The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 16

to explain why in oh. :uii. 38 he should have discarded the favourite term Jehovah for the more general expression Elohim, since it we.e not e.t that moment his desire to emphasise the fa.et that Jehovah had declined to extend him the needful ea.nction to undertake the solicited mission, which indeed he had already done (eh. xxii. 13), but to repudiate the insinuation of the king of Moe.b that he had hesitated to comply with the invitation add.reseed to him simply through fear of not receiving a sufficient recompense, by representing the.t he had ree.lly been hindered, not through persona.I. reluote.noe, but by Divine restraint, in which case, e.e Hengstenberg remarks, " even a member of the chosen people would have used Elohim." Then the mode in which the historian employs the terms is e.e little suggestive of a diverse authorship, but is possessed of e. significance e.e remark.able e.nd specific, as the.t in which they were employed by Be.le.am. In the first place, when recording the interview between Bale.am and the elders, although the Kosem says Jehovah, he writes Elohim (oh. xxii. 9, 10, 12, 20). .And even if we cannot unreservedly adopt the view of Hengstenberg, that the historian's design was "to determine Balaam's persona.I. relation to God in opposition to his hypooritioa.l pretensions"(' Authenticity and Genuineness of the Pentateuoh,' Vol I. p. 388), or believe with Baur that the writer mee.nt to intimate "the.t the heathen seer did not stand at first in e.ny connection whatever with the true God of Israel" (' Gesohiohte der alttestl. Weisea.gung,' i. p. 344), or e.flirm with Keil the.t it serves e.e an indication the.t "Ba.l.e.am's original attitude towards Jehovah was a very imperfect one" (' Com- mentary on Numbers,' oh. xxii. 1), we me.y hold it e.e a perfectly adequate explan- ation the.t as yet there we.s no necessity to take the slightest cognisance of Be.laam's relation to Jehovah, assumed or otherwise, but simply to draw attention to the fact that the Divine interposition solicited by Be.le.am was granted. At the ea.me time we regard the preponderance of argument as lying on the side of Hengetenberg's interpretation of a contra.et which, e.e he justly observes, is too remarkable and occurs too often to have been purely aocidenta.l, while we cannot attach a large degree of importance to the objection of Keil that such a view " sets up a chasm between Elohim e.nd Jehovah, with which the fa.et that, according to eh. xxii. 22, the wre.th of Elohim on aooount of Balaam'e journey was manifested in the appee.r- anoe of the e.ngel of Jehovah is irreconcilable," since it rather seems to bridge over any such imaginary chasm by showing the.t the Elohim who we.a angered was not different from the Me.lee.oh Jehovah who accorded permission, but was in reality one and the self-ea.me Being. And now if we inquire why from this point onward Jehovah is so frequently employed by the writer, it will be difficult to discover a. more se.tisfe.ctory reason than the.t supplied by Hengstenberg, the.t he designed "to point out how Jehovah, the God of Israel, overruled the whole tre.nee.ction for his people's welfare, and how Balaam, who otherwise had no intercourse with him, was obliged, in this extraordinary juncture, to serve him as an instrument." 2. The narrative contains repetitions and variations which, in the estimation of the higher criticism, suggest a remodelling of the original documents by subsequent -editorship, and a working up of different, and sometimes ooutradiotory, accounts into the ea.me writing. Bleak specifies as an example the account of the spies in ·ohs. xiii. and xiv., in which he assigns oh. xiii. 1-xiv. 4, 10-25, 39-45 to the fundamental or Elohist writing, and the remainder (eh. xiv. 5-10, 26-38) to the revisionary labours of the Jehovist, the ground of this apportionment of the te::tt being the.t oh. xiv. 10-25 declares that "of all the Iara.elites who had been -witnesses of Jehovah's wondera in Egypt and the wilderness, and had so ofteu )llJMBBBB. b  :11,iii THE AUTHENTICITY AND AUTHORSHIP OE'