The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 65

t11bo11111cle, for wl1ich work, as requiring the strength of a full-grown man, all males between the ogee of thirty and fifty were to be enrolled (Ilengstenberg, Keil). Among arithmetical blunders, the exact agreement of the census of the male heads of the people taken in the second year of the Exodus (Numb. i. 45) with that executed half a year earlier (Exod ..xxxviii. 25, 26), for the purpose of imposing a poll tax, viz., 603,550, has long been regarded as inexplicable on any ground of hietorical truth- fulness (Colenso); but a eufficient explanation is that the second census was not really a fresh enumeration of the people, which was not necessary, but simply a registration, according to thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, of those who had been previously entered on the public records (Keil). Geographical mistakes have been detected somewhat plentifully in the story of the Exodus, and in particular in the list of camping stations preserved in Numb. xxxiii. (Bohlen, 'Introd.,' vol. i. eh. viii. p. 88, London, 1855); but it is the less needful to offer refutation of what are mostly imaginary faults, that critics generally have felt themselves constrained to recognise the chapter in which they occur as one of the indubitable frag- ments of Mosaic composition contained in the Pentateuch (Havernick, 'Introd.,' p. 335). Thus, so far ns this second ground or reason for accepting the non-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is concerned, it is far from being as conclusive as its advocates suppose. 3. THE ADMITTED RESEMBLANCE Oil' 1TB LANGUAGE TO THAT Oil' THE LATER BOOKS. This objection applies with special force to the Book of Deuteronomy, between which and the otl1er parts of the Pentateuch the dissimilarity is so palpable as to demand a diversity of authorship, while its correspondence in both thought and expression to the prophetic writings of Jeremiah is so great as to indicate, if not that it proceeded from that prophet's pen, at least that it bad its origin in his time. Witbont attempt- ing to discuss every minute point of criticism connected with the fifth book of Moses, which will doubtless be done in the special introduction to that portion of tl,~ Pentuteuch, the two allegations that have just been referred to appear to call for notice on the ground that they bear more immediately on the larger question of the literary unity and Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. As to the first, the non- resemblance of the fifth book to the preceding four, it is alleged that not only are its contents different from theirs, promulgating as it does a legislation containing many important variations from, contradictions of, and even additions to, that contained in the preceding books, as, e. g., the law of the kingdom (Deut. xvii. 14), the law of the one high place (Deut. xii. 5), the law about the prophetic office (Deut. xviii. 15), &c., of all which the earlier legislation was completely ignorant, but its style of com- position is characterised by a·copiousness of diction aJtogether foreign to the other books of the Pentateucb, and by many forms of expression which are peculiarly its own, The so-called new legislation to be found in Deuteronomy we dismiss 'l\'lth the remark that only the exigencies of a pre-conceived theory can discover in it anything at variance with the earlier Sinaitic legislation recorded in Exodus. At present we confine our remarks to the charge of diversity of language supposed to be discernible between it and the preceding books. Colenso mentions forty-five expressions which he avers are of frequent occurrence in Deuteronomy, but are never found so much ns once in the Pentateuch ; but a careful examination of the examples quoted shows how much of :accuracy this assertion really contains. The phrase, e. g., "cleave to Jehovah," M)M'~ p;i-, (eh. iv. 4; x. 20; xi. 22; xiii. 4; x:xx. 20), is claimed as being exclusively Deuteronomistic; but the same verb, p;"?, occurs in Gen. ii. 24; m. 19; xxxiv. 3, and with precisely the same sense of attaching oneself to a person or thing. "Work of the hands" ( eh. ii. 7; xiv. 29 ; xvi. 15, &c.) is only a rhetorical expression  .-iii '111-lE AtJTHOMRIP OF TRE PENTATEUCtl .