((•) A fondness for the use of figures is another pe- culiarity of Deuteronomy. See xxix, 17. 18; xxviii, 13, 44;" i, 31, 44; viii, o'; xxviii, 29, 49. Of similar conii)arisons there are but few (Delitzsch says but three) in the other books. The results are most surprising when we compare Deuteronomy with the Book of the Covenant (Exod. xix-xxiv) on the one hand, ami with Psa. xc (which is said to be Mosaic) on tlie other. To cite but one example: the images of devouring lire and of tlie bearing on eagles' wings occur only in the Book of the Covenant and in Deuteronomj-. Comp. Exod. xxiv, 17 with Deut. iv, 24 ; ix, 3 ; and Exod. xix, 4 with Deut. xxii, 11. So again, not to mention num- berless undesigned coincidences between Psa. xc and the book of Deuteronomy, especially cliap. xxxii, we need only here cite the phrase C'^'l"' inb""? (Psa. xc, 17), "work of the hands," as descriptive of liuman ac- tion generally, which runs through the whole of Deut. ii, 7; xiv, 29; xvi, 15; xxiv, 19; xxviii, 12; xxx, 9. The same close affinity, both as to matter and style, ex- ists between the section to which we have already re- ferred in Leviticus (chap, xvii-xx, so manifestly differ- ent from the rest of that book), the Book of the Cov- enant ( Ex(]d. xix-xxiv), and Deuteronomy.
((/) In addition to all this, and very much more might be said — for a whole liarvest has been gleaned on this field by Schultz in the Introduction to his work on
Deuteronomy — in addition to all these peculiarities which are arguments for tlie jMosaic authorship of the book, we liave here, too, tlie evidence strong and clear from post-Mosaic times and writings. Tlie attempt, by a wrong interpretation of 2 Kings xxii and 2 Chron. xxxiv, to bring down Deuteronomy as low as the time of Manasseh fails utterly. A cent my earlier the Jewish prophets borrow their words and their thoughts from Deuteronomy. Amos shows how intimate his acquaint- ance was with Deuteronomy by such passages as ii, 9; iv, 11; ix, 7, whose matter and form are both col- ored by those of that book. Ilosea, who is richer than Anios in these references to the past, while full of allusions to the whole law (vi, 7; xii, 4, etc.; xiii, 9, 10), in one passage (viii, 12) using the remarkable ex- pression, " I have written to him the ten thousand things of ray law," manifestly includes Deuteronomy (comp. xi, 8 with Deut. xxix, 22), and in many (ilaces shows that that book was in his mind. Comp. iv, 13 with Deut. xii, 2; viii, 13 with Deut. xxviii, 08; xi, 3 with Deut. i, 31 ; xiii, G with Deut. viii, 11-14. Isaiah be- gins his prophecy with the words, " Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth," taken from the mouth of jNloses in Deut. xxxii, 1. In fact, echoes of the tones of Deu- teronomy are heard throughout the solemn and majes- tic discourse with which liis prophecy opens. (See Cas- pari, Beitrdije zii?- EiuL in d. Buck Jesaict, p. 203-210.) The same may be said of Micah. In his protest against the apostasy of the nation from the covenant with Je- hovah, he appeals to the mountains as the sure foun- dations of the earth, in like manner as Moses (Deut. xxxii, 1) to the heavens and the earth. The contro- versj' of Jehovah with his people (Mic. vi, 3-5) is a compendium, as it were, of the history of the Penta- teuch from Exodus onwards, while the expression 0*^3 D'^'I^"? " slave-house" of Egypt, is taken from Deut. vii, 8; xiii, 5. In vi, 8 there is no doubt an allusion to Deut. X, 12, and the threatenings of vi, 13-16 remind us of Deut. xxviii as well as of Lev. xxvi. Since, then, not only Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Micah, speak in the words of Denteronom)', as well as in words borrowed from other portions of the Pentateuch, we see at once how untenable is the theory of those who, like Ewald, maintain that Deuteronomy was composed during the reign of Manasseh, or, as Vai- hinger does, during that of Hezekiah.
(e) But, in truth, the book speaks for itself. No im- itator coukl have written in such a strain. We scarce- ly need the express testimony of the work to its own authorship. But, having it, we find all the internal ev- idence conspiring to show that it came from Moses. Those magnificent discourses, the grand roll of which can be heard and felt even in a translation, came warm from the heart and fresh from the lips of Israel's law- giver. They are the outpourings of a solicitude which is nothing less than parental. It is the father uttering his dying advice to his children, no less than the proph- et counselling and admonishing his people. What book can vie with it either in majesty or in tenderness? What words ever bore more surely the stamp of genu- ineness? If Deuteronomy be only the production of some timorous reformer, who, conscious of his own weak- ness, tried to borrow dignity and weight from tlic name of Moses, then assuredly all arguments drawn from in- ternal evidence for the composition of any work are ut- terly useless. We can never tell whether an author is wearing the mask of another, or whether it is he him- self who speaks to us. In spite, therefore, of the dog- matism of modern critics, we declare unhesitatingly for the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. See Deuter- onomy.