONTRASTED 285 
 
 to the delusive help of the gods who are no gods. Now, in 
 all ancient religions, and not least in Semitic heathenism, it 
 is a main object of the worshipper to obtain oracles from his 
 god. The uncertainties of human life are largely due to man's 
 ignorance. His life is environed by forces which he cannot 
 understand or control, and which seem to sport at will with 
 his existence and his happiness. All these forces are viewed 
 as supernatural, or rather — for in these questions it is im- 
 portant to eschew metaphysical notions not known to early 
 thinkers — they are divine beings, with whom man can enter 
 into league only by means of his religion. They are to be 
 propitiated by offerings, and consulted by enchantments and 
 soothsayers. In Semitic heathenism the deity whom a tribe 
 worships as its king or lord (Baal) is often identified 
 with some supreme power of nature, with the mighty sun, 
 the lord of the seasons, or with the heavens that send down 
 rain, or with some great planet whose stately march through 
 the skies appears to regulate the cycles of time. These are 
 the higher forms of ethnic religion. In lower types the deity 
 is more immediately identified with earthly objects, — animals, 
 trees, or the like. But in any case the god is a member of 
 the chain of hidden natural agencies on Avhich man is con- 
 tinually dependent, and with which it is essential to establish 
 friendly relations. Such relations are attainable, for man 
 himself is physically connected with the natural powers. 
 They produced him ; he is the son of his god as well as his 
 servant ; and so the divinity, if rightly questioned and care- 
 fully propitiated, will speak to the worshipper and aid him 
 by his counsel as well as his strength. In all this there is, 
 properly speaking, no moral element. The divine forces of 
 nature seem to be personified, for they hear and speak. But, 
 strictly speaking, the theory of such religion is the negation 
 of personality. It is on the physical side of his being that 
 man has relations to the godhead. Eeaders of Plato will 
 
286 DIVINATION AND 
 
 remember how clearly this comes out in the Timceus, where 
 the faculty of divination is connected with the appetitive and 
 irrational part of man's nature.^ That, of course, is a philo- 
 sophical explanation of popular notions. But it indicates a 
 characteristic feature in the religion of heathenism. It is not 
 as an intellectual and moral being that man has fellowship 
 with deities that are themselves identified with physical 
 powers. The divine element in man through which he has 
 access to his god lies in the mysterious instincts of his lower 
 nature ; and paroxysms of artificially-produced frenzy, dreams, 
 and diseased visions are the accepted means of intercourse 
 with the godhead. 
 
 Accordingly an essential element in the religion of the 
 heathen Semites was divination in its various forms, of which 
 so many are enumerated in Deut. xviii. 10, 11.^ The diviner 
 procured an oracle, predicting future events, detecting secrets, 
 and directing the worshipper what choice to make in difficult 
 points of conduct. Such oracles were often sought in private 
 life, but they were deemed altogether indispensable in the 
 conduct of the state, and the soothsayers were a necessary 
 part of the political establishment of every nation. The Old 
 Testament takes it for granted that Jehovah acknowledges 
 
 ^ Plato, Timceus, cap. xxxii. p. 71, D. The mantic faculty belougs to the 
 part of the soul settled in the liver, because that part has no share in reason 
 and thought. "For inspired and true divination is not attained to by any 
 one when in his full senses, but only when the power of thought is fettered by 
 sleep or disease or some paroxysm of frenzy." 
 
 This view of inspiration is diametrically opposite to that of St. Paul 
 (1 Cor. xiv. 32), and the complete self-consciousness and self-control of the 
 prophets taught in that passage belong equally to the spiritual prophecy of 
 the Old Testament. Plato's theory, however, was applied to the prophets by 
 Philo, tlie Jewish Platonist, who describes the prophetic state as an ecstasy 
 in which the human vov^ disappears to make way for the divine Spirit [Quis 
 rerum div. heres, § 53, ed. Richter, iii. 58 ; Be Spec. Leg. § 8, Richter, v. 
 122). Something similar has been taught in recent times by Hengstenberg 
 and others, — substituting, as we observe, the pagan for the Biblical conception 
 of i-evelation. 
 
 - On the various forms of divination and magic enumerated in these verses, 
 see two papers in the Journal of Philology, xiii. 273 sqq., and xiv. 113 sqq. 
 
PROPHECY 287 
 
 and supplies in Israel the want which in other nations is met 
 by the practice of divination. The place of the soothsayer is 
 supplied by the prophets of Jehovah. " These nations, which 
 thou shalt dispossess, hearken unto soothsayers and diviners ; 
 but as for thee, Jehovah thy God suffereth thee not to do so. 
 A prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto 
 me, will Jehovah thy God raise up unto thee; unto him 
 shall ye hearken " (Deut. xviii. 14 sq.). 
 
 In the popular religion, where the attributes of Jehovah 
 were not clearly marked off from those of the heathen Baalim, 
 little distinction was made between prophet and soothsayer. 
 The word prophet, naW, is not exclusively Hebrew. It 
 appears to be identical with the Assyrian Nebo, the spokes- 
 man of the gods, answering to the Greek Hermes. And we 
 know that there were prophets of Baal, whose orgies are 
 described in 1 Kings xviii., where we learn that they sought 
 access to their god in exercises of artificial frenzy carried so 
 far that, like modern fanatics of the East, they became in- 
 sensible to pain, and passed into a sort of temporary madness, 
 to M'hich a supernatural character was no doubt ascribed, as 
 is still the case in similar religions. This Canaanite pro- 
 phetism, then, was a kind of divination, based, like all 
 divination, on the notion that the irrational part of man's 
 nature is that which connects him with the deity. It 
 appears that there were men in Israel calling themselves 
 seers or prophets of Jehovah, who occupied no higher stand- 
 point. Saul and his servant went to Samuel with the fourth 
 part of a shekel as fee to ask him a question about lost asses, 
 and the story is told as if this were part of the business of a 
 common seer. In the time of Isaiah, the stay and staff of 
 Jerusalem, the necessary props of the state, included not only 
 judges and warriors but prophets, diviners, men skilled in 
 charms, and such as understood enchantments (Isa. iii. 2, 3, 
 Heb.). Similarly Micali iii. 5 sq. identifies the prophets and 
 
PROFESSIONAL PROPHETS 
 
 the diviners, and places them alongside of the judges and the 
 priests as leaders of the nation. " Tlie heads thereof give 
 judgment for bribes, and the priests give legal decisions for 
 hire, and the prophets divine for money ; yet they lean upon 
 Jehovah and say. Is not Jehovah among us ? none evil can 
 come upon us." You observe that this false prophecy, which 
 is nothing else than divination, is practised in the name of 
 Jehovah, and has a recognised place in the state. And so, 
 when Amos appeared at Bethel to speak in Jehovah's name, 
 the priest Amaziah identified him with the professional 
 prophets who were fed by their trade (Amos vii. 12), and 
 formed a sort of guild, as the name " sons of the prophets " 
 indicates. 
 
 With these prophets by trade Amos indignantly refuses 
 to be identified. " I am uo prophet," he cries, " nor the 
 member of a prophetic guild, but an herdsman, and a plucker 
 of sycomore fruit. And Jehovah took me as I followed the 
 flock, and said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel." 
 These words of the earliest prophetic book clearly express 
 the standpoint of spiritual prophecy. With the established 
 guilds, the oSicial prophets, if I may so call them, the men 
 skilled in enchantment and divination, whose business was a 
 trade involving magical processes that could be taught and 
 learned, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah have nothing in common ; 
 they declaim against the accepted prophecy of their time, as 
 they do against all other parts of the national religion which 
 were no longer discriminated from heathenism. They accept 
 the principle that prophecy is essential to religion. They 
 admit that Jehovah's guidance of His people must take 
 the form of continual revelation, supplying those needs which 
 drive heathen nations and the unspiritual masses of Israel to 
 practise divination. But the method of true revelation has 
 nothing in common with the art of the diviner. " When they 
 say unto you. Seek counsel of ghosts and of familiar spirits 
 
LECT. X AND TRUE PROPHETS 289 
 
 that peep and mutter : should not a people consult its God ? 
 shall they go to the dead on behalf of the living ? " (Isa. viii. 
 19). The wizards, by their ventriloquist arts, professed to 
 make their dupes hear the voice of ghosts and gibbering 
 spirits rising from the underground abodes of the dead (see 
 Isa. xxix. 4 ; 1 Sam. xxviii.) ; but Jehovah is a living God, a 
 moral and personal being. He speaks to His prophets, not 
 in magical processes or through the visions of poor phrenetics, 
 but by a clear intelligible word addressed to the intellect and 
 the heart. The characteristic of the true prophet is that he 
 retains his consciousness and self-control under revelation. 
 He is filled with might by the spirit of Jehovah (Micah iii. 8). 
 Jehovah speaks to him as if He grasped him with a strong 
 hand (Isa. viii. 11). The word is within his heart like a 
 burning fire shut up in his bones (Jer. xx. 9), so that he 
 cannot remain silent. But it is an intelligible word, which 
 speaks to the prophet's own heart and conscience, forbidding 
 Isaiah to walk in the way of the corrupt nation, filling 
 Micah with power to declare unto Jacob his transgression, 
 supporting the heart of Jeremiah with an inward joy amidst 
 all his trials (Jer. xv. 16). The first condition of such pro- 
 phecy are pure lips and a heart right with God. Isaiah's 
 lips are purged and his sin forgiven before he can go as 
 Jehovah's messenger (Isa. vi.) ; and to Jeremiah the Lord 
 says, " If thou return, then will I bring thee back, and thou 
 shalt stand before me : and if thou take forth the precious 
 from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth : let them — the 
 sinful people — turn to thee, but turn not thou to them " (Jer. 
 XV. 19). Thus the essence of true prophecy lies in moral 
 converse with Jehovah. It is in this moral converse that 
 the prophet learns the divine will, enters into the secrets of 
 Jehovah's purpose, and so by declaring God's word to Israel 
 keeps alive a constant spiritual intercourse between Him and 
 His people. 
 
 19 
 
290 PROPHETIC IDEAL 
 
 According to the prophets this spiritual intercourse is the 
 essence of religion, and the " word of Jehovah," in the sense 
 now explained, is the characteristic and distinguishing mark 
 of His grace to Israel. When the word of Jehovah is with- 
 drawn, the nation is hopelessly undone. Amos describes as 
 the climax of judgment on the Northern Kingdom a famine 
 not of bread but of hearing Jehovah's word. Men shall run 
 from end to end of the land to seek the word of Jehovah, and 
 shall not find it. In that day the fair virgins and the young 
 men shall faint for thirst, and the guilty people shall fall to 
 rise no more (Amos viii. 11 sq.). Conversely the hope of 
 Judah in its adversity is that "thine eyes shall see thy 
 teacher, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, 
 This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right 
 hand or the left " (Isa. xxx. 20). And so the function of the 
 prophet cannot cease till the days of the new covenant, when 
 Jehovah shall write His revelation in the hearts of all His 
 people, when one man " shall no more teach another saying. 
 Know Jehovah : for they shall all know me from the least of 
 them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah : for I will 
 forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more " (Jer. 
 xxxi. 33 sq.). When we compare this passage with Isaiah 
 vi., we see that under this new covenant the prophetic conse- 
 cration is extended to all Israel, and the function of the 
 teacher ceases, because all Israel shall then stand in the 
 circle of Jehovah's intimates, and see the king in His beauty 
 as Isaiah saw Him in prophetic vision (Isa. xxxiii. 17). The 
 same thought appears in another form in Joel ii. 28, where it 
 is represented as a feature in the deliverance of Israel that 
 God's spirit shall be poured on all flesh, and young and old, 
 freemen and slaves, shall prophesy. But nowhere is the idea 
 more clear than in the last part of the Book of Isaiah, where 
 the true people of Jehovah and the prophet of Jehovah appear 
 as identical. " Hearken unto me, ye that know the right, the 
 
OF RELIGION 291 
 
 jjcople in whose hearts my revelation divells; fear ye not the 
 reproach of man, neither be ye afraid of their revih'ngs. . . , 
 I have put my loorcls in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in 
 the shadow of my hand, planting the heavens and laying the 
 foundation of tlie earth, and saying to Zion, Thou art my 
 people " (Isa. li. 7, 16). 
 
 We see, then, that the ideal of the Old Testament is a 
 dispensation in which all are prophets. "Would tliat all 
 the people of Jehovah were prophets," says Moses in Num. 
 xi. 29, " and that Jehovah would put his spirit upon them." 
 If prophecy were merely an institution for the prediction of 
 future events, this wish would be futile. But the essential 
 grace of the prophet is a heart purged of sin, and entering 
 with boldness into the inner circle of fellowship with Jehovah. 
 The spirit of Jehovah, which rests on the prophet, is not 
 merely a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of 
 counsel and might, but a spirit to know and fear the Lord 
 (Isa. xi. 2). The knowledge and fear of Jehovah is the sum 
 of all prophetic wisdom, but also of all religion ; and the Old 
 Testament spirit of prophecy is the forerunner of the New 
 Testament spirit of sanctifi cation. That this spirit, in the 
 Old Covenant, rests only upon chosen organs of revelation, 
 and not upon all the faithful, corresponds to the limitations 
 of the dispensation, in which the primary subject of religion 
 is not the individual but lhv. nation, so that Israel's personal 
 converse with Jehovah can be adequately maintained, like 
 other national functions, through the medium of certain 
 chosen and representative persons. The prophet is thus a 
 mediator, who not only brings God's word to the people but 
 conversely makes intercession for the people with God (Isa. 
 xxxvii. 4; Jer. xiv. 11, xv. 1, etc.). 
 
 The account of prophecy given by the prophets themselves 
 involves, you perceive, a whole theory of religion, pointing in 
 the most necessary way to a New Testament fulfilment. But 
 
292 THE PROPHETS 
 
 the theory moves in an altogether different plane from the 
 Levitical ordinances, and in no sense can it be viewed as a 
 spiritual commentary on them. For under the Levitical 
 system Jehovah's grace is conveyed to Israel through the 
 priest ; according to the prophets it comes in the prophetic 
 word. The systems are not identical ; but may they at least 
 be regarded as mutually supplementary ? 
 
 In their origin priest and prophet are doubtless closely 
 connected ideas. Moses is not only a prophet but a priest 
 (Deut. xviii. 15 ; Hos. xii. 13 ; Dent, xxxiii. 8; Psalm xcix. 
 6). Samuel also unites both functions ; and there is a priestly 
 as well as a prophetic oracle. In early times the sacred lot 
 of the priest appears to have been more looked to than the 
 prophetic word. David ceases to consult Gad when Abiathar 
 joins him with the ephod. (Comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 18, xxii. 10, 
 xxiii. 9, xxviii. 6 with xxii. 5.) Indeed, so long as sacrificial 
 acts were freely performed by laymen, the chief distinction of 
 a priest doubtless lay in his qualification to give an oracle. 
 The word which in Hebrew means priest is in old Arabic the 
 term for a soothsayer (Jcohen, MJmi), and in this, as in other 
 points, the popular religion of Israel was closely modelled on 
 the forms of Semitic heathenism, as we see from the oracle in 
 the shrine of Micah (Judges xviii. 5. Comp. 1 Sam. vi. 2 ; 2 
 Kings X. 19).-^ The ofiicial prophets of Judah appear to have 
 
 ^ In ancient times the priestly oracle of Urim and Thummim was a sacred 
 lot ; for in 1 Sam. xiv. 41 the true text, as we can still restore it from the 
 LXX., makes Saul pray, "If the iniquity be in me or Jonathan, give Urim ; 
 but if in Israel, give Thummim." This sacred lot was connected with the 
 ephod, which in the time of the Judges was something very like an idol 
 {supra, p. 241). Spencer therefore seems to be right in assuming a re- 
 semblance in point of form between the priestly lot of the Urim and Thummim 
 and divination by Teraphim (De Leg. Eit. lib. iii. c. 3). The latter again 
 appears as practised by drawing lots by arrows before the idol (Ezek. xxi. 21, 
 "he shook the arrows "), which was also a familiar form of divination among 
 the heathen Arabs {Journal of Phil., as cited above, xiii. 277 sqq.). Under 
 the Levitical law the priestly lot exists in theory in a very modified form, 
 confined to the high priest, but in reality it was obsolete (Weh. vii. 65). 
 
 
AND THE PRIESTS 293 
 
 been connected with the priesthood and the sanctuary until 
 the close of the kingdom (Isa. xxviii. 7; Jer. xxiii. 11, xxvi. 
 11 ; comp. Hosea iv. 5). They were, in fact, part of the 
 establishment of the Temple, and subject to priestly discipline 
 (Jer. xxix. 26, xx. 1 sq.). They played into the priests' hands 
 (Jer. V. 31), had a special interest in the affairs of worship (Jer. 
 xxvii. 16), and appear in all their conflicts with Jeremiah as 
 the partisans of the theory that Jehovah's help is absolutely 
 secured by the Temple and its services. 
 
 But the prophecy which thus co-operates with the priests 
 is not spiritual prophecy. It is a kind of prophecy which the 
 Old Testament calls divination, which traffics in dreams in 
 place of Jehovah's word (Jer. xxiii. 28), and which, like 
 heathen divination, presents features akin to insanity that 
 require to be repressed by physical constraint (Jer. xxix. 26). 
 Spiritual prophecy, in the hands of Amos, Isaiah, and their 
 successors, has no such alliance with the sanctuary and its 
 ritual. It develops and enforces its own doctrine of the 
 intercourse of Jehovah with Israel, and the conditions of His 
 grace, without assigning the slightest value to priests and 
 sacrifices. The sum of religion, according to the prophets, is 
 to know Jehovah, and obey His precepts. Under the system 
 of the law enforced from the days of Ezra onwards an im- 
 portant part of these precepts was ritual. Malachi, a con- 
 temporary, or perhaps rather an immediate precursor of Ezra, 
 accepts this position as the basis of his prophetic exhortations. 
 The first proof of Israel's sin is to him neglect of the sacrificial 
 ritual. The language of the older prophets up to Jeremiah is 
 quite different. " What are your many sacrifices to me ? saith 
 Jehovah : I delight not in the blood of bullocks, and lambs, 
 and he-goats. When ye come to see my face, who hath asked 
 this at your hands, to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain 
 oblations . . . my soul hateth your new moons and your 
 feasts ; they are a burden upon me ; I am weary to bear 
 
294 THE PEOPHETS 
 
 them" (Isa. i. 11 sq.). "1 hate, I despise your feast days, 
 and I will not take pleasure in your solemn assemblies. 
 Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and let me not 
 hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice flow as waters, 
 and righteousness like a perennial stream " (Amos v. 21 sq.). 
 It is sometimes argued that such passages mean only that 
 Jehovah will not accept the sacrifice of the wicked, and that 
 they are quite consistent with a belief that sacrifice and ritual 
 are a necessary accompaniment of true religion. But there 
 are other texts which absolutely exclude such a view. Sacri- 
 fice 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 in the wilder- 
 ness during those forty years of wandering which he elsewhere 
 cites as a special proof of Jehovah's covenant grace (Amos ii. 
 10, V. 25).^ Micah declares that Jehovah does not require 
 sacrifice ; He asks nothing of His people, but " to do justly, 
 and love mercy, and walk humbly with their God" (Micah 
 vi. 8). And Jeremiah vii. 21 sq. says in express words, 
 "Put your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. 
 For I spake not to your fathers and gave them no command 
 in the day that I brought them out of Egypt concerning 
 burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I 
 them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye 
 shall be my people," etc. (Comp. Isa. xliii. 23 sq.) The 
 
 ^ The argument of Amos v. 25 is obscured in the English translation by 
 the rendering of the following verse. The verbs in that verse are not perfects, 
 and the idea is not that in the wilderness Israel sacrificed to false gods in 
 place of Jehovah. Verse 26 commences the prophecy of judgment, "Ye 
 shall take up your idols, and " (not as E. V. " therefore ") " I will send you into 
 captivity." The words DDVI^X 331D are a gloss, as is indicated by the fact 
 that the Septuagint read them before PaK^ai' = jVS. The gloss arose from 
 the idea that Chiun is equivalent to the Syriac Kewan, a Persian name of the 
 planet Saturn. But the date of Amos forbids this interpretation. Both DUD 
 and jV2 must be common nouns in the construct state, probably "the shrine 
 of your (idol) king and the stand of your images," i.e. the portable shrine and 
 platform on which the idols were exhibited and borne in processions. 
 
LECT. X AND THE PRIESTS 295 
 
 position here laid down is perfectly clear. When the pro- 
 phets positively condemn the worship of their contemporaries, 
 they do so because it is associated with immorality, because 
 by it Israel hopes to gain God's favour without moral obe- 
 dience. This does not prove that they have any objection to 
 sacrifice and ritual in the abstract. But they deny that these 
 things are of positive divine institution, or have any part in 
 the scheme on which Jehovah's grace is administered in Israel. 
 Jehovah, they say, lias 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 purchase any favour from Jehovah, and might 
 be given up without offence. It is impossible to give a flatter 
 contradiction to the traditional theory that the Levitical 
 system was enacted in the wilderness. The theology of the 
 prophets before Ezekiel has no place for the system of priestly 
 sacrifice and ritual. 
 
 All this is so clear that it seems impossible to mis- 
 understand it. Yet the position of the prophets is not only 
 habitually explained away by those who are determined at 
 any cost to maintain the traditional view of the Pentateuch, 
 but is still more seriously misunderstood by a current ration- 
 alism not altogether confined to those who, on principle, deny 
 the reality of positive revelation. It is a widespread opinion 
 that the prophets are the advocates of natural religion, and 
 that this is the reason of their indifference to a religion of 
 ordinances and ritual. On the naturalistic theory of religion, 
 ethical monotheism is the natural belief of mankind, not, in- 
 deed, attained at once in all races, but worked out for them- 
 selves by the great thinkers of humanity, continually reflecting 
 on the ordinary phenomena of life and history. It is held 
 that natural religion is the only true religion, that the proof 
 of its truth lay open to all men in all countries, and that 
 Christianity itself, so far as it is true, is merely the historical 
 
296 THE PROPHETIC 
 
 development, in one part of the world, of those ideas of ethical 
 monotheism which other nations than Israel might have 
 worked out equally well on the basis of their own experience 
 and reflection. From this point of view the prophets are 
 regarded as advanced thinkers, who had not yet thrown aside 
 all superstition, who were hampered by a belief in miracle 
 and special revelation, but whose teaching has abiding value 
 only in proportion as it reduced these elements to a sub- 
 ordinate place and struck out new ideas essentially independ- 
 ent of them. The prophets, we are told, believed themselves 
 to be inspired. But their true inspiration was only profound 
 thinking. They were inspired as all great poetic and religious 
 minds are inspired ; and when they say that God has told 
 them certain things as to His nature and attributes, this only 
 means that they have reached a profound conviction of 
 spiritual truths concealed from their less intelligent contem- 
 poraries. The permanent truths of religion are those which 
 spring up in the breast without external revelation or tradi- 
 tional teaching. The prophets had grasped these truths with 
 great force, and so they were indifferent to the positive forms 
 which made up the religion of the mass of their nation. This 
 theory has had an influence extending far beyond the circle 
 of those who deliberately accept it in its whole compass. 
 Even popular theology is not indisposed to solve the apparent 
 contradiction between the Prophets and the Pentateuch, by 
 saying that the former could afford to overlook the positive 
 elements of Israel's religion, because their hearts were filled 
 with spiritual truths belonging to another sphere. 
 
 But the prophets themselves put the case in a very 
 different light. According to them it is their religion which 
 is positive, and the popular worship which is largely tradi- 
 tional and of human growth. That Jehovah is the Judge, the 
 Lawgiver, the King of Israel, is a proposition which they 
 accept in the most literal sense. Jehovah's word and thoughts 
 
INSPIRATION 297 
 
 are as distinct from their own words and thoughts as those 
 of another human person. The mark of a false prophet is 
 that he speaks " the vision of his own heart, not from Jehovah's 
 mouth " (Jer. xxiii. 16). The word of Jehovah, the command- 
 ments and revelations of Jehovah, are given to them inter- 
 nally, but are not therefore identical with their own reflections. 
 They have an external authority, the authority of Him who 
 is the King and Master of Israel. This is not the place for a 
 theory of revelation. But it is well to observe, as a matter of 
 plain fact, that the inspiration of the prophets presents 
 phenomena quite distinct from those of any other religion. 
 In the crasser forms of religion the supernatural character of 
 an oracle is held to be proved by the absence of self-conscious 
 thought. The dream, the ecstatic vision, the frenzy of the 
 Pythoness, seem divine because they are not intelligent. But 
 these things are divination, not prophecy. Jeremiah draws 
 an express contrast between dreams and the word of Jehovah 
 (Jer. xxiii. 25-28). And the visions of the prophets, which 
 were certainly rare, and by no means the standard form of 
 revelation, are distinguished by the fact that the seer retains 
 his consciousness, his moral judgment, his power of thinking 
 (Isa. vi.). On the other hand, the assertion so often made 
 that the prophets identify the word of Jehovah with their 
 own highest thoughts, just as the Vedic poets do, ignores an 
 essential difference between the two cases. The prophets 
 drew a sharp distinction between their own word and God's 
 word, which these poets never do. Nor is spiritual prophecy, 
 as other scholars hold, a natural product of Semitic religion. 
 Semitic religion, like other religions, naturally produces 
 diviners ; but even Mohammed had no criterion apart from 
 his hysterical fits to distinguish his own thoughts from the 
 revelations of Allah.^ 
 
 ^ The Greek doctrine of the inspiration of the poet never led to the 
 recognition of certain poems as sacred Scriptures. But the Indian Vedas 
 were regarded in later times as infallible, eternal, divine. In the priestly 
 
298 PROPHETIC AND 
 
 According to the prophets, all true knowledge of God is 
 reached, not by human reflection, but by the instruction of 
 Jehovah Himself. Eeligion is to know Jehovah, to fear Him 
 and obey His commandments, as one knows, fears, and obeys 
 a father and a king. The relations of Jehovah to Israel are 
 of a perfectly matter-of-fact kind. They rest on the historical 
 fact that He chose the people of Israel, brought them up from 
 Egypt, settled them in Canaan, and has ever since been 
 present in the nation, issuing commands for its behaviour in 
 every concern of national life. In every point of conduct 
 Israel is referred, not to its own moral reflections and political 
 wisdom, but to the Word of Jehovah. 
 
 According to the traditional view, the Word of Jehovah is 
 embodied in a book-revelation. The Torah, " instruction," or, 
 as we should say, revelation of God, is a written volume 
 deposited with the priests, which gives rules for all national 
 
 bards, therefore (the Hishis), the first authors of the Vedic hymns, we may 
 expect to find, if anywhere, a consciousness analogous to that of the proph'ets. 
 Their accounts of themselves have been collected by Dr. John Muir in his 
 Sanscrit Texts, vol. iii., and some recent WTiters have laid great stress on this 
 supposed parallel to prophetic inspiration. But what are the facts ? The 
 Rishis frequently speak of their hymns as their own works, but also some- 
 times entertain the idea that their prayers, praises, and ceremonies generally 
 were supernaturally inspired. The gods are said to "generate" prayer ; the 
 prayer is god-given. The poet, like a Grecian singer, calls on the gods to 
 help his prayer. " May prayer, brilliant and divine, proceed from us." But 
 in all this there is no stricter conception of inspiration than in the Greek 
 poets. It is not the word of God that we hear, but the poet's word aided bj' 
 the gods (compare Muir, p. 275). How different is this from the language of 
 the prophets ! "Where do the prophets," asks Merx (Jenaer Lit. Zeit., 1876, 
 p. 19), "pray for illumination of spirit, force of poetic expression, glowing 
 power of composition ? " The prophetic consciousness of inspiration is clearly 
 separated both from the inspiration of the heathen fiavris and from the afiiatus 
 of the Indian or Grecian bard. 
 
 On Mohammed's inspiration see Noldeke, Geschichte des Qordns, p. 4. 
 "He not only gave out his later revelations, composed with conscious delibera- 
 tion and the use of foreign materials, as being, equally with the first glowing 
 productions of his enthusiasm, angelic messages and proofs of the prophetic 
 spirit, but made direct use of pious fraud to gain adherents, and employed 
 the authority of the Koran to decide and adjust things that had nothing to 
 do with religion." 
 
PRIESTLY TORAH 299 
 
 and personal conduct, and also provides the proper means for 
 regaining God's favour when it has been lost through sin. 
 But to the prophets the Torah has a very different meaning. 
 
 The prophets did not invent the vrord Torah. It is a 
 technical term of the current traditional religion. A Torah 
 is any decision or instruction on matters of law and conduct 
 given by a sacred authority. Thus moreh, or giver of Torah, 
 may mean a soothsayer. The oak of the Torah-giver (Gen. 
 xii. 6) is identical with the soothsayer's oak (Jud. ix. 37). 
 You remember, in illustration of this name, that Deborah 
 gave her prophetic judgments under "the palm-tree of 
 Deborah" between Kamah and Bethel. More frequent are 
 allusions to the Torah of the priests, which in like manner 
 denotes, not a book which they had in their hands, but the 
 sacred decisions given, by the priestly oracle or otherwise, in 
 the sanctuary, which in early Israel was the seat of divine 
 judgment (Exod. xviii. 19, xxi. 6, where for the judges read 
 God; 1 Sam. ii. 25). Thus in Deut. xxxiii. 10 the business 
 of the Levites is to give Torah to Israel and to offer sacrifice 
 to God. In Jer. xviii. 18 the people give as a ground of 
 their security against the evils predicted by Jeremiah that 
 Torah shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the 
 wise, nor the word from the prophet. The priests are " they 
 that handle the Torah " (Jer. ii. 8). Micah complains that the 
 priests give Torahs or legal decisions for hire (Micah iii. 11), 
 In these passages the Torah is not a book but an oral decision ; 
 and the grammatical form of the word, as an infinitive of the 
 verb " to give a decision or instruction," shows this to be the 
 primitive sense. 
 
 We have seen how spiritual prophecy branched off and 
 separated itself from the popular prophecy which remained 
 connected with the sanctuary and the priests. In doing so it 
 carried its own spiritual Torah with it. When God bids 
 Isaiah " bind up the testimony, seal the Torah among my 
 
300 ORAL AND 
 
 disciples," the reference is to the revelation just given to the 
 prophet himself (Isa. viii. 16). To this Torah and testimony, 
 and not to wizards and consulters of the dead, Israel's appeal 
 for Divine guidance lies (ver. 20). The Torah is the living 
 prophetic word. " Hear the word of Jehovah," and " Give ear 
 to the Torah of our God," are parallel injunctions by which 
 the prophet demands attention to his divine message (Isa. i. 
 10). The Torah is not yet a finished and complete system, 
 booked and reduced to a code, but a living word in the mouth 
 of the prophets. In the latter days the proof that Jehovah is 
 King in Zion, exalting His chosen hill above all the mountains 
 of the earth, will still be that Torah proceeds from Zion and 
 the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem, so that all nations come 
 thither for judgment, and Jehovah's word establishes peace 
 among hostile peoples (Isa. ii. 2 sq. ; Micah v. 1 sq.). It is 
 this continual living instruction of Jehovah present with His 
 people which the prophets, as we have already seen, regard as 
 essential to the weKare of Israel. No written book would 
 satisfy the thirst for God's Word of which Amos speaks. The 
 only thing that can supersede the Torah of the prophets is the 
 Torali written in every heart and spoken by every lip. " This is 
 my covenant with them, saith Jehovah : my spirit that is upon 
 thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not 
 depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor 
 out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith Jehovah, from hence- 
 forth and for ever" (Isa. lix. 21). God's Word, not in a book 
 but in the heart and mouth of His servants, is the ultimate 
 ideal as well as the first postulate of prophetic theology. 
 
 How then did this revelation, which is essentially living 
 speech, pass into the form of a written word such as we still 
 possess in the books of the Old Testament ? To answer this 
 question as the prophets themselves would do, we must 
 remember that among primitive nations, and indeed among 
 Eastern nations to this dav, books are not the foundation of 
 
WRITTEN TORAH 301 
 
 sound knowledge. The ideal of instruction is oral teaching, 
 and the worthiest shrine of truths that must not die is the 
 memory and heart of a faithful disciple. The ideal state of 
 things is that in which the Torah is written in Israel's heart, 
 and all his children are disciples of Jehovah (Isa. liv. 13). 
 But this ideal was far from the actual reality, and so in 
 religion, as in other branches of knowledge, the written roll 
 to which truth is committed supplies the lack of faithful 
 disciples. This comes out quite clearly in the case of the 
 prophetic books. The prophets write the words which their 
 contemporaries refuse to hear. So Isaiah seals his revelation 
 among the disciples of Jehovah ; that is, he takes them as 
 witnesses to a document which is, as it were, a formal testi- 
 mony against Israel (Isa. viii. 1 sq., 16). So Jeremiah, after 
 three -and -twenty years spent in speaking to a rebellious 
 people, writes down his prophecies that they may have 
 another opportunity to hear and repent (Jer. xxxvi.). Jehovah's 
 Word has a scope that reaches beyond the immediate occasion, 
 and a living force which prevents it from returning to Him 
 without effect ; and if it is not at once taken up into the 
 hearts of the people, it must be set in writing for future use 
 and for a testimony in time to come. Thus the prophets 
 become authors, and they and their disciples are students of 
 written revelation. The prophets give many signs of acquaint- 
 ance with the writings of their predecessors, and sometimes 
 even quote them verbally. Thus Jer. xlix. 7-22 and the 
 Book of Obadiah seem both to make use of an earlier oracle 
 against Edom ;■' and the prophecy against Moab in Isa. xv. xvi. 
 is followed by the note of a later prophet : " This is the word 
 which Jehovah spake against Moab long ago. But now 
 Jehovah speaks, saying. Within three short years the glory of 
 Moab shall be abased" (Isa. xvi. 13, 14). Thus we see why 
 
 ^ See the article Obadiah in Enc. Brit., 9th ed., and Driver, IntroduC' 
 Hon, p. 298 sq. 
 
302 ORAL AND 
 
 the beginnings of prophetic literature in the eighth century 
 coincide with the great breach between spiritual prophecy and 
 the popular religion. Elisha had no need to write, for his word 
 bore immediate fruit in the overthrow of the house of Omri 
 and the destruction of the worshippers of Baal. The old 
 prophecy left its record in social and political successes. The 
 new prophecy that begins with Amos spoke to a people that 
 would not hear, and looked to no immediate success, but only 
 to a renovation of the remnant of Israel to follow on a 
 completed work of judgment. When the people forbid the 
 prophets to preach, they begin perforce to write (Amos ii. 12, 
 vii. 12, 13 ; Micah ii. 6 ; Jer. xxxvi. 5 sq.). 
 
 But, though the properly prophetic literature begins in 
 the eighth century B.C., do not the prophets, it may be asked, 
 base their teaching on an earlier written revelation of another 
 kind ? They certainly hold that the religion of Israel is as 
 old as the Exodus. They speak of Moses. " By a prophet," 
 says Hosea, "Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt."- "I 
 brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee 
 out of the house of bondage," says Micah ; " and I sent before 
 thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam." Do not these references 
 presuppose the written law of Moses ? This question requires 
 careful consideration. 
 
 There is no doubt that the prophets regard themselves 
 as successors of Moses. He is, as we see from Hosea, the 
 first prophet of Israel. But the prophets of the eighth 
 century never speak of a written law of Moses. The only 
 passage which has been taken to do so is Hosea viii. 12. And 
 here the grammatical translation is, " Though I wrote to him 
 my Torah in ten thousand precepts, they would be esteemed 
 as a strange thing." It is simple matter of fact that the 
 prophets do not refer to a written Torah as the basis of their 
 teaching, and we have seen that they absolutely deny the 
 existence of a binding ritual law. But, on the other hand, it 
 
WRITTEN TORAH oO'. 
 
 is clear that the Torah is not a new thing in the eighth 
 century. The false religion of the mass of the nation is 
 always described as a corruption of truths which Israel ought 
 to know. " Thou hast forgotten the Torah of thy God," says 
 Hosea to the priests (Hos. iv. 6). It cannot fairly be doubted 
 that the Torah which the priests have forgotten is Mosaic 
 Torah. For the prophets do not acknowledge the priests as 
 organs of revelation. Their knowledge was essentially tradi- 
 tional. Such traditions are based on old-established law, and 
 they themselves undoubtedly referred their wisdom to Moses, 
 who, either directly or through Aaron, — for our argument it 
 matters not which, — is the father of the priests as well as the 
 father of the prophets (Deut. xxxiii. 4, 8 sq.; 1 Sam. ii. 27 
 sq.). That this should be so lies in the nature of the case. 
 Jehovah as King of Israel must from the first have given 
 permanent laws as well as precepts for immediate use. What 
 is quite certain is that, according to the prophets, the Torah 
 of Moses did not embrace a law of ritual. Worship by 
 sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no part of the divine 
 Torah to Israel. It forms, if you will, part of natural religion, 
 which other nations share with Israel, and which is no feature 
 in the distinctive precepts given at the Exodus, There is no 
 doubt that this view is in accordance with the Bible history, 
 and with what we know from other sources. Jacob is repre- 
 sented as paying tithes ; all the patriarchs build altars and 
 do sacrifice ; the law of blood is as old as Noah ; the con- 
 secration of firstlings is known to the Arabs ; the autumn 
 feast of the vintage is Canaanite as well as Hebrew; and 
 these are but examples which might be largely multiplied. 
 
 The true distinction of Israel's religion lies in the character 
 of the Deity who has made Himself personally known to His 
 people, and demands of them a life conformed to His spiritual 
 character as a righteous and forgiving God. The difference 
 between Jehovah and the gods of the nations is that He does 
 
304 PROPHETIC AND 
 
 not require sacrifice, but only to do justly, and love mercy, 
 and walk humbly with God. This standpoint is not confined 
 to the prophetic books ; it is the standpoint of the Ten Com- 
 mandments, which contain no precept of positive worship. 
 But according to many testimonies of the pre-exilic books, it 
 is the Ten Commandments, the laws written on the two tables 
 of stone, that are Jehovah's covenant with Israel. In 1 Kings 
 viii. 9, 21 these tables are identified with the covenant 
 deposited in the sanctuary. And with this the Book of 
 Deuteronomy agrees (Deut. v. 2, 22). Whatever is more than 
 the words spoken at Horeb is not strictly covenant, but pro- 
 phetic teaching, continual divine guidance addressed to those 
 needs which in heathen nations are met by divination, but 
 which in Israel are supplied by the personal word of the 
 revealing God ministered through a succession of prophets 
 (Deut. xviii. 9 sq.). Even Ezra (ix. 11) still speaks of the law 
 which forbids intermarriage with the people of Canaan as an 
 ordinance of the prophets (plural). Yet this is now read as a 
 Pentateuchal law (Deut. vii.). 
 
 To understand this view, we must remember that among 
 the pure Semites even at the present day the sphere of legis- 
 lation is far narrower than in our more complicated society. 
 Ordinary affairs of life are always regulated by consuetudinary 
 law, preserved without writing or the need for trained judges, 
 in the memory and practice of the family and the tribe. It 
 is only in cases of difficulty that an appeal is taken to the 
 judge — the " Cadi of the Arabs." It was not otherwise in 
 the days of Moses. It was only hard matters that were 
 brought to him, and referred by him, not to a fixed code of 
 law, but to Divine decision (Exod. xviii. 19-26), which formed 
 a precedent for future use. Of this state of things the condi- 
 tion of affairs under the Judges is the natural sequel. But 
 Moses did more than any " Cadi of the Arabs," who owes his 
 authority to superior knowledge of legal tradition. He was 
 
MOSAIC TORAH 305 
 
 a prophet as well as a judge. As such he founded in Israel 
 the great principles of the moral religion of the righteous 
 Jehovah. All else was but a development of the fundamental 
 revelation, and from the standpoint of prophetic religion it is 
 not of importance whether these developments were given 
 directly by Moses, or only by the prophets his successors. 
 But all true Torah must move in the lines of the original 
 covenant. The standard of the prophets is the moral law, 
 and because the priests had forgotten this they declare them 
 to have forgotten the law, however copious their Torah, and 
 however great their interest in details of ritual. Forgotten 
 or perverted by the priests (Hos. iv. 6 ; Zeph. iii. 4), the true 
 Torah of Jehovah is preserved by the prophets. But the 
 prophets before Ezekiel have no concern in the law of ritual. 
 They make no effort to recall the priests to their duty in this 
 respect, except in the negative sense of condemning such 
 elements in the popular worship as are inconsistent with the 
 spiritual attributes of Jehovah. 
 
 From the ordinary presuppositions with which we are 
 accustomed to approach the Old Testament, there is one 
 point in this position of the prophets which still creates a 
 difficulty. If it is true that they exclude the sacrificial 
 worship from the positive elements of Israel's religion, what 
 becomes of the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, which we 
 are accustomed to regard as mainly expressed in the typical 
 ordinances of atonement ? It is necessary, in conclusion, to 
 say a word on this head. The point, I think, may be put 
 thus. When Micah, for example, says that Jehovah requires 
 nothing of man but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk 
 humbly with God, we are apt to take this utterance as an 
 expression of Old Testament legalism. According to the law 
 of works, these things are of course sufficient. But sinful 
 man, sinful Israel, cannot perform them perfectly. Is it not 
 therefore necessary for the law to come in, with its atone- 
 
306 PROPHETIC DOCTRINE lect. x 
 
 ment, to supply the imperfection of Israel's obedience ? I 
 ask you to observe that such a view of the prophetic teaching 
 is the purest rationalism, necessarily allied with the false idea 
 that the prophets are advocates of natural morality. The 
 prophetic theory of religion has nothing to do with the law 
 of works. Eeligion, they teach, is the personal fellowship of 
 Jehovah with Israel, in which He shapes His people to His 
 own ends, impresses His own likeness upon them by a con- 
 tinual moral guidance. Such a religion cannot exist under a 
 bare law of works. Jehovah did not find Israel a holy and 
 righteous people ; He has to make it so by wise discipline 
 and loving guidance, which refuses to be frustrated by the 
 people's shortcomings and sins. The continuance of Jehovah's 
 love in spite of Israel's transgressions, which is set forth with 
 so much force in the opening chapters of Hosea, is the for- 
 giveness of sins. 
 
 Under the Old Testament the forgiveness of sins is not 
 an abstract doctrine but a thing of actual experience. The 
 proof, nay, the substance, of forgiveness is the continued 
 enjoyment of those practical marks of Jehovah's favour 
 which are experienced in peaceful occupation of Canaan and 
 deliverance from all trouble. This practical way of estimating 
 forgiveness is common to the prophets with their contem- 
 poraries. Jehovah's anger is felt in national calamity, for- 
 giveness is realised in the removal of chastisement. The 
 proof that Jehovah is a forgiving God is that He does not 
 retain His anger for ever, but turns and has compassion on 
 His people (Micah vii. 18 sq. ; Isa. xii. 1). There is no meta- 
 physic in this conception, it simply accepts the analogy of 
 anger and forgiveness in human life. 
 
 In the popular religion the people hoped to influence 
 Jehovah's disposition towards them by gifts and sacrifices 
 (Micah vi. 4 sq.), by outward tokens of penitence. It is 
 against this view that the prophets set forth the true doctrine 
 
OF FORGIVENESS 307 
 
 of forgiveness. Jehovah's anger is not caprice but a just 
 indignation, a necessary side of His moral kingship in Israel. 
 He chastises to work penitence, and it is only to the ponitent 
 that He can extend forgiveness. By returning to obedience 
 the people regain the marks of Jehovah's love, and again 
 experience His goodness in deliverance from calamity and 
 happy possession of a fruitful land. According to the 
 prophets, this law of chastisement and forgiveness works 
 directly, without the intervention of any ritual sacrament. 
 Jehovah's love is never withdrawn from His people, even in 
 their deepest sin and in His sternest chastisements. " How 
 can I give thee up, Ephraim ? How can I cast thee away, 
 Israel? My heart burns within me, my compassion is all 
 kindled. I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath ; I 
 will not turn to destroy thee : for I am God and not man, 
 the Holy One in the midst of thee" (Hos. xi. 8). This 
 inalienable Divine love, the sovereignty of God's own re- 
 deeming purpose, is the ground of forgiveness. " I, even I, 
 am he that blotteth out thine iniquity for mine own sake " 
 (Isa. xliii. 25). And so the prophets know, with a certainty 
 that rests in the unchangeable heart of God, that through all 
 chastisement, nay, through the ruin of the state, the true 
 remnant of Israel shall return to Jehovah, not with sacrifices, 
 but with lips instead of bullocks, as Hosea puts it, saying. 
 Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously (Hos. xiv. 2). 
 All prophetic prediction is but the development in many 
 forms, and in answer to the needs of Israel in various times, 
 of this supreme certainty, that God's love works triumphantly 
 in all His judgments ; that Israel once redeemed from Egypt 
 shall again be redeemed not only from bondage but from sin ; 
 that Jehovah will perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to 
 Abraham, which He sware to Israel's fathers from the days 
 of old (Micah vii. 20). Accordingly, the texts which call 
 for obedience and not sacrifice (Micah vi. ; Jer. vii. etc.), for 
 
308 DOCTRINE OF FORGIVENESS lect. x 
 
 humanity instead of outward tokens of contrition (Isa. Iviii.), 
 come in at the very same point with the atoning ordinances 
 of the ritual law. They do not set forth the legal conditions 
 of acceptance without forgiveness, but the requisites of for- 
 giveness itself. 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. The law adds something 
 to the prophetic teaching, something which the prophets do 
 not know, and which, if both are parts of one system of true 
 revelation, was either superseded before the prophets rose, 
 or began only after they had spoken. But the ritual law 
 was not superseded by prophecy. It comes into full force 
 only at the close of the prophetic period in the reformation 
 of Ezra. And so the conclusion is inevitable that the ritual 
 element which the law adds to the prophetic doctrine of 
 forgiveness became part of the system of Old Testament 
 religion only after the prophets had spoken.-' 
 
 ^ Properly to understand the prophetic doctrine of forgiveness, we must 
 remember that the problem of the acceptance of the individual with God was 
 never fully solved in the Old Testament. The prophets always deal with the 
 nation in its unity as the object of wrath and forgiveness. The religious life 
 of the individual is still included in that of the nation. When we, by 
 analogy, apply what the prophets say of the nation to the forgiveness of the 
 individual, we must remember that Israel's history starts with a work of 
 redemption — deliverance from Egypt. To this objective proof of Jehovah's 
 love the prophets look back, just as we look to the finished work of Christ. 
 In it is contained the pledge of Divine love, giving confidence to approach 
 God and seek His forgiveness. But while the Old Testament believer had no 
 difficulty in assuring himself of Jehovah's Icve to Israel, it was not so easy to 
 find a pledge of His grace to the individual, and especially not easy to appre- 
 hend God as a forgiving God under personal affliction. Here especially the 
 defect of the dispensation came out, and the problem of individual acceptance 
 with God, which was acutely realised in and after the fall of the nation, when 
 the righteous so often suffered with the wicked, is that most closclj' bound up 
 with the interpretation of the atoning sacrifices of the Levitical ritual. 
 
LECTUEE XI 
 
 THE PENTATEUCH : THE FIRST LEGISLATION 
 
 The results of our investigation up to this point are not 
 critical but historical, and, if you will, theological. The 
 Hebrews before the Exile knew a twofold Torah, the Torah 
 of the priests and that of the prophets. Neither Torah 
 corresponds with the present Pentateuch. The prophets 
 altogether deny to the law of sacrifice the character of 
 positive revelation; their attitude to questions of ritual is 
 the negative attitude of the Ten Commandments, content to 
 forbid what is inconsistent with the true nature of Jehovah, 
 and for the rest to leave matters to their own course. The 
 priests, on the contrary, have a ritual and legal Torah 
 which has a recognised place in the state; but neither in 
 the old priestly family of Eli nor in the Jerusalem priest- 
 hood of the sons of Zadok did the rules and practice 
 of the priests correspond with the finished system of the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 These results have a much larger interest than the 
 question of the date of the Pentateuch. It is more im- 
 portant to understand the method of God's grace in Israel 
 than to settle when a particular book was written ; and we 
 now see that, whatever the age of the Pentateuch as a written 
 code, the Levitical system of communion with God, the 
 Levitical sacraments of atonement, were not the forms under 
 
310 THE LAW LECT. XI 
 
 which God's grace worked, and to which His revelation 
 accommodated itself, in Israel before the Exile. 
 
 The Levitical ordinances, whether they existed before the 
 Exile or not, were not yet God's word to Israel at that time. 
 For God's word is the expression of His practical will. And 
 the history and the prophets alike make it clear that God's 
 will for Israel's salvation took quite another course. 
 
 The current view of the Pentateuch is mainly ooncerned 
 to do literal justice to the phrase "The Lord spake unto 
 Moses, saying " thus and thus. But to save the literal " unto 
 Moses " is to sacrifice the far more important words " The 
 Lord spake." The time when these ritual ordinances became 
 God's word — that is, became a divinely sanctioned means for 
 checking the rebellion of the Israelites and keeping them as 
 close to spiritual religion as their imperfect understanding 
 and hard hearts permitted — was subsequent to the work of 
 the prophets. As a matter of historical fact, the Law con- 
 tinues the work of the prophets, and great part of the Law 
 was not yet known to the prophets as God's word. 
 
 The ritual law is, strictly speaking, a fusion of prophetic 
 and priestly Torah. Its object is to provide a scheme of 
 worship, in the pre-Christian sense of that word, consistent 
 with the unique holiness of Jehovah, and yet not beyond the 
 possibility of practical realisation in a nation that was not 
 ripe to enter into present fruition of the evangelical pre- 
 dictions of the prophets. Erom the time of Ezra downwards 
 this object was practically realised. But before the Captivity 
 it not only was not realised, but was not even contemplated. 
 Ezekiel, himself an exile, is the first prophet who proposes 
 a reconstruction of ritual in conformity with the spiritual 
 truths of prophecy. And he does so, not like Ezra by recall- 
 ing the nation to the law of Moses, but by sketching an 
 independent scheme of ritual, which unquestionably had a 
 great influence on the subsequent development. Jeremiah. 
 
OF MOSES 311 
 
 like Ezekiel, was a priest as well as a prophet, but there is 
 nothing in Jeremiah which recognises the necessity for such 
 a scheme of ritual as Ezekiel maps out. 
 
 When the Levitical law first comes on the stage of actual 
 history at the time of Ezra, it presents itself as the Law of 
 Moses. People who have not understood the Old Testament 
 are accustomed to say that this is either literally true or a 
 lie ; that the Pentateuch is either the literary work of Moses, 
 or else a barefaced imposture. The reverent and thoughtful 
 student, who knows the complicated difficulties of the prob- 
 lem, will not willingly accept this statement of the ques- 
 tion. If we are tied up to make a choice between these two 
 alternatives, it is impossible to deny that all the historical 
 evidence that has come before us points in the direction of 
 the second. If our present Pentateuch was written by Moses, 
 it was lost as completely as any book could be. The pro- 
 phets know the history of Moses and the patriarchs, they 
 know that Moses is the founder of the Torah, but they do 
 not know that complete system which we have been accus- 
 tomed to suppose his work. And the priests of Shiloh and 
 the Temple do not know the very parts of the Torah which 
 would have done most to raise their authority and influence. 
 At the time of Josiah a book of the Law is found, but it is 
 still not the whole Pentateuch, for it does not contain the 
 full Levitical system. From the death of Joshua to Ezra is, 
 on the usual chronology, just one thousand years. Where 
 was the Pentateuch all this time, if it was unknown to 
 every one of those who ought to have had most interest 
 in it ? 1 
 
 ^ I may here notice one passage which has been cited (e.g. by Keil, Intro- 
 duction, vol. i. p. 170 of the Eng. tr. ) as containing a reference to the written 
 law in the time of King Jehoash of Judah. In 2 Kings xi. 12 we read that 
 Jehoiadah " brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him and 
 gave him ih& testimony." But here everything turns on the words "gave 
 him," and these are not in the Hebrew, which must, according to grammar, 
 be rendered " put upon him the crown and the testimony." The "testimony," 
 
312 MEANING OF 
 
 It is plain that no thinking man can be asked to accept 
 the Pentateuch as the composition of Moses without some 
 evidence to that effect. But evidence a thousand years after 
 date is no evidence at all, when the intervening period bears 
 unanimous witness in a different sense. By insisting that 
 the whole Pentateuch is one work of Moses and all of equal 
 date, the traditional view cuts off all possibility of proof that 
 its kernel is Mosaic. For it is certain that Israel, before the 
 Exile, did not know all the Pentateuch. Therefore, if the 
 Pentateuch is all one, they did not know any part of it. If 
 we are shut up to choose between a Mosaic authorship of the 
 whole five books and the opinion that the Pentateuch is a 
 mere forgery, the sceptics must gain their case. 
 
 It is useless to appeal to the doctrine of inspiration for 
 help in such a strait ; for all sound apologetic admits that the 
 proof that a book is credible must precede belief that it is 
 inspired. 
 
 But are we really shut up to choose between these 
 extreme alternatives ? The Pentateuch is known as the Law 
 of Moses in the age that begins with Ezra. What is the 
 sense which the Jews themselves, from the age of Ezra down- 
 wards, attach to this expression ? In one way they certainly 
 take a false and unhistorical sense out of the words. They 
 assume that the law of ordinances, or rather the law of works, 
 moral and ceremonial, was the principle of all Israel's religion. 
 They identify Mosaism with Pharisaism. That is certainly an 
 error, as the History and the Prophets prove. But, on the 
 other hand, the Jews are accustomed to use the word Mosaic 
 quite indifferently of the direct teaching of Moses, and of the 
 precepts drawn from Mosaic principles and adapted to later 
 needs. According to a well-known passage in the Talmud, 
 
 therefore, is part of the royal insignia, which is absurd. But the addition of 
 a single letter, nny^'H for nnyn, gives the excellent sense, " put on him the 
 crown and the bracelets." The crown and the bracelet appear together as the 
 royal insignia in 2 Sara. i. 10. This certain correction is due to Wellhausen. 
 
MOSAIC TOIIAH 313 
 
 even the Prophets and the Hagiographa were implicitly given 
 to Moses at Sinai. So far is this idea carried that the Torah 
 is often identified with the Decalogue, in which all other 
 parts of the Law are involved. Thus the words of Deut. v. 
 22, which refer to the Decalogue, are used as a proof that the 
 five books of Moses can never pass away.-^ The beginnings 
 of this way of thought are clearly seen in Ezra ix. 11, where 
 a law of the Pentateuch is cited as an ordinance of the 
 prophets. Mosaic law is not held to exclude post-Mosaic 
 developments. That the whole law is the Law of Moses does 
 not necessarily imply that every precept was developed in 
 detail in his days, but only that the distinctive law of Israel 
 owes to him the origin and principles in which all detailed 
 precepts are implicitly contained. The development into 
 explicitness of what Moses gave in principle is the work of 
 continuous divine teaching in connection with new historical 
 situations. 
 
 This way of looking at the law of Moses is not an inven- 
 tion of modern critics ; it actually existed among the Jews. I 
 do not say that they made good use of it ; on the contrary, 
 in the period of the Scribes, it led to a great overgrowth of 
 traditions, which almost buried the written word. But the 
 principle is older than its abuse, and it seems to offer a key 
 for the solution of the serious difficulties in which we are 
 involved by the apparent contradictions between the Penta- 
 teuch on the one hand and the historical books and the 
 Prophets on the other. 
 
 If the word Mosaic was sometimes understood as meaning 
 no more than Mosaic in principle, it is easy to see how the 
 fusion of priestly and prophetic Torah in our present Penta- 
 teuch may be called Mosaic, though many things in its 
 
 1 Berachoth Bab. 5, a (p. 234 in Schwab's French translation, Paris, 1871). 
 Megilla Jer., cited in Lecture VI. p. 187. Compare Weber, Syst. des altsynagog. 
 Theol. (Leipzig, 1880), p. 89 sq., and Dr. M. AVise in the Hebrew Review^ 
 vol. i. p. 12 sq. (Cincinnati, 1880). 
 
314 FUNCTION OF 
 
 system were unknown to the History and the Prophets before 
 the Exile, For Moses was priest as well as prophet, and both 
 priests and prophets referred the origin of their Torah to him. 
 In the age of the prophetic writings the two Torahs had fallen 
 apart. The prophets do not acknowledge the priestly ordin- 
 ances of their day as a part of Jehovah's commandments to 
 Israel. The priests, they say, have forgotten or perverted the 
 Torah. To reconcile the prophets and the priesthood, to 
 re-establish conformity between the practice of Israel's wor- 
 ship and the spiritual teachings of the prophets, was to return 
 to the standpoint of Moses, and bring back the Torah to its 
 original oneness. Whether this was done by bringing to 
 light a forgotten Mosaic book, or by recasting the traditional 
 and consuetudinary law in accordance with Mosaic prin- 
 ciples, is a question purely historical, which does not at all 
 affect the legitimacy of the work. 
 
 It is always for the interest of truth to discuss historical 
 questions by purely historical methods, without allowing 
 theological questions to come in till the historical analysis is 
 complete. This, indeed, is the chief reason why scholars 
 indifferent to the religious value of the Bible have often done 
 good service by their philological and historical studies. For 
 though no one can thoroughly understand the Bible without 
 spiritual sympathy, our spiritual sympathies are commonly 
 bound up with theological prejudices which have no real 
 basis in Scripture ; and it is a wholesome exercise to see how 
 the Bible history presents itself to men who approach the 
 Bible from an altogether different point of view. It is easier 
 to correct the errors of a rationalism with which we have no 
 sympathy, than to lay aside prejudices deeply interwoven 
 with our most cherished and truest convictions. 
 
 In strict method, then, we ought now to prosecute the 
 question of the origin of the Pentateuch by the ordinary 
 rules of historical inquiry ; and only when a result has been 
 
THE LAW 315 
 
 reached should we pause to consider the theological bearings 
 of what we have learned. But we have all been so much 
 accustomed to look at the subject from a dogmatical point 
 of view, that a few remarks at this stage on the theological 
 aspect of the problem may be useful in clearing the path of 
 critical investigation. 
 
 Christian theology is interested in the Law as a stage in 
 the dispensation of God's purpose of grace. As such it is 
 acknowledged by our Lord, who, though He came to super- 
 sede the Law, did so only by fulfilling it, or, more accurately, 
 by filling it up, and supplying in actual substance the good 
 things of which the Law presented only a shadow and 
 unsubstantial form. The Law, according to the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, was weak and unprofitable ; it carried nothing 
 to its goal, and must give way to a better hope, by which we 
 draw near to God (Heb. vii. 18, 19). The Law on this view 
 never actually supplied the religious needs of Israel ; it served 
 only to direct the religious attitude of the people, to prevent 
 them from turning aside into devious paths and looking for 
 God's help in ways that might tempt them to forget His 
 spiritual nature and fall back into heathenism. For this 
 purpose the Law presents an artificial system of sanctity, 
 radiating from the sanctuary and extending to all parts of 
 Israel's life. The type of religion maintained by such a 
 system is certainly inferior to the religion of the prophets, 
 which is a thing not of form but of spirit. But the religion 
 of the prophets could not become the type of national religion 
 until Jehovah's spirit rested on all His people, and the know- 
 ledge of Him dwelt in every heart. This was not the case 
 under the old dispensation. The time to which Jeremiah 
 and Isaiah xl.-lxvi., look forward, when the prophetic word 
 shall be as it were incarnate in a regenerate nation, did not 
 succeed the restoration from Babylon. On the contrary, the 
 old prophetic converse of Jehovah with His people flagged 
 
316 FUNCTION OF 
 
 and soon died out, and the word of Jehovah, which in old 
 days had been a present reality, became a memory of the past 
 and a hope for the future. It was under these circumstances 
 that the dispensation of the Law became a practical power in 
 Israel. It did not bring Israel into such direct converse with 
 Jehovah as prophecy had done. But for the mass of the 
 people it nevertheless formed a distinct step in advance ; for 
 it put an end to the anomalous state of things in which 
 practical heathenism had filled the state, and the prophets 
 preached to deaf ears. The legal ritual did not satisfy the 
 highest spiritual needs, but it practically extinguished idolatry. 
 It gave palpable expression to the spiritual nature of Jehovah, 
 and, around and within the ritual, prophetic truths gained a 
 hold of Israel such as they had never had before. The Book 
 of Psalms is the proof how much of the highest religious 
 truth, derived not from the Law but from the Prophets, dwelt 
 in the heart of the nation, and gave spiritual substance to the 
 barren forms of the ritual. 
 
 These facts, quite apart from any theory as to the age and 
 authorship of the Pentateuch, vindicate for the Law the posi- 
 tion which it holds in the teaching of Jesus and in Christian 
 theology. That the Law was a divine institution, that it 
 formed an actual part in the gracious scheme of guidance 
 which preserved the religion of Jehovah as a living power in 
 Israel till shadow became substance in the manifestation of 
 Christ, is no theory but an historical fact, which no criticism 
 as to the origin of the books of Moses can in the least degree 
 invalidate. On the other hand, the work of the Law, as we 
 have now viewed it, was essentially subsidiary. As S. Paul 
 puts it in Rom. v. 20, the Law came in from the side (ro'/Aos 
 6e TrapeLo-rjXOev). It did not lie in the right line of direct 
 development, which, as the Epistle to the Hebrews points out, 
 leads straight from Jeremiah's conception of the New Covenant 
 to the fulfilment in Christ. Once more we are thrown back 
 
LECT. XI THE LAW 317 
 
 on S. Paul's explanation. The Law was but a pedagogue, a 
 servant to accompany a schoolboy in the streets, and lead him 
 to the appointed meeting with his true teacher. 
 
 This explanation of the function of the Law is that of the 
 New Testament, and it fits in with all the historical facts that 
 we have had before us. But current theology, instead of 
 recognising the historical proof of the divine purpose of the 
 Law, is inclined to stake everything on the Mosaic authorship 
 of the whole system. If the Law is not written by Moses, it 
 cannot be part of the record of revelation. But if it could be 
 proved that Moses wrote the Law, what would that add to 
 the proof that its origin is from God ? It is not true as a 
 matter of history that Pentateuch criticism is the source of 
 doubts as to the right of the Law to be regarded as a divine 
 dispensation. The older sceptics, who believed that Moses 
 wrote the Pentateuch, attacked the divine legation of Moses 
 with many arguments which criticism has deprived of all 
 force. You cannot prove a book to be God's word by showing 
 that it is of a certain age. The proof of God's word is that 
 it does His work in the world, and carries on His truth 
 towards the final revelation in Christ Jesus. This proof the 
 Pentateuch can adduce, but only for the time subsequent to 
 Ezra. In reality, to insist that the whole Law is the work of 
 Moses is to interpose a most serious difficulty in the way of 
 its recognition as a divine dispensation. Before the Exile the 
 law of ceremonies was not an effectual means to prevent 
 defection in Israel, and Jehovah Himself never dispensed His 
 grace according to its provisions. Is it possible that He laid 
 down in the wilderness, with sanctions the most solemn, and 
 with a precision which admitted no exception, an order of 
 worship and ritual which has no further part in Israel's 
 history for well-nigh a thousand years ? 
 
 But I do not urge this point. I do not desire to raise 
 difficulties against the common view, but to show that the 
 
318 THE THREE GREAT lect. xi 
 
 valid and sufficient proof that the Law has a legitimate place 
 in the record of Old Testament revelation, and that history 
 assigns to it the same place as it claims in Christian theology, 
 is derived from a quarter altogether independent of the 
 critical question as to the authorship and composition of the 
 Pentateuch. This being premised, we can turn with more 
 composure to inquire what the Pentateuch itself teaches as to 
 its composition and date. 
 
 The Pentateuch, as we have it, is not a formal law-book, 
 but a history beginning with the Creation and running on 
 continuously into the Book of Joshua. The Law, or rather 
 several distinct legal collections, are inserted in the historical 
 context. Confining our attention to the main elements, we 
 can readily distinguish three principal groups of laws or 
 ritual ordinances in addition to the Ten Commandments. 
 
 L The collection Exod. xxi.-xxiii. This is an independent 
 body of laws, with a title, " These are the judgments which 
 thou shalt set before them," and contains a very simple system 
 of civil and religious polity, adequate to the wants of a 
 primitive agricultural people. I shall call this the First 
 Legislation. In its religious precepts it presents a close 
 parallel to the short collection of ordinances in Exod. xxxiv. 
 11-26, but the latter contains no social or civil statutes. 
 
 II. The Law of Deuteronomy. The Book of Deuteronomy 
 contains a good deal of matter rather hortatory than legisla- 
 tive. The Deuteronomic code proper begins at chap, xii., 
 with the title, " These are the statutes and judgments which 
 ye shall observe to do," etc. ; and closes with the subscription 
 (Deut. xxvi. 16 sq.), "This day Jehovah thy God hath com- 
 manded thee to do these statutes and judgments," etc. The 
 Deuteronomic Code, as we may call Deut. xii.-xxvi., is not a 
 mere supplement to the First Legislation. It is an inde- 
 pendent reproduction of its substance, sometimes merely 
 repeating the older laws, but at other times extending or 
 
LECT. XI GROUPS OF LAWS 319 
 
 modifying them. It covers the whole ground of the old law, 
 except one verse of ritual precept (Exod. xxiii. 18), the law 
 of treason (Exod. xxii. 28), and the details as to compensa- 
 tions to be paid for various injuries. The Deuteronomic Code 
 presupposes a regular establishment of civil judges (Deut. xvi. 
 18), and the details of compensation in civil suits might 
 naturally be left in their hands.^ 
 
 III. Quite distinct from both these codes is the Levitical 
 Legislation, or, as it is often called, the Priests' Code. (The 
 
 ^ It is of some importance to realise how completely Deuteronomy covers 
 the same ground with the First Legislation. The following table exhibits 
 the facts of the case : — 
 
 Exod. xxi. 1-11 (Hebrew slaves)— Deut. xv. 12-18. 
 ,, ,, 12-14 (Murder and asylum) — Deut. xix. 1-13. 
 „ ,, 15, 17 (Offences against parents) — Deut. xxi. 18-21. 
 „ „ 16 (Manstealing) — Deut. xxiv. 7. 
 
 „ „ 18-xxii. 15. Compensations to be paid for various injuries. This section is 
 not repeated in Deuteronomy, except as regards the law of retaliation, 
 Exod. xxi. 23-25, which in Deut. xix. 16-21 is applied to false witnesses. 
 Exod. xxii. 16, 17 (Seduction)— Deut. xxii. 28, 29. 
 „ ,, 18 (Witch)— Deut. xviii. 10-12. 
 „ ,, 19 — Deut. xxvii. 21. 
 
 „ „ 20 (Worship of other gods)— Deut. xvii. 2-7. 
 
 „ ,, 21-24 (Humanity to stranger, widow, and orphan) — Deut. xxiv. 17-22. 
 „ „ 25 (Usury)— Deut. xxiii. 19. 
 „ „ 26, 27 (Pledge of raiment)— Deut. xxiv. 10-13. 
 „ „ 28 (Treason) — Not in Deuteronomy. 
 
 „ „ 29, 30 (First fruits and firstlings)— Deut. xxvi. 1-11, xv. 19-23. 
 „ „ 31 (Unclean food) — Deut. xiv. 2-21. The particular precept of Exodus occupies 
 only ver. 21 ; but the principle of avoiding food inconsistent with lioliiiess 
 is expanded. 
 Exod. xxiii. 1 (False witness)— Deut. xix. 16-21. 
 2, 3, ■» 
 " 6 7 8 1 (J*^^* judgment)— Deut. xvi. 18-20. 
 
 ,, ,, 4, 5 (Animals strayed or fallen) — Deut. xxii. 1-4. 
 
 ,, ,, 9 (repetition of xxii. 21) — Deut. xxiv. 17-18. 
 
 „ „ 10-11— (Sabbatical year)— Deut. xv. 1-11. 
 
 „ „ 12 (Sabbath as a provision of humanity) — Deut. v. 14, 15. [Not in the Code 
 
 proper.] 
 
 „ ,, 13 (Names of other gods) — Deut. vi. 13. 
 
 „ ,, 14-17 (Annual feasts)— Deut. xvi. 1-17. 
 
 ,, ,, 18 (Leaven in sacrifice)— Not in Deuteronomy. 
 
 „ „ 19 (First fruits)— Deut. xxvi. 2-10. 
 
 „ ,, 19 b (Kid in mother's milk) — Deut. xiv. 21. 
 
 The parallel becomes still more complete when we observe that to the 
 Code of Deuteronomy is prefixed an introduction, iv. 44-xi. 32, containing 
 the Ten Commandments, and so answering to Exod. xx. A good table, follow- 
 ing the order of Deuteronomy, and giving also the parallels from Exod. xxxiv. 
 and from the priestly Code or Levitical Legislation, will be found in Driver, 
 Introduction, p. 68 sqq. 
 
320 LAWS IN LECT. XI 
 
 latter term, however, as generally used, includes those parts 
 of the Pentateuchal -history to which a common origin with 
 the Levitical Legislation is ascribed by critics.) The Levitical 
 ordinances, including directions for the equipment of the 
 sanctuary and priesthood, sacrificial laws, and the whole 
 system of threefold sanctity in priests, Levites, and people, 
 are scattered through several parts of Exodus and the Books 
 of Leviticus and Numbers. They do not form a compact 
 code ; but, as a whole, they are clearly marked off from both 
 the other legislations, and might be removed from the Penta- 
 teuch without making the rest unintelligible. The First 
 Legislation and the Code of Deuteronomy take the land of 
 Canaan as their basis. They give directions for the life of 
 Jehovah's people in the land He gives them. The Levitical 
 Legislation starts from the sanctuary and the priesthood. Its 
 object is to develop the theory of a religious life which has 
 its centre in the sanctuary, and is ruled by principles of 
 holiness radiating forth from Jehovah's dwelling-place. The 
 first two Legislations deal with Israel as a nation; in the 
 third Israel is a church, and as such is habitually addressed 
 as a "congregation" Qedali), a word characteristic of the 
 Priests' Code. 
 
 These three bodies of law are, in a certain sense, inde- 
 pendent of the historical narrative of the Pentateuch in 
 which they now occur. For the first two Legislations this 
 is quite plain. They are formal codes which may very well 
 have existed as separate law-books before they were taken up 
 into the extant history. The Levitical Legislation seems at 
 first sight to stand on a different footing. Individual portions 
 of it, such as the chapters at the beginning and end of Levi- 
 ticus, have a purely legal form ; but a great part of the 
 ordinances of law or ritual takes the shape of narrative. 
 Thus, the law for the consecration of priests is given in a 
 narrative of the consecration of Aaron and his sons. The 
 
NARRATIVE FORM 321 
 
 form is historical, but the essential object is legal, the 
 ceremonies observed at Aaron's consecration coustitutin": 
 an authoritative precedent for future ages. There is nothing 
 surprising in this. Among the Arabs, to this day, traditional 
 precedents are the essence of law, and the Cadi of the Arabs 
 is he who has inherited a knowledge of them. Among early 
 nations precedent is particularly regarded in matters of ritual ; 
 and the oral Torah of the priests doubtless consisted, in great 
 measure, of case law. But law of this kind is still essentially 
 law, not history. It is preserved, not as a record of the past, 
 but as a guide for the present and the future. The Penta- 
 teuch itself shows clearly that this law in historical form 
 is not an integral part of the continuous history of Israel's 
 movements in the wilderness, but a separate thing. For in 
 Exodus xxxiii. 7, which is non-Levitical, we read that Moses 
 took the tabernacle and pitched it outside the camp, and 
 called it the tent of meeting. But the Levitical account of 
 the setting up of the tabernacle, which is accompanied with 
 precise details as to the arrangements of the sanctuary, so as 
 to furnish a complete pattern for the ordering of the sacred 
 furniture in future ages, does not occur till chap. xl. (comp. 
 Num. ix. 15). Again, in Numbers x. we have first the Levi- 
 tical account of the fixed order of march of the Israelites from 
 Sinai with the ark in the midst of the host (verses 11-28), and 
 immediately afterwards the historical statement that when 
 the Israelites left Sinai the ark was not in their midst but 
 went before them a distance of three days' journey (verses 33- 
 36).-^ It is plain that though the formal order of march with 
 
 ^ According to Exod. xxxiii. 7, Num. x. 33, the sanctuary is outside tlie 
 camp and at some considerable distance from it, both when the people are at 
 rest and when they are on the march. That the ark precedes the host is 
 implied in Exod. xxiii. 20, xxxii. 34 ; Deut. i. 33. The same order of march 
 is found in Joshua iii. 3, 4, where the distance between the ark and the host 
 is 2000 cubits, and the reason of this arrangement, as in Num. I. c, is that 
 the ark is Israel's guide. (Comp. Isa. Ixiii. 11 sq.) That the sanctuary 
 stood outside the camp is implied also in Num. xi. 24 sq., xii. 4. This 
 
 21 
 
322 LAWS IN LECT. XI 
 
 the ark in the centre, which the author sets forth as a standing 
 pattern, is here described in the historical guise of a record of 
 the departure of Israel from Sinai, the actual order of march 
 on that occasion was different. The same author cannot have 
 written both accounts. One is a law in narrative form ; the 
 other is actual history. These examples are forcible enough, 
 but they form only a fragment of a great chain of evidence 
 which critics have collected. 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 leav- 
 ing untouched the essentially historical part of the Pentateuch, 
 all that has for its direct aim to tell us what befell the Israelites 
 in the wilderness, and not what precedents the wilderness 
 offered for subsequent ritual observances. The hand that 
 penned the Levitical legislation can be traced even in the Book 
 of Genesis, for the plan of exhibiting the laws of Israel as far 
 as possible in the form of precedents made it necessary to go 
 back to Abraham for the institution of circumcision (Gen. 
 xvii.), to ISToah for the so-called Noachic ordinances (Gen. ix. 
 1-1 7), and to the Creation itself for the law of the Sabbath 
 (Gen. ii. 1-3). Accordingly the Priests' Code takes formally 
 the shape of a continuous history of divine institution from 
 the Creation downwards. Of course this continuity could only 
 be attained by introducing a good deal of matter that has no 
 direct legal bearing ; but the legal interest always predomi- 
 
 corresponds with the usage of the early sanctuaries in Canaan, which stood on 
 high points outside the cities (1 Sam. ix. 14,25). So the Temple at Jerusalem 
 originally stood outside the city of David, which occupied the lower slope of 
 the Temple hill (comp. Enc. Brit., 9th ed., articles Jerusalem and Temple). 
 But, as the city grew, ordinary buildings encroached on the Temple plateau 
 (Ezek. xliii. 8). This appears to Ezekiel to be derogatory to the sanctity of 
 the house (comp. Deut. xxiii. 14), and is the reason for the ordinance set forth 
 in symbolic form in Ezek. xlv. 1 sq., xlviii., where the sanctuary stands in 
 the middle of Israel, but isolated, the priests and the Levites lodging between 
 it and the laity, as in the Levitical law, Num. i. -iii. Here, as in other cases, 
 the Levitical law appears as the latest stage of the historical development. 
 
NARRATIVE FORM 323 
 
 nates, and those parts of the history which throw no light on 
 the ordinances of the Law are cut as short as possible and 
 often are reduced to mere chronological and genealogical 
 tables. As the Pentateuch now stands, this quasi-history, in 
 which the narrative of events is strictly subordinate to a legal 
 purpose, and the real history, written for its own sake, 
 are intermingled, not only in the same book, but often in the 
 same chapter. But originally they were quite distinct.'^ 
 
 The Pentateuch, then, is a history incorporating at least 
 three bodies of law. The history does not profess to be 
 written by Moses, but only notes from time to time that he 
 wrote down certain special things (Exod. xvii. 14, xxiv. 4, 
 xxxiv. 27 ; Num. xxxiii. 2 ; Deut. xxxi. 9, 22, 24). These 
 notices of what Moses himself wrote are so far from proving 
 him the author of the whole Pentateuch that they rather 
 point in the opposite direction. "What he wrote is dis- 
 
 ^ Of the immense literature dealing with the linguistic and other marks 
 by which the Levitical document, or Priests' Code, may be separated out, it is 
 enough to refer particularly to Noldeke, Untersuchungeii ziir Kritik dcs A. T., 
 Kiel, 1S69 ; Wellhausen, Composition dcs Hexateuchs, in the Jahrh.f. D. T., 
 1876, p. 392 sq., p. 531 sq. ; 1877, p. 407 sq. (reprinted in his Skizzen, etc., Hft. 
 ii., 1885, and again in Comp. des Hex. und der histor. Biicher, 1889), and 
 many important articles by Kuenen in the Theologisch Tijdschrift. Kuenen's 
 results are summed up in the second edition of his Onderzoek, vol. i. 1 (of 
 which there is an English translation). Tlie best account of the matter by an 
 English scholar is that in Driver's Introduction. For the Book of Genesis 
 the contents of the Priestly Code (generally referred to as P) are most con- 
 veniently exhibited (in a German translation) in Kautzsch and Socin's Genesis 
 ('2d ed., 1891), where the ancient narratives incorporated in the Pentateuch 
 are all printed in different types. In Genesis the separation of P can be 
 effected with great precision, and there are very few verses about which critics 
 of every school are not agreed. For P's contributions to the other parts of 
 the Pentateuch the reader may consult the tables in Driver's Introduction. 
 The chief passages of legal importance are Exod. xii. 1-20, 43-51 ; xiii. 1, 2 ; 
 XXV. 1-xxxi. 17 ; xxxv.-xl. ; the Book of Leviticus as a whole (but here chapters 
 xvii.-xxvi., the so-called Law of Holiness, form a separate section, akin to 
 the mass of the Priests' Code, but with certain peculiarities) ; Num. i. 1-x. 
 28 ; XV. ; part of xvi. ; xvii.-xix. ; xxv. 6-xxxi. 54 ; xxxiv. -xxxvi. For the 
 narrative sections of P see Lecture XIII. 
 
 It ought, however, to be observed that the Levitical laws, though all of 
 one general type in substance, and even in language, do not appear to be all 
 
324 THE PENTATEUCH WAS lect. xi 
 
 tinguished 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 Csesar 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 would write such 
 a verse as Numbers xii. 3, " The man Moses was very meek 
 above all men living." 
 
 The idea that Moses is author of the whole Pentateuch, 
 except the last chapter of Deuteronomy, is derived from the 
 old Jewish theory, which we found in Josephus (swpra, p. 
 164), that every leader of Israel wrote down by Divine 
 authority the events of his own time, so that the sacred 
 history is like a day-book constantly written up to date. No 
 part of the Bible corresponds to this description, and the 
 Pentateuch as little as any. For example, the last chapter 
 
 of one date and by one hand. A good deal of valuable work has been done in 
 the way of separating the older and younger elements of the Levitical legisla- 
 tion ; but here, as will readily be conceived, the temptation to push conjecture 
 beyond the limits of possible verification is very great. On the other hand, 
 the broad lines of separation between this legislation and the other codes are 
 very clearly marked by the diversity of standpoint, style, and language. 
 
 A good example of the fundamental difference in legal style between the 
 Levitical laws and the Deuteronomic Code is found in Num. xxxv. compared 
 with Dent. xix. In Numbers, the technical expression city of refuge is 
 repeated at every turn. In Deuteronomy the word refuge does not occur, 
 and the cities are always described by a periphrasis. In Numbers the phrase 
 for "accidentally" is Msh'gaga, in Deut. bib'li cldat. The judges in the one 
 are "the congregation," in the other "the elders of his citj'." The verb for 
 hate is ditierent. The one account says again and again "to kill au)^ person," 
 the other " to kill his neighbour." The detailed description of the difference 
 between murder and accidental homicide is entirely diverse in language and 
 detail. The structure of the sentences is distinct, and in addition to all this 
 there is a substantial dilTerence in the laws themselves, inasmuch as Deuter- 
 onomy says nothing about remaining in the city of refuge till the death of 
 the high priest. On a rough calculation, omitting auxiliary verbs, particles, 
 etc., Num. xxxv. 11-34 contains 19 nouns and verbs which also occur in 
 Deut. xix. 2-13, and 45 which do not occur in the parallel passage ; while the 
 law, as given in Deuteronomy, has 50 such words not in the law of Numbers, 
 
WEITTEN IN CANAAN 325 
 
 of Deuteronomy, wliich on the common theory is a note 
 added by Joshua to the work in which Moses had carried 
 down the history till just before his death, cannot really have 
 been written till after Joshua was dead and gone. For it 
 speaks of the city Dan. Now Dan is the new name of Laish, 
 which that town received after the conquest of the Danites 
 in the age of the Judges, when Moses's grandson became 
 priest of their idolatrous sanctuary. But if the last chapter 
 of Deuteronomy is not contemporary history, what is the 
 evidence that the rest of that book is so ? There is not an 
 atom of proof that the hand which wrote the last chapter had 
 no share in the rest of the Pentateuch. 
 
 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. Genesis xxxvi. 31 
 sq. gives a list of kings who reigned in Edom " before there 
 reigned a king of the children of Israel." Tliis 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 Deut. 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 forthcoming 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 evidence that it is in a different 
 style or breaks the context. And as soon as we come to this 
 point we must apply the method consistently, and let internal 
 evidence tell its whole story. That, as we shall soon see, is 
 a good deal more than those who raise this potent spirit are 
 willing to hear. 
 
326 THE PENTATEUCH WAS lect. xi 
 
 The proof that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan 
 does not turn on mere isolated texts which can be separated 
 from the context. It lies equally in usages of language that 
 cannot be due to an editor. There has been a great contro- 
 versy about Deut. 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 such an elastic 
 language that the phrase can equally mean "on this side 
 Jordan," as the English Version has it. The point is practi- 
 cally 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 " seaward," and for southward " towards the N^geb." The 
 word IST^geb, 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 within Palestine. Yet they are used in the 
 Pentateuch, not only in the narrative but in the Sinaitic 
 ordinance for the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exod. xxvii.). 
 But at Mount Sinai the sea did not lie to the west, and the 
 N^geb was to the north. Moses could no more call the south 
 side the Negeb side of the tabernacle than a Glasgow man 
 could say that the sun set over Edinburgh. The answer at- 
 tempted 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 ; 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. Again, the Pentateuch displays an 
 exact topographical knowledge of Palestine, but by no means 
 
LECT. XI WRITTEN IN CANAAN 327 
 
 SO exact a knowledge of the wilderness of the wandering. 
 The narrative has the names of the places famous in the 
 forty years' wandering ; but for Canaan it gives local details, 
 and describes them with exactitude as they were in later 
 times (e.g. Gen. xii. 8, xxxiii. 18, xxxv. 19, 20). Accordingly, 
 the patriarchal sites can still be set down on the map with 
 definiteness ; but geographers are unable to assign with 
 certainty the site of Mount Sinai, because the narrative has 
 none of that topographical colour which the story of an eye- 
 witness is sure to possess. Once more, the Pentateuch cites 
 as authorities poetical records which are not earlier than the 
 time of Moses. One of these records is a book, the Book of 
 the Wars of Jehovah (Num. xxi. 14) ; did Moses, writing 
 contemporary history, find and cite a book already current, 
 containing poetry on the wars of Jehovah and His people, 
 which began in his own times ? Another poetical authority 
 cited is a poem circulating among the MosheUiii or reciters of 
 sarcastic verses (Num. xxi. 27 si^.). It refers to the victory 
 over Sihon, which took place at the very end of the forty 
 years' wandering. If Moses wrote the Pentateuch, what oc- 
 casion could he have to authenticate his narrative by reference 
 to these traditional depositaries of ancient poetry ? 
 
 The Pentateuch, then, was not written in the wilderness ; 
 but moreover it is not, even in its narrative parts, a single 
 continuous work, but a combination of several narratives 
 originally independent. The first key to the complex struc- 
 ture of the history was found in the use of the names of God 
 in Genesis. Some parts of Genesis habitually speak of 
 Jehovah, others as regularly use the word Elohim ; and as 
 early as 1753 the French physician Astruc showed that if 
 the text of Genesis be divided into two columns, all the 
 Elohim passages standing on one side, and the Jehovah 
 passages on the other, we get two parallel narratives which 
 are still practically independent. This of course was no 
 
328 COMPOUND NARRATIVES lect. xi 
 
 more than a hint for further investigation. In reality there 
 are two independent documents in Genesis which use Elohira, 
 the second and younger of these being in fact the historical 
 introduction to the Levitical Legislation, or Priests' Code. A 
 third document uses Jehovah, and the process by which the 
 three were finally interwoven into one book is somewhat 
 difficult to follow. Astruc supposed that these documents 
 were all older than Moses, and that he was the final editor. 
 But later critics have shown that the same documents can be 
 traced through the whole Pentateuch, and even to the end of 
 the Book of Joshua. To prove this in detail would occupy 
 several lectures. I can only give one or two illustrations to 
 prove that these results are not imaginary. 
 
 A modern writer, making a history with the aid of older 
 records, masters their contents and then writes a wholly new 
 book. That is not the way of Eastern historians. If we take 
 up the great Arabic historians we often find passages occur- 
 ring almost word for word in each. All use directly or in- 
 directly the same sources, and copy these sources verbally as 
 far as is consistent with the scope and scale of their several 
 works. Thus a comparatively modern book has often the 
 freshness and full colour of a contemporary narrative, and 
 we can still separate out the old sources from their modern 
 setting. So it is in the Bible, as we have already seen in the 
 case of the Books of Kings. It is this way of writing that 
 makes the Bible history so vivid and interesting, in spite of 
 its extraordinary brevity in comparison with the vast periods 
 of time that it covers. Think only what a mass of veracious 
 detail we were able to gather in Lecture IX. for the state of 
 ritual in ancient Israel. 'No compend on the same scale 
 written on modern principles could have preserved so much 
 of the genuine life of antique times. It stands to reason that 
 the Pentateuch should exhibit the same features ; and the 
 superciliousness with which traditionalists declare the labours 
 
LECT. XI IN THE PENTATEUCH 329 
 
 of the critics to be visionary is merely the contempt of ignor- 
 ance, which has never handled old Eastern histories, and judges 
 everything from a Western and modern standpoint. 
 
 Every one can see that, when we have this general key to 
 the method of ancient Eastern historians, it is quite a practical 
 undertaking to try to separate the sources from which a 
 Hebrew author worked. It will not always be possible to 
 carry the analysis out fully ; but it is no hopeless task to 
 distribute the main masses of the story between the several 
 authors whose books he used. Marked peculiarities of 
 language, of which the use of the names of God is the most 
 celebrated but not the most conclusive, are a great help ; and 
 along with these a multitude of other indications come in, as 
 the analysis proceeds. 
 
 A very clear case is the account of the Flood. As it now 
 stands the narrative has the most singular repetitions, and 
 things come in in the strangest order. But as soon as we 
 separate the Jehovah and Elohim documents all is clear. 
 The first narrative tells that Jehovah saw the wickedness of 
 men and determined to destroy them. But Noah found grace 
 in His eyes, and was called to enter the ark with a pair of all 
 unclean beasts, and clean beasts and fowls by sevens ; for, he 
 is told, after seven days a forty days' rain will ensue and 
 destroy all life. Noah obeys the command, the seven days 
 elapse, and the rain follows as predicted, floating the ark but 
 destroying all outside of it. Then the rain ceases and the 
 waters sink. Noah opens the window of the ark and sends 
 out the raven, which flies to and fro till the earth dries. The 
 dove is also sent forth, but soon returns to the ark. Seven 
 days later the same messenger is sent forth, and returns in the 
 evening with a fresh twig of olive. Another week passes, and 
 then the dove, sent out for the third time, does not return. 
 Thereupon Noah removes the covering of the ark, finds the 
 ground dry, builds an altar and does sacrifice, receiving the 
 
330 DOUBLE NARRATIVE lect. xi 
 
 promise that the flood shall not again recur and disturb the 
 course of the seasons. The parallel Elohistic narrative (which 
 in this case belongs to the younger Elohistic document, i.e. to 
 the narrative framework of the Priests' Code) is equally com- 
 plete. It also relates God's anger with mankind. Noah 
 receives orders to build the ark and take in the animals in 
 pairs (there is no mention of the sevens of clean beasts). 
 The flood begins when Noah is six hundred years old. The 
 fountains of the great deep are broken up, and the windows 
 of heaven opened ; but on the same day Noah, his family, 
 and the pairs of animals enter the ark. The waters rise till 
 they cover the hills, and swell for a hundred and fifty days, 
 when they are assuaged by a great wind, and the fountains of 
 the deep and the windows of heaven are closed. The waters 
 now begin to fall, and just five months after the flood com- 
 menced the ark rests on a point in the mountains of Ararat. 
 The waters still continue to decrease for two months and a 
 half, till the tops of the mountains are seen. In other three 
 months the face of the earth was freed of water, but it was 
 not till the lapse of a full solar year that Noah was permitted 
 to leave the ark, when he received God's blessing, the so-called 
 Noachic ordinances, and the sign of the bow. These two 
 accounts are plainly independent. It is impossible that the 
 work of one author could so divide itself into two complete 
 narratives, and have for each a different name of God.-^ 
 
 ^ The following table will make the analysis more clear : — 
 Jehovist, vi. 5-8 vii. 1-5 vii. 7-10 vii. 12 
 
 Priestly Elohist, vi. 9-22 vii. 6 
 
 vii. 
 
 11 
 
 J. vii. 16 (last clause), 17 
 
 
 vii. 22, 23 
 
 P. vii. 13-16 
 
 vii. 18-21 
 
 
 except the last clause. 
 
 
 
 J. viii. 2 &, 3 a 
 
 
 viii. 6-12 
 
 P. vii. 24, viii. 1, 2 a 
 
 viii. 3 &-5 
 
 
 J. viii. 13 6 
 
 viii, 20-22 
 
 
 viii. 13 a viii. 14-19 ix. 1-17 
 
OF THE FLOOD 331 
 
 The proof that the same variety of hands runs through to 
 the end of the Book of Joshua would carry us too far, and is 
 the less necessary because the fact will hardly be denied by 
 those who admit the existence of separate sources in the 
 Pentateuch at all. For those who cannot follow the details 
 of the original text it is more profitable to concentrate atten- 
 tion on the legal parts of the Pentateuch. What has been 
 said is enough to show that the Pentateuch is a much more 
 complex book than appears at first sight, and that in its 
 present form it was written after the time of Moses, nay, after 
 that of Joshua. It is now no longer permissible to insist that 
 the reference to the kingship of Israel over Edom and similar 
 things are necessarily isolated phenomena. We cannot venture 
 to assert that the composition of the Pentateuch out of older 
 sources of various date took place before the time of the kings. 
 How much of it is early, how much comparatively late, must 
 be determined by a wider inquiry, and for this the laws give 
 the best starting-point. 
 
 The post-Mosaic date of the narrative does not in itself 
 prove that the laws were not all written by Moses. Two of 
 our three legislative Corpora are independent of the history. 
 The third is at least independent of the main thread of the 
 narrative, and deals with history only for legal and ritual 
 purposes. But does the Pentateuch represent Moses as hav- 
 ing written the legal codes which it embodies ? So far as the 
 ritual of the Levitical legislation is concerned, we can answer 
 this question at once with a decisive negative. It is nowhere 
 said that Moses wrote down the description of the tabernacle 
 and its ordinances, or the law of sacrifice. And in many 
 
 In one or two places some slight modifications seem to have been made on 
 the narrative of J. when the two accounts were combined. Thus in vii. 9 
 the distinction proper to J. between the sevens of clean beasts and the pairs 
 of beasts not clean has disappeared. In the same verse the Hebrew text has 
 God (Elohim) where we expect Jehovah, but Jehovah was certainly the 
 original reading, and has been preserved in the Samaritan text, in the Targum 
 and Vulgate, and in some MSS. of the Septuagint. 
 
332 WHAT LAWS WERE lect. xi 
 
 places the laws of this legislation are expressly set forth as 
 oral. Moses is commanded to speak to Aaron or to the 
 Israelites, as the case may be, and communicate to them 
 God's will. This fact is significant when we remember that 
 the Torali of the priests referred to by the prophets is plainly 
 oral instruction. There is nothing in the Pentateuch that 
 does not confirm the prior probability that ritual law was 
 long an affair of practice and tradition, resting on knowledge 
 that belonged to the priestly guild. But the priests, accord- 
 ing to Hosea, forgot the Torah, and we have seen that neither 
 at Sliiloh nor in Jerusalem did the ritual law exist in its 
 present form, or even its present theory. Thus we are re- 
 duced to this alternative : — either the ritual law was written 
 down by the priests immediately after Moses gave it to them, 
 or at least in the first years 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 a new race arose which accepted the rebukes of 
 the prophets. The former hypothesis implies that a book 
 specially meant for the priests, and kept in their custody, 
 survived many centuries of total neglect and frequent re- 
 movals of the sanctuary, and that too at a time when books 
 were written in such a way that damp soon made them 
 illegible. Yet the text of this book, w^hich the priests had 
 forgotten, is much more perfect than that of the Psalms or 
 the Books of Samuel. These are grave difficulties ; and they 
 must become decisive when we show that an earlier code, 
 contradicting the Levitical legislation in important points, was 
 actually current in ancient times as the divine law of Israel. 
 With regard to the other two bodies of law the case is 
 different. In Exod. xxiv. 4-7 we are told that Moses " wrote 
 all the words of Jehovah " which had been communicated to 
 him on Mount Sinai, and pledged the people to obey them in 
 a formal covenant. The w^riting to which the people were 
 
LECT. XI WRITTEN BY MOSES 333 
 
 thus pledged is called in verse 7 the Book of the Covenant. 
 There has been some dispute as to what this Book of the 
 Covenant contained, and it has been argued that a distinction 
 must be drawn between " the words of Jehovah " in verse 4 
 and " the judgments " in verse 3, and that the former alone 
 were written in the Book of the Covenant. And since " the 
 judgments " appear, on comparison of xxi. 1, to be identical 
 with the code of Exod. xxi.-xxiii., it has been inferred that the 
 Book of the Covenant consisted only of the Ten Command- 
 ments (Exod. XX, 2-17). This view certainly appears somewhat 
 strained, for the distinction between " words " and "judg- 
 ments" is rather imported into the passage than naturally 
 conveyed by it. But on the other hand, the identification of 
 the Book of the Covenant with the Decalogue is in accordance 
 with Exod. xxxiv. 27, 28, where the words of Jehovah's 
 covenant with Israel, which Moses was ordered to write on 
 the tables of stone, are expressly called the Ten Words. So 
 also in Deut. v. 2-22 the Ten Commandments are evidently 
 set forth as forming the whole compass of the covenant at 
 Horeb (comp. Deut. ix. 9, 15 ; 1 Kings viii. 9). These argu- 
 ments appear to be cogent, if we may take it for granted that 
 all the accounts of the covenant at Sinai are in 'perfect accord. 
 It will then appear that at Sinai no other laws were com- 
 mitted to writing than the Ten Commandments. Nor is the 
 lawgiver recorded to have written down any further ordin- 
 ances during the wilderness wanderings. But in Deut. xxxi. 
 9, 24 the account of Moses's last address to the people in the 
 plains of Moab is followed by the statement that he wrote 
 " the words of this law " in a book, which he deposited with 
 the Levites to be preserved beside the ark. In the context, 
 the expression " this law " can only mean the law of Deuter- 
 onomy, which is often so called in the earlier chapters of the 
 book ; it cannot possibly mean the whole Pentateuch. Thus, 
 on the assumption that there is no discrepancy or uncertainty 
 
334 WHAT LAWS WEEE lect. xi 
 
 in the various notices contained in different parts of the 
 Pentateuch, we may conclude that, in addition to the Ten 
 Commandments written at Sinai, a larger body of laws, 
 corresponding to the Deuteronomic code, was committed to 
 writing by Moses just before his death. Even so it would 
 not be safe to assume that the whole law of Deuteronomy, as 
 it is contained in chaps, xii.-xxvi., has reached us in the 
 precise words that Moses wrote, without modification or 
 addition. We have learned in earlier parts of these Lectures 
 that additions were made in the course of ages to many 
 portions of the Bible. But of all books a code of laws, 
 which is useless if it is not kept up to date, is most likely 
 to receive additions, or even to be entirely recast to meet a 
 change in social conditions ; nor would the consideration 
 that the ordinances of Moses had divine authority prevent 
 this from taking place in a nation that was continually 
 guided by the priestly oracle and the prophetic word, and 
 in which every decision of the judges of the sacred court was 
 accepted as a decision of God (stipra, p. 299). The testimony 
 of Deut. xxxi. cannot therefore dispense us from inquiry 
 whether the Deuteronomic code is the very writing of Moses, 
 or a more modern expansion and development of the law 
 given on the plains of Moab, which retains the name of 
 Moses, not because he completed the legislative system, but 
 because he laid its foundations. 
 
 All this may be fairly urged even on tlie assumption that 
 the narrative parts of the Pentateuch bear a single unam- 
 biguous testimony to the nature and extent of Moses's written 
 laws. But a candid examination compels us to admit that, 
 while all parts of the Pentateuch are unanimous in their 
 witness to Moses as the founder of the Law, the details of 
 the law-giving are involved in great obscurity, and were 
 evidently represented in different ways by the various 
 narrators from whose accounts the Pentateuch is made up. 
 
LECT. XI WRITTEN BY MOSES 335 
 
 In short, we here find on a larger scale the same phenomenon 
 that we have already met with in the story of the Flood. The 
 extant narrative is a twisted strand combined out of several 
 narratives diverse the one from the other not only in form 
 but in substance. 
 
 First of all let us note that the assumption, on which we 
 have hitherto proceeded, that Exod. xxiv. 3-7, Exod. xxxiv. 
 27, 28, and Deut. v. 2-22, present a consistent account of the 
 Covenant at Sinai will not bear closer examination. The 
 account in Deuteronomy is unambiguous ; the covenant 
 consisted only of the Ten Commandments (in Hebrew the 
 Ten Words), and nothing more was written down till Moses 
 was about to die. It is true that Deuteronomy iv. 14, v. 31 
 give us to understand that Moses received a further body of 
 laws at Horeb ; but these, as we are expressly told, were for 
 use in Canaan (iv. 14), and therefore they were not published 
 till the people stood on the borders of the promised land 
 (iv. 1 sqg[.\ Exodus xxxiv. agrees with this in so far as it 
 identifies the words of the Covenant with the Ten Words 
 written on the two tables of stone ; but, while Deuteronomy 
 (v. 22, X. 4) is quite explicit in saying that the tables con- 
 tained the Ten Commandments of Exod. xx. 2-1 7, Deut. v. 
 6-21, the Ten Words of Exod. xxxiv. 27, 28 are necessarily 
 the words found in verses 10-26 of the same chapter, i.e. a 
 series of laws of religious observance closely corresponding 
 to the religious and ritual precepts of the First Legislation 
 (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.). We are so accustomed to look on the 
 Ten Words written on the tables of stone as the very 
 foundation-stone of the Mosaic law that it is hard for us 
 to realise that in ancient Israel there were two opinions as 
 to what these Words were ; and, for my own part, I confess 
 that I have struggled as long as I could to explain the 
 discrepancy away. But the thing is too plain to be denied, 
 and the hypothesis which I once ventured to advance that 
 
336 VARYING ACCOUNTS OF lect. xi 
 
 Exod, xxxiv. 10-26 may have got out of its true place at 
 some stage in the redaction of the Pentateuch does not help 
 matters. For in any case it would still have to be admitted 
 that the editor to whom we owe the present form of the 
 chapter identified this little code of religious observances 
 with the Ten Words. The difficulty, therefore, would still 
 remain the same.^ 
 
 Now, if we can no longer regard Deuteronomy and Exodus 
 xxxiv. as giving a single sound on the matter of the Sinaitic 
 Covenant, the chief reason for thinking that the Book of the 
 Covenant in Exod. xxiv. is identical with the Decalogue 
 falls to the ground. We are no longer entitled to draw a 
 strained distinction between "the words" and "the judg- 
 ments " in order to maintain the harmony between all the 
 accounts ; and on the other hand we observe that the words 
 which Moses received and wrote (ver. 4) can hardly be the 
 same as the Decalogue which was proclaimed from Sinai in 
 the ears of all. The Decalogue was not given to Moses to 
 be written from memory, but was written on the Mount 
 itself, and that, too, according to the present order of the 
 narrative, after the Covenant had been written and ratified 
 (xxiv. 12). Thus we are led, after all, to identify the Book 
 of the Covenant with the First Legislation (Exod. xxi.-xxiv.), 
 and to admit that the Pentateuch presents three divergent 
 views of the contents of the Sinaitic Covenant. 
 
 ^ The hypothesis of a displacement in Exod. xxxiv., which I put forward 
 in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., article Decalogue (1877), was inde- 
 pendently worked out by Kuenen in an article in Theol. Tijdschrift, xv. (1881), 
 p. 164 sqq. He regards Exod. xxxiv. 1, 4, and the last words of verse 28, 
 as belonging to a different document from xxxiv. 2, 3, 5, 10-27, and so is able 
 to maintain that the Ten Words of xxxiv. 28 are the same as the Decalogue 
 of chap. XX. Wellhausen has criticised this view in the latest edition of 
 his Composition (1889), p. 327 sqq., justly remarking that in that case the 
 editor who gave the text its present form "has introduced the most serious 
 internal contradiction found in the Old Testament." 
 
 - Any one who carefully reads through the narrative of the transactions of 
 Sinai must recognise that the story has reached us in a very confused state. 
 " After the proclamation of the Decalogue Moses pays a first, a second, and a 
 
LECT. XI THE SINAITIC COVENANT 337 
 
 Such being the state of the extant history of Moses's 
 work, it is not only legitimate but absolutely necessary to 
 undertake a critical examination of the several bodies of 
 laws, in the hope that internal evidence may do something 
 to help us through the uncertainties in which the narrative 
 of the law-giving is involved, and throw light on the question 
 when and by what stages the divine Torah, of which Moses 
 was the originator, assumed the form it has in the extant 
 written codes. 
 
 Now it is a very remarkable fact, to begin with, that all 
 the sacred law of Israel is comprised in the Pentateuch, and 
 that, apart from the Levitical legislation, it is presented in 
 codified form. On the traditional view, three successive 
 bodies of law were given to Israel within forty years. Within 
 that short time many ordinances were modified, and the 
 
 third visit to Sinai, always with the same object of receiving laws. It is 
 clear that when, after the first visit (Exod. xx. 21, xxiv. 3), all the words and 
 judgments of Jehovah are written down and the people are solemnly pledged 
 to them, this must have originally indicated that the legislation is formally 
 brought to a close (xxiv. 3-8) ; but as the story now stands the conclusion of 
 the Covenant is a mere interlude. For scarcely is the solemnity over when 
 Moses (with Joshua) again goes up to God in the Mount, and remains there a 
 long time, receiving further divine communications, doubtless of a legal 
 character. Finally, in chap, xxxiv. there is another long visit to Mount Sinai, 
 and there for a third time he receives words and writes them on two tables of 
 stone. The third visit, indeed, is explained by the breaking of the first tables, 
 which have to be renewed ; but what is dictated to him is not a repetition of 
 the old matter but a series of new precepts." Wellhausen, Comimsition (1889), 
 p. 84 sq. (The whole passage should be read.) 
 
 The perplexities of Exod. xix. -xxxiv. have made these chapters the 
 locus desjxratus of criticism. It is easy to remove the priestly additions 
 (chaps, xxv.-xxxi. and a few verses elsewhere), and to point out in what 
 remains clear indications that at least two parallel and independent narratives 
 have been worked into a single tissue. Thus in xix. 20 Jehovah descends 
 upon Sinai, but in the previous verses he is already there ; hence xix. 3-19 
 and xix. 20-25 seem originally to have belonged to distinct narratives, thougli 
 the points of difference have been softened by the hand of the redactor {e.g. 
 by the insertion of verses 23, 24). Again xxiv. 1, 2 is continued in verses 
 9-11, while the intervening verses belong to a diff"erent context. But the 
 whole section has been so often worked over by editorial hands, touching and 
 retouching, making omissions, additions, and transpositions, that it is im- 
 possible to separate the original sources with the certainty and precision 
 
 22 
 
338 MOSAIC AND 
 
 whole law of Sinai recast on the plains of Moab. But from 
 the days of Moses there was no change. With his death 
 the Israelites entered on a new career, which transformed 
 the nomads of Goshen into the civilised inhabitants of vine- 
 yard land and cities in Canaan. But the Divine laws given 
 them beyond Jordan were to remain unmodified through all 
 the long centuries of development in Canaan, an absolute 
 and immutable code. I say, with all reverence, that this is 
 impossible. God no doubt could have given, by Moses's 
 mouth, a law fit for the age of Solomon or Hezekiah, but 
 such a law could not be fit for immediate application in the 
 days of Moses and Joshua. Every historical lawyer knows 
 that in the nature of things the law of the wilderness is 
 different from the law of a land of high agriculture and 
 populous cities. God can do all things, but He cannot 
 contradict Himself, and He who shaped the eventful de- 
 velopment of Israel's history must have framed His law to 
 correspond with it. 
 
 It is no conjecture, but plain historical fact stated in 
 
 which belong to the analysis of the story of the Deluge. Broadly speaking, 
 it appears that the oldest narrator (J), whose account is very imperfectly 
 jireserved, and whose hand is to be recognised mainly in xix. 20-22, 25, and 
 in chap, xxxiv., did not mention the present Decalogiie at all, but told how 
 Moses was called up to the mountain and received there the Ten Words of 
 chap, xxxiv. The second narrator (E), like the Book of Deuteronomy, con- 
 fined the law proclaimed at Sinai to the Decalogue of Exod. xx., but also 
 related how Moses was called up to the Mount to receive further revelations 
 (not for immediate publication). In his absence the incident of the golden 
 calf took place, and as a punishment the people were at once dismissed from 
 the seat of Jehovah's holy presence. Finally, the First Legislation or Book 
 4jf the Covenant, for which no place can be found in either of these narratives, 
 may perhaps be best accounted for by the very ingenious conjecture of 
 Kuenen, that chaps, xxi.-xxiii., with verses 3-8 of chap, xxiv., are part of the 
 narrative of E, but originally stood in quite another place, that, in fact, they 
 are the old account of the legislation in the plains of Moab, of which the 
 Deuteronomic code is a new and enlarged edition. When both editions came 
 to be brought together in one book the old code was thrown back among the 
 transactions at ]\Iount Sinai. On the view the original narrative of E was 
 in full harmony with the Deuteronomic account of the successive stages of the 
 legislation. 
 
LECT. XI POST-MOSAIC TOE AH 339 
 
 Exod. xviii., that Moses judged his contemporaries by bring- 
 ing individual hard cases before Jehovah for decision. This 
 was the actual method of his Torah, a method strictly 
 practical, and in precise conformity with the genius and 
 requirements of primitive nations. The events of Sinai, and 
 the establishment of the covenant on the basis of the Ten 
 Words, did not cut short this kind of Torah, On the 
 contrary, there is clear proof that direct appeal to a Divine 
 judgment continued to be practised in Israel. Tlie First 
 Legislation (Exod, xxi. 6, xxii, 8) speaks of bringing a case 
 to God, and receiving the sentence of God, where our version 
 has " the judges," The sanctuary was the seat of judgment, 
 and the decisions were Jehovah's Torah, So still, in the 
 time of Eli, we read that, if man offend against man, God 
 gives judgment as daysman between them (1 Sam, ii, 25). 
 Jehovah is in Israel a living judge, a living and present law- 
 giver. He has all the functions of an actual king present 
 among his people (Isa. xxxiii. 22). So the prophets still view 
 Jehovah's law as a living and growing thing, communicated 
 to Israel as to weanlings, " precept upon precept, line upon 
 line, here a little and there a little " (Isa. xxviii. 9 sq.) ; and 
 their religion, drawn direct from Jehovah, is contrasted with 
 the traditional religion, which is " a command of men learned 
 and taught" (Isa. xxix. 13). A code is of necessity the final 
 result and crystallised form of such a living divine Torah, 
 just as in all nations consuetudinary and judge-made law 
 prece les codification and statute law. The difference between 
 Israel and other nations lay essentially in this, that Jehovah 
 was Israel's Judge, and therefore Israel's Lawgiver. This 
 divine Torah begins with Moses. As all goes back to his 
 initiative, the Israelites were not concerned to remember the 
 precise history of each new precept ; and, when the whole 
 system developed under continuous divine guidance is summed 
 up in a code, that code is simply set down as Mosaic Torah. 
 
340 THE FIRST 
 
 We still call the steam-engine by the name of Watt, though 
 the steam-engine of to-day has many parts that his had 
 not. 
 
 The Bible has not so narrow a conception of revelation as 
 we sometimes cling to. According to Isaiah xxviii. 23 sq. 
 the rules of good husbandry are a "judgment" taught to the 
 ploughman by Jehovah, part of Jehovah's Torah (ver. 26). 
 The piety of Israel recognised every sound and wholesome 
 ordinance of daily and social life as a direct gift of Jehovah's 
 wisdom. " This also cometh forth from Jehovah of hosts, 
 whose counsel is miraculous, and His wisdom great." Ac- 
 cordingly Jehovah's law contains, not only institutes of direct 
 revelation in our limited sense of that word, but old con- 
 suetudinary usages, laws identical with those of other early 
 peoples, which had become sacred by being taken up into the 
 God-given polity of Israel, and worked into harmony with 
 the very present reality of His redeeming sovereignty. We 
 shall best picture to ourselves what the ancient Hebrews 
 understood by divine statutes, by a brief survey of the 
 manner of life prescribed in the First Legislation. 
 
 The society contemplated in this legislation is of very 
 simple structure. The basis of life is agricultural. Cattle 
 and agricultural produce are the elements of wealth, and the 
 laws of property deal almost exclusively with them. The 
 principles of civil and criminal justice are those still current 
 among the Arabs of the desert. They are two in number, 
 retaliation and pecuniary compensation. Murder is dealt 
 with by the law of blood-revenge, but the innocent manslayer 
 may seek asylum at God's altar. With murder are ranked 
 manstealing, offences against parents, and witchcraft. Other 
 injuries are occasions of self-help or of private suits to be 
 adjusted at the sanctuary. Personal injuries fall under the 
 law of retaliation, just as murder does. Blow for blow is 
 still the law of the Arabs, and in Canaan no doubt, as in the 
 
LEGISLATION 341 
 
 desert, tlie retaliation was usually sought in the way of 
 self-help. The principle of retaliation is conceived as 
 legitimate vengeance, xxi. 20, 21, margin. Except in this 
 form there is no punishment, but only compensation, which 
 in some cases is at the will of the injured party (who has 
 the alternative of direct revenge), but in general is defined 
 by law. 
 
 Degrading punishments, as imprisonment or the bastinado, 
 are unknown, and loss of liberty is inflicted only on the thief 
 who cannot pay a fine. The slave retains definite rights. 
 He recovers his freedom after seven years, unless he prefers 
 to remain a bondman, and to seal this determination by a 
 symbolical act at the door of the sanctuary. His right of 
 blood-revenge against his master is limited, and, instead of 
 the lex talionis, for minor injuries he can claim his liberty. 
 Women do not enjoy full social equality with men. Women 
 slaves were slaves for life, but were usually married to 
 members of the family or servants of the household. The 
 daughter was her father's property, who received a price for 
 surrendering her to a husband ; and so a daughter's dis- 
 honour is compensated by law as a pecuniary loss to her 
 father. The Israelites directly contemplated in these laws 
 are evidently men of independent bearing and personal 
 dignity, such as are still found in secluded parts of the 
 Semitic world under a half-patriarchal constitution of society 
 where every freeman is a small landholder. But there is no 
 strong central authority. The tribunal of the sanctuary is 
 arbiter, not executive. No man is secure without his own 
 aid, and the widow or orphan looks for help, not to man, but 
 to Jehovah Himself. But if the executive is weak, a strict 
 regard for justice is inculcated. Jehovah is behind the law, 
 and He will vindicate the right. He requires of Israel 
 humanity as well as justice. The Ger, or stranger living 
 under the protection of a family or community, has no legal 
 
342 THE FIRST 
 
 status, but he must not be oppressed.^ The Sabbath is en- 
 forced as an ordinance of humanity, and to the same end the 
 produce of every field or vineyard must be left to the poor 
 one year in seven. The precepts of religious worship are 
 simple. He who sacrifices to any God but Jehovah falls 
 under the ban. The only ordinance of ceremonial sanctity is 
 to abstain from the flesh of animals torn by wild beasts. 
 The sacred dues are the firstlings and first fruits ; the former 
 must be presented at the sanctuary on the eighth day. This, 
 of course, presupposes a plurality of sanctuaries, and in fact 
 Exodus XX. 24, 25, explains that an altar of stone may be 
 built, and Jehovah acceptably approached, in every place 
 where He sets a memorial of His name. The stated occasions 
 of sacrifice are the feast of unleavened bread, in commemora- 
 tion of the exodus, the feast of harvest, and that of ingather- 
 ing. These feasts mark the cycle of the agricultural year, 
 and at them every male must present his homage before 
 Jehovah. The essential points of sacrificial ritual are abstin- 
 ence from leaven in connection with the blood of the sacrifice, 
 and the rule that the fat must be burnt the same night. 
 
 You see at once that this is no abstract divine legislation. 
 It is a social system adapted to a very definite type of 
 national life. On the common view, many of its precepts 
 were immediately superseded by the Levitical or Deutero- 
 
 ^ The Hebrew Ger exactly corresponds to the Arabian Jar, on whose 
 position see Kinship and Marriage, p. 41 sqq. The protected stranger is still 
 known in Arabia. Among the Hodheil at Zeimeh I found in 1880 an Indian 
 boy, the son of a Suleimany or wandering smith, who was under the protec- 
 tion of tlie community, every member of which would have made the lad's 
 quarrel his own. In old Arabia such strangers often came at last to be merged 
 in the tribe of their protectors, and this must have happened on a large scale 
 in old Israel, and accounts for the absorption of the Canaanite population 
 between the time of the Judges and the Exile. But in Deuteronomy the 
 distinctive position of an Israelite is more sharply defined. In Deut. xiv. 21 
 unclean food, which the First Legislation commands to be thrown to the dogs, 
 may be given to the Ger. In the Levitical legislation the word Ger is already 
 on the way to assume the later technical sense of proselyte. 
 
LEGISLATION" 343 
 
 nomic code, before they ever had a chance of being put in 
 operation in Canaan. But this hypothesis, so dishonouring 
 to the Divine Legislator, who can do nothing in vain, is 
 refuted by the whole tenor of the code, which undoubtedly is 
 as living and real a system of law as was ever written. The 
 details of the system are almost all such as are found among 
 other nations. The law of Israel does not yet aim at singu- 
 larity ; it is enough that it is pervaded by a constant sense 
 that the righteous and gracious Jehovah is behind the law 
 and wields it in conformity with His own holy nature. The 
 law, therefore, makes no pretence at ideality. It contains 
 precepts adapted, as our Lord puts it, to the hardness of the 
 people's heart. The ordinances are not abstractly perfect, 
 and fit to be a rule of life in every state of society, but they 
 are fit to make Israel a righteous, humane, and God-fearing 
 people, and to facilitate a healthy growth towards better 
 things. 
 
 The important point that reference to Jehovah and His 
 character determines the spirit rather than the details of the 
 legislation cannot be too strongly accentuated. The civil 
 laws are exactly such as the comparative lawyer is familiar 
 with in other nations. Even the religious ordinances are far 
 from unique in their formal elements. The feast of un- 
 leavened bread has a special reference to the deliverance 
 from Egypt, which is the historical basis of Israel's distinct- 
 ive religion. But even this feast has also a more general 
 reference, for it is clearly connected in Exod. xiii. 3-6, 
 xxxiv. 18-20, with the sacrifice of the firstlings of the flocks 
 and herds, which is a form of worship known also to the 
 ancient Arabs ; and the two other feasts, which are purely 
 agricultural, are quite analogous to what is found in other 
 nations. The feast of harvest reappears in all parts of the 
 ancient world, and the Canaanite vintage feast at Shechem 
 offers a close parallel to the feast of ingathering (supra, p. 269). 
 
344 THE FIRST 
 
 The distinctive character of the religion appears in the laws 
 directed against polytheism and witchcraft, in the promin- 
 ence given to righteousness and humanity as the things 
 which are most pleasing to Jehovah and constitute the true 
 significance of such an ordinance as the Sabbath, and, above 
 all, in the clearness with which the law holds forth the truth 
 that Jehovah's goodness to Israel is no mere natural relation 
 such as binds Moab to Chemosh, that His favour to His 
 people is directed by moral principles and is forfeited by 
 moral iniquity. In this code we already read the foundation 
 of the thesis of Amos, that just because Jehovah knows Israel 
 He observes and punishes the nation's sins (Amos iii. 2 ; 
 Exod. xxii. 23, 27, xxiii. 7). 
 
 Now, we have seen that before the Exile the most char- 
 acteristic features of the Levitical legislation, and so the 
 most prominent things in our present Pentateuch, had no 
 influence on Israel, either on the righteous or the wicked. 
 This result involved us in great perplexity. For, if the 
 traditional view of the age of the Pentateuch is correct, 
 there was through all these centuries an absolute divorce 
 between God's written law and the practical workings of His 
 grace. And the perplexity was only increased when we 
 found that, nevertheless, there was a Torah in Israel before 
 the prophetic books, to which the prophets appeal as the 
 indisputable standard of Jehovah's will. But the puzzle is 
 solved when we compare the history with this First Legisla- 
 tion. This law did not remain without fruit in Israel, and 
 as we have just seen in the case of Amos, its conception of 
 Jehovah's government affords a firm footing for the pro- 
 phetic word. There is abundant proof that the principles 
 of this legislation were acknowledged in Israel. The appeal 
 to God as judge appears in 1 Sam. ii. 25 ; the law of blood- 
 revenge, administered, not by a central authority, but by the 
 family of the deceased, occurs in 2 Sam. iii. 30, xiv. 7, etc.; 
 
LEGISLATION 345 
 
 the altar is the asyhim in 1 Kings i. 50, and elsewhere ; the 
 thief taken in the breach (Exod. xxii. 2) is alluded to by 
 Jer. ii. 34 ; and so forth. The sacred ordinances agree with 
 those in the history, or, if exceptions are noted, they are stig- 
 matised as irregular. The plurality of altars accords with 
 this law. The annual feasts — at least that of the autumn, 
 which seems to have been best observed — are often alluded 
 to ; and the night service of commemoration for the exodus 
 appears in Isa. xxx. 29. The rule that the pilgrim must 
 bring an offering was recognised at Shiloh (1 Sam. i. 21). 
 So, too, the complaint against Eli's sons for their delay in 
 burning the fat is based on the same principle as Exod. xxiii. 
 18 ; and the use of leavened bread on the altar, which is 
 forbidden in Exod. xxiii. 18, was indeed admitted in the 
 northern shrines at the time of Amos, but is referred to by 
 that prophet in sarcastic terms, as if it were a departure 
 from the ancient ritual of Jehovah's sanctuaries (Amos iv. 5). 
 The prohibition to eat blood, which is essentially one with 
 the prohibition of torn flesh, is sedulously observed by Saul 
 (1 Sam. xiv. 33 sq.), and Saul also distinguishes himself by 
 suppressing witchcraft. The proof that this law was known 
 and acknowledged in all its leading provisions is as complete 
 as the proof that the Levitical law was still unheard of. 
 This result confirms, and at the same time supplements, our 
 previous argument. We have now brought the history into 
 positive relation to one part of the Pentateuch, and the 
 critical analysis of the books of Moses has already filled up 
 one of those breaches between law and history which the 
 traditional view can do nothing to heaL 
 
LECTUEE XII 
 
 THE DEUTERONOMIC CODE AND THE LEVITICAL LAW 
 
 In the First Legislation the question of correct ritual has 
 little prominence. The simple rules laid down are little 
 more than the necessary and natural expression of that 
 principle which we saw in Lecture VIII. to be the pre- 
 supposition of the popular worship of Israel, even when it 
 diverged most widely from the Levitical forms. Jehovah 
 alone is Israel's God. It is a crime, analogous to treason, to 
 depart from Him and sacrifice to other gods. As the Lord of 
 Israel and Israel's land, the giver of all good gifts to His 
 people. He has a manifest claim on Israel's homage, and 
 receives at their hands such dues as their neighbours paid to 
 their gods, such dues as a king receives from his people 
 (comp. 1 Sam. viii. 15, 17). The occasions of homage are 
 those seasons of natural gladness which an agricultural life 
 suggests. The joy of harvest and vintage is a rejoicing before 
 Jehovah, when the worshipper brings a gift in his hand, as 
 he would do in approaching an earthly sovereign, and 
 presents the choicest first fruits at the altar, just as his 
 Canaanite neighbour does in the house of Baal (Jud. ix. 27). 
 The whole worship is spontaneous and natural. It has 
 hardly the character of a positive legislation, and its distinc- 
 tion from heathen rites lies less in the outward form than in 
 the different conception of Jehovah which the true wor- 
 
THE EIGHTH CENTURY 347 
 
 shipper should bear in his heart. To a people which " knows 
 Jehovah," this unambitious service, in which the expression 
 of grateful homage to Him runs through all the simple joys 
 of a placid agricultural life, was sufficient to form the visible 
 basis of a pure and earnest piety. But its forms gave no 
 protection against deflection into heathenism and immorality 
 when Jehovah's spiritual nature and moral precepts were 
 forgotten. The feasts and sacrifices might still run their 
 accustomed round when Jehovah was practically confounded 
 with the Baalim, and there was no more truth or mercy or 
 knowledge of God in the land (Hosea iv. 1). 
 
 Such, in fact, was the state of things in the eighth century, 
 the age of the earliest prophetic books. The declensions of 
 Israel had not checked the outward zeal with which Jehovah 
 was worshipped. Never had the national sanctuaries been 
 more sedulously frequented, never had the feasts been more 
 splendid or the offerings more copious. But the foundations 
 of the old life were breaking up. The external prosperity of 
 the state covered an abyss of social disorder. Profusion and 
 luxury among the higher classes stood in startling contrast to 
 the misery of the poor. Lawlessness and open crime were on 
 the increase. The rulers of the nation grew fat upon oppres- 
 sion, but there was none who was grieved for the wound of 
 Joseph. These evils were earliest and most acutely felt in 
 the kingdom of Ephraim, where Amos declares them to be 
 already incurable under the outwardly prosperous reign of 
 Jeroboam II. With the downfall of Jehu's dynasty the last 
 bonds of social order were dissolved, and the Assyrian found 
 an easy prey in a land already reduced to practical anarchy. 
 The smaller realm of Judah seemed at first to show more 
 hopeful symptoms (Hosea iv. 15). But the separation of the 
 kingdoms had not broken the subtle links that connected 
 Judah with the greater Israel of the North. At all periods, 
 the fortunes and internal movements of Ephraim had power- 
 
348 DECADENCE OF 
 
 fully reacted on the Southern Kingdom. Isaiah and Micah 
 describe a corruption within the house of David altogether 
 similar to the sin of Samaria. " The statutes of Omri were 
 kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab " (Micah vi. 16). 
 The prominence which the prophets assign to social 
 grievances and civil disorders has often led to their being 
 described as politicians, a democratic Opposition in the 
 aristocratic state. This is a total misconception. The 
 prophets of the eighth century have no new theories of 
 government, and propose no practical scheme of political 
 readjustment. They are the friends of the poor because 
 they hate oppression, and they attack the governing classes 
 for their selfishness and injustice; but their cry is not for 
 better institutions but for better men, not for the abolition 
 of aristocratic privileges but for an honest and godly use 
 of them. The work of the prophets is purely religious ; 
 they censure what is inconsistent with the knowledge and 
 fear of Jehovah, but see no way of remedy save in the 
 repentance and return to Him of all classes of society, 
 after a sifting work of judgment has destroyed the sinners 
 of Jehovah's people without suffering one grain of true 
 wheat to fall to the ground (Amos ix. 9 sq. ; Isa. vi., etc.). 
 But to the prophets the observance of justice and mercy 
 in the state are the first elements of religion. The religious 
 subject, the worshipping individual, Jehovah's son, was 
 not the individual Israelite, but the nation qua nation, 
 and the Old Testament analogue to the peace of conscience 
 which marks a healthy condition of spiritual Life in the 
 Christian was that inner peace and harmony of the estates 
 of the realm which can only be secured where justice is 
 done and mercy loved. The ideal of the prophets in the 
 eighth century is not different from that of the First Legis- 
 lation. In the old law the worship of feasts and sacrifices 
 is the natural consecration, in act, of a simple, happy society, 
 
OLD ISRAEL 349 
 
 nourished by Jehovah's good gifts in answer to the labour 
 of the husbandman, and cemented by a regard for justice and 
 habits of social kindliness. When the old healthy harmony 
 of classes was dissolved, when the rich and the poor were no 
 longer knit together by a kindly sympathy and patriarchal 
 bond of dependence, but confronted one another as oppressor 
 and oppressed, when the strain thus put on all social relations 
 burst the weak bonds of outer order and filled the land with 
 unexpiated bloodshed, the pretence of homage to Jehovah at 
 His sanctuary was but the crowning proof that Israel knew 
 not his God. " When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide 
 mine eyes from you ; yea, wlien ye make many prayers I will 
 not hear : your hands are full of blood " (Isa. i. 15). 
 
 The causes of the inner disintegration of Israel were 
 manifold, and we cannot pause to examine them fully. But 
 in this, as in many similar cases which history exhibits, the 
 strain which snapped the old bands of social unity proceeded 
 mainly from the effects of warlike invasion reacting on a one- 
 sided progress in material prosperity, to which the order of 
 the state had not been able to readjust itself. The luxury of 
 the higher classes, described by Amos and Isaiah, shows that 
 the nobles of Israel were no longer great farmers, as Saul and 
 Nabal had been, living among the peasantry and sharing their 
 toil. The connection with Tyre, which commenced in the 
 days of David, opened a profitable foreign market for the 
 agricultural produce of Palestine (Ezek. xxvii. 17), and in- 
 troduced foreign luxuries in return. The landowners became 
 merchants and forestallers of grain (Amos viii. 5 ; Hosea xii. 
 7). The introduction of such a commerce, throwing the 
 Hebrews into immediate relations with the great emporium 
 of international traffic, necessarily led to accumulation of 
 wealth in a few hands, and to the corresponding impoverish- 
 ment of the landless class, as exportation raised the price of 
 the necessaries of life. In times of famine, or under the 
 
350 DECADENCE OF 
 
 distress wrought by prolonged and ferocious warfare with 
 Syria, the once independent peasantry fell into the condition 
 now so universal in the East. They were loaded with debt, 
 cheated on all hands, and often had to relinquish their per- 
 sonal liberty (Amos ii. 6, 7 ; Micah iii. 2 sq., vi. 10 sq., etc.). 
 The order of the state, entirely based on the old pre-com- 
 mercial state of things when trade was the affair of the 
 Canaanites — Canaanite, in old Hebrew, is the word for a 
 trader — was not able to adjust itself to the new circum- 
 stances. How entirely commercial avocations were unknown 
 to the old law appears from the circumstance that the idea 
 of capital is unknown. It is assumed in Exod. xxii. 25 that 
 no one borrows money except for personal distress, and all 
 interest is conceived as usury (comp. Psalm xv. 5). In pro- 
 portion, therefore, as the nation began to share the wealth 
 and luxury of the Canaanite trading cities of the coast, it 
 divorced itself from the old social forms of the religion of 
 Jehovah. The Canaanite influence affected religion in affect- 
 ing the national life, and it was inevitable that the worship 
 of the sanctuary, which had always been in the closest 
 rapport with the daily habits of the people, should itself 
 assume the colour of Canaanite luxury and Canaanite im- 
 morality. This tendency was not checked by the extirpation 
 of professed worship of the Tyrian Baal. Jehovah Himself 
 in His many shrines assumed the features of the local 
 Baalim of the Canaanite sanctuaries, and horrible orgies of 
 unrestrained sensuality, of which we no longer dare to speak 
 in unveiled words, polluted the temples where Jehovah still 
 reigned in name, and where His help was confidently expected 
 to save Israel from Damascus and Assyria. 
 
 The prophets, as I have already said, never profess to 
 devise a scheme of political and social reformation to meet 
 these evils. Their business is not to govern, but to teach the 
 nation to know Jehovah, and to lay bare the guilt of every 
 
OLD ISRAEL 351 
 
 departure from Him. It is for the righteous ruler to deter- 
 mine how the principles of justice, mercy, and God-fearing 
 can be made practically operative in society. Thus the 
 criticism of the prophets on established usages is mainly 
 negative. The healing of Israel must come from Jehovah. 
 It is useless to seek help from political combinations, and 
 it is a mistake to fancy that international commerce and 
 foreign culture are additions to true happiness. This judg- 
 ment proceeds from no theories of political economy. It 
 would be a fallacy to cite the prophets as witness that 
 commerce and material civilisation are bad in themselves. 
 All that they say is that these things, as they found them 
 in their own time, have undone Israel, and that the first step 
 towards deliverance must be a judgment which sweeps away 
 all the spurious show of prosperity that has come between 
 Jehovah's people and the true knowledge of their God (Isa. 
 ii. ; Micah v.). Israel must again pass through the wilder- 
 ness. All the good gifts of fertile Canaan must be taken 
 away by a desolating calamity. Then the valley of trouble 
 shall again become a gate of hope, and Jehovah's covenant 
 shall renew its course on its old principles, but with far 
 more perfect realisation (Hos. ii.). The prophetic pictures of 
 Israel's final felicity are at this time all framed on the pattern 
 of the past. The days of David shall return under a righteous 
 king (Micah v. 2 sg[. ; Hos. iii. 5 ; Isa. xi. 1 sq), and Israel 
 shall realise, as it had never done in the past, the old ideal of 
 simple agricultural life, in which every good gift is received 
 directly from Jehovah's hand, and is supplied by Him in a 
 plenty that testifies to His perfect reconciliation with His 
 people (Hos. ii. 21 sq. ; Amos ix. 11 s^. ; Micah iv. 4, vii. 14 ; 
 Isa. iv. 2). 
 
 This picture is ideal. It was never literally fulfilled to 
 Israel in Canaan, and now that the people of God has become 
 a spiritual society, dissociated from national limitations and 
 
352 KING josiah's 
 
 relation to the land of Canaan, it never can be fulfilled save 
 in a spiritual sense. The restoration of Israel to Palestine 
 would be no fulfilment of prophecy now, for the good things 
 of the land never had any other value to the prophets than 
 that they were the expression of Jehovah's love to the people 
 of His choice, which is now more clearly declared in Christ 
 Jesus, and brought nigh to the heart by His spirit. But the 
 ideal supplied a practical impulse. It did not provide the 
 sketch of a new legislation which could cure the deeper 
 ills of the state without the divine judgment which the 
 prophets foretold, but it indicated evils that must be cleared 
 away, and with which the old divine laws were unable to 
 grapple. 
 
 One point, in particular, became thoroughly plain. The 
 sacrificial worship was corrupt to the core, and could never 
 again be purified by the mere removal of foreign elements 
 from the local high places. The first step towards reforma- 
 tion must lie in the abolition of these polluted shrines, and 
 to this task the adherents of the prophets addressed them- 
 selves. 
 
 At this point in the history the centre of interest is 
 transferred from Ephraim to Judah. In Ephraim the 
 sanctuaries perished with the fall of the old kingdom, or 
 sank, if possible, to a lower depth in the worship ot the 
 mixed populations introduced by the conqueror. In Judah 
 there was still some hope of better things. The party of 
 reform was for a space in the ascendant under King 
 Hezekiah, when the miraculous overthrow of the Assyrian 
 vindicated the authority of the prophet Isaiah and justified 
 his confident prediction that Jehovah would protect His 
 sacred hearth on Mount Zion. But the victory was not 
 Rained in a moment. Under Manasseh a terrible reaction 
 set in, and the corrupt popular religion crushed the pro- 
 phetic party, not without bloodshed. The truth was cast 
 
REFORM ATION 353 
 
 down, but not overthrown. In Josiah's reign the tide of 
 battle turned, and then it was that " the book of the Torah " 
 was found in the Temple. Its words smote the hearts of 
 the king and the people, for though the book had no external 
 credentials it bore its evidence within itself, and it was 
 stamped with the approval of the prophetess Huldah. The 
 Torah was adopted in formal covenant, and on its lines, 
 — the lines of the Deuteronomic Code, as we have already 
 seen (supra, p. 258), — the reformation of Josiah was carried 
 out. 
 
 The details of the process of reformation which cul- 
 minated in the eighteenth year of Josiah are far from 
 clear, but a few leading points can be established with 
 precision. The central difference between the Deuteronomic 
 Code, on which Josiah acted, and the old code of the First 
 Legislation, lies in the principle that the Temple at Jeru- 
 salem is the only legitimate sanctuary. The legislator in 
 Deuteronomy expressly puts forth this ordinance as an 
 innovation : " Ye shall not do, as we do here this day, 
 every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes" (Deut. 
 xii. 8). Moreover, it is explained that the law which 
 confines sacrifice to one altar involves modifications of 
 ancient usage. If the land of Israel becomes so large 
 that the sanctuary is not easily accessible, bullocks and 
 sheep may be eaten at home, as game is eaten, without 
 being sacrificed, the blood only being poured on the 
 ground. We have already seen that the earlier custom 
 here presupposed, on which every feast of beef or mutton 
 was sacrificial, obtained long after the settlement of Israel 
 in Canaan, on the basis of the principle of many altars 
 laid down in Exod. xx. 24, and presupposed in the Eirst 
 Legislation. But further, the Book of Deuteronomy, which 
 reproduces almost every precept of the older code, with 
 or without modification, remodels the ordinances which 
 
 23 
 
35-1 THE CODE OF 
 
 presuppose a plurality of sanctuaries. According to Exod. 
 xxii. 30, the firstlings are to be offered on the eighth day. 
 This is impracticable under the law of one altar; and so 
 in Deut. xv. 19 sq. it is appointed that they shall be eaten 
 year by year at the sanctuary, and that meantime no work 
 shall be done with the firstling bullock, and that a firstling 
 sheep shall not be shorn. Again, the asylum for the man- 
 slayer in Exod. xxi, 12-14 is Jehovah's altar, and so, in fact, 
 the altar was used in the time of David and Solomon. But 
 under the law of Deuteronomy there are to be three fixed 
 cities of refuge (Deut. xix. 1 sri). 
 
 The law, then, is quite distinctly a law for the abolition of 
 the local sanctuaries, which are recognised by the First Legis- 
 lation, and had been frequented under it without offence during 
 many generations. The reason for the change comes out in 
 Deut. xii. 2 s^. The one sanctuary is ordained to prevent 
 assimilation between Jehovah-worship and the Canaanite ser- 
 vice. The Israelites in the eighth century did service on the 
 hiU-tops and under the green trees (Hos. iv. 13 ; Isa. i. 29), 
 and in these local sanctuaries they practically merged their 
 Jehovah-worship in the abominations of the heathen. The 
 Deuteronomic law designs to make such syncretism henceforth 
 impossible by separating the sanctuary of Jehovah from all 
 heathen shrines. And so, in particular, the old marks of a 
 sanctuary, the maggela and ashera (supra, p. 241), which had 
 been used by the patriarchs, and continued to exist in sanc- 
 tuaries of Jehovah down to the eighth century, are declared 
 illegitimate (Deut. xvi. 21 ; Josh. xxiv. 26 ; 1 Sara. vi. 14, vii. 
 12 ; 2 Sam. xx. 8 ; 1 Kings i. 9 ; Hosea iii. 4 ; 1 Kings vii. 21). 
 This detail is one of the clearest proofs that Deuteronomy 
 was unknown till long after the days of Moses. How could 
 Joshua, if he had known such a law, have erected a maggeha 
 or sacred pillar of unhewn stone under the sacred tree by the 
 sanctuary at Shechem ? Nay, this law was still unknown to 
 
DEUTERONOMY 355 
 
 Isaiah, who attacks idolatry, but recognises maggeha and altar 
 as the marks of the sanctuary of Jehovah. " In that day," he 
 says, prophesying the conversion of Egypt, " there shall be an 
 altar to Jehovah within the land of Egypt, and a maggeha at 
 the border thereof to Jehovah " (Isa, xix. 19). Isaiah could 
 not refer to a forbidden symbol as a maggeha to Jehovah. He 
 takes it for granted that Egypt, when converted, will serve 
 Jehovah by sacrifice (ver. 21), and do so under the familiar 
 forms which Jehovah has not yet abrogated. 
 
 This passage gives us a superior limit for the date of the 
 Deuteronomic Code, It was not known to Isaiah, and there- 
 fore the reforms of Hezekiah cannot have been based upon it. 
 Indeed the prophets of the eighth century, approaching the 
 problem of true worship, not from the legal and practical side, 
 but from the religious principles involved, never get so far as 
 to indicate a detailed plan for the reorganisation of the 
 sanctuaries. Micah proclaims God's wrath against the 
 maggehas and asheras ; but they perish in the general fall of 
 the cities of Judah with all their corrupt civilisation (Micah 
 v. 10 sq). Even Jerusalem and the Temple of Zion must 
 share the general fate (chap. iii. 12). Such a prediction offers 
 little assistance for a plan of reformed worship. In the 
 prophecies of Isaiah again, where the maggeha is still recog- 
 nised as legitimate, the idols of the Judsean sanctuaries are 
 viewed as the chief element in the nation's rebellion, and the 
 mark of repentance is to cast them away (Isa. xxx. 22, xxxi. 
 6 sq., ii. 7, 20). It does not seem impossible that Isaiah 
 would have been content with this reform, for he never 
 proclaims war against the local sanctuaries as he does against 
 their idols. He perceives, indeed, that not only the idols but 
 the altars come between Israel and Jehovah, and lead the 
 people to look to the work of their own hands instead of to 
 their Maker (Isa. xvii. 7 sq). Yet even here the- contrast is 
 not between one altar and many, but between the material 
 
356 ISAIAH AND 
 
 and man-made sanctuary and the Holy One of Israel. The 
 prophetic thought seems to hesitate on the verge of transition 
 to the spiritual worship of the New Covenant. But the time 
 was not yet ripe for so decisive a change. 
 
 To Isaiah, Jehovah's presence with His people is still a 
 local thing. It could not, indeed, be otherwise, for the people 
 of Jehovah was itself a conception geographically defined, 
 bound up with the land of Canaan, and having its centre in 
 Jerusalem. In the crisis of the Assyrian wars, the funda- 
 mental religious thought that Jehovah's gracious purpose, and 
 therefore Jehovah's people, are indestructible, took in Isaiah's 
 mind the definite form of an assurance that Jerusalem could 
 not fall before the enemy. "Jehovah hath founded Zion, 
 and the poor of his people shall trust in it" (Isa. xiv. 32). 
 Jehovah, who hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in 
 Jerusalem, will protect his holy mountain, hovering over it 
 as birds over their nest (Isa. xxxi. 5, 9). Zion is the invio- 
 lable seat of Jehovah's sovereignty, where he dwells as a 
 devouring fire, purging the sin of His people by consuming 
 judgment, but also asserting His majesty against all invaders 
 (Isa. xxxiii. 13 sq., iv. 4 sq). This conception is nowhere 
 specially connected with the Temple. Eather is it the whole 
 plateau of Zion (chap. iv. 5) which is the seat of Jehovah's 
 presence with His people. But, according to the whole 
 manner of thought in the Old Testament, the seat of 
 Jehovah's presence to Israel, the centre from which his 
 Torah goes forth (Isa. ii. 3 ; Micah iv. 1 ; cf. Amos i. 2), the 
 mountain of Jehovah and Jehovah's house (Isa. xxx. 29, 
 ii. 2), the hearth of God {Ariel, Isa. xxix. 1), the place of 
 solemn and festal assembly (Isa. iv. 5, xxxiii. 20), must be 
 the place of acceptable sacrifice, if sacrifice is to continue at 
 all. Isaiah, perhaps, was not concerned to draw this infer- 
 ence. His thoughts were rather full of the spiritual side of 
 Jehovah's presence to His people, the word of revelation 
 
MOUNT ZION 357 
 
 guiding their path (xxx. 20, 21), the privilege of dwelling un- 
 harmed in the fire of Jehovah's presence, and seeing the King 
 in His glory, which belongs to the man that walketh in 
 righteousness, and speaketh upright words; who despiseth 
 the gain of oppression, shaking his hands from the holding 
 of bribes, stopping his ears from the hearing of blood, and 
 shutting his eyes from looking on evil (xxxiii. 14 sq). But 
 a practical scheme of reformation, resting on these premisses, 
 and deriving courage from the fulfilment of Isaiah's promise 
 of deliverance, could hardly fail to aim at the unification of 
 worship in Jerusalem, Hezekiah may at first have sought 
 only to purge the sanctuaries of idols. But the whole 
 worship of these shrines was bound up with their idolatrous 
 practices, while the Temple on Zion, the sanctuary of the ark, 
 might well be purged of heathenish corruptions, and still 
 retain in this ancient Mosaic symbol a mark of Jehovah's 
 presence palpable enough to draw the homage even of the 
 masses who had no ears for the lofty teaching of Isaiah. The 
 history informs us that Hezekiah actually worked in this 
 direction. We cannot tell the measure of his success, for 
 what he effected was presently undone by Manasseh ; but, at 
 least, it was under him that the problem first took practical 
 shape. 
 
 It is very noteworthy, and, on the traditional view, quite 
 inexplicable, that the IMosaic sanctuary of the ark is never 
 mentioned in the Deuteronomic Code. The author of this 
 law occupies the standpoint of Isaiah, to whom the whole 
 plateau of Zion is holy ; or of Jeremiah, who forbids men to 
 search for the ark or remake it, because Jerusalem is the 
 throne of Jehovah (Jer. iii. 16, 17). But he formulates 
 Isaiah's doctrine in the line of Hezekiah's practical essay to 
 suppress the high places, and he develops a scheme for fuller 
 and effective execution of this object with a precision of 
 detail that shows a clear sense of the practical difficulties of 
 
358 THE DEUTERONOMIC lect. xii 
 
 the undertaking. It was no light thing to overturn the whole 
 popular worship of Judah. It is highly probable that Heze- 
 kiah failed to produce a permanent result because he had not 
 duly provided for the practical difficulties to which his scheme 
 would give rise. The Deuteronomic Code has realised these 
 difficulties, and meets the most serious of them by the modi- 
 fications of the old law already discussed, and by making 
 special provision for the priests of the suppressed shrines. 
 
 The First Legislation has no law of priesthood, no pro- 
 vision as to priestly dues. The permission of many altars, 
 which it presupposes, is given in Exodus xx. 24-26 in a 
 form that assumes the right of laymen to offer sacrifice,^ as 
 we actually find them doing in so many parts of the history 
 {supra, p. 274). Yet a closer observation shows that the old 
 law presupposes a priesthood, whose business lies less with 
 sacrifice than with the divine Torah which they administer 
 
 ^ Exod. XX. 26 is addressed not to the priests but to Israel at large, and 
 implies that any Israelite may approach the altar. Comp. Exod. xxi. 14, 
 and contrast Num. iv. 15, xviii. 3. That the old law allows any Israelite to 
 approach the altar appears most clearly from the prohibition of an altar with 
 steps, lest the worshipper should expose his person to the holy structui-e. In 
 the case of the Levitical priests this danger was provided against in another 
 way, by the use of linen breeches (Exod. xxviii. 43). In the case of the 
 brazen altar, which was five feet high, or of Solomon's huge altar, ten cubits 
 in height, there must have been steps of some kind (Lev. ix. 22), and for 
 Ezekiel's altar (xliii. 17) this is expressly stated. The important distinction 
 between the altars of Exod. xx., which are approached by laymen in their 
 ordinary dress, and the brazen altar approached by priests protected 
 against exposure by their special costume, was not understood by the later 
 Jews, and consequently it was held that the prohibition of steps {ma'aUth) 
 did not prevent the use of an ascent of some other kind — as, for example, a 
 sloping bridge or mound (see the Targum of Jonathan on our passage, ami 
 also Rashi's Commentary). In Herod's Temple the altar was a vast platform 
 of unhewn stone, fifteen cubits high and fifty in length and breadth, and the 
 ascent to it formed a gentle incline (Joseph. B. J. Lib. v. cap. 5, § 6 ; 
 Mishna, Zcbachim v., Tamid i. 4). But the expression ma'aUth seems to 
 cover all kinds of ascent, and the risk of exposing the person to the altar 
 would be unaffected by the nature of the ascent. In fact, with a large altar 
 the priest could not put the blood of a victim on the four horns without 
 standing and walking on the altar {Zcbachivi, 1. c), which is clearly against 
 the spirit of Exod. xx., except on the understanding that that law does not 
 apply to priests appropriately clad for the office. 
 
SANCTUARY 359 
 
 in the sanctuary as successors of Moses, For the sanctuary 
 is the seat of judgment (supra, p. 339), and this implies a 
 qualified personnel through whom judgment is given. Accord- 
 ing to the unanimous testimony of all the older records of the 
 Old Testament, this priesthood, charged with the Torah ad- 
 ministered at the sanctuary, is none other than the house of 
 Levi, the kinsmen or descendants of Moses. (See especially 
 Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8 ; 1 Samuel ii. 27 sq.) The history of 
 the Levites after the Conquest is veiled in much obscurity. 
 The principal branch of the family, which remained with the 
 ark, and is known to us as the house of Eli, lost its supre- 
 macy when Solomon deposed Abiathar and set Zadok in his 
 place (1 Kings ii. 26, 27). In this event the author of Kings 
 sees the fulfilment of the prophecy in 1 Sam. ii., which de- 
 clares that Eli's clan, the priestly house originally chosen by 
 Jehovah, shall be dispossessed in favour of a faithful priest. 
 Hence it would appear that Zadok had no connection with 
 the ancient priesthood of the ark ; but he was the head of a 
 body of Levites (2 Samuel xv. 24). Another Levitical family 
 which claimed direct descent from Moses held the priesthood 
 of the sanctuary of Dan, and in the later times of the kingdom 
 all the priests of local sanctuaries were viewed as Levites. 
 Whether this implies that they were all lineal descendants of 
 the old house of Levi may well be doubted. But in early times 
 guilds are hereditary bodies, modified by a right of adoption, 
 and it was understood that the priesthood ran in the family 
 to which Moses belonged. In the time of Ezekiel the 
 Jerusalem priesthood consisted of the Levites of the guild of 
 Zadok. The subordinate ministers of the Temple were not 
 Levites, but, as we have already seen, the foreign janissaries, 
 and presumably other foreign slaves, the progenitors of the 
 NdMnini, who appear in the list of returning exiles in 
 Ezra ii. with names for the most part not Israelite. The 
 Levites who are not Zadokites are by Ezekiel expressly 
 
360 THE LEVITICAL 
 
 identified with the priests of the high places (Ezek. xliv. 9 
 sq.; supra, p. 260 and note). These historical facts — for they 
 are no conjecture, but the express testimony of the sacred 
 record — are presupposed in the Code of Deuteronomy. The 
 priests, according to Deuteronomy xxi. 5, are the sons of 
 Levi ; " for them hath Jehovah thy God chosen to minister to 
 him and to bless in his name, and according to their decision 
 is every controversy and every stroke." Deuteronomy knows 
 no Levites who cannot be priests, and no priests who are not 
 Levites. The two ideas are absolutely identical. But these 
 Levites, who are priests of Jehovah's own appointment, were, 
 in the period when the code was composed, scattered through 
 the land as priests of the local sanctuaries. They had no 
 territorial possessions (Deut. xviii, 1), and were viewed as 
 Gerim, or strangers under the protection of the community 
 in the places where they sojourned (ver. 6). Apart from the 
 revenues of the sanctuary, their position was altogether de- 
 pendent (xiv. 27, 29, etc.).^ 
 
 ^ I give here some fuller details of the evidence on this important topic. 
 
 1°. Except in the Levitical legislation and in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehe- 
 miah, where the ^isus loquendi is conformed to the final form of the Penta- 
 tenchal ordinance, Levite never means a sacred minister who is not a priest, 
 and has not the right to offer sacrifice. On the contrary, Levite is regularly 
 used as a priestly title. See the list of texts in Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 3d 
 ed., p. 147. The only passage to the contrary is 1 Kings viii. 4, where " the 
 priests and the Levites " appear instead of "the Levite priests." But here 
 the particle "and" — a single letter in Hebrew — appears to be an insertion in 
 accordance with the later law. The Chronicler still reads the verse without 
 the "and" (2 Chron. v. 5). The older books know a distinction between 
 the chief priest and lower priests {e.g. 1 Sam. ii. 35, 36), but all alike are 
 priests, that is, do sacrifice, wear the ephod, etc. The priesthood is God's 
 gift to Levi (Deut. x. 8, xviii. 1, xxi. 5, xxxiii. 8 sq.), and Jeroboam's fault, 
 according to 1 Kings xii. 31, was that he chose priests who were not Levites. 
 From the first, no doubt, there must have been a diff'erence between the chief 
 priest of the ark (Aaron, Eli, Abiathar, Zadok) and his subordinate brethren, 
 but there is no trace of such a distinction as is made in the Levitical law. 
 
 2°. Ezekiel knows nothing of Levites who were not priests in time past ; 
 he knows only the Zadokite Levites, the priests of the Temple, and other 
 Levites who had formerly been priests, but are to be degraded under the new 
 Temple, because they had ministered in the idolatrous shrines of the local 
 high places. The usual explanation that these Levites were the sons of 
 
LECT. XII PRIESTS 361 
 
 In the abolition of the local sanctuaries it was necessary 
 to make provision for these Levites. And this the new code 
 does in two ways : it provides, in the first place, that any 
 Levite from the provinces who chooses to come up to Jeru- 
 salem shall be admitted to equal privileges with his brethren 
 the Levites who stand there before Jehovah — not to the 
 privilege of a servant in the sanctuary, but to the full priest- 
 hood, as is expressly conveyed by the terms used. Thus 
 
 Ithamar is impossible. For the guild of Ithamar appears only after the Exile 
 as the name of a subordinate family of priests wbo were never degraded as 
 the prophet prescribes. Moreover, Ezek. xlviii. 11-13 clearly declares that 
 all Levites but the Zadokites shall be degraded. Ezekiel's Levites are the 
 priests of the local high places whom Josiah brought to Jerusalem, and who 
 were supported there on offerings which the non-priestly Levites under the 
 Levitical law had no right to eat. 
 
 3°. In Deuteronomy all Levitical functions are priestly, and to these 
 functions the whole tribe was chosen (x. 8, xxi. 5). The summary of 
 Levitical functions in x. 8 is (1) to carry the ark, which in old Israel was a 
 priestly function {supra, p. 276) ; (2) to stand before Jehovah and minister to 
 Him, an expression that invariably denotes priesthood proper ; see especially 
 Ezek. xliv. 13, 15 ; Jer. xxxiii. 18, 21, 22 : the Levites of the later law 
 minister not to God but to Aaron, Num. iii. 6 ; (3) to bless in Jehovah's name. 
 In the Levitical law this is the office of Aaron and his sons (Num. vi.). Ac- 
 cordingly in Deut. xviii. 1 sq., the whole tribe of Levi has a claim on the 
 altar gifts, the first fruits and other priestly offerings, and any Levite can 
 actually gain a share in these by going to Jerusalem and doing priestly 
 service. In the Levitical law common Levites have no share in these 
 revenues, but are nourished by the tithes and live in Levitical cities. There 
 were no Levitical cities in this sense in the time of the Deuteronomist, for all 
 those mentioned in Joshua — in passages which are really part of the Priests' 
 Code — lay outside the kingdom of Judah. And Deuteronomy knows 
 nothing of a Levitical tithe, though it allows the poor Levites a share in the 
 charity tithe. The Levite who is not in service at the sanctuary is always 
 represented as a needy sojourner, without visible means of support ; and this 
 agrees with Judges xvii. 7, 8 ; 1 Sam. ii. 36. 
 
 That the priesthood of Dan was a Levitical priesthood descended from 
 Moses is generally admitted. In Judges xviii. 30, the N which changes 
 
 : 
 
 Moses to Manasseh is inserted above the line thus : Ht^D, Moses ; n^ T2, 
 Manasseh. The reading of our English Bible was therefore a correction in 
 the archetype {supra, p. 57). On the whole subject of the Levites before the 
 Exile, see especially Graf in Merx's Archiv, i. ; Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschr., 
 1872 ; and Wellhausen, Prolegomena, Kap. iv. Baudissin's book, Gesch. dcs 
 ATlichen Pricsterthums (Leipzig, 1889), which seeks to find an intermediate 
 position between the old view and the new, does not give much help. 
 
362 THE LEVITICAL 
 
 ministering, he receives for his support an equal share of the 
 priestly dues paid in kind (Deut. xviii. 6 sq.). Those Levites, 
 on the other hand, who remain dispersed through the pro- 
 vinces receive no emolument from the sanctuary, and having 
 no property in land (xviii. 1), have a far from enviable lot, 
 which the legislator seeks to mitigate by recommending them 
 in a special manner, along with the widow and the orphan, 
 to the charity of the landed classes under whose protection 
 they dwell (xii. 12, 18 ; xiv. 27, 29 ; xvi. 11, 14; xxvi. 11 
 sq.). The method of such charity is to some extent defined. 
 Once in three years every farmer is called upon to store up a 
 tithe of the produce of his land, which he retains in his own 
 hands, but must dispense to the dependents or Levites who 
 come and ask a meal. The legislator, it is plain, aims at 
 something like a voluntary poor-rate. The condition of the 
 landless class, with whose sufferings the prophets are so often 
 exercised, had become a social problem, owing to the increase 
 of large estates and other causes (Isa. v. 8 ; Micah ii.), and 
 demanded a remedy ; but it is not proposed to enforce the 
 assessment through the executive. The matter is left to 
 every man's conscience as a religious duty, of which he is 
 called to give account before Jehovah in the sanctuary (xxvi. 
 12 sq.). And the bond between charity and religion is drawn 
 still closer by the provision that the well-to-do landholder, 
 when he comes up to the sanctuary to make merry before 
 God, feasting on the firstlings, tithes, etc., must bring with 
 him his dependents and the Levite who is within his gates, 
 that they too may have their part in the occasions of religious 
 joy. This law of charity appears to supersede the old rule of 
 leaving the produce of every field to the poor one year in 
 seven, which is obviously a more primitive and less practical 
 arrangement. In place of this, the Deuteronomic Code re- 
 quires that, at the close of every seven years, there shall be a 
 release of Hebrew debtors by their creditors (xv. 1 sq.). 
 
PRIESTS 363 
 
 I return to the Levites, in order to point out that the 
 comparison of Deut. xviii. with 2 Kings xxiii. 8 sq. effectually 
 disproves the idea of some critics that the Deuteronomic Code 
 was a forgery of the Temple priests, or of their head, the high 
 priest Hilkiah. The proposal to give the Levites of the pro- 
 vinces — that is, the priests of the local sanctuaries — equal 
 priestly rights at Jerusalem could not commend itself to the 
 Temple hierarchy. And in this point Josiah was not able to 
 carry out the ordinances of the book. The priests who were 
 brought up to Jerusalem received support from the Temple 
 dues, but were not permitted to minister at the altar. This 
 proves that the code did not emanate from Hilkiah and the 
 Zadokite priests, whose class interests were strong enough to 
 frustrate the law which, on the theory of a forgery, was their 
 own work. 
 
 Whence, then, did the book derive the authority which 
 made its discovery the signal for so great a reformation ? 
 How did it approve itself as an expression of the Divine will, 
 first to Hilkiah and Josiah, and then to the whole nation ? 
 To this question there can be but one answer. The authority 
 that lay behind Deuteronomy was the power of the prophetic 
 teaching which half a century of persecution had not been 
 able to suppress. After the work of Isaiah and his fellows, 
 it was impossible for any earnest movement of reformation 
 to adopt other principles than those of the prophetic word on 
 which Jehovah Himself had set His seal by the deliverance 
 from Assyria. What the Deuteronomic Code supplied was a 
 clear and practical scheme of reformation on the prophetic 
 lines. It showed that it was possible to adjust the old 
 religious constitution in conformity with present needs, and 
 this was enough to kindle into new flame the slumbering fire 
 of the word of the prophets. The book became the pro- 
 gramme of Josiah's reformation, because it gathered up in 
 practical form the results of the great movement under 
 
364 Israel's lect. xn 
 
 Hezekiah and Isaiah, aud the new divine teaching then given 
 to Israel. It was of no consequence to Josiah — it is of 
 equally little consequence to us — to know the exact date 
 and authorship of the book. Its prophetic doctrine, and 
 the practical character of the scheme which it set forth — 
 in which the new teaching and the old Torah were fused 
 into an intelligible unity — were enough to commend it. 
 
 The law of the one sanctuary, which is aimed against 
 assimilation of Jehovah-worship to the religion of Canaan, 
 and seeks entirely to separate the people from the worship of 
 Canaanite shrines, is only one expression of a thought com- 
 mon to the prophets, that the unique religion of Jehovah was 
 in constant danger from intercourse between Israel and the 
 nations. Isaiah complains that the people were always ready 
 to " strike hands with the children of strangers," and recog- 
 nises a chief danger to faith in the policy of the nobles, who 
 were dazzled with the splendour and courted the alliance of 
 the great empires on the Nile and the Tigris (Isa. ii. 6, xxx. 
 1 sq. ; comp. Hosea vii. 8, viii. 9, xiv. 3). The vocation of 
 Israel as Jehovah's people has no points of contact with the 
 aims and political combinations of the surrounding nations, 
 and Micah vii. 14 looks forward to a time when Israel shall 
 be like a flock feeding in solitude in the woods of Bashan or 
 Carmel. Isaiah expresses this unique destiny of Israel in 
 the word Jiolincss. Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel, and 
 conversely His true people are a holy seed. The notion of 
 holiness is primarily connected with the sanctuary and all 
 things pertaining to intercourse with the deity. The old 
 Israelite consecrated himself before a sacrifice. In the First 
 Legislation the notion of Israel's holiness appears only in the 
 law against eating flesh torn in the field, of which the blood 
 had not been duly offered to God on His altar. But Isaiah 
 raises the notion beyond the sphere of ritual, and places 
 Israel's holiness in direct relation to the personal presence 
 
HOLINESS 365 
 
 of Jehovah on Zion, in the centre of His people, as their 
 living Sanctuary, whose glory fills all the earth (Isa. vi. 3, 
 iv. 3 sq.). The Code of Deuteronomy appropriates this 
 principle; but in its character of a law, seeking definite 
 practical expression for religious principles, it develops the 
 idea of unique holiness and separation from the profane 
 nations in prohibitive ordinances. The essential object of 
 the short law of the kingdom (xvii. 14 sq.) is to guard 
 against admixture with foreigners and participation in 
 foreign policy. Other precepts regulate contact with the 
 adjoining nations (xxiii. 3 sq.), and a vast number of statutes 
 are directed against the immoralities of Canaanite nature- 
 worship, which, as we know from the prophets and the 
 Books of Kings, had deeply tainted the service of Jehovah. 
 Not a few details, which to the modern eye seem trivial 
 or irrational, disclose to the student of Semitic antiquity 
 an energetic protest against the moral grossness of Canaanite 
 heathenism. These precepts give the law a certain air of 
 ritual formalism, but the formalism lies only on the surface, 
 and there is a moral idea below. The ceremonial observ- 
 ances of Deuteronomy are directed against heathen usages. 
 Thus in Deut. xxii. 5 women are forbidden to wear men's 
 garments and men women's garments. This is not a mere 
 rule of conventional propriety, but is directed against those 
 simulated changes of sex which occur in Canaanite and Syrian 
 heathenism. We learn from Servius that sacrifice was done 
 to the bearded Astarte of Cyprus by men dressed as women 
 and women dressed as men ; and tlie Galli, with their female 
 dress and ornaments, are one of the most disgusting features 
 of the Syrian and Phoenician sanctuaries.-^ So again the 
 
 1 See Servius on ^En. ii. 632 ; Macrob. Saturn, iii. 8 ; Lucian, De Sijria 
 Dca, § 51 ; Euseb. Vit. Cmist. iii. 55. The Galli of later times seem to be 
 identical with the vile class named in Deut. xxiii. 17 and the "dogs" of the 
 following verse. The same figurative use of the word dog is found in the 
 painted inscription of Citium ; C. I. S. No. 86. 
 
366 CLEAN AND UNCLEAN lect. xii 
 
 forms of mourning prohibited in Deut. xiv. 1 are ancient 
 practices which among the other Semites have a religious 
 significance. They occur not only in mourning but in the 
 worship of the gods, and belong to the sphere of heathen 
 superstition/ Another example of rules that have a deeper 
 significance than appears on the surface is found in Deut. 
 xiv. 3-21, in the list of forbidden foods. "We know as a 
 fact that some of the unclean animals were sacrament- 
 ally eaten in certain heathen rituals (Isa. Ixvi. 17, Ixv. 
 4, Ixvi. 3), and in general the rules as to eating and not 
 eating certain kinds of flesh among the heathen Semites, 
 as in other early nations, were directly connected with 
 ancient superstitions, which in the last resort must have 
 arisen out of ideas closely analogous to the totemism of 
 modern savages. All primitive people have rules for- 
 bidding the use of certain kinds of food, out of religious 
 scruple, or on the other hand they never eat certain kinds 
 of flesh except as a solemn act of worship. An animal 
 that may not be eaten, or that may be eaten only in solemn 
 sacraments, is primarily a holy animal, and is often an object 
 of worship ; for in primitive religion the ideas holy and un- 
 clean meet. Now we learn from Ezekiel viii. 10, 11 that 
 one of the forms of low superstition practised at Jerusalem 
 in the last days of the old kingdom was the worship of 
 unclean creatures. This must be a relic of very ancient 
 heathenism, which had lingered for centuries in the obscure 
 depths of society, and came to the surface again in the 
 general despair of Jehovah's help which drove Ezekiel's 
 contemporaries into all manner of degrading superstitions. 
 Some parts of the law of forbidden food in Deuteronomy 
 probably do no more than formulate antique prejudices, 
 which to the mass of the people had long lost all religious 
 significance, but had come to be regarded as points of 
 ^ See Religion of the Semites, i. 304 sqq. 
 
IN DEUTERONOMY 367 
 
 propriety and self-respect ; but it can hardly be doubted that 
 other parts are directly aimed at heathen sacraments, such as 
 the eating of swine's flesh spoken of in the Book of Isaiah, 
 and similar rites that might well occur in connection with the 
 superstitions described by Ezekiel. Similar prohibitions have 
 been enforced in Christian times on converts from heathen- 
 ism, in order to cut them off from participation in idolatrous 
 feasts. Thus Simeon Stylites forbade his Saracen converts 
 to eat the flesh of the camel, which was the chief element 
 in the sacrificial meals of the Arabs, and our own prejudice 
 against the use of horse flesh is a relic of an old ecclesi- 
 astical prohibition framed at the time when the eating of 
 such food was an act of worship to Odin.-^ 
 
 This constant polemical reference to Canaanite worship 
 and Canaanite morality gives to the element of ritual and 
 forms of worship a much larger place in Deuteronomy than 
 these things hold in the First Legislation. In points of civil 
 order the new law still moves on the old lines. Its object is 
 not legislative innovation, but to bring the old consuetudinary 
 law into relation to the fundamental principle that Jehovah 
 is Israel's Lawgiver, and that all social order exists under 
 His sanction. 
 
 ^ This subject is fully treated in my Religion of the Semites, vol. i. (1889), 
 to which I refer for details as to ancient laws of forbidden meats. Two of the 
 prohibitions in Deuteronomy (xiv. 21) rest on the older legislation ; but these 
 have a character of their own. The first of them is the law against eating 
 carrion (Exod. xxii. 31), which evidently rests on the old rule that all lawful 
 slaughter must be sacriiicial, but is equally consistent with the Deuteronomic 
 modification of that rule (Deut. xii. 15). The other is the very curious law 
 against seething a kid in its mother's milk, i.e. in goats' milk, on which see 
 op. cit. p. 204 note. From the occurrence in Deut. xiv. 12-19 of some charac- 
 teristic priestly expressions Kuenen infers that this law was derived by the 
 Deuteronomist from the oral Torah of the priests (comp. xxiv. 8) ; but it is also 
 possible that these details were added later, and that the original law confined 
 itself to allowing all clean birds to be eaten (ver. 11), thus glancing obliquely 
 at the rule of the Astarte -worshippers of Canaan, who would not eat the dove 
 {op. cit. p. 202 note). The permission to eat all fish having scales and fins 
 also stands in contrast to a widespread superstition of the Syrian Astarte- 
 worshippers {op. cit, p. 430). 
 
368 CIVIL LAWS OF 
 
 Thus we still find some details which bear the stamp of 
 primeval Semitic culture. In chap. xxi. 10 sq. we have 
 marriage by capture as it was practised by the Arabs before 
 Mohammed, and even the detail as to the paring of the nails 
 of the captive before marriage is identical with one of the old 
 Arabic methods of terminating the widow's period of seclusion 
 and setting her free to marry again. 
 
 But 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 prescribed in Deut. xix. 16 
 sq. only for the case of false witness.-^ And with this goes the 
 introduction of a new punishment, 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 sq.). The introduction of this degrading punishment in the 
 case of freemen indicates a change in social feeling. Among 
 the Bedouins no sheikh 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 time. But Eastern kingship 
 breaks down this sense of personal independence, while, at 
 the same time, it modifies the strict law of revenge. In 
 general, the executive system of Deuteronomy is more ad- 
 vanced. The sanctuary is still the highest seat of law, but 
 the priest is now associated with a supreme civil judge (xvii. 
 9, 12), who seems to be identical with the king ; and even 
 the subordinate judges are not merely the natural sheikhs, or 
 elders of the local communities, but include officers appointed 
 with national authority (xvi. 18). Again, the law of manu- 
 mission undergoes an important modification. On the old 
 law a father could sell his daughter as a slave, and the bond- 
 woman was absolute property ; the master could wed her to 
 
 ^ It may indeed be inferred from this passage that the talio existed in 
 theory in other cases also, but was not commonly enforced in practice. 
 
DEUTERONOMY 369 
 
 one of bis servants, and retain her when the servant left. In 
 Deuteronomy all this has disappeared, and a Hebrew woman 
 has a right to manumission after seven years, like a man (xv. 
 12, 17). A similar advance appears in the change on the law 
 of seduction. By the old law this case was treated as one of 
 pecuniary loss to the father, who must be compensated by the 
 seducer purchasing the damsel as wife for the full price 
 (mdhar) of a virgin. In Deuteronomy the law is removed 
 from among the laws of property to laws of moral purity, and 
 the payment of full moliar is changed to a fixed fine (Exod. 
 xxii. 16, 17 ; Dent. xxii. 28 sg-.). 
 
 In other cases the new code softens the rudeness of ancient 
 custom. In Arabic warfare the destruction of an enemy's 
 palm-groves is a favourite exploit, and fertile lands are thus 
 often reduced to desert. In 2 Kings iii. 19 we find that the 
 same practice was enjoined on Israel by the prophet Elisha 
 in war with Moab ; every good tree was to be cut down. But 
 Deut. XX. 19 sg'. forbids this barbarous destruction of fruit- 
 trees. Still more remarkable is the law of Deut. xxii. 30. It 
 was a custom among many of the ancient Arabs that a man 
 took possession of his father's wives along with the property 
 (his own mother, of course, excepted). The only law of for- 
 bidden degrees in the Deuteronomic Code is directed against 
 this practice, which Ezekiel xxii. 10 mentions as still current 
 in Jerusalem. But in early times such marriages were made 
 without offence. The Israelites understood Absalom's appro- 
 priation of David's secondary wives as a formal way of 
 declaring that his father was dead to him, and that he served 
 himself his heir (2 Sam. xvi.) ; and when Adonijah asked the 
 hand of Abishag, Solomon understood him as claiming the 
 inheritance (1 Kings ii. 22). The same custom explains the 
 anger of Ishbosheth at Abner (2 Sam. iii. 7). The new code, 
 you perceive, marks a growth in morality and refinement. It 
 is still no ideal law fit for all time, but a practical code 
 
 24 
 
370 RITUAL IN 
 
 largely incorporating elements of actual custom. But the 
 growth of custom and usage is on the whole upward, and 
 ancient social usages which survived for many centuries 
 after the age of Josiah among the heathen of Arabia and 
 Syria already lie behind the Deuteronomic Code. With all 
 the hardness of Israel's heart, the religion of Jehovah had 
 proved itself in its influence on the nation a better religion 
 than that of the Baalim.^ 
 
 From Josiah's covenant to the fall of the Jewish state the 
 Code of Deuteronomy had but a generation to run. Even in 
 this short time it appeared that the reformation had not 
 accomplished its task, and that the introduction of the written 
 law was not enough to avert the judgment which the prophets 
 had declared inevitable for the purification of the nation. 
 The crusade against the high places was most permanent in 
 its results. In the time of Jeremiah popular superstition 
 clung to the Temple as it had formerly clung to the high 
 places, and in the Temple the populace and the false prophets 
 found the pledge that Jehovah could never forsake His 
 nation. This fact is easily understood. The prophetic ideas 
 of Isaiah, which were the real spring of the Deuteronomic 
 reformation, had never been spiritually grasped by the mass 
 
 ^ See on marriage with a stepmother my Kinship, p. 86 sqq. It is not, of 
 course, to be supposed that no other rule of forbidden degrees was recognised, 
 but ouly that no other case required to be provided against. Yet marriage 
 with a half-sister not uterine was allowed in old Israel, and not unknown in 
 the days of Ezekiel {supra, p. 280), though it is condemned by him and in 
 the "Framework" of Deuteronomy (chap, xxvii. 22). "Why does the code 
 not mention this case, which was certainly not to be passed over in silence 1 
 In such a case silence seems to imply consent ; and this may supply an 
 additional argument for assigning to Deut. xxvii. a later date than the code 
 of chaps, xii.-xxvi. The advance in the laws of forbidden degrees from the 
 Deuteronomic Code through the "Framework" (Deut. xxvii.) and Ezekiel 
 (xxii. 10, 11) to the full Levitical law is one of the clearest proofs of the true 
 order of succession in the Pentateuchal laws. Marriage with a half-sister was 
 known among the Phcenicians in the time of Achilles Tatius, and indeed 
 forbidden marriages, including that with a father's wife, seem to have been 
 practised pretty openly in Roman Syria down to the fifth Christian century. 
 See Bruns and Sachau, Syrisch-Bomisehes Rechtsbuch, p. 30 (Leipzig, 1880). 
 
DEUTERONOMY 371 
 
 of the people, though the 4clat attending the overthrow of 
 Sennacherib had given them a certain currency. The con- 
 ception of Jehovah's throne on Zion was materialised in the 
 Temple, and the moral conditions of acceptance with the King 
 of Zion, on which Isaiah laid so much weight, were forgotten. 
 Jehovah received ritual homage in lieu of moral obedience ; 
 and Jeremiah has again occasion to declare that the latter 
 alone is the positive content of the divine Torah, and that a 
 law of sacrifice is no part of the original covenant with 
 Israel. In speaking thus the prophet does not separate him- 
 self from the Deuteronomic law ; for the moral precepts of 
 that code — as, for example, the Deuteronomic form of the 
 law. of manumission (Jer. xxxiv. 13-16) — he accepts as part 
 of the covenant of the Exodus. To Jeremiah, therefore, the 
 Code of Deuteronomy does not appear in the light of a positive 
 law of sacrifice ; and this judgment is undoubtedly correct. 
 The ritual details of Deuteronomy are directed against 
 heathen worship ; they are negative, not positive. In the 
 matter of sacrifice and festal observances the new code simply 
 diverts the old homage of Israel from the local sanctuaries to 
 the central shrine, and all material offerings are summed up 
 under the principles of gladness before Jehovah at the great 
 agricultural feasts, and of homage paid to Him in acknow- 
 ledgment that the good things of the land of Canaan are 
 His gift (xxvi. 10). The firstlings, first fruits, and so forth 
 remain on their old footing as natural expressions of devotion, 
 which did not begin with the Exodus and are not peculiar to 
 Israel. Even the festal sacrifices retain the character of " a 
 voluntary tribute" (Deut. xvi. 10), and the paschal victim 
 itself may be chosen indifferently from the flock or the herd 
 (xvi. 2), and is still, according to the Hebrew of xvi. 7, pre- 
 sumed to be boiled, not roasted, as is the case in all old 
 sacrifices of which the history speaks. Deuteronomy knows 
 nothing of a sacrificial priestly Torah, though it refers the 
 
372 DEUTERONOMY AND lect. xii 
 
 people to the Torah of the priests on the subject of leprosy 
 (xxiv, 8), and acknowledges their authority as judges in law- 
 suits. In the Deuteronomic Code the idea of sin is never 
 connected with matters of ritual. A sin means a crime, an 
 offence to law and justice (xix. 15, xxi. 22, xxii. 26, xxiv. 16), 
 an act of heathenism (xx. 18), a breach of faith towards 
 Jehovah (xxiii. 21, 22), or a lack of kindliness to the poor 
 (xxiv. 15). And such offences are expiated, not by sacrifice, 
 but by punishment at the hand of man or God. This moral 
 side of the law, which exactly corresponds to prophetic teach- 
 ing, continued to be neglected in Judah. Oppression, blood- 
 shed, impurity, idolatry, filled the land ; and for these things 
 Jeremiah threatens a judgment, which the Temple and its 
 ritual can do nothing to avert (Jer. vii.). 
 
 In all this Deuteronomy and Jeremiah alike still stand 
 outside the priestly Torah. As far as Deuteronomy goes, this 
 is usually explained by saying that it is a law for the people, 
 and does not take up points of ritual which specially belonged 
 to the priests. But the code, which refers to the priestly law 
 of leprosy, says nothing of ordinances of ritual atonement and 
 stated sacrifice, and Jeremiah denies in express terms that a 
 law of sacrifice forms any part of the divine commands to 
 Israel. The priestly and prophetic Torahs are not yet absorbed 
 into one system. 
 
 Nevertheless there can be no doubt that there was at this 
 time a ritual Torah in the hands of the priests, containing 
 elements which the prophets and the old codes pass by. In 
 the time of Ahaz there was a daily burnt offering in the 
 morning, a stated cereal offering in the evening (2 Kings xvi. 
 15). There was also an atoning ritual. In the time of 
 Jehoash the atonements paid to the priests were pecuniary — 
 a common enough thing in ancient times. But atoning 
 sacrifice was also of ancient standing. It occurs in 1 Sam. iii. 
 14, — '•' The guilt of the house of Eli shall not be wiped out by 
 
LECT. XII THE TEIESTLY TORAH 373 
 
 sacrifice or oblation for ever," The idea of atonement in the 
 sacrificial blood must be very ancient, and a trace of it is found 
 in the Book of Deuteronomy (xxi. 4) in the curious ordinance 
 which provides for the atonement of the blood of untraced 
 homicide by the slaughter of a heifer.-^ Along with these 
 things we find ancient ordinances of ceremonial holiness in 
 the sanctuary at Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 4), and all this necessarily 
 supposes a ritual law, the property of the priests. Only, we 
 have already seen that the details still preserved to us of the 
 Temple ritual are not identical with the full Levitical system. 
 They contained many germs of that system, but they also 
 contained much that w^as radically different. And in par- 
 ticular the Temple worship itself was not stringently differ- 
 entiated from everything heathenish, as appears with the 
 utmost clearness in the admission of uncircumcised foreigners 
 to certain ministerial functions, in the easy way in which 
 Isaiah's friend Urijah accepted the foreign innovations of 
 King Ahaz, and in the fact that prophets whom Jeremiah 
 regards as heathen diviners still continued to be attached to 
 the Temple up to the last days of the state, wdiile worshippers 
 from Samaria made pilgrimages to Jerusalem with heathenish 
 ceremonies expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy as well as in 
 Leviticus (Jer, xli, 5 ; Lev. xix. 27, 28 ; Deut. xiv. 1 ; Isa, 
 XV, 2). We see, then, that even Josiah's reformation left 
 many things in the Temple which savoured of heathenism, 
 and the presence of the priests of the high places w^as little 
 calculated to improve the spirituality of the observances of 
 Jehovah's house. In all this there was a manifest danger to 
 true religion. If ritual and sacrifice were to continue at all, 
 it was highly desirable that some order should be taken with 
 the priestly ritual, and an attempt made to reorganise it in 
 conformity with the prophetic conception of Jehovah's moral 
 
 ^ Analogies to this peculiar form of atonement are given in Religion of the 
 Semites, p. 351. 
 
374 TORAH OF 
 
 holiness, Lut no effort to complete Josiali's work in this 
 direction seems to have been made in the last troublous 
 years of Jerusalem. On the contrary, Ezekiel describes the 
 grossest heathenism as practised at the Temple, and hardly 
 without the countenance of the priests (Ezek. viii.). 
 
 The Temple and its worship fell with the destruction of 
 the city. Fourteen years later, Ezekiel, dwelling in captivity, 
 had a vision of a new Temple, a place of worship for repentant 
 Israel, and heard a voice commanding him to lay before the 
 people a pattern of remodelled worship. " If they be 
 ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of 
 the house . . . and all its ordinances, and all the Torahs 
 thereof : and write them before them that they may keep all 
 the form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do 
 them" (Ezek. xliii. 10, 11). 
 
 A great mystery has been made of this law of Ezekiel, but 
 the prophet himself makes none. He says in the clearest 
 words that the revelation is a sketch of ritual for the period 
 of restoration, and again and again he places his new ordin- 
 ances in contrast with the actual corrupt usage of the first 
 Temple (xliii. 7, xliv. 5 sq., xlv. 8, 9). He makes no appeal 
 to a previous law of ritual. The whole scheme of a written 
 law of the house is new, and so Ezekiel only confirms Jere- 
 miah, who knew no divine law of sacrifice under the First 
 Temple. It is needless to rehearse more than the chief points 
 of Ezekiel's legislation. The first that strikes us is the de- 
 gradation of the Levites. The ministers of the old Temple, 
 he tells us, were uncircumcised foreigners, whose presence was 
 an insult to Jehovah's sanctuary. Such men shall no more 
 enter the house, but in their place shall come the Levites not 
 of the house of Zadok, who are to be degraded from the priest- 
 hood because they officiated in old Israel before the idolatrous 
 shrines (xliv. 5 sq). This one point is sufficient to fix the 
 date of the Levitical law as later than Ezekiel. In all the 
 
EZEKIEL 375 
 
 earlier history, aud in the Code of Deuteronomy, a Levite is 
 a priest, or at least qualified to assume priestly functions ; 
 and even in Josiah's reformation the Levite priests of the 
 high places received a modified priestly status at Jerusalem. 
 Ezekiel knows that it has been so in the past ; but he 
 declares that it shall be otherwise in the future, as a punish- 
 ment for the offence of ministering at the idolatrous altars. 
 He knows nothing of an earlier law, in which priests and 
 Levites are already distinguished, in which the office of Levite 
 is itself a high privilege (Num. xvi. 9). 
 
 A second point in Ezekiel's law is a provision for stated 
 and regular sacrifices. These sacrifices are to be provided by 
 the prince, who in turn is to receive from the people no 
 arbitrary tax, but a fixed tribute in kind upon all agricultural 
 produce and flocks. Here again we see a reference to pre- 
 exilic practice, when the Temple was essentially the king's 
 sanctuary, and the stated offerings were his gift. In the old 
 codes the people at large are under no obligation to do stated 
 sacrifice. That was the king's voluntary offering, and so it 
 was at first after the Exile, at least in theory. The early 
 decrees of Persian monarchs in favour of the Jews provide 
 for regular sacrifice at the king's expense (Ezra vi. 9, vii. 
 17) ;-^ and only at the convocation of Nehemiah do the people 
 agree to defray the stated offering by a voluntary poll-tax of 
 a third of a shekel (Neh. x. 32). It is disputed whether, in 
 Exod. XXX. 16, "the service of the tabernacle," defrayed by 
 the fixed tribute of half a shekel, refers to the continual sacri- 
 fices. If it does so, this law was still unknown to JSTehemiah, 
 and must be a late addition to the Pentateuch. If it does not, 
 it is still impossible that the costly Levitical ordinance of stated 
 
 ^ The history in Ezra-Nehemiah makes it clear that these decrees had 
 little practical result ; and it has been questioned whether in their present 
 form they are perfectly authentic. But they show at least that the theory 
 of the Jews was that public sacrifices should be defrayed by the supreme civil 
 authority. 
 
376 TORAH OF 
 
 offerings could have preceded the existence of a provision for 
 supplying them. Again we are brought back to Jeremiah's 
 words. The stated sacrifices were not prescribed in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 A third point in Ezekiel's law is the prominence given to 
 the sin offering and atoning ritual. The altar must be purged 
 with sin offerings for seven consecutive days before burnt 
 sacrifices are acceptably offered on it (xliii. 18 s(i). The 
 Levitical law (Exod. xxix. 36, 37) prescribes a similar cere- 
 mony, but with more costly victims. At the dedication of 
 Solomon's Temple, on the contrary (1 Kings viii. 62), the 
 altar is at once assumed to be fit for use, in accordance with 
 Exod. XX. 24, and with all the early cases of altar-building 
 outside the Pentateuch. But, besides this first expiatory 
 ceremonial, Ezekiel appoints two atoning services yearly, at 
 the beginning of the first and the seventh month (xlv. 18, 20, 
 LXX.), to purge the house. This is the first appearance, out- 
 side of the Levitical code, of anything corresponding to the 
 great day of atonement in the seventh month, and it is plain 
 that the simple service in Ezekiel is still far short of that 
 solemn ceremony. The day of atonement was also a fast day. 
 But in Zech. vii. 5, viii. 19, the fast of the seventh month is 
 alluded to as one of the four fasts commemorating the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, which had been practised for the last 
 seventy years. The fast of the seventh month was not yet 
 united with the " purging of the house " ordained by Ezekiel. 
 Even in the great convocation of Neh. 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 mention of 
 the day of expiation on the tenth, which thus appears as the 
 very last stone in the ritual edifice. 
 
 I pass over other features of Ezekiel's legislation. The 
 detailed proof that in every point Ezekiel's Torah prepares 
 the way for the Levitical law, but represents a more ele- 
 
EZEKIEL 377 
 
 mentary ritual, may be read in the text itself with the aid of 
 Smend's Commentary. The whole scheme presents itself 
 with absolute clearness as a first sketch of a written priestly 
 Torah, resting not on the law of Moses but on old priestly 
 usage, and reshajDed so as to bring the ordinances of the house 
 into due conformity with the holiness of Jehovah in the sense 
 of the prophets and the Deuteronomic Code. The thought 
 that underlies Ezekiel's code is clearly brought out in xliii. 7, 
 xliv. 6 sqq. To Ezekiel, who is himself a priest, the whore- 
 dom of Israel, their foul departure from Jehovah after filthy 
 idols, appears in a peculiarly painful light in connection with 
 the service of the sanctuary, the throne of Jehovah, the place 
 of the soles of His feet, where He dwells in the midst of 
 Israel for ever. In time past the people of Israel have defiled 
 Jehovah's name by their abominations, and for this they have 
 suffered His wrath. The new law is a gift to the people on 
 their repentance — a scheme to protect them from again falling 
 into like sins. The unregulated character of the old service 
 gave room for the introduction of heathen abominations. 
 The new service shall be reduced to a divine rule, leaving no 
 door for what is unholy. But so long as worship takes place 
 with material ceremonies in an earthly sanctuary, the idea of 
 holiness cannot be divested of a material element. From the 
 earliest times the sanctity of God's worship had regard to 
 provisions of physical holiness, especially to lustrations and 
 rules of cleanness and uncleanness, which, in their origin, 
 were not different in principle from the similar rules found 
 among all ancient nations, but which nevertheless could be 
 used, as we find them used in Deuteronomy, to furnish a 
 barrier against certain forms of foreign heathenism. From the 
 priestly point of view, material and moral observances of 
 sanctity run into one. Ezekiel finds equal fault with 
 idolatry in the Temple and with the profanation of its 
 plateau by the sepulchres of the kings (xliii. 7). And so his 
 
378 RELIGION DIVORCED lect. xii 
 
 ritual, though its fundamental idea is moral, branches out 
 into a variety of ordinances which from our modern point of 
 view seem merely formal, but which were yet inevitable 
 unless the principle of sacrifice and an earthly sanctuary 
 was to be altogether superseded. If the material sanctuary 
 was to be preserved at all, the symbolic observances of its 
 holiness must be made stringent, and to this end the new 
 ordinance of the Levites and Ezekiel's other provisions were 
 altogether suitable. 
 
 In proportion, now, as the whole theory of worship is 
 remodelled and reduced to rule on the scheme of an exclusive 
 sanctity, which presents, so to speak, an armed front to 
 every abomination of impure heathenism, the ritual becomes 
 abstract, and the services remote from ordinary life. In the 
 old worship all was spontaneous. It was as natural for an 
 Israelite to worship Jehovah as for a Moabite to worship 
 Chemosh. To worship God was a holiday, an occasion of 
 feasting. Eeligion, in its sacrificial form, was a part of 
 common life, which had its well-known and established 
 forms, but which no one deemed it necessary to reduce to 
 written rules. Even in Deuteronomy this view predomi- 
 nates. The sacrificial feasts are still the consecration of 
 natural occasions of joy ; men eat, drink, and make merry 
 before God. The sense of God's favour, not the sense of sin, 
 is what rules at the sanctuary. But the unification of the 
 sanctuary already tended to break up this old type of religion. 
 Worship ceased to be an everyday thing, and so it ceased to 
 be the expression of everyday religion. In Ezekiel this 
 change has produced its natural result in a change of the 
 whole standpoint from which he views the service of the 
 Temple. The offerings of individuals are no longer the chief 
 reason for which the Temple exists. All weight lies on the 
 stated service, which the prince provides out of national 
 funds, and which is, as it were, the representative service of 
 
FROM SACRIFICE 379 
 
 Israel. The individiml Israelite who, in the old law, 
 stood at the altar himself and brought his own victim, 
 is now separated from it, not only by the double cordon of 
 priests and Levites, but by the fact that his personal 
 offering is thrown into the background by the stated national 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The whole tendency of this is to make personal religion 
 more and more independent of offerings. The emotion with 
 which the worshipper approaches the second Temple, as re- 
 corded 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. The daily religion of the Eestoration found new 
 forms. The devotional study of the Scriptures, the syna- 
 gogue, the practice of prayer elsewhere than before the altar, 
 were all independent of the old idea of worship, and naturally 
 prepared the way for the New Testament. The narrowing of 
 the privilege of access to God at the altar would have been 
 a retrograde step if altar- worship had still remained the form 
 of all religion. But this was not so, and therefore the new 
 ritual was a practical means of separating personal religion 
 from forms destined soon to pass away. The very features 
 of the Levitical ordinances which seem most inconsistent 
 with spirituality, if we place them in the days of Moses, 
 when all religion took shape before the altar, appear in a 
 very different light in the age after the Exile, when the non- 
 ritual religion of the prophets went side by side with the 
 Law, and supplied daily nourishment to the spiritual life of 
 those who were far from the sanctuary. 
 
 With all this there went another change not less im- 
 portant. In the old ritual, sacrifice and offering were 
 essentially an expression of homage (in the presentation of 
 
380 ATONING RITUAL 
 
 the altar gift), and an act of communion (in the sacrificial 
 feast that followed), while the element of atonement for sin 
 held a very subsidiary place in ordinary acts of worship. 
 But the ideas of sacrificial homage and communion lost great 
 part of their force when the sacrifices of tlie sanctuary were 
 so much divorced from individual life, and became a sort of 
 abstract representative service. In Ezekiel, and still more 
 in the Levitical legislation, the element of atonement takes a 
 foremost place. The sense of sin had grown deeper under 
 the teaching of the prophets, and amidst the proofs of 
 Jehovah's auger that darkened the last days of the Jewish 
 state. Sin and forgiveness were the main themes of pro- 
 phetic discourse. The problem of acceptance with God 
 exercised every thoughtful mind, as we see not only from 
 the Psalms and the prophets of the Exile and Eestoration, 
 but above all from the Book of Job, which is certainly later 
 than the time of Jeremiah. The acceptance of the worship 
 of the sanctuary had always been regarded as the visible 
 sacrament of Jehovah's acceptance of the worshipper, " when 
 He came to him and blessed him." And now, more than in 
 any former time, the first point in acceptance was felt to be 
 the forgiveness of sin, and the weightiest element in the 
 ritual was that which symbolised the atonement or " wiping 
 out" of iniquity. The details of this symbolism cannot 
 occupy us here. In point of form the atoning ordinances of 
 the Levitical law are not essentially different from the expia- 
 tory rites of other ancient nations, and they must therefore be 
 taken, not as innovations but as a reshaping of ancient ritual 
 to fit the conditions of the second Temple. As regards their 
 meaning the law is generally silent, and it was left to the 
 worshipper to interpret the symbolism as he could. In some 
 cases the meaning was transparent enough, in others the 
 original significance of the acts prescribed was probably 
 forgotten at the time when the old ritual traditions were 
 
AFTER THE EXILE 381 
 
 codified.-^ They were conventions to which God had attached 
 the promise of forgiveness ; and their real significance as a 
 factor in the religious life of Judaism lay not in the details 
 of the ritual but in that they constantly impressed on the 
 people the sense of abiding sin, the need of forgiveness, and 
 above all the assurance that the religion of Israel was 
 grounded on a promise of forgiveness to those who sought 
 God in the way that He prescribed. For the promise of 
 forgiveness is the only foundation on which a God-fearing 
 life can be built. " With thee is forgiveness that thou 
 mayest be feared" (Ps. cxxx. 4). 
 
 The Levitical legislation in our present Pentateuch is the 
 practical adaptation of these principles to the circumstances 
 of the second Temple, when Jerusalem was no longer the 
 seat of a free state, but only the centre of a religious 
 community possessing certain municipal privileges of self- 
 government. Its distinctive features are all found in 
 Ezekiel's Torah — the care with which the Temple and its 
 vicinity are preserved from the approach of unclean things 
 and persons, the corresponding institution of a class of 
 
 ^ I have attempted an historical and comparative investigation into the 
 meaning of the atoning ceremonies of the Hebrews in my Religion of the 
 Semites, to which the curious reader may refer. The question as to the 
 etymological meaning of the Hebrew root "ISD, from the second stem of which 
 the technical terms connected with atonement are derived, is obscure. The 
 root idea is commonly taken to be " to cover " (after the Arabic) ; but in 
 Syriac the sense of the simple stem is "to wipe off" or "wipe clean." Tliis 
 sense appears in Hebrew (in the second stem) if the text of Isa. xxviii. 18 is 
 sound, which, however, is very doubtful. The sequence of the various Hebrew 
 usages is very ingeniously worked out by Wellhausen {Gcschichte, i. 66 sqq. ; 
 Composition, p. 335), starting from the sense "cover" ; but it seems to me 
 that his argument might be easily accommodated to the other possible 
 etymology. There are Semitic analogies for regarding tlie forgiveness of sin 
 either as "covering" or as "wiping out," and the phrase D''JS "ID3 = D''JD Hpn 
 is not decisive, though on the whole it seems easiest to take this to mean 
 " to wipe clean the face " blackened by displeasure, as the Arabs say " whiten 
 the face." The most important point is that except in the Priests' Code it is 
 God, not the priest, who (on the one etymology) wipes out sin or (on the other) 
 regards it as covered. 
 
382 THE LEVITICAL 
 
 holy ministers in the person of the Levites, the greater 
 distance thus interposed between the people and the altar, 
 the concentration of sacrifice in the two forms of stated 
 representative offerings (the tamtd) and atoning sacrifices. 
 In all these points, as we have seen, the usage of the 
 Law is in distinct contrast to that of the first Temple, 
 where the Temple plateau was polluted by the royal 
 sepulchres, where the servants of the sanctuary were un- 
 circumcised foreigners, the stated service the affair of the 
 king, regulated at will by him (2 Kings xvi.), and the 
 atoning offerings commonly took the shape of fines paid to 
 the priests of the sanctuary (2 Kings xii. 16). That 
 Ezekiel in these matters speaks, not merely as a priest 
 recording old usage, but as a prophet ordaining new Torah 
 with Divine authority, is his own express claim, and 
 therefore the Pentateuchal ordinances that go with Ezekiel 
 against the praxis of the first Temple must have been 
 written after Ezekiel and under his influence. 
 
 The development of the details of the system falls there- 
 fore between the time of Ezekiel and the work of Ezra, 
 or to speak exactly, between 572 and 444 B.C. ; and the 
 circumstance already referred to, that the culminating and 
 most solemn ceremony of the great day of expiation was 
 not observed in the year of Ezra's covenant, shows that the 
 last touches were not added to the ritual until, through Ezra's 
 agency, it was put into practical operation.^ But, while the 
 historical student is thus compelled to speak of the ritual 
 code as the law of the second Temple, it would be a great 
 mistake to think of it as altogether new. Ezekiel's ordin- 
 ances are nothing else than a reshaping of the old priestly 
 Torah ; and a close study of the Levitical laws, especially in 
 Lev. xvii.-xxvi., shows that many ancient Torahs were worked 
 
 ^ See additional Note F, The development of the ritual system betiveen 
 Ezekiel and Ezra. 
 
LEGISLATION 383 
 
 up, by successive processes, into the complete system as we 
 now possess it. In Lev. xxiv. 19 sq^., for example, we find the 
 old law of retaliation for injuries not mortal, which is already 
 obsolescent in the Deuteronomic Code. The preservation of 
 such a Torah shows that the priests did not give up all their 
 old traditional law for the written Code of Deuteronomy, They 
 doubtless continued till the time of Ezra to give oral Torahs, 
 as we see from Haggai i. 11. The analogy of all early law 
 makes this procedure quite intelligible to us. Nothing is 
 more common than to find an antique legislation handed 
 down, in the mouth of a priestly or legal guild, in certain set 
 forms of words. 
 
 To trace out in detail how much of the Levitical legisla- 
 tion consists of such old Torahs handed down from time 
 immemorial in the priestly families, and how much is new, is 
 a task which we cannot now attempt, and which indeed has 
 not yet been finally accomplished by scholars,-^ The chief 
 
 ^ One of the chief innovations of the ritual law is the increased provision 
 for the priesthood. This occurs in two ways. In the first place they receive 
 a larger share in the gifts which on the old usage were the material of feasts 
 at the sanctuary. In Deuteronomy the firstlings are eaten by the worshipper 
 at the annual feasts, the priest of course receiving the usual share of each 
 victim. But in Num. xviii. 18 they belong entirely and absolutely to the 
 priest. This diflerence cannot be explained away ; for according to Deut. xiv. 
 24 the firstlings miglit be turned into money, and materials of a feast bought 
 with them, while in Num. xviii. 17 it is forbidden to redeem any firstling fit 
 for sacrifice. Again, in Deuteronomy the annual produce of the soil, but not 
 of the herd, was tithed for the religious use of the owner, who ate the tithes at 
 the feasts. But in the Levitical law the tithe includes the herd and the flock 
 (Lev. xxvii. 32), and is a tribute paid to the Levites, who in turn pay a tithe 
 to the priests (Num. xviii.). This is quite another thing from the Deuteronomic 
 annual tithe, which is not a tribute, but a provision for the popular religious 
 festivals ; and the only ordinance of Deuteronomy at all analogous to it is the 
 charity tithe of the third year, in Vv'hich the Levites had a share along witli 
 the other poor of the township. But here also the points of diflerence are 
 greater than the points of likeness. The charity tithe was stored in each town- 
 ship and eaten by dependents where it was stored (Deut. xxvi. 12, 13, where for 
 brought aicayread consumed : the tithe was consumed where it laji' ; see verse 
 1 4 Heb. ). The Levitical tithe might be eaten by the Levites where they pleased, 
 and in later times was stored in the Temple. Once more, the priest's share of a 
 sacrifice in Deuteronomy consists of inferior parts, the head and maw, which 
 
384 LEGAL LECT. XII 
 
 interest of this inquiry lies in its bearing on the early history 
 of Israel. It is for the historian to determine how far the 
 Priests' Code (i.e. the Levitical law and the narrative sections 
 of the Pentateuch that go with it, and are mainly directed to 
 enforce law by rehearsing precedents) is mere law, of which 
 we can say no more than that it was law for the second 
 Temple, and how far it is also history which can be used in 
 describing the original sanctuary of the ark in the days of 
 Moses. But in following out this inquiry we cannot assume 
 that every law which is called a law of Moses was meant to 
 be understood as literally given in the wilderness. For it is 
 a familiar fact that in the early law of all nations necessary 
 modifications on old law are habitually carried out by means 
 of what lawyers call legal fictions. This name is somewhat 
 misleading ; for a legal fiction is no deceit, but a convention 
 which all parties understand. In short, it is found more con- 
 venient to present the new law in a form which enables it to 
 be treated as an integral part of the old legislation. Thus in 
 Eoman jurisprudence all law was supposed to be derived from 
 the Laws of the Twelve Tables (Maine, Ancient Law, p. 33 
 
 in Arabia are still the butcher's fee, and the shoulder, which is not the 
 choicest joint (Pseudo-Wakid}-, p. 15, and Hamaker's note), though not the 
 worst (Ezek. xxiv. 4 ; Freytag, Ar. Prov. ii. 320). In fact Exod. xii. 9 
 requires to make special provision that the head and inwards be not left 
 uneaten in the paschal lamb, which proves that they were not esteemed. 
 But in the Levitical law the priests' part is the breast and the leg (not as 
 E. V. the shoulder), which is the best part (1 Sam. ix. 24). 
 
 In the second place, the Levitical law, following a hint of Ezekiel (xlv. 4, 
 5), assigns towns and pasture gi'ounds to the priests and Levites. The list of 
 such towns in Josh. xxi. is part of the Priests' Code and not of the old history. 
 In ancient times many of these towns certainly did not belong either to 
 priests or Levites. Gezer was not conquered till the time of Solomon (1 Kings 
 ix. 16). Shechem, Gibeon, and Hebron had quite a different population in the 
 time of the Judges. Anathoth was a priestly citj', but its priests held the land 
 on terms quite different from those of the later law. As a matter of fact, the 
 assignation of cities and suburbs to the priests and Levites was never carried 
 out, as Jewish tradition itself admits for the period of the second Temple. 
 
 On the Levitical modifications of the festivals, see Hupfeld, De primitiva 
 et vera festorum ratione, Halle, 1852-65; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, Kap. iii. 
 On this topic the last word has not yet been spoken. 
 
LECT. XII FICTIONS 385 
 
 sq.), just as in Israel all law was held to be derived from the 
 teaching of Moses. The whole object of this way of treating 
 the law was to maintain the continuity of the legal system. 
 But legal fiction has much more curious developments. In old 
 English law many writs give a quite imaginary history of 
 the case, alleging, for example, that the plaintiff is the king's 
 debtor, and cannot pay his debts by reason of the default of 
 the defendant. This instance is not directly parallel to any- 
 thing in the Old Testament ; but it shows how impossible 
 it would be to explain any system of ancient law on the 
 assumption that every statement which seems to be plain 
 narrative of fact is actually meant to be so taken. It would 
 be the highest presumption to affirm that what is found in all 
 other ancient laws cannot occur in the Old Testament. The 
 very universality of these conventions shows that in certain 
 stages of society they form the easiest and most intelligible 
 way of introducing necessary modifications of law ; and the 
 Israelites had the same habits of thought with other primitive 
 nations, and doubtless required to be taught and to think 
 things out on the same lines. In our state of society legal 
 fictions are out of date ; in English law they have long been 
 mere antiquarian lumber. But Israel's law was given for the 
 practical use of an ancient people, and required to take the 
 forms which we know, as a matter of fact, to be those which 
 primitive nations best understand. 
 
 If we find, then, by actual comparison of different parts 
 of Scripture, that some points of law and ceremony are re- 
 lated in historical form, as if based on Mosaic precedent, but 
 that there is other evidence, as in the case of the march from 
 Sinai {supra, p. 321), that the thing did not happen so in 
 Moses's own time, we have to consider the probability that 
 the form of the narrative which aims at setting forth law in 
 the shape of precedent is nothing more than a case of legal 
 convention ; for one well-known type of this is to relate a 
 
 2S 
 
386 THE LAW 
 
 new law in the form of an ancient precedent. Let me illus- 
 trate this by an example from Sir H. Maine's Village Com- 
 munities, p. 110. In India, when the Government brings a 
 new water supply into a village, the village authorities make 
 rules for its use and distribution ; but " these rules do not 
 purport to emanate from the personal authority of their 
 author or authors; there is always a sort of fiction under 
 which some customs as to the distribution of water are 
 supposed to have existed from all antiquity, although, in 
 fact, no artificial supply had been even so much as thought 
 of." In the same way the new laws of the Levitical code 
 might be presented as ordinances of Moses, though, when 
 they were first promulgated, every one knew that they were 
 not so, and though Ezra himself speaks of some of them as 
 ordinances of the prophets. 
 
 A good illustration occurs in the law of war. According 
 to 1 Sam. XXX. 24, 25, the standing law of Israel as to the 
 distribution of booty was enacted by David, and goes back 
 only to a precedent in his war with the Amalekites who 
 burned Ziklag. In the priestly legislation the same law is 
 given as a Mosaic precedent from the war with Midian 
 (Num. xxxi. 27). Here one can hardly avoid the conclusion 
 that the Pentateuchal narrator has no other object than to set 
 forth a certain rule of war as the ancient and sacred law of 
 Israel. The older historian is content to refer this statute 
 and ordinance of Israel to David. But the Priestly Code had 
 to exhibit the whole system of Israel's law as a unity, and if 
 the conventional methods of his time led him (as they did) to 
 cast his exposition into historical form, he could only attain 
 the unity requisite in a law-book by throwing David's ordin- 
 ance back into the Mosaic age. Whether in this or any 
 other particular case he was consciously applying the method 
 of legal fiction, or whether long before his time younger laws 
 had been largely referred to Moses by common consent, as the 
 
LECT. XII 
 
 OF BOOTY 387 
 
 traditional way of acknowledging that they had co-ordinate 
 authority with the earliest sacred legislation, is a matter of 
 detail. The important point for us as historical students is to 
 realise the necessity of distinguishing between quasi-historical 
 precedents, which are to be taken only as laws, and the actual 
 history, which is to be taken literally. To indolent theologians 
 this necessity is naturally unwelcome ; but to the diligent and 
 reverent student it affords the key for the solution of many 
 difficulties, and enables us to gain a much more consistent and 
 instructive view of the early history of Israel than is possible 
 on the traditional assumption that the whole law which regu- 
 lated the life of the Jews in the age of Pericles was already 
 extant and in force long before the Trojan war, in a nation 
 that was only just emerging from the primitive conditions of 
 pastoral life in the desert. The conclusion to which modern 
 critics have been led is that the whole Priests' Code, alike in 
 those parts which are formally legislative and in those which 
 a superficial reading might regard as purely historical, is to be 
 taken as essentially a law-book, and must not be used as an 
 independent source for the actual history of the Mosaic time. 
 For history, as distinct from law, the priestly author appears 
 to have had no other authorities than those older books of 
 which the greater part is still preserved to us in the non- 
 priestly sections of the Pentateuch. Some account of the 
 manner in which the Priests' Code deals with these older 
 sources, of the way in which it strings its legal precepts on 
 an historical thread, and of the way in which it allows itself 
 to reshape the narrative in order to set forth later laws under 
 the conventional form of Mosaic precedent, is necessary to 
 complete the most summary view of the origin of the Penta- 
 teuch. The first edition of this book stopjDed at the point 
 which we have now reached ; I shall now attempt to supply 
 the defect by a supplementary Lecture. 
 
LECTUKE XIII 
 
 THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH 
 
 In the last Lecture the critical argument about the dates of 
 the three Pentateuchal Codes was carried to its conclusion. 
 The proof that the three great strata of laws embodied in the 
 so-called books of Moses are not all of one age but correspond 
 to three stages in the development of Israel's institutions, 
 which can still be clearly recognised in the narrative of the 
 historical books, is the most important achievement of Old 
 Testament criticism. When the codes are set in their right 
 places the main source of confusion in the study of the Old 
 Testament is removed, the central problem of criticism is 
 solved, and the controversy between modern criticism and 
 conservative tradition is really decided. 
 
 Behind this central problem there lie of course a multi- 
 tude of other questions that must be answered before the task 
 of the critic is completed. The Pentateuch is a composite 
 book, in which several bodies of law belonging to different 
 periods occur embedded in a narrative. The narrative in its 
 present form cannot be older than the youngest body of laws,^ 
 and therefore must have been completed some time between 
 the age of Ezekiel and that of Ezra. On the other hand, the 
 final narrator certainly used older written documents, from 
 which he made copious extracts verbatim. It is manifestly 
 
 ^ It is of course quite possible that single laws, such as that about the 
 poll-tax {szcpra, p. 51), may have been added later. 
 
LECT, XIII NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH 389 
 
 of great importance to determine all that can be determined 
 as to the nature and age of these documents, and the process 
 by which they and the several bodies of laws were ultimately 
 fused together in a single volume. 
 
 In the course of twelve Lectures, which made up the first 
 edition of this book, I had no room to give more than a few 
 general hints on this branch of the critical problem. Nor 
 can I now attempt a complete exposition of all that critics 
 have made out as to the structure of the Pentateuchal nar- 
 rative, and of the arguments by which their results have been 
 attained, For such an exposition it would be necessary to go 
 through the whole Hebrew text, book by book, and chapter 
 by chapter — a task unsuitable to the plan of the present 
 volume. Those who wish to follow out the critical analysis 
 in detail will find the necessary help in the first volume of 
 Kuenen's Ondcrzoek, which is the standard work on the 
 subject, and accessible in an English translation, or, in a 
 more compendious and easier form, in Prof. Driver's Intro- 
 duction. I have no desire to say again what is so well said 
 in these books ; but those who have followed my argument 
 thus far may naturally desire to have, in conclusion, at least 
 a general sketch of the whole results of Pentateuch criticism. 
 I have met with many persons who admit that they can 
 detect no flaw in the critical arguments by which the dates of 
 the codes are established, but who yet suspend their judg- 
 ment, and are tempted to regard the whole Pentateuch 
 question as a hopeless puzzle, because they cannot under- 
 stand how the Mosaic history is to be read in the light of 
 the new critical discoveries ; and it is certainly true that if 
 the dates assigned to the codes are correct they ought to find 
 their most important verification in the analysis of the Penta- 
 teuchal narrative. And so in point of fact they do. 
 
 The method by which the codes are assigned to their 
 proper place in Hebrew history, and the method by which 
 
390 THE TWO LINES OF lect. xiii 
 
 the narratives of the Pentateuch can be analysed into their 
 component parts, and shown to be made up of extracts from 
 several documents, are to a great extent independent ; and, in 
 point of fact, very considerable progress had been made in the 
 second branch of analysis before anything important was 
 settled on the question of the laws. The strength of the 
 present position of Pentateuch criticism is in good measure 
 due to the fact that two lines of inquiry have converged to a 
 common result. 
 
 These two lines of inquiry may be called respectively the 
 historical and the literary. The historical method compares 
 the institutions set forth in the several codes with the actual 
 working institutions of Israel, as we see them in the historical 
 books ; the literary method compares the several parts of the 
 Pentateuch with one another, taking note of diversities of 
 style and manner, of internal contradictions or incongruities, 
 and of all other points that forbid us to regard the whole 
 Torah as the homogeneous composition of a single writer. 
 In the first period of Pentateuch criticism, of which Noldeke's 
 UnUrsucImmgen (Kiel, 1869) may be taken as the last im- 
 portant utterance, most scholars threw their whole strength 
 into the literary line of inquiry. It was already settled that 
 the Code of Deuteronomy was Josiah's Law-book, and that 
 the Book of the Covenant must be older, but there was no 
 agreement about the Priestly Code, On the other hand, it 
 had been clearly seen that the priestly laws form an integral 
 part of a great document, running through the whole Penta- 
 teuch from Genesis onwards and extending into Joshua. 
 And it had also been shown that this document displays so 
 many marked peculiarities of language, mannerisms of style, 
 and characteristic ways of looking at things, that it is possible 
 to separate it out with much precision from the other sources 
 with which it is now interwoven. 
 
 Thus when the new school of criticism came forward with 
 
LECT. XIII CRITICAL INQUIRY 391 
 
 its historical argument to prove that the priestly laws, as a 
 whole, are later than Ezekiel, the means were at hand for 
 subjecting this conclusion to a severe test of an independent 
 kind. If the new criticism was right, the document embody- 
 ing the priestly laws was the latest element in the Pentateuch 
 and Joshua, and when it was separated out the parts of the 
 Hexateuch that remained could not contain any reference, 
 direct or indirect, to the priestly document. It was found 
 on careful examination that this was actually the case. 
 Some apparent instances to the contrary were indeed brought 
 forward ; but the list of places where the non-priestly sources 
 seemed to be dependent on the priestly document was from 
 the first extraordinarily meagre and little fitted to produce 
 conviction ; and on closer examination it shrank to nothing. 
 For example, the introductory chapters of the Book of Deuter- 
 onomy contain a summary of the story of the forty years' 
 wandering. By far the greater part of the history of this 
 period, as it stands in our present Pentateuch, belongs to the 
 priestly document ; but everything peculiar to that document 
 is remarkable by its absence from the historical retrospect in 
 Deuteronomy. At first the opponents of the new views were 
 not prepared to concede this ; they could not deny that the 
 retrospect was silent about the priestly tabernacle and its 
 ordinances, that it ignored the whole series of revelations to 
 Moses and Aaron on which the priestly system of Israel's 
 sanctity rests ; but they thought that they could point out 
 some few minor details in which the Deuteronomic writer 
 betrayed acquaintance with the priestly document. If this 
 had been correct it could only have led to the startling result 
 that the Deuteronomist deliberately ignored the main teach- 
 ing of the priestly document, and aimed at suppressing an 
 essential part of the sacred law. But it was soon shown that 
 there was no occasion to adopt any such sensational theory ; 
 the supposed points of contact between Deuteronomy and the 
 
392 RESCJLTS OF 
 
 priestly document were found either to be illusory or to 
 admit of an explanation consistent with the priority of the 
 former work.^ 
 
 This coincidence between the results of historical and 
 literary criticism is the more striking because the literary 
 determination of the limits of the priestly document or group 
 was carried out almost entirely by scholars who took it for 
 granted that this document was certainly older than Deuter- 
 onomy, and probably the oldest thing in the Hexateuch, 
 There can therefore be no suspicion that their analysis was 
 influenced by arguments drawn from the historico-legal line 
 of inquiry. 
 
 ^ In justification of these statements it may suffice to refer to the latest 
 important publication on the other side. Prof. Dillmann, of Berlin, is now 
 the only scholar of eminence who dissents from the new critical construction of 
 the Pentateuch, and has given his reasons for doing so after a full considera- 
 tion of the researches of Kuenen and Wellhausen. One is not bound to take 
 note in this connection of views set forth before the two scholars last named 
 had put the whole matter in a fresh light, or of newer utterances, like those 
 of Renan, which simply ignore the more modern criticism. Between Dillmann 
 and the school of Kuenen and "Wellhausen there is no controversy as to the 
 broad lines of division that mark out the Hexateuch as consisting of four 
 essential parts, viz. the priestly document, or group of documents (for it is 
 not affirmed and not essential to the argument that all the priestly pieces are 
 by one hand : it is enough that they belong to one school) ; the Deuteronomic 
 document (or gi'oup) ; and two earlier documents commonly known as the 
 Jahvistic and the Elohistic. Dillmann admits that the two documents last 
 named are older than Deuteronomy and the priestly document or group, but 
 he does not admit that the last is younger than Deuteronomy. And he 
 thinks that the Jahvistic, Elohistic, and priestly parts of the Hexateuch were 
 united into a single book before Deuteronomy was added. But when it comes 
 to the question whether the Deuteronomic writings presuppose the existence 
 of the priestly group, he admits that this cannot be proved with absolute 
 certainty. On the other hand, he feels sure that R'^ {i.e. the writer who in- 
 corporated Deuteronomy for the first time with the other parts of the Penta- 
 teuch) knew the priestly writings. In other words, the proof that the priestly 
 group is not the youngest part of the Pentateuch cannot be effected by com- 
 parison with the other great masses of Pentateuchal writing, but turns on a 
 particular theory of the steps by which the original documents were fused 
 together. I venture to say that this argument proves nothing. Suppose it 
 true that Deuteronomy was still a separate book after the other three docu- 
 ments or groups were fused together, this does not in the slightest degree 
 affect the force of the historical argument for putting the Deuteronomic Code 
 
LECT. xiir LITERARY ANALYSIS 393 
 
 I have already explained that I cannot undertake to 
 carry you through the details of the analysis on which the 
 delimitation of the priestly group of writings rests. But I 
 think I can give such a sketch of the methods of analysis, 
 with illustrations from particular cases, as will satisfy 
 reasonable persons that the critics have been working on 
 sound lines. And when this is taken along with the fact that 
 the results of the literary analysis agree with what can be 
 proved from history as to the date of the codes, you will, I 
 think, have as much evidence before you as persons who are 
 not specialists can ever expect to have in a complicated 
 problem of ancient history. Speaking broadly, the critics 
 divide the Hexateuch into three groups of literature ; the 
 oldest history, represented by two documents that are cited as 
 the Jahvistic and Elohistic stories, or more briefly as J and E ; 
 the Deuteronomic Code with its appendages (cited as D) ; and 
 the group of priestly writings (cited as P). For our purposes 
 it will be most convenient to begin with the Deuteronomic 
 group. We start with the facts already established, that the 
 code of Deut. xii.-xxvi. is a reshaping of the old law under 
 the influence of the teaching of the prophets of the eighth 
 century, and that it is the law on which Josiah's Eeformation 
 proceeded (621 B.C.). In our present Book of Deuteronomy 
 the code is preceded and followed by a series of discourses, 
 Deut. i.-xi. on the one side and Deut. xxvii.-xxx. on the 
 
 and its appendages before the Priests' Code and the rest of the priestly 
 writings. And the very significant fact tliat the Deuteronomic sketch of the 
 history ignores all that is characteristic in the priestly history also remains 
 untouched. On this point, indeed, Dillmann replies with a tu quoque. If 
 Deuteronomy ignores the Priests' Code and history, he says, it must equally 
 be admitted on the other side that the latter ignores Deuteronomy. Pieally ? 
 Is it not plain that the whole system of the Priests' Code rests on the cardinal 
 Deuteronomic doctrine of the one sanctuary, which is so completely taken for 
 granted by the later writer that it does not even receive formal expression and 
 iustification ? See Dillmann, Die Buchcr Num., Deut., and Jos. (Leipzig, 1886), 
 p. 668, and comp. on the whole matter Driver, Introduction, p. 77 sq., p. 130, 
 p. 137 sq. 
 
394 THE SPEECHES IN lect. xiii 
 
 other.^ That in substance and style these chapters are 
 closely akin to the code of Deut. xii.-xxvi., and stand apart 
 from the rest of the Pentateuch, must be plain to every 
 attentive reader, but we shall hardly be justified in conclud- 
 ing that Deut. i.-xxx. is all by one hand, and that all these 
 chapters were contained in the book laid before King Josiah. 
 Note in particular that chap, xxvii. breaks the connection 
 between xxvi. and xxviii., and further that the occurrence of a 
 series of titles and subscriptions at different points (chap. i. 1, 
 v. 1, xii. 1, xxix. 1 [Heb. xxviii. 69]) suggests rather that the 
 code may have appeared in successive editions with fresh 
 exhortations added by way of preface and conclusion. This, 
 however, is a matter of detail that need not concern us at 
 present. 
 
 The date of the whole Deuteronomic group is of course 
 dependent on the date of the code, i.e. no part of Deut. 
 i.-xxx, can be older than the seventh century B.C. ; while if 
 the theory of successive editions is correct, some parts may be 
 a good deal later than Josiah's Eeformation in 621 B.C. But 
 the whole group is manifestly older than the Priestly Code ; 
 for there is not the slightest trace of the distinction between 
 Priests and Levites (see Deut. x. 8), and the sketch of the 
 events of the wilderness journey contained in the opening 
 chapters of Deuteronomy passes in silence over all those 
 histories in the middle books of the Pentateuch which imply 
 that the Priestly Code was already in force in the days of 
 Moses.^ 
 
 If the Deuteronomic Code was not in existence before the 
 seventh century B.C., we cannot regard the speeches and 
 exhortations of Moses contained in the Deuteronomic group 
 as anything else than free compositions. We have in them 
 not what Moses actually said in the plains of Moab, but 
 
 ^ Deut. xxxi. belongs only in part to this group, and in its present form 
 must be regarded as the link uniting D to the rest of the Pentateuch. 
 2 Some apparent exceptions will come up for consideration later. 
 
DEUTERONOMY 395 
 
 admonitions conceived in the spirit of Moses and first 
 addressed to the men of Josiah's time, or in part, perhaps, to 
 the next generation. As a matter of literary form this way 
 of enforcing the lessons of past history has evidently much to 
 recommend it, and it was not introduced for the first time in 
 the age of Josiah. In Joshua xxiv., which all critics assign 
 to one of the pre-Deuteronomic sources of the Pentateuch (E), 
 Joshua is introduced in the same way, recapitulating how 
 God had led Israel in the past, and drawing a practical 
 conclusion. The Deuteronomic writers, therefore, were 
 employing a recognised literary form which was not likely to 
 be misunderstood in a society that had reached so high a 
 pitch of literary culture as Judah in the reign of Josiah. To 
 suppose that the speeches were forged in Moses's name to 
 support the halting authority of the code is simply absurd. 
 In all probability the code had already been accepted as the 
 law of the land before the speeches were added ; or, if some 
 of the speeches were already included in the book that was 
 brought to Josiah, it is puerile to think that the heads of a 
 nation in which letters had flourished for centuries, and which 
 possessed such masterpieces of literary workmanship as the 
 older histories and the prophetical books of the eighth century, 
 could have failed to observe that a speech written in the name 
 of Moses was not necessarily genuine. It was the intrinsic 
 merits of Deuteronomy that gained it acceptance ; and if the 
 book had not set forth such a combination of the old law of 
 the realm with the principles of the prophets as commended 
 itself to the national conscience and indicated a practical 
 course of Eeformation, the mere name of Moses would not 
 have prevented it from being tossed aside. 
 
 While the speeches of Deuteronomy were not absolutely a 
 new departure in literary art, we can see that they made a 
 profound impression on the literary aims and methods of the 
 period immediately subsequent to Josiah's Eeformation. 
 
396 ISRAEL IN THE 
 
 Thus the Book of Joshua contains considerable passages, e.g. 
 the greater part of chap. i. and the whole of chap, xxiii., 
 ■which are obviously imitations of the parenetic manner of 
 Deuteronomy ; and additions of the same kind can be 
 detected in Judges, Samuel, and Kings. These insertions 
 hardly touch the substance of the history, which, as we have 
 already seen, makes it quite plain that the law of Deuteronomy 
 was not known before the time of Josiah ; they consist mainly 
 of a series of reilections on the meaning and lessons of the 
 story, sometimes in the shape of speeches, and sometimes in 
 the writer's own name, but all framed in the Deuteronomic 
 manner and on the assumption that the law of Deuteronomy 
 is the standard by which national conduct must be judged. 
 In the language of critics, it appears that the historical books 
 from Judges to Kings have passed through the hands of at 
 least one Deuteronomic redactor. 
 
 The group Deut. i.-xxx. offers little difficulty to the criti- 
 cal analyst, because it has been transferred to the present 
 Hexateuch entire, and in continuous form. In like manner 
 it is probable that Lev. xvii.-xxvi. once existed as a separate 
 book, very nearly in the shape in which we now read it. 
 This section belongs in general character to the priestly 
 group, and probably represents the earliest attempt to codify 
 the priestly ordinances. But the mass of the Hexateuch, 
 after Deut. i.-xxx. has been set on one side, is made up of 
 extracts from several sources pieced together in a com- 
 plicated way. And here the difficulties of critical analysis 
 begin. 
 
 How complex the structure of the narrative sometimes is 
 has already been shown in Lecture XL by the example of the 
 story of the Deluge. But fortunately for the critics this close 
 interweaving of single sentences from two sources is not tbe 
 general rule ; there are long continuous tracts in the Hexa- 
 teuch where a single source is followed and nothing more 
 
LECT. XIII 
 
 WILDERNESS 397 
 
 serious than au occasional editorial touch comes in to break 
 the unity of the exposition. Thus in the middle books of the 
 Pentateuch we can at once mark off a series of sections, com- 
 prising the mass of the priestly laws and a certain amount of 
 narrative intimately connected with these laws. Such are 
 Exod. xxv.-xxxi., and then again, after a break of three 
 chapters, Exod. xxxv.-xl, ; further the whole Book of Levi- 
 ticus (save that xvii.-xxvi. were mainly taken over into 
 the priestly document from an older book) ; Num. i. 1-x. 28. 
 In the last verses of Num. x. we pass to another and dis- 
 crepant source, as was shown in Lecture XL {supra, p. 321), 
 and from this point the phenomena become more complex. 
 But the priestly source reappears without anything suggestive 
 of admixture in Num. xv. xvii.-xix. xxvi.-xxxi., and finally in 
 Num. xxxiii.-xxxvi. 
 
 I do not think it is necessary to argue in detail that all 
 these passages are closely connected and must be drawn from 
 a single source ; it will be more instructive to look at some of 
 the reasons why I have passed over certain chapters as being 
 either of mixed origin or wholly derived from a different 
 source. And first then, as regards Exodus xxxii.-xxxiv., or 
 more exactly xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv. 1-28.^ 
 
 The analysis of these chapters presents several points of 
 difficulty on which critics are not yet fully agreed. That 
 the whole is not derived from a single source is pretty clear; 
 thus xxxii. 7-14, where Moses is informed about the sin of the 
 golden calf, and obtains God's forgiveness for the people before 
 leaving the mount for the first time, is hardly of one piece 
 with xxxii. 30-34, where the same forgiveness is obtained at 
 a second visit to Sinai, nor indeed with the angry surprise of 
 
 ^ Exod. xxxiv. 29-35 is really the close of chap, xxxi., containing several 
 expressions highly characteristic of P. It does not run quite smoothly with 
 what follows (comp. xxxiv. 32 with xxxv. 1) ; but there are reasons for 
 thinking that chaps, xxxv. sqq. have at any rate been largely retouched by a 
 late hand. 
 
398 THE GOLDEN CALF lect. xiii 
 
 Moses as he approaches the camp, xxxii. 17-19. There are 
 other signs that the narrative is not homogeneous throughout, 
 but on these and the various analyses to which they have 
 given rise I need not dwell. The point to be noticed is 
 that these chapters as a whole interrupt the sequence of the 
 priestly narrative, and present a different view of the course 
 of events. In Exod. xxv.-xxxi. Moses is on the mount re- 
 ceiving instructions for the construction of the ark and 
 tabernacle, and for the institution of the Aaronic priesthood, 
 that Jehovah may take up his dwelling in the midst of Israel. 
 In chapters xxxv. sqq. Moses communicates his instructions 
 to the people, and the tabernacle is made and set up. Further 
 ordinances follow in the Book of Leviticus and the early 
 chapters of Numbers. These things take up much time, and 
 it is almost a year after the first arrival at Sinai before the 
 people break up to pursue their journey towards Canaan 
 (Num. X. 11, compared with Exod. xix. 1). All this is 
 simple and self-consistent, and leaves us with a clear con- 
 ception that the main purpose of the visit to Sinai was to 
 furnish the people with the pattern of ritual and priesthood 
 necessary to a holy nation, in whose midst Jehovah dwells. 
 But now observe how chaps, xxxii.-xxxiv. break the tenor 
 of the narrative. While Moses is on the mount the people 
 fall to worship the golden calf, and for this sin they are 
 chastised. There would be no difficulty in this if we could 
 treat the affair of the calf as a mere episode which produced 
 no permanent effect on Israel's relations to Jehovah. And 
 we must treat it so if we take chap. xxxv. as the natural 
 sequel to chap, xxxiv. ; for in it Moses, after revisiting Sinai 
 to replace the broken tables, quietly passes over all the recent 
 events and begins to rehearse the ordinances about the taber- 
 nacle, exactly as if the calf had never been made and the 
 vocation of the holy nation had never been in jeopardy. But 
 this is not the view of chaps, xxxii.-xxxiv. There the people's 
 
LECT. xin AND THE TABERNACLE 399 
 
 sin is indeed pardoned, but the pardon is accompanied by a 
 sentence of banishment from the Mount of God (xxxiii. 1). 
 Moreover, though Jehovah promises to guide the people, 
 sending His angel before them (xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2), He 
 warns them that He cannot go in the midst of them (xxxiii. 
 3) ; and the practical application of this is seen in xxxiii. 7 
 sq., where the tabernacle, the seat of revelation, is pitched 
 outside the camp and remote from it. Both these points are 
 entirely ignored in the priestly narrative. The order to de- 
 part is never withdrawn, yet the people remain at Sinai as if 
 nothing had happened. And in xxxv. sqq. the construction 
 of the priestly tabernacle, within which God is to dwell in 
 the centre of the camp, proceeds without any reference to 
 the existence of the tabernacle of chap, xxxiii., standing out- 
 side the camp. But can we suppose at least that Jehovah's 
 refusal to go in the midst of the people was tacitly withdrawn, 
 and the first tabernacle replaced by the priestly tent ? No ; 
 for the sanctuary outside the camp reappears long after, in 
 Num. xi. 24, 26, in Num. xii. 4, and by implication also in 
 Num. X. 33, where the ark goes before the host, not in the 
 midst of it.'' 
 
 Still more inexplicable is the relation of the priestly ordin- 
 ances to the covenant between Jehovah and Israel, of which 
 the terms are set forth in Exod. xxxiv. 10-27. This covenant 
 is announced in express terms as the foundation of Israel's 
 relations to Jehovah. But it has nothing in common with 
 the elaborate priestly ordinances already revealed in chaps, 
 xxv.-xxxi. Did Jehovah give all the details of priesthood 
 and tabernacle before he fixed the fundamental lines of 
 Israel's religion ? Or are we rather to assume that the 
 rebellion and the breaking of the first tables rendered it 
 necessary to make an entirely new beginning and a new 
 
 ^ Note also that in Deut. x. 1 sqq. the ai"k is made at the same time as the 
 renewed tables of stone. 
 
400 THE NARRATIVE lect. xiii 
 
 fundamental covenant ? And if so how comes it that, ac- 
 cording to chap. XXXV., Moses, when he descends from the 
 mount, is silent as to the covenant of chap, xxxiv., and goes 
 back to take up the thread of chap. xxxi. ? From all this 
 the conclusion is inevitable that chap. xxxv. attaches itself 
 directly to chap, xxxi., and has nothing in common with 
 Exod. xxxii.-xxxiv.^ 
 
 We may now pass on to the break in the priestly nar- 
 rative at Num. X. 28. Upon x. 29 sqq. enough has been said 
 at p. 321. In chaps, xi. xii. the position of the tabernacle 
 outside the camp is sufficient proof that the narrative is not 
 priestly ; and we also observe that in chap. xii. Aaron is not 
 priest but prophet. In chaps, xiii. xiv. again, which contain 
 the history of the spies that were sent to search the land of 
 Canaan, and of the rebellion that followed on their report, we 
 have plainly to deal with a compound narrative, the elements 
 of which may be exhibited as follows in parallel columns : — 
 
 Num. xiii. 1-17 a. — Moses, by 17 &-20. . . . and said to 
 the commandment of the Lord, them. Go up through the Negeb, 
 sends forth twelve men from the and go up into the mountain-land, 
 wilderness of Paran to spy out the and see the land what it is, and the 
 land of Canaan. . . . (21.) So people that dwell in it, whether 
 they went up and spied out the they be strong or weak, few or 
 land from the wilderness of Zin as many, etc. And take ye of the 
 far as Rehob and the frontier of fruit of the land. Now the time 
 Hamath. . . . (25.) And they re- was the time of the first ripe grapes, 
 turned from spying out the land . . . (22.) So they went up through 
 after forty days, (26) and went and the Negeb, and came as far as He- 
 came to Moses and Aaron and to bron, etc. . . . (23, 24.) From 
 all the congregation of the children Eshcol [near Hebron] they took 
 of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, a huge bunch of grapes with pome- 
 . . . and made their report to granates and figs. . . . (26.) [Then 
 them and to the whole congre- they returned] to Kadesh . . . and 
 gation. . . . (32.) And they showed them the fruit of the land, 
 brought up an evil report of the (27-29.) And they told him 
 land which they had spied out [Moses] that the land flowed with 
 
 1 It is probable that Exod. xxxv.-xl. have been expanded by later hands 
 from a much shorter account of the carrying out of the directions in chaps. 
 XXV. -xxxi. ; see supra, p. 125. But this does not affect the argument, since 
 chaps, xxxii. -xxxiv. are ignored by the whole priestly legislation. 
 
OF THE SPIES 
 
 401 
 
 unto the children of Israel, saying, 
 The land, through which we have 
 gone to spy it out, is a land that 
 eateth up the inhabitants thereof, 
 . . . (xiv. 1.) And all the congrega- 
 tion lifted up their voice, and cried. 
 ... (2, 3.) And all the children of 
 Israel murmured against Moses and 
 Aaron : and the whole congregation 
 said unto them. Would that we had 
 died in the land of Egypt, etc. . . . 
 (5.) And Moses and Aaron fell on 
 their faces before all the congrega- 
 tion of the children of Israel. (6.) 
 And Joshua and Caleb, two of the 
 spies, rent their clothes, (7) and 
 spake unto the whole congregation 
 of the children of Israel, saying, 
 The land is an exceeding good land. 
 . . (10.) But the whole congre- 
 gation bade stone them with stones. 
 And the glory of the Lord ap- 
 peared in the tabernacle before all 
 the children of Israel. . . (26-35.) 
 And the Lord spake unto Moses and 
 Aaron announcing that the whole 
 generation of rebels should die in 
 the wilderness, only Caleb and 
 Joshua surviving to enter the 
 promised land. (36-38.) The 
 other ten spies die of plague before 
 the Lord. 
 
 milk and honey, but that the 
 people were strong, with great 
 walled cities, (30.) And Caleb 
 stilled the people before Moses, 
 saying, Let us go up at once and 
 possess it ; for we are well able to 
 overcome it. (31.) But the men 
 who went up with him said, 
 We be not able to go up against 
 the people, for they are stronger 
 than we, . , - (32) and all the 
 people that we saw in it are 
 men of great stature, (33) and there 
 we saw the giants, etc. . . (xiv. 
 1.) And the people wept that 
 night. . . , (4.) And they said 
 one to another. Let us make a 
 captain and return to Egypt. Here 
 there is a lacuna which seevis to have 
 contained a remonstrance by Moses or 
 Caleb, of which verses 8, 9 are a frag- 
 ment. The thread is resumed in verse 
 11, (11-25.) And the Lord said 
 unto Moses, How long will this 
 people provoke me ? etc. I will 
 smite them with pestilence, and dis- 
 inherit them, and make of thee a 
 greater nation and mightier than 
 they. Moses intercedes for the 
 people, and obtains forgiveness for 
 them. But the rebellious genera- 
 tion must die in the wilderness, and 
 shall not see the land of promise, 
 with the sole exception of Caleb, 
 " To-morrow turn ye, and get ye 
 into the wilderness." . . . (39-45.) 
 When this sentence is conveyed to 
 the people they mourn greatly, and 
 insist on repairing their error by 
 an attack on theCanaanite frontier, 
 in which they undergo defeat. 
 
 These accounts are plainly independent, and each of them 
 is nearly complete in itself, though that in the right hand 
 column has lost its beginning and a few links at other points. 
 In it the spies start from Kadesh, go no farther than Hebron, 
 
 26 
 
402 KORAH, DATHAN lect. xiii 
 
 and report very favourably of the land, were it not that the 
 inhabitants are too strong to be conquered. The only one 
 who dissents from this judgment is Caleb, and he alone is ex- 
 empted from the sentence of death in the wilderness. In the 
 other account the spies start from the wilderness of Paran, 
 reach the extreme north of Palestine, and report tliat the land 
 is one in which it is hardly possible to live (xiii. 32 ; comp. 
 Ezek. xxxvi. 13). Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, say 
 that the land is good, and they two are exempted from 
 the judgment of God against the rebels. Of these two 
 accounts the first is followed in every point in Deut. i. 22-36, 
 39, 40,^ and also in Josh. xiv. 6-14, save that in this passage 
 some glossator has added in verse 6 the words " and concern- 
 ing thee," thus including Joshua among the spies, against the 
 plain sense of verse 8. Thus we see that the narrative which 
 includes Joshua among the spies is later than Deuteronomy ; 
 and in fact it is assigned to the priestly group by its style 
 and characteristic expressions. Note, for example, that in it 
 God speaks to Moses and Aaron, as is common in the priestly 
 laws, and that the people are spoken of as " the congregation " 
 (eclah), a term that never occurs in the non-priestly parts 
 of the Hexateuch, and is very rare in the other historical 
 books. 
 
 When we pass on to chap. xvi. we again find signs of 
 mixture in the narrative. Taken as a whole, as we now read 
 it. Num. xvi. is priestly, i.e. the events it details and the way 
 of telling them read smoothly enough with the chapters that 
 follow and with the general tenor of the priestly legislation. 
 But Dathan and Abiram, the Pteubenites, who object to the 
 
 1 Verses 37, 38 do not make against this ; for they do not imply that 
 Joshua was one of the spies. But they disturb the context, and probably are an 
 addition to the original text of Deuteronomy ; for God's anger with Moses and 
 the appointment of Joshua as his successor belong to a different place, and have 
 no connection with the matter of the spies. Further, the iirst words of verse 
 39 as far as "a prey" are wanting in LXX., and have been inserted from 
 Num. xiv. 31 (priestly) by a late hand. Comp. Dillmann on the passage. 
 
AND ABIRAM 403 
 
 civil authority exercised by INIoses, have nothing in common 
 with Korah, who objects to the special claims of priestly 
 sanctity put forth by Moses and Aaron. This, of course, 
 proves nothing by itself; for modern as well as ancient 
 history is full of examples of the union of distinct political 
 parties against a common antagonist. But the curious thing 
 is that Korah on the one hand, Dathan and Abiram on the 
 other, are separate not only in their aims but in their action 
 and in their doom. In verse 1, and again in verses 24, 27, 
 all three are mentioned together in a formal way (which may 
 very well be due to an editor), but in substance the revolt 
 of Korah and that of Dathan and Abiram are quite distinct. 
 The former and his adherents are challenged by Moses to 
 appear before the tabernacle in an act of priestly service, and, 
 accepting the challenge, are consumed by fire from the Loed ; 
 the latter refuse to meet Moses, and are swallowed up by 
 earthquake in their tents. Now in Deut, xi. 6 the revolt 
 and catastrophe of Dathan and Abiram are referred to with- 
 out one word of reference to Korah : can we doubt, then, 
 that the old history, prior to Deuteronomy, which we have 
 recognised in one of the constituent elements of Num. 13, 14, 
 reappears also in chap. xvi. in the verses which speak of 
 Dathan and Abiram and are silent about Korah ? It is 
 Korah's part of the story that has to do with the privileges 
 of Levi and Aaron, i.e. with the theory of the priestly law 
 and narrative ; and so we have another proof that the priestly 
 system is later than Deuteronomy.^ 
 
 ' The beginning of the pre-Deuteronomic narrative of the revolt of Dathan 
 and Abiram is lost, save a fragment giving the names of the rebels in verse 1. 
 But from verse 12 onwards the story is complete as follows : — (12-14.) Moses 
 summons Dathan and Abiram, who refuse to obey or to acknowledge his right 
 to play the prince. (15.) And Moses was very wroth, and said, I have not 
 taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them [which implies that 
 his judicial impartiality in civil matters was the thing impugned]. (25, 26. ) 
 Moses, followed by the elders, goes to Dathan and Abiram, and warns the 
 people to withdraw from the rebels and their tents. (27 &.) And Dathan and 
 Abiram came out and stood in the door of their tents, etc. (28-31.) Moses 
 
404 ISRAEL, MOAB lect. xiii 
 
 From Exodus xxv. down to Numbers xix., I have been 
 able to treat the priestly document as the main stock of the 
 narrative, accepting the burden of proof when I undertake to 
 show that it is interrupted from time to time by extracts 
 from other sources. And the same way of approaching the 
 question may also be applied to Num. xxv. 6 - xxxvi. 13, 
 where, except in chap, xxxii., there is nothing to suggest 
 plurality of authorship.^ 
 
 This whole section may safely be assigned to the priestly 
 group ; for it consists partly of laws, conceived and set forth 
 in the priestly manner, partly of histories, in which Eleazar, 
 the son and successor of Aaron, has all the precedence proper 
 to him under the priestly code, and partly of statistics and 
 lists, for which the priestly narrator has a special predilection. 
 The list of stations in the wilderness journey is very useful 
 as a check on the analysis of the preceding history. For 
 example, we have seen that in the older narrative the spies 
 went forth from Kadesh, but in the priestly narrative from 
 the wilderness of Paran. And accordingly in Num. xxxiii. 
 
 announces that the rebels will be swallowed up alive ; and straightway the 
 ground clave asunder, (32 a) and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed 
 up them and their tents ; (33) and they and all that appertained to them 
 went down alive into the pit, etc. ; (34) and all Israel seeing it fled in ten-or. 
 
 The full explanation of the remainder of the chapter cannot be effected 
 without distinguishing two strata in the priestly narrative ; see Kuenen in 
 Theol. Tijdschrift, xii. (1878), p. 139 sqq., whose analysis has commanded 
 general assent. 
 
 ^ This section of the priestly document begins abruptly, and something 
 has been lost. For the presupposition of xxv. 6 sqq. is that the Israelites 
 were seduced into filthy idolatry by the Midianites, and were smitten with 
 a plague which was stayed by Phinehas's act of judgment. Verses 1-5 do not 
 correspond with this. The seducers are not the Midianites (who in fact are 
 quite out of place in the plains of Moab), but the women of Moab. Further, 
 though a plague seems to be implied in verses 3, 4, it is stayed in quite a 
 different way by Moses (ver. 4) or by the judges of the people (ver. 5). Note 
 also that verses 3, 5 (and Deut. iv. 3) speak of Baal-Peor, i.e. the local deity of 
 Mount Peor (xxiii. 28), whereas in verse 18, and again in xxxi. 16, as also 
 in the priestly part of Joshua (xxii. 17), Peor is the name of the god. 
 
 For the compound chap, xxxii. see Driver, p. 64 ; but especially two papers 
 by Kuenen in Theol. Tijdschrift, xi. (1877). 
 
AND BALAAM 405 
 
 36 the Hebrews do not reach Kadesh till near the close of 
 their wanderings. 
 
 In Numbers xx.-xxiv., on the other hand, the phenomena 
 are complicated, and one can see that a great part of the 
 narrative belongs to the non-priestly and pre-Deuteronomic 
 sources. To these we must reckon, first of all, the whole 
 episode of Balaam (chaps, xxii.-xxiv.). For, apart from con- 
 siderations of language and style, which it is impossible to 
 set forth in this place, we note an absolute inconsistency 
 between these chapters and the reference to Balaam in the 
 priestly chapter xxxi. In the former, Balaam, who, though 
 no friend to Israel, is careful to avoid Jehovah's anger, 
 returns to his home on the Euphrates, i.e. to Mesopotamia,^ 
 as soon as God has turned his curse into a blessing. But 
 in Num. xxxi. 8, 16 Balaam is found among the Midianites, 
 i.e. in the country between Edom and the Eed Sea, where he 
 has been engaged in devising the seduction of Israel through 
 the worship of Peor. And once more we observe that it is 
 the non-priestly conception of Balaam that appears in Deut. 
 xxiii. 4, 5 [Heb. 5, 6] and in the eighth -century prophet 
 Micah. 
 
 There remain chaps, xx. xxi. In chap. xx. the death of 
 Aaron and consecration of Eleazar are evidently priestly.^ 
 And this carries with it a part at least of xx. 2-13, where 
 Moses and Aaron are sentenced to die in the wilderness. 
 But in what remains of chaps, xx. xxi. there is nothing 
 
 ^ In Num. xxii. 5 read with R. V. "to Pethor, which is by the River, to 
 the land," etc. The River is the Euphrates ; comp. Deut. xxiii. 4 (Heb. 5). 
 
 ^ This is one of the few priestly passages to which the Deuteronomist has 
 been supposed to make reference. But according to Deut. x. 6 Aaron dies at 
 Mosera (the same as Moseroth of Num. xxxiii. 30), a place separated from 
 Mount Hor by six marches. Thus, if the text of Deuteronomy is in order, 
 the author had a different account of Aaron's death, and did not draw from P. 
 It is, however, very plain that the words of Deut. x. 6 following "Mosera" 
 are a late and unauthorised gloss, since according to verse 8 the first insti- 
 tution of the Levitical priesthood did not take place till a later stage of the 
 wanderings. 
 
406 THE JOURNEY 
 
 LECT. XIII 
 
 priestly except one or two notes of stations which correspond 
 with chap, xxxiii. (xx. 1 a, xxi. 4 a to the word " Hor," xxi, 
 10, 11, and also xxii. 1). This appears from the following 
 considerations. In xx. 1 6 the people are still encamped at 
 Kadesh, on the southern border of Canaan, whence the spies 
 were sent out. From Kadesh (ver. 14) they send messengers 
 to the Edomites, who occupied the whole region between 
 Moab and the Gulf of Akaba, asking passage through their 
 country. This was refused, and accordingly there was no 
 way to reach Eastern Palestine without another desert 
 journey all round Edom by the head of the gulf. And so 
 we read (xx. 21) : " And Israel turned aside from him [Edom] 
 (xxi. 4) in the direction of the Eed Sea to compass the land 
 of Edom." ^ Then follow the details of the journey, with a 
 number of stations that do not reappear in chap, xxxiii. 
 The Hebrews emerge from the desert in the district of the 
 Arnon, and the conquest of Eastern Canaan follows. This 
 great circuit through the wilderness from Kadesh to the 
 Aruon was inevitable when the people's faithlessness caused 
 the direct attack on Southern Canaan to be given up ; and 
 the sufferings it involved were the natural punishment of 
 their want of faith. But there was no arbitrary marching 
 up and down the wilderness. According to Deut. i. 46, ii. 1, 
 a passage which quite agrees with all that has survived of 
 the older narrative, the Israelites spent a long time at 
 Kadesh, and only left it to "compass Mount Seir." The 
 priestly account, as appears by comparison of Num. xiv. 
 33 S2'2'. with the lists of Num. xxxiii., is quite different. 
 Here the greater part of the forty years is spent on purpose- 
 less wandering as far as Ezion-gaber, on the Gulf of Akaba 
 (xxxiii. 35), and thence to Kadesh, which, according to chap, 
 xxxiii., appears to be reached for the first time in the last 
 
 ^ xxi. 1-3 is a little separate narrative, which is hardly in place where it 
 stands ; comp. Judges i. 16, 17- 
 
FROM KADESH 407 
 
 year of the wilderness journey. In the fifth month of the 
 fortieth year the Hebrews are still at Mount Hor, but one 
 stage from Kadesh ; a view of the course of Israel's wander- 
 ings plainly inconsistent with chap. xxi. Indeed, one is led 
 to think that the priestly narrator did not realise how wide 
 a circuit lay between Kadesh and the plains of Moab, and 
 how much time the entire conquest of the kingdoms of 
 Sihon and Og must have occupied, else he could hardly 
 have left no more than a brief seven mouths for all the 
 events between the death of Aaron and the passage of the 
 Jordan (Num. xxxiii, 38 compared with Deut. i. 3, Josh, 
 iv. 19). 
 
 We have now run in a cursory way through the whole nar- 
 rative of Israel's adventures between Sinai and the plains of 
 Moab. The results of such a first survey ought not to be 
 taken as more than provisional, but they bear out, so far as 
 they go, two important conclusions at which we had already 
 arrived by another path. (1) They show us that we must 
 distinguish in the middle books of the Pentateuch between a 
 priestly series of laws, accompanied by narratives in harmony 
 with the priestly laws, and another series of narratives that 
 do not presuppose the Aaronic priesthood and its sanctuary. 
 (2) They show us, too, that only the latter series of narratives 
 is presupposed in the Book of Deuteronomy. Taking note of 
 these conclusions, our next task is to subject them to a further 
 test by an inductive method. We have provisionally marked 
 out the text of the middle books of the Pentateuch into two 
 main groups. Let us carefully collect aU characteristics of 
 language, all mannerisms of style, in each provisional group, 
 and see whether they bear out our classification, or point to 
 a cross division. In the latter case we shall have cause to 
 amend our analysis : otherwise it will be powerfully con- 
 firmed. This is a part of the argument that I cannot 
 profitably go into without citing a mass of Hebrew phrases ; 
 
408 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. xiii 
 
 but surely in sucli a matter the English reader may safely 
 trust to Oriental scholars. Those who are too sceptical to do 
 this may consult Driver, who gives the main results of the 
 linguistic analysis with great care : they will find that the 
 results of the linguistic test have been tabulated, and that 
 they confirm all that we have hitherto learned in a pro- 
 visional way on a broader line of inquiry. It is shown by 
 tables and figures which cannot be gainsaid that the priestly 
 document or group has a distinct style and vocabulary of its 
 own, and further that its peculiarities, whether of grammar 
 or of lexicon, forbid us to assign the priestly writings to 
 an early date, and allow, if they do not compel, us to 
 place it after Ezekiel, as the historic-legal argument requires. 
 Though the English reader cannot hope to make himself 
 master of these linguistic arguments, he may learn to ap- 
 preciate their force by a careful attention to points of style 
 and manner that do not disappear in translation. Thus 
 among phrases characteristic of the priestly group he may 
 note such as these : " throughout your generations," " after 
 their families," the technical term " father's house " for a clan 
 or family, the habitual designation of Israel as a " congrega- 
 tion " (edaJi), and of the princes as "chief of the congregation," 
 or the like ; also standing formulas like " this is the thing that 
 the Lord hath commanded," and " according to the word [lit. 
 mouth] of the Lord." And in general he can observe that 
 the priestly style is formal and mannered, deficient, as com- 
 pared with the older narratives, in freedom and variety of 
 expression. With this goes a love for formal headings and 
 subscriptions, and a monotonous way of piling up particulars 
 which reaches its climax in Num. vii. No one with the 
 smallest knowledge of literature will believe that this chapter 
 comes from the same pen that wrote the exquisite history 
 of Joseph and the other masterpieces of Pentateuchal nar- 
 rative. 
 
LECT. XIII THE priests' CODE 409 
 
 But beneath all these points of phrase and style there lies 
 something deeper and more fundamentally characteristic ; to 
 wit, no small tincture of the abstract and unreal way of con- 
 structing the sacred history, that we saw in Lecture V, to be 
 characteristic of Eabbinical Judaism, and of some later parts 
 of the Old Testament. The Moses of Exodus xxxii.-xxxiv., 
 or Numbers xi. xii., with his swift and hot anger on the one 
 hand, his tender and passionate intercession on the other, is a 
 living man ; the Moses of the priestly narrative is a lay-figure 
 only fit to convey to the people rules about sacred upholstery 
 and millinery. When the people rebel in the priestly story, 
 Moses and Aaron at once get the better of them by a simple 
 and uniform process. They have only to fall down on their 
 faces in supplication (Num. xiv. 5, xvi. 4, xx. 6) to obtain an 
 immediate supernatural interposition. The older narratives 
 are not less full of the supernatural, but they do not reduce 
 it in this way to a mechanical uniformity, and they allow us 
 to see a natural harmony between the divine action and the 
 historical circumstances, which is quite lost in the later 
 account. Thus in the old story the wilderness wanderings 
 from Kadesh to Arnon have a purpose as well as a penal 
 effect ; they bring the people to another and easier point for 
 the attack of Canaan. But in the priestly story they are 
 mere wanderings for the sake of wandering. Or again in the 
 priestly story the camping-places of the people are absolutely 
 determined by the miraculous cloud (Num. ix. 15 sqq.). In 
 the other narrative the cloud accompanies the march, but the 
 local knowledge of Hobab is called into requisition in the 
 choice of places to camp (Num. x. 29 sqq.). Even to the old 
 history the wilderness journey is a continued portent, in which 
 the play of human causes falls into the background, and is 
 obscured by the ever-present splendour of the divine guidance, 
 but in the priestly history the human and even the physical 
 background disappears altogether. Consider, for example, the 
 
410 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. xiii 
 
 gorgeousness of the priestly tabernacle and its service, the 
 gold and silver, the rich hangings of rare purple, the incense 
 and unguents of costly spices. How came these things to be 
 found in the wilderness ? It is absurd to say, as is commonly 
 said, that the tabernacle was furnished from the spoil of the 
 Egyptians (Exod. xi. 2, xii. 35), and that the serfs who left 
 Egypt carrying on their shoulders a wretched provision of 
 dough tied up in their cloaks (Exod. xii. 34), were at the 
 same time laden with all the wealth of Asia and Africa, in- 
 cluding such strange furniture for a long journey on foot as 
 stores of purple yarn, and the like. But it is not worth while 
 to spend time over these details. The decisive point is that 
 the Mosaic tabernacle is not the tabernacle of the old pre- 
 Deuteronomic history of Moses, and that it is equally un- 
 known to the history of the Former Prophets. It is, in short, 
 not a fact but an idea, an imaginary picture of such a 
 tabernacle as might serve as a pattern for the service of the 
 second Temple.-^ By much the greater part of the variations 
 of the priestly narrative from the older story flow directly 
 from the author's design to exhibit the whole ritual system 
 as complete and at work in the wilderness ; in short, we have 
 here to do not with a fresh source for ancient history, but with 
 a body of legal Haggada, borrowing its outlines from the older 
 narratives, but treating them with absolute freedom, so as to 
 produce a picture of the ideal institutions of Israel's worship 
 projected back into the Mosaic age. Such divergences of the 
 priestly narrative from the older history of the wilderness 
 wanderings as are not directly explicable on this principle 
 are yet connected with it in an indirect way ; the most char- 
 acteristic parts of the old story being omitted, or reduced to a 
 bare and not very exact summary, if they do not fall in with 
 the main purpose of the priestly document. Throughout the 
 
 ^ The arrangements agree witli those of the second Temple in various 
 particulars where Solomon's Temple was dififerent, e.g. there is one golden 
 candlestick and not ten {supra, p. 143). 
 
LECT. xiii THE PRIESTS' CODE 411 
 
 priestly narrative Israel is not so much a nation as a church, 
 and when it is not engaged in some act of rebellion against 
 Moses and Aaron, it is employed in receiving legal instruc- 
 tion or discharging ritual duties. Even the rebellions have 
 interest for this narrator only in so far as they elucidate some 
 point of ecclesiastical discipline (Korah), or have a par- 
 ticular importance for the history of the priesthood, as when 
 the sedition at Meribah leads to the exclusion of Aaron from 
 the promised land, or the affair of Baal-Peor earns for Phine- 
 has and his descendants a promise of everlasting priesthood. 
 On the other hand, the golden calf and a whole series of later 
 rebellions, which had no significance for the ecclesiastical 
 polity of Israel, are passed by in silence : it is true that the 
 alfair of the spies is mentioned, but as this was the cause of 
 the prolonged sojourn in the wilderness it evidently could not 
 be omitted. Finally, one whole side of the history, the rela- 
 tions of the Hebrews with the Kenites, with Edom, with 
 Moab, is ignored ; for this was not ecclesiastical but civil 
 history. Even the conquest of Eastern Palestine seems to 
 have been passed over in a word ; to compensate for this we 
 have a war with Midian ; but the actual campaign is disposed 
 of in a couple of verses, without the loss of a single man, and 
 is merely a text on which to hang a long law of booty, in 
 which the claims of the sanctuary are duly attended to.-^ 
 
 The middle books offer the best field on which to begin 
 the analysis of the priestly element in the Pentateuch ; for 
 here we have a great mass of priestly writing, and are soon 
 able to form a clear idea of the character of the narrative, and to 
 collect a list of distinctive words and phrases that may serve 
 as our guides in dissecting complicated chapters. It is much 
 easier to commence one's critical studies in the wilderness 
 than to start with the Book of Genesis and work onwards. 
 
 1 Comp. what has been said above, p. 386, where we have seea that the 
 main point in the law of booty only goes back to David. 
 
412 THE priests' code lect. xiii 
 
 But if you have followed my argument thus far you will have 
 no difficulty in pursuing the thread of the priestly writing 
 through the rest of the Hexateuch with the aid of a good 
 manual of Biblical Introduction. In what remains, therefore, 
 I will be very brief, and indicate results without dwelling on 
 processes. 
 
 First, then, as regards the priestly elements subsequent to 
 the Book of Numbers. In Deuteronomy these are limited to 
 a few verses about the death of Moses, chap, xxxii. 48-52, 
 the first words of xxxiv. 1, and xxxiv, 8, 9. So, too, the first 
 twelve chapters of Joshua contain only occasional traces of 
 the priestly style and manner, in one or two precise dates 
 answering to the priestly chronology (iv. 9, v. 10-12), and 
 especially in the story of the Gibeonites (ix. 15 h, 17-21 ; 
 " congregation," " princes of the congregation "), and how they 
 were made slaves of the sanctuary. In the second, or statis- 
 tical, part of the Book of Joshua it is easy to prove that the 
 lists of tribal settlements and boundaries are not all from one 
 source, but the nature of the matter does not give us much 
 opportunity of using linguistic criteria to determine which of 
 the Pentateuchal sources are used. There are, however, a 
 sufiicient number of verses containing characteristic priestly 
 matter or phrases (e.g. xiii. 15-32, xiv. 1-5, xv. 1, 20, " by their 
 families," xvi. 8, etc.) to make it clear that the priestly narrative 
 gave a statistical account of the settlement of Canaan. To this 
 account belongs chap. xxi. (the Levitical and priestly cities), 
 and also chap. xx. (in the text of the LXX.), In the priestly 
 narrative the allotment of territory is made by Eleazar the 
 priest, with Joshua and the heads of " fathers' houses " (xiv. 
 1), and applies to all the tribes alike ; but there is another 
 account in chap, xviii., according to which Judah and Joseph 
 are first settled, apparently without the use of the lot (comp. 
 xiv. 6 sqq., xvii. 14 sqq.), while the lots for the remaining 
 seven western tribes are cast at Shiloh by Joshua alone. 
 
IN JOSHUA 413 
 
 The mass of the narrative of Josliua is clearly not priestly, 
 and does not presuppose the priestly institutions. Chap, 
 xxii. 9-34 is a very peculiar piece, which has its closest 
 parallel in Judges xx. Both chapters are for the most part 
 post-priestly and certainly not historical. 
 
 It is probable that the priestly document proper, i.e. the 
 main priestly story, as distinct from such late additions as 
 chap, xxii., treated the conquest of Canaan very briefly. The 
 story of the Gibeonites was important in connection with the 
 sanctuary, and here alone have we any sign that the narrative 
 was more than the barest epitome. In like manner the con- 
 quest of Eastern Canaan is not described in the priestly part 
 of Numbers. There was no legal application to be made of a 
 war of extermination such as could not occur again, and so, 
 in order to bring in a law about ordinary war and captives, 
 the priestly writer passes over Sihon and spends his strength 
 on a war with Midian, of which the old sources know nothing. 
 On the other hand, an account of the settlement in Canaan, 
 according to law, made the natural completion of his work, 
 rounding out the delineation of Israel's sacred institutions. 
 It should be observed that Ezekiel's legislation also ends 
 with a chapter of sacred topography. 
 
 I now go back to consider the priestly element in Genesis 
 and the early chapters of Exodus. Here the analysis is more 
 dependent, in the first instance, on linguistic arguments, since, 
 before the Sinaitic revelation, there can be no direct reference 
 to the characteristic priestly institutions. But an important 
 general clue to the treatment of the patriarchal period by the 
 priestly source is obtained by considering the following series 
 of passages : — 
 
 Gen. xvii. Jehovah makes a covenant with Abraham under the 
 
 name of El-Shaddai (A. V. " the Almighty God "), and 
 
 gives him the seal of circumcision. 
 
 „ xxviii. 1-5. Isaac blesses Jacob in the name of El-Shaddai, 
 
 and with reference to tlie divine promises in chap, xvii. 
 
414 THE priests' code . lect. xiii 
 
 Gen. XXXV, 9-15. God (EloMm) appears to Jacob, changes His name 
 to Israel, reveals Himself as El-Shaddai, and renews 
 the same promises. 
 ,, xlviii. 3-6. Jacob rehearses to Joseph the revelation of El- 
 Shaddai last cited, and adopts his grandchildren 
 Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons [i.e. as two 
 full tribes, in which character they always appear in 
 the priestly document]. 
 
 Exod. vi. 2-8. God (Elohim) speaks to Moses, saying, " I am Jeho- 
 vah. And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
 as El-Shaddai, but by my name Jehovah I was not 
 known to them." Then follows a promise of deliver- 
 ance in terms based on the earlier passages already cited. 
 
 These passages are in substance and form a connected series. 
 They must all be from one pen, and the pen is that of the 
 priestly narrator, whose characteristic phrases and manner- 
 isms are not to be mistaken, especially in Gen. xvii. The 
 priestly narrator, then, regards the name of Jehovah as char- 
 acteristic of Mosaism, and accordingly we observe that he 
 avoids the use of that word in the patriarchal period, employ- 
 ing Elohim in its place. But he views the Mosaic revelation 
 as based on a previous covenant with Abraham, and carries 
 back to his day the ordinance of circumcision, which in the 
 priestly laws is taken as the necessary mark of admission 
 into the community of true religion (Lev. xii. 3 ; Exod. xii. 
 44, 48). 
 
 It was long ago observed that in the Book of Genesis the 
 names Jehovah and Elohim do not occur at random but in 
 two distinct series of narratives, which generally can be 
 separated from each other without trouble. And when we 
 find Jehovah and Elohim alternating in the same narrative, as 
 in the story of the Elood, we find also, on closer examination, 
 that the story is composite and can still be resolved into two 
 threads, one Jahvistic and the other Elohistic (supra, p. 327 sq.). 
 We now see that in seeking to determine the priestly elements 
 in Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus we may begin by 
 setting the whole Jahvistic narrative on one side. 
 
IN GENESIS 415 
 
 In the earlier chapters of Genesis all that remains is 
 priestly ; to wit, the first (and more abstract) of the two 
 stories of the Creation (Gen. i. 1-ii. 4 a) ; then a line of 
 genealogy from Adam to Noah (Gen. v. ; but not verse 29, 
 which uses the name Jehovah and refers to the Jahvistic 
 story of the Fall) ; then one form of the Flood-story (sujjra, 
 p. 329 sq.), which was necessary to the writer's legal purpose 
 because the Flood was followed by a covenant with Noah 
 (ix. 1-17) the conditions of which passed over into Mosaism ; 
 then another series of genealogies (parts of x., xi. 10-26), and 
 a very brief sketch of Abraham's life, containing little more 
 than a sequence of names and dates, and carrying us on to 
 the covenant of chap, xvii.-^ Here the author has reached a 
 topic of legal importance, and again expands into copious and 
 somewhat redundant detail. 
 
 About this point it becomes plain that the Jahvist and 
 the priestly writer are not the only contributors to the 
 
 ^ It may be instructive to give the priestly story of the first ninety-nine 
 years of Abraham's life in full : — 
 
 " Now these are the generations of Terah : Terah begat Abram and Nahor 
 and Haran ; and Haran begat Lot. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot 
 the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son 
 Abram's wife ; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to 
 go into the land of Canaan ; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 
 And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years : and Terah died 
 in Haran. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of 
 Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all 
 their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in 
 Haran ; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ; and into the 
 land of Canaan they came. And the land was not able to bear them to dwell 
 together : for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. 
 So they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelt in the 
 land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain. And Sarai Abram's 
 wife bare him no children. And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her Egyptian 
 handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave 
 her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And Hagar bare Abram a son : 
 and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram 
 was eighty-six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram " (xi. 27, 31, 
 32 ; xii. 4 6, 5 ; xiii. 6, 11 &, 12 a ; xvi. 1 a, 3, 15, 16). The monotonous 
 wordiness is as characteristic of the priestly style as the individual ex- 
 pressions. 
 
416 JAHVIST AND ELOHIST lect. xiii 
 
 story of Genesis. In chap. xiv. we meet with a narrative 
 that stands quite by itself, and is probably distinct in origin 
 from all other parts of the Pentateuch; while chap, xv., 
 though it contains nothing suggestive of the priestly hand, 
 can hardly be taken as an integral part of the Jahvistic docu- 
 ment.^ In the latter chapter we have at least the suspicion 
 that a third source has begun to show itself, and the suspicion 
 is raised to certainty in chap. xx. 1-17 (Abraham and Abi- 
 melech at Gerar), the first of a long series of narratives in 
 which the use of Elohim is associated with no other mark of 
 the priestly hand. The Elohist (as the new narrator is 
 usually called) has a style and characteristic features of his 
 own ; but in language, standpoint, and choice of matter he 
 stands much nearer to the Jahvist than to P ; and his 
 narratives, taken as a whole, form a parallel series to those 
 of the Jahvist, giving the same or similar stories, with such 
 variations as are commonly found in the primitive traditions 
 of ancient races. Thus the Elohistic story of Abraham and 
 Abimelech at Gerar (xx. 1-17) is a traditional variant of the 
 Jahvistic stories of Abraham and Pharaoh (chap, xii.), and 
 Isaac and Abimelech (xxvi. 7-11). Or again the Jahvistic 
 account of Jacob's vision in Bethel is contained in xxviii. 
 13-16, 19 ; the Elohistic parallel in verses 11, 12, 17, 18, 
 20-22. The ladder with the angels, the anointed stone, and 
 the vow are only in the Elohistic verses, and this is the 
 version referred to in the subsequent Elohistic passages 
 xxxi. 13, XXXV. 1-8. The revelations at Bethel form one of 
 the best tests for the threefold critical division of Genesis ; 
 for here we have a third account (Gen. xxxv. 9-15), which 
 we have already assigned to the priestly document. These 
 verses are not the continuation of the Elohistic story im- 
 mediately preceding (verses 1-8), but a separate narrative, 
 as appears especially in verse 15. 
 
 ^ The analysis of this chapter is still uncertain. 
 
LECT. XIII 
 
 IN GENESIS 417 
 
 I may add one more illustration of the relations of the 
 Elohist to the priestly narrator on the one hand and the 
 Jahvist on the other. In the Jahvistic story the destiny 
 of Ishmael is revealed to Hagar before his birth, at the well 
 Lahai-roi, whither she has fled from her mistress's hard treat- 
 ment (Gen. xvi. 4-14). In the Elohistic version a similar 
 revelation, at a well, is given after she and her son are 
 banished (xxi. 8-21). In this story Ishmael is a little child 
 (" playing," ver. 9, not " mocking," as A. V.), and is carried 
 on his mother's shoulder (ver. 14, where read with LXX. " and 
 he put the child on her shoulder and sent her away " ; ver. 
 15). But according to the priestly chronology Ishmael was 
 thirteen years old a year before Isaac's birth, and so at this 
 date would have been a lad of fifteen at least. 
 
 The Jahvist and Elohist together are responsible for the 
 great mass of the patriarchal history, and for all those stories 
 that make Genesis one of the most delightful of books. 
 What remains for the priestly writer is meagre enough ; the 
 continuous thread of his narrative is no more than a string 
 of names, dates, and other dry bones of history, mainly in 
 systematic form under the standing heading, " These are 
 the generations of . . ." ^ Apart from the El-Shaddai 
 passages already noted, perhaps" the only place where he 
 expands into fulness is chap, xxiii., which details at length 
 how Abraham became legal possessor of an inalienable family 
 grave.^ 
 
 ^ The successive recurrences of this phrase are the clue to the formal 
 arrangement of the priestly narrative in Genesis, as the El-Shaddai passages 
 are the clue to its purpose and meaning ; comp. Driver, p. 5. 
 
 2 I say "perhaps," that I may not seem to speak positively on the 
 difficult chapter, Gen. xxxiv. But there is a high measure of probability 
 that everything in this chapter which is not pre-Deuteronomic belongs to a 
 very late redaction, subsequent to the union of the older sources in our 
 present Pentateuch (so Kuenen and now also Wellhausen). 
 
 ^ The importance which P attaches to this subject (to which he returns 
 in XXV. 9 sq., xlix. 29 sqq.) is in accordance with the general feelings of the 
 Semites ; see for the Arabs Wellhausen, Eestc Ar. Heid. p. 160. The best 
 
 27 
 
418 THE PRIESTS CODE lect, xiii 
 
 The same abstract brevity prevails in the opening chapters 
 of Exodus (i. 1-5, 7, 13, 14 ; ii. 23 I, 25) up to the call of 
 Moses, who appears suddenly in vi. 2, without any account 
 of his previous life. The opening of his mission is told fully 
 enough in chaps, vi. vii. 1-13, with this difference from the 
 older story that from the first he demands the complete 
 emancipation of his people and not merely (as in v, vii. 14-18, 
 etc. ; comp. iii. 18) leave for them to celebrate a feast in 
 the wilderness. Then follow brief notices of the plagues of 
 blood, frogs, mosquitoes (A. V. " lice "), and plague-boils on 
 man and beast,^ while the final judgment, the death of the 
 firstborn (xii. 12), gives occasion for a full legal discussion of 
 the Passover (xii. 1-20, 28, 37 a, 40-51 ; xiii. 1, 2). The 
 account of the flight and the deliverance at the Eed Sea is 
 again meagre (xiii. 20, xiv. 1-4, 8, 9, 15-18, 21 first and last 
 clause, 22, 23, 26, 27 a, 28, 29), but characteristic, inasmuch 
 as the east wind that drives back the sea in the old story 
 
 illustrations of Gen. xxiii. are, however, to be found in the inscriptions on 
 the tombs of the Nabatieans of Al-Hejr (Euting, Nabataische Inschrr. aus 
 Arabien, 1885, jmssim) and the Syrians of Palmyra, where the inalienable 
 character of the family grave is guarded with special solicitude. From these 
 parallels we may perhaps infer that Abraham's care to secure such a grave is 
 set forth as a pattern for his descendants. In the Jahvistic narrative Jacob 
 desires to be buried with his fathers, and not in Egypt ; but the place where 
 his wake was held (and where, therefore, in all probability, his grave was, 
 according to this tradition) is not the cave of Jlachpelah, but the Floor of 
 Atad or Abel-Mizraim (Gen. xlvii. 29-31, 1. 10, where Dillmann's reference to 
 Jerome should be supplemented by the more interesting passage in Epiph. 
 De Fond, et Mens. § 62 [Syriac text]). The Elohistic variant of this is the 
 conveyance of the bones of Joseph to Canaan at the Exodus (Gen. 1. 25 ; 
 Exod. xiii. 19 ; Josh. xxiv. 32), to which there is a striking Arabic parallel 
 iu Wetzstein, Eeisebericht uber Hauran (Berlin, 1860), p. 27 : " Take my bones 
 and carry them whithersoever ye journey," etc. 
 
 1 Exod. vii. 19, 20 a, 21 h, 22 ; viii. 5-7, 15 b [Heb. 1-3, 11 6] ; 16-19 [Heb. 
 12-15] ; ix. 8-12. In the older sources the plagues are : blood (in the Nile 
 only ; not also, as in P, in pools and vessels ; see vii. 24) ; frogs ; swarms 
 of insects (under a different name from the mosquitoes of P) ; murrain ; hail ; 
 locusts ; darkness ; then the death of the firstborn. The darkness appears 
 as a separate plague only in the Elohist (x. 21-23) ; and the Jahvistic account, 
 iu which it is merely an incident in the plague of locusts (ver. 15), seems to 
 give a more primitive form of the tradition. 
 
LECT. XIII IIS EXODUS 419 
 
 disappears, and the outstretched hand of Moses takes its place. 
 The share of the priestly narrator in Exod. xvi. is disputed, 
 and between this chapter and the ordinances of the tabernacle 
 we have nothing but a bare notice of the arrival at Sinai 
 (xix. 1, 2), and of Moses's ascent to the mountain of the law 
 to receive the ritual ordinances (xxiv. 15 sqq). 
 
 Except in one or two hard cases (Exod. xvi., and perhaps 
 Gen. xxxiv.), the compass of the priestly document in the early 
 history is determined by such a concurrence of internal 
 evidences that there is no dispute about it among those who 
 admit criticism at all. And when we look at the priestly 
 passages as a whole there can be no serious doubt as to their 
 essential unity or their essential character. For the most 
 part the group is so homogeneous that the main mass 
 of it must have come from a single pen ; though when 
 we carry out the analysis with the utmost nicety we 
 find signs that the main narrator had predecessors and 
 successors in the priestly school. Thus Kueneu, whose 
 sagacity and patience in this kind of research are unrivalled, 
 would teach us to speak of P\ i.e. the oldest priestly col- 
 lection of laws in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. ; P ^, the main priestly 
 narrator and legist ; and, finally, a series of later priestly 
 writers (P ^, P *, etc.) who added their touches to the narrative 
 of Korah's rebellion and certain other passages, in which an 
 absolutely homogeneous story is not left even when all non- 
 priestly elements are removed. But these niceties of analysis 
 do not affect the main result ; the whole priestly literature 
 belongs to one school ; and that school builds upon Ezekiel 
 (who already lies behind Lev. xvii.-xxvi.), and had practically 
 completed its work at the date of Ezra's Eeformation. 
 
 The general character of the main priestly document has 
 already been sketched from the materials presented in the 
 middle books, and our analysis of Genesis and Joshua 
 only confirms what those books teach. The priestly writing 
 
420 CHARACTER OF THE lect. xiii 
 
 is only in form an historical document ; in substance it is a 
 body of laws and precedents having the value of law, strung 
 on a thread of history so meagre that it often consists of 
 nothing more than a chronological scheme and a sequence of 
 bare names. If we read the document as literal history, all 
 that it teaches and that the older parts of the Hexateuch do 
 not teach may be summed up in one comprehensive sentence : 
 The ordinances of Judaism, as we knoio them from the time of 
 Ezra downwards, already existed and were enforced in the days 
 of Moses. That this is not historical fact can be proved, and 
 has been proved in the previous pages, by a succession of 
 arguments. The supposed Mosaic ordinances, and the nar- 
 ratives that go with them, are unknown to the history and 
 the prophets before Ezra ; they are unknown to the 
 Deuteronomic writers, and they are unknown to the non- 
 priestly parts of the Pentateuch, which Deuteronomy pre- 
 supposes. And from this it follows with certainty that the 
 priestly recasting of the origins of Israel is not history (save 
 in so far as it merely summarises and reproduces the old 
 traditions in the other parts of the Hexateuch) but Haggada, 
 i.e. that it uses old names and old stories, not for the purpose 
 of conveying historical facts, but solely for purposes of legal 
 and ethical instruction. A book must be read in the spirit 
 wherein it was written if the reader desires to profit; and 
 therefore we must not go to the priestly literature for 
 historical information, but only to understand the nature 
 of the institutions which were devised some little time before 
 Ezra's Reformation, and actually put in force at that Eeforma- 
 tion, as the necessary and efficient means of preserving the 
 little community of Judaism from being swallowed up in the 
 surrounding heathenism. It is useless to argue that if this 
 be so the Priests' Code has no right to stand in our Bible ; for 
 under Providence the Code of Ezra and the Ptcformation of 
 Ezra were the means, amidst the general dissolution of the 
 
PRIESTLY STORY 421 
 
 Persian and Hellenic East, of preserving and maturing among 
 the Jews those elements of true spiritual religion out of 
 which Christianity sprang. In the nineteenth century of 
 Christendom it is too late to make an Index Expurgatorius of 
 the books on which our Christian religion does, as a matter of 
 liistory, rest ; but it is not too late to seek to understand them 
 by the best lights that God in His providence gives us to use. 
 I know of no attempt, on the part of apologists for 
 tradition, to meet directly the historical arguments that 
 establish the fundamental doctrine of modern criticism, the 
 late date of the Priests' Code. The position always taken up 
 by traditionalists is that there are sufficient reasons of some 
 other kind for holding all the Pentateuchal laws (with the 
 conjoined histories) to be Mosaic, and that therefore every- 
 thing in the Bible that appears to be inconsistent with that 
 opinion must be explained away at any cost. But explaining 
 things away is a process that has no place in fair historical 
 inquiry, though unfortunately it has long played a great part 
 in Biblical interpretation. The reason why unnatural inter- 
 pretations, which would not be tolerated in any other field, 
 are accepted without difficulty in the case of the Bible is not 
 far to seek. Till a very recent date it was assumed on all 
 hands that the authority of Scripture, as a rule of faith and 
 life, involves the inerrancy of all parts of the sacred record. 
 The Bible could not contradict itself, and therefore, if two 
 passages appeared to be at variance, one of them must be 
 explained away. This is not the place for a discussion of 
 theological principles ; it is enough to observe that there is a 
 very long step between the doctrine that the Bible is a sure 
 rule of faith and life, and the inference that every historical 
 statement of a Biblical book is necessarily free from error. 
 To make such an inference cogent, one must adopt a definition 
 of faith which is neither that of the Eeformers nor of the Old 
 Catholic and Mediseval Church {supra, Lecture I.). And 
 
422 CHARACTER OF THE lect. xiii 
 
 when we turn from theological assumptions to deal with 
 actual facts, we find clear evidence, as has been shown in 
 more than one part of these Lectures, that the Biblical writers 
 were not all equally well informed in matters of history, that 
 their statements are not always in strict accordance with one 
 another, and that we can no more dispense with the task of 
 sifting and comparing sources in the study of Israel's history 
 than in any other branch of historical research. When this 
 is admitted, all that part of the apologetical argument which 
 consists in the explaining away of plain texts at once falls to 
 the ground. To explain away the concurrent evidence of the 
 older histories and prophets where it does not agree with 
 tradition is really nothing else than to reject that evidence ; a 
 proceeding manifestly inconsistent with every rule of historical 
 research. 
 
 While the traditionalists thus fail altogether in their 
 attempt to meet the historical arguments of the critics, their 
 own positive argument for believing that all the Pentateuchal 
 laws date from Moses is admittedly theological rather than 
 historical. They appeal to the authority of the New Testa- 
 ment, or, putting the argument more broadly, urge that it is 
 incredible that God in His providence should have allowed 
 His Church to hold and teach for so many centuries an 
 opinion concerning the origin of Israel's sacred institu- 
 tions which is not historically correct. I do not propose 
 to go into these arguments, because I do not know any way 
 of deciding whether they are sound or not except by bringing 
 them to the test of history. God has given us intellects to 
 judge of historical evidence, and He has preserved to us in the 
 Bible ample materials for deciding the date of the Penta- 
 teuchal laws and narratives by strict historical methods. 
 And as He has thus put it in our power to learn what the 
 actual course of Providence has been, I decline to be led into 
 an a priori argument as to what it ought to have been. 
 
LECT. XIII PRIESTLY WRITINGS 423 
 
 With all this, it is still true that the priestly writings, 
 or rather such part of them as once formed an independent 
 work, make a very strange book, and it is an object of 
 legitimate inquiry how such a book ever came to be written. 
 It is doubtful whether we can hope to answer this question 
 fully from the materials that remain to us ; but there are 
 some things to be said on the subject which at least go far to 
 diminish the sense of strangeness that the critical account of 
 the book awakens in the modern reader. It is possible to give 
 an intelligible account both of the motives by which the 
 author was guided and of the models that influenced the form 
 of his work ; but to understand this, we must go back to the 
 other and older elements of the Hexateuch. 
 
 We have seen that, for the Book of Genesis, what remains 
 of the ancient historical traditions of the Hebrews consists of 
 two parallel streams, which received literary form in the works 
 of the Jahvist and Elohist respectively.-^ The same two sources 
 still flow, and can be distinguished with some degree of 
 certainty, in the early chapters of Exodus ; but as we proceed 
 through the middle books the analysis becomes more difficult, 
 though from time to time the same thing is told twice 
 over, with more or less variation in expression and detail. 
 These " doublets " are sufficiently numerous and characteristic 
 to satisfy us that we are still dependent, throughout the 
 pre-Deuteronomic narrative, on the Jahvistic and Elohistic 
 sources, though the two have been so interwoven by an 
 editorial hand that in many places it is now impossible to 
 separate them. Even in Genesis there are some passages 
 where it seems hopeless to attempt to resolve the complex 
 narrative JE into its primitive elements ; and the patriarchal 
 history, from its very nature, and especially because it is 
 largely made up of traditions associated with the many 
 
 ^ This statement is at least broadly true ; and for the present purpose it 
 is not necessary to consider whether some fragments of genuine tradition have 
 come to us fi'om other sources, e.g. Gen. xir. 
 
424 JAHVIST, ELOHIST lect. xiii 
 
 local sanctuaries of ancient Israel (Hebron, Beersheba, 
 Shechem, Bethel, etc.), may be presumed to have offered a 
 more varied series of traditions than the wilderness journeys ; 
 so that the editor would find less occasion in the latter case to 
 preserve great part of both the old histories intact. And to 
 this it must be added that in the middle books the criterion 
 of origin derived from the Divine Names generally fails us ; 
 whether it be that the Elohist took no pains to avoid the use 
 of the name Jehovah, after he had recorded the revelation 
 made in that name to Moses at the Bush (Exod. iii.) ; or 
 whether, as some suppose, the original prevalence of Elohim 
 in his narrative has disappeared at some stage of the sub- 
 sequent redaction. Be this as it may, there remain sufficient 
 indications of dual authorship to satisfy us that all through 
 the Hexateuch the old history consists of a twofold thread, 
 and that the Deuteronomic writers are not exclusively 
 dependent either on the Jahvist alone or on the Elohist 
 alone. Now, it is very clear that the Deuteronomic retro- 
 spects are not based on mere oral tradition ; their verbal 
 coincidences with the non-priestly parts of Exodus and 
 Numbers are unmistakable ; and as these coincidences are 
 with the non-priestly narrative as a whole, and not with one 
 element in it, the presumption is that the two old histories 
 were already fused into a single narrative before the close of 
 the seventh century B.C., and that this compound story was 
 the written source that lay before the Deuteronomic authors.-' 
 
 ^ The argument that the Jahvistic and Elohistic books did not lie before 
 the Deuteronoraistic writers in separate form, but that these writers (or at 
 least, as Kuenen would limit the contention {Onderzoek, i. § 13, note 27], the 
 author of Dent, i.-iv. xxix. sq., and the Deuteronomic hand in Joshua) had 
 before them the compound book JE (consisting of parts of J + parts of E 
 + some editorial matter) is commonly made to turn on Deuteronomic 
 references to passages which the critical analysis assigns to the redactor of 
 JE. But a simpler and more generally intelligible argument may serve to 
 make the same thing very probable. For the parenetic purpose of Deuteronomy 
 there was no need to use two histories, and work their statements into a con- 
 tinuous whole ; and therefore, if it can be shown that the Deuteronomic 
 
LECT. xiii AND DEUTERONOMIST 425 
 
 On this and other grounds it is generally recognised that 
 the first step towards the formation of our present compound 
 Pentateuch was the fusion of the Jahvistic and Elohistic 
 documents in a single book (JE). The next step was a very 
 obvious one. We have already seen that the influence of 
 Deuteronomy on the literary labours of the period of the 
 Exile is exhibited in a Deuteronomic redaction of all the 
 historical books [supra, p. 396). The process by which 
 the whole history of Israel down to the Captivity was 
 worked into a continuous narrative (for as such we now 
 read it), interspersed with comments and other additions, 
 enforcing the lessons of the history in the Deuteronomic 
 manner, cannot now be followed in detail ; and probably the 
 work was not all done at once or by one hand. That the 
 Deuteronomistic redaction extended to the history of JE is 
 manifest in the case of Joshua, and with this redaction must 
 have gone the union of JE with the Book of Deuteronomy. 
 Every one can see for himself that the first chapter of Joshua 
 as we now read it is meant to be continuous with Deuteronomy. 
 Thus all the non-priestly parts of the Hexateuch were united 
 into one book, to which Judges, Samuel, and Kings, in the 
 Deuteronomistic redaction, formed the continuation. 
 
 During the first ninety years of the new Jerusalem, from 
 Cyrus to Ezra, the Law of Moses meant tlie law as embodied 
 in this great history, and especially in the Book of Deuter- 
 onomy, which might fairly be taken as the whole law, since 
 its fuller and more modern precepts covered the ground of 
 the smaller codes in Exod. xxi.-xxiii., Exod. xxxiv. When 
 Malachi says, " Remember the Torah of Moses my servant, 
 which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes 
 and judgments " (Mai. iv. 4), it is the Code of Deuteronomy 
 
 retrospects of the old history sometimes give a compound story, the inference 
 that tliey read it in compound form {i.e. read JE not J and E) is almost 
 irresistible. This is apparently the case in several places, e.g. in the 
 account of the events at Sinai. 
 
426 MALACHI AND THE lect. xiii 
 
 that he has in view. For his words are made up of the 
 expressions characteristic of Deuteronomy and the Deuter- 
 onomistic redactor of Joshua ; and tha statement that the 
 " statutes and judgments," i.e. the contents of the Deuter- 
 onomic Code (Deut. xii. 1, xxvi. 16), were given to Moses in 
 Horeb (though they were not published till forty years later), 
 is in accordance with Deut v. 31.-^ Malachi, therefore, had in 
 his hands the Deuteronomic Code, with the historical intro- 
 duction ; and apparently he read this book as part of the 
 Deuteronomistic edition of the whole pre-priestly Hexateuch. 
 But his Torah of Moses did not yet embrace the Priests' 
 Code, as appears not only from Mai. iv. 4, but from the other 
 references he makes to the laws and institutions of Israel. 
 In particular he still views the covenant of priesthood as 
 given to Levi generally (Mai. ii. 1-8 ; comp. Deut. xxxiii. 8 
 sqq.), and assigns to the oral Torah of the priests an importance 
 hardly consistent with a date subsequent to Ezra's Eeforma- 
 tion (ii. 6), but suitable to what we know of the early 
 practice of the second Temple from the prophets Haggai and 
 Zechariah (Hag. ii. 11 ; Zech. vii. 3).^ 
 
 ^ The phrases "Torah of Moses," "Moses my servant," are proper to the 
 Deuteronomic redaction of Joshua and the historical books ; the former is found 
 in Josh. viii. 31, 32, xxiii. 6 ; 2 Kings xiv. 6, xxiii. 25, and never again before 
 Malachi ; the latter in Num. xii. 7 ; Deut. xxxiv. 5, and then frequently in 
 the Deuteronomistic parts of Joshua. " Horeb " is Elohistic and Deuterono- 
 mistic ; in P the mountain of the law is "Sinai." "Statutes and judg- 
 ments " is a standing Deuteronomic phrase, and occurs but once in the rest 
 of the Pentateuch, viz. Lev. xxvi. 46 (with "Sinai," not "Horeb"). 
 
 - Note further Mai. i. 8 (Deut. xv. 21) ; Mai. i. 14 (where it is assumed 
 that a votive sacrifice ought to be a male, against Lev. iii. 1, 6, but apparently 
 in accordance with old Semitic usage ; comp. Religion of the Semites, p. 280) ; 
 iii. 5 (based on the Decalogue and on Deut. xviii. 10, Deut. xxiv. 17 sqq., 
 and following the expressions of these passages, not those of the equivalent 
 priestly laws, Lev. xix. 31, 33 sqq., xx. 6) ; the blessing on obedience, iv. 10 
 (which follows the expressions of Deut. xxviii. 12, not of the priestly parallel. 
 Lev. xxvi.). There are other points of verbal coincidence with the pre- 
 priestly Torah, e.g. the rare word s'gullah (iii. 17 ; comp. Exod. xix. 5 ; Deut. 
 vii. 6, xiv. 2, xxvi. 18 ; nowhere else in a similar application save Ps. cxxxv. 
 4). Objections to this view of Malachi's date are dealt with in the next 
 footnote but one, and infra, p. 446. 
 
LECT. XIII LAW OF DEUTERONOMY 427 
 
 Malachi represents his contemporaries as weary of serving 
 God and ready to fall altogether away from His worship, and 
 this coldness he rebukes from the standpoint of the pre- 
 priestly Hexateuch, which was therefore the acknowledged 
 fountain of sacred instruction. In like manner ISTehemiah's 
 prayer in Neh. i. is wholly based on Deuteronomy ; and 
 when Ezra first came up to Jerusalem (458 B.C.) and began 
 those efforts at reformation which were not crowned with 
 success till they were backed, fourteen years later, by the 
 civil authority of the Tirshatha, it was to the Deuteronomic 
 law that he appealed.-^ The first aim that Ezra set before 
 himself was the abolition of mixed marriages, and this 
 measure he recommended on the ground of Ueut. vii. 1-3 
 (Ezra ix. 11 sqq.)} 
 
 Thus during the first ninety years after the return, and 
 the first seventy of the second Temple (whicli was completed 
 in 516 B.C.), there was a written sacred law for the general 
 use of the community, but no authoritative written code for 
 the direction of priestly ritual. The latter was still left to 
 the oral tradition and oral Torah of the priests. 
 
 For the priests themselves there Avas doubtless a certain 
 convenience in this. Oral tradition is more elastic than a 
 written code ; and the conditions of the second Temple were 
 
 ^ On the history of Ezra see especially Kuenen in the Versl. en. Mcded. 
 of the Amsterdam Academy (Afd. Letterkunde, 1890, p. 273 sqq.), where it 
 is shown that the events recorded in Ezra ix. x. must have been followed by 
 a reaction and a long straggle of parties. 
 
 2 See also Neh. xiii. 1-3, where the separation of the Israelites from the 
 mixed multitude {'6reb, synon. with the 'amme hadreg of Ezra x. 11) is based 
 on Deut. xxiii. 3-5. Neh. xiii. 1-3 is a fragment torn from its original con- 
 text, as appears from the opening words of verse 1, and I strongly suspect 
 that verses 1, 2 originally belonged to the same context with Ezra ix. x. They 
 would come in well between Ezra x. 9, 10. In any case the whole movement 
 for separation from the heathen was based on Deuteronomy, and began 
 fourteen years before the publication of the priestly edition of the Pentateuch, 
 so that Malachi's polemic against marriage with " the daughters of a strange 
 god," in no way weakens the proof that his Torah did not include the Priests' 
 Code. He may have written after 458, but he certainly wrote before 444. 
 
428 CODIFICATION OF 
 
 SO different from those of the first that a considerable re- 
 modelling of points of ritual necessarily took place after the 
 return.-^ On the other hand, there were several considerations 
 that made a codification of the priestly Torah desirable. 
 There were many ritual rules, particularly those of ceremonial 
 purity, which could be observed in exile as readily as at 
 Jerusalem. It is probable that in the first instance such 
 rules had reference mainly to formal acts of worship, and 
 defined the conditions of participation in sacrificial meals 
 and similar holy actions. They were therefore part of the 
 priestly Torah; and the priests were still their only inter- 
 preters. But in the actual praxis of the exiles, when sacrifice 
 was impossible, all ceremonial rules that could be detached 
 from the altar ritual acquired an independent importance. 
 And in the scattered state of the nation it was impossible to 
 maintain unity in this branch of ceremonial tradition with- 
 out reducing it to writing. It is to be presumed that the 
 first written collections of priestly Torahs would address 
 themselves to this need ; and in fact the earlier chapters of 
 Lev. xvii.-xxvi. are mainly occupied with laws equally 
 applicable in Canaan and in the Dispersion, which may once 
 liave formed several small independent books, as the titles 
 and subscriptions of chaps, xviii. and xix. appear to 
 indicate. 
 
 A codification of the Temple ritual was not so immedi- 
 ately necessary. Yet this, too, must in process of time have 
 appeared to be desirable alike from a practical and a theo- 
 retical point of view ; from the former because the written 
 Torah of Moses, contained in Deuteronomy, did at various 
 points touch on ritual matters, so that there was a constant 
 danger of conflict between the oral and the written law ; 
 from the latter because a systematical exposition of the 
 whole doctrine of Israel's holiness on the lines first sketched 
 
 1 See infra, p. 443 sqq. 
 
LECT. XIII THE PRIESTLY TORAH 429 
 
 by Ezekiel was necessary to complete the theory of Israel's 
 religion in its post-exile form. 
 
 The early draft of a law of holiness which is preserved 
 in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. has probably not reached us entire, and to 
 some extent its original form is obscured by later additions.-^ 
 But in it we already see a distinct effort to systematise the 
 ceremonial law on the principle of Israel's holiness ; and we 
 can also see that in seeking a literary form proper to this 
 systematic exposition the writer was largely guided by the 
 Book of Deuteronomy. The closing exhortation in Lev. xxvi. 
 is based on Deut. xxviii., and the laws are set forth as laws 
 of Moses, or even (xxv. 1, xxvi. 46) as laws given to Moses 
 on Sinai. In considering how the writer felt himself at 
 liberty to use these forms we must remember, first, that the 
 priests had always referred their traditional Torah to Moses 
 as the father of their guild, and second, that the principle of 
 an implicit Mosaic law had long before received its expression 
 in the parabolic form that God gave to Moses at Sinai, laws 
 that were meant for future use and so not published at the 
 time (Deut. iv. 14, v. 31 with vi. 1 : the same thing, perhaps, 
 appeared already in the Elohist's book, Exod. xxiv. 12). The 
 Hebrews had no abstract philosophical forms of language or of 
 thought, and when they had to express conceptions involving 
 " the ideal " or " the implicit " they could only do so in 
 figurative speech. Every one is familiar with the Jewish 
 use of " heavenly " in the sense of " ideal," as we find it in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the ark, for example, which was 
 only an idea under the second Temple, was represented as 
 still existing in heaven (comp. Kev. xi. 19). In matters of law 
 "Sinaitic" had a similar figurative sense. To express the 
 whole priestly ordinances of holiness in the terms of this 
 old figure involved a much more elaborate machinery than 
 
 ^ See Driver, p. 43 sqq., for the linguistic and other marks of distinction 
 between earlier and later hands in these chapters, and for traces of the earlier 
 hand in other parts of the Pentateuch. 
 
430 CONCLUSION 
 
 LECT. XIII 
 
 that of the Book of Deuteronomy, and the task was not 
 carried out all at once. But we note that even the laws of 
 Lev. xvii. si^q. already make use of the Tabernacle as the 
 Sinaitic model of the true sanctuary. 
 
 The finished Priestly Code takes up the task that had 
 been left incomplete in the first law of holiness, and carries 
 it out with a systematic completeness that cannot but compel 
 our admiration if we place ourselves on the author's standpoint. 
 His object is not to supersede the older law and the history 
 that was read with it, but to set over against it a counterpart 
 and necessary companion -piece. He chooses a canvas as 
 large as that of the pre-priestly Torah, and throws the ex- 
 position of the system of Israel's sacred ordinances into the 
 form of a history from the Creation to the complete settle- 
 ment in Canaan. This whole history his plan compels him 
 to idealise or allegorise, and he does so boldly. But we 
 have no right to say that he meant his idealisation to be 
 read in a literal sense and to supersede the old law and the 
 old history. So long as the two expositions, JE + D on the 
 one hand (the prophetical and Deuteronomic Torah), and P 
 on the other (the systematised Priestly Torah), stood separate 
 and side by side, no one who cared for the distinction 
 between history and Haggada could possibly have been at 
 a loss as to the true nature of the second book. But it seems 
 probable that in the age of Ezra no one did care much for 
 this distinction ; for presently the two books were fused 
 together in one; a step which had much to recommend it 
 from an immediate practical point of view, inasmuch as it 
 reduced the whole law to a single code, but which at the 
 same time made all true historical study of the origins of 
 Israel's history and religion impossible without that work 
 of criticism which only these latter days have begun to realise 
 as possible and necessary. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 Additional Note A (p. 122). — The Text of 1 Sam. xvii. 
 
 The view that the Greek text of 1 Sam. xvii. 1-xviii. 5 is to 
 be preferred to the Hebrew is by no means universally accepted. 
 Wellhausen, who argued in favour of the Gxeek text in his Text 
 der Biicher Sarnuelis (1871), is now of opinion that even the shorter 
 text of chap. xvii. is inconsistent with chap. xvi. 14-23, and there- 
 fore deems it probable that the omissions of the Septuagint are due 
 to an attempt to remove difficulties which has not quite attained its 
 end. (See his remarks in the 4th ed. of Bleek's Binleituncf, reprinted 
 in Coni2x des Hexateuchs, etc., 1889, p. 249 sq.). Kuenen, Onder- 
 zoeh (2d ed., 1887), i. 391 sq., accepts this argument, and fortifies it 
 by the observation that the covenant between David and Jonathan 
 (xviii. 3) is alluded to in 1 Sam. xx. 8. Budde, BiicJier Richter 
 und Samuel (Giessen, 1890), takes a like view, and also argues 
 (quite consistently as it appears to me) that if xvii. 25 is not to be 
 rejected, the omissions of the LXX. with regard to David and Merab 
 must also be condemned, although, in the latter case the superiority 
 of the Greek text has approved itself to almost all critics. 
 
 The main point with all these critics is that in xvi. 18 David 
 is already described to Saul as a valiant man and a man of war, 
 whereas in chap, xvii., in the short text as well as in the long, he is 
 a mere lad unused to other arms than the shepherd's staff and sling. 
 This argument is striking, but I cannot accept it as conclusive. If 
 we take xvi. 14-23 as a whole, and do not confine our attention to 
 the expressions in verse 18 (where, in putting words into the mouth 
 of one of Saul's servants, the author may have allowed himself 
 some proleptic freedom of description), we must necessarily con- 
 clude that David came to Saul's court as a mere stripling. An 
 armour-bearer was not a full warrior, but a sort of page or apprentice 
 in arms (comp. Ibn Hisham, p. 119, 1. 1), whose most warlike 
 
432 DAVID AND 
 
 function is to kill outriglit those whom his master has struck down 
 (1 Sam. xiv. 13; 2 Sam. xviii. 15) — an office which among the 
 Arabs was often performed by women. Further, the way in which 
 David's movements are represented as entirely dependent on his 
 father's consent is hardly consistent with the idea that he was 
 already a full-grown warrior. On the contrary, he is still a lad 
 tending sheep (ver. 19), which was not a grown man's occupation. 
 To delete the words |SV3 "iti'N is perfectly arbitrary, unless we 
 are prepared to go much farther and regard the whole passage as 
 composite. Now it is quite reasonable that a stripling and apprentice 
 at arms should prefer to meet Goliath with the boyish weapon of 
 which he knew himself to be a master. This indeed will not 
 account for the shepherd's bag in xvii. 40, but that, as Wellhausen 
 has seen, is a mere gloss on D1pb"'3, and no proper part of the text. 
 
 That the story of xvii. 12-31 is self-contained, and not only 
 independent of verses 1-11, but built on different lines, has been 
 shown in the text of the Lecture. I should here say expressly, what 
 I have there only hinted, that verses 15, 16 are no proper part 
 of the narrative but a harmonistic interpolation. And further, the 
 words of the Philistine have been omitted in verse 23, and a 
 reference back to verse 8 substituted for them. Let me also direct 
 attention to the awkwardness of the junctions between verses 11 and 
 12, verses 31 and 32. As regards the latter, it requires some courage 
 to translate innp"'1, " and he sent for him " [ = "inni^l rh^\ Gen. xx. 
 2; 1 Sam. xvi. 11]. Apparently the word should be read as a 
 plural, "and they took him," which requires some addition to make 
 complete sense (comp. Lucian, Kal irapeXaf^ov avrov koI eccrTjya-yov 
 TTpos 2aoi)A). In any case we expect the unknown lad to answer 
 a question of the king's, not to speak first ; so that here we have an 
 external mark of discontinuity in the narrative. Again, verse 12 
 begins awkwardly, but is obviously a new beginning, breaking off 
 from verse 1 1 altogether. It is to be observed that the later Greek 
 version of ver. 12 sqq., as we have it in the Cod. Al., begins koX 
 eTirev AavelS. These are the first words of verse 32, and seem to 
 mark that what follows was originally a gloss on that verse. I 
 conjecture that the source from which the gloss was taken began 
 (like 1 Sam. i. 1, ix. 1), "And there was a man, an Ephrathite 
 of Bethlehem Judah, whose name was Jesse." 
 
 If now we accept xii. 12-31 as an independent fragment, break- 
 ing off abruptly with the words, " and they took him," it is to be 
 asked how the story went on. The fight itself must have been told 
 
GOLIATH 433 
 
 nearly as in the other version, and therefore nothing is preserved of 
 it but the fragments xvii. 41, 50. But even these show a differ- 
 ence. For in verse 51 (where the words " and drew it out of the 
 sheath thereof " are absent from the LXX.) the sword which David 
 takes to kill the giant outright is his own sword (comp. verse 39), 
 the weapon proper to armour-bearers, and used by them for de- 
 spatching the wounded. (See the passages already quoted, and also 
 Judg. ix. 54 ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 4.) But in verse 50 David has no 
 sword, and the blow with the sling-stone is itself fatal. Again, I 
 think it is plain that in the story of verses 12-31, etc., Saul had no 
 interview with David, though (unless verse 31 has been retouched) 
 he must have given permission to him to try his fortune. For at 
 verse 55 Saul sees David for the first time as he goes forth against 
 the Philistine, and does not even know his name.^ Thus the inde- 
 pendence of the narrative is fully maintained to the close of chap, 
 xvii., and this carries xviii. 1-2 with it. As regards xviii. 3-5 the 
 case is not so clear, both on account of the point raised by Kuenen, 
 and because verse 3, if it belongs to the same source as verse 1, 
 ought not to have been separated from it by verse 2. 
 
 A word in conclusion on the bearing of this analysis on the 
 larger questions of criticism in the Book of Samuel. All that I 
 suppose myself to have proved is that in chap. xvii. we must start 
 from the text of LXX., and that this text is the continuation of the 
 present form of xvi. 14-23. That the latter verses are themselves 
 of composite structure, and contain (especially in ver. 18) traces of 
 an older narrative, which made David first come to Saul as a full- 
 grown warrior, is not inconceivable, especially in view of 2 Sam. 
 xxi. 19. But such a theory must not be based on the longer text 
 of 1 Sam. xvii., and for my own part I do not see that there are in 
 xvi. 14 sqq. plain enough marks of dual origin to justify it. 
 
 Additional Note B (p. 124). — Hebrew Fragments preserved 
 
 IN THE SePTUAGINT 
 
 The insertion of the Septuagint in 1 Kings viii. 53 deserves 
 
 ^ I think also (though here I speak with diffidence) that there is a diff'erence 
 between verse 7 and verse 41. For if we translate the latter verse in accordance with 
 the invariable idiomatic use of E^^t^ni (as a stronger equivalent of XIHI, especially 
 in resumption, after another person has been named or referred to by a pronoun), 
 the sense is, " and the man {i.e. the Philistine) bore his shield in front of him (as 
 he advanced)," so that only his forehead was vulnerable. This, I admit, raises the 
 question whether verse 7 has not been retouched, after the interpolation, by some 
 one who misunderstood verse 41. But have we any copy of LXX. so free from 
 Hexaplar additions as to make this incredible without confirmation from the Greek ? 
 
 28 
 
434 BOOK OF JASHAR 
 
 special notice for its intrinsic interest. In 1 Kings viii. 12, 13, the 
 Hebrew text reads, " Jehovah hath determined (said) to dwell in 
 darkness. I have built a house of habitation for thee, a place for 
 thee to dwell in eternally." These verses are omitted in LXX., but 
 at verse 53 we find instead a fuller form of the same words of Solo- 
 mon. In the common editions of the LXX. the words run thus ; — 
 " The sun he made known in heaven : the Lord hath said that he 
 will dwell in darkness. Build my house, a comely house for thyself 
 to dwell in newness. Behold, is it not written in the book of song 1 " 
 The variations from the Hebrew text are partly mistakes. The 
 word " comely " is a rendering elsewhere used in the LXX. for the 
 Hebrew word naweh, which in this connection must rather be 
 rendered " house of habitation," giving the same sense as the 
 Hebrew of verse 13, with a variation in the expression. Then the 
 phrase " in newness " at once exhibits itself to the Hebrew scholar 
 as a mistaken reading of the Hebrew word " eternally," Again, 
 " build my house " differs in the Hebrew from " I have built " only 
 by the omission of a single letter. We may correct the LXX. 
 accordingly, getting exactly the sense of the Massoretic text of verse 
 12; or conversely, we may correct the Hebrew by the aid of the 
 Septuagint, in which case one other letter must be changed, so that 
 the verse runs, " Build my house, an house of habitation for me ; a 
 place to dwell eternally." We now come to the additions of the 
 LXX. " The sun he made known in heaven" gives no good sense. 
 But many MSS. read, " The sun he set in heaven." These two 
 readings, lyvwpto-ev and eo-rr^o-ej/, have no resemblance in Greek. 
 But the corresponding Hebrew words are pnn and pH respectively, 
 which are so like that they could easily be mistaken. There can be 
 no doubt that the latter is right ; and the error in the common 
 Septuagint text shows that the addition really was found by the 
 translators in Hebrew, not inserted out of their own head. We can 
 now restore the whole original, divide it into lines as poetry, and 
 
 render — 
 
 " Jehovah set the sun in the heavens, 
 But He hath determined to dwell in darkness. 
 Build my house, an house of habitation for me, 
 A place to dwell in eternally. " 
 
 Or on the other reading — 
 
 " I have built an house of habitation for thee, 
 A place to dwell in eternally." 
 
 The character of the expression in these lines, taken with the cir- 
 
NOTEO APHEK 435 
 
 cumstance of their transposition to another place in the LXX., would 
 of itself prove that this is a fragment from an ancient source, not 
 part of the context of the narrative of the chapter. But the LXX. 
 expressly says that the words are taken from " The Book of Song." 
 There might perhaps be an ancient book of that name, as we have 
 in Arabic the great historical and poetical collection of El Isfahany, 
 called " The Book of Songs." But the transposition of a single 
 letter in the Hebrew converts the unknown Book of Song into the 
 well-known Book of Jashar. This correction seems certain. The 
 slip of the Septuagint translator was not unnatural; indeed, the 
 same change is made by the Syriac in Josh. x. 13. 
 
 Another example of an ancient and valuable notice preserved in 
 the Greek but not in the Hebrew is found in 2 Kings xiii. 22, 
 where (in Lucian's recension) we read, "And Hazael took the 
 Philistine out of his hand from the Western Sea unto A^^hek." 
 This note, as Wellhausen has brought out, enables us to assign the 
 truQ position of Aphek, on the northern border of the Philistines, and 
 throws light on the whole history of the invasions of Central Israel 
 by the Philistines and by the Syrians, for which Aphek habitually 
 served as base. The Syrians, we see, did not attack Samaria in 
 front, from the north, but made a lodgment in the northern part 
 of the Philistine plain, to which there was an easy road by way of 
 Megiddo, and thus took their enemy on the flank. See Wellhausen, 
 Composition, p. 254. The text of Lucian's recension of LXX. for 
 Genesis to Esther has been determined and published by Lagarde 
 (Gottingen, 1883). For the historical books this recension is very 
 important. 
 
 Additional Note C (p. 197). — Sources of Psalm lxxxvi 
 
 1. Incline, Lord, thine ear, 1. a. Usual invocation ; Isa. xxxvii. 17 ; 
 answer me : for I am poor and Ps. xvii. 6, etc. 
 
 needy. h. Ps. xl. 17. — "I am poor and needy;" 
 
 Ps. XXV. 16. 
 
 2. Preserve my soul for I am 2. Ps. xxv. 20. — "Preserve my soul and 
 holy : thou, my God, save thy deliver me : let me not be ashamed, for I 
 servant that trusteth in thee. take refuge with thee." 
 
 3. Be gracious to me, Lord : 3. Current phrases ; e.g. Ps. xxx. 8. — 
 for unto thee I cry continually. "To thee, Jehovah, I cry ;" verse 10. — 
 
 "Hear, Jehovah, and be gracious to me." 
 
 4. Make glad the soul of thy 4. a. Ps. xc. 15. — "Make us glad;' 
 servant: for to thee, Lord, do li. 8. — "Make me hear joy and ghiduuss,'' 
 1 lift up my soul. etc. 
 
 b. Ps. xxv. 1. — "Unto thee, Jehovah, 1 
 lift up my soul." 
 
436 PSALM LXXXVI 
 
 5. For thou, Lord, art good 5. Modification of Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. — 
 and forgiving : and abundant in "Abundant in mercy . . . forgiving ini- 
 mercy unto all that call upon quity." 
 
 thee. 
 
 6. Give ear, Lord, unto my 6. Ps. v. 1, 2. — " Give ear to my words, 
 prayer : and hearken to the Jehovah . . . hearken to the voice of my 
 voice of my supplications. cry." 
 
 7. In the da}' of my distress 7. Ps. cxx. 1. — " I called to Jehovah in my 
 I call on thee : for thou wilt distress, and he answered me ; Ixxvii. 2. — 
 answer me. " In the day of my distress I sought the Lord." 
 
 8. There is none like thee 8. Ex, xv. 11. — " Who is like thee among 
 among the gods, Lord: and the gods, Jehovah?" Dent. iii. 24. — 
 there is nought like thy works. " Who is a God that can do like thy works ? " 
 
 9. All nations whom thou 9. Ps. xxii. 27. — "All ends of the earth 
 hast made shall come and wor- shall . , . return unto Jehovah, and before 
 ship before thee, Lord : and thee shall all families of the nations wor- 
 shall glorify thy name. ship." 
 
 10. For thou art great and 10. Ex. xv. 11. — "Doing wonders." 
 doest wonders : thou, God, 
 
 alone. 
 
 11. Teach me thy way, O 11. a. Ps. xxvii. 11. — "Teach me thy 
 Jehovah ; let me walk in thy way, Jehovah;" xxv. 5. — "Guide me in 
 truth: unite my heart to fear thy truth." 
 
 thy name. &. Jer. xxxii. 39. — " I will give them one 
 
 heart, and one way to fear me continually." 
 12. I will praise thee, 12. Ps. ix. 1. — " I will praise thee, Jeho- 
 Lord my God, with all my vah, with all my heart," etc. 
 heart : and I will glorify thy 
 name for ever. 
 
 13. For great is thy mercy 13. a. Ps. Ivii. 10. — "For thy mercy is 
 towards me : and thou hast great unto the heavens. " 
 
 delivered my soul from deep 5. Ps. Ivi. 13. — "For thou hast delivered 
 Sheol (the place of the dead). my soul from death." 
 
 14. God, proud men are 14. Ps. liv. 3. — "For strangers are risen 
 risen against me, and an as- against me, and tyrants seek my life who 
 sembly of tyrants seek my life : have not set God before them." [In Hebrew, 
 and have not set thee before "proud men" ZeDIM and "strangers" 
 them. ZaRIM, differ by a single letter, and D and 
 
 R in the old character are often not to be 
 distinguished.] 
 
 15. But thou. Lord, art a 15. Quotation from Ex. xxxiv. 6, word for 
 God merciful and gracious, word. 
 
 long-sufiFering, and plenteous 
 in mercy and truth. 
 
 16. Turn unto me and be 16. a. Ps. xxv. 16. — " Turn unto me, and 
 gracious to me : give thy be gracious to me." 
 
 strength unto thy servant, and l. God the strength (protection) of his 
 save the son of thy handmaid, people, as Ps. xxviii. 8, and often ; Ps. 
 
 cxvi. 16. — "I am thy servant, the son of 
 
 thy handmaid." 
 
NOTED MACCABEE PSALMS 437 
 
 17. Work with me a token 17. Ps. xl. 3. — " Many shall see it and 
 (miracle) for good: that they fear;" Ps. vi. 10. — "Let all mine enemies 
 which hate me may see it and be ashamed and sore vexed," etc. etc. 
 be ashamed : because thou, 
 Lord, hast holpen me and com- 
 forted me. 
 
 Additional Note D (p. 208). — Maccabee Psalms in Books I. -III. 
 OP THE Psalter 
 
 In discussing the question of Maccabee Psalms in the first part 
 of the Psalter most recent critics ignore the difiiculties that arise from 
 the history of the redaction ; so, for example, Cornill, the author of the 
 latest German Einleitung (Freiburg, 1891), and Prof. Driver, from 
 whom I had hoped for some help in revising the conclusions set 
 forth by me five years ago in the Enc. Brit. (art. Psalms). Even 
 Prof. Cheyne, in his Origin of the Psalter (1891), does not seem to 
 me to give quite enough weight to the only sound principle for the 
 historical study of the Psalter, viz. that the discussion of the age of 
 individual psalms must be preceded by an inquiry into the date of 
 the several collections. My friend Cheyne, however, recognises that 
 the Elohistic Psalter was completed, and the designation " sons of 
 Korah " obsolete, before the Maccabee period, and he accounts for 
 the presence of a certain number of Maccabee Psalms in Books I.-III. 
 by supposing that they were inserted in the older collections by the 
 Maccabean editor. This is not impossible in the abstract, but to 
 make Pss. xliv. Ixxiv. Ixxix. Maccabee hymns it is further necessary 
 to suppose that the editor "threw himself into the spirit of the 
 original collector " of the Elohistic Psalm - book, " and made his 
 additions Elohistic to correspond to the earlier psalms " (Cheyne, 
 p. 100). And we must also suppose that he furnished his additions 
 with titles which (at least in the case of xliv.) had no longer any 
 meaning. This is a complicated hypothesis and not to be accepted 
 without further examination. If the last editor incorporated con- 
 temporary hymns in the old parts of the Psalter instead of placing 
 them in the new collection at the end of the book, his motive must 
 have been liturgical, i.e. he must have designed them to be sung in 
 sequence with other pieces. That insertions of this kind were 
 actually made in the older collections is highly probable from the 
 presence of four anonymous psalms in the Davidic collections, for 
 here anonymity is in itself a mark of later addition. Moreover, 
 Pss. xxxiii. Ixvi. Ixvii. have an obviously liturgical character; Ps. 
 xxxiii. is linked to the previous psalm by the way in which its first 
 
438 MACCABEE PSALMS IN noted 
 
 verse takes lap xxxii. 11, and Pss. Ixvi. Ixvii. form an admirable 
 sequence to Ixv. if we take the whole group as songs for the pre- 
 sentation of first fruits at the passover. Ps. xxxiii. may have been 
 added by the final collector ; but in Ixvi. Ixvii. there is nothing to 
 imply so late a date or to lead us to doubt that these Elohistic 
 pieces were set in their place by the Elohistic collector. They do 
 not therefore diminish the improbability of Maccabee additions in 
 Elohistic form and furnished with titles of obsolete type. The 
 Elohistic Psalms which Prof. Cheyne assigns to the Maccabee period 
 are xliv. Ix. Ixi. Ixiii. Ixxiv. Ixxix. Ixxxiii. In the case of Ps. Ix., 
 verses 5-12 (Heb. 7-14) are repeated in Ps. cviii. (retaining their 
 Elohistic peculiarity) which is hardly conceivable if the former 
 psalm is of Maccabee date. Pss. Ixi. and Ixiii. are assigned 
 to the Hasmonean period because they speak of a human king 
 (not prophetically) and yet are manifestly post -exilic. But I 
 think that a careful observation of these psalms leads to the con- 
 clusion that in both of them the closing reference to the king comes 
 in somewhat unnaturally, and that the better hypothesis is that Ixi. 
 6-8 (Heb. 7-9), and at least the last verse of Ixiii., are liturgical 
 additions. Thus the strength of the case for Maccabee Psalms in 
 the Elohistic Psalter lies in xliv. Ixxiv. Ixxix. and Ixxxiii., especially 
 in the first three. (Psalm Ixxx., which is frequently associated with 
 these. Prof. Cheyne prefers to assign to the Persian period). It 
 seems to me that the objection to placing these psalms in the reign 
 of Ochus comes mainly from laying too much weight on what Jose- 
 phus relates about Bagoses (Ant. xi. 7. 1). That Bagoses forced 
 his way into the Temple, and that he laid a tax on the daily sacri- 
 fices, is certainly not enough to justify the language of the Psalms. 
 But for this whole period Josephus is very ill informed ; he is quite 
 silent about the revolt and the Hyrcanian captivity, and the whole 
 Bagoses story looks like a pragmatical invention designed partly to 
 soften the catastrophe of the Jews and partly to explain it by the 
 sin of the High Priest. The important fact of the captivity to 
 Hyrcania stands on quite independent evidence (Euseb. Chron., 
 Anno 1658 Abr.), but comes to us without any details. The 
 captivity implies a revolt, and the long account given by Diodorus 
 (xvi. 40 sqq.) of Ochus's doings in Phoenicia and Egypt shows how 
 that ruthless king treated rebels. In Egypt the temples were 
 pillaged and the sacred books carried away (ibid. c. 51). Why 
 should we suppose that the Temple at Jerusalem and the synagogues 
 fared better 1 Such sacrilege was the rule in Persian warfare ; it 
 
NOTED THE ELOHISTIC PSALTER 439 
 
 was practised by Xerxes in Greece and also at Babylon (Herod, i. 
 183 ; comp, Noldeke in Enc. Brit, xviii. 572). I have observed in 
 the text that a rising of the Jews at this period could not fail to take 
 a theocratic character, and that the war would necessarily appear as 
 a religious war. Certainly the later Jews looked on the Persians as 
 persecutors ; the citation from Pseudo-Hecataeus in Jos. c. Ap. i. 
 22, though worthless as history, is good evidence for this ; and it is 
 also probable that the wars under Ochus form the historical back- 
 ground of the Book of Judith, and that the name Holophernes is 
 taken from that of a general of Ochus (Diod. xxxi. 19) who took a 
 prominent part in the Egyptian campaign (Gutschmid, Noldeke). 
 
 In Psalm Ixxxiii. Judah appears as threatened by the neigh- 
 bouring peoples, who are supported (but ajDparently not led) by 
 Asshur (the satrap of Syria ?). This situation is much more easily 
 understood under the loose rule of the Persians than under the 
 Greeks, and the association of Tyre with Philistia (which appears 
 also in Ixxxvii. 4) agrees with the notice of Pseudo-Scylax (written 
 under Artaxerxes Ochus), which makes Ascalon a Tyrian possession. 
 If this psalm has a definite historical background, which many 
 interpreters doubt, it must be later than the destruction of Sidon 
 by Ochus, which restored to Tyre its old pre-eminence in Phoenicia. 
 That it is not of the Assyrian age is obvious from the mention of 
 Arab tribes. 
 
 Prof. Cheyne thinks that there are also in the Elohistic Psalm- 
 book a few pieces of the pre-Maccabean Greek period, viz. xlii. and 
 xliii. xlv. Ixviii. Ixxii. and perhaps Ixxiii. To me the situation as- 
 signed (after Hitzig) to xlii. and xliii. seems entirely fanciful, and 
 that xlv. and Ixxii. speak of foreign monarchs is very hard to 
 believe. I am not sure that the ideal picture of Psalm Ixxii. re- 
 quires any historical background : "Entrust thy judgments to a king 
 and thy righteousness to a king's son " may very well be a prayer 
 for the re-establishment of the Davidic dynasty under a Messianic 
 king according to prophecy. Psalm xlv. is a great crux, but I still 
 think that it is easiest to take it as a poem of the old kingdom. As 
 regards Ixviii., the arguments in favour of a Greek date during the 
 wars of Syria and Egypt for the possession of Palestine turn entirely 
 on verse 30 (Heb. 31), the "wildbeast of the reeds" (R.V.) being taken 
 to mean the Egyptians, and the " multitude of bulls " the Syrians. 
 But the psalm, which combines an historical retrospect of Jehovah's 
 mighty deeds of old with the hope that He will speedily arise once 
 more to confound the nations, redeem His people, and raise Israel to 
 
440 • THE FIFTY-FIRST 
 
 the estate of glory predicted by Isa. Ix. and similar passages, really 
 contains no definite historical reference ; though one may guess that 
 the hopes it expresses on the ground of ancient prophecy had been 
 kindled into fresh ardour by signs of dissolution in the world-king- 
 doms. It may date from the catastrophe of the Persian empire ; 
 and I doubt whether any date later than this, and yet prior to the 
 Maccabee period, was calculated to revive theocratic hopes and 
 ideals that had slept through the long period of slavery to Persia. 
 Psalms Ixviii. Ixxii. ought, I think, to be considered along with the 
 Book of Joel and chaps, xxiv.-xxvii. of Isaiah. 
 
 Additional Note E (p. 221). — The Fifty-first Psalm 
 
 Kecent supporters of the Davidic authorship of Ps. li. take the 
 two last verses as a later addition (Perowne, Delitzsch). But 
 every one can see that the omission of these verses makes the Psalm 
 end abruptly, and a closer examination reveals a connection of 
 thought between verses 16, 17 (Heb. 18, 19) and verses 18, 19 
 (Heb. 20, 21). At present, says the Psalmist, God desires no 
 material sacrifice, but will not despise a contrite heart. How does 
 the Psalmist know that God takes no pleasure in sacrifice ? Not on 
 the principle that the sacrifice of the wicked is sin, for the sacrifice 
 of the contrite whose person God accepts must be acceptable if any 
 sacrifice is so. But does the Psalmist then mean to say, absolutely 
 and in general, that sacrifice is a superseded thing % No ; for he 
 adds that when Jerusalem is rebuilt the sacrifice of Israel (not 
 merely his own sacrifice) will be pleasing to God. He lives, there- 
 fore, in a time when the fall of Jerusalem has temporarily suspended 
 the sacrificial ordinances, but — and this is the great lesson of the 
 Psalm — has not closed the door of forgiveness to the penitent 
 heart. 
 
 Let us now turn to the main thought of the Psalm, and see 
 whether it does not suit this situation as well as the supposed 
 reference to the life of David. The two special points in the Psalm 
 on which the historical reference may be held to turn are verse 14, 
 " Deliver me from blood-guiltiness," and verse 11, "Take not thy 
 Holy Spirit from me." Under the Old Testament the Holy Spirit 
 is not given to every believer, but to Israel as a nation (Isa. Ixiii. 
 10, 11), residing in chosen organs, especially in the prophets, who 
 QX% par excellence "men of the Spirit" (Hos. ix. 7). But the Spirit 
 of Jehovah was also given to David (1 Sam. xvi. 13 ; 2 Sam. xxiii. 
 
NOTE E PSALM 441 
 
 2). The Psalm then, so far as this phrase goes, may be a Psalm of 
 Israel collectively, of a prophet, or of David. Again, the phrase 
 " Deliver me from blood-guiltiness " is to be understood after Psalm 
 xxxix. 8, " Deliver me from all my transgressions, make me not the 
 reproach of the foolish." In the Old Testament the experience of 
 forgiveness is no mere subjective feeling ; it rests on facts. In the 
 New Testament the assurance of forgiveness lays hold of the work 
 and victory of Christ, it lies in the actual realisation of victory over 
 the vForld in Him. In the Old Testament, in like manner, some 
 saving act of God is the evidence of forgiveness. The sense of 
 forgiveness is the joy of God's salvation (ver. 12), and the word 
 " salvation " (V^'^) is, I believe, always used of some visible delivery 
 and enlargement from distress. God's wrath is felt in His chastise- 
 ment, His forgiveness in the removal of affliction, when His people 
 cease to be the reproach of the foolish. Hence the expression 
 "deliver me." But blood-guiltiness (D''D1) does not necessarily 
 mean the guilt of murder. It means mortal sin (Ezek. xviii. 13), 
 such sin as, if it remains unatoned, withdraws God's favour from 
 His land and people (Deut. xxi. 8 sq. ; Isa. i. 15). Bloodshed is the 
 typical offence among those which under the ancient law of the First 
 Legislation are not to be atoned for by a pecuniary compensation, 
 but demand the death of the sinner. The situation of the Psalm, 
 therefore, does not necessarily presuppose such a case as David's. 
 It is equally applicable to the prophet, labouring under a deep sense 
 that he has discharged his calling inadequately and may have the 
 guilt of lost lives on his head (Ezek. xxxiii.), or to collective Israel 
 in the Captivity, when, according to the prophets, it was the guilt 
 of blood equally with the guilt of idolatry that removed God's favour 
 from His land (Jer. vii. 6 ; Hosea iv. 2, vi. 8 ; Isa. iv. 4). Nay, 
 from the Old Testament point of view, in which the experience of 
 wrath and forgiveness stands generally in such immediate relation 
 to Jehovah's actual dealings with the nation, the whole thought of 
 the Psalm is most simply understood as a prayer for the restoration 
 and sanctification of Israel in the mouth of a prophet of the Exile. 
 For the immediate fruit of forgiveness is that the singer will resume 
 the prophetic function of teaching sinners Jehovah's ways (ver. 13). 
 This is little appropriate to David, whose natural and right feeling 
 in connection with his great sin must rather have been that of silent 
 humiliation than of an instant desire to preach his forgiveness to 
 other sinners. The whole experience of David with Nathan moves 
 in another plane. The Psalmist writes out of the midst of present 
 
442 THE DEVELOPMENT OF note f 
 
 judgments of God (the Captivity). To David, the pain of death, 
 remitted on his repentance, lay in the future (2 Sam. xii. 13) as an 
 anticipated judgment of God, the remission of which would hardly 
 produce the exultant joy of verse 12. On the other hand, the whole 
 thought of the Psalm, as Hitzig points out and Delitzsch acknow- 
 ledges, moves in exact parallel with the spiritual experience of Israel 
 in the Exile as conceived in connection with the personal experience 
 of a prophet in Isa. xl.-lxvi. The Psalm is a psalm of the true 
 Israel of the Exile in the mouth of a prophet, perhaps of the very 
 prophet who wrote the last chapters of the Book of Isaiah. 
 
 Additional Note F (p. 382). — The Development of the 
 EiTUAL System between Ezekiel and Ezra 
 
 Ezekiel's ideal sketch of institutions for the restored theocracy 
 was written in 572, the return from exile followed in 538, the re- 
 building of the Temple was completed in 516, Ezra's covenant and 
 the first introduction of the present Pentateuch fall in 444 B.c. In 
 the text of Lecture XII. I have limited myself to the broad and in- 
 disputable statement that the development of the priestly system 
 falls between 572 and 444. Is it possible to throw any further 
 light on the details of the process ? Not much, perhaps, since our 
 sources for the history of Jerusalem in this period are very meagre, 
 and our knowledge of the Jews in Babylonia and Susiana, from 
 whom Ezra and Nehemiah came, is still more defective ; but there 
 are one or two things to be said on the subject which may be worth 
 bearing in mind. 
 
 (1.) It is plain that Ezekiel's sketch could not have been taken 
 by the returning exiles as a practical code of ritual. It is an ideal 
 picture, presupposing a complete restoration of all the tribes and 
 their resettlement under a native prince in a land prepared for their 
 reception by physical changes of a miraculous kind. In giving this 
 imaginative form to his picture of what restored Israel ought to be, 
 Ezekiel uses the literary freedom appropriate to the prophetic style ; 
 but for that very reason his sketch could only supply general 
 principles and suggestive hints on points of detail for the actual 
 constitution of the community of the second Temple. 
 
 (2.) That the Book of Ezekiel was known to the leaders of the 
 returning exiles, and influenced their conduct, is inferred from the 
 fact that the distinction between priests and Levites is recognised 
 in the list of those who came up with Zerubbabel (Neh. vii.). The 
 
NOTE F THE RITUAL SYSTEM 443 
 
 foundation of this distinction is indeed older than Ezekiel, for it is 
 at bottom merely the distinction between the Temple priests and 
 the priests of the high places. And up to the time of Nehemiah 
 one family seems to have held an ambiguous position, claiming the 
 rights of priesthood, but unable to prove it by showing their gene- 
 alogy (Neh. vii. 63 sqq.). Yet it is difficult to believe that, apart 
 from Ezekiel, the distinction would have been drawn so sharply at 
 the first moment of the return ; especially when we consider that 
 the written law of the age of the Restoration was the Deuteronomic 
 Code, and that the theory of that code, in which there is no contrast 
 between the priesthood and the house of Levi, still dominates in the 
 prophecy of Malachi, which no one will place earlier than 450-460 
 B.C. That the incongruity between the Deuteronomic theory and 
 the actual organisation of the Temple ministry was not felt in 
 Malachi's time appears to receive a sufficient explanation from the 
 relatively inconsiderable number of Levites who were not recognised 
 as priests;^ the list of Neh. vii. gives 4289 priests to 74 Levites, 
 and this disproportion was not corrected by the admission into the 
 ranks of the Levites of singers, porters, and other subordinate 
 ministers, till after the Eeformation of Ezra {supra, p. 204). 
 
 Another trace of the influence of Ezekiel may perhaps be seen 
 in the stone platform that served as an altar in the second Temple. 
 But it is more likely that both Ezekiel and the returning exiles 
 followed the model of the altar of Ahaz. 
 
 A less ambiguous sign of Ezekiel's influence appears in Zech. 
 iii. 7, where a principal function of the high priest is to keep God's 
 courts. Here we have an unmistakable indication that Ezekiel's 
 conception of holiness, and his jealousy of profane contact with holy 
 things, had been taken up by the spiritual leaders of the new Jeru- 
 salem. There is, therefore, a strong presumption that from the first 
 the arrangements and ritual of the second Temple were more closely 
 conformed to the principle of concentric circles of holiness than those 
 of the first Temple had been. 
 
 Once more — and this is the most important point of all — it will 
 hardly be questioned that, from the first days of the return, the 
 spontaneous service of the people fell into the background behind 
 the stated representative ritual. This is one of the most character- 
 istic points of Ezekiel's Torah ; and it was the less likely to be 
 without practical influence, because all the conditions of the time 
 
 ^ Compare the older priestly account of the rebellion of Korah, according to 
 Kueuen's analysis. 
 
444 THE STATED SACRIFICES note f 
 
 co-operated in its favour. To prove that the stated public sacrifices 
 were regularly maintained before Ezra's Reformation, we cannot 
 appeal with confidence to Ezra iii. 2 sqq., vi. 17 sqq., for these verses 
 are due to the compiler of Ezra-Nehemiah-Chronicles, with whose 
 indifference to historical perspective we are now familiar. And it 
 is certain that before Ezra's covenant the Levitical ritual was not 
 maintained in all its parts. But it is equally certain that the com- 
 piler is right in affirming that the altar was built before the Temple 
 (comp. Hag. ii. 14), and that he must have learned this fact from 
 good historical sources. Now the altar of the second Temple is 
 essentially an altar of burnt-offering, i.e. destined for public and 
 atoning functions, not for the reception of the blood of private 
 sacrifices. That the stated services of the first ninety years of the 
 new Jerusalem were much less elaborate and costly than the Priestly 
 Code prescribes seems to follow from Ezra ix. 5, where we learn 
 that in 458 B.C. the evening oblation was still only a minha, or 
 cereal offering. The same thing follows still more clearly from 
 Neh. X. 32, where we see that a new voluntary tax became neces- 
 sary when the full Pentateuchal ritual was introduced. Before that 
 time the stated service appears to have been maintained, with much 
 grumbling and in an imperfect way, at the expense of the priests 
 (Mai. i. 6-13) ;^ for it will readily be understood that in an empire 
 so loosely organised as that of Persia, the royal grants in favour of 
 the Temple mentioned in the Book of Ezra would receive little 
 attention from the local authorities, who viewed the Jews with no 
 favour. That in spite of all this the stated service was in some 
 measure kept up, proves that great importance was attached to it. 
 In fact, we see from Malachi that Jehovah's blessing on the land was 
 held to be conditional on a proper discharge of the representative 
 priestly service of the house of Levi (Mai. ii. 2, iii. 3, 4) ; so that 
 
 1 The whole of this passage refers to the imperfect maintenance by the 
 priests of the stated service, and especially of the stated burnt-offering. The 
 recognition of this fact has been impeded by a graphical eiTor in the text of 
 verse 12, where for ilDJ "I3"'J1 we must read riDJI ; by accident HJI was written 
 twice over. The sense, therefore, is not that the priests grumbled at the food 
 they derived from the altar, but that they thought Jehovah's altar a vile thing 
 for which any oblation was good enough. The phrase v3N is exactly equivalent 
 to the ritual term niiT' DD?, and the whole passage shows that Malachi, whose 
 law-book is Deuteronomy, and who does not know the Priestly Code (comp. 
 supra, p. 425 sq.), entirely agrees with the importance attached by that code to the 
 iamid. The emendation here proposed for Mai. i. 12 has already appeared in the 
 Cambridge Bible for Schools ; having been communicated by me to the Editor of 
 that Series. I mention this because it appears there (doubtless by inadvertence) 
 without acknowledgment. 
 
THE HIGH PRIEST 445 
 
 in this respect the actual praxis of the second Temple moved on the 
 lines of Ezekiel, and in the direction of the Priestly Code. 
 
 (3.) A movement beyond Ezekiel and in the direction of the 
 finished Priestly Code can be most clearly observed with regard to 
 the position of the high priest. The second Temple never had a 
 high priest corresponding to the full priestly ideal — a high priest 
 with Urim and Thummim (Neh. vii. 65). But from the time of 
 Ezra downwards, a certain princely character attached to the office, 
 and the very insignia of the high priest described in the Code, his 
 crown and his purple robes, correspond with this. For that these 
 insignia are not priestly but princely, is practically acknowledged in 
 the ritual of the Great Day of Atonement. This also is a change 
 in the line of natural historical development, as apj^ears from the 
 fact that princely high priests are found all over the East at great 
 sanctuaries, after the fall of the old nationalities (comp. Enc. Brit., 
 9 th ed., art. Priest). Under the kings the chief priest had no 
 monarchical character, even in sacred things, and Ezekiel, who looks 
 for the restoration of a modified kingship, does not speak of a high 
 priest. But the restored community had no civil independence, and 
 it was only in exceptional cases that its civil head was a pious Jew 
 (Zerubbabel, ISTehemiah), in sympathy with the distinctive religious 
 aims and principles which were the only surviving expression of 
 Hebrew nationality. Hence the patriots in Israel necessarily came 
 to look on the priesthood as their natural heads, and the chief priest 
 as the leader of the community ; and there were obvious reasons of 
 convenience which would lead the civil authorities to accept him, 
 for many purposes, as the representative of the people, in much the 
 same way as the heads of Christian churches in the East are now 
 accepte'd by Moslem governments. We do not see much of this in 
 the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, for special reasons. At this time 
 there was a great slackness in religious things, which Malachi 
 ascribes mainly to want of loyalty to Jehovah on the part of the 
 priesthood. Before Nehemiah's arrival Ezra's chief opponents in 
 the matter of mixed marriages were found among the priests, while 
 his supporters were the lay aristocracy (Ezra ix. x. ; comp. Mai. iL 
 12, 13); and Nehemiah came in with a high hand superseding all 
 local authority. But the practical failure of Ezra's first attempt at 
 reformation, in 458, was doubtless due to the opposition of the 
 priests, and is the best evidence of their power ; and indeed the 
 reason why the priests were not hearty in the cause of reformation 
 was that they, and especially the high priestly family, had formed 
 
446 THE TITHES 
 
 matrimonial alliances with the heads of foreign communities (Neh. 
 xiii. 4, 28). That such alliances were made and sought, shows that 
 by those outside the house of Eliashib the high priest was regarded as 
 the highest aristocracy of Jerusalem. But indeed the pre-eminence 
 of the high priest is already clearly marked, in the first generation 
 after the return, in the Book of Zechariah. I agree with Ewald, 
 and others after him, that Zechariah vi. 9-15 has been retouched, and 
 that the crowns (or crown) of verse 11 must in the original text 
 have been set on the head of Zeruhhahel and Joshua (or perhaps of 
 Zerubbabel alone : so Wellhausen) ; for in verse 1 3 the high priest's 
 throne is still clearly distinguished from that of the civil prince. 
 But even so the place of the high priest is much higher than it had 
 ever been under the first Temple ; and even the unction of the high 
 priest, which is a notable point in the Priests' Code, is prefigured 
 in Zech. iv. 14, while the tiara is conferred upon him in Zech. iii. 5.^ 
 
 (4.) I now come to a matter on which there is more dispute. 
 One of the most notable points in the Priests' Code is the greatly- 
 increased provision for the clergy. Does the law in this point also 
 follow lines of development that had already been marked out in the 
 praxis of the second Temple 1 I think that it does. 
 
 It is self-evident that the provision for the priesthood contained 
 in the Deuteronomic Code could not (in a small and poor 
 community) have sufficed for the maintenance of the Temple 
 ministry and ritual even on the most meagre scale. It was 
 supplemented, no doubt, by gifts, especially from pious Jews of the 
 Diaspora ; but the need for an increased stated provision must have 
 been felt very soon. One departure from the Deuteronomic law 
 was certainly made — the priests and Levites were allowed to hold 
 land (Neh. iii. 22, xiii. 10). But this did not provide for the 
 maintenance of the ministers in actual attendance at the Temple ; 
 and from Mai. iii. 8, 9, it appears that the food of Jehovah's 
 household was derived from the tithe and the tW-dma (A. V. tithes 
 and offerings). It is commonly assumed that Malachi wrote after 
 444 B.C., and is here referring to the Levitical tithe of the Priestly 
 Code ; but this view is, I think, inadmissible, when we consider the 
 unambiguous proofs afi"orded by all other parts of the book that the 
 written Torah of Malachi is the pre-priestly Pentateuch, especially 
 Deuteronomy {sujwa, p. 426). Even in the verse before us the 
 
 ^ A. v. "mitre," Hebrew ^j'^JV. Zechariah had not the Priestly Code before 
 him, else he would have used the word JIDJ^D ; but the two words mean the 
 same thing, viz. the princely tiara. 
 
THE SABBATH 447 
 
 expressions used are those of Deuteronomy/ and tlie "whole tithe" 
 is the technical Deuteronomic name for the charity-tithe of the third 
 year, in which the poor Levites had a part (Deut. xiv. 28, xxvi. 12). 
 That under the circumstances of the second Temple the sacred 
 ministers absorbed the whole charity-tithe, and that, instead of 
 being stored and consumed in the country towns, it was brought up 
 to the Temple treasury for the use of the ministers on duty, are 
 changes perfectly natural, or even inevitable, which required no new 
 written law to justify them. 
 
 (5.) There is direct evidence that the elaborate festal ordinances 
 of the Priests' Code contained things that had never been practised 
 under the second Temple. And with this it agrees that the oldest 
 priestly calendar of festal ordinances (contained in Lev. xxiii.) is 
 simpler than the calendar of Num. xxviii. xxix., which belongs to 
 the main body of the code, though even this simpler rule contains 
 things that were not practised before Ezra (verses 40 sqq. compared 
 with Neh. viii. 17). But the type of the priestly feasts was already 
 given in practice ; for in Mai. ii. 3 the festal sacrifices (A. V. feasts) 
 are the sacrifices of the priests, i.e. a representative service, not the 
 free-will offerings of the pre-exile festivities. And the crowning 
 stone of the priestly edifice, the Day of Atonement, was indeed an 
 innovation, but one for which the way had been pre2:)ared by the 
 annual fasts mentioned in Zech. vii. 3, 5. 
 
 (6.) The stricter observance of the Sabbath, and of other 
 ceremonies that could be practised in the Dispersion as easily as at 
 Jerusalem, seems to have begun in the Diaspora, where these means 
 of realising Israel's holiness in the midst of the Gentiles would 
 naturally have a special value for the pious ; cp. Isa. Ivi., Iviii. 13. 
 On the other hand, Malachi, writing at Jerusalem, does not touch 
 on the observance of the Sabbath, though this was one of the points 
 of discipline which Nehemiah found particular difficulty in enforcing 
 (ISTeh. xiii. 15 sqq.). In this matter, as in that of mixed marriages, 
 the Diaspora took the lead, and Jerusalem followed reluctantly. 
 And in other matters also it is to be presumed that the Jews who 
 remained in exile had a substantial part in the development of all 
 points of ceremonial not directly connected with the Temple, e.g. the 
 domestic rites of the passover.^ 
 
 1 Tithe and d'rdwia are associated as in Deut. xii. 6, 11. In the Priestly Code 
 t'raina always means a due paid to the priests as distinct from the Levites, so that 
 tithe and t'r{lma would be disparate ideas, not a closely connected pair as Id 
 Deuteroiiomy and Malachi. 
 
 " Tlie paschal lamb is unknown to Deuteronomy and to Ezekiel. Its ritual 
 
448 AUTHORSHIP OF 
 
 (7.) There are some things in the Priests' Code, such as the 
 ordinance for Levitical cities and the law of Jubilee, which were never 
 put in practice, and which, at the time when they were written, 
 must have been regarded as purely ideal. They were necessary to 
 round off the system of ordinances from a theoretical point of view, 
 but their presence in the Code has no other practical significance 
 than to indicate that under the existing political conditions a perfect 
 theocracy was unattainable. But these features must not prevent 
 us from recognising the skill with which the priestly writer combines 
 in systematic form a vast complex of ordinances old and new, 
 making up a complete theory of individual and national holiness, 
 and yet keeping so close to existing practice or existing tendencies 
 that his work served as the permanent basis of all Jewish life since 
 Ezra. 
 
 It may be observed in conclusion that while the code is written 
 throughout from a priestly standpoint, it cannot possibly be regarded 
 as the programme of the priestly aristocracy in Jerusalem. It is 
 true that, among other results of greater importance, Ezra's 
 Reformation, like that of Josiah before it, did in the long run 
 give a great increase of importance to the higher priesthood. But 
 to infer that it was the work of the chief priests of Jerusalem 
 would be as absurd and unhistorical as to make AbA Sofyan the 
 author of Islam, because the Meccan aristocracy, and his family in 
 particular, reaped the material fruits of Mohammed's work. All 
 the historical indications point to the priestly aristocracy as being 
 the chief opponents of Ezra ; their opposition, no doubt, was short- 
 sighted ; but the heads of a hereditary aristocracy are not generally 
 gifted with the kind of insight which comes of broad sympathies and 
 a large comprehension of the spiritual and political movements of 
 their time. The Priests' Code has far too many points of contact 
 vsdth the actual situation at Jerusalem, and the actual usage 
 of the second Temple, to lend plausibility to the view that it 
 was an abstract system evolved in Babylonia, by some one 
 who was remote from the contemporary movement at Jerusalem ; 
 but on the other hand its author must have stood (whether by hia 
 
 presents some very antique features, but cannot in its final form be older than the 
 Exile. In the Priestly Code this domestic sacrifice is still quite distinct from the 
 public ritual, as is indicated by the fact that its institution (like that of the 
 Sabbath, the Noachic ordinances, and circumcision) is placed before the Sinaitic 
 revelation. It was ultimately incorporated in the rites of the sanctuary by the 
 traditional rule that the paschal lamb must be killed at the Temple. This was 
 already the practice in the time of the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxx, 17, xxxv. 6, 11 ; 
 Ezra vi. 20). 
 
NOTEF THE priests' CODE 449 
 
 circumstances, or by his strength of mind and firm faith in the 
 principles on which his work is based) outside the petty local 
 entanglements that hampered the Judsean priests. So much it is 
 safe to say ; to go farther and conjecture that Ezra himself was the 
 author of the Priests' Code is to step into a region of purely 
 arbitrary guesswork. And such a conjecture is at least not favoured 
 by the consideration that the Torah of 444 B.C. was not the Priests' 
 Code by itself but (essentially) our present complex Pentateuch. 
 It is hardly probable that the same man first wrote the Priestly 
 Code, then combined it with the pre-priestly book to form a 
 Hexateuch, and finally obtained canonical authority, not for his 
 whole book, but for five-sixths of it. The Canon of 444 must 
 surely have been the Pentateuch alone ; for how else could the 
 Book of Joshua have fallen into the lower position of a prophetical 
 book ? And if this be so the presumption is strong that Ezra, the 
 man of action, had no personal share in the shaping of the 
 Pentateuch, unless perhaps it was he who cut off the Book of 
 Joshua, so as to limit the compass of the Law to matters directly 
 practical. 
 
 29 
 
INDEX OF SOME PASSAGES DISCUSSED 
 OR ILLUSTRATED 
 
 Gen. vi. 5-ix. 17, 330 
 xxi. 8 sq., 4il7 
 xxiii., 417 
 Exod. xix. -xxxiv., 336 note 
 XX. 26, 358 note 
 xxi. -xxiii., 318 sq., 340 sq 
 xxxii. -xxxiv., 397 sq. 
 xxxiv., 335 
 XXXV. -xL, 124 sq. 
 Lev. xvii.-xxvi., 396, 428 sq. 
 Num. X. 29 sq., 321, 409 
 xi. xii., 400 
 xiii. xiv., 400 sq. 
 xvi., 402 sq. 
 xx.-xxiv. , 405 sq. 
 XXV. 1-5, 404 note 
 xxxiii., 404, 406 
 Deut. i. 22-40, 402 
 i. -XXX., 393 sq. 
 X. 6, 405 
 X. 8, 361 note 
 
 xii.-xxvi., 258, 318, 356 sq. 
 xiv. 3-21, 366 sq. 
 xxi. 10 sq., 368 
 xxii. 5, 365 
 xxii. 30, 369 
 xxvii. 22, 370 7iote 
 Josh, viii., 133 
 
 xiv. 6-14, 402 
 
 xxiv., 395 
 Judg. i., 131 
 
 V. 25, 132 
 
 xviii. 30, 361 note 
 1 Sam. i. 20 sq., 269 
 
 ii. 27-36, 266 note 
 
 ix. -xi., 135 sq. 
 
 xiii. 7-15, 134 
 
 xiv. 18, 81 
 
 xvii. 120 sq., 431 
 
 xviii., 122 
 
 xix. 24, 130 
 
 1 Sam. XX. 19, 41, 80 sq. 
 
 XXX. 24, 25, 386 
 
 2 Sam. iv. 5-7, 82 
 
 xvii. 3, 83 
 
 1 Kings viii. 53 (LXX.), 124, 433 
 
 xi. 29-39, 118 
 xii. 1 sq., 117 
 xiv., 119 
 
 2 Kings iii. 16 sq., 147 
 
 xL 12, 311 note 
 xiii. 22 (LXX.), 435 
 xxii. xxiii., 257 sq. 
 
 1 Clirou. iii. 19 sq., 140 note 
 
 2 Cliron. xxxiv. 3, 144 note 
 Neh. xiii. 1-3, 427 note 
 Ps. xiii. xliii., 193 note 
 
 xliv. Ixxiv. Ixxix., 207 sq., 438 
 
 li., 221, 440 
 
 Ixi. Ixiii., 438 
 
 Ixxviii., 213 note 
 
 Ixxxiii., 439 
 
 Ixxxvi., 197, 435 
 
 cxxxiii., 212 note 
 Isa. xl.-lxvi., 98 sq. 
 
 Ixv. 8, 209 
 Jer. xxvii. 1, 97 
 
 xxvii. 5-22, 104 sj. 
 
 xxxiii. 14-26, 107 
 
 1. li., 97 
 Ezek. xliv. 6-15, 260, 377 
 Hos. iii. 240 note 
 
 ix. 3 sq., 150 
 Am. V. 25 (emended), 294 
 Zech. iii. 7, 443 
 
 vi. 9-15, 446 
 Mai. i. 12 (emended), 444 
 
 iii. 8, 9, 446 
 
 iv. 4, 425 sq. 
 2 Mac. ii. 13 sq., 170 
 2 Esdr. xiv. 44 sq., 168 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Aaron, death of, 405 ; sons of, 246, 
 257, 266 note 
 
 Abraham, Priestly story of, 415 sq. 
 
 Acrostic ijsalins, 193 
 
 Ahab, 116, 237 
 
 Ahaz, 265, 443 
 
 Ai, taking of, 133 
 
 Akiba, exegetic method of, 63 ; and 
 tlie Canon, 184 sq. 
 
 Alphabet, Semitic, 70 
 
 Al-taschith, 209 
 
 Altar, holiness of, 229 ; consecration 
 of, 376 ; as asylum, 340, 354 ; of 
 Ahaz, 265, 443 ; brazen, 265, 276 ; 
 with steps, 358 note ; of the second 
 Temjjle, ib., 443 ; altar-worship in 
 old Israel, 239 ; law of the one 
 altar, 245, 353 
 
 Aniora, 50 7iote 
 
 Amos, 283, 288, etc. 
 
 Anonymous books, 92 sq. ; psalms, to 
 Avhom ascribed, 103 
 
 Antilegomena, 166 sq. ; in the Old 
 Testament, 178-187 
 
 Antiochus Epii^hanes, 72, 207 
 
 Aphek, 273, 435 
 
 Apocrypha, 29 sq., 153 sq. ; sup- 
 pressed by the Rabbins, 167, 184 
 
 Aquila, 30 note, 63 note, 64 
 
 Aramaic, 35, 208 ; versions of Scrip- 
 ture, see Targum 
 
 Archetype of the Massoretic text, 57 
 sq., 69 sq. 
 
 Aristeas, 85 
 
 Ark in the wilderness, 321 ; at Shiloh, 
 268, 270 ; borne by priests, 144 ; in 
 the Priests' Code, 246, 398 ; in Jere- 
 miah, 107 ; not mentioned in Deu- 
 teronomic Code, 357 ; in heaven, 429 
 
 Artaxerxes Ochus, 207 sq., 438 
 
 Asaph, Asaphites, 204 sq. 
 
 Ashera, 241, 354 
 
 Astarte (Ashtoreth), 237, 243, 365 
 
 Astruc, 327 
 
 Asylum, 354 
 
 Atonement, 372, 380 sq. ; by blood, 
 
 229, 373 ; great Day of, 229, 376, 
 
 445 
 
 Baal, 68, 285 ; TjTian, 237 ; prophets 
 of, 287 ; Baal-Peor, 404 note 
 
 Baalim, local, 243 
 
 Bagoses, 438 
 
 Balaam, 404 
 
 Bethel, revelations at, 416 ; sanctuary 
 at, 242, 264 
 
 Bible, order of books in the Hebrew, 
 
 149 sq. ; Jerome's version of, 25 ; 
 Protestant versions, 21 sq. 
 
 Blood not to be eaten, 249 sq., 345 ; 
 
 offered on altar, 229 ; see Atonement 
 Book of the Covenant, 333 sq. ; Josiah's, 
 
 258 
 Books, number of the Old Testament, 
 
 150 5^. ; sacred, destroyed by 
 Antiochus, 72, 170 
 
 Boot}', law of, 386 
 
 Cadi of the Arabs, 304, 321 
 
 Caleb, 402 ; eponym of the Calibbites, 
 279 note 
 
 Canaan, conquest of, 130 sq., 413 
 
 Canaanite = trader, 350 
 
 Cauaanites absorbed among Israel, 280 
 
 Canon, ecclesiastical, 25 ; of Scripture, 
 149 sq, ; history of the Jewish, 163 
 sq. ; Protestant Canon, 31 ; Triden- 
 tine Canon, 28 sq. ; Canon and tra- 
 dition, 173 sq. 
 
 Canticles, canonicity of, 185 ; read in 
 Synagogue, 173 note ; allegorical 
 interpretation of, 164 note ; sung at 
 banquets, 186 
 
 Cappellus, Ludovicus, 75 
 
 Captain of the guard, 262 note 
 
 Carites, 262 note 
 
454 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Charm, Ex. xv. 26 xised as, 185 note 
 
 Chemarim, 259 
 
 Cherethites and Pelethites, 262 note 
 
 Cheyne, Prof., 189 note, 437 sq. 
 
 Chronicles, date of, 140 ; originally- 
 one book with Ezra-Neh., 182 sq.; 
 historical character of, 140 sq. 
 
 Copyists, freedom used hy, 91, 126 sq. 
 
 Covenant, Mosaic, 304, 333, 399 ; 
 Josiah's, 257 sq., 353 ; Ezra's, 43, 
 382 
 
 Criminal laws, in the First Legislation, 
 340 ; in Deut., 368 
 
 Dan, sanctuary of, 242 ; priesthood 
 
 of, 359, 361 note 
 Daniel, Book q/", 180, 183 ; Septuagint 
 
 version of, 154 
 Dathan and Abiram, 402 sq. 
 David, and Goliath, 120 sq., 431 sq.; 
 
 and Saul, 123 ; as musician, 219 ; 
 
 psalms of, 197, 213 sq. 
 Decadence of Israel, 347 ; causes of, 
 
 349 
 Decalogue, see Ten Commandments 
 Dedication of the House, see Encaenia 
 Deluge, story of the, 329 sq. 
 Deuteronomic Code, 318 ; compared 
 
 with Exod. xxi.-xxiii., 319 note; 
 
 the basis of Josiah's reforms, 258 ; 
 
 relation of, to Exod. xxi.-xxiii., 319 
 
 note ; to Isaiah, 355 sq., 364 sq. ; 
 
 not forged by Hilkiah, 363 ; laws of 
 
 sanctity in, 365 sq. ; civil laws of, 368 
 Deuteronomistic redaction of the old 
 
 history, 396, 425 
 Deuteronomy, historical matter in, 391 ; 
 
 speeches in, 394 sq. ; fused with JE, 
 
 425 ; authority of, after the Exile, 
 
 425 sq. ; priestly elements in, 412 
 Dillmann, 392 note 
 
 Divination, 285 sq. ; and prophecy, 288 
 "Dogs," 365 note 
 Doxologies in the Psalter, 194 sq. 
 Driver, Prof., 227 note, 245 note, 389 
 
 Ecclesiastes, canonicity of, 185 sq. ; in 
 
 the Synagogue, 173 note 
 Ecclesiasticus, standpoint of the author, 
 
 159 sq.; prologue to, 178 
 Egvpt, plagues of, 418 
 Eli', house of, 266, 268 
 Elias Levita, 169 
 Elohim, in the Psalter, 198 ; in the 
 
 Pentateuch, 327 sq., 414, 416, 424 
 Elohist, Elohistic document, 393, 416 
 
 sq., 423 sq. 
 Encrenia, feast, 190, 211 
 Ephod, 241 ; linen, 270, 272 
 
 2 Esdras, 151, 157, 168 
 
 Esther, canonicity of, 183 sq. ; twofold 
 Greek recension of, 155 note 
 
 Ethical monotheism, 295 
 
 Exegesis, Catholic and Protestant, 22 
 sq. ; of the mediaeval Rabbins, 53 
 
 Exodus, laws of, 318 ; priestly ele- 
 ments in, 397 sq., 418 sq. 
 
 Ezekiel, controversy as to his book, 
 176moi;e ; his Torah, 310, 374 sg., 442 
 
 Ezra, the Scribe, 42 sq. ; and the Canon, 
 171, 449 ; Reformation of, 43, 226, 
 427, 445 ; legends about, 168, 277 ; 
 his book, 182 sq. 
 
 Fasts, annual, 376 
 
 Feast of Tabernacles, 43, 257 
 
 Feasts, annual, at Shiloh, 268 sq. ; in 
 the First Legislation, 342 ; in Deut. , 
 371 ; in the Priests' Code, 447 
 
 First Legislation, 318, 340 sq.; iden- 
 tical with the Book of the Covenant, 
 336 
 
 Flood, the, 329 sq. 
 
 Forbidden degrees, 370 note 
 
 Forbidden meats, 366 
 
 Forgeries of books, 17, 171 
 
 Forgiveness, doctrine of, 306 sq. ; ritual 
 machinery of, 229 sq. ; see Atonement 
 
 Galli, 365 
 
 Gemara, 50 note 
 
 Genesis, sources of, 323 note, 327 sq., 
 
 413 sq. 
 Ger, or protected stranger, 342 note 
 Gibeon, high place of, 276 
 Gibeonites, 412 sq. 
 Gittites, 262 note 
 Golden calves, 240, 242, 244 
 Great Synagogue, 169 
 
 Hagar, story of, 417 
 
 Haggada, 44, 180 
 
 Hagiographa, 150, 178 sq. ; in the 
 Synagogue, 173 ; translated into 
 Greek, 201 
 
 Halacha, 44, 51, 77, 180 
 
 Hallel, the, 190 sq., 211 
 
 Hallelujah psalms, 190, 211 
 
 Hands, the Scriptures defile the, 185 
 
 Hasmonean dynasty, 48 
 
 Hebrew, so-called, in the New Testa- 
 ment, 35 ; vowel points and accents, 
 58 sq. ; scholarship of the Rabbins, 
 37, 53 ; of the Christian Fathers, 
 23 sq. ; of the Reformers, 32 
 
 Hexapla of Origcn, 30, 89 
 
 Hexateuch (Pentateuch and Joshua), 
 388 sq. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 455 
 
 Hezekiah, 256, 352, 357 
 Higher criticism, 90 sq. 
 High places, 236, 239, 241, 243, 248, 
 
 275, 322 note ; abolished by Josiah, 
 
 257 ; in Deut., 354 sq. ; priests of 
 
 the, 257, 360 
 High priest, 445 
 Hillel, 63, 184 note 
 Historians, method of Eastern, 113 sq., 
 
 328 
 Historical books, anonymous, 92 sq. ; 
 
 composite character of the, in Old 
 
 Testament, 129 sq. 
 Holiness, in Pentateuch, 228 ; in Deut. , 
 
 365 sq. ; in Ezekiel, 377 ; Isaiah's 
 
 doctrine of, 364 ; Law of (Lev. xvii.- 
 
 xxvi.), 323 note, 428 sq. 
 Hyrcania, Jews led captive to, 208, 
 
 438 
 Hyrcanus, John, 52, 159, 211 
 
 Iamnia, discussion on the Canon at, 
 185 ; seat of the Scribes, 186 note 
 
 Idolatry, 240 sq., 355 
 
 Ink, 71 
 
 Isaiah attacks the popular worship, 
 293 ; and the idols, 355 ; his 
 doctrine of holiness, 364 ; of the 
 sanctity of Zion, 356 
 
 Isaiah, Book of, 100 sq. 
 
 Ishbosheth or Eshbaal, 68 
 
 Israel, personified in the Psalter, 189, 
 220 ; the primary subject of Old 
 Testament religion, 291, 308 note, 
 348 
 
 Ithamar, 360 note 
 
 Jael and Sisera, 132 
 
 Jashar, Book of, 124, 435 
 
 Jahvist, Jahvistic document, 393, 414 
 sq., 423 
 
 Jehoiada, 259, 262 
 
 Jehoash, coronation of, 262, 311 note ; 
 deals with the Temple revenues, 264 
 
 Jehovah (lahwe), 77, 245 ; popular 
 worship of, 242 sq., 282 ; not a 
 Canaanite god, 245 ; dwells in Zion, 
 356 ; in the mishkan, 246 ; shows 
 himself in the thunderstorm, 247 ; 
 Lord of the whole earth, 282 ; pro- 
 phetic doctrine of his relation to 
 Israel, 283 sq., 298 ; his word, 290, 
 298 ; moral precepts of, 304 
 
 Jeremiah, interpolations in his book, 
 97, 104 ; prophecies of, against the 
 nations, 109 
 
 Jeroboam, history of, 117 sq. ; his re- 
 ligious policy, 244 
 
 Jerome, his translation of the Bible, 
 
 25, 29 sq. ; his account of the 
 Apocrypha, 29 ; Hebrew text read 
 by, 56 ; his enumeration of the Old 
 Testament books, 151 
 
 Josephus and the Canon, 151, 163 sq. 
 
 Joshua, Book of, composite character 
 of, 131, 133 ; Deuteronomistic ele- 
 ments in, 396 ; Priestly do., 412 
 
 Josiah, 144, 147, 256 sq., 353 
 
 Jubilees, Book of, 62, 152 note 
 
 Judah, foreign elements in, 279 
 
 Judges, age of the, 235, 267 
 
 Judith, Book o/", 439 
 
 Kabbala, 161, 173 
 
 Kadesh, 404 sq. 
 
 Kadhi, see Cadi 
 
 Kaliin, diviner, same word as Kohen, 
 
 priest, 292 
 Kemarim (Chemarim), 259 
 Kenizzites, 279 note 
 Keri and Kethib, 59 sq. 
 Kimhi, E. David, 32 sq. 
 Kings, Books of, their structure, 
 
 115 sq. 
 Korah, Korahites, 204 sq., 402 sq. 
 Kuenen, 226, 245, 323 note, 389, 419, 
 
 427 
 
 Lamentations ascribed to Jeremiah, 
 181 ; importance of the book, 219 
 
 Law, function of the, 315 sq. 
 
 Law, oral, 45 sq., 161, 173 ; con- 
 suetudinary, 304, 339 ; of Moses, 
 311 sq. 
 
 Law, Prophets and Psalms, 177 sq. 
 
 Leaven in sacrifice, 345 
 
 Legal fictions, 384 sq. 
 
 Lepfogenesis, 152 note 
 
 Levites, 247 ; before Deuteronomy, 
 359 ; in Ezekiel, 359 sq. ; in the 
 second Temple, 443 ; as singers, 
 204 
 
 Levitical law, its system, 228, 245 ; 
 unknown to Josiah, 256 ; in Solo- 
 mon's Temjile, 259 ; at Shiloh, 265 ; 
 to Samuel, 272 sq. ; to the prophets, 
 293 
 
 Levitical law-book, 319, 322; see 
 Priests' Code 
 
 Levitical Psalm-book, 203 sq. 
 
 Lot, sacred, 292 
 
 Luther and the Bible, 7 sq. 
 
 Maccabee Psalms, 210 sq., 437 sq. 
 Ma99cba, 240 sq., 260, 354 sq. 
 Machpelah, cave of, 418 note 
 Mahanaim, 248 note 
 Maine, Sir H., 384, 386 
 
456 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Malachi, 425 sq., 443 sq.; date of, 427 
 
 note 
 Marriage with a half-sister, 280, 370 
 
 note ; with a father's wife, 369 sq. ; 
 
 by capture, 368 
 Marriages, mixed, 260, 266, 427, 445 
 Massorets, 58 
 
 Mediation, priestly, 229, 247, 251 
 Megilloth, the five, 150 ; use in the 
 
 Synagogue, 173 
 Melito's Canon, 184 
 Men in women's garments, 365 
 Mephibosheth or Meribaal, 68 
 Meturgeman, 36, 64 note, 154 
 Micah the prophet, 244, 287 sq., 294, 
 
 305 
 Micah 's sanctuary, 241 sq., 292 
 Midrash, 154 
 Midrashic sources of Chronicles, 147, 
 
 205 note 
 Mikra, 161 
 Mishna, 50 
 Mohammed, 298 note 
 Morinus, J., 74 sq. 
 Moses as prophet, 302 ; as priest, 303 ; 
 
 as judge, 304 ; founder of the law, 
 
 311 sq. ; his writings, 323 ; in the 
 
 Priests' Code, 409 
 
 Nature-religions, 285 
 
 Nehemiah, 43, 445 ; and the Canon, 
 170 ; his book reckoned with Ezra, 
 150 ; relation to Chronicles, 182 sq. 
 
 Nethinim, 359 
 
 Nicanor, day of, 183 
 
 Noachic ordinances, 322 
 
 Nob, sanctuary of, 272 
 
 Noldeke, 182 note, 390 
 
 OcHUS, 207 sq., 438 
 
 Old Testament, standard text of, 62 
 
 sq. 
 Onkelos, 65 note 
 Oracles, 285 
 Oral law, see Law 
 Origen and his Hexapla, 30, 89 
 
 Passover, 447 
 
 Paul of Telia, 30 7iote 
 
 Pentateuch, the, contains several dis- 
 tinct codes, 318 ; not written by 
 Moses, 323 ; composite structure of, 
 327 ; steps in the redaction of, 425 
 sq. ; narrative of, 388 sq. ; use in 
 the Synagogue, 83, 173 ; held more 
 sacred than other Scriptures, 161 ; 
 Samaritan, 61 
 
 Pharisees, 47 sq. 
 
 Philistine guards in the Temple, 261 
 
 Philo of Alexandria, does not quote 
 Apocrypha, 155 ; nor all Hagio- 
 grapha, 152 ; his theory of inspira- 
 tion, 286 note 
 
 Pillars, brazen, of Solomon's Temple, 
 260 
 
 PirkS Aboth, 42 7iote, 165 
 
 Poll tax, 51, 375, 444 
 
 Precedents, legal, 304, 321 
 
 Priests in old Israel, 358 ; at Shiloh, 
 268 sq.; at Nob, 272 ; of the high 
 places, 257, 360 ; in Deuteronomy, 
 360 ; after the return, 443 ; in the 
 Priests' Code, 229 ; revenues of the, 
 383 note 
 
 Priests' Code (Levitical Legislation), 
 319 sq. ; relation to Ezekiel, 381 sq. ; 
 narrative of, 397 sq., 409 sq. ; in 
 Genesis, 413 sq. ; in Exodus, 397 
 sq., 418 ; in Numbers, 397, 400 sq. ; 
 unknown to the Deuteronomic 
 writers, 391 sq. ; relation to the 
 Deuteronomic Torah, 428 sq. 
 
 Prophecy, anonymous, 101 ; cessation 
 of, 158 
 
 Prophetic books, arrangement of, 100, 
 149 sq. ; canonical collection of, 170, 
 174 sq.; read in the Synagogue, 36, 
 173 
 
 Prophets, their work, 279 ; mark of 
 true prophets, 283 ; their consecra- 
 tion, 289 ; their inspiration, 297 ; 
 their Torah, 299 sq. ; their writings, 
 98 sq., 301 ; doctrine of forgiveness, 
 305 sq. ; not i^oliticians, 348 ; their 
 ideal, 290 sq. ; Canaanite, 287 ; pro- 
 fessional, 288 ; prophets and priests, 
 292 
 
 Proverbs, structure of the book, 111 
 sq.; canonicity of, 181 
 
 Psalmody in old Israel, 209, 218 sq. 
 
 Psalms, titles of, 96 sq., 195, 202 sq.; 
 musical do., 209 ; text of, 193 ; five 
 books of, 194 ; Davidic, 197, 214 
 sq. ; Elohistic, 198 ; Levitical, 203 
 sq. ; of Persian period, 205 sq., 438 ; 
 Maccabee, 210 sq. ; in the Temple 
 service, 190, 191 note, 211 ; anony- 
 mous, 103 
 
 Psalms of Solomon, 48 note, 211 
 
 Psalter, the, 188 sq. 
 
 Pseudo-Scylax, 439 
 
 Puncta extraordinaria, 57, 69 
 
 Purim, feast of, 183 
 
 Rashi (R. Solomon of Troyes), 33 
 Redaction, editorial, 103 sq.; of the 
 
 Pentateuch, 425, 430 
 Reformation, the, and the Bible, 7 sq. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 457 
 
 Reformers, scholarship of the, 32 sq. 
 
 Refuge, cities of, 324 note, 354 
 
 Religion, tribal or national, 237, 281 ; 
 popular, of Israel, 237 sq. ; pro- 
 pi^ etic, 282, 291 sq. 
 
 Reuchlin, John, 32 
 
 Retaliation, law of, 340, 368 
 
 Revelation, Jewish theory of, 158 sq. ; 
 prophetic, 297, 340 
 
 Rishis of India compared with the pro- 
 phets, 297 note 
 
 Ritual in old Israel, 242, 268 
 
 Ruth, Book of, 182 ; read at Pentecost, 
 173 
 
 Sabbath, 319 note, 322, 447 
 
 Sacred dues, 247, 264, 383 note, 447 ; 
 at Shiloh, 269 
 
 Sacrifice, all worship takes the form of, 
 239 ; Pentateuchal law of, unknown 
 to Amos, 251, 294 ; to Jeremiah, 
 ib.; atoning, 229, 263 note, 373 
 sq. ; by laymen, 260, 274 sq., 358 ; 
 and slaughter originally identical, 
 249 ; the king's sacrifices, 262 note, 
 375 ; stated sacrifices, 247, 372, 375, 
 444 
 
 Sacrificial feasts, 248, 250 
 
 Sadducees, or party of the chief priests, 
 48 note 
 
 Samaritan Pentateuch, 61, 70 
 
 Samuel, 270, 272 ; and Saul, 134 sq. 
 
 Sanctuary, Levitical theory of the, 229, 
 246 ; as seat of judgment, 299, 339 ; 
 plm-ality of sanctuaries in the old 
 law, 342 ; abolished in Deuteronomy, 
 353 sq. 
 
 Sanhedriu (Synedrion), 49 
 
 Saul, among the i3roj)hets, 130 ; election 
 of, 135 sq. ; rejection of, 134 ; builds 
 altars, 250, 272; and David, 122 
 sq. ; religious zeal of, 271 
 
 Scribes, 42 sq. ; and Pharisees, 47 ; 
 work of the, 44 ; as critics, 65 sq. ; 
 guilds of, 44 ; modified Pentateuchal 
 laws, 52 
 
 Septuagiut, the, 72-184 ; in the ancient 
 Church, 23, 25 ; characteristics of, 
 76 sq. ; importance of, for textual 
 criticism, 74 sq., 79 sq. ; origin of, 
 85 sq. ; its reputation in Palestine, 
 87 ; state of its text, 89 ; value for 
 higher criticism, 90 sq. ; transposi- 
 tions in, 109 sq.\ variant narratives 
 in, 117 sq. ; ancient Hebrew frag- 
 ments preserved in, 124, 433 sq. ; 
 Canon of, 153 sq. 
 
 Sepulchre, inalienable, 417 note 
 Shiloh, Temple of, 268 sq. 
 
 Sin and trespass money, 263 
 
 Sinai, transactions at, 335 sq., 397 
 
 sq. ; called Horeb by the Elohist and 
 
 in Deuteronomy, 426 note 
 Singers, Temple, 204 
 Sisera, death of, 132 
 Songs of Degrees, or pilgrim songs, 
 
 203, 212 
 Soothsayers, 286 
 Spies, narrative of the, 400 
 Stated service of the Temple, 378 ; see 
 
 Sacrifice 
 Subscriptions, 101 ; in the Psalter, 
 
 195 sq. 
 Synagogue worship, 173, 207, 252, 
 
 379 
 Syncretism, 243, 277, 354 
 Syriac hymns, melodies of, 209 
 
 Tabernacle, 246; of the Priests' Code, 
 321, 410 ; of the older history, 321, 
 399 
 
 Talmud, 50 note 
 
 Tamid, 382 
 
 Tanna, 50 note 
 
 Tarshish ships, 146 
 
 Tehillim, 191 
 
 Temple of Solomon, 260 sq., 322 note; 
 the second, 143, 410 ; MSS. pre- 
 served at the, 65, 66 note 
 
 Ten Commandments, 304, 313, 335 
 
 Tikkune Sfipherim, 66 sq. 
 
 Tithes, 362, 383 note, 446 
 
 Titles of books, 92 sq. ; of Psalms, 96, 
 195, 202 sq. 
 
 Torah, meaning of, 299, 340 ; pro- 
 phetic, 300 ; priestly, 299, 303, 372, 
 382, 426 sq. ; Mosaic, 303, 313 ; 
 Ezekiel's, 374 sq. ; Jewish estimate 
 of the, 160 
 
 Traditional law, growth of, 46 sq. ; 
 Rabbinical theory of, 165 ; see Law, 
 oral 
 
 Traditional theory of the Old Testament 
 history, 231 sq. 
 
 Trees, sacred, 241 
 
 Trent, Council of, 26 sq. 
 
 Tyjiical interpretation of the law, 230 
 sq. 
 
 Tyre, 439 
 
 Uncircumcised in the Temple, 260 
 
 sq. 
 Unclean animals, 366 
 Unclean land, 250 
 
 Vedas, inspiration of the, 297 
 Vintage feast, 268 
 Vintage song, 209 
 
458 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Vowel points and accents, 37, 58 sq. 
 Vows, 239 
 
 Wab, law of, 369 
 
 Wellhausen, 226 note, 312 note, 323 
 note, 435, 446 
 
 Worship, notion of, in Old Testament, 
 238 ; popular, in Israel, 237 sq. , 
 240 sq. ; in Judah, 244 ; under the 
 
 second Temple, 252, 279, 443 
 sq.; representative, 251 sq., 254, 
 382 
 
 Zadok, 266, 359 
 
 Zadokites, 261 note, 266, 359 sq. 
 
 Zedmriah, Book of, 102 
 
 Zerubbabel, 446 
 
 Zugoth, 165 
 
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