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 EDINBUEGH: 
 MACLAREN & MACNIVEN, PRINCES STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXVII. 
 
A WORD UPON DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 THE ONE DANGER 
 
 " Would that mine adversary had written a l^ook," exclainied 
 the persecuted patriarch, in the conviction that innocence is 
 sure to gain the day, as soon as the charges brought against it 
 are plainly stated and exposed to the daylight. We might put 
 the same wish into the mouth of the persecuted Word of God, 
 at which men are ever cavilling, and upon which all manner 
 of unreconcilable imputations are now being cast. In this 
 case we would add the wish, 0, that those concerned would 
 read the book, — for in general they neither can nor will, and 
 thus are governed by the unhappy impression, that those who 
 are learned and experienced on the subject, have discovered 
 some fatal flaw. 
 
 We protest that if it could be assumed that the works of 
 the German rationalists were commonly read, we would feel 
 ourselves free from the obligation to refute them, for, to every 
 devout mind they refute themselves. Before coming to a 
 close they infallibly sufter the confession to escape them 
 (see the words of Ewald and Baur quoted further on), that the 
 fault is not in the Word of God, but in the inveterate infidelity 
 of their own hearts. 
 
 Tlie rumours l^y which the authority of the divine word 
 are undermined are like nothing so much as the vague and 
 baseless reports by which the reputation of an innocent person 
 
4 A WORD UPON 
 
 is SO often destroyed in the world. It is not the arguments 
 or proofs of its adversaries by which men's minds are swayed, 
 in withdrawing the higli deference tliey were wont to award 
 to it, — for these not one in ten thousand is able to weigh, — but 
 the impression that some high autliorities in the field of 
 oriental learning, or of biblical criticism, have, in the course 
 of their investigations, made certain discoveries that are fatal 
 to the claims wliicli the sacred Scriptures have been wont to 
 make for themselves. It is not known nor considered that 
 these objectors have not been led to their conclusions by any 
 recondite researches, to which their profound learning has 
 opened the way, but, on the contrary, the grounds on which 
 they rest their bold assertions, are such as simple Christians 
 with their bildes might very easily be led to see to be utterly 
 nugatory. It is the high and boastful name of the assailants 
 of Scripture trutli whicli at once spreads dismay among the 
 ranks of the multitude of professing Christians, who are ready 
 to act as that pusillanimous people of old, who, when they 
 saw the sons of Anak, immediately were in their own account 
 as grasslioppers. Among all those giants of erudition that 
 have taken upon tliem to dissect and dislocate the Word of 
 (Jod, and cast the " disjecta membra " hither and thither over 
 the field of liistory, tliere has been none greater in this century 
 them tlie late Ewald of Gottingen, — for all who have come 
 after liim, including Clraf and Kuenen,* have but connnented 
 on his striking tlieories in the way of modifying, amplifying. 
 
 Those nre Imt the iTlyotoi of tliis ill-omened conflict. The turgid pre- 
 terwion of these iiien evidences llicir shallowness. Keim, c.rj., in his His- 
 tonj of Jems, "j.rofesses (we (juote) to set forth a human Jesus, extricated 
 from nil the wmppinpi and handages of the historical solecisms and incon- 
 uiHt/'ncieH nn<l half-UH-asures which threaten to keep us from getting at the full 
 tnith, cvrn in the centre of Christianity, up to the year 2000." " A great 
 projeet this:" sjivH Wi.-helhauH, "for a very learned man, who makes much 
 of his luxuriant, inlri.ate language, who might learn a great deal from the 
 chiwte Htyle of the (^.spels, if he will not receive their holy testimony." It is 
 the name in Old and New TcHtttincnt. 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 5 
 
 or embellisliing- tlitaii; but it is not Ewald's learning, as we 
 shall see, but his enmity to all real revelation and prophecy 
 that actuated him in his wild conjectures. The learning was 
 only the garnishing with which he decked out his infidel 
 objections to impose a little on the minds of others. Happily 
 we are able to supply an instance how little the greatest 
 learning was able to preserve this greatest of German critics 
 and oriental scholars from the most foolish and presumptuous 
 conclusions ; and it deserves to be narrated in the interests 
 of truth. A Scotchman had written a book in German (but 
 without appending a name), on the true constitution of the 
 Church, which caused some sensation at the time, — and which 
 Ewald thought worthy of a leading article in his " Gottingen 
 Eeview;" andEwald at the close of his article ventures theasser- 
 tion that this man woidd prove to be a Prussian Israelite, who 
 had recently been admitted into the Christian Church, and 
 whose heart was boiling over with indignation at the multi- 
 farious abuses he saw prevailing in the Church. There it is, 
 in the "Gottingen Anzeiger" for 1857, any one may find it. 
 This is a proof in point,— into what ridiculous errors the 
 most learned man may fall, when he allows himself conjectures 
 and assertions on insufficient grounds — that the most learned 
 man may make the most foolish assertions, if his understand- 
 ing and logic are led astray by his presumption. It was the 
 same rash judgment in a more weighty case that induced him 
 to assign to most of the books of the Old Testament dates and 
 situations for their composition at variance with that inspira- 
 tion which they claim for themselves, and whicli our Lord 
 fully concedes to them. This we mean not only to assert, but 
 to prove, — for it is a cardinal question. It is not so much 
 the influence of such a man's demonstrations and opinions 
 upon critics and students like himself that is to be feared, 
 although some may be carried away by a kind of infection to 
 seek to rival him in a sphere where it is so easy to acquire 
 
6 A WOlii) UPON 
 
 distinction, but the fatal eliect is on the minds of those 
 who are strangers to this line of study, where the disturbing, 
 disquieting impression gets abroad that the Bible is not 
 what we thought it was, that the learning and researches 
 of these men have shown that the faith which the Church 
 placed in some of the most essential pieces of the Divine Record 
 was only owing to the darkness and ignorance of former times 
 — attended probably by the secret feeling that the rest of 
 Scripture has no more solid foundation. The consequences 
 would not be so disastrous if it were in religion as it is in 
 politics, or in other departments ; that a work which is much 
 impugned and reviled, is sure to be read. But it is well known 
 to be otherwise, and that when the minds of men are unsettled 
 about the authority of Scripture, they cease to read it alto- 
 gether. As long as the Word of God is carefully and regularly 
 studied, we have no fear it will be its own witness. The 
 thing of which we are most apprehensive is, that such impres- 
 sions pervade men's minds as disincline them to seek and 
 converse with the Word, or justify them in their own minds in 
 neglecting it ; and then, — where are they ? The scribes have 
 taken away the key of knowledge out of men's hands — they 
 did not care to enter in tliemselves, and they are the guilty 
 cause of hindering others from this, the only entrance, into tlic 
 gate of God.^ 
 
 * It sounds very dignified to say with a late popular writer ; " The attack 
 is made, the defence follows, and the Word of God moves on its way majesti- 
 cally as before." In perusing such sentences men seem to forget that some- 
 times the defence follows in vain. Lessing's assault on the credibility of the 
 gospels dealt a blow to religion in Germany from which it never recovered. 
 8emler gives a graphic descri])tion of the fatal eliect of this onslaught upon the 
 sacred record, which he himself as a contemporary had under his own view. 
 " The effect even upon many government people was a kind of amazement ; 
 in a number of staid and worthy ])eopl(' it awakened only displeasure ; whilst 
 others made it the subject of tlioughth'ss jests, or carried out deliberately to 
 their extreme consequences tlic scoffing ()i>inions which were only sketched in 
 it. The latter was the case esi)ecially among young men belonging to the 
 learned professions, who, in tlieir turn, spread their opinions in an ever en- 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 7 
 
 The object of these pages is to produce certain arguments 
 to show that Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch in general 
 could not have been written later than Moses, or by any other 
 than Moses liimseK, but it is necessary for the sake of clear- 
 ness to prefix a short disj^lay of the adverse theory. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE ANTAGONISTIC HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 We select Ewald as prime representative of a school 
 which undertakes to prove that the Book of Deuteronomy, 
 which bears to be a genuine discourse by Moses, from begin- 
 ning to end, is a fiction, the composition of some Israelite, 
 zealous for the law in the days of the later kings of Judah. 
 When we hear that Ewald declares the Book of Deuteronomy 
 not to be written by Moses, our faith gets a shock, because 
 Ewald is so acknowledged as a master in the original lan- 
 guages, and as a man of profound oriental erudition, that he 
 should know something which is beyond the reach of others, 
 but as soon as we hear Ewald's reasons we are re-assured. 
 His supposition is, that after the destruction of the kingdom 
 of Ephraim, a descendant of one of those who had been 
 carried into captivity, who had been in circumstances to 
 
 larging circle— among tradesmen and others whom the anonymous writer cer- 
 tainly did not think of in "writing his book ]\Iany earnest, 
 
 thinking young men, who were studying theology, Avere much embarassed be- 
 cause their own opinions had become unsettled ; so much so that some of 
 them determined to turn to some other profession, rather than remain in a 
 state of continually increasing uncertainty, without any actual gain for their 
 
 iiiinds In many towns there were people who, having read 
 
 these fragments, declared that it was impossible to refute them, for, though 
 the theologians might write and speak much against them, it was impossible 
 to know whether they themselves believed what they said or wrote." Since 
 then Lessing's scepticism (though he was not the real author) has been often 
 solidly and thoroughly answered, but the popular mind in that vast country 
 has never been swayed back under the AVord of God. Had the alarm been 
 seasonably taken, and more care been shown to meet earlier assaults, the result 
 might not have been so deadly. 
 
8 A WOKD UPON 
 
 I'ealise and lay to heart tlie awful calamities that had be- 
 Mlen the people in consequence of their apostasy from 
 Jehovah, composed tlie Book of Deuteronomy, with the pur- 
 pose of making a last effort to arrest the progress of the 
 same evil in Judali, to prevent this last section of the nation 
 from being swallowed up by the consequences of their de- 
 generacy. To lend authority to his voice, which might not 
 of itself carry the same weight, this prophet personates 
 Moses, and represents the great prophet as collecting the 
 people around him in the most affecting circumstances con- 
 ceivable, — viz., after the forty years' wanderings have drawn to 
 a close, and he is on the point of being separated from them, 
 as rehearsing the law in their hearing, and engaging them to 
 a new covenant with Jehovah. But what is the evidence on 
 which this hypothesis is advanced ? What convincing 
 grounds have constrained this New Testament scribe to tread 
 under foot the high claims of this Book to be a genuine 
 account of Moses' last and anxious admonitions to the people 
 whom he had so long served, and to set up an Israelite 
 zealous for Jehovah's honour, putting his words into Moses' 
 mouth, pretending a lying commission from Jehovah to put 
 this Book of his into the ark, and hoping to persuade the 
 people at a time when the schools of the prophets were still 
 in their glory, that his work was a genuine legacy of the great 
 propliet — nay, that he actually succeeded in his chicanery, 
 till the German writers of the 19th century have unearthed 
 1 1 i 1 u . The spring and determining principle of this whole critical 
 operation is avowedly and undisguisedly nothing else than that 
 curtain expressions in Deuteronomy and Leviticus xxvi. convey 
 sucli a precise and minute description of the miseries and 
 calamities that alighted on the 2)eople in consequence of their 
 unfaithfulness to the law that oionc could he siqyposed to 
 have vrritteR or spoken them hut an eye witness, who had 
 lived through the seenes to which they refer. To give his 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 9 
 
 own words (Ewald Gesch. des Volk. Is., B. i., S. 144-145), 
 " It is easily seen tliat (when these hooks were composed), 
 the earlier happier times of the people were gone, and that 
 the national calamity had hurst forth upon them in all its 
 violence ;" and, again, with reference to Leviticus xxvi., " if 
 we take notice how in this passage not only the complete dis- 
 persion of at least the one kingdom is presupposed, hut also 
 the sad feelings of the descendants of those who had been 
 thus dispersed, are described in the most vivid colours 
 (Lev. xxvi. 36-40), we cannot doubt that some descendant of 
 the exiles of the northern kingdom was induced to compose 
 this powerful prophetic threatening," &c. It is plain and 
 undeniable that it was not his intimate acquaintance with the 
 oriental languages that furnished Ewald with prevailing argu- 
 ments to dissociate these books from the authorship of Moses, 
 but simply the evidence which they contain of perfect familiarity 
 with all the consequences which have overtaken Israel in 
 the wake of disobedience, which he who can acknowledge no 
 true prophecy, must conceive as proceeding from one who lived 
 after the event. But this is a ground on which we need not 
 give way to any man, be he philologist or geologian. No 
 doubt he proceeds to garnish his argument by a variety of 
 demonstrations, which, however, need only to be boldly 
 looked in the face, to make their hoUowness apparent. If he 
 holds that the faculty of delivering such a long popular 
 harangue was not cultivated till the epoch of the great pro- 
 phets in the 9th and 10th centuries before Christ, we have no 
 difficulty in holding, on the other hand, that Moses, who had 
 spent forty days in the mount with God, who knew the 
 people and their dangers, and loved them more than liis own 
 soul, would be pressed in spirit to deliver to them, line upon 
 line, and precept upon precept, before he took liis final leave 
 of his charge. It is surely no proof against a Mosaic author- 
 ship, but rather the reverse, when he asserts that the style 
 
lU A WUKD UPON 
 
 is more diffuse than suits the epoch of the greater prophets, 
 and destitute of their terseness and polish. It would be a 
 stumbling-block to find the j)oint and grace, and finish, and 
 soaring fiights of Isaiah in the discourse of Israel's lawgiver. 
 It is no objection whatever that there are certain terms and 
 expressions in Deuteronomy which do not occur in the other 
 Books of the Pentateuch — that is a proof of genuineness, as 
 certainly no Avriter of ability would write five successive 
 works of the size of the Books of Moses, each with a character 
 and subject of its own, without producing new expressions 
 corresponding to the novelty of the situation.* But Ewald 
 proceeds to teU us that this supposed author, in the last days 
 of the kingdom of Judah, has most successfully imitated 
 and adopted the whole manner and language of the older 
 records, which is nothing else but giving his testimony where 
 it is of some value to the harmony between the style of 
 Deuteronomy and the other four books, so that the difference 
 cannot be perceived. It costs him some annoyance to recon- 
 cile the break in the discourse, Deut. iv. 41—49. and the men- 
 tion of the seemingly irrelevant fact of the appointment by 
 IVIoses of the Eefuge Cities on the one side of Jordan, with the 
 design of the supposed author, which should be merely to 
 make use of tlie authority of Moses to gain the people over to 
 tlie ftiithful observance of the law. He pleads that it would 
 not be weU conceivable that Moses delivered all the dis- 
 courses in Deuteronomy without a pause, and therefore the 
 aiiiliDi- introduces mention of an act which he borrows 
 from tlie commands given, Num. xxxv. IG, but which Moses 
 
 * Was it not to he expected that new names for implements and other ob- 
 jects would come up during the forty years in the desert, and from intercourse 
 with the Midianitcs and other tribes, and that in so far different terms would 
 occur in Deuteronomy from those in the former books ? What is such an 
 argument worth from some half-dozen strange expressions, when we can point 
 to not tewer tlian eight or nine dira^ Xeybixeva in the one 14th chapter of 
 Isaiah. 
 
DEUTEllONOMY. 11 
 
 might wcU be supposed to have himself fulfilled. Why 
 Moses only speaks in this place of the three transjordanic 
 cities he does not tell, although to every simple reader it is 
 very plain. He regards it as the happiest stroke of art, that 
 his author deviates from the common prophetic usage of 
 representing God as speaking in the first person, and makes 
 Moses himself address the people in his own name, with the 
 directness of overflowing affection and tenderness, as the 
 most effective method of setting the lessons of antiquity in 
 the most lively manner before tlie eyes of posterity. The 
 command which is feigned, c. xxxi., to write the whole in a 
 book, Ewald cannot but admit to be a stretcli of privilege on 
 the part of the author ; yet the offence is no more than an 
 anachronism, in ascribing to Moses what is inconsistent with 
 the time, although in this exceeding all that had preceded him ; 
 for, although the composers of the former books had repre- 
 sented Moses as seeing the pattern of the tabernacle in the 
 mount, they had nowhere asserted he wrote it out, but here 
 he describes the whole of Deuteronomy as being written by 
 Moses. But in this the author is acting only in strict unison 
 with the artificial design of his work ; and, in fact, it is one 
 of the many evident tokens of the lateness of this author, 
 that he, as being at the greatest distance from the Mosaic 
 period, aUows himself the greatest liberty in the way of con- 
 templating and treating its concerns ! 1 But when he comes to 
 explain that this author shows such a minute acquaintance 
 with the circumstances of the Mosaic age, and occasionally 
 interrupts the discourse to pour forth a flood of historical 
 reminiscences, some of them such as occurred no where else in 
 any of the books of the law, such as "not to cause the 
 people to return to Egypt," evidencing that he nuist have 
 had abundant sources of information on the antiquities of 
 his people, whicli are no longer extant (unless it were the 
 five Books of IMoses themselves ! !), we can hardly help asking 
 
12 A WORD UPON 
 
 the question, whether the man is not playing with his readers, 
 and, still worse, amusing himself with the very word of revela- 
 tion, making it an arena on which his idle fancy may disport 
 itself for his own entertainment and that of others. And 
 when he finally makes the proposal to eject such passages 
 from the text as will not fit in with his scheme, chap. ii. 
 10-12, 20-23; iii. 9, 11, 13, 14; x. 6-9, which in fact, in 
 special, as the whole strain and structure of the book in 
 general, prove his whole project to be utter nonsense, and 
 proceeds to declare every passage that testifies against him to be 
 a marginal gloss, one cannot suppress the reflection — how does 
 tliis man suffer himself to be befooled by his unbelief ? It is 
 not his oriental erudition we are contesting, nor his services 
 on the field of philology in general, but we maintain that 
 when he comes on the field of sacred truth, a man like this, 
 who is wholly under the spirit of infidelity, is given over to 
 such blunders as a child may detect, such as should consign his 
 name to the scorn of all the children of God. There is not a 
 consideration he employs to bolster up his theory of an 
 author for the Pentateuch in the time of the later prophets, 
 which would not suit as far as it is true in a far more emi- 
 nent degree, for ]Moses, apart from all these arbitrary and 
 unnatural artifices to which he resorts, and the one sole valid 
 ground, tliat the delineation of the sad effects of apostasy in 
 Israel, is so circumstantial, as to force the inference that it is 
 a description of the past, is only valid for those who, like 
 him, will know nothing^ of a revelation from Him who knows 
 the end from the beginning, who makes known his counsels 
 beforehand by his servants, the prophets. Of course there is 
 a great deal more of the circumstance and pomp of erudite 
 apparatus, wrought up around his theory, such as that a 
 lengthy oration like Deuteronomy can only be the offspring 
 of tlie matured ages, and that the historical notices are only 
 made the basis for the attainment of the prophetic and 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 13 
 
 legislative end (which is certainly not to be granted), but all 
 is beside the purpose. There must be some obstinate prejudice 
 in the mind that does not at once perceive the propriety of a 
 Deuteronomy — a repetition of the law. Is it not something 
 we would have to suppose, if it had not been told us, that the 
 man of God would reliearse the doings of the Lord, the laws 
 that had been given, their own conduct, and the dangers and 
 duties that arose before them, ere he gave them out of his 
 hand to tread the path of probation ? Does not every one feel 
 that Deuteronomy is just in its right place, and that any 
 attempt to dislocate it, and transpose it to another epoch, 
 would be the stultifying of the whole history ? We do not 
 envy the man who can read the appeals that came warm from 
 the heart of that meekest of God's merely human servants, 
 while the sense of his speedy departure fills his mouth with 
 tenderness, which is only matched by the earnest tones that 
 are suggested by his unexhausted faithfulness, and be in 
 doubt whether this is really life or a stolid fiction ? Who 
 does not sympathise with the old Jew Bechai, when at the 
 word (D. iii. 24), ^)^!;._ 'p^^, he comments to the effect that 
 the first of these is the God in whom compassions flow, 
 and, therefore, Moses puts it first, and afterwards adds 
 Jehovah, the Lord, who is to be feared, against whom he had 
 sinned, when he asks remission of his j)enalty, — who does not 
 sympathise more with this poor Jew than with the arid critic 
 who finds only a mark, that Deuteronomy is written by another 
 than the other four Books ? We envy not the man who can 
 peruse the ever recurring touching reference of Moses to his 
 sin, and exclusion from the land, or his peculiar "the Lord thy 
 God" with which he binds the love of God on the hearts of the 
 people, and still questions whether it is truth or fiction. It 
 is something to have it clearly before us that rationalism is 
 under the power of a blind enmity to the Divine Spirit of 
 wisdom. 
 
14 A WORD UPON 
 
 The theory, in fact, amounts only to this, that nothing 
 would have l)een so beneficial for Israel as such a rehearsal 
 of the law on the part of Moses, but, as it not to be supposed 
 that Moses, either by inspiration or otherwise, could have 
 foreseen this, the later prophet of Ew^ald's scheme did all he 
 could to supplement Moses' work, and remedy, in a measure, 
 the calamity wliich ]\loses might possibly have averted, by 
 foisting upon a later generation a forgery in Moses' name. 
 This is the naked scheme which Bleek, Hilgenfeld, Graf, 
 Kuenen, Keim, &c., have laboured in vain to make more 
 respectable. Mutatis mutandis we may apply to the Penta- 
 teuch, the confession which Baur of Tiibingen, in a happy 
 moment made, concerning the gospels : " Das Hauptargument 
 fiir den spiitern Ursprung unserer Evangelien bleibt immer 
 dies, dasz sie, jedes flir sich, und nocli mehr alle zusammen, 
 so Yieles aus dem Leben Jesu auf eine Weise darstellen, wie 
 es in der Wirklichkeit unmoglich gew^esen seyn kann." 
 The cliief argument against Deuteronomy is, that it, as 
 Moses' work would aftbrd standing evidence for divine 
 prescience and intervention in the world's affau's. The w^orst 
 of it is, that all these theories are now seen to be quite un- 
 tenable, and are lying about like burnt squibs in the land 
 that gave them birth, while men are busy exhibiting them in 
 our country as the formidable missiles which they once pro- 
 fessed to be. Griitz, the learned Jewish liistorian, writes more 
 than ten years ago: " Die Formeln Jehovismus, Elohismus, 
 Deuteronomismus, oder Mosaismus, Prophetismus, Levitis- 
 mus, womit die Kritik innerlialb der Protestantischen 
 Theologie operirt siud Schlagworter olnie Bedeutung gew- 
 orden : fiir die historische Ileconstruction sind sie unbrauch- 
 bar, so wie jene Hypothesen welche tiberall Tendenzen oder 
 I nterpellationen wittern" (B. i. s. 13). The Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica in dressing these up anew, is twenty years be- 
 liind the age. 
 
DEUTERONOMY 
 
 DEMONSTRATION 
 
 That Moses, and he alone, is the author of Deuteronomy, 
 in a series of positive proofs oljtained from the contents of 
 the book. We give these as they come. 
 
 I. The tenderness with ^Yllicll the neighbouring nations 
 are referred to and regarded throughout the Pentateucli, is of 
 itself a persuasive token of the time of its composition. 
 Any one who will consider the sentences regarding Edom, 
 and Lloab, and Amnion, in this light, will see that they fix the . 
 period of the composition of the books beyond dispute, — it can 
 only be one. Israel appears before us, when drinking in the 
 ^losaic precepts, with the dew of early innocence upon his 
 l)row, like a child waking out of its first sleep ; in fact, like 
 a nation that has not yet been ruffled by injuries, and emula- 
 tion, and revenge, as Balaam describes him, " he crouched, he 
 lay down as a lion, and as a great lion, who shall stir him 
 up." — Deut. ii. 4, "Te are to pass through the country of your 
 brethren, the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir ; and they 
 shall be afraid of you : take ye good heed unto yourselves 
 therefore : Meddle not with them ; for I wdll not give you of 
 their land, no, not so much as a foot l^readth ; because I have 
 given moimt Seir unto Esau for a possession. . . . And wlien 
 we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, &c;" verse 
 9, " Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in 
 battle, . . . because I have given Ar unto the children of 
 Lot for a possession," Verse 19, "And wdien thou comest 
 nigh over against the children of Amnion, distress them not, 
 nor meddle with them." Compare these utterances with 
 those of the later prophets who had received commission to 
 lay upon Edom all the guilt of the past generations. Obed. 
 xviii., " The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and tlie house of 
 
16 A WORD UPON 
 
 Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they 
 shall kindle in them, and devour them, and there shall not be 
 anything remaining of the house of Esau : for the Lord hath 
 spoken it." Is not the man smitten with blindness who can 
 suppose that two such contrary classes of sentiment existed 
 in the same people at one time. Can it be supposed even 
 that the words in Deuteronomy were penned at or about the 
 time of David, when Joab cut off every male in Edom, 
 and exterminating war was waged against Moab and 
 Amnion.* In Deuteronomy Israel appears in its leader and its 
 people still under the warm and hearty feelings which fill the 
 soul of unsophisticated men at the thought of a common des- 
 cent, and which it needs the venom of the world's passions and 
 contrivances to corrode and wither. Israel, is seen in the Pen- 
 tateuch, cradling itself, we may say, in a philosophic affection 
 to all around, and intent on being on a good understanding 
 witli all around, " Thou shalt not al)hor an Edomite, he is 
 thy brother;" even the unkindness of refusing a passage 
 tln^ough their territory is almost forgotten : " Thou shalt not 
 abhor an Egyptian, because thou wert a stranger in his land." 
 If they set their faces resolutely to be the executioners of 
 God's sentence upon the Canaanites, that was in holy zeal 
 and faithful stern obedience, not in the wickedness of hatred 
 or lust of aml)ition. From this point of view every honest 
 mind miglit, we tliink, discern that the sojourn in the wilder- 
 ness is tlie only possiljle date of their composition. 
 
 II. Moses' song in Dent, xxxii. furnislies an argument for 
 the Mosaic authorsliip of that book, upon which we would be 
 content to stake the whole question. We refer to the pointed 
 
 * The expression constantly in tlic nioutlis of Saul, Joab, and others — 
 " these uncircunu'ised" — shews tliat anotlicr spirit had boon ah-eady generated 
 than that which lircathes in Deuteronomy. See the passages in the later 
 prophets. Compare Ps. Ixxxiii. 7 ; Zepli. ii. 9 ; Isa. x\v, 10 ; Jer. ix. 26, &c. 
 
DEUTEROXO:\IY. 17 
 
 and persevering use of the term liock to designate Jehovah. 
 No one can read the song without being struck, and partly 
 offended, by the persistent and seemingly incongruous appli- 
 cation of this expression. There is no similar case in the 
 whole of Scripture. David often enough calls God his llock, 
 but it is at once apparent how natural this was in his mouth, 
 who had for so many years to lurk in the fastnesses of the 
 rocks of Judah for fear of Saul. He could not but think and 
 speak of the Eock of Ages, who was his true defence, without 
 whose efticient protection all the strongholds of the land 
 would not have secured him. In his mouth we find it most 
 natural that such phrases occur — "I will say unto God, 
 thou art my Rock ;" " When my heart is overwhelmed, lead 
 me to the Rock that is higher than I." The general figure, 
 too, by which the Lord is compared by his j)eople to the 
 shadow of a great Rock in a weary land, is nothing but the 
 poetry generated by the circumstances of that oriental cli- 
 mate. But there is something very different in the use of the 
 expression by Moses, when he, professing to publish the name 
 of the Lord, and ascribe greatness to our God, breaks out at 
 once into the exclamation — " He is the Rock, his work is per- 
 fect : for all his ways are judgment : a God of truth, and without 
 iniquity, just and right is he." Further on, in reproach of 
 Israel's unfaithfulness, v. 15, " he forsook God which made him, 
 and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation;" and then, v. 18, 
 "of the Rock that begat thee, thou art unmindful;" then 
 V. 30, as the cause of Israel's calamities, " their Rock had sold 
 them, and the Lord had shut them up ;" then v. 31, comparing 
 Israel's God with the idols of the heathen, " their Rock is not 
 as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges ;" 
 and, once more, in v. 37, " where are their gods, their rock in 
 whom they trusted ?" We maintain that the peculiar and 
 (with reverence spoken) pertinacious use of the word rock 
 demands some distinct explanation. The explanation is in 
 
18 A WORD UPON 
 
 the history of Moses alone ; this phraseology cannot be sup- 
 posed flowing from another mouth than his. It was with 
 Moses God had revealed himself under that figure, as to none 
 other ; throughout that terrible trying pilgrimage Moses had 
 before his eyes " the spiritual Eock that followed them," 
 which was the source of the life and existence of the people, 
 accompanying them in its life-giving streams, conveying at 
 once spiritual and temporal refreshment. When we consider 
 this, how natural the doctrine at the head of the song, which 
 was to be a witness against Israel if ever they apostatised — 
 " He is the Eock ;" how natural the reference to Him who 
 created and sustained them as tlie " Eock that begat them !" 
 How natural the challenge to all the heathen to produce a 
 rock like the Eock of Israel. But there was yet a farther 
 reason more personal to ]\Ioses individually, why the Eock 
 sliould be ever before his mind and view, and all the more 
 the nearer the hour of his decease approached. It was be- 
 cause of an offence against the Eock that he was excluded 
 from Canaan, and to leave his body in the wilderness. 
 Moses could never forget liis sin against the Eock ; and the 
 summary retribution upon his sin. Doubtless, the man who 
 saw the glory of Jehovah from his shelter in the cleft of the 
 rock, and whose face shone with the revelations made him, 
 liad it discovered to liim wlivthe rock sliould l)e once smitten 
 by the rod of the law, but smitten no more except by the 
 sin and perverseness of the people ; and that when he smote 
 the rock tlie second time, he was not the type of the holy 
 law, but of the rebellious people, that were to be unmindful 
 of the " ]^)ck that begat them." ]\Ioses made further experi- 
 ence of the unchangeably holy character of Israel's rock, in 
 the inflexible exaction of the penalty denounced against liim- 
 scif foj- liavin^ failed to sanetily the Lord's name at Kadesh. 
 All iiis sii])plieations to be permitted to enter in and see the 
 good land and Lebanon were rejected, as is related in full in 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 19 
 
 the close of this very chapter. No doubt Moses was enabled 
 by grace to worship and adore this holy severity and zeal of the 
 Eock of Israel for his great name, and would acquiesce in that 
 dispensation towards himself, which was to be one of the 
 chief testimonies to the Churcli of Jehovah's hatred of sin 
 in his people, and that while he accepts the persons he takes 
 vengeance on their works. We say these circumstances, and 
 these alone, constitute a sufficient explanation of that key-note 
 which is heard throughout the song, " He is the Eock, his work 
 is perfect" (yes, even the exclusion of Moses from the land of 
 promise) " and all his ways are judgment, a God of truth and 
 without iniquity, just and right is He." The style of tliis 
 song makes it quite unsupposal)le tliat it was composed by 
 any later prophet, such as is feigned in the head of Ewald, or 
 by his brother critics. 
 
 III. There are numerous notices in these books, some of 
 them affecting the whole people, some of them the individual 
 tribes, tending to affix a painful and permanent stigma, which 
 would render it incredible that the whole people would have 
 received the history, unless supported by an authority like 
 that of Moses, which they could not dispute. Jacob's sup- 
 planting of Esau in the case of the birthright and the blessing, 
 is more like a calumny which would be kept up by a hostile 
 nation like the Edomites (or the Egyptian reproach in the 
 time of Josephus that Israel had been driven out of Egypt to 
 free the land of their leprosy), than a history treasured up in 
 the national annals. How many humbling stories are recorded 
 of their ancestor Jacob ! What generation after that of the 
 Desert would have accepted the narration of then- mis- 
 behaviour in the Desert, of their cowardice, discontent, envy, 
 ingratitude against ]\Ioses, and rebellion against God ? AVliat 
 generation would have accepted a document whicli had been 
 brought forward at a later time, in which the disciplined host 
 
20 A WOIU) UPON 
 
 that was ready to conquer Canaan, is styled " a stiff-necked 
 people," " from tlie day that thou didst depart out of the land 
 of Eg\iDt until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious 
 against tlie Lord!" To come to the separate tribes. It is 
 certain that they soon began to be envious and jealous of each 
 other. More than once in the book of Judges, the jealousy of 
 Ephraim is seen bursting forth on any occasion when it seemed 
 to be cast into the shade (c. viii. v. 10). It was tribe-jealousy 
 that raised the cry so often, " What part have we in David, 
 and what inheritance in the son of Jesse." The jealousy w^ent 
 on smouldering under David and Solomon, till it flamed up 
 under Eehoboam. AYhat, then, but authority which they could 
 not gainsay, tliat of the man of God, Moses, no other, would have 
 induced them to admit a document in which the pre-eminence 
 was permanently assigned to Judah ? What moved the mighty 
 tribe of ]\Ianasseh to suffer its primogeniture to be quietly 
 transferred to Ephraim ? Judah had to take into his hand, 
 along with the sceptre, and the van in the march, the roll on 
 wliich was traced in unmistakeable characters the story of his 
 signally polluted origin. Eeuben had to bow under the book 
 that disinlierited him and doomed him to perpetual insignifi- 
 cance, " unstable as water thou shalt not excel," the word is 
 " boiling, wanton, arrogant," such was Eeuben, such he proved 
 in the mutiny of Dathan and Abiram ! why did he submit ? 
 Levi and Simeon are sentenced to annihilation as tribes. 
 Aaron's family obtained and kept the dignity of the priesthood 
 by a claim that was never contested. All Israel held them- 
 selves bound by the will of the Supreme to deliver up the 
 titlies of all their produce yearly for the maintenance of the 
 cliildren of Levi. What was the authority which regulated 
 all these interests, honours, dignities, privileges of a stiff- 
 necked mighty nation, and of jealous tribes, and kept them in 
 awe ? How long would the titles and estates among any 
 people be safe and clearly defined if there were no registry in 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 21 
 
 wliicli tliey were laid up ? Would any person on earth have 
 constrained them to subscribe a record that touched them all 
 so keenly after they had settled down and taken up their 
 position of jealous observance of each other ? Certainly not. 
 All the influence of Elijah and Elisha never moved Ephraim 
 to turn back again to Jerusalem and the temple ! If the Penta- 
 teuch had not been bequeathed to them by Moses himself, they 
 would have si)urned it from any other hand. If none but 
 Moses could nor would have described so faithfully, but so 
 temperately, the outbursts of the people's wickedness, certainly 
 none that lived after him would have exposed so plainly the 
 offences and frailties of both Aaron and himself, and how 
 Moses was excluded from Canaan, and had to die in the desert 
 as the punishment of unbelief. — (Deut. chap. i. 37 ; iii. 23-27). 
 
 IV. The impress of Catholicity on the Pentateuch is a- 
 striking mark of its divine origin. It has nothing of the nature 
 of a national history — on the contrary, it is the history of 
 God's dealings with the world, of his free election of one people 
 to subserve and carry forward the purposes of his glory, and 
 contribute to the salvation of the whole earth. There is 
 nothing partial or exclusively national in the book. Other 
 nations in their place would have described the Ark as rest- 
 ing on Lebanon instead of Ararat, and made their own land 
 the centre of the world's movements. Why is Babel repre- 
 sented as the centre of dispersion ? It is neither prejudice 
 nor partiality which gives it its tone. All nations are kept 
 in view, and are dealt with and have their destinies fixed witli 
 exclusive reference to a moral standard. Japhet's as well as 
 Shem's piety and consequent blessing, obtain a hearty men- 
 tion. How significant a sentence is that, " for the iniquity of 
 the Amorites was not yet full." Even when the process is 
 going on to make Israel for a time a Nazarite on earth, and the 
 nations are suffered to go their own ways, it is plain that the 
 
22 A WORD UPON 
 
 God of Israel has not cast tliein off for ever ; he has still to 
 do with them. Not once is a grain of incense suffered to fall 
 on the altar of national vanity — the chosen people, at the 
 same time that it is distinguished, is also humbled to the level 
 of sinful human nature ; the prominent place wliich it occu- 
 pies in the book of God, it obtains purely by virtue of God's 
 free election. " Speak not in thy heart, for my righteousness 
 the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land" (Deut. 9, 4). 
 Never once anything like the conceit of Josephus to represent 
 Moses as a great military hero. — Compare the teaching of the 
 Talmud, " You, Israel ! God has called man (Adam), the 
 nations of the world he has not called Adam!' 
 
 V. The style and manner in which the Divine Being is 
 spoken of in the Pentateuch, argue none other than the man 
 who had been on the Mount and seen His glory. There is a 
 difference in the capacity of the instruments whom God 
 chooses ; all would not suit for all services, e.g., the prophet 
 Jonah could scarcely be expected to set forth God's truth so 
 amply as Moses or Isaiah. On this principle, we say that 
 none was fitted like Moses to describe, by the aid and inspiration 
 of the Holy Ghost, the various manifestations of God from the 
 Creation till the entrance of Israel into Canaan. If any other, 
 where is he ? and who is he ? Did it not need one who had 
 contemplated the mysteries of the Divine nature (till his face 
 shone with them) to write — " And God said. Let us make man 
 in our imafjc, after our likeness!' That is what no modern Jew 
 would write — and what none of the later authors whom the 
 rationalist has in view, who was of course a zealous Jehovist, 
 and could e(puilly of course only express his own subjective 
 convictions, could have written ; and as little, '' for the man is 
 become like oneTof us." Sliall we find any but Moses worthy 
 or ([ualilied to tell, without declining to the right or to the left, 
 all God's dispensations, purposes, and thouglit? towards man in 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 23 
 
 innocence and man fallen, towards the corrupt antediluvians 
 and the rescued remnant, towards the favoured patriarchs and 
 the heathens round them, towards Israel when wayward, and 
 Israel when a dear child ? When Moses reveals the secret of 
 God's heart, "it repented the Lord that he had made man on the 
 earth, and it grieved him sore " (Gen. vi. 6), can we but think of 
 Moses when God said, " I have seen this people, and, behold, 
 it is a stih'-necked people: Now tlierefore let me alone, that my 
 wrath may wax hot against them." (Ex. xxxii.) Surely it 
 needed to be a sx3ecially prepared vessel that was to have the 
 honour of recording all God's manifestations of holy jealousy, 
 as well as his condescending friendliness — his judgments by the 
 flood and upon Sodom, as well as his grace to Noah and to Aljra- 
 ham, till in Deuteronomy after his course is run, and his work 
 closed, and the people entrusted to him are ready to cross the 
 Jordan, he rises to the very threshold of the Gospel, drawing 
 and alluring the people to God, whom he had known as 
 friend, in the constantly recurring " the Lord thy God." 
 
 VI. There are certain institutions and rites which were 
 not obligatory in the patriarchal period, which were strictly 
 enjoined under the law, as well as certain practices stilL left 
 free in the former period, and afterwards strictly prohibited, 
 wdiich are so artlessly narrated in the Pentateuch that it is 
 impossible to suppose the author to have lived some Imndreds 
 of years after the laws of Moses were delivered, and after these 
 had become so interwoven with the impressions of the people 
 so associated with the notion of blessing on the one hand 
 and curse on the other, that it would l^e hard for themselves to 
 conceive that it ever had been otherwise. How this tendency 
 operates, appears in the perplexity of the Eabbinical com- 
 mentators to reconcile Isaac's eating of Esau's venison with 
 the strict ritual of their Shehita or slaughtering; they 
 feign that Esau was such a dexterous marksman that he 
 
24 A WOKD Ul'OX 
 
 wounded the animal in that very place where, according to 
 their rules, the knife should enter. In Genesis it is told that 
 Ahraham took Sarah, liis own sister, for his wife, which to 
 tlie Israelite trained up under the sound of the curse, 
 Deut. xxvii. 22 — " Cursed is he that lieth with his sister, the 
 daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother," it 
 must have been rej)ugnant to admit, if it had not already 
 stood recorded in the history under the divine sanction. The 
 doing of Jacob as recorded in Genesis xxviii. 18, in tak- 
 ing the stone that he had put for his pillow, and setting it up 
 for a pillar, ?i\\dii)ouring oil iqjon it, is not an incident which 
 an Israelite of a later period, when all such acts had come to be 
 identified with apostasy, would have been likely to narrate. 
 As has been well remarked of the gospels, that they could 
 only have been composed by those who lived before the 
 national life was obliterated by the Eomans, — that none who 
 lived after the taking of Jerusalem could have discovered the 
 same familiar and intimate acquaintance with all the nicest 
 shades of domestic and social usage, so it may be asserted 
 with equal truth that the books of Moses could only have 
 been ^Titten by one who stood on the borders of the patri- 
 archal and Levitical dispensations. Would not a later 
 writer, when speaking of clean beasts in the terms of the 
 covenant with Noah (Genesis ix. 4-5,) have made some 
 reference to the altar, as well as to their being permitted as 
 food ? On the other hand it is not to be supposed that one 
 who had grown up under the impression that none other than 
 one of the tribe of Levi might approach the altar without 
 incurring the divine indignation would have related so simply 
 and faitlifully that the sacrificial rites on the great occasion of 
 the confirming tlie covenant of Horeb were all performed by 
 unordained men (Ex. xxiv. 5)—" And he (Moses) sent you)i(j 
 men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt-offerings and 
 sacrificed peace-oflerings of oxen unto the Lord." Under this 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 25 
 
 head a remark might be made about the first-born and their 
 rights, which are so strictly secured to them by the Mosaic 
 hiw. Those who reject the doctrine of inspiration and of 
 divine authority might find it diflicult to reconcile the two 
 facts, the law in Deut. xxi. 15, 16, and the frequently recur- 
 ring practice as recorded in Genesis. The law says, " If a 
 man liaA^e two wives, one beloved and another hated, and they 
 have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated . . . 
 He may not make the son of the beloved first-born before the 
 son of the hated, which is indeed the first-born." On the 
 ground of natural calculation it would not be conceived the 
 best means of recommending this law to inform them how 
 regularly we may say it had been transgressed in the chosen 
 family in the preference of Isaac to Ishmael, of Jacob to 
 Esau, and Joseph to Eeuben. The people must have been 
 thoroughly convinced that all these cases were of special 
 divine appointment. The author who related them must 
 have been assured that they stood apart by divine authorisa- 
 tion, and were in no danger of being drawn into a precedent. 
 
 VII. The prospective law in Deut. xvii. 14-20 respecting 
 the election and the conduct of the King in Israel has a 
 peculiar interest and peculiar evidence in this question. 
 With Hosea xiii. 11 before us, " I gave them a king in mine 
 anger," it may safely be maintained that none of the prophets 
 would have taken a different view from Samuel, who held it 
 for nothing less than apostasy in Israel to seek a king ; that 
 no prophet, therefore, would have been disposed so far to 
 justify the measure as to represent it as a thing provided for 
 and anticipated in the law. From the ground of inspiration 
 there is no difficulty in admitting that Moses, who could warn 
 Israel of the certainty of their defection to idolatry, and of 
 thek coming under the curse, should also declare with cer- 
 tainty that they would imitate the nations around them, and 
 
26 A WORD UPON 
 
 set up a king ; but tlie opposite course is utterly unsuppos- 
 able. Then again the precaution in verse 15 is equally incon- 
 ceivable in the mouth of any later prophet, for after the 
 establishment of the royal dignity, there is no appearance of 
 any inclination in the people to elect a stranger as their 
 king ; but in the mouth of Moses, and before any step had 
 been taken in the matter, the warning was most befitting and 
 seasonable, " thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee 
 whom the Lord thy God shall choose ; one from among thy 
 brethren shalt thou set king over thee ; thou mayest not set 
 a king over thee which is not thy brother." On the suppo- 
 sition that this book is a forgery of a later age, can any sane 
 person entertain the opinion that the kings on the throne 
 would suffer a book in which such a law stood to be foisted 
 Tipon them and their people in the name of the great lawgiver ? 
 The kings in Judah and Israel were as intelligent as their 
 subjects on the matter of religion ; they were on an intimate 
 footing with the prophets, and were often the authors and 
 originators of reformation contrary to the will of the priests. 
 AVho then can bring us to believe that they would allow such a 
 work as this, which curtailed their royal state, which crossed 
 them in their natural inclinations, and in the fashions of their 
 rank, which prohibited them that arm on which military 
 efficiency was supposed in those days most to consist, which 
 imposed on them duties which to many must have been irk- 
 some, and which even some of the more pious kings, as Uzziah, 
 flagrantly transgressed, to be set up against them under the 
 high name of Moses, if they had been able to gainsay it. It 
 is sufficient to read the passage, c. xvii. 16-20, to have the 
 firmest conviction that it would never have obtained recogni- 
 tion after a king had been set up — " he shall not multiply 
 horses to himself . . . neither shall he multiply wives to 
 liimself, that his lieart turn not away; neither shall he greatly 
 multiply to himself silver and gold ... he shall write 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 27 
 
 liim a copy of this law in a book . . . and shall read 
 therein all the days of his life." 
 
 VIII. It is a remarkable fact, and strongly attesting the 
 early date of the Pentateuch, that no mention occurs in it 
 anywhere of the temples or houses of the heathen gods among 
 the other objects devoted to destruction. In Deut. xii. '2 
 there is an enumeration of all the places which are thus to be 
 destroyed — altars, high places, groves — but nowhere in the 
 whole Pentateuch is there any mention of a temple. There is 
 every reason to suppose that no temples as yet existed, and that 
 the tabernacle in the wilderness was the first object of the kind, 
 and the model from which the surrounding nations borrowed 
 their practice of making houses for their gods. We may be 
 sure that if there had been Canaanitish temples in existence 
 they would have stood foremost in the list of the anathema- 
 tized objects, as was at a later period exemplified in the house 
 of Baal (2 Kings x. 27), " They made the house of Baal a 
 draught house." Towards the time of Samuel, and further on, 
 the mention of temples becomes common, as Dagon's house, 
 Jereboam's "house of high places;" and it would be most 
 natural for a later author to imagine them as existing in 
 Canaan at the time of the conquest. On this point again the 
 record is in striking consistency with what is known of the 
 period to which it professes to belong. 
 
 It is also worthy of notice that Jerusalem is never even 
 named in Deuteronomy as the seat of worship ; again and 
 again " the place which the Lord your God shall choose" 
 without any name. Apart from inspiration, can it be sup- 
 posed that a merely human autlior would have been able 
 wholly to ignore the circumstances and situation in the midst 
 of which he actually stood, whether it had been in his day 
 Shiloh, or Mizpeli, or Jerusalem ? On the supposition of a 
 later origin, would not a subject of Judah, or even any zealous 
 
28 A AVORD UPON 
 
 worshipper of Jehovah, liave been induced to take the oppor- 
 tunity of re-inforcing the claims of Jerusalem above the rival 
 pretensions of Dan and Bethel by putting its name into the 
 mouth of Moses himself. 
 
 IX. It is rather an evidence of the inspiration of these 
 books than of their j\Iosaic authorship (but as has been ob- 
 served there is a natural dependence between the two) that 
 great spaces of time are quietly passed over, where the history 
 makes no progTess, but all as it were sleeps and vegetates. 
 This is a feature quite peculiar to the Word of God, and 
 which the infidel, on his principle, is unable to account for. 
 It is absurd to pretend that it was because the writer had no 
 account of these periods, for according to their notion of 
 things, he has a most exuberant imagination, and can invent 
 marvels where none ever happened. It is the method of 
 human history to fiU up the gaps of history with conjecture or 
 fable, while it is the plan of the Divine Word to consign to 
 silence those epochs into which imagination is most eager to 
 plunge when tliey do not contribute to the great end in view. 
 AYhat a tempting subject to trace the first forty years of Moses' 
 life — his training under Egyptian men of wisdom — and all 
 that such a mind would be agitating for the first ardent forty 
 years of life. Josephus makes the most of it, makes him con- 
 duct campaigns and earn laurels. How tempting to seek a 
 picture of the state of Israel, and of their fortunes for the 200 
 years previous to the exodus ! How glad would we be to 
 know some particulars of the life in the desert for the thii'ty- 
 eight years tliat are ignored in the narrative I An epic poem 
 or a romance finds it no hard task to meet such demands. 
 The Jews are able to tell us what Moses did during the forty 
 days and niglits in the Mount— viz., that he received the 
 oral law from (}od. But the Word of God follows its own 
 liigli ])atli, wliirli is easy to be distinmiished from that which 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 29 
 
 is suggested by liiiman vanity, or which panders to human 
 curiosity. 
 
 X. It may be legitimately asserted that the books in which 
 the laws of the Sabbath year and of the jubilee stand, could not 
 have found access among the people at any period after they 
 were established in the land, unless they had been acknow- 
 ledged and in force from the first existence of their polity. 
 Would the rich at any supposable period have suffered it to 
 be taught that they were bound every seventh year to remit 
 all debts, and release all their bondsmen; and that every 
 fiftieth year they were obliged to restore all mortgaged pro- 
 perty ? Is there any period in the Eoman republic when a 
 tribune of the people could have persuaded the patricians that 
 the agrarian law was engrossed in the body of the twelve 
 tables ? Would the whole people at any future time have 
 permitted themselves to believe that they liad always had a 
 book in their hands enjoining to leave the whole lands of the 
 country untilled every seventh year, casting themselves wholly 
 upon the providence of God ? Is not the rationalist guilty of 
 the greatest insult on the human understanding, in requiring 
 us to believe that books in the midst of which such laws 
 stand, and with the ground-work of which they are inter- 
 woven, — laws affecting the most vital and commonest interests 
 of all classes of the people, running counter to their prejudices, 
 and trenching on their inclinations, could have been at any 
 time falsely and surreptitiously commended to the acceptance 
 of the people as the perpetual authority to which they and their 
 fathers had ever referred. By the way, how were the people 
 occupied in the seventh year ? Naturally the old commenta- 
 tors suppose them engaged during that year very specially 
 with the study of the law. But if Moses left them no law ? 
 
 XI. It was an insurmoimtable safeguard of the authenticity 
 
30 A WORT) UPON 
 
 of the sacred books from the beginning that there were two 
 quite distinct classes of men who were equally interested in 
 them — the priests and the prophets. Moses engages to the 
 people, in God's name, that they should always have prophets 
 (Deut. xviii. 15). The prophets were by their mode of life 
 and avocation separated from the common interests of life, 
 wliile the priest was their very centre. It would have been 
 impossible for one of these classes to introduce anything in the 
 name of Moses, without its being immediately examined by 
 the others. The prophets have often to reproach the priests 
 for not adhering to the word — never for a wilful adulteration. 
 
 XII. It is an incontrovertible evidence of the age of the 
 works of ]\Ioses, that the future state throughout retires into 
 the backgTound as it does. Warburton is certainly mistaken 
 in supposing the doctrine unknown, but it Was the divine dis- 
 pensation itself which thrust it aside by presenting earthly 
 promises, and the near presence of a covenant God, so directly 
 in the view of the people. The truth itself and its comfort were 
 enwrapt in all the relations of the people ; it lay in the word, 
 "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;" it was inclosed 
 in the word, " Ye are children of the Lord your God ; ye shall 
 not cut yourselves for the dead;" it lay in the word 
 " Enoch was not, for God took him." But the complete silence 
 on this prime interest of mortal man was only possible in the 
 earliest times of the nation. In David's time it was otherwise 
 (see Ps. xvi. and xvii.). 
 
 XIII. None but Moses himself would have inscribed the 
 words, " thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." 
 Any otlier would have known that he himself was inditing 
 wliat Muses had not tliouglit needful to be written. These 
 exam])les, wliich miglit be indefinitely multiplied, are of them- 
 selves more tlian sufficient to overbear the weak cavils on the 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 31 
 
 other side. They show what abundant reason the advocates 
 of the Mosaic authorship have for pausing in the face of small 
 apparent discrepancies, and for trusting that they may be re- 
 moved. They show also how great absurdities the sceptic can 
 swallow rather than admit, that there may have been another 
 Dan in the north of Canaan, besides that formerly called 
 Laish. What reason do we find for admiring the providence 
 of God whicli has created such a complication of circumstances, 
 twisting and entertwining as not only to form a hedge about 
 Israel as a nation, but also, when well considered, to form a 
 hedge around the record of Divine truth for all time. 
 
 Xiy. Our argument is in the highest degree cuinulative. 
 Dent. xiii. 6-10, would form a proof as forcible as any of those 
 yet adduced, perhaps one of the strongest of all for the point 
 before us. It is perfectly in order that Moses should prescribe 
 such procedure, after the body of the people had been gained 
 by the discipline of the wilderness to be jealous as one man 
 for the worship of Jehovah, and write — " If thy brother, the 
 son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of 
 thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice 
 
 thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods 
 
 thou shalt surely kill him." The voice in this law is evidently 
 ' obsta 2^riuci2Jiis," when there was as yet no idolater in the 
 camp, and Moses appeals to each individual to aid and be on 
 his guard to stamp out the contagious pestilence as soon as, 
 and wherever it should appear. In the words of Moses, we 
 perceive a more confident assurance, that the body of Israel 
 was for the moment clean, than could have been uttered at 
 any future period, even that of Joshua, who, in Joshua xxiv. 5, 
 betrays a certain apprehension that the hearts of some were 
 already wavering. But such a precept or law is utterly incon- 
 ceivable in the mouth of a later propliet after ten trilies had 
 apostatised to idolatry, and the greater part of Judah was 
 
32 A WORD UPON 
 
 infected. This command, and that in verses 12-17, and still 
 more that in Deut. xvii. 2-7, which requires the extreme rigour 
 of the law against idolatry, would have been nothing less in 
 the mouth of a later prophet, than a call to internecine war, 
 and to proceed capitally against nine-tenths of the nation. 
 
 XV. There is an argument more, and that, too, cast in our 
 way by the adversary, which is so clearly decisive for the 
 Mosaic authorship that we cannot withhold it. It is the 
 last discovery which has emanated on the rationalist side, to 
 which, too, as far as we know, no sufficient answer has been 
 given — affecting Deuteronomy xvii. 9, " and thou shall come 
 unto the i^riests tlic Levites, and to the judge that shall be in 
 those days, and enquire." There, as in other passages of 
 Deuteronomy, the expression is used, " the priests the Levites," 
 as if no distinction were made between priests and Levites, 
 whereas in Leviticus and Numbers the expression is " priests 
 and Levites." The pretence is, in fact, that the late prophet 
 who had undertaken to deliver a charge to the peoj)le in the 
 person of Moses liad failed in his tact — had not been able 
 to catch up Moses' style, an(J suffered an expression to 
 slip into his pen, in which the acute critic of the 19tli cen- 
 tury detects a token of a much later time, when priests and 
 Levites were not so strictly distinguished. We would like 
 to know when that time was, for it must have been later than 
 John i. 19, when we read " priests and Levites " distinguished 
 as in Leviticus. What time was this when the Levites had 
 so risen in consideration tliat the difference between their 
 order and that of the priests had been effaced. This critic 
 explains the expression, " priest, Levites," by reference to 
 a time when the rank and name of priests and Levites were 
 convertible ! When was this time ? It reminds us of Charles 
 the Second's problem of the fish and the tub of water, which 
 puzzled all his doctors, till one denied the fact. This fact it 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 33 
 
 is not difficult to deny, for Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi, 
 the New Testament, know nothing of it. But to leave this 
 point, we discover being led to it by the opponent, a most 
 conclusive evidence that Moses, and none other, wrote the 
 passage. The phrase means literally to enforce, as Eashi 
 and the other Jewish commentators saw — that the priests be 
 Levites — the priests being Levitcs, or of that tribe. Moses, 
 and only he, had cause to make this provision. The reason 
 why Moses said, and then wrote, " priests — Levites" in Deu- 
 teronomy was, to lay an emphasis on the fact that the priests 
 were to be of the tribe of Levi, as much as saying " priests — 
 let it always be understood — of the tribe of Levi." We say, 
 there was sufficient reason for this precaution, for the people 
 had been in Moses' time accustomed to priests not of Levi, 
 namely, up to the time when God appointed the separating of 
 the tribe for the service of religion (ISTumbers viii. 14). There 
 had been a popular rebellion in Israel about this ordinance 
 (Numbers xvi. 17), and it could very easily happen that it 
 was afterwards called in question. There was much reason 
 why Moses, in his parting address, in mentioning the priests, 
 said " priests — Levites," — i. e., priests of the tribe of Levi, for 
 this was one of the fundamental institutions of Israel, as we 
 see how particular Ezra is about the geneaologies when they 
 return from Babylon. The first thing Jeroboam did in his 
 apostasy was to appoint " priests not Levites." Moses knew 
 well what he was saying. If the critics would consult Deut. 
 xviii. 1, they would see this in full. There it stands, " The 
 priests, the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi," i.e., the priests 
 who are of Levi, and all the Levites besides. Could anything 
 be plainer ? But we could give a reason more ; viz., that the 
 word for priest in Hebrew, where it stands by itself without 
 Levite is ambiguous. The word "Kohen"for priest, means 
 also prince, as in the passage, 2 Sam. viii. 18, " and David's 
 sons were princes ;" where the word for princes is this same 
 
34 A WORD UPON 
 
 word Koliaiiiin, which in Dent. xvii. 9, is translated, priests. 
 Had Moses used only this word for priests without Levites, 
 say in Deut. xvii. 9, it would not be known whether he meant 
 the priests at all, but it might have been said that he meant the 
 case for judgment to be brought up before the princes and the 
 judges. In fact, the Jews take this way for evading the 
 proof for our Lord's priesthood in Psa. ex., and say, instead 
 of " Thou art a priest for ever," " Thou art a prince for ever." 
 We see these critics have raised their objection in sheer igno- 
 rance — partly of the language and partly of the conditions 
 under which Moses wrote. 
 
 We have thus produced a number of positive proofs for the 
 Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy such as no adversary will 
 he able effectually to meet. It is not from disinclination to the 
 task that we do not undertake to examine in detail the objec- 
 tions of the critics, but because these have been mostly already 
 disposed of by others, and our plan is to keep within such 
 limits as may enable all to master what we have to advance. 
 AVe proceed on the assumption that the Chm-ch is as little 
 called upon as any army to stand always on the defensive, and 
 be permanently occupied in rebutting cavils which are endless 
 as the fancies and notions of the human liead. We are entitled 
 to give the adversary a puzzle to occupy his, and demand a 
 satisfactory solution on his part of the matter and contents of 
 the books in which he professes to be so much at home. For 
 this method we have the precedent of our blessed Lord, who, 
 after confuting Sadducees and Pharisees, took the offensive, 
 A\itli tho reasonable proposal, " I will also ask you one thing; 
 and answer me" (Luke xx. 3), which brought them to stand in 
 silent confusion l)efore the whole people. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE PENTATEUCH TO ITSELF. 
 
 In a question of this moment, affecting tlie very basis of 
 tin; word of inspiration, to whicli all the other books of Scrip- 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 35 
 
 ture refer, which they support and on which they lean, and with 
 which the truth and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ him- 
 self are inseparably connected and involved, so that He and 
 Moses, to whom He bears witness, must stand or fall together, 
 there can be no rest till the argument is carried forward to a 
 sure and insubvertil^le position. It is not enough that cavils 
 be scattered and assaults repelled — on this field there can be 
 no draAvn battle — if it l)e God's Word it must be capable of 
 being displayed in the majesty of a stronghold of truth, look- 
 ing forth serene and impregnable above all the dust and din 
 and smoke of the world's hostility. If the Word be inspired, 
 it must not only l)e capable of manifesting the living spirit 
 which breathes in it to those who discern and judge in the 
 spirit, but there must be a wheel within a wheel, there will be 
 such an organic structure and such a dependence of parts, such 
 a multifarious evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit as may 
 awe and impress the perception and the judgment even of the 
 natural mind. Such a system, such symmetry and propor- 
 tions certainly exist, and must, if once the right point of view 
 be obtained, be capable of being projected before the eye of 
 all. There is every token that the Pentateuch is what it has 
 ever been held to be in the Church — one compact whole, the 
 gTand base of the divine edifice of revealed truth, the worthy 
 first member in that series of divine gifts of God to His 
 Church, which is so gloriously closed by the " Eevelation of 
 Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him," bestowed simultane- 
 ously with the first call, and the earliest appearance on the 
 stage of that favoured Israel, to whom the world has been 
 given for an inheritance. There is no more douljt tliat Moses 
 WTote the Pentateuch than that he called Israel out of Egypt ; 
 the one work was as essential a part of his task as the other — 
 the giving of the law in its amplest sense, with all its complement 
 of history, doctrine, admonition, precept, not less indispensable 
 than the signs and wonders hj which the stubborn ^\'ill of 
 
36 A WORD UPON 
 
 riiaraoh was bent to compliance ; the primary indispensable 
 condition if the people whom he had so laboriously disciplined 
 and conducted to the borders of Canaan, were, instead of sink- 
 ing back again to their former degradation, to take the very 
 first steps on that path which, notwithstanding all stumbling 
 and offence, was still the course of the world's salvation. 
 Admitted that the claim of the books to inspiration might 
 still stand, although the name of tlie author was not deter- 
 mined, and that they would 'still be entitled to be received 
 with reverence as belonging to these oracles of God which 
 were entrusted to Israel ; still, the point is not unimportant, 
 whether they were delivered by the means of that most faith- 
 ful of servants, upon whom and upon his work it pleased God 
 to put special honour, or whether the Israelite Church were 
 deceived in the impression to this effect which prevailed un- 
 questioned in the midst of it as far back as we have means of 
 ascertainmg. 
 
 The prehminary plea by which endeavours were made to 
 cast doubts on the Mosaic authorship, under pretence that the 
 art of writing was not then known among the Egyptians has 
 been effectually repelled. Hengstenberg has demonstrated 
 from Eosellini and Wilkinson, that writing* was almost as 
 much in vogue among the Egyptians under these Pharaohs 
 as among ourselves ; that they wrote over the doorways and 
 on tlie walls of their rooms, which is just what we should expect 
 from tlie books of ]\Ioses, wliere (Numb. v. 23) the priests 
 and (Deut. xxiv. 1, 3, G, 9, 11, 20) the peoi^le in general 
 are supposed al)le to write ; and that not on tables (pi^) 
 but "a bill" 0?P). It never happened that the descend- 
 ants of Jacob were in this respect behind tlie nations among 
 whom they dwelt. Considering that Cadmus was almost 
 a cotemporary of Moses, it was really a rather audacious ven- 
 ture of those learned Germans, Ilartman and Y. Bohlen, that 
 
 * Hengstenberg " Die Biicher Mosis iind Egypten," s. 87 ff. 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 37 
 
 tliey made a stand against Moses' authorship on this ground, 
 both of them within the hist thirty years, after the results of 
 recent Egyptian discoveries were pretty widely known. 
 Bleek seems rather ashamed of this blunder of his predecessors 
 in that hne, but if it were not for the seasonable aid from the 
 ancient monuments, the objection would be doubtless still sus- 
 tained. It is of the highest importance to have the mind 
 completely discharged of every vestige of the impression that 
 Moses and his contemporaries had only metallic tablets or 
 stone tables at their disposal. If writing on linen and on 
 skins, and even on papyrus as far back as the fifth Pharaonic 
 dynasty was a common accomplishment in Egypt, there is no 
 impediment in our way to hold that Moses, trained at the 
 com-t of Pharaoh, had attained the highest proficiency con- 
 sistent with that age. 
 
 What a forcible presumption does it create in favour of the 
 Mosaic authorship if a fair representation be made of the cir- 
 cumstances as they then existed. Prima facie there was none 
 so competent for the work by virtue of his accomplishments, 
 neither in his time nor for some successive generations ; for it 
 is a self-evident fact that the arts of peace would not and 
 could not flourish in Israel, but would infaUibly retrograde 
 in the turmoil of the conquest, and in the unsettled state of 
 the following centuries. Indeed, it is a strong accession to 
 the internal evidence for the perfect truthfulness of the Divine 
 Word, that there is no literature between the time of Joshua 
 and Samuel. The race that was brought out of Egypt had 
 facilities for the cultivation of knowledge such as could not 
 be again enjoyed by their posterity for ages after. It is also 
 strikingly apparent that Moses was peculiarly fitted for the 
 task, not only by his acquirements but by his natural tem- 
 perament. A right estimate of the man seems to lead to the 
 conclusion that he was far more inchned to the contempla- 
 tive, or when occasion offered literary life, than to come 
 
38 A WOKD UPON 
 
 forth ill public. This, along ^itli the spiritual defect, which 
 was not at once ready to comply with the divine summons, 
 was at the bottom of his reluctance to enter upon his work ; 
 and this is the substance of the obstacle he raises — " Lord, I 
 am not eloquent ... I am of slow lips and of a slow tongue." 
 He experienced no capacity in himself for influencing men in 
 practical life. Although he had that force of character wdiich 
 has sometimes made a recluse the best of statesmen and of 
 governors, by virtue of which he executed in the best style 
 what was committed to him, yet this preponderance of the 
 contemplative in his character is not to be mistaken. 
 
 Notwitstanding his self-sacrificing zeal, the distress into 
 which his unpractical character reduced him in his dealings 
 with the people, so as to wear himself and them out superflu- 
 ously, is brought remarkably into view when the one simple 
 suggestion of Jethro put all right (Exodus xviii. 18). It was 
 to keep the balance on this side that Aaron was given him as 
 co-adjutor ; as a rule Moses was to communicate with God, 
 and Aaron mediate with the people. Hence we never hear of 
 any other being commanded to write but Moses himself, as long 
 as he is there ; even when the Levites are commanded to put 
 the Book in the side of the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. xxxi. 
 25, 26), it is Moses who is to write it; certainly no other was 
 equally qualified to narrate the miracles and events that had 
 taken place under his own eye ; there was no other who had 
 equally realised all as it was in progress, or on whose soul it 
 had made the same impression. If we may safely assume that 
 Closes was alone in the apprehension of the boundless im- 
 portance and unspeakable results of the movement of which 
 he was called to be the visible leader, as the first decided step 
 on the part of Jehovah to recover the nations of the world to 
 his sway ; if we recollect how his spirit must have been filled 
 and elevated above itself by familiar contact with that work 
 in all its successive stages, which the Lord himself compares 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 39 
 
 with creating and planting the heavens, and laying the 
 foundation of the earth, and "say unto Zion, thou art my 
 people" (Isa. li. 16), surely it is no presumption to say that 
 he was the aptest of all who could have been selected to de- 
 scribe the past, Avith the view of shewing how it contained the 
 germ and preparation of this mighty movement, and from the 
 firm and marked station which the work of grace had in his day 
 attained, to trace it back to Eden itself, and the very Ijirth of 
 the heavens and the earth, which had been all shaken and 
 removed before his eyes, and made tributary to the grand 
 scheme which God had then set on foot on the earth. There 
 w\as none so faithful as Moses by the testimony of Jehovah him- 
 self, "my servant Moses . . . who is faithful in all mine 
 house" (Num. xii. 7) ; but surely faithfulness in its highest 
 degree was nowhere more indispensable, not even in the 
 erection of a tabernacle, than in the work of inditing for all 
 generations the manifestation of that name in which the salva- 
 tion of the world is wrapped up, in creation itself, and in man 
 as a creature and as a sinner. Is not even the leisure requisite 
 for such a service provided in the life of Moses beyond all in 
 the times immediately succeeding, in the thirty-eight years' 
 wandering in the wilderness, of which nothing is recorded — a 
 consideration which utterly excludes Delitzsch's fancy of 
 Eleazar, the High Priest, whose onerous daily duties must 
 have engrossed and exhausted him. Nay, as Moses refers on 
 all occasions, and in every address he makes to the people, to 
 the works of God, and spares no pains nor reiteration, to recal 
 these to their mind, as the means of inducing and inclining 
 them ^0 comply with his word, we cannot suppose that he 
 omitted to set before their eyes, and place in their hands, a 
 comprehensive record, as far as it was in his power, of all that 
 he himself knew of the Divine dispensations. None loved 
 the people as he — they were his own charge, and he was their 
 appointed shepherd ; none Avas so well aware of their fickle^ 
 
•40 A WORD UPON 
 
 ness and moral iiiix^otency — " The Lord liatli not given you an 
 heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this 
 day" (Deut. xxix. 4) ; none knew so well as Moses how in- 
 cUspensable any subsidiary expedient was to keep them on the 
 right path. Is it then possible to suppose, with these attri- 
 butes of the man before us, that he who admonished the 
 people to write portions of the law on their door-posts, and to 
 take every external aid to have their duty permanently in view, 
 would have left all his institutions and solemn lessons and 
 weighty references to the Divine history, to be cast like Sybilline 
 leaves on the treacherous breath of tradition, to the casual 
 care of some successor in the prophetical office, who had more 
 zeal but less opportunity than himself ? We have a thousand 
 instances how the heart of Moses was intent under the influ- 
 ence of the Divine Spirit in providing for every contingency 
 in the lot of the people, not only in the desert, as they were 
 before his eye, but as they should be in the land in which 
 they were to settle — ^witness the constantly repeated, " when 
 thou comest to the land wliich the Lord thy God giveth thee" 
 — and surely no one will deny, that it was the best possible 
 preservation of their religious integrity that they should have 
 a full record of all that Jehovah had done with His Church 
 from the beginning in the midst of them. When we hear of 
 the venerable Bede, that his great concern, when he felt the 
 near approach of death, was to get a translation of the Gospel 
 of St. John finished, and that when his pupil told him that 
 there was but one verse to do, he cried out, "Eun and finish it," 
 that he might have this satisfaction before he breathed his 
 last ; we can well conceive of Moses going to write his last 
 words to the people, his song and his blessing of the tribes, as 
 tlie worthiest employment of his last hours in the flesh, before 
 he ascended the mountain, to survey the land and die. 
 
 Not all rationalists treat the word with the same rabid 
 contempt as Ewald, who assigns the Pcntateucli to four 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 41 
 
 several authors : — (1.) Tlie Book of the Covenant, composed 
 in Samson's time ; (2.) Tlie Book of the Generations, composed 
 by a Levite in Solomon's reign ; (3.) An older prophetic nar- 
 ration, with the design of investing the ancient history with 
 additional glory by the introduction of the prophetical dream 
 into the story, in Elijah's time ; (4.) A second prophetical 
 personage, who applies the term Jehovah to God, before the 
 age of Moses, and dresses up the old history in a rhetorical style, 
 in consistency with the prophet's own standard ; in contem- 
 plating which scheme, one cannot but think of the words, 
 " the boar out of the forest doth waste it, and the wild beast 
 of the field doth devour it." There are some who attempt to 
 justify themselves under the pretence that it is nowhere 
 asserted in the books of the law that the whole proceeded 
 from Moses. They emmierate the several passages where 
 Moses alleges expressly that he had A\Titten ; (Ex. xvii. 14) the 
 story of Amalek, and the denunciation against that peo^^le ; 
 (Ex. xxiv. 4), " and Moses wrote all the words of the law in a 
 book," viz., all that had been previously delivered; (Ex. xxxiv. 
 27), after the sin of the golden calf more precepts were com- 
 manded to be written; (Num. xxxiii. 2), the journeyings are 
 asserted to be -s^Titten ; finally (Deut. xxxi. 22-24) it is stated 
 that Moses wrote the words of the law, and the song following 
 in c. 32. It seems to be a guileless assumption of the oppo- 
 site side, that it is not obhgatory to put more to Moses' 
 account than what the record itself declares to be his. It is a 
 plausible inference that when certain passages are expressly 
 described as being ^mtten by Moses, the rest of which this 
 is not asserted was not actually written by him. But it is 
 most inconclusive reasoning, very demonstrably false. It 
 is apparent that where Moses states that he wrote certain 
 parts, he is making the people acquainted with his usual 
 practice, leaving it to be inferred that he was in the habit of 
 committinc^ to writin;;^ all the revelations which were made 
 
42 A WORD UPON 
 
 to liiiii. When in Ex. xxi^^ 4 it stands, " Moses wrote all the 
 irords of the Lord,'' meaning all in cliaps. xx.-xxiv ; and, 
 again, in Ex. xxxiv. 27, that the Lord commanded Moses to 
 write the words in chap, xxxiv., which are almost an abridg- 
 ment of i\\Q first passage, we cannot doubt that the writing on 
 the former of these occasions was also with command of the 
 Lord, although this be not stated ; for it is Moses' boast that he 
 took no step but as he was commanded. On the second of 
 these occasions Moses expresses what is to be understood in 
 other places that he acted under Divine direction. In the 
 same way it is allowable to presume that when he expressly 
 says he wrote, he is reminding us of his practice with respect 
 to all the communications made to him. In this connection 
 it is very instructive to compare verses 3 and 4 in Exodus 
 xxiv., where we are first informed that Moses came and told 
 the peojjle cdl the words of the Lord, and all the judgments, and 
 after the people had expressed tlieir assent to them, that he 
 then, without mention of a special command, proceeded to 
 ui'ite cdl the words of the Lord. It is a plain testimony to his 
 habit of committing to writing aU that he had first orally 
 rehearsed before the people. It was all-important that the 
 fact should be set emphatically in the view of the people, that 
 it was by express Divine injunction tliat the law was preserved 
 in writing : it w^as calculated to impress them with a salutary 
 awe. It was most suitable that, when the Lord, after the sin 
 of the golden calf, w^ent over again the chief paragraphs of the 
 Covenant, the instruction to write should on this occasion be 
 specially referred to and pointed out (Ex. xxxiv. 27), as well 
 as tliat Moses, at tlie close of all his labours, after he had de- 
 livered his valedictory exhortation, should again remind the 
 peoi)le that he would write it, as something that they required 
 ever to remember. But the lesson from such notices is un- 
 questionably that all was written, and that too at the Divine in- 
 stance, wliich the Lord desired should be observed and retained 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 43 
 
 ill remembrance ; and that the Lord gave Israel from the he- 
 ginning the full benefit of the principle afterwards enunciated 
 (Ps. cii. 18), " This shall he written for tlie generations to 
 come ; and the people which shall be created shall praise the 
 Lord." When this injunction is specially mentioned with 
 respect to the curse on Amalek (Ex. xvii.), and the journeyings 
 of the people (Num. vi. 33), it is clearly designed to draw 
 special attention to these instances. There is to be a signal 
 note of indignation set ever against the oftence of Amalek ; 
 this sin, along with the penalty affixed to it, is not only to be 
 WTitten, but it is to be written that it is \ATitten. The marches 
 of Israel are not to be over and forgotten when they get to 
 the end of the desert, but are to be recorded all of them by 
 God's express appointment, and be considered and kept in 
 mind for the benefit of the people in all time coming (compare 
 Deut. viii. 2-4). Tlie argument from these instances is 
 wholly " a fortiori f' if the sentence to be executed in future 
 ages against Amalek, and if all the stations in the wilderness 
 were to be so carefully marked, how much more all the laws 
 and precepts, moral and ceremonial, and all the works and 
 deeds by which the name of Jehovah was to be magnified and 
 rendered glorious in the hearts of His people. Is it to be 
 supposed that so much attention was paid to keep in mind the 
 offence of Amalek, and that the awful services of the temple, 
 the duties of the priests, the order of the great atonement- 
 day, where a trespass brought such consequences, as in the case 
 of Nadab and Al)ihu, were all left to suffer from the weakness 
 and forgetfulness and misapprehension — and caprice and 
 selfishness and malice of men ? It is an absurdity gxeater 
 than can be supposed. 
 
 If those who suggest this principle would faithfully and 
 honourably adhere to it, and accept as given by Moses all that 
 is expressly ascribed to liim, it would not be difficult to prove 
 that these passages imply and invoh'e the existence of the 
 
44 A WORD UPON 
 
 whole contents of tlie five books. But tliey mean it only to 
 be applied negatively, to divest tlie greater portion of the 
 Pentateuch by its own suffrage of this claim to Mosaic 
 authorship, and thus justify themselves in dealing boldly 
 and arbitrarily, where there is no longer any authority to keep 
 them in awe. It appears that this distinction is a mere 
 expedient by which, after those parts which are not definitely 
 marked out as proceeding from the pen of Moses, have 
 been enveloped in a kind of uncertainty and doubt, this uncer- 
 tainty is to be extended to the whole document, as bound 
 up and involved with that which is questionable. This is the 
 one way ; and it would have been all the same if the name 
 of Moses had been appended to the Pentateuch in a similar 
 manner as Paul's to his epistles, " written by me with my 
 own hand," the sceptic would have made short work with it. 
 If, on the other hand, the assumption be made, as is unobjec- 
 tionable, that what is declared to be from Moses is entirely and 
 veritably his, and then the contents be examined, an irresistible 
 demonstration is seen to grow up under our hands, that all 
 the rest that has usually passed under his name is just as 
 unquestionably his work, that the one-half of the document is 
 supposed and necessarily demanded by the other, and that 
 the one part is fragmentary, purposeless, and unintelligible, 
 apart from its complement, until, at last, not only is conviction 
 gained tliat the mutual relations, allusions, and references 
 irrefragably indicate one author and one mind, but the 
 whole stands invested with the lustre of a witness who has 
 been put to the question in the most searching way, and 
 comes fortli as silver from the crucible after its sevenfold 
 purifying. 
 
 Of the whole of Deuteronomy (with exception of course of 
 tlie closing passages) it is attested in the most solemn manner 
 that it was written by Moses himself; and aU who are not pre- 
 pared to put the men of God in Israel on the same level with 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 45 
 
 the lying soothsayers of the heathen will accept it as such. It 
 has also on its very front all the character of being what it 
 professes to be. As the gospel of John evidences itself through- 
 out to be the production of the disciple who leant on the bosom 
 of the Lord, not less does Deuteronomy carry the consistent 
 impress of being an effusion from the heart of the man who 
 had both spoken with God face to face and borne with all the 
 perverseness of the people in their forty years' discipline. 
 More than that, it is unmistakeably what it professes to be 
 designed for, an address in which although much is gone 
 over in full, as if to inculcate it anew, much more is only 
 alluded to for enforcing the obligation to love and fear the 
 Lord with the whole heart. The similes for which Delitzsch 
 discovers a fondness in Deuteronomy, and on the ground of 
 which, while admitting this book to be Moses', he would assign 
 a different origin to the other books, are nothing else than an 
 evidence that Moses, who is elsewhere the exact lawgiver and 
 simple faithful narrator, is here a preacher intent on making 
 a strong and permanent impression on the heart and affections. 
 No one would use similes in the conception of a law or of ritual 
 precepts, seldom in plain didactic narration, but it is just what 
 should be expected when the great prophet recounts before 
 Israel all that has taken place in the midst of them under his 
 conduct, all the great works of God, and all the manifestations 
 of their own character, that he should call heaven, and earth, 
 and all nature, to aid this representation ; that he should speak 
 of his doctrine distilling " as the dew," and of the people being 
 " chased as bees," and compares God's care of them to the eagle 
 when it " stirreth up her nest and fluttereth over her young," 
 and speaks of God's chastening them " as a man chasteneth 
 his own son," and compares the obstinate sinner to a " root that 
 beareth gall and wormwood." The same situation which dic- 
 tated the ever-recurring " Israel thou art to pass this day over 
 the Jordan" — ''this day!' vli\\o\\^\ ^rnxmhex oi weeks were 
 
46 A WORD UPON 
 
 still. to elapse before they actually crossed, because in Moses' 
 view the goal was reached, and all that remained for them to 
 do was to cross, — the same situation that enabled him to say, 
 " the Lord made not this covenant with our fathers but with 
 us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day," — filled 
 liis heart with every argument and persuasion that could touch 
 their hearts and incline them to close to God. It is just 
 another proof how weak and capricious and utterly worthless 
 mere verbal criticism is in such a question, apart from his- 
 torical marks, that erudite men insist on such grounds for 
 allotting the different books to different authors. 
 
 In conformity with this character of the book (rhetorical 
 if you will; we would prefer styling it a sermon or exliortation) 
 there is a constant reference to facts which are not related at 
 length. It must be remarkal)le to tediousness to any one who 
 does not enter into the spirit, and object, and circumstances 
 of the speaker, how incessantly the burden of the discourse is 
 the call to obedience, and love, and fear, by reference to the 
 bondage in Egypt, and the deliverance from Pharaoh, and the 
 otlier principal facts in their history. It is manifestly the 
 prime concern of Moses that these facts be fresh and fragrant 
 in Israel's memory ; this is in his view an essential condi- 
 tion of the stability of the people in the covenant. Is it to be 
 for a moment supposed that he had taken no pains to have 
 tlie trutli of tliese all-important facts put on record for them ? 
 They are enjoined to make their children, " their sons and their 
 sons' sons," acquainted with Jehovah's wonders and benefits ; 
 they are to WTite them upon the posts of their doors, and speak 
 of tliom on general as well as on special occasions : and should 
 he, wlien tliis is required, have omitted to provide for the 
 replenishing of memories which he knew to be in such matters 
 so little trustworthy? It is the second generation which 
 Moses addresses in Deuteronomy, who had been children at 
 tlie Exodus: liad no aid ])een afforded to the parents to train 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 47 
 
 up this hopeful generation in trvths so necessary to salvation ? 
 After the pronouncing of the ten commandments by the Lord, 
 the people petitioned that they might never again hear the 
 voice of God, and God said to Moses (v. 31) " I will speak 
 unto thee all tlie commandments, and the statutes, and the 
 judgments, which thou shalt teach them that they may do 
 them in the land which I give them to possess it," — evidently 
 the whole constitution, civil and ecclesiastical, as it was to 
 exist in the land of Canaan. Where were all these, if not in 
 Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, at the time Moses addressed 
 the next generation ? In c. iv. 32, they are bidden, " ask 
 now of the days that are past," and compare their own history 
 with that of other nations. It is made the duty of the king, 
 c. xvii. 14, " that he shall write him a copy of this law in a 
 book out of that which is before the priests the Levites." The 
 law which the king is to write is not only, or principally, these 
 precepts in Deuteronomy, but the law already extant and laid 
 up before the priests and Levites, to which Moses refers, and 
 which he is inculcating and reiterating in this whole discourse. 
 In many places it is implied that the priests and judges of the 
 people were already in possession of laws and statutes by 
 which they are to judge and teach the people (c. 9 ; c. xvii. 
 9-11). All connected with sacrifices and the treatment of the 
 leprosy is merely alluded to, with the general injunction 
 (c. xxiv. 8), " that thou observe diligently, and do according to 
 all the priests the Levites shall teach you; as I commanded them; 
 so ye shall observe to do." Is it to be imagined that Moses 
 left this important department undescribed, or have we not 
 rather here a reference to Leviticus. Unless all these essential 
 details had been fixed in writing, what would be the meaning 
 or use of the weighty " thou shalt not add thereunto nor 
 diminish from it." They are cliarged to remember assiduously 
 all that God had done for them in the way for forty years, — 
 how he had o-iven them manna, and water from the rock, as 
 
48 A WORD UPON 
 
 well as all tlieir provocations during forty years — all tlieir 
 behaviour towards God, — as a means of keeping them humble 
 and dependent : to keep in mind all that had occurred at 
 Massa, Taberah, and Kibroth-hattaavah (c. ix. 22) ; to lay to 
 heart what happened to Miriam (c. xxiv. 9), as well as to 
 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (c. xi. 6), without any such details 
 as would enable them to observe the command. They are 
 never to forget the conduct of the Moabites in hiring Balaam 
 against them from Mesopotamia (c. ii. 3-4), which is unintel- 
 ligible without the history in Numbers. Mention is made of 
 the passover and the other feasts, but evidently only to enforce 
 the observance of what is explained at length elsewhere. Very 
 expressive is the reference to Baal-peor (c. iv. 3) as a quite 
 recent event, and still fresh in their hearts, but it needs the 
 story in Numbers to make it intelligible. It is the same with 
 all about the ark and the separation of the Levites for the 
 service of religion, so as to be without an inheritance in the 
 land. 
 
 In Deuteronomy Joshua is at once introduced in the capa- 
 city of leader of the host, but the previous history is required 
 to make us acquainted with him. In ch. xxxiii. 8, there 
 is a distinct allusion to the part which the Levites took in 
 avenging the sin with the golden calf; and the case of 
 Amalek is quoted at length from Ex. xvii. "When we read 
 the repeated injunctions to retain in memory what God did at 
 the Eed Sea to Pharaoh and his people and his land, all about 
 tlieir owTi bondage, so as to influence their hearts to pity 
 others, as well as about the diseases inflicted on the Egyptians, 
 tliere cannot be a doubt in our minds that Moses supposed the 
 people to have Exodus in their hands. But Moses alludes just 
 as distinctly to the anterior history of the family (c. x. 20), 
 that they came into Egypt 70 in number ; that Joseph was 
 separated from 1 lis brethren (c. xxxiii. 10); to the 12 patri- 
 archs by name wliose history must liave been a subject of 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 49 
 
 intensest concern to the whole people ; (c. xxvi. 5) that 
 Jacob was in an afflicted condition in Padan-Aram ; that 
 covenants had been made separately with the fathers, Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob ; that God liad promised to multiply 
 their posterity " as the stars of heaven" (Deut. x. 12, and 
 Gen. XV. 5), and that circumcision had been instituted. The 
 frequent references to the consanguinity of Israel with Edom, 
 and Moab and Amnion the children of Lot, with the obligation 
 laid upon them in consequence, pre-suppose a very intimate 
 acquaintance with all the history of the fathers, and are, in 
 fact, an attestation of the history as it stands in Genesis as far 
 back as chapter xvii. The destruction of the live cities of the 
 plain is quoted (c. xxix. 20), and their names mentioned. The 
 scattering of the nations abroad on the surface of the earth is 
 spoken of (c. xxxii. 8) ; Adam mentioned by name ; the crea- 
 tion of the heavens and the earth, and the institution of the 
 Sabbath in its commemoration. 
 
 When it is considered how assiduous Moses was under 
 divine direction to avail himself of every subsidiary means to 
 get the facts of their history and of God's dispensations with 
 them rooted in their memories as the only effectual source of 
 such a reverence and pious affection to God as would insure 
 obedience ; how scarcely any occurrence of moment was suf- 
 fered to pass mthout a monument being set up ; " how tlie 
 passover was instituted as a perpetual memorial of the redemp- 
 tion of the Children of Israel out of Egypt ; how the order of 
 the year was changed, and it got a new beginning in com- 
 memoration of the same event ; how the first-born sons were 
 consecrated to God in memory of God's slaying the first-born 
 of Egypt ; how the manna was laid up as a monument of the 
 miraculous sustenance of the people in the wilderness ; how 
 the feast of tabernacles was to keep in remembrance the way 
 of living in the desert ; how Aaron's rod that budded was laid 
 
 up as a memorial of the great works done by it in Egypt, at 
 
 D 
 
50 A WORD UPON 
 
 the Ked Sea, and in the wilderness, and particularly of God's 
 decision about the priesthood ; how the censers of Korah and 
 his company were turned into broad plates for a covering of 
 the altar ; how the fire from heaven was maintained for ever 
 on the altar as a monument of its miraculous descent from 
 lieaven ; how the brazen serpent was set up as a memorial of 
 the plague of the fiery serpents and the miraculous cure of 
 tlie wounded ; how the two tables of stone in the Ark were a 
 monument of the mighty events with which they were con- 
 nected ; how the Sabbath rest was appointed to be a memorial 
 of the deliverance of the Children of Israel from bondage ; how 
 the gold dedicated on occasion of the war with Midian was 
 laid up as a monument of that war ; how many places were 
 named in commemoration of remarkable facts ;". . .* how even 
 the fringes on the garments of the Israelites and the posts of 
 their doors were converted into remembrancers of their duty 
 to be a peculiar peoj^le to God ; when this is considered, how 
 Moses availed himself of every subsidiary device to have the 
 truths he taught imprinted in the minds of the people, and 
 that he gives sufficient evidence of the value he set on ^mting 
 on all suitable occasions, it is nothing less than absurd to sup- 
 pose that he neglected to leave a plain narrative and state- 
 ment to the people of such things as most concerned their 
 well-being, or that he failed to give them an account (such as 
 only he could worthily give) of Jehovah's work of creation, 
 and of His dealings with His faithful witnesses from the 
 beginning, in oi:)position to the fables and idolatry of the 
 heathen. 
 
 An analysis of the Pentateuch shows it to be a harmonious 
 whole, in wliich what foUows springs from that which precedes 
 it, and the later parts refer to what is earlier with the freedom 
 and ease which are exclusively marks of the truth. In Moses' 
 address tliere is often an apparent contradiction to tlie narra- 
 
 * Quoii'd IVoiii Edwards' Woiks, vol. ii. p. G77, sliglitly altered. 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 61 
 
 tive in the other Ijooks, which, on nearer consideration, turns 
 out to be only a supplementary part of the history which none 
 but an eye-witness himself could have furnished. Wlien we 
 find (Deut. ii. 27) that Israel says to Sihon, " Let me pass 
 through thy land ... as the children of Esau which dwelt in 
 Seir . . . did unto me," there is a seeming inconsistency with 
 Num. XX. 18, where Edom answers Israel's request, " Thou 
 shalt not pass by us." On further search, however, we find that 
 when Israel approached the eastern frontier of Edom, the 
 latter was intimidated, and became more compliant. It is a 
 similar case with the sending of the spies, which, in Num. 
 xiii. 3, is stated, without further explanation, to have taken 
 place by the Lord's command, whereas, from Moses' more cir- 
 cumstantial statement to the people as his object rendered 
 necessary, it appears that the first motion for spying out the 
 land proceeded from the people themselves. These are cir- 
 cumstances where different authors, had there been such — the 
 one working on the other's pattern — would upon no account 
 have permitted a discrepancy. Such instances could be mul- 
 tiphed indefinitely, all tending to produce the surest convic- 
 tion that it is the same individual who, under different cir- 
 cumstances, feels himself impelled to advance the one or the 
 other side of the same fact. Of the same nature is the affect- 
 ing incident in Deuteronomy, that Moses not less than four 
 times refers to his OAvn punishment in being excluded from 
 the land of promise, and sentenced to die in the land of Moab. 
 In Numbers, where he is more the mediator — the truthful, 
 simple historian — he gives once for all an account of the 
 offence committed by himself and Aaron, and of the conse- 
 quent rebuke and judgment. But in Deuteronomy it is quite 
 to his purpose to inculcate on the people that they had been 
 the cause, by their perverseness, of drawing him along with 
 them into a participation of their sin and punishment ; " also 
 the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, saying. Thou 
 
52 A WORD UPON 
 
 also Shalt not go in thither (c. i. 37, iii. 23-27, etc). The 
 word by Moses, from whichever point of view we take it, 
 rears itself before our eyes in marvellous, impregnable con- 
 sistency. Throughout the whole five books, extending over a 
 period of 2500 years, what consent in respect to that future 
 state about which the godly must still have had so many 
 thoughts ! Although the righteous and the wicked stand in 
 such marked opposition to each other, and the former are, as 
 in later times, pilgrims looking for and not receiving the pro- 
 mises, there is not an attempt by word or phrase forcibly to 
 lift the veil which, by divine appointment, was kept for the 
 time hanging over the face of the Mosaic state. No hint of 
 Elysian fields or of the Tartarean regions ! Just as little a 
 word, like that which was some centuries later permitted the 
 patriarch David — "As for me, I will behold Thy face in 
 righteousness ; I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy 
 likeness." 
 
 It appears immensely corroborative of the evidence for the 
 unity of these books to consider the vein of prophecy by which 
 they are traversed. In contemplating the course of prophecy 
 from the first bright trace in Eden, as it grows and enlarges, 
 and casts abroad its light into the darkness of the world's 
 relations, it manifests itself to be carried forward under the 
 hand of the Spirit of God by the one instrument who was chosen 
 to declare it. How does the character of the prophecy in each 
 instance keep pace with the ej)och in which it is given, as 
 could never have been the case with disjointed fragments that 
 had been artificially put together ? This is the very peculiar 
 phenomenon of Scripture — true and glorious prophecy without 
 anachronism. From the first general word, "he shall bruise thy 
 head, and tliou shalt l)ruise his heel," onward to the specifica- 
 tion of Sliem, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem," again to the 
 amplification in Abraham, " in thy seed shall all the nations 
 ()f tlic earth be blessed," till it appears Avitli tlie royal plume 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 53 
 
 displayed, and wielding the lawgiver's staff, and with the pro- 
 mise of the world's peace-bringer, and re-uniting the Gentiles 
 with Israel across the breadth of the nascent economy in the 
 blessing of Jiidah, but only to be discerned by those who look 
 back on it from tlie vantage ground of a later dispensation, "tlie 
 sceptre shall not depart from Judali, nor a lawgiver from be- 
 tween his feet until Sliiloh come, and to him shall the ^atlierin^r 
 of the nations be;" gathering fresh lustre from the mouth of 
 the son of Beor, the man whose eyes were opened, but charac- 
 terised by the same holy reticence of the Spirit of truth, and 
 forbearing to say a word against the htness of the time — " I 
 shall see him, but not now ; I shall l)ehold him, but not nigh ; 
 there shall come a star out of Jacol), and a sceptre shall rise 
 out of Jacob, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy 
 all the children of Slieth," — till it reaches in the mouth of the 
 meekest of mere men the highest point of whicli it was capable, 
 and which, while strictly observant of the propriety of the 
 epoch, is yet, in another sense never to be surpassed, in the 
 words, " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet 
 from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto 
 him ye will hearken," a sentence which of itself sliould suffice 
 to rebut every inclination to cavil at these sacred books, and 
 bring every caviller on his knees before the Spirit who breathes 
 in them, when the man who had just settled the basis of Israel's 
 national economy free from any jealousy of a successor, or of 
 one who should improve upon his work, commends the people 
 with His dying Ijreath to the confident hope and faith that the 
 same God who had commissioned him will, when it is necessary, 
 send one equally cpialified and authorised, as he had been, to 
 model their economy as the times and seasons shall demand 
 — a word which only reminds us of the great Prophet himself, 
 " I wiU pray the Father, and he will send you another Com- 
 forter." 
 
 There is a spiritual demonstration pervading the whole 
 
b-i A WOED UPON 
 
 ^Mosaic record, one look of wliicli is sufficient to put to flight 
 a whole host of infidel insinuations. The limits of this work 
 do not admit of an attempt to develop this line of evidence to 
 any extent, hut we point to one remarkable example, which is 
 worthy to bear the whole burden of the question — viz., that 
 the whole discourse of Moses in Deuteronomy terminates with 
 a denunciation of evil. After his address to the people is 
 closed, and Joshua has received his charge, when the book is 
 delivered to the Levites to be laid up and kept before the tes- 
 timony, Moses adds these remarkable w^ords (c. xxxi. 26-29), 
 " Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark 
 of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there 
 for a witness against thee. For I know thy rebellion, and 
 thy stiff neck : behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, 
 ye have been rebellious against the Lord ; and how much more 
 after my death ? Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, 
 and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, 
 and call heaven and earth to record against them. For I know 
 that after my deatli ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and 
 turn aside from the w^ay in which I have commanded you ; 
 and evil ivill hcfall you in the latter days ; because ye will do 
 evil in the siglit of the Lord, to provoke him to anger with 
 the work of your hands." This is properly the closing pro- 
 plietic testimony of Moses, conveying the whole purport of the 
 song in cliap. xxxii, ; for the blessing which follows in chap, 
 xxxiii., is more a valedictory expression of benevolence directed 
 to the several tribes. How strangely suitable that as Moses 
 himself (the representative of the law) died in the wilderness, 
 and could not conduct Israel into Canaan, the last words of 
 Moses should be a testimony to the prevalence of sin in despite 
 of tlie law, and the inadequacy of the law to remove it. What a 
 striking correspondence in all the parts of the Sinatic cove- 
 nant, that as the book of the projjhets closes in Malachi with 
 curse (D^n ]\ial. List verse), the testimony of Moses closes 
 
DEUTEKONOMY. 65 
 
 with 'denunciation. It lias been already remarked that Moses 
 in this discourse gives vent to all the endearment of the man 
 who loved the tribes, but, ere he terminates, the affection of 
 nature must give place to the spirit of truth, and his discourse 
 issues in terms of severity and awful denunciation. Ewald 
 represents it as one of the haj^piest strokes of his fictitious 
 editor of the five books in later times, that he, in Moses' name, 
 adopts the style of direct affectionate appeal, but does not tell 
 us how he comes to such a termination. It is well known to 
 all who are acquainted with the Gospel, that this is the only 
 proper and possible close and crown of the law. Those dire 
 words of the deceasing IVIoses only gain their full import, they 
 only are what they are, they only fitly convey the mighty truth 
 which they inclose on the supposition of their relation to all 
 that goes before. This testimony can only be supposed from 
 the lips of him who already described the entrance, and spread, 
 and prevalence of sin, infecting and corrupting the sons of 
 God, and sweeping away aU the post-deluvian nations head- 
 long in idolatry and wickedness. But it only rises to the 
 awful significance of an eternal truth, after we know of the 
 electino- love, and divine faithfulness, and countless marvels 
 of grace and bounty, which had been exhibited in the redemp- 
 tion and in the maintenance of Israel in the desert, and in 
 providing and preparing them for the land of promise, and 
 know also of the incurable and irremediable provocations of 
 heart, which, unto the very last, rose up and rebelled against 
 their covenant Lord. It was only Moses who had written 
 on the frontispiece of man's history, " every imagination of 
 the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually;" who 
 could say to the congregation, that seemed at last tractable 
 as a flock before him, " this people will rise up and go 
 a-whoring after the gods of the strangers . . . and wiU forsake 
 me, and break my covenant which I have made with them." 
 The words, Deut. xxxi. 27-29, are a seal to the books of 
 
56 A WORD UPON 
 
 Genesis, Exodus, Le^'iticlls, Xumbers, Deuteronomy, as the 
 word of Moses and of God. 
 
 It is ruinous imbecility if people suffer themselves to be 
 inveigled by the suggestion that the inspiration of the books 
 does not absolutely depend upon their having Moses for their 
 author, that they may be still vindicated as of divine 
 authority, if they be supposed to be written partly by Samuel 
 or any other of the prophets. That does not make it indiffer- 
 ent whether this testimony was given as a whole, and by the 
 hand of this most highly -prized of all the servants that, before 
 Christ, had a vocation in the Lord's house. Who does not 
 see that this is the offence and eye-sore to the sceptic that 
 God should at once have made such ample and full provision 
 for giving effect to his covenant. It is a grief to every unre- 
 generate heart to think that the foundations in Israel should 
 have been at once by one gift of God, so massively and so solidly 
 laid ; to have such an evidence of the ample riches of the 
 living, Almighty, all-faithful God of Israel. This is the aim 
 which they would give anything to reach, if they could tear 
 this brilliant from Israel's brow, that the God who took them to 
 His covenant love endowed them so richly at once, and 
 gave them such plenty to keep house upon. It is a question 
 of the greatest moment, where not an inch of ground is to be 
 yielded, whether this whole testimony was committed to Israel 
 at the outset by Him who was concerned that they should 
 lack nothing which the nature of their dispensation admitted 
 of for making them a great and wise people, to draw the eyes 
 of all to admiration of the name they bore. This is the posi- 
 tion from which we can never be dislodoed if we take our 
 station outside the temple, and point to the proportions and 
 glory and evidence of divine workmanship in the whole. On 
 such ground we will never be at a loss to shut the mouths 
 whether of petty or more puissant ol)jectors,or at least to fortify 
 ourselves against them. It will be otherwise if we once admit 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 57 
 
 them within the sacred edifice, and then after they have broken 
 do^\Ti the carved work, and irreverently rent the veil in the 
 Holy of Holies, listen to them while they gather up the frag- 
 ments, and prove that with such materials the edifice can never 
 have been so magnificent as we suppose, much less divine. 
 The existence of the law of Moses is suj^posed in all the 
 national life and history of Israel even as early as the book of 
 Euth, all is already incorporated into the life and habits of the 
 people ; the history is not conceivable without the law. It is 
 just in accordance with the contents of the law itseK that it 
 should have been neglected and suffered to faU aside in 
 times of apostasy and lukewarmness, and that it was for a 
 length of time not commonly known among the people, just as 
 it happened with the whole Scriptures in the greatest degene- 
 racy of the Christian Church, so that Luther had been long a 
 priest before he had seen a complete copy of the Bible, or 
 knew of its existence ; but that case referred to (2 Kings xxii.) 
 regarded merely the copy of the law which was kept laid up 
 in the temple which had suffered along with all else that was 
 sacred in the godless reign of Manasseh. It is evident enough 
 that the contents of the book were not strange to the pro- 
 phetess Huldah, just as little as they were to Isaiah and Jere- 
 miah and the priests, whom Jeremiah so often denotes as 
 "those that handle the law;" and the powerful impression 
 made upon the king may well be compared with that made 
 upon Luther by the Bible which was found in the monastery 
 at Erfurt, and is easily accounted for by the striking circum- 
 stance of the book written by Moses being found among rub- 
 bish, by the singular manner in which it was found and 
 brought to him, as well as by the awful contents themselves, 
 when carried home to his heart by the special influence of the 
 Spirit of God. Nay, it may be asserted that if there had been 
 no law there would have been no prophets, no revivals, no 
 conversion of the people to Jehovah, no turning of Israel's 
 
58 A WORD UPON DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 captivity. The existence of the Samaritan Pentateuch, writ- 
 ten in a separate character from that preserved in Israel is a 
 grand landmark, showing that the whole five books as they 
 now are were currently owned as the work of Moses before 
 the return from the captivity ; for it is utterly impossible that 
 the Samaritans would afterwards have taken them out of the 
 hand of the Jews ; and Ezra, Daniel, Ezekiel, ISTehemiah, those 
 gTave and great men of the period, were as little to be induced 
 to pass as the old-standing law of Israel a forgery of the time 
 of Josiah, as the men of our day could be duped into the per- 
 suasion that the book Mormo was the veritable Bible of the 
 fathers and of Luther. 
 
^^z^AH'^'^f^l 
 
 'itj 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 PRINTED IN US 
 
w\ 
 
 Gayford Bros. 
 
 Syrao 
 
 Wakors 
 
 "••. N. Y. 
 
 Mr. JAK. 21. 1,09 
 
BS1275.8.E25 
 
 A word upon Deuteronomy. 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00037 0926