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CHAPTER III.

THE EARLIER HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

224. WE must next endeavour to arrive at some clearer notion, from an examination of the books of the Pentateuch themselves, as to the time when, the persons by whom, and the circumstances under which, they were most probably written. And, in pursuing our investigations, we need not be restrained by any fear of trespassing upon divine and holy ground. The writers of these books, whatever pious intentions they may have had in composing them, cannot now be regarded as having been under such constant infallible supernatural guidance, as the ordinary doctrine of Scripture Inspiration supposes. We are at liberty, therefore, to draw such inferences from the matter which lies before us, and to make such conjectures, as we should be readily allowed to do, in a critical examination of any other ancient writings.

For the present, however, it will be necessary to defer any complete survey of the entire contents of each separate book, and confine ourselves to those matters only, which bear upon the particular points now under consideration.

225. Here, first, it should be noticed that the books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses in the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or in printed copies of the Hebrew Bible. Nor are they styled the 'Books of Moses' in the Septuagint or Vulgate, but only in our modern translations, after the example

of many eminent Fathers of the Church, who, with the exception of JEROME, and, perhaps, ORIGEN, were, one and all of them, very little acquainted with the Hebrew language, and still less with its criticism.*

The Jews do not speak of the First, Second, &c. Book of Moses, but designate each Book by the first word which occurs in it in Hebrew; except that for Numbers they employ 1979, In the wilderness,' which word occurs in the first verse, and is probably chosen as more expressive than the first word 71,And He said,' which was used in the days of JEROME.

* BLEEK quotes from GESENIUS (der Hebr. Sprache, p. 104) the following instance of the Hebrew scholarship of the fourteenth century, from DURANDUS, Bishop of Meaux (ob. A.D.1333), ad Apoc. xix. 1:

'Alleluja: AUGUSTINUS sic exponit, al, salvum, le, me, lu, fac, ja, domine; HIERONYMUS sic, alle, cantate, lu, laudem, ja, ad dominum; GREGORIUS sic, alle, pater, lu, filius, ja, spiritus sanctus, vel alle, lux, lu, vita, ja, salus; M. PETRUS ANTISIDORENSIS sic, al, altissimus, le, levatus in cruce, lu, lugebant apostoli, ja, jam resurrexit.'

Of course, AUGUSTINE and JEROME never made the blunders here ascribed to them, and the latter was an accomplished Hebrew scholar. But the Fathers were, generally, very ignorant of Hebrew. They relied almost entirely on the Septuagint and Italic Versions; and hence several of them confounded Amoz, rip, the father of Isaiah, with the Prophet Amos, Diy, because the two names have the same form in Greek and Latin, 'Auús, Amos.

So TERTULLIAN and AUGUSTINE discuss the use of the name 'Jehovah-Elohim' in G.ii.4, in profound ignorance of the true meaning of the word 'Jehovah,' but basing their arguments only on the LXX equivalent for it, Kúpios, 'Lord,' and the Vulgate, 'Dominus.' Thus the former writes, adv. Hermog. iii, 'The Scripture supports our view, which has distinctly attributed each name to Him, and exhibited each at its own proper time. For it names Him GOD (Elohim), indeed, at once, since He always was; 'in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.' And so, while He was making the things, of which He was afterwards to be 'Lord,' it uses only 'GOD,''-'GOD said,'' GOD made,' and nowhere as yet 'Lord.' But, when He had completed the whole, and man, especially, who was properly to understand the name 'Lord,' nay, who is also called 'Lord,' then also it has added the name Lord,'-'And the Lord took the man, &c." And the latter, de Gen. ad lit. viii. says, 'It was written for the sake of man, to admonish him, how needful it was for him to have GOD for his 'Lord,' that is, to live obediently under His Lordship.'

Hence we cannot take any account of these Titles, in discussing the question of the real origin of these books.

226. JEROME,* however, has no difficulty in admitting the possibility of the truth of the apocryphal story in 2Esdr.xiv, where Ezra is introduced as saying, v.21,22,

"Thy Law is burnt; therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of Thee, or the works that shall begin. But, if I have found grace before Thee, send the Holy Ghost into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning, which were written in Thy Law, that men may find Thy path, and that they, which live in the latter days, may live.'

And Ezra says that his prayer was heard, and he received a command, to retire into a private place with five men, 'ready to write swiftly,' and 'many box-tables to write upon.'

'So I took the five men, as He commanded me, and we went into the field, and remained there. And the next day, behold, a voice called me, saying, Esdras, open thy mouth, and drink that I give thee to drink. Then opened I my mouth, and, behold, He reached me a full cup, which was full as it were with water, but the colour of it was like fire. And I took it, and drank; and, when I had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory; and my mouth was opened, and shut no more. The

* Ad Hebr. c.3: Sive Mosen dicere volueris auctorem Pentateuchi, sive Esdram ejusdem instauratorem operis, non recuso.

'Whether you choose to say that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch or Esdras the renewer of that work, I have no objection.'

The earlier Fathers, CLEMENS ALEX. and IRENEUS speak yet more positively:κἂν τῇ Ναβουχοδονόσορ αἰχμαλωσίᾳ διαφθαρεισῶν τῶν γραφῶν, κατὰ τοὺς ̓Αρταξέρξου τοῦ Περσῶν βασιλέως χρόνους, ἐπίπνους ̓́Εσδρας ὁ Λευίτης ὁ ἱερεὺς γενόμενος πάπας τὰς παλαιὰς αὖθις ἀνανεούμενος προεφήτευσε γραφάς. CLEM. ALEX. Strom.I.xxii.149.

'And, when the Scriptures had been destroyed in the Captivity of Nebuchadnezzar, in the times of Artaxerxes the king of the Persians, Esdras the Levite the Priest, having become inspired, renewed again under divine influence all the ancient Scriptures.'

ἔπειτα, ἐν τοῖς χρόνοις 'Αρταξέρξου τοῦ Περσῶν βασιλέως, ἐνέπνευσεν Εσδρᾳ τῷ ἱερεῖ ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς Λευὶ, τοὺς τῶν προγεγονότων προφητῶν πάντας ανατάξασθαι λόγους, καὶ ἀποκαταστῆσαι τῷ λαῷ τὴν διὰ Μωϋσέως νομοθεσίαν. IREN.iii.25.

Then, in the times of Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians, He inspired Esdras the Priest of the tribe of Levi, to set in order again all the words of the former Prophets, and restore to the people the legislation by Moses.'

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,―

'Evil-Merodach, the king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, did lift 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 allow. ance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life. 2 K.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