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OTJE OLD BIBLE:
MOSES ON THE PLAINS OF MOAB.
A. MOODY STUART, D.D.
V" PRINCETON, N. J. ^
Di'vismt^5 I 2. 2- b
Section ySJ'.i.. s-/ \ ^
OUE OLD BIBLE:
MOSES ON THE PLAINS OE MOAB.
A. MOODY STUAET, D.D.
FOUBTE EDITION.
JOHN MACLAREN & SON, PRINCES STREET.
LONDON : JAMES NISBET & CO.
GLASGOW: DAVID BRYCE & SON.
I 88 I.
EDINBURGH f
PRINTED BY LORIMER AND GILLIES,
31 ST. ANDREW SQl'ARE.
CONTENTS.
I. Israel's Witness to Moses and to God on the Plains of
MOAB, .....
II. The Book found in the Temple : the Form of Deuter-
onomy NOT Dramatic,
III. This Other Side of Jordan, .
IV. Theory op a New Code in the Heart of an Old Book,
V. Israel's Service of Song,
VI, The Judicial Cleansing of the Land,
VII. The One Altar,
VIII. The Law of the Firstlings, .
IX. The Testimony op Joshua,
X The Seal op the. New Testament,
-~>*
MOSES ON THE PLAINS OF MOAB.
" 'mf^HIS only book," said an old writer on Deuteronomy, " was
1^^ that silver brook, out of which the Lord Christ, our
champion, chose all those three smooth stones wherewith
He prostrated the Goliath of hell in that sharp encounter in the
wilderness."
A Biblical critic, by whom the book is denied to Moses, acknow-
ledges that the Deuteronomic lesson, " Man doth not live by bread
only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
the Lord," is a Divine truth, whoever uttered it ; and he holds
it to be of equal value whether found in the Bible or else-
where. But the sharpness of the sword with which our Lord
thrust back the assault of the Tempter, was not found in the
mere rightness of the words, but in the answer that so " it is
written ; " and the teaching of the Scriptures on their own
character is not that there is truth in the Word of God, but that
" His Word is truth." In this relation the most remarkable of
the three answers taken from Deuteronomy by Christ, is that
against the last temptation to gain the dominion of the world
by falling down and worshipping its god ; we should have ex-
pected so blasphemous a proposal to apostasy to be resented and
repulsed as openly contrary to all allegiance to the Supreme,
and requiring no Scriptural authority to refute it; but Christ
so guides Himself by the Word of God, and prizes it so highly,
that even in so clear a case He answers, " It is written."
That a book devoutly used and so greatly honoured by our
Lord Himself, is now held by men of note amongst us not to be
in the words of Moses, in whose name it is given, is the darkest
6 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
cloud that has brooded over the land in our day, and urgently
calls for every light which can be held out to guide the minds of
many who are bewildered in its mist.
The present critical theory that Deuteronomy was written by
an unknown Jewish prophet for the purpose of bringing the
ordinances of Israel down to the times of the later kings of
Judah, is so broadly contrary to the plain character and claims of
the book, that the simplest statement of the case ought to be all
that is needed to disprove and to discredit it.
For example, in historic facts apart from inconsequent and
remote inferences, one great national institution, and only one, was
ordained between the death of Moses and the captivity, the
magnificent service of song, with symbol, psaltery, and harp, in
the worship of the sanctuary ; and to this outstanding ordinance
the Deuteronomic code, from first to last, makes not the slightest
allusion. Whatever, therefore, the object of its author may
have been, most certainly nothing was further from his design
than to bring down the institutions of the nation from Moses to
the time of the later kings.
Again, in the laws of Moses there was one great command,
and only one, which at that period had for ever ceased to
be in force, and obedience to which would then have been trans-
formed into the worst of crimes, the order for the destruction of
the Canaanites. This obsolete order the supposed author of
Deuteronomy revives with a sevenfold severity ; he repeats it in
various sections and in four different chapters of his book, and
allots to it a larger space than to all the Ten Commandments.
Such legislation is the exact contrary to a development of the
laws of Moses so as to adjust them to later times.
Still further, one of the most attractive portions of the more
strictly legislative part of the book is the concluding chapter of
the central section, in which forms of thanksgiving are provided
for Israel in presenting at the sanctuary annual first-fruits, and
triennial tithes of the land promised to their fathers, and now
enjoyed as their inheritance. These prayers are replete with
tenderness and beauty, possessing a special fitness in times of
blessing such as those of Joshua and Solomon, while suitable, as
prepared by Moses, for all ordinary conditions of the nation ;
because, except for their own sins, such times would have been
abiding. Israel in presenting his offerings before the Lord
recalls his national history from the hour when the father of
Moses on the Plains of Moab. 7
the twelve tribes was still Jacob, just escaped from the land of
Syria, and ready to perish, with his wives and children, by the
hand of Esau ; and traces it through the bondage and the blessing
in Egypt onward to the time of the worshipper, when Israel is
in possession of all the land, given by oath to his fathers, and
has found the fulfilment equal to the promise of "a land flow-
ing with milk and honey : "
" I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country
■which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us. ... A Syrian ready to
perish was my fother, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with
a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous : and the
-Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage :
and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice
. . . and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even
a land that floweth with milk and honey. ... I have hearkened unto the voice of
the Lord my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded
me. Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy 2^eople
Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou svnrest unto oxtr fathers)
a land that floweth with milk and honey" (chap. xxvi. 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 15).
These prayers are expressly given to be used in Israel ; but
at the period when the new theory holds them to have been
written for their use, no words can be conceived more utterly incon-
gruous to the past history or the present condition of the nation.
So far was Israel from now possessing the whole land of pro-
mise that ten out of the twelve tribes had been disinherited for
their transgressions, partly carried away captive by the King of
Assyria, and partly left as " an escaped remnant " under a foreign
yoke. At such a period no prophet could for the first time have
composed this form of prayer for popular use in Israel ; it would
have been false in the lips of Judah, and only a national insult to
the remnant of Ephraim, whom King Josiah, like Hezekiah before
him, was earnestly endeavouring to bring back to the sanctuary
of their fathers. Before the discovery of the Book, he had gathered
freewill offerings for repairing the Temple from " Manasseh and
Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel " (2 Chron. xxxiv. 9).
Afterwards, in coming up to Jerusalem, to worship in the sanctu-
ary which their gifts had aided to renew, they must have been
confounded when there was read in their hearing a new code of
ordinances, just sanctioned by the king, in which a prominent
place was given to public thanksgiving for Israel's present posses-
sion of the whole land of their inheritance. Nothing could have
■8 Moses on Ike Plains of Moab.
been better fitted to awaken the old jealousy of Ephraim against
Judah, and to drive them back to their homes in indignation at
having these hypocritical prayers thrust into their lips ; as if by
lauding their constancy and their prosperity to taunt them with
their national declension and degradation. No sanction to
prayers, so proud and so meaningless for such a time, could ever
have been given by Josiah, whose most seasonable words, after
hearing the book of the law, were these, " Go, inquire of the Lord
for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah."
Should it be arbitrarily alleged that these prayers may have
been old words of Moses, which had been left untouched, still, if the
design of the new author was to adapt his code to present needs, and
" bring it down to date; " and if, in working out this design, he took
the liberty of omitting or retaining, supplementing or altering, the
words of Moses according to his own judgment, he could most
easily have either adapted the prayers to the altered state of
the nation, or avoided a direct contradiction to that state.
Clearly, there was nothing further from the mind of the author
of Deuteronomy than such an adaptation ; and these forms of
devotion designed for national use in Israel admit of only one
explanation, resting on the old and unshaken ground that both
the prayers and the book in which they are embodied are the
utterances of Moses.
These leading examples make it evident that those who had
charge of the Book that was found in the Temple, both before
and after its discovery, had scrupulously refrained from adding
to, or taking from, the laws of Moses ; and from altering them
either by the inserted sanction of Divine ordinances that were
subsequent to their original enactment, or by the mitigation of
severities that were for ever past, or by the remoulding of devo-
tional forms for national use that could no longer express the
national mind. At once, by what it omits and what it ordains,
the book of Deuteronomy, if of recent date, is the reverse of such
an adaptation as the critics have supposed. How men of high
intellect and of the amplest learning can have persuaded them-
selves that this unmanageable theory explains the design of
the book, is harder to account for than any difficulties in the
book itself; for it wants even the doubtful merit of a clever
guess, but is an obvious and a complete mistake. After others
have embraced their views to their irreparable loss, and after the
faith of many in the Word of God has been shaken with little
Moses on the Plains of Moab. 9
hope of recovery, they may find themselves constrained to give
np their present opinions as untenable ; for their own reason in
the end will surely crave a likelier theory, with some aspect of
reasonableness. Meanwhile, we must be content to defend the
truth of the Scriptures with patience and in love ; and in the
spirit of a Scriptural contention with esteemed brethren, we
pursue our examination of this book of Deuteronomy as recording
the words of Moses.
lo Moses on the Plains of Moab.
CHAPTER I.
ISRAELS WITNESS TO MOSES AND TO GOD ON THE
PLAINS OF MOAB.
'hRHE Book of Deuteronomy was given to Israel, not only under
Ij)^ the form of an historical record, but in the highest and most
sacred form in which such a record can be written. In the
Scriptures, both Old and New, God has chosen a people, or has
elected men, to whom He has said, " Ye are my witnesses;" and
has used them to testify with the lips, or to record with the pen,
what they have seen and heard. In the history of Israel, from
the Red Sea to the Jordan, it has been His good pleasure that
our faith in His wondrous works should not rest on the word of
Moses alone, but on the testimony of the whole nation by whom
they were witnessed ; of the chiefs of the tribes, of the elders, of
the priests, and of all the people of Israel. For the sake of this
attestation, and on the ground of it entering anew into solemn
covenant with their God, they were summoned together by their
leader on the plains of Moab ; who went over in their hearing, not
all the details, but the great 1-eading facts of the history through
which they had passed, and called them to witness before the
Lord in their great national assembly the truth of these events.
This he did in various terms throughout his address, both in its
earlier and in its later parts (chap. iv. 11, 12, 83-36 ; chap. xxix.
2-8) ; and also very fully in what is usually regarded as its
legislative portion (chap. v. 23 ; chap, vi, 21, 22 ; chap. xi. 2-7).
On the ground of what they had themselves seen and heard, he
takes them bound by their own express consent to have the Lord
for their God, and declares that the Lord owns and claims them
for His people : " Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be
thy God ; and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His
peculiar people" (chap. xxvi. 17, 18).
Israel's Witness to Moses and God on Plains ofMoab. 1 1
The great lawgiver, while afterwards intimating that this
covenant" is to descend to future ages (chap. x«x. 1*. 15).f«=fi-^
with the most careful precision the one generation of I rael with
whom it is BOW made, expressly excluding other generations, and
Umiting the partakers in the covenant to those who had witnessed
the great works of the Lord :
" Ye came near, and stood under the mountain ; and the mountain burned wkh
fire . . and the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire (chap iv 112)
T^Ie Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the ^nidst of the fire
?et p rl) And know'ye this day, for I speak noi .ith yourchMren wh.ch have
not known and which have not seen the chastisement of the Lord your God .
andh"mkacles,andhis acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, . and wh^t
Ldidunt«^^^^^^^^
.hat he d^d^to^athan -^^b.am , ^^ ^^,, .H the great acts of the Lord
"I It ^ dTchL 'xi *2^) Id Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto
Them Y /fat tt'ill th!t the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt
Ye iirrsl. all of you before the Lord your God ; your captains of
the Lord thy God, and mto his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh w.tu
thee this day" (chap. xxix. 2, 10-12).
Next to the hearing of the law at the foot of Mount Sinai, this
covenant on the plains of Moab is the greatest national transaction
in the whole history of Israel ; it is a covenant of the Lord with
the witnesses of His glory on the mount, of His miracles in Egypt
and of His wondrous works in the desert; a covenant with a
divinely disciplined people, blessed and chastened mto loyalty to
their God, to whom He could say-" Thou shalt remember all
the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in
the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee : . and He ted
thee with manna, . . . that He might make thee know that man doth
not live by bread alone: , . . thy raiment waxed not old upon thee
neither did thy foot swell, these forty years (chap. vui. 2, 3, 4).
It is the chief witness-bearing given to us of these grand events
Once and again Moses calls on them as witnesses of all they had
seen and heard ; he rehearses to them the laws (now said o have
been enacted seven hundred years after they were dead .which he
takes them bound to obey ; on the combined grounds of the wo U
of the Lord they had already witnessed, and these statu es they
now consented to observe, he declares that they avoiiched the Lord
to be their God (chap. xxvi. 16, 17); he records their testimony
12 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
and their covenant in the Book of the Law of the Lord, and in
their presence delivers the book to the priests to be laid up in
the side of the ark (chap. xxxi. 9, 26). This is the most important
historical record by eye-witnesses in the Old Testament ; and if
it is not believed as historically true, nothing else in the Bible can
be received as true history, except on the authority of heathen
historians. The Bible has given to this transaction the highest
and most solemn attestation, Divine and human, of which history
is capable ; and if so fully attested a record is not historically true,
no plea can be made good for the truth of the rest. The historical
truth of the entire events recorded in Exodus and the other books
must in that case be given up ; for the highest attestation given
in the Bible to their truth is abandoned, when the Scriptural
account of that attestation is held to be fictitious. The most
likely reason that could be assigned for the elaborate production
of such a fictitious testimony, would be the writer's knowledge
that the history of Israel was not authentic, and his desire to con-
firm it by the highest apparent authority ; and any author who
could invent the story of the divinely and nationally attested
record, would have still less scruple in inventing the historical
events themselves.
We are met, however, by the following answer from one of our
most distinguished professors : —
" There is not one historical fact of any importance in tlie history of redemp-
tion which the most advanced position of recent critics interferes with. The ,
Egyptian bondage, the Exodus, the Sinaitic covenant, and the occupation of
Canaan all remain ; nobody doubts them. . . . Deuteronomy is, on any hypo-
thesis, a repetition. It tells a second time the story told before elsewhere. What
is lost, if it be not of the age of Moses, is not the truth of the storj^, but the con-
temporaneousness of the witness. — And in regard to what is most peculiar and
important, the view taken by Israel of the religious meaning of the events of its
history, the supernatural light in which it regarded them, this view is not
dependent on contemporaneousness or the reverse." *
But if Deuteronomy be not of the age of Moses, what we lose
is not the mere contemporaneousness of the witness, but the truth
of the entire story, because the narrative professes to have been
spoken in the presence of myriads of witnesses contemporaneous with
the events ; and if there was no truth in their witnessing, we have
no ground for trusting the truth of the events. If all that was done
and spoken and written on the eastern bank of the Jordan is now
* Old Testament Exegesis in 1878. By Professor Davidson, Edinburgh, D.D.,
LL.D., p. 23.
Isracrs Witness to Moses and Gocl on Plains of Moab. 13
discovered to be a mere dramatic representation, composed after
many centuries, of events partly real, like the covenant at Sinai, and
partly fictitious, like the covenant on the plains of Moab; and if
the trusted eye-witnesses were only actors in a drama, the entire
history of Moses and of Israel is for ever discredited, because it has
no better evidence on which to rest. The statement that the chief
facts in the history of redemption are accepted by all the critics
does not meet the case, because most of the critics who deny
the Mosaic origin of Deuteronomy deny even more positively
the miraculous events to which Moses cites Israel as witnesses.
It is not the mere history of an exodus and a covenant at Sinai,
and a journey through the wilderness to the Jordan, that Moses
calls on Israel to testify ; but the grand miraculous events, the
mighty acts of the Lord in that history which most of these critics
utterly deny; and it is a most inadequate account of those mir-
aculous works to say that " Israel regarded them in a supernatural
light," when many of them, like the earth swallowing up Dathan
and Abiram, not only had " a religious meaning," but had no
existence except as supernatural events occurring before their eyes.
It may be added that the character of the testimony is not
altered by the fact that in the wilderness " all the people that
were men of war which came out of Egypt were consumed."
Along with the two leading witnesses, Joshua and Caleb, thousands
of grown men under twenty years, with youths of every age grow-
ing early into maturity in Egypt, had passed through the Red
Sea, had heard the Law at Mount Sinai, and now stood before
Moses by the Jordan ; whilst all of every age, from the now aged
matrons who had brought their children out of Egypt to " the
little ones " gathered in the great assembly, had seen more or
less of the wonders of the Lord in the desert.
The book of Deuteronomy records Israel's national witnessing to
the greatest events in the Old Testament history of redemption ;
and on the historical truth of this record the truth of the whole
Scriptural history evidently rests, for there is no other series of
events in Scripture that is attested by so great a cloud of Avit-
nesses, and the truth of the attestation is sealed by as many
witnesses as the truth of the events.
14 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
CHAPTER II.
THE BOOK FOUND IN THE TEMPLE: THE FORM
OF DEUTERONOMY NOT DRAMATIC.
CCORDING to the inspired record, the book that was found
-^ JiL. in the Temple in the reign of Josiah was either the whole
Pentateuch, as seems probable, or one part of the law of
JVIoses — " Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord
given by Moses," or, as in the margin, " by the hand of Moses "
(2 Chron. xxxiv. 14). Dr. Kennicott, in his Dissertations,
takes this to mean " in the hand of Moses," and maintains that
it was the lawgiver's original autograph. But, however this may
be, the testimony in Chronicles is quite express that the book that
was found was the law of Moses. In the book of Kings it is called
simply " The book of the law " (2 Kings xxii. 8) ; but that the
inspired writer means " the book of the law of Moses," he has not
left open to doubt, for elsewhere he expressly quotes Deuteronomy
as written by Moses : " But the children of the murderers he slew
not, according unto that which is written in the hook of the law
of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers
shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for
the fathers ; but every man shall be put to death for his own sin "
(2 Kings xiv. 6; Deut. xxiv. 16). One of the sacred historians
thus expressly states that the book that was found was the law
of Moses, which ought of itself to be sufficient for all who duly
reverence the Word of God, and the other quotes at length a
statute from Deuteronomy as written in the law of Moses : so
that both agree in holding the book found in the Temple to have
been the law given by Moses.
Beyond the entirely accordant narratives of the two inspired
authors, we know nothing of a book having been found in the
Temple at all ; and there can be no doubt that if the incident had
The Book foundin the Temple. 15
seemed to be against their views, the rationalists after their
wonted manner would have discredited the entire story as not
probable and therefore not historical, but added traditionally by
later writers. They employ it, however, as the one great support
of their theory ; yet most irrationally they believe and magnify the
narrative, so far as they can interpret it in their own favour ; but
otherwise they absolutely reject it, because it simply destroys their
whole theory. The Bible states that a book of the law, or the
book of the law, by the hand of Moses, was found in the Temple,
which they deny because Deuteronomy would then be the law
of Moses. But they affirm, on the sole authority of the Bible,
that a book was found in the Temple ; that is, they believe this
fact without any ground for their belief except the very authority
which they disbelieve. If they had some authority outside the
Bible for what they receive and for what they reject, they might
have a plea of reason, although none of faith ; but there is no
reason in believing the Scripture when it writes that a book was
found, and in disbelieving it when it writes that it was the law of
Moses that was found. So irrational in this, as in many instances,
is rationalistic criticism.
Of the theory that finds a new code of laws in the book found
in the Temple, the only plausible form is the original one of the
rationalists ascribing it to a pious fraud. That the old book of
the law should have been found in the recesses of the Temple
was natural enough. But that a new code of laws should have
been discovered there is a story that can bear telling only on the
supposition that it was concealed so as to be found through them
by whom it had been hidden on purpose that it might be
taken for an old book of Moses, as it evidently was by the
king and all the nation, who regarded it with the highest possible
reverence. But such a fraud would exclude it from a place in
the Holy Scriptures ; and is rejected by those amongst ourselves
who deny the Mosaic origin of the book in favour of another
theory, which must be regarded as both more unlikely in history,
and worse in morals.
To remove the insuperable difficulty of fraud, it has been held
that the recent origin of the book was openly stated, and publicly
recognised ; but that a Mosaic authority was claimed for its
repetition of the history of Israel, and its supplementary code of
laws. In that case the national assembly, to whom the book
was read, concurred in an unparalleled deception on all ages to
1 6 Moses 071 the Plains of Moab.
come, by sanctioning its insertion in the holiest records of the
nation under the revered name of Moses, That assembly, con-
vened by the king, consisted of " all the elders of Judah and
Jerusalem, . . . the priests and the prophets, and all the people,
both small and great ; " and they " made a covenant before the
Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and
his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their
soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in
this book " (2 Kings xxiii. 3). The book and the covenant to which
they stood before the Lord bore this title, " These be the words
which Moses spake unto all Israel, on this side Jordan, in the
land of Moab ;" as such Josiah and his people accepted it for
themselves, as such they transmitted it to their children, and as
such it has been received by their descendants to this day. But
by the new theory the whole nation, engaging in these solemn
transactions before the Lord, handed down to all generations of
mankind a book of their own days as the work of their great law-
giver and prophet seven hundred years before. The trembling
king and his humbled people listened to the astounding effrontery
of the assertion, that the words read in their ears were spoken to
the generation who had passed through the Red Sea and the
wilderness, and neither to their fathers before, nor to their
children after (chap. v. 3 ; xi. 2) ; and knowing that they were
themselves the first assembly that had ever heard them, they
consented that such a book should be laid up in the oracles of
God as addressed to Israel of old by Moses himself! The fraud
of a single false prophet deceiving the people would have been
a far lighter crime ; for his would have been the sin of one man,
and theirs the sin of the whole nation. Such are the impossible
suppositions involved in these ill-considered speculations.
Tlie Form of Deuteronomy not Dramatic. — Before the rise of
recent modern criticism, one of the objections against Moses, as
the author of Deuteronomy, was taken from the immaterial
circumstance that he speaks of himself as Moses, whence the
inference was drawn that the book was written of him and not by
him — '' non a Mose, sed de Mose." Afterwards, at the close of
last century, in his " Age of Reason," Thomas Paine, who believed
indeed in God as his Creator and Judge, but had a fierce hatred
to the Bible (except the Book of Job and the nineteenth Psalm,
which he highly extols), in seeking to disprove the authenticity of
Deuteronomy, as of the other books, took up at some length this
The Form of DetUeronomy 7iot Dramatic. 17
objection to Moses writing of himself iu the third person. He
supposes the book to have been written three or four hundred
years after the death of Moses, and represents the author as
composing it after the manner of a drama, and introducing
Moses once and again as a speaker. With the natural vigour of
his intellect, not strained by critical studies, he held it as certain,
that if he could disprove its antiquity and Mosaic authority, all its
claim to inspiration would be gone. But it was answered that
for a writer to speak of himself in the third person was a
form employed by the best ancient authors. That it was used
by Moses himself is clear from his summary of Israel's journey-
ings near the end of the preceding book of Numbers. In the
beginning of the thirty-third chapter we read : " These are the
journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the
land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of Moses and
Aaron. And Moses wrote their goings out according to their
journeys by the commandment of the Lord : and these are their
journeys according to their goings out" (v. 1, 2). Then follow the
exact words of Moses, which he wrote by the command of God
(v. 3). But he does not write as we might have expected, " And
we departed from Rameses in the first month," but "And they
departed," and so throughout the chapter ; speaking of the progress
of the nation as " their goings," and not as " ours," although
all the while he was himself their leader. But to modern ears,
as well to ancient, if we mistake not, the form which the Hebrew
lawgiver has adopted in his introduction to the noble record of
the nation's history and teaching and laws is preferable to any
other. " These are the words which I spake unto all Israel on
this side Jordan in the wilderness " would even to us have been
neither so good nor so natural a title for his great work as the
one which he has himself. preferred : " These are the words which
Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness."
The other instances follow naturally in the same form.
i8 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
CHAPTER III.
THIS OTHER SIDE OF JORDAN.
fHAT tlie Hebrew lawgiver in the record of his address
should introduce it as having been spoken by Moses,
cannot well be numbered even amongst apparent diffi-
culties; but with this objection another was raised which is at
first sight startling, if Deuteronomy is read without reference to
the preceding books. It was objected that the expression in our
English Bible, " on this side Jordan " in the first verse, ought to
have been " on the other side of Jordan; " but the objection was
sufficiently answered two centuries ago on the incontrovertible
ground that the expression is used for the same side as that
of the speaker as well as for the opposite.
Amongst ourselves, however, it has now acquired an unexpected
importance ; for it has lately been repeated in a very decided
form by a critic whose eminence in Hebrew and thorough know-
ledge of the subjects he handles and habitual caution entitle his
statement to the most deferential and careful consideration : —
" The very first verse of Deuteronomy reads properly thus : ' These are
the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on the otlitr side of Jordan.' Here
Moses, on the supposition that he wrote this verse, names the land of Moab,
where he stood, the other side of Jordan. . . . The very phrase ' the other side
of Jordan ' is one which, in his day, had not arisen. It is due to the occupation
of Canaan by Israel as a fact. ... It is more probable that this verse belongs
to a later writer." — (Professor Davidson's Old Test. Exegesis, p. 17.)
The use by Moses of the phrase " the other side of Jordan "
is here held to be improbable ; it is positively stated to have
arisen only after the occupation of Canaan ; and we take for
granted that the substance of the phrase is meant, and not any
slight variation, as in English we might say either " on the other
side," or " at the other side." It must certainly be allowed that
not " this side," but " the other side of Jordan " is the literal
This Other Side of Jordan. 19
translation; but the supposition that Moses was not likely to
have employed the expression is without foundation, and the
statement that it arose only after the occupation of Canaan by
Israel is against all evidence. In the time of Moses it appears
to have been the recognised designation of the country ; and no
other term is known by which he could have described it except
the still more definite one, " the other side of Jordan toward the
sun-rising," which might hastily be taken to indicate even more
strongly the position of a writer on the western side of the river.
Let us look first at the meaning of the expression as in use by
Israel, and then as used by Moses himself.
1. Tlie "meaning of the term as in use by Israel before the
passage of the Jordan. — As regards its date the origin of the
expression remains unknown, but the most natural conclusion is,
that it took its rise when the patriarchs dwelt in the land of
Canaan. The entire home of their sojourn, the land through
which they were to walk, " in the length of it and in the breadth
of it," was the land of Canaan ; and to them as well as to Israel,
after their settlement under Joshua, the land of Bashan and
Gilead was on the other side of Jordan. It was after he had
crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan that God said to
Abraham, " Unto thy seed will I give this land ; " and in all his
wide wanderings within and without the promised inheritance,
and despite of the attractiveness of the pastures in Bashan and
Gilead, he never recrossed the Jordan with his herds and flocks.
Isaac all his lifetime never pitched his tent east of the Jordan,
and by his father's command he did not cross it even to fetch his
bride to her new home. Jacob speaks as if he had counted
himself an exile from the central land of promise all the while
that he lived on the other side of the Jordan ; for on reaching
its eastern bank on his return, he says, " With my staff I passed
over this Jordan," or came to its further side. His son Joseph
passed his youth in Canaan, and the space of an ordinary life
would bridge over the period between his death and the birth of
Moses. To Moses himself the eastern land must always have
been " the other side of Jordan," from the land of special promise ;
for he appears to have had no intention of occupying it, but cour-
teously asked Sihon for liberty to pass through his country across
the Jordan into the land of Canaan.
In the patriarchal times, however, there is no record of the use
of the term, for " the threshing-floor of Atad, which is on the
20 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
other side of Jordan" (Gen. 1. 10, 11), is a description by Moses
and not by Joseph, and the site of Atad has been disputed.
After the exodus, when Moses writes in the 22nd chapter of
Numbers (v. 1), "The children of Israel set forward and pitched
in the plains of Moab on the other side of Jordan by Jericho,"
our translators render it "on this side Jordan by Jericho ; " and
their reason for taking this liberty evidently was that to us the
other side means the side opposite to the speaker or writer, while
Moses was himself on the same side of Jordan which he calls
the other side. The difficulty might have been rather better
solved by retaining " other," by marking " this " as an insertion
of their own, and by translating " The children of Israel pitched
in the plains of Moab on this other side of Jordan by Jericho."
The necessity for such a modification of the original phrase is
very evident in the thirty-second chapter of the same book, where,
according to the correction contended for, the 1 9th verse ought to
have not " on this side," but " on the other side." By such a
translation we should preserve the Hebrew idiom at the cost of
divesting the passage of any intelligible meaning to all but one
out of a hundred readers. In the clear language of our English
Bible, the tribes of Gad and Eeuben say to Moses on the plains of
Moab, " We will not inherit with them on yonder side Jordan, or
forward ; because our inheritance is fallen to us on this side Jor-
dan eastward." But in a closely literal translation of their own
words these tribes say : " We will not inherit with them on the
other side of Jordan, or forward ; because our inheritance is fallen
to us on the other side of Jordan eastward." Here the first
" other side of Jordan " is so called for the evident reason that the
west bank of the river was opposite to the camp of Israel ; bat the
second " other side " is the bank on which they are encamped, and
their reason for giving it such a designation must certainly have
been that it was the common name of the district of country.
This inconvenient employment of the appellation in the very
sentence in which they had applied the same term to the opposite
side of the river shows that it could not well be dispensed with
by the substitution of any other name ; and that it had been so
well established and was in such familiar use among the people as to
overcome the otherwise serious unseasonableness of the repetition.
In the 32nd verse of the same chapter, "the other side," in-
stead of " this side " would convey a clear enough sense ; but
unhappily that sense would not convey the truth but its direct
This Other Side of yo7'daii. 2 1
contrary, for the English expression would denote the land of
Canaan on the west side of the river opposite to Israel : " We will
pass over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, that the
possession of our inheritance on the other side of Jordan may be
ours." If what the readers of our Bible want is not Hebrew but
English, and if one of the designs of a translation is to convey
the meaning of the original, and not its mere idiom, the critical
emendation would in this instance amount to a serious mistrans-
lation of the text, the meaning of which is at once distinct and
true in our English Bible : " We will pass over armed before the
Lord into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inherit-
ance on this side Jordan may be ours ; " or "on this other
side of Jordan " might be still better.
In addressing these same tribes after the death of Moses, before
Israel had crossed the Jordan, Joshua, while recalling the words
of Moses, twice over in his own words uses the term " other side "
to denote its eastern bank : —
" Eemember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord comruanded you,
saying, the Lord hath given you rest, and hath given you this land. Your wives,
your little ones, and your cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you
071 this side Jordan; . . . then shall ye return unto the land of your possession,
. . . which Moses the Lord's servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the
sun-rising " (Josh. i. 13-15).
If critics prefer to retain the Hebrew idiom, and to translate
" the land which Moses gave you on the other side of Jordan,"
they must of necessity add a marginal explanation that the reader
is to understand " this other side," or to bear in mind that it does
not mean the other side from that on which Joshua was standing,
but the same side, which in ordinary English is " this side."
2, The ifneaning of the term as used by Hoses. — Limiting
our inquiry, as in these preceding passages, to words spoken in
the first person, and therefore not open to any suggestion of being
later explanations, we read in the thirty-fourth chapter of Num-
bers (ver. 13-15) —
" And Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, This is the land which
ye shall inherit by lot, which the Lord commanded to give unto the nine tribes,
and to the half tribe : for the tribe of the children of Reuben, . . . and the tribe
of the children of Gad : ... the two tribes and the half tribe have received their in-
heritance on the other side Jordan near Jericho eastward, toward the sun-rising."
If these words are read apart from any preceding context, like the
introduction to Deuteronomy, they will be accepted without
2 2 Moses 071 the Plains of Moab.
hesitation as intimating that Moses is in the land of Canaan,
which he is giving to the nine tribes and a-half, and that he
speaks of the eastern bank of the Jordan as " the other side "
from that on which he stands, but nothing is further from
his meaning ; and to prevent so great a misconception our
authorised translation is, " They have received their inheritance
on this side," as in the introduction to Deuteronomy, and for the
same reason.
In the 35th chapter, again, we read (ver. 9, 14) —
" The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and
say unto them, When ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan ... ye
shall give three cities on the other side of Jordan, and three cities ye shall give in
the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge."
In these words the second injunction seems to be a mere re-
petition of the first, because the land of Canaan was on " the
other side of Jordan " from the camp of Israel ; and our trans-
lators, at the expense of the Hebrew idiom, have given the true
meaning, " three cities on this side Jordan, and three in the
land of Canaan."
Once more, in the Srd chapter of Deuteronomy (ver. 8), Moses
" We took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites the
land that was on the other side of Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto Mount
Hermon."
The introduction to the book informs us that in speaking these
words Moses stood in the land of Moab, and here he definitely de-
scribes the neighbouring kingdoms of Sihon and of Og as " on the
other side of Jordan " when speaking of them as on the same side
of Jordan with Israel and himself. Evidently this was the natural,
the recognised, and apparently the only general term by which
Moses could describe that Eastern land ; and our translators, if
they would not mislead their readers, held themselves obliged to
sacrifice the Hebrew idiom for the sake of the true meaning, and
to say " the land that was on this side Jordan, from the river of
Arnon unto Mount Hermon."
Therefore, when finally, in the opening of Deuteronomy, Moses
was describing the place where he then stood, there is no doubt
that he would call it " the other side of Jordan," as the name of
that land by use and wont, as the name by which he was him-
self in the habit of calling it, and as the name by which it was
This Other Side of yordan. 23
known in Israel whom he was about to address. So far, indeed,
is the expression from being confined to the period of Israel's
history after the passage of the Jordan, recorded in Joshua, that if
we include Deuteronomy and take into account the disparity in size
of the two portions of the Old Testament, its use is rather more
frequent before than after it. Its occurrence in the beginning of
Deuteronomy is entirely accordant with Moses having written
the introduction, as well as the rest of the book ; and the expres-
sion, which cannot be taken as an evidence either way, is not
against the Mosaic authorship, but rather in its favour.
In the end of the 4th chapter there are four additional in-
stances w^hich we have not included, because being in the third
person they will not be allowed by most of those who deny the
introduction to Moses. But to those who accept the book as
written by him they will serve to confirm his writing of the
introduction ; and they are ail translated " on this side Jordan."
" Then INIoses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sun-rising ;
these are the testimonies which Moses spake on this side Jordan; they possessed
his land and the land of Og on this side Jordan toward the sun-rising ; and aU
the plain on this side Jordan eastward" (Deut. iv. 41, 46, 47, 49).
On the subsequent use of the term we only remark that
Israel, after they had crossed the river, still occasionally called
Canaan "the other side," because opposite to the land they had
lately left (Josh. v. 1 ; ix. 1 ; xii. 1) ; or even because opposite
to the land to which they were chiefly referring at the time (Josh,
xxii. 7 ; 1 Chron. xxvi. 30, 32). But alike before and after their
occupation of Canaan " The Other Side of Jordan " was the pro-
per idiomatic designation of the eastern side of the river. In the
words of another, " such phrases get to be current idioms of lan-
guage, wherever geographically they are used : as modern writers
speak of Cisalpine Gaul, or of Ultramontane tenets, whether the
speaker be in Home, Geneva, or London."
The argument may be put very briefly in another form. The
plea against the first verse of Deuteronomy being the utterance
of Moses is, that its terms, " These be the words which Moses
spake on the other side of Jordan," indicate an author in the
land of Canaan speaking of the eastern bank of the river as its
" other side." But in the 8th verse of the 3rd chapter, Moses
himself uses the very same phrase in the sense of " this other
side " for the eastern bank on which he stands : " We took at
that time the land that was on the other side of Jordan . . .
24 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
tJds land which we possessed at that time" (ver. 12). Now,
on the one hand, if Moses really speaks in the 8th verse of the
8rd chapter, there is no reason to hold that he does not also
speak in the 1st verse of the 1st chapter, because the language
is exactly the same. But if, on the other hand, the whole is the
work of a later author, the fact of his putting " the other side of
Jordan " into the lips of Moses in the 3rd chapter in the sense of
" this other side," is a sufficient ground for inferring that it is
used in the same sense in the opening of the book ; and most
assuredly the expression, as coming from the pen of this alleged
Avriter, can never be proved to mean "that other side of Jordan."
This inquiry into a subject that has become unexpectedly im-
portant establishes these results : That in the time of Moses " The
Other Side of Jordan " bore very much the character of a proper
name for a general designation of the land on the east of the river ;
that this designation was used by speakers on the eastern side of
the river quite as freely and as correctly as on its western side ;
that no other general term is known by which Moses could have
designated that land, and that this one he used repeatedly ; that
in an introduction to an address on the plains of Moab, it is the
very term he was certain to employ for describing the position of
Israel and his own ; that the plea against the introduction to
Deuteronomy having been written by Moses on the ground of its
being an expression he could not have used is without foundation ;
and that in these introductory verses, the only reasonable, and in
the highest degree probable interpretation of the term would be
thus expressed : " These be the words which Moses spake unto all
Israel on (this) other side of Jordan, in the wilderness ; on (this)
other side of Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare
this law."-^^
* Professor Smith's view, which agrees with Dr. Davidson's, has long been before
the public, and is repeated in the Answer to the Amended Libel (p. 6): "The very
first verse of Deuteronomy says, ' These be the words which Moses spake unto all
Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness ; ' and this is not a solitary proof that the
book, as we possess it, was written down after the people had entered into possession
of Canaan."
Theory of a New Code in the Heart of an Old Book. 25
CHAPTER IV.
THEORY OF A NEW CODE IN THE HEART OF AN
OLD BOOK.
'W^HE consideration of Professor Smith's last explanatory state-
\^ ment was not in the design of this brief treatise, of which
a great part had been written previously. The restricted
theory he now maintains is not that recentness of Deuteronomy
which Professor Davidson seems to defend without adopting ; but
some notice of it is necessary, else the true matter of discussion
might seem to be avoided, whilst the publication of his state-
ment in a separate form indicates his own desire to have the
subject reasoned out by all interested in it.
Professor Smith states :
" My remarks apply to the legal part of the book as it once existed apart from
the history, and this separate publication is the book which I speak of as ' a
prophetic legislative programme,' and identify with the written law-book that
guided Josiah in his reformations " (p. 9). " Josiah, as every one admits, had
that law in his hand, and thereafter we find it well known to Jeremiah. Does
not this seem to show that the new law was revealed sometime between Isaiah
and Jeremiah, in order to give practical efi"ect to the teaching of the former
prophet and his helpers ? " (p. 13).
He offers two forms of this legislative portion of Deuteronomy,
a larger and a lesser, and • sometimes expresses no preference for
either :
" The original book may have begun with the superscription, iv. 44, or only
with xii. 1. It may have ended with the peroration, xxvi. 16-19, or with the
subscription, xxix. 1 " (p. 9). " I believe that the laws of Deut. xii. -xxvi. were
originally published either alone [the italics are ours] or with the introductory
address in chaps, v.-xi. as a preface, and, perhaps, some part of xxvii., xxviii.
as a conclusion " (p. 29).
But when a preference is indicated, it is rather for that section of
the book to which he seems to lean, in the words we have marked
in the following sentence : —
26 Moses on the Plai7zs of Moab.
" It is generally held by critics, and it is my own opinion, that the statement
of the law in the heart of the book (that is, chaps, v. to xxvi., or ratlur^'pe.rhafSy
only chaps, xii.-xxvi.) was once published in a separate form as a practical
manual for popular use, and existed in that form for some time before it was
incorporated in that great body of mingled history and law which we call the
Pentateuch " (p. 8).
The limitation of the theory to these fifteen chapters is also the
form which his friends accept as presenting its most favourable
aspect ; while the wider supposition denies to Moses so very large
a portion of the book, and, as regards the main line of argument
and most of its details, is so nearly equivalent to the denial of the
whole, as not to call for a separate consideration, which would
involve a large repetition of the same arguments. This wider
theory is not at all given up, and is expressly retained in case it
should be preferred in the end ; but as, by making the recent
code to consist of chapters iv. 44 to xxix. 1, it takes from Moses
nearly three-fourths of what, on the face of it, pertains to him
(twenty-four chapters out of thirty-three), the authorship of the
rest becomes a very small matter to all who hold the integrity
of the Word of God. Whether the remaining fourth part is
assigned to Moses or to another can never be a subject of
importance, or even of interest, to the Church.
Confining our attention, therefore, for the present, to the
theory in its restriction to chapters xii. to xxvi., it is difficult to
see how it has been supposed that even this narrowest limi-
tation simplifies or improves the case ; and the interpolation
of a book of fictitious historical legislation in the heart of
a book of genuine history would be, in one view, even a greater
corruption of the record, and more injurious to its Divine
authority, than an entire book of fiction under the guise of
authentic history.
The verse preceding the interpolation is "Ye shall observe
to do all the statutes and judgments which I (Moses) set before
you this day" (chap. xi. 32) ; the opening words of the code are,
" These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do
in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee " (chap,
xii. 1), and it proceeds, " For ye are not as yet come to the rest
and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you " (ver. 9).
In closing the code, Moses recurs to the concluding words of the
previous section, and says, " This day the Lord thy God
hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments"
(chap. xxvi. 16); and the words immediately following the
Theory of a Nezv Code in the Heart of an Old Book. 27
code are, " And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded
the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I com-
mand you this day " (chap, xxvii. 1), The code is thus
expressly engrafted into the narrative as given by Moses before
crossing the Jordan,
But the interpolated code itself embodies in substance all the
evils complained of in the fictitious book. It contains the worst
instance of personation in the whole book, and a quite incredible
utterance from the lips of an honest man, in the prediction by
Moses of " a Prophet like unto me " (chap, xviii. 15); it omits the
only great enactment in Israel between Moses and Josiah, the
ordinance of praise ; it enforces the obsolete ban of extermina-
tion against the original inhabitants of the land (chap. xx. 16); it
prescribes a new form of thanksgiving by the " people Israel " for
the gift and inheritance of the whole land, after ten of their
twelve tribes had been disinherited (chap. xxvi. 15); and it finally
embodies, as formally as any other section of the book, what
to many minds is the crowning scandal of the fictitious transaction
of a solemn national covenant between Israel and God, and
between God and Israel, on the express footing of this code,
which was issued seven hundred years after the death of the
covenanting elders and people :
" TMs day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and
judgments. . . . Thou bast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, . . . and
to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments : . . , and the
Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people " (chap. xxvi. 16,
17, 18).
The limitation is thus of no value whatever in removing the
objections to the theory, which in this restricted form is quite as
fatal to the integrity and authority of the Holy Scriptures as if
the whole book were held to be fictitious.
But further, if the central code " alone " is accepted as one of
the probable or possible forms of this theory, the story of the
separate book is impossible, whether it be taken as the very book
found by Hilkiah, or as already absorbed in Deuteronomy before
its discovery. The only reasonable supposition is that the book
at its first discovery existed in its original separate form; but it
would be an obvious and extreme mistake to identify the central
code with the book that was read by Josiah, for he trembled for
" all the curses written " in it against his place and people, and
in the fifteen chapters of the code there is not one specific curse
28 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
or judgment either on the land or on the nation. While this
supposition is plainly impossible, the only other supposition, that
the separate book had been absorbed in Deuteronomy before its
discovery, would soar quite out of the region of history and
criticism, creating the story of the birth, life, and death of a
distinct book before there is any trace of its existence. Apart,
however, from this difficulty, the conjecture that the code of
chapters xii.-xxvi. either did exist, or may have once existed
as a separate book, is incompatible with the history of the age,
and contrary to all true criticism. The theory maintains that the
code was first issued in its complete form between the death of
Isaiah and the prophecies of Jeremiah. But if in this code we
select a special statute, it is unaccountable that the previous law
by Moses in Leviticus should have pronounced the judgment of
stoning, under the severest Divine anger, against the man who
made his children pass through the fire to Molech (Lev. xx. 1-5) ;
and that a law, issued at a time when this sin was defiling and
rapidly destroying the land, should pronounce no judgment at
all against the prevalent crime, but merely give the com-
mand, " There shall not be found among you any one that
maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire "
(Deut. xviii. 10).
But more generally, the code itself is not a mere body of laws
for the regulation of personal life ; but it enjoins the great national
feasts, ordains the appointment of judges in the cities and the
selection of cities of refuge, commands the utter destruction of a
city apostatising to idolatry and the extinction of Amalek, gives
direction concerning the election of a king, and issues other ordin-
ances that concern the whole nation, such as the proclamation to
be issued on the eve of battle. Further, the code does not con-
sist of mere dry enactments ; its concluding chapter, as already
noted, consists mainly of forms of thanksgiving for the full
possession of the land ; and the whole is intermingled with
blessings, both personal and national. These are some of the
blessings : —
" Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well
with thee, and Avith thy children after thee for ever (chap. xii. 28). Save when
there shall be no poor among you ; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. ... For the Lord thy God blesseth
thee, as he promised thee : and thon shalt lend unto many nations, but thou
shalt not borrow ; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not
Theoiy of a New Code hi the Heart of an Old Book. 29
reign over thee. . . . Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him (thy poor
brother) : . , . because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in
all thy works, and in all that thou pattest thine hand unto (chap. xv. 4, 6, 8, 10).
Because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the
works of thine hands ; therefore thou shalt surely rejoice (chap. xvi. 15). The
Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised
thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments ; and to make thee
high above all nations which he Lath made, in praise, and in name, and in
honour" (chap. xxvi. 18, 19).
By the side of these national and personal promises and bless-
ings, we have the singular and most striking fact that there
is not found a single national curse or judgment or specific
threatening from first to last in all these fifteen chapters. The
only instance in which the thought of the Divine anger against
the nation is introduced is not in the way of threatening, but of
showing how the indignation may be turned aside by a righteous
people, and end in a blessing, not by repentance, but by faithful-
ness. In the case of murder, with the guilt untraced, the elders
of the city were to wash their hands over a slain heifer, and
attest their innocence, and " the blood was to be forgiven them."
So with an apostate city, the guilt of idolatry would have involved
the whole nation in the anger of the Lord against the city ; but
after the faithful execution of judgment upon it, we read — " There*-
shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand : that the
Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee
mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as
he hath sworn unto thy fathers" (chap, xiii, 17); the Lord
multiplying the faithful nation, so as more than to compensate
the loss of the apostate city. Of national warnings there is
nothing stronger than the words, " Take heed to thyself that
thou be not snared by following them " (the idolatrous nations)
(chap. xii. 30). Of personal penalties for transgression there are
many ; but all of them are to be inflicted at the hand of
Israel, as in the case of the idolatrous prophet or friend or
city (chap, xiii.) ; and in " eye for eye, foot for foot, and
hand for hand." The personal threatenings from God directly
are that He will require it of the man who will not hearken
to the great Prophet, and of him who fails to pay his
vow ; and that it will be sin to the man who hardens his
heart against his poor brother (chap, xviii. 19; xxiii. 21;
XV. 9 ; xxiv. 15).
30 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
This portion of Deuteronomy thus contains the very greatest
national blessings on Israel immediately from the hand of God ;
some of them, and in one sense all of them, promises on the con-
dition of obedience ; but some of them also so including the implied
gift of obedience as to take the form of a promise that could not
fail ; and its closing chapter teaches Israel how to give thanks
for their full possession of the " land flowing with milk and
honey" (chap, xxvi.) At the same time, it contains no national
curse or judgment or specific threatening for national disobedience ;
but is all addressed as if to a faithful nation that will execute the
judgments of the Lord against the man or the city that is in
transgression. If the nation itself should depart from the
Lord, no judgment whatever is uttered against it, while in
promised blessings it is exalted above all the nations of the
earth.
The "Word of God in our hands makes it clear that, in accord-
ance with the Divine dealings with the nation, a legislative book
of so exclusive a character could never have been given to Israel.
In the days of Joshua, of David, and of Solomon these promises
were in a great measure fulfilled and these blessings bestowed,
and never since ; but the book of the law that contained
them abounded also in Divine threatenings and judgments
and curses, both personal and national, against disobedience ; and
it is a groundless conception that the portion of Deuteronomy from
the 12th to the 26th chapters could have been published by
itself to Israel under Divine sanction at any period of the
national history.
But the time of that history in which this book is conjectured
to have been issued is of all others the period, from the exodus to
the destruction of Jerusalem, in which the gift of such a book of
blessing would have been utterly unseasonable and deceptive;
because it is the period when the iniquity of the nation had
become full, when the ten tribes had already been delivered by
the Divine indignation into the hand of their enemies, and when
the doom of Jerusalem was nearly, if not already sealed. Before
the time of its conjectured publication, Isaiah and Micah had
uttered judgments of desolation on Jerusalem for her sins ; after
it Jeremiah repeated the same denunciations ; and during it the
sins of the nation had reached such a crisis that neither Man-
asseh's own repentance nor Josiah's reformation could avert its
doom. That such a book, promising the largest national blessings
Theory of a New Code in the Heart of an Old Book. 3 1
without one judgment against a nation sunk in corruption, should
have been issued under Divine authority at such a period is
incredible and impossible. The historical conjecture, that the
central code of Deuteronomy may have been issued by itself as a
separate book " soDie time between Isaiah and Jere7niah " is an
extreme anachronism.
32 Moses oil the Plains of Moab.
CHAPTER V.
ISRAEL'S SERVICE OE SONG.
tHE Divine institution of the Service of Song by David under
his own name furnishes a clear proof that the highest
authority in Israel could not invest a new ordinance with
a Mosaic sanction ; and the absence in Deuteronomy of all refer-
ence to this service proves that it was not the design of
the book to bring down the institutions of Israel to the
time of the later prophets, whilst in a code of such a date
under Mosaic sanction the omission would have abolished the
existing ordinance.
1. The constant ascription of the great institution of vocal and
instrumental praise in the Temple, not to Moses, but to David,
proves that there was no power in Israel, priestly, prophetical, or
regal, invested with authority to add new laws in the name of
Moses. The words of the covenant which Joshua wrote in the
book of the law of God were not added in the name of Moses
(Joshua xxiv. 26) ; nor " the manner of the kingdom, which
Samuel wrote in a book, and laid up before the Lord " (1 Sam.
X. 25). It is no answer to say that the code read to Josiah
might have Divine authority to that effect, when the Scripture
states that this code was the law of Moses ; and the question is,
what authority in Israel could make it part of that law, if it was
not so in reality ? The unknown prophetic author, Hilkiah the
priest, and Josiah the king are all conceived to have combined
to invest it with an authority not only of Divine sanction, but
equal to that of Israel's great and only lawgiver. After Moses,
there is no lawgiver and no added code of laws; and, with the
single exception of David, there is no authority ever recognised
in Israel as entitled to establish any sacred institution, while the
lesser authority of David is most carefully distinguished from the
higher authority of Moses, which stands always alone. Beyond all
IsraeTs Service of Song. 33
question, if the Divine sanction had been given to a new code of
laws, it would have been stated that the book was by the hand
of its prophetic author, or of Hilkiah, or of Josiah, or of them all,
just as it is said that the service of song was by David along with
the prophet Nathan, and Gad the king's seer. Yet there is not
the slightest notice of such authority having been given to any of
thera, or to any other king or prophet, except to David and his
prophetic counsellors. The supposition is therefore contrary to all
Scriptural history. No mere prophet made laws for Israel, and no
mere ruler, and no mere prophet and mere ruler acting together.
Moses, the one lawgiver, was both prophet and ruler ; and David,
M'ho added sacred ordinances, was both prophet and ruler ; inferior
to Moses, for those ordinances had the added sanction of Gad and
Nathan, yet like him in having his institutions honoured as " by
the commandment of David, the man of God," as the law was
" the law of Moses, the man of God."
The institution of praise was a magnificent one, for which
David set apart four thousand Levites ; it was before the nation
morning and evening in the daily sacrifices of the Temple, and it
occupied a prominent place in the great national feasts. It was
in full harmony with Mosaic principles, for the Levitical praise
with cymbal, psaltery, and harp was a development of the music of
the two silver trumpets sounded by the priests over the sacrifices ;
and Israel had also raised their loud song of praise at the Red
Sea, although the further development in the service of song in the
sanctuary was entirely new. For its own sake the whole Davidic
ordinance of praise deserved the highest national sanction that
could be conferred it ; on and for its author's sake it had a far
higher claim to that sanction than any subsequent institution.
Now, in the prefatory and historical portion of his noble
book Moses had expressly said, " Ye shall not add to the word
which I (Moses) command you " (chap. iv. 2) ; not denying that
God might sanction other ordinances, but commanding that
nothing was ever to be added to the laws of Moses, which were
to stand always in their own lofty isolation. The supposed
author of the central code, whom Ave may denounce without malice
since he possesses only an imaginary existence, has in the teeth
of this imperative command the unequalled audacity to repeat
the injunction in the very act of disobeying it ; and to write, "What
thing soever I (Moses) command you, observe to do it ; thou shalt
not add thereto " (chap. xii. 32), thus turning the Holy Word of
c
34 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
God into foolishness. But it was by Moses himself that the com-
mand was solemnly doubled, because his God would have none
ever to speak in his name.
Accordingly, in the Holy Scriptures there is a watchful jealousy
to separate the great ordinance of Praise in the most marked way
from the institutions of Moses. In connection with the tabernacle
or the temple, we have the record of the worship of praise under
seven rulers of Israel, and in all of them without exception the
ordinance is expressly ascribed to David ; guarding it against its
being nameless, and so unauthorised, but equally guarding it from
ever being attributed to Moses. Not only so, but in each of these
instances the name of Moses is in some part of the narrative
expressly introduced as the author of his own laws; the things
that belong to each being carefully assigned to each. Under
Jehoiada we have the following striking example of this jealous
care : " Jehoiada appointed the offices of the house of the Lord
by the hand of the Levites, whom David had distributed in
the house of the Lord, to offer the burnt-offerings of the Lord,
as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with
singing, as it was ordained by David" (2 Chron. xxiii. 18).
In this relation the whole record is so instructive, that we are
induced to give in order all the rulers under whom the offering
of praise is recorded in connection with the sanctuary.
DAVID.
Moses. David.
"And tlie children of the Levites bare "And David spake to the chief of
the ark of God upon their shoulders the Levites to appoint their brethren
with the staves thereon, as Moses to be the singers with instruments of
commanded according to the word of musick, psalteries and harps and cym-
the Lord" (1 Chron. xv. 15). bals, sounding, by lifting up the voice
with joy " (ver. 1 6).
SOLOMON.
"Then Solomon offered burnt-offer- "And he appointed, according to
ings unto the Lord on the altar of the order of David his father, the
the Lord, which he had built before the courses of the priests to their service,
porch, even after a certain rate every and the Levites to their charges, to
day, offering according to the com- praise and minister before the priests :
niandment of Moses" (2 Chron. viii. ... for so had David the man of God
12, 13). commanded" (ver. 14).
IsraeVs Service of Song,
35
JOASH,
David,
" Also Jehoiada appointed the offices
of the house of the Lord by the hand
of the priests the Levites, whom David
had distributed in the house of the
Lord, to offer the burnt-offerings of the
Lord, as it is written in the law of
Moses ;
with rejoicing and with singing, as
it was ordained by David " (2 Chron.
xxiii. 18).
HEZEKIAH.
"And they stood in their place after
their manner, according to the law of
Moses the man of God : the priests
sprinkled the blood, which they re-
ceived of the hand of the Levites"
(2 Chron. xxx. 16).
"And he set the Levites in the
house of the Lord with cymbals, with
psalteries, and with harps, according to
the commandment of David, and of
Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the
prophet : for so was the commandment
of the Lord by his prophets. . . . And
when the burnt-offering began, the
song of the Lord began also with the
trumpets, and with the instruments
ordained by David king of Israel"
(2 Chron. xxix. 25, 27).
JOSIAH.
" So kUl the passover, and sanctify
yourselves, and prepare your brethren,
that they may do according to the word
of the Lord by the hand of Moses"
(2 Chron. xxxv. 6).
" And they removed the burnt-offer-
ings, that they might give according to
the divisions of the families of the
people, to offer unto the Lord, as it
is written in the book of Moses"
(ver. 12).
" Prepare yourselves by the houses
of your fathers, after your courses,
according to the writing of David king
of Israel, and according to the writing
of Solomon his son " (ver. 4).
" And the singers the sons of Asaph
were in their place, according to the
commandment of David, and Asaph,
and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's
seer " (ver. 15).
ZERUBBABEL.
" Then stood up Jeshua . . . and
builded the altar of the God of Israel,
to offer burnt-offerings thereon, as it is
Avritten in the law of Moses the man
of God "(Ezra iu. 2).
" They set the priests in their apparel
with trumpets, and the Levites the
sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise
the Lord, after the ordinance of David
king of Israel " (ver. 10).
36 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
NEHEMIAH.
Moses. David.
" They clave to their brethren, their " The chief of the Levites ... to
nobles, and entered into a curse, and praise and to give thanks, according to
into an oath, to walk in God's law, the commandment of David the man
which was given by Moses the servant of God " (Neh. xii. 24).
of God " (Neh. x. 29). " And both the singers and the
porters kept the ward of their God . . .
according to the commandment of
David, and of Solomon his son " (Neh.
xii. 45).
This accumulation of evidence furnishes the amplest proof
of the Lord's watchful jealousy that Israel should ascribe no
ordinances, however great, to His servant Moses besides those
which he had given to himself to enact, with an express pro-
hibition against adding more. Yet in these later days men
rush in without a shadow of Scriptural warrant, and confiding in
their own ingenuity they inform us that they have discovered a
whole body of Mosaic laws, which were revealed many hundred
years after his death, although they are expressl}' assigned to
Moses by Holy Scripture.
2. The absence of any allusion to the service of song in the
sanctuary demonstrates that it was not the design of Deuteronomy,
or any section of it, to bring down the institutions of Israel to the
time of Manasseh. All advancement in the Deuteronomic code,
as compared with the preceding books, had its sufficient cause in
the immediate prospect of the occupation of Canaan ; but there
is not a single law or ordinance in Deuteronomy whose time
or occasion of enactment can be shown in the subsequent
history. The only isolated enactment in this history is the
ordinance of David, that the soldier watching in the camp should
share the spoil with those who fought in the battle. The statute
is so thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the laws of war-
fare in the twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy that it would have
formed a most fitting addition to that code. But the honour of
Moses was so high in Israel that it was not inserted in what other-
wise would have been its appropriate place, but left in its own
singularity, as it never would have been if Deuteronomy had been
written after its enactment.
But the one great post-Mosaic ordinance in Israel was the
ordinance of Praise in the sanctuary ; and in the entire book of
IsraeVs Service of Song. 37.
Deuteronomy there is not even the slightest allusion to this ser-
vice, while the whole of the sixteenth chapter consists of special
injunctions for the observance of the yearly feasts at " the place
which the Lord shall choose." These injunctions are not laid only
on men and on families, but on Israel as a nation, including very
specially the Levite (ver. 11, 14). "Three times in a year shall
all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which
he shall choose " (ver. 1 6). From the days of David downward
the service of praise in the sanctuary by cymbal, psaltery, harp, and
song, for which four thousand Levites were set aj^art, formed one
of the great characteristics of those annual feasts. But the writer of
these laws makes no recognition of such a service. Moses, in
Deuteronomy as elsewhere, speaks of God as the object of Israel's
praise (chap. x. 21) ; but no more than in the sacrificial worship of
Abraham or Jacob did he appoint any ordinance of song for the
service of the sanctuary. If the book were designed as a late
supplement to the laws of Moses, this could not by any means have
been omitted, for it is the omission of the only great ordinance
that is known in history after Moses. The author of Deuteronomy
repeatedly enjoins the nation to rejoice before the Lord their
God ; but so far does he keep from any approach to the national
service of cymbal, and harp, and song, that throughout he nevex.
calls on Israel even to praise the Lord in the sanctuary. He
ordains, " Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God ; thou shalt
rejoice in thy feast; thou shalt surely rejoice" (ver. 11, 14, 15) ;
and so again in the twelfth chapter (ver. 12) : "Ye shall rejoice
before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters,
and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite
that is within your gates." Praise is closely allied to religious joy ;
yet in the people's thanksgiving for the harvest, which is full of
praise, the term itself is "not employed. All this tallies most
perfectly with the laws and the worship instituted by Moses, and
with the service of the tabernacle in his own age and in the ages
immediately following. Moses ordained no service of song for
the tabernacle, for the song which he taught the people is not
given for the priestly or Levitical service at the altar ; and he
ordained no instrumental praise except that of the two silver
trumpets over the sacrifice. Most consonantly, therefore, in
commanding Israel to resort to the sanctuary in their holy feasts,
he does not call on them to praise the Lord, but earnestly and
often exhorts them to "rejoice before the Lord." Such ordin-
38 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
ances and injunctions could not have been written in the later
days of Israel.
3. But further, the alleged prophetic code in the name of Moses,
and with the Divine sanction for its claim of Mosaic authority,
would have abolished the service of song in the Temple. That
service had no Mosaic sanction, but only the sanction of David,
which in legislation was confessedly secondary to the law of
Moses. Nothing would have been simpler than, even in a single
sentence, to have given the service of praise a Mosaic sanction in
Deuteronomy, but no such sanction is given. The melody of the
two silver trumpets will still remain, because it was sanctioned
by Moses; but a second Moses, with all the authority of the
first, supplements the original Mosaic laws, and "brings them
down to date," from the days of Moses to the reign of Manasseh,
adding all that was needed for this later time, and had been
omitted in the earlier laws. If the service of song was deemed
worthy of Mosaic sanction, there could be no reason for omitting
it in a code which embraces in its minuter precepts matters of
much less moment than this great national institution in the
worship of God. Yet this second Moses returns to all the severe
simplicity of the first, passes by this magnificent worship as if
permitted only for a time, and by his silence blots it from the
complete code of Mosaic ordinances now presented to Israel.
A code under the highest name of Moses, completed down to the
days of Manasseh or Josiah, would admit of no institution that
was not either formally embraced or in some way sanctioned in
its statutes ; and this imaginary code of the critics has the glaring
inconsistency of cancelling by its silence the glorious ordinance
of praise, which has no Divine warrant either under the earlier
or the later seal of Moses.
But the beautiful consistency of the Word of God throughout
shines all the more brightly through the efforts of its enemies and
of its misjudging friends to rend it in pieces. The songs of the
sanctuary are denied to David by many critics, who in their lofty
misconception alike of God and of man assert it as self-evident,
in the nature of things, that the murderer of Uriah could never
have been the penitent writer of the 51st Psalm. Yet both the
character and the songs of David have in all ages been well
understood by broken hearts, because they know that " to whom
much is forgiven the same loveth much." So the rationalists have
often left to Moses little more than a mythical character, robbing
Israel's Service of Song. 39
him of most of the Divine words that were given to him as
mediating between God and Israel. Still, as in all other respects,
so in the light of the ordinance of Praise the words of Moses
triumphantly vindicate themselves as his own; as fit for his
age and for his lips, but altogether misplaced in the mouth of a
prophetic legislator in the time of the later kings of Judah.
40 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
CHAPTER VI.
THE JUDICIAL CLEANSING OF THE LAND.
S Deuteronomy cannot have been designed to bring down
the ordinances of Israel to the time of Manasseh because
it omits the service of Praise, the only great national
institution after the death of Moses ; so likewise this cannot have
been its design, because it revives the only leading Command of
Moses that had become obsolete ; or, rather, it originates under
his name a command for the destruction of the Canaanites, for if
Deuteronomy was not written by him, it cannot be proved that
he ever issued such an order.
The stern order in Deuteronomy for ridding the land of Canaa^
of its ancient races has often been censured as unjust and cruel
by the adversaries of .the Bible, but in a false sentiment of pity.
It was better for the world that Sodom and Gomorrah should be
consumed by fire than that they should remain a moral pestilence
on the face of the earth. The case was the same with the seven
nations of Canaan ; who were first warned by the destruction
of the cities of the plain, then spared in long-suffering for
more than four hundred yeors after that warning, and finally
destroyed only after their iniquity was full by the Divine judg-
ment through the sword of war, as the others had been by the
fire of heaven. Their extermination had become an act of mercy
to mankind ; " For every abomination to the Lord, which he
hateth, had they done unto their gods ; for even their sons and
their daughters had they burned in the fire to their gods "
(Deut. xii. 1 8).
Inconceivably better for the whole world it was that Canaan
should be possessed by a nation like Israel than by its former
inhabitants ; and the stern necessity for their excision was too
clearly proved by the corruption of Israel itself through their
neglect of the Divine command. On their darkest sin of human
The. Judicial Cleansing of the Land. 4 1
sacrifice Ewald writes in his History of Israel : — " The indigenous
Canaanite human sacrifice, which was transplanted by the
Phoenicians to Carthage, and there kept up to the latest times,
was no sign of barbarity common to uncultivated nations, but of
the artificial cruelty often arising from excessive polish and over-
indulgence. Amid all the changes of time, the moral corruption
generated by the seductive charms of such a culture is with
difficulty lost in the land of its birth. An effeminacy and
depravity of life, not unlike that of the Canaanites, and doubtless
promoted in part by the remnant of the early inhabitants, spread
to a people which, through their entire nature and laws, ought to
have been most proof against it."
The justice and the necessity of the ban of excision in the
lips of Moses can be fully vindicated ; it was issued in the name
of humanity itself, for it lingered long till mercy urged the plea,
" Even their sons and their daughters have they burned in the
fire to their gods." But in the reign of Manasseh the descendants
of the ancient Canaanites had for centuries, from the times of
David and Solomon, been under the covenanted protection of the
State (1 Chron. xxii. 2 ; 2 Chron. ii. 17) ; and the once righteous
decree would then have been an order for the perpetration of one of
the most treacherous massacres in all history under the name of,
religion. Except under the influence of strong prejudice, it is im-
possible to read the book of Deuteronomy without being deeply
impressed with the intense desire of the writer that the order should
be thoroughly executed by Israel, and his jealousy lest either mis-
taken kindness, or unbelieving fear, or forgetfulness of the judgment
that would fall upon themselves, should hinder its fulfilment. He
fepeats it in three different sections, and four separate chapters of
the book ; he allots to it a larger space than to all the Ten Com-
mandments ; and he enforces it with all conceivable earnestness.
" When the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt sraite
them, and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
show mercy unto them, ... for they will turn away thy son from following me,
that they may serve other gods : so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against
you, and destroy thee suddenly. . . . Thou shalt consume all the people which
the Lord thy God shall deliver thee ; thine eye shall have no pity upon them. . . .
Thou shalt not be afraid of them : but shalt well remember what the Lord thy
God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt : . . . thou shalt not be affrighted at
them : for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. ... He
shall deliver their kings unto thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from
under heaven : there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have
42 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
destroyed them (chap. vii. 1-24), Understand therefore this day, that the Lord
thy God is he which goeth over before thee ; as a consuming fire he shall destroy
them, and he shall bring them down before thy face : so shalt thou drive them
out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee (chap. ix. 3).
Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inherit-
ance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth : but thou shalt utterly destroy
them ; . . . that they teach you not to do after all their abominations (chap. xx.
16, 17, 18). And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do
unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded
you. Be strong and of a good courage, fear not nor be afraid of them " (chap.
xxxi. 5, 6).
Professor Davidson represents not his own, but the new theory as
coming to not more than this, that the progressive legislation in
Israel having been ripened under higher guidance was "thrown back,
and represented as the creation of the great mind of the founder
of the theocracy; " and he seems to regard this view as at least pos-
sible ("Old Test. Exegesis," p. 23). Let the conception be granted
for the moment, and let it be borne in mind that the whole founda-
tion of the theory is that the book was written for the age in
which it was issued, and for the express purpose of bringing down
Mosaic principles to the men of that age in a form adapted to
their altered circumstances or more consonant to the gradual
development of grace and truth in Divine revelation ; and let it
be supposed that decrees and ordinances of such an advanced
character are put into the lips of Moses himself. In that case,
part of the ordinances may be a repetition of Mosaic laws still
in force, like the Ten Commandments ; others will of necessity
be new ordinances of importance, else there could be no call for
the new legislation ; but that obsolete decrees, the execution
of which would in the altered circumstances be in the highest
degree criminal, should be introduced into such legislation, for the
purpose of " throwing it back," is utterly inconceivable and
absolutely monstrous. To mingle modern and practical precepts
with archaic commands to Israel to slay the people of the land
without mercy, was the likeliest of all means to arouse the nation
in an impulse of fanatical zeal, like Saul's against the Gibeonites,
to put to the sword the thousands or tens of thousands of the
Canaanites, who were now in the land under a covenant of life
and safety; or to embolden an unscrupulous Israelite to entrap
some faithful Uriah into a fatal snare, on the ground that the
murder of a Hittite proscribed by Divine law was a most worthy
deed.
The yudicial Cleaiisiug of the Land. 43
Further, if Deuteronomy was not written by Moses, the author
of the book does not faithfully imitate the great lawgiver,
but far exceeds him in severity. Except in Deuteronomy, it is
doubtful if Moses ever enjoined Israel to put the Canaanites to
death with their own hands. He promises that God would
partly destroy and partly expel them, and commands Israel to
"drive them out" (Exod. xxiii. 31); and many of them, doubt-
less, abandoned their country before the face of Israel. But there
is only a single verse in which he might seem to command Israel
to destroy them; our translators take the verse as a command to
destroy not them, but their gods ; and before Deuteronomy was
written this meaning had the preferable claim, as the most lenient
interpretation: "Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor
serve them, nor do after their works : but thou shalt utterly
overthrow them, and quite break down their images " (Exod.
xxii. 24). But this single and doubtful expression the author of
Deuteronomy expands in different places to the extent of a whole
chapter, and under every form of the severest denunciation ; very
naturally in the case of the true Moses, in the hour when Israel
was to cross the Jordan, for the purpose of encouraging them in
the great war on which they were entering, and of binding on them
the severe duties now immediately before them. Now, on such
a subject a late imitator of Moses could have had no conceivable
motive for going beyond his words; but this supposed author,
instead of " throwing back " his own creation into the likeness of
the Mosaic precept, carries forward and develops the stern com-
mand into a greatly enlarged and strongly enhanced severity.
But the whole idea of these stern decrees against the seven
nations of Canaan being fictitious is most uncritical ; for, if reality
and earnestness can be expressed by human speech, they breathe
in every line of these injuiictions. It is no mock encounter with
the shades of men who had been dead for seven hundred years
that is contemplated by the writer ; but a terrible conflict with
armed men, skilful in war, is to be waged, and no quarter given.
This earnestness of the writer for the execution of his commands
is so evident and unmistakable that it is fully, although reluctantly,
acknowledged by critics most adverse to the Mosaic authorship of
the book.
" Had Moses so spoken," writes Kuenen, " with a rough and armed people
before him, and the Canaanites in his immediate neighbourhood, it would have
been frir'htfal. It now continues to be seriouslij meant, and yet is much more
44 Moses o?i the Plains of Moab.
innocent. We are now free to believe, that the sword would have fallen from
the hand of the Deuteronomist himself, if it had become necessary to carry out
the doom which he had denounced. It is less difficult to murder on paper than
in reality."
He owns that a massacre in the days of Josiah was " seriously
meant ; " and while he calls it " murder on paper," we know that
the paper on which was inscribed the order for a massacre of rarely
paralleled treachery was never impressed with the seal of the God
of truth and mercy.
Professor Oort, of Leyden, is constrained to make the same
admission of the earnestness of the writer to put to death the
Canaanites who still remained in the land ; while his plea in pal-
liation as regards their cities, which applies more specially to
chap. XX. 16, does not at all affect the detailed denunciations
against the people in the seventh chapter. The extenuation is
singular enough, because if there were no such cities remaining,
it is a strong argument that these critics have assigned a wrong
date to the book. Surely it is extreme presumption in them to
assume that their lauded prophet was so devoid of understanding
as to issue stringent orders for the destruction of towns which no
longer existed. He says : —
" In many respects the writer takes an exalted moral attitude. It is true that
he repeatedly urges the Israelites to lay the Canaanites and all other idolaters
under the ban ; but in this connection it is only fair to remember that when he
wrote there were no Canaanite cities in existence, so that in this respect at any
rate his injunctions cannot have been intended to be actually put into execution.
Nevertheless, we must admit that /le distinctly enjoins a massacre to the glory
of God."
These exterminating decrees occupy a most leading place in
the book of Deuteronomy, in the large amount of space allotted
to them, in the various sections of the book in which they are
repeated, and in the peculiar earnestness with which they are en-
forced. If they were embodied in the heart of a book of practical
laws only for archaic colouring and poetic thunder, they are the
words of " a madman casting firebrands, arrows and death, and say-
ing. Am I not in sport?" But out of all question they were
" seriously meant ;" and if of recent date, they are contrary not only
to all the laws of God, but to all the traditions of Israel, in their
strictest injunctions and strongest incentives to a flagrant breach
of covenant by the ruthless massacre of myriads of the peaceful,
confiding, and helpless natives of the land. The book, that under
The judicial Cleansing of the Land. 45
the name of law proclaims a ban replete with treachery and
death, can form no part of the Word of God, Deuteronomy is
blotted out of the Holy Scriptures, our Lord's triple seal to its
Divine authority is cancelled, and the whole Bible is lost. Such
is the inevitable result of a theory which handles the oracles of
God with singular rashness ; and entirely perverts one of the
plainest books in the Bible, by assigning to it a fanciful origin,
and investing it with a fictitious character in direct contradiction
to its own express declarations.
46 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
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CHAPTEH VII.
THE ONE ALTAR.
)HE evidence most relied od by Dr. Kuenen and others against
the antiquity of Deuteronomy is the destruction of the high
places by Josiah in obedience to its injunction of a
single altar. The high places, however, had been put down
by Hezekiah nearly a hundred years before ; and if his removal
of them was on the same authority as Josiah 's, the whole theory
falls to the ground. That this was the case is clearly intimated
by the inspired authors of the history, for in the reign of Josiah
it is said that " Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the
Lord by the hand of Moses" (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14); and of
Hezekiah it is said that " He removed the high places, and brake
the images and cut down the groves. . . . He trusted in the Lord
God of Israel ; so that after him was none like him among all the
kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. For he clave to the
Lord, . . . and kept his commandments which the Lord commanded
Moses " (2 Kings xviii. 4-6). According to the Bible, which is our
only source of information, both these kings destroyed the high
places in obedience to the law of Moses. Kuenen strenuously
holds that Josiah acted according to a written law falsely assigned
to Moses ; but he asserts that Hezekiah acted by his own
authority without any adequate written law : —
" The means which he employed, the ' removing,' ' cutting down,' and
* breaking to pieces,' however suitable they may have been for altering the out-
ward appearance of things in a short time, did not reach the root of the evil. In
a word, but little penetration was required to foresee that these violent measures
would necessarily be followed by a violent reaction ; Amon's death was a blessing
for the Mosaic party. . . . Hitherto they had no accurately defined programme.
The codes of various ages, which were extant at the beginning of Josiah's reign,
had no validity in law. The Mosaic party had to set forth their views plainly
and definitely, and to prevail upon the king to carry them out. We have
their programme in the book of Deuteronomy." — {Beligion of Israel, vol. ii.,
pp. 5, 6, 7, 9.)
The One Altar.
47
The inspired historian who ascribes Hezekiah's conduct to
reverence for the law of Moses is thus quite set aside ; Dr. Kuenen
asserts with the confidence of an eye-witness that his procedure
was with the high hand of regal power without any legal warrant ;
and we are required to confide in this modern discovery as if it
were a fact of genuine ancient history. On the basis of so
groundless a conception is built the theory of a late Deuteronomy.
But such criticism, professing to be rational, is purely arbitrary and
unreasonable ; and while it claims to be historical, the creative
mind of the critic is all the history on which it is founded.
In no light in which it can be regarded does the Deuteronomic
ordinance of a single altar indicate an origin for the book in the
days of Manasseh or Josiah. The chief elements concerning it
in this relation may be embraced in these considerations : The
ordinance was not moral but ceremonial, and was not designed to
carry -its full obligation till after the building of the Temple ;
the book of Deuteronomy itself enjoins the building of another
altar; the law of one altar was never enforced by any penalty,
and its neglect is not recorded as entering into Josiah's fears for
Jerusalem.
1. The ordinance of one altar was ceremonial, and was to come
into full effect only after the building of the Temple. Like
other Mosaic institutions, its design was moral ; the one altar
teaching the unity of God, and well fitted to prepare the minds
of Israel for the one great Priest and the one Sacrifice. But the
institution was to pass away in the time of the Gospel, and was
unknown in the days of the patriarchs. The central altar in
Deuteronomy corresponded to the one tabernacle and the one
place for the yearly feasts, as enjoined in Exodus. But there is
a marked significance in the terms of its institution : —
" When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in i/te land which the Lord your God
glveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you red from all your enemies round
about, so that ye dwell in safety ; then there shall be a place which the Lord
your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there ; thither shall ye bring
all that I command you " (Deut. xii. 10, 11).
The one altar was to be in the land of their inheritance when
it had become their possession, when they had rest from all their
enemies, and when the Lord had chosen a place for His name to
dwell in. In a good measure these three conditions were fulfilled
under Joshua before the eastern tribes had returned across the
48 Moses oil the Plains of Moab.
Jordan : Israel had inherited the promised land, their great war ot
conquest was finished and followed by rest, and the Lord had set His
name in Shiloh. But till the reign of Solomon not one of these
conditions had a complete fulfilment ; in the days of the Judges
Israel had by no means gained possession of all the land, whilst
Zion itself was only taken by David ; and the fulness of rest was
not attained till Solomon could say, " But now the Lord my God
hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adver-
sary nor evil occurrent " (1 Kings v. 4). It was the same with the
third condition of the Lord " choosing a place " for Himself. On
this expression great stress is laid in the enactment, and in the
twelfth and sixteenth chapters " the place which the Lord shall
choose " is repeated eight times over. At the consecration of the
Temple (2 Chron. vi.) Solomon says : " The Lord God of Israel
spake to my father David, saying, Since the day that I brought
forth my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city among
all the tribes of Israel to build an house in, that my name might
be there ; but I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be
there ; " in the service of the dedication Jerusalem is five times
called the city or the place which the Lord had chosen ; and the
same designation is used in other Scriptures, but never once except
for Jerusalem. The Lord " set His name in Shiloh at the first,"
but He is not said to have " chosen " it. This distinction is not a
verbal one, but real ; because while Shiloh had become the place
of the Lord's house by the presence of the ark and the tabernacle,
there is no record of its peculiar choice by a special recognition,
such as twice marked out Zion as selected by the Lord, first by
the fire from heaven consecrating Araunah's threshing-floor, and
then consuming the sacrifice at the dedication of the Temple, and
also by the glory filling all the house. In the inheritance of all
the land, in the perfect rest round about, and in the miraculous
choice of the place, the conditions of the enactment of a single
altar were all at last fulfilled, and the force of the law became
complete. From this time forward, no man in the kingdom of
Judah who " wholly followed the Lord " offered sacrifice elsewhere
than at " the place which the Lord had chosen " in Jerusalem,
and in that kingdom God never elsewhere accepted a sacrifice by
fire from heaven. One design of this exclusiveness was evidently
that after the sacrificial death of Christ Israel should be shut up
" without a sacrifice and without an ephod," till " they shall fear
the Lord and His goodness in the latter days."
The One Altar, 49
After the division of the kiDgJom, however, Elijah, the greatest
of the prophets next to Moses, offered sacrifice on the altar of
twelve unhewn stones which he built on Mount Carmel, and God
answered him from heaven. This answer by fire was for the great
end of proving to apostate Israel that Jehovah was God, and
turning their hearts to Him again ; and He had never bound
Himself by any ceremonial ordinance. But from Elijah's complaint,
" They have thrown down Thine altars," it appears that, during
the rending of the kingdom, the godly in Israel had sacrificed on
the ancient altars, and that their offerings had been accepted ; for
the evident reason that they were restrained by force from going
up to Jerusalem.
2. In the book of Deuteronomy itself there is an express
injunction to build a second altar on Mount Ebal for a great but
temporary purpose, an altar of stone in addition to the brazen
altar before the tabernacle. The narrative of the erection of
the altar by Joshua, in obedience to this commandment, clearly
proves that the legislation of Deuteronomy was given by Moses.
But, quite apart from Joshua, the altar of Ebal in Deuteronomy
disproves the new theory of the origin of the book, according
to which one of its chief objects is the absolute injunction of a
single altar in the land ; for no late prophet, with such an object
in view, would have frustrated his own design by inventing a
Mosaic command to build another altar besides the central altar
before the ark of the covenant. This command issued in the
days of Josiah would have been a direct encouragement to
Judah even then to build additional altars. Likewise, this altar
on Ebal has the important position of proving that the law of
the single altar was never designed to set aside such temporary
altars as God might expressly sanction. The command,
" Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in
every place that thou seest," excludes every spot of man's
selection, but forbids none that might be designated by God
Himself. During the Avhole time between the death of Eli and
the building of the Temple, including the entire judicial life of
Samuel, there was no place on which, even in the more restricted
sense, it could be said that " the Lord had set His name there,"
and no altar that could in its full meaning be called " the altar
before the Lord." In all that period the ark of the Lord's
presence was far apart from the brazen altar and the tabernacle j
and it was impossible to obey the enactment so long as this
D
50 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
division remained. Other instances of the erection of separate
altars by express Divine sanction, as in the case of Gideon
and of Manoah, far from being contrary to the book of Deuter-
onomy, are in most perfect harmony with its injunction of a
separate altar on Mount Ebal. In searching the subsequent
history for contradictions to the book the critics have overlooked
the decisive fact, that the supposed contradiction only brings the
history into more exact conformity with the enactments in the
book itself. If that history is contrary to the twelfth chapter of
Deuteronomy with its one central altar, the twenty-seventh
chapter of the book with its altar on Mount Ebal is a still more
startling contrariety. This simple fact of the altar on Ebal demon-
strates the futility of the whole historic reasons on which the new
theory is built, makes it unaccountable how it could ever have
been based on such grounds, and brings us back to the position
that the law in its very enacting terms was never designed to
take its full effect till after the building of the Temple, and was
at no time intended to interfere with any altar erected by direct
warrant from Heaven. One chief design of the law was to engrave
on the heart of Israel the much needed admonition, " Take heed
to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place
that thou seest."
3. The law of one altar was enforced neither by penalty under
the hand of man nor by threatening of the judgment of God.
The connection between the original character of the law and
the record of its observance or neglect in the history of Israel,
instead of exhibiting an inconsistency, furnishes one of those
interesting coincidences between different parts of Scripture which
prove their inspiration by one great Author. Every reader of
the history of the Kings is struck with the commendation of one
after another in the roll of sovereigns who " did that which was
right in the sight of the Lord," yet with the qualification, " how-
beit, the high places were not taken away ; " or more fully,
"nevertheless, the people did sacrifice still in the high places,
yet unto the Lord their God only." The inspired writers
both in Kings and Chronicles stamp this practice with such a
character as to indicate that the worshipper did not forfeit the
favour or approval of the Most High, although the mode of his
worship was marked with censure. The ordinance of a single
altar was thus placed on a more elevated level than many other
laws, and it was observed only by men who followed the Lord
The One Altar. 5 1
wholly, like Hezekiah and Josiah, and like eastern Israel
returning from Shiloh in the days of Joshua. If the altar
erected by these tribes on the western bank of the Jordan had
been for sacrifice, their transgression would have been great,
although the Temple was not built, because the place was one of
their own selection, and the altar was designed as a permanent
erection for these entire tribes. But their conscience was tender,
the command in Deuteronomy was fresh in their memory, and
the very object of their altar was to leave to their children a
lasting witness of stone to their inalienable right to sacrifice at
the one tabernacle, or in their own words, "to do the service of
the Lord before him with their burnt-offerings and sacrifices "
(Josh. xxii. 27) ; so leaving also for us an incontrovertible
testimony that the Deuteronomic code was written before Israel
had crossed the Jordan.
The historic record of the observance of this law by the nation
and its kings, when they were wholly following the Lord, yet not
always by men who were pious and sincere, quite accords with
the character of the law as regards penalty or threatening. The
Mosaic laws were enforced by a penalty under the hand of man,
as in the stoning of the nearest relative or closest friend who
enticed to the worship of other gods ; or by a curse from G-vsd
through the lips of men, as upon the man who caused the blind
to wander out of the way ; or by the threatening of Divine judg-
ment, which is understood by the Jews as not requiring the ruler's
interference, as against the man who being clean forbore to keep
the Passover, and was to be cut off from among his peoj)le. But
the law of a single altar is one of those ordinances in which there
is neither penalty nor curse nor threatening on account of its
neglect ; there is only the command, with an earnest admonition
ta take heed to keep it.
This absence of appointed or threatened judgment is in entire
harmony with the subsequent history. There were high places
to heathen gods, and high places with graven images as in Israel
under Jeroboam ; the multiplicity of altars tended greatly to
increase such heinous offences, and in the most corrupt times
there were probably no high places without idols. " They pro-
voked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to
jealousy with their graven images" (Ps. Ixxviii. 58). But we
are not aware that simple altars to Jehovah on high places are
ever represented as among the direct causes of the destruction of
52 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
the nation and desolation of the land ; and certainly not either
in the prophetic history in Deuteronomy, or the actual history
under Josiah. In Deuteronomy when all nations shall ask,
" Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land ? what
meaneth the heat of this great anger ? Then men shall say,
Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of
their fathers : ... for they went and served other gods, and wor-
shipped them : . . . and the anger of the Lord was kindled against
this land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this
book" (chap. xxix. 24-27). The predicted cause of the judgment
is the worship of other gods with all the iniquities it involved.
Seven hundred years later, to Josiah trembling for the words of
the Book, and inquiring at the prophetess Huldah, the answer is
exactly the same : " Tell ye the man that sent you to me, thus
saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and
upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written
in the book which they have read before the king of Judah :
because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto
other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the
works of their hands ; therefore my wrath shall be poured out
upon this place, and shall not be quenched " (2 Chron. xxxiv.
23-25). In the words of the prophetess, exactly as in Deuter-
onomy, there is no reference whatever to the neglect of the law
of a single altar as the cause, or as one of the causes, of the Lord's
anger, but only to the worship of other gods.
In this whole subject of the ordinance of a single altar, there
is not the slightest contradiction, but the most entire harmony,
between the original law of Moses and the subsequent history of
Israel. But the command to erect an altar on Mount Ebal, if
first issued in the reign of Josiah, is a most direct contradiction
of the alleged leading design of the second Moses regarding a
single altar at Jerusalem.
The Law of the Firstlings.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LA W OF THE FIRSTLINGS.
tF the objection to Deuteronomy as truly Mosaic on the ground
of its ordinance of a single altar in Israel had any reason-
able foundation, no fault could be found with it as of slight
importance. But this cannot be said of a crowd of small objec-
tions on the regulation of sacrifices and other matters, in which
it is alleged that Deuteronomy directly contradicts the Levitical
legislation ; the wonder rather being that so diligent a search
finds no greater difficulties to be removed in a book of statutes
so ancient, and so many of them relating to observances with
which we are not practically conversant. At these minute
differences we need not stumble, even if we cannot now explain
them. Yet in some of the confidently alleged instances, the
difficulty is not to reconcile the contradiction, but to discern it;
as when Moses in the wilderness absolutely enjoins the offering
of every firstling fit for sacrifice, and afterwards on the eve of
Israel's entrance into Canaan relaxes or alters the command, if
the owner should be living at a distance from the sanctuary. In
other cases it is to be remembered that some statutes will of
necessity seem obscure if they are not read with care.
"Instead of entering into a number of little details, let us select
out of these alleged contradictions the instance that seems to have
been oftenest adduced and pressed : the acknowledged gift in
Numbers xviii. 15-18 of the firstlings to the priests, and the
alleged assignation of them to every Israelite in Deut. xii- 17, 18 ;
xiv. 23 ; XV. 19, 20. Without disparaging the solutions that have
been offered, we submit these considerations as amply sufficient
to remove any apparent difference, taking as our guide the statute
in the twelfth chapter as serving to explain the others that
follow.
1. The Deuteronomic code can never be clear except we bear
54 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
in mind as a leading rule in its interpretation, that Moses is
addressing the nation as well as its individual men, and that he
often speaks to the community as if to one man : —
" Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee. . . .
To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art. ... Thou
shalt therefore keep his statutes, . . . that it may go well with thee, and with thy
children after thee (chap. iv. 36, 38, 40). Three times in a year shall all thy males
appear before the Lord thy God. . . . And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy
God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-
servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the father-
less, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath
chosen to place his name there (chap.xvi. 16, 11). Thou shalt separate three cities
for them in the midst of thy land (chap. xix. 2). Judges and officers shalt thou
make thee in all thy gates. . . . Thou shalt not wrest judgment ; thou shalt not
respect persons, neither take a gift" (chap. xvi. 18, 19).
Besides personal precepts, such as to help a brother whose ox had
fallen down in the way, there are many of these national commands
in the singular number, yet passing as if into personal injunctions
for children, for son and daughter. The expression, " within thy
gates " does not mean that each Israelite had cities of his own ;
nor was each one to appoint cities of refuge or judges, or to
execute justice without bribery ; but these things were to be done
in the community. So in chapter xii. 17, " Thou mayest not eat
within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy
oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock : . . . but thou must
eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord
thy God shall choose," is a command to the nation and not to the
individual, and defines nothing on the personal duties of different
classes of the community.
2. The statutes in the chapter in which the command first
occurs, and also the subsequent passages, are written w^ith a very
special reference to the place which the Lord should " choose " in
the promised land. It is evidently the special object of the whole
chapter not to define the persons who are to offer the sacrifices or
to eat of the offerings, but the j^^cice where they are to be offered
and to be eaten. The persons had been exactly defined in Num-
bers xviii., and now the place is specified as the one sanctuary in
the land which the Lord would choose. This is so marked as the
object of the chapter (xii. 1-28), that the expression " the place
which the Lord shall choose" is repeated five several times (vers. 5,
11, 14, 18, 26), and five times more in the expressions " thither "
The Law of the Firstlings. 55
shall ye bring them, and " there " shall ye eat. In the eighteenth
of Numbers there is nothing said about " the place which the Lord
shall choose," but only about the priests ministering at the taber-
nacle ; and there are very precise rules laid down regarding the
participation in holy things by the priests and their sons, or by
all in their house both sons and daughters. In Deuteronomy
there is nothing of this kind, but there are equally strict injunc-
tions about the place where the offerings are to be presented and
to be eaten. It is therefore most reasonable to interpret the first
set of laws as defining the persons, and the second as defining the
place without sj)ecifying the persons ; and to accept the command,
" Thou shalt eat " as addressed to Israel, and to be interpreted in
accordance with the previous statutes.
3. This interpretation of the law of firstlings is not only in
itself reasonable and probable, but as explained by the context
must be held to be absolutely certain. The critics who refuse
those laws to Moses cannot reconcile the eighteenth verse of the
eighteenth of Numbers, giving the firstlings to the priests, and the
eighteenth verse of the twelfth of Deuteronomy, giving them as
they conceive to every Israelite ; but they omit all notice of the
much more startling contradiction in these chapters between the
seventh verse in Numbers and the twenty-seventh in Deuter-
onomy, which completely disproves their interpretation of these
laws. In Numbers the priest alone is to offer sacrifice on the
altar, and it is death for any other, either Israelite or Levite, to
intrude into this office ; but according to this new reading of
the law in Deuteronomy every Israelite is to be his own priest,
and positively commanded to offer his own sacrifice on the
altar :—
" Thou shalt offer iliy hurnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, npon the altar of
the Lord thy God : and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the
altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh" (Deut. xii. 27).
The first law forbids, under pain of death, the Israelite to do that
which the second law expressly commands him to do ; yet our-
opponents are far from holding that every Israelite was constituted
a priest. But " thou shalt eat," in the eighteenth verse, and
"thou shalt offer," in the twenty-seventh, are undoubtedly addressed
to the same persons ; and if the offering must be understood not
of every Israelite, but of Israel through those already appointed
for that privilege, so must also the eating. The contradiction is
56 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
not in the laws themselves, but in the evidently mistaken inter-
jDretation now put upon them.
4. The same passage also cancels the favourite objection
of the want of distinction in Deuteronomy between the joriests
and the Levites, which is thus stated by Professor Davidson : —
" In the Levitical books there is a sharp distinction between priests and Levites.
... In Deuteronomy mention is made of priests and Levites, but the state of
thinL,rs is this : — Levi is the priestly tribe, all Levites may be priests, but of course
all are not, and the distinction between priests and Levites is, that priests are
actually officiating Levites. . . . Let any one consider the sharp distinction
drawn in the middle books with the tragic histories connected with it, and then
say whether it is probable that a few years after no allusion to the distinction
should appear in the course of a whole book" (p. 18).
We are not aware of any foundation for the statement that all
Levites may be priests; for evidently Deuteronomy xviii. 6-8
only proves that the Levite who quitted his home for the sake of
the sanctuary should be welcomed to take part in its ministrations
with his brethren already there ; and the frequent expression,
" the priests the Levites," simply designates the priests as sons of
Levi, and intimates that all the priests were Levites, but certainly
not that a priest was merely an officiating Levite. Nowhere is
the distinction between priests and Levites more strongly marked
than in the account of Hezekiah's reformation in the 2nd Book
of Chronicles — " He brought in the priests and the Levites . . .
and said unto them. Hear me, ye Levites. . . . And the j^riests
went into the inner part of the house, . . . and brought out all the
uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord. . . . And the
Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron. . . .
And he commanded the priests the sons of Aaron to offer on
the altar of the Lord" (xxix. 4, 5, 16, 21). There are many
similar expressions of the distinction. Yet the closing account
of the Passover is in these words : " Then the priests the
Levites arose and blessed the people" (chap. xxx. 27) ; proving
that after denoting the priests as the sons of Aaron, and
repeatedly making an express distinction between them and the
Levites, the inspired writer could quite naturally and consist-
ently call them " the priests the Levites." Dr. Davidson's argu-
ment, founded on its not being " probable " that the sharp
distinction between priests and Levites drawn by Moses in the
Levitical books would be quite omitted in Deuteronomy if he had
written it, is a fair illustration of the foundation on which a great
The Laiu of the Firstlings. 5 7
mass of innovating criticism rests ; not only because the actual is
so often different from the probable, but also because what is prob-
able to one mind may be quite the reverse to another. To his mind
the facts that Moses had previously made the lines of distinction so
plain, and that the consequences of denying them had been so
tragic, make it not probable that in his last address to Israel he
should have omitted to repeat or enforce the distinction ; although
it must be remembered that he does not omit to recall to their
memory the awful judgment on those who abetted the deniers of
the Divine distinction (chap. xi. 6). To our mind, again, nothing
seems more probable than that Moses should have regarded the
clear and definite statutes he had already given on the high office of
the priesthood, and their terrible vindication, as ample reasons for
not repeating them. Who is to decide between us with our
contrary probabilities ? and is our probable or improbable any
ground whatever for originating or defending these most perilous
innovations on the holy oracles of God ?
But the command in Deuteronomy xii. 27 settles this whole
section of the controversy, and proves that this entire line of
argument rests on a misconception of the character of the book.
Clearly it does not belong to the design of the book to define
again the distinctions between the different classes of the com-
munity which had been sufficiently marked already ; and it
omits these distinctions with an implied reference to the Levitical
books in which they had been exactly laid down. On any other
supposition this statute would be fatally misleading, for it might
be understood as conferring the priesthood on the whole people ;
and according to the new interpretation this must be the mean-
ing of the command. We look in vain through the book for any
authority given to the Levite to assume the priestly office ; but,
interpreted by this view of its legislation, the statute not only
allows, but enjoins every Israelite, each Ephraimite, and Ben-
jamite to officiate as his own priest, and lay his own burnt-
offering on the altar. The interpretation is, therefore, absolutely
wrong ; and the object of these enactments is evidently to lay
these duties and confer these priviliges on the nation of Israel,
to be discharged or enjoyed by the different classes in the State,
in accordance with the distinctions already laid down in the
Levitical ordinances.
5. Returning to the law of firstlings, the contradictory inter-
pretation, so far as we know, is a recent one, and most certainly
58 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
it is not the ancient reading of these laws. Nehemiah was well
acquainted with the law of Moses ; and he had practical as well
as traditional helps for knowing it, such as we do not now possess.
The book of Deuteronomy was in his memory, or in the memory
of those with whom he united in prayer, and its testimony is
cited for Israel, that " their feet had not swelled nor their raiment
waxed old for forty years in the wilderness " (Deut. viii. 4 ; Neh.
ix. 21). It was also in his hands, and he refers to its written
command concerning the Ammonite and the Moabite, not by the
unknown prophet of modern discovery, but "in the book of Moses "
(Deut. xxiii. 3; Neh. xiii. 1). But he had never discerned any
change in Deuteronomy regarding the firstlings ; for if he had,
he would certainly have followed it. Accordingly, he does not
give the firstlings to all the people, but expressly assigns them to
the priests ; and he assigns them to the priests according to the
law of Moses : —
" They entered into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by
Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of
the Lord our Lord, . . . and to bring the first-fruits of our ground, . . . also the
first-born of our sons and of our cattle, as it is tvritten in the laio, and the firstlings
of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, unto the priests
that minister in the house of our God " (Neh. x. 29, 35, 36).
He obeys the law of Moses in Numbers by giving them to the
priests, and he obeys the law of Moses in Deuteronomy by giving
them to be eaten " in the place which the Lord had chosen to
put His name there." The contradiction is not in the law of
God, but in the imaginary discoveries of men.
The Testimony of y osJma. 59
CHAPTER IX.
THE TESTIMONY OF JOSHUA.
'hP^HE Book of Joshua is commonly and justly believed to have
I^Jh been written by Joshua himself, or else by one of "the elders
that overlived him," who as comrades in his march could
speak of the waters of the Jordan being dried up " until we were
passed over" (chap. v. 11). For our present purpose, however, it is
enough that it was undoubtedly written befoi-e the marriage of
Solomon, for it speaks of the Canaanites dwelling in Gezer "unto
this day" (chap. xvi. 10), which must have been previous to
Pharaoh's capture and gift of that city as a portion to his
daughter (1 Kings ix. 16); and it must for a similar reason
have been written before David took the fort of Zion from the
Jebusites (2 Qam. v. 6, '7), whom it describes as dwelling in
Jerusalem "unto this day" (chaj). xv. 68). If, then, the
book of Joshua was not written by himself, or by one of
his elders, as we believe it to have been, its date is at least
earlier by several centuries than the new date assigned to
Deuteronomy.
But there is the amplest evidence that Joshua was written, not
before, but after Deuteronomy, as an express sequel to its legis-
lation, and a record of the historical fulfilment of its commands
and its promises. It seems impossible to read the one book after
the other without accepting this conclusion as at once natural on
the surface of their contents, and undeniable under a closer in-
spection ; and it appears unaccountable to assign a recent date to
Deuteronomy without making Joshua still later, and agreeing with
those critics who hold that it was written either by the same
author, or by another in the later days of Judah. As an im-
perfect substitute for the consecutive reading of the books them-
6o
Moses on the Plains of Moab.
selves, let us select out of each some of the corresponding pas-
sages that are peculiar to these two books : —
I. Deuteronomy.
"Every place whereon the soles of
your feet shall tread shall be yours :
from the wilderness and Lebanon, from
the river, the river Euphrates, even
unto the uttermost sea shall your coast
be " (chap. xi. 24).
" There shall no man be able to stand
before you (chap. xi. 25). Be strong
and of a good courage : for thou must go
with this people unto the land which
the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers
to give them ; and thou shalt cause
them to inherit it. The Lord . . .
will be with thee ; he will not fail thee,
neither forsake thee (chap. xxxi. 7, 8).
Thou shalt not go aside from any of
the words which I command thee, to
the right hand, or to the left (chap,
xxviii. 14). He shaU read therein
all the days of his life ; . . . that he
turn not aside from the commandment,
to the right hand, or to the left " (chap,
xvii. 19, 20).
" I commanded you at that time,
saying, The Lord your God hath given
you this land to possess it : ye shall
pass over armed before your brethren
the children of Israel, all that are meet
for the war. But your wives, and your
little ones, and your cattle, . . . shall
abide in your cities which I have given
you ; until the Lord have given rest unto
your brethren, as well as unto you, and
until they also possess the land which
the Lord your God hath given them
beyond Jordan : and then shall ye re-
turn every man unto his possession,
which I have given you" (chap. iii. 18,
19, 20).
Joshua.
" Now after the death of Moses, , . .
the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying,
. . . Every place that the sole of your
foot shall tread upon, that have I given
unto you, as I said unto Moses. From
the wilderness and this Lebanon even
unto the great river, the river Eu-
phrates, all the land of the Hittites, and
unto the great sea toward the going
down of the sun, shall be your coast."
" There shall not any man be able to
stand before thee all the days of thy
life : as I was with Moses, so I will be
with thee : I will not fail thee, nor
forsake thee. Be strong and of a good
courage : for thou shalt cause this
people to inherit the land (marg.)
which I sware unto their fathers to
give them. . . . According to all the law,
which Moses my servant commanded
thee : turn not from it to the right
hand or to the left. . . . This book of
the law, . . . thou shalt meditate
therein day and night " (chap. i. 1-8).
" Eemember the word which Moses
the servant of the Lord commanded tjou,
saying, The Lord your God hath given
you rest, and hath given you this land.
Your wives, your little ones, and your
cattle, shall remain in the land which
Moses gave you on this side Jordan ;
but ye shall pass before your brethren
armed, all the mighty men of valour,
and help them ; until the Lord hath
given your brethren rest, as he hath
given you, and they also have possessed
the land which the Lord your God
giveth them : then ye shall return unto
the land of your possession, and enjoy
it, which Moses the Lord's servant
gave you on this side Jordan " (chap.
i. 13, 14, 15).
The Testimony of Joslma. 6 1
The entire tenor of these opening verses of the book of Joshiua
agrees exactly with the book of Deuteronomy. The commands
to Joshua to "be strong and of a good courage," and not to turn
from the commandment "to the right hand or to the left;" and
the promises that " the Lord will be with him," and " neither
fail nor forsake him," that " no man shall be able to stand before
him," and that he shall " cause the people to inherit the land,"
are all peculiar to Deuteronomy ; and the repetition of the words
of Moses out of that book is with the obvious design of making
the history a sequel to the legislation. Not only so, but in
Joshua the grand initial promise to Israel of the gift of " every
place whereon the sole of their foot shall tread," is expressly
stated to be according to the saying of the Lord to Moses ; and
it is only in Deuteronomy that we find this promise so graphic in
its terms, and in this respect so distinct from all the other promises
to the nation. This one citation determines the relative dates
of the two books ; for the author of Joshua begins his book with
the statement that the Lord had spoken these words to Moses,
and therefore Deuteronomy must have been written before
Joshua. In like manner, Joshua takes his address to the two
tribes and a-half nearly word for word from Deuteronomy, and
he begins it with ascribing the words to the great laAvgiver of
Israel, " Remember the word which Moses the servant of the
Lord commanded you."
II. Deuteronomy. Joshua.
" Of the cities of these people, which "He utterly destroyed aU that
the Lord thy God doth give thee for breathed, as the Lord God of Israel
an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing commanded (chap. x. 40). Neither
alive that breatheth ; but shalt utterly left they any to breathe. As the
destroy them*' (chap. xx. 16, 17), Lord commanded Moses, ... so did
Joshua ; he left nothing undone of
all that the Lord commanded Moses"
(chap. xi. 14, 15).
" If a man have committed a sin " The king of Ai he hanged on a
worthy of death, . . . and thou hang tree until eventice : and as soon as
him on a tree : his body shall not the sun was down, Joshua commanded
remain all night upon the tree, but that they should take his carcase down
thou shalt in any wise bury him that from the tree (chap. viii. 29). He
day : (for he that is hanged is accursed slew them, and hanged them on five
of God ;) that thy land be not defiled, trees : . . . And ... at the time of
which the Lord thy God giveth thee the going down of the sun, Joshua
for an inheritance" (chap. xxi. 22, 23). commanded, and they took them down
off the trees" (chap. x. 26, 27).
62 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
Deuteronomy. Joshua.
" Caleb the son of Jephunneh ; . . . " Moses sware, . . . Surely the land
to him will I give the land that he whereon thy feet have trodden shall be
hath trodden upon, and to his children, thine inheritance, and thy children's for
because he hath wholly followed the ever, because thou hast wholly followed
Lord" (chap. i. 36). the Lord thy God" (chap. xiv. 9).
" There shall \ no man be able to " And the Lord gave unto Israel all
stand before you : for the Lord your the land which he sware . . . unto
God shall lay the fear of you and the their fathers ; and there stood not a
dread of you upon all the land that ye man of all their enemies before them"
shall tread upon" (chap. xi. 25). (chap. xxi. 43, 44).
Except in Deuteronomy, it is doubtful if the people were ever
expressly commanded with their own hands to destroy the Ganaan-
ites ; and it is certain that in it alone, and in its central code, the
command is given in the words to " save alive nothing that
breathed," which are repeated in these exact terms as fulfilled by
Joshua.
The curse on him " that haugeth on a tree," so well known to
us through its transformation into a blessing by the death of the
Son of God in our stead, we find written only in Deuteronomy,
which is full of sayings treasured by our Lord and His apostles,
and precious to the Church in all ages. As the accompanying
command that " his body shall not remain all night upon the
tree" is peculiar to the central legislation of Deuteronomy, so its
execution is recorded nowhere in the Old Testament except in the
book of Joshua, in which there is thrice narrated a careful removal
of the dead bodies at the setting of the sun, and certainly as part
of the great record that " Joshua left nothing undone of all that
the Lord commanded Moses."
The narrative in Joshua of Caleb "claiming the land whereon his
feet had trodden," of no man having been " able to stand before"
Israel, as afterwards of their dwelling in " cities which they built
not," and " eating of vineyards and oliveyards which they planted
not," is in the words of Deuteronomy ; and the account is given
for the purpose of proving how completely and exactly all the
promises by Moses had now been fulfilled to Israel.
III. Deuteronomy. Joshua.
" On the day when ye shall pass over " Then Joshua built an altar unto the
Jordan unto the land which the Lord Lord God of Israel in mount Ebal ; as
thy God giveth thee, thou shalt set Moses the servant of the Lord com-
thee up great stones and plaister them manded the children of Israel, as it is
The Testimony of JosJiita. ^^^
Deuteronomy. Joshua.
with plaister, ... in mount Ebal. . . , written in the book of the law of Moses,
And there shalt thou build an altar unto an altar of whole stones, over which no
theLordthyGod,aualtai'ofwholestones: man hath lift up any iron : and they
thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon offered thereon burnt-offerings unto the
them. . . . And thou shalt ofi'er burnt- Lord, and sacrificed peace-ofierino's.
offerings thereon:... and thou shalt offer And he wrote there upon the stones
peace-offerings And thou shalt write a copy of the law of Moses, which he
upon the stones all the words of this wrote in the presence of the children
law very plainly" (chap, xxvii. 2-8). of Israel" (chap, viii. 30-32).
In the record of this great transaction, the writer of the
book of Joshua has the injunction in Deuteronomy before him ;
he repeats its exact words, and expressly assigns it to Moses
as its author. At the same time he gives what one cannot but
receive as a clear and unequivocal testimony to the fact that the
Deuteronomic legislation was written by the great lawgiver him-
self, with the national assembly for his witnesses. " He [Joshua]
wrote there upon the stones [not of the altar, for it had just been
said that on it no iron was to be lifted, but on the stones spoken
of in Deuteronomy] a copy of the law of Moses, which he [Moses]
wrote in the presence of the children of Israel."
The account of ^ the erection of the altar ip Mount Ebal by
Joshua, according to the command of Moses, is so clear and full
as it now stands in the Bible, that its seal to the Mosaic author-
ship of Deuteronomy can scarcely be said to be controverted, for
the argument against it that appears to be confided in is the plea
of interpolation. From the earliest ages of Christianity this plea
has been resorted to in defence of views rejected by the Church,
and it can only be regarded as a confession of weakness, unless
very special reasons can be adduced for the perilous expedient ;
but no such reasons are given by Bleek, in his Introduction to
the Old Testament, on this passage in Joshua : —
"There is here a clear and even literal reference to Deut. xxvii., where
all this had been ordained by Moses ; and if we compare the two, we cannot
doubt that they were written down by o'm author, both the ordinance by Moses
and the execution by Joshua, in the way it here runs. This section of the book
of Joshua (chap. viii. 30-35) shows itself pretty clearly to be a later interpolation
in the rest of the history, as the passage following (chap. ix. 1), * When all the
kings . . . ,' cannot from its purport relate to the section immediately preceding,
but only to the capture of Ai, as is indeed clearly shown in v. 3. The section,
therefore, appears to have been inserted here by the author of Deuteronomy." *
* Similarly, Professor Smith, Additional Answer, p. 87 : "The passage about the
altar on Mount Ebal appears to be a late interpolation after Deuteronomy, "
64 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
This would be a grave imputation against the fidelity of the
supposed author, only it is light after the Deuteronomic fiction
has been imputed to him. But without even an alleged plea of
difference in the Hebrew manuscripts, mere abruptness in the
narrative is an in credibly slight ground for such a supposition,
because of necessity the account of this religious transaction must
have occupied a parenthetic place in the history of the conquest
of the land. The altar of unhewn stones was to be erected by
Israel in Mount Ebal at the earliest opportunity after the crossing
of the Jordan, and their secured possession of the part of the
country in which it stood ; and as the transaction itself, so the
Scriptural account of it intervenes in the midst of the progressive
military occupation of the country. It is their abruptness and
brevity that help to give their inimitable charm and unfailing
interest to the Biblical narratives, alike in the Old Testament and
the New, and enable the writers to record in a natural and vivid
narrative many great and instructive events in the compass of a
few chapters.
IV. Deuteroxomy. Joshua.
" If ye shall diligently keep all these " Take diligent heed to do the com-
commandments which I command you, mandment and the law, which Moses
to do them, to love the Lord your the servant of the Lord charged you,
God, to walk in all his ways, and to to love the Lord your God, and to walk
cleave unto him (chap. xi. 22). To in all his ways, and to keep his com-
walk in all His ways, and to love him, mandments, and to cleave unto him,
and to serve the Lord thy God with and to serve him with all your heart
all thy heart and with all thy soul " and with all your soul " (chap. xxii. 5).
(chap. X. 12).
These commands in Joshua are both quoted from Deuteronomy,
and expressly stated to have been charged on Israel by Moses,
thus giving the most direct testimony both to the antiquity of
Deuteronomy and to Moses as its author. If it be argued that
some parts of the passage may be gathered from the other books
of Moses, the remark will apply only to individual expressions,
and not to the command as a whole, while other expressions, such
as " walking in all his ways," are only found in Deuteronomy.
Specially the expression " to cleave," which is frequently used to
denote close adhesion, as of the clods of earth cleaving fast
together, or of the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth, is
rare as applied to the Lord ; and we are not sure if it is elsewhere
found in this sense, except in the utterance of David's attachment
The Testwi07iy of Joshua.
65
to his God, " My soul cleaveth after Thee" (Ps. Ixiii. 8), and in
the beautiful type of Jeremiah's girdle. It occurs twice in Joshua
(xxii. 5 ; xxiii. 8), and five times in Deuteronomy (iv. 4 ; x. 20 ;
xi. 22 ; xiii. 4 ; xxx. 20), and never in the other laws of Moses.
But Joshua here tells the children of Israel explicitly that Moses
charged them to " cleave unto the Lord," and gives thus a very
distinctive testimony to the laws of Deuteronomy as the word of
Moses himself.
V. Deuteuonomy.
"Take heed to thyself that thou
offer not thy bumt-oflerings in every
place that thou seest : but in the place
which the Lord shall choose in one of
thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy
burnt-ofierings, and there thou shalt do
all that I command thee" (chap. xii.
13, 14).
Joshua.
''God forbid that we should rebel
against the Lord, and turn this day
from following the Lord, to build an
altar for burnt-offerings, for meat-
offerings, or for sacrifices, beside the
altar of the Lord our God that is
before his tabernacle" (chap. xxii.
29).
The cordial agreement of the twelve tribes of Israel, brought out
in the striking narrative of the altar Ed, that they would neither
build nor tolerate any rival to the brazen altar before the taber-
nacle, presents a remarkable indication of the deep impression
made on the whole nation by the fervent address of Moses on ihe
banks of the Jordan : and if Josiah's jealousy for the central altar
is rightly taken by the critics as a proof that he had found the
book of Deuteronomy, the much more notable jealousy of the
entire nation for the same ordinance would be maintained by
them as a still more remarkable proof of their possession of that
book, except for a misleading prejudice.
VI. Deuteronomy. •
" Take heed to yourselves, that . . .
ye turn not aside, and serve other gods,
and worship them ; and then the Lord's
wrath be kindled against you ; . . .
and ye perish quickly from off the good
land which the Lord giveth you" (chap,
xi. 16, 17).
" When the Lord thy God shall have
brought thee into the land which ho
sware unto thy fathers, ... to give
Joshua.
"When ye have transgressed the
covenant of the Lord your God, which
he commanded you, and have gone and
served other gods, and bowed your-
selves to them ; then shall the anger
of the Lord be kindled against you, and
ye shall perish quickly from off the
good land which he hath given unto
you" (chap, xxiii. 16).
" I have given you a land for which
ye did not labour, and cities which ye
built not, and ye dwell in them ; of
E
66 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
Deuteronomy. Joshua.
thee great and goodly cities, which the vineyards and oliveyards which ye
thou buildedst not ; . . . vineyards planted not do ye eat" (chap. xxiv. 13).
and olive-trees, which thou plantedst
not" (chap. vi. 10, 11).
" There failed not ought of any good
thing which the Lord had spoken unto
the house of Israel ; all came to pass"
(chap. xxi. 45).
These passages from the closing chapters of Joshua are all
taken in substance from Deuteronomy, and in part they are quoted
from it word for word. They prove that, as in the first chapter and
onwards, so likewise to the end of the book, the author of Joshua
had the words of Deuteronomy in his hands or in his memory.
It is specially and expressly from the words of Deuteronomy that
he brings out the great conclusion which his book was written to
prove, that " there failed not ought of any good thing which the
Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel ; all came to pass."
The comparison we have thus made of passages from these two
books proves that the author of the book of Joshua had the book
of Deuteronomy before him, and wrote with a design of showing
the correspondence of the history with the words of Moses as there
recorded. This designed agreement involves these conclusions : —
(1.) If Joshua is an authentic history, Moses was the author
of Deuteronomy.
(2.) If Deuteronomy was a legislative fiction written under one
of the later kings of Judah, the history of Joshua is not authentic ;
but one of its designs was to throw a cloud of apparent historic
truth over that fiction by a narrative embodying a fictitious fulfil-
ment of its words.
(3.) If the book of Joshua is a fiction, even the delusive plea
of literary form, as of parable or drama, cannot be oflered on its
behalf; it is either a genuine history of the conquest of Canaan,
or falsehood of an aggravated character.
(4.) Therefore the opinion, that Deuteronomy or its legislation
was written seven hundred years after Moses, involves the con-
clusion that the book of Joshua is not inspired ; and to believe,
nevertheless, that it is inspired can have no effect in altering
this conclusion, which is necessarily involved in assigning Deuter-
onomy to this late period.
The Seal of the New Testament. 67
CHAPTER X.
THE SEAL OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
1. 'mP^HE frequent appeals by our Lord and His apostles to the
"Kih words of Deuteronomy as Divine are so many seals to
its authenticity as the writing of Moses ; because it is
only by the greatest violence that its source as from God can be
severed from its communication to us by the hand of Moses, and
if its strictly Mosaic origin is denied its Divine inspiration can never
be defended. That the Jews in the time of our Lord held it as
an essential part of the law of Moses is allowed by all ; and as
such it is transmitted to us with the seal of the New Testament,
everywhere without the slightest intimation that a large portion
of the law had no connection whatever with Moses : " The I9.W
came by Moses : we have found him of whom Moses in the law
and the prophets did write : they have Moses and the prophets,
let them hear them : did not Moses give you the law : beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded the things concern-
ing himself: jivst, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy
by them that are no people (Deut. xxxii.) ; but (afterwards)
Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought
me not." In the law given by Moses, Deuteronomy was included
by the Jews and by the writers of the New Testament, quite as
much as Exodus ; and the later of the two books would no more
have been assigned by them to another author than the earlier.
2. Our Lord's testimony to Moses as the author and the writer
of the book of Deuteronomy, in answer to the inquiry of the
Pharisees on the lawfulness of divorce, is clear and explicit (Mark
X. 2 ; Deut. xxiv. 1). He asks what Moses commanded ; and when
they appeal to Deuteronomy for his sanction, He sets that sanction
aside, but not at all on the ground that the book was not really
the writing of Moses, which would to them have been the strongest
of all arguments. On the contrary. He expressly declares " he
68 Moses on the Plains of Moab.
(Moses) wrote you this precept," assigning not only the giving
of the law but the writing of it to Moses ; and explaining the
inward motive of Moses in granting the sufferance, "For the
hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept." This must
mean Moses in his own person, and not an ideal representation
of him ; nor is it God, who is spoken of on the contrary as
ordaining the original institution ; but the man Moses under
the Divine guidance. Such a testimony ought to have been
revered as a Divine arrest on the new theory, and to have
debarred it from spreading beyond the bounds of rationalism.
3. The martyr Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, in replying to
the charge of saying that " Jesus of Nazareth shall change the
customs which Moses delivered," first refers to Moses bringing
Israel out of Egypt ; then says, " This is that Moses which said
unto the children of Israel, A Prophet shall the Lord your God
raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, him shall ye
hear" (Acts vii. 37); and then expressly declares that this pre-
diction in Deuteronomy was uttered by him who led Israel out of
Eg3^t. The Apostle Peter, in laying the foundation of the
Christian Church, cites the same great prediction as the utter-
ance of Moses : "For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A Prophet
shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like
unto me ; " and the force of his argument with the Jews depends
on the truth of the prophecy as coming from Moses himself. He
is speaking to them in the name of One who claimed to be greater
than Moses, and the apostle reasons with them on the ground
that Moses had testified that such a Prophet was to be raised up
in Israel, like to himself; like him in speaking with God face to
face, in mediating between God and the people, and in giving
laws to Israel with Divine authority. His argument is that
Moses himself is a witness for Christ ; and to his hearers it would
have been very different indeed had they been told that an un-
known Prophet, seven hundred years after the death of their
great lawgiver, had foretold that Moses would be superseded by
Jesus of Nazareth.
But to us as well as to Israel the historical foundation of the
New Testament as engrafted on the Old is undermined by the
new theory of the date and origin of this great prophecy. If it
is not the true but an ideal Moses that utters the words "A
Prophet like unto me," then Moses himself at Mount Sinai ceases
to be a living man, and becomes merely an idea ; not that the
The Seal of the New Testament. 69
bare existence of the man Moses is set aside, but that the whole
transactions at Mount Sinai, and all similarly marvellous events
either are, or may be purely ideal. The words of Moses on
the plains of Moab, " The Lord thy God will raise up unto
thee a Prophet like unto me" (Deut. xviii. 15), are his dying
assurance to Israel on the express ground of what God had said
to himself on Mount Sinai, " I will raise them up a Prophet like
unto thee," in consequence of the people's desire not to hear again
the voice of God Himself (ver. 16-18). According to the new
theory, this promise on Mount Sinai of the great future Prophet
is purely ideal, and was given seven hundred years afterwards.
Now, Deuteronomy, as the latest revelation invested with Mosaic
authority, supersedes Exodus in so far as it differs from it ; and
as the latest Mosaic revelation, it must likewise be our authorita-
tive guide in the interpretation of the previous records. But if
the Lord's answer to Moses in the 17th and 18th verses, that
the people have well spoken in asking a mediator with God,
and that he will raise up for them another prophet, is not a
true but an ideal answer, never given to Moses at all, then the
people's request in the 16th verse must likewise be ideal, for
their petition and the Divine reply are parts of one trans-
action. The people's prayer without the answer is recorded
also in Exodus (chap. xx. 19); but if, according to the latest
authoritative document, this request of the people on Mount Sinai
is ideal and not actual, it must be lawful, if not incumbent, to
interpret the whole scene in Exodus ideally ; and to follow the most
destructive critics in holding that not even the Ten Command-
ments, as we now have them, are really in the words of Moses.
If the Deuteronomist was not Moses, he is a Prophet greater than
Moses ; but such a Projohet was impossible, except in the person
of the Messiah.
Professor Davidson, without directly noticing the prediction of
the great Prophet, takes up the concluding verses of the passage
and reasons against their authenticity by an argument that is
alarmingly bold in dealing with the Holy Scriptures : —
" The prophecy in Deuteronomy regarding the prophets seems directed to meet
the ramifications and developments of a pseudo-prophecy — sometimes consciously
false, and sometimes, perhaps, self-deceived— such as history makes us familiar
with. But this pseudo-prophecy arose only side by side with true prophecy, and
came to a head during the moral confusions and political perplexities of the time
before and after Jeremiah. We cannot help asking whether a statement from
yo Moses on the Plains of Moab.
Moses about prophecy was likdy to take into account and frame itself so as to
meet such a peculiar condition of the national mind, the result of such distant
and complicated historical movements? And this is just an instance of the
kind of questions which meet us everywhere in this field " (p. 17).
The prophecy of Moses regarding the Great Prophet is a signal
prediction of a very distant event ; but his directions how to dis-
tinguish between true prophets and false are so fitted to meet a
not unlikely evil, as scarcely to come under the class of unlikely
13redictions. But if our acceptance of prophecy is to be squared
by what its interpreters deem "likely; " and if on account of the
prediction of circumstances, " the result of distant and compli-
cated historical movements," a prophecy is to be rejected as
unlikely ; the truth of many of the greatest prophecies in the
Bible is destroyed. Let us return to the words of holy writ in
the mouth of the first of the apostles : " Moses truly said unto
the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto
you like unto me; " and in the lips of our Lord Himself : "Had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me ; but
if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words ? "
All of us agree in believing in Deuteronomy as an undoubted
portion of the inspired Scriptures, both because it was received
and ^honoured as such by the Hebrew nation, and because we
have the ample testimony of our Lord and His apostles to its
Divine authority. But sorae have hastily supposed that if, on
the ground of such a sanction, they cordially accept it as inspired,
the historical truth of its outward form is of little moment.
WheU; however, the historical truth is once abandoned, there
is no ground left on which to defend the Divine authority ; and
however individual men, retaining their loyalty to their Lord,
may hold fast the truth after they have undermined its foundation,
it is to be feared that the greater number will follow out con-
sistently the path on which they have been persuaded to enter,
will go on to reject the historical and prophetical truth first of
the Old Testament and then of the New, and will either roam in a
dreary path that has no solid ground beneath it, or fall into the
dark abyss of a hopeless unbelief.
The Word of the Lord is pure, and out of this trial it will come
forth in all its brightness as silver out of the furnace. But, mean-
while, an unutterable calamity may overtake us, for our children
may lose the one treasure we were bound to bequeath to
The Seal of the New Tcsta^nent. 71
them ; and for long years they may wander " through dry places
seeking rest, and finding none," before they recover their hold
of the Word of Life, and regain their footing on the rock of
eternal truth.
The following words of warning have come to us only too season-
ably from another land : — '' From the scene of His temptation and
conflict, in His ordinary teaching, when surrounded and pressed
by the cavilling Jews, from the risen Lord, and just as the
opening heavens were to receive Him from our sight, we have
one, repeated, unvarying, consistent testimony of Christ that
Moses was the author of the Law.
" It does not meet the case at all to say that Christ accom-
modated Himself to the prevalent view of His day, that He was
only using popular lauguage, adapting Himself to the prejudices
of His hearers ; for that involves one of two things which lie in
the face of the whole Gospel, or involves both. Either that Christ
was a mere man, and shared in the prejudices and ignorance of
His age ; or Christ lent His great name and authority to sanction
and perpetuate common errors, and errors which touched the
spiritual interests and life of the people. Those who agree fully
with KuENEN and Colenso may say that Christ was ignorant
as those around Him, or at least shared in that ignorance ; aird
it must be confessed that this is a less abysmal depth than the
supposition of moral obliquity. In either case, however, the
Christ of the Gospels has disappeared.
" We are shut up to this alternative. Either we must abide
by the testimony of Christ, and regard Moses as the author of
Deuteronomy, or we may accept the premisses and conclusions
of these negative critics, and thus part with our Bibles and
Christ." ^'
* Lange's Commentary on the Old Testament. Deuteeonomt, by Eev. F. W. J.
Schroeder ; with Appendix by the Eev. Dr. Gosman, from which we have taken this
extract, p. 272. We had not seen the volume till after the preceding pages had been
printed.
LORIMER AND GILLIES, PRINTERS, 31 ST. ANDREW SQUARE, EDINBURGH.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
62 pp. Demy Svo, sewed, jmce Is.
THE OLD ISAIAH.
CONTENTS.
The Modern Fiction of Two Isaiahs — Isaiah's Vision in the Temple — His character-
istic use of Light and Darkness and their Cognate Terms in a Spiritual Sense —
The Messenger of Light to Israel and the World — Images peculiar to Isaiah —
The Author of the later Prophecies not an Exile — The Infidel Argument against
the Bible from the alleged Spuriousness of the later Prophecies — The Authority of
the New Testament bound up with the Authenticity of Isaiah.
32 pp. Demy 8«o, sewed, price Qd.
THE FALL OF BABYLON:
ITS PREDICTION NOT ANONYMOUS.
CONTENTS.
The Fall of Babylon — The conjecture that Anonymous Prophets in Babylon foretold
its Fall — The Respectful Loyalty of the known Exile Prophets to the Chaldean
Kings— The Unsparing Denunciations of Babylon by the Older Prophets in Jeru-
salem— The Infatuation of Publishing such Threats in Babylon, and the Culpa-
bility of Publishing them Anonymously.
24 2^P- Demy Svo, setved, price 6d.
THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM
AND
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.
CONTENTS.
The rejected Titles of the Fifty-first and other Psalms — The alleged unfitness of Davi
to have written the Psalm, as of Moses to have written Deuteronomy — The Cm
tents of the Psalm the Proof of its only possible Author — Objections to the David
origin of the Psalm.
EDINBURGH: JOHN MACLAREN & SON.
BS1225.8.S92
Our old Bible: Moses on the plains of
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