(p.) The blank in the narrative for the thirty-eight years during which that unbelieving generation werci dying out; so that the suspicion has been expressed that this space of time is fabulous, and that either vastly less than forty years elapsed between the Exodua and the conquest of Canaan, or else that the most of that period was spent, not in the desert properly so called, but on the eastern side of the Jordan, in a pro- tracted struggle with the kingdoms of Sihon and Og. Without giving attention to this fancy, we confine our- selves to the blank of thirt^'-eight years in the history, which we regard without any of the surprise and suspi- cion which the critics have exhibited. Had the Penta- teuch been an ordinary history, it might have had much to tell of these thirty-eight years, and of the manner in which the Israelites contrived to spend the time and to support themselves; but since it is a theocratic history, an account of the progress in the kingdom of God and in the manifestation of his way of mere)- to his people, a blank occurs, because there was little or nothing to tell during these years of suspended privileges. Such periods of jjrotracted silence occur also in the history of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and remarkably in the four hundred and thirty years of the sojourn in Egypt. If we go beyond the Pentateuch, we believe that the same explanation is to be given of the silence in reference to the period after the end of Joshua's administration, the long periods between those critical times in which the Lord raised up judges to save his people, the seventy years of captivity in Babylon, the eighty years or thereabouts between Zerubbabel and Ezra, and the four hundred years between the Old- Testament Scriptures and the New.
(./".) The assumed difficidties of supporting so large a multitude in the desert, and of their setting out so sud- denly and moving so rapidly, the impossibility of their entire mass assembling at the Tabernacle-door (as is incorrectly alleged to be the meaning of numerous pas- sages), and kindred arithmetical objections, we here pass over, as they have been repeatedly and amplv re- futed, and many of them are noticed elsewhere in this Cyclojxvdia.
(3.) There is one striking fact lying on the face of the record — the only important fact, as we believe, to which advocates for the disintegration of the Penta- teuch can point as seeming to favor their views of a plurality of authors ; and that is the fact, above re- ferred to, which Astruc noticed so clearlj' — the use of two names for the Ilirine Being, Elohim and Jehovah, in the Authorized Version usually " God" and " Lord." Astruc's theory of composition was ver}' coarse and mechanical, that there were two documents, known by
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the barbarous titles of the Elohistic and the Jehovistic documents respective!}^, l)y two writers who confined themselves each to one of these names ; and that from these two narratives and ten documents of small com- parative importance the book of Genesis was strung together by Moses. Enormous labor, great stores of learning, and unbridled fancy have altered Astruc's theory over and over again, in order to elaborate some satisfactory hj-pothesis by which to account for the existence of our present Pentateuch ; but no fact of essential importance has been added ; and no proof has been furnished of the truth of his assumption that the use of these two names of God is due to the exist- ence of two different authors. The only circumstance that can even appear to be a proof of this assumption is a text, of whicli, accordingly, abundant use has been made in this controversy (Exod. vi, 2, 3): "And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I [am] Jehovah : and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by [the name of] God Almight}' ; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." The opin- ion is of some antiquity, though it first obtained prom- inence and currency through the labors of these critics, that according to this statement the very vocable Je- hovah was unknown until the revelation made of it to Moses ; and the older interpreters wlio held this opin- ion supposed further that, whenever the name Jeho- vah had been used in earlier passages, this was done merely by anticipation — a supposition which may be ■unnecessar}', yet which is by no means very strange or unnatural. But the explanation given for near a centur}' by one class of writers is that this text comes from the pen of the Elohist, and expresses his belief; and that where the name occurs in earlier passages, these have not been written by him, but by another author, who did not notice or did not recognise this distinction in the divine names. This explanation, however unsupported by evidence, is at least perfect- ly intelligible, if we adopt the exploded hypothesis of independent historians, each with his own document, and perhaps each ignorant of the document composed by the other ; but it raises some curious questions in relation to the final editor who could patch together such incongruous materials, questions all the more troublesome according to the fashionable hypothesis of supplementers. Bishop Colenso, indeed, like some others, speaks very candidly of the Jeliovist writing as he did, " without jjerceivinff, or at least without feel- ing VEKY STRONGLY [his own Capitals] the contra- diction thereby imported into the narrative ;" of which procedure he gives two parallel instances in the Je- hovistic additions to the Elohistic accounts of the cre- ation and of the flood. But in these two cases the contradiction has not been perceived to tliis hour bj' many who have examined the matter as carefully as they could (and this with the advantage of having tlie alleged discovery pointed out to them), and whose ca- pacities forjudging are as fair as those of their neigh- bors, and whose conviction it is that no contradiction exists except in the imagination of these critics ; where- as, in the case of the habitual use of the name Jeho- vah, in the age of tlie patriarchs, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the assertion that this name was kept a secret till that age was over, the man who combined these two things in one narrative, without seeing the flat contradiction which lie introduced into it, must have been destitute of reason and common- sense. On other occasions these critics arc ready enough to affirm tliat the later writer (or writers) sup- pressed and altered portions of tlic original document, in order tlie better to fit his own story into it; and they allege tiiat his operation has been achieved so neatly that most pco])lc have never suspected it, nor can detect it for themselves even after the sagacity of the critics has discovered it and jiointed it out. But in this particular instance these critics insist on so inter- preting a text, which is especially prominent and im-