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Verse Commentaries:
The Title: Pentateuch
Israel’s Lawgiver: his narrative true and his laws genuine
I. The man Moses. That the Moses of the Bible is a Man and not an Idea, it is the leading object of these pages to prove. The genuine impulse of the believing heart and the first clear judgement of the unbiassed mind concur in rejecting with indignation, as plainly incompatible with the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, the unnatural and groundless fancy that the greater portion of the laws and the history of Moses is a fiction in which Moses, the brother of Aaron, had no personal part. Moses, the great Lawgiver of Israel, is in the new criticism no longer a real man, as the Church both Hebrew and Christian has in all ages believed him to be; but an Ideal Person made up of different men, of whom Moses, the leader of Israel out of Egypt, is the first; and a thousand years after his death Ezra, the leader of the second company of exiles out of Babylon, is the greatest and nearly the last. Between these two the critics interpolate, and after them they add, various unknown men in Jerusalem or in Babylon; all of whom together, known and unknown, make up the ideal lawgiver and historian whom they call Moses. Besides Moses, who is most unwarrantably credited with having left only a few laws in writing, with others given by him orally, and Ezra, who is quite arbitrarily accused of having written many laws in the name of Moses, there is a third great writer of whose name the critics make much use--the prophet Ezekiel. Him, indeed, they can by no means fashion into their ideal figure of Moses; but they maintain the unfounded supposition that his closing prophetic vision contains a sketch of new ceremonial laws for Israel after the Captivity. But, if so, Ezekiel is a standing witness against their scheme of Moses having been personated by subsequent priests or prophets when they had new laws to introduce; for he openly announces all he has to write, not in the name of Moses, but in his own name from the mouth of the Lord. The critics conceive three Codes of Laws in the Mosaic Books: the first in Exo_21:1-36; Exo_22:1-31; Exo_23:1-33, probably given in substance by Moses; the second in Deuteronomy, written about the time of Josiah; the third, the Levitical or Priestly Code, scattered through Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and held to have been written mainly during the Exile.
II. The ideal Moses of the critics. In proceeding to examine the subject we note that this ideal Moses of the critics disowns his own ritual, that he denies their alleged fact of the degradation of the Levites in Babylon, and that his personation of Moses extending over a thousand years is an impossible unity.
1. Their ideal Moses in the Second Temple disowns half its ritual.
(1) The critics’ ideal Moses ordains no vocal praise, which constituted half the ritual of the Second Temple. This part of the Temple service is described by Kuenen in these glowing terms: “In the period of the Sopherim (scribes) temple song and temple poetry were at their prime. The Psalms which we still possess have been rightly called ‘the songs of the Second Temple.’ Sacrifices were killed and part of them burnt upon the altar just as formerly. But their symbolic signification could very easily be lost sight of. On the contrary, there was no need for anyone to guess at the meaning of the Temple songs. The service itself had thus assumed a more spiritual character, and had been made subservient, not merely to symbolic representation, but also to the clear expression of ethic and religious thoughts. What a pure and fervent love for the sanctuary pervades some of the Psalms! The Temple which could draw such tones from the heart must in truth have afforded pure spiritual enjoyment to the pilgrim.” Yet no place for these songs is provided in the entire Levitical ritual, although they formed, not indeed the most essential part, yet the second half of the sacred service. The framework of the Levitical ritual, as we now have it, is accepted by the critics for their ideal Moses, and held by them to be complete; having received its crowning ordinance in the solemn service of the great Day of Atonement more than a thousand and fifty years after the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. For the perfect consummation of this ritual there was every possible facility; there was ample time to frame it in one century after another; there was no check of conscience in attributing new ordinances to Moses, and in surrounding them with fictitious incidents in his life; and when the ecclesiastical and civil authorities concurred in new laws or ceremonies they could either be added in a mass like Deuteronomy, or interpolated piece by piece as in the other Mosaic books. In the new theory this ritual was meagre and imperfect till the time of the Second Temple; new ordinances had been suggested and ordained by Ezekiel; these were modified and greatly extended by the priests in Babylon, most of all by Ezra; and after him they were still further supplemented in Jerusalem till they took the final form in which we now possess them. Now there can be no conclusion more certain than that, when the Levitical ritual under the name of Moses was completed, the songs of the Levites in the Temple formed no part of that ritual. If they had, they could on no account have been omitted; they were sung by ministers in the Temple divinely appointed to the office; at the great annual feasts they formed a leading and a most attractive part of the festival; and at the daily sacrifices in the Temple the Levites “stood every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise at even.” If we believe the Holy Scriptures the Levitical ritual for the Tabernacle was absolutely completed by Moses himself; and this magnificent service of song was by Divine command added afterwards by David in preparation for the Temple. All this is set aside by the new critics, according to whom Ezra comes up from Babylon with more than half of the ordinances in Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus added by himself and inserted under the name of Moses. But he adds no ordinance of song! He inserts in the law the minutest ceremonial observances; he thinks it needful to prescribe how many days the cleansed leper after entering the camp is to live outside of his own tent, although camp and tent had both been removed a thousand years before the ordinance was written; yet in his institutions he entirely omits one half of the daily service in God’s Temple!
(2) The critics’ ideal Moses ordains music without song for the Sanctuary. Whilst Ezra’s ritual is absolutely silent on the worship of God in His temple with song or with harp, it is by no means silent on the sacred music with which, and with which alone, the Lord was to be praised in his Tabernacle. The acceptable praise of the Holy One in His holy place was not left to the will of man, or to observances casually arising, but was expressly and most definitely ordained. Not however by Moses himself, according to the critics, but either by Ezra, or by an unknown priestly scribe of the Exile, writing in the name of Moses, the sacrificial praise was ordained in these very definite terms (Num_10:1-10). It is inconceivable that Ezra should have written such an ordinance in Babylon and brought it up with him as the ritual to be followed in the Temple, for he brought up Levites and singers with him to Jerusalem, and in his day there was confessedly the full service of song in the Temple. But this severe and simple institution expressly limits the whole sacrificial service to the priests, it excludes the Levites from sounding the trumpets, and allows no voice of song or sound of harp over the sacrifices. If it be pleaded that although this ordinance was by no means appointed by the personal Moses, it may have been written by some unknown priest before Ezra’s time, the difficulty is not lessened; for Ezra lets it remain as his own ritual, and as such he ordains it with authority in Israel. Nor is it any outlet to plead that Ezra and his successors made a shift for the omission by inserting in their histories what, according to the new criticism, they knew to be false, and ascribing the service of praise to David; for Ezra’s code comes with the superior authority of Moses five hundred years after David, and cancels all that differs from it. According to the new critics the sounding of the two silver trumpets by the priests is the entire service of praise that is allowed by the Levitical ordinances of the Second Temple! The ideal Moses of the critics therefore wants one-half of their own idea; their idea is the ritual of the Second Temple; and their ideal Moses severely disowns the magnificent half of the service which morning by morning and evening by evening filled that Temple with the lofty praises of the Lord of Hosts, whose mercy endureth forever.
2. Their Moses in Babylon denies their Babylonian origin of the order of the Levites. The Babylonian origin of the Levitical office is one of the main pillars on which the Levitical structure of the critics rests. If the distinction between the priests and Levites in the Book of Numbers was made by Moses, their theory of the Priestly Code loses one of its chief supports, or rather falls into pieces. Ezra, who is fancifully made either to write the ritual laws of Moses, or to be responsible for them, writes for us really with his own pen, and clearly states that the distinction between the priests and Levites did not originate in Babylon. But before considering the positive testimony of Ezra on the subject, we shall briefly notice--
(1) The argument against the antiquity of the Levites. The negative argument of the critics is that the distinction between Levites and priests made by the Levitical law in Numbers is not elsewhere recognized before the Exile. But the argument from subsequent silence regarding an institution that professes to have been clearly laid down and fully recognized in the nation, is extremely fallacious; and in this case it is maintained only by denying the historical truth of the Books of Chronicles, which is to set aside their inspiration, and by arbitrarily refusing the testimony to “the priests and the Levites” in 1Ki_8:4. Whilst, however, the complete silence of the few prophetical books after the Exile, when the distinction confessedly existed, is to be taken in so far over-against the previous silence, the evidence from the last book of the Old Testament is very remarkable. The prophet Malachi not only does not recognize the existence of the two orders, but appears even to set it aside, and to regard the whole tribe of Levi as sacrificing priests, at a time when, according to the critics, the distinction between priests and Levites had existed for more than ninety years, and had been recently laid down in the code of Ezra with the severest penalties for neglecting it. The evident explanation is that from the days of Moses the distinction had been so universally acknowledged that there could be no risk of mistake in designating the priests as Levites, which they were, although the mere Levites were not priests.
(2) Ezra’s testimony to their antiquity. The affirmative evidence of the pre-Exile distinction between the priests and the Levites is clear, and determines both this special question, and with it one chief part of the whole controversy. The affirmative proof adduced by the critics is in the last portion of Ezekiel, which is neither law nor history, but a prophetic vision of a character that cannot be taken in a literal sense, as shown by its accounts of the division of the land and by the living waters flowing east and west from the Temple. But if it were to be taken into account in this inquiry, all that it could be proved to indicate is that Ezekiel appears to use the term “Levites” for the “Priests” exactly as Malachi uses the corresponding term “sons of Levi.” The most probable meaning of his language is that “the Levites [i.e., the priests, the Levites] that are gone away far from Me shall not come near unto Me to do the office of a priest unto Me. But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of My sanctuary, shall come near to Me to minister unto Me” Eze_44:10; Eze_44:13; Eze_44:15), both the erring and the faithful having been Levite priests. The supposition of the critics is that in this prophecy of Ezekiel the distinction of the two orders had its origin; that as the fruit of his vision all the sons of Levi, who were not sons of Zadok, were shut out from the priesthood and degraded to the lower rank of Levites; that this degradation may account for the small number of Levites who were willing to leave Babylon; that it was incorporated in the law of Moses by Ezra or some other priest in Babylon, not in its true form of degradation, but under the false pretence of honour to the Levites; and that it was first put into practical operation on the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. Every thoughtful reader of the Bible ought to shudder at this scheme, for it turns the Scriptural account of the Levites, in Num_8:5-26, not merely into a fiction, but into a base falsehood, invented to transform their merited disgrace in Babylon into a high honour conferred on them by Moses a thousand years before; and it makes the history in the sixteenth chapter, of the awful destruction of Korah and his two hundred and fifty men by the direct judgment of God, to be a mere fable devised in Babylon to exalt the priesthood. Now Ezra in his own person states that the distinction between priests and Levites existed four hundred years before the captivity, not that it originated then, but was then in existence. In the narrative of the founding of the Temple in Ezr_3:10, there is the clear testimony that “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.” Quite apart from any theory of our own, we accept equally all the Scriptures, but because these words are not written in the first person many of the critics will not allow them to have been written by Ezra; and against all reason they deny the authority of the words that are against their own theories, while they magnify every word that can be turned in their favour. We therefore pass on to refer to chap. 8:15-20, which some of them hold to be given to us in Ezra’s own words. If the vision of Ezekiel in Babylon ordained for the first time the distinction of the Levites from the priests, Ezra the scribe could not but be well acquainted with that recorded ordinance; if the first practical operation of the new law was in the first exodus from Babylon, Ezra the priest must have known exiles in Babylon, both priests and Levites, who witnessed that exodus; and if the slowness of the Levites to go up to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and with Ezra was caused by their official degradation, the fact must have been very familiar to Ezra. Now in Ezra the Levites are named twenty times, and always in distinction from the priests; in the following narrative Ezra expressly distinguishes between the two orders; and he states plainly that David and his princes appointed the Nethinim as servants to the Levites. That under the name of Levites, Ezra does not include the priests, but designates those whom he had just called “sons of Levi” (verse 15), is clear from the whole connection; in verses 29 and 30 he speaks again of “the priests and the Levites”; and in Gen_7:3; Gen_7:24, we read of “the priests and the Levites and the Nethinims.” Ezra, who most of all represents the ideal Moses of the critics, thus plainly denies the degradation of the Levites in Babylon, which is the main prop of all the alleged Priestly Code.
3. Their ideal Moses of a thousand years is an impossible unity. Receiving the sacred books in their natural sense, we have from the second chapter of Exodus to the last chapter of Deuteronomy, including Leviticus and Numbers, the space of forty years with the history of Israel and the laws given by Moses during that period. It would not invalidate the argument to allow, as many hold, that certain brief parenthetic explanations may have been added, as by Ezra; but there is no need for such an allowance, and the simple position is the best, that every line in these books from Ex
2:11 to Deu_33:29 is such as may have been written by Moses himself. In some parts another may have written what Moses spoke, but all may naturally have been written by him. Of Genesis also and the beginning of Exodus we fully believe him to be the author, but in them he does not write from personal acquaintance with the facts. On the other hand, the position taken by recent critics is that Moses was or may have been the writer of the greatest of these laws, as well as of institutions put into writing at a later period, that in the ages between Moses and Manasseh other laws may have had their origin, that about the time of Josiah Deuteronomy was written, that during the captivity in Babylon a new code filling a large part of Exodus and of Numbers, and nearly the whole of Leviticus, was written, chiefly by Ezra, and supplemented by other writers after his death. The critics who take this view hold at the same time that the scriptural writers constantly depict past events with a colouring of their own time, which would inevitably lead them into obvious and numerous mistakes both in time and place, in the fictitious productions of a thousand years. It is incredible and impossible that writers in the wilderness, in Jerusalem, in Babylon, and in Jerusalem again, should have pieced together a great body of laws and ordinances, each man inventing and interpolating according to his own mind; that they should all have agreed to sink their own names and to personate Moses in the wilderness where none of them but himself had ever been; and that none of them, prophet, priest, or scribe, after one or five, or seven or ten centuries, should have written what was incongruous to Moses, in time, or place, or language, or circumstance, or character. The unity of the acts and writings of a living man through a period of forty years confirms his identity; the unity of an ideal man through an alleged millennium of time, as if through a single life, proves that the allegation is untrue, because such a unity is impossible.
III. The author of the Mosaic books the same throughout. The historical Moses of the Bible, the author of the four specially Mosaic books, is thoroughly consistent in all his writings; he is the same man in them all; in all his words, in all his recorded events, in all his ordinances, in all his laws, and in all his character. He employs no words which Moses, the brother of Aaron, could not have used, narrates no event he could not have known, frames no ordinance he could not have prescribed, writes no law he could not have issued, and assumes no character in which he could not have acted.
1. There are no words in these books that could not have been used by Moses. There are expressions in the books of Moses that are never used afterwards; of which one of the most remarkable is in the frequent description of the end of life, first applied to Abraham, that he was “gathered unto his people,” and occurring in Genesis, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but in no later books. There are also expressions common in the other books of the Bible, which never occur in the books of Moses; such as the title “The Lord of Hosts,” which is so frequent afterwards, but is never used by Moses. While these books of Moses have thus their own peculiarities, there is no word or phrase found in them which Moses himself could not have used. A very sufficient proof of this statement is presented in the following passage, in which the phrases or words that are adduced must be regarded as the most decided instances that can be found of alleged terms which Moses could not have employed: “There has been a great controversy about Deu_1:1, and other similar passages, where the land east of the Jordan is said to be across Jordan, proving that the writer lived in Western Palestine. That this is the natural sense of the Hebrew word no one can doubt, but we have elaborate arguments that Hebrew was such an elastic language that the phrase can equally mean ‘on this side Jordan’ as the English version has it. The point is really of no consequence, for there are other phrases which prove quite unambiguously that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan. In Hebrew the common phrase for ‘westward’ is ‘seaward,’ and for ‘southward’ ‘towards the Negeb.’ The word Negeb, which primarily means ‘parched land,’ is in Hebrew the proper name of the dry steppe district in the south of Judah. These expressions for west and south could only be formed in Palestine. Yet they are used in the Pentateuch, not only in the narrative but in the Levitical description of the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exo_27:1-21). But at Mount Sinai the sea did not lie to the west, and the Negeb was to the north. Moses could no more call the south side the Negeb side of the tabernacle than a Glasgow man could say that the sun set over Edinburgh. The answer attempted to this is that the Hebrews might have adopted these phrases in patriarchal times, and never given them up in the ensuing four hundred and thirty years; but that is nonsense. When a man says ‘towards the sea,’ he means it. The Egyptian Arabs say seaward for northward, and so the Israelites must have done when they were in Egypt. To an Arab in Western Arabia, on the contrary, seaward means towards the Red Sea.”--(The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 323). The objection to the employment by Moses of the phrase in Deu_1:1, translated “this side of Jordan,” is not here pressed: and for its use by him we must refer to our previous examination of the objection (Our Old Bible: Moses on the plains of Moab, p. 18). The literal translation “on the other side of Jordan” is certainly the best, if it is clearly understood that Moses means by these words the same eastern bank of the river on which he now stands. Of men before or since, “the man Moses” was the one to whom most of all that final stand on the plains of Moab was “the other side of Jordan,” from the earnestly coveted land of rest for the “wandering foot” of the tribes of Israel. But the author leaves this point as of no consequence, and takes up the expressions used for the South and the West in Exo_27:1-21, and elsewhere, not only in the narrative, but in the description of the Tabernacle, which he holds to prove beyond all question that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan. If these strong assertions were true, they would take a chief place in the whole argument of the book. Let us look first at the more general arguments on the two phrases, and then at the special arguments on each.
2. The general argument on the South and the West. “In Hebrew,” Professor Smith says, “the common phrase for ‘westward’ is ‘seaward,’ and for ‘southward’ ‘towards the Negeb,’” and because these designations, as he holds, could only have been formed in Palestine originally, he repudiates the idea that they could have been used by Moses for the description of the Tabernacle in the wilderness; thus disproving, as he believes, the historical authenticity of the account given to us in Exodus. That the common Hebrew word for the west originally meant the sea is allowed by all, though not that the term for the south was derived from the Desert of Judah; but words often lose their original meaning in all languages, and it seems probable that in the days of Abraham these terms were used for the west and the south in general without any definite reference. In the promise of the land in Gen_13:14, Abraham is asked first to look northward in a Hebrew term that is entirely and confessedly general; and when he is asked next to look southward, it is probable that this term is taken like the corresponding one in a merely general sense. Then he looks eastward, for which again the Hebrew term is absolutely general, rendering it in like manner probable that the corresponding westward is also general. As regards the alleged foolishness of supposing that Moses in the wilderness used the terms for the south and the west which the patriarchs had employed in Canaan, in must be remembered how distinct Israel must have been kept from the Egyptians although dwelling amongst them, how ardently they clung to the promised land and all its associations, and how Egypt was for them only a place of temporary exile. Canaan was to Israel the land alike of the past and of the future; there they had already buried their father Jacob, who had bound them by oath not to leave his body in Egypt; and they kept the bones of Joseph to carry up with them in their exodus. There is no reason to think that in coming out of Egypt, “where they heard a language that they understood not,” they spoke a different Hebrew from that of their fathers in Canaan; and, as already noted, words once embodied in a language often retain their meaning without reference to their origin. For Moses himself Canaan was the promised land to which he was to lead his people Israel; the north, south, east, and west in the promise that constituted Israel’s claim to the land were written on his memory and in his heart as with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond; and when he was recording the history of Israel, wherever he stood, there could be nothing so natural to him as to retain those hallowed terms, alike on account of the past and of the future, unaffected by Israel’s passing exile from the land of their fathers.
(2) The argument from the South. As regards the South, before it can be said that “at Mount Sinai the Negeb was to the north,” it must first be proved that the Negeb derived its name from the dry steppe of Judah, and next that it always retained this purely local meaning, and was not used to signify the south in general. Gesenius, taking parchedness for the origin of the word, makes first of all its general meaning to be the south, of which he gives several examples, as in Exo_27:1-21, and Psa_126:1-6. Afterwards he gives two specific meanings, of which the first is the southern district of Palestine and the second is Egypt, both of which he takes merely as special applications of the more general term for the south. Furst, in his Hebrew Concordance and in his Lexicon, agrees with Gesenius in giving the south as the meaning of the Negeb, in deriving it from parchedness, and in recognizing the Negeb of Judah as a name originating in the general term for the south. That critics should hold their different opinions on the origin of one of the Hebrew words for the south is of slight importance; but the argument takes a graver form when it is held out merely that the Negeb was originally the Desert of Judah, but that it retained this restricted meaning exclusively, and did not come to signify the south in general. The author’s affirmation on this point is so decided as to call for a detailed proof of the error. In the nature of the case many or most instances of the occurrence of the term Negeb determine nothing on its more special use, as in the designation of the southern aspect of the temple (1Ki_7:25), which will be held to refer to the south of Judah, although the only natural reference is to the south in general. But a testing example occurs in Eze_20:46-49; Eze_21:1-5, where the prophet living in Chaldea, north of Palestine, prophesies against “Jerusalem, the holy places, and the land of Israel,” under the designation of the south in three different Hebrew terms. One of these terms, and the only repeated one, is the Negeb; but here it cannot possibly mean the Southern steppe, for this would lower a great and leading prophecy against Jerusalem and the whole land to a mere denunciation of the wilderness of Judah. In like manner in the Book of Daniel the Negeb is used twice in the eighth chapter for the south in general quite apart from Palestine (Dan_8:4; Dan_8:9); and ten times in the eleventh chapter for the land of Egypt (Dan_11:5-40). It is, then, most certain that the critic is in error; and that the Hebrew word used by Moses for the south side of the Tabernacle is a general designation of the south, and would be used at Mount Sinai as freely and as correctly as in Palestine.
(3) The argument from the West. If Professor Robertson Smith’s opinion on the origin of the term for the south were correct, there would be little occasion left for discussion concerning the west, for if the dry steppe of Southern Judah gave its Hebrew name to the south in general, still more readily might the name of the Mediterranean Sea become a general designation for the west. There is conclusive proof that when a Hebrew said, “towards the sea,” he might simply mean the west and not the sea. Professor Smith writes that “the Egyptian Arabs say seaward for northward, and so the Israelites must have done when they were in Egypt.” But the author of the book of Exodus, writing either in Egypt or of it, and with an intimate knowledge of the country, speaks of a strong “sea wind” Exo_10:19) carrying the locusts into the Red Sea. According to this view, it must have been a “north wind,” as in the present speech of the Egyptian Arabs; but a north wind would not have carried the locusts into the Red Sea. The Vulgate, our English Bible, Gesenius, Furst, Keil, and Delitzsch render it a west wind. There are good critics who hold that it may be taken more widely for a sea wind, in the sense of a wind from the northwest; but we are not aware that any have rendered it a north wind.
The evidence is not for, but against the supposition that Israel in Egypt called the north wind a sea wind; for it seems probable that it is the west wind that is here spoken of under the old Hebrew term for the sea without any reference to the origin of the word. But there are other passages where the term has clearly no reference to the sea, that is, the Mediterranean or Great Sea, but simply means the West; and in that sense it might be equally used in Palestine or anywhere else. In Canaan it is so used in Jos_15:12, “and the west border was to the great sea, and the coast thereof.” If Professor Smith’s contention were right, these words would signify, “and the (great) sea border was to the great sea”; but, although he maintains that when a man says “towards the sea, he means it,” it is evident, on the contrary, that the writer does not at all refer to the sea, but simply to the west. In like manner before entering Canaan, in Num_34:6, Moses is commanded to say to Israel, “As for the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border; this shall be your west border.” But according to the view before us the verse must bear this impossible meaning, “As for the (great) sea border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border; this shall be your (great) sea border.” Ezekiel in the same way uses the term for the west as distinguished from the sea: “The west side also shall be the great sea” (chap. 47:20). That the word is constantly used for the west is allowed by all, but Professor Smith maintains that it could be so used only as meaning the Mediterranean Sea. But in these three passages it is used not only with no reference to the Mediterranean, but with a most definite and express distinction of the term from that which is used for that sea. It is, therefore, exactly equivalent to our English term west; and there can be no reason why Moses should not have used it in describing the tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai.
3. These books narrate no facts which Moses could not have recorded. The most conspicuous example of a supposed error in date is presented by the old and oft repeated objection to the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy from the statements in Deu_2:12, that “the children of Israel succeeded them (the Horims), when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them;” and again in chap. 4:38, “to drive out nations from before thee, greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.” These statements, however, instead of being objections, serve as proofs of the Mosaic authorship of the book, because so skilful an imitator of Moses, as the Deuteronomist is allowed by our opponents to have been, would have avoided the use of expressions that might lead to searching questions. In
Moses himself there was no occasion to avoid them, because his own previous narrative had amply explained them. The supposed reference in these passages to “the conquest of Canaan” is an entire mistake; there is in them no mention of the conquest of central Canaan, and there is no allusion to it. In the second and third chapters there is a full rehearsal by Moses of the conquest by Israel of the kingdoms of Sihon, king of Heshbon, and of Og, king of Bashan, “nations greater and mightier” than Israel; and the reference is to the “possession” and “inheritance” of their lands “as it is this day.” There is no ground whatever for the plea of a later date which the critics have founded on these expressions, as if they referred to the central land of Canaan. Again, in Deu_4:38, “To drive out nations before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give their land for an inheritance, as it is this day,” there is likewise no difficulty, for the verse describes exactly the historical situation of Israel in the closing days of Moses.
4. These books contain no religious ordinance that Moses could not have instituted. The work of Ezra in Jerusalem is held by the critics to constitute an epoch in the history of Israel, not in the true sense of moving his people to keep the original law of Moses, but of inducing them to accept a new ritual under the old authority of his name. But the whole proof of the new keeping of ritual Egyptian Arabs say seaward for northward, and so the Israelites must have done when they were in Egypt. But the author of the book of Exodus, writing either in Egypt or of it, and with an intimate knowledge of the country, speaks of a strong “sea wind” (Exo_10:19) carrying the locusts into the Red Sea. According to this view, it must have been a “north wind,” as in the present speech of the Egyptian Arabs; but a north wind would not have carried the locusts into the Bed Sea. The Vulgate, our English Bible, Gesenius, Furst, Keil, and Delitzsch render it a west wind. There are good critics who hold that it may be taken more widely for a sea wind, in the sense of a wind from the northwest; but we are not aware that any have rendered it a north wind. The evidence is not for, but against the supposition that Israel in Egypt called the north wind a sea wind; for it seems probable that it is the west wind that is here spoken of under the old Hebrew term for the sea without any reference to the origin of the word. But there are other passages where the term has clearly no reference to the sea, that is, the Mediterranean or Great Sea, but simply means the West; and in that sense it might be equally used in Palestine or anywhere else. In Canaan it is so used in Jos_15:12, “and the west border was to the great sea, and the coast thereof.” If Professor Smith’s contention were right, these words would signify, “and the (great) sea border was to the great sea”; but, although he maintains that when a man says “towards the sea, he means it,” it is evident, on the contrary, that the writer does not at all refer to the sea, but simply to the west. In like manner before entering Canaan, in Num_34:6, Moses is commanded to say to Israel, “As for the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border; this shall be your west border.” But according to the view before us the verse must bear this impossible meaning, “As for the (great) sea border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border; this shall be your (great) sea border.” Ezekiel in the same way uses the term for the west as distinguished from the sea: “The west side also shall be the great sea” (Eze_47:20). That the word is constantly used for the west is allowed by all, but Professor Smith maintains that it could be so used only as meaning the Mediterranean Sea. But in these three passages it is used not only with no reference to the Mediterranean, but with a most definite and express distinction of the term from that which is used for that sea. It is, therefore, exactly equivalent to our English term west; and there can be no reason why Moses should not have used it in describing the tabernacle in the wilderness of Sinai.
5. These books narrate no facts which Moses could not have recorded. The most conspicuous example of a supposed error in date is presented by the old and oft repeated objection to the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy from the statements in Deu_2:12, that “the children of Israel succeeded them (the Horims), when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them;” and again in Deu_4:38, “to drive out nations from before thee, greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.” These statements, however, instead of being objections, serve as proofs of the Mosaic authorship of the book, because so skilful an imitator of Moses, as the Deuteronomist is allowed by our opponents to have been, would have avoided the use of expressions that might lead to searching questions. In Moses himself there was no occasion to avoid them, because his own previous narrative had amply explained them. The supposed reference in these passages to “the conquest of Canaan” is an entire mistake; there is in them no mention of the conquest of central Canaan, and there is no allusion to it. In the second and third chapters there is a full rehearsal by Moses of the conquest by Israel of the kingdoms of Sihon, king of Heshbon, and of Og, king of Bashan, “nations greater and mightier” than Israel; and the reference is to the “possession” and “inheritance” of their lands “as it is this day.” There is no ground whatever for the plea of a later date which the critics have founded on these expressions, as if they referred to the central land of Canaan. Again, in Deu_4:38, “To drive out nations before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give their land for an inheritance, as it is this day,” there is likewise no difficulty, for the verse describes exactly the historical situation of Israel in the closing days of Moses.
6. These books contain no religious ordinance that Moses could not have instituted. The work of Ezra in Jerusalem is held by the critics to constitute an epoch in the history of Israel, not in the true sense of moving his people to keep the original law of Moses, but of inducing them to accept a new ritual under the old authority of his name. But the whole proof of the new keeping of ritual institutions at this great historical epoch consists in Israel erecting green booths for the Feast of Tabernacles on the roofs of their houses, and in their courts, and in the courts of the Temple, and in the streets of the water gate and of the gate of Ephraim; and this is expressly stated to have been only the revival of an old ordinance of the personal Moses, the predecessor of Joshua. This is all that can be proved to constitute the new epoch under Ezra. In the reading of the Law and the observance of its ordinances the marked noting of this solitary instance of neglect clearly warrants the inference, that the people were not aware of a similar neglect in the range of other ceremonial institutions, but that they knew them to have been kept by the nation, at least under their better kings. But against all reason the contrary conclusion is drawn, that this exceptional instance is given as an example of a universal neglect of the ceremonial law. In other respects, however, this particular record is of primary importance; but before examining it we shall look at the notices of other ordinances in the post-Exile Scriptures.
(1) In the Book of Malachi there is no reference to any institution that did not confessedly exist before the Exile. If Ezra had recently brought up the Levitical institutions from Babylon, they would certainly, on the principle of the new critics, have been referred to by this contemporary prophet.
(2) In Ezra and Nehemiah a large part of the history turns on institutions that were confessedly ordained before the Exile. Besides the booths at the Feast of Tabernacles, the only Levitical institutions that are spoken of as observed, if we have not mistaken, are the trespass offering and the sin offering, and the Levites’ offering of a tenth of their tithe. In the previous history of Israel there is no recorded example of an offender presenting a sin offering or a trespass offering, whence the critics infer that these had not then been ordained. But in the entire Scriptures, Old and New, there is no record of the punishment of a thief; it is only in the New Testament that we have the record of the forty stripes save one; and in the case of sin offerings and trespass offerings there is no force in the plea that the previous historical silence proves the newness of these ordinances. There is no reason why Moses should not have ordained them.
(3) By far the most important notice of any Levitical institution in the post-Exile books is that which regards the Feast of Tabernacles; both because it furnishes the only example of a confessedly long-neglected ceremony, and because the restored observance of the omitted rite occupies so large a place in Nehemiah’s narrative. Professor Smith does not maintain that the Feast had not been observed, but that it had never been observed “according to the Law”; and the narrative clearly proves that the specially forgotten rite did not originate in Babylon, but was instituted by Moses himself. The revived observance in Neh_8:13-18, does not relate to the Feast of Tabernacles itself, but only to the people sitting under booths of green boughs during the feast, for since the days of Joshua had they not “done so” (verse 17). The freshness of this part of the ordinance contributed to the exuberance of their joy; ninety years had elapsed since the first returned exiles had kept the feast round the altar without a temple; and year by year thereafter it had doubtless been kept by Israel. But the oldest of them had never kept it with branches of the myrtle, the pine and the palm; they so kept it now in the belief that so “had the Lord commanded by Moses” (Neh_8:14); and if Ezra had invented the festive emblems in Babylon, he would have been guilty of a cruel deception on his people, and been unworthy of all credit. But the inspired account states that the festival had been so kept in the days of Joshua, though never since; and when it expressly ascribes the institution to Moses (verse 14), it must of necessity mean the personal Moses, whose ordinance his successor Joshua, with that faithful generation of Israel, observed in all its fulness. As the ordinance of the leafy booths belongs neither to the critics’ Mosaic Code in Exodus nor to their Deuteronomic Code under Josiah, but to their Priestly Code written in Babylon, this testimony in Nehemiah assigns this latest code to Moses himself.
(4) These books contain no civil law that could not have been enacted by Moses. Till our critics shall have shown how King Josiah could have sanctioned and issued the Deuteronomic commands for the destruction of the Canaanites, who were his own recognized subjects, all other questions on the civil laws of Moses are of a very secondary character. But whilst only the personal Moses could have issued these commands, strong statements have been made that the Mosaic books contain certain laws that are incompatible with each other, because they are fitted for quite different states of society. The best known and apparently the most important instance of a civil law which it is alleged that Moses could not have enacted is the statute that limits the judicial beating of an offender to forty stripes (Deu_25:1-3); for the statute does not directly ordain the punishment of beating, but refers to it as if already in use, and ordains that the stripes shall not exceed forty, lest “thy brother should seem vile unto thee.” In The Old Testament in the Jewish Church it is maintained that this was a new law of a date long subsequent to Moses; that it implies a higher state of civilization than existed in Israel in his day, that he could not have enacted it because it could not co-exist with the old law of retaliation, that the law of retaliation was obsolete at the date of its enactment, and that the priests afterwards re-introduced it into Leviticus. The law of retaliation is found in the laws of Exo_21:1-36; Exo_23:1-33, which were spoken by God to Moses, and were written down by Moses himself Exo_24:23). This law (Exo_21:22-25)starts from the infliction of bodily injury through strife supposed to originate in a particular case; but its statement of retribution is fuller than anywhere else, and seems certainly designed to apply to all wilful injuries. In Lev_24:19-20, the law is repeated in less detail and in quite general terms, including all such cases: “If a man cause a blemish in his neighbour, as he hath done, so shall it be done to him,” etc. In Deu_19:16-21, this is made the basis of further legislation, and is extended from the case of the man who wounds his neighbour with his hand, to the false witness who strikes only with his tongue, but whose undetected perjury would have inflicted the wound by the award of the judge. In this statute the detailed retaliation, “life for life, eye for eye,” has an evident reference to the still fuller detail in Exodus; the command “Ye shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother,” plainly refers to the Levitical words, “as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him”; and the sanction to the judge, “thine eye shall not pity,” is evidently added as a warning against leniency on account of the injury having only been intended and not inflicted. Now in this Deuteronomic code the witness, who has falsely sworn against a man to the loss of his eye or his tooth, if his false oath had been accredited, is to forfeit his own eye or his own tooth for the perjury, “ye shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother.” But when the falsely accused man, if found guilty, would have lost his eye or his tooth, for what imputed crime would he have suffered this penalty?
According to the law of Moses, or according to any supposed traditional law of which there is any trace in the Scriptures, he could not have been sentenced to this punishment for theft or for any other crime whatever save the one of putting out his brother’s eye or his brother’s tooth. Therefore the law of retaliation is of necessity recognized in the Deuteronomic Code as in full force, and is made the express basis of extending the same penalties to the crime of perjury. If the law had become obsolete or been limited to the case of false witness, the enactment as against perjury was a dead letter; for the perjured man would not have forfeited his own eye or his own tooth, if the man whom he accused was not liable to forfeit his for the imputed crime of putting out his neighbour’s eye or his neighbour’s tooth.
(5) These books contain no circumstances or character in which Moses could not have acted. The oldest are likewise the newest objections that have been taken to the manner of writing in these books; it has been and is alleged to be unnatural that an author should write his own history in the third person. That the writer of a nation’s history, with which his own is inseparably bound up, should speak of himself in the third person need not seem artificial to us; and the usage was well enough known in ancient times, although it may seldom occur, for the obvious reason that historians for the most part narrate the acts of others and not their own. The familiar and very important example of Caesar’s “Commentaries” is acknowledged as an instance of a narrative in which the narrator so speaks of himself; but exception may be taken to the lateness of the date, and to the circumstance that the writer is not a Hebrew. This is not, however, the earliest date of such a mode of writing, and it was used by the Greek and by the Jew, as well as by the Roman. Three hundred and fifty years before Caesar, Xenophon in his “Expedition of Cyrus” constantly speaks of himself as Xenophon, just as Moses speaks of himself; and also, like Moses, he narrates his own words in the first person. Proof, however, is asked, “that any Hebrew ever wrote of himself in the third person.” Our blessed Lord so speaks of Himself in Joh_3:13-18, and elsewhere; so does the disciple whom Jesus loved: and so also Ezra (Ezr_9:1; Ezr_9:5; Ezr_10:1; Ezr_10:5; Ezr_10:10, and in 7:6, 11, 27, 28; 8:1). In later times, Josephus in his history of the Jewish war constantly writes of himself in the third person, and gives his own words in the first, using this form of writing quite as much as Moses did. The following is a single instance out of many, and in it this author, so familiarly known, furnishes a very definite reply to the demand for a Hebrew writing in this manner: “Upon this, Josephus declared, to them what Caesar had given him in charge, and this in the Hebrew language, But the tyrant cast reproaches upon Josephus. In answer which Josephus said--‘Take notice that I, who make this exhortation to thee; I who am a Jew,do make this promise to thee’” (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 6, Chap. 2)
. The old objection against Moses writing of himself as “very meek above all the men that were upon the face of the earth” (Num_12:3), which Thomas Paine says is to “render him truly ridiculous and absurd,” rests on not taking into account the circumstances of the case together with the peculiarly high calling of Moses, who faithfully narrates for all generations the Lord’s dealings with himself and with Israel, and records his own faults and theirs. When a man’s character and motives are assailed, as with Job, David, and Paul, he is justified in vindicating himself; and Moses speaks of himself as the meekest of men, in reference to the accusation by Aaron and Miriam that he had usurped authority which belonged equally to them. This meekness was contrary to his own natural character; was acquired through Divine training in a retirement of forty years; and had so thoroughly imbued him, that he insisted with the Lord to choose any man except himself for Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt, on which his heart was so intently set. The record of this meekness serves the threefold end of explaining the unjustifiableness of the attack against him, his own singular silence under it, and the Lord’s remarkable interposition on his behalf; whilst the accompanying record of the words of the great God as distinguishing Moses from all other prophets by speaking to him “mouth to mouth,” is in reality much more exalting to him than the testimony of his being the humblest among sinful men.
IV. THE CHURCH IN ALL AGES ACCEPTED ONLY THROUGH ATONING SACRIFICE. If the Levitical ritual were accepted as instituted by Moses at Mount Sinai, there would be no question of the Divine appointment of sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin under that dispensation; but the refusal of the ceremonial law to Moses is accompanied by the denial of pardon through sacrifice, either under Moses or in the previous history of the Church from the beginning of the world. “The law was given by Ezra” is the new interpretation or rather contradiction of the old Divine words, “the law was given by Moses.” Let us, therefore, look first at the earlier history before the prophets, and then at the position taken by the prophets.
1. The character of sacrifice before the time of the prophets.
(1) The sacrifice on Araunah’s threshing floor. Now if it be true that at this period of Israel’s history, God’s dealing with them is simply according to “the analogy of anger and forgiveness in human life,” and that “Jehovah asks only a penitent heart and desires no sacrifice,” one or two things would have followed this most sincere and heart-broken repentance; either an extension of the trial to work a deeper penitence, or an immediate pardon without the intervention of any sacrificial atonement. And, further, if it were true that sacrifice was not by Divine command it would have been left to David’s own choice to offer it or not as he thought best. God wills to grant a prompt forgiveness to the penitent; but He will not grant it to mere repentance, nor does He leave it to David himself to have recourse to the only true refuge from the Divine anger. In the whole Levitical ritual there is no sacrifice more certainly by Divine command than these burnt offerings on Araunah’s threshing floor; and there is none more expressly offered for the expiation of sin. Further, this special spot on earth where atoning sacrifice for sin was offered by Divine command, and visibly accepted by fire from heaven, was the chosen site for the Temple of the Lord. The altar of expiation, where sin was forgiven and judgment arrested, attracted the dwelling place of the Lord to itself; and Solomon’s supplication for forgiveness to Israel was that it might be granted in answer to prayer offered towards that place, intimating that all prayer was to be accepted through the sacrifices on that altar. In this leading example it is clear that both before and during the first Temple sin was to be forgiven only through sacrifice; and that expiation was not confined to the sin offering and the trespass offering, but was inherent as the chief element in the character of the burnt offering, however homage and self-dedication might often be combined with it along with gratitude and joy for the Divine acceptance.
(2) Cain’s rejected meat offering. In the whole Word of God there is no example of the acceptance of a meat offering by itself apart from the shedding of blood; for the Levitical meat offerings were consecrated by the morning and evening burnt offerings, and a memorial of them was consumed on the altar of burnt offering. In all the ages one meat offering, alone, of Cain’s fruits of the ground, is presented to God without any atoning blood to cleanse the offerer from his sins; and it is openly rejected by some evident token, as of fire, visible to both the brothers, and marking the Divine acceptance of the offering by the younger brother, and the refusal of the elder brother’s offering. Notwithstanding the expression of homage, of dependence, and of gratitude that was made by Cain’s offering, the unremoved sin of the offerer still “lay at his door”; and ever since no other worshipper with a holier life or heart has ever been accepted with a similar offering, or has dared to present it. “By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,” offering not merely with a better faith, but offering a better sacrifice as the fruit of his faith.
(3) Noah’s sacrifices, and the Paschal Lamb. After the destruction of the old world for its abounding iniquity, the first act of Noah on descending from the ark is to rear an altar and offer burnt offerings of “every clean beast and of every clean fowl;” the smoke of these slain sacrifices ascends as “a sweet savour” to heaven; the Lord blesses the earth, and there is no Cain standing by to present a proud meat offering for himself, and then to shed the blood of the accepted offerer of atoning sacrifices. Many ages after, in “the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover,” the ransom through atoning blood is fully brought out in all the firstborn of Israel saved from death by the sprinkled blood of the Paschal lamb; but this sprinkling the new critics ascribe to their Babylonian Code.
(4) Abraham’s arrested sacrifice. Between Noah and Moses there is a notable sacrificial transaction in the life of the great father of the faithful, who is most solemnly commanded by God to offer his only son for a burnt offering. In such a sacrifice there was no element of thanksgiving; nor was there any lawful homage or self-surrender except on the ground that man’s life was forfeited by sin, and that he could have acceptance with God only by the sacrifice of another life instead of his own. There was indeed in Abraham the greatest possible self-surrender, for which he is highly commended by the Lord; but his act was not the mere surrender of his only son, but giving him for a burnt offering to God. Abraham knew the rejection of Cain’s meat offering, and the acceptance of Noah’s sacrifices and his own; in which life was given for life, and the worshipper confessed his own desert of death for sin. But he knew how unequal the substitution was; he knew the majesty of the Holy God, and both the guilt and the greatness of man beside all else on the earth; and while he laid the wood in order on his altars and offered his sacrifices from the herd and from the flock, the thought must have often occurred to him that “Lebanon was not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof, for a burnt offering.” And now God tried him whether he would offer a nobler sacrifice, and commanded him to lay his only son on the altar. He who pleaded so tenderly and so boldly for the merciful averting of the righteous doom of Sodom, now presents no prayer for himself or for his son, but submissively obeys the sovereign command of his God. But Abraham was the only man on earth to whom such a command could have been given, and by whom it could have been intelligently obeyed. The Divine promise was express to Isaac, and through him for all the nations of the earth; but the promised Seed through whom the nations were to be blessed was Himself to be given up by His heavenly Father to death that so He might become the life of the world.
2. The teaching of the prophets regarding sacrifice.
(1) The prophets reprove Israel for offering many sacrifices and neglecting moral duties. The whole teaching of the prophets is the same as our Lord’s when He commands the offerer to leave his gift before the altar till he has repented of his offence against his brother; and the same as the constant teaching that in naming the name of Christ we must depart from iniquity, while it is only the ransom of His blood that redeems us from our sins.
(2) The Bible must be accepted in its own order. The Bible puts the Law of Moses many hundreds of years before the prophets, and represents the prophets as speaking to a nation who had for many centuries been living under that law. The new critics by placing the prophets several hundred years before the law violently pervert, corrupt, and destroy their whole teaching. In the Levitical books the critics allow that the whole law and ritual are given as in the time and by the authority of Moses at. Mount Sinai. That is the testimony of these books; the critics try to prove that the form must be fictitious and the testimony consequently false or useless; but they allow that this is its unvarying form. It is therefore the whole testimony that these books give of themselves; and as far as testimony is concerned, any evidence against their Mosaic origin must come from other sources. As regards the internal evidence we trust we have clearly shown that it proves them to be genuine. Next in importance to the testimony of the Levitical books themselves is the testimony of their alleged authors; of the men who are supposed by the critics to have written these books, amongst whom the chief and the only known writer is Ezra. The returned exiles being gathered together as one man in the street before the water gate, “spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel” (Neh_8:1). Nothing can be more evident than that the book read by Ezra was represented to the people as the Law of Moses, that it was the Law for the neglect of which their fathers had been cast out of their land, and that it was the broken law of Moses which they now covenant to keep. In their very full prayer there is not a word of thanksgiving for a new law, and a new way of the forgiveness of sins through commanded sacrifice; but the entire prayer proceeds upon the old lines of thankfulness for the statutes given to Moses, and grief for their fathers having cast his Law behind their backs. To suppose that the Law of Moses read to Israel by Ezra was a Levitical Code drawn up by the priests in Babylon, is to degrade his noble work and words into an organized scheme of the basest hypocrisy; or rather it is to transform the whole narrative of Ezra and Nehemiah into It mere fiction, and so to leave the new critics without a straw wherewith to form their bricks. If we accept the Bible in its own order of the Levitical law, with its numerous sacrifices, having preceded the prophets by many centuries, the whole language of the prophets is most natural; and the passages objected to simply prove that the prophets spoke to the men of their own times, and against the Sills that prevailed in those times without enjoining ordinances that were already kept with even an excessive observance.
(3) The prophets after the Exile agree with those before it. Hagga