tween the incident and such a record of its duration. It was a common idiom. Joshua (xxii, 3) uses it of the short time that Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Ma- nasseh had fought in concert with the other tribes in the subjugation of Canaan. So, again, he (xxiii, 9) em- ploys it to specify the time that intervened between the entrance into Canaan and his resignation of the com- mand on account of his approaching decease. Matthew, in his Gospel (xxvii, 8, and xxviii, 15), uses it of the period between the death of Christ and the composition of his book. Reference is made in Samuel to the cur- rency of a certain proverb (1 Sam. x, 12), and to the dis- use of the term seer (ix, 9), but in a manner which by no means implies an authorship long posterior to the time of the actual circumstances. The proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" was one which for man\' reasons would obtain rapid and universal circula- tion ; and, if no other hypothesis be considered satisfac- tory, we may suppose that the remark about the term "seer" becoming obsolete may be the parenthetical in- sertion of a later hand; or, it may be that iu Samuel's days the term iiabi came to be technically used in his school of the prophets. See Prophet. There is little reason for supposing that any part of the woric was com- posed even so late as subsequently to the division of the kingdom. For the expression " Israel and Judah" (oc- curring 1 Sam. xi, 8; xvii, 52; xviii, 16; 2 Sam. iii, 10; V, 5; xxiv, 1), which is claimed as proof of an origin after the division of the kingdom under Rehoboam, has no such force (as must be obvious from 2 Sam. ii, 4, 9, 10, 17, 28 ; xviii, 6, 7, 16 ; xix, 9, compared with 12, 16, 16), from which it is clear that the phrase, if not already in use, originated in the circumstances that at first only the tribe of Judah adhered to David, while the remain- ing tribes under the common name of Israel formed a separate kingdom for seven years and a half, imder Ish- bosheth, and afterwards for a short time under Absalom. There is, however, one passage, 1 Sam. xxvii, G, "There- fore hath Ziklag been to the kings of Judah till this day," which is not so clearly reconcilable v/ith this view, unless it should prove to be a note added by a later hand.
With this claim to high antiquity the other internal evidence, so far as it goes, entirely agrees. In the un- settled times of the judges the observance of the ritual enjoined in the books of Moses had fallen greatly into disuse. Sacrifices which were lawful only before the door of the tabernacle were offered at many places, as at Mizpeh and (iilgal. No disapprobation of this practice is expressed in Samuel, though it very often is so in Kings. The Pentateuch seems to exert little influence on the habits of the people as described in Samuel, or on the ideas and language of the writers. There are, in- deed, fewer allusions to Moses and his writings in Sam- uel than iu any other of the early books of Scripture. But this may doubtless be in part accounted for by the disorganized and somewhat anomalous state into which matters fell in consequence of the capture of the ark by the Philistines, and the essentially new era which was shortly afterwards introduced by the institution of the kingdom, with the stirring events that followed in the personal histories of Saul and David. The name of Moses occurs fifty-six times in Joshua, in Judges three, in Samuel two, in Kings ten, in Chronicles thirty-one. The law of Moses is never once named in Samuel.
The language is distinguished bj^ its purity, and this also is an argument for the early origin of these books. A considerable number of words and forms of words are peculiar to them, and several occur which are found only in one other book besides. But it is unnecessary here to give lists of them.
VI. The Author or Compiler.— V^\\\\ the exception of a brief expression in the Talmud {K(/iiptian Gemara, A.D. .500, Balia Bathra, fol. 14), TiSD 3113 bxi^aUJ ("Samuel wrote his book"), there is no opinion express- ed by antiquity respecting the name of the author. No
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mention is made of it in the books of Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles, or in anj- part of the Bible. Xor is it named in the Apocrj-pha or in Josephus. The work is gen- erally attributed to some competent historian, who availed himself of autlientic docmnents in prejiaring it. Some writers, as Abarbanel and (irotiiis, ascribe it to Jeremiah, some to Ezra, and some to Isaiah. There is not nearly so much probability that Jeremiah compiled the books of Samuel (as is argued at some length bj' Hitzig, Die Psalmen, p. 48-85) as there is that he was the writer of the books of Kings. There is much great- er dissimilarity of language, style, and spirit between Samuel and Jeremiah than between Kings and Jere- miah. Tlie great number of words and forms of words peculiar to this work point out a distinct author and age, and it would seem most likely that it was compiled in an early period after the death of David, and pre- viously to the rending of the kingdom under liehobo- am ; unless the opinion which has widely prevailed in the Christian Church should be finally adopted, that the work begun by Samuel was carried on and finished be- fore the death of David by Nathan and Gad, or that it was the work of some member of the school of the prophets who had personal knowledge of the events which he narrates. If, however, this theorj' cannot be maintained, and there should be grounds for sup- posing that the compiler lived not earlier than the timps of Rehoboam (see Thenius on 2 Sam. viii, 7 ; xiv, 27), still it must be acknowledged that the materials which he used were of earlier date, and must for the most part have been written by persons who were con- temporaneous with the events. It appears certain that memoirs were written by Samuel, Nathan, and Gad (see 2 Chron. xxix, 29), and perhaps also by other members of the schools of the prophets, although it may not be equally certain that those memoirs are identical with the present books of Samuel. The fact that a recorder or remembrancer ("i^ST'Q), whose office it was to pre- pare memoirs or annals of passing events, is mentioned early among the household of David, is not without an important bearing on this question. It is clear that the authors of the original documents, if not of the work itself, must have occupied such positions of honor and influence as gave them ample opportunity of knowing the events of the times in which they wrote. Such minute details as Ave find, for instance, in the history of David, belonging rather to his private than to his pui)Iic life — the story of Bathsheba, of David's behavior on the death of her child, of Amnon and Tamar, of the secret sending to the priests from Mahanaim, etc. — be- speak perfectly well instructed writers, ■who had access to the best sources of information.