conjectures that the clause in xii. 6 was introduced for the purpose of marking the contrast between the present and the future, the reality and the idea. It gives, he thinks, a more vivid representation of the relations into which Abraham had entered.1 His explanation of the clause in xiii. 7 is also derived from the connexion. The Canaanites and Perizzites are named, because they were most in contact with Abraham and Lot; and had a stronger feeling of jealousy towards them. Kalisch returns to the untenable translation of Abenesra-"The Canaanite was already in the land;" and groundlessly asserts that the phrase is no proof of a late origin for the Pentateuch;3 probably because he believes, with Abenesra and Munk, that the Canaanites had taken Palestine from other more ancient inhabitants, and were not therefore indigenous. In xiii. 7 the Canaanites and Perizzites represent the whole population of the land; which makes it more difficult for such as Hengstenberg and Kalisch to explain the phrase in accordance with an early origin of the book. With all the ingenuity expended by Witsius, Hengstenberg, and others in finding an appropriateness of the two clauses in question to the time and fact of a Mosaic composition, an ordinary reader must feel that they are superfluous additions, if they be not later than Moses. "The Canaanite was then in the land," says the writer, meaning the particular tribe or race of the Canaanites. This is given as a reason for Abraham's finding no room in the locality where he first settled, which was in the part of Palestine to which Sichem belonged-a part remote from the sea. But in Moses's time the tribe in question dwelt near the sea and at the Jordan, away from Abraham's first place of sojourn. The remark, therefore, could have had no propriety if it came from Moses. "In Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron," etc. (Gen. xxiii. 2, and xxxv. 27). Here a modern name is appended to the ancient one, Hebron being explanatory of Kirjath-arba. It is remarkable that Hebron is the name almost always given to the city in Genesis. And yet the place did not obtain it till Caleb, having got it into his possession after the division of the land, called it Hebron after one of his sons. Hence Hebron as a name is posterior to Moses. In opposition to this, Hengstenberg, followed by Keil, asserts that Hebron is the oldest or original appellation; and that Kirjath-arba originated in the interval between Abraham and Moses, and was continued till after the Hebrews got possession, when the primi 1 Authentie des Pentateuches, Zweyter Band, pp. 184, 185. 2 Ibid. pp. 185, 186, 3 Historical and Critical Commentary on Genesis, p. 337. tive name was restored. This hypothesis is not easily reconciled with the fact of the explanatory Hebron being subjoined to Kirjath-arba only in two places of Genesis, while in all others Hebron alone occurs; and also that an older name is not usually appended to a later, but the reverse. Besides, the words of Joshua xiv. 15 are plain-"The name of Hebron before was Kirjath-arba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims." Not a hint is given of Hebron having been the oldest name. Kirjath-arba alone is mentioned. As to analogies adduced they are utter failures, such as Zion and the city of David. Zion was the original name of one of the hills on which Jerusalem was built. "The city of David" never supplanted the appellation; nor did Zion become again the sole name. The two cases are dissimilar. And as to modern instances of old names coming up again after the lapse of years, they shew nothing but a bare possibility, and the feeble logic of apologists. 2 In Genesis xiv. 14, Abraham is said to have pursued the kings who carried away Lot his nephew, as far as Dan. But we learn from Joshua xix. 47, and Judges xviii. 29, that the name of the place was Laish, till the Danites took possession of it and called it Dan, "after the name of their father." In opposition to this, Jahn, followed by Hävernick,3 and somewhat hesitatingly by Hengstenberg, suppose that there were two places of the name Dan, one of which is meant in Genesis and Deuteronomy, the other in Joshua and Judges. It would be difficult to convince an impartial reader that any other than the well-known city is intended in the Pentateuch, or that the hypothesis of two places identical in name and in any case not far distant, is other than arbitary. Dr. Robinson is too well versed in the geography of the Bible even to mention the hypothesis of two Dans, and evidently rejects it as gratuitous. That the name Dan stands by prolepsis or prophetic anticipation is quite improbable. Nor is it more likely that Laish, the older name, originally stood in Genesis xiv. 14, which was altered for the new name Dan by a later writer. "And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the land of Israel.” (Gen. xxxi. 31). The last clause of the verse could hardly have been written till after there had been a king in Israel. But Hengstenberg 1 Hengstenberg's Die Authentie, u. s. w., p. 187 et seqq. Keil's Einleit, p. 152. p. 66. 2 Einleitung in die göttlichen Bücher des alten Bundes, Theil II., * Handbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung, Erster Theil, Zweyte Abtheilung, p. 309, et seqq. Authentie des Pentat. vol. ii., pp. 193, 194. Biblical Researches in Palestine, etc., vol. iii., pp. 351, 358. replies, that the passage contains a reference to the preceding promises to the Patriarchs of a kingdom among their posterity, especially to chapter xxxv. 11, where a promise had been given to Jacob that kings should be descended from him. Not yet, says the historian in xxxvi. 31, had this promise been fulfilled to Jacob; for no kings had appeared in his line. Macdonald, as usual, repeats the explanation. The German critic quotes with approbation J. H. Michaelis and Calvin. He might also have alluded to the laboured attempt of C. B. Michaelis, containing a lengthened explanation similar to his own. All such endeavours are opposed to the plain meaning of the clause, which refuses, without compulsion, to play the part forced upon it. Edomite list contains eight kings, and may perhaps reach up almost to the age of Moses. It is impossible, however, to shew that it reached to his time. Granting that it did, what a trifling remark would it be for Moses to say, when he was giving a list of the Edomite kings before his own time, "there was no king then in Jacob's line;" "this was before Israel had a king. Truly such would have been to his readers what Locke calls " trifling proposition;" since they all knew that kings in Israel had not then appeared. The a "And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, till they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, till they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.” (Exodus xvi. 35.) Moses was dead before the manna ceased; and therefore it is natural to infer that he did not write these words. But Hengstenberg argues that the author means only to state the time when the manna still continued, not to determine the point of time when it ceased; and refers to Joshua v. 11, 12.3 This explanation is unnatural. "Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah." (Exodus xvi. 36). This explanation seems to have originated in a change of time, the measure having gone out of use. Here Hengstenberg, after Michaelis and Kanne, contends that omer is not the name of a measure but of a common earthen vessel of a definite size, whose proportion to the ephah is given to determine more exactly the quantity of manna collected. We abide by the view of Gesenius, Lee, and other lexicographers, which is in all respects the more natural one, that omer means a measure. The argument derived by Hengstenberg from verses 16, 18, 22, 23, seems to us of no weight. And it is totally beside the mark to adduce Ezekiel xlv. 10-13 as an example of specifying the exact quantity held by measures in use, because that passage refers to just balances, 1 Introduction to the Pentateuch, vol. i., p. 325. 3 Ibid. P. 210. a just ephah, and a just bath. The princes of Israel had been guilty of injustice and exaction in their dealings towards the people, and therefore the prophet exhorts them to employ just measures, specifying what they are. A case of this sort is quite dissimilar to that before us, and could only be adduced by an inconsequential or weak reasoner. We do not deny that modern laws might be found stating the proportion of one measure to another without implying that the proportion had gone out of knowledge; but such a remark is totally out of place in this instance, because the writer is simply making a historical statement in Exodus xvi. 35, 36, not enunciating or recording a law. "For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Thus speaks Joseph in Genesis xl. 15. The phrase, "land of the Hebrews," presupposes its occupation by the Israelites. The expression is not, "land of Canaan," as elsewhere. "That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus xviii. 28). This language presupposes the expulsion of the Canaanites from their country as past. Keil endeavours to neutralise its force by the statement in the 24th verse preceding, "which I cast out before you," not "have cast out" but this does not help the matter, since he is still obliged to say that "by a prosopopoeia the land HAS SPUED out its inhabitants." It is nugatory to say with the same critic that Israel was at the time in possession of a considerable extent of country, viz., Gilead and Bashan, on the east of Jordan; the language is not satisfied by the explanation; for the land spueing out the nations cannot be dwarfed down into such petty dimensions. Canaan proper, on the west of Jordan, is chiefly meant. "The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them." (Deut. ii. 12). These words obviously presuppose a time when the Israelites were already in possession of Canaan, having expelled its former inhabitants. In Numbers xxi. 1-3 it is related, that God delivered up the Canaanites in the south of Palestine into the hands of Israel, who utterly destroyed them and their cities, calling the name of the place Hormah. From the event recorded here the appellation was first given to the place, meaning, devoted to destruction. But Hormah occurs already in Numbers xiv. 45. How could this be, if both places proceed from the same author? The answer usually given is arbitrary, viz., by prolepsis or antici 1 Einleitung, second ed., p. 133. pation. This appears from the fact that in Judges i. 17, we learn, that the tribe of Simeon, assisted by Judah, destroyed the place and gave it the name Hormah. With this last agrees the fact stated in Joshua xii. 14, that Joshua conquered the king of Hormah. It is possible that he may not have taken the city, though he conquered its king; and therefore Joshua xii. 14 creates little difficulty; but Judges i. 17 shews very plainly that effect was not given to the devotement denounced in Numbers xxi. 1-3 till after Joshua's death, by the instrumentality of Simeon and Judah. It has been usual to regard the 3rd verse (Numb. xxi.), with the exception of the last clause, as the gloss or explanatory insertion of a later time; for which, however, there is no evidence. It is a mere hypothesis framed to evade the difficulty lying in the way of an assumed authorship. In like manner, the words "unto Hormah," in Numbers xiv. 45, are supposed by some to have been inserted there subsequently to the time the name was given under the circumstances related in Numbers xxi. 1-3. This is equally arbitrary. The text of both must be taken as it is; and as there is every reason to think it was originally. Hengstenberg1 and Kurtz2 rightly reject the idea of later additions or glosses. But their notion of a prolepsis in Numbers xiv. 45 is equally untenable. They dissent, very properly, from Reland assuming a prolepsis in the narrative of Numbers xxi. 3 as compared with Joshua xii. 14; but resort to the same expedient in xiv. 45. It appears to a plain reader that Numbers xxi. 1-3 was not written till after the time refered to in Judges i. 17; since not only the place's devotement to destruction, but the execution of the curse is there related. In other words, Numbers was written after the tribes had received their allotted portions in the promised land. It is obvious too, that Judges i. 17 could not have proceeded from the same writer as Numbers xxi; because they disagree about the time when the place was first called Hormah. In the one (Judges i. 17), it got the name when destroyed by Simeon and Judah; in the other (Numbers xxi. 1-3), it received the same name when it was devoted to future destruction by the Israelites during their abode at Kadesh. It is unlikely that the same name was given twice to one place. Hengstenberg supposes that Hormah, a name given at the time referred to in Numbers xxi., soon became Zephath again (Judges i. 17); and that it was reserved for a later age to change it again into Hormah. He thinks that at the period when it was put under the curse by the Israelites, the power of 1 Authentie des Pentat. vol. ii. p. 223. 2 Geschichte des alten Bundes, vol. ii. p. 422. |