The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 67

party, must have fabricated "this book of the law" as a legi~lative programme (Kuenen, 'The Religion of Israel,' vol. ii. pp. 18, 19). For (1) there are not a few resemblances between the other Penfoteuchal booh and Jeremiah, of which the appended list, collected by Bohlen, may be studied (cf. Gen. i. 22; xxxv. 11 with Jer. iii. 16; xxiii. 3; Gen. xxii. 15, 18 with Jer. iv. 2; Gen. xxviii. 3 with Jer, I. 9; Levit. xix. 28 with Jer. xvi. 6; Numb. xxi. 28, 29 with Jer. xlviii. 45, 46) ; so that Jeremiah may be as aptly spoken of as the author, or the contemporary of the author, of these earlier compositions. (2) The partial resemblance in respect of language between the Books of Deuteronomy and· Jeremiah is more than counter- balanced by a thorough-going diversity between the two, not alone in their contents, but also in their literary style, as has been shown by Konig and others (cf. Keil, 'Introd.,' vol. i. p. 146). (3) In so far as Jeremiah corresponds with Deuteronomy, it admits of easy explanation if the book of the law found by Hilkiab, the priest in the house of the Lord (2 Kings xxii. 8), was either the present Pentateucb or a portion of it, viz., the Book of Deuteronomy. Nothing can be more natural than that Jeremiah, who had only five years before been installed into the prophetic office (Jer. i. 1), no less than Josiah, Hilkiah, and others of the reformers of the period, should have been profoundly stirred by the remarkable discovery of the lost Penta- teuch, and that in particular his earnest spirit should have drunk deeply into the soul- stirring words of the venerable Hebrew law-giver in his last great oration to the people. And (4) monumental evidence attests that the languages of antiquity were possessed of much greater fixity than modem tongues, as witness the Babylonian language, which was the same in the days of Khammurabi, who lived B. c. 1600, i. e. before Moses, as it was a thousand years later, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar (vide 'Records of the Past,' vol. i. p. 6). 4. TlIE BO-CALLED TRACES OF A LATER DATE. These, which may be called uncon- scious and unintentional indications of the age in which the author or a.utbors lived, may be grouped under the following heads :-(1) Passages which seem to presuppose the occupation of the land. O.f these the most remarkable are-(a) Gen. x:ii. 6 and xiii. 7, which appear to intimate that when these words were penned the conquest of the land had been completed, and the Canaanites expelled, whereas they are ( or may have been) introduced into the narrative to inform the patriarch that the promised land was not any desolate moorland or unoccupied territory, which might have been comparatively easy for God to bestow, but a populated and populous region, which made the promise both on G.od's part hard to perform, and on Abraham's part hard to believe; and, on the other hand, to explain the reason why Lot and Abraham found it difficult to obtain pasture for their flocks. (b) Gen. :uxvi. 31, which is believed to be inexplicable, unless the writer lived under the monarchy; but, notwithstanding Bleek's confident assertion, there is nothing ",in the highest degree unnatural" in the assumption that Moses meant by these words to contrast the promise made to Abraham and Jacob (eh. xvii. 6, 16; xxxv. 11), that kings should descend from their loins, which promise was at the time referred to unfulfilled, with the political greatness to which Esau, the disinherited son of Jacob, but distinguished ancestor of Edom, had so early attained. (c) Gen. xl 15, from which the inference appears inevitable that at the time of Joseph's sale the land of Canaan was possessed by the Hebrews, which indeed is correct to this extent, and more is not required by the narrative (vide Exposition in loco), that the southern part of Palestine, i. e. the district round Hebron, was even then recognised as the land where the I&rim lived. (d) Exod. xvi. 35, which implies, according to this hypothesis, that the Israelites bad reached the land of their habitalion, and wrre settled within its borders, before this  ,c TIIE AUTltORSHlP OF THE PENTA1'ROU\J. --- ---------------------------- W&!I written ; buL in point of fact Moses only states that they ate manna until they nrrived upon the bordeni of Canaan, without saying when the manna ceneed-in other words, Moses writes nothing here which was not quite within his own personal know- ledge anrl observation. (e) Numb. xv. 32-36, which presupposes that the children of Israel were by this time no longer in the wilderness, i. e. were established in CanRRn ; but from the introductory words, " And the children of Israel were in t.he wildemeBS," all that can be gathered is that the historian, who consciously wrote for after times, wished it to be understood that the occurrence happened while the people were wandering in tbe desert. (f) Deut. ii. 12, which "also pretty plainly presupposes a time when the Israelites were settled in the possession of the land" (Bleek); but" the land of his possession" in this case was the land to the east of the Jordan (Gilead and Bashan), which was conquered by the Israelites under Moses, :rnd divided among the two tribes and a half, and which is also described in eh. iii. 20 as "the possession" which Jehovah had given to these tribes (Keil). (2) Passage3 whicli appear to imply the Pakstinian standpoint of the autlun-; as, e. g., (a) Gen. xii. 8; xiii 14; xxviii. 14; Exod. x. 19; xxvi. 22; Numb. ii. 18; iii. 23; Dent. i 7; iii. 27, &c., in which the tenn "sea" is used for the west, a form of expression which "it is evident neither Moses nor one of hie age could have inve~ted either while wandering in the wilderness or even when, in the last year, according to the story, they had reached tbe borders of the promised land, and the Mediter- ranean lay then actually to the west of their position'' (Colenso) ; but how, with the Merli:en-.mean on the west, it should be impossible to speak of'' a wind of the sea" for n west wind, or to use the phrase" towards the sea" for in a westward direction, passes comprehension. 'Ihe expressions might even be employed by a writer in the Ar"bian desert, or in Northern Egypt, the more especially as the term west includes all points of the compass between west and north-west (cf. Kei~ 'Introd.,' vol. i. p. 189). (ft) Gen. I. 10, 11; Numb. mi 1; mii.19; Deut. i.1, &c., in which the phrase i':!7!:J ii».,',il, or the similar expression l:!1~~ -gv.i;.,, represents the writer's standpoint as being on the west of the Jordan, with reference to which the Moabitish plains were the parts beyond Jordan, or "the other side Jordan." But (1) it is certain that the tenn i~P. may mean either that side or this: vuu Numb. x::u.ii. 19, in which it must of necessity signify first the other side, from the speaker's standpoint (i. e. the west of Jordan), and second this side (i. e. the east of Jordan), on which the speaker.at the time was; and Deut. iii. 8, in which it as clearly denotes the east of Jordan, which to the speaker Moses was "this side." Or (2) it is probable that Moses, who was con- sciously writing for posterity, may have occasionally assumed an ideal position, in which he proleptically represented matters as they would appear to the sons of Israel after they had entered Canaan ( cf. ' Hengstenberg on the Genuineness of the Pent.ateucb,' vol. ii p. 256; Keil'e 'Introd.,' voL i. p. 189). (3) Passages whid,, explain arcliai.c usages QM term& by those of a later origin. (a) Names of places: Gen. xiv. 2, 8-" Bela, which ie Zoar ;" eh. xiv. 7-" En-mishpat, which is Kadesh;" eh. xiv. 17-" the valley of Shaveh, which ie the king's dale;'' eh. xxiii. 2- " Kirjath-arba, the same ie Hebron; " eh. xxxv. 19-" Ephrath, which is Bethle- 1, em." " But all these names in later use had either originated long before Moses, or did so in his time" (Keil, 'Introd.,' vol. i. p. 188; cf. 'Commentary on Genesis' in locis). (IJ} Names of measures: Exod. xvi. 36, "Now an omer is a tenth part of an ephah," which proves, it is argued, that the measure here called an omer (it occurs nowhere else in Script11Te) had long fallen into disuse, and required to be explained; but (1) it is doubtful, as Michaelis (' Suppl.,' p. 1929) and Hengetenberg (' ~n the  Tlll~ AU'l'llORSHIP OF TIIE PENTATEDCH.