The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 20

ma1ians haYe recognized" the prophetic perfect" QS an idiom of tho Hebrew. Nor is it in prophecy alone that this presentation of the future as aotual is to he found ; the poet also claims liberty to do the same, and exercises it freely. Even if l\Ioses, then, be regarded as only an uninspired poet, the use of the preterite in the passages referred to may be accounted for without supposing that the song is the production of a later writer. 3. The occurrence of Aramaic words and forms in the song has heen alleged as a.n evidence of its late composition. That a few such are to he found may be admitted, though there are fewer than has sometimes been insinuated; but be their numl1er what it may, their presence proves nothing as to the lateness of composition, or it proves too much; for as the presence of Aramaisms in a book is a sign of either very early or very late composi- tion ( cf. Konig, 'Alt-test. Studien,' ii. 8), if the early date of this song be denied, these Aramaisms would go to show that it must have been written in the latest age of ancient Hebrew literature. This, however, no one will accept; the latest date supposed for it by any of those who refuse to regard it as Mosaic is the age immediately succeeding the revolt of Jeroboam. These Aramaisms, then, so far as they have any weight, point to an early age for the composition of this song; and so fall in with the supposition that it was written by Moses. 4. The song, it is alleged, contains allusions to a state of things which did not arise till the time of the kings after the 1·evolt of Jeroboam; it dwells upon the falling away of Israel from allegiance to Jehovah, upon the evils of this, and upon the hope of a restoration to forfeited privileges when the Lord should remember his covenant with Israel and he "merciful to his land and to his people; " and such it is supposed could be the theme of a poet only after he had witnessed a state_of religious degeneracy and political disorder such as emerged in Israel after the revolt of the ten tribes. It is to be observed, however, that the language of the song is in this respect quite general; there is no part of the description which indicates a reference to the condition of the people at any special time during the decline of the Israelitish kingdom; nor is the apostacy of the people, with its melancholy results, more pointedly alluded to here than it is in other parts of Deute- ronomy, as for instance in eh. xxviii. The truth is, that the possibility of this and the dread of it pressed continually on the mind of Moses at this time, and breaks forth throughout his farewell addresses; and if here his language becomes more animated and his delineation more vivid, it is only because there is here the impassioned utterance of the poet, whilst in his addresses he restrains himself within limits befitting hortatory address. But even supposing it could be shown that in this ode there are references to things which actually occurred in the history of the nation at a later r,eriod, it would not follow that the song could not have been written by Moses. For we must not ignore the prophetic character of the song. Moses was a prophet-a prophet of the highest order, the very type and paradigm of a prophet (eh. xviii. 18), and he here speaks as one on whom  THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY, xxxix ---------------------·-------- the prophetio afflatus had fallon, and whose mental eye had been opened so that he saw in vision scenes and events yet future as if they were actually present. The standpoint, therefore, of the poet is not his own time, hut a time into which he is transportod; and tho people to whom he speaks are not his own contemporaries, but those whom he sees in vision-Israel in the after-time. This is characteristic of all prophetic utterances; the prophet speaks of what is yet future as if the whole were before his eyes at the time. The assertion, therefore, " that the entire ode moves within the epoch of the kings who lived many centuries after the time of :Mose9, rests upon a total misapprehension of the nature of prophecy, and a mistaken attempt to turn figurative language into prosaic history" (Keil) . . It may, indeed, be affirmed that such a thing as a presentation to the inner sense of the prophet of things yet future is an impossibility; but this is a mere dogmatic assumption, which not only cannot be proved, but which is made in the face of facts that are incontestable. Now, if it was possible for Moses under the hand of the Lord to see the future, to have a vision of the nation falling away from the Lord and suffering undercalamitie9 which their apostacy had brought upon them, what more natural, what more fitting than that, ere he finally retired from the post he had so long occupied as their leader, teacher, and ruler, he should sound in their ears a loud note of warning such as this ode contains, and should leave the ode with them as a perpetual protest against their unfaithfulness, and an enduring witness for God amongst them? The genuineness of eh. xxxiii., containing the blessing of the. tribes, has been called in question on very much the same grounds as those on which the song of Moses, in the preceding chapter, has been assailed. It is needless to repeat what has been already advanced in reply to the arguments founded on peculiarity of style, diction, and general literary character in this com- position as compared with the prosaic parts of this book. But this chapter has more the appearance of a mere appendix to the book than the song has; it is not said to have been written by Moses, as the song is said to have been written by him; and it appears with a heading which must be ascribed to the pen of another than Moses, for,.by describing Moses as "the man of God," the author of this heading clearly distinguishes himself from Moses, and applies to him a phrase by which, apparently, it was customary at a later period to designate him (comp. Josh. xiv. 6; Ps. xc. 1). This makes it necf\ssary that we should see whether in the contents of this poem there is, as alleged by many modern critics, anything incompatible with the sup- position that it was composed and uttered by l\Ioses. 1. The allusions to the localities of some of the tribes in Canaan indicate, it is said, an acquaintance with a state of things which did not exist till after the division of the land by Joshua, and a knowledge of the country such as Moses could not have possessed. Thus it is said of Zebulun, "They shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand" (ver. 19); of Naphtali, that they should "possess the west and the south"  :rl INTRODUCTION ·ro