Transcriber's note:
Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
* * * * *
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor"_
THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY
BY
ANDREW HARPER, B.D.
NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
51 EAST TENTH STREET
1895
THE
BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY
BY THE REV.
ANDREW HARPER, B.D.
PROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, ORMOND COLLEGE
WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE
NEW YORK
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON
51 EAST TENTH STREET
1895
Dedicated to
REV. A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D.
NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH
IN VERY GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE
OF
INSTRUCTION AND IMPULSE
IN OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES
PREFACE.
An adequate exposition of Deuteronomy requires the discussion of
many topics. The author has endeavoured to keep these various claims
in view: at the same time the limits of the volume have dictated
selection and compression. In particular, a chapter on miracle
in the Old Testament has been wholly omitted. That topic cannot
be said to have a peculiar or exclusive relation to Deuteronomy.
Yet the writer would have wished to include in the volume a
reasoned statement of the grounds on which he owns and asserts the
supernatural in Old Testament history; all the more because he
admits critical views which have sometimes been associated, and
still oftener supposed to be associated, with rationalistic views
generally. For the present this discussion is postponed. In some
instances, also, the writer has been obliged to content himself
with statements on critical questions more brief than he could have
desired; but it is hoped that enough has been said to explain the
position assumed, and to make clear the main lines of argument.
The task of adjusting the matter to the space would have been easier
if it had seemed legitimate to omit the critical and archæological
questions on the one hand, or, on the other, to leave untouched the
bearing of the thoughts and Laws of Deuteronomy on the religious
history of the race, and on the dangers and duties of our own
age. But an exposition of Deuteronomy must endeavour to open the
appropriate outlooks in all these directions.
Owing to the author's distance from London the work of passing the
book through the press has necessarily been left wholly to others.
It is hoped that oversights which may have arisen from this cause
will be pardoned.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE AUTHORSHIP AND AGE OF DEUTERONOMY 1
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORIC SETTING OF DEUTERONOMY 37
CHAPTER III
THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT 48
DEUT. i.-iii.
CHAPTER IV
THE DECALOGUE--ITS FORM 60
DEUT. v. 1-21.
CHAPTER V
THE DECALOGUE--ITS SUBSTANCE 73
CHAPTER VI
THE MEDIATORSHIP OF MOSES 106
DEUT. v. 22-33.
CHAPTER VII
LOVE TO GOD THE LAW OF LIFE 116
DEUT. vi. 4, 5.
CHAPTER VIII
EDUCATION--MOSAIC VIEW 146
DEUT. vi. 6-25.
CHAPTER IX
THE BAN 168
DEUT. vii.
CHAPTER X
THE BAN IN MODERN LIFE 184
CHAPTER XI
THE BREAD OF THE SOUL 202
DEUT. viii.
CHAPTER XII
ISRAEL'S ELECTION, AND MOTIVES FOR FAITHFULNESS 218
DEUT. ix.-xi.
CHAPTER XIII
LAW AND RELIGION 239
DEUT. xii.-xxvi.
CHAPTER XIV
LAWS OF SACRIFICE 253
DEUT. xii.
CHAPTER XV
THE RELATION OF OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICE TO CHRISTIANITY 267
CHAPTER XVI
LAWS AGAINST IDOLATROUS ACTS AND CUSTOMS 277
DEUT. xiii., xiv.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SPEAKERS FOR GOD--I. THE KING 295
DEUT. xvii. 14-20
CHAPTER XVIII
SPEAKERS FOR GOD--II. THE PRIEST 308
DEUT. xviii. 1-8
CHAPTER XIX
SPEAKERS FOR GOD--III. THE PROPHET 334
DEUT. xviii. 9-22
CHAPTER XX
THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF ISRAELITE LIFE 355
CHAPTER XXI
JUSTICE IN ISRAEL 377
CHAPTER XXII
LAWS OF PURITY (CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE) 396
CHAPTER XXIII
LAWS OF KINDNESS 411
CHAPTER XXIV
MOSES' FAREWELL SPEECHES 433
DEUT. iv. 1-40, xxvii.-xxx.
CHAPTER XXV
THE SONG AND BLESSING OF MOSES 452
DEUT. xxxii., xxxiii.
CHAPTER XXVI
MOSES' CHARACTER AND DEATH 471
CHAPTER I
_THE AUTHORSHIP AND AGE OF DEUTERONOMY_
In approaching a book so spiritually great as Deuteronomy, it might
seem superfluous to allude to the critical questions which have
been raised concerning it. On any supposition as to origin and
authorship, its spiritual elevation and the moral impulse it gives
are always there; and it might consequently seem sufficient to
expound and illustrate the text as we have it. Minute and vexatious
inquiry into details, such as any adequate treatment of the critical
question demands, tends to draw away the mind, in a disastrous way,
from the spiritual and moral purpose of the book. That however is
precisely what the expositor has to elucidate and apply; and so it
might seem to be an error in method to enter upon extraneous matters
such as those with which criticism has mainly to do.
On the other hand, this has to be taken into account. The truth
about the composition of a book, about the authorities it is founded
on, about the times in which and the circumstances under which it
was composed, if it be attainable, often throws a very welcome
light upon the meaning. It clears up obscurities, removes chances
of error, and often, when two or three possible paths have opened
before us, it shuts us up to the right one. But if that is the case
when no special conflict of opinion has arisen, it is much more so
when a revolution of opinion concerning the whole religious life of
a nation has been caused by the critical view of a book adopted
by able men. Now that is plainly the case here. Deuteronomy has
been the key of the position, the centre of the conflict, in the
battle which has been waged so hotly as to the growth of religion in
Israel. The attack upon the views hitherto generally held within the
Church in regard to that matter has rested more upon the character
and date of Deuteronomy than upon anything else. Consequently every
part of the book has been the object of intense and microscopic
scrutiny, and there is scarcely a cardinal point in it which must
not be regarded differently, according as we accept or reject the
strictly Mosaic origin of the book as a whole, or even of the legal
portions. The difference is probably never absolutely fundamental.
On either supposition, as we have said, the spiritual and moral
teaching remains the same; but the mind is apt to be clouded with
harassing doubt as to many important points, until clear views on
the critical question have been attained. This is felt more or less
acutely by all readers of the Old Testament who are touched by
recent debates, and they expect that any new exposition shall help
them to a clearer view. Many will even demand that some effort in
that direction should be made; and, as we think, they rightly demand
it.
But there is still another reason for dealing with the questions
gathering round the authorship and age of our book, and it is
decisive. The debate concerning the critical views of the Old
Testament has reached a stage at which it is no longer confined to
the professed teachers and students of the Old Testament. It has
filtered down, through magazines first, and then through newspapers,
into the public mind, and opinions are becoming current concerning
the results of criticism which are so partial and ill-informed that
they cannot but produce evil results of a formidable kind in the
near future. By those who are sceptically inclined, as well as by
those who cling most closely to the teaching of the Churches, it
is loudly proclaimed that the acceptance of the critical view--viz.
that the Levitical law, as a written code, came into existence
after the Exile, and that Deuteronomy, written in the royal period
of Israelite history, occupies a middle position between the
first legislation (Exod. xx.-xxiii.) and this latest--destroys
the character of the Old Testament as a record of Revelation, and
undermines Christianity itself. The former class rejoice that this
should be so, and think their scepticism is thereby justified.
The latter, on the contrary, reject the critical conclusions with
vehemence. They have found God through the Scripture, and, resting
upon this experience, they turn away from theories which they
believe to be in direct conflict with it. To write an exposition
of Deuteronomy therefore, without correcting the false impression
that the critical view as to its age, etc., is incompatible with
faith in a Divine revelation, would be to miss one of the great
opportunities which fall to writers on the Old Testament in our day.
Questions regarding the age, authorship, and literary form of the
books of Scripture cannot ultimately be so decided as to nullify the
testimony borne to them by the experience of so many generations of
Christian men and women. Whatever makes itself ultimately credible
to the human mind in regard to such matters, will always be capable
of being held along with a belief in the manifestation of Himself
which God has given in the history and literature of Israel. But
nothing will make that fact so readily apprehensible, nothing will
make it stand out so clearly, as an exposition of a book like
Deuteronomy, which takes account of all that seems established in
the critical view. Even the most extreme critical positions, when
separated from the totally irrelevant assumption (which too often
accompanies them) that miracle is unhistorical, are compatible with
a real faith in Revelation and Inspiration. It is not the fact
of Revelation, but the common conception of its method, which is
challenged by the critical theories. We shall therefore only try
to meet a clamant need of our time, if we take with us into the
explanation of the Deuteronomic teaching a definite conclusion as to
the authorship, age, and literary character of the book.
As regards authorship, the ordinary opinion still is that
Deuteronomy was written by Moses. This was the view handed over to
Christianity in pre-critical ages by the Jews, and accepted as the
natural one. But if the Mosaic authorship of the whole contents of
the other books of the Pentateuch is now given up, much more should
it be given up in the case of Deuteronomy. For Deuteronomy does not
even claim to be written by Moses. It is not merely that in it Moses
is often spoken of in the third person; that, if it were carried
out consistently, as it is, for instance, in Cæsar's Commentaries,
would be compatible with Mosaic authorship. But what we find is
that the author, "whenever he speaks himself, purports to give a
description in the third person of what Moses did or said,"[1] while
Moses, when he speaks, always uses the first person. The book,
consequently, falls naturally into two portions: the subsidiary,
introductory framework of statement, in which Moses is always spoken
of in the third person, together with the historical portions; and
the utterances of Moses himself, which these introduce and hold
together, and in which Moses always uses the first person.[2] Again,
wherever the expression "beyond Jordan" is used in the portions
where the author speaks for himself, it signifies the land of
Moab.[3] Wherever, on the contrary, Moses is introduced speaking in
the first person, "beyond Jordan" denotes the land of Israel.[4]
The only exception is iii. 8, where at the beginning of a long
archæological note, which cannot have originally formed part of the
speech of Moses, and consequently must be a comment of the writer,
or of a later editor of Deuteronomy, "beyond Jordan" signifies the
land of Moab. If, consequently, the book be taken at its word, there
can be no doubt that it professes to be an account of what Moses did
and said on a certain day in the land of Moab, before his death,
written by another person, who lived to the west of the Jordan.
The author must consequently have lived after Moses' day; and he
has taken pains by his use of language to distinguish himself from
Moses in a most unmistakable way. It is no doubt possible, though
not probable, that Moses might have written of himself in the third
person in the connecting passages, and in the first person in the
remainder of his book: but that he should have made the anxious
distinction we have seen as to the phrase "beyond Jordan" does not
seem possible.
[1] Driver, _Introduction_, 5th Ed., p. 84.
[2] Cf. Deut. i. 1-5, iv. 41-43, iv. 44, v. 1, xxvii. 1, 9-11, xxix.
1, xxxi. 1-30.
[3] Cf. Deut. i. 1, 5, iv. 41, 46, 47, 49.
[4] iii. 20, 25, and xi. 30.
But if our book, as we have it, is not by Moses, but is an account
by another person of what Moses did and said on a certain occasion,
that fact has a very important bearing upon the speeches reported
as Mosaic. For the style of the whole book up to the end of the
twenty-eighth chapter is, for all practical purposes, one. The parts
where the author speaks, and the parts where Moses speaks, are all
alike in style, and that style is in all respects different from
the style of the speeches attributed to Moses in other parts of the
Pentateuch. Consequently we cannot accept the speeches and laws as
being in the very words of Moses. They may contain the exact ideas
of Moses, but these have manifestly passed through the mind and
clothed themselves in the vocabulary of the author of Deuteronomy.
Even Delitzsch is quite decisive on this point.[5] In the tenth
of his _Pentateuch Kritische Studien_, after distinguishing the
Deuteronomist from Moses, he continues thus: "The addresses are
freely reproduced, and he who reproduces them is the same who also
contributed the historical framework and the historical details
between the addresses. The same colouring, though in a less degree,
may also be remarked in the repetition of the law in chapters
xii.-xxvi. to which the book owes its name. All the component parts
of Deuteronomy, not excepting the legal prescriptions, are woven
through and through with the favourite phrases of the Deuteronomist."
[5] Cf. _Pentateuch Kritische Studien_ in Luthardt's _Zeitschrift_,
1880.
Under these circumstances, the question immediately suggests itself
to what degree this representation of Moses' legislation can be
regarded as purely and unmixedly Mosaic. Was this legislation
given in the main or entirely by Moses, and, if it was so given,
may there not be mingled with what he gave inferences drawn by the
author in whose style the book is written, and adaptations demanded
by the exigencies of his later times? A full discussion of this
point would, of course, be out of the question here, and it would,
moreover, be superfluous. In Dr. Driver's article on "Deuteronomy"
in Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, and in his _Introduction to
Hebrew Literature_, detailed discussions will be found. All that is
necessary here is that one or two large and salient aspects of the
question should be looked at.
In the first place, it is important to know whether the author of
Deuteronomy can have been a contemporary of Moses, or a younger
contemporary of his contemporaries. If he were, the relation between
the speeches and legislation in his book and that which Moses
actually uttered would be similar to that between the speeches of
Christ reported by St. John in his Gospel and the actual words
of our Lord. They might, in fact, be taken to be in all respects
a reliable, though not a verbal, representation of what Moses
actually said or commanded. If, on the contrary, it should be
proved, either from the character of the legislation itself, or from
the evidence we have as to the date of the authorities whom the
Deuteronomist quotes, and upon whom he relies, that he must have
lived centuries later, then any such confidence would be materially
weakened. Now there can be no doubt, to take the last point first,
that Deuteronomy, taken as a legal code, though not wanting in laws
which have been first formulated by its author, is mainly intended
to be a repetition and a reinforcement of what we find in the Book
of the Covenant (Exod. xx.-xxiii.). The result of Driver's careful
tabulation of the subjects dealt with in the two codes is "that the
laws in JE,[6] viz. Exod. xx.-xxiii. (repeated partially in xxxiv.
10-26) and the kindred section xiii. 3-16, _form the foundations
of the Deuteronomic legislation_. This is evident as well from
the numerous verbal coincidences as from the fact that nearly the
whole ground covered by Exod. xx.-xxiii. is included in it; almost
the only exception being the special compensations to be paid for
various injuries (Exod. xxi. 18, xxii. 15), which would be less
necessary in a manual intended for the people." This is also the
conclusion of other scholars, and indeed is plainly demanded by the
facts. It is, moreover, what may be called the Biblical hypothesis,
for Moses is supposed to have been renewing the covenant made at
Horeb, and repeating its conditions.
[6] It is scarcely necessary to remind readers that, from the point
of view of the critics, J signifies one of the constituent documents
of the Pentateuch which uses the name Yahweh for God. Its date
is about 850 B.C. E is that document which uses the name Elohim,
and may be dated about the same period as J. D is the author of
Deuteronomy, who wrote, it is supposed, in the reign of Manasseh,
perhaps about 670 B.C. P is the Priestly document, which Dillmann
dates before Deuteronomy, but which most critics think was brought
substantially into its present shape by Ezra. The portions of the
Pentateuch assigned to these various documents will be found in
Driver's _Introduction_.
But in the present condition of our knowledge, the fact of
Deuteronomy's dependence upon the Book of the Covenant brings into
view unexpected consequences. It is true, certainly, that the laws
of the latter code existed before they were incorporated in the
text where we now find them. Consequently no verbal coincidences
would give us the assurance that the Deuteronomist had before him
the actual book in which these laws have come down to us. But a
conclusion may be reached in another way. A comparison of the
historical portions of Deuteronomy with the corresponding narrative
in the previous four books of our Bible shows that for his history
also the author of Deuteronomy relies upon these earlier narratives,
and that he must have had portions at least of them before him in
the same text as we have now. The verbal coincidences tabulated in
Driver, pp. 75 f., as well as the general and exact agreement in the
events recorded in Deuteronomy with those recorded in the earlier
books, show that the author has not only drawn his information from
the same sources as those of the earlier books, but that he must
have had before him at least that section which contains the laws.
Now, as it happens, in the course of the analysis of the Pentateuch
it has come to be all but universally acknowledged that Exod.
xx.-xxiii. form part of a document which can be traced, dovetailed
into others, from Genesis to Joshua, and perhaps beyond it. This
document has been called by Wellhausen the Jehovist document, and
in all critical books it is referred to as JE, as being made up of
two sections, one of which uses Yahweh for the Divine name, and
the other Elohim. The only generally known scholar who denies
the existence of JE is Professor Green, of Princeton in America,
who, rightly enough, sees that the Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch cannot be held, if these separate component documents are
acknowledged. But the separate existence and character of JE may be
regarded as demonstrated, and also that it has been interwoven with
another narrative, largely parallel, but which deals of preference
with priestly matters, and has consequently been called the Priest
codex, or P. Together these make up the first four books of the
Pentateuch; and the remarkable thing is that, both as regards law
and history, Deuteronomy is dependent upon JE. "Throughout the
parallels just tabulated," says Driver,[7] "(as well as in the
others occurring in the book), not the allusions only, but the
words cited, will be found, all but uniformly, to be in JE, not in
P. An important conclusion follows from this fact. Inasmuch as, in
our existing Pentateuch, JE and P repeatedly cross one another,
the constant absence of any reference to P can only be reasonably
explained by one supposition, viz. that when Deuteronomy was
composed JE and P were not yet united into a single work, and JE
alone formed the basis of Deuteronomy." And this is not Driver's
conclusion only. Dillmann, who argues with splendid ability against
Wellhausen for the dating of P in the ninth century B.C. instead
of after the Exile, and consequently considers that it was in
existence before Deuteronomy, still holds that in general JE is
the Deuteronomist's authority both for law and history, contenting
himself with affirming that D shows undoubted acquaintance with
laws, etc., known _to us_ only in P. Clearly, therefore, Deuteronomy
must have been written after JE had been made public, or at least
after J and E had been written.
[7] Driver, _Introduction_, p. 76.
The question therefore arises, what is their date? An answer can be
gradually approached in this way. As JE reappear as an element in
the Book of Joshua,[8] and contribute to it an account of Joshua's
death and burial, they cannot have been written by him, nor before
his death. That is the first fixed point. Then we may proceed a
step further. In various parts of JE there occur phrases which
cannot all be later glosses, and which imply that the land, when the
writer lived, had long ceased to be in possession of the Canaanites,
if some of them do not even presuppose a time when the original
inhabitants had been absorbed into Israel, as Solomon attempted to
absorb them by making them slaves of the State. Such passages are
Gen. xii. 6, "And the Canaanite was then in the land"; Gen. xiii.
7, "Moreover the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelled then in the
land"; Gen. xl. 15, in which Joseph says of himself, "I was stolen
away out of the land of the Hebrews," a name which the country could
not have acquired till some little time at least after the conquest.
Further, in Numbers xxxii. 41, which belongs to J or E, probably
the latter, we have an account of the rise of the name Hawwoth
Jair. Now in Judges x. 3-5 we are informed that the Jair from whom
the Hawwoth Jair had their name was a judge in Israel after the
time of Abimelech, who made new conquests for his tribe east of the
Jordan. Unless, therefore, the unlikely hypothesis be accepted that
both the district bearing this name in Judges and its conqueror are
other than those mentioned in Numbers, the verse brings down JE at
least to the period of Abimelech, which Kautzsch in his _View of the
History of the Israelites_, appended to his translation of the Old
Testament, states as about 1120 B.C., _i.e._ two hundred years after
the Exodus.
[8] Josh. xxiv. 30.
The next step is suggested by Gen. xxxvi. 31-39, a passage from JE
in which a list of Edomite kings is given with this heading: "These
are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned
any king over the children of Israel." That sentence clearly cannot
have been written before kings arose in Israel; consequently JE must
be later than the days of Saul, and probably than David, since the
Israelite kingship appears to the author's mind here as a firmly
established institution. The author of Deuteronomy must have lived
and written at a still later date, and we are thus gradually brought
down to the time of Solomon, or perhaps even later.
And the literary indications of date confirm this conclusion. For
instance, two books are quoted occasionally in JE as authorities,
which must consequently have existed before that work--the Book
of the Wars of Yahweh (Numb. xxi. 14, 15), and the Book of Yashar
(Josh. x. 12 f.). The former has indeed been declared by Geiger
to be the product of false punctuation; but soberer critics have
accepted it and date it in Solomon's day. However that may be, there
can be no doubt that the latter actually existed, and was probably
a collection of songs, since from it the verses describing the
standing still of the sun and moon are quoted. But we learn from
2 Sam. i. 18 that David's beautiful lament for Saul and Jonathan
was contained in this book, and was quoted from it by the sacred
historian. The book must therefore have been compiled, or at least
completed, after David's lament. As it was manifestly a compilation,
and the poems it contained may have been of very various ages, much
stress in our search for dates cannot be laid upon it. It is still
of some weight, however, that this post-Davidic book is quoted by
JE; so far as it goes, that fact confirms the conclusion arrived at
from other indications.
In the same way, the linguistic indications, though not of
themselves conclusive, point towards the same period. It is,
of course, true that we are as yet far from having a general
agreement as to the history of the Hebrew language. That can only
be established along with the history of the Hebrew literature
and the Hebrew people; and perhaps we never shall be able to fix
any definite stages in the growth and decay of the language.
Nevertheless no careful reader of JE will deny what Professor Driver
says regarding them: "Both belong to the golden period of Hebrew
literature. They resemble the best parts of Judges and Samuel
(much of which cannot be greatly later than David's own time); but
whether they are actually earlier or later than these, the language
and style do not enable us to say. There is at least no _archaic_
flavour perceptible in the style of JE."[9] That is an admirably
balanced judgment, and we may rely upon the indication it gives
as an additional confirmation of what we have already seen to be
probable.
[9] _Introduction_, p. 117.
It is impossible that these various lines of inquiry should
converge, as they have done, towards the early centuries of the
kingship as the date of JE, if Moses had written Deuteronomy, in
which JE is drawn upon at every moment. We may consequently dismiss
that view finally, and admit that the author of Deuteronomy cannot
well have written before the middle of the kingly period. But we
have still to inquire what the character of the Mosaic speeches
and the Mosaic writings given in Deuteronomy is in that case. Had
the author lived and written near the time of Moses, we might, as
has been said, have accepted them as the Church generally accepts
the Johannine speeches of Christ. But if the Deuteronomist wrote
four, or five, or six centuries after Moses, what are we to say?
In one view it must be granted that his account may be as accurate
as if it had been written within fifty years of Moses' death. For
an author of our own day, by keeping close to original written
authorities, and strenuously endeavouring to keep out of his mind
any information he may have as to later times, may reproduce with
marvellous correctness the actual state of things, as regards law
and other departments of public life, which existed in England,
say, five hundred years ago. Similarly the author of Deuteronomy
_may_ have handed on to us, without flaw or defect, the information
as to Moses' sayings and doings in the plains of Moab which he had
received from the written accounts of Moses' contemporaries. He may
have done so; but when we consider that his authorities may have
been in part not much earlier than his own time, that the critical
sifting of history was then unknown, and finally and most important
of all, that the Deuteronomist has hortatory much more than purely
historical aims, we cannot evade the question whether a good deal
that is here set down to Moses may not turn out to be additions
to and deductions from the original Mosaic germs of law, made by
inspired law-givers and prophets who took up and carried on Moses'
work. Many assert that this is so, and we must face and try to
settle the question they raise.
The theory held by those who most strenuously deny this assertion is
that all the laws in the Pentateuch are Mosaic in the strict sense,
that the codes were given by Moses in the order in which they now
stand in the Pentateuch, and that they were enacted with all their
modifications in a period of not more than forty years, all of which
was spent in the desert. In order to ascertain whether this view is
tenable, we shall take one or two of the more important matters,
such as the place of worship, the agents of worship, and the support
of the cultus; and we shall compare the provisions of the various
codes in order to see whether they can be supposed to belong to so
short a period, or to have been all enacted by one man.
Let us take first the place of worship. The three codes--that called
the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xx.-xxiii.), that contained in
Leviticus and Numbers and called the Levitical code, and that in
Deuteronomy--all contain directions about this. In the first the
prescriptions are (Exod. xx. 24): "An altar of earth shalt thou make
to Me, and thou shalt sacrifice upon it thy burnt offerings and
thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thy oxen. In every place where
I cause My name to be remembered I will come unto and bless thee."
In the Levitical law "the altar" is to be of Shittim or acacia
wood overlaid with copper, and the place for it is to be in the
court of the Tabernacle. There all sacrifices are to be offered,
and thither every slaughtered animal is to be brought (Lev. xvii.
1 ff.), and this is to be a statute for ever unto them throughout
their generations. In Deuteronomy again (chap. xii.) it is enacted
that all sacrifices are to be brought "unto the place which Yahweh
your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there,"
and ver. 21, "If the place which Yahweh thy God hath chosen to
put His name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of
thy herd and of thy flock" and eat them as game was eaten without
bringing it to the Sanctuary. But Moses is not represented as
ordering this law to be introduced immediately. It is only when they
go over Jordan and dwell in the land which Yahweh their God giveth
them, and when He giveth them rest from all their enemies round
about so that they dwell in safety, that they are to do this. Nay,
according to ver. 20 the new order is to be fully introduced only
when Yahweh their God shall enlarge their border as He had promised,
_i.e._ when their boundaries should be (xi. 24) the wilderness on
the south and Lebanon on the north, the Euphrates on the east and
the Mediterranean on the west. Now these boundaries were attained
only in David's day, and the rest from all their enemies round
about was, as Dillmann says, given as a matter of fact only in the
times of David and Solomon (cf. 2 Sam. vii. 11 and 1 Kings v. 18),
notwithstanding Josh. xxi. 42. Consequently the Temple at Jerusalem
must have been the place referred to. This is distinctly the view
of 1 Kings iii. 3 and viii. 16. The latter passage is peculiarly
emphatic. Solomon says, at the dedication of the Temple, "Since the
day that I brought forth My people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no
city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house that My name
might be therein." The Deuteronomic view consequently is that the
law requiring sacrifice at _one_ sole altar was intended by Moses to
be enforced only after the Temple at Jerusalem had been built.
These are the provisions of the three codes. Can they have been
the successive ordinances of a man legislating under the influence
of Divine inspiration within a period of less than forty years?
Let us see. The first legislation was given at Sinai, in the third
month after the Exodus: the Levitical legislation on the matter was
given about nine months later when the Tabernacle was finished, and
during that time they had not removed from Sinai: thirty-eight years
afterwards the Deuteronomic code was given in the plains of Moab.
Let us look at the character of the legislation given first of all
at Sinai. The meaning of the decisive phrase, "In every place where
I cause My name to be remembered I will come unto thee and bless
thee," has been much discussed; yet taken as it stands, without
reference to laws which on any supposition are later, it cannot
mean that sacrifices were to be offered only at one central shrine.
It specially provides for sacrifices being offered at different
places, but restricts them to places which Yahweh Himself has
chosen. At every such place He promises to come to them and bless
them. So much, men of all schools admit; difference of opinion
arises only as to whether these places are meant to be successive,
or whether they may be simultaneous. The view of those who accept
all the legislation of the Pentateuch as Mosaic in the strict sense
is that the places could only be successive, since otherwise the
words would imply that originally worship at one altar was not
prescribed. Delitzsch, for example, maintains that these words imply
necessarily only this, that the place of sacrifice would, in the
course of time, be altered by Divine appointment, and he declares
that to be their meaning. Others, again, suppose that the command
was meant only to justify worship at the various places where the
Tabernacle was called to halt on the people's journeyings, whether
in the wilderness or in Palestine. Now it cannot be denied that
only on some such interpretation can Exodus be brought into harmony
with Leviticus, and that undoubtedly has influenced, and rightly
so, the scholars who take this view. If it were tenable it would
be by far the most satisfactory interpretation. But it can hardly
be considered tenable if we look at the time at which this law was
given. There was as yet no other law, and this was given as soon as
the people came to Mount Sinai. The law in Leviticus was not on any
supposition given till nine months later. Now, if Exod. xx. 24 was
meant for immediate use only, and was superseded by the Levitical
law after so short a time, it is difficult to understand why it was
given, and still more difficult to conceive why it was preserved. In
any case it cannot have been understood to command worship at only
one place. It could have no other sense than that the people, so
long as they were at Sinai, were to sacrifice only at Sinai where
Yahweh had revealed Himself, or at other places in the neighbourhood
which He should sanctify, or had sanctified, by revealing His
presence at them. At any such place, if there He had once revealed
Himself, He would continue to meet them. Without the colour thrown
upon them by succeeding laws, that is surely the only meaning that
_could_ be put upon the words, and so understood they undoubtedly
authorise sacrifice at two or more places simultaneously. If, on
the other hand, this law was meant more for the future than the
present, as some of the laws in the Book of the Covenant undoubtedly
were, it must have been intended to be in force concurrently with
Lev. i. f. But if so, the "places" it refers to cannot be the mere
halting-places on the wilderness journey. No doubt these were
determined by Yahweh, and the tabernacle was set up at places He
may be said to have chosen, but the places themselves were of no
consequence at all. The Divine presence is declared to be always in
the Tabernacle. That was certainly a place where Yahweh caused His
name to be remembered, and without further inquiry about place, the
men of Israel knew that He would always meet them and bless them
in sacrifice there. The different character of the altar in the
Book of the Covenant too, a mere heap of earth or unhewn stone, and
that in the Tabernacle, made of acacia wood overlaid with copper,
corroborates the view that the altar aimed at in Exod. xxiv. is not
the Tabernacle altar. The only coherent view, on the supposition
of the concurrence of the two laws, is therefore that while, as a
rule, sacrifice was to be offered at the Tabernacle, yet if the
people came to any place where Yahweh had caused His name to be
remembered, sacrifice might be offered there on an altar of earth
or unhewn stone, as well as at the Tabernacle. Either way therefore
there is permission to worship at more than one place. But then the
difficulty is that Leviticus appears to denounce upon pain of being
"cut off from the people" absolutely every sacrifice not offered at
the Tabernacle.
Now if so far matters have been far from clear on the traditional
supposition of the date and order of these codes, a glance at
Deuteronomy will produce absolute confusion in every mind. As we
have seen, Deuteronomy represents Moses as restricting sacrifice
most rigorously to one altar after the building of the Temple at
Jerusalem, but virtually declaring that worship at various shrines
was to be blameless until that time. We have also seen that that is
the view taken by the author of the Book of Kings. Now this might
be regarded as a temporary relaxation of the law, intended to meet
the difficult circumstances of a period of war and conquest, were
it not for one thing. That is, that Moses in Deut. xii. 8, after
prescribing worship at one altar, adds, "Ye shall not do after all
that _we_ do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own
eyes," and as if to render mistake as to the meaning impossible, in
ver. 13 he explains ver. 8 thus: "Take heed to thyself that thou
offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest."
Notwithstanding the efforts of conservative scholars like Keil and
Bredenkamp to explain ver. 8 as a reference to the intermissions in,
_e.g._, the daily sacrifice, brought about by the desert wanderings,
or to the arbitrariness and illegality of the generation which
had brought judgment upon themselves by refusal to obey Yahweh in
attacking Canaan, it still seems impossible to accept that view. Of
course if we knew that Moses was the giver of all these laws, these
words would have to be explained away in some such fashion. But
if they are approached by an inquirer seeking to discover whether
they all are Mosaic, sound exegesis demands that they should be
taken as Dillmann and others take them. In the plain sense of words
Moses here admits that, up till the time at which he is speaking,
sacrifices were offered wherever men chose, and that he had
participated in the practice. And observe, he does not refer to the
Levitical law. He does not say this conduct of ours is a sin which
we must repent of and turn from at once. He calmly permits this
state of things to continue after Israel is in Canaan, and looks
forward with equanimity to its continuance till the Temple shall
be erected in Jerusalem. With this passage before us we ask, Can
this be the same inspired legislator who thirty-eight years before
compelled sacrifice at one central altar on pain of death?
The traditional hypothesis being thus encompassed with difficulties,
students of the Old Testament have sought another which would
correspond better with all the data. Relying upon the fact that the
author of Deuteronomy founds his book almost entirely on JE, and
that if he knows some of the laws and some of the facts mentioned
in P only, there are no proofs that he knew that book as we have
it, they put it aside in this matter also. Immediately, when that
is done, light breaks in upon our problem. If we take Exod. xxiv.
20 in the natural sense given to it above, sacrifice at various
altars was permitted from Sinai onwards, the only limitation
being that there should have been, at the place chosen, authentic
proof of a theophany or some other manifestation of the Divine
presence. That is the state of things out of which Moses speaks in
Deuteronomy. It will be noticed, however, that there is a slight
contradiction of Exod. xx. 24. The Moses of Deuteronomy speaks as
if every man's arbitrary choice had been his only guide. Probably,
however, with his mind full of the stringent unity he desires to
see, he speaks hyperbolically of the looseness of the former law,
and means nothing else than the practice prescribed by it. In all
ways this view is supported by the history. From the patriarchs
till the time of Samuel, the practice was to sacrifice at various
altars.[10] Consequently, according to both the Book of the
Covenant and Deuteronomy, and according to the history, the worship
of Yahweh at sacred places throughout the land was legal, until the
Temple was erected at Jerusalem. The centralisation of worship was,
consequently, a new thing when the division of the kingdoms took
place, and was not an express law till Deuteronomy. If that book
was not written till perhaps Hezekiah's day, the fact will account
as nothing else will do for Elijah's words (1 Kings xix. 10), "The
children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine
altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword." Even in the presence
of Yahweh he, without rebuke, calls the altars in the Northern
Kingdom His.
[10] Cf. for the passages on which this statement is founded
Driver's _Introduction_, p. 80, and note in small print.
The first attempt we know of to centralise worship was made by
Hezekiah; a second and more strenuous attempt was made under Josiah,
but the work was not actually accomplished till after the Return
from the Captivity. All the facts taken together suggest that the
movement towards centralisation was an age-long development. At
first all holy places might be sacrificed at, though a certain
primacy belonged to a central sanctuary, and this may have been
stamped by Moses with approval. When the Solomonic Temple was
built the primacy began to take the form of a claim for exclusive
validity. The experiences in both kingdoms strengthened that
claim, by showing that if Yahwism was to be kept pure the worship
at the High Places must be abolished. The inspired writer of
Deuteronomy then completed Moses' work by embodying that which had
been always a tendency of the Mosaic system, and had now become
a necessity, in his revisal of the Mosaic legislation. This was
adopted by the nation under Josiah, and the Priest Codex must in
that case represent a later stage of the development, when the
centralisation was neither a tendency nor a demand, but a realised
fact. Such a process accounts much better for the facts than the
traditional belief; and though it is not free from difficulties it
at least releases us from the confusion of mind which the ordinary
supposition forces upon us.
The inquiry as to the agents of the cultus need not detain us so
long. In the Book of the Covenant no priests are mentioned at
all. The person addressed, the "thou" of these chapters, which is
either the individual Israelite or the whole community, has been
held by some to indicate that the individual offerer was the only
agent in sacrifice. But that is to press the word too far. Even
in Leviticus, while the whole people are addressed, the actions
enjoined or prohibited are such as are done by "any man of them,"
and in Deut. xii. 13 we have precisely the same expression, "Take
heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every
place that thou seest," used at a time when there was undeniably a
priestly tribe and even the High Places had a regular priesthood.
But while in Exod. xx.-xxiii. there is no evidence to show whether
a priesthood existed, in the previous chapter (xix. 22, 24) priests
who "come near to Yahweh" are twice mentioned. This would be a
fact of the first importance were it not that the words occur in
a passage which is admitted to be in its present shape the work
of the later editor. Dillmann maintains, and with good reason,
that he has inserted and adapted here a fragment of J. If so then
J may have held the view that there were priests before Sinai was
reached, but under the circumstances we cannot be certain that the
mention of them may not be an anachronism introduced by the later
hand. In favour of the view that it is so is the fact that in the
account given by JE of the ratification of the Covenant between
Yahweh and the people (Exod. xxiv. 1 ff.), Moses erected an altar
and then "sent the young men of the children of Israel which
offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto
Yahweh." He himself however performed the specially priestly act
of sprinkling the blood upon the altar. Had there been priests or
Levites accustomed to perform priestly functions, we should have
expected them to act, instead of "the young men of the children
of Israel." But, on the other hand, we must not omit to notice
that the Levites occupy in all these transactions, as narrated
by JE, a very prominent position. Dillmann,[11] as we have seen,
separating J and E, considers that the passages in which priests
before the Sinaitic legislation are spoken of belong to J, and adds:
"Indeed, it appears from Exod. iv. 14, 'Is not Aaron the Levite thy
brother?' and xxiv. 1, 9, that for him even then the Levites were
the priestly persons." To these passages Driver adds Exod. xviii.
12: "And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt offering and
sacrifices for God; and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel,
to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God." Further, Nadab
and Abihu are Levites, nay, sons of Aaron, and in Exod. xxiv. 1 and
9 they go with Moses, Aaron, and the seventy elders as the complete
representation of the people, and Moses, himself a Levite, performs
all the greater priestly acts.[12] Moreover JE knows of the ark, and
speaks frequently of the "tent of meeting" (Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff.;
Numb. xi. 24 f., xii. 4 ff. and Deut. xxxi. 14 ff.). But a very
notable thing in connection with the inquiry as to the performers of
priestly duties appears in Exod. xxxiii. 7 ff., where E's account
of the "tent of meeting" is given. When Moses turned again into the
camp "his minister (_mesharetho_) Joshua, the son of Nun, a young
man, departed not out of the tent," yet Joshua was an Ephraimite (1
Chron. vii. 22-27). In Exod. xxxii. 29, however, the same authority
describes the consecration of the Levites to the priesthood, after
the apostasy of the golden calf.
[11] Dillmann, _Exodus and Leviticus_, p. 199.
[12] Josh. iii. 14-17 and _passim_.
In Deuteronomy, on the contrary, the priests are very prominent;
they are called, however, the Levitical priests, or priests simply,
but never sons of Aaron. The whole tribe of Levi is regarded as
priestly in some sense. They constitute, in fact, a clerical order,
though there are clear indications of ranks, of men being assigned
to special duties. Curiously enough, the tribe thus highly honoured
is spoken of as being notoriously and all but universally poor. No
sacrifice can legitimately be offered without them; and, though the
question of the place of sacrifice has not yet been finally settled,
the position of the Levitical priests as sacrificers is so entirely
established that it is regarded as needing neither assertion nor
justification. Nay, in one passage, Deut. x. 6--which there is
no valid reason, except the wish to get rid of its contents, for
supposing to belong to another authority than D[13]--the hereditary
succession to the chief place among the priesthood is assigned to
the family of Aaron. In xviii. 5 also the hereditary character
of the priesthood is asserted in the words, "For Yahweh thy God
hath chosen him--_i.e._ the priest--out of all thy tribes, to
stand to minister in the name of Yahweh, _him and his sons for
ever_." As for the body of the Levites, their position is somewhat
ill-defined. On the authority of xviii. 6 ff. many claim that at
the date of Deuteronomy every Levite was, at least potentially, a
priest, that in fact Levite and priest were synonymous. But, as
will appear in the exposition of the verses referred to, that is a
very questionable proposition. Nevertheless it cannot be denied
that in Deuteronomy the line between priests and Levites is a very
indistinct one; there is _prima facie_ reason to believe that it
could be passed, and the gap between the two is certainly not nearly
so wide as it appears to be in the undeniably post-exilic literature.
[13] Driver, _Introduction_, p. 145; Oettli, _Deuteronomy_, p. 7;
Kuenen, _H.K.O._, p. 113.
In the Priest Codex again, the priesthood is confined exclusively
to the house of Aaron, with the high priest at their head. The
Levites have no possible way of entrance into the priesthood. They
are Yahweh's gift to the priests, and are confined most strictly to
the duty of waiting upon these in the ministration of the Sanctuary.
They have none but the most subordinate share in the sacrifices;
they are shut out from the holy places of the Tabernacle; and they
have assigned to them cities in which they may dwell together when
they are not on duty at the Sanctuary. There is no word there of
Levites being poor, and altogether the position of the tribe is,
through the priests, much more dignified and prosperous in a worldly
sense than we found it to be in Deuteronomy.
Now, taking all these data together, we find here, just as we did in
the previous section, that the Levitical law is a disturbing element
between Exodus and Deuteronomy. If we take it out of the way, J, E,
and D harmonise well enough. The main difference is that the latter
shows the same fundamental conditions as we find in the former,
only consolidated and developed by time, but by a longer time than
forty years. In fact D makes explicit that importance of the Levites
which is only hinted at and foreshadowed in JE. They have come to
be the only authorised agents of sacrifice; they have a hereditary
headship in the house of Aaron; various orders and degrees must be
held to exist (cf. Deut. xviii. 1 ff.). Compared with this state
of things, the Levitical arrangements of P, supposed to have been
given thirty-eight years before, are very different. In every
respect they are more definite, more detailed, and show a much more
differentiated organisation than those sketched in Deuteronomy.
These latter indicate a state of matters which would suit admirably
as an embryonic stage of the full-grown Levitical system, and which
can hardly be fitted into their place otherwise.
It is suggested, in reply, that allusions in Deuteronomy _imply_
the existence of a system of a much more elaborate kind than any
that we could construct from the explicit statements of the book,
and that is certainly true. But no reasonable interpretation of
these allusions can lead us to a system identical with that in P.
Nor can Deuteronomy's use of the name Levites (though undoubtedly
it has been pressed by some too far) be held to be consistent with
the public recognition of the "great gulf fixed" in P between the
Aaronic priests and the Levites as a body. Nor will the fact that
Deuteronomy is the people's book, and is consequently not called
upon to go into technical details, cover the difference. Indeed
nothing will, short of recognising the fact that, as publicly
acknowledged organisations, the tribe of Levi in P and the tribe of
Levi in D are different, and that the state of things in D's day
is earlier than that in P. If this is not so, then the Levitical
legislation, conceived as given by Moses, must be held to have
proved impracticable, and Deuteronomy must then be regarded as an
abrogation of it for the time.
And the same conclusions suggest themselves if we look more closely
into the curious fact that Deuteronomy always speaks of the Levites
as poor. Some have supposed that this poverty is the result of
the centralisation of the cultus which the author demands, and
that the constant insistence that the Levite shall be invited to
all sacrificial feasts, along with the widow and the orphan, and
other helpless classes, is a provision against the poverty to be
brought upon them by the abolition of the High Places. But that
is not so. We know the manner of the Deuteronomist when he is
providing for contingencies arising from the new state of things he
wishes to bring about, and it is quite different from his manner
here. Clearly, the Levites were poor before the suppression of the
High Places, and were so, as Deuteronomy tells us, from the fact
that they had no inheritance in the land. But that poverty is not
consistent with their whole position as sketched in the Levitical
legislation. There we have the Levites launched as a regularly
organised priestly corporation, endowed with ample revenues, and
ruled and represented by a high priest of the family of Aaron,
clothed with powers almost royal, surrounded by a priestly nobility
of his own family and by a bodyguard of tribesmen entirely at his
disposal. Such a body never has remained chronically and notoriously
poor. In the wilderness they would not be so in contrast with
others, for all were poor, and there was nothing to hinder the
Levites having cattle as the other tribes had, and being on the same
level as they. In the promised land, instead of becoming poor, they
would at once enter upon the enjoyment of their various tithes and
dues, and would moreover have such a share in the booty of Canaan
as would more than make up at first for their want of a heritage.
The priests were to receive one five-hundredth part of the army's
half, and the Levites the fiftieth share of the people's half (Numb.
xxxi. 28 ff.). Gradually, too, they would be put in possession of
the priestly cities. Evidently, therefore, if the Levites were ever
poor, it cannot have been till some time after Israel had been
settled in the land, and then only if P's laws and organisations of
the tribe were not enforced.
Deuteronomy supports the same argument. Since want of a heritage
was the cause of the Levites' poverty, they cannot have been
_exceptionally_ poor in the wilderness. Nor can they have been poor
during the time of the conquest; for even if the Levitical law was
in force and the tribe was then wholly organised for the priesthood,
they must have shared in the fighting and the spoil. But if the
order of legislation, as we maintain, was (1) Exodus xx.-xxiii., (2)
Deuteronomy, (3) the Priest Codex, then as the booty from war ceased
to be a source of income, the Levites as a body remaining nomads,
while the other tribes became agricultural, would necessarily become
poor in comparison with their fellow-countrymen. It is out of that
state of things the Deuteronomist speaks.[14]
[14] See further in exposition of chapter xvii; xviii.
The same conclusions follow when the regulations are examined
which bear upon the support of the priestly tribe. The outstanding
matters in this department are tithes and firstlings. Space will not
admit of a full discussion of these topics; but if the reader will
compare, in regard to tithes, Numb. xviii. 21-24 and Lev. xxvii. 30,
32, with Deut. xii. 17, and in regard to firstlings Numb. xviii.
18 with Deut. xii. 6, 17 f., and xv. 19 f., he will see that the
application of tithes and of firstlings according to Deuteronomy
is quite different from that in the Levitical legislation. The
difference is such as will not comport with the hypothesis of a
single legislator and a consistent legislation. Expedients with a
view to solve the difficulty have been suggested by Keil and others;
but each of those expedients is burdened with specific difficulties
of its own.
The inevitable conclusion from all this would seem to be that in the
Deuteronomic as in the Levitical laws we have not the legislation of
Moses or of his age alone. The roots of all the legislative codes
are Mosaic, but in all save perhaps the Book of the Covenant the
trunk and branches are of much later growth. The authors of them are
not careful to distinguish what came from Moses himself from that
which had been developed out of it under the influence of the same
inspiration. In both D and P there were Mosaic elements, and in both
there are laws not given by him. To disentangle these completely now
is impossible, and it is probably best for expository purposes to
take the codes as giving what the Mosaic legislation had become at
the time of the writer. What we have in Deuteronomy therefore cannot
be better described than in Driver's words (_Introduction_, p. 85),
as "the prophetic re-formulation and adaptation to new needs of an
older legislation." Its relations to the other codes are as the same
critic states (p. 71): "It is an _expansion_ of that in JE (Exod.
xx.-xxiii.); it is, in several features, _parallel_ to that in Lev.
xvii.-xxvi.; it contains _allusions_ to laws such as those codified
in some parts of P, while from those contained in other parts of P
it differs widely." And the state of things in which these various
codes originated is more and more coming to be conceived in the
manner stated by Dr. A. B. Davidson.[15] "It is evident," he says,
"that two streams of thought, both issuing from a fountain as high
up as the very origin of the nation, ran side by side down the whole
history of the people, the prophetic and the priestly. In the one
Jehovah is a moral ruler, a righteous king and judge, who punishes
iniquity judicially or forgives sins freely of His mercy. In the
other He is a Person dwelling among His people in a house, a Holy
Being or Nature, sensitive to every uncleanness in all that is near
Him, and requiring its removal by lustrations and atonement. Those
cherishing the latter circle of conceptions might be as zealous for
the Lord of Hosts as the prophets. And the developments of the
national history would extend their conceptions and lead to the
amplification of practices embodying them, just as they extended the
conceptions of the prophets. A growth of priestly ideas is quite
as probable as a growth of prophetic ideas. That the streams ran
apart is no evidence that they were not equally ancient and always
contemporaneous, for we see Jeremiah and Ezekiel both flourishing
in one age. At one point in the history the prophetic stream was
swelled by an inflow from the priestly, as is seen in Deuteronomy,
and from the Restoration downwards both streams appear to coalesce."
[15] _Ezekiel_, Introduction, p. liv. f.
The actual date of Deuteronomy still remains to be settled. Already
it has been brought down to post-Solomonic days. How much later
must it probably be put? The book must have been written before
the eighteenth year of Josiah, 621 B.C., for the Book of the Law
which was then found in the Temple was undoubtedly not the whole
Pentateuch, but approximately Deut. i.-xxvi. But it can hardly have
been produced in Josiah's reign, because it would never have been
permitted to drop out of sight had it been known to that pious king
and the reforming high priest Hilkiah. On the other hand, it can
hardly have been written or known before Hezekiah's reforms, for
otherwise it would have been made the basis of them, as it was made
the basis of Josiah's. Probably, therefore, we may date it between
Hezekiah and Josiah. Indeed we may with great likelihood affirm, as
Robertson Smith suggests, that it was the need of guidance caused by
Hezekiah's reforms which suggested and called out this book.[16]
[16] _Additional Answer to the Libel_, p. 80.
But, say some, if the body of the book is not Mosaic, then this
is nothing else but forgery, and no forged or even pseudonymous
book can be inspired! Others again, most gratuitously, suppose
that Hilkiah found the book only because he had forged it and put
it where it was found. But there is neither need nor room for such
suppositions; and our effort must be to conceive to ourselves the
means by which such a book could come into existence, and be found
as it was, without fraud on the part of any one.
To modern, and especially Western notions, it seems difficult to
conceive any legitimate process by which a book of comparatively
modern date could be attributed, so far as its main part is
concerned, to Moses, and published as Mosaic. But if we take
into account the character of Deuteronomy as only an extension
and adaptation of the Book of the Covenant set in a framework of
affectionate exhortation, and that all men then believed that
the Book of the Covenant was Mosaic, we can see better how such
action might be considered legitimate. Even on modern and Western
principles we can see that; but at that early time and in the East,
literary methods and literary ideas were so different from ours
that there may have been customs which made the publication of a
book in this way not only natural but right. An example from modern
India will make this clear. Among the sacred books of the Hindus
one of the most famous is the _Laws of Manu_. This is a collection
of religious, moral, and ceremonial laws much like the Book of
Leviticus. It is generally admitted that it was not the work of any
one man, but of a school of legal writers and lawgivers who lived
at very various times, each of whom, with a clear conscience and as
a matter of course, adapted the works of his predecessors to the
need of his own day. And this practice, together with the belief in
its legitimacy, survives to this day. In his _Early Law and Custom_
(p. 161) Sir Henry Maine tells us that "A gentleman in a high
official position in India has a native friend who has devoted his
life to preparing a new Book of Manu. He does not, however, expect
or care that it should be put in force by any agency so ignoble as
a British-Indian Legislature, deriving its powers from an Act of
Parliament not a century old. He waits till there arises a king
in India who will serve God and take the law from the new 'Manu'
when he sits in his Court of Justice." There is here no question of
fraud. This Indian gentleman considers that his book _is_ the Book
of Manu, and would be amazed if any one should question its identity
because he had edited it; and he supposes that the king he looks
for, if he should come in his day, would accept and act upon it as
a Divine authority. So strangely different are Eastern notions from
those of the West. It is legitimate to suppose that _this_ Eastern
book originated in something of the same fashion. In the evil days
of persecution, when all the prophetic spokesmen were cut off,
and when the priests were occupying the chief position among the
supporters of pure religion, some pious man, inspired, but not with
the prophetic inspiration, set himself, like this modern Hindu, to
re-write and adapt the legislation which he believed to be Mosaic
to the needs of his own day. Altering the fundamental points as
little as might be, he developed it to meet the evils which were
threatening the Mosaic religion; and he inspired it with the passion
for righteousness and the love of God which had already thrilled the
hearts of faithful men in Israel through the ministry of the great
prophets. Hoping for the coming of a king who should serve God and
judge Israel out of this new Book of Moses, but while the darkness
still clouded the future, he died, committing his book to some
temple chamber where he might hope that it would be discovered when
God's set time should come. In such a supposition there is perhaps
something to shock the conventional theories of our time. But, so
far as can be seen, there is nothing to shock any open-minded man
who knows how widely ancient and Eastern thought differs from modern
and Western thought. It is certain that at this day Eastern men of
the highest character and of the most burning zeal for religion
would act in this manner without a qualm of conscience. We may
well believe, therefore, that in ancient days it was the same. If
so, this was a literary method which inspiration might well use;
and the supposition that Deuteronomy was so produced is certainly
more consistent with its history and character than any other. It
explains how it so exactly met the needs of the time and summed up
all its aspirations; and it gives to its claim of inspiration a
new support by laying bare the circumstances of its birth and its
psychological presuppositions.
But it may still be asked, what are we to think of the Mosaic
speeches, which, as has been seen, contain, to say the least, much
non-Mosaic matter? The answer probably is that in these, as in the
laws, the author relies upon earlier documents. From the appearance
in the codes of laws which would have little or no meaning if
originated in the time of the Deuteronomist, it has rightly been
concluded that there are very ancient and Mosaic elements in them.
So, in the speeches there are references and allusions that suggest
an ancient tradition of a final address of Moses, and perhaps a
written account of its general purport, in which even a hope that
the worship might be centralised may have been contained.[17] This
the author has adapted to his purpose of inciting his contemporaries
to be faithful to the Mosaic teaching, and has woven into it
all that later experience could suggest as effective ground of
exhortation. So much as that all ancient historians would have
done, and some moderns would do, without the faintest intention to
deceive, or any feeling of guilt; and so much may probably have
been done here. Delitzsch,[18] Robertson Smith,[19] and Driver[20]
are all at one as to this, and in the proofs they produce of the
necessity of accepting this view. In the words of Driver, "It is
the uniform practice of the Biblical historians in both the Old and
New Testaments to represent their characters as speaking in words
and phrases which cannot have been those actually used, but which
they themselves select and frame for them." The speeches of David
in Samuel and Chronicles serve for examples. In Samuel he speaks in
the language of Samuel, in Chronicles in the language of Chronicles.
"In some of these cases," Driver continues, "the authors no doubt
had information as to what was actually said on the occasions in
question, which they recast in their own words, only preserving,
perhaps, a few characteristic expressions; in other cases, they
merely gave articulate expression to the thoughts and feelings which
it was presumed that the persons in question would have entertained.
In the Deuteronomic speeches both these characteristic methods have
probably been employed, and we must just accept the inspired record
for what it reveals itself to be, setting aside, with the inevitable
sighs, our own _à priori_ assumptions of what it ought to be."
[17] Cf. Driver, art. "Deuteronomy," Smith's _Dictionary_, p. 770.
[18] _Pentateuch Kritische Studien_, X.
[19] _Answer to the Form of Libel_, p. 34. Note: where Arnold and
Masson's _Life of Milton_ are referred to.
[20] Art. "Deuteronomy," Smith's _Bible Dict._, pp. 769 ff.
These then are the conclusions regarding Deuteronomy on which the
exposition offered here will rest. They have been reached after a
careful consideration of the evidence on both sides, and are stated
here not altogether without regret. For, as Robertson Smith has
well said,[21] "to the ordinary believer the Bible is precious as
the practical rule of faith and life in which God still speaks
directly to his heart. No criticism can be otherwise than hurtful to
faith if it shakes the confidence with which the simple Christian
turns to his Bible, assured that he can receive every message which
it brings to his soul as a message from God Himself." Now, though
it can be demonstrated that the view of Scripture which permits
of such conclusions as those stated above is quite compatible
with this believing confidence, there can be little doubt that
Christian people will for a time find great difficulty in accepting
this assurance. The transition from the old view of inspiration,
so complete, comprehensible, and effective as it is, to the newer
and less definite doctrine, cannot fail to be trying, and the
introduction of it here cannot but be a disturbing influence which
it would have been greatly preferable to avoid.
[21] _Answer_, pp. 41 f.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that to the minds of the
working ministry and of their earnest fellow-labourers, who come
into constant contact with the actual needs of men, the change
should be unwelcome. But it cannot now, in my judgment, be avoided.
Even the best and most scholarly work of those who still hold the
traditional view does not convince. Rather it is their writings,
more even than those on the modern side, which make it clear that
the traditional view can no longer be held. These writers admit
the facts upon which their opponents' case rests, and then explain
them all away, harmonising everything by a crowd of hypotheses,
often scholarly, generally acute, but almost always such as can
be accepted only if we know beforehand that the view they support
is true. But far too many hypotheses are needed. Each case has
to be set right by a special effort of the imagination; while
the new view has this great advantage, that it makes room for
all the facts, by a hypothesis, suggested not by one difficulty,
but by almost all the discrepancies and difficulties which are
encountered. And, after all, this view does not move men away from
the central truth of inspiration, even as it was conceived by the
last generation. Apart from any care for averting errors in detail
which can be ascribed to Divine wisdom according to the old view
or the new, the central thing in both surely is the revelation of
God Himself. It was always God that was held to be revealed, and
this the advocates of the newer view insist upon most strenuously.
They hold that chosen men, the wisest, best, most truthful of
their respective generations, those who travailed most in thought,
received exceptional impressions of the Divine nature. They saw
God, and their whole being bore the impress henceforth of this
illumination. In every word and act the light they had received
found expression for itself. They did not receive this revelation in
mere propositions about God, which had to be carefully repeated with
minute verbal accuracy. They saw, and their natures were in their
degree uplifted, changed, and harmonised with the Divine. They could
no more be false in speaking of what they had thus experienced, than
a sincere and tender nature can be false in speech or thought about
death, when it once has found its love frustrated and overborne by
that dread messenger of God. The impression in both cases is true as
it is final, and it will triumphantly convey itself to others with
substantial and effective truth, whatever the man's knowledge or
ignorance otherwise may be. When a man has received an impression,
or a sight of God which has shaken his very soul, will it be lost
in its essential parts because in the speech in which he utters
it he shows ignorance of science, or accepts as simply true the
historic knowledge of his day? The thing is impossible. The light
that is within him must shine out, even though the medium through
which it shines be here and there blackened by imperfection. In the
fundamental point, therefore, the old school of critics and the
new are entirely at one. On the basis of this essential harmony it
should be possible for each to speak to the other for edification.
This is what has been attempted here; and if those who hold by the
Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy will tolerate the opposite view,
they will find that in dealing with the Scriptures as a revelation
of God, and as an infallible guide in all that concerns religious
and moral truth, there is no difference. To make the sacred word
living and powerful as an instrument of spiritual regeneration is
our common effort; and our common hope must be that, if in anything
we have been led into error, the mistake may be discovered and
removed, before it has wrought evil in the Church of God.