_JOSIAH'S REFORMATION_
2 KINGS xxii. 8-20, xxiii. 1-25
"And the works of Josias were upright before his Lord with a heart
full of godliness."--1 ESDRAS i. 23.
"From Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from
Jerusalem."--ISA. ii. 3.
It is from the Prophets--Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
Ezekiel--that we catch almost our sole glimpses of the vast
world-movements of the nations which must have loomed large on the
minds of the King of Judah and of all earnest politicians in that day.
As they did not directly affect the destiny of Judah till the end of
the reign, they do not interest the historian of the Kings or the
later Chronicler. The things which rendered the reign memorable in
their eyes were chiefly two--the finding of "the Book of the Law" in
the House of the Lord, and the consequent religious reformation.
It is with the first of these two events that we must deal in the
present chapter.
Josiah began to reign as a child of eight, and it may be that the
emphatic and honourable mention of his mother--Jedidah ("Beloved"),
daughter of Adaiah of Boscath--may be due to the fact that he owed to
her training that early proclivity to faithfulness which earns for him
the unique testimony, that he not only "walked in the way of David his
father," but that "he turned not aside to the right hand or to the
left."
At first, of course, as a mere child, he could take no very active
steps. The Chronicler says that at sixteen he began to show his
devotion, and at twenty set himself the task of purging Judah and
Jerusalem from the taint of idols. Things were in a bad condition, as we
see from the bitter complaints and denunciations of Zephaniah and
Jeremiah. Idolatry of the worst description was still openly tolerated.
But Josiah was supported by a band of able and faithful advisers.
Shaphan, grandfather of the unhappy Gedaliah--afterwards the Chaldæan
viceroy over conquered Judah--was scribe; Hilkiah, the son of Shallum
and the ancestor of Ezra, was the high priest.[692] By them the king was
assisted, fist in the obliteration of the prevalent emblems of idolatry,
and then in the purification of the Temple. Two centuries and a half had
elapsed since it had been last repaired by Joash, and it must have
needed serious restoration during long years of neglect in the reigns of
Ahaz, of Manasseh, and of Amon. Subscriptions were collected from the
people by "the keepers of the door," and were freely entrusted to the
workmen and their overseers, who employed them faithfully in the objects
for which they were designed.[693]
The repairs led to an event of momentous influence on all future time.
During the cleansing of the Temple Hilkiah came to Shaphan, and said, "I
have found the Book of the Law in the House of the Lord." Perhaps the
copy of the book had been placed by some priest's hand beside the Ark,
and had been discovered during the removal of the rubbish which neglect
had there accumulated. Shaphan read the book; and when next he had to
see the king to tell him about the progress of the repairs, he said to
him, "Hilkiah the priest hath handed me a book." Josiah bade him read
some of it aloud. It is evident that he read the curses contained in
Deut. xxviii. They horrified the pious monarch; for all that they
contained, and the laws to which they were appended, were wholly new to
him. He might well be amazed that a code so solemn, and purporting to
have emanated from Moses, should, in spite of maledictions so fearful,
have become an absolute dead letter. In deep alarm he sent the priest,
the scribe Shaphan, with his son Ahikam, and Abdon, the son of Micaiah,
and Asahiah, a court official, to inquire of Jehovah, whose great anger
could not but be kindled against king and people by the obliteration and
nullity of His law. They consulted Huldah, the only prophetess mentioned
in the Old Testament, except Miriam and Deborah.[694] She was the wife
of Shallum and keeper of the priests' robes,[695] and she lived in the
suburbs of the city.[696] Her answer was an uncompromising menace. All
the curses which the king had heard against the place and people should
be pitilessly fulfilled,--only, as the king had showed a tender heart,
and had humbled himself before Jehovah, he should go to his own grave in
peace.[697]
Thereupon the king summoned to the Temple a great assembly of priests,
prophets, and all the people, and, standing by the pillar (or "on the
platform")[698] in the entrance of the inner court, read "all the
words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the House of
the Lord" in their ears, and joined with them in "the covenant" to
obey the hitherto unknown or totally forgotten laws which were
inculcated in the newly discovered volume.
Immediate action followed. The priests were ordered to bring out of the
Temple all the vessels made for Baal, for the Asherah, and for the host
of heaven; they were burnt outside Jerusalem in the Valley of Kedron,
and their ashes taken to Bethel.[699] The _chemarim_ of the high places
were suppressed, as well as all other idolatrous priests who burnt
incense to the signs of the Zodiac, the Hyades, and the heavenly
bodies.[700] The Asherah itself was taken out of the Temple, and it is
truly amazing that we should find it there so late in Josiah's reign. He
burnt it in the Kedron, stamped it to powder, and scattered the powder
"on the graves of the common people." The Chronicler says "on the graves
of them that had sacrificed" to the idols[701];--but this is an
inexplicable statement, since it is (as Professor Lumby says) very
improbable that idolaters had a separate burial-place. It is equally
shocking, and to us incomprehensible, to read that the houses of the
degraded _Qedeshim_ still stood, not "by the Temple" (A.V.), but "_in_
the Temple,"[702] and that in these houses, or chambers, the women still
"wove embroideries[703] for the Asherah." What was Hilkiah doing? If the
priests of the _high places_ were so guilty from Geba to Beersheba, did
no responsibility attach to the high priest and other priests of the
Temple who permitted the existence of these enormities, not only in the
_bamoth_ at the city gates,[704] but in the very courts of the mountain
of the Lord's House? If the priests of the immemorial shrines were
degraded from their prerogatives, and were not allowed to come up to the
altar of Jehovah in Jerusalem, by what law of justice were they to be
regarded as so immeasurably inferior to the highest members of their own
order, who, for years together, had permitted the worship of a wooden
phallic emblem, and the existence of the worst heathen abominations
within the very Temple of the Lord? Every honest reader must admit that
there are inexplicable difficulties and uncertainties in these ancient
histories, and that our knowledge of the exact circumstances--especially
in all that regards the priests and Levites, who, in the Chronicles, are
their own ecclesiastical historians--must remain extremely imperfect.
And what can be meant by the clause that the degraded priests of the
old high places, though they were not allowed to serve at the great
altar, yet "did eat of the _unleavened bread_ among their brethren"?
Unleavened bread was only eaten at the Passover; and when there _was_
a Passover, was eaten by all alike. Perhaps the reading for
"unleavened bread" should be (priestly) "portions"--a reading found by
Geiger in an old manuscript.
Continuing his work, Josiah defiled Tophet;[705] took away the horses
given by the kings of Judah to the sun, which were stabled beside the
chamber of the eunuch Nathan-Melech in the precincts;[706] and burnt
the sun-chariots in the fire. He removed the altars to the stars on
the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz,[707] and ground them to powder.
He also destroyed those of his grandfather Manasseh in the two Temple
courts--which we supposed to have been removed by Manasseh in his
repentance--and threw the dust into the Kedron. He defiled the
idolatrous shrines reared by Solomon to the deities of Sidon, Ammon,
and Moloch, broke the pillars, cut down the Asherim, and filled their
places with dead men's bones.[708] Travelling northwards, he burnt,
destroyed, and stamped to powder the altars and the Asherim at Bethel,
and burnt upon the altars the remains found in the sepulchres,[709]
only leaving undisturbed the remains of the old prophet from Judah,
and of the prophet of Samaria.[710] He then destroyed the other
Samaritan shrines, exercising an undisputed authority over the
Northern Kingdom. The mixed inhabitants did not interfere with his
proceedings; and in the declining fortunes of Nineveh, the Assyrian
viceroy--if there was one--did not dispute his authority. Lastly, in
accordance with the fierce injunction of Deut. xvii. 2-5, "he slew all
the priests of the high places" on their own altars, burnt men's bones
upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
It is very difficult, with the milder notions which we have learnt
from the spirit of the Gospel, to look with approval on the
recrudescence of the Elijah-spirit displayed by the last proceeding.
But many centuries were to elapse, even under the Gospel Dispensation,
before men learnt the sacred principle of the early Christians that
"violence is hateful to God." Josiah must be judged by a more lenient
judgment, and he was obeying a mandate found in the new Book of the
Law. But the question arises whether the fierce commands of
Deuteronomy were ever intended to be taken _au pied de la lettre_. May
not Deut. xiii. 6-18 have been intended to express in a concrete but
ideal form the spirit of execration to be entertained towards
idolatry? Perhaps in thinking so we are only guilty of an anachronism,
and are applying to the seventh century before Christ the feelings of
the nineteenth century after Christ.
After this Josiah ordered the people to keep a Deuteronomic Passover,
such as we are told--and as all the circumstances prove--had not been
kept from the days of the Judges. The Chronicler revels in the details
of this Passover, and tells us that Josiah gave the people thirty
thousand lambs and kids, and three thousand bullocks; and his priests
gave two thousand six hundred small cattle, and three hundred oxen;
and the chief of the Levites gave the Levites five thousand small
cattle, and five hundred oxen. He goes on to describe the slaying,
sprinkling of blood, flaying, roasting, boiling in pots, pans, and
caldrons, and attention paid to the burnt-offerings and the fat;[711]
but neither the historians nor the chroniclers, either here or
anywhere else, say one word about the Day of Atonement, or seem aware
of its existence. It belongs to the Post-Exilic Priestly Code, and is
not alluded to in the Book of Deuteronomy.
Continuing his task, he put away them that had familiar spirits
(_oboth_), and the wizards, and the _teraphim_, with a zeal shown by
no king before or after him; but Jehovah "turned not from the
fierceness of His anger, because of all the provocations which
Manasseh had provoked Him withal." Evil, alas! is more diffusive, and
in some senses more permanent, than good, because of the perverted
bias of human nature. Judah and Jerusalem had been radically corrupted
by the apostate son of Hezekiah, and it may be that the sudden and
high-handed reformation enforced by his grandson depended too
exclusively on the external impulse given to it by the king to produce
deep effects in the hearts of the people. Certain it is that even
Jeremiah--though he was closely connected with the finders of the
book, had perhaps been present when the solemn league and covenant was
taken in the Temple, and lived through the reformation in which he
probably took a considerable part--was profoundly dissatisfied with
the results. It is sad and singular that such should have been the
case; for in the first flush of the new enthusiasm he had written,
"Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, which
I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of
the land of Egypt, saying, 'Obey My voice.'"[712] Nay, it has been
inferred that he was even an itinerant preacher of the newly found
law; for he writes: "And the Lord said unto me, 'Proclaim all these
words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying,
Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.'"[713]
The style of Deuteronomy, as is well known, shows remarkable
affinities with the style of Jeremiah. Yet it is clear that after the
death of Josiah the prophet became utterly disillusioned with the
outcome of the whole movement. It proved itself to be at once
evanescent and unreal. The people would not give up their beloved
local shrines.[714] The law, as Habakkuk says (i. 4), became torpid;
judgment went not forth to victory; the wicked compassed about the
righteous, and judgment was perverted. It was easy to obey the
external regulations of Deuteronomy; it was far more difficult to be
true to its noble moral precepts. The reformation of Josiah, so
violent and radical, proved to be only skin-deep; and Jeremiah, with
bitter disappointment, found it to be so. External decency might be
improved, but rites and forms are nothing to Him who searcheth the
heart.[715] There was, in fact, an inherent danger in the place
assumed by the newly discovered book. "Since it was regarded as a
State authority, there early arose a kind of book-science, with its
pedantic pride and erroneous learned endeavours to interpret and apply
the Scriptures. At the same time there arose also a new kind of
hypocrisy and idolatry of the letter, through the new protection which
the State gave to the religion of the book acknowledged by the law.
Thus scholastic wisdom came into conflict with genuine prophecy."[716]
How entirely the improvement of outward worship failed to improve men's
hearts the prophet testifies.[717] "The sin of Judah," he says, "is
written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is
graven upon the tablets of their hearts, and upon the horns of their
altars, and their Asherim by the green trees[718] upon the high hills. O
My mountain in the field, I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in
the land thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in Mine eyes,
which shall burn for ever." While Josiah lived this apostasy was secret;
but as soon as he died the people "turned again to folly,"[719] and
committed all the old idolatries except the worship of Moloch. There
arose a danger lest even the moderate ritualism of Deuteronomy should be
perverted and exaggerated into mere formality. In the energy of his
indignation against this abuse, Jeremiah has to uplift his voice against
any trust even in the most decided injunctions of this newly discovered
law. He was "a second Amos upon a higher platform." The Deuteronomic Law
did not as yet exhibit the concentrated sacerdotalism and ritualism
which mark the Priestly Code, to which it is far superior in every way.
It is still prophetic in its tone. It places social interests above
rubrics of worship. It expresses the fundamental religious thought "that
Jehovah is in no sense inaccessible; that He can be approached
immediately by all, and without sacerdotal intervention; that He asks
nothing for Himself, but asks it as a religious duty that man should
render unto man what is right; that His Will lies not in any known
height, but in the moral sphere which is known and understood by
all."[720] The book ordained certain sacrifices; yet Jeremiah says with
startling emphasis, "To what purpose cometh there to Me frankincense
from Sheba, and the sweet calamus from a far country? Your
burnt-offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasant unto
Me."[721] Therefore He bids them, "Put your burnt-offerings to your
sacrifices, and eat them as flesh"--_i.e._, "Throw all your offerings
into a mass, and eat them at your pleasure (regardless of sacerdotal
rules): they have neither any inherent sanctity nor any secondary
importance from the characters of the offerers."[722] And in a still
more remarkable passage, "_For I spake not unto your fathers, nor
commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices_: but this thing I commanded
them, saying, 'Obey My voice.'"[723]
Nay, in the most emphatic ordinances of Deuteronomy he found that the
people had created a new peril. They were putting a particularistic
trust in Jehovah, as though He were a respecter of persons, and they
His favourites. They fancied, as in the days of Micah, that it was
enough for them to claim His name, and bribe Him with sacrifices.[724]
Above all, they boasted of and relied upon the possession of His
Temple, and placed their trust on the punctual observance of external
ceremonies. All these sources of vain confidence it was the duty of
Jeremiah rudely to shatter to pieces. Standing at the gates of the
Lord's House, he cried: "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, 'The
Temple of the Lord! the Temple of the Lord! the Temple of the Lord,
are these!' Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will
ye steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense unto
Baal, and walk after other gods; and come and stand before Me in this
house, whereupon My name is called, and say, 'We are delivered,' that
ye may do all these abominations? Is this house become a den of
robbers in your eyes? But go ye now to My place which was in Shiloh,
where I caused My name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it
for the wickedness of My people. I will do unto this house as I have
done to Shiloh; and I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast
out the whole house of Ephraim."[725]--Yet all hope was not
extinguished for ever. The Scythian might disappear; the Babylonian
might come in his place; but one day there should be a new covenant of
pardon and restitution; and as had been promised in Deuteronomy,
"_all_ should know Jehovah, from the least to the greatest."
At last he even prophesies the entire future annulment of the solemn
covenant made on the basis of Deuteronomy, and says that Jehovah will
make a new covenant with His people, not according to the covenant
which He made with their fathers.[726] And in his final estimate of
King Josiah after his death, he does not so much as mention his
reformation, his iconoclasm, his sweeping zeal, or his enforcement of
the Deuteronomic Law, but only says to Jehoiakim:--
"'Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice?--then
it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then
it was well. _Was not this to know Me?' saith the Lord_."[727]
Whether because its methods were too violent, or because it only
affected the surface of men's lives, or because the people were not
really ripe for it, or because no reformation can ever succeed which
is enforced by autocracy, not spread by persuasion and conviction, it
is certain that the first glamour of Josiah's movement ended in
disillusionment. A religion violently imposed from without as a
state-religion naturally tends to hypocrisy and externalism. What
Jehovah required was, not a changed method of worship, but a changed
heart; and this the reformation of Josiah did not produce. It has
often been so in human history. Failure seems to be written on many of
the most laudable human efforts. Nevertheless, truth ultimately
prevails. Isaiah was murdered, and Urijah, and Jeremiah. Savonarola
was burnt, and Huss, and many a martyr more; but the might of
priestcraft was at last crippled, to be revived, we hope, no more,
either by open violence or secret apostasy.
"Then to side with Truth is noble, when we share her wretched
crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to
be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands
aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they have denied."
FOOTNOTES:
[692] 2 Kings xxiii. 4. We have here the first mention of "the second
priest" (if, with Grätz, we read _Cohen mishneh_, as in 2 Kings xxv.
18; Jer. lii. 24). In later days he was called "the Sagan." At this
time he probably acted as "Captain of the Temple" (Grätz, ii. 319).
[693] Comp. 2 Kings xii. 15, where we find the same remark.
[694] Exod. xv. 20; Judg. iv. 4; Isa. viii. 3. "The prophetess" seems
to mean "prophet's wife." Noadiah was a false prophetess.
[695] Exod. xxviii. 2, etc.
[696] 2 Kings xxii. 14. Heb., _mishneh_, lit. "second"; A.V., "the
college"; R.V., "the second quarter." Perhaps it means "the lower
city" (Neh. xi. 9; Zeph. i. 10). It puzzled the LXX.: ἐν τῇ μασενᾷ.
Vulg., _in secunda_. Jerome says, "_Haud dubium quin urbis partem
significet quæ interiori muro vallabatur_." Comp. Zeph. i. 10, "an
howling from the _second_" (_i.e._, quarter of the city); Neh. xi. 9,
where, for "_second over the city_" (A. and R.V.), read "over the
second part of the city."
[697] Another reading is "in Jerusalem," which gets over an historic
difficulty.
[698] Comp. 2 Kings xi. 14; LXX., ἐπὶ τοῦ στύλου; Heb., _al-ha-ammud_;
Vulg., _super gradum_.
[699] 2 Kings xxiii. 4; for "in the fields of Kedron" one version has
ἐν τῷ ἐμπυρισμῷ τοῦ χειμάῤῥου, "in the burning-place of the
wady,"--perhaps reading _bemisrephoth_ for _bishedamoth_, and alluding
to lime-kilns in the wady. It is surprising that they should carry the
ashes "to Bethel." Thenius suggests the reading בֵּית־אַל, "place of
execution" (lit., "house of nothingness").
[700] Hos. x. 5; Zeph. i. 4 (the only other places where the word
occurs). The _delevit_ of the Vulgate (2 Kings xxiii. 5) only means that
he put them down, and the κατέκαυσε of the LXX. should be κατέπαυσε.
[701] Comp. Jer. ii. 23, where the LXX. has ἐν τῷ πολυανδρίῳ. In 2
Chron. xxxiv. 4, perhaps the true reading is, not _Benî-ha-'âm_, but
_Benî-hinnom_--which would mean that he scattered the dust in the
gehenna of Jerusalem. Comp. 1 Kings xv. 13.
[702] For these Galli, see Seneca, _De Vit. Beat._, 27; Pliny, _H.
N._, xi. 49.
[703] Heb., _bathîm_, lit. "tents" or "houses"; Vulg., _quasi
domunculas_.
[704] In 2 Kings xxiii. 8, Geiger would read "the high places of the
_satyrs_" (שׂצירים).
[705] Usually derived (as by Selden and Milton) from _toph_, "drum,"
but perhaps from _tuph_ (to _spit_ in sign of abhorrence).
[706] _Parvar_--perhaps "open portico." Renan connects the word with
the Greek περίβολος. On horses dedicated to the sun, see Xen.
_Cyrop._, viii. 3, 5, 12; _Anab._, iv. 5.
[707] See Zeph. i. 5; Jer. xix. 13, xxxii. 29.
[708] 2 Kings xxiii. 13: "The Mount of Corruption"; Vulg., _Mons
offensionis_; LXX., τοῦ ὄρους τοῦ Μοσθάθ. Some conjecture that
_Maschith_ may be a derisive change for some word which meant
"anointing" (from being the _Oil_ Mountain, _Har ham-mischchah_).
[709] In burning the bones of the dead, he violated all Jewish feeling.
Amos (ii. 1) had severely rebuked this form of revenge and insult even
in the case of the heathen King of Moab. Bones defiled the touch (Num.
xix. 16; Herod., iv. 73). Josiah's question at Bethel was, "What
_pillar_ is that?" (_tsiyun_). LXX., σκόπελον. Comp. Gen. xxxv. 20.
[710] 1 Kings xiii. 29-31.
[711] 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-19.
[712] Jer. xi. 3, 4. Since, in this part of my subject, I make
frequent reference to the prophecies of Jeremiah which are
indispensable to the right understanding of the history, I may here
say that modern critics (Cheyne and others) arrange them as follows:--
In the reign of _Josiah_, Jer. ii. 1-iii. 5, iii. 6-vi. 30, vii. 1-ix.
25, xi. 1-17.
In the reign of _Jehoiakim_, xxvi. 2-6, xlvi. 2-12, xxv., xxxv., and
possibly xvi. 1, xviii. 19-27, xiv., xv., xviii., xi. 18-xii. 17.
In the reign of _Jehoiachin_, x. 17-23, xiii.
In the reign of _Zedekiah_, xxii.-xxiv., xxvii.-xxix. 1-11 (?), lii.
In the _Exile_, xxxix.-xliv.
[713] See Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 56, _id._ 6.
[714] Canon Cheyne shows that even Mohammed could not persuade the
Qurashites wholly to give up their black stone at the Kaaba, and their
dolmens and sacred trees (_id._ 103). He left the _auçab_, or
sacrificial stones (_matstseboth_), though he warns his followers
against them (_Quran_, v. 92).
[715] Jer. xvii. 9-11.
[716] Ewald, _The Prophets_, iii. 63, 64.
[717] Jer. xvii. 1-4.
[718] The Qurashites and other heathen Arabs accounted holy a large
green tree, and every year had a sacrifice in its honour. "On the way to
Hunain we called to God's Messenger (Mohammed) that he should appoint
for us such trees. But he was terrified, and said, 'Lord God, Lord God!
Ye speak even as the Israelites ... ye are still in ignorance,--thus are
heathen enslaved'" (Vakïdi, _Book of the Campaigns of God's Messenger_,
quoted by Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 103, from Wellhausen).
[719] Psalm lxxxv. 8.
[720] Deut. xxx. 11-14. See Wellhausen, p. 165.
[721] Jer. vi. 20. The passages of Jeremiah which seem of a different
spirit may have been added by later hands--_e.g._, xxxiii. 18, which
is not in the LXX.
[722] Jer. vii. 21; Ewald; and Cheyne, _l.c._ 120. So the Jews seem to
have understood it, for they appoint this passage to be read on the
_Haphtara_ after the _Parashah_ about sacrifices from Leviticus.
[723] Jer, vii. 22, 23. This alone would show that Jeremiah did not
(as earlier critics thought) _write_ "Deuteronomy," in spite of the
numerous close resemblances in phraseology. Thus, Jeremiah often
denounces the priests (i. 18, ii. 8-26, iv. 9, v. 31, viii. 1, xiii.
13, xxxii. 32). Cheyne, p. 82.
[724] Mic. iii. 11.
[725] Jer. vii. 4, 8-15.
[726] Jer. xxxi. 31, 32.
[727] Jer. xxii. 15, 16.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI.
"Jehovah is our Lawgiver."--ISA. xxxiii. 22.
What was the Book of the Law which Hilkiah found in the Temple?
The great majority of eminent modern critics have now come to the
conclusion that it was the kernel of the Book of Deuteronomy. Nor is
this in any sense a mere modern notion. It occurs as far back as St.
Jerome (_Adv. Jovin._, i. 5) and St. Chrysostom (_Hom. in Matt._, ix.,
p. 135, B. See W. Rob. Smith, p. 258).
It is no part of my immediate duty to argue this question, but I may
state that the arguments for this conclusion are partly historical,
partly literary, and partly depend on internal evidence.
I. As regards the _literary_ argument, it is maintained that--
1. The full, rounded, rhetorical style of Deuteronomy, so widely
different from the extreme dryness of other parts of the Torah, could
not have been as yet developed in the days of Moses, and required the
slow training of centuries for its perfection. It is a new phenomenon,
and differs widely from earlier prophetic writings, such as those of
Amos and Hosea.
2. The style and language of the Deuteronomist are so marked, that
they can scarcely escape an intelligent reader of the English Version.
Riehm enumerates sixty-four characteristic words or phrases. Their
significance lies in the fact that they express obvious ideas, and are
not names for special objects, which force a writer to use peculiar
words. The style closely resembles in many phrases and particulars the
style of Jeremiah, and of him alone among the prophets. "Even
supposing that no historic text," it has been said, "taught us that
the articles of Smalkald were the work of Luther, we should still have
the right to affirm that these articles closely resemble the ideas of
Luther, and could hardly have been published without his cognisance."
II. As regards _historical_ evidence, we observe that--
1. No author earlier than Josiah shows any acquaintance with
Deuteronomy: after that date, proofs of such knowledge abound.
2. The Book of Deuteronomy insisted with reiterated emphasis on the
centralisation of worship. All its ordinances are framed with a view
to promote this end. But we have seen that there is not a trace of any
belief that local shrines were prohibited earlier than the reign of
Hezekiah, who certainly would have defended his boldness by appeal to
a written law if he had known of such as existing.
III. As regards _internal_ evidence, we see that--
1. Many passages and injunctions of the Book of Deuteronomy differ
entirely from those found in the old Book of the Covenant which forms
the most ancient nucleus of Exodus (Exod. xx. 22-xxiii. 33).
2. Even the most conservative English critics--even those who, with any
pretence to competent knowledge, argue against the more advanced
conclusions of the Higher Criticism--cannot help admitting that at least
three codes, which in many, and in some fundamental, respects differ
widely from each other, and which make no reference to each other, are
found in our present Pentateuch--viz., that of the Book of the Covenant,
that of the Deuteronomist (D.), and that of the Priestly writer (P.).
All three may contain elements as old as the days of Moses; but most
critics (with scarcely an exception in Germany) now believe that the
Deuteronomic Code, in its present form, is not earlier than the date of
Josiah's reformation (_circ._ B.C. 621); and the Priestly Codex
(whatever older documents may exist in it) not older, in its present
form, than about the time of Ezra (B.C. 444). Dillmann, Kittel, and in
his later days Delitzsch, have been of necessity compelled to give up
the views that, in their present form, D. and P. are as ancient as the
days of Moses. The last German critic who held that Moses wrote our
present Pentateuch was Keil (_d._ 1888). Canon Cheyne argues for the
late date of this misnamed "Deuteronomy," on the grounds that the
authors (1) used documents manifestly later than Moses; (2) alluded to
events which only occurred long after Moses; and (3) expressed ideas
which, in the age of Moses, are not psychologically possible.
The Book of Deuteronomy consists mainly of an historical introduction,
probably added later (i. 1-5); Moses' _first_ discourse (i. 6-iv. 40);
Moses' _second_ discourse (iv. 44-xxvi.); a section marked specially
by blessings and curses (xxvii.-xxix.); a _third_ discourse of Moses
(xxix. 2-xxx. 20); his farewell (xxxi. 1-13); his song (xxxi.
14-xxxii. 47); conclusion, narrating his blessing and death (xxxii.
48-xxxiv. 12).
I have no space here to enter fully into the arguments which seem
decisive as to the date of the main part of Deuteronomy. Those who
desire to see them must study Colenso, _The Pentateuch_, pt. iii.;
Reuss, _Hist. Sainte et la Loi_, i. 154-211; W. Robertson Smith, _Old
Test. in the Jewish Church_, lect. xvi.; Kuenen, _The Hexateuch_, E.
T., 1886; Kittel, _Gesch. d. Hebräer_, pp. 43-59; Cheyne, _Jeremiah_,
pp. 48-86; S. R. Driver, _s.v._ "Deuteronomy" (Smith's _Dict. of the
Bible_, new ed.); W. Aldis Wright, _The Documents of the Hexateuch_,
pp. lvii.-lxxix. The name "Deuteronomy" (or "second law") arises from
the mistaken rendering of the LXX. and Vulgate in Deut. xvii. 18.