§ 3. UNITY OF THE won.K. Much the same arguments have been employed to disprove the unity of Exodus, and to establish the theory that it is the work of at least two authors, as have been already examined in this COMMENTARY with respect to Genesis. " The Elohist " and " the J ehovist " are again paraded before us, as if they were admitted realities, instead of being, as they are, puro figments, the creations of a captious and over-refining pseudo-criticism. There is the same want of agreement among the various advocates of tho theory, which has been already noticed in the comment on Genesis, as to which passages are the work of the Elohist, and which of the Jehovist, whole chapters being assigned to one of them by some critics, and by others to the other. 1 Moreover, curiously enough, in their application to Exodus, the ,ery raison d'etre of the names disappears, passages being ascribed to the Jehovist in which the only name of God is Elohim, and others to the Elohist in which the only name used is Jehovah. 2 Under these circumstances it would only be reasonable that the terms Elohist and J ehovist should be relinquished, and the confession made that the theory on which they are based has broken down; but "the higher criticism," as it delights to call itself, seems not greatly to affect the virtue of candour. The real question now raised with regard to Exodus is not whether it can be divided into two sets of passages, Elohistic and Jehovistic respectively, in the former of which may be recognised the original document, while the latter are the work of an editor, supplementer, or compiler; but whether any division at all can be made, whether there are any clear traces of a second hand, or whether the "book" has not, in its structure, style, and method such clear and unmistakable marks of unity as to point distinctly to a single author. 3 Now the book has one clear and plain purpose, which is to give an account of the circumstances under which the Israelites quitted Egypt, and became God's peculiar people, bound to him by a covenant, and granted his continuous presence with them to guide and direct them. The narratirn flows on without a break. If there are some chronological gaps in the earlier portion,' they are necessitated by the fact that nothing occurred 1 Afl eh. xir., which is e.ssigned to theElohist by De Wette, Sfahelio, e.nd Von Lengerke, but
to the Jehovist by Knobel(' Exegetisches Handbuch,' vol. ii. p. xvii.). 2 E.g. Ex. i. 15-22 is assigned to the Jehovist by Knobel, De Wette, Von Lengerke, and others, though God appea.rs as Elohim in vers. 17, 20 and 21, and the no.me Jehovah does not appear at o.ll. Similarly chs. xxv.-xxviii. a.re ascribed to the Elohist, though J ehova.h occurs in them five times, e.nd Elohim not at o.11. Less extreme cases are those of eh. iii. e.nd chs xxx.-xxxi., both called Elohistic; though in the former Jehovah occun; twenty times, e.nd Elohim seven only; in the latter, Jehovah occUIS fifteen times, e.nd Elohim only twice. • Against the disintegrating views of so me.ny German critics may well be set the conviction of Kalisch:-" We see the completest harmony in o.ll parts of Exodus ; we consider it es a perfect whole: pervaded throughout by one spirit l\lld the same leading ideas." (' Hist. and Crit. Commentary,' p. x. E.T.) • As between the death of Joseph (eh. i. 6) and the accession of the" new king, which k.new not Joseph" (ib. 8); between the adoption of Moses by Phar~?h's daughter (eh. ii. 5-10) and INTRODUCTION.
during the omitted periods which either advanced or hindered the action which it is the writer's business to relate. He is not a secular historian, l•ent on recording all the circumstances in the early life of his nation, but a sacred writer, a religious teacher, bound to confine his attention to their theocra.tic history, or in other words to God's providential dealings with them. These consist for some centuries in two things only-the rapid increase of the race, despite all attempts to hinder it; and the severe oppression to which after a time they were subjected. The former is important as giving them the strength to do what they did; the latter as supplying the motive. So these two things are put on record ; but their life before the oppression began, and even the time that the oppression lasted, which an ordinary historian would of course have noted, are omitted as unimportant for the theocratic history. Similarly, with regard to Moses, the leader of the Exodus, while those circumstances which prepared him for his task-his education at the court, which gave him ready access to Pharaoh, and his sojourn in Midian, which made him familiar with life in the desert-are clearly marked ; all the details of his early career, covering a space ( according to St. Stephen, Acts vii. 23) of "full forty years," and all but the barest outline of his life in Midian, occupying another similar term, are suppressed, as not helping on the people's deliverance, or conducing to their reception into covenant. But, from the time that the deliverance begins, i.e. from the date of Moses' call, there are no gaps, no omissions- every step of the history is traced with the utmost minuteness, because each furthers the great ends which the writer has in view-first, the people's deliverance--then, their acceptance into covenant at Sinai-finally, the completion of the covenant on God's part by the visible location of the Shechinah in the Tabernacle. And as there is this unity of historical aim in the whole of Exodus, so is there a great unity of style. Historical narrative indeed, and the details of legislation and construction, being subjects exceedingly diverse, cannot well be treated in the same way; and it would be fanciful to maintain, that either " the Book of the Covenant" or the description of the Tabernacle is manifestly from the same hand as the account of the oppression of Israel or of the plagues ; but wherever in the later chapters a narrative passage occurs (e.g. chs. xxiv.; xxxii.-xxxiv. 8; xxxiv. 28-35; xl. 16-38), the resemblances to the style of the earlier portion of the book (chs." i.-xix.) are numerous and striking; 1 and similarly, wherever in the early portion his" going out unto his brethren" (i"b. 11); end between the birth of Gernhom (ib. 22) nnd the miracle of the burning bush ( eh. iii. 2). , It would be tedious to exhibit this agreement, end it seems to be unnecessary. No argu• menu; of any weight have been adduced by the opponents of the unity, based upon style. When Stahelin says, " Wherever I find mention of a 'pillar of fire,' or of a 'cloud,' or an 'angel of Jehovah,' or the phrase' flowing with milk and honey,' ... when mention is made of a • coming down of God,' or when the Canaanite natioIIII are numbered, or the Tabernocla supposed to be without the camp, I feel tolerably certain that I em reading the words of the JNTHODUCTION. vii