The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 477

etatrnwnts in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nelwmiah, by robbing these books of their hls- t.oncal ch:uact.cr. 3. 7'he position of the Levite.~. Instead of being furnished with cities and pas I urnges, and enjoying an independent income from the tithes, they arc repre- sented as homeless and dependent, wandming from place to place, and glad to be Invited, with t._he strnngcr, the widow, and the fatherless, to share in charitable feasts. (See on thi~, eh. xa. Hl.) But if a time is sought for the composition of the booli: when this was tho n_ctnal position of the Levites, no time is so suitnble as that of Moses himself, before tho t1tbc-laws bad come into regular operation-wh,m, in truth, there wns little or nothing to !:the-and when the Levites would be largely dependent on the hospitality of in- ~liYiduals. The language woul<l have a point and force to Moses' contemporaries, which It would ha Ye greatly lost had the circumstances of the Levites, at the time of his add:ess, been more prosperous. They were depcndrnt then, and might from very obnous causes come to be dependent agnin. Their stnte would not be greatly bettered in the unsettled times of the conquest. Nothing could be more appropriate in itself, better adapted to create kindly sympathies between Levites and people, or more likely to avert n~glect of the tiibe by withholding of their just dues, than the perpetuation of these primitive hospitalities. No doubt the Levites suffered severely in the days of the judges and unJer bad kings, but we are not to forget the power and spler..dour to which the order attained under David an<l Solomon, and the revivals it enjoyed under Hezekiah and Josiah. There is no evidence that their condition was so deplorably destitute in the later days of the kingdom as the critics represent. 4. The law of the king (eh. xvii.). '1'be law, it is thought, is sketched in terms borrowed from the court or Solomon. The objection derives much of its plausibility from not observing that the description of Solomon's conrt in the Book of Kings (l Kings x. 26-29; xi. 1-4) is, on the other hand, given in terms distinctly bo1Towed from this law. The familiarity of the writer of the Books of Kings with Deuteronomy is undoubted, and he plainly drnll"s up bis account of Solomon's luxury and splendour in such language as will impress the mind by its contrast to the law. We, on the contrary, reading the !all", arc apt to think of Solomon's reign as if it were the original, and the law the copy. Sulomon did what Moses knew too well kings would be prone to do, and there was every reason for the warning that was given. The objections taken to the book cannot, tlwrcfore, be allowed to set aside its own decisive testimony to its authorship. If we acloj't the hypotheEis of the critics, we are involved in graver difficulties than those from which we flee. ·we must suppose a state of things as existing under the kings, in respect of the LeYit:cal orders, which we have no reason to believe ever did exist, which there is great difficulty in believing to have existed, and which historical documents in the most express language tell us did not exist. We must suppose Josiah and bis people deceived about the book, for they unquestionably took it for a veritable book of Moses, grieving that its words had been neglected by their fathers (2 Kings xxii.; xxiii.; 2 Chron. xxxiv.). We must explain away a multitude of the plainest allusions to tlie book, not simply in Joshua, but in the prophets, particularly in Hosea, whose pages are rich in such references (cf. eh. vii. 13; viii. 7-20; xi. 14- lG with Hos. ii. 8; xii. 8; xiii. 6; eh. xii. with Hos. viii. 11; eh. xviii. 18 with Hos. xii. 13; eh. xvii. 12 "'iLh Hos. iv. 4; eh. xxviii. 68 with Hos. viii. 13; ix. 3; eh. xxix. 23 with Hos. xi. 8; eh. x.xx. 1-10 with Hos. xiv.; eh. xxv. 13-16 with Hos. xii. 7, etc.). We must suppose such a passage as Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings viii.), "·Lich is saturated with Deuterooomic language, to have been a free and unhistorical composition; though, if this be allowed for Deuteronomy, it need not trouble us with Solomon. Even then we are not out of difficulties, for the book itself is in many respects internally uosuitable to the times to which it is assigned; compare e.,q. the milJ tone of the book towards Edom-the kindly aud brotherly relatious which are enjoined-with the hostile tone to which we are accustomed in the prophets, where Edom is a sort of later Amalek; a standing type of implacable enmity to the people of God. If Deuteronomy is not by Moses, it bears false witness of itself, was misconceived by the writers of the later books of Scripture, imposed upon the Jews from the days of its first appearance, and has had its claims endorsed by Christ and his apostles in a way which makes them partners in the general delusion. -J. o. Oil, XXXI. 1-30,] THE BOOK or D~UTtRONOM'/. 489