PENTATEUCH
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PENTATEUCH
work {Untersuclningen iiberden Pentateuch) is a valuable contribution to the exegesis of the Pentateuch. He is especially successful in establishing the inward unity of the work, and in showing how inseparably the sev- eral portions, legal, genealogical, and historical, are in- terwoven together. Kurtz (in his Einhcil der Genesis [184G], and in the first edition of his first volume of the (Jeschichte des Alten Buiides) followed on the same side ; but he has since abandoned the attempt to explain the use of the divine names on the principle of the different meanings which they bear, and has espoused the theory of two distinct documents. Keil, also, though he does not despair of the solution of the problem, confesses {Luther. Zeitschr. [1851-2] p. 235) that "all attempts as yet made, notwithstanding the acumen which has been brought to bear to explain the interchange of the divine names in Genesis on the ground of the different meanings which thej^ possess, must be pronounced a failure." Ebrard {Das Alter des Jehova-Naniens) and Tiele {Stud, und Krit. 1852-1) make nearly the same admission. It is not fair, however, to require the ad- vocates of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch to explain positively the reasons wliich impelled him to the peculiar use of these names. The causes of such a selection are often inscrutable, even to the writer him- self. A sufficient reason is perhaps given in the sup- position that iNIoses made use of documents written by different persons which contained those peculiarities. The want of uniformity observable in the same section in this respect shows that it is due to a twofold influ- ence. It must be borne in mind that this peculiar dis- tinction in the use of the sacred names is mostly con- fined to the book of Genesis (q. v.).
2. Direct Testiinnni/ of the Book to its own A uthorship and Date of Composition. — (1.) Of this character is Exod. xvii, 14, "And the Lord said unto !Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua; for I will utterly put out the re- membrance of Amalek from under heaven :" a statement which becomes the more pointed if we read, as we have little hesitation in doing, not '• in a book," but " in the book" (^£32). This passage shows that the account to be inserted was intended to form a portion of a more extensive work, with which the reader is supposed to be acquainted. It also proves that Moses, at an early period of his public career, was filled with the idea of leaving to his people a written memorial of the divine guidance, and that he fidly understood the close and necessary connection of an authoritative law with a written code, or "p"3T. At any rate, the direct testi- mony to tlie fact that particular passages were written by Moses is of vast importance as a presumption that other passages were written by him also, although the contrary assertion has often been put forward : nay, many jiassages may be inferred a fortiori to have come from his pen. Or, where the inference might be unsafe, as in the instance now given, it is because of the extraordinary emphasis of the testimony in such a pas- sage; not merely that the doom of Amalek was written by Moses in the book of the Lord for Israel, but also its being so expressly recorded that it was written. See also Exod. xxiv, 4-7; Numb, xxxiii, 1,2; Deut. xvii, 18, 10 (a remarlvable passage); xxviii-xxx, which re- peatedly mention the loritten blessings and curses; xxvii, l-lo, a command to "write all the words of this law" on plastered stones, preparatory to the solemn reading of the blessings and the curses beside the altar which ^vas to be erected when the peo|)le tof)k posses- sion of the centre of the Promised Land (comp. the ac- count (if the fulfilment. Josh, viii, 30-35). The most remarkable passage, however, is at Deut. xxxi, 9: "And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the ])riests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel," and charged these ecclesiastical and civil heads of the community to read it to the assembled conctreffation of Israel durinc
the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles, on the occa- sion when it was most largely attended in the seventh year, the year of rest. Further (ver. 24-27) : "And it came to pass when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until tliey were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in [or rather at] the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God ; that it may be there for a witness against thee. For I know thv rebel- lion and thy stiff neck : behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious. against the Lord; and how much more after my death?" It has often been said that no assertion could be more explicit, or made in more solemn circumstances, or with addi- tions more calculated for discovering and demonstrating its falsehood unless the truth had been notorious. With this mass of evidence we must connect the warnings against adding to what Moses commanded, or taking from it (Deut. iv, 2; xii, 32) ; the circumstantial state- ment as to the discourses being addressed by Moses to the people (i, 1-5) ; and along with these opening words of Deuteronomy, the closing words of Numbers (xxxvi, 13), as also the last words of Leviticus (xxvii, 34; also XXV, 1 ; xxvi, 4G). If all these statements are not to be set aside as an idle dream or a tissue of deliberate falsehoods, the very least which can be inferred from them is that the Pentateuch (at all events the part of it from the time when the people came to covenant with God at Mount Sinai) is from one writer; that the divine legislation was in the first place given from that mount, the substance or essence of which was concluded in the book of Leviticus; that there were appendices to this, recorded in the book of Numbers, on to flic time when Israel stood upon the eastern bank of the Jordan, ready to cross over upon Jericho; and that there M'as a very solemn renewal of the covenant on the- part of the gen- eration which had grown up in the wilderness, to whom, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses repeated much of the legislation and addressed his parting counsels. It may be made a question whether the hand of a later writer, who finished the Pentafeuch, is perceptible from Deut. xxxi, 24 (comp. xxxiii, 1, and eh. xxxiv), or whether the words in xxxi, 24-30 are still the words of Moses. In the former case we have two witnesses, viz. Moses himself, and the continuator of the Pentateuch; in the latter case, which seems to us the more likely, we have the testimony of Moses alone.