.
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
William Popper
THE OLD TESTAMENT
IN THE
JEWISH CHUECH
THE
OLD TESTAMENT
IN THE
JEWISH CHURCH
A COURSE OF LECTURES ON BIBLICAL CRITICISM
By W. ROBERTSON SMITH
SECOND EDITION REVISED AND MUCH ENLARGED
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND CO.
i 892
Library
nso
- '6
AMPLISSIMO • THEOLOGORVM • ARGENTINENSIVM ■ ORDIXI
QTORVM • MVNERE
AD • GRADVM • DOCTORIS • THEOLOGIAE • PROVECTVS • EST
HVNC ■ LIBRVM ■ SACRVM • ESSE
VOLVIT ■ AVCTOR
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Is republishing these Lectures, eleven years after their first
appearance, I hare had to consider what to emend, what to
omit, and what to add. then * careful revision of the
whole volume has enabled me tn correct a certain number of
-::;:- iii :•; l_: "■:- l_:.l~" -:;'rZ-_": n;re ire:i?-i II :l^
--■. l: I i: ■ : ne r^ :_ .- . . :
proper to oral delivery than to a printed book: and I have
also removed from the " Notes and Ulustrati : ns rame :"'ngi
which seemed to be superfluous. As I ~
no change on the general plan of the book, I &: lte: l:'ei
that these on- una would give me space for all ncecamy
add for though much good work has been done within
the last decade on special problems of Old Testament Critic:
LrLiLi:: l_:.l" l:ll:= -„--.- tnese et - :: - : :t : l^e iz :
general arguments and broad results which I desired to
aef forth. But on mature consideration I came to see tha:
one direction the book might be profitably enlarged without
a fundamental change of plan: it was . e a
fuller account of what the critics I 3ut the narra-
tive of the Old Testament Books. II aefbre, made
large addition 5 :: :"ne part of Lecture T. that treats of the
historical books, and, in consequence, have thrown -(de
discussion of the Canon in:: I^::nre VI. To the nam:
Vlll PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
of the Hexateuch I have devoted a supplementary Lecture
(XIII.). Further, I have rewritten the greater part of the
Lecture on the Psalter (VII.), incorporating the main con-
clusions of my article on this subject in the ninth edition of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I have also made considerable
changes on Lecture XL, and at several other places I have
introduced additional arguments and illustrations. Thus the
book has grown till, in spite of omissions, it contains about
one-third more matter than the first edition ; and so it now
appears with a larger page, and with most of the notes placed
under the text, instead of being relegated to the end of the
volume. Of the few " Additional Notes " which still stand
after the text, those marked B, C, and E, except the last
paragraph of B, are taken from the first edition ; the others
are new, and contain some observations which, I hope, may
be of interest to Hebrew scholars, as well as to the larger
class of readers for whom the book is mainly intended.
W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
Christ's College, Cambridge,
31st March 1892.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The Twelve Lectures now laid before the public had their
origin in a temporary victory of the opponents of progressive
Biblical Science in Scotland, which has withdrawn me during
the past winter from the ordinary work of my Chair in
Aberdeen, and in the invitation of some six hundred promi-
nent Free Churchmen in Edinburgh and Glasgow, who
deemed it better that the Scottish public should have an
opportunity of understanding the position of the newer
Criticism than that they should condemn it unheard. The
Lectures were delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow during
the first three months of the present year, and the average
attendance on the course in the two cities was not less than
eighteen hundred. The sustained interest with which this
large audience followed the attempt to lay before them an
outline of the problems, the methods, and the results of Old
Testament Criticism is sufficient proof that they did not find
modern Biblical Science the repulsive and unreal thing which
it is often represented to be. The Lectures are printed
mainly from shorthand reports taken in Glasgow, and as
nearly as possible in the form in which they were delivered
in Edinburgh after final revision. I have striven to make
my exposition essentially popular in the legitimate, sense of
that word — that is, to present a continuous argument, resting
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
at every point on valid historical evidence, and so framed
that it can be followed by the ordinary English reader who
is familiar with the Bible and accustomed to consecutive
thought. There are some critical processes which cannot
be explained without constant use of the Hebrew Text ; but
I have tried to make all the main parts of the discussion
independent of reference to these. Of course it is not
possible for any sound argument to adopt in every case
the renderings of the English Version. In important
passages I have indicated the necessary corrections ; but in
general it is to be understood that, while I cite all texts by
the English chapters and verses, I argue from the Hebrew.
The appended notes are designed to complete and illus-
trate the details of the argument, and to make the book
more useful to students by supplying hints for further study.
I have made no attempt to give complete references to the
modern literature of the subject. Indeed, as the Lectures
have been written, delivered, and printed in three months,
it was impossible for me to reconsult all the books which
have influenced my views, and acknowledge my indebtedness
to each. My effort has been to give a lucid view of the
critical argument as it stands in my own mind, and to
support it in every part from the text of Scripture or
other original sources. It is of the first importance that
the reader should realise that Biblical Criticism is not the
invention of modern scholars, but the legitimate interpreta-
tion of historical facts. I have tried, therefore, to keep the
facts always in the foreground, and, when they are derived
from ancient books not in every one's hands, I have either
given full citations, or made careful reference to the original
authorities.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi
The great value of historical criticism is that it makes
the Old Testament more real to us. Christianity can never
separate itself from its historical basis on the Eeligion of
Israel ; the revelation of God in Christ cannot be divorced
from the earlier revelation on which our Lord built. In all
true religion the new rests upon the old. No one, then, to
whom Christianity is a reality can safely acquiesce in an
unreal conception of the Old Testament history ; and in an
age when all are interested in historical research, no apolo-
getic can prevent thoughtful minds from drifting away from
faith if the historical study of the Old Covenant is condemned
by the Church and left in the hands of unbelievers.
The current treatment of the Old Testament has produced
a widespread uneasy suspicion that this history cannot bear
to be tested like other ancient histories. The old method of
explaining difficulties and reconciling apparent contradictions
would no longer be tolerated in dealing with other books,
and men ask themselves whether our Christian faith, the
most precious gift of truth which God has given us, can
safely base its defence on arguments that bring no sense of
reality to the mind. Yet the history of Israel, when rightly
studied, is the most real and vivid of all histories, and the
proofs of God's working among His people of old may still
be made, what they were in time past, one of the strongest
evidences of Christianity. It was no blind chance, and no
mere human wisdom, that shaped the growth of Israel's
religion, and finally stamped it in these forms, now so strange
to us, which preserved the living seed of the Divine word
till the fulness of the time when He was manifested who
transformed the religion of Israel into a religion for all
mankind.
Xll PEEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The increasing influence of critical views among earnest
students of the Bible is not to be explained on the Manichean
theory that new views commend themselves to mankind in
proportion as they ignore God. The living God is as present
in the critical construction of the history as in that to which
tradition has wedded us. Criticism is a reality and a force
because it unfolds a living and consistent picture of the Old
Dispensation; it is itself a living thing, which plants its
foot upon realities, and, like Dante among the shades, proves
its life by moving what it touches.
" Cosi non soglion fare i pie de' morti."
W. KOBEKTSON SMITH.
Aberdeen, 4th April 1881.
CONTENTS
LECTUEE I
I' AGE
Criticism and the Theology op the Reformation . . 1
LECTUEE II
Christian Interpretation and Jewish Tradition , .21
LECTUEE III
The Scribes . . ..... 42
LECTUEE IV
The Septoagint . . . . . .73
LECTUEE V
The Septuagint (continued) — The Composition of Biblical
Books ....... 108
LECTUEE VI
The History of the Canon . . . . .149
LECTUEE VII
The Psalter . . . . . .188
XIV CONTENTS
LECTUEE VIII
PAGE
The Traditional Theory of the Old Testament History . 226
LECTUEE IX
The Law and the History of Israel before the Exile . 254
LECTUEE X
The Prophets ...... 278
LECTUEE XI
The Pentateuch : The First Legislation . . . 309
LECTUEE XII
The Deuteronomic Code and the Levitical Law . .346
LECTUEE XIII
The Narrative of the Hexateuch . . . 388
Additional Notes —
A. The Text of 1 Sam. xvii. . . . .431
B. Hebrew Fragments preserved in the Septuagint '. 433
C. Sources of Psalm lxxxvi. .... 435
D. Maccabee Psalms in Books I.-III. of the Psalter • . 437
E. The Fifty-first Psalm . . , .440
F. The Development of the Bitual System between Ezekiel
and Ezra ...... 442
Index of Passages discussed . . . .451
General Index . . . . . .453
LECTUKE I
CRITICISM AND THE THEOLOGY OF THE REFORMATION
I have undertaken to deliver a course of lectures to you,
not with a polemical purpose, but in answer to a request for
information. I am not here to defend my private opinion on
any disputed question, but to expound as well as I can the
elements of a well-established department of historical study.
Biblical criticism is a branch of historical science ; and I
hope to convince you as we proceed that it is a legitimate
and necessary science, which must continue to draw the
attention of all who go deep into the Bible and the religion
of the Bible, if there is any Biblical science at all.
It would be affectation to ignore the fact that in saying
so much I at once enter upon ground of controversy. The
science of Biblical Criticism has not escaped the fate of every
science which takes topics of general human interest for its
subject matter, and advances theories destructive of current
views upon things with which every one is familiar and in
which every one has some practical concern. It would argue
indifference rather than enlightenment, if the great mass of
Bible-readers, to whom scientific points of view for the study
of Scripture are wholly unfamiliar, could adjust themselves
to a new line of investigation into the history of the Bible
GOD'S WORD AND lect. i
without passing through a crisis of anxious thought not far
removed from distress and alarm.
The deepest practical convictions of our lives are seldom
formulated with precision. They have been learned by ex-
perience rather than by logic, and we are content if we can
give them an expression accurate enough to meet our daily
wants. And so when we have to bring these convictions to
bear on some new question, the formula which has sufficed us
hitherto is very apt to lead us astray. For in rough practical
formulas, in the working rules, if I may so call them, of our
daily spiritual life, the essential is constantly mixed up with
what is unimportant or even incorrect. We store our
treasures of conviction in earthen vessels, and the broken
pipkin of an obsolete formula often acquires for us the value
of the treasure which it enshrines.
The persuasion that in the Bible God Himself speaks
words of love and life to the soul is the essence of the
Christian's conviction as to the truth and authority of
Scripture. This persuasion is not, and cannot be, derived
from external testimony. No tradition as to the worth of
Scripture, no assurance transmitted from our fathers, or
from any who in past time heard God's revealing voice,
can make the revelation to which they bear witness a
personal voice of God to us. The element of personal con-
viction, which lifts faith out of the region of probable
evidence into the sphere of divine certainty, is given only
by the Holy Spirit still bearing witness in and with the
Word. But then the Word to which this spiritual testimony
applies is a written word, which has a history, which has to
be read and explained like other ancient books. How we
read and explain the Bible depends in great measure on
human teaching. The Bible itself is God's book, but the
Bible as read and understood by any man or school of men is
God's book plus a, very large element of human interpretation.
lect. i man's interpretation
In our ordinary Bible-reading these two things, the divine
book and the human understanding of the book, are not kept
sharply apart. We are aware that some passages are obscure,
and we do not claim divine certitude for the interpretation
that we put on them. But we are apt to forget that the
influence of human and traditional interpretation goes much
further than a few obscure passages. Our general views of
the Bible history, our way of looking, not merely at passages,
but. at whole books, are coloured by things which we have
learned from men, and which have no claim to rest on the
self-evidencing divine Word. This we forget, and so, taking
God's witness to His Word to be a witness to our whole con-
ception of the Word, we claim divine authority for opinions
which lie within the sphere of ordinary reason, and which
can be proved or disproved by the ordinary laws of historical
evidence. We assume that, because our reading of Scripture
is sufficiently correct to allow us to find in it the God of
redemption speaking words of grace to our soul, those who
seek some other view of the historical aspects of Scripture
are trying to eliminate the God of grace from His own
book.
A large part of Bible-readers never come through the
mental discipline which is necessary to cure prejudices of
this kind, or, in other words, are never forced by the neces-
sities of their intellectual and spiritual life to distinguish
between the accidental and the essential, the human con-
jectures and the divine truth, which are wrapped up together
in current interpretations of Scripture. But those who are
called in providence to systematic and scholarly study of the
Bible inevitably come face to face with facts which compel
them to draw distinctions that, to a practical reader, may
seem superfluous.
Consider what systematic and scholarly study involves in
contradistinction to the ordinary practical use of the Bible.
4 VALUE AND DEFECTS lect. i
Ordinary Bible-reading is eclectic and devotional. A detached
passage is taken up, and attention is concentrated on the
immediate edification which can be derived from it. Very
often the profit which the Bible -reader derives from his
morning or evening portion lies mainly in a single word of
divine love coming straight home to the heart. And in
general the real fruit of such Bible-readiDg lies less in any
addition to one's store of systematic knowledge than in the
privilege of withdrawing for a moment from the thoughts
and cares of the world, to enter into a pure and holy atmo-
sphere, where the God of love and redemption reveals Himself
to the heart, and where the simplest believer can place him-
self by the side of the psalmist, the prophet, or the apostle,
in that inner sanctuary where no sound is heard but the
gracious accents of divine promise and the sweet response of
assured and humble faith. Far be it from me to undervalue
such use of Scripture. It is by this power of touching the
heart and lifting the soul into converse with heaven that the
Bible approves itself the pure and perfect "Word of God, a
lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path of every Chris-
tian. But, on the other hand, a study which is exclusively
practical and devotional is necessarily imperfect. There are
many things in Scripture which do not lend themselves to an
immediate practical purpose, and which in fact are as good as
shut out from the circle of ordinary Bible-reading. I know
that good people often try to hide this fact from themselves
by hooking on some sort of lesson to passages which they do
not understand, or which do not directly touch any spiritual
chord. There is very respectable precedent for this course,
which in fact is nothing else than the method of tropical
exegesis that reigned supreme in the Old Catholic and
Mediaeval Church. The ancient fathers laid down the prin-
ciple that everything in Scripture which, taken in its natural
sense, appears unedifying must be made edifying by some
lect. i OF ORDINARY BIBLE-READING 5
method of typical or figurative application.1 In principle
this is no longer admitted in the Protestant Churches (unless
perhaps for the Song of Solomon), but in practice we still get
ove, many difficulties by tacking on a lesson which is not
realty taken out of the difficult passage, but read into it from
some other part of Scripture. People satisfy themselves in
this way, but they do not solve the difficulty. Let us be
frank with ourselves, and admit that there are many things
in Scripture in which unsystematic and merely devotional
reading finds no profit. Such parts of the Bible as the
genealogies in Chronicles, the description of Solomon's temple,
a considerable portion of Ezekiel, and not a few of the details
of ritual in the Pentateuch, do not serve an immediate devo-
tional purpose, and are really blank pages except to system-
atical and critical study. And for a different reason the
same thing is true of many passages of the prophetical and
poetical books, where the language is so obscure, and the
train of thought so difficult to grasp, that even the best
scholars, with every help which philology can offer, will not
venture to affirm that they possess a certain interpretation.
Difficulties of this sort are not confined to a few corners of
the Bible. They run through the whole volume, and force
themselves on the attention of every one who desires to
understand any book of the Bible as a whole.
And so we are brought to this issue. We may, if we
please, confine our study of Scripture to what is immediately
edifying, skimming lightly over all pages which do not serve
a direct purpose of devotion, and ignoring every difficulty
1 According to Origen, Princip. Bk. iv. p. 173, the literal sense of Scripture
is often impossible, absurd, or immoral, — and this designedly, lest, cleaving to
the letter alone, men should remain at a distance from the dogmata, and learn
nothing worthy of God. Augustine in his hermeneutical treatise, De Doctrina
Christiana (Bk. iii. c. 10), teaches that "Whatever has no proper bearing on
the rule of life or the verity of faith must be recognised as figurative." A good
example of the practical application of these principles will be found in the
preface to Jerome's Commentary on Hosea.
THE BIBLE AND lect. i
which does not yield to the faculty of practical insight, the
power of spiritual sympathy with the mind of the Spirit,
which the thoughtful Christian necessarily acquires in the
habitual exercise of bringing Scripture to bear on the daily
needs of his own life. This use of Scripture is full of personal
profit, and raises no intellectual difficulties. But it does not
do justice to the whole Word of God. It is limited for every
individual by the limitations of his own religious experience.
Eeading the Bible in this way, a man comes to a very per-
sonal appreciation of so much of God's truth as is in im-
mediate contact with the range of his own life. But he is
sure to miss many truths which belong to another range of
experience, and to read into the inspired page things from
his own experience which involve human error. No man's
inner life is so large, so perfectly developed, in a word so
normal, that it can be used as a measure of the fulness of the
Bible. The Church, therefore, which aims at an all-sided
and catholic view, cannot be content with so much of truth
as has practically approved itself to one man, or any number
of men, all fallible and imperfect. What she desires to obtain
is the sum of all those views of divine truth which are
embodied in the experience of the inspired writers. She
must try to get the whole meaning of every prophet, psalmist,
or apostle, — not by the rough-and-ready method of culling
from a chapter as many truths as at once commend them-
selves to a Christian heart, but by taking up each piece of
Biblical authorship as a whole, realising the position of the
writer, and following out the progress of his thought in its
minutest details. And in this process the Church, or the
trained theologian labouring in the service of the Church,
must not be discouraged by finding much that seems strange,
foreign to current experience, or, at first sight, positively
unedifying. It will not do to make our notions the measure
of God's dealings with His people of old. The systematic
lect. i THE REFORMATION
student must first, and above all, do justice to his text.
When he has done this, the practical use will follow of itself.
Ui. to the time of the Preformation the only kind of
theological study which was thought worthy of serious atten-
tion was the study of dogma. People's daily spiritual life
was supposed to be nourished, not by Scripture, but by the
Sacraments. The experimental use of Scripture, so dear to
Protestants, was not recognised as one of the main purposes
for which God has given us the Bible. The use of the Bible
was to furnish proof texts for the theologians of the Church,
and the doctrines of the Church as expressed in the Creeds
were the necessary and sufficient object of faith. The believer
had indeed need of Christ as well as of a creed, but Christ
was held forth to him, not in the Bible, but in the Mass.
The Bible was the source of theological knowledge as to the
mysterious doctrine of revelation, but the Sacraments were
the means of grace.
The Eeformation changed all this, and brought the Bible
to the front as a living means of grace. How did it do so ?
Not, as is sometimes superficially imagined, by placing the in-
fallible Bible in room of the infallible Church, but by a change
in the whole conception of faith, of the plan and purpose
of revelation, and of the operation of the means of grace.
Saving faith, says Luther, is not an intellectual assent to
a system of doctrine superior to reason, but a personal trust
on God in Christ, the appropriation of God's personal word
and promise of redeeming love. God's grace is the mani-
festation of His redeeming love, and the means of grace are
the means which He adopts to bring His word of love to our
ears and to our hearts. All means of grace, all sacraments,
have value only in so far as they bring to us a personal
Word, that Word which is contained in the gospel and
incarnate in our Lord. The supreme value of the Bible does
not lie in the fact that it is the ultimate source of theology,
8 luther's view lect. i
but in the fact that it contains the whole message of God's
love, that it is the personal message of that love to me, not
doctrine but promise, not the display of God's metaphysical
essence, but of His redeeming purpose ; in a word, of Him-
self as my God. Filled with this new light as to the mean-
ing of Scripture, Luther displays profound contempt for the
grubbincr theologians who treated the Bible as a mere store-
house of proof texts, dealing with it, as he says of Tetzel,
" like a sow with a bag of oats." The Bible is a living thing.
The Middle Ages had no eye for anything but doctrinal
mysteries, and where these were lacking saw only, as Luther
complained, bare dead histories "which had simply taken
place and concerned men no more." Nay, say the Reformers.
This history is the story of God's dealings with his people of
old. The heart of love which He opened to them, is still a
heart of love to us. The great pre-eminence of the Bible
history is that in it God speaks — speaks not in the language
of doctrine but of personal grace, which we have a right to
take home to us now, just as it was taken by His ancient
people.1
In a word, the Bible is a book of Experimental Religion,
in which the converse of God with His people is depicted in
all its stages up to the full and abiding manifestation of
saving love in the person of Jesus Christ. God has no mess-
age to the believing soul which the Bible does not set forth,
and set forth not in bare formulas but in living and experi-
mental form, by giving the actual history of the need which
the message supplies, and by showing how holy men of old
received the message as a light to their own darkness, a
comfort and a stay to their own souls. And so, to appro-
1 See, in particular, the first part of the Frciheit eines Christenmenschen,
and the preface to Luther's German Bible. On Tetzel see Frciheit des Sermons
vom Ablass (Werke, ed. Irmischer, vol. xxvii. p. 13). Compare Calvin's
Institutio, Bk. iii. chap. 2—" The "Word itself, however it be conveyed to us,
is like a mirror in which faith beholds God."
lect. i OF THE BIBLE
priate the divine message for our wants, we need no help of
ecclesiast.'cal tradition, no authoritative Churchly exegesis.
All that we need is to put ourselves by the side of the
psalmist, the prophet, or the apostle, to enter by spiritual sym-
pathy into his experience, to feel our sin and need as he felt
them, and to take home to us, as he took them, the gracious
words of divine love. This it is which makes the Bible per-
spicuous and precious to every one who is taught of the Spirit.
The history of the Eeformation shows that these views
fell upon the Church with all the force of a new discovery.
It was nothing less than the resurrection of the living Word,
buried for so many ages under the dust of a false interpreta-
tion. Now we all acknowledge the debt which we owe to
the Beformers in this matter. We are agreed that to them
we owe our open Bible ; but we do not always understand
what this gift means. We are apt to think and speak as if
the Eeformation had given us the Bible by removing arti-
ficial restrictions on its translation and circulation among the
laity. There is a measure of truth in this view. But, on the
other hand, there were translations in the vulgar tongues
long before Luther. The Bible was never wholly withdrawn
from the laity, and the preaching of the Word was the
characteristic office of the Friars, and the great source of
that popular influence which they strained to the uttermost
against the Eeformation. The real importance of Luther's
work was not that he put the Bible into the hands of the
laity, but that he vindicated for the Word a new use and a
living interest which made it impossible that it should not
be read by them. We are not disciples of the Eeformation
merely because we have the Bible in our hands, and appeal
to it as the supreme judge. Luther's opponents appealed to
the Bible as confidently as he did. But they did not under-
stand the Bible as he did. To them it was a book revealing
abstract doctrines. To him it was the record of God's words
10 THE BIBLE AND
LECT. I
and deeds of love to the saints of old, and of the answer of
their inmost heart to God. This conception changes the
whole perspective of Biblical study, and, unless our studies are
conformed to it, we are not the children of the Eeformation.
The Bible, according to the Eeformation view, is a history
— the history of the work of redemption from the fall of man
to the ascension of the risen Saviour and the mission of the
Spirit by which the Church still lives. But the history is
not a mere chronicle of supernatural deeds and revelations.
It is the inner history of the converse of God with man that
gives the Bible its peculiar worth. The story of God's grace
is expounded to us by psalmists, prophets, and apostles, as
they realised it in their own lives. For the progress of
Eevelation was not determined arbitrarily. No man can
learn anything aright about God and His love, unless the
new truth come home to his heart and grow into his life.
What is still true of our appropriation of revealed truth was
true also of its first communication. Inspired men were able
to receive and set down new truths of revelation as a sure
rule for our guidance, because these truths took hold of them
with a personal grasp, and supplied heartfelt needs. Thus
the record of revelation becomes, so to speak, the autobio-
graphy of the Church — the story of a converse with God, in
which the saints of old actually lived.
Accordingly, the first business of the Eeformation theo-
logian is not to crystallise Bible truths into doctrines, but to
follow, in all its phases, the manifold inner history of the
religious life which the Bible unfolds. It is his business to
study every word of Scripture, not merely by grammar and
logic, but in its relation to the life of the writer, and the
actual circumstances in which God's Word came to him.
Only in this way can we hope to realise the whole rich
personal meaning of the Word of grace. For God never spoke
a word to any soul that was not exactly fitted to the occasion
lect. i THE REFORMATION 11
and the man. Separate it from this context, and it is no
longer the same perfect Word.
The great goodness of God to us, in His gift of the Bible,
appears very specially in the copious materials which He has
supplied for our assistance in this task of historical exegesis.
There are large passages in the Bible, especially in the Old
Testament, which, taken apart from the rest of the book, would
appear quite deficient in spiritual instruction. Crude ration-
alism often proposes to throw these aside as mere lumber,
forming no integral part of the record of revelation. And, on
the other hand, a narrowly timid faith sometimes insists that
such passages, even in their isolation, must be prized as highly
as the Psalms or the Sermon on the Mount. Both these views
are wrong, and both err in the same way, by forgetting that
a Bible which shall enable us to follow the inner life of the
course of Eevelation must contain, not only words of grace
and answers of faith, but as much of the ordinary history, the
everyday life, and the current thoughts of the people to whom
Eevelation came, as will enable us to enter into their circum-
stances, and receive the Word as they received it. From this
point of view we can recognise the hand of a wise Providence
in the circumstance that the Old Testament contains, in far
larger proportion than the New, matter of historical and
archaeological interest, which does not serve a direct purpose
of edification. For, in the study of the New Testament, we
are assisted in the work of historical interpretation by a large
contemporary literature of profane origin, whereas we have
almost no contemporary helps for the study of Hebrew
antiquity, beyond the books which were received into the
Jewish Canon.1
1 The Old Testament writers possessed Hebrew sources now lost, such as
the Book of the Wars of Jehovah, the Book of Jashar, and the Annals of
the Kings of Israel and Judah. (See below, Lectures V. and XI.) But
Josephus, and other profane historians, whose writings are still extant, had no
12 THE HUMAN SIDE lect. i
The kind of Bible study which I have indicated is followed
more or less instinctively by every intelligent reader. Every
Christian takes home words of promise, of comfort, or of
warning, by putting himself in the place of the first hearers
of the Word, and uses the Bible devotionally by borrowing
the answer spoken by the faith of apostles or psalmists. And
the diligent reader soon learns that the profit of these exer-
cises is proportioned to the accuracy with which he can com-
pare his situations and needs with those underlying the text
which he appropriates. But the systematic study of Scripture
must rise above the merely instinctive use of sound principles.
To get from the Bible all the instruction which it is capable
of yielding, we must apprehend the true method of study in
its full range and scope, obtain a clear grasp of the principles
involved, and apply them systematically with the best help
that scholarship supplies. Let us consider how this is to be
done.
In the Bible, God and man meet together, and hold such
converse as is the abiding pattern and rule of all religious
experience. In this simple fact lies the key to all those
puzzles about the divine and human side of the Bible with
which people are so much exercised. We hear many speak
of the human side of the Bible as if there were something
dangerous about it, as if it ought to be kept out of sight lest
it tempt us to forget that the Bible is the Word of God. And
there is a widespread feeling that, though the Bible no doubt
authentic Hebrew sources for the canonical history, except those preserved in
the Bible.
It is only in quite recent times that the lack of contemporary books
illustrative of the Old Testament period has been partly supplied by the
discovery and decipherment of the monumental inscriptions of Palestine (the
Moabite stone, the inscription of Siloam, the Phoenician inscriptions) and the
cuneiform records of Babylonia, Assyria, and Persia. Valuable as these
new sources are, they touch only individual parts of the Biblical record. The
Egyptian monuments, again, from which so much was hoped, have hitherto
given little help for Bible history.
lect. I OF THE BIBLE
has a human side, a safe and edifying exegesis must confine
itself to the divine side. This point of view is a survival of
the mediaeval exegesis which buried the true sense of Scrip-
ture. Of course, as long as you hold that the whole worth of
Eevelation lies in abstract doctrines, supernaturally communi-
cated to the intellect and not to the heart, the idea that there
is a human life in the Bible is purely disturbing. But if the
Bible sets forth the personal converse of God with man, it is
absolutely essential to look at the human side. The prophets
and psalmists were not mere impassive channels through
whose lips or pens God poured forth an abstract doctrine.
He spoke not only through them, but to them and in them.
They had an intelligent share in the Divine converse with
them; and we can no more understand the Divine Word
without taking them into account than we can understand a
human conversation without taking account of both inter-
locutors. To try to suppress the human side of the Bible, in
the interests of the purity of the Divine Word, is as great a
folly as to think that a father's talk with his child can be
best reported by leaving out everything which the child said,
thought, and felt.
The first condition of a sound understanding of Scripture
is to give full recognition to the human side, to master the
whole situation and character and feelings of each human
interlocutor who has a part in the drama of Eevelation.
Nay, the whole business of scholarly exegesis lies with this human
side. All that earthly study and research can do for the
reader of Scripture is to put him in the position of the man
to whose heart God first spoke. What is more than this lies
beyond our wisdom. It is only the Spirit of God that can
make the Word a living word to our hearts, as it was a living
word to him who first received it. This is the truth which
the Westminster Confession expresses when it teaches, in
harmony with all the Eeformed Symbols, that our full per-
14 THE HISTORICAL lect. i
suasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine
authority of Scripture is from the inward work of the Holy-
Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
And here, as we at once perceive, the argument reaches a
practical issue. We not only see that the principles of the
Eeformation demand a systematic study of Scripture upon
lines of research which were foreign to the Church before the
Eeformation ; but we are able to fix the method by which
such study must be carried on. It is our duty as Protestants
to interpret Scripture historically. The Bible itself has a
history. It was not written at one time, or by a single pen.
It comprises a number of books and pieces given to the
Church by many instrumentalities and at various times. It
is our business to separate these elements from one another,
to examine them one by one, and to comprehend each piece
in the sense which it had for the first writer, and in its rela-
tion to the needs of God's people at the time when it was
written. In proportion as we succeed in this task, the mind
of the Bevealer in each of His many communications with
mankind will become clear to us. We shall be able to follow
His gracious converse with His people of old from point to
point. Instead of appropriating at random so much of the
Word as is at once perspicuous, or guessing darkly at the
sense of things obscure, we shall learn to understand God's
teaching in its natural connection. By this means we shall
be saved from arbitrariness in our interpretations. For of this
we may be assured, that there was nothing arbitrary in God's
plan of revelation. He spoke to the prophets of old, as the
Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, " in many parts and in many
ways." There was variety in the method of His revelation ;
and each individual oracle, taken by itself, was partial and
incomplete. But none of these things was without its reason.
The method of revelation was a method of education. God
spake to Israel as one speaks to tender weanlings (Isa. xxviii.
lect. i STUDY OF SCRIPTURE 1 5
9), giving precept after precept, line upon line, here a little
and there a little. He followed this course that each precept,
as He gave it, might be understood, and lay a moral responsi-
bility on those who received it (ver. 13) ; and if our study
follows close in the lines of the divine teaching, we too,
receiving the Word like little children, shall be in the right
way to understand it in all its progress, and in all the mani-
fold richness of its meaning. But to do so, I again repeat,
we must put ourselves alongside of the first hearers. What
was clear and plain enough to the obedient heart then is not
necessarily clear and plain to us now, if we receive it in a
different attitude. God's word was delivered in the language
of men, and is not exempt from the necessary laws and limit-
ations of human speech. Now it is a law of all speech, and
especially of all speech upon personal matters, that the speaker
must express himself to the understanding of his hearer, pre-
supposing in him a certain preparation, a certain mental
attitude, a certain degree of familiarity with and interest in
the subject. When a third person strikes into a conversation,
he cannot follow it unless, as the familiar phrase has it, he
knows where they are. So it is with the Bible. And here
historical study comes in. The mind of God is unchangeable.
His purpose of love is invariable from first to last. The
manifold variety of Scripture, the changing aspects of Bible
truth, depend on no change in Him, but wholly on the vary-
ing circumstances and needs of the men who received the
Eevelation. It is with their life and feelings that we must
get into sympathy, in order to understand what God spoke
to them. We must read the Bible as the record of the
history of grace, and as itself a part of the history. And this
we must do with all patience, not weary though our study
does not at each moment yield an immediate fruit of practical
edification, if only it conducts us on the sure road to edifica-
tion by carrying us along the actual path trodden by God's
16 OBJECTS AND METHOD lect. i
people of old ; if, opening to us their needs, their hopes, their
trials, even their errors and sins, it enables our ears to receive
the same voice which they heard behind them, saying, " This
is the way; walk ye in it" (Isa. xxx. 21). It is the glory of
the Bible that it invites and satisfies such study, — that its
manifold contents, the vast variety of its topics, the extra-
ordinary diversities of its structure and style, constitute an
inexhaustible mine of the richest historical interest, in which
generation after generation can labour, always bringing forth
some new thing, and with each new discovery coming closer
to a full understanding of the supreme wisdom and love of
Him who speaks in all Scripture.
And now let us come to the point. In sketching the
principles and aims of a truly Protestant study of Scripture
I have not used the word criticism, but I have been describ-
ing the thing. Historical criticism may be defined without
special reference to the Bible, for it is applicable, and is daily
applied without dispute, to every ancient literature and every
ancient history. The critical study of ancient documents
means nothing else than the careful sifting of their origin and
meaning in the light of history. The first principle of
criticism is that every book bears the stamp of the time and
circumstances in which it was produced. An ancient book
is, so to speak, a fragment of ancient life ; and to understand
it aright we must treat it as a living thing, as a bit of the
life of the author and his time, which we shall not fully
understand without putting ourselves back into the age in
which it was written. People talk much of destructive
criticism, as if the critic's one delight were to prove that
things which men have long believed are not true, and that
books were not written by the authors whose names they
bear. But the true critic has for his business, not to destroy,
but to build up. The critic is an interpreter, but one who
has a larger view of his task than the man of mere grammars
lect. i OF SOUND CRITICISM 17
and dictionaries, — one who is not content to reproduce the
words of his author, but strives to enter into sympathy with
his thoughts, and to understand the thoughts as part of the
life of the thinker and of his time. In this process the
occasional destruction of some traditional opinion is a mere
incident.
Ancient books coming down to us from a period many
centuries before the invention of printing have necessarily
undergone many vicissitudes. Some of them are preserved
only in imperfect copies made by an ignorant scribe of the
dark ages. Others have been disfigured by editors, who
mixed up foreign matter with the original text. Very often
an important book fell altogether out of sight for a long time,
and when it came to light again all knowledge of its origin
was gone ; for old books did not generally have title-pages
and prefaces. And, when such a nameless roll was again
brought into notice, some half-informed reader or transcriber
was not unlikely to give it a new title of his own devising,
which was handed down thereafter as if it had been original.
Or again, the true meaning and purpose of a book often
became obscure in the lapse of centuries, and led to false
interpretations. Once more, antiquity has handed down to
us many writings which are sheer forgeries, like some of the
Apocryphal books, or the Sibylline oracles, or those famous
Epistles of Phalaris which formed the subject of Bentley's
great critical essay. In all such cases the historical critic
must destroy the received view, in order to establish the
truth. He must review doubtful titles, purge out interpola-
tions, expose forgeries ; but he does so only to manifest the
truth, and exhibit the genuine remains of antiquity in their
real character. A book that is really old and really valuable
has nothing to fear from the critic, whose labours can only
put its worth in a clearer light, and establish its authority on
a surer basis.
18 PROTESTANT AND CRITICAL lect. i
In a word, it is the business of the critic to trace back
the steps by which any ancient book has been transmitted to
us, to find where it came from and who wrote it, to examine
the occasion of its composition, and search out every link
that connects it with the history of the ancient world and
with the personal life of the author.
This is exactly what Protestant principles direct us to do
with the several parts of the Bible. We have to go back
step by step, and retrace the history of the sacred volume up
to the first origin of each separate writing which it contains.
In doing this we must use every light that can be brought
to bear on the subject. Every fact is welcome, whether it
come from Jewish tradition, or from a comparison of old
MSS. and versions, or from an examination of the several
books with one another and of each book in its own inner
structure. It is not needful in starting to lay down any
fixed rules of procedure. The ordinary laws of evidence and
good sense must be our guides. For the transmission of the
Bible is not due to a continued miracle, but to a watchful
Providence ruling the ordinary means by which all ancient
books have been handed down. And finally, when we have
worked our way back through the long centuries which
separate us from the age of Eevelation, we must, as we have
already seen, study each writing and make it speak for itself
on the common principles of sound exegesis. There is no
discordance between the religious and the scholarly
methods of study. They lead to the same goal; and the
more closely our study fulfils the demands of historical
scholarship, the more fully will it correspond with our
religious needs.
I know what is said in answer to all this. We have no
objection, say the opponents of Biblical criticism, to any
amount of historical study, but it is not legitimate historical
study that has produced the current results of Biblical
lect. i METHODS IDENTICAL 1 9
criticism. These results, say they, are based on the
rationalistic assumption that the supernatural is impossible,
and that everything in the Bible which asserts the existence
of a real personal communication of God with man is
necessarily untrue. My answer to this objection is very
simple. We have not got to results yet ; I am only lay in o-
down a method, and a method, as we have seen, which is in
full accordance with, and imperatively prescribed by, the
Eeformation doctrine of the Word of God. We are agreed,
it appears, that the method is a true one. Let us go forward
and apply it ; and if in the application you find me calling
in a rationalistic principle, if you can show at any step in my
argument that I assume the impossibility of the supernatural,
or reject plain facts in the interests of rationalistic theories,
I will frankly confess that I am in the wrong. But, on the
other hand, you must remember that all truth is one, that the
God who gave us the Bible has also given us faculties of
reason and gifts of scholarship with which to study the
Bible, and that the true meaning of Scripture is not to be
measured by preconceived notions, but determined as the
result of legitimate research. Only of this I am sure at the
outset, that the Bible does speak to the heart of man in words
that can only come from God — that no historical research
can deprive me of this conviction, or make less precious the
divine utterances that speak straight to the heart. For the
language of these words is so clear that no readjustment of
their historical setting can conceivably change the substance
of them. Historical study may throw a new light on the
circumstances in which they were first heard or written. In
that there can only be gain. But the plain, central, heartfelt
truths that speak for themselves and rest on their own inde-
feasible worth will assuredly remain to us. No amount of
change in the background of a picture can make white black
or black white, though by restoring the right background
20 BIBLICAL STUDY lect. i
where it has been destroyed the harmony and balance of the
whole composition may be immeasurably improved.
So it is with the Bible. The supreme truths which speak
to every believing heart, the way of salvation which is the
same in all ages, the clear voice of God's love so tender and
personal and simple that a child can understand it — these
are things which must abide with us, and prove themselves
mighty from age to age apart from all scientific study. But
those who love the truth will not shrink from any toil that
can help us to a fuller insight into all its details and all its
setting ; and those whose faith is firmly fixed on the things
that cannot be moved will not doubt that every new advance
in Biblical study must in the end make God's great scheme
of grace appear in fuller beauty and glory.
LECTUEE II
CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION AND JEWISH TRADITION
At our last meeting, I endeavoured to convey to you a general
conception of the methods and objects of Biblical criticism,
and to show that the very same rules for the prosecution of
this branch of Biblical study may be derived either from the
general principles of historical science or from the theological
principles of the Protestant Eeformation. "We ended by see-
ing that it was the duty of criticism to start with the Bible as
it has been delivered to us, and as it now is in our hands, and
to endeavour to trace back the history of its transmission, and
of the vicissitudes through which it has passed, up to the time
of the original authors, so that we may be able to take an
historical view of the origin of each individual writing of the
Old Testament, and of the meaning which it had to those who
first received it and to him who first wrote it.
For this purpose, in speaking to a general audience, it is
necessary for me to begin with the English Bible. The Eng-
lish Bible which we are accustomed to use gives us the Old
Testament as it was understood by Protestant scholars at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. It is not necessary
for our present purpose that I should dwell upon the minor
differences which separate the Version of 1611 from other
versions made about the same period or a little earlier.
Speaking broadly, it is sufficient to say that the Authorised
22 EXEGESIS OF THE lect.ii
Version represents in a very admirable manner the under-
standing of the Old Testament which had been attained by-
Protestant scholarship at the beginning of the seventeenth
century. We are now to look back and inquire what are
the links connecting our English Bible with the original
autographs of the sacred writers.
The Protestant versions, of which our Bible is one, were
products of the Beformation. To a certain extent they were
products of the controversy with the Church of Borne. In
other words, there were at that time two main views current
in Europe, and among the scholars of Europe, as to the proper
way of dealing with the Bible — as to the canon of Scripture,
the authentic text, and the method of interpretation. The
Pre-Beformation exegesis, with which the Protestants had to
contend, was the natural descendant of the exegesis of the
Old Catholic Church, as it was formed in opposition to the
heretics, as far back in part as the second century after
Christ. At the time of Luther, as we have already seen,
there was no dispute between Protestants and Catholics as to
the authority of Scripture ; both parties admitted that autho-
rity to be supreme, but they were divided on the question of
the true meaning of Scripture. According to the Old Church,
on which the Catholic party rested, the Bible was not clear
and intelligible by its own light like an ordinary book. It
was taken for granted that the use of the Bible lies in those
doctrines higher than reason, those noetic truths, as they were
called, of a divine philosophy, which it contains. But the
earliest fathers of the Catholic Church already saw quite
clearly that the supposed abstract and noetic truths did not
lie on the surface of Scripture. To an ordinary reader the
Bible appears something quite different from a body of
supernatural mysteries and abstract philosophic doctrines.
This observation was made by the Catholic fathers, but it
did not lead them, nor did it lead the Gnostic heretics, with
lect. ii OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH 23
whom they were engaged in controversy, to anticipate the
great discovery of the Reformation, and to see that the real
meaning of the Bible must be its natural meaning. On the
contrary, the orthodox and the Gnostics alike continued to
look in the Bible for mysteries concealed under the plain text
of Scripture — mysteries which could only be reached by some
form of allegorical interpretation. Of course, the allegorical
exegesis yielded to every party exactly those principles which
that party desired ; and so the controversy between the
Gnostics and the Catholic Church could not be decided on
the ground of the Bible alone, which both sides interpreted
in an equally arbitrary manner. To tell the truth, it would
have been very difficult indeed for Christian theologians in
those days to reach a sound and satisfactory exegesis, con-
ducted upon principles which we could now accept. Very
few theologians in the churches of the Gentiles possessed the
linguistic knowledge necessary to understand the original text
of the Old Testament. Hebrew scholars were few and far
between, and the Doctors of the Church were habitually
dependent upon the Alexandrian Greek translation, called
the Septuagint or Version of the Seventy. To this transla-
tion we shall have to advert at greater length by and by.
At present it is enough to say that it was a version composed
in Egypt and current among the Jews of Alexandria a con-
siderable time before the Christian era, and that it spread
contemporaneously with the preaching of the Gospel through
all parts of Christendom where Greek was understood. In
many parts of the Old Testament this translation was very
obscure and really did not yield clear sense to any natural
method of exegesis. But indeed, apart from the disadvantage
of being thrown back upon the Septuagint, the Christians
could not have hoped to understand the Old Testament better
than their Jewish contemporaries. Even if they had set
themselves to study the original text, they would have
24 EASTERN EXEGESIS lect. n
required to take their whole knowledge of the Hebrew Bible
from the Jews, who were the only masters that could then
have instructed them in the language ; and in fact, while the
Western churches were mainly dependent on the Septuagint,
and struck out an independent line of interpretation on the
basis of that version, the exegesis of the Oriental churches
continued to be largely guided by the teaching of the
Synagogue. In Syria and beyond the river Euphrates, the
Bible was interpreted by Christian scholars who spoke Syriac
— a language akin to Hebrew — upon the methods of the
Jewish schools ; but by this time the Jews themselves had
fallen into an abyss of artificial Eabbinical interpretation,
from which little true light could be derived for the under-
standing of Scripture. The influence of the Jewish interpret-
ation which ruled in the East can be traced, not only in the
old Syriac translation called the Peshito (or Peshitta), but in
the writings of later Syriac divines. In the Homilies of
Aphraates, for example, which belong to the first half of the
fourth century, we find clear evidence that the Biblical train-
ing and exegetical methods of the author, who, living in the
far East, was not a Greek scholar, were largely derived from
the Jewish doctors ; and the operation of the same influences
can be followed far down into the Middle Ages.
Accordingly, in the absence of a satisfactory and scientific
interpretation, the conflict of opinions between the orthodox
and the heretics was decided on another principle. The
apostles, it was said, had received the mysteries of divine
truth from our Lord, and had committed them in plain and
living words to the apostolic churches. This is a point to
which the ancient fathers constantly recur. The written
1 See, especially, the Arabic catena on Genesis published by Professor
Lagarde in his Matcrialien zur Kritik und Gcschichte des Pentateuchs (Leipzig,
1867) from a Carshunic MS. of the sixteenth century. This compilation of a
Syriac scribe is full of Jewish traditions, and even in form, as the editor
observes, is quite of the character of a Jewish Midrash.
lect. n THE VULGATE 25
word, they say, is necessarily ambiguous and difficult, but
the spoken word of the apostles was clear and transparent.
In the apostolic churches, then, the sum of true doctrine has
been handed down in an accurate form ; and the consent of
the apostolic churches as to the mysteries of faith forms the
rule of sound exegesis. Any interpretation of Scripture, say
the fathers, is necessarily false if it differs from the ecclesiastical
canon — that is, from the received doctrinal testimony of
the great apostolic churches, such as Corinth, Rome, and
Alexandria, in which the teaching of the apostles still lived
as it had been handed down by oral tradition.1
Such were the principles of exegesis to which the Catholic
Church adhered up to the time of the Reformation. New
elements were added from time to time to the body of
ecclesiastical tradition, and in particular a very great change
took place with regard to the received edition of the Old
Testament. "When the theory of the ecclesiastical canon was
first formed, the churches of Europe read either the Greek
translation of the Septuagint or a Latin text formed from the
Septuagint ; but about the year 400 A.D., Jerome, a man of
unusual learning for that age, who had studied under Jewish
teachers, made a new version direct from the Hebrew, which
was greatly assailed at the time as a dangerous innovation,
but by and by came to be accepted in the Latin churches as
the authentic and received edition of the Bible. When I say
that Jerome's version was received by the "Western churches,
1 On the Ilegula Fidei, and its connection with the ambiguity of the
allegorical interpretation, so keenly felt in controversy with heretics, compare
Diestel, Gcschichte des alten Testaments in der Christlichai Kirche, p. 38
(Irenseus, Tertullian), p. 85 (Augustine). The principle is clearly laid down by
Origen : "Many think that they have the mind of Christ, and not a few differ
from the opinions of the earlier Christians ; but the preaching of the Church,
handed down in regular succession from the Apostles, still abides, and is
present in the Church. Therefore, the only truth to be believed is that which
in no point departs from ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition." (Princij*.,
Praef. § 2. )
2 6 THE VULGATE lect. n
it is proper to observe that it was not received in all its purity,
and that the text of this Vulgate or received version (the
word vulgate means " currently received "), as it actually
existed in the Middle Ages and at the time of the Eeforrna-
tion, was considerably modified by things which had been
carried over from the older Latin translations taken from the
Greek. Still, the Western Church supposed itself to receive
the version of Jerome as the authoritative and vulgate version,
and this new Vulgate replaced the old Vulgate, the Greek
Septuagint translation made by the Jews in Egypt before the
time of Christ.
The Eeformers, who were well read in church history,
sometimes met their opponents by pointing out that the
ecclesiastical tradition on which the Catholics relied as the
proper norm or rule of interpretation had itself undergone
change in the course -of centuries, and they often appealed
with success to the earliest fathers against those views of
truth which were current in their own times. But Luther's
fundamental conception of revelation made it impossible for
the Protestants to submit their understanding of the Bible
even to the earliest and purest form of the ecclesiastical
canon. The ecclesiastical canon — the standard of doctrinal
interpretation based on the supposed consent of the apostolic
churches — had, as we have seen, been first invented in order
to get over the ambiguities of the allegorical method of
interpretation. When Luther taught the people that the
Bible can be understood like any other book, that the true
meaning of its words is the natural sense which appeals to
ordinary Christian intelligence, it was plain that for him this
whole method of ecclesiastical tradition as the rule of exegesis
no longer had any meaning or value.
The Church of Borne, after the Beformation began, took
up a definite and formal battle-ground against Protestantism
in the Decrees of the Council of Trent. The positions laid
lect. ii THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 27
down by the Doctors of Trent in opposition to the movement
headed by Luther were these : —
I. The supreme rule of faith and life is contained in the
written books and the unwritten traditions of Christ and his
Apostles, dictated by the Holy Spirit and handed clown by
continual succession in the Catholic Church.
II. The canonical books are those books in all their parts
which are read in the Catholic Church and contained in the
Latin Vulgate version, the authenticity of which is accepted
as sufficiently proved by its long use in the Catholic
Church.
III. The interpretation of Scripture must be conformed
to the tenets of Holy Mother Church and the unanimous
consent of the Fathers.
The Eeformers traversed all these three positions ; for
they denied the validity of unwritten tradition ; they refused
to admit the authority of the Vulgate, and appealed to the
original text ; and finally, they denied the existence and still
more the authority of the consent of the Fathers, and ad-
mitted no principle for the interpretation of the Bible that
would not be sound if applied to another book. They affirmed
that the reader has a right to form his own private judgment
on the sense of Scripture ; by which, of course, they did not
mean that one man's judgment is as good as another's, but
only that the sense of a controverted passage must be decided
by argument and not by authority. The one rule of exposi-
tion which they laid down as possessing authority for the
Church was that in a disputed point of doctrine the sense of
an obscure passage must be ruled by passages which are more
plain. And this, as you will easily observe, is, strictly speak-
ing, not a rule of interpretation but a principle of theology.
It rather tells us which passage we are to choose for the
proof or disproof of any doctrine than helps us to get the
exact sense of a disputed text. All that it really means is
28 AUTHORITY OF THE lect. n
this — " Form your doctrines from plain texts, and do not be
led astray from the teaching of plain passages by a meaning
which some one may extort from an obscure one." So far as
the principle is exegetical, it simply means that an all-wise
Author — for to the Reformers God is the author of all Scrip-
ture— cannot contradict Himself.
I need not say more upon the first and third positions of
the Council of Trent ; but the second position, as to the
claims of the standard Vulgate edition, is a point which
requires more attention. In making the Vulgate the standard
edition, the Council of Trent implied two things : — (1) that
the Vulgate contains all the canonical books in their true
text ; and (2) that the translation, if not perfect, is exempt
from errors affecting doctrine. The Roman Catholics, of
course, did not mean to assert that in every particular the
Vulgate edition represents the exact text and meaning of the
original writers. In justice to them, we must say that for
their contention that was not necessary, because all along
what they wished to get at was not the meaning of the
original writers, but the body of doctrine which had the seal
of the authority of the Church ; and therefore, from their
point of view, the authenticity of the text of the Vulgate was
sufficiently proved by the fact that the infallible Church had
long used that text without finding any ground of complaint
against it ; and the authority of the translation, in like
manner, was sufficiently supported by the fact that theo-
logians had always been able to deduce from it the received
doctrines of the Church. That, no doubt, was what they
meant. Nevertheless, the two theses which they laid down
were very curiously at variance with what Jerome, the
author of the Vulgate version, had once and again said about
the value of his own labours. They affirmed that the Vulgate
contained all the canonical books and none else, and that it
contained those books in the true text. Jerome, on the con-
LECT. 11
LATIN VULGATE 29
traiy, in that prologue to part of his translation which is
generally called the Prologus galeatus, regards all books as
apocryphal which he did not translate directly from the
Hebrew ; and, following this rule, he excludes from the
canon, that is, from the number of books that possess authority
in matters of doctrine, the Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus,
Judith, Tobit, Baruch, and also the two books of the Macca-
bees, although he had seen the first of these in Hebrew. The
Council of Trent accepts all these books as canonical, and
also certain additions to Daniel and Esther which are not
found in the Hebrew text.1
The second position of the Doctors of Trent also reads
curiously in the light of Jerome's own remarks. According
to the Council of Trent, the whole translation of Jerome is
accurate for all purposes of doctrine, but Jerome in his pre-
faces makes a very different claim for himself. "What he
says is this : " Tf you observe my version to vary from the
1 Prologus galeatus. — " This prologue may fit all the books which we have
translated from the Hebrew. Books outside of these are apocryphal. There-
fore the so-called Wisdom of Solomon, the book of Jesus son of Sirach, Judith,
Tobit, and The Shepherd are not canonical. The first book of Maccabees I
found in Hebrew, the second is Greek, as may be proved from its very idiom. "
Praef. in Jeremiam. — " We have passed by the book of Baruch, Jeremiah's
amanuensis, which the Hebrews neither read nor possess."
Praef. in Librum Esther. — " The Book of Esther has unquestionably been
vitiated by various translators. I have translated it word for word as it
stands in the Hebrew archives."
Praef. in Daniclem. — "The story of Susanna, the Song of the Three
Children, and the fables of Bel and the Dragon are not found in the Hebrew
Daniel ; but as they are current throughout the world we have added them at
the end, marking them with an obelus, lest the ignorant should fancy us to
have excised a great part of the volume." Jerome adds an interesting account
of arguments against the additions to Daniel, which he had heard from a
Jewish doctor, leaving the decision to his readers.
Of the Apocryphal books contained in the English Authorised version of
1611, three are not accepted as canonical by the Church of Rome, viz. First
and Second Esdras (otherwise called Third and Fourth Esdras), and the
Prayer of Manasseh. The canonicity of the additions to Esther and Daniel is
rightly held by Bellarmin to be implied in the decree of Trent which accepts
the books of the Old Testament, "cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ecclesia
catholica legi consueverunt." {Controv. I. De Verio Dei, Lib. i. capp. 7, 9.)
30 JEROME AND
LECT. II
Greek or Latin copies in your hands, ask the most trust-
worthy Jew you can find, and see if he does not agree with
me." * Once and again Jerome claims this, and only this, for
his version, that it agrees with the best Jewish tradition ; in
other words, Jerome sought to correct the current Bibles of
his day according to the Hebrew text, as the Jews of his
time received it, and to give an interpretation on a level
with the best Jewish scholarship. He did this partly by
the aid of earlier translations from the Hebrew into the
Greek (Aquila, Theodotion, but especially Symmachus) made
after the time of Christ, and more in accordance than the
Septuagint with the later Eabbinical scholarship ; 2 and
partly by the help of learned Jews. On one occasion, he tells
us, he brought a famous Eabbi from Tiberias to instruct him.
At another time he brought a Jewish scholar from Lydda ;
and in particular he speaks of one called Bar Anina, a teacher
who came to him by night for fear of his co-religionists,
while the translator resided in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.3
1 The quotation is from the Prologus galeattis. Compare the preface to
Chronicles addressed to Doninio and Rogatianus.
2 The version of Aquila, a Jewish proselyte and disciple of the famous
Rabbi Akiba, was made expressly in the interests of Jewish exegesis, and
reproduced with scrupulous accuracy the received text of the second
Christian century. Symmachus and Theodotion followed later, but still in the
second century. The former, according to Eusebius and Jerome, was an
Ebionite, one of the sect of Jewish Christians who still held to the observance
of the law, like the opponents of Paul. It is uncertain whether Theodotion
was an Ebionite (Jerome), or a proselyte (Irenreus). Aquila, says Jerome,
sought to reproduce the Hebrew word for word ; Symmachus aimed at a clear
expression of the sense ; while Theodotion rather sought to give a revised
edition not very divergent from the Greek of the Septuagint. These versions
were arranged in parallel columns in the Hexapla of Origen, composed in the
first half of the third century. The fragments of them which remain in Greek
MSS. of the Septuagint, in the Patristic literature, or in the Syriac transla-
tion of the fifth column of the Hexapla made by Paul of Telia, in Alexandria,
617 A.D., are collected in Dr. Field's edition, Origenis Hexaplorum quae
supersunt (Oxford, 1867-75).
3 Praef. in Librum Job.— "To understand this book I procured, at no
small cost, a doctor from Lydda, who was deemed to hold the first place
among the Hebrews."
lect. ii HIS TEACHERS 3 1
In their earlier controversies with the Eornan Catholics,
the Protestants simply fell back upon these facts, quoting
Jerome against the Council of Trent, as is done, for example,
in the sixth of the Articles of the Church of England.1 They
quoted Jerome, and therefore adopted his definition that all
books which were not extant in Hebrew and admitted to the
canon of the Jews in the day of Jerome are apocryphal and
not to be cited in proof of a disputed doctrine. Beyond that
they did not care to press the question of the canon. There
were differences among themselves as to the value of the
Apocrypha on the one hand, and as to the canonicity of
Esther and some other books of the old canon upon the other.
But it was enough for the Protestants in controversy with
Eome to be able to refuse a proof text drawn from the
Apocryphal books, upon the plain ground that the authority
of these books was challenged even by many of the fathers.
Thus Calvin, in his Antidote to the Council of Trent, is
willing to leave the question of the canon open, contenting
himself with the observation that the intrinsic qualities of
the Apocryphal books display a manifest inferiority to the
canonical writings.2
Praef. in Chron. ad D. et R. — "When your letters reached me, asking a
Latin version of Chronicles, I got a doctor of Tiberias, in high esteem among
the Hebrews, and with him collated everything, as the proverb goes, from the
crown of the head to the tip of the nails. Thus confirmed, I have ventured
to comply with your request." Bar Anina is named in Epist. 84. Jerome
never gained such a knowledge of Hebrew as gave him confidence to dispense
with the aid of the Jews.
1 The passage quoted in Art. VI. is from Praef. in llbros Salomonis. — "As
the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not
receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so let her read these two books
[Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon] for the edification of the laity,
but not to confirm the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines."
2 "On their promiscuous acceptance of all books into the Canon, I will
say no more than that herein they depart from the consensus of the early
Church. For it is known what Jerome reports as the common judgment of
the ancients. ... I am not aware, however, that the decree of Trent agrees
with the third (Ecumenical Council, which Augustine follows in his book De
Doctrina Christiana. But as Augustine testifies that all were not agreed upon
32 HEBREW LEARNING lect. ti
On the question of the true interpretation of Scripture
they had much more to say. The revival of letters in the
fifteenth century had raised a keen interest in ancient lan-
guages, and scholars who had mastered Greek as well as
Latin were ambitious to acid to their knowledge a third
learned tongue, viz. the Hebrew. At first this ambition
met with many difficulties. The original text of the Old
Testament was preserved only among the scholars of the
Synagogue. It was impossible to learn Hebrew except from
Jewish teachers ; and orthodox Jews refused to teach men
who were not of their own faith. Gradually, however, these
obstacles were surmounted. Towards the close of the fifteenth
century, Hebrew Bibles began to be printed, and some know-
ledge of the Hebrew tongue became disseminated to a con-
siderable extent ; and at length, in the year 1506, John
Eeuchlin, the great supporter of Hebrew studies north of the
Alps, put forth in Latin his Rudiments of the Hebrew lan-
guage. This Latin work, which was something of the nature
of both grammar and dictionary, was almost entirely taken
from the Hebrew manuals of the famous Jewish scholar and
lexicographer, Eabbi David Kimhi, who flourished about the
year 1200 a.d. As soon as Christians were furnished in this
way with text-books, the new learning spread rapidly. It
ran over Europe just at the time when the Eeformation was
spreading, and the Eeformers, always keenly alive to the best
and most modern learning of their time, read the Old Testa-
ment in the original Hebrew, and often found occasion to
differ from Jerome's version. Observe, they agreed with
Jerome in principle. They, like him, aimed only at render-
ing the text as the best Hebrew scholars would do, and to
them, as to him, the standard of scholarship was that of the
the matter in his time, let this point be left open. But if arguments are to
be drawn from the books themselves, there are many proofs, besides their
idiom, that they ought to take a lower place than the fathers of Trent award
to them," etc. Compare the statement, Tastitut. iv. 9, § 14.
lect. ir OF THE REFORMERS 33
most learned Jews. But when Jerome wrote, there was
no such thing in existence as a Hebrew grammar and dic-
tionary ; there were no written commentaries to which a
Christian scholar had access. The Reformers had the text-
book of Eeuchlin, the grammar and lexicon of Kimhi, the
commentaries of many Rabbins of the Middle Ages, with
other helps denied to Jerome, and therefore they knew that
their new learning put them in a position to criticise his
work. Often, indeed, they undervalued Jerome's labours,
and this ultimately led to controversies between Protestants
and Catholics, which were fruitful of instruction to both
sides. But, on the whole, the Reforming scholars did know
Hebrew better than Jerome, and their versions, including our
English Bible, approached much more nearly than his to the
ideal common to both, — which was to give the sense of the
Old Testament as it was understood by the best Jewish
scholars. Of course, the Jewish authorities themselves some-
times differed from one another. In such cases, the Pro-
testants leant sometimes on one authority, sometimes on
another. Luther was much influenced (through Nicolaus de
Lyra) by the commentaries of R. Solomon of Troyes, gener-
ally called Rashi, who died 1105 a.d. Our Bible is mainly
guided by the grammar and lexicon of the later scholar,
R. David Kimhi of Narbonne, who has already been men-
tioned as the author of the most current text-books of the
Hebrew language. But the point which I wish you to
observe is that the Reformers and their successors, up to the
time when all our Protestant versions were fixed, were in the
hands of the Rabbins in all matters of Hebrew scholarship.
Their object in the sixteenth century, like Jerome's in the
fourth, was simply to give to the vulgar the fruit of the best
Jewish learning, applied to the translation of the Scriptures
received among the Jews.
It may be asked why the Reformers stopped here. But
3
34 SCHOLARSHIP OF THE lect. ii
the answer is clear enough. They went as far as the scholar-
ship of the age would carry them. All sound Hebrew
learning then resided with the Jewish doctors, and so the
Protestant scholars became their disciples.
But it would be absurd to suppose that the men who
refused to accept the authority of Christian tradition as to the
number of books in the canon, the best text of the Old Testa-
ment, or the principles upon which that text is to be trans-
lated, adopted it as a principle of faith that the Jewish tradi-
tion upon all these points is final. Luther again and again
showed that he submitted to no such authority ; and if the
Reformers and their first successors practically accepted the
results of Jewish scholarship upon all these questions, they
did so merely because these results were in accordance with
the best lights then attainable. It was left for a later gener-
ation, which had lost the courage of the first Reformers
because it had lost much of their clear insight into divine
things, to substitute an authoritative Jewish tradition for the
authoritative tradition of the Catholic Church — to swear by
the Jewish canon and the Massoretic text as the Romanists
swore by the Tridentine canon and the Vulgate text. The
Reformers had too much reverence for God's Word to subject
it to the bondage of any tradition. They would gladly have
accepted any further light of learning, carrying them back
behind the time of Rabbinical Judaism to the first ages of
the Old Testament writings.
Scholarship moved onwards, and as research was carried
farther it gradually became plain that it was possible for
Biblical students, with the material still preserved to them,
to get behind the Jewish Rabbins, upon whom our translators
were still dependent, and to draw from the sacred stream at
a point nearer its source. I have now to explain how this
was seen to be the case.
"From the time when the Old Testament was written,
lect. ii JEWISH RABBINS 35
down to the sixteenth century, there was no continuous
tradition of sound Hebrew learning except among the Jews.
The little that Christians knew about the Old Testament at
first hand had always come from the Rabbins. Among the
Jews, on the contrary, there was a continuous scholarly tradi-
tion. The knowledge of Hebrew and the most received ways
of explaining the Old Testament were handed down from
generation to generation along with the original text. I ask
you to understand precisely what this means. Before the
time of Christ, the Jews had already ceased to speak Hebrew.
In the New Testament, no doubt, we read once and again of
the Hebrew tongue as spoken and understood by the people
of Palestine ; but the vernacular of the Palestinian Jews in
the first century was a dialect as unlike to that of the
Bible as German is to English — a different language, although
a kindred one. This language is called Hebrew because it
was spoken by the Hebrews, just as the Spanish Jews in
Constantinople at the present day call their Spanish jargon
Hebrew. It was a form of Western Aramaic, which the
Jews had gradually substituted for the tongue of their ances-
tors, after their return from captivity, when they found them-
selves a small handful living in the midst of nations who
spoke Aramaic, and with whom they had constant dealings.
In those days Aramaic was the language of business and of
government in the countries between the Euphrates and the
Mediterranean, just as English is in the Highlands of Scot-
land, and so the Jews forgot their own tongue for it, as the
Scottish Celts are now forgetting Gaelic for English. This
process had already gone on to a great extent before the latest
books of the Old Testament were completed.1 Such writers
1 On the assumption that the Aramaic part of Daniel was written in
Chaldsea by Daniel himself, the Biblical Aramaic used to be called Chaldee,
and it was supposed that the Jews forgot their old tongue and learned that of
Chaldsea during the Captivity. It is now known that this opinion is alto-
gether false. The Aramaic dialect of the Jews in Palestine, of which the
36 SCHOLARSHIP OF THE lect. n
as the authors of Chronicles and Ecclesiastes still use the old
language of Israel for literary purposes, but in a way which
shows that their thoughts often ran not in Hebrew but in
Aramaic. They use Aramaic words and idioms which would
have puzzled Moses and David, and in some of the later Old
Testament books, in Ezra and in Daniel, although not in
those parts of the former book which are autobiographical
and written by Ezra himself, there actually are inserted in
the Hebrew long Aramaic passages. Before the time of
Christ, people who were not scholars had ceased to under-
stand Hebrew altogether;1 and in the synagogue, when the
Bible was read, a Meturgeman, as he was called, that is, a
" dragoman," or qualified translator, had to rise and give the
sense of the passage in the vulgar dialect. The Pentateuch
was read verse by verse, or in lessons from the Prophets
three verses were read together, and then the Meturgeman
rose, and did not read, but give orally in Aramaic the sense
of the original.2 The old Hebrew, then, was by this time a
so-called Chaldee parts of Ezra and Daniel are the oldest monuments, is not
Babylonian, but Western in character, as appears unmistakably by compari-
son with the Aramaic monuments of other districts west of the Euphrates.
Peculiarities, for example, which used to be characterised as Hebraisms,
reappear on the Palmyrene and Nabatsean inscriptions. The Jews, therefore,
lost their Hebrew, and learned Aramaic in Palestine after the return. They
certainly still spoke Hebrew in the time of Nehemiah, whose indignation
against the contamination of the Jewish speech by the dialect of Ashdod
(Neh. xiii. 24) is quite unintelligible on any other supposition. Compare for
the whole subject Nbldeke's article, Semitic Languages, in the ninth edition
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
1 See the evidence of this from the Rabbinical literature in Zunz's Gottes-
dicnstliche Vortrage der Juden, p. 7 (Berlin, 1832). Our Lord upon the cross
quoted Ps. xxii. in a Targum.
3 Mishna, Megilla, iv. 4. — "He who reads in the Pentateuch must not
read to the Meturgeman more than one verse, and in the prophets three
verses. If each verse is a paragraph, they are read one by one. The reader
may skip in the prophets, but not in the law. How long may he spend in
searching for another passage ? So long as the Meturgeman goes on speaking. "
The practice of oral translation into Aramaic led ultimately to the formation of
written Targums or Aramaic paraphrases ; but these were long discouraged by
the Scribes.
lect. ii JEWISH RABBINS 37
learned language, acquired not in common life but from a
teacher. In order to learn it, the young Jew had to go to
school, but he had no grammar or lexicon, or other written
help, to assist him. Everything was done by oral instruction,
and by dint of sheer memory, without any scientific principle.
In the first place, the pupil had to learn to read. In our
Hebrew Bibles now, the pronunciation of each word is
exactly represented. This is done by a double notation.
The letters proper are the consonants, and the vowels are
indicated by small marks placed above or below the line of
the consonants. These small marks are a late invention.
They did not exist in the time of Christ, or even four hundred
years after the Christian era, at the time of Jerome.1 Before
this invention the proper pronunciation of each difficult word
had to be acquired from a master. When a pupil had learned
to read a phrase correctly, he was taught the meaning of the
words, and by such exercises, combined with the practice of
constantly speaking Hebrew, which was kept up in the Jewish
schools, as the practice of speaking Latin used to be kept up
1 The structure of the Semitic languages makes it much easier to dispense
with the vowels than an English reader might suppose. The chief difficulty
lay with vowels, or still more with diphthongs, at the end of a word, and was
met at a very early date by the use of weak consonants to indicate cognate
vowel-sounds (e.g. W=au, u ; Y = ai, i). Such vowel-consonants are found
even on the stone of Mesha, and have been adopted in various measure, not
only in Hebrew, but in Syriac and Arabic. But in all these languages the
plan of marking every vowel-sound by points above or below the line came
in comparatively late, was developed slowly, and never extended to all books.
The testimonies of the Talmudists and of Jerome are quite express to show
that at their time the true vocalisation of ambiguous words was known only
by oral teaching. Jerome, for example, says that iu Hab. iii. 5 the Hebrew
has only D, B, and R, without any vowel, which maybe read either as dabar,
"word," or deber, "plague." A supposed interest of orthodoxy long led good
scholars like the Buxtorfs to fight for the antiquity and authority of the
points. There is now no question on the subject ; for MSS. brought from
Southern Russia and Arabia, containing a different notation for the vowels,
prove that our present system is not only comparatively recent, but is the
outcome of a gradual process, in which several methods were tried in different
parts of the Jewish world. The rolls read in the synagogue are still un-
pointed, a relic of the old condition of all MSS. Compare Lect. III. p. 58 sq.
38 SCHOLARSHIP OF THE lect. ii
in our grammar schools, the pupil gradually learned to under-
stand the sacred texts and at the same time acquired a
certain practical fluency in speaking or writing a degraded
form of Hebrew, with many barbarous words and still more
barbarous constructions, such as are certain to creep into any
language which is dead in ordinary life and yet is daily used
by teachers and learners, not as a mere philological exercise
but as a vehicle of practical instruction in law, theology, and
the like. The Jews themselves recognised the difference
between this pedantic jargon and the language of their
ancient books. The language of the Bible was called " the
holy tongue," while the Hebrew spoken in the schools was
called " the language of the wise." We have many volumes
of the composition of these scholars, chiefly legal works, with
some old midrashim, as they are called, or sermonising com-
mentaries on Scripture. These books no doubt are Hebrew
in a certain sense, but they are as unlike to the Biblical
Hebrew as a lawyer's deed is to a page of Cicero. The men
who wrote such a jargon could not have any delicate percep-
tion for the niceties of the old classical language, especially
as it is written in the most ancient books ; and when they
came to a difficult passage they could only guess at the sense,
unless they possessed an interpretation of the hard text, and
the hard words it contained, handed down to them from some
older scholar.
Now let me ask you once more to realise precisely how
these scribes, at and before the time of Christ, proceeded in
dealing with the Bible. They had nothing before them but
the bare consonantal text, so that the same words might often
be read and interpreted in two different ways. A familiar
example of this is given in Heb. xi. 21, where we read of
Jacob leaning upon the top of his " staff ; " but when we turn
to the Hebrew Bible, as it is now printed (Genesis xlvii. 31),
we there find nothing about the " staff ; " we find the " bed."
lect. ii JEWISH RABBINS 39
Well, the Hebrew for "the bed" is "HaMmiTtaH," while
the Hebrew for "the staff" is " HaMmaTteH." The con-
sonants in these two words are the same; the vowels are
different ; but the consonants only were written, and doubled
consonants were written only once, so that all that appeared
in MSS. was HMTH. Thus it was quite possible for one
person to read the word as " bed," as the translators of our
English Bible did, following the reading of the Hebrew
scribes, and for the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, on
the other hand, to understand it as a " staff," following the
interpretation of the Greek Septuagint.
Beyond the bare text, which in this way was often
ambiguous, the scribes had no guide but oral teaching. They
had no rules of grammar to go by ; the kind of Hebrew
which they themselves wrote often admitted grammatical
constructions which the old language forbade, and when they
came to an obsolete word or idiom, they depended on their
masters to give them the pronunciation and the sense. Now,
beyond doubt, the Jewish scholars were most exact and re-
tentive learners, and their teachers spared no pains to teach
them all that they knew. We in the West have little idea of
the precision with which an Eastern pupil even now can take
up and remember the minutest details of a lesson, reproducing
them years afterwards in the exact words of his master. But
memory, even when cultivated as it is cultivated in the
schools of the East, is at best fallible ; and even if we could
suppose that the whole of the Bible had been taught word
by word in the schools, in unbroken succession from the day
on which each book was first written, it would still have
required a continued miracle to preserve all these lessons
perfectly, and without writing, through long generations.
But in point of fact the traditional teaching of the Jews was
neither complete, nor continuous from the first, nor uniform.
It was not complete ; that is, there never was an authori-
40 TRADITIONAL EXEGESIS lect. ii
tative interpretation of the whole Bible. It was not continuous ;
that is, many interpretations, which attained general currency
and authority, had not been received by unbroken tradition
from the time when the passage was first written, or even
from the time when Hebrew became a dead language, but
were mere figments of the Eabbins devised out of their own
heads. And finally, the Eabbinical tradition was not uniform ;
that is, the interpretation and even the reading of individual
texts was often a subject of controversy in the schools of the
Scribes, and at different times we find different interpreta-
tions in the ascendant. The proof of these propositions lies
partly in the records of Jewish learning still preserved in the
Eabbinical literature ; partly it lies in the translations and
interpretations made at various times by Jewish scholars or
under their guidance.
So long as the transmission and interpretation of the
Bible were left to the unregulated labours of individual
scholars or copyists, it is plain that individual theories and
individual errors would have some influence on the work. The
Bible had to be copied by the pen. Let us suppose then that
the copyist, without any special instruction or guide, simply
sat down to make a transcript, probably writing from dicta-
tion, of a roll which he had bought or borrowed. In the
first place, he was almost certain to make some slips, either
of the pen or of the ear ; but besides this, in all probability
the volume before him would contain slips of the previous
copyist. Was he to copy these mistakes exactly as they
stood, and so perpetuate the error, or would he not in very
many cases think himself able to detect and correct the slips
of his predecessor ? If he took the latter course, it was very
possible for him to overrate his own capacity and introduce
a new mistake. And so bit by bit, if there were no control,
if each scribe acted independently, and without the assistance
of a regular school, errors were sure to be multiplied, and the
lect. ii OF THE JEWS 41
text would be certain to present many variations. Thus we
know that even in recent times the Gaelic version of the Old
Testament contains certain alterations upon the original text
made in order to remove seeming contradictions. Much more
were such changes to be anticipated in ancient times, when
there was a far less developed sense of responsibility with
regard to the exact verbal transcription of old texts. A
uniform and scrupulous tradition, watching over the reading
and the meaning of the text in all parts of the Jewish world,
could only be transmitted by a regular school of learned
doctors, or, as the Jewish records call them, Scribes, in Hebrew
Sdpherim or men of the book — men who were professionally
occupied with the book of the law.
We are all familiar with the Scribes, or professed Biblical
scholars, as they appear in the New Testament. They were
not merely, or primarily, verbal scholars, but, above all things,
practical lawyers and theologians, who used their linguistic
knowledge to support their own doctrines and principles.
Their principles at that epoch, as we know, were those of the
Pharisees ; in fact, the Pharisees were nothing else than the
party of the Scribes, in opposition to the Sadducees or aristo-
cratic party, whose heads were the higher priestly nobility.
To the Pharisees, or party of the Scribes, belonged the great
mass of Jewish scholars who were not closely associated with
the higher ranks of the priesthood, together with many who,
without being scholars, were eager to obey the law as the
Scribes interpreted it. The Scribes were the men who had
in their hands the transmission and interpretation of the Old
Testament ; and our next task, in endeavouring to understand
the steps by which the Old Testament has been handed down
to us, must be to obtain a clear vision of their methods and
objects, and of the work which they actually did upon the
text of the Bible. This subject will occupy our attention
in the next Lecture.
LECTUEE III
THE SCRIBES1
The subject with which we are to be occupied to-day is the
part that was played by the Scribes in the preservation and
transmission of the Old Testament. At the close of last
Lecture we looked for a moment at the Scribes as they appear
in the New Testament in association with the Pharisees. At
that time, as one sees from the Gospels and the Acts, they
constituted a party long established, and exercising a great
and recognised influence in the Jewish state. In fact they
can be traced back as far as the later times of the Old Testa-
ment. Their father is Ezra, " the Scribe," as he is called par
excellence, who came from Babylon to Judaea with the law of
God in his hand (Ezra vii. 14), and with a heart " prepared
to study the law of the Lord, to do it, and to teach in Israel
1 For the history of the period covered hy this Lecture the best and most
complete book is Schiirer, Gesch. des Judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu
Christi, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1886, 1890 (also in an English translation), where a
full account of the literature of the subject will be found. More popular and
very useful is W. D. Morrison, The Jews under Roman Rule, in the "Story
of the Nations" Series (2d ed., London, 1891). "YVellhausen's monograph,
Die Pharisaer und die Sadducaer (Greifswald, 1874), and the later chapters
of Kuenen's Religion of Israel (Eng. trans., vol. iii., London, 1875), may also
be specially recommended to the student ; and among works by Jewish
authors, J. Derenbourg, Essai sur I'histoire . . . dela Palestine (Paris, 1867).
The oldest and most important traditions about the early Scribes are found in
the Mishnic treatise Aboth, which has been edited, with an English version
and notes, by Dr. C. Taylor [Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, Cambridge, 1877),
and with German notes by Prof. H. Strack (Leipzig, 18S2).
LECT. Ill
EZRA THE SCRIBE 43
statutes and judgments " (Ezra vii. 10). Ezra accomplished
this task, not immediately, but with ultimate and complete
success. He did so with the support of the Persian kino-,
and with the active assistance of Nehemiah, who had been
sent by Artaxerxes as governor of Jerusalem. At a great
public meeting convened by Nehemiah, of which we read an
account in chapters viii. to x. of the book which bears his
name, the Law was openly read before the people at the
Eeast of Tabernacles, and, with confession and penitence, the
Jews entered into a national covenant to make that law
henceforth the rule of their lives. Now I do not ask at pre-
sent what were the relations of the people to the Law before
the time of Ezra. That question must come up afterwards ;
but any one who reads with attention the narrative in the
book of Nehemiah must be satisfied that this work of Ezra,
and the covenant which the people took upon them to obey
the Law, were of epoch-making importance for the Jewish
community. It was not merely a covenant to amend certain
abuses in detailed points of legal observance ; for the people
in their confession very distinctly state that the Law had not
been observed by their ancestors, their rulers, or their priests,
up to that time (Neh. ix. 34) ; and in particular it is men-
tioned that the Feast of Tabernacles had never been observed
with the ceremonial prescribed in the Law from the time that
the Israelites occupied Canaan under Joshua (Neh. viii. 17).
Accordingly this covenant must be regarded as a critical
epoch in the history of the community of Israel. From that
time forward, with the assistance and under the approval of
the Persian king, the Law — that is, the Pentateuch or Torah,
as we now have it, for there can be no doubt that the Law
which was in Ezra's hands was practically identical with our
present Hebrew Pentateuch — became the religious and muni-
cipal code of Israel. Now the Pentateuch, viewed as a code,
is such a book as imperatively calls for a class of trained
44 WORK OF THE SCRIBES lect. hi
lawyers to be its interpreters. I do not ask at present
whether, as most critics suppose, there are real contradictions
between the laws given in different parts of the five books of
Moses. At all events, it is a familiar fact that those who
maintain that all the Pentateuchal laws can be reconciled,
differ very much among themselves as to the precise method
of reconciliation. In such an ambiguity of the Law it is
manifest that the Scribes had an indispensable function as
guides of the people to that interpretation which was in
actual use in the practical administration of the code. Accord-
ingly, by and by, in the time of the Chronicler (1 Chron. ii.
55), we find them organised in regular " families," or, as we
should now say, " guilds," an institution quite in accordance
with the whole spirit of the East, which forms a guild or trades-
union of every class possessing special technical knowledge.
We see, then, that before the close of the Old Testament
Canon the Scribes not only existed, continuing the work of
Ezra, but that they existed in the form of guilds or regular
societies. What were their objects ? There can be no doubt
that from the first the objects of the Scribes were not philo-
logical and literary, but practical. JEzra's object was so. He
came to make the Law the practical rule of Israel's life, and
so it was still in later ages. The wisdom of the Scribes
consisted of two parts, which in Jewish terminology were
respectively called "Halacha" and " Haggada." "Halacha"
was legal teaching, systematised legal precept ; while " Hag-
gada " was doctrinal and practical admonition, mingled with
parable and legend. But of these two parts the " Halacha,"
— that is, the system of rules applying the Pentateuchal law
to every case of practice and every detail of life, — was always
the chief thing. The difference between the learned theologian
and the unlearned vulgar lay in knowledge of the Law. You
remember what the Pharisees say in John vii. 49 — "This
people, which knoweth not the law, are cursed." The Law
lect. in HALACHA AND HAGGADA 45
was the ideal of the Scribes. Their theory of the history of
Israel was this : — In time past Israel had been chastised by
God's wrath ; the cause of this chastisement was that the
people had neglected the Law. Forgetting the Law, Israel
had passed and was still passing through many tribulations,
and was subjected to the yoke of a foreign power. What
was the duty of the Jews in this condition of things ? Ac-
cording to the Scribes, it was not to engage in any political
scheme whatever for throwing off the foreign yoke, but to
establish the Law in their own midst, — to apply themselves,
not only to obey the whole Torah, particularly in its cere-
monial precepts, but so to develop these precepts that they
might embrace every minute detail of life. Then, when by
this means Israel had become a law-obeying nation in the
fullest sense of the word, Jehovah Himself, in His righteous-
ness, would intervene, miraculously remove the scourge, and
establish the glory of Llis law-fulfilling people. These were
the principles of the Scribes and the Pharisees, the principles
spoken of by Paul in writing to the Eomans, when he tells
us that Israel followed after a law of righteousness without
attaining to it ; that they, being ignorant of God's righteous-
ness, and going about to establish their own, did not submit
themselves to the righteousness of God (Eom. ix. 31, x. 3).
( All that theScribes did for the transmission, preservation,
and interpretation of the Old Testament, was guided by their
legal aims. J In the first instance, they were not scholars, not
preachers, but " lawyers " (vo^lkol), as they are often called
in the New Testament. \In their juridical decisions they were
guided partly by study of the Pentateuch, but partly also by
observation of the actual legal usages of their time, by those
views of the Law which were practically acknowledged, for
example, in the ceremonial of the temple and the priesthood.
There was thus, in the wisdom of the Scribes, an element of
use and wont, — an element of common law, which of course
LECT. Ill
46 THE SCRIBES AND
existed in Jerusalem, as in every other living community,
side by side with the codified written law ; and this element
of common law, or use and wont, was the source of the theory
of legal tradition familiar to all of us from allusions in the
New Testament, j According to this theory, Moses himself
had delivered to fsr'ael an oral law along with the written
Torah. The oral law was as old as the Pentateuch, and had
come down in authentic form through the prophets to Ezra.
The conception of an oral law, as old and venerable as the
written law, necessarily influenced the Scribes in all their
interpretations of Scripture. It introduced into their hand-
ling of Scripture an element of uncertainty and falsity, upon
which Jesus Himself, as you will remember, put His finger,
with that unfailing insight of His into the unsound parts of
the religious state of His time. Through their theory of the
traditional law the Scribes were led into many a departure
from the spirit, and even from the letter of the written Word
(Matt. xii. 1-8, xv. 1-20, xxiii.).
\ To the Scribes, then, the whole law, written and oral, was
of equal practical authority. What they really sought to
preserve intact, and hand down as binding for Israel, was not
so much the written text of the Pentateuch as their own rules,
— partly derived from the Pentateuch, but partly, as we have
seen, from other sources, — which they honestly believed' to be
equally an expression of the mind of the Eevealer, even in
cases where they had no basis in Scripture, or only the basis
of some very strained interpretation. Now, you can readily
conceive that the traditional interpretation of the law could
not be stationary. In fact, we know that it was not so. The
subject has been gone into with great care by Jewish scholars,
who are more interested than we are in the traditional law ;
and they have been able to prove, from their own books and
written records of the legal traditions, that the law underwent,
from century to century, not a few changes. This was no
lect. in THE ORAL LAW 47
more than natural. So long as a nation has a national life,
lives and develops new practical necessities, there must also
from time to time be changes in the law and its application.
In part, then, the growth of the traditional law was owing to
changes and new necessities of the national life. It would
doubtless, from this source alone, have grown and changed
very much more, but for the fact that during the centuries
between Ezra and Christ the Jews were almost continuously
under foreign domination, so that they had not perfect free-
dom of civil or even religious development. At the same
time, they always retained a certain amount of municipal inde-
pendence ; and so long as the municipal life remained active,
the law necessarily underwent modifications from time to time.
But there was another reason for continual changes in
the traditional law. The party headed by the Scribes, which
finally developed into the sect of the Pharisees, were so
carried away with the idea that God's blessing on Israel and
the removal of all national calamity depended on a punctilious
observance of the minutest legal ordinances, that they deemed
it necessary to make, as they put it, " a hedge round the Law"
— in other words, to fence in the life of the Israelite with new
precepts of their own devising, at every point where the
boundary line between the legal and the illegal appeared to
be indistinctly marked. There was therefore a constant
tendency to add new and more complicated precepts of
conduct, and especially of ceremonial observance, to those
already prescribed in the Pentateuch and in the oldest form
of tradition, so that it might be impossible for a man, if he
held by all traditional rules, to come even within sight of a
possible breach of the Law.
The legal system thus developed had not at first the
weight of an authoritative legislation ; for the Scribes and
Pharisees were not the governing class in Judaea. The rulers
of the nation in its internal matters were the priestly aristo-
48 THE SCRIBES AND THE lect. hi
cracy, with the high priest at their head as a sort of hereditary-
prince over Israel. And in the decay of the Greek power
in Syria, when the Jews were able for a time to assert their
political independence, the Hasmonean or Maccabee priest-
princes were the actual sovereigns of Judsea (142-37 B.C.)
Nevertheless the great Eabbins of the party of Scribes were
men whose legal ability gained for them a commanding
position and influence ; the mass of the Pharisees, by their
claim of special sanctity and special legality, also acquired
great weight with the common people ; and in consequence
of this the authority of the party ultimately became so great
that, as we learn from Josephus, the priestly aristocracy, who
were the civil as well as the religious heads of the Jews, and
who themselves were no more inclined than any other aristo-
cracy to make changes that were not for their own personal
profit, yet found themselves compelled by the pressure of
public opinion to defer in almost every instance to the
doctrines of the Scribes.1 The municipal and legal ad-
1 Josephus, Antiquities, xiii. 10, § 6. — "The Sadducees had only the well-
to-do classes on their side. The populace would not follow them ; but the
Pharisees had the multitude as auxiliaries." Ibid, xviii. 1, § 4 : "The Sad-
ducees are the men of highest rank, but they effect as good as nothing, for in
affairs of government they are compelled against their will to follow the dicta
of the Pharisees, as the masses would otherwise refuse to tolerate them."
The best account of the relative position of the Scribes and the governing
class at different periods is given in Wellhausen's monograph on the Pharisees
and Sadducees cited above. See also Ryle and James, Psalms of the Pharisees,
commonly called the Psalms of Solomon (Cambridge, 1891). On the position
of the two parties in the Sanhedrin, Kuenen's essay Over de samcnstelling van
het Sanhedrin, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Amsterdam, 1866,
is conclusive. On this topic, and on the whole meaning of the antithesis of
the Pharisees and Sadducees, older scholars went astray- by following too
closely the unhistorical views of later Jewish tradition. When Judaism had
ceased to have a national existence, and was merely a religious sect, the
schoolmen naturally became its heads ; and the tradition assumed that it had
always been so, and that the whole history of the nation was made up of such
theological and legal controversies as engrossed the attention of later times!
(See Taylor's Sayings of the Fathers, Excursus III.). This view bears its
condemnation on its face. Before the fall of the state the party of the Scribes
was opposed, not to another theological sect, but to the aristocracy, which
lect. in PRIESTLY ARISTOCRACY 49
ministration took place by means-of councils bearing the
name of Synechia or Sanhedrin. ,'JThere was a central council
with judicial and administrative authority — the Great Sanhe-
drin in Jerusalem — and there were local councils in provincial
towns. These councils were mainly occupied by Sadducees,
or men of the aristocratic party ; but ultimately the Scribes,
as trained lawyers, gained a considerable proportion of seats
in them ; and during the latter time of the Maccabees under
Queen Salome, and still more after the fall of the Hasmonean
dynasty, when it was the policy of Herod the Great to crush
the old nobility and play off the Pharisees against them, the
influence of the Scribes in the national councils of justice
came greatly to outweigh that of the aristocratic Sadducees.
In this way, as you will observe, the interpreters of the law
gained a very important place in the practical life of Israel ;
and they continued active, developing and applying their
peculiar system, until the overthrow of the city by Titus in
the year a.d. 70. When the Temple was destroyed and the
Jewish nationality crushed, a great part of the public ordin-
ances decreed by the Scribes necessarily fell into desuetude ;
but private and personal observances of ceremonial righteous-
had its centre in the high priesthood, and pursued practical objects of political
and social aggrandisement on very different lines from those of scholastic
controversy. That the Sadducees are the party headed by the chief priests,
and the Pharisees the party of the Scribes, is plain from the New Testament,
especially from Acts v. 17. The higher priesthood was in spirit a very secular
nobility, more interested in war and diplomacy than in the service of the
Temple. The theological tenets of the Sadducees, as they appear in the New
Testament and Josephus, had a purely political basis. They detested the
doctrine of the Resurrection and the fatalism of the Pharisees, because these
opinions were employed by their adversaries to thwart their political aims.
The aristocracy suffered a great loss of position by the subjection to a foreign
power of the nation which they had ruled in the early Hasmonean period,
when the high priest was a great prince. But the Pharisees discouraged all
rebellion. Israel's business was only to seek after the righteousness of the
law. The redemption of the nation would follow in due time, without man's
interference. The resurrection would compensate those who had suffered in
this life, and the hope of this reward made it superfluous for them to seek a
present deliverance.
4
50 THE WRITTEN LAW lect. in
ness were still insisted upon, and in one sense the Scribes
became more influential than ever ; for those parts of the law
which could still be put in force were the only remaining
expression of national spirit, and the doctors of the law were
accepted as the natural leaders of all loyal Jews. Now for
the first time Judaism and Pharisaism became identical ; for
Pharisaism alone, with its strict code of ceremonial observ-
ance, made it possible for the Jew to remain a Jew when the
state had perished and the Temple lay in ruins. But at the
same time the legal system ceased to be subject to the play
of those living forces which during the ages of national or
municipal independence had continually modified its details.
Further development became impossible, or was limited to a
much narrower range ; and after the last desperate struggle
of the Jews for liberty under Hadrian, 132 to 135 A.D., the
Scribes, no longer able to find a practical outlet for their
influence in the guidance of the state, devoted themselves to
systematising and writing down the traditional law in the
stage which it had then reached. This systematisation took
shape in the collection which is called the Mishna, which was
completed by Eabbi Judah the Holy about 200 a.d.1
1 The word Mishna means "instruction," literally "repetition," "inculca-
tion." From the same root in Aramaic form the doctors of the Mishna bear
the name of Tannd, teacher (repeater). After the close of the Mishna the
collection and interpretation of tradition was carried on by a new succession
of scholars whose contributions make up the Gemara ("decision," " doctrine"),
a vast and desultory commentary on the Mishna. There are two Gemaras,
one Palestinian, the other Babylonian, and each of these rests on a new
recension of the Mishnic text. The Palestinian Mishna was long supposed to
be lost, but has recently been printed by Lowe from a Cambridge MS. (Cam-
bridge, 1883). The name for a doctor of the Gemara is Amora, speaker.
Mishna and Gemara together make up the Talmud. The Babylonian Gemara
was not completed till the sixth century of our era.
The whole Mishna was published, with a Latin translation and notes, by
G. Surenhusius, in 6 vols, folio (Amsterdam, 1698-1703). There is a German
translation by Rabe (1760-1763), and another printed in Hebrew letters by
Jost (Berlin, 1832-1834). There is no complete English version, but eighteen
treatises, still important for the daily life of the Jews, were translated by
Kaphall and De Sola (London, 1845). Another selection is given by Dr.
lect. in AND THE HALACHA 5 1
I have directed your attention to the history of the tradi-
tional law because its transmission is inseparably bound up
with the transmission of the text of the Bible. As we have
seen, the whole law, written and oral, was one in the estima-
tion of the Scribes. The early versions and the early Jewish
commentaries show us that the interpretation of the Penta-
teuch was guided by legal much rather than by philological
principles. The Bible was understood by the help of the
Halacha quite as much as the Halacha was based upon the
Bible ; and so, as the traditional law underwent many changes,
these reacted upon the interpretation and even to a certain
extent upon the reading of the text of the Pentateuch. Let
me take an example of this from what we find in the Bible
itself. In Neb. x. 32 [33] we read that the people made a
law for themselves, charging themselves with a yearly poll-
tax of one-third of a shekel for the service of the Temple. In
the time of Christ this tribute of one-third of a shekel had
been increased to half a shekel (didrachma ; Matt. xvii. 24) ;
and the impost which in the time of Nehemiah was a tax
voluntarily taken upon themselves by the people without any
written warrant, was in this later time supposed to be based
upon Exodus xxx. 12-16. This view of the matter, indeed,
is already taken by the Chronicler ; for he speaks of a yearly
Mosaic impost for the maintenance of the Temple (2 Chron.
xxiv. 5, 6), and therefore even in his time the law of Exodus
must have been held to be the basis of the poll-tax. Yet
that tax was a new tax ; it was first devised in the time of
Nehemiah ; and it is only an afterthought of the Scribes to
base it upon the Pentateuch.1 This example illustrates one
Barclay, the late Bishop of Jerusalem, in his work, The Talmud (London,
1878). See further the article Mishna, by Dr. Schiller-Szinessy, in the ninth
edition of the Encyclopccdia Britannica.
1 For the purpose in hand it is not necessary to carry the argument
further. But it may he observed that on the facts we must make a choice be-
tween two alternatives. Either Exod. xxx. is simply the historical record of an
52 TALMUDIC AND lect. m
way in which the conception of the law changed in the hands
of the Scribes. In other cases they actually took it upon
themselves to alter Pentateuchal laws. For example, the
tithes were transferred from the Levites to the priests, and
the use of the liturgy prescribed in Deuteronomy xxvi. 12-15
on occasion of the tithing, which was not suitable after that
change had been made, was abolished by John Hyrcanus,
the Hasmonean prince and high priest.1 These are but single
examples out of many which might be adduced, but they are
enough to show that so long as the development of the oral
law was running its course, the written law was treated by
the Scribes with a certain measure of freedom.
Their real interest, I repeat, lay not in the sacred text
itself, but in the practical system based upon it. That comes
out very forcibly in repeated passages of the Eabbinical
writings, in which the study of Scripture is spoken of almost
contemptuously, as something far inferior to the study of the
traditional legislative system.
Now, people often think of the Jews as entirely absorbed,
from the very first, in the exact grammatical study and literal
preservation of the written Word. Had this been so, they
could never have devised so many expositions which are
impost once levied by Moses for a special purpose (and so it is taken in Exod.
xxxviii. 21-31), in which case we see that it was not made the ground of a
permanent ordinance till after the time of Nehemiah ; or, on the other hand,
Exod. xxx. 11 sqq. is meant as a general ordinance for future ages, in which
case the passage cannot have been written till after Nehemiah's time. In
support of the latter view see Kuenen, OnderzoeJc, 2d ed., I. i. § 15, note 30.
The point will be touched on again in Lecture XII.
1 Mishna, Maaser Sheni, v. 15 (ed. Surenh., vol. i. p. 287), and Sota, ix.
10, with Wagenseil's note in Surenh., iii. 296. This is the earlier and un-
doubtedly the historical account, but the Gemara tries to establish the change
on a better footing by ascribing it to Ezra, who thus punished the Levites for
refusing to return from Babylon— an account which is in flat contradiction
with Nehem. x. 37 [38]. See Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 172 sq. On the
change in the law of redemption, introduced by Hillel, which is another
example in point, see Derenbourg, Essai (Paris, 1867), p. 188. Compare also
Zunz, Gottesdienstliche Vortrage der Juden, pp. 11, 45 (Berlin, 1832).
lect. in MEDLEVAL EXEGESIS 53
plainly against the idiom of the Hebrew language, but which
flowed naturally and easily from the legal positions then
current. The early Scribes had neither the inclination nor
the philological qualifications for exact scholarly study, and
when they did lay weight upon some verbal nicety of the
sacred Text, they did so in the interest of their legal theories,
and upon principles to which we can assign no value. No
doubt the Scribes and their successors in the Talmudic times
(200 to 600 a.d.) must themselves have been often aware that
the meanings which they forced upon texts, in order to carry
out their legal system, were not natural and idiomatic render-
ings. But this did not greatly trouble them, for it was to
them an axiom that the oral and the written laws were one
system, and therefore they were bound to harmonise the two
at any sacrifice of the rules of language. /The objections to
such an arbitrary exegesis did not come to be strongly felt
till long after the Talmudic period, when a new school of
Jewish scholars arose, who had grammatical and scientific
knowledge, mainly derived from the learning of the Arabs.
When in the Middle Ages these Eabbins introduced a stricter
system of grammatical interpretation, it came to be felt that
the Talmudic way of dealing with Scripture was often forced
and unnatural, and so it was found necessary to draw a sharp
distinction between the traditional Talmudic interpretation
of any text, which continued to have the value of an indis-
putable legal authority, and the grammatical interpretation
or P'shat, representing that exact and natural sense of the
passage which more modern study had enabled men to deter-
mine with sharpness and precision.
The mediaeval Eabbins concentrated their attention on the
plain grammatical sense of Scripture, and their best doctors,
who were the masters of our Protestant translators, rose much
above the Talmudical exegesis, although they never altogether
shook off the false principle that a good sense must be got
54 THE SCRIBES AND THE lect. hi
out of everything, and that if it cannot be got out of the text
by the rules of grammar, these rules must give way. Even
our own Bible, which rests almost entirely upon the better
or grammatical school of Jewish interpretation, does, in some
passages, show traces of the Talmudical weakness of deter-
mining to harmonise things, and get over difficulties, even at
the expense of strict grammar ; but this false tendency was
confined within narrow limits ; and, on the whole, the influ-
ence of the Talmudists was almost completely conquered in
the Protestant versions, although it is still felt in the harmon-
istic exegesis of the anti-critical school.1
A much more serious question is raised by the considera-
tion that although we are able to correct the interpretation of
the ancient Scribes, we have the text of the Hebrew Old
Testament as they gave it to us ; and we must therefore
inquire whether they were in a position to hand down to us
the best possible text. Let me illustrate the significance of
this question, by referring to the history of the text of the
New Testament. The books of the New Testament circulated
in manuscript copies, and it is by a comparison of such old
codices as still remain to us that scholars adjust the printed
texts of their modern editions. The comparison shows that
1 The point in which the exegesis of the Mediceval Jews (and of King
James's translators) was most defective was that they always assumed it to be
possible to interpret what lay before them, and would not recognise that many
difficulties arise from corruption of the text. In a book of profane antiquity,
a passage that cannot be construed grammatically is at once assumed to be
corrupt, and a remedy is sought from MSS. or conjecture. The Jews, and
until recently the great majority of Christian scholars, refused to admit this
principle for the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint proves the existence of
corruptions in the Hebrew text, and often supplies the correction. But many
corruptions are older than the Septuagint version, and can be dealt with only
by conjectural emendation. The English reader may form a fair idea of the
state of the Old Testament text, and of what has been done by modern
scholarship to correct it, from the notes of Professors Cheyne and Driver in
the Variorum Bible, 3d ed., 1889 (Eyre and Spottiswoode).
Examples of the few cases where the Authorised Version has been misled
by dogmatical or historical prepossessions will come before us in the course of
these Lectures.
lect. in TEXT OF THE BIBLE 5 5
the old copies often differ in their readings. Some of the
variations are mere slips of the transcriber, which any Greek
scholar can correct as readily as one corrects a slip made in
writing a letter ; but others are more serious. Those of you
who have not access to the Greek Testament, will find suf-
ficient examples either in the small English New Testament
published by Tischendorf in 1869, which gives the readings
of three ancient MSS., or in that very convenient book, Eyre
and Spottiswoode's Variorum Bible, which, on the whole, is
the best edition of the English version for any one who wishes
to look below the surface. Now if you consult such collec-
tions of various readings as are given in these works, you
will find that, in various MSS., words, clauses, and sentences
are inserted or omitted, and sometimes the insertions change
the whole meaning of a passage. In one or two instances a
complete paragraph appears in some copies, and is left out in
others. The titles in particular offer great variations. The
oldest MSS. do not prefix the name of Paul to the Epistle to
the Hebrews, and they do not put the words " at Ephesus,"
into the first verse of the first chapter of Ephesians. Such
changes as these show that the copyists of these times did
not proceed exactly like law clerks copying a deed. They
made additions from parallel passages, they wrote things upon
the margin which afterwards got into the text ; and, when
copying from a rubbed or blotted page, they sometimes had
to make a guess at a word. In these and other ways mistakes
came in and were perpetuated ; and it takes the best scholar-
ship, combined with an acuteness developed by long practice,
to determine the true reading in each case, and to eliminate
all corruptions.
Of course, the old Christian scholars were quite aware that
such variations existed among copies, and in later times they
did their best to correct the text, and reduce it to uniformity ;
and so we find that, while the oldest MSS. of the New Testa-
56 AGE OF THE CURRENT lect. hi
ment show great variations, the later MSS. present a very
uniform text, so that from them alone we could not guess how
great was the range of readings current in the early Church.
Yet no one will affirm that the shape which the New Testa-
ment ultimately took in the hands of the scholars of Antioch
and Constantinople, is as near to the first hand of the Apostles
as the text which a good modern editor is able to make by
comparing the oldest copies. The mere fact that a particular
form of the text got the upper hand, and became generally
accepted in later times, does not prove it to be the best form
of the text, i.e. the most exact transcript of the very words
that were written by the apostles and evangelists.' To the
critical editor the variations of early copies are far more
significant than the artificial uniformity of late manuscripts.
Now as regards the Old Testament, we certainly find a
great uniformity among copies. All MSS. of the Hebrew
Bible represent one and the same text. There are slight
variations, but these are, almost without exception, mere slips,
such as might have been made even by a careful copyist, and
\ do not affect the general state of the text. The text, there-
fore, was already fixed [by the beginning of the tenth century
after Christ, which is the age of the oldest MS. of undisputed
date. But a comparison of the ancient translations carries us
much further back. We may say that the text of the Hebrew
Old Testament which we now have is the same as lay before
Jerome 400 years after Christ ; the same as underlies certain
translations into Aramaic called Targums, which took shape
in Babylonia about the third century after Christ ; indeed the
same text as was received by the Jews early in the second
century, when the Mishna was being formed, and when the
! Jewish proselyte Aquila made his translation into Greek. I
do not affirm that there were no various readings in the copies
of the second or even of the fourth century, but the variations
were slight and easily controlled, and such as would have
lect. in HEBREW TEXT
occurred in manuscripts carefully transcribed from one stand-
ard copy.1
The Jews, in fact, from the time when their national life
was finally extinguished, and their whole soul concentrated
upon the preservation of the monuments of the past, devoted
the most strict and punctilious attention to the exact trans-
mission of the received text, down to the smallest peculiarity
of spelling, and even to certain irregularities of writing. Let me
explain this last point. We find that when the standard manu-
script had a letter too big, or a letter too small, the copies made
from it imitated even this, so that letters of an unusual size
appear in the same place in every Hebrew Bible. Nay, the
scrupulousness of the transcribers went still further. In old
MSS., when a copyist had omitted a letter, and when the error
was detected, as the copy was revised, the reviser inserted the
missing letter above the line, as we should now do with a
caret. If, on the other hand, the reviser found that any super-
fluous letter had been inserted, he cancelled it by pricking a
dot above it. Now, when such corrections occurred in the
standard MS. from which our Hebrew Bibles are all copied,
the error and the correction were copied together, so that you
will find, even in printed Bibles (for the system has been
carried into the printed text), letters suspended above the
line to show that they had been inserted with a caret, and
letters " pointed " with a dot over them to show that they
form no proper part of the text.2 It is plain that such a
1 In the last century great hopes were entertained of the results to be
derived from a collation of Hebrew MSS. The collections of Kennicott (1776-
1780) and De Rossi (1784-1788) showed that all MSS. substantially represent
one text, and, so far as the consonants are concerned, recent discoveries have
not led to any new result. On the text that lay before the Talmudic doctors
compare Strack, Prolegomena Critica in Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum
(Leipzig, 1873). On Aquila see supra, p. 30, note 2 ; infra, p. 64. On the
Targums see Schiirer, i. 115, and infra, p. 64, note 1.
2 That all copies of the Hebrew text belong to a single recension, and
come from a common source, was stated by Rosenmiiller in 1834 (see Stade's
Zeitschrift, 1884, p. 303). In 1853 J. Olshausen, in his commentary on the
5 8 MASSORETS AND lect. hi
system of mechanical transmission could not have been
carried out with precision if copying had been left to unin-
structed persons. The work of preserving and transmitting
the received text became the specialty of a guild of technic-
ally trained scholars, called the Massorets, in Hebrew Baale
hammassorcth, or " possessors of tradition," that is, of tradition
as to the proper way of writing and reading the Bible. The
work of the Massorets extended over centuries, and they
collected many orthographical rules and great lists of
peculiarities of writing to be observed in passages where any
error was to be feared, which are still preserved either as
marginal notes and appendices to MSS. of the Bible, or in
separate works. But, what was of more consequence, the
scholars of the period after the close of the Talmud — that is,
after the sixth Christian century, or thereby — devoted them-
selves to preserving not only the exact writing of the received
consonantal text, but the exact pronunciation and even the
musical cadence proper to every word of the sacred text,
according to the rules of the synagogal chanting. This was
effected by means of a system of vowel points and musical
accents, consisting of small dots and apices attached to the
consonants of the Hebrew Bible. The idea of introducing
Psalms, p. 17 sq., argued that there must have been, at least as far back as
the first ages of Christianity, an official recension of the text, extremely
similar to that of the Massorets, and that this text was not critical, but formed
by slavishly copying a single MS. , which in many places was in very imper-
fect condition. In his notes on Ps. lxxx. 14, 16 (comp. also that on Ps. xxvii.
13), he applies this view to explain the so-called "extraordinary points." In
1863, independently of Olshausen, whose observations seem to have attracted
little notice, Lagarde in his Anmerkungen zur Griechischen Uebersetzung
cler Proverbicn again maintained the origin of all Hebrew MSS. from one
archetype, using the extraordinary points to prove his thesis. Olshausen had
explained the extraordinary points from the assumption of a single archetype,
but to him the evidence for the latter lay in comparison of the versions and
in the observation that all our authorities agree even in the most palpable
mistakes. The doctrine of the single archetype has been accepted by Noldeke
(whose remarks in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, 1873, p. 444 sqq., are worthy of
notice), and by other scholars. I know of no attempt to refute the argu-
ments on which it rests.
lect. in PUNCTUATORS 59
such vowel points, which were still unknown in the time of
Jerome, appears to have been borrowed from the Syrian
Christians, and was developed in different directions among
the Palestinian and the Babylonian Jews. The Palestinian
system ultimately prevailed and is followed in all printed
Bibles. /The form of the pointed text which after ages
received as authoritative was fixed in the tenth century by
a certain Aaron, son of Moses, son of Asher, generally known
as Ben Asher, whose ancestors for five previous generations
were famous as Nahdanim, or " punctuators." But even the
first of this family, Asher " the elder," rested on the labours of
earlier scholars. Some recent writers are disposed to think
that the use of written vowel points and accents may have
begun even in the sixth century — at all events the system
must have been pretty fully worked out before 800 a.d.1
A remarkable feature in the work of the Massorets is that
in certain cases they direct the reader to substitute another
word for that which he finds written in the consonantal text.
In such cases the vowel points attached to the word that is
to be suppressed in reading are not its own vowels but those
proper to the word to be substituted for it. The latter word
is placed in the margin with the note 'P {i.e. Keri, "read
thou," or Kere, " read "). The word in the text which is not
to be uttered is called Kethib (" written "). These marginal
readings are of various kinds ; in a great part of them the
difference between text and margin turns upon points of a
purely formal character, such as varieties of orthography,
pronunciation, or grammatical form ; others are designed to
soften expressions which it was thought indecorous to read
aloud ; while a small proportion of them make a change in
the sense, and are either critical conjectures or readings
1 See as regards Ben Asher, Baer and Strack, DikduJce Hatcamim (Leipzig,
1879), p. ix. sqq., and compare Z. D. M. G. Jahresbericht for 187 9, p. 124; also,
for the musical accents, Wickes's Hcbretv Accentuation (Oxford, 1881), p. lsqq.
60 KERI AND KETHIB lect. hi
which must once have stood in the text itself. There is no
reason to think that in these matters the Massorets departed
from their office as conservators of old tradition ; their one
object was to secure that the whole Bible should be written
according to the standard consonantal text and read accord-
ing to the traditional use of the Synagogue service. It
appears, therefore, that up to the time of the Massorets a
certain small number of real variants to the written text still
survived in the oral tradition of the Synagogue, and that the
respect paid to the written text, great as it was, was not held
to demand the suppression of these oral variants. In fact,
the tradition of the right interpretation of Scripture, of which
the rules of reading formed an integral part, ran, to a certain
extent, a distinct course from the tradition of the consonantal
text. The Targums, which are the chief monument of
exegetical tradition before the work of the Massorets, gener-
ally agree with the Keri against the Kcthih.
These facts are not without importance as a corrective to
the exaggerated views sometimes put forth as to the certainty
of every letter of the Hebrew Text. But on the other hand,
it must not be forgotten that all the real variants of the
Targum and of the Massoretic notes amount to very little.
A few words, or rather a few letters, were still in dispute
among the traditional authorities, but the substance of the
text was already fixed. There are many passages in the
Hebrew Bible which cannot be translated as they stand, and
where the text is undoubtedly corrupt. In a few such cases,
where the corruption does not lie very deep, the marginal
Keri or the Targum supplies the necessary correction ; but
for the most part the margin is silent, and the Targum, with
all other versions and authorities later than the first Christian
century, had exactly the same reading as the received Hebrew
text. For good or for evil they all follow a single archetype,
and vary from one another only in points so minute as seldom
lect. in SAMARITAN" PENTATEUCH 61
to affect the sense. But this uniformity in the tradition of
the text does not reach back beyond the time of the Apostles.
On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that in earlier
ages Hebrew MSS. differed as much as MSS. of the New
Testament, or more. We shall have to look at the proof of
this in some detail by and by. For the present, it is enough
to point out some of the chief sources of the evidence. The
Samaritans, as well as the Jews, have preserved the Hebrew
Pentateuch, writing it in a peculiar character. Now the
copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which they received from
the Jews for the first time about 430 B.C., differ very consider-
ably from our received Hebrew text. One or two of the
variations are corruptions wilfully introduced in favour of
the schismatic temple on Mount Gerizim ; but others have no
polemical significance, affecting such points as the ages
assigned to the patriarchs.1 Then, again, the old Greek
version, the Alexandrian version of the Septuagint, which, in
1 Up to the time of Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem, there was still
a party, even among the priests, which entertained friendly relations with the
Samaritans, cemented by marriages. Nehemiah broke up this party ; and an
unnamed priest, who was Sanballat's sondndaw, was driven into exile. This
priest, who would naturally flee to his father-indaw, is plainly identical with
the priest Manasseh, sondndaw of Sanballat, of whom Josephus (Antiq. xi. 8)
relates that he fled from Jerusalem to Samaria, and founded the schismatic
temple on Mount Gerizim, with a rival hierarchy and ritual. The account of
Josephus is confused in chronology and untrustworthy in detail ; but the
main fact agrees with the Biblical narrative, and it is clear that the establish-
ment of the rival temple was a natural consequence of the final defeat of the
Samaritans in their persistent efforts to establish relations with the Jewish
priesthood and secure admission to the temple at Jerusalem. This determines
the age of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritans cannot have got the
law before the Exile through the priest of the high place at Samaria mentioned
in 2 Kings xvii. 28. For the worship of Jehovah, as practised at Samaria
before the fall of the Northern Kingdom, was remote from the ordinances of
the law, and up to the time when the books of Kings were written the
Samaritans worshipped images, and did not observe the laws of the Pentateuch
(2 Kings xvii. 34, 41). The Pentateuch, therefore, was introduced as their
religious code at a later date ; and this can only have happened in connection
with the ritual and priesthood which they received from Jerusalem through
the fugitive priest banished by Nehemiah.
62 ANCIENT VARIATIONS lect. hi
part at least, was written before the middle of the third century
B.C., contains many various readings, sometimes omitting
large passages, or making considerable insertions ; sometimes
changing the order of chapters and verses; sometimes pre-
senting only minor variations, more similar to those with
which we are familiar in Greek MSS. Nay, even among
learned Jews who read Hebrew, the text was not fixed up to
the first century of our era. For the Book of Jubilees, a
Hebrew work which was written apparently but a few years
before the fall of the Temple, agrees with the Samaritan
Pentateuch in some of the numbers in the patriarchal
chronology, and in other readings.1
Now, observe the point to which we are thus brought.
After the fall of the Jewish state, when the Scribes ceased to
be an active party in a living commonwealth, and became more
and more pure scholars, gathering up and codifying all the
fragments of national literature and national life that remained
to them, we find the text of the Old Testament carefully con-
formed to a single archetype. But we cannot trace this text
back through the centuries when the nation had still a life of
its own. Nay, we can be sure that in these earlier centuries
copies of the Bible circulated, and were freely read even by
learned men like the author of the Booh of Jubilees, which had
great and notable variations of text, not inferior in extent to
those still existing in New Testament MSS. In later times
every trace of these varying copies disappears. They must
have been suppressed, or gradually superseded by a deliberate
effort, which has been happily compared by Professor Noldeke
to the action of the Caliph Othman in destroying all copies
of the Koran which diverged from the standard text that he
had adopted. There can be no question who were the instru-
1 On the Booh of Jubilees, see especially H. Ronsch, Das Buch der Jubiltien
(Leipzig, 1874), and Schiirer, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 677 sqq. On the various
readings of the book, Ronsch, pp. 196, 514.
lect. in IN THE HEBREW TEXT 63
ments in this work. The Scribes alone possessed the neces-
sary influence to give one text or one standard MS. a position
of such supreme authority. Moreover, we are able to explain
how it came about that the fixing of a standard text took
place about the Apostolic age, or rather a little later than
that date, and not at any earlier time. We have already
glanced at the political causes which made the power of the
Scribes greater in the time of Herod than it had ever been
before. The doctors of the Law wielded a great authority,
and were naturally eager to consolidate their legal system.
In earlier times the oral and written law went independently
side by side, and each stood on its own footing. Therefore,
variations in the text did not seriously affect any practical
question. But under Eabbi Hillel, a contemporary of Herod
the Great, and the grandfather of the Gamaliel who is
mentioned in the fifth chapter of Acts, a great change took
place. It was the ambition of Hillel to devise a system of
interpretation by which every traditional custom could be
connected with some text from the Pentateuch, no matter in
how arbitrary a way. This system was taken up and perfected
by his successors, especially by Eabbi Akiba, who was a
prominent figure in the revolt against Hadrian.1 The new
1 On Hillel and his school, see especially Derenbourg, op. cit. chap. xi. ;
and on the development of his system by R. Ishmael and R. Akiba, ibid.
chap, xxiii. "Akiba adopted, not only the seven rules of Hillel, but the
thirteen of Ishmael ; even the latter did not suffice him in placing all the
halachoth, or decisions of the Rabbins, under the shield of the word of the
Pentateuch. His system of interpretation does not recognise the limits estab-
lished by the usage of the language, and respected by Ishmael ; every word
which is not absolutely indispensable to express the intention of the legislator,
or the logical relations of the sentences of a law and their parts, is designed to
enlarge or restrict the sphere of the law, to introduce into it the additions of
tradition, or exclude what tradition excludes. No particle or conjunction, be
it augmentative or restrictive, escapes this singular method of exegesis."
Thus the Hebrew prefix eth, which marks the definite accusative, agrees in
form with the preposition with. Hence, when Deut. x. 20 says, "Thou shalt
fear eth-Jehovah thy God," Akiba interprets, "Thou shalt fear the. doctors of
the law along with Jehovah." So Aquila, the disciple of Akiba, translates
64 FORMATION OF A
LECT. Ill
method of exegesis laid weight upon the smallest word, and
sometimes even upon mere letters of Scripture; so that it
became a matter of great importance to the new school of
Eabbins to fix on an authoritative text. We have seen that
when this text was fixed, the discordant copies must have
been rigorously suppressed. The evidence for this is only
circumstantial, but it is quite sufficient. There is no other
explanation which will account for the facts, and the con-
clusion is confirmed by what took place among the Greek-
speaking Jews with reference to their Greek Bible. The
Bible of the Greek -speaking Jews, the Septuagint, had
formerly enjoyed very great honour even in Palestine, and is
most respectfully spoken of by the ancient Palestinian tradi-
tion ; but it did not suit the newer school of interpretation,
it did not correspond with the received text, and was not
literal enough to fit the new methods of Eabbinic interpreta-
tion, while the Christians, on the contrary, found it a con-
venient instrument in their discussions with the Jews.
Therefore it fell into disrepute, and early in the second
century, just at the time when, as we have seen, the new
text of the Old Testament had been fixed, we find the Sep-
tuagint superseded among the Greek-speaking Jews by a
new translation, slavishly literal in character, made by a
Jewish proselyte of the name of Aquila, who was a disciple
of the Eabbi Akiba, and studiously followed his exegetical
methods.1
the mark of the accusative by avv. See Field, Proleg. p. xxii. Compare on
the whole subject Schurer, op. cit. vol. ii. § 25.
1 The progress of the stricter exegesis, and its influence on the treatment
of the text, may also be traced in the history of the Targums or Aramaic
paraphrases. Targum means originally the oral interpretation of the Meturge-
man in the synagogue (supra, p. 36). The Meturgemanim did not keep close
to their text, but added paraphrastic expositions, practical applications, poetical
and romantic embellishments. But there was a restraint on individual
liberty of exegesis. The translators formed a guild of scholars, and their
interpretations gradually assumed a fixed type. By and by the current
form of the Targum was committed to writing; but there was no fixed
lect. in FIXED HEBREW TEXT 65
It was then the Scribes that chose for us the Hebrew text
which we have now got. But were they in a position to
choose the very best text, to produce a critical edition which
could justly be accepted as the standard, so that we lose
nothing by the suppression of all divergent copies ? Well,
this at least we can say : that if they fixed for us a satisfactory
text, the Scribes did not do so in virtue of any great critical
skill which they possessed in comparing MSS. and selecting
the best readings. They worked from a false point of view.
Their objects were legal, not philological. Their defective
philology, their bad system of interpretation, made them bad
critics ; for it is the first rule of criticism that a good critic
must be a good interpreter of the thoughts of his author.
This judgment is fully borne out by the accounts given in
the Talmudical books of certain small and sporadic attempts
made by the Scribes to exercise something like criticism upon
the text. For example, we read of three MSS. preserved in
the Court of the Temple, each of which had one reading
which the other MSS. did not share. The Scribes, we are
told, rejected in each case the reading which had only one
edition, and those Palestinian Targums which have come down to us
belong to various recensions, and contain elements added late in the Middle
Ages.
This style of interpretation, in which the text was freely handled, and the
exposition of the law did not stand on the level of the new science of Akiba
and his associates, fell into disfavour with the dominant schools, just as the
Septuagint did. The Targum is severely censured in the Rabbinical writings ;
and at length the orthodox party took the matter into their own hands, and
framed a literal Targum, which, however, did not reach its final shape till the
third Christian century, when the chief seat of Jewish learning had been
moved to Babylonia. The Babylonian Targum to the Pentateuch is called
the Targum of Onkelos, i.e. the Targum in the style of Aquila (Akylas).
The corresponding Targum to the Prophets bears the name of Jonathan. As
Jonathan is the Hebrew equivalent of Theodotion, this perhaps means only
the Targum in the style of Theodotion. At any rate these Targums are not
the private enterprise of individual scholars, but express the official exegesis
of their age. The Targums to the Hagiographa have not an official character.
Comp. Geiger, Urschrift u. Uebersetzungen (Breslau, 1857), p. 163 sqq., p. 451
sqq.
5
6 6 TEXTUAL LABOURS lect. hi
copy for it and two against it.1 Now, every critic knows
that to accept or reject a reading merely according to the
number of MSS. for or against it is a method which, if
applied on a larger scale, would lead to a bad text. But
further there is some evidence, though it cannot be said to be
unambiguous, that the Scribes made certain changes in the
text, apparently without manuscript authority, in order to
remove expressions which seemed irreverent or indecorous.
We have seen that in later times, after the received text
was fixed, the Jewish scholars permitted themselves, in such
cases, to make a change in the reading though not in the
writing; but in earlier times, it would seem, the rule was
not quite so strict. There is a series of passages in which,
according to Jewish tradition, the expressions now found in
the text depart from the form of words which ought to be
used to convey the sense that was really in the mind of the
sacred writers. These are referred to as the eighteen TilcMnS
Sopherim (corrections or determination of the Scribes). Thus
in Job vii. 20, where the present text reads, " I am a burden
to myself," the tradition explains that the expression ought
to have been, " I am a burden upon thee," i.e. upon Jehovah.
Again in Genesis xviii. 22, where our version says, " Abraham
stood yet before the Lord," tradition says that this stands in
place of " The Lord stood yet before Abraham." And again,
in Habakkuk i. 12, where our version and the present
Hebrew text read, " Art thou not from everlasting, Jehovah
my God, my Holy One? We shall not die," the tradition
tells us that the expression should have been, " Thou canst
not die," which was changed because it seemed irreverent to
mention the idea of God dying, even in order to negative it.
It is sometimes maintained by Jewish scholars that the
1 Geiger, Urschrift, p. 232 ; Mas. Sopherim, vi. 4. A copy of the Law
was carried away by Titus among the spoils of the Temple ; Josephus, B. J.
vii. 5, § 5.
lect. in OF THE SCRIBES 67
tradition as to these TikMnS Sopherim does not imply any-
tampering with the text on the part of the Scribes, but only
that the sacred writers themselves disguised their thought by
refusing to use expressions which they thought unseemly;
but it is highly improbable that this was the original meaning
of the tradition, and quite certain that the more explicit
traditional accounts can have no other meaning than that the
first Scribes, the so-called men of the Great Synagogue, cor-
rected the text, and made it what we now read. It may
indeed be doubted whether the details of the tradition are of
any critical value. In most of the passages in question the
Septuagint agrees with our present text, and the internal
evidence is on the same side ; while in some cases, as 2 Sam.
xx. 1, where the original expression is said to have been
" every man to his gods " instead of " his tents," the supposed
older reading is manifestly absurd. On the other hand, in
1 Sam. iii. 13, where a TikMn is registered upon the expres-
sion " his sons made themselves vile " [Eev. V. : " did bring a
curse on themselves "], there is plainly something wrong, and
the Septuagint, with the change of a single letter in the
Hebrew, produces the good sense " did revile God," which
agrees with the Jewish tradition. On the whole, therefore,
we are entitled to conclude that the Eabbins had some vague
inaccurate knowledge of old MS. readings which departed
from the received text. And what is more important, the
tradition implies a recognition of the fact that the early
guardians of the text did not hesitate to make small changes
in order to remove expressions which they thought unedify-
ing.1 Beyond doubt, such changes were made in a good
many cases of which no record has been retained. For
1 The oldest list of the TikkiXne Sopherim is in the Mechilta, a work of the
second century, and contains only eleven passages. See also Geiger, op. cit.
p. 309, and the full list in Ochla w'ochla, ed. Frensdorff, No. 168 (Hannover,
1864). On the value of this tradition comp. Noldeke in Gbtt. Gel. Anz., 1869,
p. 2001 sq.
68 EARLY CHANGES lect. iij
example, in our text of the books of Samuel, Saul's son and
successor is called Ishbosheth, but in 1 Chronicles viii. 33,
ix. 39, he is called Eshbaal. Eshbaal means " Baal's man,"
a proper name of a well-known Semitic type, precisely similar
to such Arabic names as Imrau-1-Cais, " the man of the god
Cais." We must not, however, fancy that a son of Saul
could be named after the Tyrian or Canaanite Baal. The
word Baal is not the proper name of one deity, but an
appellative noun meaning lord or owner, which the tribes of
the Northern Semites applied each to their own chief divinity.
In earlier times it appears that the Israelites did not scruple
to give this honorific title to their national God Jehovah.
Thus the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, which were
worshipped under the supposition that they represented
Jehovah, were called Baalim by their devotees ; and Hosea,
when he prophesies the purification of Israel's religion, makes
it a main point that the people shall no longer call Jehovah
their Baal (Hosea ii. 16, 17 ; comp. xiii. 1, 2). This prophecy
shows that in Hosea's time the use of the word was felt to be
dangerous to true religion ; and indeed there is no question
that the mass of the people were apt to confound the true
God with the false Baalim of Canaan, the local divinities or
lords of individual tribes, towns, or sanctuaries. And so in
process of time scrupulous Israelites not only desisted from
applying the title of Baal to Jehovah, but taking literally the
precept of Exod. xxiii. 13, "Make no mention of the name of
other gods," they were wont, when they had occasion to refer
to a false deity, to call him not Baal but Bosheth, "the
shameful thing," as a euphemism for the hated name. The
substitution of " Ishbosheth " for " Eshbaal," and other cases
of the same kind, such as Mephibosheth for Meribaal (man of
Baal), are therefore simply due to the scruples of copyists or
readers who could not bring themselves to write or utter the
hated word even in a compound proper name. Of course no
lect. in IN THE TEXT 69
man, and certainly no king, ever bore so absurd a name as
" The man of the shameful thing," and as Chronicles still
preserves the true form, we may be pretty certain that the
change in the name in the book of Samuel was made after
he wrote, and is a veritable " correction of the Scribes."
These, then, are specimens of the changes which we can
still prove to have been made by early editors, and they are
enough to show that these guardians of the text were not
sound critics. Fortunately for us, they did not pretend to
make criticism their main business. It would have been a
very unfortunate thing for us indeed, if we had been left to
depend upon a text of the Hebrew Bible which the Scribes
had made to suit their own views. There can be no doubt,
however, that the standard copy which they ultimately
selected, to the exclusion of all others, owed this distinction
not to any critical labour which had been spent upon it, but
to some external circumstance that gave it a special reputa-
tion. Indeed, the fact, already referred to, that the very errors
and corrections and accidental peculiarities of the manuscript
were kept just as they stood, shows that it must have been
invested with a peculiar sanctity ; if indeed the meaning of
the so-called extraordinary points — that is, of those suspended
and dotted letters, and the like — had not already been for-
gotten when it was chosen to be the archetype of all future
copies.
Now, if the Scribes were not the men to make a critical
text, it is plain that they were also not in a position to choose,
upon scientific principles, the very best extant manuscript ;
but it is very probable that they selected an old and well-
written copy, possibly one of those which were preserved in
the Court of the Temple. Between this copy and the original
autographs of the Sacred Writers there must have been many
a link. It may have been an old manuscript, but it was not
an exorbitantly old one. Of that there are two proofs. In
70 THE ARCHETYPE OF lect. in
the first place, it was certainly written in Aramaic characters,
not very different from the " square " or " Assyrian " letters
used in our modern Hebrew Bibles; but in old times the
Hebrews used the quite different character usually called
Phoenician. According to Jewish tradition, which is disposed
to ascribe everything to Ezra which it has not the assurance
to refer to Moses, the change on the character in which the
sacred books were written was introduced by Ezra ; but we
know that this is a mistake, for the Samaritans, who acquired
the Pentateuch after Ezra's publication of the Law, received
it in the old Phoenician letter, which they retain in a cor-
rupted form down to the present day. It is most improbable
that the Jews adopted the Aramaic character for Biblical
MSS. before the third century B.C., and that therefore would
be the earliest possible date for the archetype of our present
Hebrew copies.1 Another proof that the copy was not ex-
traordinarily old lies in the spelling. In Hebrew, as in
other languages, the rules of spelling varied in the course of
centuries, and as we have a genuine specimen of old Hebrew
1 Tables of the forms of the Semitic alphabet at various times, by the
eminent calligrapher and paleographer, Prof. Euting of Strassburg, are
appended to the English translation of Bickell's Hebrew Grammar (1877),
and to the latest edition of Kautzsch - Gesenius, Eebr. Grammatik (1889).
Fuller tables by the same skilful hand are in Chwolson's Corpus Inscr. Heb.
(Petersburg, 1882), and Syr isch-nestor. Grab inschrij 'ten (Petersburg, 1890); the
last also separately, Tabula Scripturoz Aramaicaz (Strassburg, 1890). On the
history of the Hebrew alphabet see Wright, Lectures on the Comp. Grammar of
the Sem. Languages (Cambridge, 1890), p. 35 sqq. ; Driver, Notes on Samuel
(Oxford, 1890), Introduction ; and comp. the plates in the Oriental Series of the
Palseographical Society. The old character must still have been generally
understood when the first Jewish coins were struck (141 B.C.); for though
conservatism may explain its retention on later coins, an obsolete letter would
not have been chosen by Simon when he struck Hebrew money for the first
time. On the other hand, the expressions in Matt. v. 18 imply that in the
time of our Lord the Aramaic script was used ; for in the old character Yod
("jot ") was not a very small letter. Indeed, it seems to be pretty well made
out that parts, at least, of the Septuagint were translated from MSS. in the
Aramaic character. See Vollers in Stade's Zcitsehrift, 1883, p. 230 sqq., and
the literature there cited.
lect. in OUR HEBREW BIBLES 7 1
spelling in the inscription of Siloah (eighth century B.C.), and
also possess a long Moabite inscription of still earlier date
and many Phoenician inscriptions of different periods, evi-
dence is not lacking to decide which of two orthographies is
the older. Now, it can be proved that the copies which lay
before the translators of the Septuagint in the third, and per-
haps in the second, century B.C., often had an older style of
spelling than existed in the archetype of our present Hebrew
Bibles. It does not follow of necessity that in all respects
these older MSS. were better and nearer to the original text ;
but certainly the facts which we have been developing give
a new importance to the circumstance that the MSS. of the
LXX. often contained readings very different from those of
our Hebrew Bibles, even to the extent of omitting or insert-
ing passages of considerable length.
In this connection there is yet another point worth notice.
In these times Hebrew books were costly and cumbrous,
written on huge rolls of leather, not even on the later and
more convenient parchment. Copies therefore were not very
numerous, and, being much handled, were apt to get worn
and indistinct. For not only was leather an indifferent
surface to write on, but the ink was of a kind that could
be washed off, a prejudice existing against the use of a
mordant.1 No single copy, therefore, however excellent, was
likely to remain long in good readable condition throughout.
And we have seen that collation of several copies, by which
1 That the old Hebrew ink could be washed off appears from Numb. v.
23, Exod. xxxii. 33. From the former passage is derived the Rabbinic
objection to the use of a mordant in ink. See Sopherim, i. 5, 6, and the notes
in Midler's edition (Leipzig, 1878) ; Mishna, Sota, ii. 4, and Wagenseil's Com-
mentary (Surenh., iii. p. 206 sq.) The Jews laid no value on old copies,
but in later times prized certain MSS. as specially correct. A copy in which
a line had become obliterated, or which was otherwise considerably defective,
was cast aside into the Geniza or lumber-room {Sopherim, iii. 9). There was
a difference of opinion as to touching-up faded letters {ibid. 8, and Midler's
note). Compare Harkavy in Mem. de V Acad, de S. Petersbourg, xxiv. p. 57.
72 ANTIOCHUS EP1PHANES lect. hi
defects might have been supplied, was practised to Lut a
small extent. Often indeed it must have been difficult to
get manuscripts to collate, and once at least the whole
number of Bibles existing in Palestine was reduced to very
narrow limits. For Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.) caused
all copies of the Law, and seemingly of the other sacred books,
to be torn up and burnt, and made it a capital offence to
possess a Pentateuch (1 Mac. i. 56, 57 ; Josephus, Ant. xii. 5,
§ 4). The text of books preserved only in manuscript might
very readily suffer in passing through such a crisis, and it is
most providential that before this time, the Law and other
books of the Old Testament had been translated into Greek
and were current in regions where Antiochus had no sway.
This Greek version, called the Septuagint, of which the
greater part is older than the time of Antiochus, still exists,
and supplies, as we shall see in the next Lecture, the most
valuable evidence for the early state of the Old Testament
text.
LECTUEE IV
THE SEPTUAGINT1
We have passed under review the vicissitudes of the Hebrew
Text, as far back as the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. We
have found that all our MSS. go back to one archetype. But
the archetype was not formed by a critical process which we
can accept as conclusive. It was not so ancient but that a
long interval lay between it and the first hand of the Biblical
authors ; and the comparative paucity of books in those early
times, combined with the imperfect materials used in writing,
and the deliberate attempt of Antiochus to annihilate the
Hebrew Bible, exposed the text to so many dangers that it
cannot but appear a most welcome and providential circum-
stance that the Greek translation, derived from MSS. of
which some at least were presumably older than the arche-
type of our present Hebrew copies, and preserved in countries
beyond the dominions of Antiochus, offers an independent
witness to the early state of the Biblical books, vindicating
1 On the subject of this Lecture compare, in general, Wellhausen's article
Septuagint (Enc. Brit., 9th ed.). The two books which have perhaps done
most to exemplify the right method of using the Septuagint for criticism of
the Hebrew text are Lagarde, Anmerkunycn zur Griechischen Uelersetzung der
Proverbien (Leipzig, 1863) ; Wellhausen, Der Text der Biicher Samuelis (Gott.,
1871). For English students the best practical introduction to the critical
use of the LXX. is Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel
(Oxford, 1890). On the relation of the Septuagint to the Palestinian tradi-
tion compare Geiger, op. cit., and Frankel, Ucbcr den Einfiuss der ^«7osi!m-
ischen Exegese auf die Alexandrinischc Hermcneutik (Leipzig, 1851).
74 VALUE OF THE
LECT. IV
the substantial accuracy of the transmission of these records ;
while, at the same time, it displays a text not yet fixed in
every point of detail, exhibits a series of important various
readings, and sometimes indicates the existence of corruptions
in the received Hebrew recension — corruptions which it not
seldom enables us to remove, restoring the first hand of the
sacred authors.
Nevertheless, there have been many scholars who altogether
reject this use of the Septuagint. One of the latest represent-
atives of this party is Keil, from whose Introduction (Eng.
trans., vol. ii. p. 306) I quote the following sentences : —
" The numerous and strongly marked deviations [of the Septuagint]
from the Massoretic text have arisen partly at a later time, out of the
carelessness and caprice of transcribers. But in so far as they existed
originally, almost in a mass they are explained by the uncritical and
wanton passion for emendation, which led the translators to alter the
original text (by omissions, additions, and transpositions) where they
misunderstood it in consequence of their own defective knowledge of
the language, or where they supposed it to be unsuitable or incorrect
for historical, chronological, dogmatic, or other reasons ; or which, at
least, led them to render it inexactly, according to their own notions
and their uncertain conjectures."
If this judgment were sound, we should be deprived at
one blow of the most ancient witness to the state of the text ;
and certainly, at one time, the opinion advocated by Keil
was generally current among Protestant scholars. We have
glanced, in a previous Lecture {supra, p. 32), at the reasons
which led the early Protestants to place themselves, on points
of Hebrew scholarship, almost without reserve in the hands
of the Jews. Accepting the received Hebrew text as trans-
mitted in the Jewish schools, they naturally viewed with
distrust the very different text of the Septuagint. However,
the question of the real value of the Greek version was stirred
early in the seventeenth century, mainly by two French
scholars, one of whom was a Catholic, Jean Morin (Morinus),
lect. iv SEPTUAGINT VERSION 75
priest of the Oratory, the other a Protestant, Louis Cappelle
(Cappellus).
The controversy raised by the publication of the Exercita-
tiones Biblicce of Morinus (Paris, 1633-1660) was unduly pro-
longed by the introduction of dogmatic considerations which
should have had no place in a scholarly argument as to the
history of the Biblical text. These considerations lost much
of their force when all parties were compelled to admit the
value of the various readings of MSS. and versions for the
study of the New Testament ; and, since theological prejudice
was overcome, it has gradually become clear to the vast
majority of conscientious students that the Septuagint is
really of the greatest value as a witness to the early history
of the text.
It is very difficult to convey, in a popular manner, a
sufficiently clear idea of the arguments by which this position
is established. Even the few remarks which I shall make
may, I fear, seem to you somewhat tedious ; but I must ask
your attention for them, because it is of no slight consequence
to know whether, in this, the oldest, version, we have or have
not a valuable testimony to the way in which the Old Testa-
ment has been transmitted, an independent basis for a rational
and well-argued belief as to the state of the Hebrew text.
In judging of the Septuagint translation, we must not put
ourselves on the standpoint of a translator in these days.
We must begin by realising to ourselves the facts brought
out in Lecture II., that Jewish scholars, before the time of
Christ, had no grammar and no dictionary; that all their
knowledge of the language was acquired by oral teaching;
that their exegesis of difficult passages was necessarily tradi-
tional ; and that, where tradition failed them, they had for
their guidance only that kind of practical knowledge of the
language which they got by the constant habit of reading the
sacred text, and speaking some kind of Hebrew among them-
76 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. iv
selves in the schools. We must also remember that, when
the Septuagint was composed, the Hebrew language was
either dead or dying, and that the mother-tongue of the
translators was either Greek or Aramaic. Hence we must
not be surprised to find that, when tradition was silent, the
Septuagint translators made many mistakes. If they came
to a difficult passage, say of a prophet, of which no traditional
interpretation had been handed down in the schools, or which
contained words the meanings of which had not been taught
them by their masters, they could do nothing better than
make a guess — sometimes guided by analogies and similar
words in Aramaic — sometimes by other considerations. The
value of the translation does not lie in the sense which they
put upon such passages, but in the evidence that we can find
as to what Hebrew words lay in the MSS. before them.
Apart from the inherent defects of scholarship derived
entirely from tradition, we find that the Septuagint some-
times varies from the older text for reasons which are at once
intelligible when we understand the general principles of the
Scribes at the time. We have already seen, for example, that
the Scribes in Palestine did not hesitate occasionally to make
a dogmatic correction, removing from the writing, or at least
from the reading, of Scripture some expression which they
thought it indecorous to pronounce in public. In like manner
we find that the translators of the Septuagint sometimes
changed a phrase which they thought likely to be misunder-
stood, or to be used to establish some false doctrine. Thus,
in the Hebrew text of Exodus xxiv. 10, we read that the
elders who went up towards Sinai with Moses " saw the God
of Israel." This anthropomorphic expression, it was felt,
could not be rendered literally without lending some coun-
tenance to the false idea that the spiritual God can be seen
by the bodily eyes of men, and offering an apparent contra-
diction to Exodus xxxiii. 20. The Septuagint therefore changes
lect. iv THE SEPT U AG INT VERSION 77
it, and says, " They saw the place where the God of Israel
had stood." One change on the text, made by the Septuagint
in deference to an early and widespread Jewish scruple, is
followed even in the English Bible. The ancient proper
name of the God of Israel, which we are accustomed to write as
Jehovah, is habitually suppressed by the Greek translators,
the word 6 /cvptos (A. V. the Loed) taking its place. This
agrees with the usage of the Hebrew-speaking Jews, who in
reading substituted Adonai (the Lord), or, in certain cases,
Elohim (God), for the " ineffable name." So strictly was this
rule carried out that the true pronunciation of the name was
ultimately forgotten among the Jews ; though several early
Christian writers had still access to authentic information on
the subject. From their testimony, and from a comparison
of the many old Hebrew proper names which are compounded
with the sacred name, we can still make out that the true
pronunciation is Iahwe. The vulgar form Jehovah is of very
modern origin, and arises from a quite arbitrary combination
of the true consonants with the vowel points which the
Massorets set against the word in all passages where they
meant it to be read Adonai and not Elohim. Unhappily,
this spurious form is now too deeply rooted among us to be
displaced, at least in popular usage.
Again, we have already seen that the interpretation of
the Scribes was largely guided by the Halacha, that is, by
oral tradition ultimately based upon the common law and
habitual usage of the sanctuary and of Jerusalem. The same
influence of the Halacha is found in the Septuagint transla-
tion. Thus, in Lev. xxiv. 7, where the Hebrew text bids
frankincense be placed on the shewbread, the Septuagint
makes it " frankincense and salt," because salt, as well as
frankincense, was used in the actual ritual of their period.
Such deviations of the Septuagint as these need not
seriously embarrass the critic. He recognises the causes from
78 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. iv
which they came. He is able, approximately, to estimate
their extent by what he knows of Palestinian tradition, and
he is not likely, in a case of this sort, to be misled into the
supposition that the Septuagint had a different text from the
Hebrew. Once more, we find that the translators allowed
themselves certain liberties which were also used by copyists
of the time. Their object was to give the thing with perfect
clearness as they understood it. Consequently they some-
times changed a " he " into " David " or " Solomon," naming
the person alluded to ; and they had no scruple in adding a
word or two to complete the sense of an obscure sentence, or
supply what appeared to be an ellipsis. Even our extant
Hebrew MSS. indicate a tendency to make additions of this
description. The original and nervous style of early Hebrew
prose was no longer appreciated, and a diffuse smoothness,
with constant repetition of standing phrases and elaborate
expansion of the most trifling incidents, was the classical
ideal of composition. The copyist or translator seldom
omitted anything save by accident ; but he was often tempted
by his notions of style to venture on an expansion of the
text. Let me take a single example. In passages in the Old
Testament where we read of some one eating, a compas-
sionate editor, as a recent critic humorously puts it, was pretty
sure to intervene and give him also something to drink.
Sometimes we find the longer reading in the Septuagint,
sometimes in the Hebrew text. In 1 Samuel i. 9 the Hebrew
tells us that Hannah rose up after she had eaten in Shiloh
and after she had drunk, but the Septuagint has only the
shorter reading, "After she had eaten." Conversely, in
2 Samuel xii. 21, where the Hebrew text says only,
"Thou didst rise and eat bread," the Septuagint presents
the fuller text, "Thou didst rise and eat bread, and
drink." In cases of this sort, the shorter text is obviously
the original.
lect. iv THE SEPTUAGINT VERSION 79
For our present purpose these three classes of variations
do not come into account. First of all we must put aside the
cases where, having the present Hebrew text before them,
the translators failed to understand it, simply because they
had no tradition to guide them. We must not say that they
were ignorant or capricious, because they were not able to
make a good grammatical translation of a difficult passage at
a time when such a thing as grammar or lexicon did not
exist even in Palestine. In the next place, we must put on
one side the cases where the interpretation was influenced by
exegetical considerations derived from the dogmatic theology
of the time or from the traditional law. And, thirdly, we
can attach no great importance to those variations in which,
without changing the sense, the translator, or perhaps a
copyist before him, gave a slight turn to an expression to
remove ambiguity, or to gain the diffuse fulness which he
loved.
But after making every allowance for these cases a large
class of passages remains, in which the Septuagint presents
important variations from the Massoretic text. The test by
which the value of these variations can be determined is the
method of retranslation. A faithful translation from Hebrew
into an idiom so different as the Greek — especially such a
translation as the Septuagint, the work of men who had no
great command of Greek style — cannot fail to retain the
stamp of the original language. It will be comparatively
easy to put it back into idiomatic Hebrew, and even the
mistakes of the translator will often point clearly to the
words of the original which he had before him. But where
the translator capriciously departs from his original, the
work of retranslation will at once become more difficult.
For the capricious translator is one who substitutes his own
thought for that of the author, and what he thinks in Greek
— even in lumbering Jewish Greek — will not so naturally
80 VARIOUS READINGS lect. iv
lend itself to retroversion into the Hebrew idiom. The test
of retranslation gives a very favourable impression of the
fidelity of the Alexandrian version. With a little practice
one can often put back whole chapters of the Septuagint into
Hebrew, reproducing the original text almost word for word.
The translation is not of equal merit throughout, and it is
plain that the different parts of the Bible were rendered by
men of unequal capacity ; but in general, and under the
limitations already indicated, it is safe to say that the trans-
lators were competent scholars as scholarship then went, and
that they did their work faithfully and in no arbitrary way.
Now as we proceed with the work of retranslation, and when
all has gone on smoothly for perhaps a whole chapter, in
which we find no considerable deflection from the present
Hebrew, we suddenly come to something which the practised
hand has no difficulty in putting back into Hebrew, which
indeed is full of such characteristic Hebrew idiom that it is
impossible to ascribe it to the caprice of a translator thinking
in Greek, but which, nevertheless, diverges from the Massoretic
text. In such cases we can be morally certain that a various
reading existed in the Hebrew MS. from which the Septuagint
was derived. Nay, in some passages, the moral certainty
becomes demonstrative, for we find that the translator
stumbled on a word which he was unable to render into
Greek, and that he contented himself with transcribing it in
Greek letters. A Hebrew word thus bodily transferred to
the pages of the Septuagint, and yet differing from what we
now read in our Hebrew Bibles, constitutes a various reading
which cannot be explained away. An example of this is
found in 1 Sam. xx., in the account of the arrangement made
between Jonathan and David to determine the real state of
^ Saul's disposition towards the latter. In the Hebrew text
(ver. 19) Jonathan directs David to be in hiding "by the
stone Ezel ;" and at verse 41, when the plan agreed on has
LECT. IV
OF THE SEPTUAGINT
81
been carried out, David at a given signal emerges "from
beside the Negeb." The Negeb is a district in the south of
Judaea, remote from the city of Saul, in the neighbourhood of
which the events of our chapter took place ; and the attempt
of the English version to smooth away the difficulty is not
satisfactory either in point of grammar or of sense. But the
Septuagint makes the whole thing clear. At verse 19 the
Greek reads " beside yonder Ergab," and at verse 41 " David
arose from the Ergab." Ergab is the transcription in Greek
of a rare Hebrew word signifying a cairn or rude monument
of stone, which does not occur elsewhere except as a proper
name (Argob). The translators transliterated the word
because they did not understand it, and the reading of
the Massoretic text, which involves no considerable
change in the letters of the Hebrew, probably arose from
similar lack of knowledge on the part of Palestinian
copyists.
The various readings of the Septuagint are not always so
happy as in this case ; but in selecting some further examples,
it will be most instructive for us to confine ourselves to
passages where the Greek gives a better reading than the
Hebrew, and where its superiority can be made tolerably
manifest even in an English rendering. It must, however,
be remembered that complete proof that the corruption lies
on the side of the Hebrew and not of the Greek can be
offered only to those who understand these languages. Our
first example shall be 1 Sam. xiv. 18.
Hebrew.
And Saul said to Ahiah, Bring
hither the ark of God. For the
ark of God was on that day and
[not as E. V. with] the children
of Israel.
Septuagint.
And Saul said to Ahiah, Bring
hither the ephod, for he bare the
ephod on that day before Israel.
The Authorised Version smooths away one difficulty of
6
82
VARIOUS READINGS
LECT. IV
the Hebrew text at the expense of grammar. But there are
other difficulties behind. The ark was then at Gibeah of
Kirjath-jearim (1 Sam. vii. 1 ; 2 Sam. vi. 3), quite a different
place from Gibeah of Benjamin ; and its priest was not
Ahiah, but Eleazar ben Abinadab. Besides, Saul's object
was to seek an oracle, and this was done, not by means of
the ark, but by the sacred lot connected with the ephod of
the priest (1 Sam. xxiii. 6, 9). This is what the Septuagint
actually brings out, and there can be no doubt that it pre-
serves the right reading. The changes on the Hebrew letters
required to get the one reading out of the other are far less
considerable than one would imagine from the English.
Another example is the death of Ishbosheth (2 Sam. iv.
5, 6, 7) :—
Hebrew.
[The assassins] came to the
house of Ishbosheth in the hottest
part of the day, while he was
taking his midday siesta. (6)
And hither they came into the
midst of the house fetching wheat,
and smote him in the flank, and
Rechab and Baanah his brother
escaped. (7) And they came into
the house as he lay on his bed,
. . . and smote him and slew him,
etc.
Septuagint.
They came to the house of
Ishbosheth in the hottest part of
the day, while he was taking his
midday siesta. And lo, the woman
who kept the door of the house
was cleaning wheat, and she slum-
bered and slept, and the brothers
Rechab and Baanah passed in un-
observed and came into the house
as Ishbosheth lay on his bed, etc.
In the Hebrew there is a meaningless repetition in
verse 7 of what has already been fully explained in the two
preceding verses. The Septuagint text gives a clear and pro-
gressive narrative, and one which no " capricious translator "
could have derived out of his own head. As in the previous
case, the two readings are very like one another when written
in the Hebrew.
Another reading, long ago appealed to by Dathe as one
which no man familiar with the style of the translator could
LECT. IV
OF THE SEPTUAGINT
83
credit him with inventing, is found in Ahithophel's advice to
Absalom (2 Sam. xvii. 3) : —
Hebrew.
I will bring back all the people
to thee. Like the return of the
whole is the man whom thou
seekest. All the people shall
have peace.
Septuagint.
I will make all the people turn
to thee as a bride turneth to her
husband. Thou seekest the life
of but one man, and all the people
shall have peace.
The cumbrousness of the Hebrew text is manifest. The
Septuagint, on the contrary, introduces a graceful simile,
thoroughly natural in the picturesque and poetically-coloured
language of ancient Israel, but wholly unlike the style of the
prosaic age when the translator worked.
The Books of Samuel, from which these examples are
selected, are, on the whole, the part of the Old Testament in
which the value of the Septuagint is most manifest and most
generally recognised. The Hebrew text has many obscurities
which can only be explained as due to faulty transmission,
and the variations of the Septuagint are numerous and often
good. In the Pentateuch, on the other hand, the Septuagint
seldom departs far from the Hebrew text, and its variations
seldom give a better reading. This is just what we should
expect, for from a very early date the Law was read in the
synagogues every Sabbath day (Acts xv. 21) in regular
course, the whole being gone through in a cycle of three
years. The Jews thus became so familiar with the words of
the Pentateuch that copyists were in great measure secured
from important errors of transcription ; and it is also reason-
able to suppose that the rolls written for the synagogue were
transcribed with special care long before the full development
of the elaborate precautions which were ultimately devised to
exclude errors from all the sacred books. Sections from the
prophetic books were also read in the synagogue (Acts xiii. 15),
but not in a complete and systematic manner. At the time
84 ORIGIN OF lect. iy
of Christ, indeed, it would seem that the reader had a certain
freedom of choice in the prophetic lessons (Luke iv. 17).
Such books as Samuel, again, had little place in the syna-
gogue service, while the interest of the narrative caused
them to be largely read in private. But private study gave
no such guarantee against the introduction of various readings
as was afforded by use in public worship. Private readers
must no doubt have often been content to purchase or tran-
scribe indifferent copies, and a student might not hesitate to
make on his own copy notes or small additions to facilitate
the sense, or even to add a paragraph which he had derived
from another source, a procedure of which we shall find
examples by and by. Under such circumstances, and in the
absence of official supervision, the multiplication of copies
opened an easy door to the multiplication of errors ; which
might, no doubt, have been again eliminated by a critical
collation, but might very easily become permanent when, as
we have seen, a single copy, without critical revision, acquired
the position of the standard manuscript, to which all new
transcripts were to be conformed.
In general, then, we must conclude, first, that many
various readings once existed in MSS. of the Old Testament
which have totally disappeared from the extant Hebrew
copies ; and, further, that the range and distribution of these
variations were in part connected with the fact that all books
of the Old Testament had not an equal place in the official
service of the synagogue. But the force of these observations
is sometimes met by an argument directed to depreciate the
value of the Septuagint variations. It is not denied that
the MSS. which lay before the Greek translators contained
various readings ; but it is urged that these MSS. were pre-
sumably of Egyptian origin, and that the Jews of Egypt had
probably to content themselves with inferior copies, trans-
mitted and multiplied by the hands of scholars who were
LECT. IV
THE SEPTUAGINT 85
neither so learned nor so scrupulous as the Scribes of
Jerusalem. Upon this view we are invited to look upon the
Septuagint as the witness to a corrupt Egyptian recension of
the text, the various readings in which deserve little atten-
tion, and afford no evidence that Palestinian MSS. did not
agree even at an early period with the present Massoretic text.
We have already seen that this view is at any rate ex-
aggerated, for we have had cases before us in which no sober
critic will hesitate to prefer the so-called Egyptian reading.
But further it is to be observed that the whole theory of a
uniform Palestinian recension is a pure hypothesis. There is
not a particle of evidence that there was a uniform Palestinian
text in the sense in which our present Hebrew Bibles are
uniform — or, in other words, to the exclusion even of such
variations and corruptions as are found in MSS. of the New
Testament — before the first century of our era. Nay, as we
have seen, the author of the Book of Jubilees, a Palestinian
scholar of the first century, used a Hebrew Bible which often
agreed with the Septuagint or the Samaritan recension against
the Massoretic text (supra, p. 62).
But let us. look at the history of the Greek translation,
and see what ground of fact there is for supposing that it was
made from inferior copies, and could pass muster only in a
land of inferior scholarship. The account of the origin of the
Septuagint version of the Law which was current in the time
of Christ, and may be read in Josephus and Eusebius, is full
of fabulous embellishments, designed to establish the authority
of the version as miraculously composed under divine inspira-
tion. The source of these fables is an epistle purporting to be
written by one Aristeas, a courtier in Alexandria under Ptolemy
Philadelphia (283-247 B.C.).1 This epistle is a forgery, but the
1 Critical edition of the text of the letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, by M.
Schmidt, in Merx's Archiv, i. 241 sq. (Halle, 1870). It is unnecessary to
sketch its contents, for which the English reader may turn to the translations
of Eusebius and Josephus. What basis of truth underlies the fables depends
86 HELLENISTS AND lect. iv
author seems to have linked on his fabulous stories to some
element of current tradition ; and there is other evidence that
in the second century B.C. the uniform tradition of the Jews
in Egypt was to the effect that the Greek Pentateuch was
written for Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, to be placed in the
royal library collected by Demetrius Phalereus. This tradi-
tion is not wholly improbable, and at all events the date to
which it leads us has generally commended itself to the
judgment of scholars ; it is confirmed by the fact that the
fragments of the Jew, Demetrius, who wrote a Greek history
of the kings of Juda3a under Ptolemy IV. (222-205 B.C.),
betray acquaintance with the Septuagint Pentateuch. The
other books were translated later, but they probably followed
pretty fast. The author of the prologue to Ecclesiasticus,
who wrote in Egypt about 130 B.C., speaks of the law, the
prophets, and the other books of the fathers, as current in
Greek in his time. The Septuagint version, then, was made
in Egypt under the Ptolemies. Under these princes the
Jewish colony in Egypt was not a poor or oppressed body ;
it was very numerous, very influential. Jews held important
posts in the kingdom, and formed a large element in the
population of Alexandria. Their wealth was so great that
they were able to make frequent pilgrimages and send many
rich gifts to the Temple at Jerusalem. They stood, therefore,
on an excellent footing with the authorities of the nation in
Palestine, and there is not the slightest evidence that they
were regarded as heretics, using an inferior Bible, or in
any way falling short of all the requisites of true Judaism.
There was, indeed, a schismatic temple in Egypt, at Leonto-
polis ; but that temple, so far as we can gather, by no means
attracted to it the service and the worship of the greater part
mainly on the genuineness of the fragments of Aristobulus. See on the one
side Wellhausen-Bleek, § 279, on the other Kuenen's Religion of Israel, note
1 to chap. xi. For Demetrius see Schiirer, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 730, and for
Aristobulus, ibid. p. 760 ; see also ibid. p. 697 sqq., p. 819 sqq.
lect. iv PALESTINIANS 87
of the Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt. Their hearts still
turned towards Jerusalem, and their intercourse with Pales-
tine was too familiar and frequent to suffer them to fall into
the position of an isolated and ignorant sect.
All this makes it highly improbable that the Jews of
Egypt would have contented themselves with a translation
below the standard of Palestine, or that they would have
found any difficulty in procuring manuscripts of the approved
official recension, if such a recension had then existed. But
the argument may be carried further. In the time of Christ
there were many Hellenistic Jews resident in Jerusalem,
with synagogues of their own, where the Greek version was
necessarily in regular use. We find these Hellenists in Acts
vi., living on the best terms with the religious authorities of
the capital. Hellenists and Hebrews, the Septuagint and the
original text, met in Jerusalem without schism or controversy.
Yet many of the Palestinian scholars were familiar with
Greek, and Paul cannot have been the only man born in the
Hellenistic dispersion, and accustomed from infancy to the
Greek version, who afterwards studied under Palestinian
doctors, and became equally familiar with the Hebrew text.
The divergences of the Septuagint must have been patent
to all Jerusalem. Yet we find no attempt to condemn
and suppress this version till the second century, when
the rise of the new school of exegesis, and the consequent
introduction of a fixed official text, were followed by the
discrediting of the old Greek Bible in favour of the new
translation by Aquila. On the contrary, early Babbinical
tradition expressly recognises the Greek version as legiti-
mate. In some passages of the Jewish books mention is
made of thirteen places in which those who " wrote for
Ptolemy " departed from the Hebrew text. But these
changes, which are similar in character to the "corrections
of the Scribes" spoken of in the last Lecture, are not
88 JEWISH ESTIMATE legt. iv
reprehended; and in one form of the tradition they are
even said to have been made by divine inspiration. The
account of these thirteen passages contains mistakes which
show that the tradition was written down after the Septu-
agint had ceased to be a familiar book in Palestine. It
is remarkable that the graver variations of the Egyptian
text are passed over in absolute silence, and had apparently
fallen into oblivion. But the tradition recalls a time when
Hebrew scholars knew the Greek version well, and noted
its variations in a spirit of friendly tolerance. These facts
are entirely inconsistent with the idea that the Egyptian
text was viewed as corrupt. To the older Jewish tradition
its variations appeared, not in the light of deviations from
an acknowledged standard, but as features fairly within
the limits of a faithful transmission or interpretation of
the text.1 And so the comparison of the Septuagint with
the Hebrew Bible not merely furnishes us with fresh critical
material for the text of individual passages, but supplies
ia measure of the limits of variation which were tolerated
1 Compare Morinus, Exercitatio viii. In Mishna, Megilla, i. 8, we read,
"The Scriptures maybe written in every tongue. R. Simeon b. Gamaliel
says they did not suffer the Scriptures to be written except in Greek." On
this the Gemara observes, " R. Judah said, that when our Rabbins permitted
writing in Greek, they did so only for the Torah, and hence arose the transla-
tion made for King Ptolemy," etc. So Josephus, though an orthodox Pharisee,
makes use of the LXX., even where it departs from the Hebrew (1 Esdras).
The thirteen variations are given in the Gemara, ut supra, and in Sopherlm, i.
9. In both places God is said to have guided the seventy-two translators, so
that, writing separately, all gave one sense. Side by side with this favour-
able estimate, Soph. i. 8, following the glosses on Megillath Ta'anith, gives
the later hostile tradition, which it supposes to refer to a different version.
"That day was a hard day for Israel — like the day when they made the
golden calf," because the Torah could not be adequately translated. See
further, on the gradual growth of the prejudice against the Greek translation,
Midler's note, op. cit. p. 11. Jerome, following the text supplied by Jewish
tradition, will have it that the LXX. translators purposely concealed from
Ptolemy the mysteries of faith, especially the prophecies referring to the
advent of Christ. See Quozst. in Gen. p. 2 (ed. Lagarde, 1868), and Praef.
in Pent.
lect. iv OF THE SEPTUAGINT 89
two hundred years after Ezra, when the version was first
written, and indeed from that time downwards until the
apostolic age. For in the times of the New Testament the
Greek and Hebrew Bibles were current side by side; and
men like the apostles, who knew both languages, used
either text indifferently, or even quoted the Old Testament
from memory, as Paul often does, with a laxness surprising
to the reader who judges by a modern rule, but very natural
in the condition of the text which we have just characterised.
It may be observed in passing that these considerations re-
move a great part of the difficulties which are commonly felt
to attach to the citations of the Old Testament in the New.
When we say that the readings of the Septuagint afford a
fair measure of the limits of variation in the early history of
the text, it is by no means implied that the Greek version,
taken as a whole, is as valuable as the Hebrew text. A
translation can never supply the place of a manuscript. There
is always an allowance to be made for errors and licences of
interpretation, and the allowance is necessarily large in the
case of the Septuagint, which was the first attempt at a trans-
lation of the Bible, and perhaps the first considerable transla-
tion ever made. Thus, even if we possessed the Septuagint
in its original form it would be necessary to use it with great
caution as an instrument of textual criticism. But in reality
this use of the Septuagint is made greatly more difficult and
uncertain by many corruptions which it underwent in the
course of transmission. The Greek text was in a deplorable
state even in the days of Origen, in the first half of the third
Christian century. In his Hexaplar Bible, in which the
Hebrew, the Septuagint, and the later Greek versions were
arranged in parallel columns, Origen made a notable attempt
to purify the text, and indicate its variations from the Hebrew.
But the use made of Origen's labours by later generations
rather increased the mischief, and in the present day it is an
90 TEXTUAL AND lect. iv
affair of the most delicate scholarship to make profitable use
of the Alexandrian version for the confirmation or emenda-
tion of the Hebrew. The work has often fallen into incom-
petent hands, and their rashness is a chief reason why cautious
scholars are still apt to look with unjustifiable indifference
on what, after all, is our oldest witness to the history of the
text of the Old Testament.
For our present purpose it is not necessary that I should
conduct you over the delicate ground which cannot be safely
trodden save by the most experienced scholarship. My object
will be attained if I succeed in conveying to you by a few
plain examples a just conception of the methods of the
ancient copyists as they stand revealed to us in the broader
differences between the Hebrew and the Septuagint. It will
conduce to clearness if I indicate at the outset the conclusions
to which these differences appear to point, and the proof of
which will be specially contemplated in the details which I
shall presently set before you. I shall endeavour to show
that the comparison of the Hebrew and Greek texts carries
us beyond the sphere of mere verbal variations, with which
textual criticism is generally busied, and introduces us to a
series of questions affecting the composition, the editing, and
the collection of the sacred books. This class of questions
forms the special subject of the branch of critical science
which is usually distinguished from the verbal criticism of
the text by the name of Higher or Historical Criticism. The
value of textual criticism is now admitted on all hands.
The first collections of various readings for the New Testa-
ment excited great alarm, but it was soon seen to be absurd
to quarrel with facts. Various readings were actually found
in MSS., and it was necessary to make the best of them. But
while textual criticism admittedly deals with facts, the higher
criticism is often supposed to have no other basis than the
subjective fancies and arbitrary hypotheses of scholars. When
lect. iv HIGHER CRITICISM 91
critics maintain that some Old Testament writings, tradi-
tionally ascribed to a single hand, are really of composite
origin, and that many of the Hebrew books have gone through
successive redactions — or, in other words, have been edited
and re-edited in different ages, receiving some addition or
modification at the hand of each editor — it is often supposed
that these are mere idle theories unsupported by evidence.
Here it is that the Septuagint comes in to justify the critics.
The variations of the Greek and Hebrew text reveal to us a
time when the functions of copyist and editor shaded into
one another by imperceptible degrees. They not only prove
that Old Testament books were subjected to such processes
of successive editing as critics maintain, but that the work of
redaction went on to so late a date that editorial changes are
found in the present Hebrew text which did not exist in the
MSS. of the Greek translators. The details of the evidence
will make my meaning more clear, but in general what I
desire to impress upon you is this. The evidence of the
Septuagint proves that early copyists had a very different view
of their responsibility from that which we might be apt to
ascribe to them. They were not reckless or indifferent to
the truth. They copied the Old Testament books knowing
them to be sacred books, and they were zealous to preserve
them as writings of Divine authority. But their sense of
responsibility to the Divine word regarded the meaning
rather than the form, and they had not that highly-developed
sense of the importance of preserving every word and every
letter of the original hand of the author which seems natural
to us. When we look at the matter carefully, we observe
that the difference between them and us lies, not in any
religious principle, but in the literary ideas of those ancient
times. From our point of view a book is the property of the
author. You may buy a copy of it, but you do not thereby
acquire a literary property in the work, or a right to tamper
92 METHODS OF lect. iv
with the style and alter the words of the author even to make
his sense more distinct. But this idea was too subtle for
those ancient times. The man who had bought or copied a
book held it to be his own for every purpose. He valued it
for its contents, and therefore would not disfigure these by
arbitrary changes. But, if he could make it more convenient
for use by adding a note here, putting in a word there, or
incorporating additional matter derived from another source,
he had no hesitation in doing so. In short, every ancient
scholar who copied or annotated a book for his own use was
very much in the position of a modern editor, with the differ-
ence that at that time there was no system of footnotes,
brackets, and explanatory prefaces, by which the insertions
could be distinguished from the original text.
In setting before you some examples of the evidence
which enables us to prove this thesis, I shall begin with the
question of the titles which are prefixed to some parts of the
Old Testament. And here it is proper to explain that the
general titles prefixed to the several books in the English
Bible, such as "The First Book of Moses called Genesis,"
" The Book of the Prophet Isaiah," and so forth, are no part
of the Hebrew text. Even the shorter titles of the same kind
found in our common printed Hebrew Bibles lack manuscript
authority. The only titles that form an integral part of the
textual tradition are those which appear in the English Bible
in the body of the text itself — such titles, for example, as
are contained in Proverbs i. 1, x. 1, xxv. 1, or in Isaiah i. 1,
xiii. 1, etc. etc. This being understood, it immediately
appears that a large proportion of the books of the Old Testa-
ment are anonymous. The Pentateuch, for example, bears
no author's name on its front, although certain things in the
course of the narrative are said to have been written down
by Moses. All the historical books are anonymous, with the
single exception of one of the latest of them, the memoirs of
lect. iv EARLY COPYISTS
Nehemiah, in which the author's name is prefixed to the first
chapter. This fact is characteristic. Why do the authors
not give their names ? Because the literary public was in-
terested in the substance of the history, but was not concerned
to know who had written it.
To give this observation its just weight, we must remem-
ber that most of the historical books are not contemporary
memoirs, written from personal observation, but compila-
tions, extending over long periods, for which the authors
must have drawn largely from earlier sources, or from oral
tradition. Moreover, the frequent changes of style and other
marks of composite authorship which occur in these histories
prove that the work of compilation largely consisted in
piecing together long quotations from older books. In such
circumstances a modest compiler might very well prefer to
remain anonymous ; but then, according to modern ideas of
the way in which literary work should be done, he ought to
have given full and careful indications of the sources from
which he drew. In the Book of Kings reference is habitually
made, for certain particulars in the political history of each
reign, to the official chronicles of the sovereigns of Judah
and Israel, and in 2 Sam. i. 18 a poem of David is quoted
from the Book of Jashar, which is also cited in Josh. x. 13.
But for the mass of the narrative of the Earlier Prophets
(Joshua — Kings) the compilers give no indication of the
sources from which they worked. In short, the whole his-
torical literature of Israel before the Exile is written by and
for men whose interest in the story of the nation was not
combined with any interest in the hands by which the story had
been first set forth, or from time to time reshaped. To these
ages a book was a book, to be taken or rejected on its internal
merits, without regard to the personality that lay behind it.
And this feeling was not confined to historical books.
No ancient poem excites in the modern mind a more eager
94 ANCIENT BOOKS
LECT. IV
curiosity as to the personality of the author than the wonder-
ful Book of Job. We can understand that hymns like some
of the Psalms, which speak the common feelings of all pious
minds, are appropriately left anonymous. But the Book of
Job is an individual creation, as clearly stamped with the
impress of a great personality as the prophecies of Isaiah.
And yet the author is nameless and unknown.
The only part of the older Hebrew literature in which
the rule of anonymity does not prevail is the prophetical
books. And the reason for this is obvious. Most of the pro-
phets— to say all would be to prejudge a question that must
come before us presently — were preachers first of all, and
writers only in the second instance. Their books are not
products of the closet, but summaries of a course of public
activity, in which the personality of the preacher could not
be separated from his words. And so their books make no
exception to the rule that in old Israel a man could not
make himself known and perpetuate his name by literary
labours. If a man was already prominent in the eyes of
his contemporaries, and wrote, as he spoke, with the weight of
a public character, he had a reason to put his name to his
books, and others had a reason for remembering what he had
written ; but not otherwise. Even in the Book of Psalms the
only names that occur in the titles are those of famous his-
torical characters — Moses, David, Solomon ; and possibly, for
here the individual reference of the names is doubtful, those
of the founders and ancestors of Temple choirs — Asaph,
Heman, Ethan.
After the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the Church
took the place of the State, and the scribes succeeded to the
empty seat of the prophets, all this began to change. A great
part of the spiritual and intellectual energy of the Jews was
turned into purely literary channels; and ultimately, after
the decline of the Hasmonean power, the men of books
lect. iv OFTEN ANONYMOUS 9 5
became the acknowledged leaders of national life, and letters
the recognised means of public distinction. To the doctors
of the Law, who knew no other greatness than that of learn-
ing, all the heroes of ancient Israel, even the rude warrior
Joab, appeared in the character of book-men and students.
To this point of view the anon}Tmity of the old literature was
a great stumbling-block. It seemed obvious to the Eabbins
that the leaders of the ancient nation must have been, above
all things, the authors of the national literature, and they
proceeded with much confidence to assign the composition of
the nameless books to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and so forth.
Even Adam, Melchizedek, and Abraham were not excluded
from literary honours, each of them being credited with the
authorship of a psalm.1
In the times of the Talmud, when these strange conjec-
tures took final shape, and were admitted into the body of
authoritative Jewish tradition, the text of the Bible was
already rigidly fixed, so that no attempt could be made to
embody them in titles prefixed to the several books. But the
tendency that culminates in the Talmudic legends is much
older than the Talmud itself, and no one, I imagine, will be
prepared to affirm on general grounds that the Jews of the
last pre-Christian centuries either lacked curiosity as to the
authorship of their sacred books, or were prepared to restrain
their curiosity within the limits prescribed by the rules of
evidence. But in these ages, as we have already seen, the
Biblical text was still in a more or less fluid state, and we
dare not say a priori that the introduction of a title based on
conjecture would have seemed to exceed the licence allowed
to a copyist. We know that such conjectural titles found
a place in manuscripts of the New Testament, where, for
example, many copies prefix the name of Paul to the Epistle
1 See the famous passage, Bdbd Bdthra, 14, b, quoted at length by
Driver, Introduction, p. xxxii. sq.
96 TITLES OF
LECT. IV
to the Hebrews, though it is certain that the oldest manu-
scripts left it anonymous. Whether something of the same
sort took place in copies of the Old Testament is a question
not to be answered on general grounds, but only on the
evidence of facts; and the Septuagint supplies us with
facts that are to the point.
The part of the Old Testament in which the system of
titles has been carried out most fully is the Book of Psalms.
The titles to the Psalms are to a large extent directions for
their liturgical performance in the service of the Temple
music ; but they also contain the names of men — David,
the Sons of Korah, and so forth. Are we to suppose that
there is no title of a psalm in the Hebrew Bible which
does not go back to the author of the psalm, or at least
to a time when his name was known from contemporary
evidence? Let us consult the Septuagint, and what do
we find ? We find, in the first place, that the Septuagint
has the words "of" or "to David" in a number of psalms
where the Hebrew has no author's name (Psalms xxxiii.
xliii. lxvii. lxxi. xci. xciii. to xcix. civ.1 cxxxvii.) ; and,
conversely, it omits the name of David from four, and the
name of Solomon from one, of the Psalms of Degrees (Psalms
cxxii. cxxiv. cxxxi. cxxxiii. cxxvii.).2 Now the large number
of cases in which the Septuagint inserts the name of David
is evidence of a tendency to ascribe to him an ever-increasing
1 In Ps. civ., according to the Syro-Hexaplar, Aquila has " of David," so
that these words may have stood in his Hebrew copy.
2 Strack, in a review of the first edition of these Lectures ( Theol. Literatur-
hlatt, 1SS2, No. 41), takes the objection that the Sinaitic MS. has the name
of David in the four Psalms of Degrees cited by me, and that the evidence of
the Vatican MS. is lacking owing to a lacuna. But no one who knows the
elements of textual criticism will set the evidence of the Sinaitic Codex against
the overwhelming mass of MSS. on the other side, even though it is reinforced
in the case of two of the four psalms by the Memphitic version. The materials
given in Field's Hexapla show clearly that we have here to do with Hexaplar
additions, i.e. with words added by Origen from the Hebrew, and originally
marked as additions by an asterisk, which Sin. has dropped.
LECT. IV
THE PSALMS 97
number of psalms. That tendency, we know, went on, till at
length it became a common opinion that he was the author
of the whole Psalter. We cannot therefore suppose that the
Greek version, or the Hebrew MSS. on which it rested, would
omit the name of David in any case where it had once stood ;
and the conclusion is inevitable that at least in four cases our
Hebrew Bibles have the name of David where it has no right
to be, and that the insertion was made by a copyist after the
time when the text of the Septuagint branched off. But if
this be so, it is impossible to maintain on principle that the
titles of the Psalms are throughout authoritative : and if
there is no principle involved, it is not only legitimate, but
an absolute duty, to test every title by comparing it with the
internal evidence supplied by the poem itself. I shall have
occasion to return to this subject in Lecture VII.
Similar variations, leading to similar conclusions, are
found in other parts of the Old Testament, and even in
the prophetical books. In Jer. xxvii. 1 the Hebrew has
a title which the Septuagint omits, and which every one
can see to be a mere accidental repetition of the title of
chap. xxvi. For the prophecy which the title ascribes to
the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim is addressed in
the most explicit way to Zedekiah, king of Judah (verses
3, 12). So again the Septuagint omits the name of Jeremiah
in the title to the prophecy against Babylon (chaps. 1. li.),
which, for other reasons, modern critics generally ascribe
to a later prophet. Here, it is true, chap. li. 59-64 may seem
to be a subscription establishing the traditional authorship.
But a note at the end of the chapter in the Hebrew expressly
says that the words of Jeremiah end with "they shall be
weary," — the close of verse 58. This note is the real subscrip-
tion to the prophecy, and it is also omitted by the Septuagint.1
1 It is argued by those who ascribe chaps. 1. li. to Jeremiah, that the
expression " all these words" in chap. li. 60 necessarily refers to the context
7
98 TITLES IN THE lect. iv
As a detailed survey of the prophetical writings does not
fall within the plan of these Lectures I will take the oppor-
tunity, before passing from the subject, to make some further
remarks on the titles of the prophetic books, going beyond
the indications to be derived from the Septuagint. You are
aware that according to the traditionally received opinion
there is not in these books any such thing as an anonymous
prophecy : the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel con-
tain prophecies by these three men alone, and in like manner
the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, which in Hebrew is
reckoned as one book, contains prophecies by the Twelve who
are named in the titles and by no other hand. Modern critics
reject this opinion, and maintain that various prophecies, such
as chaps. xl.-lxvi. of the Book of Isaiah, chaps. 1. li. of the
Book of Jeremiah, and some parts of Micah and Zechariah, are
not the composition of the prophets to whose works they are
traditionally reckoned. It is not argued that these pieces are
spurious works palmed off under a false name. They are ac-
cepted as genuine writings of true prophets, but it is main-
tained that their style and other characters, above all the
historical situation which they presuppose, show that they
are not the work of the hand and age to which current
tradition refers them. Thus in the case of Isaiah xl.-lxvi.
it is pointed out that the prophet addresses his words of
consolation and exhortation to Israel in its Babylonian
exile. This exile is to him the present situation, not an
event foreseen in the far prophetic future, and therefore,
it is argued, the prophecy must have been written in the
days of the Captivity. It is not disputed on any hand that
the custom of the prophets is to speak to the needs and
immediately preceding. But the order of Jeremiah's prophecies is greatly
disturbed {infra, p. 109 sq.). No onerwill argue that " these words " in chap,
xlv. 1 refer to chap. xliv. ; yet the argument is as good in the one case as in
the other. Compare Budde, "Ueber die Capitel L. und LI. des Buches
•Jeremia" in Jahrbb. f. D. Theol. vol. xxiii. p. 428 sq., p. 529 sq.
lect. iv PROPHETIC BOOKS 99
actual situation of their contemporaries. However far their
visions reach into the future, they take their start from the
present. Had they failed to do this their word could not
have been the direct message of God to their own con-
temporaries. Accordingly it is admitted by those who still
argue for Isaiah as the author of Isa. xl.-lxvi. that that great
prophet in his later years must have been supernaturally
transported out of his own historical surroundings, and set,
as it were, in vision, in the midst of the community of the
Captivity, that he might write a word of prophetic exhortation,
not for his own contemporaries but for the future generation
of Babylonian exiles. To make this theory plausible it
must further be maintained that the prophecy so written re-
mained a sealed book for a hundred and fifty years ; for it is
manifest that subsequent prophets, like Jeremiah, who were
very familiar with other parts of Isaiah's teaching, had no
acquaintance with this wonderful revelation. Surely there
is a difficulty here which is not the creation of scepticism,
but must be felt by every thoughtful reader. There is a
method in Eevelation as much as in Nature, and the first law
of that method, which no careful student of Scripture can fail
to grasp, is that God's Eevelation of Himself is unfolded
gradually, in constant contact with the needs of religious life.
Every word of God is spoken for all time, but every word
none the less was first spoken to a present necessity of God's
people. The great mass of the prophecies are obviously con-
formed to this rule, and the burden of proof lies with those
who ask us to recognise an exception to it. In the case
before us we are asked to admit an exception of the most
startling kind, in spite of the fact that the chapters in
question are very different in style and language from the
undisputed writings of Isaiah, and in spite of the fact that
for a hundred and fifty years the teaching of the prophets
who continued Isaiah's work remained uninfluenced by what,
100 THE BOOK lect. iv
on the traditional view, was the crowning achievement of
Isaiah's ministry. The defenders of tradition make no
serious attempt to remove these difficulties.1 They seek
to cut the discussion short by two arguments — (1) that the
synagogue and the Church agree in ascribing the chapters
to Isaiah ; and (2) that if they are not by Isaiah it is
impossible to explain how they could have been admitted
into his book. (See Keil, Introduction, Eng. trans., i. 331.)
Now as regards the testimony of the synagogue and the
Church it is true that Ecclus. xlviii. 24 (27) already cites
Isa. xl. 1 as the words of Isaiah, and from this it may be taken
as probable that five hundred years after the death of Isaiah,
when the son of Sirach wrote {circa 200 B.C.), the whole Book
of Isaiah was assumed to be by a single hand. But on what
authority was this assumed ? The son of Sirach had no other
written sources for the literary history of the Bible than those
we still possess, and it is plain, therefore, that the opinion of
his time simply rested on the fact that the disputed prophecies
already stood in the same book with the unquestioned writ-
ings of Isaiah, and were held to be covered by the general title
in Isa. i. 1. Thus the two arguments reduce themselves to
one, the supposed incredibility that a writing not by Isaiah
could have been included in Isaiah's book. Let us understand
what this argument means. In ancient times a book meant a
separate roll or volume, and the Jewish division of the pro-
phetic writings into four books means that they were usually
comprised in four volumes, of which the Book of Isaiah was
one, as we see from Luke iv. 17. But these volumes were
1 Some trifling and totally inadequate attempts have been made to mini-
mise the differences of style, and a few passages have been pointed out in
which there are points of contact, rather in expression than in thought,
between Isa. xl. sqq. and prophets who lived between Isaiah and the Exile.
None of these coincidences has any force as proving the priority of the great
anonymous prophecy, and none of these petty arguments touches the broad
and decisive fact that Jeremiah and his compeers are totally uninfluenced by
the leading ideas of Isa. xl.-lxvi.
lect. iv OF ISAIAH 101
not constructed on the principle that each writer should have
a separate roll for himself, for the twelve minor prophets
formed a single book. Why then should it be inconceivable
that a separate prophecy, too short to make a volume by itself,
should have been placed at the end of Isaiah's volume, which,
without this appendix, would have been very much shorter
than the other three prophetic books ? You may object that
if this had been done the collector would at least have been
careful to mark off the true Isaiah from the addition. But
this assumption is not warranted. It may be taken as
certain that a prophecy composed in the Exile, when the
Jews were scattered and had no public life, was never
preached, but circulated from the first in writing, passing
privately from hand to hand. Under these circumstances
the author was not likely to put his name to his book, and
the collector of the present Book of Isaiah, who received it
without a title, would transmit it in the same way. It is true
that by so doing he left it possible for readers to draw a false
inference as to the authorship ; but every one who has handled
Eastern manuscripts knows that scribes constantly copy out
several works into one volume without taking the precautions
necessary to prevent an anonymous piece from being ascribed
to the author of the work to which it is attached. To prevent
mistakes of this sort it is necessary that every piece which
bears an author's name should be furnished not only with
a title but with a subscription marking the point at which
it ends. But in the prophetic books subscriptions are the
exception not the rule ; the only formal one, which professes
to say where the words of a particular prophet end, is Jer.
li. 64, and this, as we have already seen, is absent from the
Septuagint, and presumably formed no part of the original
text. We have no right, therefore, to expect a formal indica-
tion of the point at which the actual words of Isaiah end ;
but in point of fact the main part of the book is very clearly
102 ZECHARIAH IX. -XIV. lect. iv
separated from the Babylonian chapters by the historical
section, chaps, xxxvi.-xxxix. Apart from the psalm of
Hezekiah, these chapters are found also with slight variations
in the Book of Kings, and the nature of the variations proves
(as you may see in detail by consulting Prof. Driver's Intro-
duction) that the text of Kings is the original, and that the
narrative of Isaiah is extracted from that book. These
extracts form an appendix, which cannot have been added
to the volume of Isaiah's prophecies till the time of the
Captivity at the earliest, and Isaiah xl.-lxvi. constitutes a
second and still later addition.
As another instance of the futility of the arguments from
authority that are used to cut short critical discussion as to
the authorship of prophetical pieces, I may take the case of
Zechariah ix.-xiv. On what authority are these declared to
form part of the Book of Zechariah ? In the Hebrew Bible
there is no such book. There is not even a general title to
the section of the fourth prophetic volume in which these
chapters stand ; for the titles in Zech. i. 1, vii. 1, refer only
to single prophecies of Zechariah delivered at particular
dates. At chapter ix. we have an entirely separate prophecy
with a separate title, in which Zechariah is not named, a
different historical situation, and a quite different style and
manner. Further, we must remember that the volume of
Minor Prophets is a miscellaneous collection, not even
arranged on chronological principles (since, for example,
Hosea precedes Amos), but gathering up all the remains
of prophetic literature that were not already comprised in
the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Under these
circumstances there is absolutely no inference to be drawn
from the fact that the anonymous prophecies, Zech. ix.-xiv.,
stand immediately after others that bear Zechariah's name.
The later Jews ascribed them to Zechariah, but that is no
evidence for us ; for they did so on exactly the same absurd
lect. iv JEREMIAH XXVII. 103
principle on which, in the days of Origen, they ascribed all
anonymous psalms to the author of the nearest preceding
psalm that bears a title.1
I now return to the Septuagint, and propose to call your
attention to an example of editorial redaction, involving a
series of changes running through the whole structure of a
passage. For this purpose I select the twenty -seventh
chapter of Jeremiah, the Hebrew title of which has already
been shown to be an editorial insertion. We are now to see
that the hand of an editor has been at work all through the
chapter. Let me say at the outset that the example is a some-
what unusual one. There are not many parts of the Old
Testament where the variations of the Greek and Hebrew
are so extensive as in Jeremiah ; but it is necessary to choose
a well-marked case in order to convey a distinct conception
of the limits of editorial interference. To facilitate com-
parison, I print a translation of. the Hebrew text, putting
everything in italics which is omitted by the Septuagint.
The Greek has some other slight variations, which are
not of consequence for our present purpose. The essential
difference between the two texts is that the Hebrew, with-
out omitting anything that is in the Greek, has a number of
additional clauses and sentences.
In the reign of King Zedekiah a congress of ambassadors
from the neighbouring nations was held at Jerusalem, to
concert a rising against Nebuchadnezzar. The prophets and
diviners encouraged this scheme ; but Jeremiah was com-
manded by the Lord to protest against it, and declare that
the empire of Nebuchadnezzar had been conferred on him by
1 See for the rule as to the anonymous psalms, Origen, ii. 514 sq., Rue ;
Jerome, Ep. cxl. ad Cypr. That the same principle was applied to the
Psalter and the Book of the Minor Prophets is not a mere conjecture, but
appears from Jerome's Praef. in XII. Proph. and the Preface to his Commentary
on Malachi. In the case of the prophets, the principle was applied to settle
the chronology ; where the title gives no date the prophecy was delivered in
the reigns of the kings mentioned in the next preceding dated title.
104 TEXT OF
LECT. IV
Jehovah's decree, and that it was vain to rebel. The pro-
phetic message delivered in the name of the God of Israel
ran thus : —
Jer. xxvii. 5. — I have made the earth, the man and the beast which
are upon the face of the earth, by my great power and outstretched arm,
and give it to whom I please. (6.) And now I have given all these
lands [LXX. the earth] into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. . . . (7.)
And all nations shall serve him and his son and his son's son, till the time
of his land come also, and mighty nations and great kings make him their
servant. (8.) And the nation and kingdom which will not serve him,
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and put their neck under the yoke of
the king of Babylon, will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword,
and with famine, and with pestilence, till I have consumed them by his
hand. (9.) Therefore hearken ye not to your prophets, . . . which
say ye shall not serve the king of Babylon, (10.) For they prophesy
lies to you to remove you from your land, and that I should drive you
out and ye should perish. . . .
(12.) And to Zedekiah, king of Judah, I spake with all these
words, saying, Bring your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,
and serve him and his people, and live. (13.) Why will ye die, thou
and thy people, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, as the Lord
hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon ?
(14.) TJierefore hearken not unto the words of the prophets who speak, unto
you, saying, Serve not the king of Babylon • for they [emphatic] prophesy
lies unto you. (15.) For I have not sent them, saith the Lord, and
they prophesy lies in my name. . . .
(16.) And to the priests and to all this people [LXX. to all the
people and the priests] I spake saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hearken
not to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, Behold
the vessels of the house of the Lord shall be brought back from
Babylon now quickly, for they prophesy a lie unto you. (17.) Hearken
not unto them [LXX. I have not sent them], serve the king of Babylon,
and live ; wherefore should this city be laid waste ? (18.) But if they are
prophets, and if the word of the Lord is with them, let them intercede
with the Lord of Hosts [LXX. with me], that the vessels which are left
in the house of the Lord, and the house of the king of Judah, and in
Jerusalem, come not to Babylon, (19.) For thus saith the Lord of
Hosts concerning the pillars and the sea and the bases, and the rest of the
vessels left in this city, (20) Which Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
took not when he carried Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah
captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and
Jerusalem; (21.) For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, con-
cerning the vessels left in the house of God, and in the house of the king of
Judah and Jerusalem; (22.) They shall be taken to Babylon, and
there shall they be unto the day that I visit them, saith the Lord ; then
will I bring them up and restore them to this place.
lect. iv JEREMIAH XXVII. 105
Throughout these verses the general effect of the omissions
of the Septuagint is to make the style simpler, more natural,
and more forcible. At verses 8, 10, 12, 13, 17, the additional
matter of the Massoretic text is mere expansion of ideas fully
expressed in the shorter recension ; and at verse 14 the omis-
sions of the Septuagint give the proper oratorical value to
the emphatic " they " of the original, which the prophet, in
genuine Hebrew style, must have spoken with a gesture
pointing to the false prophets who stood before the king. It
is not to be thought that a later copyist added nerve and
force to the prophecy by pruning the prolixities of the
original text. Jeremiah is no mean orator and author, and
the prolixities are much more in the wearisome style of the
later Jewish literature.
But in some parts the two recensions differ in meaning as
well as language. At verse 7 the Hebrew text inserts in the
midst, of Jeremiah's exhortation to submission a prophecy
that the Babylonians shall be punished in the third genera-
tion. No doubt Jeremiah does elsewhere predict the fall of
Babylon and the restoration of Israel. He had done so at an
earlier date (xxv. 11-13). But is it natural that he should
turn aside to introduce such a prediction here, in the very
midst of a solemn admonition on which it has no direct
bearing ? And is this a thing which a copyist would be
tempted to omit ? Much rather was it natural for a later
scribe to introduce it. Again, at verse 16, the Hebrew text
modifies the prediction of the restoration of the sacred vessels
made by the false prophets, by the insertion of the words
"now quickly." There was no motive for the omission of
these words, if they are original. But a later scribe, reflect-
ing on the fact that the sacred vessels were restored by Cyrus,
might well insert the qualification " now quickly " to deprive
the false prophets of any claim to have spoken truly after
all. In reality it does not need these words to prove them
106 TEXT OF
LECT. IV
liars ; for their prediction, taken in the context, plainly
meant that the alliance should defeat Nebuchadnezzar and
recover the spoil. But the words stand or fall with the
prediction put into Jeremiah's mouth, in verse 22, that the
vessels of the temple and the palace, including the brazen
pillars, sea, and bases, should be taken indeed to Babylon,
but be brought back again in the day of visitation. This is
plainly the spurious insertion of a thoughtless copyist, who
had his eye on chapter lii. 17. For it is true that the pillars,
the sea, and the bases were carried to Babylon, but they
were not and could not have been brought back. These
huge masses could not have been transported entire across
the mountains and deserts that separated Judaea from Babylon.
And so we are expressly told in chapter lii. that they were
broken up and carried off as old brass, fit only for the melting-
pot. Jeremiah and his hearers knew well that they could
not reach Babylon in any other form, and in his mouth the
prediction which we read in the Hebrew text would have
been not only false, but palpably absurd. That such a pre-
diction now stands in the text only proves what the thought-
lessness of copyists was capable of, and makes the reading of
the Septuagint absolutely certain.
We conclude, then, from a plain argument of physical
impossibility, that Jeremiah did not predict the restoration
of the spoils of the Temple. And by this result we remove
a serious inconsistency from his religious teaching. For the
restoration to which Jeremiah constantly looks is not the
re-establishment of the old ritual, but the bringing in of a
spiritual covenant when God's law shall be written on the
hearts of the people (chap. xxxi.). No prophet thinks more
lightly of the service of the Temple (chap. vii.). He denies
that God gave a law of sacrifice to the people when they left
Egypt. They may eat their burnt-offerings as well as the
other sacrifices, and God will not condemn them (vii. 21, 22).
lect. iv JEREMIAH XXVII. 107
Even the ark of the covenant is in his eyes an obsolete
symbol, which in the day of Israel's conversion shall not be
missed and not be remade (iii. 16, E. V., marg.). To the false
prophets and the people who followed them, the ark, the
temple, the holy vessels, were all in all. To Jeremiah they
were less than nothing, and their restoration was no part of his
hope of salvation.1
1 There is one passage in Jeremiah, as we read it, which appears incon-
sistent with the view I have ventured to take of the prophet's attitude to the
temporary elements of the Old Testament ritual. In Jer. xxxiii. 14-26 it is
predicted that the Levitical priesthood and its sacrifices shall be perpetual as
the succession of day and night. This passage is also wanting in the Septua-
gint. No reason can he suggested for its omission ; for we know from Philo
that even those Jews of Alexandria who sat most loosely to the ceremonial
law regarded the Temple and its service as an essential element in religion
{Be Migr. Abra. cap. xvi. ). If taken literally, the eternity of Levitical
sacrifices, as expressed in xxxiii. 18, seems quite inconsistent with all else in
Jeremiah's prophecies. Taken typically, the verse only fits the sacrifice of
the mass, to which Roman Catholic expositors refer it ; for the sacrifices are
to be offered continually in all time.
LECTUEE V
THE SEPTUAGINT {continued) — THE COMPOSITION OF
BIBLICAL BOOKS
In the last Lecture we began to examine those features of the
Septuagint which bear witness to the kind of labour that was
spent on the text by ancient editors. We have seen how
redactors or copyists sometimes added titles to anonymous
pieces, and how by a series of small editorial changes, running
from verse to verse through a chapter, the form and even the
meaning of an important passage were sometimes consider-
ably modified.
We now come to another part of the subject, in which I
propose to use the variations between the Greek and Hebrew
text to throw light on the structure of the books of the Bible.
The main point which I desire to enforce in this Lecture is
that certain books which we have been wont to look upon as
continuous unities are really composite in character. Some
evidence to this effect, especially as regards the prophetic
books, has already come before us when we looked at the
question of titles. To-day we have to deal with another
branch of evidence, drawn from the transpositions of the Sep-
tuagint, the entire omission of certain sections, and so forth.
I hope to be able to handle these evidences in a way that
will not only confirm the results at which we have already
arrived, but will give us valuable insight into deeper critical
questions, especially as regards the historical books.
lect. v TRANSPOSITIONS OF LXX. 109
I begin with the transpositions of the Septuagint text, and
choose as my first example the chapters comprising Jeremiah's
prophecies against the heathen nations. In our Bibles, and
in the Hebrew Bible, these prophecies occupy chapters xlvi.
to li. In the Septuagint they follow the 13th verse of the
twenty-fifth chapter, and appear in a different order. In the
Hebrew the sequence is Egypt, Philistines, Moab, Ammon,
Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, Elam, Babylon. The
Septuagint sequence is Elam, Egypt, Babylon, Philistines,
Eclom, Ammon, Kedar and Hazor, Damascus, Moab. Can we
then assume that in this case the translator of the Septuagint
version, having before him a fixed and certain order of all
Jeremiah's oracles, took the liberty to shift the prophecies
against the nations through one another, and to put them in
an entirely different part of the book ? From what we have
seen already as to the general way in which these translators
acted, such an assumption is highly improbable. Bather we
are to suppose that in their copy these prophecies already
occupied a different place from what they hold in the Hebrew
Bible.
What does that lead us to conclude ? Variations in the
order of the individual pieces may very well happen in
collected editions of writings originally published separately,
but not in a single book of one author. And that is just
what the facts lead us otherwise to suppose, for we know
that Jeremiah's prophecies were not all written down at one
time, or in the order in which they now stand. We learn
from chap, xxxvi. that a record of the first twenty-three years
of his prophetic ministry was dictated by the prophet to
Baruch in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. But this book does
not correspond with the first part of the present Book of
Jeremiah,in which prophecies later than the reign of Jehoiakim
— such as chap. xxiv. — precede others which must have stood
in the original collection (chap. xxvi.). Jeremiah's book,
110 VARIATIONS OF lect. v
then, as we have it, is not a continuous record of his pro-
phecies, which he himself kept constantly posted up to date,
but a compilation made up from several prophetic writings
originally published separately. In this compilation the
natural order is not always observed, for it is plain that
chap, xlv., containing a brief prophecy addressed to Baruch,
"when he wrote these words in a book at the mouth of
Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim " (ver. 1), must
originally have stood at the close of the collection spoken of
in chap, xxxvi. It is easy, then, to understand that, when
several distinct books of Jeremiah's words and deeds were
brought together into one volume, there might be variations
of order in different copies of the collection, just as modern
editions of the collected works of one author frequently differ
in arrangement.
It is very doubtful whether this group of prophecies
appears just as they were first published, either in the Septua-
gint or in the Hebrew. The order of the individual pro-
phecies seems to be more suitable in the Hebrew and English
texts ; for chap. xxv. 15 sq. contains a sort of brief summary
or general conspectus of Jeremiah's prophecies against the
nations, and here the order agrees very closely with that in
our present Hebrew text as against the Septuagint ; but then,
on the other hand, the summary of Jeremiah's prophecies
against the nations is found in the twenty -fifth chapter,
whereas in our present edition the details under this general
sketch begin at chap. xlvi. Much more natural in this
respect is the arrangement of the Septuagint, placing all the
details in immediate juxtaposition with the general summary;
so that here we seem to have a case in which neither edition
of Jeremiah's prophecies is thoroughly satisfactory and in
good order. But the general conclusion is that the trans-
positions give us a key to the way in which the book came
together, showing that it was not all written and published
lect. v ARRANGEMENT 111
iu continuous unity by Jeremiah himself, but has the
character of a collected edition of several writings originally
distinct. "We observe, also, that the compilers did not
execute their work with perfect skill and judgment ; and so it
would plainly be unreasonable to call every critic a rationalist
who ventures to judge, on internal or other evidence, that
the collection may possibly contain some chapters, such as 1.
and li., which are not from the hand of Jeremiah at all.
Another example of the important inferences that may be
drawn from the transpositions of the Septuagint occurs in
the Book of Proverbs. I presume that many of us have been
accustomed to think of the Proverbs as a single composition,
written from first to last by Solomon. But here again we
find such transpositions as indicate that the book is not so
much one continuous writing as a collected edition of various
proverbial books and tracts. For example, the first fourteen
verses of Proverbs xxx., containing the words of Agur, are
placed in the Septuagint collection after the 22d verse of
chap. xxiv. Then immediately upon that follows chap. xxiv.
23-34, a little section which in the Hebrew has a separate
title, — "These also are [words] of the wise." After that
comes chap. xxx. 15-xxxi. 9. Then comes the collection of
"proverbs of Solomon" copied out by the men of King
Hezekiah (xxv.-xxix.) ; and the book closes with the descrip-
tion of the virtuous woman (xxxi. 10-31). It is natural to
explain the fact that these several small collections of pro-
verbs are grouped in such different order in the Septuagint
and in the Hebrew respectively by the hypothesis that they
originally existed as separate books ; for in that case, when
they came to be collected into one volume, differences of
order might readily arise, which could hardly have happened
if the whole had been the original composition of Solomon
alone. And indeed the existence of such separate collections
is more than an hypothesis, as the sub-titles of the book
112 COMPOSITION OF lect. v
show. For after the general title, chap. i. 1-6, and a long
section, not proverbial in form, containing poetical admoni-
tions in praise of wisdom, morality, and religion (chap. i. 7-
ix. 18), we come on a collection of proverbs or aphorisms
extending from chap. x. 1 to chap. xxii. 16, and headed (in
the Hebrew) " Proverbs of Solomon." This again is followed
by a collection of " Words of the wise " (chap. xxii. 17-
xxiv. 22), with a preface of its own (chap. xxii. 17-21). Then
comes the second collection of words of the wise already
referred to, and then again the second collection of Proverbs
of Solomon, copied out by the "Men of Hezekiah." The men
of Hezekiah's time, we see, had written materials before them.
And the corpus of proverbs which they formed from these
must once have existed side by side with the great collection
of Proverbs of Solomon in chaps, x. sqq., and in an independent
form. For the title runs : " These also are the proverbs of
Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah copied out." The word
" also " shows that this title was written when two separate
collections of Salomonic Proverbs were brought for the first
time into one volume. In like manner the title in chap,
xxiv. 23 : " These also are [words] of the wise," shows that
the preceding collection of Words of the Wise once stood by
itself without the appendix in xxiv. 23 sqq., from which, in
fact, it is separated in the Septuagint.1
1 That the two Salomonic collections were formed independently, and not
by the same hand, appears most clearly from the many cases in which the
same proverb appears in both (see the Introduction to Delitzsch's Com-
mentary, § 3). Even these parts of the book, therefore, were not collected by
Solomon himself, and the title in chap. i. 1 is not from his hand, but was
added by some collector or editor. Hence there is no reason to suppose that
Solomon is the author of chaps, i.-ix. any more than of the "Words of the
Wise. " The whole book bears the name of Solomon's Proverbs, because the
two great Salomonic collections are the leading element in it. Compare on
the whole subject Professor A. B. Davidson's article Proverbs in the 9th ed.
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; Professor Cheyne's Job and Solomon (London,
1S87) ; and Professor Driver's Introduction to the 0. T. (Edinburgh, 1891).
There are close analogies between the composition of the Book of Proverbs
and that of the Psalter. See Lecture VII.
lect. v THE HISTORICAL BOOKS 113
Let us now pass on to the historical books. In these the
questions of composition are more complicated, because a
historian whose object is to produce a continuous narrative,
covering a long period, by the aid of a series of older histories
or memories, has it open to him to deal with these materials
in various ways. He may content himself with choosing one
good narrative for each section of the history, transcribing or
abridging it, and adding little of his own except at the points
where he passes from one source to another. Or while mainly
following this plan, he may from time to time insert supple-
mentary matter taken from other sources. Or, on the other
hand, if he has before him several histories of the same
period, he may frame from them a combined narrative. And
in this case he may either recast the whole story in his own
words as modern historians do, or he may take short extracts
from his several sources and piece them together in a sort of
mosaic, so that the language, style, and colour of each of the
sources are still largely preserved, though the old fragments
are reset in a new pattern and frame.
Even from the English Bible an attentive reader may
satisfy himself that the history of the Hebrew kings is not a
homogeneous literary composition like Macaulay's History of
England. Many minor marks of variety in language and
style that are very apparent in the Hebrew necessarily dis-
appear in translation ; but the broader characteristics of style
and literary treatment survive, and these are so different in
different parts of the narrative as to leave no doubt tbat the
compiler used a number of sources and followed them closely,
retaining in great measure the very words of his predecessors.
Sometimes a single source is followed without interruption
for a number of chapters, as in the so-called " court history " of
David, 2 Sam. ix.-xx. Eead this whole section continuously,
and while your mind is still under the impression, look back
to chap. viii. You pass in a moment from a narrative full of
8
114 THE COURT HISTORY lect. v
life and colour to a bare chronicle of public affairs, mainly
foreign wars. Note further that to a certain extent both
narratives cover the same ground ; both speak of David's
wars with the Syrians. But the particulars given are not
the same, and the choice of particulars shows that the authors
of the two accounts had different interests. The writer of
the longer history is a student of human nature, who has
taken David and his court as his field of observation, and
loves to dwell on every incident, however trivial, that illus-
trates character. But he has no great interest in foreign
wars ; many of David's campaigns he passes over altogether,
and his mention of the Syrian campaigns seems to be due to
their connection with the war with Ammon, which — through,
the matter of Uriah — had a very special bearing on David's
personal history. The other account is wholly interested in
the public glories of David's reign, and, brief as it is, finds
room for particulars about rich booty and tributes of volun-
tary homage to which the court history never alludes.
Now pass on to 1 Kings i. ii. You cannot, I think, fail
to realise that here we are again in the hands of the court
historian. The style, the manner, the character of the pictur-
esque details is the same, and the main thread of the narra-
tive is still that which forms the thread of most personal
histories of an Eastern court — intrigues about the succession.
Lastly, note that the two great extracts from the court
history are separated by 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv., a series of appen-
dices of very various content, all of which hang quite loose
from one another and from the continuous well-knit narrative
which they interrupt.
I have begun with a very simple example of the incor-
poration of an older document in the Bible history, and one
that raises no questions to alarm the most timid faith. I
now pass on to a case one degree more complex, in which,
however, we are not wholly dependent on internal evidence,
lect. v OF DAVID 115
but get some assistance from the Greek version. Many of
you have probably observed the way in which the history of
the sovereigns of Judah and Israel is arranged in the Book
of Kings. Here the narrative is concerned with the affairs of
two monarchies, and has to pass backwards and forwards
from the one to the other. The plan on which this is
effected is to take up each king, whether of Judah or of
Ephraim, in the order of his accession to the throne, and
follow his reign to the end. For example, after the history of
Asa of Judah we have the story of all the northern kings,
from Nadab to Ahab, who came to the throne in Asa's life-
time, and then the narrative goes back to Jehoshaphat of
Judah, who came to the throne in the fourth year of Ahab.
For the better execution of this plan the history of each
reign is, so to speak, framed in and kept apart by an intro-
duction and conclusion of stereotyped form (2 Kings xiii. 1) :
" In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah
king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign
over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years." . . .
(ver. 8) " Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, . . . are they
not written in the book of the chronicles of the kines of
Israel ? And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers ; and they
buried him in Samaria : and Joash his son reigned in his
stead." For the kings of Judah the formula is slightly fuller
but of the same type.
These set formulas constitute a chronological framework
binding the whole narrative together. But the details within
the framework do not form a continuous story, and are plainly
not all written by one hand or on a uniform plan. One
reign is full of striking episodes and picturesque incident,
another is comparatively barren in detail and style, and
sometimes we find sections that are distinguished not only
by variety of style and phrase but by marked peculiarities of
grammatical form. On closer examination we observe that
116 THE BOOKS lect. v
each reign is furnished with a brief epitome of affairs, a mere
enumeration of important events, combined with a moral
judgment on the king. Tor some reigns we have nothing
more than this meagre epitome ; but even where the story is
filled out by long and interesting narratives the epitome is
not lacking. It forms, along with the chronological frame-
work, a uniform feature in the history, and appears to be
based on the royal chronicles or official records of the two
kingdoms, to which reference is regularly made at the close
of each reign. That the epitome is all by one hand is evident
from the precise similarity in tone and language which marks
all its moral judgments on the kings. On the other hand,
the longer and richer narratives show great variety of tone
and style, and in many cases it is clear from the nature of
their contents that they cannot be derived from the royal
chronicles. The sympathetic account of Elijah's work, for
example, cannot have been recorded in the annals of his
enemy Ahab. The compiler of the Book of Kings, therefore,
must have had access to unofficial as well as to official
sources. From the former he abstracted the "brief notices
that make up the skeleton of his work, but the living flesh
and blood of the history he supplied by long extracts from
narratives of a more popular and interesting kind.
There is no reason to doubt that most of these extracts
were selected and worked in by the compiler of the epitome,
who may therefore be properly called the main author of the
Book of Kings. But the book did not leave his hands in
absolutely fixed and final form. Many of the episodes are so
loosely attached to the surrounding context that they might
be moved to another place without inconvenience. In the
Septuagint not a few passages are transposed, and sometimes
with advantage to the reader. For example, the story of
Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings xxi.) stands in the Greek before
chap, xx., so that the narrative of Ahab's Syrian wars is made
LECT. V
OF KINGS 117
continuous. Again, in the history of King Solomon, which
is largely made up of disjointed anecdotes and notices, the
Greek order differs enormously from the Hebrew. And here
we find also variations in the substance of the narrative, an
omission here and an insertion there, to warn us that, in a
book so loosely constructed that its parts can be freely moved
about, we must also be prepared to find unauthorised addi-
tions creeping into the text. This last point is of too much
consequence to be passed over without further illustration ;
and perhaps the best example for our purpose is found in the
history of Jeroboam. The Greek, as commonly read, gives
two distinct accounts of Jeroboam's elevation to the throne.
One account agrees substantially with the Hebrew, supplying
only a few various readings. Some of these are improve-
ments, and enable us to emend the Hebrew text, so as to remove
the discrepancy which every reader must observe between
1 Kings xii. 2, 3, 12, and verse 20. In the English version
the emendations may be thus effected. Place xii. 2 before
xii. 1, so as to make Jeroboam hear of Solomon's death,
not of the congress at Shechem, and change the last words
(by altering one letter in the Hebrew) into " Then Jero-
boam returned from Egypt." In verse 3 omit the whole
first part down to " came," leaving only " And they spake
before Eehoboam, saying." In verse 12 omit the words " Jero-
boam and." The whole is then in accord with verse 20, which
implies that Jeroboam (though within reach, and probably
acting as a secret instigator of the rebel leaders) was not
present at Shechem.
This first account is common to the Hebrew and all Greek
copies. The second Greek account, which comes in after chap,
xii. 24 in many copies, goes again over the whole ground of
chap. xi. 26 to xii. 24, and partly in the very same words.
But the arrangement is different, and so are some of the
leading incidents. Jeroboam (as the first account also hints)
118 THE HISTORY
LECT. V
was engaged in a plot against Solomon before he fled to
Egypt. On Solomon's death he returned to his native city,
fortified by a marriage with an Egyptian princess, and put
himself at the head of Ephraim. Then he convened the
congress at Shechem, which issued in the revolt of all the
northern tribes. But the most serious difference between
the two accounts lies in the action ascribed to the prophets
Ahijah and Shemaiah. In the Hebrew the promise of king-
ship over ten tribes was given to Jeroboam by Ahijah at
Jerusalem in the time of Solomon. In the second Greek
account there is nothing of this, but a similar prophecy, with
the same symbolism of the torn mantle, is put into the mouth
of Shemaiah at the congress at Shechem.
The two Greek accounts of how Jeroboam became king
cannot possibly have stood from the first in the same volume.
They are alternative versions of a single story, and though
both of them evidently rest on Hebrew originals, they repre-
sent two distinct recensions of the Hebrew text. Thus it
appears that, when the two versions were made, the Hebrew
text was still so little fixed that one copy could ascribe to
Shemaiah, at Shechem, in the days of Eehoboam, what
another copy ascribed to Ahijah, at Jerusalem, in the days of
Solomon. It is certain that one or other account must be
wrong ; but it is probable that neither account forms any
part of the original history. If the original compiler of the
Book of Kings had related the story of Ahijah's tearing his
garment into twelve pieces, and giving ten to Jeroboam in
promise of sovereignty, it is hard to believe that a later
copyist would have ventured to suppress this narrative and
substitute another entirely different ; and, further, when we
look at Ahijah's prophecy, as it is given in 1 Kings xi. 29-39,
we cannot but feel that it fits badly into the context. At
verses 26, 27 we are promised an account of a rebellion of
Jeroboam against Solomon ; and verse 40, which relates that
lect. v OF JEROBOAM 119
Solomon sought to kill Jeroboam, seems to imply that some
overt act of rebellion really took place. But the intervening
verses tell only of Ahijah's prophecy, which, as we are ex-
pressly told, was a private communication to Jeroboam of
which no third party could know anything.
To all this you may object that one form of the Greek
bears out the Hebrew text, and that it is unfair to build
on the second Greek version, which may be a quite recent
interpolation. But it is certain that the second as well as
the first Greek is translated from the Hebrew, and therefore
deserves some consideration. And, further, it is noteworthy
that where Ahijah is again mentioned in the Hebrew in
chap, xiv., the Septuagint shows a blank.1 This, indeed,
seems to be due to a transposition; for a shorter form of
the prophecy of Ahijah to Jeroboam's wife still occurs in
the second Greek, in an impossible place, wedged into the
account of the events that preceded the congress of Shechem.
But while the Hebrew of chap. xiv. distinctly refers to
Ahijah's earlier prophecy to Jeroboam, this Greek version
introduces him as a new personage who has not been heard of
before. How can we then escape the inference that both
parts of the story of Ahijah represent a fluctuating and
uncertain element in the text, which cannot be accepted with
confidence as part of old and genuine historical tradition ?
Now I cannot but suppose that to some of you the idea
that a whole narrative could be interpolated into the Hebrew
text must appear both startling and extravagant. And if
the case with which we have been dealing stood alone, one
would hesitate to build on it. But there are other cases of
the same kind, where the presence of an interpolation forces
itself on our notice by manifest inconsistencies in the Hebrew
text, and where the variations of the Septuagint serve not to
create the difficulty, but to remove it. One of the most
1 In some copies the blank is supplied from Aquila's version.
120 DAVID AND
LECT. V
familiar and striking of these is the story of David and
Goliath (1 Sam. xvii.), which, as it appears in our English
Bible, presents inextricable difficulties. In chap. xvi. 14 sqq.
we are told how David is introduced to the court of Saul,
and becomes a favourite with the king. Then suddenly we
have in chap. xvii. the account of a campaign, and find that
David, although he was Saul's armour-bearer, did not follow
him to the field. This is singular enough, and it is not made
more intelligible by xvii. 15, which explains that David
used to go to and fro from Saul's court to feed his father's
sheep at Bethlehem (see E. V. ; the translation of A. V. is
inaccurate). Presently David is sent by his father on a
message to the camp to carry supplies to his brothers. He
is also entrusted with a small gift to the captain of their
thousand, i.e. of the local regiment of militia to which they
belong ; but he has no such gift for Saul, and does not even
present himself at headquarters to salute the king. And,
further, when he reaches the camp, his brethren treat him
with a degree of petulance not likely to be displayed even
by elder brothers to a youth who already stood well at court.
But, in fact, it appears from the close of the chapter that
David is utterly unknown at court, neither Saul nor Abner
having ever heard of him before. But in the Septuagint
version xvii. 12-31, 41, 50, and also the verses from xvii. 55
to xviii. 5 inclusive, are omitted, and when these are removed
we get a far more consistent account of the matter. We
find David in the camp (xvii. 54) and close to the person of
Saul (ver. 32), just as we should expect from chap. xvi.
"When all are afraid to face the Philistine champion, he
volunteers to accept the challenge, and so springs at once
from the position of a mere apprentice in arms to that of a
celebrated warrior. On the other hand, if we take the verses
omitted in the Septuagint and read them consecutively, we
cannot fail to observe that they are fragments of an independ-
lect. v GOLIATH 121
ent account which gives a different turn to the whole story.
According to this account David was still an unknown
shepherd lad when his father sent him to the camp with
provisions for his brethren and he volunteered to fight the
Philistine. After the victory he was retained at court, and
Jonathan, with impulsive generosity, at once received him as
his bosom friend. It is needless to insist that this account
is inconsistent with that which the text of the LXX. offers,
and that the slight attempt to reconcile the two which is
made in xvii. 1 5 is totally inadequate. There are only two
alternatives before us. Either we must recognise that the
LXX. has preserved the true text, and that the additions of
the Hebrew are interpolations, fragments of some lost history
of David, which have got into the Hebrew text by accident,
or else we must suppose that the shorter text is due to a
deliberate omission ; that is to say, the translators, or some
Hebrew scribe before their time, may have felt the difficulties
that encumbered the longer text, and deliberately left out a
number of verses in order to make the narrative run more
smoothly. But it is difficult to believe that simple omis-
sions, made without changing a word of what was left, could
produce a complete and consecutive narrative. It is obvious
that verse 32 follows on verse 11 much more smoothly than
verse 12 does. And it is still more remarkable that verses
12-31 are quite complete in themselves, as far as they go.
They take nothing for granted that has been already men-
tioned in verses 1-11, but tell all about the campaign, the
champion, and so forth, over again, in a way perfectly natural
in an independent story, but not natural if the whole chapter,
as it stands in the Hebrew, was originally a continuous narra-
tive. Note also that xvii. 1-11 are plainly part of a his-
tory of public affairs ; it is Saul and the children of Israel
that occupy the foreground of the narrative. But as plainly
verses 12-31 are part of a biography of David ; he is the
122 HISTORY OF
LECT. V
central figure whose movements are followed, and public affairs,
the campaign, the champion, the king's promise to the victor,
are all brought in at the point where they touch him. Thus
the champion comes up and is introduced to us by name,
while David is talking with his brethren, and the king's
promise is first referred to in a conversation with David.
Moreover, that promise itself is sufficient to show that the
narrative of verses 12-31 is a fragment foreign to the main
narrative of the Book of Samuel ; for though David did ulti-
mately marry the king's daughter, he did not receive her
hand as a reward for slaying the Philistine, but for quite
different services, as we shall see presently. On the whole,
therefore, we must conclude that the verses lacking in the
Septuagint are not arbitrarily omitted. They are interpola-
tions in the Hebrew text, extracts from a lost biography of
David, which some ancient reader must have inserted in his
copy of the Book of Samuel. At first, we may suppose, they
stood in the margin, and finally, like so many other marginal
glosses on ancient books, they got into the text ; but they
were not found in the text that lay before the Septuagint
translators.1
/Another excellent example of the critical value of the
Septuagint may be found in the account of the gradual
progress of Saul's hostility to David (1 Sam. xviii.). When
the women came out to meet the victorious Israelites and
praised David above Saul —
1 Sam. xviii. 8. — Saul was very wroth and the saying displeased him
[LXX. Saul], and he said, They have ascribed unto David myriads,
and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what can he have more
but the kingdom ? (9.) And Saul eyed David from that day, and forward.
(10, 11.) Next day Saul casts a javelin at David. (12.) And Saul was
afraid of David, because the Lord ivas with him and was departed from
Saul. (13.) And Saul removed him from his person, and made him
his captain over a thousand, and he went out and in before the people.
(14.) And David was successful in all that he undertook, and the Lord
1 For further remarks on this passage see additional Note A.
lect. v DAVID AND SAUL 1 2
•>
was with him. (15.) And when Saul saw that he was so successful, he
dreaded him. (16.) But all Israel loved David, because he went out
and came in before them. (17-19.) Saul promises Merab to David, but
disappoints him. (20-27.) Michal falls in love with David, and Saul
avails himself of this opportunity to put him on a dangerous enterprise
in the hope that he will fall. David, however, succeeds, and marries
Michal.1 (28.) And when Saul saw, and knew that the Lord was with
David, and that Michal the daughter of Saul (LXX. all Israel) loved
him, (29) he came to fear David still- more, and hated David continually.
(30.) Thereafter David again distinguishes himself in war. (xix. 1.)
Saul proposes to his son and servants to kill David.
The words and verses quoted or summarised in italics are
omitted in the Septuagint. Without them the progress of the
narrative is perspicuous and consistent. Saul's jealousy is
first roused by the praises bestowed on David, and he can
no longer bear to have him constantly attached to his person.
Without an open breach of relations, he removes him from
court by giving him an important post. David's conduct,
and the popularity he acquires in his new and more in-
dependent position, intensify Saul's former fears into a
fixed dread. But there is still no overt act of hostility
on the king's part; he hopes to lead David to destruction
by stimulating his ambition to a desperate enterprise; and
it is only when this policy fails, and David returns to court
a universal favourite, with the new importance conferred by
his alliance with the royal family, that Saul's fears wholly
conquer his scruples, and he plans the assassination of his
son-in-law. The three stages of this growing hostility are
marked by the rising strength of the phrases in verses 12,
15, 29. The additions of the Hebrew text destroy the
psychological truth of the narrative. Here Saul's fears
reach the highest pitch as soon as his jealousy is first
aroused, and on the very next day he attempts to slay
David with his own hand. In the original narrative this
attempt comes much later, and is accepted by David as a
1 The words in 21 and 26, which refer to the incident of Merab, are not in
the LXX.
124 GREEK TEXT OF leot. v
warning to flee at once (xix. 10). The other additions are
equally inappropriate, and the episode of Merab is particu-
larly unintelligible. It seems to hang together with xvii.
25, that is, with the interpolated part of the story of
Goliath ; and in 2 Sam. xxi. 8, Michal, not Merab, appears
as the mother of Adriel's children. In that passage the
English version has attempted to remove the difficulty by
making Michal only the foster-mother, but the Hebrew will
not bear such a sense.
Here, then, we have another case where all probability
is in favour of the Greek text, and a fresh example of
the principle alluded to in the last Lecture, that, where
there are two recensions of a passage, the shorter version
is in most cases to be recognised as that which is nearest
to the hand of the original author. Sometimes, indeed,
we meet with an insertion which is valuable because de-
rived from an ancient source, such as the quotation from
the Book of Jashar, preserved in the Septuagint of 1
Kings viii. 53. But seldom indeed did a copyist, unless
by sheer oversight, omit anything from the copy that lay
before him.1
A remarkable case of variations between the Hebrew and
the Greek is found, where we should least expect it, within
the Pentateuch itself. The translation of the Law is the
oldest part of the Septuagint, and in the eyes of the Jews
was much the most important. And as a rule the variations
are here confined within narrow limits, the text being already
better fixed than in the historical books. But there is one
considerable section, Exod. xxxv.-xl., where extraordinary
variations appear in the Greek, some verses being omitted
altogether, while others are transposed and knocked about
with a freedom very unlike the usual manner of the
translators of the Pentateuch. The details of the varia-
1 See further, on this subject, additional Note B.
lect. v EXODUS XXXV. -XL. 125
tions need not be recounted here; they are fully exhibited
in tabular form in Kuenen's Onderzoek, 2d ed., vol. i. p. 77,
and in Driver's Introduction, p. 37 sq. The variations
prove either that the text of this section of the Pentateuch
was not yet fixed in the third century before Christ, or
that the translator did not feel himself bound to treat it
with the same reverence as the rest of the Law. But
indeed there are strong reasons for suspecting that the
Greek version of these chapters is not by the same hand
as the rest of the Book of Exodus, various Hebrew words
being represented by other Greek equivalents than those
used in the earlier chapters. And thus it seems possible
that this whole section was lacking in the copy that lay
before the first translator of the Law. It is true that the
chapters are not very essential, since they simply describe,
almost in the same words, the execution of the directions
about the tabernacle and its furniture already given in
chaps, xxv.-xxxi. Most modern critics hold chaps, xxxv.-
xl. for a late addition to the text, and see in the variations
between the Hebrew and the Greek proof that the form
of the addition underwent changes, and was not finally
fixed in all copies when the Septuagint version was made.
In favour of this view several considerations may be ad-
duced which it would carry us too far to consider here.
But in any case those who hold that the whole Pentateuch
dates from the time of Moses, and that the Septuagint
translators had to deal with a text that had been fixed
and sacred for a thousand years, have a hard nut to
crack in the wholly exceptional freedom with which the
Greek version treats this part of the sacrosanct Torah.
These examples must suffice as indications of what may
be learned from the Septuagint with regard to the way in
which the Biblical books were originally compiled, and
the changes which the text underwent at the hand of
12G EARLIEST HISTORY lect. v
later editors. There is yet another important matter — the
history of the Old Testament Canon — which may be most
conveniently approached by comparing the Hebrew and
Greek Bibles, but this subject I propose to defer to
another Lecture. The lessons which we have already
learned from the Septuagint have applications of a far-
reaching kind that have not yet been considered, and to
which we may profitably turn our attention before we pass
on to a new topic.
The variations between the Hebrew and the Greek give
us a practical insight into the kind of changes to which
the Old Testament text was exposed in the course of
transmission, and the kind of work which compilers and
editors did in the way of retouching the text, rearranging
its component parts, and introducing new matter. But,
after all, the Hebrew text only represents one manuscript
and the Septuagint another. By direct comparison of the
two we learn broadly how great the variations between copies
still were in the third century B.C. or later, and we get also a
general and most instructive insight into the cause of these
differences. But two copies are not enough to give us a full
knowledge of all the variations that were still found in MSS.
at the time when the Septuagint version was made ; much
less are they enough to enable us to determine all the' vicis-
situdes through which each book had passed in earlier ages.
It is to be presumed that the same causes which make the
Septuagint so different from the Hebrew had always been at
work in the transmission of the text ; and we have no ris2;ht
to suppose that, in all passages which they affected, one or
other of the two copies before us must have preserved the
original hand of the first author. In some cases the Hebrew
text is evidently better than the Greek, in others the converse
is true ; but both give us a text which has passed through
the hands of many editors and copyists, who dealt very freely
lect. v OF THE TEXT 127
with the materials before them, and sometimes added matter
of doubtful authority, derived from inferior sources. Now
the genealogy of manuscripts is like the genealogy of men ;
the copy used by the Septuagint and the copy represented by
our Hebrew Bible are cousins, and to judge by their general
resemblance not very distant cousins. At all events, as
cousins they have a common ancestor, or as critics would say,
a common archetype, a manuscript from which both texts
have descended through successive generations of copies and
copies of copies. It is not probable that this archetype was
separated by many generations from the time of the Septu-
agint translators ; it would be a very bold thing to suppose
that for any part of the Old Testament the two recensions
had branched off before the time of Ezra. To any changes
that may have been made on the text before the date of
the common archetype the comparison of the Greek and the
Hebrew can afford no clue ; yet the older books must have
been copied and recopied many times before that archetype
was written, and every time they were copied there was at
any rate a possibility that changes would creep into the text
— changes of the same general kind as now separate the two
extant recensions. To the way in which the text was treated in
the earliest times, before the date of the common archetype of the
Greek and Hebrew, we have no clue except internal evidence.
" Very good," says the conservative school ; " and that being
so, there is an end of the matter. For internal evidence is
notoriously uncertain and delusive, and so our best course is
quietly to acquiesce in what we have received by tradition."
This is a convenient counsel, and appeals to the indolence that
forms a part of every man's nature, even though he be bound
by the most sacred vows, and by the responsibility of high
office in the churches, to give the strength of his life to the
study of divine truth. To such men, above all others, a short
and easy argument, which can be learned and repeated in an
128 INTERNAL
LECT. V
armchair, and which serves the double purpose of furnishing
a plausible reply to suspicious innovations and dispensing
the man who uses it from making a fresh and laborious study
of the Bible, comes either as a godsend or as a temptation of
the flesh. I leave it to the consciences of those dignitaries
and leaders of the English and Scottish churches who have
refused and still refuse to study the modern criticism, to
determine whether their lofty indifference to matters that have
been to every diligent student of the Scriptures the cause of
great searchings of heart, is indeed a fruit of surer faith and
truer insight than is given to those who bear the burden and
heat of the day in the field of Biblical study ; but to plain
men, who desire to know the truth and are willing to look it
in the face, I cannot think that an airy contempt for all
internal evidence will be apt to commend itself in the view of
the facts that have already come before us. You propose (do
you ?) to acquiesce in the received tradition and to ask no
questions as to the history of the Biblical books beyond the
point for which you have a direct witness in the divergence
of the Greek and Hebrew texts. That would be very well if
the comparison of these two texts had taught you that, as far
back as the third century before Christ, editors and copyists
scrupulously abstained from touching a letter of the books
they received as holy. But we have learned the very opposite
of this. We know that changes were made as far back as we
can follow the history of the text by external evidence. To
shut our eyes to the probability that similar changes were
made before that time, and to do this under the name of faith,
is to confound faith with agnosticism. Those of us who do
care to know the truth for its own sake, and not simply as
much of the truth as is consistent with going on smoothly in
our old ruts, will surely remember that in all other branches
of ancient history internal evidence has a recognised value,
that for many points in the history of the Biblical records no
lect. v EVIDENCE 129
other evidence is attainable, and that to reject it for this
history while it is accepted for all others is to place the study
of the Bible at a disadvantage, which in the long run can
only end in its entire exclusion from the field of sober
historical research.
The test of all this lies in the application. And to bring
the matter to an issue in brief compass I will not occupy your
time on minor matters. It would be easy to show that the
common archetype of the Greek and Hebrew texts already
contained verbal corruptions, that the text was already in
some instances contaminated by glosses, and so forth. But
these things are comparatively trivial. We have seen that
in later manuscripts variations occurred of a far more serious
type. In the story of Goliath, as we read it in Hebrew and
in English, two narratives are mixed up together which differ
in essential particulars. The one is not a mere supplement
to the other, but if one is true the other must be regarded
as containing serious errors. In that case, and in the similar
case of the history of David's estrangement from Saul, we still
have direct evidence from the Greek that one of the two
inconsistent stories has inferior authority and came into the
text at a late date. Let us ask whether there is convincing
internal evidence that in like manner some passages which
are older than the common archetype, and appear both in the
Greek and in the Hebrew, are nevertheless of no better autho-
rity than the interpolated story of David and Goliath.
To reduce this inquiry to the simplest form I will separate
it as far as may be from all questions as to how and when
discrepant accounts of the same event came. into the text, and
will simply address myself to prove that the Bible does in
certain cases give two accounts of the same series of occur-
rences, and that both accounts cannot be followed. The cases
in point may again be divided into two classes.
(1.) Those in which the two accounts are still quite sepa-
130 DISCREPANT lect. v
rate, so that we have no more to do than to put the one
against the other.
(2.) Cases where the present context of the narrative
already presents an attempt to reconcile two accounts origin-
ally distinct and discordant, by working the two (or parts of
them) into a consecutive story. The first class of cases is
obviously the easiest to deal with, and I propose, therefore,
to begin with examples drawn from it.
(1.) A very simple case is the twofold explanation of the
proverb, " Is Saul also among the prophets ? " (1 Sam. x. 12 ;
ibid. xix. 24). The same proverb cannot have two origins,
but nothing is commoner than to find two traditions about
the origin of a single saying. The compiler of the Book of
Samuel had two such traditions before him, and thought it
best to insert both, without deciding which deserved the pre-
ference. And here it may be noticed further that 1 Sam. xix.
24 is inconsistent with 1 Sam. xv. 35, which tells us that
Samuel never saw Saul after the death of Agag. The Eng-
lish Version departs from its usual fidelity when it softens
this absolute statement and writes that "Samuel came no
. more to see Saul."
An example on a larger scale is supplied by the two
accounts of the conquest of Canaan, and especially of southern
Canaan. According to Joshua x. the conquest of all .southern
Canaan from Gibeon to Kadesh-barnea was effected in a single
campaign, undertaken by Joshua in person at the head of the
united forces of all Israel, immediately after the defeat of the
five kings before Gibeon. The conquest was complete, for the
enemy was exterminated, not a soul being left alive. But
according to Judges i. the land of Judah was conquered not
by all Israel under Joshua, but by Judah and Simeon alone.
As the narrative now stands we learn from Judges i. 1 that
the separate campaign of Judah and Simeon took place after
the death of Joshua. Yet the events of the campaign in-
lect. v NARRATIVES 131
eluded the taking of Hebron and Debir, which, according to
the other account, had been already taken by Joshua, and
their inhabitants utterly destroyed. The difference in details
is insuperable ; but still more important is the fundamental
difference between the two accounts as regards the whole
method of the conquest. In Judges i. (with which agree
certain isolated passages of Joshua that stand out very clearly
from the surrounding narrative) the conquest of Canaan is
represented as a very gradual process, carried out by each
tribe fighting for its own hand ; whereas the Book of Joshua
depicts a series of great campaigns in which all Israel fought
as a united host, with the result that the Canaanites were
swept out of existence through the greater part of the
country, and their vacant lands divided by lot among the
tribes. It is impossible that both these accounts can be
correct. If Joshua had merely overrun the country, the
serious work of driving out the Canaanites and occupying
their land might have remained for the next generation ; but
the account in Joshua excludes any such view, and says in
the strongest way that the Canaanites were exterminated, and
their lands occupied peaceably. (See especially Josh. x. xi.
and xxi. 43-45.)
Plainly we have here two accounts of the conquest, which
were originally quite distinct and have been united only in
the most artificial manner by the note of time (" and it came
to pass after the death of Joshua "), which has been inserted
by a later hand in Judges i. 1. Of the two accounts that in
Judges is the plain historical version, while the other has this
characteristic mark of a later and less authoritative narrative,
that it gathers up all the details of slow conquest and local
struggle in one comprehensive picture with a single hero in
the foreground. In precisely the same way the later accounts
of the establishment of the Saxons in England extend the
sphere of Hengest's original conquests far beyond the narrow
132 DEATH OF SISERA lect. v
region to which they are confined by older and more authentic
tradition.
As a last example under this head I will take the case of
the death of Sisera, for which we have a prose narrative in
Judges iv. and the statements of a contemporary poem in
Judges v. In the prose narrative Jael kills Sisera in his sleep
by hammering a wooden tent-peg into his forehead — an ex-
traordinary proceeding, for the peg must have been held with
one hand and hammered with the other, which is not a likely
way to drive a blunt tent-peg through and through a man's
skull without awakening him. But in the poem we read —
" He asked water, and she gave him milk ;
She brought forth sour milk in an ample bowl."
Then, while Sisera, still standing, buried his face in the bowl,
and for the moment could not watch her actions —
" She put her hand to the peg,
And her right hand to the workmen's hammer ;
And she hammered Sisera, she broke his head,
And crushed and pierced his temples.
Between her feet he sank down, he fell, he lay :
Between her feet he sank down, he fell :
Where he sank, there he fell overcome."
All this is perfectly plain if we note that, according to the
manner of Hebrew parallelism, " she put her hand to the peg "
or pin, i.e. the handle of the hammer, means the same thing
as " and her right hand to the hammer." The act by which
Jael gained such renown was not the murder of a sleeping
man, but the use of a daring stratagem which gave her a
momentary chance to deliver a courageous blow. But the
word " peg " suggested a tent-peg, and so the later prose story
took it, and thereby misunderstood the whole thing.
(2.) I now pass to a more complicated class of cases,
where two independent accounts have been woven together
by a later editor so that it requires some dissection to
lect. v TAKING OF AT 133
separate them. The most important series of such cases
is found in the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, and
will engage our attention in some detail at a later point
in our course. For the present I will cite only one simple
instance from this portion of the history, viz. the account
of the taking of Ai given in Joshua viii. The capture of
this city was effected by stratagem, Joshua and the main
body of the host of Israel drawing the enemy away from
their city by a feigned retreat, so that it was left an easy
prey to an ambush that lay concealed on the west side
of the town. But of the setting of this ambush we have
two inconsistent accounts. According to verse 3 the ambush
consisted of thirty thousand men, and was sent out from
Gilgal by night to take up its post behind Ai, while
Joshua and the mass of the host did not leave Gilgal till
the following morning (verses 9, 10). But in verse 12
the ambush consists of but five thousand men, and is not
sent from Gilgal, but detached from the main army after
Joshua has taken up his position in front of Ai. These
are two versions of the same occurrence, for in both accounts
the place of ambush is the same, viz. the west side of the
city between Bethel and Ai, and the subsequent verses speak
only of one ambush. We conclude, therefore, that the editor
used, and to some extent fused together, two separate ac-
counts of the taking of Ai ; and this conclusion is confirmed
when we observe that verses 20 and 21 also tell the same
thing twice over with slight variations of detail and ex-
pression such as would naturally occur in two independent
stories.
In the books that follow Joshua, cases where two narra-
tives are worked together to form a mosaic of small fragments
become less frequent, but something of the kind can still be
traced in parts of the Book of Samuel, especially in the history
of Saul, where, as we have already seen, the Septingint some-
134 DOUBLETS IN THE lect. v
times helps us to dissect out late additions to the story. There
are other doublets (double versions) of passages in Saul's
history which are common to the Hebrew and the Greek, and
can be recognised only by internal evidence. Such, for
example, are the two accounts of Saul's rejection by Samuel
at Gilgal, of which one is found in 1 Sam. xv. and the other
from 1 Sam. xiii. 7 (second half) to ver. 15 (first half), a passage
to which chap. x. 8 must once have formed the introduction.
Any one who reads chap. xv. with care must see that the
writer of this narrative knew nothing of an earlier rejection
of Saul. And further, the Gilgal episode in chap. xiii. gives
no reasonable sense. Saul had waited for Samuel the full
time appointed ; it was a matter of urgency to delay military
operations no longer, and according to ancient usage the war
had to be opened with religious ceremonies. What was the
crime of performing these without Samuel's presence ? There
is not a word in the story to imply that no one but Samuel
could do acceptable sacrifice, or that the king's offence lay in
an encroachment on the prerogatives of the priesthood. The
sin, if there was a sin, lay in Saul's presuming to begin a
necessary war without Samuel's express orders. But it is
plain from the whole history that the kings of Israel never
were mere puppets in the hands of the prophets, and that the
prophets never claimed the right to make them so. The
story is unhistorical, and nothing more than an early and
unauthorised interpolation, as appears from the fact that both
xiii. 7 &-15 a, and the associated verse, x. 8, dislocate the context
of the passages in which they are inserted.1 Here we have
two versions of a passage in Saul's history which have been
allowed to stand side by side without any attempt to work
them into unity. But in the history of Saul's appointment
1 See Wellhausen, Composition (1889), p. 247 sq. ; Budde, Richter und
Samuel, p. 191 sqq. The mention of Gilgal in 1 Sam. xiii. 4 seems to have
been added along with the greater interpolation, for Gilgal is an impossible
rendezvous for an army gathering to meet a Philistine invasion.
lect. v HISTORY OF SAUL 135
as king, where there are also two accounts, each is broken up
and passages of the one are intercalated in the other. This
may be shown by a table as follows — x
Acct. A, 1 Sam. ix., x. 1-16. xi. 1-11. xi. 15.
Acct. B, 1 Sam. viii. x. 1-24 (25-27 ?). (xi. 12, 13 ?).
Editor. (x. 25-27 ?). (xi. 12, 13 ?). xi. 14.
The main clues to this analysis are two. In the first
place, the status of Samuel is different in chaps, viii. and ix. ;
in the former he is the acknowledged judge of all Israel, in
the latter he is a seer of great local reputation, but hardly
known outside of his own district. In the second place,
chap. xi. presents Saul to us as still a private person. The
messengers from Jabesh do not come specially to seek him,
and he acts by no public authority, but on his own initiative
under the impulse of the Divine Spirit. But in chap. ix. he
has already been made king amidst the acclamations of the
whole nation. Other points of difference I leave you to note
for yourselves ; the best justification of the analysis is to
sketch the two stories, and show that each is complete in
itself.
According to the older story (A) the establishment of the
kingship in Israel was not of man's seeking but of God.
The Hebrews were hard pressed by the Philistines and other
foes, against whom they could make no head for want of
organisation and a recognised captain. Only one man in
Israel, the seer Samuel, who in this narrative appears as
little known beyond his own district, saw by divine revela-
tion that the remedy lay in the appointment of a king, and
was guided to recognise the leader of Israel in a young man,
the son of a Benjamite noble, who came to consult him on a
trivial affair of lost asses. Seizing his opportunity, Samuel
took Saul aside and anointed him king in the name of
Jehovah, commanding him to return home and await an
1 I borrow the plan of this table from Driver's tables of the analysis of the
Hexateuch.
136 HOW SAUL
LECT. V
occasion to prove his vocation by deeds : " Do as thy hand
shall find; for God is with thee." Saul obeyed the com-
mand, and silently returned to the daily work of his father's
estate; but God had changed his heart; Samuel's words
burned within him, and his neighbours, though they knew
not the cause, saw that he was a different man from what
he had been. A month later (1 Sam. x. 27, Sept. ; see the
margin of E. V.) the opportunity of action arrived. Jabesh-
gilead was threatened by Nahash the Ammonite, and the
messengers whom the Gileadites sent through the land to
demand succour were everywhere received with tears of
helpless sympathy. "But the Spirit of God came upon
Saul when he heard these things, and his wrath was kindled
greatly. And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in
pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by
the hands of messengers, and said, Whoso cometh not forth
after Saul [and after Samuel], so shall it be done unto his
oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell upon the people, and
they came out as one man." Nahash was defeated, the
Israelites knew that they had found a leader, and with one
consent they went to Gilgal and made Saul king before
the Lord.
In the second account (B) all this vivid concrete picture
disappears, and we find in its place a meagre skeleton of
narrative only just sufficient to support an exposition, in the
form of speeches, of the author's judgment upon the Hebrew
kingship as an institution not strictly compatible with the
ideal of Jehovah's sovereignty in Israel. In this narrative
Samuel appears as the recognised head and supreme judge
of all Israel. In his old age, when he has delegated part of
his functions to his sons and they prove corrupt judges, the
people insist on the appointment of a king. Samuel re-
monstrates, but is divinely instructed to grant their wish,
after warning them that to seek a human king is to depart
lect. v BECAME KING 137
from Jehovah, and that they will repent too late of their
disobedience, when they experience the heavy hand of
despotism. But as they persist in their wish a solemn
convocation is called at Mizpeh, and appeal is made to the
sacred lot to determine the tribe, the family, and the man on
whom Jehovah's choice falls. When the lot falls on Saul he
is nowhere to be found, till a second oracle reveals that he is
hidden among the baggage. " And they ran and fetched him
thence : and when he stood among the people, he was higher
than any of the people from his shoulders and upward. And
Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the Lord
hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people ?
And all the people shouted, and said, God save the king."
It is not so easy, nor is it necessary for our present
purpose, to follow the double thread of the narrative farther.
All critics agree that the immediate sequel of the first account
is found in chaps, xiii. xiv., while, on the other hand, chaps,
xii. and xv. stand in close connection with the second account.
Further, xi. 14, which speaks of renewing the kingdom, is
an editorial addition designed to harmonise the two narratives
by suggesting that Saul was crowned twice. But it is not
quite clear whether x. 25-27, xi. 12, 13, are also editorial
additions (Budde) or fragments of the second narrative. On
the latter view we must, I think, suppose that that narrative
contained an account of the war with Nahash in a different
form, associating Samuel with the campaign, and making
Saul act at the head of the valiant men whose hearts God
had touched (x. 26). It is unreasonable to expect to attain
certainty on such minor points ; nor do they affect the broad
lines of our analysis and the broad contrast between the first
account, in which the events unfold themselves naturally, so
that the Divine Spirit in Samuel and Saul guides the action
of human forces without suppressing or distorting them, and
the second account, in which the supernatural element is far
138 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. v
more mechanical, and, if I may venture to use such a word,
unreal. In saying this I do not mean that the second account
is a deliberate fiction ; the incident of Saul's hiding in the
baggage is evidently traditional, and indeed has close parallels
in Arabian folk-lore.1 But the two traditions cannot both
be equally genuine, and there can be no doubt which is the
older and better one. In the second account we already
see the distorting influence on historical tradition of that
mechanical conception of Jehovah's rule in Israel which
prevailed more and more among the later Jews, and ulti-
mately destroyed all feeling for historical reality, and at the
same time all true insight into the methods of divine
governance.
According to the prophets and apostles God's government
in Israel differs from His government of the rest of the world
in so far as Israel had greater privileges and greater responsi-
bilities (Amos iii. 2, ix. 7, 8 ; Acts xvii. 30 ; Eom. ii. 12) ; a
thesis which by no means involves, but rather implicitly
excludes, the notion that the boundaries of Canaan formed
a magic circle, within which the ordinary laws of Providence
were suspended, and the sequence of well-doing and pros-
perity, sin and punishment, was determined by a special and
immediate operation of divine sovereignty. But it requires
insight and faith to see the hand of God in the ordinary
processes of history, whereas extraordinary coincidences
between conduct and fortune are fitted to impress the dullest
minds. Hence, when the religious lesson of any part of
history has been impressed on the popular mind, there is
1 See the story about Mohammed in Ibn Hisham, p. 116, and that about
Mosailima in Ibn Sa'd, ed. Wellhausen, No. 101. These stories may be
influenced by the Bible, but it is remarkable that both of them bring out the
point of the incident more clearly than the passage of Samuel expresses it.
The man who stays behind with the baggage is the youngest or obscurest of
the company. Saul remained there because "lie was little in his own sight "
(1 Sam. xv. 17). Compare the similar incidents in the story of David,
1 Sam. xvi. 11, xvii. 28.
lect. v LATER NARRATIVES 139
always a tendency to reshape the story in such a way as to
bring the point out sharply and drop all details that have
not a direct religious significance. There are a hundred
examples of this in modern history : the story of the Armada,
for example, is habitually told in a way that accentuates the
providential interposition which preserved English Protest-
antism— " afflavit Deus et dissipati sunt," as the commemo-
rative medal has it — by laying too little weight on the action
of human forces in which God's providence was not less truly,
though it was less strikingly, present. The history of the
Old Testament, taken as a whole, forms so remarkable a chain
of evidence establishing the truth of what the prophets had
taught as to the laws of God's government on earth, that we
cannot be surprised to find that in the circles influenced by
prophetic ideas all parts of the historical tradition came to
be studied mainly in the spirit of religious pragmatism.
That is to say, religious students of the past times of the
nation concentrated their attention in an increasing degree,
and ultimately in an exclusive way, on the explanation of
events by religious considerations. The effect of this,
especially after the establishment of the post-exile theocracy,
was that the parts and incidents of the history which did
not admit of a direct religious interpretation fell out of sight,
and that the story of Israel's past ultimately resolved itself
into a mechanical sequence of sin and punishment, obedience
and prosperity. The point of view which Jesus condemns in
Luke xiii. 1-4, in speaking of the Galileans whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, is that from which
later Judaism looks at the whole sacred history, with the
result that the manifold variety of God's workings among
men shrivels up into a tedious repetition of lifeless formulas.
That this is true as regards the Rabbinical literature no
one will attempt to deny ; but the example that has come
before us leads us to consider whether, in a less degree,
i
140 THE BOOK OF
LECT. V
something of the same tendency may not have to be allowed
for in interpreting parts of the Bible.
The chief case in point, upon which critics have come to
a very definite conclusion, is that of the Chronicles as com-
pared with the Book of Kings. Our traditional education,
and our hereditary way of looking at the Bible, incline us
to suppose that all books of the Old Testament are of equal
value as historical authorities; and that, when Kings and
Chronicles appear to differ, it is as legitimate to read the older
history in the light of the newer as vice versd. In dealing
with sources for profane history, however, we should never
dream of putting books of such different age on the same
footing ; the Book of Kings was substantially complete before
the Exile, in the early years of the sixth century B.C., while
the Chronicler gives genealogies that go down at least six
generations after Zerubbabel, and probably reach to con-
temporaries of Alexander the Great.1 This is an interval of
at least two hundred and fifty years; and it must also be
remembered that the Book of Kings is largely made up of
verbal extracts from much older sources, and for many purposes
may be treated as having the practical value of a contem-
porary history. Hence, according to the ordinary laws of
research, the Book of Kings is a source of the first class, and
the Chronicles have a very secondary value. It is the rule
of all historical study to begin with the records that stand
1 The genealogy of the descendants of Zerubhabel in 1 Chron. iii. 19 sqq.
is somewhat confused, but it seems to be impossible by any fair treatment of
the text to get less than six generations (Hananiah, Shechaniah, Shemaiah,
Neariah, Elioenai, Hodaiah and his brethren). The text of the Septuagint
gives eleven generations, and this may be the true reading, for it removes the
obscurity that attaches to the Hebrew text by the very slight correction, four
times reading 132 for ^3, and once adding )22 before ^21 (at the end of
verse 21). But further it is almost certain that Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
once formed a single book (infra, p. 182 sq.), and in Nehemiah we have mention
of Darius Codomannus and of Jaddua, who was high priest at the time of the
Macedonian conquest (Neh. xii. 22). See further Driver, Introduction,
p. 486, p. 511 sq.
LECT. V
CHRONICLES 141
nearest to the events recorded and are written under the
living impress of the life of the time described. Many
features of old Hebrew custom, which are reflected in lively
form in the Former Prophets, were obsolete long before the
time of the Chronicler, and could not be revived except by
archaeological research. The whole life of the old kingdom
was buried and forgotten ; Israel was no longer a nation, but
a church. No theory of inspiration, save the theory of the
Koran, which boasts that its fabulous legends were super-
naturally conveyed to Mohammed without the use of docu-
ments or tradition, can affirm that a history written under
these conditions is a primary source for the study of the
ancient kingdom.1 It is manifest that the Chronicler, writ-
ing at a time when the institutions of Ezra had universal
currency, had no personal knowledge of the greatly different
praxis of Israel before the Exile, and that the general picture
which he gives of the life and worship of the Hebrews under
the old monarchy cannot have the same value for us as the
records of the Book of Kings. These considerations alone are
sufficient to condemn the use made of the Chronicles by a
certain school of theologians, who, finding that the narrative
of that book comes closer to their own traditional ideas than
the record of the ancient histories, seek to explain away
everything in the latter which the younger historian does not
homologate. The Book of Kings, for example, contains a
mass of evidence that the best monarchs of Judah before the
Captivity countenanced practices inconsistent with the Penta-
teuchal Law. Thus we are told in 1 Kings xv. 14, xxii. 43,
that Asa and Jehoshaphat did not abolish the high places.
The Chronicler, on the contrary, says that they did abolish
them (2 Chron. xiv. 5, xvii. 6) — a flat contradiction. There
1 Mohammed boasts of his fabulous version of the story of Joseph, that
he had it by direct revelation, not having known it before (Sura xii. 3). The
Bible historians never made such a claim, which to thinking minds is one of
the clearest proofs of Mohammed's imposture.
142 THE BOOK OF
LECT. V
is an end to historical study if in such a case we accept the
later account against the earlier; for it is evident that the
Chronicler, writing at a time when every one was agreed in
rejecting high places as idolatrous, was unable to conceive
that good kings could have tolerated them.1 We shall see,
however, in Lecture VIIL, that a mass of concurrent evidence,
derived from the prophets as well as the historical books,
shows that there was no feeling against the high places even
in the most enlightened circles in Israel till long after the
time of Asa and Jehoshaphat.
The cases where the Chronicler flatly contradicts the
Book of Kings are pretty numerous ; but there is not one of
them where an impartial historical judgment will decide in
favour of the later account. It is true that the Chronicler
had access to some old sources now lost, especially for the
genealogical lists which form a considerable part of his
work.2 But for the history proper, his one genuine source
was the series of the Former Prophets, the Books of Samuel
and especially of Kings. These books he read in manuscripts
which occasionally preserved a good reading that has been
corrupted in the Massoretic text {supra, p. 68), but where
he adds to the narrative of Kings or departs from it, his
variations are never such as to inspire confidence. In large
measure these variations are simply due to the fact that,
as we have already seen in the example of the high places,
he takes it for granted that the religious institutions of his
own time must have existed in the same form in old Israel.
Hence he assumes that the Levitical organisation of his own
1 That here the Chronicler is arbitrarily changing the record appears
incidentally from 2 Chron. xv. 17, xx. 33, where he is inconsiderate enough
to copy the opposite statement of 1 Kings in connection with some other
particulars which he has occasion to transfer from that book to his own.
2 The genealogies are not all of equal value, but the great historical im-
portance of some of them has been demonstrated by Wellhausen in his
Habilitationschrift, Be Gentibus et Familiis Judacis, Gott., 1870. Only a
summary of the results is reproduced in his Prolegomena.
LECT. V
CHRONICLES 141
time, and especially the three choirs of singers, were estab-
lished by David. Of all this the old history has not a word,
and the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah show that even after
the restoration, a much simpler system was in force, and
was only gradually elaborated into the form described in
Chronicles {infra, Lecture VII.). But, indeed, the text of
Chronicles contains distinct internal evidence that the author
is really describing later institutions, although he brings his
description into the life of David. The gates, etc., mentioned
in 1 Chron. xxvi. presuppose the existence of a temple, and
as the gate Parbar bears a Persian name, it is clear that he is
thinking of the second Temple.1 And this case does not
stand alone. In 2 Chron. xiii. 10 sqq. Abijah boasts against
Jeroboam of the superior legitimacy of the ritual of Jerusalem,
which was conducted according to all the rules of the Law.
But the ritual described is that of the second Temple, for
reference is made to the golden candlestick. In Solomon's
Temple there was not one golden candlestick in front of the
oracle, but ten (1 Kings vii. 49). Further, Abijah speaks of
the morning and evening holocausts. But there is a great
concurrence of evidence that the evening sacrifice of the
first Temple was not a holocaust, but a cereal oblation
(1 Kings xviii. 36, Hcb. ; 2 Kings xvi. 15 ; Ezra ix. 4, Eeb.).2
1 A curious point, remarked by Ewakl (Lehrbuch, § 274 b), and more
clearly brought out by Wellhausen, is that six heads of the choir of the
guild of Heman bear the names — (1) I have given great (2) and lofty help
(3) to him that sat in distress ; (4) I have spoken (5) a superabundance of
(6) prophecies (1 Chron. xxv. 4). As actual names of men, in the time of
David, these designations are impossible. But the words seem to form an
anthem in which six choirs of singers may well have had parts, and these
may have received names from their parts. In like manner Jeduthun, which,
if the description of the Temple music is literal history of David's time, must
be the name of a chief singer, is really, as we see from the titles of the Psalms,
a musical term.
2 Cp. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, chap. ix. note 1. Note also, as
characteristic of the freedom used with facts in the speeches in Chronicles,
that in 2 Chron. xiii. 7 Abijah says that Jeroboam's rebellion took place
when Rehoboam was a lad and soft-hearted, and could not pluck up courage
144 THE BOOK OF
LECT. V
So again, in 2 Chron. v. 4, the ark is borne by Levites, accord-
ing to the rule of the Levitical law ; but the parallel passage
of 1 Kings viii. 3 says that it was borne by the priests, and
the latter statement is in accordance with Deut. xxxi., and
with all the references to the carrying of the ark in the pre-
exilic histories (Josh. iii. 3, vi. 6, viii. 33; 2 Sam. xv.
24, 29). Once more, in 2 Kings xi., Jehoiada's assistants in
the revolution which cost Athaliah her life are the foreign
bodyguard, which we know to have been employed in the
sanctuary up to the time of Ezekiel (infra, p. 262). But
in 2 Chron. xxiii. the Carians and the footguards are replaced
by the Levites, in accordance with the rule of the second
Temple, which did not allow aliens to approach so near to the
holy things.
These examples are enough to show that the Chronicler
is no authority in any point that touches difference of usage
between his own time and that of the old monarchy ; but
further, he does not hesitate to make material changes in the
tenor of narratives that do not agree with his doctrine of
the uniformity of religious institutions before and after the
Exile. Of this one example must suffice. In 2 Kings xxiii.
Josiah's action against the high places is represented as
taking place in the eighteenth year of his reign, as the imme-
diate result of his repentance on hearing the words of the
Law found in the Temple, and in pursuance of the covenant
of reformation made on that occasion. But in 2 Chron. xxxiv.
the reformation begins in Josiah's twelfth year, that is, as
soon as he emerged from his minority.1 Josiah was a good
to withstand the rebels. But according to 1 Kings xiv. 21 the "lad" was
forty-one years old, and he certainly did not lose his kingdom for softness of
heart.
1 Josiah came to the throne when he was eight years old, so that in his
twelfth year he would be nineteen years old. He began to seek God, says the
Chronicler, in the eighth year of his reign, i.e. at the age of fifteen. Accord-
ing to the Mishna {Aboth, v. 21) a boy should begin to learn Talmud at
fifteen, marry at eighteen, and pursue business at twenty.
LECT. V
CHRONICLES 145
king, and therefore the Chronicler felt that there must be a
mistake in the account which made him wield an independ-
ent sceptre for many years before he touched the idolatrous
abuses of his land. That the result of this is to put the
solemn repentance and covenant of reformation ten years
after the reformation itself is an inconsistency which seems
never to have struck him.
The tendency to construct history according to a mechan-
ical rule, which we meet with in this example, is only one side
of the general tendency of later Judaism, already characterised,
to sacrifice all interest in the veritable facts of sacred history
to a mechanical conception of God's government of the world
at large, and of Israel in particular. Another side shows
itself in the Book of Chronicles in the constant endeavour to
make the divine retribution act immediately, after the fashion
of the falling of the tower of Siloam. This is sometimes
spoken of as a moralising tendency, and the name is not
amiss if we make it clear to ourselves that it is moralising of
a different kind from what we find in the prophets. To
prophets like Amos and Isaiah, the retributive justice of God
is manifest in the general course of history. The fall of the
Hebrew nation is the fruit of sin and rebellion against
Jehovah's moral commands ; but God's justice is mingled
with long-suffering, and the prophets do not for a moment
suppose that every sin is promptly punished, and that tem-
porary good fortune is always the reward of righteousness.
But a very large part of the novel additions made in the
Chronicles to the old history is meant to show, that in Israel
retribution followed immediately on good or bad conduct,
and especially on obedience or disobedience to prophetic
warnings. Some good remarks on this head, with a list of
illustrative passages, will be found in Driver's Introduction,
p. 494; I must here content myself with one or two con-
spicuous examples out of many.
IO
146 HISTORICAL VALUE lect. v
In 1 Kings xxii. 48 we read that Jehoshaphat built
Tarshish ships (i.e. such great ships as the Phoenicians used
in their trade with southern Spain) at Ezion-geber for the
South Arabian gold trade ; but the ships were wrecked before
starting. For this the Chronicler seeks a religious reason ;
and, as 1 Kings goes on to say that, after the disaster, Ahaziah
of Israel offered to join Jehoshaphat in a fresh enterprise, and
the latter declined, we are told in 2 Chron. xx. 37 that the.
king of Israel was partner in the ships that were wrecked,
and that Jehoshaphat was warned by a prophet of the certain
failure of an undertaking in which he was associated with
the wicked Ahaziah. That this is a mere pragmatical in-
ference from the story in Kings, and does not rest on some
good independent source, is confirmed by the fact that the
Chronicler misunderstands the words of 1 Kings, and changes
" Tarshish ships " into " ships to go to Tarshish," as if ships
for the Mediterranean trade could possibly be built on the
Gulf of Akaba in the Eed Sea! On the other hand, in
2 Kings iii., we read of a war with Moab, in which Jehosha-
phat was associated with the wicked house of Ahab, and
came off scatheless. In Chronicles this war is entirely
omitted, and in its place we have a war of Jehoshaphat alone
against Moab, Ammon, and Edom, in which the Jewish king,
having begun the campaign with suitable prayer and praise,
has no further task than to spoil the dead of the enemy who
have fallen by one another's hands. The idea of this easy
victory is taken from the story of the real war with Moab
(2 Kings iii. 21 sq.), where we learn that the Moabites fell into
a trap by imagining that their enemies of Israel, Judah, and
Edom had quarrelled and destroyed one another. Let me
ask you, taking this hint with you, to read 2 Kings iii. and
2 Chron. xx. carefully through, and consider the difference
between the old and the new conception of the supernatural
in Israel's history. In reading the old account observe that
leot. v OF CHRONICLES 147
verses 16, 17, 20 describe the way in which the underground
water descending from the Edomite mountains can still be
obtained, by digging water pits, in the Wady el-Ahsa (" valley
of water pits "), on the southern frontier of Moab, which was
the scene of the events in question.1
In Chronicles the kings undergo alternate good and bad
fortune, according to their conduct immediately before. Eeho-
boam is first good and strong, then he forsakes the Law, and
Shishak invades the land ; then he repents, and the rest of his
reign is prosperous. And so it goes with all his successors.
According to 1 Kings xv. 14 Asa's heart was perfect with
the Lord all his days. But in his old age he had a disease
in his feet (1 Kings xv. 23). Accordingly the Chronicler
tells us that for three years before this misfortune (2 Chron.
xvi. 1, 12) he had done several wicked things, one of which,
his alliance with Damascus, is also recounted in Kings, but
without the slightest hint that there was anything in it dis-
pleasing to God. To bring this incident into the place that
fits his theodicea, the Chronicler has to change the chronology
of Baasha's reign (2 Chron. xvi. 1 compared with 1 Kings
xv. 33). Similarly the misfortunes of Jehoash, Amaziah,
Azariah are all explained by sins of which the old history
knows nothing, and Pharaoh Necho himself is made a pro-
phet, that the defeat and death of Josiah may be due to
disobedience to revelation (2 Chron. xxxv. 21, 22), while, on
the other hand, the wicked Manasseh is converted into a
penitent to justify his long reign. All this is exactly in
the style of the Jewish Midrash; it is not history but
Haggada, moralising romance attaching to historical names
1 See Wellhausen, Composition, p. 287, with Wetzstein in Delitzsch, Genesis,
ed. 4, p. 567 as there cited. Cp. further Doughty, Travels, i 26 sq., and for
the kind of bottom, yielding water under the sand, implied in the name el-
Ahsa (el-Hisa, el-Hisy), Yacht, i. 148 ; Zohair, ed. Landberg, p. 95 ; Ibn
Hisham, Sira, p. 71, 1. 9. The point of the miracle lies in the copiousness of
the supply obtained by the use of ordinary means.
148 CHRONICLES
LECT. V
and events. And the Chronicler himself gives the name of
Midrash (E. V. " story ") to two of the sources from which he
drew (2 Chron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27), so that there is really no
mystery as to the nature of his work when it departs from
the old canonical histories.
I have dwelt at some length on this topic, because the
practice of using the Chronicles as if they had the same his-
torical value as the older books has done more than any other
one cause to prevent a right understanding of the Old Testa-
ment and of the Old Dispensation. To admit what I think
has been proved in the previous pages involves a serious
shock to received ideas of the equal authority of the whole
Hebrew Canon ; but if the thing is true — and the proofs that
it is true may be greatly added to — the consequences must
be faced. Moreover, we shall see in the next Lecture that
the difficulty as to admitting the truth which is supposed to
arise from the history of the Canon is really imaginary, and
that no sacred authority binding on the Christian conscience
fixes the precise limits of the Canon, and excludes all
criticism of its contents.
LECTUEE VI
THE HISTORY OF THE CANON
In this Lecture I propose to discuss the main points in the
history of the Old Testament Canon ; inquiring what books
were accepted by the Jews as Sacred Scriptures; at what
date the list of canonical books was closed ; and on what
principles the list was formed.1 Here I would again ask you
to begin by comparing the Hebrew Bible with the Greek.
The Hebrew Bible has twenty-four books, arranged in
three great sections — the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagio-
grapha. The first section consists of the Pentateuch, or, as
the Hebrews call it, the "Five-Fifths of the Law." The
second section has two subdivisions — (a) The old histories,
which were believed to have prophets for their authors, and
are called the "Earlier Prophets," or, more exactly, the
" Former Prophets " ; and (b) the prophetic books proper,
which are called the " Latter Prophets." In these designa-
tions, the words " Former " and " Latter " cannot refer to the
date of composition, but must be taken to indicate the order
of the books in the canonical collection. Each subdivision
of the Prophets contains four books ; for the Hebrews count
1 On the subject of this Lecture see especially the excellent little book of
Professor G. Wildeboer of Groningen (Die Entstehung dcs Alttestamentlichen
Kanons, ed. 2, Gotha, 1891). Many points of detail to which it was impossible
to refer in the present volume are lucidly discussed by Dr. Wildeboer, and by
my friend Prof. Ryle, whose Canon of the 0. T. (London, 1892) reaches me as
these sheets are passing through the press.
150 TWENTY-FOUR BOOKS lect. vi
but one book of Samuel and one of Kings, and the Twelve
Minor Prophets are reckoned as one book. The third section
of the Hebrew Bible consists of what are called the Hagio-
grapha, or " Kethubim," that is [sacred] writings. At the head
of these stand three poetical books — Psalms, Proverbs, and
Job. Then come the five small books of Canticles, Euth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, which the Hebrews
name the Megilloth, or " rolls." They have this name because
they alone among the Hagiographa were used on certain
annual occasions in the service of the synagogue, and for this
purpose were written each in a separate volume. Last of all,
at the end of the Hebrew Bible, stand Daniel, Ezra with
Nehemiah (forming a single book), and the Chronicles, also
forminu; a single book. As the contents of these books are
historical and prophetical, we should naturally have expected
to find them in the section of Prophets. The reason why
they hold a lower place will fall to be examined later. This
number of twenty-four books, and the division into the Law,
the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, were perfectly fixed dur-
ing the Talmudic period, that is, from the third to the sixth
century of our era.1 The order in each division was to some
extent variable.2 The number of twenty-four books seems
1 The scheme of the Hebrew Canon may be put thus : —
I. The five-fifths of the Law ...... 5
II. The Prophets-
Earlier Prophets : Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings . . .4
Later Prophets : Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Twelve . . 4
III. Hagiographa or Ketftbim —
Poetical Books : Psalms, Proverbs, Job ... .3
The Megilloth : Canticles, Ruth, Lamen. , Eccles., Esther . . 5
Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles .... 3
24
2 The fundamental passage in the Babylonian Gemara, Bdbd B&thra, ff. 14,
15, says, "The order of the prophets is Joshua and Judges, Samuel and
Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Isaiah and the Twelve. Hosea is the first
because it is written, 'the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea'
(Hos. i. 2). . . . But, because his prophecy is written along with the latest
prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, he is counted with them. Isaiah
is earlier than Jeremiah and Ezekiel. . . . But because Kings ends with
lect. vi OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 151
to be found in the Second (or Fourth) Book of Esdras,
towards the close of the first Christian century.1
Another division into twenty-two books is adopted in the
earliest extant list of the contents of the Hebrew Bible, that
given by Josephus in his first book against Apion, chap. viii.
This scheme was still well known in the time of Jerome, who
prefers to reckon twenty-two books, joining Ruth to Judges,
and Lamentations to Jeremiah ; although he also mentions
the Talmudic enumeration of twenty-four books, and a third
scheme which reckons twenty-seven, dividing Samuel, Kings,
Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah, as is done in our modern
Bibles, and separating Jeremiah from Lamentations. It is
proper to observe that the scheme of twenty-two books is
conformed to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Jerome draws a parallel between this arrangement and the
alphabetical acrostics in the Psalms, Lamentations, and Pro-
verbs xxxi. 9-31, and there can be little doubt that it is
artificial. Nor is there any clear evidence that it had an
established place in Palestinian tradition.2
destruction and Jeremiah is all destruction, while Ezekiel beginning with de-
struction ends in consolation and Isaiah is all consolation, destruction is
joined to destruction and consolation to consolation. The order of the
Hagiographa is Ruth and Psalms and Job and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
Canticles, and Lamentations, Daniel and Esther, Ezra and Chronicles."
Compare Midler's note on S&pherim, iii. 5. Isaiah follows Ezekiel in some
MSS. (Lagarde, Symmida, i. 142), and the order of the Hagiographa varies
considerably ; comp. Driver, Introd. p. xxviii., and Ryle, pp. 229, 281.
1 Even after Professor Bensly's researches the Latin text of 4 Esdras
xiv. 44, 46 remains obscure. Nor is the evidence of the Oriental versions quite
unambiguous. But on the whole it can hardly be doubted that the original
text spoke of ninety-four books, of which seventy were esoteric, leaving
twenty-four published and canonical books. (See infra, p.' 168.)
2 See the three enumerations in Jerome, Prol. Galcat. His order for
the Hagiographa is Job, David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Dauiel,
Chronicles, Ezra, Esther. On the Canon of Josephus see below, p. 164 and note.
I agree with Wildeboer that it is very doubtful whether the division into
twenty-two books ever had an established place in Palestine. Jerome himself
in his preface to Daniel says that the Jews reckon five books of the Law, eight
Prophets, and eleven Hagiographa ; the testimony of Origen, ap. Eus. H. E.
vi. 25, is plainly not an unmixed reflex of Palestinian tradition, since it
152 CANON OF THE
LECT. VI
It is often taken for granted that the list of Old Testa-
ment books was quite fixed in Palestine at the time of
our Lord, and that the Bible acknowledged by Jesus was pre-
cisely identical with our own. But it must be remembered
that we have no list of the sacred books earlier than the
time of Josephus, who wrote at the very end of the first
century. Before this date the nearest approach to a cata-
logue is the panegyric on the famous men of Israel in Eccle-
siasticus xliv.-l., in which authors are expressly included.
The writer takes up the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel,
Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor
Prophets in order. He also mentions the psalms of David,
and the songs proverbs and parables of Solomon. Daniel
and Esther are passed over in silence, and ISTehemiah is
mentioned without Ezra. Neither Philo nor the New Testa-
ment enables us to make up a complete list of Old Testament
books, for there are some of the Hagiographa (Esther, Canticles,
Ecclesiastes) which are quoted neither by the apostles nor by
their Alexandrian contemporary. On the other hand, there
is no reason to believe that any books were received in Pales-
tine at the time of Christ which have now fallen out of the
Canon.
When we turn to the Septuagint we find, in the first
place, a very different arrangement of the books. There is
no division into Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa; but the
includes not only Lamentations but the Epistle of Jeremiah in the Book of
Jeremiah ; and no weight can be laid on Epiphanius, Be Mens, et Pond. 4
(ed. Lagarde, p. 156), whose division into four pentateuchs and two odd
books stands quite by itself. Finally, the statement that the Book of Jubilees
reckoned twenty-two books is not borne out by the extant (Ethiopic) text, but
rests on a doubtful inference from Syncellus (p. 5, Bonn ed. ) and Cedrenus (p. 9,
Bonn ed.), where the citation from the Leptogenesis (Book of Jubilees) may
refer only to the parallel between the twenty-two works of creation and the
twenty-two generations from Adam to Jacob (against Ronsch, Buch dcr Jub.
(1874), p. 527 sq.) As Josephus does not follow the Hebrew division or arrange-
ment of the books, it is not safe, when the other authorities thus break
down, to assume that he had Hebrew authority for the number twenty-two.
LEOT.VI ALEXANDRIAN JEWS 153
Law and the historical books come first, the poetical and
didactic books follow, and the prophets stand at the end as
in our English Bibles. But there is another difference.
MSS. and editions of the Septuagint contain, interspersed
through the books of the Hebrew Canon, certain additional
writings which we call Apocrypha. The Apocrypha of the
Septuagint are not precisely identical with those given in the
English Authorised Version. The apocalyptic book called
Second (or Fourth) Esdras is not extant in Greek. The
Prayer of Manasseh is not in all copies of the Septuagint, but
is found in the collection of hymns or Canticles which some
MSS. append to the Psalms. All our MSS. of the LXX. are
of Christian origin, and these Canticles comprise the Magni-
ficat and other New Testament hymns. On the other hand,
the Septuagint reckons four books of Maccabees, while the
English Apocrypha have only two.
The additional books contained in the Septuagint may be
divided into three classes : —
I. Books translated from the Hebrew. Of these 1 Macca-
bees and Ecclesiasticus were still extant in Hebrew in the time
of Jerome, and the Books of Tobit and Judith were translated
or corrected by him from Aramaic copies. Baruch, in his
day, was no longer current among the Hebrews.
II. Books originally composed in Greek by Hellenistic
Jews, such as the Second Book of Maccabees, the principal
part of which is an epitome of a larger work by Jason of
Cyrene, and the Wisdom of Solomon, which, though it pro-
fesses to be the work of the Hebrew monarch,, is plainly the
production of an Alexandrian Jew trained in the philosophy
of his time.
III. Books based on translations from the canonical
books, but expanded and embellished with arbitrary and
fabulous additions. In the Greek Book of Esther the " Addi-
tions " given in the English Apocrypha form an integral part
154 CANON OF THE lect. vi
of the text. Similarly, the Septuagint Daniel embodies
Susanna, the Song of the Three Children, and Bel and the
Dragon ; but these are perhaps later additions to the Greek
version. 1 Esdras is based on extracts from Chronicles, Ezra,
and Nehemiah, but treats the text freely, and adds the
fabulous history of Zerubbabel.
The style of literature to which this third class of Apo-
crypha belongs was also known in Palestine ; and we still
possess many Eabbinical books of similar character, contain-
ing popular reproductions of the canonical books interwoven
with fabulous additions. This kind of literature is a branch
of the Midrash, or treatment of the sacred books for purposes
of popular edification. It seems to have had its origin in the
Synagogue, where the early Meturgemans and preachers did
not confine themselves to a faithful reproduction of Bible
teaching, but added all manner of Haggada, ethical and
fabulous, according to the taste of the time. But in Pales-
tine the Haggadic Midrash was usually kept distinct from
the text, and handed down either orally or in separate books.
In Alexandria, on the contrary, the Jews seem to have been
content, in certain instances, to receive books through a
Midrash instead of an exact version, or to admit Midrashic
additions to the text.
From the fact that the Apocrypha stand side by side with
the canonical books in the MSS. and editions of the Septua-
gint, some have leaped to the conclusion that the Canon of
the Alexandrian Jews contained all these books, or, in other
words, that they were recognised in Alexandria as being
divine and inspired in the same sense as the Law, the
Prophets, and the Psalms. There are, however, several
reasons which should make us hesitate to draw such an infer-
ence. In the first place, we observe that the number of
Apocryphal books is not identical in all copies, and that some
of the books are found in two recensions with very consider-
lect. vi ALEXANDRIAN JEWS 155
able variations of form.1 This in itself is a strong reason for
doubting the existence of a fixed Alexandrian Canon. In
the second place, all our manuscripts of the Septuagint are of
Christian origin. The presence of an Apocryphon in a Chris-
tian MS. shows that it had a certain measure of recognition
in the Church, but does not prove that full canonical authority
was ascribed to it in the Synagogue. Again, in the third
place, the books must have been current one by one before
they were collected into a single volume. We learn from
the prologue to Ecclesiasticus and the subscription to the
Apocryphal Book of Esther that some of them at least were
translated by private enterprise without having any official
sanction. Whatever position, then, they ultimately attained,
they were not translated as part of an authoritative Canon.
And finally, Pliilo, the greatest of Jewish Hellenists, who
iiourished in the time of our Lord, knew the Apocrypha
indeed, for he seems sometimes to borrow the turn of a phrase
from them, but he never quotes from them, much less uses
them for the proof of doctrine as he habitually uses most of
the books in our Old Testament. There are, then, sufficient
reasons for hesitating to believe that the Alexandrian Jews
received all these books as authoritative, in the same sense as
the Law and the Prophets. But, on the other hand, we are
bound to explain how such books ever came to stand so
closely associated with the canonical books as they do in our
Greek copies. If the line of demarcation between canonical
and uncanonical books had been sharply fixed, it is hard to
see how they could have got into the Septuagint at all. And
how did it come to pass that certain of the Hagiographa were
not used in Alexandria in their canonical form, but only in
the shape of Haggadic reproductions ? These phenomena
1 Two Greek recensions of Esther and Tobit exist. See for the former
book Lagarde's edition of the Septuagint (Gott., 1883), where the two recen-
sions are printed on opposite pages, and for Tobit, Swete's edition, where the
recension of the Sinaiticus stands under the text of the Vaticamis.
156 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. vi
point to a time when the idea of canonicity was not yet fixed,
and when certain books, even of the Hebrew Canon, were only
pushing their way gradually towards universal recognition.
In Alexandria, for example, the Book of Esther cannot have
been accepted as beyond dispute ; for instead of a proper
translation we find only a Midrash, circulating in two varying
recensions, and not claiming by its subscription to be more
than a private book brought to Alexandria in the fourth year
of Ptolemy and Cleopatra by one Dositheos, who called him-
self a priest.
These facts force us to inquire upon what principles the
Jews separated the sacred writings from ordinary books.
But, before doing this, let me ask you to look at the Apocrypha
as they appear to us in the light of history. All the books
of the Apocrypha are comparatively modern. There is none
of them, on the most favourable computation, which can be
supposed to be older than the latest years of the Persian
empire. They belong, therefore, to the age when the last
great religious movement of the Old Testament under Ezra
had passed away — when prophecy had died out, and the
nation had settled down to live under the Law, looking for
guidance in religion, not to a continuance of new revelation,
but to the written Word, and to the interpretations of the
Scribes. To place these books on the same footing with the
Law and the Prophets is quite impossible to the historical
student. They belong to a new literature which rose in
Judaea after the cessation of prophetic originality, when the
law and the tradition were all in all, when there was no man
to speak with authority truths that he had received direct
from God, but the whole intellect of Israel was either con-
centrated on the development of legal Halacha, or, in men of
more poetical imagination, exercised itself in restating and
illustrating the old principles of religion in ethical poetry,
like that of Ecclesiasticus, or in romance and fable of a re-
L ect. vi THE APOCRYPHA 157
ligious complexion, like the Books of Judith and Tobit.
Halacha, Midrash, and Haggada became the forms of all
literary effort ; or if any man tried a bolder flight, and sought
for his work a place of higher authority, he did so by assum-
ing the name of some ancient worthy. This last class of
pseudepigraphic works, as they are called, consists largely of
pseudoprophetic books in apocalyptic form, like 2 (4) Esdras.1
It is plain, then, on broad historical considerations,
without entering into any matters of theological dispute, as
to the nature of inspiration and so forth, that there is a dis-
tinct line of demarcation between the Apocrypha and the
books which record the progress of Israel's religion during
the ages when prophets and righteous men still looked for
their guidance in times of religious need not to a written book
and its scholastic interpreters, but to a fresh word of revela-
tion. But how far was this understood by those who separ-
ated out the books of our Hebrew Bible as canonical, and
1 The line between the old literature and the new cannot be drawn with
chronological precision. The characteristic mark of canonical literature is
that it is the record of the progress of fresh truths of revelation, and of the
immediate reflection of these truths in the believing heart. The Psalms are,
in part, considerably later than Ezra, but they record the inner side of the
history of his work of reformation, and show us the nature of the faith with
which Israel apprehended the Law and its institutes. This is a necessary
and most precious element of the Old Testament record, and it would be
arbitrary to attempt to fix a point of time at which this part of Old Testa-
ment Scripture must necessarily have closed. But the direct language of
faith held by the psalmists is intrinsically different from such artificial reflec-
tion on the law, in the manner of the schools, as is found in Ecclesiasticus.
The difference can be felt rather than defined, and a certain margin of un-
certainty must attach to every determination of the limits of what is
canonical. But, on the whole, the instinct that guided the formation of the
Hebrew Canon was sound, because the theories of the schools affected only
certain outlying books, while the mass of the collection established itself in
the hearts of all the faithful in successive generations, under historical circum-
stances of a sifting kind. The religious struggle under the Maccabees,
which threw the people of God upon the Scriptures for comfort when the
outward order of the theocracy was broken, doubtless was for the later books
of the Canon a period of proof such as the Captivity was for the older
literature.
158 JEWISH VIEW
LECT. VI
rejected all others ? The Jews had a dim sort of conscious-
ness after the time of Ezra that the age of revelation was
past, and that the age of tradition had begun. The feeling
that new revelation had almost ceased is found even in the
latest prophecies of the Old Testament. In Zechariah xiii.
the prophet predicts the near approach of a time when every
one who calls himself a prophet, and puts on a prophet's
garment, shall be at once recognised as a deceiver, and his
own father and mother shall be the first to denounce the
imposture. And, in the last verse of the prophetic books of
the Old Testament, Malachi does not look forward to a con-
stant succession of prophets, such as is foretold in Deutero-
nomy. He sees no hope for the corrupt state of his times,
except that the old prophet Elijah shall return to bring back
the hearts of the fathers with their children, and the hearts
of the children with their fathers, lest God come and smite
the earth with a curse. As time rolled on, the feeling that
there was no new revelation among the people became still
more strong. In 1 Maccabees ix. 27 we read that "there
was great sorrow in Israel, such as there had not been since
the days that prophets ceased to appear among them ; " and,
according to Josephus, the strict succession of prophets ended in
the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The Scribes thoroughly
sympathised with this view. Even when they made innova-
tions, they always professed to do so as mere interpreters,
claiming nothing more than to restore, to expound, or to fence
in, the law given by Moses. Their position is aptly described
iu the phrase of the New Testament, where Jesus is said to
teach "as one having authority, and not as the scribes." But,
while the Jews had a general feeling that the age of revela-
tion was past, they had no such clear perception of the reason
of the change as we can have in the light of the New Testa-
ment ; they did not see, as we can do, that no further develop-
ment of spiritual religion was possible without breaking
lect. vi OF REVELATION 159
through the legal forms and national limitations of Judaism ;
and they continued to look, not for a new revelation super-
seding the old covenant, but for the reappearance of prophets
working in the service of the law and its ritual. In 1 Macca-
bees iv. 46 they put aside the stones of the polluted altar, not
knowing what to do with them, but waiting till a prophet
shall arise in Israel to tell it ; and again (chap. xiv. 41), they
agree to make Simon high priest until such time as a true
prophet shall appear. The revival of prophecy was still
looked for, but the idea of the function of prophecy was
narrowed to things of no moment. Malachi had looked for
a prophet to bring back to God the hearts of fathers and
children alike ; in the days of the Maccabees the true nature
of prophecy had been so far forgotten that it was thought
that the business of a prophet was to tell what should be
done with the stones of a polluted altar, or which family was
to hold the dignity of the high priesthood. Where the mean-
ing of prophecy was so little understood, it is not surprising
that a sporadic reappearance of prophets was not thought
impossible. Josephus, in a curious passage of his Jewish
War, says that John Hyrcanus was the only man who united
in his person the three highest distinctions, being at once
the ruler of his nation, and high priest, and gifted with
prophecy ; " for the Divinity so conversed with him that he
was cognisant of all things that were to come " (B. J. Bk. i.
chap. ii. 8; compare the similar expressions of John xi. 51).
Moreover, although the Scribes in general did not consider that
they had the spirit of revelation, we find the author of Ecclesi-
asticus (chap. xxiv. 31, 32) claiming for his book an almost
prophetic authority : " I will yet make instruction to shine
as the morning, and will send forth her light afar off. I will
pour forth doctrine as prophecy, and leave it unto eternal
generations" (comp. i. 30, li. 13 sq.). The author is fully
conscious that his whole wisdom is derived from the study of
160 JEWISH VIEW
LECT. VI
the law (xxiv. 30). He does not pretend that he or other
scholars are the vehicles of new truths of revelation (chaps,
xxxviii. xxxix.) ; but he is evidently not conscious that this
circumstance constitutes an absolute difference between the
teaching which, by his own admission, was nothing more than
an enforcement of the principles of the law of Moses, and the
old creative prophecy of Isaiah or Jeremiah. This unclear-
ness of view rested upon an error which not only was fatal to
the Jews, but has continued to exercise a pernicious influence
even on Christian theology down to our own day. The Jews,
as we have already seen, identified religion with the Law, and
the Law with the words of Moses.
All revelation was held to be comprised in the Torah.
According to the Son of Sirach, the sacred Wisdom, created
before the world and enduring to all eternity, which is
established in Sion and bears sway in Jerusalem, the all-
sufficient food of man's spiritual life, is identical with the
book of the Covenant of God most High, the Law enjoined
by Moses (Ecclesiasticus xxiv.). The secrets of this law are
infinite, and all man's wisdom is a stream derived from this
unfailing source. This doctrine of the pre -existent and
eternal Law, comprising within itself the sum of all wisdom
and all possible revelation, runs through the whole Jewish
literature. It is brought out in a very interesting way in the
old Jewish commentaries on Deut. xxx. 12: — "The law is
not in the heavens." "Say not," says the commentary,
"another Moses shall arise and bring another law from
heaven : there is no law left in heaven ; " that is, according
to the position of the Jews, the law of Moses contained the
whole revelation of God's goodness and grace which had been
given or which ever could be given.1
1 Midrash Habba, p. 529 (Leipzig, 1864). For the law as everlasting, see
Baruch, iv. 1. The pre-existence of the law (Ecclus. xxiv. 9) follows from
its being identified with wisdom as described in Prov. viii. Compare further
Weber, Altsynagogale Theologic, p. 18 sq. The Rabbinical theory of revela-
1E0T. vi OF REVELATION 161
What place, then, was left for the Prophets, the Psalms,
and the other books ? They were inspired and authoritative
interpretations and applications of the law of Moses, and
nothing more. They were, therefore, simply the links in
tradition between the time of Moses and the time of Ezra
and the Scribes. And so clearly was this the Jewish notion,
that the same word — Kabbala, doctrine traditionally received
— is applied indifferently to all the books of the Old Testa-
ment except the Pentateuch, and to the oral tradition of the
Scribes. The Pentateuch alone is Mikra, " reading," or, as we
should call it, " Scripture." The Prophets, the Psalms, and
the rest of the old Testament, in common with the oral tradi-
tion of the Scribes, are mere Kabbala or traditional doctrine.
Prom these premisses it necessarily follows that the other books
are inferior to the Law. This consequence was drawn with full
logical stringency. The Law and the Prophets were not written
on the same roll, and, in accordance with a legal principle which
forbade a less holy thing to be purchased with the price of one
more holy, the Mishna directs that a copy of the other books
may no more be bought with the price of a Pentateuch than
part of a street may be bought with the price of a synagogue.1
I need not interrupt the argument to prove at length that
this is a view which cannot be received by any Christian. It
was refuted, once for all, by the apostle Paul when he pointed
out, in answer to the Pharisees of his time, that the permanent
value of all revelation lies, not in Law, but in Gospel. Now,
it is certain that the prophetical books are far richer than the
tion has exercised an influence on history far heyond the limits of the Jewish
community through its adoption in Islam.
1 On the term Kabbala see Zunz, Gottesdienstliche Vorlrdge, p. 44, where
the evidence from Jewish authorities is carefully collected. Compare Weber,
op. cit. p. 79 sq. Mishna, Meg ilia, iii. 1 : "If the men of a town sell a
Torah they may not buy with its price the other books of Scripture ; if they
sell Scriptures they may not buy a cloth to wrap round the Torah ; if they
sell such a cloth they may not buy an ark for synagogue rolls ; if they sell an
ark they may not buy a synagogue ; nor if they sell a synagogue may they
buy a street " (an open ground for devotion ; cp. Matt. vi. 5).
ii
162 CONSTITUTION OF lect. vi
Law in evangelical elements. They contain a much fuller
declaration of those spiritual truths which constitute the per-
manent value of the Old Testament Bevelation, and a much
clearer adumbration of the New and Spiritual Covenant under
which we now live. There is more of Christ in the Prophets
and the Psalms than in the Pentateuch, with its legal ordin-
ances and temporary precepts adapted to the hardness of the
people's hearts ; and therefore no Christian can for a moment
consent to accept that view of the pre-eminence of the Law
which was to the Jews the foundation of their official doctrine
of the Canon. What, then, is the inference from these facts ?
We found, in Lecture II., that the early Protestants, for reasons
very intelligible at their time, were content simply to accept
the Canon as it came to them through the hands of the Jews.
But it appears that, in defining the number and limits of the
sacred books, the Jewish doctors started with a false idea of
the test and measure of sacredness. Their tradition, therefore,
does not conclusively determine the question of the Canon ;
and we cannot permanently acquiesce in it without subjecting
their conclusions to a fresh examination by sounder tests.
Before we proceed to examine in detail the definitions of
the Eabbins on this matter, let me say at once that the part
played by the Scribes and their erroneous theories in deter-
mining the compass of the Hebrew Scriptures was after all
very limited. A Canon, deliberately framed on the principles
of the Scribes and Pharisees, could hardly have been satis-
factory ; but in reality the essential elements in the Canon
were not determined by official authority. The mass of the
Old Testament books gained their canonical position because
they commended themselves in practice to the experience of
the Old Testament Church and the spiritual discernment of
the godly in Israel. For the religious life of Israel was truer
than the teaching of the Pharisees. The Old Testament reli-
gion was the religion of revelation ; and the highest spiritual
lect.vi THE JEWISH CANON 163
truths then known did not dwell in the Jewish people with-
out producing, in practical life, a higher type of religious
experience, and a truer insight into spiritual things, than was
embodied in the doctrines of the Scribes. When the Jewish
doctors first concerned themselves with the preparation of an
authoritative list of sacred books, most of the Old Testament
books had already established themselves in the hearts of the
faithful with an authority that could neither be shaken nor
confirmed by the decisions of the schools. The controversy
as to the limits of the Canon was confined to a few outlying
books which, by reason of their contents or of their history,
were less universally read and valued than the Prophets and
the Psalms. In the ultimate decision as to the canonicity of
these books the authority and theories of the Scribes played
an important part ; but for the rest of the Old Testament the
Scribes did nothing more than accept established facts, bringing
them into conformity with their theories by hypotheses as to the
prophetic authorship of anonymous books and other arbitrary
assumptions of which we shall find examples as we proceed.
In looking more narrowly at the constitution of the Jewish
Canon we may begin by recurring to the account of the matter
given by Josephus towards the close of the first century. There
is little doubt that the twenty-two books of Josephus are those
of our present Hebrew Canon ; but the force of this evidence
is disguised by the controversial purpose of the writer, which
leads him to put his facts in a false light. The aim of Jose-
phus in his work against Apion is to vindicate the antiquity
of the Hebrew nation, and the credibility of its history as
recorded in his own Archmology. In this connection he
maintains that the Oriental nations kept official annals long
before the Greeks, and that the Jews in particular charged
their chief priests and prophets with the duty of preserving
a regular record of contemporary affairs, not permitting any
private person to meddle in the matter. This official record
164 THE CANON lect. vi
is contained in the twenty-two books of the Old Testament.
The older history, communicated by revelation, is found in the
Pentateuch along with the legal code. The other books, with
the exception of four containing hymns and precepts of life,
which may be identified with the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesi-
astes, and the Song of Solomon, are made to figure as a
continuous history written by an unbroken succession ot
prophets, each of whom recorded the events of his own time,
down to the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when the suc-
cession of prophets failed, and the sacred annals stopped short.1
As Josephus places Ezra -and Nehemiah under Xerxes, and
identifies his son Artaxerxes with the Ahasuerus of Esther,
he no doubt views Esther as the latest canonical book. The
number of thirteen prophetico-historical books from Joshua
to Esther is made up by reckoning Job as a history, and con-
joining Euth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah, in
the manner mentioned by Jerome. As the Song of Solomon
figures as a didactic book, it must have been taken allegorically.2
According to Josephus, the close of the Canon is distinctly
1 Josephus, Contra Apion. lib. I. cap. vii. sq. (§§ 37-41, Niese ; cp. Eus.
H. E. iii. 10). — " Not every one was permitted to write the national records,
nor is there any discrepancy in the things written ; but the prophets alone
learned the earliest and most ancient events by inspiration from God, and
wrote down the events of their own times plainly as they occurred. And so
we have not myriads of discordant and contradictory books, but only two-and-
twenty, containing the record of all time, and rightly believed in [as divine :
Eus.\ And of these five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws, and
the tradition from the creation of mankind down to his death. But from the
death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who succeeded
Xerxes, the prophets that followed Moses compiled the history of their
own times in thirteen books. The other four contain hymns to God and
precepts of life for men. But from Artaxerxes to our times all events
have indeed been written down ; but these later books are not deemed
worthy of the same credit, because the exact succession of prophets was
wanting."
2 The allegorical interpretation of Canticles, Israel being identified with the
spouse, first appears in 2 (4) Esdras, v. 24, 26 ; vii. 26, and may very well
have been known to Josephus. It is, however, right to say that some
scholars doubt whether Ecclesiastes and Canticles were included in the Canon
of Josephus. So still Lagarde, Mitthcilungen, iv. (1891), p. 345.
lbot.vi OF JOSEPHUS 165
marked by the cessation of the succession of prophets in the
time of Artaxerxes. On this view there never was or could
be any discussion as to the number and limits of the canonical
collection, which had from first to last an official character.
Each new book was written by a man of acknowledged
authority, and was added to the collection precisely as a
new page would be added to the royal annals of an Eastern
kingdom. It is plain that this view is not in accordance with
facts. The older prophets were not official historiographers
working in harmony with the priests for the regular con-
tinuance of a series of Temple annals; they were often in
opposition to the sacred as well as the civil authorities of
their nation. Jeremiah, for example, was persecuted and put
in the stocks by Pashur the son of Immer, priest and chief
governor of the Temple. Again, it is clear that there was no
regular and unbroken series of sacred annals officially kept up
from the time of Moses onwards. In the time of Josiah, the
Law, unexpectedly found in the house of the Lord, appears as
a thing that had been lost and long forgotten. Even a glance
at the books of the Old Testament is enough to refute the
idea of a regular succession of prophetic writers, each taking
up the history just where the last had left it. In fact,
Josephus in this statement simply gives a turn, for his own
polemical purposes, to that theory of tradition which was
current among the Pharisees of his time and is clearly ex-
pressed at the beginning of the treatise of the Mishna called
Pirke Aboth. In it we read that " Moses received the Torah
from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, Joshua delivered it to
the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the
men of the Great Synagogue," from whom it passed in turn to
the Zugoth, as the Hebrews called them, — that is, the pairs of
great doctors who, in successive generations, formed the heads
of the Scribes. This whole doctrine of the succession of
tradition is a dogmatical theory, not an historical fact ; and
166 HOMOLOGUMENA lect. vi
in like manner Josephus's account of the Canon is a theory,
and a theory inconsistent with the fact that we find no com-
plete formal catalogue of Scriptures in earlier writers like the
son of Sirach, who, enumerating the literary worthies of his
nation, had every motive to give a complete list, if he had
been in a position to do so ; inconsistent also with the fact
that questions as to the canonicity of certain books were still
undecided within the lifetime of Josephus himself.
But the clearest evidence that the notion of canonicity
was not fully established till long after the time of Arta-
xerxes lies in the Septuagint. The facts that have come
before us are not to be explained by saying that there was
one fixed Canon in Palestine and another in Alexandria.
That would imply such a schism between the Hellenistic
and Palestinian Jews, between the Jews who spoke Greek
and those who read Hebrew, as certainly did not exist, and
would assign to the Apocrypha an authority among the
former which there is no reason to believe they ever
possessed. The true inference from the fact is, that the
Canon of the Old Testament was of gradual formation, that
some books now accepted had long a doubtful position, while
others were for a time admitted to a measure of reputation
which made the line of demarcation between them and the
canonical books uncertain and fluctuating. In short, we
must suppose a time when the Old Testament Canon was
passing through the same kind of history through which we
know the New Testament Canon to have passed. In the
early ages of the Christian Church we find the books of the
New Testament divided into the so-called Homologumena, or
books universally acknowledged, and the Antilegomena, or
books acknowledged in some parts of the Church but spoken
against in others. The Homologumena included those books
which, either from their very nature or from their early and
wide circulation, never could be questioned — books of ad-
lect. vi AND ANTILEGOMENA 167
mitted and undoubted apostolic authority, such as the
Gospels and the great Epistles of Paul. The Antilegomena
consisted of other books, some of which are now in our New
Testament, but which for some reason were not from the
first broadly circulated over the whole Church. Along with
these, there were other books, not now held canonical, which
in some parts of the Church were read in public worship,
and received a certain amount of reverence. The history of
the Canon unfolds the gradual process by which the number
of Antilegomena was narrowed ; either by the Church,
through all its length and breadth, coming to be persuaded
that some book not at first undisputed was yet worthy to
be universally received as apostolic, or, conversely, by the
spread of the conviction that other books, which for a time
had been used in certain churches, were not fit to be put on
a level with the Gospels and the great Epistles. We must
suppose that a similar process took place with regard to the
books of the Old Testament. About many of them there
could be no dispute. Others were Antilegomena — books
spoken against — and the number of such Antilegomena,
which were neither fully acknowledged nor absolutely re-
jected, was naturally a fluctuating quantity up to a com-
paratively late date, when such a measure of practical
agreement had been reached as to which books were really
of sacred authority, that the theological heads of the nation
could, without difficulty, cut short further discussion, and
establish an authoritative list of Scriptures. The reason
why a greater number of books of disputed position is
preserved in Greek than in Hebrew is that the Eabbins
of Palestine, from the close of the first century, when the
Canon was definitely fixed, sedulously suppressed all Apo-
crypha, and made it a sin to read them.
This account of the origin of the Canon is natural in itself
and agrees with all the facts, especially with the circumstance
168 EZRA AND THE CANON lect. vi
that the canonicity of certain books was a moot-point among
Jewish theologians till after the fall of the Temple. This
fact gave no trouble to the Jews, who accepted the decision
of E. Akiba and his compeers as of undisputed authority.
But Christian theology could not give weight to Eabbinical
tradition, and it is thus very natural that many attempts
have been made to prove that an authoritative Canon was
fixed in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, while the last
prophets still lived.
Among the ancient fathers it was a current opinion that
Ezra himself rewrote by inspiration the whole Old Testament,
which had been destroyed or injured at the time of the
Captivity. The source of this opinion is a fable in 2 (4)
Esdras xiv. Esdras, according to this story, prayed for the
Holy Spirit that he might rewrite the law that had been
burned. His prayer was granted ; and, retiring for forty
days, with five scribes to write to his dictation, he produced
ninety-four (?) books. " And when the forty days were com-
pleted, the Most High spake, saying, Publish the first books
which thou hast written, that the worthy and the unworthy
may read them; but conserve the last seventy, and deliver
them to the wise men of thy people." To understand what
this means, we must remember that this Book of Esdras pro-
fesses to be a genuine prophecy of Ezra the scribe. The
author was aware that when he produced his book, which
was not written till near the close of the first Christian
century, it would be necessary to meet the objection that it
had never been known before. Accordingly he and other
forgers of the same period fell back on the assertion that
certain of the sacred writings had always been esoteric books,
confined to a privileged circle. The whole fable is directed
to this end, and is plainly unworthy of the slightest attention.
We have no right to rationalise it, as some have done, and
read it as a testimony that Ezra may at least have collected
lect. vi THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE 169
and edited the Old Testament. But no doubt the currency
which Fourth Esdras long enjoyed helped to fix the im-
pression on men's minds that in some shape Ezra had a part
in settling the Canon, and drove them to seek arguments for
this view in other quarters.
Accordingly we find that a new form of the theory started
up in the sixteenth century, and gained almost undisputed
currency in the Protestant Churches. According to this view,
the Canon was completed by a body of men known as the
Great Synagogue. The Great Synagogue plays a considerable
part in Jewish tradition ; it is represented as a permanent
council, under the presidency of Ezra, wielding supreme
authority over the Jewish nation ; and a variety of functions
are ascribed to it. But the tradition never said that the
Great Synagogue fixed the Canon. That opinion, current as
it once was, is a mere conjecture of Elias Levita, a Jewish
scholar contemporary with Luther. Not only so, but we
now know that the whole idea that there ever was a body
called the Great Synagogue holding rule in the Jewish
nation is pure fiction. It has been proved in the clearest
manner that the origin of the legend of the Great Synagogue
lies in the account given in Neh. viii.-x. of the great convoca-
tion which met at Jerusalem and subscribed the covenant
to observe the law. It was therefore a meeting, and not a
permanent authority. It met once for all, and everything
that is told about it, except what we read in Nehemiah, is
pure fable of the later Jews.1
1 On the legend of the Great Synagogue, Kuenen's essay Over de Mannen
dcr Groote Synagoge, in the proceedings of the Royal Society of Amsterdam,
1876, is conclusive. An abstract of the results in Wellhausen-Bleek, § 274.
Kuenen follows the arguments of scholars of last century, and especially
Rau's Diatribe de Synagoga Magna (Utrecht, 1725) ; but he completes their
refutation of the Rabbinical fables by utilising and placing in its true light
the important observations of Krochmal, as to the connection between the
Great Synagogue and the Convocation of Neh. viii.-x., which, in the hands
of Jewish scholars, had only led to fresh confusion. See, for example, Graetz
(Kohelet, Anh. i. Leipzig, 1871) for a model of confused reasoning on the Great
170 NEHEMIAH lect. vi
Two, then, of the traditions which seem to refer the whole
Canon to Ezra and his time break down ; but a third, found
in 2 Maccabees, has received more attention in recent times,
and has frequently been supposed, even by cautious scholars,
to indicate at least the first steps towards the collection of
the Prophets and the Hagiographa : —
" 2 Mac. ii. 13. — The same things [according to another reading, these
things] were related in the records, and in the memoirs of Nehemiah,
and how, founding a library, he collected the [writings] about the kings
and prophets, and the [writings] of David, and letters of kings concern-
ing sacred offerings. (14.) In like manner Judas collected all the books
that had been scattered in consequence of the war that came on us, and
we have them by us ; of which if ye have need, send men to fetch
them."
This passage stands in a spurious epistle, professedly
addressed to the Jews in Alexandria by the Palestinian
Jews. The epistle is full of fabulous details, which claim to
be taken from written sources. If this claim is not pure
fiction, the sources must have been apocryphal. The
Memoirs of Nehemiah, to which our passage appeals, are
one of these worthless sources, containing, as we are expressly
Synagogue and the Canon. Krochmal's discovery that the Great Synagogue
and the Great Convocation are identical rests on the clearest evidence. See
especially the Midrash to Ruth. "What did the men of the Great Synagogue
do ? They wrote a book and spread it out in the court of the temple. And
at dawn of day they rose and found it sealed. This is what is written in
Neh. ix. 38 " (Leipzig ed. of 1865, p. 77). According to the tradition of the
Talmud, Bdbd Bdthra, ut supra, the men of the Great Synagogue wrote
Ezekiel, the Minor Prophets, Daniel, and Esther ; and Ezra wrote his own
hook and part of the genealogies of Chronicles. This has nothing to do with
the Canon ; it merely expresses an opinion as to the date of these hooks.
Further, the Aboth of Rabbi Nathan (a post-Talmudic book) says that the
Great Synagogue arose and explained Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes,
which had previously been thought apocryphal. Such is the traditional basis
for the famous conjecture of Elias Levita in his Massoreth hammassoreth
(Venice, 1538), which took such a hold of public opinion that Hottinger, in
the middle of the seventeenth century, could say : "Hitherto it has been an
unquestioned axiom among the Jews and Christians alike, that the Canon of
the Old Testament was fixed, once and for all, with Divine authority, by
Ezra and the men of the Great Synagogue" (Thes. Phil., Zurich, 1649,
p. 112). At p. 110 he says that this is only doubted by those quibus pro
cerebro fungus est.
lect. vi AND THE CANON 171
told, the same fables, and therefore altogether unworthy of
credence. But, in fact, the transparent object of the passage
is to palm off upon the reader a whole collection of forgeries,
by making out that the author and his friends in Palestine
possess, and are willing to communicate, a number of valuable
and sacred books not known in Egypt. Literary forgery had
an incredible attraction for a certain class of writers in those
ages. It was practised by the Hellenistic Jews as a regular
trade, and it is in the interests of this fraudulent business
that our author introduces the story about Nehemiah and his
library. Even if Nehemiah did collect a library, which is
likely enough, as he could not but desire to possess the books
of the ancient prophets, that after all was a very different
thing from forming an authoritative Canon.
Scholars have sometimes been so busy trying to gather a
grain of truth out of these fabulous traditions, that they have
forgotten to open their eyes and simply look at the Bible
itself for a plain and categorical account of what Ezra and
Nehemiah actually did for the Canon of Scripture. Erom
Neh. viii.-x. we learn that Ezra did establish a Canon, that
is, that he did lead his people to accept a written and sacred
code as the absolute rule of faith and life ; but the Canon of
Ezra was the Pentateuch. The people entered into a cove-
nant to keep the Law of Moses, which Ezra brought with
him from Babylon (Ezra vii. 14). That was the establish-
ment of the Pentateuch as the canonical and authoritative
book of the Jews, and that is the position which it holds
ever afterwards. So we have seen that to the author of
Ecclesiasticus the Pentateuch, and no larger Canon, is the
book of the Covenant of God most high, and the source of all
sacred wisdom ; while, to all Jewish theology, the Pentateuch
stands higher than the other books in sanctity, and is viewed
as containing within itself the whole compass of possible
revelation. In the strictest sense of the word the Torah is
172 CANONICAL AUTHORITY lect. vi
not merely the Canon of Ezra, but remained the Canon of
the Jews ever after, all other books being tested by their
conformity with its contents.
That does not mean that the Divine authority of the
Prophets was not recognised at the time of Ezra. Un-
doubtedly it was recognised, but it was not felt to be
necessary to collect the prophetic books into one authori-
tative volume with the Law. Indeed, Ezra and Nehemiah
could not have undertaken to make a fixed and closed
collection of the Prophets, unless they had known that no
other prophets were to rise after their time ; and we have
no reason to believe that they had such knowledge, which
could only have come to them by special revelation. The
other sacred books, after the time of Ezra, continued to be
read and to stand each on its own authority, just as the
books of the apostles did in the times of early Christianity.
To us this may seem highly inconvenient. We are accus-
tomed to regard the Bible as one book, and it seems to us
an awkward thing that there should not have been a fixed
volume comprising all sacred writings. The Jews, I appre-
hend, could not share these feelings. The use of a fixed
Canon is either for the convenience of private reading, or
for the limitation of public ecclesiastical lessons, or for the
determination of appeals in matter of doctrine. And in none
of these points did the Jews stand on the same ground with
us. In these days the Bible was not a book, but a whole
library. The Law was not written on the same skins as the
Prophets, and each prophetical book, as we learn from Luke
iv. 17, might form a volume by itself. In one passage of the
Talmud, a volume containing all the Prophets is mentioned
as a singularity. Very few persons, it may be presumed,
could possess all the Biblical books, or even dream of having
them in a collected form.1
1 In the Talmudic times it was matter of controversy whether it was
lect. vi OF THE PENTATEUCH 173
Then, again, no part of the canonical books, except the
Pentateuch, was systematically read through in the Syna-
gogue. The Pentateuch was read through every three years.
Lessons from the prophetical books were added at an early
date, but up to the time of the Mishna this was not done on
a fixed system, while the Hagiographa had no place in the
Synagogue lessons until a comparatively late period, when
the Book of Esther, and still later the other four Megilloth,
came to be used on certain annual occasions.1 And, finally,
in matters of doctrine, the appeal to the Prophets or Hagio-
grapha was not sharply distinguished from appeal to the oral
law. Both alike were parts of the Kabbala, the traditional
and authoritative interpretation of the Pentateuch, which
stood as the supreme standard above both.
It is true that the whole doctrine of oral tradition arose
gradually and after the time of Ezra. But the one-sided
legalism on which it rests could never have been developed
if the books of the prophets had been officially recognised,
from the time of Ezra downwards, as a part of public
revelation, co-ordinate and equally fundamental with the law
legitimate to write the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa in a single
book. Some went so far as to say that each book of Scripture must form a
separate volume. See Sdphertm, iii. 1, and Midler's note. It appears that
the old and predominant custom was in favour of separation. Boethos,
whose copy of the eight prophets in one volume is referred to in Bdbd Bdthra
and Sdpherim, iii. 5, lived. about the close of the second Christian century.
Some doctors denied that his copy contained all the books "joined into one."
Sopherhn, iii. 6, allows all the books to be united in inferior copies written
on the material called diphthera, but not in synagogue rolls ; a compromise
pointing to the gradual introduction in post-Talmudic times of the plan of
treating the Bible as one volume.
1 For the want of system in the public lessons from the Prophets in early
times, see Luke iv. 17, and supra, p. 36, note 2. According to S6p>herim, xiv.
18, Esther was read at the feast of Purim, Canticles at the Passover, Ruth at
Pentecost. The reading of Lamentations is mentioned, ibid, xviii. 4. It is
noteworthy that there is still no mention of the use of Ecclesiastes in the
Synagogue. Compare further Zunz, op. cit. p. 6. The Jews of Nehardea in
Babylonia used to read lessons from the Hagiographa in the Sabbath afternoon
service, B. Shabbath, f. 116 b.
174 THE PROPHETS
LECT. VI
of Moses. The Prophets, in truth, with the other remains of
the old sacred literature, were mainly regarded as books of
private edification. While the Law was directly addressed
to all Israel in all ages, the other sacred writings had a
private origin, or were addressed to special necessities. Up
to the time of the Exile, the godly of Israel looked for
guidance to the living prophetic word in their midst, and the
study of written prophecies or histories, which, according to
many indications, was largely practised in the circles where
the living prophets had most influence, was rather a supple-
ment to the spoken word than a substitute for it. But in
the time of the Exile, when the national existence with
which the ancient religion of Israel was so closely inter-
twined was hopelessly shattered, when the voice of the
prophets was stilled, and the public services of the sanctuary
no longer called the devout together, the whole continuance
of the spiritual faith rested upon the remembrance that the
prophets of the Lord had foreseen the catastrophe, and had
shown how to reconcile it with undiminished trust in
Jehovah, the God of Israel. The written word acquired a
fresh significance for the religious life, and the books of the
prophets, with those records of the ancient history which
were either already framed in the mould of prophetic thought,
or were cast in that mould by editors of the time of the
Exile, became the main support of the faithful, who felt, as
they had never felt before, that the words of Jehovah were
pure words, silver sevenfold tried, a sure treasure in every
time of need.
The frequent allusions to the earlier prophets in the
writings of Zechariah show how deep a hold their words
had taken of the hearts of the godly in Israel ; but the very
profundity of this influence, belonging as it did to the sphere
of personal religion rather than the public order of the
theocracy, made it less necessary to stamp the prophetic
leot. vi IN THE C4-NON 175
series with the seal of public canonicity. These books had
no need to be brought from Babylon with the approval of a
royal rescript, or laid before the nation by the authority of
a Tirshatha. The only form of public recognition which was
wanting, and which followed in due course, was the practice
of reading from the Prophets in the public worship of the
synagogue. It required no more formal process than the
natural use made of this ancient literature, to bring it little
by little into the shape of a fixed collection, though, as we
have seen in the example of Jeremiah, there was no standard
edition up to a comparatively late date. In the time of
Daniel we already find the prophetic literature referred to
under the name of " the books " or Scriptures (Dan. ix. 2).
The English version unfortunately omits the article, and loses
the force of the phrase.
The ultimate form of the prophetic collection is contained
in the Former and Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, of
which only the second group consists mainly of prophecies,
while the first is made up of historical books. We have
seen that by the Jews the name of " Former Prophets " was
justified by the unhistorical assumption that the old historical
books were written by a succession of prophets. But I appre-
hend that the association of histories and prophecies in one
collection is older than the designation Former and Latter
Prophets, and rested on a correct perception (instinctive
rather than critical) that the histories formed a necessary
part of the record of the prophets' work. Without the
histories the prophetical books proper would be. almost un-
intelligible. And further, though there is no reason to think
that the mass of the histories was actually written by the
hand of prophets, they were certainly written, or at least
edited and brought into their present form, by men who
stood under the influence of the great prophets and sought
to interpret the vicissitudes of Israel's fortunes in accordance
176 THE PSALTER lect. vi
with the laws of God's governance which the prophets had
laid down. There was therefore good reason for placing the
old histories in the same collection with the written words of
the prophets. The authority of this collection, which was
inextricably interlaced with the profoundest experiences of
the spiritual life of Israel, was practically never disputed,
and its influence on the personal religion of the nation was
doubtless in inverse ratio to the preference assigned to the
Pentateuch as the public and official code of Ezra's theo-
cracy.1
Equally undisputed was the position of the Psalter, the
hymn-book of the second Temple. The Psalter, as we shall
see in a future Lecture, has a complicated history, and, along
with elements of great antiquity, contains many pieces of a
date long subsequent to the Exile, or even to Ezra. In its
finished form the collection is clearly later than the prophe-
tical writings. But no part of the Old Testament appeals
more directly to the believing heart, and none bears a clearer
impress of inspiration in the individual poems, and of divine
guidance in their collection. That the book containing the
subjective utterance of Israel's faith, the answer of the
1 The only prophetic book as to which any dispute seems to have occurred
was Ezekiel. The beginning of this book — the picture of the Merkdba, or
chariot of Jehovah's glory (1 Chron. xxviii. 18) — has always been viewed as a
great mystery in Jewish theology, and is the basis of the Kabbala or esoteric
theosophy of the Rabbins. The closing chapters were equally puzzling, because
they give a system of law and ritual divergent in many points from the
Pentateuch. Compare Jerome's Ep. to Paulinus : — " The beginning and end
of Ezekiel are involved in obscurities, and among the Hebrews these parts,
and the exordium of Genesis, must not be read by a man under thirty."
Hence, in the apostolic age, a question was raised as to the value of the book ;
for, of course, nothing could be accepted that contradicted the Torah. We
read in the Talmud {Hagiga, 13 a) that " but for Hananiah, son of Hezekiah,
they would have suppressed the Book of Ezekiel, because its words contradict
those of the Torah. What did he do ? They brought up to him three
hundred measures of oil, and he sat down and explained it." Derenbourg,
op. cit. p. 296, with Graetz, Gcschichte, vol. iii. p. 561, is disposed to hold
that the scholar who reconciled Ezekiel with the Pentateuch at such an
expenditure of midnight oil was really Eleazar, the son of Hananiah.
LECT. VI
IN THE CANON 177
believing heart to the word of revelation, continued to grow
after the prophetic voice was still, and the written law had
displaced the living word, was natural and necessary. In
the Psalter we see how the ordinances of the new theocracy
established themselves in the hearts of the people, as well as
in the external order of the community at Jerusalem, and the
spiritual aspects of the Law which escaped the legal subtilty
of the Scribes are developed in such Psalms as the 119th,
with an immediate force of personal conviction which has
supplied a pattern of devotion to all following ages.
Thus three great masses of sacred literature, comprising
those elements which were most immediately practical under
the old dispensation, and make up the chief permanent value
of the Old Testament for the Christian Church, took shape
and attained to undisputed authority on broad grounds of
history, and through processes of experimental verification
which made it unnecessary to seek complicated theological
arguments to justify their place in the Canon. The Law, the
Prophets, and the Psalms were inseparably linked with the
very existence of the Old Testament Church. Their autho-
rity was not derived from the schools of the Scribes, and
needed no sanction from them. And, though the spirit of
legalism might mistake the true connection and relative im-
portance of the Law and the other books, no Pharisaism was
able to undermine the influence of those evangelical and
eternal truths which kept true spirituality alive in Israel,
while the official theology was absorbed in exclusive devotion
to the temporary ordinances of the Law.
The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms are the substance
and centre of the Old Testament, on which the new dispensa-
tion builds, and to which our Lord Himself appeals as the
witness of the Old Covenant to the New. The exegesis
which insists, against every rule of language, that the Psalms
in Luke xxiv. 44 mean the Hagiographa as a whole misses
12
178 THE COLLECTION
LECT. VI
the point of our Lord's appeal to the preceding history of
revelation, and forgets that Ecclesiastes, Canticles, and Esther
are not once referred to in the New Testament, and were still
antilcgomcna in the apostolic age.
The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, form an intel-
ligible classification, in which each element has a distinctive
character. And this is still the case if we add to the Psalter
the other two poetical Books of Job and Proverbs, which stand
beside the Psalms in our Hebrew Bibles. But the collection
of the Hagiographa, as a whole, is not homogeneous. Why
does not Daniel stand among the later prophets, Ezra and
Chronicles among the historical books ? Why is it that the
Hagiographa were not read in the synagogue ? With regard
to the Psalms this is intelligible. They had their original
place, not in the synagogue, but in the Temple service. So,
too, the Books of Job and Proverbs, which belong to the
philosophy of the Hebrews, and were specially adapted for
private study, might seem less suitable for public reading —
Job, in particular, requiring to be studied as a whole if one is
to grasp its true sense. But this explanation does not cover
the whole Hagiographa. Their position can only be explained
by the lateness of their origin, or the lateness of their recog-
nition as authoritative Scriptures. The miscellaneous col-
lection of Hagiographa appended to the three great poetical
books is the region of the Old Testament antilegomena, and
in them we no longer stand on the ground of undisputed
authority acknowledged by our Lord, and rooted in the very
essence of the Old Testament dispensation.
The oldest explicit reference to a third section of sacred
books is found in the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, written in
Egypt about 130 B.C. The author speaks of "the many and
great things given to us through the Law and the Prophets,
and the others who followed after them " ; and again, of " the
Law and the Prophets, and the other books of the fathers," as
lect. vi OF HAGIOGRAPHA 179
the study of his grandfather and other Israelites, who aimed
at a life conformed to the Law.
When the other books of the fathers are said to have been
written by those who followed after the prophets, the sense
may either be that their authors were later in time, or that
they were subordinate companions of the prophets. In either
case the author plainly regards these books as in some sense
secondary to the prophetic writings ; nor does it appear that
in his time there was a distinct and definite name for this
collection, or perhaps that there was a formal collection at all.
The overplus of God-given literature, after the Law and the
Prophets are deducted, is an inheritance from the fathers.
We must not infer from this statement that all ancient books
not comprised in the Law and the prophets were accepted
without criticism as a gift of God, and formed a third class of
sacred literature. The author of Chronicles had still access
to older books which are now lost ; and the Book of Ecclesi-
astes, xii. 11 sq., warns its readers against the futility of much
of the literature of the time, and admonishes them to confine
their attention to the words of the wise, the teachings of the
masters of assemblies, i.e. the sages met in council, the
experienced " circle of elders," praised in Ecclesiasticus vi. 34.
There were many books in those days which claimed to be
the work of ancient worthies, and such of them as we still
possess display a very different spirit and merit from the
acknowledged Hagiographa. There must have been a sifting
process applied to this huge mass of literature, and the
Hagiographa are the result. But it is not so easy to explain
how this sifting took place and led to the collection which we
now receive.
One thing is clear. The very separation of the Hagio-
grapha from the books of cognate character which stand in
the second section of the Hebrew Canon proves that the
third collection was formed after the second had been closed.
180 THE COLLECTION lect. vi
And since the prophetic collection was itself a gradual forma-
tion, fixed not by external authority but by silent consent,
this brings the collection of the Hagiographa down long after
the time of Ezra. With this it agrees that some of the books
of the Hagiographa did not originate till the very end of the
Persian period at earliest. The genealogies in Chronicles
and Nehemiah give direct proof of this fact, and the Book of
Ecclesiastes can hardly be dated before the Chronicles ; while
even the most conservative critics now begin to admit that
Daniel did not exist (at least in its present form) till the time
of the Maccabees. Neither Esther nor Daniel, nor indeed
Ezra, is alluded to in the list of worthies in Ecclesiasticus.
The determination of the collection of the Hagiographa
must therefore have taken place at an epoch when the
tradition of the Scribes was in full force, and we cannot
assert that their false theories had no influence on the work.
If they had a share in determining the collection, we can tell
with tolerable certainty what principles they acted on. For
to them all sacred writings outside the Torah were placed on
one footing with the oral law. In substance there was no
difference between written books and oral tradition. Both
alike were divine and authoritative expositions of the law.
There was traditional Halacha expanding and applying legal
precepts, but there was also traditional Haggada, recognised
as a rule of faith and life, and embracing doctrinal topics,
practical exhortation, embellishments and fabulous develop-
ments of Bible narratives.1 The difference between these
traditions and the sacred books lay only in the form. Tradi-
tion was viewed as essentially adapted for oral communication.
Every attempt to reduce it to writing was long discouraged
by the Scribes. It was a common possession of the learned,
1 It is sometimes said that the Haggada had no sacred authority. So
Zunz, op. cit. p. 42 ; Deutsch's Remains, p. 17 ; but compare, on the other
hand, Weber, op. cit. p. 94 sq. Certain Haggadoth share with the Halacha
the name of Midda, rule of faith and life.
lect. vi OF HAGIOGRAPHA 181
which no man had a right to appropriate and fix by putting
it in a book of his own. The authority of tradition did not
lie with the man who uttered it, but in the source from which
it had come down ; and any tradition not universally current
and acknowledged as of old authority had to be authenticated
by evidence that he who used it had heard it from an older
scholar, wThose reputation for fidelity was a guarantee that he
in turn had received it from a sure source. The same test
would doubtless be applied to a written book. Books ad-
mittedly new had no authority. Nothing could be accepted
unless it had the stamp of general currency, or was authenti-
cated by the name of an ancient author dating from the
period antecedent to the Scribes. All this, as we see from
the pseudepigraphic books, offered a great temptation to
forgery, but it offered also a certain security that doubtful
books would not be admitted till they had passed the test of
such imperfect criticism as the Scribes could apply. And,
besides all this, the ultimate criterion to which every book
was subjected lay in the supreme standard of the Law.
Nothing was holy which did not agree with the teaching of
the Pentateuch.
For some of the Hagiographa the test of old currency was
plainly conclusive. It does not appear that the Book of Job
was ever challenged, and the vague notices of a discussion
about the Proverbs that are found in Jewish books are not
of a kind to command credence.1 The same thins holds
good of the Lamentations, which in all probability were
ascribed to Jeremiah as early as the time of the Chronicler.2
1 Aboth of R. Nathan, c. 1. — " At first they said that Proverbs, Canticles,
and Ecclesiastes are apocryphal. They said they were parabolic writings, and
not of the Hagiographa . . . till the men of the Great Synagogue came and
explained them." Cp. B. Shabbath 30 b ; Kyle, p. 194 sq.
2 " In 2 Chron. xxxv. 25 we read that Jeremiah pronounced a dirge over
Josiah, and that the death of Josiah was still referred to according to stated
usage in the dirges used by singing men and women in the author's day,
and collected in a volume of Kindth — the ordinary Jewish name of our book.
182 THE HAGIOGRAPHA lect. vi
Euth, again, is treated by Josephus as an appendix to Judges,
and though this reckoning cannot be shown to have had
Palestinian authority, there is no reason to doubt that the
book was generally accepted as a valuable supplement to the
history of the period of the Judges. The case of the other
■ books is not so clear, and for all of them (except Daniel,
whose case is peculiar) we have evidence that their position
was long disputed, and only gradually secured.
The book of Ezra-Nehemiah has a special value for the
history of the Old Covenant, and contains information
absolutely indispensable, embodying contemporary records of
the close of the productive period of Israel's history. Yet
we find that the Alexandrian Jews were once content to
receive it in the form of a Midrash (1 Esdras of the LXX.,
3 Esdras of the English Apocrypha), with many fabulous
additions and a text arbitrarily mangled. The Chronicles,
according to all appearance, were once one book with Ezra
and Nehemiah, from which they have been so rudely torn
that 2 Chronicles now ends in the middle of a verse, which
reappears complete at the beginning of Ezra. But the
Chronicles now stand after Ezra-Nehemiah, as if it were an
afterthought to admit them to equal authority. When the
Greek Book of Esdras was composed of extracts from Chroni-
cles, as well as from Ezra and Nehemiah, the three books
Josephus says that the dirge of Jeremiah on this occasion was extant in his
days (Ant. x. 5. 1), and no doubt means by this the canonical Lamentations.
Jerome on Zech. xii. 11 understands the passage of Chronicles in the same
sense ; but modern writers have generally assumed that, as our book was
certainly written after the fall of Jerusalem, the dirges alluded to in Chronicles
must be a separate collection. This, however, is far from clear. The Kinoth
of the Chronicler had, according to his statement, acquired a fixed and statu-
tory place in Israel, and were connected with the name of a prophet. In
other words, they were canonical as far as any book outside the Pentateuch
could be so called in that age. Moreover, the allusion to the king, the
anointed of Jehovah, in Lam. iv. 20, though it really applies to Zedekiah,
speaks of him with a warmth of sympathy which later ages would not feel for
any king after Josiah."— Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., art. Lamentations, following
Noldeke, Alttestamentlichc Literatur (1868), p. 144.
lect. vi IN THE CANON 183
were probably still read as one work.1 From these facts it is
reasonable to infer that in spite of their close agreement with
the conceptions of the Scribes, it was long held to be doubtful
whether the Chronicles deserved a place among the Scriptures
or should be relegated to a lower sphere. The first decision
must have been to accept only that part of the book which
embodied the autobiographies of Ezra and Nehemiah.
For Daniel, the facts point to late origin rather than late
admission. Daniel is not mentioned among the worthies in
Ecclesiasticus, and had his book been known in old times it
would surely have stood with the prophets.
The authority of the Book of Esther, which is not used by
Philo or the New Testament, is necessarily connected with
the diffusion of the feast of Purim. Now, the book contains
two ordinances on this head — the observance of the feast
proper (Esther ix. 22), and the celebration of a memorial fast
preceding it (Esther ix. 31). According to Jewish usage, the
fast falls on the 13th of Adar. But this was the day when
Judas Maccabseus defeated and slew Nicanor in the battle of
Bethhoron, and was kept as a joyful anniversary in Palestine
from that time onward (1 Mac. vii. 48). The day of Nicanor
is still placed among the anniversaries on which fasting is
forbidden in the Megillath Taanith, after the death of
Trajan. In Palestine, therefore, at the time of our Lord, the
fast of Purim was not observed, and it may well be doubted
whether even the subsequent feast was universally acknow-
ledged. The Palestinian Talmud still contains traditions
of opposition to its introduction ; while the other Talmud
(B. Mcgill. 7 a, Sank. 100 a) names certain eminent Eabbins
who denied that Esther " defiles the hands," i.e. is canonical.
1 The most palpable argument for the original unity of Chronicles, Ezra,
and Nehemiah is that mentioned in the text. But further, the parts of Ezra-
Nehemiah which are not extracts from documents in the hands of.the editor
display all the characteristic peculiarities of the Chronicles in style, language,
and manner of thought. See Driver, Introduction, chap. xii.
184 CLOSE OF THE
LECT. VI
And, again, it is a notable circumstance that the book is so
freely handled in the two Greek recensions of the text.
The Book of Esther was not undisputed in the early Chris-
tian Church ; and, according to Eusebius, Melito, Bishop of
Sardis in the third quarter of the second century, journeyed
to Palestine to ascertain the Jewish Canon of his time, and
brought back a list, from which Esther was excluded.1
The last stage in the history of the Jewish Canon is most
clearly exhibited in the case of Ecclesiastes and the Song of
Solomon, which were still controverted up to the very end of
the first Christian century. In earlier times, as we have
seen, no urgent necessity was felt to determine the precise
compass of the sacred books. But in the apostolic age more
than one circumstance called for a definite decision on the
subject of the Canon. The school of Hillel, with its new and
more powerful exegetical methods, directed to find a Scrip-
ture proof for every tradition, was naturally busied with the
compass, as well as the text, of the ancient Scriptures. E.
Akiba, a rigid spirit averse to all compromise, would admit
no middle class between sacred books and books which it
was a sin to read. " Those who read the outside books have
no part in the life to come." 2 Such books were to be buried
1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. Lib. iv. cap. 26. It is certainly very hard to
understand what Jewish authorities could omit Esther at so late a date, but
the statement of Eusebius is precise. In the fourth century Athanasius and
Gregory of Naziauzus still omit Esther from the Canon. The ordinance of
the fast of Purim (Esther ix. 31), which we see not to have been observed in
Palestine in the time of Christ, is lacking in the Greek text of Esther, and in
Josephus, Ant. xi. 6. 13, where, however, we are told that the feast was
celebrated by the Jews throughout the world. On the origin of the feast of
Purim, see Lagarde, Purim (Gott., 1887 ; Abhandlungen of the Gbttingen
Academy, vol. xxxiv.), who connects it with the Persian Furdigan, and
Zimmern in Stade's Zeitschrift f. AT. TV. (1891), p. 157 sqq., who argues for
a connection with the Babylonian New Year Feast. That the observance of
Purim began not in Palestine, but in the Eastern Dispersion, is probable
almost to certainty. On the Megillath Taanith, or list of days on which the
Jews are forbidden to fast, consult Derenbourg, p. 439 sq.
2 Mishna, Sanhcdrin, xi. 1 (ed. Suren., vol. iv. p. 259). — "All Israelites
have a share in the world to come, except those who deny the resurrection of
lect. vi JEWISH CANON 185
— thrust away in the rubbish -room to which condemned
synagogue rolls were relegated. But the immediately practical
call for a precise definition of the compass of the sacred books
arose from the circumstance that this question came to be
necessarily associated with a point of ritual observance. The
Eabbins, always jealous for the ceremonial sanctity of sacred
things, were concerned to preserve copies of the Scriptures
from being lightly handled or used for common purposes.
They therefore devised, in accordance with their principle of
hedging in the law, a Halacha to the effect that the sacred
books communicate ceremonial uncleanness to hands that
touch them, or to food with which they are brought in contact.
This ordinance was well devised for the object in view, for it
secured that such books should be kept in a place by them-
selves, and not lightly handled. But it now became abso-
lutely necessary to know which books defile the hands. The
Mishna contains a special treatise on " hands " (Iaclaim), and
here we find authentic information on the controversies to
which the ordinance gave rise. Two books were involved.
The schools of Shammai and Hillel were divided as to
Ecclesiastes. But there was also discussion as to the Song
of Solomon, and both points came up for decision at
a great assembly held in Iamnia (ca. 90 a.d. ?), where R
Akiba took a commanding place. Some of the doctors must
have hinted that the canonicity of Canticles was a moot-point.
But Akiba struck in with his wonted energy, and silenced all
dispute. "God forbid!" he cried. "No one in Israel has
ever doubted that the Song of Solomon defiles- the hands.
For no day in the history of the world is worth the day when
the dead, those who say that the Torah is not from God, and the Epicureans.
R. Akiba adds those who read in outside books, and him who whispers over
a wound the words of Exod. xv. 26,"— a kind of charm, the sin of which,
according to the commentators, lay in the fact that these sacred words were
pronounced after spitting over the sore. Compare on the " outside books "
Geiger, p. 200 sq.
186 CLOSE OF THE
LECT. VI
the Song of Solomon was given to Israel. For all the Hagio-
grapha are holy, but the Song of Solomon is a holy of the
holies. If there has been any dispute, it referred only to
Ecclesiastes." x
In the characteristic manner of theological partisanship,
Akiba speaks with most confident decision on the points
where he knew his case to be weakest. So far was it from
being true that no one had ever doubted the canonicity of
Canticles that he himself had to hurl an anathema at those
who sang the Song of Solomon with quavering voice in the
banqueting house as if it were a common lay. The same
tendency to cover the historical weakness of the position of
disputed books by energetic protestations of their superla-
tive worth appears in what the Palestinian Talmud relates of
the opinions of the Doctors as to the roll of Esther. While
some Eabbins, appealing to Deuteronomy v. 22, maintained
1 Mishna, ladaim, iii. 5. — "All the Holy Scriptures defile the hands:
the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Judah says, The
Song of Solomon defiles the hands, and Ecclesiastes is disputed. R. Jose
says, Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands, and the Song of Solomon is dis-
puted. R. Simeon says, Ecclesiastes belongs to the light things of the
school of Shammai, and the heavy things of the school of Hillel [i.e. on this
point the school of Shammai is less strict]. R. Simeon, son of Azzai, says, I
received it as a tradition from the seventy-two elders on the day when they
enthroned R. Eliezer, son of Azariah [as President of the Beth Din at Iamnia,
which became the seat of the heads of the Scribes after the fall of Jerusalem],
that the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Akiba said,
God forbid ! No one in Israel has ever doubted that the Song of Solomon
defiles the hands. For no day in the history of the world is worth the day
when the Song of Solomon was given to Israel. For all the Hagiographa are
holy, but the Song of Solomon is a holy of the holies. If there has been any
dispute, it referred only to Ecclesiastes. ... So they disputed, and so they
decided."
Eduioth, v. 3. — "Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands according to the
school of Shammai, but does so according to the school of Hillel."
For the disputes as to Ecclesiastes, compare also Jerome on chap. xii. 13,
14. "The Hebrews say that this book, which calls all God's creatures vain,
and prefers meat, drink, and passing delights to all else, might seem worthy
to disappear with other lost works of Solomon ; but that it merits canonical
authority, because it sums up the whole argument in the precept to fear God
and do His commandment."
lect. vi JEWISH CANON 187
that a day must come when the Hagiographa and the Prophets
would become obsolete, and only the Law remain ; nay, says
Eabbi Simeon, Esther and the Halachoth can never become
obsolete (Esther ix. 28).1
In speaking of these Old Testament Antilegomena I have
confined myself to a simple statement of facts that are not
open to dispute. It is matter of fact that the position of
several books was still subject of controversy in the apostolic
age, and was not finally determined till after the fall of the
Temple and the Jewish state. Before that date the Hagio-
grapha did not form a closed collection with an undisputed
list of contents, and therefore the general testimony of Christ
and the Apostles to the Old Testament Scriptures cannot be
used as certainly including books like Esther, Canticles, and
Ecclesiastes, which were still disputed among the orthodox
Jews in the apostolic age, and to which the New Testament
never makes reference. These books have been delivered to
us ; they have their use and value, which are to be ascer-
tained by a frank and reverent study of the texts themselves ;
but those who insist on placing them on the same footing
with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, to which our
Lord bears direct testimony, and so make the whole doctrine
of the Canon depend on its weakest part, sacrifice the true
strength of the evidence on which the Old Testament is
received by Christians, and commit the same fault with Akiba
and his fellow Rabbins, who bore down the voice of free
inquiry with anathemas instead of argument.
1 Akiba's anathema in Tosef. Sanhedrin, c. 12 ; R. Simeon's utterance in
Talmud Jer. Megilla, i. 5 (Krotoschin ed. of 1866, f. 70 b).
LECTUEE VII
THE PSALTER
Up to this point we have been occupied with general dis-
cussions as to the transmission of the Old Testament among
the Jews, and the collection of its books into a sacred Canon.
In the remaining part of our course we must deal with the
origin of individual books; and as it is impossible in six
Lectures to go over the whole field of the Old Testament
literature, I shall confine myself to the discussion of some
cardinal problems referring to the three great central masses
of the Old Testament, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
The present Lecture will deal with the Book of Psalms.
The Psalter, as we have it, unquestionably contains
Psalms of the Exile and the new Jerusalem. It is also
generally held to contain Psalms of the period of David, thus
embracing within its compass poems extending over a range
of some five hundred years. How did such a collection come
together? How was it formed, and how were the earlier
Psalms preserved up to the date when they were embodied
in our present Psalter ?
In discussing this question, let us begin by looking at the
nature and objects of the Psalter. The Book of Psalms is a
collection of religious and devotional poetry. It is made up
mainly of prayers and songs of praise, with a certain number
of didactic pieces. But it is not a collection of all the religious
lect. vii THE PSALTER 189
poetry of Israel. That is manifest from the circumstance
that, with one exception (2 Sam. xxii. = Psalm xviii.), the
poems preserved in the old historical books are not repeated
in the Psalter. Nor, again, was the collection formed with
an historical object. It is true that there are some titles
which contain historical notes, but on the other hand there
are many Psalms whose contents naturally suggest an inquiry
as to the historical situation in which they were composed, but
where we have no title or hint of any sort to answer that
question. Again, although the Psalms represent a great range
of personal religious experience, it is to be noticed that they
avoid such situations and expressions as are of too unique a
character to be used in the devotion of other believers. The
feelings expressed in the Psalter are mainly such as can be
shared by every devout soul, if not in every circumstance,
yet at least in circumstances which frequently recur in human
life. Some of the Psalms are manifestly written from the
first with a general devotional purpose, as prayers or praises
which can be used in any mouth. In others, again, the poet
seems to speak, not in his private person, but in the name of
the people of God as a whole ; and even the Psalms more
directly individual in occasion have so much catholicity of
sentiment that they have served with the other hymns of the
Psalter as a manual of devotion for the Church in all ages of
both dispensations.1
1 Some recent writers go so far as to maintain that in all (or almost all)
the Psalms, the speaker is Israel, the church-nation personified, so that the
" I " and " me " of the Psalms throughout mean " we," "us," the community
of God's grace and worship. So especially Smend in Stade's Zeitschrift, viii.
49 sqq. (1888). Few will he disposed to go so far as Smend ; but the view
that many Psalms are spoken in the name of the community is no novelty,
and can hardly be disputed. There is, of course, room for much difference of
opinion as to the limits within which this method of interpreting the "I"
and "me" of the Psalms is to be applied. Driver, Introduction, p. 366 sq.,
would confine it to a few Psalms, while Cheyne (whose remarks on the bear-
ing of the question on the use of the Psalter in the Christian Church will
repay perusal) gives it a much larger range. (Origin of the Psalter, 1891,
Lecture VI. )
190 THE PSALTER
LECT. ATI
The Psalms, then, are a collection of religious poetry,
chosen with a special view to the edification of the Old Testa-
ment Church. But further, the purpose immediately con-
templated in the collection is not the private edification of
the individual Israelite, but the public worship of the Old
Testament Church in the Temple, and necessarily (since
some of the Psalms are later than the Exile), in the second
Temple. This appears most clearly in the latter part of the
book, where we meet with many Psalms obviously composed
from the first for liturgical use. Some are doxologies ; others
are largely made up of extracts from earlier Psalms, in a way
very natural in a liturgical manual of devotion, but not so
natural in a poet merely composing a hymn for his personal
use. The liturgical element is specially prominent in those
Psalms (from civ. onwards) which begin or end with the
phrase Hallelujah, " Praise ye the Lord." This phrase con-
nects the Hallelujah Psalms with the part of the Temple
service called the hallel, which denotes a jubilant song of
praise executed to the accompaniment of Levitical music,
and the blare of the priestly trumpets (1 Chron. xvi. 4 sqq.,
xxv. 3 ; 2 Chron. v. 12 sq., xxix. 27-30). By the later Jews
the term hallel is mainly applied to Psalms cxiii.-cxviii.,
which were sung at the great annual feasts, at the encaenia
(the feast spoken of in John x. 22), and at the new moons.
Again, throughout the Psalms, the Temple, Zion, the Holy
City, are kept in the foreground. Once more, the same
destination appears in the titles. The musical titles are full
of technical terms which occur again in the Book of Chroni-
cles in descriptions of the Levitical Psalmody of the Temple.
The proper names in the titles have a similar reference. The
sons of Korah were a guild of Temple musicians ; Asaph was
the father and patron of a similar guild ; Heman and Ethan
are named in the Chronicles as Temple singers of the time of
David. Finally, the very name of the Psalter in the Hebrew
iect.vii AS A HYMNAL 191
Bible leads to the same conclusion. The Psalms are called
Tehillim, hymns, from the same root as Hallelujah, and with
the same allusion to the Temple service of praise.1
The fact that the Psalter is a hymnal at once elucidates
some important features in the book, and suggests certain
rules for its profitable use and study. The liturgical character
of the Psalms explains their universality, and justifies the
large use made of them in the Christian Church. As a
liturgical collection, the Psalter expresses the feelings and
hopes, the faith, the prayers and the praises of the Old Testa-
ment Church, their sense of sin, and their joyful apprehen-
sion of God's salvation. These are the subjective elements
of religion, the answer of the believing heart to God. And
precisely in these elements the religion of all ages is much
alike. The New Testament revelation made a great change
in the objective elements of religion. Old ideas and forms
passed away, and new things took their place ; but through
all this growth of the objective side of revelation, the devotion
of the faithful heart to God remains essentially one and the
same. Our faith, our sense of sin, our trust upon God and
His salvation, the language of our prayers and praises, are
still one with those of the Old Testament Church. It is true
that not a little of the colouring of the Psalms is derived
from the ritual and order of the old dispensation, and has
now become antiquated ; but practical religion does not refuse
1 The later Jews were not completely informed as to the liturgical use of
the Psalter in the Temple services. There is even some uncertainty as to
what parts of the Hallelujah Psalms are included in the Eallel, presumably
because several selections from this part of the Psalter were used. Of the daily
Psalms, sung at the morning sacrifice, the following list, which has every
appearance of authenticity, is given in the Mishna Tamid, vii. 4 (Surenh.,
v. 10) : Sunday, Ps. 24 ; Monday, Ps. 48 ; Tuesday, Ps. 82 ; Wednesday,
Ps. 94 ; Thursday, Ps. 81 ; Friday, Ps. 93 ; Sabbath, Ps. 92. Ps. 92 is
assigned to the Sabbath in the title, and the titles in the Septuagint also
confirm the statements of the Mishna, except as regards Pss. 81 and 82, the
former of which must originally have been written for some great feast (see
verse 3 [Heb. 4]). According to tradition it was sung at the Feast of
Trumpets (Numb. xxix. 1), as well as at the ordinary Thursday service.
192 THE PSALTER lect. vn
those bonds of connection with the past. The believing soul
is never anxious to separate its own spiritual life from the
spiritual life of the fathers. Bather does it cling with special
affection to the links that unite it to the Church of the Old
Testament; and the forms which, in their literal sense, are
now antiquated, become to us an additional group of figures
in the rich poetic imagery of the Hebrew hymnal.
But the Bsalter and the Old Testament in general are to
us not merely books of devotion, but sources of study for the
better knowledge of the whole course of God's revelation. It
is a law of all science that, to know a thing thoroughly, we
must know it in its genesis and in its growth. To under-
stand the ways of God with man, and the whole meaning of
His plan of salvation, it is necessary to go back and see His
work in its beginnings, examining the rudimentary stages of
the process of revelation ; and for this the Psalms are invalu-
able, for they give us the first answer of the believing heart
to God under a dispensation where the objective elements of
revelation were far less fully developed, and where spiritual
processes were in many respects more naive and childlike.
While the simple Christian can always take up the Psalm-
book and use it for devotion, appropriating those elements
which remain the same in all ages, those who are called upon
to study the Bible systematically, and who desire to learn all
that can be learned from it, will also look at the Psalms from
another point of view. Becognising the fact that many of
them have an historical occasion, and that they express the
life of a particular stage of the Old Testament Church, they
will endeavour to study the history of the collection, and
ascertain what can be learned of the epoch and situation in
which each Psalm was written.
In entering upon this study, it is highly important to
carry with us the fact that the Psalms are preserved to us,
not in an historical collection, but in a hymn-book specially
LECT. VII
AS A HYMNAL 193
adapted for the use of the second Temple. The plan of a hymn-
book does not secure that every poem shall be given exactly
as it was written by the first author. The practical object of
the collection makes it legitimate and perhaps necessary that
there should be such adaptations and alterations as may secure
a larger scope of practical utility in ordinary services.
In a book which contains Psalms spreading over a period
of perhaps five hundred years, such a period as that
which separates Chaucer from Tennyson, or Dante from
Manzoni, changes of this kind could hardly be avoided ; and
so in fact we find not a few variations in the text and indica-
tions of the hand of an editor retouching the original poems.
Between Psalm xviii. and 2 Samuel xxii. there are some
seventy variations not merely orthographical. The Psalter
itself repeats certain poems with changes. Psalm liii. is a
copy of Ps. xiv. with variations of text ; Psalm lxx. repeats
Ps. xl. 13-17 ; Ps. cviii. is verses 7-11 of Ps. lvii., followed
by Ps. lx. 5-12. Another clear sign that we have not every
Psalm in its original text lies in the alphabetical acrostics,
Psalms ix.-x. xxv. xxxiv. xxxvii. cxi. cxii. cxix. cxlv., in
which the initial letters of successive half verses, verses, or
larger stanzas make up the alphabet. It is of the nature of
an acrostic to be perfect. An acrostic poem which misses
some letter or puts it in a false place is a failure ; and there-
fore, when we find that some of these acrostics are now
incomplete, we must conclude that the text has suffered. In
some cases it is still easy to suggest the slight change neces-
sary to restore the original scheme. Elsewhere, as in the
beautiful acrostic now reckoned as two Psalms (ix. and x.),
the corruption in the text, or possibly the intentional change
made to adapt the poem for public worship, is so considerable
that the original form cannot be recovered.1
1 Another case where one Psalm has heen made two is xlii.-xliii., where,
hy taking the words "0 my God" from the beginning of xlii. 6 to the end of
13
194 DIVISIONS OF lect. vn
In general, then, we conclude that the oldest text of a
sacred lyric is not always preserved in the Psalter. And so,
again, we must not suppose that the notes of authors' names
in a hymn-book have the same weight as the statements of
an historical book. In a liturgical collection the author's
name is of little consequence, and the editors who altered the
text of a poem cannot be assumed a priori to have taken
absolute care to preserve a correct record of its origin. But
to this subject we shall recur presently.
Let us now look at the collection somewhat more closely ;
and, in the first place, let us take note of the traditional
division of the Psalter into five smaller books, each terminat-
ing with a doxology. In most modern Hebrew Bibles, and
also in the English Eevised Version, the five books are
marked off by short titles, which are not found in most manu-
scripts, are devoid of Massoretic authority, and are rightly
absent from the Authorised Version. But the division itself
rests on an ancient Jewish tradition which was already
known to Hippolytus at the beginning of the third Christian
century. Mediaeval Jewish opinion, following the Midrash
on Psalm i., ascribed the partition to David, and the majority
of modern scholars regard the terminal doxologies (which are
also found in the Septuagint) as sufficient evidence that a
fivefold arrangement of the Psalter, presumably on the
model of the Pentateuch, was actually designed by the col-
lector of the book.1 Before we discuss how far this opinion
the previous verse, and making a single change in the division of the words,
we get a poem of three stanzas, with an identical refrain to each. Conversely
Ps. cxliv. 12 sqq. seems to have no connection with the poem (verses 1-11) to
which it is now attached.
1 The witness of Hippolytus is found in the Greek (ed. Lag., p. 193 ;
closely followed by Epiphanius, Be Mens, ct Pond. § 5 ; see Lagarde, Sym-
micta, ii. 157), in a passage of which the genuineners has been questioned ;
but the same doubt does not attach to the Syriac form of Hippolytus's testi-
mony (Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca, 1858, p. 86). The Greek speaks of a
division into five books (/3i/3Xk), the Syriac of five parts or sections {menaiv&the).
The latter expression agrees best with Jerome's statement in the Prologus
lect. vii THE PSALTER 195
is sound it will be convenient to present a table showing
the scheme of the traditional division : —
Book I. Psalms 1-41. — All ascribed to David, except 1, 2, 10 [which
is part of 9], 33 [ascribed to David in the LXX.] Doxology —
Blessed be Jehovah, God of Israel, from everlasting and to ever-
lasting. Amen and Amen.
Book II. Psalms 42-72. — 42-49, Korahite [43 being part of 42] ; 50,
Asaph ; 51-71, David, except 66, 67, 71, which are anonymous ;
72, Solomon. Doxology — Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of
Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things. And blessed be His
name of glory for ever : and let the whole earth be filled with
His glory. Amen and Amen. Subscription — The prayers of
David the son of Jesse are ended.
Book III. Psalms 73-89.-73-83, Asaph; 84, 85, 87, 88, Korahite;
86, David ; 88, Heman ; 89, Ethan. Doxology — Blessed be
Jehovah for ever. Amen and Amen.
Book IV. Psalms 90-106.— 90, Moses; 101, 103, David; the rest
anonymous. Doxology — Blessed be Jehovah, God of Israel, from
everlasting and to everlasting. And let all the people say, Amen :
Hallelujah.
Galeatus, "David, quem quinque incisionibus et nno volumine compre-
hendunt " [scil. Hebraei]. In the Preface to his Psalt. iuxta Hebraeos Jerome
refuses to allow the expression "five books," which some used. For the
Jewish recognition of the fivefold partition of the Psalter most writers refer
only to the later Midrash on the Psalms, from which Kimchi draws in the
Preface to his Commentary. But there is much older Jewish evidence to
confirm that of the Christian authorities. Mr. Schechter refers me to B.
Kidditehin, 33 a, where R. Simeon, son of Rabbi, says, complaining of a pupil,
"I taught him two-fifths of the Book of Psalms, and he did not rise up before
me (out of respect when I entered the place where he was seated)." The
expression "fifths" is commonly used of the books of the Pentateuch, but it
occurs also in J. Megillah, ii. 4, in connection with the Book of Esther
(Miiller, Sopherim, p. 34), and is not a sufficient justification for speaking of
five books (D'HSD) of the Psalms. In Sopherim, ii. 4, where a blank of four
lines is prescribed between each book of the Torah, and a blank of three
lines between each of the twelve Minor Prophets, nothing is said of the
sections of the Psalter. There are, however, traces of a later rule by which
two lines are to be left between each section of the Psalms ; but the rule is
very imperfectly followed in MSS. The first Massoretic Bible (that of Jacob
b. Chayyim) notes the commencement of Bks. 2, 3, 4, 5 in the margin, or in
vacant spaces in the text, in smaller characters (*J£}> "ISD and so forth), and
similar titles are found in some MSS.
We learn from Hippolytus and Jerome that the doxologies, or rather the
double Amen of the doxologies, furnished the argument for the fivefold
division. In Ps. cvi. 48 Jerome appears to have read a double yivouro in the
Greek (as many MSS. do), and also (against the present Massoretic text) a
double pX in the Hebrew. (See the critical apparatus in Lagarde's edition.)
196 DIVISIONS OF
LECT. VII
Book V. Psalms 107-150.— 108-110, 122,1 124,1 131,1 133,1 138-145,
David; 1 2 7,1 Solomon; 120-134, Pilgrimage songs. The book
closes with a group of doxological Psalms, but there is no such
special doxology as in the previous books.
The first three doxologies plainly form no part of the
Psalms to which they are attached, but mark the end of each
book after the pious fashion, not uncommon in Eastern litera-
ture, to close the composition or transcription of a volume
with a brief prayer or words of praise. In Psalm cvi. the
case is different. For here we find a liturgical direction that
all the people shall say, " Amen, Hallelujah," which seems to
imply that this doxology was actually sung at the close of
the Psalm. And so it is taken in 1 Chron. xvi., where the
Psalm is quoted. For here (ver. 36) the imperatives are
changed to perfects, "and all the people said, Amen, and
praised the Lord."
This essential difference in character between the three
first doxologies and the fourth appears to be fatal to the
theory that the collector of the whole Psalter disposed his
work in five sections, and added a doxology to each. Nor
can this theory be mended by joining Books IV. and V., and
supposing the collector to have aimed at a fourfold division.
For it is not conceivable that, after writing formal doxologies
to three sections of his work, the collector would have left
the close of the whole Psalter unprovided with a similar
formula. We conclude, therefore, that the three first doxolo-
gies are older than the final collection ; and, as they evidently
mark actual subdivisions in the Psalm-book, it naturally
occurs to us to inquire whether these subdivisions are not
the boundaries of earlier collections, of which the first three
books of our present Psalter are made up.2
1 Not so in LXX.
2 An illustration of the way in which the limits of an older collection may
be revealed by the retention of the doxological subscription is supplied by the
Diwan of the Hodhalite poets. At the close of the 236th poem (according to
LECT. VII
THE PSALTER 197
A closer examination confirms this conjecture. The first
book, Psalms i.-xli., is all Davidic, every Psalm bearing the
title of David except Psalms i. ii. x. xxxiii. Now Psalm i.
is clearly a preface to the collection. But in Talmudic times
Psalm ii. was reckoned as forming one section with Psalm i.,
and so it is actually cited as the first Psalm in the correct
text of Acts xiii. 33. Again, Psalm x. is the second part of
the acrostic Psalm ix., and Psalm xxxiii. is certainly a late
piece, and probably came into this part of the Psalter after-
wards. The first book, therefore, is a formal collection of
Psalms ascribed to David. So, again, in the second book, the
Psalms ascribed to David stand apart from the Korahite and
Asaphic Psalms, and form a connected group, though they
include some anonymous pieces, and also one hymn (Psalm
Ixxii.), which is entitled "of Solomon," but was perhaps
viewed, as our version takes it, as a prayer of David for his
son. In Book III. only Psalm lxxxvi. bears the name of
David, and this title is unquestionably a mistake, for the
Psalm is a mere cento of reminiscences from older parts of
Scripture, and the prayer in verse 11, " Unite my heart to
fear thy name," is based on the promise (Jer. xxxii. 39), " I
will give them one heart ... to fear me continually." It is
the law of the religious life that prayer is based on promise,
and not conversely.1 It cannot be accident that has thus
disposed the Davidic Psalms of Books I.-III. in two groups.
But if the final collector had gathered these poems together
for the first time, he would surely have made one group, not
two. Nor can he have added the subscription to Psalm
lxxii., " The prayers of David are ended," unless, indeed, we
suppose that the titles ascribing Psalms of the fourth and
fifth books to David are all additions of later copyists after
Wellhausen's enumeration) occurs the subscription, tamma hddhd walilldhi
'l-hamdu, etc., showing that the collection once ended at this point.
1 See additional Note C.
198 THE ELOHISTIC
LECT. VII
the collection was closed. We conclude, then, that the first
book once existed as a separate collection, and that the sub-
scription to Psalm lxxii., with the doxology, marks the close
of another once separate collection of Davidic Psalms.
Another evidence that the first three books of the Psalter
contain collections formed by more than one editor, lies in
the names of God. Books I. IV. and V. of the Psalter use
the names of God in the same way as most other parts of the
Old Testament, where Jehovah is the prevailing term, and
other names, such as Elohim (God), occur less frequently.
But in the greater part of Books II. and III. (Psalms xlii.-
lxxxiii.) the name of Jehovah is rare, and Elohim takes its
place even where the substitute reads very awkwardly.
For example, a common Old Testament phrase is " Jehovah
my God," "Jehovah thy God," based upon Exodus xx. 2,
where, in the preface to the Ten Commandments, we have, " I
am Jehovah thy God." Some later writers seem to have
avoided the name Jehovah, in accordance with a tendency
which ultimately became so prevalent among the Jews that
they now never pronounce the word Jehovah (Iahwe), but
read Adonai (Lord) in its place (supra, p. 77). Such writers
do not use the phrase " Jehovah my God," but simply say,
"my God." In the Elohim Psalms, however, and nowhere
else in the Old Testament, we find the peculiar phrase " God
my God," with Elohim in place of Jehovah. And so, even
in Psalm 1. 7, where the words of Exodus xx. 2 are actually
quoted, we read " I am God thy God." Clearly this is no
accident. The Psalms in which the name Elohim is habitu-
ally used instead of Jehovah hang together. And, when we
look more closely at the matter, we see that they not only
hang together, but that the phenomenon of the names of God
is due, not to the original authors of the Psalms, but to the
collector himself; for some of these Elohim Psalms occur
also in the earlier Jehovistic part of the Psalter. Psalm liii.
lect. vii COLLECTION 199
is identical with Psalm xiv. ; Psalm lxx. with part of Psalm
xl. ; and here, among other variations of text, we find Jehovah
six times changed to Elohim, and only one converse change.
That is a clear proof that the Elohim Psalms have been
formed by an editor who, for some reason, preferred to sup-
press, as far as possible, the name Jehovah.
Now let us look a little more closely at this Elohistic
collection. It forms the main part of the second and third
Psalm-books. The Psalms that remain look like an appendix,
containing some supplementary Korahite Psalms, and one
Psalm ascribed to David, which we have seen to be late, and
which may fairly be judged to be no part of the original
Davidic collections. If we set the appendix on one side, we
find in Books II. and III. a single Elohistic collection with a
well-marked editorial peculiarity running through it. This
Elohistic Psalm-book consists of two kinds of elements. It
contains, in the first place, Levitical Psalms — that is, Psalms
ascribed to Levitical choirs, the sons of Korah and Asaph ;
and, further, a collection of Davidic Psalms, marked off as a
distinct section by the subscription at the end of Psalm lxxii.
and the accompanying doxology. As now arranged, the
Davidic collection is wedged in between two masses of Levi-
tical Psalms, and even separates the Asaphic Psalm 1. from
the body of the Asaphic collection, Psalms lxxiii.-lxxxiii. It
is not probable that this was the original order, for if we
simply take Psalms xlii.-l., and lift them into the place be-
tween Psalms lxxii. and lxxiii., we get a complete and natural
arrangement. We thus have a book containing, first, a
collection of Davidic Psalms with a subscription, and then
two collections of Levitical Psalms, the first Korahitic and
the last Asaphic. We may fairly accept this as the older
arrangement, which possibly was changed by the final col-
lector in order that he might show by a distinct mark that the
two Davidic collections in his work were originally separate.
200 STRUCTURE OF lect. vu
Perhaps, also, he may have been influenced by the fact that
Psalms 1. and li. are both suitable for the service of sacrifices
of praise. Such is the account it seems reasonable to give of
Books II. and III.
We come next to Books IV. and "V. They also are really
one book, for the doxology of Psalm cvi. belongs to the Psalm,
and there is no clear mark of difference in subject, character,
or editorial treatment in the Psalms which precede and follow
it. But, taken as a unity, Books IV. and V. are marked by a
liturgical character more predominant than in the other books.
They are also of later collection than the Elohistic Psalm-
book, for Psalm cviii. is made up of two Elohim Psalms (lvii.
7-11, lx. 5-12), retaining the predominant use of Elohim, al-
though the other Psalms of the last two books are Jehovistic.
As the Elohim Psalms got their peculiar use of the names of
God from the collector, and not from their authors, we may
safely affirm that Books II. and III. existed in their collected
form before Psalm cviii. was composed.
Thus the five books of the Psalms reduce themselves to
three collections (with subdivisions in the case of the second),
which may be thus exhibited in tabular form : —
First Collection
(Bk. I.) David Pss. 1-41
Doxology
Second Collection
(Bks. II. and III.)
Part i. David Pss. 51-72
Doxology and Subscription f ELOHIM
Part ii. a. Korah Pss. 42-49 ( Psalms
b. Asaph Pss. 50, 73-83 )
Appendix. Miscellaneous Ps. 84-89
Doxology
TJiird Collection
(Bks. IV. and V.) Mainly Anonymous Ps. 90-150
LECT. VII
THE PSALTER 201
In accordance with these results we can distinguish the
following steps in the redaction : —
(a) The formation of the first Davidic collection with a closing
doxology (1-41).
(b) The formation of the second Davidic collection, with doxology
and subscription (51-72).
(c) The formation of a twofold Levitical collection (42-49 ; 50,
73-83).
(d) An Elohistic redaction and combination of (6) and (c).
(e) The addition to (d) of a non-Elohistic supplement and doxology
(84-89).
(/) The formation of the Third Collection (90-149).
Finally, the anonymous Psalms i. and ii. may have been
prefixed after the whole Psalter was completed.
A process of collection which involves so many stages
must plainly have taken a considerable time, and the
question arises whether we can fix a limit for its beginning
and end, or can assign a date for any particular stages of
the process.
An inferior limit for the final form of the collection is
given by the Septuagint translation. But the traditions
examined in Lecture IV., which fix the middle of the third
century B.C. as the probable date of the Greek translation of
the Law, tell us nothing about the translation of the Hagio-
grapha. We know, however, from the prologue to Ecclesi-
asticus that certain Hagiographa, and doubtless, therefore, the
Psalter, were current in Egypt in a Greek version about 130
B.C. or a little later. And the Greek Psalter, though it adds
one apocryphal Psalm at the end, is essentially the same as
the Hebrew ; there is nothing to suggest that the Greek was
first translated from a less complete Psalter and afterwards
extended to agree with the received Hebrew. It is therefore
reasonable to hold that the Hebrew Psalter was completed
and recognised as an authoritative collection long enough
before 130 B.C. to allow of its passing to the Hellenistic Jews
202 THE TITLES lect. vii
of Alexandria. There does not appear to be any unambiguous
external evidence to carry the close of the collection farther
back than this. For though 1 Chron. xvi. and 2 Chron. vi. 41,
42, contain a series of passages from Psalms of the Third Col-
lection (Pss. xcvi. cv. cvi. cxxxii.), there is no proof that the
Chroniclerreadthesehymns in their place in the present Psalter,
or even that in his days Ps. cvi. existed in its present form.
In this scarcity of external evidence we are thrown back
on internal indications, and above all on the evidence of the
titles. But here you must permit me to draw a distinction. We
have already seen [supra, p. 95 sqq.) that there are variations
between the Greek and Hebrew tradition of the titles, and
that there was among the later Jews a marked tendency to
attach known and famous names to anonymous pieces. The
titles, therefore, viewed as evidence to the authorship of
individual Psalms, are not to be accepted without reserve.
But the use which I now propose to make of them is of
another kind. Except in the Third Collection, where ano-
nymity is the rule, authors' names occurring only spora-
dically, and in the appendix to the Second Collection, which
has a miscellaneous character, the titles run in series and
correspond very closely with the limits of the old collections
of Psalms of which the present Psalter is made up. It is
plain that such connected series of titles have' quite a
different value from the scattered titles in the last division
of the Psalter. They form a system, and cannot be looked
upon as the arbitrary conjectures of successive copyists.
To doubt that the consecutive Psalms xlii.-xlix., each of which
bears a title assigning it to the sons of Korah, or the Psalms
lxxiii.-lxxxiii., which are similarly assigned to Asaph, hang
together, would be irrational scepticism. By far the most
probable view is that each of the groups, with the addition
in the case of the Asaphic Psalms of the now disjoined
Psalm 1., once formed separate hymn-books, bearing a general
lect. vii OF THE PSALMS 20
O
title, which in the one case was "of the sons of Korah,"
and in the other "of Asaph." When these small hymn-
books were merged in a larger collection it would obviously
be convenient to repeat the title before each Psalm. Apart
from its general plausibility, this conjecture derives strong
support from the series of fifteen Psalms, cxx.-cxxxiv., which
bear in the Authorised Version the title of Songs of Degrees.
According to the Mishna (Middoth, ii. 5) and other Jewish
traditions, these Psalms were sung by the Levites, at the
Feast of Tabernacles, on the fifteen steps or degrees that
led from the women's to the men's court of the Temple.
But when we read the Psalms themselves, we see that
originally they must have been sung not by Levites but
by the laymen who came up to Jerusalem at the great
feasts; and the word which Jewish tradition renders by
"degree" or "step" ought rather to be translated "going
up" to Jerusalem (cf. the Hebrew of Ezra vii. 9), so that
the Songs of Degrees ought rather to be called " Pilgrimage
Songs." But now the curious thing is that, according to
the laws of Hebrew grammar, the title prefixed to each
of these hymns must be translated not " a song of Pilgrim-
age," but "the songs of Pilgrimage." In other words, each
title is properly the collective title of the whole fifteen
Psalms, which must once have formed a separate hymnal
for the use of pilgrims ; and when the collection was taken
into the greater Psalter, this general title wras set at the
head of each of the hymns.
I take it. then, the Asaph and Korah Psalms were at one
time the hymn-books of two Levitical choirs or guilds. In
all probability the titles tell us no more than this ; they do
not name the authors of the Psalms, but they refer us to
a period when the Temple psalmody was in the hands of
two hereditary choirs, which, after the fashion of ancient
Eastern guilds, called themselves sons of Asaph and of
204 THE GUILDS OF
LECT. VII
Korah respectively. Now in the time of the Chronicler,
who (as we have seen in Lecture V.) describes the ordin-
ances of his own time in what he tells us about the
Temple music, there were not two Levitical guilds but
three, named not after Asaph and Korah, but after Asaph,
Heman, and Ethan (1 Chron. vi. 31 sqq.), or Asaph, Heman,
and Jeduthun (1 Chron. xxv. 1). These three guilds were
reckoned to the three great Levitical houses of Gershon,
Kohath, and Merari, and the genealogy of Heman was
traced to Kohath through Korah. But in the time of the
Chronicler the name of Korahites designated a guild not
of singers but of porters (1 Chron. ix. 19, xxvi. 1, 19).
The Chronicler assumes that this organisation of the singers
dated from David ; but in reality it was quite modern.
At the time of the first return from the Exile "singers"
and " sons of Asaph " were equivalent terms (Ezra ii. 41 ;
Neh. vii. 44), and the singers were distinct from the
Levites. This distinction seems still to have been recog-
nised nearly a century later, in the days of Ezra and
Nehemiah (Ezra x. 23, 24 ; Neh. vii. 1, 73, etc.). But by
this time the distinction had lost the greater part of its
meaning; for at the dedication of Nehemiah's wall (Neh.
xii. 27, 28) the musical service was divided between the
Levites and the "sons of the singers," i.e. the Asaphites.
From this there is only a step to the order of the Elohistic
Psalm-book, where there are two guilds of singers, the
Asaphites and the sons of Korah.1 But the first unam-
1 The oldest attempt to incorporate the Asaphites with the Levites seems
to be found in the priestly part of the Pentateuch, where Abiasaph, " the father
of Asaph, "or in other words, the eponym of the Asaphite guild, is made one of
the three sons of Korah (Exod. vi. 24). In the ultimate system of Levitical
organisation Asaph belongs not to Korah and Kohath but to Gershon
(1 Chron. vi.). In Ezra and Nehemiah the singers, like the porters and the
Nethinim, are habitually named after the Levites, as an inferior class of
Temple ministers. In the time of the Chronicler this inferiority has disap-
peared, and ultimately, in the last days of the Temple, the singers claimed,
lect. vii TEMPLE SINGERS 205
biguous appearance of three guilds of singers is found in
Neh. xii. 24, in a passage which does not belong to Nehe-
miah's memoirs, and refers to the time of Darius Codomannus
and of Jaddua, the high priest contemporary with Alexander
the Great.1 The legitimate inference from these facts
appears to be that the Asaphic and Korahitic Psalms were
collected for use in the Temple service between the time
of Nehemiah and the fall of the Persian empire, or, speaking
broadly, in the second century after the return from Babylon
{circa 430-330 B.C.). It is quite possible that the formation
of the Elohistic Psalter, in which the two Levitical hymn-
books are fused together with a non- Levitical book (the
second Davidic collection), may be connected with the re-
modelling of the singers in three choirs ; at any rate, the
appendix with which the Second Collection closes already
presupposes the new order, for Heman and Ethan are men-
tioned in the titles of Pss. lxxxviii. lxxxix.
The contents of the Korah and Asaph Psalms agree well,
on the whole, with these conclusions. We must bear in
mind that a Psalm may have been written long before it was
taken into one of the Temple hymn-books, and that two
Levitical Psalms, liii. and lxx., actually repeat, in Elohistic
form, pieces that appear also in the Eirst Collection. But
the very fact that there was an older collection, and that only
two pieces in it reappear in the Second Collection, makes it
probable that most of the Levitical Psalms belong to the
period of the two choirs, i.e. to the time between Ezra's
and obtained from Agrippa II., the privilege of wearing garments of priestly
linen (Jos. Antt. xx. 9, § 6).
1 The threefold division of singers appears in the Hebrew text of Neb. xi.
17, in a list which is not part of Nehemiah's memoirs, but is probably older
than chap. xii. 22-26. But the Septuagint does not give the triple division,
and the mention of Jeduthun as a man instead of a musical term is not in
favour of the Hebrew form of the text. The term sons of Korah, as designat-
ing a guild of singers, was evidently obsolete in the Chronicler's time, but was
still used in the Midrashic source of 2 Chron. xx. 19 ; cf. verse 14, where the
sons of Asaph are also mentioned.
206 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. vn
reformation and the Greek Conquest of Asia. And this
presumption is in accord with the general character of the
Psalms in question. One of the most remarkable features
common to the Asaph and Korah Psalms is that they contain
little or no recognition of present national sin, — though they
confess the sins of Israel in the past — but are exercised with
the observation that prosperity does not follow righteousness
either in the case of the individual (xlix., lxxiii.) or in that
of the nation, which suffers notwithstanding its loyalty to
God, or even on account thereof. Now problems about
God's righteousness as it appears in his dealings with in-
dividual men first emerge in the Books of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel, while the confident assertion of national righteous-
ness is a characteristic mark of pious Judaism from the time
of Ezra downwards, when the Pentateuchal Law was practi-
cally enforced, but not earlier. Malachi, Ezra, and Neheniiah,
like Haggai and Zechariah, are still far from holding that the
national sins of Israel lie all in the past.1 It was only after
the great reformation of 444 B.C. that the pious Israelite
could say, what is said in Psalm xliv. and practically repeated
elsewhere, that the people, in spite of their afflictions, have
not forgotten God or been false to his covenant, that they are
persecuted not because of their sins but for God's sake and
because of their adherence to Him.
Thus far the contents of the Levitical Psalms are entirely
consistent with the conclusion as to the date of their collection
indicated by the titles. The mass of these Psalms cannot be
earlier than the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, when Israel first
became a law-abiding people. But when we seek to fix an
1 In Ezekiel's time the people complained that they were punished for the
sins of their fathers (Ezek. xviii.), and in Malachi's days the complaint was
heard that it was vain to serve God, and that there was no profit in observing
his ordinances (Mai. iii. 14). But both Ezekiel and Malachi refuse to admit
that their contemporaries were innocent sufferers, and so take up quite a dif-
ferent standpoint from the Levitical Psalms.
lect. vii THE LEVITICAL PSALMS 207
inferior limit for the collection there is more difficulty in
bringing the evidence of the contents into harmony with the
titles. A considerable number of these Psalms (xliv. lxxiv.
lxxix. lxxx.) point to an historical situation which can be
very definitely realised. They are post-exile in their whole
tone, and belong to a time when prophecy had ceased and the
synagogue worship was fully established (lxxiv. 8, 9). But
the Jews are no longer the obedient slaves of Persia ; there
has been a national rising, and armies have gone out to battle.
Yet God has not gone forth with them ; the heathen have been
victorious ; blood has flowed like water round Jerusalem ; the
Temple has been defiled ; and these disasters assume the
character of a religious persecution. These details would fit
the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, to which, indeed, Psalm
lxxiv. is referred (as a prophecy) in 1 Mac. vii. 16 sq. But
against this reference there is the objection that if these
Psalms are of the age of the Maccabees they can have been
no original part of the Elohistic Psalter. And even if we
suppose, what is not absolutely inconceivable, that three or
four pieces were inserted among the Levitical hymns at a
later date, there is still the difficulty that these Psalms are
written in a time of deepest dejection, and yet are Psalms of
the Temple choirs. Now when the Temple was reopened for
worship after its profanation by Antiochus the Jews were
victorious, and a much more joyous tone was appropriate.
On the whole, therefore, though many of the best modern
writers on the Psalter accept a Maccabee date at least for
Pss. xliv. lxxiv. lxxix., I feel a difficulty in admitting that
any of these pieces is later than the Persian period. Our
records of the history of the Jews in the last century of
Persian rule are very scanty; but we know that under
Artaxerxes Ochus (circa 350 B.C.) there was a widespread
rebellion in Phoenicia and other western parts of the empire,
which was put down with great severity. And in this
208 PSALMS OF THE lect. vii
rebellion the Jews had a part, for many of them were led
captive by the Persian king and planted in Hyrcania on
the shores of the Caspian. That the rising of the Jews
against Ochus took a religious character, like all the later
rebellions against Greece and Eome, is highly probable;
indeed it is impossible that the leaders could have had any
other programme than the establishment of a theocracy.
The desecration of the Temple referred to in Psalm lxxiv. is
in accordance with the usual practice of the Persians towards
the sanctuaries of their enemies ; and there is some inde-
pendent evidence that in the reign of Ochus the sanctity of
the Temple was violated by the Persians, and humiliating
conditions attached to the worship there.1
Let us next consider the Third Collection (Bks. IV. and
V.). We have seen that this collection was formed after the
Elohistic redaction of the Second Collection {supra, p. 200), so
that if our argument up to this point is sound the last part
of the Psalter must be thrown into the Greek period, and
probably not the earliest part thereof. This conclusion is
borne out by a variety of indications. First of all, the
language of some of the Psalms points to a very late date
indeed. Even in the time of Nehemiah the speech of the
Jews was in danger of being corrupted by the dialects of
their neighbours (Neh. xiii. 24), but the restorers of the law
fought against this tendency with vigour and with so much
success that very tolerable Hebrew — coloured by Aramaic
influences, but still real Hebrew — was written at least a
century later. But in Ps. cxxxix. the language is not merely
coloured by Aramaic, it is a jargon of Hebrew and Aramaic
mixed together ; which in a hymn accepted for use in the
Temple shows the Hebrew speech to have reached the last
stage of decay.
Another notable feature in the Third Collection is the
1 See additional Note D.
lect. vii THIRD COLLECTION 209
entire disappearance of the musical titles " upon Neginoth,"
" upon Sheminith," and so forth, which are so frequent in the
earlier collections. That is to say, the old technical terms of
the Temple music have fallen out of use, presumably because
they were already unintelligible, as they were to the Septua-
gint translators. This implies a revolution in the national
music, and is probably connected with that influence of
Hellenic culture which from the time of the Macedonian
conquest began to work such changes in the whole civilisation
and art of the East.
A curious and interesting feature in the musical titles in
the earlier half of the Psalter is that many of them indicate
the tune to which the Psalm was set, by quoting phrases like
Aijeleth [hash-]shahar, or Jonath elem rechokim, which are
evidently the names of familiar songs.1 Of the song which
gave the title Al-taschith, "Destroy not," a trace is still
preserved in Isa. lxv. 8. "When the new wine is found in
the cluster," says the prophet, " men say, ' Destroy it not, for a
blessing is in it.' " These words in the Hebrew have a distinct
lyric rhythm. They are the first line of one of the vintage
songs so often alluded to in Scripture. And so we learn that
the early religious melody of Israel had a popular origin, and
was closely connected with the old joyous life of the nation.
In the time when the last books of the Psalter were composed,
the Temple music had passed into another phase, and had
differentiated itself from the melodies of the people, just as
we should no longer think of using as church music the
popular airs to which Psalms and hymns were set in Scotland
at the time of the Eeformation.
1 Similarly the ancient Syrian hymn-writers prefix to their compositions
such musical titles as " To the tune of {'al qdld dh') ' I will open my mouth
with knowledge.' " Seethe hymns of Ephrsem passim. The same usage is
found in the fragments of Palestinian hymnology published by Land,
Anecdota Syriaca, iv. Ill sqq., but here "to the tune of" is expressed, by the
preposition 'al alone. The titles of the Hebrew Psalms also use the simple
preposition 'al, but even this is sometimes omitted.
14
210 PSALMS OF THE
LECT. VII
Turning, now, to the contents of Books IV. and V., we ob-
serve that the general tone of large parts of this collection is
much more cheerful than that of the Elohistic Psalm-book.
It begins with a Psalm (xc.) ascribed in the title to Moses,
and seemingly designed to express feelings appropriate to a
situation analogous to that of the Israelites when, after
the weary march through the wilderness, they stood on the
borders of the promised land. It looks back on a time of
great trouble and forward to a brighter future. In some
of the following Psalms there are still references to deeds
of oppression and violence, but more generally Israel appears
as happy under the law with such a happiness as it did enjoy
under the Ptolemies during the third centuryB.C. The problems
of divine justice are no longer burning questions ; the right-
eousness of God is seen in the peaceful felicity of the pious
(xci. xcii., etc.). Israel, indeed, is still scattered and not
triumphant over the heathen, but even in the dispersion the
Jews are under a mild rule (cvi. 46), and the commercial
activity of the nation has begun to develop beyond the seas
(cvii. 23 sq.). The whole situation and vein of piety here
are strikingly parallel to those shown in Ecclesiasticus,
which dates from the close of the Ptolemaic sovereignty
in Palestine.
But some of the Psalms cany us beyond this peaceful
period to a time of struggle and victory. In Ps. cxviii.
Israel, led by the house of Aaron — this is a notable point —
has emerged triumphant from a desperate conflict and cele-
brates at the Temple a great day of rejoicing for the unhoped-
for victory ; in Ps. cxlix. the saints are pictured with the
praises of God in their throat and a sharp sword in their
hands to take vengeance on the heathen, to bind their kings
and nobles, and exercise against them the judgment written
in prophecy. Such an enthusiasm of militant piety, plainly
based on actual successes of Israel and the house of Aaron,
LECT. VII
GREEK PERIOD 211
can only be referred to the first victories of the Maccabees,
culminating in the purification of the Temple in 165 B.C.
This restoration of worship in the national sanctuary,
under circumstances that inspired religious feelings very
different from those of any other generation since the return
from Babylon, might most naturally be followed by an ex-
tension of the Temple psalmody ; it certainly was followed
by some liturgical innovations, for the solemn service of
dedication on the twenty-fifth day of Chisleu was made the
pattern of a new annual feast (that mentioned in John x.
22). Now in 1 Mac. iv. 54 we learn that the dedication was
celebrated with hymns and music. In later times the Psalms
for the encaenia or feast of dedication embraced Ps. xxx. and
the hallel Pss. cxiii.-cxviii. There is no reason to doubt that
these were the very Psalms sung in 165 B.C., for in the title
of Ps. xxx. the words " the song for the dedication of the
house," which are a somewhat awkward insertion in the
original title, are found also in the LXX., and therefore are
probable evidence of the liturgical use of the Psalm in the
very first years of the feast. But no collection of old Psalms
could fully suffice for such an occasion, and there is every
reason to think that the hallel, which especially in its closing
part contains allusions that fit no other time so well, was
first arranged for the same ceremony. The course of the
subsequent history makes it very intelligible that the Psalter
was finally closed, as we have seen from the date of the
Greek version that it must have been, within a few years at
most after this great event.1 Prom the time of Hyrcanus
downwards the ideal of the princely high priests became
more and more divergent from the ideal of the pious in
Israel, and in the Psalter of Solomon (about 50 B.C.) we see
1 The final redaction may have taken place under Simon ; compare the
closing series of Hallelujah Psalms (cxlvi.-cl.) with 1 Mac. xiii. 50 sqq. The
title of Ps. cxlv. "a Davidic Tehilla, " is probably meant to cover all the
Psalms that follow and designate them as one great canticle.
212 COMPLETION OF lect. vji
religious poetry turned against the lords of the Temple and
its worship.
We are thus led by a concurrence of arguments to assign
the collection of Psalms xc.-cl. and the completion of the
whole Psalter to the early years of Maccabee sovereignty.
It by no means follows that all the Psalms in the last great
section of the Psalter were written in the Greek period ; for
the composition of a poem and its introduction into the
Temple liturgy do not necessarily go together except in the
case of hymns written with a direct liturgical purpose. In
the fifteen Pilgrimage Songs already referred to we have a
case in point. All these songs are plainly later than the
Captivity, but some of them are surely older than the close
of the Elohistic Psalm-book, and the simple reason why they
are not included in it is that they were hymns of the laity,
describing the emotions of the pilgrim when his feet stood
within the gates of Jerusalem, when he looked forth on the
encircling hills, when he felt how good it was to be camping
side by side with his brethren on the slopes of Zion (cxxxiii.),1
when a sense of Jehovah's forgiving grace and the certainty
of redemption for Israel triumphed over all the evils of the
present and filled his soul with humble and patient hope.
When I say that the fifteen Pilgrimage Psalms are all
later than the Captivity, I do not forget that the- Hebrew
titles ascribe four of them to David and one to Solomon. But
these titles are lacking in the Septuagint, although the general
1 The point of Ps. cxxxiii. is missed in all the commentaries I have looked
at. The good and pleasant thing (ver. 1) is that those who are brethren also
(M) dwell together, i.e. not that they live in harmony, but that, in the solemn
feast which has brought them together to Zion, the scattered brethren of one
faith enjoy the privilege of being near one another. The following verses
describe the scene under a figure. The long lines of the houses of
Jerusalem, and the tents of the pilgrims, flow down the slopes of the Temple
hill even to the base, like the oil on Aaron's garments — a blessed sight. Nay,
this gathering of all the piety of Israel is as if the fertilising dews of great
Hermon were all concentrated on the little hill of Zion.
lect. vii THE PSALTER 213
tendency of that version is to give David more Psalms than
bear his name in the Hebrew {supra, p. 96). In Psalm cxxii.
the title seems to have been suggested by verse 5, and from
the English version one would at least conclude that the
Psalm was written under the Davidic dynasty. But the true
translation in verses 4, 5, is " whither the tribes went up," and
" for there were set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the
house of David." To the Psalmist, therefore, the Davidic
dynasty is a thing of the past. Better attested, because found
in the Greek as well as the Hebrew, are the titles which
assign Ps. xc. to Moses and Pss. ci. ciii. cviii.-cx. cxxxviii.-
cxlv. to David. But where did the last collectors of the
Psalter find such very ancient pieces, which had been passed
over by all previous collectors, and what criterion was there
to establish their genuineness ? The Psalms ascribed to
David in the earlier parts of the Psalter form well-marked
groups bearing internal evidence that they once formed
separate collections. But in the Third Collection and in the
appendix to the Elohistic Psalm-book authors' names occur
only sporadically, and there is no evidence that the titles
were taken over along with the Psalms from some older book.
No canon of literary criticism can assign value to an attesta-
tion which first appears so many centuries after the supposed
date of the poems, especially when it is confronted by facts
so conclusive as that Ps. cviii. is made up of extracts from Pss.
lvii. and lx. ; that in Ps. cxliv. 10 the singer expressly distin-
guishes himself from David (" 0 thou . . . that didst save David
from the hurtful sword, save me "), and that Psalm cxxxix. is
marked by its language as one of the latest pieces in the
whole book. The only possible question for the critic is
whether all these titles rest on editorial conjecture, or whether
some of the Psalms exemplify the habit, so common in later
Jewish literature, of writing in the name of ancient worthies.
In the case of Ps. xc. at least it seems probable that the
214 THE DAVIDIC
LECT. VII
Psalmist designs to speak, dramatically, in the name of
Moses.
We have now seen that for the later stages in the history
of the Psalter there is an amount of circumstantial evidence
pointing to conclusions of a pretty definite kind. The
approximate dates which their contents suggest for the collec-
tion of the Elohistic Psalm-book and of Books IV. and V. con-
firm one another and are in harmony with such indications
as we obtain from external sources. But, in order to advance
from the conclusions already reached to a view of the history
of the Psalter as a whole, we have still to consider the two
great groups of Psalms ascribed to David in Books I. and II.
Both these groups appear once to have formed separate
collections and to have been ascribed to David in their
separate form ; for in Book I. every Psalm, except the intro-
ductory poems i. and ii. and the late Ps. xxxiii., which may
have been added as a liturgical sequel to Ps. xxxii., bears the
title " of David," and in like manner the group Pss. li.-lxxii.
is essentially a Davidic hymn-book, which has been taken
over as a whole into the Elohistic Psalter, even the subscrip-
tion lxxii. 20 not being omitted. Moreover, the collectors of
Books I.-III. knew of no Davidic Psalms outside of these two
collections ; for Ps. lxxxvi., in the appendix to the Elohistic
collection, is merely a cento of quotations from Davidic pieces
with a verse or two from Exodus and Jeremiah. These two
groups, therefore, represented to the collectors the oldest
tradition of Hebrew psalmody ; they are either really Davidic
or they passed as such. This fact is important; but its
weight may readily be over-estimated, for the Levitical
Psalms comprise poems of the last half-century of the Persian
empire, and the final collection of Books II. and III. may fall
a good deal later. Thus the tradition as to the authorship of
the second Davidic Collection comes to us, not exactly from
the time of the Chronicler, but certainly from the time when
LECT. VII
COLLECTIONS 215
the view of Hebrew history which he expresses was in the
course of formation. And that view — which to some extent
appears in the historical Psalms of the Elohistic Psalter l —
implies such incapacity to understand the difference between
old Israel and later Judaism as to make almost anything
possible in the way of the ascription of comparatively modern
pieces to ancient worthies. It is true that the collectors of
the Elohistic Psalm-book did not invent the titles and sub-
scription of the group ol Davidic Psalms which they included
in their work ; but evidence that these titles are older than
the beginning of the Greek period, and that the Elohistic
collectors accepted them as genuine, goes but a very little
way towards proving that they really are derived by con-
tinuous tradition from the time of David himself. As regards
the first Davidic Collection, the evidence carries us a little
farther back. That collection is not touched by the Elohistic
redaction (the habitual substitution of Elohim for Iahw£)
which the second Davidic Collection has undergone. Now the
formation of the Elohistic Psalter must have been an official
act directed to the consolidation of the liturgical material used
in the Temple services; and if it left the Eirst Collection
untouched the reason presumably was that this collection
already had a fixed liturgical position which could not be
meddled with. In other words, Pss. i.-xli. form the oldest
extant Temple hymn-book, while there is no evidence that
Pss. li.-lxxii. had a fixed liturgical position before the last
years of the Persian Empire.
At this point I think that we may simplify the argument
by dropping for a moment the question of the Davidic Collec-
1 In Ps. lxxviii. the final rejection of the house of Joseph is co-ordinated
with the fall of the sanctuary of Sliiloh and the rise of Zion and the Davidic
house in a way that conies very close to the Chronicler's attitude to the
northern kingdom. We have already seen {supra, p. 205, note) that one of the
Midrashim drawn on by the Chronicler seems to have been written at the
time when the singers were still divided into Asaphites and Korahites
(2 Chron. xx. 14, 19).
216 TITLES OF
LECT. VII
tions as wholes and looking at individual Psalms. Our
estimate of the value of the tradition which ascribes whole
groups of Psalms to David must necessarily be lowered if we
find individual Psalms bearing David's name which cannot
possibly be his. And this is undoubtedly the case as regards
both the Davidic Collections ; for not only are many of the
titles certainly wrong, but they are wrong in such a way as
to prove that they date from an age to which David was
merely the abstract psalmist, and which had no idea what-
ever of the historical conditions of his time. For example,
Pss. xx. xxi. are not spoken by a king but addressed to a
king by his people; Pss. v. xxvii. allude to the Temple
(which did not exist in David's time), and the author of the
latter Psalm desires to live there continually. Even in the
older Davidic Psalm-book there is a whole series of hymns
in which the writer identifies himself with the poor and
needy, the righteous people of God suffering in silence at the
hands of the wicked, without other hope than patiently to
wait for the interposition of Jehovah (Pss. xii. xxv. xxxvii.
xxxviii. etc.). Nothing can be farther removed than this
from any possible situation in the life of the David of the
Books of Samuel. Most of these Psalms are referred by the
defenders of the titles to the time when David was pursued
by Saul. But it is quite unhistorical to represent Saul as a
man who persecuted and spoiled all the quiet and godly souls
in Israel ; and David and his friends were never helpless
sufferers — the quiet or timid in the land (xxxv. 20), dumb
amidst all oppression (xxxviii. 13, 14). And such a Psalm
as xxxvii., where the Psalmist calls himself an old man,
must, on the traditional view, be spoken by David late in his
prosperous reign ; yet here we have the same situation — the
wicked rampant, the righteous suffering in silence, as if
David were not a king who sat on his throne doing justice
and judgment to all his people (2 Sam. viii. 15). If Psalms
lect. vii DAVIDIC PSALMS 217
ix. x. xxxvii. represent the state of things in the time of
David, the Boohs of Samuel are the most partial of histories,
and the reign of the son of Jesse was not the golden age
which it appeared to all subsequent generations. The case
is still clearer in the second Davidic Collection, especially
where we have in the titles definite notes as to the historical
occasion on which the poems are supposed to have been
written. To refer Ps. lii. to Doeg, Ps. liv. to the Ziphites,
Ps. lix. to David when watched in his house by Saul, implies
an absolute lack of the very elements of historical judgment.
Even the bare names of the old history were no longer
correctly known when Abimelech (the Philistine king in the
stories of Abraham and Isaac) could be substituted in the
title of Ps. xxxiv. for Achish, king of Gath. In a word, the
ascription of these two collections to David has none of the
characters of a genuine historical tradition.1
Against the certainty that all the Psalms ascribed to
David in Books I.-III. cannot really be his, and that the
historical notes ascribing particular Psalms to special events
in his life are often grotesquely impossible, we have still to
set the fact that the name of David was attached to the
oldest collection of hymns used in the Temple. The facts
that have come before us are sufficient to disprove the idea
1 Psalm lii. is said to refer to Doeg. It actually speaks of a rich and
powerful mau, an enemy of the righteous in Israel, whom God will lay low,
whilst the psalmist is like a green olive tree in the house of God, whose mercy
is his constant support. Psalm liv. is said to be spoken against the Ziphites.
In reality it speaks of strangers and tyrants, standing Old Testament names
for foreign oppressors. In Psalm lv. the singer lives among foes in a city
whose walls they occupy with their patrols, exercising constant violence
within the town, from which the psalmist would gladly escape to the desert.
The enemy is in alliance with one who had once been an associate of the
psalmist, and joined with him in the service of the sacred feasts. Hence the
Psalm is often applied to Ahithophel ; but the whole situation is as different
as possible. In Psalm lix. we are asked to find a Psalm composed by David
when he was watched in his house by Saul. In reality the singer speaks of
heathen foes encircling the city, i.e. Jerusalem, whom God is prayed to cast
down, that His power may be manifest over all the earth.
218 PSALMODY BEFORE lect. vn
that even in the First Collection every Psalm ascribed to
David was really his. But the example of the fifteen
Pilgrimage Songs has made it probable to us that when these
Davidic Collections existed separately the name of David may
not have been attached to every Psalm, and that the titles, as
we now have them, may have been drawn from a general title
which originally stood at the head of the whole collection.
And just as the whole Book of Proverbs, though it contains
elements of various dates, now appears as the Proverbs of
Solomon, it is conceivable that the titles " Psalms of David,"
prefixed to Pss. i.-xli. li.-lxxii., originally stood in front of
collections consisting of Psalms of David and other hymns.
And so it may be argued that though the titles taken one by
one are of deficient authority, their combined evidence is
strong enough to prove that in both Davidic Collections, or at
any rate in the first, there is a substantial element that really
goes back to David. This is a contention worth examining ;
whereas those who argue for more than this are already put
out of court by the evidence before us. But it is evident that
the force of the presumption that a substantial number of
Psalms are from David's pen must in great measure depend
on the date at which the First Collection was brought together.
We have seen reason to believe that Pss. i.-xli. are the oldest
part of the Temple liturgy ; but can we suppose that the
oldest Temple liturgy was collected before the Exile and used
in the worship of the first Temple ? To answer this ques-
tion I must begin by bringing together the scanty notices
that have reached us as to religious music and hymns in the
old kingdom.
We have it in evidence that music and song accompanied
the worship of the great sanctuaries of northern Israel in the
eighth century B.C. (Amos v. 23), but from the context it
appears probable that the musicians were not officers of the
Temple but rather the worshippers at large (compare Amos
LECT. VII
THE CAPTIVITY 219
vi. 5). So it certainly was in the days of David (2 Sam.
vi. 5), and even of Isaiah (xxx. 29) ; the same thing is implied
in the song of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 20) ; and in Lam. ii. 7
the noise within the sanctuary on a feast-day affords a simile
for the shouts of the victorious Chaldeans, which suggests
the untrained efforts of the congregation rather than the dis-
ciplined music of a Temple choir. The allusion to "chambers
of singers " in Ezek. xl. 44 is omitted in the Septuagint,
and this is justified by the context ; so that the first certain
allusion to a class of singers among the sacred ministers
is at the return from Babylon (Ezra ii. 41). The way in
which these singers, the sons of Asaph, are spoken of may be
taken as evidence that there was a guild of Temple singers
before the Exile ; but if they had been very conspicuous we
should have heard more of them. The historical books are
fond of varying the narrative by the insertion of lyrical
pieces, and one or two of these — the " passover song " (Exod.
xv.) and perhaps the song from the Book of Jashar ascribed
to Solomon (supra, p. 124) — look as if they were sung in the
first Temple ; but they are not found in the Psalter, and,
conversely, no piece from the Psalter is used to illustrate the
life of David except Ps. xviii., and it occurs in a section
which interrupts the original sequence of the history {infra,
p. 222). These facts seem to indicate that even Book I. of
the Psalter did not exist during the Exile, when the editing of
the historical books was completed, and that in psalmody as
in other matters the ritual of the second Temple was com-
pletely reconstructed. Indeed the radical change in the
religious life of the nation caused by the Captivity could not
fail to influence the psalmody of the sanctuary more than
any other part of the worship ; the Book of Lamentations
marks an era of profound importance in the religious poetry
of Israel, and no collection formed before these dirges were
first sung could have been an adequate hymn-book for the
220 ORIGIN OF THE
LECT. "VII
second Temple. In point of fact the notes struck in the
Lamentations and in Isa. xl.-lxvi. meet our ears acjain in not
a few Psalms of Book I., e.g. Pss. xxii. xxv., where the closing
prayer for the redemption of Israel in a verse additional to
the acrostic perhaps gives, as Lagarde suggests, the character-
istic post-exile name Pedaiah as that of the author ; Ps.
xxxi., with many points of resemblance to Jeremiah ; Pss.
xxxiv. xxxv., where the " servant of Jehovah " is the same
collective idea as in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. ; and Pss. xxxviii. xli.
The key to many of these Psalms is that the singer is not an
individual but, as in Lam. iii., the true people of God repre-
sented as one person ; and only in this way can we do justice
to expressions which have always been a stumbling-block to
those who regard David as the author. But, at the same
time, other Psalms of the collection treat the problems of
individual religion in the line of thought first opened by
Jeremiah. Such a Psalm is xxxix., and above all Ps. xvi.
Other pieces, indeed, may well be earlier. When we com-
pare Ps. viii. with Job vii. 17, 18, we can hardly doubt that
the Psalm lay before the writer who gave its expressions so
bitter a turn in the anguish of his soul, and Pss. xx. xxi.
plainly belong to the old kingdom. But on the whole it is
not the pre-exilic pieces that give the tone to the collection ;
whatever the date of this or that individual poem, the' collec-
tion as a whole — whether by selection or authorship — is
adapted to express a religious life of which the exile is the
presupposition. Only in this way can we understand the
conflict and triumph of spiritual faith, habitually represented
as the faith of a poor and struggling band, living in the midst
of oppressors and with no strength or help but the con-
sciousness of loyalty to Jehovah, which is the fundamental
note of the whole book.
The contents of the First Collection suggest a doubt
whether it was originally put together by the Temple ministers,
lect. vii FIEST COLLECTION 221
whose hymn-book it ultimately became. The singers and
Levites were ill provided for, and consequently irregular in
their attendance at the Temple, till the time of Nehemiah,
who made it his business to settle the revenues of the clergy
in such a way as to make regular service possible. With
regular service a formal liturgy would be required, and in
the absence of direct evidence it may be conjectured that the
adoption of the first part of the Psalter for this purpose took
place in connection with the other far-reaching reforms of
Ezra and Nehemiah, which first gave a stable character to
the community of the second Temple. In any case these
Psalms, full as they are of spiritual elements which can never
cease to be the model of true worship, are the necessary com-
plement of the law as published by Ezra, and must be always
taken along with it by those who would understand what
Judaism in its early days really was, and how it prepared the
way for the gospel.
The second Davidic Collection, which begins with a Psalm
of the Exile (Ps. li. ;x see the last two verses), contains some
pieces which carry us down to a date decidedly later than that
of Nehemiah. Thus Ps. lxviii. 27 represents the worshipping
congregation as drawn partly from the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem and partly from the colony of Galilee. In several
Psalms of this collection, as in the Levitical Psalms with
which it is coupled, we see that the Jews have again begun
to feel themselves a nation and not a mere municipality,
though they are still passing through bitter struggles ; and
side by side with this there is a development of Messianic
hope, which in Ps. lxxii. takes a sweep as wide as the vision
of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. All these marks carry us down for this, as
for the other parts of the Elohistic Psalter, to the last days
of the Achsemenian empire, when the great revolt of the
West broke the tradition of passive obedience to the . Persian.
1 See additional Note E.
222 DAVIDS PLACE IN
LECT. VII
Several points indicate that this collection was not originally
formed as part of the Temple liturgy. The title, as preserved
in the subscription of Psalm lxxii. 20, was not " Psalms " but
" Prayers of David." Again, while the Levitical Psalms were
sung in the name of righteous Israel, of which, according to
the theory of the second Temple, the priests and Levites
were the special holy representatives, the Davidic Psalms
contain touching utterances of contrition and confession (Pss.
li. lxv.). And while there are direct references to the Temple
service, these are often made from the standpoint, not of the
ministers of the sanctuary, but of the laity who came up to
join in the solemn feasts or appear before the altar to fulfil
their vows (Pss. liv. 6, lv. 14, lxvi. 13, etc.). Moreover, the
didactic element so prominent in the Levitical Psalms is not
found here.
When we have learned that the two Davidic Collections
are in the main the utterance of Israel's faith in the time of
the second Temple, the question whether some at least of the
older poems are really David's becomes more curious than
important. There is no Psalm which we can assign to him
with absolute certainty and use to throw light on his character
or on any special event in his life. One Psalm indeed (xviii.)
is ascribed to David not only by the title but in 2 Sam. xxii.,
and if this attestation formed part of the ancient and excellent
tradition from which the greater part of the narrative of
2 Samuel is derived there would be every reason to accept it
as conclusive. But we have already seen {supra, p. 114) that
2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv. is an appendix, of various contents, which
breaks the original continuity of the court history. Origin-
ally Samuel and Kings were a single history, and 1 Kings i.
followed directly on 2 Sam. xx. The appendix which now
breaks the connection must have been inserted after the
history was divided into two books, not earlier than the
Captivity, and possibly a good deal later; and so this evidence
lect. vii HEBREW PSALMODY 223
does not help us to prove that any Psalm was assigned to
David by ancient and continuous tradition.
On the whole, then, it cannot be made out that the oldest
Psalm-book bore the name of David because it was mainly
from his hand, or even because it contained a substantial
number of hymns written by him. And on the other hand,
there is evidence that the association of David's name with the
Temple psalmody originally referred to the music and execu-
tion rather than to the hymns themselves. In the memoirs
of Nehemiah we do not read of Psalms of David, but we
learn that the singers used the musical instruments of David
the man of God (Neh. xii. 36). So, too, the expression " the
sweet psalmist of Israel," in 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, refers in the
Hebrew not to the composition of psalms but to musical
execution. Though the old histories do not speak of David
as a Psalm-writer they dwell on his musical skill, and 2 Sam.
vi. 5, 14, tells how he danced and played before the ark as it
was brought up with joy to Jerusalem. Dancing, music, and
song are in early times the united expression of lyrical inspira-
tion, and the sacred melodies were still conjoined with dances at
the time of the latest Psalms (cxlix. 3, cl. 4). We have every
right, therefore, to conclude that the talents of Israel's most
gifted singer were not withheld from the service of Jehovah,
which King David placed high above all considerations of
royal dignity (2 Sam. vi. 21). On the other hand, a curious
passage of the Book of Amos (vi. 5), " they devise for them-
selves instruments of music like David," makes David the
chosen model of the dilettanti nobles of Samaria, who lay
stretched on beds of ivory, anointed with the choicest per-
fumes, and mingling music with their cups in the familiar
fashion of Oriental luxury. These two views of David as a
musician are not irreconcilable if we remember that in old
Israel religion was not separated from ordinary life, and that
the gladness of the believing heart found natural utterance
224 david's place in
LECT. VII
in sportful forms of unconstrained mirth. At a much later
date, as we have seen, chants for the Temple service were
borrowed from the joyous songs of the vintage, and so it was
possible that David should give the pattern alike for the
melodies of the sanctuary and for the worldly airs of the
nobles of Samaria. The sacred music of Israel was of popular
origin, and long retained its popular type, and of this music
David was taken to be father and great master. The oldest
psalmody of the second Temple was still based on the ancient
popular or Davidic model, and this seems to be the real reason
why the oldest Psalm-book came to be known as " David's."
The same name was afterwards extended to the other lay
collection of " Prayers of David," while the collections that
were formed from the first for use in the Temple were simply
named from the Levitical choirs, or in later times bore no
distinctive title.
The conclusion of this long and complicated investiga-
tion takes from us one use of the Psalter which has been
a favourite exercise for pious imaginations. It is no longer
possible to treat the psalms as a record of David's spiritual
life through all the steps of his chequered career. But if we
lose an imaginary autobiography of one Old Testament saint,
we gain in its place something far truer and far richer in
religious lessons ; a lively image of the experience of the Old
Testament Church set forth by the mouth of many witnesses,
and extending through the vicissitudes of a long history.
There is nothing in this chauge to impoverish the devotional
use of the Psalms ; for even a life like David's is a small
thing compared with the life of a whole nation, and of such a
nation as Israel. It is a vain apprehension which shrinks
from applying criticism to the history of the Psalter out of
fear lest the use of edification should suffer ; for what can be
less edifying than to force an application to David's life upon
a psalm that clearly bespeaks for itself a different origin ?
lect. vii HEBREW PSALMODY 225
No sober commentator is now found to maintain the tradi-
tional titles in their integrity ; and it is puerile to try to
conserve the traditional position by throwing this and that
title overboard, instead of frankly facing the whole critical
problem and refusing to be content till we have got a clear
insight into the whole history of the Psalter, and a solid
basis for its application not merely to purposes of personal
devotion but to the systematic study of the ancient dis-
pensation.
*5
LECTUEE VIII
THE TRADITIONAL THEORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY *
The Book of Psalms has furnished us Math an example of
what can be learned by critical study in a subject of limited
compass, which can be profitably discussed without any wide
digression into general questions of Old Testament history.
The criticism of the Prophets and the Law opens a much
larger field, and brings us face to face with fundamental
problems.
We know, as a matter of historical fact, that the Penta-
teuch, as a whole, was put into operation as the rule of Israel's
life at the reformation of Ezra, with a completeness which
had never been aimed at from the days of the conquest
1 On the subject of this and the following Lectures the most important
book is Wellhausen's Geschichte Israels (Erster Band, Berlin, 1878). The
later editions appeared under the title of Prolegomena zur Gesch. Israels
(1883, 1888) ; Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1885. The view set forth in this volume,
which makes the Priestly Legislation the latest stage in the development of
the Law, is often called Wellhausenianism, but this designation is illegitimate
and conveys the false impression that the account of the Pentateuch with
which Wellhausen's name is associated is a revolutionary novelty which casts
aside all the labours of earlier critics. In point of fact Wellhausen had many
forerunners even in Germany (George, Vatke, Reuss, Graf, etc.); while in
Holland the lines of a sound historical criticism of the Pentateuch had been
firmly traced by the master hand of Kuenen, and the results for the history of
the religion of Israel had been set forth in his Godsdienst van Israel (Haarlem,
1869-70). But it was reserved for Wellhausen to develop the whole argu-
ment with such a combination of critical power and historical insight as bore
down all opposition. Even Dillmann, who still maintains the pre-exilic origin
of the main body of the Priestly Code, defends this view only on the assump-
lect. vin THE PENTATEUCH 227
of Canaan {supra, p. 43). From this time onwards the Penta-
teuch, in its ceremonial as well as its moral precepts, was the
acknowledged standard of Israel's righteousness (Neh. xiii. ;
Ecclus. xlv. ; 1 Mac. passim ; Acts xv. 5). According to the
theory of the later Jews, which has passed into current Chris-
tian theology, it had always been so. The whole law of the
Pentateuch was given in the wilderness, or on the plains of
Moab, and Moses conveyed to the Israelites, before they
entered Canaan, everything that it was necessary for them to
know as a revelation from God, and even a complete system
of civil laws for the use of ordinary life. The law was a rule
of absolute validity, and the keeping of it was the whole of
Israel's religion. No religion could be acceptable to God
which was not conformed to the legal ordinances. On this
theory the ceremonial part of the law must always have been
the prominent and most characteristic feature of the Old
Covenant. In the Levitical legislation, the feasts, the sacri-
ficial ritual, the ordinances of ceremonial purity, are always
in the foreground as the necessary forms in which alone the
inner side of religion, love to God and man, can find accept-
able expression. Not that religion is made up of mere forms,
tion that the work was an ideal or theoretical sketch, from a priestly point
of view, of a system of ordinances for the Hebrew theocracy based on Mosaic
principles and modified by the conditions of the author's time. "As such
it had a purely private character, and possessed no authority as law " (Num.,
Deut., undJos., 1886, p. 667).
The most complete introduction to the Pentateuch on the lines of the
newer criticism is Kuenen's Historisch-Kritisch Onderzoek, 2d ed., vol. i. The
first part of this volume, embracing the Hexateuch, was published in 1884,
and has been translated into English (London, 1886). A shorter book,
learned, sober, and lucid, which contains all that most students can require,
is Professor Driver's Introduction to the Lit. of the 0. T. (Edinburgh, 1891). It
ought to be added that the new criticism does not reject the work that had
been done by older scholars, but completes it. Those scholars were mainly
busied in separating, by linguistic and literary criteria, the several sources of
the Pentateuch ; and this work retains its full value. The weak point in the
old criticism was that it failed to give the results of literary analysis their
proper historical setting.
228 THEORY OF THE lect. vm
but everything in religion is reduced to rule and has some
fixed ceremonial expression. There is no room for religious
spontaneity.
According to this theory, it is not possible to distinguish
between ceremonial and moral precepts of the law, as if the
observance of the latter might excuse irregularity in the
former. The object of God's covenant with Israel was to
maintain a close and constant bond between Jehovah and His
people, different in kind from the relations of mankind in
general to their Creator. Israel was chosen to be a holy
people. Now, according to the Pentateuch, holiness is not
exclusively a moral thing. It has special relation to the
observances of ritual worship and ceremonial purity. " Ye
shall distinguish between clean beasts and unclean, and not
make yourselves abominable by any beast, fowl, etc., which I
have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall be holy
unto me : for I Jehovah am holy, and have severed you from
the nations to be mine " (Lev. xx. 25, 26). If a sacrifice is
eaten on the third day, "it is abominable; it shall not be
accepted. He that eateth it shall bear his guilt, for he hath
profaned Jehovah's holy thing : that soul shall be cut off from
his people " (Lev. xix. 8). " That which dieth of itself, or is
torn of beasts, no priest may eat to defile himself therewith.
I am Jehovah ; and they shall keep my ordinance and not
take sin on themselves by profaning it and die therein. I
Jehovah do sanctify them" (Lev. xxii. 8, 9). No stronger
words than these could be found to denounce the gravest
moral turpitude.
The whole system is directed to the maintenance of holi-
ness in Israel, as the condition of the benefits which Jehovah
promises to bestow on his people in the land of Canaan. And
therefore every infringement of law, be it merely in some
point of ceremony which we might be disposed to think
indifferent, demands an atonement, that the relation of God
lect. viir CEREMONIAL LAW 229
to His people may not be disturbed. To provide such atone-
ment is the great object of the priestly ritual which cul-
minates in the annual ceremony of the day of expiation.
Atonement implies sacrifice, the blood or life of an offering
presented on the altar before God. " It is the blood that
atones by the life that is in it " (Lev. xvii. 11 ; Hebrews ix.
22). But the principle of holiness demands that the sacri-
ficial act itself, and the altar on which the blood is offered,
be hedged round by strict ritual precautions. At the altar,
Jehovah, in His awful and inaccessible holiness, meets with
the people, which is imperfectly holy and stands in need of
constant forgiveness. There is danger in such a meeting.
Only the priests, who live under rules of intensified cere-
monial purity, and have received a peculiar consecration
from Jehovah Himself, are permitted to touch the holy
things, and it is they who bear the sins of Israel before God
to make atonement for them (Lev. x. 17). Between them
and Israel at large is a second cordon of holy ministers, the
Levites. It is death for any but a priest to touch the altar,
and an undue approach of ordinary persons to the sanctuary
brings wrath on Israel (ISTum. i. 53). Accordingly, sacrifice,
atonement, and forgiveness of sin are absolutely dependent
on the hierarchy and its service. The mass of the people
have no direct access to their God in the sanctuary. The
maintenance of the Old Testament covenant depends on the
priestly mediation, and above all on that one annual day of
expiation when the high priest enters the Holy of Holies and
" cleanses the people that they may be clean from all their
sins before Jehovah " (Lev. xvi. 30). The whole system, you
perceive, is strictly knit together. The details are necessary
to the object aimed at. The intermission of any part of the
ceremonial scheme involves an accumulation of unforgiven
sin, with the consequence of divine wrath on the nation and
the withdrawal of God's favour.
230 THEORY OF THE
LECT. VIII
To complete this sketch of the theory of the Pentateuch it
is only necessary to add that the hierarchy has no dispensing
power. If a man sins, he has recourse to the sacramental
sacrifice appointed for his case. The priest makes atonement
for him, and he is forgiven. But knowingly and obstinately
to depart from any ordinance is to sin against God with a
high hand, and for this there is no forgiveness. " He hath
despised the word of the Lord and broken his command-
ment: that soul shall be cut off in his guilt" (Num. xv.
30, 31).
Such is the system of the law as contained particularly
in the middle books of the Pentateuch, and practically
accepted from the days of Ezra. It is not strange that the
later Jews should have received it as the sum of all revela-
tion, for manifestly it is a complete theory of the religious
life. Its aim is to provide everything that man requires to
live acceptably with God, the necessary measure of access to
Jehovah, the necessary atonement for all sin, and the neces-
sary channel for the conveyance of God's blessing to man.
It is, I repeat, a complete theory of the religious life, to
which nothing can be added without an entire change of
dispensation. Accordingly, the Jewish view of the law as
complete, and the summary of all revelation, has passed into
Christian theology, with only this modification, that, whereas
the Jews think of the dispensation of the law as final, and
the atonement which it offers as sufficient, we have learned
to regard the dispensation as temporary and its atonement
as typical, prefiguring the atonement of Christ. But this
modification of the Jewish view of the Torah does not dimi-
nish the essential importance of the law for the life of the
old dispensation. The ceremonies were not less necessary
because they were typical ; for they are still to be regarded
as divinely appointed means of grace, to which alone God
had attached the promise of blessing.
lect. vni CEREMONIAL LAW 231
Now, as soon as we lay down the position that the system
of the ceremonial law, embracing, as it does, the whole life of
every Jew, was completed and prescribed as an authoritative
code for Israel before the conquest of Canaan, we have an
absolute rule for measuring the whole future history of the
nation, and the whole significance of subsequent revelation
under the Old Testament.
On the one hand, the religious history of Israel can be
nothing else than the history of the nation's obedience or
disobedience to the law. Nothing could be added to the law
and nothing taken from it till the time of fulfilment, when
the type should pass away and be replaced by the living
reality of the manifestation of Christ Jesus. So long as
the old dispensation lasted, the law remained an absolute
standard. The Israelite had no right to draw a distinction
between the spirit and the letter of the law. The sacrifices
and other typical ordinances might not be of the essence of
religion. But obedience to God's word undoubtedly was so,
and that word had in the most emphatic manner enjoined
the sacrifices and other ceremonies, and made the forgiveness
of Israel's sins to depend on them. The priestly atonement
was a necessary part of God's covenant. . " The priest shall
make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven." To
neglect these means of grace is, according to the Pentateuch,
nothing less than the sin committed with a high hand, for
which there is no forgiveness.
Again, on the other hand, the position that the whole
legal system was revealed to Israel at the very beginning of
its national existence strictly limits our conception of the
function and significance of subsequent revelation. The
prophets had no power to abrogate any part of the law, to
dispense with Mosaic ordinances, or institute new means of
grace, other methods of approach to God in lieu of the
hierarchical sacraments. For the Old Testament way of
232 TRADITIONAL THEORY lect. vni
atonement is set forth in the Pentateuch as adequate and
efficient. According to Christian theology, its efficiency as a
typical system was conditional on the future bringing in of a
perfect atonement in Christ. But for that very reason it
was not to be tampered with until Christ came. The pro-
phets, like the law itself, could only point to a future atone-
ment ; they were not themselves saviours, and could do
nothing to diminish the need for the temporary provisions of
the hierarchical system ; and, as a matter of fact, the prophets
did not abolish the Pentateuch or any part of the Levitical
system. Nay, it is just as their work closes that we find the
Pentateuchal code solemnly advanced, in the reformation of
Ezra, to a position of public authority which it had never
held before.
Hence the traditional view of the Pentateuch necessarily
regards the prophets as ministers and exponents of the law.
Their business was to enforce the observance of the law on
Israel and to recall the people from backsliding to a strict
conformity with its precepts. According to the Jewish view,
this makes their work less necessary and eternal than the
law. Christian theologians avoid this inference, but they do
so by laying stress on the fact that the reference to a future
and perfect atonement, which lay implicitly in the typical
ordinances of the ceremonial law, was unfolded by the pro-
phets in the clear language of evangelical prediction. We
have been taught to view the prophets as exponents of the
spiritual elements of the law, who showed the people that its
precepts were not mere forms but veiled declarations of the
spiritual truths of a future dispensation which was the true
substance of the shadows of the old ritual. This theory of
the work of the prophets is much more profound than that
of the Eabbins. But it implies, as necessarily as the Jewish
view, that the prophets were constantly intent on enforcing
the observance of the ceremonial as well as the moral pre-
lect. vin OF THE WORK OF THE PROPHETS 233
cepts of the Pentateuch. Neglect of the ritual law was all
the more culpable when the spiritual meaning of its precepts
was made plain.
I think that it will be admitted that in this sketch I have
correctly indicated the theory of the Old Testament dispensa-
tion which orthodox theologians derive from the traditional
view as to the date of the Pentateuch. I ask you to observe
that it is essentially the Piabbinical view supplemented by a
theory of typology ; but I also ask you to observe that it is
perfectly logical and consistent in all its parts. It is, so far
as one can see, the only theory which can be built on the
premisses. It has only one fault. The standard which it
applies to the history of Israel is not that of the contem-
porary historical records, and the account which it gives of
the work of the prophets is not consistent with the writings
of the prophets themselves.
This may seem a strong statement, but it is not lightly
made, and it expresses no mere personal opinion, but the
growing conviction of an overwhelming weight of the most
earnest and sober scholarship. The discrepancy between the
traditional view of the Pentateuch and the plain statements
of the historical books and the Prophets is so marked and so
fundamental that it can be made clear to every reader of
Scripture. It is this fact which compels us, in the interests
of practical theology — nay, even in the interests of Christian
apologetic — to go into questions of Pentateuch criticism. For
if the received view which assigns the whole Pentateuch
to Moses is inconsistent with the concordant testimony of
the Earlier and Later Prophets, we are brought into this
dilemma : — Either the Old Testament is not the record of a
self-consistent scheme of revelation, of one great and con-
tinuous work of a revealing and redeeming God, or else the
current view of the origin of the Pentateuch must be given
up. Here it is that criticism comes in to solve a problem
234 THE LAW AND THE lect. viii
which in its origin is not merely critical, but springs of neces-
sity from the very attempt to understand the Old Testament
dispensation as a whole. For the contradiction which cannot
be resolved on traditional assumptions is at once removed
when the critic points out within the Pentateuch itself clear
marks that the whole law was not written at one time, and that
the several documents of which it is composed represent suc-
cessive developments of the fundamental principles laid down
by Moses, successive redactions of the sacred law of Israel
corresponding to the very same stages in the progress of
revelation which are clearly marked in the history and the
prophetic literature. Thus the apparent discordance between
the several parts of the Old Testament record is removed, and
we are able to see a consistent divine purpose ruling the
whole dispensation of the Old Covenant, and harmoniously
displayed in every part of the sacred record. To develop this
argument in its essential features, fitting the several parts of
the record into their proper setting in the history of revela-
tion, is the object which I propose for our discussion of the
Law and the Prophets. Of the critical or constructive part
of the argument I can give only the main outlines, for many
details in the analysis of the Pentateuch turn on nice ques-
tions of Hebrew scholarship. But the results are broad and
intelligible, and possess that evidence of historical consistency
on which the results of special scholarship are habitually
accepted by the mass of intelligent men in other branches of
historical inquiry.
Such, then, is the plan of our investigation ; and, first of
all, let us compare the evidence of the Bible history with the
traditional theory already sketched. In working out this
part of the subject I shall confine your attention in the first
instance to the books earlier than the time of Ezra, and in
particular to the histories in the Earlier Prophets, from
Judges to Second Kings. I exclude the Book of Joshua
lect. vin HISTORICAL BOOKS 235
because it in all its parts hangs closely together with the
Pentateuch. The difficulties which it presents are identical
with those of the Books of Moses, and can only be explained
in connection with the critical analysis of the law. And, on
the other hand, I exclude the narrative of Chronicles for
reasons which have been sufficiently explained at the close
of Lecture V. The tendency of the Chronicler to assume
that the institutions of his own age existed under the old
kingdom makes his narrative useless for the purpose now in
hand, where we are expressly concerned with the differences
between ancient and modern usage. Let me observe, how-
ever, that the proposal to test the traditional theory of the
Pentateuch by the old historical books is one which no fair
controversialist can refuse, even if he has not made up his
mind as to the value of the testimony of the Chrorj icier ; for,
in all historical questions, the ultimate appeal is to contem-
porary sources, or to those sources which approach most
nearly to the character of contemporary witnesses.
Every reader of the Old Testament history is familiar
with the fact that from the days of the Judges down to
the Exile the law was never strictly en forced in Israel. The
history is a record of constant rebellion and shortcomings,
and the attempts at reformation made from time to time
were comparatively few and never thoroughly carried out.
The deflections of the nation from the standard of the
Pentateuch come out most clearly in the sphere of wor-
ship. In the time of the Judges the religious condition
of the nation was admittedly one of anarchy. The leaders
of the nation, divinely -appointed deliverers like Gideon
and Jephthah, who were zealous in Jehovah's cause, were
as far from the Pentateuchal standard of righteousness as
the mass of the people. Gideon erects a sanctuary at
Ophrah, with a golden ephod — apparently a kind of image
— which became a great centre of illegal worship (Jud.
236 THE LAW AND THE lect. vm
viii. 24 sqq.) ; Jephthah offers his own daughter to Jehovah ;
the Lord departs from Samson, not when he marries a
daughter of the uncircuincised, but when his Nazarite locks
are shorn.
The revival under Samuel, Saul, and David was marked
by great zeal for Jehovah, but brought no reform in matters
of glaring departure from the law. Samuel sacrifices on
many high places, Saul builds altars, David and his son
Solomon permit the worship at the high places to con-
tinue, and the historian recognises this as legitimate
because the Temple was not yet built (1 Kings iii. 2-4).
In Northern Israel this state of things was never changed.
The high places were an established feature in the king-
dom of Ephraim, and Elijah himself declares that the
destruction of the altars of Jehovah — all illegitimate ac-
cording to the Pentateuch — is a breach of Jehovah's covenant
(1 Kings xix. 10). In the Southern Kingdom it was not
otherwise. It is recorded of the best kings before Hezekiah
that the high places were not removed by them ; and in
the eighth century B.C. the prophets describe the worship
of Ephraim and Judah in terms practically identical. Even
the reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah were imperfectly carried
through ; and important points of ritual, such as the due
observance of the Feast of Tabernacles, were still neglected
(Neh. viii. 17). These facts are not disputed. The question
is how we are to interpret them.
The prophets and the historical books agree in represent-
ing the history of Israel as a long record of disobedience to
Jehovah, of which captivity was the just punishment. But
the precise nature of Israel's sin is often misunderstood. We
are accustomed to speak of it as idolatry, as the worship of
false gods in place of Jehovah ; and in a certain sense this
corresponds with the language of the sacred books. In the
judgment of the prophets of the eighth century the mass of
lect.viji HISTORICAL BOOKS 237
the Israelites, not merely in the Northern Kingdom but
equally in Judah, had rebelled against Jehovah, and did
not pay Him worship in any true sense. But that was
far from being the opinion of the false worshippers them-
selves. They were not in conscious rebellion against Jehovah
and His covenant. On the contrary, their religion was based
on two principles, one of which is the fundamental principle
of Old Testament revelation, while the second is the principle
that underlies the whole system of ritual ordinance in the
Pentateuch. The first principle in the popular religion of
Israel, acknowledged by the false worshippers as well as by
the prophets, was that Jehovah is Israel's God, and that
Israel is the people of Jehovah in a distinctive sense. And
with this went a second principle, that Israel is bound to do
homage to its God in sacrifice, and to serve Him diligently
and assiduously according to an established ritual.
Let me explain this point more fully. There is no doubt
that the worship of heathen deities, such as the Tyrian Baal
or the Sidonian Astarte, and the local gods and goddesses of
lesser Canaanite sanctuaries, was not unknown in ancient
Israel. Solomon and Ahab even went so far as to erect
temples to foreign gods (1 Kings xi. 4 sqq. compared with
2 Kings xxiii 13 ; 1 Kings xvi. 32) out of complaisance
to their foreign wives; and though these shrines seem to
have been primarily designed for the convenience of the
heathen princesses and their countrymen resident in the
land of Israel, they were not exclusively frequented by
foreigners. But as a rule, an Israelite who bowed the knee
to a strange god did not suppose that in so doing he was
renouncing his allegiance to Jehovah as his national God
and the chief object of his homage. Even Ahab, of whose
Baal-worship we hear so much, never proposed to give up
the God of Israel for the god of Tyre. The state religion
was still Jehovah-worship, and it was Jehovah's prophets
238 ISRAELS WORSHIP lect. vni
that were consulted in affairs of state (1 Kings xxii.). More-
over, the foreign worship introduced by Ahab had only a
temporary vogue. The mass of the people soon came to
regard it, with the prophets Elijah and Elisha, as an
apostasy from Jehovah, who would tolerate no rival within
his land ; and in Jehu's revolution the alien temple was
destroyed and its worshippers ruthlessly put to death.
Most certainly, then, the national disobedience with which
the prophets charge their countrymen was not denial that
Jehovah is Israel's God, with a paramount claim to the
service and worship of the nation. On the contrary, the
prophets represent their contemporaries as full of zeal for
Jehovah, and confident that they have secured His help
by their great assiduity in His service (Amos iv. 4 sq., v.
18 sq. ; Hosea vi. ; Isa. i. 11 sq. ; Micah iii. 11 ; Jer. vii.).
To obtain a precise conception of what this means, we
must look more closely at the notion of worship under
the Old Testament dispensation. To us worship is a
spiritual thing. We lift up our hearts and voices to God
in the closet, the family, or the church, persuaded that
God, who is spirit, will receive in every place the worship
of spirit and truth. But this is strictly a New Testament
conception, announced as a new thing by Jesus to the
Samaritan woman, who raised a question as to the dis-
puted prerogative of Zion or Gerizim as the place of
acceptable worship. Under the New Covenant neither
Zion nor Gerizim is the mount of God. Under the Old
Testament it was otherwise. Access to God — even to
the spiritual God — was limited by local conditions. There
is no worship without access to the deity before whom
the worshipper draws nigh to express his homage. We
can draw near to God in every act of prayer in the
heavenly sanctuary, through the new and living way which
Jesus has consecrated in His blood. But the Old Testament
lect. viii UNDER THE KINGS 239
worshipper sought access to God in an earthly sanctuary
which was for him, as it were, the meeting-place of heaven
and earth. Such holy points of contact with the divine
presence were locally fixed, and their mark was the altar,
where the worshipper presented his homage, not in purely
spiritual utterance, but in the material form of an altar
gift. The promise of blessing, or, as we should now call
it, of answer to prayer, is in the Old Testament strictly
attached to the local sanctuary. "In every place where I
set the memorial of my name, I will come unto thee and
bless thee" (Exod. xx. 24). Every visible act of worship
is subjected to this condition. In the mouth of Saul,
"to make supplication to Jehovah" is a synonym for
doing sacrifice (1 Sam. xiii. 12). To David, banishment
from the land of Israel and its sanctuaries is a command
to serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19 ; compare Deut.
xxviii 36, 64). And the worship of the sanctuary impera-
tively demands the tokens of material homage, the gift
without which no Oriental would approach even an earthly
court. "None shall appear before me empty" (Exod.
xxiii. 15). Prayer without approach to the sanctuary is
not recognised as part of the " service of Jehovah " ; and
for him who is at a distance from the holy place, a vow,
such as Absalom made at Geshur in Syria (2 Sam. xv. 8),
is the natural surrogate for the interrupted service of the
altar. The essence of a vow is a promise to do sacrifice
or other offering at the sanctuary (Deut. xii. 6 ; Lev. xxvii. ;
1 Sam. i. 21 ; compare Gen. xxviii. 20 sq.).
This conception of the nature of divine worship is the
basis alike of the Pentateuchal law and of the popular
religion of Israel described in the historical* books and
condemned by the prophets. The sanctuary of Jehovah,
the altar and the altar gifts, the sacrifices and the solemn
feasts, the tithes and the free-will offerings, were never
240 Israel's worship lect.viu
treated with indifference (Amos iv. 4, viii. 5 ; Hosea viii.
13 ; Isa. i. 11 sq. ; Jer. vii.). On the contrary, the charge
which the prophets constantly hurl against the people is
that they are wholly absorbed in affairs of worship and
ritual service, and think themselves to have secured
Jehovah's favour by the zeal of their external devotion,
without the practice of justice, mercy, and moral obedience.
The condition of religious affairs in Northern Israel is
clearly described by the prophets Amos and Hosea. These
prophets arose under the dynasty of Jehu, the ally of
Elisha and the destroyer of Baal -worship, a dynasty in
which the very names of the kings denote devotion to
the service of Jehovah. Jehovah was worshipped in many
sanctuaries and in forms full of irregularity from the
standpoint of the Pentateuch. There were images of
Jehovah under the form of a calf or steer in Bethel and
Dan, and probably elsewhere. The order of the local
sanctuaries, and the religious feasts celebrated at them,
had much in common with the idolatry of the Canaanites.
Indeed many of the high places were old Canaanite
sanctuaries. Nevertheless these sanctuaries and their wor-
ship were viewed as the fixed and normal provision for
the maintenance of living relations between Israel and
Jehovah. Hosea predicts a time of judgment when this
service shall be suppressed. "The children of Israel shall
sit many days without sacrifice and without maggeba,
without ephod and teraphim." This language expresses
the entire destruction of the religious order of the nation,
a period of isolation from all access to Jehovah, like the
isolation of a faithful spouse whom her husband keeps shut
up, not admitting her to the privileges of marriage (Hos. iii.).1
1 The English version of Hosea iii. does not clearly express the prophet's
thought. Hosea's wife had deserted him for a stranger. But though she is
thus "in love with a paramour, and unfaithful," his love follows her, and he
buys her back out of the servile condition into which she appears to have
lect. Via UNDER THE KINGS 241
It appears, then, that sacrifice and magceba, ephod and tera-
phim, were recognised as the necessary forms and instruments
of the worship of Jehovah. They were all old traditional
forms, not the invention of modern will - worship. The
macgeba, or consecrated stone, so often named in the Old
Testament where our version unfortunately renders " image,"
is as old as the time of Jacob, who set up and consecrated
the memorial stone that marked Bethel as a sanctuary. It
was the necessary mark of every high place, Canaanite as
well as Hebrew, and is condemned in the Pentateuchal laws
against the high places along with the associated symbol of
the sacred tree or pole (ashera, E. V. grove), which was also
a feature in the patriarchal sanctuaries. (The oak of Moreh,
Gen. xii. 6, 7 ; the tamarisk of Beersheba, Gen. xxi. 33 ; Gen.
xxxi. 45, 54; Gen. xxxiii. 20, with xxxv. 4; Jos. xxiv. 26;
Hos. iv. 13.) The ephod is also ancient. It must have been
something very different from the ephod of the high priest,
but is to be compared with the ephods of Gideon and Micah
(Judges viii. 27, xvii. 5), and with that in the sanctuary of
Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 9). Finally, teraphim are a means of
divination (Ezek. xxi. 21 ; Zech. x. 2) as old as the time of
Jacob, and were found in Micah's sanctuary and David's
house (1 Sam. xix. 13 ; E. V. image).1
It appears, then, that the national worship of Jehovah,
under the dynasty of Jehu, was conducted under traditional
fallen. She is brought back from shame and servitude, but not to the
privileges of a wife. She must sit alone by her husband, reserved for him,
but not yet restored to the relations of wedlock. So Jehovah will deal with
Israel, when by destroying the state and the ordinances of worship He breaks
off all intercourse, not only between Israel and the Baalim, but between
Israel and Himself.
1 On the ephod, see Vatke, Bill. Theologie (1835), p. 267 sq. ; Studer on
Judges viii. 27. The passages where teraphim are mentioned in the Hebrew
but not in the English version are, Gen. xxxi. 19, 34, 35 ; 1 Sam. xv. 23,
xix. 13, 16 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 24 ; Zech. x. 2. Compare, as to their nature,
Spencer, De Legibus Ritualibus Hebrceorum, Lib. iii. c. 3, § 2 sq. On the
macceba and ashera see my Religion of the Semites, vol. i. (1889), Lect. 5.
16
242 HEBREW WORSHIP lect. viii
forms which had a fixed character and general recognition.
These forms were ancient. There is no reason to think that
the worship of the northern shrines had undergone serious
modifications since the days of the Judges. The sanctuaries
themselves were of ancient and, in great part, of patriarchal
consecration. Beersheba, Gilgal, Bethel, Shechem, Mizpah,
were places of the most venerable sanctity, acknowledged by
Samuel and earlier worthies. Of the sanctuary at Dan we
know the whole origin and history. It was founded by the
Danites who carried off Micah's Levite and holy things ; and
the family of the Levite, who was himself a grandson of
Moses, continued in office through the age of David and
Samuel down to the Captivity (Jud. xviii. 30). It was a
sanctuary of purely Israelite origin, originally instituted by
Micah for the service of Jehovah, and equipped with every
regard to the provision of an acceptable service. " Now I
know," said Micah, " that Jehovah will do me good, since I
have got the Levite as my priest." This trait indicates an
interest in correct ritual which never died out. In truth,
ritual is never deemed unimportant in a religion so little
spiritual as that of the mass of Israel. All worships that
contain heathenish elements are traditional, and nothing is
more foreign to them than the arbitrary introduction of forms
for which there is no precedent of usage.
That this traditional service and ritual was not Levitically
correct needs no proof. Let us rather consider the features
which mark it as unspiritual and led the prophets to condemn
it as displeasing to God.
In the first place, we observe that though Jehovah was
worshipped with assiduity, and worshipped as the national
God of Israel, there was no clear conception of the funda-
mental difference between Him and the gods of the nations.
This appears particularly in the current use of images, like
the golden calves, which were supposed to be representations
lect. viii UNDER THE KINGS 243
or symbols of Jehovah. But, indeed, the whole service is
represented by the prophets as gross, sensual, and unworthy
of a spiritual deity (Amos ii. 7, 8 ; Hosea iv. 13, 14). We
know that many features in the worship of the high places
were practically identical with the abominations of the
Canaanites, and gave no expression to the difference between
Jehovah and the false gods. Thus it came about that the
Israelites fell into what is called syncretism in religion.
They were unable sharply to distinguish between the local
worship of Jehovah and the worship of the Canaanite
Baalim. The god of the local sanctuary was adored as
Jehovah, but a local Jehovah was practically a local Baal.
This confusion of thought may be best illustrated from the
Madonna - worship of Boman Catholic shrines. Every
Madonna is a representation of the one Virgin ; but practi-
cally each Virgin has its own merits and its own devotees,
so that the service of these shrines is almost indistinguishable
from polytheism, of which, indeed, it is often an historical
continuation. In Phoenicia one still sees grottoes of the
Virgin Mary which are old shrines of Astarte, bearing
the symbols of the ancient worship of Canaan. So it was
in those days. The worship of the one Jehovah, who was
Himself addressed in old times by the title of Baal or Lord
{supra, p. 68), practically fell into a worship of a multitude
of local Baalim, so that a prophet like Hosea can say that
the Israelites, though still imagining themselves to be serving
the national God, and acknowledging His benefits, have really
turned from Him to deities that are no gods.
In this way another fault came in. The people, whose
worship of Jehovah was hardly to be distinguished from a
gross polytheism, could not be fundamentally averse to
worship other gods side by side with the national deity.
Thus the service of Astarte, Tammuz, or other deities
that could not even in popular conception be identified with
244 HEBREW WORSHIP lect. viii
Jehovah, obtained a certain currency, at least in sections of
the nation. This worship was always secondary, and was
put down from time to time in movements of reformation
which left the high places of Jehovah untouched (1 Sam.
vii. 3 ; 1 Kings xv. 12 sq. ; 2 Kings x. 28, 29, xi. 18).
This sketch of the popular religion of Israel is mainly
drawn from the Northern Kingdom. But it is clear from the
facts enumerated that it was not a mere innovation due to
the schism of Jeroboam. Jeroboam, no doubt, lent a certain
eclat to the service of the royal sanctuaries, and the golden
calves gave a very different conception of Jehovah from that
which was symbolised by the ark on Zion. But the elements
of the whole worship were traditional, and were already
current in the age of the Judges. Gideon's golden ephod
and the graven image at Dan prove that even image-worship
was no innovation of Jeroboam. And it is certain that the
worship of the Judsean sanctuaries was not essentially differ-
ent from that of the northern shrines. The high places
flourished undisturbed from generation to generation. The
land was full of idols (Isa. ii.). Jerusalem appears to Micah
as the centre of a corrupt Judsean worship, which he parallels
with the corrupt worship of Samaria (Micah i. 5, iii. 12, v. 11
sq., vi. 16).
Where, then, did this traditional worship, so largely diffused
through the mass of Israel, have its origin, and what is its
historical relation to the laws of the Pentateuch ? No doubt
many of its corrupt features may be explained by the in-
fluence of the Canaanites ; and from the absolute standard of
spiritual religion applied by the prophets it might even be
said that Israel had forsaken Jehovah for the Baalim. But
from the standpoint of the worshippers it was not so. They
still believed themselves loyal to Jehovah. Their great
sanctuaries were patriarchal holy places like Bethel and
Beersheba, or purely Hebrew foundations like Dan. With
lect. vni UNDER THE KINGS 245
all its corruptions, their worship had a specifically national
character. Jehovah never was a Canaanite God, and the
roots of the popular religion, as we have already seen, were
that acknowledgment of Jehovah as Israel's God, and of the
duty of national service to Him, which is equally the basis
of Mosaic orthodoxy.1 These are principles which lie behind
the first beginnings of Canaanite influence. But in the
Pentateuch these principles are embodied in a ritual alto-
gether diverse in system and theory, as well as in detail,
from the traditional ritual of the high places. The latter
service is not merely a corrupt copy of the Mosaic system,
with elements borrowed from the Canaanites. In the Levi-
tical ritual the essentials of Jehovah-worship are put in a
form which made no accommodation to heathenism possible,
which left no middle ground between the pure worship of
Jehovah, as maintained by the Aaronic priesthood in the one
sanctuary, and a deliberate rejection of Israel's God for the
idols of the heathen.
To understand this point we must observe that according
to the Levitical system God is absolutely inaccessible to man,
except in the priestly ritual of the central sanctuary. Con-
troversial writers on the law of the one sanctuary have often
been led to overlook this point by confining their attention
to the law of the sanctuary in Deuteronomy, which speaks of
1 After the conclusive remarks of Kuenen (Godsdienst, i. 398 sq.) it is un-
necessary to spend words on the theory, which still crops up from time to
time, that the Hebrews borrowed the worship of Jehovah (or Iahwe, as the
name should rather be pronounced) from the Canaanites. Further, the judg-
ment pronounced by Baudissin in 1876 (Stiidien, vol. i. No. 3), and confirmed
by Kuenen in 1882 (Hibbert Lectures, p. 311), still holds its ground ; there
is no valid evidence that a god bearing the name of Iahwe (or some equivalent
form such as Iahu) was known to any other Semitic people. See further on
this point and on other questions connected with the name a paper by
Professor Driver in Studia Biblica, i. (Oxford, 1885). The statement of
Professor Sayce, Fresh Light (1890), p. 63, that the form Iahwe or Yahveh,
as it is often written, is incompatible with the form Yahu (-iahu, riah) which
appears in proper names [e.g. Hiskiyahu, the Hezekiah of our Bibles], is due
to haste or to ignorance.
246 THE LEVIT1CAL
LECT. VIII
the choice of one place in Canaan where Jehovah will set
His name as a practical safeguard against participation in
the worship of Canaanite high places. But if the whole
Pentateuch is one Mosaic system, the law of Deuteronomy
must be viewed in the light of the legislation of the Middle
Books. Here the theory of the one sanctuary is worked out
on a basis independent of the question of heathen shrines.
According to the Old Testament, worship is a tryst between
man and God in the sanctuary, and the question of the
legitimate sanctuary is the question of the place where
Jehovah has promised to hold tryst with His people, and
the conditions which He lays down for this meeting. The
fundamental promise of the Levitical legislation is Exod.
xxix. 42 sq. The place of tryst is the Tent of Tryst or
Meeting, incorrectly rendered in the Authorised Version,
"The tabernacle of the congregation." "There will I hold
tryst with the children of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by
my glory. And I will sanctify the tent of meeting and the
altar, and I will sanctify Aaron and his sons to do priestly
service to me. And I will dwell in the midst of the children
of Israel, and will be their God." The tent of meeting is
God's mishkan, His dwelling-place, which He sets in the
midst of Israel (Lev. xxvi. 11). The first condition of divine
blessing in Lev. xxvi. is reverence for the Sabbath and the
sanctuary, and the total rejection of idols and of the maggeba
which was the mark of the high places. There is no local
point of contact between heaven and earth, no place where
man can find a present God to receive his worship, save this
one tent of meeting, where the ark with the Cherubim is the
abiding symbol that God is in the midst of Israel, and the
altar stands at the door of the tabernacle as the legitimate
place of Israel's gifts. This sanctuary with its altar is the
centre of Israel's holiness. It is so holy that it is hedged
round by a double cordon of sacred ministers. For the
LECT. VIII
SANCTUARY 247
presence of Jehovah is a terrible thing, destructive to sinful
man. The Old Testament symbol of Jehovah's manifestation
to His people is the lightning flash from behind the thunder
cloud, fire involved in smoke, an awful and devouring bright-
ness consuming all that is not holy. Therefore the dreadful
spot where His holiness dwells may never be approached
without atoning ritual and strict precautions of ceremonial
sanctity provided for the priests, and for none other. Even
the Levites may not touch either ark or altar, lest both they
and the priests die (Num. xviii. 3). Still less dare the laity
draw near to the tabernacle (Num. xvii. 13 [28]). It is only
the sons of Aaron who, by their special consecration, can bear
with impunity " the guilt of the sanctuary " (xviii. 1) ; and
so every sacred offering of the Israelite, every gift which
expresses the people's homage, must pass through their hand
and pay toll to them (Num. xviii. 8 sq.). Thus the access of
the ordinary Israelite to God is very restricted. He can only
stand afar off while the priest approaches Jehovah as his
mediator, and brings back a word of blessing. And even
this mediate access to God is confined to his visits to the
central sanctuary. The stated intercourse of God with His
people is not the concern of the whole people, but of the
priests, who are constantly before God, offering up on behalf
of the nation the unbroken service of the continual daily
oblations. This is a great limitation of the freedom of
worship. But it is no arbitrary restriction. On the Levi-
tical theory, the imperfection of the ordinary holiness of
Israel leaves no alternative open. For the holiness of God
is fatal to him who dares to come near His dwelling-place.
On this theory the ritual of the sanctuary is no artificial
system devised to glorify one holy place above others, but the
necessary scheme of precaution for every local approach to
God. Other sanctuaries are not simply less holy, places of
less solemn trvst with Jehovah ; they are places where His
248 ALL SLAUGHTER
LECT. VIII
holiness is not revealed, and therefore are not, and cannot be,
sanctuaries of Jehovah at all. If Jehovah were to meet with
man in a second sanctuary, the same consequences of in-
violable holiness would assert themselves, and the new holy
place would again require to be fenced in with equal ritual
precautions. In the very nature of the covenant, there is
but one altar and one priesthood through which the God of
Israel can be approached.
The popular religion of Israel, with its many sanctuaries,
proceeds on a theory diametrically opposite. Opportunity
of access to Jehovah is near to every Israelite, and every
occasion of life that calls on the individual, the clan, or the
village, to look Godwards is a summons to the altar. In the
family every feast was an eucharistic sacrifice. In affairs of
public life it was not otherwise. The very phrases in Hebrew
for " making a covenant " or " inaugurating war " point to the
sacrificial observances that accompanied such acts. The
earlier history relates scarcely one event of importance that
was not transacted at a holy place. The local sanctuaries
were the centres of all Hebrew life. How little of the
history would remain if Shechem and Bethel, the two
Mizpahs and Ophra, Gilgal, Kamah, and Gibeon, Hebron,
Bethlehem, and Beersheba, Kedesh and Mahanaim, Tabor and
Carmel, were blotted out of the pages of the Old Testament.1
1 In some of these cases, evidence that the place was a sanctuary may be
demanded. Kedesh is proved to be so by its very name, with which it
agrees that it was a Levitical city and a consecrated asylum. Accordingly it
formed the rendezvous of Zebulon and Naphtali under Barak and Deborah.
Mahanaim was the place of a theophany, from which it had its name. It
was also a Levitical city, and Cant. vi. 13 alludes to the "dance of
Mahanaim," which was probably such a festal dance as took place at Shiloh
(Jud. xxi. 21). As a holy place the town was the seat of Ishbosheth's king-
dom, and the headquarters of David's host during the revolt of Absalom.
Tabor, on the frontiers of Zebulon and Issachar, seems to be the mountain
alluded to in Deut. xxxiii. 18, 19, as the sanctuary of these tribes, and it
appears along with Mizpah, as a seat of degenerate priests, in Hos. v. 1. The
northern Mizpah is identical with Ramoth Gilead and with the sanctuary of
Jacob (Gen. xxxi. 45 sq.).
lect. vin IS SACRIFICE 249
This different and freer conception of the means of access
to God, the desire which it embodies to realise Jehovah's
presence in acts of worship, not at rare intervals only but in
every concern of life, cannot be viewed as a mere heathenish
corruption of the Levitical system. This fact comes out most
clearly in the point which brings out the contrast of the two
systems in its completest form.
In the traditional popular Jehovah- worship, to slay an ox
or a sheep for food was a sacrificial act, and the flesh of the
victim was not lawful food unless the blood or life had been
poured out before Jehovah. The currency of this view is
presupposed in the Pentateuchal legislation. Thus in Lev.
xvii. it appears as a perpetual statute that no domestic animal
can be lawfully slain for food, unless it be presented as a
peace-offering before the central sanctuary, and its blood
sprinkled on the altar. One has no right to slay an animal
on other conditions. The life, which lies in the blood, comes
from God and belongs to Him. The man who does not
recognise this fact, but eats the flesh with the blood, " hath
shed blood, and shall be cut off from his people" (ver. 4;
comp. Gen. ix. 4). In Deuteronomy this principle is pre-
supposed, but relaxed by a formal statute. Those who do not
live beside the sanctuary may eat flesh without a sacrificial
act, if they simply pour out the blood upon the ground (Deut
xii. 20 sq.). The old rule, it would seem, might still hold
good for every animal slain within reach of the holy place.
Now, under the conditions of Eastern life, beef and mutton
are not everyday food. In Canaan, as among the Arabs at
this day, milk is the usual diet (Prov. xxvii. 26, 27 ; Jud. iv.
19). The slaughter of a victim for food marks a festal occa-
sion, and the old Hebrew principle modified in Deuteronomy
means that all feasts are religious, that sacred occasions and
occasions of natural joy and festivity are identical.1 Under
1 Except at a feast, or to entertain a guest, or in sacrifice before a local
250 EVERY FEAST lect. vm
the full Levitical system this principle was obsolete, or at
least could assert itself only in the vicinity of the sanctuary,
and in connection with the three great festive gatherings at
Passover, Pentecost, and the Peast of Tabernacles. But in
the actual history of the nation the principle was not yet
obsolete. Thus in 1 Sam. xiv., when the people, in their fierce
hunger after the battle of Michmash, fly on the spoil and,
slaying beasts on the ground, eat them with the blood — i.e. as
we see from Lev. xvii., without offering the blood to Jehovah
— Saul rebukes their transgression, erects a rude altar in the
form of a great stone, and orders the people to kill their
victims there. A feast and a sacrifice are still identical in
the Book of Proverbs, which speaks the ordinary language of
the people. Compare Pro v. xv. 17 with xvii. 1, and note the
inducement offered to the foolish young man in chap. vii. 14.
In Hosea ii. 11 all mirth is represented as connected with
religious ceremonies. But the most conclusive passage is
Hosea ix. 3 sq., where the prophet predicts that in the Exile
all the food of the people shall be unclean, because sacrifice
cannot be performed beyond the land of Israel. They shall
eat, as it were, the unclean bread of mourners, " because their
necessary food shall not be presented in the house of Jehovah."
In other words, all animal food not presented at the altar is
unclean ; the whole life of the people becomes unclean when
they leave the land of Jehovah to dwell in an " unclean land "
(Amos vii. 17). We see from this usage how closely the
practice of sacrifice in every corner of the land was inter-
shrine, the Bedouin tastes no meat but the flesh of the gazelle or other game.
This throws light on Deut. xii. 16, 22, which shows that in old Israel game
was the only meat not eaten sacrificially. That flesh was not eaten every
day even by wealthy people appears very clearly from Nathan's parable and
from the Book of Ruth. The wealthy man, like the Arab sheikh, ate the
same fare as his workmen. According to MI Nodes (Calcutta edition, ii.
276), eating flesh is one of the three elements of high enjoyment.
The rule that all legitimate slaughter is sacrificial is not confined to old
Israel. Distinct traces of the same view survived in Arabia down to the time
of Mohammed ; see Wellhausen, Arab. Heidcnthum, p. 114.
LECT. VIII
A SACRIFICE 251
woven with the whole life of the nation, and how absolute
was the contrast between the traditional conception of sacri-
ficial intercourse between Jehovah and His people and that
which is expressed in the Levitical law. But we see also
that the popular conception is not a new thing superadded to
the Levitical system from a foreign source, but an old tradi-
tional principle of Jehovah- worship prior to the law of
Deuteronomy. When did this principle take root in the
nation ? Not surely in the forty years of wandering, when,
according to the express testimony of Amos v. 25, sacrifices
and offerings were not presented to Jehovah.
But let this pass in the meantime. We are not now
concerned to trace the history of the ordinances of worship
in Israel, but only to establish a clear conception of the
essential difference between the old popular worship and the
finished Levitical system. The very foundation of revealed
religion is the truth that man does not first seek and find
God, but that God in His gracious condescension seeks out
man, and gives him such an approach to Himself as man
could not enjoy without the antecedent act of divine self-
communication. The characteristic mark of each dispensa-
tion of revealed religion lies in the provision which it makes
for the acceptable approach of the worshipper to his God.
Under the Levitical dispensation all approach to God is
limited to the central sanctuary, and passes of necessity
through the channel of the priestly mediation of the sons of
Aaron. The worshipping subject is, strictly speaking, the
nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is
discharged on behalf of the nation by the priests of God's
choice. The religion of the individual rests on this basis. It
is only the maintenance of the representative national service
of the sanctuary which gives to every Israelite the assurance
that he stands under the protection of the national covenant
with Jehovah, and enables him to enjoy a measure of such
252 THE PSALMS AND lect. vm
personal spiritual fellowship with God as can never be lack-
ing in true religion. But the faith with which the Israelite
rested on God's redeeming love had little direct opportunity
to express itself in visible acts of homage. The sanctuary
was seldom accessible, and in daily life the Hebrew believer
could only follow with an inward longing and spiritual
sympathy the national homage which continually ascended
on behalf of himself and all the people of God in the stated
ritual of the Temple. Hence that eager thirst for participa-
tion in the services of the sanctuary which is expressed in
Psalms like the forty-second : " My soul thirsteth for God the
living God ; when shall I come and appear before the face of
God ? " " Send forth thy light and thy truth ; let them guide
me ; let them bring me to thy holy mountain, even unto thy
dwelling-place." This thirst, seldom satiated, which fills the
Psalter with expressions of passionate fervour in describing
the joys of access to God's house, was an inseparable feature
of the Levitical system. After the Exile, the necessity for
more frequent acts of overt religion was partly supplied by
the synagogues ; but these, in so far as they provided a sort
of worship without sacrifice, were already an indication that
the dispensation was inadequate and must pass away. All
these experiences are in the strongest contrast to the popular
religious life before the Captivity. Then the people found
Jehovah, and rejoiced before Him, in every corner of the
land, and on every occasion of life.
This contrast within the Old Testament dispensation pre-
sents no difficulty if we can affirm that the popular religion was
altogether false, that it gave no true access to Jehovah, and
must be set on one side in describing the genuine religious
life of Israel. But it is a very different thing if we find that
the true believers of ancient Israel — prophets like Samuel,
righteous men like David — placed themselves on the stand-
point of the local sanctuaries, and framed their own lives on
LECT. VIII
THE SANCTUARY 253
the assumption that God is indeed to be found in service
non-Levitical. If the whole Pentateuchal system is really as
old as Moses, the popular worship has none of the marks of a
religion of revelation ; it sought access to God in services to
which He had attached no promise. And yet we shall find,
in the next Lecture, that for long centuries after Moses, all
the true religion of Israel moved in forms which departed
from the first axioms of Levitical service, and rested on the
belief that Jehovah may be acceptably worshipped under the
popular system, if only the corruptions of that system are
guarded asrainst. It was not on the basis of the Pentateuchal
theory of worship that God's grace ruled in Israel during the
age of the Judges and the Kings, and it was not on that basis
that the prophets taught.
LECTUEE IX
THE LAW AND THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL BEFORE
THE EXILE
In the last Lecture I tried to exhibit to you the outlines of
the popular worship of the mass of Israel in the period before
the Captivity, as sketched in the Books of Kings and in the
contemporary prophets. In drawing this sketch I directed
your attention particularly to two points. On the one hand,
the popular religion has a basis in common with the Penta-
teuchal system : both alike acknowledge Jehovah as the God
of Israel, who brought His people out of the land of Egypt ;
both recognise that Israel's homage and worship are due to
Jehovah, and that the felicity of the people in the land of
Canaan is dependent on His favour. But along with this we
found that between the popular worship and the system
of the Pentateuch there is a remarkable contrast. In the
Levitical system access to God is only to be attained through
the mediation of the Aaronic priests at the central sanctuary.
The whole worship of Israel is narrowed to the sanctuary of
the ark, and there the priests of God's consecration conduct
that representative service which is in some sense the worship
of the whole people. The ordinary Israelite meets with God
in the sanctuary only on special occasions, and during the
great part of his life must be content to stand afar off, follow-
ing with distant sympathy that continual service which is
lect. ix RECAPITULATION 255
going on for him at Jerusalem in the hands of the Temple
priests. In the popular religion, on the contrary, the need of
constant access to God is present to every Israelite. Oppor-
tunities of worship exist in every corner of the land ; and
every occasion of importance, whether for the life of the
individual or for the family, village, or clan, is celebrated by
some sacrificial rite at the local sanctuary. We saw, further,
that, as these two types of religion are separated by a funda-
mental difference, so also it is impossible to suppose that the
popular worship is merely a corruption of the Levitical theory
under the influence of Canaanite idolatry. It is indeed very
natural to suppose that the system of the Law, the distance
that it constitutes between Jehovah and the ordinary worship-
per, was too abstract for the mass of Israel. It may well be
thought that the mass of the people in those days could not
be satisfied with the kind of representative worship conducted
on their behalf in the one sanctuary, and that they felt a
desire to come themselves into immediate contact with the
Deity in personal acts of service embodied in sacrifice. But
if the Levitical theory was the starting-point it is pretty clear
that this would rather lead the unspiritual part of Israel to
worship other gods side by side with Jehovah, local and
inferior deities, just as in the Eoman Catholic Church the
distance between God and the ordinary layman leads the
mass of the people to approach the saints and address them-
selves to them as more accessible helpers. But that is not
what we find in Israel. "We do not find that a sense of the
inaccessibility of Jehovah, as represented in the system of
the Pentateuch, led Israel for the most part to serve other
gods, although that also happened in special circumstances.
They held that Jehovah Himself could be approached and
acceptably worshipped at a multitude of sanctuaries not
acknowledged in the system of the Law, and at which, accord-
ing to that system, God had given no promise whatever to
256 THE REFORMATION lect. ix
meet with His people. It can hardly be questioned that the
idea of meeting with Jehovah at the local sanctuaries and of
doing acceptable service to Him there had survived from a
time previous to the enactment of the law of the middle books
of the Pentateuch. This is confirmed by the fact that the
lineaments of the popular religion as displayed in the historical
books have much that is akin to the worship of the patriarchs,
and in particular that many of the sanctuaries of Israel were
venerated as patriarchal shrines.
Nevertheless, if Moses left the whole Levitical system as
a public code, specially entrusted to the priests and leaders of
the nation, that code must have influenced at least the dite of
Israel. Its provisions must have been kept alive at the central
sanctuary, and, in particular, the revealing God, who does not
contradict Himself, must have based upon the law His further
communications to the people, and His judgment upon their
sins spoken through His prophets. He cannot have stamped
with His approval a popular system entirely ignoring the
fundamental conditions of His intercourse with Israel. And
the history must bear traces of this. God's word does not
return unto Him void without accomplishing that which He
pleaseth, and succeeding in the thing whereto He sends it
(Isa. lv. 11).
Now it is certain that the first sustained and thorough
attempt to put down the popular worship, and establish an
order of religion conformed to the written law, was under
King Josiah. An essay in the same direction had been made
by Hezekiah at the close of the eighth century B.C. (2 Kings
xviii. 4, 22). Of the details of Hezekiah's reformation we
know little. It was followed by a violent and bloody reaction
under his successor Manasseh, and in Josiah's time the whole
work had to be done again from the beginning. Hezekiah
evidently acted in harmony with Isaiah and his fellow-
prophets ; but neither in the history nor in their writings is
LECT. IX
OF JOSIAH 257
anything said of the written law as the rule and standard of
reformation. In the case of Josiah it was otherwise. The
reformation in his eighteenth year (621 B.C.) was based on
the Book of the Law found in the Temple, and was carried
out in pursuance of a solemn covenant to obey the law, made
by the king and the people in the house of Jehovah. This
is an act strictly parallel to the later covenant and reforma-
tion under Ezra. But it did not amount, like Ezra's reforma-
tion, to a complete establishment of the whole ritual system
of the Pentateuch. The Book of Nehemiah expressly says
as much with respect to the Feast of Tabernacles. And the
same fact comes out in regard to the order of the priestly
ministrations at the Temple. For, while Josiah put to death
the priests of the high places of Ephraim, he brought the
priests of the Judsean high places to Jerusalem, where they
were not allowed to minister at the altar, but " ate unleavened
bread in the midst of their brethren" (2 Kings xxiii. 8, 9).
The reference here is to the unleavened bread of the Temple
oblations, which, on the Levitical law, was given to the sons
of Aaron, to be eaten in the court of the sanctuary (Lev. vi.
14-18 ; Num. xviii. 9). It appears, then, that the priests of
the local high places were recognised as brethren of the
Temple priests, and admitted to a share in the sacred dues,
though not to full altar privileges. This was unquestionably
a grave Levitical irregularity, for, though it appears from
Ezek. xliv. 10 sqq. that the priests of the high places were
Levites, it is not for a moment to be supposed that they were
all sons of Aaron (compare Neh. vii. 63 sq.). This point
will come up again along with other indications that the
worship in the Temple at Jerusalem was not established by
Josiah in full conformity with the Levitical system. All
that I ask you to carry with you at present is that Josiah's
reformation, although based upon the Book, and explicitly
taking it as the standard, did not go the whole length of that
17
258
JOSIAHS REFORMATION
LECT. IX
Pentateuclial system which we now possess. In truth, when
we compare the reformation of Josiah, as set forth in Second
Kings, with what is written in the Pentateuch, we observe
that everything that Josiah acted upon is found written in
one or other part of Deuteronomy. So far as the history
goes, there is no proof that his " Book of the Covenant " was
anything more than the law of Deuteronomy, which, in its
very form, appears to have once been a separate volume.1
No one can read 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. without observing
how entirely novel was the order of things which Josiah
introduced. Before the Book of the Law was read to him,
Josiah was interested in holy things, and engaged in the work
of restoring the Temple. But the necessity for a thorough
overturn of the popular sanctuaries came on him as a thing
entirely new. It is plain, too, that he had to consider
established privileges and a certain legitimate status on the
part of the priests of the high places. There was in Judsea a
1 Critics distinguish in Deuteronomy the legislative code (chaps, xii.-
xxvi. ) and the framework, which appears to contain pieces by more than one
hand. As the book now stands the laws are preceded by two introductory
discourses, Deut. i. 1-iv. 43, Deut. v.-xi. To the second of these is prefixed
a title, chap. iv. 44-49, which is evidently meant to cover the code of chaps,
xii.-xxvi., while again the verses xxvi. 16-19 form a sort of subscription or
colophon to the code. In all probability, therefore, the code once stood,
along with the second introduction, in a separate book corresponding to Deut.
iv. 44-xxvi. 19, to which Kuenen would add, as a sort of appendix from the
hand of the original author, xxvii. 9, 10, ch. xxviii. (Onderzoek, i. Ill, 122).
There is no evidence that Josiah had more than this book, and it is by no
means certain that the code, when it fell into his hands, was already pro-
vided with the parenetic introduction and appendices ; see Wellhausen, Com-
position (1889), p. 189 sqq., p. 352. Even the Fathers identify the book
found in the Temple with Deuteronomy. So Jerome, Adv. Jovin. i. 5 ;
Chrysostom, Horn, in Mat. ix. p. 135 B. The relation of Josiah's reformation
to Deuteronomy may be shown thus : —
2 Kings xxiii. 3-6
— — »
Aill. t>"U • •
7 .
UCUL, All, .£.
„ xxiii. 17, 18.
„ 8, 9
„ xviii. 6-8.
„ 10
„ xviii. 10.
„ 11
„ xvii. 3.
„ 14 .
„ xvi. 21, 22.
21
„ xvi. 5.
24
„ xviii. 11.
lect. ix AND DEUTERONOMY 259
class of irregular priests called Chemarim, instituted by royal
authority (A. V. idolatrous priests, 2 Kings xxiii. 5), whom he
simply put down. But the priests of the popular high places
were recognised priests of Jehovah, and, instead of being
punished as apostates, they received support and a certain
status in the Temple (xxiii. 9). We now see the full signi-
ficance of the toleration of the high places by the earlier
kings of Judah. They were not known to be any breach of
the religious constitution of Israel. Even the Temple priests
knew of no ordinance condemning them. The high places
were not interfered with by King Jehoash when his conduct
was entirely directed by the high priest Jehoiada (2 Kings
xii. 2, 3). Yet Jehoiada had every motive for suppressing
the local sanctuaries, which diminished the dues of the cen-
tral altar, and he could hardly have failed to move in this
direction if he had had the law at his back.
These facts do not mean, merely, that the law was dis-
obeyed. They imply that the complete system of the Penta-
teuch was not known in the period of the kings of Judah,
even as the theoretical constitution of Israel. No one, even
among those most interested, shows the least consciousness
that the Temple and its priesthood have an exclusive claim
on all the worship of Israel. And the local worship, which
proceeds on a diametrically opposite theory, is acknowledged
as a part of the established ordinances of the land.
Here, then, the question rises, Was the founding of the
Temple on Zion undertaken as part of an attempt to give
practical foTce~to~tbe Levitical system! Was this, at least,
an effort to displace the traditional religion and establish the
ordinances of the Pentateuch ? The whole life of Solomon
answers this question in the negative. His royal state, of
which the Temple and its service were a part, was never
conformed to the law. He not only did not abolish the local
sanctuaries, but built new shrines, which stood till the time
260 THE FOREIGN GUARDS iect. ix
of Josiah, for the gods of the foreign wives whom, like his
father David (2 Sam. iii. 3), he married against the Penta-
teuchal law (1 Kings xi. ; 2 Kings xxiii. 13). And when the
Book of Deuteronomy describes what a king of Israel must
not be, it reproduces line for line the features of the court
of Solomon (Deut. xvii. 16 sq.). Even the ordinances of
Solomon's Temple were not Levitically correct. The two
brazen pillars which stood at the porch (1 Kings vii. 21)
were not different from the forbidden maggeba, or from the
twin pillars that stood in front of Phoenician and Syrian
sanctuaries ; * and 1 Kings ix. 25 can hardly bear any other
sense than that the king officiated at the altar in person
three times a year. That implies an entire neglect, on his
part, of the strict law of separation between the legitimate
priesthood and laymen ; but the same disregard of the exclu-
sive sanctity of the Temple priesthood, and of that twofold
cordon of Aaronites and Levites which the law demands to
protect the Temple from profanation, reappears in later times,
and indeed was a standing feature in the whole history of
Solomon's Temple. The prophet Ezekiel, writing after the
reforms of King Josiah, and alluding to the way in which the
Temple service was carried on in his own time, complains
that uncircumcised foreigners were appointed as keepers of
Jehovah's charge in His sanctuary (Ezek. xliv. 6 sq.).2 Who
1 Two huge pillars stood in the propylcea of the temple of Hierapolis
(Lucian, De Syria Dea, chap. 16, 28), and in front of the temple at Paphos,
of which we have representations on coins (see Bel. of the Semites, p. 468).
Similarly Strabo (iii. 5. 5) tells us that in the temple of Gades there
were brazen columns eight cubits high. The context shows that here also a
pair of columns is meant.
2 This passage is so important that I give it in a translation, slightly cor-
rected after the versions in verses 7, 8. The corrections are obvious, and
have been made also by Smend (Der Prophet Ezechiel erklart, Leipzig, 1880).
Ezek. xliv. 6. 0 house of Israel ! Have done with all your abomina-
tions, (7) in that ye bring in foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh to
be in my sanctuary, polluting my house, when ye offer ray bread, the fat and
the blood ; and so ye break my covenant in addition to all your abominations,
(8) and keep not the charge of my holy things, but appoint them as keepers
lect. ix IN THE TEMPLE 261
were these foreigners, uncircumcised in flesh and uncireum-
cised in heart, by whom the sanctity of the Temple was
habitually profaned ? The history still provides details which
go far to answer this question.
There was one important body of foreigners in the service
of the kings of Judah from the time of David downwards,
viz. the Philistine bodyguard (2 Sam. xv. 18 ; 2 Kings i. 38).
These foreign soldiers were a sort of janissaries attached to
the person of the sovereign, after the common fashion of
Eastern monarchs, who deem themselves most secure when
surrounded by a band of followers uninfluenced by family
connections with the people of the land. The constitution of
the bodyguard appears to have remained unchanged to the
fall of the Judsean state. The prophet Zephaniah, writing
under King Josiah, still speaks of men connected with the
court, who were clad in foreign garb and leaped over the
threshold. To leap over the threshold of the sanctuary is a
Philistine custom (1 Sam. v. 5) ; and when the prophet adds
that these Philistines of the court fill their master's house
of my charge in my sanctuary. Therefore, (9) thus saith the Lord, No
foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh shall enter my sanctuary — no
foreigner whatever, who is among the children of Israel. (10) But the
Levites, because they departed from me when Israel went astray, when they
went astray from me after their idols, even they shall bear their guilt, (11)
and be ministers in my sanctuary, officers at the gates of the house, and
ministers of the house ; it is they who shall kill the burnt-offering and the
sacrifice for the people, and it is they who shall stand before them to minister
unto them. (12) Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and
were a stumbling-block of guilt to the house of Israel, therefore I swear con-
cerning them, saith the Lord God, that they shall bear their guilt, (13) and
shall not draw near to me to do the office of a priest to me, or to touch any
of my holy things — the most holy things ; but they shall bear their shame
and their abominations which they have done. (14) And I will make them
keepers of the charge of the house for all the service thereof, and for all that
is to be done about it. (15) But the Levite priests, the sons of Zadok, who
kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from
me — they shall come near unto me to minister unto me, and they shall stand
before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God. They
shall enter into my sanctuary and approach my table, ministering unto me,
and keep my charge.
J
262 UNCIRCUMCISED FOREIGNERS lect. ix
with violence and fraud, we recognise the familiar characters
of Oriental janissaries (Zeph. i. 8, 9).
The foreign guards, whom we thus see to have continued
to the days of Zephaniah, had duties in the Temple identical
with those of Ezekiel's uncircumcised foreigners. For the
guard accompanied the king when he visited the sanctuary
(1 Kings xiv. 28), and the Temple gate leading to the palace
was called "the gate of the foot-guards" (2 Kings xi. 19).
Nay, so intimate was the connection between the Temple and
the palace that the royal bodyguard were also the Temple
guards, going in and out in courses every week (2 Kings xi.
4 sqq.). It was the centurions of the guard who aided Jehoiada
in setting King Jehoash on the throne ; and 2 Kings xi. 11,
14, pictures the coronation of the young king while he stood
by a pillar, " according to custom," surrounded by the foreign
bodyguard, who formed a circle about the altar and the front
of the shrine, in the holiest part of the Temple court (com-
pare Joel ii. 17).1 Thus it appears that as long as Solomon's
1 In 2 Sam. xv. 18 the foreign guards consist of the Cherethites, the
Pelethites, and the Gittites, or men of Gath. More commonly we read of
the Cherethites and the Pelethites, but in 2 Sam. xx. 23 the KdMb has "the
Carite and the Pelethite." The Carites reappear in 2 Kings xi. 4 (Hebrew
and R. V.) as forming part of the guard at the coronation of King Jehoash.
The Cherethites lived on the southern border of Canaan (1 Sam. xxx. 14),
and seem to have been reckoned as Philistines (Zeph. ii. 5 ; Ezek. xxv. 16) ;
this name and that of the Carites have been plausibly conjectured to indicate
that the Philistines, who were immigrants into Canaan from Caphtor (Amos
ix. 7), which seems to be a place over the sea (Jer. xlvii. 4, R. V.), were
originally connected with Crete and Caria. Pelethite is probably a mere
variation of the name Philistine.
There is, I think, good ground for supposing that the slaughtering of
sacrifices, which Ezekiel expressly assigns in future to the Levites, was
formerly the work of the guards. It was the king who provided the ordi-
nary Temple sacrifices (2 Chron. viii. 13, xxxi. 3 ; Ezek. xlv. 17), and there
can be little doubt that the animals killed for the royal table were usually
offered as peace offerings at the Temple (Deut. xii. 21). In Saul's time, at
least, an unclean person could not sit at the royal table, which implies that
the food was sacrificial (1 Sam. xx. 26 ; Lev. vii. 20 ; Deut. xii. 22). Now
the Hebrew name for "captain of the guard" is "chief slaughterer" (rab
hattabbdchim) — an expression which, so far as one can judge from Syriac and
Arabic as well as Hebrew, can only mean slaughterer of cattle (comp. l"DDO
lect. ix IN THE TEMPLE 263
Temple stood, and even after the reforms of Josiah, the func-
tion of keeping the ward of the sanctuary, which by Levitical
law is strictly confined to the house of Levi, on pain of
death to the stranger who comes near (Num. iii. 38), devolved
upon uncircumcised foreigners, who, according to the law,
ought never to have been permitted to set foot within the
courts of the Templet From this fact the inference is inevit-
able, that under the first Temple the principles of Levitical
sanctity were never recognised or enforced. Even the high
priests had no conception of the fundamental importance
which the middle books of the Pentateuch attach to the
concentric circles of ritual holiness around and within the
sanctuary, an importance to be measured by the consideration
that the atoning ritual on which Jehovah's forgiving grace'
depends presupposes the accurate observance of every legal
precaution against profanation of the holy things. This being
so, we cannot be surprised to find that the priests of the
Temple were equally neglectful, or rather equally ignorant, of
the correct system of atoning ordinances, which forms the
very centre of the Levitical Law, and to which all other
ordinances of sanctity are subservient. The Levitical sin
offering and the trespass offering are not once mentioned
before the Captivity.1 On the other hand, we read of an
established custom in the time of the high priest Jehoiada
that sin money and trespass money were given to the priests
(2 Kings xii. 16 ; comp. Hosea iv. 8, Amos ii. 8). This
usage, from a Levitical point of view, can be regarded as
in a Carthaginian inscription C. /. S. No. 175, 1, and l"QD, ibid. 237, 5 ;
238, 2, etc.). So the bodyguard were also the royal butchers, an occupation
not deemed unworthy of warriors in early times. Eurip. Electra, 815 ;
Odys. A. 108. In Lev. i. 5, 6 it is assumed that every man kills his own
sacrifice, and so still in the Arabian desert every person knows how to kill
and dress a sheep.
1 In the older books the atoning function of sacrifice is not attached to a
particular class of oblation, but belongs to all offerings, to zebach and mincha
(1 Sam. iii. 14, xxvi. 19), and still more to the whole burnt offering (Micah
iv. 6, 7 ; comp. 1 Sam. vii. 9, Job i. 5).
264 CEREMONIAL OF lect. ix
nothing but a gross case of simony, the secularising for the
advantage of the priests of one of the most holy and sacred
ordinances of the Levitical system. Yet this we find fixed
and established, not in a time of national declension, but in
the days of the reforming king and high priest who extirpated
the worship of Baal.
In truth, the first Temple had not that ideal position
which the law assigns to the central sanctuary. It did not
profess to be the one lawful centre of all worship, and its
pre-eminence was not wholly due to the ark, but lay very
much in the circumstance that it was the sanctuary of the
kings of Judah, as Bethel, according to Amos vii. 13, was a
royal chapel of the monarchs of Ephraim. The Temple was
the king's shrine ; therefore his bodyguard were its natural
servants, and the sovereign exercised a control over all its
ordinances, such as the Levitical legislation does not con-
template and could not approve. We find that King Jehoash
introduced changes into the destination of the Temple revenues.
In his earlier years the rule was that the priests received
pecuniary dues and gifts of various kinds so different from
those detailed in the Pentateuch, that it is impossible for us
to explain each one; but, such as they were, the priests
appropriated them subject to an obligation to maintain the
fabric of the Temple. King Jehoash, however, found that
while the priests pocketed their dues nothing was done for
the repair of the Temple, and he therefore ordained that all
moneys brought into the Temple should be paid over for the
repairs of the house, with the exception of the trespass and
sin money, which remained the perquisite of the priests.
Such interference with the sacred dues is inconceivable under
the Levitical system, which strictly regulates the destination
of every offering.
But, indeed, the kings of Judah regarded the treasury of
the Temple as a sort of reserve fund available for political
lect. ix THE FIRST TEMPLE 265
purposes, and Asa and Hezekiah drew upon this source when
their own treasury was exhausted (1 Kings xv. 18 ; 2 Kings
xviii. 15).
With this picture before us, we are no longer surprised to
find that the priest Urijah, or Uriah, whom the prophet Isaiah
took with him as a faithful witness to record (Isa. viii. 2),
co-operated with King Ahaz in substituting a new altar, on
a pattern sent from Damascus, for the old brazen altar of
Solomon, and in general allowed the king to regulate the
altar service as he pleased (2 Kings xvi. 10 sq.). The brazen
altar, which, according to the Book of Numbers, even the
Levites could not touch without danger of death, was reserved
for the king to inquire by.
The force of these facts lies in the circumstance that they
cannot be explained as mere occasional deviations from Levi-
tical orthodoxy. The admission of uncircumcised strangers
as ministers in the sanctuary is no breach of a spiritual pre-
cept which the hard heart of Israel was unable to follow,
but of a ceremonial ordinance adapted to the imperfect and
unspiritual state of the nation. An interest in correct ritual
is found in the least spiritual religions, and there is ample
proof that it was not lacking in Israel, even in the barbarous
times of the Judges. The system of ceremonial sanctity was
calculated to give such eclat to the Temple and its priesthood
that there was every motive for maintaining it in force if it
was known at all. But in reality it was violated in every
point. All the divergences from Levitical ritual lie in the
same direction. The sharp line of distinction between lay-
men's privileges and priestly functions laid down in the Law
has its rationale in the theory and practice of atonement. In
the Temple we find irregular atonements, a lack of precise
grades of holiness, incomplete recognition of the priestly
prerogative, subordination of the priesthood to the palace
carried so far that Abiathar is deposed from the priesthood,
266 WORSHIP AND RITUAL lect. ix
and Zadok, who was not of the old priestly family of_Shiloh,
set in his place, by a mere fiat of King Solomon.1 1 And, along
with this want of clear definition in the inner circles of cere-
monial holiness, we naturally find that the exclusive sanc-
tity of the nation was not understood in a Levitical sense ;
for not only Solomon but David himself intermarried with
heathen nations. Nay, Absalom, the son of a Syrian princess,
was the recognised heir to the throne, which implies that his
mother was regarded as David's principal wife. All these
facts hang together ; they show that the priests of the
Temple, and righteous kings like David, were as ignorant of
the Levitical theory of sanctity as the mass of the vulgar and
the unrighteous kings.
The Temple of Solomon never stood forth, in contrast to
the popular high places, as the seat of the Levitical system,
holding up in their purity the typical ordinances of atone-
ment which the popular worship ignored. The very features
which separate the religion of the ritual law from the tradi-
tional worship of the high places are those which the guardians
of the Temple systematically ignored.
Let us now go back beyond the age of Solomon to the
1 According to 1 Sam. ii. 27-36 the whole clan or "father's house" of
Eli, the family which received God's revelation in Egypt with a promise of
everlasting priesthood, is to lose its prerogative and sink to an inferior posi-
tion, in which its survivors shall be glad to crouch before the new high priest
for a place in one of the inferior priestly guilds which may yield them a
livelihood. As 1 Kings ii. 27 regards this prophecy as fulfilled in the substi-
tution of Zadok for Abiathar, it is plain that the former did not belong to
the high-priestly family chosen in the wilderness. That his genealogy is
traced to Aaron and Eleazar in 1 Chron. vi. 50 sq. does not disprove this,
for among all Semites membership of a guild is figured as sonship. Thus in
the time of the Chronicles sons of Eleazar and Ithamar respectively would
mean no more than the higher and lower guilds of priests. The common
theory that the house of Eli was not in the original line of Eleazar and
Phinehas is inconsistent with Num. xxv. 13 compared with 1 Sam. ii. 30.
The Chronicler places Ahimelech son of Abiathar in the lower priesthood of
Ithamar (1 Chron. xxiv. 3, 6), but Abiathar himself is not connected with
Ithamar by a genealogical line. The deposition of the father reduces the son
to the lower guild.
lect. ix UNDER THE JUDGES 267
period of the Judges, and the age of national revival which
followed under Samuel, Saul, and David. We need not again
dwell on the fact that the whole religion of the time of the
Judges was Levitically false. Even the divinely chosen
leaders of the nation knew not the law {supra, p. 235 sq.).
What is important for our argument is to observe that
breaches of the law were not confined to times of rebellion
against Jehovah. From the standpoint of the Pentateuchal
ritual, Israel's repentance was itself illegal in form. Acts of
true worship, which Jehovah accepted as the tokens of a
penitent heart and answered by deeds of deliverance, were
habitually associated with illegal sanctuaries. At Bochim
the people wept at God's rebuke and sacrificed to the Lord
(Judges ii. 5). Deborah and Barak opened their campaign
at the sanctuary of Kedesh. Jehovah Himself commanded
Gideon to build an altar and do sacrifice at Ophrah, and this
sanctuary still existed in the days of the historian (Judges
vi. 24). Jephthah spake all his words " before the Lord " at
Mizpah or Eamoth Gilead, the ancient sanctuary of Jacob,
when he went forth in the spirit of the Lord to overthrow
the Ammonites (Judges xi. 11, 29 ; Gen. xxxi. 45 sqq), and his
vow before the campaign was a vow to do sacrifice in Mizpah.
We are accustomed to speak of the sacrifices of Gideon
and Manoah as exceptional, and, no doubt, they were so if
our standard is the law of the Pentateuch. But in that case
all true religion in that period was exceptional ; for all God's
acts of grace mentioned in the Book of Judges, all His calls
to repentance, and all the ways in which He appears from
time to time to support His people, and to show Himself their
living God, ready to forgive in spite of their disobedience, are
connected with this same local worship. The call to repent-
ance is never a call to put aside the local sanctuaries and
worship only before the ark at Shiloh. On the contrary, the
narrator assumes, without question, the standpoint of the
268 WORSHIP AND RITUAL lect. ix
popular religion, and never breathes a doubt that Jehovah
was acceptably worshipped in the local shrines. In truth, no
other judgment on the case was possible ; for through all this
period Jehovah's gracious dealings with His people expressed
His acceptance of the local worship in unambiguous language.
If the Pentateuchal programme of worship and the rules which
it lays down for the administration of the dispensation of
grace existed in these days, they were at least absolutely
suspended. It was not according to the Law that Jehovah
administered His grace to Israel during the period of the
Judges.
Nevertheless the fundamental requisites for a practical
observance of the Pentateuchal worship existed in those
days. The ark was settled at Shiloh; a legitimate priest-
hood ministered before it. There is no question that the
house of Eli were the ancient priesthood of the ark. It
was to the clan, or father's house, of Eli, according to 1 Sam.
ii. 27 sq., that Jehovah appeared in Egypt, choosing him
as His priest from all the tribes of Israel. The priesthood
was legitimate, and so was the sanctuary of Shiloh, which
Jeremiah calls Jehovah's place, where He set His name at
the first (Jer. vii. 12). Here therefore, if anywhere in Israel,
the law must have had its seat ; and the worship of Shiloh
must have preserved a memorial of the Mosaic ritual.
We have an amount of detailed information as to the
ritual of Shiloh which shows the importance attached to
points of ceremonial religion. Shiloh was visited by pilgrims
from the surrounding country of Ephraim, not three times a
year according to the Pentateuchal law, but at an annual
feast. This appears to have been a vintage feast, like the
Pentateuchal Feast of Tabernacles, for it was accompanied
by dances in the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), and, according
to the correct rendering of 1 Sam. i. 20, 21, it took place
when the new year came in, that is, at the close of the
lect. ix UNDER THE JUDGES 269
agricultural year, which ended with the ingathering of the
vintage (Exod. xxxiv. 22). It had not a strictly national
character, for in Judges xxi. 19 it appears to be only locally
known, and to have the character of a village festival. Indeed
a quite similar vintage feast was observed at the Canaanite
city of Shechem (Judges ix. 27).1
There was, however, a regular sacrifice performed by each
worshipper in addition to any vow he might have made (1
Sam. i. 21), and the proper due to be paid to the priests on
these offerings was an important question. The great offence
of Eli's sons was that they "knew not Jehovah and the
priests' dues from the people." They made irregular ex-
actions, and, in particular, would not burn the fat of the
sacrifice till they had secured a portion of uncooked meat (1
Sam. ii. 12 sq. E. V., marg.). Under the Levitical ordinance
this claim was perfectly regular ; the worshipper handed over
the priest's portion of the flesh along with the fat, and part of
the altar ceremony was to wave it before Jehovah (Lev. vii.
30 sq., x. 15). But at Shiloh the claim was viewed as illegal
and highly wicked. It caused men to abhor Jehovah's offer-
ing, and the greed which Eli's sons displayed in this matter is
given as the ground of the prophetic rejection of the whole
clan of priests of Shiloh (1 Sam. ii. 17, 29).
The importance attached to these details shows how essen-
tial to the religion of those days was the observance of all
points of established ritual. But the ritual was not that of
1 1 Sam. i. 20, 21. "When the new year came round, Hannah con-
ceived and bare a son, and named him . . . and Elkanah went up with his
whole household to sacrifice to Jehovah the yearly sacrifice and his vow."
The date of the new year belongs to the last of this series of events. Com-
pare Wellhausen, Prolegomena, pp. 95, 109, and Driver's notes on the passage.
The autumn feast was also the great feast at Jerusalem (1 Kings viii. 2),
and in the Northern Kingdom (1 Kings xii. 32).
In Judges ix. 27 read, "They trode the grapes and made Mll-dlim (a
sacred offering in praise of God from the fruits of the earth, Lev. xix. 24),
and went into the house of their god and feasted," etc.
270 RITUAL OF THE
LECT. IX
the Levitical law. Nay, when we look at the worship of
Shiloh more closely, we find glaring departures from the very
principles of the Pentateuchal sanctuary. The ark stood, not
in the tabernacle, but in a Temple with doorposts and folding-
doors, which were thrown open during the day (1 Sam. i. 9,
iii. 15). In the evening a lamp burned in the Temple (1 Sam.
iii. 3), but contrary to the Levitical prescription (Exod. xxvii.
21 ; Lev. xxiv. 3) the light was not kept up all night, but was
allowed to go out after the ministers of the Temple lay down
to sleep. Access to the Temple was not guarded on rules of
Levitical sanctity. According to 1 Sam. iii. 3, Samuel, as a
servant of the sanctuary who had special charge of the doors
(ver. 15), actually slept " in the temple of Jehovah where
the ark of God was." To our English translators this state-
ment seemed so incredible, that they have ventured to change
the sense against the rules of the language. One can hardly
wonder at them ; for, according to the Law, the place of the
ark could be entered only by the high priest once a year, and
with special atoning services. And, to make the thing more
surprising, Samuel was not of priestly family. His father
was an Ephrathite or Ephraimite (1 Sam. i. 1, E. V.), and he
himself came to the Temple by a vow of his mother to dedicate
him to Jehovah. By the Pentateuchal law such a vow could
not make Samuel a priest. But here it is taken for granted
that he becomes a priest at once. As a child he ministers
before Jehovah, wearing the ephod which the law confines to
the high priest, and not only this, but the high priestly mantle
(me'tl, A. V. coat, 1 Sam. ii. 18, 19). And priest as well as
prophet Samuel continued all his life, sacrificing habitually
at a variety of sanctuaries. These irregularities are suf-
ficiently startling. They profane the holy ordinances, which,
under the Law, are essential to the legitimate sanctuary.
And, above all, it is noteworthy that the service of the great
day of expiation could not have been legitimately performed
lect. ix TEMPLE AT SHILOH 2 71
in the Temple of Shiloh, where there was no awful seclusion of
the ark in an inner adyton, veiled from every eye, and inac-
cessible on ordinary occasions to every foot. These things
strike at the root of the Levitical system of access to God.
But of them the prophet who came to Eli has nothing to
say. He confines himself to the extortions of the younger
priests.
The Law was as little known in Shiloh as among the mass
of the people, and the legitimate priesthood, the successors of
Moses and Aaron, are not judged by God according to the
standard of the Law. Where, then, during this time was the
written priestly Torah preserved ? If it lay neglected in some
corner of the sanctuary, who rescued it when the Philistines
destroyed the Temple after the battle of Ebenezer ? Was it
carried to Nob by the priests, who knew it not, or was it
rescued by Samuel, who, in all his work of reformation,
never attempted to make its precepts the rule of religious
life?
The capture of the ark, the fall of Shiloh, and the exten-
sion of the Philistine power into the heart of Mount Ephraim,
were followed by the great national revival successively headed
by Samuel, Saul, and David. The revival of patriotism went
hand in hand with zeal for the service of Jehovah. In this
fresh zeal for religion, affairs of ritual and worship were not
neglected. Saul, who aimed at the destruction of necromancy,
was also keenly alive to the sin of eating flesh with the blood
(1 Sam. xiv. 33) ; the ceremonially unclean might not sit at
his table (1 Sam. xx. 26) ; and there are other proofs that
ritual observances were viewed as highly important (1 Sam.
xxi. 4 sq. ; 2 Sam. xi. 4), though the details agree but ill with
the Levitical ordinances. The religious patriotism of the period
finds its main expression in frequent acts of sacrifice. On every
occasion of national importance the people assemble and do
service at some local sanctuary, as at Mizpah (1 Sam. vii. 6,
272 RITUAL IN THE DAYS lect. ix
9), or at Gilgal (x. 8, xi. 15, xiii. 4, 9, etc.). The seats of
authority are sanctuaries, Earn ah, Bethel, Gilgal (vii. 16, 17 ;
comp. x. 3), Beersheba (viii. 2 ; comp. Amos v. 5, viii. 14),
Hebron (2 Sam. ii. 1, xv. 12). Saul builds altars (1 Sam. xiv.
35) ; Samuel can make a dangerous visit most colourably by
visiting a local sanctuary like Bethlehem, with an offering in
his hand (1 Sam. xvi.) ; and in some of these places there are
annual sacrificial feasts (1 Sam. xx. 6). At the same time the
ark is settled on the hill (Gibeah) at Kirjath-jearim, where
Eleazar ben Abinadab was consecrated its priest (1 Sam. vii.
1). The priests of the house of Eli were at Nob, where there
was a regular sanctuary with shewbread, and no less than
eighty-five priests wearing a linen ephod (1 Sam. xxii. 18).
It is quite certain that Samuel, with all his zeal for
Jehovah, made no attempt to bring back this scattered
worship to forms of legal orthodoxy. He continued to
sacrifice at a variety of shrines; and his yearly circuit to
Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, returning to Eamah, involved
the recognition of all these altars (1 Sam. vii. 16 ; comp.
x. 3, xi. 15, vii. 6, 9, ix. 12).
In explanation of this it is generally argued that the age
was one of religious interregnum, and that Jehovah had not
designated a new seat of worship to succeed the ruined
sanctuary of Shiloh. This argument might have some
weight if the law of the one sanctuary and the one priest-
hood rested only on the Book of Deuteronomy, which puts
the case as if the introduction of a strictly unified cultus was
to be deferred till the peaceful occupation of Palestine was
completed (Deut. xii. 8 sq.). But in the Levitical legislation
the unification of cultus is not attached to a fixed place in the
land of Israel, but to the movable sanctuary of the ark and to
the priesthood of the house of Aaron. All the law of sacri-
ficial observances is given in connection with this sanctuary,
and on the usual view of the Pentateuch was already put into
LEGT. IX
OF SAMUEL 273
force before the Israelites had gained a fixed habitation. In
the days of Samuel the ark and the legitimate priesthood still
existed. They were separated, indeed, — the one at Kirjath-
jearirn, the other at Nob. But they might easily have been
reunited ; for the distance between these towns is only a fore-
noon's walk. Both lay in that part of the land which was
most secure from Philistine invasion, and formed the centre
of Saul's authority. For the Philistines generally attacked
the central mountain district of Canaan from Aphek in the
northern part of the plain of Sharon. The roads leading from
this district into the country of Joseph are much easier than
the routes farther south that lead directly to the land of
Benjamin ; and hence Saul's country was the rallying ground
of Hebrew independence. Yet it is just in this narrow dis-
trict, which a man might walk across in a day, that we find
a scattered worship, and no attempt to concentrate it on the
part of Samuel and Saul. There was no plea of necessity to
excuse this if Samuel knew the Levitical law. Why should
he go from town to town making sacrifice in local high places
from which the sanctuary of Nob was actually visible ? The
Law does not require such tribute at the hands of individuals.
Except at the great pilgrimage feasts the private Israelite is
not called upon to bring any other sacrifice than the trespass
or sin offering when he has committed some offence. But
Samuel's sacrifices were not sin offerings ; they were mere
peace offerings, the material of sacrificial feasts which under
the law had no urgency (1 Sam. ix. xvi.). What was urgent
on the Levitical theory was to re-establish the stated burnt
offering and the due atoning ritual before the ark in the
hands of the legitimate priesthood and on the pattern of the
service in the wilderness. But in place of doing this Samuel
falls in with the local worship as it had been practised by the
mass of the people while Shiloh still stood. He deserts the
legal ritual for a service which, on the usual theory, was mere
18
274 WORSHIP AND RITUAL lect. ix
will- worship. The truth plainly is that Samuel did not know
of a systematic and exclusive system of sacrificial ritual con-
fined to the sanctuary of the ark. He did not know a model
of sacred service earlier than the choice of Shiloh, which could
serve the people when Shiloh was destroyed. His whole
conduct is inexplicable unless, with the prophet Jeremiah, he
did not recognise the Levitical law of stated sacrifice as part
of the divine ordinances given in the time of Moses (Jer. vii.
22, " I spake not with your fathers, nor commanded them in
the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, con-
cerning burnt offerings and sacrifices"). Grant with Jeremiah
that sacrifice is a free expression of Israel's homage, which
Jehovah had not yet regulated by law, and at once the
conduct of Samuel is clear, and Jehovah's acceptance of his
service intelligible.
At length, in the reign of David, the old elements of the
central worship were reunited. The ark was brought up from
Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem, and Abiathar, the representative
of the house of Eli, was there as priest. Israel was again a
united people, and there was no obstacle to the complete
restitution of the Levitical cultus, had it been recognised
as the only true expression of Israel's service. But still
we find no attempt to restore the one sanctuary and the
exclusive privilege of the one priesthood. According to
the Law, the consecration of the priesthood is not of man
but of God, and Jehovah alone can designate the priest
who shall acceptably approach Him. The popular religion
has another view. To offer sacrifice is the privilege of
every Israelite. Saul though a layman had done so, and
if his sacrifice at HMlgal was a sin, the offence lay not in
the presumption of one who was not of the house of Aaron,
but in the impatience which had moved without waiting
for the promised presence of the prophet (1 Sam. xiii. 8
sq. ; comp. xiv. 35). The priest, therefore, was the people's
LECT. IX
UNDER DAVID 275
delegate ; his consecration was from them not from Jehovah
(Judges xvii. 5, 12 ; 1 Sam. vii. 1). In this respect David
was not more orthodox than Saul. When he brought up
the ark to Jerusalem he wore the priestly ephod, offered
sacrifices in person, and, to make it quite clear that in
all this he assumed a priestly function, he blessed the
people as a priest in the name of Jehovah (2 Sam. vi. 14,
18). Nor were these irregularities exceptional ; in 2 Sam.
viii. 18 we read that David's sons were priests. This
statement, so incredible on the traditional theory, has led
our English version, following the Jewish tradition of the
Targum, to change the sense, and substitute " chief rulers "
for priests. But the Hebrew word means priests, and can
mean nothing else. Equally irregular was David's relation
to the high places. His kingdom was first fixed at the
sanctuary of Hebron, and long after the ark was brought
up to Jerusalem he allowed Absalom to visit Hebron in
payment of a sacrificial vow (2 Sam. xv. 8, 12). But in)
fact the Book of Kings expressly recognises the worship ;
of the high places as legitimate up to the time when the
Temple was built (1 Kings iii. 2 sq.). The author or final
editor of the history, who carries the narrative down to
the Captivity, occupied the standpoint of Josiah's refor-
mation. He knew how experience had shown the many
high places to be a constant temptation to practical
heathenism ; and though he is aware that de facto the
best kings tolerated the local shrines for centuries after
the Temple was built, he holds that the sanctuary of Zion
ought to have superseded all other altars. But before the
Temple the high places were in his judgment legitimate.
This again is intelligible enough if he was guided by the
law of Deuteronomy, and understood the one sanctuary of
Deuteronomy to be none other than the Temple of Jerusalem.
But it is not consistent with the traditional view of the
276 THE LAW UNKNOWN lect. ix
Levitical legislation as a system completed and enforced
from the days of the wilderness in a form dependent only
on the existence of the Aaronic priesthood and the ark.
And so we actually find that the author of Chronicles,
who stands on the basis of the Levitical legislation and
the system of Ezra's reformation, refuses to accept the
simple explanation that the high places were necessary
before the Temple, and assumes that in David's time the
only sanctuary strictly legitimate was Gibeon, at which
he supposes the tabernacle and the brazen altar to have
stood (1 Chron. xvi. 39 sq., xxi. 29 sq. ; 2 Chron. i. 3
sq.). Of all this the author of Kings knows nothing.
From his point of view the worship of the high places
had a place and provisional legitimacy of its own without
reference to the ark or the brazen altar.1
The result of this survey is that, through the whole
period from the Judges to Ezekiel, the Law in its finished
system and fundamental theories was never the rule of
Israel's worship, and its observance was never the con-
dition of the experience of Jehovah's grace. Although
many individual points of ritual resembled the ordinances
of the Law, the Levitical tradition as a whole had as
little force in the central sanctuary as with the mass of
the people. The contrast between true and false worship
is not the contrast between the Levitical and the popular
systems. The freedom of sacrifice which is the basis of
the popular worship is equally the basis of the faith of
Samuel, David, and Elijah. The reformers of Israel strove
1 Some other examples of irregularities in the ritual of Israel before the
Captivity have been noticed above, p. 143 sq., in the discussion of the
narrative of Chronicles (morning and evening sacrifice ; carrying of the ark).
To these one more may be added here. Under the Law the Levites and
priests had a right of common round their cities, but this pasture ground
was inalienable (Lev. xxv. 34), so that 1 Kings ii. 26, Jer. xxxii. 7, where
priests own and sell fields, are irregular.
lect. ix IN OLD ISRAEL 277
against the constant lapses of the nation into syncretism
or the worship of foreign gods, but they did not do so on
the ground of the Levitical theory of Israel's absolute
separation from the nations or of a unique holiness radi-
ating from the one sanctuary and descending in widening
circles through priests and Levites to the ordinary Israelite.
The history itself does not accept the Levitical standard.
It accords legitimacy to the popular sanctuaries before
the foundation of the Temple, and represents Jehovah as
accepting the offerings made at them. With the founda-
tion of the Temple the historian regards the local worship
as superseded, but he does so from the practical point of
view that the worship there was in later times of heathenish
character (2 Kings xvii.). Nowhere does the condemnation
of the popular religion rest on the original consecration of
the tabernacle, the brazen altar, and the Aaronic priesthood,
as the exclusive channels of veritable intercourse between
Jehovah and Israel.
A dim consciousness of this witness of history is pre-
served in the fantastic tradition that the Law was lost, and
was restored by Ezra. In truth the people of Jehovah never
lived under the Law, and the dispensation of Divine grace
never followed its pattern, till Israel had ceased to be a
nation. The history of Israel refuses to be measured by the
traditional theory as to the origin and function of the Penta-
teuch. In the next Lecture we must inquire whether the
prophets confirm or modify this result.
LECTUEE X
THE PROPHETS
A special object of the finished Pentateuchal system, as
enforced among the Jews from the days of Ezra, was to make
the people of Jehovah visibly different from the surrounding
nations. The principle of holiness was a principle of separa-
tion, and the ceremonial ordinances of holiness, whether in
daily life or in the inner circles of the Temple worship, were
so many visible and tangible fences set up to divide Israel,
and Israel's religion, from the surrounding Gentiles and their
religion. Artificial as this system may appear, the history
proves that it was necessary. The small community of the
new Jerusalem was under constant temptations to mingle
with the "people of the land." Intermarriages, such as
Ezra and Nehemiah suppressed by a supreme effort, opened
a constant door to heathen ideas and heathen morality.
The religion of Jehovah could not be preserved intact with-
out isolating the people of Jehovah from their neighbours,
and this again could only be done through a highly developed
system of national customs and usages, enlisting in the service
of religious purity the force of habit, and the natural con-
servatism of Eastern peoples in all matters of daily routine.
Long before the time of Christ the ceremonial observances
had so grown into the life of the Jews that national pride,
inborn prejudice, a disgust at foreign habits sucked in with
LECT. X
JUDAISM AFTER EZRA 279
his mother's milk, made the Israelite a peculiar person,'
naturally averse to contact with the surrounding Gentiles,
and quite insensible to the temptations which had drawn
his ancestors into continual apostasy. The hatred of the
human race, which, to foreign observers, seemed the national
characteristic of the Jews under the Eoman Empire, was
a fault precisely opposite to the facility with which the
Israelites, before the Captivity, had mingled with the
heathen and served their gods. This change was un-
doubtedly due to the discipline of the Law, the strict
pedagogue, as St. Paul represents it, charged to watch the
steps of the child not yet fit for liberty. Without the
Law the Jews would have been absorbed in the nations,
just as the Ten Tribes were absorbed and disappeared in
their captivity.
But we have seen in the last two Lectures that this legal
discipline of ceremonial holiness was not enforced in Israel
before Josiah, nor, indeed, in all its fulness, at any time
before Ezra. The ordinary life of Israel was not guarded
against admixture with the nations. David married the
Princess Maacah of Geshur ; Solomon took many strange
wives ; Jehoram, in his good father's lifetime, wedded the
half-heathen Athaliah ; and people of lower estate were not
more concerned to keep themselves apart from the Gentiles.
Great sections of the nation were indeed of mixed blood.
The population of Southern Judah was of half- Arab origin,
and several of the clans in this district bear names which
indicate their original affinity with Midian or Edom ; l while
1 See Wellhausen, De Gentibns et Familiis Judceorum (Gottingen, 1870).
The Jerahmeelites and Calibbites of the Judgean Negeb (the southern steppes ;
A. V. " the south ") were not fully identified with Judah proper in the time
of David (1 Sam. xxvii. 10, xxx. 14) ; see also Josh. xv. 13, where Caleb
receives a lot "among the children of Judah." Caleb, therefore, the eponym
of the Calibbites, was not a Judsean by blood ; he was, in fact, a Kenizzite
(Josh. xiv. 6). Now the Kenizzites (or Kenaz) are one of the clans of Edom
(Gen. xxxvi. 15, 42).
280 ISRAEL THE PEOPLE lect. x
we know that in the time of the Judges, and later, many-
cities, like Shechem, had still a Canaanite population which
was not exterminated, and must therefore have been gradually-
absorbed among the Israelites. This free intermixture of
races shows an entire absence of the spirit of religious ex-
clusiveness which was fostered in later Judaism under the
discipline of the Law. And it could hardly have taken place
if there had been a wide difference between the social ordin-
ances of the Hebrews and their neighbours. But in fact we
find in old Israel traces of various social customs inconsistent
with the Pentateuchal law, and precisely identical with the
usages of the heathen Semites. Marriage with a half-sister,
a known practice of the Phoenicians and other Semites, had
the precedent of Abraham in its favour, was not thought
inadmissible in the time of David (2 Sam. xiii. 13), and was
still a current practice in the days of Ezekiel (xxii. 11). I
choose this instance as peculiarly striking, but it is not an
isolated case. Another example, not less remarkable, will
come before us in Lecture XII. (infra, p. 369).1 In short,
neither the religious nor the social system of the nation was
as yet consolidated on distinctive principles. I am now
speaking of practice, not of theory, and I apprehend that
even those who maintain that the whole Pentateuch was
then extant as a theoretical system must admit that before
the Exile the pedagogic ordinances of that system were not
the practical instrument by which the distinctive relation of
Israel to Jehovah was preserved, and the people hindered
from sinking altogether into Canaanite heathenism.
It was through an instrumentality of a very different kind
that Israel, with all its backslidings, was prevented from
wholly forgetting its vocation as the people of Jehovah, that
a spark of higher faith was kept alive in all times of national
1 For the subject here touched on see in general an essay on Animal-
worship, etc., in the Journal of Philology, ix. 75 sq., and especially my
Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (Cambridge, 1885).
lect. x OF JEHOVAH 281
declension, and the basis laid for that final work of reforma-
tion which at length made Israel the people of the Law not
only in name but in reality. That instrumentality was the
word of the prophets.
The conception that in Jehovah Israel has a national God
and Father, with a special claim on its worship, is not in
itself a thing peculiar to revealed religion. Other Semitic
tribes had their tribal gods. Moab is the people of Chemosh,
and the members of the nation are called sons and daughters
of the national deity even in the Israelite lay, Numbers xxi.
29 (compare Malachi ii. 11). All religion was tribal or
national. " Thy people," says Euth, " shall be my people, and
thy God my God" (Euth i. 16). "Hath any nation changed
its god?" asks Jeremiah (ii. 11). Jehovah Himself, accord-
ing to Deut. iv. 19, has appointed the heavenly host and other
false deities to the heathen nations, while conversely He is
Himself the " portion of Jacob " (Jer. x. 16 ; comp. Deut. xxix.
26). In the early times, to be an Israelite and to be a
worshipper of Jehovah is the same thing. To be banished
from the land of Israel, the inheritance of Jehovah, is to be
driven to serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19).
These are ideas common to all Semitic religions. But in
Semitic heathenism the relation between a nation and its god
is natural. It does not rest on choice either on the nation's
part or on the part of the deity. The god, it would appear,
was frequently thought of as the physical progenitor or first
father of his people. At any rate, the god and the worship-
pers formed a natural unity, which was also bound up with
the land they occupied. It was deemed necessary for settlers
in a country to " know the manner of the god of the land "
(2 Kings xvii. 26). The dissolution of the nation destroys
the national religion, and dethrones the national deity. The
god can no more exist without his people than the nation
without its god.
282 RELIGION OF
LECT. X
The mass of the Israelites hardly seem to have risen above
this conception. The Pentateuch knows the nation well
enough to take it for granted that in their banishment from
" the land of Jehovah," where He can no longer be approached
in the sanctuaries of the popular worship, they will serve
other gods, wood and stone (Deut. xxviii. 36 ; comp. Hosea
ix.). Nay, it is plain that a great part of Israel imagined, like
their heathen neighbours, that Jehovah had need of them as
much as they had need of Him, that their worship and service
could not be indifferent to Him, that He must, by a natural
necessity, exert His power against their enemies and save His
sanctuaries from profanation. This indeed was the constant
contention of the prophets who opposed Micah and Jeremiah
(Micah iii. 11; Jer. vii. 4 sq., xxvii. 1 sq.) ; and from their
point of view the captivity of Judah was the final and hope-
less collapse of the religion of Jehovah. The religion of the
true prophets was very different. They saw Jehovah's hand
even in the fall of the state. The Assyrian and the Baby-
lonian were His servants (Isa. x. 5 sq. ; Jer. xxvii. 6), and the
catastrophe which overwhelmed the land of Israel, and proved
that the popular religion was a lie, was to the spiritual faith
the clearest proof that Jehovah is not only Israel's God, but
the Lord of the whole earth. As the death and resurrection
of our Saviour are the supreme proof of the spiritual truths of
Christianity, so the death of the old Hebrew state and the
resurrection of the religion of Jehovah, in a form independent
of the old national life, is the supreme proof that the religion
of the Old Testament is no mere natural variety of Semitic
monolatry, but a dispensation of the true and eternal religion
of the spiritual God. The prophets who foresaw the cata-
\ strophe without alarm and without loss of faith stood on a
1 foundation diverse from that of natural religion. They were
the organs of a spiritual revelation, who had stood, as they
themselves say, in the secret council of Jehovah (Amos iii.
LECT. X
THE PROPHETS 283
7 ; Jer. xxiii. 18, 22), and knew the law of His working, and
the goal to which He was guiding His people. It was not the
law of ordinances, but the living prophetic word in the midst
of Israel, that separated the religion of Jehovah from the
religion of Baal or Chemosh, and gave it that vitality which
survived the overthrow of the ancient state and the banish-
ment of Jehovah's people from His land.
The characteristic mark of a true prophet is that he has
stood in the secret council of Jehovah, and speaks the words
which he has heard from His mouth. " The Lord Jehovah,"
says Amos, " will not do anything without revealing his secret
to his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will
not fear? The Lord Jehovah hath spoken, who can but
prophesy ? " But the prophets do not claim universal fore-
knowledge. The secret of Jehovah is the secret of His
relations to Israel. " The secret of Jehovah belongs to them
that fear him, and he will make them know his covenant "
(Psalm xxv. 14). " If they have stood in my secret council,
let them proclaim my words to my people, that they may
return from their evil way " (Jer. xxiii. 22). The word secret
or privy council (sod) is that used of a man's intimate
personal circle. The prophets stand in this circle. They are
in sympathy with Jehovah's heart and will, their knowledge
of His counsel is no mere intellectual gift but a moral thing.
They are not diviners but intimates of Jehovah. Balaam, in
spite of his predictions, is not in the Old Testament called a
prophet. He is only a soothsayer (Josh. xiii. 22).
Why has Jehovah a circle of intimates within Israel,
confidants of His moral purpose and acquainted with what
He is about to do ? The prophets themselves supply a clear
answer to this question. There are personal relations between
Jehovah and His people, analogous to those of human friend-
ship and love. " When Israel was a child I loved him, and
called my son out of Egypt, ... I taught Ephraim to go.
284 PROPHETIC AND HEATHEN lect. x
holding thern by their arms. ... I drew them with human
bands, with cords of love " (Hosea xi. 1). " You alone have
I known," says Jehovah through Amos, " of all the families
of the earth " (Amos iii. 2). This relation between Jehovah
and Israel is not a mere natural unintelligent and physically
indissoluble bond such as unites Moab to Chemosh. It rests
on free love and gracious choice. As Ezekiel xvi. 6 puts it,
Jehovah saw and pitied Jerusalem, when she lay as an infant
cast forth to die, and said unto her, Live. The relation is
moral and personal, and receives moral and personal expres-
sion. Jehovah guides His people by His word, and admits
them to the knowledge of His ways. But He does not speak
directly to every Israelite (Deut. xviii. 15 sq.). The organs of
His loving and personal intercourse with the people of His
choice are the prophets. " By a prophet Jehovah brought
Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved"
(Hosea xii. 13). " I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and led you in the wilderness forty years to possess the land
of the Amorites. And I raised up of your sons for prophets,
and of your young men for Nazarites " (Amos ii. 10, 11). The
prophets, you perceive, regard their function as an essential
element in the national religion. It is they who keep alive
the constant intercourse of love between Jehovah and His
people which distinguishes the house of Jacob from all other
nations ; it is their work which makes Israel's religion a
moral and spiritual religion.
To understand this point we must remember that in the
Old Testament the distinctive features of the religion of
Jehovah are habitually represented in contrast to the religion
of the heathen nations. It is taken for granted that the
religion of the nations does in a certain sense address itself to
man's legitimate needs. The religion of Israel would not be
the all-sufficient thing it is, if Israel did not find in Jehovah
the true supply of those wants for which other nations turn
lect. x EELIGION CONTRASTED 285
to the delusive help of the gods who are no gods. Now, in
all ancient religions, and not least in Semitic heathenism, it
is a main object of the worshipper to obtain oracles from his
god. The uncertainties of human life are largely due to man's
ignorance. His life is environed by forces which he cannot
understand or control, and which seem to sport at will with
his existence and his happiness. All these forces are viewed
as supernatural, or rather — for in these questions it is im-
portant to eschew metaphysical notions not known to early
thinkers — they are divine beings, with whom man can enter
into league only by means of his religion. They are to be
propitiated by offerings, and consulted by enchantments and
soothsayers. In Semitic heathenism the deity whom a tribe
worships as its king or lord (Baal) is often identified
with some supreme power of nature, with the mighty sun,
the lord of the seasons, or with the heavens that send down
rain, or with some great planet whose stately march through
the skies appears to regulate the cycles of time. These are
the higher forms of ethnic religion. In lower types the deity
is more immediately identified with earthly objects, — animals,
trees, or the like. But in any case the god is a member of
the chain of hidden natural agencies on which man is con-
tinually dependent, and with which it is essential to establish
friendly relations. Such relations are attainable, for man
himself is physically connected with the natural powers.
They produced him ; he is the son of his god as well as his
servant ; and so the divinity, if rightly questioned and care-
fully propitiated, will speak to the worshipper and aid him
by his counsel as well as his strength. In all this there is,
properly speaking, no moral element. The divine forces of
nature seem to be personified, for they hear and speak. But,
strictly speaking, the theory of such religion is the negation
of personality. It is on the physical side of his being that
man has relations to the godhead. Eeaders of Plato will
286 DIVINATION AND lect. x
remember how clearly this comes out in the Timceus, where
the faculty of divination is connected with the appetitive and
irrational part of man's nature.1 That, of course, is a philo-
sophical explanation of popular notions. But it indicates a
characteristic feature in the religion of heathenism. It is not
as an intellectual and moral being that man has fellowship
with deities that are themselves identified with physical
powers. The divine element in man through which he has
access to his god lies in the mysterious instincts of his lower
nature ; and paroxysms of artificially-produced frenzy, dreams,
and diseased visions are the accepted means of intercourse
with the godhead.
Accordingly an essential element in the religion of the
heathen Semites was divination in its various forms, of which
so many are enumerated in Deut. xviii. 10, ll.2 The diviner
procured an oracle, predicting future events, detecting secrets,
and directing the worshipper what choice to make in difficult
points of conduct. Such oracles were often sought in private
life, but they were deemed altogether indispensable in the
conduct of the state, and the soothsayers were a necessary
\ part of the political establishment of every nation. The Old
Testament takes it for granted that Jehovah acknowledges
1 Plato, Tlmccus, cap. xxxii. p. 71, D. The ruantic faculty belongs to the
part of the soul settled in the liver, because that part has no share in reason
and thought. " For inspired and true divination is not attained to by any
one when in his full senses, but only when the power of thought is fettered by
sleep or disease or some paroxysm of frenzy."
This view of inspiration is diametrically opposite to that of St. Paul
(1 Cor. xiv. 32), and the complete self-consciousness and self-control of the
prophets taught in that passage belong equally to the spiritual prophecy of
the Old Testament. Plato's theory, however, was applied to the prophets by
Philo, the Jewish Platonist, who describes the prophetic state as an ecstasy
in which the human vovs disappears to make way for the divine Spirit {Quis
rerum div. heres, § 53, ed. Richter, iii. 58 ; Be Spec. Leg. § 8, Richter, v.
122). Something similar has been taught in recent times by Hengstenberg
and others, — substituting, as we observe, the pagan for the Biblical conception
of revelation.
2 On the various forms of divination and magic enumerated in these verses,
see two papers in the Journal of Philology, xiii. 273 sqq., and xiv. 113 sqq.
LECT. X
PROPHECY 2 8 '
and supplies in Israel the want which in other nations is met
by the practice of divination. The place of the soothsayer is
supplied by the prophets of Jehovah. " These nations, which
thou shalt dispossess, hearken unto soothsayers and diviners ;
but as for thee, Jehovah thy God suffereth thee not to do so.
A prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto
me, will Jehovah thy God raise up unto thee; unto him
shall ye hearken " (Deut. xviii. 14 sq.).
In the popular religion, where the attributes of Jehovah
were not clearly marked off from those of the heathen Baalim,
little distinction was made between prophet and soothsayer.
The word prophet, nabi', is not exclusively Hebrew. It
appears to be identical with the Assyrian Nebo, the spokes-
man of the gods, answering to the Greek Hermes. And we
know that there were prophets of Baal, whose orgies are
described in 1 Kings xviii., where we learn that they sought
access to their god in exercises of artificial frenzy carried so
far that, like modern fanatics of the East, they became in-
sensible to pain, and passed into a sort of temporary madness,
to which a supernatural character was no doubt ascribed, as
is still the case in similar religions. This Canaanite pro-
phetism, then, was a kind of divination, based, like all
divination, on the notion that the irrational part of man's
nature is that which connects him with the deity. It
appears that there were men in Israel calling themselves
seers or prophets of Jehovah, who occupied no higher stand-
point. Saul and his servant went to Samuel with the fourth
part of a shekel as fee to ask him a question about lost asses,
and the story is told as if this were part of the business of a
common seer. In the time of Isaiah, the stay and staff of
Jerusalem, the necessary props of the state, included not only
judges and warriors but prophets, diviners, men skilled in
charms, and such as understood enchantments (Isa. iii. 2, 3,
Heb.). Similarly Micah iii. 5 sq. identifies the prophets and
288 PROFESSIONAL PROPHETS lect. x
the diviners, and places thern alongside of the judges and the
priests as leaders of the nation. " The heads thereof give
judgment for bribes, and the priests give legal decisions for
hire, and the prophets divine for money ; yet they lean upon
Jehovah and say, Is not Jehovah among us ? none evil can
come upon us." You observe that this false prophecy, which
is nothing else than divination, is practised in the name of
Jehovah, and has a recognised place in the state. And so,
when Amos appeared at Bethel to speak in Jehovah's name,
the priest Amaziah identified him with the professional
prophets who were fed by their trade (Amos vii. 12), and
formed a sort of guild, as the name " sons of the prophets "
indicates.
With these prophets by trade Amos indignantly refuses
to be identified. " I am no prophet," he cries, " nor the
member of a prophetic guild, but an herdsman, and a plucker
of sycomore fruit. And Jehovah took me as I followed the
flock, and said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel."
These words of the earliest prophetic book clearly express
the standpoint of spiritual prophecy. With the established
guilds, the official prophets, if I may so call them, the men
skilled in enchantment and divination, whose business was a
trade involving magical processes that could be taught and
learned, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah have nothing in common ;
they declaim against the accepted prophecy of their time, as
they do against all other parts of the national religion which
were no longer discriminated from heathenism. They accept
the principle that prophecy is essential to religion. They
admit that Jehovah's guidance of His people must take
the form of continual revelation, supplying those needs which
drive heathen nations and the unspiritual masses of Israel to
practise divination. But the method of true revelation has
nothing in common with the art of the diviner. " When they
say unto you, Seek counsel of ghosts and of familiar spirits
lect. x AND TRUE PROPHETS 289
that peep and mutter : should not a people consult its God ?
shall they go to the dead on behalf of the living ? " (Isa. viii.
19). The wizards, by their ventriloquist arts, professed to
make their dupes hear the voice of ghosts and gibbering
spirits rising from the underground abodes of the dead (see
Isa. xxix. 4 ; 1 Sam. xxviii.) ; but Jehovah is a living God, a
moral and personal being. He speaks to His prophets, not
in magical processes or through the visions of poor phrenetics,
but by a clear intelligible word addressed to the intellect and
the heart. The characteristic of the true prophet is that he
retains his consciousness and self-control under revelation.
He is filled with might by the spirit of Jehovah (Micah iii. 8).
Jehovah speaks to him as if He grasped him with a strong
hand (Isa. viii. 11). The word is within his heart like a
burning fire shut up in his bones (Jer. xx. 9), so that he
cannot remain silent. But it is an intelligible word, which
speaks to the prophet's own heart and conscience, forbidding
Isaiah to walk in the way of the corrupt nation, filling
Micah with power to declare unto Jacob his transgression,
supporting the heart of Jeremiah with an inward joy amidst
all his trials (Jer. xv. 16). The first condition of such pro-
phecy are pure lips and a heart right with God. Isaiah's
lips are purged and his sin forgiven before he can go as
Jehovah's messenger (Isa. vi.) ; and to Jeremiah the Lord
says, " If thou return, then will I bring thee back, and thou
shalt stand before me : and if thou take forth the precious
from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth : let them — the
sinful people — turn to thee, but turn not thou to them " (Jer.
xv. 19). Thus the essence of true prophecy lies in moral
converse with Jehovah. It is in this moral converse that
the prophet learns the divine will, enters into the secrets of
Jehovah's purpose, and so by declaring God's word to Israel
keeps alive a constant spiritual intercourse between Him and
His people.
J9
290 PROPHETIC IDEAL lect. x
According to the prophets this spiritual intercourse is the
essence of religion, and the " word of Jehovah," in the sense
now explained, is the characteristic and distinguishing mark
of His grace to Israel. When the word of Jehovah is with-
drawn, the nation is hopelessly undone. Amos describes as
the climax of judgment on the Northern Kingdom a famine
not of bread but of hearing Jehovah's word. Men shall run
from end to end of the land to seek the word of Jehovah, and
shall not find it. In that day the fair virgins and the young
men shall faint for thirst, and the guilty people shall fall to
rise no more (Amos viii. 11 sq.). Conversely the hope of
Judah in its adversity is that "thine eyes shall see thy
teacher, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying,
This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right
hand or the left " (Isa. xxx. 20). And so the function of the
prophet cannot cease till the days of the new covenant, when
Jehovah shall write His revelation in the hearts of all His
people, when one man " shall no more teach another saying,
Know Jehovah : for they shall all know me from the least of
them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah : for I will
forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more " (Jer.
xxxi. 33 sq.). When we compare this passage with Isaiah
vi., we see that under this new covenant the prophetic conse-
cration is extended to all Israel, and the function- of the
teacher ceases, because all Israel shall then stand in the
circle of Jehovah's intimates, and see the king in His beauty
as Isaiah saw Him in prophetic vision (Isa. xxxiii. 17). The
same thought appears in another form in Joel ii. 28, where it
is represented as a feature in the deliverance of Israel that
God's spirit shall be poured on all flesh, and young and old,
freemen and slaves, shall prophesy. But nowhere is the idea
more clear than in the last part of the Book of Isaiah, where
the true people of Jehovah and the prophet of Jehovah appear
as identical. " Hearken unto me, ye that know the right, the
LEC'T. X
OF RELIGION 291
people in ivhose hearts my revelation dioells; fear ye not the
reproach of man, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. . . .
/ have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in
the shadow of my hand, planting the heavens and laying the
foundation of the earth, and saying to Zion, Thou art my
people " (Isa. li. 7, 16).
We see, then, that the ideal of the Old Testament is a
dispensation in which all are prophets. "Would that all
the people of Jehovah were prophets," says Moses in Num.
xi. 29, " and that Jehovah would put his spirit upon them."
If prophecy were merely an institution for the prediction of
future events, this wish would be futile. But the essential
grace of the prophet is a heart purged of sin, and entering
with boldness into the inner circle of fellowship with Jehovah.
The spirit of Jehovah, which rests on the prophet, is not
merely a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of
counsel and might, but a spirit to know and fear the Lord
(Isa. xi. 2). The knowledge and fear of Jehovah is the sum
of all prophetic wisdom, but also of all religion ; and the Old
Testament spirit of prophecy is the forerunner of the New
Testament spirit of sanctification. That this spirit, in the
Old Covenant, rests only upon chosen organs of revelation,
and not upon all the faithful, corresponds to the limitations
of the dispensation, in which the primary subject of religion
is not the individual but the nation, so that Israel's personal
converse with Jehovah can be adequately maintained, like
other national functions, through the medium of certain
chosen and representative persons. The -prophet is thus a
mediator, who not only brings God's word to the people but
conversely makes intercession for the people with God (Isa.
xxxvii. 4 ; Jer. xiv. 11, xv. 1, etc.).
The account of prophecy given by the prophets themselves
involves, you perceive, a whole theory of religion, pointing in
the most necessary way to a New Testament fulfilment. But
292 THE PROPHETS lect. x
the theory moves in an altogether different plane from the
Levitical ordinances, and in no sense can it be viewed as a
spiritual commentary on them. For under the Levitical
system Jehovah's grace is conveyed to Israel through the
priest ; according to the prophets it comes in the prophetic
word. The systems are not identical ; but may they at least
be regarded as mutually supplementary ?
In their origin priest and prophet are doubtless closely
connected ideas. Moses is not only a prophet but a priest
(Deut. xviii. 15 ; Hos. xii. 13 ; Deut. xxxiii. 8 ; Psalm xcix.
6). Samuel also unites both functions ; and there is a priestly
as well as a prophetic oracle. In early times the sacred lot
of the priest appears to have been more looked to than the
prophetic word. David ceases to consult Gad when Abiathar
joins him with the ephod. (Comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 18, xxii. 10,
xxiii. 9, xxviii. 6 with xxii. 5.) Indeed, so long as sacrificial
acts were freely performed by laymen, the chief distinction of
a priest doubtless lay in his qualification to give an oracle.
The word which in Hebrew means priest is in old Arabic the
term for a soothsayer (kdhen, kdhin), and in this, as in other
points, the popular religion of Israel was closely modelled on
the forms of Semitic heathenism, as we see from the oracle in
the shrine of Micah (Judges xviii. 5. Comp. 1 Sam. vi. 2 ; 2
Kings x. 19).1 The official prophets of Judah appear' to have
1 In ancient times the priestly oracle of Urini and Thummim was a sacred
lot ; for in 1 Sam. xiv. 41 the true text, as we can still restore it from the
LXX., makes Saul pray, " If the iniquity be in me or Jonathan, give Urim ;
hut if in Israel, give Thummim." This sacred lot was connected with the
ephod, which in the time of the Judges was something very like an idol
{supra, p. 241). Spencer therefore seems to he right in assuming a re-
semblance in point of form between the priestly lot of the Urim and Thummim
and divination by Teraphim (De Leg. Bit. lib. iii. c. 3). The latter again
appears as practised by drawing lots by arrows before the idol (Ezek. xxi. 21,
"he shook the arrows "), which was also a familiar form of divination among
the heathen Arabs (Journal of Phil., as cited above, xiii. 277 sqq.). Under
the Levitical law the priestly lot exists in theory in a very modified form,
confined to the high priest, but in reality it was obsolete (Neh. vii. 65).
lect. x AND THE PRIESTS 293
been connected with the priesthood and the sanctuary until
the close of the kingdom (Isa. xxviii. 7; Jer. xxiii. 11, xxvi.
11 ; comp. Hosea iv. 5). They were, in fact, part of the
establishment of the Temple, and subject to priestly discipline
(Jer. xxix. 26, xx. 1 sq.). They played into the priests' hands
(Jer. v. 31), had a special interest in the affairs of worship (Jer.
xxvii. 16), and appear in all their conflicts with Jeremiah as
the partisans of the theory that Jehovah's help is absolutely
secured by the Temple and its services.
But the prophecy which thus co-operates with the priests
is not spiritual prophecy. It is a kind of prophecy which the
Old Testament calls divination, which traffics in dreams in
place of Jehovah's word (Jer. xxiii. 28), and which, like
heathen divination, presents features akin to insanity that
require to be repressed by physical constraint (Jer. xxix. 26).
Spiritual prophecy, in the hands of Amos, Isaiah, and their
successors, has no such alliance with the sanctuary and its
ritual. It develops and enforces its own doctrine of the
intercourse of Jehovah with Israel, and the conditions of His
grace, without assigning the slightest value to priests and
sacrifices. The sum of religion, according to the prophets, is
to know Jehovah, and obey His precepts. Under the system
of the law enforced from the days of Ezra onwards an im-
portant part of these precepts was ritual. Malachi, a con-
temporary, or perhaps rather an immediate precursor of Ezra,
accepts this position as the basis of his prophetic exhortations.
The first proof of Israel's sin is to him neglect of the sacrificial
ritual. The language of the older prophets up to Jeremiah is
quite different. " What are your many sacrifices to me ? saith
Jehovah : I delight not in the blood of bullocks, and lambs,
and he-goats. When ye come to see my face, who hath asked
this at your hands, to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain
oblations . . . my soul hateth your new moons and your
feasts ; they are a burden upon me ; I am weary to bear
294 THE PROPHETS lect. x
them" (Isa. i. 11 sq.). "I hate, I despise your feast days,
and I will not take pleasure in your solemn assemblies.
Take away from me the noise of thy songs, and let me not
hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice flow as waters,
and righteousness like a perennial stream " (Amos v. 21 sq.).
It is sometimes argued that such passages mean only that
Jehovah will not accept the sacrifice of the wicked, and that
they are quite consistent with a belief that sacrifice and ritual
are a necessary accompaniment of true religion. But there
are other texts which absolutely exclude such a view. Sacri-
fice is not necessary to acceptable religion. Amos proves
God's indifference to ritual by reminding the people that
they offered no sacrifice and offerings to Him in the wilder-
ness during those forty years of wandering which he elsewhere
cites as a special proof of Jehovah's covenant grace (Amos ii.
10, v. 25).1 Micah declares that Jehovah does not require
sacrifice ; He asks nothing of His people, but " to do justly,
and love mercy, and walk humbly with their God " (Micah
vi. 8). And Jeremiah vii. 21 sq. says in express words,
" Put your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh.
For I spake not to your fathers and gave them no command
in the day that I brought them out of Egypt concerning
burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I
them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye
shall be my people," etc. (Comp. Isa. xliii. 23 sq.) The
1 The argument of Amos v. 25 is obscured in the English translation by
the rendering of the following verse. The verbs in that verse are not perfects,
and the idea is not that in the wilderness Israel sacrificed to false gods in
place of Jehovah. Verse 26 commences the prophecy of judgment, "Ye
shall take up your idols, and " (not as E. V. " therefore ") " I will send you into
captivity." The words DDTDN 3313 are a gloss, as is indicated by the fact
that the Septuagint read them before Yaupav = JV3. The gloss arose from
the idea that Chiun is equivalent to the Syriac Kewan, a Pei'sian name of the
planet Saturn. But the date of Amos forbids this interpretation. Both JTDD
and jVS must be common nouns in the construct state, probably "the shrine
of your (idol) king and the'.stand of your images," i.e. the portable shrine and
platform on which the idols were exhibited and borne in processions.
LECT. X
AND THE PRIESTS 295
position here laid down is perfectly clear. When the pro-
phets positively condemn the worship of their contemporaries,
they do so because it is associated with immorality, because
by it Israel hopes to gain God's favour without moral obe-
dience. This does not prove that they have any objection to
sacrifice and ritual in the abstract. But they deny that these
things are of positive divine institution, or have any part in
the scheme on which Jehovah's grace is administered in Israel.
Jehovah, they say, has not enjoined sacrifice. This does not
imply that He has never accepted sacrifice, or that ritual
service is absolutely wrong. But it is at best mere form,
which does not purchase any favour from Jehovah, and might
be given up without offence. It is impossible to give a flatter
contradiction to the traditional theory that the Levitical
system was enacted in the wilderness. The theology of the
prophets before Ezekiel has no place for the system of priestly
sacrifice and ritual.
All this is so clear that it seems impossible to mis-
understand it. Yet the position of the prophets is not only
habitually explained away by those who are determined at
any cost to maintain the traditional view of the Pentateuch,
but is still more seriously misunderstood by a current ration-
alism not altogether confined to those who, on principle, deny
the reality of positive revelation. It is a widespread opinion
that the prophets are the advocates of natural religion, and
that this is the reason of their indifference to a religion of
ordinances and ritual. On the naturalistic theory of religion,
ethical monotheism is the natural belief of mankind, not, in-
deed, attained at once in all races, but worked out for them-
selves by the great thinkers of humanity, continually reflecting
on the ordinary phenomena of life and history. It is held
that natural religion is the only true religion, that the proof
of its truth lay open to all men in all countries, and that
Christianity itself, so far as it is true, is merely the historical
296 THE PROPHETIC lect. x
development, in one part of the world, of those ideas of ethical
monotheism which other nations than Israel might have
worked out equally well on the basis of their own experience
and reflection. From this point of view the prophets are
regarded as advanced thinkers, who had not yet thrown aside
all superstition, who were hampered by a belief in miracle
and special revelation, but whose teaching has abiding value
only in proportion as it reduced these elements to a sub-
ordinate place and struck out new ideas essentially independ-
ent of them. The prophets, we are told, believed themselves
to be inspired. But their true inspiration was only profound
thinking. They were inspired as all great poetic and religious
minds are inspired ; and when they say that God has told
them certain things as to His nature and attributes, this only
means that they have reached a profound conviction of
spiritual truths concealed from their less intelligent contem-
poraries. The permanent truths of religion are those which
spring up in the breast without external revelation or tradi-
tional teaching. The prophets had grasped these truths with
great force, and so they were indifferent to the positive forms
which made up the religion of the mass of their nation. This
theory has had an influence extending far beyond the circle
of those who deliberately accept it in its whole compass.
Even popular theology is not indisposed to solve the apparent
contradiction between the Prophets and the Pentateuch, by
saying that the former could afford to overlook the positive
elements of Israel's religion, because their hearts were filled
with spiritual truths belonging to another sphere.
But the prophets themselves put the case in a very
different light. According to them it is their religion which
is positive, and the popular worship which is largely tradi-
tional and of human growth. That Jehovah is the Judge, the
Lawgiver, the King of Israel, is a proposition which they
accept in the most literal sense. Jehovah's word and thoughts
LECT. X
INSPIRATION 297
are as distinct from their own words and thoughts as those
of another human person. The mark of a false prophet is
that he speaks " the vision of his own heart, not from Jehovah's
mouth " (Jer. xxiii. 16). The word of Jehovah, the command-
ments and revelations of Jehovah, are given to them inter-
nally, but are not therefore identical with their own reflections.
They have an external authority, the authority of Him who
is the King and Master of Israel. This is not the place for a
theory of revelation. But it is well to observe, as a matter of
plain fact, that the inspiration of the prophets presents
phenomena quite distinct from those of any other religion.
In the crasser forms of religion the supernatural character of
an oracle is held to be proved by the absence of self-conscious
thought. The dream, the ecstatic vision, the frenzy of the
Pythoness, seem divine because they are not intelligent. But
these things are divination, not prophecy. Jeremiah draws
an express contrast between dreams and the word of Jehovah
(Jer. xxiii. 25-28). And the visions of the prophets, which
were certainly rare, and by no means the standard form of
revelation, are distinguished by the fact that the seer retains
his consciousness, his moral judgment, his power of thinking
(Isa. vi.). On the other hand, the assertion so often made
that the prophets identify the word of Jehovah with their
own highest thoughts, just as the Vedic poets do, ignores an
essential difference between the two cases. The prophets
drew a sharp distinction between their own word and God's
word, which these poets never do. Nor is spiritual prophecy,
as other scholars hold, a natural product of Semitic religion.
Semitic religion, like other religions, naturally produces
diviners ; but even Mohammed had no criterion apart from
his hysterical fits to distinguish his own thoughts from the
revelations of Allah.1
1 The Greek doctrine of the inspiration of the poet never led to the
recognition of certain poems as sacred Scriptures. But the Indian Vedas
were regarded in later times as infallible, eternal, divine. In the priestly
298 PROPHETIC AND lect. x
According to the prophets, all true knowledge of God is
reached, not by human reflection, but by the instruction of
Jehovah Himself. Eeligion is to know Jehovah, to fear Him
and obey His commandments, as one knows, fears, and obeys
a father and a king. The relations of Jehovah to Israel are
of a perfectly matter-of-fact kind. They rest on the historical
fact that He chose the people of Israel, brought them up from
Egypt, settled them in Canaan, and has ever since been
present in the nation, issuing commands for its behaviour in
every concern of national life. In every point of conduct
Israel is referred, not to its own moral reflections and political
wisdom, but to the Word of Jehovah.
According to the traditional view, the Word of Jehovah is
embodied in a book-revelation. The Torah, " instruction," or,
as we should say, revelation of God, is a written volume
deposited with the priests, which gives rules for all national
bards, therefore (the Eishis), the first authors of the Vedic hymns, we may
expect to find, if anywhere, a consciousness analogous to that of the prophets'.
Their accounts of themselves have been collected by Dr. John Muir in his
Sanscrit Texts, vol. iii., and some recent writers have laid great stress on this
supposed parallel to prophetic inspiration. But what are the facts ? The
Rishis frequently speak of their hymns as their own works, but also some-
times entertain the idea that their prayers, praises, and ceremonies generally
were supernaturally inspired. The gods are said to " generate " prayer ; the
prayer is god-given. The poet, like a Grecian singer, calls on the gods to
help his prayer. " May prayer, brilliant and divine, proceed from us." But
in all this there is no stricter conception of inspiration than in the Greek
poets. It is not the word of God that we hear, but the poet's word aided by
the gods (compare Muir, p. 275). How different is this from the language of
the prophets ! " Where do the prophets," asks Merx (Jenaer Lit. Zeit., 1876,
p. 19), "pray for illumination of spirit, force of poetic expression, glowing
power of composition 1 " The prophetic consciousness of inspiration is clearly
separated both from the inspiration of the heathen fxavris and from the afflatus
of the Indian or Grecian bard.
On Mohammed's inspiration see Noldeke, Gcschichte des Qortins, p. 4.
' ' He not only gave out his later revelations, composed with conscious delibera-
tion and the use of foreign materials, as being, equally with the first glowing
productions of his enthusiasm, angelic messages and proofs of the prophetic
spirit, but made direct use of pious fraud to gain adherents, and employed
the authority of the Koran to decide and adjust things that had nothing to
do with religion."
LECT. X
PKIESTLY TORAH 299
and personal conduct, and also provides the proper means for
regaining God's favour when it has been lost through sin.
But to the prophets the Torah has a very different meaning.
The prophets did not invent the word Torah. It is a
technical term of the current traditional religion. A Torah
is any decision or instruction on matters of law and conduct
given by a sacred authority. Thus moreh, or giver of Torah,
may mean a soothsayer. The oak of the Torah-giver (Gen.
xii. 6) is identical with the soothsayer's oak (Jud. ix. 37).
You remember, in illustration of this name, that Deborah
gave her prophetic judgments under " the palm - tree of
Deborah" between Eamah and Bethel. More frequent are
allusions to the Torah of the priests, which in like manner
denotes, not a book which they had in their hands, but the
sacred decisions given, by the priestly oracle or otherwise, in
the sanctuary, which in early Israel was the seat of divine
judgment (Exod. xviii. 19, xxi. 6, where for the judges read
God ; 1 Sam. ii. 25). Thus in Deut. xxxiii. 10 the business
of the Levites is to give Torah to Israel and to offer sacrifice
to God. In Jer. xviii. 18 the people give as a ground of
their security against the evils predicted by Jeremiah that
Torah shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the
wise, nor the word from the prophet. The priests are " they
that handle the Torah " (Jer. ii. 8). Micah complains that the
priests give Torahs or legal decisions for hire (Micah iii. 11).
In these passages the Torah is not a book but an oral decision ;
and the grammatical form of the word, as an infinitive of the
verb " to give a decision or instruction," shows this to be the
primitive sense.
We have seen how spiritual prophecy branched off and
separated itself from the popular prophecy which remained
connected with the sanctuary and the priests. In doing so it
carried its own spiritual Torah with it. When God bids
Isaiah " bind up the testimony, seal the Torah among my
300 ORAL AND
LECT. X
disciples," the reference is to the revelation just given to the
prophet himself (Isa. viii. 16). To this Torah and testimony,
and not to wizards and consulters of the dead, Israel's appeal
for Divine guidance lies (ver. 20). The Torah is the living
prophetic word. " Hear the word of Jehovah," and " Give ear
to the Torah of our God," are parallel injunctions by which
the prophet demands attention to his divine message (Isa. i.
10). The Torah is not yet a finished and complete system,
booked and reduced to a code, but a living word in the mouth
of the prophets. In the latter days the proof that Jehovah is
King in Zion, exalting His chosen hill above all the mountains
of the earth, will still be that Torah proceeds from Zion and
the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem, so that all nations come
thither for judgment, and Jehovah's word establishes peace
among hostile peoples (Isa. ii. 2 sq. ; Micah v. 1 sq.). It is
this continual living instruction of Jehovah present with His
people which the prophets, as we have already seen, regard as
essential to the welfare of Israel. No written book would
satisfy the thirst for God's Word of which Amos speaks. The
only thing that can supersede the Torah of the prophets is the
Torah written in every heart and spoken by every lip. " This is
my covenant with them, saith Jehovah : my spirit that is upon
thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not
depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor
out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith Jehovah, from hence-
forth and for ever" (Isa. lix. 21). God's Word, not in a book
but in the heart and mouth of His servants, is the ultimate
ideal as well as the first postulate of prophetic theology.
How then did this revelation, which is essentially living
speech, pass into the form of a written word such as we still
possess in the books of the Old Testament ? To answer this
question as the prophets themselves would do, we must
remember that among primitive nations, and indeed among
Eastern nations to this day, books are not the foundation of
lect. x WRITTEN TOE AH 301
sound knowledge. The ideal of instruction is oral teaching,
and the worthiest shrine of truths that must not die is the
memory and heart of a faithful disciple. The ideal state of
things is that in which the Torah is written in Israel's heart,
and all his children are disciples of Jehovah (Isa. liv. 13).
But this ideal was far from the actual reality, and so in
religion, as in other branches of knowledge, the written roll
to which truth is committed supplies the lack of faithful
disciples. This comes out quite clearly in the case of the
prophetic books. The prophets write the words which their
contemporaries refuse to hear. So Isaiah seals his revelation
among the disciples of Jehovah ; that is, he takes them as
witnesses to a document which is, as it were, a formal testi-
mony against Israel (Isa. viii. 1 sq., 16). So Jeremiah, after
three -and- twenty years spent in speaking to a rebellious
people, writes down his prophecies that they may have
another opportunity to hear and repent (Jer. xxxvi.). Jehovah's
Word has a scope that reaches beyond the immediate occasion,
and a living force which prevents it from returning to Him
without effect ; and if it is not at once taken up into the
hearts of the people, it must be set in writing for future use
and for a testimony in time to come. Thus the prophets
become authors, and they and their disciples are students of
written revelation. The prophets give many signs of acquaint-
ance with the writings of their predecessors, and sometimes
even quote them verbally. Thus Jer. xlix. 7-22 and the
Book of Obadiah seem both to make use of an earlier oracle
against Edom ;l and the prophecy against Moab in Isa. xv. xvi.
is followed by the note of a later prophet : " This is the word
which Jehovah spake against Moab long ago. But now
Jehovah speaks, saying, Within three short years the glory of
Moab shall be abased " (Isa. xvi. 13, 14). Thus we see why
1 See the article Obadiah in Enc. Brit, 9th ed., and Driver, Introduc-
tion, p. 298 sq.
302 ORAL AND
LECT. X
the beginnings of prophetic literature in the eighth century
coincide with the great breach between spiritual prophecy and
i the popular religion. Elisha had no need to write, for his word
bore immediate fruit in the overthrow of the house of Omri
and the destruction of the worshippers of Baal. The old
prophecy left its record in social and political successes. The
new prophecy that begins with Amos spoke to a people that
would not hear, and looked to no immediate success, but only
to a renovation of the remnant of Israel to follow on a
completed work of judgment. When the people forbid the
prophets to preach, they begin perforce to write (Amos ii. 12,
vii. 12, 13 ; Micah ii. 6 ; Jer. xxxvi. 5 sg.).
But, though the properly prophetic literature begins in
the eighth century B.C., do not the prophets, it may be asked,
base their teaching on an earlier written revelation of another
kind ? They certainly hold that the religion of Israel is as
old as the Exodus. They speak of Moses. " By a prophet,"
says Hosea, " Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt." " I
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee
out of the house of bondage," says Micah ; " and I sent before
thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam." Do not these references
presuppose the written law of Moses ? This question requires
careful consideration.
There is no doubt that the prophets regard themselves
as successors of Moses. He is, as we see from Hosea, the
first prophet of Israel. But the prophets of the eighth
century never speak of a written law of Moses. The only
passage which has been taken to do so is Hosea viii. 12. And
here the grammatical translation is, " Though I wrote to him
my Torah in ten thousand precepts, they would be esteemed
as a strange thing." It is simple matter of fact that the
prophets do not refer to a written Torah as the basis of their
teaching, and we have seen that they absolutely deny the
existence of a binding ritual law. But, on the other hand, it
LECT. X
WRITTEN TORAH 303
is clear that the Torah is not a new thing in the eighth
century. The false religion of the mass of the nation is
always described as a corruption of truths which Israel ought
to know. " Thou hast forgotten the Torah of thy God," says
Hosea to the priests (Hos. iv. 6). It cannot fairly be doubted
that the Torah which the priests have forgotten is Mosaic
Torah. For the prophets do not acknowledge the priests as
organs of revelation. Their knowledge was essentially tradi-
tional. Such traditions are based on old-established law, and
they themselves undoubtedly referred their wisdom to Moses,
who, either directly or through Aaron, — for our argument it
matters not which, — is the father of the priests as well as the
father of the prophets (Deut. xxxiii. 4, 8 sq. ; 1 Sam. ii. 27
sq.). That this should be so lies in the nature of the case.
Jehovah as King of Israel must from the first have given
permanent laws as well as precepts for immediate use. What
is quite certain is that, according to the prophets, the Torah
of Moses did not embrace a law of ritual. Worship by
sacrifice, and all that belongs to it, is no part of the divine
Torah to Israel. It forms, if you will, part of natural religion,
which other nations share with Israel, and which is no feature
in the distinctive precepts given at the Exodus. There is no
doubt that this view is in accordance with the Bible history,
and with what we know from other sources. Jacob is repre-
sented as paying tithes ; all the patriarchs build altars and
do sacrifice ; the law of blood is as old as Noah ; the con-
secration of firstlings is known to the Arabs ; the autumn
feast of the vintage is Canaanite as well as Hebrew ; and
these are but examples which might be largely multiplied.
The true distinction of Israel's religion lies in the character
of the Deity who has made Himself personally known to His
people, and demands of them a life conformed to His spiritual
character as a righteous and forgiving God. The difference
between Jehovah and the gods of the nations is that He does
304 PROPHETIC AND lect. x
not require sacrifice, but only to do justly, and love mercy,
and walk humbly with God. This standpoint is not confined
to the prophetic books ; it is the standpoint of the Ten Com-
mandments, which contain no precept of positive worship.
But according to many testimonies of the pre-exilic books, it
is the Ten Commandments, the laws written on the two tables
of stone, that are Jehovah's covenant with Israel. In 1 Kings
viii. 9, 21 these tables are identified with the covenant
deposited in the sanctuary. And with this the Book of
Deuteronomy agrees (Deut. v. 2, 22). Whatever is more than
the words spoken at Horeb is not strictly covenant, but pro-
phetic teaching, continual divine guidance addressed to those
needs which in heathen nations are met by divination, but
which in Israel are supplied by the personal word of the
revealing God ministered through a succession of prophets
(Deut. xviii. 9 sq.). Even Ezra (ix. 11) still speaks of the law
which forbids intermarriage with the people of Canaan as an
ordinance of the prophets (plural). Yet this is now read as a
Pentateuchal law (Deut. vii.).
To understand this view, we must remember that among
the pure Semites even at the present day the sphere of legis-
lation is far narrower than in our more complicated society.
Ordinary affairs of life are always regulated by consuetudinary
law, preserved without writing or the need for trained judges,
in the memory and practice of the family and the tribe. It
is only in cases of difficulty that an appeal is taken to the
judge — the " Cadi of the Arabs." It was not otherwise in
the days of Moses. It was only hard matters that were
brought to him, and referred by him, not to a fixed code of
law, but to Divine decision (Exod. xviii. 19-26), which formed
a precedent for future use. Of this state of things the condi-
tion of affairs under the Judges is the natural sequel. But
Moses did more than any " Cadi of the Arabs," who owes his
authority to superior knowledge of legal tradition. He was
lect. x MOSAIC TORAH 305
a prophet as well as a judge. As such he founded in Israel
the great principles of the moral religion of the righteous
Jehovah. All else was but a development of the fundamental
revelation, and from the standpoint of prophetic religion it is
not of importance whether these developments were given
directly by Moses, or only by the prophets his successors.
But all true Torah must move in the lines of the original
covenant. The standard of the prophets is the moral law,
and because the priests had forgotten this they declare them
to have forgotten the law, however copious their Torah, and
however great their interest in details of ritual. Forgotten
or perverted by the priests (Hos. iv. 6 ; Zeph. iii. 4), the true
Torah of Jehovah is preserved by the prophets. But the
prophets before Ezekiel have no concern in the law of ritual.
They make no effort to recall the priests to their duty in this
respect, except in the negative sense of condemning such
elements in the popular worship as are inconsistent with the
spiritual attributes of Jehovah.
From the ordinary presuppositions with which we are
accustomed to approach the Old Testament, there is one
point in this position of the prophets which still creates a
difficulty. If it is true that they exclude the sacrificial
worship from the positive elements of Israel's religion, what
becomes of the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, which we
are accustomed to regard as mainly expressed in the typical
ordinances of atonement ? It is necessary, in conclusion, to
say a word on this head. The point, I think, may be put
thus. When Micah, for example, says that Jehovah requires
nothing of man but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with God, we are apt to take this utterance as an
expression of Old Testament legalism. According to the law
of works, these things are of course sufficient. But sinful
man, sinful Israel, cannot perform them perfectly. Is it not
therefore necessary for the law to come in, with its atone-
20
306 PROPHETIC DOCTRINE lect. x
ment, to supply the imperfection of Israel's obedience ? I
ask you to observe that such a view of the prophetic teaching
is the purest rationalism, necessarily allied with the false idea
that the prophets are advocates of natural morality. The
prophetic theory of religion has nothing to do with the law
of works. Keligion, they teach, is the personal fellowship of
Jehovah with Israel, in which He shapes His people to His
own ends, impresses His own likeness upon them by a con-
tinual moral guidance. Such a religion cannot exist under a
bare law of works. Jehovah did not find Israel a holy and
righteous people ; He has to make it so by wise discipline
and loving guidance, which refuses to be frustrated by the
people's shortcomings and sins. The continuance of Jehovah's
love in spite of Israel's transgressions, which is set forth with
so much force in the opening chapters of Hosea, is the for-
giveness of sins.
Under the Old Testament the forgiveness of sins is not
an abstract doctrine but a thing of actual experience. The
proof, nay, the substance, of forgiveness is the continued
enjoyment of those practical marks of Jehovah's favour
which are experienced in peaceful occupation of Canaan and
deliverance from all trouble. This practical way of estimating
forgiveness is common to the prophets with their contem-
poraries. Jehovah's anger is felt in national calamity, for-
giveness is realised in the removal of chastisement. The
proof that Jehovah is a forgiving God is that He does not
retain His anger for ever, but turns and has compassion on
His people (Micah vii. 18 sq. ; Isa. xii. 1). There is no meta-
physic in this conception, it simply accepts the analogy of
anger and forgiveness in human life.
In the popular religion the people hoped to influence
Jehovah's disposition towards them by gifts and sacrifices
(Micah vi. 4 sq.), by outward tokens of penitence. It is
against this view that the prophets set forth the true doctrine
lect. x OF FORGIVENESS 307
of forgiveness. Jehovah's anger is not caprice but a just
indignation, a necessary side of His moral kingship in Israel.
He chastises to work penitence, and it is only to the penitent
that He can extend forgiveness. By returning to obedience
the people regain the marks of Jehovah's love, and again
experience His goodness in deliverance from calamity and
happy possession of a fruitful land. According to the
prophets, this law of chastisement and forgiveness works
directly, without the intervention of any ritual sacrament.
Jehovah's love is never withdrawn from His people, even in
their deepest sin and in His sternest chastisements. " How
can I give thee up, Ephraim ? How can I cast thee away,
Israel ? My heart burns within me, my compassion is all
kindled. I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath ; I
will not turn to destroy thee : for I am God and not man,
the Holy One in the midst of thee " (Hos. xi. 8). This
inalienable Divine love, the sovereignty of God's own re-
deeming purpose, is the ground of forgiveness. " I, even I,
am he that blotteth out thine iniquity for mine own sake "
(Isa. xliii. 25). And so the prophets know, with a certainty
that rests in the unchangeable heart of God, that through all
chastisement, nay, through the ruin of the state, the true
remnant of Israel shall return to Jehovah, not with sacrifices,
but with lips instead of bullocks, as Hosea puts it, saying,
Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously (Hos. xiv. 2).
All prophetic prediction is but the development in many
forms, and in answer to the needs of Israel in various times,
of this supreme certainty, that God's love works triumphantly
in all His judgments ; that Israel once redeemed from Egypt
shall again be redeemed not only from bondage but from sin ;
that Jehovah will perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to
Abraham, which He sware to Israel's fathers from the days
of old (Micah vii. 20). Accordingly, the texts which call
for obedience and not sacrifice (Micah vi. ; Jer. vii. etc.), for
308 DOCTEINE OF FORGIVENESS lect. x
humanity instead of outward tokens of contrition (Isa. lviii.),
come in at the very same point with the atoning ordinances
of the ritual law. They do not set forth the legal conditions
of acceptance without forgiveness, but the requisites of for-
giveness itself. According to the prophets, Jehovah asks
only a penitent heart and desires no sacrifice ; according to
the ritual law, He desires a penitent heart approaching Him
in certain sacrificial sacraments. /The law adds something
to the prophetic teaching, something which the prophets do
not know, and which, if both are parts of one system of true
revelation, was either superseded before the prophets rose,
or began only after they had spoken. But the ritual law!
was not superseded by prophecy. It comes into full force
only at the close of the prophetic period in the reformation
of Ezra. And so the conclusion is inevitable that the ritual
element which the law adds to the prophetic doctrine of
forgiveness became part of the system of Old Testament
religion only after the prophets had spoken.1
1 Properly to understand the prophetic doctrine of forgiveness, we must
remember that the problem of the acceptance of the individual with God was
never fully solved in the Old Testament. The prophets always deal with the
nation in its unity as the object of wrath and forgiveness. The religious life
of the individual is still included in that of the nation. When we, by
analogy, apply what the prophets say of the nation to the forgiveness of the
individual, we must remember that Israel's history starts with a work of
redemption— deliverance from Egypt. To this objective proof of Jehovah's
love the prophets look back, just as we look to the finished work of Christ.
In it is contained the pledge of Divine love, giving confidence to approach
God and seek His forgiveness. But while the Old Testament believer had no
difficulty in assuring himself of Jehovah's love to Israel, it was not so easy to
find a pledge of His grace to the individual, and especially not easy to appre-
hend God as a forgiving God under personal affliction. Here especially the
defect of the dispensation came out, and the problem of individual acceptance
with God, which was acutely realised in and after the fall of the nation, when
the righteous so often suffered with the wicked, is that most closely bound up
with the interpretation of the atoning sacrifices of the Levitical ritual.
LECTUEE XI
THE PENTATEUCH: THE FIKST LEGISLATION
The results of our investigation up to this point are not
critical but historical, and, if you will, theological. The
Hebrews before the Exile knew a twofold Torah, the Torah
of the priests and that of the prophets. Neither Torah
corresponds with the present Pentateuch. The prophets
altogether deny to the law of sacrifice the character of
positive revelation; their attitude to questions of ritual is
the negative attitude of the Ten Commandments, content to
forbid what is inconsistent with the true nature of Jehovah,
and for the rest to leave matters to their own course. The
priests, on the contrary, have a ritual and legal Torah
which has a recognised place in the state; but neither in
the old priestly family of Eli nor in the Jerusalem priest-
hood of the sons of Zadok did the rules and practice
of the priests correspond with the finished system of the
Pentateuch.
These results have a much larger interest than the
question of the date of the Pentateuch. It is more im-
portant to understand the method of God's grace in Israel
than to settle when a particular book was written ; and we
now see that, whatever the age of the Pentateuch as a written
code, the Levitical system of communion with God, the
Levitical sacraments of atonement, were not the forms under
310 THE LAW lect. xi
which God's grace worked, and to which His revelation
accommodated itself, in Israel before the Exile.
The Levitical ordinances, whether they existed before the
Exile or not, were not yet God's word to Israel at that time.
For God's word is the expression of His practical will. And
the history and the prophets alike make it clear that God's
will for Israel's salvation took quite another course.
The current view of the Pentateuch is mainly concerned
to do literal justice to the phrase "The Lord spake unto
Moses, saying " thus and thus. But to save the literal " unto
Moses " is to sacrifice the far more important words " The
Lord spake." The time when these ritual ordinances became
God's word — that is, became a divinely sanctioned means for
checking the rebellion of the Israelites and keeping them as
close to spiritual religion as their imperfect understanding
and hard hearts permitted — was subsequent to the work of
the prophets. As a matter of historical fact, the Law con-
tinues the work of the prophets, and great part of the Law
was not yet known to the prophets as God's word.
The ritual law is, strictly speaking, a fusion of prophetic
and priestly Torah. Its object is to provide a scheme of
worship, in the pre-Christian sense of that word, consistent
with the unique holiness of Jehovah, and yet not beyond the
possibility of practical realisation in a nation that was not
ripe to enter into present fruition of the evangelical pre-
dictions of the prophets. From the time of Ezra downwards
this object was practically realised. But before the Captivity
it not only was not realised, but was not even contemplated.
Ezekiel, himself an exile, is the first prophet who proposes
a reconstruction of ritual in conformity with the spiritual
truths of prophecy. And he does so, not like Ezra by recall-
ing the nation to the law of Moses, but by sketching an
independent scheme of ritual, which unquestionably had a
great influence on the subsequent development. Jeremiah,
LECT. XI
OF MOSES 311
like Ezekiel, was a priest as well as a prophet, but there is
nothing in Jeremiah which recognises the necessity for such
a scheme of ritual as Ezekiel maps out.
When the Levitical law first comes on the stage of actual
history at the time of Ezra, it presents itself as the Law of
Moses. People who have not understood the Old Testament
are accustomed to say that this is either literally true or a ,
lie ; that the Pentateuch is either the literary work of Moses,
or else a barefaced imposture. The reverent and thoughtful
student, who knows the complicated difficulties of the prob-
lem, will not willingly accept this statement of the ques-
tion. If we are tied up to make a choice between these two
alternatives, it is impossible to deny that all the historical
evidence that has come before us points in the direction of
the second. If our present Pentateuch was written by Moses,
it was lost as completely as any book could be. The pro-
phets know the history of Moses and the patriarchs, they
know that Moses is the founder of the Torah, but they do
not know that complete system which we have been accus-
tomed to suppose his work. And the priests of Sliiloh and
the Temple do not know the very parts of the Torah which
would have done most to raise their authority and influence.
At the time of Josiah a book of the Law is found, but it is
still not the whole Pentateuch, for it does not contain the
full Levitical system. From the death of Joshua to Ezra is,
on the usual chronology, just one thousand years. Where
was the Pentateuch all this time, if it was unknown to
every one of those who ought to have had most interest
in it ? l
1 I may here notice one passage which has been cited (e.g. by Keil, Intro-
duction, vol. i. p. 170 of the Eng. tr. ) as containing a reference to the written
law in the time of King Jehoash of Judah. In 2 Kings xi. 12 we read that
Jehoiadah " brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him and
gave him the testimony." But here everything turns on the words "gave
him," and these are not in the Hebrew, which must, according to grammar,
be rendered " put upon him the crown and the testimony. " The " testimony,"
312 MEANING OF
LECT. XI
It is plain that no thinking man can be asked to accept
the Pentateuch as the composition of Moses without some
evidence to that effect. But evidence a thousand years after
date is no evidence at all, when the intervening period bears
unanimous witness in a different sense. By insisting that
the whole Pentateuch is one work of Moses and all of equal
date, the traditional view cuts off all possibility of proof that
its kernel is Mosaic. For it is certain that Israel, before the
Exile, did not know all the Pentateuch. Therefore, if the
Pentateuch is all one, they did not know any part of it. If
we are shut up to choose between a Mosaic authorship of the
whole five books and the opinion that the Pentateuch is a
mere forgery, the sceptics must gain their case.
It is useless to appeal to the doctrine of inspiration for
help in such a strait ; for all sound apologetic admits that the
proof that a book is credible must precede belief that it is
inspired.
But are we really shut up to choose between these
extreme alternatives ? The Pentateuch is known as the Law
of Moses in the age that begins with Ezra. What is the
sense which the Jews themselves, from the age of Ezra down-
wards, attach to this expression ? In one way they certainly
take a false and unhistorical sense out of the words. They
assume that the law of ordinances, or rather the law of works,
moral and ceremonial, was the principle of all Israel's religion.
They identify Mosaism with Pharisaism. That is certainly an
error, as the History and the Prophets prove. But, on the
other hand, the Jews are accustomed to use the word Mosaic
quite indifferently of the direct teaching of Moses, and of the
precepts drawn from Mosaic principles and adapted to later
needs. According to a well-known passage in the Talmud,
therefore, is part of the royal insignia, which is absurd. But the addition of
a single letter, nnjft'n for nnyit, gives the excellent sense, " put on him the
crown and the bracelets." The crown and the bracelet appear together as the
royal insignia in 2 Sam. i. 10. This certain correction is due to Wellhausen.
LECT. XI
MOSAIC TOEAH 313
even the Prophets and the Hagiographa were implicitly given
to Moses at Sinai. So far is this idea carried that the Torah
is often identified with the Decalogue, in which all other
parts of the Law are involved. Thus the words of Deut. v.
22, which refer to the Decalogue, are used as a proof that the
five books of Moses can never pass away.1 The beginnings
of this way of thought are clearly seen in Ezra ix. 11, where
a law of the Pentateuch is cited as an ordinance of the
prophets. Mosaic law is not held to exclude post-Mosaic
developments. That the whole law is the Law of Moses does
not necessarily imply that every precept was developed in
detail in his days, but only that the distinctive law of Israel
owes to him the origin and principles in which all detailed
precepts are implicitly contained. The development into
explicitness of what Moses gave in principle is the work of
continuous divine teaching in connection with new historical
situations.
This way of looking at the law of Moses is not an inven-
tion of modern critics ; it actually existed among the Jews. I
do not say that they made good use of it ; on the contrary,
in the period of the Scribes, it led to a great overgrowth of
traditions, which almost buried the written word. But the
principle is older than its abuse, and it seems to offer a key
for the solution of the serious difficulties in which we are
involved by the apparent contradictions between the Penta-
teuch on the one hand and the historical books and the
Prophets on the other.
If the word Mosaic was sometimes understood as meaning
no more than Mosaic in principle, it is easy to see how the
fusion of priestly and prophetic Torah in our present Penta-
teuch may be called Mosaic, though many things in its
1 Berachoth Bab. 5, a (p. 234 in Schwab's French translation, Paris, 1871).
Megilla Jer., cited in Lecture VI. p. 187. Compare Weber, Syst. des altsynagog.
Thcol. (Leipzig, 1880), p. 89 sq., and Dr. M. Wise in the Hebrew Review,
vol. i. p. 12 sq. (Cincinnati, 1880).
314 FUNCTION OF lect. xi
system were unknown to the History and the Prophets before
the Exile. For Moses was priest as well as prophet, and both
priests and prophets referred the origin of their Torah to him.
In the age of the prophetic writings the two Torahs had fallen
apart. The prophets do not acknowledge the priestly ordin-
ances of their day as a part of Jehovah's commandments to
Israel. The priests, they say, have forgotten or perverted the
Torah. To reconcile the prophets and the priesthood, to
re-establish conformity between the practice of Israel's wor-
ship and the spiritual teachings of the prophets, was to return
to the standpoint of Moses, and bring back the Torah to its
original oneness. Whether this was done by bringing to
light a forgotten Mosaic book, or by recasting the traditional
and consuetudinary law in accordance with Mosaic prin-
ciples, is a question purely historical, which does not at all
affect the legitimacy of the work.
It is always for the interest of truth to discuss historical
questions by purely historical methods, without allowing
theological questions to come in till the historical analysis is
complete. This, indeed, is the chief reason why scholars
indifferent to the religious value of the Bible have often done
good service by their philological and historical studies. For
though no one can thoroughly understand the Bible without
spiritual sympathy, our spiritual sympathies are commonly
bound up with theological prejudices which have no real
basis in Scripture ; and it is a wholesome exercise to see how
the Bible history presents itself to men who approach the
Bible from an altogether different point of view. It is easier
to correct the errors of a rationalism with which we have no
sympathy, than to lay aside prejudices deeply interwoven
with our most cherished and truest convictions.
In strict method, then, we ought now to prosecute the
question of the origin of the Pentateuch by the ordinary
rules of historical inquiry ; and only when a result has been
LECT. XI
THE LAW 315
reached should we pause to consider the theological bearings
of what we have learned. But we have all been so much
accustomed to look at the subject from a dogmatical point
of view, that a few remarks at this stage on the theological
aspect of the problem may be useful in clearing the path of
critical investigation.
Christian theology is interested in the Law as a stage in
the dispensation of God's purpose of grace. As such it is
acknowledged by our Lord, who, though He came to super-
sede the Law, did so only by fulfilling it, or, more accurately,
by filling it up, and supplying in actual substance the good
things of which the Law presented only a shadow and
unsubstantial form. The Law, according to the Epistle to
the Hebrews, was weak and unprofitable ; it carried nothing
to its goal, and must give way to a better hope, by which we
draw near to God (Heb. vii. 18, 19). The Law on this view
never actually supplied the religious needs of Israel ; it served
only to direct the religious attitude of the people, to prevent
them from turning aside into devious paths and looking for
God's help in ways that might tempt them to forget His
spiritual nature and fall back into heathenism. For this
purpose the Law presents an artificial system of sanctity,
radiating from the sanctuary and extending to all parts of
Israel's life. The type of religion maintained by such a
system is certainly inferior to the religion of the prophets,
which is a thing not of form but of spirit. But the religion
of the prophets could not become the type of national religion
until Jehovah's spirit rested on all His people, and the know-
ledge of Him dwelt in every heart. This was not the case
under the old dispensation. The time to which Jeremiah
and Isaiah xl.-lxvi., look forward, when the prophetic word
shall be as it were incarnate in a regenerate nation, did not
succeed the restoration from Babylon. On the contrary, the
old prophetic converse of Jehovah with His people flagged
316 FUNCTION OF lect. xi
and soon died out, and the word of Jehovah, which in old
days had been a present reality, became a memory of the past
and a hope for the future. It was under these circumstances
that the dispensation of the Law became a practical power in
Israel. It did not bring Israel into such direct converse with
Jehovah as prophecy had done. But for the mass of the
people it nevertheless formed a distinct step in advance ; for
it put an end to the anomalous state of things in which
practical heathenism had filled the state, and the prophets
preached to deaf ears. The legal ritual did not satisfy the
highest spiritual needs, but it practically extinguished idolatry.
It gave palpable expression to the spiritual nature of Jehovah,
and, around and within the ritual, prophetic truths gained a
hold of Israel such as they had never had before. The Book
of Psalms is the proof how much of the highest religious
truth, derived not from the Law but from the Prophets, dwelt
in the heart of the nation, and gave spiritual substance to the
barren forms of the ritual.
These facts, quite apart from any theory as to the age and
authorship of the Pentateuch, vindicate for the Law the posi-
tion which it holds in the teaching of Jesus and in Christian
theology. That the Law was a divine institution, that it
formed an actual part in the gracious scheme of guidance
which preserved the religion of Jehovah as a living power in
Israel till shadow became substance in the manifestation of
Christ, is no theory but an historical fact, which no criticism
as to the origin of the books of Moses can in the least degree
invalidate. On the other hand, the work of the Law, as we
have now viewed it, was essentially subsidiary. As S. Paul
puts it in Bom. v. 20, the Law came in from the side (vo/^os
Se Trapuo-rjXOev). It did not lie in the right line of direct
development, which, as the Epistle to the Hebrews points out,
leads straight from Jeremiah's conception of the New Covenant
to the fulfilment in Christ. Once more we are thrown back
LECT. XI
THE LAW 317
on S. Paul's explanation. The Law was but a pedagogue, a
servant to accompany a schoolboy in the streets, and lead him
to the appointed meeting with his true teacher.
This explanation of the function of the Law is that of the
New Testament, and it fits in with all the historical facts that
we have had before us. But current theology, instead of
recognising the historical proof of the divine purpose of the
Law, is inclined to stake everything on the Mosaic authorship
of the whole system. If the Law is not written by Moses, it
cannot be part of the record of revelation. But if it could be
proved that Moses wrote the Law, what would that add to
the proof that its origin is from God ? It is not true as a
matter of history that Pentateuch criticism is the source of
doubts as to the right of the Law to be regarded as a divine
dispensation. The older sceptics, who believed that Moses
wrote the Pentateuch, attacked the divine legation of Moses
with many arguments which criticism has deprived of all
force. You cannot prove a book to be God's word by showing
that it is of a certain age. The proof of God's word is that
it does His work in the world, and carries on His truth
towards the final revelation in Christ Jesus. This proof the
Pentateuch can adduce, but only for the time subsequent to
Ezra. In reality, to insist that the whole Law is the work of
Moses is to interpose a most serious difficulty in the way of
its recognition as a divine dispensation. Before the Exile the
law of ceremonies was not an effectual means to prevent
defection in Israel, and Jehovah Himself never dispensed His
grace according to its provisions. Is it possible that He laid
down in the wilderness, with sanctions the most solemn, and
with a precision which admitted no exception, an order of
worship and ritual which has no further part in Israel's
history for well-nigh a thousand years ?
But I do not urge this point. I do not desire to raise
difficulties against the common view, but to show that the
318 THE THREE GREAT lect. xr
valid and sufficient proof that the Law has a legitimate place
in the record of Old Testament revelation, and that history
assigns to it the same place as it claims in Christian theology,
is derived from a quarter altogether independent of the
critical question as to the authorship and composition of the
Pentateuch. This being premised, we can turn with more
composure to inquire what the Pentateuch itself teaches as to
its composition and date.
The Pentateuch, as we have it, is not a formal law-book,
but a history beginning with the Creation and running on
continuously into the Book of Joshua. The Law, or rather
several distinct legal collections, are inserted in the historical
context. Confining our attention to the main elements, we
can readily distinguish three principal groups of laws or
ritual ordinances in addition to the Ten Commandments.
I. The collection Exod. xxi.-xxiii. This is an independent
body of laws, with a title, " These are the judgments which
thou shalt set before them," and contains a very simple system
of civil and religious polity, adequate to the wants of a
primitive agricultural people. I shall call this the First
Legislation. In its religious precepts it presents a close
parallel to the short collection of ordinances in Exod. xxxiv.
11-26, but the latter contains no social or civil statutes.
II. The Law of Deuteronomy. The Book of Deuteronomy
contains a good deal of matter rather hortatory than legisla-
tive. The Deuteronomic code proper begins at chap, xii.,
with the title, " These are the statutes and judgments which
ye shall observe to do," etc. ; and closes with the subscription
(Deut. xxvi. 16 sq.), " This day Jehovah thy God hath com-
manded thee to do these statutes and judgments," etc. The
Deuteronomic Code, as we may call Deut. xii.-xxvi., is not a
mere supplement to the First Legislation. It is an inde-
pendent reproduction of its substance, sometimes merely
repeating the older laws, but at other times extending or
LECT. XI
GROUPS OF LAWS
319
modifying them. It covers the whole ground of the old law,
except one verse of ritual precept (Exod. xxiii. 18), the law
of treason (Exod. xxii. 28), and the details as to compensa-
tions to be paid for various injuries. The Deuteronomic Code
presupposes a regular establishment of civil judges (Deut. xvi.
18), and the details of compensation in civil suits might
naturally be left in their hands.1
III. Quite distinct from both these codes is the Levitical
Legislation, or, as it is often called, the Priests' Code. (The
1 It is of some importance to realise how completely Deuteronomy covers
the same ground with the First Legislation. The following table exhibits
the facts of the case : —
Exod. xxi. 1-11 (Hebrew slaves) — Deut. xv. 12-18.
„ „ 12-14 (Murder and asylum)— Deut. xix. 1-13.
n ,, 15, 17 (Offences against parents)— Deut. xxi. 18-21.
,, „ 16 (Manstealing) — Deut. xxiv. 7.
„ ,, 18-xxii. 15. Compensations to be paid for various injuries. This section is
not repeated in Deuteronomy, except as regards the law of retaliation,
Exod. xxi. 23-25, which in Deut. xix. 16-21 is applied to false witnesses.
Exod. xxii. 16, 17 (Seduction) — Deut. xxii. 28, 29.
IS (Witch)— Deut. xviii. 10-12.
19— Deut. xxvii. 21.
20 (Worship of other gods)— Deut. xvii. 2-7.
21-24 (Humanity to stranger, widow, and orphan) — Deut. xxiv. 17-22.
25 (Usury) — Deut. xxiii. 19.
26, 27 (Pledge of raiment)— Deut. xxiv. 10-13.
28 (Treason) — Not in Deuteronomy.
29, 30 (First fruits and firstlings)— Deut. xxvi. 1-11, xv. 19-23.
31 (Unclean food) — Deut. xiv. 2-21. The particular precept of Exodus occupies
only ver. 21 ; but the principle of avoiding food inconsistent with holiness
is expanded.
Exod. xxiii. 1 (False witness)— Deut. xix. 16-21.
g' 7' 8 } (Just judgment)— Deut. xvi. 18-20.
4, 5 (Animals strayed or fallen)— Deut. xxii. 1-1.
9 (repetition of xxii. 21)— Deut. xxiv. 17-18.
10-11— (Sabbatical year) — Deut. xv. 1-11.
12 (Sabbath as a provision of humanity) — Deut. v. 14, 15. [Not in the Code
proper.]
13 (Names of other gods) — Deut. vi. 13.
14-17 (Annual feasts)— Deut. xvi. 1-17.
IS (Leaven in sacrifice)— Not in Deuteronomy.
19 (First fruits)— Deut. xxvi. 2-10.
19 b (Kid in mother's milk)— Deut. xiv. 21.
The parallel becomes still more complete when we observe that to the
Code of Deuteronomy is prefixed an introduction, iv. 44-xi. 32, containing
the Ten Commandments, and so answering to Exod. xx. A good table, follow-
ing the order of Deuteronomy, and giving also the parallels from Exod. xxxiv.
and from the priestly Code or Levitical Legislation, will be found in Driver,
Introduction, p. 68 sqq.
320 LAWS IN
LECT. XI
latter term, however, as generally used, includes those parts
of the Pentateuchal history to which a common origin with
the Levitical Legislation is ascribed by critics.) The Levitical
ordinances, including directions for the equipment of the
sanctuary and priesthood, sacrificial laws, and the whole
system of threefold sanctity in priests, Levites, and people,
are scattered through several parts of Exodus and the Books
of Leviticus and Numbers. They do not form a compact
code ; but, as a whole, they are clearly marked off from both
the other legislations, and might be removed from the Penta-
teuch without making the rest unintelligible. The First
Legislation and the Code of Deuteronomy take the land of
Canaan as their basis. They give directions for the life of
Jehovah's people in the land He gives them. The Levitical
Legislation starts from the sanctuary and the priesthood. Its
object is to develop the theory of a religious life which has
its centre in the sanctuary, and is ruled by principles of
holiness radiating forth from Jehovah's dwelling-place. The
first two Legislations deal with Israel as a nation; in the
third Israel is a church, and as such is habitually addressed
as a " congregation " Qedah), a word characteristic of the
Priests' Code.
These three bodies of law are, in a certain sense, inde-
pendent of the historical narrative of the Pentateuch in
which they now occur. For the first two Legislations this
is quite plain. They are formal codes which may very well
have existed as separate law-books before they were taken up
into the extant history. The Levitical Legislation seems at
first sight to stand, on a different footing. Individual portions
of it, such as the chapters at the beginning and end of Levi-
ticus, have a purely legal form; but a great part of the
ordinances of law or ritual takes the shape of narrative.
Thus, the law for the consecration of priests is given in a
narrative of the consecration of Aaron and his sons. The
lect. xi NARRATIVE FORM 321
form is historical, but the essential object is legal, the
ceremonies observed at Aaron's consecration constituting
an authoritative precedent for future ages. There is nothing-
surprising in this. Among the Arabs, to this day, traditional
precedents are the essence of law, and the Cadi of the Arabs
is he who has inherited a knowledge of them. Among early
nations precedent is particularly regarded in matters of ritual ;
and the oral Torah of the priests doubtless consisted, in great
measure, of case law. But law of this kind is still essentially
law, not history. It is preserved, not as a record of the past,
but as a guide for the present and the future. The Penta-
teuch itself shows clearly that this law in historical form
is not an integral part of the continuous history of Israel's
movements in the wilderness, but a separate thing. For in
Exodus xxxiii. 7, which is non-Levitical, we read that Moses
took the tabernacle and pitched it outside the camp, and
called it the tent of meeting. But the Levitical account of
the setting up of the tabernacle, which is accompanied with
precise details as to the arrangements of the sanctuary, so as
to furnish a complete pattern for the ordering of the sacred
furniture in future ages, does not occur till chap. xl. (comp.
Num. ix. 15). Again, in Numbers x. we have first the Levi-
tical account of the fixed order of march of the Israelites from
Sinai with the ark in the midst of the host (verses 11-28), and
immediately afterwards the historical statement that when
the Israelites left Sinai the ark was not in their midst but
went before them a distance of three days' journey (verses 33-
36).1 It is plain that; though the formal order of march with
1 According to Exod. xxxiii. 7, Num. x. 33, the sanctuary is outside the
camp and at some considerable distance from it, both when the people are at
rest aud when they are on the march. That the ark precedes the host is
implied in Exod. xxiii. 20, xxxii. 34 ; Deut. i. 33. The same order of march
is found in Joshua iii. 3, 4, where the distance between the ark and the host
is 2000 cubits, and the reason of this arrangement, as in Num. 1. c. , is that
the ark is Israel's guide. (Comp. Isa. lxiii. 11 sq.) That the sanctuary
stood outside the camp is implied also in Num. xi. 24 sq., xii. 4. This
21
322 LAWS IN
IjECT. xr
the ark in the centre, which the author sets forth as a standing
pattern, is here described in the historical guise of a record of
the departure of Israel from Sinai, the actual order of march
on that occasion was different. The same author cannot have
written both accounts. One is a law in narrative form ; the
other is actual history. These examples are forcible enough,
but they form only a fragment of a great chain of evidence
which critics have collected. By many marks, and particularly
by extremely well-defined peculiarities of language, a Levitical
document can be separated out from the Pentateuch, containing
the whole mass of priestly legislation and precedents, and leav-
ing untouched the essentially historical part of the Pentateuch,
all that has for its direct aim to tell us what befell the Israelites
in the wilderness, and not what precedents the wilderness
offered for subsequent ritual observances. The hand that
penned the Levitical legislation can be traced even in the Book
of Genesis, for the plan of exhibiting the laws of Israel as far
as possible in the form of precedents made it necessary to go
back to Abraham for the institution of circumcision (Gen.
xvii.), to Noah for the so-called Noachic ordinances (Gen. ix.
1-17), and to the Creation itself for the law of the Sabbath
(Gen. ii. 1-3). Accordingly the Priests' Code takes formally
the shape of a continuous history of divine institution from
the Creation downwards. Of course this continuity could only
be attained by introducing a good deal of matter that has no
direct legal bearing ; but the legal interest always predomi-
corresponds with the usage of the early sanctuaries in Canaan, which stood on
high points outside the cities (1 Sam. ix. 14, 25). So the Temple at Jerusalem
originally stood outside the city of David, which occupied the lower slope of
the Temple hill (comp. Enc. Brit, 9th ed., articles Jerusalem and Temple).
But, as the city grew, ordinary buildings encroached on the Temple plateau
(Ezek. xliii. 8). This appears to Ezekiel to be derogatory to the sanctity of
the house (comp. Deut. xxiii. 14), and is the reason for the ordinance set forth
in symbolic form in Ezek. xlv. 1 sq. , xlviii. , where the sanctuary stands in
the middle of Israel, but isolated, the priests and the Levites lodging between
it and the laity, as in the Levitical law, Num. i.-iii. Here, as in other cases,
the Levitical law appears as the latest stage of the historical development.
lect. xi NARRATIVE FORM 323
nates, and those parts of the history which throw no light on
the ordinances of the Law are cut as short as possible and
often are reduced to mere chronological and genealogical
tables. As the Pentateuch now stands, this quasi-history, in
which the narrative of events is strictly subordinate to a legal
purpose, and the real history, written for its own sake,
are intermingled, not onlv in the same book, but often in the
same chapter. But originally they were quite distinct.1
The Pentateuch, then, is a history incorporating at least
three bodies of law. The history does not profess to be
written by Moses, but only notes from time to time that he
wrote down certain special things (Exod. xvii. 14, xxiv. 4,
xxxiv. 27 ; Num. xxxiii. 2 ; Deut. xxxi. 9, 22, 24). These
notices of what Moses himself wrote are so far from proving
him the author of the whole Pentateuch that they rather
point in the opposite direction. What he wrote is dis-
1 Of the immense literature dealing with the linguistic and other marks
by which the Levitical document, or Priests' Code, may be separated out, it is
enough to refer particularly to Noldeke, Untersuchungen zur Kritik des A. T.,
Kiel, 1869 ; Wellhausen, Composition des Hexateuchs, in the Jahrb.f. D. T.,
1876, p. 392 sq., p. 531 sq. ; 1877, p. 407 sq. (reprinted in his Skizzen, etc., Hf't.
ii., 1885, and again in Comp. des Hex. und der histor. Buclier, 1889), and
many important articles by Kuenen in the Theologisch Tijdschrift. Kuenen's
results are summed up in the second edition of his Onderzoek, vol. i. 1 (of
which there is an English translation). The best account of the matter by an
English scholar is that in Driver's Introduction. For the Book of Genesis
the contents of the Priestly Code (generally referred to as P) are most con-
veuiently exhibited (in a German translation) in Kautzsch and Socin's Genesis
(2d ed., 1891), where the ancient narratives incorporated in the Pentateuch
are all printed in different types. In Genesis the separation of P can be
effected with great precision, and there are very few verses about which critics
of every school are not agreed. For P's contributions to the other parts of
the Pentateuch the reader may consult the tables in Driver's Introduction.
The chief passages of legal importance are Exod. xii. 1-20, 43-51 ; xiii. 1, 2 ;
xxv. 1-xxxi. 17 ; xxxv. -xl. ; the Book of Leviticus as a whole (but here chapters
xvii.-xxvi., the so-called Law of Holiness, form a separate section, akin to
the mass of the Priests' Code, but with certain peculiarities) ; Num. i. 1-x.
28 ; xv. ; part of xvi. ; xvii.-xix. ; xxv. 6-xxxi. 54 ; xxxiv. -xxxvi. For the
narrative sections of P see Lecture XIII.
It ought, however, to be observed that the Levitical laws, though all of
one general type in substance, and even in language, do not appear to be all
324 THE PENTATEUCH WAS lect. xi
tinguished from the mass of the text, and he himself is
habitually spoken of in the third person. It is common to
explain this as a literary artifice analogous to that adopted
by Csesar in his Commentaries. But it is a strong thing to
suppose that so artificial a way of writing is as old as Moses,
and belongs to the earliest age of Hebrew authorship. One
asks for proof that any Hebrew ever wrote of himself in the
third person, and particularly that Moses would write such
a verse as Numbers xii. 3, " The man Moses was verv meek
above all men living."
The idea that Moses is author of the whole Pentateuch,
except the last chapter of Deuteronomy, is derived from the
old Jewish theory, which we found in Josephus (supra, p.
164), that every leader of Israel wrote down by Divine
authority the events of his own time, so that the sacred
history is like a day-book constantly written up to date. No
part of the Bible corresponds to this description, and the
Pentateuch as little as any. For example, the last chapter
of one date and by one hand. A good deal of valuable work has been done in
the way of separating the older and younger elements of the Levitical legisla-
tion ; but here, as will readily be conceived, the temptation to push conjecture
beyond the limits of possible verification is very great. On the other hand,
the broad lines of separation between this legislation and the other codes are
very clearly marked by the diversity of standpoint, style, and language.
A good example of the fundamental difference in legal style between the
Levitical laws and the Deuteronomic Code is found in Num. xxxv. compared
with Deut. xix. In Numbers, the technical expression city of refuge is
repeated at every turn. In Deuteronomy the word refuge does not occur,
and the cities are always described by a periphrasis. In Numbers the phrase
for "accidentally" is bish'gaga, in Deut. bib'li ddat. The judges in the one
are "the congregation," in the other "the elders of his city." The verb for
hate is different. The one account says again and again "to kill any person,"
the other " to kill his neighbour." The detailed description of the difference
between murder and accidental homicide is entirely diverse in language and
detail. The structure of the sentences is distinct, and in addition to all this
there is a substantial difference in the laws themselves, inasmuch as Deuter-
onomy says nothing about remaining in the city of refuge till the death of
the high priest. On a rough calculation, omitting auxiliary verbs, particles,
etc., Num. xxxv. 11-34 contains 19 nouns and verbs which also occur in
Deut. xix. 2-13, and 45 which do not occur in the parallel passage ; while the
law, as given in Deuteronomy, has 50 such words not in the law of Numbers.
lect. xi WRITTEN IN CANAAN 325
of Deuteronomy, which on the common theory is a note
added by Joshua to the work in which Moses had carried
down the history till just before his death, cannot really have
been written till after Joshua was dead and gone. For it
speaks of the city Dan. Now Dan is the new name of Laish,
which that town received after the conquest of the Danites
in the age of the Judges, when Moses's grandson became
priest of their idolatrous sanctuary. But if the last chapter
of Deuteronomy is not contemporary history, what is the
evidence that the rest of that book is so ? There is not an
atom of proof that the hand which wrote the last chapter had
no share in the rest of the Pentateuch.
As a matter of fact, the Pentateuchal history was written
in the land of Canaan, and if it is all by one hand it was not
composed before the period of the kings. Genesis xxxvi. 31
sq. gives a list of kings who reigned in Edom " before there
reigned a king of the children of Israel." This carries us
down at least to the time of Saul ; but the probable meaning
of the passage is that these kings ruled before Edom was
subject to an Israelite monarch, which brings us to David at
any rate. Of course this conclusion may be evaded by saying
that certain verses or chapters are late additions, that the list
of Eclomite kings, and such references to the conquest of
Canaan as are found in Deut. ii. 12, iv. 38, are insertions of
Ezra or another editor. This might be a fair enough thing
to say if any positive proof were forthcoming that Moses
wrote the mass of the Pentateuch ; but in the absence of
such proof no one has a right to call a passage the insertion
of an editor without internal evidence that it is in a different
style or breaks the context. And as soon as we come to this
point we must apply the method consistently, and let internal
evidence tell its whole story. That, as we shall soon see, is
a good deal more than those who raise this potent spirit are
willing to hear.
326 THE PENTATEUCH WAS lect. xi
The proof that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan
does not turn on mere isolated texts which can be separated
from the context. It lies equally in usages of language that
cannot be due to an editor. There has been a great contro-
versy about Deut. i. 1 and other similar passages, where the
land east of the Jordan is said to be across Jordan, proving
that the writer lived in Western Palestine. That this is the
natural sense of the Hebrew word no one can doubt, but we
have elaborate arguments that Hebrew was such an elastic
language that the phrase can equally mean "on this side
Jordan," as the English Version has it. The point is practi-
cally of no consequence, for there are other phrases which
prove quite unambiguously that the Pentateuch was written
in Canaan. In Hebrew the common phrase for " westward "
is " seaward," and for southward " towards the Negeb." The
word Negeb, which primarily means " parched land," is in
Hebrew the proper name of the dry steppe district in the
south of Judah. These expressions for west and south could
only be formed within Palestine. Yet they are used in the
Pentateuch, not only in the narrative but in the Sinaitic
ordinance for the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exod. xxvii.).
But at Mount Sinai the sea did not lie to the west, and the
Negeb was to the north. Moses could no more call the south
side the Negeb side of the tabernacle than a Glasgow man
could say that the sun set over Edinburgh. The answer at-
tempted to this is that the Hebrews might have adopted these
phrases in patriarchal times, and never given them up in the
ensuing four hundred and thirty years ; but that is nonsense.
When a man says " towards the sea " he means it. The
Egyptian Arabs say seaward for northward, and so the
Israelites must have done when they were in Egypt. To
an Arab in Western Arabia, on the contrary, seaward means
towards the Eed Sea. Again, the Pentateuch displays an
exact topographical knowledge of Palestine, but by no means
lect. xx WRITTEN IN CANAAN 327
so exact a knowledge of the wilderness of the wandering.
The narrative has the names of the places famous in the
forty years' wandering ; but for Canaan it gives local details,
and describes them with exactitude as they were in later
times {e.g. Gen. xii. 8, xxxiii. 18, xxxv. 19, 20). Accordingly,
the patriarchal sites can still be set down on the map with
definiteness ; but geographers are unable to assign with
certainty the site of Mount Sinai, because the narrative has
none of that topographical colour which the story of an eye-
witness is sure to possess. Once more, the Pentateuch cites
as authorities poetical records which are not earlier than the
time of Moses. One of these records is a book, the Book of
the Wars of Jehovah (Num. xxi. 14) ; did Moses, writing-
contemporary history, find and cite a book already current,
containing poetry on the wars of Jehovah and His people,
which began in his own times ? Another poetical authority
cited is a poem circulating among the Moshelim or reciters of
sarcastic verses (Num. xxi. 27 sq.). It refers to the victory
over Sihon, which took place at the very end of the forty
years' wandering. If Moses wrote the Pentateuch, what oc-
casion could he have to authenticate his narrative by reference
to these traditional depositaries of ancient poetry ?
The Pentateuch, then, was not written in the wilderness ;
but moreover it is not, even in its narrative parts, a single
continuous work, but a combination of several narratives
originally independent. The first key to the complex struc-
ture of the history was found in the use of the names of God
in Genesis. Some parts of Genesis habitually speak of
Jehovah, others as regularly use the word Elohim ; and as
early as 1753 the French physician Astruc showed that if
the text of Genesis be divided into two columns, all the
Elohim passages standing on one side, and the Jehovah
passages on the other, we get two parallel narratives which
are still practically independent. This of course was no
328 COMPOUND NARRATIVES lect. xi
more than a hint for further investigation. In reality there
are two independent documents in Genesis which use Elohim,
the second and younger of these being in fact the historical
introduction to the Levitical Legislation, or Priests' Code. A
third document uses Jehovah, and the process by which the
three were finally interwoven into one book is somewhat
difficult to follow. Astruc supposed that these documents
were all older than Moses, and that he was the final editor.
But later critics have shown that the same documents can be
traced through the whole Pentateuch, and even to the end of
the Book of Joshua. To prove this in detail would occupy
several lectures. I can only give one or two illustrations to
prove that these results are not imaginary.
A modern writer, making a history with the aid of older
records, masters their contents and then writes a wholly new
book. That is not the way of Eastern historians. If we take
up the great Arabic historians we often find passages occur-
ring almost word for word in each. All use directly or in-
directly the same sources, and copy these sources verbally as
far as is consistent with the scope and scale of their several
works. Thus a comparatively modern book has often the
freshness and full colour of a contemporary narrative, and
we can still separate out the old sources from their modern
setting. So it is in the Bible, as we have already seen in the
case of the Books of Kings. It is this way of writing that
makes the Bible history so vivid and interesting, in spite of
its extraordinary brevity in comparison with the vast periods
of time that it covers. Think only what a mass of veracious
detail we were able to gather in Lecture IX. for the state of
ritual in ancient Israel. No compend on the same scale
written on modern principles could have preserved so much
of the genuine life of antique times. It stands to reason that
the Pentateuch should exhibit the same features ; and the
superciliousness with which traditionalists declare the labours
lect. xi IN THE PENTATEUCH 329
of the critics to be visionary is merely the contempt of ignor-
ance, which has never handled old Eastern histories, and judges
everything from a Western and modern standpoint.
Every one can see that, when we have this general key to
the method of ancient Eastern historians, it is quite a practical
undertaking to try to separate the sources from which a
Hebrew author worked. It will not always be possible to
carry the analysis out fully ; but it is no hopeless task to
distribute the main masses of the story between the several
authors whose books he used. Marked peculiarities of
language, of which the use of the names of God is the most
celebrated but not the most conclusive, are a great help ; and
along with these a multitude of other indications come in, as
the analysis proceeds.
A very clear case is the account of the Flood. As it now
stands the narrative has the most singular repetitions, and
things come in in the strangest order. But as soon as we
separate the Jehovah and Elohim documents all is clear.
The first narrative tells that Jehovah saw the wickedness of
men and determined to destroy them. But Noah found grace
in His eyes, and was called to enter the ark with a pair of all
unclean beasts, and clean beasts and fowls by sevens ; for, he
is told, after seven days a forty days' rain will ensue and
destroy all life. Noah obeys the command, the seven days
elapse, and the rain follows as predicted, floating the ark but
destroying all outside of it. Then the rain ceases and the
waters sink. Noah opens the window of the ark and sends
out the raven, which flies to and fro till the earth dries. The
dove is also sent forth, but soon returns to the ark. Seven
days later the same messenger is sent forth, and returns in the
evening with a fresh twig of olive. Another week passes, and
then the dove, sent out for the third time, does not return.
Thereupon Noah removes the covering of the ark, finds the
ground dry, builds an altar and does sacrifice, receiving the
330 DOUBLE NARRATIVE lect. xi
promise that the flood shall not again recur and disturb the
course of the seasons. The parallel Elohistic narrative (which
in this case belongs to the younger Elohistic document, i.e. to
the narrative framework of the Priests' Code) is equally com-
plete. It also relates God's anger with mankind. Noah
receives orders to build the ark and take in the animals in
pairs (there is no mention of the sevens of clean beasts).
The flood begins when Noah is six hundred years old. The
fountains of the great deep are broken up, and the windows
of heaven opened ; but on the same day Noah, his family,
and the pairs of animals enter the ark. The waters rise till
they cover the hills, and swell for a hundred and fifty days,
when they are assuaged by a great wind, and the fountains of
the deep and the windows of heaven are closed. The waters
now begin to fall, and just five months after the flood com-
menced the ark rests on a point in the mountains of Ararat.
The waters still continue to decrease for two months and a
half, till the tops of the mountains are seen. In other three
months the face of the earth was freed of water, but it was
not till the lapse of a full solar year that Noah was permitted
to leave the ark, when he received God's blessing, the so-called
Noachic ordinances, and the sign of the bow. These two
accounts are plainly independent. It is impossible that the
work of one author could so divide itself into two complete
narratives, and have for each a different name of God.1
1 The following table will make the analysis more clear : —
Jehovist, vi. 5-8 vii. 1-5- vii. 7-10 vii. 12
Priestly Elohist, vi. 9-22 vii. 6
vii. 11
J. vii. 16 (last clause), 17
vii. 22, 23
P. vii. 13-16
except the last clause.
vii. 18-21
J. viii. 2 b, Z a
viii. 6-12
P. vii. 24, viii. 1, 2 a
viii. 3 b-5
J. viii. 13 b
viii. 20-22
viii. 13 a viii. 14-19 ix. 1-17
LECT. XI
OF THE FLOOD 331
The proof that the same variety of hands runs through to
the end of the Book of Joshua would carry us too far, and is
the less necessary because the fact will hardly be denied by
those who admit the existence of separate sources in the
Pentateuch at all. For those who caunot follow the details
of the original text it is more profitable to concentrate atten-
tion on the legal parts of the Pentateuch. What has been
said is enough to show that the Pentateuch is a much more
complex book than appears at first sight, and that in its
present form it was written after the time of Moses, nay, after
that of Joshua. It is now no longer permissible to insist that
the reference to the kingship of Israel over Edom and similar
things are necessarily isolated phenomena. We cannot venture
to assert that the composition of the Pentateuch out of older
sources of various date took place before the time of the kings.
How much of it is early, how much comparatively late, must
be determined by a wider inquiry, and for this the laws give
the best starting-point.
The post-Mosaic date of the narrative does not in itself
prove that the laws were not all written by Moses. Two of
our three legislative Corjjora are independent of the history.
The third is at least independent of the main thread of the
narrative, and deals with history only for legal and ritual
purposes. But does the Pentateuch represent Moses as hav-
ing written the legal codes which it embodies ? So far as the
ritual of the Levitical legislation is concerned, we can answer
this question at once with a decisive negative. It is nowhere
said that Moses wrote down the description of the tabernacle
and its ordinances, or the law of sacrifice. And in many
In one or two places some slight modifications seem to have been made on
the narrative of J. when the two accounts were combined. Thus in vii. 9
the distinction proper to J. between the sevens of clean beasts and the pairs
of beasts not clean has disappeared. In the same verse the Hebrew text has
God (Elohim) where we expect Jehovah, but Jehovah was certainly the
original reading, and has been preserved in the Samaritan text, in the Targuin
and Vulgate, and in some MSS. of the Septuagint.
332 WHAT LAWS WERE lect. xi
places the laws of this legislation are expressly set forth as
oral. Moses is commanded to speak to Aaron or to the
Israelites, as the case may be, and communicate to them
God's will. This fact is significant when we remember that
the Torah of the priests referred to by the prophets is plainly
oral instruction. There is nothing in the Pentateuch that
does not confirm the prior probability that ritual law was
long an affair of practice and tradition, resting on knowledge
that belonged to the priestly guild. But the priests, accord-
ing to Hosea, forgot the Torah, and we have seen that neither
at Shiloh nor in Jerusalem did the ritual law exist in its
present form, or even its present theory. Thus we are re-
duced to this alternative : — either the ritual law was written
down by the priests immediately after Moses gave it to them,
or at least in the first years of residence in Canaan, and then
completely forgotten by them ; or else it was not written till
long after, when the priests who forgot the law were chastised
by exile, and a new race arose which accepted the rebukes of
the prophets. The former hypothesis implies that a book
specially meant for the priests, and kept in their custody,
survived many centuries of total neglect and frequent re-
movals of the sanctuary, and that too at a time when books
were written in such a way that damp soon made them
illegible. Yet the text of this book, which the priests had
forgotten, is much more perfect than that of the Psalms or
the Books of Samuel. These are grave difficulties ; and they
must become decisive when we show that an earlier code,
contradicting the Levitical legislation in important points, was
actually current in ancient times as the divine law of Israel.
With regard to the other two bodies of law the case is
different. In Exod. xxiv. 4-7 we are told that Moses " wrote
all the words of Jehovah " which had been communicated to
him on Mount Sinai, and pledged the people to obey them in
a formal covenant. The writing to which the people were
lect. xi WRITTEN BY MOSES 333
thus pledged is called in verse 7 the Book of the Covenant.
There has been some dispute as to what this Book of the
Covenant contained, and it has been argued that a distinction
must be drawn between " the words of Jehovah " in verse 4
and " the judgments " in verse 3, and that the former alone
were written in the Book of the Covenant. And since " the
judgments " appear, on comparison of xxi. 1, to be identical
with the code of Exod. xxi.-xxiii., it has been inferred that the
Book of the Covenant consisted only of the Ten Command-
ments (Exod. xx. 2-17). This view certainly appears somewhat
strained, for the distinction between "words" and "judg-
ments" is rather imported into the passage than naturally
conveyed by it. But on the other hand, the identification of
the Book of the Covenant with the Decalogue is in accordance
with Exod. xxxiv. 27, 28, where the words of Jehovah's
covenant with Israel, which Moses was ordered to write on
the tables of stone, are expressly called the Ten Words. So
also in Deut. v. 2-22 the Ten Commandments are evidently
set forth as forming the whole compass of the covenant at
Horeb (comp. Deut. ix. 9, 15 ; 1 Kings viii. 9). These argu-
ments appear to be cogent, if we may take it for granted that
all the accounts of the covenant at Sinai are in perfect accord.
It will then appear that at Sinai no other laws were com-
mitted to writing than the Ten Commandments. Nor is the
lawgiver recorded to have written down any further ordin-
ances during the wilderness wanderings. But in Deut. xxxi.
9, 24 the account of Moses's last address to the people in the
plains of Moab is followed by the statement that he wrote
" the words of this law " in a book, which he deposited with
the Levites to be preserved beside the ark. In the context,
the expression " this law " can only mean the law of Deuter-
onomy, which is often so called in the earlier chapters of the
book ; it cannot possibly mean the whole Pentateuch. Thus,
on the assumption that there is no discrepancy or uncertainty
334 WHAT LAWS WERE lect. xi
in the various notices contained in different parts of the
Pentateuch, we may conclude that, in addition to the Ten
Commandments written at Sinai, a larger body of laws,
corresponding to the Deuteronomic code, was committed to
writing by Moses just before his death. Even so it would
not be safe to assume that the whole law of Deuteronomy, as
it is contained in chaps, xii.-xxvi., has reached us in the
precise words that Moses wrote, without modification or
addition. We have learned in earlier parts of these Lectures
that additions were made in the course of ages to many
portions of the Bible. But of all books a code of laws,
which is useless if it is not kept up to date, is most likely
to receive additions, or even to be entirely recast to meet a
change in social conditions ; nor would the consideration
that the ordinances of Moses had divine authority prevent
this from taking place in a nation that was continually
guided by the priestly oracle and the prophetic word, and
in which every decision of the judges of the sacred court was
accepted as a decision of God (supra, p. 299). The testimony
of Deut. xxxi. cannot therefore dispense us from inquiry
whether the Deuteronomic code is the very writing of Moses,
or a more modern expansion and development of the law
given on the plains of Moab, which retains the name of
Moses, not because he completed the legislative system, but
because he laid its foundations.
All this may be fairly urged even on the assumption that
the narrative parts of the Pentateuch bear a single unam-
biguous testimony to the nature and extent of Moses's written
laws. But a candid examination compels us to admit that,
while all parts of the Pentateuch are unanimous in their
witness to Moses as the founder of the Law, the details of
the law-giving are involved in great obscurity, and were
evidently represented in different ways by the various
narrators from whose accounts the Pentateuch is made up.
lect. xi WRITTEN BY MOSES 335
In short, we here find on a larger scale the same phenomenon
that we have already met with in the story of the Flood. The
extant narrative is a twisted strand combined out of several
narratives diverse the one from the other not only in form
but in substance.
First of all let us note that the assumption, on which we
have hitherto proceeded, that Exod. xxiv. 3-7, Exod. xxxiv.
27, 28, and Deut. v. 2-22, present a consistent account of the
Covenant at Sinai will not bear closer examination. The
account in Deuteronomy is unambiguous ; the covenant
consisted only of the Ten Commandments (in Hebrew the
Ten Words), and nothing more was written down till Moses
was about to die. It is true that Deuteronomy iv. 14, v. 31
give us to understand that Moses received a further body of
laws at Horeb ; but these, as we are expressly told, were for
use in Canaan (iv. 14), and therefore they were not published
till the people stood on the borders of the promised land
(iv. 1 sqq.). Exodus xxxiv. agrees with this in so far as it
identifies the words of the Covenant with the Ten Words
written on the two tables of stone ; but, while Deuteronomy
(v. 22, x. 4) is quite explicit in saying that the tables con-
tained the Ten Commandments of Exod. xx. 2-17, Deut. v.
6-21, the Ten Words of Exod. xxxiv. 27, 28 are necessarily
the words found in verses 10-26 of the same chapter, i.e. a
series of laws of religious observance closely corresponding
to the religious and ritual precepts of the First Legislation
(Exod. xxi.-xxiii.). We are so accustomed to look on the
Ten Words written on the tables of stone as the very
foundation-stone of the Mosaic law that it is hard for us
to realise that in ancient Israel there were two opinions as
to what these Words were ; and, for my own part, I confess
that I have struggled as long as I could to explain the
discrepancy away. But the thing is too plain to be denied,
and the hypothesis which I once ventured to advance that
336 VARYING ACCOUNTS OF lect. xi
Exod. xxxiv. 10-26 may have got out of its true place at
some stage in the redaction of the Pentateuch does not help
matters. Eor in any case it would still have to be admitted
that the editor to whom we owe the present form of the
chapter identified this little code of religious observances
with the Ten Words. The difficulty, therefore, would still
remain the same.1
Now, if we can no longer regard Deuteronomy and Exodus
xxxiv. as giving a single sound on the matter of the Sinaitic
Covenant, the chief reason for thinking that the Book of the
Covenant in Exod. xxiv. is identical with the Decalogue
falls to the ground. We are no longer entitled to draw a
strained distinction between "the words" and "the judg-
ments " in order to maintain the harmony between all the
accounts ; and on the other hand we observe that the words
which Moses received and wrote (ver. 4) can hardly be the
same as the Decalogue which was proclaimed from Sinai in
the ears of all. The Decalogue was not given to Moses to
be written from memory, but was written on the Mount
itself, and that, too, according to the present order of the
narrative, after the Covenant had been written and ratified
(xxiv. 12). Thus we are led, after all, to identify the Book
of the Covenant with the First Legislation (Exod. xxi.-xxiv.),
and to admit that the Pentateuch presents three divergent
views of the contents of the Sinaitic Covenant.2
1 The hypothesis of a displacement in Exod. xxxiv. , which I put forward
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., article Decalogue (1877), was inde-
pendently worked out by Kuenen in an article in Theol. Tijdschrift, xv. (1881),
p. 164 sqq. He regards Exod. xxxiv. 1, 4, and the last words of verse 28,
as belonging to a different document from xxxiv. 2, 3, 5, 10-27, and so is able
to maintain that the Ten Words of xxxiv. 28 are the same as the Decalogue
of chap. xx. Wellhausen has criticised this view in the latest edition of
his Composition (1889), p. 327 sqq., justly remarking that in that case the
editor who gave the text its present form "has introduced the most serious
internal contradiction found in the Old Testament."
2 Any one who carefully reads through the narrative of the transactions of
Sinai must recognise that the story has reached us in a ver}7 confused state.
" After the proclamation of the Decalogue Moses pays a first, a second, and a
LECT. XI
THE SINAITIC COVENANT 337
Such being the state of the extant history of Moses's
work, it is not only legitimate but absolutely necessary to
undertake a critical examination of the several bodies of
laws, in the hope that internal evidence may do something
to help us through the uncertainties in which the narrative
of the law-giving is involved, and throw light on the question
when and by what stages the divine Torah, of which Moses
was the originator, assumed the form it has in the extant
written codes.
Now it is a very remarkable fact, to begin with, that all
the sacred law of Israel is comprised in the Pentateuch, and
that, apart from the Levitical legislation, it is presented in
codified form. On the traditional view, three successive
bodies of law were given to Israel within forty years. Within
that short time many ordinances were modified, and the
third visit to Sinai, always with the same object of receiving laws. It is
clear that when, after the first visit (Exod. xx. 21, xxiv. 3), all the words and
judgments of Jehovah are written down and the people are solemnly pledged
to them, this must have originally indicated that the legislation is formally
brought to a close (xxiv. 3-8) ; but as the story now stands the conclusion of
the Covenant is a mere interlude. For scarcely is the solemnity over when
Moses (with Joshua) again goes up to God in the Mount, and remains there a
long time, receiving further divine communications, doubtless of a legal
character. Finalby, in chap, xxxiv. there is another long visit to Mount Sinai,
and there for a third time he receives words and writes them on two tables of
stone. The third visit, indeed, is explained by the breaking of the first tables,
which have to be renewed ; but what is dictated to him is not a repetition of
the old matter but a series of new precepts." Wellhausen, Composition (1889),
p. 84 sq. (The whole passage should be read.)
The perplexities of Exod. xix. -xxxiv. have made these chapters the
locus desperatus of criticism. It is easy to remove the priestly additions
(chaps, xxv.-xxxi. and a few verses elsewhere), and' to point out in what
remains clear indications that at least two parallel and independent narratives
have been worked into a single tissue. Thus in xix. 20 Jehovah descends
upon Sinai, but in the previous verses he is already there ; hence xix. 3-19
and xix. 20-25 seem originally to have belonged to distinct narratives, though
the points of difference have been softened by the hand of the redactor {e.g.
by the insertion of verses 23, 24). Again xxiv. 1, 2 is continued in verses
9-11, while the intervening verses belong to a different context. But the
whole section has been so often worked over by editorial hands, touching and
retouching, making omissions, additions, and transpositions, that it is im-
possible to separate the original sources with the certainty and precision
22
338 MOSAIC AND
LECT. XI
whole law of Sinai recast on the plains of Moab. But from
the days of Moses there was no change. With his death
the Israelites entered on a new career, which transformed
the nomads of Goshen into the civilised inhabitants of vine-
yard land and cities in Canaan. But the Divine laws given
them beyond Jordan were to remain unmodified through all
the long centuries of development in Canaan, an absolute
and immutable code. I say, with all reverence, that this is
impossible. God no doubt could have given, by Moses's
mouth, a law fit for the age of Solomon or Hezekiah, but
such a law could not be fit for immediate application in the
days of Moses and Joshua. Every historical lawyer knows
that in the nature of things the law of the wilderness is
different from the law of a land of high agriculture and
populous cities. God can do all things, but He cannot
contradict Himself, and He who shaped the eventful de-
velopment of Israel's history must have framed His law to
correspond with it.
It is no conjecture, but plain historical fact stated in
which belong to the analysis of the story of the Deluge. Broadly speaking,
it appears that the oldest narrator (J), whose account is very imperfectly
preserved, and whose hand is to be recognised mainly in xix. 20-22, 25, and
in chap, xxxiv., did not mention the present Decalogue at all, but told how
Moses was called up to the mountain and received there the Ten Words of
chap, xxxiv. The second narrator (E), like the Book of Deuteronomy, con-
fined the law proclaimed at Sinai to the Decalogue of Exod. xx., but also
related how Moses was called up to the Mount to receive further revelations
(not for immediate publication). In his absence the incident of the golden
calf took place, and as a punishment the people were at once dismissed from
the seat of Jehovah's holy presence. Finally, the First Legislation or Book
of the Covenant, for which no place can be found in either of these narratives,
may perhaps be best accounted for by the very ingenious conjecture of
Kuenen, that chaps, xxi.-xxiii., with verses 3-8 of chap, xxiv., are part of the
narrative of E, but originally stood in quite another place, that, in fact, they
are the old account of the legislation in the plains of Moab, of which the
Deuteronomic code is a new and enlarged edition. When both editions came
to be brought together in one book the old code was thrown back among the
transactions at Mount Sinai. On the view the original narrative of E was
in full harmony with the Deuteronomic account of the successive stages of the
legislation.
lect. xi POST-MOSAIC TOR AH 339
Exod. xviii., that Moses judged his contemporaries by bring-
ing individual hard cases before Jehovah for decision. This
was the actual method of his Torah, a method strictly
practical, and in precise conformity with the genius and
requirements of primitive nations. The events of Sinai, and
the establishment of the covenant on the basis of the Ten
Words, did not cut short this kind of Torah. On the
contrary, there is clear proof that direct appeal to a Divine
judgment continued to be practised in Israel. The First
Legislation (Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 8) speaks of bringing a case
to God, and receiving the sentence of God, where our version
has " the judges." The sanctuary was the seat of judgment,
and the decisions were Jehovah's Torah. So still, in the
time of Eli, we read that, if man offend against man, God
gives judgment as daysman between them (1 Sam. ii. 25).
Jehovah is in Israel a living judge, a living and present law-
giver. He has all the functions of an actual king present
among his people (Isa. xxxiii. 22). So the prophets still view
Jehovah's law as a living and growing thing, communicated
to Israel as to weanlings, " precept upon precept, line upon
line, here a little and there a little " (Isa. xxviii. 9 sq.) ; and
their religion, drawn direct from Jehovah, is contrasted with
the traditional religion, which is " a command of men learned
and taught " (Isa. xxix. 13). A code is of necessity the final
result and crystallised form of such a living divine Torah,
just as in all nations consuetudinary and judge-made law
precedes codification and statute law. The difference between
Israel and other nations lay essentially in this, that Jehovah
was Israel's Judge, and therefore Israel's Lawgiver. This
divine Torah begins with Moses. As all goes back to his
initiative, the Israelites were not concerned to remember the
precise history of each new precept ; and, when the whole
system developed under continuous divine guidance is summed
up in a code, that code is simply set clown as Mosaic Torah.
340 THE FIRST lect. xi
We still call the steam-engine by the name of Watt, though
the steam-engine of to-day has many parts that his had
not.
The Bible has not so narrow a conception of revelation as
we sometimes cling to. According to Isaiah xxviii. 23 sq.
the rules of good husbandry are a "judgment" taught to the
ploughman by Jehovah, part of Jehovah's Torah (ver. 26).
The piety of Israel recognised every sound and wholesome
ordinance of daily and social life as a direct gift of Jehovah's
wisdom. "This also cometh forth from Jehovah of hosts,
whose counsel is miraculous, and His wisdom great." Ac-
cordingly Jehovah's law contains, not only institutes of direct
revelation in our limited sense of that word, but old con-
suetudinary usages, laws identical with those of other early
peoples, which had become sacred by being taken up into the
God-given polity of Israel, and worked into harmony with
the very present reality of His redeeming sovereignty. We
shall best picture to ourselves what the ancient Hebrews
understood by divine statutes, by a brief survey of the
manner of life prescribed in the First Legislation.
The society contemplated in this legislation is of very
simple structure. The basis of life is agricultural. Cattle
and agricultural produce are the elements of wealth, and the
laws of property deal almost exclusively with them. The
principles of civil and criminal justice are those still current
among the Arabs of the desert. They are two in number,
retaliation and pecuniary compensation. Murder is dealt
with by the law of blood-revenge, but the innocent manslayer
may seek asylum at God's altar. With murder are ranked
manstealing, offences against parents, and witchcraft. Other
injuries are occasions of self-help or of private suits to be
adjusted at the sanctuary. Personal injuries fall under the
law of retaliation, just as murder does. Blow for blow is
still the law of the Arabs, and in Canaan no doubt, as in the
LECT. XI
LEGISLATION 341
desert, the retaliation was usually sought in the way of
self-help. The principle of retaliation is conceived as
legitimate vengeance, xxi. 20, 21, margin. Except in this
form there is no punishment, but only compensation, which
in some cases is at the will of the injured party (who has
the alternative of direct revenge), but in general is defined
by law.
Degrading punishments, as imprisonment or the bastinado,
are unknown, and loss of liberty is inflicted only on the thief
who cannot pay a fine. The slave retains definite rights.
He recovers his freedom after seven years, unless he prefers
to remain a bondman, and to seal this determination by a
symbolical act at the door of the sanctuary. His right of
blood-revenge against his master is limited, and, instead of
the lex talionis, for minor injuries he can claim his liberty.
Women do not enjoy full social equality with men. Women
slaves were slaves for life, but were usually married to
members of the family or servants of the household. The
daughter was her father's property, who received a price for
surrendering her to a husband ; and so a daughter's dis-
honour is compensated by law as a pecuniary loss to her
father. The Israelites directly contemplated in these laws
are evidently men of independent bearing and personal
dignity, such as are still found in secluded parts of the
Semitic world under a half-patriarchal constitution of society
where every freeman is a small landholder. But there is no
strong central authority. The tribunal of the sanctuary is
arbiter, not executive. No man is secure without his own
aid, and the widow or orphan looks for help, not to man, but
to Jehovah Himself. But if the executive is weak, a strict
regard for justice is inculcated. Jehovah is behind the law,
and He will vindicate the right. He requires of Israel
humanity as well as justice. The Ger, or stranger living
under the protection of a family or community, has no legal
342 THE FIRST
I-ECT. XI
status, but he must not be oppressed.1 The Sabbath is en-
forced as an ordinance of humanity, and to the same end the
produce of every field or vineyard must be left to the poor
one year in seven. The precepts of religious worship are
simple. He who sacrifices to any God but Jehovah falls
under the ban. The only ordinance of ceremonial sanctity is
to abstain from the flesh of animals torn by wild beasts.
The sacred dues are the firstlings and first fruits : the former
must be presented at the sanctuary on the eighth day. This,
of course, presupposes a plurality of sanctuaries, and in fact
Exodus xx. 24, 25, explains that an altar of stone may be
built, and Jehovah acceptably approached, in every place
where He sets a memorial of His name. The stated occasions
of sacrifice are the feast of unleavened bread, in commemora-
tion of the exodus, the feast of harvest, and that of ingather-
ing. These feasts mark the cycle of the agricultural year,
and at them every male must present his homage before
Jehovah. The essential points of sacrificial ritual are abstin-
ence from leaven in connection with the blood of the sacrifice,
and the rule that the fat must be burnt the same night.
You see at once that this is no abstract divine legislation.
It is a social system adapted to a very definite type of
national life. On the common view, many of its precepts
were immediately superseded by the Levitical or'Deutero-
1 The Hebrew Ger exactly corresponds to the Arabian Jar, on whose
position see Kinship and Marriage, p. 41 sqq. The protected stranger is still
known in Arabia. Among the Hodheil at Zeimeh I found in 18S0 an Indian
boy, the son of a Suleimany or wandering smith, who was under the protec-
tion of the community, every member of which would have made the lad's
quarrel his own. In old Arabia such strangers often came at last to be merged
in the tribe of their protectors, and this must have happened on a large scale
in old Israel, and accounts for the absorption of the Canaanite population
between the time of the Judges and the Exile. But in Deuteronomy the
distinctive position of an Israelite is more sharply denned. In Deut. xiv. 21
unclean food, which the First Legislation commands to be thrown to the dogs,
may be given to the Ger. In the Levitical legislation the word Ger is already
on the way to assume the later technical sense of proselyte.
LECT. XI
LEGISLATION 343
nomic code, before they ever had a chance of being put in
operation in Canaan. But this hypothesis, so dishonouring
to the Divine Legislator, who can do nothing in vain, is
refuted by the whole tenor of the code, which undoubtedly is
as living and real a system of law as was ever written. The
details of the system are almost all such as are found among
other nations. The law of Israel does not yet aim at singu-
larity ; it is enough that it is pervaded by a constant sense
that the righteous and gracious Jehovah is behind the law
and wields it in conformity with His own holy nature. The
law, therefore, makes no pretence at ideality. It contains
precepts adapted, as our Lord puts it, to the hardness of the
people's heart. The ordinances are not abstractly perfect,
and fit to be a rule of life in every state of society, but they
are fit to make Israel a righteous, humane, and God-fearing
people, and to facilitate a healthy growth towards better
things.
The important point that reference to Jehovah and His
character determines the spirit rather than the details of the
legislation cannot be too strongly accentuated. The civil
laws are exactly such as the comparative lawyer is familiar
with in other nations. Even the religious ordinances are far
from unique in their formal elements. The feast of un-
leavened bread has a special reference to the deliverance
from Egypt, which is the historical basis of Israel's distinct-
ive religion. But even this feast has also a more general
reference, for it is clearly connected in Exod. xiii. 3-6,
xxxiv. 18-20, with the sacrifice of the firstlings of the flocks
and herds, which is a form of worship known also to the
ancient Arabs; and the two other feasts, which are purely
agricultural, are quite analogous to what is found in other
nations. The feast of harvest reappears in all parts of the
ancient world, and the Canaanite vintage feast at Shechem
offers a close parallel to the feast of ingathering (supra, p. 269).
344 THE FIRST lect. xi
The distinctive character of the religion appears in the laws
directed against polytheism and witchcraft, in the promin-
ence given to righteousness and humanity as the things
which are most pleasing to Jehovah and constitute the true
significance of such an ordinance as the Sabbath, and, above
all, in the clearness with which the law holds forth the truth
that Jehovah's goodness to Israel is no mere natural relation
such as binds Moab to Chemosh, that His favour to His
people is directed by moral principles and is forfeited by
moral iniquity. In this code we already read the foundation
of the thesis of Amos, that just because Jehovah knows Israel
He observes and punishes the nation's sins (Amos iii. 2 ;
Exod. xxii. 23, 27, xxiii. 7).
Now, we have seen that before the Exile the most char-
acteristic features of the Levitical legislation, and so the
most prominent things in our present Pentateuch, had no
influence on Israel, either on the righteous or the wicked.
This result involved us in great perplexity. For, if the
traditional view of the age of the Pentateuch is correct,
there was through all these centuries an absolute divorce
between God's written law and the practical workings of His
grace. And the perplexity was only increased when we
found that, nevertheless, there was a Torah in Israel before
the prophetic books, to which the prophets appeal as the
indisputable standard of Jehovah's will. But the puzzle is
solved when we compare the history with this First Legisla-
tion. This law did not remain without fruit in Israel, and
as we have just seen in the case of Amos, its conception of
Jehovah's government affords a firm footing for the pro-
phetic word. There is abundant proof that the principles
of this legislation were acknowledged in Israel. The appeal
to God as judge appears in 1 Sam. ii. 25 ; the law of blood-
revenge, administered, not by a central authority, but by the
family of the deceased, occurs in 2 Sam. iii. 30, xiv. 7, etc.;
LECT. XI
LEGISLATION 345
the altar is the asylum in 1 Kings i. 50, and elsewhere ; the
thief taken in the breach (Exod. xxii. 2) is alluded to by
Jer. ii. 34 ; and so forth. The sacred ordinances agree with
those in the history, or, if exceptions are noted, they are stig-
matised as irregular. The plurality of altars accords with
this law. The annual feasts — at least that of the autumn,
which seems to have been best observed — are often alluded
to ; and the night service of commemoration for the exodus
appears in Isa. xxx. 29. The rule that the pilgrim must
bring an offering was recognised at Shiloh (1 Sam. i. 21).
So, too, the complaint against Eli's sons for their delay in
burning the fat is based on the same principle as Exod. xxiii.
18 ; and the use of leavened bread on the altar, which is
forbidden in Exod. xxiii. 18, was indeed admitted in the
northern shrines at the time of Amos, but is referred to by
that prophet in sarcastic terms, as if it were a departure
from the ancient ritual of Jehovah's sanctuaries (Amos iv. 5).
The prohibition to eat blood, which is essentially one with
the prohibition of torn flesh, is sedulously observed by Saul
(1 Sam. xiv. 33 sq.), and Saul also distinguishes himself by
suppressing witchcraft. The proof that this law was known
and acknowledged in all its leading provisions is as complete
as the proof that the Levitical law was still unheard of.
This result confirms, and at the same time supplements, our
previous argument. We have now brought the history into
positive relation to one part of the Pentateuch, and the
critical analysis of the books of Moses has already filled up
one of those breaches between law and history which the
traditional view can do nothing to heal.
LECTURE XII
THE DEUTERONOMIC CODE AND THE LEVITICAL LAW
In the First Legislation the question of correct ritual has
little prominence. The simple rules laid down are little
more than the necessary and natural expression of that
principle which we saw in Lecture VIII. to be the pre-
supposition of the popular worship of Israel, even when it
diverged most widely from the Levitical forms. Jehovah
alone is Israel's God. It is a crime, analogous to treason, to
depart from Him and sacrifice to other ggjja. As the Lord of
Israel and Israel's land, the giver of all good gifts to His
people, He has a manifest claim on Israel's homage, and
receives at their hands such dues as their neighbours paid to
their gods, such dues as a king receives from his people
(comp. 1 Sam. viii. 15, 17). The occasions of homage are
those seasons of natural gladness which an agricultural life
suggests. The joy of harvest and vintage is a rejoicing before
Jehovah, when the worshipper brings a gift in his hand, as
he would do in approaching an earthly sovereign, and
presents the choicest first fruits at the altar, just as his
Canaanite neighbour does in the house of Baal (Jud. ix. 27).
The whole worship is spontaneous and natural. It has
hardly the character of a positive legislation, and its distinc-^
tion from heathen rites lies less in the outward form than in
the different conception of Jehovah which the truewor-
lect. xii THE EIGHTH CENTURY 347
shipper should bear in his heart. To a people which " knows
Jehovah," thisunambitious service, in which the expression
of grateful homage to Him runs through all the simple joys
of a placid agricultural life, was sufficient to form the visible
basis of a pure and earnest piety. But its forms gave no
protection against deflection into heathenism and immorality
when Jehovah's spiritual nature and moral precepts were
forgotten. The feasts and sacrifices might still run their
accustomed round when Jehovah was practically confounded
with the Baalim, and there was no more truth or mercy or
knowledge of God in the land (Hosea iv. 1).
Such, in fact, was the state of things in the eighth century,
the age of the earliest prophetic books. The declensions of
Israel had not checked the outward zeal with which Jehovah
was worshipped. Never had the national sanctuaries been
more sedulously frequented, never had the feasts been more
splendid or the offerings more copious. But the foundations
of the old life were breaking up. The external prosperity of
the state covered an abyss of social disorder. Profusion and
luxury among the higher classes stood in startling contrast to
the misery of the poor. Lawlessness and open crime were on
the increase. The rulers of the nation grew fat upon oppres-
sion, but there was none who was grieved for the wound of
Joseph. These evils were earliest and most acutely felt in
the kingdom of Ephraim, where Amos declares them to be
already incurable under the outwardly prosperous reign of
Jeroboam II. With the downfall of Jehu's dynasty the last
bonds of social order were dissolved, and the Assyrian found
an easy prey in a land already reduced to practical anarchy.
The smaller realm of Judah seemed at first to show more
hopeful symptoms (Hosea iv. 15). But the separation of the
kingdoms had not broken the subtle links that connected
Judah with the greater Israel of the North. At all periods,
the fortunes and internal movements of Ephraim had power-
.1
48 DECADENCE OF lect. xii
fully reacted on the Southern Kingdom. Isaiah and Micah
describe a corruption within the house of David altogether
similar to the sin of Samaria. " The statutes of Omri were
kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab " (Micah vi. 16).
The prominence which the prophets assign to social
grievances and civil disorders has often led to their being
described as politicians, a democratic Opposition in the
aristocratic state. This is a total misconception. The
prophets of the eighth century have no new theories of
government, and propose no practical scheme of political
readjustment. They are the friends of the poor because
they hate oppression, and they attack the governing classes
for their selfishness and injustice; but their cry is not for
better institutions but for better men, not for the abolition
of aristocratic privileges but for an honest and godly use
of them. The work of the prophets is purely religious ;
they censure what is inconsistent with the knowledge and
fear of Jehovah, but see no way of remedy save in the
repentance and return to Him of all classes of society,
after a sifting work of judgment has destroyed the sinners
of Jehovah's people without suffering one grain of true
wheat to fall to the ground (Amos ix. 9 sq. ; Isa. vi., etc.).
But to the prophets the observance of justice and mercy
in the state are the first elements of religion. The religious
subject, the worshipping individual, Jehovah's son, was
not the individual Israelite, but the nation qua nation,
and the Old Testament analogue to the peace of conscience
which marks a healthy condition of spiritual life in the
Christian was that inner peace and harmony of the estates
of the realm which can only be secured where justice is
done and mercy loved. The ideal of the prophets in the
eighth century is not different from that of the First Legis-
lation. In the old law the worship of feasts and sacrifices
is the natural consecration, in act, of a simple, happy society,
LECT. XII
OLD ISRAEL 349
nourished by Jehovah's good gifts in answer to the labour
of the husbandman, and cemented by a regard for justice and
habits of social kindliness. When the old healthy harmony
of classes was dissolved, when the rich and the poor were no
longer knit together by a kindly sympathy and patriarchal
bond of dependence, but confronted one another as oppressor
and oppressed, when the strain thus put on all social relations
burst the weak bonds of outer order and filled the land with
unexpiated bloodshed, the pretence of homage to Jehovah at
His sanctuary was but the crowning proof that Israel knew
not his God. " When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide
mine eyes from you ; yea, when ye make many prayers I will
not hear : your hands are full of blood" (Isa. i. 15).
The causes of the inner disintegration of Israel were
manifold, and we cannot pause to examine them fully. But
in this, as in many similar cases which history exhibits, the
strain which snapped the old bands of social unity proceeded
mainly from the effects of warlike invasion reacting on a one-
sided progress in material prosperity, to which the order of
the state had not been able to readjust itself. The luxury of
the higher classes, described by Amos and Isaiah, shows that
the nobles of Israel were no longer great farmers, as Saul and
Nabal had been, living among the peasantry and sharing their
toil. The connection with Tyre, which commenced in the
days of David, opened a profitable foreign market for the
agricultural produce of Palestine (Ezek. xxvii. 17), and in-
troduced foreign luxuries in return. The landowners became
merchants and forestalled of grain (Amos viii. 5 ; Hosea xii.
7). The introduction of such a commerce, throwing the
Hebrews into immediate relations with the great emporium
of international traffic, necessarily led to accumulation of
wealth in a few hands, and to the corresponding impoverish-
ment of the landless class, as exportation raised the price of
the necessaries of life. In times of famine, or under the
350 DECADENCE OF lect. xn
distress wrought by prolonged and ferocious warfare with
Syria, the once independent peasantry fell into the condition
now so universal in the East. They were loaded with debt,
cheated on all hands, and often had to relinquish their per-
sonal liberty (Amos ii. 6, 7 ; Micah iii. 2 sq., vi. 10 sq., etc.).
The order of the state, entirely based on the old pre-corn-
mercial state of things when trade was the affair of the
Canaanites — Canaanite, in old Hebrew, is the word for a
trader — was not able to adjust itself to the new circum-
stances. How entirely commercial avocations were unknown
to the old law appears from the circumstance that the idea
of capital is unknown. It is assumed in Exod. xxii. 25 that
no one borrows money except for personal distress, and all
interest is conceived as usury (comp. Psalm xv. 5). In pro-
portion, therefore, as the nation began to share the wealth
and luxury of the Canaanite trading cities of the coast, it
divorced itself from the old social forms of the religion of
Jehovah. The Canaanite influence affected religion in affect-
ing the national life, and it was inevitable that the worship
of the sanctuary, which had always been in the closest
rapport with the daily habits of the people, should itself
assume the colour of Canaanite luxury and Canaanite im-
morality. This tendency was not checked by the extirpation
of professed worship of the Tyrian Baal. Jehovah Himself
in His many shrines assumed the features of the local
Baalim of the Canaanite sanctuaries, and horrible orgies of
unrestrained sensuality, of which we no longer dare to speak
in unveiled words, polluted the temples where Jehovah still
reigned in name, and where His help was confidently expected
to save Israel from Damascus and Assyria.
The prophets, as I have already said, never profess to
devise a scheme of political and social reformation to meet
these evils. Their business is not to govern, but to teach the
nation to know Jehovah, and to lay bare the guilt of every
LECT. XII
OLD ISRAEL 351
departure from Him. It is for the righteous ruler to deter-
mine how the principles of justice, mercy, and God-fearing
can be made practically operative in society. Thus the
criticism of the prophets on established usages is mainly
negative. The healing of Israel must come from Jehovah.
It is useless to seek help from political combinations, and
it is a mistake to fancy that international commerce and
foreign culture are additions to true happiness. This judg-
ment proceeds from no theories of political economy. It
would be a fallacy to cite the prophets as witness that
commerce and material civilisation are bad in themselves.
All that they say is that these things, as they found them
in their own time, have undone Israel, and that the first step
towards deliverance must be a judgment which sweeps away
all the spurious show of prosperity that has come between
Jehovah's people and the true knowledge of their God (Isa.
ii. ; Micah v.). Israel must again pass through the wilder-
ness. All the good gifts of fertile Canaan must be taken
away by a desolating calamity. Then the valley of trouble
shall again become a gate of hope, and Jehovah's covenant
shall renew its course on its old principles, but with far
more perfect realisation (Hos. ii.). The prophetic pictures of
Israel's final felicity are at this time all framed on the pattern
of the past. The days of David shall return under a righteous
king (Micah v. 2 sq. ; Hos. iii. 5 ; Isa. xi. 1 sq.), and Israel
shall realise, as it had never done in the past, the old ideal of
simple agricultural life, in which every good gift is received
directly from Jehovah's hand, and is supplied by Him in a
plenty that testifies to His perfect reconciliation with His
people (Hos. ii. 21 sq. ; Amos ix. 11 sq. ; Micah iv. 4, vii. 14 ;
Isa. iv. 2).
This picture is ideal. It was never literally fulfilled to
Israel in Canaan, and now that the people of God has become
a spiritual society, dissociated from national limitations and
352 KING JOSIAH'S lect. xii
relation to the land of Canaan, it never can be fulfilled save
in a spiritual sense. The restoration of Israel to Palestine
would be no fulfilment of prophecy now, for the good things
of the land never had any other value to the prophets than
that they were the expression of Jehovah's love to the people
of His choice, which is now more clearly declared in Christ
Jesus, and brought nigh to the heart by His spirit. But the
ideal supplied a practical impulse. It did not provide the
sketch of a new legislation which could cure the deeper
ills of the state without the divine judgment which the
prophets foretold, but it indicated evils that must be cleared
away, and with which the old divine laws were unable to
grapple.
One point, in particular, became thoroughly plain. The
sacrificial worship was corrupt to the core, and could never
again be purified by the mere removal of foreign elements
from the local high places. The first step towards reforma-
tion must lie in the abolition of these polluted shrines, and
to this task the adherents of the prophets addressed them-
selves.
At this point in the history the centre of interest is
transferred from Ephraim to Judah. In Ephraim the
sanctuaries perished with the fall of the old kingdom, or
sank, if possible, to a lower depth in the worship of the
mixed populations introduced by the conqueror. In Judah
there was still some hope of better things. The party of
reform was for a space in the ascendant under King
Hezekiah, when the miraculous overthrow of the Assyrian
vindicated the authority of the prophet Isaiah and justified
his confident prediction that Jehovah would protect His
sacred hearth on Mount Zion. But the victory was not
gained in a moment. Under Manasseh a terrible reaction
set in, and the corrupt popular religion crushed the pro-
phetic party, not without bloodshed. The truth was cast
lect. xii REFORMATION" 353
down, but not overthrown. In Josiah's reign the tide of
battle turned, and then it was that " the book of the Torah "
was found in the Temple. Its words smote the hearts of
the king and the people, for though the book had no external
credentials it bore its evidence within itself, and it was
stamped with the approval of the prophetess Huldah. The
Torah was adopted in formal covenant, and on its lines,
— the lines of the Deuteronomic Code, as we have already
seen (supra, p. 258), — the reformation of Josiah was carried
out.
The details of the process of reformation which cul-
minated in the eighteenth year of Josiah are far from
clear, but a few leading points can be established with
precision. The central difference between the Deuteronomic
Code, on which Josiah acted, and the old code of the First
Legislation, lies in the principle that the Temple at Jeru-
salem is the only legitimate sanctuary. The legislator in
Deuteronomy expressly puts forth this ordinance as an
innovation : " Ye shall not do, as we do here this day,
every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes " (Deut.
xii. 8). Moreover, it is explained that the law which
confines sacrifice to one altar involves modifications of
ancient usage. If the land of Israel becomes so large
that the sanctuary is not easily accessible, bullocks and
sheep may be eaten at home, as game is eaten, without
being sacrificed, the blood only being poured on the
ground. We have already seen that the earlier custom
here presupposed, on which every feast of beef or mutton
was sacrificial, obtained long after the settlement of Israel
in Canaan, on the basis of the principle of many altars
laid down in Exod. xx. 24, and presupposed in the First
Legislation. But further, the Book of Deuteronomy, which
reproduces almost every precept of the older code, with
or without modification, remodels the ordinances which
354 THE CODE OF
LEOT. XII
presuppose a plurality of sanctuaries. According to Exod.
xxii. 30, the firstlings are to be offered on the eighth day.
This is impracticable under the law of one altar; and so
in Deut. xv. 19 sq. it is appointed that they shall be eaten
year by year at the sanctuary, and that meantime no work
shall be done with the firstling bullock, and that a firstling
sheep shall not be shorn. Again, the asylum for the man-
slayer in Exod. xxi. 12-14 is Jehovah's altar, and so, in fact,
the altar was used in the time of David and Solomon. But
under the law of Deuteronomy there are to be three fixed
cities of refuge (Deut. xix. 1 sq.).
The law, then, is quite distinctly a law for the abolition of
the local sanctuaries, which are recognised by the First Legis-
lation, and had been frequented under it without offence during
many generations. The reason for the change comes out in
Deut. xii. 2 sq. The one sanctuary is ordained to prevent
assimilation between Jehovah-worship and the Canaanite ser-
vice. The Israelites in the eighth century did service on the
hill-tops and under the green trees (Hos. iv. 13 ; Isa. i. 29),
and in these local sanctuaries they practically merged their
Jehovah-worship in the abominations of the heathen. The
Deuteronomic law designs to make such syncretism henceforth
impossible by separating the sanctuary of Jehovah from all
heathen shrines. And so, in particular, the old marks of a
sanctuary, the maggeba and ashera {supra, p. 241), which had
been used by the patriarchs, and continued to exist in sanc-
tuaries of Jehovah down to the eighth century, are declared
illegitimate (Deut. xvi. 21 ; Josh. xxiv. 26 ; 1 Sam. vi. 14, vii.
12 ; 2 Sam. xx. 8 ; 1 Kings i. 9 ; Hosea iii. 4 ; 1 Kings vii. 21).
This detail is one of the clearest proofs that Deuteronomy
was unknown till long after the days of Moses. How could
Joshua, if he had known such a law, have erected a maggeba
or sacred pillar of unhewn stone under the sacred tree by the
sanctuary at Shechem ? Nay, this law was still unknown to
lect. xii DEUTERONOMY 355
Isaiah, who attacks idolatry, but recognises maggeba and altar
as the marks of the sanctuary of Jehovah. " In that day," he
says, prophesying the conversion of Egypt, " there shall be an
altar to Jehovah within the land of Egypt, and a maggeba at
the border thereof to Jehovah " (Isa. xix. 19). Isaiah could
not refer to a forbidden symbol as a maggeba to Jehovah. He
takes it for granted that Egypt, when converted, will serve
Jehovah by sacrifice (ver. 21), and do so under the familiar
forms which Jehovah has not yet abrogated.
This passage gives us a superior limit for the date of the
Deuteronomic Code. It was not known to Isaiah, and there-
fore the reforms of Hezekiah cannot have been based upon it.
Indeed the prophets of the eighth century, approaching the
problem of true worship, not from the legal and practical side,
but from the religious principles involved, never get so far as
to indicate a detailed plan for the reorganisation of the
sanctuaries. Micah proclaims God's wrath against the
maggebas and asheras ; but they perish in the general fall of
the cities of Judah with all their corrupt civilisation (Micah
v. 10 sq.). Even Jerusalem and the Temple of Zion must
share the general fate (chap. iii. 12). Such a prediction offers
little assistance for a plan of reformed worship. In the
prophecies of Isaiah again, where the maggeba is still recog-
nised as legitimate, the idols of the Judsean sanctuaries are
viewed as the chief element in the nation's rebellion, and the
mark of repentance is to cast them away (Isa. xxx. 22, xxxi.
6 sq., ii. 7, 20). It does not seem impossible that Isaiah
would have been content with this reform, for he never
proclaims war against the local sanctuaries as he does against
their idols. He perceives, indeed, that not only the idols but
the altars come between Israel and Jehovah, and lead the
people to look to the work of their own hands instead of to
their Maker (Isa. xvii. 7 sq.). Yet even here the contrast is
not between one altar and many, but between the material
356 ISAIAH AND lect. xii
and man-made sanctuary and the Holy One of Israel. The
prophetic thought seems to hesitate on the verge of transition
to the spiritual worship of the New Covenant. But the time
was not yet ripe for so decisive a change.
To Isaiah, Jehovah's presence with His people is still a
local thing. It could not, indeed, be otherwise, for the people
of Jehovah was itself a conception geographically defined,
bound up with the land of Canaan, and having its centre in
Jerusalem. In the crisis of the Assyrian wars, the funda-
mental religious thought that Jehovah's gracious purpose, and
therefore Jehovah's people, are indestructible, took in Isaiah's
mind the definite form of an assurance that Jerusalem could
not fall before the enemy. "Jehovah hath founded Zion,
and the poor of his people shall trust in it " (Isa. xiv. 32).
Jehovah, who hath his fire in Zion, and his furnace in
Jerusalem, will protect his holy mountain, hovering over it
as birds over their nest (Isa. xxxi. 5, 9). Zion is the invio-
lable seat of Jehovah's sovereignty, where he dwells as a
devouring fire, purging the sin of His people by consuming
judgment, but also asserting His majesty against all invaders
(Isa. xxxiii. 13 sq., iv. 4 sq.). This conception is nowhere
specially connected with the Temple. Eather is it the whole
plateau of Zion (chap. iv. 5) which is the seat of Jehovah's
presence with His people. But, according to the whole
manner of thought in the Old Testament, the seat of
Jehovah's presence to Israel, the centre from which his
Torah goes forth (Isa. ii. 3 ; Micah iv. 1 ; cf. Amos i. 2), the
mountain of Jehovah and Jehovah's house (Isa. xxx. 29,
ii. 2), the hearth of God (Ariel, Isa. xxix. 1), the place of
solemn and festal assembly (Isa. iv. 5, xxxiii. 20), must be
the place of acceptable sacrifice, if sacrifice is to continue at
all. Isaiah, perhaps, was not concerned to draw this infer-
ence. His thoughts were rather full of the spiritual side of
Jehovah's presence to His people, the word of revelation
LECT. XII
MOUNT ZION 357
guiding their path (xxx. 20, 21), the privilege of dwelling un-
harmed in the fire of Jehovah's presence, and seeing the King
in His glory, which belongs to the man that walketh in
righteousness, and speaketh upright words; who despiseth
the gain of oppression, shaking his hands from the holding
of bribes, stopping his ears from the hearing of blood, and
shutting his eyes from looking on evil (xxxiii. 14 sq). But
a practical scheme of reformation, resting on these premisses,
and deriving courage from the fulfilment of Isaiah's promise
of deliverance, could hardly fail to aim at the unification of
worship in Jerusalem. Hezekiah may at first have sought
only to purge the sanctuaries of idols. But the whole
worship of these shrines was bound up with their idolatrous
practices, while the Temple on Zion, the sanctuary of the ark,
might well be purged of heathenish corruptions, and still
retain in this ancient Mosaic symbol a mark of Jehovah's
presence palpable enough to draw the homage even of the
masses who had no ears for the lofty teaching of Isaiah. The
history informs us that Hezekiah actually worked in this
direction. We cannot tell the measure of his success, for
what he effected was presently undone by Manasseh ; but, at
least, it was under him that the problem first took practical
shape.
It is very noteworthy, and, on the traditional view, quite
inexplicable, that the Mosaic sanctuary of the ark is never
mentioned in the Deuteronomic Code. The author of this
law occupies the standpoint of Isaiah, to whom the whole
plateau of Zion is holy ; or of Jeremiah, who forbids men to
search for the ark or remake it, because Jerusalem is the
throne of Jehovah (Jer. iii. 16, 17). But he formulates
Isaiah's doctrine in the line of Hezekiah's practical essay to
suppress the high places, and he develops a scheme for fuller
and effective execution of this object with a precision of
detail that shows a clear sense of the practical difficulties of
358 THE DEUTERONOMIC lect. xn
the undertaking. It was no light thing to overturn the whole
popular worship of Judah. It is highly probable that Heze-
kiah failed to produce a permanent result because he had not
duly provided for the practical difficulties to which his scheme
would give rise. The Deuteronomic Code has realised these
difficulties, and meets the most serious of them by the modi-
fications of the old law already discussed, and by making
special provision for the priests of the suppressed shrines.
The First Legislation has no law of priesthood, no pro-
vision as to priestly dues. The permission of many altars,
which it presupposes, is given in Exodus xx. 24-26 in a
form that assumes the right of laymen to offer sacrifice,1 as
we actually find them doing in so many parts of the history
{sujpra, p. 274). Yet a closer observation shows that the old.
law presupposes a priesthood, whose business lies less with
sacrifice than with the divine Torah which they administer
1 Exod. xx. 26 is addressed not to the priests but to Israel at large, and
implies that any Israelite may approach the altar. Comp. Exod. xxi. 14,
and contrast Num. iv. 15, xviii. 3. That the old law allows any Israelite to
approach the altar appears most clearly from the prohibition of an altar with
steps, lest the worshipper should expose his person to the holy structure. In
the case of the Levitical priests this danger was provided against in another
way, by the use of linen breeches (Exod. xxviii. 43). In the case of the
brazen altar, which was five feet high, or of Solomon's huge altar, ten cubits
in height, there must have been steps of some kind (Lev. ix. 22), and for
Ezekiel's altar (xliii. 17) this is expressly stated. The important distinction
between the altars of Exod. xx., which are approached by laymen in their
ordinary dress, and the brazen altar approached by priests protected
against exposure by their special costume, was not understood by the later
Jews, and consequently it was held that the prohibition of steps (ma'aMth)
did not prevent the use of an ascent of some other kind — as, for example, a
sloping bridge or mound (see the Targum of Jonathan on our passage, and
also Rashi's Commentary). In Herod's Temple the altar was a vast platform
of unhewn stone, fifteen cubits high and fifty in length and breadth, and the
ascent to it formed a gentle incline (Joseph. B. J. Lib. v. cap. 5, § 6 ;
Mishna, Zebachim v., Tamid i. 4). But the expression ma'aloth seems to
cover all kinds of ascent, and the risk of exposing the person to the altar
would be unaffected by the nature of the ascent. In fact, with a large altar
the priest could not put the blood of a victim on the four horns without
standing and walking on the altar {Zebachim, 1. c), which is clearly against
the spirit of Exod. xx. , except on the understanding that that law does not
apply to priests appropriately clad for the office.
LECT. XII
SANCTUARY 359
in the sanctuary as successors of Moses. For the sanctuary
is the seat of judgment (supra, p. 339), and this implies a
qualified personnel through whom judgment is given. Accord-
ing to the unanimous testimony of all the older records of the
Old Testament, this priesthood, charged with the Torah ad-
ministered at the sanctuary, is none other than the house of
Levi, the kinsmen or descendants of Moses. (See especially
Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8 ; 1 Samuel ii. 27 sq.) The history of
the Levites after the Conquest is veiled in much obscurity.
The principal branch of the family, which remained with the
ark, and is known to us as the house of Eli, lost its supre-
macy when Solomon deposed Abiathar and set Zadok in his
place (1 Kings ii. 26, 27). In this event the author of Kings
sees the fulfilment of the prophecy in 1 Sam. ii., which de-
clares that Eli's clan, the priestly house originally chosen by
Jehovah, shall be dispossessed in favour of a faithful priest.
Hence it would appear that Zadok had no connection with
the ancient priesthood of the ark ; but he was the head of a
body of Levites (2 Samuel xv. 24). Another Levitical family
which claimed direct descent from Moses held the priesthood
of the sanctuary of Dan, and in the later times of the kingdom
all the priests of local sanctuaries were viewed as Levites.
Whether this implies that they were all lineal descendants of
the old house of Levi may well be doubted. But in early times
guilds are hereditary bodies, modified by a right of adoption,
and it was understood that the priesthood ran in the family
to which Moses belonged. In the time of Ezekiel the
Jerusalem priesthood consisted of the Levites of the guild of
Zadok. The subordinate ministers of the Temple were not
Levites, but, as we have already seen, the foreign janissaries,
and presumably other foreign slaves, the progenitors of the
NetMnim, who appear in the list of returning exiles in
Ezra ii. with names for the most part not Israelite. The
Levites who are not Zadokites are by Ezekiel expressly
360 THE LEVITICAL lect. xn
identified with the priests of the high places (Ezek. xliv. 9
sq.; supra, p. 260 and note). These historical facts — for they
are no conjecture, but the express testimony of the sacred
record — are presupposed in the Code of Deuteronomy. The
priests, according to Deuteronomy xxi. 5, are the sons of
Levi ; " for them hath Jehovah thy God chosen to minister to
him and to bless in his name, and according to their decision
is every controversy and every stroke." Deuteronomy knows
no Levites who cannot be priests, and no priests who are not
Levites. The two ideas are absolutely identical. But these
Levites, who are priests of Jehovah's own appointment, were,
in the period when the code was composed, scattered through
the land as priests of the local sanctuaries. They had no
territorial possessions (Deut. xviii. 1), and were viewed as
G6rim, or strangers under the protection of the community
in the places where they sojourned (ver. 6). Apart from the
revenues of the sanctuary, their position was altogether de-
pendent (xiv. 27, 29, etc.).1
1 I give here some fuller details of the evidence on this important topic.
1°. Except in the Levitical legislation and in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehe-
miah, where the usus loquendi is conformed to the final form of the Penta-
teuchal ordinance, Levite never means a sacred minister who is not a priest,
and has not the right to offer sacrifice. On the contrary, Levite is regularly-
used as a priestly title. See the list of texts in Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 3d
ed., p. 147. The only passage to the contrary is 1 Kings viii. 4, where " the
priests and the Levites " appear instead of "the Levite priests." But here
the particle "and " — a single letter in Hebrew — appears to be an insertion in
accordance with the later law. The Chronicler still reads the verse without
the "and" (2 Chron. v. 5). The older books know a distinction between
the chief priest and lower priests (e.g. 1 Sam. ii. 35, 36), but all alike are
priests, that is, do sacrifice, wear the ephod, etc. The priesthood is God's
gift to Levi (Deut. x. 8, xviii. 1, xxi. 5, xxxiii. 8 sq.), and Jeroboam's fault,
according to 1 Kings xii. 31, was that he chose priests who were not Levites.
From the first, no doubt, there must have been a difference between the chief
priest of the ark (Aaron, Eli, Abiathar, Zadok) and his subordinate brethren,
but there is no trace of such a distinction as is made in the Levitical law.
2°. Ezekiel knows nothing of Levites who were not priests in time past ;
he knows only the Zadokite Levites, the priests of the Temple, and other
Levites who had formerly been priests, but are to be degraded under the new
Temple, because they had ministered in the idolatrous shrines of the local
high places. The usual explanation that these Levites were the sons of
LECT. XII
PRTESTS 361
In the abolition of the local sanctuaries it was necessary
to make provision for these Levites. And this the new code
does in two ways : it provides, in the first place, that any
Levite from the provinces who chooses to come up to Jeru-
salem shall be admitted to equal privileges with his brethren
the Levites who stand there before Jehovah — not to the
privilege of a servant in the sanctuary, but to the full priest-
hood, as is expressly conveyed by the terms used. Thus
Ithatnar is impossible. For the guild of Ithamar appears only after the Exile
as the name of a subordinate family of priests who were never degraded as
the prophet prescribes. Moreover, Ezek. xlviii. 11-13 clearly declares that
all Levites but the Zadokites shall be degraded. Ezekiel's Levites are the
priests of the local high places whom Josiah brought to Jerusalem, and who
were supported there on offerings which the non-priestly Levites under the
Levitical law had no right to eat.
3°. In Deuteronomy all Levitical functions are priestly, and to these
functions the whole tribe was chosen (x. 8, xxi. 5). The summary of
Levitical functions in x. 8 is (1) to carry the ark, which in old Israel was a
priestly function {supra, p. 276) ; (2) to stand before Jehovah and minister to
Him, an expression that invariably denotes priesthood proper ; see especially
Ezek. xliv. 13, 15 ; Jer. xxxiii. 18, 21, 22 : the Levites of the later law
minister not to God but to Aaron, Num. iii. 6 ; (3) to bless in Jehovah's name.
In the Levitical law this is the office of Aaron and his sons (Num. vi.). Ac-
cordingly in Deut. xviii. 1 sq., the whole tribe of Levi has a claim on the
altar gifts, the first fruits and other priestly offerings, and any Levite can
actually gain a share in these by going to Jerusalem and doing priestly
service. In the Levitical law common Levites have no share in these
revenues, but are nourished by the tithes and live in Levitical cities. There
were no Levitical cities in this sense in the time of the Deuteronomist, for all
those mentioned in Joshua — in passages which are really part of the Priests'
Code — lay outside the kingdom of Judah. And Deuteronomy knows
nothing of a Levitical tithe, though it allows the poor Levites a share in the
charity tithe. The Levite who is not in service at the sanctuary is always
represented as a needy sojourner, without visible means of support ; and this
agrees with Judges xvii. 7. 8 ; 1 Sam. ii. 36.
That the priesthood of Dan was a Levitical priesthood descended from
Moses is generally admitted. In Judges xviii. 30, the N which changes
Moses to Manasseh is inserted above the line thus : HCD, Moses ; i"l£> ft,
Manasseh. The reading of our English Bible was therefore a correction in
the archetype (supra, p. 57). On the whole subject of the Levites before the
Exile, see especially Graf in Merx's Arehiv, i. ; Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschr.,
1872 ; and Wellhausen, Prolegomena, Kap. iv. Baudissin's book, Gesch. des
ATlichen Priesterthums (Leipzig, 1889), which seeks to find an intermediate
position between the old view and the new, does not give much help.
362 THE LEVITICAL lect. xn
ministering, he receives for his support an equal share of the
priestly dues paid in kind (Deut. xviii. 6 sq.). Those Levites,
on the other hand, who remain dispersed through the pro-
vinces receive no emolument from the sanctuary, and having
no property in land (xviii. 1), have a far from enviable lot,
which the legislator seeks to mitigate by recommending them
in a special manner, along with the widow and the orphan,
to the charity of the landed classes under whose protection
they dwell (xii. 12, 18 ; xiv. 27, 29 ; xvi. 11, 14 ; xxvi. 11
sq.). The method of such charity is to some extent defined.
Once in three years every farmer is called upon to store up a
tithe of the produce of his land, which he retains in his own
hands, but must dispense to the dependents or Levites who
come and ask a meal. The legislator, it is plain, aims at
something like a voluntary poor-rate. The condition of the
landless class, with whose sufferings the prophets are so often
exercised, had become a social problem, owing to the increase
of large estates and other causes (Tsa. v. 8 ; Micah ii.), and
demanded a remedy ; but it is not proposed to enforce the
assessment through the executive. The matter is left to
every man's conscience as a religious duty, of which he is
called to give account before Jehovah in the sanctuary (xxvi.
12 sq.). And the bond between charity and religion is drawn
still closer by the provision that the well-to-do landholder,
when he comes up to the sanctuary to make merry before
God, feasting on the firstlings, tithes, etc., must bring with
him his dependents and the Levite who is within his gates,
that they too may have their part in the occasions of religious
joy. This law of charity appears to supersede the old rule of
leaving the produce of every field to the poor one year in
seven, which is obviously a more primitive and less practical
arrangement. In place of this, the Deuteronomic Code re-
quires that, at the close of every seven years, there shall be a
release of Hebrew debtors by their creditors (xv. 1 sq.).
lect. xii PRIESTS 363
I return to the Levites, in order to point out that the
comparison of Deut. xviii. with 2 Kings xxiii. 8 sq. effectually
disproves the idea of some critics that the Deuteronomic Code
was a forgery of the Temple priests, or of their head, the high
priest Hilkiah. The proposal to give the Levites of the pro-
vinces— that is, the priests of the local sanctuaries — equal
priestly rights at Jerusalem could not commend itself to the
Temple hierarchy. And in this point Josiah was not able to
carry out the ordinances of the book. The priests who were
brought up to Jerusalem received support from the Temple
dues, but were not permitted to minister at the altar. This
proves that the code did not emanate from Hilkiah and the
Zadokite priests, whose class interests were strong enough to
frustrate the law which, on the theory of a forgery, was their
own work.
Whence, then, did the book derive the authority which
made its discovery the signal for so great a reformation ?
How did it approve itself as an expression of the Divine will,
first to Hilkiah and Josiah, and then to the whole nation ?
To this question there can be but one answer. The authority
that lay behind Deuteronomy was the power of the prophetic
teaching which half a century of persecution had not been
able to suppress. After the work of Isaiah and his fellows,
it was impossible for any earnest movement of reformation
to adopt other principles than those of the prophetic word on
which Jehovah Himself had set His seal by the deliverance
from Assyria. What the Deuteronomic Code supplied was a
clear and practical scheme of reformation on the prophetic
lines. It showed that it was possible to adjust the old
religious constitution in conformity with present needs, and
this was enough to kindle into new flame the slumbering fire
of the word of the prophets. The book became the pro-
gramme of Josiah's reformation, because it gathered up in
practical form the results of the great movement under
364 Israel's lbct. xn
Hezekiah and Isaiah, and the new divine teaching then given
to Israel. It was of no consequence to Josiah — it is of
equally little consequence to us — to know the exact date
and authorship of the book. Its prophetic doctrine, and
the practical character of the scheme which it set forth —
in which the new teaching and the old Torah were fused
into an intelligible unity — were enough to commend it.
The law of the one sanctuary, which is aimed against
assimilation of Jehovah -worship to the religion of Canaan,
and seeks entirely to separate the people from the worship of
Canaanite shrines, is only one expression of a thought com-
mon to the prophets, that the unique religion of Jehovah was
in constant danger from intercourse between Israel and the
nations. Isaiah complains that the people were always ready
to " strike hands with the children of strangers," and recog-
nises a chief danger to faith in the policy of the nobles, who
were dazzled with the splendour and courted the alliance of
the great empires on the Nile and the Tigris (Isa. ii. 6, xxx.
1 sq. ; comp. Hosea vii. 8, viii. 9, xiv. 3). The vocation of
Israel as Jehovah's people has no points of contact with the
aims and political combinations of the surrounding nations,
and Micah vii. 14 looks forward to a time when Israel shall
be like a flock feeding in solitude in the woods of Bashan or
Carmel. Isaiah expresses this unique destiny of Israel in
the word holiness. Jehovah is the Holy One of Israel, and
conversely His true people are a holy seed. The notion of
holiness is primarily connected with the sanctuary and all
things pertaining to intercourse with the deity. The old
Israelite consecrated himself before a sacrifice. In the First
Legislation the notion of Israel's holiness appears only in the
law against eating flesh torn in the field, of which the blood
had not been duly offered to God on His altar. But Isaiah
raises the notion beyond the sphere of ritual, and places
Israel's holiness in direct relation to the personal presence
LECT. XII
HOLINESS 365
of Jehovah on Zion, in the centre of His people, as their
living Sanctuary, whose glory fills all the earth (Isa. vi. 3,
iv. 3 sq.). The Code of Deuteronomy appropriates this
principle; but in its character of a law, seeking definite
practical expression for religious principles, it develops the
idea of unique holiness and separation from the profane
nations in prohibitive ordinances. The essential object of
the short law of the kingdom (xvii. 14 sq.) is to guard
against admixture with foreigners and participation in
foreign policy. Other precepts regulate contact with the
adjoining nations (xxiii. 3 sq.), and a vast number of statutes
are directed against the immoralities of Canaanite nature-
worship, which, as we know from the prophets and the
Books of Kings, had deeply tainted the service of Jehovah.
Not a few details, which to the modern eye seem trivial
or irrational, disclose to the student of Semitic antiquity
an energetic protest against the moral grossness of Canaanite
heathenism. These precepts give the law a certain air of
ritual formalism, but the formalism lies only on the surface,
and there is a moral idea below. The ceremonial observ-
ances of Deuteronomy are directed against heathen usages.
Thus in Deut. xxii. 5 women are forbidden to wear men's
garments and men women's garments. This is not a mere
rule of conventional propriety, but is directed against those
simulated changes of sex which occur in Canaanite and Syrian
heathenism. We learn from Servius that sacrifice was done
to the bearded Astarte of Cyprus by men dressed as women
and women dressed as men ; and the Galli, with their female
dress and ornaments, are one of the most disgusting features
of the Syrian and Phoenician sanctuaries.1 So again the
1 See Servius on diln. ii. 632 ; Macrob. Saturn, iii. 8 ; Luciau, Be Syria
Dea, § 51 ; Euseb. Vit. Const, iii. 55. The Galli of later times seem to be
identical with the vile class named in Deut. xxiii. 17 and the "dogs" of the
following verse. The same figurative use of the word dog is found in the
painted inscription of Citium ; 0. I. S. No. 86.
366 CLEAN AND UNCLEAN lect. xn
forms of mourning prohibited in Deut. xiv. 1 are ancient
practices which among the other Semites have a religious
significance. They occur not only in mourning but in the
worship of the gods, and belong to the sphere of heathen
superstition.1 Another example of rules that have a deeper
significance than appears on the surface is found in Deut.
xiv. 3-21, in the list of forbidden foods. We know as a
fact that some of the unclean animals were sacrament-
ally eaten in certain heathen rituals (Isa. lxvi. 17, lxv.
4, lxvi. 3), and in general the rules as to eating and not
eating certain kinds of flesh among the heathen Semites,
as in other early nations, were directly connected with
ancient superstitions, which in the last resort must have
arisen out of ideas closely analogous to the totemism of
modern savages. All primitive people have rules for-
bidding the use of certain kinds of food, out of religious
scruple, or on the other hand they never eat certain kinds
of flesh except as a solemn act of worship. An animal
that may not be eaten, or that may be eaten only in solemn
sacraments, is primarily a holy animal, and is often an object
of worship ; for in primitive religion the ideas holy and un-
clean meet. Now we learn from Ezekiel viii. 10, 11 that
one of the forms of low superstition practised at Jerusalem
in the last days of the old kingdom was the worship of
unclean creatures. This must be a relic of very ancient
heathenism, which had lingered for centuries in the obscure
depths of society, and came to the surface again in the
general despair of Jehovah's help which drove Ezekiel's
contemporaries into all manner of degrading superstitions.
Some parts of the law of forbidden food in Deuteronomy
probably do no more than formulate antique prejudices,
which to the mass of the people had long lost all religious
significance, but had come to be regarded as points of
1 See Religion of the Semites, i. 304 sqq.
lect. xii IN DEUTERONOMY 367
propriety and self-respect ; but it can hardly be doubted that
other parts are directly aimed at heathen sacraments, such as
the eating of swine's flesh spoken of in the Book of Isaiah,
and similar rites that might well occur in connection with the
superstitions described by Ezekiel. Similar prohibitions have
been enforced in Christian times on converts from heathen-
ism, in order to cut them off from participation in idolatrous
feasts. Thus Simeon Stylites forbade his Saracen converts
to eat the flesh of the camel, which was the chief element
in the sacrificial meals of the Arabs, and our own prejudice
against the use of horse flesh is a relic of an old ecclesi-
astical prohibition framed at the time when the eating of
such food was an act of worship to Odin.1
This constant polemical reference to Canaanite worship
and Canaanite morality gives to the element of ritual and
forms of worship a much larger place in Deuteronomy than
these things hold in the First Legislation. In points of civil
order the new law still moves on the old lines. Its object is
not legislative innovation, but to bring the old consuetudinary
law into relation to the fundamental principle that Jehovah
is Israel's Lawgiver, and that all social order exists under
His sanction.
1 This subject is fully treated in my Religion of the Semites, vol. i. (1889),
to which I refer for details as to ancient laws of forbidden meats. Two of the
prohibitions in Deuteronomy (xiv. 21) rest on the older legislation ; but these
have a character of their own. The first of them is the law against eating
carrion (Exod. xxii. 31), which evidently rests on the old rule that all lawful
slaughter must be sacrificial, but is equally consistent with the Deuteronomic
modification of that rule (Deut. xii. 15). The other is the very curious law
against seething a kid in its mother's milk, i.e. in goats' milk, on which see
op. cit. p. 204 note. From the occurrence in Deut. xiv. 12-19 of some charac-
teristic priestly expressions Kuenen infers that this law was derived by the
Deuteronomist from the oral Torah of the priests (comp. xxiv. 8) ; but it is also
possible that these details were added later, and that the original law confined
itself to allowing all clean birds to be eaten (ver. 11), thus glancing obliquely
at the rule of the Astarte-worshippers of Canaan, who would not eat the dove
{op. cit. p. 202 note). The permission to eat all fish having scales and fins
also stands in contrast to a widespread superstition of the Syrian Astarte-
worshippers {op. cit. p. 430).
368 CIVIL LAWS OF
LECT. XII
Thus we still find some details which bear the stamp of
primeval Semitic culture. In chap. xxi. 10 sq. we have
marriage by capture as it was practised by the Arabs before
Mohammed, and even the detail as to the paring of the nails
of the captive before marriage is identical with one of the old
Arabic methods of terminating the widow's period of seclusion
and setting her free to marry again.
But in general we see that the civil laws of Deuteronomy
belong to a later stage of society than the First Legislation.
For example, the law of retaliation, which has so large a
range in the First Legislation, is prescribed in Deut. xix. 16
sq. only for the case of false witness.1 And with this goes the
introduction of a new punishment, which, in the old law, was
confined to slaves. A man who injures another may be
brought before the judge and sentenced to the bastinado (xxv.
1 sq.). The introduction of this degrading punishment in the
case of freemen indicates a change in social feeling. Among
the Bedouins no sheikh would dare to flog a man, for he
would thereby bring himself under the law of retaliation ; and
so it was in Israel in the old time. But Eastern kingship
breaks down this sense of personal independence, while, at
the same time, it modifies the strict law of revenge. In
general, the executive system of Deuteronomy is more ad-
vanced. The sanctuary is still the highest seat of law, but
the priest is now associated with a supreme civil judge (xvii.
9, 12), who seems to be identical with the king ; and even
the subordinate judges are not merely the natural sheikhs, or
elders of the local communities, but include officers appointed
with national authority (xvi. 18). Again, the law of manu-
mission undergoes an important modification. On the old
law a father could sell his daughter as a slave, and the bond-
woman was absolute property ; the master could wed her to
1 It may indeed be inferred from this passage that the talio existed in
theory in other cases also, but was not commonly enforced in practice.
lect. xii DEUTERONOMY 369
one of his servants, and retain her when the servant left. In
Deuteronomy all this has disappeared, and a Hebrew woman
has a right to manumission after seven years, like a man (xv.
12, 17). A similar advance appears in the change on the law
of seduction. By the old law this case was treated as one of
pecuniary loss to the father, who must be compensated by the
seducer purchasing the damsel as wife for the full price
(mohar) of a virgin. In Deuteronomy the law is removed
from among the laws of property to laws of moral purity, and
the payment of full mohar is changed to a fixed fine (Exod.
xxii. 16, 17 ; Deut. xxii. 28 sq.).
In other cases the new code softens the rudeness of ancient
custom. In Arabic warfare the destruction of an enemy's
palm-groves is a favourite exploit, and fertile lands are thus
often reduced to desert. In 2 Kings iii. 19 we find that the
same practice was enjoined on Israel by the prophet Elisha
in war with Moab ; every good tree was to be cut down. But
Deut. xx. 19 sq. forbids this barbarous destruction of fruit-
trees. Still more remarkable is the law of Deut. xxii. 30. It
was a custom among many of the ancient Arabs that a man
took possession of his father's wives along with the property
(his own mother, of course, excepted). The only law of for-
bidden degrees in the Deuteronomic Code is directed against
this practice, which Ezekiel xxii. 10 mentions as still current
in Jerusalem. But in early times such marriages were made
without offence. The Israelites understood Absalom's appro-
priation of David's secondary wives as a formal way of
declaring that his father was dead to him, and that he served
himself his heir (2 Sam. xvi.) ; and when Adonijah asked the
hand of Abishag, Solomon understood him as claiming the
inheritance (1 Kings ii. 22). The same custom explains the
anger of Ishbosheth at Abner (2 Sam. iii. 7). The new code,
you perceive, marks a growth in morality and refinement. It
is still no ideal law fit for all time, but a practical code
24
370 RITUAL IN lect. xii
largely incorporating elements of actual custom. But the
growth of custom and usage is on the whole upward, and
ancient social usages which survived for many centuries
after the age of Josiah among the heathen of Arabia and
Syria already lie behind the Deuteronomic Code. With all
the hardness of Israel's heart, the religion of Jehovah had
proved itself in its influence on the nation a better religion
than that of the Baalim.1
From Josiah's covenant to the fall of the Jewish state the
Code of Deuteronomy had but a generation to run. Even in
this short time it appeared that the reformation had not
accomplished its task, and that the introduction of the written
law was not enough to avert the judgment which the prophets
had declared inevitable for the purification of the nation.
The crusade against the high places was most permanent in
its results. In the time of Jeremiah popular superstition
clung to the Temple as it had formerly clung to the high
places, and in the Temple the populace and the false prophets
found the pledge that Jehovah could never forsake His
nation. This fact is easily understood. The prophetic ideas
of Isaiah, which were the real spring of the Deuteronomic
reformation, had never been spiritually grasped by the mass
1 See on marriage with a stepmother my Kinship, p. 86 sqq. It is not, of
course, to be supposed that no other rule of forbidden degrees was recognised,
but only that no other case required to be provided against. Yet marriage
with a half-sister not uterine was allowed in old Israel, and not unknown in
the days of Ezekiel (supra, p. 280), though it is condemned by him and in
the "Framework" of Deuteronomy (chap, xxvii. 22). Why does the code
not mention this case, which was certainly not to be passed over in silence ?
In such a case silence seems to imply consent ; and this may supply an
additional argument for assigning to Deut. xxvii. a later date than the code
of chaps, xii.-xxvi. The advance in the laws of forbidden degrees from the
Deuteronomic Code through the "Framework" (Deut. xxvii.) and Ezekiel
(xxii. 10, 11) to the full Levitical law is one of the clearest proofs of the true
order of succession in the Pentateuchal laws. Marriage with a half-sister was
known among the Phoenicians in the time of Achilles Tatius, and indeed
forbidden marriages, including that with a father's wife, seem to have been
practised pretty openly in Roman Syria down to the fifth Christian century.
See Bruns and Sachau, Syrisch-Romisches Rechtsbuck, p. 30 (Leipzig, 1880).
lect. xii DEUTERONOMY 371
of the people, though the Mat attending the overthrow of
Sennacherib had given them a certain currency. The con-
ception of Jehovah's throne on Zion was materialised in the
Temple, and the moral conditions of acceptance with the King
of Zion, on which Isaiah laid so much weight, were forgotten.
Jehovah received ritual homage in lieu of moral obedience ;
and Jeremiah has again occasion to declare that the latter
alone is the positive content of the divine Torah, and that a
law of sacrifice is no part of the original covenant with
Israel. In speaking thus the prophet does not separate him-
self from the Deuteronomic law ; for the moral precepts of
that code — as, for example, the Deuteronomic form of the
law of manumission (Jer. xxxiv. 13-16) — he accepts as part
of the covenant of the Exodus. To Jeremiah, therefore, the
Code of Deuteronomy does not appear in the light of a positive
law of sacrifice; and this judgment is undoubtedly correct.
The ritual details of Deuteronomy are directed against
heathen worship ; they are negative, not positive. In the
matter of sacrifice and festal observances the new code simply
diverts the old homage of Israel from the local sanctuaries to
the central shrine, and all material offerings are summed up
under the principles of gladness before Jehovah at the great
agricultural feasts, and of homage paid to Him in acknow-
ledgment that the good things of the land of Canaan are
His gift (xxvi. 10). The firstlings, first fruits, and so forth
remain on their old footing as natural expressions of devotion,
which did not begin with the Exodus and are not peculiar to
Israel. Even the festal sacrifices retain the character of " a
voluntary tribute" (Deut. xvi. 10), and the paschal victim
itself may be chosen indifferently from the flock or the herd
(xvi. 2), and is still, according to the Hebrew of xvi. 7, pre-
sumed to be boiled, not roasted, as is the case in all old
sacrifices of which the history speaks. Deuteronomy knows
nothing of a sacrificial priestly Torah, though it refers the
372 DEUTERONOMY AND lect. xii
people to the Torah of the priests on the subject of leprosy
(xxiv. 8), and acknowledges their authority as judges in law-
suits. In the Deuteronomic Code the idea of sin is never
connected with matters of ritual. A sin means a crime, an
offence to law and justice (xix. 15, xxi. 22, xxii. 26, xxiv. 16),
an act of heathenism (xx. 18), a breach of faith towards
Jehovah (xxiii. 21, 22), or a lack of kindliness to the poor
(xxiv. 15). And such offences are expiated, not by sacrifice,
but by punishment at the hand of man or God. This moral
side of the law, which exactly corresponds to prophetic teach-
ing, continued to be neglected in Judah. Oppression, blood-
shed, impurity, idolatry, filled the land ; and for these things
Jeremiah threatens a judgment, which the Temple and its
ritual can do nothing to avert (Jer. vii.).
In all this Deuteronomy and Jeremiah alike still stand
outside the priestly Torah. As far as Deuteronomy goes, this
is usually explained by saying that it is a law for the people,
and does not take up points of ritual which specially belonged
to the priests. But the code, which refers to the priestly law
of leprosy, says nothing of ordinances of ritual atonement and
stated sacrifice, and Jeremiah denies in express terms that a
law of sacrifice forms any part of the divine commands to
Israel. The priestly and prophetic Torahs are not yet absorbed
into one system.
Nevertheless there can be no doubt that there was at this
time a ritual Torah in the hands of the priests, containing
elements which the prophets and the old codes pass by. In
the time of Ahaz there was a daily burnt offering in the
morning, a stated cereal offering in the evening (2 Kings xvi.
15). There was also an atoning ritual. In the time of
Jehoash the atonements paid to the priests were pecuniary —
a common enough thing in ancient times. But atoning
sacrifice was also of ancient standing. It occurs in 1 Sam. iii.
14, — " The guilt of the house of Eli shall not be wiped out by
LECT. XII
THE PEIESTLY TORAH 373
sacrifice or oblation for ever." The idea of atonement in the
sacrificial blood must be very ancient, and a trace of it is found
in the Book of Deuteronomy (xxi. 4) in the curious ordinance
which provides for the atonement of the blood of untraced
homicide by the slaughter of a heifer.1 Along with these
things we find ancient ordinances of ceremonial holiness in
the sanctuary at Nob (1 Sam. xxi. 4), and all this necessarily
supposes a ritual law, the property of the priests. Only, we
have already seen that the details still preserved to us of the
Temple ritual are not identical with the full Levitical system.
They contained many germs of that system, but they also
contained much that was radically different. And in par-
ticular the Temple worship itself was not stringently differ-
entiated from everything heathenish, as appears with the
utmost clearness in the admission of uncircumcised foreigners
to certain ministerial functions, in the easy way in which
Isaiah's friend Urijah accepted the foreign innovations of
King Ahaz, and in the fact that prophets whom Jeremiah
regards as heathen diviners still continued to be attached to
the Temple up to the last days of the state, while worshippers
from Samaria made pilgrimages to Jerusalem with heathenish
ceremonies expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy as well as in
Leviticus (Jer. xli. 5 ; Lev. xix. 27, 28 ; Deut. xiv. 1 ; Isa.
xv. 2). We see, then, that even Josiah's reformation left
many things in the Temple which savoured of heathenism,
and the presence of the priests of the high places was little
calculated to improve the spirituality of the observances of
Jehovah's house. In all this there was a manifest danger to
true religion. If ritual and sacrifice were to continue at all,
it was highly desirable that some order should be taken with
the priestly ritual, and an attempt made to reorganise it in
conformity with the prophetic conception of Jehovah's moral
1 Analogies to this peculiar form of atonement are given in Religion of the
Semites, p. 351.
374 TO RAH OF
LECT. XII
holiness. But no effort to complete Josiah's work in this
direction seems to have been made in the last troublous
years of Jerusalem. On the contrary, Ezekiel describes the
grossest heathenism as practised at the Temple, and hardly
without the countenance of the priests (Ezek. viii.).
The Temple and its worship fell with the destruction of
the city. Fourteen years later, Ezekiel, dwelling in captivity,
had a vision of a new Temple, a place of worship for repentant
Israel, and heard a voice commanding him to lay before the
people a pattern of remodelled worship. "If they be
ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of
the house . . . and all its ordinances, and all the Torahs
thereof: and write them before them that they may keep all
the form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do
them" (Ezek. xliii. 10, 11).
A great mystery has been made of this law of Ezekiel, but
the prophet himself makes none. He says in the clearest
words that the revelation is a sketch of ritual for the period
of restoration, and again and again he places his new ordin-
ances in contrast with the actual corrupt usage of the first
Temple (xliii. 7, xliv. 5 sq., xlv. 8, 9). He makes no appeal
to a previous law of ritual. The whole scheme of a written
law of the house is new, and so Ezekiel only confirms Jere-
miah, who knew no divine law of sacrifice under the First
Temple. It is needless to rehearse more than the chief points
of Ezekiel's legislation. The first that strikes us is the de-
gradation of the Levites. The ministers of the old Temple,
he tells us, were uncircumcised foreigners, whose presence was
an insult to Jehovah's sanctuary. Such men shall no more
enter the house, but in their place shall come the Levites not
of the house of Zadok, who are to be degraded from the priest-
hood because they officiated in old Israel before the idolatrous
shrines (xliv. 5 sq.). This one point is sufficient to fix the
date of the Levitical law as later than Ezekiel. In all the
lect. xii EZEKIEL
375
earlier history, and in the Code of Deuteronomy, a Levite is
a priest, or at least qualified to assume priestly functions ;
and even in Josiah's reformation the Levite priests of the
high places received a modified priestly status at Jerusalem.
Ezekiel knows that it has been so in the past ; but he
declares that it shall be otherwise in the future, as a punish-
ment for the offence of ministering at the idolatrous altars.
He knows nothing of an earlier law, in which priests and
Levites are already distinguished, in which the office of Levite
is itself a high privilege (Num. xvi. 9).
A second point in Ezekiel's law is a provision for stated
and regular sacrifices. These sacrifices are to be provided by
the prince, who in turn is to receive from the people no
arbitrary tax, but a fixed tribute in kind upon all agricultural
produce and flocks. Here again we see a reference to pre-
exilic practice, when the Temple was essentially the king's
sanctuary, and the stated offerings were his gift. In the old
codes the people at large are under no obligation to do stated
sacrifice. That was the king's voluntary offering, and so it
was at first after the Exile, at least in theory. The early
decrees of Persian monarchs in favour of the Jews provide
for regular sacrifice at the king's expense (Ezra vi. 9, vii.
17) j1 and only at the convocation of Nehemiah do the people
agree to defray the stated offering by a voluntary poll-tax of
a third of a shekel (Neh. x. 32). It is disputed whether, in
Exod. xxx. 16, " the service of the tabernacle," defrayed by
the fixed tribute of half a shekel, refers to the continual sacri-
fices. If it does so, this law was still unknown to Nehemiah,
and must be a late addition to the Pentateuch. If it does not,
it is still impossible that the costly Levitical ordinance of stated
1 The history in Ezra-Nehemiah makes it clear that these decrees had
little practical result ; and it has been questioned whether in their present
form they are perfectly authentic. But they show at least that the theory
of the Jews was that public sacrifices should be defrayed by the supreme civil
authority.
376 TORAH OF lect. sii
offerings could have preceded the existence of a provision for
supplying them. Again we are brought back to Jeremiah's
words. The stated sacrifices were not prescribed in the
wilderness.
A third point in Ezekiel's law is the prominence given to
the sin offering and atoning ritual. The altar must be purged
with sin offerings for seven consecutive days before burnt
sacrifices are acceptably offered on it (xliii. 18 sq.). The
Levitical law (Exod. xxix. 36, 37) prescribes a similar cere-
mony, but with more costly victims. At the dedication of
Solomon's Temple, on the contrary (1 Kings viii. 62), the
altar is at once assumed to be fit for use, in accordance with
Exod. xx. 24, and with all the early cases of altar-building
outside the Pentateuch. But, besides this first expiatory
ceremonial, Ezekiel appoints two atoning services yearly, at
the beginning of the first and the seventh month (xlv. 18, 20,
LXX.), to purge the house. This is the first appearance, out-
side of the Levitical code, of anything corresponding to the
great day of atonement in the seventh month, and it is plain
that the simple service in Ezekiel is still far short of that
solemn ceremony. The day of atonement was also a fast day.
But in Zech. vii. 5, viii. 19, the fast of the seventh month is
alluded to as one of the four fasts commemorating the de-
struction of Jerusalem, which had been practised for the last
seventy years. The fast of the seventh month was not yet
united with the " purging of the house " ordained by Ezekiel.
Even in the great convocation of Neh. viii.-x., where we have
a record of proceedings from the first day of the seventh
month onwards to the twenty-fourth, there is no mention of
the day of expiation on the tenth, which thus appears as the
very last stone in the ritual edifice.
I pass over other features of Ezekiel's legislation. The
detailed proof that in every point Ezekiel's Torah prepares
the way for the Levitical law, but represents a more ele-
LECT. XII
EZEKIEL 377
nientary ritual, may be read in the text itself with the aid of
Smend's Commentary. The whole scheme presents itself
with absolute clearness as a first sketch of a written priestly
Torah, resting not on the law of Moses but on old priestly
usage, and reshaped so as to bring the ordinances of the house
into due conformity with the holiness of Jehovah in the sense
of the prophets and the Deuteronomic Code. The thought
that underlies Ezekiel' s code is clearly brought out in xliii. 7,
xliv. 6 sqq. To Ezekiel, who is himself a priest, the whore-
dom of Israel, their foul departure from Jehovah after filthy
idols, appears in a peculiarly painful light in connection with
the service of the sanctuary, the throne of Jehovah, the place
of the soles of His feet, where He dwells in the midst of
Israel for ever. In time past the people of Israel have defiled
Jehovah's name by their abominations, and for this they have
suffered His wrath. The new law is a gift to the people on
their repentance — a scheme to protect them from again falling
into like sins. The unregulated character of the old service
gave room for the introduction of heathen abominations.
The new service shall be reduced to a divine rule, leaving no
door for what is unholy. But so long as worship takes place
with material ceremonies in an earthly sanctuary, the idea of
holiness cannot be divested of a material element. From the
earliest times the sanctity of God's worship had regard to
provisions of physical holiness, especially to lustrations and
rules of cleanness and uncleanness, which, in their origin,
were not different in principle from the similar rules found
among all ancient nations, but which nevertheless could be
used, as we find them used in Deuteronomy, to furnish a
barrier against certain forms of foreign heathenism. From the
priestly point of view, material and moral observances of
sanctity run into one. Ezekiel finds equal fault with
idolatry in the Temple and with the profanation of its
plateau by the sepulchres of the kings (xliii. 7). And so his
378 RELIGION DIVORCED lect. xn
ritual, though its fundamental idea is moral, branches out
into a variety of ordinances which from our modern point of
view seem merely formal, but which were yet inevitable
unless the principle of sacrifice and an earthly sanctuary
was to be altogether superseded. If the material sanctuary
was to be preserved at all, the symbolic observances of its
holiness must be made stringent, and to this end the new
ordinance of the Levites and Ezekiel's other provisions were
altogether suitable.
In proportion, now, as the whole theory of worship is
remodelled and reduced to rule on the scheme of an exclusive
sanctity, which presents, so to speak, an armed front to
every abomination of impure heathenism, the ritual becomes
abstract, and the services remote from ordinary life. In the
old worship all was spontaneous. It was as natural for an
Israelite to worship Jehovah as for a Moabite to worship
Chemosh. To worship God was a holiday, an occasion of
feasting. Eeligion, in its sacrificial form, was a part of
common life, which had its well-known and established
forms, but which no one deemed it necessary to reduce to
written rules. Even in Deuteronomy this view predomi-
nates. The sacrificial feasts are still the consecration of
natural occasions of joy ; men eat, drink, and make merry
before God. The sense of God's favour, not the sense of sin,
is what rules at the sanctuary. But the unification of the
sanctuary already tended to break up this old type of religion.
Worship ceased to be an everyday thing, and so it ceased to
be the expression of everyday religion. In Ezekiel this
change has produced its natural result in a change of the
whole standpoint from which he views the service of the
Temple. The offerings of individuals are no longer the chief
reason for which the Temple exists. All weight lies on the
stated service, which the prince provides out of national
funds, and which is, as it were, the representative service of
lect. xn FROM SACRIFICE 379
Israel. The individual Israelite who, in the old law,
stood at the altar himself and brought his own victim,
is now separated from it, not only by the double cordon of
priests and Levites, but by the fact that his personal
offering is thrown into the background by the stated national
sacrifice.
The whole tendency of this is to make personal religion
more and more independent of offerings. The emotion with
which the worshipper approaches the second Temple, as re-
corded in the Psalter, has little to do with sacrifice, but rests
rather on the fact that the whole wondrous history of
Jehovah's grace to Israel is vividly and personally realised
as he stands amidst the festal crowd at the ancient seat of
God's throne, and adds his voice to the swelling song of
praise. The daily religion of the Restoration found new
forms. The devotional study of the Scriptures, the syna-
gogue, the practice of prayer elsewhere than before the altar,
were all independent of the old idea of worship, and naturally
prepared the way for the New Testament. The narrowing of
the privilege of access to God at the altar would have been
a retrograde step if altar- worship had still remained the form
of all religion. But this was not so, and therefore the new
ritual was a practical means of separating personal religion
from forms destined soon to pass away. The very features
of the Levitical ordinances which seem most inconsistent
with spirituality, if we place them in the days of Moses,
when all religion took shape before the altar, appear in a
very different light in the age after the Exile, when the non-
ritual religion of the prophets went side by side with the
Law, and supplied daily nourishment to the spiritual life of
those who were far from the sanctuary.
With all this there went another change not less im-
portant. In the old ritual, sacrifice and offering were
essentially an expression of homage (in the presentation of
380 ATONING RITUAL lect. xn
the altar gift), and an act of communion (in the sacrificial
feast that followed), while the element of atonement for sin
held a very subsidiary place in ordinary acts of worship.
But the ideas of sacrificial homage and communion lost great
part of their force when the sacrifices of the sanctuary were
so much divorced from individual life, and became a sort of
abstract representative service. In Ezekiel, and still more
in the Levitical legislation, the element of atonement takes a
foremost place. The sense of sin had grown deeper under
the teaching of the prophets, and amidst the proofs of
Jehovah's anger that darkened the last days of the Jewish
state. Sin and forgiveness were the main themes of pro-
phetic discourse. The problem of acceptance with God
exercised every thoughtful mind, as we see not only from
the Psalms and the prophets of the Exile and Eestoration,
but above all from the Book of Job, which is certainly later
than the time of Jeremiah. The acceptance of the worship
of the sanctuary had always been regarded as the visible
sacrament of Jehovah's acceptance of the worshipper, " when
He came to him and blessed him." And now, more than in
any former time, the first point in acceptance was felt to be
the forgiveness of sin, and the weightiest element in the
ritual was that which symbolised the atonement or " wiping
out" of iniquity. The details of this symbolism cannot
occupy us here. In point of form the atoning ordinances of
the Levitical law are not essentially different from the expia-
tory rites of other ancient nations, and they must therefore be
taken, not as innovations but as a reshaping of ancient ritual
to fit the conditions of the second Temple. As regards their
meaning the law is generally silent, and it was left to the
worshipper to interpret the symbolism as he could. In some
cases the meaning was transparent enough, in others the
original significance of the acts prescribed was probably
forgotten at the time when the old ritual traditions were
lect. xii AFTER THE EXILE 381
codified.1 They were conventions to which God had attached
the promise of forgiveness ; and their real significance as a
factor in the religious life of Judaism lay not in the details
of the ritual hut in that they constantly impressed on the
people the sense of abiding sin, the need of forgiveness, and
above all the assurance that the religion of Israel was
grounded on a promise of forgiveness to those who sought
God in the way that He prescribed. For the promise of
forgiveness is the only foundation on which a God-fearing
life can be built. "With thee is forgiveness that thou
mayest be feared " (Ps. cxxx. 4).
The Levitical legislation in our present Pentateuch is the
practical adaptation of these principles to the circumstances
of the second Temple, when Jerusalem was no longer the
seat of a free state, but only the centre of a religious
community possessing certain municipal privileges of self-
srovernment. Its distinctive features are all found in
Ezekiel's Torah — the care with which the Temple and its
vicinity are preserved from the approach of unclean things
and persons, the corresponding institution of a class of
1 I have attempted an historical and comparative investigation into the
meaning of the atoning ceremonies of the Hebrews in my Religion of the
Semites, to which the curious reader may refer. The question as to the
etymological meaning of the Hebrew root "IE3, from the second stem of which
the technical terms connected with atonement are derived, is obscure. The
root idea is commonly taken to be "to cover" (after the Arabic) ; but in
Syriac the sense of the simple stem is " to wipe off" or "wipe clean." This
sense appears in Hebrew (in the second stem) if the text of Isa. xxviii. 18 is
sound, which, however, is very doubtful. The sequence of the various Hebrew
usages is very ingeniously worked out by Wellhausen (Geschichte, i. 66 sqq. ;
Composition, p. 335), starting from the sense " cover" ; but it seems to me
that his argument might be easily accommodated to the other possible
etymology. There are Semitic analogies for regarding the forgiveness of sin
either as "covering" or as "wiping out," and the phrase D"OD "123 = 0^2 i"6n
is not decisive, though on the whole it seems easiest to take this to mean
" to wipe clean the face " blackened by displeasure, as the Arabs say " whiten
the face." The most important point is that except in the Priests' Code it is
God, not the priest, who (on the one etymology) wipes out sin or (on the other)
regards it as covered.
382 THE LEVITICAL lect. xii
holy ministers in the person of the Levites, the greater
distance thus interposed between the people and the altar,
the concentration of sacrifice in the two forms of stated
representative offerings (the tamid) and atoning sacrifices.
In all these points, as we have seen, the usage of the
Law is in distinct contrast to that of the first Temple,
where the Temple plateau was polluted by the royal
sepulchres, where the servants of the sanctuary were un-
circumcised foreigners, the stated service the affair of the
king, regulated at will by him (2 Kings xvi.), and the
atoning offerings commonly took the shape of fines paid to
the priests of the sanctuary (2 Kings xii. 16). That
Ezekiel in these matters speaks, not merely as a priest
recording old usage, but as a prophet ordaining new Torah
with Divine authority, is his own express claim, and
therefore the Pentateuchal ordinances that go with Ezekiel
against the praxis of the first Temple must have been
written after Ezekiel and under his influence.
The development of the details of the system falls there-
fore between the time of Ezekiel and the work of Ezra,
or to speak exactly, between 572 and 444 B.C. ; and the
circumstance already referred to, that the culminating and
most solemn ceremony of the great day of expiation was
not observed in the year of Ezra's covenant, shows that the
last touches were not added to the ritual until, through Ezra's
agency, it was put into practical operation.1 But, while the
historical student is thus compelled to speak of the ritual
code as the law of the second Temple, it would be a great
mistake to think of it as altogether new. Ezekiel's ordin-
ances are nothing else than a reshaping of the old priestly
Torah ; and a close study of the Levitical laws, especially in
Lev. xvii.-xxvi., shows that many ancient Torahs were worked
1 See additional Note F, The development of the ritual system oetween
Ezekiel and Ezra.
LECT. XII
LEGISLATION 383
up, by successive processes, into the complete system as we
now possess it. In Lev. xxiv. 19 sq., for example, we find the
old law of retaliation for injuries not mortal, which is already
obsolescent in the Deuteronomic Code. The preservation of
such a Torah shows that the priests did not give up all their
old traditional law for the written Code of Deuteronomy. They
doubtless continued till the time of Ezra to give oral Torahs,
as we see from Haggai i. 11. The analogy of all early law
makes this procedure quite intelligible to us. Nothing is
more common than to find an antique legislation handed
down, in the mouth of a priestly or legal guild, in certain set
forms of words.
To trace out in detail how much of the Levitical legisla-
tion consists of such old Torahs handed down from time
immemorial in the priestly families, and how much is new, is
a task which we cannot now attempt, and which indeed has
not yet been finally accomplished by scholars.1 The chief
1 One of the chief innovations of the ritual law is the increased provision
for the priesthood. This occurs in two ways. In the first place they receive
a larger share in the gifts which on the old usage were the material of feasts
at the sanctuary. In Deuteronomy the firstlings are eaten by the worshipper
at the annual feasts, the priest of course receiving the usual share of each
victim. But in Nurn. xviii. 18 they belong entirely and absolutely to the
priest. This difference cannot be explained away ; for according to Deut. xiv.
24 the firstlings might be turned into money, and materials of a feast bought
with them, while in Num. xviii. 17 it is forbidden to redeem any firstling fit
for sacrifice. Again, in Deuteronomy the annual produce of the soil, but not
of the herd, was tithed for the religious use of the owner, who ate the tithes at
the feasts. But in the Levitical law the tithe includes the herd and the flock
(Lev. xxvii. 32), and is a tribute paid to the Levites, who in turn pay a tithe
to the priests (Num. xviii. \ This is quite another thing from the Deuteronomic
annual tithe, which is not a tribute, but a provision for the popular religious
festivals ; and the only ordinance of Deuteronomy at all analogous to it is the
charity tithe of the third 3?ear, in which the Levites had a share along with
the other poor of the township. But here also the points of difference are
greater than the points of likeness. The charity tithe was stored in each town-
ship and eaten by dependents where it was stored (Deut. xxvi. 12, 13, where for
brought away read consumed : the tithe was consumed where it lay ; see verse
14 neb.). The Levitical tithe might be eaten by the Levites where they pleased,
and in later times was stored in the Temple. Once more, the priest's share of a
sacrifice in Deuteronomy consists of inferior parts, the head and maw, which
4-
384 LEGAL
LECT. XII
interest of this inquiry lies in its bearing on the early history
of Israel. It is for the historian to determine how far the
Priests' Code {i.e. the Levitical law and the narrative sections
of the Pentateuch that go with it, and are mainly directed to
enforce law by rehearsing precedents) is mere law, of which
we can say no more than that it was law for the second
Temple, and how far it is also history which can be used in
describing the original sanctuary of the ark in the days of
Moses. But in following out this inquiry we cannot assume
that every law which is called a law of Moses was meant to
be understood as literally given in the wilderness. For it is
a familiar fact that in the early law of all nations necessary
modifications on old law are habitually carried out by means
of what lawyers call legal fictions. This name is somewhat
misleading ; for a legal fiction is no deceit, but a convention
which all parties understand. In short, it is found more con-
venient to present the new law in a form which enables it to
be treated as an integral part of the old legislation. Thus in
Eoman jurisprudence all law was supposed to be derived from
the Laws of the Twelve Tables (Maine, Ancient Law, p. 33
in Arabia are still the butcher's fee, and the shoulder, which is not the
choicest joint (Pseudo-Wakidy, p. 15, and Hamaker's note), though not the
worst (Ezek. xxiv. 4 ; Freytag, Ar. Prov. ii. 320). In fact Exod. xii. 9
requires to make special provision that the head and inwards be not left
uneaten in the paschal lamb, which proves that they were not esteemed.
But in the Levitical law the priests' part is the breast and the leg (not as
E. V. the shoulder), which is the best part (1 Sam. ix. 24).
In the second place, the Levitical law, following a hint of Ezekiel (xlv. 4,
5), assigns towns and pasture grounds to the priests and Levites. The list of
such towns in Josh. xxi. is part of the Priests' Code and not of the old history.
In ancient times many of these towns certainly did not belong either to
priests or Levites. Gezer was not conquered till the time of Solomon (1 Kings
ix. 16). Shechem, Gibeon, and Hebron had quite a different population in the
time of the Judges. Anathoth was a priestly city, but its priests held the land
on terms quite different from those of the later law. As a matter of fact, the
assignation of cities and suburbs to the priests and Levites was never carried
out, as Jewish tradition itself admits for the period of the second Temple.
On the Levitical modifications of the festivals, see Hupfeld, Be primitiva
et vera festorum ratione, Halle, 1852-65 ; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, Kap. iii.
On this topic the last word has not yet been spoken.
LECT. XII
FICTIONS 385
sq.), just as in Israel all law was held to be derived from the
teaching of Moses. The whole object of this way of treating
the law was to maintain the continuity of the legal system.
But legal fiction has much more curious developments. In old
English law many writs give a quite imaginary history of
the case, alleging, for example, that the plaintiff is the king's
debtor, and cannot pay his debts by reason of the default of
the defendant. This instance is not directly parallel to any-
thing in the Old Testament ; but it shows how impossible
it would be to explain any system of ancient law on the
assumption that every statement which seems to be plain
narrative of fact is actually meant to be so taken. It would
be the highest presumption to affirm that what is found in all
other ancient laws cannot occur in the Old Testament. The
very universality of these conventions shows that in certain
stages of society they form the easiest and most intelligible
way of introducing necessary modifications of law ; and the
Israelites had the same habits of thought with other primitive
nations, and doubtless required to be taught and to think
things out on the same lines. In our state of society legal
fictions are out of date ; in English law they have long been
mere antiquarian lumber. But Israel's law was given for the
practical use of an ancient people, and required to take the
forms which we know, as a matter of fact, to be those which
primitive nations best understand.
If we find, then, by actual comparison of different parts
of Scripture, that some points of law and ceremony are re-
lated in historical form, as if based on Mosaic precedent, but
that there is other evidence, as in the case of the march from
Sinai {supra, p. 321), that the thing did not happen so in
Moses's own time, we have to consider the probability that
the form of the narrative which aims at setting forth law in
the shape of precedent is nothing more than a case of legal
convention ; for one well-known type of this is to relate a
25
386 THE LAW LEcr. xn
new law in the form of an ancient precedent. Let me illus-
trate this by an example from Sir H. Maine's Village Com-
munities, p. 110. In India, when the Government brings a
new water supply into a village, the village authorities make
rules for its use and distribution ; but " these rules do not
purport to emanate from the personal authority of their
author or authors; there is always a sort of fiction under
which some customs as to the distribution of water are
supposed to have existed from all antiquity, although, in
fact, no artificial supply had been even so much as thought
of." In the same way the new laws of the Levitical code
might be presented as ordinances of Moses, though, when
they were first promulgated, every one knew that they were
not so, and though Ezra himself speaks of some of them as
ordinances of the prophets.
A good illustration occurs in the law of war. According
to 1 Sam. xxx. 24, 25, the standing law of Israel as to the
distribution of booty was enacted by David, and goes back
only to a precedent in his war with the Amalekites who
burned Ziklag. In the priestly legislation the same law is
given as a Mosaic precedent from the war with Midian
(Num. xxxi. 27). Here one can hardly avoid the conclusion
that the Pentateuchal narrator has no other object than to set
forth a certain rule of war as the ancient and sacred law of
Israel. The older historian is content to refer this statute
and ordinance of Israel to David. But the Priestly Code had
to exhibit the whole system of Israel's law as a unity, and if
the conventional methods of his time led him (as they did) to
cast his exposition into historical form, he could only attain
the unity requisite in a law-book by throwing David's ordin-
ance back into the Mosaic age. Whether in this or any
other particular case he was consciously applying the method
of legal fiction, or whether long before his time younger laws
had been largely referred to Moses by common consent, as the
LECT. XII
OF BOOTY 387
traditional way of acknowledging that they had co-ordinate
authority with the earliest sacred legislation, is a matter of
detail. The important point for us as historical students is to
realise the necessity of distinguishing between quasi-historical
precedents, which are to be taken only as laws, and the actual
history, which is to be taken literally. To indolent theologians
this necessity is naturally unwelcome ; but to the diligent and
reverent student it affords the key for the solution of many
difficulties, and enables us to gain a much more consistent and
instructive view of the early history of Israel than is possible
on the traditional assumption that the whole law which regu-
lated the life of the Jews in the age of Pericles was already
extant and in force long before the Trojan war, in a nation
that was only just emerging from the primitive conditions of
pastoral life in the desert. The conclusion to which modern
critics have been led is that the whole Priests' Code, alike in
those parts which are formally legislative and in those which
a superficial reading might regard as purely historical, is to be
taken as essentially a law-book, and must not be used as an
independent source for the actual history of the Mosaic time.
For history, as distinct from law, the priestly author appears
to have had no other authorities than those older books of
which the greater part is still preserved to us in the non-
priestly sections of the Pentateuch. Some account of the
manner in which the Priests' Code deals with these older
sources, of the way in which it strings its legal precepts on
an historical thread, and of the way in which it allows itself
to reshape the narrative in order to set forth later laws under
the conventional form of Mosaic precedent, is necessary to
complete the most summary view of the origin of the Penta-
teuch. The first edition of this book stopped at the point
which we have now reached ; I shall now attempt to supply
the defect by a supplementary Lecture.
LECTUKE XIII
THE NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH
In the last Lecture the critical argument about the dates of
the three Pentateuchal Codes was carried to its conclusion.
The proof that the three great strata of laws embodied in the
so-called books of Moses are not all of one age but correspond
to three stages in the development of Israel's institutions,
which can still be clearly recognised in the narrative of the
historical books, is the most important achievement of Old
Testament criticism. When the codes are set in their right
places the main source of confusion in the study of the Old
Testament is removed, the central problem of criticism is
solved, and the controversy between modern criticism and
conservative tradition is really decided.
Behind this central problem there lie of course a multi-
tude of other questions that must be answered before the task
of the critic is completed. The Pentateuch is a composite
book, in which several bodies of law belonging to different
periods occur embedded in a narrative. The narrative in its
present form cannot be older than the youngest body of laws,1
and therefore must have been completed some time between
the age of Ezekiel and that of Ezra. On the other hand, the
final narrator certainly used older written documents, from
which he made copious extracts verbatim. It is manifestly
1 It is of course quite possible that single laws, such as that about the
poll-tax (supra, p. 51), may have been added later.
lect. xni NARRATIVE OF THE HEXATEUCH 389
of great importance to determine all that can be determined
as to the nature and age of these documents, and the process
by which they and the several bodies of laws were ultimately
fused together in a single volume.
In the course of twelve Lectures, which made up the first
edition of this book, I had no room to give more than a few
general hints on this branch of the critical problem. Nor
can I now attempt a complete exposition of all that critics
have made out as to the structure of the Pentateuchal nar-
rative, and of the arguments by which their results have been
attained. For such an exposition it would be necessary to go
through the whole Hebrew text, book by book, and chapter
by chapter — a task unsuitable to the plan of the present
volume. Those who wish to follow out the critical analysis
in detail will find the necessary help in the first volume of
Kuenen's Onderzoek, which is the standard work on the
subject, and accessible in an English translation, or, in a
more compendious and easier form, in Prof. Driver's Intro-
duction. I have no desire to say again what is so well said
in these books ; but those who have followed my argument
thus far may naturally desire to have, in conclusion, at least
a general sketch of the whole results of Pentateuch criticism.
I have met with many persons who admit that they can
detect no flaw in the critical arguments by which the dates of
the codes are established, but who yet suspend their judg-
ment, and are tempted to regard the whole Pentateuch
question as a hopeless puzzle, because they cannot under-
stand how the Mosaic history is to be read in the light of
the new critical discoveries ; and it is certainly true that if
the dates assigned to the codes are correct they ought to find
their most important verification in the analysis of the Penta-
teuchal narrative. And so in point of fact they do.
The method by which the codes are assigned to their
proper place in Hebrew history, and the method by which
390 THE TWO LINES OF lect. xui
the narratives of the Pentateuch can be analysed into their
component parts, and shown to be made up of extracts from
several documents, are to a great extent independent ; and, in
point of fact, very considerable progress had been made in the
second branch of analysis before anything important was
settled on the question of the laws. The strength of the
present position of Pentateuch criticism is in good measure
due to the fact that two lines of inquiry have converged to a
common result.
These two lines of inquiry may be called respectively the
historical and the literary. The historical method compares
the institutions set forth in the several codes with the actual
working institutions of Israel, as we see them in the historical
books ; the literary method compares the several parts of the
Pentateuch with one another, taking note of diversities of
style and manner, of internal contradictions or incongruities,
and of all other points that forbid us to regard the whole
Torah as the homogeneous composition of a single writer.
In the first period of Pentateuch criticism, of which Noldeke's
Untersuchungen (Kiel, 1869) may be taken as the last im-
portant utterance, most scholars threw their whole strength
into the literary line of inquiry. It was already settled that
the Code of Deuteronomy was Josiah's Law-book, and that
the Book of the Covenant must be older, but there was no
agreement about the Priestly Code. On the other hand, it
had been clearly seen that the priestly laws form an integral
part of a great document, running through the whole Penta-
teuch from Genesis onwards and extending into Joshua.
And it had also been shown that this document displays so
many marked peculiarities of language, mannerisms of style,
and characteristic ways of looking at things, that it is possible
to separate it out with much precision from the other sources
with which it is now interwoven.
Thus when the new school of criticism came forward with
lect. xin CRITICAL INQUIRY 391
its historical argument to prove that the priestly laws, as a
whole, are later than Ezekiel, the means were at hand for
subjecting this conclusion to a severe test of an independent
kind. If the new criticism was right, the document embody-
ing the priestly laws was the latest element in the Pentateuch
and Joshua, and when it was separated out the parts of the
Hexateuch that remained could not contain any reference,
direct or indirect, to the priestly document. It was found
on careful examination that this was actually the case.
Some apparent instances to the contrary were indeed brought
forward ; but the list of places where the non-priestly sources
seemed to be dependent on the priestly document was from
the first extraordinarily meagre and little fitted to produce
conviction ; and on closer examination it shrank to nothing.
For example, the introductory chapters of the Book of Deuter-
onomy contain a summary of the story of the forty years'
wandering. By far the greater part of the history of this
period, as it stands in our present Pentateuch, belongs to the
priestly document ; but everything peculiar to that document
is remarkable by its absence from the historical retrospect in
Deuteronomy. At first the opponents of the new views were
not prepared to concede this ; they could not deny that the
retrospect was silent about the priestly tabernacle and its
ordinances, that it ignored the whole series of revelations to
Moses and Aaron on which the priestly system of Israel's
sanctity rests ; but they thought that they could point out
some few minor details in which the Deuteronomic writer
betrayed acquaintance with the priestly document. If this
had been correct it could only have led to the startling result
that the Deuteronomist deliberately ignored the main teach-
ing of the priestly document, and aimed at suppressing an
essential part of the sacred law. But it was soon shown that
there was no occasion to adopt any such sensational theory ;
the supposed points of contact between Deuteronomy and the
392 RESULTS OF lect. xin
priestly document were found either to be illusory or to
admit of an explanation consistent with the priority of the
former work.1
This coincidence between the results of historical and
literary criticism is the more striking because the literary
determination of the limits of the priestly document or group
was carried out almost entirely by scholars who took it for
granted that this document was certainly older than Deuter-
onomy, and probably the oldest thing in the Hexateuch.
There can therefore be no suspicion that their analysis was
influenced by arguments drawn from the historico-legal line
of inquiry.
1 In justification of these statements it may suffice to refer to the latest
important publication on the other side. Prof. Dillmann, of Berlin, is now
the only scholarof eminence who dissents from the new critical construction of
the Pentateuch, and has given his reasons for doing so after a full considera-
tion of the researches of Kuenen and Wellhausen. One is not bound to take
note in this connection of views set forth before the two scholars last named
had put the whole matter in a fresh light, or of newer utterances, like those
of Renan, which simply ignore the more modern criticism. Between Dillmann
and the school of Kuenen and Wellhausen there is no controversy as to the
broad lines of division that mark out the Hexateuch as consisting of four
essential parts, viz. the priestly document, or group of documents (for it is
not affirmed and not essential to the argument that all the priestly pieces are
by one hand : it is enough that they belong to one school) ; the Deuteronomic
document (or group) ; and two earlier documents commonly known as the
Jahvistic and the Elohistic. Dillmann admits that the two documents last
named are older than Deuteronomy and the priestly document or group, but
he does not admit that the last is younger than Deuteronomy. And he
thinks that the Jahvistic, Elohistic, and priestly parts of the Hexateuch were
united into a single book before Deuteronomy was added. But when it comes
to the question whether the Deuteronomic writings presuppose the existence
of the priestly group, he admits that this cannot be proved with absolute
certainty. On the other hand, he feels sure that Rd (i.e. the writer who in-
corporated Deuteronomy for the first time with the other parts of the Penta-
teuch) knew the priestly writings. In other words, the proof that the priestly
group is not the youngest part of the Pentateuch cannot be effected by com-
parison with the other great masses of Pentateuchal writing, but turns on a
particular theory of the steps by which the original documents were fused
together. I venture to say that this argument proves nothing. Suppose it
true that Deuteronomy was still a separate book after the other three docu-
ments or groups were fused together, this does not in the slightest degree
affect the force of the historical argument for putting the Deuteronomic Code
lect. xin LITERARY ANALYSIS 393
I have already explained that I cannot undertake to
carry you through the details of the analysis on which the
delimitation of the priestly group of writings rests. But I
think I can give such a sketch of the methods of analysis,
with illustrations from particular cases, as will satisfy
reasonable persons that the critics have been working on
sound lines. And when this is taken along with the fact that
the results of the literary analysis agree with what can be
proved from history as to the date of the codes, you will, I
think, have as much evidence before you as persons who are
not specialists can ever expect to have in a complicated
problem of ancient history. Speaking broadly, the critics
divide the Hexateuch into three groups of literature ; the
oldest history, represented by two documents that are cited as
the Jahvistic and Elohistic stories, or more briefly as J and E ;
the Deuteronomic Code with its appendages (cited as D) ; and
the group of priestly writings (cited as P). For our purposes
it will be most convenient to begin with the Deuteronomic
group. We start with the facts already established, that the
code of Deut. xii.-xxvi. is a reshaping of the old law under
the influence of the teaching of the prophets of the eighth
century, and that it is the law on which Josiah's Eeformation
proceeded (621 B.C.). In our present Book of Deuteronomy
the code is preceded and followed by a series of discourses,
Deut. i.-xi. on the one side and Deut. xxvii.-xxx. on the
and its appendages before the Priests' Code and the rest of the priestly
writings. And the very significant fact that the Deuteronomic sketch of the
history ignores all that is characteristic in the priestly history also remains
untouched. On this point, indeed, Dillmann replies with a tu quoque. If
Deuteronomy ignores the Priests' Code and history, he says, it must equally
be admitted on the other side that the latter ignores Deuteronomy. Peally ?
Is it not plain that the whole system of the Priests' Code rests on the cardinal
Deuteronomic doctrine of the one sanctuary, which is so completely taken for
granted bjr the later writer that it does not even receive formal expression and
justification ? See Dillmann, Die Biicher Num., Deut., and Jos. (Leipzig, 1886),
p. 668, and comp. on the whole matter Driver, Introduction, p. 77 sq., p. 130,
p. 137 sq.
394 THE SPEECHES IN lect. xm
other.1 That in substance and style these chapters are
closely akin to the code of Deut. xii.-xxvi., and stand apart
from the rest of the Pentateuch, must be plain to every
attentive reader, but we shall hardly be justified in conclud-
ing that Deut. i.-xxx. is all by one hand, and that all these
chapters were contained in the book laid before King Josiah.
Note in particular that chap, xxvii. breaks the connection
between xxvi. and xxviii., and further that the occurrence of a
series of titles and subscriptions at different points (chap. i. 1,
v. 1, xii. 1, xxix. 1 [Heb. xxviii. 69]) suggests rather that the
code may have appeared in successive editions with fresh
exhortations added by way of preface and conclusion. This,
however, is a matter of detail that need not concern us at
present.
The date of the whole Deuteronomic group is of course
dependent on the date of the code, i.e. no part of Deut.
i.-xxx. can be older than the seventh century B.C. ; while if
the theory of successive editions is correct, some parts may be
a good deal later than Josiah's Eeformation in 621 B.C. But
the whole group is manifestly older than the Priestly Code ;
for there is not the slightest trace of the distinction between
Priests and Levites (see Deut. x. 8), and the sketch of the
events of the wilderness journey contained in the opening
chapters of Deuteronomy passes in silence over all those
histories in the middle books of the Pentateuch which imply
that the Priestly Code was already in force in the days of
Moses.2
If the Deuteronomic Code was not in existence before the
seventh century B.C., we cannot regard the speeches and
exhortations of Moses contained in the Deuteronomic group
as anything else than free compositions. We have in them
not what Moses actually said in the plains of Moab, but
1 Deut. xxxi. belongs only in part to this group, and in its present form
must be regarded as the link uniting D to the rest of the Pentateuch.
2 Some apparent exceptions will come up for consideration later.
lect. xin DEUTERONOMY 395
admonitions conceived in the spirit of Moses and first
addressed to the men of Josiah's time, or in part, perhaps, to
the next generation. As a matter of literary form this way
of enforcing the lessons of past history has evidently much to
recommend it, and it was not introduced for the first time in
the age of Josiah. In Joshua xxiv., which all critics assign
to one of the pre-Deuteronomic sources of the Pentateuch (E),
Joshua is introduced in the same way, recapitulating how
God had led Israel in the past, and drawing a practical
conclusion. The Deuteronomic writers, therefore, were
employing a recognised literary form which was not likely to
be misunderstood in a society that had reached so high a
pitch of literary culture as Judah in the reign of Josiah. To
suppose that the speeches were forged in Moses's name to
support the halting authority of the code is simply absurd.
In all probability the code had already been accepted as the
law of the land before the speeches were added ; or, if some
of the speeches were already included in the book that was
Drought to Josiah, it is puerile to think that the heads of a
nation in which letters had flourished for centuries, and which
possessed such masterpieces of literary workmanship as the
older histories and the prophetical books of the eighth century,
could have failed to observe that a speech written in the name
of Moses was not necessarily genuine. It was the intrinsic
merits of Deuteronomy that gained it acceptance ; and if the
book had not set forth such a combination of the old law of
the realm with the principles of the prophets as commended
itself to the national conscience and indicated a practical
course of Eeformation, the mere name of Moses would not
have prevented it from being tossed aside.
While the speeches of Deuteronomy were not absolutely a
new departure in literary art, we can see that they made a
profound impression on the literary aims and methods of the
period immediately subsequent to Josiah's Eeformation.
396 ISRAEL IN THE lect. xm
Thus the Book of Joshua contains considerable passages, e.g.
the greater part of chap. i. and the whole of chap, xxiii.,
which are obviously imitations of the parenetic manner of
Deuteronomy ; and additions of the same kind can be
detected in Judges, Samuel, and Kings. These insertions
hardly touch the substance of the history, which, as we have
already seen, makes it quite plain that the law of Deuteronomy
was not known before the time of Josiah ; they consist mainly
of a series of reflections on the meaning and lessons of the
story, sometimes in the shape of speeches, and sometimes in
the writer's own name, but all framed in the Deuteronomic
manner and on the assumption that the law of Deuteronomy
is the standard by which national conduct must be judged.
In the language of critics, it appears that the historical books
from Judges to Kings have passed through the hands of at
least one Deuteronomic redactor.
The group Deut. i.-xxx. offers little difficulty to the criti-
cal analyst, because it has been transferred to the present
Hexateuch entire, and in continuous form. In like manner
it is probable that Lev. xvii.-xxvi. once existed as a separate
book, very nearly in the shape in which we now read it.
This section belongs in general character to the priestly
group, and probably represents the earliest attempt to codify
the priestly ordinances. But the mass of the Hexateuch,
after Deut. i.-xxx. has been set on one side, is made up of
extracts from several sources pieced together in a com-
plicated way. And here the difficulties of critical analysis
begin.
How complex the structure of the narrative sometimes is
has already been shown in Lecture XI. by the example of the
story of the Deluge. But fortunately for the critics this close
interweaving of single sentences from two sources is not the
general rule ; there are long continuous tracts in the Hexa-
teuch where a single source is followed and nothing more
LECT. XIII
WILDEKNESS 397
serious than an occasional editorial touch comes in to break
the unity of the exposition. Thus in the middle books of the
Pentateuch we can at once mark off a series of sections, com-
prising the mass of the priestly laws and a certain amount of
narrative intimately connected with these laws. Such are
Exod. xxv.-xxxi., and then again, after a break of three
chapters, Exod. xxxv.-xl. ; further the whole Book of Levi-
ticus (save that xvii.-xxvi. were mainly taken over into
the priestly document from an older book) ; Num. i. 1-x. 28.
In the last verses of Num. x. we pass to another and dis-
crepant source, as was shown in Lecture XL (supra, p. 321),
and from this point the phenomena become more complex.
But the priestly source reappears without anything suggestive
of admixture in Num. xv. xvii.-xix. xxvi.-xxxi., and finally in
Num. xxxiii.-xxxvi.
I do not think it is necessary to argue in detail that all
these passages are closely connected and must be drawn from
a single source ; it will be more instructive to look at some of
the reasons why I have passed over certain chapters as being
either of mixed origin or wholly derived from a different
source. And first then, as regards Exodus xxxii.-xxxiv., or
more exactly xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv. 1-28.1
The analysis of these chapters presents several points of
difficulty on which critics are not yet fully agreed. That
the whole is not derived from a single source is pretty clear ;
thus xxxii. 7-14, where Moses is informed about the sin of the
golden calf, and obtains God's forgiveness for the people before
leaving the mount for the first time, is hardly of one piece
with xxxii. 30-34, where the same forgiveness is obtained at
a second visit to Sinai, nor indeed with the angry surprise of
1 Exod. xxxiv. 29-35 is really the close of chap, xxxi., containing several
expressions highly characteristic of P. It does not run quite smoothly with
what follows (comp. xxxiv. 32 with xxxv. 1) ; but there are reasons for
thinking that chaps, xxxv. sqq. have at any rate been largely retouched by a
late hand.
398 THE GOLDEN CALF lect. xm
Moses as he approaches the camp, xxxii. 17-19. There are
other signs that the narrative is not homogeneous throughout,
but on these and the various analyses to which they have
given rise I need not dwell. The point to be noticed is
that these chapters as a whole interrupt the sequence of the
priestly narrative, and present a different view of the course
of events. In Exod. xxv.-xxxi. Moses is on the mount re-
ceiving instructions for the construction of the ark and
tabernacle, and for the institution of the Aaronic priesthood,
that Jehovah may take up his dwelling in the midst of Israel.
In chapters xxxv. sqq. Moses communicates his instructions
to the people, and the tabernacle is made and set up. Further
ordinances follow in the Book of Leviticus and the early
chapters of Numbers. These things take up much time, and
it is almost a year after the first arrival at Sinai before the
people break up to pursue their journey towards Canaan
(Num. x. 11, compared with Exod. xix. 1). All this is
simple and self-consistent, and leaves us with a clear con-
ception that the main purpose of the visit to Sinai was to
furnish the people with the pattern of ritual and priesthood
necessary to a holy nation, in whose midst Jehovah dwells.
But now observe how chaps, xxxii. -xxxiv. break the tenor
of the narrative. While Moses is on the mount the people
fall to worship the golden calf, and for this sin they are
chastised. There would be no difficulty in this if we could
treat the affair of the calf as a mere episode which produced
no permanent effect on Israel's relations to Jehovah. And
we must treat it so if we take chap. xxxv. as the natural
sequel to chap, xxxiv. ; for in it Moses, after revisiting Sinai
to replace the broken tables, quietly passes over all the recent
events and begins to rehearse the ordinances about the taber-
nacle, exactly as if the calf had never been made and the
vocation of the holy nation had never been in jeopardy. But
this is not the view of chaps, xxxii.-xxxiv. There the people's
lect. xiii AND THE TABERNACLE 399
sin is indeed pardoned, but the pardon is accompanied by a
sentence of banishment from the Mount of God (xxxiii. 1).
Moreover, though Jehovah promises to guide the people,
sending His angel before them (xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2), He
warns them that He cannot go in the midst of them (xxxiii.
3) ; and the practical application of this is seen in xxxiii. 7
sq., where the tabernacle, the seat of revelation, is pitched
outside the camp and remote from it. Both these points are
entirely ignored in the priestly narrative. The order to de-
part is never withdrawn, yet the people remain at Sinai as if
nothing had happened. And in xxxv. sqq. the construction
of the priestly tabernacle, within which God is to dwell in
the centre of the camp, proceeds without any reference to
the existence of the tabernacle of chap, xxxiii., standing out-
side the camp. But can we suppose at least that Jehovah's
refusal to go in the midst of the people was tacitly withdrawn,
and the first tabernacle replaced by the priestly tent ? No ;
for the sanctuary outside the camp reappears long after, in
Num. xi. 24, 26, in Num. xii. 4, and by implication also in
Num. x. 33, where the ark goes before the host, not in the
midst of it.1
Still more inexplicable is the relation of the priestly ordin-
ances to the covenant between Jehovah and Israel, of which
the terms are set forth in Exod. xxxiv. 10-27. This covenant
is announced in express terms as the foundation of Israel's
relations to Jehovah. But it has nothing in common with
the elaborate priestly ordinances already revealed in chaps,
xxv.-xxxi. Did Jehovah give all the details of priesthood
and tabernacle before he fixed the fundamental lines of
Israel's religion ? Or are we rather to assume that the
rebellion and the breaking of the first tables rendered it
necessary to make an entirely new beginning and a new
1 Note also that in Deut. x. 1 sqq. the ark is made at the same time as the
renewed tables of stone.
400 THE NARRATIVE lect. xm
fundamental covenant? And if so how comes it that, ac-
cording to chap, xxxv., Moses, when he descends from the
mount, is silent as to the covenant of chap, xxxiv., and goes
back to take up the thread of chap. xxxi. ? From all this
the conclusion is inevitable that chap. xxxv. attaches itself
directly to chap, xxxi., and has nothing in common with
Exod. xxxii.-xxxiv.1
We may now pass on to the break in the priestly nar-
rative at Num. x. 28. Upon x. 29 sqq. enough has been said
at p. 321. In chaps, xi. xii. the position of the tabernacle
outside the camp is sufficient proof that the narrative is not
priestly ; and we also observe that in chap. xii. Aaron is not
priest but prophet. In chaps, xiii. xiv. again, which contain
the history of the spies that were sent to search the land of
Canaan, and of the rebellion that followed on their report, we
have plainly to deal with a compound narrative, the elements
of which may be exhibited as follows in parallel columns : —
Num. xiii. 1-17 a. — Moses, by 17 b-20. . . . and said to
the commandment of the Lord, them, Go up through the Negeb,
sends forth twelve men from the and go up into the mountain-land,
wilderness of Paran to spy out the and see the land what it is, and the
land of Canaan. . . . (21.) So people that dwell in it, whether
they went up and spied out the they be strong or weak, few or
land from the wilderness of Zin as many, etc. And take ye of the
far as Rehob and the frontier of fruit of the land. Now the time
Hamath. . . . (25.) And they re- was the time of the first ripe grapes,
turned from spying out the land . . . (22.) So they went up through
after forty days, (26) and went and the Negeb, and came as far as He-
came to Moses and Aaron and to bron, etc. . . . (23, 24.) From
all the congregation of the children Eshcol [near Hebron] they took
of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, a huge bunch of grapes with pome-
. . . and made their report to granates and figs. . . . (26.) [Then
them and to the whole congre- they returned] to Kadesh . . . and
gation. . . . (32.) And they showed them the fruit of the land,
brought up an evil report of the (27-29.) And they told him
land which they had spied out [Moses] that the land flowed with
1 It is probable that Exod. xxxv.-xl. have been expanded by later hands
from a much shorter account of the carrying out of the directions in chaps.
xxv. -xxxi. ; see supra, p. 125. But this does not affect the argument, since
chaps, xxxii.-xxxiv. are ignored by the whole priestly legislation.
LECT. XIII
OF THE SPIES
401
unto the children of Israel, saying,
The land, through which we have
gone to spy it out, is a land that
eateth up the inhabitants thereof.
. . . (xiv. 1 . ) And all the congrega-
tion lifted up their voice, and cried.
. . . (2, 3.) And all the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and
Aaron : and the whole congregation
said unto them, Would that we had
died in the land of Egypt, etc. . . .
(5.) And Moses and Aaron fell on
their faces before all the congrega-
tion of the children of Israel. (6.)
And Joshua and Caleb, two of the
spies, rent their clothes, (7) and
spake unto the whole congregation
of the children of Israel, saying,
The land is an exceeding good land.
. . (10.) But the whole congre-
gation bade stone them with stones.
And the glory of the Lokd ap-
peared in the tabernacle before all
the children of Israel. . (26-35.)
And the Lord spake unto Moses and
Aaron announcing that the whole
generation of rebels should die in
the wilderness, only Caleb and
Joshua surviving to enter the
promised land. (36-38.) The
other ten spies die of plague before
the Lord.
milk and
people
walled
stilled
saying.
honey,
the
were strong,
great
but that
with
cities. (30.) And Caleb
the people before Moses,
Let us go up at once and
possess it ; for we are well able to
overcome it. (31.) But the men
who went up with him said,
We be not able to go up against
the people, for they are stronger
than we, . . (32) and all the
people that we saw in it are
men of great stature, (33) and there
we saw the giants, etc. . . (xiv.
1.) And the people wept that
night. . . . (4.) And they said
one to another, Let us make a
captain and return to Egypt. Here
there is a lacuna which seems to have
contained a remonstrance by Moses or
Caleb, of which verses 8, 9 are a frag-
ment. The thread is resumed in verse
11. (11-25.) And the Lord said
unto Moses, How long will this
people provoke me ? etc. I will
smite them with pestilence, and dis-
inherit them, and make of thee a
greater nation and mightier than
they. Moses intercedes for the
people, and obtains forgiveness for
them. But the rebellious genera-
tion must die in the wilderness, and
shall not see the land of promise,
with the sole exception of Caleb.
"To-morrow turn ye, and get ye
into the wilderness." . . . (39-45.)
When this sentence is conveyed to
the people they mourn greatly, and
insist on repairing their error by
an attack on the Canaanite frontier,
in which they undergo defeat.
These accounts are plainly independent, and each of them
is nearly complete in itself, though that in the right hand
column has lost its beginning and a few links at other points.
In it the spies start from Kadesh, go no farther than Hebron,
26
402 KORAH, DATHAN lect. xm
and report very favourably of the land, were it not that the
inhabitants are too strong to be conquered. The only one
who dissents from this judgment is Caleb, and he alone is ex-
empted from the sentence of death in the wilderness. In the
other account the spies start from the wilderness of Paran,
reach the extreme north of Palestine, and report that the land
is one in which it is hardly possible to live (xiii. 32 ; comp.
Ezek. xxxvi. 13). Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, say
that the land is good, and they two are exempted from
the judgment of God against the rebels. Of these two
accounts the first is followed in every point in Deut. i. 22-36,
39, 40,1 and also in Josh. xiv. 6-14, save that in this passage
some glossator has added in verse 6 the words " and concern-
ing thee," thus including Joshua among the spies, against the
plain sense of verse 8. Thus we see that the narrative which
includes Joshua among the spies is later than Deuteronomy ;
and in fact it is assigned to the priestly group by its style
and characteristic expressions. Note, for example, that in it
God speaks to Moses and Aaron, as is common in the priestly
laws, and that the people are spoken of as " the congregation "
(edah), a term that never occurs in the non-priestly parts
of the Hexateuch, and is very rare in the other historical
books.
When we pass on to chap. xvi. we again find' signs of
mixture in the narrative. Taken as a whole, as we now read
it, Num. xvi. is priestly, i.e. the events it details and the way
of telling them read smoothly enough with the chapters that
follow and with the general tenor of the priestly legislation.
But Dathan and Abiram, the Eeubenites, who object to the
1 Verses 37, 38 do not make against this ; for they do not imply that
Joshua was one of the spies. But they disturb the context, and probably are an
addition to the original text of Deuteronomy ; for God's anger with Moses and
the appointment of Joshua as his successor belong to a different place, and have
no connection with the matter of the spies. Further, the first words of verse
39 as far as "a prey" are wanting in LXX., and have been inserted from
Num. xiv. 31 (priestly) by a late hand. Comp. Dillmann on the passage.
LECT. XIII
AND ABIRAM 403
civil authority exercised by Moses, have nothing in common
with Korah, who objects to the special claims of priestly
sanctity put forth by Moses and Aaron. This, of course,
proves nothing by itself; for modern as well as ancient
history is full of examples of the union of distinct political
parties against a common antagonist. But the curious thing
is that Korah on the one hand, Dathan and Abiram on the
other, are separate not only in their aims but in their action
and in their doom. In verse 1, and again in verses 24, 27,
all three are mentioned together in a formal way (which may
very well be due to an editor), but in substance the revolt
of Korah and that of Dathan and Abiram are quite distinct.
The former and his adherents are challenged by Moses to
appear before the tabernacle in an act of priestly service, and,
accepting the challenge, are consumed by fire from the Loed ;
the latter refuse to meet Moses, and are swallowed up by
earthquake in their tents. Now in Deut. xi. 6 the revolt
and catastrophe of Dathan and Abiram are referred to with-
out one word of reference to Korah : can we doubt, then,
that the old history, prior to Deuteronomy, which we have
recognised in one of the constituent elements of Num. 13, 14,
reappears also in chap. xvi. in the verses which speak of
Dathan and Abiram and are silent about Korah ? It is
Korah's part of the story that has to do with the privileges
of Levi and Aaron, i.e. with the theory of the priestly law
and narrative ; and so we have another proof that the priestly
system is later than Deuteronomy.1
1 The beginning of the pre-Deuteronomic narrative of the revolt of Dathan
and Abiram is lost, save a fragment giving the names of the rebels in verse 1.
Bat from verse 12 onwards the story is complete as follows : — (12-14.) Moses
summons Dathan and Abiram, who refuse to obey or to acknowledge his right
to play the prince. (15.) And Moses was very wroth, and said, I have not
taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them [which implies that
his judicial impartiality in civil matters was the thing impugned]. (25, 26.)
Moses, followed by the elders, goes to Dathan and Abiram, and warns the
people to withdraw from the rebels and their tents. (27 b. ) And Dathan and
Abiram came out and stood in the door of their tents, etc. (28-31.) Moses
404 ISRAEL, MOAB lect. xiii
Prom Exodus xxv. down to Numbers xix., I have been
able to treat the priestly document as the main stock of the
narrative, accepting the burden of proof when I undertake to
show that it is interrupted from time to time by extracts
from other sources. And the same way of approaching the
question may also be applied to Num. xxv. 6 - xxxvi. 13,
where, except in chap, xxxii., there is nothing to suggest
plurality of authorship.1
This whole section may safely be assigned to the priestly
group ; for it consists partly of laws, conceived and set forth
in the priestly manner, partly of histories, in which Eleazar,
the son and successor of Aaron, has all the precedence proper
to him under the priestly code, and partly of statistics and
lists, for which the priestly narrator has a special predilection.
The list of stations in the wilderness journey is very useful
as a check on the analysis of the preceding history. For
example, we have seen that in the older narrative the spies
went forth from Kadesh, but in the priestly narrative from
the wilderness of Paran. And accordingly in Num. xxxiii.
announces that the rebels will be swallowed up alive ; and straightway the
ground clave asunder, (32 a) and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed
up them and their tents ; (33) and they and all that appertained to them
went down alive into the pit, etc. ; (34) and all Israel seeing it fled in terror.
The full explanation of the remainder of the chapter cannot be effected
without distinguishing two strata in the priestly narrative ; see Kuenen in
Thcol. Tijdschrift, xii. (1878), p. 139 sqq., whose analysis has commanded
general assent.
1 This section of the priestly document begins abruptly, and something
has been lost. For the presupposition of xxv. 6 sqq. is that the Israelites
were seduced into filthy idolatry by the Midianites, and were smitten with
a plague which was stayed by Phinehas's act of judgment. Verses 1-5 do not
correspond with this. The seducers are not the Midianites (who in fact are
quite out of place in the plains of Moab), but the women of Moab. Further,
though a plague seems to be implied in verses 3, 4, it is stayed in quite a
different way by Moses (ver. 4) or by the judges of the people (ver. 5). Note
also that verses 3, 5 (and Dent. iv. 3) speak of Baal-Peor, i.e. the local deity of
Mount Peor (xxiii. 28), whereas in verse 18, and again in xxxi. 16, as also
in the priestly part of Joshua (xxii. 17), Peor is the name of the god.
For the compound chap, xxxii. see Driver, p. 64 ; but especially two papers
by Kuenen in Theol. Tijdschrift, xi. (1877).
LECT. XIII
AND BALAAM 405
36 the Hebrews do not reach Kadesh till near the close of
their wanderings.
In Numbers xx.-xxiv., on the other hand, the phenomena
are complicated, and one can see that a great part of the
narrative belongs to the non-priestly and pre-Deuteronomic
sources. To these we must reckon, first of all, the whole
episode of Balaam (chaps, xxii.-xxiv.). For, apart from con-
siderations of language and style, which it is impossible to
set forth in this place, we note an absolute inconsistency
between these chapters and the reference to Balaam in the
priestly chapter xxxi. In the former, Balaam, who, though
no friend to Israel, is careful to avoid Jehovah's anger,
returns to his home on the Euphrates, i.e. to Mesopotamia,1
as soon as God has turned his curse into a blessing. But
in Num. xxxi. 8, 16 Balaam is found among the Midianites,
i.e. in the country between Edom and the Bed Sea, where he
has been engaged in devising the seduction of Israel through
the worship of Peor. And once more we observe that it is
the non-priestly conception of Balaam that appears in Deut.
xxiii. 4, 5 [Heb. 5, 6] and in the eighth -century prophet
Micah.
There remain chaps, xx. xxi. In chap. xx. the death of
Aaron and consecration of Eleazar are evidently priestly.2
And this carries with it a part at least of xx. 2-13, where
Moses and Aaron are sentenced to die in the wilderness.
But in what remains of chaps, xx. xxi. there is nothing
1 In Num. xxii. 5 read with R. V. " to Pethor, which is by the River, to
the land," etc. The River is the Euphrates ; comp. Deut. xxiii. 4 (Heb. 5).
2 This is one of the few priestly passages to which the Deuteronomist has
been supposed to make reference. But according to Deut. x. 6 Aaron dies at
Mosera (the same as Moseroth of Num. xxxiii. 30), a place separated from
Mount Hor by six marches. Thus, if the text of Deuteronomy is in order,
the author had a different account of Aaron's death, and did not draw from P.
It is, however, very plain that the words of Deut. x. 6 following "Mosera"
are a late and unauthorised gloss, since according to verse 8 the first insti-
tution of the Levitical priesthood did not take place till a later stage of the
wanderings.
406 THE JOURNEY lect. xm
priestly except one or two notes of stations which correspond
with chap, xxxiii. (xx. 1 a, xxi. 4 a to the word " Hor," xxi.
10, 11, and also xxii. 1). This appears from the following
considerations. In xx. 1 b the people are still encamped at
Kadesh, on the southern border of Canaan, whence the spies
were sent out. From Kadesh (ver. 14) they send messengers
to the Edomites, who occupied the whole region between
Moab and the Gulf of Akaba, asking passage through their
country. This was refused, and accordingly there was no
way to reach Eastern Palestine without another desert
journey all round Edom by the head of the gulf. And so
we read (xx. 21) : " And Israel turned aside from him [Edom]
(xxi. 4) in the direction of the Red Sea to compass the land
of Edom." 1 Then follow the details of the journey, with a
number of stations that do not reappear in chap, xxxiii.
The Hebrews emerge from the desert in the district of the
Arnon, and the conquest of Eastern Canaan follows. This
great circuit through the wilderness from Kadesh to the
Arnon was inevitable when the people's faithlessness caused
the direct attack on Southern Canaan to be given up ; and
the sufferings it involved were the natural punishment of
their want of faith. But there was no arbitrary marching
up and down the wilderness. According to Deut. i. 46, ii. 1,
a passage which quite agrees with all that has survived of
the older narrative, the Israelites spent a long time at
Kadesh, and only left it to "compass Mount Seir." The
priestly account, as appears by comparison of Num. xiv.
33 sqq. with the lists of Num. xxxiii., is quite different.
Here the greater part of the forty years is spent on purpose-
less wandering as far as Ezion-gaber, on the Gulf of Akaba
(xxxiii. 35), and thence to Kadesh, which, according to chap,
xxxiii., appears to be reached for the first time in the last
1 xxi. 1-3 is a little separate narrative, which is hardly in place where it
stands ; comp. Judges i. 16, 17-
lect. xin FROM KADESH 407
year of the wilderness journey. In the fifth month of the
fortieth year the Hebrews are still at Mount Hor, but one
stage from Kadesh ; a view of the course of Israel's wander-
ings plainly inconsistent with chap. xxi. Indeed, one is led
to think that the priestly narrator did not realise how wide
a circuit lay between Kadesh and the plains of Moab, and
how much time the entire conquest of the kingdoms of
Sihon and Og must have occupied, else he could hardly
have left no more than a brief seven months for all the
events between the death of Aaron and the passage of the
Jordan (Num. xxxiii. 38 compared with Deut. i. 3, Josh,
iv. 19).
We have now run in a cursory way through the whole nar-
rative of Israel's adventures between Sinai and the plains of
Moab. The results of such a first survey ought not to be
taken as more than provisional, but they bear out, so far as
they go, two important conclusions at which we had already
arrived by another path. (1) They show us that we must
distinguish in the middle books of the Pentateuch between a
priestly series of laws, accompanied by narratives in harmony
with the priestly laws, and another series of narratives that
do not presuppose the Aaronic priesthood and its sanctuary.
(2) They show us, too, that only the latter series of narratives
is presupposed in the Book of Deuteronomy. Taking note of
these conclusions, our next task is to subject them to a further
test by an inductive method. We have provisionally marked
out the text of the middle books of the Pentateuch into two
main groups. Let us carefully collect all characteristics of
language, all mannerisms of style, in each provisional group,
and see whether they bear out our classification, or point to
a cross division. In the latter case we shall have cause to
amend our analysis : otherwise it will be powerfully con-
firmed. This is a part of the argument that I cannot
profitably go into without citing a mass of Hebrew phrases ;
408 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. xnr
but surely in such a matter the English reader may safely
trust to Oriental scholars. Those who are too sceptical to do
this may consult Driver, who gives the main results of the
linguistic analysis with great care : they will find that the
results of the linguistic test have been tabulated, and that
they confirm all that we have hitherto learned in a pro-
visional way on a broader line of inquiry. It is shown by
tables and figures which cannot be gainsaid that the priestly
document or group has a distinct style and vocabulary of its
own, and further that its peculiarities, whether of grammar
or of lexicon, forbid us to assign the priestly writings to
an early date, and allow, if they do not compel, us to
place it after Ezekiel, as the historic-legal argument requires.
Though the English reader cannot hope to make himself
master of these linguistic arguments, he may learn to ap-
preciate their force by a careful attention to points of style
and manner that do not disappear in translation. Thus
among phrases characteristic of the priestly group he may
note such as these : " throughout your generations," " after
their families," the technical term " father's house " for a clan
or family, the habitual designation of Israel as a " congrega-
tion " ('edah), and of the princes as "chief of the congregation,"
or the like ; also standing formulas like " this is the thing that
the Lord hath commanded," and " according to the word [lit.
mouth] of the Lord." And in general he can observe that
the priestly style is formal and mannered, deficient, as com-
pared with the older narratives, in freedom and variety of
expression. With this goes a love for formal headings and
subscriptions, and a monotonous way of piling up particulars
which reaches its climax in Num. vii. No one with the
smallest knowledge of literature will believe that this chapter
comes from the same pen that wrote the exquisite history
of Joseph and the other masterpieces of Pentateuchal nar-
rative.
lect. xni THE PRIESTS' CODE 409
But beneath all these points of phrase and style there lies
something deeper and more fundamentally characteristic ; to
wit, no small tincture of the abstract and unreal way of con-
structing the sacred history, that we saw in Lecture V. to be
characteristic of Eabbinical Judaism, and of some later parts
of the Old Testament. The Moses of Exodus xxxii.-xxxiv.,
or Numbers xi. xii., with his swift and hot anger on the one
hand, his tender and passionate intercession on the other, is a
living man ; the Moses of the priestly narrative is a lay-figure
only fit to convey to the people rules about sacred upholstery
and millinery. When the people rebel in the priestly story,
Moses and Aaron at once get the better of them by a simple
and uniform process. They have only to fall down on their
faces in supplication (Num. xiv. 5, xvi. 4, xx. 6) to obtain an
immediate supernatural interposition. The older narratives
are not less full of the supernatural, but they do not reduce
it in this way to a mechanical uniformity, and they allow us
to see a natural harmony between the divine action and the
historical circumstances, which is quite lost in the later
account. Thus in the old story the wilderness wanderings
from Kadesh to Arnon have a purpose as well as a penal
effect ; they bring the people to another and easier point for
the attack of Canaan. But in the priestly story they are
mere wanderings for the sake of wandering. Or again in the
priestly story the camping-places of the people are absolutely
determined by the miraculous cloud (Num. ix. 15 sqq.). In
the other narrative the cloud accompanies the march, but the
local knowledge of Hobab is called into requisition in the
choice of places to camp (Num. x. 29 sqq.). Even to the old
history the wilderness journey is a continued portent, in which
the play of human causes falls into the background, and is
obscured by the ever-present splendour of the divine guidance,
but in the priestly history the human and even the physical
background disappears altogether. Consider, for example, the
410 CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. xiii
gorgeousness of the priestly tabernacle and its service, the
gold and silver, the rich hangings of rare purple, the incense
and unguents of costly spices. How came these things to be
found in the wilderness ? It is absurd to say, as is commonly
said, that the tabernacle was furnished from the spoil of the
Egyptians (Exod. xi. 2, xii. 35), and that the serfs who left
Egypt carrying on their shoulders a wretched provision of
dough tied up in their cloaks (Exod. xii. 34), were at the
same time laden with all the wealth of Asia and Africa, in-
cluding such strange furniture for a long journey on foot as
stores of purple yarn, and the like. But it is not worth while
to spend time over these details. The decisive point is that
the Mosaic tabernacle is not the tabernacle of the old pre-
Deuteronomic history of Moses, and that it is equally un-
known to the history of the Former Prophets. It is, in short,
not a fact but an idea, an imaginary picture of such a
tabernacle as might serve as a pattern for the service of the
second Temple.1 By much the greater part of the variations
of the priestly narrative from the older story flow directly
from the author's design to exhibit the whole ritual system
as complete and at work in the wilderness ; in short, we have
here to do not with a fresh source for ancient history, but with
a body of legal Haggada, borrowing its outlines from the older
narratives, but treating them with absolute freedom, so as to
produce a picture of the ideal institutions of Israel's worship
projected back into the Mosaic age. Such divergences of the
priestly narrative from the older history of the wilderness
wanderings as are not directly explicable on this principle
are yet connected with it in an indirect way ; the most char-
acteristic parts of the old story being omitted, or reduced to a
bare and not very exact summary, if they do not fall in with
the main purpose of the priestly document. Throughout the
1 The arrangements agree with those of the second Temple in various
particulars where Solomon's Temple was different, e.g. there is one golden
candlestick and not ten {supra, p. 143).
lect. xni THE PRIESTS' CODE 411
priestly narrative Israel is not so much a nation as a church,
and when it is not engaged in some act of rebellion against
Moses and Aaron, it is employed in receiving legal instruc-
tion or discharging ritual duties. Even the rebellions have
interest for this narrator only in so far as they elucidate some
point of ecclesiastical discipline (Korah), or have a par-
ticular importance for the history of the priesthood, as when
the sedition at Meribah leads to the exclusion of Aaron from
the promised land, or the affair of Baal-Peor earns for Phine-
has and his descendants a promise of everlasting priesthood.
On the other hand, the golden calf and a whole series of later
rebellions, which had no significance for the ecclesiastical
polity of Israel, are passed by in silence : it is true that the
affair of the spies is mentioned, but as this was the cause of
the prolonged sojourn in the wilderness it evidently could not
be omitted. Finally, one whole side of the history, the rela-
tions of the Hebrews with the Kenites, with Edom, with
Moab, is ignored ; for this was not ecclesiastical but civil
history. Even the conquest of Eastern Palestine seems to
have been passed over in a word ; to compensate for this we
have a war with Midian ; but the actual campaign is disposed
of in a couple of verses, without the loss of a single man, and
is merely a text on which to hang a long law of booty, in
which the claims of the sanctuary are duly attended to.1
The middle books offer the best field on which to begin
the analysis of the priestly element in the Pentateuch ; for
here we have a greet mass of priestly writing, and are soon
able to form a clear idea of the character of the narrative, and to
collect a list of distinctive words and phrases that may serve
as our guides in dissecting complicated chapters. It is much
easier to commence one's critical studies in the wilderness
than to start with the Book of Genesis and work onwards.
1 Comp. what has been said above, p. 386, where we have seen that the
main point in the law of booty only goes back to David.
412 THE PRIESTS' CODE lect. xiii
But if you have followed my argument thus far you will have
no difficulty in pursuing the thread of the priestly writing
through the rest of the Hexateuch with the aid of a good
manual of Biblical Introduction. In what remains, therefore.
I will be very brief, and indicate results without dwelling on
processes.
First, then, as regards the priestly elements subsequent to
the Book of Numbers. In Deuteronomy these are limited to
a few verses about the death of Moses, chap, xxxii. 48-52,
the first words of xxxiv. 1, and xxxiv. 8, 9. So, too, the first
twelve chapters of Joshua contain only occasional traces of
the priestly style and manner, in one or two precise dates
answering to the priestly chronology (iv. 9, v. 10-12), and
especially in the story of the Gibeonites (ix. 15 b, 17-21 ;
" congregation," " princes of the congregation "), and how they
were made slaves of the sanctuary. In the second, or statis-
tical, part of the Book of Joshua it is easy to prove that the
lists of tribal settlements and boundaries are not all from one
source, but the nature of the matter does not give us much
opportunity of using linguistic criteria to determine which of
the Pentateuchal sources are used. There are, however, a
sufficient number of verses containing characteristic priestly
matter or phrases {e.g. xiii. 15-32, xiv. 1-5, xv. 1, 20, " by their
families," xvi. 8, etc.) to make it clear that the priestly narrative
gave a statistical account of the settlement of Canaan. To this
account belongs chap. xxi. (the Levitical and priestly cities),
and also chap. xx. (in the text of the LXX.). In the priestly
narrative the allotment of territory is made by Eleazar the
priest, with Joshua and the heads of " fathers' houses " (xiv.
1), and applies to all the tribes alike ; but there is another
account in chap, xviii., according to which Judah and Joseph
are first settled, apparently without the use of the lot (comp.
xiv. 6 sqq., xvii. 14 sqq.), while the lots for the remaining
seven western tribes are cast at Shiloh by Joshua alone.
LECT. XIII
IN JOSHUA 413
The mass of the narrative of Joshua is clearly not priestly,
and does not presuppose the priestly institutions. Chap,
xxii. 9-34 is a very peculiar piece, which has its closest
parallel in Judges xx. Both chapters are for the most part
post-priestly and certainly not historical.
It is probable that the priestly document proper, i.e. the
main priestly story, as distinct from such late additions as
chap, xxii., treated the conquest of Canaan very briefly. The
story of the Gibeonites was important in connection with the
sanctuary, and here alone have we any sign that the narrative
was more than the barest epitome. In like manner the con-
quest of Eastern Canaan is not described in the priestly part
of Numbers. There was no legal application to be made of a
war of extermination such as could not occur again, and so,
in order to bring in a law about ordinary war and captives,
the priestly writer passes over Sihon and spends his strength
on a war with Midian, of which the old sources know nothing.
On the other hand, an account of the settlement in Canaan,
according to law, made the natural completion of his work,
rounding out the delineation of Israel's sacred institutions.
It should be observed that Ezekiel's legislation also ends
with a chapter of sacred topography.
I now go back to consider the priestly element in Genesis
and the early chapters of Exodus. Here the analysis is more
dependent, in the first instance, on linguistic arguments, since,
before the Sinaitic revelation, there can be no direct reference
to the characteristic priestly institutions. But an important
general clue to the treatment of the patriarchal period by the
priestly source is obtained by considering the following series
of passages : —
Gen. xvii. Jehovah, makes a covenant with Abraham under the
name of El-Shaddai (A. V. "the Almighty God"), and
gives him the seal of circumcision.
„ xxviii. 1-5. Isaac blesses Jacob in the name of El-Shaddai,
and with reference to the divine promises in chap. xvii.
414 THE PRIESTS' CODE lect. xiii
Gen. xxxv. 9-15. God (Elohim) appears to Jacob, changes His name
to Israel, reveals Himself as El-Shaddai, and renews
the same promises,
xlviii. 3-6. Jacob rehearses to Joseph the revelation of El-
Shaddai last cited, and adopts his grandchildren
Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons [i.e. as two
full tribes, in which character they always appear in
the priestly document].
Exod. vi. 2-8. God (Elohim) speaks to Moses, saying, " I am Jeho-
vah. And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
as El-Shaddai, but by my name Jehovah I was not
known to them." Then follows a promise of deliver-
ance in terms based on the earlier passages already cited.
These passages are in substance and form a connected series.
They must all be from one pen, and the pen is that of the
priestly narrator, whose characteristic phrases and manner-
isms are not to be mistaken, especially in Gen. xvii. The
priestly narrator, then, regards the name of Jehovah as char-
acteristic of Mosaism, and accordingly we observe that he
avoids the use of that word in the patriarchal period, employ-
ing Elohim in its place. But he views the Mosaic revelation
as based on a previous covenant with Abraham, and carries
back to his day the ordinance of circumcision, which in the
priestly laws is taken as the necessary mark of admission
into the community of true religion (Lev. xii. 3 ; Exod. xii.
44, 48).
It was long ago observed that in the Book of Genesis the
names Jehovah and Elohim do not occur at random but in
two distinct series of narratives, which generally can be
separated from each other without trouble. And when we
find Jehovah and Elohim alternating in the same narrative, as
in the story of the Elood, we find also, on closer examination,
that the story is composite and can still be resolved into two
threads, one Jahvistic and the other Elohistic {supra, p. 327 sq.).
We now see that in seeking to determine the priestly elements
in Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus we may begin by
setting the whole Jahvistic narrative on one side.
LECT. XIII
IN GENESIS 415
In the earlier chapters of Genesis all that remains is
priestly ; to wit, the first (and more abstract) of the two
stories of the Creation (Gen. i. 1-ii. 4 a) ; then a line of
genealogy from Adam to Noah (Gen. v. ; but not verse 29,
which uses the name Jehovah and refers to the Jahvistic
story of the Fall) ; then one form of the Mood-story (supra,
p. 329 sq.), which was necessary to the writer's legal purpose
because the Flood was followed by a covenant with Noah
(ix. 1-17) the conditions of which passed over into Mosaism ;
then another series of genealogies (parts of x., xi. 10-26), and
a very brief sketch of Abraham's life, containing little more
than a sequence of names and dates, and carrying us on to
the covenant of chap, xvii.1 Here the author has reached a
topic of legal importance, and again expands into copious and
somewhat redundant detail.
About this point it becomes plain that the Jahvist and
the priestly writer are not the only contributors to the
1 It may be instructive to give the priestly story of the first ninety-nine
years of Abraham's life in full : —
' ' Now these are the generations of Terah : Terah begat Abram and Nahor
arid Haran ; and Haran begat Lot. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot
the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son
Abram's wife ; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to
go into the land of Canaan ; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years : and Terah died
in Haran. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of
Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all
their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in
Haran ; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ; and into the
land of Canaan they came. And the land was not able to bear them to dwell
together : for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.
So they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelt in the
land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain. And Sarai Abram's
wife bare him no children. And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her Egyptian
handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave
her to her husband Abram to be his wife. And Hagar bare Abram a son :
and Abram called his son s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram
was eighty-six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram " (xi. 27, 31,
32 ; xii. 4 b, 5 ; xiii. 6, 11 b, 12 a ; xvi. 1 a, 3, 15, 16). The monotonous
wordiness is as characteristic of the priestly style as the individual ex-
pressions.
416 JAHVIST AND ELOHIST lect. xm
story of Genesis. In chap. xiv. we meet with a narrative
that stands quite by itself, and is probably distinct in origin
from all other parts of the Pentateuch; while chap, xv.,
though it contains nothing suggestive of the priestly hand,
can hardly be taken as an integral part of the Jahvistic docu-
ment.1 In the latter chapter we have at least the suspicion
that a third source has begun to show itself, and the suspicion
is raised to certainty in chap. xx. 1-17 (Abraham and Abi-
melech at Gerar), the first of a long series of narratives in
which the use of Elohim is associated with no other mark of
the priestly hand. The Elohist (as the new narrator is
usually called) has a style and characteristic features of his
own ; but in language, standpoint, and choice of matter he
stands much nearer to the Jahvist than to P ; and his
narratives, taken as a whole, form a parallel series to those
of the Jahvist, giving the same or similar stories, with such
variations as are commonly found in the primitive traditions
of ancient races. Thus the Elohistic story of Abraham and
Abimelech at Gerar (xx. 1-17) is a traditional variant of the
Jahvistic stories of Abraham and Pharaoh (chap, xii.), and
Isaac and Abimelech (xxvi. 7-11). Or again the Jahvistic
account of Jacob's vision in Bethel is contained in xxviii.
13-16, 19 ; the Elohistic parallel in verses 11, 12, 17, 18,
20-22. The ladder with the angels, the anointed stone, and
the vow are only in the Elohistic verses, and this is the
version referred to in the subsequent Elohistic passages
xxxi. 13, xxxv. 1-8. The revelations at Bethel form one of
the best tests for the threefold critical division of Genesis ;
for here we have a third account (Gen. xxxv. 9-15), which
we have already assigned to the priestly document. These
verses are not the continuation of the Elohistic story im-
mediately preceding (verses 1-8), but a separate narrative,
as appears especially in verse 15.
1 The analysis of this chapter is still uncertain.
LECT. XIII
IN GENESIS 417
I may add one more illustration of the relations of the
Elohist to the priestly narrator on the one hand and the
Jahvist on the other. In the Jahvistic story the destiny
of Ishmael is revealed to Hagar before his birth, at the well
Lahai-roi, whither she has fled from her mistress's hard treat-
ment (Gen. xvi. 4-14). In the Elohistic version a similar
revelation, at a well, is given after she and her son are
banished (xxi. 8-21). In this story Ishmael is a little child
(" playing," ver. 9, not " mocking," as A. V.), and is carried
on his mother's shoulder (ver. 14, where read with LXX. " and
he put the child on her shoulder and sent her away " ; ver.
15). But according to the priestly chronology Ishmael was
thirteen years old a year before Isaac's birth, and so at this
date would have been a lad of fifteen at least.
The Jahvist and Elohist together are responsible for the
great mass of the patriarchal history, and for all those stories
that make Genesis one of the most delightful of books.
What remains for the priestly writer is meagre enough ; the
continuous thread of his narrative is no more than a string
of names, dates, and other dry bones of history, mainly in
systematic form under the standing heading, " These are
the generations of . . ." x Apart from the El-Shaddai
passages already noted, perhaps2 the only place where he
expands into fulness is chap, xxiii., which details at length
how Abraham became legal possessor of an inalienable family
grave.3
1 The successive recurrences of this phrase are the clue to the formal
arrangement of the priestly narrative in Genesis, as the El-Shaddai passages
are the clue to its purpose and meaning ; comp. Driver, p. 5.
2 I say "perhaps," that I may not seem to speak positively on the
difficult chapter, Gen. xxxiv. But there is a high measure of probability
that everything in this chapter which is not pre-Deuteronomic belongs to a
very late redaction, subsequent to the union of the older sources in our
present Pentateuch (so Kuenen and now also Wellhausen).
3 The importance which P attaches to this subject (to which he returns
in xxv. 9 sq., xlix. 29 sqq.) is in accordance with the general feelings of the
Semites ; see for the Arabs AVellhausen, Restc Ar. Held. p. 160. The best
27
418 THE PRIESTS' CODE lect. xiii
The same abstract brevity prevails in the opening chapters
of Exodus (i. 1-5, 7, 13, 14; ii. 23 b, 25) up to the call of
Moses, who appears suddenly in vi. 2, without any account
of his previous life. The opening of his mission is told fully
enough in chaps, vi. vii. 1-13, with this difference from the
older story that from the first he demands the complete
emancipation of his people and not merely (as in v. vii. 14-18,
etc. ; comp. iii. 18) leave for them to celebrate a feast in
the wilderness. Then follow brief notices of the plagues of
blood, frogs, mosquitoes (A. V. " lice "), and plague-boils on
man and beast,1 while the final judgment, the death of the
firstborn (xii. 12), gives occasion for a full legal discussion of
the Passover (xii. 1-20, 28, 37 a, 40-51 ; xiii. 1, 2). The
account of the flight and the deliverance at the Eed Sea is
again meagre (xiii. 20, xiv. 1-4, 8, 9, 15-18, 21 first and last
clause, 22, 23, 26, 27 a, 28, 29), but characteristic, inasmuch
as the east wind that drives back the sea in the old story
illustrations of Gen. xxiii. are, however, to be found in the inscriptions on
the tombs of the Nabatseans of Al-Hejr (Euting, Nabataisclie Inschrr. aus
Arabien, 1885, passim) and the Syrians of Palmyra, where the inalienable
character of the family grave is guarded with special solicitude. From these
parallels we may perhaps infer that Abraham's care to secure such a grave is
set forth as a pattern for his descendants. In the Jahvistic narrative Jacob
desires to be buried with his fathers, and not in Egypt ; but the place where
his wake was held (and where, therefore, in all probability, his grave was,
according to this tradition) is not the cave of Machpelah, but the Floor of
Atad or Abel-Mizraim (Gen. xlvii. 29-31, 1. 10, where Dillmaun's reference to
Jerome should be supplemented by the more interesting passage in Epiph.
De PotuI. ct Mens. § 62 [Syriac text]). The Elohistic variant of this is the
conveyance of the bones of Joseph to Canaan at the Exodus (Gen. 1. 25 ;
Exod. xiii. 19 ; Josh. xxiv. 32), to which there is a striking Arabic parallel
in Wetzstein, Reiscbcricht ubcr Hauran (Berlin, 1860), p. 27 : " Take my bones
and carry them whithersoever ye journey," etc.
1 Exod. vii. 19, 20 a, 21 b, 22 ; viii. 5-7, 15 b [Heb. 1-3, 11 b] ; 16-19 [Heb.
12-15]; ix. 8-12. In the older sources the plagues are: blood (in the Nile
only ; not also, as in P, in pools and vessels ; see vii. 24) ; frogs ; swarms
of insects (under a different name from the mosquitoes of P) ; murrain ; hail ;
locusts ; darkness ; then the death of the firstborn. The darkness appears
as a separate plague only in the Elohist (x. 21-23) ; and the Jahvistic account,
in which it is merely an incident in the plague of locusts (ver. 15), seems to
give a more primitive form of the tradition.
lect. xiii IN EXODUS 419
disappears, and the outstretched hand of Moses takes its place.
The share of the priestly narrator in Exod. xvi. is disputed,
and between this chapter and the ordinances of the tabernacle
we have nothing but a bare notice of the arrival at Sinai
(xix. 1, 2), and of Moses's ascent to the mountain of the law
to receive the ritual ordinances (xxiv. 15 sqq.).
Except in one or two hard cases (Exod. xvi., and perhaps
Gen. xxxiv.), the compass of the priestly document in the early
history is determined by such a concurrence of internal
evidences that there is no dispute about it among those who
admit criticism at all. And when we look at the priestly
passages as a whole there can be no serious doubt as to their
essential unity or their essential character. For the most
part the group is so homogeneous that the main mass
of it must have come from a single pen ; though when
we carry out the analysis with the utmost nicety we
find signs that the main narrator had predecessors and
successors in the priestly school. Thus Kuenen, whose
sagacity and patience in this kind of research are unrivalled,
would teach us to speak of P \ i.e. the oldest priestly col-
lection of laws in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. ; P 2, the main priestly
narrator and legist ; and, finally, a series of later priestly
writers (P 3, P 4, etc.) who added their touches to the narrative
of Korah's rebellion and certain other passages, in which an
absolutely homogeneous story is not left even when all non-
priestly elements are removed. But these niceties of analysis
do not affect the main result ; the whole priestly literature
belongs to one school ; and that school builds upon Ezekiel
(who already lies behind Lev. xvii.-xxvi.), and had practically
completed its work at the date of Ezra's Reformation.
The general character of the main priestly document has
already been sketched from the materials presented in the
middle books, and our analysis of Genesis and Joshua
only confirms what those books teach. The priestly writing
420 CHARACTER OF THE lect. xin
is only in form an historical document ; in substance it is a
body of laws and precedents having the value of law, strung
on a thread of history so meagre that it often consists of
nothing more than a chronological scheme and a sequence of
bare names. If we read the document as literal history, all
that it teaches and that the older parts of the Hexateuch do
not teach may be summed up in one comprehensive sentence :
The ordinances of Judaism, as we know them from the time of
Ezra downwards, already existed and were enforced in the days
of Hoses. That this is not historical fact can be proved, and
has been proved in the previous pages, by a succession of
arguments. The supposed Mosaic ordinances, and the nar-
ratives that go with them, are unknown to the history and
the prophets before Ezra ; they are unknown to the
Deuteronomic writers, and they are unknown to the non-
priestly parts of the Pentateuch, which Deuteronomy pre-
supposes. And from this it follows with certainty that the
priestly recasting of the origins of Israel is not history (save
in so far as it merely summarises and reproduces the old
traditions in the other parts of the Hexateuch) but Haggada,
i.e. that it uses old names and old stories, not for the purpose
of conveying historical facts, but solely for purposes of legal
and ethical instruction. A book must be read in the spirit
wherein it was written if the reader desires to profit; and
therefore we must not go to the priestly literature for
historical information, but only to understand the nature
of the institutions which were devised some little time before
Ezra's Reformation, and actually put in force at that Reforma-
tion, as the necessary and efficient means of preserving the
little community of Judaism from being swallowed up in the
surrounding heathenism. It is useless to argue that if this
be so the Priests' Code has no right to stand in our Bible ; for
under Providence the Code of Ezra and the Reformation of
Ezra were the means, amidst the general dissolution of the
LECT. XIII
PRIESTLY STORY 421
Persian and Hellenic East, of preserving and maturing among
the Jews those elements of true spiritual religion out of
which Christianity sprang. In the nineteenth century of
Christendom it is too late to make an Index Mxypurgatorms of
the books on which our Christian religion does, as a matter of
history, rest ; but it is not too late to seek to understand them
by the best lights that God in His providence gives us to use.
I know of no attempt, on the part of apologists for
tradition, to meet directly the historical arguments that
establish the fundamental doctrine of modern criticism, the
late date of the Priests' Code. The position always taken up
by traditionalists is that there are sufficient reasons of some
other kind for holding all the Pentateuchal laws (with the
conjoined histories) to be Mosaic, and that therefore every-
thing in the Bible that appears to be inconsistent with that
opinion must be explained away at any cost. But explaining-
things away is a process that has no place in fair historical
inquiry, though unfortunately it has long played a great part
in Biblical interpretation. The reason why unnatural inter-
pretations, which would not be tolerated in any other field,
are accepted without difficulty in the case of the Bible is not
far to seek. Till a very recent date it was assumed on all
hands that the authority of Scripture, as a rule of faith and
life, involves the inerrancy of all parts of the sacred record.
The Bible could not contradict itself, and therefore, if two
passages appeared to be at variance, one of them must be
explained away. This is not the place for a discussion of
theological principles ; it is enough to observe that there is a
very long step between the doctrine that the Bible is a sure
rule of faith and life, and the inference that every historical
statement of a Biblical book is necessarily free from error.
To make such an inference cogent, one must adopt a definition
of faith which is neither that of the Reformers nor of the Old
Catholic and Mediseval Church (siqwa, Lecture I.). And
422 CHARACTER OF THE lect. xiii
when we turn from theological assumptions to deal with
actual facts, we find clear evidence, as has been shown in
more than one part of these Lectures, that the Biblical writers
were not all equally well informed in matters of history, that
their statements are not always in strict accordance with one
another, and that we can no more dispense with the task of
sifting and comparing sources in the study of Israel's history
than in any other branch of historical research. When this
is admitted, all that part of the apologetical argument which
consists in the explaining away of plain texts at once falls to
the ground. To explain away the concurrent evidence of the
older histories and prophets where it does not agree with
tradition is really nothing else than to reject that evidence ; a
proceeding manifestly inconsistent with every rule of historical
research.
While the traditionalists thus fail altogether in their
attempt to meet the historical arguments of the critics, their
own positive argument for believing that all the Pentateuchal
laws date from Moses is admittedly theological rather than
historical. They appeal to the authority of the New Testa-
ment, or, putting the argument more broadly, urge that it is
incredible that God in His providence should have allowed
His Church to hold and teach for so many centuries an
opinion concerning the origin of Israel's sacred institu-
tions which is not historically correct. I do not propose
to go into these arguments, because I do not know any way
of deciding whether they are sound or not except by bringing
them to the test of history. God has given us intellects to
judge of historical evidence, and He has preserved to us in the
Bible ample materials for deciding the date of the Penta-
teuchal laws and narratives by strict historical methods.
And as He has thus put it in our power to learn what the
actual course of Providence has been, I decline to be led into
an a priori argument as to what it ought to have been.
lect. xni PRIESTLY WRITINGS 423
With all this, it is still true that the priestly writings,
or rather such part of them as once formed an independent
work, make a very strange book, and it is an object of
legitimate inquiry how such a book ever came to be written.
It is doubtful whether we can hope to answer this question
fully from the materials that remain to us ; but there are
some things to be said on the subject which at least go far to
diminish the sense of strangeness that the critical account of
the book awakens in the modern reader. It is possible to give
an intelligible account both of the motives by which the
author was guided and of the models that influenced the form
of his work ; but to understand this, we must go back to the
other and older elements of the Hexateuch.
"We have seen that, for the Book of Genesis, what remains
of the ancient historical traditions of the Hebrews consists of
two parallel streams, which received literary form in the works
of the Jahvist and Elohist respectively.1 The same two sources
still flow, and can be distinguished with some degree of
certainty, in the early chapters of Exodus ; but as we proceed
through the middle books the analysis becomes more difficult,
though from time to time the same thing is told twice
over, with more or less variation in expression and detail.
These " doublets " are sufficiently numerous and characteristic
to satisfy us that we are still dependent, throughout the
pre-Deuteronomic narrative, on the Jahvistic and Elohistic
sources, though the two have been so interwoven by an
editorial hand that in many places it is now impossible to
separate them. Even in Genesis there are some passages
where it seems hopeless to attempt to resolve the complex
narrative JE into its primitive elements ; and the patriarchal
history, from its very nature, and especially because it is
largely made up of traditions associated with the many
1 This statement is at least broadly true ; and for the present purpose it
is not necessary to consider whether some fragments of genuine tradition have
come to us from other sources, e.g. Gen. xiv.
424 JAHVIST, ELOHIST lect. xiii
local sanctuaries of ancient Israel (Hebron, Beersheba,
Shechem, Bethel, etc.), may be presumed to have offered a
more varied series of traditions than the wilderness journeys ;
so that the editor would find less occasion in the latter case to
preserve great part of both the old histories intact. And to
this it must be added that in the middle books the criterion
of origin derived from the Divine Names generally fails us ;
whether it be that the Elohist took no pains to avoid the use
of the name Jehovah, after he had recorded the revelation
made in that name to Moses at the Bush (Exod. iii.) ; or
whether, as some suppose, the original prevalence of Elohim
in his narrative has disappeared at some stage of the sub-
sequent redaction. Be this as it may, there remain sufficient
indications of dual authorship to satisfy us that all through
the Hexateuch the old history consists of a twofold thread,
and that the Deuteronomic writers are not exclusively
dependent either on the Jahvist alone or on the Elohist
alone. Now, it is very clear that the Deuteronomic retro-
spects are not based on mere oral tradition ; their verbal
coincidences with the non-priestly parts of Exodus and
Numbers are unmistakable ; and as these coincidences are
with the non-priestly narrative as a whole, and not with one
element in it, the presumption is that the two old histories
were already fused into a single narrative before the close of
the seventh century B.C., and that this compound story was
the written source that lay before the Deuteronomic authors.1
1 The argument that the Jahvistic and Elohistic books did not lie before
the Deuteronomistic writers in separate form, but that these writers (or at
least, as Kuenen would limit the contention [Onderzoclc, i. § 13, note 27], the
author of Dent, i.-iv. xxix. sq., and the Deuteronomic hand in Joshua) had
before them the compound book JE (consisting of parts of J + parts of E
+ some editorial matter) is commonly made to turn on Deuteronomic
references to passages which the critical analysis assigns to the redactor of
JE. But a simpler and more generally intelligible argument may serve to
make the same thing very probable. For the parenetic purpose of Deuteronomy
there was no need to use two histories, and work their statements into a con-
tinuous whole ; and therefore, if it can be shown that the Deuteronomic
lect. xni AND DEUTERONOMIST 425
On this and other grounds it is generally recognised that
the first step towards the formation of our present compound
Pentateuch was the fusion of the Jahvistic and Elohistic
documents in a single book (JE). The next step was a very
obvious one. We have already seen that the influence of
Deuteronomy on the literary labours of the period of the
Exile is exhibited in a Deuteronomic redaction of all the
historical books (supra, p. 396). The process by which
the whole history of Israel down to the Captivity was
worked into a continuous narrative (for as such we now
read it), interspersed with comments and other additions,
enforcing the lessons of the history in the Deuteronomic
manner, cannot now be followed in detail ; and probably the
work was not all done at once or by one hand. That the
Deuteronomistic redaction extended to the history of JE is
manifest in the case of Joshua, and with this redaction must
have gone the union of JE with the Book of Deuteronomy.
Every one can see for himself that the first chapter of Joshua
as wTe now read it is meant to be continuous with Deuteronomy.
Thus all the non-priestly parts of the Hexateuch were united
into one book, to which Judges, Samuel, and Kings, in the
Deuteronomistic redaction, formed the continuation.
During the first ninety years of the new Jerusalem, from
Cyrus to Ezra, the Law of Moses meant the law as embodied
in this great history, and especially in the Book of Deuter-
onomy, which might fairly be taken as the whole law, since
its fuller and more modern precepts covered the ground of
the smaller codes in Exod. xxi.-xxiii., Exod. xxxiv. When
Malachi says, "Remember the Torah of Moses my servant,
which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes
and judgments " (Mai. iv. 4), it is the Code of Deuteronomy
retrospects of the old history sometimes give a compound story, the inference
that they read it in compound form (i.e. read JE not J and E) is almost
irresistible. This is apparently the case in several places, e.g. in the
account of the events at Sinai.
426 MALACHI AND THE lect. xiii
that he has in view. For his words are made up of the
expressions characteristic of Deuteronomy and the Deuter-
onomistic redactor of Joshua ; and the statement that the
"statutes and judgments," i.e. the contents of the Deuter-
onomic Code (Deut. xii. 1, xxvi. 16), were given to Moses in
Horeb (though they were not published till forty years later),
is in accordance with Deut v. 31.1 Malachi, therefore, had in
his hands the Deuteronomic Code, with the historical intro-
duction ; and apparently he read this book as part of the
Deuteronomistic edition of the whole pre-priestly Hexateuch.
But his Torah of Moses did not yet embrace the Priests'
Code, as appears not only from Mai. iv. 4, but from the other
references he makes to the laws and institutions of Israel.
In particular he still views the covenant of priesthood as
given to Levi generally (Mai. ii. 1-8 ; comp. Deut. xxxiii. 8
sqq.), and assigns to the oral Torah of the priests an importance
hardly consistent with a date subsequent to Ezra's Eeforma-
tion (ii. 6), but suitable to what we know of the early
practice of the second Temple from the prophets Haggai and
Zechariah (Hag. ii. 11 ; Zech. vii. 3).2
1 The phrases "Torah of Moses," "Moses my servant," are proper to the
Deuteronomic redaction of Joshua and the historical books ; the former is found
in Josh. viii. 31, 32, xxiii. 6 ; 2 Kings xiv. 6, xxiii. 25, and never again before
Malachi ; the latter in Num. xii. 7 ; Deut. xxxiv. 5, and then frequently in
the Deuteronomistic parts of Joshua. " Horeb" is Elohistic and Deuterono-
mistic ; in P the mountain of the law is "Sinai." "Statutes and judg-
ments " is a standing Deuteronomic phrase, and occurs but once in the rest
of the Pentateuch, viz. Lev. xxvi. 46 (with "Sinai," not "Horeb").
2 Note further Mai. i. 8 (Deut. xv. 21) ; Mai. i. 14 (where it is assumed
that a votive sacrifice ought to be a male, against Lev. iii. 1, 6, but apparently
in accordance with old Semitic usage ; comp. Religion of the Semites, p. 280) ;
iii. 5 (based on the Decalogue and on Deut. xviii. 10, Deut. xxiv. 17 sqq.,
and following the expressions of these passages, not those of the equivalent
priestly laws, Lev. xix. 31, 33 sqq., xx. 6) ; the blessing on obedience, iv. 10
(which follows the expressions of Deut. xxviii. 12, not of the priestly parallel,
Lev. xxvi.). There are other points of verbal coincidence with the pre-
priestly Torah, e.g. the rare word s'gullah (iii. 17 ; comp. Exod. xix. 5 ; Deut.
vii. 6, xiv. 2, xxvi. 18 ; nowhere else in a similar application save Ps. cxxxv.
4). Objections to this view of Malachi's date are dealt with in the next
footnote but one, and infra, p. 446.
lect. xin LAW OF DEUTERONOMY 427
Malaclii represents his contemporaries as weary of serving
God and ready to fall altogether away from His worship, and
this coldness he rebukes from the standpoint of the pre-
priestly Hexateuch, which was therefore the acknowledged
fountain of sacred instruction. In like manner Nehemiah's
prayer in ISTeh. i. is wholly based on Deuteronomy ; and
when Ezra first came up to Jerusalem (458 B.C.) and began
those efforts at reformation which were not crowned with
success till they were backed, fourteen years later, by the
civil authority of the Tirshatha, it was to the Deuteronomic
law that he appealed.1 The first aim that Ezra set before
himself was the abolition of mixed marriages, and this
measure he recommended on the ground of Deut. vii. 1-3
(Ezra ix. 11 sqq.).2
Thus during the first ninety years after the return, and
the first seventy of the second Temple (which was completed
in 516 B.C.), there was a written sacred law for the general
use of the community, but no authoritative written code for
the direction of priestly ritual. The latter was still left to
the oral tradition and oral Torah of the priests.
For the priests themselves there was doubtless a certain
convenience in this. Oral tradition is more elastic than a
written code ; and the conditions of the second Temple were
1 On the history of Ezra see especially Kuenen in the Versl. en. Meded.
of the Amsterdam Academy (Afd. Letterkunde, 1890, p. 273 sqq.), where it
is shown that the events recorded in Ezra ix. x. must have been followed by
a reaction and a long struggle of parties.
2 See also Neh. xiii. 1-3, where the separation of the Israelites from the
mixed multitude {'ereb, synon. with the 'amme liadrcc of Ezra x. 11) is based
on Deut. xxiii. 3-5. Neb. xiii. 1-3 is a fragment torn from its original con-
text, as appears from the opening words of verse 1, and I strongly suspect
that verses 1, 2 originally belonged to the same context with Ezra ix. x. They
would come in well between Ezra x. 9, 10. In any case the whole movement
for separation from the heathen was based on Deuteronomy, and began
fourteen years before the publication of the priestly edition of the Pentateuch,
so that Malachi's polemic against marriage with "the daughters of a strange
god," in no way weakens the proof that his Torah did not include the Priests'
Code. He may have written after 458, but he certainly wrote before 444.
428 CODIFICATION OF lect. xm
so different from those of the first that a considerable re-
modelling of points of ritual necessarily took place after the
return.1 On the other hand, there were several considerations
that made a codification of the priestly Torah desirable.
There were many ritual rules, particularly those of ceremonial
purity, which could be observed in exile as readily as at
Jerusalem. It is probable that in the first instance such
rules had reference mainly to formal acts of worship, and
defined the conditions of participation in sacrificial meals
and similar holy actions. They were therefore part of the
priestly Torah; and the priests were still their only inter-
preters. But in the actual praxis of the exiles, when sacrifice
was impossible, all ceremonial rules that could be detached
from the altar ritual acquired an independent importance.
And in the scattered state of the nation it was impossible to
maintain unity in this branch of ceremonial tradition with-
out reducing it to writing. It is to be presumed that the
first written collections of priestly Torahs would address
themselves to this need ; and in fact the earlier chapters of
Lev. xvii.-xxvi. are mainly occupied with laws equally
applicable in Canaan and in the Dispersion, which may once
have formed several small independent books, as the titles
and subscriptions of chaps, xviii. and xix. appear to
indicate.
A codification of the Temple ritual was not so immedi-
ately necessary. Yet this, too, must in process of time have
appeared to be desirable alike from a practical and a theo-
retical point of view ; from the former because the written
Torah of Moses, contained in Deuteronomy, did at various
points touch on ritual matters, so that there was a constant
danger of conflict between the oral and the written law ;
from the latter because a systematical exposition of the
whole doctrine of Israel's holiness on the lines first sketched
1 See infra, p. 443 sqq.
lect. xin THE PRIESTLY TORAH 429
by Ezekiel was necessary to complete the theory of Israel's
religion in its post-exile form.
The early draft of a law of holiness which is preserved
in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. has probably not reached ns entire, and to
some extent its original form is obscured by later additions.1
But in it we already see a distinct effort to systematise the
ceremonial law on the principle of Israel's holiness ; and we
can also see that in seeking a literary form proper to this
systematic exposition the writer was largely guided by the
Book of Deuteronomy. The closing exhortation in Lev. xxvi.
is based on Deut. xxviii., and the laws are set forth as laws
of Moses, or even (xxv. 1, xxvi. 46) as laws given to Moses
on Sinai. In considering how the writer felt himself at
liberty to use these forms we must remember, ^rs^, that the
priests had always referred their traditional Torah to Moses
as the father of their guild, and second, that the principle of
an implicit Mosaic law had long before received its expression
in the parabolic form that God gave to Moses at Sinai, laws
that were meant for future use and so not published at the
time (Deut. iv. 14, v. 31 with vi. 1 : the same thing, perhaps,
appeared already in the Elohist's book, Exod. xxiv. 12). The
Hebrews had no abstract philosophical forms of language or of
thought, and when they had to express conceptions involving
" the ideal " or " the implicit " they could only do so in
figurative speech. Every one is familiar with the Jewish
use of " heavenly " in the sense of " ideal," as we find it in
the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the ark, for example, which was
only an idea under the second Temple, was represented as
still existing in heaven (comp. Rev. xi. 19). In matters of law
" Sinaitic " had a similar figurative sense. To express the
whole priestly ordinances of holiness in the terms of this
old figure involved a much more elaborate machinery than
1 See Driver, p. 43 sqq., for the linguistic and other marks of distinction
between earlier and later hands in these chapters, and for traces of the earlier
hand in other parts of the Pentateuch.
430 CONCLUSION lect. xiii
that of the Book of Deuteronomy, and the task was not
carried out all at once. But we note that even the laws of
Lev. xvii. sqq. already make use of the Tabernacle as the
Sinaitic model of the true sanctuary.
The finished Priestly Code takes up the task that had
been left incomplete in the first law of holiness, and carries
it out with a systematic completeness that cannot but compel
our admiration if we place ourselves on the author's standpoint.
His object is not to supersede the older law and the history
that was read with it, but to set over against it a counterpart
and necessary companion -piece. He chooses a canvas as
large as that of the pre-priestly Torah, and throws the ex-
position of the system of Israel's sacred ordinances into the
form of a history from the Creation to the complete settle-
ment in Canaan. This whole history his plan compels him
to idealise or allegorise, and he does so boldly. But we
have no right to say that he meant his idealisation to be
read in a literal sense and to supersede the old law and the
old history. So long as the two expositions, JE + D on the
one hand (the prophetical and Deuteronomic Torah), and P
on the other (the systematised Priestly Torah), stood separate
and side by side, no one who cared for the distinction
between history and Haggada could possibly have been at
a loss as to the true nature of the second book. But it seems
probable that in the age of Ezra no one did care much for
this distinction ; for presently the two books were fused
together in one; a step which had much to recommend it
from an immediate practical point of view, inasmuch as it
reduced the whole law to a single code, but which at the
same time made all true historical study of the origins of
Israel's history and religion impossible without that work
of criticism which only these latter days have begun to realise
as possible and necessary.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Additional Note A (p. 122). — The Text of 1 Sam. xvii.
The view that the Greek text of 1 Sam. xvii. 1-xviii. 5 is to
be preferred to the Hebrew is by no means universally accepted.
Wellhausen, who argued in favour of the Greek text in his Text
der Biicher Samuelis (1871), is now of ojnnion that even the shorter
text of chap. xvii. is inconsistent with chap. xvi. 14-23, and there-
fore deems it probable that the omissions of the Septuagint are due
to an attempt to remove difficulties which has not quite attained its
end. (See his remarks in the 4th ed. of Bleek's Eiyileitung, reprinted
in Comp. des Hexateuchs, etc., 1889, p. 249 sq.). Kuenen, Onder-
zoek (2d ed., 1887), i. 391 sq., accepts this argument, and fortifies it
by the observation that the covenant between David and Jonathan
(xviii. 3) is alluded to in 1 Sam. xx. 8. Budde, Biicher Bichter
und Samuel (Giessen, 1890), takes a like view, and also argues
(quite consistently as it appears to me) that if xvii. 25 is not to be
rejected, the omissions of the LXX. with regard to David and Merab
must also be condemned, although in the latter case the superiority
of the Greek text has approved itself to almost all critics.
The main point with all these critics is that in xvi. 18 David
is already described to Saul as a valiant man and a man of war,
whereas in chap, xvii., in the short text as well as in the long, he is
a mere lad unused to other arms than the shepherd's staff and sling.
This argument is striking, but I cannot accept it as conclusive. If
we take xvi. 14-23 as a whole, and do not confine our attention to
the expressions in verse 1 8 (where, in putting words into the mouth
of one of Saul's servants, the author may have allowed himself
some proleptic freedom of description), we must necessarily con-
clude that David came to Saul's court as a mere stripling. An
armour-bearer was not a full warrior, but a sort of page or apprentice
in arms (comp. Ibn Hisham, p. 119, 1. 1), whose most warlike
432 DAVID AXD note a
function is to kill outright those whom his master has struck down
(1 Sam. xiv. 13; 2 Sam. xviii. 15) — an office which among the
Arabs was often performed by women. Further, the way in which
David's movements are represented as entirely dependent on his
father's consent is hardly consistent with the idea that he was
already a full-grown warrior. On the contrary, he is still a lad
tending sheep (ver. 19), which was not a grown man's occupation.
To delete the words ]$)!2 "itTX is perfectly arbitrary, unless we
are prepared to go much farther and regard the whole passage as
composite. Now it is quite reasonable that a stripling and apprentice
at arms should prefer to meet Goliath with the boyish weapon of
which he knew himself to be a master. This indeed will not
account for the shepherd's bag in xvii. 40, but that, as Wellhausen
has seen, is a mere gloss on t31p72, and no proper part of the text.
That the story of xvii. 12-31 is self-contained, and not only
independent of verses 1-11, but built on different lines, has been
shown in the text of the Lecture. I should here say expressly, what
I have there only hinted, that verses 15, 16 are no proper part
of the narrative but a harmonistic interpolation. And further, the
words of the Philistine have been omitted in verse 23, and a
reference back to verse 8 substituted for them. Let me also direct
attention to the awkwardness of the junctions between verses 11 and
12, verses 31 and 32. As regards the latter, it requires some courage
to translate innp'% " and he sent for him " [ = innpvl n^l, Gen. xx.
2; 1 Sam. xvi. 11]. Apparently the word should be read as a
plural, "and they took him," which requires some addition to make
complete sense (comp. Lucian, ko.1 TrapeXa^ov avrov kgu tlaijyayov
7rpos ~2aovX). In any case we expect the unknown lad to answer
a question of the king's, not to speak first ; so that here we have an
external mark of discontinuity in the narrative. Again, verse 12
begins awkwardly, but is obviously a new beginning, breaking off
from verse 1 1 altogether. It is to be observed that the later Greek
version of ver. 12 sqq., as we have it in the Cod. Al., begins kcu
ewr'ev AavelS. These are the first words of verse 32, and seem to
mark that what follows was originally a gloss on that verse. I
conjecture that the source from which the gloss was taken began
(like 1 Sam. i. 1, ix. 1), "And there was a man, an Ephrathite
of Bethlehem Judah, whose name was Jesse."
If now we accept xii. 12-31 as an independent fragment, break-
ing off abruptly with the words, " and they took him," it is to be
asked how the story went on. The fight itself must have been told
NOTE B
GOLIATH 433
nearly as in the other version, and therefore nothing is preserved of
it but the fragments xvii. 41, 50. But even these show a differ-
ence. For in verse 51 (where the words " and drew it out of the
sheath thereof " are absent from the LXX.) the sword which David
takes to kill the giant outright is his own sword (comp. verse 39),
the weapon proper to armour-bearers, and used by them for de-
spatching the wounded. (See the passages already quoted, and also
Judg. ix. 54 ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 4.) But in verse 50 David has no
sword, and the blow with the sling-stone is itself fatal. Again, I
think it is plain that in the story of verses 12-31, etc., Saul had no
interview with David, though (unless verse 31 has been retouched)
he must have given permission to him to try his fortune. For at
verse 55 Saul sees David for the first time as he goes forth against
the Philistine, and does not even know his name.1 Thus the inde-
pendence of the narrative is fully maintained to the close of chap,
xvii., and this carries xviii. 1-2 with it. As regards xviii. 3-5 the
case is not so clear, both on account of the point raised by Kuenen,
and because verse 3, if it belongs to the same source as verse 1,
ought not to have been separated from it by verse 2.
A word in conclusion on the bearing of this analysis on the
larger questions of criticism in the Book of Samuel. All that I
suppose myself to have proved is that in chap. xvii. we must start
from the text of LXX., and that this text is the continuation of the
present form of xvi. 14-23. That the latter verses are themselves
of composite structure, and contain (especially in ver. 18) traces of
an older narrative, which made David first come to Saul as a full-
grown warrior, is not inconceivable, especially in view of 2 Sam.
xxi. 19. But such a theory must not be based on the longer text
of 1 Sam. xvii., and for my own part I do not see that there are in
xvi. 14 sqq. plain enough marks of dual origin to justify it.
Additional Note B (p. 124). — Hebrew Fragments preserved
IN THE SePTUAGINT
The insertion of the Septuagint in 1 Kings viii. 53 deserves
1 I think also (though here I speak with diffidence) that there is a difference
between verse 7 and verse 41. For if we translate the latter verse in accordance with
the invariable idiomatic use of {J^SHl (as a stronger equivalent of fcOi"11, especially
in resumption, after another person has been named or referred to by a pronoun),
the sense is, " and the man (i.e. the Philistine) bore his shield in front of him (as
he advanced)," so that only his forehead was vulnerable. This, I admit, raises the
question whether verse 7 has not been retouched, after the interpolation, by some
one who misunderstood verse 41. But have we any copy of LXX. so free from
Hexaplar additions as to make this incredible without confirmation from the Greek ?
28
434 BOOK OF JASHAR note b
special notice for its intrinsic interest. In 1 Kings viii. 12, 13, the
Hebrew text reads, " Jehovah hath determined (said) to dwell in
darkness. I have built a house of habitation for thee, a place for
thee to dwell in eternally." These verses are omitted in LXX., but
at verse 53 we find instead a fuller form of the same words of Solo-
mon. In the common editions of the LXX. the words run thus : —
" The sun he made known in heaven : the Lord hath said that he
will dwell in darkness. Build my house, a comely house for thyself
to dwell in newness. Behold, is it not written in the book of song 1 "
The variations from the Hebrew text are partly mistakes. The
word " comely " is a rendering elsewhere used in the LXX. for the
Hebrew word naweh, which in this connection must rather be
rendered " house of habitation," giving the same sense as the
Hebrew of verse 13, with a variation in the expression. Then the
phrase " in newness " at once exhibits itself to the Hebrew scholar
as a mistaken reading of the Hebrew word " eternally." Again,
" build my house " differs in the Hebrew from " I have built " only
by the omission of a single letter. We may correct the LXX.
accordingly, getting exactly the sense of the Massoretic text of verse
12; or conversely, we may correct the Hebrew by the aid of the
Septuagint, in which case one other letter must be changed, so that
the verse runs, " Build my house, an house of habitation for me ; a
place to dwell eternally." We now come to the additions of the
LXX. " The sun he made known in heaven " gives no good sense.
But many MSS. read, " The sun he set in heaven." These two
readings, iyvcopcaev and ea-rrjcrev, have no resemblance in Greek.
But the corresponding Hebrew words are pin and fin respectively,
which are so like that they could easily be mistaken. There can be
no doubt that the latter is right ; and the error in the common
Septuagint text shows that the addition really was found by the
translators in Hebrew, not inserted out of their own head. We can
now restore the whole original, divide it into lines as poetry, and
render —
" Jehovah set the sun in the heavens,
But He hath determined to dwell in darkness.
Build my house, an house of habitation for me,
A place to dwell in eternally."
Or on the other reading — ■
" I have built an house of habitation for thee,
A place to dwell in eternally."
The character of the expression in these lines, taken with the cir-
NOTE C
APHEK 435
cumstance of their transposition to another place in the LXX., would
of itself prove that this is a fragment from an ancient source, not
part of the context of the narrative of the chapter. But the LXX.
expressly says that the words are taken from " The Book of Song."
There might perhaps be an ancient book of that name, as we have
in Arabic the great historical and poetical collection of El Isfahany,
called " The Book of Songs." But the transposition of a single
letter in the Hebrew converts the unknown Book of Song into the
well-known Book of Jashar. This correction seems certain. The
slip of the Septuagint translator was not unnatural ; indeed, the
same change is made by the Syriac in Josh. x. 13.
Another example of an ancient and valuable notice preserved in
the Greek but not in the Hebrew is found in 2 Kings xiii. 22,
where (in Lucian's recension) we read, "And Hazael took the
Philistine out of his hand from the Western Sea unto Aphek."
This note, as Wellhausen has brought out, enables us to assign the
true position of Aphek, on the northern border of the Philistines, and
throws light on the whole history of the invasions of Central Israel
by the Philistines and by the Syrians, for which Aphek habitually
served as base. The Syrians, we see, did not attack Samaria in
front, from the north, but made a lodgment in the northern part
of the Philistine plain, to which there was an easy road by way of
Megiddo, and thus took their enemy on the flank. See Wellhausen,
Composition, p. 254. The text of Lucian's recension of LXX. for
Genesis to Esther has been determined and published by Lagarde
(Gottingen, 1883). For the historical books this recension is very
important.
Additional Note C (p. 197). — Sources of Psalm lxxxvi.
1. Incline, 0 Lord, thine ear, 1. a. Usual invocation ; Isa. xxxvii. 17 ;
answer me : for I am poor and Ps. xvii. 6, etc.
needy. b. Ps. xl. 17. — "lam poor and needy;"
Ps. xxv. 16.
2. Preserve my soul for I am 2. Ps. xxv. 20. — "Preserve my soul and
holy : 0 thou, my God, save thy deliver me : let me not be ashamed, for I
servant that trusteth in thee. take refuge with thee."
3. Be gracious to me, 0 Lord : 3. Current phrases ; e.g. Ps. xxx. 8. —
for unto thee I cry continually. "To thee, 0 Jehovah, I cry ;" verse 10. —
"Hear, 0 Jehovah, and be gracious to me."
4. Make glad the soul of thy 4. a. Ps. xc. 15. — "Make us glad;'
servant: for to thee, 0 Lord, do li. 8. — "Make me hear joy and gladness,''
I lift up my soul. etc.
b. Ps. xxv. 1. — "Unto thee, Jehovah, I
lift up my soul."
436 PSALM LXXXVI note c
5. For thou, Lord, art good 5. Modification of Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7. —
and forgiving : and abundant in "Abundant in mercy . . . forgiving ini-
mercy unto all that call upon quity."
thee.
6. Give ear, 0 Lord, unto my 6. Ps. v. 1, 2. — " Give ear to my words,
prayer : and hearken to the Jehovah . . . hearken to the voice of my
voice of my supplications. cry."
7. In the day of my distress 7. Ps. cxx. 1. — " I called to Jehovah in my
I call on thee : for thou wilt distress, and he answered me ; Ixxvii. 2. —
answer me. " In the day of my distress I sought the Lord."
8. There is none like thee 8. Ex. x v. 11. — " Who is like thee among
among the gods, 0 Lord: and the gods, 0 Jehovah?" Deut. iii. 24. —
there is nought like thy works. " Who is a God that can do like thy works ? "
9. All nations whom thou 9. Ps. xxii. 27. — "All ends of the earth
hast made shall come and wor- shall . . . return unto Jehovah, and before
ship before thee, 0 Lord : and thee shall all families of the nations wor-
shall glorify thy name. ship."
10. For thou art great and 10. Ex. xv. 11. — " Doing wonders. "
doest wonders : thou, 0 God,
alone.
11. Teach me thy way, O 11. a. Ps. xxvii. 11. — "Teach me thy
Jehovah ; let me walk in thy way, 0 Jehovah;" xxv. 5. — "Guide me in
truth: unite my heart to fear thy truth."
thy name. b. Jer. xxxii. 39. — "I will give them one
heart, and one way to fear me continually."
12. I will praise thee, 0 12. Ps. ix. 1. — " I will praise thee, Jeho-
Lord my God, with all my vah, with all my heart," etc.
heart : and I will glorify thy
name for ever.
13. For great is thy mercy 13. a. Ps. lvii. 10. — "For thy mercy is
towards me: and thou hast great unto the heavens. "
delivered my soul from deep b. Ps. lvi. 13. — " For thou hast delivered
Sheol (the place of the dead). my soul from death."
14. 0 God, proud men are 14. Ps. liv. 3. — "For strangers are risen
risen against me, and an as- against me, and tyrants seek my life who
sembly of tyrants seek my life : have not set God before them." [In Hebrew,
and have not set thee before "proud men" ZeDIM and "strangers"
them. ZaRIM, differ by a single letter, and D and
R in the old character are often not to be
distinguished.]
15. But thou, Lord, art a 15. Quotation from Ex. xxxiv. 6, word for
God merciful and gracious, word.
long-suffering, and plenteous
in mercy and truth.
16. Turn unto me and be 16. a. Ps. xxv. 16.— "Turn unto me, and
gracious to me : give thy be gracious to me."
strength unto thy servant, and b. God the strength (protection) of his
save the son of thy handmaid, people, as Ps. xxviii. 8, and often ; Ps.
cxvi. 16. — "I am thy servant, the son of
thy handmaid."
noted MACCABEE PSALMS 437
17. Work with me a token 17. Ps. xl. 3. — "Many shall see it and
(miracle) for good: that they fear;" Ps. vi. 10. — "Let all mine enemies
which hate me may see it and he ashamed and sore vexed," etc. etc.
be ashamed : because thou, 0
Lord, hast holpen me and com-
forted me.
Additional Note D (p. 208). — Maccabee Psalms in Books I. -III.
of the Psalter
In discussing the question of Maccabee Psalms in the first part
of the Psalter most recent critics ignore the difficulties that arise from
the history of the redaction ; so, for example, Cornill, the author of the
latest German Einleitung (Freiburg, 1891), and Prof. Driver, from
whom I had hoped for some help in revising the conclusions set
forth by me five years ago in the Enc. Brit. (art. Psalms). Even
Prof. Cheyne, in his Origin of the Psalter (1891), does not seem to
me to give quite enough weight to the only sound principle for the
historical study of the Psalter, viz. that the discussion of the age of
individual psalms must be preceded by an inquiry into the date of
the several collections. My friend Cheyne, however, recognises that
the Elohistic Psalter was completed, and the designation " sons of
Korah " obsolete, before the Maccabee period, and he accounts for
the presence of a certain number of Maccabee Psalms in Books I.-III.
by supposing that they were inserted in the older collections by the
Maccabean editor. This is not impossible in the abstract, but to
make Pss. xliv. lxxiv. lxxix. Maccabee hymns it is further necessary
to suppose that the editor "threw himself into the spirit of the
original collector " of the Elohistic Psalm - book, " and made his
additions Elohistic to correspond to the earlier psalms" (Cheyne,
p. 100). And we must also suppose that he furnished his additions
with titles which (at least in the case of xliv.) had no longer any
meaning. This is a complicated hypothesis and not to be accepted
without further examination. If the last editor incorporated con-
temporary hymns in the old parts of the Psalter instead of placing
them in the new collection at the end of the book, his motive must
have been liturgical, i.e. he must have designed them to be sung in
sequence with other pieces. That insertions of this kind were
actually made in the older collections is highly probable from the
presence of four anonymous psalms in the Davidic collections, for
here anonymity is in itself a mark of later addition. Moreover,
Pss. xxxiii. lxvi. lxvii. have an obviously liturgical character ; Ps.
xxxiii. is linked to the previous psalm by the way in which its first
438 MACCABEE PSALMS IN noted
verse takes up xxxii. 11, and Pss. lxvi. lxvii. form an admirable
sequence to lxv. if we take the whole group as songs for the pre-
sentation of first fruits at the passover. Ps. xxxiii. may have been
added by the final collector • but in lxvi. lxvii. there is nothing to
imply so late a date or to lead us to doubt that these Elohistic
pieces were set in their place by the Elohistic collector. They do
not therefore diminish the improbability of Maccabee additions in
Elohistic form and furnished with titles of obsolete type. The
Elohistic Psalms which Prof. Cheyne assigns to the Maccabee period
are xliv. lx. lxi. Ixiii. lxxiv. lxxix. lxxxiii. In the case of Ps. lx.,
verses 5-12 (Heb. 7-14) are repeated in Ps. cviii. (retaining their
Elohistic peculiarity) which is hardly conceivable if the former
psalm is of Maccabee date. Pss. lxi. and lxiii. are assigned
to the Hasmonean period because they speak of a human king
(not prophetically) and yet are manifestly post -exilic. But I
think that a careful observation of these psalms leads to the con-
clusion that in both of them the closing reference to the king comes
in somewhat unnaturally, and that the better hypothesis is that lxi.
6-8 (Heb. 7-9), and at least the last verse of lxiii., are liturgical
additions. Thus the strength of the case for Maccabee Psalms in
the Elohistic Psalter lies in xliv. lxxiv. lxxix. and lxxxiii., especially
in the first three. (Psalm lxxx., which is frequently associated with
these, Prof. Cheyne prefers to assign to the Persian period). It
seems to me that the objection to placing these psalms in the reign
of Ochus comes mainly from laying too much weight on what Jose-
phus relates about Bagoses (Ant. xi. 7. 1). That Bagoses forced
his way into the Temple, and that he laid a tax on the daily sacri-
fices, is certainly not enough to justify the language of the Psalms.
But for this whole period Josephus is very ill informed ; he is quite
silent about the revolt and the Hyrcanian captivity, and the whole
Bagoses story looks like a pragmatical invention designed partly to
soften the catastrophe of the Jews and partly to explain it by the
sin of the High Priest. The important fact of the captivity to
Hyrcania stands on quite independent evidence (Euseb. Chron.,
Anno 1658 Abr.), but comes to us without any details. The
captivity implies a revolt, and the long account given by Diodorus
(xvi. 40 sqq.) of Ochus's doings in Phoenicia and Egypt shows how
that ruthless king treated rebels. In Egypt the temples were
pillaged and the sacred books carried away (ibid. c. 51). Why
should we suppose that the Temple at Jerusalem and the synagogues
fared better 1 Such sacrilege was the rule in Persian warfare ; it
noted THE ELOHISTIC PSALTER 439
was practised by Xerxes in Greece and also at Babylon (Herod, i.
183; comp. Noldeke in Enc. Brit, xviii. 572). I have observed in
the text that a rising of the Jews at this period could not fail to take
a theocratic character, and that the war would necessarily appear as
a religious war. Certainly the later Jews looked on the Persians as
persecutors ; the citation from Pseudo-Hecataeus in Jos. c. Ap. i.
22, though worthless as history, is good evidence for this ; and it is
also probable that the wars under Ochus form the historical back-
ground of the Book of Judith, and that the name Holophernes is
taken from that of a general of Ochus (Diod. xxxi. 19) who took a
prominent part in the Egyptian campaign (Gutschmid, Noldeke).
In Psalm lxxxiii. Judah appears as threatened by the neigh-
bouring peoples, who are supported (but apparently not led) by
Asshur (the satrap of Syria 1). This situation is much more easily
understood under the loose rule of the Persians than under the
Greeks, and the association of Tyre with Philistia (which appears
also in lxxxvii. 4) agrees with the notice of Pseudo-Scylax (written
under Artaxerxes Ochus), which makes Ascalon a Tyrian possession.
If this psalm has a definite historical background, which many
interpreters doubt, it must be later than the destruction of Sidon
by Ochus, which restored to Tyre its old pre-eminence in Phoenicia.
That it is not of the Assyrian age is obvious from the mention of
Arab tribes.
Prof. Cheyne thinks that there are also in the Elohistic Psalm-
book a few pieces of the pre-Maccabean Greek period, viz. xlii. and
xliii. xlv. lxviii. lxxii. and perhaps lxxiii. To me the situation as-
signed (after Hitzig) to xlii. and xliii. seems entirely fanciful, and
that xlv. and lxxii. speak of foreign monarchs is very hard to
believe. I am not sure that the ideal picture of Psalm lxxii. re-
cpiiresany historical background : "Entrust thy judgments to a king
and thy righteousness to a king's son " may very well be a prayer
for the re-establishment of the Davidic dynasty under a Messianic
king according to prophecy. Psalm xlv. is a great crux, but I still
think that it is easiest to take it as a poem of the old kingdom. As
regards lxviii., the arguments in favour of a Greek date during the
wars of Syria and Egypt for the possession of Palestine turn entirely
on verse 30 (Heb. 31), the " wild beast of the reeds" (R..V.) being taken
to mean the Egyptians, and the " multitude of bulls " the Syrians.
But the psalm, which combines an historical retrospect of Jehovah's
mighty deeds of old with the hope that He will speedily arise once
more to confound the nations, redeem His people, and raise Israel to
440 THE FIFTY-FIRST note e
the estate of glory predicted by Isa. lx. and similar passages, really
contains no definite historical reference ; though one may guess that
the hopes it expresses on the ground of ancient prophecy had been
kindled into fresh ardour by signs of dissolution in the world-king-
doms. It may date from the catastrophe of the Persian empire ;
and I doubt whether any date later than this, and yet prior to the
Maccabee period, was calculated to revive theocratic hopes and
ideals that had slept through the long period of slavery to Persia.
Psalms lxviii. lxxii. ought, I think, to be considered along with the
Book of Joel and chaps, xxiv.-xxvii. of Isaiah.
Additional Note E (p. 221). — The Fifty-first Psalm
Eecent supporters of the Davidic authorship of Ps. li. take the
two last verses as a later addition (Perowne, Delitzsch). But
every one can see that the omission of these verses makes the Psalm
end abruptly, and a closer examination reveals a connection of
thought between verses 16, 17 (Heb. 18, 19) and verses 18, 19
(Heb. 20, 21). At present, says the Psalmist, God desires no
material sacrifice, but will not despise a contrite heart. How does
the Psalmist know that God takes no pleasure in sacrifice ? Not on
the principle that the sacrifice of the wicked is sin, for the sacrifice
of the contrite whose person God accepts must be acceptable if any
sacrifice is so. But does the Psalmist then mean to say, absolutely
and in general, that sacrifice is a superseded thing % No ; for he
adds that when Jerusalem is rebuilt the sacrifice of Israel (not
merely his own sacrifice) will be pleasing to God. He lives, there-
fore, in a time when the fall of Jerusalem has temporarily suspended
the sacrificial ordinances, but — and this is the great lesson of the
Psalm — has not closed the door of forgiveness to the penitent
heart.
Let us now turn to the main thought of the Psalm, and see
whether it does not suit this situation as well as the supposed
reference to the life of David. The two special points in the Psalm
on which the historical reference may be held to turn are verse 14,
" Deliver me from blood-guiltiness," and verse 11, "Take not thy
Holy Spirit from me." Under the Old Testament the Holy Spirit
is not given to every believer, but to Israel as a nation (Isa. lxiii.
10, 11), residing in chosen organs, especially in the prophets, who
are par excellence " men of the Spirit " (Hos. ix. 7). But the Spirit
of Jehovah was also given to David (1 Sam. xvi. 13 ; 2 Sam. xxiii.
NOTE E
PSALM 441
2). The Psalm then, so far as this phrase goes, may be a Psalm of
Israel collectively, of a prophet, or of David. Again, the phrase
" Deliver me from blood-guiltiness " is to be understood after Psalm
xxxix. 8, " Deliver me from all my transgressions, make me not the
reproach of the foolish." In the Old Testament the experience of
forgiveness is no mere subjective feeling ; it rests on facts. In the
New Testament the assurance of forgiveness lays hold of the work
and victory of Christ, it lies in the actual realisation of victory over
the world in Him. In the Old Testament, in like manner, some
saving act of God is the evidence of forgiveness. The sense of
forgiveness is the joy of God's salvation (ver. 12), and the word
" salvation " (yW) is, I believe, always used of some visible delivery
and enlargement from distress. God's wrath is felt in His chastise-
ment, His forgiveness in the removal of affliction, when His people
cease to be the reproach of the foolish. Hence the expression
"deliver me." But blood-guiltiness (D^l) does not necessarily
mean the guilt of murder. It means mortal sin (Ezek. xviii. 13),
such sin as, if it remains unatoned, withdraws God's favour from
His land and people (Deut. xxi. 8 sq. ; Isa. i. 15). Bloodshed is the
typical offence among those which under the ancient law of the First
Legislation are not to be atoned for by a pecuniary compensation,
but demand the death of the sinner. The situation of the Psalm,
therefore, does not necessarily presuppose such a case as David's.
It is equally applicable to the prophet, labouring under a deep sense
that he has discharged his calling inadequately and may have the
guilt of lost lives on his head (Ezek. xxxiii.), or to collective Israel
in the Captivity, when, according to the prophets, it was the guilt
of blood equally with the guilt of idolatry that removed God's favour
from His land (Jer. vii. 6 ; Hosea iv. 2, vi. 8 ; Isa. iv. 4). Nay,
from the Old Testament point of view, in which the experience of
wrath and forgiveness stands generally in such immediate relation
to Jehovah's actual dealings with the nation, the whole thought of
the Psalm is most simply understood as a prayer for the restoration
and sanctification of Israel in the mouth of a prophet of the Exile.
For the immediate fruit of forgiveness is that the singer will resume
the prophetic function of teaching sinners Jehovah's ways (ver. 13).
This is little appropriate to David, whose natural and right feeling
in connection with his great sin must rather have been that of silent
humiliation than of an instant desire to preach his forgiveness to
other sinners. The whole experience of David with Nathan moves
in another plane. The Psalmist writes out of the midst of present
442 THE DEVELOPMENT OF note f
judgments of God (the Captivity). To David, the pain of death,
remitted on his repentance, lay in the future (2 Sam. xii. 13) as an
anticipated judgment of God, the remission of which would hardly
produce the exultant joy of verse 12. On the other hand, the whole
thought of the Psalm, as Hitzig points out and Delitzsch acknow-
ledges, moves in exact parallel with the spiritual experience of Israel
in the Exile as conceived in connection with the personal experience
of a prophet in Isa. xl.-lxvi. The Psalm is a psalm of the true
Israel of the Exile in the mouth of a prophet, perhaps of the very
prophet who wrote the last chapters of the Book of Isaiah.
Additional Note F (p. 382). — The Development op the
Ritual System between Ezekiel and Ezra
Ezekiel's ideal sketch of institutions for the restored theocracy
was written in 572, the return from exile followed in 538, the re-
building of the Temple was completed in 516, Ezra's covenant and
the first introduction of the present Pentateuch fall in 444 B.c. In
the text of Lecture XII. I have limited myself to the broad and in-
disputable statement that the development of the priestly system
falls between 572 and 444. Is it possible to throw any further
light on the details of the process ? Not much, perhaps, since our
sources for the history of Jerusalem in this period are very meagre,
and our knowledge of the Jews in Babylonia and Susiana, from
whom Ezra and Nehemiah came, is still more defective ; but there
are one or two things to be said on the subject which may be worth
bearing in mind.
(1.) It is plain that Ezekiel's sketch could not have been taken
by the returning exiles as a practical code of ritual. It is an ideal
picture, presupposing a complete restoration of all the tribes and
their resettlement under a native prince in a land prepared for their
reception by physical changes of a miraculous kind. In giving this
imaginative form to his picture of what restored Israel ought to be,
Ezekiel uses the literary freedom appropriate to the prophetic style ;
but for that very reason his sketch could only supply general
principles and suggestive hints on points of detail for the actual
constitution of the community of the second Temple.
(2.) That the Book of Ezekiel was known to the leaders of the
returning exiles, and influenced their conduct, is inferred from the
fact that the distinction between priests and Levites is recognised
in the list of those who came up with Zerubbabel (Neh. vii.). The
note f THE RITUAL SYSTEM 443
foundation of this distinction is indeed older than Ezekiel, for it is
at bottom merely the distinction between the Temple priests and
the priests of the high places. And up to the time of Nehemiah
one family seems to have held an ambiguous position, claiming the
rights of priesthood, but unable to prove it by showing their gene-
alogy (Neh. vii. 63 sqq.). Yet it is difficult to believe that, apart
from Ezekiel, the distinction would have been drawn so sharply at
the first moment of the return ; especially when we consider that
the written law of the age of the Eestoration was the Deuteronomic
Code, and that the theory of that code, in which there is no contrast
between the priesthood and the house of Levi, still dominates in the
prophecy of Malachi, which no one will place earlier than 450-460
B.C. That the incongruity between the Deuteronomic theory and
the actual organisation of the Temple ministry was not felt in
Malachi's time appears to receive a sufficient explanation from the
relatively inconsiderable number of Levites who were not recognised
as priests ; 1 the list of Neh. vii. gives 4289 priests to 74 Levites,
and this disproportion was not corrected by the admission into the
ranks of the Levites of singers, porters, and other subordinate
ministers, till after the Eeformation of Ezra (supra, p. 204).
Another trace of the influence of Ezekiel may perhaps be seen
in the stone platform that served as an altar in the second Temple.
But it is more likely that both Ezekiel and the returning exiles
followed the model of the altar of Ahaz.
A less ambiguous sign of Ezekiel's influence appears in Zech.
iii. 7, where a principal function of the high priest is. to keep God's
courts. Here we have an unmistakable indication that Ezekiel's
conception of holiness, and his jealousy of profane contact with holy
things, had been taken up by the spiritual leaders of the new Jeru-
salem. There is, therefore, a strong presumption that from the first
the arrangements and ritual of the second Temple were more closely
conformed to the principle of concentric circles of holiness than those
of the first Temple had been.
Once more — and this is the most important point of all — it will
hardly be questioned that, from the first days of the return, the
spontaneous service of the people fell into the background behind
the stated representative ritual. This is one of the most character-
istic points of Ezekiel's Torah ; and it was the less likely to be
without practical influence, because all the conditions of the time
1 Compare the older priestly account of the rebellion of Korah, according to
Kuenen's analysis.
444 THE STATED SACRIFICES note f
co-operated in its favour. To prove that the stated public sacrifices
were regularly maintained before Ezra's Reformation, we cannot
appeal with confidence to Ezra iii. 2 sqq., vi. 17 sqq., for these verses
are due to the compiler of Ezra-Nehemiah-Chronicles, with whose
indifference to historical perspective we are now familiar. And it
is certain that before Ezra's covenant the Levitical ritual was not
maintained in all its parts. But it is equally certain that the com-
piler is right in affirming that the altar was built before the Temple
(com p. Hag. ii. 14), and that he must have learned this fact from
good historical sources. Now the altar of the second Temple is
essentially an altar of burnt-offering, i.e. destined for public and
atoning functions, not for the reception of the blood of private
sacrifices. That the stated services of the first ninety years of the
new Jerusalem were much less elaborate and costly than the Priestly
Code prescribes seems to follow from Ezra ix. 5, where we learn
that in 458 B.C. the evening oblation was still only a minha, or
cereal offering. The same thing follows still more clearly from
Neh. x. 32, where we see that a new voluntary tax became neces-
sary when the full Pentateuchal ritual was introduced. Before that
time the stated service appears to have been maintained, with much
grumbling and in an imperfect way, at the expense of the priests
(Mai. i. 6-13) -,1 for it will readily be understood that in an empire
so loosely organised as that of Persia, the royal grants in favour of
the Temple mentioned in the Book of Ezra would receive little
attention from the local authorities, who viewed the Jews with no
favour. That in spite of all this the stated service was in some
measure kept up, proves that great importance was attached to it.
In fact, we see from Malachi that Jehovah's blessing on the land was
held to be conditional on a proper discharge of the representative
priestly service of the house of Levi (Mai. ii. 2, iii. 3, 4) ; so that
1 The whole of this passage refers to the imperfect maintenance by the
priests of the stated service, and especially of the stated burnt-offering. The
recognition of this fact has been impeded by a graphical error in the text of
verse 12, where for i"ID3 1T31 we must read HD31 ; by accident 331 was written
twice over. The sense, therefore, is not that the priests grumbled at the food
they derived from the altar, but that they thought Jehovah's altar a vile thing
for which any oblation was good enough. The phrase v3K is exactly equivalent
to the ritual term nirv D!"l?, and the whole passage shows that Malachi, whose
law-book is Deuteronomy, and who does not know the Priestly Code (comp.
supra, p. 425 sq.), entirely agrees with the importance attached by that code to the
tamid. The emendation here proposed for Mai. i. 12 has already appeared in the
Cambridge Bible for Schools ; having been communicated by me to the Editor of
that Series. I mention this because it appears there (doubtless by inadvertence)
without acknowledgment.
NOTE F
THE HIGH PRIEST 445
in this respect the actual praxis of the second Temple moved on the
lines of Ezekiel, and in the direction of the Priestly Code.
(3.) A movement beyond Ezekiel and in the direction of the
finished Priestly Code can be most clearly observed with regard to
the position of the high priest. The second Temple never had a
high priest corresponding to the full priestly ideal — a high priest
with Urim and Thummim (Neh. vii. 65). But from the time of
Ezra downwards, a certain princely character attached to the office,
and the very insignia of the high priest described in the Code, his
crown and his purple robes, correspond with this. For that these
insignia are not priestly but princely, is practically acknowledged in
the ritual of the Great Day of Atonement. This also is a change
in the line of natural historical development, as appears from the
fact that princely high priests are found all over the East at great
sanctuaries, after the fall of the old nationalities (comp. Enc. Brit.,
9th ed., art. Priest). Under the kings the chief priest had no
monarchical character, even in sacred things, and Ezekiel, who looks
for the restoration of a modified kingship, does not speak of a high
priest. But the restored community had no civil independence, and
it was only in exceptional cases that its civil head was a pious Jew
(Zerubbabel, Nehemiah), in sympathy with the distinctive religious
aims and principles which were the only surviving expression of
Hebrew nationality. Hence the patriots in Israel necessarily came
to look on the priesthood as their natural heads, and the chief priest
as the leader of the community ; and there were obvious reasons of
convenience which would lead the civil authorities to accept him,
for many purposes, as the representative of the people, in much the
same way as the heads of Christian churches in the East are now
accepted by Moslem governments. "We do not see much of this in
the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, for special reasons. At this time
there was a great slackness in religious things, which Malachi
ascribes mainly to want of loyalty to Jehovah on the part of the
priesthood. Before Nehemiah's arrival Ezra's chief opponents in
the matter of mixed marriages were found among the priests, while
his supporters were the lay aristocracy (Ezra ix. x. ; comp. Mai. ii.
12, 13); and Nehemiah came in with a high hand superseding all
local authority. But the practical failure of Ezra's first attempt at
reformation, in 458, was doubtless due to the opposition of the
priests, and is the best evidence of their power; and indeed the
reason why the priests were not hearty in the cause of reformation
was that they, and especially the high priestly family, had formed
446 THE TITHES note f
matrimonial alliances with the heads of foreign communities (Neh.
xiii. 4, 28). That such alliances were made and sought, shows that
by those outside the house of Eliashib the high priest was regarded as
the highest aristocracy of Jerusalem. But indeed the pre-eminence
of the high priest is already clearly marked, in the first generation
after the return, in the Book of Zechariah. I agree with Ewald,
and others after him, that Zechariah vi. 9-15 has been retouched, and
that the crowns (or crown) of verse 11 must in the original text
have been set on the head of Zerubbabel and Joshua (or perhaps of
Zerubbabel alone : so Wellhausen) ; for in verse 1 3 the high priest's
throne is still clearly distinguished from that of the civil prince.
But even so the place of the high priest is much higher than it had
ever been under the first Temple ; and even the unction of the high
priest, which is a notable point in the Priests' Code, is prefigured
in Zech. iv. 14, while the tiara is conferred upon him in Zech. iii. 5.1
(4.) I now come to a matter on which there is more dispute.
One of the most notable points in the Priests' Code is the greatly-
increased provision for the clergy. Does the law in this point also
follow lines of development that had already been marked out in the
praxis of the second Temple 1 I think that it does.
It is self-evident that the provision for the priesthood contained
in the Deuteronomic Code could not (in a small and poor
community) have sufficed for the maintenance of the Temple
ministry and ritual even on the most meagre scale. It was
supplemented, no doubt, by gifts, especially from pious Jews of the
Diaspora ; but the need for an increased stated provision must have
been felt very soon. One departure from the Deuteronomic law
was certainly made — the priests and Levites were allowed to hold
land (Neh. iii. 22, xiii. 10). But this did not provide for the
maintenance of the ministers in actual attendance at the Temple ;
and from Mai. iii. 8, 9, it appears that the food of Jehovah's
household was derived from the tithe and the tfrtima (A. V. tithes
and offerings). It is commonly assumed that Malachi wrote after
444 B.C., and is here referring to the Levitical tithe of the Priestly
Code ; but this view is, I think, inadmissible, when we consider the
unambiguous proofs afforded by all other parts of the book that the
written Torah of Malachi is the pre-priestly Pentateuch, especially
Deuteronomy (supra, p. 426). Even in the verse before us the
1 A. V. "mitre," Hebrew P|\JX. Zechariah had not the Priestly Code before
him, else he would have used the word DDJXD ; but the two words mean the
same thing, viz. the princely tiara.
NOTE F
THE SABBATH 447
expressions used are those of Deuteronomy,1 and the " whole tithe "
is the technical Deuteronomic name for the charity-tithe of the third
year, in which the poor Levites had a part (Deut. xiv. 28, xxvi. 12).
That under the circumstances of the second Temple the sacred
ministers absorbed the whole charity-tithe, and that, instead of
being stored and consumed in the country towns, it was brought up
to the Temple treasury for the use of the ministers on duty, are
changes perfectly natural, or even inevitable, which required no new
written law to justify them.
(5.) There is direct evidence that the elaborate festal ordinances
of the Priests' Code contained things that had never been practised
under the second Temple. And with this it agrees that the oldest
priestly calendar of festal ordinances (contained in Lev. xxiii.) is
simpler than the calendar of Num. xxviii. xxix., which belongs to
the main body of the code, though even this simpler rule contains
things that were not practised before Ezra (verses 40 sqq. compared
with Neh. viii. 17). But the type of the priestly feasts was already
given in practice ; for in Mai. ii. 3 the festal sacrifices (A. V. feasts)
are the sacrifices of the priests, i.e. a representative service, not the
free-will offerings of the pre-exile festivities. And the crowning
stone of the priestly edifice, the Day of Atonement, was indeed an
innovation, but one for which the way had been prepared by the
annual fasts mentioned in Zech. vii. 3, 5.
(6.) The stricter observance of the Sabbath, and of other
ceremonies that could be practised in the Dispersion as easily as at
Jerusalem, seems to have begun in the Diaspora, where these means
of realising Israel's holiness in the midst of the Gentiles would
naturally have a special value for the pious ; cp. Isa. lvi., lviii. 13.
On the other hand, Malachi, writing at Jerusalem, does not touch
on the observance of the Sabbath, though this was one of the points
of discipline which Nehemiah found particular difficulty in enforcing
(Neh. xiii. 15 sqq.). In this matter, as in that of mixed marriages,
the Diaspora took the lead, and Jerusalem followed reluctantly.
And in other matters also it is to be presumed that the Jews who
remained in exile had a substantial part in the development of all
points of ceremonial not directly connected with the Temple, e.g. the
domestic rites of the passover.2
1 Tithe andfrdma are associated as in Deut. xii. 6, 11. In the Priestly Code
t'r&ma always means a due paid to the priests as distinct from the Levites, so that
tithe and t'r&ma would be disparate ideas, not a closely connected pair as in
Deuteronomy and Malachi.
2 The paschal lamb is unknown to Deuteronomy and to Ezekiel. Its ritual
448 AUTHORSHIP OF
NOTE F
(7.) There are some things in the Priests' Code, such as the
ordinance for Levitical cities and the law of Jubilee, which were never
put in practice, and which, at the time when they were written,
must have been regarded as purely ideal. They were necessary to
round off the system of ordinances from a theoretical point of view,
but their presence in the Code has no other practical significance
than to indicate that under the existing political conditions a perfect
theocracy was unattainable. But these features must not prevent
us from recognising the skill with which the priestly writer combines
in systematic form a vast complex of ordinances old and new,
making up a complete theory of individual and national holiness,
and yet keeping so close to existing practice or existing tendencies
that his work served as the permanent basis of all Jewish life since
Ezra.
It may be observed in conclusion that while the code is written
throughout from a priestly standpoint, it cannot possibly be regarded
as the programme of the priestly aristocracy in Jerusalem. It is
true that, among other results of greater importance, Ezra's
Reformation, like that of Josiah before it, did in the long run
give a great increase of importance to the higher priesthood. But
to infer that it was the work of the chief priests of Jerusalem
would be as absurd and unhistorical as to make Abu Sofyan the
author of Islam, because the Meccan aristocracy, and his family in
particular, reaped the material fruits of Mohammed's work. All
the historical indications point to the priestly aristocracy as being
the chief opponents of Ezra ; their opposition, no doubt, was short-
sighted ; but the heads of a hereditary aristocracy are not generally
gifted with the kind of insight which comes of broad sympathies and
a large comprehension of the spiritual and political movements of
their time. The Priests' Code has far too many points of contact
with the actual situation at Jerusalem, and the actual usage
of the second Temple, to lend plausibility to the view that it
was an abstract system evolved in Babylonia, by some one
who was remote from the contemporary movement at Jerusalem ;
but on the other hand its author must have stood (whether by his
presents some very antique features, but cannot in its final form be older than the
Exile. In the Priestly Code this domestic sacrifice is still quite distinct from the
public ritual, as is indicated by the fact that its institution (like that of the
Sabbath, the Noachic ordinances, and circumcision) is placed before the Sinaitic
revelation. It was ultimately incorporated in the rites of the sanctuary by the
traditional rule that the paschal lamb must be killed at the Temple. This was
already the practice in the time of the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxx. 17, xxxv. 6, 11 ;
Ezra vi. 20).
NOTE F
THE PRIESTS' CODE 449
circumstances, or by his strength of mind and firm faith in the
principles on which his work is based) outside the petty local
entanglements that hampered the Judaean priests. So much it is
safe to say ; to go farther and conjecture that Ezra himself was the
author of the Priests' Code is to step into a region of purely
arbitrary guesswork. And such a conjecture is at least not favoured
by the consideration that the Torah of 444 B.C. was not the Priests'
Code by itself but (essentially) our present complex Pentateuch.
It is hardly probable that the same man first wrote the Priestly
Code, then combined it with the pre-priestly : book to form a
Hexateuch, and finally obtained canonical authority, not for his
whole book, but for five-sixths of it. The Canon of 444 must
surely have been the Pentateuch alone ; for how else could the
Book of Joshua have fallen into the lower position of a prophetical
book ? And if this be so the presumption is strong that Ezra, the
man of action, had no personal share in the shaping of the
Pentateuch, unless perhaps it was he who cut off the Book of
Joshua, so as to limit the compass of the Law to matters directly
practical.
29
INDEX OF SOME PASSAGES DISCUSSED
OR ILLUSTRATED
Gen. vi. 5-ix. 17, 330
xxi. 8 sq., 417
xxiii., 417
Exod. xix. -xxxiv., 336 note
xx. 26, 358 note
xxi. -xxiii., 318 sq., 340 sq.
xxxii. -xxxiv., 397 sq.
xxxiv., 335
xxxv. -xl., 124 sq.
Lev. xvii.-xxvi., 396, 428 sq.
Num. x. 29 sq., 321, 409
xi. xii. , 400
xiii. xiv., 400 sq.
xvi., 402 sq.
xx.-xxiv., 405 sq.
xxv. 1-5, 404 note
xxxiii., 404, 406
Deut. i. 22-40, 402
i. -xxx., 393 sq.
x. 6, 405
x. 8, 361 note
xii.-xxvi., 258, 318, 356 sq.
xiv. 3-21, 366 sq.
xxi. 10 sq., 368
xxii. 5, 365
xxii. 30, 369
xxvii. 22, 370 note
Josh, viii., 133
xiv. 6-14, 402
xxi v., 395
Judg. L, 131
v. 25, 132
xviii. 30, 361 note
1 Sam. i. 20 sq., 269
ii. 27-36, 266 note
ix.-xi., 135 sq.
xiii. 7-15, 134
xiv. 18, 81
xvii. 120 sq., 431
xviii., 122
xix. 24, 130
1 Sam. xx. 19, 41, 80 sq.
xxx. 24, 25, 386
2 Sam. iv. 5-7, 82
xvii. 3, 83
1 Kings viii. 53 (LXX.), 124, 433
xi. 29-39, 118
xii. 1 sq., 117
xiv., 119
2 Kings iii. 16 sq., 147
xi. 12, 311 note
xiii. 22 (LXX.), 435
xxii. xxiii., 257 sq.
1 Chron. iii. 19 sq., 140 note
2 Chron. xxxiv. 3, 144 note
Neh. xiii. 1-3, 427 note
Ps. xiii. xliii., 193 note
xliv. lxxiv. lxxix., 207 sq., 438
li., 221, 440
lxi. lxiii., 438
lxxviii., 213 note
lxxxiii., 439
lxxxvi., 197, 435
cxxxiii., 212 note
Isa. xl.-lxvi., 98 sq.
lxv. 8, 209
Jer. xxvii. 1, 97
xxvii. 5-22, 104 sq.
xxxiii. 14-26, 107
1. li., 97
Ezek. xliv. 6-15, 260, 377
Hos. iii. 240 note
ix. 3 sq., 150
Am. v. 25 (emended), 294
Zech. iii. 7, 443
vi. 9-15, 446
Mai. i. 12 (emended), 444
iii. 8, 9, 446
iv. 4, 425 sq.
2 Mac. ii. 13 sq., 170
2 Esdr. xiv. 44 sq., 168
GENERAL INDEX
Aaron, death of, 405 ; sons of, 246,
257, 266 note
Abraham, Priestly story of, 415 sq.
Acrostic psalms, 193
Ahab, 116, 237
Ahaz, 265, 443
Ai, taking of, 133
Akiba, exegetic method of, 63 ; and
the Canon, 184 sq.
Alphabet, Semitic, 70
Al-taschith, 209
Altar, holiness of, 229 ; consecration
of, 376 ; as asylum, 340, 354 ; of
Ahaz, 265, 443 ; brazen, 265, 276 ;
with steps, 358 note ; of the second
Temple, ib., 443 ; altar-worship in
old Israel, 239 ; law of the one
altar, 245, 353
Amora, 50 note
Amos, 283, 288, etc.
Anonymous books, 92 sq. ; psalms, to
whom ascribed, 103
Antilegomena, 166 sq. ; in the Old
Testament, 178-187
Antiochus Epiphanes, 72, 207
Aphek, 273, 435
Apocrypha, 29 sq., 153 sq. ; sup-
pressed by the Kabbins, 167, 184
Acpiila, 30 note, 63 note, 64
Aramaic, 35, 208 ; versions of Scrip-
ture, see Targum
Archetype of the Massoretic text, 57
sq., 69 sq.
Aristeas, 85
Ark iu the wilderness, 321 ; at Shiloh,
268, 270 ; borne by priests, 144 ; in
the Priests' Code, 246, 398 ; in Jere-
miah, 107 ; not mentioned in Deu-
teronomic Code, 357 ; in heaven, 429
Artaxerxes Ochus, 207 sq., 438
Asaph, Asaphites, 204 sq.
Ashera, 241, 354
Astarte (Ashtoreth), 237, 243, 365
Astruc, 327
Asylum, 354
Atonement, 372, 380 sq. ; by blood,
229, 373 ; great Day of, 229, 376,
445
Baal, 68, 285 ; Tyrian, 237 ; prophets
of, 287 ; Baal-Peor, 404 note
Baalim, local, 243
Bagoses, 438
Balaam, 404
Bethel, revelations at, 416 ; sanctuary
at, 242, 264
Bible, order of books in the Hebrew,
149 sq. ; Jerome's version of, 25 ;
Protestant versions, 21 sq.
Blood not to be eaten, 249 sq., 345 ;
offered on altar, 229 ; see Atonement
Book of the Covenant, 333 sq. ; Josiah's,
258
Books, number of the Old Testament,
150 sq. ; sacred, destroyed by
Antiochus, 72, 170
Booty, law of, 3S6
Cadi of the Arabs, 304, 321
Caleb, 402 ; eponym of the Calibbites,
279 note
Canaan, conquest of, 130 sq., 413
Canaanite — trader, 350
Canaanites absorbed among Israel, 280
Canon, ecclesiastical, 25 ; of Scripture,
149 sq, ; history of the Jewish, 163
sq. ; Protestant Canon, 31 ; Triden-
tine Canon, 28 sq. ; Canon and tra-
dition, 173 sq.
Canticles, canonicity of, 185 ; read in
Synagogue, 173 note ; allegorical
interpretation of, 164 note ; sung at
banquets, 186
Cappellus, Ludovicus, 75
Captain of the guard, 262 note
Carites, 262 note
454
GENERAL INDEX
Charm, Ex. xv. 26 used as, 185 note
Chemarim, 259
Cherethites and Pelethites, 262 note
Cheyne, Prof., 189 note, 437 sq.
Chronicles, date of, 140 ; originally-
one book with Ezra-Neh., 182 sq. ;
historical character of, 140 sq.
Copyists, freedom used by, 91, 126 sq.
Covenant; Mosaic, 304, 333, 399 ;
Josiah's, 257 sq., 353 ; Ezra's, 43,
382
Criminal laws, in the First Legislation,
340 ; in Deut, 368
Dan, sanctuary of, 242 ; priesthood
of, 359, 361 note
Daniel, Book of, 180, 183 ; Septuagint
version of, 154
Dathan and Abiram, 402 sq.
David, and Goliath, 120 sq., 431 sq. ;
and Saul, 123 ; as musician, 219 ;
psalms of, 197, 213 sq.
Decadence of Israel, 347 ; causes of,
349
Decalogue, see Ten Commandments
Dedication of the House, see Encaenia
Deluge, story of the, 329 sq.
Deuteronomic Code, 318 ; compared
with Exod. xxi.-xxiii., 319 note ;
the basis of Josiah's reforms, 258 ;
relation of, to Exod. xxi.-xxiii., 319
note ; to Isaiah, 355 sq., 364 sq. ;
not forged by Hilkiah, 363 ; laws of
sanctity in, 365 sq. ; civil laws of, 368
Deuteronomistic redaction of the old
history, 396, 425
Deuteronomy, historical matter in, 391 ;
speeches in, 394 sq. ; fused with JE,
425 ; authority of, after the Exile,
425 sq. ; priestly elements in, 412
Dillmann, 392 note
Divination, 285 sq. ; and prophecy, 288
"Dogs," 365 note
Doxologies in the Psalter, 194 sq.
Driver, Prof., 222 note, 245 note, 389
Ecclesiastes, canonicity of, 185 sq. ; in
the Synagogue, 173 note
Ecclesiasticus, standpoint of the author,
159 sq.; prologue to, 178
Egypt, plagues of, 418
Eli, house of, 266, 268
Elias Levita, 169
Elohim, in the Psalter, 198 ; in the
Pentateuch, 327 sq., 414, 416, 424
Elohist, Elohistic document, 393, 416
sq., 423 sq.
Encamia, feast, 190, 211
Ephod, 241 ; linen, 270, 272
2 Esdras, 151, 157, 168
Esther, canonicity of, 183 sq. ; twofold
Greek recension of, 155 note
Ethical monotheism, 295
Exegesis, Catholic and Protestant, 22
sq. ; of the mediaeval Rabbins, 53
Exodus, laws of, 318 ; priestly ele-
ments in, 397 sq., 418 sq.
Ezekiel, controversy as to his book,
176note ; his Torah, 310, 374 sq., 442
Ezra, the Scribe, 42 sq. ; and the Canon,
171, 449 ; Reformation of, 43, 226,
427, 445 ; legends about, 168, 277 ;
his book, 182 sq.
Fasts, annual, 376
Feast of Tabernacles, 43, 257
Feasts, annual, at Shiloh, 268 sq. ; in
the First Legislation, 342 ; in Deut. ,
371 ; in the Priests' Code, 447
First Legislation, 318, 340 sq. ; iden-
tical with the Book of the Covenant,
336
Flood, the, 329 sq.
Forbidden degrees, 370 note
Forbidden meats, 366
Forgeries of books, 17, 171
Forgiveness, doctrine of, 306 sq. ; ritual
machinery of, 229 sq. ; see Atonement
Galli, 365
Gemara, 50 note '
Genesis, sources of, 323 note, 327 sq.,
413 sq.
Ger, or protected stranger, 342 note
Gibeon, high place of, 276
Gibeonites, 412 sq.
Gittites, 262 note
Golden calves, 240, 242, 244
Great Synagogue, 169
Hagar, story of, 417
Haggada, 44, 180
Hagiographa, 150, 178 sq. ; in the
Synagogue, 173 ; translated into
Greek, 201
Halacha, 44, 51, 77, 180
Hallel, the, 190 sq., 211
Hallelujah psalms, 190, 211
Hands, the Scriptures derile the, 185
Hasmonean dynasty, 48
Hebrew, so-called, in the New Testa-
ment, 35 ; vowel points and accents,
58 sq. ; scholarship of the Rabbins,
37, 53 ; of the Christian Fathers,
23 sq. ; of the Reformers, 32
Hexapla of Origen, 30, 89
Hexateuch (Pentateuch and Joshua),
3S8 sq.
GENERAL INDEX
455
Hezekiah, 256, 352, 357
Higher criticism, 90 sq.
High places, 236, 239, 241, 243, 248,
275, 322 note ; abolished by Josiah,
257 ; in Deut., 354 sq. ; priests of
the, 257, 360
High priest, 445
Hillel, 63, 184 note
Historians, method of Eastern, 113 sq.,
328
Historical books, anonymous, 92 sq. ;
composite character of the, in Old
Testament, 129 sq.
Holiness, in Pentateuch, 228 ; in Deut. ,
365 sq. ; in Ezekiel, 377 ; Isaiah's
doctrine of, 364 ; Law of (Lev. xvii.-
xxvi.), 323 note, 428 sq.
Hyrcania, Jews led captive to, 208,
438
Hyrcanus, John, 52, 159, 211
Iamnia, discussion on the Canon at,
185 ; seat of the Scribes, 186 note
Idolatry, 240 sq., 355
Ink, 71
Isaiah attacks the popular worship,
293 ; and the idols, 355 ; his
doctrine of holiness, 364 ; of the
sanctity of Zion, 356
Isaiah, Book of, 100 sq.
Ishbosheth or Eshbaal, 68
Israel, personified in the Psalter, 189,
220 ; the primary subject of Old
Testament religion, 291, 308 note,
348
Ithamar, 360 note
Jael and Sisera, 132
Jashar, Book of, 124, 435
Jahvist, Jahvistic document, 393, 414
sq., 423
Jehoiada, 259, 262
Jehoash, coronation of, 262, 311 note ;
deals with the Temple revenues, 264
Jehovah (Iahwe), 77, 245 ; popular
worship of, 242 sq., 282 ; not a
Canaanite god, 245 ; dwells in Zion,
356 ; in the mishkan, 246 ; shows
himself in the thunderstorm, 247 ;
Lord of the whole earth, 282 ; pro-
phetic doctrine of his relation to
Israel, 283 sq., 298 ; his word, 290,
298 ; moral precepts of, 304
Jeremiah, interpolations in his book,
97, 104 ; prophecies of, against the
nations, 109
Jeroboam, history of, 117 sq. ; his re-
ligious policy, 244
Jerome, his translation of the Bible,
25, 29 sq. ; his account of the
Apocrypha, 29 ; Hebrew text read
by, 56 ; his enumeration of the Old
Testament books, 151
Josephus and the Canon, 151, 163 sq.
Joshua, Book of, composite character
of, 131, 133 ; Deuteronomistic ele-
ments in, 396 ; Priestly do., 412
Josiah, 144, 147, 256 sq., 353
Jubilees, Book of, 62, 152 note
Judah, foreign elements in, 279
Judges, age of the, 235, 267
Judith, Book of, 439
Kabbala, 161, 173
Kadesh, 404 sq.
Kadhi, see Cadi
Kahin, diviner, same word as Kohen,
priest, 292
Kemarim (Chemarim), 259
Kenizzites, 279 note
Keri and Kethib, 59 sq.
Kimhi, R. David, 32 sq.
Kings, Books of, their structure,
115 sq.
Korah, Korahites, 204 sq., 402 sq.
Kuenen, 226, 245, 323 note, 389, 419,
427
Lamentations ascribed to Jeremiah,
181 ; importance of the book, 219
Law, function of the, 315 sq.
Law, oral, 45 sq., 161, 173 ; con-
suetudinary, 304, 339 ; of Moses,
311 sq.
Law, Prophets and Psalms, 177 sq.
Leaven in sacrifice, 345
Legal fictions, 384 sq.
Leptogenesis, 152 note
Levites, 247 ; before Deuteronomy,
359 ; in Ezekiel, 359 sq. ; in the
second Temple, 443 ; as singers,
204
Levitical law, its system, 228, 245 ;
unknown to Josiah, 256 ; in Solo-
mon's Temple, 259 ; at Shiloh, 265 ;
to Samuel, 272 sq. ; to the prophets,
293
Levitical law - book, 319, 322 ; see
Priests' Code
Levitical Psalm-book, 203 sq.
Lot, sacred, 292
Luther and the Bible, 7 sq.
Maccabee Psalms, 210 sq., 437 sq.
Macceba, 240 sq., 260, 354 sq.
Machpelah, cave of, 418 note
Mahanaim, 248 note
Maine, Sir H., 384, 386
456
GENERAL INDEX
Malaclri, 425 sq., 443 sq. ; date of, 427
note
Marriage with a half-sister, 280, 370
note ; with a father's wife, 369 sq. ;
by capture, 368
Marriages, mixed, 260, 266, 427, 445
Massorets, 58
Mediation, priestly, 229, 247, 251
Megilloth, the five, 150 ; use in the
Synagogue, 173
Melito's Canon, 184
Men in women's garments, 365
Mephibosheth or Meribaal, 68
Meturgeman, 36, 64 note, 154
Micah the prophet, 244, 287 sq., 294,
305
Mean's sanctuary, 241 sq., 292
Midrash, 154
Midrashic sources of Chronicles, 147,
205 note
Mikra, 161
Mishna, 50
Mohammed, 298 note
Morinus, J., 74 sq.
Moses as prophet, 302 ; as priest, 303 ;
as judge, 304 ; founder of the law,
311 sq. ; his writings, 323; in the
Priests' Code, 409
Nature-religions, 285
Nehemiah, 43, 445 ; and the Canon,
170 ; his book reckoned with Ezra,
150 ; relation to Chronicles, 182 sq.
Nethinim, 359
Nicanor, day of, 183
Noachic ordinances, 322
Nob, sanctuary of, 272
Noldeke, 182 note, 390
Ochus, 207 sq., 438
Old Testament, standard text of, 62
sq.
Onkelos, 65 note
Oracles, 285
Oral law, see Law
Origen and his Hexapla, 30, 89
Passover, 447
Paul of Telia, 30 note
Pentateuch, the, contains several dis-
tinct codes, 318 ; not written by
Moses, 323 ; composite structure of,
327 ; steps in the redaction of, 425
sq. ; narrative of, 388 sq. ; use in
the Synagogue, 83, 173 ; held more
sacred than other Scriptures, 161 ;
Samaritan, 61
Pharisees, 47 sq.
Philistine guards in the Temple, 261
Philo of Alexandria, does not quote
Apocrypha, 155 ; nor all Hagio-
grapha, 152 ; his theory of inspira-
tion, 286 note
Pillars, brazen, of Solomon's Temple,
260
Pirki Abdth, 42 note, 165
Poll tax, 51, 375, 444
Precedents, legal, 304, 321
Priests in old Israel, 358 ; at Shiloh,
268 sq. ; at Nob, 272 ; of the high
places, 257, 360 ; in Deuteronomy,
360 ; after the return, 443 ; in the
Priests' Code, 229 ; revenues of the,
383 note
Priests' Code (Levitical Legislation),
319 sq. ; relation to Ezekiel, 381 sq. ;
narrative of, 397 sq., 409 sq. ; in
Genesis, 413 sq. ; in Exodus, 397
sq., 418 ; in Numbers, 397, 400 sq. ;
unknown to the Deuteronomic
writers, 391 sq. ; relation to the
Deuteronomic Torah, 428 sq.
Prophecy, anonymous, 101 ; cessation
of, 158
Prophetic books, arrangement of, 100,
149 sq. ; canonical collection of, 170,
174 sq. ; read in the Synagogue, 36,
173
Prophets, their work, 279 ; mark of
true prophets, 283 ; their consecra-
tion, 289 ; their inspiration, 297 ;
their Torah, 299 sq. ; their writings,
98 sq., 301 ; doctrine of forgiveness,
305 sq. ; not politicians, 348 ; their
ideal, 290 sq. ; Canaanite, 287 ; pro-
fessional, 288 ; prophets and priests,
292
Proverbs, structure of the book, 111
sq. ; canonicity of, 181
Psalmody in old Israel, 209, 218 sq.
Psalms, titles of, 96 sq., 195, 202 sq. ;
musical do., 209 ; text of, 193 ; five
books of, 194 ; Davidic, 197, 214
sq. ; Elohistic, 198 ; Levitical, 203
sq. ; of Persian period, 205 sq., 438 ;
Maccabee, 210 sq. ; in the Temple
service, 190, 191 note, 211 ; anony-
mous, 103
Psalms of Solomon, 48 note, 211
Psalter, the, 188 sq.
Pseudo-Scylax, 439
Puncta extraordinaria, 57, 69
Purim, feast of, 183
Rashi (R. Solomon of Troyes), 33
Redaction, editorial, 103 sq. ; of the
Pentateuch, 425, 430
Reformation, the, and the Bible, 7 sq.
GENERAL INDEX
457
Reformers, scholarship of the, 32 sq.
Refuge, cities of, 324 note, 354
Religion, tribal or national, 237, 281 ;
popular, of Israel, 237 sq. ; pro-
phetic, 282, 291 sq.
Reuchlin, John, 32
Retaliation, law of, 340, 368
Revelation, Jewish theory of, 158 sq. ;
prophetic, 297, 340
Rishis of India compared with the pro-
phets, 297 note
Ritual in old Israel, 242, 268
Ruth, Book of, 182 ; read at Pentecost,
173
Sabbath, 319 note, 322, 447
Sacred dues, 247, 264, 383 note, 447 ;
at Shiloh, 269
Sacrifice, all worship takes the form of,
239 ; Pentateuchal law of, unknown
to Amos, 251, 294 ; to Jeremiah,
ib. ; atoning, 229, 263 note, 373
sq. ; by laymen, 260, 274 sq., 358 ;
and slaughter originally identical,
249 ; the king's sacrifices, 262 note,
375 ; stated sacrifices, 247, 372, 375,
444
Sacrificial feasts, 248, 250
Sadducees, or party of the chief priests,
48 note
Samaritan Pentateuch, 61, 70
Samuel, 270, 272 ; and Saul, 134 sq.
Sanctuary, Levitical theory of the, 229,
246 ; as seat of judgment, 299, 339 ;
plurality of sanctuaries in the old
law, 342; abolished in Deuteronomy,
353 sq.
Sanhedrin (Synedrion), 49
Saul, among the prophets, 130 ; election
of, 135 sq. ; rejection of, 134 ; builds
altars, 250, 272 ; and David, 122
sq. ; religious zeal of, 271
Scribes, 42 sq. ; and Pharisees, 47 ;
work of the, 44 ; as critics, 65 sq. ;
guilds of, 44 ; modified Pentateuchal
laws, 52
Septuagint, the, 72-184 : in the ancient
Church, 23, 25 ; characteristics of,
76 sq. ; importance of, for textual
criticism, 74 sq., 79 sq. ; origin of,
85 sq. ; its reputation in Palestine,
87 ; state of its text, 89 ; value for
higher criticism, 90 sq. ; transposi-
tions in, 109 sq. ; variant narratives
in, 117 sq. ; ancient Hebrew frag-
ments preserved in, 124, 433 sq. ;
Canon of, 153 sq.
Sepulchre, inalienable, 417 note
Shiloh, Temple of, 268 sq.
Sin and trespass money, 263
Sinai, transactions at, 335 sq., 397
sq. ; called Horeb by the Elohist aud
in Deuteronomy, 426 note
Singers, Temple, 204
Sisera, death of, 132
Songs of Degrees, or pilgrim songs,
203, 212
Soothsayers, 286
Spies, narrative of the, 400
Stated service of the Temple, 378 ; see
Sacrifice
Subscriptions, 101 ; in the Psalter,
195 sq.
Synagogue worship, 173, 207, 252,
379
Syncretism, 243, 277, 354
Syriac hymns, melodies of, 209
Tabernacle, 246; of the Priests' Code,
321, 410 ; of the older history, 321,
399
Talmud, 50 note
Tamid, 382
Tanna, 50 note
Tarshish ships, 146
Tehillim, 191
Temple of Solomon, 260 sq. , 322 note ;
the second, 143, 410 ; MSS. pre-
served at the, 65, 66 note
Ten Commandments, 304, 313, 335
Tikkune Sopherim, 66 sq.
Tithes, 362, 383 note, 446
Titles of books, 92 sq. ; of Psalms, 96,
195, 202 sq.
Torah, meaning of, 299, 340 ; pro-
phetic, 300 ; priestly, 299, 303, 372,
382, 426 sq. ; Mosaic, 303, 313 ;
Ezekiel's, 374 sq. ; Jewish estimate
of the, 160
Traditional law, growth of, 46 sq. ;
Rabbinical theory of, 165 ; see Law,
oral
Traditional theory of the Old Testament
history, 231 sq.
Trees, sacred, 241
Trent, Council of, 26 sq.
Typical interpretation of the law, 230
sq.
Tyre, 439
Uncircumcised in the Temple, 260
sq.
Unclean animals, 366
Unclean land, 250
Vedas, inspiration of the,
Vintage feast, 268
Vintage song, 209
297
458
GENERAL INDEX
Vowel points and accents, 37, 58 sq.
Vows, 239
War, law of, 369
Wellhausen, 226 note, 312 note, 323
note, 435, 446
Worship, notion of, in Old Testament,
238; popular, in Israel, 237 sq.,
240 sq. ; in Judah, 244 ; under the
second Temple, 252, 279, 443
sq. ; representative, 251 sq., 254,
382
Zadok, 266, 359
Zadokites, 261 note, 266, 359 sq.
Zechariah, Book of, 102
Zerubbabel, 446
Zfigoth, 165
TKE END
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