[4.] Probably, either from him or his immediate pro- phetic followers, the fragments of war-songs in Numb. xxi, 14, 15, 27-30, preserved in the " book of the wars of Jehovali," Numb, xxi, 14; and the address to the well, xxi, IG, 17, 18.
[5.] The song of Moses (Deut. xxxiii, 1-43), setting forth the greatness and the failings of Israel. It is re- markable as bringing out with much force the idea of God as the Kock (xxxii, 4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37). The spe- cial allusions to the pastoral riches of Israel point to the transjordanic territory as the scene of its composition (xxxii, 13, 14).
[().] The blessing of Moses on the tribes (Deut. xxxiii, l-'29). If there are some allusions in this psalm to cir- cumstances only belonging to a later time (such as the migration of Dan, xxxiii, 22), yet there is no one in whose mouth it coidd be so appropriately placed as in that of the great leader on the eve of the final conquest of Palestine. This poem, combined with the similar blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix), embraces a complete col- lective view of the characteristics of the tribes. See Ycick, j\foi>is canticiim cyr/iKuni (Nordl. 1861); Kamp- hausen, Das Lied Mosis erkldrt (Leips. 1802).
[7.] The 90th Psalm, "A prayer of Moses, the man of God." The title, like all the titles of the Psalms, is of doubtful authority — and the psalm has often been re- ferred to a later author. But Ewald {Psalmen, p. 91) thinks that, even though this be the case, it still breathes the spirit of the venerable lawgiver. There is some- thing extremely charactei'istic of Moses in the view taken, as from the summit or base of Sinai, of the eter- nity of God, greater even than the eternity of moun- tains, in contrast with the fleeting generations of man. One expression in tlie psalm, as to the limit of human life (seventy, or at most eighty years), in ver. 10, would, if it be Mosaic, fix its date to the stay at Sinai. Jerome (.1 dv. R.uffin. i, 13), on the authority of Origen, ascribes the next eleven psalms to Moses. Cosmas (Cosmoyr. v, 223) supposes that it is by a younger Moses of the time of David.
How far the gradual development of these revelations or prophetic utterances had any connection with Moses's own character and history, the materials are not such as to justify any decisive judgment. His Egyptian edu- cation must, on the one hand, have supplied him with much of the ritual of the Israelitish worship. The co- incidences between the arrangements of the priesthood, the dress, the sacrifices, the ark, etc., in the two coun- tries, are decisive. On the other hand, the proclamation of the unity of God, not merely as a doctrine confined to the priestly order, but communicated to the whole nation, implies distinct antagonism, almost a conscious recoil against the Egyptian system. The absence of the doctrine of a future state (^vithout adopting to its full extent the paradox of Warburton) proves at least a re- markable independence of the Egyptian theology, in which that great doctrine held so prominent a place. Some modern critics have supposed that the Levitical ritual was an after-growth of the Mosaic system, neces- sitated or suggested by the incapacity of the Israelites to retain the higher and simpler doctrine of the divine unity — as proved by their return to the worship of the Heliopolitan calf under the sanction of the brother of Moses himself. There is no direct statement of tliis con- nection in the sacred narrative; but there are indirect indications of it sufiicient to give some color to such an explanation. The event itself is described as a crisis in the life of Moses, almost equal to that in which he re- ceived his first call. In an agony of rage and disap- pointment he destroyed the monument of his first reve- lation (Exod. xxxii, 19). He threw up his sacred mis- sion (ib. 32). He craved and he received a new and special revelation of the attributes of God to console him (ib. xxxiii, 18). A fresh start was made in his career
(ib. xxxiv, 29). His relation with his countrymen henceforth became more awful and mysterious (ib. 32- 35). In point of fact, the greater [)art of the details of the Levitical system were subsequent to this catastro- phe. The institution of the Levitical tribe grew di- rectly out of it (xxxii, 26). The inferiority of this part of the system to the rest is expressly stated in the prophets, and expressly connected with the idolatrous tendencies of the nation. "AVherefore I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live" (Ezek. xx, 25). " I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-ofterings or sacrifices" (Jer. vii, 22). Other por- tions of the law, such as the regulations of slaverj-, of blood-feud, of clean and unclean food, were probably taken, with the necessary modifications, from the cus- toms of the desert-tribes. But the distinguishing feat- ures of the law of Israel, which have remained to a con- siderable extent in Christendom, are peculiarly Mosaic — the Ten Commandments: and the general spirit of jus- tice, humanity, and liberty that pervades even the more detailed and local observances is equally indicative of a new ajra in legislation.