Arabian Desert, east of Edom. So that we have now four places all in the same line of march. Between them is the plain (in Hebrew Arabah), which is universally acknowledged to be the Wady-el-Arabah running from the Elanitic gulf up to the Ghor of the Dead Sea; and remarkably enough at its north-eastern end we have Tuphileh, the Tophel of Deuteronomy; and perhaps at its south-western extremity, Paran. For some authors take Elath at the head of the gulf to be the El-Paran of Gen. xiv. 6, by dropping the second part of the compound; or, by dropping the first, simply Paran. However that may be, there is enough to show that the tract of country marked off in the first verse of Deuteronomy stretches from the plains of Moab to the latitude of Mount Sinai.

From this we deduce two conclusions; first, that the localities named are not intended to define the place where all Israel was assembled together to hear the last speech of Moses; secondly, that they were meant to point out the spots most memorable in the history of the legislation after the great code of Sinai. For that can be the only meaning of the sentence, 'These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on the bank of the Jordan, in the desert, in the plain over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab.' To see this more clearly, we must remember that the concluding words of Numbers are, 'These are the commandments and the judgments, which Jehovah commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan near Jericho.' Such is the usual epilogue after any independent piece of legislation is concluded. Thus, after the code of Sinai had been drawn up, we have, 'These are the statutes and judgments and laws which Jehovah made between him and

the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses' (Lev. xxvi. 46); to which is added, in the next chapter, an appendix concluding with a similar formula, 'These are the commandments which Jehovah commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai' (Lev. xxvii. 34). But a new epoch begins with the first start from Sinai (Num. x. 11). The episodes of Tabera and Hazeroth mark the first stages of their journey to the promised land. They come forward as far as Kadesh, on the very borders of their inheritance (Num. xiii. 26 comp. xiv. 45). But on account of their rebellion are hurled back into the wilderness for forty years (Num. xiii. 33). During that time their history becomes a blank; for there was no progress to be recorded. On the first month after this term had expired we find them again in Kadesh (Num. xx. 1), ready to resume from that point the march so sadly interrupted. In the meantime, however, some important ritual laws were delivered (Num. xv., xviii., xix.); and others had to be added as they neared the Jordan. But it is remarkable that the usual epilogue is not added to those detached pieces of legislation. We find it, however, clearly, in the first words of Deuteronomy, where, immediately after this epilogue in reference to the legislation in the plains of Moab (Num. xxxvi. 13), the author sums up the whole from the breaking up of the camp at Sinai.

Clearly, then, the first verse of Deuteronomy refers, not to the words hereafter to be recorded, but to those already written down in the history of the previous legislation. The Deuteronomist, therefore, had it before him in the only form it was ever known to exist, that is, in the other books of the Pentateuch.

3. The definition of the subject-matter of Deuteronomy shows the same thing. That definition is contained in

the fifth verse: in the land of Moab began Moses to explain this law.' Hävernick would translate, in the land of Moab began Moses to write down the following law.'1 I can hardly imagine that any other Hebrew scholar will back him in his translation of 2, which he makes equivalent to write down. The word does not bear this meaning anywhere; and the passages which he cites in his favour from Deut. xxvii. 8, and Habakkuk ii. 2, relate, as the word itself would naturally suggest, to the excavation or engraving of letters either on a hard substance like stone, or on a soft one like fresh lime; but they do not at all imply that the word had attained that additional stage of figurative development which similar words have arrived at in the Indo-Germanic class of languages, and which in Semitic has been reached by an meaning the superimposition of ink on prepared skins or papyrus. Even Rabbinical Hebrew has not carried into that higher stage. Explain is a figurative meaning, which arises naturally from the original notion of excavating; and it is the one which all the ancient translators have adopted: the Septuagint diaσañoα, Onkelos, the Syriac, the Samaritan version 9. So that Hävernick has not the slightest reason for asserting, that the signification explanare (see Ges. and Winer sub. v.), which in Hebrew usage is unheard of, has been invented for only with a view to this passage.'

From this it will appear that he is also wrong, like many other commentators, in translating inn by Moses is not going to write, much This is supposed to be already given.

the following law.

less give, the law.

He undertakes here only an explanation of the law, adding,

1 Introduction to the Pent. p. 17.

indeed, some authentic modifications as new conditions. called for them, but necessarily supposing an original already existing as the groundwork of the whole. The subject-matter, then, of Deuteronomy is an authentic. commentary on a law already delivered. Every commentary implies a pre-existing text. Erskine's Institutes are not the law of Scotland; the Institutes of Coke do not constitute the law of England, and the Pandects of Justinian presuppose a Roman code. So the pre-existence of the law of Moses is a necessary condition for the commentary of Deuteronomy. This law, therefore, in the language of the Deuteronomist, does not mean the following, but the foregoing law, as already laid down in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. It is to this he refers, in the opening verses of his work, as the words spoken by Moses in the localities there specified, and as the divine commands (v. 3), in accordance with which Moses delivered his last

instructions.

We find an additional proof in the noticeable fact, that if this referred to the following law, the demonstrative would be separated from its object by four long chapters. For it is not till the fifth chapter that the law commences; whereas the commentary begins with the sixth verse of chapter first.

II. The peculiar way in which the laws are handled by the Deuteronomist is such as can be expected only from an authentic commentator, working on a code already delivered in the form which we now have. For while he runs over most of the legislation, always supposing its previous existence, we find him grouping together laws which lie scattered in the original, arranging them in oratorical rather than in legislative order, at one time compressing, at another extending, and occasionally passing over those that required no special notice at the

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moment, with the admonition to learn them from the priests and the Levites '-the depositaries and authorised interpreters of the law. In repeating the Decalogue (Deut. v. 6-19), he refers twice to the Exodus original (vv. 12, 16), when he adds as Jehovah thy God commanded thee.' On the previous law he touches passim. He groups and arranges differently Deut. vii. 1-5, compared with Ex. xxiii. 32, 33 and Ex. xxxiv. 11-17. He compresses Lev. xxvii. 30-33 into Deut. xiv. 22; Lev. xxvii. 26-28 into Deut. xv. 19; Lev. xxii. 20-24 into Deut. xv. 21; Lev. xvii. 10-15 into Deut. xii. 16 and xv. 23; Ex. xxiii. 6, 8 into Deut. xvi. 19. He partly compresses and partly extends Lev. xi. 2-31 in Deut. xiv. 3-21; Ex. xxiii. 19 in Deut. xiv. 22, 23. He varies and compresses Ex. xxi. 1-12 in Deut. xv. 12-18. He extends Ex. xxiii. 4, 5 in Deut. xxii. 1–4; Lev. xix. 19 in Deut. xxii. 9, 11; Ex. xxi. 16 in Deut. xxiv. 7; Ex. xxii. 25, 26 in Deut. xxiv. 10-13; Lev. xix. 13 in Deut. xxiv. 14, 15. He refers to the original for information on leprosy (Deut. xxiv. 8), on the obligations of the Sabbath (Deut. v. 12), and the Levitical ordinances in general-a point on which there was no occasion to enlarge before a promiscuous assemblage of the people.

III. The identity of facts and events, the close imitation of passages, the verbal transcripts from the other books, are additional proofs that these were well known to the Deuteronomist.

1. Some of the facts referred to, and contained in the so-called Jehovistic as well as Elohistic sections, are tabulated in the following list :—