The question has also boon raised whether the book of Joshua does not, properly speaking, constitute an in- tegral portion of this work. To this question Ewald (Geschichte, i, 175), Kuobcl {Genesis, Vorbem. § 1, 2), Lengerke (Kenaun, Ixxxiii), and .Stiihelin (Kritische Unters. p. 91) give a reply in the affirmative. They seem to have been led to do so, partly because they im- agine that the two docimients, the Elohistic and the Jehovistic, which characterize the earlier books of the Pentateuch, may still be traced, like two streams, the waters of which never wholly mingle though they flow in the same channel, running on through the book of Joshua; and partly because the same^vork which con- tains the promise of the land (Gon. xv) must contain also — so they argue — the fulfilment of the promise. But such grounds are far too arbltrarj' and uncertain to sup- port the hypothesis which rests upon them. All that seems probable is that the book of Joshua received a final revision at the hands of Ezra, or some earlier prophet, at the same time with the books of the law. The fact that the Samaritans, who it is well known did not possess the other books of Scripture, have besides the Pentateuch a book of Joshua (see Chronicon Sa- maritanum, etc., ed. Juynboll, Lugd. Bat. 1848), indi- cates no doubt an early association of the one with the other, but is no proof that they originally consti- tuted one work, but rather the contrary. Otherwise the Samaritans woidd naturally have adopted the ca- nonical recension of .loshua. ' A\'e may tlierefore re- gard the five books of Moses as one separate and com- plete work.
2. IMore particularly, the order which pervades the book manifests its unity, although this is not, indeed, tediously formal or monotonous.
(1.) Chietty its chronolnr/icdl order, the simplest of all, and such as might be expected to be predomi- nant in a book which is in a large measure historical. This characteristic is obvious in respect to the position of the two books of Genesis and Deuteronomy at the
beginning and the end; the former serving as an intro- duction, and the latter as a recapitulation. In like manner the story of the family of Abraham expands, when we come to Exodus, into that of the people of Is- rael : first, enslaved Israel attains to redemption, and next redeemed Israel is consecrated to the service of its Lord, who meets his people, delivers his law of life to them, and instructs them to set up his tabernacle in the midst of them. The book of Leviticus contains scarcely any history, and is occupied with the rules for tlie ser- vice of God in this tabernacle: it is the code for the spiritual life of Israel as the congregation of the Lord — a code published almost at once, and in a form substan- tially complete. The fourth book, that of Numbers, re- sumes the thread of the history, and conducts the re- deemed and consecrated and organized host from IMount Sinai through the wilderness to the Land of Promise; including further legislation, of which they stood in need if they were to take a suitable place among the kingdoms of the world.
(2.) Yet obviouslj^ this book is not a dry series of annals, in which the chronological order is alone observ- able ; still less is it the mere leaves of a journal in which the narrative of the three middle books was written down at the dates of the several occurrences, and left unchanged in all time coming. Whatever may have been written down in the form of a journal at the first (of which we have possibly an instance in Numb, xxxiii), would be revised, extended, abbreviated, and rearranged by the author, ere it came from his hands a finished history. Therefore we find a si/slematic order, according to the internal or logical connection of the parts, even in the purely narrative portions. Thus Gen. xxxviii furnishes the account of transactions in the family of Judah which cannot but have stretched over a long course of time, of years apparently, including the greater part of the time that Joseph was alone in Egypt, and which very probably extended back to a date con- siderably earlier than that at which his captivity began : the entire series of events, however, beiiig recorded in this one chapter, with a twofold advantage — that of be- ing itself more distinctly set before us, and that of not interrupting the thread of Joseph's history in Egypt. Sometimes indeed we may be unable to determine whether the order in which events are narrated is the order of time or that of logical sequence ; an luicertainty which meets us in other portions of sacred historv, as well as outside of the Bible. But it is not surprising that this logical order predominates in the legislation ; though even here the chronological order is by no means uncommon, because the laws sprang, to a considerable extent, out of the circumstances in which the people were placed from time to time. This peculiarity has given rise to repetitions, enlargements, rearrangements, and even in a limited degree to modifications, of earlier enactments; of which we have an instructive example in the varied order in which the parts of the tabernacle and its furniture are mentioned, first in tlie directions given to Moses in the mount, and, secondly, in the nar- rative of its actual construction.