The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 15

ITS AUTHORSHIP. The authorship of the Book of Numbers may be regarded as practically eettle«l by the previous question of its hietorio credibility. If no valid argument oan be adduoed for impugning the veracity of its oontents, the inference is irresistible that it can only have proceeded from the pen of Moses. Yet it is alleged that the Book of Numbers presents features which can only be explained by the modem theory of its being, like the rest of the Pentateuoh, a late compilation. 1. The alternating use of the Divine names, which forms so prominent a oharacter- istic of the Book of Genesis, and which largely disappears in the Books of Exodu& and Leviticus, reasserts itself, it is maintained (De Watte, 'Kritik der lsraelitischen Geschiohte,• p. 362), in the Book of Numbers, in particular in the section relating to :Balaam and his prophecies (cha. :xxii.-:xxiv.), in such a way as to suggest the idea of composite authorship. Without anticipating what may be advanced in the body of the work on this important subject, it may suffice in this place to notice that the poculiarity attaching to Balaa.m's use of the Divine names, no less than that belong- ing to the historian's employment of them, admits of a perfectly intelligible explan- ation on Uie theory of the Mosaic authorship. Whatever view we adopt as to th& character of Balaam,-whether, with Philo, Josephus, Origen, Augustine, Lyra, A Lapide, and others, we regard him as having been II prophetam non J?ei, aed diaboli," an Oriental wizard who claimed to possess the gift of prophecy, C':?'":J, the Old Testament oounterpart of Simon Magus in the primitive apoatolio Ohuroh, or accept the view of Tertullian, Jerome, Deyling, Buddmus, &c., that he was a true prophet of God who fell through covetousness,-and whatever opinion we may entertain as to the source of his religious information,-whether, with Tholuok and Lange, we disoover that in the primeval monotheism which still lingered in Mesopo- tamia, or, with Hengstenberg, find it in the report of God's dealings with Israel, whioh even then had penetrated e.s far east as the Euphrates, or, with Kurtz, Keil, and the• Speaker's Oommentary,' seek for it in both,-it seems apparent that Balaam professed to be a worshipper Qf Jehovah (eh. xxii. 8, 18); in which, as Kurtz correctly observes, the king of Midian could not fail to discern peouliarly welcome in- telligence, for II if he succeeded in inducing him to curse the Israelites, their power, he thought, would be effectually broken"(' Hist. of 0. O.,' Vol. III. p. 387). Hence it was specially fitting tha.t he should use the term Jehovah as he does, whether conversing in plain prose with the Moabitish messengers, or pouring forth predio- tions in elevated strains of poetry, even though it should have been the case, e.a Keil suggests, that the Jehovah whom Balaam worshipped was II only Elohim, i.,. e1nly a Divine Being, but not the God of Israel" Nor does it look a hard problem  THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. ll:Vll