an old book, the work of Moses, and confines herself to her prophetic function of declaring that the evil threatened would surely come to pass. And this is equally true if this part of the history was written, as we conceive, by Jeremiah, and these words are his words, expressing the tenor, rather than the actual language, of Huldah's reply.

580. Again, the effect upon the king's mind, and the consequent movement among the people, may have been far greater than had been even anticipated. It might have been intended merely to produce this new work, as a 'prophecy in disguise,' in the hope that it might take some strong hold upon the national mind, and confirm the hands of those who were labouring to restore the true Faith in Judah. And, perhaps, at first, it was felt to be difficult or undesirable to say or do anything which might act as a check upon the zeal and energy which the king himself exhibited, and in which, as it seems, he was generally supported by the people, in putting down by force the gross idolatries which abounded in his kingdom. That impulsive effort, which followed immediately the reading of the 'Book,' might have been arrested, if he had been told at once the true origin of those awful words, which had made so strong an impression on him. They were not less awful, indeed, or less true, because uttered in the name of Moses by such a Prophet as Jeremiah. But still it is obvious that their effect was likely to be greatly intensified under the idea that they were the last utterances of Moses himself. And, as we have said, we seem to have an indication that the real facts of the case subsequently became known to the king, if not to the people generally, in the circumstance that no such efforts appear to have been made afterwards in his reign to bring the people' to Jerusalem at the other Great Feasts, even in that same year, and that no other Passover seems to have been kept with any such solemnity.

430

CHAPTER IV.

DEUT.1.1-II.37.

581. WE shall consider that the following points have now been established:

(i) The book of Deuteronomy must have been written chiefly by one writer;

(ii) This writer must have been a different person from the writer or writers, by whom the rest of the Pentateuch, speaking generally, was written;

(iii) The Deuteronomist, whoever he may have been, must have lived in a later age than either the Elohist or Jehovist, since he takes for granted facts recorded in their narrative;

(iv) There are some indications of this book having been written in a very late age of the Hebrew history;

(v) There are historical circumstances, which suggest that it may have been composed in the early part of Josiah's reign; (vi) There is a remarkable correspondence between the peculiar expressions of the Deuteronomist and the language of Jeremiah, who did live in that age.

582. We shall next proceed to show that this book contains very distinct signs of such a later origin, in the existence of numerous contradictions to the older narrative, such as would naturally be expected to arise under such circumstances, when a later writer is adding freely from his own mind, and from his own point of view, to writings of an older time, and is not careful to preserve strictly the unity of the different parts of the story.

This implies, however, that he did not regard the older document as so inexpressibly sacred and so infallibly Divine, as is implied in modern popular views of inspiration.

583. In order to set these contradictions plainly before the reader, it will be desirable to pass under review the whole book of Deuteronomy, taking notice only of those passages, which affect in any way the questions now under consideration, and carefully watching for any signs of time, which may betray themselves in the writer's expressions. We may assume that we know now that he lived in a later day than the other writers of the Pentateuch. But we are now seeking to ascertain, if possible, from the internal evidence of the book itself, in what later day he lived.

We shall prefix an asterisk (*) to those passages, which appear most important in this last respect, as involving signs of time.'

584. D.i.1.

'These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on the other [E.V. this] side Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Zuph, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab.'

The above words are, of course, perfectly intelligible, if we are not obliged to believe that the book of Deuteronomy is historically true, or, rather, if we are allowed to suppose (what is, doubtless, the true state of the case) that it is merely the product of a devout writer's imagination, a poem, in short, in which he puts such words into the mouth of Moses as he deemed appropriate to the occasion. The writer, in such a case, would not have realised to himself the full meaning of his own words. Doubtless, the expression all Israel' may sometimes be used for the elders,' &c. by whom an order might be communicated to the whole host. But that it means certainly in this passage the assembled host, and is intended to mean it, and not the 'elders' or 'headmen' only, as some have suggested, if the narrative is to be regarded as literally and historically true,

cannot, as it appears to me, be reasonably denied. And surely the words in D.xxix. 10,11, are enough to decide the question: 'Ye stand this day all of you before Jehovah your God,—your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, -your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water.'

585. The writer, however, I repeat, was not guilty of any such absurdity as the words, understood in their natural and proper meaning, would imply: for he never realised to himself the thing stated as an historical fact, any more than TACITUS would have imagined that the words, which he has put into the mouth of the barbarian chief, Galgacus, would be supposed by any intelligent reader to have been actually uttered by him. SCOTT, of course, takes the literal view of the matter, and explains it as follows:

'The words,' as here mentioned, seem to mean the subsequent exhortations, which Moses delivered to the principal persons in Israel, that they might make them known in their several tribes and families. Perhaps he spake some of the principal passages many times over to the people in general, assembled in large companies for that purpose. But there is no ground to suppose that his voice was miraculously rendered audible to the whole nation at once, as some have asserted. 586. KNOBEL observes, Deut.p.207:

It is not easy to perceive for what reason the author has denoted this locality in an extraordinary and unnecessary way with six names, especially as it has been so often named already, N.xxii.1,xxvi.3,63,xxxi. 12,xxxiii.48,49,50,xxxv.1,xxxvi.13, and must have been well known to the reader.

This circumstance is most naturally to be accounted for by the fact of a later rather, a much later writer wishing to define more accurately in his own age a locality, which he found distinguished so remarkably in the older records,—especially as it lay within reach, as it were, of everyone who cared to see it, not far away in the Arabian waste, and he designed to take it as the scene of the farewell addresses of Moses. And this is confirmed by his adding in a parenthesis, There are eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto KadeshBarnea,' v.2,-words, which could never have been inserted in this way by Moses or any contemporary writer.

587. D.i.6-18.

The account of the appointment of officers, as here given, involves more than one inconsistency. First, the Deuteronomist loses sight of the fact that, according to the story, N.xxvi.64, the whole generation was dead which received the Law at Horeb; and so he makes Moses say, v.6, 'Jehovah our God spake unto us in Horeb,' and still more distinctly, v.9, 'I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone,' and v.14, Ye answered me, and said.' But a more remarkable discrepancy exists in v.15, where the statement is wholly at variance with that in E.xviii.25,26. In this latter passage, the appointment of the officers takes place before the giving of the Law at Sinai; here it takes place nearly twelve months afterwards, when they are just about to leave Horeb, v.6. If it be said that we must extend the meaning of the phrase 'at that time' in v.9,18, to include the whole twelve months, and must suppose that the fact stated in v.6-8 occurred in point of time subsequently to that in v.9-18, yet both these accounts are contradictory to that in N.xi. 14-17, where, after they have left Horeb, Moses complains of the burden of the people, (though, according to either of the other two statements, he had a multitude of officers to help him,) and he is commanded then to appoint seventy elders, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.'

6

588. SCOTT attempts to reconcile the difficulty as follows:The counsel, here referred to, seems to have been suggested by Jethro before the giving of the Law. Moses, in consequence, proposed it to the Lord, who approved it, and then with the concurrence of the people it at length took place, about the time when they departed from Horeb, and at no great distance from that of the appointment of the seventy elders.

SCOTT, though Moses was of judging the people, he

That is to say, according to 'wearing away' with the labour delayed twelve months to carry out his father-in-law's advice! But the words in E.xviii.24,25, plainly imply that he acted at once on Jethro's advice; and they state also that Moses chose