Highest gave understanding unto the five men, and they wrote the wonderful visions of the night that were told, which they knew not; and they sat forty days, and they wrote in the day, and at night they ate bread.' v.37-42.

227. Again, it is probable that the Pentateuch existed originally not as five books, but as one. TOMLINE writes:—

Though Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, stood as separate books in the private copies, used by the Jews in the time of Josephus, they were written by their author, Moses, in one continued work, and still remain in that form in the public copies read in the Jewish synagogues. It is not known when the division into five books took place. But, probably, it was first adopted in the Septuagint Version (B.c. 277), as the Titles, prefixed to the different books, are of Greek derivation. The beginnings of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, are very abrupt, and plainly show that these books were formerly joined on to Genesis.

Notwithstanding the support given to the above conjecture, as to the time when the whole work was divided into five books, by the fact that each book is now called by a Greek name, yet we shall see that there is reason for believing that the division may have been made at a much earlier date, when the Jews had returned from Babylon, and their Sacred Books were collected and set in order by Ezra about B.C. 450.

228. For we have an instance of similar quintuple division in the Psalms, which also consist of five books, each ending with a Doxology, xli.13, lxxii.18,19, lxxxix.52, cvi.48, cl.6, or, rather, the whole of Ps.cl may be regarded as a closing Doxology. Now, that the whole collection of Psalms, as it now stands,or, rather, to the end of Book IV,-existed before the time of the composition of the Book of Chronicles, is indicated by the fact, that in 1Ch.xvi.7-36, we have a Psalm ascribed to David, which is evidently made up of portions of different Psalms of Book IV. This will appear plainly by comparing v.8-22 with Ps.cv.1-15, v.23-33 with Ps.xcvi, v.34 with Ps.cvi.1, v.35,36, with Ps.cvi.47,48, which last two verses are the Doxology at the end of Book IV, so that Book IV must then have been completed, and closed up as a separate collection. Hence it

follows that, if the Book of Chronicles was composed, (as almost all Commentators of all classes maintain), at an age earlier than that of the LXX, this division of the Psalms must have existed previously to the Greek translation; and it is very possible that the quintuple division, both of the Psalms and of the Pentateuch, may have been made in the time of Ezra.

As already intimated, we shall see that the book of Joshua formed originally part of the same work.

229. In the Pentateuch and book of Joshua we find recorded the history of mankind, with special reference to its bearing upon the Hebrew people, in one continuous narrative, with only one considerable break, (viz. of about 215 years between the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus,) until the death of Joshua, after the Hebrew tribes were settled, according to the story, in the possession of the promised land of Canaan.

The history of the people is continued in the books of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings, through the reigns of the different kings, into the middle of the Babylonish Captivity, the last notice in the book of Kings being that in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, king of Judah,' that is, about twenty-seven years after the destruction of Jerusalem,

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'Evil-Merodach, the king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, did up the head of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison; and he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon, and changed his prison-garments; and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life. And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.' 2K.xxv.27-30.

230. We have no occasion at present to consider more particularly the age of each of these books. It will be sufficient to observe that the last portion of the book of Kings must have been written, as the words italicised in the above text seem to indicate, after the death of Jehoiachin. But Evil-Merodach

reigned but two years, and came to the throne B.C. 561. Hence this portion must have been written after B.C. 560, which date is twenty-eight years after the Captivity, B.c. 588, and twentyfour years before the decree of Cyrus for the return of the Jews, B.C. 536.

It is very possible, therefore, and, from the full details given in 2K.xxv, not at all improbable, that this part of the story, and, perhaps, the account of the last two or three reigns, may have been written by an actual eye-witness, who had himself taken part in the proceedings, and shared in the sorrows, of the time.

192

CHAPTER IV.

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

231. THE books of Chronicles, however, which, after giving a series of genealogical tables, go over much the same ground as the books of Samuel and Kings, and often in the very same words, were unquestionably written at a much later date. In fact, they are believed by many to contain, 1Ch.ix, a list of those, who returned to Jerusalem from Babylon after the Captivity.

The list is here nearly the same with those found in Ezra and Nehemiah, and contains those who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. But the list of Nehemiah is more ample, probably because it contains those who came afterwards, the object of the Sacred Writer here being to give the names of those who came first. BAGSTER'S Comprehensive Bible.

And so KUENEN concludes, p.293-295, where, however, he remarks as follows:

The meaning of this document, 1Ch.ix.1-34, and its relation to Neh.xi.1, &c. belong to the most contested points of O.T. criticism. I hold with Bertheau that 1Ch.ix.4-17 contains another copy of the same document as that given in Neh.xi. 3-19,- that it refers, (according to the Chronicler's view, expressed in 1Ch.ix.1,3), to the time after the Captivity, and expressly to the days of Nehemiah, that in 1Ch.ix.18, &c., the Chronicler himself speaks and treats of his own lifetime,— lastly, that v.33,34, are the 'subscript' of the whole document, which, however, is not given in its entirety by the writer, as we gather from Neh.xi.

KUENEN then gives the reasons for his decision, which, however, do not appear to me altogether satisfactory.

232. It would rather seem that, in both passages, the writer - probably, one and the same, as KUENEN also believes — is attempting to give an account of the state of things in David's

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 193

time, and that the expression hitherto,' ny, in 1Ch.ix.18, is used in the sense of up to this time, so long as it was possible for the Levites to minister,'-in other words, all along, down to the time of the Captivity.'

In support of the above conclusion, the following reasons may be adduced. But the point is of no consequence to our argument, and this discussion, though interesting to the critic, may be omitted by the general reader.

(i) What can be the meaning of the words in Neh.xi.24-and Pethahiah... was at the king's hand in all matters concerning the people'-if they are supposed to refer to a time after the Captivity?

(ii) Again, we read in v.18,19, ‘All the Levites in the Holy City were 284; moreover, the porters, Akkub, Talmon, and their brethren, that kept the gates, were 172;' whereas, just before, the Levites, who came back with Zerubbabel, are reckoned as 74 only, Neh.vii.43, (so Ezr.ii.40), or 222, with the singers, v.44, (202, Ezr.ii.41), while the porters were 138, v.45, (139, Ezr.ii.42.)

(iii) The 'porters' are called 'the children of Akkub,' ‘the children of Talmon,' &c. Neh.vii.45, Ezr.ii.42; and it would seem that there existed porters named Akkub and Talmon in the days of Zerubbabel, Neh.xii.25; though it is not clear at what gates they could have been 'keeping ward' in those days, when there was no Temple. But since, in the passage last referred to, we read of ‘Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, and Akkub, porters, keeping the ward at the thresholds of the gates,' and no mention is here made of the other heads of the families of 'porters,' who are named in Neh.vii.45, Ezr.ii.42, where we read of 'the porters, the children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai,' it would rather seem that the ‘Talmon' and ‘Akkub' in the former passage, who lived in the days of Zerubbabel, and, perhaps, 'Meshullam' 'Shallum, were descendants of those mentioned in the later passages, yet bearing the same name as their ancestors.

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In short, it appears to me that the whole passage, 1Ch.ix.22-34, refers to the time of David, or, by a slight anachronism, perhaps, to that of Solomon, when the Tabernacle or Temple was standing, and the Levites were, or were believed by the Chronicler to be, in full activity. These were reckoned by their genealogy in villages, whom David and Samuel the Seer did ordain in their set office. So they and their children had the oversight of the gates of the House of Jehovah, the House of the Tabernacle, by wards. . . For these Levites, the four chief porters, [Shallum, Akkub, Talmon, Ahiman, where Ahiman, may be another name for one of the three, Ater, Hatita, Shobai, in Neh.vii.45,] were in their set office, and were over the chambers and treasuries of the House of God. And they lodged round bout the House of God — [could they have done this in Zerubbabel's time?]