The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 19

and tents (of. vers:-3, 7, 9, 14), and could scarcely have been composed at a later period, when the oircumsta.nces of the people were so entirely altered as to render directions about camps and tents quite inapplicable. a. Similarly, the ordinance relating to the silver trumpets (eh. x. 1-10), and the instructions bearing on the census and the arrangement of the camp (chs. i.-iv.), eo unmistakably discover their connection with the desert, that no intelligent oritio ever dreams of disputing that at least they belong to that early era; while-,. That the high priestly bene- diction (eh. vi. 24-26) and the military order which was uttered at the marching and halting of the camp (eh. x. 35, 36) were also composed then seems impossible to deny, for, to use the words of Ewald, "in these antiquely simple but powerful and beautiful utterances there is nothing contrary to the age and spirit of Moses; the first poetically describes the peaceful, and the second the warlike, feelings of the community during that primeval age.n If, therefore, these different portions of the present Book have deBC<nded from the age in which Moses lived, why should it be deemed imperative to search for another author to whom to ascribe their actual composition P And if it should appear, as on reflection it can hardly fail, that there is no such urgent necessity, may it not be regarded as creating at least presumptive evidence that the other sections of the Book have also proceeded from his pen P 2. The Book of Numbers bears evidence of having been composed in the desert by an eye-witness of, and participator in, the scenes and transactions he records. Here, of course, the argument will be more satisfactory if proof can be advanced from those parts of the Book whose Mosaic origin is commonly disputed; and to these alone, accordingly, attention will at present be directed. Now that the children of Israel were as yet sojourning in the Arabian peninsula, and had not settled in Ca.n.a.a.n when this division of the Pentateuch was composed, may be ~erred from the character of the legislation which it records, which always pre- supposes that the people "had not yet come into the land of their habitations," but were dwelling in camps and tents with the tabernacle in their midst (vide eh. v. 3. 4; vi. 10, 13; viii. 1; xv. 2; xviii. 2, 6, 21). It is on this principle that Bleak identifies the legislation in Leviticus as belonging to Mosaic times, and there can be no reason of a valid nature for refusing assent to the truth of this principle when applied in the same way to Numbers. Then, that the author must have been familiar with the desert is apparent from the accuracy of his geographical knowledge, which has not only in many of its details been verified by modern explorers, as, e. g., Hebron (eh. :xiii. 22) and Kadesh (ibid. ver. 26), but which strenuously resists all attempts at further identification except upon the hypothesis of its own correctness (cf. Lange' on Numbers,' Introduction, p. 7); while the way in which the history and the legislation are commingled in the narrative-the Juetory often affording the requisite basis for the legislation, and the legislation frequently springing naturally out of the circumstances described-renders it impossible that any but an actual participant in the events and transactions themselves could have written it (vide chs. v., ix., m., mvi.). "Evidently the alternations of historical and legislati:re portions reflect the order of actual transaction," and "this feature is exactly one which belongs to the work of a contemporary annalist"(' Speaker's Oommentary; Introduction to Numbers, § 4, (2) ). 3. The Book of Numbers reveals an intimate acquaintance on the part of its author with Egyptian manners and customs, which at least harmonises with the idea that that author was Moses. (1) The trial by jealousy (eh. v. 11-35) maybe oompared with the tale of Setnau translated by Brugsch from a demotic manusoript;  TIIE BOOK 01', NUMBF.RS. xxi