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than it is, that this first collection of laws dates from the time. immediately following the exodus. It was then reduced to writing, formally read in the audience of the people, their submission to it pledged, and the covenant of God with Israel ratified on the basis of it with appropriate ceremonies. It even claims priority to the tables of the law deposited in the ark, whose authenticity and antiquity are vouched for in the most unimpeachable manner, and are not disputed by Professor Smith.

Again, at the renewal of the covenant after the sin of the golden calf, Moses is directed to write certain words, which are not "expressly identified with the ten words on the tables of stone," but are, on the contrary, expressly distinguished from them (Ex. xxxiv. 27, 28). The ambiguity arising from the omission of the subject of the verb in the last clause of verse 28, is removed by a comparison of verse 1. It was the LORD, not Moses, who wrote the Ten Commandments upon the tables, which were carried to the summit of Sinai for this purpose. Moses wrote upon some material not indicated the words contained in Ex. xxxiv. 10-26, which is substantially repeated from the book of the covenant (Ex. xx. 23; xxiii. 12-33), being the specifications there given respecting the service of God, and the pledge on His part to subdue the Canaanites before them. They had grossly violated their duty to God, which wrought a forfeiture of His pledge to them. Hence these portions of the covenant are singled out and enforced upon the people afresh. The rewriting of these extracts is an additional confirmation of the existence of the code from which they were taken, and is equivalent to a new assertion of its Mosaic origin.

In Deut. xxxi. 9 we read, "Moses wrote this law" and verses 24-26, "When Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book until they were finished, Moses commanded the Levites . . . saying, Take this book of the law and put it in the side of the ark." If it is possible for words to convey the idea that the entire code of laws here spoken of, which cannot be less than Deut. xii.-xxvi, was written by Moses, this idea is here expressed. And no amount of arguing about the various extent of meaning that may be given to the term "law" can make it different. The fact that "all the

The discourses in Deuteronomy.

319 words of this law were to be written on plastered stones on Mount Ebal (Deut. xxvii. 3), can create no difficulty. This statement finds abundant illustration in the walls of tombs and temples in Egypt, and its numerous monuments written all over with hieroglyphical legends. And it surely requires no great effort to believe it feasible to trace these laws in plaster as a symbolic declaration that they were thenceforth the laws. of the land. Written in letters five times the size of those in ordinary Hebrew Bibles, they could all be embraced in the space of eight feet by three. The famous Behistûn inscription of Darius in its triple form is twice as long as this entire code, besides being carved in bold characters in the solid rock, and in a position difficult of access on the mountain side.

And the whole book of Deuteronomy purports to be a series of discourses delivered by Moses to the people in the plains of Moab, inculcating and enforcing this law. Professor Smith reminds us that these were not "taken down by a shorthand reporter." And he queries whether it is certainly the meaning of Deut. xxxi. 24, that we have this body of laws "word for word" as it was written down by Moses. But under cover of this regard for absolute precision, it will not do to fritter away the entire record. That Moses in his oral discourse uttered in every case exactly the words reported to us, just those and neither less nor more, we are not concerned to affirm; but that he did deliver such discourses, and that they are here preserved in their substantial import, is fully certified unless the credibility of the book can be impeached. And this code of laws is substantially as it came from the pen of Moses, if any reliance can be placed upon the record.

So, too, the Mosaic origin of the Levitical law is abundantly declared by the formulas with which they are introduced, and which recur over and over again: The LORD spake unto Moses, or The LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron; and the formulas, by which they are often followed, e.g., Lev. vii. 37, 38; xxiii. 44; xxvi. 46; xxvii. 34. The occasion is recited upon which particular laws were delivered; and the circumstances connected with these enactments are inseparably united with the historical narrative of the time.

Now as to the origin of these several codes of laws there

can be no possibility of mistake. It is not merely affirmed in a credible history, of whose truth we have abundant guarantee; but the nature of the case precludes falsehood or error. An accepted system of legislation, whose authority is confessed and submitted to, has, in that fact, the strongest possible proof of its genuineness. No forged body of laws could ever be imposed upon any people. No supposititious code, issued in the name of Moses in a subsequent age, could have been accepted without inquiry, and installed as the law of the land. It is indeed supposable that the current laws and usages of any given period might be popularly supposed to be more ancient than they really were. But this is not what we are asked to believe. We are told that the first that is known of the book of Deuteronomy is that it was found in the temple in the days of Josiah. It claims to be the work of Moses, but it never emanated from him. Its enactments had never been in force before. No such laws were known at any time during the history of the people. They were not in harmony with existing customs or with prevailing ideas, but were in some essential points directly antagonistic to them. It was prepared with the view of inaugurating a new departure, of carrying into effect reforms which Hezekiah had made a vigorous attempt to introduce, but had failed. Such was the hostility of the masses, and such the influence of parties interested in opposing them, that "a violent and bloody reaction" followed under Manasseh, and "in Josiah's time the whole work had to be done again from the beginning" (p. 244). And yet a newly-found book, purporting to be the law of Moses, but which had no external credentials" (p. 351), and which, if the facts be as alleged, every one must have known was not what it claimed to be, was at once accepted by Josiah, "to whom it was of no consequence to know the exact date and authorship of the book" (p. 363). One at least of its provisions was unwelcome to the priests (p. 362), but they raised no question as to the origin of a code so mysteriously discovered. And under its potent influence, regulations were readily carried into effect, which had been so stubbornly resisted before. And Ezra, it seems, met with similar success in introducing the Levitical code after the exile. If Mr. Gladstone could but find some law-book in Dublin which had never been

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Moses the national legislator.

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heard of before, how easily and amicably the whole Irish question might be settled!

But this use of the name of Moses, we are told, is simply "a legal fiction;" "in Israel all law was held to be derived from the teaching of Moses" (p. 385). Such a notion could not have arisen unless Moses really was the great legislator of the nation, and something more than the ten commandments. was directly traceable to him. This of itself creates a presumption in favour of the Mosaic origin of the codes ascribed to him, unless there be good reason to the contrary. The instances which are adduced to show that customs or statutes of a later date were imputed to Moses admit of no such interpretation, and could only be distorted to this end by one intent upon making out a case.1

1 Professor Smith says (p. 387): "A peculiarly clear case of this occurs in the law of war. According to 1 Sam. xxx. 24, 25, the standing law of Israel as to the distribution of booty was enacted by David, and goes back only to a precedent in his war with the Amalekites who burned Ziklag. In the priestly legislation the same law is given as a Mosaic precedent from the war with Midian (Num. xxxi. 27)." The fact is that Moses gave no law upon the subject whatever. It is simply related, as one of the incidents of the battle with Midian, that the prey was divided into two parts between them who went out to battle and all the congregation. The circumstances were peculiar, and it was not made a general rule. David did not divide the booty into two equal parts, but ordered that the 200 who guarded the baggage should individually have like shares with the 400 who engaged in the conflict; and the division was not, as Moses directed, between the army on the one hand and the people on the other, but between the two divisions of his little army, while to the people at large he simply sent presents. A more exact precedent is found in Josh. xxii. 8, though even in that instance no law was enacted. David made the first statute in relation to the matter; though some critic may be able to discover that even this is only a “legal fiction," that being attributed to David which was really originated by Judas Maccabeus, who gave an equal share of the spoils of the enemy to the feeble and needy classes (2 Macc. viii. 28, 30). In Ezra ix. 11, "where the law of the Pentateuch is cited as an ordinance of the prophets" (p. 310), the prophets are inclusive of Moses (Deut. xviii. 18; Hos. xii. 13), not distinguished from him.

It is further alleged (pp. 319, 432) that there are conflicting statements respecting the position of the tabernacle with respect to the camp of Israel, only one of which can be true history, -the other must be later law veiled in historic form. But this apparent discrepancy is due to the interpreter, not to the text. It is brought about by the fashionable method of dissecting the Pentateuch, and then viewing the separate paragraphs in their isolation, and without regard to their connection, or only so much regard to it as will choose variance where that is possible in preference to harmony. protest against the entire procedure, notwithstanding the eminence and ability of those who indulge in it. It opens a boundless field for the display of the critic's ingenuity, but it is not rational interpretation, and would as easily create the semblance of self-contradiction in any author to whom it

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The style in which the laws are framed, and the terms in which they are drawn up, point to the sojourn in the wilderness, prior to the occupation of Canaan, as the time when both the Levitical and the Deuteronomic codes were produced (Lev. xviii. 3; Deut. xii. 9). The standing designation of Canaan is, The land which the LORD giveth thee to possess it (Deut. xv. 4, 7; xxi. 1, 23). The laws look forward to the time when thou art come into the land, etc., and shalt possess it" (Deut. xvii. 14; Lev. xiv. 34; xix. 23; xxv. 2), or "when the LORD hath cut off these nations and thou

should be applied. If a meaning be given to Ex. xxxiii. 7-11, which it cannot bear in the connection in which it is found, but which it is assumed that it might have had in some other imaginable connection, and especially if, with Dillmann, the sense of vv. 1-6 be altered by leaving out words or clauses ad libitum, it may be made to appear that according to this passage and a few others, the sacred tent stood outside of the camp; whereas it is elsewhere spoken of as pitched in the centre of the camp. But if we discard imaginary possibilities, and give to these verses their obvious sense as they stand, the alleged discrepancy disappears. Immediately after the ratification of God's covenant with Israel, Moses went up into the mount and received direction to make a sanctuary in which God might dwell among his people. The sin of the golden calf ruptured the covenant and put an end to all proceedings under it. Without going on to construct the tabernacle according to the specifications given him, he set before the eyes of the people a visible sign of their altered relation to the Lord by pitching a provisional tabernacle outside of the camp, and at a distance from it, to signify that God would not remain in the midst of them (Ex. xxxiii. 3). It is called "the tabernacle," ver. 7, because it is definitely conceived by the writer as the one used for the purpose, and which was well remembered by him and by his readers. (Comp. the use of the Heb. article in Ex. ii. 15; Num. xi. 27; Hab. ii. 2.) In Num. xi. 24, 26, 30; xii. 4, 5, persons are said to go out of the camp unto the tabernacle, and out of the tabernacle into the camp; but this does not prove the tabernacle to have been outside of the camp. If a gentleman goes out of his yard into his house, it does not follow that his house is not in his yard. So that all that the Professor tells us about early sanctuaries being outside of cities, and Ezekiel paving the way for the sanctuary being located in the midst of the people, is quite irrelevant. Num. x. 33 is adduced to prove that the sanctuary was outside the camp when the people were on the march, but it makes no mention of the sanctuary; it simply says that the ark went before them, when they left Sinai, as their guide. And this is not in conflict with ver. 21: comp. iv. 15-21. To suppose such a contradiction within the compass of a few verses is to impute the most extraordinary heedlessness to the writer, or, if any prefer, the compiler of the book. While the tabernacle and the sacred vessels had their place assigned them between the tribes as they moved forward, the ark, which was the symbol and the seat of God's presence, was singled out, as we are expressly told, to lead the way.

This is the case even in Deut. xix. 14, where the last clause of the verse makes it apparent that the setting of the landmarks did not precede the enacting of the law. The Hebrew for "they of old time" simply "first," and is applicable to those who originally marked the boundary at whatever date.

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